Tag: 14th brigade

Situation quiet – snipers very active

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25th November 1914

The Dorsets finished the relief of the East Surreys by 2.30am. I’ve placed rough positions of the various units in this area using a hand drawn map in the 14th Brigade’s war diary as reference. It’s hard to see exactly where the old tracks or roads have been replaced by newer roads, and time precludes me from doing justice to this, but I hope you get a sense of the positions of the British troops. I will return to this at a later date.

The trenches were individual affairs at this point. Those who climbed out of them were putting themselves in great danger. The Germans were positioned above the British lines and so enjoyed a considerable advantage over their enemy. They poured a seemingly never-ending fire down into the British front line and there were lots of casualties from stray bullets as men hurried to and from the front line across open ground.

Sniping was very active and the Dorsets received orders at 9am for active counter sniping, whatever this meant. As we’ve seen before the British troops had absolutely no means of countering the Germans at this stage of war.

The Dorsets lost 2 men killed and 4 men wounded, according to the war diary. Perhaps it was even their own artillery that caused these casualties. They accidentally shelled the Dorsets’ trenches in the morning.

It was hardly a quiet day as the Dorsets’ diary recalls. The CWGC reports 3 men who died today: Privates Wellman, Apsey and Hordle. They are all remembered on the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres.

Baaah!

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24th November 1914

At 4pm the battalion marched via Lindenhoek to relieve the Easy Surreys in their trenches. The 14th Brigade diary records this taking place from 8pm. The going was very slow. It had started to rain during the day and thaw out the ice. This made the ground both slippery and muddy. The trenches were very close together at this point and rifle fire kept heads down.

Some of the Dorsets were assigned to a fatigue party to collect brushwood with which to line the trenches (with boards placed on top) and prevent men’s feet from becoming wet and frozen. Thus it reached midnight and still the Dorsets hadn’t relieved the East Surreys.

Their destination was Point 75, 1 mile south west of Wytschaete. This village became anglicised by British troops as Whitesheet. It’s also the first village I read about when I started researching Frank ages ago. I still can’t pronounce it.

The Telegraph today has an interesting report about the Gurkhas which regurgitates a similar story to the one Frank wrote in his letter home on the 16th November. This runs contrary to Gleichen’s story from the 30th October.

The first story about the Gurkhas was that they had come to an end of their ammunition and were fighting with the bayonet, but were driven back by superior numbers. But it turned out later that they lost very heavily from shell fire, and, the trenches being too deep for the little men, they could produce no effect with their rifles, and could see nothing.

In other news my incredibly talented Brother-in-Law and brand new daddy, Aled Lewis, has released this brilliant limited edition poster for his upcoming art show based around British comedy. He’s thrown the Kitchener’s sink at it.

It’s so good it’s worth selling your Speckled Jim for.

Post by Aled Lewis.

A General morale boost

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22nd November 1914

General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, commander of II Corps, visited the Dorsets at some point during the day. It’s mentioned in passing by the war diary and not at all by the History of the Dorsetshire Regiment 1914-1919. Whether there’s any significance in that omission is impossible for me to say.

According to the 14th Brigade’s war diary, Smith-Dorrien spoke to the Dorsets at 3pm. Exactly what he said is not recorded anywhere I can find at the moment. It appears that, looking at other units’ diaries, he was doing the rounds boosting morale up and down the line occupied by troops of II Corps giving, I suspect, the same speech over and over again.

The Dorsets remained in billets for another day. The weather was bitterly cold with a strong north wind and snow on the ground, according to the 14th Brigade’s dairy.

The tattered 15th

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20th November 1914

The Dorsets enjoyed a day of rest. The rest of the original 15th Brigade were spread over a wide area all the way up to Ypres. The Norfolks had also just joined the 14th Brigade and were now in Kemmel. The Bedfords were up by Hooge (now with the 13th Brigade) and the Cheshires were still with Gleichen’s 15th Brigade on the Menin Road up near Ypres. Both these battalions were down to half strength and less, having suffered large casualties in holding the line in front of Ypres; the main objective of the German attacks. Gleichen recalls:

both of our battalions, who by that time were reduced to 540 Bedfords and 220 Cheshires altogether (the Bedfords having started with 1100 and the Cheshires with 600 odd).

Image of Château Beukenhorst, Zillebeke
Château Beukenhorst, Zillebeke

Gleichen is holed up in yet another château. Beukenhorst Château later became known as Stirling Castle on British Army maps. He and the rest of 15th Brigade’s HQ narrowly avoided a shell which hit the kitchen just after breakfast. It’s good to know that he puts servants just above officer’s trousers.

Poor Conway, Weatherby’s servant, whom he had left behind, was the only casualty; his dead body was found, with both legs broken and an arm off, blown down a cellar passage at the back. The next most serious casualty was Moulton-Barrett’s new pair of breeches, arrived that morning from England, and driven full of holes like a sugar-sifter.

He’s not happy about the monotonous diet of bully beef and chocolate either until…

Help was, however, at hand; for our servants, Inskip and Stairs, who we thought had ignominiously run away, suddenly turned up with heaps of food. They had gone all the way to our cook’s waggon three miles the other side of Ypres for comestibles, and whilst we were d—ing their eyes for bolting, were trudging, heavily laden, along the road back to us—good youths.

Inskip and Stairs sound like a music hall double act. Perhaps they were.

Snow rest for the wicked

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19th November 1914

At 5am the Dorsets formed up to the west of Ploegsteert wood at Petit Pont, exactly where they had stood sixteen days ago. Although their experience in the woods had been fraught and miserable with danger, cold and damp, it must have felt like a holiday compared to La Bassée.

Now the Dorsets were on the move again and into the care of 14th Brigade. They marched at 7am, this time four miles to the northwest, via Neuve Église to Dranoutre (now Dranouter*), into billets and rest. Major Fraser resumed command of the Battalion. Heavy snow fell that day, which settled and froze solid by 4pm, according to the 14th Brigade’s diary.

* I’m using the old French terms for these towns. From 1921 onwards, Belgian place names changed into Dutch. For instance Neuve Église is now Nieuwkirke and Ypres is Ieper.