The 15th Brigade rested during the day, concealing themselves from enemy spotter planes. At 6pm the Dorsets paraded and marched about 12 miles to Corcy in the West.
Robert de Montesquiou. “Arrangement in Black and Gold” by James McNeill Whistler
Gleichen spends the day in bed with a cold. He gets driven to Longpont where he finds lodgings in the château attached to the ruined abbey at Longpont with Comte de Montesquiou-Fezensac, “a courteous and frail old gentleman”. I’m not sure Gleichen would have stayed had he known the outlandish history of his host.
This old gentleman was almost certainly Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac. He is worth dwelling on for a little while. The archetypal dandy, he counted Proust among his friends and was “the world’s most laborious sayer of nothing” according to Gustave Kahn.
His wikipedia entry had me laughing out loud. It includes such chestnuts as “he reportedly once slept with the great actress Sarah Bernhardt, after which he vomited for twenty-four hours” and “his poetry has been called untranslatable, and was poorly received by critics at the time.”
In 1901, in what became known as the Moberly–Jourdain incident, two prominent British female academics claimed to have had supernatural experiences while walking near the Palace of Versailles. They reported having seen people from the 1790s, including Marie Antoinette. These “ghosts” were possibly Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac and his friends who frequently held parties in that area dressed in period costumes.
The day passed without much excitement. The Dorsets were ensuring that they were well dug in. The occasional shell and snipers continued to keep heads down. Gleichen greedily eyed the Dorset’s headquarters which was “in a really nice house with carpets and big shaded lamps, and a cellar full of excellent wine, and a nice garden all complete, and charming bedrooms—infinitely superior to our pig-sty of a farm”. However, due to tactical reasons, he settles in at Rolt’s farm, the headquarters to the 14th Brigade, who were preparing to leave that evening.
At 5pm the Dorsets were put on a high state of alert. Reports of German counter attacks were coming in the next 48 hours. Tension and stress often leads to paranoia and the night was a quiet one.
The Bedfords joined the Dorsets in the morning along with the remnants of the Cheshires. the Norfolks had been attached to the 3rd Division on the 21st September. To bolster their dwindling ranks, Gleichen had a rag tag mix of troops attached to his command. He recalls “the K.O.Y.L.I., and West Kents (of the 13th Brigade), already holding the eastern edge of Missy, were put under my orders, besides the 15th Brigade R.F.A. under Charles Ballard (a cousin of Colin’s*), and a Howitzer Battery (61st)** of Duffus’s 8th Brigade.”
The History of the 1st Bn. The Dorsetshire Regiment highlights the danger they were in at this time: two battalions totally unprotected from attack with only one bridge to retire across without any supporting troops. This is a bit of a false claim, as there were a lot more than two battalions on the north bank of the Aisne, but the precariousness of their situation cannot be denied. It made everyone very edgy.
The Dorsets busied themselves during the day by developing a better defensive position, connecting support lines with lateral trenches, deepening existing trenches and blockading the streets of the village with anything they could get their hands on.
Perhaps it’s worth drawing back from Missy for a moment to get a better picture of why the 5th Division were here at all. High above the south bank of the River Aisne, in possibly the same cave the Cheshires had hidden in on the 13th September, we find Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the BEF, watching the action unfold over the Chivres spur and Missy. He observed “the clearance of this hill by our high-explosive shells. We found see the Germans flying in all directions to the rear, and we subsequently got reliable information that their losses on this occasion were very heavy.” It was here that he became convinced that observation of the enemy’s position was crucial to success. It was therefore critical, in French’s mind at least, that the 5th Division held onto the north bank of the Aisne in order for the BEF to maintain this supposed superior position over the enemy.
* Brigadier General Colin Robert Ballard was the Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion Norfolk Regiment.
Envelope addressed to Miss M Crawshaw, 29 Strethleven Rd etc franked APO 17(?) Sep 14 and London 25 Sep 14 passed by Censor 137
Letter dated 17.8.14 – written in pencil
Dear Till,
Just a few lines in answer to your welcome letter which I thought was never coming and I was very pleased to hear from you. Glad to hear that Aunt got my P Card and that they are all getting on alright and I hope that Uncle Matt sticks his job at the Post Office for Aunt will be much happier. You say you haven’t heard from Tom yet, well you can take it from me that he is alright thats what we have heard, that we have beaten the Germans quite easily as sea. I wish we could say that out here. Well Till mate I am getting on alright up to yet and still in the pink, we have had a rough time of it just lately and I have got a terrible cold. The weather out here has been lovely up to this last week and its been raining night and day and we have got properly drenched. I hope it clears off, for it is proper miserable.
Now Till dear I want you to send me out a parcel of cake and chocolate and also a pair of socks, for our rations are very small and we get them when we can now and then they are very small, so I trust you will do your very best and send me out a parcel now and again, and I will make it right when I come back well I hope too. We haven’t had any pay for seven weeks now and there isn’t any chance of getting any so we can’t buy any and we don’t get much chance either, so I hope you will do you best and send it out soon not a fancy bit of stuff just a bit of you know the sort mate, be sure to do it up strong or else it will get busted up.
Pleased to hear about Doris, I should love to see her for its such a long time since she saw her Biddy give her my love and I hope to see her soon as she left that school. Am surprised to hear about the old man getting married again, but I expected to see that come off and he is getting young again, have you seen her, who told you about it, good old mother (????thises) is that what she said you wasn’t to see Doris you tell Mrs C to what a bit don’t bolt her food, Ginger can please herself who she goes and sees, she must be nearly fourteen now and I expect Aunt has fits what with having to get Mother up so early as that, how does she manage to get up so early as that.
Now Till I hope you are getting on alright at Stewarts and that you are still merry and bright. Don’t forget to send out the Sunday paper every week all of it and don’t leave out the sporting part me old dear. Now I don’t think there is any more news just now, except you can tell Aunt and all off them at home that I am in the pink and I should like a few lines from one of them at home. Now I must conclude trusting to hear from you soon.
I remain
Your loving Brother
Frank xxxx
17th September 1914
Frank’s not feeling too great today and neither am I, so I am going to revisit the contents of this letter throughout the rest of the week. Tomorrow we’ll look at what’s been happening in the war at sea.
The Dorsets joined the rest of the 15th Brigade and began to dig trenches along the main road between Soissons to the north west and Sermoise in the east.
All along the Aisne the two opposing sides began to dig in. The British were totally unprepared for this new type of warfare and, having also left a lot of equipment on the retreat from Mons, were forced to scour local farms and businesses for tools.
The Dorsets returned to their sunken road at 4am. I’ve had a think about the location of this road overnight. I’m guessing they were using it as a pre-dug trench. It must have run north to south to protect the troops from shellfire coming in from the east. Gleichen mentions that the Dorsets were “pushed on to help the 12th, and filled a gap in their line on the hill above the village front at the eastern end.” So I think it was either the little lane called Petit Chivres or Rue du Moulin de Laffaux, probably the former as it’s pushed further ahead than the actual village. It appears on Google maps to be heavily hedged and run beneath the surface of the surrounding fields. All the other nearby roads run along the surface of the land.
Rolt’s farm is mentioned by Gleichen over the next few days so I’ve located that on the map from his small drawing in his book. I’ve also located the farm at La Biza again as it remained the 15th Brigade’s HQ. I’m going to assume that the Dorsets’ diary refers to this location when it mentions La Bezaie farm.
An hour later, at 5am, the Dorsets received a message that the Chivres spur was about to be attacked again in a joint operation between the 15th and 13th Brigades. The Dorsets remained under the care of the 14th Brigade as reserve battalion.
By 1pm the news came back that the attack had broken down. General Stuart Peter Rolt, Commander of the 14th Brigade, ordered the Dorsets to join the best of the 215th Brigade in Missy. At 2pm they moved to “Rolt’s Farm” and then spread out. Frank’s A Company was ordered to occupy a small green hill 600 feet east of the farm, while C Company was to remain in support. The hill is visible on Google Maps if you turn on view terrain. A Company immediately caught the attention of a German machine gun. Several men were hit.
The remaining Companies were ordered to move south down the little stream that ran past a mill. They dug themselves into the bank.
At about 3pm the Dorsets were surprised by Gleichen and Brigade Major Weatherby leaping through the hedges coming the other way followed by an angry swarm of German bullets.
We must have offered very sporting targets to the Germans on the hill, for we ran all the way, and—I speak for myself—we got extremely hot.
The Dorsets received orders at 5pm to move towards Missy and entrench the line south of La Biza down to the railway. I’ve had a look for this railway to see if there are any marks left in the ground, but it’s long gone, although the land is scored with what could be old trenches. I’m assuming the railway line ran where the D925 road now passes the bottom of the village.
The CBR line shown here running through Missy-sur-Aisne in 1927
It’s not clear how far the Dorsets got in digging their new line. At 9pm the order came for them to retire south of the Aisne. They crossed a new pontoon bridge which had appeared next to where Johnston’s rafts were the day before. The enemy’s search lights played over the water as they crossed but they were not seen and retired to the billets in the relative safety of Jury.
The Dorsets’ war diary records 1 killed with 21 wounded and 4 missing. The CWGC reports 8 dead from this area of operations. Some of Frank’s close friends must have been included in this grim harvest.
“On the 15th my impression of the previous day, namely, that the enemy was making a firm stand in his actual position, was confirmed also by an intercepted German wireless message. It seemed probable that we had the whole of the German 1st Army in front of us.”
The 5th Division was still waiting for heavy artillery to come up and support the exposed troops on the northern banks. The Germans were one step ahead. The increase of “Black Marias” and other monstrous shells indicated that the large siege guns had finished smashing Belgian forts and were now ominously sited on the heights about the Aisne. Faced with an entire army and their massed artillery, there was only one option left to the men of the BEF. To dig. Dig in and entrench or face annihilation.
