Tag: 15th brigade

Can’t get any cold tea

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French picture postcard of [place name deleted] Ancienne Abbaye de la Cour-à[aother name deleted]

Addressed to Mrs Webster, 29 Strethleven Rd, Acre Lane, Brixton, London, England. Date stamped APO 1 Sp 14 – passed by Censor No 137, and also stamped London Paid 14 Sp 14

Dear Aunt

Just a few hurried lines to thank you for your welcome letter which I was pleased to receive. I am getting on alright and still in the pink can’t get any cold tea now but when I come back I shall have plenty. The weather here is very hot have not had much rain. Now I must conclude hoping to hear from you soon. I hope you are all in the pink.

Frank

1st September 1914

I think this is the only censored piece of post in this collection. As I don’t have the actual postcard I can’t be sure but I imagine this to be a picture of the Abbaye Notre Dame de Morienval, through which the Dorsets had marched the previous day. I also think that this postcard was probably written the previous day too as today is a very busy one for Frank. Interestingly the Abbey currently the site of a rose exhibition dedicated to David Austin. This is a rare surviving postcard to his Aunt Carrie.

The language is full of cocksure optimism, typical of a lad in his early twenties. Frank complains that he can’t get any cold tea. He means beer, but I can’t find any contemporary accounts of the phrase in a quick search. I’ll come back to this as he uses it an awful lot. I imagine many of the troops were experiencing Ice Cold in Alex levels of thirst by this time.

 

The retreat was going to continue but the orders were cancelled and the 15th Brigade was rushed to Duvy, a mile or so to the west of Crépy-en-Valois. The 4th Division was being attacked to the north-west. The Dorsets and the Norfolks were then moved again up towards Rocquement. This order was cancelled before they reached their destination and they returned to Duvy.

German cavalry was pushing patrols into the vicinity. British artillery on the hills around Crépy-en-Valois started to duel with the German artillery ranged against them. The Dorset war diary reports shellfire at Duvy but it is friendly fire. The Brigade then dropped back to Ormoy Villers, where they halted until 2pm.

Gleichen eats a mixture of sardines, tomatoes and apples, washed down with chocolate, biscuits and warm water. He does love describing his food. It adds a lot of life to these rather dry military descriptions. The Brigade then fell back again, south to Nanteuil-le-<Haudouin, where the rest of the 5th Division had gathered. A, B and C Companies were put into outposts along the north-western approaches to the town. D and Battalion HQ remained 1/2 mile north of the town. It was a day of two forces testing each other out rather than actual engagement. But they’d heard the guns to their north west throughout the day, and they knew that someone was catching it. The Germans had caught them up.

The Dorsets had marched about 12 miles, including the operations.

 

Speechless with thirst

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31st August 1914

A trying ten and a half hour march covered just 10 miles. The day was tropical again. Delays were caused mainly by the habit of artillery units stopping and feeding every time they came across water.

While his troops struggled, Gleichen trotted ahead to recce Morienval. Here he enjoyed “an excellent potage aux choux and a succulent stew, with big juicy pears to follow, all washed down by remarkably good red vin de pays”. He’s a boy, is our Count Gleichen.

The 15th Brigade was marching to their original billets in Béthisy, on the southern tip of the Compigne Forest, when they were redirected to Crépy-en-Valois. The reason for their new destination was that German cavalry had entered Béthisy, chasing out the billeting parties. The Germans were later cleared out by British cavalry. But it appeared that the enemy was getting closer.

Retreat from Mons
Another of the excellent photos posted by zombikombi1959 on Flickr. On the retreat from Mons. Bivouacking at Bontrueil (?). About 31st August. Bn. HQ servants. My servant, Pte. Randall on left with cap.

If this photo is from the 31st August then they were bivouacking in Crépy-en-Valois. I cannot find a Bontreuil anywhere in France, nor a nearby Montreuil which would be the obvious alternative. Other nights around this time they were in billets. The only other date it could be was the 28th August when they bivouacked in an orchard at Pontiose-Lés_Noyon

Once at Crépy-en-Valois they bivouacked in fields in a south-west district called St Agathe. There’s a park in this vicinity with the same name so I’ve plonked Frank there for the night. Gleichen’s gastronomic tour of North East France comes to a disappointing end when he spots a couple of bottles of wine bottles and glasses. “Nearly speechless with thirst, we rushed at them. They were empty!”.

 

Splendid work with machine guns

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26th August 1914

The Dorsets were roused at 1am when some Bedfords fell back from their trenches. Gleichen recalls “some men in the trenches began firing at some probably imaginary Germans”. I imagine the Dorsets weren’t amused by this unnecessary exercise. Orders were at 4am received as expected to move out in the morning but almost immediately those were cancelled. 2 German Divisions were at Le Cateau, a couple of miles to the east of the 5th Division.

General Smith-Dorrien, Commander of II Corps, had decided to stand and fight. He took the chance of stopping the Germans, albeit for a short time, with a quick engagement. It was a chance to allow I Corps to slip away to fight another day. We’ll explore the ramifications for this decision in another post, but for now the 5th Division was prepared to stand and fight.

The Dorsets set about readying defences and deepening trenches. I’ve tried to indicate the positions they occupied on the map. This is pure conjecture, taken from descriptions in the war diary. I don’t yet have the maps they were working from (GSGS no: 2526 13), but I will get hold of them in the future. The war diary often describes positions by the type on the page e.g. On the LA of LA SOTIERE.

Unlike at Mons, where the landscape hampered guns, Le Cateau was perfect for artillery warfare. The naturally undulating landscape made it easy to conceal batteries. Gleichen estimates that there were nearly 700 enemy guns in action that day. Shells starting falling around 7am and increased in ferocity throughout the day.

The 13th and 14th Brigade were suffering particularly on the right. The 3rd Division was being attacked on the left. But the 15th was having a relatively easy time in the middle although later on shellfire, especially shrapnel, caused casualties to trickle through the Brigade’s lines.

The Dorsets were providing covering fire and keeping off attacks with rifle and machine gun fire. Lieutenant Woodhouse is mentioned as having done “splendid work” both in the war diary and by the Brigade Commander himself. He comments that “the shooting of the Bedfords and Dorsets had had a great effect in keeping off the German attack thereabouts”.

Finally, in the early afternoon, the British line began to fall back. The British artillery, in particular, had suffered greatly. At 4:20pm the order came to retire. The Dorsets slipping away through Troisville, covered by A Company as they went.

 

It seems the retirement was the hardest part of the day for the Dorsets. Marching through villages was considered too dangerous. The Germans are shelling roads and villages out of Le Cateau. So Gleichen ordered the Brigade off road. The Dorsets struck out across country and marched, slowly, footsore and perplexed that they had retired at all, to Ferme Genève, where they spent an “uncomfortable night with no supplies”.

Casualties: 14 wounded, 21 missing. The CWGC reports 3 fatalities in the Dorsets that day.

Nobody calls me Cecil

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24th August – The Battle of Mons

By daybreak troops from the 3rd Division were trickling back through the Dorsets’ lines. The Battalion HQ had received orders at 2am that they were to fall back south to Pâturages once they were relieved by a 13th Brigade unit. This started with the Duke of Wellington’s who relived D Company at 6am, followed by some of C Company.

The rest, Company B and remnants of A and C stayed put and fought. My guess is that in the confusion it was impossible to know who was passing through them and that their duty, as rearguard, remained to stand and fight. By 11:30am Captain Williams wrote to HQ that “I am being gradually driven in, and my ammunition is almost exhausted”.

But HQ had already left the railway bridge at Wasmes for Pâturages, along with transport and the machine gun section at 8am. They sent Company A to reinforce the Bedfords. The Dorsets were now fighting a rearguard action.

At 10:30am the battalion’s transport ran into a mass of German soldiers who had worked their way round to the rear of the 15th Brigade. Lieutenant Cecil Francis Mowbray Margetts, transport officer and all round hard man, saved the situation from certain disaster by riding into the enemy firing his revolver. Gleichen sees Margetts riding past “streaming with blood from the shoulder.” He was left in the house of a local doctor and later taken prisoner. He was awarded the D.S.O. on the 5th December, the first of the Dorsets to do so, and survived the war, dying at the grand old age of 92 in 1976.

By 2pm the situation had become untenable for the rest of the Dorsets and, having exhausted ammunition and, with the Germans pressing their left and right flanks, they “ran for their lives”. Their bravery, and refusal to withdraw throughout the morning, had meant that the rest of the brigade in reserve had got away in fairly good order. They retired to Blaugies pretty much unbothered by the enemy, who had been dealt a very hard blow by the BEF.

Just as they were cooking up some food, exhausted from the fighting and extreme heat, the Dorsets received orders to march across the border to St. Waast in France, where the remnants of the 5th Division were reforming. They arrived there along with the remnants of the 15th Brigade – the Cheshires and Norfolks had had a particularly rough time defending the left hand flank of the 5th Division. The 1st Bn Cheshires was pretty much decimated after a desperate cavalry charge failed to drive off the German attack.

The Dorsets, themselves, had suffered their first casualties: 12 killed, 49 wounded and 69 men missing. Although it’s interesting to note that running a query on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website lists 20 men from the Dorsetshire Regiment having died on the 23rd August 1914. 12 of those are commemorated at La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre. 6 at Hautrage Military Cemetery, 1 at Houdain-Les-Bavay Communal Cemetery and 1 at Troisvilles Communal Cemetery.

Four officers were missing including Lieutenant Margetts and Captain Hyslop whom we met yesterday. He was “severely wounded” at 10:30am. I dug around and, happily, he survived the war (his full name was Robert George Bingham Maxwell-Hyslop). He became an official historian of The Great War and co-wrote Volume V: 26 September – 11 November: The Advance to Victory in 1947. If you’re feeling rich and going on a 3 month cruise, or serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure, then you can buy the Official History of The Great War (France and Belgium) on a DVD.

The other officer who was injured was Lieutenant Walter Algenon Leishman. Like Margetts, he must have been taken prisoner and, sadly, only survived the war by 3 months, dying on 19 Feb 1919. You can tell he was a POW as he has Exonerated Officers List written on his medal card.

The day’s fighting is really hard to visualise. I’ve tried my best to show the Dorsets’ progress throughout the 24th August but it is, at best, an approximation. The day’s action is best summed up by Lt-Col Ransome. “Confused fighting, complicated by uncertainty as regards the flanks, lack of training in street fighting, and embarrassment over the crowds of civilians thronging through the streets.” The 5th Division had done exactly what had been asked of it. It had fought over an overextended line in impossible terrain but it had held the Germans off for long enough to prevent them completely encircling the BEF and the French Fifth Army.

Rest Camp No. 8

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16th August, at sea, The English Channel

The Dorsets landed at Le Havre at 4pm, according to the war diary.

The weather was hot but previous heavy rain had made the ground wet and, with the transport struggling up the steep hill out of the city, it took nearly 2 hours to get to Rest Camp No. 8, six miles away. The main body of the battalion arrived at 10pm, with the transport still stuck along the road from Le Havre.

Orders were to stay put until further notice.

I am not sure of the exact location of Rest Camp No. 8 but I imagine it was in to the north of Le Havre, in the hills above Sainte-Adresse, where Rest Camp No. 1 was located. If any one has the exact location please let me know in the comments.

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