VCs of the First World War 1914

by Gerald Gliddon

  Nimy turned out to be one of the earliest flashpoints of the First World War and no fewer than five Victoria Crosses were to be won in Mons and its environs on 23 August 1914.

  The 4th Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment, 9th Brigade 3rd Division) had reached the outskirts of Mons on 22 August and were made very welcome by the inhabitants of the town who gave them eggs and fruit and other provisions. The battalion marched through the town and crossed the Condé Canal at Nimy and at first took up positions which were far from being ideal as there was a thick wood to the north-west. They were then ordered to retire to the canal itself and make that their line of defence along with the two bridges that crossed it. The 4th Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment, 8th Brigade) were to their right beyond the road bridge, and the 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers (9th Brigade, 3rd Division) to their left, just north of Lock 6, about 800 yards to the left of the railway bridge.

  In the early hours of 23 August, Gen. Sir H.L. Smith-Dorrien, the new commander of the British II Corps gave divisional orders that the bridges over the Mons-Condé canal should be prepared for demolition. The timing, however, would depend on knowledge at local level and the bridges were not to be destroyed without permission.

  The 4th Royal Fusiliers had B, C and D Companies in the firing line with A Company in reserve at Nimy railway station, B and C Companies were in and around Nimy itself and were responsible for the two bridges and the embankment. The road bridge (which was a swing bridge) was to be defended by Capt. Forster with two platoons of C Company. The rail bridge was to be defended by two platoons and Company Headquarters under Capt. Ashburner with the machine-gun section of two guns under Lt. M.J. Dease. Railway sleepers were set up to act as emplacements for the gunners. The left-hand gun was atop the embankment and the right-hand gun was below the bridge. In addition the infantrymen had support from 107th Battery Royal Field Artillery (RFA) who were in trenches behind them and who were to capture the enemy range with great accuracy.

  During the night one man in every three had kept awake and the rest roused themselves at first light on the 23rd. They had continued to improve the defences; the day before, Dease had ordered that flour sacks of shingle be filled to give some protection for his two machine guns. Dease had taken off his coat and helped to shovel the shingle into the sacks.

  The enemy strength consisted of six German battalions from 18th Division III Corps and they first showed themselves at around 07.00 hours and the battle for the railway bridge began in earnest an hour or so later, on what turned out to be a very hot day. The Germans took cover in small plantations which helped to hide their positions, and at 09.00 hours attacked the narrow position at the head of Nimy bridge in close formation which resulted in considerable casualties from the British machine guns and rapid firing riflemen. The survivors retreated in some haste and took cover behind the plantations where they hid for half an hour, before renewing the attack, but this time in extended order. The attack was not stopped in its tracks and Capt. Ashburner’s company of Royal Fusiliers was under extremely heavy pressure. Very soon after the firing began Dease was hit for the first time. Lt. J.F. Mead was sent up with a platoon to help out but on arrival he was immediately wounded in the head. He had the wound dressed and on returning to the bridge was shot again in the head, this time fatally. Capt. Bowdon-Smith and Lt. Smith also went up to the bridge with another platoon but within a few minutes they too became casualties. Smith was killed and Bowden-Smith was wounded and died a few days later.

  Mons, 23 August

  Capt. Ashburner received a head wound and Capt. Forster, in a trench to his right, was injured in the stomach and arm, and died two hours later. Dease was hit in the neck and was told by Lt. F.W.A. Steele ‘to lie still and don’t move. We are getting it all our own way.’ Dease asked, ‘How’s the machine gun getting on?’ and stood up but was hit again. He struggled up to handle one of the guns himself and was hit once more, this time seriously. Dease had spent some time before serving one of the two guns with ammunition but he became impatient and crawled his way to the right-hand gun and dragged the wounded gunner away. He then began to fire the gun himself and rolled the wounded man down the embankment which must have saved his life. Dease was exposed to murderous rifle, machine gun, and artillery fire, and kept calling for gunners to take the place of the men who were dead or wounded in the fighting. Dease’s head was especially vulnerable, as were those of his colleagues, and it was only a matter of time before he was going to be killed and he must have known it. When he fell for the last time his body slumped across the railway lines and he probably died later at around 15.30 hours, after the infantry had withdrawn. During the action which lasted only a few hours this extremely brave officer ‘fussed over’ his guns and was only happy when both guns were firing in unison. He had rejected any attempts of sending him to hospital and on his death became an immediate hero to his battalion. Dease and his colleagues had fought as long as they were able and everyone involved was either killed or wounded. The position at Nimy bridge grew desperate and D Company to the left at Ghlin Bridge was going through a similar experience. Six burning barges on the canal added to the confusion.

  When orders for the inevitable retirement came at 14.00 hours B and C Companies of the Royal Fusiliers were to leave first. They had to move from their dangerous position across 250 yards of exposed ground which was swept by shrapnel and machine-gun fire. Lt. Steele was said to have gathered up the mortally wounded Dease in his arms but this was not so, although Steele seems to have been the only man to have escaped without any injury. Pte. S.F. Godley who had been on the bridge since the start of the day had taken over one of the machine guns and kept it firing until long after his companions got away. He then proceeded to destroy the gun and fling the pieces into the canal. The retirement was carried out efficiently and the battalion was able to re-assemble in an open space in the centre of Mons. According to an eye-witness C Company looked in a bad state. The battalion, after forming up, marched through the town to an old château in front of which they bivouacked for the night.

  For reasons that cannot easily be explained the casualties of 4th Royal Fusiliers on 23 August were not published for several weeks. This naturally caused considerable distress to their families. The blame must lie with the Royal Fusiliers themselves or with the War Office. The war being so young at this stage may have meant that systems had yet to be set up properly for the recording of casualties.

  The War Office sent a telegram to his family on 5 September saying that Dease had been killed in action, but a week later this was followed up with a telegram stating that he was actually wounded but missing. Three days later the family received further details of what had actually happened when they learned of his injuries from a letter written to another officer by Capt. W. Hill, the Adjutant of the Royal Fusiliers. It said that Dease had been seriously wounded and might even be dead according to some witnesses. Eventually, Capt. Hill, now back at Aldershot, interviewed some of the survivors from the Nimy bridge fighting and listed the casualties which he admitted included Maurice Dease as killed. Still no names of casualties had been published concerning the Royal Fusiliers but on 16 September the Dease family finally received more firm evidence about Dease’s death from a sergeant who was on the bridge at Nimy during the fighting. He wrote, ‘Dease, as far as we know, was killed in this action.’ The next day the family heard from a Mrs Harter whose son James had been with the Battalion Staff that he had told her of Maurice’s death on 2 September. However, as this was not official information the family still clung on to the slim hope that Maurice might have been taken prisoner.

  They contacted the War Office but this brought forth no hard facts about Maurice’s fate and they learned that ‘nothing had been reported about Lt. Dease.’ Finally, on 18 September the family had to accept the stark truth that they would never see Maurice alive again when they heard of his death in a letter written by Maj. Maltlock, second in command of the 4th Royal Fusiliers. However, the
confusion did not end there as the War Office, changing its mind again, sent a third telegram on the 28th stating that Dease was missing and not dead. By this time the family had accepted the inevitable and wisely ignored this third communication.

  On 25 September the Dease family received a letter from Lt. K. Tower which told them that Maurice had ‘died gallantly and certainly deserved the VC. I am trying to see that he is mentioned in Despatches. The whole regiment were really proud of him and the way he worked his machine gun on the bridge at Mons and everyone mourns the loss of one of the most popular and best officers in the Regiment.’

  On the 27th Lt. Steele wrote to the family as well saying:

  Poor Maurice got shot below the knee or thereabouts about 9am while he was attending to a machine gun on the left side of the bridge. Ashburner and I begged him to go off and get fixed up at the hospital, but he refused. He then crawled over to the right-hand side gun. Almost as soon as he got there he was again shot somewhere in the side. I made him lie down near me and with difficulty kept him quiet as he was worried about his guns. I promised to look after these for him and he settled down a bit quieter. I asked him if he was in any pain and he said, ‘No’ and smiled more or less cheerfully. As soon as I managed to get the guns going again he seemed much more happy. He seemed to have been hit again while I was busy on his left. For the next two hours there was a perfect hail of machine-gun fire as well as Artillery and Infantry fire. Maurice during this time became very quiet, and I fancy unconscious. When we retired Maurice had to be left behind …

  A Pte. Marshall also wrote to Dease’s sister:

  … All went well (on the bridge) until we saw some German cavalry galloping across our front and C Coy. opened fire upon them and when they ceased firing, a German cavalry officer came and gave himself up as prisoner. Shortly afterwards we saw some Germans dodging about between some houses and your brother told a Private to lay the gun on the space between the houses and when he saw the Germans again to open fire. We fired and in about half an hour the Private got wounded in the head, and your brother told him to go and get it bandaged up and then I took over the gun and then I saw the Germans advancing towards us …

  Another letter from Lt. K. Tower read as follows:

  You really ought to hear the men back from the 4th Battalion talk of Maurice, it would do your heart good. They simply adore him and it’s quite funny to see so many of them have brought photographs of him taken in the old groups of the Battalion and cut him out … Sir A. Conan Doyle is lecturing on the Great Battles of the war in several places, and he talks at some length about Maurice and his VC at Mons. I sent him my diary on the subject … You ought to have heard the cheers at the town hall at Folkestone – it would have made you feel proud …

  A Patriotic Meeting took place at the Royal Albert Hall in London and a member of the audience wrote: ‘Young Maurice Dease, VC and Captain Ranken, VC were both shown on the screen and the thousands present rose to their feet and cheered enthusiastically. It was a wonderful tribute from Great Britain and if the mothers of those boys who gave their lives for their country could have seen it, it might comfort their sad lonely hearts.’

  Dease’s VC was gazetted on 16 November 1914 and although others were approved on that day, his was the first act of gallantry to warrant such an award. Dease was recommended for the award by Lt. Col. McMahon, probably on the evidence of Lt. Steele who had witnessed the fight to hold Nimy railway bridge. Dease was buried at St Symphorien Military Cemetery 31 ⁄2 miles to the south-east of Mons. The cemetery, which is one of the most beautifully designed war cemeteries on the Western Front, was laid out by the Germans who must have picked up Dease’s body at Nimy bridge from the rail track. His grave is numbered V, B, 2, and the German and British graves are laid out in groups or clumps in a most attractive design.

  Maurice James Dease was born in Gaulstown, Coole, County Westmeath, Ireland on 28 September 1889. He was the only son of Edmund Fitzlaurence Dease, JP, and Katherine Mary, eldest daughter of Maurice Murray of Beech Hill, Cork. He was also the grandson of James Arthur Dease, JP, DL, the vice-lieutenant of Cavan. At the age of eight he went to the Frognal Park preparatory school in Hampstead, London. In September 1903 he left and went to the Roman Catholic Stonyhurst College. The college, a Jesuit public school in Lancashire, is able to claim seven holders of the VC among its former students, and their portraits are on display there. Dease took his religion seriously and became a server in the college chapel. He was also interested in natural history and wrote articles on birds for the college magazine.

  Having become a member of the College OTC, he left Stonyhurst in June 1907 for the Army College in Wimbledon about four years later before going on to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.

  He was commissioned into 4th Royal Fusiliers in May 1910 as a second lieutenant and was promoted to full lieutenant on 19 April 1912. He later became machine-gun officer and was for a time Acting Adjutant. When war broke out in early August 1914 the battalion was stationed at Parkhurst and had mobilized within three days; by the 13th it was in France at Le Havre. The battalion journeyed to Belgium in a circuitous route via Amiens and ended up on the Belgian-French border, arriving at Mons on 22 August from the direction of Brussels.

  After Dease’s death at Nimy on 23 August his family received his VC by post on 11 January 1915. He was later commemorated in Westminster Cathedral, on the Catholic Officers’ Association Roll of Honour. There is also a plaque to his memory and that of Pte. Godley at Nimy. The plaque was unveiled in April 1939 on the original bridge and later hidden from the Germans. Other commemorations include his name on the College War Memorial at Stonyhurst; a painting of him and the other College VC holders in the Refectory, a wayside cross memorial in Woodchester, Stroud near the Catholic church. His name is also included on a headstone in Coole R.C. churchyard.

  In 1964 a service of remembrance was held at the Nimy memorial. This was attended by Brig. P.R. Ashburner, the son of Capt. Ashburner who commanded the company defending the two Nimy bridges, fifty years before. Others who attended included Dease’s sister and his nephew, Maj. French.

  There is a picture of Dease at the museum in Mons. Any visitor today will find the Nimy landscape very different from 1914, for a few years ago the canal was drained and turned into a motorway. The canal now exists as only little more than a drainage ditch. In the 1980s a painting of the action on the bridge at Nimy was commissioned for the Royal Fusiliers.

  Although Dease’s medals had been displayed at the Regimental Museum which is in the grounds of the Tower of London; they belonged to his nephew Maj. French. In the mid-1980s the major wrote to the Regimental Association informing it that he wished to sell them in order to raise some money for his grandchildren’s education. However, he offered to give the regiment ‘first refusal’. The sale transaction was carried out with the minimum of fuss and the medals were valued by an expert at about £18,000. It was felt by both parties that they would fetch more at auction but selling them privately would keep the costs down. Maj. French was paid in instalments.

  The Victoria and Albert Museum in London was empowered to pay half of the cost providing that the regiment found the rest of the money. As the VC medal had the extra cachet of being the first awarded in the First World War there was no real means of estimating its value at auction. Dease’s other medals included the 1914 Star with Mons Clasp, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

  S.F. GODLEY

  Mons, Belgium, 23 August

  After eight days of having travelled through a mixture of very hot and wet weather, the 4th Royal Fusiliers reached Mons on 22 August where they took up positions guarding Nimy Bridge on the north side of the Mons-Condé. Pte. Sidney Frank Godley was a member of the 4th Royal Fusiliers and was part of Lt. Dease’s machine-gun section at Nimy rail bridge on 23 August. Some accounts say that he was one of those men called upon to take over a gun and yet Godley himself said that he was on the bridge all the time, helping to provid
e ammunition. The main point of his story is that he was asked to man one of the machine guns by Lt. F.W.A. Steele when orders had been given to retire. Godley knew that this would result in him being captured by the Germans, dead or alive.

  He took over a machine gun from Dease when the latter had been mortally wounded and although badly wounded himself, he managed to hold the bridge single-handed for two hours, while the Royal Fusiliers carried out their retirement. Eventually, after running out of ammunition, his final act was to destroy his gun and to toss the pieces into the Condé Canal. It is more likely that the gun was actually destroyed by enemy fire as the battalion war diary states, and they had inflicted tremendous damage on the German infantry. The enemy had allowed many lives to be squandered in the Nimy fighting.

  Godley crawled back from the bridge to the main road where he was helped to a hospital by two Belgian civilians. When he was having his twenty-seven wounds dressed the hospital was taken over by the Germans and he was taken prisoner. He was asked many questions, such as which unit he belonged to and who was his Commanding Officer. He refused to answer. He was then sent to Berlin for surgery and skin grafts; his back alone needed 150 stitches. When he was fit enough he was transferred to a POW camp at Doberitz. The senior German officer at the camp was the first man to tell Godley of his award of the Victoria Cross and Godley was congratulated by his jailer and invited to dine with him on Christmas Day! This was after 25 November 1914 when his award was gazetted. Godley remained a prisoner of war for four years, and was able to walk out of the camp in 1918 when the camp guards deserted their posts during the revolution in Berlin. He then returned to England having made his escape via Denmark. He was presented with his VC by the King in the ballroom at Buckingham Palace on 15 February 1919.