Leadership that encompassed personal gallantry on the battlefield was expected of all officers and very few were found wanting in this respect; those that failed to rise to expectation were quickly returned to the reserve battalions at home. But gallantry in the field is a costly business and the attrition rate of officers in the First Battle of Ypres was extraordinarily high, some battalions losing most, if not all, of their officers in a single engagement. Interestingly the rank and file soldier’s point of view sometimes differed. John Lucy, who was serving in the ranks in 1914 with the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles (2/Royal Irish Rifles) at Neuve Chapelle felt that:
‘The acme of officer leadership seemed to be to expose oneself in the most dangerous positions as an example to the men. All very gallant, but not very practical, and useless to us. We did not require any good example to fight in those days. Some of us resented the implication in such an attitude, and soon, in the still more difficult and more disastrous days to come, we heartily wished that our lost officers had taken more care of themselves. Their presence certainly always did inspire us, but a little more directing, and less example of studied bravery, would have suited us better.’
Although the strength of the regular army was its regimental structure, the two battalion system brought about by the Cardwell reforms did have some disadvantages. Whereas in theory, both battalions would take turn about, one battalion serving overseas while the other remained on home service providing drafts for overseas, an equal balance was never quite achieved. The historian, Ian Beckett, draws attention to the home battalions of the regular army often being under-strength with ‘young recruits or servicemen reaching the end of their term of service.’7 Certainly the 1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment (1/Gloucesters) was very much under strength in August 1914 and only achieved war strength after the reservists were called up. Beckett also points out that in 1914 British regulars ‘were not that experienced. Only 4,192 men having over fifteen years service, with 46,291 men registering under two years service with the colours.’ However, this was compensated for to a degree by the overseas units which had a higher peacetime establishment of men and consequently required few reservists to make them up to war strength.
By comparison the German Army was a conscript army with a field strength estimated at five million men at arms in 1914. National service was established in Germany after 1893, each man served an initial two years followed by a five year term as a first line reservist or Landwehr followed by seven years as an Ersatz Reservist. Had the Siewertsen and Schuster families remained in Germany they would have been in uniform long before 1914. There was a further period of service up to the age of 45 in the Landsturm. German infantry were generally trained in the use of close order tactics with troops advancing shoulder to shoulder in broad waves some 500 yards apart. German commanders believed that this was preferable to troops advancing in open order on the battlefield which would be more difficult to control despite the heavier casualties.
The British Regular Army had practically re-invented itself since the Gloucestershire men of the 28th of Foot last took their regimental colours into battle at Alma in 1854. The companies of officers and men that stormed the heights of Alma suffered severely from a lack of effective command at brigade and divisional level and co-operation between artillery and infantry was non-existent. Furthermore, the rank and file were generally not well looked after by their officers and as a consequence, suffered badly. In direct contrast, the first seven divisions of the ‘Old Contemptibles’ of the British Army that landed in France in 1914, although not entirely free of their own difficulties at staff level, set the highest possible standards for the people’s army that followed them. That standard was set at Mons, Le Cateau and finally at Ypres, where they held a wide frontage for weeks against an enemy which vastly outnumbered them in both men and artillery, but not in spirit.
Chapter 3
Officers, Gentlemen and Public Schools
On 2 March 1882 Queen Victoria was travelling from Windsor railway station to the castle when Roderick Maclean, a 32yearold former grocer’s assistant, stepped out of the crowd and fired a pistol at her carriage. Victoria was no stranger to violent assaults on her person, Maclean’s attempt on her life was the seventh occasion on which a member of the public had attempted to harm her. The first and most serious was in 1840 when Edward Oxford tried to assassinate her and the following year there were two further attacks including one from a former officer of the 10th Hussars who struck her with his cane! On this occasion, however, many Eton College schoolboys were in the crowd hoping to catch a glimpse of the Queen, amongst which were Gordon Wilson and Murray Robertson. As Maclean raised his revolver and fired the two Eton boys rushed forward and helped to overpower and disarm him. Later that day the boys of the school marched up to Windsor Castle and the two young heroes were presented to the Queen. For Gordon Wilson this was the beginning of thirty-two years of service to his monarch.
Gordon Wilson was born in August 1865 in Melbourne, Australia and was the eldest son of Sir Samuel Wilson, the Irish born multi-millionaire who, after emigrating to Australia with his brothers in 1852, made a fortune from mining and sheep farming before returning to England. Sir Samuel was reported to be one of the richest men in England and apart from leasing Hughenden Manor, the former country house of Benjamin Disraeli, he owned property in Grosvenor Square in London where he lived until his death in 1895. In December 1861 he married Jean Campbell, and together they produced four sons and three daughters.
The fighting in South Africa during the second Boer War and later in France and Flanders took a terrible toll on the Wilson Family. Gordon was the eldest of the four Wilson brothers, three of whom, including himself, would not survive beyond 1917. All four brothers fought in the South African War, the youngest, Wilfred, was a lieutenant with the Northumberland Imperial Yeomanry and died of wounds received in February 1901 at Hartebeestfontein. Herbert Hayden ‘Bertie’ Wilson was a well known international polo player and a member of the successful English Olympic Polo team that won the Gold Medal in 1908 at the London Games. He won a DSO in South Africa serving with the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry and was later killed in action with the Household Cavalry in April 1917. The only male survivor of the Wilson family was Lieutenant Clarence Chesney Wilson and he was so badly wounded in the action near Geluk in May 1900 while serving with the 8th (King’s Royal Irish) Hussars that he was invalided home. His wounds were such that he was unable to serve in the Great War, something perhaps his family was thankful for in retrospect.
Eton was the choice Sir Samuel made when it came to the education of his four boys. Gordon arrived in 1879 and soon established himself as an all-round performer in the classroom and a star on the playing field. Apart from the 1882 episode with Maclean which elevated him to almost legendary status amongst his peers, he was an outstanding sportsman whose talents ranged from membership of the school rowing eight to winning the one-hundred yards sprint, the half-mile and the hurdles in 1883. In February 1884, during his last year, he came second to Lord Newtown-Butler in the school mile and from all accounts would have won the race if he had not been hampered by spectators. The Eton College Chronicle clearly felt Gordon was robbed of his victory:
‘Wilson was most unfortunately prevented from achieving a brilliant performance … It is not for us of course to say that he would have won, but it is true to say his chance was entirely marred by the enthusiasm of the onlookers.’
However in March, during their second encounter in the steeplechase, one of the major athletic events of the school year, he famously beat his rival into fourth place. The Eton Chronicle again:
‘Once more Wilson was to the fore and proved still more conclusively that, as an all round runner, he forms a class by himself amongst Etonians and is possibly one of the best runners we have ever seen here.’
From Eton Gordon Wilson went up to Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1885 but he did not complete his degree course. Student life obviously came a poor seco
nd to the more exciting lifestyle offered by the army. He had joined the Militia in 1885 while still a student, being commissioned into the 3rd Battalion, the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, with the rank of second lieutenant. However the glamour of the cavalry soon took precedence and after leaving Oxford in December 1888 he was commissioned into the very select and expensive Royal Horse Guards as a lieutenant.
Four years later in November 1891 he married Lady Sarah Spencer-Churchill, the sister of Lord Randolph Churchill. The wedding was a society event and one of the smartest of the year. The couple were married by the Archbishop of Canterbury at St Georges Church in Hanover Square. The Prince of Wales, who was a personal friend of Sarah’s, headed a guest list that included nearly everyone that mattered on the London society circuit. Moving to one of the large mansion houses in Great Cumberland Place the couple lived a very privileged lifestyle attended by nine household servants.
During the South African War Gordon was seconded from the regiment as ADC to Major General Robert Baden-Powell during the siege of Mafeking. Captain Gordon Wilson, as he was then, was twice mentioned in despatches for his service in South Africa and was made a member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in May of that year. Yet it was his more famous wife and her part in the Mafeking siege that grabbed the headlines in 1900. Having shut down the house in Cumberland Place, leaving two of the household staff as caretakers, she travelled in 1889 from England to Mafeking to be near her husband. While at Mafeking she was recruited as a reporter for the Daily Mail newspaper and from her vantage point in the besieged town soon gained a following amongst Mail readers in England. One of the many individuals she featured in her reports was a young Royal Fusiliers Captain, Charles FitzClarence, who had led a bayonet charge to retake some captured trenches at Mafeking. Charles FitzClarence and Sarah were related through marriage; Charles having married one of Sarah’s cousins, Violet Spencer-Churchill, in 1898 whilst in Cairo. On returning to England he and Violet lived at Lowndes Street in the fashionable Belgravia district of London. FitzClarence’s bravery on a number of occasions was rewarded with the Victoria Cross in 1900 and later, in 1914 as a Brigadier General, he commanded the troops of 1 Infantry Brigade on the Menin Road at Ypres.
Baden-Powell was altogether unhappy with Lady Sarah’s presence at Mafeking and eventually succeeded in persuading her to leave in November 1889 for her own safety, a journey that ended in her capture by the Boers. From her captivity she wrote to her husband explaining her circumstances and passing on the Boer commander’s terms for her release:
‘My dear Gordon
I am at the laager. General Snyman will not give me a pass unless Colonel Baden-Powell will exchange me for a Mr Petrus Viljoen. I am sure this is impossible, so I do not ask him formally. I am in a great fix, as they have very little meal left at Setlagoli or the surrounding places. I am very kindly looked after here.’
Gordon Wilson replied from Mafeking on 3 December with the characteristic reserve that so typified the Victorian upper classes:
‘My dear Sarah
I am delighted to hear you are being well treated, but very sorry to have to tell you that Colonel Baden-Powell finds it impossible to hand over Petrus Viljoen in exchange for you, as he was convicted of horse-stealing before the war. I fail to see in what way it can benefit your captors to keep you a prisoner. Luckily for them, it is not the custom of the English to make prisoners of war of women.’
Despite their obvious regard for each other, not a hint of his concern for her safety was betrayed in his letter and even in the later deal that was struck with the Boers for Lady Sarah’s release, their letters to each other remained polite and concise. Eventually she was released and returned to Mafeking to work in the hospital and presumably to continue her work as a correspondent.
In January 1903, after his return to England, Gordon Wilson was promoted to major and four years later, in 1907, to brevet lieutenant colonel. In 1911 he achieved his ambition of commanding his regiment when he was promoted to the substantive rank of lieutenant colonel, taking over command from Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Vaughn Lee.
In April 1885 Robert Rising made the journey from Norfolk to Godalming to begin his first term at Charterhouse School. At 14-years-old Robert was already a natural athlete and the public school emphasis on games allowed his sporting talents to flourish. He soon became a regular batsman for the ‘Weekites’ cricket side and in 1889 he reached the pinnacle of sporting prowess by being picked for the School Football XI.1 Charterhouse has an historic joint claim to having founded Association Football, a game which remains a major sport at the school to this day. Selection to play in the Football XI was a position many aspired to. The team of 1889–90 was certainly a distinguished one; the Captain was Gilbert Oswald Smith, who after graduating from Oxford University captained the England team on at least thirteen occasions and during the period 1894 to 1900 scored eleven international goals. Also in the side were Edward Buzzard and Edward Bliss, both of whom went on to have successful amateur football careers. As for Robert, he was described in The Carthusian in 1890 as, ‘a good back who kicks well and stops cleverly, he makes good use of his weight and pace.’
In his last year at Charterhouse he won the senior long jump event and was second in the quarter mile and, as one of the school’s leading athletes, was a member of the School Fire Brigade. Charterhouse had its own fire brigade in the late nineteenth century which was a very small and select body into which only the foremost athletes were admitted after election by their peers. Although the chief function was that of filling the water-jump for the steeplechase, occasionally the brigade did assist in putting out local fires. On one occasion the brigade turned out to a fire in Godalming without leave from the headmaster. The result was the appearance of two notices on the school board; one from the owner of the burnt property, thanking the ‘young heroes’ for their gallantry, the other from the headmaster, sending the ‘young heroes’ to detention for going out of bounds without leave.
Another Charterhouse student and a recipient of a junior scholarship was Alfred Schuster who arrived in the autumn of 1896 from Stoke House Preparatory School. He was following in the footsteps of his two older brothers, Edgar and George, who had already established themselves amongst the school’s intellectual elite in Gownboys and it was not long before Alfred added to the academic reputation of the family by joining his brothers as a senior scholar.2 But academic reputations were not held in the same regard as those achieved through sport. George Schuster later wrote of his time at Charterhouse:
‘My five years there were a colourless period of my story. Social status in the school depended entirely on skill at football or cricket in which I ranked very low … my general impression is that in my five years at Charterhouse I got practically no true education.’3
However, amongst their more academic contemporaries they were held in some considerable esteem. All three brothers went on to New College Oxford as ‘exhibitioners’, Edgar graduating with first class honours in Zoology in 1901 and George with a first in Classics two years later. Alfred left Charterhouse in 1901 and graduated with a second in Classics in 1905. What is clear is that all three of the Schuster boys left a lasting impression on their contemporaries at Charterhouse and just as Robert Rising achieved his standing amongst his peers through sporting ability, Alfred achieved his through his considerable intellect and ability to endear himself to practically everyone he came into contact with.
Whilst at Oxford Alfred was a prominent member of the Shakespeare Club, which had been in existence since at least 1867 and was formed for the simple purpose of reading Shakespeare’s plays. There is no record of whether any performances were staged and like many of the college clubs and societies it did not restart after the Great War. There is, however, a photographic record of the membership which features Alfred during his association with the club and in one photograph he is pictured seated on the ground in front of his great friend Frederick Murray Hicks. Hicks was another gifted ind
ividual who graduated in 1906 with a first class honours degree in Classics and in 1914, as with many of that generation, was caught in the web of the Great War. In September 1914 he was commissioned into the Hampshire Regiment and went on to become Flight Commander in the RAF. He saw active service in Gallipoli where he was mentioned in despatches and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Unlike Alfred he survived the war.
Despite his German name Alfred Schuster was a second generation British national. His father, Dr Ernest Joseph Schuster, had been granted British naturalisation in June 1875 after emigrating with his father and two brothers from Frankfurt in 1866. The moves towards German unification and the increasingly militaristic climate that accompanied it had prompted many to leave the country to avoid conscription and when Prussia annexed the free city of Frankfurt in 1866 it was the last straw for the Schuster family. Little did Ernest Schuster realize when he left Frankfurt for London in 1869 that forty-five years later the military aspirations of his old country would enmesh all three of his sons.
Once in London Ernest entered the family firm of Schuster and Sons, the bankers and merchants of Cannon Street, and by 1890 he had been called to the Bar, soon establishing himself as the leading expert on German and international law in England. Of his two brothers, Sir Felix Schuster was governor of the National Provincial Bank and Smith’s Bank and Sir Arthur Schuster was professor of Physics at Manchester University and an eminent scientist. Little wonder then that Ernest Schuster’s three boys were so gifted.
The outbreak of war in August 1914 placed anyone with a Germanic name under suspicion, regardless of their occupation or how long they had lived in England. The Schuster family were targeted by the press along with numerous others including Lord Haldane who had been educated in Germany and Prince Louis of Battenburg who had been a British national since 1868.4 The Schusters were no exception and apart from calls for Alfred and his father and brothers to be interned, there was a more public case involving the family which resulted in court action in early 1915. Alfred’s uncle, Sir Arthur Schuster, was accused in Pearson’s Weekly of communicating with the enemy with a radio transmitter. Sir Arthur’s chief protagonist was Lady Glanusk, the self-appointed spy catcher and chairman of the Women’s Home Protection League. The Schusters were wealthy enough to take action over this completely unfounded allegation and sued for libel. Arthur Schuster won his case and was awarded costs and damages by Mr Justice Sargant who delivered a scathing address to the penitent owners of Pearson’s Weekly who had published the story.
Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Cemetery Page 6