There was no doubt in Lance Corporal James William Whitfield’s mind that once the BEF had landed in France and sorted out the German Army he would soon be back in London on palace guard duty. After leaving school in 1907 James had followed his father, William, underground at the Medomsley Busty Pit Colliery, his younger brother Frederick joining them in 1910. The family home at Medomsley Edge, County Durham was desperately overcrowded; the small terraced house on the Corbridge Road being home to six adults and one child. Apart from his father and mother and younger brother, two married daughters and a 12-year-old child also lived at home which must have put the family accommodation under considerable pressure. Small wonder then that James travelled to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and enlisted in the Coldstream Guards in January 1912 on a three year term of service.
A month later he began his basic training at Caterham and from all accounts proved to be an able soldier who quickly adapted to the discipline of army life. Subsequently on the successful completion of basic training, he was posted to the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards (2/Coldstream Guards). As far as James was concerned he was not planning to return to the colliery in the foreseeable future as in August 1912 he extended his term of service to seven years. He was promoted to lance corporal four months before the battalion was mobilized for war in 1914.
Watching the BEF leave for war was a very disappointed William Petersen. He had received the news his territorial unit would not be included in the BEF and having been commissioned into the Essex Field Artillery four months previously he immediately applied for an attachment to 2/Life Guards. There is no doubt that this was helped along by his father’s extensive political and social connections, as in late September he was seconded with the rank of second lieutenant and ordered to report to 3rd Cavalry Division. He had a lot to live up to; one of his three sisters was married to Douglas Reynolds who had been awarded the VC for his bravery at Le Cateau only a few days previously on 26 August. Captain Reynolds was serving with the 37th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, and won his VC while extricating what was left of his battery of howitzers under the noses of the enemy. He later died of gas poisoning in 1916.6
The right connections were also apparent in enabling the Baron Alexis de Gunzburg to obtain a commission in the 11th Prince Albert’s Own Hussars (11/Hussars). Alexis de Gunzburg, although born in Paris in 1887, was a Russian national who was educated at Eton from 1901 to 1904 and had lived permanently in England since 1907. When war was declared de Gunzburg volunteered as an intelligence officer and was commissioned into 11/Hussars. Having been sent down to Ludgershall to join 3rd Cavalry Division, he was almost immediately sent back to London after it was discovered he was not a British subject. Returning home to Bute House in the exclusive South Audley Street in Mayfair, he made his application to the Home Office. Bute House was the London residence of one of de Gunzburg’s relations, Clarissa Bischoffsheim, whose husband, Henry, was related to Nathan Rothschild.
The family business was banking and with Henry Bischoffsheim a director of the well known Jewish banking house of Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt, the process of naturalization was fast-tracked through official channels. The completed papers were delivered to the Home Office on 13 August with an accompanying note on Foreign Office notepaper from Henry Moore, the Earl of Drogheda, asking that they be ‘rushed through’. Just so that the urgency of the matter was fully appreciated, Moore added a final paragraph to his letter:
‘I will of course vouch absolutely for the applicant and I know that Winston [Churchill] has promised to help as regards the military part afterwards.’
The mere mention of the First Sea Lord’s name was enough to sufficiently oil the wheels of officialdom and four days later Alexis de Gunzburg was granted British nationality.
Apart from the men of the part-time Territorial Force who were mobilized for home defence, the officers and men of the Special Reserve were also mobilized in early August for overseas duty. The Special Reserve was, in some respects, similar to the Territorial Force in that they both consisted of part-time soldiers but there the similarity ended. While soldiers of the Territorial Force were not obliged to serve overseas in 1914, the men of the Special Reserve had to accept the possibility of being called up to reinforce the active units of the regular army in the event of national mobilization. Many of the special reservists had previously served in the Militia and certainly in Ireland, where there was no Territorial Force, all part-time soldering was through the Special Reserve. Alfred Schuster had joined the Kerry Militia as a second lieutenant a year before he was called to the Bar in 1906 and after two years service he was promoted to lieutenant in August 1908. When the Militia was disbanded in 1908 Alfred transferred to the 4th (Queen’s Own) Hussars Special Reserve.
4/Hussars had been stationed in South Africa before arriving home in 1908 to their new quarters at the Curragh in Ireland. Situated opposite the racecourse, the Curragh was a sprawling military base near Kildare in central Ireland and the scene of the so called Curragh Incident in March 1914 when the officers of 3 Cavalry Brigade demanded a guarantee that they would not be required to force Ulster into accepting the controversial Home Rule Bill. Their mobilization was completed by 10 August and five days later 4/Hussars embarked on the SS Atlantian for Le Havre. Much to his disappointment and frustration Alfred was not with the regiment when they left for the docks at Dublin to join 2nd Cavalry Division. Despite being mobilized early in August, Alfred remained impatiently at the regimental depot in Dublin until September when he and Lieutenant Francis Levita were ordered to join the regiment in France as replacements.
At Chelsea Barracks in London the 2/Grenadier Guards reservists were queuing from early morning on the 5 August. Many had arrived the previous evening and the battalion orderly room was in full swing processing the long line of men back into Guardsmen. The men of the Grenadier Guards were drawn from a wide cross section of the lower classes of society all undoubtedly attracted by the regiment’s reputation and status within the army. Service with the Colours had changed significantly since the nineteenth century when a man taking the Queen’s shilling would sign away most of his useful life. There was now an option to serve as little as three years with a commitment of nine years on the reserve list and many, like Walter Siewertsen, took advantage of this. Three years service with the Guards provided a man with a reputation for discipline and reliability and could open up later employment possibilities in civilian life.
After Walter Siewertsen enlisted in the Grenadier Guards in April 1913, he was sent down to the Guards Depot at Caterham to begin his fourteen weeks of recruit training. Whilst at Caterham he passed his second class certificate in basic writing and arithmetic and having successfully passed out he was posted to the 2nd Battalion. Despite this promising start, less than a year later, in March 1914 he appeared before a court-martial and was sentenced to 112 days detention for desertion, ‘losing by neglect his clothing and equipment’ and, ‘refusing to obey an order given by his superior officer’. There is no indication in his service file as to the reason why he went absent without leave but the sentence was later reduced to fifty-six days. There is another note in his file written by Lieutenant Ian McDougall in May 1914 to the effect that Walter’s sentence was further reduced for ‘good conduct to duty.’ McDougall was adjutant of the 2nd Battalion at the time and was later killed in action in September 1914.
By early May Walter, having served his sentence, was back with the battalion unaware that in the same month the Austrian and German Chiefs of Staff, von Hotzendorf and von Moltke, had met and agreed a timetable for war. Consequently when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on 28 June 1914 and Austria’s attack on Serbia began one month later, the timetable was activated, launching a chain of events that led to Walter Siewertsen and the officers and men of the 2nd Battalion embarking for France on the SS Cawdor Castle as part of 4 (Guards) Brigade, 2nd Division.
The twenty-nine officers of the 2nd Battalion, in common with other British Army re
giments, were largely all regular soldiers and many of the officers with the rank of captain and above had seen war service in South Africa. Major Lord Bernard Gordon Lennox, commanding Number 2 Company in August 1914, saw action against the Boers as a young subaltern with the battalion soon after being promoted to lieutenant in 1899. His arrival in the Orange Free State in late April 1900 was the beginning of an arduous tour of twenty-five months during which time the battalion was frequently on the move and often engaged with their elusive enemy. Gordon Lennox’s first experience of a major action was at Biddulphsberg Hill in May 1900 when the battalion had first hand experience of the accuracy and firepower of the Boers. It must have been a sobering experience for a regular battalion to lose a fight against an enemy that they had great difficulty in locating. To make matters worse many of the Grenadiers wounded were burned to death in a veld fire when the dry grass was set alight behind them.
Lord Bernard was not the only member of his distinguished family serving in South Africa at the turn of the century. His brother Charles was ADC to Field Marshal Sir Frederick Roberts and his father, the 7th Duke of Richmond and the 2nd Duke of Gordon, was also present commanding the Royal Sussex Militia. Lord Charles Henry, who was described after his death in 1928 as one of the ‘quietly great’ Victorians, was mentioned in despatches for his services during the campaign and made a Companion Order of the Bath. Another brother, Lord Esme Gordon Lennox, who was three years older than Bernard and an officer in the Scots Guards, served as a staff officer with GHQ.
Returning to England with the battalion after the South African War, Bernard was seconded to the Chinese Regiment at Wei-Hai-Wei in 1904. Wei-Hai-Wei was a British naval coaling station on the northeast coast of what is now the Chinese Shandong peninsular where Britain held exclusive military rights and in the terms of the lease, had the right to station troops and effect fortifications. It was also the base for a native Chinese regiment organized, funded and led by British officers. Although the Chinese regiment was disbanded in 1906, Britain did not finally hand back the territory until 1930.
Esme Gordon Lennox was best man at Bernard’s wedding at the Guards Chapel when he married the Hon Evelyn Loch in July 1907. The wedding was a grand affair with the band of the Grenadier Guards in attendance and officers and NCOs lining the porch when the bride arrived with her brother, Lord Loch. The service was officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury and after the ceremony the reception was held at Lord and Lady Loch’s residence in Montague Square. In 1908 George Charles was born, followed three years later by Alexander Henry.
With the experience of the South African campaign behind him, Bernard Gordon Lennox was under no illusions about the reality of war which awaited him on mainland Europe. Undoubtedly fighting the Boers was one thing, going up against the huge conscript German Army and their formidable artillery was yet another. Of course, many of the young officers in the battalion had seen no active service at all. Typical of these was Lieutenant Michael Stocks who had only been with the battalion for just over two years having entered Sandhurst after leaving Eton in 1910. He passed out just before Christmas in 1911 and was commissioned into the Grenadiers at the beginning of February 1912. He wouldn’t have long to wait before his baptism of fire.
The BEF which left the shores of England for France in August 1914 was under the command of Field Marshal Sir John French, himself a veteran of the South African War. His force of four infantry divisions was divided into two Corps, I Corps (1st and 2nd Divisions) under Lieutenant General Sir Douglas Haig, and II Corps (3rd and 5th Divisions) under Lieutenant General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien. In addition there were the two divisions of the Cavalry Corps under Major General Sir Edmund Allenby. Substantial reinforcements would not arrive until the appearance of III Corps (4th and 6th Divisions) which was formed in France on 31 August 1914 and was commanded by Major General William Pulteney. By then, however, the strategic picture had changed dramatically.
Once in Belgium the BEF moved into position in front of Mons and formed a line along the Mons-Condé Canal, just to the left of the French Fifth Army. The first skirmish with the Germans came early on 23 August 1914 when the advance guard of von Kluck’s First Army, arrived at Casteau, a small village along the Chausée de Bruxelles on the edge of Mons. In this cavalry encounter between the 4th Dragoon Guards (4/Dragoon Guards) and the German 4th Cuirassiers, Captain Charles Hornby became the first BEF soldier to kill a German, which he did with his cavalry sword, and Corporal Ernest Thomas fired the first British shots of the war. The Battle of Mons had begun.
Sir John deployed his two infantry corps east and west of Mons across a twenty-five mile front, the eastern flank in touch with the French Fifth Army under General Lanrezac, some eight miles away. Allenby’s cavalry division was held in reserve in case of need. It quickly became apparent that the British were heavily outnumbered, but despite the odds, von Kluck’s offensive against Smith-Dorrien’s II Corps began disastrously, the British riflemen exacting heavy losses from the advancing German infantry. Indeed, by mid-afternoon von Kluck had no progress to show for the offensive and drafted in reinforcements. Yet in spite of the successes of the first day, the BEF’s intention to stand and fight was thwarted and by the rather surprising news that Lanrezac’s Fifth Army was retiring. Given the circumstances Sir John French now found himself in, he had little choice but to conform. With the French in retreat and the Belgian Army also falling back, the BEF was now in advance of the Allied line and if it remained so, would be outflanked. The historic retreat from Mons was underway.
The brunt of the retirement fell on the already battered II Corps which had suffered over 1,600 casualties on 23 August and now, on the left flank of the BEF, was fighting an almost continuous rearguard action. BEF casualties on 24 August were some 2,500 and the majority of these were from Major General Sir Charles Fergusson’s 5th Division. The fact that the bulk of II Corps managed to escape and was able to turn successfully and fight at Le Cateau again on 26 August is largely down to Smith-Dorrien’s ability and the maverick nature of his style of command. History would repeat itself twenty-six years later when John Standish Vereker, the 6thViscount Gort, succeeded in extracting another BEF and began a retreat with a very different outcome, this time to Dunkirk. Lord Gort was no stranger to Flanders, in 1914 he was a captain serving with the Grenadiers, four years later he had been promoted to temporary Lieutenant Colonel in command of the 1st Battalion and had been awarded the VC, DSO and two bars and the MC. His cousin, Robert Humphrey Vereker, was serving as a company officer with Bernard Gordon Lennox in the 2nd Battalion.
The retreat was probably one of the most testing periods for the troops of the BEF. They were unaccustomed to retiring and quite frankly did not understand why they were in retreat after what they saw as a successful encounter with the enemy the previous day. Apart from the orders to retire, very few had any idea what was going on strategically, creating a general sense of frustration which was not helped by the hot August weather. This only added to the discomfort of the infantry which marched on average some seventeen miles each day over the two weeks of the retreat.
Despite the testing conditions on the march the Grenadiers lost few opportunities to compare their performance to the Coldstream Guards, noting on numerous occasions that the Grenadiers march discipline was ‘much superior’ to that of the Coldstream. Rivalry between the two regiments had been in existence since the Coldstream were created as a regiment by Cromwell in 1650 and dubbed the Second Regiment of Foot Guards. A dilemma arose when Charles II formed the First Regiment of Foot Guards in 1665, renamed after Waterloo as the Grenadier Regiment of Foot Guards. The Coldstream regimental motto Nulli Secundus was adopted as a permanent reminder to the Grenadiers that despite the regimental numbering, they consider themselves to be the oldest Guards regiment. No doubt this regimental rivalry provided an occasional much needed boost to morale to the men of both regiments as they marched south towards the Marne.
We are fortunate that Bernard Gord
on Lennox kept a remarkable diary of events and continued writing it until shortly before his death. His notes of 24 August give some impression of the uncertainty that prevailed amongst the officers of 2/Grenadier Guards who were retreating with I Corps:
‘Owing to the absolute secrecy which pervaded everything, no one knew what was going on anywhere: this has been maintained to date and is most disheartening. No one knows what one is driving at, where anyone is, what we have got against us, or anything at all, and what is told us generally turns out to be entirely wrong.’
The next evening 4 (Guards) Brigade arrived at Landrecies after a long and hot march but there was to be little rest. Gordon Lennox recorded what he described as ‘one of the longest nights’ he had ever had:
‘We were in the middle of our dinner about 8.30 when the alarm went and we rushed out to hear heavy firing-musketry-going on outside our end of town. Everyone fell in hurriedly and there was a good deal of scurry but no disorder when the word came down that the Coldstream Guards outposts were being driven back: the remainder of the battalion was sent up to where the firing was going on, in support.
Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Cemetery Page 9