Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Cemetery

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Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Cemetery Page 10

by Jerry Murland


  Unbeknown to I Corps, pursuing German forces of IX Army Corps had penetrated the Forest of Mormal to the north of Landrecies using motorized transport and launched a surprise night attack which fell mainly on 3/Coldstream Guards which had outposts at the north of the town. A simultaneous attack also fell on 1/Gloucesters which was at Le Favil some two miles further east and although the main attack was brought to a standstill, sporadic fighting went on for most of the night both in Landrecies and around Le Favil. In their first encounter with the Germans since landing in France, the Gloucesters lost five men killed including Captain Guy Shipway, together with thirty men wounded.7 In Number 2 Company of the Grenadiers their casualties were surprisingly light given the intensity of the fighting around the town’s railway station:

  ‘The moment [they] tried to advance a deadly rapid fire was poured into them. They charged pluckily three or four times, but each time they were mown down. Then we got word they were getting round towards us. We waited quietly, and saw a couple of dull red glows which were no doubt the lamps of the leading officers. We opened a salvo of rapid fire and one of the lights disappeared to be followed shortly after by the other one. Bullets began to whisk past us and it was just about this time that poor young Vereker [Second Lieutenant Robert Humphrey Vereker] was shot through the head. I also had two corporals wounded at the same time.’8

  On 26 August the relentless march resumed. The Gloucesters were fortunate that the fighting around Le Favil was the last they would see until the Battle of the Marne reversed Allied fortunes; turning retreat into pursuit and forcing the Germans to retreat north towards the Aisne valley. But for 4 Brigade there would be more fighting. Ordered to cover the retirement of the 2nd Division with a rearguard action on 30 August, the Guards made a stand in the forest surrounding Villers-Cotterets and in the desperate hand-to-hand fighting that followed the Germans were driven back at the point of the bayonet until the order was given to retire. It was at Villers-Cotterets that Brigadier General Robert Scott-Kerr was badly wounded and command of the brigade passed temporarily to Colonel Corry who had been commanding 2/Grenadier Guards. Little did the Grenadiers know that the fighting in the thickly wooded area around Villers-Cotterets would be a rehearsal for the fighting in the numerous woods south-east of Ypres that would become a feature of the defence around Klein Zillebeke during October and November 1914.

  4/Hussars had received no reinforcements since leaving Dublin in August even though they had been in almost constant contact with German infantry and cavalry since the retreat began and had suffered twenty-nine casualties of whom seven were killed. The casualties included their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ian Hogg, whose father was the educational philanthropist Quintin Hogg. By the time Alfred Schuster made contact with the regiment along with Lieutenant Francis Levita and ninety reinforcements, the regiment had been billeted at Braine for four days and were enjoying a well deserved rest. Schuster’s journey from England had taken them all over the country in a series of frustrating efforts to locate a regiment that was constantly on the move. It was just as well he was an experienced horseman; he would need his rough-riding experience gained with the Quorn and Devon and Somerset Staghounds over the coming weeks. Even with the new arrivals the regiment was still very much below strength and at roll call on the evening of 24 September 1914, the regiment could only muster 312 all ranks and was still 150 horses short despite the addition of the 129 fresh mounts Alfred had brought with him.

  When Francis Levita joined his regiment at Braine he had little idea that his cousin, Lieutenant Michael Stocks, was only some six miles further north at Chavonne. He had last seen his cousin shortly before war was declared and both boys had expressed a wish that their regiments would be quickly deployed with the BEF. They both got their wish; Francis arrived in France just in time to take part in the struggle along the Aisne valley and as a cavalryman would have a different front line experience to Michael. Despite their close proximity, however, the two grandchildren of Major Michael Stocks would never have the opportunity to compare notes.

  Michael Stocks, along with the rest of Sir John French’s expeditionary force, was now dug in on the British front line and on the receiving end of some very heavy shell fire. The German retreat from the Marne had come to a halt on the northern heights of the Aisne valley. From this commanding position along the Chemin des Dames ridge, which overlooked the whole of the British area of operations, the Germans initiated a strategy and subsequent chain of consequences that would dominate the nature of warfare for the next three years: concentrated artillery barrages, entrenched positions and heavy casualties. As both sides entrenched themselves ever deeper, the constant shelling began to dominate the lives of everyone, Bernard Gordon Lennox wrote on 18 September:

  ‘We were subject to a hell of a bombardment all day with shrapnel and Black Maria. So far this has been an unequal contest, as our guns have practically not come into action yet, being unable to find a position or a target, and whenever they do open fire from the valley below, it only draws a hail of shrapnel and high explosive on it at once: and the Dutchmen [Germans] seem to know exactly where they are. The place must be full of spies. Throughout the day shrapnel was bursting right over us and on us, but I have only one man wounded in the arm.’

  Casualties amongst 4 Brigade officers and men had been steadily increasing since 1 September 1914. The 3rd Coldstream had suffered considerably in their positions around Soupir Farm, losing a number of valuable officers and NCOs. On 18 September Richard Dawson arrived at the battalion with a small draft of reinforcements and was immediately given command of Number 2 Company. 2 /Grenadier Guards had also suffered badly, the battalion war diary recorded fourteen officers and 375 NCOs and men killed or wounded in the first nineteen days of September, and although some reinforcements had joined up with the battalion, the continual German shelling was taking its toll. On the evening of 19 September Lieutenants Harry Parnell and Carleton Tufnell arrived with the battalion’s new commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Wilfred Smith.

  Carleton Tufnell, or ‘Laddie’ as he was known in the battalion, was already a very popular officer and had been devastated when he was detailed to remain behind in August when the battalion left for France. Sport still occupied a large proportion of his spare time as it had done at Eton. At Sandhurst as a cadet he captained the Cricket and Football XIs as well as the athletics team against the RMA Woolwich and his final accolade before being commissioned was the award of the prestigious Physical Training Prize in July 1912.

  He was appointed to the Grenadier Guards in September 1912 and quickly established himself in the regiment as a class cricketer. He had represented Surrey in 1911 in the Minor Counties Championship while he was still at Sandhurst and became a regular in the Household Brigade Cricket XI playing alongside other good cricketers such as Bernard Gordon Lennox and Cholmeley Symes-Thompson. His last game had been a month before being mobilized when the Household Brigade drew with the Royal Green Jackets in a close run match at Burton Court. Shortly before he left for France he had become engaged to be married.

  For the two new subalterns there was little if any time to adapt to their new surroundings, on the day they arrived the battalion lost another two men killed and five wounded from shellfire. Predictably Gordon Lennox neglects to mention in his diary his own near escapes from German shellfire. With casualties a daily occurrence, there were inevitable occasions when he and others had close encounters. On the same morning that Harry Parnell had a lucky escape from an 8-inch shell, Gordon Lennox had a similar experience. Taking advantage of the sunshine he had spread his greatcoat on the back of the trench to dry out and had not gone more than two or three paces up the trench when ‘there was a terrific explosion.’9 As he wrote later that day:

  ‘My coat had the right arm taken off at the shoulder and the left sleeve cut to bits and it was only a yard off me, but I am thankful to say I was not inside the coat at the time.’

  As the fighting on the A
isne became increasingly bogged down in stalemate, the German and Allied forces began extending the line northwards in an attempt to outflank each other in what became known as ‘the race to the sea’. Early in October the race had had reached a line between St Omer and Hazebrouck and Sir John French had decided that the BEF should be moved to the extreme left of the Allied line. On the Aisne his three army corps were hemmed in, a situation in which he could not use his cavalry effectively, added to which the British IV Corps were about to land at Zeebrugge. Accordingly, after consultation with Churchill and Joffre, the decision was made that the British should move from their positions on the Aisne and concentrate in Belgium on the left flank of the Allied line.

  As usual the cavalry being the most mobile were the first to move. 3 Cavalry Brigade, which included 4 /Hussars, was one of the first British units to arrive in the area and was soon providing advanced patrols. Ordered to take the Mont des Cats to the west of Boeschepe on 12 October, C Squadron under the command of Captain John Gatacre came under fire on the southern slopes of the hill. Gatacre was killed and in a brave attempt to go to his squadron commander’s aid, Francis Levita also lost his life.10

  Waiting impatiently in the Aisne trenches for their turn to move, I Corps were the last to leave for Flanders, Bernard Gordon Lennox recorded the handover of the Grenadiers trenches at Chavonne to their French allies on 12 October:

  ‘They turned up at 11.40 pm and took a long time to carry out the relief. They only brought 150 men and one officer – all there were of a company of Terriers [Territorials]. The officer was very funny. One thing they would find hard and that is to fire out of our loopholes, as they were not of Guardsmen stature.’

  By the time the final units of I Corps had detrained at Hazebrouck on 19 October, the last British Army formation to leave England in 1914 had already been deployed by Sir John French east of Ypres along a line that straddled the main Ypres to Menin Road. IV Corps under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Henry Rawlinson, had landed at Zeebrugge in the first week of October to assist in the defence of Antwerp. However, events overtook them and by the time they arrived in Belgium the city was already falling into German hands and IV Corps was instead ordered to assist the westward retirement of the Belgian army. IV Corps was different in composition, in that it only hosted one infantry division, the 7th Division, which was commanded by Major General Thompson Capper. The ‘Immortal 7th’ as the division came to be known, was formed by mobilizing regular army units from their scattered locations around the Empire, some of which had not arrived in England until late in September. The other half of IV Corps was the 3rd Cavalry Division which assembled with their infantry counterparts in the New Forest at Ludgershall during August and September 1914.

  It was at Ludgershall that Second Lieutenant William Petersen and 2/Life Guards joined Lieutenant Regy Wyndham and 1/Life Guards in 7 Cavalry Brigade. Also serving in 1/Life Guards was Second Lieutenant Howard St George. Howard’s brother, George, had joined his grandfather in America in 1913 and was working for J P Morgan, leaving his sister and younger brother in England. Howard St George was Gazetted to 1/Life Guards as a probationary officer in January 1914 having left Eton the year before and had only been with the regiment a mere six months before it was mobilized. He had been a member of Eton College OTC but as a probationary officer who had received no formal military training at Sandhurst or in the Militia, he would effectively be learning the trade of soldiering ‘on the job’ and over the remaining five weeks of his life Howard would be learning a great deal about soldiering.

  The 3rd Cavalry Division consisted of 6 and 7 Cavalry Brigades, each composed of three cavalry regiments. 7 Cavalry Brigade, which, to all intents and purposes, was the Household Brigade, consisted of 1/ and 2 /Life Guards and the Royal Horse Guards, their brigade commander was Brigadier General Charles Kavanagh, a cavalryman of some pedigree having commanded the 10th Royal Hussars for two years between 1904 and 1906. His choice of Brigade Major fell on Norman Neill a 34-year-old captain in the 13th Hussars who had just completed the Army Staff College course and had been held back from rejoining his regiment at Meerut in India when war was declared. Neill was another regular officer who had been commissioned from the Militia; he first saw active service in 1902 in the South African War and in 1910 was briefly adjutant of his regiment before being promoted to captain in July of that year. Neill was an interesting character in that after leaving Harrow in 1897 he began life as an artist and studied at the Slade School of Art in London. Yet by 1901 he was a lieutenant in the 5th Militia Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers and by March 1902 he had clearly decided upon a career in the army as he was Gazetted into the 19th Hussars during his service in South Africa.

  Also at Ludgershall was Alexis de Gunzburg. Having received notification that his British nationality papers had been accepted, he had now rejoined the Royal Horse Guards as an interpreter. Each regiment in 7 Cavalry Brigade had at least one official interpreter on its strength and despite the fact that many of the officers, and indeed one or two of the men, spoke French, de Gunzburg’s fluency in both French and German would clearly have been an asset. De Gunzburg was appointed as a non-combatant officer; he had received no military training and consequently was not expected to bear arms. In many ways he was typical of the mood of the time, determined not to miss this great adventure and anxious to play his part before it was all over.

  Another fluent French and German speaker was Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Wilson who was making his last minute preparations to leave London to join the Royal Horse Guards. With him was his brother Herbert ‘Bertie’ Wilson, now serving as a captain in the regiment. Lady Sarah was already in France running her volunteer hospital, the Hotel Christol, in Bolougne which was one of a number of such hospitals established and funded by society ladies in the early months of the war when every bed was of value. What she could not have known is that her departure to France in September 1914 marked the last occasion she would see her husband alive. In a short letter to her before he left their Mayfair residence he gave her news of his impending embarkation:

  ‘We are probably off within the next few days from Southampton. I expect we shall leave camp for that place either tomorrow or Monday. I hope everything is satisfactorily settled at your hospital.’

  He wasn’t too far out in his estimation; in actual fact it was Tuesday, 5 October when IV Corps left Ludgershall for Belgium, an occasion that was recorded by Regy Wyndham in his diary which he began writing after boarding the SS Indore early on the Wednesday morning:

  ‘Received orders to march to the quay and embark at 1.30pm. Tremendous cheering in the town. Cigarettes and food and flowers given to the men as they passed.’

  Five days later they first heard the rumour from retreating Belgian soldiers that Antwerp had fallen and then came the news that they were tojoin the main BEF force which was assembling at Ypres. Their place in the First Battle of Ypres was thus assured.

  Posted initially to 3/Grenadier Guards, 19- year-old Second Lieutenant John Lee Steere finally left England on 16 October sailing on the SS Normania. Landing at Le Havre, he spent the next thirty-eight hours on a ‘painfully slow train that stopped at every station’. Their destination was Number 2 Infantry Base at St Nazaire which, John noted in one of his first letters home, now placed him ‘further from the front now than we were in England.’ His arrival at St Nazaire reunited him with the previous draft of officers and men that had left for France before him and whom he noted, with some dismay, had been there for three weeks already. Initially their quarters were in tents some three miles outside the town but later on the 23 October, he wrote home to say:

  ‘I am now living in the town, in a real house with a real roof over my head, an absolute luxury after living in a tent. Hot water is available and an excellent café for one’s meals exactly opposite.’

  Their quarters were now in the Place du Basin away from the main camp, but this splendid isolation did not relieve them from the daily route march whi
ch he described as ‘wearisome, we use the same old road every day and with heavy kit.’ His frustration at what he saw as ‘sitting around doing very little’ was soon to pass. On 29 October, much to his delight, John was given notice that he would be now be going to 2/Grenadier Guards, which had the added bonus of being the same battalion as his cousin, Captain Cholmeley Symes-Thompson. John Lee Steere had three cousins on his mother’s side who were then serving in the BEF. The eldest, 33-year-old Symes-Thompson, was at St Nazaire collecting a draft of men for the battalion when John arrived from England and despite his imminent return to the front they had both managed to catch up on family news.

  Symes-Thompson had been in the army since 1899 when, as an 18-year-old, he joined the 3rd Militia Battalion of the Yorkshire Light Infantry after leaving Harrow School. Securing a permanent commission in 1901, he was appointed second lieutenant in 1/Grenadier Guards. His father, Edmund, was an eminent Victorian physician and academic and it was his grandfather, Theophilus Symes-Thompson, who introduced the stethoscope into English medical practice in 1828. Symes-Thompson had fought with the 2nd Battalion since they had landed in France in August and had only relatively recently married Grace Churchill in January 1912 at the Guards Chapel, Wellington Barracks. She and their thirteen-month-old daughter Sibil were still living at 43, Argyll Street in South Kensington, no doubt anxious for his safe return.

  Having marched in the retreat from Mons and spent several weeks fighting on the Aisne, Symes-Thompson was already war weary. What he privately thought about the obvious impatience of his younger cousin to get to the front line is anyone’s guess, but what he couldn’t know was that in less than three weeks he and John Lee Steere would be the only officers left in Number 2 Company. There is a hint in John’s last letter home to his mother before leaving St Nazaire that he was now focusing on the task ahead of him:

 

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