Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Cemetery

by Jerry Murland

  Three days later the brigade was assuming the inevitable; Gordon Wilson adding a postscript to his letter to Lady Sarah:

  ‘I fear poor Worsley has been killed in our affair at Zandvoorde. A squadron of the 1st under Hugh Grosvenor, and one of the 2nd, under Vandeleur are still missing.’

  Once the Zandvoorde Ridge had fallen and 7 Cavalry Brigade had retired to reform behind the 6 Cavalry Brigade and elements of the Blues, there was a lull in the battle which allowed reinforcements to be drawn in from neighbouring infantry brigades. Von Fabeck’s attack of 30 October had pushed the British back to a line which now ran from Gheluvelt to the corner of the Ypres-Comines Canal at Hollebeke. Douglas Haig was quick to realize the next few hours would be critical and in reinforcing this line summoned help from Allenby’s Cavalry Corps. One of these hastily despatched cavalry regiments was 4/Hussars along with Lieutenant Alfred Schuster.

  We last left 4/Hussars at Mont des Cats where Michael Stocks’ cousin, Francis Levita, was killed during the morning of 12 October 1914 near the Trappist monastery. Another casualty on 13 October was Lieutenant Raymond Lonsdale who was a school friend of John Lee Steere. The two boys had been in the same house at Eton together and although Raymond was a year older and joined 4/Hussars in 1913, they had kept in contact. Raymond Lonsdale died of his wounds at Boulogne on 29 October 1914, the day before John Lee Steere left St Nazaire for the front line to join his battalion.

  On the morning of 30 October the Hussars were at Hollebeke; dug in along a line running south of the village from the Ypres-Comines Canal along the Linde road. From these trenches they were able to observe the attack taking place on the Zandvoorde Ridge and although they initially thought they would also be coming under attack, it soon became apparent that, for the time being, the main assault was directed against Zandvoorde. At 12.00 pm they were relieved by the 129th Duke of Connaught’s Own Baluchis and ordered up to Zandvoorde to stand by for a counter-attack with 3/Hussars and the Greys.6 Even after they had assembled on the Klein Zillebeke road the overall strategic situation in the area was still far from clear. Von Fabeck’s attack had torn several gaps in the British front line south of the Menin Road and judging by the succession of contradictory orders that were received by 4/Hussars in the space of an hour, there was some uncertainty at command level as to where exactly the reserves should be dispatched in order to stem the tide of the German advance.

  At about midday German artillery on the newly won Zandvoorde Ridge began to direct its fire to support the infantry assault that was being mounted against Hollebeke. By 1.15 pm the Baluchis and the 5th Lancers were being shelled out from their positions just south of Hollebeke and were falling back on the second line trenches along the line of the canal. In receipt of their final set of orders for the day 4/Hussars now found themselves galloping back to Hollebeke to defend the northern side of the canal and by 2.00 pm were installed in the very trenches that they had dug themselves three days earlier. It had been a frustrating day for the regiment thus far, but once the horse lines had been established in the rear, Alfred Schuster and C Squadron took over the trenches on the right of B Squadron, which was between the railway line and the Hollebeke Road.

  While the regiment had been up at Zandvoorde 4/Hussars’ machine-gun section under Lieutenant Kenneth North had been in action all morning in support of the troops at Hollebeke, holding up the German infantry with his two machine guns for over an hour after the last British troops had left the village. When he eventually received the order to retire at 2.00 pm and rejoin the regiment on the canal, the enemy infantry were just 100 yards away, nevertheless it still gave him sufficient time to make his escape, with the guns being transported in a wheelbarrow. He and his men had effectively held up the best part of a brigade of German infantry for most of the morning, which was just as well, as at midday on 30 October at least a mile of the canal line had been left completely unoccupied by British troops for a good hour or more.

  Meanwhile the German gunners had managed to bring several field guns up into Hollebeke itself and were firing on some of the Hussars’ positions from a range of 700 yards. Just before it became dark, German infantry began moving up from Hollebeke along the edge of the canal towards the trenches held by B and C Squadrons. While their movements were initially cloaked by the undergrowth, once they lost their cover the Hussars were able to prevent the attack from developing with a very accurate fusillade of rifle and machine-gun fire. At 6.30 pm the bridge over the canal between the two squadrons was partly blown just before orders were received to keep it intact as French troops intended to use it in their attack the next morning!

  With the bridge out of commission, the front line positions settled down and the Hussars were serenaded by German bands playing in Hollebeke Chateâu. Alfred Schuster had been with the regiment for just over five weeks and as a troop commander was now well established in C Squadron. Back in England his two brothers had not been slow in volunteering for military service. Edgar was now a second lieutenant in the Wessex(Hants) Royal Garrison Artillery and was about to leave for the front line with his battery. Edgar had married in 1905 and he and his wife Beatrice had settled in Sandown on the Isle of Wight with their two children Aubrey, 5, and Helen, who had just had her first birthday. Beatrice must have hoped that her husband’s patriotic zeal had not clouded his judgement; his talents lay in the academic haven of the medical research field, not on the battlefield. At 35-years-old, Edgar was not a particularly strong individual and his hitherto academic lifestyle was poor preparation for the rigours of being a gunner subaltern.

  Alfred was best man at his elder brother George’s wedding in December 1908 when he married Gwendolen Parker, the daughter of Lord Justice Parker and after resigning as Liberal candidate for North Cumberland, George had been assisted by one of Alfred’s university friends, the Hon Arthur Villiers, in obtaining a commission into his local yeomanry regiment, the Oxfordshire Hussars. Arthur Villiers was a lieutenant with the regiment and had been in France since 19 September and had already seen action earlier in the month, the regiment earning the distinction of being the first Territorial Force regiment to be brought into action.

  The morning of 31 October opened with a heavy artillery barrage which continued for most of the day and accounted for Alfred’s squadron commander Captain Frederick Hunt, who was killed while going to the aid of a badly wounded Kenneth North. The promised French attack at 11.00 am never really got beyond the Hussars’ trenches but they nevertheless remained on hand to help repel a much more determined German infantry attack which was launched in mid-afternoon. After dark the regiment, with the exception of A Squadron which remained for a further night, handed over their trenches to the French and 1/Life Guards and departed to St Eloi and billets. Regy Wyndham and his troop of Life Guards arrived amid very heavy shellfire but managed to get into position without casualties. After a very cold night during which they had little sleep the artillery barrage continued next morning:

  ‘An awful morning of shellfire during which Brassey and Anderson were hit, and Clowes’ haversack smashed, and his gaiter cut by a big shell bursting over them, the French came to relieve us. While we were retiring the Germans in the chateâu opened up on us. Corp. Webb was hit, Barrington was killed.’

  The fight in which 4/Hussars were engaged at the Hollebeke canal turn was one of many local engagements that took place during the last two days of October 1914. However, the strategic significance of the cavalry action at Hollebeke is perhaps not always fully recognized. Had the canal turn been overwhelmed by the repeated German artillery and infantry attacks, the British line at Klein Zillebeke would have inevitably succumbed, putting the integrity of the whole southeastern corner of the Salient in doubt. It is a fitting tribute to the resolve and firepower of the British cavalrymen that they held their positions and with the assistance of their French allies prevented a disaster.

  While Alfred Schuster had been fighting at Hollebeke, General Allenby had been in contact with Sir John
French on 30 October with the news that the cavalry corps, which stretched from Hollebeke, south to Wytschaete and Messines, was unlikely to hold its positions for much longer without reinforcements. This rather disquieting communication resulted in four battalions being dispatched from II Corps to bolster the cavalry’s positions along the Messines Ridge. Wytschaete itself was held by the 415 men of the Composite Household Cavalry Regiment which included amongst its number two of Regy Wyndham’s brothers, Captain Edward Wyndham and Lieutenant Everard Wyndham. Opposite them, and outnumbering them by some twelve to one, were the XXIV and II Bavarian Corps, considered to be some of the best fighting men in the German Army.

  The desperate situation on the Messines Ridge and the chronic shortage of troops on the ground was the deciding factor in bringing the London Scottish into action on 31 October 1914. The London Scottish, or correctly, the 14th Battalion, County of London Regiment, had a history reaching back to 1798 when a militia of Scots living in London was formed in response to the Napoleonic threat of invasion. After the South African War, where the regiment fought with distinction, the volunteers became part of the new Territorial Force under the Haldane reforms of 1908. Even before this, the regiment was very much a London organization and essentially Scottish in character with many of the rank and file drawn from the professional classes. After 1914, when the shortage of officers became acute in the Territorial and New Army battalions, the London Scottish supplied a large number of candidates for commissioning. In fact by November 1915 they had provided 1,200 officers for other units.

  At the end of July 1914 Private William Gibson arrived at Ludgershall Camp to begin his two week annual camp. It was pouring with rain and the battalion was soaking wet as it arrived at the tented camp that had been prepared for them. Barely fifteen minutes after lights out was sounded, they received orders to return immediately to London to await mobilization, the annual camp was over before it had begun and two days later Britain declared war. Events now moved swiftly for the Scottish. On 12 September the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel G A Malcolm, received embarkation orders for the following week. All leave was cancelled and the day before they left for Southampton the battalion was issued with the Mark 1 Lee Enfield rifle.

  Expecting to join the BEF who were fighting on the Aisne there was great disappointment when the battalion’s eight companies were split up and assigned to ‘lines of communication’ duties across northern France. William Gibson and F Company were dispatched to Le Mans, arriving after a seventeen-hour rail journey in cattle trucks. Le Mans was the base for a number of stationary British military hospitals and the men of F Company were soon unloading the wounded and dying who arrived daily by train from the front. Many were in a pitiful condition when they arrived at Le Mans after spending several days travelling in overcrowded hospital trains. If the young soldiers of the London Scottish hadn’t already considered the reality of war they most certainly would have done after the disconcerting experience of observing it by unloading hospital trains on a daily basis

  On 25 October Colonel Malcolm was ordered to reassemble his battalion at St Omer; at last it looked as though they were going to be deployed on the front line. By 29 October the battalion was ready and marched to the outskirts of St Omer in the pouring rain where they were met by a fleet of London buses and their civilian drivers who were to transport them to Ypres. The battalion had no baggage, transport or machine guns and was still armed with the Mark 1 Lee Enfield rifle. Unbelievably the Mark 1 rifle’s incompatibility with the new Mark VII ammunition would not be discovered until shortly before the battalion went into action on 31 October. The new ammunition caused the rifle mechanism to jam, forcing the soldier to load the weapon with a single round each time it was fired. The nine-hour journey, particularly for those on the top deck of the open top buses, was a miserable one, but eventually, in the early hours of Friday 30 October, wet, cold and hungry, they reached Ypres.

  Just before first light on 31 October 1914, the London Scottish companies paraded on the St Eloi road. Brigadier General Cecil Bingham’s 4 Cavalry Brigade, now fighting as dismounted troops, was struggling to hold its positions on the Messines Ridge and the Scottish were hurriedly brought up to reinforce the cavalrymen. As the battalion moved down the road towards Wytschaete the local inhabitants were in full flight, streaming away from the battlefield amid the bursting shells that were reducing the town to ruin. Advancing through the gun lines the battalion initially found shelter in the Bois de l‘Enfer before being instructed to move up in support of 4/Dragoon Guards. Their positions were marked by two farms just west of the Wytschaete to Messines road and a prominent windmill on the crest of the ridge. William Gibson and the men of F Company were held in reserve on the high ground east of the Bois de l’Enfer, while the remainder of the battalion dug in along the road.

  The German attack began at 9.00 pm accompanied by loud cheering and martial music. The Scottish held their nerve and despite the difficulties experienced with their weapons, poured an accurate and devastating fire into the dense mass of advancing Bavarian infantry. Row upon row were shot down in front of the British lines, which in itself was quite a feat of arms bearing in mind they had no machine guns and a large percentage of the battalion’s rifles would only fire one round at a time. German casualties would have been heavier still had the Scottish been able to fire more effectively. The battalion war diary noted afterwards that some fifty per cent of the battalion’s rifles were ineffective owing to faulty magazines. At midnight an artillery bombardment announced a second infantry attack. By now the burning farm houses and the blazing outline of the windmill together with a full moon provided the Scottish with enough light to repel rush after rush of German infantrymen with their rifle fire; a magnificent feat given the condition of many of the rifles. Private L Wilkins later recalled how useful the light from the burning buildings was:

  ‘A blazing barn in their rear enabled us to see them very plainly, so we opened fire, being able to use our sights fairly well. We brought a lot of them down in front of this barn. Soon they began to get very close, for by sheer weight of numbers they had evidently broken through the trench in front. An officer ordered us to cease fire and to wait until the Germans got quite close … Then the order came to fire and we simply poured lead into them.’

  Just when they thought the night’s work was over, a determined German attack with the bayonet pushed the forward elements of the Scottish back, opening up a gap in the line between the Scottish and the left flank of the cavalry. It was a critical point in the battle and the Scottish counter-attack was one that propelled it onto the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. The counter-attack was the work of the battalion reserve which of course included Private William Gibson who was fighting alongside his comrades in F Company. The war diary recorded the event with little fuss:

  ‘About 2.00 am the German attack came past and through our trenches and they were driven back by our reserve company in a counter-attack. This counter-attack was assisted by a portion of C Coy [company] who had earlier been withdrawn from the trenches.’

  The Times was a little more enthusiastic:

  ‘It is a special event because it forms an epoch in the military history of the British Empire, and marks the first time that a complete unit of our Territorial Army has been thrown into the fight alongside its sister units of the Regulars.’

  It was indeed a special event and the Scottish had performed beyond expectations but it was not the end of the fighting. Some time after 3.00 am the Germans broke through again, this time on the Scottish left and with no reserves left to throw into the fight Colonel Malcolm had no choice but to retire to avoid being overwhelmed. By first light large numbers of the enemy had worked round both flanks of the battalion with machine guns and the Scottish retirement was carried out under a murderous crossfire as they pulled back across the Steenbeek valley towards Wulverghem. The regiment had been ‘blooded’ in what can only be described as a gallant but futile attempt to s
tabilize the British line clinging to the ridge.

  1/Life Guards squadron of the Household Cavalry Composite Regiment was holding positions just north of the crossroads at Wytschaete. They were fortunate in that one of their three machine guns was still serviceable, which helped keep the German infantry at bay until the ammunition began to run out. Forced into a fighting withdrawal they mounted several counter-attacks with the bayonet, each time driving the Bavarian infantry back with the ferocity of their charges. It was during one of these bayonet charges that Regy Wyndham’s brother Edward, already wounded once, was wounded for a second time. By first light the Germans had fought their way into the market place at Wytschaete and had effectively outflanked the Composite Regiment, forcing a retirement in the direction of Kemmel.

  The Messines Ridge was lost and would not be retaken until June 1917. For William Gibson and the territorial soldiers of the London Scottish their fight on the ridge had been a brutal first engagement involving hard close-quarter fighting made all the more traumatic by defective weapons. As always there had been a price; the full extent of which began to unfold at the roll call of officers and men near Wulverghem later on 1 November. Their casualties amounted to just under fifty percent of their strength; 394 officers and men were listed as killed, missing or wounded. Those that had survived marched back to La Clytte where F Company found some respite from the weather by sheltering in pigsties before the battalion was ordered to fight alongside Lord Cavan’s 4(Guards) Brigade. The battle for Ypres was reaching its conclusion and the Scottish were about to join John Lee Steere and the Grenadiers in the fight for Zwarteleen.