Teenage Tommy

by Richard van Emden

  The whole action can’t have lasted much more than three minutes and as the fighting abated, the order was given to cease fire and withdraw. As the troopers ran back to collect their horses, I noticed a dark green chauffeur-driven limousine pull up outside the gateway to the field and, though the fighting had scarcely stopped, out stepped a young, fair-haired woman who proceeded to walk over and speak to the dismounted Captain Hornby. It transpired that she was a nurse and she asked, in the light of what was already taking place, if she might be allowed to go on duty at Mons.

  Editor

  In later years Hornby professed that he had no recollection of this occurrence. Perhaps too elated at the Dragoons’ obvious success to register this strange incident, he was aware that the 4th Dragoons had more than fulfilled their brief by capturing some prisoners as well as giving the Germans a sharp rebuff. Bar minor flesh wounds, the Dragoons had had no casualties and later they were to ride back victorious with a cart full of lances and at least three prisoners.

  Ben

  We never knew the extent of German casualties, although as we rode back to Casteau, a civilian ambulance passed us to render the Germans any assistance it could. As far as I am aware, we came out of the action with three prisoners, all suffering from sword wounds. We suffered no casualties except among the horses, which included the one with a bullet in her stomach. She managed to bring her man out, but she was finished, being poleaxed in a village nearby and handed over to a Belgian butcher.

  Editor

  The delighted Dragoons had captured the first German prisoners of the war, though they were not Uhlans as Ben (and many others) have mistakenly described them, but troopers from the 4th Cuirassiers, 9th Cavalry Division. They were not all tough, regular soldiers like the British Expeditionary Force, rather, many were no more than ‘Young Bavarian Ploughboys in German uniforms,’ according to Arthur Osburn, the chief medical officer attached to the 4th Dragoon Guards. Later, he wrote about the incident. In his book, Unwilling Passenger, he confirms Ben’s estimate of the number of German prisoners, for he met them. ‘I could speak a few words of German and as I dressed their wounds I asked them what they thought of the War. They said they did not know what to make of it, nor what it was all about. They had, they said, been called up for military training only a few weeks before the War broke out... Apparently they had all shown very little fight.’ One admitted that ‘he himself was very pleased he had been taken prisoner and would not have to take any further part in the war’.

  Ben

  Naturally the whole Squadron was alive with talk about the fight. According to one tale being bandied about, the Squadron’s fencing champion, 1st Troop’s SSM Sharpe, had faced one Uhlan, parried the German’s lance thrust before swinging his sword, and chopped all the Uhlan’s fingers off.

  Other stories no doubt changed with the telling. One concerns Thomas’ first shot. To my mind, he set his sights at 350 yards and saw his first shot ricochet off the road. Only then did he up his sights, shouting ‘Four hundred yards, give the bastards hell’. I can’t say I saw his first shot but he was in my Troop and that was the talk at that time.

  Editor

  There has been a certain amount of confusion as to the exact sequence and timing of events. There is disagreement over the time, 6.30 or 7am, disagreement over when Thomas actually fired the first shot, and even disagreement as to who fired down the road at the 4th Troop: retreating German cavalry, or a group of German cyclists.8

  After such a lengthy passage of time, the truth is difficult to ascertain. The official history states that as the German patrol turned and retreated, so ‘the first shot by the British Army in the war was fired by Corporal Thomas’. But this is not supported by Thomas’ own words. In 1939 Thomas gave this version of events. ‘My Troop was ordered to follow on in support and we galloped through the village of Casteau. We could see the first Troop using their swords and scattering the Uhlans left and right. We caught them up. Captain Hornby gave the order, ‘4th Troop dismounted action’. We found cover behind a château wall and possibly because I was rather noted for my quick movements and athletic ability, I was first in action.’

  C Squadron withdrew across the Mons-Condé canal to a point south east of Mons, where they linked up with the rest of the Regiment. The men were rightfully jubilant as they paraded past the rest of the cavalry division, A Squadron’s Lieutenant Chance noting in his diary that he saw the prisoners that afternoon as Bridges rode his Squadron ‘among the chestnut trees at the foot of the Bois La Haut ... [where] a few townsfolk joined us to stare at the Germans’.

  The prisoners had been put under the guard of Corporal Regan, who with Private Tilney rode back to the canal which they found guarded by a Troop of the Queen’s Bays. It was there that Tilney ‘recognised a chum, and he asked me where we had been. I pulled his leg, said we had been out to fetch a sample, and if they saw any chaps like these they were to shoot them, as they were Germans. When we reached the Regimental H.Q. Colonel Mullens asked “Who caught this one?” I stuck out my chest and said “I did, sir.” He told me I was a damned fool, and then the second-in-command, Major Solly Flood, told me a few more things. (The order was that prisoners should be searched, stripped and turned away to avoid dealing with them and so hampering the advance guard.) The C.O. said “Take them down to Brigade H.Q.”, which we did. Brigadier General de Lisle asked the same question as the Colonel, and we stood there whilst an interpreter asked a few questions.’

  Editor

  After the Dragoons’ action, the following Operational Order was issued by Brigadier General de Lisle:

  ‘The Brigadier desires to congratulate the 4th Dragoon Guards on the spirited action of two Troops of the Squadron on reconnaissance, which resulted in establishing the moral superiority of our cavalry, from the first, over the German cavalry.’

  Extended note: The chauffeur-driven car.

  The scene could almost be described as surreal: out of a sharp, if short, engagement suddenly appears this lady of obviously wealthy means, putting herself in immediate danger of being killed or wounded by any resumption of fire from German soldiers still just up the road. The car had came from the château, for Ben noted that it pointed down the road, away from the Germans. No other memoir, published article or book refers to this incident, though at the time other troopers must have watched it with some interest For this reason one might doubt the story’s veracity, but for the fact that Ben was to meet this lady twenty-five years later. The occasion was the unveiling of a plinth commemorating the Dragoons’ action that day.9 Some thirty-five veterans attended the unveiling, including Captain Hornby, while among the onlookers from the village, Ben recognised the lady and when he went to speak to her, she recounted her version of events.

  She was Louise Donnay de Casteau, the youngest of seven children and sister of Lieutenant-General Gaston Donnay de Casteau, commander of the Belgian cavalry during the First World War. In August 1914, Louise was about thirty-five years old and was indeed a trained nurse, in which capacity she served throughout the war before returning to the family’s château.

  Apart from the disruption of war, in which she lost a brother, Emmanuel, life later became tranquil, even boring for Louise. She helped bring up the many children of the large Donnay family, remaining at the château for the next thirty years. She never married and in 1950 moved to Paris, where she lived until her death in the early 1960s.

  The château was built in the 1790s and was one of two in Casteau owned by the family. As the British retreated from Mons, it was briefly occupied by the Germans, a minor inconvenience as it turned out compared with the four years of German occupation during the Second World War. In later years the chateau (known as La Roquette) fell into disrepair and with spiralling maintenance costs was finally demolished in the late 1970s. While the family still owns the land, little remains except for the keeper’s lodge by the main gate, the stables, and the red brick wall behind which Ben helped hide the horses.

  NO
TES

  1. Private, later Corporal, Tilney became one of the most popular and best known faces in the Regiment. Transferring to the 4th from the 2nd Dragoon Guards in 1904, he went to the reserve in 1908, before rejoining at the outbreak of war in 1914. He was made a Sergeant in September and was wounded at Neuve Chapelle in October. In 1915, after becoming separated from his Regiment, he led a mixed bag of French troopers in a charge, routing the enemy, for which he later received the Croix de Guerre with Palms. In 1916 he was awarded the DCM for repeated gallantry. He survived the war, joining the army of occupation in Cologne, before being demobilised in April 1919.

  2. In 1964 The Dragoons revisited the village of Casteau, where they met Ben Gunn, an Englishman who had lived in Casteau almost all his life. He wore in his lapel a cap badge belonging to the 4th Dragoon Guards, and said he was given it during the war by troopers of the Regiment. The soldiers, he said, were picking fruit from the trees in his garden when he engaged them in conversation, giving them whisky-laced coffee.

  3. According to Tilney, it was a look-out who first gave notice of the Germans’ imminent arrival. ‘Vincent (3rd Troop) came round the comer. He was awfully excited, and said to Major Bridges: “They’re coming! they’re coming!’”

  4. An anonymous account of the first action written in the Regimental Magazine cites SSM Rowlatt’s horse as showing itself on the road ‘giving the game away’.

  5. Hornby was awarded the DSO for his action, and received the medal at a formal investiture at St James’s Palace on February 16th, 1915.

  6. Drummer Thomas undoubtedly fired the first shot of the BEF, but only on Continental Europe. The British soldier to fire the ‘first shot’ in the First World War was RSM Alaji Grunshi, DCM MM of the Gold Coast Regiment, at the capture of Togoland on August 6th, 1914.

  7. Swallow remained with the Regiment until November 30th when the 4th Dragoons’ War Diary merely states, ‘Weather mild with occasional heavy showers of rain. Lieut Swallow left for England’.

  8. According to Tom Bridges, in his book, Alarms And Excursions, published in 1938, it was a battalion of cyclists in position on the crest of the road that had halted Hornby’s men.

  9. It had been the Mayor of Casteau, not the Regiment, who had originally suggested that a memorial stone should be placed in the village. His idea was to order a stone not dissimilar to the metre-high demarcation stones which were laid after the First War to show the farthest extent of the German advance into France and Belgium. The Regiment was asked if it wished to help, which it did with aplomb, so that on August 20th 1939 a far more prominent plinth was unveiled, resplendent with a bronze plaque recording the events of twenty-five years before. The ceremony was a grand affair with the Belgians laying on military bands, and sumptuous hospitality in Mons for the thirty-five veterans and many other serving soldiers from the Regiment who were present that day. The Commandant of the local Belgian garrison was also present at the ceremony, as were many of Casteau’s villagers. Major-General Mullens, who had led the Regiment to France, unveiled the memorial by removing a large Union Jack draped across the plinth. Wreaths were laid and the two national anthems played.

  Of the other veterans, Captain Hornby was present as were well-known ‘personalities’ including ex-sergeant Tilney and ex-trumpeter Patterson. The two notable figures missing from the occasion were Corporal Thomas and Major Bridges. Thomas, who for many years after the war had been a well-known commissionaire at a cinema in Brighton, had died in February of that year, his widow and daughter attending the ceremony. Bridges was seriously ill with chronic anaemia in Brighton and died shortly afterwards. With the Second World War breaking out just two weeks later, nothing was seen of the plinth until after that war; however, despite heavy bombing by the Allies in the area of Mons, the monument remained undamaged, save for one bullet fired at the plaque on the plinth by a disgruntled German officer in September 1941.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Audregnies and the Retreat from Mons

  Editor

  On the night of August 22nd, the Dragoons made their way through a countryside of small mining villages, before they reached the outskirts of Thulin at 11pm, where they halted for the night. The next day, August 23rd, during a hot and sultry day, the battle of Mons began in earnest. The 4th Dragoon Guards had moved forward to the outskirts of the town. Less than 1,000 yards ahead of the Regiment, the clear, unmistakeable crackle of rifle fire began, growing in intensity and sounding, as Osburn wrote, like an ‘October bonfire into which a cartload of dry holly boughs has been suddenly thrown’. One Squadron was despatched to help escort some artillery into action. However, in the main the Dragoons were held back to await the outcome of the infantry’s fire fight, waiting and watching, as a trickle and then a stream of walking wounded retreated from the front line, along the Mons-Condé canal. As the bursts of shrapnel were heard overhead, the Dragoons moved to a field a few hundred yards to the left and dismounted. As they waited, the road bordering the field gradually began to fill with Belgian families pouring out of Mons with whatever belongings they could carry.

  The British infantry of II Corps fought heroically against overwhelming odds, as German troops tried to force a crossing of the canal, only to be rebuffed with heavy casualties. Eventually by weight of numbers they crossed east of Mons at Obourg and, by late afternoon, had slowly begun to push the British infantry out of Mons. The day’s fighting had cost the Germans dear, and by evening they were able only to hold the positions they had won, making no real effort to renew the attack until the following morning. Meanwhile the heat of the 23rd gave way to the cool of the evening and to rain which came down with increasing intensity, soaking everyone including the Dragoons, waiting, exposed in their cornfield. The Regiment was to stand to all night, listening, as Lieutenant Chance wrote in his diary, to the slow tap of the German Maxim machine guns, and watching the red glow of the flames rising from Thulin.

  If the 22nd had belonged to the cavalry and the 23rd to the infantry, August 24th belonged to both. It was the first day of the retreat from Mons, and it dawned bright and sunny, promising another warm, clear day. The order to retire had been given at about 1am, and later that morning the 4th Dragoons were sent to cover the retirement of General Sir John Fergusson’s 5th Division from around the villages of Thulin and Audregnies.

  At around 6am, and as a prelude to the day’s fighting, the 9th Lancers and 18th Hussars contested the northern approaches to the smouldering town of Thulin with units from the enemy’s 7th Division, retiring south as the full weight of the German advance was felt.

  Later, at around 10am, L Battery of the RHA shelled relatively small numbers of German troops seen advancing southwards from the same village. These troops had quickly retreated, and as ‘L’ was itself coming under sporadic fire from German artillery, the battery began to retire with the rest of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, until ‘L’ was ordered to a new position on high ground, 600 yards south of the Audregnies-Elouges road.

  The order to fall-back had been given by Allenby in view of the overwhelming forces ahead of him. It was to be a staged retirement, the main body of Fergusson’s 5th Division moving south along three roads east of Elouges, with the 2nd Cavalry Brigade acting as the Division’s rearguard. By mid-morning everything seemed to be going according to plan; the Independent 19th Brigade had already pulled back towards the village of Angre at 10am, and now the 5th Division’s 13th and 14th Brigades were following suit, covering each other’s retreat with little difficulty.

  Only at around 11am did Fergusson begin to realise the ominous threat to his left flank. A considerable gap of around 4,000 yards existed between Elouges and Audregnies, and reports from the Royal Flying Corps clearly showed that huge columns of German troops were heading southwards in an unstoppable tide, and that, more immediately around Quiévrain and behind the Valenciennes-Mons road, an entire army corps, the IVth, was preparing to advance, supported by artillery. In response, Fergusson sent forward his only reserves, consi
sting of 15th Brigade’s 1st Cheshires, the 1st Norfolks, and the 119th Battery Royal Field Artillery; their job was to hold back an enveloping attack to be launched with the full weight of the German 7th and 8th Divisions, some twenty four battalions and nine batteries of artillery. Realising the weakness of his position, Fergusson called on Allenby for assistance, in response to which he received the support of the Second and Third Cavalry Brigades, themselves retiring on Angre.

  The 4th Dragoons arrived in the vicinity of Audregnies, halting in a stubble field near the railway station. As they awaited further orders, they would have surveyed their surroundings: a maze of slagheaps, light railways, sunken roads, and villages interspersed with a few cornfields and cornstooks. It was a dry, dusty day, grey cleg flies buzzed around the horses, while troopers, waiting under a bright midday sun, sipped from their water bottles, or smoked cigarettes.

  The 4th Dragoons were just behind Audregnies, the 9th Lancers a little in advance, but to the left and right respectively of the Chaussée Brunehaut, an old Roman road which drove through Audregnies and then northwards towards, and directly in line with, the anticipated advance of the German 8th Division. To the Lancers’ right, spread out along the low ridge which ran towards Elouges, were Fergusson’s reserves, the Cheshires and Norfolks. To their rear, perhaps a mile apart, stood L Battery and the 119th Battery RFA, while half a mile north west of Elouges and under cover of a railway cutting, two squadrons of the 18th Hussars waited for further instructions.

  At around 12.30pm, as Lieutenant Chance of A Squadron recalled,