| Edward Nicholson - British Expeditionary Forces |
1889 - 1915
1. Early
Days
2. West
Yorkshire Regiment
3. Lancers
of the Line
4. British Expeditionary Forces
5. 1914-1915 Home and Abroad
6. Missing Presumed Dead
7. In Memorial
British Expeditionary Forces
In February 2004, Charlie Nicholson, aged 96 years, cast his mind back 90 years to remember details of his Uncle Edward's life in Canada during that time.
Charlie recalls that ...
"Edward worked on the farm with Sam and Rose Bill, and stayed there with them. Although he had deserted, when war was imminent he wanted to go back to the 9th Lancers and save face. He was devoted to the Lancers and wanted to get back to them as soon as he could. He rode into Lampman on horseback in late May, early June. He left the horse at Sam Bill's mother's place who at that time lived in Lampman. Although I can't remember the exact date, I remember the day that Edward rode into Lampman. I was snaring gophers down by the railroad tracks."
It's
unclear whether Edward received any disciplinary action for his desertion, but
by June 13th 1914, he is back in England, back with the 9th Lancers, and as can
be seen by the receipt below, had ordered his kit from the Lancers tailor, C.
Roddis.
|
|
Pte Nicholson June 13th 1914
Dr.
to C. Roddis
To
making suit to order £2-5-0 There is also a 1d stamp with the notation 'paid'
|
In writing about this period in the history of the 9th Lancers, E.W. Sheppard states in his book ..
"Among
the twenty-four cavalry regiments of the Army in 1914 the 9th Lancers enjoyed a
reputation second to none. They had long since lived down their unhappy days,
and their fame ever since the Indian Mutiny, when they may be said to have first
come into their own, had been great and growing. In
At the end of June, 1914, a political
murder in an obscure Balkan town set in motion the underground forces which were
to bring about the long-foreseen world cataclysm. The embattled armies of a
Continent swung into line, and within six weeks those lamps had gone out all
over
So
it was that Edward became a part of the British Expeditionary Force. The 9th
Lancers left from Tidworth in Hampshire. In August of 1914 the British sent
their first army to the continent since Wellington's army at Waterloo. It was
led by Field Marshall Sir John French and consisted of three infantry corps, an
Indian Corps, one cavalry division, and five squadrons of the Royal Flying
Corps. The First Corps led by Sir Douglas Haig consisted of the 1st and 2nd
Divisions. The Second Corps was led by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien and consisted of
the 3rd and 5th Divisions. The Third Corps was led by Sir William Pulteney and
consisted of the 4th and 6th Divisions. The Indian Corps was led by Sir James
Willcocks and consisted of the 3rd Lahore Division and 7th Meerut Division plus
the 4th Secunderabad Cavalry Brigade. The cavalry division was led by Major
General Edmund Allenby and was expanded to a corps in October 1914.
"The 9th Lancers, together with
the 4th Dragoon Guards, the 18th Hussars and the 2nd Signal Troop made up the
second Cavalry Brigade, under Brigadier-General H de B de Lisle. The regiment
had begun to mobilize on July 28th and was due to proceed overseas on August
15th.
Two days before that date Lieutenant-Colonel D G M Campbell held a dismounted parade and spoke to all ranks, recalling all the great deeds of the Regiment's history - how, in the Mutiny, it had won more VCs than any other unit, and on it's departure for home had been sped on its way at the Viceroy's special order, by the unique honour of a salute had served. He reminded them that on one occasion in the latter war, Lieutenant MacDonald, in a desperate position, had fought on till he and every man with him had been killed. "You are going forth to war," he ended, "with the greatest traditions to uphold." The speech's appeal to officers and men alike was irresistible, and it was with high hearts and resolve that the regiment - never better or more prepared in it's history - "a more magnificent regiment never move out of barracks for war," as one of its officers proudly declared - entrained in the early morning of August 15th at Amesbury station for Southampton."
The narrative in Major E.W. Sheppard's book continues ...
"The transports, Welshman and
Armenian, on which the regiment was to cross to Boulogne, were not yet alongside
when it arrived, and further delay was caused by the necessity for slinging some
of the horses 9th Lancers aboard. Thirty officers, of whom 5 were attached, and
588 other ranks, with 613 horses, sailed with the regiment on this day; 2
officers and 49 men were to follow six days later as first reinforcements to
replace early casualties. In addition, five officers seconded from the regiment
for staff duties also proceeded overseas with the British Expeditionary Force.
There was ample forage and water for all the horses, but some shortage of
rations for the personnel. Luckily the crossing was a brief and undisturbed one,
and at 3 p.m. on the 16th the Welshman began disembarking her passengers at
Boulogne, followed shortly afterwards by the Armenian.
Getting the horses off the latter ship
proved a tedious process, as the gangway exit was so narrow that saddles had to
be removed before they could file through. Then there followed a period of
hanging about the quay and finally a three-mile march to camp at Pont de
Bricques - these last episodes enlivened by the plaudits of the population, not
yet inured to the sight of Allied soldiery en masse. Vivats, kisses, flowers -
it was indeed “ roses, roses all the way “ for the Ninth on this exciting
day. There were, however, disillusionments to come; there were no shackles in
the horse lines, and it was long and late before all were in and bedded down for
the night.
Next day was an idle one, marked only by the arrival of a horde of interpreters and of a pile of boxes containing maps on which it would have been possible to follow every stage of the expected advance of the B.E.F. across France and the Rhine to Berlin, had the fortunes of war not led it in exactly the opposite direction, of which there were few, if any, maps available. Shortly before midnight the regiment left camp for the station, where it was to entrain for the Army assembly area.
By 6 p.m. on the 18th it was going into
billets at Jeumont, five miles north- east of Maubeuge. The train journey had
been anything but monotonous - one enthusiastic trooper had fallen out by the
way; washing and shaving water and food could be secured only by adventurous
trips along carriage footboards, not to everyone's taste; there had been more
vivats en route and calls for souvenirs, refusal of which turned the plaudits
into good-humoured maledictions in bad English; and the inhabitants of Jeumont
were most friendly, and as regards the younger and fairer portions of them,
apparently pleasing to the eye. This bright prospect was somewhat over-clouded
next day by a seven-mile move south to Obrechies, where the brigadier's
insistence on doing a large-scale brigade exercise was universally voted
ill-timed and unnecessary. Outposts had been put out on both these nights,
but the lack of respect shown them by the villagers and their cattle had been
somewhat disconcerting.
It was not till the following day, the
21st, however, that the regiment had its first rumour of approaching war, moving
that day to Harmignies, four miles south-east of Mons. It sent out a patrol
under Lieutenant E. C. E. Smith northwards to the canal bridges and these caught
a glimpse of Uhlans in the far distance beyond the canal. On the 22nd it
suffered its first casualty in the death in a Compiegne hospital of Major V.
Brooke, who had been suddenly taken ill with appendicitis at Boulogne.
Aroused early that morning before dawn,
the, regiment spent the 22nd dully by the roadside or in fields, bored and
inactive. Then, late at night, it received orders to move across the rear of the
army from right flank to left and take post at Thulin, nine miles south-west on
the Mons-Valenciennes road in support of the left of the II Corps holding the
line of the Mons-Conde Canal. The march was a difficult and painful one, the
horses sliding and stumbling along the paved roads in the pitch darkness,
several falling by the wayside, fortunately without serious hurt either to
themselves or their riders. The stolid peasants of both sexes emerged unabashed
in their night attire, to watch the regiment's passage through the sleepy
villages en route, and at last, just before dawn on the 23rd, it halted and
bedded down in a wet field south of Thu1in, where somnolent men and horses
snatched a hurried meal before turning in.
It was only for a few short hours, for soon after 8 a.m. reveille sounded. All hoped for a rest day, but the sound of gun and rifle fire from the north broke out soon after dinner-time and announced the fact that our infantry there were engaged with the enemy along the line of the canal. It was in fact the first battle of the war, but instead of the wide rolling downs of their dreams, our cavalry now found themselves called on to fight in a land full of little smoky villages and coal mines, towering slag heaps, railway embankments and endless wire fences, and a population as dense as that of a Black Country town at home. The officers were puzzled to know how cavalry could operate here, and all ranks were equally puzzled as to the plan of campaign and as to what was going on in front of and all around them - a bewilderment shared, had they known it, by the whole of the B.E.F., from the Commander-in-Chief downwards.
In the early evening there came a
rumour that Uhlans were moving to the west of Thulin, and the whole of the 2nd
Cavalry Brigade mounted and rode off in search of them, the squadron leaders of
the Ninth, at least, somewhat awed by the news announced earlier by Lieutenant-Colonel
Campbell, that six German cavalry and three infantry divisions were in front
of the B.E.F., and that rearguard action would be the cavalry's role on the
morrow. The Uhlans proving non-existent, or at any rate unreachable, the brigade
got back at dusk, and was thence ordered back to entrench about the railway
crossing south of Thulin, while the interpreters set to work to evict the
reluctant inhabitants. No sooner had the necessary spades been procured and
issued than the orders were changed, and the brigade at long last settled down
to uneasy slumber a la belle e'toile on the high ground a mile to the south.
Captain F. Grenfell's “B” Squadron, with a troop of “A” Squadron in
support, remained out on out-post at the level crossing, and the night passed
undisturbed. It was the calm before the storm; next morning was to bring the
regiment a rude baptism of fire.
At daybreak “B” Squadron moved
cautiously forward to investigate Thulin and the country beyond. The Germans
were found in possession of the canal bridge to the north; a warm fire greeted
the rearguard and struck down Captain Nash-Wortham and some troopers, wounded.
The squadron fell back, fighting sturdily, on to the main body on the high
ground south of the village, and German infantry, debouching rashly out along
the Elouges road in column of route, were caught by the regiment's fire,
suffered severe losses and were compelled to halt and deploy in haste. The
further advance was not vigorously pressed, and about 9 a.m. the Ninth, in
accordance with orders, retired at a leisurely gait through Elouges towards
Audregnies, their rearguard, finding ample cover amid the sunken roads and light
railways and slag heaps with which the area was covered, effectively holding
pursuit at a respectful distance. German batteries from beyond the high road
shelled the retiring lines of the Ninth heavily and with considerable accuracy.
Captain J. G. Porter and several men were wounded, and a shell killed Major
Beale-Browne's charger, which he had left for the moment to be held by a
trumpeter. But the withdrawal was not seriously disturbed, and before midday the
regiment had rejoined the main body of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade at Angre, where
it halted, sending out patrols west and south-west.
But in rear, on the battlefield they
had just left, things were looking ominous. A whole German army corps, the IV,
was advancing through Thulin and Quievrain, and threatening to envelop the left
(5th) Division of our II Corps, which the early withdrawal of the Cavalry
Division had left uncovered. The G.O.C. 5th Division sent an urgent appeal for
help to General Allen by, commanding the cavalry, and it was at once responded
to. General de Lisle's brigade, the nearest to hand, was ordered back at once;
the I8th Hussars set off at once for Elouges, and the 4th Dragoon Guards and 9th
Lancers were told to take position north of Audregnies and be ready to support
them. But it was not from Elouges that the first danger was to come, but from
Quievrain, whence long lines of enemy infantry suddenly began to make their
appearance, advancing south-east against the left of the 5th on the 2nd Cavalry
Brigade's right along the Elouges-Audregnies road.
First “C” and then “A” Squadron
of the Ninth were dismounted and opened fire at long range on the Germans, who
vigorously replied but were checked to any appreciable degree. At this critical
juncture General de Lisle came galloping up and cried to Lieutenant-Colonel
Campbell: " I'm going to charge the enemy. I'll tell the 4th Dragoon
Guards in the village to attack on your left. As soon as you see them debouch,
attack on the right with at least two squadrons.”
Orders were given for “A” Squadron
to remount and collect under cover of the houses ready to advance. Hardly had it
done so, when the appearance of the head of the 4th Dragoon Guards to the west
gave the signal for the charge. Before the squadrons of the Ninth, as they
emerged into the open, lay a gently rising glacis, its apparently good galloping
surface treacherously cut up by sunken lanes, railway cuttings, wire fences and
quickset hedges, and covered with corn stooks, behind which the enemy
skirmishers could be seen hurriedly taking cover as the cheering cavalry
thundered on towards them. Over a slightly sunken road they swept, spearing a
German scout or two before being struck by the shell-fire of the line of hostile
guns from beyond the main road and the sleeting bullets of the infantry in front
of them. Losing men at every stride, with no visible objective before them, the
squadrons hesitated and became bewildered before a wire fence, which lay athwart
their path. “We simply galloped about like rabbits in front of a line of
guns,” wrote Captain Grenfell. “Men and horses falling in all directions.
Most of one's time was spent in dodging the horses”. Hard by was a sugar
factory, some 1,400 yards south-east of Quivrain where some slag heaps afforded
a scanty cover; here some men dismounted and established themselves, together
with a few scattered men of the 4th Dragoon Guards, and held on tenaciously
under command of Captains Grenfell and Lucas-Tooth; the rest, wheeling round to
right and rear reassembled on a squadron of the 18th Hussars in position at the
eastern end of the mineral railway from Quievrain on the outskirts of Elouges. Lieutenant
Colonel Campbell, ordering the position at the sugar factory to be
maintained, galloped off towards Audregnies to find and report to the brigadier
the result of the charge which, though it failed to close with the enemy, at
least had effect of checking his advance long enough to allow the 5th
Division’s flankguard to establish itself solidly in position. The retreat of
the division thus took place without molestation.
On the whole of its front, indeed, the
Germans made no further move till 2.30pm when, under cover of heavy artillery
fire, they once more began to dribble forward. The little band of the Ninth at
the sugar factory soon had to yield its ground and fall back along the lee side
of the mineral railway embankment towards Elouges.
Now came the second gallant feat of the
day. Hard by the embankment southwest of the village stood the detached guns of
the 119th Field Battery, which the depleted battery personnel, scourged by shell
and bullets, were vainly striving to man-handle back under shelter. Captain
Grenfell, the senior Ninth officer present, offered his help, which was
gratefully accepted, and with a volunteer party of eleven officers and many men
set to work. “We ran forward and started pushing the guns out,” he wrote in
his diary, “and Providence intervened for, though this was carried out under a
very heavy fire and the guns had to be slowly turned round before we could guide
them, we accomplished our task. We pushed out one over dead gunners, and I do
not think we lost more than three or four men, though it required more than one
journey to get everything out. It is on occasions like these that good
discipline tells. The men were so wonderful and steady that words fail me to say
what I think of them and how much is due to my Colonel for the high standard to
which he had raised this magnificent regiment”.
For this deed of valour Grenfell was
recommended for and awarded the Victoria Cross - more fortunate in this last
respect than Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, on whose behalf a similar
recommendation was put forward by General de Lisle, but without result. The
fighting on this day of August 24th had cost the regiment one officer
(Lieutenant C. W. Garstin) and two other ranks killed, 4 officers and 27 other
ranks wounded, and one officer and 53 other ranks missing (many of whom were
also wounded). The losses were at first believed to have been even heavier, but
at the end of the day the bulk of “A” and “ B” Squadrons, under Major
Beale-Browne, had collected at Ruesnes, two miles north-west of Le Quesnoy,
with brigade headquarters and 300 men of the other two regiments of the 2nd
Cavalry Brigade, while Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell with about l00 men,
mostly of “C” Squadron, had joined up at Wargnies-le-Petit, four miles north
of Le Quesnoy, with the remainder of the brigade and some detachments of the 3rd
Brigade to form a composite force under Brigadier- General Briggs. It was to be
four days before they saw each other again.
For neither half of the regiment,
however, was the period of separation a really dangerous one. Major
Beale-Browne's two squadrons marched back at break of dawn on the 25th
through Ruesnes arid Beaudignies to Vertain where shells began falling about
them and alarming rumours began to spread abroad that the enemy had got round
into the brigade's rear and had cut it off. It turned off and filed slowly
through the crowded streets of Solesmes and pushed on to find an even worse
block at Le Cateau. Shedding some stragglers as it went, the column resolutely
thrust ahead and, emerging at long last in the pitch darkness of night, bedded
down in billets five miles on at Catillon just before midnight.
On the morrow it resumed its way, this
time headed south-west, on and on through Le Catelet, what time the guns of the
II Corps, standing at bay at Le Cateau, far to the north, grumbled and growled
an undercurrent to the march. That evening the party bivouacked at
Marquaix just beyond Roisel, and there picked up some of the transport, which
had been trying to find the regiment ever since the morning of August 24th.
Next morning General de Lisle greeted his troubled brigade with the cheering
news that the infantry Corps, retiring from the battlefield at Le Cateau, had
passed southwards during the night, and that the cavalry were now to take over
rearguard duties with the prospect of warm times ahead. But the enemy had lost
the scent and gone off westwards on a false trail, and only cautious patrols
were seen afar off all that day as the cavalry column, all alert though weary,
wound slowly south-eastward to Savy, where it billeted for the night.
Next morning, the 28th, there were more
and equally baseless alarms. Distant gunfire was heard near Douilly, and after
billeting for a time in a rearguard formation, the column was collected and
hurried forward at a fast trot to clear Ham of the enemy. The town, however, was
found packed full of British troops, and it was only with the greatest
difficulty that the force got through the crowded streets, and thence on to
Flavy-le-Meldeux, where, to mutual surprise, the two separated portions of the
regiment found themselves once more together.
“C” Squadron's adventures with
Briggs's force had been no more than those of the main body. Moving south on
August 25th from Wargnies-le-Petit to Le Cateau and on the next day to Escaufort,
four miles to the south, it too had missed the II Corps' battle and trekked on
to St. Quentin, where it halted early in the morning of the 27th to collect
supplies and forage and billeted in Grand Seraucourt for the night. Thence,
halting once or twice in favourable positions to allow of the passage of
stragglers of all arms still winding their weary way southwards, the force came
in the evening the 28th to Flavy-le-Meldeux, and there was a joyous reunion in
billets, cheered by the presence of pretty girls and a rumour that “the
Russians are nearer to Berlin than the Germans are to Paris.”
Next morning, August 29th, the morning
patrols having ranged afield, to report no sign of an enemy, the Ninth settled
down to a leisurely breakfast and a late start. But the breakfast was
interrupted and the start expedited by sudden news that the German cavalry were
swarming forward from Ham. Two squadrons were hurried up to the high ground
north of Flavy, while the rest took the road to Guiscard. Back through that town
and on through Noyon went the rearguard standing and retiring by alternate
squadrons in a manner strictly in accordance with their pre-war training, and
went into quarters in the forest beyond at Ourscamps. On the road thither the
men had the thrill, soon to become vieux jeu, of witnessing their first aerial
duel-an affair of much sound and fury but indecisive.
The morning of the 30th was spent on
the hills above Pontoise, where the bridge was being destroyed by the Royal
Engineers. This operation over, the regiment fell back at a good round pace
through the magnificent forest to Vieux Moulins, five miles south-east of
Compiegne. Here it was joined by two subalterns - R.L. Benson, from the
Viceroy's staff in India, and A.C. Bovill from home - the former bringing with
him as suitable weapons for warfare in Europe an Indian tulwar in a green plush
scabbard, and a hog-spear, presented to him by the native officers of the 11th
Bengal Lancers. Captain H. Chisenhale - Marsh (Special Reserve) had already
reported for duty a few days earlier, so that the shortage of officers resulting
from the fighting of the 24th was no longer so acute.
August 31st, on which day the regiment,
still without more than distant and spasmodic contact with the enemy, turned
back on its tracks and moved by way of Compiegne and the north of the Oise to
Chevrieres, was a blazing hot day; men and horses were stiff, dead beat, and
woefully short of food and water, for the regular issue of rations had long
since been a thing of the past and they had been compelled to live off the
country and pay for what little they could secure. But September 1st was
remarkable at least for one thing - for the first time for ten days reveille was
not sounded before the first blush of dawn.
That morning, as the Ninth threaded its
way through the great tree-girt avenues of the forest of Halatte towards Senlis,
it was suddenly switched off to the east as a result of news that the 1st
Cavalry Brigade was hotly engaged at Nery and in urgent need of help. But before
long a fresh message arrived that all was well and the enemy soundly beaten and
in flight, and it was in peace and quiet once more that the Ninth, passing
through Senlis, which was on fire, went into tolerable billets at Mont l'Eveque
hard by.
Morning of the 2nd dawned on another
note of alarm. It was the anniversary of the German victory of Sedan in 1870,
and the German Guard Corps was rumoured to have celebrated the occasion by
getting round into the rear of the B.E.F. so as to cut it off from Paris. Very
warily, and well covered by strong rearguards, the 2nd Cavalry Brigade marched
on through the Forest of Ermenonville to the town of that name, but only a few
isolated and timorous hostile patrols were seen, who hurried away at its
approach.
Excellent billets at Thieux rounded off
a satisfactory day, and next morning the Ninth moved across the River Marne to
Gournay. A boiling sun made a long halt welcome, and while most of the officers
slept after a full meal, some few betook themselves to a strangely subdued and
under-populated Paris from which all who could had fled in haste at the approach
of the Germans.
September 4th was spent in the same
delectable spot on the banks of the smiling Marne, and bathing, cleaning up of
person, clothes, arms and harness, and food in plenty for man and horse, were
the order of the day. Some of the more energetic spirits even took to hunting
the local hares with some success. Next morning brought an end to this halcyon
spell, and a long and tedious march, begun at the usual early hour brought the
regiment by noontide to Limosges, eight miles north of Melun where it halted for
some hours, then, to the general disgust, the march was resumed, this time not
to the south but to the east, and at nightfall billets were occupied in a group
of poverty-stricken though magniloquently named hamlets north-east of Mormant.
Though not one of the officers of the regiment seems to have known it at the
time, the great retreat was over, and the Allies were about to turn on their
pursuers.
The month's fighting to date had indeed
been disastrous for the Allies. By August 20th Belgium had been overrun by the
enemy, and her armies forced to seek refuge under the guns of Antwerp. On that
same day the French attacking all along the line, had been everywhere repulsed
with heavy loss, and there began the long retreat which surrendered the best
part of Northern France to the Germans and brought their forward troops within
sight of the forts of Verdun on the one wing and of the suburbs of Paris on the
other. The B.E.F., forced to conform to its allies' movements, had been
severely handled during the earlier stages of its retreat, though in the last
few days little had been seen of the enemy. Physical exhaustion resulting from
nights of continuous marching, with little rest and on short commons, had taken
its toll of all units and all ranks; and even the officers, knowing little or
nothing of what was happening or what was projected, were in a state of angry,
aggrieved bewilderment as to the reason for this incessant rearward drift.
But though the initial successes of the
Germans had been so great and general as almost to justify their High Command in
its temporary illusion that the war in the West was already as good as won,
their masses were beginning to outrun their supplies and overstretch their
front, so that their right wing had been compelled to swing in to the east of
it, instead of passing to the west of Paris, as was the original plan, thus
exposing its flank to the French Sixth Army, which had now been brought into
line on the left of the BEF
The French Commander-in-Chief, General Joffre, persuaded by General Gallieni, the Governor of Paris, that here was the opportunity for the general counter-offensive he had long had in preparation, issued orders on the night of September 4th for all the five French armies holding the long concave front between the Meuse and the Oureq to turn about and advance. In a personal interview with Field-Marshall French he had also secured the c-operation of the BEF. Circumstances combined to offer it a great opportunity for decisive action for the attack of the French Sixth Army west of Oureq had already drawn away thither the whole of the German First Army, so that between it and its eastern neighbour, the Second, hotly engaged by the French Fifth Army north and northeast of Provins, there yawned a wide gap held only be weak and weary cavalry, into which the BEF was directly heading."
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