LITMIR.BIZ

      Mons To La Bassée

      (1914)

       Table of Contents

      At 5 P.M. on Tuesday, August 4, 1914, the 1st Battalion of the Irish Guards received orders to mobilize for war against Germany. They were then quartered at Wellington Barracks and, under the mobilization scheme, formed part of the 4th (Guards) Brigade, Second Division, First Army Corps. The Brigade consisted of:

      The 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards.

       The 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards.

       The 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards.

       The 1st Battalion Irish Guards.

      Mobilization was completed on August 8. Next day, being Sunday, the Roman Catholics of the Battalion paraded under the Commanding Officer, Lieut.Colonel the Hon. G. H. Morris, and went to Westminster Cathedral where Cardinal Bourne preached; and on the morning of the 11th August Field-Marshal Lord Roberts and Lady Aileen Roberts made a farewell speech to them in Wellington Barracks. This was the last time that Lord Roberts saw the Battalion of which he was the first Commander-in-Chief.

      On the 12th August the Battalion entrained for Southampton in two trains at Nine Elms Station, each detachment being played out of barracks to the station by the band. They were short one officer, as 2nd Lieutenant St. J. R. Pigott had fallen ill, and an officer just gazetted—2nd Lieutenant Sir Gerald Burke, Bart.—could not accompany them as he had not yet got his uniform. They embarked at Southampton on a hot still day in the P.&0. S.S. Novara. This was a long and tiring operation, since every one was new to embarkation-duty, and, owing to the tide, the ship’s bulwarks stood twenty-five feet above the quay. The work was not finished till 4 P.M. when most of the men had been under arms for twelve hours. Just before leaving, Captain Sir Delves Broughton, Bart., was taken ill and had to be left behind. A telegram was sent to Headquarters, asking for Captain H. Hamilton Berners to take his place, and the Novara cleared at 7 P.M. As dusk fell, she passed H.M.S. Formidable off Ryde and exchanged signals with her. The battle ship’s last message to the Battalion was to hope that they would get “plenty of fighting.” Many of the officers at that moment were sincerely afraid that they might be late for the war!

      The following is the list of officers who went out with the Battalion that night:

      Lieut.-Col. Hon. G. H. Morris

      Commanding Officer.

      Major H. F. Crichton

      Senior Major.

      Captain Lord Desmond FitzGerald

      Adjutant.

      Lieut. E. J. F. Gough

      Transport Officer.

      Lieut. E. B. Greer

      M. Gun Officer.

      Hon. Lieut. H. Hickie

      Quartermaster.

      Lieut. H. J. S. Shields (R.A.M.C.)

      Medical. Officer.

      Lieut. Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P.

      Interpreter.

       No. 1 Company.

      Capt. Hon. A. E. Mulholland.

      Lieut. C. A. S. Walker.

      Capt. Lord John Hamilton.

      2nd Lieut. N. L. Woodroffe.

      Lieut. Hon. H. R. Alexander.

      2nd Lieut. J. Livingstone-Learmonth.

       No. 2 Company.

      Major H. A. Herbert Stepney.

      Lieut. J. S. N. FitzGerald.

      Lieut. W. E. Hope.

      Capt. J. N. Guthrie.

      2nd Lieut. O. Hughes-Onslow.

      Lieut. E. J. F. Gough.

       No. 3 Company.

      Capt. Sir Delves Broughton, Bart.

       (replaced by Capt. H. Hamilton Berners).

      Lieut. Hon. Hugh Gough.

      Lieut. Lord Guernsey.

      2nd Lieut. Viscount Castlerosse.

      Capt. Hon. T. E. Vesey.

       No. 4 Company.

      Capt. C. A. Tisdall.

      Lieut. Lord Robert Innes-Ker.

      Capt. A. A. Perceval.

      Lieut. W. C. N. Reynolds.

      2nd Lieut. J. T. P. Roberts.

      Lieut. R. Blacker-Douglass.

       Details at the Base.

      Capt. Lord Arthur Hay.

      2nd Lieut. Sir Gerald Burke, Bart.

      They reached Havre at 6 A.M. on August 13, a fiercely hot day, and, tired after a sleepless night aboard ship, and a long wait, in a hot, tin-roofed shed, for some missing men, marched three miles out of the town to Rest Camp No. 2 “in a large field at Sanvic, a suburb of Havre at the top of the hill.” Later, the city herself became almost a suburb to the vast rest-camps round it. Here they received an enthusiastic welcome from the French, and were first largely introduced to the wines of the country, for many maidens lined the steep road and offered bowls of drinks to the wearied.

      Next day (August 14) men rested a little, looking at this strange, bright France with strange eyes, and bathed in the sea; and Captain H. Berners, replacing Sir Delves Broughton, joined. At eleven o’clock they entrained at Havre Station under secret orders for the Front. The heat broke in a terrible thunderstorm that soaked the new uniforms. The crowded train travelled north all day, receiving great welcomes everywhere, but no one knowing what its destination might be. After more than seventeen hours’ slow progress by roads that were not revealed then or later, they halted at Wassigny, at a quarter to eleven on the night of August 15, and, unloading in hot darkness, bivouacked at a farm near the station.

      On the morning of August 16 they marched to Vadencourt, where, for the first time, they went into billets. The village, a collection of typical white-washed tiled houses with a lovely old church in the centre, lay out pleasantly by the side of a poplar-planted stream. The 2nd Coldstream Guards were also billeted here; the Headquarters of the 4th Guards Brigade, the 2nd Grenadier Guards, and 3rd Coldstream being at Grougis. All supplies, be it noted, came from a village of the ominous name of Boue, which—as they were to learn through the four winters to follow—means “mud.”

      At Vadencourt they lay three days while the men were being inoculated against enteric. A few had been so treated before leaving Wellington Barracks, but, in view of the hurried departure, 90 per cent. remained to be dealt with. The Diary remarks that for two days “the Battalion was not up to much.” Major H. Crichton fell sick here.

      On the 20th August the march towards Belgium of the Brigade began, via

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