Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Cemetery by Jerry Murland

Author:Jerry Murland [Murland, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, World War I, Ypres
Amazon: B007Z55XW8
Goodreads: 11928280
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Published: 2010-07-02T08:00:00+00:00

Until their arrival at Poperinghe on Tuesday 20 October 1914, the Gloucesters’ battlefield casualties had been relatively small in number but their entrance into the ancient city of Ypres marked the beginning of a period of intense and desperate fighting that would leave a permanent mark on the officers and men of the battalion. Of the 26 officers and 970 other ranks that marched past the cheering crowds which lined the Grote Markt and the Meensestraat the next morning, only 2 officers and some 100 men returned through the Menin Gate four weeks later.

What the Gloucesters were not aware of, as they marched out of Ypres, was that their Commander-in-Chief, Sir John French, had still not fully appreciated the full extent of the huge German troop concentrations that were now moving from Antwerp towards the BEF. His optimistic orders for a general advance, which he stubbornly clung to for several days, were never going to be realized. It was to be only a matter of hours before the military strategy that would determine the nature of the fighting over the next few weeks would begin to unravel as the Allies were forced into a series of defensive actions by a numerically superior opposition.

To be fair, when Sir Douglas Haig and I Corps arrived at St Omer from the Aisne on 17 October, Sir John French could easily have taken the most obvious course of action and deployed Haig to bolster the numerical weakness of the cavalry corps holding the Wytschate-Messines line. Instead, recognizing the danger to the Allied left flank by the sudden arrival of fresh German troops, he sent Haig’s army corps to the northeast of Ypres. Although he was then unaware of the build up of German forces in the area, his instinct was fortunately well timed. Just after midday on Wednesday, 21 October the Gloucesters, along with the rest of I Corps, collided head on with the German Fourth Army.

That all was not going to plan must have become apparent as the Gloucesters arrived on the outskirts of Langemarck. Almost immediately they ran into heavy shellfire and the forward units of the Fourth Army cavalry screen. Behind them German infantry of the 51st Reserve Division were moving enmasse from the north and, as the French on the British left retreated, the 3 Brigade battalions were becoming increasingly exposed. Advancing on the extreme left of the British line, Lieutenant Colonel Lovett, mindful of the danger of an exposed flank, deployed B Company to Langemarck railway station to provide an emergency flank guard while C and D Company pressed on through the town towards Koekuit. Wary of committing all his available forces at once, Lovett held A Company, which was under the command of Robert Rising, in reserve just south of Langemarck. Sometime after 10.00 am C and D Companies occupied Koekuit village and dug in.

German cavalry patrols had been apparent all morning and one or two had even been shot down as they galloped across the Gloucesters’ field of fire; but it was not long before the main German thrust came from the direction of Mangalaere.

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