Blood and Thunder (8 page)

The war moved back north towards the Aisne. Among the fallen Etonians left behind on the Marne was Bertrand Stewart who had indeed fulfilled his threat of coming back to haunt his German captors. Imprisoned under rigorous conditions in the fortress of Glatz he was released as an act of clemency when George V visited Germany in 1913. By the outbreak of war he had been promoted to the rank of captain in the West Kent Yeomanry and joined the cavalry as an intelligence officer, embarking immediately for France. On 12 September, as cavalry patrols pushed on towards the River Vesle, a patrol entering the village of Braisne was suddenly ambushed. The troops behind them retired quickly and Bertrand grabbed a rifle and at once assumed command, rallying the patrol and leading it down the slope towards the river to help the men that had been cut off.

That afternoon a driver attached to the BEF walked the same road, over pools of fresh blood and dead horses. The view opened out in front of him, one long line of shell clouds puffing away. The rain came down in sheets: ‘the fight for Braisne was within earshot'. Lying up against a bank by the side of the road was 41-year-old Bertrand Stewart, his body not yet cold
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Aubrey Herbert had been a guest of the German Army for almost two weeks when the advance came back towards Villers-Cotterêts, liberated him and saw him evacuated home. Further to the rear George Fletcher walked alongside his frequently broken motorcycle. ‘War is in fact one colossal stink of dead horse … decay and corruption of every kind – broken harnesses … helmets cast away and utter desolation,' he told his father. ‘We proceeded with the [stench] of this destruction in our nostrils for a few days till the rains began and then all turned to mud.'

For two weeks the BEF had fled towards the Marne, fighting small rearguard actions, and it was reasonable to think that, with the German forces now retreating the other way, that it would continue in reverse. By 12 September the BEF had pursued the enemy back to the Aisne itself where miserable downpours had begun swelling the river and the Germans had dug in. Slopes on both sides of the river were covered in wooded areas and foliage that masked movements and troop dispositions. As British and French troops arrived it was unclear whether or not the enemy had left men back to delay them or had thrown everything available into halting their retreat.

Steep hills faced the British troops on the opposite side of the river and more German troops were on their way. Although the armies of von Kluck and von Bülow were not entirely at home in these hurried positions, strung out with gaps in their lines, they possessed heavy artillery with a clear field of fire down to the river where they had already destroyed bridges and crossings. Far from fighting another quick action on the way north, the Kaiser's men had resolved to stay put. What the British Expeditionary Force was seeing were the beginnings of trench warfare and it was to exact a heavy toll on the ranks of Old Etonians beginning to line the banks of the River Aisne.

On 12 September the 9th Lancers were shattered by the cruel loss of Douglas Lucas Tooth. Campbell freely referred to him as his ‘most trusted leader'. In private, the sentiment was that the Ninth had ‘lost a leader, in whom they had the greatest confidence and belief'. He was experienced, highly competent and universally respected from the ranks of trooper to brigade commander, but his regiment would have to continue without him.

At 2 a.m. the following day the Ninth was roused to begin the action which Sir John French hoped would conclude with the successful capture of the Chemin des Dames, a road running east to west accross the river along a high ridge that was famous as being a prominent route travelled by two daughters of Louis XV. Rivy Grenfell, still without his twin, was amongst elements of the regiment that set out, to cross the Aisne, along with the Harvey brothers. Through the town of Vendresse they climbed on to Troyon, a scattering of cottages and farms overlooked by a dominating plateau. A road wound out of the little hamlet and passed the only landmark in the vicinity, a sugar factory. With high, solid walls and an imposing chimney ideal for observation, the enemy had made it central to their defences in the area. Trenches now branched out from the factory, and artillery batteries had been wheeled into place on either side of the site. Machine guns and troops were ready to drive back any unwanted visitors. It was abundantly clear to the British that any advance to the Chemin des Dames would eventually require the capture of this stronghold.

But another hammer blow was about to fall on the Ninth less than twenty-four hours after Lennie and Douglas Harvey had lost their Squadron Leader. The objective that they had been given was in fact a mile or so behind enemy lines. Without Lucas, the squadron managed to veer off down a stray path and away from the main road. Rivy Grenfell, following with more men, was left exposed and rode right into the path of the enemy. Dismounting, he took a section and bravely went forward, securing a position behind a haystack. He was in good humour, cracking jokes with his men when he was suddenly exposed to enemy fire. The last words his men remembered were ‘steady your firing boys we have got them beaten,' before a bullet cut his revolver in two and ricocheted into his head, killing him instantly.

Four miles to the west the 2nd Grenadier Guards, led by Ma Jeffreys, were edging their way down an eerie canal towpath shrouded by fog in a relentless downpour. Tentatively they began to cross a makeshift bridge over the Aisne at 8.30 a.m. Nothing happened. The British were expecting some sort of opposition, but none came. ‘Had some German officer blundered or did the enemy not intend to defend the passage of the Aisne?' The fog was in fact providing a protective curtain for the BEF, masking their movements from the German gunners. Edging forward into the town of Soupir, Ma had been given instructions to pass through the town, climb the hill on the other side and secure the high ground above a place called La Coeur de Soupir where there was a substantial farmhouse. Beyond that he knew nothing about where he was or whom he might run in to. ‘I was given no information,' he complained, ‘… either about our own forces or the enemy.'

Thus far they had not set eyes on a German in their wet progress but Ma was cautious. No.1 Company had been selected as the vanguard and now the decision was made to select bright, young Jack Pickersgill-Cunliffe and his platoon to press on up the road and into the shrouded woods ahead. Jack collected his men and set off. The woods were eerily quiet, with nothing but the sound of the rain coming through the trees. As well as dense foliage, the mist still hid any concentrations of enemy troops from view. Slowly, blindly they made the steep climb up the narrow road, a wall of greenery on either side of them. Robbed of peripheral vision they disappeared from Ma Jeffrey's view. Jack reached the farm. All remained strangely quiet. Around the perimeter of the compound there was no sign of the enemy. They probed cautiously towards a crossroads beyond their final destination.

Jack's platoon was 100 yards past the farm when it came under fire. The enemy came from the north in a surprise attack. The small group of Grenadiers fell in with outposts of Connaught Rangers lurking nearby and together they found themselves on the back foot, being driven back towards the farm where they were overwhelmed and taken prisoner. Further down the road, Ma Jeffreys heard shooting and began sending up reinforcements. His troops were in danger of being outflanked. By mid morning he had almost no men left in reserve and not a clue what was going on in front of him.

Back at the farm, Jack Cunliffe was lying with a badly wounded leg on the floor. Nearly half the battalion had now arrived and the Connaught Rangers had emerged from the farm buildings, which unknown to the Guards they had occupied the night before. The tables had turned. Jack and his men had been saved and their captors were outnumbered and about to become prisoners themselves. The Germans had two choices: fall into British hands or turn and flee. They cut their losses and went with the latter, but not before a despicable act was committed that would send shockwaves through the ranks of Old Etonians at the front and at home. The Germans had an officer among their number. As he was preparing to make his getaway he pulled out a revolver, marched over to where Jack lay hurt on the floor and executed him with a single gunshot wound to the head in front of his men. He was 19 years old.

There were conflicting stories about the fate of the man that murdered him. Some of the men swore blind that they had recognised the officer being led away from the farm at the end of the day with other prisoners. Another story which held weight at the time was that an OE in the 3rd Coldstream had arrived with his company just in time to witness the incident and that his men had taken it upon themselves to bayonet the German on the spot. The Coldstream were, however, still further down the hill towards Soupir and did not arrive until later. Another story, which is even less likely, was repeated by a friend of Jack's, Neville Woodroffe, who was serving in the Irish Guards and not present at the farm when Jack was killed. He claimed that the German officer had been caught ‘and having been thoroughly explained why … he was shot'.

Meanwhile, back near Troyon and the 9th Lancers, Gerard Frederick Freeman-Thomas of the 1st Coldstream Guards had awoken under the cover of some trees to the sound of gunfire raging at the sugar factory. The eldest son of Lord Willingdon, the recently appointed Governor of Bombay, like John Manners ‘Gerry' was a talented cricketer and had played at Lord's. His turn came in 1912, two years after John Manners, when the superiority of the Eton XI over Harrow was ‘at all times evident'.

Charged with pushing the advance on Troyon forwards after the Ninth had failed, the 1st Coldstream began making their way up, greeted with the encouraging sight of prisoners being led back down the hill towards the river. But they were soon to find themselves in just as much hot water as their Guards counterparts at Soupir.

The beginning of Gerry's advance was similar: a steep uphill climb through wooded heights in driving rain and fog. The going was tough and narrow, and they followed each other up in single file. Once at the top, the true gravity of their task became apparent as they spread out ready to advance into the fray across a flat, open plateau towards the sugar factory. Gerry formed up on the left with the rest of No.1 Company in a line that also included elements of the Scots Guards, the Cameron Highlanders and the Black Watch. An Etonian, John Ponsonby, led Gerry's battalion and had been told to advance straight for the Chemin des Dames.

When, in rotten weather and at the mercy of the German gunners, the British troops went forward into the open it was carnage. Troops that had been involved in the initial onslaught on the factory were crossing their path and in trying to avoid the relentless shellfire being thrown in their direction, battalions ran amongst each other and became immediately muddled. ‘Dense mist covered the ground like a pall' and the smoke lingering from the high-explosive shells rendered the men blind and the British artillery redundant. To Ponsonby, the air seemed to be on fire. Out of the mist and rain a shower of bullets and shells swept across the open battlefield, indiscriminately shattering troops.

Ponsonby himself was knocked down twice when shells exploded nearby, but cover was limited to haystacks ripped apart by bullets and holes in the ground. One Guardsman fell wounded and found himself amongst a pile of bodies, another rolled into a ditch to find himself lying in the pouring rain amongst dead and dying men still struggling to shield themselves from bullets flying overhead. All across the plateau men were attempting to patch each other up and get out of harm's way. Gerry Freeman-Thomas was leaning up against a haystack, unable to move and Allen Campbell, another Coldstream Etonian, was attempting to ignore his own injuries as he picked up another officer he had seen fall and carried him a mile to safety. Those that were able to carry on made it to the Chemin des Dames and into German trenches but the strength of the enemy was too great and the men found themselves forced back down the hill to where they had begun.

By 11 a.m. it was clear that as far as the 1st Coldstream Guards was concerned, the attack on the Chemin des Dames was a failure. The battalion lost more than a third of its strength including seventy-seven confirmed dead. With no reserves and dwindling ammunition they turned and retraced their steps back down the slope towards the river. The attempt to seize the high ground across the Aisne had failed but subsequent German counter-attacks failed to repel allied forces from the river. The initial war of movement was over and a stalemate ensued, one that would last more than four years. At the Battle of the Aisne the Western Front had been born.

In the autumn of 1914, before the vicious fighting over Ypres or the carnage on the Somme, the effect of such casualties and the confusion over the fates of these young officers and their men was traumatising. Half of the OEs who fell in mid September were never recovered, the biggest percentage for a single engagement during the war. Likewise, it was the first instance in which large numbers of Old Etonians were killed owing to their concentration in particular regiments. More than half of the OEs who fell in advancing back across the Aisne came from Guards' regiments. Neville Woodroffe, a young OE in the 1st Irish Guards, was devastated. ‘It's awful what the Brigade … has lost and being like one big regiment one knows everyone and feels it all the more … we always just seem to hit the unlucky day to be where the thick of it is.'

Soupir Communal Cemetery was among the early sites begun specifically to hold the remains of British soldiers on the Western Front. Before that, they had largely been buried in plots in French civilian churchyards and burial grounds. Soupir contains the highest proportion of Great War Etonian graves in a cemetery anywhere in the world: 50 per cent of the dead were educated at Eton College.

In such cases as La Coeur de Soupir the fighting had taken place in a relatively concentrated area about the farm and the British had continued to hold the ground. At nightfall on 14 September the Brigade was able to stand still and take stock, treating the wounded and dying on site and evacuating them in organised fashion over the course of a number of days and carrying out burials itself. Jack Cunliffe was laid to rest alongside his fellow Etonians.