Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Cemetery

by Jerry Murland

  ‘Shortly after 9.00 am German cavalry were seen coming towards us down the Koekuit road, which ran in a straight line for about a mile. At a point 350 yards from us they turned to their right down a lane to a farm 325 yards from our position. They were going at a full gallop and although we fired on them I did not observe any casualties. A large body of enemy infantry was then seen to be coming down the Koekuit road led by mounted officers.’

  Having successfully halted this initial advance with rifle and machine-gun fire, the attacking German troops were forced into cover. Yet it wasn’t long before the German infantry managed to outflank the trenches occupied by Number 2 Company of 1/Coldstream Guards by using the high banks of the Broenbeek to screen their movements. The Coldstream soon found themselves attacked on two sides; a situation that immediately put the British line under severe pressure. With characteristic orderliness the surviving Guardsmen retired to a fresh position where, supported by the three platoons of Gloucesters and 2/Welch with covering fire, they dug-in in a turnip field.

  With the Guards’ former positions overrun, the Gloucesters now found themselves dangerously exposed on one flank. Taking the full force of the German attack, Rising’s men directed their fire into the seemingly endless wall of enemy infantry as they continued to advance shoulder to shoulder down the Koekuit road. Private Barton again:

  ‘Ammunition was becoming scarce. All the wounded and killed were searched for ammunition. The attack from the farm direction was again pushed and reached a point 75 yards from us where it was pinned down. The fire from the ditch was so intense that many of our bayonets were broken by bullets. When hit they snapped like glass and the flying fragments were responsible for seven head and neck wounds, two of them very serious.’

  By mid-afternoon the fight was over. It had been an astonishing victory and served to illustrate sharply the effectiveness of sustained and accurate rifle-fire against close-packed infantry. The Gloucesters had fired an average of 500 rounds per man, the evidence of their defiant resistance now lying in heaps in front of their positions. But the cost to Rising’s command had been a heavy one: two of the three platoon commanders, Lieutenant Yalland and Lieutenant Harold Hippesley, had been killed; Lieutenant Baxter had been wounded and fifty-one other ranks killed or wounded. Despite these losses the exhausted Gloucesters had borne the full weight of the attack and forced a much larger force to retire. For his leadership during that intense and sustained fire-fight Robert Rising was awarded the DSO which was Gazetted on 9 November 1914, two days after his death:

  [He] ‘Went up with supports and conspicuously controlled the defence of the battalion’s trenches against a determined attack by the enemy. But for this stout defence the line must have been penetrated.’

  As for the positions abandoned by 1/Coldstream Guards, a combined counterattack made by the remainder of A Company under Captain McLeod and Number 2 Company of the Coldstream, regained the lost trenches by 7.00 pm that evening. The German official account of the Langemarck encounter of 22 to 23 October shows how completely their plans were frustrated by I Corps:

  ‘With the failure of the 46th Reserve Division to gain a decisive victory between Bixschoote and Langemarck, the fate of the XXVI and XXVII Reserve Corps was also settled. For the time being any further thought of a breakthrough was out of the question.’

  On the 24 October, I Corps was relieved by the French IX Army Corps, the 1st Division handing over their positions to the 87th Territorial Division. As the Gloucesters marched from their billets near Pilckem to Bellewaarde Farm, the next critical phase of the battle for Ypres was about to begin. For the Gloucesters it began with a night in the open; fortunately the weather was kind and the battalion moved the next morning to the wooded area around Hooge Chateâu on the Menin Road. Here they dug new trenches only to abandon them later that evening on receipt of fresh orders from the brigade commander, Brigadier General Herman Landon, to occupy a new position north of Veldhoek. The bulk of the battalion dug-in again along the road leading north from the village to Polygon Wood. A small detachment of sixty riflemen were deployed under Lieutenant Wetherall, along with Lieutenant Duncan and the machine-gun section, to reinforce the Coldstream Guards who were holding the Kruiseke crossroads.

  The village of Kruiseke had already been lost and 1/Grenadier Guards had lost a significant number of men in its defence on the 26 October. One of John Lee Steere’s cousins, 27-year-old Lieutenant Philip Van Neck was one of the officers of the battalion who was killed when two platoons were overwhelmed during 20 Brigade’s retirement from the village.6 The Van Neck family was already in mourning when news of Philip’s death reached them. Six days earlier, on 20 October, 21-year-old Second Lieutenant Charles Hylton Van Neck had been killed by a sniper on the II Corps front line near La Bassée serving with the 1st Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers.7

  Punctually at 5.30 am on the morning of 29 October the German attack began in earnest and almost immediately overwhelmed the units holding the line on both sides of the Menin Road at the Kruiseke crossroads. Peering through the early morning fog the men of the Coldstream Guards and Black Watch, who were entrenched north of the road, were practically annihilated as the first wave of the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division stormed their trenches. It was a similar story with the remnants of 1/Grenadier Guards and 2/Gordon Highlanders who were south of the road. An officer of the Grenadiers later described the attacking German formations as rather like a crowd leaving a football match:

  ‘Shoulder to shoulder they advanced much in the same way as their ancestors fought under Frederick the Great, and though for spectacular purposes at Grand Manoeuvres their mass formations were very effective, in actual warfare against modern weapons they proved to be a costly failure.’

  Costly failure it might have been in terms of casualties, but for the riflemen of the British battalions, the difficulty was to shoot the advancing infantry down rapidly enough to avoid being overrun. At the Kruiseke crossroads their combined firepower was not enough to prevent disaster.

  At around 7.00 am the Gloucesters were ordered to advance towards Gheluvelt and counter-attack in support of the shattered remnants 1 and 20 Brigades. With the Germans pouring men through the breach in the line north of the Menin Road, the remaining men of 3 Brigade were moved up at noon enabling the 1/South Wales Borderers to reach the eastern edge of the Gheluvelt Chateâu, while 2/Welch and 1/Queen’s pushed through Gheluvelt to occupy the eastern outskirts and the cemetery to the south of the Menin Road. The situation was already looking grim for the beleaguered British troops.

  Meanwhile, the Gloucesters had been taking heavy casualties all morning in their various contacts with the enemy. At 7.00 am Lieutenant Colonel Lovett ordered A Company to advance north of the Menin Road to assist the Black Watch and the Scots Guards, thereafter, in the confused events of the day, all four companies of Gloucesters became detached from each other, each fighting wherever they found the enemy. Robert Rising and his men, along with D Company got to within 300 yards of the Kruiseke crossroads where they helped rally the 1 Brigade survivors. Attacked again from the northeast, Rising and his men gradually fell back while covering the retirement of Major Robert Gardner and D Company to make a stand on the outskirts of the village. There was a slight advantage here. Gheluvelt is situated on relatively high ground and the attacking enemy forces were obliged to advance uphill from the crossroads, giving a commanding field of fire to the British battalions. Even so, by the time the remaining 3 Brigade battalions reached the Gloucesters in the late afternoon to stabilise the line temporarily the battalion had taken heavy casualties. 7 officers and 160 other ranks were either killed, wounded or were missing. Of these, 3 officers and 14 NCOs had been killed. As dusk fell the shell-battered and burning Gheluvelt was still in British hands but no-one was under any illusion that the battle was over.

  The night of 29 October was cold and wet, but it provided a brief respite for the surviving Gloucesters who, by now, had been withdrawn to the Veldhoek trenc
hes. The rain did little to mask the noise of troop movement coming from behind the German lines; a rumbling that announced the continuing build-up of Army Group Fabeck. Much to the surprise of the British troops, dawn on the 30 October was relatively quiet on the Gheluvelt front. German artillery continued to reduce the village to ruins but the German effort was being concentrated around the hilltop village of Zandvoorde further to the south where 7 Cavalry Brigade and 22 Infantry Brigade were dug-in on the southeast facing ridge. The Gloucesters remained at Veldhoek, losing another seven men killed and five wounded by shell fire, with orders to standby to assist if the enemy broke through the thin line of defence in front of Gheluvelt. That line was to be severely tested the next day.

  The German attack on the morning of the 31 October began just after 6.00 am when the defensive line of the 1st Division was attacked in force by the 16th Barvarian and 246th Regiments. The British riflemen opened a devastating fire at medium range bringing the attack to a juddering halt as the first and second waves of enemy infantry were brought down. By 7.30 am the initial German infantry attack had dwindled away and there was a pause before an hour-long artillery bombardment began at 8.00 am.

  The method adopted by the enemy forces in their attacks on British positions along the Menin Road nearly always ran to the same tactical plan. All the batteries in the area would concentrate their fire on the road itself and the trenches to the left and right, completely destroying these forward positions. While the surviving troops were still recovering from the inferno of shell fire, a dense mass of infantry would be poured through the gap created in the line. Enemy infantry would then surround the trenches that were still being defended to the left and right of the gap. In this manner whole companies of men who had survived the shell fire were often completely overwhelmed and annihilated.

  Soon after 9.00 am, the 1/Queen’s and 2 /Welch, which were in positions south of the Menin Road, had lost most of their officers and NCOs killed or wounded. The remnants of those battalions began to fall back through the village in the face of the ever advancing wall of infantry. In the confusion of this withdrawal, men of different battalions and even different brigades found themselves fighting together, often commanded by an officer or NCO who had collected groups of stragglers. It was in this chaos of battle that a little piece of history was made. For the first time in the long history of the Queen’s, both regular battalions found themselves fighting side-by-side.

  To the north of the road, four battalions of the German 54th Reserve Division were held by 130 men of 2/Welch until around 11.45 am when only thirty-seven men were left standing. This dogged determination not to bend under the onslaught was not an isolated event. The men of 1/South Wales Borderers and 1/Scots Guards, who were fighting close to the chateâu grounds, were putting up a similar defence as several companies of German infantry penetrated the village and brought fire to bear onto the rear of some British units. But it was the beginning of the end and by midday the battle for Gheluvelt was all but over. Five weak battalions, which could barely muster 1,000 men between them, were no match for the thirteen German battalions they faced. The situation was now critical and the British line showed every sign of breaking down under the pressure.

  But worse was still to come, while the I Corps divisional staffs were meeting in the annexe of Hooge Chateâu at lunchtime to discuss the severity of the situation, the room in which they were gathered was hit by a shell and almost every officer present was either killed or wounded. Major General Samuel Lomax (GOC 1st Division) was severely wounded and incapacitated and Major General Charles Monro (GOC 2nd Division) was badly concussed. Yet this incident, which delivered a potentially devastating blow to the command structure of I Corps, served to illustrate the professionalism and depth of leadership that still existed amongst the brigade and battalion commanders. An element that was no better illustrated by the events that followed.

  At 2.00 pm another German attack wiped out the right flank of 1/South Wales Borderers and the remaining men of the battalion fell back through the grounds of the Gheluvelt Chateâu. Germans were now advancing in force up the Menin Road, Gheluvelt was in flames and a gap had opened up in the line. In a desperate but futile counter-attack, Major Gardner and D Company of the Gloucesters were sent into the village. Some eighty-strong when they set off, they were reduced to just fifteen men left standing by the time they met the advance parties of the 54th Reserve Division. Gardner died at the head of his men and the handful that remained held out until they were overwhelmed and taken prisoner.

  Just when it looked as though the day was lost and the road to Ypres was wide open, Brigadier General Charles FitzClarence, GOC 1 Guards Brigade, threw in the only reserves left to fight, the 2nd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment (2/Worcesters). Desperately below strength they were now ordered to advance from Polygon Wood on the chateâu, where the Scots Guards and South Wales Borderers still clung onto their positions. It was a last desperate effort to plug the gap in the line. In theory the situation looked hopeless; how could a severely understrength battalion possibly alter the course of events in the face of such overwhelming odds? Nevertheless at 3.00 pm, 370 men led by Major Edward Hankey, ran at the double across a mile of open ground before they charged with fixed bayonets into the mass of well over 1,000 German infantrymen.

  More than 100 of the Worcesters had fallen before they reached the woods in front of the chateâu but the ferocity and surprise of their attack routed the German force, which fled abandoning much of their arms and equipment. It is probably going a little too far to suggest that the Worcesters’ charge saved the day, but crucially, it did enable the men of the 1st Division to rally, reform and restore the integrity of the front line north of the Menin Road. It also allowed the British line to be redrawn further east without the inevitable casualties of a fighting withdrawal.

  Later that afternoon, a similar counter-attack to stabilize the right of the I Corps line, took place south of the Menin Road in Shrewsbury Forest under the leadership of Brigadier General Edward Bulfin. It was almost as if it had become a prerequisite that counter-attacks should only be carried out in the face of overwhelming odds with as few men as possible. In reality of course, many such attacks during the First Battle of Ypres were usually the last desperate throws of the dice, carried out by anyone that was still upright and could hold a rifle and bayonet. Possibly the prospect of the failure to hold the line and the image of German troops entering Ypres en-masse were enough to provide the determination and energy to drive the Germans back time after time. A more probable explanation was the degree of panic that an unexpected body of charging, shouting men with fixed bayonets could wreak on an enemy force.

  Unquestionably the courage and battlefield discipline of the British soldier had won the respect of their adversaries. An officer of the German General Staff was reported to have said that:

  ‘The Englishman is cool and indifferent to danger … he stays where he is commanded … he shoots magnificently, extraordinarily well. He is good at bayonet attack … and it is during these bayonet attacks when luck is against him that he is at his very best.’8

  By mid-afternoon, south of Gheluvelt, the 105th (Saxon) Regiment had cleared the last of the British defence and was now in a position to advance up the Menin Road. Ahead of them lay Veldhoek and three understrength companies of the Gloucesters reinforced by a collection of stragglers from other 3 Brigade units. From the cover of a barricade across the road at the Veldhoek crossroads, the battalion’s rifles stemmed any further advance towards Ypres. Lieutenant Robert Grazebrook’s account still survives:

  ‘The barricade across the Menin Road at Veldhoek and the houses on either side provided excellent cover for snipers to pick off the Huns advancing up the road or amongst the ruins of Gheluvelt. Sgt Major Long and CQMS Mayell did excellent work from one of the houses and accounted for many of the enemy as they attempted to cross the road from the south.’

  At 6.00 pm that evening the British troops north of the Menin R
oad were withdrawn to a fresh line stretching from the Gloucesters’position at Veldhoek, past the Polderhoek Chateâu and up to Polygon Wood. The Germans’ near breakthrough at Gheluvelt would remain one of the closest they came to breaking the Allied lines around Ypres until 1918.

  The Gloucesters were by now unrecognisable from the battalion that marched out of Ypres earlier in the month. They had been fighting almost continuously since their first contact with the enemy at Langemarck and were now badly in need of a rest. In fact, a roll call on 2 November at Inverness Copse revealed their fighting strength was less than 240 all ranks. That morning the whole of 3 Brigade could only muster some 800 men of all ranks as it marched to Sanctuary Wood for what the men imagined was to be a period of rest away from the front line. It was not to be. By 1.00 pm on 3 November, they were back on the Menin Road near Clapham Junction to counter the German attacks south of the road at Herenthage Wood. A few hours before, 200 reinforcements had arrived at Sanctuary Wood to bring the battalion strength up to a little over 400 men. They were going to be needed in the next few days.

  The route through Gheluvelt was now being used to move enemy forces in the battle for the wooded area south of the Menin Road around Klein Zillebeke. Predictably it drew in the 3 Brigade infantrymen who were close at hand. As the Gloucesters left the cover of Railway Wood northwest of Bellewaarde Farm in the late afternoon of 6 November 1914 and marched southeast over the Menin Road towards Zwarteleen, Robert Rising effectively crossed his Rubicon: he had twenty-four hours left to live.

  Chapter 7

  Holding on at all costs

  The 2nd Division was one of the last BEF units to arrive in Flanders. For the officers and men of 4 (Guards) Brigade the journey from the trenches of the Aisne to Flanders was long and tedious. Having entrained at Fismes at 4.00 am on 14 October 1914, they eventually arrived at Hazebrouck some twenty-seven hours later. As usual the men travelled in cattle trucks while the officers were more fortunate in having the comfort of what was described as ‘some pretty poor third class accommodation.’ Despite the discomfort, the brigade was delighted to have left their trenches at Chavonne and the daily shell fire that had become such a deadly feature of that sector. Typically, shortly before they left, the Grenadier and the Coldstream Guards were on the receiving end of a bombardment while in billets at Chavonne village, this time in retaliation for an earlier action, Bernard Gordon Lennox described the episode: