Hertfordshire Soldiers of The Great War

Chapter One

1914 – So It Begins

On land, at sea and in the air, the men and women of Hertfordshire served their country, and the county, both at home and abroad. The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, was the catalyst for a series of events that would spark a global conflict. Unbeknown to the assassin, Gavrilo Princip, an ethnic Serb from Bosnia, the following weeks would see the Austro-Hungarian government, urged by the Germans, proceed to provoke Serbia into military confrontation. The Serbs, for their part, made considerable efforts to avoid any form of hostility, but their efforts were futile. The Austro-Hungarian government declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914, confident in the knowledge that they would be fully supported by the Germans in the event that Russia made any sort of military intervention. France and Russia were allies and Britain had cooperated with the two nations since 1904. However, German leaders were ready to risk war because they believed the military balance favoured them.

Following the declaration of war by Austria-Hungary, the Russians began their military preparations, and ordered a general mobilisation on 31 July 1914. Now placed on a war footing, Russia – eager to protect their own interests in the Balkans – expected France to support them. In fear of being surrounded by the might of both Russia and France, Germany put into effect the Schlieffen Plan, which proposed a military assault on France by passing through neutral Belgium, with the capture of Paris as its main objective.

On 3 August 1914 Germany requested permission from the Belgian government to pass through the neutral country, but their request was refused. The following day forty-four divisions of the German Army poured through Belgium in an attempt to attack the French Army which was massed in the northeast of the country, mostly in Lorraine. This act of open aggression caused Great Britain and its Commonwealth territories to declare war against Germany in support of Belgium, with whom Great Britain had a treaty. The first troops of the British Expeditionary Force arrived in France on 14 August to support the French Army. Amongst those early arrivals, mainly soldiers of the regular army, were a significant number of Hertfordshire men, some of whom were to quickly become the county’s first casualties in the opening phase of the war.

In the early part of September 1914, the French Army, supported by the British Expeditionary Force, were able to halt the German thrust on the outskirts of Paris during the First Battle of the Marne. The German Army then withdrew north, to a defensive line along the Aisne River. The German invasion of France and Belgium had come excruciatingly close to defeating the French, capturing Paris and ending the First World War before the end of the year. However, the German withdrawal was the first indication that the war was not going to be over quickly as many had thought, and that a long confrontation was to be expected. Hertfordshire newspapers were soon to be filled with letters from serving soldiers, with tales of terror, exhaustion and defeat to tell, all of whom felt that there was a protracted road ahead.

On 12 September, beginning in the Aisne Valley, the opposing forces embarked upon what would be subsequently known as the ‘Race to the Sea’. For several weeks, as the Germans and the Allies attempted to pass around the flank of the other, a war of constant movement evolved, resulting in a series of confused battles that brought devastating losses. Eventually the warring factions came to a halt on the shores of the North Sea near the Belgian town of Nieuwpoort. In actions synonymous with this early part of the war, such as La Bassée, Messines and Armentieres, the men of Hertfordshire played their part well, some of whom were never to return home.

The First Battle of Ypres began on 19 October, and continued through to 22 November, with German forces capturing Messines, south of Ypres, on the 1 November 1914. It was during this period that the men of the Hertfordshire Regiment arrived in Flanders. Their efforts helped to stave off the attempted German breakthrough but eventually, exhausted, the two sides proceeded to take up positions behind trenches and defensive works, creating a more or less continuous line of trenches separating the belligerents along the length of what was to become known as The Western Front.

At Sea and In the Air

The ambition to control the world’s seas and waterways were a major reason why the Great War spread so quickly. The range and power of the opposing naval fleets and the introduction of new weapons such as mines, torpedoes, and submarines made even the greatest warships vulnerable. The Battle of Coronel, the Battle of the Falkland Islands and other early sea battles soon made it apparent how naval warfare could be used to aid in maintaining control of trade routes.

The first time that the British and German navies clashed in the Great War was at the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914, resulting in a devastating loss for the German High Seas Fleet, with three light cruisers and a destroyer being sunk. Altogether 712 German sailors were killed, many more wounded and 336 taken prisoner. The British, for their part, lost no ships during the battle and the casualties were 35 men killed and 40 wounded. A few weeks later, on 22 September 1914 HMS Aboukir, HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy were all sunk by the German submarine U-9, resulting in a significant loss of life, including a number of Hertfordshire sailors. The British hospital ship Rohilla was wrecked off Whitby on 30 September and, the following day, HMS Hermes was sunk by German submarine off Dover. Again, a number of Hertfordshire men were amongst the lives lost in these tragic events.

The newly invented airplane was to provide each belligerent with a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the battlefield. When the Royal Flying Corps deployed to France in 1914, it had a total strength of 63 aircraft supported by 900 men. The value of this new invention as a reconnaissance tool was proven at the Battle of Mons on 23 August 1914, when the advancing British Army collided with the Germans as they marched towards France. From their vantage point above the opposing armies, a British observation team could see the Germans as they attempted to surround the unsuspecting British army. Alerted, the British high command ordered an immediate retreat into France and, as embarrassing as the withdrawal was for the British, the move saved the army. The airplane’s value as an observation platform had been proven but it would be some months before a French pilot would strap a machine gun to the nose of his aircraft to create the first true fighter plane.

The Home Front – 1914

The declaration of war generated a burst of panic food buying amongst the civilian population, who witnessed a sudden hike in food prices. Rumours of food shortages soon began to circulate and in the market town of Hitchin, on the evening of 5 August, a crowd of concerned townsfolk gathered outside the premises of Moss and Sons, a prominent local grocer who had raised their meat prices. After voicing their outrage, the crowd marched to Moss’ nearby home to confront him. Soon, the police were reinforced and able to hold the crowd back. Moss was persuaded to address the mob, promising to hold prices to what they had been the previous week. Although the situation had been effectively controlled, a brazen act of vandalism saw the shop windows smashed in the early hours. No one was ever prosecuted for the act. This, of course, was not the only incident during those early months of the war in which the public raised a furious objection against those who sought to financially benefit from the conflict, but it is one of the more prominent occurrences to have taken place in Hertfordshire.

Come on Lad, Join Up!

At the outbreak of war over three-quarters of a million men across Britain were recruited into the army in just eight weeks. Across Hertfordshire a number of recruiting stations appeared and large numbers of local men quickly signed up. Every man had to undergo a series of medical and fitness tests, and a great many were rushed through the process. Recruiting officers regularly turned a blind eye to many of the minimum requirements, allowing underage and unfit men to slip through into the ranks. In order to stem the flow of volunteers, the height limit was raised from 59 30 to 59 60. However, this was subsequently lowered, on more than one occasion, in response to the falling numbers of recruits.

There are varying views about a man’s choice of which regiment he served with but, very broadly, if a man enlisted voluntarily prior to January 1916, he would have had a choice as to which unit he initially joined. With the introduction of conscription in January 1916, men were sent where they were needed and had little choice in the matter. After they had been accepted into the army, a man would go through a period of basic training in camps all over the country. Conditions in these camps at this early stage of hostilities were often very basic, and supplies of equipment and uniforms were very limited. In locations such as Berkhamsted, Watford, St. Albans and Hitchin, new recruits were billeted in houses, farms and tented accommodation as their training began in the surrounding fields, parks and meadows of the county.

This advert was published in the Hertfordshire Express in October 1914.

Many local men joined the Hertfordshire Regiment, part of the Territorial Force. As a pre-war ‘Terrier’ unit, the men of the Hertfordshire were part-time soldiers coming from all walks of life, training together at weekends and annual summer camps. The divide between the regular army and the men of territorial battalions was all too apparent in the years before the war, with the territorials being looked down upon by the men of the regular army. When war broke out in August 1914, the army was called upon to form the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) along with a small number of territorial units. The 1st Battalion Hertfordshire Regiment was among these units. Over the next few years these ordinary men found themselves involved in fighting in some of the major actions now synonymous with the First World War: Ypres, Loos, the Somme and Passchendaele. Through dedication, professionalism, courage under fire, valuable supporting roles and comradeship whilst fighting with the British Army’s elite Guards Brigade, the boys of the Herts earned the respect of the regular army, taking the honorary name of the ‘Herts Guards’ in the process.

From the very earliest days of the war, the men of Hertfordshire, serving in both combative and non-combative roles, began to arrive on the European continent and by the end of September 1914 the local newspapers were filled with stories of those who had taken part in the early battles, and of those who had fallen. Rolls of Honour were swiftly prepared and published in countless Hertfordshire towns and villages, listing the names of those who had stepped forward to serve their country, as well as those who had made the ultimate sacrifice. By the end of the year, at least one Hertfordshire life had been lost for every day of the conflict.

For the men of the Hertfordshire Regiment, contact with the enemy did not take place until mid-November when they faced the Germans on the outskirts of Ypres, and where a number of casualties were suffered. Their fight with the enemy continued throughout the remainder of the year, with the regiment giving up two precious lives even on Christmas Day 1914. For them, the war was not over by Christmas and there certainly was no question of a truce, a football match or any form of fraternisation. They simply prepared themselves for what the New Year was about to bring.

THE FIRST TO FALL – SECOND LIEUTENANT JOSEPH FREDERICK MEAD

The action at Nimy Bridge on 23 August 1914 is well known in that it was here that the first Victoria Cross awards of the Great War were to be earned. The 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, suffered the loss of 150 officers and men, one of whom was a Hertfordshire man, Second Lieutenant Joseph Frederick Mead.

Second Lieutenant Joseph Frederick Mead. (Winchester College)

Joseph was born on 1 February 1892 in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, the son of Frederick Mead of The Moorings, St. Albans, Hertfordshire. He was educated at The Wick, in Hove, and later entered Winchester College. Noted for his fondness of all outdoor sports, he became Head of House and a Commoner Prefect as well as the President of the Boat Club, gaining the gold medal for athletics two years in succession. After leaving Winchester College, Joseph entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, where he passed as first of his year for the British Army, obtaining a commission in the 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, in February 1912. He played cricket and football for his company, and was a renowned runner. He passed the flying tests at Brooklands in 1913 and was awarded his aviator’s certificate. Joseph was due to take a further course in 1914 with a view to joining the Royal Flying Corps Reserve, but the outbreak of war prevented this.

Lieutenant Mead arrived in France on 13 August 1914 when his battalion landed at Le Havre aboard the transport ship Martaban. The troops then marched to a rest camp on the outskirts of Le Havre, and it was reported that a great number of men fell out during the march as a result of both the heat and the large number of reservists who were in the battalion at the time, most of whom were not accustomed to the rigours of service life. The battalion spent the next ten days travelling and by 22 August had reached Nimy, just north of Mons, where they were to be involved in one of the first actions of the Great War, the fighting on the Mons-Conde Canal.

It had been a long march to Mons and the men were weary, but they set up a position alongside the canal bank. This offered little protection for the rifle companies, so the night was spent digging and using material found in the surrounding area to make improvised firing positions. ‘Y’ Company, under the command of Captain Lionel Forbes Ashburner, was set up with its left flank on the Nimy Railway Bridge and the right flank on a swing bridge which had been closed to stop the movement of traffic. In the early hours of 23 August 1914 the approach of a German patrol was heard, and at first light was spotted and fired upon, hitting four of the soldiers and wounding an officer who was taken prisoner. It later emerged that this officer was Lieutenant von Arnim, son of the commander of IV German Army Corps, who had been observing the fusiliers from the Nimy road. Throughout the entire day, the defenders at Nimy were relentlessly attacked by a superior German force, putting up intense resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. The following account of how Joseph Mead met his death was received from an officer of his battalion:

It was on 23 August at Mons. He was in reserve at the railway station with the rest of his company. Captain Ashburner was very hard pressed and sent back for reinforcements. He was defending the bridge over the canal. It was a hopeless position, as the enemy could get within one hundred yards of the bridge and then fire from houses, gardens, etc., and never be seen. Also, I believe five different battalions were recognised in front of this one company. Lieutenant Mead was soon ordered to reinforce the firing line, which he did in the face of a fearful fire. Directly he got into the trench he was wounded in the head by a bullet. He went to the rear, just a few yards away, to get it dressed, and was quietly whistling all the time. Directly the dressing was finished he went back to the trench, and the second he got there he got a bullet straight through the forehead.

Second Lieutenant Joseph Frederick Mead is buried in St Symphorien Military Cemetery, Belgium, aged 22. He was awarded the 1914 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.

Second Lieutenant Robert John Mead. (Winchester College)

Joseph’s younger brother, Robert John Mead, who was born on 3 January 1896, also served with the Royal Fusiliers, and was killed in a tragic frontline accident. He too had been educated at The Wick, Hove, and later entered Winchester College, where he was Head of his House in his last year and won Kirby Foils in 1913 and 1914. He had intended to go to Balliol College, Oxford, in October 1914 but on the outbreak of war passed straight from the Winchester Officer Training Corps into the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers and left for France, arriving there at the end of May 1915.

Second Lieutenant Joseph Frederick Mead is buried in St Symphorien Military Cemetery, Belgium, aged 22.

Second Lieutenant Robert John Mead is buried in the Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentieres, France, aged 19.

Robert was the first officer casualty of the battalion when, on 1 August 1915, he was supervising a digging party at Trench 25, outside of the village of Houplines. An unexploded German ‘Sausage’ bomb, a type of trench mortar, was struck by the pick of one of the working party. One man was killed instantly, Second Lieutenant Mead was mortally wounded and 13 other men were also injured.

Quick Fact

The first other rank from Hertfordshire to become a battle casualty in the Great War was 22-year-old Private Arthur Frank Saunders, the son of Frederick William and Caroline Saunders of Cobden Hill, Radlett, who was reported missing on 24 August 1914 whilst serving with ‘A’ Squadron, 15th (The King’s) Hussars. He has no known grave and his name is recorded on the La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre Memorial, France, which commemorates 3,740 officers and men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) who fell at the battles of Mons, Le Cateau, the Marne and the Aisne between the end of August and early October 1914 and who have no known graves. There are known to be seven soldiers from Hertfordshire recorded on its panels. The names of the other six known to be from the county are:

Gunner George Fred Hart – 28th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery – 26/08/1914 aged 21. Son of Charles and Charlotte Elizabeth Hart of Barnet.

Corporal Charles Joseph Darvill – 1st Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment – 14/09/1914 aged 24. Son of Mr and Mrs J. Darvill of High Barnet.

Sergeant Henry Sutton – 2nd Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps – 14/09/1914 aged 28. Son of Elizabeth Sutton of Hemel Hempstead and husband of Edith Sutton of Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.

Private Thomas Law – 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment – 15/09/1914 aged 32. Brother of Alfred Law of Berkhamsted.

Captain Mortimer Fisher – 1st Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales Own) – 20/09/1914 aged 31. Son of Fred and Clara Fisher of King’s Langley and husband of Margaret Fisher of Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex.

Private Wilfred Noel Franklin – 1st Battalion, South Wales Borderers – 26/09/1914 aged 28. Son of William Franklin of Harpenden.

Second Lieutenant Robert John Mead died as a result of his injuries at Armentieres on 2 August 1915, and is buried in the Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentieres, France, aged 19. He was awarded the 1915 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.

The names of both brothers are recorded on the St. Albans War Memorial, Hertfordshire.

VICTORIAN WARRIOR – GENERAL SIR HORACE SMITH-DORRIEN

Upon the outbreak of the Great War the eyes of the British public turned expectantly to Britain’s small, yet highly professional regular army. It was this army which had gained and held the British Empire during the Victorian period and which had been a global sign of British dominance, alongside the mighty Royal Navy ever since. With so much expected of the greatly outnumbered British Expeditionary Force, the public gaze fell on the major figures who were due to lead the British Army into battle – perhaps none of these commanders were more colourful than Berkhamsted’s Horace Smith-Dorrien. Smith-Dorrien was the perfect example of the quintessential British officer of the late Victorian period. Being born at a property known as Haresfoot near Berkhamsted on 26 May 1858, he was twelfth of a rather incredible sixteen children to Colonel Robert Algernon Smith-Dorrien and Mary Ann Drever.

General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.

Horace was educated at Harrow School before attending Sandhurst Military Academy, which he entered on 26 February 1876. Horace eventually received a commission into the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment of Foot. When young Smith-Dorrien first joined the British Army, and for almost two decades afterwards, they were very much still a Victorian force, fighting in the famous red coats of Wellington’s era.

Young Horace’s first major experience of battle was in none other than the catastrophic destruction of almost the entire 24th Regiment of Foot in the Battle of Isandlwana during the Anglo-Zulu war in 1879.

On 22 January 1879 Smith-Dorrien was serving as a transport officer attached to the Royal Artillery, which was part of No. 3 Column of the British invasion force led by Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford as they pushed into Zululand in order to defeat the forces of Zulu King Cetshwayo. That day, a catastrophic blunder made by Lord Chelmsford in detaching a large part of his force to chase down a small detachment of Zulu left around 1,000 British soldiers in defence of an encampment in an exposed position beneath a mountain known as Isandlwana. Unbeknownst to Chelmsford, the main Zulu Army was in fact only a few miles from the camp and once discovered, launched a huge attack with more than 25,000 warriors onto the overextended and unprepared British lines. Over the following two hours, almost the entire British force were overrun and cut down, despite putting up the most gallant of defences against all odds.

One of only five British officers to escape the slaughter was 20-year-old Horace Smith-Dorrien, who was plunged headlong into a river after a 3-mile flight, chased all the way by bands of Zulu Warriors. Only a chance encounter with a riderless horse whose tail he was able to hold on to meant that he would live to fight another day, as the horse pulled him to safety through the Buffalo River.

The Battle of Isandlwana.

For the British Army it was a good thing that young Smith-Dorrien survived the day as over the next two decades he rose to prominence in the British Army, distinguishing himself during the Boer War at the turn of the century. By 1914 Horace had risen to the rank of general and following the death of a superior he was put in charge of the British Army’s II Corps on the Western Front. Despite bitter rivalries and dislike between Smith-Dorrien and his commander-in-chief, Field Marshal French, Smith-Dorrien led his corps with great skill and determination during the Battle of Mons, blunting the German Army’s advance at Le Cateau shortly after. Although Smith-Dorrien was clearly an able commander – arguably the BEF’s best in 1914 – he was notoriously foul tempered, and throughout the early months of 1915 relations between Smith-Dorrien and French worsened. On 6 May 1915 General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien was sacked from his position as GOC of II Corps. He was informed of this by General Robertson, a former enlisted man who reportedly said ‘’Orace, Yer for ’ome.’ Smith-Dorrien’s command in 1914–15 would be the last that he held during the Great War. He was eventually posted to East Africa to take charge of British Forces, but was taken ill on the voyage and never held an active command again. Despite being sidelined by 1915, history remembers Smith-Dorrien favourably; a difficult, yet practical and skilful commander who fell afoul of military infighting rather than poor performance.

Today, General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien is buried in the cemetery adjoining St Peter’s church in Berkhamsted.

After the war Smith-Dorrien held the post of Governor of Gibraltar before retiring in 1923. He spent much of his spare time writing his memoirs and was a keen promoter of remembrance for those who fell in the Great War. On 12 August 1930 Smith-Dorrien’s vehicle, in which he was a passenger, was involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle at a crossroads near Chippenham in Wiltshire. As a result of the crash, which overturned his vehicle, Smith-Dorrien suffered a fractured skull. He never regained consciousness and died later that morning; he was 72 years of age.

HIGH SEAS AMBUSH – CHAPLAIN EDWARD ROBSON

At the outbreak of war in 1914 most of the world’s major navies operated a small number of submarines. They had been in service for a little over a decade and the experience of their employment and designs were largely experimental. With a limited range, minimal armament, low speed and – above all – short underwater endurance, many believed that they posed very little threat to warships. Significant development throughout the First World War was to change these views, but in September 1914 many commanders who had grown up in purely surface navies still held on to such opinions.

Chaplain Edward Robson

On 22 September 1914, a German submarine, U-9, commanded by Otto Eduard Weddigen, shocked the world when it ambushed three outdated Royal Navy cruisers manned mainly by reservists whilst on patrol in the North Sea. Otto Weddigen had left Wilhelmshaven on 20 September 1914 with orders to attack British transports landing troops at Ostend on the Belgian coast. Weddigen, aged just 32, was an experienced submariner who had survived a peacetime accident in the submarine U-3 whereby he and 27 others had escaped through a torpedo tube. The U-9 was very primitive by later standards, with heavy-oil engines which produced a very visible exhaust plume, and a surface speed of 13.5 knots. The U-9 was armed with four torpedo tubes (two forward, two aft) and carried reloads for the forward tubes only.

Otto Eduard Weddigen.

At dawn on 22 September, U-9 surfaced to find the sea calm with a slow swell. Smoke was seen on the horizon and the U-9’s engines were immediately shut down to get rid of their exhaust plume. A quick assessment led Weddigen to order the submarine to submerge as he continued to observe through his periscope. Three vessels were seen on the horizon, HMS Aboukir, HMS Cressy and HMS Hogue. Weddingen steered the submarine towards the British ships using his electric motors, aiming towards the central vessel, HMS Aboukir. Undetected, the German submarine closed to within 600 yards of its prey and fired a torpedo towards the enemy’s port bow. As the torpedo was still running, Weddigen took the U-9 down to a depth of 50 feet, then heard ‘a dull thud, followed by a shrill-toned crash’. Immediately, there was great rejoicing and cheering amongst the crew of the U-9. An officer on watch aboard the U-9 later wrote: ‘In the periscope, a horrifying scene unfolded. We present in the conning tower tried to suppress the terrible impression of drowning men, fighting for their lives in the wreckage, clinging on to capsized