Page 18 - Sylvia Malt - Side by Side v1

THE COURSE OF THE WAR......... and the battles in which the men fell

1914 - The British Expeditionary Force fought its first battle, which was not much more than a small
skirmish between cavalry scouts, at the end of August. After the Battle of Aisne had ended in late
September, the BEF under Field Marshal French, had been switched to the extreme left of the
Anglo-French line with its chief mission to protect Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk - Channel Ports vital
to the arrival of British reinforcements and supplies. (Thomas Whiffen)

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The Battle of Ypres took place between 19 October and 22 November 1914 and was the last battle
to be fought in open warfare. The Germans were fully aware of the importance of the Channel Ports to
Britain, but had so far failed to take them and time was running out, but a successful push on Ypres
would likely lead to their capture and make Britain’s further participation in the war doubtful. The
Allies suffered a total of 75,000 casualties. The BEF had been decimated and would need to be entirely
rebuilt. The war was a just five months or so old and the total manpower losses were truly staggering.
(Alfred Taylor /Hugh Trevor Crispin)

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The 1 Battalion, the Bedfordshire Regiment were based at Mullingar in Ireland in 1914 but hurried
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back to the UK, landing in France on 16 August 1914 as part of General Haig’s British Expeditionary
Force. They fought in the early engagements of the war, including the Battle of Mons and again
during the stand at Le Cateau, where five Victoria Crosses were won by their Division. After taking
part in the Battle of Marne and the Battle of Aisne, they were rushed north to Flanders where they
were involved in the first Battle of Ypres. By the end of November, the Division had suffered 5,000
casualties and stayed in a purely defensive role. (Frederick May)

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In October 1914, the 11 (Prince Albert’s Own) Hussars) fought an historic battle as part of the British
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Expeditionary Force and between 19 and 23rd October 1914 they successfully fought in the
Ploegstreert area, helping to stop the advance of the three German cavalry divisions. By late 1914 they
were no longer mounted and fought in the trenches just like the infantry. (Arnold Vansittart).

1915 - The Battle of Loos was one of the major British offensives mounted on the Western Front in
1915. It marked the first time the British used poison gas during the war, and is also famous for the
fact that it witnessed the first large-scale use of the ‘new’ or Kitchener’s Army units which included the
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6 Battalion, East Kent Regiment. The battle also marked the third use of specialist Royal Engineer
Tunnelling Companies, who deployed mines underground to disrupt enemy defence lines through the
use of tunnels and the detonation of large amounts of explosives at zero hour. (William
Harris/Bruce Dickinson)

The war was also fought at sea. HMS “Clan McNaughton” was a merchant ship which was
requisitioned in November 1914 after returning to her home port of Tilbury, Essex. She was then
hastily converted into something she was never intended to be, a warship, which would have included
mounting guns up on deck, well above her normal centre of gravity.

A few days before Christmas 1914, the ship, (which was crewed by a mixture of reservists, including
some men from Newfoundland, as well as one or two Royal Naval pensioners and the 50 or so young,
inexperienced trainee sailors) set sail for patrol duties in the North Atlantic. It is known that she had
to put into Liverpool on the way, seemingly for some problem to be resolved, but after she sent a radio
message at 6am on the morning of 6th February 1915, she was never heard of again.(Harry Tuthill).