Attrition of Command in the BEF in

By the end of 1914 the BEF had passed through the battles of Mons, Le Cateau, the Marne and the Aisne, and had been violently mauled at First Ypres. By this time there were 123 Regular and 23 TF battalions in France. After First Ypres141 it has been claimed that “in most cases, there were barely one officer and 30 men left” from the battalions who had arrived in France in 1914.142

By 31 December 1914, 1,278 officers had died, 2,209 were wounded, and 783 were missing or prisoners, comprising a total of 4,041 Regular officers (4271 including Indian Army and Territorials), or nearly 32 per cent of the 12,738 Regular officers of August 1914.143 Keith Simpson notes that from 1st Queen’s, of 26 officers, 24 were casualties by this date; from 1st Norfolk, 15 of 26; from 3rd Worcestershire, 15 of 28; and from 1st Northamptonshire, 26 of 26.144

By the end of 1914, 18 of the Regular COs of August 1914 were dead.145 Five were prisoners of war.146 Two had been lost through court martial, six had been promoted to

141

19 October to 22 November 1914.

142

I.F.W. Beckett, Ypres – The First Battle 1914 (Harlow: Pearson, 2004), p.177

143

Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War 1914-1920 (London: HMSO, 1922), p. 353 and p.234

144

Edmonds, France and Belgium 1914, Vol. II, p.467. K. Simpson, ‘The Officers’, in I.F.W. Beckett & K. Simpson, eds. A Nation in Arms: A Social Study of the British Army in the First World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), p.69

145

Lieutenant-Colonels A.McN. Dykes (1st Kings Own Royal Lancaster) and C.A.H. Brett (2nd Suffolk) were killed on 26 August 1914 at Le Cateau. Lieutenant-Colonel G.H. Morris (1st Irish Guards) was killed at Villers-Cotterets on 1 September 1914. Lieutenant-Colonel G.C. Knight (1st Loyal North Lancashires) was killed on 11September 1914 on the Marne. Lieutenant-Colonels A. Grant-Duff (1st Black Watch) and E.H. Montresor (2nd Royal Sussex) were killed on 14 September 1914 on the Aisne as were Lieutenant-Colonels L.St.G. Le Marchant and E. R. Bradford (2nd Seaforth Highlanders) on 14 September 1914, Lieutenant- Colonel D. Warren (1st Queens Royal West Surrey) on 17 September 1914, and Lieutenant-Colonel R.E. Benson (1st East Yorkshires) on 20 September 1914. Lieutenant-Colonel B.E. Ward (1st Middlesex) was killed on 22 October 1914 at Armentieres. Lieutenant-Colonel W.L. Loring (2nd Royal Warwicks) was killed on 23 October 1914 at 1st Ypres, as were Lieutenant-Colonels E.S. Bannatyne (1st Kings Liverpool) on 24 October 1915, H.O.S. Cadogan (1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers) and C.A.C. King (1st Yorkshires) on 30 October

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brigade command, twenty-four had been wounded, 10 had been invalided, and six replaced. On 31 December 1914, 52 (42 per cent) original Regular Lieutenant-Colonels were still in command of their battalions. The high levels of dead and wounded may be seen as either profligacy with a crucial resource, or a reflection of the ferocity of the fighting. Fifty-four battalions (44 per cent) were commanded by men who were Majors at the outbreak of war;147 16 (13 per cent) were commanded by men who had been Captains,148 and one by a 2nd Lieutenant.149 (All of the TF battalions were still commanded by the men who had brought them to France, except for two COs who had swiftly been invalided).150

This snapshot suggests that notwithstanding a 58 per cent attrition in original COs, the state of battalion command in the BEF would not appear at first glance to have been fatally ‘deskilled’ given the proportion of Lieutenant-Colonels and pre-war Majors in command. At times, however, the situation had been desperate.

1st Coldstream Guards had landed in France on 13 August 1914 under Lieutenant-Colonel J. Ponsonby. When he was wounded on 15 September 1914, the second-in-command, Major the Hon. L. d’H Hamilton took over only to be killed on 29 October 1914. Depletion of officers meant that Lieutenant J. Boyd took over for two days, being replaced on 1 1914, C.B. Morland (2nd Welsh) on 31 October 1914, and N.R. McMahon on 11 November 1914. Lieutenant-Colonel R. Alexander (3rd Rifle Brigade) died of wounds on 22 November 1914.

146

Lieutenant-Colonels D.C. Boger (1st Cheshires), and R.C. Bond (2nd Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry at Le Cateau on 26 August 1914, Lieutenant-Colonel H. McMicking (2nd Royal Scots) on 27 August 1914, and Lieutenant-Colonel J.F. Forbes (2nd Wiltshire) on 24 October 1914, and Lieutenant-Colonel R.G.I. Bolton (2nd Scots Guards) on 26 October 1914.

147

One was a retired Regular who was a Major in the Special Reserve, the other a retired Regular Major.

148

One was a retired Captain from the Special Reserve, the other a retired Regular Captain.

149

2nd Lieutenant G.C.B Clark, 2nd Royal Scots had, however, been promoted to Major.

150

Lieutenant-Colonel G.A. Blair (1/10th Liverpool), a Major in the TF Reserve in August 1914, was invalided on 25 November 1914, after 23 days in France. Lieutenant-Colonel G.B. Heywood (1/6th Cheshire) a TF Captain in August 1914 was invalided on 18 December 1914 after 38 days in France.

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November by Captain E.G. Christie-Miller, who was taken prisoner the following day. Command devolved on Lieutenant Boyd again for another two days before he was replaced by Captain G.J. Edwards, who was superseded by the return of Lieutenant- Colonel Ponsonby on 21 November.

1st Cheshire found themselves in similar straits. After Lieutenant-Colonel D.C. Boger was taken prisoner on 24 August 1914, there were no Majors present to assume command of the shattered battalion, and Captain J.L. Shore became CO until 16 September. His replacement by Major F.B. Young, a Major from the Reserve of Officers, was part of a succession of seven COs during the month of October. Young was replaced by Major C.B. Vandeleur, (1st Scottish Rifles), who was succeeded by three Captains of 1st Cheshire,151 and one of 2nd Munster Fusiliers.152 Lieutenant T.L. Frost of 1st Cheshire was in command as October came to a close. He was replaced after five days by a Major from the Reserve of Officers, J.A. Busfeild, who gave way to Major H.S. Hodgkin, a Regular Captain in August 1914, who was in command at the year’s end.

The flavour of being in temporary command during this period is given by Captain H.C. Rees, 2nd Welsh.153 On 31 October 1914 at Gheluvelt, after the death of Lieutenant-Colonel C.B. Morland,154 Rees was left in command with one other officer and 25 men. On 18 or 19 January 1915, he gave way to Captain W.M. Hore. Rees was the sixth senior (and

151

Captains F.H. Mahony, J.L Shore (again) and B.E. Massy.

152

Captain G.A. Woods. Neither the Munsters nor the Scottish Rifles were in the same brigade as the Cheshires – this extra-regimental support was therefore very ad hoc.

153

As the first of four brigade commands, Rees would be commanding 94 Brigade opposing Serre on 1 July 1916.

154

“It was then that a shell burst in front … mortally wounding Colonel Morland on my right. It was a final blow. Colonel Morland was a terrible loss. I never saw him the slightest degree upset by anything that happened. He remained to the very end as cool and collected as if he was on parade at home”. Brigadier- General H. C. Rees, A Personal Record of the First 7 Months of the War, IWM 77/179/1

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second most junior) Captain in the 2nd Battalion; Hore (who had been serving with the 3rd Battalion on the outbreak of war) was the fifth senior.155 Rees noted:

Captain Hore arrived from England and being just senior to me, I had to relinquish command of the battalion. I remained as second-in- command and discussed on most questions connected with the battalion as it was very difficult for him just out from home to at once grasp the tactics of the war.

In an encounter with Brigadier-General J. Gough:156

I asked him to let me go home to England for a job. I pointed out that I had commanded the battalion through three strenuous months, and that having built them up from the remnants remaining after the First Battle of Ypres, I found my position somewhat difficult.

These comments inform us firstly about Rees’s vanity and ambition; secondly about the bond a CO could develop with a battalion he was rebuilding; and thirdly how the traditional principle of seniority could override hard-won experience and demotivate a keen and able officer. Lastly, and positively, it suggests that junior officers were quickly learning new tactics and the skills of command.

Balancing the picture of those in command on 31 December 1914 against the accounts of both 1st Coldstream Guards and 1st Cheshire, and other examples such as 2nd Welsh being commanded by their second most junior Captain for three months, the most alarming reality for the BEF was that attrition was taking place not just at senior level but also extensively at the level of middle-ranking officers.

155

Rees was promoted Captain on 12 June 1912, Hore on 1 April 1912. Rees, born 26 March 1882, and commissioned from the Militia on 28 Jan 1903, was 32 when he assumed command with 11 years’ service with the Regular army.

156

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1.6 Conclusion

If, as James Edmonds states, “in every respect the Expeditionary Force of 1914 was incomparably the best trained, best organized, and best equipped British Army which ever went forth to war”,157 then the Regular COs of 1914 were almost certainly the most competent group of COs that the army had ever put in the field. Contrary to Tim Travers’ assertion that the supposed 75 per cent incompetence rate of COs in 10 Brigade was probably “not unique”,158 an overall 64 per cent ‘endurance or promotability’ competence rate is indicated.

Whatever the limitations of their education, their richly textured biographies speak to considerable ‘on the job’ professional development. They possessed a considerable depth of staff and wartime experience, particularly of tactical diversity, within an army somewhat less hidebound by seniority and regimental particularism than has been supposed. They had ascended their professional ladder during a period of change when the infantry became much more tactically suited to the continental war of which it lacked experience. From the percentage who failed the test of “Fitness to Command”, their promotion had been no formality.

In comparison, however, only a third of the Territorial Force COs, a group which, in its defence, had not been intended to embark on continental campaigning, proved viable battalion commanders. Many lacked the fitness, stamina and will required, let alone the ability.

157

J.E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium 1914, Vol. 1 (Nashville: Battery Press, originally published 1933), p.10

158

T. Travers, The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front, and the Emergence of Modern

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The ferocity of the fighting of 1914 and the requirement to provide brigade command to the expanding army, however, began to erode not only the stock of experienced senior officers available to the Regular battalions, but also the stock of middle-ranking officers. These men would be increasingly required to step up to the mark of battalion command not only in their own units but also those of the New Armies and the expanding Territorial Force. The next three chapters explore how this organisational challenge was met.

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