2nd Bedfords’ Commanding Officer Killed

Major Monteith

Friday 1st October 1915: The adjutant of the 2nd Bedfords, still holding the front line near Hulluch at Gun Trench tells us that last night, about 9 pm Germans were seen running over the open on the Battalion’s right as they had penetrated into the gun emplacement held by the 2nd Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers adjoining the Bedfords’ position.

The enemy were then working round the rear of a post of Bedfordshire Regiment bombers near the Scots and they were the assailed by bombs from three sides. This party of bombers made its way back to the rest of the Battalion with great difficulty.

Meantime the men holding the right of the Battalion position had been forced to give way and were holding a block made about 20 yards down the trench. The Germans came on, bombing with great violence, and owing to the clumsiness of the Ball Grenades with which our bombers were mostly armed, it was found hard to cope with them(1).

Two Machine Guns that had been in Gun Trench and had got isolated, managed to extricate themselves by moving alternately and covering one another's retirement with machine gun and rifle fire. These guns were mounted on the parapet of a trench called Stone Alley, and assisted to prevent the enemy's bombers coming across the open.

At about 1 a.m. a counterattack by grenade-throwers was attempted, this made some progress but the supply of good bombs was very limited to give a chance against the great numbers thrown by the enemy. At this point Second Lieutenant E F S Dyer was wounded.

Towards dawn under Orders from Brigade Headquarters 30 yards of Stone Alley was filled in and a block established. The Germans had been throwing bombs hard all night, and had been trying to work round the flanks. They had also brought up a machine gun to fire down Stone Alley. The Battalion’s own machine guns were able to deal with this.

We have just heard some additional and sad news from the adjutant of the 2nd Battalion, that their commanding officer was killed a few minutes ago. Their old CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Cranleigh Onslow was wounded on 25th September and Major John Cassels Monteith had assumed command. He was shot whilst directing work on the block in the trench mentioned above. He was 39, the son of a minister, Rev. John Monteith of Glenluiart, near Moniaive  in Dumfriess-shire.

The adjutant reports that since the opening moments of the Battle of Loos on 25th September the Battalion has lost 355 men. Of these just 45 have been killed, 40 are missing believed killed or captures and 270 wounded.

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Source: X550/3/wd

(1) The ball grenade is shown at the top of the page, it was replaced by the Mills Bomb by the end of 1915

Colonel Monteith’s Good Work

Wednesday 29th September 1915: Colonel Monteith, commanding officer of the 2nd Bedfords, tells us more of his experiences at Loos. It seems that the front line is quite a nervous place to be at present, he told us – that units from the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and Worcestershire Regiment are “rather nervy, passing down a lot of silly messages” which he has put a stop to.

He told us that there is: “A lot of shelling going on”. So he went round the trenches and found that A Company had done nothing to improve their firing positions. He could not find the Company Commander, Captain de Buriatte only “Poor little Dyer asleep, woke him and told him what to do”(1).

He came back to find the General Staff Officer of 1st Army- Robinson – with whom he had a run-in yesterday about the defence scheme. He was “in a very panicky state rather inclined to hang me but on learning that I had a line in front and that my proposal was to fire with second line behind parapet he became easier. I saw him out to the front”.

After he got something to eat: “News has come in that French have broken through and are fighting the Huns in the open!(2) I also heard, inadvertently, that Brigade are very pleased with my work. Pip! Pip!”

Source: X550/3/wd

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(1) Second Lieutenant E F S Dyer, who joined the Battalion on 13th July 1915 and was to go home wounded on 13th October 1915.

(2) Sadly untrue

What is Happening at Loos?

Tuesday 28th September 1915: The temporary commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel J C Monteith, has contacted us to tell us of his experiences in the last twenty four hours. He tells us his headquarters is in a dug-out sixteen feet below ground level: “The Huns know how to make themselves safe!”

As we heard from the 8th Bedfords yesterday the trenches around Loos are packed with men and there is often not enough room for units ordered to occupy certain locations. Colonel Onslow tells us that they have been ordered to relieve the 2nd Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment but there seems to be no room in the trenches to allow it. Anyway, he went to see the Wiltshire Regiment’s adjutant whom he found “very nervy and terribly anxious to get out of it”. This is because the position is “a rotten one”. He also spoke to the Commanding Officers of the units on either flank of the Wiltshires but found them “a little hazy as to proceedings”.

At this point the Colonel was interrupted by “panicky General Staff Officer - Robinson 1st Army - who thinks my arrangements for defence insufficient! He did not realise that I had a line in front! and further that it is the 4th or 5th line of defence! I forget what "he also" said or did now! Oh yes, he thinks Wiltshires are rather in the way!” This last was related to us in a weary but amused tone.

We understand that 8th Battalion has not moved since the evening of its abortive advance on the quarries in support of the Norfolk Regiment. Battles, of course, are, by their very nature, muddled and confusing. This particular operation, however, we sense from the officers we speak to, seems to be even more muddled than usual. In the two days since the initial attack and our army has made some gains, without achieving the break-through which was desired. It seem likely that the men, now greatly thinned in number and very tired, have achieved about as much as they can and that consolidation will be the next phase(1)

Source: X550/3/wd; X550/9/1

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(1) The Battle of Loos would drag in stalemate until 13th October with a German counter-attack and British counter-counter-attack from 8th-13th October. British casualties would amount to 59,247, the Germans about 26,000. Lieutenant-Colonel Monteith himself would be killed on 1st October.

The 1st Bedfords under Attack

Tuesday 13th October 1914: Today has seen the 1st Battalion, at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée, which they occupied yesterday, come under attack. Our contact with the battalion brings us the exciting details: “Violent shelling began at 6 am and continued all day, the church being the chief aiming point. About 12 noon the house Second Lieutenant Shippey and Lieutenant Gledstanes were sitting in had a shell through it and smothered them. They were sitting close together drinking milk when the shell came in through the roof and burst between then. They both emerged, covered with white plaster and looked perfectly ridiculous. Shippey was badly hit in the inside and we raised a stretcher and I conducted him to hospital which was in the village school at the rear of the village. He knows he won’t recover but is most plucky over it all and I stopped with him until 12.30 pm”.[1]

“A Company at this time called for help from the orchard on the left of B Company, that is on the left front of the village of Givenchy and we were going to make an attempt to reach them. The shell fire was so impossible in the village that we couldn’t get through and had to give it up”.

“We then had orders to prepare to evacuate the village as the 1st Battalion, Cheshire Regiment had retired on our left and our left flank was being turned and the position precarious”.

"The hospital was promptly evacuated and Shippey taken out and went off in the ambulance at a gallop. The ambulance was hit by a shell on the way and poor Shippey was killed [2]. The shelling got decidedly worse and the village was crumbling to pieces over our heads and as Monteith and I walked around were nearly hit several times by houses falling on top of us".

"The Dorsets then retired on our right and we began to be enfiladed from both flanks and the order to go was given. We had to retire as best we could by the roads and were well shelled all the way until we got back on to the edge of the road Festubert la Grande Rue and Rue du Marais [3] to the Béthune-la Bassée Canal. here we got down and dug in by the side of the road; it was then about 4 pm".

"We had lost both our machine-guns which had been buried in the village. Lieutenant Stafford [see 29th September and below] and Shippey had been killed, Major Thorpe, Lieutenant Downes [see 17th September and 20th October] and Second Lieutenant Goff were wounded. The latter two could not be found and were presumed captured [4]. Thorpe came down through us very cheerfully hit on foot, balancing on a bicycle as well as he could to get to hospital for a dressing".

"It was very misty and the gunners could do nothing and everyone was rather in the air. I then got orders to take over command of B Company as all their officers, with the exception of Edwards, had been knocked out. The Company has had an awful time and only about 80 are left [5] but luckily Sergeant-Major Sharpe and Company Quarter Master Sergeant McGinn are still going strong".

"I then got orders from the Colonel to get back to le Plantin where the Battalion had orders to take up a position. On the way back I met an infuriated Norfolk major who told me that we were running away! I told him more than I thought of him and nearly got put under arrest, especially when I asked what he was doing all alone where he was and what his Battalion were doing. The Battalion finally took up a position at the Rue Neuve with Headquarters in an estaminet near some cross-roads".

The adjutant summarises the day's events as follows: "There was a heavy bombardment of our trenches and the village all day. About midday this cannonade became terrific. Practically every house has been damaged and the neighbourhood of the church was continually shelled. Our front trenches, in continuation of Dorsets, were unable to hold on in the afternoon after the Dorsets were enfiladed and withdrew. Smoke of shells and the dust of falling houses made it impossible to see clearly what was going on to the flanks. The enemy attacked the front and flanks and the Battalion retired about 300 yards in the rear of the village and reformed on a new line holding the road to Pont Fixe in continuation of the Dorsets. The Norfolks are on our left. Losses have been 7 officers and 140 other ranks".

Lieutenant Charles Claude Stafford, serving with the 1st Bedfords, from whom we had a communication on 30th September has, sadly, been killed in this fighting. The late Lieutenant Stafford was an enthusiastic athlete. Two or three seasons ago he was elected Captain if the Bedford Rowing Club, and his appointment was marked by a new lease of vigorous life to this old borough institution. He took a very keen interest in improving its prospects and training the new material, and under his captaincy several new boats, notably an eight, were obtained. His other sport was Rugby football. As a three-quarter he played many a sound game for the Bedford R. U. F. C. being particularly strong in defence. However big the man against him, Claude Stafford could be trusted to do his best to bring him down. He retired rather early from the game, owing to the impossibility, for business reasons, of both his brother "Dick" and himself getting off on a Saturday afternoon, and the way he stood down for his younger and brilliant brother from a game to which he was so devoted, was finely characteristic of him[6]. He was at the Modern School nine years from 1899 to 1908 and like his brother was a prominent and powerful supporter of East House. He was in the 1st XV in the three-quarter line and in his last year was captain of the 1st IV. He was also a fine runner, and in 1908 represented the School in the quarter mile inter-school race with Elstow School and won the race in 61 seconds.

Sources:X550/2/5; X550/2/7; Ampthill and District News 24th October 1914

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[1] He died the next day and is buried in Béthune Town Cemetery. He was just twenty three and from Pietermaritzberg in South Africa.
[2] This seems to be a mistake as Shippey is recorded as dying of wounds the next day and the fact he has a grave also counts against the ambulance being hit by a shell.
[3] Probably what is now Rue Jean Jaurès which is an extension of Rue Grande Rue and leads to the canal
[4] They had been captured but were later recaptured by the Bedfords, though Lieutenant Downes died on 18th October.
[5] Out of around 220.
[6] Richard Calvert Stafford was a prop forward for Bedford who played four test matches for England in 1912. He died on 1st December 1912 aged just nineteen, from cancer of the spine.

1st Bedfords on the March

Saturday 3rd October 1914: Our contact with the 1st Battalion tells us that they have left the Jury area, their home for the last three weeks. They have marched sixteen miles or so south-east. Our contact tells us: “It was a most beautiful night with a slight frost and perfect for marching. We finished up at Corcy behind the French lines about eighteen kilometres south of Soissons”.

“The officer’s mess is in a large château where we all live. Monteith, Pope[1] and myself being in a most luxurious room at the top of the house. Five French sapper officers are also in the house engaged on making trenches for the first line defence of Paris”.

“The house, which belonged so some French countess, is otherwise deserted except for the housekeeper who we heard is in an awful state in her room as she has just heard today of her husband’s death in action and is very ill in bed and not expected to live. We have to creep about like mice in consequence and have sent her our condolences through the French sappers. The men are in a large farm about a mile away on a hill”.

It would seem as if efforts, by 5th Division at least, to break through the German lines on the Aisne have been frustrated and the attempt has been given up. This is a great disappointment after such high hopes that the Germans were in retreat but at least the British Expeditionary Force has helped our French allies to save Paris from the clutches of the Kaiser and we can hope that this major success will ensure a shorter war.

Sources: X550/2/5; X550/2/7

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[1] Lieutenant-Colonel J C Monteith, as he would become, died commanding 2nd Battalion at the Battle of Loos on 1st October 1915, aged 39, he was from Dumfries. Lieutenant Pope would be captured on 2nd November 1914 but survive the war.