The Peacemakers

Sunday 14th February 1915: An officer of the 3rd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment has told us how his regiment acquired its name of The Peacemakers. It was in the early summer of 1815, the war with the Americans(1) having just been concluded that the regiment, then known as the Sixteenth, was ordered to return to Europe. Napoleon's overthrow at Waterloo occurred while the corps was on its voyage homewards. The Bedfordshire was the only regiment to join the victorious troops after Waterloo and remain until the conclusion of the peace. Hence the ironic nickname "Peacemakers".

In the present campaign the 1st Battalion of the Regiment has been through it all from Mons to Givenchy. Their brigadier(2), in a letter to the commanding officer said: "Only eye-witnesses could appreciate the dogged courage with which the battalion has not only faced the enemy at close range, but has sat tight under heavy shell fire and borne every sort of hardship - cold, wet, mud, serious losses, exhaustion, nerve strain and insufficient clothing - without a murmur. There is only one word to qualify the conduct of both officers and men - it has been magnificent and the Brigadier is proud of having the honour to command them".

In the first fortnight's fighting around Ypres the 2nd Battalion, a unit of the glorious 7th Division, had more than six hundred casualties and lost all its officers except three. At one time the Germans were no less than nine to one against them, and all the 2nd Battalion's original 1,100 that eventually came out of the firing line were one officer and three hundred men.

Source: Bedfordshire Standard 12th March 1915

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(1) The so-called War of 1812 essentially a drawn conflict in which American invasions of Canada were defeated, the White House burned by British troops and Wellington's brother-in-law defeated at New Orleans after the official peace was signed but news had not yet reached the combatants.

(2) Count Gleichen