7th Battalion Heads South

Sunday 10th February 1918

7th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment marched today from Krombeke north of Poperinge south-west to Proven where they got on a train which has taken them south to Noyon. On arribal a route march has taken them to Salency a few miles east of Noyon. They are to move eventually to the front line near Saint-Quentin, we understand.

Second Lieutenant L E Agar of 2nd Battalion has been struck off the strength of the Battalion and a Medical Board ordered to judge his state of health.

Second Lieutenant Agar [X550/1/81]

Meanwhile the remains of the 8th Battalion have been repairing huts and making trenches around their camp. The adjutant has been undertaking the melancholy task of sorting out the Battalion’s correspondence and preparing to send the records and books back to 16th Brigade Headquarters.

Sources: X550/3/wd; X550/8/1; X550/9/1

New Country

Sunday 27th January 1918

2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment has marched to Chauny today, a small town ten miles or so south of Saint-Quentin, and east of the city of Noyon which they reached just after dark this evening. This area is all new to much of the British Army, being part of the line newly taken over from the French, though the country is the same flat, open scenery with occasional low hills familiar enough to anyone who has spent long enough in Flanders or Picardy. Of the Bedfordshire Regiment, only old sweats of the 1st Battalion would remember this area as it is where they fought in autumn 1914.

Source: X550/3/wd

The Retreat from Mons Continues

Sir John French

Friday 28th August 1914: Today the 1st Bedfords continued their march through Noyon to the town of Pontoise-lès-Noyon, a distance of twenty five miles. Our contact stated: “Nothing much happened during the day, as we were going hard all the time, being sometimes held up by transport. Outside one of the towns Sir John French stood at the side of the road and watched us go by”.

It is to be hoped that the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force took heart from the undiminished spirit of the men he watched, as our contact says: “Everyone in the best of spirits but tired and hungry. The heat was tremendous during the day and the dust appalling”.

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