Recently, I had the good fortune to find a reasonably priced copy of Bruce Bairnsfather’s memoir, Bullets & Billets (Grant Richards Ltd, December 1916). This covers his time as a junior officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment on the Western Front from November 1914. To my knowledge neither he, nor his famous creation ‘Old Bill’, had any connections with the BSF. So why do I mention him here?
Continue reading “One hundred and ten years ago …”Tag: 28th Division
28th Division. An infantry division of the British Salonika Force.
Remembering Charles Ussher Kilner
Continue reading “Remembering Charles Ussher Kilner”It is with great grief that I wish to tell you your son has died of wounds received in the recent attack. Our company was ordered to take up a position on the left flank of a brigade which was taking a village a mile to our front. We know the Bulgars were entrenched there. It was successfully carried out and the trenches taken and held. Your son was hit in the charge gallantly leading his men. I saw him at once and had him taken back. He was hit in the side but was not in great pain. We had great hopes of his recovery but last Saturday he had a relapse and died on Sunday morning. We buried him in a small cemetery where other are laid who in like manner have given their lives for their Country
Letter from Kilner’s company commander to his father, 8 October 1916
It’s St George’s Day!
Having celebrated the Welsh battalions of the BSF on St David’s Day and the Irish ones on St Patrick’s Day, how should I mark St George’s Day? I feel writers’ cramp coming on just thinking about typing out the names of the 52 or so English battalions of the BSF (see NM 11, April 2005) so, instead, will go for an easier option. The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was formed on 23 April 1968, celebrates St George’s Day and, indeed, has an image of St George slaying the dragon on its cap badge. It was created by amalgamating four English fusilier regiments: Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) and Lancashire Fusiliers. Three of these regiments provided battalions for the BSF.
Continue reading “It’s St George’s Day!”Erin go Bragh!
Having celebrated the Welsh battalions of the BSF on St David’s Day, I can hardly do less for St Patrick’s Day. So here are the Irish battalions that served with the BSF, in order of seniority.
Continue reading “Erin go Bragh!”‘Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus’
… or, for non-Welsh speakers, that’s ‘Happy St David’s Day’! St David’s Day seems the perfect opportunity to remember the six Welsh battalions which served in Macedonia with the British Salonika Force.
Continue reading “‘Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus’”Remembering William Hernaman
On a recent visit to Walthamstow I took a look at the Vestry House Museum. A former workhouse – built in 1730 – it has a chilling message over the front door: If any would not work neither should he eat. Well, it was chilling for this retired gentleman! Anyway, the building has changed use many times since then – including a spell as the armoury for the local volunteers – but is now the museum for the local area, under the care of Waltham Forest Council, for which it is also the archive and local study area.
Continue reading “Remembering William Hernaman”Gas! 22 April 1915
Continue reading “Gas! 22 April 1915”Thursday, 22 April, was a beautiful spring day: warm, sunny, with a faint breeze. German guns shelled French and Canadian trenches throughout the morning but fell silent in the afternoon. The brief period of peace suddenly ended at 4:00 p.m. when the Germans unleashed a violent bombardment, first on the salient and then gradually extending to nearby roads and Ypres, turning the town into a flaming inferno and causing its citizens to flee. An hour later an ominous greenish-yellow wall of fumes was seen drifting slowly across no-man’s-land toward the French line.
Cassar, G.H. (2014), Trial By Gas – The British Army at the Second Battle of Ypres; Potomac Press, University of Nebraska Press.
World Piano Day
I know what you’re thinking, “how can he possibly link ‘World Piano Day’ with the Salonika campaign?”, well …
Continue reading “World Piano Day”The death of Lyn Macdonald
Sorry to hear of the death of Lyn Macdonald, influential and pioneering historian of the First World War. Her book, 1915: The Death of Innocence, really helped me to understand the ten months my grandfather spent on the Western Front with 28th Division, before going to Salonika. You can read her obituary here:
28th Division – The Prequel!
Towards the end of October 1915, units of the 28th Division entrained for Marseille, sailed to Egypt and then, after a period of training and reorganisation, to Salonika. Barely a month before, the Division had been embroiled in a bloody and confusing battle to hold the German Hohenzollen Redoubt at Loos; a battle they had subsequently lost.
Salonika Campaign Society, 1915-1918 