1914.
In 1909, when Francis went hunting north of the Zambezi, he travelled to
the Victoria Falls with Colonel Marling, V.C., then Brigadier-General
commanding the Potchefstroom district. He used to stare across the veld
for hours at a time out of the window of the observation car, and once
Colonel Marling asked what he was thinking about. “I was thinking how
beautiful all this is,” was the answer. “It makes me long to do something
great.” What makes the hero? Emerson asks, and replies,
“He must be musical,
Tremulous, impressional.”
I never heard that Francis was musical, and he was about as tremulous as
a brick wall. But he was always most sensitive to impressions, and in
both the Twins a vein lay hidden of unspoken poetry. They now entered
upon the struggle with a kind of awed and hushed expectation. It had long
been at the back of their minds, and consciously and unconsciously they
had been preparing for it. This little book is not a war memoir, for only
a fraction of the Twins’ lives fell under the great shadow—for Rivy about
five weeks, and for Francis less than ten months. But, looking back,
the war seems to have been always a part of their outlook. Both had the
standpoint of the regular soldier; neither suffered the hesitations and
divided impulses of the less fortunate civilian. But their outlook in one
sense was not the common professional one—of the man who looks forward
to the practice of an art in which he has been trained. Coming, as it
did, to relieve them from their perplexities, the crisis seemed to them
to carry with it a solemn trust, which they undertook with willingness,
indeed, but with something of the gravity of those who feel themselves in
the hands of destiny.
The declaration of war found them together at Tidworth. Rivy was
determined to go out with Francis, so he managed to get himself
transferred from his proper unit, the Bucks Hussars, as a reserve officer
of the 9th Lancers. Every moment of his time was devoted to sitting at
his brother’s feet and learning what he could teach him of the art of
war, and to buying his equipment with feverish haste. The Twins decided
to take six horses between them, and they borrowed an additional groom
from the Duke of Westminster. “I am to take command of a squadron,” wrote
Francis in glee to Lord Grenfell. “My regiment was never better or more
prepared in its history.... My dear old Uncle, you have been so kind
to us that words to thank you fail me. If we survive you, we will look
after your children and see that they get jolly well swished at Eton.” On
Thursday, 13th August, I find this note in his diary:—
“The Colonel [David Campbell] had dismounted parade at two
o’clock. He made a splendid speech in which he recalled all the
great deeds of the past which had been performed by the 9th:
how in the Mutiny the regiment had carried out its duties and
several officers obtained V.C.’s, with such distinction that
when it left India the Viceroy gave orders that it should be
saluted by forty-one guns. This had never been done before,
and has never been done since. In Afghanistan it had been
greatly praised by Lord Roberts; in South Africa it fought
for two years with the greatest distinction, and received the
highest compliments from all its commanders. He also reminded
us that Lieutenant Macdonald had on one occasion fought till
every man and himself had been killed. He told us that we were
going forth to the war with the greatest traditions to uphold.
Nothing could be finer than his speech, or could possibly have
appealed more to the officers and men.”
The regiment embarked on the 15th. That morning Francis wrote to Lord
Grenfell:—
“You will receive this when we have gone forth to war. We
entrain to-day at 1 p.m., and hope to reach France to-night.
We leave very quietly as if marching to manœuvres, but a more
magnificent regiment never moved out of barracks for war. Every
one is full of enthusiasm. Rivy goes with me, and it is a great
thing having him. Good-bye, my dear Uncle. You have all my
affection, and no one has ever been kinder than you have been
to me during my lifetime. So far I have been the luckiest man
alive. I have had the happiest possible life, and have always
been working for war, and have now got into the biggest in the
prime of life for a soldier. We will tell you some fine tales
when we return with a bottle of the best from the Rhine.”
That same day Rivy wrote to me—the last letter I had from him. “I cannot
leave the country without writing to thank you, my dear John, for all you
have done for me in our troubles.... Thank God, we are off in an hour.
Such a magnificent regiment! Such men, such horses! Within ten days I
hope Francis and I will be riding side by side straight at the Germans.
We will think of you, old boy.”
They got to Boulogne late on the evening of the 16th, and, passing
through Amiens and Maubeuge, detrained at Jeunot in the afternoon of the
17th. The letters home from both during those days were very scrappy,
consisting chiefly of references to the hard game of polo which they
expected to play at any moment, and the close touch which they had
established with the other players. Francis, however, kept a careful
diary, and it is curious, considering what was to happen, that his main
object seems to have been to record every moment which he spent with
Rivy, and all that Rivy said or did. He was in command of “B” Squadron,
and was determined to keep it up to the mark. Take, for example, this
entry on 18th August: “I had reason to find fault with the turn-out of
the men, boots and spurs having been allowed to get rusty; so I formed
up the squadron and told them I insisted on the turn-out being good
throughout the campaign, as it was proverbial that the best turned-out
troop was nine times out of ten the best fighting one. I said that
because the men were on active service there was no reason why they
should imagine that they had ceased to be the Ninth and become colonials.
I ordered the few men whose turn-out was very bad to march two miles on
foot on the way home, and I told them in future that any man who was
reported to me badly turned out would have his horse taken away from him
and be made to tramp. I am certain that this had a great effect on the
squadron.”
From Jeunot the Ninth moved to Obrechies. “B” Squadron was the first
cavalry unit to arrive, and naturally had a great reception from both
French and Belgians. On the 19th and 20th it did a reconnaissance into
Belgian territory, and on Friday the 21st marched to Harmignies. There
Sir John French, it will be remembered, was taking up position in
advance of the left flank of the French Fifth Army, preparatory to a
move against the German flank in Belgium. The presence of von Bülow’s
Second Army was fairly well known, but there was more or less a mystery
about the whereabouts of von Kluck. He was believed to be somewhere in
the neighbourhood of Waterloo, but neither the French nor the British
Staff had any guess at the strength of his forces, or the great wheel
which he was to undertake. That Friday night the Twins were billeted
in Harmignies, and on Saturday the 22nd they remained there till the
evening, when the Ninth were sent out to Thulin, where they arrived early
in the morning of the 23rd. They were now behind the left flank of the
British 3rd Division.
Francis and Rivy were much perplexed by this strange kind of battlefield.
As cavalrymen they had hoped for the wide rolling downs which had been
predicted as the terrain of any continental war. Instead they found
themselves in a land full of little smoky villages, coal mines, railway
embankments, endless wire, and a population that seemed as dense as that
of a London suburb. They were puzzled to know how cavalry could operate,
and they were still more puzzled to understand what was the plan of
campaign—an uncertainty they shared with a million or so other soldiers.
On that hot Sunday morning firing began early to the north-east and grew
heavier as the day advanced. In the afternoon the Colonel sent for the
squadron leaders and told them that six German cavalry and three infantry
divisions were advancing, and that their business was to retire slowly,
fighting a rear-guard action. The rest of the day was spent in deep
mystification, with no knowledge of the fall of Namur, or of Lanrezac’s
defeat at Charleroi, or the other calamities which were to compel Sir
John French to retreat. But at 11.30 came definite orders. They were
instructed to entrench at the railway station south of Thulin for an
attack at dawn. Spades were procured with difficulty, and they were about
to begin when another order came not to entrench but to barricade, and
to hold Thulin station and the road to the south of it. This was done,
and the position was occupied during the darkness, while the wretched
inhabitants straggled down the south road, and the guns in the north grew
steadily nearer.
Monday the 24th saw the beginning of the retreat from Mons. This is
not the place to repeat an oft-told tale. Our concern is only with one
cavalry unit engaged in acting as a rear-guard. At four o’clock that
morning Francis, who had retired from Thulin at 10.30 the night before,
was ordered to reconnoitre the town at dawn. He had gone only a little
way through its streets when he came under heavy fire at short range,
and in withdrawing had his horse “Ginger” shot down. Presently from his
position at the railway station he saw a mass of German troops advancing.
A sharp fight ensued of which he records, “Rivy and I found ourselves for
the first time standing together under fire, and not much disconcerted.”
He had a bullet through his boot, and as the enemy was advancing in
considerable numbers and outflanking the little post, “B” Squadron fell
back upon the regiment, and was sent into reserve. The 9th Lancers then
retired to a ridge more to the south, where they came under a heavy
shell-fire.
It was now about midday. The 2nd Cavalry Brigade was south of Audregnies,
with the exception of the 18th Hussars holding the high ground north of
that village. The 5th Division was moving along the Eloges-Audregnies
road. General De Lisle ordered the 9th Lancers to a position on the
north-west of Audregnies, in order to support the 18th Hussars. There
they assembled on a low hill where some shelter was obtained from
buildings. The men were dismounted, and firing at 1,200 yards against
the German infantry, who were advancing deployed. Presently the retiring
5th Division, which had now been in action for some twenty-four hours,
was threatened with an enemy envelopment, and Sir Charles Fergusson asked
for protection from the cavalry for his western flank. De Lisle decided
to charge the flank of the advancing masses, the 4th Dragoon Guards on
the left and the 9th Lancers on the right.
That charge was as futile and as gallant as any other like attempt in
history on unbroken infantry and guns in position. But it proved to the
world that the spirit which inspired the Light Brigade at Balaclava
and von Bredow’s _Todtenritt_ at Mars-la-Tour was still alive in the
cavalry of to-day.... Francis formed his squadron in line of troops
column, and they galloped into a tornado of rifle and machine-gun fire
and the artillery fire of at least three batteries. No objective could
be discerned, for the Germans at once took cover among the corn stooks.
The ground had not been reconnoitred, and long before they came near the
enemy the Lancers found themselves brought up by double lines of wire. In
that nightmare place Francis’s first job was to get his squadron in hand.
He could not find his trumpeter, so he blew his whistle and cursed with
vehemence anybody he found out of place. The charge had swung somewhat to
the right. Captain Lucas-Tooth, commanding “A” Squadron, reached a high
mound of cinders, and behind it and in a donga running eastward found
shelter, and was presently joined by some of the 4th Dragoon Guards.
Meantime Francis found a certain amount of cover behind a house. “We had
simply galloped about like rabbits in front of a line of guns,” he wrote,
“men and horses falling in all directions. Most of one’s time was spent
in dodging the horses.”
Very soon the house was blown to pieces, so the squadron moved off to the
shelter of a railway embankment. Francis remembered that on one occasion
the regiment had been ordered to trot in South Africa under a heavy fire,
and he now adopted this method of keeping his men together. Under the
embankment he collected the remnant. He found a number of odd 9th Lancers
besides his own squadron, and as senior officer he took command and
attempted to sort the troops out.
South of the embankment was the 119th Battery, R.F.A., under Major G. H.
Alexander, who for this day’s work was to receive the Victoria Cross. It
was under a desperate fire from three of the enemy’s batteries, one of
which completely enfiladed it, and most of its gunners had been killed.
Seeing the position, Francis offered his services. At that moment he was
hit by shrapnel. “It felt as if a whip had hit me in the leg and hand. I
think an artery was affected, as the blood spurted out, and my observer,
Steadman, and young Whitehead very kindly bound me up. We also had to
put on a tourniquet, and referred to the Field Service Regulations to
find out how it had to be put on. This would have amused you. Of course,
we found out how to stop blood in every other part of one’s body except
one’s hand, but eventually came upon this useful information. Things
began to go round and round, and I luckily remembered that in the wallets
of the horse I had borrowed I had noticed a flask. This proved to contain
a bottle of the best old brandy, and my observer and I at once drank the
lot. I now felt like Jack Johnson, instead of an old cripple.”
Major Alexander asked Francis to find if there was an exit for his guns.
The diary continues the story.
“It was not a very nice job, I am bound to say, and I was
relieved when it was finished. It meant leaving my regiment
under the embankment and riding out alone through the guns,
which were now out of action and being heavily shelled all
the time, to some distance behind, where I found myself out
of range of the shells. It was necessary to go back through
the inferno as slowly as possible, so as to pretend to the men
that there was no danger and that the shells were more noisy
than effective. I reported to the Battery Commander that there
was an exit; he then told me that the only way to save his
guns was to man-handle them out to some cover. My experience a
few minutes before filled me with confidence, so I ordered the
regiment to dismount in front of their horses, and then called
for volunteers. I reminded them that the 9th Lancers had saved
the guns at Maiwand, and had gained the eternal friendship of
the gunners by always standing by the guns in South Africa; and
that we had great traditions to live up to, as the Colonel had
reminded us before we started. Every single man and officer
declared they were ready to go to what looked like certain
destruction. We ran forward and started pushing the guns out.
Providence intervened, for although this was carried out under
a very heavy fire and the guns had to be slowly turned round
before we could guide them, we accomplished our task. We pushed
out one over dead gunners. I do not think we lost more than
three or four men, though it required more than one journey
to get everything out. It is on occasions like this that good
discipline tells. The men were so wonderful and so steady that
words fail me to say what I think of them, and how much is due
to my Colonel for the high standard to which he had raised this
magnificent regiment.”
According to Major Alexander, the enemy infantry were within 500 yards
before the last gun was got out of shell range. Meantime Captain
Lucas-Tooth had arrived, and being the senior officer took command of the
regiment. “B” Squadron waited till all the battery had gone, and then,
wrote Francis, “wandered about for some time looking for some one to
give us orders.” Eventually they halted by a main road along which an
infantry column was marching. Here Francis was overcome by his wounds,
and was forced to leave the squadron. It was now about seven o’clock.
“The N.C.O.’s and the men came and shook me by the hand and gave me
water from their water-bottles. I cannot tell you how much this day has
increased the feeling of confidence and comradeship between me and my
squadron. My fingers were nastily gashed, but the bone was not damaged; a
bit of shrapnel had taken a piece out of my thigh; I had a bullet through
my boot and another through my sleeve, and had been knocked down by a
shell; my horse had also been shot, so no one can say I had an idle day.”
Room could not be found in any ambulance, so he was left by the roadside.
Luckily a French Staff officer came by in a motor car and took him to
Bavai. There he fell in with the Duke of Westminster, who took charge of
him; and he also found Rivy, who had been doing galloper to De Lisle. I
quote again from the diary.
“They took me to a French convent, which was under the Red
Cross and was full of wounded. A civilian doctor and six nurses
attended me, each lady trying to outdo the others in kindness,
which was rather alarming. There was a chorus of ‘_Pauvre
garçon! Comme il est brave! Comme il est beau!_’ The difficulty
arose as to how my leg should be treated. I suggested my
breeches should be taken off, but the senior Red Cross lady
said that that was impossible—‘_Car il y a trop de jeunes
filles._’ So my breeches were cut down the leg. The doctor
took me to his house and put me to bed. I am bound to say I
felt rather done. I got into bed at ten o’clock. At midnight
Rivy told me to get up, as the town was to be evacuated. The
doctor gave me some raw eggs and coffee, and I left Bavai at
1.15 a.m. in Bend Or’s motor. I cannot say how nice it was to
find such a friend at such a time. It is wonderful what Bend
Or has done for Rivy and me. He took me to Le Cateau, which
we reached about four in the morning, where I slept that day
heavily in his bed. Next morning I heard of the arrival of the
4th Division, and I also met Hugh Dawnay. I left Le Cateau at
9 a.m. on the 26th in a cattle truck with five other wounded.
A very amusing thing happened in the railway station. About
500 refugees were there, all in a great state of distress and
alarm, and a few gendarmes and soldiers. Suddenly a German
aeroplane came over. You would have roared with laughter as all
the refugees started yelling and rushing about the station.
Every gendarme or stray soldier who possessed any sort of
firearm loosed it off into the air, which made the women yell
all the more. A very fat officer seized a rifle and rushed
forward to shoot the aeroplane, which was about five miles
away. The bolt jammed, so he put it on the ground, gave it a
kick, and it went off through the roof.”
He reached Amiens safely that day, whence he was transferred by way
of Rouen to hospital in England. He arrived very chastely dressed in
his regimental tunic and a pair of pyjamas, his breeches having been
sacrificed to the modesty of the French nuns. I well remember how, out of
the confused gossip of those first weeks of war, the exploit of the 9th
Lancers emerged as a clear achievement on which the mind of the nation
could seize and so comfort itself. For his work on that grim day Francis
was recommended by Sir Charles Fergusson, the General commanding the
5th Division, for the Victoria Cross. The award was gazetted early in
November, and so to Francis fell the distinction of being the first man
in the campaign to win the highest honour which can fall to a subject of
the King.
He was taken to Sister Agnes’s hospital, and then to Mr. Pandeli Ralli’s
house in Belgrave Square. There he stayed a week, and afterwards went
down to Lord Grenfell at Overstone. On 8th September he wrote to Rivy
that he hoped to start back in a week for the front, though the doctors
pretended that it might be a fortnight. He was desperately restless. “I
am wondering what has happened to you in the meanwhile, and also to my
squadron, as I am afraid you will have been having incessant fighting
ever since I departed, and the strain must be very great. Even the little
I went through practically knocked me up, and I have been in bed ever
since.” He was greatly embarrassed by his sudden fame, and he could not
believe that he had done anything worth speaking about. “What a muddle
it all was! How I should have liked to see somebody who knew what was
going on! I have not yet discovered _what_ we charged. All I saw was
some infantry nearly a mile off.” He had for the moment no pride in
his exploit, only vexation at the fuss made about it. “Some infernal
correspondents from France have written a lot of rot which makes me feel
very uncomfortable. I have been bombarded with letters and telegrams
from all over the place, and every sort of person has called to see me
in hospital. I never felt such a fool in my life. After all, I only did
what every other man and officer did who was with me.... The King came
to see me in hospital, and was extraordinarily nice; also Prince Arthur,
who stayed an hour with me. Lord Roberts came and asked rather direct
questions as to why we charged and whom we charged, and who gave the
order to charge.... Mrs. Asquith came too, and asked after you. There is
every sort of wild story about us, and a poem was even written in the
_Times_ on how we _captured the guns_.... Tell the officers to write on
receipt of this, and I will bring out anything they want to them. Cable
if you are all right.”
That brief meeting in Bavai was the last time Francis saw his brother.
During the afternoon of 24th August, when Francis and his squadron were
charging the remote German infantry, Rivy had been acting as galloper
for De Lisle. “A rather heavy job on a weary horse,” he wrote. “He
sent me to find General Gough, which I did; and the latter told me he
had received no orders, and could not find Allenby, but since he had
heard heavy guns in the direction of Eloges he intended to stay where he
was.... We found Allenby about 11.30. He told De Lisle to go back and
take the ridge from which we had been firing in the morning, but not to
get too heavily engaged. De Lisle took his brigade back and sent the 18th
Hussars about a mile north to a sugar factory, and followed himself,
with me. Then I was sent to tell the 9th to wait north of Audregnies. As
I gave the message an awful fire burst out from Quiveran. The Colonel
told Abadie to hold the ridge. I had to gallop back across the line
of fire to De Lisle, but when I had got there he had gone. The guns
took up a hurried position behind the railway, but as they galloped to
position a very heavy enemy fire was opened on them, the Germans soon
finding the range. I went to the railway to look for De Lisle, and on
approaching the ridge saw four artillerymen destroyed by shell. I then
went round by the south bridge to find the 9th; but they, I was informed,
had just charged. Meanwhile riderless and wounded horses were galloping
everywhere, and bullets and shells were falling like hailstones.... At
last I found Colonel Campbell looking for the Brigadier to try and get
some reinforcements. We found the Brigadier, but he had no troops with
him. Colonel Campbell told me to stay with him. He had been ordered to
charge towards Quiveran. Why, he did not know, as there was an open space
for about a mile, and he had lost nearly all his regiment.... I was told
to rally what force I could at Wiheries. I found some 4th Dragoon Guards,
and then retired towards Athis with the Colonel. Afterwards we fell back,
a very dejected force, to Bavai. I wondered how the devil I could get
news of Francis.”
Rivy’s day’s work, though he was the last man to admit it, was a very
remarkable and courageous performance. Francis used to say that that
solitary bit of reconnaissance, all alone, was braver than anything he
ever did—a raw civilian riding for hours under heavy fire on a tired
horse on missions of vital importance. That day established Rivy’s
reputation with the regiment. For the next ten days he was busy with
the great retreat, and had very little time for letter-writing. On 29th
August there was a short note to Francis telling him that both had lost
all their belongings and begging him to bring out a new outfit. “An
infernal trooper has bagged my horse with all my kit on it, and has
got lost himself.” There was a letter to one of his sisters, dated 2nd
September, and a postcard to Francis the next day, and after that the
next news was his death. In that feverish fortnight David Campbell wrote:
“Rivy was with me as galloper and general utility officer up to the time
I left. He was of the very greatest help, and carried out a very good
reconnaissance with two scouts the day before I was hit. He was always
splendid, and I shall miss him fearfully.” On 5th September came the turn
of the tide on the Marne, and the Cavalry Corps moved northward again. On
the 7th the 2nd Brigade was acting as flank guard to the division, with
the 9th Lancers as the advance guard; and at Moncel the Ninth, a troop
and a half strong, led by David Campbell himself, brilliantly charged
with the lance and dispersed a German squadron.
On 11th September the 2nd Brigade was on the left bank of the Vesle
river, and on the 13th began the crossing of the Aisne by the British
infantry. The 9th Lancers, with the 4th Dragoon Guards and the 18th
Hussars, crossed the river in advance near Bourg, and pushed up the
heights towards Vendresse. There they were relieved by a battalion of the
infantry advance guard, the 60th Rifles, and retired for the night to
Pargnan. On the morning of the 14th the Ninth again formed the advance
guard, and leaving at 3 a.m. marched north by Vendresse and Troyon. They
had been given an objective which turned out to be about a mile behind
the German trenches. Pushing fast through the dark up a winding road
towards the Chemin des Dames, they passed the pickets of the 60th, and
presently ran into a German picket. The regiment dismounted, while Rivy,
with a section, dashed forward to a position near a haystack. He engaged
the enemy picket, and enabled the regiment to regain its direction.
He seems to have been in wild spirits, and to have encouraged his little
band with jokes, and with that peculiarly cheery hallo of which he had
the secret. But, in his anxiety to see the effects of the shots, he
exposed himself, and a German bullet cut his revolver in two and passed
through the roof of his mouth. He died instantaneously. The last words
which his men remember were his shout, “Steady your firing, boys. We have
got them beaten.”
The Ninth fell back, leaving his body in the enemy hands, but that
afternoon the 60th advanced and recovered it. Rivy had been in the field
twenty-five days—days of such crowded endeavour and endurance as few
campaigns in history can show. From the first hour he had been supremely
happy, for he had found his true calling. He had seen his brother safe
out of danger and covered with glory, and with the removal of any anxiety
about Francis had gone the one thing which could dim his cheerfulness.
From what I have been told by his men and his brother officers, I am
certain that that last fortnight of his life had washed clean from his
mind all the weary sense of reproach and futility which had been clouding
it, and that he went to death as one who “finds again his twentieth year.”