Berkshire and The War: the "Reading Standard" pictorial record. Volume 1. Introduction [2]

Finished 27/7/14 Nicci

Meanwhile the 2nd Battalion had returned from its station in India and in October, after short leave in England, was shipped to France. Once in the trenches the Berkshires lived underground until March 10th, the date of the battle of Neuve Chapelle. The 2nd Battalion was in the field several weeks after the 1st Battalion , so its record is not so long, but the old "66th" revealed equally fine moral qualities and physical powers. At Neuve Chapelle, where the enemy was driven back a mile and a half, the 2nd Battalion enhanced its name by the cool precision with which it took line after line of trenches. Against the quick fire of the defending remnant the 2nd Battalion lost severely. But the full-bodied rush did not wince. Dazed and demoralised, the surviving Germans were assembled by the Berkshires, whose advance two German officers resisted with a machine gun till they themselves were bayoneted. The calm of the 2nd Battalion in its first battle was fine. As a lance-corporal wrote : " It was not a charging, howling mass, but a line of cool-headed Berkshiremen. Most of them were smoking, and all were out to 'do or die.' " The next day the Berkshires were bombarded from their position while standing by to reinforce during a vain counter-attack, and the losses in the two days were approximately 60 killed and 250 wounded.
Sixteen Berks officers were dead or disabled, and among the former was Captain T. R . Aldworth, adjutant. Two months later the 2nd Battalion earned fame at Fromelles, beside which Neuve Chapelle was light work. On Sunday night, May 9th, the 4th Corps was called upon to attack the German trenches at Rouges Bancs. "It would have done the Berkshire people good t see how we enjoyed ourselves before the "thinning-out parade" "wrote a Sandhurst private. "We made a big fire of biscuit boxes, around which we sang songs and told stories until the hour for marching off." Given the order to charge, "the Berkshires sprang over the parapets like leopards. The way we charged under a murderous machine gun, rifle and shell fire was the sight of a lifetime. We soon lost half our numbers, but on we went till we reached our goal. We soon cleared the Germans out, but ---" and then he speaks of the retirement, which caused heart-burning.
The British gained some ground, but soon found that the position was much stronger than expected. What made the experience more terrible was that the enemy trained his guns upon the Berkshires' wounded inflicting severe loss. No fewer than 20 officers fell, and at least eleven gave their lives. Among these were Lieut.-Colonel H. M . Finch , D .S .O ., Major R. P. Harvey and Captain R. G. T. Moody Ward, adjutant. Colonel Finch had been in command only a week. For 29 years in the regiment of his
native county, he had gone out with the 1st Battalion as second in command and earned the D .S .O . near Ypres. He had succeeded Lieut.-Colonel E. Feetham , who took th e battalion to France and who became a brigadier-general, and on his death the command was handed to Major G. P .S. H u n t, C .M .G . The ordeal of that day only served to bring out the noblest heroism . For instance, when the leading line was checked and all the officers were shot Second Lieut. Nevile West rushed to the
lead and when shot down picked himself up and went forward till he fell a second time ; Sergt. B. C. Shea, when his platoon commander was shot down, led his line on until severely wounded ; he tried to crawl forward and still cheered his men on. Equally admirable was the conduct of Sergt. J . Gray in handling his company after all the officers had been killed or wounded.
Meanwhile hundreds more had enrolled or were enrolling in service battalions.
Omitting for a moment the Territorial Force, Battalions named the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th were created and the first four went to the western theatre of war in the summer of 1915. The 5th. Battallion, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel F . W. Foley, D .S .O ., trained at Shorncliffe, and soon after arrival at the trenches two excellent officers, Capt. G.W. Hopton and Second Lieut. A . R . Trehern,
were killed while trying to cut the enemy's barbed wire. The words of a private, "Not one of our chaps but would soon it had been one of them", are charged with significance. "We would have gone through anything with them."
The 6th Battalion, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel A . W. Dowell, was stationed for seven months at Colchester. It had the credit of being the best battalion in the division and held its trenches with stolid determination and cheerful spirit though there
were thirty casualties in one fortnight. The 7th, commanded first by Lieut.- Colonel R . Bray and then by Major A . P . Dene, were billeted for most of their training in Reading, and so were the 8th, commanded by Lieut.Colonel W. C. Walton.
By the end of the year 1915 the Royal Berks had gained upwards of 70 medals or honours, including one
Victoria Cross, seven Russian orders and medals, two French medals, eight D .S .O . s, 13 M .C .s and 32 D .C .M .s.
The Territorial Force has been put to the test. The 4th Batt. Royal Berkshire Regt., embodied on the outbreak of war and stationed at Chelmsford till April, held a part of the far-flung line in France. Commanded by Brevet-Colonel 0 . Pearce-Serocold, the battalion stood the strain of trench life well and endured the perils of sniping and shelling, but it escaped with few casualties, in part owing to its good training in England. The battalion suffered a bitter blow , however, when Lieut. Poulton Palmer, nephew and heir of the late Right Hon . G. W. Palmer, was killed by a stray bullet while ensuring the safety of his men. Second Lieutenant G. M . Gathorne Hardy did excellent reconnaissance work along the German front; once, with Lce .Corpl. A. G. Westall, he crawled out by day and brought back valuable information .Two reserve battalions were formed and were commanded by Lieut.-Colonel L . H . Hanbury, V.D.., and Lieut.-Colonel W. A. Ellison, M .V .O ., respectively; the first camped on Colonel Hanbury's estate near Taplow, and presently settled down at Chelmsford. The second enjoyed the summer under canvas at Aldermaston Park , where other third-line units of the Berkshire Territorial Force concentrated . In May Colonel Hanbury relinquished the command of the 2 /4 th Batt. Royal Berks Regiment to take that of a Warwickshire battalion and was succeeded by Major M . Wheeler.
The Berkshire Yeomanry, sent to Gallipoli to fight the Turks, led a famous bayonet charge on Hill 70 in Gallipoli on August 21st, 1915, and temporarily held the stronghold.
On pages 177-192 is the whole glorious story, but that is no excuse for not recording here
the award of the V.C. to Tpr. F. W. O. Potts, the first Berkshireman to gain the decoration in this war and the second member of a Berkshire unit to bear the magic initials after his name. Himself wounded, he stuck to a crippled comrade for 48 hours and dragged him under fire to the British lines. Major E. S. Gooch and many men were lost. The former was commanding in the absence of Lieut.-Colonel H . G. Henderson, M .P ., who was invalided just before, and who was succeeded by Major R . Hughes.
The Berks Royal Horse Artillery also bore the heat and burden of the day. The battery trained on the East Coast and sailed away in April, 1915. It was sent to the Suez Canal with the Canal Defence Forces, and soon found a redoubtable foe in the vast army of
flies and mosquitoes, to say nothing of a scorching sun, a hot wind, scarcity of water and the desert sand, which caused dysentery. Presently the battery moved 1,000 miles south to settle accounts with some Turks and Bedouin Arabs who had driven back a British force. On July 21st Indian infantry, stately Sikhs, engaged the enemy, who fell back, and the advancing Berkshires fired their first shots of the war in to the rearguard of the Turks, then in full flight. Later, on August 28th, the Berkshires w ere called to the aid of a battery of the Hon . Artillery Company in difficulties, covered their comrades, saved one of their guns and stopped the enemy fire. Shrapnel and bullets were flying but, as in the first action, the Berkshires had no losses.
That all this time voluntary enlistment made steady progress goes without saying. From August 1st to October 20th, 1914, 2,700 recruits from Berkshire passed through the Depot, and in the following June Berkshire had contributed a bigger percentage of men to the Army than any other county !
Then there are hundreds of Berkshiremen settled in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others of his Majesty's Dominions who heard the call of the Motherland and faced the terrors of the gas attack at Hill 60 or made the memorable landing at Suvla Bay ; and there are those Berkshire-born South Africans who disarmed the German colonists.

A whole book would be needed to describe all the enterprises in the interests of our fighting men. Red Cross Hospitals sprang up all over the county : country mansions were converted in to havens of rest and healing, and by July in the county town the Poor Law In stitution and two Council schools were sheltering the sick and shell-torn. The Berkshire Voluntary Aid Transport Service, organised by the Berkshire Automobile Club in order to carry the wounded and convalescent to and from the hospitals, in nine months had conveyed 13,000 passengers and travelled 18,000 miles.
The Berkshire branch of the British Red Cross Society, with 34 women's and seven men's Voluntary Aid Detachments, provided 23 auxiliary hospitals with 684 beds ; the VAD's staffed these hospitals, supplied 182 nurses for special service and provided orderlies. In six months the Reading War Hospital Supplies Depot had made 25,000 articles and enlisted 1,500 voluntary workers. The Reading Care and Comforts Committee provides generous entertainment for the war hospital patients and a flag day for the fund yielded £1,100.The Royal Berkshire Regiment Tobacco, Cigarette and Newspaper Fund cared for 7,000 men, to whom it sent regular supplies at a cost of £160 a month. The Royal Berkshire Prisoners of War Relief Fund, formed in May, 1915, organised the regular despatch of clothing and food to 124 captives, whose lot was made pathetic by long separation from home and neglect on the part of their captors. The Y .M .C .A . erected and equipped recreation tents for troops. Berkshire raised £1,024 on "Our Day" for the funds of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John, to which Reading and Maidenhead promised to give later. Reading contributed £5,468 to the Prince of Wales's Fund and the county subscribed a substantial sum. Though charity begins at home and our kith and kin were cared for, the district did not forge those who had suffered sorrows and hardships unknown in this tight little island.
Belgian refugees were housed and fed, facilities for earning a living were given the adults and the schools were thrown open to the children. The Berkshire County Fund for relieving the Belgians amounted to £1,550 at December, 1915, and a flag day yielded £551 in Reading, where at one time 300 refugees were enjoying hospitality. Reading and district by a flag day raised £2,142 for the Russian Red Cross. Enough has been said to show that the plant of voluntary effort and cheerful giving has taken firm root and bloomed freely. It typifies t e spirit that filled our soldiers in the desperate fighting at Ypres, and won a wholesome respect for "the contemptible little army," the spirit that animated a hopeful people at the commemoration of the first anniversary of the war, the spirit that will win against every design of the Kaiser's and maintain the ideals of liberty and justice which are the common and sacred cause of the Allies.