Nigel Cave - Le Cateau

Note that letters in bold and in parenthesis are to be found on the map extracted from the DCLI history. 1/DCLI had suffered relatively few casualties during its time on the extreme left of the line (for much of the time) at Mons. Similarly, although being the rearguard of 14 Brigade and of the 5th Division from early morning until about 2pm on 25 August, it suffered few casualties from the enemy. However, from that time onwards, men began to fall out, utterly exhausted. It was very hot indeed, a heat that was relieved somewhat by a torrential downpour that commenced at about 5pm. The bivouac positions for 1/DCLI and half of 1/E Surrey were to the east of Le Cateau; they arrived at about 6pm after a march of over twenty three miles and were utterly worn out and completely soaked. Not only was it a march of twenty three miles one has to include the heat, the extremely crowded and confused road traffic conditions and the great clouds of dust through which they would have had to march, never mind the rumble of firing and the threat of a probing enemy.

We bivouacked, in a drenched condition, in a field at the fork road [ie the Pommereuil road] on the south eastern outskirts of the town just as it became dark. The men were served out with rations, the first since 8pm the previous night. It may safely be said that the men were in an exhausted condition after the previous four days continuous strain and a rest was much hoped for.

Map 4. The east of the battlefield, particularly that of 1st Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry.

Early on that memorable day the Cornwalls, after a wretched night, stood to arms. It was still dark and their clothes were sodden with rain: many had not slept at all, even exhausted as they were on the previous night. Stand To was the worst hour of the day: chilled through and drowsy, the bitter change from oblivion to consciousness amidst all the gloomy surroundings of war was a thing men experienced not only in those early days of 1914 but throughout the long years in France and Flanders that followed. Sleep was the only sedative, an anodyne which took away all remembrance: the thing which allayed pain, blotted out for an all too short period the ghastly horrors and surroundings of the battlefield.

The Battalion was due to continue its retirement at 6.30am in line with Frenchs original orders and no official order arrived to change that intention. It was all set up, in column of route (Y) , with its head near the level crossing, to proceed from the eastern end of town through it and then off in a south westerly direction when, at the very moment set for departure, it came under small arms fire. Although some shelling had taken place to the west of the town shortly before this time, the DCLI were the first to be fired upon by infantry in what the British subsequently called the Battle of Le Cateau. The shots came from houses on the town side of the railway, about a hundred yards to the west of the assembled Battalion; although the Commanding Officers horse was hit, most of the damage was done to the Brigade Signals Section, which was already on the west side of the bridge Situated with them was part of 14 Brigade HQ, and Lieutenant J Dennis of the DCLI, the Brigade Machine-Gun Officer, was killed. (He has no known grave.) Immediately the men retired, through fields of allotments, to some high ground to the rear and occupied positions across the road (Z) . The two and half companies of the East Surreys took up a position south of the road and to the rear of 1/DCLI.