96 years after it ended, the Battle of Gheluvelt has hit the news on BBC Radio 4′s flagship current affairs show, Today.
An army map of the Battle of Gheluvelt, October 1914. British army positions in red, German attacking battalions in green.
It is October 31st 1914 and the German advance across Belgium towards France presses on, reaching the village of Gheluvelt on the outskirts of the town of Ypres. There, soldiers of the Worcestershire regiment reinforce a small group of South Wales Borderers at the Gheluvelt Chateau. Their mission is to stop the German advance at all costs: they succeed, but lose many lives in the process.
The Battle of Gheluvelt is significant as the nearest that the German army would come to breaking through Allied lines at Ypres until 1918. At Gheluvelt, a well organised and brave counter-attack by the Worcesters pushed the attacking Germans back. The town of Ypres would become a bloody crater over the next four years of war; but it never again would be so near to being overran.
At Gheluvelt 354 men of the Worcestershire regiment charged the advancing German troops (more than three times their number) by running across open ground with bayonets fixed while under machine gun fire. A third of the Worcesters died in the counter-attack, but they managed to repel the German push.
Gheluvelt, October 31st, 1914.
You can read about this action at the very beginning of the First World War on Today‘s website. You can find a detailed account of the Battle of Gheluvelt on the Worcestershire Regimental Museum webpage; and how the battle is memorialised through the town of Worcester’s own Gheluvelt Park.
Phil Mackie, the article’s author, writes that the Battle of Gheluvelt is today largely forgotten. I’m not sure I buy that: the First Battle of Ypres, of which the Battle of Gheluvelt is a part, is not a neglected action, at least by those who are interested in the history of World War One.
Gheluvelt was however a dynamic and heroic counter-attack: and indeed Mackie reasons that this may be why most people have not heard of it, despite its strategic importance. The stories we tend to tell about World War One are trench-siege horrors, not dashing actions across open ground, he argues. True: but the brutal history of the four years to follow, and the millions of dead, will tend to push even the most heroic action into the footnotes of history.
Still, it’s nice to see this story of extraordinary bravery get a wider audience.
November 10, 2010 at 04:40
My grandfather James Shirley was regimental sargent major South Wales Borders at the battle and is shown in the Worcester Regiments painting. My 8 year old daughter is studying Flanders at school. I am able to send a photocopy of the painting and your details of the battle to show her friends. She is so proud thank you.
Robert
November 10, 2010 at 09:07
Thanks for your comment, Robert. It’s nice to know, especially in the week of Remembrance Day, that your daughter is learning about this important subject. It’s especially nice that this site has helped you pass on knowledge of your grandfather’s heroism in one of the really significant early battles of the war!
To those who want to see the painting of the Battle of Gheluvelt to which Robert is referring, follow the link to the BBC Radio 4 Today page on our blog entry. Sgt. James Shirley is depicted there somewhere!
December 18, 2010 at 06:16
[...] that is, the rapid offensive or defensive movement across territory by cavalry or infantry, as at the Battle of Gheluvelt– was only seen at the very beginning and end of war. The Game of War only had six machine [...]
February 27, 2011 at 20:58
Sorry sir, I only just had my computer fixed today so I’m kind of behind. I think it’s quite tragic that armies were forced to run across no-man’s land in a attempt to seize land. But what’s done is done. I doubt anyone today would even risk such a thing. (I would be the one running down the hill.)
October 4, 2012 at 08:24
The above piece captures what was going on in this period… just further down the road at Zillebeke, the Glosters were also copping it. On the 31st October and on the 7th November, they raced down to Zillebeke overnight, to plug a hole in the British defence. They had landed in August with 1000 men, and by the time they got to Zillebeke they numbered just 300. They took reinforcements on the 7th August of around 200 men to help the situation. My aunt’s husband was with ‘A’ company on the right of the line, and along with a Lt. Kershaw and 49 other men they were cut off, and nothing else was heard of them. Of these 500 men only half answered roll call.