THIS week marks the 100-year anniversary that 94 soldiers of the Leicestershire Yeomanry - including 14 from the Loughborough area - were killed at the Battle of Frezenberg Ridge.
With help from Mel Gould, Bob Quinney and soldiers’ diary extracts, we take a look back at the battle that claimed so many local lives:
The Leicestershire Yeomanry was ordered to the front at 5pm on May 12, 1915, having spent much of the previous severe winter engaged in digging parties and relief duties.
Two hours later, the Regiment, under the command of Lt. Col. the Hon. P.C. Evans Freke, left its billets and dugouts on the western outskirts of Ypres, Belgium, and led the 7th Cavalry Brigade eastwards through the smouldering medieval town to the front line trenches on Frezenberg Ridge.
Major J.P.Swain of Barkby wrote: “We were a merry crowd, singing, joking and laughing, little dreaming of what we were going to. Ypres burning in ruins, an awful sight, terrible stench.”
It was raining heavily and having crawled their way on hands and knees through the deep, clinging mud, “all troops got settled into their trenches about 1am”. At 3.30am on May 13, “a day of ceaseless rain and shelling,” the German artillery launched an intense bombardment on a three mile front and the 7th Cavalry Brigade was “exposed to a perfectly hellish fire, which blew to pieces the trenches in front and the shelters behind.”
The shelling went on until 6am when the Germans attempted to take the British trenches but were beaten back.
A second, more violent bombardment began and eventually the Germans fought their way into the forward trenches of the heavily outnumbered British.
The fighting, much of it hand-to–hand, raged for seven hours with no respite and for several hours the desperate and severely depleted Leicestershire Yeomanry was the only unit holding the line previously held by the entire 7th Cavalry Brigade.
At great cost these brave men held on heroically and prevented the Germans from breaking through to Ypres.
At 2.30pm the British artillery opened fire on the German lines and an hour later the 8th Cavalry Brigade emerged from the GHQ support lines and launched a counter-attack.
The charge, led by the 10th Royal Hussars, “went forward with such a splendid dash that at the sight of them the gallant Leicestershire Yeomanry, reduced in numbers as they were, could not restrain themselves, but tumbled out of their trenches and joined in the rush”.
Of the 281 men of the Leicestershire Yeomanry who went into battle, 94 lost their lives, including the Commanding Officer, two Squadron Leaders and the Regimental Sergeant Major.
Ninety-three were wounded and only 94 came through unharmed, if anyone who survived the carnage and confusion of that day could be said to be unharmed.
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote of the battle: “It was a most murderous affair, and they were only driven from their trenches when the trenches themselves were blasted to pieces.
“It is doubtful whether any regiments have endured so much in so short a time. The Leicestershire Yeomanry suffered very severely.”
Those who lost their lives are commemorated on the Carillon Tower and remembered each year at a service at the church at Newtown Linford and wreath laying at the Leicestershire Yeomanry War Memorial at Bradgate Park.
This year’s service takes place at All Saints Church in Newtown Linford at 11am on Sunday, May 17.
FOURTEEN soldiers of the Leicestershire Yeomanry from Loughborough and the surrounding villages were lost in one day at the Battle of Frezenberg Ridge on May 13, 1915.
• Private Thomas Brookes, aged 22, younger son of James and Elizabeth Brookes of 24 Paget Street, Loughborough.
• Private George Clowes, aged 19, son of Ernest and Sarah Clowes of Hathern Station.
• Private William Ernest Hoe Corah, aged 25, son of William and Catherine Corah of Swing Bridge House, Loughborough.
• Lance Corporal Bertie Diggle, aged 21, son of Sergeant Major George Davis Diggle and Mrs Ellen Diggle of 15 Swann Street, Loughborough.
• Private Henry Archer Grudgings, aged 23, son of Daniel and Emma Grudgings of 14 Beacon Road, Loughborough.
• Private Gilbert Edwin Hawker, aged 22, son of Frank and Winifred Hawker of 65 Toothill Road, Loughborough.
• Private Percy Spencer Jones, aged 21, son of Annie Jones and stepson of Herbert Jones of 76 Gladstone Street, Loughborough.
• Sergeant Henry Percy Kealey, aged 30, son of Henry William Cato Kealey of 14 Cartwright Street, Loughborough, and his first wife Alice Amelia Kealey (deceased), and stepson of Elizabeth Kealey; husband of Constance Kealey of 20 Freehold Street, Loughborough, and father of Constance and Dorothy.
• Lance Corporal William Francis Kent, aged 25, son of Frederick Britton Kent and Lucy Mary Anne Kent of 34 High Street, Loughborough.
• Trooper John Jesson Lucas, aged 20, son of Thomas and Sarah Jane Lucas of The Old Bull’s Head, 18 High Street, Quorn.
• Major William Francis Martin, aged 39, son of Robert Frewen Martin and Henrietta Susan Martin of The Brand, Woodhouse Eaves; husband of Violet Martin of The Holt, Woodhouse, and father of Robert and Diana.
• Regimental Sergeant Major George Charles Parker, aged 42, son of George and Lydia Parker of 30 Eton Square, Eton, Berks; husband of Edith Jane Parker of 22 Toothill Road, Loughborough, and father of Arthur, William and Edith Mary.
• Private Charles Edgar Pritchard, aged 22, son of Charles Leppington Pritchard and Elizabeth Ann Pritchard of Maplewell Road, Woodhouse Eaves.
• Private Thomas Joseph Sheriff, aged 20, son of Edward and Fanny Sherriff of 27 Watergate, Grantham, and cleaver forward of the Loughborough Wednesday Half-Holiday Club.