Current Information:

Born-Hampstead

Enlisted-Kingston

The Great Retreat

After the opening battles of the war at Mons on 23rd August, 1914 and Le Cateau on 26th August, the British Army (BEF), in conjunction with the French Army, began a retreat that took them all the way back to the River Marne, 200 miles to the south. With the Germans in hot pursuit they were forced to fight a series of rear guard actions as they fell back in extremely hot weather. The Great Retreat, as it became known, came to an end on 5th September, 1914 when the allied forces attacked along the River Marne and drove the Germans back to the River Aisne.

5th Division, including the 1st East Surrey battalion of 15 Brigade, along with the rest of the BEF, were part of this retreat and by 3rd September, 1914, the day on which Roland Brown died from wounds, they were south of the River Marne. He has no known grave and this suggests that he was wounded a week or so earlier during either Mons or Le Cateau.