Current Information:

Enlisted-Mill Hill

The Race to the Sea. September-October 1914

By the middle of September 1914, the Aisne battlefield had stagnated into trench warfare and in order to break this impasse, both sides tried to outflank each other in a general movement northwards. Moving up through Picardy, Artois and Flanders, the race was over by 19th October when the North Sea was reached. The Western Front, a line of trenches stretching from Belgium to Switzerland, was now a reality. Initially it was the French army that conducted this movement whilst the British Expeditionary Force remained on the Aisne but by 6 October British reinforcements were needed to help beat off German attacks around Lille. They moved north and along with reinforcements from Britain, they took up new positions in Flanders, on the left of the Allied line and much closer to the Channel ports.

As part of this movement north, the 4th Middlesex battalion of 8 Brigade, 3rd Division, marched to Crépy-en-Valois on 3rd October from where they went by train to Abbeville, many miles behind the front line, where they arrived on 6th October They remained here until 9th October before beginning their move eastwards. There is therefore some confusion as to the circumstances of the death of Thomas King who, according to the records, was killed in action on 8th October and who is commemorated on the La Ferte-sous-Jouarre Memorial to the missing. Either the date is wrong or he was not with the battalion at the time  but had been attached to another unit.