Current Information:

Age-37

Grove House, Chiswick

Etreux Communal Cemetery, France

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.

The opening battles of the war in 1914, the Battle of Mons on 23rd August, 1914 and the Battle of Le Cateau, three days later, involved only I Corps of the British Expeditionary Force. II Corps were holding a line just to the east but when the retreat began, they too headed south. On 26th August, the day of the Battle of Le Cateau, the 1st Gloucestershire battalion of 3 Brigade, 1st Division left their overnight billets at Le Grand Fayt and moved to Favril where they entrenched in positions astride the Favril-Landrecies road and covered the withdrawal of 2nd Division. They were slightly engaged later in the day when British guns, firing on a distant infantry column, provoked a sharp attack by dismounted German cavalry, causing some casualties for 1st Gloucestershire. One of these was Guy Shipwell, commander of B Company, who was out in front of the line with his CQMS, trying to locate the position of the enemy, when he was hit by a sniper’s bullet. He was taken back to Etreux but died that evening.