Current Information:

Enlisted-New Cross

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.

There is no information concerning the death of James Simpson on 3rd September, 1914, a day on which the BEF were south of the River Marne and the fact that he has no known grave suggests that he was killed on an earlier date, perhaps at Mons or Le Cateau, but his death was not recorded until later.