Current Information:

Age-28

Braine Communal Cemetery, France

The Battle of the Aisne  13-28 September, 1914

After the Germans were defeated on the Marne they fell back to the River Aisne, closely pursued by both the British and the French. The new German line was a very formidable defensive position. To attack it meant having to cross the Aisne and then climb up a 500 foot high ridge on top of which was the Chemin des Dames, a road that gave the Germans an easy way to move troops along the top of the hills. On 13th September the Aisne was crossed by both British and French troops but after that progress became slower, until there was no progress at all. Both sides dug in and the fighting settled down into trench warfare. The fighting on the Aisne continued for two weeks at the end of which both sides realised that frontal attacks on entrenched positions were both costly and non-productive, not that this deterred them from continuing with this tactic throughout the war.

6th Division arrived in France on 12th September and were straight away sent across country to assist the British efforts on the Aisne. On 22nd September, the 1st Shropshire Light Infantry battalion of 16 Brigade moved into the front line just to the one mile east of Vailly where they stayed for the next two weeks. During this period in the trenches the battalion were often the target of enemy shell fire and consequently suffered some casualties. One of these was Julian Mitchell. According to the battalion diary he was slightly wounded in the right knee on 25th September but presumably this was not the whole story as he died from his wounds on 28th September.