Current Information:

Born-Leytonstone

Royal Irish Rifles Graveyard, Laventie, France

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.

The Battle of La Bassée

This was fought by II Corps (3rd and 5th Divisions) between 10th October and 2nd November 1914 and as the name suggests it focused on an area around the town of La Bassée in northern France. It was part of the Race to the Sea and it determined the line of the Western Front in that sector. There were some initial British successes but La Bassée remained firmly in German hands. German reinforcements arrived and the village of Neuve Chapelle was captured by them. Towards the end of October, the fighting on this front died down as the attention of both armies switched to Ypres.

On 23rd October, 1914, the 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers battalion 9 Brigade of 3rd Division moved back from their covering positions near Herlies to new trenches near Chapigny. They remained here for the rest of the month consolidating their trenches, fighting off attacks and coming under shell fire. On 1st November the battalion moved to Rue du Becquerot and then on to La Flinque where on the following day they assisted in recovering some lost trenches. On 3rd November, the day on which Walter Rudland was killed, they dug a new trench line which they then occupied.