Category Archives: Uncategorized

16 September 1914

This morning, ‘between us’ as Kittie put it, Calderon was got up and dressed, his luggage was put on (sic) the car, and he and Kittie came out of the house just after eight o’clock.  At that moment, a telegram was … Continue reading

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A friend is wounded

On 8 September 1914 the B.E.F. moved towards the Marne and began to be attacked by von Kluck’s rearguard.  In one such engagement a dear friend of the Calderons was hit by shrapnel.  This was the 22-year-old Sir Roland James … Continue reading

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7 September 1914

Von Kluck now moved the left wing of his First Army almost forty miles northwards across the front of the B.E.F. to join his counter-attack on the French Sixth Army.  On this day the B.E.F. marched about fifteen miles towards … Continue reading

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6 September 1914

The initial strength of the B.E.F. was four infantry divisions and one cavalry.   However, the cavalry had been particularly hard worked: they had been the only effective cover and communication between the B.E.F.’s two army corps during the whole … Continue reading

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4 September 1914

This evening Joffre was brought a message from Sir John French that the B.E.F. was ‘prepared to assume the offensive’, i.e. at least five days earlier than he had told Joffre on 30 August.  So what had put some fire … Continue reading

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30 August 1914

On this day Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the B.E.F., telegraphed Joffre, his French counterpart, that he could not contemplate putting the B.E.F. back in the front line ‘for at least ten days’ and was intending to withdraw beyond the … Continue reading

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23 August 1914

At about 7 a.m. today the Germans began to attack British positions around Mons.  It was the British Expeditionary Force’s first action of the war.  At first the German surges were mown down by rifle-fire.  Gradually, however, von Kluck’s troops … Continue reading

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…and impatient!

Calderon had not by now heard whether he had been given a commission, so he went to see his golfing acquaintance Lieutenant-Colonel Coote Hedley, who lived not far away in Belsize Avenue, to ask what he, George, could do to … Continue reading

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14 August 1914

The British Expeditionary Force was still moving up to join the French Fifth Army near the Belgian border, and in London today the weather was ‘grilling hot’ (Mark Bostridge, The Fateful Year).  That evening George Calderon wrote to Clara Calderon in … Continue reading

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5 August 1914

Note that George Calderon’s ‘Attestation’ simply meant that he had joined the ‘Territorial Force’ and this committed him to ‘Four Years Service in the United Kingdom’.  In his excellent The British Soldier of the First World War (Shire Books, 2010) Peter Doyle … Continue reading

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4 August 1914

At 8 a.m. German troops crossed the Belgian border. In the morning, presumably by telephone, Calderon made an appointment to see the Colonel of the Inns of Court Regiment, who was previously unknown to him. This time George did deploy … Continue reading

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