Current Information:

Age-20

7, Briscoe Road, Merton

Le Cateau 26^th August 1914

By the evening of the 25th August, after their withdrawal south following the Battle of Mons on 23rd August, II Corps of the BEF, commanded by General Smith-Dorrien, had reached Le Cateau, in France. They had been retreating, but still fighting rearguard actions for two long days and they were done in. The Commander-in-Chief, Sir John French ordered them to continue the next day but Smith-Dorrien chose instead to stand and fight.  He reasoned that with the Germans on their heels a retreat would be disastrous without first halting the enemy advance. So, on the next day II Corps turned and faced the enemy. The town of Le Cateau saw little of the actual fighting on 26th August, the main actions taking place along the line of the road running between Le Cateau and Cambrai. A fierce battle ensued when the Germans began an artillery bombardment at dawn. Their infantry followed up in the wake of this barrage and became the targets of both the British artillery and infantry. The Germans were held at bay until the afternoon but by then they were threatening the flanks of II Corps which withdrew, whilst the enemy reorganised. British casualties for the day, killed, wounded or taken prisoner, were nearly 8,000.

At 5am on 26th August, the 1st Lincolnshire battalion of 9 Brigade, 3rd Division, formed up in main street of Inchy, a village on the Le Cateau-Cambrai road and then took up a line 300 metres south of the village half way down an open slope where they dug in. Inchy lay in a dip and 1st Lincolnshire had a good view of the long open slopes to the north, down which the Germans would have to advance.  Behind them at the top of the slope were the guns.  At 6.30am the German guns opened up followed by enemy infantry coming down the slope in extended lines. The British guns opened up but the enemy continued their advance towards Inchy. Their machine-gunners and snipers got to work as more and more of them got into the village and  at 3.30pm, 3rd Division was ordered to retreat. 1st Northumberland Fusiliers followed by 1st Lincolnshire withdrew while 107 and 108 Batteries of the Royal Field Artillery prevented the enemy from hindering these movements and when the last of 1st Lincolnshire passed the guns on top of the ridge, 108 Battery disabled and abandoned their guns.  3rd Division continued their retreat down the reverse slope to a sunken road where the seriously wounded were placed in safety while the others carried on across the sunken road and the railway line and then over a beetroot field muddy from the previous night’s rain.  The Germans did not pursue and at a road diagonally crossing the line of the retreat the men were reorganised and marched to crossroads near Clary.  Among the casualties suffered by 1st Lincolnshire was Archibald Elgood.