1914 - The Short War of Captain Drake

Robert Edward Drake c1910

Not a Melford man by birth, Robert Edward Drake was born on January 4, 1878 at Great Wratting in Suffolk where his father was rector.  Robert was the eighth of nine children born to the Reverend John Drake and Ellen Louisa née Todd.  His early childhood was spent in the comfortable surroundings of the sprawling village rectory receiving his education at home from a governess.  By the age of thirteen however, he had followed his brothers to Lancing College in Sussex.[i]  The families association with Long Melford did not come until Robert’s father had retired and moved to ‘Chestnuts’ in Hall Street, shortly before 1911. 

Early Military Career

On leaving Lancing Robert followed the path set by two of his older brothers, Francis and William, into the world of the career soldier, serving initially in 3^rd [Militia] Battalion, Suffolk Regiment from 1898 to 1900.  He joined to regular army in April 1900 being commissioned 2^nd Lieutenant in 1^st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment.  It was probably at this time that he was stationed at Trichinopoly near Madras, although some sources suggest he served in South Africa during the Boer War.[ii]  His career advanced steadily, rising to Lieutenant in 1902, to Captain in 1912 and a year later appointed Adjutant to the Battalion.[iii]    

Service in World War One

Captain Drakes Medal Index Card

Drake was posted with his battalion to France within days of war being declared.  As part of 3^rd Division's 9^th Brigade, his unit crossed the border into Belgium on August 21, taking up a defensive line on the Mons-Condé Canal below the hilltop town of Mons the following day.  Facing the full weight of Von Kluck’s First Army outnumbering the British Force by 2:1, the Battle of Mons on August 23 was a bitterly fought affair, which by the evening had pushed the defenders back towards the French border.  On August 24, II Corps of which Robert Drakes battalion was part, was given the task of covering the Army’s withdrawal.  The Lincolns were involved in one their Divisions last actions of the day when with men of 2^nd Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment they poured fire into the advancing German columns bringing them to a shuddering halt in front of the village of Frameries.  Two more days of hard marching on dusty roads encumbered by an ever increasing press of refugees brought Drake and his men to the village of Inchy a few miles west of Le Cateau.  Here Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, the Corps Commander decided to make a stand in force the following day against the Germans, to slow down the enemy and give the rest of the British Expeditionary Force time to regroup further south.  The Lincolns and other units of 9^th Brigade occupied hastily dug trenches and kept the enemy at bay throughout the day, eventually retiring under cover an artillery barrage.  The losses of Drake’s battalion during this action where relatively light when compared some units like 2^nd Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, who were attacked on three sides, suffering hundreds either killed or wounded and many hundreds more taken prisoner.

September 8, 1914, Day three of the Battle of the Marne - Showing the area where Robert Drake attacked the German guns 

The Battle of Le Cateau was considered a success as the rearguard action bought precious time for the retreating armies, allowing them to regroup and outpace their pursuers.  After ten days of hard marching the French and British army’s turned and made a counterattack in force across the river Marne.  Two French armies had started to push the Germans back on September 6, the British Expeditionary Force also bolstered by reinforcements, began engaging the enemy next morning.  The Allied counter stroke both surprised and demoralised the hitherto victorious Germans pushing them back into a hasty retreat. 

The Final Day

On the September 8 orders came down to the 1^st Lincolns, by then near the village of Bézu-le-Guéry on the north bank of the Marne, to capture a German artillery battery which was shelling British troops approaching the river from the south.  The regimental commander together with Captain Drake and the men of ‘C’ and ‘D’ Company worked their way through the woods beyond the village and crept to within 150 yards of the enemy position.  Drake and the other men rushed from cover and taking the Germans by surprise, killed or wounded most of the gunners and silenced the guns.  Through the fog of war, their swift action was mistaken by observers from a British howitzer battery as that of the enemy, and the position was immediately shelled.  Thirty-four men were killed or wounded by this error, including Robert Drake who died of his wounds later that day.[iv]  He is buried in Bezule-Guery Communal Cemetery, Aisne, France,[v] and commemorated on Long Melford War Memorial and Lancing College Roll of Honour.

The Battle of the Marne raged for a further three days and was a complete victory for the Allies, stopping the Germans from marching on Paris, and pushing them back to the River Aisne.  Here they dug in and four years of stalemate and trench warfare was to follow. 

Research by David Gevaux, MA

Melford and the Great War Project

Notes

[i] For details of his time at Lancing and his early career see the page dedicated to him on the Lancing College War Memorial webpage http://www.hambo.org/lancing/view_man.php?id=166

[ii] The confusion may stem from Robert Drake being stationed at ‘Boer Camp’.  As some Boer prisoners were incarcerated in India, this could suggest that Drake’s battalion were employed in a security role.

[iii] A synopsis of his military career can be found in De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour 1914-1918, Part 2, P.105

[iv] For an wider account of the battalion’s involvement from the Battles of Mons to the Marne see Major-General C.R. Simpson C.B. [ed] The History of the Lincolnshire Regiment 1914-1918 [London: The Medici Society, 1931] pp.4-31

[v] Commonwealth War Graves Commission