THE YPRES TIMES
Annual Re-union Smoking Concert
146
The .first battalion having returned from America took part in the expedition of
1805 to recapture the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch. This successfully accom
plished we find them two years later in South America, where a little expedition
attempted to annex the southern part of that Continent. The South Staffords covered
themselves with glory at the capture of Monte Video not only by their gallantry in
attack, but by their perfect discipline when the town had been captured, complete order
being restored within a few hours of the engagement. This expedition failed ultimately,
but in 1809 the regiment took part in the ill-fated Walcheren expedition, when nearly
half the men fell victims to Flanders fever. The Peninsular War they saw through
from the early battles of Rolica and Vimiera, and the retreat of Sir John Moore, to the
storming of San Sebastian and the entry into France. Then followed garrison duty in
France and in Cape Colony just afterwards, with minor operatons for the protection of
the colonists against the Kaffirs.
The second battalion now come into action in the Burmese Wars 1824 and 1852,
and the Sikh Wars. And so the records go on though the Crimean War, Indian
Mutiny and Zulu War, where a sergeant was awarded the V.C., Egypt 1882, where
the Staffords were the first to land after the bombardment of Alexandria, and on to the
South African War, where we find them on the Starving 8th Division under
General Rundle. Incidentally in the South African War, besides a line battalion, two
militia regiments of South Stafford men served at the front, while companies from the
volunteer battalion also went out.
Coming now to the Great War, it will suffice to mention that one line battalion was
present at Mons, and both took part in the First Battle of Ypres, where the 2nd batta
lion held the very apex of the Salient for nineteen days without relief, and were called
by their Brigadier The Unbreakable Coil an apt reference to their badge, the
Staffordshire Knot. The Territorial Battalions were among the first of these units to
land in France, and from their action at the taking of the Hohenzollern Redoubt in
1915, to the swimming of the Canal du Nord at St. Quentin in 1918, they gallantly
upheld the county traditions. One service battalion worthily represented the county
at the Suvla landing, and the others in France, Flanders and Italy.
The South Staffords are typical of many English County Regimentsunostenta
tiously serving their country, wherever duty calls. William Corbett recognised their
sterling qualities. This brief history has been written to justify his opinion.
A. E. S.
When you were up to your neck in mud in the Salient sixteen to twenty years ago,
perhaps sitting disconsolately on an upturned ammunition box, chewing the end of a
saturated woodbine, feeling the incessant rain trickling down the back of your neck
and perhaps, for the want of a better occupation at the moment counting the drops of
rain as they fell into the neck of an uncorked empty rum jar and wondering how long it
would take to fill, would you have been in any mood to have discussed with your com
rades the possibility of meeting them again at a re-union twenty years hence?
What an interminable step into the future such a suggestion would have sounded
then. At that time we could visualise certainly no farther than when we got our
civvy clothes on, oh how happy we should be."
What a splendid tribute, therefore, to that wonderful spirit of comradeship which
still survives the test of the passing years and to the organisation which holds the
members together that close on 500 old comrades and their friends met together at
Caxton Hall, Westminster, on Saturday, 27th October last. The occasion was the
Twelth Annual Re-union Smoking Concert organised by the London County Committee
