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New
Rome
 New
Rome

Th e E m p i r e i n t h e E a s t

PAU L S T E P H E N S O N

The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts
2022
 Copyright © 2021 by Paul Stephenson
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved

First published in Great Britain in 2021 as

New Rome: The Roman Empire in the East, AD 395–700
by Profile Books, Ltd
29 Cloth Fair
London EC1A 7JQ, UK

First Harvard University Press edition, 2022

Typeset in Garamond by MacGuru Ltd

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stephenson, Paul, author.

Title: New Rome : the empire in the east / Paul Stephenson.
Description: First Harvard University Press edition. | Cambridge, MA : The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Summary: “In New Rome, Paul Stephenson looks beyond traditional texts and well-
known artifacts to offer a novel, scientifically minded interpretation of antiquity’s end.
It turns out that the descent of Rome is inscribed not only in parchments but also in ice
cores and DNA. From these and other sources, we learn that pollution and pandemics
influenced the fate of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire. During its
final five centuries, the empire in the east survived devastation by natural disasters, the
degradation of the human environment, and pathogens previously unknown to the empire’s
densely populated, unsanitary cities. Despite the Plague of Justinian, regular “barbarian”
invasions, a war with Persia, and the rise of Islam, the empire endured as a political entity.
However, Greco-Roman civilization, a world of interconnected cities that had shared
a common material culture for a millennium, did not”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021024250 | ISBN 9780674659629 (cloth) |
ISBN 9780674269453 (epub) | ISBN 9780674269460 (pdf )
Subjects: LCSH: Civilization, Greco-Roman. | Romans—Middle East. |
Byzantine Empire—History—To 527. | Byzantine Empire—History—
527-1081. | Islamic Empire—History. | Rome—History. | Middle
East—History—To 622. | Istanbul (Turkey)—History—To 1453.
Classification: LCC DF553 .S74 2021 | DDC 938--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024250
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vi
List of Illustrations viii
List of Maps xii

Introduction 1

Part 1: Life in the Later Roman World 5

1 Life at the End of the ‘Lead Age’ 7
2 Family and Faith 30
3 An Empire of Cities 51
4 Culture, Communications and Commerce 75
5 Constantinople, the New Rome 94

Part 2: Power and Politics 127

6 The Theodosian Age, ad 395–451 129
7 Soldiers and Civilians, ad 451–527 163
8 The Age of Justinian, ad 527–602 192
9 The Heraclians, ad 602–c.700 236

Part 3: The End of Antiquity 275

10 The End of Ancient Civilisation 277
11 Apocalypse and the End of Antiquity 303
12 Emperors of New Rome 330

Bibliography 355
Notes 357
Index 407
A C K N OWL E D G E M E N T S

I t has been my intention since this book was commissioned in 2011,

by the late John Davey, to distinguish this work from many others in
the field by integrating the latest research in a wide range of disciplines
generally neglected by textual historians, notably that presenting and
interpreting scientific data. To that end, the vast majority of notes that
accompany the text relate to research published since 2011. That is also a
reflection of the fact that I began work in earnest on the book rather later
than planned, after the publication of two other works in 2016. I am grate-
ful to Louisa Dunnigan, who stepped into John’s shoes, to the copy editor
Susanne Hillen, and to the teams at Profile and Harvard University Press,
for their patience, for vastly improving the text, and for allowing me to
keep the extensive notes, which were not part of the original remit for the
book. The two anonymous readers commissioned by HUP were quick,
generous with their attention to detail, and incredibly helpful in their
commentary. I am also grateful to Michael Kulikowski for suggesting that
I participate in this series, to which he has contributed two volumes in
less time than I have taken to finish one. Michael also generously allowed
me to have several of the maps he commissioned for Imperial Tragedy
redrawn for this book.
In the time since the book was commissioned, I have benefited from
the support of a number of institutions and the help and example of many
colleagues. I single out only a few. I thank Olivier Hekster at Radboud
University, Nijmegen, for his kindness and for teaching me much about
Rome as we taught others together. I thank Anthony Kaldellis and Averil
Cameron, who have not always agreed with each other in print, but who
have both seen value in my contributions and have offered unwavering
support. I thank Jonathan Shepard for introducing me to this world

vi
 Acknowledgements

thirty years ago and for remaining a guide and friend. These scholars have
written many letters on my behalf that have secured me support, access to
libraries, and time to write.
As I completed the book, I also began new projects that have been
generously supported by a Seeger fellowship at Princeton University, a
Mellon fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the role of
visiting scholar at Dumbarton Oaks. I thank Dimitri Gondicas, Director
of the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton; Griffith Mann,
Curator in Charge of the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
at the Met; and Tom Cummins, Director of Dumbarton Oaks. I am espe-
cially grateful to John Haldon at Princeton and Helen Evans at the Met,
who offered support and guidance. I dedicate the book to my wife, who
encouraged me to enjoy those fellowships, and my daughter and son, who
tolerated my absences and have endured the process of watching me write
when there are far better things to do outside.

vi i
 I L LU S T R AT I O N S

Photographs are by the author except where stated otherwise.

Black and white illustrations

Figure 1. The lead coffin of a Roman infant, buried in Syria,

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 13
Figure 2. Pilgrim flasks (ampullae) from Abu Mena, Egypt, and
Resafa, Syria, sixth to seventh centuries, Walters Art Museum,
Baltimore. 26
Figure 3. Papyrus from Apollonopolis Magna, Egypt, dated to the
last year of Heraclius’s reign (ad 641), a marriage contract.
(Photo: British Library, Creative Commons Licence) 49
Figure 4. Public latrines near the lower agora at Ephesus. 55
Figure 5. Tyche of Antioch, sitting above Orontes, a young man with
flowing hair. Bronze copy of a statue by Eutychides, Louvre
Museum. (Photo: Wikimedia commons, public domain) 57
Figure 6. Mosaic at the baptistery at Stobi, Northern Macedonia. 71
Figure 7. Two statue bases of the charioteer Porphyrius, from the
hippodrome at Constantinople, now in Istanbul Archaeological
Museums. 74
Figure 8. Column of Constantine, Istanbul. 104
Figure 9. Theodosian land walls of Constantinople at Blachernae. 106
Figure 10. A wooden jetty at the Theodosian harbour (Yenikapı). 107
Figure 11. Hunting dogs chasing hares, Great Palace mosaic, Istanbul. 108
Figure 12. Theodosian Obelisk and masonry obelisk in the
hippodrome at Constantinople. 109

vi i i
 Illustrations

Figure 13. Theodosian Obelisk, imperial scene on upper base. Obelisk

above is supported on bronze cubes. 110
Figure 14. Knotted columns, alluding to the club of Hercules,
raised at the Forum of Theodosius on the Mese, now Divan Yolu,
Istanbul. 111
Figure 15. Column of Marcian, Istanbul. 112
Figure 16. Hagia Irene and Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. 113
Figure 17. Column base inscribed ‘Hecuba’ (ΕΚΑΒΗ), once at the
Baths of Zeuxippus, now in Istanbul Archaeological Museums. 115
Figure 18. Cistern of Aetius, a large open-air water reservoir that is
today a football stadium, Istanbul. 117
Figure 19. Trier ivory depicting the arrival of holy relics at the Great
Palace of Constantinople. (Photo: Wikimedia commons, public
domain) 121
Figure 20. Militant Christ, Archbishop’s Chapel, Ravenna. (Photo:
German Archaeological Institute (DAI) Rome (58.599), with
permission) 124
Figure 21. Silver consular dish (missorium) of Aspar, National
Archaeological Museum, Florence. 164
Figure 22. Dedicatory inscription at the Church of Saints Sergius
and Bacchus. 199
Figure 23. Golden coin (solidus) of Justinian II, showing Christ as
‘King of Kings’. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain) 269
Figure 24. Great oval piazza at Gerasa ( Jerash), Jordan. 314
Figure 25. Hippodrome at Gerasa, Jordan. 315
Figure 26. Great Mosque at Damascus, Syria. (Photo: Judith
McKenzie/Manar al-Athar) 318
Figure 27. Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem. (Photo: Ross Burns /
Manar al-Athar) 321
Figure 28. Portrait bust of a young man, possibly Arcadius or
Theodosius II, Istanbul Archaeological Museums. 343
Figure 29. Gold coin (solidus) of Heraclius and two sons.
(Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain) 349
Figure 30. David Plate, showing David speaking to a soldier; his
confrontation with Eliab. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, public
domain) 351

ix
 N EW R O M E

Colour plates

Plate 1. Mosaic of a solar chariot, Chapel of Sant’Aquilino, Milan.

Plate 2. Silver chalice, inscribed for Symeonius. (Walters Art Museum,
Creative Commons License)
Plate 3. The stoa or embolos at Ephesus, once a grand colonnaded street,
looking towards the theatre.
Plate 4. Mosaic showing Dionysus and Hermes, from a bath at Antioch.
(Photo: Worcester Art Museum, excavation of Antioch and vicinity
funded by the bequests of the Reverend Dr Austin S. Garver and
Sarah C. Garver, with permission)
Plate 5. Fortunes (tychai) of Constantinople, Antioch, Rome and
Alexandria. (From the Esquiline Treasure, British Museum, with
permission)
Plate 6. Mosaic of Magerius, from Smirat, now in Sousse Archaeological
Museum, Tunisia. (Photo: Wikimedia commons, public domain)
Plate 7. Mosaic of Dominus Julius, Carthage. (Photo: Wikimedia
commons, public domain)
Plate 8. Mosaic at the episcopal basilica, Heraclea Lyncestis, Northern
Macedonia.
Plate 9. Peutinger map, location and Fortune (tyche) of Constantinople.
(Photo: Wikimedia commons, public domain)
Plate 10. Sea walls of Constantinople, looking towards the Theodosian
harbour.
Plate 11. Basilica Cistern, today Yerebatan Sarnici, Istanbul.
Plate 12. Sarcophagi of porphyry (purple stone), Istanbul Archaeological
Museums.
Plate 13. Sketch of the eastern face of the Column of Arcadius.
(Freshfield Album, Trinity College, Cambridge, with permission)
Plate 14. Barberini ivory, Louvre Museum, Paris.
Plate 15. Ivory consular diptych of Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Justinianus.
(Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain)
Plate 16. Dome of Hagia Sophia.
Plate 17. Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, also known as Little
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.
Plate 18. The largest of nine David Plates, showing David slaying Goliath.
(Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain)

x
 Illustrations

Plate 19. Monogrammed glass coin weight. (Metropolitan Museum of

Art, public domain)
Plate 20. Mosaic showing St Demetrius before the walls of Thessalonica.
Plate 21. Apse mosaic of Virgin and Christ Child flanked by angels, Kiti,
Cyprus.
Plate 22. Fragment of mosaic from the ‘House of the Bird Rinceau’,
Antioch, Baltimore Museum of Art.
Plate 23. Madaba mosaic map, showing Jerusalem and the cities of the
Jordan river valley, Madaba, Jordan. (Photo: Sean Leatherbury/
Manar al-Athar)
Plate 24. Three Fortunes (tychai) – Rome (Constantinople), Gregoria
and Madaba – in a floor mosaic at the Hippolytus Hall, Madaba.
(Photo: Steve Walsh/Manar al-Athar)
Plate 25. Floor mosaic at the Church of St Stephen, Umm ar-Rasas,
Jordan. (Photo: Sean Leatherbury/Manar al-Athar)
Plate 26. Floor mosaic at the Church of St Stephen, Umm ar-Rasas,
detail of Philadelphia (Amman) and Madaba. (Photo: Miranda
Williams/Manar al-Athar)
Plate 27. Detail of the mosaic inscription recording the construction of
the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem. (Photo: Elias Khamis /Manar
al-Athar)
Plate 28. Portrait bust of a young woman wearing a bonnet,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Plate 29. Mosaic of Justinian processing during the liturgy’s Great
Entrance, San Vitale, Ravenna.
Plate 30. Transfiguration mosaic, Monastery of St Catherine, Mt Sinai.
(Wikimedia commons, public domain)

xi
 MAPS

Map 1. Britain, Gaul and Spain xiii

Map 2. The Roman Empire, c. ad 400 xiv
Map 3. The Northern Balkans xvi
Map 4. Asia Minor xviii
Map 5. Syria, with plan of Antioch xix
Map 6. The Persian Empire xx
Map 7. Egypt, with plan of Alexandria xxi
Map 8. North Africa xxii
Map 9. Italy xxiv
Map 10. The city of Constantinople, with detail of the Great Palace
complex xxv
Map 11. Constantinople and its hinterland xxvi
Map 12. Greece and the Aegean xxvii
Map 13. The Roman Empire, c. ad 550 xxviii
Map 14. ‘Byzantium’, c. ad 700 xxx

xii
 Vetera
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Map 2: The Roman Empire, c. ad 400

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Map 5: Syria, with plan of Antioch

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Map 6: The Persian Empire

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0 500 1000 kilometres ian Sea

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 Ptolemais Cyrene
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Map 8: North Africa

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T H R A C E
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0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 kilometres
0 10 20 30 40 50 miles

Map 11: Constantinople and its hinterland

 ea
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Map 12: Greece and the Aegean

 n
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Map 13: The Roman Empire, c. ad 550 TR

IPO
LIT
AN
LIBYA
PENTAPOLIS
IA

0 1000 2000 kilometres

0 500 1000 miles
 Aral
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DACIA RIPENSIS Ca
DACIA spi
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Map 14: ‘Byzantium’, c. ad 700 L I

B Y
A

Byzantium, AD 700

0 1000 2000 kilometres

0 500 1000 miles
 e a
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L S ea
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Constantinople
CALABRIA

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E G Y P T

Ni
le
Re
dS
ea
 INTRODUCTION

E very schoolchild once learned that Rome fell to the Ostrogoths in

ad 476, when Odoacer deposed the last legitimate western emperor,
Augustulus, weedy ‘Little Augustus’. On that occasion, an embassy was
despatched by the senate from Rome to Constantinople, a city straddling
East and West, Europe and Asia (Map 2). The city of Byzantium had been
refounded by Constantine I and dedicated to him as ‘the city of Constan-
tine’, Constantinople. Now it became the seat of the sovereign emperor
of all Romans, for the ambassadors carried the imperial insignia and an
indication that Odoacer would rule Italy on the emperor’s behalf. In
institutional terms, this is how the Roman empire came to be ruled from
Constantinople. However, the empire in the fifth century was ruled not
from any single city but by and from many cities, with greater authority
– political and administrative, cultural and spiritual – concentrated in a
few great metropoleis, ‘mother cities’, including Rome and Milan, Antioch
and Alexandria, Carthage and Constantinople. This book sets out how
this situation ended, and how many ancient cities fell or were transformed
until the empire came to be ruled from a single great city, Constantinople,
which was called New Rome.
A central theme of this book, that the end of the ancient city marked
the end of antiquity, is hardly novel. There is no virtue in novelty that
ignores decades of the finest scholarship. It is now clear that even where
cities appear to have abrupt ends these were long in the making. In the
view of Wolf Liebeschuetz, the ‘disintegration of the ideal and reality of
the classical city’ was intimately linked to the transformative power of
Christianity, which presented citizens with a compelling alternative world
view to that which had united communities across the eastern Mediter-
ranean. Christianity embodied a ‘different set of values, and one not

1
 N EW R O M E

centring on the city and its political community’. If change began even
before the fourth century ad, it accelerated rapidly through our period.
After more than three centuries, the cumulative effects of foreign invasion
and destruction, rapid climate cooling and famine, plague and depopula-
tion, the loss of taxation revenues and urban institutions, the erosion of
Hellenic culture and municipal autonomy, and the increased wealth and
prominence of the church and the rapid growth of monasticism, affected
all cities to some extent, and many ceased to be cities in any recognisable
way.1
Life across the empire was sustained and characterised not only by
what was produced or manufactured locally, but by what was shared
internationally, including, as we shall see, glazed ceramics and terracotta
lamps, natron glass and diverse marbles, fish products, olive oil and wine
from preferred regions, and grain shipped in bulk. If comestibles have
not survived, or have done so only in traces and fragments, many more
of their containers and some of the coins used to purchase them have sur-
vived – evidence for a transformed, impoverished material landscape. The
singular standout is Constantinople, which preserved the institutions of
Roman civic life and as much of its material culture as could be contained
within its walls. The empire of New Rome would become something quite
different without Rome, and still more so without Antioch and Alexan-
dria, its partners and competitors in the east. The insights of new scientific
data throw aspects of this well-established thesis, the emergence of the
empire we call Byzantium, into sharper relief and elucidate much that was
­hitherto quite opaque.
New scientific approaches are transforming our understanding of all
past civilisations. It is impossible today to write a general history of any
polity, society or culture without considering the natural world in which
it emerged, developed and fell. To explain the end of the western Roman
empire, among the thorniest of historical problems, historians have now
turned to natural and environmental science, highlighting the roles played
by climate and pandemic disease, supporting older hypotheses and under-
mining others. The consequences of climate change have been noticed
and applied to the movement of ‘barbarian’ peoples from the increasingly
arid lands of inner Eurasia, for example the Huns driving the Goths into
the empire, and others following in their wake. Such considerations now
precede explorations of what those barbarians destroyed and what they
inherited and transformed of Roman civilisation. As people travelled, so

2
 Introduction

they brought new pathogens and spread diseases unknown to the Romans,
which devastated the citizens of Rome’s myriad, densely populated and
unsanitary cities. Any account of the decline of cities, the foundation for
the Roman imperial system where Roman culture was generated and taxes
were collected, must now take account of disease transmission, but also
seismic and volcanic activity, climate forcing and pollution.
These compelling, urgent, novel concerns do not yet and likely never
will offer scientific certainty and data in place of historiography and con-
jecture. Certainly, they help us answer older questions in different ways
and force us to ask new questions. But ‘scientism’ cannot replace solid his-
torical research, and to have lasting value scientific data must be integrated
properly with more traditional approaches to the study of the past. Politi-
cal, social and economic history, intellectual and religious history, and
cultural and art history all still matter and deserve our careful attention,
as do the insights offered by archaeology and the study of material culture.
This book will attempt to integrate newer and older insights, to explore
the environment of the eastern Roman empire and attend to the natural
disasters that affected it, charting local, regional and cumulative impacts
and human responses. Attention will be paid to metallurgy and health,
magic and medicine, volcanoes and climate forcing, plague and earth-
quakes, historical climatology, geophysics and epidemiology. However,
the book will also offer a political and cultural narrative based princi-
pally on written sources and works of art, integrating human responses
to a range of phenomena, including warfare and religious disputes, devel-
opments in engineering and architecture, the rise of apocalypticism in
literature and art, and developments in the imperial image.
Weaving these threads together into a fabric that has coherence and
integrity presents a major challenge. The loom, being the parameters of
this study, is ad 395 to c.700, and encompasses the last tranche of Roman
antiquity, from an apparent division of empire at the death of Theodo-
sius I between eastern and western emperors in their respective capitals of
Milan and Constantinople, to the conquest of the Near East and Medi-
terranean by the forces of Islam. The warp of the fabric, the first yarns
stretched out across the loom, are the themes and focus of the book:
environmental and material concerns, informed by archaeology and the
new science of Roman history. Through these subjects, other threads,
thicker and thinner, lighter and darker, will be woven, introducing far
greater detail and higher resolution in some parts than others, reflecting

3
 N EW R O M E

the nature of surviving sources. By design, a tapestry will emerge that has
style and form, presenting imagery, history, in three registers or bands.
Inevitably, this composition has many flaws and gaps, holes into which
fingers will be jabbed. Like almost all ancient textiles, its colours will fade
quickly, its edges will fray, its connecting threads will prove weak and will
snap. It will disappear sooner than its maker imagined possible during the
decade it took to complete as scholarship moves on and new interpreta-
tions are offered.
Works of art in three registers were popular in the Roman world and
many have survived. If tapestries are rarely preserved, things fashioned of
more enduring materials remain, including the Barberini ivory and the
largest of nine silver David Plates, both of which will be discussed in the
book. If the central register, the second part of the book, is a political nar-
rative, full of detail and intrigue, then the upper and lower registers present
the wider contexts in which this story might be understood, broadly con-
ceived as the before and after. Urban and imperial themes, material and
ideological, dominate the first part of the book. However, the focus is on
people, the Romans who lived and died, suffered and worked, traded and
were traded. The earliest chapters sketch out life at the end of the ‘Lead
Age’, the natural world and environment, and faith and family. A com-
monwealth of cities is described, their streets teeming with life – human
and faunal, floral and microbial – defining and delimiting the civilised
world, linked by effective communications, dominating productive hin-
terlands, and ruled by wealthy families known as decurions. These families
owed, and ostentatiously professed, allegiance to, and collected taxes for,
administrators located in the greatest cities of Rome, Antioch, Alexan-
dria, Carthage, and eventually above all others Constantinople, the New
Rome. The last chapters depict the rise of Islam and its aftermath. Cities
still dominate the landscape in this period, although there are fewer and
many are transformed, while others are ruined or displaced. An inven-
tory informed by archaeology demonstrates that the wide world of linked
cities had become something else, something narrower and less urban, a
new world founded on new ideas about government and God, art and
war, and much else besides. The final chapter recaps and evaluates the
emperors at New Rome, seeing them as they wished to be seen through
three centuries, but also as they did not, their power constrained, their
sovereignty contingent, their lives ended often violently, their reputations
destroyed.

4
 Pa rt 1

L I F E I N T H E L AT E R
R O M A N WO R L D
 1

L I F E AT T H E E N D O F
THE ‘LEAD AGE’

I n the last decades of the fourth century, an octagonal imperial mauso-

leum was constructed at Mediolanum (Milan), which had supplanted
Rome as the western imperial capital. Today known as the Chapel of
Sant’Aquilino, the mausoleum housed the remains of Gratian and Val-
entinian II, sons of Valentinian I. The mausoleum abutted the Church
of St Lawrence, today San Lorenzo Maggiore, a mighty edifice built
using materials from Mediolanum’s abandoned amphitheatre. Ambrose,
bishop of Milan from ad 374 to 397, presided over both of their Chris-
tian burials. Above him, in the cupola of the mausoleum, was a figure in
a chariot streaking across the sky in the style of a solar god (Plate 1). This
was Elijah, the Old Testament prophet borne to heaven on a chariot of
fire (2 Kings 2). It was an appropriate image for a mausoleum, alluding to
the apotheosis of a Roman emperor, traditionally shown ascending to the
heavens on a quadriga, a chariot pulled by four horses. However, now it
announced the triumph of Christianity and the certainty of resurrection
for the faithful. According to Malachi (4:1–5), the last book of the Chris-
tian New Testament, for Christians like Gratian and Valentinian, ‘the sun
of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays’, raising them to heaven,
even as it burned others to ashes. ‘See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you
before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.’ 1
Ambrose was a sophisticated commentator on scripture, and he took

7
 N EW R O M E

care to draw out all meanings from a sacred text or image. Having gazed
upon Elijah’s fiery chariot, he offered a further layer of interpretation, a
gentler solar metaphor. Before his prophesied return, Christ would be the
true sun, a constant source of grace, whose radiance cascaded from heaven
in sanctifying beams upon his followers. Ambrose composed a hymn of
enduring beauty now known to English speakers as Splendour of God’s
Glory Bright.

O splendour of God’s glory bright,

O Thou that bringest light from light,
O Light of light, light’s living spring,
O day, all days illumining.
O Thou True Sun, on us Thy glance,
Let fall in royal radiance,
The spirit’s sanctifying beam,
Upon our earthly senses stream.

Our physical sun, in contrast, is an erratic provider of energy. Varia-

tions in the earth’s tilt, the way it wobbles on its own axis, and the path of
its orbit around the sun lead to more or less solar radiation reaching the
earth’s surface. This has resulted in very long periods of far higher or lower
temperatures, including the last glacial maximum that lasted for eighteen
millennia, between c.33,000 and 15,000 years ago. The sun also releases
larger and smaller amounts of energy over shorter periods of hundreds
of years. Greater solar emissions, which directly heat the earth’s atmos-
phere, are indicated by an increase in the number of solar flares and the
duration of sunspots. Periods of very intense solar activity are known as
solar maxima and those of very little activity are called solar minima. The
last solar minimum, the Maunder Minimum, took place between ad 1645
and 1715, coinciding with the ‘Little Ice Age’. Finally, the sun has a natural
short-term cycle, with eleven years between small peaks and troughs in
the amount of energy released. The sum of the energy emitted by the sun
that reaches earth, solar irradiation, can be measured through proxies
known as cosmogenic radionuclides, which are radioactive isotopes.
These are formed in the upper atmosphere when stable isotopes collide
with cosmic rays and fall to earth to be dispersed by aerosol deposition
in snow and rain or by photosynthesis. Counter-intuitively, greater solar
activity results in the production of fewer radionuclides like carbon-14

8
 Life at the End of the ‘Lead Age’

(radiocarbon), which is preserved in organic matter including the wood

of ancient trees, and beryllium-10, which is trapped in glacial ice. Measure-
ments of deposited radionuclides demonstrate that from c. ad 360 until
c.690 the earth experienced a long period of declining sunlight, culminat-
ing in a solar minimum of a magnitude that had not been seen for more
than a millennium, and would not be seen again until the ‘Little Ice Age’.2
This centuries-long period of declining solar irradiation corresponds to
the period of our study. It followed a sustained period of far more sunlight
initiated by a solar maximum in c.270 bc, the so-called ‘Roman Warm
Period’. Also known as the ‘Roman Climate Optimum’, it coincided with
a protracted phase of Roman imperial expansion and general economic
prosperity. In contrast, our period included what has been called the ‘Late
Antique Little Ice Age’ and culminated in the low point of Roman power
and prosperity. Quite what impact increased or decreased solar activity
had on the emergence or decline of the Roman empire, a complex civilisa-
tion that encompassed the whole Mediterranean and much of Europe,
cannot fully be ascertained. In the simplest terms, more sunlight and
higher temperatures allow more land to be brought under cultivation. The
zone in which vines and olives can be grown extends further north as the
sun shines, and retreats south as sunlight dwindles. Lowland trees like the
beech might grow higher up slopes, and then retreat back down them.
Alpine glaciers will move in the opposite directions. By one estimate, in
Roman Italy alone an increase in temperature of a single degree Celsius
would have brought five million additional hectares of land under culti-
vation, feeding more than three million more people. Consequently, for
each degree that temperatures declined, towards the solar minimum that
marked the end of our study, it might be expected that as much cultivable
land was lost.
To those living across the Mediterranean world in late antiquity,
whether it was slightly hotter or colder was ultimately less important
than whether it was significantly wetter or drier. Without adequate pre-
cipitation lands became not additional fields feeding millions but parched
wastelands. Levels of historical precipitation can be measured approxi-
mately in tree rings and cave mineral deposits like stalagtites, which show,
broadly speaking, that the ‘Roman Warm Period’ delivered rain suffi-
cient to support a significant expansion in agriculture across the empire,
whereas from around the middle of the fourth century in the eastern Med-
iterranean, two centuries before the posited onset of the ‘Late Antique

9
 N EW R O M E

Little Ice Age’, there was generally less rain. Since there was great regional
variability in rainfall across the Roman world, scholars have yet to reach
agreement on the data and how or whether this should be aggregated to
produce a global picture.3
At the regional and local levels, much evidence is clear and compelling.
For example, a wetter and warmer period allowed for greater cultivation
of large parts of Anatolia, in modern Turkey, in the fourth and fifth cen-
turies ad. The plain around Iconium (modern Konya), in south central
Anatolia, was far more heavily settled at that time than before or after,
and olive trees were planted and cultivated in the Anatolian interior. As
more arid, cooler conditions arrived in the sixth to seventh centuries,
olive cultivation stopped. Similarly, in Syria and Palestine, climatic con-
ditions in the period before the sixth century allowed the cultivation of
lands that had hitherto been marginal and uneconomic, for example the
Judean hills and slopes above the Dead Sea, where olives and cereals were
grown. This ended in the seventh century, after which the climate became
much drier. Olive production, like all forms of arboriculture, requires a
heavy initial investment and patience as trees mature, taking decades to
produce an economic yield. It implies confidence that rural communities
will endure, that there will be sustained demand supported by political
and economic stability, and that efficient trade networks will deliver prod-
ucts to local markets or further afield. This confidence was lost by the end
of our period.4

Metallurgy and the early Anthropocene

If the impact that a constantly changing natural environment had on the

fate of the Roman empire is now under careful scrutiny, the impact Rome
had on its environment and nature has barely been considered. However,
this can be measured with remarkable precision. As our study begins,
an age of industry and pollution, of mining and smelting, and of long-
distance shipping of metals, minting of millions of coins and large-scale
building of infrastructure was ending. Roman metallurgy has left signals
across northern Europe and the northern Atlantic world in the form of
anthropogenic heavy metal contamination of soil, sediment and ice. Con-
tamination is so substantial and significant that it has been identified as
the start of the Anthropocene, the period through which we are living,

10
 Life at the End of the ‘Lead Age’

a discrete chapter of the Holocene, our current geological epoch. Lake

beds, peat bogs, salt marshes and ice fields produce very reliable pollution
records. Cores extracted from Irish and Swedish lake beds, an Icelan-
dic salt marsh, Faroese peat bogs and Arctic glaciers all show the same
sudden and dramatic rise in the deposition of atmospheric lead pollutants
between c.100 bc and ad 100. Lead is released by the smelting of a range
of metallic ores, including those mined for copper and gold, tin, zinc and
silver, and from lead itself. In each location the levels of lead pollutants
fall away rapidly towards ad 400, only beginning to rise again after 800,
and not reaching Roman levels until c.1700. In none of these locations
is there any evidence for contemporary mining and smelting of metallic
ores, which would have produced the contamination.
Roman-age pollution in the north Atlantic world is the direct result
of fluctuations in the intensity of smelting that took place thousands of
kilometres to the south, releasing into the atmosphere lead aerosol parti-
cles that were conveyed great distances within the northern hemisphere’s
atmospheric transport system and deposited by precipitation. The origin
of the lead in Greenlandic ice has been confirmed by geochemistry
(isotope analysis). Spain was the source of up to 70 per cent of the heavy
metal pollution at its peak in the first century ad (see Map 1).5 Contami-
nation is far greater the closer one gets to its source. In an ice core taken
from the Col du Dôme glacier in the French Alps, the magnitude of lead
contamination is one hundred times greater than that recorded in Green-
land in the first century bc, reaching a lower peak in c. ad 100, before
falling steadily and dramatically to its lowest point in the sixth century.6
The rapid rise in atmospheric lead pollution mirrored the rise of the
Roman silver denarius, the coin minted in the greatest numbers and at the
peak of its fineness (at almost 98 per cent silver, considered pure by the
mints) from the time of Augustus in the first century ad. Careful analysis
of Roman silver coinage supports the notion that far less silver was smelted
after ad 100. From the reign of Nero onwards, Roman silver coinage was
increasingly debased. The ratio of silver to copper alloy decreased, and the
amount of recycled silver used, obtained by melting down older coins,
increased. The Roman silver denarius had a fixed exchange rate with
the aureus, a gold coin. During the Republican period this was largely
notional, but from the time of Julius Caesar gold coins were produced
in greater numbers. This too appears to be reflected in the environmental
record.7

11
 N EW R O M E

Gold production produced copious contamination. The largest known

Roman gold-mining operation was located at Las Médulas in north-west-
ern Spain (Map 1). A sediment core extracted from a small glacial lake
around thirty-five kilometres from the mines shows evidence for the first
gold metallurgy at Las Médulas in around 300 bc, with a rapid increase in
lead contamination from around 100 bc, a peak in c.15 bc, and a decline
to background (pre-300 bc) levels by c. ad 120. At the same time there
were dramatic increases in both antimony and arsenic. The peak of pol-
lution corresponds with that identified in the Greenland ice core, but the
concentration of lead, being so close to the smelters, is far greater. Around
150 kilometres to the north of Las Médulas, a peat bog saw an increase in
lead pollution that was thirty times greater than its local background level
in c. ad 100, which had fallen back to the baseline by c. ad 500.8
Silver and gold were noble and rare metals, whereas lead was a dull,
base metal, the plastic of its age, and was employed in quantities and
for purposes unknown before and since. It has been suggested that the
Roman period should be called the ‘Lead Age’, an archaeological succes-
sor to the ‘Iron Age’. Lead was used extensively in Roman construction,
because it is malleable and resists corrosion when in contact with air and
water. Molten lead was poured around iron clamps to join column drums
together, and to secure marble facades to blockwork. Lead sheets and
solder were used to form and seal waterproof joints. Most famously, lead
was used in Roman waterworks: to form pipes that transport water at pres-
sure, to plumb fountains and baths, for rain gutters and roofs, and as tanks
to store water, including potable water, for various purposes. It has been
determined that the piped water of the city of Rome may have contained
up to forty times the lead of natural spring water before ad 250, falling to
a multiple of fourteen by the year 500, as pipes became choked with scale,
cracked and failed, and the broader water system fell into disrepair.9
In addition to its uses in construction and for waterworks, lead was
used as a bulking agent in copper alloys, appearing in volume in later
Roman copper coins. Lead tokens, and occasionally coins, were struck in
great numbers. Because it was heavy, lead was used to form weights and
also to give heft to bronze steelyard weights. Because it was easy to shape,
lead sealings were used to secure and verify pouches, bags and letters. Lead
bungs stoppered liquids and lead labels were attached to sacks, with letters
scratched into the soft metal. Its low melting point (327°C) and physical
properties meant that lead was used in the extraction and refining of silver

12
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 CHAPTER I

THE FIRST BATTALION GOES TO WAR

I. Introductory

I n the early hours of Tuesday morning the 5th August, 1914, the
British Foreign Office issued this statement: “Owing to the
summary rejection by the German Government of the request
made by His Majesty’s Government for assurances that the
neutrality of Belgium will be respected, His Majesty’s Ambassador at
Berlin has received his passports and His Majesty’s Government
have declared to the German Government that a state of war exists
between Great Britain and Germany as from 11 p.m. on the 4th
August.” Thus was the British Empire officially informed that the
Great War had, at last, come upon Europe. Actually the Government
had given orders for the mobilization of the Army some eight hours
earlier, at 4 p.m. on the 4th; so that at that hour on that day this
history properly begins.
The war took Great Britain by surprise. This does not mean that
England was totally unprepared for such an eventuality; though
comparatively small our land forces were in a condition of readiness
and efficiency never before equalled. Nor does it mean that the idea
of a war with Germany was new; through many years its likelihood
had been canvassed and openly speculated upon both by soldiers,
headed by the veteran Earl Roberts, and politicians. But it does
mean that the man in the street did not think it would come in our
time, and certainly no one could see any possible connection
between the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his
Consort at Serajevo on 28th June and an international war on a vast
scale. The British temperament is not in its nature warlike;
Englishmen do not soldier, like some, from a sheer love of soldiering.
That is why the mass of the nation has always been steadily averse
to conscription. In spite of warnings it was willing to take the risk,
preferring quality to quantity where its army was concerned.
 It is perhaps well to give here, in this introductory, in order to link
up the story that is to follow with the past history of the regiment, a
brief outline of the changes which went to the making of the British
Army as it was at the beginning of hostilities, and the situation which
led to the war.
The South African War had brought it home to the Government
that the system initiated in 1871 failed to meet modern needs in
certain fundamental respects. It was realized that drastic reforms
were overdue; that new methods were essential. The work of
reorganization was undertaken by Mr. (now Lord) Haldane, then
Secretary of State for War; it was made all the more imperative by
the aggressive and openly ambitious imperialism of Germany. Whilst
still relying in the first instance on her naval supremacy, England
could no longer think in terms of small forces fighting in far-flung
corners of her mighty Empire. The danger loomed nearer home, and
the possibility of a British force at grips with a foe across the narrow
seas had to be faced; nay more, it had to be provided for and
planned against. An agreement was made with France, our ancient
enemy on many a bloody field, and the General Staffs of the two
countries explored the measures necessary for the defence of the
frontiers from the sea to the Vosges.
This entente was little more than a friendly understanding, and so
little was England under any obligation to go to the aid of France that
the actual position of the British Expeditionary Force was not settled
until after the outbreak of war. Whether Great Britain would have
remained neutral had Germany not forced her hand by invading
Belgium, cannot now be stated. What is known is that Germany
believed she would remain neutral; that, harassed by the threat of
civil war in Ireland and other domestic difficulties, she would content
herself as a looker-on. Therein Germany made her first big mistake.
She made her second when she assumed that the British Army was
too negligible to be seriously considered, and that if it came into the
field at all it would arrive too late to affect the issue. Germany
counted on a swift and fatal thrust across Flanders at the heart of
France. She underestimated British feeling upon the treaty rights
guaranteeing the integrity of Belgium, and she also forgot that Britain
would look upon her advent, entrenched on the Belgian coast, as an
intolerable menace. Thus, as events shaped, Belgium was the tinder
on which the spark was struck that lighted the war-torch in Britain.
As regards the reconstruction undertaken by Haldane great
progress had been made. The Army Council had taken the place of
a commander-in-chief; the Imperial General Staff had been set up;
the Militia, which had been converted into the Special Reserve, was
ready to train and despatch recruits as required by the regular
battalions; and the Territorials were organized on the same principle
as the First Line, and, although they were under strength and only
partially trained, it was thought that many old Territorials would rejoin
in case of war and that complete units would be able to take the field
after a few months’ training. In addition, the universities and public
schools had responded to the invitation to turn their units into
Officers’ Training Corps and a reserve of men capable of leadership
in a time of crisis had thus been created. Above all, the
Expeditionary Force, consisting of six divisions and a cavalry
division, was ready to move at a moment’s notice. This finely
tempered weapon, this wonderful fusion of skill and discipline with
British courage, this “contemptible little army” was ready to thrust or
parry, wherever it might be sent and against whatever odds.

II. Events Following the Outbreak of War

Before trying to follow the history of any particular unit it is, of

course, necessary to bear in mind the military proceedings as a
whole. Most people have a general idea of what took place in the
different theatres of war, but events are apt to be forgotten, and it
may be as well before describing any particular operations to remind
the reader how it came about that such operations became
necessary.
On the 4th August, 1914, war was declared with Germany, and in
compliance with prearranged and carefully drawn up plans that
Power, having already declared war on France on the 3rd,
proceeded at once to violate the neutrality of Belgium whose roads
supplied the easiest way to the heart of France, and the idea was to
strike that country prostrate before Russia was ready to move. It was
well understood that the Russians must be slower than any of the
other immediate combatants to mobilize their forces.
Thus, on the 5th August, the Germans, who thoroughly
recognized the advantage of getting in the first blow, were opposite
Liége and occupied that city five days afterwards, although the last
fort did not fall until the 17th. On the 14th August the French, too,
were in Belgium, and between the 12th and 17th the British
Expeditionary Force had landed on the coast and the army was
moved into position extending from Condé through Mons and
Binche.
During the few days prior to the British landing the Belgians had
been driven steadily backward by overwhelming forces, as also had
the French; and as the British Expeditionary Force only consisted of
four divisions (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th) and a cavalry division its
numbers were far too small to make any very perceptible alteration
in the situation. The result was a steady general retreat of all the
Allies commencing on the 24th August and lasting to the 5th
September, by which time the armies were behind the River Marne
and in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris, and the British base
had necessarily been shifted from the Channel ports to the mouth of
the Loire.
A cold statement that the Great War opened with a rapid retreat
conveys the truth perhaps, but not all of it. Never in its long history of
adventure and heroism had the British Army covered itself with such
glory. There are retreats and retreats in war. When an army runs
away that disaster is described under this term, and there seems to
be no other correct military expression for what happened in
Flanders and France in August, 1914, though, as a matter of fact,
the little army sent from these shores was fighting one long
continuous battle against overwhelming odds; its artillery completely
outnumbered; its infantry facing death and wounds in the most
soldier-like spirit possible to any troops, quite unable to understand
why the movement was backward and not forward, but resolved to a
man to get some of their own back when their time came.
 On the 5th September the retreat had ceased, and by this date
the German Colonies of Togoland and Samoa had been wrested
from them and their fleet had learnt what the British sailor was
capable of, notably in the Bight of Heligoland on the 28th August.
On the 6th September the tide of war had turned on land: a
general offensive by French and British troops had commenced, the
Battle of the Marne begun and Paris saved.
Strictly speaking, there was no Battle of the Marne, the fighting
between the 6th and 10th of September being desultory and chiefly
in the nature of independent and to a great extent disconnected
engagements, but the struggle or series of struggles, however
described, proved, indeed, a turning point—the British crossed the
river on the 9th and the Germans were in full retreat.
On the 13th the Allies recovered the important town of Soissons
and forced the passage of the Aisne, on which river the enemy stood
to fight, and there the combatants were still engaged on the 20th, for
now the German retreat was over; on this day the British
Expeditionary Force was reinforced by the British 6th Division (16th,
17th and 18th Infantry Brigades) which had landed on the 10th
September, and the Buffs once more in their long history came into
the presence of England’s foes.
All this time the Territorial Force was working hard to fit itself to
help, and in a short time the bulk of it was sent to India to release our
forces there which were promptly sent to France.
Meanwhile the new armies, whose numbers under the voluntary
system were such as to fill every Englishman with pride, were
straining every nerve to prepare themselves for war, and they were
drafted off to the different fighting theatres as fast as they could be
armed and equipped. The most wonderful fact of the early days of
the war was the way that Kitchener’s appeal for recruits was
answered. Thousands and thousands of quiet, peaceable citizens,
who had never dreamed of anything to do with soldiering, much less
of getting into uniform and themselves going off to fight, men from
every rank of life, now thronged and jostled each other at the
recruiting offices. They took long railway journeys at their own
expense, or walked miles if they had no money, for the pleasure of
standing, often for days, in queues waiting their turn to enlist. They
faced the doctor with fear, hiding their disabilities, and passed the
test with a sigh of relief.
What was true of England was true to an equal extent of the
Colonies and oversea possessions, and the total number of soldiers
raised, equipped and put into the firing line astonished ourselves
almost as much as it dismayed the Germans, whose reckonings in
this respect, as in all others, were completely at fault. The Queen’s
Own Rifles of Canada, the Allied Regiment of Canadian Militia, was
represented in several of those gallant battalions which sailed in
such numbers from their shores and which did such glorious service
in France and Flanders.
The story of the struggle is so long, and the Buffs fought in so
many theatres and places, that the clearest and best way of
describing the deeds of the regiment appears to be the division of
the eventful years of 1914 to 1918 into sections, so that the story of
each battalion of the regiment may appear as clearly as possible
between certain approximate dates. Of course, this system must be
to a certain extent elastic, for, if a fixed date happened to be one
during which a particular unit was in the midst of a very particular
job, it would obviously be better to finish the description of that
operation before drifting off to the doings of its brother Buffs
somewhere else. The doings of the ten battalions, then, which
together formed the regiment of Buffs, are what the reader is invited
to consider in the following pages.

III. Move to France and the Battle of the Aisne

The 1st Battalion on the 4th August, 1914, was quartered at

Fermoy in Ireland and the 2nd was in India. It is obvious, therefore,
that as the 2nd Battalion had to come home, the 4th and 5th to
complete their training, and all others to be not only trained, but
raised before they could add their splendid quota to the glory of the
Buffs, the story of the first period of the war up to the 17th
November, 1914, must mainly concern the senior battalion of the
regiment. This date is taken because it was then that the desperate
attempt of the Germans to hack their way through to Calais and the
Channel ports finally proved a failure, and in France and Belgium
heavy, murderous and continuous fighting merged into stonewall
tactics, if tactics they could be called: when each of the opposing
sides dug themselves in and when the long, dull, trying period of
trench warfare set in on the Western Front. Up to this date no
attempt had been made to force the Dardanelles. In fact, Turkey had
only become a declared enemy a very few days and Italy was still at
peace.
The 1st Buffs were, as has been said, at Fermoy. Their brigade
was the 16th and the Brigadier-General was E. C. Ingouville-
Williams, C.B., D.S.O., himself a very well-known old Buff who, after
being adjutant of the 2nd Battalion, distinguished himself as
commander of a column in the Boer War and was promoted out of
the regiment, as is sometimes the fate of soldiers who serve in a
“slow-promotion” corps. The other battalions of the 16th Brigade
were the 1st Leicestershire Regiment, 1st King’s Shropshire Light
Infantry (K.S.L.I.) and the 2nd York and Lancaster Regiment; it will
be useful to remember the names of these battalions as they must
naturally be frequently referred to in the following narrative, and they
were the close and very good comrades of our men.
The history of the 1st Battalion had, up to this time and since the
commencement of the war, been briefly as follows: as early as the
29th July directions had been received that certain precautionary
measures were to be taken at once, and on the 4th August the order
for mobilization reached the battalion at Fermoy. Almost immediately
the strength was augmented by 554 reservists, many of whom were
wearing the Indian Frontier and South African Medals. Thus a very
fine battalion resulted. The commanding officer, Lt.-Colonel H. C. de
la M. Hill, was a well-known musketry expert, and he had with him
Brevet-Colonel Julian Hasler, who had distinguished himself in both
the campaigns alluded to, Major E. H. Finch Hatton, who won his
D.S.O. in South Africa, Major R. McDouall, who also gained a D.S.O.
in the same war, and many another good officer. The sergeants were
very highly trained, so much so, indeed, that nearly all the survivors
were made commissioned officers within a few months of the
battalion reaching the shores of France. The privates, after the great
influx of reservists, were composed of brisk and energetic
youngsters, keen and bold, and steady old soldiers—invaluable as a
stiffening.
It proved afterwards that “the dash was all on the side of the
youngsters, but the old reservists were a great backbone in holding
off the German advance—in trench warfare they were excellent—in
fact, they liked it.”[1]
On the 12th August the battalion left Fermoy, and after a troublous
journey reached Cambridge on the 19th. As everybody knows that
the song of “Tipperary” was most popular at this time in the Army, it
may be interesting to note that it was first played by this battalion. It
was arranged by Bandmaster Elvin for the band a year before and
the score was lent to many other units. The stay at Cambridge,
which lasted up to the 8th September, was beneficial in so far that it
remade soldiers of the reservists whose physical condition had
somewhat deteriorated during a long spell of civil life. The battalion
was hospitably entertained by Christ’s College; the officers were
entertained at the High Table and frequent presents of fruit, chiefly
mulberries, from Milton’s Mulberry Tree, were sent to the men.[2]
On the 8th September at noon the 1st Battalion The Buffs,
together with the 2nd York and Lancaster Regiment, sailed for the
mouth of the Loire to which Sir John French had now transferred his
base. The journey was made by rail and march after the port of St.
Nazaire was reached, the train starting at dim dawn on the 11th and
taking the route: Nantes, Angers, Tours, Verdun, Paris to Mortcerf, a
twenty-six-hour journey. The ensuing eight days’ march was not
without incident and not without discomfort, but there was
excitement, too. Heavy firing was heard all day on the 12th. The first
taste of outpost duty in war time came the following night. Billets
were used each night, but these were not always of the best and the
weather was generally execrable. The billets, which one night
consisted of a cowshed, were sometimes shared with Belgian
refugees, and altogether it was with a sort of relief that the real
fighting line was reached at last at 2.30 a.m. on the 21st September.
Vailly on the Aisne was entered and the Fifth and Royal Fusiliers
relieved in the trenches at that place, A, C and D Companies being
in the front line with B in reserve.
It will be remembered that the Germans, after their retreat from
the Marne, were now standing fast, and that in its turn the Allied
pursuit was checked upon the Aisne. The enemy knew somehow
that fresh troops were now in front of them and, hoping to find an
inferior article to that they had been sampling for the last month,
determined to attack and try what they were made of.
The Buffs were on the left of the brigade line, on the crest of a
small plateau beyond the river, and the enemy’s trenches were on
the far slope, from two hundred to seven hundred yards away, with
all the best of the situation because, owing to the shape of the
ground, our artillery had great difficulty in aiding this particular part of
the line, whereas the Germans were very closely supported by their
guns. On the right was an improvised sub-section of defence
consisting of the Norfolk Regiment and King’s Shropshire Light
Infantry, under Colonel Hasler of the Buffs.
The attack commenced at 8 p.m., lasted for two and a half hours,
and was a failure. The firing was heavy and the attempt was resolute
enough, but as the locality was difficult for our guns the Buffs
employed prolonged rapid fire as a substitute and succeeded in
repulsing the onslaught. Major E. H. Finch Hatton, D.S.O., and
Captain F. C. R. Studd were wounded in the action, two men were
killed and five wounded.
The battalion remained in these trenches till the 13th October and
suffered several casualties. In fact, each day added a few to the
killed and wounded, and each day brought to light some good quality
in the men. The first name in the regiment to be brought to notice for
gallantry was No. 9967 Corpl. Randall who, himself wounded, on the
2nd October showed great courage in attending to Pte. Hamilton
under fire. Hamilton, however, did not survive. The stretcher bearers,
too, were proved to be a most gallant set of men—stretcher bearers
always are somehow. The sight of the pain and mutilation of others
seems to bring out a sort of ferocious tenderness on the part of
those who protect and assist the maimed. Pte. Medway was
conspicuous even amongst these devoted fellows.
Particularly heavy firing along the whole line and including
reserves occurred on the 9th October. The church at Vailly was
struck and ten horses belonging to the regimental transport were
killed close to it. The hospital also suffered.
Early in October it appeared to Sir John French that it was
advisable to withdraw the army from the Aisne and strongly reinforce
the forces in the north with a view to outflanking the enemy and so
making him withdraw from his position. In fact, each army at this time
was trying to outflank the other, because frontal fighting, owing to the
complete system of entrenchments in vogue on both sides, was
found to bring no practical results. This accounted for the fact that in
a very short time flanks ceased to exist, for one soon rested on the
sea and the other on neutral Switzerland. French’s first attempt at
outflanking was rendered abortive by the German capture of
Antwerp, and so the war developed into a fierce struggle for the
coast, which may be said to have commenced on the 11th October
and continued till the 17th November; the enemy’s idea being to
seize Calais and the Channel ports and so make up for their failure
to capture Paris.
This struggle is sometimes called the Battle of Flanders, but it in
reality included several fights, the chief of these being collectively
described as the Battles of Ypres, 1914. Of course, the great move
from the Aisne to the neighbourhood of St. Omer and Hazebrouck
took time, and it was not till the 19th October that the move was
completed. General Foch, whose headquarters were at Doullens, at
this time commanded all French troops north of Noyon and our
Commander-in-Chief had arranged with him a general wheel of
troops to the right, in order to menace the German flank; this
arrangement was made before the fall of Antwerp. It brought the
English 7th Division to Ypres; caused heavy fighting for the 3rd
Division about Givenchy, which lasted for three weeks; moved the
4th Division to the north and 6th to south of the town of Armentieres,
and was the immediate cause of the flight which followed at
Radinghem.
Antwerp fell on the 9th October, and this event released 90,000
enemy troops, and the Germans also at this time brought four fresh
Army Corps from their Eastern or Russian front, and so the English
Army and that part of the French one which was in its neighbourhood
were facing greatly superior numbers. As far as the Buffs were
concerned they were relieved in their trenches on the Aisne by
French troops on the 12th of the month, marched to Bazoches with
the rest of the 16th Brigade and there entrained for Cassel, which
they reached on the 13th. The relief of the trenches at Vailly was
carried out successfully, but not altogether without difficulty. The
enemy seemed to have an idea of what was going on and fired a
number of flares, and a searchlight was also seen. The wheels of the
transport were, however, covered with straw, as was the floor of the
pontoon bridge over the river, in order to deaden noise. The French
took up their position very quietly and very quickly, and the battalion
re-crossed the Aisne at 2.15 a.m., the last of the brigade marching
by Rouge Croix and Oultersteene.
The 16th Brigade was directed to Bois Grenier on the 17th as
reserve to the division. The 17th was also sent here and the 18th to
Armentieres, about four miles to the north. During the morning,
however, as hostile firing was heard and observed, certain
alterations were made by the 6th Division by order of superior
authority, and it took up and constructed a defensive position along a
new line: the 17th Brigade on the left, 18th in the centre and 16th on
the right from Croix Marechal to Rouge de Bout—French cavalry
being on the right again.
On the 18th October the 17th and 18th Brigades advanced to
ascertain what the enemy was doing about Perenchies, le Paradis
and La Vallée, and to discover his strength, and in connection with
this movement the 16th Brigade was ordered to send one battalion
towards La Vallée and Bacquart. The Buffs were selected and the
York and Lancasters were sent to Bridoux to cover their right flank.
At 10.30 on this Sunday morning the Buffs debouched from Grand
Flamengrie Farm with orders to seize the line of the Hameau de
Bas-La Vallée road, but not to get seriously involved. B, C and D
Companies deployed, with A in reserve.

IV. Battle of Armentieres: Action at Radinghem

Before reaching the above line the battalion got orders to take the
village of Radinghem.
Just beyond this village is a fairly high ridge or plateau on which
stands the Chateau de Flandres, and there is a wood on the edge of
the plateau screening the house from the village, the distance
between this wood and the south edge of the village being about
three hundred yards.
Brevet Colonel Julian Hasler was in command of the forward or
firing line which advanced through Radinghem, seized the ridge and,
pushing on, took the Chateau where severe hand-to-hand fighting
occurred. But soon considerable German reinforcements coming up,
the Buffs had to abandon the Chateau itself, though they still clung to
the edge of the wood.
During the attack Company Sergeant-Major Brady, with nineteen
men of C Company, on surmounting a piece of rising ground,
suddenly found himself about two hundred yards from a German
battalion in close order. Each Buff had three hundred rounds of
ammunition, and one of the most beautiful displays of rapid firing
ever made was the result: that particular German battalion was very
quickly “put out of action,” as they say on field days. The successful
attack on the Chateau de Flandres was immensely helped by Major
Bayley’s company of the York and Lancaster Regiment, which had
worked its way round to take the enemy in flank; so that when these
men approached, the enemy had hastily to withdraw. Without a
doubt the Buffs owe very much to this gallant company.
At 6.10 p.m. the situation was looking serious, but after a German
counter-attack had been repulsed things became better. Then orders
came to hand over Radinghem to some French cavalry and to
withdraw. When the Frenchmen arrived, however, they were found to
be only 130 strong, so the Buffs and York and Lancaster
consolidated themselves on the south edge of the village and settled
in for the night. The artillery, a mixed brigade under Lt.-Colonel
Humphrey, had most nobly supported the infantry during the day.
Later on, when the regiment had more experience, they found that
the devotion to duty shown by the Gunners at Radinghem was quite
a normal state of things with that arm, and was so looked for as a
matter of course that notice was hardly taken of their excellent work,
but in this, almost their first battle of the war, praise of the Gunners
was in every man’s mouth.
On the 19th touch was obtained with the 18th Brigade at the
railway crossing east of Bas Champs. At 3 p.m. the 16th Brigade
was ordered to withdraw to Bois Grenier and to leave one battalion
only at Radinghem. The consequence of this was of course that, the
York and Lancaster being withdrawn, the Buffs were left alone to
occupy the lines which last night had been constructed for both
regiments.
The morning of the 20th opened with very heavy artillery fire from
the enemy’s guns of large calibre, and then the German infantry
pressed very heavily. About 2 p.m. Colonel Hasler was badly
wounded,[3] and command of the front line devolved on Major
McDouall. At 3 p.m. the artillery reported that the Germans were
advancing along the two roads from Le Maisnil leading to
Radinghem. This meant that the Buffs would probably be
surrounded, as touch with the 18th Brigade and French cavalry had
failed, and indeed it was ultimately found that these troops had been
driven back. At 3.35 and again at 4 o’clock McDouall reported that
the situation was very serious, but that he was holding on; that the
machine guns were knocked out, the trench on his left hitherto held
by C Company had been captured and that he was “in a tight
corner.” He received orders to retire company by company, and
replied that it was very difficult, but that “We will do the best we can.”
At 4.50 came a message from the brigade to hold on at all costs and
promising the support of two companies of the York and Lancaster.
The Headquarter party of the battalion manned a barricade in the
village and McDouall retired, the work being carried out in a most
soldierly manner, and at 7 p.m. the promised help arrived, followed
half an hour later by the brigadier himself, who ordered the front of
the village to be held, unaware that both flanks were exposed. A staff
officer of the division, however, shortly arrived who was acquainted
with the situation, and he directed the retirement of the Buffs, which
was carried out without trouble, as the enemy was not enterprising
and appeared to have had enough of the battalion. At 1 a.m. on the
21st the rear guard cleared the village, and that morning Grand
Flamengrie Farm was reached again and billets resumed.
In this action the Buffs lost Lieuts. J. D. Phillips, R. McDougall, M.
Noott and R. S. Glyn killed, and Colonel J. Hasler and Lieuts. G. F.
Hamilton, C. C. Stanfield and Orwan wounded. Of the rank and file
17 were reported killed and 62 missing, but these were undoubtedly
all or nearly all killed; 57 were wounded. The regiment earned great
praise for the stand it made at Radinghem, and, though it will be
impossible in this history accurately to chronicle each honour and
reward as conferred, it is interesting to note that on the 28th
November No. 8922 Sgt. J. McNeir was awarded the D.C.M. for the
gallant manner in which he brought up his platoon to the support of B
Company at Chateau de Flandres, near Radinghem, on the 20th
October, 1914, and that:—
“On the 20th October, 1914, at Chateau de Flandres, near
Radinghem, Sergeant Forwood continued to serve his machine
guns, after the officer in charge had been killed, until all the team
and both the guns had been knocked out by heavy artillery, himself
being wounded in five places. He crawled in and reported the
situation.” Sergeant Forwood was awarded the D.C.M., and the
incident is described by a General Officer, who later on commanded
the 6th Division, as being typical of the fierce fighting at this time.
On the 23rd October a heavy attack developed at dawn against
the Shropshire and York and Lancaster battalions and part of the
line, which consisted of isolated trenches only, was rendered
untenable by machine guns which the shape of the ground enabled
the enemy to bring up. This attack was a very bold one and
Germans were actually bayoneted in the trenches, and two hundred
dead were counted opposite one of the Shropshire defences.
 At one time there was a gap just east of Bridoux, caused by some
of the trenches being lost and others still held, and matters were in
rather a confused state, so, to clear up the situation, Lieut. G. R.
Thornhill’s platoon of the Buffs, under the direction and guidance of
Major Clemson of the York and Lancaster Regiment, was pushed
forward from the Touquet-La Boutillerie road by some dongas
running south. There appeared to be no enemy in the gap, and on
approaching one of the trenches Thornhill and his men rushed
forward to secure it, when he and several of his followers were shot
down by a concealed machine gun. Indeed, only ten returned,
bringing with them seven wounded men, but they were obliged to
leave Thornhill, who was actually in the trench, and several others.
Pte. Pearce made a manly effort at rescue and managed to drag
Pte. Bull in, but could not reach his officer. Both A and C Companies
employed the bayonet on this day, counter-attacking in front of the
Shropshire and the Leicestershire trenches.
It is not so very long ago that many thoughtful army officers were
of opinion that the days of the bayonet were over for ever; but then,
of course, no one at all dreamed in the summer of 1914 that soldiers
would again fight in iron helmets or throw grenades, and there have
been many similar surprises during this war.
There seems to be no doubt that from the 23rd to the 25th of
October the situation of the 16th Brigade was very critical, and
indeed Br.-General Ingouville-Williams twice reported that this was
the case. The reason was that the line held was not continuous and
it was impossible to make it so, on account of the great number of
Germans who were attacking. It was therefore resolved to construct
a proper line of trenches 100 yards or so south of the Touquet-La
Boutillerie road and to withdraw into it; but as, during the whole of
the 23rd, the Leicestershire right flank was being enveloped, new
dispositions were made by Brigadiers Williams and Congreve in
consultation; they resolved that the Leicestershire should hold their
trenches east of the railway and then bend back along it—a most
prominent salient and with a poor field of fire, but the best that could
be done till the new trenches were ready for occupation.
 On the 24th October loud cheering was heard in this direction,
and it was feared that the Leicestershire had been rushed, and a
company of the Buffs and another of the York and Lancaster were
immediately deployed to take the supposedly successful enemy in
flank. Verbal reports came in during the morning to Brigade H.Q. at
La Touquet that the Leicestershire battalion had been forced to
retire, that some posts had been surrounded and that no officers
were left. This account, however, fortunately proved to have been
exaggerated. The enemy had, in fact, made a small gap in the line,
occupying the railway, but the good old battalion from Leicestershire
had quickly closed it and, though it had suffered severely, it still held
its own and was moreover in touch with the King’s Shropshire Light
Infantry.
On the 25th the withdrawal of the whole brigade to the newly
made trenches which had been carefully prepared was carried out
without a hitch, but in most unpleasantly wet weather.
The student, interested in the tactical movements of military
forces, rarely thinks of weather and other little details, but to the poor
suffering soldier weather, punctual or fairly punctual delivery of
rations (not forgetting the rum), baths, clean clothes, nature of
shelter by day and night, and even the phases of the moon seem
almost of more importance than the chance of a few casualties.
C.S.M. Stone and Sgt. Stock had been highly complimented
during these last few days, as was Corpl. Marsh for his good
reconnoitring work; but this occurred to the N.C.O.’s and men of the
Buffs so frequently from 1914 to 1918 that it is impossible to refer to
all acts of devotion and gallantry. It may well be noted, however, that
on the 25th October C Company was resolutely attacked, the enemy
getting within seventy yards of their trench, and that Captain E. B.
Chichester showed all the gallantry of his English ancestry, cheering
on his men and showing a noble example till he fell mortally
wounded. D Company gallantly repulsed German attacks at 8 and at
9 o’clock and then retired to a prepared position in rear. The Buffs’
casualties this day were Captain Chichester and Lieut. Stock killed,
Lieuts. R. W. Homan and Child wounded, five other ranks killed,
twenty wounded and two missing.
 About this time the discovery seems to have been made that
officers could be supplied not only from civilians in England, but from
highly trained, very gallant and thoroughly reliable non-
commissioned officers, who were daily adding to their war
experience; so Company Sergeant-Majors (C.S.M.) Nesbit and
Stone, Sgts. Corrall, Stock and Orwin, and a little later on Company
Quarter-Master Sergeant (C.Q.M.S.) Sayer, C.S.M. Kesby, C.S.M.
Price, and Sgts. King, Hallan and Harris were promoted to be 2nd
Lieutenants. Most of them, alas, were sent out of the regiment, which
was a great blow, but of course the needs of the Army as a whole
must always be the first consideration.
RADINGHEM
 On the 5th November the death took place of Major-General R. G.
Kekewich,[4] C.B., Colonel of the Buffs; General the Right
Honourable Sir Arthur Paget,[5] P.C., G.C.B., K.C.V.O., was
appointed to succeed him.
On the 15th November Colonel H. C. de la M. Hill, the
commanding officer, was invalided home and Major McDouall
temporarily took over the battalion. This was the first of a long series
of changes in the command, which was the common fate of all units.
After the very strenuous attack by the Germans had died away
the 1st Battalion had a longish spell of comparative quiet. Casualties,
which in one of our frequent minor wars would have made a stir,
were of regular occurrence and almost taken for granted; the records
show almost every day something like two killed and five wounded,
and drafts to replace these good fellows were fairly often arriving
from England. Later on the relief of units actually in the trenches by
others in rear occurred at short intervals, but it may be noted here
that on the 24th November the Buffs, when relieved by the
Shropshire Light Infantry, had been no less than four weeks and six
days in the front line, east of Bois Grenier.
During the winter the wet weather, followed by frosts, caused the
sides of the trenches to fall in, and the low-lying nature of the country
made it impossible to drain them properly; so it was decided, as a
temporary measure, to abandon the ditches themselves and build
and man breastworks in lieu. These were generally placed just in
rear of the old works so that the latter could be reoccupied when the
weather improved.
Of course, the long, dull and dreary trench warfare was not
entirely without incident. A poem by Captain C. W. Blackall[6]
describes in graphic verse how one of the ration carriers being a little
late in slipping into the safety of the trench was bowled over by the
enemy and was at first supposed to be dead, but he managed after a
while to crawl in somehow and in spite of his agony he brought in his
sack of bacon with him. That is the sort of spirit which, when it
animates everyone in an army, renders that force absolutely
unconquerable. It has often been the same. On the Indian frontier