The 1/4th and 1/5th
battalions, reduced to barely a fifth of their original strength, spent the
Christmas in Egypt to build up their strength.
They spent the whole of 1916 in Egypt, waiting for a Turkish attack on
the Suez Canal which never occurred. It
was a boring period of endless routine of digging, road building, guard duty.
In the attack on Gaza on April 19th,
1917 the two battalions advanced against Turkish machine gun fire under
artillery bombardment, with the following result:
The 1/4th
lost six officers killed and eleven wounded and one missing, with commanding
officer Lieutenant-Colenel Younden wounded; 49 soldiers were killed, 312
wounded and 99 missing.
The 1/5th
lost six officers killed, nine wounded
and four missing; 13 soldiers killed, 401 wounded and 229 missing, with
commanding officer Lieutenant-Colonel Grissell among the dead.
This represented about 75% casualties, a
total of 1,100 men, as a result of a catastrophically stupid decision. For years
afterwards, April 19th was known in Norfolk as Gaza Day, a day of
remembrance.
Geoffrey Shakespeare’s friends in the Norfolks, Eustace Cubitt, Gervais Birkbeck and Evelyn
Beck together with his school-friend Dick Plaistowe were all killed in this
battle. There is a family story that the reason that Geoffrey survived is that he had finally succumbed to scarlet fever, and was in hospital at the time of the battle.
In
1918, the 1/4th and 1/5th marched north with Allenby in
Palestine, pursing fleeing Turks. By
Armistice day, they were in Beirut.
During
the 1914-18 war, the Norfolk regiment lost 5, 576 officers and men, with up to
25,000 men injured.
Geoffrey
Shakespeare ended the war as a captain in the 5th Battalion, the
Norfolk Regiment. He demobilized early
in 1919 on compassionate grounds, his father having suffered a nervous
breakdown. He returned to Cambridge University
and completed a degree in Law, although his studies were badly affected by the
after-effects of his war service. He was President of the Cambridge Union, and after graduating went to work as private secretary to David Lloyd George for several years, before being elected to Parliament.
Links
http://www.norfolkmag.co.uk/people/local-people/norfolk_s_pride_1_3735133
https://stevesmith1944.wordpress.com/2015/07/
References
Carew
T (1967) The Royal Norfolk Regiment,
Hamish Hamilton,London.
Shakespeare GH (1948) Let Candles Be Brought In, London.
