Afterword

The 1/4^th and 1/5^th 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 19^th, 1917 the two battalions advanced against Turkish machine gun fire under artillery bombardment, with the following result:

The 1/4^th 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 1/5^th 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 19^th 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 1/4^th and 1/5^th 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 5^th 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/

http://www.rnrm.org.uk/history/history_11.html

References

Carew T (1967) The Royal Norfolk Regiment, Hamish Hamilton,London.

Shakespeare GH (1948) Let Candles Be Brought In, London.