Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry Boer War - D.S.O.


In November 1898, he obtained a commission as a Captain in the 6th (Militia) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, and it was in the same capacity that he embarked for South Africa on the outbreak of the Boer War. He subsequently served as District Commissioner at Bloemfontein from 1 June 1900, and Staff Officer and Acting Provost Marshal, Orange River, in October and November 1900, and was otherwise employed in operations in Cape Colony, Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, including the action fought at Luckhoff in December 1900 (Medal & 4 clasps). Applin described his part in the action thus:


‘Nearly an hour passed, when a galloper from the General ordered the Lancashire Fusiliers to advance and hold the enemy in front, while the mounted troops turned the left flank. As we advanced to the ridge, bullets began to kick up the dust all round, and it was curious to see how men ducked when bullets hummed past like angry bees. The men were splendidly steady and at the first ridge we lay down, but could not return the fire as a second ridge lay a hundred yards ahead. MacMunn's howitzers were lobbing shells over our heads with wonderful accuracy, and a great column of yellow smoke rose as each shell burst with a tremendous concussion.


The man on my right suddenly crumpled up with a gasping cough, and I signalled behind for my stretcher, the arrival of which caused a smacking of bullets all round me; I hastily rolled over and crawled behind a big rock. After about an hour, heavy firing broke out on the left flank, and I could see mounted men racing along under the double line of kopjes; the turning movement had evidently failed. Drake's guns now barked away on the left and covered the retirement of the Mounted Brigade. All this took a long time and we had been firing away steadily for nearly three hours, when I received an order that the regiment was to carry the position by assault; and that the left wing under my command was to open magazine fire on two shells being fired in rapid succession from the howitzers; then, when the supports which Colonel Romer had moved up behind us reached the line, to fix bayonets and charge the Boer position.


I gave the old Lee-Metford command "Magazine Fire, Ready!" Then came the two shells -crash-crash- and the roar of rapid fire. Presently from the right, that most heartening of sounds, British cheering, and I realised that Owen-Lewis was leading the right-half battalion in their first charge. I blew my whistle and yelled the order to cease fire and fix bayonets. Then I scrambled up, and found myself running down the rock-strewn kopje as I had never run in my life before, with two hundred howling Bury Militiamen behind me, expecting every moment to be shot in the back or stabbed in a more tender part by a bayonet! As we reached the top, still reeking with lyddite fumes, we saw, far below, Boers mounting in haste - Boers racing away in clouds of dust-loose horses and running men, amongst which a shell from MacMunn's howitzers-now firing at extreme range-would burst like a small volcano. All along the ridge, on both sides of me, stretched the line of cheering khaki figures, but not for long as, completely exhausted, they dropped down and crawled to rocks for shelter from the scorching sun now beating down like a furnace. Now the mounted troops were in full pursuit and orders came to move independently on Beddy's Farm some five miles distant on the plain below.’


Applin, who ended the war with command of a Mounted Infantry unit, was awarded the D.S.O. and twice mentioned in despatches (London Gazettes 10 September 1901 and 29 July 1902, refer).


Machine-Gun Expert - the Great War


Remaining in South Africa, it was at Bloemfontein in 1904 that Applin first gained extensive knowledge of machine-guns and their effective use, an interest briefly diverted by his appointment to the 15th Hussars as a Captain in July 1905, when he was detached to the General Staff and appointed Deputy Assistant Adjutant General for Musketry in Malta.


Rejoining his regiment in late 1906, he gained advancement to Major in June 1911, and it was in this period that he published Machine Gun Tactics. The first book ever to deal exhaustively with this subject - published by Hugh Rees in 1909 - it went through many subsequent printings as machine-guns came to dominate the battlefield, until Applin’s writings were eventually subsumed almost word for word into British army doctrine by 1917. It is somewhat ironic that this work was originally largely ignored by the War Office for being ‘ten years ahead of its time’, the bulk of the 1st edition being sold to the American War Department.


During the Great War, Applin served as Commandant of the School of Musketry in India prior to being appointed an Instructor at the Machine Gun Corps Training Centre at Grantham. On his promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel, he was ordered to France to take command of the machine-guns of II ANZAC Corps, in which capacity he lent valuable service in the battles of Messines and Passchendaele, and the Third Battle of Ypres. With the entry of the United States into the war, he headed the British Machine-Gun Mission to America and received the thanks of the Secretary of State for War, U.S.A., in 1918.


He was twice mentioned in despatches (London Gazettes 11 December 1917 and 12 December 1919 refer), in addition to being awarded the O.B.E. in 1919, but not before an ‘exchange of fire’ with the War Office a few days before the end of the war, when he listed his extensive experience and recent services versus more junior officers:


‘I have already commanded a Service M.G. Battalion from October 1916 to January 1917; I have already completed a month’s probation with an M.G. unit in the front line at Arras in February 1917 and was duly reported fit to hold the post of Corps M.G.O.; that I directed the operations of these units in five battles to the complete satisfaction of both my Corps and Army senior officers and was ‘mentioned’; that I am one of the most senior officers in the Corps, if not one of the most experienced officers in machine gunnery in the Army ... That the officer who was selected by the War Office as head of the British Gun Mission to the U.S.A. should, on his return, be sent as a ‘Probationer’ to a unit in the Field, conditional to the rank he held for two years of war, cannot be explained in any satisfactory manner ... ’


Politician


Post-war, Applin was given the Brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel and commanded the 14th King’s Hussars, prior to being placed on the Retired List in January 1921. He then entered politics and, after two failed attempts to gain a seat in parliament, was elected the Conservative M.P. for Enfield in September 1924. Ousted by the Labour candidate in the General Election of 1929, Applin retook the seat in October 1931, on the formation of a National Government. He retired in 1935, in which year he emigrated to South Africa, and he died at Howick, Natal in April 1957, aged 87.


Sold with copies of his autobiography Across the Seven Seas (Chapman & Hall, London, 1937), Machine Gun Tactics (Hugh Rees, London, 1910), and Lectures on Discipline and Training (Army War College, 1918), together with extensive copied research.


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