Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry 28


A fine and rare Great War 1914 ‘Battle of La Bassée’ M.C. group of four awarded to Captain L. Browne, 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, an Australian who, during the torrid fighting around Neuve Chapelle in October 1914, having found himself the only officer remaining alive and unwounded in the forward companies of his battalion, commanded the remnant for three days before leading a handful of men back to the rear; endeavours which resulted in the award of the Regiment’s first Military Cross


Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse engraved ‘Lindsay Browne. Royal Irish Rifles. Neuve Chapelle. October 1914’; 1914 Star, with clasp (Lieut: L. Browne. R. Ir: Rif.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Lieut. L. Browne.) together with the recipient’s Silver War Badge, the reverse officially numbered ‘2199’, good very fine (4) £1,400-£1,800


M.C. London Gazette 18 February 1915 (Amendment London Gazette 10 March 1915) M.I.D. London Gazette 17 February 1915


Lindsay Browne was born on 18 April 1890 in Enmore, Sydney, Australia and was educated at King’s College, Goulburn and Sydney Grammar School. Embarking for a stay in England in 1911 he was commissioned Second Lieutenant on probation, on 25 May 1912, into the 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, of which his uncle, Major H. W. Reeve, was the commanding officer, and advanced Lieutenant on 20 February 1913. After the outbreak of the Great War, he was attached to the 2nd Battalion, following their retreat from Mons, and served with them in France from 11 October 1914. On 12 October 1914 the battalion was deployed at La Bassee, with the 7th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Division, as part of II Corps’ plan to protect the Channel Ports; there followed two and a half weeks of bitter and bloody fighting in and around the village of Neuve Chapelle where the 2nd Royal Irish were engaged in repelling heavy attacks from Jagers and dismounted German cavalry units. Consistent with the Battalion’s War Diary entries, The History of the First Seven Battalions, The Royal Irish Rifles in the Great War vol 2 by Cyril Falls, gives the following account of the worst of the fighting on 26 and 27 October:


‘The Battalion still clung on to Neuve Chapelle, but it was now a grievous case. In the last two days it had lost Captains Reynolds and Kennedy and Lieutenant Rea killed, and Lieutenants Lowry and Lavelle wounded. Major Daunt had already been wounded, and the command devolved upon Captain C. S. Dixon, who had not more than four or five officers left with his thinned companies. Two of these, “A” and “C” were moved back to Richebourg St. Vaast for a short rest on the morning of the 26th. This was the blackest day of all. An enemy attack swept into the village from the north-east corner. “B” and “D” Companies were simply swallowed up, Lieutenants Finlay and and Innes-Cross, the only officers with them, and every soul in their ranks, being reported missing. About 6.30pm a counter- attack reoccupied half the village, and the rest of the Battalion, hastily summoned from Richebourg, took its place in the line. South- east of the village their splendid colleagues in the Wiltshire had clung to their trenches even when the enemy was behind them.


On the morning of the 27th the enemy turned the left flank of the Battalion. After terrible fighting from house to house, in which little groups were caught by the oncoming enemy like rocks flooded by a rising tide, Captain Dixon withdrew his handful to the western outskirts in an effort to save his brigade’s flank. The battle had become at this point what the soldier aptly calls a ‘dog fight,’ a wild fury of rush and counter-rush. By evening there was half a battalion of 47th Sikhs hastily moved up, Lincolns, Northumberland Fusiliers, Royal Fusiliers, remnants of the South Lancashire, and French Cyclists sent by General Conneau, clinging to the western edge of Neuve Chapelle, now in flames. And then at last, after ten days’ fighting, the last remnants of the Battalion were moved back to Richebourg St. Vaast. Captain Davis had been killed, Lieutenants Mulcahy-Morgan and Jonsson were wounded and missing. The body that retired to Richebourg consisted of two officers and forty-six men.’


For his gallantry at Neuve Chapelle in October 1914, Browne was awarded the M.C. in February 1915, one of the first such awards to be gazetted and the very first to The Royal Irish Rifles. As with all these early awards it was announced under the general heading ‘for services rendered in connection with operations the field’. He was also mentioned in Sir John French’s Ypres-Armentieres despatch of 20 November 1914. As a new officer attached to the battalion it is understandable that his name was neglected in the war diary entries, and hence Falls’ account, but a note in the official journal of Sydney Grammar School makes it apparent that Browne was with ‘B’ and ‘D’ companies as they became cut-off on 26 October 1914:


‘The Military Cross has been awarded to Lieutenant Lindsay Browne for his most admirable conduct in the trenches during the resistance of the tremendous onslaught at Neuve Chapelle in October last. His battalion, the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, was in the trenches 17 days, and after 14 days there remained but 300 of the original 1000, and Lindsay Browne was the only officer alive and unwounded. For three more days he commanded the remnant, and finally when relieved by Indian troops, he was able to lead only 26 men out of the trenches. Though eight bullets had passed through his clothing and accoutrements he remained untouched except a grazed hand from shrapnel. But after reporting to the commanding officer he collapsed and was found to be suffering from concussion and nerve strain’ (Sydneian June 1915 refers)


John F. Lucy in his acclaimed Great War memoir, There’s a Devil in the Drum, gives an account of his own experiences with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles at Neuve Chapelle in October 1914. Lucy served as a Corporal in A Company who after resting at Richebourg St. Vaast on the 26th were sent back to re-take Neuve Chapelle on the 27th, he also clearly notes that some men from another company of his battalion had held out through the onslaught of the previous day; this from a chapter entitled ‘Wiped Out’:


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