The Passchendaele Military Cross, German Spring Offensive Prisoner of War, French Croix De Guerre, Slavo-British Legion North Russian Mutiny casualty group awarded to Captain C.F.R. Bland, 8th Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment later 3rd Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment who saw service on the Western Front being awarded the Military Cross in the London Gazette of 18th January 1918 for his actions at Passchendaele on the night of 16th-17th November 1917, the citation for the award being published in the London Gazette of 25th April 1918 confirming the award for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He led his platoon in an advance over most difficult ground, and after reaching his objective made a personnel reconnaissance and obtained valuable information. He was also largely responsible for the successful evacuation of casualties under heavy fire over difficult ground. He would be taken prisoner at Moy on 21st March 1918 – the first day of the German Spring Offensive before later being repatriated on 28th November 1918. Finally he would take part in the fighting in north Russia where on 7th July 1919 he would be killed during a mutiny of members of the Slavo-British Legion, he is now buried in Archangel Military Cemetery
Group of 5: Military Cross, GVR cypher, the reverse with period engraving 'Lieut. C.R.F. Bland, Royal Berkshire Regiment, 16.11.1917'; British War Medal and Victory Medal; (CAPT. C.F.R. BLAND.) France: Croix De Guerre 1914-1918 avec palmes; Great War Memorial Plaque; (CECIL FRANCIS RAMSDEN BLAND) housed in glazed frame with standing mount.
Condition: Nearly Extremely Fine
Bland was born in Durban Natal on 16th August 1897, and was educated at Charterhouse School from September 1911 to April 1914, he would enter the Royal Military Academy at Sandhursts on 3rd January 1915 giving his permanent address as Talana, Beechood Avenue, Boscombe, Hampshire .
He would be appointed an acting Captain whilst commanding a Company on 31st December 1916, relinquishing this appointment on 15th April 1917 when he ceased to command a Company.
Bland would be awarded the Military Cross in the London Gazette of 18th January 1918 for his actions at Passchendale on 16th/17th November 1917, with the citation for the award subsequently being published in the London Gazette of 25th April 1918:
‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He led his platoon in an advance over most difficult ground, and after reaching his objective made a personnel reconnaissance and obtained valuable information. He was also largely responsible for the successful evacuation of casualties under heavy fire over difficult ground.’
The Battalion war diary covers the events of 16th November 1917:
‘5pm at Zero hour 5pm, 16.11.17, ‘B’ Company under Captain D.J. Footman and ‘D’ Company under Capt T.B. Lawrence advanced to without any artillery co-operation and met with very little resistance. ‘B’ Company reached its objectives by 5.20pm. ‘D’ Company had more difficult ground to cover and were caught by the enemy barrage at 6.40pm being at that time as near their objectives as the ground would allow. Objectives were not all reached owing to the very swampy nature of the ground which made it quite impossible to establish a line one the objective laid down. The line was consolidated as near the objectives as the ground would permit. Our barrage came down at 6.45pm in response to the S.O.S. Signal fired by the Camerons on our right. During the attack, very few of the enemy were seen and these could not be dealt with as the ground was impassable.
Consolidation was completed without difficulty. Tapes were used with success to mark routes to our advanced positions. Communicatio was most difficult and runners were the only possible means. The Battalion runners did excellent work in spite of the heavy enemy barrage which came down along the line Paddebeek. Pigeons were available but were either killed or gassed. Evacuation of the wounded was successfully carried out during the early morning of the 17th inst. Great difficulty had been met with out left where a platoon of the 1st Northants had crossed the Paddebeek, to attempt to capture pill boxes in V.28 in conjunction with our attack/our casualties were 6 killed and 28 wounded, the small number being largely due to the fact that the attacking companies were able to advance beyond the line of the enemy barrage before it came down. About a third of these casualties occurred on the morning of the 16th inst, during our artillery shoot and consequent retaliation of the enemy.
During the night 16/17th (after our advance) useful patrols were carried out by Lieut. C.F.R. Bland and 2nd Lieut. W.C.A. Hanney.
Bland would subsequently be captured at Moy on 21st March 1918 – the first day of the German Spring Offensive, whilst serving with B Company, 8th Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, his own account of his capture reads:
‘On March 21st 1918 I was in command of 2 platoons forming the front line garrison of the right company, left battalion of the 53rd Brigade, strength about 37 men, and 3 officers including myself, the line was held by small posts. On the evening of March 20th 1918 I received a message informing me that the enemy would attack next morning after a ten hour barrage.
At 4.40am (approx.) on March 21st 1918 the enemy barrage commenced, after about ½ hour the barrage became very intensive and I ordered men to get into dugouts acting according to orders I had received previous to the attack. Sentries were posted over each dugout and a sharp look out kept. A thick mist prevented us from seeing even our own wire (distance about 30ft). At about 8.40am sentry reported enemy in our rear. Twelve men and another officer myself immediately turned out of Headquarter dugout and I perceived 2 parties of enemy working up along the trench, one on each flank and a larger party in our rear
We exchanged bombs with the enemy and shot at him and the one party on our right disappeared. As the Germans were actually in trench and working along from the flanks. I concluded that the front line had been captured and decided it was useless to try to recapture it with the small force under my immediate command and though the best thing to do was fight our way back and get in touch with raminder of Battalion with whom all communication had failed. By means of compass we endeavoured to move due west, but owing to frequently meeting with the enemy and to the thick mist we became lost. We kept meeting with parties of the enemy who, on being fired on, ran. We captured 3 of the enemy but they were of no use to us in finding the way.
We were surrounded about 11.30am and after consulting the other officer and men of whom some were wounded I surrendered.
The barrage continued on front line even though the enemy were behind it.’
Bland would be repatriated on 28th November 1918 joining the 3rd Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment at Portobello Barracks in Dublin, and would later go on to serve in North Russia with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, he would be awarded the Croix De Guerre with Palm on 21st July 1919, just two weeks after he had been murdered in a mutiny by Bolsheviks of the Slavo-British Legion in north Russia on 7th July 1919.
The formation of the Slavo-British Legion had been controversial from the start. General Ironside had been willing to believe that the Legion, recruited from former Bolshevik Prisoners of War, deserters, and even prisoners from the local jails, could with training, play a useful role against the Bolsheviks in North Russia. ‘The Whites were sceptical of what General Ironside later called this ‘experiment’. Prince Marusi that the Slavo British Legion was no more than a collection of gangsters, and the Provisional Government wanted many of its men to be shipped to an offshore island camp. The answers to such criticism lay, so the Legion’s defenders claimed, in the quality of British officers and the discipline they implanted into these apparently recalcitrant recruits. The formation and training of the Legion became an exercise in local British prestige.
Faith in the fighting qualities of the SBL was quickly vindicated. The 1st Battalion (Dyer’s, named after Lieutenant Dyer, its first commander and instructor) performed well during heavy fighting in January 1919 when one Sergeant and nine men held a blockhouse to the last man. Three platoons attached to the King’s Liverpools during an attack on Kodish in February gained one Distinguished Conduct Medal and four Military Medals. The continuing courage of the unit and its devotion to service were rewarded on 1st June (King George V’s birthday), when Ironside presented Dyer’s battalion with its Colours at a public ceremony in Archangel. The presentation was a prelude to the battalion’s service with Grogan’s column at the end of June. Official inquiries undertaken after the mutiny insisted that the men were all in good heart ‘showed no disloyalty’ and were glad of the chance to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with British Regulars. Yet there were undercurrents of doubt amongst some of the battalion’s officers.
On 4th July, soon before taking up their positions on the west bank of the Dvina, the SBL was inspected and everything was found to be most satisfactory with no signs of restlessness. B and C Companies were placed in a village, Tuisamnika, close by the river bank, while the rest were in adjacent villages inland. At 2.00am Lieutenant Komarov inspected the lines and found everything quiet. Half an hour later, eight men, led by Corporal Nuchev and Private Leuchenko, approached the two roomed hut where several British and four Russian officers were sleeping. Nuchev shot dead Captain Finch through the window and the others shot and killed two British and four Russian officers and three orderlies. The killing of the two companies’ commanders was a signal for the start of the mutiny. The Bolsheviks, 150 chose to do so. At the same time as the Slavo-British Legion mutiny, there was an uprising by 200 men of the 4th North Russian Rifles, who were stationed close by at Troitsa. Two British officers and the HQ Company servants were disarmed and locked up in the village bath-house whils the mutineers, who included a machine-gun company, took over the position.
Rifle and Lewis gun fire between 2.30 and 3am alerted nearby units which were soon informed of the two mutinies. Once it was clear what had taken place, artillery fire was directed against the mutineers, probably from the 4th North Russian Rifles, who were picketed out on a hillside. Half a dozen shells drove them from cover in adjacent woods. Ironside was immediately sent for and, when he arrived by launch from Ossinovo with reinforcements from the 45th Royal Fusiliers, an attempt was made to round up those mutineers who were still loitering in the woods. They were surrounded by a pincer movement and rounded up after a skirmish in which three were killed and two ringleaders were wounded.
An immediate and unavoidable consequence of Dyer’s battalion’s mutiny was the disarming of all other detachments of the Slavo-British Legion on 16th July.
Cecil Francis Ramsden Bland is now buried in Archangel Military Cemetery.
