September 14, 1914: A black day for cricket

September 14, 1914. As the furious Battle of Aisne raged, four First-Class cricketers perished in action. Arunabha Sengupta looks back at one of the blackest days in cricket history.

The Battle of Aisne

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Given the circumstances, the Battle of Marne had been a stunning victory.

The German soldiers had collided with the British at Mons with the intensity of a truck hitting a porcupine.  In the centre and to the left, the British and the French had been forced into the Great Retreat. General Joseph Joffre had cabled his War Minister: “We are compelled to resort to the defensive, using our fortress and great topographical obstacles to enable us to yield as little ground as possible.”

Joffe had managed the near-impossible, holding the Etente forces together as they had moved back to Marne. The Anglo-French soldiers had hung on by their fingernails as the Germans had moved within artillery range of Paris. But as decisive victory had refused to materialise, Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke the younger had diverged way too often from the plans of the German Field Marshal and master strategist Count Alfred von Schliffen. Using the vulnerability of von Moltke’s position, Joffe had ordered a counter attack on the German right flank.

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The result was an emphatic and surprise victory for the British and the French that pushed the Germans back to the River Aisne. It is rumoured that von Moltke reported to the Kaiser: “Majestät, wir haben den Krieg verloren.” (Your Majesty, we have lost the War.)

As the Allies pursued them, the Germans retreated to one of the most impregnable positions of the Western Front. The Aisne River wound westwards between Compiègne and Berry-au-Bac, with low-lying grounds on either side that gained sudden elevation into steep cliffs before levelling gently into a plateau. It was behind this crest that the Germans turned to face the British and the French forces, hidden behind a dense thicket that covered the front and slope. The Allies had to advance in open view through low crops in the unfenced countryside offered no natural concealment. The slopes were approached at right angles along narrow paths, placing the advancing soldiers in a wide field of fire.

The British Expeditionary Forces decided to take advantage of the dense fog on the night of September 13. Some crossed the river on pontoons. Some made their way along partially destroyed bridges. They advanced through the narrow paths up the cliff, the fog providing them only scant protection against the fire. Meanwhile, French Fifth Army crossed Aisne at Berry-au-Bac and captured the eastern extreme of Chemin des Dames.

As morning dawned and the sun beat down, the fog deserted the region. The British troops were fired upon from the cliffs.  In the deadlock that resulted, many British men succumbed to the shower of artillery. Field Marshal Sir John French ordered the BEF to entrench, but there were scant equipment for taking such a course. The soldiers scoured the nearby farms and villages for spades, pickaxes and shovels. Primitive trenches were dug. The battle continued and the Allies suffered heavy losses to howitzer propelled shells, hand and rifle grenades; aided by searchlights, flares and periscopes adapted by the German army for this new-fangled trench warfare.

After this deadlock, the armies tried desperately to outflank each other, each trying to envelope the northern flanks of the other through Picardy, Artois and Flanders. They finally ran out of room at the Channel and the North Sea coast of Belgium. This phase of the battle has gone down, in slightly misleading nomenclature, the Race to the Sea.

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Among the British soldiers who perished to the heavy fire on September 14 were three First-Class cricketers. A fourth was believed to be taken Prisoner of War, but later it was assumed that he too was killed on the same day.

The four tragic figures

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Evelyn Ridley Bradford, second Baronet, was in command of the 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, having arrived in France as part of the 10 Infantry Brigade. He was killed by a German Shell.

Captain Arthur Maitland Byng of the Royal Fusiliers was at Vailly, looking at the field of action through his field glasses. He was shot in the throat and died instantly.

Captain Leonard Slater of the 2nd Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment was killed in the heavy fighting during the early hours of the day.

Captain William Thomas Payne-Gallwey of the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards was reported missing in action on September 14. There was a glimpse of hope as his parents back at Blackrock, County Dublin, were told that he had been taken a prisoner by the Germans. But, later this proved to be false and he is assumed to have perished in the same bloody battle.

Among the four, Payne-Galleway’s body was never recovered.

Bradford, born in Goonah, India, in 1869, was educated at Eton College and Royal Military College, Sandhurst. A career military man, he served in the Sudan Expedition and fought in the Boer War, being mentioned in the Despatches twice.

A prolific run-getter in army cricket, Bradford scored 248 for Aldeshot Command versus Incogniti in 1895. Eighteen years later, he was still in prime form even at the age of 46 as he made 251 for Shorncliffe Garrison against Folkestone. He also bowled fast, if with somewhat questionable action.

Between 1895 and 1905, Bradford played 8 times for Hampshire, scoring 311 runs at 25.91 and capturing 20 wickets at 16.40.

In August, 1899 he turned out against the Australians at Southampton. He was bowled by Ernie Jones for a duck, but had a memorable moment of his own when he uprooted the stumps of Frank Iredale. However, during the match, he was called by both the umpires, Harry Pickett and Archibald White, for throwing.

He was called again a week later by Alfred Smith as Hampshire played Leicestershire. However, the match had a bright side as well, as Bradford hammered 102 in the second innings, his only hundred in First-Class cricket.

With the Boer War intervening, Bradford played just one more First-Class match, against Surrey in 1905, and signed off with a composed 60 in the first innings.

During the first days of the Great War, Bradford showed plenty of valour in Cambrai and was mentioned in Despatches by Sir John French.

Byng, born in 1872, had a slightly less impressive, but perhaps more varied cricket career. Schooled first at The Grange, Cowes, and then by an Army tutor at Caen, he was gazetted into the West Indian Regiment in 1895. Later he served in the Boer War and was a part of the Egyptian Army.

The service in the West Indian Regiment proved rewarding, because Byng played five First-Class matches for Jamaica in the 1896-97 season.

His debut saw Jamaica thrashed by an innings at the hands of British Guiana, but Byng captured 3 for 53, which would remain his best bowling figures. Primarily a batsman, he opened the innings and scored 70 in the following match, once again against British Guiana.

Later in the season, when A Priestley’s side of English cricketers visited Jamaica, Byng did not do much in the two matches. But he had the ‘distinction’ of being dismissed by Drewy Stoddart and Sammy Woods, while catching Stoddart in one of the two matches.

He played three times for Hampshire in 1905, but achieved little success. However, that curious distinction of losing his wicket to legends continued, as Colin Blythe, perhaps the greatest cricketer killed in the Great War, accounted for him in the match against Kent. Byng had a much better record for the Royal Fusiliers.

Slater, born at Instow, North Devon, in 1873, was, like Bradford, a product of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, although his initial schooling was done at Marlborough College. He served in the Indian Staff Corps, much of it in the Punjab Frontier Corps, stationed in Waziristan for eight years.

While in India, Slater played for Peshawar and Northern Punjab, but unfortunately these sides had not been granted First-Class status. When the Oxford University Authentics visited India in 1902-03, Slater turned up against them for Peshawar and was clueless against the lobs of George Simpson-Hayward. Simpson-Hayward, who scored an unbeaten 203 in the match, got him for 13 and 11 in the two innings as he supplemented his double hundred with 10 wickets.

Immediately afterwards, Slater played against the Authentics for Northern Punjab, and was done in for 3 by a rampaging Ralph Williams in the first innings. In the second innings, he was bowled by the canny old AN ‘Monkey’ Hornby for the same score.

Slater played for Devon in the Minor Counties Championships of 1904 with very little success. He appeared in his only First-Class match in 1909, turning out for Gentlemen of the South against Players of the South. He scored 15 in the first innings before being castled by Albert Relf. In the second innings he did not manage to get off the mark, with Frank Woolley stretching his long arms to catch him for a duck off Edward Dennett.

Slater remained keen on sports and games in the Army and was considered an able leader of men.

Payne-Gallwey, born at Blackrock in March 1881, was the son of Sir Ralph William Frankland Payne-Gallwey. Military service and sports were both in his genes. His father wrote several books on military and sporting history, among which The Crossbow achieved fair renown when it came out in 1903, and was republished in 2007.

While at Eton, Payne-Gallwey was a fast bowler of considerable ability, and finished second in the bowling averages of 1900. That same season, he was drafted into the Yorkshire Second XI and took three wickets against Surrey Second XI at The Oval.

A regular in the Household Brigade team, he turned out for MCC against Yorkshire at Lord’s in 1912.  With plenty of leading lights in the side, he managed to send down only four overs in the match and picked up a solitary wicket. However, in another fateful combination, in the first innings he was dismissed by Major William Booth, another famed name to perish in the Great War.

His second and final First-Class appearance was also at Lord’s, in a match between the Army and the Navy. He picked up one wicket as the Army won by 161 runs.

Having served with the Grenadier Guards during the Boer War, he was awarded the Member of Victorian Order (5th Class) in 1908.

September 14, 1914, the day that saw the death of these four excellent men, remains one of the blackest in the history of cricket.

(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history of cricket, with occasional statistical pieces and reflections on the modern game. He is also the author of four novels, the most recent being Sherlock Holmes and the Birth of The Ashes. He tweets here.)