Page 49 - Last Chargers example

This appendix provides more detail and con- text about C Squadron, 12th Lancers, the unit that played the most dramatic and celebrated part in the action at Moÿ de l’Aisne.
On return to England from South Africa (Potchefstroom) in 1913, HQ, A and B Squadrons of the 12th Lancers were sta- tioned at Nelson Barracks in Norwich – the site of previous postings in 1827 and 1829. “After a life of the barrack room in South Africa it did not take long for the soldiers to become ‘town- mad’ and we discovered such wonderful places as the ‘Ribs of Beef’155,‘Black Horse’and‘The Pigeons’156 and lots more to make our hearts glad and pockets empty with real theatres and picture palaces”157. The Regiment was initially attached to the 4th Cavalry Brigade (Carabiniers, 3rd and 20th Hussars) which was to become the 5th Cavalry Brigade in the Spring of 1914.
155 24 Wensum Street, Norwich, NR3 1HY
156 Now called the ‘Mash Tun’, 16 Charring Cross, Norwich,
C Squadron, however, was detached and sent to the Army Equitation Centre at Weedon Bec in Northamptonshire, where it arrived on 27th January 1913. Rural Weedon was a new experience for many of the town-bred soldiers who had to settle down to a different lifestyle, part of which involved forming a Bachelors’ Club at the Wheatsheaf pub. Posted away from the main body of the Regiment, C Squadron started to develop a spirit of its own, reinforced by such distinguishing characteristics as the colour of the squadron’s horses: A Squadron’s were chestnut, B Squadron’s were bays and C Squadron’s horses were black158.
Although C Squadron joined the rest of the Regiment for a period of training with its Brigade this would have been its only intro- duction to cavalry tactics on a European ter- rain, and their exercise was with a Brigade they were not to deploy with. Despite this, upon the declaration of war on 4th August 1914,
158 Masterson
NR2 4AL
157 12th Lancer Journal 1913, p7
Appendix 2
C Squadron 12th Lancers
C Squadron Mobilisation – Norwich, 12th August 1914
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