12 March

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Other dates

Lonsdale Battalion events that took place on 12 March.
For events that took place elsewhere, see 12 March on The Great War wiki.

1915 (Friday)

Events preceding the Lonsdales' arrival in France

• J. Cunningham (16422) is forfeited his pay.
• Tom Teasdaler (19437) enlists to E Company.

1916 (Sunday)

• Albert: In billets providing working parties for the Royal Engineers.
• Captain A. J. Dawson is invalided home.
• Captain Corbett takes over command of D Company.
• Joseph Martin writes a letter to the Workington Star and Harrington Guardian: “Dear Sir, Just a line to say that I received your parcel of cigarettes and twist, and also matches, which prove to be very serviceable here, and useful, as you will no doubt be aware that French matches are absolutely useless, and beyond the means of the soldiers here. I am sure it speaks highly of you and your readers who subscribe so magnificently to your fund to provide smokes for those who are enduring the state of things in this country. I am pleased to say we are all quite well at present, and we are out of the trenches for a few days, but will not be long till we are back again. I am sorry to say that we lost some very fine chaps last week, including our Platoon Officer. You might find room in your valuable paper for these few lines, and to thank Mr. J. Sherwen, of Distington, for his kindness. I ask him to accept my kind regards and good wishes, and success to your valuable paper.

1917 (Monday)

• Situated in the Support Intermediate Line (Kuropatkin). Lonsdale and Royal Engineer working parties take place in the trenches during the day.
• Battalion relieves the 17th Highland Light Infantry in the front line trenches.

1918 (Tuesday)

• Battalion situated in the line. Artillery activity above normal. Enemy shells 'Egypt' and 'Ajax Ho' and Allied artillery retaliates effectively on enemy machine guns during the night.
• Two officer patrols leave Posts 11 and 19 and gain valuable information. Further officers patrols leave Post 3 and proceed along the railway and obtain useful intelligence there.
• Deaths: Joseph Oliphant (241653 Pte.) / Edward Neal (4968 L/Cpl.)

Notes

References

Acknowledgements

Various sources contemporary to the war have been used to compile The Lonsdale Battalion On This Day. The majority of the events shown on this day (12 March), including any supplementary notes, enlistments and statistical data etc., have been primarily sourced from the Lonsdale Battalion War Diary (November 1915 to June 1918), Record of the XIth (Service) Battalion (Lonsdale) and abridged material from Timeline and Chronology of the Lonsdale Battalion (September 1914 - May 1915), which are sourced from the original DLONS/L/13/13 Lowther Estate Archives. Events from that chronology are reproduced here with kind permission of Jim Lowther (2016). They are identified and referenced separately by their unique DLONS numbers. Please do not publish these events without prior permission from the Lowther Estate. All casualty names, numbers, ranks, date of deaths and places of burial/commemoration have been sourced from Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-19, Volume 39, The Border Regiment and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database respectively.