17 November

Lonsdale Battalion events that took place on 17 November.
For events that took place elsewhere, see our sister project The Great War On This Day

1914 (Tuesday)

Hirings take place in Wigton and Penrith.^[1]
Lt-Col. Machell to Lord Lonsdale: "Urgent six hundred blankets required to give each man three owing severe cold. Reply: Am sorry men are likely to feel the cold delighted to send more blankets 900 despatched today." ^[2]

Battalion leaves Englebelmer at 11pm in full fighting order for the trenches; marches through Mailly-Maillet forming single file passing through White City. From this point the Lonsdales cross the open, headed by the Commanding Officer, towards trenches opposite Wagon Road.
1am: the trenches front and back are occupied whilst relieving the East Lancs and the North Lancs battalions under shell fire; some casualties occurred. The behaviour of the men is good and after some difficulty the relief is completed at 6am. The ground is in a bad state with wire, much of it cut by shell fire. Hostile shelling continues throughout the morning with very few casualties.
11am: the Commanding Officer goes to Brigade HQ for a conference. The Lonsdales are in a reserve position to the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry with exception of one company which occupies a portion of front line. The Commanding Officer then checks the area his men are occupying.
12pm: Heavy barrage from [our] artillery is opened onto enemy lines opposite, lasting 15 minutes. Half an hour later, enemy artillery replies with heavy fire. This fire continues well on after dark, during which time the Commanding Officer instructs Officers Commanding Companies on orders and positions.
Men of various companies that were separated in the relief and lost in the dark are collected together and everything made ready for the battalion to take up an attack position.

Sources: Various sources contemporary to the war have been used to compile the Lonsdale Battalion on this day... (hover to read more)

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 (17 November), 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.