BARONESS’ WAR RECORD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 199, 22 August 1929, Page 12

BARONESS’ WAR RECORD

/‘MOTHER OF BRITISH, ARMY” .. ADVENTURES IN 1914 The Baronne de la Grange, known to officers and men who served in the ; Messines Ridge sector of the Flanders i trenches as “The Mother of the British ; Army,” recently paid a visit to London.

During the war, her chateau of La. Motte aux Bois, which stands in th© middle of the Forest of Nieppe, about midway between Merville and Hazobrouck, was occupied by corps staffs, while Madame de la Grange was herself in residence. She left it for the first time at the urgent request of General de Lisle, then commanding the 15th Corps, when the Germans captured Merville, and advanced to within 1200 yards of her residence. In conversation Madame de la. Grange recalled her experiences in 1914 when sent an urgent appeal for help to the Governor of Dunkerque. “The situation was so threatening that I decided to send for help to Dunkerque if possible,’’ she said. “The only way I was able to do so was by supplying a fugitive soldier with civilian clothes, and sending him there with a letter to the Governor explaining the situation in detail.” The result of this action was the arrival of Commander Samson of the Royal Flying Corps, with an aeroplane ! and three machine-guns. He was the first British soldier whom Madame de la Grange had ever seen. 44 Their uniforms were so different from those of our own troops that I thought they were Germans,” she observed. “So, convinced was I that they were our enemies who had caught the man with whom I had entrusted the letter, and had come to shoot me, that I shouted to him in German: ‘Was wollen Sie?’ Commander Samson replied, ‘Do you speak English 1’ and I do not think that I ever experienced so great a feeling of relief in my life.” Not only did the Baronne de la Grange take part in September, 1914, in the first motor-car reconnaissance ] undertaken by Commander Samson in the district, sitting beside him in the car the whole time, but she helped to dig the first trenches sunk in the sector and which were to be the scenes of such desperate fighting later on. Twenty-four hours after Commander Samson’s arrival a battalian of British infantry followed him under the command of “Jack” Churchill. From November, 1914, General (now Field-Marshal) Allenby was the guest of the baronne until he took over the command of the Third Army in June, the following year. He was followed at various times by Generals Byng, Pulteney, Birdwood (commanding the Anzacs), Godley, Ducan e and de Lisle. From the diary which she kept during the whole of the war period, Madame de la Grange has written a book of memoirs, to which Field-Marshal Viscount Allenby has contributed an introduction. Throughout the period dealt with in her diary, she also took numbers of photographs of the greatest historical interest. “Of course, I was not supposed to do this,” concludes the baronne. “When the intelligence officers pointed this out to me, I replied that that was precisely why I was doing it. The officers always laughed in reply, and turned their backs. I was careful, however, to develop all the plates myself, and never to let the negatives and prints out of my possession. ’ ’