'Lions Led By Donkeys'
Reginald Stewart Oxley
(1863-1951)
Brigadier-General
CMC, CB. GOC Infantry Brigade,
Charterhouse College, RMC Sandhurst psc
King's Royal Rifle Corps
Reginald Stewart Oxley was the younger son of John Stewart
Oxley of Fen Place, Turner’s Hill, Sussex. He was commissioned in the York and
Lancaster Regiment on 23 August 1884, but transferred to the King’s Royal
Rifle Corps the following November. His only active service was in the Manipur
Expedition (1891). But, after passing Staff College in December 1898, where one
of his contemporaries was the future Sir William Robertson, Oxley served as
Brigade Major, 12th Infantry Brigade, in South Africa (1899-1900), and was
mentioned in despatches. He was DAAG North-West District (1901-4), CO 1st
Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps (1907-11) and GSO1 Staff College (1912-14).
He went to war as GSO1 II Corps (August-December 1914). After a period
commanding GHQ Troops, he was made GOC 24th Brigade, 8th Division, on 17 March
1915. He was 51.
Oxley’s appointment came in the aftermath of the battle of
Neuve Chapelle (10-12 March) in which 8th Division had played a leading part.
Like several British attacks of 1915, the ‘break-in’ at Neuve Chapelle went
well, but what Field-Marshal Montgomery was later to term the ‘dog fight’
degenerated into confusion, hampered by inadequate resources and woefully
inadequate communications. It proved impossible to convert the ‘break-in’
into a ‘break-through’. 24th Brigade suffered heavy casualties (75 officers
and more than 1,600 men). Its GOC, Brigadier-General F C Carter, went sick five
days later.
Oxley’s baptism of fire was to be even more difficult and
unpleasant. The BEF renewed its attacks against the Aubers Ridge on 9 May. The
assault was a fiasco. The British artillery bombardment was too feeble even to
achieve a break-in. A series of unsupported and unco-ordinated infantry frontal
attacks, often made against uncut wire, collapsed in the face of German
machine-gun fire. Oxley, himself, ordered two companies of 1st Battalion
Sherwood Foresters to re-inforce the costly failure of the initial attack by 2nd
Battalion East Lancashire Regiment. When the GOC IV Corps, Sir Henry Rawlinson,
enquired what had happened to the East Lancashires and the Sherwoods Oxley
famously replied ‘They are lying out in No Man’s Land, sir, and most of them
will never stand again.’ Even so, Oxley sent orders to his two reserve
battalions to carry out yet another futile assault later in the day. The order
was cancelled on his own authority by the CO 1st Worcesters, Lieutenant-Colonel
George Grogan. Oxley later sanctioned the cancellation. This was not an
auspicious start to Oxley’s career as a brigade commander. Worse was to
follow.
24th Brigade was transferred to 23rd Division on 18 October
1915 and it was as part of this formation that it took part in the battle of the
Somme. 23rd Division captured Contalmaison on 7 July 1916. Brigadier-General
Oxley was dismissed on 11 July for failing to hold the captured ground after his
brigade ran out of ammunition. Professor Travers has speculated that Oxley’s
dismissal owed something to past rivalries at the Staff College with Douglas
Haig (who was in the year above Oxley). There is no evidence for this. The key
figure in Oxley’s dismissal was not Haig, but the GOC 23rd Division,
Major-General Babington. Babington evidently rated neither Oxley nor his
brigade. He had reported Oxley as being only ‘fairly satisfactory as a
Brigadier’ and ‘certainly not fit for promotion to command a division’1.
After the capture of Contalmaison the Commander-in-Chief asked Babington what he
would like. Babington replied ‘Give me back my 70th Brigade’. He received it
within the week. 24th Brigade went back to 8th Division, minus Oxley.
Brigadier-General Oxley spent the rest of the war in staff
positions at home. He retired in 1919.
Haig Diary, 4, 8, 9 and 10 July 1916.
John Bourne
Centre for First World War Studies
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