The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade
August 1914 to March 1915
BY
Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,
(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.
In accordance with the order received at Belfast at 5.30 P.M. on the 4th, the 15th Brigade started mobilizing on the 5th August 1914, and by the 10th was complete in all respects. We were practically ready by the 9th, but a machine-gun or two and some harness were a bit late arriving from Dublin—not our fault. Everything had already been rehearsed at mobilization inspections, held as usual in the early summer, and all went like clock-work. On the 8th we got our final orders to embark on the 14th, and on the 11th the embarkation orders arrived in detail.
Brigade Headquarters consisted of myself, Captain Weatherby (Oxford L.I.) as Brigade Major, Captain Moulton-Barrett (Dorsets), Staff Captain, Captain Roe (Dorsets), Brigade Machine-Gun Officer, Lieutenant Cadell, R.E., Signalling Officer, and Lieutenant Beilby, Brigade Veterinary Officer. Military Police, A.S.C. drivers, postmen, and all sorts of odds and ends arrived from apparently nowhere in particular, and fitted together with extraordinary little effort. The battalions grew to unheard-of sizes, and by the time that all was complete the Brigade numbered 127 officers, 3958 men, 258 horses, and 74 vehicles.
