Julian Grenfell (1888 - 1915)

Julian Grenfell

The Honourable Julian Henry Francis Grenfell was born March 30, 1888 in London. He was the eldest son of William and Ethel Grenfell. His father had been a Member of Parliament for Salisbury from 1882-86 as a Liberal. He joined the Conservative party and became the Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire from 1900-05. He was created Lord Desborough in 1905, at which time he entered the House of Lords.

Julian Grenfell was educated at Eton College before going up to Balliol College, Oxford in 1906. During the first half of 1909 Grenfell wrote seven essays detailing the values, conventions and fantasies he believed would eventually lead to the ruin of society, and which he felt oppressed any free thinking individuals who were determined to lead their own lives. His argument was that conventionalism is nurtured by the competitive spirit which is found in the world of social advancement and etiquette.

In the summer of 1910 Grenfell was commissioned in the Royal Dragoons, arriving with the Regiment in India in November 1910. The Regiment left India in October 1911, arriving in South Africa two months later. It was stationed at Roberts Heights, near Pretoria. Grenfell went home on leave in September 1912 and returned to South Africa in April 1913.

The Regiment arrived back in England on September 20, 1914 and four weeks later Grenfell was in the Ypres Salient, fighting in the First Battle of Ypres. On October 21 the Battalion took over the Front Line trenches at Zandvoorde. On November 15, 1914 the Battalion went to the trenches north of Kleine Zillebeke. These trenches were in a wood, very close to the enemy - in some places there were no more than forty or fifty yards between the Battalion trenches and the Germans.

The following day Grenfell went out on an individual patrol behind the enemy trenches. His actions here earned him the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). Grenfell crawled through the sodden clay of the trenches, to the right out of the Allied lines to where the Germans were nearest. When he was about 10 yards away from the German trench he saw a German soldier, about 10 yards behind the trench, looking over some bushes. Grenfell crawled up to the parapet of the German trench and peered through a loophole to check no one was in the trench. Then the German looked over the bushes again, laughing and talking with his companions. Carefully Grenfell shot him, scaring the companions with the German soldier since they were unable to trace the origin of the shot.

Grenfell then crawled back to his Battalion trenches. He went out again in the afternoon but there was no sign of any German soldiers in their trench. The following morning, just before dawn, Grenfell went out again to the German trench and found it empty, then he saw a single German soldier coming through the woods towards the trench. In fact Grenfell heard the soldier before he saw him, he was making so much noise. When the German was within 25 yards Grenfell shot him through the heart. Some ten minutes later there was a lot of noise and talking and then 20 German soldiers came through the wood behind the trench, with more coming behind. Grenfell picked out the one he thought was the officer or sergeant and shot him, before making a rapid return to the Allied lines. Grenfell sent a message along to the 10th, who were on the right of Grenfell's Battalion, to tell them that the Germans were moving up on them in large numbers.

Half an hour later the Germans attacked, advancing slowly in massed formation to within 10 yards of the Allied trenches. The Allies, in Grenfell's words, "simply mowed them down." Grenfell was awarded the DSO for his actions and offered a staff job as ADC to General Pulteney. He refused the job, believing that he would do a far better job as a front-line soldier than he would on the staff. At the end of December 1914 Grenfell went home on leave for a week, returning to the Ypres Salient on January 6, 1915.

On February 8 the Battalion went to trenches north of Kleine Zillebeke, slightly east of their November position. In March, in the billets at Blaringhem, Grenfell wrote Prayer for those on the Staff. At the beginning of April Grenfell had two days leave in Paris, where he was fascinated by both the people and the city. On April 14 the Second Battle of Ypres began, and on April 22 the first gas attack of the War was initiated by the Germans north of Ypres. The next day the Battalion moved from it billets at Houtkerque near Waton. On April 29 Grenfell noted in his diary that he had written the poem for which he is best known, Into Battle.

On May 9, 1915 the Battalion moved further towards the Front Line, going into wooden huts a short way up the Brielen Road at Vlamertinghe. By May 12 the Allied line had withdrawn to within two miles of Ypres. The 1st Battalion Royal Dragoons was in the second line of trenches between Hooge Lake and a railway line, which lay half a mile to the north. In the early hours of May 13 the Germans began a heavy bombardment of the trenches at Hooge and a small rise known as Railway Hill. During the morning Grenfell went up the hill, which he called "the little hill of death", and was knocked down by a shell which tore his coat. He returned with the news that the Germans were outflanking the Royals. He volunteered to take this information to the Somerset Yeomanry in the trenches in front. Grenfell returned with further messages, and then went up Railway Hill again with the Brigadier General. A shell landed a few yards from them and they were both hit. Grenfell had a shell splinter in his head, and was taken to No. 10 Casualty Clearing Station; from there he wrote to his mother in pencil on blood stained paper, saying his skull was slightly cracked, but he was getting on splendidly.

The next day Grenfell was moved to a hospital in Boulogne. His parents and sister, Monica - who was nursing at nearby Wimereux, arrived at the hospital and his brother Billy was given leave to visit him. Between May 15 and May 23 Grenfell underwent two operations, and on the morning of May 25 he said to his mother "Hold my hand till I go". His family thought that he was dying at 7.30 on the morning of May 26, but he lived until 3.40 p.m. His mother recorded in her Family Journal that "at the moment he died, he opened his eyes a little, with the most radiant smile that they had ever seen even on his face."

Julian Grenfell DSO was buried on May 28, 1915 in the cemetery on the hill above Boulogne, looking across to the battlefields. On that day the announcement of his death and his poem Into Battle were published in The Times.

This poem has been anthologised many times since its publication. It epitomises the kind of poetry that was written by the long-since vanished aristocratic British officer-and-gentleman type, many of whom fell in the First World War. Grenfell wrote only a few more poems, none of which are comparable with Into Battle. He was an amateur poet with few literary connections and no literary aspirations. Most anthologists of the war period feel compelled to consider Into Battle for inclusion. It cannot be labelled specious; it almost perfectly epitomises the warrior spirit which has persisted in poetry since the days of Homer.