In 2021, Alexander Baird’s Great Grandson, Stewart Robertson, came across this website and contacted me about his Great Grandfather, 15099 Private Alexander Baird, K.O.S.B.

Stewart’s story of Alexander Baird is transcribed below

ALEXANDER’S WAR

Stewart Robertson

“Like many of my generation, it is not until you mature sufficiently and take the time to listen, that you begin to then start to feel and understand the sacrifice of the Soldiers of the Great War. As a child of the 1970’s, you grow up becoming aware through stories and real experiences, that regardless of your background you have the privilege of having a better quality of life than your parents had, who in turn had it better than theirs.”

Stewart Robertson - Great Grandson of Alexander Baird

The story of his Great Grandfather had been covered in the Falkirk Herald and Stewart felt that Alex’s story would be more accurately and appropriately reflected by Stewart’s story of how he was drawn to his Great Grandfather Alexander Baird’s War and Stewart’s own discovery of his grandfather’s experience of that war. He was right.

Stewart kindly gave permission to share his experience of discovering the history of his, Alexander Baird’s', Great Grandfather in the Great War. It is a story worth reading, and speaks for itself.

actions between September 1915 and the May 1917, and as such may afford an insight into the war and and its impact on the men and the families listed by the Bothkennar memorial.

Stewart Robertson’s pilgrimage to Oppy Wood

As I grew through my 20’s 30’s and 40’s, I was and remain intrigued and intensely reflective about what made me the way I am and formed the values which underpin the structure of my life and the greater society. I ponder this question as a backdrop to my Great Grandfather Alexander’s sacrifice in the great war and what influence it may have had on my family.

It was not until my partner Catherine undertook her interest in family history and genealogy that I became more fully aware of my Great Grandfather: “15099 Private Alexander Baird 8th & 2nd KOSB.”

As you are nurtured, over time I would remember snippets of the story about his involvement in the war but this is a far and distant term, almost as if it was from the fantasy world you read of in comics or see in films and outside of reality. Even though my younger brother had visited Alexander’s grave in Orchard Dump cemetery in 1985 when he was just 13 years old with the Boys Brigade, Alexander’s reality still never fully impacted me. Then one a fire is lit. You have try to find out that little bit more and  a piece of information just somehow stirs you:  in Alexander’s case it was a medical record which showed that he had been injured and sick during the war.  It suddenly made him and the war very real.

So, in April 2017, I decided I had to visit his grave at Orchard Dump cemetery near Oppy Wood, Arras. The trip to France was a 4-day excursion to coincide with his death 100 years previously, the 14th May 1917, the anniversary of Alex’s death.

Having done some very basic reading on Arras and the general area, I went to France completely unprepared for the impact it would have upon me, and at this point I was not aware of Alexander’s overall involvement in the Great War and the context of his service. On arrival in Arras on the 12th May, I decided to engage a Battlefield guide from Battlefield Experiences, who, by the greatest of fortune, sent me a former Sergeant Major of the Grenadier Guards. He not only brought Alexander to life for me, but showed me things in the Arras area I would never have discovered. Even in that very short time he managed to research the war records and to find corroborating information which could indicate where Alexander may have served. This was very impressive and showed me the possibilities and encouraged me to find out more. I left France humbled, proud and inspired to find out as much as possible through the records which exist and trace Alexander’s path through the Great War.

After returning from France, I committed myself to study and then record Alexander’s service pathway through the Great War and uncovering all the available information that would tell his story. Having spent 18 months on this study, it very soon became clear that, unfortunately, not all the records existed which would confirm with certainty the detail that I would wish to find or would want to find to satisfy the need to know more. As a result, I have instead relied upon the corroboration and cross referencing of many records, books and texts to arrive at a story with significant degree of accuracy to warrant being called accurate.

In the context of the war, Alexander Baird was unremarkable, but the more you read the more you realise that all the men who committed their lives to this venture, whether by choice or not, were all uniquely remarkable.

He left behind a daughter (my Grandmother Jenny) and a wife, Janet.

Alexander would go on to see action in the Battles of Loos, Somme (Martinpuich and Falfemount Farm), Vimy Ridge and the 3rd Battle of the Scarpe.

The 15th (Scottish Division) including Alexander’s 8th Battalion K.O.S.B. Landed in France between the 7th and 13th of July 1915. The Division served with distinction on the Western Front for the remainder of the war, taking part in most of the significant actions and winning regard by the enemy as one of the most formidable in the British army. The battles of the 15th Division were the battles of Alexander Baird.

Alexander and his 8th Battalion comrades disembarked from the S.S. Invicta at Boulogne on 10 July 1915. Their war service in France started from their arrival at the quayside in Boulogne, and subsequently both the 7th and 8th battalions were in billets south-west of Boulogne prior to completing further training and familiarisation with the front line.

The British Army was overwhelmingly the junior partner in the war against the Germans and their allies. As a consequence the part played by the British Army inn the form of the B.E.F. in the early part of the war was a supporting, minor part in the Alliance, and the direction of the war was driven by the senior partner, France. By the end of latter part of 1915 the French were desperate to relieve the pressure on their forces and looked to the British to up the ante and to take a far more active role in the fighting. Under French pressure, it was agreed that the British Army would mount an offensive in Northern France to relieve pressure on the French Armies. So, for the first time the British would drive a counter offensive rather than supporting the efforts of the beleaguered French Armies which was the Battle of Loos.

“Loos was an unwanted battle. Nobody wanted to fight it except the French, and they saw the British contribution as providing only some distraction on the left flank of their own Tenth Army, and having the political advantage of forcing the British into taking part in an Allied offensive. The B.E.F. was not ready for such an adventure; it had not the men nor the guns nor the ammunition, and everybody who mattered knew it.”

Corrigan, G: Loos 1915 The Unwanted Battle (2018) - Sharpe Books (Kindle Edition)

The 7th Battalion lost about two-thirds of its strength and Alexander’s 8th battalion over one-third at the Battle of Loos. It was here that famously Piper Daniel Laidlaw of the 7th Battalion climbed out of the trench in the face of shellfire, machine guns and gas and encouraged the men forward by standing on the parapet, inspiring the men to attack, and winning the VC. for his bravery.

The losses of both battalions led to the resting of both battalions and the subsequent amalgamation in May 1915 of the 7th and 8th Battalions forming the 7/8th battalion in May 1915.

Between the attestation by Alexander Baird and 25th September 1915 Alexander and his comrades walked a well-beaten path to the hell and its fury on the Loos battlefield. The willing volunteers enlisting, keen to fight the good fight would follow a path to the Loos battlefield through a basic training, and towards the end of the period of acclimatisation in the front line alongside the remnants of the Old Contemptibles and the peacetime men brought back to the colours as a consequence of the commitment to return to the colours if necessary. The training could not reflect the reality of fighting a modern industrial war on an unprecedented scale: the men fighting at Loos would not be the same men that had disembarked at Boulogne.

On 28 May, 1916 8th Battalion amalgamated in Bethune with the 7th Battalion to form the 7th/8th Battalion and continued to engage in action on the Western Front with the 15th Division under 46th Brigade together with the 10th Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) and 12th Highland Light Infantry until the end of the war.

So… 7/8th bn K.O.S.B,

Resting(10th bn Cameronians) Reserve

12th bn H.L.I Front Line

Alexander Baird’s luck ran out on 14th May 1917

The three battles listed below were phases of the Battle of the Somme 1916 which commenced on July 1st 1916

The Battle of Pozieres*
The Battle of Flers-Courcelette* in which the Division captured Martinpuich
The Battle of Le Transloy* in which the Division took part in attacks on the Butte de Warlencourt

The Battle of Pozieres,

The Battle of Flers-Courcelette,

The Battle of Le Transloy

SOURCES -

Long, Long trail; Stewart Robertson

1915
The Battle of Loos

1917
The First Battle of the Scarpe*
The Second Battle of the Scarpe** in which the Division captured Guemappe
The battles marked **phases of the Arras Offensive

Sources -

Stewart Robertson

“The Long, Long, Trail

Alexander and 7/8th Battalion and 2nd K.O.S.B

Following Loos, the 7th and 8th Battalions Kings Own Scottish Borderers were amalgamated (May 1916).

1915
The Battle of Loos

1916
The Actions of Spring 1916

In spring 1916, the Division was involved in German gas attacks near Hulluch (27-29 April 1916) and in the defence of the Kink position (11 May 1916). These are among the engagements officially known as the Actions of Spring 1916 which were preparatory to the Battle of the Somme (Long, Long, Trail)

The Battle of Pozieres*

The Battle of Flers-Courcelette,

The Battle of Le Transloy,

In May 1915 the 8th Battalion amalgamated with the 7th Battalion to form the 7/8th Battalion and continued to engage in action on the Western Front with the 15th Division

1917
The First Battle of the Scarpe,

The Second Battle of the Scarpe,

The Battle of Pilckem,

The Battle of Langemark.

1915
The Battle of Loos

Alexander Baird left a trail that allows us to follow him from landing in France in July 1915 up to his death 22 months later.

Between July 1915 and March 1917, Alexander Baird took part many of the battles fought by the B.E.F. in France and Flanders . Alexander’s list reflects his subjective experience of his war: some of the names on the list are well-known, but the names also reflect the relative impact on Alexander of the fighting that Alexander was involved in.

Alexander’s battalions, (8th and, subsequently, 2nd King’s Own Scottish Borderers) were “K2” Battalions, the result of the Kitchener campaign to create an army of volunteer soldiers. The 8th K.O.S.B. were a Kitchener battalion which would take part in the Battle of Loos (pronounced “Loss”) in September 1915 , brigaded with 7th Battalion.

Alexander’s Battalion (8th battalion Kings Own Scottish Borderers - K.O.S.B.) were formed at Berwick-on-Tweed in September 1914 as part of K2, the product of the second wave of recruitment initiated by Kitchener. 8th K.O.S.B. became part of 46th Brigade in 15th (Scottish) Division which included 8th, 6th and 7th K.O.S.B., in February 1915. They moved to Bordon and in February 1915 went into billets at Winchester for initial training. They subsequently moved to Park House and Chisledon Camps (Salisbury Plain) in April 1915.

The 7th and 8th battalions of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) had come into being in September 1914 and, from the first, were indivisible. Both battalions were up to strength in late 1914, around 900 all ranks, and by 17 July 1915 both were in billets south-west of Boulogne.

Alexander and his 8th Battalion comrades disembarked from the S.S. Invicta at Boulogne 10 July 1915. Their war service in France started from their arrival at the quayside in Boulogne.

It was normal that units such as 8th KOSB arriving in France would be given further training and familiarised with the front lines in quieter parts of the line before fully taking their place in the line. 8th KOSB would fully see action as part of 15th Scottish two months later at the battle of Loos which began on 25 September 1915.

In July 1915, the British Army launched the first genuinely large scale British offensive action of the war at Loos and for the first time involved significant numbers of Kitchener’s army'.

The army that fought in France and Flanders in 1915 was not the same army as the army that had fought the invading German army in 1914: between August 1914 and Loos in 1915 the British Army was reinvented from a small professional army to become a citizen army:  the army that fought at with the French Army and at the second Battle of Ypres in May and at Loos in September was an army of volunteer citizens. This was a new army trained in haste, desperate to beat the Hun and to put him in his place. The volunteers that signed up in were just that, men who had had some training but whose baptism of fire at Ypres in May 1915 showed their ability to fight and perhaps to survive. But the need to prosecute the war and to support the efforts of their French allies meant that by the autumn of 1915, pressure was being applied by the French to provide evidence of the support of the British Army, and specifically, for the British to go on the offensive against the German Army. The political necessity was to evidence that the French Army was not fighting alone: the British Army needed to fight a battle of its own, which became the Battle of Loos.

After the initial phase of the war which had been a war of movement, the creation of a line of trenches from the North Sea to Switzerland meant that there was little overall change in the relative positions of the allies and the German Army. The war became static, with a degree of attrition on both sides, but significant changes only came with set piece battles which resulted in heavy casualties but little change. The German were particularly good at fortifying their positions which were usually the advantageous positions on high ground that the Germans had reached in 1914.

The lack of movement on the Western Front meant that warfare meant fighting over the same ground: 15th (Scottish) Division including Alexander’s battalion became familiar with the landmarks on the high ground overlooking the British trenches on the lower ground: the Hohenzollern Redoubt and Corons (miner’s cottages, characterised by cellars)' to the north and Loos, Hill 70 and the double “crassier” to the south.

The Battle of Loos is sometimes known as the battle that no-one wanted: the French Army had been fighting the German Army with relatively little assistance from the British since the initial onslaught by the German Army. The French Army was very much the senior partner in the allied cause and as a consequence the progress of the war was very much driven by the French. The efforts of the regulars and reservists of the Old Contemptibles had supported the French efforts to staunch the flood of German armies had helped manage to hold the advance. But the French were hard pressed and the French in turn pressed hard for the British Army, growing in size as the war progressed, put pressure on the British to play a more prominent role in the fighting. The promise of new Divisions arriving in France meant that Kitchener’s Armies were able to fill the breach by fresh British troops. These troops were fresh and enthusiastic albeit that they lacked the experience of battle that would be so important in the fighting to come.

The time had come for the British Army to show willing, and the place would be Northern France.

The recruitment, training and deployment of the Kitchener volunteers began almost immediately after the outbreak of the war, but the Battle of Loos was the first time the British Army took on the German Army by itself. And for the first time, that army was composed of men who had been civilian volunteers in Kitchener’s Army rather than fully trained soldiers.

The area was a flat plain dotted with small mining villages and pit workings, much like Bothkennar, Bothkennar being a significantly smaller area. The ground was flat, dominated by pit bing connected with the coalmining in the district. In 1915, the various mining villages, collieries and other industrial buildings presented a difficult challenge for any would-be attacker.

Loos - 25 September – 15 October 1915

The 15th Division had been in France since July and would appear on the front line at the Battle of Loos. The Battle of Loos is sometimes known as the battle that no-one wanted: the French Army had been fighting the German Army with relatively little assistance from the British since the initial onslaught by the German Army. The French Army was very much the senior partner in the allied cause and as a consequence the progress of the war was very much driven by the French. The efforts of the regulars and reservists of the Old Contemptibles had supported the French efforts to staunch the flood of German armies had helped manage to hold the advance. But the French were hard pressed and the French in turn pressed hard for the British Army, growing in size as the war progressed, put pressure on the British to play a more prominent role in the fighting. The promise of new Divisions arriving in France meant that Kitchener’s Armies were able to fill the breach by fresh British troops. These troops were fresh and enthusiastic albeit that they lacked the experience of battle that was so important in the fighting to come.

The recruitment, training and deployment of the Kitchener volunteers began almost immediately after the outbreak of the war, but the Battle of Loos was the first time the British Army took on the German Army by itself. And for the first time, that army was composed of men who had been civilian volunteers in Kitchener’s Army rather than fully trained soldiers.

The assault south-east on Loos from the British front line along the Bethune- Lens Road was aimed at throwing the entrenched Germans out of their positions and from higher ground surrounding Loos, enabling the B.E.F. to control the heights and enabling the allied forces to push off the heights.

The task of the men of the 15th Scottish Division which included Alexander’s ‘B’ Company, 8th KOSB and 7th KOSB, was to assault alongside the neighbouring 47th Division, the German defences on the ridge line that dominated the Loos battlefield immediately north of the mining town of Lens, in the heart of the industrial area of north-east France.

The area is still a mining area little changed today except that the mining activity has declined; some of the old slagheaps and pit-heads are no longer there, and some are much larger than they were in 1915 (especially so in the case of the Loos Double Crassier which today is immense and visible from several miles in all directions).

The irony of Alexander enlisting only to find himself once again in coalmines not too dissimilar to the one he had left behind.

Battle

For Alexander Baird and ‘B’ Company, 8th battalion K.O.S.B.  the task would be to support the advance on the German positions by the 7th K.O.S.B. and 1st Cameronians and exploit the assault. The advance would take place after four days of artillery bombardment of the German positions and with the assistance of a gas barrage on the defending Germans. For most of these men, this would be the first experience of fighting in a full-scale battle and was carried out with courage and significant loss of life.

The object for the men of 15th (Scottish Division) was to secure Loos itself, which was achieved, and the high point of Hill 70 was also taken with fighting taking place in and around the Corons (Miner’s cottages) which nearly always had a cellar below. in the area, but the assault was ultimately unsuccessful and the ground initially taken was taken back by German counter attacks.

The 8th K.O.S.B.’s role in reserve meant that Alexander’s battalion were more engaged in the latter part of the fighting in the hope of securing the ground taken, which was unsuccessful. Losses were heavy. The 10th Cameronians and 7th Bn, KOSB  made the initial assault on the objectives i.e. Loos itself and beyond that, Hill 70. The two assaulting battalions of the brigade were unable to hold the objectives (Loos and Hill 70). The battle continued but was still unsuccessful and 8th KOSB and the Cameronians retired.

The number of casualties to Alexander’s 8th KOSB (and the 7th KOSB)meant that, after the initial fighting, the involvement of 8th KOSB in the battle became to be holding existing ground, and supporting fresh troops.

The Loos battle subsequently continued with new units being brought in to assault the German positions with fresh energy that continued to be unsuccessful. The fighting continued over the period between 25th September and 15th October, 1915.

The main damage to the assaulting battalions had been inflicted in the first three days of the battle. Between 25th September and 15th October 8th KOSB suffered 383 casualties, of whom 20 were officers.

The normal strength of a battalion would be between 650 and 750 men: the casualties to 8th KOSB at Loos was over 50%: the casualty rate for 7th KOSB who had been involved in the initial assault was significantly higher. And produced a VC.

The losses of 7th and 8th battalions K.O.S.B. at the Battle of Loos meant that the two battalions were merged to become 7/8th K.O.S.B.

For the men of 8th KOSB, the battle of Loos was in all senses a baptism of fire, and Alexander Baird and his comrades will have been changed by battle. The men will have changed with the reality of war and all its horror.

Alexander Baird, 7/8 KOSB and 2 KOSB 15th (Scottish Division)

It is often possible to track the progress of an individual through the battles fought by the army’s divisions and battalions through the records of units and also by the surviving service records of individuals in the public domain. Stewart Robertson, Alexander Baird’s Great Grandson was able to follow Alexander’s pathway through the war using public records and also with the assistance of family information.

Alexander was on active service in France and Flanders for 22 months and took part in many of the key battles and actions during those months.

Sept 1915

1915

The Battle of Loos

In spring 1916, the Division was involved in German gas attacks near Hulluch (27-29 April 1916) and in the defence of the Kink position (11 May 1916).

These are among the engagements officially known as the Actions of Spring 1916.
The Battle of Pozieres*
The Battle of Flers-Courcelette* in which the Division captured Martinpuich
The Battle of Le Transloy* in which the Division took part in attacks on the Butte de Warlencourt,

(28.05.1916 Amalgamated with the 8th Battalion to form the 7/8th Battalion and continued to engage in action on the Western Front with the 15th Division)

1917
The First Battle of the Scarpe,

The Second Battle of the Scarpe,

The Battle of Pilckem,

The Battle of Langemark.

1916

Actions of Spring, 1916”

British and Empire units

15TH Division involved in German gas attacks near Hulluch (27-29 April 1916) and in the defence of the Kink position (11 May 1916).

7th and 8th battalions merged to form 7/8th Bn, May 1916

Phases of the Battles of the Somme 1916

The Battle of Pozieres

The Battle of Flers-Courcelette

15th Division captured Martinpuich

The Battle of Le Transloy

15th Division took part in attacks on the Butte de Warlencourt

Phases of the Arras Offensive

1917

The First Battle of the Scarpe
The Second Battle of the Scarpe in which the Division captured Guemappe.