by Susan Flantzer

• Three Sons Gone – Again
• Timeline: August 1, 1918 – August 31, 1918
• A Note About German Titles
• August 1918 – Royals/Nobles/Peers/Sons of Peers Who Died In Action

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Three Sons Gone – Again

The further along I got in writing this series of articles (started in August 2014), I have discovered noble families that lost more than one son in World War I. Of course, this did not happen in only British noble families but in families from all over the United Kingdom and in families from all the other countries who participated in the war. How painful it must be to lose a son in a war but to lose multiple sons must be unbearable.

I wonder why surviving sons were allowed to go into combat situations. I think about the film “Saving Private Ryan” in which a group of soldiers searches for Private Ryan, the last surviving brother of four soldiers. “Saving Private Ryan” was loosely based upon four Niland brothers.  It was believed that three brothers had been killed in World War II and the surviving brother was sent back to the United States to complete his service. It was later learned that another surviving brother was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

The United States military now has a Sole Survivor Policy, implemented in 1948. The motivation for the policy were the five Sullivan brothers who were all killed when the USS Juneau was sunk during World War II. The policy protects members of a family from the draft or from combat duty if they have already lost family members in military service.

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Frederick Cawley, 1st Baron Cawley and his wife Elizabeth Smith had four sons and one daughter. Because Frederick Cawley was created 1st Baron Cawley in January 1918 and Harold and John had already died, they did not have the style “The Honorable”.

• Robert Cawley, 2nd Baron Cawley (1877 – 1954)
• Captain Harold Cawley (1878 – 1915)
• Major John Cawley (1879 – 1914)
• The Honorable Hilda Mary Cawley (1881 -1956)
• Captain The Honorable Oswald Cawley (1882 – 1918)

Robert, Cawley, 2nd Baron Cawley, the eldest son and heir, had fought in the Boer War (1899 – 1902) but not in World War I. However, Robert’s third son Captain The Honorable Harold Cawley was killed in action during World War II at the age of 23. The other three sons of Frederick Cawley, 1st Baron Cawley all served in World War I and were all killed in action.

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Less than a month after the start of World War I, Major John Cawley was killed in action on September 1, 1914 in Nery, France at the age of 34. A career soldier, John attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and joined the 20th Hussars in India in 1897. He served in the Boer War (1899 – 1902). In 1913, John was appointed Brigade Major of the 1st Cavalry Brigade and accompanied the brigade to France at the start of World War I.

John was killed in action during the Action at Nery in Nery, France during the retreat after the Battle of Mons. A fellow soldier gave an account of his death: “Our brigade was attacked soon after dawn at Nery by a force double our number – a Cavalry Division with 12 guns. Owing to thick mist, they managed to het within 600 yards of us; 350 horses of the Bays stampeded and their men went after them, and the L Battery was cut to pieces. The occasion was one which called for personal example, and Major Cawley, by permission of the General, went to help to restore order and get the broken remnants in their places, The situation being met and everyone in his place, he joined the advanced line and was almost immediately killed by a piece of shell. The splendid manner in which he met his death in deliberately facing the awful fire to help others when he really need not have done so, is only what his whole life had led us to expect.” (Account from The Bond of Sacrifice: A Biographical Record of All British Officers who Fell in the Great War, Volume 1 by L. A. Clutterbuck, W. T. Dooner)

Acting alone, the British 1st Cavalry Brigade defeated the German 4th Cavalry Division in the Action at Nery.

Major John Cawley was buried at the Nery Communal Cemetery in Nery, Departement de l’Oise, Picardie, France.

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A little more than a year after the death of John, Captain Harold Cawley was killed in action during the Gallipoli Campaign in the Ottoman Empire (now in Turkey) on September 24, 1915 at the age of 37. Harold attended New College, Oxford, was a barrister and served in the House of Commons from 1910 until his death in 1915.

In 1904, Harold joined a territorial battalion, the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, Manchester Regiment.  At the start of World War I in 1914, he volunteered for active service and was appointed aide de camp to Major-General William Douglas, the commanding officer of the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division.  However, Harold wanted to go to the front lines – “I have always felt rather a brute skulking behind in comparative safety while my friends were being killed.” He left Division Headquarters to rejoin the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, Manchester Regiment at the front at Gallipoli in early September 1915.

On September 20, 1918, a Turkish mine was exploded near the battalion’s position creating a crater. Harold realized that the crater had created a position for an advanced post and set out with four soldiers to take control of it. A fight occurred with the grenades and gunfire being exchanged. One of Harold’s men was shot through the head and killed and another was temporarily blinded and deafened by a grenade explosion but the small group maintained their position. On September 23, the group suspected that the Turks were digging a trench toward the crater. Just after midnight of September 24, 1918, Harold, who was trying to see what the Turks were doing, was shot through the head by a sniper. The crater that Harold fought so hard to hold was officially named Cawley’s Crater and it is still there in Canakkale, Turkey today. (Information from Led by Lions: MPs and Sons Who Fell in the First World War by Neil Thornton)

Harold was buried at Lancashire Landing Cemetery in Gallipoli, Turkey.

Before his death, Harold wrote a series of letters to his father, who was a member of the British cabinet at the time, describing the mishandling of the Gallipoli Campaign. Because Harold was a Member of Parliament, his letters were not censored and he was able to write an honest view of the situation. The gist of his criticism was that soldiers were being sacrificed without reason and through sheer stupidity. In 1916, Harold’s father served on the Dardanelles Commission investigating the Gallipoli Campaign and the contents of Harold’s letters no doubt were on his mind.

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Less than three months before the end of World War II, Captain The Honorable Oswald Cawley was killed in action near Merville, France on August 22, 1918 at the age of 35. Oswald attended New College, Oxford and after graduation, he worked in his father’s business, the Heaton Mills Bleaching Company.

In May 1914, three months before the start of World War I, Oswald joined the Shropshire Yeomanry. In March 1916, the Shropshire Yeomanry was sent to the Middle East where the participated in fighting in Egypt, Gaza and Palestine. In May 1918, Oswald’s regiment, now designated as the 10th King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, left for the front lines in France. In January 1918, after his father had been created a peer and had to leave the House of Commons, Oswald had been elected to his father’s seat in a by-election. While his regiment was training before going to the front lines, Oswald made a quick trip back to London to officially take his seat in the House of Commons.

On July 10, 1918, Oswald’s regiment took over a part of the front line trench. The regiment was ordered to move forward as part of a general advance on August 22, 1918. According to Major Wood, the regiment’s commanding officer, “Advancing through high standing corn the battalion continued until within a few hundred yards of the concealed enemy, who met them with a devastating fire from carefully concealed positions…a determined counter-attack and severe hand-to-hand fighting took place.”

The regiment was forced to retreat due to heavy causalities but Oswald was not among those retreating. In a letter to Oswald’s parents, Major Wood said, “Your son’s company was on the right…The enemy laid low, until we were right on their line, and then they put down a heavy barrage behind us and had many machine-guns in front. Your son was hit in the arm, which was dressed by his company stretcher-bearers , and then went on and was wounded again the second time in the jaw, and after that we could hear no news, and we had to fall back to our own line.” In early October, Oswald’s body was discovered on the battlefield and he was buried nearby. (Information from Led by Lions: MPs and Sons Who Fell in the First World War by Neil Thornton)

In January 1919, Oswald’s father, who had served in the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and had some influence, requested that Oswald be buried with his brother John at Nery Communal Cemetery. The following month the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) informed Lord Cawley that his request was impossible at that time. After an exchange of letters, it was discovered that the reburial was prevented by expense and logistics rather than policy. Lord Cawley then attempted to buy the land where Oswald was buried but could not do so because of French government policy. In August 1919, Oswald’s grave was moved to Chocques Military Cemetery. Again in December 1919, Lord Cawley attempted to persuade the Imperial War Graves Commission to bury his sons together. This could not be done at the time due to the interpretation of French policy but the Imperial War Graves Commission said it would reconsider in the future. This reconsideration took place in March 1920 and in August 1920 Oswald was reburied next to his brother John at Nery Communal Cemetery.

In memory of his three sons, Frederick Cawley, 1st Baron Cawley endowed a ward (Cawley Ward) at Ancoats Hospital in Ancoats, north of Manchester, England. All three brothers are commemorated on the Parliamentary War Memorial in Westminster Hall in the Houses of Parliament. Oswald and Harold are among the 22 Members of Parliament who died during World War I and John is included on the memorial as the son of a Member of Parliament.

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Timeline: August 1, 1918 – August 31, 1918

• August 5 – Czechoslovak People’s Army of Komuch takes Kazan from the Bolsheviks and captures the Imperial Russian gold reserve
• August 8 – November 11 – Hundred Days Offensive in Amiens, France to Mons, Belgium , last offensive on Western Front
• August 8 – 12 – Battle of Amiens in Amiens, France, first phase of the Hundred Days Offensive
• August 9 – 12 – Battle of Montdidier, east of Amiens, Picardy, France
• August 13 – September 3 – Battle of San Matteo in Punta San Matteo, Italy
• August 17 – 29 – Second Battle of Noyon in Noyon, France, a phase of the Hundred Days Offensive
• August 21 – September 3 – Second Battle of the Somme along the Somme River in France, a phase of the Hundred Days Offensive
• August 21 – 22 – Third Battle of Albert, opening phase of the Second Battle of the Somme
• August 21 – September 3 – Second Battle of Bapaume, a phase of the Second Battle of the Somme
• August 26 – September 3 – Fourth Battle of Arras in Arras France, a phase of the Second Battle of the Somme
• August 26 – 30 – Fourth Battle of the Scarpe in Monchy-le-Preux, France, a phase of the Fourth Battle of Arras
• August 26 – September 14 – Battle of Baku in Baku, Azerbaijan, last Turkish offensive of the war
• August 30 – 31 – Battle of Lioma in Lioma, Portuguese East Africa (present-day Mozambique)
• August 31 – September 3 – Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin in Mont Saint-Quentin, near Péronne, Picardy, France , a phase of the Second Battle of the Somme

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A Note About German Titles

Many German royals and nobles died in World War I. The German Empire consisted of 27 constituent states, most of them ruled by royal families. Scroll down to German Empire here to see what constituent states made up the German Empire.  The constituent states retained their own governments, but had limited sovereignty. Some had their own armies, but the military forces of the smaller ones were put under Prussian control. In wartime, armies of all the constituent states would be controlled by the Prussian Army and the combined forces were known as the Imperial German Army.  German titles may be used in Royals Who Died In Action below. Refer to Unofficial Royalty: Glossary of German Noble and Royal Titles.

24 British peers were also killed in World War I and they will be included in the list of those who died in action. In addition, more than 100 sons of peers also lost their lives, and those that can be verified will also be included.

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August 1918 – Royals/Nobles/Peers/Sons of Peers Who Died In Action

The list is in chronological order and does contain some who would be considered noble instead of royal. The links in the last bullet for each person is that person’s genealogical information from Leo’s Genealogics Website or to The Peerage website If a person has a Wikipedia page or a website page with biographical information, their name will be linked to that page.

Johannes, Graf von Preysing-Lichtenegg-Moos

• son of Johann, Graf von Preysing-Lichtenegg-Moos and Christiane, Gräfin von Arco-Zinneberg
• born June 30, 1889 in Moos, Bavaria
• killed in action August 11, 1918 in Hallu, France during the Second Battle of the Somme, age 29
• http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00173463&tree=LEO

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Captain The Honorable Oswald Cawley (see above)

• son of Frederick Cawley, 1st Baron Cawley and Elizabeth Smith
• born October 7, 1882
• Captain in the Shropshire Yeomanry and Member of Parliament
• killed in action August 22, 1918 in Merville, France , age 35
• buried in Néry Communal Cemetery in Nery, Departement de l’Oise, Picardie, France
• two of his four brothers also were killed in action: John Cawley on September 1, 1914 and Harold Cawley on September 24, 1915
• http://www.thepeerage.com/p21216.htm#i212156

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Lieutenant Colonel Lord Alfred Eden Browne

• son of Henry Ulick Browne, 5th Marquess of Sligo and Catherine Henrietta Dicken
• born November 30, 1878
• married 1908 Cicely Wormald, who died August 16, 1918, 11 days before the death of her husband, had four children, their eldest son Denis Edward Browne was the 10th Marquess of Sligo
• Lieutenant-Colonel and commander of the 186th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
• killed in action when in command of his brigade near Vis-en-Artois, France while supporting a Canadian attack August 27, 1918, age 39
• buried at Dainville British Cemetery in Dainville, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France
• http://thepeerage.com/p3476.htm#i34759

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Friedrich Johannes, Graf von Brühl

• son of Johannes Mauritius, Graf von Brühl and Paula, Gräfin von Spee
• born April 16, 1891 in Potsdam, Prussia
• killed in action in Laon, France August 31, 1918, age 27
• http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00103552&tree=LEO

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