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Cpl. Robert Morris
British Army 2nd Btn. Border Regiment
from:Kendal, Westmorland
(d.12th January 1915)
Robert Morris 2nd Border Regiment, son of the late John and Alice Morris, of Kendal, Westmorland, died on Tuesday 12th of January 1915 Age 27. He is remembered on the Ploegsteert Memorial. He was near a machine gun in the trenches and an enemy sniper fired at the loophole of the gun. The bullet struck the ironwork, glanced inside the shield and hit him on the head, killing him instantly.
Excerpt from "The Border Regiment in The Great War" by H. C. Wylly: 2nd Battalion, 1915
The truce which had been mutually and unofficially established during Christmas 1914 between the British and the Germans endured, so far as concerned any operations on the front of the 2nd Battalion The Border Regiment, until the end of the first week of the New Year and then on the 8th January the troops fired volleys over the German trenches to indicate that fighting was about to recommence, while this somewhat broad hint was accompanied by a message to the same effect which was sent across. The usual sniping then recommenced, and both the Gordon Highlanders and The Border Regiment suffered some few casualties before the men could understand that it was no longer safe to walk about "on the top". The weather continued to be deplorably wet and it was impossible to hold the whole line of trenches owing to the depth of water. Pivot posts were held at selected points in the trenches, the intervals occupied by retrenched posts at the back of the parados, manned only at night. Trench inspection was difficult, water in places being waist deep, while parapets were constantly falling in. Later in the month there was a frost and a fall of snow, but it thawed and it was wet and miserable. Gum boots were issued to the men on sentry and proved a great preventive of frost-bite. The german snipers continued busy, and the casualties in the Battalion, though few in number, were usually fatal, the men being for the most part hit in the head, for in those early days trench helmets were not yet issued.
On 7th February the Colonel went round the trenches, finding the water as deep as ever.
In his despatch of the 5th April the Field-Marshal commanding the British Army in France believed that a vigorous offensive should be made, the object being to attack and capture German positions of the village of Neuve Chapelle. The 2nd Battalion The Border Regiment was very actively engaged in this.
