We Tell Their Stories: Casualties of the Hundred Days Offensive

This August marks 105 years since the start of the Hundred Days Offensive. Here, we tell some of the stories of those that fought and fell in this momentous campaign.

We Tell Their Stories

The Hundred Days Offensive

Image: British artillery crews manning their guns during the Battle of Amiens: the opening battle of the Hundred Days Offensive (© IWM CO 3007)

The Hundred Days Offensive is also known as the Advance to Victory. It lasted from 8th August 1918 and the Battle of Amiens to the Armistice on November 11th, 1918.

The campaign itself was numerous First World War Allied advances led by British Empire, French, Belgian and United States armies to push the Imperial German Army back to the battlefields of 1914.

Despite essentially breaking the Imperial German Army’s will to fight, and causing massive damage t the opposing armies, the Hundred Days Offensive was still a tough, bloody affair.

The Advance to Victory featured some of the most famous Allied victories of the war, such as the Battle of the St. Quentin Canal and the Battle of Amiens.

Casualties of the Hundred Days Offensive

Image: The cost of victory. Although the Hundred Days Offensive was a major military success, tens of thousands of Commonwealth soldiers lost their lives to achieve it (© IWM Q 10378)

Both sides suffered major casualties, despite some individual attacks and advances being relatively light in terms of losses for Great War assaults.

The forces of the British Empire involved in the Hundred Days Offensive are estimated to have taken 412,000 casualties. This number includes men killed, captured, missing, or wounded.

Casualties, including men killed, going missing, captured, or wounded, were major on both sides. 

Imperial German losses are estimated to have exceeded one million men, with over 100,000 killed, 686,000 wounded, and 386,000 taken prisoner.

Commonwealth War Graves commemorates some 91,000 or so men killed or went missing during the Advance to Victory.

Below is a small handful of stories of the men who fell during the Hundred Days Offensive. With your support, we can help keep telling them, so their sacrifice is never forgotten.

Private George Lawrence Price

Image: Private George Lawrence Price (Wikimedia Commons)

Canadian Private George Lawrence Price has the tragic distinction of being the last casualty of the British Empire to die in the First World War.

George was born in Falmouth, Nova Scotia on December 15th, 1892, the third child of parents James and Annie Price. 

After moving to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan as a young man, George was conscripted into the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) on October 15th, 1917. He joined A Company of the 28th Battalion (Northwest) of the CEF and was soon shipped to the battlefields of the Western Front.

Flash forward to November 1918. 

The Hundred Days Offensive has pushed the Imperial German back. Now the Canadian 6th Division is closing in on Mons, the town in Belgium where the British Expeditionary Force fought a heroic delaying action in August 1918 to stymie the German advance on Paris.

On the morning of November 11th, George’s battalion was tasked with advancing on Framieres, a village south of Mons, and onto Havre, to secure bridges across the Canal du Centre.

Starting at 4.00 am, the 28th Battalion advance rapidly and by 9.00 am had taken up positions along the canal in front of Ville-sur-Haine. While there, George and his comrades received word that the Armistice would bring an end to hostilities at 11.00 am.

Just two short hours and peace would fall over the Western Front.

However, George and fellow soldier Art Goodmurphy felt uneasy. Houses across the canal showed signs of German activity with holes in the masonry that suggested firing positions.

Art Goodmurphy’s post-war account suggests Art, George and three others volunteered to cross the canal to check out the houses on the other side and flush out any Germans they found.

Reaching the houses, the Canadians began to methodically search them one by one. A German machine gun was discovered in one dwelling, which soon opened fire on the patrol. Luckily, George and his comrades were shielded from enemy fire by the house’s brickwork.

The German machine gunners quickly pulled back. Before the Canadians could pursue, a Belgian family warned of snipers hiding in the village. George and his men moved on.

At 10.57 am, just two minutes before the Armistice came into effect, George was stuck in the chest by a sniper’s bullet as he stepped out into the streets of Ville-sur-Haine.

George was rushed into one of the houses and treated by a young Belgian nurse but unfortunately passed away at 10.58 am.

The Canadian advance on Mons garnered major controversy after the war. General Arthur Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps, and his staff had been informed at 6.30 am on the morning of the 11th that the Armistice would be signed later that day.
 
Many questioned the necessity of sending men into Mons if they knew a ceasefire was a few scant hours away. Unfortunately, George paid the ultimate price for this decision.

George Lawrence Price is buried at St. Symphorien Military Cemetery in Mons, Belgium.

Private George Edwin Ellison

Image: Private George Edwin Ellison (Wikimedia Commons)

The thin line between life and death in wartime often relies heavily on luck.

You can be the best trained, experienced, and equipped soldier in the world, but if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, you may find your luck has run out.

For Private George Edwin Ellison, his fortune, if such a word can be used, came to an end on November 11th, 1918. George is believed to be the last British soldier to be killed in the war, with his fate falling at the close of the Hundred Days Offensive much like George Price.

George Ellison was born in York, England on 10th August 1878. He later moved to Leeds as a young man.

George had served as a regular soldier of the British Army between 1902-1912 but was working as a coal miner on the outbreak of war in August 1914.

Recalled to service, George joined 5th Irish Lancers and saw service from the British Expeditionary Force’s opening salvoes of the war.

George fought in battles across the course of the war, including the Battle of Mons, the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of Loos, and the Battle of Cambrai.

Having fought in some of the war’s most monumental battles, George had managed to survive the killing fields of the Western Front. It’s all the more tragic he was killed on patrol at 9.30 am on the morning of November 11th in positions around Mons, Belgium.

In a strange quirk of fate, George is buried opposite John Parr, the first British death of the war, in St. Military Cemetery. He also is buried close to George Lawrence Price.

George Ellison was survived by his widow Hannah and five-year-old son James. Compounding the tragedy, Hannah was not informed of George’s death until December 1918, roughly a month after the fighting ended on the Western Front.

George’s brother, Frederick, had also been killed, falling in 1917.

Serjeant Samuel Forsyth VC

Image: Serjeant Samuel Forsyth VC (Wikimedia Commons)

Much like George Ellison, New Zealander Samuel Forsyth had an eventful war prior to losing his life in August 1918 during the Advance to Victory.

Joining up with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force as a sapper with New Zealand Engineers in 1914, Samuel was soon involved in the ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign. 

While in the Dardanelles, Samuel contracted jaundice and was sent to the Greek island of Lemnos to recover his health.

After recuperation, Samuel was posted to Etaples, France where he joined the New Zealand Division. With his fellow engineers, Samuel built roads and strong points necessary for advancement and defence. He quickly earned distinction for his service and by March 1917 had reached the rank of Corporal.

Samuel’s unit was involved in several important battles on the Western Front at this time, including the Battle of Messines and the infamous Battle of Passchendaele.

Come March 1918, the Imperial German Army launched the Spring Offensive: a massive assault on Allied positions across the Western Front designed on winning the war. 

Samuel and the Kiwi Sappers helped stall the offensive by building improvised defences and holding the line in vital sectors. The Germans never achieved their desired breakthrough.
 
By this time, Samuel had reached the rank of Serjeant, earning promotion in March 1918 after being recognised for his service.

Come August 1918, and the opening stages of the Hundred Days Offensive, Samuel had been attached to the 2nd Battalion of the Auckland Infantry. He was on probation for a commission which would have seen Samuel become an officer.

On 24th August, the Auckland Infantry formed part of the New Zealand assault force, targeting the village of Grévillers as part of the Second Battle of Bapaume. It was here Samuel would earn the Victoria Cross: Britain’s highest military honour.

The citation for Samuel’s Victoria Cross, as published in the 18 October Edition of the London Gazette, reads:

“For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty in attack. On nearing the objective, his company came under heavy machine-gun fire.

Through Serjt. Forsyth's dashing leadership and total disregard of danger, three machine-gun positions were rushed and the crews taken prisoner before they could inflict many casualties on our troops.

During subsequent advance, his company came under heavy fire from several machine guns, two of which he located by a daring reconnaissance. 

In his endeavour to gain support from a tank, he was wounded, but after having the wound bandaged, he again got in touch with the tank, which in the face of very heavy fire from machine guns and anti-tank guns, he endeavoured to lead with magnificent coolness to a favourable position. 

The tank, however, was put out of action. Serjt. Forsyth then organised the tank crew and several of his men into a section and led them to a position where the machine guns could be outflanked. 

Always under heavy fire, he directed them into positions which brought about a retirement of the enemy machine guns and enabled the advance to continue.

This gallant N.C.O. was at that moment killed by a sniper. From the commencement of the attack until the time of his death Serjt. Forsyth's courage and coolness, combined with great power of initiative proved an invaluable incentive to all who were with him and he undoubtedly saved many casualties among his comrades.”

Samuel is one of 70 Kiwi soldiers buried at Adanac Military Cemetery.

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