Before any says anything this refers to the first shot fired by a British soldier & not the first shot of the war itself. 22 August 1914 From Volume One of ''The Great War I Was There'' edited by Sir John Hammerton published 1938. I fired the first shot! An historic episode related for the first time by Sergeant E Thomas MM. click to enlarge [sharedmedia=gallery:images:26826] [sharedmedia=gallery:images:26825]
A very kind local man recently donated the three volume version of "The Great War I was there" to our local RBL. I went to collect them (never having heard of the book before) and was staggered at the weight of the volumes. They are still at my house and haven't made it to the Legion yet! I gather they were originally published as a series of articles and were later published in a collected version. There are three and four volume editions although both contain the same articles. Difficult to find good copies these days, and the best go for a good price. Some fascinating articles like Owen's one above.
Like it - I was just today reading Bredin's "A History of the Irish soldier" and noted this..Seemingly Hornby became the "first British Officer to draw blood with his sword".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Beck_Hornby Tom Bridges later became Governor of South Australia....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bridges I wonder if the Royal Dragoon Guards are doing anything today to commemorate the date. Nice bit here: http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/updates/casteau/
good day owen,super moderators.yesterday.06:35am.re:i fired the first shot! a great story.it is amazing they can work it out.as he said they fired millions of shots,there has always got to be a first.thanks for posting.regards bernard85
A bit more... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11048666/The-man-who-fired-Britain-into-battle-a-century-ago-today.html "Did the Great War start with a bullet speeding across a street in Sarajevo on June 28 1914? Or five weeks later, when the Kaiser’s troops marched into Belgium? For Britain, at least, the conflict did not really begin until more than a fortnight after that. And the command to fight did not arrive by telegram. Instead, a little after 6.30am 100 years ago today on August 22, according to one of the soldiers present, there was “a brief nod, and assent was given”. Major Tom Bridges, in command of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, could scarcely have known the significance of that nod. He was agreeing to a little skirmish, hoping to pick off a scouting party of German cavalry. A century on, however, Maj Bridges’s command marks the day the first British shot was fired. Today, exactly a century later, British troops will march through the village of Casteau, six miles north of Mons in a restaging of the day by the Great War Society. This time the men in German uniforms will be British, too, Standing beside the road with hundreds of villagers will be Ben Thomas, whose great-grandfather, Corporal Edward Thomas, fired that first shot. Beside him will be two grandsons of Captain Charles Hornby, who drew first blood that day with his sword. 'It was not a particularly heroic act,' says Thomas, 51. 'He was just a good shot and happened to be the first to get a round off. But it was the beginning of a major piece of our history' "
