Old Contemptibles

Remembering the 'Old Contemptibles.'

The spirit of the original British Expeditionary Force at the outset of World War I, which included XIV Brigade Royal Field Artillery from Colchester's Royal Artillery Barracks, is epitomised by their acceptance of the nickname the “Old Contemptibles.”

It is alleged that on the 19th August 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm II issued an order to General von Kluck, commander of the German First Army, which read: ‘It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your energies for the immediate present upon one single purpose, and that is, that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate the treacherous English and walk over General French’s contemptible little army." In translation from the German the word ’contemptible’ was used instead of the more accurate ‘contemptibly little’. But the soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force on being informed of this order, mainly through the popular press, were quite happy to be known as the ‘Contemptibles.'