de Montmorency | Raymond Harvey Lodge Joseph | | Captain | He was killed in action, near Stormberg, February 23rd, 1900. He was the eldest son of Viscount Frankfort de Montmorency, KCB, and Rachel, his wife, daughter of Field Marshal Sir John Michel, KCB. Captain de Montmorency was born February 1867, and educated at Marlborough. He joined the Lincolnshire Regiment from the Royal Military College, September 1887, being promoted to a lieutenantcy in the 21st Lancers, November 1889, and becoming Captain August 1899. When a Lieutenant, he served in the Soudan campaign, 1898, and was present at the battle of Khartoum, being mentioned in despatches, LG, September 30th, 1898, was awarded the VC and the British medal and Khedive's medal with clasp. It was written of him "his early death cut short the career of one who possessed every quality of a partisan leader". He had raised a corps of scouts, over whom he had a remarkable influence. He knew no fear. His death is mentioned in the despatch from Paardeberg, February 28th, 1900, by Field Marshal Earl Roberts, where Captain de Montmorency is stated to have been "a very promising officer", Captain de Montmorency was buried in Molteno cemetery. His name is inscribed on a tablet placed in Marlborough College Chapel in memory of all Marlburians who fell in the war. From the VC Book: DE MONTMORENCY, THE HON RAYMOND HANNAY LODGE JOSEPH, Lieutenant, was born on 5 February1867, son of General Viscount Frankfort de Montmorencv. He entered the 21st Lancers in September 1887, and became Lieutenant in 1889, and Adjutant, 21st Lancers, in 1893. In 1898 at the Battle of Khartoum, he won the Victoria Cross, when serving in the Khartoum Expedition [London Gazette, 15 November 1898]: "The Honourable Raymond Hannay Lodge Joseph de Montmorency, Lieutenant, the 21st (Empress of India's) Lancers. At the Battle of Khartoum, on the 2nd September 1898, Lieutenant de Montmorency, after the charge of the 21st Lancers, returned to assist Second Lieutenant R G Grenfell, who was lying surrounded by a large body of Dervishes. Lieutenant de Montmorency drove the Dervishes off, and finding Lieutenant Grenfell dead, put the body on his horse, which then broke away. Captain Kenna and Corporal Swarbrick then came to his assistance and enabled him to rejoin the regiment, which had begun to open a heavy fire on the enemy". Mr Steevens, in ‘With Kitchener to Khartoum', says: "Lieutenant de Montmorency missed his troop sergeant, and rode back among the slashes to look for him. There he found the hacked body of Lieutenant Grenfell. He dismounted and put it upon his horse, not seeing in his haste that the life had drained out long since by a dozen channels. The horse bolted under the slackened muscles, and de Montmorency was left alone with his revolver and 3,000 screaming fiends. Captain Kenna and Corporal Swarbrick rode out, caught his horse and brought it back; the three answered the fire of the 3,000 at fifty yards, and got quietly back to their own line untouched". He served in the South African Campaign of 1899-1300. Sir A Conan Doyle (‘The Great Boer War', page 213) says: "Scouting and raiding expeditions, chiefly organized by Captain de Montmorency—whose early death cut short the career of one who possessed every quality of a partisan leader—broke the monotony of inaction". Sir A Conan Doyle is here describing the doings of General Gatacre's force between Stormberg and the final general advance. In 1899 he was promoted Captain. Sir A Conan Doyle later (page 356) describes his death, which occurred February 23, 1900: "During the long period which had elapsed since the repulse at Stormberg, General Gatacre had held his own at Sterkstroom, under orders not to attack the enemy, repulsing them easily upon the only occasion when they ventured to attack him. Now it was his turn also to profit by the success Lord Roberts had won. On 23 February he reoccupied Molteno, and on the same day sent out a force to reconnoitre the enemy's position at Stormberg. The incident is memorable as having been the cause of the death of Captain de Montmorency, one of the most promising of the younger officers of the British Army. He had formed a corps of scouts, consisting originally of four men, but soon expanding to seventy or eighty. At the head of these men he confirmed the reputation for desperate valour which he had won in the Soudan, and added to it proof of the enterprise and judgment which go to make a leader of light cavalry. In the course of the reconnaissance he ascended a small kopje, accompanied by three companions, Colonel Hoskier, a London volunteer soldier, Vice, a civilian, and Sergeant Howe. 'They are right on the top of us', he cried to his comrades, as he reached the summit, and dropped next instant with a bullet through his heart. Hoskier was shot in five places, and Vice was mortally wounded, only Howe escaping. The rest of the scouts, being farther back, were able to get cover and to keep up a fight until they were extricated by the remainder of the force. Altogether our loss was formidable rather in quality than in quantity, for not more than a dozen were hit, while the Boers suffered considerably from the fire of our guns … de Montmorency had established a remarkable influence over his rough followers. To the end of the war they could not speak of him without tears in their eyes. When I asked Sergeant Howe why his captain went almost alone up the hill, his answer was, 'Because the Captain knew no fear'. Byrne, his soldier servant (an Omdurman VC, like his master), galloped madly off next morning with a saddled horse to bring back his captain alive or dead, and had to be forcibly sized and restrained by our cavalry". The Reverend H B de Montmorency CB, writes: "A day or so before the Battle of Omdurman, Raymond de Montmorency's horse was wounded, or somehow put out of action for the tune being. In place of it, then, he rode a small white Arab polo pony, 'Baba', through the famous charge, and it was it that bolted when Grenfell's body was put on it. I think this adds slightly to the glory of de Montmorency's return into the Dervish hordes. After his death 'Baba' became the regimental pet of the 2Ist Lancers, under the care of Farrier Sergeant Pollock. When the regiment was afterwards stationed at the Marlborough Barracks, Dublin, I often saw the pony there, and have a photograph of it, in which the tribal (Arab) mark shows very clearly. 'Baba' was afterwards presented to Miss K de Montmorency and her sister, and drew them about in a phaeton. I do not know if it is still alive". Mr de Montmorency also wrote: "One of Raymond de Montmorency's men whom I came across on the Karroo, shortly after his death, told me he was not killed outright by the first Boer volley, but as he lay wounded kept on firing at the enemy for a minute or two till he died".
Source: Donner | 21st Lancers |