Over the course of the war, 5.7 million men from the British Isles served in the forces and 705,000 died. Of these 71 are recorded on the Alderley Edge War Memorial, along with one member of the British Red Cross and a further 6 are remembered in the annual Remembrance Day service.
Every month Michael Scaife will produce articles for the St Philip and St James Church news sheet, with some notes about the war, the War Memorial and to remember those who died in that month 100 years ago.
Below is Michael's most recent article.
The summer of 1915 from late May to September was a relatively quiet time on the Western Front. Even so, the British Expeditionary Force in the trenches around the Ypres Salient suffered average losses of 300 men a day from sniping and shellfire. The 5th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, which included men from Alderley Edge, remained on this front throughout the summer and autumn of 1915.
Nor was there any significant change in the situation in Gallipoli. The Allied forces (British, Australian, New Zealand and French) were entrenched around their two bridgeheads at Cape Helles and ANZAC Cove and were unable to break through the opposing Turkish trenches. As on the Western Front, there was a steady stream of casualties from sniping and shellfire. Disease, particularly dysentery, was also a problem. On 12th July a fifth and final attempt was made to break out of the Helles bridgehead and capture the hill of Achi Baba. Two days of heavy fighting resulted in gaining 350 yards at a cost of 4,000 casualties. Altogether, between 1st June and 13th July British forces at Cape Helles suffered 17,000 casualties.
As we saw last month, men from Alderley Edge in the Manchester Regiment were in Gallipoli from early May. In August they were to be joined by men from the 4th and 7th Battalions of the Cheshire Regiment, who sailed in July from Devonport via Alexandria and landed in Gallipoli on 9th August. They were part of an operation to break the deadlock by securing a new bridgehead further north on the Gallipoli peninsula at Suvla Bay. Three men from Alderley Edge in the 7th Battalion were to die in Gallipoli later in the year and will be commemorated in the appropriate month. Undoubtedly there were others from the village who survived.
