History of the Second Battalion Coldstream Guards

The origins of the Second Battalion can be traced back to 1684, in Nathan Books' Army list of that year, he mentioned that there were more than one battalion. He gives an account of a review by King Charles II of his troops on Putney Heath on the Ist of October of that year. He lists the troops there which include a "Battalion of the Coldstream Guards, commanded by Lt Col Edward Sackville:" This Battalion was not a permanent established unit. As was the practice of the time, battalions were formed from the parent regiment for training, administration or some given task. At that time the Regiment consisted off thirteen companies, one of which consisted of grenadiers. Of a Regiment that was 907 strong, there were only 530 men on Putney Heath that day. Therefore, probably only seven companies out of the thirteen were there.

The next mention of a second battalion was on the 6th March 1689. The glorious Revolution of 1688 had put William of Orange on the throne in place of James II. William at the time was fighting a war against Louis XIV in the Low Countries. The addition of the British army provided him with valuable reinforcements. He thus ordered six battalions to Flanders. These include the two battalions of First Guards and the two battalions of Coldstream Guards. The Coldstream duly embarked for Flanders with a total of seventeen companies in two battalions, though this was reduced in May 1689 to fourteen companies in one battalion almost immediately. On I Ith of January 1690 a further seven companies were raised in England and were sent to Windsor as a battalion for home duty. This is the first time that a second battalion was formally established. This battalion was used as reinforcements for the First Battalion and, as was the custom of the time, as internal security troops keeping the peace.
Although the Second Battalion was established as a reserve Battalion, they were rarely billeted all together for any length of time. This was because there were few barracks as such, so troops were billeted with the local population. If the troops stayed too long in one town, they placed an intolerable burden on the people. To prevent this happening the battalion would march from. Town to town across the country as ordered by the government. It also had the effect of projecting the government's influence around the country.
For example, on 3 June 1691 the battalion was ordered to march to Portsmouth from London. Once there, they were split up with a company being sent to Bishops Waltham, two companies to Chichester and one to Midhurst. There they stayed until the IIth of November when, after a pause at Winchester, those four companies returned to London. The remaining three companies returned in January 1692. Whatever the situation at any one time there would be a detachment of Guards with the king, wherever he was, in England.
In general, for the next forty years the two battalions lost their separate identity. It was not until the I730's that a second battalion is mentioned. Composite battalions were formed from across the three Foot Guards regiments for service in Flanders. Germany, Spain and as marines with the fleet. They also found themselves heavily involved as police. On 19 May 1711 orders were received for "a lieutenant and 40 men of the First and Coldstream Guards to parade in Covent Garden to prevent any mischief that may happen at the playhouse:" The problem of trouble at the theatre recurs often in this period, due to the unpopularity of the monarchy.
Another time in January 1-2 & 3 guards were ordered of 100 men to be furnished at the theatres. These were designed to be aiding and assisting in the preservation of the peace, and preventing all manner of profaneness, rudeness, drunkenness. or indecencies, and not permit any person whatsoever to enter the said theatre in habits worn by the detainees

By May 1742 the Regiment had increased in size to eighteen companies and was split into two separate battalions ,of nine companies each. The First Battalion was sent to Flanders and: the Second remained in London, but sent reinforcements to the First as required. However, when the First Battalion returned to London in September 1745, the battalions retained their identities. The practice of sending the First Battalion overseas whilst the Second remained at home was the general rule, as it provided a rich reserve of reinforcements for the army overseas. Nevertheless. in the campaign in German in I760-I762 both Battalions took part.
In April 1793 lessons learnt in the American War of Independence had shown the need for skirmishers. This led to the addition of a Light company to each battalion. During the Napoleonic Wars between 1793 and 1815, the First Battalion served overseas in Flanders, Egypt, Malta and the Spanish Peninsula. The Second Battalion, however, fought in the most decisive battle of the whole war Waterloo.
It was here, as evey good Coldstreamer should know. that the Second Battalion, along with the light company of the Scots Guards, held Hougoumont Farm. The farm secured the Allied right flank and was crucial to Wellington's plan. The French attacked the farm all throuzh the day of 18 June with sixteen thousand troops, but failed to take it. The defence of the farm was commanded by Lt Col Macdonell, who along with Sgt Graham shared the honour of being "the bravest man in the army." They earned this title by shutting the north gates of Houqoumont when the French managed to break into the farm.
Wellington said afterwards that "the outcome of the Battle of Witerloo rested upon the closing of the gates at Hougoumont". Wellington also said, "No troops but the British could have held Hougoumont, and only the best of them at that".

;;The Second Battalion returned to London in 1818 and remained there on ceremonial and garrison duties until 1838. Then they were sent to Canada, along with the Second Battalion Grenadier Guards. Here they remained until 1842 as part of the garrison. It was here that the story of Jacob the Goose occurred. Jacob was a goose who befriended a sentry, and became his constant companion. One night when the private was on sentry duty, Jacob alerted the sentry as they were about to be attacked by the rebels. As a result of this Jacob was given a gorget to wear around his neck and was adopted into the Regiment. He returned to London with the Battalion as a mascot. When he died his head was stuffed and together with his gorget can been seen in the Guards Museum.
The two battalions continued on duty in London throughout the rest of the 19th Century. Only the First Battalion saw service in the Crimea. The next time the Second Battalion saw active service was in Egypt in 1882, where thec were part of the force who defeated the Arabi Pasha at
Tel el-Kebir.

In October 1899 the Boer Republics declared war on the British in South Africa. Both Battalions, along with the Third Battalion Grenadiers and First Battalion Scots, were sent out as part of the I st Guards Brigade. They reached Cape Town in November and from then on were heavily involved in the war until its successful conclusion in 1902.
During the period between the Boer War and the onset of the First World War, as a result of lessons learnt in South Africa, the Army underwent an important series of reforms. The Army ceased to wear red tunics in the field and its tactical training was improved on both the personal and collective level. Exercises and tactics became less wooden in concept and on exercise the troops lived under realistic field conditions. In addition, the Army in peacetime was now organised into the brigades and divisions in which they would fight in time of war and a General Staff was formed.
At a lower level. the standard of marksmanship had been highlightedas being very poor. It is sad to note that the Second Battalion at that time had the worst results in shooting in the Brigade!. In 1903 the new Commanding Officer, Lt Col F I Maxse, decided to rectify this state of affairs. He erected a miniature range within the barracks at Windsor.it was organised so that at any time of the day a Guardsman, without parading, could go to the range where he would find a rifle and ammunition ready for use and fire. So popular did this become that, by the following year, the Battalion became the best at marksmanship in the Army

. Finally, in 1913, the Battalion was reorganised from eight into four companies. As a result the army despatched to France in 1914 was probably the best trained arny that Britain has ever sent to war. At the onset of war in 1914, the Battalion was part of the 4th Guards Brigade which was part of the 2nd Division of the Expeditionary Force. War was declared on 4 August and the Second Battalion embarked for France on 12 August 1914. All three battalions of the Coldstream were taken for active service, with the First Battalion in Ist Guards Brigade and the Second and Third Battalions in 4th (Guards` Brigade.
Upon landing in France they all moved to the Belgian frontier. During this march the entire Regiment found itself all together at Oisy, the first time that the entire Regiment had been on active service together since March 1688. On 23 August the 2nd Division moved forward into Belgium. On the same day the British were forced to withdraw from Mons, due to the withdrawal of the French on their flanks. The retreat ended on the 5th of September, by which time the British had marched 170 miles in thirteen days reaching an area south of the River Marne east of Paris. The Army had proved itself superior to the Germans both in discipline and fighting ability. Its morale was intact and it was still a force to be reckoned with despite the casualties it had taken. The Regiment had played its part in full. The end of the Retreat marked the end of the initial German offensive. They had failed to destroy the British and French armies opposing them and they had failed to take Paris.
. On 28 September 1914 Lance Corporal F Dobson of the Second Battalion won the VC by going out under close range fire and bringing in two men who had been wounded while on patrol.
A month after the crossing of the Aisne the three Coldstream Battalions moved to the Flanders battlefield. The Second Battalion, as part of the 4th Guards Brigade, fought in the First Battle of Ypres enduring determined German assaults and terrible weather turning the infamous "Salient" into a quagmire. In the summer of 1915 the Guards Division was formed and the Battalion moved to Ist Guards Brigade. In July 1916 the Division left the Salient to take part in the great Allied offensive of the Somme. On the 15th September all three Battalions were in the front line of assault, the first and only time the Regiment has gone into action as a whole. The losses in the three Coldstseam Battalions amounted to 40 Officers and 1326 other ranks. The winter of 1916-17 was spent in trench warfare on the Somme and in the summer and autumn of 1917 the Regiment played a prominent part in the Battle of Passchendaele.
In November 1917 the Guards Division moved south from Flanders in readiness for the next Allied offensive. During the Battle of Cambrai the Second Battalion took part in the confused fighting around Gouzeaucourt which defeated a major German counter attack and saved a dangerous situation. The great German offensive of March 1918 saw the Guards Division now engaged in the area south-west of Arras. In April the Germans changed their axis of attack towards the channel Ports but it came up against the Third Battalion and 4th Guards Brigade who halted their advance at Halzebrouck in a heroic defence, where companies and platoons held their positions to the last man and the last round.
The final Allied offensive of 1918 involved the Second Battalion Coldstream Guards in some hard fighting against German rear guards and bv september had closed up to the Hindenburg Line and by October had reached the River Selle banks of the River Sambre near Maubeuge when the Armistice came into force. Regimental casualties amounted to 515 Officers, and 13.269 other ranks of which 167 officers and 3.352 other ranks were killed. The Second Battalion's last action was in the area of Villers Pol on the night of 5 November 1918. The Coldstream emerged from the war with the reputation enhanced and with its spirit and traditions fortified by the sense of a great task well performed. Returning to England in February 1919

. During the inter war years cuts in the defence budget meant that training was severely curtailed. There were times when platoons and weapons were represented on exercises with flags!. The Regiment was employed on several overseas expeditions. In 1927 the Second Battalion was sent to Shanghai after the British concession had been sacked by Nationalist Chinese. They arrived on 10 March 1927 and took up positions within the Concession to prevent its occupation by the Nationalists. By May the situation had calmed, despite attempts by the Chinese to persuade the British troops to kill their officers!. On 3 June the Battalion trooped the Colour on the Kings Birthday Parade at Shanghai Race Course. The remainder of the time passed uneventfully and the Battalion arrived backack in England on 21 March 1928.

The outbreak of war in 1939 found the Second Battalion in Aldershot as part of the Ist Guards Brigade. The Battalion was bv now organised with four rifle companies. Headquarters Company contained six specialist platoons, signals, anti-aircraft, mortar, Demolition pioneers, carrier and administrative. In September 1939 the Battalion moved to to France as part of the Brigade and occupied a defensive position just to the the west of the Belgium frontier. From then until the Spring was the period of the so-called "Phoney War".
On 10th May 1940 the German offensive arrived and the Battalion moved forward into Belgium and took up a position to the east of Brussels. On 17 May the Battalion received orders to withdraw and thus began a fortnight of moving back from position to position. Eventually they recieved orders to move to Dunkirk and take up a position as part of the rearguard to cover the evacuation.
The main bulk of the Army were evacuated. on the 1st of June orders were received to withdraw under the cover of darkness as the Germans failed to press home their attack. The Second Battalion as one of six last units to the beaches, but were back in England by 2 June. On return to England the Battalion began to concentrate at Walton, near Wakefield in Yorkshire. The Ist Guards Brigade moved to the Linconshire beaches to defend against the expected invasion. On 22 October the Brigade was withdrawn to form a mobile force in the rear. In February 1941 the Battalion moved to Scotland for combined training with the Navy at Loch Fyne. This was the first time that the Regiment had been quartered in Scotland since they had left Coldstream in 1660. The Battalion remained in Scotland, apart from a brief period of training, until November 1942 when they embarked at Glasgow for North Africa After a very unpleasant journey in a cramped troopship, they landed at Algiers on the 22nd of November. They were still part of the Ist Guards Brigade and after a short period in Algiers they moved east into Tunisia. From then until May 1943 they were heavily involved in the Tunsian campaigm Their first action was at Longstop Hill in December where, despite a valiant effort, they where unable to hold the hill once they had taken it. The Brigade were then used as "plumbers". They were held in reserve whenever a hole that appeared in the line. The worse of these was Rommel's offensive at Kasserine Pass on 14 February, where inexperienced American troops found themselves being attacked by Rommel's best divisions. The gap in the Allied line threatened the whole position in Tunisia and every unit was sent to plug the gap. The Battalion along with some Americans stopped the German advance at Sbeitla. The Brigade was then rushed to assist in stopping, the advance at Thala.
In that event the Germans never reached there and on 25th of February the Battalion at last moved by road towards its long promised rest. However. before they reached it, they were sent to plug another leak. This hole was in the hills near El Aroussa. The dominating position was at Steamroller Farm; this was taken by No 3 Company after a stiff fight on the 25th of February.
More operations of this sort continued until the end of March, when the Battalion was at last taken out of the line and given some rest. The Brigade now became part of 6th Armoured Division.
At the beginning of May they met up with units of 201st Guards Brigade at Medjez-el-Bab. These included the Third Battalion, who had fought across the Western Desert The final attack was launched on 6th May.
Resistance soon crumbled and the Germans surrendered on May the 14th.
From May 1943 to February 1944 the Battalion was employed on a variety of tasks. These varied from guarding the President of the United States, dealing with thousands of prisoners in Tunisia and obtaining the surrender of the islands of Pantellaria and the Lampedusa.
At the end of January 1944 the Battalion was ordered, still as part of Ist Guards Brigade, to prepare to move to Italy. The Battalion disembarked on the 5th of February at Naples and were ordered forward immediately to Monte Ornito where they fought a desperate twelve day: battle. The battle for Cassino followed this and then the advance up Italy continued steadily during the summer.
The Battalion moved along the valley of the River Tiber to Perugia and then to Arezzo. At Perugia they fought a major battle at Monte Pacciano, where No 4 Company and `S' Company distinguished themselves. There was a short halt at Arezzo, whilst preparations were made to assault the Gothic Line. The Germans, however, abandoned it before the assault could be made.
In December heavy snow made further advance impossible. The Battalion took it in turns with the Welsh Guards to serve in the Line.
In Februany 1945 the Battalion was relieved and was merged with the Third Battalion. The new Second Battalion four companies and two companies in reserve. The Second Battalion was now part of the 4th Guards Brigade and the Eighth Army and moved down into the planes of Lombardy.
The Advance continued that spring, until the end of the war in May found the Battalion on the banks of the River Po. The battalion had reached Gorizia some thirty miles north east of Triest by the time the German Army in Italy surrendered on 2 May 1945.
The Battalion remained in Trieste as a deterrent to Yugoslav aggression until returning to Wellington Barracks in September 1946.

In 1948 the Battalion was ordered to embark to Malaya. They arrived in Singapore on the 4th of October and began training for jungle warfare. The Battalion remained in Malaya for two years operating against bandits over a wide area of northern Malaya. The Battalion returned to England in September 1950. For the next two years it was engaged in ceremonial duties, including the funeral of the King. In November 1952 they moved to Krefeld in Germany for a tour of three years. They did however, send a contingent of 100 men back to London for the Coronation in 1953. They returned to Chelsea and although they were warned for operations in Suez in I956 they did not go, except for their transport which made it to o Malta before returning.

In June 1959 the Battalion embarked for Kenya arriving in Mombassa on the 1st of July. They were stationed in Gil Gil from where detachments spent time stationed in various parts of the middle east. In May 1960 an exercise took half the Battalion to Aden. In February 1961 it was the Battalions turn to provide the half-Battalion in Bahrain. In June, in response to threats made against Kuwait by Iraq the detachment moved to Kuwait where they were joined by 24 Brigade from England. They returned to Bahrain in July and then in September moved to Zanzibar in response to civil unrest there. The entire Battalion returned to England in March 1962, moving into Wellington Barracks.

The Battalion returned to Aden in October 1964. Here operations took place in the Radfan where insurgents often attacked camps using mortars, rocket-launchers and small-arms fire. Within Aden the Battalion had to enforce a curfew that had been ordered by the High Commissioner after he had suspended the constitution, and provide guards for the prison and patrol the city. In May 1965 No I Company was sent to Mauritius to assist the police as it was feared that unrest was about to occur. The Company stayed there until July.
By October 1965 the Battalion had returned from Aden, and moved into Elizabeth Barracks, Pirbright.
In March 1969 they moved to Munster in Germany to join 4th Guards Brigade. It was from here that the Battalion did its first tour in Northern Ireland, moving to Belfast on 27 July 1970 for four months. The Battalion returned to London in February 1972 to Chelsea Barracks but found itself back in Belfast in December 1972 for a further four months. 1974 saw the Battalion departing for Cyprus little knowing that it would shortly find itself as UN troops separating the warring Greek and Turkish communities during the civil war in Cyprus and the Turkish invasion which followed.
Returning to Windsor in 1974 it left for an eighteen month tour of Londonderry in August 1976 and returned to Chelsea Barracks in March 1978. December 1980 to Februay 1984 was spent as Mechanised Infantry in Fallingbostel as part of 7th Armoured Brigade and latterlv 22nd Armoured Brigade.
Another tour in Belfast was completed in 1982 from Germany. The Battalion returned to London in February 1984 completing another tour of in Ireland in 1986 before moving to Episkopi in Cyprus for a two year tour as garrison troops.

The last formal move for the Second Battalion Coldstream Guards was to Chelsea Barracks in February 1990 and its last operational tour took place in South Armagh where it spent from March until September 1991 having had its tour extended to seven months. In addition to these operational tours and moves, men from the Second Battalion Coldstream Guards have trained in a wide variety of places. some of which include Kenya, Cyprus, Canada, Belize, Bahrain and Spain. The Second Battalion Coldstream Guards was placed in "suspended animation" on 3Ist December 1993.

There was some consolation, in 1993, by decree, from the established 2nd Battalion, a new Company was raised, Number. Seven Company with the Royal assent to carry the Queens and Battalion Colours of their parent Battalion.
Thus No. 7 Coy are in residence at Chelsea Barracks as a London Battalion. This is not their only duty, for they are involved in all the other activities that a normal Battalion carries out, battle training, exercises, security duties both in the UK and abroad and leadership courses through out the world.
The original concept was to send young Guardsmen to Seven Company to undertake Public duties for a period before joining the Bt. in their defence role and this objective appears to be working, as well as maintaining the customs and traditions established by the outstanding Second Battalion.

Nulli Secundus
The Regimental Colours of the 2nd. Bt.
Laid up in Berwick The Holy Trinity & Saint Mary Parish Church

Next, 2nd. Bt. in Pictures

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