Artists Rifles OTC - Royal Flying Corps, Hare Hall Camp, Gidea Park

Описание: The Artists Rifles OTC trained 10,256 officers from 1914 to 1918. Many went into the regular regiments, 936 officers went into service in the Royal Flying Corps. Hare Hall camp in Gidea Park Essex trained many artists including Paul Nash, Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, Alfred Leete and Noel Coward, to name just a few. Both Wilfred Owen and Edward Thomas would die on the battlefield.

The regiment itself has a grand history starting it's life on the 28th February 1860 as the 38th Middlesex (Artists) Rifle Volunteer Corps with its headquarters at Burlington House, London. When WW1 broke out NCO"s of the Artists Rifles were selected to be officers and sent to other regiments, known as "The First Fifty". Massively outnumbered, many of these men would die before the year ended, as they fought to stop the German advance. Their training was second to none but still the sheer number of the German military was no match. The Kaiser himself said that the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) was a "contemptible little army". While some saw this statement as a slur, it was in fact meant to be praise, as such a small army had managed to stop the German advance in it's tracks.