An unusual Diplomatic Service group of four awarded to Sir Edward Henry Goschen, 2nd Baronet...

An unusual Diplomatic Service group of four awarded to Sir Edward Henry Goschen, 2nd Baronet, who served in the Boer War with the 47th (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) Company, 13th (Irish) Imperial Yeomanry and was taken prisoner when the entire 13th Battalion was surrounded and captured en masse at Lindley on 31 May 1900 Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (14182 Tpr: E. H. Goschen, 47th Coy. 13th Impl: Yeo:) fitted with silver ribbon brooch; Italy, Kingdom, Order of the Crown, 4th Class breast badge with rosette, gold and enamels, blue enamel chipped in obverse centre; Ottoman Empire, Order of the Medjidie, 3rd Class neck badge, silver, gold and enamels, with full neck cravat; Egypt, Sultanate, Order of the Nile, 3rd Class neck badge, silver, silver-gilt and enamels, with full neck cravat, white enamel flaked on lower arm, the first toned, extremely fine, otherwise very fine or better (4) £600-£800 --- Edward Henry Goschen was born on 9 March 1876, the eldest son of the Right Honourable Sir William Goschen, who became the British Ambassador to Berlin, and was in that appointment on the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. Goschen was also the great-grandson of George Joachim Goschen, the famous publisher of Leipzig, and a grandson of William Henry Goschen, who founded the banking firm of Fruhling and Goschen in London in 1815. He was nephew of the first Viscount Goschen, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and a first cousin of Sir Harry Goschen, Baronet, of Goschens and Cunliffe. Edward Henry Goschen was educated at Eton, which he joined in 1889 as a member of Mr R. A. H. Mitchell’s House, where he acquired his lifelong love of cricket. He then followed his father into the Diplomatic Service, and in 1897 was appointed an honorary attaché to the Embassy in Saint Petersburg. However, when the Boer War in South Africa broke out, he then volunteered his services and attested for one year’s service as a Trooper (No. 22) with the Special Corps of Imperial Yeomanry on 7 February 1900, before his unit was retitled, and he then continued in the service as a Trooper (No. 14182) with the 47th Duke of Cambridge’s Own Company, a unit of the 13th Battalion of Imperial Yeomanry, bound for service in South Africa, and as such embarking on 17 February 1900. He was then present on operations in the Cape Colony, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal, being one of 140 men of his company present on operations. The Battalion to which the 47th Duke of Cambridge’s Own Company joined out in South Africa, the 13th Battalion, was, as one writer put it, ‘the Imperial Yeomanry dream’; Wyndham, the creator of the Yeomanry, had wanted it to represent the cream of British manhood and the ‘13th Battalion took his scheme to its ultimate extreme’. The 45th Company from Dublin had Masters of Foxhounds and the sons of much of Ireland’s legal establishment in its ranks. The 47th Company, as mentioned, came from some of England’s wealthiest families, and the 46th and 54th from Belfast represented Ulster Unionism’s commitment to the Imperial cause. The battalion’s officers included Lord Longford, Lord Ennismore, the Earl of Leitrim, James Craig, later Lord Craigavon, and Sir John Power of the Irish whiskey distilling family. Politics, money, patriotism and class, the combination was irresistible to the press and public, some of whom dubbed the battalion the ‘Millionaires’ Own’. On arrival in South Africa, the 47th Duke of Cambridge’s Own Company, well connected as well as well heeled, only spent a week in the unpleasant surroundings of the Imperial Yeomanry camp at Maitland. Admittedly their reward was weeks of training on the edge of the Karoo Desert north of Cape Town, but life there was eased by the arrival of the Dublin men to keep them company and of a spectacular array of food, drink and other luxuries which had been sent out from England. On 15 May the two companies arrived in Bloemfontein to meet the Ulstermen, who had come straight from Maitland, and just a week later the newly assembled battalion was given its first orders for active service. The 13th Battalion then joined General Colvile’s 9th Division, which was short of mounted troops, and as such the yeomanry was detailed to link up with Colvile at Ventersburg, south of Kroonstad. But, because they were delayed waiting for forage, they did not arrive in time, and Colvile had by then begun his march east to Lindley and then north to Heilbron, taking the right flank during Robert’s march on Johannesburg. The 13th Battalion Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Basil Spragge, was an experienced regular infantry officer, and he was then handed a telegram, the origins of which are still a mystery. The telegram essentially ordered Spragge to join Colvile at Lindley. Colvile later denied all knowledge of this telegram, and there is speculation that the Boers had tapped the telegraph lines and sent a bogus message to lure the yeomanry to destruction. It was still a risky deception, as Colvile himself was heading to Lindley with the 9th Division, and if he had done so, and then lingered long enough, the yeomanry would have caught up with him, providing much needed strength to the 9th Division. Colvile’s intelligence officer later confirmed that Colvile did not give this order, but despite the speculation it does not seem likely that the Boers did send the order, and more than likely it was just down to bad staff work at British headquarters who had issued the orders to Spragge, and failed to inform Colvile. Nevertheless it played right into the hands of the Boers. The 13th Battalion marched for Lindley at daybreak on 26 May, and that afternoon met a party of armed Boers who claimed to be going to Kroonstad to surrender, and Spragge naively disarmed them, invited them to lunch and then allowed them to go. The Boers promptly returned to Lindley with much valuable information. As Private Maurice Fitzgibbon of the Dublin company, son of one of Ireland’s most senior judges, recalled: ‘The scouts of the Boer commandos at Lindley had been permitted to enter our lines to find out our numbers, our armaments and the amount of our supplies, had even had lunch with us and all this information and hospitality at the expense of a few out-of-date rifles and a few perjured oaths.’ The Boers now knew of the yeomanry’s approach, but Colvile did not. When the yeomanry rode into Lindley the following afternoon, it quickly became apparent that all was not well. Colvile was gone, and no letter or message of any sort left, the town being ominously deserted and the people too frightened to give any information. Within an hour of the yeomanry’s arrival, the Boers opened fire from some of the houses, and the yeomanry were ordered to evacuate the town, which was commanded by hills and difficult to defend, and then retreat to where they had left their baggage some three miles to the west on the Kroonstad Road. After fighting a rear guard action they regrouped on the northern bank of the Valsh River. Spragge now made the most crucial decision of the entire Lindley affair. He could either make a run for it, or set up his defences and send for help. His decision to do the latter was later heavily criticised, but in reality Spragge could not have ordered a move that night, although there was a window of opportunity, albeit a brief and highly risky one, the following morning. By the time the entire Battalion had regrouped outside Lindley it was 5pm; the men were tired, and so were the horses, which had come 87 miles in three days. If Spragge had abandoned the b...