page_title: Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
section_title: Western Front
hierarchical_section_title: Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry / First World War (1914–18) / Western Front
caption_attribution_description: 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry fight the Prussian Guard at the Battle of Nonne Bosschen, 11 November 1914.
context_page_description: The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry was a light infantry regiment of the British Army that existed from 1881 until 1958, serving in the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II.
  The regiment was formed as a consequence of the 1881 Childers Reforms, a continuation of the Cardwell Reforms, by the amalgamation of the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 52nd Regiment of Foot, forming the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry on 1 July 1881. In 1908, as part of the Haldane Reforms, the regiment's title was altered to become the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, commonly shortened to the Ox and Bucks.
  After service in many conflicts and wars, the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry was, in 1948, reduced to a single Regular Army battalion and on 7 November 1958, following Duncan Sandys' 1957 Defence White Paper, it was renamed the 1st Green Jackets, forming part of the Green Jackets Brigade.
context_section_description: In August 1914, the 2nd Ox and Bucks arrived on the Western Front, as part of the 5th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Division, I Corps – the 2nd Division was one of the first divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to arrive in France. The battalion took part in the first British battle of the war, at Mons, where the British defeated the German forces that they had encountered on 23 August. A combination of German numerical advantage and the French fifth Army's retreat led to the battalion subsequently taking part in the 220-mile retreat, in exceptionally hot weather, that began the following day, not stopping until just on the outskirts of Paris, then halting the German advance at the First Battle of the Marne (5–9 September). The 2nd Ox and Bucks later took part in all the subsidiary battles of the First Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November) that saw the heart ripped out of the old Regular Army, with 54,000 casualties being sustained. In the First Battle of Ypres the 2nd Ox and Bucks first engagement with the enemy was on 20 October in an attack on the Passchendaele ridge. The battalion had heavy casualties: four officers killed and five wounded and 143 other ranks killed or wounded. On 31 October the Germans launched a large scale attack against Lieutenant-General Sir Douglas Haig's I Corps in the area of Ypres which commenced with a heavy bombardment followed by a mass infantry attack; two companies of the 2nd Ox and Bucks took part in the defence and subsequent counter-attack which forced the enemy back to their front line. On 11 November the Germans made another attempt to capture Ypres, sending—on the orders of the German Kaiser—the élite Prussian Guard against the British forces. The 2nd Battalion counter-attacked them at Nonne Bosschen wood, preventing their advance and then routing them; almost one hundred years after the 52nd had defeated Napoleon's Imperial Guard at Waterloo. First Ypres was the last major battle of 1914. The 2nd Ox and Bucks sustained 632 casualties during the first five months of the war and by 1915 it was a very different battalion from that which had arrived on the Western Front at the start of the war.
  In 1915 trench warfare commenced with both sides developing impregnable defences; leading to high casualties in return for minimal gains. At the Battle of Festubert (9–16 May) – which was launched in support of the French attack south of Vimy Ridge and included the first British night action of the war  – the 2nd Ox and Bucks were part of the second wave of the 5th Brigade attack and, during the course of the battle, suffered just under 400 casualties: the largest number the regiment had sustained in a single battle since the Siege of Badajoz over 100 years earlier. The 2nd Ox and Bucks were involved in heavy fighting at Richebourg l'Avoue on 15–16 May. The 2nd Ox and Bucks and other battalions of the regiment also saw action at the Battle of Loos (25 September – 8 October): 2nd Ox and Bucks took part in the subsidiary attack at Givenchy with 263 casualties on 25 September. The Ox and Bucks 5th (Service) Battalion went into the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915 at a strength of 17 officers and 767 men and only two officers and 180 men survived the battle. The 2nd Battalion took part in the subsequent attack against the Hohenzollern Redoubt (13–19 October). Following the battle of Loos few pre-1914 2nd Ox and Bucks officers remained, they had either become casualties or promoted to take up positions in other battalions. The gallantry awards made to members of the battalion for bravery during the battle of Loos included the award of the Distinguished Conduct Medals to CSM Fred Clare and to Acting Corporal Horace Duester.
  In January 1916, the 2nd Ox and Bucks were at Cottes St. Hilaire; the 2nd Division was at that time taking its turn in the corps reserve. The battalion later moved to Bethune and then returned to the Festubert trenches. Lieutenant Colonel Richard Crosse took over command of the 2nd Ox and Bucks on 8 July 1916 and was to lead the battalion for the next three years. T
caption: 2nd Ox and Bucks defeating the Prussian Guard at Nonne Bosschen. Painting by William Barnes Wollen (1857–1936)
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