Major-General Sir Reginald John Pinney (2 August 1863 − 18 February 1943) was a British Army officer who served as a brigade and divisional commander on the Western Front during the First World War. While commanding a division at the Battle of Arras in 1917, he was immortalised as the "cheery old card" of Siegfried Sassoon's poem "The General".
Pinney served in South Africa during the Second Boer War with the Royal Fusiliers, into which he had been commissioned in 1884, and at the outbreak of the First World War was given command of an infantry brigade sent to reinforce the Western Front in November 1914. He led it in the early part of 1915, taking heavy losses at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. That September he was given command of the 35th Division, a New Army division of "bantam" soldiers, which first saw action the following year at the Battle of the Somme; after three months in action, he was exchanged with the commander of the 33rd Division. He commanded the 33rd at Arras in 1917, with mixed results, and through the German spring offensive in 1918, where the division helped stabilise the defensive line after the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps (CEP) was routed.
After the war, he retired to rural Dorset, where he served as a local justice of the peace, as High Sheriff for the county, and as a deputy lieutenant, before his death in 1943.
Early life and military career
Reginald John Pinney was born on 2 August 1863 in Clifton, Bristol, the eldest son of the Reverend John Pinney, vicar of Coleshill, Warwickshire, and his wife, Harriet. His paternal grandfather was Charles Pinney, a prominent merchant and former mayor of Bristol,Foot (2006) whilst his maternal grandfather, John Wingfield-Digby, was a previous vicar of Coleshill;Who Was Who an uncle, John Wingfield-Digby, would later be the Conservative MP for North Dorset."DIGBY, John Kenelm Digby Wingfield", in John and Harriet Pinney had five more children, four sons and a daughter, before Harriet's death in 1877. At least one of Reginald's brothers, John, also passed into the armed forces, joining the Central India Horse of the British Indian Army., p. 212. The regiment is given as "30th C. I. Horse", which may be referring to either the 38th Central India Horse or the 30th Lancers (Gordon's Horse). The Commonwealth War Graves Database has an entry for John's son, killed in action in 1917, who was serving attached to the 38th Central India Horse; this would seem to make it marginally more likely that his father was also in the 38th.
After four years at Winchester College, Pinney entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in 1882. He passed out of the college and was appointed to the Royal Fusiliers (formerly titled as the 7th Regiment of Foot), one of the oldest regiments in the British Army, as a lieutenant on 6 February 1884. Contemporaries at Sandhurst included Henry Rawlinson, later Pinney's commander in the Fourth Army, and Stanley Maude, who would later, like Pinney, command the 33rd Division, William Lambton, who would command the 4th Division for two years, Charles Kavanagh, a future division and corps commander, and Hugh Gregory Fitton and Godfrey Leicester Hibbert, both of whom would command a brigade, while Harry Triscott Brooking and Percy Cox would both join the British Indian Army, along with Francis William Towsey and Charles Delmé-Radcliffe, both future brigadiers. He spent five years with his regiment before attending the Staff College, Camberley, from 1889 to 1890; after leaving Camberley, he was promoted to captain in December 1891. From 1896 to 1901 he served on the staff as the deputy assistant adjutant-general (DAAG) at Quetta, in India, with a promotion to major in December 1898. He married Hester Head in 1900; the couple had three sons and three daughters.
Pinney saw active service in the Second Boer War, which began in October 1899, arriving in South Africa in November 1901 to become second-in-command of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (which had been there since the outbreak of the war in late 1899).Hart's Army List (1903), p. 235 He served with the battalion until the end of the war, which ended with the Peace of Vereeniging in June 1902.
Four months later he left Cape Town on the SS Salamis with other officers and men of the battalion, arriving at Southampton in late October, when the battalion was posted to Aldershot.
After his return he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and became commanding officer (CO) of the 4th Battalion of his regiment, with a brevet promotion to colonel in May 1906. He relinquished command of the battalion in May 1907 and then went on half-pay, receiving a promotion to full colonel that November. He later took up the position of assistant adjutant general (AAG) in Egypt in September 1909, taking over from Gerald Cuthbert.
He held this posting until July 1913 when he was transferred back to England to command a reserve unit, the Devon and Cornwall Brigade of the Wessex Division, a formation of the part time Territorial Force (TF).
First World War Brigade commander Following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of seven Regular Army divisions (six infantry and one cavalry) was mobilised for service in France.This force consisted of six infantry divisions and one cavalry division, plus supporting units. Edmonds (1922), pp. 30–31 At the same time, the TF was activated to replace them for home defence duties. The BEF represented almost all the Regular units stationed in the United Kingdom, but only about half the total strength of the Regular Army; the remainder was scattered in various stations around the British Empire, mainly in India and the Mediterranean. These units were withdrawn as quickly as they could be replaced by Indian or Territorial units, and formed into new divisions to reinforce the BEF.Edmonds (1925), pp. 3–8
The Wessex Division—now numbered as the 43rd—had been assigned for duty in India to free up Regular units there, with its staff and support units held back to form the framework of the new 8th Division, which was formed from returning Regular battalions.Edmonds (1925), pp. 7, 449n As a result, Pinney, promoted in August to the temporary rank of brigadier general, was relieved from command of his Territorial brigade in October and assigned as the first general officer commanding (GOC) of the newly formed 23rd Infantry Brigade,Date from the Army List (1919). Foot (2008) gives "August", but as the constituent battalions had not returned from overseas at that point, this may simply be the date on which he was informed he would be transferred. made up from three battalions that had been on garrison duty in Malta and one from Egypt. The four battalions of Pinney's 23rd Brigade were the 2nd Cameronians, 2nd Devonshires, 2nd Middlesex and 2nd West Yorkshires; all from Malta bar the Devonshires in Egypt.Peacetime stations for these units are given in Gould (1977), pp. 16, 17, 22, & 31. All were Regular units, with very few reservists, but, having spent a long period in colonial stations, they were considered as only partially trained compared to the units serving with the BEF.Edmonds (1925), pp. 449–450
The 8th Division, under the command of Major General Francis "Joey" Davies (who Pinney had been at the Staff College with over twenty years earlier), was sent to France in November; immediately after arrival, two battalions were deployed to hold a section of the front line for a week during the closing stages of the First Battle of Ypres.Edmonds (1925), pp. 422 & 459 However, the brigade did not see its first major action under Pinney's command until 10 March 1915, when it was committed to action as part of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. Pinney's 23rd Brigade met heavy resistance when it began its attack, due to a failure by the divisional artillery to bombard a large section of the defenders' trenches; the 2nd Middlesex, making a frontal assault, were wiped out almost completely. The other lead battalion of the brigade, the 2nd Cameronians, was enfiladed from the undamaged sector and took heavy losses, losing almost all its officers and retreating in confusion. Pinney quickly learned of this—he was only two hundred yards from the front line—and decided to continue the attack. As he was not able to call for artillery support, the only possible approach was to send in the two reserve battalions. The second assault suffered heavy casualties at the outset, and quickly had to be called off when it was discovered that the corps artillery was about to fire on the positions being attacked; the Devonshires and West Yorkshires were withdrawn, having taken high casualties and achieved little.Clark (1991), pp. 54–56 After this, the attack continued to bog down, and whilst there was some success elsewhere in the divisional sector, nothing more was achieved by the 23rd Brigade. Following Neuve Chapelle, the brigade was reinforced with two battalions of the TF, the 1st/6th Cameronians and the 1st/7th Middlesex. At the Battle of Aubers on 9 May, 23rd Brigade was held in reserve by 8th Division and so escaped the heavy casualties of the two attacking brigades.Clark (1991), pp. 115–120 Around noon a scratch force of all available infantry was pushed forward by the divisional commander to support these two brigades, including some units of Pinney's brigade.Clark (1991), p. 120, refers to "the 2nd Queen's ... and two Middlesex Regiment [battalions]". The Middlesex battalions are presumably the 1/7th (attached to 23rd Brigade) and 1/8th (attached to 25th Brigade); none of the 23rd's Regular battalions are mentioned. However, an image in the same book is captioned as showing casualties "of the 2nd Cameronians" outside the trenches at Aubers, and the Imperial War Museum collection includes three photographs (refs Q 51621, Q 51622, & Q 51623) by Lieutenant R.C. Money of the 2nd Cameronians being briefed for the attack on 7 May, and preparing for combat early on the morning of 9 May.
Divisional command
Pinney relinquished command of the brigade to Travers Clarke in late June, when he was promoted to major general "for distinguished service in the Field" and returned to England to become GOC of the newly formed 35th Division, a New Army volunteer division. The division was mainly drawn from industrial areas of Northern England, with a high proportion of "bantams", men who were under the normal regulation height of 5 ft 3 in (160 cm) for army service. Among the officers Pinney first encountered in the 35th was Captain Bernard Montgomery, recently posted as brigade major of the 104th Infantry Brigade, who would later serve under him as the general staff officer, grade 2 (GSO2) in the 33rd Division.
The division was transferred to France in early 1916, in preparation for the summer offensive of that year. It moved into the line in February, and Pinney ordered a series of small raids in company or battalion strength through the following months. The 35th was deployed for the Battle of the Somme, assigned to XIII Corps in Fourth Army. It was held in reserve during the Battle of Albert, the opening phases of the attack in early July, but fought in the Battle of Bazentin Ridge and the subsequent attacks on High Wood, where it took heavy casualties; in a week, one brigade lost a thousand men, a third of its strength. The division rested for a week in early August, but returned to the line almost immediately. At the end of the month, a badly planned and potentially suicidal attack on Falfemont Farm was cancelled by Pinney at the last minute when the "facts were pointed out" by Montgomery, and a new plan substituted; the attacking battalion took the farm with light casualties. Following this, it was withdrawn to a quiet sector of the line.