With Kitchener to Khartoum, Roberts to Pretoria and Monash to Messines
The highly active life of Major Albert Cooke-Russell DCM
In June 1917, the inexperienced 3rd Australian Division was being committed to offensive operations for the first time on the Western Front as part of General Sir Herbert Plumer’s well-planned assault against Messines Ridge in Belgium. For many in the division, it was their first time in action, but for one man, the father figure of his battalion, he had in his youth fought under Major General Herbert Kitchener at Omdurman in 1898, fighting a completely different enemy in what must have seemed a lifetime ago. This man was 44-year-old, Major Albert Cooke-Russell DCM, the powerfully built second-in-command of the 36th Battalion AIF who as a former sergeant in the Scots Guards had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his bravery in the Sudan. He not only served in the Sudan, but also during the Second Anglo-Boer War with the Scots Guards and was one of the founding fathers of Physical Education in Australia.
Albert Russell, as he was known in the Scots Guards was a young 19-year-old Yorkshire packer when he attested into the regiment at Halifax on 14 March 1892 having already served with the 3rd Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment – he was described as being 5’ 7 ¼ inches tall, with brown hair, blue eyes and a fresh complexion. He joined ‘E’ Company of the 1st Battalion in Dublin and within twelve months was promoted to lance corporal. In September 1895, having attended a Physical Training Course he was hand-picked by Kitchener and transferred to the Egyptian Army as a Physical Training Instructor. In the Sudan, he served with the 13th Sudanese Battalion and took part in the operations against the forces of the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad and was present during the battle of Firket on 7 June 1896. In January 1898, he was promoted to sergeant ‘For gallantry in the Field’ on the recommendation of Kitchener. Soon after receiving his promotion, on 8 April he fought in the pitched battle at Atbara and during the battle of Omdurman on 2 September his gallant conduct was once again noticed, and he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
In April 1899, while home on leave, his DCM was presented to him on parade by the Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion at Chelsea Barracks. Interestingly, Sergeant George Hilton, Scots Guards who served with Russell in the Sudan was also awarded the DCM. Hilton was commissioned in 1900 and served on the western front as a major in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, twice being wounded – he retired as a Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force. In October 1899, Russell returned home to England and after a brief 16-day stay, he rejoined the 1st Battalion and sailed for South Africa as the Second Anglo-Boer War broke out.
Sergeant Albert Russell DCM c. 1904
In South Africa, Russell re-acquainted himself with old friends, having left the battalion as a lance corporal four years earlier – he was now a well-seasoned soldier on the African continent and holder of the coveted DCM. Having arrived in Cape Town, the battalion rapidly moved forward to join Lord Methuen’s force to relieve Kimberley which was then in a state of siege. On 23 November 1899, a little over a month since the battalion had embarked, they found themselves assaulting the Boer positions at Belmont where they suffered 10 men killed and 3 Officer’s and 34 other ranks wounded – fortunately Methuen’s advance to Kimberley was along the railway line which enabled the wounded to be quickly back-loaded to Cape Town. Belmont was soon followed by another frontal assault on the Modder River, the action at Magersfontein and ultimately the relief of Kimberley itself. Russell subsequently served in the operations in the Orange Free State and Transvaal and fought in the battles at Paardeberg, Driefontein, Diamond Hill and Belfast until the Boer capitals were secure, but the war was still far from over as a savage guerrilla war soon developed.
Sergeant Russell, however, was not to remain with the battalion, having been selected in July 1901 for special duty with the Queensland Defence Force as a quartermaster sergeant. He wasn’t the first Scots Guardsman to hold this post and clearly instruction was his forte as it was in Queensland that he made a name for himself among the permanent cadre staff of the Australian Military Forces. During his tenure in Queensland, he was also an active Freemason of the Lord Dufferin Lodge at Gympie. He returned to England in 1904 after an absence of four years and rejoined the 1st Battalion who were posted to Chelsea Barracks. In February 1905, he found time to get married to Miss Mary Ann Thorne before discharging from the regiment on 23 January 1906 after 13-years’ service of which only 5-years were spent on home service – quite unique in the regiment at the time for a non-commissioned officer.
Within months of Russell leaving the regiment and now styled as ‘Albert Cooke-Russell’ he arrived in Sydney with his wife to take up an appointment as the Physical Training Instructor to Sydney’s, Church of England Grammar School. He threw himself into his work and became active in the national effort to build a universal Cadet Force having been appointed a lieutenant in 1906 and honorary captain in 1908.
By 1914, the cadet movement was well developed and in March 1914 he was appointed a captain with the permanent Physical Training Instructional Staff. War with Germany broke out in August 1914 and Cooke-Russell became involved in the training of recruits for the newly formed 1st Division, Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and due to his essential home service and subsequent training of the 2nd Division, he missed the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.
Eventually, in April 1916 as the 3rd Division, AIF was being formed under the command of Major General John Monash, Cooke-Russell managed to be released from his instructional duties and was commissioned a captain in the newly raised 36th Battalion. He was appointed the officer commanding ‘B’ Company and within a month, his training and administrative talents were recognized, and he was promoted to major and appointed second-in-command of the battalion. Monash’s 3rd Division, embarked for England in May 1916 where it underwent extensive training in trench warfare and in July, Cooke-Russell found himself temporarily commanding the battalion. In November, he was attached to the 3rd Division Training Battalion, however, the 36th Battalion, the battalion that he had taken a leading role in raising and training crossed over to France, leaving him with the training battalion.
In April 1917, Cooke-Russell managed to get himself released from the Divisional Training Battalion and re-joined the 36th Battalion at their Billets at Pont Nieppe, near Armentieres, France and close to where the Scots Guards had fought during 1915. His first spell ‘in the line’ as it was known, was a four-day stint in the Le Touguet Sector in late May 1917 where the battalion suffered a few minor casualties due to shell fire. During the first week of June, Cooke-Russell threw himself into the detailed preparations for what was to become the highly successful offensive operations at Messines Ridge in June 1917 and where his battalion was to suffer 66 men killed, 318 wounded and 16 men missing. He temporarily commanded the battalion once more in July and August and was identified as being suitable for an intelligence officer’s appointment. In September, he squeezed in a few days ‘blighty’ leave and returned to France to command the battalion’s details camp while the battalion itself was serving up the line. In October, just days prior to the battalion taking part in the operations at Passchendaele he was medically evacuated to England as he was suffering from myalgia. Having served on the Western Front for seven months he was medically downgraded and returned to Australia where he was discharged from the AIF and reappointed to the Physical Training Instructional Staff having been granted the honorary rank of major in that branch in recognition of his services with the AIF.
Cooke-Russell leading his beloved 36th Battalion during the 1936 Sydney, Anzac Day parade
During the 1920s and 30s, Cooke-Russell was employed as a lecturer with the Teachers College at Newtown, Sydney and became well-known for his inspection tours of schools throughout the country and his tireless efforts in promoting physical training among the youth of the nation. In 1923, while touring Adelaide, a local newspaper paid tribute to him, that read in part,
‘Judged by his elastic step, erect bearing, and bounding vitality, Major A. Cooke-Russell, DCM, who is in Adelaide with the athletic team from the Sydney Teachers’ College, where he is a lecturer of physical training has tapped Ponce de Leon’s fountain of perpetual youth, for he owns 53 years yet has all the energy commonly ascribed to youth.’
Cooke-Russell himself, however, never forgot his ties with the Scots Guards and in a letter to the regiment in 1930 when introducing a teaching colleague who was visiting London, he recorded that ‘In my lectures I stress the fine system used in the Guards in teaching the youngsters and in training NCO’s’. In 1939, he represented the 3rd Division at the unveiling of the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial in France where he was presented to General Sir William Birdwood and to the King and Queen. Furthermore, in 1940, when aged 66-years and employed at the Supreme Court in Sydney he was interviewed by a journalist and credited his fitness to his time spent with the Scots Guards and the Egyptian Army as follows,
‘I’m far too young to stop work yet. I was trained in a hard school. Kept me fit all my life. Soldiers had to be fit in my young days. In Egypt we used to walk 20 miles and the daily rations only five dry biscuits. War under those conditions was a test of endurance. Today it is a test of nerves and brain.’
Major A. Cooke-Russell DCM meeting the Prince of Wales during his 1920 visit to Australia
Having led a full and fit life, Major Albert Cooke-Russell DCM died on 6 September 1957 having, in his words served under Kitchener to Khartoum, Roberts to Pretoria and Monash to Messines. Today the Australian War Memorial in Canberra are the proud custodians of his medals for service with both the Scots Guards and Australian Imperial Force.
References: Ancestry.com., Freemason Member Lists. Australian Military Forces Officers Lists 1908-14. National Archives., British Army Soldier Papers., Sergeant A. Russell. National Archives of Australia., B2455. A. Cooke-Russell. Maurice, F., The History of the Scots Guards. The Advertiser., 4 February 1930. Sydney Daily News., 17 February 1940. The Adelaide News., 31 August 1925. Photos; Australian War Memorial