Beschreibung:

A Collection of Medals to the North Staffordshire Regiment ‘We do not dislike the Turk, he is a most gallant and brave fighter ... sometimes they bayonet all the wounded, and in one case a man had his tongue torn out, but on the whole, they seem to fight fair ... We were in the thick of it, and got into two lines of Turkish trenches, the Turkish dead simply plastered the ground - we buried all ours, but it is so dangerous trying to bury men under close fire ... Quite apart from our own killed and wounded - so many officers and men have missed death, or wounds, by so little, that it almost appears harder to hit a man than miss him. One subaltern was blown head over heels by a bomb and beyond a slight bruise has nothing to show for it - any number have bullet holes through their helmets and some through their clothes - I, one day, had the periscope I was holding over the fire trench, blown to bits in my hand, and cut deep into the tip of my nose, and there is still some glass still in it.’ Lieutenant-Colonel T. A. Andrus, C.O. of the 7th Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment, in a letter home from the Gallipoli peninsula on 2 August 1915. ‘I am so anxious to know, naturally, how the battle went after I was taken away - it was a most grim and bloody business, probably bloodier than anything yet in this war - our men and officers, as is usual, were heroic, and it was always on - on - on ... I do not think the censor will object to me saying that we made a new landing among other things and that after two days & two nights of continuous fighting and advancing, the whole of my Division took on the main Turkish position on a very high hill, and the fighting in this place was absolutely desperate and bloody on both sides - almost - in fact, all my personal friends were killed here - but on we went.’ Andrus in a letter home from No. 19 General Hospital, Alexandria on 15 August 1915. An outstanding and well-documented Great War Gallipoli operations C.M.G. group of nine awarded to Brigadier-General T. A. Andrus, North Staffordshire Regiment, a veteran of campaigns in the Sudan and on the North-West Frontier who, having raised the 7th Battalion, took it to Gallipoli, where he was severely wounded in the assault on Sari Bair in August 1915 He subsequently commanded the Battalion in the relief of Kut operations and held a Brigade Command in the ‘Tigris Corps’ at the capture of Kut and beyond - namely the fighting in the desert north of Bagdad in co-operation with the Russians and afterwards in the operations against the Turks in Persia as far as the Caspian Sea: he was thrice mentioned in despatches and awarded the 2nd Class of the Russian Order of St. Anne, with swords The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel; Queen’s Sudan 1896-98 (Lt. T. A. Andrus, 1/N. Staff. R.); India General Service 1895-1902, 1 clasp, Punjab Frontier 1897-98 (Lieutt. T. A. Andrus, 1st Bn. North Stafford. Regt.); 1914-15 Star (Lt. Col. T. A. Andrus, N. Staff. R.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Brig. Gen. T. A. Andrus); Defence Medal 1939-45; Russia, Order of St. Anne, 2nd Class badge with swords, 43 x 43mm., gold and enamel, stamp marks on eyelet and badge reverse indistinct, that on the reverse may possibly be Eduard, St. Petersburg, kokoshnik marks for 1908-17 on sword hilts; Khedive’s Sudan 1896-1908, no clasp (Lieut. T. A. Andrus, 1st North Stafford. Regt.), minor official correction to unit on the second, the first two with contact marks, the St. Anne with traces of repair to the inter-arm ornamentation, all onetime lacquered / silvered, otherwise generally very fine (9) £5000-6000 Footnote C.M.G. London Gazette 2 February 1916. Thomas Alchin Andrus was born in November 1872, the son of Thomas Alchin Andrus of Scadbury Manor, Southfleet, Kent, who was a Captain in the Militia. Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the North Staffordshire Regiment direct from the Militia in De