PRIVATE THOMAS JAMES REYNARD
SOUTH AFRICAN INFANTRY
18TH OCTOBER 1916 AGE 29
BURIED: WARLENCOURT BRITISH CEMETERY, FRANCE
'Amor patriae' means 'love of country,' however, the phrase has far greater associations than this straight translation indicates. It's a quote from Virgil: "Vincit amor patriae laudumque immensa cupido." Aeneid:823, and is an attempt to explain the very difficult decision Brutus took for the love of his fatherland. And the difficult decision? He had his two sons executed for treason. Brutus is always seen as the great Roman example of the man who loved his country above all else, even above his sons, but Virgil considers that he was also driven by an excessive lust for praise, "immensa cupido".
In this inscription, who was it who loved their fatherland, the land of their birth? Thomas James Reynard was born on the Isle of Wight in 1887 but baptised in South Africa the following year. He had lived in South Africa all his life. And his elder brother, Fred Henry Reynard, since he was about 6. Both Thomas and Fred served in A Company 1st Regiment South African Infantry, and both were killed on 18 October 1916 in an attack on the Butte de Warlencourt. Only Thomas has a grave and an inscription, Fred is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.
Love of the mother country, Britain, was strong throughout the Empire, even among the young. It would not have been at all unusual for Thomas and Fred to have felt they were fighting for her. But, love of the mother country must have been strong in their parents too. It was their father, Charles Reynard, who confirmed the inscription. Is it too fanciful to think that he is hinting that he blames himself for his sons' deaths, that his desire for reflected glory meant that he encouraged his sons to take part in the war that killed them. We'll never know.
John Buchan in his 'History of the South African Forces in France' describes how A Company, together with B and C, attacked at 3.40 am on the morning of 18 October. Conditions were atrocious, it was raining heavily and the ground was a quagmire. Of the 100 men of C Company, 69 became casualties but of A and B companies there was virtually no trace. The Kings Own Scottish Borderers later took the ground and in his memoir, 'Three Years With the 9th Division', Lt Colonel WD Croft wrote of coming across, "a large party of South Africans at full stretch with bayonets at the charge - all dead". By the 20 October the South Africans were back where they had started from. John Buchan summarised the situation, "So ended the tale of the South Africans' share in the most dismal of all the chapters of the Somme".