A VERY RARE & TOTALLY COMPLETE
“MILITARY MOUNTED POLICE” (MPC)
1914-15 Trio
& LONG SERVICE & GOOD CONDUCT MEDAL ,

With SERBIAN GOLD MEDAL FOR BRAVERY,

PLAQUE, SCROLL, TUBE & M.I.D. CERTIFICATE.

To:
493. Sgt Major / WO Cl 1. P.R. CALAS.
(Philip Calas sadly committed suicide by gunshot on 27th December 1918)

[THE MEDALS ETC]
This is one of the most unusual, rarely complete and interesting of casualty groups.
The grouping comprises:









1914-1915 Trio
and Long Service Good Conduct Medal (George V)
Serbian Gold Medal for Bravery.
Death Plaque with card case & Royal condolence letter.

Commemorative Scroll & Original Postal Tube.
(With the unusual mention of his LSGC !)



Sent by MPC at Aldershot to his father:

Mr I.J. CALAS
43, BARRETTS GROVE,
STOKE NEWINGTON.

[BIOGRAPHY]
Philip Calas was from Hoxton, Stoke Newington, London and was born in 1876. He enlisted into the army (MMP) at Bristol prior to 1901. He is seen in 1911 at age 22 serving at the Royal Artillery barracks at Woolwich as a Bombardier with the riding establishment.
In 1911 he’s recorded on the census as being 32 and serving with the Military Mounted Police in Egypt.

At the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 he’s still serving in the Corps of Military Police (Mounted Branch) and on 6th November 1914 his medal index card confirms a departure for (Theatre 3) Balkans. He was then 38.

Details of the service of the military police in the Balkans are scarce but it’s assumed that their role was similar to that in which they were employed in France. The MP’s saw to the overall retention of legal order in the regiments and with the reunification of lost and misplaced troops with their parent units after they had become lost or disorientated after battle. They were also charged with identifying and retaining deserters and with the apprehension of those who were AWOL.

[THE SERBIAN “GOLD” MEDAL FOR BRAVERY]
This decoration is awarded by the Serbian government for great personal bravery in action by the recipient and is a greatly revered award in the Balkans. It is very rarely encountered in groups to British servicemen.

[SUICIDE on 27th DECEMBER 1914]
It’s a very sad fact that Philip Calas committed suicide on 27th December 1918 as the army records confirm that he died of Self Inflicted Wounds, which were almost certainly caused by a single gunshot.
Quite why he did this will probably remain a mystery, but if anyone knows any further details about the life of this clearly gallant but troubled man we would be pleased to have them.

Being a single man and having served & certainly also fought for four years entirely in the Balkans theatre of the war in Eastern Europe he had probably never enjoyed a period of home leave. He is also recorded as having broken his right collar bone on 26th April 1918, (probably fell from his horse and put his arm out to break his fall) , so he had clearly had some degree of pain and discomfort. One can only try to imagine the cumulative stresses which were placed upon these gallant men when there was none of the modern medical acceptance of conditions like PTS. The fact that his moment of crisis came shortly after the Armistice of 11th November and then just two days after Christmas 1918 surely cannot be just coincidence and maybe indicates some type of culmination of a requirement for personal release from the horrors of the war.

There is also a very strong possibility that having survived all the war had flung at him, that he had become seriously ill due to the Spanish Flu epidemic which had swept the area from September 1918 and from which many hundreds had died. Having witnessed the difficult demise of some of his fellows he had perhaps decided that he didn’t want to die of this terrible illness.

He is buried and commemorated with eternal honour at:
KIRECHKOI-HORTAKOI CEMETERY, GREECE.

(Three quarters (497) of the 663 casualties buried here died of the Spanish Flu in late 1918.)












A Unique and Unusually Complete Group to a Gallant Mounted Military Police Officer.

£1650. With part-exchanges welcome.