IN THE ABLAINCOURT SECTOR,
FEBRUARY, 1917.
German retreat foreshadowed.--The Battalion takes over the
Ablaincourt Sector.--Issues in the making.--Lieutenant Fry
mortally wounded.--The raid by German storm-troops on February 28.
--The raid explained.
Early in 1917 it became known to our intelligence service that the
enemy was contemplating retirement on a large scale from the Somme
battle-front. Reports from prisoners and aeroplane photographs of a
new line, famous afterwards as the Hindenburg line, running from west
of Cambrai to St. Quentin, left in doubt only the date and manner of
the withdrawal. To the latter question some answer was possible by
reference to our mentors or from a text-book appreciation of the
situation, though no one guessed until the movement had in reality
started with what circumstances the Germans would see fit to invest
it. The date was a more difficult problem. For its solution recourse
must be had by commanders, staff officers and experts to the infantry.
A competition open to all battalions holding the line (and without
other entrance fee) thereupon commenced. To whom should fall the
laurels of a correct diagnosis of the march-table of the German
rear-guards, who be the first to scatter them by the relentless
pursuit of our victorious arms?
To our higher staff the question whether the enemy was still manning
with normal garrisons the front opposite our armies seemed relatively
simple. Readers, however, with experience of trench warfare will
remember that in the line by day it was impossible to surmise
correctly one item of what was happening a hundred yards away in
hostile trenches; certainly one knew well enough when shells were
falling, and 'minnies,' rifle-grenades and snipers' bullets argued
that a pernicious, almost verminous, form of life was extant not far
away: but despite all this, stared a sentry never so vigilantly,
through his periscope he could hardly predict whether two, ten, or a
hundred of the enemy tribe were hidden below earth almost within a
stone's throw. At night it seemed probable that a patrol of a few
brave men could crawl right up to the German wire and listen, or by
setting foot in them enquire whether 'Fritz' was at home in his
trenches or no; and so our patrols could, and did. In practice,
however, our most active patrols were frequently deceived. Shots and
Verey lights, which came from several directions, might be discharged
by a solitary German, whose function it was to go the round of the
enemy posts and fire from each spasmodically in turn. A trench entered
and found empty might be a disused sap or bay habitually unoccupied.
To maintain the normal semblance of trench-warfare was an easy task
for the German, and one that he never failed in. Repeatedly in his
retirements during the war he removed his real forces, his artillery
and stores unbeknown to our watching infantry and their questioning
staff. The screen of a retreating enemy is not easily caught up and
pierced by an advanced guard not superior to it in strength and
inferior in mobility. On the Somme in 1917 and from the Lys salient in
1918 the Germans retired from wide to narrower divisional fronts
(giving themselves greater 'depth' in the process), which fact,
coupled with destruction of bridges and roads, prevented us from
forcing an issue with their main body on the move. There were
exceptions, as when the 32nd Division captured guns near Savy, but the
enemy, in retiring, played for safety and denied much opportunity to
our troops, despite their zeal in keeping touch, to deal him damage.
Such was the tactical situation when the 184th Infantry Brigade
relieved the French in the Ablaincourt sector. The Berks, who first
held the left subsector, had an uneventful tour. Trenches taken over
from the French were usually quiet at first owing to the different
methods employed by us and our allies in the conduct of
trench-warfare. Within a day or two of the relief the frost had
finally broken and the trenches everywhere started to fall in, making
the outlook in this respect ominous.
On the afternoon of February 23, we marched up to relieve the Berks.
Near Foucaucourt the cookers gave us tea. There also we changed into
gumboots. Guides met us at Estrées cross-roads, a trysting place
possible only when dusk had fallen, and the lugubrious procession
started along a tramway track among whose iron sleepers the men
floundered considerably, partly from their precaution of choosing
gumboots several sizes too large. On this occasion the usual stoppages
and checks were multiplied by a brisk artillery 'strafe' upon the
front, accompanied by all manner of coloured lights and rockets. The
noise soon dying down we were able to continue a bad journey with men
frequently becoming stuck and a few lost. The relief was not over
until nearly dawn, by when the last Berks had left and our worst
stragglers been collected.
The Battalion took over a three-company front. Brown with A Company
guarded the left. Robinson with C (containing a large proportion of a
recent draft now paying its first visit to the trenches) was in the
centre, and D Company on the right. Some 500 yards behind our front
lay the Ablaincourt Sucrerie, a dismal heap of polluted ruins, like
all sugar factories the site of desperate fighting. Ablaincourt
itself, a village freely mentioned in French dispatches during the
Somme battle, was the very symbol of depressing desolation. Péronne,
eight miles to the north-east, was out of view. Save for the low ridge
of Chaulnes, whence the German gunners watched, and the shattered
barn-roofs of Marchélepot--the former on our right, the latter
directly to our front--the scene was mud, always mud, stretching
appallingly to the horizon.
[Illustration: THE ABLAINCOURT SECTOR Trenches held by 2/4th OXFORD &
BUCKS Lt INFy. Drawn by G.K. Rose]
* * * * *
Students of music are familiar with the rival motifs that run through
operas. In an earlier paragraph I have indicated one such motif, and
if in this opera of war a curtain be lifted to shew the future act
which this motif dominates, you would see the German staff busy with
maps over its retreat, planning the time-table of explosion and
burning, and designating the several duties of fouling wells and
laying booby-traps.
Another scene, in which the rival motif is heard, shews a strong body
of ugly-looking Germans at practice over some shallow trenches some
distance behind their line. By a quaint coincidence these trenches are
a facsimile of those just taken over by the Battalion. The ugly
Germans are members of a 'travelling circus.' For long past they have
lived in the best billets and been receiving extra rations. They play
no part in the retreat--house-wrecking, the flooding of cellars, the
hacking through of young fruit trees and throwing over of sundials and
garden ornaments, much as they might enjoy it, is not their function.
They are a professional raiding party, with two successful raids at
Loos, one at Ypres and one near Hébuterne to their credit. Wherever
the English have just relieved the French they are sent for to perform.
They are accompanied by two 8-inch howitzers and several batteries of
5.9s and 4.2s belonging to the 'circus' and by a Minen-Werfer Abteilung.
Their raid upon the Oxfords is fixed for February 28, when the moon
will be a third full. The last aeroplane photograph admirably shews
the Sucrerie, communication trenches leading forward and the
whereabouts of all dug-outs. The pioneer detachment--whose thoughts
are turned only to the retreat, of which rumours have been
plentiful--must move from its comfortable dug-outs in the railway
embankment to make room for H.Q. of the raiding party.
* * * * *
The front held by the Battalion was tactically not satisfactory. Being
three on a front, with B Company placed nearly 1,000 yards in rear,
companies had to find their own supports, which, owing to absence of
other dug-out accommodation, were disposed in positions not only too
far back but inadequately covering those portions of the front which
they were engaged to defend. Moreover, practical means of
communication to and by these support platoons were likely to prove,
in event of need, negligible. They were, in fact, isolated in places
themselves not defensible and equally remote from company and
battalion commanders. This situation was bad enough as _point d'appui_
for an advance; to resist a counter-attack or raid it was deplorable.
Like many similar situations, it was due to the lack of habitable
trenches on the ground that should have been occupied and defended. It
could be no one's fault either high up or low down that the line was
held in this way, though perhaps had fewer men been allowed to crowd
into trenches and dug-outs in the forward line, casualties in killed
and prisoners might have been spared to the Battalion.
A few hours after the relief was complete orders came up for patrols
to go out to see if the enemy had or had not gone back yet. Our
artillery, which was not yet strongly represented behind this sector,
also began to fire at extreme ranges on the German back area east of
Marchélepot and Chaulnes. The enemy, on his part, sniped at and bombed
our patrols at night. The behaviour of his guns and aeroplanes by day
suggested no passive retreat in the near future. While BAB[4] code
messages, providing mingled toil and excitement, announced the
impending departure of the enemy and asserted the necessity for
keeping touch, aeroplanes flew a thousand feet overhead and directed
the fire of fresh batteries of 5.9s and 4.2s upon our trenches. No
doubt the Germans had stocks of ammunition they preferred to fire off
rather than cart backwards. Gas shelling became common for the first
time in the Battalion's experience. In the front line masks had often
to be worn. Headquarters also were gassed more than once and suffered
much inconvenience. This activity by the enemy was reasonably regarded
as his normal policy with which to impede our preparations for
advance, so that complaints of registration[5] coming from the front
line received no special attention from the authorities, who were
themselves tossed to and fro and kept quite occupied by the many
conflicting prophecies of the enemy's retreat.
[Footnote 4: A secret trench code, intended for use
in operations.]
[Footnote 5: Deliberate shelling to ascertain exact
range of targets for a future bombardment.]
On the morning of February 27 German howitzer batteries commenced some
heavy shelling on the Battalion sector, especially on the communication
trenches passing under the former French titles of B.C.4 and B.C.5.[6]
Working parties who were busy digging out mud from those trenches
were compelled to desist. At 10 o'clock I heard that Fry, the commander
of No. 16 Platoon, had been hit by shrapnel on his way from Company
H.Q. to the Sucrerie. To get him to the nearest shelter (C Company H.Q.)
was difficult through the mud, and uncomfortable enough with 5.9s
coming down close to the trench, but the men, as always, played up
splendidly to assist a comrade. Soon afterwards, the doctor, in answer
to a telephonic summons, appeared at my H.Q. On our way to reach Fry
we were both knocked down in the trench by a 4.2, which also wounded
Corporal Rockall in the shoulder-blade. I regret that Fry, though
safely moved from the trenches the same night, had received a mortal
wound. In him died a fine example of the platoon officer. He met his
wound in the course of a trivial duty which, had I guessed that he
would do it under heavy shelling, I should have forbidden him to
undertake. His type of bravery, though it wears no decorations, is
distinguished, more than all other, by the unwritten admiration of the
Infantry.
[Footnote 6: B.C.--_Boyau de communication_,
communication trench.]
During that night I had a peculiar and interesting task. It was to
report on the condition of all roads leading through our front line
across No-Man's-Land. Mud, battle and frost had so combined to
disguise all former roads and tracks, that to decide their whereabouts
it was often necessary to follow them forward from behind by means of
map and compass. Seen by pale moonlight, these derelict roads, in
places pitted with huge craters or flanked by shattered trees, wore a
mysterious charm. More eloquent of catastrophe than those thrown
down by gale or struck by lightning are trees which shells have hit
direct and sent, splintered, in headlong crash from the ranks of an
avenue. If wood and earth could speak, what tales the sunken roads of
France could find to tell!
Morning and afternoon of the next day, February 28, were fine and
ominously quiet. Excessive quietness was often no good sign.
Presentiments could have been justified. At 4.15 p.m. a strong barrage
of trench mortars and rifle grenades began to beat upon the front
line, accompanied by heavy artillery fire against communication and
support trenches and the back area. This sequel to the previous
registration clearly indicated some form of attack by the enemy. The
rhythmic pounding of the heavy howitzers, whose shells were arriving
with the regular persistency of a barrage table, suggested that a long
bombardment, probably until after dusk, was intended. Under such
circumstances it was the part of the Company Commander to 'stand to'
and await events with the utmost vigilance. This never meant that the
men should be ordered out into the trenches and the fire-steps manned,
for to do so would have invited heavy casualties and demoralised the
garrison before the opportunity for active resistance had arrived. To
keep look-out by sentries, to watch for any lifting in the barrage,
and to maintain communication with H.Q. and with the flanks were the
measures required. Otherwise, except to destroy maps and papers,
there was nothing to do but wait, for only in the most clumsily
organised shows did the other side know zero. On this occasion, at the
moment the German raiding party came over, a patrol consisting of
Corporal Coles and Timms had only just returned from D Company front
line. They said that though the shelling was heavy immediately behind
and on the flanks, the wire was intact and there was no sign of
attack. At dusk, therefore, there was nothing save the heavy shelling
to report to Cuthbert over my telephone, which by luck held until cut
by German wire-cutters.
Within a few minutes, shouts and a few rifle shots were heard, and the
next moment bombs were being thrown into my dug-out.
The lights went out and the interior became filled with fumes, groans,
and confusion.
A German raiding party had penetrated C Company, seized the front
line, which was a bare 80 yards from my H.Q., and, without touching my
own front (which indeed was 200 yards distant and to the flank), had
picketed my dug-out, and awaited their haul of prisoners.
Now, a bombed dug-out is the last word in 'unhealthiness.' It ranks
next to a rammed submarine or burning aeroplane. For several minutes I
awaited death or wounds with a degree of certainty no soldier ever
felt in an attack. But in such emergencies instinct, which, more than
the artificial training of the mind, asserts itself, arms human beings
with a natural cunning for which civilization provides no scope. Life
proverbially is not cheap to its owner.
That everyone inside was not killed instantly was due, no doubt,
both to the sloping character of the stairs, which made some bombs
explode before they reached the bottom, and to the small size of the
bombs themselves. A gas bomb finished the German side of the argument.
Hunt's useful knowledge of German commenced the answer. We 'surrendered.'
I went upstairs at once and saw three Germans almost at touching
distance. In place of a docile prisoner they received four revolver
shots, after which I left as soon as possible under a shower of bombs
and liquid fire. Shortly afterwards, but too late to follow me, Hunt
also came forth and found the enemy had vanished. Afterwards the
Sergeant Major and Uzzell, sanitary lance-corporal, who on this
occasion showed the genius of a field marshal, emerged and prevented
the return of our late visitors.
After an hour's struggle through mud and barrage I reached the two
platoons in Trench Roumains, who (I mention this as a good paradox of
trench discipline) were engaged in sock-changing and foot-rubbing
according to time table! From there the counter-attack described in
Sir Douglas Haig's dispatch of March 1st was carried out. I fear this
'counter-attack' was better in his telling than in the doing, for the
Germans had already decamped an hour before, taking with them
Lieutenant Guildford and some 20 prisoners from C Company, several
Lewis guns, and their own casualties.
Against a front line crowded with untried troops (I refer to the new
draft of which the platoons holding C Company front line were
principally composed) a well-planned raid powerfully pressed home
under a severe box barrage and assisted by gas and liquid fire, was
almost bound to succeed. The mud, strange trenches and weak artillery
support were other factors for which allowance might have been made
before such degree of blame was laid upon the Battalion as was seen
fit for it to receive. The only cure for being raided is to raid back.
That was happily done exactly two months later against the very
regiment to which the German raiding party on this occasion belonged.
Nor was it true that the enemy was not fought with. Some parties which
attacked Brown's front were, under the able example of that officer,
driven off with Lewis guns, and D Company, whose loss in prisoners was
nil, also maintained its front intact. Casualties were inflicted on
the enemy, but these mostly regained their own lines or were carried
back by stretcher parties. Our loss in killed that night amounted to
some twenty. The story of this raid I should not have allowed to reach
this length but for the fact that the affair created some stir at the
time, and correspondence raged on the subject till long afterwards.
Hunt, who was with me during the bombardment and the bombing of my
H.Q., was not captured on emerging from the dug-out, but himself, some
hour or more afterwards, while wandering among the blown-in trenches
in an effort to follow me, entered a German listening post and became
a prisoner. As a prisoner he was present at a German H.Q. when the
details of an exactly similar raid upon a neighbouring division were
being arranged; which raid proved for the enemy an equal success.
The aftermath of this fighting proved a trying experience. The dug-out
to which I returned to spend the remainder of the tour was a shambles.
The stairs were drenched with blood. Of my companions, Thompson, a
signaller, Timms, Smith (Hunt's servant, a fine lad) and Corporal
Coles--one of the bravest and most devoted N.C.O.'s the Battalion ever
had--were dead or died soon afterwards. Longford and Bugler Wright
were severely wounded. Longley and Short had escaped before the first
bombs exploded in the dug-out, but the remaining survivors, the
Sergeant-Major, Lance Corporal Rowbotham, Roberts and myself were all
partially gassed and hardly responsible for further action. Under
these circumstances the task of carrying-on involved a strain,
lessened, as always on such occasions, by management of everything for
the best by Battalion Headquarters.
On the night of March 2 the Battalion was relieved by the Berks, now
under the command of Colonel Beaman, and moved back about 2,000 yards
to some support trenches near Bovent Copse. From here companies were
employed ration-carrying to the front line and cleaning the trenches.
Considerable activity continued to be displayed by the German
artillery and aeroplanes, in each of which respect we lacked
superiority.
The enemy retreat appeared postponed or cancelled.