THE BATTLE OF THE LYS,
APRIL-MAY, 1918.
Effects of the German offensive.--The Battalion amalgamated with the
Bucks.--Entrainment for the Merville area.--A dramatic journey.--
The enemy break-through on the Lys.--The Battalion marches into
action.--The defence of Robecq.--Operations of April 12, 13, 14.
--The fight for Baquerolle Farm.--A troublesome flank.--Billeted
in St. Venant.--The lunatic asylum.--La Pierrière.--The Robecq
sector.
The closing phases of the war are so comparatively fresh and vividly
remembered that a less close description need be attempted of them
than of more early periods. I feel that justice cannot easily be done
to the events of last year, events which in dramatic force eclipsed
any since the Battle of the Marne. Of 1918, moreover, the facts have
not yet had time to drop into that relief which a historian prefers
before reducing them to chronicle. It is unlikely that, in years
hence, when the full history of the war is written, the German
offensive of 1918 will not be taken as the turning point in the great
conflict. For the second time since the invasion of Belgium and for
the first since conscription, readers of the _Times_ saw a black line
sagging across the map towards the English Channel. In France at the
end of March conditions meriting the popular description of 'wind up'
were recognisable. Bases were crowded to overflowing. Train services
were seriously deranged by the German approach to Amiens. The traffic
upon the main roads in the Somme valley was an eloquent intermingling
of troops, guns, and civilians evacuating as much of their property as
possible upon wagons and carts, which were piled high with children,
tables, utensils, bedsteads, farm implements, and always mattresses.
The shelling of Amiens Cathedral and the long gun which played on
Paris were signs of the destructive ascendancy of the enemy. Our
railways, which depended on a few junctions now placed none too far
behind the line, were attacked vigorously by the enemy in the hope of
their disorganisation. St. Pol station was shelled to ruins;
Hazebrouck, Chocques, and Doullens were nightly targets for German
bombs. Already at Tinques and Achiet the R.T.O.s had been killed. (We
had done the same and more to the Germans for two years). Our
railwaymen and engine drivers showed staunch devotion to duty and were
as much responsible as any branch of the service for keeping our
armies fighting during the critical months of the spring and early
summer.
To Avesne, a remote village behind Amiens, the 2/4th Oxfords were
withdrawn early in April for completion with new drafts and for
refitting. An amalgamation--which was a great advantage to both
units--of the Battalion with the Bucks now took place. As the 25th
Entrenching Battalion the Bucks had been engaged in the fighting round
Nesle, when they became attached to a Brigade of the 20th Division.
They were now most anxious to be sent to join us or at all events to
rejoin the 61st Division. Unable to obtain the orders they desired,
the Bucks availed themselves of the prevailing confusion to march away
'without authority' and were already at Avesne when the Oxfords
arrived.
The addition of some 300 N.C.O.s and men, with whom came such valued
officers as Clutsom, Buttfield, Kemp, Lodge, Boase, Kirk, and several
others, acted as an infusion of new blood and vigour into the
Battalion which had given nearly all of its best in the St. Quentin
fighting. As the senior officer now present, I was placed in command
of the Battalion after the amalgamation, for which no more suitable
surroundings could have been found than Avesne, whose château and
grounds we had to ourselves. On April 7, before the regimental tailors
had half finished substituting the red circles for the black ones
previously carried by the Bucks, a large draft of 431 men joined the
Battalion from England. Many of these were boys, but among them stood
a few veteran soldiers who had been out before and been wounded. With
this draft, which I believe was posted without the knowledge that the
Bucks had joined us, the Battalion reached the strength of over 1,000
men. It was a goodly force, unhampered by passengers. With Abraham,
Murray, and Regimental Sergeant-Major Hedley (from the Bucks) those
departments of the Battalion not purely tactical were sure to be well
managed. I felt quite confident in the command of this force of men,
and General Pagan, the new Brigadier, was kind enough to express his
confidence in my ability.
Our billets at Avesne--the entire Battalion was accommodated in the
buildings of a large château from which some army school had been
precipitated by the German advance--were too good for much hope to be
entertained of a long stay in them. The unified command from now
onwards brought more rapid moves than formerly had been the custom.
Thus at a few hours' notice 'billeting parties' were ordered, not back
towards Amiens, but to Merville and St. Venant. The 61st was to become
a Division in G.H.Q. reserve behind the old Laventie sector. But
before Battalions could follow their representatives and while the
billeting was still in progress the Germans attacked and broke through
on the Lys, south of Armentières. We marched, however, from Avesne on
April 11 in happy ignorance of this new battle. Not till Hangest, and
there by means of a Continental _Daily Mail_, was the changed prospect
of our destination revealed. The Hangest R.T.O. was half beside
himself with excitement and delay. There were several hours to spend
in waiting, and during this time the kits were retrieved from the
station yard and a prudent change was made from soft hats into
shrapnel helmets and fighting equipment. After a rapid entrainment we
at last pulled out at about 2 p.m. So strong was the Battalion that D
Company, which itself numbered over 200, was unable to travel with us
and had to follow by a later train. In its early stages the journey,
though similar to most of the kind, produced one formidable incident,
for at the top of the steep gradient between Candas and Doullens the
train snapped in half; its hind portion was left poised in a cutting
for an hour, until two locomotives arrived to push it on to Doullens,
whither the forward half, in gay ignorance, had run.
The night was overcast, a fact which doubtless saved us from the
attention of enemy aeroplanes. The journey from St. Pol through
Chocques and Lillers to Steenbecque is stamped on the memory by its
more than many halts, the occasional glare of mines and munition
factories which, in anticipation of another break-through, seemed to
be working at tensest pressure to evacuate coal and manufactured
stores from capture by the enemy; by the loud booming of artillery, to
which the train seemed to draw specially near at Chocques and
Isbergues; and the final sudden grinding of the brakes at Steenbecque,
distracted railwaymen, and the small hut in which Bennett and the
Brigade Staff were exhibiting a mixture of excitement, impatience and
a sort of reckless familiarity with this apparent repetition of the
Somme retreat. At Steenbecque station, which is three miles short of
Hazebrouck and hidden behind the Nieppe Forest, we received the latest
news of the battle into which we were being so dramatically plunged:
the enemy had broken through the feeble resistance of the Portuguese
and was outside Merville. My orders were to take up a line, which was
at present covered by the 51st Division, between Robecq and Calonne
and for that object to detrain and move forward immediately. The
station yard was ill-suited to a rapid detrainment, there being few
ramps or sidings, and despite the impatience of Bennett, a Divisional
Staff Officer, who was most anxious to get finished before dawn, we
were kept seated in the train for nearly two hours. This delay was
really most valuable, for it enabled me to appreciate the situation
and issue detailed orders, which otherwise it would never have been
possible to give.
As the dawn of April 12, 1918, was breaking, we set foot to the long
pavé road which runs through the Nieppe Forest to St. Venant, followed
by the transport and the cookers, from which at the cost of never so
much delay I felt determined to give the men, who had had no proper
meal for twenty-four hours, a good square feed before becoming
involved in the uncertain and possibly rationless conflict which lay
before us in country that was likely to have been looted by the
retreating Portuguese. Nevertheless, during this breakfast, taken at
the eastern edge of the great Forest of Nieppe, feverish messages
arrived, which said that the enemy was in Robecq and already crossing
the La Bassée Canal. This, of course, was not true, but troops who are
moving up towards an advancing enemy, though met by exaggerated and
conflicting reports of the hostile progress, are almost confined,
until actual encounter occurs, to this species of information. By now
Corps Headquarters, after a three years' sojourn at Hinges, had
commenced to scour the country west of Aire for a suitably remote
château. Except for Howitt there was no staff officer upon the spot,
and we found after passing St. Venant towards Robecq that it was every
man for himself in the task of stemming the German attack. Parts of
the Division, notably the 5th D.C.L.I. and the 2/6th Warwicks, which
had been detrained earlier than ourselves to join in the battle, had
been roughly handled in fighting south of Merville during the night of
April 11/12. The 51st Division was to all intents out of action, and
there was a gap of more than a mile between Robecq and Calonne on the
morning of April 12. Into, but not through, this gap German patrols
had penetrated, and at Carvin had crossed the streams Noc and
Clarence. As a matter of fact these enemy were but the flankers of an
advanced guard, whose objective at this time lay in the direction of
Haverskerque. Thus it befell that the Battalion came into no direct
conflict with the main enemy forces on April 12.
[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE MAP OF THE ROBECQ AREA]
Still the situation at 9 a.m. was both obscure and difficult. Until
their ammunition seemed to be expended, our artillery, which had
withdrawn behind the La Bassée Canal, kept up a fire upon the open
ground between Les Amusoires, where the Battalion was concentrating,
and the Calonne road, which it was necessary for us to cross.
Doubtless this untoward shelling was due to the reports spread by
stragglers, of whom there was a considerable number from different
units. Shortly after this occurrence I had the good fortune to meet a
gunner subaltern, and for the next few days, pending a reinforcement
of the artillery, what guns there were gave us excellent support. A
greater menace came from the long dumps of our shells north of Robecq
cemetery, to which some irresponsible person had set fire. An acre
of explosives was ablaze, barring progress across a wide area. Later a
fusillade of small-arms ammunition broke out near St. Venant station,
suggestive of fighting in our rear. There also it had been the final
errand of some dump-keeper, in a fancied performance of duty, to
destroy ammunition of which there was a crying need. Subsequently St.
Venant was quite heavily bombed by our own aircraft--an example of
what could happen during the time that our higher organisation was out
of gear.
The appearance of the Battalion, which could easily have passed for a
Brigade of Infantry as it issued, about 10 a.m., from among the trees
of Les Amusoires, may have been a moral factor in itself sufficient to
indispose the German outposts to remain longer upon the outskirts of
Robecq. From my former knowledge of the ground I decided to use no
delay in occupying the network of orchards and as many of the farms as
possible along the Calonne road before hostile opposition increased.
After sharp fighting and some 30 casualties, mostly in C Company,
which was on the left, a line was reached beyond Noc river, between
Robecq and Calonne. On the right we linked up with the Berks (who
placed their headquarters in the estaminet at Robecq cross-roads) and
on the left with the 2/7th Warwicks, whose line bent back at a right
angle across the Calonne road towards La Haye. During the afternoon
fighting for the possession of Baquerolle Farm and its adjacent
orchards engaged the Battalion's left flank. In this fighting Lodge, a
young officer to whom command of C Company had fallen in consequence
of a wound to Captain Buttfield, and also Boase much distinguished
themselves. To them and to the N.C.O.s of C Company, and also to the
conduct of the new draft, was owing the success of the day's
operations. By 3 p.m. not only had the Battalion accomplished the task
assigned to it twenty-four hours previously, when the extent of the
German advance was unknown, but ground was being made and the enemy
was being driven backward upon Calonne. Robecq was guaranteed.
All day very severe fighting was in progress a mile to our left.
Merville and Calonne were almost blotted out in smoke, and the air was
thronged with aeroplanes. The heap of shells behind us still burned.
By now the clouds which rose from this bonfire had become such a pall
in the sky that the German balloons--the enemy was expert in moving
forward this machinery of observation--could see nothing of the
surrounding country. The Robecq district was remarkable for its
well-stocked farms, and with the general flight of the civilians large
numbers of unmilked cows, geese, goats, hens, and all manner of
farmyard creatures commenced to stray across the fields and down the
roads. Battalion Headquarters, which were ultimately established at a
large farmhouse in Les Amusoires, as dusk approached, seemed to become
the rendez-vous for lowing cattle, hens, pigs, goats, and small armies
of geese, to manage all of which a certain number of cowherds and
farm-hands had to be detailed. Nor was it only at Battalion
Headquarters that these movable larders were in the process of
congregation.
At nightfall, when the companies--D Company had rejoined during'
the afternoon--were settled into a secure outpost position and the
Brigadier (General Pagan) had visited and approved the dispositions,
an order from Corps was received to retreat a mile and to dig trenches
across the open, hedgeless fields which stretched between Robecq and
St. Venant. The whole of the Calonne road was to be abandoned. It was
difficult to account for such a policy, which meant, not only the
relinquishment of two bridge-heads of some importance and numerous
farms and orchards which had been carried at expense and since
garrisoned to good purpose, but the adoption instead of a position in
rear, which was condemned with every tactical disadvantage and in
which it would be impossible to remain once the enemy had secured
possession of the ground we were now ordered to give up. I am happy to
say that these orders, which can only have emanated from some staff
inadequately informed upon the situation, were cancelled during the
night and before the Battalion had acted on them. The fact is, I
expressly remained in the forward position until at least rations had
been delivered to the men, and by the time that had been done the
staff pendulum had swung again. The salient of Baquerolle Farm, which
it had cost valuable lives to reach, was retained.
On the morning of April 13 the enemy, under cover of a dense mist,
which allowed his use of close-range artillery, attacked St. Floris,
in front of which the Gloucesters were stationed. A demonstration
against the Battalion accompanied, and in the mist it was uncertain
whether an enemy attack on Robecq were not developing. The attack
died down without the Germans having penetrated the Gloucesters, who
put up a stout defence. Our line elsewhere was firm.
On the next day it was decided to use an opportunity to improve the
position of our outpost line by occupying a group of cottages which
lay in front. A platoon of A Company practically reached the nearest
cottages without a sign of hostile opposition being shown. The fate of
this little operation was the fruit of my miscalculation of the
enemy's strength. The Germans knew better than ourselves how to sit
still behind their machine-guns and avoid discovery. French civilians
were moving about among the cottages at the time when our advance to
occupy them was made and it seemed impossible that the enemy could be
holding them even weakly. Civilians, too, were mingled in the fray as
well on this as on later occasions. After trench-warfare days there
was an incongruity in some episodes, which was not devoid of humour.
One old Frenchman, at an hour when his farm was actually being fought
over, arrived at Company Headquarters with a special passport to feed
his beasts; and the tenacity of an old woman in clinging to her
household goods terminated in her discovery, at the time of an attack,
in a shell-hole in No-Man's-Land, where she was sheltering from the
machine-gun barrage under a large umbrella (one felt that she at least
deserved a copy of the operation orders!) During the ensuing weeks
visits by French civilians to the front line became such that almost
as many sentries were required to watch or restrain their movements
as were needed against the enemy.
[Illustration: ROBECQ OLD MILL & BRIDGE]
A more serious attack, in which the 4th Division upon our right was
intended to co-operate, was made by B Company at 7.30 p.m. on April 15
against the same cottages, which formed part of the hamlet called La
Pierre au Beurre. Our bombardment in support of this attack was almost
due to start, when an urgent message from the line announced that
large forces of the enemy were massing opposite our front. To have
called for S.O.S. fire by the artillery would totally have upset the
programme of attack, and one could only hope that our zero would be
the earlier. Luck was in our favour. Whatever else happened that
night, it is certain that the enemy received a severe shelling from
our guns.
The attack, carried out by B Company under Stanley, with D in support,
was quite successful in its plan but not in its result. From a cause
such as every series of complicated operations in open warfare
threatened to introduce, the troops of the 4th Division on our right
failed to co-operate as we expected. O'Meara, whom Stanley had placed
in charge of his leading troops, after securing the cottages named as
his objective, found himself attacked by the enemy from the very
direction whence he had counted on assistance. After ineffectual
attempts by our 'liaison' officer, Kirk, to get our neighbours to do
their share, B Company had to be withdrawn to their original position.
The 4th Division at this time were the flank division of one corps
while we were of another. To reach the Battalion acting on our right
a notice of our plan had to climb up through our Brigade, Division,
and Corps to Army and down again as many steps the other side. A
staff-officer from Army or from Corps should have been on the spot.
Coucher and Kemp, two capital officers, were killed during the evening
when this attack took place. Our other casualties were Killed, 2;
Wounded, 18; Missing, 1.
Throughout April 13 and for several days afterwards desultory
fighting, in which our trench-mortars under Miller performed good
service, was maintained for the possession of Baquerolle Farm and
another lying 150 yards south of it and christened Boase's Farm. Both
remained in our hands. With the troops on our left flank there was
some difficulty. Their line bent back awkwardly, and when the enemy
shelled the houses on the Calonne road, where their right flank
rested, they showed signs of withdrawing and leaving our C Company 'in
the air.' The Germans quickly benefited by this irresolution, for they
commenced to push forward from house to house along the Calonne road,
until Baquerolle Farm was in danger of being taken in its rear. The
prompt determination of Lodge, the officer I have already mentioned as
commanding C Company, served to avert critical consequences. He
delivered a local counter-attack, capturing a machine-gun and killing
several of the enemy. Our neighbours thus reoccupied their former
positions, but were warned in Divisional Orders not to give up any
more of the Robecq-Calonne road. This incident, which rightly
earned for 'Tommy' Lodge a Military Cross, had a vexatious sequel a
few days later. In quoting where the left flank of the Battalion in
fact rested I made a slip in the co-ordinates of its map reference. By
that mistake I was trapped, when it appeared as black and white in
relief orders, into having to hand over 100 yards of extra frontage,
and had the mortification of causing several hours of troublesome
delay to the front line, besides innocently saddling my successors
with responsibility that was not honestly theirs to receive.
By April 16 the tactical situation was already stable. On that
night--in reality during the early hours of April 17--the Battalion
was relieved almost in the ordinary way by the Gloucesters, who came
forward from the luxury of St. Venant and took over the line between
Carvin and Baquerolle. St. Venant had been Portuguese G.H.Q. but was
so no longer. It was by now receiving plenty of 5.9s and was rapidly
losing the character of the quiet, well-to-do little town in which
part of the Division was to have been billeted when it left the Amiens
district. Still, for the time being, what St. Venant received in
shells it paid for in choice vintages and fine houses. The Germans
were not the only people to taste a glass of French wine during the
Great War. About this time Colonel Boyle, who had commanded the 6th
Oxfords until their disbandment, arrived to assume command of the
Battalion. He remained till Wetherall, whose wound had taken him to
England, returned.
For the rest of April and during May the Battalion continued to do
tours in the Robecq sector, which, owing to its proximity to Givenchy
and Béthune, was never quiet so long as the enemy was planning to
attack those places. An alteration of the front was brought about on
April 23, when the Gloucesters under Colonel Lawson advanced in
co-operation with the 4th Division and captured Riez du Vintage and La
Pierre au Beurre. Of this victory some spoils fell to the Battalion,
which was holding the front line. Company Sergeant-Major Moss, of D
Company, who went out to reconnoitre two hours after the attack had
taken place, brought in forty-five prisoners, and during the following
night half-a-dozen machine-guns were collected by the company.
German shelling at this time was often heavy. The tracks across the
open up to the front line were rendered specially unpleasant by the
pernicious '106' fuzes, with which the enemy's artillery was well
supplied. From Robecq, which was steadily being shelled to ruins and
through which one passed with reluctance, a disinterested salvage
party, consisting of Stanley and the officers of B Company, brought a
piano, which was destined to be an historic instrument. On more than
one occasion the Battalion returned from its spell in the front line
to the St. Venant Asylum, a large institution said to be the second
largest of the kind in France. Its protesting inmates had been removed
in lorries at the time of the German capture of Merville, and the long
galleries and rooms thereafter became filled with troops. The ample
bath-house, laundry, and kitchen of the Asylum, though ravaged by
shelling and rifled by the mysterious depredations of looters, more
than provided for the Battalion's wants. I have to record a very
regrettable incident in connection with St. Venant Asylum. On the
morning of May 21, during some shelling, when most of us had descended
to cover, a German shell pierced the building where C and D Company
Headquarters were and dropped through into the cellar, where it
exploded. Several men were killed and also 'Tommy' Lodge, the officer
whose conduct had earned him distinction three weeks before at
Baquerolle Farm. Robinson, too, was wounded and was lost to the
Battalion.
At the Asylum, despite its comfort, it was difficult to feel at ease.
On May 7 the Orderly Room was struck full on its door by a 5.9.
Headquarters had many an anxious moment (as when a large aeroplane
bomb was heard coming through the air; it fell 30 yards from the
Mess). At the end of May rest billets were altered to La Pierrière, a
small straggling village west of the La Bassée Canal, where few shells
fell but whither the civilians were as yet timid to return. At La
Pierrière, whenever the Battalion came out for its four days' rest,
the Canteen was established on the most up-to-date lines with a full
stock, including beer and the current newspapers from England. During
the summer several local papers were kind enough to send me copies
every week for free distribution to the men. I make this an
opportunity to thank Mr. Stanley Wilkins and the Bucks Comforts Fund
for most generous gifts of 'smokes,' which more than once helped to
stave off a cigarette famine.
The Canteen, though I have not before mentioned it, was a great
feature in Battalion life. For the last eight months of the war, while
I was President of the Regimental Institute, I was most anxious that
our Canteen should be as good as possible. But my anxiety would have
been worthless without the industry and enthusiasm of Lance-Corporal
Kaye and Private Warburton, who managed every detail.
At this stage in my history, when, almost reluctantly, I am drawing
towards its close, there are many features of the Battalion life which
crowd upon me in their demand for mention. The Pioneers lining out for
their match in six-a-side football against the Shoemakers and Tailors,
the Stores piled high with 'hay-packs' and wicker baskets filled with
unissued signalling equipment, Sergeant Birt quietly demanding last
month's war-diary, Connell the arch-footballer, Kettle, the
Sergeant-Cook, arguing about an oven, and the four Company
Quartermaster-Sergeants whose vote was always unanimous--to proceed
further would be to enumerate a list of people and things over whom it
is my regret to pass so rapidly.
At the end of my chapters I have so often shown the Battalion marching
back to rest that I shall leave it this time in the line. You must
picture a medley of small fields and orchards, bounded on one side by
the Calonne-Robecq road (which is the avenue of supply to the front
line and much shelled) and on the other by the small streams called
Noc and Clarence. Among the orchards stand numerous farmsteads, of
which a large one known as Gloucester Farm had been our Battalion
Headquarters in 1916, during a period of back-area rest. It has again
been Battalion Headquarters. Recently the farm was shelled and the
Berks Colonel, then in occupation, quitted it in favour of a
two-storied house called Carvin. In the domed cellar of Baquerolle
Farm--an old-fashioned building looking out across a wide midden to
numerous cowsheds and outhouses--were usually the headquarters of C or
D Companies and the Trench-Mortars. This farm was freely shelled. On
April 24 the early-morning attention of the German guns set fire to
the buildings; and Robinson was obliged to leave the cellar and repair
with his headquarters to a trench to windward. The Posts themselves,
as spring deepened into summer, became half lost in the crops and
grass, until many of them could be reached in daylight. This fact,
combined with his undaunted spirit of enterprise, led Colonel Lawson
of the Gloucesters to crawl forward one morning to the German lines.
His reckless bravery paid the penalty, for he was killed when only a
short way from where a German post was lurking. Lawson was a brilliant
soldier and a fine example of English character; his sudden and
needless death cast a gloom over the whole Brigade.
On the evening of May 13 the last raid to be made by the Battalion was
carried out by No. 1 Platoon, commanded by Rowlerson. The affair was a
small one but satisfactory, for two prisoners were brought in and we
had no casualties.