skirting the Mormal forest and on to Le Cateau. It was, as a matter of
fact, only a little over twenty miles, but the hot day, with very
little food, was most trying for the men. We had one good rest at
Englefontaine, where we bought a lot of food--bread and cheese, and
apples and plums, and a little meat--but it was not much. The rest of
the road was bare and hot, leading over down-like country past the
town of Le Cateau, and on to the heights to the west of it. Many
aeroplanes, British, French, and German, were skimming about, and
numerous bodies of French cavalry could be seen moving about the downs
and the roads in the rear.
We had received orders on the road to occupy part of an entrenched
position to the west of Le Cateau, and Weatherby and I rode ahead to
look at it and apportion it off as the battalions came up. The
trenches, we considered, were quite well sited. They were about 3 feet
deep, and had been dug by the inhabitants under, I think, French
supervision; but, judging by our subsequent experience, they were
nothing like deep enough and placed on much too exposed ground; and
the artillery pits were far too close up--though correct according to
the then text-books.
I put a few men into the trenches as an observing line, and sent the
commanding officers round to study them in case we had to hold them in
force on the morrow, and bivouacked the rest of the Brigade half a
mile behind them. Although we seemed to have done a good day's work
already, it was then only about 3 P.M., for we had started about 3.30
A.M. We got a good deal more food--bully beef and biscuits--here,
besides a cart-load of very smelly cheeses and some hams and
vegetables and fresh bread, and the men got their stomachs fairly full
by sundown.
The 13th Brigade came in a bit later and formed up on our right, but
the 14th Brigade, who had been doing rear-guard, did not get in till
nightfall, and were much exhausted.
The enemy, however, bar cavalry, had not pressed on in any strength,
and we were left fairly well alone during the night.
It began to rain heavily in the evening, and we had a wet dinner in
the open. There were various disturbances in the night, especially
when some men in the trenches began firing at some probably imaginary
Germans; but otherwise all ranks got a fair amount of sleep.
_Aug. 26th._
The orders overnight were that we were to continue the retirement
first thing in the morning; but when morning came the Germans were so
close that it was decided that it would be impossible to do so, and
fresh orders were issued to hold the position we were in.
Accordingly we took up our positions as we had settled overnight, and
started all necessary preparations--deepening trenches, arranging
telephone wires and communications, and putting the village of
Troisvilles, on our left, in a state of defence.
The Dorsets were to hold this village and several hundred yards of
trenches to the east of it. On their right came the Bedfords in
trenches, with of course a proportion in support, and the Cheshires
were put in a dip of the ground in rear of them. The 13th Brigade was
on the right of the Bedfords, with the K.O.S.B.'s touching them. The
Norfolks I put in a second line, in rear of the right of the Bedfords
and the left of the K.O.S.B.'s, mostly along a sunken road where they
dug themselves well into the banks. The 27th Brigade of Artillery,
under Onslow, was put under my orders; two batteries of it were in our
right rear, and the third was taken away by Sir C. F., to strengthen
the right I believe. A battery of the 15th Artillery Brigade was
also put in close behind the Bedfords, in the dip of ground
afore-mentioned, whence they did excellent execution without being
seen by the enemy. Divisional Headquarters were at Reumont, a mile
behind us, with a wood in between; but we were, of course, connected
up by telephone with them, as well as with our battalions and our
artillery. We--_i.e._, the Brigade Headquarters--sat in the
continuation of the hollow sandy road, in rear of the Bedfords and on
the left of the Norfolks.
The morning was distinctly cool after the rain, and I remember that I
wore my woolly till about 11 o'clock. Our horses were stowed away a
few hundred yards to our left, in a hollow; and the extraordinary
thing was that neither they nor ourselves got shelled as long as we
were there, though some shrapnel burst occasionally only a hundred
yards off or so in different directions.
We were in position by 7 o'clock, as far as I can remember; but unless
one keeps a record the whole time one is very liable to err--and I
won't swear that it was not 8 o'clock. Some shells began to arrive
about then, but did no harm. On our left was the 9th Brigade (3rd
Division), and the shelling began to develop pretty heavily in their
direction. Our guns were of course in action by this time, and for the
first two or three hours the air was full of shells and very little
Infantry fire was heard. The 4th Division had arrived only that
morning, I believe by train, and was guarding the left flank of the
line, assisted by our Cavalry. Behind the town of Le Cateau, on the
extreme right, was the 19th Brigade. Then came the 14th Brigade, then
the 13th, then ourselves, and then the 3rd Division; so we were about
the right centre.
The Dorsets were hard at work putting Troisvilles into a strong state
of defence, and were helped by some of our Divisional Sappers, I
believe the 59th Co. R.E. (but it might have been the 17th).
There was a local French ambulance--civilian I think--in Troisvilles,
and several of our own R.A.M.C. personnel there; but the Divisional
ambulances were farther to the rear, and as the wounded began to come
in from the right front we sent them back towards Reumont. St André
was very useful in galloping backwards and forwards between
Troisvilles and Brigade Headquarters--I kept him for that, as I
wanted my proper staff for other staff work; but all of them paid a
visit or two there once or twice. The enemy's shells were now falling
fast on our left about Inchy, but seemed to do extraordinarily little
damage there; and during the first hours it was really more of a
spectacular piece for us than a battle. However, we were of course
kept busy sending and receiving wires from all parts, and every now
and then a few wounded came in from our front. We were also bucked up
by hearing that a French Cavalry Division was coming to help us from
Cambrai; but I don't know whether it ever materialised.
As the day wore on, the Bedfords got engaged with infantry in their
front, but neither they nor the Dorsets got anything very much to
shoot at; and though a German machine-gun or two pushed pluckily
forward and did a certain amount of damage from hidden folds in the
ground, I think we accounted for them--anyway we stopped their
shooting after a short time.
Meanwhile the 13th Brigade and the guns on our right were catching it
very hot. There seemed an enormous number of guns against us (I
believe, as a matter of fact, there were nearer 700 than 600), and
our batteries were suffering very heavily. So were the 14th and 19th
Brigades--the latter being a scratch one composed of units from the
lines of communication under Laurence Drummond.
At one moment--it must have been about 12 o'clock or later--I saw to
my horror the best part of a company of Bedfords leave their trenches
in our front and retire slowly and in excellent order across the open.
So I got on my horse and galloped out to see what they were doing and
to send them back, as it seemed to me that some of the K.O.S.B.'s were
falling back too, in sympathy. I'm afraid that my language was strong;
but I made the Bedfords turn about again, although their officer
explained that he was only withdrawing, by superior battalion orders,
in order to take up an advanced position further on the right; and
with some of the Cheshires, whom I picked up on the way, they advanced
again in extended order.
They got back again to their trenches without any casualties to speak
of, and I was much gratified by a message I received shortly
afterwards from my right (I think Cuthbert or the gunners) thanking
me warmly for my most valuable counter-attack, which had considerably
relieved the pressure in their front!
On our immediate right the Norfolks were occupied for several hours in
trying to cut down a very big tree, which was about the most
conspicuous feature in the whole of our position, and formed an
excellent object on which the enemy could range. It was all very well;
but as soon as they had cut it half through, so as to fall to the
south, the south wind, which was blowing pretty strongly, not only
kept it upright but threatened to throw it over to the north. This
would have been a real disaster, as it would have blocked completely
the sunken road along which the ammunition carts, to say nothing of
artillery and other waggons, would have had to come. So it had to be
guyed up with ropes, with much difficulty; and even when teams hung on
and hauled on the ropes, they could make little impression--the wind
was so strong. Eventually they did manage to get it down, but even so
it formed a fairly conspicuous mark. (It was so big that it was marked
on the map.)
Inchy was now the centre of an appalling bombardment. A crowd of
Germans had got into it, it appeared, and the village was being
heavily shelled by both sides--British and German. Several houses and
haystacks caught fire, and the poor devils inside must have had a
terrible time. The 3rd Division was holding its own, but was being
heavily attacked by the enemy's infantry. However, we eventually got
the better of it, and the 9th and 10th Brigades drove the Germans away
from their trenches and pursued them some distance, much assisted by
the fire of the Dorsets and the advance of one or two of their
companies.
Things went on hammer-and-tongs for another hour or two; more and more
wounded began coming in from the 13th Brigade, including a lot of
K.O.S.B.'s. We turned Beilby, our veterinary officer, on to "first
aid" for many of them and sent them on; but some of the shrapnel
wounds were appalling. One man I remember lying across a pony; I
literally took him for a Frenchman, for his trousers were drenched red
with blood, and not a patch of khaki showing. Another man had the
whole of the back of his thigh torn away; yet, after being bandaged,
he hobbled gaily off, smoking a pipe. What struck me as curious was
the large number of men hit in the face or below the knee,--there
seemed few body wounds in comparison; but that may of course have been
because those badly hit in the body were killed or unmovable. But one
would see men apparently at their last gasp, with gruesome wounds on
them and no more stretchers available, and yet five minutes afterwards
they had disappeared.
Time was getting on, and the thunder and rain of German shells seemed
unceasing; they appeared to come now not only from all along the front
and the right front, but from our right as well, and our guns were
replying less and less. Reports began to come in from the right of
batteries wiped out (the 28th R.F.A. Brigade lost nearly all their
guns here, for nearly all the detachments and horses were killed), and
of a crushing attack on the 19th Brigade and penetration of our line
thereabouts. And soon afterwards the movement itself became visible,
for the 14th Brigade, and then the 13th, began to give way, and one
could see the trenches being evacuated on the right. The Norfolks
stuck well to it on the right, and covered the retirement that was
beginning; but they were taken out of my hands by Sir C. F., and told
off to act as rear-guard for the brigades on their right.
The 15th Brigade had really been very lucky, and had neither been
shelled nor attacked very heavily, and consequently we were pretty
fresh and undamaged. I forget if we got any definite message to
retire, and if so, when, but it was fairly obvious that we couldn't
stay where we were much longer. The Dorsets were quite happy in
Troisvilles and thereabouts, but the 9th Brigade on their left had had
a very bad time, and were already beginning to withdraw, though in
good order.
This being so, I sent orders to the battery of the 15th R.F.A. Brigade
in my front to retire before they got cut off; and they executed it
grandly, bringing up the horses at a gallop, swinging round, hooking
in, and starting off at a canter as if at an Aldershot field-day,
though they were under heavy shell and rifle fire all the time.
Only two horses and about two men were hit altogether, and though all
these were apparently killed, the men got up after a little and were
brought safely off with the Bedfords.
The K.O.S.B.'s were now falling back on us from the right, and they
were strung out along the Norfolks' late position, and almost at right
angles to our line, for the Germans were pressing us there, and heavy
rifle fire was breaking out there and nearly in our right rear. Then I
ordered the Cheshires and after them the Bedfords to retire, which
they did quite calmly and in good order; and lastly came the Dorsets,
very well handled by Bols and forming a rear-guard to the rest of the
troops hereabouts. His machine-guns under Lieut. Wodehouse had been
doing excellent work, and the shooting of both Bedfords and Dorsets
had had a great effect in keeping off the German attack hereabouts.
By this time units had become a bit mixed, and lines of troops
belonging to different battalions and even different brigades were
retiring slowly over the open ground and under a heavy fire of
shrapnel--which by the same token seemed to do extraordinarily little
damage. It was difficult to give a definite point for all these troops
to move on, for we had been warned against retiring through villages,
as they were naturally made a cockshy of by the enemy's guns. Reumont
was being already heavily bombarded, and though we had instructions to
fall back south-westwards along the road to Estrées, this road passed
through Reumont. I did not know how to get comfortably on to it
without going through some village, so gave a general direction off
the road, between it and Bertry, and struck across country, together
with a number of troops on foot in various formations, all moving
quite steadily and remarkably slowly.
As the shrapnel were bursting in large numbers overhead, I got the men
well extended, as best I could, but some of course were hit. Just as
we left the road a man in charge of an ambulance-waggon full of
wounded ran up and asked what he was to do, as some infernal civilian
had unhitched and gone off with the horses whilst he was attending to
the wounded. Stephenson, commanding K.O.S.B.'s, was lying wounded in
the waggon, but this I did not hear till afterwards. Some of the
K.O.S.B.'s thereupon very gallantly harnessed themselves to the waggon
and towed it along the road.
It was hard work making our way mounted across country, because of the
numerous wire fences we came across, not to mention ditches and
hedges. We worked rather towards Bertry, avoiding woods and boggy
bits, but the line wasn't easy to keep. The Germans had an unpleasant
habit of plugging bursts of four to a dozen shrapnel at one range,
then another lot fifty yards on, and so on, so it was no good hurrying
on, as you only came in for the next lot. Then they very nearly got us
just when we had got to a hopeless-looking place--the railway, with
thick fence and ditch on each side of the track and a barbed-wire
fence as well, with signal wires knee high just where you expected to
be able to jump down on to the track. Luckily Catley, my groom, had
some wire nippers; but just as he was cutting at the wire, and we of
the Brigade Staff were all standing round close by, trying to get over
or through, whack came four shrapnel, one close after the other,
bursting just short of us and above us--a very good shot if
intentional, but I don't think they could possibly have seen us.
Horses of course flew all over the place; Cadell and his horse came
down, and I thought he was hit, but he only lost his cap, and his
horse only got a nasty flesh wound from a bit of shrapnel in his
hindquarters. Again, why none of these shrapnel hit us was most
extraordinary: there we were, seven or eight of us mounted and close
together, and the shells bursting beautifully with terrific and
damnable cracks--yet not one of the Brigade Staff touched. Beilby's
horse, by the way, also got a bullet in the quarter.
These same shrapnel hit two or three infantry standing round us, and
the next thing we saw was Dillon (of the Divisional Staff) dismounted
and staggering along supporting two wounded privates and hoisting them
over the obstacles on to the rail track, one man hanging heavily from
his neck on either side. He was streaming with sweat, and said
afterwards it was the hardest job he'd ever had. Others of course
helped him and his men, and we wandered along over the grass, and
skirting the little woods and coppices till we got to the main road
again.
As we proceeded along the road we did our best to get the troops
collected into their units, getting single men together into bunches
and the bunches into groups and platoons, and so on. But many of them
were wounded and dog-tired, and it was hard work. Ballard and his
Norfolks joined us in bits, and we heard that they had had a hard time
falling back through Reumont and done very well as rear-guard. There
were stories at first of their having suffered terribly and lost a lot
of men; but it was not in the least true,--they had had comparatively
few casualties.
The country gradually grew more and more open till by dusk--somewhere
about 7 o'clock--we were traversing a huge rolling plain with open
fields and only occasional farmhouses visible. The troops on the road
were terribly mixed, infantry and artillery and waggons and transport
all jumbled up together, and belonging not only to different brigades
but even to different divisions, the main ones being of course the 5th
and 3rd Divisions.
Darkness came on, and the night grew cooler and cooler, yet still we
pushed on. As it got blacker, terrible blocks occurred and perpetual
unintentional halts. In one place, somewhere near the Serains-Prémont
road I think, we were halted for about three-quarters of an hour by a
jam of waggons just ahead. I gave the Norfolks leave to worm their way
through the press, but it was no use, for before they had got through
the waggons moved on again and only divided the men more and more, so
that they lost their formation again and were worse off than before.
Companies or bits of companies of my battalions were pretty close
together, and at one time the Brigade was pretty well cohesive, but as
the night wore on they got separated again and mixed up with the
transport till it was quite impossible to sort them out. It was a
regular nightmare, and all one could look forward to was the halt at
Estrées.
The German guns had long ceased to fire, even before the sun went
down, and there didn't seem to be any pursuit at all, as far as we
could gather. Our men moved quite steadily and without the vestige of
a sign of panic: in fact, they were much annoyed at having to fall
back. But I expect the German infantry was even more tired than ours,
for they had marched all through the previous night and certainly had
frightfully heavy casualties during the day. Anyway they did not
worry us, and we pursued our way in peace. But men and horses were
desperately sleepy, and at these perpetual halts used to go to sleep
and block up the road again when we moved on.
Luckily the road was as straight as a die, and one could not possibly
lose it; but it was difficult to know where we were, and occasional
twinkling lights in houses and cottages on the road only made our
whereabouts still more deceptive.
At last we entered something that looked in the pitch darkness more
like a town. It was Estrées right enough, but there were no signs of a
halt, though it was 1 A.M. or so. We could not find any staff officers
here, even at the solitary local inn, to give us any information, and
the only rumour was that we were to march on as far as we could go. We
had had no direct orders, and we did not know where the Divisional
staff were, but as by this time we had pushed on and were, as far as
we knew, ahead of most of the Brigade, Weatherby and I moved aside
into a field full of corn stooks, unsaddled our horses, gave them a
feed, and went fast asleep in the wet corn. We had meant to sleep only
for half an hour, but were so dead tired that it must have been more
like an hour and a half. And even then we were only awakened by a
battalion (I think it was the Northumberland Fusiliers) irrupting into
our field and pulling the stooks down for their own benefit. So we
guiltily saddled up again, thinking that the whole Brigade must have
passed us in the dark. But, as a matter of fact, it had not.
_Aug. 27th._
Daylight came at last through the damp grey mists, and we found
ourselves still in open country, with the road thickly covered as
before with troops of all arms and, in places by the roadside, the
remains of bivouac fires and empty boxes and bully-beef tins, and
hunks of raw meat; for the A.S.C. finding that it was impossible to
supply the troops regularly, had wisely dumped down their stores at
intervals alongside the road and let the men help themselves.
This was all very well for the men in front, but by the time we in
rear had got to the stores there was nothing left, and we had to go
hungry.
Somewhere about 4 A.M. I came on Sir C. F. standing at the
cross-roads near Nauroy. I naturally asked him where we were to retire
on; but he had not recently received any definite orders himself; so
after talking it over we came to the conclusion that our best line
would be on St Quentin, and we directed the men, as they came up--5th
Division straight on, 4th Division to the right to Bellicourt, and 3rd
to the left to Lehaucourt, for thus we should get the Divisions more
or less in their right positions. Of course a vast quantity of troops
had already preceded us, probably towards St Quentin, but that could
not be helped.
It was a long way yet to St Quentin, about eight miles, and on the
road and off it were men, waggons, and stragglers in every direction.
The jumble of the night had disintegrated most of the formed bodies,
and the whole thing had the appearance of a vast _débâcle_. Men moving
on singly but slowly, little bunches of three and four men together,
sometimes of the same regiment, but oftener of odd ones; men lying
exhausted or asleep by the roadside, or with their packs off and
sitting on the grass, nibbling at a biscuit or looking hopelessly
before them. It was a depressing sight, and I wondered how on earth
the formations would ever come together again. Officers of course were
doing their best to get their own men together, but the results were
small. Whenever we passed men of the 15th Brigade we collected them as
far as possible into bodies; but it was very difficult to know what
units men belonged to without asking them, for very many of them had
long ago, on arrival at Havre and elsewhere, given their cap-badges
and shoulder-names as souvenirs to women and children, and they were
most difficult to identify.
A mile or two before getting into St Quentin I passed Laurence
Drummond, commanding the 19th Brigade, hobbling along on foot, and
offered him of course my second horse. He had got damaged somehow--by
a fall, I think--and said he had his horse all right, but it hurt him
less to walk than to ride.
As we approached the town the entrance had got rather blocked with
troops. This was rather a good thing, as it enabled the stragglers
behind to close up and find other portions of their own regiments;
and, extraordinary as it seemed, whole companies had now got together
and in some cases had even coagulated into battalions. I found most of
the Norfolks collected together in a field by the side of the road,
and a stray Bedford company or two looking quite fresh and happy.