of the ball from hand to hand that fills time before an innings;
and, by the latter part of July, men began half unconsciously to
speculate when our innings would begin. In the north, the enemy,
crowded into the Lys salient, which they had been at such pains to
hack out over the bodies of the 2nd Battalion, were enjoying some
of the pleasures our men had tasted round Ypres for so many years.
Our gathering guns, cross-ploughing them where they lay, took fresh
toll of each new German division arriving to make good the wastage.
In the south, outside Amiens, the Australians, an impenitent and
unimpressionable breed, had, on the 4th of July, with the help of
four companies of the Thirty-third American Division, and sixty
tanks, gone a-raiding round the neighbourhood of Hamel and Vaire
Wood, with results that surprised everybody except themselves. They
did not greatly respect the enemy, and handled him rudely. Meantime,
Amiens, raked over by aeroplanes almost every hour, was being wrecked
and strangled; and all the Labour Corps, which, from the soldier’s
point of view, could have been better used in saving poor privates
cruel fatigues, were working day and night at railway diversions and
doublings that, by some route or another, should bring the urgent
supplies of both French and British armies to their destinations.
Men argued, therefore, that the first job to be taken in hand
would be the deliverance of Amiens. There was talk, too, that all
French divisions in Flanders were withdrawn and concentrated behind
Amiens city. This might be taken for a sign that the Lys salient
was reckoned reasonably secure, and as confirming the belief that
upon the Lys, also, we had abundance of artillery. On the other
hand (these are but a few of the rumours of the time), away in the
unknown south-east of France, where few British troops had penetrated
in the memory of present fighting men, some five or six divisions,
making the Ninth British Corps, had been sent for a “rest” after the
March Push, and had been badly mauled by a sudden surprise-attack
on the Aisne where, together with the Fifth French Army, they had
been driven back towards the Marne, which all the world thought was
a river and a battle long since disposed of. The enemy there were
sitting practically outside the Forest of Villers-Cotterêts, a name
also belonging to ancient history. Much-enduring men, whom Fate
till now had spared, recounted how the 4th (Guards) Brigade, as it
was then, had first “caught it” there, among the beech-trees very
nearly four years back. Moreover, there was fresh trouble between
Montdidier and Noyon, where the enemy were again throwing themselves
at the French. Then, too, Foch, who was in charge of all, but who, so
far, had made no sign, had borrowed four more of our divisions--the
whole of the Twenty-second Corps this time--and they were off on some
French front, Heaven and Headquarters alone knew where. Likewise one
composite “Scrum” of French, American, English, and Italian troops
was holding, it might be hoped, a German capital attack near Rheims.
The old war-line that in the remote days of winter would have called
itself the Somme front discussed and digested these news and many
more. There was nothing doing on their beat to write home about,
even were they allowed to do so. The question was whether they would
be called on to repair to the Lys and free Hazebrouck, which was
undoubtedly still in a dangerous position, or stand still and await
what might befall at Amiens. There was no limit to speculation and
argument any more than there had been when the Somme front went in
March, and the more they argued the more confused men grew over the
confidential information that was supplied them. (“Them Gen’rals, and
their Staffs must ha’ done quite a little lyin’--even for them. They
had _us_ believin’ their word! I’ve heard since even Jerry believed
’em.”)
That would appear to have been the trouble with the enemy. It was
evident to the most hardened pessimist that a French counter-attack
launched out of the Villers-Cotterêts Forests, to begin with (and
in several other places at, apparently, the same time), was _not_
the flash-in-the-pan that some people foretold. For the second time
the enemy was withdrawing from the Marne, and, under pressure,
continuing his withdrawal. His great attack near Rheims, too, seemed
to have stuck. On the Lys, from time to time, sites of villages with
well-remembered names were occasionally returning to their lawful
trustees. Hopeful students of the war hinted that, with fresh troops
in vast numbers, more guns, and a share of luck, 1918 might see the
foundations laid for a really effective finish in 1919. A report
had come up from the south that the French down Amiens way had made
an experimental attack, or rather a big raid, on the enemy, and had
found him there curiously “soft” and willing to shift.
The air thickened with lies as the men, who moved about the earth
by night or under cover, increased, and our air-craft were told off
to circle low and noisily at certain points and drown the churn of
many tanks trailing up into their appointed areas. All the Canadian
divisions, men said, were moving off to recapture Kemmel Hill. All
our forces round Amiens were digging themselves in, said others,
preparatory to a wait-and-see campaign that would surely last till
Christmas. For proof, it was notorious that our guns in that sector
were doing nothing. (As a matter of fact they were registering on the
sly.) Everybody round Amiens, a third party insisted, would be sent
off in a day or two to help the French in Champagne. The weaknesses
of human nature in possession of “exclusive information” played into
the hands of the very few who knew, and young staff officers of
innocent appearance infernally bamboozled their betters.
So it happened, on the 4th August, on a misty dawn, that the Fourth
Army (Rawlinson’s) with four hundred tanks, backed by two thousand
guns, and covered by aeroplanes to a number not yet conceived in
war, declared itself as in being round Amiens at the very nose of
the great German salient. In twenty-four hours that attack had
bitten in five miles on an eleven-mile front, had taken twelve
thousand prisoners and some three hundred guns, and was well set to
continue. At the same time the French, striking up from the south,
had cleared their front up to the Amiens-Roye road from Pierrepont,
through Plessier to Fresnoy, and had taken over three thousand
prisoners and many guns. Caught thus on two fronts, the enemy fell
back, abandoning stores and burning dumps, which latter sight it
cheered our men to watch. But the work and the honour of the day, as
of the Fourth Army’s campaign from this point on, rested with the
Canadian and Australian divisions who made up the larger part of it.
The Australians Sir Archibald Montgomery describes in his monumental
“Story of the Fourth Army” as “always inquisitive and seldom idle.”
The Canadians had exactly the same failings, and between the two
dominions the enemy suffered. By the 12th August he had been forced
back on to the edge of the used, desolate, and eaten-up country where
he had established himself in 1916--a jungle of old wire, wrecked
buildings, charred woods, and wildernesses of trench. It was ideal
ground for machine-gun defence; with good protection against tanks
and cavalry. There he went to earth, and there, after a little
feeling along his line, was he left while the screw was applied
elsewhere. Our front at that time ran from Bray-sur-Somme due south
to Andechy, where we joined the French almost within machine-gun
range of Roye.
North of Bray, to the western edge of the town of Albert, the left
wing of the Fourth Army had the enemy held, worried and expectant.
Now was the Third Army’s turn to drive in the wedge, from north of
Albert up the line to Arras where the right of the First Army would
assist. What Headquarters knew of the enemy’s morale on that sector
was highly satisfactory. Moreover, he was withdrawing out of his Lys
salient as his divisions were sucked down south to make up wastage
there. But our men still expected that they would tramp their weary
way back across every yard of their battle-fields and burial-grounds
of the past two years, finishing up, if luck held, somewhere round
the Hindenburg Line by Christmas. That the wave, once launched, would
carry to the Rhine was beyond the wildest dreams.
The Battalion, after their little raid already mentioned, had spent
from the 5th to the 9th August in reserve-trenches at Ransart, doing
musketry and route-marching. They returned to the support-trenches at
Hendecourt-les-Ransart relieving the 2nd Coldstream, and stayed there
till the 16th August, when they relieved the same battalion in the
front line opposite Boiry-St. Martin.
They had to patrol the No Man’s Land in front of them a good deal
at night (because it would, later, be their forming-up area), but
suffered nothing worse than the usual shelling and trench-mortaring,
and their share in the work of the opening day, August 21, was small
and simple. “At 5 A. M. the 2nd Guards Brigade on our right attacked
Moyenville with their objective just east of the railway. The 1st
Coldstream was next on our right.” There was a thick fog when the
barrage opened, as well as a smoke barrage. The tanks forming up made
noise enough to wake a land full of Germans, but apparently drew
no fire till they were well away, lunging and trampling over the
enemy machine-gun-posts that had annoyed our folk for so long. The
only serious work for the Battalion was to secure a small trench,
cover the north side of the railway with their fire, and establish
a post at the railway crossing “as soon as a tank had passed over.”
The trench had been occupied early in the night after a small
bombing-brawl with the enemy. The tank detailed to pass by that way
in the morning was warned of the occupation and told not to fire into
it as it came along and all was well. There was an idea that a couple
of companies assisted by eight tanks should capture Hamelincourt,
a mile east of Moyenville, which latter had been taken, before the
fog lifted, by the 2nd Guards Brigade. But this was cancelled after
much waste of time, and the Battalion lay still under a shelling of
mustard-gas, and pleasantly watched prisoners being sent back.
The enemy’s front was giving before the attack of eight divisions,
but not without sudden and awkward resistances, due to the cut-up
and trenched state of the ground, that hid too many machine-guns for
comfort; and the gas-nuisance grew steadily worse.
The Battalion lay where they were the next day (August 22), but sent
out a patrol under 2nd Lieutenant Faraday to work up a trench near
Hamel Switch, to the north of Hamelincourt. After capturing four
Germans it came under machine-gun fire from Hamelincourt. A platoon
was sent to support it, but was withdrawn as the Hamelincourt attack
had been postponed till the next day. Then the patrol had to retire
across abominable shallow trenches, clogged with wire and lavishly
machine-gunned. The Germans tried to cut them off. They withdrew,
fighting. Their Lewis-gun was knocked out and five men wounded. While
these were being helped back, the Lieutenant and two men, Sergeant
Dolan and Private Tait, covered the retreat among the wire. Next,
Faraday was wounded badly in the foot, and the sergeant and private
carried him in turn, he being six feet long and not narrow, while the
rest of the party threw bombs at the Germans, and tried to close with
them. Eventually they all reached home safe. Dolan’s one comment on
the affair was: “’Tis heavy going out yonder.” Lieutenant Faraday was
awarded the M.C. and Dolan the D.C.M. Later on, in 1919, Dolan also
received the Médaille Militaire for gallantry on many occasions.
Seen against the gigantic background of the opening campaign, it was
a microscopical affair--a struggle of ants round a single grain--but
it moved men strongly while they watched.
For the reason that always leads a battalion to be hardest worked
on the edge of battle, they were taken out of the line on the 23rd,
cautiously, under gas and common shell, and marched back seven miles
in five hours to Berles-au-Bois behind Monchy-au-Bois in order to
be marched back again next day to Boiry-St. Martin, where they spent
the day in the Cojeul valley, and afterwards (August 25) moved up
into support in the Hamel Switch between Hamelincourt and St. Léger.
Hamelincourt had been taken on the 23rd by the 2nd Brigade, and as
the night came down wet, the “men made what shelters they could from
corrugated iron and wood lying about.” The trenches hereabouts had
every disadvantage that could be desired. Some were part of the Army
Line and had been dug a foot or two deep with the spade as lines to
be developed in case of need. Presumably, it was nobody’s business
to complete them, so when the trouble arrived, these gutters, being
officially trenches, were duly filled by the troops, and as duly
shelled by the enemy.
For example, when the Battalion moved forward on the 26th their
trenches were waist-deep, which, to men who had spent most of the day
in the dry bed of the Cojeul River, under gas and common shell, was
no great treat.
[Illustration:
_THE FINAL ADVANCE_
_August-November 1918_
_Route of the First Battalion_
_Emery Walker Ltd. del. et sc._]
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY EMERY WALKER LTD., LONDON
Since the 21st August the Guards Division had been well employed. Its
2nd Brigade, with the Second Division on its right, had captured the
Ablainzevelle-Moyenneville spur; and the Second Division had taken
Courcelles. By the night of the 23rd, when the 3rd Guards Brigade
relieved the 2nd, and the Second Division had captured Ervillers on
the Arras-Bapaume road, the Guards Division, with their 1st Brigade
in support, was within half a mile of St. Léger, and in touch with
the Fifty-sixth Division on their left, which was trying to work
round the head of the Hindenburg Line and turn in from the north. At
this point resistance stiffened. The hilly ground, cut and cross-cut
with old trenches and the beginnings of new ones, lent itself to
the stopping game of well-placed machine-guns equally from round
Croisilles, where the Fifty-sixth Division was engaged; from about
St. Léger Wood, where the 3rd Guards Brigade, supported by tanks,
was renewing its acquaintance with the German anti-tank-rifle;
and from Mory, where the Sixty-second Division was delayed by the
Division on its right being held up. An enemy balloon or two hung on
the horizon and some inquisitive, low-flying aeroplanes hinted at
coming trouble. The line expected as much, but they did not seem so
well informed farther back.
THE AFFAIR OF ST. LÉGER
On the 26th August orders arrived that the 1st Guards Brigade would
now take up the running from the 3rd, and advance eastward from
St. Léger towards Ecoust till opposition was met. There were, of
course, refinements on this idea, but that was the gist of it.
The 2nd Grenadiers and the 2nd Coldstream would attack, with the
Battalion in support. The men were in their trenches by tea-time on
the 26th, No. 1 Company in Jewel Trench just east of the entrance to
the little Sensée River valley, and the others disposed along the
line of Mory Switch, an old trench now only a foot deep. Battalion
Headquarters lay in an abandoned German stores dug-out. Final orders
did not arrive till after midnight on the 26th, and there was much
to arrange and link up between then and seven o’clock, barrage time.
The Grenadiers were on the right and the Coldstream on the left of
the Battalion, the latter following a quarter of a mile behind, with
Nos. 1 and 3 Companies to feed the Grenadiers and Nos. 4 and 2 for
the Coldstream. As the front was so wide, they split the difference
and kept as close as might be to the dividing line between the two
leading Battalions, which ran by Mory Switch and Hally Avenue. The
hot day broke with a gorgeous sunrise over a desolate landscape that
reeked in all its hollows of gas and cordite. A moment or two after
our barrage (field-guns only) opened, the enemy put down a heavy
reply, and into the smoke and dust of it the companies, in artillery
formation, walked up the road without hesitation or one man losing
his place. No. 1 Company leading on the right disappeared at once
after they had passed their jumping-off point at Mory Switch. Almost
the first shells caught the leading platoon, when Lieutenant J.
N. Ward was killed and Lieutenant P. S. MacMahon wounded. As soon
as they were clear of the barrage, they came under full blast of
machine-gun fire and saw the Grenadiers presently lie down enfiladed
on both flanks. Four of our machine-guns tried to work forward
and clear out the hindrances, but the fire was too strong. Both
battalions were finally held up, and the Grenadiers were practically
cut to pieces, with their reserve companies, as these strove to
reinforce the thinned line. After what seemed an immense time (two
hours or so) Captain Thompson, seeing that, as far as that sector
was concerned, the thing was hung up, ordered his men to dig in in
support, and they spent till nightfall “recovering casualties”--their
own, those of the battalions ahead, and of the Guards Machine-Guns.
No. 3 Company, which followed No. 1, suffered just as heavily from
the barrage. Very soon their commander, Captain Joyce, was wounded
and Lieutenant H. R. Baldwin killed. Second Lieutenant Heaton, who
took over, was gassed in the course of the afternoon, and C.S.M.
O’Hara then commanded. There was nothing for them to do either save
dig in, like No. 1, behind the Grenadiers, and a little to the right
of them.
No. 4 Company, under Captain Hegarty, following the Coldstream,
got the worst barrage of all as soon as they were clear of their
trenches, and found the Coldstream held up, front and flank, within
fifty yards of the sunken road whence they had started. No. 15
platoon of the Irish Guards was almost wiped out, and the remains of
it joined with No. 13 to make a defensive flank, while No. 14 crawled
or wriggled forward to reinforce the Coldstream, and No. 16 lay in
reserve in a sunk road. Sunk roads were the only shelter for such as
did not wish to become early casualties.
No. 2 Company (Captain A. Paget) following No. 4 had been held back
for a few minutes by the C.O. (Major R. Baggallay) on the fringe
of the barrage, to be slipped through when it seemed to lighten.
They also launched out into a world that was all flank or support,
of battalions which could neither be seen nor found, who were
themselves outflanked by machine-guns in a landscape that was one
stumbling-block of shallow trenches which suddenly faded out. They
crossed the St. Léger-Vraucourt road and bore east, after clearing
the St. Léger wood, till they reached the St. Léger reserve trench,
and held it from the Longatte road to where it joined the Banks
Reserve. Says one record: “At this time, Captain Paget was in
ignorance of the success or location of the attacking battalions, and
both of his flanks exposed as far as he knew.” The enemy machine-guns
were hammering home that knowledge, and one of the platoons had lost
touch altogether, and was out in the deadly open. So in the trench
they lay till an officer of the Coldstream came over and told Paget
the “general situation,” which, unofficially, ran: “This show is held
up.” He borrowed a section from No. 5 Platoon to help to build up
a flank to guard the east side of St. Léger and vanished among the
increasing shell-holes.
Well on in the morning a message arrived from Captain Hegarty, No.
4 Company, that he and his men were on the St. Léger-Vraucourt road
and held up like the rest. Captain Paget went over, in the usual way,
by a series of bolts from shell-hole to shell-hole, trying to clear
up an only too-clear situation. On the way he found a lost platoon,
sent it to dig in on the left of No. 2 Company, and also saw the
C.O. 2nd Coldstream and explained his own dispositions. They were
not made too soon, for in a short time there was an attack on No. 2
Company which came within sixty yards before it was broken up by our
small-arm fire. The Germans were followed up as they returned across
the Ecoust-Mory ridge by long-range shooting in which, for the sake
of economy, captured enemy rifles and ammunition were used.
By this time the whole front was split up into small or large
scattered posts in trenches or under cover, each held down by
machine-guns which punished every movement. Two Companies (2 and
4) were near the St. Léger Trees, a clump of nine trees on the St.
Léger-Ecoust road, mixed up with the Coldstream posts. The other
two were dug in behind the Grenadiers on the right. Battalion
Headquarters circulated spasmodically and by rushes, when it saw its
chance, from one point to the other of the most unwholesome ground.
Even at the time, some of its shell-hole conferences struck the
members as comic; but history does not record the things that were
said by dripping officers between mouthfuls of dirt and gas.
Every battle has its special characteristic. St. Léger was one of
heat, sunshine, sweat; the flavour of at least two gases tasted
through respirators or in the raw; the wail of machine-gun bullets
sweeping the crests of sunken roads; the sudden vision of wounded
in still-smoking shell-holes or laid in the sides of a scarp; sharp
whiffs of new-spilt blood, and here and there a face upon which the
sun stared without making any change. So the hours wore on, under a
sense of space, heat, and light; Death always just over the edge of
that space and impudently busy in that light.
About what would have been tea-time in the real world, Captain
Paget, a man of unhurried and careful speech and imperturbable soul,
reported to the C.O., whom he found by the St. Léger Trees, that
there were “Huns on his right--same trench as himself.” It was an
awkward situation that needed mending before dusk, and it was made
worse by the posts of the Coldstream and some Guards Machine-Guns’
posts, as well as those of our No. 4 Company, being mixed up within
close range of No. 2. The C.O. decided that if a barrage could be
brought to bear on the trench and its rather crowded neighbourhood,
No. 2 might attack it. A young gunner, Fowler by name, cast up at
that juncture and said it might be managed if the Battalion withdrew
their posts round the area. He had a telephone, still uncut, to
his guns and would observe their registration himself. The posts,
including those of the Guards Machine-Guns, were withdrawn, and
Fowler was as near as might be killed by one of his own registering
shots. He got his 18-pounders to his liking at last, and ten minutes’
brisk barrage descended on the trench. When it stopped, and before
our men could move, up went a white flag amid yells of “Kamerad,” and
the Huns came out, hands aloft, to be met by our men, who, forgetting
that exposed troops, friend and foe alike, would certainly be gunned
by the nearest enemy-post, had to be shooed and shouted back to cover
by their officers. The prisoners, ninety of them, were herded into
a wood, where they cast their helmets on the ground, laughed, and
shook hands with each other, to the immense amusement of our people.
The capture had turned a very blank day into something of a success,
and the Irish were grateful to the “bag.” This at least explains
the politeness of the orderly who chaperoned rather than conducted
the Hun officer to the rear, with many a “This way, sir. Mind out,
now, sir, you don’t slip down the bank.” They put a platoon into the
captured trench and lay down to a night of bursts of heavy shelling.
But the enemy, whether because of direct pressure or because they had
done their delaying work, asked for no more and drew back in the dark.
When morning of the 28th broke “few signs of enemy movement were
observed.” Men say that there is no mistaking the “feel of the
front” under this joyous aspect. The sense of constriction departs
as swiftly as a headache, and with it, often, the taste that was in
the mouth. One by one, as the lovely day went on, the patrols from
the companies made their investigations and reports, till at last
the whole line reformed and, in touch on either flank, felt forward
under light shelling from withdrawing guns. An aeroplane dropped some
bombs on the Battalion as it drew near to the St. Léger Trees, which
wounded two men and two gunner officers, one of whom--not Fowler,
the boy who arranged for the barrage--died in Father Browne’s arms.
On the road at that point, where the wounded and dying of the fight
had been laid, only dried pools of blood and some stained cotton-wads
remained darkening in the sun. Such officers as the gas had affected
in that way went about their routine-work vomiting disgustedly at
intervals.
Battalion Headquarters, which had nominally spent the previous day in
a waist-deep trench, set up office at the St. Léger Trees, and the
advance of the Guards Division continued for a mile or so. Then, on a
consolidated line, with machine-guns chattering to the eastward, it
waited to be relieved. As prelude to their watch on the Rhine, the
affair was not auspicious. The Grenadiers, on whom the brunt of the
fight fell, were badly knocked out, and of their sixteen officers but
four were on their feet. The Coldstream were so weakened that they
borrowed our No. 4 Company to carry on with, and the Irish thought
themselves lucky to have lost no more than two officers (Lieutenant
J. N. Ward and Lieutenant H. R. Baldwin) dead, and six wounded or
gassed, in addition to a hundred and seventy other ranks killed or
wounded. The wounded officers were Captain W. Joyce; Lieutenants P.
S. MacMahon and C. A. J. Vernon, who was incapacitated for a while
by tear-gas in the middle of action and led away blinded and very
wroth; also 2nd Lieutenants H. A. Connolly, G. T. Heaton, and A. E.
Hutchinson.
The Division was relieved on the night of the 28th: the Battalion
itself, as far as regarded No. 1 Company, by the 1st Gordons, from
the Third Division, Nos. 2 and 4 Companies by another battalion, and
No. 3 Company under the orders of the 2nd Grenadiers. They marched
back to their positions of the night before the battle “very glad
that it was all behind us,” and their shelters of bits of wood and
rough iron seemed like rest in a fair land.