THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE ON THE SOMME (II): MARCH 23RD TO 30TH, 1918
In the account which follows, it is scarcely to be hoped that
all the confusion arising from reports that often conflicted can
be eliminated. The resistance made by the 36th Division and its
attached troops was one in which a large number of units, some
existing, some hastily improvised, took part. But, for the most
part, they were very small units, except for the battalions of the
61st Brigade, less depleted and less wearied by the morning of March
the 23rd than those of the 36th Division. This chapter opens with
events occurring forty-eight hours after the beginning of the great
German bombardment. In that period the troops of the Division had
been constantly engaged in fighting, or, when not fighting, on the
march, or upon the alert for a fresh attack. On the nights neither
of the 21st nor the 22nd had more than a couple of hours' sleep
been snatched by any of the infantry. Many units had had absolutely
none. The men were already wearied out. The 1st Rifles, to take one
example, after fighting all day on the 22nd in the neighbourhood,
first of Le Hamel, then of Happencourt, had marched by night to
Pithon, there crossed the Canal de la Somme, then continued its march
to Eaucourt, which was reached at three in the morning. The distance
covered was nine miles. Even on arrival there was not rest for all,
as piquets had to be posted round the village.
It is hard for those who have not seen a great retreat of this nature
to imagine how depressing are the circumstances and the sights which
he sees about him to the soldier entrusted with the fighting of
delaying actions, how great his mental and moral, apart altogether
from his physical, strain. The flood of civilians pouring out of
towns and villages was in itself a pathetic and depressing sight. At
three o'clock on the afternoon of the 22nd the nurses of the C.C.S.
in Ham were walking down the Guiscard Road, carrying bundles, some
of them assisting wounded men. Lorries and ambulances had already
taken the worst cases, but at this stage there was not transport
enough for all. Such sights as these were calculated to prey upon the
mind and react upon the moral of the stoutest hearted. Allied with
great physical fatigue and the sensation of being three or four times
outnumbered, their effect was even more dangerous.
The exploits of the troops of the Fifth Army are great enough without
straining the note. Some writers had made it appear as though the
men were of triple brass. Men are of less durable material. Each
has what may be called his "weakening-point," which is arrived at
sooner in some men than in others. There were cases of weakness in
the days that followed among troops of the 36th Division, as among
other troops. But their achievements must be measured by the standard
of their cruel and heart-breaking task. With that as gauge, these
achievements, viewed as a whole, stand out in their magnificence, a
shining monument to the spirit of the race that bred them.
The 21st Entrenching Battalion, interposed on the left of the 108th
Brigade to find touch with the troops of the 30th Division, had not
succeeded in its object. It was discovered at dawn that the line of
the 30th Division turned back from the Canal about Verlaines. The
23rd Entrenching Battalion, consisting of men of disbanded battalions
of the 36th Division, under the orders of the 30th, beat off all
hostile attempts to cross the Canal in the neighbourhood of Offoy.
Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. Odo Vivian, the officer commanding that
battalion, reports that at 7 a.m. troops fell back on his right from
Ham, saying that they had been driven out by the enemy. About eleven,
two Canadians informed him that they had slept the night in the town
and seen no sign of the Germans. Be this as it may, it seems certain
that the crossings at Ham, of all places on the front, were least
effectively guarded, and that the enemy had some troops over the
Canal here by noon. To cover the left flank, the dismounted sections
of the Engineers and a battalion of divisional details were put into
position north of Golancourt.
It was, however, on the other flank that danger first appeared.
The enemy, according to the reports of the 14th Division, effected
a crossing at Jussy at 3-30 a.m., but was counter-attacked and
driven back by the 7th K.R.R.C. This respite was temporary only.
By 11-15 a.m. the enemy was over the Canal de St. Quentin at many
points, though the 7th Somerset L.I. clung stoutly to its position.
Half an hour earlier the 2nd Rifles had been ordered to take up
a defensive line east of Cugny, in touch with troops of the 14th
Division, which had fallen back astride the road from that village
to Flavy-le-Martel. By noon the troops on the right were falling
back from Flavy-le-Martel and Annois, hard pressed by the enemy. The
retirement continuing, the 1st Rifles was moved up on the right flank
of the 2nd Battalion. On its right were at first no British troops,
but a line was hastily taken up by dismounted French dragoons. In
this position the line remained on this flank for some hours. The 1st
Rifles was constantly engaged and managed to hold its ground. The 2nd
Battalion did not come into action till later in the afternoon, as
there were still in front of it a few men of the 14th Division who
had retired from Flavy.
Meanwhile, in the centre, the line from Sommette-Eaucourt to Ollézy,
and that of the 61st Brigade upon the Canals, held in splendid
fashion. It was now the turn of the left flank. The 9th Inniskillings
was heavily attacked from the north-west at Aubigny. One company fell
back in disorder from the village. Thereupon the Brigade-Major,
Captain G. J. Bruce, rode forward, rallied the men, and galloped
into the village at their head. The Germans were driven out. It was
a wonderful example of the inspiration of personal gallantry and
leadership upon weary and disheartened men. Gradually, however, the
line at this point fell back under severe pressure. Sommette-Eaucourt
was lost, and a little later Brouchy. Both flanks of the Division
were now completely turned.
At 4-30 p.m. General Cochrane, commanding the 61st Brigade, ordered
the 7th D.C.L.I. and the 7th Somersets to withdraw to the line of
the Ham-Terguier Railway, from the brook west of Annois to the
Ollézy-Eaucourt Road. The Somersets, however, upon the Canal de St.
Quentin, lost the better part of three companies, which fought on
when surrounded till all their ammunition was gone ere surrendering.
The D.C.L.I. extricated itself under great pressure, and took up
position upon the new line.
And now upon the right the attack was renewed in great force. Enemy
battalions passed through Flavy and deployed on either side of the
Cugny Road. At about 5 p.m. the Germans attacked that village,
using trench mortars to cover the advance, to be repulsed by the
2nd Rifles. A gap had now formed between this battalion and the
1st, through which the enemy pushed at dusk. The 1st Rifles was
also attacked at 7 p.m., and also drove off the enemy, but this
mere handful of brave men was now menaced both from south-east
and north-west, and, to avoid being surrounded, withdrew towards
Beaulieu, a mile south-east of Cugny. The 2nd Rifles also was
compelled to evacuate the village, taking up a position astride the
Villeselve Road at its western outskirts.
When night fell the line ran east of Beaulieu, to the western edge
of Cugny, to the railway south-east of Ollézy, and along it to the
Ollézy-Eaucourt Road, thence along the road, including the village of
Eaucourt, a thousand yards south of Brouchy, to north of Golancourt.
Behind it was a line of French infantry, pushed up hurriedly,
without artillery or more ammunition than was carried on the men,
roughly from Esmery-Hallon, through Flavy-le-Meldeux and Villeselve,
to Beaumont-en-Beine. The Headquarters of the 36th Division were
withdrawn from Fréniches to Beaulieu-les-Fontaines, north of the
Roye-Noyon Road, at six in the evening.
In the course of the day all arms of the Division had been constantly
in action. The 16th Rifles, which had been put at the disposal of the
officer commanding the 9th Irish Fusiliers, had been fighting all
day upon the Somme, and had fallen back in the general withdrawal
on the left flank. Details of the Machine-Gun Battalion, under the
second-in-command, Major Low, had, as has previously been recorded,
also been in action on the left. All details, men returning from
courses and leave, had been pushed into the battle. The clerks and
runners of the 109th Brigade Headquarters had fought at Brouchy.
Great steadiness and devotion to duty had been shown by the
Artillery. Two batteries of the 91st Brigade (from the 20th
Divisional Artillery), A/91st and C/91st, are specially mentioned in
the report of the C.R.A. When infantry, in the first case that of
the 109th Brigade, in the second that of the 61st Brigade, fell back
upon their positions, the battery officers rallied the men, and the
gunners aided them to dig in in front of the guns.
Amid all the confusion food supplies had not failed, though no
rations could be distributed to the troops in line till the small
hours of the morning of March the 24th. The 107th Brigade was able,
besides keeping its own troops supplied with tools for entrenching,
to send a number of picks and shovels to Rifle Brigade battalions
of the 14th Division in the neighbourhood of Cugny. On this day
and throughout the retreat the work of the Train and Supply Column
was most praiseworthy, while the Staff Captains of Brigades showed
forethought in their arrangements. The medical services, under great
difficulties, had done all that was possible in the evacuation of
wounded.
The night passed fairly quietly. It was doubtless employed by the
Germans to bring up fresh guns, for upon the morrow the volume of
artillery fire was noticeably greater. There was no German infantry
attack with the light, as might have been expected, on the morning of
March the 24th. It did not come on either flank in any strength till
about ten o'clock. Very probably the enemy had been relieving his
front-line battalions, and their successors were not ready to renew
the struggle till some hours after dawn.
It was, however, discovered at dawn that parties of Germans had
entered Golancourt in the darkness, and that our men had evacuated
the village. This was a very serious blow, as it threw into confusion
schemes formulated overnight between General Hessey, commanding the
109th Brigade, and General Cochrane, commanding the 61st. These two
commanders had planned a counter-offensive to ease the pressure on
the left flank, and blunt the pronounced salient into which the line
was being forced. General Nugent had put at General Hessey's disposal
a composite battalion under Major Knox, and had later strengthened
his line by sending up three hundred details from Beaulieu, servants,
orderlies, grooms from Headquarters, and the personnel of the Signal
School. These were formed into two companies, under the command of
Captain W. Smyth, R.E., attached to the General Staff, and Captain
C. Drummond, A.D.C. to General Nugent. Major Knox's detachment was
to move _via_ Golancourt, approach Aubigny as closely as might be in
the mist, and attack the village at eight o'clock. Meanwhile the 9th
Inniskillings, with a company of details, was to reoccupy Brouchy.
General Cochrane arranged to retake Eaucourt with a hundred men of
the 284th Army Troops Company, R.E., who had come under his orders,
commanded by two of his own infantry officers. This he had succeeded
in doing before midnight on the 23rd. Touch was obtained by the
attacking force with the 7th D.C.L.I., on the railway where crossed
by the Ollézy-Eaucourt Road.
But Major Knox came under heavy machine-gun fire from Golancourt on
his march, and was unable to make headway. The attacks upon Aubigny
and Brouchy were therefore cancelled, and the companies of details
thrown in on the left of the 9th Inniskillings. The position of the
7th D.C.L.I. on the railway was now impossible. The battalion was
being pressed on either flank, and its right was in air. At eleven
o'clock General Cochrane ordered it to fall back from the railway,
and to take up a line in touch with the fragments of the 12th
King's, a thousand yards west of Cugny, roughly parallel with the
Cugny-Eaucourt Road. The right company of the D.C.L.I. had to fight a
rearguard action to cover the withdrawal, and suffered considerable
loss from machine-gun fire. Upon its heels the Germans pushed forward
their machine-guns and a number of single field guns which had been
brought across the Canal.
At this time the 2nd Rifles was still maintaining its position,
three hundred yards west of Cugny. Behind it, between Cugny and
Montalimont Farm, the 1st Battalion had dug itself in. It will thus
be seen that there were two thin lines of men, literally back to
back, with about a mile between them, one facing east toward Cugny,
the other west toward Golancourt. Such a situation could not possibly
persist. On the right there was intense confusion. Here the French
had been relieving what was left of the troops of the 14th Division,
between Cugny and Ugny-le-Gay, when the Germans attacked, and the two
lines, relievers and relieved, had been rolled back before noon. La
Neuville-en-Beine had been lost. The difficulties were not lessened
by the fact that small parties of troops of the 14th Division,
which had become intermixed with those of the 36th, received the
order that they were relieved by the French, and were to fall back
upon Guiscard. Their withdrawal left new gaps, of which the enemy,
whose light machine-gun groups were handled throughout the day with
consummate skill, was not slow to avail himself.
The salient held by the 36th Division suddenly caved. From all
sides the semicircle fell back upon Villeselve, which was heavily
bombarded by the enemy from noon onward. Desperate efforts were
made by Brigade Staffs to rally the men in front of Villeselve,
and get them into trenches with the French infantry. To a great
extent they were successful, but the impossibility of co-ordination
between troops which always fought in method so different was
plainly apparent. When the trenches were shelled the French troops
walked out of them. When the shelling ceased they walked back. Such
procedure was all very well for formed units under their own leaders;
it was impossible to make it understood by scattered details of men
of a dozen units, harassed and strained by four days' fighting.
Eventually, at about three o'clock, the French received orders to
retire. Our men likewise fell back from the village.
Meanwhile upon the right had been enacted a drama truly heroic
which has never been recorded, because, in the days when reports
and despatches were written, there was no survivor to tell its
story. On the morning of the 24th, the 2nd Rifles consisted of the
following officers: Captain T. Y. Thompson, D.S.O., commanding since
the officer commanding at the outset of the attack, Major Rose,
had been wounded; Captain J. C. Bryans, Lieutenant M. E. Y. Moore,
M.C.; Lieutenant R. B. Marriott Watson, M.C.; Lieutenant J. K.
Boyle, M.C.; Lieutenant E. C. Strohm; and perhaps two hundred other
ranks. Of these, Lieutenants Moore and Marriott Watson were old
companions-in-arms. They had served together in the 13th Rifles; had
together taken part in that battalion's great raid on June the 26th,
1916, and had both been wounded on July the 1st. Having withdrawn
from the eastern to the western skirts of Cugny overnight, the
battalion had steadfastly maintained its position, almost entirely
unsupported. After beating off an enemy attack at ten in the morning,
it was discovered that ammunition was woefully short, and orders were
issued to fire at especially good targets only. Captain Thompson,
deliberately exposing himself to encourage the men on the menaced
right flank, which was being again attacked, was killed, as also was
Lieutenant Marriott Watson. Captain Bryans now assumed command.
Messages sent up from the 1st Rifles in rear, ordering the battalion
to withdraw, did not reach it. The men who bore them were killed
or wounded. In any case, it was the opinion of Captain Bryans that
a retirement across the bare, open country between Cugny and the
village of Villeselve, with the Germans on three sides of him, was
impossible.
From noon onwards was a lull, which was occupied in reorganization
of the line. Then, about 2 p.m., preceded by a violent barrage
of artillery and machine-gun fire, supported by an attack from
low-flying aeroplanes, an assault was launched, the Germans sweeping
in from the left in overwhelming numbers, despite the gaps cut in
their ranks by fire. By the time the enemy was upon them there was
scarce a round left to fire. "Many," writes Captain Bryans, "had
only their bayonets left. Rather than wait for the end, they jumped
from the entrenchments and met it gallantly. It was an unforgettable
sight. We were overwhelmed, but not disgraced."
After a desperate hand-to-hand fight, the little band was simply
engulfed. Lieutenants Moore and Boyle were killed. Of about a hundred
and fifty men on their feet when the attack began, it is estimated
that over a hundred were killed or wounded.
With the enemy pressing south-eastward from the direction of
Golancourt, and westward from Beaumont-en-Beine, the situation was
as acute as it had been at the worst moment of the morning. It
was relieved by a great charge carried out at 3 p.m. by troops of
General Harman's 3rd Cavalry Division, which had been assisting to
maintain the line of the 14th Division during the morning. The 7th
and Canadian Brigades had been moved in the direction of Beaulieu,
to check the German pressure on the salient. A detachment of the
6th Brigade, about a hundred and fifty men, under Major Watkins
Williams, 10th Hussars, charged from the neighbourhood of Collézy
the enemy advancing through the two copses north-west of Villeselve.
The detachment came under heavy machine-gun fire, and many saddles
were emptied. But it achieved its object. The Germans were caught
in the open, a considerable number cut down or shot, and over a
hundred prisoners taken. Infantry of the 36th Division, weary as
they were, followed up the charge cheering. It was a most brilliant
little action. But it was, and could be, no more than a delaying
action. There was no question of reoccupying Villeselve. The 9th and
62nd French Divisions had orders to withdraw before heavy attacks,
holding the enemy where possible, but never risking a break in
their line. Toward evening Berlancourt and Guiscard were heavily
shelled. The enemy had now some 150-mm. batteries in action, and
employed instantaneous fuse against Guiscard. Here Captain Rabone,
Brigade-Major of the 108th Brigade was wounded. The Headquarters
of the 9th French Division moved out of Quesmy, south of Guiscard,
only just in time to avoid being surrounded. Patrols of the enemy,
using white flares after dark as a guide to their artillery, were in
Guiscard before 11 p.m.
At 11 p.m. the 36th Division was put at the disposal of the 62nd
French Division, and ordered to withdraw its troops through its line.
The 108th Brigade, leaving the remnant of the 9th Irish Fusiliers
to fight a rearguard action on the ridge between Guiscard and
Berlancourt, withdrew to Crisolles, and later to Sermaize, where the
men had some rest. The 107th and 109th Brigades withdrew to Sermaize
and Frétoy-le-Château, arriving about 2 a.m. in the morning of the
25th.
During the day the artillery attached to the 36th Division, to
which the Potter Group, after having been in action under the 20th
Division, had been returned, had actively barraged the roads leading
south from the Canal de la Somme upon which the enemy was advancing.
The Potter Group had bombarded the enemy massing for attack in
the neighbourhood of the Esmery-Hallon--Golancourt Road, causing
considerable casualties to parties in the open. The Erskine Group
continued in action near Beines till French and British infantry had
withdrawn through its guns. C/91st Battery remained covering the
retirement till after dark, and was fortunate to be able to extricate
its guns after the Germans were in Berlancourt. The Eley Group had
to make three withdrawals, first, before noon, to Berlancourt; then,
at 2-30 p.m., to Buchoire, where it covered the French infantry; and
at 6 p.m. to the neighbourhood or Frétoy-le-Château. In every case
the retirement was delayed till the last possible minute. The men of
"C" and "D" Batteries, 153rd Brigade R.F.A., displayed the highest
courage and most dogged perseverance throughout this day.
At night the Erskine Group was put at the disposal of the 9th
French Division, the Eley and Potter Groups at that of the 62nd
French Division, under the control of the 36th Divisional Artillery
Headquarters. General Brock, on return from leave, assumed command of
the two latter Groups. Colonel H. C. Simpson, who had hitherto acted
as C.R.A., became Liaison Officer with the 62nd French Division.
An order of the 62nd French Division, issued at 2-15 a.m. on March
the 25th, contained the following information and instructions
for the 36th Division. The general line held ran west of Quesmy,
Bethancourt, Fréniches, to the Canal de Robécourt at Rouy, east of
Nesle. The _rôle_ of the 62nd Division was to check the enemy's
advance, and prevent his crossing the Canal de Robécourt before,
at earliest, the evening of the 25th. The British batteries were
to remain in action under the orders of the 62nd French Division.
The remaining troops of the 36th Division were to be withdrawn for
reorganization, in readiness to assist the 62nd Division in case of
emergency.
The reorganization, such as it was, was carried out in the course
of a fifteen-mile march. The 21st Brigade, now reduced to less than
five hundred of all ranks, was ordered to rejoin its own Division
north of Roye. It was detached from the line of retreat at Avricourt,
where it was met by a column of 'buses. Officers and men saw it go,
to the further desperate fighting which awaited its survivors, with
sentiments of the warmest admiration. During the whole period of
their attachment to the 36th Division, General Cochrane's men had
displayed wonderful endurance and devotion. In the centre of a line
which was turned upon both flanks, they had held each one of their
successive positions till the last possible moment.
The troops of the 36th Division halted at mid-day in the
neighbourhood of Avricourt, where they had a few hours' rest. They
then received orders to resume their march. The 107th Brigade moved
back to Guerbigny, on the banks of the Avre; the 108th Brigade to
Erches, a mile north of that village; the 109th Brigade to Guerbigny
and Warsy. Troops arrived between midnight and two o'clock, and, for
the first time since the beginning of the attack, had a continuous
sleep of at least six hours in comfortable billets. The 9th Irish
Fusiliers, however, coming straight through from the neighbourhood of
Guiscard, a distance of upwards of thirty miles, did not arrive till
8 a.m. General Nugent established his headquarters in Warsy.
The spectacle of the infantry upon that march was one that would
have aroused compassion in the most war-hardened breast. Men's
faces were deeply marked by overwhelming fatigue and lack of sleep.
Some moved in a sort of trance, stumbling forward oblivious to
their surroundings. In some cases their boots had given out. Many
company officers, in the course of the last few miles, dispensed
with the regulation halts, because they found it almost impossible
to get their men on their feet again after them. They lay like logs,
and had to be violently shaken before they could be recalled to
consciousness. Fortunately more 'buses had been sent for the 61st
Brigade than that scanty remnant required, and a few were able to
assist in moving back the men absolutely unable to walk.
There were other sights upon that line of march perhaps even more
moving. The men in this evil case were, after all, soldiers,
undergoing such experiences as many soldiers have undergone in many
great retreats. The spectacle of the civilians, turning out in haste
from their homes, was often heartrending. Their big wains would
be piled high with their household possessions, with perhaps the
old grandmother of the family holding its youngest baby, perched
perilously on top. Mile after mile, at the cart-tail, or driving
cattle that became mixed up with the British transport, the children
trudged in the rain. It was only the rich and comparatively fortunate
that had horsed transport. The poorer struggled along with the most
valuable of their things upon handcarts. The present writer remembers
seeing a woman carried out on a bed and put on to a farm-cart. He
was told she had given birth to a child two hours earlier. A little
later he came upon an old woman pushing her paralyzed husband in
a wheelbarrow. Let those who desire to realize what effort this
requires for a woman of sixty, try wheeling a heavy man in a
wheelbarrow even a hundred yards. For these room was found in a
British lorry at the next village, but there were many cases where
such relief was impossible.
The mien of these unfortunates was wonderful. Here and there a woman
sobbed as she walked, a man cursed his chance. For the most part,
about the most incongruous of these little cavalcades there was the
high dignity of sorrow and suffering stoically and nobly borne.
In the course of the mid-day halt, details were as far as possible
sent to their own units. In the 107th Brigade the 2nd Rifles, which
had disappeared at Cugny, was reformed at about the strength of a
large platoon. A company of the 15th Rifles, under Captain Miller,
which had been a part of the first-formed battalion of details, was
attached to the Brigade. The 109th Brigade formed small companies
from the remnants of the 1st and 2nd Inniskillings.
The fighting of March the 25th exhibited in lamentable fashion the
difficulties that occur in a retreat when two armies, using different
methods, speaking different languages, based upon different lines of
communication, with different apprehensions preoccupying the minds
of their commanders, are being forced back before a victorious and
more powerful enemy. The French were retiring south-west; the British
west. Sooner or later a gap was inevitable. It occurred on this
evening, at Roye. The 62nd French Division, covered by the Potter
and Eley Groups under General Brock, fought an admirable delaying
action. The Germans did not reach Libermont till 4 p.m., nor was the
Canal crossed by them till about 6 p.m. Thereafter the 62nd Division,
its left flank turned by the German advance at Nesle, withdrew to the
line of the Roye-Noyon Road. During the remainder of the retreat the
36th Division saw no more of the artillery which had been attached to
it, nor of its own C.R.A. and staff. An account of their action with
the French must be left till a little later in this narrative.
The gap had formed, and in the early hours of the morning the enemy
poured through Roye from the north-east, scarcely checked by the
efforts of a French Cavalry Division, flung out upon a front of
six miles. New French Divisions were about to detrain upon the
Amiens-Montdidier Railway. If the Germans should strike home at that,
a disaster far greater than any which the Allies had yet suffered
would ensue. To close the gap there remained nothing but the remnants
of the two original southern Divisions of the XVIII. Corps, the 36th
and the 30th.
At 8 a.m. on the morning of March the 26th, the 36th Division
received orders to take up a line from the neighbourhood of l'Echelle
St. Aurin, on the Avre, where it was to obtain touch with the French,
to the main Amiens-Roye Road, north of Andechy, linking up with the
30th Division. The 109th Brigade was ordered to take up a position
from the river to Andechy, with the 108th Brigade on the left; the
107th Brigade remaining in reserve at Guerbigny. North and south
of the western outskirts of Andechy ran a good trench, covered by
a certain amount of wire, the second French line of 1916. Some
three hundred yards north of the village, however, this line bent
north-eastward, and could not be occupied. The advanced troops of the
enemy were already at hand, and it was a matter of minutes whether
the troops would be able to take up the position. The suddenness of
the advance may be gathered from the fact that farmers from Guerbigny
were yoking their horses to ploughs on the ridge north of the
village when they were informed of the situation by troops moving
forward. The present writer well remembers the gallant and dignified,
"_Eh bien, monsieur, il faut partir alors_," of one old man about to
hitch in his team, when informed that the Germans were about a mile
away.
By the time the troops of the 109th Brigade were in position the
enemy was in Andechy. Those of the 108th were actually prevented from
reaching their station on the Roye Road by machine-gun fire on their
left flank. Touch with the 30th Division was never obtained here, but
later on it was discovered that its right was at Bouchoir, a mile
further back on the main road.
All through the morning small parties of the enemy attempted to work
their way forward, but were held up by the fire of Lewis guns. The
122nd Field Company, under the orders of General Griffith, had been
posted in echelon to protect the left flank. At 1 p.m., as the enemy
appeared to be progressing slightly on the left, General Nugent
ordered the 107th Brigade to hold the old French line following
the road from Erches to Bouchoir. The 107th Brigade, to which was
attached the 121st Field Company, the 16th Rifles, and the 21st
Entrenching Battalion, as well as the personnel of its own Trench
Mortar Battery, contained now the remnants of seven units. It was
accordingly formed into three groups, the largest, under the command
of Colonel McCarthy-O'Leary, 1st Rifles, consisting of its own three
battalions. It was in position by 4 p.m., later pushing forward a
line to gain touch with the left of the 108th Brigade.
The troops had now been in position for six hours; six hours of time
the value of which no standard can measure. When their physical
state is considered, the steadiness they showed on this occasion is
equal to any of their achievements through the week that had passed.
Every German attempt to advance was frustrated by their fire. No
artillery was supporting them. Even a single battery of 18-pounders
would have been of great service, and would have had many splendid
targets round Andechy. The Germans, for their part, were now
heavily bombarding the village of Erches, which the 108th Brigade
Headquarters were obliged to quit, moving into the open fields behind
it.
At dusk the enemy launched an attack in strength upon Erches,
preceded by a bombardment. By eight o'clock he was in the village.
The 108th Brigade Headquarters was attacked at close quarters, and
General Griffith slightly wounded in the hand fighting his way
clear of the German patrols. Colonel Place, the G.S.O.1 of the
Division, going up from Guerbigny in a car, with Colonel Furnell of
the 1st Irish Fusiliers, and Major Brew of the 9th, to ascertain
the position, ran into a party of the enemy. A bullet stopped the
engine of the car. Colonel Place jumped out, but before he could
draw his pistol from under his coat was hit in the leg, and fell in
the roadway. Instantly a German sprang upon him and stabbed at him
with his bayonet. Fortunately for Colonel Place, the thickness of
his "British Warm" saved him. The little party had no alternative to
surrender. The car was subsequently recovered, towed back, and served
the Division well in after days.
Colonel Place had been G.S.O.1 of the 36th Division for more than
two years. As a staff officer he was far more than merely able and
efficient. His sympathy and imagination enabled him to grasp all
points of view, and to understand those which were different to
his own. He never seemed to require, as do so many men engaged on
difficult tasks, an hour free from interruption, but could switch
his mind on to each new problem presented to him, and return to his
own where he had left it. His loss in this unlucky fashion was much
regretted.
Lieutenant Cumming, whose reconnaissance on the 21st has been
mentioned, led a patrol of six men into Guerbigny, to see if the
enemy had yet entered it. They had not, but on his way the patrol was
attacked by a German patrol of five. As a result of the fight every
single German was killed.
The remnants of the 108th Brigade had taken up a line west of
Erches, putting themselves under the orders of General Hessey, as
their own Brigade Staff had been cut off from them by the German
patrols which had burst through. There was now heavy shelling and
trench-mortaring of the British positions, the enemy having moved up
guns and mortars into Andechy. A patrol sent out at 1-45 a.m. on the
morning of the 27th by the 121st Field Company, saw long columns of
the enemy; infantry, transport, a troop of cavalry, and a battery
of artillery, moving into Erches. Captain Miller's company of 15th
Rifles, west of the village, was pounded with artillery and mortar
fire, the trenches being obliterated and heavy casualties suffered.
He had with him one machine-gun, and, as light appeared, this gun
began to obtain many targets in Erches, inflicting considerable loss
upon the enemy. At 8 a.m. the enemy entered a sap in front of his
trench and began to bomb his way up. Lieutenant Young, with a handful
of riflemen, promptly drove him out.
Meanwhile, clinging to a trench on the Erches-Guerbigny Road, was
Captain Densmore Walker of the Machine-Gun Battalion, whose diary
has previously been drawn upon in the course of this narrative,
with a handful of men of his company, armed with rifles. Behind
him was a party of the 107th Brigade with one machine-gun. Captain
Walker had with him a rifleman of the old 14th Rifles, now in one
of the Entrenching Battalions, named Gilmour, one of those curious
individuals who, when all seems to be melting about them in moments
of great emergency, suddenly display resource and coolness which
amaze all who have known them. Together they had already carried
out a patrol into Guerbigny, into which some of the enemy had been
seen to move, in the course of which, Captain Walker cheerfully
confesses, Rifleman Gilmour, rather than he, had been the leader. The
counter-attack which followed may be described in Captain Walker's
own words, because it succeeds, as no official account ever can, in
picturing the exact details for the mind's eye.
"Things were looking as black as conceivable. I suppose it would
be about 7-30 a.m. when the attack came. We heard shouting straight
behind us and saw about a dozen men a mile away, coming towards us in
a line.[52] One waved a white flag and they all shouted. Some said
they were English, and we were relieved; some said they looked like
French; and I said that any way we would fire on them--which we did.
They were perfectly good Huns! They took cover when we opened, and
then, when we were really interested in them, the real attack came
from Erches. He swarmed on to the road and came down the trench.
This looked like the finish of it. There was a general movement
backwards, but Evans prevented the machine-gunners from dismounting
the one machine-gun with the 107th Brigade, and got it into action
on the top of the trench. This changed the aspect of things, as
the Huns checked. We all got out of our trench (most people with
the idea of clearing over the open, I fancy), and there we stood
for quite a while, our people firing towards Erches, and the Huns
hesitating. Seeing this latter tendency, Gilmour and I moved slowly
towards Erches, trying to urge the troops to attack, but they were
too undecided.... Then we saw a Hun in the trench just below us. I
fired my revolver at him and he ran back. So we chased him. This
settled matters! The Huns turned tail and our men followed. As my
particular Hun turned round traverses I got in another couple of
shots, but didn't bring him down. When we reached the road--which
was sunken-- ... the bank came up to his waist, and he looked
scared--horribly--but I fired again.... I distinctly saw what I
thought was a puff of smoke go out from his pack. Any way he at once
went down behind the bank, and Gilmour rushed up with his bayonet. I
said 'Leave him,' but I don't know whether he did or not. And now I
didn't know what to do. Fritz was legging it for Erches hard enough,
and by this time indeed they had all reached it. I don't know how big
the village was, but we might have rushed it. On the other hand,
I didn't know what had happened on the left, or in what strength
the enemy was.... At this stage I was delighted to see an infantry
officer with an M.C. come up. I asked him if he thought it was any
use trying to go on, and he said it would be better to make a line
there."
Eventually Captain Walker, surrounded, except on the north-west,
withdrew. He adds:
"I think on the whole the Erches scrap went in our favour. We
were few in numbers compared with the Huns. They were backed
up by victory, while our men were terribly tired, hungry, and
dispirited.... Our ammunition was about gone. For our M.G. we had
three belts left when we retired. We were entirely surrounded, if
only by Hun patrols, and we only knew hazily what direction to make
for. In the circumstances, to delay a force superior in numbers and
moral for half a day after it attacked our position, was as much as
could be expected. I reckon the Boche should have wiped out our party
at Erches, but we turned on him severely enough to persuade him to
let us go quietly."[53]
It was, then, at Erches that the enemy first broke the line on a
serious scale. On the right, south of the Avre, the French posts
were withdrawing. The 109th Brigade had no alternative but to cross.
It was impossible to retire along the right bank. The crossing was
superintended by the Brigade Major, Captain G. J. Bruce, and carried
out in orderly fashion, with covering fire from successive sections.
The line then fell back with the French outposts through the wood
north of Lignières, which was heavily shelled by the enemy.
North of Erches, Captain Miller held his ground till noon, when
his trenches were being blown in. On his left what remained of
the 1st and 2nd Rifles had fallen back a little after Colonel
McCarthy-O'Leary had been wounded--for the second time. Captain
Miller therefore withdrew upon Arvillers, when he gained touch with
Captain Patton, who had about sixty officers and men of the two other
battalions. Finally, on the order of General Withycombe, the whole
line withdrew upon Hangest-en-Santerre, since large columns of the
enemy could be seen advancing towards Davenescourt, and disappearing
in the wooded country in its rear. This withdrawal was complete at 5
p.m. By evening a French Division had moved up, and the remnant of
the 107th Brigade was ordered to march back on relief, and rejoin
the rest of the Division at Sourdon. One party of three officers and
sixty-eight other ranks, however, out of touch with the Brigade,
remained in action north-west of Arvillers till the morning of the
28th. Constantly pressed by the enemy, they kept him stationary by
their rifle fire. Not till 11 a.m. were they relieved by the French.
The achievement of the troops of the 36th Division, a mere handful
at this time, almost broken by fatigue, in many cases without food,
must take a high place, not alone in the annals of the March retreat,
but in that of the war. That men here and there, bowed beneath
the weight of a burden almost unbearable, showed weakness, is not
controverted. The account of Captain Walker has been purposely
inserted--as an instance, to which many might be added--to show in
what fashion weakness was overcome by leadership and example. It is
the finest type of courage that, in the slang phrase, "comes up to
scratch" again and again, beating down in the breast the inevitable
weakness as it arises. The individual Briton is at least as brave
as the individual of any other race; but men in the mass are not
naturally heroic. It is discipline, training, pride in a unit or a
formation, and, above all, in such crises as these, leadership alone
which can instil into men who have undergone the strain these men had
undergone, the courage to stand firm in the plight wherein they found
themselves. These men had stood. Not only to the officers and picked
men among them, who made the stand possible, but to the whole group
spirit which they created for their weaker brethren in adversity,
the adjective "heroic" may fairly be applied. Best of all, their
object had been achieved. There can be no suggestion of hyperbole if
that object be described in a phrase from Lord Haig's Despatch. The
resistance, he said, of the 36th Division near Andechy played "no
small part in preventing the enemy from breaking through between the
Allied Armies." If we ponder that phrase and its inferences we shall
have small need of further testimony.
After their long and trying march to Sourdon the troops had one
more call to answer. An enemy column had found a gap at Montdidier
and taken advantage of it. By 8 a.m. on the morning of the 28th
it was over two miles west of the town. At 12-30 p.m. General
Nugent received an order signed by General Débeney, commanding the
First French Army, to the effect that he was massing artillery at
Coullemelle, and that he required all infantry at his disposal to
cover it. All troops of the 107th and 109th Brigades that could be
collected were moved down to Coullemelle, and took up a position
covering the French batteries. They were in position at about
five in the evening. Subsequently came a message from the French
requesting that they should be moved to Villers-Tournelle, two
miles south-east of Coullemelle. But the French troops on the spot
informed our men that the situation had improved, the enemy having
been counter-attacked and driven back. Patrols sent out to Cantigny,
another mile and a half east of Villers-Tournelle, found the French
infantry solidly placed and unattacked. The night being very wet
and cold, the majority of the force was therefore withdrawn into
the houses of Coullemelle, piquets being posted south-east of the
village, and patrols keeping touch through the night with the French
in front.
The following day the march was continued. And now the weary
troops saw heartening sights upon the route. Column after column
of lorries, little Annamite drivers at the wheel, packed with the
dark blue uniforms of the Chasseurs Alpins, roared by them. At some
points there were serious blocks in the traffic. At Essertaux,
where General Nugent had his headquarters for a few hours, he was
succeeded by General Mangin, commanding the IX. French Corps. The
French were really now in strength. Attack and counter-attack were to
rage here a few days longer. Up north, upon the Scarpe, Below's great
final thrust had been heavily defeated. The German advance was stayed
at last.
On the morning of the 30th, after a night spent in the open in cold
and wet, the troops of the 36th Division were entrained at Saleux,
south of Amiens, now half-deserted and racked by bomb and shell,
and moved north to the area of Gamaches, on the Norman coast, for
reorganization.
Remains only to be related the last actions of the Artillery. On the
evening of the 25th it had withdrawn with the 62nd French Division
through the forest south of the Roye-Noyon Road, coming under the
orders of a new French Division, the 77th, on the morrow. On that
day, when the infantry was beginning its grapple at Andechy, an
important battle opened against the Germans debouching from Noyon,
upon the line Cannectancourt--Canny-sur-Matz. Here the Germans made
little progress. Attack after attack on the afternoon of the 27th was
beaten off, the barrage fire being very effective and earning high
praise from the French commanders. On the 28th the Germans succeeded
in entering Canny, but made no progress elsewhere. On the morning
of the 30th desperate German attacks penetrated some distance into
the French positions, taking the vital height of Plémont Hill. In
the afternoon, however, a brilliant counter-attack was carried out,
splendidly supported by our artillery. The whole line was restored,
and over seven hundred prisoners taken.
The French now had their own batteries in action. On March the 31st
the Artillery began its march back to Poix, the concentration area
for refitment. It had carried out a great task in a manner worthy of
the highest traditions of the Royal Regiment.
If this narrative has been faithful, and if--a task far harder to
accomplish--it has appealed to the imagination, there remains little
need to discuss the causes of the greatest defeat suffered by British
arms since York Town. The German victory was a victory of superior
numbers, but it was more than that. It was a victory of training.
While our thin-strung battalions were digging, Ludendorff trained his
great host, collected astride the Oise. He taught it what armies were
forgetting, how to advance without barrage or tanks. He instilled
into it the offensive spirit, and saw that it reached the very
corporals commanding light machine-gun groups. They it was who won
him his battle.
But, if the defence was overwhelmed by superior numbers, it seems
clear that it broke down earlier than it need have done, and that
the fault lay in its organization. The Forward Zone was little more
than a screen, and was so regarded. Yet it was held by three whole
battalions on the front of each Division. The orders were that the
enclosed keeps, even in the front system, were to resist to the
last. The whole position in front of the Battle Zone may be regarded
as the outpost line. This outpost line, manned by a third of the
infantry force of each Division, was not to retire and was not to
be reinforced. The first shock of the attack swept this third away.
It was defence in detail, not defence in depth, and in detail it
was defeated. Defence in depth may be defined as successive lines
of organized defence, upon which the defenders can fall back in
succession, always finding some fresh troops on the new position,
so that the line becomes gradually stronger as it falls back, until
at last is reached the line upon which the real defence is to be
made. Gallantly as they strove, much as they accomplished, the three
battalions in the Forward Zone of the 36th Division were wasted under
the Fifth Army scheme.
As for the lines of the St. Quentin and Somme Canals, which might
have been very formidable, there had been no preliminary organization
of their defence, nor even reconnaissance with that end in view. When
the moment came the defence had to be improvised.
[Illustration: Map VI.
The Retreat of March, 1918.]
This does not detract from, but rather increases, the
magnificence of the defence of the 36th Division, and indeed of the
whole of the XVIII. Corps, which had sixteen German Divisions, in
front and second line, against its four. There is at least every
reason to suppose that, had all gone elsewhere as on the front of the
XVIII. Corps, the full weight of reinforcements would have arrived
before the enemy had forced the lines of the St. Quentin and Somme
Canals. In that case the war would undoubtedly have had a speedier
ending.
FOOTNOTES:
[52] These men were evidently advancing from
Saulchoy-sur-Davenescourt, into which a number of the enemy had
filtered in the darkness.
[53] Returned prisoners of war informed Captain Miller, whose diary
has been drawn upon in this chapter, that the streets of Erches,
through which they were marched, were littered with German dead.
So, as he remarks in a letter to the writer, the affair "was not so
one-sided as it looked."