THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE SOMME
The Retreat of the Eighteenth Corps, March 21-29.
Retreat of the Sixty-first Division--The Gloucesters at
Beauvais--Fall of Ham--Retreat of the Thirtieth and Thirty-sixth
Divisions--Great privations of the men--Fine feat at Le
Quesnoy--Summary of the experience of Maxse's Corps.
[Sidenote: Eighteenth Corps. March 22.]
It has been shown that Maxse's Eighteenth Corps, covering the St.
Quentin front, maintained its whole position on March 21, thanks to
the splendid conduct of the three battalions in the forward line, and
to the stout resistance in the zone of battle. It has also been told
how the Sixty-first Division, the most northern unit, withdrew on the
afternoon of March 22, very attenuated but still full of fight, to a
prepared position between Vaux and Villévêque. At 4 P.M. that day
the three brigades, or what was left of them, were in line 1500 yards
east of Beauvais, the 184th being in the centre, with the 182nd on
its right, and the 183rd on its left. As they faced their pursuers
they could plainly see the Germans pouring in successive waves from
Atilly. The central brigade was commanded by General the Hon. Robert
White, one of two gallant brothers who sowed their military wild oats
in the Jameson Raid, and this unit, reduced now to a mere handful of
{157} Gloucesters, Berkshires, and Oxfords, was exposed to a
scourging fire of shrapnel, which further thinned their ranks, their
General being one of the casualties. No field ambulances were
available at the moment, and as General White was led away badly
wounded he saw the German cavalry breaking into the south side of
Beauvais, while a large artillery dump west of the village was
exploded by the enemy fire. The whole situation was chaotic, but the
British infantry still hung together, retreating slowly and turning
continually upon their pursuers. Some twenty German aeroplanes were
quartering the district like so many fierce hawks, and diving with
great daring from time to time into the very streets of the village,
while the British falling back into cover fired up at them with their
rifles and light machine-guns. Two of them came crashing down upon
the roofs of the houses. It was rumoured that the enemy had already
got close to Ham upon the right rear of the division, and they were
round the left flank in the region of Holnon Wood. There was little
artillery support available, for sixty per cent of the forward guns
had been taken or destroyed in Holnon Wood, and the remaining
batteries were getting away with their reduced teams, so that the
retreat of the infantry was correspondingly slow in order to cover
the withdrawal. In the north the Scotsmen of the 183rd Brigade were
moving back near Villescholles in touch with the 72nd Brigade of the
Twenty-fourth Division, both of them being much helped in their
retirement by the 11th Hussars. All along the line the Germans were
pressing very closely, but the Sixty-first kept wonderfully steady,
though at Beauvais, where Colonel Wetherall had taken over the
command when {158} General White was wounded, the two parties were
continually intermingled, so ardent was the pursuit and so leisurely
the retreat. So mixed were the combatants that Major Howitt,
brigade-major of the 184th, was dragged out from among his men, and
was in the hands of the Germans for some exciting and instructive
hours. "I must say the officers treated me well, though the escorts
were very rough," says he. "For all my hatred I could not help
admiring them intensely, for their deployment, discipline, and
preparation were an eye-opener. They extended into battle order with
hardly a sound and lay down preparatory for the next assault,
bringing up mules dragging light trench-mortars, machine-guns, and
ammunition." Major Howitt finally broke away from his escort, and by
keeping so near to a burning ammunition dump that no one dared to
follow him, he succeeded in regaining his own lines.
The defence of the line in front of Beauvais was kept up with
remarkable tenacity and ended by 150 men of the 2/5th Gloucester
battalion performing what was an extraordinary feat, even in this war
of miracles, for they held on to a line 2000 yards in length until
3.30 in the morning of March 23, holding up the whole German advance.
All night the enemy tried to rush or to bomb this thin line of
determined men, but it was not until the cartridges ran low that the
British made their retreat, sneaking round the outskirts of the
village which blazed behind them, and making their way to
Longuevoisin where they joined their comrades, who had already given
them up as lost, for they had been five miles behind the army.
Colonel Lawson was in command during this heroic episode, and was
ably supported by his {159} two lieutenants, Rickerby and Dudbridge.
Of the latter, it is recorded that in a later stage of the retreat he
was in such a condition of absolute exhaustion that he was wounded
three times in the course of a single day without ever observing it
until evening. Utter nerve fatigue has its compensations as well as
its terrors.
The Thirtieth Division had held on to its ground until four in the
afternoon of March 22. Some units lingered to cover the retreat, the
2nd Yorkshires and the 17th Manchesters holding on to their redoubts
until six o'clock, when they were in danger of isolation.
During their withdrawal both the Sixty-first Division and the
Thirtieth Division to the south of it were covered by the 59th and
60th Brigades of the Twentieth Division. These two fine brigades,
still intact and full of fight, allowed the weary soldiers to pass
through their ranks, while they opposed a tenacious resistance to the
pursuing Germans. When the Sixty-first and Thirtieth were across the
canal of the Somme the covering division fell back in orderly
fashion, and itself crossed the canal between Canizy and Bethencourt,
the 60th Brigade being on the right and the 59th on the left. The
60th Brigade was compelled to fight hard to make good its retirement,
and it struck back again and again at the German vanguard. In this
fighting the 12th Rifle Brigade particularly distinguished itself,
but its losses were heavy, and included its gallant Colonel,
Maclachlan.
Early in the morning of March 23 it was known that the enemy had
crossed the line of the Somme at Ham. The Thirtieth Division had
retreated upon {160} this important little town, which had been
thrown into a state of defence by General Stanley of the 89th
Brigade, but his garrison was so utterly inadequate to cover the
ground that his dispositions were useless, as the Germans could get
round him on either side. He had with him in the first instance two
entrenching battalions, the 21st and 23rd, two companies of gas
engineers, the corps cyclists, and a mere handful of infantry. Late
on March 22 he was joined, however, by his own three attenuated
battalions of the King's, each of which had been heavily engaged in
different parts of the battle. At the same time the 90th Brigade
dropped back to the left of Ham and the 21st to the right. The
division was bare on both flanks, however, and it was determined to
continue the retreat. The bridges were blown up and such rolling
stock as was possible was destroyed, but there were very many stores
in the town which had to be abandoned to the enemy. It was a very
great disaster, for it supplied him with much, and indeed served him
as an advanced base, all ready-made for his operations in this part
of the field. As to the loss of the river line, it has already been
explained that in these higher reaches it is a very slight barrier.
[Sidenote: March 23.]
When the enemy had taken Ham he pushed along swiftly towards
Esmery-Hallon on the heels of the retiring Thirtieth Division. The
Thirty-sixth Division, which had been assisted in its retreat by the
61st Brigade of the Twentieth, had crossed the Somme to the east of
Ham, and was now to the right of the Thirtieth (right and left being
used all through these operations on the supposition that the unit is
turning and facing the enemy). The Thirty-sixth {161} Division
crossed the Somme Canal at St. Simon, closely pressed by the enemy,
and the 121st Field Company Royal Engineers and other sapper units
performed great work under heavy fire, destroying no less than
twenty-seven bridges. After the passing of the river by the Germans
there were constant rearguard actions, one of the most spirited of
which was at Villeselve, where the 9th Irish Fusiliers and the Royal
Dragoons fought together and drove in the German vanguard. The
general situation of Maxse's Corps upon the forenoon of March 23 was
that the Thirty-sixth Division was over the Somme and near Golancourt
and Bronchy, that the Thirtieth Division was dropping back upon
Esmery-Hallon, and that the Sixty-first Division, retreating in the
direction of Nesle had crossed the Somme at Voyennes and Offoy,
continuing its retreat to the Nesle Canal. Between the Thirtieth and
Sixty-first Divisions were the 60th Brigade on the right and the 59th
on the left, who were also covering the Nesle Canal, but were quite
ready to counter-attack should an opening present itself.
A British corps does not allow itself to be driven without hitting
back, however great the odds may seem. A series of brisk skirmishes
was going on all along the line. In one of these, just south of Ham,
Colonel Watson with the 17th King's Liverpools came back on his
pursuers and held them up for a time. More serious was the
counter-attack organised by the main body north of Esmery-Hallon.
This attack struck southwards from Canizy and hit upon the right
flank of the Germans, staggering them for the instant. It was
carried out by the 60th Brigade and the 182nd Brigade, all under
General Duncan of the {162} former unit. This spirited advance was
led upon the field by Colonel Bilton of the Sixty-first Division, and
was delivered with such force that this small British detachment
drove back for some distance the great army which was rolling
westwards. It was impossible, of course, to recover ground
permanently, but it gained invaluable time and eased the pressure
upon the south end of the line for the whole of a critical evening.
It was clear, however, that the capture of Ham and the crossing of
the stream had turned the flank of the Twentieth and Sixty-first
Divisions, who were defending the higher reaches of the same river.
They were not to be frightened prematurely out of their positions,
however, and at Bethencourt the 11th Rifle Brigade drove back a
German attempt at crossing, while at Offoy the 12th Rifles also
inflicted a sharp repulse upon the pursuers. That evening, March 23,
the Sixty-first Division was practically amalgamated with the
Twentieth, and both were concentrated near Nesle. They received at
this time a most useful reinforcement in the shape of two batteries
(16 guns) of Canadian motor machine-guns under Captain Meerling.
There is not an officer or man of these much-tried battalions who
would not admit a deep debt of gratitude to these splendidly
efficient and energetic guns, which had such mobility that they were
always where they were most wanted.
[Sidenote: March 24.]
The troops had on the morning of March 24 got behind the Somme Canal,
which runs beside the river, all bridges had been broken, and patrols
were pushed across where practicable so as to keep in touch with the
enemy. It was not in this southern area, however, but at Bethencourt
that the Germans did actually get across in force, by which they
turned {163} the flank of the 25th Brigade of the Eighth Division in
the north and of the 59th Brigade in the south. An attack was
instantly organised by the 11th Rifle Brigade, who had lost their
Colonel, Cotton, the day before, and were now led by Major Bertie.
They succeeded by a fine effort in driving the Germans for the time
across the canal and gaining touch with the Eighth Division. The
Germans pushed across once more at Pargny, upon the other flank of
the Eighth Division, and also renewed their attempt in greater force
at Bethencourt, getting possession of the higher ground there. This
time it was the Highlanders and Royal Scots of the 183rd Brigade who
counter-attacked, acting as part of the Twentieth Division, and by
half-past two in the afternoon the position had once more been
re-established. The Canadian motor-guns were invaluable in this
operation.
Upon the morning of March 24 the Sixty-first Division was barring the
road from Ham to Nesle. The German progress had been checked in this
direction by a spirited counter-attack carried out by the 5th
Cornwalls, the pioneer battalion of that division, together with a
mixed array of police, bandsmen, and other details, who advanced from
Offoy to a depth of five miles, under Major Bennett. This little
improvised force held on all night, and seems eventually to have
joined up with the French in the neighbourhood of Esmery-Hallon.
The British were still holding the crossings at Voyennes and Offoy,
but very hard fighting had broken out to the south, and the Germans,
who had poured over in the neighbourhood of Ham, were now thrusting
hard for Canizy. The road bridges had all been destroyed, but there
was a railway bridge {164} at Ham which had been taken out of the
hands of the army authorities and left in charge of the railway
department. This was either uninjured or at any rate inadequately
destroyed, and was of immediate use to the enemy, enabling him to
keep uninterrupted pressure upon the retiring troops. Canizy was now
taken, but the 12th Rifles made an immediate counter-attack and
forced the Germans back from the village. In this spirited operation
they lost their gallant Colonel, Moore, who had led them with the
utmost fearlessness.
Whilst the Germans were pushing forward at Canizy they had also
maintained strong and continuous pressure upon the Thirtieth Division
near Moyencourt, and upon the Thirty-sixth Division at Golancourt,
causing the Ulster men, whose left wing was entirely in the air, to
fall back westwards. The next line of defence, after the Somme had
been forced, lies along what is called the Libermont Canal between
Nesle and Libermont. It was necessary to fall back, fighting as best
they could, and to place this obstacle, narrow as it was, between the
weary soldiers and their pursuers. It was the third day since the
men had had a decent meal or an uninterrupted rest, and they were
very disorganised and broken. "Hundreds of men were streaming back,"
says one observer. "They had been without food for days and were
done in completely. They were stopped and reformed at the bridges,
where as many as 2000 were collected." It is such plain sobering
sentences which help one to realise that war is not, as large scale
descriptions might seem to imply, a question of the moving of pieces
upon a board, but that underneath the strategy lie the countless
human tragedies, the {165} tortured frames, the broken nerves, the
prayers of brave men that they may still be brave, the torturing
anxiety of officers, the ever-pressing burden which sometimes breaks
the weary back which tries to hold it. Strategy reckons nothing of
these things, but their accumulation makes up the terrible human
tragedy of war, which brings humility to the most proud and fear to
the most valiant. All equally feel the weakness of nature, but he is
blessed who has the strength of spirit to cover and to combat it.
By mid-day on March 24 the Thirtieth Division was over the Libermont
Canal, holding from Buverchy to Libermont, with the village and
bridge of Raincourt as a joining point between the 90th Brigade to
the north and the 89th to the south. It may be recorded, to descend
suddenly from divisions to individuals, that the first sign of the
new German advance was a single scout who appeared in the open in
front of the canal, and was engaged in a prolonged and deliberate
rifle duel by Lieutenant Harrop, with the result that he was finally
brought in as a wounded prisoner. The Twentieth Division had also
fallen back, the orders of brigades from the south being the 60th
with its flank on Buverchy, the 59th resting on Quiquery, and the
183rd to link up with the Eighth Division near Mesnil St. Nicaise.
The Thirty-sixth Division prolonged the line to the south of
Libermont. The French reinforcements from the south were beginning
by the afternoon of this day to get as far north as this section, and
if not very weighty at the moment they were of great moral use as a
promise for the future.
From the new positions of the British line the German infantry could
now be seen advancing in {166} platoon columns in three lines on each
side of the Voyenne Road and heading for the Libermont Canal.
Several parties of horsemen could be seen also, who were conjectured
to be battery staffs, keeping up with the fight. The weak point was
still near Bethencourt, between the Twentieth and the Eighth
Divisions, where the gap tended to be wider as the enemy got more
troops across and endeavoured to push the 25th Brigade north as has
been described in dealing with the experiences of the Nineteenth
Corps. They were reported before evening as having got as far as
Morchain. The flank brigade of the Eighteenth Corps, the 183rd, was
ordered to extend as far to the north-west as Potte in the hope of
regaining touch, but though they reached that village they were still
unable to bridge the gap. During the night there were heavy attacks
upon Mesnil St. Nicaise in this region, which fell chiefly upon the
Rifle battalions of the 59th Brigade, which had been reinforced by
the 20th Entrenching Battalion and the 11th Durhams, the divisional
pioneer battalion. The general result was to force the British line
some little distance to the westward. At Buverchy in the evening the
German infantry also advanced in great numbers, but came under the
very efficient guns of the Thirtieth Division, and lost very heavily.
The enemy artillery was also very active so that both the Thirtieth
near Buverchy and the Thirty-sixth farther south had many casualties.
The French relief was making itself more felt, however, in this
southern section, where they were already outnumbering the British.
The latter were greatly worn--so much so that the 21st Brigade of the
Thirtieth Division could hardly be said to exist, only about 100 of
the Yorkshires {167} being left in the line. By evening the centre
of the position was near Moyencourt, some little distance to the west.
[Sidenote: March 25.]
In spite of the French reinforcements, which were not accompanied
with artillery, the attack was still markedly stronger than the
defence, so that March 25 was a most dangerous and critical day in
this quarter of the field. To trace the developments from the north
the enemy continued to press through the gap between the two corps,
the Nineteenth and the Eighteenth, making a series of heavy attacks
towards Mesnil-le-Petit and Nesle from the direction of Potte. This
movement, powerfully followed up, pushed back the left flank from
Quiquery to a point on the high ground 1000 yards west of Nesle. The
183rd Brigade, which was now a mere handful of Scottish infantry,
superb in quality but reduced to the last stage of exhaustion,
together with the thin ranks of the 59th Brigade of Rifles, could
not, even with the aid of the Canadian motor-guns, hold the heavy
masses who pressed down upon them. The French One hundred and
thirty-third Division moving up in support had dug a line between
Billancourt and Herly, but Nesle was abandoned to the enemy, the
Twenty-second French Division retiring from this sector and falling
back towards Roye. The 60th Brigade of the Twentieth Division, much
helped by the 23rd Entrenching Battalion--these valiant diggers made
their presence felt all along the line--still held stoutly to their
positions from Quiquery to Buverchy, but their left and left rear
were so compromised that it was clear they could not hold out longer.
To the south the French, who had relieved the Thirty-sixth Division
at Libermont, had been pushed back, and the British {168} position
was turned in their direction also. By the afternoon the French had
taken over the line as far north as Buverchy, and the Thirtieth
Division was ordered to fall back, but the Germans had advanced so
rapidly from Libermont and got so far to their right rear that it was
no easy matter either for the British or the French to get past them.
Many had to swim the canals which striate this part of the country,
and the 2nd Bedfords were especially hard-pressed before they were
able to get away. The Twenty-second French Division was doing all it
could to cover the approaches to Nesle upon the south, and the 184th
Brigade cheered them loudly as they passed through their ranks.
"They looked very fine men and seemed very much for it." General
Wetherall of this brigade was badly wounded by a shell splinter in
this period of the battle. And we have a vivid pen-picture drawn by
a spectator of Brigade-Major Hewitt, some of whose adventures have
already been recorded, holding Wetherall's wounded artery with one
hand, while he wrote brigade orders with the other, for more than two
hours on end. The 184th lost five commanders during the retreat.
Even if the local pressure had not caused a rapid withdrawal at this
portion of the line, it would have been enforced by the general
strategic position, for the German advance in the south had been so
masterful that on this night of March 25 Roye was taken, which is far
to the south-west of Nesle. The 61st Brigade had been sharing the
hard fortunes of the Thirty-sixth Division, but now, as the latter
had been drawn out, it was restored to the Twentieth Division. So
severe had been the strain upon it that it only numbered about 500
bayonets, and some battalions, {169} such as the 2/6th Royal
Warwicks, had not a single combatant officer left standing. None the
less, it was at once sent to man a supporting line stretching through
Gruny, Cremery, and Liancourt, and had hardly reached it before the
Germans were also at Liancourt. The brigade held them, however, and
so enabled the front line to fall back upon an organised position
whence, on the next morning, a swift retreat became necessary.
After dark on March 25 the One hundred and thirty-third French
Division had come up to relieve the Twentieth and Sixty-first, but
the situation was such along the line of the Nesle Canal that no
fixed line could be formed, and the three divisions were finally
greatly mixed up in the darkness and there was a good deal of
confusion in their councils, since the general directions of the
French were to fall back to the south, while the line of retreat of
the British lay rather to the west. There was little time for
deliberation, for word had come in that the Germans were closing in
upon Liancourt, pressing south and west, in a way which threatened to
cut off the whole forward line. At midnight, the British, many of
them hardly able to move for fatigue, staggered off in such
formations as they could assemble, with orders to concentrate north
and east of Roye. Thanks largely to the presence of the remnants of
the 61st Brigade near Liancourt, this most hazardous march was
successfully accomplished, but as Roye was within the grasp of the
enemy the movement was continued so as to reach a line between
Hangest and Le Quesnel. The Germans were close upon them in the
north, so the 61st Brigade, now down to 400 men, acted as flankguard,
fending off their constant attacks. {170} The war has shown few
finer instances of disciplined and tenacious valour than in the case
of the three handfuls of men who represented what had once been the
12th King's, 7th Somersets, and 7th Cornwalls. The enemy were in
Liancourt, and their patrols were in actual hand-to-hand fighting
with a French detachment aided by some of the Somersets. Other
German troops pouring down from the north and using to the utmost the
gap which had opened between the corps, endeavoured to cut in and to
seize Le Quesnoy (not to be confused with Le Quesnel towards which
the troops were marching). It was, however, upon their line of
retreat, and about halfway to their destination, so that a German
occupation would have been serious. The post was most desperately
defended by Captain Combe, the brigade-major of the 61st Brigade,
with two Lewis guns and 100 men. Only eleven were left standing at
the end of this defence, but the village was held for the necessary
time, and the survivors only withdrew upon receipt of a positive
order. Thus the flank march of the British from Roye to Le Quesnel
upon the morning of March 26 was successfully accomplished, owing to
the devotion of their covering party to the north. "It was very much
of a rabble," says an officer, "and there was great difficulty in
sorting out the men and arranging the units." None the less the
future was to show that the force was no more beaten than were the
old contemptibles after Mons.
[Sidenote: March 26.]
The Thirtieth Division had been drawn out of the line on the arrival
of the French, but they were hardly started on their movement towards
the rest which they had earned so well, when this great pressure
arose, and every man who could still carry a {171} rifle was needed
once more in the line. On the morning of March 26 they were back
then, between Bouchoir and Rouvroy. The 21st Brigade had now
entirely disappeared, but the remains of the 2nd Yorks and the South
Lancashire Pioneer Battalion were added to the 89th Brigade which was
in the north at Rouvroy, while the 90th, under General Poyntz, filled
the gap to Bouchoir. The Thirtieth Division had got considerably to
the west of this line before they were recalled, and it was only by
some splendid marching that they were able at last to throw
themselves down upon the coveted ground before the German armies,
which were streaming along the Roye-Amiens road, were able to reach
it. As they faced the Germans the Twenty-fourth, now the mere shadow
of a division, was on their left at Warvillers, while the Sixty-first
and Twentieth were in support at Beaufort and Le Quesnel. Near
Erches the Thirty-sixth Ulster men, whose relief, like that of the
Thirtieth, had proved to be impossible, were still battling bravely,
retaking the village of Erches after it had fallen to the enemy. The
109th Brigade also distinguished itself greatly in this area, the
Irish Fusiliers Battalions of which it is composed holding on most
desperately to the village of Guerbigny, at the extreme south of the
corps front, and continuing a heroic defence during March 26, and
long after it was isolated upon March 27. The artillery of the
Ulster Division was particularly good in its covering fire during
these operations, gaining the very grateful acknowledgments of the
French troops and generals who were more and more concerned with this
southern sector of the line. Speaking generally the troops had now
reached the region of the old French trenches, {172} which
grid-ironed a considerable area of country, so that it was certain
that if men could be found to man them, the pursuit would no longer
continue at the pace of the last two days.
Great work was done at this period by four of the Canadian motor-guns
at the cross-roads, north-west of Rouvroy, where they not only
inflicted heavy losses upon the enemy but delayed his advance while
the exhausted troops were settling down into this new position.
Every hour was of importance as giving reinforcements time to come up
from the rear, and the general orders to the divisional generals were
to hold on at all costs wherever defence was possible. A small body
of corps cyclists under Lieutenant Quartermain co-operated splendidly
with the motor-guns and did good service at this critical period of
the retreat, during which there was very little artillery support
behind the thin line of infantry.
[Sidenote: March 27.]
The German pressure on March 27 fell chiefly, as already shown, upon
the Twenty-fourth Division and the other units on the extreme south
of the Nineteenth Corps, which were forced back for some distance,
and so threatened the stability of the line in the south. The 17th
King's Liverpool, which was the flank battalion, held fast, however,
and flung back their left to form a defensive line to the north. A
small body of German cavalry performed a brilliant piece of audacious
work in the darkness of the early morning of this date, pushing
through the outposts of the Thirty-sixth Division in the south near
Guerbigny, and capturing the Brigade Headquarters of the 109th
Brigade, and also the chief staff officer of the division.
The future was full of menace, for the Germans {173} were pressing on
in great numbers. An observer near Bouchoir that evening (March 27)
says: "I have never seen so many Germans in all my life--one huge
dark mass about a mile away. With glasses one could see howitzers,
machine-guns, trench-mortars, and field batteries, as well as
infantry. It was a most wonderful sight. They seemed to be coming
down the Roye Road, then moving off to the south, and some stopping
in a mass."
The main German attack upon the extreme south of the corps line on
March 27 fell upon the Thirty-sixth Division in the direction of
Erches, with the result that the Ulster men fell slowly back upon
Arvillers, the 60th Brigade throwing back a defensive flank to
correspond. By 12.30 Bouchoir, held by the 90th Brigade, was gained
by the Germans, but the British formed a new line to the immediate
westward of the village. An attack upon Folies was thrown back by
the 59th Brigade. Towards evening some order came out of a rather
tangled position, which may well be obscure both to writer and
reader, since soldiers upon the spot found the greatest difficulty in
separating the various confused elements. As night fell upon March
27 after much desultory and inconclusive local fighting, there was no
great change in the British line which ran from Warvillers, still
held by the Twenty-fourth Division, to the west of Bouchoir, where
the Thirtieth held the line, and down to Arvillers held by the 60th
Brigade of the Twentieth Division, which was temporarily out of touch
with the Thirty-sixth Division. Hangest was held by the Sixty-first
Division, and Le Quesnel by the Sixty-first and the French. That
night the Twentieth Division was ordered to join the Nineteenth {174}
Corps, and their record under this new command will be found in the
preceding chapter. One would have thought that they had reached the
limits of human endurance, and their total numbers were not more than
a thousand, and yet they were but at the beginning of a new chapter
in their glorious history. The same words apply to their comrades of
the Sixty-first Division, who were also ordered north. They were
relieved by the French at Arvillers, and this portion of the line was
on March 28 pressed back to the west of Hangest.
[Sidenote: March 28.]
The removal of the Twentieth Division at so critical a time could
only be justified by the extreme and pressing need of the Nineteenth
Corps, for it had the effect of producing an almost impossible
position for the line in the south. Had it been possible to replace
it at once with a solid French division, it would have mattered less,
but as matters stood the One hundred and thirty-third French Division
had itself been involved in the retreat and was greatly worn. There
was so little time also to get it into its new positions that there
was never any solid bastion upon that corner of the line. The result
was speedily seen in the morning of March 28, when the Thirtieth
Division were first subjected to a very heavy bombardment, and then
looking south saw a general retreat going on from Arvillers, while
their left flank at Warvillers was also very weak, since the
Twenty-fourth Division was hardly strong enough to maintain itself.
By 2 P.M. both flanks were bare, and the enemy were well round them
in the north and in the south at Hangest. At one time it seemed
impossible for the division to get clear, and even now their
extrication seems miraculous to {175} the officers who effected it.
A rapid retreat was made through Mezières and on to Moreuil, which
only just avoided the closing pincers of the German advance. The
French, who were in the act of relieving the Thirtieth Division, came
away with them and had the same narrow escape. The block upon the
road which formed the only egress is described as having been
appalling, fugitives, refugees, and small disciplined columns of
troops being crowded together from one end of it to the other. "The
men were excellent," says an officer of the Thirtieth Division.
"Their discipline was not a bit shaken." Such words could not
truthfully be said of every unit, and yet soldiers can have seldom
been more highly tried in any operation in history. Even the
Imperial Guard may reach its breaking point, as the retreat from
Moscow has shown. At Moreuil there is only one bridge, and had the
German artillery been able to find it the result would have been a
Beresina. As it was, the troops got across and speedily reformed
upon the farther side of the river Avre.
This may be taken as the limit of the retreat of the Eighteenth
Corps, since the stand in the north of the line and the thickening
French resistance in the south brought the momentum of the German
advance to a halt. How terrible the ordeal had been may be gathered
from the fact that the Twentieth Division, as already mentioned, was
not more than 1000 strong, the Thirtieth Division about 2000 strong,
the Sixty-first Division 2100 strong, and the Thirty-sixth Division
only a little stronger at the end of it. Again and again it had been
on the brink of absolute disaster, but always by the wise
dispositions of General Maxse and his divisional generals, seconded
{176} by the splendid tenacity of his men, the worst consequences had
been avoided. Rapid readjustments had been needed, but a fatal break
was always averted. The troops were handicapped in every possible
way, for not only was their artillery far below strength, but for
some reason the British Air Service during these days of stress was
very weak in this southern area, while the German machines were very
numerous and aggressive. The artillery officers were splendidly cool
and efficient all through, and in the case of the 92nd Brigade Royal
Field Artillery near Esmery-Hallon, it is said that the last gun was
just 25 yards from the Germans when it limbered up. For two days the
whole corps artillery was with the French, and did fine work with
them, but to the great detriment of their own infantry. Some of the
batteries remained for a long time with the French, and one French
general has left it upon record that the failure of the Germans to
capture Moreuil on April 4 was almost entirely due to the splendid
shooting of the 306th Brigade Royal Field Artillery. After the first
two days of the retreat no guns were abandoned by the Eighteenth
Corps. The total losses of guns might be put at about 90 field
pieces and 4.5 howitzers, with about 50 heavier pieces.
{177}