as we should say a brigade) from the south of France about Bordeaux. I
believe they had won for themselves a good reputation as fighting men.
They knew, however, as well how to take care of themselves; and I
fancy they had a first-class chef amongst their servants. It was a
great affair, that meal, which had been prepared to do us honour,
especially considering that it was served actually in the trenches.
Quite a number of dishes succeeded one another, and were washed down
with some excellent red wine. These were followed by several sweets
and a glass of sweet champagne--the latter to drink to our good luck
in the new trenches--glasses were solemnly clinked at this stage of
the proceedings; afterwards cognac, coffee and cigars. The French
officers expressed considerable interest in the Territorial 'T.'s' on
my tunic, asking what they stood for. The French 'Territorial' is of
course a different type to ours, being in the nature of the last
reserve, elderly men not used as 'storm' or 'shock' troops. The meal
passed pleasantly indeed; and at the end, a photograph must be taken
as a souvenir of the meeting, and that was duly done in the winter
sunlight outside. The French soldiers use small cameras in the
trenches, a privilege denied to us. I have never before or since been
in such elaborate trenches as these that we took over from the French.
Vast communication trenches, six to ten feet deep, ran back for miles
behind the front line. The same with the forward area, the number of
deep trenches was simply extraordinary. Their idea may have been to
make so many trenches that the enemy would not know which to shell.
Unfortunately the trenches were not revetted, and when the frost broke
we came to think less of them and travelled as much as possible across
the open. The inside of the trenches was very clean--not a tin or a
scrap of paper to be seen. The refuse was all dumped just over the
parapet or in the shell-holes outside. The French are accustomed to an
easy system of sanitation. During the day few French soldiers are seen
outside their dugouts, except parties cleaning the trenches. In the
front line only a few sentries were kept on duty, and they were
relieved every two hours. The French speak with great confidence of
their field artillery, the terrible 75's. A battery of these guns
handled by French gunners can fire almost like a machine-gun, and the
noise is deafening.
As a nation the French have their faults. They are exceedingly proud
and quick to take offence, they are not very stable or constant
(obstinate shall we say?), and they are about the hardest bargainers
in the world.
Thrift and making use of the shining hour have been driven to their
last conclusions. The British soldiers have been made to pay very
sweetly for their visit to France. I do not think the French ever gave
the British such a warm welcome as the Belgians did.
But when all is said and done we all have our own faults, and the
Frenchman's most shining virtue is patriotism.
XXI
SOUTH OF THE SOMME
After staying for about a week or more at Dernancourt, the Brigade
received orders to go south of the Somme, and to take over part of the
line won by the French this side of Peronne. We marched, therefore,
through Bray and stayed two nights at Mericourt and two at
Fontaine-les-Cappy. At the latter place I was surprised to find some
graves of British soldiers who had fallen there in the earlier part of
the war. Also I had one exciting experience at Fontaine-les-Cappy.
There was a large grenade dump near our camp, and, just as I was
passing it, an explosion took place. A party of men had been
detonating grenades, and two or three grenades had gone off in the
box, killing two of the party and hurling the grenades in a shower all
round the place. One fell close, and I was lucky not to be riddled by
it. For the safety-pin was blown out and the lever of the grenade held
down by a piece of wood from the side of the box, which was jammed by
the explosion into the shoulder of the grenade. I spent a little time
picking up such grenades as I could find, and two or three of them
were in a dangerous condition.
When we got into the line near Belloy I lived for a time at advanced
B.H.Q. called 'P.C. Hedevaux' ('Post Commandant' _Hedevaux_). The
dugouts were deep and proof against ordinary shells. The General,
Brigade-Major, and Staff-Captain resided farther back at 'P.C.
Buelow.' I was shown over the trenches by the _officier bombardier_
(Bombing Officer) of a French unit. And I found it fairly easy to talk
to him without the aid of an interpreter. I told him two English
expressions which seemed to please him greatly. One was 'dugout,' the
other 'dump'; the equivalent for the latter in French being 'Depot de
Munitions.'
I made an entirely new Brigade bomb store in these trenches, using the
little shelters in a line of disused trenches. After a week in the
trenches the frost broke, and the trenches which had been hard and dry
now became nothing but muddy drains. To wade along them even in
daylight and in gum boots involved the greatest physical exertion. One
unfortunate man stuck in the mud, and before they got him out he was
pulled out of his boots and breeches and had his coat torn off his
back. Finally he was sent to the dressing-station with only his shirt
on. We stayed about sixteen days in the line, and during the last five
or six days I retired to P.C. Buelow to assist in the Intelligence
Work.
This part of the line was quiet and our stay uneventful; but two
things of interest might be noted. The Brigade observers reported that
the Germans were employing French prisoners on the roads about a mile
behind their front line, a cowardly and disgraceful proceeding. The
Germans were seen working hard on their dugouts behind the line--this
was of course a 'blind' for our benefit, for the German retreat
started the day after the 50th Division was relieved.
After our sixteen days in the line B.H.Q. moved back to Foucaucourt
and remained there till about March 7. Then the 50th Division finally
left the Somme front and moved back for a rest. B.H.Q. went to
Warfusée and we had good billets there.
Brigadier-General Ovens, C.M.G., left us at Foucaucourt and
Lieut.-Col. B.D. Gibson, D.S.O., of the 4th N.F., commanded the
Brigade for a few days, being succeeded as Brigade Commander by
Lieut.-Col. G. Scott Jackson, D.S.O., of the 7th N.F.
Two very startling things were done at this time. All the men of the
Brigade were told that they were about to be trained for open warfare,
and they would not have to go into the trenches again. They were to be
used as part of a Corps de Chasse during the next offensive. This was
not borne out by events, but it throws some light on the expectations
of the British Staff. It was also decided at this juncture to change
the organisation of the British Infantry Company. Each company was in
future to consist of four sections--one riflemen pure and simple,
another Lewis gunners, another bombers, and the fourth rifle-bombers.
It was perhaps an unfortunate time to spring this change on the
B.E.F., just on the eve of a new offensive. The idea appears to have
been sound enough, but the attempt to rush it through in three weeks'
time was hardly likely to have good results. To convert a rifleman
into a rifle-bomber in a week's training was of course out of the
question. Hitherto only the most expert and steadiest bombers had been
employed on rifle-grenade work. But now the ordinary infantry were
expected to become rifle-bombers, although their knowledge of bombs
was of the most elementary description. Two problems therefore faced
those responsible for the training and equipment of the rifle-bombers.
First how to get them even partially trained in the time, and second
to invent some apparatus for carrying the rifle-grenades. At first it
was only possible to train the N.C.O.s in charge of the rifle-bombing
sections--leaving them to instruct their sections as well as they
could.
It is hard to realise the complete inadequacy of this arrangement,
without knowing something of the rifle-grenade, and without knowing
the extraordinary difficulty of training a man to become an instructor
of others. However that was the best that could be made of the new
orders at the moment. And so it fell to me to take a class for a week
of N.C.O'.s drawn from the four battalions. I had not only to teach
them to fire the rifle-grenade themselves, of which they knew nothing,
but to teach them to hand their knowledge on to others.
The training went on from March 12 to 17, and thirty-four section
leaders attended the course. About 1150 rounds were fired. I did not
attempt any live firing--in fact, I have never thought it serves any
useful purpose to fire live rifle-grenades in practice.
It is of course much more dangerous than throwing a live hand-grenade,
and one accident in practice is enough to discourage all the recruits
who see it from firing live rifle-grenades in actual warfare. On the
other hand, even where the rifle-grenades are only used as dummies,
the waste of valuable ammunition is simply appalling. A Hales
rifle-grenade used to cost 25s. and it came down to 15s. a little
later, but once fired as a dummy it was not much use to fire again.
Dummies could have been made for about 1s. at the most, but of course
no one in England thought about a trifle like that; and so the
colossal waste went on all the time I had the training in hand. I did
what I could by straightening the rods to use the grenades again, but
I could not save much in this way. Thousands of pounds in
rifle-grenades must have been used where thousands of shillings should
have been spent.
At Warfusée Brigadier-General H.C. Rees, D.S.O., came to take over
command of the Brigade. He had seen very heavy fighting in the early
part of the war, and had since commanded two Brigades before he came
to the 149th Infantry Brigade. He was liked and respected by every one
in the Brigade. Very tall and well built, and a soldier who gave you
the greatest confidence in his ability and leadership, the Brigade
owed much to him, especially at a time when the trench fighting was
giving way (as it seemed) to open warfare. He was a first-class
rifle-shot himself, and never ceased to impress the necessity of
developing this weapon to the utmost. For the hand-grenade he had the
greatest contempt, which he was rather fond of expressing. Fortunately
for me, bombing work was giving way to Intelligence, although for some
time to come I had to train the men in rifle grenades and to look
after the Brigade ammunition stores.
After finishing the rifle-grenade work I acted as
Assistant-Staff-Captain for about a week. It was chiefly office work
as far as I was concerned, the returns being very voluminous. Work as
I could there seemed to be no getting to the end of these returns till
9 or 10 o'clock at night. There were also one or two minor
court-martial cases, in which my legal training proved some
assistance. On March 27 I got my third leave granted, for ten days. It
was perhaps rather quick after my last leave, but the fact of my being
ill on that occasion was taken into consideration. This time I went to
Amiens by motor-lorry and thence to Boulogne, reaching Manchester on
the same day that I sailed from France.
On April 6 I left Folkestone and got to Boulogne about 4 o'clock. Here
no one could say where the 56th Division was, and I was directed to
leave by a midnight train and to report to the R.T.O. at Abbéville. I
got there about 2 A.M. and was told to go back to Étaples by an 8
o'clock train that morning. I managed to get a few hours' sleep and
breakfast at the Officers Club at Abbéville, and reached Étaples
about midday on April 7. On April 9 I was told to proceed to St. Pol
and get further directions there. I arrived there in time for lunch,
and then reached Frévent by another train. Here I was told to go by
the light railway towards Wanquetin and to make inquiries for the 50th
Division on the way. At Frévent I saw a lot of slightly wounded
soldiers coming back from Arras; they had been over the top that
morning on the first day of the great battle which had just started.
Just before reaching Avesnes-le-Compte I spotted some Divisional
transport on the roads, and, on making inquiries at Avesnes, I learnt
that the 149th Infantry Brigade were quartered at Manin about two
miles away. So I left the train and reached our H.Q. just in time for
dinner.
The 50th Division had marched from Warfusée, and were now proceeding
towards Arras to take part in the battle which had started on April
9.
XXII
THE BATTLE OF ARRAS
The Battle of Arras started with a great success. The Vimy Ridge was
recaptured and the vast fortress between Telegraph Hill and Neuville
Vitasse, including a substantial part of the famous Hindenburg Line,
fell in one day. The high ground at Monchy-le-Preux was soon stormed
and secured. But after this progress became very slow, nothing seemed
to come of these great tactical successes. The fighting, instead of
developing into open warfare as we had expected, became again very
similar in character to the great trench to trench battles on the
Somme.
The French waited a week before starting their offensive in Champagne,
and when it did start it failed completely. The weather broke down on
April 10, as it generally did in 1917 whenever the British commenced
offensive operations. It became very cold and it rained or snowed
almost incessantly for over a week. It is hard for one who saw only a
small sector of this great battle to understand what prevented us from
taking greater advantage of our great initial success, which certainly
surprised and disorganised the enemy. But it was not merely the
weather which broke down at a critical moment. There were other causes
at work to delay and impede success. I strongly suspect that the
British infantry units were still suffering from their tremendous
exertions in 1916; and they certainly had not the confident assurance
of victory which inspired the terrible sacrifices on the Somme.
Hitherto our artillery had never been so strong nor had the mechanical
aids to victory been so numerous or so varied. Gas-projectors and
oil-drums were first used in this battle, new aeroplanes were first
launched out in public; the British held the mastery of the air, and
the Germans had not yet devised any effective remedy for the British
tanks. But the British troops were not the troops of the Somme. The
old type of volunteer had largely disappeared, and the same resolution
and confidence were not displayed by some of the British divisions.
The very strength of our artillery was sapping the old reliance on the
rifle, and when the barrage stopped the infantry often seemed to be
powerless to defend the captured positions.
On the other hand the superior and more lengthy training of the German
reserves now began to tell. Personally, I never admired the German as
a fighting man until he was now for the first time driven out of his
vast defences. On the Somme the Germans had artillery support nearly
equal to our own, and they were defending superb trenches with
unbroken roads and country behind them. Now, when they were thrust out
of their famous stronghold and plastered with every sort of
projectile, they held up repeated attacks, backed by enormous
artillery preparation and support, held them up by sheer dogged
fighting and superior knowledge of war. Their Staff work must have
been good, and the training and morale of the troops equally good to
have done it. After the first great success, we gained only small
local successes, costing thousands of casualties and vast expenditure
of ammunition. Eventually, after about five weeks of fierce thrusts,
the Battle of Arras came to an end, giving us, it is true, a much
improved position in front of Arras, but leaving the main object of
the attack unaccomplished. The further offensives of 1917 were carried
on more to the north and south, and the Arras area saw no more big
fighting till the beginning of 1918.
The 50th Division came into action on April 11, and worked alternately
with the 14th Division. The enemy were pushed across the Cojeul Valley
and into the outskirts of Vis-en-Artois and Cherisy. The advance of
these two Divisions would have been undoubtedly greater, but Guemappe
on the left and the uncaptured part of the Hindenburg Line on the
right for a time held up the divisions attacking on either flank. Thus
both the 50th Division and the 14th Division captured Cherisy in turn,
but had to abandon the place through having their flanks exposed. By
their operations in this area both Divisions maintained their already
worthy reputation.
XXIII
WANCOURT TOWER--CROISILLES
The 149th Infantry Brigade left Manin on the morning of April 10, and
marched to Wanquetin, where the troops were billeted in houses. On the
following day it began to snow heavily about midday and this continued
far into the night. The Brigade were intended to attack on April 12,
but, owing to the exhaustion and exposure of the troops, the 151st
Brigade were substituted when the attack recommenced on April 13. We
started our march in the snow just as the light was beginning to fail,
and trudged along through the muddy slush till we reached Arras. Here
there was a delay of several hours before guides arrived to lead the
various units to their stations. B.H.Q. marched through the town and
eventually arrived at the ruined sugar factory at Faubourg Ronville,
where there were deep dugouts below the ruins. We could not see much
of the city but it appeared to be badly knocked about by the enemy's
shells. Not many houses, perhaps, had fallen to bits, but there was
hardly a house that had not been hit. A great many small shells must
have been fired into the town. The place of course was full of
underground passages--though I never had the chance of entering them.
When morning came I was able to take stock of my surroundings. The
sugar factory was one of the last buildings at the S.E. end of the
city, and a trench tramway led to what had once been the front line
trenches about a quarter of a mile from these H.Q.
My job that morning was to hunt round for the dumps of grenades &c.
which had been made by our predecessors before their advance. I
remember finding two of these in fairly good condition in the
neighbourhood of Telegraph Hill--only of course on the Arras side. The
cold night on which we arrived had taken heavy toll of the cavalry
horses, and many of these splendid animals could be seen scattered
about on the ground, some already dead and others dying. They were too
fine bred to stand that wintry night in an open bivouac. As far as I
could make out our lighter siege guns had moved up towards the
Telegraph Hill ridge and our field guns towards Neuville Vitasse;
there were still howitzers of heavy calibre in the environs of the
city itself. I believe the 151st Infantry Brigade attacked on April
13, and pushed across the Cojeul Valley north of Héninel, and dug in
just west of the Wancourt Tower ridge. Wancourt was captured but not
Guemappe, and Marlière was in our hands. On that day I was instructed
to make a dump at Telegraph Hill, which I had no difficulty in doing
as the place was quite quiet.
[Illustration: Scene of Attacks on Cherisy. April 1917.]
The next day this dump was removed to the region of the Elm Trees at
Wancourt behind the 'Brown Line'; and the Brigade relieved the 151st
Infantry Brigade. B.H.Q. were at the Elm Trees, and consisted of some
fine deep dugouts, which the Germans had used as an ammunition store.
The entrance to them was in a small sunken road. The ammunition was
mostly stored in large wooden boxes, and we had to pull it out and get
rid of it. This was done by emptying the boxes into the nearest
shell-holes; so that the ground outside was littered with German
ammunition. In one of these shell-holes, amongst a lot of rubbish of
this kind, I found four old pewter dishes and two pewter spoons. They
had been heaved out of the dugout along with the rest of its contents.
One of the plates was dated 1733, and all were marked with the foreign
maker's stamp. They afforded, when cleaned, a rather unusual
decoration for the walls of the mess room. This little collection was
disposed of 'under Divisional and Brigade arrangements,' but I managed
to secure the spoons.
The position in front was now as follows. A battalion held the
trenches across the Cojeul Valley, supported by three battalions in
the Brown Line and in Wancourt itself. The enemy was in Guemappe and
also in some trenches just over the ridge of Wancourt Tower Hill. It
was the business of the Brigade to hold the trenches and to make such
improvement in them as opportunity might offer. General Rees was not
the man to let any such opportunity slip. Nothing happened during the
first few days, beyond the usual heavy shelling of the roads and
batteries and forward positions.
But a patrol of the 5th N.F. pushed out towards Guemappe, and carried
out a useful daylight reconnaissance.
Also about April 16, 1917, Lieut.-Col. F. Robinson of the 6th N.F.
discovered the enemy approaching the ruined buildings on the Wancourt
Tower Hill, and promptly ordered a platoon to attack them. This plan
succeeded admirably and the Tower and house were captured. The place
was of vital importance to us as it commanded direct observation on
all the roads leading to our part of the front. On April 17 the enemy
shelled the Tower with 8-inch howitzers--generally a sign that he
meant to attack sooner or later. The Tower contained a formidable
concrete machine-gun emplacement, facing of course our way, but by
General Rees' orders it was blown up by the Engineers. Sure enough the
enemy attacked the Tower that night, and at an unfortunate time for
us, for the 7th N.F. were in the process of relieving the 6th N.F. in
the front line, and it was a vile night, with a blizzard of snow.
The German attack succeeded in driving our men out of the Tower and
buildings, and though several bombing attacks were made that night to
recover the position it could not be done. General Rees at once
prepared to storm the position at the earliest opportunity next day,
the 7th N.F. having completed the relief of the trenches during the
night. It is difficult to describe the confidence which our General
inspired at this critical time; he was rather graver and more
thoughtful than usual, perhaps, but he treated the matter with great
confidence and made every one feel that the misfortune could and would
be retrieved at the first attempt. His plans were made in conjunction
with Major Johnson of the 50th Divisional Artillery; and as a result
it was arranged to attack across the open supported by a barrage from
five brigades of field artillery. The hour was fixed for twelve noon
(German time) just when the enemy is thinking about his dinner.
Without any preliminary bombardment, the barrage opened out at the
appointed hour, and fairly drove the enemy off the hill top. The 7th
N.F. advanced in perfect order and with little opposition recaptured
the Tower and the neighbouring trenches. Two or three prisoners were
sent down, who had been unable to get away before the attackers
reached them. It was a little attack, but carried out with admirable
precision and practically without loss, and every credit must be given
to General Rees for the way he handled the problem. As this operation
was carried out in full view of all the surrounding country it
attracted considerable attention, and congratulations soon poured in
from all sides. I was kept indoors or rather underground a good deal
during this stay in the line, as it was my business to record in a
log-book every note or message that came in to the Brigade Office,
either by day or night. I had the chance, too, of hearing the
Divisional Intelligence Officer examining a few German prisoners who
were captured on our front. He brought with him three large books
containing no doubt the previous history of the German Brigades; and
with the aid of these he was able to check the accuracy of the
prisoners' statements.