FOOTNOTES:
[49] Lord Haig's Despatches.
[51] Four of the six batteries of this Group moved on the night of the 20th. It is reported that their evacuated positions were assailed with destructive fire so heavy that they would have been completely neutralized from the first had they remained in them.
[CHAPTER XI]
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.
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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.