The History of the Prince of Wales' Civil Service Rifles

by Anonymous

After a week spent at Bertincourt, where the remainder of the “battle surplus” rejoined from the Divisional Reinforcement Camp, the Battalion moved up to take over a piece of line in front of Havrincourt. The troops had been hoping to go back for a rest, and the return to the line came as a not very pleasant surprise, and the statements of Company Commanders that the Battalion would certainly be back at rest for Christmas were received with a certain amount of scepticism.

The neighbourhood of Graincourt proved to be a less exciting place on this occasion, and after six cold but uneventful days the Battalion set off by train to the back area for a rest, and for what was generally felt to be a well-deserved Christmas holiday.

Snow lay thick on the ground when the Battalion marched into the village of Morlancourt, where it was to spend the rest. If the weather was seasonable, that is more than could be said for most of the billets, and a good deal of work had to be done in some of them to obtain any degree of comfort. The Christmas spirit, however, was abroad, and the troops, after their recent experiences, were not in the mood to worry about minor discomforts. The place was hardly one “to write home about,” but the estaminets were plentiful and well stocked, and as a change from Bourlon Wood or even Bertincourt, the village of Morlancourt, with all its drawbacks, was appreciated.

Parades were few, and preparations for Christmas festivities were the order of the day. These were to take the form of plenty to eat, plenty to drink, and concerts and sing-songs in some of the largest halls and barns of the village. Time was too short to permit of the production of a revue or pantomime, though a cynic suggested that the authorities had some such idea in their minds when they called on the Quartermaster’s staff to provide a guard one evening.

The Christmas dinners were a great success. No building, of course, could be found in the village to accommodate the whole Battalion, but it was found possible for “A” and “B” Companies to sit down to dinner together in one place, and “C” and “D” in another. All the officers met together for dinner later in the day.

The fare was varied and plentiful, joints of pork making a welcome change from the everlasting beef and mutton of the Army menu. Concerts and other forms of merrymaking passed away the remainder of the day, and the good spirits of the troops testified to their enjoyment of the Christmas festivities.

The sergeants were planning a dinner for the New Year, and preparations were practically complete when a hard-hearted Staff ordered a move to the neighbouring villages of Ribemont and Mericourt, where the other Battalions of the Brigade were already stationed. The remainder of the holiday was spent in these villages, where the Civil Service Battalion, as last comer, was unfortunate in the allotment of billets, and the men were spread over a large area.

The postponed sergeants’ dinner, attended by the Commanding Officer and acting Adjutant, was held at Ribemont.

On the 10th of January the Battalion moved back by train to work, spending one night at Bertincourt before moving up to support positions in the village of Ribecourt. Now followed two tours, to the sectors in front of Ribecourt and Flesquières, during which there is little outside the ordinary events of trench warfare to record. While in reserve, the Battalion was stationed at Bertincourt, a dilapidated village, where some of the billets were Nissen huts and others damaged houses, and where the chief feature at the time was mud. This neighbourhood was a favourite one for the operations of the Boche night bombers. The Civil Service Rifles had had previous experience of this form of annoyance in billets, and in spite of the extra duties occasioned by Lewis gun anti-aircraft posts, the troops soon regarded the nightly visits of the planes as philosophically as the most hardened Londoner.

At the beginning of February the man-power question was so acute in the British Infantry that it was decided to reduce Infantry Brigades from four to three Battalions—“in order to make a Brigade more mobile and more easily controlled by the Brigade Commander,” said the official explanation. In the 47th Division the three Battalions to be broken up in consequence of this order were the 6th, 7th, and 8th City of London Battalions, who, with the Civil Service Rifles, had till then formed the 140th Brigade. The 17th and 21st Battalions (Poplar and Stepneys and First Surrey Rifles respectively) were transferred from the other Brigades of the Division to complete the 140th. This measure came to the Battalions broken up as an unexpected and sudden shock, the force of which will be fully understood and appreciated by every soldier who knows the strength of the bonds which keep the members of a Battalion together. The men of the Civil Service Rifles, realising what their own feelings would have been if it had fallen to their lot to be split up, were full of sympathy for the fellows who had been their comrades and their rivals for nearly three years of active service.