The British Campaign in France and Flanders—January to July, 1918

by Arthur Conan Doyle

As the corps turned to face the enemy upon the south side of the canal the general line of battle showed the 41st Brigade just south of St. Simon, connected up on the left by the only surviving battalion of the 42nd Brigade with the 61st Brigade of the Twentieth Division who were in support of the Thirty-sixth Ulsters at that place. Then came the 43rd and 54th Brigades, facing Jussy and Mennessis with the 3rd and 5th Dismounted Cavalry Brigades in support. South of this point were the 4th Cavalry Brigade, the 55th Brigade, and the 53rd Brigade, all in the Frières area. Then came the 173rd Brigade in the Vouel neighbourhood with the 18th Entrenching Battalion and the 6th Dismounted Cavalry Brigade. This force had already lost heavily, and many of the men were suffering from gas, but they were sustained by the certainty that French reinforcements would speedily reach them from the south, as a system of mutual lateral support had been agreed upon between the commanders.

A line of trenches had been begun in this neighbourhood by the French some time before, and it had been carried on by Italian labour, but it was still very unfinished, with many gaps, so that the tired soldiers had to lay down their rifles and take to their trenching tools to get some cover. It was already clear that they would need it, for with early daybreak on March 22 the Germans showed that they had reached the north bank of the canal at Jussy. It was again very misty, and they were able to bring up their machine-guns and small artillery with perfect impunity and place them under cover. It was not until between 10 and 11 A.M. that the mist began to lift, and the British outposts peering through it could see the flash of the guns among the plantations on the farther side. At an earlier hour the Germans had tried to cross at Jussy, but had been driven back. It was already evident, however, that they were in a position to repair the bridges in such a way as to find a passage wherever they desired. The general situation might be described as a curious reproduction of the first action of the war when the two armies lay upon either side of the Mons Canal.

The French Sixth Army on the right had acted with loyal promptitude, and the One hundred and twenty-fifth Division, under General Diebold, was already moving up from the south. One would have imagined that the most efficient relief would have been to replace the two British brigades in the south of the Oise, and so re-unite the Fifty-eighth Division. For some reason this was not done, and General Worgan's 173rd Brigade continued to be a lone unit. A very welcome reinforcement consisted of nine batteries of French 75's. It was understood also that the whole Fifth French Corps, under General Pellé, was due at Noyon that evening, and that the Third British Corps would be relieved by it as soon as possible, but further help was slow in materialising.

At about 1 P.M. on March 22 the enemy made their first crossing of the canal in the region of the 173rd Brigade. They advanced from Fargniers in the direction of Tergnier village. The range of vision in this water-sodden region was not more than fifty yards, which greatly handicapped Colonel Dervicke-Jones of the 8th London, who was in local command of this sector, as it put his machine-gun defence out of action. The troops were spread over a front of 3000 yards, so that the various companies were widely separated. The first German advance was made across a lock gate by a number of men dressed in the uniforms of some of the 1st London, taken the day before—a ruse which was the more successful as a number of genuine stragglers had actually been in in this fashion during the morning. An attack followed during which C Company of the 8th Londons, while holding the enemy in front, were attacked by these pretended comrades upon the right rear, so that they were almost entirely destroyed. A road was thus opened across the canal, and the enemy opened out both north and south of the Quessy-Tergnier Road, cutting off those of the 3rd and 8th London who were on the farther side. These men fought to a finish, and only a few of them ever got back. Colonel Dervicke-Jones had taken up a position in an old French reserve line called the Butt line, with two companies of his battalion and some machine-guns, and was able to hold up the enemy all day in his immediate front, and to prevent several battalions from deploying out of Tergnier. The artillery also got on to the German infantry in this part of the field with good results. This Butt position was maintained until the morning of March 23. Farther up the line, in the region of the Fourteenth Division, other troubles had developed, and the pressure of the enemy was great. At 4.30 P.M. the defenders were reinforced, but the enemy were already across at several points and were advancing upon Cugny. There was desultory fighting along the whole corps front, and though there was promise of immediate French relief, no French troops seem to have been actually engaged upon March 22. About 6 o'clock in the evening the enemy was across at Jussy Bridge and also at Montagne, but a fine counter-attack was made at this point by the 7th Bedfords and 6th Northamptons of the 54th Brigade, aided by the 16th Lancers, which drove the German infantry across once more and caused considerable losses. In spite of this success the general situation upon the evening of March 22 was not cheering, and the task of the Third Corps which had been ordered to stand fast and form the southern hinge upon which the whole retreat should turn, was clearly a very difficult one. It was the more alarming, as the rapid progress of the enemy at Beauvais and Vaux at the centre of the army led to a demand for cavalry which could not be complied with without denuding the line to a dangerous and almost impossible extent.

March 23.

It was soon clear on the morning of March 23 that the Butt position on the right could not be maintained. The French had taken it over, but they were unable to hold it. A line was built up near Noreuil, where the remains of the 8th and 3rd Londons, aided by some French details, endeavoured all day to check the German advance. The main attacks were driving down from the north, and were heralded by a very severe machine-gun barrage, which rained bullets over the British position. The defence was much aided by a French armoured car upon the Quessy-Rouez road, and by a battery of 75's. The 4th London were to the south of the village and less exposed to the force of the advance. About six, after an hour of intense shelling, the Germans closed in upon Noreuil, the defenders, after a stout resistance which occasionally came to hand-to-hand fighting, being driven westwards. Colonel Burt, commanding the 6th Cavalry Brigade, barricaded his headquarters in the village and held the Germans off a long time by his deadly fire. It was not until long after the lines had been withdrawn that this brave officer had to be specially summoned to leave his post and fall back on Chauny. Finally, the retreat became general, but was rallied at the end of the Noreuil valley, where some 200 men collected, and with a good field of fire to help them, remained for some time on the defence. Late at night this small force was ordered to fall back to a new line at Chauny.

It has already been stated that two companies (C and D) of the 8th London (Post Office Rifles) had been cut off when the Germans got across the lock gate on the afternoon of March 22. These men, under Captain Gunning, had made a remarkable defence, crawling out with Lewis guns on to the lock gates in order to enfilade the advancing Germans. In the afternoon of March 23 they found themselves with the Germans on three sides of them and the canal on the fourth. Captain Gunning and Captain Kelly with the survivors then fought their way through to Condren, where they still continued their resistance. These soldiers, who made so admirable a resistance, were largely men who had been combed from the Army Service Corps.

Whilst the 23rd of March had brought this heavy fighting to the 173rd Brigade, it had been a day of severe trial to all the other units of the corps front. The 54th Brigade was still covering the crossing at Jussy and Montagne, but the pressure was rapidly increasing as fresh German divisions made their presence felt. The situation was the more serious as General Butler already knew that the enemy were across the canal at Ham and had turned his left flank, but it was still hoped that a counter-attack in this quarter might throw him back, and so it was determined to hold on to the line. An emergency force of odds and ends, dismounted troopers, labour men, and returned leave men were gathered together at Crisolles and placed under the command of General Harman to co-operate with General Greenly who now led the remains of the Fourteenth Division, in guarding the left wing. Meanwhile there was very brisk fighting at Jussy, where the German infantry had once again, under the cover of many guns, got a footing upon the south side of the canal. They were at once vigorously attacked by a small body of the 11th Royal Fusiliers and of the Scots Greys and penned up in the village of Jussy. At 11 A.M. the Germans had also got across at Mennessis, but came under the fire of four machine-guns of the Canadian Mounted Brigade which inflicted heavy losses upon them. None the less at a second effort the Germans were across once more, driving back by the weight of their attack the worn ranks of the 7th Bedfords and of the 9th Scottish Rifles. At 11.30 they were half a mile south of Jussy, and might have got round the flank of the Bedfords but for the interposition of 200 Canadian dragoons. "These grim, square-faced men, with their parchment skins and their granite features, were a glad sight to our weary eyes," says one who was fighting beside them. There was a time when it was doubtful whether in this quarter there was anything but a line of dismounted troops between the enemy and Paris.

Every man who could be spared was hurried up to hold the weak points of the line, including the 8th Sussex, the pioneer battalion of the Eighteenth Division, the rest of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, and the 7th Cavalry Brigade, but the mischief had gone too far, and the situation upon the right of the line was even worse than at Jussy. The counter-attack of the French One hundred and twenty-fifth Division in the direction of Tergnier had not been a success, which is not to be wondered at, for the French infantry had come fast and far, their ammunition was not plentiful, and they were working over strange ground against an aggressive and victorious enemy. Next to the French on that front was the 7th Queen's. Colonel Bushell found himself at one period in command of the left of the French as well as of his own Surrey men, and he led on this mixed following under an intense fire, being himself severely wounded and yet rallying them again and again. Little progress could be made, but at least he held the line firm for a time. This gallant colonel, after having his wound dressed, returned to the field of battle, fell insensible, and had at last to be carried off. Next to the 7th Queen's was the 8th East Surreys (both of 55th Brigade), which was also in the thick of the battle, as was the neighbouring 12th Entrenching Battalion. This line made a very fine resistance, but was slowly pressed back by weight of numbers until at 4 P.M. they were on the line Noreuil-Frières-Faillouel, to the left of the spot where the 173rd Brigade was still holding its ground. The remains of the 7th Buffs fell back also with the rest of the 55th Brigade, fighting hard, through Frières Wood, where to the south-west of the wood they found some old French trenches, in which, with the aid of the survivors of the Queen's, they, under Colonel Ransome, organised a line for the rest of that arduous day. This resistance held up some strong drives of the enemy which were evidently intended, in conjunction with the attack from Jussy in the north, to cut off all the troops in the woody country round Frières, and it acted as a most efficient screen during the withdrawal of the rest of the line.