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

by Arthur Conan Doyle

The record of the Sixth Corps during their ten final weeks of work had been a magnificent one, and was strangely parallel to that of the Fourth Corps on their right. Their losses had been almost identical, about 30,000 men. Their prisoners came to over 20,000 and their captured guns were 350. The Fifth Corps, on the other hand, had endured more than its neighbours, having lost no less than 34,000 men. It had captured 13,000 prisoners. Altogether the losses of the Third Army during the final ten weeks had been 100,000 men, while they had taken about 60,000 prisoners with nearly 1000 guns.

Oct 16-20.

We have considered the advance of the three southern Corps of the Third Army. In order to complete the record it is necessary to return to October 13, and to trace the operations of Fergusson's Seventeenth Corps, which were left on that date in front of the Selle River. On October 14 the 72nd Brigade of the Twenty-fourth Division, which was in the van, gained a footing at the edge of Haussy village, which straddles the river. On October 16 this same brigade took the whole village on either bank. The left of the line was held up, however, by a particularly heavy gas screen. Later in the day the Germans were into Haussy once more, but again were pushed out from the western section of it, on which they gas-shelled it, to the destruction of a number of unfortunate civilians who had been unable to get away. 400 prisoners were taken during the day. October 17 saw the British line where it had been on the 15th, as the gas clouds hanging low over the river valley made the position down there untenable.

On October 20, a rainy and tempestuous day, the general advance of the whole Third Army was resumed. The Nineteenth Division having relieved the Twenty-fourth, carried out the advance on the front of the Seventeenth Corps, having in touch with it the Fourth Division of the Twenty-second Corps on the left, and the Guards of the Sixth Corps on the right. The attack of the Nineteenth Division had for its first objective the bridging of the Selle, the capture of the railway and high ground beyond, and of the village of East Haussy. The second stage should be the ridge to the east. Two brigades advanced—the 57th on the left and the 58th on the right—behind a fine barrage from eleven brigades of artillery.

Oct 20-25.

The attack was started at 2 in the morning, and before 4 A.M. the 57th Brigade were in the whole of Haussy, the resistance having been slight. At 6 o'clock the 8th Gloucesters, on the extreme right, had reached their final objective, where they were endeavouring to get touch with the Guards in the neighbourhood of Maison Blanche. The 10th Warwicks were held up on the left, but soon cleared out the obnoxious pocket. By 9 o'clock the 58th Brigade was also on its extreme limit, and an obstinate strong point was surrounded and destroyed. In this brigade the 2nd Wiltshires had the worst ordeal, but they won through at last. Patrols on the right had reached the banks of the Harpies. The blow had, as must be admitted, been delivered in the air, but the river line had been won, and that was the essential.

On October 23 the part played by the Seventeenth Corps was subsidiary to that of the Corps to the north and to the south. On this date the Nineteenth Division was ordered to protect the left flank of the Sixth Corps in its advance on Romeries and Escarmain. This was duly carried out by the 8th Gloucesters and 10th Warwicks, and contributed greatly to the victory in the south. That night the Sixty-first South Midland Division took over from the Nineteenth Division, with an ambitious programme for next day, October 24. In the course of this attack the 183rd Brigade advanced on the right and the 182nd on the left, their objectives including the villages of Bermerain, Vendegies, and Sommaing. There followed a confused day of hard fighting, the general movement being always from west to east. All three villages were most hotly contested. Vendegies proved to be a special centre of resistance, but on the morning of October 25 it was found to be unoccupied, and the whole resistance had relaxed to such an extent that the front of the Army flowed slowly forward with hardly a check, submerging fresh areas and villages until it had reached the Rhonelle River, where a bridge-head was established on the front of the Twenty-second Corps.

Nov. 1-4.

On November 1 the advance was resumed, when Maresches was attacked by the Sixty-first Division, the Warwicks and Worcesters of the 182nd Brigade being in the lead. The village was taken with about three hundred of the garrison. Preseau on the left had fallen. This was the centre of a violent counter-attack in the afternoon, which involved the right of the Fourth and the left of the Sixty-first Divisions. Four German tanks co-operated, two of which were destroyed by the British guns. This attack pressed back the advance from its furthest point, but made no material change in the situation, though Preseau was regained by the Germans, with the effect that their machine-guns from this point held up the left flank of the 184th Brigade in their further advance. Nearly 800 prisoners were made during the day.

The advance was renewed next morning, November 2, and again the resistance seemed to wane, so that by midday the full objectives planned, but not attained, on the previous day had been reached with little loss, the Sixty-first moving onwards in close touch with the Fourth on their left and the Second on their right. The Sixty-first were now drawn out of the line, and the Nineteenth and Twenty-fourth each sent up a brigade to take their place.