17th. We crossed the German frontier, and marched through Malmédy to Weismes. It was decided that we should hold our anniversary dinners on this auspicious date. We halted here for a few days in rather uncomfortable billets. The weather was very bad, and it snowed continuously.
21st. Elsenborn Camp. This was a sort of German "Salisbury Plain." The huts were however far superior to those provided in an English practice camp; they were substantially built and well heated, and officers and men found them almost luxurious after the cramped village accommodation which they had been accustomed to.
22nd. Mountjoie.
23rd. The area round Schleiden. Headquarters marched straight through to Gemund, our final destination.
25th. The Divisional Artillery made their final march in a snow blizzard and went into billets as follows:
14th Brigade R.H.A. (now attached to the Division), Kal and Keldernich.
310th Brigade R.H.A., Gemund and Malsbenden.
312th Brigade R.H.A., Gemund, with two batteries at Nierfeld and Schleven.
D.A.C. Kal and Sottenich.
Trench Mortars (eventually), Urft.
The purpose of this work is to describe the war services of the artillery, and I shall not therefore write about our life in Germany. The ordinary military routine, under what were practically peace conditions, affords little of interest to a Chronicler, and it is sufficient to say that life was agreeable enough, and that ski-ing, tobogganing, and later on fishing broke the monotony of our routine duties in a very pleasant manner. Demobilisation dragged on slowly but surely, and on the 18th February we heard that the Division was to be broken up, and to be reformed as the Highland Division. Most of the officers now began to drift away, but it was not till the 19th April that I said farewell to my command. My Staff all left at about the same time.
The Divisional Artillery remained with the Highland Division, though greatly changed in personnel and with an almost entirely new set of commanding officers. Major Lockhart was, I believe, the only battery commander who stayed on until the final breaking up. The artillery left Germany in the middle of August, and returned to England (Salisbury Plain); on the 5th December the headquarters' office closed, and on that date the Divisional Artillery may be said to have ceased to exist.
That it may long exist, however, as a brotherhood of officers and men, bound together by a thousand memories of danger and privation borne in common, proud in the consciousness of duty done, and strong to maintain in peace the steadfast and loyal comradeship which knit them together in war, is the sincere hope of the writer of this little chronicle.