The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division

by Cyril Falls

The Division was to remain for upwards of a year in this part of the line, but it seldom held precisely the same section of front for more than a few weeks at a time. The various moves cannot be treated in detail. There were changes in August, all three Brigades entering the line, and early in September a "side-step" to the north, the right boundary now being the River Douve, and the left "Piccadilly Trench," south of the Kemmel-Wytschaete Road. The 108th Brigade was now on the right, the 107th in the centre, and the 109th on the left. The characteristics of the various parts of all this front were similar, the conditions of the soil the same throughout, so that a general description will hold good for all the period passed by the Division in the neighbourhood.

The trenches and dug-outs, to begin with, were not such at all in the sense in which the troops had been wont to use the names on the Ancre. The fighting trenches consisted, everywhere save on the highest ground, of parapets built of sandbags filled with clay. In places there was a parados similarly constructed, but over long stretches the men in the front line simply stood behind the wall, with no protection against the back-burst of shells. Water in this country appeared everywhere just below the surface, and it was useless to dig trenches in the real sense for any purpose other than drainage. Even the communication trenches were sunk not deeper than a foot, and piled high on either side with earth, which made them satisfactory enough as cover from view, but very vulnerable to shell-fire. These communication trenches were longer than those to which the troops had been accustomed, the approaches to the front line being much more exposed than among the folds of the Somme country. As for dug-outs, there were none. Little wooden-framed shelves in the parapet, a few "baby elephants"—arched steel shelters, which, if covered thickly enough with sandbags, afforded protection against the shells of field guns—served for the troops in line, while further back, for battalion headquarters and forts, there were ruined farms, which often had good cellars, and in the frame-work of which concrete structures could be hidden. It was hard for troops used to the Somme chalk to accustom their minds to the spongy nature of this soil. In the dry weeks of August, for example, the R.E. built one very fine dug-out, twenty feet deep, and were proud of their handiwork. In September there was in it a foot of water, in October two; November found the water level with the top of the stairs, and a sarcastic notice, "The R.E. Swimming Bath," at the entrance.

When it rained, which was not seldom, all the low-lying ground flooded. The valley of the Douve, above all, from Wulverghem to the front line, became a muddy swamp, in which the water lay in sheets. At such times, and indeed during a great part of the winter, many trenches simply could not be occupied. No adequate idea of the impression conveyed upon the mind of a man coming up north from the clean, white trenches of the Somme can be obtained of all this area unless it is conceived as dirty, mournful, and disconsolate; haunted by the evil stench of blue clay, and brooded over by an atmosphere of decay.

Since the days of the first Battle of Ypres and of the rival turning movements which had ended in the present deadlock, the Germans had had the best of the ground in the Messines sector. Behind the salient of their front trenches it rose sharply, with a dip half-way up, formed by the shallow valley of the Steenebeek, to a dominating ridge, crowned south and north by the fortress-villages of Messines and Wytschaete. The road joining these was the limit of our observation, except for telescopes on Kemmel Hill. To the south we had a fair observation point in Hill 63, but the one great boon granted to us was Kemmel. Had it been a thousand yards nearer the front line, it would have done much to counteract the advantage of the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge. It is scarcely necessary to add that the enemy had, in his long possession of the ridge, fortified it with all his wonted industry and art. It was protected by four general lines of well wired trenches west of the road, and peppered over with little forts, wired all round, the garrisons of which were provided with concrete structures, miniature houses rather than dug-outs, proof against anything up to an eight-inch shell.

General Plumer's Second Army was at this time playing the rôle of Cinderella among the British forces. Its front was lightly held, even at Ypres, which had grown strangely quiet of late. Certain preparations had been made for an offensive in the summer, but had been largely abandoned for lack of labour. The Army Commander, however, insisted on pushing on his mining, in which he had great faith, a faith amply to be justified the following year. Throughout the winter and spring the Division furnished large parties for work under the various Tunnelling Companies in the shafts that were being driven under "No Man's Land," and beneath the strongest portions of the enemy's front line. The German miners were skilful enough, and on other parts of the front often gave rather more than they got, but here, from first to last, they were out-manœuvred and out-fought in an underground war. A striking instance of this was at La Petite Douve Farm, on the Ploegsteert-Messines Road, where the British tunnellers succeeded in pumping a fair proportion of the muddy Douve into the Germans' shaft, whence they could be heard, night after night, frantically ejecting it with a motor-pump. One "camouflet," as a defensive explosion was called, did indeed blow in our gallery here and undo months of work, but the enemy probably did not know what he had achieved, and the temporary check availed him nothing in the end. No Ulsterman who served in Flanders in that winter and the following spring will forget the skill, patience, and absolute contempt for danger displayed by those tunnellers. The 171st Tunnelling Company, with which the Division was most closely associated, will be remembered with particular affection and admiration.

The Second Army has been called the Cinderella of our forces. Not only was it holding a long line lightly, and with few reserves, but the main flow of ammunition and material passed it by and went down to the Somme, where the British were creeping forward in desperate fighting to Bapaume. There were weeks in August and September when the allowance of shells dropped to two and even one round per 18-pounder a day, with heavier calibres proportionately rationed.[26] The Germans were in this respect similarly situated. Their ammunition also was wanted on the Somme to put down those eternal barrages with which they opposed our assaults. When the Division first arrived in Flanders the artillery shell-fire was very light indeed. That of the trench mortars did a good deal to replace it. The Germans had concentrated on these weapons as their chief means of offence, and, possessing the advantage of the ground, they used them cleverly and with great effect. With that curious regularity that appeared to form part of the German mentality their bombardments generally took place almost precisely at 3-30 p.m. They were particularly severe in the neighbourhood of the Spanbroek salient.[27] "In this sector," writes a machine-gun officer, "I have seen five or six large 'minnies' in the air at one time—really fearsome things. You could see the fuses of the bombs alight in the air and follow their flight most of the way, only to lose it when straight overhead; and then there was nothing to do but wonder where it would fall!" These long aerial torpedoes exploded with shattering effect and made huge craters. It is useless to disguise the fact that, during the first few weeks of the Division's acquaintance with these trenches, the enemy had an ascendancy in trench-mortar warfare. That ascendancy had to be fought down. In the first place the German mortars, or rather their emplacements, were carefully marked down from observations taken in the line, and by the study of aeroplane photographs. Maps were then issued by the staff, upon which each active emplacement was shown by name. The names began with the letter of the map square; all in the "S" squares with S, and in the "U" squares with U. The names chosen were generally feminine—doubtless without ironic intention. A certain number of the emplacements were allotted to each howitzer battery of the Divisional Artillery, and also to such 6-inch howitzer batteries of the Corps Heavy Artillery as were available. When the mortar opened fire, all that was necessary was for the words "Susie active," or "Ursula active," to be wired back to the batteries. Susie, or Ursula, as the case might be, was instantly engaged, while any machine-guns that could be brought to bear upon her neighbourhood also took a hand in the game. By this means it was generally found possible to silence any individual mortar in about a quarter of an hour at most, and to prevent it from getting the exact range, and then knocking in a whole section of trench at leisure.

On the British side, also, big trench-mortar bombardments, aided by the Divisional Artillery, were periodically arranged. In these affairs the leading rôle was played by that terrific weapon, the heavy trench mortar, firing a projectile of 180 lbs., and highly dramatic it not infrequently was. One of these monsters dwelt at R.E. Farm, on the Wulverghem-Wytschaete Road, and it was from this locality that the principal "hates" were discharged. For perhaps ten minutes the fire would continue, the "flying pig," as it was called, sending over its giant shells, the medium mortars firing their 60-lb. "plum puddings," and perhaps two batteries of light Stokes mortars discharging twenty or twenty-five rounds a minute from every gun. Meanwhile the 18-pounders and howitzers behind joined in, while machine-guns fired upon communication trenches. The German retaliation was frequently heavy, and the teams of the mortars, heavy, medium, and light, showed grim determination in carrying out their tasks under punishment. General Brock, the C.R.A., did not believe in sending to the mortar batteries weaklings who were not wanted with the guns, and these trench mortars acquired a peculiar type of artillery officer,[28] resolute, hard-bitten, perhaps often careless and unconventional, but capable in great moments of the most splendid courage, lightly worn and taken for granted between comrade and comrade.

Few who have known anything of it can recall the "flying pig" without a smile. There was a pleasing uncertainty about this weapon. When the first round was fired from R.E. Farm, the charge did not ignite properly, and the big shell went forth, flaming gun-cotton marking its path, to land three hundred yards away just behind the British front line, making a huge crater and demolishing the local company headquarters! Thereafter the propellent was improved, but it was thought wiser temporarily to evacuate the front line over which the mortar was firing. It was typical of the infantryman's good humour that the incident was greeted everywhere with laughter and treasured as an excellent jest. War, indeed, has a curious effect upon the sense of humour, and far grimmer pleasantries than this were the subjects of mirth. When a IX. Corps intelligence summary remarked that a German cemetery behind the ridge "appeared to be filling nicely," it was hailed as the joke of the season.

It was the aim of the Army Commander to harass by all means in his power the troops that faced him, to prevent divisions that were sent down to the Somme from going as fresh troops, and to prevent those others that had been withdrawn from the hell-broth from recovering too quickly and easily from its effects. The intense bombardments with trench artillery were but one weapon in this campaign. Another, as autumn drew on and supplies of ammunition came more freely to hand, was the shelling of approaches and, above all, the railway terminus in Messines, by night. But the principal weapon in this minor offensive was the raiding party. So long as men who took part in the war are alive, the subject of raids is like to crop up whenever two or three are met together. But the conclusion of such discussions is invariably the same. Raids were frequently useful, and sometimes imperatively necessary; but the British raided too often. Raids to obtain identification of troops opposite, and even to keep the enemy "on the stretch," were justifiable; those with the object of raising the moral of our troops were not, because they did not succeed in their object. "No doubt," writes one of the Brigadiers of the 36th Division who was responsible for many raids, "no doubt a successful raid had a good effect in a unit, but not always among the raiding party. The meticulous preparation made the 'waiting-for-the-dentist' period hard and trying. And the raiders were always picked men, who in a battle were of inestimable value. Many units had to deplore the loss of the very cream of their officers, N.C.O.'s, and men in raids. And the cold-blooded courage demanded of all concerned took heavy toll of the nervous energy of even the biggest thruster." The Higher Command, also, often called for raids immediately troops had taken over a line, before they had learnt their way about in "No Man's Land" by dint of patrolling, and before they had recovered from the effects of an attack delivered on some other part of the front.

The record of the 36th Division with regard to raids was from first to last a very high one. The failures were few in comparison with the successes. It was also the case that, while the troops of the Division carried out a great number of successful raids, the number of occasions on which they themselves failed to repulse German raids or lost prisoners to the raiders can be numbered on the fingers of both hands. In the eleven months between the opening of the Somme Offensive and the Battle of Messines, the Division carried out over a dozen raids; but the first hand-to-hand encounter with the enemy took place, not in his trenches, but in "No Man's Land." It is a curious little episode, and deserves to be treated at some length.