The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division

by Cyril Falls

The great attack launched that morning was the second stroke of a campaign which had begun triumphantly at Messines. The plans made for 1917 by the Allied Command had been thrown into some confusion by the retirement of the German armies on the Somme to their Hindenburg system, in March, and later by the stopping of General Nivelle's great offensive in Champagne.[38] The British had certainly played their part at Arras and Messines. The British Command could obviously now not count upon another great French offensive for some little while, and it was under the vital necessity of keeping the German armies heavily engaged. Its greater object was to strike at the Belgian coast, where the submarine bases of Ostend and Zeebrugge were becoming a menace so serious to the very existence of the nation. That scheme has not been made public, and its details can be no more than a matter of surmise to any but those in the confidence of the British Command, or the Imperial General Staff. It will not be discussed here. It is known, however, pretty generally, that it involved an attack upon the coast-line and a landing. Camps had been formed near Dunkirk, surrounded by barbed wire, where divisions were to be assembled in greatest secrecy. And as for the attack in the Salient, a glance at a railway map will show how serious an advance across the Passchendaele Ridge upon Roulers would have been to the German communications. A threat to the next great railway, the main Brussels line between Ghent and Bruges, would probably have led to the abandonment of the coast by the enemy. Ludendorff, in mid-July, while the 36th Division was enjoying its repose in peaceful country, had made one move in the game—no more than the move of a pawn in such a struggle, but a clever and effective one. At Lombartzyde, outside Nieuport, he had launched an attack against our troops upon the little slice of ground held by them north of the Yser Canal, driving them back into the river. Two divisions had very serious losses, including over a thousand prisoners, and, worst of all, the "jumping-off" ground for an attack on the coast line had been snatched away.

Even if they failed in the ambitious venture, the British could at least hope, beside continuing their policy of striking blow upon blow at the enemy, to make an end of the accursed Ypres Salient, and drive the Germans from the dominating semicircle of higher ground from which they had so long harassed our troops. Half of this task had indeed been accomplished by the Battle of Messines. The southern curve of the Salient had almost disappeared. It remained to cut away the northern. The great part of the fighting of Ypres, 1917, was to take place north of the Zonnebeke Road.

The attack launched on July the 31st by the Fifth Army of General Gough, and the First French Army of General Anthoine on his left, met with a considerable measure of success. At its outset, indeed, the success appeared complete; but the Germans, holding their positions lightly and in depth, with the local counter-attack as one of the main weapons of defence, retook much of the ground won. The Pilkem spur was, however, in our hands. Great as had been our losses, the attack upon a position of tremendous strength had gone well enough for a beginning. But the weather, so pitiless on the Somme, that had almost startled pessimists by its unwonted mercy at Messines, broke that very day. Ere afternoon was over rain began to fall in torrents. By the following morning the ground, ploughed up by weeks of shell-fire, was a sea of mud.

The 55th Division, in the fate of which the 36th Division was particularly interested, since its artillery was supporting the attack, and its other arms were to relieve their Lancashire comrades in that sector at a later date, had fared as well as any other. The troops had gone forward with great dash and had almost everywhere reached their final objective, known as the Green Line, east and just south of St. Julien. The leading battalions had, however, suffered very heavy loss from the fire of German machine-guns, distributed in depth, and had not been sufficiently strong to resist the counter-attack when it came. They were driven in upon the second objective, or Black Line, which followed, roughly speaking, the line of the road running south-east from St. Julien to the farm known as Pommern Castle, in the Pommern Redoubt.[39] It was an advance of fifteen hundred yards. To the south affairs had gone less well, and the Black Line remained to be taken.

It had been the intention of the Commander of the XIX. Corps to keep the assaulting troops in line after they had made their attack, till the eve of the next. The result of the Battle of Langemarck was greatly affected by the fact that this resolution was not kept. The 55th Division had suffered so greatly, and its infantry was in a state of such fatigue, that it was decided to withdraw it at once. The decision may have been inevitable; on that point the Corps Commander, General Watts, was alone in a position to form a judgment. For him and the 36th Division alike, it was disastrous. It meant that for his next attack he had in his hands a Division jaded, weary, shaken by deadly shell-fire, having lost a good third of its infantry strength ere ever it left its trenches for the assault.

On the morning of August the 2nd, the 107th Brigade entrained at Poperinghe and detrained at the famous Goldfish Château, west of Ypres, coming under the orders of the 55th Division, to which it had been allotted as a reserve. While his Brigade was on the move, General Withycombe received orders from the 55th Division for it to relieve the 164th Brigade in the old British front-line trenches. The General reached Wieltje, the Headquarters of the 164th Brigade, at 12-45 p.m. Three-quarters of an hour later he received a telegram from the 55th Division ordering a further relief, that of the much-depleted 165th and 166th Brigades in the captured German positions. His men had a long march in heavy rain, and had not completed the relief of the 164th Brigade till 3-40 p.m. The new relief was entirely unexpected, and was not in accordance with the intimation received by General Nugent that his troops were to be used as a reserve. It was carried out in continuous rain, through mud eighteen inches deep, under heavy fire from howitzers of heavy calibre, and in the midst of bombing attacks launched against the right flank of the 55th Division. Not till six o'clock on the morning of August the 3rd was its completion announced. The Brigade had had heavy casualties, particularly the 10th and 15th Rifles, which had taken over the Black Line. After that night's work, in fact, there could be no question of employing those battalions in the coming attack.

That night two battalions of the 108th Brigade, the 13th Rifles and 9th Irish Fusiliers, relieved the 165th Brigade, which had moved back to the old British front and support lines; and two battalions of the 109th Brigade, the 11th Inniskillings and 14th Rifles, the 166th Brigade; the whole force under the command of General Withycombe, G.O.C. 107th Brigade, who had his headquarters in the great mined dug-outs at Wieltje. Divisional Headquarters were established at Mersey Camp, north of the Poperinghe-Ypres Road, and about mid-way between the two towns, taking over command at 4 a.m. on August the 4th. On taking over the line from the 55th Division, General Nugent decided that, in view of the dreadful conditions, it might be held more lightly, and withdrew two of the supporting battalions to camps about Brandhoek and Vlamertinghe, replacing them by companies of the supporting battalions of the 107th Brigade. There were other reliefs during the period of waiting, all the battalions having a turn, though the six which were to lead over on August the 16th were saved as much as might be. The headquarters of the Brigades also took turn about in command of the line, in the filth and stenches of Wieltje dug-outs.

Wieltje dug-outs! Who that saw it will forget that abominable mine, with its "town major," its thirteen entrances, the water that flowed down its main passages and poured down its walls, its electric light gleaming dully through steam-coated lamps, its sickly atmosphere, its smells, its huge population of men—and of rats? From behind sack-curtained doorways the coughing and groaning of men in uneasy slumber mingled with the click of typewriters. In the corridor one would fall over a runner, slimy from head to foot with mud, resting while he waited for a return message to the front line. One advantage only it had: it was safe within. And that was in part counterbalanced by the danger of exit and entrance, constantly menaced by storms of fire. The cross-country tracks, simply paths from which wire had been cleared, behind it, were more horrible still. Their object was to allow troops and pack animals—even the shells for the field artillery had to go forward by pack—to avoid roads under constant shell-fire. But the Germans now knew them every whit as well as the roads, and shelled them all day with every calibre up to 8-inch howitzers. No one who used them but had at some point to lie crouched on his belly, watching huge columns of earth and water spout up with the burst of the big shells. Horrors were not new, nor did the sight of dead bodies affect men overmuch, but there was one vision upon one of these tracks, the mangled remains of a complete party of artillery carriers, six men and twelve horses, which burnt itself upon the brains of those that saw it.

The war had in those days reached its worst stage. Gas shelling and aeroplane bombing were at their height. The infantry resting in the camps between Vlamertinghe and Elverdinghe had to endure, night after night, the crashing of great bombs among the huts and tents. The casualties to horses were very high, a horse being ten times as vulnerable as a man to bombs. The Casualty Clearing Stations probably suffered higher losses than in any other battle of the war. The counter-battery work was ferocious on both sides. For our batteries there was little concealment, and for their guns and teams little shelter. The gunners of the 36th Division, who had been in action at the opening of the Battle of Langemarck for over a month, suffered from strain and discomfort perhaps even more severely than the infantry on this occasion. And, day after day, fell the rain.