West of the Canal things went better at the opening. The 12th Rifles attacked Mœuvres with three companies in line. The two on the left penetrated the village, but the right company was held up by machine-guns in the Hindenburg Support System. On the left, troops of the 56th Division, bombing up the Hindenburg Front System, captured Tadpole Copse. Colonel Goodwin, commanding the 12th Rifles, now handled his battalion with great skill. He ordered his right company to bomb its way up the trench leading from the sunken Mœuvres-Graincourt Road to the Hindenburg Support System, while the other companies exploited their semi-success in the village. The right company did succeed in reaching the front trench of the Support System, and in clearing it, but the second line was full of Germans and could never be reached. Meanwhile the centre and western side of the village had been cleared, many Germans being killed in dug-outs and cellars. Pushing on through the village, the Riflemen took the trench on the western edge, fringing the cemetery, and began to consolidate it. Then came the counter-attack.
At 4 p.m. the enemy was seen assembling in great force in Hobart Street, half-way between Mœuvres and Inchy, and in the Hindenburg Support System north-west of the former village. Messages were sent back for support and for an artillery barrage. Both were procured, the former in the shape of a company of the 9th Irish Fusiliers, but, unfortunately, neither of them in time. The counter-attack, launched just before dusk, appeared to be made by two battalions, one working parallel with the Hindenburg Support System and one down the Canal, in several waves. The company in the trench east of the cemetery was forced to withdraw to avoid being surrounded. Our men fell back from position to position, in orderly fashion, taking toll of the enemy with their Lewis guns. There was no trace of fluster, still less of panic. It took the Germans, in fact, an hour and forty minutes from the launching of their attack to drive the 12th Rifles to the southern outskirts of the village. It was a piece of evil fortune after a fine achievement in village fighting. It must be remembered that there was a heavy German barrage south of Mœuvres and machine-gun fire from either flank, which delayed the supports of the 9th Irish Fusiliers.
The action once again demonstrated the disadvantages inherent in attacks on narrow fronts. The Hindenburg trenches west of Mœuvres, on higher ground, overlooked the village and permitted intense machine-gun fire to be concentrated upon it. They were outside the area of operations. In the same way, from the Hindenburg trenches east of the Canal, heavy machine-gun fire was kept up on the village and its approaches. This ground also was, for practical purposes, outside the area of operations, since it could not be taken without artillery preparation or tanks. There had been no artillery preparation, and no tanks were available.
The close of this rather unsatisfactory day may fittingly mark the end of a chapter. After wonderful initial success the action had not continued as planned. Little has been said of the extreme right flank because space does not permit. Nor does it in any way concern the 36th Division. But here also, though Masnières, across the Canal de l'Escaut, had been taken, the great cavalry "drive" had been a failure. Henceforth the battle was to be fought in other circumstances. Fresh German troops were up now, and resistance all along the line was fierce. Every yard of ground had to be won by hard fighting. The idea of exploitation to the Sensée River must have faded from the mind of the Commander of the Third Army. Indeed, he permitted a Division intended for that purpose, the 40th, to relieve the 62nd, now very weary. But much had been won. It was of the highest importance now to take the Bourlon Ridge. While it remained in German hands all our positions were overlooked, and could have been made in time almost untenable. In our hands, on the contrary, it would have been a veritable thorn in the side of the Germans, and would soon have compelled an important retirement to the north, if neither so swift nor so great as that which would have been involved by our reaching Oisy-le-Verger.
A new phase was opening, of powerful forces on either side battling fiercely for position. And the crown of battle, looming up above the combatants, was the great circular mass of the Bois de Bourlon.
FOOTNOTES:
>[43] Aux moments sombres de la guerre, nous nous sommes souvent demandés: "Si Napoléon sortait de son tombeau aux Invalides, que nous dirait-il, que ferait-il de nos armées actuelles?"
Il nous aurait dit: "Vous avez des millions d'hommes; je ne les ai jamais eus. Vous avez les chemins-de-fer, le télégraphe, la télégraphie sans fil, les avions, l'artillerie à longue portée, les gazs asphyxiants; je n'avais rien de tout cela. Et vous n'en tirez point parti? Vous allez voir!"
Et, dans un mois ou deux, il aurait tout renversé, réorganisé, mis en œuvre de quelque façon nouvelle, et culbuté l'ennemi désorienté.
Marshal Foch: The Times (Napoleon Supplement),
Thursday, May 5th, 1921.