The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division

by Cyril Falls

But, as all the world knows, no such rebuff met the southern arm of the pincer. Here the Germans broke through the British lines; Masnières, defended by a brigade of the 29th Division, held out, but to the extreme south of the original advance the front collapsed. La Vacquerie was retaken by the enemy. Further south he bit deeply even into our old line, taking Villers-Guislain, Gonnelieu, and Gouzeaucourt, all of which had been ours before November the 20th, and the last-named of which had then been over two thousand yards from our front line. The prisoners captured by the enemy ran into many thousands, and the guns into hundreds. It was a woeful affair, of which the main causes were the lack of an organized defence in depth, and that of training in junior officers and men.

It is pleasanter to turn to the very fine counter-attack by troops of the Guards' Division, fortunately out of the line and still in the neighbourhood. It was made at mid-day, and drove the Germans headlong through Gouzeaucourt and a thousand yards east of it. Further attempts were made that night and the following day to retake Gonnelieu and La Vacquerie, but without success. The enemy maintained his foothold in these villages and upon the edge of the Welsh Ridge. How far precisely the German advance progressed it is not easy to determine. It is certain at least that it was far east of Gouzeaucourt, and that the main communication of the IV. Corps, the Trescault-Metz Road, was seriously threatened at a time when that Corps' own troops were maintaining their positions. That calamity was averted by the action of the Guards' Division.[46]

It was at mid-day, while staffs were reconnoitring camps in the neighbourhood of Arras, that news reached the 36th Division of the break-through. Accompanying the news came orders that it should instantly retrace its steps. There was no time now to provide trains upon the congested railways. The troops were to march back through the devastated area, Brigade Groups staging the night at Achiet-le-Petit, Courcelles, and Gomiecourt. They were on the move by half-past two that afternoon, cyclists having been sent out to meet the transport and turn it back. The following night saw the Division in the area Lechelle-Bancourt-Rocquigny. The men were very fatigued after ten days of what was practically open warfare, followed by marching and counter-marching. As for the transport horses, they too were feeling the strain of dragging heavy loads over atrocious roads, and had in many cases not been unhitched before their heads were turned south again. Moreover, the accommodation for men and animals in the Lechelle area was of the scantiest.

At 4 a.m. on the morning of the 23rd, the III. Corps informed the 36th Division that the latter had been placed at its disposal from noon on the following day. Officers from the 108th Brigade were ordered to reconnoitre the area then held by the 88th Brigade of the 29th Division, and from the 109th Brigade part of the area held by troops of the 61st Division on its right. Later in the day, after the reconnaissance had been carried out and invaluable lives lost in its course, these orders were modified. The Germans made a fresh attack at Gonnelieu. For a time the situation on the VII. Corps front was highly critical, but the attack died down after the enemy had made a certain advance. The 108th Brigade was put at the disposal of the 61st Division, and ordered to send up a battalion to hold an old British trench near Beaucamp. Later in the afternoon the whole of the Brigade was moved up to the neighbourhood of this village.

On December the 4th the 107th and 109th Brigades moved up from Lechelle and Bertincourt, halting in Havrincourt Wood for dinners en route. The 107th Brigade was disposed in old British trenches between Beaucamp and Villers-Plouich, the 109th in the old German front line north of the former, where it was in reserve to the 6th Division. The two Field Companies left behind, and the Pioneers, rejoined the Division, moving to a camp near Dessart Wood. Headquarters of the Division were established in an infantry camp at Sorel-le-Grand. That night the 108th Brigade relieved the 88th in the line, in the Couillet Valley. The next night the 109th Brigade followed, taking over the important plateau known as Welsh Ridge from the 182nd Brigade of the 61st Division.

On this night G.H.Q. carried out a grave but inevitable decision. The success of the German attack on the southern face of the Bourlon-Noyelles-Masnières Salient had made that salient so narrow in proportion to its depth that its maintenance would be a constant source of attrition. A considerable portion of the ground here, including Bourlon Wood, Cantaing, Noyelles, Graincourt, and Marcoing, was evacuated, all dug-outs within the area being systematically destroyed. This withdrawal was to have an effect upon the relief to be carried out by the 36th Division.

The new line, of which General Nugent assumed command on the relief of the 182nd Brigade, was curious and somewhat indeterminate as to exact position. It represented an acute salient, of which the nose pointed due east. Behind this ran, from south-west to north-east, the deep, densely-wooded Couillet Valley. At the south-west end was the ruined village of Villers-Plouich, at the north-east the little damaged village of Marcoing, captured by the British in the Cambrai battle, but now again in German hands. On either side of the Couillet Valley were the two ridges destined to become famous, Welsh Ridge on the south-east, and Highland Ridge on the north-west. Across these, at right angles to the Couillet Valley, ran the two Hindenburg Systems, which on Welsh Ridge drew to within two hundred yards of each other, forming a single system of defence. That fact proved how highly the men who had sited those trenches rated the importance of Welsh Ridge. To the British at this moment it was well-nigh as valuable as it had been to the enemy.

It will be remembered that the evacuation of Marcoing had taken place on the night of the 4th. There was still some uncertainty as to the position of the British outpost line. There was more before the relief was complete. The 9th Inniskillings of the 109th Brigade sent its No. 3 Company in advance up on to the Welsh Ridge in the afternoon. This company arrived in the midst of a tremendous bombardment, amid which the bursts of captured English 18-pounder high explosive were only too apparent to the experienced eye. It was greeted by the unpleasant news that the Germans were bombing up the Hindenburg Support Systems, had already made considerable headway, and that the troops awaiting relief, demoralized by utter weariness and exposure, and by the bombardment which had reduced them to a handful, were at that moment retreating only too fast. The company, as was natural in such a bombardment, was spread out with very long intervals between the platoons. The leading platoon was at once pushed along the front line. It had few bombs and no artillery support, so had to rely upon rifle fire. But it stopped the German advance. Three times the enemy pressed up the trench, and thrice was driven back. Moreover, on the report that the enemy was advancing also up the second line, two sections, perhaps ten men, were despatched to the assistance of the troops in that trench. Here likewise the German bombers were checked. The remainder of the battalion moved up, and the whole line was taken over. The night passed fairly quietly.

The heroism of this action is not to be measured by ordinary standards, since the men were in a state of fatigue and depression when it started. It was surpassed on the morrow, when the 9th Inniskillings, assisted by a platoon of the 14th Rifles, counter-attacked to restore the ground won by the enemy before their arrival. They were enabled to carry this out by the action of the Brigade transport officer, Lieutenant Vaughan, who had brought up, in the course of the night, by the road through Villers-Plouich, officially reported impracticable for any transport, fourteen limber-loads of ammunition, grenades, and Stokes mortar bombs. The attack was at first successful, winning back most of the lost ground and capturing nine prisoners, but the Inniskillings followed the retiring enemy too far, and parties of Germans, pushing down a sunken road which had been overlooked, cut off and captured the leading men, as well as a section of the 109th Machine-Gun Company, and drove the attack back to its starting point. Of what followed, a graphic account is given by Captain (then Lieutenant) Densmore Walker, of the 109th Machine-Gun Company, who had heard that his guns had been lost and had come forward with the company commander to investigate.