Reliefs of French by British formations always presented great difficulties, owing to the fact that reserves of munitions of every sort had to be transferred, instead of being simply handed over as when Briton relieved Briton. Differences of language and of method were scarcely less important. Yet it often happened that reliefs on such occasions were the most satisfactory of all. Each side was on its mettle. Staff work was meticulously careful, reconnaissances were thorough, guides of proved intelligence chosen. This case was no exception. There is hardly a diary of the formations and units of the 36th Division in which is not expressed high appreciation of the arrangements made by the French, and of the kindness with which advance parties were treated by them. One officer writes of his own reception by a French regimental commander: "The most amazing dinner I ever did have in the line! We had course after course of wonderful things, with suitable wines, till it was hard to think that the Huns could be only a thousand yards distant, but that was all they were." And not the officers only were entertained, for his men informed him that "the poilus made them eat the whole time and absolutely bathed them in coffee."
The front taken over ran from Sphinx Wood, some twelve hundred yards west of the village of Itancourt, to a point on the St. Quentin-Roisel Railway a thousand yards west of Rocourt Station. Rocourt is a suburb of the city of St. Quentin, at the gates of which the British Armies now sat. The position and its defences will have to be described later in some detail. Here it need only be said that the latter were already considerable, but that, the relief taking place in the midst of a thaw following upon weeks of snow and frost, the 36th Division succeeded to a legacy of fallen-in trenches and mud. For the rest, it was on the whole a quiet front and not uncomfortable. The destruction of the villages behind our lines did not appear to be as complete as before Cambrai. A few French civilians had trickled back to villages such as Ollézy and Douchy, while the town of Ham, where were the Headquarters of the XVIII. Corps, was intact and was full of them.
The Germans, who had excellent observation, were, of course, quickly aware of the relief, and evidently received orders to obtain identifications of the new troops in front of them. After several fruitless attempts they succeeded in obtaining them. On the night of January the 22nd they entered our outpost line on the front of both Brigades, capturing in each case a wounded prisoner. A small patrol of the 10th Rifles was also waylaid by superior numbers, and an officer and sergeant taken. This appeared to content them, and thereafter, for a considerable time, the front became of a placidity such as the troops of the 36th Division had seldom known.
For the moment—a fleeting moment, indeed—the enemy had second place in the minds of officers and men of the Division. Its first concern was with its reorganization. The shortage of man-power had been talked of long enough. Its fruits had now to be plucked, and bitter they were. The whole British Army was now cutting down its divisions to nine infantry battalions, and its brigades to three. From the tactical point of view, apart from the fact that it entailed a loss of some hundred and seventy-five battalions, the change had serious inconveniences. The brigade of four battalions was the traditional British formation, just as the regiment of three was the Continental. It was the formation which British commanders had handled in training and practice, upon which their conceptions of infantry in war were based. The moral loss was no less great, particularly in divisions and brigades with strong territorial associations and sentiment. It meant that battalions in every division disappeared, and that either their personnel was transferred to others, or that they became "Entrenching Battalions," pitiful, nameless ghosts, robbed of their pride and their traditions. Such changes could not be without their effect upon moral, working through the loss of esprit-de-corps, the very life's blood of a combatant unit.
The late 2/Lt. E. DE WIND, 15th Royal Irish Rifles.
The late Corp. E. SEAMAN, 2nd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
2/Lt. C. L. KNOX, Royal Engineers.
Pte. N. HARVEY, 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
The 36th Division, it will be remembered, had already received two regular battalions, the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles and the 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers. It was now joined by three more, the 1st and 2nd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, from the 29th and 32nd Divisions respectively, and the 1st Royal Irish Rifles, from the 8th Division. To make place for them, the 10th and 11th Inniskillings, the 8th/9th, 10th, and 11th/13th Rifles had to disappear. Three Entrenching Battalions, the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, were formed from the disbanded battalions after the remainder, including the newcomers, had been brought up to strength. The 2nd Rifles in the 108th Brigade, and the 1st Irish Fusiliers in the 107th, were exchanged. The infantry of the Division was now as follows: