During the day the artillery attached to the 36th Division, to which the Potter Group, after having been in action under the 20th Division, had been returned, had actively barraged the roads leading south from the Canal de la Somme upon which the enemy was advancing. The Potter Group had bombarded the enemy massing for attack in the neighbourhood of the Esmery-Hallon—Golancourt Road, causing considerable casualties to parties in the open. The Erskine Group continued in action near Beines till French and British infantry had withdrawn through its guns. C/91st Battery remained covering the retirement till after dark, and was fortunate to be able to extricate its guns after the Germans were in Berlancourt. The Eley Group had to make three withdrawals, first, before noon, to Berlancourt; then, at 2-30 p.m., to Buchoire, where it covered the French infantry; and at 6 p.m. to the neighbourhood or Frétoy-le-Château. In every case the retirement was delayed till the last possible minute. The men of "C" and "D" Batteries, 153rd Brigade R.F.A., displayed the highest courage and most dogged perseverance throughout this day.
At night the Erskine Group was put at the disposal of the 9th French Division, the Eley and Potter Groups at that of the 62nd French Division, under the control of the 36th Divisional Artillery Headquarters. General Brock, on return from leave, assumed command of the two latter Groups. Colonel H. C. Simpson, who had hitherto acted as C.R.A., became Liaison Officer with the 62nd French Division.
An order of the 62nd French Division, issued at 2-15 a.m. on March the 25th, contained the following information and instructions for the 36th Division. The general line held ran west of Quesmy, Bethancourt, Fréniches, to the Canal de Robécourt at Rouy, east of Nesle. The rôle of the 62nd Division was to check the enemy's advance, and prevent his crossing the Canal de Robécourt before, at earliest, the evening of the 25th. The British batteries were to remain in action under the orders of the 62nd French Division. The remaining troops of the 36th Division were to be withdrawn for reorganization, in readiness to assist the 62nd Division in case of emergency.
The reorganization, such as it was, was carried out in the course of a fifteen-mile march. The 21st Brigade, now reduced to less than five hundred of all ranks, was ordered to rejoin its own Division north of Roye. It was detached from the line of retreat at Avricourt, where it was met by a column of 'buses. Officers and men saw it go, to the further desperate fighting which awaited its survivors, with sentiments of the warmest admiration. During the whole period of their attachment to the 36th Division, General Cochrane's men had displayed wonderful endurance and devotion. In the centre of a line which was turned upon both flanks, they had held each one of their successive positions till the last possible moment.
The troops of the 36th Division halted at mid-day in the neighbourhood of Avricourt, where they had a few hours' rest. They then received orders to resume their march. The 107th Brigade moved back to Guerbigny, on the banks of the Avre; the 108th Brigade to Erches, a mile north of that village; the 109th Brigade to Guerbigny and Warsy. Troops arrived between midnight and two o'clock, and, for the first time since the beginning of the attack, had a continuous sleep of at least six hours in comfortable billets. The 9th Irish Fusiliers, however, coming straight through from the neighbourhood of Guiscard, a distance of upwards of thirty miles, did not arrive till 8 a.m. General Nugent established his headquarters in Warsy.
The spectacle of the infantry upon that march was one that would have aroused compassion in the most war-hardened breast. Men's faces were deeply marked by overwhelming fatigue and lack of sleep. Some moved in a sort of trance, stumbling forward oblivious to their surroundings. In some cases their boots had given out. Many company officers, in the course of the last few miles, dispensed with the regulation halts, because they found it almost impossible to get their men on their feet again after them. They lay like logs, and had to be violently shaken before they could be recalled to consciousness. Fortunately more 'buses had been sent for the 61st Brigade than that scanty remnant required, and a few were able to assist in moving back the men absolutely unable to walk.
There were other sights upon that line of march perhaps even more moving. The men in this evil case were, after all, soldiers, undergoing such experiences as many soldiers have undergone in many great retreats. The spectacle of the civilians, turning out in haste from their homes, was often heartrending. Their big wains would be piled high with their household possessions, with perhaps the old grandmother of the family holding its youngest baby, perched perilously on top. Mile after mile, at the cart-tail, or driving cattle that became mixed up with the British transport, the children trudged in the rain. It was only the rich and comparatively fortunate that had horsed transport. The poorer struggled along with the most valuable of their things upon handcarts. The present writer remembers seeing a woman carried out on a bed and put on to a farm-cart. He was told she had given birth to a child two hours earlier. A little later he came upon an old woman pushing her paralyzed husband in a wheelbarrow. Let those who desire to realize what effort this requires for a woman of sixty, try wheeling a heavy man in a wheelbarrow even a hundred yards. For these room was found in a British lorry at the next village, but there were many cases where such relief was impossible.
The mien of these unfortunates was wonderful. Here and there a woman sobbed as she walked, a man cursed his chance. For the most part, about the most incongruous of these little cavalcades there was the high dignity of sorrow and suffering stoically and nobly borne.
In the course of the mid-day halt, details were as far as possible sent to their own units. In the 107th Brigade the 2nd Rifles, which had disappeared at Cugny, was reformed at about the strength of a large platoon. A company of the 15th Rifles, under Captain Miller, which had been a part of the first-formed battalion of details, was attached to the Brigade. The 109th Brigade formed small companies from the remnants of the 1st and 2nd Inniskillings.
The fighting of March the 25th exhibited in lamentable fashion the difficulties that occur in a retreat when two armies, using different methods, speaking different languages, based upon different lines of communication, with different apprehensions preoccupying the minds of their commanders, are being forced back before a victorious and more powerful enemy. The French were retiring south-west; the British west. Sooner or later a gap was inevitable. It occurred on this evening, at Roye. The 62nd French Division, covered by the Potter and Eley Groups under General Brock, fought an admirable delaying action. The Germans did not reach Libermont till 4 p.m., nor was the Canal crossed by them till about 6 p.m. Thereafter the 62nd Division, its left flank turned by the German advance at Nesle, withdrew to the line of the Roye-Noyon Road. During the remainder of the retreat the 36th Division saw no more of the artillery which had been attached to it, nor of its own C.R.A. and staff. An account of their action with the French must be left till a little later in this narrative.