The 36th Division, on the morning of August the 30th, was awaiting relief by the 35th Division, to be given a short period of rest and training before being launched upon the great series of final offensives in Flanders. Its right-hand neighbour, the 9th Division, had already been relieved by the 31st Division on the Hoegenacker Ridge, with a like object. That rest the 36th Division was not destined to enjoy. At ten o'clock that morning came a report from the 31st Division that the enemy was gone from its front, and that its men were entering Bailleul from the south. Before two o'clock patrols of the 36th were in the huge Asylum north of the town, and upon the Neuve Eglise Road. The relief was cancelled and an immediate advance ordered, to be carried out by the 109th Brigade.
This was not the first enemy retirement in the Western theatre. There had been that of 1917, in which some of the troops now in the 36th Division had been the pursuers. No doubt the men who had then tracked the retreating Germans had felt elation. But that had been false dawn. Now, as men sprang up eagerly to set about their preparations, a conviction spread among them that this was the true, that not again would they have to turn back. Some of our present-day pessimists pretend that by the summer of 1918 the horror, the iron ruthlessness, of the war had robbed men of their stores of latent enthusiasm, and that, even for victory, they had none to summon forth.
It is untrue. Were it true, they could not have so swiftly prevailed against an enemy, disheartened indeed, but still disciplined, tenacious and well led, still admirably equipped, and, above all, backed by a series of defences such as the Allies, in their days of adversity, had never dreamed of. All testimony, moreover, is to the contrary. Like a flame the spirit of victory, the bright-hued prospect of deliverance, spread among all ranks. Defeat and retirement had bred melancholy and bad temper. The new atmosphere dissipated them. To go forward, to strike, to make an end—those were the impulses and the hopes that swept through the waiting ranks.
The ground immediately to be recovered had a double appeal, a sentimental interest. It was that which had been the area of the Division for a year. The Château of St. Jans Cappel had been Divisional Headquarters for the greater part of that period. The remains of that pleasant villa—heu quantum mutata!—were to shelter General Coffin's staff during the advance.[58] On the Ravelsberg Ridge, the first objective, had been the Divisional School. In Neuve Eglise, the second, had been a Brigade Headquarters. Not a house, not a lane, not a forlorn camp with shell-punctured hutments, not a machine-gun position further forward in the old battle-line, but was known to some of the officers and men now making ready to advance. There was triumph even, mingled with the pathos, in re-entering poor, battered Bailleul, which had been a good friend in time past. From a handsome town it was become a mass of ruins, so completely destroyed that, across a fine central place of several acres, there was now but a single narrow track for transport through the rubble. By midnight on the 30th the patrols were half a mile along the Neuve Eglise Road and a mile from the summit of Ravelsberg Hill. To capture that on the morrow was the task of the 109th Brigade. The Brigade had a wide frontage, roughly a thousand yards north of the Neuve Eglise Road, and two thousand south of it. The advance was steady, but made in the teeth of considerable machine-gun fire. The Germans had evacuated their positions, but they did not want to be hurried, nor were they prepared to forego the opportunity of inflicting loss upon our troops which such a height as the Ravelsberg afforded. But, once that hill captured, the enemy rearguards were hustled down the further slope. By night the Brigade had reached the foot of the next hill, a mile east of the Ravelsberg. A mile and a half to the south the 1st Inniskillings had its right upon the main Armentières Road.
Neuve Eglise was the first objective for September the 1st. The 2nd Inniskillings was ordered to extend its left flank as far as the road from that village to Dranoutre, and advance with its left upon Wulverghem. The 108th Brigade had meanwhile moved up in support to Haagedoorne, the 107th being in the area of Mont Noir and Mont Kokereele. Great efforts were being made to bring artillery forward over the very bad roads. Kemmel Hill was once again in British hands, and good news came in the morning from the 30th Division, on the left, which had reached Lindenhoek and south of it as far as the valley of the Douve.
The severest resistance was met at Westhof Farm and De Broeken, both well known of old, where German machine-guns caused serious loss. German artillery fire was also heavy. The various strong points were taken one by one. The German rearguards slipped back in each case before our men came upon them, but a number were killed in flight and, outside Neuve Eglise, a machine-gun and two prisoners captured. By afternoon the enemy had been driven back to the western outskirts of the village. Some of the 2nd Inniskillings appear actually to have reached its houses, but the line finally taken up at night was five hundred yards short of it.
The 108th Brigade was ordered to pass through the 109th at night and resume the advance, its objectives being from Red Lodge, in the north-west corner of "Plug Street Wood," to South Midland Farm on the Wulverghem-Messines Road. The artillery was now in a position to give it adequate support. The attack was carried out by the 12th Rifles on the right and 1st Irish Fusiliers on the left. On its southern flank, Kortepyp Cabaret and the Custom House on the Steenwerck Road gave trouble.[59] A Stokes mortar here well repaid the labour of bringing it and its ammunition forward, enabling the infantry to rush these places after a short bombardment. Then the line pressed forward to the Nieppe Road running south-east from Neuve Eglise. Machine-gun fire from this village was at first galling, but, after it had been heavily shelled by the artillery, a company of the 12th Rifles took it in most gallant fashion, while two other companies made progress to the south of it. By four o'clock the line was east of Neuve Eglise.
The next obstacle was a fairly formidable one, an old British system, the name of which recalled the days when the British Army had been a very small force indeed—the G.H.Q. Line. The Germans had put up some wire to defend its support trench from the west. At 7-30 p.m., light being still good, our artillery bombarded these defences heavily for an hour, after which the infantry advanced to the attack. The trenches were not taken without fighting, though, in all the circumstances, the enemy's resistance must be reckoned feeble. Desultory encounters continued all night, but by morning the infantry was in possession of the G.H.Q. Line along the whole front. On the left, meanwhile, the troops of the 30th Division had entered Wulverghem.
On the 3rd, as resistance stiffened, the frontage was narrowed. A Brigade of the 29th Division had just relieved the 31st Division troops on the right for the assault on the very important position of Hill 63. The new objective of the 108th Brigade was from White Gates, at the western foot of this hill, to South Midland Farm.
At 9-30 a.m. the 12th Rifles and 1st Irish Fusiliers went forward. In the early stages they had artillery support. Thereafter, owing to constant movement and the difficulty of ascertaining the position of the front line, the only assistance that could be rendered by the artillery was by fire on objectives far in rear, save for occasional opportunities that came the way of single mobile guns. The attack resolved itself into individual assaults upon German machine-gun positions, which were taken in flank by Lewis guns worked forward, and then rushed with the bayonet. Three were thus taken, and their detachments killed or captured, while none of the latter, which ran before the infantry came upon them, escaped without loss from our fire. By evening the line ran from L'Alouette, a mile east of Neuve Eglise, to La Plus Douve Farm, a famous old battalion headquarters of the 36th Division, south-east of Wulverghem. The whole of this front was taken over after dark by the 9th Irish Fusiliers, which battalion had not yet been in action.