On the left the 167th Brigade met with but little greater success. The advance was steadily conducted as far as a line level with the eastern edge of Nonne Boschen, where trouble was first encountered by a sea of mud—an extensive bog caused by the springs in the source of the Hanebeek—which forced the attacking battalions to edge away to their left and thus lose touch with the 169th Brigade on their right. In this position they came under heavy machine-gun fire, and the British barrage having got far ahead, were forced to fall back. By 9 a.m. this Brigade also was back in its assembly area.
Early in the afternoon enemy artillery fire over the 1/4th Battalion's front became very heavy, and retaliatory fire was directed by our artillery into Inverness Copse. No infantry action developed, and during the night the Battalion was relieved by the 12th Middlesex and withdrew, in support, to the tunnel under Crab Crawl Trench in the old British system south of Sanctuary Wood.
Here the 1/4th Londons remained during the whole of the 17th August, which passed uneventfully, and in the evening was relieved by the 8th K.R.R.C. of the 14th Division, which took over the 56th Division front. On relief, the Battalion withdrew to Mic Mac Camp, Ouderdom.
Reviewing the Battalion's work on the 16th August it must be at once admitted that it, and indeed the whole Division, failed completely to perform its allotted task. That all ranks did all that was possible to achieve it is reflected in the length of the casualty list, and it is perhaps due to those who fell to comment briefly on what appear to be the causes of failure.
In the first place the operation itself was far from easy. The sea of mud and ooze to which the line of advance had been reduced must in any case have rendered the recognition by platoon commanders of the spots at which they were in turn to halt and form their post a matter of some difficulty. But the circumstances in which the Battalion became responsible for the attack effectually precluded it from the preparations for the operation which the difficulty of the task warranted. The change of command was a further stroke of bad luck. Lieut.-Col. Marchment was already known to the Battalion, but the disadvantages under which he laboured in assuming command on the eve of battle are obvious. The issue of orders was inevitably delayed as Lieut.-Col. Campbell's reconnaissance had to be repeated by Lieut.-Col. Marchment on the morning of the 15th, and it was not till the evening of that day that the scheme could be explained to companies, and then only by officers, who themselves had not seen the ground or even the assembly position. In fact the operations of reconnaissance, issue of orders and assembly of the Battalion had all to be disposed of in twenty-two hours. In addition to these preliminary difficulties the progress of the operation itself revealed further circumstances, to which also a share of the responsibility for failure may be attributed.
The extraordinary strength of the German machine-gun posts was such that the most intense barrage which the excellent Corps and Divisional artillery was capable of producing passed harmlessly over them, and only a direct hit was sufficient to disturb the occupants.
The very serious casualties at the outset of the attack—half an hour after zero, three company commanders were the only officers left standing—produced inevitably a certain degree of disorganisation, though the fact that despite these heavy losses the Battalion was able to establish and maintain itself throughout the day until relief, speaks wonders for the discipline of the troops and the efficiency and initiative of the N.C.O.'s. Further causes of failure lay in the previous exhaustion of the men owing to the bad state of the ground, which also made extremely difficult the preparation beforehand of forward supply dumps, and the reinforcement of the attacking troops during the battle.
Defeat is not always inglorious, and we feel that the 16th August may fairly be written down as a day on which the 1/4th Londons failed without loss of reputation in any single particular.
The casualties sustained were as follows:
In officers—Lieut.-Col. H. Campbell, D.S.O., wounded; Lieuts. C. A. Speyer, L. B. J. Elliott, L. W. Wreford and A. G. Davis, killed; Capt. H. W. Spiers, Lieuts. A. S. Ford and E. G. Dew, and 2/Lieuts. L. W. Archer, H. T, Hannay, N. Nunns and H. E. Jackman, wounded; and in N.C.O.'s and men 182 killed and wounded.