The 2/2nd Londons under Capt. Wright made a magnificent attempt to carry out their task, and did in fact reach the railway embankment, but a sharp counter-attack drove them back to the fringe of the village. Unfortunately the flanking movement of the 21st Division on the left failed to materialise, and this doubtless contributed to the failure of the 173rd Brigade. The fact, however, was clearly established that the resistance of the enemy was organised and deliberate, and it became patent that an attack with tank co-operation would be necessary to reduce it. The rifle strength of the three battalions set against these villages on the 10th September was only about 900 in all, and their attack, therefore, lacked the weight essential to success.
In spite of the lack of success, however, the day was not entirely fruitless, for the captures amounted to 80 prisoners, 20 machine-guns and 3 anti-tank guns.
The 2/4th Battalion's losses were: 2/Lieuts. F. Bidgood, P. F. Royce and H. B. Bartleet, killed; 2/Lieut. F. J. Paterson, wounded; 5 N.C.O.'s and men killed, 19 wounded and 3 missing.
During the night following the battle the 2/4th Battalion was relieved by the 12th Londons, and was concentrated in trenches at Guyencourt. Here it remained till 8 p.m. on the 11th September, when it withdrew to shelters in Liéramont.
We may here remark that on the 18th September the 173rd Brigade captured Epéhy and Peizières and thus helped clear the road for the advance to the Hindenburg line.
We have now come to the end of the 2/4th Battalion's story. Owing to the increasing difficulties of maintaining units at fighting strength it had been decided by G.H.Q. to make still further reductions in the number of formations, and to swell the ranks of those remaining with the personnel of those disbanded. This dismal fate befell the 2/4th Londons, and on the 12th September 1918 the whole of its personnel was transferred to the 2/2nd Londons, and the Battalion as a separate entity ceased to exist, after twenty-one months of active service life. Its place in the Brigade was taken by the 2/24th Londons from the 32nd Division.
The last action in which the Battalion fought was admittedly a "feeler," and as such undoubtedly served a useful purpose in the scheme of the Fourth Army's great advance; but perhaps we may be pardoned for regretting that it was not a more successful close to the Battalion's history. It was bad luck. Yet there was a certain degree of poetic justice in the fact that the Battalion had helped fight the Germans back to what had been on 21st March 1918 the British line of resistance, and it can, therefore, justly claim to have redeemed in full its losses in the awful battles of the retreat.