On September 27 Captain Colston was seized with appendicitis, and had to be sent home for an operation. Captain Ridley took his place, but on the same day was hit on the head and between the shoulders by fragments of a shell which exploded near him. Fortunately his wounds were not serious, and after having them dressed he went back to the firing line.
Oct. 1914.
In the first week of the battle of the Aisne the losses had been exceptionally heavy, but during the latter part of the time in which the British occupied the position, they were comparatively light. Sir John French estimated that from the start of the battle to the day the British Army left we lost altogether—in killed, wounded, and missing—561 officers and 12,980 men. On October 5 Captain Robin Grey, an officer of the Grenadiers attached to the Royal Flying Corps, was brought down while flying over the enemy's lines and made a prisoner.
Now the situation again changed. All along the French line there had been very heavy fighting, but while the Germans had been unable to pierce the line our Allies had equally failed to advance, though Maunoury had managed to extend his flank up to the Oise, while the new armies of Castelnau and Maud'huy were gradually lengthening the line in a northerly direction. Simultaneously the Germans had grasped that as nothing could be done on the Aisne the only possible chance of success was to turn to the French left.
So they at once began to stretch out their forces to the right, sending out huge masses of cavalry, and in their endeavour to find the French left pushed farther and farther north. They were not content with merely parrying French moves; they determined to outstrip them. They had shorter lines of communication and many more men than the Allies, and it is therefore all the more to the credit of the French and British Armies that they should have won this race for the coast by a short head.
Having come to the conclusion that an advance on the Aisne was impossible, General Joffre decided that the first-line troops should be gradually replaced by Territorials and sent up to prolong the line on the left. Curiously enough, precisely the same instructions were at the same time issued to the German Army, and Landwehr troops were gradually brought into the trenches.
This decision was to alter the fortunes also of our own troops. When the French Army began its various moves, Sir John French went to General Joffre, and pointed out the difficulties in which the British Army was placed by being in the centre of the line. All the supplies in coming from England had to go through Paris and cross those intended for the left of the French line, with the risk of probable confusion. The right place for the British Army, therefore, was clearly on the left, where supplies could reach it with the least possible delay. He also put forward the purely sentimental advantage to be gained by our army operating as a separate unit and expanding on its own front.
General Joffre saw the force of these contentions, and agreed to the British Army being moved up to Belgium, French Territorials taking up its former position. It should be explained that Territorials in France are in no way the equivalent of our own; they are all men who have served in the Army, but are over the age for active fighting. In fact, they correspond to the German Landwehr.
The necessary arrangements for withdrawal and relief were made. The operation began on October 3, and the Second Cavalry Division under General Gough marched from Compiègne en route for the new front. The Army Corps followed in succession at intervals of a few days, and the move was completed by October 19, when the First Corps detrained at St. Omer. This transfer of hundreds of thousands of men from one point of the country to another without a hitch was a striking testimony to the qualities of the French General Staff.
Oct. 12.