1st and 2nd Guards Brigades. During the first phases of the attack the 1st Guards Brigade was therefore in reserve, advancing in rear so as to be prepared to pass through the leading Brigades when the moment arrived.
Zero hour was fixed for 3.50 A.M., and at 4 A.M. the 1st Guards Brigade advanced with the 2nd Battalion Coldstream on the left and the 2nd Battalion Grenadiers on the right, moving in artillery formation. The 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards and 1st Battalion Irish Guards were under the direct orders of the G.O.C. Guards Division. On the right of the Guards Division, the battalion which had to undertake the attack on the last objective was the 17th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers in the Thirty-eighth Division.
During the early stages of the advance the shelling was very slight, and it was not until the Canal was reached that the 2nd Battalion began to suffer casualties. A considerable amount of shelling was met with on both sides of the Canal, but the crossing was effected without serious difficulty, although in places the bridges were broken, and some of the men fell into the mud. The Battalion advanced in very good order, the intervals and distances being kept with great precision. Lieut.-Colonel de Crespigny, finding that he was gaining on the time allotted to him, and noticing that the German barrage was irregular, gave orders that commanders of platoons might use their discretion, and halt occasionally in shell-holes, in order to avoid any zones which appeared to be receiving particular attention from the German artillery. The
enemy was continually shortening his range, and there is no doubt that, by avoiding the shelling as necessity demanded, many casualties were avoided.
After going on in this way for about 2000 yards the leading companies, No. 1 under Captain Buchanan, and No. 2 under Captain Ritchie, M.C., having come under machine-gun fire, deployed into line, their example being followed by the companies in rear. The German barrage seemed to follow the Battalion as it advanced, but without ever reaching it. One howitzer shell, however, fell among the men of the Battalion Headquarters, knocking over no less than five. When the Battalion reached a point 500 yards south-west of the Green line, some 3000 yards from our old front line, it halted in accordance with orders, and Lieut.-Colonel de Crespigny went forward to confer with Lieut.-Colonel Thorne, commanding the 3rd Battalion. In the meantime the 2nd and 3rd Guards Brigades had captured the Green line, which was not a line of trenches but a line on the map, 100 yards beyond the Iron Cross—Korteker Cabaret road, and therefore easily recognisable as a landmark. At 8.20 A.M. the 1st Guards Brigade advanced through the leading Brigades, which were to dig in and consolidate the Green line.
When the leading companies of the 2nd Battalion reached the Green line, Captain Ritchie with No. 2 Company found, as he expected, the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards digging itself in, and consolidating the line; but Captain Buchanan with No. 1 Company could find no
trace of the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, which should have been on the left of the 3rd Battalion Grenadiers. As he had arrived somewhat ahead of his time he commenced to dig in, as the position was on the crest of a hill and exposed to a considerable amount of machine-gun fire. The Company soon began to suffer heavy casualties. Captain Ritchie on the right sent word to say that he was being held up by machine-gun fire from the right, and was being subjected to enfilade fire from a partially destroyed house on the east of the Boesinghe-Staden Railway. He added that he could see no trace of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers on his right. The whole line was under machine-gun and rifle fire, and not long afterwards Captain Ritchie and Lieutenant Napier were hit by machine-gun bullets, so that the command of No. 2 Company now devolved on Lieutenant A. St. J. Mildmay.
Captain Buchanan considered that while it was possible to push on he should do so, even if the Company on his right was unable to advance. He therefore decided to move forward, and sent back to Captain Sir A. L. Napier, commanding No. 3 Company, asking him to garrison the Green line. As the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, which, it was afterwards discovered, had gone too far to the right, did not appear, and as the Royal Welsh Fusiliers were unable to reach their objective, the advance was delayed and not continued until fifteen minutes after the creeping barrage was timed to move on. However, our barrage had now become uncertain, shells falling sometimes far ahead and sometimes alarmingly
close, so that the two leading companies could not well have advanced any sooner. Captain Buchanan, regardless of the situation on his flanks, continued to advance with No. 1 Company in the most gallant manner, and succeeded in reaching Signal and Ruisseau Farms, where thirty of the enemy were captured, including a battalion commander and a number of officers. A platoon of No. 3 Company, under the command of Lieutenant Harvard, who showed considerable ability in handling his men in exceptionally difficult circumstances, was now sent up as reinforcements. No. 1 Company dashed on, and managed to cross the Steenbeek River, on the farther side of which it dug itself in.
Meanwhile the position on the right was full of difficulties. The 17th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers had been held up, and the usual problem demanded solution: how to keep pace with the advance, and at the same time to guard the exposed flank? A platoon of No. 4 Company, under Lieutenant Oliver, at once formed a defensive flank to the right; but this was an insufficient safeguard, and as No. 2 Company continued to advance, Lieutenant Mildmay, now in command, was forced to waste half his strength in protecting the right flank. Lieutenant Jacob, who commanded No. 4 Company, sent forward one platoon to assist No. 2 in their advance, and after consultation with Captain Buchanan despatched a third platoon under Second Lieutenant Drummond to prolong the left of No. 3 Company, which was now advancing in support of No. 1. This platoon had not gone far before