For over six long weeks the batteries had been fighting, advancing and fighting again, covering in all a depth of 30 miles and never once enjoying rest of any kind. Upon Brigade and Battery commanders there had been the constant strain of dealing with the ever-arising fresh situations, and of keeping in close touch with the infantry in every stage of the advance; amongst all the battery personnel there had been no rest, no respite from unending firing, marching and enemy shelling, while the wagon-lines had been hard put to it each day to keep touch with the gun lines in every move and to keep them fully supplied with ammunition. It is scarcely surprising, then, that officers and men were dropping with fatigue when the orders for a 72-hour rest were received, yet so high was the morale of the troops at the time and so inflamed were all with the sense of victory, that grudgingly did they give up their share in the battle and move back to the quieter surroundings of Bertry.
They need not have feared, however, that they would be long left out of the line. The so-called 72-hour rest, although achieved by the 162nd Brigade, was reduced in the case of the 156th to one of twenty-four hours, and November 2nd saw both brigades back into action once more. A great combined attack by the 1st, 3rd and 4th Armies, together with the 1st French Army, was about to be launched upon the formidable defences of the Sambre, the great Mormal Forest and the fortifications of the town of Le Quesnoy, and to take part in this the two brigades were ordered to cover the line due east of Englefontaine from positions in the western outskirts of Poix-du-Nord (156th Brigade) and from Wagnonville (162nd Brigade). These positions they occupied in the afternoon of November 2nd, Lieut.-Colonel C. E. Boyce temporarily commanding the 156th Brigade, and Colonel Pim (who was wounded next day and succeeded by Major Vaughan-Hughes) the 162nd in place of Lieut.-Colonel Warren.
Before any further details of the fighting are entered upon, a word of explanation is called for with regard to this chapter. Hitherto a careful chronicle of the events of each day has been given, the movements of the batteries being followed in detail. As a result, perhaps, of this strict attention to tactics the personal element has found itself excluded, the interest of the chapter being in the main historical. Yet this is unavoidable; in one short chapter must be described the whole of that brilliant advance from September 16th until November 11th, with all its attacks, its changes of position and forward marches. To digress from this and enter upon personal narratives must inevitably destroy the continuity of the story, and moreover, another difficulty has to be faced. In those days no battery had time to think of the doings of any other guns save of its own; no battery had really sufficient time to think and record what it was doing itself, and therefore, were stories of individual exploits narrated in these pages, only a particle could be put down and many as deserving of mention would have to be left untold. On frequent occasions every battery of both brigades performed brilliant exploits in galloping forward guns to a level with the most advanced infantry and in shooting upon the enemy over open sights at almost point-blank range; on frequent occasions batteries had to pass through shell-storms to drop into the positions chosen for them, and had to maintain effective covering fire under the full weight of an enemy bombardment, but each and all did it in turn and the singling out of any one in particular would be invidious. All eight batteries took an equal share in this wonderful advance, and the valour of their work can best be appreciated by an account of the battles in which they were engaged.
On November 2nd the brigades had come back into action; November 3rd was spent in reconnoitring advance positions and in maintaining close co-operation between the infantry and the guns, and on November 4th began the great attack on the Forêt de Mormal. At 6.15 A.M. under a creeping barrage the 38th Division moved forward to the assault, and for two hours the guns continued to maintain a curtain of fire in front of the infantry as they pushed their way on towards the objective. At 8.15 A.M. both the 156th and 162nd Brigades began to advance, one battery at a time, to positions already chosen east of Englefontaine, and by adopting this procedure the continuity of the barrage was in no way interrupted, the rear positions maintaining a brisk rate of fire until a proportion of guns had reached the forward positions and had begun to carry on the work from there. The 162nd Brigade successfully reached the new positions, although heavily shelled on the way, but the 156th was prevented from doing so by intense machine-gun fire, which mere fact alone goes to show how closely the batteries were following up the infantry. Only A/156 was able to get through, the remainder having to drop into action temporarily to the west of the village, but after a time the machine-gun fire slackened and the move was completed, the whole of the 156th Brigade lying 1,000 yards south-east of Englefontaine in the outskirts of the Forêt de Mormal and close alongside the 162nd Brigade.
From here the barrage was continued until 3.0 P.M., when the final objectives were reached. Positions were then reconnoitred 3,000 yards further forward, and at dusk all batteries advanced again. Great difficulty was now experienced as numerous trees had been felled across the roads which had, in addition, been blown up, but by 8.0 P.M. all batteries were in action again in the reconnoitred positions around a carrefour or meeting of roads in the forest. The state of the roads, in point of fact, prevented the moving up of any heavy guns except the 60-pounders, the six-inch howitzers being compelled to remain halted far behind until some sort of track had been repaired for them.
During the night of the 4th/5th the batteries again moved forward and were deployed along the Sassegnies-Ribaumet-Sarbaras line, covering the River Sambre, while the infantry of the 33rd Division relieved that of the 38th. At 4.30 A.M. the advance began again, and each battery immediately sent one section forward to keep in touch with the battalion commanders. These sections pushed on through La Grande Pature and took up positions east of Sarbaras which gave easy command of the crossings of and ground beyond the River Sambre, and from which very successful observed fire was carried out, much enemy movement being engaged. In the meantime the remainder of the batteries hurried forward as fast as possible, but great delay was caused by congestion on the roads and by mine craters and felled trees. Not until noon had all the batteries, in extremely wet weather, made their way through the Forêt de Mormal, but by that time they were in action east of Sarbaras and bombarding the ground beyond the Sambre with the utmost vigour.
This day, Tuesday, November 5th, marked the final breaking of the enemy's resistance. With the two wings of his army separated, with the Siegfried and Brynhild zones overrun, he was no longer in retreat but in full flight, and during the afternoon of the 5th a careful reconnaissance of the routes forward and of the crossings over the Sambre was carried out, for the rout of the enemy might enable a crossing to be effected at any moment. During the night of the 5th/6th the enemy retired to the east of the river and the 162nd Brigade was ordered to follow him, the 156th being told to remain in their present positions to the west. Night and day the enemy kept the bridgeheads under the most intense shell and machine-gun fire, and entirely prevented the Sappers and the battery working parties from repairing the bridges sufficiently for the guns to get across. Ultimately, at dawn on the 7th, a rough structure had been thrown up, and the batteries began to move over the river. On the previous evening a reconnaissance of the approach to the bridge had been made by Major Taylor and Captain Heads, and it was found that the proper approach had been hopelessly blocked. The batteries, when they did advance, had to move down a steep, winding and very narrow track, while the only route on the eastern side of the river was a tortuous towing path and necessitated the cutting of gaps in hedges and the manhandling of guns across rivulets and swamps—a very difficult task.
D/162 was the first battery actually to cross the Sambre, but it was so closely followed by A/162 that the latter got into action first, dropping its gun trails just west of Pot de Vin at the moment when the infantry were assembling along a sunken road for the attack on the village. The gratitude of the infantry for this close support by the artillery was very marked, and several of their officers came up to the batteries to express their thanks, for they knew with what difficulty and at what a cost this advance of the guns close under the enemy's nose had been effected. "B" and C/162 were prevented for some time from crossing the river, for an infantry wagon broke down right in the middle of the bridge shortly after "A" battery had got over, but after a delay of about two hours the whole brigade was across the last barrier and, despite severe casualties suffered in the operation, was supporting the infantry to the full extent of its power. November 7th was the last real fighting day of the war on this part of the front, but it was none the less a very nasty day, and in every battery a certain number of casualties were suffered. The enemy was putting up a stiff resistance for he was trying to bar to us the road to Namur, but his was only a forlorn hope and did little more than to slow down slightly our rate of advance.
From this date onwards the only batteries of the 33rd Divisional Artillery to the east of the Sambre were those of the 162nd Brigade, as the 156th Brigade had not been called upon to advance. In fact, the 162nd Brigade shared with the 169th Army Field Artillery Brigade the distinction of being the only guns across the river on this section from the 6th until the conclusion of hostilities.
On the 8th, even while a little group of men were sitting round a table in the Forest of Compiègne discussing the terms of Armistice, the infantry of the 38th Division advanced to the Maubeuge-Avesnes road and later to the Bois de Beugnies, supported as far as possible by the 162nd Brigade which pushed on beyond the cross-roads north-west of Dourlers. On the 9th the enemy retreat became general; the infantry followed up as far as Wattignies, and "B" and C/162 moved into action 1,000 yards west of the village, "A" and "D" batteries remaining at Dourlers. Saturday, the 9th, was in fact the last day of the war for the 33rd Divisional Artillery. In the early morning of that day the 162nd Brigade fired upon the enemy rearguards—the 156th were already out of the battle—and reconnoitred forward as far as Wattignies where the infantry had halted. Small patrols of cavalry pushed further on to try and establish contact with the rearguard of the German army, and desultory machine-gun fire could be heard every now and then away in the distance, but to all intents and purposes the enemy had completely vanished and nowhere could our troops get into contact with them.