At noon on Saturday, February 26th, the relief was reported complete, the 33rd Divisional Artillery under its C.R.A., Brig.-General C. F. Blane, assumed responsibility for the artillery support of the front covered by the 33rd infantry, and for the first time held the line entirely on its own. The front extended from Boyau 1 to Boyau 53, that is from Mad Point to just south of Givenchy. The four brigades, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Rochfort-Boyd, Lieut.-Colonel Duncan, Colonel A. H. S. Goff and Lieut.-Colonel Harpur, were divided into two groups, "Z," the Northern Group, being commanded by Colonel Goff, "A," the Auchy Group, by Colonel Harpur; the batteries of both groups were dispersed all along the front from the La Bassée Canal to as far south as Vermelles.
Here a slight digression may well be permitted. It will be noticed that Lieut.-Colonel F. Hall is not mentioned above as one of the Brigade Commanders. To the regret of all ranks he returned to England on February 15th, handing over the command of the 156th Brigade to Lieut.-Colonel Rochfort-Boyd. It would be impossible to over-estimate the work which Lieut.-Colonel Hall did in organising the recruitment of the 33rd Divisional Artillery in Camberwell; without his work, and the work of Lieut.-Colonel Duncan who was also lost to the Division in March when he handed over the command of the 162nd Brigade to Lieut.-Colonel O. M. Harris, the brigades could never have been formed so rapidly as they were. In these pages, which perpetuate the history of the 33rd Divisional Artillery, it is essential that there should also be recorded the great effort made by Lieut.-Colonel Hall in raising the four brigades, an effort which was appreciated by His Majesty the King at a later date, when he bestowed upon him a Knighthood of the Order of the British Empire.
To return, however, to the war. The trench system here, as everywhere on the Flanders front, was situated in very flat ground, and O.P.'s in the front line were of little use except for shooting on the enemy fire trench. Providentially, along the rising ground a few hundred yards behind the front line there were a number of ruined houses dotted about at odd intervals, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups; all of these were practically destroyed by shell fire, but had just enough left standing to offer a precarious perch to anyone wishing to observe therefrom, and to provide a screen for such sandbagging, strengthening and revetting as an ingenious mind, coupled with no small influence with the Sappers and a desire for greater comfort, might devise. "N" and Artillery House in Givenchy were but little used as they were rather too far to the north, but King's Clere and Mountain House (in Cambrin), Braddell Castle, The Ruin and the Four Hundred on either side of the La Bassée road, with Dead Man's House, Wilson's House, Ridge View and Maison Rouge stretching along the line just south of the road, made excellent spots from which, perched usually in the wreckage of the roof, one could direct fire on to every spot in the zone. The Ruin and, before it was rebuilt, the Four Hundred were trying in the extreme to the nerves, for they hung together in a manner which might have appeared impossible even to the ingenious mind of a Heath Robinson; moreover, they were almost daily attended to by an ever-persistent German gunner with an unlimited supply of 5·9 in. ammunition and a nice taste in house removing, but King's Clere, a little further to the north, provided an excellent view of all the front and back areas, and had been thoroughly and effectively secured by means of cement and iron girders. This part of the front was, indeed, a most fascinating one for shooting over, provided a good O.P. was available. North of the canal had little of interest, save the ruins of Violaines and Canteleux, but to the south, and just on the bank, was the Railway Triangle with its mysterious tower and mound. Auchy offered several moderately undamaged houses whence, in the early morning, smoke could be seen issuing, while loopholes appeared and disappeared, or were camouflaged, with extraordinary frequency. Les Briques, with its dead trees and ruined house, struck a grim and forbidding note, but, just south of it, the green fields around Lone Farm were always full of possibilities. Many and varied were the ideas as to the use which was made of Lone Farm; as a farm it had totally disappeared and suggested nothing more than a few dead trees and a mound of bricks, but underneath those bricks there must have been some splendid cellars. Every morning, just as day broke, parties of twenty or thirty Germans could be seen there, and every morning some battery or other, with an unexpected burst of shrapnel, used to lengthen the German casualty list in no small manner. It took the Germans an extraordinary time to learn the lesson of Lone Farm, and for quite a considerable period it was there that the newly-arrived battery officer from England saw the first grey-clad figures of the enemy; there, as like as not, that he first saw his shells actually bring death. South of Lone Farm again came the Corons de Maron and the "Dump," or, to give it its correct title, Fosse 8 de Béthune, but both of these were out of the zone of the batteries and had, therefore, to be left undisturbed.
Scale 1:20,000.
Behind Auchy and Lone Farm could be seen Indian Well House, Haisnes, Douvrin and the road running up to La Bassée. For normal purposes this area was out of range, but was none the less interesting in that it afforded all manner of unexpected sights. A train, a lorry going along the road, a couple of horsemen trotting down a bridle path are commonplace sights in England, but when you are separated from that train or lorry by a network of ditches containing death in a hundred forms, when that train or lorry is carrying men who will probably to-morrow be trying their best to kill you, and whom you may, with considerable fortune, kill first, then the matter appears in a different light, and you feel an intense interest in the objects visible.
Up to the present this chapter has been devoted to a description of the front on which the Division was operating. It may be that too much space has been given to what is, after all, merely of personal interest, but it should be remembered that this was the first front upon which the Divisional Artillery served as a unit, and therefore the memory of it has been impressed upon the minds of both officers and men probably to a far greater extent than has any other portion of the British Front in France. Now, however, regard must be had for the tactical situation as it presented itself in the winter of 1915-16.
It will be remembered that, since the battle of Loos in September and October 1915, no attack on any large scale had been carried out by the British troops. Heavy fighting continued throughout the winter along the newly-formed salient at Loos, and this in itself proved such a drain upon the forces of both sides that the remainder of the 1st Army front was comparatively quiet. On December 19th the Germans launched a heavy gas attack in the Ypres salient, and on February 13th, in the same area, occurred the famous attack on the Bluff. The end of February saw the beginning of the great battle of Verdun, and it was therefore a natural result that the La Bassée front, situated as it was outside the zone of these different operations, remained in a state of comparative quiet, and was disturbed solely by the raids, mine explosions and artillery activity which were the invariable régime of trench warfare.
This period of the campaign saw the arrival in France of a great number of New Army divisions, and as far as possible these divisions, with one or two noteworthy exceptions, were placed in a part of the line which was not likely to be subjected to any large scale operations but which, by the opportunities it offered of raiding, patrolling and the like, formed an excellent training ground for troops not yet experienced in modern warfare. No better part of the firing line could, in fact, have been chosen than the La Bassée sector. The famous Brickstack area was a centre of great mining activities; raids were the order rather than the exception, and big trench minenwerfer were daily in action. The back areas of the German zone were in full view of the artillery observation stations whence practice could be obtained, day in day out, on every possible type of target. Salient features presented themselves for registration and calibration of the guns, and during these shoots the accuracy and drill of the gun detachments could be fully and carefully noted. Numerous houses, in a more or less advanced state of dilapidation, gave all ranks a good idea of the effect of modern artillery fire on fortifications, while working parties and moving targets of all descriptions taught observing officers and gun detachments the essential lesson of quick shooting without loss of accuracy, and the absolute necessity of a familiarity with every inch of the ground covered.
It has already been stated that the mining activities of both sides were very marked. Although this would appear to concern the infantry rather than the artillery, the effect on the latter was of great importance. The explosion of a mine was in many cases followed by an infantry raid, and for this reason gun detachments and officers on duty with the infantry were kept up to a high pitch of speed and smartness in putting down an immediate barrage. Moreover, this barrage shooting was most effective in instilling confidence in the accuracy and good shooting of gun detachments. It was a very strong but utterly fatal temptation to a battery commander to add twenty-five or even fifty yards to the range of his guns, to ensure that no shell fell short and inflicted casualties on our own infantry. To withstand this temptation needed the most complete confidence in the guns of the battery, but, on the other hand, to add the margin of safety almost invariably meant that the barrage dropped beyond its mark and inflicted no damage whatever upon the raiding party or trench for which it was intended. Gradually did the infantry learn completely to trust their gunners in barrage firing, and once and for all did the battery officers realise that there was only one range which would hit their target, and that any addition to that range, although satisfying their own peace of mind, would effectually wipe out any good which their efforts might have done, and would leave the infantry to the mercies of a hand to hand encounter with the enemy.