February sped, like January, in preparation varied by raids, and by rumours more or less authentic. ‘Training and range-firing till noon. Route march from 2-5 p.m.’ is a characteristic extract from a Battalion diary, dated February 19th. On February 28th, the 62nd Division relieved the 31st in the left sector of the XIIIth Corps. On March 10th, an increase of activity was observed in the enemy aircraft and artillery. On the 12th, information was to hand that an attack in the neighbourhood of Arras might be expected at an early date, and the Division was held in a state of readiness. On the 17th, under cover of darkness, two officers and eighty other ranks of the 2/7th West Ridings made a successful raid on the enemy trenches north of Fresnoy. On the 21st, news arrived that the enemy offensive had started opposite the Third Army, on a front of about twenty-seven miles from the north of Gouzeaucourt to the south of Gavrelle. The Army Commander was General the Hon. Sir Julian Byng, with the Vth, VIth, IVth and XVIIth Corps under the respective commands of Lieut.-Generals Sir E. A. Fanshawe, Sir G. M. Harper, Sir J. A. L. Haldane and Sir C. Fergusson, Bt.
March 21st, 1918: the story has been told a hundred times, and will be re-told in every book of the British Army until the ‘pussyfeet’ of warfare prohibit the writing of military history. A few words must be said about it here, though it happened that on the day itself no troops from the West Riding were engaged. The Fifth Army, commanded at that date by General Sir Hubert de la P. Gough, extended immediately south of the Third, and consisted of the VIIth, XIXth, XVIIIth and IIIrd Corps, under Lieut.-Generals Sir W. N. Congreve, Sir H. E. Watts, Sir F. I. Maxse and Sir R. H. K. Butler respectively. At its southern extremity, it touched the junction of the British and French lines; its total front was about two-and-forty miles, with an average of about 6,750 yards to each Division in the line compared with an average of about 4,700 yards per Division in the line in the Third Army. We should remember, too, that the southernmost portion of the front had only recently been taken over from the French, and the ‘navvy’ work spoken of above was even more incomplete than in other parts. By so much more difficult, accordingly, was Sir Hubert Gough’s task than Sir Julian Byng’s. The German General opposing the Fifth Army was von Hutier, the conqueror of Riga, and the Crown Prince of Prussia was afforded this unique opportunity of winning his coveted laurels in the final battle to be known as the Kaiser-schlacht. Further, at least sixty-four Divisions of super-trained enemy troops took part in the operations on the first day, against eight in the line of the Third Army (with seven in reserve) and eleven in the line of the Fifth Army (with three Infantry and three Cavalry in reserve). Two-thirds of the German Divisions were allotted to the assault on General Gough; and ‘never in the history of the world,’ it has well and soberly been said, ‘had a more formidable force been concentrated on a fixed and limited objective.’[104] We are not directly concerned with the story of the Fifth Army on that day, but since its ‘apparent collapse’ has been (or was) contrasted with the ‘glorious defence’ by General Byng, we may be permitted to cite here the opinion of Major-General Sir F. Maurice, that ‘the burden which Gough’s troops had to bear was incomparably the greater.’ He summarizes with admirable brevity the facts which we have recounted above:
‘In the first stage of the battle very nearly twice as many German Divisions attacked Gough as fell upon Byng. Each of Gough’s Divisions had on the average to hold nearly fifty per cent. more front than had Byng, while the Third Army reserves were nearly twice as strong as those of the Fifth, yet at the end of the first day’s battle Gough’s left, where the gallant 9th Division beat off all attacks, had given less ground than some of Byng’s Divisions further north had been compelled to yield.’[105]
Pending the appearance of an official history of the war, no narrative of March 21st can be otherwise than inadequate, which holds the scales less evenly between the two Armies primarily engaged than this temperate statement by Sir Frederick Maurice.
Even so, we have omitted the fog, which, after five hours’ incessant bombardment (from 5 to 10 o’clock in the morning), had been drawn up from the soil in a white, impenetrable blanket, and which, in Sir Douglas Haig’s words, ‘hid from our artillery and machine gunners the S.O.S. signals sent up by our outpost line,’ and ‘made it impossible to see more than fifty yards in any direction.’ This efficient aid to the attackers, which had often been simulated in battle by artificial means with smaller success, affected the defence all along the line; and the only answer to the fog, we are told, was to strengthen the Infantry in the trenches, involving, if it were to be done, a fresh weakening of our too weak reserves.
But we are not writing the history of the Second Battle of the Somme. On March 21st, as we have said, General Braithwaite’s troops were not engaged in that long line from Oppy to La Fère, on which, as we read above, ‘ground could be given up under great pressure without serious consequences.’ The pressure proved greater than had been anticipated, and the measure of the ground given up increased the seriousness of the consequences.
On the 21st, those fifty-four miles were held from north to south by the following Divisions in order of line: 56th, 4th, 15th, 3rd, 34th, 59th, 6th, 51st, 17th, 63rd, 47th, 9th, 21st, 16th, 66th, 24th, 61st, 30th, 36th, 14th, 18th, 58th. The Guards Division was at Arras, and from various points in the Reserve-area, again working southwards from above the Scarpe, the 31st, 40th, 41st (west of Albert), 25th (at Bapaume), 19th, 2nd, 39th, 50th, 20th, and the 1st, 3rd and 2nd Cavalry Divisions (at Péronne, Athies and Guiscard respectively) were brought up and thrown into the line. The first battle-honours belong to these, and no sketch, however imperfect, of the conditions under which they were won, can miss the splendour of their winning, or the valour of the living and the dead.
We pass over the next few days. Their story is written on the map in four days’ battle positions (March 23rd to 26th), all of which were swiftly obliterated in the further retreat and the last advance. What can never be obliterated, however, so long as gallant deeds are traced on the map of human character, is the memory of those British Divisions, outnumbered, befogged, giving ground, but retaining, with their backs to the wall, the heroic quality of victors. We merely note that, on March 26th, at a conference held at Doullens between the French and British Army Commanders, Lord Milner (representing the British Government), M. Poincaré (President of the French Republic), M. Clemenceau (Prime Minister) and the French Minister of Munitions, it was decided, in view of the imminent danger of the capture of Amiens, ‘to place the supreme control of the operations of the French and British forces in France and Belgium in the hands of General Foch, who accordingly assumed control.’[106]
On March 23rd, the wave of withdrawal reached the 62nd Division. The 187th Brigade was moved to Arras, where it was placed at the disposal of the 15th Division, but this order was cancelled almost at once, under the stress of immediate circumstances, and the whole Division was allotted to the XVIIth Corps. On the night of March 24th/25th new orders were received to join the IVth Corps, and early in the morning of the 25th the three Infantry Brigades of the Division were moved to Ayette.