The history of the 9th (Scottish) Division, 1914-1919

by M.C. John Ewing

On its flanks were the Twenty-first Division on the right and the Sixty-first on the left. All three brigades were in the line, the 26th and 27th in the north and south respectively, and the South African in the centre. With feverish energy the trenches were strengthened, improved, and protected by wire entanglements. On the 15th December the Ninth came under the control of the VII. Corps.[100] Two days later, when the fear of an immediate attack was dying away, at a conference the brigadiers agreed that it would be a gain to hold the sector with two brigades, allowing the third to work and train, and it was also decided to hold our front with an outpost line with a buffer line running through Gouzeaucourt, while the main line of resistance was to be the reserve system. From the 17th December there were heavy falls of snow, but in spite of the inclement weather the enemy launched an attack early on the morning of the 30th against the Sixty-third Division, which had relieved the Sixty-first on our left. After a violent barrage he broke into its trenches, and two parties taking the position of the Highland Brigade in the flank were repelled by the Argylls only after a desperate conflict, in which the enemy sustained heavy losses. During the afternoon a counter-attack of the Sixty-third Division succeeded in recapturing part of the lost trenches. At dawn next morning the enemy shelled the 26th Brigade with gas and H.E., but made no infantry attack on our front, though he delivered a fruitless assault against the left division. Fine cold weather prevailed during the opening days of 1918, but in the middle of January a thaw set in and our parapets melted away in liquid snow and mud. The greatest vigilance and alertness were maintained by both sides, and patrols found few opportunities of effecting surprise. Alarms still continued, and a message picked up from the Germans seemed to indicate that an attack would be made on the 19th, but nothing out of the usual occurred until the 23rd, when an enemy patrol was repulsed in an attempt to rush the trenches held by the 11th Royal Scots. Towards the close of the month the relief of the Ninth by the Thirty-ninth Division was begun, and was completed on the first day of February.

For almost six weeks the Division remained out of the line, the time being spent in training and in work on the railways and rear defences. During this period our waning strength in man-power was responsible for infantry brigades being placed on a three- instead of a four-battalion basis, and in accordance with this rearrangement the Argylls were sent to the Thirty-second Division and the “Rifles” to the Fourteenth, while the 3rd South African Regiment was broken up and its members allocated to the remaining battalions of the brigade. This alteration not merely affected the strength of the Division, but to some extent its fighting efficiency, because the new grouping of units was one with which the British Army was unfamiliar, and new methods of tactical handling had to be acquired. At this time also the 9th Seaforths were reorganised as a three-company battalion.

The training was on the old lines of the open warfare system. It was known that the Germans were receiving special training for a supreme effort, and the best means of countering it was by securing an equal efficiency. There was nothing new or original in the methods of Ludendorff; he wished to recapture the old flexibility in movement and method that distinguished the Germans in 1914, but had been lost through the routine of trench warfare. An army of the same experience as that of “The Contemptibles” would have had no difficulty in coping with Ludendorff’s sturm truppen, but the New Armies of Britain through sheer lack of opportunity for training were much below that standard. Using picked troops the Germans intended to press on without halting to adjust irregularities in their line, pockets of resistance being compelled to withdraw or surrender by the pressure on their flanks. This method was well known to the British Army, and was distinctly emphasised in the manual on Infantry Training, 1914, in which the men were told that the best way to help a neighbour forward was to push on themselves. Though the time was short every moment was fully utilised, and the infantry of the Ninth had reached a very satisfactory stage of efficiency when they returned to the line. The artillery, now at Bray under Brig.-General Tudor, underwent a course of training, the value of which was soon to be shown.

On the 1st March a further reorganisation took place with regard to machine-guns. Each division was equipped with a machine-gun battalion of 4 companies with 16 guns each, and the 3 companies attached to the infantry brigades now formed part of the 9th Machine-gun Battalion under Lieut.-Colonel Chalmers. This rearrangement strengthened the discipline of the Machine-gun Corps by the introduction of senior officers, and a more intense esprit de corps followed. It also permitted greater co-ordination and co-operation in the use of machine-guns. There was a great increase in the number of Lewis Guns; each battalion now possessed 36, with an additional 4 for anti-aircraft work.

At the beginning of March, General Lukin[101] was appointed to a command in England. During his period of command the Ninth had gained numerous outstanding successes, particularly those of the 9th April and 20th September 1917, and had developed steadily the reputation so firmly established at Loos. He had served with the Division for nearly two years and had won the esteem and confidence of all ranks. His successor was Major-General C. A. Blacklock, who arrived on the 13th March. The Division had also a new G.S.O.I.; Lieut.-Colonel P. A. V. Stewart, who had served with the Ninth since March 1916, left it in December 1917, and was succeeded by Lieut.-Colonel T. C. Mudie.

On the nights of the 11th/12th and 12th/13th March, the Ninth returned to the line in relief of the Thirty-ninth Division. The sector extended from about a thousand yards west of Villers-Guislain to about the same distance north-west of Gonnelieu, and, except that Chapel Hill was now included in the sector of the Twenty-first Division, was the position held before February. The hill should have been left in the area of the Ninth because it formed the key to the greater part of its defences.

The Ninth was on the left flank of the VII. Corps of the Fifth Army, and on its left flank was the Forty-seventh Division of the V. Corps of the Third Army. Since the junction of different armies is always a tempting mark for a hostile attack, the position of these divisions was one of particular importance; on the liaison between them depended the liaison of the Fifth and Third Armies. Of these two armies the former was by far the weaker; General Gough was responsible for a front more than forty-five miles in extent, and the forces at his disposal numbered only 14 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions, while opposing him were 46 strong German divisions. General Byng with slightly over twenty-six miles of front had 19 divisions (11 in line and 8 in reserve). Sir Douglas Haig probably anticipated that the heaviest blow would fall on the Third Army, and he furnished it with a comparatively large body of reserves. The Fifth Army holding less vital ground had ample scope for manœuvre and was therefore provided with fewer troops. But the position of General Gough was not a comfortable one, as the first shock of attack would absorb his few reserves, and after that he would have to rely on his neighbours for help.

The country comprised in the Ninth’s area was undulating, with rolling downs dotted here and there, with a few scattered woods and ruined villages. The main tactical features were the low ridges on the east and west of Gouzeaucourt, which joined about Chapel Hill, one and a half miles south of the village. We held Quentin Ridge, east of Gouzeaucourt, as far north as Quentin Redoubt, from which point our front line ran along the western slopes of the ridge to Fifteen Ravine, which was the boundary between the Ninth and Forty-seventh Divisions and the Fifth and Third Armies.

The area was organised into three zones for defence. The defences of the first or Forward Zone consisted of a continuous front line supported on the right and centre by Gauche Wood and Quentin Redoubt, a well-wired, anti-tank field, an intermediate line running due north from Chapel Hill, and including the village of Gouzeaucourt, and the Red Line stretching from Chapel Hill west of Gouzeaucourt to Beaucamp Ridge, where it joined the second zone defences at the Divisional boundary.