CHAPTER XII
GERMANY’S SUPREME EFFORT
21st to 29th March 1918
The 21st March 1918 was big with destiny; on that day began the battle on the issue of which depended the fate of Germany and the world. At first the omens seemed favourable to the enemy, for a thick mist, hovering over ridges and valleys, allowed his grey-clad men to leave their trenches without detection. At 4.45 A.M. the masses of guns concentrated by Ludendorff on the British front spoke with an ear-splitting noise, and our lines were robed in smoke and flame. The bombardment of the Forward Zone, particularly on the front of the 26th Brigade, was not exceptional, but battery areas, Dessart Wood, and the villages of Heudecourt and Sorel were heavily shelled. Nurlu, where General Tudor had his H.Q., was the special target for a high velocity gun, and as such marked attention to a D.H.Q. was a luxury reserved for great occasions, it served to give early warning that the supreme crisis had arrived. Large quantities of gas were sent over, compelling the battalions at Heudecourt and Dessart Wood to wear respirators for two hours. Shortly after 5 A.M. telephonic communication between the two front brigades and D.H.Q. was broken, the line to the 26th being invariably cut immediately after repair. But General Tudor remained in constant touch with Brig.-General Croft at Sorel, and when the bombardment terminated, the lines to the South African and Highland Brigades were quickly mended. At 9.53 A.M. news was received that German infantry had been seen advancing on Gauche Wood and Quentin Ridge behind a smoke-barrage, and this information was reported at once to the VII. Corps and the S.O.S. sent out by wireless.
In the sector of the Highland Brigade there was no infantry attack; small parties of Germans were seen to make a show of advancing from Gonnelieu, but an assault, if it had been intended, was prevented by our tremendous concentration of artillery-fire on the village. But a serious thrust was made against the South Africans and between 8 and 9 A.M., under cover of a smoke-screen, strong hostile parties marched against Gauche Wood, which was garrisoned by a company of the 2nd Regiment holding three strong points with another in the open on the south-west side of the wood. Captain Green, who was in command, was assisted by two machine-guns and a section of the brigade T.M.B. Some Germans attacked the wood fiercely from the east, and others, screened by the fog while threading their way through our outposts in the north, entered it from that direction. A desperate resistance was offered by the posts, and great rents were ruthlessly torn in the ranks of the invaders, but yard by yard the Germans tightened their hold. The garrisons of two of the posts were almost completely blotted out, but Lieut. Beviss and half a platoon hacked their way out and dug in immediately west of the wood. Captain Green with the men of the third post fought his way back to join his troops near the south-west margin. Prodigal of life, the pursuing Germans charged in mass at 50 yards’ range, and whole sections were shot down by the vengeful fire of the South Africans. Brought to a sudden halt, the assailants commenced to dig themselves in on the western edge; still the unerring bullets of Captain Green’s men took heavy toll of them, and they retired within the shelter of the wood, but even there they found no safety, for Brig.-General Dawson, on hearing what had happened, directed all the artillery at his disposal to bombard it. Gauche Wood was all that the Ninth yielded on the first day of the battle.
The first confirmation that General Tudor received of the enemy’s attack was at 11 A.M., when he learned that German infantry were advancing between Vaucellette Farm and Gauche Wood. Half an hour later, he heard from the Twenty-first Division that the farm had been lost, and from the South Africans that the Germans were occupying the wood.
Up to noon the situation seemed to be fairly satisfactory. To the north, the right of the Forty-seventh Division had been unmolested, while on our right the Twenty-first Division, according to its reports, still held Cavalry Trench, east and south-east of Chapel Hill. But at that time sinister tidings arrived, a divisional observer reporting that the infantry of the Twenty-first had withdrawn from the Hill on Revelon Farm at 11 A.M. From noon, gnawing anxiety was the constant companion of the Division. As we have seen, Chapel Hill formed the southern buttress of our defence scheme, and accordingly General Tudor ordered Brig.-General Dawson to ascertain at once if the Hill and Chapel crossing were still in our hands, and, if not, to concert measures with the brigade on his right for the reoccupation of these vital positions.
The South Africans’ commander was fully alive to the seriousness of the situation, for the loss of Chapel Hill might mean the sacrifice of his two forward battalions. He promptly ordered the troops holding Lowland Support (the rear trench of the Yellow System) to turn about and face south, thus forming a defensive flank between Chapel Hill and Revelon Farm, and this flank he strengthened by sending forward a company of the 2nd Regiment; it however met the enemy in the trenches on the north slope of the hill and could make no further progress. The task of recapturing Chapel Hill was entrusted to a company of the South African Scottish; at 5.30 P.M., advancing with great dash, the men chased the Germans from the crest, took the trenches on the southern and south-eastern slopes and linked up the position with Genin Well Copse.
But farther south matters were becoming exceedingly grave. The Germans bored a passage to the vicinity of Genin Well Copse, where they were rudely checked by the fire of a machine-gun section at Railton, while the South African Scottish raked them with flanking-fire, and C/51 Battery under Major Sawder at Revelon Farm engaged them over open sights with deadly effect. Patrols of the 11th Royal Scots entering into the fray, dislodged the enemy’s snipers from the copse and captured an officer and 33 men.
On the afternoon of the 21st March the situation on the front of the Ninth was satisfactory. No serious assault, except on the right, had been made against its entrenchments, but the Germans had in store for it perils more desperate than those that come from a frontal attack. So far, our main source of anxiety was the south, where the chief shock of the onset had been felt, but the possession of Chapel Hill, Lowland Support, Revelon Farm, and Railton, gave reasonable security to our flank and kept us in touch with the Twenty-first Division, which, according to our patrol reports, was holding the Brown Line south of Railton. The ominous news in the Corps Summaries of disaster farther south, and the fact that our line of retreat to the Green Line, which ran south-west, was already jeopardised by the enemy’s penetration to a depth of fully 2000 yards on the Twenty-first Division’s front necessarily kept the attention of General Tudor focussed on our right flank.
Information from the north had been reassuring, the Forty-seventh Division having reported at 4.40 P.M. that no alarming thrust had been made on its front. It therefore came as a huge surprise to General Tudor when he was ordered to withdraw his men during the night to the Battle Zone, in order to conform with the retreat of the V. Corps to the Red Line (a continuation of our Yellow System). This was due to events on the front of the Third Army, where the Germans had scored a greater measure of success than could have been anticipated. The loss of Doignies and the penetration of hostile infantry as far as Beaumetz and Morchies imperilled the Flesquières salient and compelled General Byng to withdraw his men on the right to Highland Ridge, and thence westwards along the Hindenburg Line to Havrincourt and Hermies. But a more extensive withdrawal involving the abandonment of the whole of the salient would probably have been our wisest policy, since it would have forestalled the enemy’s designs.