On the 30th September at high noon hostilities ceased with Bulgaria, and four days later Sir George Milne’s order of the day read as follows:—
“Thanks to your gallantry, determination and devotion to duty the Bulgarian army is now defeated and the Bulgarian nation has sued for peace. This result has been obtained only by your extraordinary exertions after three summers spent in a malarious country and against obstacles of great natural and artificial strength.
“What appeared almost impossible has been accomplished. I gratefully thank you all, of every arm and of every rank, for your steadfast loyalty, your perfect discipline and for the magnificent manner you have answered to every call made on you. No one knows better the odds against which you have had to contend, and I am proud to have had the honour of commanding you.”
Thus the war history of the 2nd Battalion of the Buffs concludes.
The unit was not kept long in the neighbourhood of Salonica: after a stay of a few days at Organdzili, doing salvage work, it moved by stages down to Summerhill, which was reached on the 5th November, for re-equipment prior to leaving the country. On the 11th it marched through Salonica to the quay, where it embarked on the S.S. Katoomba for Constantinople. At 10 o’clock on that date, Salonica time being, of course, in advance of Greenwich, a telegram came from the brigade that an armistice with Germany had been declared, so the journey on the Katoomba was a joyous one. On the 14th Constantinople was reached and anchor dropped at Stamboul. Next day the men disembarked and were conveyed by ferry boats to Bryukdere, where they went into billets and there remained for some little time. On the 28th November the battalion, 13 officers and 286 men strong, was inspected by Sir George Milne.
CHAPTER XIV
HOLDING ON
I. Preparations
It has been noticed that the great German offensive had been foreseen by our commanders long before the storm actually broke. The transfer of German divisions from their Eastern to their Western front began as early as November, 1917, and it was known that the Russian guns and munitions were at our enemy’s disposal. In fact, it became a question of the French and English holding their own till the Americans could make their weight felt, and thus the war was for the present to be a defensive one and all preparations were made to this end. The defensive area or belt was divided into the forward, the battle and the rear zones, and each of these was carefully chosen; but there was a tremendous amount of work to be done in the way of preparing the ground to be defended, as well as the construction of roads, railway lines and so on. The men, too, required much, training in defensive tactics. The whole military art is not taught in a few months, nor is a man an educated soldier when he can take his part in a route march or a field day. Most training had to be imparted during intervals of fighting, and until now the chief subject of study had been the preparation for the offensive.
Very early in 1918 the British had taken over from the French another considerable extension of front, one, in fact, of over twenty-eight miles, and this brought our line down to the River Oise and gave no less than 125 miles of country to our care. At the same time the indications of an imminent attack became more marked than ever, particularly in front of the 3rd and 5th Armies. Now at this time the 1st Battalion the Buffs was with the former of these and the 7th Battalion with the latter. The enemy’s immediate objective would seem to have been to separate the French and English armies, which joined where the 7th Battalion was, and to capture Amiens, a very important centre of communications.
The 3rd Army was under General the Hon. J. H. G. Byng, K.C.B., and held a front of twenty-seven miles with four Corps; and the 5th Army, under General Sir H. de la P. Gough, K.C.B., occupied forty-two miles, also with four Corps. The weakest part of our line perhaps was that portion so recently taken over from the French, where the defences were not quite so good as elsewhere.