On the 12th August the battalion left Fermoy, and after a troublous journey reached Cambridge on the 19th. As everybody knows that the song of “Tipperary” was most popular at this time in the Army, it may be interesting to note that it was first played by this battalion. It was arranged by Bandmaster Elvin for the band a year before and the score was lent to many other units. The stay at Cambridge, which lasted up to the 8th September, was beneficial in so far that it remade soldiers of the reservists whose physical condition had somewhat deteriorated during a long spell of civil life. The battalion was hospitably entertained by Christ’s College; the officers were entertained at the High Table and frequent presents of fruit, chiefly mulberries, from Milton’s Mulberry Tree, were sent to the men.[2]
On the 8th September at noon the 1st Battalion The Buffs, together with the 2nd York and Lancaster Regiment, sailed for the mouth of the Loire to which Sir John French had now transferred his base. The journey was made by rail and march after the port of St. Nazaire was reached, the train starting at dim dawn on the 11th and taking the route: Nantes, Angers, Tours, Verdun, Paris to Mortcerf, a twenty-six-hour journey. The ensuing eight days’ march was not without incident and not without discomfort, but there was excitement, too. Heavy firing was heard all day on the 12th. The first taste of outpost duty in war time came the following night. Billets were used each night, but these were not always of the best and the weather was generally execrable. The billets, which one night consisted of a cowshed, were sometimes shared with Belgian refugees, and altogether it was with a sort of relief that the real fighting line was reached at last at 2.30 a.m. on the 21st September. Vailly on the Aisne was entered and the Fifth and Royal Fusiliers relieved in the trenches at that place, A, C and D Companies being in the front line with B in reserve.
It will be remembered that the Germans, after their retreat from the Marne, were now standing fast, and that in its turn the Allied pursuit was checked upon the Aisne. The enemy knew somehow that fresh troops were now in front of them and, hoping to find an inferior article to that they had been sampling for the last month, determined to attack and try what they were made of.
The Buffs were on the left of the brigade line, on the crest of a small plateau beyond the river, and the enemy’s trenches were on the far slope, from two hundred to seven hundred yards away, with all the best of the situation because, owing to the shape of the ground, our artillery had great difficulty in aiding this particular part of the line, whereas the Germans were very closely supported by their guns. On the right was an improvised sub-section of defence consisting of the Norfolk Regiment and King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, under Colonel Hasler of the Buffs.
The attack commenced at 8 p.m., lasted for two and a half hours, and was a failure. The firing was heavy and the attempt was resolute enough, but as the locality was difficult for our guns the Buffs employed prolonged rapid fire as a substitute and succeeded in repulsing the onslaught. Major E. H. Finch Hatton, D.S.O., and Captain F. C. R. Studd were wounded in the action, two men were killed and five wounded.
The battalion remained in these trenches till the 13th October and suffered several casualties. In fact, each day added a few to the killed and wounded, and each day brought to light some good quality in the men. The first name in the regiment to be brought to notice for gallantry was No. 9967 Corpl. Randall who, himself wounded, on the 2nd October showed great courage in attending to Pte. Hamilton under fire. Hamilton, however, did not survive. The stretcher bearers, too, were proved to be a most gallant set of men—stretcher bearers always are somehow. The sight of the pain and mutilation of others seems to bring out a sort of ferocious tenderness on the part of those who protect and assist the maimed. Pte. Medway was conspicuous even amongst these devoted fellows.
Particularly heavy firing along the whole line and including reserves occurred on the 9th October. The church at Vailly was struck and ten horses belonging to the regimental transport were killed close to it. The hospital also suffered.
Early in October it appeared to Sir John French that it was advisable to withdraw the army from the Aisne and strongly reinforce the forces in the north with a view to outflanking the enemy and so making him withdraw from his position. In fact, each army at this time was trying to outflank the other, because frontal fighting, owing to the complete system of entrenchments in vogue on both sides, was found to bring no practical results. This accounted for the fact that in a very short time flanks ceased to exist, for one soon rested on the sea and the other on neutral Switzerland. French’s first attempt at outflanking was rendered abortive by the German capture of Antwerp, and so the war developed into a fierce struggle for the coast, which may be said to have commenced on the 11th October and continued till the 17th November; the enemy’s idea being to seize Calais and the Channel ports and so make up for their failure to capture Paris.
This struggle is sometimes called the Battle of Flanders, but it in reality included several fights, the chief of these being collectively described as the Battles of Ypres, 1914. Of course, the great move from the Aisne to the neighbourhood of St. Omer and Hazebrouck took time, and it was not till the 19th October that the move was completed. General Foch, whose headquarters were at Doullens, at this time commanded all French troops north of Noyon and our Commander-in-Chief had arranged with him a general wheel of troops to the right, in order to menace the German flank; this arrangement was made before the fall of Antwerp. It brought the English 7th Division to Ypres; caused heavy fighting for the 3rd Division about Givenchy, which lasted for three weeks; moved the 4th Division to the north and 6th to south of the town of Armentieres, and was the immediate cause of the flight which followed at Radinghem.
Antwerp fell on the 9th October, and this event released 90,000 enemy troops, and the Germans also at this time brought four fresh Army Corps from their Eastern or Russian front, and so the English Army and that part of the French one which was in its neighbourhood were facing greatly superior numbers. As far as the Buffs were concerned they were relieved in their trenches on the Aisne by French troops on the 12th of the month, marched to Bazoches with the rest of the 16th Brigade and there entrained for Cassel, which they reached on the 13th. The relief of the trenches at Vailly was carried out successfully, but not altogether without difficulty. The enemy seemed to have an idea of what was going on and fired a number of flares, and a searchlight was also seen. The wheels of the transport were, however, covered with straw, as was the floor of the pontoon bridge over the river, in order to deaden noise. The French took up their position very quietly and very quickly, and the battalion re-crossed the Aisne at 2.15 a.m., the last of the brigade marching by Rouge Croix and Oultersteene.