On the 6th March, in snow and frost, they took over from the 1st Coldstream a new and unappetising piece of front on the left which the Coldstream had taken over from the Twenty-ninth Division. It consisted of a line of “about twelve so-called posts which were practically little more than shell-holes.” The Coldstream had worked like beavers to get them into some sort of shape, but their predecessors had given the local snipers far too much their head; and the long, flat-topped ridge where, under an almost full moon, every moving man offended the sky-line, was as unwholesome as could be desired. The Coldstream had lost six men sniped the night before their relief, and it was impossible to reach two of the posts at all. Another post was practically untenable, as the enemy had direct observation on to it, and one sniper who specialised in this neighbourhood had accounted for fourteen men in one tour. The Battalion settled down, therefore, to fire generously at anything that fired. It was noisy and, maybe, wasteful, but it kept the snipers’ heads down.
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On the 7th March it was clear that the troops in front of them had been replaced by a more cautious and aggressive enemy. So the Battalion turned a couple of their most untenable posts into listening-posts, occupied by night only, and some one suggested that the new artillery which had just come in behind them might put down a creeping barrage for the greater discouragement of snipers. They cleared out a post or two first, in anticipation of stray shots, and lost one man killed and one wounded; but when the barrage arrived it was weak and inaccurate. Guns need time to learn to work in well with their brethren ahead, and the latter are apt to be impatient when they think they are being experimented on.
The German Withdrawal
Not till towards mid-March did the much-written-of German “crack” affect their chilly world. The C.O.’s of the battalions conferred at Brigade Headquarters on the 13th to discuss the eventuality, and in the middle of it the Major-General came in and announced there was good reason to think that the retirement in front of them would begin that night. In which case, so soon as scouts had reported that the enemy trenches were held very lightly or had been abandoned (“But Jerry never abandoned his dam’ machine-guns till we was on top of ’em”), two patrols from each company in the front line, of an officer and twelve men apiece, would go forward on schedule time and occupy. They would be followed by the two front companies, who would make good the enemy’s old front and support lines. With two battalions in the front line to draw from, this made a force of four companies, all of whom were to be under the command of the Senior Lieut.-Colonel in the battalions engaged. He would be known as “O.C. Situation Centre,” and would issue all orders, acting as in command of an advanced guard. But the two reserve companies of the battalions in line would be with the main body of the brigade and would not move without the Brigadier’s direct orders. In other words, no one was to be drawn into anything like a vulgar brawl. And on the 14th March, from a hill near by, a vast fire could be seen far off, which was Péronne a-burning. That same afternoon the enemy began shelling their own front line along the western edge of St. Pierre Vaast Wood. The situation betrayed itself. An officer’s patrol out from the 1st Scots Guards reported the enemy gone from in front. Whereupon the battalions in the line, the 2nd Irish Guards and the 1st Coldstream, moved out cautiously at dusk and established themselves partly in the first of the enemies’ abandoned trenches, with supports, more or less, in our old front line. When their relief came it was a pitch-black night, and the Coldstream had pushed out some patrols into bits of the German trench beyond the chaos of No Man’s Land, who, naturally, did not even themselves know where in France they might be, but had to be discovered and relieved just the same, which took the relieving battalion till two o’clock in the morning. At three o’clock the C.O. of the 2nd Irish Guards—Colonel E. B. Greer—was warned that “Situation Centre”—the two advanced companies who were to beat out hidden snipers—would be formed at 7 A. M. By the accident of Lieut.-Colonel Godman of the Scots Guards being sick, it fell to Greer to command that advanced force. Captain Alexander took our two forward companies, and Captain Sir Ian Colquhoun the two companies of the Scots Guards. The general advance was to begin all along the divisional front at 10 A. M. By that hour the German shelling was intense. They used 5.9’s and larger, as they were firing from a long way back. The trouble for the 2nd Irish Guards companies developed almost at once on their left, where their patrol was fired at by machine-guns from a German trench on the edge of the wood. Their own 1st Battalion, trying to push out of Sailly-Saillisel, was hung up, too—they heard and saw it—for the same reason. The Division could have driven through at the cost of fairly heavy casualties, but nothing was to be gained by wasting men in rushes on hidden machine-guns that can lay out thirty good lives in two minutes. The Scots Guards got on into the wood without much trouble at first, till they, too, ran on snipers between tree-stumps and up and down the defaced trenches, or opened some single machine-gun slinking from cover to cover. It was all slow “feeling,” with alternating advances at walking pace, and long checks—“something like drawing a gorse for wolves instead of foxes.” The shelling through the day was heavy, but ineffective. With such a broken line as ours advancing, the enemy could not tell where any portion was in strength. The force lay up where they happened to stop, and before dawn on the 16th March were told to feel ahead, while the Scots Guards on their right got into touch with the Eighth Division. Progress was slow as the day before, under heavy shelling—sometimes considered and dealt out with intention—at others evidently from a battery using up ammunition before going back. As they worked their way more into St. Pierre Vaast Wood came the sensation, which there was no mistaking, that they were being played with by the Hun, and losing touch as he intended them to do. Certain vital trenches would be controlled by a few snipers and machine-guns; a sunk road offering shelter would be plastered with heavies, and a full company would be held in it, digging for more cover, by dead accurate long-range fire; while far and far behind the orderly German withdrawal of the main body continued in peace.
On the 17th March, for example, “we were never really in touch with the enemy’s rear-guard during the day except for one or two snipers.” On the 18th, “by daybreak we were out of touch with the enemy, and cavalry patrols of King Edward’s Horse and the 21st Lancers went through us.” Here is the comment of the time and the place on our advance: “The German retreat was conducted very skilfully. One cannot say that we caused them to leave one position an hour before they intended. They inflicted upon us a considerable number of casualties (twenty in this battalion, while on our left the 1st Battalion lost considerably more). On the other hand, we saw no evidence that in the actual retirement we had even damaged one German. They left little or nothing behind.”