There were those who said that that hour was the psychological one to have gone on and taken advantage of the moral effect of breaking the Hindenburg Line, but this theory was put forward after the event; and a total of eleven thousand prisoners and a hundred and forty-five German guns for three weeks’ fighting seems small foundation for such large hopes. Every one on the field seems to have been agreed as to the futility of trying to work with, and making arrangements for the keep of, masses of cavalry on the chance that these might break through and overrun the enemy in the background.

That autumn Russia deliquesced and began to pass out of civilisation, and the armed strength of Germany on that front was freed to return and rearrange itself on the western border, ready for the fourth spring of the War. We are told with emphasis that that return-wave was foreseen, and to some extent provided for, by increasing the line for which our armies were responsible, and by reorganising those armies so that divisions stood on a ten-battalion as against a thirteen-battalion basis.[3] We may once more quote Sir Douglas Haig’s despatches on this head. “An unfamiliar grouping of units was introduced thereby, necessitating new methods of tactical handling of the troops and the discarding of old methods to which subordinate commanders had been accustomed.” But the change was well supported in the home Press.

Meantime, as far as possible, the war stood still on both sides. The Battalion was encouraged to put on fat and to practise cleanliness, kit inspections, and inter-regimental and company football matches till the end of the year. During the month of December, at Simencourt, Captain the Hon. H. B. O’Brien arrived and took over No. 1 Company; Lieutenant B. Levy, M.C., joined from the 4th Army School, and 2nd Lieutenants J. C. Maher and T. Mathew also joined. The Christmas dinners were good and solid affairs of pork, plum-pudding, plum-dough (a filling and concrete-like dish), three bottles of Bass per throat and a litre of beer, plus cigars and tobacco. The C.O. had gone into Amiens to make sure of it and of the Headquarters’ Christmas trees which, next day, were relighted and redecorated with small gifts and sweets for the benefit of the village children.

A moral victory over Eton crowned the year. The officers of the 2nd Battalion played the officers of the 1st Coldstream at Eton football at Wanquetin. They lost by a goal to two goals and a rouge, but their consolation was that their C.O., an Harrovian, scored their goal and that half the Coldstream’s goals were got by Harrow. It was a small thing but it made them very happy in their little idleness after “Bloody Bourlon.”

1918
ARRAS TO THE END

Assuming that the information of our Intelligence Department was correct, the weight of the coming German attack would be delivered to the south of Arras; and that town would be the hinge on which it would turn. Elsewhere along the Somme front, ground might be given if required, but between Arras and Amiens the line, at all costs, must stand; and we are told that, months before the spring of the year, attention was given to strengthening the systems of defence in the rear. It is difficult to discover how many of the precautions taken were made with serious expectation of trouble, and how many were, so to say, fitted into statements published after the events. Men who were on that front speak of most of the back-trenches and reserve-lines as inadequate. The truth may be that no one believed the British collapse would be so swift or so catastrophic as it was.

On New Year’s Day, Colonel Alexander, commanding, went on leave, and was succeeded by Major R. H. Ferguson. The Battalion, reconstituted and replenished, marched to Arras Gaol, which was always regarded as a superior billet in cold weather, as the only shelling that mattered took the south-east end of the town. Their work for the next few weeks was to occupy and prevent the enemy from raiding into the system of trenches and posts on the Scarpe to the east of Arras at and round Fampoux and Rœux. Their experiences there were precisely the same as those of the 1st Battalion. It was, as we know, a variegated, swampy, and in places overlooked, stretch of works which had been used as a front line almost since the beginning of the War, and was paved with odds and ends of ancient horrors as well as thoroughly soaked with remains of tear and other gas in the support-lines. Their first turn began on the 2nd January when they relieved a battalion of Gordon Highlanders in bitter cold weather, and settled down to the business of wiring and cleaning-up. A small excitement was the shelling of the left company by trench-mortars, to which our guns replied but in their zeal cut our own wire. The frost so far kept the trenches standing up, but, as none of them were revetted, it was obvious that the next thaw would bring them all down. Then the duck-boards froze and turned to ice, and the C.O., slipping on them, fell and strained himself so badly that he had to go to hospital. Food apart, there was little comfort or decency in that work of shovelling and firming dirt, and shivering day and night in their dry or sodden clothing. Their rests at Arras were complicated by the necessity of looking out for enemy aeroplanes, which forbade them drilling more than one company at a time; and men grow vastly wearied of standing about and fiddling with small duties in a constricted town. The Battalion was so reduced in strength, too, that two companies together made little more than an ordinary platoon. However, in spite of knowing each other to the limits of boredom, they found a certain amount of amusement in respirator drill for all cooks, Headquarters details and the like (one cannot afford to have cooks and storemen gassed) under the company gas N.C.O. At the end of it, the Sergeant-Major, without mask, drilled them where they stood, when their boomings and bellowings as they numbered off delighted every one. Gas was always a nuisance. Broadly speaking, a good scenting day would be good for gas, both old and new; but, without direct orders, the men loathed casing themselves in their masks, and company officers, sniffing the faint familiar flavour of ether or rotting leaves in Northumberland or Shaftesbury Avenue, had to chase them into the apparatus.

Then came a time when, on most of the sectors, the wet trenches went out of commission altogether, and both sides, if they wished to move about, had to climb out in full view of each other. At last, they practically abandoned the front line and fell back on the support. It made little difference, since the enemy was quiet except for occasional salvoes of trench-mortar gas-bombs. Even when a dummy raid on their left caused him to put down a hot barrage for an hour, there were no casualties. The main trouble was the gas-shells in which the enemy, with an eye to the near future, specialised and experimented freely.

So passed January ’18, and on the 10th February began the transfer of the newly formed 4th Guards Brigade, of three lean battalions (2nd Irish Guards, 3rd Coldstream, and 4th Grenadiers), to their new division and companions.