Information as to the locations and movements of all the enemy Divisions was in these days voluminous, accurate and speedy. Prisoners and documents were daily falling into the hands of the Allies over the whole length of the Western Front. His Divisions in the front line were identified daily by actual contact. As to those resting or refitting or in reserve, accurate deductions could be made from the mass of information at our disposal.
It was at this time that it began to be made clear to us that the enemy's mobile reserves had been almost completely absorbed into the front line. One Division after another, particularly among those which had been engaged against the Australian Corps in August, was being disbanded. Among these were the 109th, 225th, 233rd, 54th Reserve, and 14th Bavarian Divisions.
The strength of the enemy's remaining Divisions was also rapidly diminishing. From prisoners we learned that many Battalions now had only three Companies instead of four, many Regiments only two Battalions instead of three, and even the Company strengths were at a low ebb.
We could well afford to approach the immediate future with greater deliberation.
Since August 8th, the Corps front had already advanced twenty-five miles, and it was not long before I had to abandon the luxurious château of the Marquis de Clermont-Tonnere, at Bertangles, whose spacious halls and spreading parks had formed so pleasant a habitation for the whole of my Corps Headquarters.
The scale of comfort possible for all senior Commanders and Staffs rapidly declined as the advance developed. Generals of Corps, Divisions and Brigades had to be content with living and office quarters in a steadily descending gradation of convenience. From château to humbler dwelling house, and thence into bare wooden huts, and later still into mere holes hollowed out in the sides of quarries or railway cuttings, were the stages of progress in this downward scale.
My Headquarters moved from Bertangles to a group of village houses at Glisy on August 13th; thence on August 31st to Méricourt, where the best had to be made of a derelict, much battered and almost roofless château, which the Germans had rifled of every stick of furniture, and even of all doors and windows, in order to equip a large collection of dug-outs in a neighbouring hill-side.
Again on September 8th I moved into the very centre of the devastated area lying in the Somme bend, on to a small rise near Assevillers, where a number of tiny wooden huts served us as bedrooms by night and offices by day. Only one hut, more pretentiously brick-walled and evidently built for the use of some German officer of high rank, was available to fulfil the duties of hospitality.
In spite of such discomforts, the daily life at Corps Headquarters flowed on uninterruptedly in its several quite distinct activities. On the one hand, there was the grim business of fighting, the detailed conduct of the battle of to-day, the troop and artillery movements for that of to-morrow, the planning of the one to be undertaken still later; rounds of conferences and consultations; visits to Divisions and Brigades, and to Artillery; reconnaissances to the forward zone; and an intent and ceaseless study of maps and Intelligence summaries.
Hourly contact with Headquarters of Fourth Army and of flank Corps had to be maintained. Then, following the day's strenuous activities out of doors, there was at nights a never-diminishing mass of administrative work, disciplinary questions, honours, awards, appointments, promotions, and a formidable correspondence which must not be allowed to fall into arrear.