Category: Biographies
The village of Locon lies five miles out from Bethune, on the Estaires road. Now it is broken by the war: in October 1916 it was as comfortable and quiet a village as any four miles behind the line. If you had entered it at dusk, when the flashes of the guns begin to show, and...
The village of Locon lies five miles out from Bethune, on the Estaires road. Now it is broken by the war: in October 1916 it was as comfortable and quiet a village as any four m...
2. CHAPTER II.My servant, Spencer, and I arrived at St Pol, where officers going on leave used to grow impatient with the official method of travel, desert the slow uncomfortable train, and h...
3. CHAPTER III.In the first months of 1917 we were confident that the last year of the war had come. The Battle of the Somme had shown that the strongest German lines were not impregnable. We...
4. CHAPTER IV.The tanks had left Mory Copse at 8 P.M. under the guidance of Wyatt. In the original plan of operations it had been arranged that Wyatt's section should attack from Noreuil and...
5. CHAPTER V.When the First Battle of Bullecourt had been fought in the office as well as in the field, when all the returns and reports had been forwarded to the next higher authority, and...
6. CHAPTER VI.We thought that we should remain in camp at Behagnies for a couple of months or more, and train. The prospect pleased us mightily. It was true that we were no longer alone. When...
7. CHAPTER VII.We had begun the year in confident anticipation of a "great battle," which was to give the enemy such a handsome blow that he would go reeling back towards his frontiers, and in...
8. CHAPTER VIII.The opening moves of the battle were not too fortunate. The first objectives were gained on the left and in the centre, but the cost was high. The Welsh Division in particular s...
9. CHAPTER IX.For three weeks there was no big offensive, though the artilleries continued their pitiless duel without a break, and the miserable infantry, tormented by bombs and shells as th...
10. CHAPTER X.From La Lovie in the Salient I went on leave. I was recalled by wire on the 4th November to discover that, during my absence, the battalion had moved south to our old training-g...
11. CHAPTER XI.In the morning we were able to look soberly at the situation. We had entered Flesquieres at dawn: the gallant, stubborn major who had defended the village so skilfully with his...
12. CHAPTER XII."Yesterday we helped the 40th Division to take Bourlon Wood. Two of my tanks crossed the ridge and entered Bourlon village. All my tanks have returned. A thoroughly sound and al...
13. CHAPTER XIII.We were not yet out of the wood. I was smoking a pipe in contemplative solitude behind my hut after an excellent little dinner, when, without warning, there was a shattering exp...
14. CHAPTER XIV.At my leisure I visited the Headquarters of the Tank Corps in Regent Street, and after a somewhat undignified appeal to the good nature of a corporal--the staff captain was busy...
15. CHAPTER XV.The Officers' Club on the hill above Doullens has a reputation, and we could not pass it without discourtesy. It was a good dinner in its way, and we continued our journey in a...
16. CHAPTER XVI.We had become masters of our tanks. Faults had been traced and eliminated; defective parts had been replaced--three tanks had received complete new engines--and invaluable exper...
17. CHAPTER XVII.On October 9th the enemy broke off the engagement, retiring six miles to the neighbourhood of Le Cateau, in order that they might re-form and again present some sort of front to...
18. CHAPTER XVIII.We returned from the bustle of active warfare, the sharp interest of solving immediate problems, the pleasantness and at times the comfort of clean country, to a squalid village...