Chapter 32

THE BATTLE OF THE LYS,

APRIL-MAY, 1918.

Effects of the German offensive.--The Battalion amalgamated with the Bucks.--Entrainment for the Merville area.--A dramatic journey.-- The enemy break-through on the Lys.--The Battalion marches into action.--The defence of Robecq.--Operations of April 12, 13, 14. --The fight for Baquerolle Farm.--A troublesome flank.--Billeted in St. Venant.--The lunatic asylum.--La Pierrière.--The Robecq sector.

The closing phases of the war are so comparatively fresh and vividly remembered that a less close description need be attempted of them than of more early periods. I feel that justice cannot easily be done to the events of last year, events which in dramatic force eclipsed any since the Battle of the Marne. Of 1918, moreover, the facts have not yet had time to drop into that relief which a historian prefers before reducing them to chronicle. It is unlikely that, in years hence, when the full history of the war is written, the German offensive of 1918 will not be taken as the turning point in the great conflict. For the second time since the invasion of Belgium and for the first since conscription, readers of the _Times_ saw a black line sagging across the map towards the English Channel. In France at the end of March conditions meriting the popular description of 'wind up' were recognisable. Bases were crowded to overflowing. Train services were seriously deranged by the German approach to Amiens. The traffic upon the main roads in the Somme valley was an eloquent intermingling of troops, guns, and civilians evacuating as much of their property as possible upon wagons and carts, which were piled high with children, tables, utensils, bedsteads, farm implements, and always mattresses. The shelling of Amiens Cathedral and the long gun which played on Paris were signs of the destructive ascendancy of the enemy. Our railways, which depended on a few junctions now placed none too far behind the line, were attacked vigorously by the enemy in the hope of their disorganisation. St. Pol station was shelled to ruins; Hazebrouck, Chocques, and Doullens were nightly targets for German bombs. Already at Tinques and Achiet the R.T.O.s had been killed. (We had done the same and more to the Germans for two years). Our railwaymen and engine drivers showed staunch devotion to duty and were as much responsible as any branch of the service for keeping our armies fighting during the critical months of the spring and early summer.

To Avesne, a remote village behind Amiens, the 2/4th Oxfords were withdrawn early in April for completion with new drafts and for refitting. An amalgamation--which was a great advantage to both units--of the Battalion with the Bucks now took place. As the 25th Entrenching Battalion the Bucks had been engaged in the fighting round Nesle, when they became attached to a Brigade of the 20th Division. They were now most anxious to be sent to join us or at all events to rejoin the 61st Division. Unable to obtain the orders they desired, the Bucks availed themselves of the prevailing confusion to march away 'without authority' and were already at Avesne when the Oxfords arrived.

The addition of some 300 N.C.O.s and men, with whom came such valued officers as Clutsom, Buttfield, Kemp, Lodge, Boase, Kirk, and several others, acted as an infusion of new blood and vigour into the Battalion which had given nearly all of its best in the St. Quentin fighting. As the senior officer now present, I was placed in command of the Battalion after the amalgamation, for which no more suitable surroundings could have been found than Avesne, whose château and grounds we had to ourselves. On April 7, before the regimental tailors had half finished substituting the red circles for the black ones previously carried by the Bucks, a large draft of 431 men joined the Battalion from England. Many of these were boys, but among them stood a few veteran soldiers who had been out before and been wounded. With this draft, which I believe was posted without the knowledge that the Bucks had joined us, the Battalion reached the strength of over 1,000 men. It was a goodly force, unhampered by passengers. With Abraham, Murray, and Regimental Sergeant-Major Hedley (from the Bucks) those departments of the Battalion not purely tactical were sure to be well managed. I felt quite confident in the command of this force of men, and General Pagan, the new Brigadier, was kind enough to express his confidence in my ability.

Our billets at Avesne--the entire Battalion was accommodated in the buildings of a large château from which some army school had been precipitated by the German advance--were too good for much hope to be entertained of a long stay in them. The unified command from now onwards brought more rapid moves than formerly had been the custom. Thus at a few hours' notice 'billeting parties' were ordered, not back towards Amiens, but to Merville and St. Venant. The 61st was to become a Division in G.H.Q. reserve behind the old Laventie sector. But before Battalions could follow their representatives and while the billeting was still in progress the Germans attacked and broke through on the Lys, south of Armentières. We marched, however, from Avesne on April 11 in happy ignorance of this new battle. Not till Hangest, and there by means of a Continental _Daily Mail_, was the changed prospect of our destination revealed. The Hangest R.T.O. was half beside himself with excitement and delay. There were several hours to spend in waiting, and during this time the kits were retrieved from the station yard and a prudent change was made from soft hats into shrapnel helmets and fighting equipment. After a rapid entrainment we at last pulled out at about 2 p.m. So strong was the Battalion that D Company, which itself numbered over 200, was unable to travel with us and had to follow by a later train. In its early stages the journey, though similar to most of the kind, produced one formidable incident, for at the top of the steep gradient between Candas and Doullens the train snapped in half; its hind portion was left poised in a cutting for an hour, until two locomotives arrived to push it on to Doullens, whither the forward half, in gay ignorance, had run.

The night was overcast, a fact which doubtless saved us from the attention of enemy aeroplanes. The journey from St. Pol through Chocques and Lillers to Steenbecque is stamped on the memory by its more than many halts, the occasional glare of mines and munition factories which, in anticipation of another break-through, seemed to be working at tensest pressure to evacuate coal and manufactured stores from capture by the enemy; by the loud booming of artillery, to which the train seemed to draw specially near at Chocques and Isbergues; and the final sudden grinding of the brakes at Steenbecque, distracted railwaymen, and the small hut in which Bennett and the Brigade Staff were exhibiting a mixture of excitement, impatience and a sort of reckless familiarity with this apparent repetition of the Somme retreat. At Steenbecque station, which is three miles short of Hazebrouck and hidden behind the Nieppe Forest, we received the latest news of the battle into which we were being so dramatically plunged: the enemy had broken through the feeble resistance of the Portuguese and was outside Merville. My orders were to take up a line, which was at present covered by the 51st Division, between Robecq and Calonne and for that object to detrain and move forward immediately. The station yard was ill-suited to a rapid detrainment, there being few ramps or sidings, and despite the impatience of Bennett, a Divisional Staff Officer, who was most anxious to get finished before dawn, we were kept seated in the train for nearly two hours. This delay was really most valuable, for it enabled me to appreciate the situation and issue detailed orders, which otherwise it would never have been possible to give.

As the dawn of April 12, 1918, was breaking, we set foot to the long pavé road which runs through the Nieppe Forest to St. Venant, followed by the transport and the cookers, from which at the cost of never so much delay I felt determined to give the men, who had had no proper meal for twenty-four hours, a good square feed before becoming involved in the uncertain and possibly rationless conflict which lay before us in country that was likely to have been looted by the retreating Portuguese. Nevertheless, during this breakfast, taken at the eastern edge of the great Forest of Nieppe, feverish messages arrived, which said that the enemy was in Robecq and already crossing the La Bassée Canal. This, of course, was not true, but troops who are moving up towards an advancing enemy, though met by exaggerated and conflicting reports of the hostile progress, are almost confined, until actual encounter occurs, to this species of information. By now Corps Headquarters, after a three years' sojourn at Hinges, had commenced to scour the country west of Aire for a suitably remote château. Except for Howitt there was no staff officer upon the spot, and we found after passing St. Venant towards Robecq that it was every man for himself in the task of stemming the German attack. Parts of the Division, notably the 5th D.C.L.I. and the 2/6th Warwicks, which had been detrained earlier than ourselves to join in the battle, had been roughly handled in fighting south of Merville during the night of April 11/12. The 51st Division was to all intents out of action, and there was a gap of more than a mile between Robecq and Calonne on the morning of April 12. Into, but not through, this gap German patrols had penetrated, and at Carvin had crossed the streams Noc and Clarence. As a matter of fact these enemy were but the flankers of an advanced guard, whose objective at this time lay in the direction of Haverskerque. Thus it befell that the Battalion came into no direct conflict with the main enemy forces on April 12.

Still the situation at 9 a.m. was both obscure and difficult. Until their ammunition seemed to be expended, our artillery, which had withdrawn behind the La Bassée Canal, kept up a fire upon the open ground between Les Amusoires, where the Battalion was concentrating, and the Calonne road, which it was necessary for us to cross. Doubtless this untoward shelling was due to the reports spread by stragglers, of whom there was a considerable number from different units. Shortly after this occurrence I had the good fortune to meet a gunner subaltern, and for the next few days, pending a reinforcement of the artillery, what guns there were gave us excellent support. A greater menace came from the long dumps of our shells north of Robecq cemetery, to which some irresponsible person had set fire. An acre of explosives was ablaze, barring progress across a wide area. Later a fusillade of small-arms ammunition broke out near St. Venant station, suggestive of fighting in our rear. There also it had been the final errand of some dump-keeper, in a fancied performance of duty, to destroy ammunition of which there was a crying need. Subsequently St. Venant was quite heavily bombed by our own aircraft--an example of what could happen during the time that our higher organisation was out of gear.

The appearance of the Battalion, which could easily have passed for a Brigade of Infantry as it issued, about 10 a.m., from among the trees of Les Amusoires, may have been a moral factor in itself sufficient to indispose the German outposts to remain longer upon the outskirts of Robecq. From my former knowledge of the ground I decided to use no delay in occupying the network of orchards and as many of the farms as possible along the Calonne road before hostile opposition increased. After sharp fighting and some 30 casualties, mostly in C Company, which was on the left, a line was reached beyond Noc river, between Robecq and Calonne. On the right we linked up with the Berks (who placed their headquarters in the estaminet at Robecq cross-roads) and on the left with the 2/7th Warwicks, whose line bent back at a right angle across the Calonne road towards La Haye. During the afternoon fighting for the possession of Baquerolle Farm and its adjacent orchards engaged the Battalion's left flank. In this fighting Lodge, a young officer to whom command of C Company had fallen in consequence of a wound to Captain Buttfield, and also Boase much distinguished themselves. To them and to the N.C.O.s of C Company, and also to the conduct of the new draft, was owing the success of the day's operations. By 3 p.m. not only had the Battalion accomplished the task assigned to it twenty-four hours previously, when the extent of the German advance was unknown, but ground was being made and the enemy was being driven backward upon Calonne. Robecq was guaranteed.

All day very severe fighting was in progress a mile to our left. Merville and Calonne were almost blotted out in smoke, and the air was thronged with aeroplanes. The heap of shells behind us still burned. By now the clouds which rose from this bonfire had become such a pall in the sky that the German balloons--the enemy was expert in moving forward this machinery of observation--could see nothing of the surrounding country. The Robecq district was remarkable for its well-stocked farms, and with the general flight of the civilians large numbers of unmilked cows, geese, goats, hens, and all manner of farmyard creatures commenced to stray across the fields and down the roads. Battalion Headquarters, which were ultimately established at a large farmhouse in Les Amusoires, as dusk approached, seemed to become the rendez-vous for lowing cattle, hens, pigs, goats, and small armies of geese, to manage all of which a certain number of cowherds and farm-hands had to be detailed. Nor was it only at Battalion Headquarters that these movable larders were in the process of congregation.

At nightfall, when the companies--D Company had rejoined during' the afternoon--were settled into a secure outpost position and the Brigadier (General Pagan) had visited and approved the dispositions, an order from Corps was received to retreat a mile and to dig trenches across the open, hedgeless fields which stretched between Robecq and St. Venant. The whole of the Calonne road was to be abandoned. It was difficult to account for such a policy, which meant, not only the relinquishment of two bridge-heads of some importance and numerous farms and orchards which had been carried at expense and since garrisoned to good purpose, but the adoption instead of a position in rear, which was condemned with every tactical disadvantage and in which it would be impossible to remain once the enemy had secured possession of the ground we were now ordered to give up. I am happy to say that these orders, which can only have emanated from some staff inadequately informed upon the situation, were cancelled during the night and before the Battalion had acted on them. The fact is, I expressly remained in the forward position until at least rations had been delivered to the men, and by the time that had been done the staff pendulum had swung again. The salient of Baquerolle Farm, which it had cost valuable lives to reach, was retained.

On the morning of April 13 the enemy, under cover of a dense mist, which allowed his use of close-range artillery, attacked St. Floris, in front of which the Gloucesters were stationed. A demonstration against the Battalion accompanied, and in the mist it was uncertain whether an enemy attack on Robecq were not developing. The attack died down without the Germans having penetrated the Gloucesters, who put up a stout defence. Our line elsewhere was firm.

On the next day it was decided to use an opportunity to improve the position of our outpost line by occupying a group of cottages which lay in front. A platoon of A Company practically reached the nearest cottages without a sign of hostile opposition being shown. The fate of this little operation was the fruit of my miscalculation of the enemy's strength. The Germans knew better than ourselves how to sit still behind their machine-guns and avoid discovery. French civilians were moving about among the cottages at the time when our advance to occupy them was made and it seemed impossible that the enemy could be holding them even weakly. Civilians, too, were mingled in the fray as well on this as on later occasions. After trench-warfare days there was an incongruity in some episodes, which was not devoid of humour. One old Frenchman, at an hour when his farm was actually being fought over, arrived at Company Headquarters with a special passport to feed his beasts; and the tenacity of an old woman in clinging to her household goods terminated in her discovery, at the time of an attack, in a shell-hole in No-Man's-Land, where she was sheltering from the machine-gun barrage under a large umbrella (one felt that she at least deserved a copy of the operation orders!) During the ensuing weeks visits by French civilians to the front line became such that almost as many sentries were required to watch or restrain their movements as were needed against the enemy.

A more serious attack, in which the 4th Division upon our right was intended to co-operate, was made by B Company at 7.30 p.m. on April 15 against the same cottages, which formed part of the hamlet called La Pierre au Beurre. Our bombardment in support of this attack was almost due to start, when an urgent message from the line announced that large forces of the enemy were massing opposite our front. To have called for S.O.S. fire by the artillery would totally have upset the programme of attack, and one could only hope that our zero would be the earlier. Luck was in our favour. Whatever else happened that night, it is certain that the enemy received a severe shelling from our guns.

The attack, carried out by B Company under Stanley, with D in support, was quite successful in its plan but not in its result. From a cause such as every series of complicated operations in open warfare threatened to introduce, the troops of the 4th Division on our right failed to co-operate as we expected. O'Meara, whom Stanley had placed in charge of his leading troops, after securing the cottages named as his objective, found himself attacked by the enemy from the very direction whence he had counted on assistance. After ineffectual attempts by our 'liaison' officer, Kirk, to get our neighbours to do their share, B Company had to be withdrawn to their original position. The 4th Division at this time were the flank division of one corps while we were of another. To reach the Battalion acting on our right a notice of our plan had to climb up through our Brigade, Division, and Corps to Army and down again as many steps the other side. A staff-officer from Army or from Corps should have been on the spot.

Coucher and Kemp, two capital officers, were killed during the evening when this attack took place. Our other casualties were Killed, 2; Wounded, 18; Missing, 1.

Throughout April 13 and for several days afterwards desultory fighting, in which our trench-mortars under Miller performed good service, was maintained for the possession of Baquerolle Farm and another lying 150 yards south of it and christened Boase's Farm. Both remained in our hands. With the troops on our left flank there was some difficulty. Their line bent back awkwardly, and when the enemy shelled the houses on the Calonne road, where their right flank rested, they showed signs of withdrawing and leaving our C Company 'in the air.' The Germans quickly benefited by this irresolution, for they commenced to push forward from house to house along the Calonne road, until Baquerolle Farm was in danger of being taken in its rear. The prompt determination of Lodge, the officer I have already mentioned as commanding C Company, served to avert critical consequences. He delivered a local counter-attack, capturing a machine-gun and killing several of the enemy. Our neighbours thus reoccupied their former positions, but were warned in Divisional Orders not to give up any more of the Robecq-Calonne road. This incident, which rightly earned for 'Tommy' Lodge a Military Cross, had a vexatious sequel a few days later. In quoting where the left flank of the Battalion in fact rested I made a slip in the co-ordinates of its map reference. By that mistake I was trapped, when it appeared as black and white in relief orders, into having to hand over 100 yards of extra frontage, and had the mortification of causing several hours of troublesome delay to the front line, besides innocently saddling my successors with responsibility that was not honestly theirs to receive.

By April 16 the tactical situation was already stable. On that night--in reality during the early hours of April 17--the Battalion was relieved almost in the ordinary way by the Gloucesters, who came forward from the luxury of St. Venant and took over the line between Carvin and Baquerolle. St. Venant had been Portuguese G.H.Q. but was so no longer. It was by now receiving plenty of 5.9s and was rapidly losing the character of the quiet, well-to-do little town in which part of the Division was to have been billeted when it left the Amiens district. Still, for the time being, what St. Venant received in shells it paid for in choice vintages and fine houses. The Germans were not the only people to taste a glass of French wine during the Great War. About this time Colonel Boyle, who had commanded the 6th Oxfords until their disbandment, arrived to assume command of the Battalion. He remained till Wetherall, whose wound had taken him to England, returned.

For the rest of April and during May the Battalion continued to do tours in the Robecq sector, which, owing to its proximity to Givenchy and Béthune, was never quiet so long as the enemy was planning to attack those places. An alteration of the front was brought about on April 23, when the Gloucesters under Colonel Lawson advanced in co-operation with the 4th Division and captured Riez du Vintage and La Pierre au Beurre. Of this victory some spoils fell to the Battalion, which was holding the front line. Company Sergeant-Major Moss, of D Company, who went out to reconnoitre two hours after the attack had taken place, brought in forty-five prisoners, and during the following night half-a-dozen machine-guns were collected by the company.

German shelling at this time was often heavy. The tracks across the open up to the front line were rendered specially unpleasant by the pernicious '106' fuzes, with which the enemy's artillery was well supplied. From Robecq, which was steadily being shelled to ruins and through which one passed with reluctance, a disinterested salvage party, consisting of Stanley and the officers of B Company, brought a piano, which was destined to be an historic instrument. On more than one occasion the Battalion returned from its spell in the front line to the St. Venant Asylum, a large institution said to be the second largest of the kind in France. Its protesting inmates had been removed in lorries at the time of the German capture of Merville, and the long galleries and rooms thereafter became filled with troops. The ample bath-house, laundry, and kitchen of the Asylum, though ravaged by shelling and rifled by the mysterious depredations of looters, more than provided for the Battalion's wants. I have to record a very regrettable incident in connection with St. Venant Asylum. On the morning of May 21, during some shelling, when most of us had descended to cover, a German shell pierced the building where C and D Company Headquarters were and dropped through into the cellar, where it exploded. Several men were killed and also 'Tommy' Lodge, the officer whose conduct had earned him distinction three weeks before at Baquerolle Farm. Robinson, too, was wounded and was lost to the Battalion.

At the Asylum, despite its comfort, it was difficult to feel at ease. On May 7 the Orderly Room was struck full on its door by a 5.9. Headquarters had many an anxious moment (as when a large aeroplane bomb was heard coming through the air; it fell 30 yards from the Mess). At the end of May rest billets were altered to La Pierrière, a small straggling village west of the La Bassée Canal, where few shells fell but whither the civilians were as yet timid to return. At La Pierrière, whenever the Battalion came out for its four days' rest, the Canteen was established on the most up-to-date lines with a full stock, including beer and the current newspapers from England. During the summer several local papers were kind enough to send me copies every week for free distribution to the men. I make this an opportunity to thank Mr. Stanley Wilkins and the Bucks Comforts Fund for most generous gifts of 'smokes,' which more than once helped to stave off a cigarette famine.

The Canteen, though I have not before mentioned it, was a great feature in Battalion life. For the last eight months of the war, while I was President of the Regimental Institute, I was most anxious that our Canteen should be as good as possible. But my anxiety would have been worthless without the industry and enthusiasm of Lance-Corporal Kaye and Private Warburton, who managed every detail.

At this stage in my history, when, almost reluctantly, I am drawing towards its close, there are many features of the Battalion life which crowd upon me in their demand for mention. The Pioneers lining out for their match in six-a-side football against the Shoemakers and Tailors, the Stores piled high with 'hay-packs' and wicker baskets filled with unissued signalling equipment, Sergeant Birt quietly demanding last month's war-diary, Connell the arch-footballer, Kettle, the Sergeant-Cook, arguing about an oven, and the four Company Quartermaster-Sergeants whose vote was always unanimous--to proceed further would be to enumerate a list of people and things over whom it is my regret to pass so rapidly.

At the end of my chapters I have so often shown the Battalion marching back to rest that I shall leave it this time in the line. You must picture a medley of small fields and orchards, bounded on one side by the Calonne-Robecq road (which is the avenue of supply to the front line and much shelled) and on the other by the small streams called Noc and Clarence. Among the orchards stand numerous farmsteads, of which a large one known as Gloucester Farm had been our Battalion Headquarters in 1916, during a period of back-area rest. It has again been Battalion Headquarters. Recently the farm was shelled and the Berks Colonel, then in occupation, quitted it in favour of a two-storied house called Carvin. In the domed cellar of Baquerolle Farm--an old-fashioned building looking out across a wide midden to numerous cowsheds and outhouses--were usually the headquarters of C or D Companies and the Trench-Mortars. This farm was freely shelled. On April 24 the early-morning attention of the German guns set fire to the buildings; and Robinson was obliged to leave the cellar and repair with his headquarters to a trench to windward. The Posts themselves, as spring deepened into summer, became half lost in the crops and grass, until many of them could be reached in daylight. This fact, combined with his undaunted spirit of enterprise, led Colonel Lawson of the Gloucesters to crawl forward one morning to the German lines. His reckless bravery paid the penalty, for he was killed when only a short way from where a German post was lurking. Lawson was a brilliant soldier and a fine example of English character; his sudden and needless death cast a gloom over the whole Brigade.

On the evening of May 13 the last raid to be made by the Battalion was carried out by No. 1 Platoon, commanded by Rowlerson. The affair was a small one but satisfactory, for two prisoners were brought in and we had no casualties.