Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated), page 903
On the 4th June the C.O., Lieutenant-Colonel Pollok, left the Battalion to take over command of Sixth Corps Army School, and Major R. R. C. Baggallay assumed command. Likewise three stray Germans were captured opposite one of our posts.
On the 5th Major Gordon arrived from the 2nd Battalion for duty as Second in Command.
They were relieved by the 1st King’s Regiment on the 6th June — a somewhat hectic performance, as the front-line track-ways were intricate, needing guides at almost every turn of them, and, for the run-up, one guide per platoon. After which, about one in the morning, it was discovered that the King’s had come in without their Lewis-guns. Some divisions were in the habit of leaving and taking over the Lewis-guns in situ; but the Guards Division always went in and out of the line with their very own weapons. One cannot delay a clear June dawn and, as the relieved Battalion had to get off in tightly packed and horribly conspicuous lorries, and as the last platoon could not reach those lorries till 3 A.M., it was touch-and-go whether daylight would not reveal them “like a Sunday School treat” to the German guns. But luck held. The last lorry was safe in Bavincourt Wood five miles behind Monchy before day had stripped the landscape, and the 1st King’s were left to meditate on the wealth and variety of the Irish tongue, as delivered on empty stomachs in whispers down packed trenches.
The Battalion billeted at Bavincourt when the 2nd H.L.I. had got out of their quarters, and since, like the other camps, Bavincourt was regularly bombed, made earth walls round their Nissen huts, and slits near them to be used against ‘planes or too extravagant shell-fire. Here they stayed till the end of the month, cleaning, refitting, and training (in open warfare principally; and, this time, they were not to be disappointed) at Lewis gunnery, bombing, and general physical smartening-up. When the Brigade Sports took place at Saulty they won every event but three, and when the Corps Commander, the following week, inspected the different ways in the divisional methods of carrying the eight Lewis-guns of each company all on one limber, “the method employed by the Battalion was considered the best, and all units were ordered to copy.” They had rigged a sort of false top on a rear-limber which accommodated all eight guns together.
A Divisional Horse-show was held on the 22nd, but there the Battalion did not get a single prize. They hammered on at their trainings and Brigade field-days — all with an eye to the coming open warfare, while the “Spanish fever,” which was influenza of the post-war type, grew steadily worse among men and officers alike. When H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught visited Divisional Headquarters at Bavincourt Château on the 30th June, and the Battalion had to find not only the Guard of Honour but 160 men to line the avenue to the Château, there were seventy officers and men down with the pest, out of less than 900. Thirty-one men had been sent down sick, two had been killed in action presumably by overhead bombing, for the Diary does not mention any trench casualties, and twenty-three wounded.
The following officers joined during the month of June: Lieutenant C. A. J. Vernon, and 2nd Lieutenants E. B. Spafford, A. E. Hutchinson, H. R. Baldwin, G. F. Mathieson, J. A. M. Faraday, E. M. Harvey, M. C., and A. E. O’Connor, all on the 2nd June; Captain A. W. L. Paget on the 4th, and 2nd Lieutenant A. H. O’Farrell on the 10th June. Second Lieutenant C. S. O’Brien, who was in command of the model raid already mentioned, was awarded the Military Cross on the 9th of June.
After a sporting interlude on the 3rd July, when they met the 1st Munster Fusiliers at athletics and won everything except the hundred yards, they relieved the 15th H.L.I. in the intermediate line near Hendecourt. As a matter of fact, they were a sick people just then. All Battalion Headquarters except the Commanding Officer, and all the officers of No. 2 Company, besides officers of other companies, were down with “Spanish fever” on going into the line. A third of the men were also sick at one time, and apparently the enemy too, for they hardly troubled to shell by day and let the night-reliefs go without attention. The only drawbacks were furious summer thunderstorms which, from time to time, flooded the trenches and woke up more fever. The front line held here by the Guards was badly knocked about and battered, and instructions ran that, in event of serious attack, it would not be contested.
There is no clear evidence of the state of the Battalion’s collective mind at this time, but from home letters it might be gathered that the strain of the Push and its bewilderment had given place to the idea that great things were preparing. Battalions are very often told tales to this effect, but they suit themselves as to the amount that they swallow. No power on earth, for instance, could have persuaded the veterans of the Somme, after Cambrai, that there was “anything doing”; but as the summer of 1918 grew warmer in the wooded and orchard country behind the Amiens–Albert line, and our lines there held and were strengthened, and those who had been home or on the seas reported what they had heard and seen, hope, of a kind not raised before, grew in the talks of the men and the officers. (“Understand, I do not say there was anny of the old chat regardin’ that the war would finish next Chuseday, the way we talked in ‘16. But, whatever they said acrost the water, we did not hould ‘twould endure those two more extra years all them civilians was dishin’ out to us. What did we think? That ‘19 would see the finish? ‘Twud be hard to tell what we thought. Leave it this way — we was no more than waitin’ on mercies to happen an’ — ’twas mericles that transpired!”)
They relieved their own brigade battalions with the punctilio proper to their common ritual, and for the benefit of over a hundred recruits. It was their ancient comrades under all sorts of terrors, the 2nd Coldstream, whose guides from Boiry-St. Martin one night lost their way in the maze of tracks and turns to the front line. But, as meekly set forth in the Diary, when it came the Battalion’s turn to be relieved by the 2nd Grenadiers, “all tracks had been carefully picketed by this Battalion to assist grenadier companies coming in and ours going out.” The occasions when the guides of the 1st Irish Guards lost their way must be looked for in the reports of others.
“Little shelling and no casualties” were the order of the fine days till, on the 29th July, taking over from the 2nd Coldstream, they found six platoons of the 3rd Battalion, 320th Regiment, U.S.A., which had come into line the night before and were attached for instruction. These were young, keen, desperately anxious to learn, and not at all disposed to keep their heads down.
Next day the enemy opened on them, and “were rather offensive in their shelling.” The front platoon of the Americans, attached to the Battalion’s front company, caught it worst, but no casualties were reported. Then things quieted down, and a patrol of Special Battalion Scouts, a new organization of old, trusty No Man’s Landers, under Lieutenant Vernon as Intelligence Officer, went out on reconnaissance, across the Cojeul valley, and wandered generally among ancient trench-lines in bright moonlight. They found a German party working on fresh earth, but no signs of enemy patrols on the move in the valley. This was as well. No one wished to see that dead ground occupied, except by our own people at the proper time.
July’s bill of casualties was the lowest of all. No officer and but one man had been killed, and two wounded. This last was when the enemy shelled Boiry to celebrate the arrival of the American platoons. Seventeen men were sent down sick. Fifty other ranks were transferred to the 1st from the 2nd Battalion, now acting as a feeder to its elder brother.
On the 1st of August the Battalion was still in the peaceful front line watching the six American platoons being relieved by other six platoons from the 2nd Battalion of the 320th Regiment. It was observed, not without some envy — ”They did not know enough to save ‘emselves throuble, an’ they would not ha’ done it if they had. They was too full of this same dam’ new ould war.” Even at this immense distance of time, one can almost hear the veterans commenting on the zeal and excitement that filled the stale lines where, to those young eyes from across the water, everything was as shining-new as death.
On the 3rd August the Battalion made a reconnaissance of a post with the idea of raiding it, which was a complete though bloodless failure. Some of our back guns chose the exact moment when the raiders were setting out (on the sure information of a scouting-party, who had just come in) to wipe up the unconscious little garrison and their machine-gun, and woke the night with heavy shell dropped in our own wire and in front of our objective. Naturally nothing could be done, and the affair was called off till the next evening (4th August), when a “crawling-party,” under Lieutenant Vernon, of a corporal and six men went out along the same route that the scouts had taken the night before. They were expected and welcomed with enthusiasm. A sentry gave the alarm, a little party ran out to cut them off, the machine-gun (a heavy one), which had not betrayed itself before, promptly opened fire, but wide of our prone men, and a German, as promptly, hove bombs in the wrong direction. All this, says the report, happened as soon as some one inside the post gave “short, decisive orders.” Then Very lights flared without stint, and, being some way from home, with much unlocated wire between, the raiders got away swiftly and safely. The tracks of the scouts through the long grass the night before had put the enemy on the alert. But if our guns had only held their tongues on that occasion, our coup might have been brought off. Instead of which, the enemy woke up and shelled a front company for a quarter of an hour with 60-pounders before he could be induced to go to bed.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE END
But all this was as light, casual, and unrelated as the throwing of the ball from hand to hand that fills time before an innings; and, by the latter part of July, men began half unconsciously to speculate when our innings would begin. In the north, the enemy, crowded into the Lys salient, which they had been at such pains to hack out over the bodies of the 2nd Battalion, were enjoying some of the pleasures our men had tasted round Ypres for so many years. Our gathering guns, cross-ploughing them where they lay, took fresh toll of each new German division arriving to make good the wastage. In the south, outside Amiens, the Australians, an impenitent and unimpressionable breed, had, on the 4th of July, with the help of four companies of the Thirty-third American Division, and sixty tanks, gone a-raiding round the neighbourhood of Hamel and Vaire Wood, with results that surprised everybody except themselves. They did not greatly respect the enemy, and handled him rudely. Meantime, Amiens, raked over by aeroplanes almost every hour, was being wrecked and strangled; and all the Labour Corps, which, from the soldier’s point of view, could have been better used in saving poor privates cruel fatigues, were working day and night at railway diversions and doublings that, by some route or another, should bring the urgent supplies of both French and British armies to their destinations. Men argued, therefore, that the first job to be taken in hand would be the deliverance of Amiens. There was talk, too, that all French divisions in Flanders were withdrawn and concentrated behind Amiens city. This might be taken for a sign that the Lys salient was reckoned reasonably secure, and as confirming the belief that upon the Lys, also, we had abundance of artillery. On the other hand (these are but a few of the rumours of the time), away in the unknown south-east of France, where few British troops had penetrated in the memory of present fighting men, some five or six divisions, making the Ninth British Corps, had been sent for a “rest” after the March Push, and had been badly mauled by a sudden surprise-attack on the Aisne where, together with the Fifth French Army, they had been driven back towards the Marne, which all the world thought was a river and a battle long since disposed of. The enemy there were sitting practically outside the Forest of Villers-Cotterêts, a name also belonging to ancient history. Much-enduring men, whom Fate till now had spared, recounted how the 4th (Guards) Brigade, as it was then, had first “caught it” there, among the beech-trees very nearly four years back. Moreover, there was fresh trouble between Montdidier and Noyon, where the enemy were again throwing themselves at the French. Then, too, Foch, who was in charge of all, but who, so far, had made no sign, had borrowed four more of our divisions — the whole of the Twenty-second Corps this time — and they were off on some French front, Heaven and Headquarters alone knew where. Likewise one composite “Serum” of French, American, English, and Italian troops was holding, it might be hoped, a German capital attack near Rheims. The old war-line that in the remote days of winter would have called itself the Somme front discussed and digested these news and many more. There was nothing doing on their beat to write home about, even were they allowed to do so. The question was whether they would be called on to repair to the Lys and free Hazebrouck, which was undoubtedly still in a dangerous position, or stand still and await what might befall at Amiens. There was no limit to speculation and argument any more than there had been when the Somme front went in March, and the more they argued the more confused men grew over the confidential information that was supplied them. (“Them Gen’rals, and their Staffs must ha’ done quite a little lyin’ — even for them. They had us believin’ their word! I’ve heard since even Jerry believed ‘em.” )
That would appear to have been the trouble with the enemy. It was evident to the most hardened pessimist that a French counter-attack launched out of the Villers-Cotterêts Forests, to begin with (and in several other places at, apparently, the same time), was not the flash-in-the-pan that some people foretold. For the second time the enemy was withdrawing from the Marne, and, under pressure, continuing his withdrawal. His great attack near Rheims, too, seemed to have stuck. On the Lys, from time to time, sites of villages with well-remembered names were occasionally returning to their lawful trustees. Hopeful students of the war hinted that, with fresh troops in vast numbers, more guns, and a share of luck, 1918 might see the foundations laid for a really effective finish in 1919. A report had come up from the south that the French down Amiens way had made an experimental attack, or rather a big raid, on the enemy, and had found him there curiously “soft” and willing to shift.
The air thickened with lies as the men, who moved about the earth by night or under cover, increased, and our air-craft were told off to circle low and noisily at certain points and drown the churn of many tanks trailing up into their appointed areas. All the Canadian divisions, men said, were moving off to recapture Kemmel Hill. All our forces round Amiens were digging themselves in, said others, preparatory to a wait-and-see campaign that would surely last till Christmas. For proof, it was notorious that our guns in that sector were doing nothing. (As a matter of fact they were registering on the sly.) Everybody round Amiens, a third party insisted, would be sent off in a day or two to help the French in Champagne. The weaknesses of human nature in possession of “exclusive information” played into the hands of the very few who knew, and young staff officers of innocent appearance infernally bamboozled their betters.
So it happened, on the 4th August, on a misty dawn, that the Fourth Army (Rawlinson’s) with four hundred tanks, backed by two thousand guns, and covered by aeroplanes to a number not yet conceived in war, declared itself as in being round Amiens at the very nose of the great German salient. In twenty-four hours that attack had bitten in five miles on an eleven-mile front, had taken twelve thousand prisoners and some three hundred guns, and was well set to continue. At the same time the French, striking up from the south, had cleared their front up to the Amiens–Roye road from Pierrepont, through Plessier to Fresnoy, and had taken over three thousand prisoners and many guns. Caught thus on two fronts, the enemy fell back, abandoning stores and burning dumps, which latter sight it cheered our men to watch. But the work and the honour of the day, as of the Fourth Army’s campaign from this point on, rested with the Canadian and Australian divisions who made up the larger part of it. The Australians Sir Archibald Montgomery describes in his monumental “Story of the Fourth Army” as “always inquisitive and seldom idle.” The Canadians had exactly the same failings, and between the two dominions the enemy suffered. By the 12th August he had been forced back on to the edge of the used, desolate, and eaten-up country where he had established himself in 1916 — a jungle of old wire, wrecked buildings, charred woods, and wildernesses of trench. It was ideal ground for machine-gun defence; with good protection against tanks and cavalry. There he went to earth, and there, after a little feeling along his line, was he left while the screw was applied elsewhere. Our front at that time ran from Bray-sur-Somme due south to Andechy, where we joined the French almost within machine-gun range of Roye.
North of Bray, to the western edge of the town of Albert, the left wing of the Fourth Army had the enemy held, worried and expectant. Now was the Third Army’s turn to drive in the wedge, from north of Albert up the line to Arras where the right of the First Army would assist. What Headquarters knew of the enemy’s morale on that sector was highly satisfactory. Moreover, he was withdrawing out of his Lys salient as his divisions were sucked down south to make up wastage there. But our men still expected that they would tramp their weary way back across every yard of their battle-fields and burial-grounds of the past two years, finishing up, if luck held, somewhere round the Hindenburg Line by Christmas. That the wave, once launched, would carry to the Rhine was beyond the wildest dreams.
The Battalion, after their little raid already mentioned, had spent from the 5th to the 9th August in reserve-trenches at Ransart, doing musketry and route-marching. They returned to the support-trenches at Hendecourt-lès-Ransart relieving the 2nd Coldstream, and stayed there till the 16th August, when they relieved the same battalion in the front line opposite Boiry-St. Martin.
They had to patrol the No Man’s Land in front of them a good deal at night (because it would, later, be their forming-up area), but suffered nothing worse than the usual shelling and trench-mortaring, and their share in the work of the opening day, August 21, was small and simple. “At 5 A.M. the 2nd Guards Brigade on our right attacked Moyenville with their objective just east of the railway. The 1st Coldstream was next on our right.” There was a thick fog when the barrage opened, as well as a smoke barrage. The tanks forming up made noise enough to wake a land full of Germans, but apparently drew no fire till they were well away, lunging and trampling over the enemy machine-gun-posts that had annoyed our folk for so long. The only serious work for the Battalion was to secure a small trench, cover the north side of the railway with their fire, and establish a post at the railway crossing “as soon as a tank had passed over.” The trench had been occupied early in the night after a small bombing-brawl with the enemy. The tank detailed to pass by that way in the morning was warned of the occupation and told not to fire into it as it came along and all was well. There was an idea that a couple of companies assisted by eight tanks should capture Hamelincourt, a mile east of Moyenville, which latter had been taken, before the fog lifted, by the 2nd Guards Brigade. But this was cancelled after much waste of time, and the Battalion lay still under a shelling of mustard-gas, and pleasantly watched prisoners being sent back.
