Part 7 (1/2)
First how to get them even partially trained in the time, and second to invent some apparatus for carrying the rifle-grenades. At first it was only possible to train the N.C.O.s in charge of the rifle-bombing sections--leaving them to instruct their sections as well as they could.
It is hard to realise the complete inadequacy of this arrangement, without knowing something of the rifle-grenade, and without knowing the extraordinary difficulty of training a man to become an instructor of others. However that was the best that could be made of the new orders at the moment. And so it fell to me to take a cla.s.s for a week of N.C.O'.s drawn from the four battalions. I had not only to teach them to fire the rifle-grenade themselves, of which they knew nothing, but to teach them to hand their knowledge on to others.
The training went on from March 12 to 17, and thirty-four section leaders attended the course. About 1150 rounds were fired. I did not attempt any live firing--in fact, I have never thought it serves any useful purpose to fire live rifle-grenades in practice.
It is of course much more dangerous than throwing a live hand-grenade, and one accident in practice is enough to discourage all the recruits who see it from firing live rifle-grenades in actual warfare. On the other hand, even where the rifle-grenades are only used as dummies, the waste of valuable ammunition is simply appalling. A Hales rifle-grenade used to cost 25s. and it came down to 15s. a little later, but once fired as a dummy it was not much use to fire again.
Dummies could have been made for about 1s. at the most, but of course no one in England thought about a trifle like that; and so the colossal waste went on all the time I had the training in hand. I did what I could by straightening the rods to use the grenades again, but I could not save much in this way. Thousands of pounds in rifle-grenades must have been used where thousands of s.h.i.+llings should have been spent.
At Warfusee Brigadier-General H.C. Rees, D.S.O., came to take over command of the Brigade. He had seen very heavy fighting in the early part of the war, and had since commanded two Brigades before he came to the 149th Infantry Brigade. He was liked and respected by every one in the Brigade. Very tall and well built, and a soldier who gave you the greatest confidence in his ability and leaders.h.i.+p, the Brigade owed much to him, especially at a time when the trench fighting was giving way (as it seemed) to open warfare. He was a first-cla.s.s rifle-shot himself, and never ceased to impress the necessity of developing this weapon to the utmost. For the hand-grenade he had the greatest contempt, which he was rather fond of expressing. Fortunately for me, bombing work was giving way to Intelligence, although for some time to come I had to train the men in rifle grenades and to look after the Brigade ammunition stores.
After finis.h.i.+ng the rifle-grenade work I acted as a.s.sistant-Staff-Captain for about a week. It was chiefly office work as far as I was concerned, the returns being very voluminous. Work as I could there seemed to be no getting to the end of these returns till 9 or 10 o'clock at night. There were also one or two minor court-martial cases, in which my legal training proved some a.s.sistance. On March 27 I got my third leave granted, for ten days. It was perhaps rather quick after my last leave, but the fact of my being ill on that occasion was taken into consideration. This time I went to Amiens by motor-lorry and thence to Boulogne, reaching Manchester on the same day that I sailed from France.
On April 6 I left Folkestone and got to Boulogne about 4 o'clock. Here no one could say where the 56th Division was, and I was directed to leave by a midnight train and to report to the R.T.O. at Abbeville. I got there about 2 A.M. and was told to go back to etaples by an 8 o'clock train that morning. I managed to get a few hours' sleep and breakfast at the Officers Club at Abbeville, and reached etaples about midday on April 7. On April 9 I was told to proceed to St. Pol and get further directions there. I arrived there in time for lunch, and then reached Frevent by another train. Here I was told to go by the light railway towards Wanquetin and to make inquiries for the 50th Division on the way. At Frevent I saw a lot of slightly wounded soldiers coming back from Arras; they had been over the top that morning on the first day of the great battle which had just started.
Just before reaching Avesnes-le-Compte I spotted some Divisional transport on the roads, and, on making inquiries at Avesnes, I learnt that the 149th Infantry Brigade were quartered at Manin about two miles away. So I left the train and reached our H.Q. just in time for dinner.
The 50th Division had marched from Warfusee, and were now proceeding towards Arras to take part in the battle which had started on April 9.
XXII
THE BATTLE OF ARRAS
The Battle of Arras started with a great success. The Vimy Ridge was recaptured and the vast fortress between Telegraph Hill and Neuville Vita.s.se, including a substantial part of the famous Hindenburg Line, fell in one day. The high ground at Monchy-le-Preux was soon stormed and secured. But after this progress became very slow, nothing seemed to come of these great tactical successes. The fighting, instead of developing into open warfare as we had expected, became again very similar in character to the great trench to trench battles on the Somme.
The French waited a week before starting their offensive in Champagne, and when it did start it failed completely. The weather broke down on April 10, as it generally did in 1917 whenever the British commenced offensive operations. It became very cold and it rained or snowed almost incessantly for over a week. It is hard for one who saw only a small sector of this great battle to understand what prevented us from taking greater advantage of our great initial success, which certainly surprised and disorganised the enemy. But it was not merely the weather which broke down at a critical moment. There were other causes at work to delay and impede success. I strongly suspect that the British infantry units were still suffering from their tremendous exertions in 1916; and they certainly had not the confident a.s.surance of victory which inspired the terrible sacrifices on the Somme.
Hitherto our artillery had never been so strong nor had the mechanical aids to victory been so numerous or so varied. Gas-projectors and oil-drums were first used in this battle, new aeroplanes were first launched out in public; the British held the mastery of the air, and the Germans had not yet devised any effective remedy for the British tanks. But the British troops were not the troops of the Somme. The old type of volunteer had largely disappeared, and the same resolution and confidence were not displayed by some of the British divisions.
The very strength of our artillery was sapping the old reliance on the rifle, and when the barrage stopped the infantry often seemed to be powerless to defend the captured positions.
On the other hand the superior and more lengthy training of the German reserves now began to tell. Personally, I never admired the German as a fighting man until he was now for the first time driven out of his vast defences. On the Somme the Germans had artillery support nearly equal to our own, and they were defending superb trenches with unbroken roads and country behind them. Now, when they were thrust out of their famous stronghold and plastered with every sort of projectile, they held up repeated attacks, backed by enormous artillery preparation and support, held them up by sheer dogged fighting and superior knowledge of war. Their Staff work must have been good, and the training and morale of the troops equally good to have done it. After the first great success, we gained only small local successes, costing thousands of casualties and vast expenditure of ammunition. Eventually, after about five weeks of fierce thrusts, the Battle of Arras came to an end, giving us, it is true, a much improved position in front of Arras, but leaving the main object of the attack unaccomplished. The further offensives of 1917 were carried on more to the north and south, and the Arras area saw no more big fighting till the beginning of 1918.
The 50th Division came into action on April 11, and worked alternately with the 14th Division. The enemy were pushed across the Cojeul Valley and into the outskirts of Vis-en-Artois and Cherisy. The advance of these two Divisions would have been undoubtedly greater, but Guemappe on the left and the uncaptured part of the Hindenburg Line on the right for a time held up the divisions attacking on either flank. Thus both the 50th Division and the 14th Division captured Cherisy in turn, but had to abandon the place through having their flanks exposed. By their operations in this area both Divisions maintained their already worthy reputation.
XXIII
WANCOURT TOWER--CROISILLES
The 149th Infantry Brigade left Manin on the morning of April 10, and marched to Wanquetin, where the troops were billeted in houses. On the following day it began to snow heavily about midday and this continued far into the night. The Brigade were intended to attack on April 12, but, owing to the exhaustion and exposure of the troops, the 151st Brigade were subst.i.tuted when the attack recommenced on April 13. We started our march in the snow just as the light was beginning to fail, and trudged along through the muddy slush till we reached Arras. Here there was a delay of several hours before guides arrived to lead the various units to their stations. B.H.Q. marched through the town and eventually arrived at the ruined sugar factory at Faubourg Ronville, where there were deep dugouts below the ruins. We could not see much of the city but it appeared to be badly knocked about by the enemy's sh.e.l.ls. Not many houses, perhaps, had fallen to bits, but there was hardly a house that had not been hit. A great many small sh.e.l.ls must have been fired into the town. The place of course was full of underground pa.s.sages--though I never had the chance of entering them.
When morning came I was able to take stock of my surroundings. The sugar factory was one of the last buildings at the S.E. end of the city, and a trench tramway led to what had once been the front line trenches about a quarter of a mile from these H.Q.
My job that morning was to hunt round for the dumps of grenades &c.
which had been made by our predecessors before their advance. I remember finding two of these in fairly good condition in the neighbourhood of Telegraph Hill--only of course on the Arras side. The cold night on which we arrived had taken heavy toll of the cavalry horses, and many of these splendid animals could be seen scattered about on the ground, some already dead and others dying. They were too fine bred to stand that wintry night in an open bivouac. As far as I could make out our lighter siege guns had moved up towards the Telegraph Hill ridge and our field guns towards Neuville Vita.s.se; there were still howitzers of heavy calibre in the environs of the city itself. I believe the 151st Infantry Brigade attacked on April 13, and pushed across the Cojeul Valley north of Heninel, and dug in just west of the Wancourt Tower ridge. Wancourt was captured but not Guemappe, and Marliere was in our hands. On that day I was instructed to make a dump at Telegraph Hill, which I had no difficulty in doing as the place was quite quiet.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Scene of Attacks on Cherisy. April 1917.]
The next day this dump was removed to the region of the Elm Trees at Wancourt behind the 'Brown Line'; and the Brigade relieved the 151st Infantry Brigade. B.H.Q. were at the Elm Trees, and consisted of some fine deep dugouts, which the Germans had used as an ammunition store.
The entrance to them was in a small sunken road. The ammunition was mostly stored in large wooden boxes, and we had to pull it out and get rid of it. This was done by emptying the boxes into the nearest sh.e.l.l-holes; so that the ground outside was littered with German ammunition. In one of these sh.e.l.l-holes, amongst a lot of rubbish of this kind, I found four old pewter dishes and two pewter spoons. They had been heaved out of the dugout along with the rest of its contents.