28 August – 5 September, 1914

INFANTRY SUBALTERN ON THE RETREAT

Captain E. J. Needham

In 1906 Captain Needham Joined the Militia, afterwards converted into the Special Reserve, and on the outbreak of war he went to France with the 1st Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment as an ‘amateur infantry subaltern’. During the retreat from Mons he and his men were reeling drunk with fatigue. His story ends with orders on 5 September to advance again towards the Marne in pursuit of a retiring enemy.

After five days of continual retreating, having scarcely fired a shot at or seen the enemy, everybody's nerves were on edge and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep the men, and ourselves too for that matter, cheery. They kept asking why we were retiring; why we did not turn and wipe the Huns off the earth; what was the French Army doing, etc., etc. We, knowing no more than they did, could only tell them that it was a strategical retirement and that we were retreating to a prearranged and already fortified position – that our retirement would last only one day more, etc. Talk about the ‘fog of war’!

I shall never forget the last halt we were to have that night. As usual, everybody – officers and men – threw themselves down just at the edge of the road. When the whistle blew for ‘Fall in’ many of the men lay where they were, not in any mutinous spirit but just because they were physically incapable of getting up. My platoon was the rear platoon of the company, which was the rear company of the Battalion. ‘Payker’ (a fellow officer) and I went round actually kicking the men till they got up and threatening, with our revolvers drawn, to shoot any man who did not fall in at once. We were reeling about like drunken men ourselves, past hoping for any rest, but knowing we had to go on.

At last we got them all on the move, and struggled along in the rear to prevent any men from falling out. About two miles on, at about 1.30 am, we found the Battalion was wheeling to the left through a gateway. The Brigade Staff Captain was standing by it and told us as we went through that we were to bivouac in the field and were to stay there the whole of the next day. I do not remember much about getting into that field or what happened afterwards, except that another officer, Joe Farrar, and myself lost ourselves trying to find out where the rest of the officers had to go and, seeing a water-cart, threw ourselves under it and went to sleep at once.

When we woke up in the morning we found we were under one of the 60th’s carts, that the whole brigade was bivouacked in the field, quite a small one, and that all the units were hopelessly mixed up together. It had been absolutely pitch dark when we had got in, and nobody had been able to find anyone else, but everyone had more or less dropped down where he was. How lucky we were that the Germans were not close on our tracks that night and did not attack.

FIRST SHAVE IN EIGHT DAYS

The next morning, Sunday, 29 August, we sorted ourselves out generally, the officers got their valises and managed to get a good wash, shave and general clean-up, the first we had had since the 21st at Étroeungt. It was a lovely hot day and we spent it lazing about in the sun, sleeping and eating. It was a real joy to have a day off and especially enjoyable to be able to shave and have a really good wash. All day long we could hear the sullen roaring of the French and German guns behind us. It was very pretty where we were and, except for the aforesaid noise of battle afar, very peaceful.

The next day we were off again. I note that the Regimental War History states that we marched before dawn, but according to my diary we departed at 5.30 am. We marched through lovely wooded and hilly country, but it was again terribly hot and our feet were, if anything, more tender than ever after our day's rest, though in other respects all ranks were much fresher for it. We were very pleased when we arrived at Anizyle-Chateau, which was a very pretty place with an enormous chateau and park, the former having been turned hastily into a hospital. The officers of the 48th were extremely lucky in being billeted in the chateau and had a very comfortable night. The men, too, were all under cover and comfortable. Many of them bathed in a stream that ran through the grounds of the chateau, but personally I did not fancy it, as the water looked very muddy and was also somewhat smelly. However, they seemed to enjoy it.

A detachment of the Scots Greys (2nd Dragoons), which operated as a part of the rearguard in the Retreat.

During the march that day, while we were resting at the side of the road in a wood, during a ten minute break the Scots Greys came along and the 12th Lancers. They had had a very hard day of almost continuous rear-guard fighting about three days before, including a fine and very effective charge, and our men lined the road and cheered them lustily. Men and horses looked as hard as nails, but fine-drawn and worn-out. The Greys' horses had all been painted with iodine or some such substance to make them less conspicuous, and they were all a dirty sort of khaki colour. There were many empty saddles amongst their ranks. I asked what had happened to my cousin, Archie Seymour, and was told that he had been sent down to the base, as his ankle had been giving him a lot of trouble and was too painful to allow him to ride. We saw the Greys and also the 20th Hussars frequently during the retreat, as their cavalry brigade were working with the I Corps all the time.

The next morning we marched again at 5.30 am, very sorry to leave our comfortable quarters again, it was very hot, and we had a very trying and exhausting march. We marched through the town of Soissons, coming down to it off the hills to the north through some very pretty woods. On the south side of the town we were faced with a long and very steep hill, which proved a most severe test for the wretched transport horses.

There were several dead horses lying at the side of the road, having been shot, as they were too far gone with exhaustion to get up the hill, or even to be led. Poor beasts, mostly heavy draught horses, which only a few weeks before had probably been leading a more or less peaceful life down on some farm.

We finally bivouacked for the night in a field, as usual all pretty well worn out. We started off again on 1 September at the crack of dawn. We halted for some time during the afternoon and listened to very heavy firing going on behind us and to our right. This, it afterwards transpired, was a severe rearguard action by 4 (Guards) Brigade of the 2nd Division, in which they had suffered heavy casualties.

Towards evening we marched through Mareuil-sur-Ourcq, and took up a defensive position in the woods on the high ground to the south of the river, while the Engineers were busily employed blowing up the various bridges over the River Ourcq. It was a pitch-dark night, heavy firing was going on apparently all round us, and everybody was expecting something exciting to happen at any moment. Motor-cyclist despatch riders were going up and down the road through the woods, which ran through a deep cutting on the slopes of which we were. It was an eerie feeling to sit there, hearing the booming of the guns all round and to hear the motor-cyclists tearing up and down the road with no lights and being challenged by sentries posted on the road. At one moment we heard one tearing by and then a terrific crash and then silence. It transpired that one of them had crashed head-on into a barricade placed across the road. Oddly enough, years later I was speaking to a friend of mine, one Jim Brocklebank, who had been a despatch rider at the beginning of the war, and I was telling him of this particular occurrence, he said, ‘Yes, and I was that unfortunate devil!’ It appeared that he had been blinding up the road, all out, and had never heard the sentry's challenge above the roar of his engine and the noise of the guns, and had run smack into the barricade. The next thing he remembered was hearing an English voice saying, ‘Gor blimey! The b...... is alive!’ which told him he was, amongst friends. He was pretty badly smashed up and his machine was in little bits.

The next morning, the 2nd, we were off again at 2.20 am – another very hot and dusty march and the air thick with rumours as well as dust. This continued marching in the wrong direction was beginning to get on everybody's nerves, and it was getting increasingly difficult to keep the men cheerful. They could not understand it, and neither could we for that matter. But otherwise they were simply splendid. No one who did not go through that retreat can possibly imagine what it was like. Up and away at dawn, marching all day in a tropical sun and amidst clouds of dust, generally on the terribly rough pavé roads or pushed down into the equally rough and very stony gutter by other columns of troops on the same road, or by Staff cars rushing past and making the dust worse than ever. Never any proper meals, never a wash or a shave, never out of one's clothes, carrying a terrific weight of arms and equipment, and, as regards 2 Brigade, never getting a chance of a shot at the enemy, except that one day at Wassigny to cheer one up a bit.

French cavalry riding past the 1st Cameronians, bivouacked under the cover of a heavily wooded area during a pause in the long march.

An additional difficulty on the road and one very corruptible to the morale of the troop, was the continuous stream of refugees going along the same roads as ourselves. The terrible tragedy of those poor people: hobbling along the road with all their worldly goods piled up, layer on layer, on crazy handcarts, perambulators, wheelbarrows, farm-carts, etc., with usually the old grandfather and grandmother on top of all the goods, and all the rest of the family, women and children that is (as all the younger men were with the forces), trailing along in the dust as best they could. Needless to say, the men insisted on sharing their meagre rations of bully beef and biscuits with them, and often, if they got the chance, took a hand to push along their nondescript vehicles. But it was terrible and it was demoralizing. One felt all the time that they were cursing us – the wonderful British Army that they had greeted so marvellously when we had gone up the line, and which was now in full retreat, compelling them to leave their homes like this, or fall into the hands of the hated Germans. Some of them did curse us too, and spat at us; but the majority plodded painfully on, thankful for any little help we could give them, and apparently oblivious to their future or fate. Nobody knew what happened to them at night, but there they were every day, plodding, plodding, plodding; and the farther south we went the larger grew this other ghastly army – the ‘Refugee Army’.

‘Red tape’ took a hand at this time, too, in what seemed to us the most unnecessary manner. All along these roads of France grew fruit trees, mostly apple, now in full fruit. Naturally all of us, officers and men, picked this fruit as we halted; it was nourishing and refreshing to our dust-parched throats and palates. What possible harm could this have done to anybody but the pursuing Hun? The inhabitants had all left the countryside and anything and everything edible left was food for the enemy. The same applied to food, bread, chocolate, etc., left behind in the shops, the owners of which had fled. Why should we not have been allowed to eke out our rations with them, and why must they be left to feed the enemy? Yet day after day I saw Staff officers riding down the road giving orders for this and that man's name to he taken for ‘stealing fruit’. What utter rot.

Part of the ‘Refugee Army’ retreating along with the Allies before the German invasion. Belgian civilians resting by the roadside.

The same thing applied to the herds of cattle left grazing in the fields, to a certain extent. In one case, some regiment, I forget which, did drive a large herd before them for days, and these were, I believe, eventually sent down by train to the base to be turned into beef for the troops. But I expect they got into trouble for it. If the cattle could not be driven by us, why could they not be shot, instead of being left behind to feed the Germans? I can now tell the powers-that-were-then that the P.B.I. officers and men had many hard things to say about these things and felt this show of useless ‘red tape’ very bitterly.

On this day it was, I think, that the remnant of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Munster Fusiliers, about two officers and seventy-odd other ranks, came through us. They had been cut to pieces that day on the River Oise when C Company had so nearly been cut off themselves at Thenelles. The messengers who were sent to them with orders to retire were killed before getting to them, with the consequence they they never got their orders, were surrounded by the Germans and had to cut their way out, with appalling casualties. This remnant of a fine battalion had to be sent to the base and their place in 1 Brigade was taken by the 1st Battalion the Cameron Highlanders, who had, up to then, been on lines of communication.

We got into bivouac at about 5.30 that evening in a field just north of Meaux, only some twenty-odd miles north of Paris. And, joy of joys, there was a mail in – the first we had had since we left Esqueherries. I had some welcome letters, but none of the cigarettes and tabacco which I was longing for, or of the money which my letters told me had all been sent. I was now down to my last fifteen francs. Our bivouac this night was fairly buzzing with rumours, the chief and most popular being that we had finished foot-slogging for the time being and were to entrain the next morning for Paris, to form part of its defence. The Staff Captain of the Brigade told us he had heard this and believed it was true, which sounded fairly ‘straight from the horse's mouth.’ I thoroughly enjoyed my letters and papers. It was good to hear from the outside world after all this long time. But I missed my cigarettes. However, after some food and a final look through my letters and papers, I was not sorry to turn in and sleep the sleep of the just on the hard ground.

We started the next morning at 4.30 am, but instead of entraining for Paris as we had been led to suppose we were going to go, we marched east to La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, where we took up a position on some hills on the north bank of the river and town. This position had a very good field of fire, but we did not at all fancy it as, if attacked in force, we should have to retire down the hill, through the town and over the one bridge across the River Marne. It was reported that large formations of Germans had been seen marching west to east.

On our march from Meaux to La Ferté we had seen rather a fine sight: the entire 5 Cavalry Brigade (Scots Greys, 12th Lancers and 20th Hussars) riding in open country parallel to and on the left of our line of march. They made a very inspiring sight. They were acting as flank guard to I Corps and had their flanking patrols out to the left front. After we had been on our hilltop above La Ferté for some hours, we had orders to retire and recross the river, which we were very pleased to do. The town of La Ferté seemed full of inhabitants, who gave us fruit and chocolate and who were most anxious to know if the Germans were coming behind us or not. We said not, which seemed to me an awful shame, but it was necessary to prevent a panic and prevent the roads by which the British Army was retiring being completely blocked with still more refugees.

Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion Cameronians, Lieutenant Colonel Robertson (centre), looking for signs of the pursuing Germans. This battalion had been on the lines of communications but were ordered to take the place of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Munster Fusiliers, who had suffered heavy losses during a fighting retreat at Étreux.

British Lancers acting as shepherds during the retreat of the British Expeditionary Force to the Marne.

As we were going through the town, my old friends the 12th Lancers came past, and Jack Eden (who was one of my oldest and best friends at Eton, and the eldest brother of Mr. Anthony Eden; he was killed at Amerika in October 1914) reported that they had been almost into Chateau Thierry and had not seen a German, though the latter town appeared to be in flames. As we marched over the bridge the Sappers were busy preparing their demolition charges, and I, for one, felt very sorry for the inhabitants of La Ferté, who were to be cut off from retreat to the south. We went into billets at a tiny village called Romeny, about one and a half miles south of the river, and shortly after we were settled in we heard the terrific reports of the bridge being blown up.

The next day, the 4th, we paraded at 3 am, but we had – marvel of marvels – a very easy day. We marched across country for a bit and then halted for some time at the junction of our track with the route nationale. At this juncture we had the edifying spectacle of about half a dozen Staff cars with their gilded Staff and their drivers all busy washing. After a while we pushed on, and about four miles farther on we were marched through a gateway on the right of the road, up a long track to a delightful old farmhouse, with a lot of outbuildings and an enormous walled fruit garden. We were told we should be here for the rest of the day, and that officers would have their valises. There was a little rustic stream running through the grounds, and in this we bathed to our joy. Also, to our joy, we got our valises and were able to have a really proper wash and shave (the first for five days), and to put on clean shirts, socks, etc.

The walled garden was full of fruit, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, apples, etc., in perfect eating condition and, the owners having left the farm, we were actually allowed to help ourselves, which we most certainly did. Never had fruit tasted better than that fruit. For the next two hours the garden was full of all ranks fully occupied in picking and eating.

Then everybody lay about in the shade and slept. It was another scorching day and it was most pleasant lying there with nothing to do but laze and watch the aeroplanes, our own and hostile, busy with their reconnoitring.

A village in northern France, with British transport carts clogging the street during the withdrawal to the River Marne.

We did make an early start the next morning, at 2.30 am and marched off in a south-westerly direction. As we turned out of the gate on to the main road we saw eight or ten dead Germans and horses lying on the grass at the side of the road. It appeared that a squad on sentry duty of, I think, either the Black Watch or Cameron Highlanders of 1 Brigade, had heard a cavalry patrol riding towards them on the grass at the side of the road. It was a very dark night and they had let them get close up and then let fly with their machine guns and had also given them fifteen rounds rapid fire with their rifles. They had wiped out the entire mounted patrol.

We marched on through the town of Coulommiers, a biggish place, where the usual hurried departure of the inhabitants was, as always these sad days, taking place. ‘Galway’ Warren, our Transport Officer, managed to buy or ‘win’ – I am not sure which – a hooded two-wheel cart into which ‘Uhlan’ our captured enemy war-horse, was harnessed and which, I believe, he afterwards drew for years. ‘Galway’ had done awfully well with the horses throughout the retreat, and I do not think we lost more than two at the most, if that. He had ‘won’ a good-looking blood chestnut which had strayed to us from some cavalry regiment and which he annexed for himself.

I found I was for night outpost, which did not please me at all, as I was feeling very rotton with the most awful pain in my middle, and also felt very sick. In addition, the village was full of rumours of a likely attack by the Hun that night.

I got my men told off and in position, and, as it happened, we had a very quiet night, with no alarms or excursions whatever, for which I was truly thankful. During the early part of the night, ‘Payker’ came round to see me and told me that Guy Robinson had been to Divisional HQ that evening to get orders for the Brigade, and had been told that the retreat was over and that, on the morrow, we were to advance. Great news!

So ended our Retreat from Mons.