17 September, 1914

GERMAN WHITE FLAG TREACHERY

by Captain E. J. Needham

During the confused fighting on the Aisne, Captain Needham of the Northamptonshire Regiment had the shattering experience of seeing a fellow officer shot down while parleying with Germans who were showing the white flag. Was the outrage deliberate? He answers: ‘We shall never know !’

Thursday, 17 September, was a stormy one for the Northamptonshires, as many more days were to be during the next four years. G Company was in reserve, the three other companies being in the front line. The morning passed fairly quietly except for the usual shelling of the village allotments. But at about 1.30 p.m. the Germans launched an attack on our line in pouring rain and in considerable strength. C Company were ordered up to reinforce the right of the line, and to launch a counter-attack. We fell in quickly and doubled along the terrace to a point where the high bank between us and the front line levelled off, just opposite the right flank of A Company, the flank company of the battalion. Here we turned to the left and advanced, still at the double, in extended order. We reached the road (Chemin des Dames) and lay down there for a few minutes to get our breath. Then ‘Payker’ (Officer Commanding C Company) gave the order to fix bayonets and a few minutes later to charge. Over the low bank we went, Payker shouting ‘Come on, the Cobblers!’ and the men, cheering like hell. I ran as hard and as best I could over the roots, with my drawn sword in one hand and my revolver in the other, stumbling over and cursing the roots and expecting any moment to be tripped up by my sword scabbard. We charged through heavy rifle and machine-gun fire and men were dropping off in every direction.

We got to about thirty yards from the trench which we had passed over on Monday, 14 September and which was now strongly held. Everyone was pretty well blown, and I was thankful when I saw the whole line to my right throwing themselves down flat. I shouted out ‘Down!’ to my men, and suited my action to the word; in any case, nobody could have heard me over the appalling din.

We lay where we were for some considerable time, keeping up a steady fire at the trench ahead of us. We were being well sprinkled with shrapnel all this time, and again, owing to the rain and misty conditions, were getting practically no artillery support from our guns. I remember vividly a man immediately behind me letting off his rifle in my right ear and deafening me for a long time. He must have just missed blowing my head off. Now it was, and for the next hour or so, that I found how very difficult it was to command one’s men under active service conditions. To control fire with an extended firing line was absolutely impossible. I shouted until I was hoarse and just could not make myself heard above the firing.

The line was now at a standstill and looked like remaining so; the only thing to do appeared to be to keep up our fire and take what cover we could in the tree roots. After what seemed hours, I saw young Gordon (a fellow subaltern) crawling along on his tummy towards me from the right flank of the company; he eventually reached me and told me that poor, dear old Payker had been killed leading the charge and that I was in command of the company and also of the company of the 60th Rifles [King's Royal Rifle Corps] on our right, all of whose officers had been either killed or wounded.

I was horrified to hear of Parker’s [‘Payker’] death and also at my position. Gordon and I lay down together for some time debating as to what on earth we should do. We decided to try to get the line organized and rush at the trench. We passed messages down to each flank to tell everyone to be prepared to renew the charge when we blew our whistles and started.

But when we did blow them as loud and long as we could, and started forward with the men next to us, who had got the message correctly, the hostile fire broke out again stronger than ever; and as the rest of the line had not budged an inch, down we had to go again. We could see a group of people back in the road in the direction from which we had come, and I asked for a volunteer to take a message back to the Commanding Officer. A man next to me volunteered and I wrote out a message in my field-service notebook to say that Parker had been killed, that I understood all officers of the 60th were casualties, and that we were held up; and asked for orders. The man crawled off, and presently we saw him running down the hill to the road. After about ten minutes he came back with a written message for me telling me to hold on till further orders and to keep up my fire as much as possible. This we continued to do for another hour or so.

Then suddenly I heard the men shouting, ‘They're surrendering!’ and, looking up, I saw a line of white flags (or rather white handkerchiefs or something of the kind tied to the muzzles of rifles) held up all along the German trench from in front of us rignt away to the left. I shouted out to the men to cease fire and stop where they were.

After a few minutes I saw a large number of Germans, two or three hundred at least, moving forward from their trench towards A Company on the road, some with their rifles, but many with white flags tied to them, and many with their hands up. They got down to A Company’s trench and stood there for some time apparently conversing. All this time the white flags in front of us continued up and many Germans were standing with their hands raised.

British soldiers setting up a machine gun position.

All of a sudden a burst of heavy firing broke out down by A Company’s trench and we saw the Germans and our men engaged in a hand-to-hand fight. Still the white flags in front of us remained up. Just as Gordon and myself had decided to reopen fire and to chance whether we were right or wrong, I saw Captain J. A. Savage, of D Company, and Lieutenant J. H. S. Dimmer, of the 60th, walk through the left of C Company and on up to the German trench in front of us. Apparently they could speak German. Anyway, they stayed there talking for about five minutes and then started to walk back to us, the white flags still being up.

To our horror, after they had got about halfway to us, the Germans opened fire on them, and we saw Savage pitch forward dead, shot in the back.

Dimmer threw himself down and started to crawl back to us, eventually reaching our line all right. (Dimmer won the Victoria Cross later in the war, and was eventually killed in March 1918.)

During all this white-flag episode, Gordon and I had been kneeling up, trying to make out what was going on, and were still doing so when the guns opened fire on Savage and Dimmer. Gordon, who was not a foot away from me, suddenly pitched forward on his face and yelled out, ‘Oh, my God, I'm hit!’ He writhed about on the ground in agony, and I tried to keep him quiet, while at the same time trying to watch Dimmer and what was going on down the line. He assured me again and again that he was shot through the stomach and that he was going to die. Poor devil; it was hell, not being able to do anything for him and to see him in such agony. I could only try to reassure him. The scrap down by A Company was still going on, and by now we also were firing at the Germans opposite as hard as we could, having reopened fire as soon as Dimmer got back safely to us.

Then, to our joy, we heard the tap-tap of a machine-gun behind us, and saw a machine-gun detachment (that of the 1st Queen’s, as we afterwards learned) fairly lacing into the Germans in front of A Company, who started to bolt back into their own trench, Very few got back, however, those who were not mown down by the machine-gun fire (firing at about 150 yards' range) being finished off by the infuriated remnants (about seventy men) of A Company.

We redoubled our own fire and about a quarter of an hour later up went the white flag again in front of us, to which we paid no attention whatsoever.

Young Gordon's batman had volunteered to go back and get some stretcher-bearers up and presently these arrived and we got poor Gordon on to the stretcher. He made me promise to see that his sword was sent back to his family, and his batman took it. They carried him off, and I never saw him again. Poor boy he died at the casualty clearing station the next day, as he said he was going to, having suffered terribly, and was buried there. A typical cheery, plucky boy, straight from Sandhurst, gazetted only that January, to whom everybody had taken a great liking and whom I had particularly warmed to.

TRENCH FULL OF DEAD

By now all firing from the German trench had stopped, though intermittent shrapnel still continued and it was getting pretty dark. Dimmer, who had taken over command of the company of the 60th, and who was senior to me, now passed word along to advance, take the trench and any Germans still in it.

Men of a Scottish regiment are holding a trench as yet little more than knee deep.

Accordingly we advanced and found the trench full of dead and dying Germans. Three or four badly wounded men got up and put their hands up. I went up to them and, pointing my revolver at them, signalled to them to go down towards the road. They shambled off quickly enough, and I sent some men down with them. We then, with the men of the 60th, proceeded to fill in the German trench, burying the dead, all of us furious and embittered at having seen Savage and Gordon killed under the white flag like that. Having finished this unpleasant job, we got orders to retire to the road, which we proceeded to do. On arriving there we found the Colonel, Major Norman and Guy Robinson. Guy came up to me and said, ‘You poor old devil! You must have had the hell of a time of it out there, but you did well.’

This kind greeting cheered me up no end, as I was feeling just about all in, being wet through to the skin, chilled to the bone and nerve-racked, after having one of my very best friends in Parker killed; in having poor young Gordon practically killed beside me, and in seeing poor old Savage butchered in that foul style. Also the whole show had been such an awful muddle and I was terrified of having done the wrong thing. I shall never forget that afternoon till my dying day, the horror and uncertainty of it.

British infantry prepared to repel an attack.

I can remember quite clearly today every incident connected with it, and I always shall: the white-flag incident, as I have related it, is as I saw it and can see it now. To this day it is a mystery to me. Did the Germans really mean to surrender, but on getting down to A Company to do so and finding so few men there, changed their minds and tried to reverse the proceedings and take them prisoner? Or was the whole thing a put-up job? We shall never know.

I give also hereafter the version of Second Lieutentant L. H. B. Burlton, who commanded the detachment of A Company concerned, as given in the Regimental War History, which fully bears out the appalling muddle that ensued:

‘To our outstanding joy, we saw the enemy in front of us making signs of surrender by putting their hands up. Their fire stopped, and I ordered my men to do likewise. I stood up on the parapet and called for an officer to meet me. An individual, I think a private, who spoke English, responded to the call, and I went out some forty yards ahead of my trench to make the necessary arrangements. On finding out that he was not an officer, I ordered him to return and tell his officer to replace him, A sergeant or under-officer next turned up, but was also returned as ‘not wanted’, after which an officer did materialize. He appeared to find great difficulty in understanding me. I agreed to accept surrender, but, as a preliminary thereto, naturally ordered him to make his men lay down their arms. Our conversation took place half-way between the opposing trenches, and, to my annoyance, I saw a large number of the enemy detach from their trenches before my arrangements were completed. Most of them had their rifles, but many had not and many had their hands up. I tried to make the Boche officer understand that I would order my men to fire if his men continued to advance with their arms. All this time the enemy continued to advance and the officer appeared quite willing to surrender but unable to grasp my idea of his men putting their rifles down as a preliminary. I found myself being surrounded by the advancing Germans, and as there was no officer in our trench (Second-Lieutenant Jarvis was in a state of concussion and non-effective), I could not afford to remain out in No Man’s Land, which was rapidly being overwhelmed by the advancing Huns. I was, at the time, quite sure of their bona fidos as to surrender, and did not want to open fire for two reasons. (I do not know how far I calculated these reasons at the time, but their validity was certainly in my mind.)

‘Firstly, I thought it was a bona fides surrender, as many of the enemy came without arms and with their hands up; and, to make that illusion complete, some of them who were armed handed their rifles over to some of our Tommies who had come out to meet them on their own. It would have been a dirty business to have opened fire on men who were advancing still carrying their arms because they did not understand English.

‘Secondly, I had a message, delivered verbally to me by one of my men from the General, not to fire.

‘I remember that message most distinctly: its incongruity did not strike me at the time and I thought it a genuine one. It came down from the right of our line from a quarter in front of which the enemy had also put up their hands. By this time I was back on the top of my trench with the Boche officers and the under-officer. The Huns, about four hundred strong, already amongst us, and in many cases surrendering their arms to Thomas Atkins and being warmly shaken by the hand. This situation however, passed very quickly, for a German quite, close to me shot one of my men dead, and the officer on my saying that if he did not order an immediate cessation of fire I would order mine to open fire, informed me I was his prisoner. We then all got to in earnest, so to speak, and at point-blank range, of course, no accuracy of shooting was necessary – the men used their butts and bayonets lustily. We were, however, far out-numbered, being but some seventy-odd against, I believe, four hundred. Then the most wonderful thing happened.

‘The Queen's (I think) on our right, seeing we were in trouble, and seeing that the Boches were, for the most part, standing on our parapet and firing down on us in the road, turned on their machine gun, and the spectacle was one never to be forgotten. They fairly enfiladed the Huns on our parapet and the execution can only be compared to that of a harvesting machine as it mows down wheat. A regular lane was cut – those Boches on their side of the lane (perhaps some hundred strong) made their best pace back to their trenches: those on our side of the lane threw down arms and surrendered; but we declined their offer, and, in fact, I think only kept one prisoner – a souvenir no doubt!’

Germans infantry crossing open ground.