Author’s Note

The basic formation of the British Army in the Great War began – as it still does today – with the infantry platoon. Commanded usually by a second lieutenant or lieutenant and assisted by a platoon sergeant it was divided into four sections each commanded by a corporal or lance corporal. There were generally four platoons in a company, all of which answered to a company commander. In 1918 it was not unusual for companies to be commanded by senior lieutenants. Four companies and a headquarters company made up an infantry battalion, commanded by a major or lieutenant colonel. Within the headquarters company was the second-in-command, the battalion adjutant – the commanding officer’s right-hand man – the regimental sergeant major and the battalion quartermaster. Usually the battalion medical officer was part of this group. The average strength of a battalion in 1914 was approximately 900 officers and men, by March 1918 a large proportion of battalions in the front line had been reduced to more or less 550 officers and men.

The next unit of command after the battalion was the infantry brigade, initially made up of four battalions but reduced to three in February 1918 and commanded by a brigadier general. A division consisted of at least three brigades and was under the command of a major general. Beyond that, divisions were organized into corps which were usually commanded by lieutenant generals and grouped together to form armies. The Fifth Army was one such formation. On the Western Front in March 1918 there were five British and Commonwealth army groups present along the front line, all under the direction of Sir Douglas Haig, the Commander-in-Chief.

When describing the locations of units I have occasionally referred to modern day road numbering in order to give the reader using current maps of the area a more precise location. While some of the abbreviations in the text are self explanatory others require explanation. I have used a form of abbreviation when describing battalion formations, thus after its first mention in the text the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers becomes 2/Munsters or more simply the Munsters. Similarly infantry brigades are denoted by cardinal numbers, the 25th Infantry Brigade becoming 25 Brigade. So as not to cause confusion between a brigade of infantry and one of artillery I have simply added the word artillery.

German Army units are a little more complex. Within the infantry regiment there were three battalions – each approximately the size of a British battalion – and a machine gun-company. Each battalion was denoted by a Roman numeral and occasionally adopted the name of its commanding officer, where this appears in German accounts the battalion’s name is identified in brackets. The four companies of riflemen were given an Arabic numeral, for example, 3 Kompanie – and the machine-gun company was numbered separately, adopting the battalion number. Again, I have abbreviated when describing these units, thus Infantry Regiment 31 becomes IR 31 while the second battalion within that regiment is abbreviated to II/IR 31. Within this description there are a number of other variations that appear in the text:

FAR		Field Artillery Regiment
GR		Grenadier Regiment
RIR		Reserve Infantry Regiment
ID		Infantry Division

Equivalent German and British ranks referred to in the text are as follows:

Colonel		Oberst
Lieutenant Colonel		Oberstleutnant
Major		Major
Captain		Hauptmann
Lieutenant		Oberleutnant
Second Lieutenant		Leutnant
Corporal		Unteroffizier
Lance Corporal		Gefreiter
Private		Grenadier/Jäger/Musketier/Artillerist/Kanoniere