Chapter 4

It’s Difficult to Kill the Blighters

I had many long conversations with the German doctors who stated that they were receiving three times the number of wounded which they had been ordered to prepare for and that the men coming back from the front were generally of the opinion that the casualties were much too heavy to allow the advance to succeed.

Lieutenant Colonel John Crosthwaite – writing in 1931.

The 18th Division held the centre of III Corps with the 58th Division on its right and the 14th Division on the left. The division held another extremely long front line running from Lock Post on the canal north of Travecy for over five miles to Alaincourt, a small village less than a mile north of Moÿ-de-l’Aisne. The sector was separated from the German lines by the Oise Canal which flowed through the marshy Oise valley – in places over one mile wide – between the roads that flanked the valley on either side. The Oise marshes in this area had also suffered from the dry weather and no longer constituted an obstacle, indeed as early as January 1918 Paul Maze noted that they were now ‘passable for infantry’. The 18th Division arrived at this ‘peaceful’ stretch of front line in February after a seven month tour of duty in the Ypres Salient; the contrast between the muddy morass of the Houthulst Forest and their new location was reflected in the distinct lack of casualties, Paul Maze remarking that any that did occur ‘were mostly due to the persistence of the men in fishing in the River Oise’.

But the preparations for defensive positions were paramount and having inherited such a long sector of front line Major General Lee had little alternative but to maintain two full brigades in the Forward and Battle Zones and keep one in reserve. While he was able to some extent to utilize the former French positions, a great deal of work remained to be done if the division was to hold an attacking force in the Battle Zone. Thus on 20 March 1918 when the order to ‘prepare for attack’ was passed down to all units, Brigadier General Harold Higginson’s 53 Brigade held the northern sector and 55 Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Edward Wood, held the southern sector which included the old Vauban fort at Vendeuil. In reserve was 55 Brigade which, at the moment the bombardment commenced, were at Caillouel and Rouez with brigade headquarters located in the small village of Faillouel, just west of the Crozat Canal. Two brigades of artillery were deployed in support of the units in the front line, 83 Brigade in the north and 82 Brigade in the south.

The German bombardment drenched the whole divisional area back to the Crozat Canal in high explosive and gas, a bombardment the divisional historian noted dryly, which had three distinct objectives:

‘For the first two hours their gunners were searching for our guns; next, their objective was to bombard our infantry positions with gas and high explosive; afterwards hundreds of mortars assisted in a culminating crescendo of shelling that acted as an escort to the advancing German infantry and continued to ravage our positions and road approaches.’¹

Captain George Nichols, the 82 Artillery Brigade Adjutant, was asleep in the headquarters dugout when the first shells woke him:

‘ A rolling boom, the scream of approaching shells, and regular cracking bursts to right and left woke me up. Now and again one heard the swish and the plop of gas shells. A hostile bombardment without a doubt. I looked at my watch – 4.33am.’²

The order to man ‘Battle Stations’ went out at 5.12am but by this time all lines between Higginson’s headquarters and his three 53 Brigade battalions were cut by hostile shell-fire as were those to the 83 Brigade artillery batteries. In the Forward Zone the 7th Battalion Queen’s Own Royal West Kents (7/RWK) and the 8th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment (8/Berks) were holding a series of small redoubts with the 10th Battalion Essex Regiment (10/Essex) in the Battle Zone at Caponne Farm and Ly-Fontaine. The first indication that the Germans had crossed the canal under cover of the fog was from 55 Brigade which reported Lock Post had been overwhelmed; frustratingly Higginson had little idea as to what was taking place in his Forward Zone although from the noise of battle which emanated from the thick mist, it was clear his units were being heavily engaged.

The same difficulty that plagued Higginson was also causing Lieutenant Colonel Robert Dewing similar problems in that he had completely lost contact between his headquarters at La Guingette Farm and the forward companies of the 8/Berks. Robert Dewing was the son of a Suffolk vicar who had been commissioned into the RE in 1909. His capacity for leadership was recognised in 1916 when he was awarded the DSO for his dogged determination in ‘sticking to his post all day’. Arriving in his present position in July 1917, the 30-year-old Dewing brought a dynamic and determined style of command to the Royal Berkshires, a style which he was about to demonstrate once again.

Some indication of the seriousness of the German attack arrived in the form of a wounded Lieutenant Thomas Baker with the news that D Company at Magpie Wood had been all but wiped-out and Lieutenant Walter Hannay was holding on with the remnants in the sunken road on the right flank, but of the nearby B Company and Captain John Footman there was no news. Baker was the only officer in the immediate front line to escape. By 10.30am groups of German infantry from III/IR 32 were seen moving along the St Quentin to Moÿ road heading towards battalion headquarters and Dewing ordered C Company to hold the trench line immediately behind the farm. Lieutenant John Randall commanded 9 Platoon:

‘The Bosche seemed very reluctant to advance from the main road at this stage and we could hear his officers and NCOs shouting loudly and obviously trying to reorganise. Had we had sufficient men at that moment I believe we could have re-established our front line … In the meanwhile we were putting an unceasing hail of bullets across the road and it must have been a very unhealthy spot. It was still impossible to see for more than fifty yards and we eventually saw a few German scouts loom out of the mist. These were promptly killed.’³

Undeterred, the main body of German infantry from IR 147 attempted to rush the company line, a tactic which failed in the face of the Berkshire Lewis gunners who ‘rolled ’em up in heaps’. But they were well aware that they were now isolated and enemy units had advanced well beyond their flanks and judging from the direction of the most recent attack, had now got in behind the redoubt. John Randall again:

‘The next move of our attackers was to send men to crawl forward into shell holes as near as possible to us. These were obviously picked shots and, making good use of cover, they were difficult to spot. The result was that we began to lose men rapidly. In every case they were sniped through the head. It was at this stage that we lost[Second Lieutenant John] Gordon who was using a rifle with good effect.[Lieutenant Norman] Williams was also killed by a sniper’s bullet. This officer observed one of the Huns who had crawled forward and was about to shoot him with his revolver when the man put his hands up. Williams went out on top to bring him in, pushed him down into the trench and was getting ready to jump in himself when he was shot from another direction. Captain Fenner[Captain Harold Fenner, commanding C Company] was also shot in the head but fortunately it was not fatal in this instance and he was eventually officially reported as ‘wounded and prisoner’. It was quite impossible to get any away who were severely wounded. The Germans co-operated with their snipers by sending forward a large bombing party which secured a footing in the left flank of the redoubt and also by worrying us with enfilading fire from a light machine gun.’⁴

With the attacking infantry continually being reinforced Dewing realized the position was untenable and at 1.30pm ordered the company to retire down Seine Alley, the narrow communication trench that ran for two miles back to the Battle Zone at Ly-Fontaine. Lieutenant Randall was with them:

‘This meant moving in single file and we had not proceeded many yards before we encountered another large bombing party who had evidently been posted to cut off our retreat and to try to force us out of the trench. Some of them were actually in the trench and others lining either side.[Lieutenant Stanley] Harvey, the works officer, was leading the retirement at the time and he showed wonderful pluck in dashing straight at this party and shooting the first one he met at point blank range. Unfortunately he was shot by another of the enemy at almost the same second and we also had the misfortune to see Major[Douglas] Tosetti meet his end in the same way. This was indeed a blow for this gallant gentleman was a great favourite with all ranks and greatly beloved by his fellow officers. Those following took up the fight with such vigour that the remainder of this Bosche party took to their heels and we carried on at top speed towards the battle zone. The mist was now lifting rapidly and, on glancing back, we could see hordes of Bosche passing over our old positions. Messages were being continually passed up from the rear for us to ‘double up in front’. We were moving as quickly as possible, but doubtless the presence of large numbers of the enemy, almost on the heels of those behind, literally gave them wings.’⁵

Dewing had got his men back but the cost had been a heavy. From a rifle strength of 24 officers and 773 other ranks on the morning of 21 March, only 5 officers and approximately 182 men were left standing at roll call.

A similar story was being unfurled along the 7/RWK sector to the south of La Guinguette Farm. At 10.30am A and C Companies had been completely surrounded and no word had been received at battalion HQ where B Company and Lieutenant Colonel John Crosthwaite’s headquarters was sited at Durham Post. It was not until 11.00am that a runner from Durham Post finally reached Higginson at Brigade Headquarters with an urgent request for an artillery barrage to be put down on the St Quentin road (the modern day N22).

‘Holding out at 12.30 pm. Bosche all around within 50 yards except rear. Can only see 40 yards so it’s difficult to kill the blighters.’ Signed J D Crosthwaite.⁶

26-year-old Lieutenant Colonel John Crosthwaite joined the 1st Battalion City of London Regiment in 1914 and rose rapidly through the ranks of the Londons to the command of the 8th Battalion Norfolk Regiment, a unit he joined on 22 November 1917. It was to be a short tenure of command as the battalion was one of those that fell to the axe barely three months later, the officers and men being redistributed within 53 Brigade. John Crosthwaite, already the holder of the Military Cross and bar, was moved to the command of 7/RWK, taking over from Charles Cinnamond on 19 March. It was to be another brief period of command.

Crosthwaite’s request for artillery support was immediately responded to by the 82 Artillery Brigade guns:

‘ [My] message calling for artillery barrage sent by runner was replied to very effectively by heavy guns and although the actual position of the enemy could not be seen, the flashes and the bursts could be seen through the fog and indicated they were just about on the line where they had been called for.’⁷

Situated to the west of the main St Quentin road, Durham Post was a little under a mile south of Dewing’s battalion HQ at La Guinguette Farm. When the opening bombardment began Crosthwaite kept his men below ground, noting that ‘the gas-proof curtains to the dugouts were quite efficient’ and although much of the ground level fortifications were badly damaged he reported no casualties. It was a different story in the battalion outpost further east. Apart from a few wounded very few of the men of A and C Companies got back to the Battle Zone. At 8.00am the outpost platoon of C Company, positioned on the canal line, was ordered back to company headquarters which held a fortified redoubt on the western edge of Moÿ. Fighting hard to fend off the swarms of German infantry they found the company post practically surrounded which, by 11.00am, was being attacked on two sides. Ordering a break-out Captain Watts and the C Company survivors managed to reach Durham Post which was more that Lieutenant Edgar Thomas’ platoon at Le Vert Chasseur Farm managed. Thomas was wounded early in the day but his platoon sergeant took command and held the enemy at bay until the Lewis gun had been disabled and he was killed. Three survivors got away.

Despite the advanced companies being knocked out, Durham Post was still relatively intact. As soon as the shelling died down Crosthwaite made a personal reconnaissance across the St Quentin road and found no sign of enemy movement:

‘Runners were sent back as every form of communication was broken, but apparently they did not get through as the Brigade Major arrived at about half past six having been hit on the way up and reported that no news had got back to Brigade. Runners were the only means of communication as visibility was not more than 50 yards and pigeons when released appeared to merely flutter and stop again. I think they were probably gassed.’⁸

Sergeant Fred Hubble, the signalling sergeant, repeatedly went out under shellfire to try and contact the forward posts laying new telephone lines right up to the canal posts. On his last foray he came up against advancing German infantry forcing him to make a wide detour in the fog, only regaining friendly lines later that day. Back at ‘Durham’ Crosthwaite’s men were first attacked soon after 10.00am when German infantry almost fell over the wire in front of the Post. ‘An attack was made on our right front but the Germans seemed to come up against our wire without seeing it in fairly close formation and naturally everyone was shot down on the wire.’ The next attack was made from the sunken road which ran forward from the post. Using the fog as cover Crosthwaite’s adjutant, Captain Harold Rapson, and a Lewis gun team got outside the wire and brought their fire down on the German infantry in the road, Crosthwaite noting that, ‘the next day there were about 50 Germans lying dead in an area of 20 yards under the bank’. Rapson was badly wounded during this action and died of his wounds two days later.⁹

But Durham continued to hold out, the 82 Artillery Brigade barrage helped somewhat but the post was now completely surrounded and any thoughts of breaking out had long gone. A lesser man would have surrendered his garrison, but as Crosthwaite pointed out:

‘Visibility was always sufficient to control our wire and at no point did the enemy ever penetrate. Machine gun fire was very heavy and there were a considerable number of casualties without our having any really effective target to fire on, About half past twelve we saw some of the Royal Berks pass on our left retiring but decided that we had better hold our positions at least until nightfall.’ ¹⁰

The fog began to lift around midday enabling the attacking force to bring a more accurate fire onto the beleaguered post and soon after 4.30pm Crosthwaite was hit, a wound that rendered him unconscious until the next morning. It is unclear at exactly what time the post surrendered but from Crosthwaite’s own account of the action it would appear that it was later that evening or early the next morning although as he says himself, ‘I am afraid I heard nothing as to the details of the surrender.’

With the West Kents and Royal Berkshires now virtually wiped out, the 10/ Essex were holding fast at Caponne and Moulin Farms in the Battle Zone, ably supported by the guns of C and D Batteries of 83 Artillery Brigade. Commanding C Battery (C/83) was 27-year-old Captain Leslie Haybittel whose guns were in position near Caponne Farm. C/83 had been in action since dawn firing on fixed targets behind the German line but with the fog obscuring the surrounding area Haybittel had no confirmation that his battery was even on target, although by 11.15am the fog had lifted sufficiently for the battery to see the dim outlines of the advancing German infantry heading in their direction. Gunner Walter Lugg had his first sight of the enemy through a telescope:

‘We had this chap Charlie Drake [who] had very good eyesight, marvellous eyesight, and he was looking over, and all of a sudden he shouted to our captain, who by this time was standing on top of the gun-pit, because we’d pulled our guns into the open, and he shouted to him, ‘here they are! Hoards of them!’ So I looked through my telescope sight and all of a sudden I saw the blooming Germans three hundred yards away from us. Well, we didn’t have to be told! We started letting fly at them, firing at short range … point blank over open sights.’¹¹

Firing at such short range had a devastating effect on advancing infantry and Gunner Lugg’s rather loose assessment of exactly how many were advancing towards them was lost in a frenzy of firing:

‘There were 365 of these shrapnel bullets in one shell, and of course they splayed out all over the place. You fire at them and you can see them duck. Well, we kept firing and firing … We fired no end of shells that day – hundreds, literally hundreds. We did a lot of damage, and we definitely slowed them down, but they were still getting nearer and nearer.’¹²

They were in fact getting so close that the two forward guns of C/83 had to be abandoned, a task easier said than done when enemy infantry are intent on taking the guns. Haybittel’s primary task was to disable the guns, a process which involved removing the breech-block and sights before the enemy infantry could rush the gun-pits:

‘The chaps who weren’t handling the guns lay out with rifles to hold the Jerries off when we stopped firing. I was handling one of the guns, so I had to help get the breech-block out, take the No.7 sights away. Most of us managed to get back alright … Captain Haybittel didn’t go until nearly the end, because he wanted to see everyone away. We all got away except Lieutenant Patterson and three other chaps. They were on the other gun and possibly had a bit more of a struggle with their breech-block.’¹³

Pushed back into the gun-pits of the two remaining guns Haybittel realised that it was only a matter of time before they would be again overwhelmed and deployed his gunners around the perimeter with their rifles to delay their attackers. One of these men was 29-year-old Gunner Charles Stone:

‘It wasn’t long before the Jerries started advancing on the left of us, so we had to go back again. That’s where Charlie Stone came into his own. He was a great chap, a marvellous chap, and a great friend of mine. The Germans weren’t just walking towards us, you know. No! They had machine guns as they came forward. So, while we were trying to get back, old Charlie Stone lay out there, right out in front, no more than a hundred yards from the Germans, and he shot them down like a marksman.’¹⁴

Walter Lugg’s account is corroborated by the divisional historian who described Stone’s action as daring and gallant:

‘He took up a position on the right flank of the two guns, and entirely unsupported, held the enemy at bay, though again and again they tried to outflank Captain Haybittel’s party. Some of them managed at last to break through. Gunner Stone, regardless of the machine gun fire charged at these Germans and single-handed killed them one by one.’¹⁵

At 8.00pm the rear section of guns had fired over 1,800 rounds and one gun was permanently jammed. Haybittel’s little band of gunners was now surrounded but incredibly he still managed to get away leaving Lieutenant Jackson and six men to cover the withdrawal, one of which was Gunner Stone. Faced with a determined enemy the gunners still managed to capture a machine gun and its team of four who were firing on the position from the rear, the irrepressible Charlie Stone chasing one reluctant German for some hundred yards before eventually taking him captive. Farndale describes their action as a ‘unique and rare case of a battery acting as its own infantry and then conducting a withdrawal through an encircling enemy’.¹⁶ Stone’s subsequent award of the Victoria Cross was well deserved as was the DSO awarded to Leslie Haybittel.

* * *

Commanding the 7th Battalion Royal East Kent Regiment (7/East Kents) was Lieutenant Colonel Algernon Ransome, a regular officer who was commissioned into the Dorsetshire Regiment in December 1903. With 28 being the average age of battalion commanders in 1918, Ransome was considered to be quite an ‘elderly’ commanding officer at 35-years-old. Not a man to be held back, his early potential was addressed by his appointment to battalion adjutant, promotion to captain followed in 1910. By June 1915 he was a major and a little over a year later he had been awarded the Military Cross and was in command of the East Kents. Ransome was typical of his generation of professional army officers, brave, determined and ‘quite willing and able to take a rifle and do a bit of stabbing himself ’. Needless to say the officers and men of the 7/East Kents loved him.

On March 21 his battalion was in the 55 Brigade Forward Zone. With a frontage of 5,500 yards – running from south of Le Vert Chasseur to Lock Post, north of Travecy – it was little wonder that many in the battalion felt they were being asked to cover far too much ground with 550 officers and men. Battalion Headquarters was at Clarence Keep which was built into the side of a quarry on the D421, a position from which the great bulk of Fort Vendeuil was visible some 1,300 yards to the east along the same road. The fort was garrisoned by a mixed detachment under the command of Captain Harry Fine. Apart from the

A Company outposts – Station, Cottage and Tea Garden Posts – dug into the easterly ruins of Vendeuil village, the remaining companies of the battalion were mainly deployed in Cork and Country Redoubts on the high ground west of Vendeuil.

The ancient Fort Vendeuil had been upgraded in the late nineteenth century into the defensive system designed by French military engineer Séré de Rivières to protect the French borders with a series of defensive forts able to defend each other with their crossfire. That system was superseded long before it was completed and although the fort was disarmed in 1903 it was another nine years before it was finally decommissioned having never seen action. By 1918 Fort Vendeuil – initially designed to defend the St Quentin road and the river crossings to the east – was well and truly obsolete. Its ruins, along with those of the nearby forts of Liez and Mayot are still visible today, although all three are on private property. Now Fort Vendeuil would finally have its day and become the scene of a dogged defensive duel. Harry Fine’s garrison at Vendeuil had been cobbled together with an assortment of troops:

‘The garrison in Vendeuil Fort consisted of a platoon of the support company of the 7th Buffs, a section of Royal Engineers, 2 mortar sections, and 2 motley platoons (formed by order of Divisional HQ) which in peaceful times were employed as unskilled labourers by the REs. These consisted of men – let us be kind – who were not born soldiers. Some were old. Some were bad marchers. Some were not too bright or not too strong, or regularly in trouble. But whatever trouble they may have caused their own officers in the past, it was nothing compared to the chaos they caused the German columns trying to push down the roads nearby.’¹⁷

The fort was constructed with a deep moat running around its perimeter and typically thick outer walls; the main entrance with its drawbridge was located at the end of a causeway which was overlooked by the high ramparts. In normal circumstances Vendeuil village and the Oise crossings could be kept under continual observation from the ramparts. Fine was also able to keep in touch with the neighbouring Pound Post east of Poplar Wood as well as Colonel Ransome at Clarence Keep.

The early morning fog would not have come as a surprise to the British. For the past week the nights had been cold and the mornings blanketed in a thick fog rising from the river and its associated marshes and according to the defending units of 55 Brigade, greatly assisted the German attack. Enemy activity along the 55 Brigade Forward Zone quickly pierced the forward platoon posts and the survivors soon began trickling back to the security of the Fort with tales of being overwhelmed from all sides by attacking German infantry. But it had not been an easy task: the two German battalions of IR 32 reported the capturing of ‘the long-stretched village of Vendeuil’ in the dense fog to be a ‘ghostly’ experience, one which was made considerably more difficult by the British infantry machine-gun posts that continually held up their attack. It was, wrote Karl Goes, ‘like chopping off the heads of a Hydra. Everywhere the British hold out to the end until the last rifle is silenced. The Musketiere to fight for every ruin, every dug-out and nest, every hollow-way and copse.’¹⁸

At 12.30pm before the fog began to lift it became apparent that the advancing German infantry had already pierced the main defensive line and had got as far as Ronquenet Wood where the forward Guns of C Battery, 82 Artillery Brigade (C/82), were firing. From all accounts the fight was over almost before it had started, the battery commander was wounded and only a handful escaped to report to Lieutenant Colonel Austin Thorpe commanding the brigade. The battery had been under continual shell fire most of the morning and as Captain George Nichols observed:

‘The Huns seemed to know their position, and had put over a regular fusillade of 4.2s and 5.9s and gas shells. The duck-board running outside the dugouts behind the guns had six direct hits, and two of the dug-outs were blown in, also No.2 gun had its off wheel smashed by a splinter with two men rather badly wounded.’¹⁹

The dense fog was not helping the 60-pounder guns of 138/Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery either. Dug in at the crossroads south of Remigny the battery commander, Major Harold Paris was firing blind and despite having placed Lieutenant Martin Annesley in the fort at Vendeuil to act as his forward observation officer, all communication had ceased. The fuller phone line had obviously been cut by shellfire which was confirmed by a runner from the fort who arrived at Paris’s Headsquarters at 10.30am with a note from Annesley to that effect. The next time Harold Paris saw Annesley was when he arrived in a very dishevelled state with an account of his capture and escape:

‘About 10 a.m. finding all communication had gone beyond hope of repair and that the enemy were reported to be in the village of Vendeuil, he [Lieutenant Annesley] determined to get out of the fort and find out what he could and rejoin the battery. No sooner had he got outside the fort with the two telephonists, than he found a party of 200 to 300 Germans all round him and was forced to be taken prisoner … They removed all his equipment and took him along with them as they advanced towards Fort Liez. They were eventually held up by machine gun fire and a firing line was formed for attack. The prisoners (about 16 in number) were left behind in a dug-out of a captured battery position with a guard of a sergeant and two men.’²⁰

From Annesley’s account it would appear that he had been taken prisoner and taken to the captured dug-outs of C/82, he was then escorted towards the German lines with some of the battery gunners. The party then came under fire – it is not clear from which side but in the fog it could have been British or German – and in the ensuing melee Martin Annesley and three others escaped.

‘Lieutenant Annesley, who was one of the four, had a particularly unpleasant time, running back towards our lines being sniped at by both sides. However, by crawling along trenches and making dashes from front to front, he managed to get back to a field battery [possibly A/82 or B/82] and from there back to his own battery.’²¹

About midday, the fog lifted sufficiently for the British gunners to see Fort Vendeuil and turn their guns on an enemy who were now visible. At 12.10pm Harry Fine spoke to Ransome at Clarence Keep for the last time before communication was cut, on this occasion he informed his commanding officer that Vendeuil village was now in German hands. But for Fine and his garrison the situation did not really develop until the middle of the afternoon when a large body of German infantry attempted to storm the fort from the south. Rifle and machine-gun fire from the ramparts and the 82 Artillery Brigade guns of A and B Batteries firing over open sights were persuasive enough to temporarily deter the units of IR 71 from further attack, but this was only the preliminary engagement. Clarence Keep was now under attack and appeared to Ransome to be almost surrounded, a situation which became more critical when German aircraft began to direct artillery fire onto the British positions. As far as the German infantry were concerned the fort remained a thorny problem and was succeeding in delaying the advance:

‘But the news is bad: Fort Vendeuil has not been taken so far! In front of it II Battalion (Hauptmann von Gilsa) and parts of IR 71 (Oberstleutnant von Kornatzki) lie on the ground, waiting for the Feldartillerie to weaken the fortress in preparation for the attack. So far Fort Vendeuil remains a formidable wave-breaker. IR 71 is mixed up with parts of IR 32, IR 116 and IR 147 by now, only Leutnant Siems has managed to keep his 12th Kompanie and following the fire barrage towards the fort. Lots of scattered men join the small force until finally the outer rim of the Fort comes into sight. At the right-hand corner of the Fort a group of English have to be dealt with. A young officer of IR 32 mistakenly reports the fort already taken. Thus the men advance leaving the Fort to their left! Several English try to flee the batteries of the Fort.’²²

The fleeing men noted in the German account may well have been the party led by Lieutenant Annesley who would have delighted in the fact that the 82 Brigade bombardment was now being directed at the German infantry. The two 82 Brigade batteries, dug in along the Vendeuil-Remigny road, continued to fire at point-blank range with quick and accurate gun drill that took a heavy toll of the attackers.

Nevertheless, the Germans were relentlessly closing in on both batteries. Major Wilfred Dennes, commanding A Battery, was killed along with several of the battery gunners, leaving Second Lieutenant Ralph Jones to take command. Jones tried his best to organise the defence of the now useless gun pits but it was to be short-lived. The suddenness of the silence that followed in the moments the guns ran out of ammunition must have been almost deafening, but the German infantry needed only moments to exploit the A Battery difficulties and bomb the gun pits into submission.²³ There was one final moment of satisfaction for the gunners when B Battery, which was 500 yards to the south and watching the events taking place with some concern, turned their guns onto A Battery’s old position and fired over 800 rounds to scatter the new occupants. By nightfall on 21 March 82 and 83 Artillery Brigades had lost thirty-one guns between them.

Back at the fort Harry Fine was now practically cut off and surrounded, his flag signals to Fort Liez requesting a counter-attack to relieve his situation were observed from Clarence Keep and, presumably by the Germans, who immediately responded with a violent thirty-minute artillery attack on the fort. At nightfall the situation remained unchanged, no further attacks were made on Clarence Keep or the fort and Country and Cork redoubts were still holding out, but Ransome was concerned about his men still in the fort. Sending out patrols to make contact with them it became plain that the enemy was holding all approaches to the south. At 12.30pm an officer arrived at the Keep with orders for all troops to be withdrawn west of the Crozat Canal, orders that Algernon Ransome refused to accept without confirmation. Verification took the form of the battalion adjutant, Captain Charles Black, cycling the two and-a-half miles to Remigny and back, only then was his reluctant commanding officer convinced that his battalion should withdraw and sent out orders to his scattered companies. It is unlikely that Harry Fine at the fort was initially aware of the withdrawal but by the time the fog lifted on 22 March it would have been quite obvious to all that he alone remained in the 55 Brigade Forward Zone. The fort held out until later that evening when having exhausted both food and ammunition the garrison surrendered.

We cannot leave the III Corps area without commenting on the actions of the 14th Division on 21 March. Under the overall command of Major General Victor Couper, the division held the line from north of Moÿ to a point west of Itancourt. In his analysis of the first day’s fighting Martin Middlebrook felt that the division did not fight well: ‘Its forward positions fell quickly; many men surrendered, and some hasty flights to the rear were observed.’²⁴ By and large this view may have some credence but there were two battalions that held out in the Forward Zone until late afternoon and their story at least is worth telling.

The Forward Zone was held by two battalions of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and the 6th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry. Behind them in the Battle Zone were the 7th Battalion Rifle Brigade, the 7th King’s Royal Rifle Corps and the 5th Battalion Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Many of those who fought with the 14th Division believe the division had the hardest task of all the corps. ‘The division was in a salient. The front held by three battalions was approximately 5,600 yards and for the defence of this sector there were three battalions of a strength of about 450 men each.’²⁵ Facing them were the German 103rd, 34th, 37th and 1st Bavarian Divisions.

Holding the Urvillers Wood sector of the front line was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Howard-Bury and 9/KRRC. Howard-Bury was commissioned in 1904 and posted to India where he discovered his love of high mountains, so much so that in 1905 he secretly entered Tibet without permission, an excursion that led to a rebuke from Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy of India, and one that possibly shaped the remainder of his life. For now, however, the Himalayan ranges that would come to dominate his life after the war were far from his mind as he waited for the German offensive to begin.

The front held by 9/KRRC was about 2,000 yards with outposts situated 3–400 yards apart. The battalion only had three of its depleted companies in the front line, the fourth being held in divisional reserve over two miles behind at brigade headquarters. We know that Howard-Bury was already concerned that his battalion would be wiped out in the Forward Zone, particularly as they were ‘very much scattered in small groups over a wide extent of country’. His personal narrative of events begins with the opening German bombardment:

‘By the time the bombardment had lasted two hours every telephone line from Battalion Headquarters had been broken. At 9.30am the hostile barrage gradually moved backwards, until it rested behind us. The fog was as dense as ever, we could hardly see 5 yards in any direction. At 10.00am a runner came in from C Company to say that the enemy had come over in the fog and were already on the Pechine Line (our main line of resistance in the outpost line). Immediately afterwards a runner from A Company came in to say that the Company Commander, Captain [Reginald] Singlehurst, had been killed and that the Germans had reached the St Quentin road.²⁶ Shortly afterwards Rifleman Blackwell dashed out into the fog and returned with a German officer, who, when he was asked what he was doing there, said he was looking for his men, who had gone on ahead.’²⁷

The German officer’s maps – marked with his unit’s objectives several miles behind the British Forward Zone – did little to put Howard-Bury and his men at ease. The fog was still thick and the occasional groups of Germans who ‘stumbled into our trench’ were quickly driven off by Lewis gun fire. At around midday the fog began to lift and it was possible to get an appreciation of what was going on around them:

‘Germans were to be seen everywhere: parties of them were to be seen hurrying along the St Quentin road, and to the south they were to be seen bringing up their artillery onto the ridge behind us. Our Lewis guns for a while had the time of their lives, and caused much confusion and delay to their artillery. At 1.00pm we fired off rockets to show we were still holding out, and had also sent a pigeon message saying that we were hard pressed, as the Boches had got into both ends of our trench, and were trying to bomb us out. In this they were not successful, as Lieutenant Mackie at one end and Lieutenant White at the other end, with a few men, managed to keep them at bay. The only effect of the rockets was to attract the attention of more Boches, who thereupon brought up all sorts of engines of war against us, flammenwerfer, trench mortars, and machine guns. The flammenwerfer was soon put out of action by rifle grenades, which were also very useful in searching out the dead ground of which there was only too much around us, where the Germans were collecting preparatory to charging.’²⁸

Although only two officers of the battalion were killed on 21 March, there is no accurate record of how many officers and men were wounded but forty-one other ranks are recorded as having lost their lives defending their posts. What is worrying is Howard-Bury’s reference to the dead ground that apparently surrounded his post. If this is so then the location of some of the Forward Zone posts may well have worked against the defending garrisons. Certainly the distance between posts which, according to Howard-Bury, had no lateral communication trenches did little to assist their defence. The end came for the headquarters redoubt at 4.00pm:

‘More than half the garrison were casualties and the Lewis guns, which had done excellent work, refused to fire more than single shots. All this time the Germans had been collecting in large numbers, and, just before 4.00pm quite 500 rushed in on us suddenly from all sides, and it was all over.’²⁹

Whether this was the redoubt referred to in the German IR 30 account of the battle is uncertain but their battalion historian does describe a redoubt in Urvillers Wood which was attacked in heavy fog supported by units from the neighbouring Bavarian Division. Their attack appears to have faltered until the commanding officer, a Major , gathered his men together and led an attack from behind the British positions after having previously taken a number of outposts, ‘in little copses, reinforced with branches and wire’.

The 8th Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps (8/KRRC) also held on until around 4.00pm, noting that the main attack appeared to come from the direction of the St Quentin road which was behind them. This certainly supports the view that many German units did not attack at ninety degrees to the British line but often attacked at an angle, which in conjunction with the fog enabled them to attack the forward positions from behind. Certainly in the 14th Division Forward Zone this tactic isolated the main defensive positions and allowed the main force to move quickly towards the Battle Zone. The 8/KRRC eventually surrendered when two German tanks appeared which were described by Major Hugh Bowen as ‘larger and faster than ours’:

‘After a pause the tanks came on … and proceeded to trample down the wire and shoot into the trenches. We had nothing with which to beat off the tanks and, having picked up a lot of stragglers, our ammunition was getting scarce, and there were no Germans to shoot at, as they all lay low and let the tanks do the job. Under these circumstances we had no other course but to give in.’³⁰

Rifleman A J Murcott makes no mention of the German tanks but remembered breaking the orderly room typewriter and burning anything that may have been of use to the enemy:

‘When the Germans came quite near we all got out of the trench and the Colonel tied a white rag or towel to a stick and waved it. I can remember German officers coming in and there was much saluting and conversation.’³¹

The reputation of 8/KRRC on 21 March has been tarnished by some historians as giving up without a struggle, which from Bowen’s account appears to be incorrect, the redoubt held on well into the afternoon before surrendering. Be that as it may, the Germans do not appear to have had much difficulty with overcoming the Battle Zone anywhere along the 14th Division Front and at 9.15pm orders were given for the division to withdraw to the line of the Crozat Canal.

But before we move north to look at the attack on XVIII Corps, consideration should be given to notes made by Lieutenant Colonel Julias Birch commanding 7/KRRC in the 14th Division Battle Zone. The total strength of Birch’s battalion was about 500 officers and men and the front allocated to him was roughly 3,000 yards, which he tells us was ‘only lightly held by small posts at necessarily long intervals, a system the policy at that time dictated’. Furthermore he makes the rather alarming observation that ‘the majority of these positions or strong-points had not been completed, and in some cases they were only spit-locked, and the munitioning was only partial’. The German bombardment ‘exceeded anything I had experienced before … As far as it was possible to ascertain 75 per cent of my battalion had become casualties during the six hour bombardment’. He goes on to describe his retirement:

‘By 5.00pm the German line of advance was about 2 miles in our rear and we appeared to be completely cut off. The total number of men of all units with me was about 50 other ranks and 2 officers. At fall of dusk our position began to look serious; SAA [small arms ammunition] nearly all expended, no picks or shovels, and only iron rations; but owing to the special instructions prohibiting any retirement I was unwilling to move without orders although the German infantry had left us isolated and cut off.’³²

With runners dispatched to divisional headquarters asking for orders they – much to Birch’s amazement – returned at around midnight with orders for Birch to take command of what was left of the Battle Zone and bring all the survivors back to Jussy. He continues:

‘ With no small difficulty this withdrawal was effected, as we expected every moment to be attacked by overwhelming numbers. A certain amount of grenade throwing was indulged in by the Germans but we beat them off and took a couple of prisoners … about half an hour after evacuating the position it was shelled, but the birds had flown.’³³

Birch’s evidence is supported in a separate letter written in 1927 by his adjutant, Captain Llewellyn Davies, whose comments on the readiness of the Battle Zone underline the state of defence in the 14th Divisional sector:

‘Not only was the Rear or Green Line position more of an idea than a reality, but the actual Battle Zone was by no means in a fit state for the purposes of defence. It consisted of half dug trenches and strong points with very meagre wire … it was not a properly prepared position.’³⁴

The three battalions of KRRC did stay and fight. It could be argued that those in the Forward Zone perhaps had no choice but to fight on and although surrender early on in the day would have been the easier option, it may well have been one that Charles Howard-Bury would have had difficulty with. However, this, together with the fact that Birch and his men fought on until midnight in the Battle Zone and were prepared to remain there unless ordered otherwise, says a great deal about the men themselves and perhaps goes some way to defending the performance of the14th Division on 21 March.