Chapter 5

Here We Fight and Here We Die

No one who has not experienced the actual moment of a critical attack can realize the primitive emotions which are stirred, or can understand how men fight when other men come to destroy them.

Lieutenant Lawrence Lumley of the 11th Hussars, at Mount Houette

The sector held by XVIII Corps ran from a line just below Selency in the north to Itancourt in the south, a distance of some nine miles held by three divisions under the overall command of Lieutenant General Sir Ivor Maxse. Major General Oliver Nugent and the 36th (Ulster) Division held the right flank with the 30th Division commanded by Major General Weir de Lancey Williams on its left. Major General Colin Mackenzie held the left flank with his 61st Division. The area was dominated by a series of ridges and valleys, many of which ran parallel to the front line, one of these in particular – the Grugies Valley – ran from the sugar factory at Grugies to the north of Urvillers and thence northwards to cross no-man’s-land along the Vallée à la Maye. The dead ground of the valley was frequently used by the 36th Division battalions moving in and out of the Forward Zone positions prior to 21 March, the valley sides shielding them from observant eyes on the other side of the wire. Nevertheless, it was an advantage that could work both ways and on the morning of the attack this little valley provided the German infantry with a conduit straight into the Forward Zone.

In clear weather the Forward Zone was completely exposed to observation from the German line but the Battle Zone was masked from direct view as the ground fell away to the west as it approached the line of the Crozat Canal and the Somme. The British Official History of the War, commenting on the defences in the Forward Zone, makes the rather lame point that with a narrower front line to defend, the XVIII Corps Forward Zone defences were ‘more fully developed than those of the III Corps’. With two principle lines of defence – a first line series of strong points backed up with what was called ‘the line of resistance’ and an intermediate zone of redoubts some distance behind – this would certainly appear to be the case. However, this was a view that was not shared by many regimental officers who pointed to the distance between the redoubts which one divisional historian felt ‘were in no sense mutually supporting’. Captain Charles Miller and a platoon of 2/Inniskilling Fusiliers were defending one of these strong points in the 108 Brigade Forward Zone and was in some doubt as to exactly how ‘strong’ these strong points were:

‘I myself was in the strong-point allotted to company headquarters. I had with me a subaltern and a full platoon. My strong-point consisted of about 150 yards of trench with one deep and very spacious dugout quite capable of holding us all and protecting us from the effects of shell fire; but a death-trap if the enemy infantry got in before we could get out of it. At each end of the trench there was a strong ‘stop’ with a certain amount of cover for riflemen. There was one fairly strong belt of wire running in a half-circle right round the front of the strong-point and ending about 20 yards wide of the two ‘stops’ at each end of the trench. Had the wire been thicker and stronger it would have been a much more formidable little place for a frontal attack. Of course by rights the wire should have been all round it.’¹

Frank Fox, the Inniskilling Fusiliers’ historian is equally critical:

‘The men were scattered thinly in a chain of strong points: to keep effective communication between those strong points was not possible for lack of man power. They were obviously ‘forlorn hope’ troops: in the case of a heavy attack they must perish.’

We have no way of knowing, but Miller and his brother officers in 108 Brigade must have been very much aware that their right flank was the Achilles heel of the whole divisional area. The front line of the 36th Division ran roughly east – west where it rested close to Sphinx Wood at the junction with the 14th Division. From Sphinx Wood the line turned south towards Alaincourt, a change of direction that focused attention on Urvillers and the Vallée St Sauve in the 14th Divisional area. Should Urvillers be taken then the whole of the 36th Division Forward Zone would inevitably crumble, even worse was the prospect of Essigny-le-Grand falling to the attackers which would expose the division’s Battle Zone. It was altogether a rather fragile situation and one that we already know became a deadly reality early on 21 March when the 14th Division was driven back.

The German infantry attack on the 36th Division began shortly after 8.30am; prior to that Father Henry Gill had noted that the enemy shellfire ‘fell with an accuracy which proved that the range had been carefully taken beforehand’. According to plan, German infantry swept straight up the Grugies valley almost parallel to the Forward Zone defences, isolating the forward strong points from the main redoubts and completely destroying the concept of strength in depth in just over an hour. The German 36th Division account describes their namesake division as putting up a ‘good show’ and showing ‘remarkable tenacity’. Jean d’Arc Redoubt, garrisoned by men of the 15/Royal Irish Rifles actually came under attack before any of the strong points did. Captain Thomas Adamson serving with the 12/Royal Irish Rifles at Le Pontchu Redoubt noted the Jean d’Arc garrison – a mile or so to his rear – was overcome at 9.30 am, leaving him with little doubt as to the intention of the German infantry:

‘It was early apparent that the idea of the enemy was to contain the outposts meantime, and to push through all troops as far as possible and eventually to capture the outposts later. By about 11.30am after very heavy fighting the outpost line was captured.’²

In the confusion of the fog many of these outposts were neutralised before they had chance to put up any sort of fight. Yet some did choose to fight on in a hopeless battle that was doomed from the outset. Charles Miller recalled the desperate moments before his tiny garrison was overwhelmed:

‘I had two men coming at me with their bayonets, one of whom I think I shot with my revolver, while a sergeant standing behind me shot the other at point-blank range with his rifle barrel over my shoulder. But almost at the same second a German stick bomb came whistling into the trench from the parapet right into the bunch of us, and killed and wounded practically the whole lot of us – English and German alike … Before I collapsed I tried to give the surrender signal, and hope I had succeeded thereby saving a few lives. We had done our best.’³

At Le Pontchu Quarry, tucked away close to the N22, was C Company of 12/ Royal Irish Rifles. Under the command of Captain Leslie Johnston, these men held out against IR 128 and the troops of Sturmabteilung Rohr until 3.15pm having fought gallantly for some three hours against impossible odds. As soon as the German infantry attack began Johnston took the majority of his men forward to Foucard Trench to meet the advancing enemy. Thomas Adamson remained in the redoubt but was witness to the subsequent fight. Once established in the forward strong point Johnston took stock of his surroundings and although the German bombardment had smashed up the trenches and cut great swathes in the wire the telephone line to Le Pontchu was still intact and as far as he could see in the thinning fog, the fields of fire were excellent:

‘By the time the fog had lifted a little and owing to the excellent field of fire and the manner in which it was handled the enemy, suffering severe casualties, was driven back after three attacks. The company itself had suffered heavily. For almost an hour the enemy made no further attack, but about 12.30pm a large convoy appeared on the St Quentin to La Fère road. Instructions were issued that fire was not to be opened on it until it was well within range, when with two Lewis guns and rifle fire the whole convoy – both men and horses were destroyed.’⁴

By now the company was being attacked on two sides and Johnston ordered a withdrawal to Lejeune Trench down Clermont Alley, a 350 yard communication trench which linked the two systems. Closely followed by an increasingly aggressive enemy who appeared determined to bomb the Irish into submission:

‘By about 1.00pm the enemy, now not willing to come over the open, made a determined attack down the trench on the left with bombs and flammenwerfer and eventually what was left of the company had to retire to the trench immediately behind Le Pontchu, there with the help of runners, cooks etc from headquarters they continued fighting … after having done everything possible to hold up the attack and after consultation between the officers left and to save useless loss of life, it was decided to surrender the post at about 3.15pm.’⁵

After the Armistice, when the survivors had been returned from captivity and the full story of C Company became known, Johnston was awarded the Military Cross for his part in the fight but perhaps more importantly, the courage and defiance of the men he commanded was recognised by the award of two Distinguished Conduct Medals and four Military Medals. What is striking about the stand made by Johnston and the men of C Company is the determination displayed by all ranks to hold onto their positions at all costs; it was a determination that was repeated at Racecourse Redoubt a little further to the west.

The Racecourse Redoubt was dug into the railway embankment south of Grugies and garrisoned by one company of 15/Royal Irish Rifles, a garrison that included 35-year-old Second Lieutenant Edmund de Wind. In 1914 de Wind – who was born in County Down – was living in Canada and working for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Edmonton. Like so many young men who had emigrated to the Dominions, he chose to remain in his adopted country and enlisted as a private soldier in the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada. He sailed for France with the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division in September 1915 remaining with them until 1917 after which he was commissioned into the Royal Irish Rifles. On the morning of 21 March 1918 de Wind and his men caught their first glimpse of German infantry at 9.40am. For seven hours he and a few dozen men held the position. Although he was twice wounded he refused to surrender, climbing out on to the parapet under heavy machine-gun and rifle fire on at least two occasions to clear German troops out of an adjoining trench. It was only after he was wounded a third time, and fatally, that the position fell and the survivors taken prisoner. It does appear that after de Wind had been wounded the survivors surrendered soon afterwards leaving us to consider the remark made by Lieutenant Claude Piesse that where units were under an officer who was willing to hold out until the bitter end they generally did so until that officer was killed or wounded. As far as Father Henry Gill was concerned 15/RIR had been ‘sacrificed’ and de Wind’s award of the Victoria Cross was a poor substitute.

The dogged defence at Racecourse Redoubt was not replicated at Boadicea Redoubt despite the presence of several officers. The redoubt was the most westerly of the 36th Division’s three main redoubts and occupied the high ground of the Mont des Vignes between the D67 and the D321 just south of the tiny hamlet of Giffécourt. The garrison was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Maxwell, the 11th Baron Farnham, whose early service was with F Squadron of the North Irish Horse, a special reserve cavalry regiment that drew its officers and men principally from County Down. But like so many yeomanry cavalry regiments after 1916 the men of the North Irish Horse found themselves fighting as infantry. Farnham’s first command was one of those axed under the reorganisation earlier in the year so his period of command with 2/Inniskillings had only been a matter of weeks.

There is some controversy over the surrender of Boadicea Redoubt; Martin Middlebrook provides a useful account from the history of the German IR 463 which was leading the attack made by the 238th Division.⁶ For some reason the redoubt had been largely missed by the opening bombardment and the first waves of German infantry were either happy to by-pass the stronghold or completely failed to see it in the thick fog. Either way, II/IR 463 were assigned to attack the position and began bringing up artillery support. Quite how long Farnham and his men held out for is unclear, Cyril Falls in the divisional history says it was 5.50pm when three captains, seven subalterns and 241 men filed out of the redoubt after the Germans threatened to bombard the position. Apparently Farnham asked for – and was given – a document as evidence that he and the garrison had put up a good fight before they were marched off into captivity! When compared to the action at Le Pontchu and Racecourse Redoubt it does leave one wondering how events at Boadicea Redoubt could possibly be described in the divisional history as a ‘rare example of cold courage’.

By evening the 36th Division had lost the whole of its Forward Zone and the majority of the troops deployed there. The Battle Zone was in a precarious state with German troops advancing through Essigny in exactly the manner which so many had predicted with the fall of the 14th Division. However, Essigny did not collapse as easily as has sometimes been suggested. The fight is vividly described by Karl Goes in an account that draws attention to the determined defence and the German casualties:

‘Essigny-le-Grand, a rubble tip transformed into an impressive redoubt by the English. Essigny is the main point of resistance within the English second line. Batteries east and south of the village open up, pounding the attacker [German infantry]. But the Grenadiere [GR 5] move on furiously like their ancient German ancestors. II/Battalion, led by the grey haired veteran Hauptmann Raoul Faure, advances through a hail of bullets, capturing the ruins as well as a senior English officer and their reserves. Hauptmann Faure swings the rifle and shouts like a youngster, his men regard him with favour, almost love, and are prepared to follow him anywhere. By 1.15pm the Battalion stands in a trench about 250 metres south of Essigny. But the English take another stand along the railway line, supported by scattered field guns. Twice the Battalion attacks, when the beloved Hauptmann gets fatally hit in the neck by a shell splinter, his aide-de-camp, young Leutnant von Homeyer becoming fatally wounded behind him … Around the eastern edges of Essigny, Grenadiere 5 and the Bavarians [from 1st Bavarian Division] throw themselves against the enemy. Shrapnel and point blank shooting of the English guns are the answer. More Bavarians lend a hand and by 3.00pm Essigny is finally taken, despite the enormous losses.’⁷

Orders were now sent out for the 36th Division to fall back behind the St Quentin Canal, a retirement that pivoted on two Inniskilling battalions. The 9/Inniskillings were hastily rushed up out of reserve to form a defensive flank to the right of Essigny near Station Redoubt on the Essigny-Seraucourt road. Karl Goes’ account again:

‘The fight rages for hours around railway embankments, ditches and station buildings. IR 175 receives support from II/Grenadiere 5 while a German howitzer battery hits its own ranks very accurately. Many veteran officers and NCOs fall due to the English lead, among them Leutnant Ewald Manche. Nevertheless Battalion Matthael succeeds in taking the station, while Battalion Jansses overwhelms the Bahnkaserne Nord [Station Redoubt]’.⁸

While the fight for Essigny was taking place, the 1/Inniskillings under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Crawford were required to hold onto their position near Fontaine-les-Clercs. This battalion – situated on the high ground south of Roupy – held on to their positions around Ricardo Redoubt through the night and into the next morning. Dawn brought renewed attacks as the men of A Company came under a sustained assault which they managed to contain by falling back with B Company to a line southeast of the redoubt. Here they joined C Company and, under attack again, the three companies – or at least what was left of them – fought their way back, section by section, across the Vallée du Tonnoir to the confines of the redoubt which held D Company and battalion headquarters.

Now surrounded on all sides, Crawford made the difficult decision to make a stand and fight it out, conscious that every hour he held on was an hour of delay for the enemy. The battalion historian takes up the story of the final hours of Crawford’s men:

‘He detached about 40 of the men under him to fight their way back to the rear: the rest were to see it through …Under the rain of bomb and shell the Redoubt and its defenders were obliterated and trodden bit by bit under the foot of the enemy. But with one part of the Redoubt gone, the survivors fell back to another corner, fighting for every yard. One incident was a charge made by a force consisting of Private Bailey and Private Conway which drove out a body of enemy bombers who had got a footing within the Redoubt. Finally only one little corner of the Redoubt was left in our holding; but still the resistance continued. It must have been a relief even to the enemy … when with nightfall the surrender came of the little handful of survivors.’⁹

The battalion had held its ground with a determination that broke a dozen assaults by the 1st Prussian Guard Division before the inevitable surrender came. They had lost over eighty men killed and those that survived and were able to stand were marched with their commanding officer into captivity.

Shielded by the Inniskillings, the remainder of the 36th Division retired west to the St Quentin Canal crossings. Shortly after midday on 21 March the 27-year-old Second Lieutenant Isaac Norman of 121/Field Company completed the destruction of the pontoon bridge and footbridge at Fontaine-les-Clercs which had already suffered somewhat from shellfire. At 10.15pm he began demolishing the group of eight assorted bridges between Le Hamel and Seraucourt while 150/Field Company and Lieutenant William Brunyate attended to the Artemps crossings further south. Shortly before midnight 107 Infantry Brigade crossed the canal using the bridges north of Seraucourt and ordered them to be destroyed behind them. No sooner than Corporal Arthur Burston had completed the job a message arrived from 108 Brigade asking that they delay the demolition as they had yet to cross the canal! Fortunately Isaac Norman was able to point them in the direction of an intact bridge before moving up the canal to demolish the main bridge at Hamel which was blown at 3.00am on 22 March.

* * *

The fourteen German divisions which von Hutier had massed against XVIII Corps had little difficulty in capturing the forward defences of the 30th and 61st Divisions. But like the Irish on the right flank, the line of redoubts put up a much more prolonged resistance and it is on the story of these redoubts which we will now focus our attention.

Just to the west of St Quentin, where the A26 Autoroute is crossed by the D930, is the l’Épine de Dallon, a small cluster of houses and farm buildings that now lie within earshot of the noise from traffic on the A26. On 21 March 1918 there was little remaining of the village and that which was still evident had been incorporated into the Épine de Dallon defences which centred on a fortified keep or redoubt situated on the crest of a small rise with good all-round fields of fire. From the redoubt the skyline of St Quentin was dominated by the badly damaged Basilique de St Quentin, a view that Brigadier General the Hon Ferdinand Stanley, commanding 89 Brigade, was not entirely taken with:

‘The worst disadvantage of this place was that the whole of our line and most of the back areas for miles back, were overlooked from the Cathedral, the walls and the steeple of which were still standing.’

The system of defence employed by 30th Division was to divide the sector into two brigade sub-sectors with the third brigade being held in reserve. Thus in each sub-sector one battalion held the whole brigade front line. Stanley knew that in the event of an attack there was little, if any, possibility of sending assistance:

‘The Brigade front could not be considered anything else than a lightly held outpost line. They had a few posts out in front, about six in all, and each of these posts consisted of about six men. Behind this we had a series of other posts, and again, behind these, a couple of strong points. This absorbed two companies of the battalion. Then there was one company which was detailed for counter-attacking purposes, and the fourth, and last, company of the battalion was responsible for the garrison and up-keep of a redoubt called the Épine de Dallon. Here also was situated Battalion Headquarters.’¹⁰

On 17 March the 2nd Battalion Wiltshire Regiment (2/Wiltshires) took over the front line positions, relieving the 19th Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment (19/King’s). Defending the Épine de Dallon was A Company and the Battalion Headquarters under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Martin, who had taken command of the battalion on Boxing Day 1917. The outpost line was held by C and D Companies with B Company occupying a sunken road which served as a second line of outposts. This line of defence was similar to another redoubt positioned approximately one-and-a-half miles further north on Manchester Hill and defended by the 16th Battalion Manchester Regiment (16/Manchesters).

In the event of the front-line defences failing it was hoped that the two main redoubts, together with the guns of the divisional artillery putting down a barrage in the ground between them, would hold the German infantry in the Forward Zone long enough for troops in the Battle Zone to counter-attack. Clearly a realist, Martin was not over optimistic at his chances of surviving long enough to benefit from any counter-attack that might be forthcoming from the Battle Zone. One of the last things he did before the battle opened was to ensure the officers and men who were to ‘remain out of battle’ were sent to the rear with Major George Rapson, the battalion’s second-in-command. The selection of such a group before a battalion went into action had been standard procedure for some time, the purpose of which was to form the nucleus of the ‘new’ battalion if disaster should strike and the Wiltshires were reduced to a handful of survivors. After the news of who had been sent out of battle spread round the ranks, Major Walter Shepherd wrote that those who remained all knew they were up against it, were very cheerful and, ‘determined to make the Hun pay heavily for any of their trenches he attacked’. Martin’s last visit to his battalion’s positions began as darkness fell, by the time he got back to his headquarters at Épine de Dallon in the early hours of 21 March, the German units waiting across no-man’s-land were counting down the hours.

A detailed record of what actually took place in the front lines after the German bombardment began will never be possible but survivors’ accounts indicate four divisions of German infantry began their attack on this sector at 10.00am. The two divisions that attacked the Wiltshires’ two forward companies – C and D Companies – quickly overcame any resistance and assaulted the Wiltshires in the flanks and from behind, with B Company being overwhelmed first. A single man from C Company managed to escape and bring word to Colonel Martin at Épine de Dallon. Of the eleven officers who were in the front line posts seven were taken prisoner, two were killed in action and another died of wounds. Two still remain unaccounted for in official records.

Unable to see anything through the fog and smoke of the bombardment, the runner’s arrival at Épine de Dallon must have confirmed Martin’s worst fears, the redoubt was all that was left of his battalion. German infantry units had undoubtedly passed either side of the redoubt in the fog but as the fog lifted a little a large group of enemy soldiers were seen approaching from the direction of Roupy. Detailing two Lewis guns to deal with the enemy they discovered in the nick of time that all was not as it seemed:

‘It was a party of their own cooks which they had left at the rear … being escorted back as prisoners. The garrison at l’Épine at once rescued their cooks, who were most useful as reinforcements, and settled the escorts for ever.’¹¹

Even then it appears the small garrison was largely undiscovered until enemy troops carrying boxes of bombs and ammunition along the small valley between the redoubt and Manchester Hill stumbled into them. With the fog now dispersed the garrison opened fire with trench mortars and Lewis guns which not only scattered the carrying parties but finally signalled their position to the enemy:

‘The Germans came at the redoubt in perfect order, as if on parade. The little garrison of officers and men kept the enemy at bay for a long time. They found their own defensive wire entanglement hindered their fire, and they had to stand up and shoot over the top of it … It was on the east side, where the road cut into the redoubt, that the Germans first broke into the system. Our trenches at this point were not quite connected. The enemy bombed our men back and succeeded in getting two of their machine guns inside the circle of our defences. The Wiltshires, using the cover of some ruined buildings as cover, tried to capture one of these guns, but the Germans cut through the brickwork with such rapidity, that the scheme failed. All the time a hostile aeroplane kept flying round the Keep at a height of only about sixty feet, machine gunning our men … When Colonel Martin had only fifty men left, all of them fighting hard though hopelessly cornered, shells from British guns started bursting in the Keep.’¹²

Probably not aware that the Wiltshires were still holding on at Épine de Dallon the artillery were firing on previously known British positions in the hope they would be damaging the enemy, not that it helped the remaining Wiltshires. Messages were sent by Martin via carrier pigeon at 12.50pm in the hope someone would receive them and inform the artillery – but there is no record of events after the messages were dispatched. Precisely which brigade of artillery was responsible is unclear but we can rule out the guns of 307 Artillery Brigade which by this time had all four of its batteries captured apart from one section of guns which got away under heavy fire. The experience of 19-year-old Second Lieutenant Gordon Stanley who was in a 307 Brigade forward observation post, was not untypical:

‘When the bombardment ceased I ventured up into the narrow, shallow trench and came face to face with a Jerry who had just arrived on the edge of the trench. I was unarmed, my revolver being in my valise at the battery, so little did my CO prepare me for what might be coming! He dropped to his knee and fired at my head from about four feet. I sensed the bullet skim my helmet and saw the spurt of mud as it buried itself in the trench side a few inches from my eyes. Instinctively I ducked and, being on the top step of the staircase, skidded to the bottom … Then there was shouting and the sound of a machine gun and, eventually, an apparently inebriated Jerry came down the staircase waving a pistol. There was nothing for it but to surrender.’¹³

The end came for the garrison at Épine de Dallon shortly after 1.00pm. Colonel Martin, a man whose language was sometimes colourful, described the final moments:

‘The Huns were making a most determined bombing attack from both sides, and the Huns were shooting for all they were worth. A bomb landed and blew me into a hole, and I woke up to realize that a bloody Hun was laughing at me in an unpleasant manner, and had an even more unpleasant bayonet. Everyone I saw near me had his hands up.’¹⁴

The only officer of the garrison killed in the final rush was Captain Arthur Clayton, the battalion adjutant, still holding a bomb when he put up his hands to surrender, he was shot dead presumably because his captors thought he was about to throw it.¹⁵ The survivors along with Archibald Martin were marched off into captivity. As to the actual time the redoubt was overwhelmed, Brigadier General Stanley thought they held out until at least 2.30pm but whatever time it was, apart from the small cadre of officers and men left out of battle, the Wiltshires – like the 12/Royal Irish Rifles at Le Pontchu – were no longer a fighting unit. The number of men wounded remains imprecise but four officers and ninety-three other ranks had been killed in action or subsequently died of their wounds and barely a handful escaped death or captivity.

The defence of Manchester Hill by the 16/Manchesters is probably one of the most well-documented of all the actions which took place on 21 March, particularly as the officer commanding the battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Wilfrith Elstob, was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. The 29-year-old Elstob had already been awarded the DSO and the Military Cross and was considered to be a first-class commanding officer. On the other hand, there appeared to be a vast gulf between the almost shy and retiring Edinburgh schoolmaster who enlisted in 1914 and the rather bombastic character who rose through the commissioned ranks to the command of a battalion. A vicar’s son who was educated at Christ’s Hospital School in Sussex, he graduated from Manchester University to embark, we are told, on a lifelong ambition of becoming a schoolmaster. But the declaration of war changed all that in 1914. The battalion historian writes glowingly of him:

‘A modest idealist in times of peace, the war brought forth all the latent power of the man. He was one of those fine natures which combined in a remarkable degree of tenderness and strength, innate dignity and humility, generosity and restraint. Men instinctively trusted him.’¹⁶

Accepting a commission in the 1st City of Manchester Battalion in 1914, he became second-in-command to his lifelong friend and confidant, Hubert Hamilton, who commanded A Company. A strikingly tall individual, Elstob was soon given the nickname of ‘Big Ben’ – a name that stuck even after he took over command of the battalion October 1917.

Manchester Hill – or Margarine Höhe – as the Germans called it, had been taken by units of the regiment in 1917 during the German retirement to the Hindenburg Line and the fact that Elstob and 16/Manchesters were in occupation on 21 March was purely a coincidence. However, the hill was a tactical feature of some strength in a rather featureless landscape; on a clear day it commanded good fields of fire over the shallow valleys that surrounded it and the nearby Brown Quarry on the western slope provided for dug-outs and shelters. Completely wired in on all sides, the perimeter was strengthened by nine posts or strong points which together with several barricades or ‘bomb stops’ created an almost impregnable position.

Close to the top of the hill was a forward observation post used by the artillery and one that was familiar to Lieutenant Herbert Asquith from the nearby C/149 Battery dug in on the eastern edge of Holnon Wood:

‘Our observation post was on the forward fringe of the Outpost Zone, on the eastern slope of Manchester Hill, and looked straight out on No Man’s Land, the subalterns of our battery went to this post in rotation, and I spent many days and nights there in February, and the first three weeks of March. Looking down the hill was an excellent view of the city of St Quentin, which lay at the bottom of the slope with its Cathedral tower rising above it, as a rule, absolutely silent, with a weird and sinister appearance of complete desertion.’¹⁷

Today the concrete observation post is no longer a feature of the hill but the view across to St Quentin and the Basilica remains the same. Sadly the recent intrusion across the northern slopes of the hill by the A29 Autoroute to Amiens has guaranteed the peace and solitude enjoyed by Asquith has been shattered forever. On 18 March 1918 the calm which hung over the whole of the front line would still have been apparent when 16/Manchesters took over the garrison from their sister battalion, 17/Manchesters, the storm was not about to break for another forty-eight hours.

Asquith and his fellow subalterns had no doubts as to the eventual fate of Manchester Hill and its garrison. ‘It was obvious to all,’ he wrote, ‘that if the attack were made at St Quentin, this isolated post, strong though it was, would have little chance of surviving with the main flood of the assault rolling round it on either side.’ Clearly Wilfrith Elstob shared this view, commenting as they marched up to the hill that the battalion band, which were remaining out of action, would be ‘the only fellows that will come out alive’. Once in position he took great pains to impress upon all his officers and men that the redoubt was to be defended to the last man, using the now legendary phrase, ‘here we fight and here we die’, words which must have struck terror into the less battle-hardened youngsters in his command.

Elstob’s apparent welcome of a soldier’s death had been embodied in a letter he wrote to Hubert Worthington in May 1917, soon after the 30th Division’s attack at Cherisy. ‘I should be miserable if I were taken away from the battalion’, he wrote, ‘I want to be with them in the battles, and if I were taken on the battlefield I feel that I could die happy’, a strangely prophetic statement that must have been on his mind when he arrived at Manchester Hill. It has to be said that while the expectation of death haunted the movement of every man and woman serving on active fronts in the Great War, very few were prepared to go as far as welcoming its arrival! Elstob’s undoubted courage cannot be defined as ‘hot’ courage – where an individual leaps into action without thinking about consequences, as demonstrated by Lieutenant Cecil Knox on the canal at Tugny – but was perhaps a more premeditated courage defined by a desire for personal recognition.

The story of Manchester Hill begins at 7.30am when Colonel Elstob gave orders for battalion headquarters to be withdrawn from Brown Quarry to Battle Headquarters on the hill itself which comprised a dugout some 300 yards east of the quarry and mid-way between the artillery observation post and the Savy-St Quentin road. Shortly after 8.00am the bombardment became more intense after which all communication with the company posts ceased, leaving a single telephone line to brigade headquarters intact. Half-an-hour later the hostile infantry attack began on A and B Companies and the forward posts, the thick fog rendering impotent the elaborately laid fire plans that had been designed to hold back advancing infantry.

C/149 Battery at Holnon Wood had come into action almost at the same moment as the German bombardment began and began firing in response to directions given from the observation post on Manchester Hill:

‘Hundreds of heavy shells were exploding behind us in Holnon Wood; mingled with their explosions we could hear now and then the crash of a falling tree, while high above our heads huge projectiles from long-range guns passed through the sky with a metallic roar on their way to targets far behind the battlefield … in a few minutes our signallers reported that the telephone wire to the observation post had been blown to pieces in many places within a hundred yards of our position: they went out at great risk to mend the wire, but though many attempts were made, it was found impossible to restore communication.’¹⁸

Apart from the telephone line back to brigade headquarters, Manchester Hill was now cut off from the outside world and when the fog began to lift, the glint of sunshine that broke through only confirmed the enemy breakthrough was complete as German infantry units were seen advancing on either side of the redoubt. Lieutenant Asquith could see the redoubt from the top of the nearby hill:

‘On my way up Round Hill, I found that the mist was dissolving, and here we were no longer troubled by gas … When I reached the crest, I saw that our outpost redoubt at the Brown Quarry … was now cut off on the north and west by the German infantry: a large number of grey misty figures, easily recognisable as Germans by the shape of their helmets, stood halted on the skyline of Manchester Hill.’¹⁹

The telephone line back to 90 Brigade Headquarters at least kept Elstob in touch with someone on the outside, his conversations charting the final hours of the 16/Manchesters:

‘About eleven o’clock Colonel Elstob informed me that the Germans had broken through and were swarming around the redoubt. At about 2pm he said that most of his men were killed or wounded, including himself; that they were all getting deadbeat, that the Germans had got into the redoubt and hand-to-hand fighting was going on. He was still quite cheery. At 3.30pm he was spoken to on the telephone and said very few were left and that the end was nearly come. After that no answer could be got.’²⁰

Elstob had been wounded three times but continued fighting alongside his men until he was killed. Private Horace Hardman was possibly one of the last to see Wilfrith Elstob alive after the German infantry had finally broken through:

‘The CO … then gave orders for all to stand up and hold the Manchester Redoubt to the last man. He then went out with his revolver, and we were firing and bringing up bombs. We managed to hold the redoubt until 3.00pm; then Jerry seemed to come from all directions. The CO’s last words were, ‘Here goes the gallant Sixteenth!’ Then he was shot through the head. We were taken prisoners.’²¹

Although it would appear that soon after Elstob was killed, the garrison lost little time in surrendering to the inevitable, what is of interest is the conflict between the casualty figures provided in the battalion history by Westropp and those from more recent sources. Westropp reports that only 2 officers and 15 other ranks survived but a more recent appraisal suggests that of the 23 officers and 717 other ranks that were on roll – not including those who were left out of battle – only 3 officers and 78 other ranks were killed. A number of the 13 officers who were taken prisoner on 21 March would have been captured after the outposts were surrounded.

In the cold light of day the redoubt had achieved little more than many others had in similar circumstances. However, Wilfrith Elstob’s award of the Victoria Cross was conferred on an officer who showed great gallantry and leadership in the face of overwhelming odds. But if the question is asked whether the stand on Manchester Hill was any more gallant than that of Harry Fine at Vendeuil or Geoffrey Lester at Triangle Post, or indeed that of Leslie Johnston and John Crosthwaite, the answer – in the opinion of this author – has to be no.

A mile north of Manchester Hill in the 182 Brigade sector was the Ellis Redoubt. The brigade was responsible for an area which ran from the southern edge of Fayet to the old Roman road running out of St Quentin towards Selency. On 21 March the 2/8th Worcestershire Regiment (2/8 Worcesters) was in the Forward Zone with its two forward companies manning a series of posts between Roses Wood in the south and the edge of Fayet to the north, each of which was linked by a shallow communication trench. Battalion headquarters was in the Ellis Redoubt which drew its name from the officer commanding 201/Field Company, and it was the sappers of 201/Field Company that constructed the redoubt and sited it on the banks either side of the Vallée du Chemin l’Abbaye about half-a-mile east of Selency. Lieutenant Robert Petschler was one of the engineers involved:

‘It consisted of various cunningly concealed machine guns built in deep dugouts in the sides of the banks, and the entrance to these dugouts was by means of a carefully camouflaged trench. The whole object of the machine guns was to come as a surprise and to bring close range fire on the attacking party when they least expected it … The remainder of the redoubt consisted of trench posts mutually supporting each other and which could bring enfilade fire on an attacking party.’²²

In addition to the fire power of B Company the redoubt also housed two trench mortars and two Vickers machine guns. Very little exists today as to what happened here but we are told the Worcesters held on until 5.30pm when their ammunition ran out and the fall of the Enghien Redoubt on their left flank had left the German infantry from IR 109 and GR 110 free to deal with them. The Official British History record that only one officer and six men made it back to brigade headquaters that evening.

We know far more about the circumstances leading to the fall of the Enghein Redoubt which was less than half-a-mile north of the Worcesters and situated a little to the west of the minor road – Chemin de Fayet – that runs from the D1029 from Selency to Fayet. The fortified area which contained the redoubt consisted of three trench systems in the form of a rough pentagon. On the western side Douai Trench linked with Epicure Alley – which formed the southern defensive line – while Etretat Trench completed the eastern side. In the centre was the redoubt itself, incorporating a disused quarry. Although time and progress have all contributed to an erosion of the past, the battlefield visitor will find the site of the former redoubt is only a matter of yards from Junction 10 of the A26 Autoroute and marked by a white smear across the fields. To the left a private house sits in its rectangular grounds and to the right a small stand of trees is on the approximate site of ‘the cottages’.²³

On 18 March the redoubt was garrisoned by D Company of the 2/4th Battalion, Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (2/4 Ox and Bucks) along with the collection of cooks, signallers and runners of HQ Company. In command of the battalion was Lieutenant Colonel Harry Wetherall, an officer who was first commissioned into the Gloucestershire Regiment in 1909 and went to war as a lieutenant with the 1st Battalion in 1914. Having survived the retreat from Mons, he fought on the Aisne and was wounded at Gheluvelt in October 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres. Rapid promotion brought him to the command of the 2/4 Battalion taking over from Robert Bellamy in May 1917.