Chapter 7

Ronssoy and Épehy

A retreat was the one possibility that had never occurred to us, and, unfortunately, it involved a kind of manoeuvring in which we are unversed, in spite of our experience. For the time being the enemy has turned the tables in a manner in which it is difficult to realize, so great is the contrast with what would have been possible at any time during last year.

Lieutenant Colonel Rowland Fielding – 6th Battalion Connaught Rangers.

The VII Corps Forward Zone was relatively narrow and consisted of a continuous trench line along the eight mile front interspersed with strong points, machine-gun emplacements and switch lines. The Battle Zone – in places only 1,500 yards behind the Forward Zone – consisted of a single trench line along the front and rear with the villages of Ronssoy, Lempire and Épehy organized into strongly defended areas. The sector, under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Walter Congreve VC, was defended by three divisions: the 16th (Irish) Division, the 21st Division and the 9th (Scottish) Division. Facing them across the wire were ten divisions from the German XXIII and XIII Corps.

The Forward Zone along the 16th Division’s sector collapsed very quickly and this may well have been due to the large number of battalions deployed in manning the front line. On 14 March Hubert Gough visited the 16th Division’s headquarters to discuss Major General Aymatt Hull’s objections to this overly large deployment. The 16th Division was relatively new to Gough’s Fifth Army, having been transferred from the Third Army only three months previously. Major General Hull was even more of a new boy; his command began on 10 February after Major General William Hickie was invalided home on sick leave. Hull wanted only three battalions in the Forward Zone, a notion that was clearly alien to Gough’s preoccupation with a strongly defended front line. In overruling his divisional commander Gough demonstrated a distressing lack of understanding of the concept of defence in depth and in this particular case consigned the Irish battalions in the Forward Zone to virtual annihilation. It is patently unfair to write off the 16th Division on 21 March as lacking in fight; their forward battalions took the full force of the German bombardment and suffered the highest number of men killed on the first day of the assault in the whole of the Fifth Army. Had Gough listened to General Hull’s objections the story may have been different. As it was, German infantry, having overcome the forward defences, were soon advancing along the Cologne valley towards Ronssoy which was under attack as early as 9.30am. It was these troops that Captain Leslie Robinson of the Lancashire Fusiliers had seen as his battalion was moving up towards Templeux le Guérard.

Apart from the over manning of the Forward Zone, the 16th Divisional staff felt very strongly that the whole sector suffered as a result of being in a salient:

‘Owing to our salient position and the general trend of the corps boundary, [between 16th Division and XIX Corps] an enemy attack delivered at right angles to the front line on either side of the corps boundary must, if successful, drive straight up against the right flank of our Battle Zone, and then, if successful, tend to roll up our whole line from the right.’¹

This is exactly what happened of course, and was why the experience of Captain Arthur Patman of the 7th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, was probably very similar to that of other regimental officers of battalions in the Forward Zone. Having only rejoined the battalion from Bassè Boulogne the evening before the attack commenced, he was, as he dryly remarked, a prisoner of war by 1.00pm the next day! His battalion was on the extreme right of the 16th Divisional sector, practically all the outposts were annihilated by the opening bombardment and the company defensive posts were ignored by the advancing troops until the second wave arrived. Patman says that 12 men including himself managed to get away after their company post was attacked but not one managed to reach British lines. ‘All our rear areas appeared to be in German hands.’ Patman’s assessment was distressingly correct: Ronssoy village, for example, which stood on rising ground, had been entered from behind by German infantry using the valleys to the north and south of the village, which according to another observer was encircled and entered by noon on 21 March.²

All of which left the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Regiment (2/Royal Irish) in a rather isolated position to the east of Lempire where they had been since 20 March. Commanding the Royal Irish was 28-year-old Lieutenant Colonel John Scott, a regular officer who had been commissioned in September 1910. War and the rapid promotion it produced, had boosted Scott’s career; in 1917 he rose from captain to lieutenant colonel in three months, taking command of the battalion in August of that year. The 2/Royal Irish was a fighting battalion with a long pedigree of stubborn resistance. In August 1914 under the command of Major Stratford St Leger, the battalion had fought a classic four-stage rearguard action over the Bois la Haut at Mons, giving ground reluctantly and inflicting heavy casualties on the pursuing enemy in what was probably the most outstanding feat of its kind of the entire retreat. Almost four years later at Lempire the battalion found itself in a similar position, except the line of retirement was not so clear cut.

23-year-old Lieutenant John Terry was in command of B Company when the battalion took over the front line and its forward posts. Terry’s headquarters was at Kew Lane, a position he and his men were not at all familiar with:

‘We were severely handicapped in the opening stages of the battle owing to the fact that we took over a new portion of the front line which was strange to us, as the relief was not carried out until nightfall and was not completed until after midnight. B Company had not a very sound knowledge of the geographical conditions in their immediate vicinity and it was only when the fog cleared about 1.00pm on March 21st that we were able to survey our surroundings which were, by then, in the enemy’s hands.’³

Terry’s reserved assessment of his situation does not hide the feeling of helplessness he and his men must have felt in this unfamiliar sector of the front line. Making the best of the situation Terry was anxious to know if the enemy’s wire had been cut in preparation for an attack, a fear that was confirmed by a reconnaissance patrol, large gaps had been cut in the enemy’s wire, clearly the long expected attack was imminent. Leaving Second Lieutenant Norman Abbot in command of the post, Terry’s final task was to visit his company outposts and give last-minute instructions:

‘I left the last outpost at about 4.30am and the bombardment commenced whilst I was making my way back across country to B Company headquarters, accompanied by my runner, Lance Corporal O’Brian MM. Gas shells were used pretty freely upon the forward defences and we had to don our box respirators and owing to the smoke and gas shells we had great difficulty in finding Kew Lane.’⁴

At 9.30am the barrage ceased and Colonel Scott had moved the Headquarters Company and two platoons of D Company into Rose Trench where soon after they were engaged on their right flank – which was approximately the time that John Terry and his men first came into contact with German infantry. At this point in the battle it must have been quite clear to all concerned that the Forward Zone was now almost completely cut off but the Royal Irish kept on fighting, so much so that at 11.00am B Company was still sending out fighting patrols and captured a German medical corps team which was brought back for interrogation. Terry writes that when they were found to be in the possession of stick grenades and automatics ‘they were very severely dealt with’. Quite what was meant by that is anyone’s guess! But soon after this Kew Lane was subjected to several serious assaults and the enemy brought up several small howitzers and trench mortars, by which time Terry writes, the Royal Irish were in ‘desperate straights’.

Back at Rose Trench the enemy attack was being directed from both ends, the battalion war diary recording that at 1.30pm the enemy broke through on the left forcing the survivors to retire to Irish Trench on the northern outskirts of Ronssoy, ‘the trench was deserted when we got there, the remainder of the village had been in German hands for some time’. At 2.15pm the Germans began bombing the northern end of Irish Trench and positioned a machine gun at the southern end. ‘We immediately charged the machine gun which the [Germans] left on seeing us make a determined effort.’ Fifteen minutes later the order was given to retire on St Emilie but as the war diary gloomily confirms, ‘very few succeeded in reaching St Emilie, probably 3 officers and 15 other ranks’.⁵

No one from B Company managed to get away. With ammunition running out and runners failing to return from battalion headquarters, Terry was left with very little choice:

‘Eventually the garrison was reduced to a dozen or so unwounded and ammunition became so scarce that 2/Lt Abbott and I decided that the only alternatives were either to surrender or to try and fight our way back to our own lines. We decided upon the latter course and the men received their instructions accordingly. The Germans by this time had penetrated our post and before we had gone fifty yards they turned machine guns upon us with such good effect that there were only 3 or 4 left unwounded. 2/Lt Abbott was shot through the knee and I dropped into a shell hole beside him. The Germans threw a few hand grenades at us and I received a bayonet wound in the thigh before they considered us hors-de-combat.’⁶

It had been a courageous rearguard action but the casualties were frighteningly high. Although only Lieutenant Colonel Scott and three other ranks are recorded as killed in action by the war diary, sixteen officers were posted as missing in action along with 499 other ranks, many of whom were taken prisoner. However the CWGC database lists 154 Royal Irish soldiers and five officers who were killed on 21 March, the majority of whom are commemorated on the Pozières Memorial. At what point in the battle John Scott was killed is not mentioned in the war diary but he is one of the very few who have a headstone, he can be found at the Unicorn Cemetery, Vendhuile.

The fall of Ronssoy not only put the gun lines in the shallow valley of St Emilie under immediate threat but provided access to Épehy from the south along the ridge of high ground which ran south from Ronssoy Wood to Templeux Woods – known as the Raperie Switch line. Divisional staff officers were of the opinion that enemy units had occupied the Raperie Switch by 12.20pm which was before the Ronssoy posts had finally fallen, adding weight to the notion that enemy infantry had evidently worked their way onto the ridge from the Cologne valley north of Templeux le Guérard. The answer to why the 16th Division had not deployed troops on this high ground – which was so vital to the integrity of the right flank – probably lies in the overall lack of reserves, a problem exacerbated no doubt by the number of battalions placed in the Forward Zone.

Two battalions from 47 Brigade had been held in reserve and these were now ordered up to counter-attack. The 6/Connaught Rangers were in the reserve trenches at Villers-Faucon when Lieutenant Colonel Rowland Fielding received orders at 12.25pm to move forward. Using the narrow gauge railway line to approach St Emilie, the battalion incurred several casualties from enemy shelling which at this point in the day was still relatively heavy. Establishing a temporary headquarters in the railway cutting ‘opposite a building known as the Crystal Palace’, Fielding reported to Brigadier General Phillip Leveson-Gower, commanding 49 Infantry Brigade. Gower’s orders to Fielding were to attack Ronssoy to the north of the St Emilie road immediately in co-operation with the 1st Battalion Munster Fusiliers (1/Munsters) who were to attack south of the road. Whatever Fielding’s private thoughts may have been about the folly of this attack he most likely kept them to himself at this stage, but as he usually did, he unburdened himself after the event in a letter to his wife, Edith:

‘As we reached the firing line the trench was being heavily and effectively shelled. A few hours before it had been a reserve trench – almost our rearmost line of defence; so far behind, in fact, that it was only partly dug. There were considerable gaps; and, as there was no communication trench leading up to it, the only approach was across the open … We found it occupied by a few living stragglers – remnants of the garrisons of the forward positions, and strewn with the bodies of the dead who had already fallen to the enemy’s shell fire. Among the severely wounded there lay one of my company commanders [Captain] (Denys Wickham) – an admirable officer who weathered two years of the worst of the war.’⁷

Rowland Fielding’s description of the carnage that was inflicted on his beloved battalion before the attack began paints a vivid picture of men under shell fire, detail that he excluded from the war diary account and only revealed in letters to Edith:

‘As the companies assembled for the counter-attack the hostile shelling seemed to increase, and, more than once there was a direct hit upon a bay, killing or wounding every man in it. A whizz bang skimmed the parapet and hit the parados where I was standing, splashing my face with earth with such a smack that for a moment I thought my cheek was shot away … As I recovered, a recently joined subaltern came to me and reported that [Lieutenant Fenton] Cummins – second in command of his company – and several men with him had just been killed by a shell, and the men on either side were shaken; which was indeed scarcely to be wondered at, seeing that many of them were experiencing their baptism of fire. I told him I was afraid he would have to carry on just the same, and I must say that the plucky and unhesitating manner in which this boy turned back to his job was admirable.’⁸

Keeping B Company in reserve the battalion attacked at 3.45pm with two companies – A Company on the left and D Company on the right- with C Company in support. Both attacking companies reached the sunken road which borders the western edge of Ronssoy Wood but of the 1/Munsters on the right there was no sign. But as C Company moved forward they could see what initially was thought to be the Munsters, but which turned out to be German infantry, lining the ridge to the right:

‘[Captain Conolly] Norman immediately engaged the enemy, forming a defensive flank along the Ronssoy-St Emilie road, but soon fell, wounded in three places. Lieutenant [Arthur] Russell then took command but fell almost immediately, mortally wounded. Simultaneously, the only other officer with the company – McTiernan – was mortally wounded, and the greater part of the company having in this short time also become casualties, the remainder were forced to fall back upon the trench they had started from, together with the few that remained of the two attacking companies, who had suffered equally, the commander of one – Captain [Thomas] Crofton – having been killed leading his men forwards, while the commander of the other – Lieutenant [Alfred] Ribbons, who had succeeded Wickham – was made prisoner.’⁹

The two tanks that had been allocated to this attack also failed to materialize and apparently proceeded independently: both of them, Fielding tells us, were knocked out. The Connaughts’ attack stood no chance of success in the face of violent German shelling and the Munsters’ failure to cover the right flank doomed Fielding’s men from the outset, reducing the battalion to ‘the Headquarters Company and thirty-four stragglers’. At 5.15pm Fielding was at St Emilie reporting to Leveson-Gower:

‘He was apologetic and explained his orders for this operation should have been cancelled: they had, he said, been cancelled in the case of the Munster fusiliers, but he had been unable to communicate with me. Then he added: ‘I hope you will not think hardly of me.’ There was no answer to this – at least no civil answer I could see for his having failed to communicate with me; nor, having failed, could I excuse him for having cancelled his orders to the Royal Munster Fusiliers to counter-attack, knowing that we were counting upon their co-operation.’¹⁰

Fielding’s war was far from over and we will come across the Connaught Rangers again later. But before we look more closely at the action around Malassise Farm by the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers (2/Munsters), the story surrounding a young subaltern from 94 Brigade RFA is worthy of mention. There were numerous stories of gunners abandoning the infantry to their fate – no doubt embroidered considerably as they were passed on from soldier to soldier – all of which did little to improve the image of the artilleryman to the disgruntled and retreating infantryman. However, retirement and the subsequent breakdown of communication left many gunners almost completely isolated, circumstances no better illustrated than by the frustration experienced by the brigade major of VII Corps heavy artillery who reported all communication broken by 10.00am on 21 March and that ‘the first intimation we had of any infantry action was when our own [infantry] retired through the battery positions’. Undoubtedly there were untold numbers of gunners who performed single acts of bravery in the face of the enemy that went unrecorded or even unnoticed. One exception was Second Lieutenant Gordon Chapman of 94 Brigade RFA.

Born in Sheffield in 1897, Chapman had moved to South Africa with his parents as a child and had first served with the South African Medical Corps in German South West Africa in 1915 and then Egypt before attending an Officer Cadet Unit in Britain. Commissioned into the RFA in February 1917 and in France by the following October, on 21 March 1918 Chapman found himself in command of a single 18-pounder and posted from the 21st Divisional sector to the neighbouring 16th Division with orders to fire across the length of the 21st Divisional front. When the 16th Division withdrew in the direction of St Emilie, Chapman and his gun crew maintained their position and protected the right flank of the 21st Division until about 1.00pm when their ammunition ran out. The gun was then run back to the waiting limber by hand while Gordon Chapman and his remaining gunners held up the enemy with rifle and Lewis gun fire until the gun and its crew were able to escape. Three days later this same officer accidently found himself on the outskirts of Péronne before he discovered the town had been occupied by the enemy. ‘Chapman unlimbered in the road’, wrote his brigade commander, ‘browned the Germans in the streets, and limbered up and returned to his battery, passing through the British front line some two miles further back.’ Chapman’s DSO was gazetted in September 1918.¹¹

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The battlefield southeast of Épehy – including Malassise Farm – remains today very much as it was on 21 March 1918. The farm is still in the same position northeast of the crossroads formed by the Chemin des Charbonniers – which runs northeast along the shallow valley known in 1918 as Deelish Valley- and the D58. To the north lies Tetard Wood, a mere 350 yards from the communal cemetery on the south eastern edge of Épehy. One of the two original railway lines still runs from St Emilie, along the eastern edge of Épehy and Peizières crossing the D24 as it heads north skirting Vaucelette Farm towards Gouzeaucourt.

The 2/Munsters – a battalion that had already written itself into legend in late August 1914 with its epic last stand at Etreux, just 37 kilometres due east – moved into battle positions on the night of 21/22 March. The battalion’s main axis of defence ran from Malassise Farm to Tetard Wood along a trench line known as Ridge Reserve North with two strong points – M and U Posts – some 200 yards to the east along Room Trench which was manned by two platoons from B and C Companies. In the railway cutting to the west was battalion headquarters and one platoon of C Company. A Company were in reserve at the crossroads southwest of the farm. Ridge Reserve North was garrisoned by D Company and the remaining platoons from B and C Companies. Major Marcus Hartigan, second-in-command of the battalion up until the evacuation of Lieutenant Colonel Ireland, had no illusions as to the role the reserve company were to perform. They were ‘in reality a support to the company garrisoning Malassise Farm, and had instructions that in the event of the enemy attacking the farm … it was to counter-attack without further orders’.¹²

Marcus Hartigan was 40-years-old by the time he was transferred to the Munsters from the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and already had a noteworthy career and a DSO behind him. Wounded in the Boer War he fought in South West Africa at the onset of the Great War, raising and commanding the well-known Hartigan’s Horse before moving to the Western Front. Hartigan wrote two accounts of the battle; the first was smuggled out from Holtzminden POW Camp and another, which he wrote in 1927, was composed in response to the War Office Historical Department’s request for information regarding the battalion’s action. His account appears to be more accurate than that of the regimental history which fails to mention the contribution of Lieutenants Kidd and Whelan altogether.

Although Hartigan is unsure of the exact time the farm came under attack, he thinks it was at about 9.00am, the support company had already gone forward from the crossroads when Hartigan received the first report from the farm that the company commander, Lieutenant Patrick Cahill, had been killed. For Hartigan the alarm bells were already ringing:

‘At the same time it was observed that the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers whose sector was the Catelet Valley were retiring and that the enemy had occupied their positions in the Forward Zone, getting into their trenches under cover of the fog and bayoneting the men before they could realize they were the enemy. The situation at about 9.30am was: The two companies engaged at Malassise Farm were lost, if there were any survivors from the support company they must have joined the 2nd Dublins. Later that day while a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, then occupying Malassise Farm, I was complimented by a German major upon the splendid fight that Lieutenant [William] Kidd and his company had put up in the farm.’¹³

According to the Munsters’ war diary, Malassise Farm was assaulted from behind as the Dublin Fusiliers fell back, leaving the right flank open to attack by units from RIR 262. Here reports differ a little as to exactly where the Dublins were and at what time. An account written by Captain Geoffrey Peirson, a staff officer with the 48 Brigade Advanced Headquarters at Épehy, is quite certain the attack upon the Dublin Fusiliers began between 8.00am and 9.00am and that the Munsters’ outposts in Room Trench were still holding out at that time. Hartigan tells us in his account that the Dublins were falling back by 9.00am – presumably from their forward outpost positions – and by 9.30am Malassise Farm was lost. This places the remnants of the Dublin Fusiliers a little to the west of the railway line somewhere in the triangle of ground framed by the D24 and D58. But whatever the case, we do know that the retirement by the Dublin Fusiliers spelt the end for the garrison at Malassise Farm and put the focus firmly on C Company at the northern end of Ridge Reserve Trench and Tetard Wood.¹⁴

At 10.00am Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Ireland was badly wounded and Hartigan assumed command, moving battalion headquarters from the railway cutting to a new position 500 yards southwest of Épehy. With enemy infantry closing around them the Munsters were in no mood to give ground:

‘One of the features of the fight in this sector during the day was the fine leadership of Lieutenant [Harry]Whelan who organized and held the posts in Tetard Wood and his magnificent example of daring and initiative was responsible for a most determined resistance which cost the enemy dear for every foot of ground he gained. About noon Lieutenant Whelan – under orders – withdrew what remained of his company, less than a platoon, to a post on the southern edge of the ruins of Épehy where he continued the fight.’¹⁵

The war diary adds more detail:

‘Rifle and MG fire from Ridge Reserve prevented the enemy from moving artillery up the Malassise road and every attempt up to 4.00pm resulted in the horses and drivers being shot down and this effective fire was maintained in spite of the repeated attacks on our right flank … by 4.40pm the enemy assault troops had pressed Lieutenant Whelan back into the last two or three bays in Tetard Wood from where he side-stepped into the trench at the head of the Catelet Valley.’¹⁶

There is little doubt that this spirited defence assisted the Leicesters – who were holding the ruins of Épehy – in retaining the integrity of their right flank. Hartigan was captured at about 6.00pm en route from Tetard Wood to Épehy and although the situation was desperate the defences at Épehy and Peizières were still holding out – just.

When day broke on 22 March, unlike the conditions on many other sectors, there was not a trace of fog anywhere and from his position on the edge of Épehy, Harry Whelan was able to overlook a section of road up which the enemy were attempting to bring artillery:

‘So effective was this fire of the Munsters on this spot that the road became impassable being literally blocked with the dead bodies of the gun teams. About noon on the 22nd, having fired every round of ammunition Whelan buried his revolver and surrendered.’¹⁷

Many survivors of the battalion were captured at Épehy. Whelan was badly wounded but at what point is not clear and his wounds were so severe that he died three weeks later on 11 April whilst a prisoner at Kassel. As is often the case from such a ferocious and prolonged stand, casualties were heavy; the majority of the officers and men killed in action over the two days of the fighting are commemorated on the Pozières Memorial. The others are scattered between Épehy Wood Farm Cemetery, Roisel Communal Cemetery, Tincourt New British Cemetery, St Emilie Valley Cemetery and Templeux le Guérard British Cemetery. Harry Whelan is buried at Niederzwehren Cemetery at Kassel. Lieutenant Colonel Ireland died of his wounds at Rouen on 28 March and is buried in the Military Cemetery at St Sever.

* * *

The 21st Divisional southern boundary ran roughly north of Capron Copse before crossing the D58 north of Malassise Farm to skirt the edge of Épehy village. The Forward Zone here lacked depth, particularly in the sector north of Peizières where the ground between the two zones was in some places as little as 200 yards in depth. The front line of the Battle Zone ran along the ridge from Ronssoy to the twin villages of Épehy and Peizières, before it joined the 9th Division sector just north of Chapel Hill. The German battle plan had already identified Épehy as a potential ‘trouble spot’ and the two divisions detailed for this sector were under no illusions as to the difficulty of the task that awaited them:

‘However, high above the plain, providing a perfect 360 degree view, the English have built a remarkable fortress, four square kilometers of trench systems riddled with MG nests and concrete dug-outs: Épehy! The fight for this fortress won’t be easy, that much is clear to Generalleutnant von Schüßler [ID 183], bound to attack frontally, as well as to Generalmajor Landauer [ID 79], who is to proceed south of the village via Malassise Farm.’¹⁸

From a purely defensive point of view Chapel Hill should have been part of the 9th Division sector as the loss of this unassuming bump of ground would seriously compromise the South African Brigade which held the ground to its north. We will return to Chapel Hill in Chapter 8. The 21st Division comprised of 110, 62 and 64 Infantry Brigades and was commanded by Major General David ‘Soarer’ Campbell, a cavalryman who had led the 9th Lancers into action at Audregnies south of Mons when they charged the German gun line on 24 August 1914. On that day the regiment had suffered heavily against German machine-gun and shrapnel fire in an action that was redeemed to some extent two weeks later at Moncel when he again led his regiment in the first lance against lance cavalry action of the war. From command of 6 Cavalry Brigade in November 1914 he was promoted to command the 21st Division in May 1916. His nickname came from the name of the horse on which he rode to victory in the Grand National in 1896.

The 110 Infantry Brigade – known as the Leicester Brigade – was under new command, Brigadier General Hanway Cumming only arriving at Saulcourt to take up his new post on 18 March. His brigade sector ran from the southern extremity of Épehy along the railway cutting to the slopes below Vaucelette Farm which was held by units of 62 Brigade. The principle weakness of the Forward Zone centred upon the three re-entrant valleys which ran down from the ridge to the German front line. These valleys – Linnet, Thrush and Fourteen Willows Road – were obvious lines of attack and quickly identified as such by Cumming who had very little time to assess the effectiveness of his defences.