On 21 March Cumming was woken by the crash of the opening bombardment. ‘It came down like a thunderclap on all parts of the line, even as far back as Brigade Headquarters, and left no doubt in any one’s mind from its depth and intensity that this meant business.’ To Lieutenant David Kelly, the 110 Brigade Intelligence Officer, the opening barrage sounded like the propellers of a passing ship, he lost little time finding shelter:

‘In another second I was in the sunken road outside my cupola and could have no doubt that “the day” had come. Our whole area, and all the areas to the north and south, were being flooded with high explosive and shrapnel shells, the former falling in serried ranks, with concentrated fire on all roads and trenches in front of us, while an incessant stream of shells whistled over our heads to the transport routes and camps, including the ruined village of Saulcourt behind us.’¹⁹

The Leicesters’ main defences were in and around the twin villages of Épehy and Peizières which were garrisoned by the 7th and 8th Battalions of the Leicestershire Regiment. In reserve were two companies of the 6th Battalion who were at Saulcourt. Fortunately the bulk of the front-line troops in the Forward Zone had been withdrawn to the Battle Zone an hour before dawn as planned, leaving only scattered outlook or observation posts. This eminently sensible decision – presumably taken by Campbell – not only reduced casualties but contrasted sharply with that which was taken when deploying troops in the 16th Divisional sector further south. The consequences of the latter decision were observed by Lance Corporal Sydney North:

‘Looking to our right, we could see Jerry troops steadily making their way into territory we had been told was held by the 16th Division. About half a mile to our right, we could see the Germans moving forward in single file and many were already well behind us. It was not yet midday. Jerry was moving as if there was no opposition and we reckoned we were in real trouble on the flank.’²⁰

The observation posts were soon overrun but not before giving warning of the advancing enemy. Second Lieutenant Albert Farey of 7/Leicesters who was holding Plane Trench in the Linnet valley had just enough time to send off the SOS signal before he was wounded and captured at 9.30am.

Both Épehy and Peizières were defended by a series of strong points or posts located within the twin villages which were, for all intents and purposes, one continuous development. However, as Hanway Cumming remarks in his account of the battle, they were both garrisoned separately and very strongly defended:

‘[They] were well wired and disposed for mutual support of one another. The position was further strengthened by a strong machine-gun defence from the rear and flanks and a converging artillery barrage so arranged as to sweep the valleys at irregular intervals as they formed obvious forming up places for attacking troops; and it is quite possible that this bore good fruit, as the frontal attacks on Épehy and Peizières did not develop to any extent for some considerable period.’²¹

The 7/Leicesters at Peizières were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Guy Sawyer, a regular officer who had begun his career with the Royal Berkshire Regiment. Sawyer deployed D Company amongst the four strong points in his end of the village and pushed A and B Companies out to the east of the village, keeping C Company in reserve. Épehy was similarly garrisoned by 8/Leicesters and under the command of 32-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Utterson, a man who, like Sawyer, was a regular officer. Utterson’s headquarters was at Fishers Keep on the Rue Neuve which was one of six similar strong points dotted around the village, supporting the battalion in the village were two companies of 6/Leicesters.

At Peizières Lieutenant Cyril Scarfe, commanding C Company, also had two Mark IV tanks to call upon to support his men should a counter-attack be deemed necessary. The company was positioned in what Scarfe refers to as a ‘shallow trench in the rear of Peizières’ where for some time he and his men were forced to wear gas masks while the gas ‘appeared to cling to the mist as there was no breeze to disperse it’. At around 10.00am enemy troops broke into the Peizières defences after attacking McFee Post in the north of the village capturing six men and getting into the nearby railway cutting. Scarfe and his company were ordered up to remedy the situation which was done surprisingly quickly:

‘The two tanks got away first and met with practically no opposition as the raid or incursion was not one of great strength. Similarly each platoon of my company reached its objective without serious fighting, passing through Peizières and occupying the position in extended line along the top of the railway cutting.’²²

Scarfe presumably had a good view of the road bridge which crossed the railway line northeast of the village, accounting for his assertion the enemy incursion into Peizières and the temporary capture of McFee Post was down to the sappers failing to destroy the road bridge. ‘It was understood that the RE were instructed to do this but whatever the cause the bridge was left intact.’ The attack that captured McFee Post was also directed at Vaucelette Farm. Situated in the valley between Chapel Hill to the north and Peizières to the south the farm guarded the approaches to Railton and Heudicourt. Captain Lionel Borthwick was of the opinion that ‘the Germans penetrated our front along Andrew Street (the road from Villers-Guislain to Peizières) and then marched outward. One party attacking and capturing Vaucelette Farm from the south and another penetrating into Peizières.’

Borthwick was at Tottenham Post for most of the two-day German assault on Épehy and was under no illusions as to the critical nature of Vaucelette Farm, holding as it did a vital position in the 21st Division’s main line of resistance. He cites the thick fog on the morning of 21 March as one of the principle factors in the early capture of Vaucelette Farm, a fog, he writes, that rendered direct shooting impossible. ‘In one case to my personal knowledge, a machine gun post of 4 guns on the southern end of Vaucelette Farm was overrun without a shot being fired.’ ²³

The farm was garrisoned by men of the 12/13 Northumberland Fusiliers and the first word 62 Brigade received from the Fusiliers was at 7.30am reporting everything was OK on their front except a breakdown in communication with their right company. This must have been the first indication that the farm was under attack as by 11.15am the 62 Brigade war diary tells us that ‘the enemy were in Vaucelette Farm’.

The exact nature of what happened at the farm still remains uncertain. One company of Northumberland Fusiliers was deployed in and around the farm but after communication with battalion headquarters was lost at 7.30am nothing more was heard. However, at 10.00am the first report arrived at the neighbouring 1/Lincolnshire headquarters in Birchwood Copse to the effect that the Germans had broken through the line between Andrews Street and Vaucelette Farm:

‘A few minutes later, through the fog, we saw their leading infantry surround and actually lead away as prisoners the commanding officer and the personnel … whose headquarters in a sunken road were about two hundred yards from our own battalion headquarters.’²⁴

There was only one senior officer taken prisoner in the vicinity of the farm and that was Major George White who was commanding the Fusiliers in the absence of Lieutenant Colonel Howlett who was on leave. The sunken road referred to was probably at the western end of ‘Leith Walk’ where the road crosses the railway line – a mere 100 yards southwest of Vaucelette Farm. Major White remembers a considerable number of German infantry in the sector but only becoming apparent when the fog began to lift. His account recorded the fierce hand-to-hand fighting that took place in the final moments before they were overwhelmed:

‘Parties [of Germans] came from the right rear of the battalion, these were dealt with by the details of battalion headquarters, few of my men remained unwounded. Later, parties of the enemy were seen advancing from the front line and it was obvious that their attack had succeeded. Both the Adjutant and myself, with the remains of the details were in the trench, we were both using rifles and whilst firing at the oncoming wave, were attacked from the rear right by men who had come forward, one of these proceeded to attack us with a shovel and another pulled the string of a stick-bomb and threw it between McKinnon [adjutant] and myself.’²⁵

White tells us that the grenade failed to explode and a German officer appeared waving his pistol and ordering his men to stop. By this time the battalion was completely surrounded and ‘further resistance was impossible’. The German officer who accepted White’s surrender – obviously a keen boater – asked White how long he thought it would be before he would be able to use the river at Boulter’s lock at Maidenhead. White does not record the content of his answer!

Captain John McKinnon, the Northumberland Fusiliers adjutant, and White were taken prisoner along with Captain Ernest Griffin – the medical officer attached to the battalion. Griffin was already the recipient of the Military Cross when his award of the DSO came in November 1917 for establishing his forward dressing station under shellfire and remaining out in the open for some 36 hours to bring in all the wounded. It is unlikely his conduct under fire was any different on this foggy March morning. There is a postscript to the Vaucelette Farm episode which suggests that the Farm held out longer than has been suggested. A patrol of 11/Royal Scots sent out to ‘clear up the situation on the right penetrated almost to Vaucelette. He [Lieutenant Alexander Kennedy] reported that some of our troops, 21st Division, were still holding out there – gallant fellows.’ Exactly what time this was is unknown but Brigadier General Croft (27 Brigade) describes the encounter as later in the day.²⁶

With Vaucelette Farm and the Peizières ridge now in enemy hands, the neighbouring 9th Division had good cause to feel nervous, particularly as the right flank of the 21st Division had also given way. The enemy penetration from Vaucelette Farm had formed a salient in the line around Épehy and Peizières and although the attacking Germans must have suffered enormous casualties in this pocket they were still intent on taking Revelon Farm. On the right flank the German advance towards St Emilie soon began to compromise the Épehy defences to the south, a situation that was temporarily stabilized by two companies of 6/ Leicesters, which had hitherto been kept in reserve, being brought up to form a defensive flank pivoting on the southern edge of Épehy. The insecure position that 110 Brigade was in was already quite clear to Lieutenant Colonel William Stewart and his men as they moved into position.

As for A and C Companies of 6/Leicesters, which were deployed in Épehy, they were under the command of 31-year-old Captain Archibald McLay and Lieutenant Ellis Lane-Roberts with headquarters at Cullen Post, an observation point directly behind the cemetery, on the Rue Louis Georges. They and their men had been standing to ever since the first German shell had fallen earlier that morning, Lane recalling that the gas had been thick and heavy forcing them to put on the hated box respirators, but adding that ‘after falling down a few times and colliding with walls etc we took them off again’. From their vantage point at Cullen Post the battle for Ridge Reserve North and Tetard Wood had little chance of going unnoticed and it was probably to Cullen Post that Whelan and his Munsters retired that evening, although Roberts makes no mention of this. By nightfall the survivors of 6/Leicesters were still in place along the north eastern edge of the village – 8/Leicesters had withdrawn to Prince Reserve Trench where their Lewis gun and rifle fire had successfully repelled several further attacks.

At 7.00pm David Kelly was directed by Brigadier General Cumming to visit all three battalions and collect reports on the situation facing them:

‘The whole area had been transformed during the day, the green weedy fields were everywhere torn up with fresh shell holes, and the air was reeking with gas in many places. As I started out the enemy artillery resumed their fire with fresh vigour to stop possible supplies or reinforcements coming up under cover of darkness, and part of the way down the road to the 7th Battalion I had to run hard. The Battalion Headquarters had been shelled out of their new dugout, and were sitting in a slit about a hundred yards away. Having seen the Colonel, I went on to Peizières, visiting our posts on the way, and hugging the walls of the main street which was being swept by occasional bullets, indicating the enemy were working round our right flank through the 16th Division. Arrived at Fishers Keep, the headquarters of the 8th Battalion … Tierens, the medical officer of the 6th Battalion came in and told us his aid-post in the south end of the village was in German hands, and that he had been taken prisoner, but released by his captors when they saw his Red Cross armband.’²⁷

At 9.30pm Kelly and Tierens left Fishers Keep to find the 6/Leicesters who were somewhere in the fields behind Épehy. It was a journey that took an hour-and-a-half through a maelstrom of shellfire that was made all the more frightening by the darkness that surrounded them:

‘Colonel Stewart’s report of the situation was gloomy. The whole of our right flank appeared to be in the air, and the great Épehy to St Emilie road was infested with enemy patrols. The 6th Battalion had too few men to form a defensive flank, for they had lost heavily from shell fire and the process was still going on. The dug-out was full of wounded, some terribly mutilated. About midnight I took my leave of Colonel Stewart, who had always been a very good friend, for the last time. He was shot down in front of his headquarters a few hours later.’²⁸

Martin Middlebrook concludes that the situation at Épehy was unusual in that the fog lifted relatively early in the day which he feels may well have been the reason why German units failed to encircle the position. They had already been confused by finding the empty forward positions which, together with well-directed artillery fire from three British batteries, had brought the German divisions frustratingly to a halt, despite the penetration on the right flank by the 9th Bavarian Reserve Division. The German account underlines their frustration over the inability to crack the Épehy stronghold:

‘Landauer’s 79th Reserve Division couldn’t manage to take the bulwark from the south. On its right wing Battalion Kühne of RIR 261 clings to the outer defence of Épehy, two of its companies had attacked regardless of losses to open a breach, supported by Leutnant der Reserve Leman and his crack Stormtroops of Lübbener Jäger [Jäger Battalion 3], which carries an Infanterie-Geschütz-Batterie and another forward battery along. Fierce hand-to-hand fights leave two Züge [platoons] of Kompanie Nadolni almost annihilated. Only a few Jäger survive the day unscathed and many Kanoniere are being ripped to pieces at their guns … Battalion Kühne of RIR 261 tries again and again in vain to gain the high-lying main English position. The division’s left regiment, RIR 263, led by Oberstleutnant von Behr somehow manages to reach the railway line south of Épehy but has to withdraw due to a hail of our own artillery shells.’²⁹

The next day German gunners lost no time bringing yet another bombardment down on the Leicesters in their salient, but no infantry attack developed until 8.15am when Corporal Douglas Bacon was somewhat alarmed by a simultaneous German attack on the southern end of Épehy and on 6/Leicesters on the opposite flank:

‘Fierce fighting ensued, but the result was the isolation and capture of the southern groups on our flank. This heavy fighting continued until 9.00 am, the attack from the Épehy-St Emilie road growing stronger and more determined. The 6th and 8th Leicesters were ordered to withdraw to the northwest and take up a position pivoting on Capron Copse to the edge of Épehy on the Saulcourt road. Lieutenant Colonel Stewart DSO was killed just prior to this withdrawal.’³⁰

The early morning bombardment and subsequent infiltration by enemy units into the ruined outskirts of Épehy forced Lieutenant Scarfe and his company back to the shelter of Tottenham Post in the north eastern corner of Peizières. On arrival he found the only officer badly wounded and a dwindling garrison of 7/ Leicesters made up from survivors of C and D Companies:

‘[The men] were suffering from a combination of machine gun fire from both land and low flying aeroplanes, bombardments by shells of many calibres, sniping and trench mortar bombardment from under cover of a ruined building in Peizières. So accurate and severe was the trench mortar shelling that a corporal and two other ranks volunteered to form a bombing party and raid that particular gun.’³¹

The bombing party succeeded in silencing the mortar but Scarfe never saw the men again. Shortly afterwards the two front companies were ordered to withdraw but no orders reached Scarfe at Tottenham Post. He described the circumstances that finally prompted him to order his men to retire at 3.30pm:

‘I decided to cover the retirement of these two companies for as long as possible. Only the exhaustion of all our ammunition and bombs (even the dead were stripped of their cartridge clips) caused the final evacuation of Tottenham Post by the survivors of the garrison. A subaltern, the Company Sergeant Majors of C and D Companies and about twelve other ranks, besides myself, finally withdrew.’³²

Their attempt to reach the battalion was hopeless from the start, the group soon ran into the enemy who were by now ‘almost everywhere’. But at least Scarfe and his men were captured intact and not shot down as were many of the retiring Leicesters.

Lieutenant Lane-Roberts was facing a similar difficulty at Cullen Post. While the remnants of 8/Leicesters were still holding out in front of his post he felt unable to withdraw but as soon as they began to move through the ruins of the village Lane-Roberts decided to chance his luck and ordered his men to follow:

‘With the 8th having retired to the left I decided to make a dash for it. I started off and expecting Germans to be in the trench ahead, bombed my way down. Lieutenant Thirlby, who was with me, brought up the rear. The Germans were closing in on us now and we had not gone very far when they jumped in the trench in between us and completely surrounded us on top.’³³

Lane-Roberts fortunately survived those critical moments after surrender but after his capture he writes how, fearing the worst, he asked permission to go and find Stewart Thirlby who had not been with the party when they were captured. Permission refused, Roberts was marched away to Le Cateau and imprisonment.

Cumming’s orders for his battalions to retire were sent out at 11.00am while he and his headquarters staff moved to Longavesne to await the arrival of the brigade. The retirement from Épehy was a challenge in itself which, despite the almost complete encirclement by the enemy, was carried out through the one remaining gap that was left. Inevitably the orders failed to reach some units, certainly neither of David Kelly’s two orderlies made it back to Longavesne:

‘Rearguards fought obstinately in Épehy to cover the retreat; Captain McLay of the 6th Battalion, one of our best company commanders, was killed there, and I heard the streets were full of German dead. In the Brown Line, by which I had come to the Quarry, the miscellaneous garrison were mostly cut off through ignorance of the general retirement, and our brigade headquarter cook and mess-waiter were taken prisoner while Captain [Arthur] Lawson who commanded our light trench-mortar battery was killed.’³⁴

Lieutenant Colonel Utterson and his garrison at Fishers Keep had found themselves surrounded long before the order to retire was received – if indeed it ever reached Fishers Keep – and fought on until surrender became the only sensible option. He and some sixteen other officers joined Ellis Lane-Roberts and Cyril Scarfe in captivity. Exactly how many NCOs and men were taken prisoner is unclear but at roll call on the evening of 22 March, 31 officers and 1,200 men were missing from the brigade.

Those who managed to retire from Peizières may well have heard the two explosions that came from the direction of the bridges to the northeast of the village. These were the same bridges that Lieutenant Cyril Scarfe rather angrily referred to after the enemy incursion into Peizières and the temporary capture of McFee Post on the previous day. With orders to remain at his post until instructed otherwise, a sapper from 126/Field Company continued to repair the leads throughout the two days of 21 and 22 March until the arrival of Captain James Vanner at 12.15pm. Remaining at his post in such trying circumstances was an act of courage that the 21-year old James Vanner would have understood completely. Vanner’s service with the battalion began just after the attack on Bazentin-le-Petit in the early hours of 14 July 1916 when 7/Leicesters lost over half of its number and 18 officers. Promotion came easily to men like James Vanner, particularly if they managed to stay alive and ten months later he was in command of A Company with the rank of captain and the ribbon of the MC on his chest. If he and the sapper were to avoid capture there was very little time left in which to escape the enemy who were already on the road bridge. The citation for Vanner’s DSO records his ‘conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty’ whilst in command of two companies during the withdrawal from Épehy and blocking the railway cutting by the demolition of two bridges ‘while the enemy were crossing’. Both men escaped.

For a week previous to 21 March, A and B Companies of the 1st Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment (1/East Yorks) had manned battle positions a mile east of the village of Saulcourt. From 4.00am on 22 March the village was subjected to a heavy bombardment of gas which forced the East Yorkshiremen to wear gas respirators for the next seven hours. As the Leicesters fell back from Épehy and passed through the East Yorkshire lines, these two companies remained in position repulsing several attacks. By 1.45pm A Company had lost all its officers and only two remained with B Company – Lieutenant Charles MacMahon and Second Lieutenant Nelson Gasson. The order to withdraw which arrived some fifteen minutes later was quickly followed by counter orders to attack east of the village towards Chauffeur’s Wood. Faced with a heavy infantry attack and with a large proportion of his men dead or wounded around him, Charles MacMahon could have been forgiven if he had ignored such an order and simply retired, but judging from the spasmodic firing ahead of him there was still a token resistance taking place south of Chauffeur’s Wood. The counter-attack went ahead and the sunken road was occupied:

‘A machine gun officer of the 64th Brigade was still in position in this sunken road although devoid of personnel he, with great bravery, still manipulated his gun with the help of a couple of men from B Company. At 4.00pm the enemy made a determined attack on both flanks and enveloped this composite company. However every man stood his ground and the final scene was the company commander[MacMahon] indulging in a duel with a German officer, the latter brought to the ground with a nasty wound in his thigh and the former with a wound in his arm and taken prisoner.’³⁵

Nelson Glasson was also taken prisoner along with a handful of the surviving men although it is unlikely that many would have shared the sentiments expressed by MacMahon that it had been ‘one of the many glorious fights’ that took place that day.

Brigadier Cumming’s short tenure of 110 Brigade had been a dramatic one and as the remnants fell back in the face of the German advance David Kelly was aware that ‘we were now back on the edge of the old Somme Battlefield, utterly deserted since April 1917. All around stretched the old wilderness of shell holes, mostly overgrown with grass.’ ³⁶