Chapter 10

Retreat to the Somme

People ask me if I was frightened, of course I was frightened, it was so like a nightmare that I thought it must be a nightmare, such a thing could not be happening and I’d wake up suddenly and find it was a dream.

Captain Maberly Esler, Medical Officer with the
2nd Battalion Middlesex Regiment

Behind Gough’s Fifth Army sector lay the River Somme and the network of canals that stretched north from the junction of the Crozat Canal through Ham to Péronne. All Gough’s corps commanders were quite aware that circumstances may dictate a retreat to the line of the Somme to cover Péronne; indeed Lawrence’s orders to Gough in February 1918 made it clear that if the Fifth Army fell back on the rear defences of Péronne and the Somme, the line of the river must be held at all costs. Thus at 10.45am on 22 March the order went out from Gough’s headquarters to each of his four corps commanders that, should it be required, they were to make a fighting retreat to the line of the Somme but they must maintain contact with each other’s flanks.

Around midday Ivor Maxse, concerned at the retirement of III Corps on his right flank and presumably by the German success on the Crozat Canal, rather prematurely ordered XVIII Corps to retire behind the Somme, failing, for whatever reason, to inform Herbert Watts of his intentions. Whether Maxse misunderstood or even misinterpreted Gough’s original order is questionable but he opened up a dangerous gap between himself and Herbert Watts’ XIX Corps on his left flank. Watts was suddenly placed in the unenviable position of not only fighting a battle on his front but now having to defend his right flank where XVIII Corps was supposed to be! Major Christopher Ling felt Maxse’s retirement was almost entirely unjustified. Leaving aside his feelings regarding the deployment of the 20th Division, he felt XVIII Corps to be in a relatively strong position and despite the fact that the right flank was being threatened by the III Corps retirement they still held the front of the Battle Zone:

‘Practically everywhere the corps front held. About midday [on 22 March] I went along the Battle Zone from Roupy to the left flank at Holnon Wood and everywhere I found wonderful spirit and optimism and a determination and assurance that they could stay there forever. The 61st Division in particular … had taken great toll of the enemy and was in fine fighting fettle.’¹

Maxse’s decision may very well have baffled the officers and men who now found themselves marching the nine miles towards the Somme, none more so than the men of the unfortunate 24th Division who found themselves marching back towards the enemy to plug the gap between Maxse and Watts. In the circumstances there was little Gough could actually do once the machinery of movement had begun and the extent of the XVIII Corps retirement became apparent. Writing to Brigadier Edmonds in 1934 it is clear that Maxse placed much of the blame for his retirement on the 14th Division and the fact that he was ‘allotted the 20th Division too late to do more than hustle it into a previously reconnoitred position on a wide front, instead of using it for a planned counter-attack from a flank’. A decision, if you remember, that had drawn criticism from Major Ling.

The need to maintain an unbroken line of resistance was paramount, however, and XIX Corps had little choice but to fall in with Maxse’s movement towards the Somme, which incidentally may well have been instrumental in the reduction of 61 Brigade to a composite battalion and the desperate stand of 2/Royal Irish Rifles at Cugny. On the ground the situation certainly looked grim, particularly to the 61st Division which interpreted its retirement to the Somme in the worst possible light. By and large, however, Gough’s front line was only bending with the pressure exerted upon it and not shattering as Ludendorff had expected.

Indeed, by nightfall on 22 March the Germans had fallen well short of their battle objectives and had not achieved the success they hoped for except in the south and it was this success that led Ludendorff to make a grave strategic error on 23 March, one that ultimately led to the failure of the March offensive. Readers will recall the original German objectives for the March offensive were clear cut: the Second Army would thrust towards Péronne and encircle the Flesquières Salient from the south, while the Seventeenth Army would drive into the salient from the north and pinch it out by linking up with the Second Army while even further south, Oskar von Hutier’s Eighteenth Army would drive towards Ham on the Somme and form a buffer along the river against French reinforcements arriving from the south. Now, having studied the reports of the first two days of the offensive and studying the aerial photographs of a massive British retreat, Ludendorff was convinced the British were beaten and changed the overall battle strategy.

With his eyes firmly fixed on the south – where von Hutier had made significant inroads towards Noyon – he abandoned his aspirations in the north and sought to drive a wedge in between the French and British in the south by attacking along both sides of the Somme and pushing towards Amiens, a strategy that involved a confrontation with the French as well as the British. To make matters more complex Otto von Below’s Seventeenth Army was now required to dilute its strength by attacking in three directions. By altering the entire axis of attack from the northwest to the southwest Ludendorff had eased the pressure on V Corps in the north and ignited the catalyst that would see Fifth Army command gradually whittled away as III Corps were placed under the direct command of the French Third Army commanded by General Georges Humbert.

Apart from resentment in some quarters at III Corps over the nationality of their new masters, however, the troops on the ground cared very little if Ludendorff had blundered or not, the retirement was still in progress and as far as the British Tommy was concerned there remained an enormous number of Germans who were intent on killing him. Private Alex Jamieson of 11/Royal Scots was convinced that the German artillery was targeting him and his mates. ‘Even when we managed to get away our troubles weren’t over, because we were shelled all the way back. In fact it seemed that we’d become a target for the German artillery’; a sentiment undoubtedly shared by the tired troops of the 36th Division as they crossed the St Quentin Canal late on 21 March and moved towards Sommette-Eaucourt via Cugny.

The 2/Royal Irish Rifles and 107 Brigade crossed the canal at Seraucourt-le-Grand at around 11.00pm on 21 March, falling back on the Le Hamel-Happencourt road where they dug–in for the night. The next morning the battalion moved to an old French trench system southeast of Happencourt where, despite being heavily shelled, they remained in position throughout the day. At 6.00pm Major Richard Rose, commanding the battalion, was badly wounded and evacuated. Rose had won the Military Cross in 1917 at Westhoek and was destined not to return to active service, command of the battalion falling to 26-year-old Captain Thomas Thompson. At dusk the battalion was ordered to retire and moved towards Sommette-Eaucourt but as they crossed the Somme Canal fresh orders sent them to Cugny, a small village a little over a mile southwest of Annois.

Early on 23 March the Germans forced the line of the Crozat and Somme Canals and as 61 Brigade began to fall back Lieutenant Cyril Lacey and his collection of troops from units of the 14th Division were ordered to take up a position along the Cugny-Flavy-le-Martel road facing north. By this time Ham, several miles to the northwest, had fallen and elements of the German 5th Guard Division were crossing the canal via the Pithon railway bridge, which was still intact despite the last-minute efforts of French railway engineers to destroy it. On the Cugny–Flavy road Lieutenant Lacey came under attack just before midday:

‘At 11.45am I reported to the 42 Infantry Brigade that I was holding the Cugny-Flavy road in strength and that the enemy appeared to be pressing on through Flavy gradually. The enemy attack then developed more definitely and was pressed vigorously from the east through Flavy and it was necessary to change front to meet this attack … A little later intense and sustained machine gun fire was commenced from the direction of Flavy and low flying aeroplanes dropped bombs and smoke signals indicating our positions; our line was then immediately in front of Cugny.’²

Lacey tells us he was still in place at 6.30pm when he again sent a runner to 42 Brigade informing them of his situation, unfortunately his account stops short at this point as shortly afterwards he was wounded. Lacey’s men and the remnants of 14th Division presumably withdrew through Cugny before the attack on 2/Irish Rifles got underway.

Earlier that morning at 10.00am 2/Royal Irish Rifles had taken up a defensive position northeast of Cugny with D Company under the command of the Dublin-born Lieutenant John Boyle in reserve a little further to the northwest. At midday the battalion received reports that Flavy was in German hands and Thompson was instructed to hold Cugny at all costs to allow other retiring units to pass through their lines. Apart from the constant annoyance from low-flying enemy aircraft the afternoon passed relatively quietly – these aircraft were undoubtedly from the same Geschwader that Lacey remembered bombing his position further to the east and caused Kenneth Cousland and his battery to take cover in some ruined buildings near Flavy:

‘The Huns came very low shooting through the roof with their machine guns. We tried to make ourselves as small as the bricks on the ground but several of our fellows were hit. Then the sportsmen on the planes leaned over the side and dropped bombs on us. One bomb made a hole in the one remaining wall beside me large enough for me to dash through and sprint across a small orchard with the Hun diving at me before I flung myself under a large hedge where they could no longer see me.’³

However, at Cugny the lull was not to last long and at 6.00pm the Germans attacked the Irish Rifles in force, succeeding in driving a wedge between the battalion and Cugny village, a situation that was only recovered by the men of C Company led by Lieutenant Richard Marriot-Watson who drove them back with an energetic counter-attack. At 10.00pm Thompson and the battalion drew back to a line 300 yards west of Cugny.⁴

Thompson had been told the 12/King’s Liverpool Regiment from 61 Brigade was on his left flank but there had been no evidence of their presence all day. Captain Cyril Wilkins, a staff officer with 107 Brigade, visited the battalion at Cugny on the evening of the 23 March and assisted with the reorganization of the line facing Cugny:

‘The CO [Captain Thompson] and I reconnoitred to the right flank and did not gain touch with any of our units or the French. We then reconnoitred forward until we ran into the enemy who were holding a position just south of Cugny. On returning we reconnoitred from the left flank but failed to establish a connection with any of our troops nor did we find the enemy.’⁵

Wilkins returned to brigade to report the situation to Brigadier General William Withycombe, noting again that he did not encounter the 12/King’s on his way back. He was clearly concerned as to the plight of Thompson and his men:

‘I suggested to the brigade commander that the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, in view of their precarious and isolated position, should be withdrawn to a better defensive position in line with the remainder of the brigade and the troops on our right. General Withycombe decided that the [battalion] should remain in their positions as other troops of the 61st Brigade and 108 Brigade were reported to be still in position about Ollezy.’⁶

Wilkins returned again at dawn on 24 March to report that the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (1/Royal Irish Rifles) were in position in and around the ground at Montalimont Farm to cover the battalion’s withdrawal but after a conversation with Thompson it must have been obvious to both men that the chances of regaining the safety of the 1st Battalion’s lines were poor. It was a prognosis that became all too apparent to Wilkins when he came under fire from German units who were already near Brouchy – over a mile to the northwest of Cugny. Wilkins was probably the last individual to visit the battalion before it was overwhelmed.

At 6.00am the war diary recorded that touch had been established with troops who had moved forward during the night – these may have been elements of the 36th Division counter-attacking towards Brouchy. Second Lieutenant Tom Witherow, who was part of the attack, reported that ‘two wounded men came into our lines from the right; they belonged to my own battalion, the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, and said that the remains of the battalion were surrounded and would shortly be captured’. Had Tom Witherow not been at the Fifth Army School at Caix attending a platoon commander’s course on 21 March, he would almost certainly have been at Cugny with his battalion. As it was he was now within a mile of the beleaguered unit and powerless to help.

Back at Cugny heavy German machine-gun fire was directed on the Irish Rifles and enemy troops were clearly advancing on both flanks. Thompson drew in his flanks to form a more compact defence line but with 150 officers and men there was little he could do but stand fast and await the inevitable attack. The first assault took place just after 10.00am which was beaten off successfully but with ammunition running woefully short Thompson gave orders to his riflemen to make every round count. Second Lieutenant Edward Strohm was commanding Number 9 platoon in C Company:

‘Daybreak on the morning of 24 March was foggy, our line being taken up behind Cugny, the fog lifted about 10.00am. Weather fine, visibility fair. We had no supports, none of our planes were apparent, enemy planes were over us from time to time. No. 9 Platoon was in support to C Company 50 yards in the rear of the front line. Enemy machine guns were established on both our immediate flanks, he advancing his men in short rushes all the morning, our fire was very damaging.’⁷

Thompson was magnificent, deliberately exposing himself to fire to encourage his men on the menaced right flank which was being attacked again and again. According to the 107 Brigade war diary messages were sent out from 1/Royal Irish Rifles for the battalion to withdraw; but it was too late and none of the runners reached Cugny across the mile-and-a-half of open ground that lay between the two battalions. Had they have done so it is unlikely the 2nd Battalion would have been in a position to withdraw in the opinion of Captain Joseph Bryans, a retirement across open country with the Germans on at least three sides was impossible. By early afternoon the enemy had brought up trench mortars, Edward Strohm was also aware of 5.9-mm shells also being registered on their line:

‘About 2.00pm the enemy was observed about 2,000 yards to our right and well to our rear. About 3.00pm he was well in our rear on the left. About this time his trench mortar and machine gun fire was very persistent, my men were running short of ammunition. About 4.00pm he put down an intense barrage comprising the former with the addition of artillery which lasted about half an hour.’⁸

Captain Bryans described their final position as a ditch some 300 yards south of Cugny. We were ‘in remarkably good spirits,’ he wrote, ‘although it was evident our position was hopeless’. They didn’t have to wait long: having softened up the Irish positions with a barrage courtesy of the German gunners, the final infantry assault was pressed home with determination. Strohm again:

‘Then he [the enemy] came over, I observed an officer and about 20 men falling back on our left, this apparently gave him [the enemy] an opening which he followed up and was through on our left. Seemingly within a few minutes he was through our line and we were all mixed up. He seemed to pass right through and we were all mopped up by the second wave and I was taken [prisoner] at about 5.00pm. I had no ammunition and what remained of my men had none.’⁹

Strohm does not say whether he saw Captain Thompson and Lieutenant Marriot-Watson killed or indeed the 24-year-old Lieutenant Morgan Moore, but when the end came many, according to Bryans, ‘had only their bayonets left to fight with and rather than wait for the end they jumped from their entrenchments and met it gallantly’. From a ‘trench strength’ of 18 officers and 551 men on 1 March, only 150 officers and men had marched into Cugny on 22 March, and of these, over 100 were killed or wounded.

Bryans tells us that after the battalion had been overwhelmed the German officer commanding the attack gave his word that the bodies of Thompson and Marriot-Watson would be buried locally. ‘The German officer commanding, who spoke in congratulatory terms of our stand, assured me personally that they would be accorded a Christian burial in the village cemetery some 200 yards away.’ If this did take place their bodies were subsequently lost and both men are commemorated on the Pozières Memorial along with the majority of those who lost their lives at Cugny. Only the body of Lieutenant Morgan Moore remains locally, after being evacuated to Flavy he died of his wounds the following day and is buried at Grand-Seraucourt British Cemetery, six miles to the northeast. Taken prisoner with Bryans was Captain John Boyle whose wounds may have contributed to his death in captivity seven months later but fortunately Second Lieutenant Strohm survived his spell behind the wire and was repatriated in December 1918, a month later than Joseph Bryans.

All through the day the indomitable Father Henry Gill had been trying to reach the battalion at Cugny. Arriving at brigade headquarters – which by this time was at Guiscard – he was a little alarmed to be asked to take some maps with him as several dispatches ‘had failed to reach them’! Finally he met a ration party about to set out in an attempt to find the battalion:

‘I told them that I feared they had gone. I was unfortunately right. The order had been given that Cugny was to be held at all costs. And they had done so. Of the whole 750 (sic) or so only a very few came back. They had been killed or taken prisoners. One felt a lump in one’s throat. The battalion had of course been gradually renewed many times, but no such sudden extinction as this had taken place.’¹⁰

Officers and men who had just returned from leave or, like Tom Witherow, had been on courses, were collected together and reformed into a battalion of eight officers and forty men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Cox. On 30 March at Maisnieres near Abbeville, Father Gill held a Mass for those who had survived. ‘Instead of the hundreds who had filled the church before,’ he lamented, ‘there were less than thirty.’

Apart from the Germans forcing the passage of the Somme at Ham and Pithon, 23 March also saw the formation of ‘Harman’s Detatchment’. The German attack across the Somme had effectively driven a wedge between two divisions of Maxse’s XVIII Corps and at the same time threatened the left flank of Butler’s III Corps. In order to have some control over his flank, Butler ordered those cavalry units from the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Divisions that were still mounted to form a combined mounted unit under the command of Major General ‘Jacques’ Wentworth Harman. Born in 1872 the 42-year-old Harman had been commissioned into the 3rd Dragoon Guards in 1894 and twenty years later, as a squadron commander with the Queen’s Bays, he was in France with the BEF. Badly wounded at Néry during the retreat from Mons he took command of the 18th Hussars in 1916 and a year later – now a brigadier general – was appointed to command the 6th Cavalry Brigade. When summoned by Butler to cobble together a mounted flank guard he had only been in command of the 3rd Cavalry Division for a month.

Each regiment from the two cavalry divisions was ordered to contribute fifty mounted men to which were added 600 infantry who had been collected together under Lieutenant Colonel Courtney Theobald, eight Lewis guns and their teams from 13/Balloon Company and ‘O’ Battery Royal Horse Artillery (RHA). Butler’s orders to Harman was for his unit to provide mounted reconnaissance patrols reporting to III Corps Headquarters, a vital role that the scattering of the cavalry divisions into dismounted reinforcements had rendered largely impossible. However, there was one local action involving Harman’s Detachment that brought them into close contact with the Germans north of Collézy.

During the early afternoon of 24 March the two German divisions which had been hounding the 36th and 20th Divisions were converging on the Villeselve area where remnants of both divisions and elements of French infantry were still dug in and about to be outflanked. According to Lieutenant John Bickersteth it was about 2.00pm when the detachment from 6 Cavalry Brigade was ordered ‘to make a mounted attack on some hostile infantry and machine guns’ near Hill 81 and re-establish the defensive line around Villeselve. The infantry were said to be ‘very shaky’ and the attack it was hoped would regain some of the lost ground and restore a little confidence amongst the infantry.¹¹

The detachment of three troops – no more than 150 in total – under the command of Major Evelyn Williams of 10/Royal Hussars, moved north along the main road to Villeselve taking the sunken track which runs north into Collézy. Here they ran into heavy machine-gun fire from the direction of Golancourt, which, after taking cover in the nearby farm buildings and a rather hasty reconnaissance, was seen to be directed from two small copses 600 yards to the north. The farm buildings were situated between the British infantry who were to the east and the French who were in the sunken road to the rear. There was no time to lose if they were to profit from the element of surprise.

The plan of attack was quite straightforward; Lieutenant Arthur Vincent and his troop of 3/Dragoon Guards would charge towards Copse B and secure the right flank while the two troops of 10/Hussars and Royal Dragoons would make the main attack towards Copse A on the left. Passing through the British infantry lines, the three troops broke into a charge with 3/Dragoons bearing off to the right in the hope of distracting attention from the main attack. Farrier Sergeant Albert Turp was riding with the Royal Dragoons towards Copse A on the left, he recalled an officer of 10/Hussars giving the order to draw swords: