Chapter 12

The Rosières Pocket

The troops on our right are retiring at a great pace. Unless orders to the contrary are received Major Drew will at 5pm send back the right half company to battalion HQ in preparation of a defensive flank and the possibility of a withdrawal.

Message to brigade HQ signed by Captain Maurice Toye
from the 2nd Battalion Middlesex Regiment at Caix – 28 March 1918.

Von Hutier’s Eighteenth Army was now intent upon advancing from Nesle, separating the French and British Armies and preventing French reinforcements from using the railhead at Mondidier. The British 20th Division had been ordered to conform to the retirement of the French towards Roye. An officer with 12/KRRC remembered his arrival at Roye and the news that welcomed him:

‘

At 3.00am the battalion with the remainder of the 60th Brigade, arrived at Roye, where sentries had been posted to direct them to grassy fields south of the Carrepuis-Roye road … The whole brigade sat down to rest in the field, while in a gutted building adjoining it, by the light of electric torches, the Brigadier held a conference of battalion commanders. The French, of whom weak detachments had taken over the front held by the 20th Division, were retiring and the division had to march at once to the neighbourhood of Le Quesnel nine miles to the northwest of Roye. Of the officers and men who had left Offoy with the battalion on the 21st, 8 officers and about 160 men were left.’¹

Roye was not without incident. As one of the last men to leave with the RAMC detachment the Reverend Thomas Westerdale was witness to ‘one of the most exciting incidents of this exciting week’ although his method of escape from the town was one he would remember for some time:

‘As the last four patients were leaving the CCS – two walking and two being carried by RAMC men, the enemy arrived and set machine guns to work. At the psychological moment a French armoured car rumbled along from Montdidier and dashed straight into the enemy scattering him to the winds and enabling the four sick men to get away. On the Roye-Montdidier road we stopped all traffic and pushed the sick and wounded on everything that came along. The padre rode for some miles on a heavy gun behind a motor lorry. Except in a case of great urgency we do not advise anyone to attempt the experiment, it will shake even the tags off your bootlaces.’²

Ordered to act as flank guard for this retirement was Brigadier General James Cochrane’s 61 Brigade – now reduced to little more than 400 rifles. The march from Roye to Le Quesnel began shortly before dawn and over the course of 26 March; 61 Brigade – organized into four under-strength companies under the command of Captain Kenneth Stoker – occupied in turn the villages of Parvillers, Damery and finally Le Quesnoy, establishing posts and pushing out patrols to the north to maintain touch with the 24th Division. All went well until just after 10.00am when Kenneth Stoker and the brigade major, Captain Edmund ‘Eddie’ Combe were preparing to retire from Le Quesnoy towards Bouchoir. As the company was being formed up a dispatch rider from brigade headquarters brought fresh orders: they were to hold the village until relieved by the 30th Division.

Exactly how many men were at Le Quesnoy that day is uncertain; Westerdale’s diary tells us there were fifty men of the Somersets, King’s and DCLI while the divisional historian writes that there were 100 men of 7/DCLI – a figure confirmed by the brigade war diary. What we do know is that the 30th Division carried out their relief of the 61 Brigade troops in Bouchoir at 1.00pm, the latter heading in the direction of Beaufort-en-Santerre thus leaving the Le Quesnoy garrison isolated and in the path of the German advance. Whether this was intentional or not is again unclear, but at 12.30pm German infantry were seen moving towards the village from the direction of Parvilliers. Armed with their rifles and two Lewis guns, Combe’s men waited until the first company of enemy troops came into range at 500 yards and opened fire. Four drums of Lewis gun ammunition were enough to stop the advance in its tracks as the grey-clad infantrymen were cut down in the flat, open countryside between the two villages. But it was only a temporary respite, forty minutes later the Germans came on again – this time by sectional rushes and estimated to be at least two companies strong – accompanied by a trench mortar barrage which eventually put the two Lewis guns out of action. By 2.00pm, after close-quarters fighting, the eastern edge of the village was in enemy hands, a point in the battle that coincided with orders from Brigadier General Cochrane to retire via Bouchoir to Beaufort.

Cochrane’s orders couldn’t have come at a worst moment. German infantry were moving forward on both flanks and had machine guns trained on the three other exits from the village, rendering escape practically impossible during the hours of daylight. An hour later the enemy attacked in strength and this time pushed Combe’s men back to the centre of the village where fighting raged around the church at the crossroads. With assistance from British aircraft the attack was halted but enemy infantry had succeeded in establishing themselves near the church and attempts to dislodge them were unsuccessful.

By 4.00pm the survivors were clinging to the western edge of the village where they put up a stubborn resistance for the next two-and-a-half-hours by which time the enemy were attacking from three sides. At 6.40pm Combe and Stoker decided it was now or never and gave the order to the nine remaining men to retire. As they abandoned their positions the war diary notes that a number of the enemy were dressed in British uniforms. There is no record of how many men reached the safety of Beaufort but that evening at roll call only 4 officers and 126 NCOs and men of the 61 Brigade Composite Battalion answered their names, two of those officers were Combe and Stoker.³

Thomas Westerdale recorded the event in his diary, his information would have been second or even third-hand and despite the fact that his account suffers from some exaggeration of the facts, it stands as a testament to a little-known rearguard action that has been buried away in time and almost forgotten:

‘Still the heroic band fought on, until at last only two or three rifles were left to crack. At 5pm the two officers and nine men alone remained, and most of these were wounded. In the gathering dusk this little company of eleven got away to the main body of troops behind, having held up the German Army in this sector for four precious hours! Who knows but that those four precious hours saved Amiens and perhaps the British Army itself!’⁴

Recommended for the Victoria Cross for this gallant stand, Eddie Combe eventually received a bar to his Military Cross.

A little further north 9/East Surreys were a few miles southeast of Rosières defending a line from Hattencourt to Hallu, on their left were 8/Royal West Kents still under the command of Herbert Wenyon but now reduced to two companies. At 8.00am on 26 March the line came under fierce attack from IR 110. Second Lieutenant William Austin was in command of A Company of the East Surreys near Hallu Wood:

‘The Germans made a bayonet attack and I was shot through the right shoulder and lungs by a point blank rifle bullet. When I saw it was useless to resist further at this point I ordered the company to retire to the communication trench 50 yards in the rear. This was done in a very orderly manner.’⁵

There is an underlying note of concern in Austin’s account, and well there might have been as his right flank had been turned and the whole line was now in trouble. Commanding the battalion was Major Charles Clark, who – recognising the critical point in the encounter – sent a warning to Herbert Wenyon and the Royal West Kents that he may be forced to withdraw and deployed his signals officer, Lieutenant Maurice Blower and thirty men to secure the flank:

‘This position I held for over 2 hours during which time I lost over half my party, this left me with 15 men, chiefly youthful signallers and runners … After keeping up a steady fire under these desperate conditions where retreat was impossible our ammunition was finally exhausted. When we were ultimately taken we had an opportunity of seeing the damage we had done which was considerable.’⁶

Blower’s flank guard action was doomed from the start but the young subaltern would have known that when he received his orders. As for the battalion, having held off repeated assaults Clarke commenced his retirement only to find the Royal West Kents had already gone, leaving his remaining flank unguarded – a situation the enemy had already capitalized upon and cut off their retreat:

‘The enemy began to surround us, so I decided to fight it out. We took up position in an old communication trench and used our rifles with great effect. [Lieutenant Stanley] Grant was doing excellent work until shot through the head and [Captain G W] Warre-Dymond behaved admirably. It was a fine fight and we held them up until the ammunition gave out: they then charged in and mopped up the remainder. They were infuriated with us. I’m afraid I presented a curious looking object at this time, my clothing had been riddled with shrapnel, my nose fractured and my face and clothing smothered in blood.’⁷

Clark, a former regimental sergeant major with the 4th Battalion, was taken prisoner along with Warre-Dymond and the remaining officers and men of whom only about 60 were unwounded. The East Surreys had hung onto their positions doggedly and only gave ground reluctantly, a factor acknowledged by the IR 110 historian:

‘The countless trenches aided the tough resistance of the English. Everywhere there were opportunities to deploy machine guns where they would be well hidden from the attackers. Thus the advancing companies soon came under strong machine gun fire from the old German trenches along and east of the Hallu-Hattencourt road which the Kaiser Grenadiers were able to overcome.’⁸

The escape of the remaining units of 72 Brigade was almost entirely down to the sacrifice made by Clarke and his battalion. That evening at Warvillers 72 Brigade was reorganised as a composite battalion under the command of Herbert Wenyon. They were not alone; much of XIX Corps was now fighting under the unfamiliar banners of ‘composite battalions’. Exhausted and dishevelled, the surviving men of Watts’ corps had been hard-pressed by the enemy for nearly thirty miles since their retirement began on 21 March, now they were about to fight again in the Rosières pocket.

To the north the nine mile frontage held by XIX Corps between Rouvroy and the Somme was being held by six divisions, there were no reserves – apart from the mixed bag of units united under the name ‘Carey’s Force’ which had been organized the previous day. Attacking Watts’ line were eleven German divisions of which six were comparatively fresh to the fighting. The immediate danger to XIX Corps lay not to the south where we know a weak XVIII Corps – including the 61st Composite Battalion – was battling with the German thrust towards Mondidier, but to the north, where the right flank of the Third Army lay six miles further west than the Fifth Army flank. This rather premature retirement of Third Army units from Bray in effect abandoned the Somme crossings between Bray and Sailly-le-Sec forcing a retirement of XIX Corps south of the Somme to come into line. The crisis point came early on 27 March when two regiments of the 1st Königsberg Division were instructed to wheel 90 degrees left, cross the Somme at Chipilly and advance south to the Rosières line, more of which later.

Just to the south of the wide, looping meanders of the Somme units of the 16th Division were still struggling to remain intact as they were bundled from one action to the next trying desperately to stay one step ahead of the enemy. Since 21 March 1918 the division had lost 203 officers and 5,340 other ranks, its units being all but destroyed in the first two days of the offensive. Typical of these much depleted battalions were the 290 survivors from 2/Munster Fusiliers whom we last heard of in action at Malaisse Farm near Épehy. The battalion was now under the command of Major Hubert Tonson-Rye, a former regular officer with the regiment who had been serving on the 34th Divisional Staff. On 23 March the four companies of Munsters began to fall back from Tincourt Wood onto Doingt, fighting its way through the Hampshires’ rearguard and crossing the Somme at Péronne just before the Bristol Bridge was destroyed.

On 26 March the battalion – now reorganized into one company of four platoons under Captain Cecil Chandler, north and east of Chuignolles – was under fire from units of the German 4th Guard Division which moved quickly to cut the battalion off by occupying the road to the west. Tonson-Rye moved with equal speed and under the cover of darkness managed to extricate his small force to join up with the remainder of 48 Brigade which was in position between St Germaine Woods and Méricourt. But their troubles were just beginning. Under repeated attack the next day the Munsters were again surrounded, the Germans having pushed on up the Proyart-Morcourt road and joined up with units north of the Somme:

‘The Munsters and the two Irish detachments [100 men from the Dublin Fusiliers and South Irish Horse] were left like a rock surrounded by the incoming tide. And rocklike was their determination. A quiet consultation was held between the three commanding officers, and after another ineffectual effort had been made to get into touch on the right flank, it was decided to withdraw and fight a way through.’⁹

The way through involved an attempt to cross to the north bank which, at the time, was thought to be still in British hands. Leaving Corporal Reginald Padfield with a Lewis gun in the trenches with orders to fire occasionally until 10.00pm the party made their way north. Finding the Eclusier bridge occupied the column retraced its steps following the canal towpath along the south bank until it reached the bridge at Chipilly where, once again, they found the bridge was guarded and to make matters worse, it had been destroyed. Undeterred they rushed the bridge:

‘The quiet night march became an inferno. Everyone rushed forward shouting, firing, cursing … On rushed the column to the bridge, which was found to be broken, the girders cut and lying at the foot of the pier on the far side of the river. The Irish charged down, and rapidly became jammed at the bottom. The more that arrived the tighter the crush. Gradually a few men were hoisted up, then more; the enemy was smashed or swept aside … the bridge was secured and the column passed over.’¹⁰

From Chipilly they avoided the canal path and the minor road north of the river by striking west through the boggy marshlands that ran between the two waterways. Just before they reached the canal bridge at Sailly-Laurette they encountered a German patrol. An attempt to bluff their way past resulted in an exchange of shots and a Dublin Fusilier was shot dead. Surrounded by irate Irishmen the patrol was disposed of before the party crossed over the canal and launched themselves southwest across country, navigating by the stars and expecting at every turn to be discovered by German patrols. At 3.30am on 28 March, near the Bois de Hamel, they were challenged by a sentry, the familiar cockney tones announcing they had indeed reached the British lines. The Munsters had travelled over seventy-five miles in forty-eight hours, eight of which had been through German-held territory at night, an episode which, despite the casualties – 5 officers and 100 other ranks – must be regarded as one of the most remarkable achievements of the 1918 retreat and one that underlined the crucial role of the regimental officer. As in the retreat of 1914 where battalions were often thrown back on their own resources, the Munsters had once again demonstrated their resolve and determination in the face of overwhelming odds.

At the same time as the Munsters were contemplating their future after finding themselves surrounded, the 11/Hampshires and the remaining units of the brigade – now under attack from their left and right flanks – were falling back on Morcourt and taking up a new position on the high ground to the south of the village. During this rather hasty and confused withdrawal Major Thomas Thyne and the men of D Company were surrounded and either killed or captured, a fate that also overtook Major Cecil Hazard who was commanding a mixed group belonging to various units of 49 Brigade:

‘This is the last that was heard of him and it cannot be ascertained what his ultimate fate was. Whilst the battalion was withdrawing to new positions it was found that large bodies of the enemy had crossed the River Somme apparently at Cérisy completely outflanking the withdrawal of the division, and our left flank came under heavy shell and machine gun fire.’¹¹

Hazard had in fact been taken prisoner along with Thomas Thyne but it was some time before the battalion heard of their capture. Fearing the worst, Lieutenant Colonel Crockett withdrew the battalion to Lamotte where it joined forces with Major Perceval Whittall and his sappers to hold up the German 3rd Grenadier Regiment thus allowing the brigade to withdraw to Le Hamel which was where the Munsters finally rejoined in the early hours of 28 March.

While the Munsters had been making good their escape along the line of the River Somme the strategic picture further south was changing quickly. The 8th Division – now with its headquarters at Harbonnières – was able to report that it was in touch with the 24th Division on its right and the 50th Division on its left and was withdrawing towards Rosières. Although the British Tommy might well have disagreed, after a week of impressive advances the first signs that the German offensive was slowing down began to surface. Contrary to expectation Ludendorff had not yet achieved his breakthrough and had certainly not crushed the resolve of the British to fight on. As tired and exhausted as he may have been, the British soldier was rapidly adjusting to the demands of open warfare and little by little was beginning to hold his adversary. Not that the soldiers of 6/Northumberland Fusiliers would have noticed as much as they fell back on Foucaucourt to be greeted by huts and stores on fire – albeit with the reassuring presence of a military policeman:

‘If the place could not be held at any rate nothing of value was to be permitted to fall into the hands of the enemy. At Foucaucourt crossroads, two runners had been left with a message for all officers who had not yet passed through. Later in the day the writer learned that these runners had waited at the crossroads with the military policeman on duty until the Germans were entering the village a couple of hundred yards away. The policemen then ordered the runners to leave. When they came away the policeman remained. He was standing at his post as cool as a cucumber and calm as the constable who stands at the foot of Northumberland Street. Shells were bursting round him and the approaching enemy were but a stone’s throw from him. Apparently he had no orders to quit his post and he stood fast.’¹²

Early on 27 March the attacks resumed and while the 8th Division held its sector of the line, further north at Proyart there was a breakthrough where the line was thinly defended. At 11.00am 23 Brigade received an urgent request for their counter-attack battalion to retake Proyart and an hour later 2/Devons were on the move, reaching Harbonnières at 1.00pm. Harbonnières was in almost total confusion when Major Arthur Cope arrived with his battalion; guns, limbers and men were moving back in disorder and there was little anyone could tell Cope as to the whereabouts of the 39th Division which was holding the line to the north. Although Proyart is not visible from Harbonnières, the urgency of the situation demanded that Cope begin his attack without any prior reconnaissance. Supporting him were three companies of the 22nd Durham Light Infantry – the divisional pioneers – and a composite battalion of RE with other troops from the 50th Division:

‘The advance was carried out splendidly, the men moving as if on parade. As they topped the rise North east of Harbonnières they came under machine gun fire and lost heavily, but they forged ahead though quite without artillery support … They encountered thick belts of wire but somehow found gaps, pushed through and closed with the Germans who were occupying old trenches and buildings just south of the Amiens-Péronne road.’¹³

Arthur Cope was a regular officer who had been commissioned into the Devons in September 1911, at the age of 26 he was more than thirty years younger than Lieutenant Colonel Cecil Morgan who commanded 22/DLI. By any standards Morgan was an elderly commanding officer and may well have been one of the oldest battalion commanders on the Western Front. Despite his advancing years, however, he wore the ribbon of the DSO – won in Sierra Leone in 1899 – and was described as an able and popular commanding officer. Morgan was severely wounded in action two days later on 29 March and it is likely that he died without having received the tragic news that his son, 19-year-old Second Lieutenant Basil Morgan, serving with 1/Hampshires, had been killed the previous day near Arras.¹⁴

In Rosières itself the 8th Division infantry units were now under the command of Brigadier General Clifford Coffin. Coffin provided a much-needed rallying point for the scattered units of the division that until now had been dogged by poor and ineffectual communication and a lack of overall command and control. If the German advance was to be slowed down it was imperative that all three infantry brigades operated together; circumstances sharpened by instructions received from the French Generalissimo, Ferdinand Foch, ordering the Rosières line to be held at all costs. In passing on Foch’s orders Watts undoubtedly knew they would be greeted with a degree of soldierly disdain, after all, how many times had the British soldier been told to hold on at all costs during the past week? Yet this time there was a greater urgency in the instruction, an urgency intensified by the gap in the line along the Somme River which had laid open the Fifth Army’s left flank to attack.

Ordering exhausted units to hold the line at all costs was all very well but the intense battlefield fatigue and poor communications that handicapped many of the retreating British units had the potential to turn stratagem into disaster. Such was the case in the centre of the line between Rosières and Vauvillers. What has been termed as a misunderstanding on the part of 5/Northumberland Fusiliers resulted in a premature withdrawal towards Harbonnières. Caught up in this movement were 6/Northumberland Fusiliers and 5/DLI who, on seeing their neighbours falling back to the rear, issued orders for their own companies to conform to the 5/Northumberland Fusiliers line. The Germans lost little time in pushing through the gap and taking Vauvillers. By 3.00pm long lines of German infantry were sweeping across the open fields towards Harbonnières with the intention of rolling up the British line. It looked very much as if the Fifth Army was about to fall back in disarray yet again.

Salvation came in the form of a British general on a rather ungainly artillery horse – but that was not how the last of the British reserves viewed it as they were pushed into the gap – what they saw, and responded to magnificently, was a red-tabbed general gallantly leading them into battle. A former Northumberland Fusilier himself, Brigadier General Edward Riddell was no stranger to the front line and already had a reputation for his almost complete disregard of danger. In June 1916 he had been appointed as commanding officer of 1/1 Cambridgeshire Regiment, four months later after the fighting around the Schwaben Redoubt north of Thiepval on the Somme he had been awarded the DSO to which he had added a bar in July 1917. Three months later he had been appointed to command 149 Brigade.

As the retiring troops were stopped and posted along the light railway line east of Harbonnières, Riddell sent out instructions to 7/DLI to counter-attack towards Framerville and led the remainder out towards the German line. From their jumping off point on the railway line 5/DLI took up their place in the line:

‘There was no panic, and on receipt of orders we quietly took up our positions … After a while, orders from the Brigadier were passed along from officer to officer instructing us and the Northumberland Fusiliers to advance in line with the counter-attack on our left, and recapture the position we had held during the night. We accordingly pushed on, platoon by platoon and section by section, in quite the old field-day style, the men firing freely at the Germans, who could now be seen advancing towards us five or six hundred yards away. We came under machine gun fire, and the bullets were kicking up the dust all along our line. We had many casualties, and as one looked back over the level ground behind, one could see the motionless forms of many men who had fought their last fight, while here and there were wounded men trying to make their way to the rear. After a while it became very exciting as we could see the enemy halt and turn back through the trees near Vauvillers. Our men gave a sort of grunt and advanced ten times as quickly as before.’¹⁵

Also on the railway line was Lieutenant Eric Jacobs-Larkcom who remembered being deployed at midday:

‘We were told to hold the railway northeast of Rosières. We held the railway but the Boche was there in multitudes and attacked with great persistence. We held him back and got a machine gun up on the factory roof but had many casualties. Some of the other companies went over in a counter attack, my section sergeant, Sergeant Cowan, got killed. A lot of men were laid out that day by 5.9s.’¹⁶

Although Vauvillers was recaptured it was lost again when the Germans counter-attacked later in the day and the British were forced back onto the light railway line again. But crucially the line had been held and the enemy advance checked. It had not been without cost. The two battalions of Durham Light Infantry lost some forty other ranks killed on 27 March but more seriously for 5/DLI the loss of Major Raimes and two other officers wounded was a significant blow. Raimes had seen them through some of the bitterest fighting and held the battalion together, now he was gone. The survivors were collected together by Second Lieutenant Frederick Williams and brought out of action to join A and D Companies which had remained on the railway line.

The line may have held – thanks largely to the efforts of the 8th Division – but the Rosières position had now taken on the shape of a pronounced salient – a pocket of resistance that had seen each of its two flanks pushed back. To the south the front had been driven back alarmingly and Montdidier with its rail and road network had fallen to the enemy, while to the north there was an even greater danger about to be unleashed by the German Second Army.

Von der Marwitz’s advance north of the Somme on the morning of 27 March had been blocked by the 1st Cavalry Division together with a combination of artillery and air attack. In what could have been the decisive move of the whole battle, two 1st (Königsberg) Division infantry regiments from von Gontard’s XIV Corps were ordered to cross the Somme at Chipilly and Cerisy and advance south to attack the Fifth Army around Rosières in the rear. While IR 43 forced its way across the river and overcame the token British opposition, the German 3rd Grenadier Regiment (GR 3) captured the villages of Lamotte and Warfusée. Karl Goes described the movement of German troops over the Somme:

‘Two regiments – IR 43 and [Grenadier Regiment] 3 – are given command to carry out a daring thrust beyond the Somme and attack the enemy’s left flank. Advance to the left! Thrust via Chipilly-Cerisy toward Hamel! … The dagger thrust is aimed right into the back of its withstanding foe. Oberstleutnant Dorndorf ’s IR 43 troops are in the vanguard. Cleverly arranged he has led them behind the frontline to Chipilly. Rifle fire opens up from the other bank of the Somme. East-Prussian fists bring on wood and planks, building footbridges, while the 6th battery of the Königsberger – Field Artillery Regiment 16 – being circled by English planes, smashes the MG positions beyond. Over wavering planks the Musketiere jump over, infiltrating Cerisy, mopping it up. The flat Hill 66 is taken. Leutnant der Reserve Böhm and his 3rd Kompanie are in full pursuit of the English for Hamel, but receive heavy fire. Running out of ammunition he is forced to go back a little. This is like stirring up a hornet’s nest, because the English fight for his supply routes from Proyart further back. From all sides it cracks and bangs, and a hail of bombs and shells falls from above.’¹⁷

XIX Corps was now in an extremely dangerous position, the German advance had gained the road to Villers-Bretonneux – the modern day N29 – the line to north of which had been driven back, away from the Somme. German forces were now directly behind the Rosières line and less than ten miles from Amiens and the only British troops standing between the Germans and their seizure of Amiens were a miscellaneous collection of men under Major General Carey, in position along a line running north from Demuin to the Somme itself. Hamstrung by Foch’s orders to stand fast, the situation demanded urgent action if the three divisions in the Rosières pocket were not to be isolated and cut off completely. Shortly after midnight on 27 March their extreme plight was communicated first to Watts and then to Gough whom, it is said, woke Foch and obtained permission to withdraw some time after 3.30am.

It was almost too late and only prompt action by the three divisional commanders enabled the beleaguered troops to swing back and meet the threat from the north. For the 50th Division this meant taking up a line from Caix to Guillaucourt where, almost before it had time to deploy, found itself under attack all along its line. Guillaucourt soon fell as the German 3rd Grenadiers advanced towards the high ground overlooking Caix and the Luce valley. For a second time in twenty-four hours the irrepressible Brigadier General Edward Riddell – still in possession of his artillery horse – seized the initiative:

‘I galloped out of Caix along the Guillaucourt road. As we breasted the hill, we saw our men coming back along the western side of the valley to our right, and over the crest near the little wood south of Guillaucourt. They were running all doubled up as men do who are under machine gun fire. The bullets flicked up little spurts of dust as we galloped across the plough. Near the crest of the hill we managed to stop some of the men, but only for a moment as the Boche machine guns had got into the wood southeast of Guillaucourt and raked us in enfilade. Our machine gunners stood fast in the little wood on the crest left of us, their guns rattling in those bursts so comforting to the infantryman. A glance towards Guillaucourt showed me the Boche infantry eight hundred yards away. He was coming our way, and would soon reach the crest overlooking Caix through which troops of all sorts were now passing. Below me, to the south, under the shelter of one of those remarkable steep-sided banks which abound in this country, were the 22nd Entrenching Battalion [DLI] calmly eating their dinner, and, as is the custom of the British soldier during meal times, quite oblivious of what was happening around them. I galloped to them shouting ‘Fall in!’ Fortunately the men were extended in a long line at the bottom of the bank with the officers in a group. I shouted the order to fall in in two ranks, and told them it was a race for the crest of the hill. As they climbed up the steep sides of the bank, away behind me, near the Harbonnières road, I heard the sound of a hunting horn. It was General Jackson, the divisional commander, blowing his ‘pack’ towards him. ‘Forrard away’, and up the hill and over the crest went the Entrenching Battalion and back to Guillaucourt went the Boches.’¹⁸

Major General Henry Jackson was by this time in command of the 50th Division having relieved Brigadier General Arthur Stockley of his temporary command. His timely arrival along with Edward Riddell on his horse had, for the time being, kept Caix in British hands.

But it was a different story at Lamotte where an attempted counter-attack by 184 Brigade failed miserably in the face of enemy machine-gun fire. Still fighting with the brigade were the 2/4 Ox and Bucks whom we last met at the Enghien Redoubt on 21 March. Lieutenant Colonel Harry Wetherall had been in temporary command of the brigade until a few days previously when he was badly wounded in the neck by a piece of shrapnel and the battalion was now commanded by Major Jack Bennett. On 28 March, 184 Brigade, having been held in reserve at Mezières, was on the move to Villers-Bretonneux when they were diverted to Marcelcave:

‘At Villers-Bretonneux Bennett received orders from a staff officer to go to Marcelçave, where the 61st Division was being concentrated for a counter-attack at dawn against the village of Lamotte. In the darkness the route was missed and the convoy drove straight into our front line. Marcelçave was reached eventually, but so late that a dawn attack was impossible. At 10am on March 28 the forlorn enterprise, in which the 183rd Brigade, the Gloucesters, and the Berks shared, was launched from the station yard. The troops were footsore, sleepless, and unfed. They were mostly men from regimental employ – pioneers, clerks, storemen – to send whom forward across strange country to drive the enemy from the village he had seized on the important Amiens-St Quentin road was a mockery. Such efforts at counter- attack resulted in more and more ground being lost. Still, the men staggered forward bravely, to come almost at once under fierce enfilade machine-gun fire. The losses were heavy. Craddock, a young officer now serving under Bennett, moved about among the men, encouraging them by his example of coolness and gallantry. When 350 yards short of Lamotte the advance was driven to take cover. It was useless to press on; in fact, already there was real danger of being surrounded. Bennett, whose leadership throughout was excellent, with difficulty extricated his men by doubling them in twos across the open. Towards evening those that got back were placed in trenches outside Marcelçave.’¹⁹

While the Ox and Bucks failed to get into the village, others clearly did and those who were not killed were taken prisoner by the infantry of GR 3 who now occupied the village:

‘Leutnant der Reserve Röhnisch lowers his binoculars. His 11th Kompanie is ready to provide a hearty welcome. Lamotte is deserted in a moment, but behind every hedge and bush sharpshooters and machine guns are lying in ambush. The English march into the village, totally clueless – and all of a sudden Königsberger Füsiliere stand in front and around them and [take them] prisoners … An English column gets caught at the eastern entrance of Lamotte, its drivers beat the horses to escape from … but suddenly it cracks from everywhere: death or captivity is the slogan of the moment!’²⁰

However, while the Lamotte attack may have been a disaster, the 20th Division counter-attack on Mezières later that afternoon was a little more successful. An officer with 12/KRRC described his battalion’s part in the assault:

‘At 2pm orders were received from 60th Brigade that the Rifle Brigade and ourselves should counter-attack Mezières. As soon as the orders could be given, the three leading companies advanced in co-operation with the battalion on our left, while the right was secured by the French on the high ground south of the village. At the crossroads a number of prisoners with two heavy trench mortars, several machine guns, and two teams of horses with limbers were taken; at the crossroads 400 yards farther east we were held up, and after several attempts could not pass this point. D Company, which had been in reserve, now advanced round the southern edge of the village to a quarry, and began to work forward so as to take the eastern crossroads from the south. In the meantime, however, the enemy was continuing to advance north of us, and was beginning to occupy the western side of the woods northwest of Mezières, and the brigade was forced to retire from the left. We withdrew again across the valley, and through Villers-aux-Erables under considerable machine gun fire, leaving behind the machine guns and mortars which we had put out of action.’²¹

The XIX Corps withdrawal from the Rosières pocket had been a confused, costly and rather messy daylight retreat in which the commanding general of 118 Brigade was captured. Brigadier General Edward Bellingham and his brigade major were taken prisoner whilst supervising the right flank and rearguard as 118 Brigade retired southeast of Villers-Bretonneux. Being taken prisoner was a fate that Second Lieutenant Frank Warren was contemplating as he and his platoon of 17/KRRC became increasingly convinced that they were surrounded. It was an impression that quicky changed after the RFC dropped a message with orders to retire towards Ignaucourt. Now it became a case of every man for himself as groups of men left the cover of their trench to expose themselves to enemy machine-gun fire:

‘Immediately a thin stream of men begin to bolt from the trench, according to orders, running the gauntlet of machine gun fire from two quarters – the road to the southeast and the ridge to the east. When my men, who have waited their turn, are clear I am cornered by an officer of the Gloucester Pioneers, who tells me to wait to give covering fire for the withdrawal of his men! Having had definite orders from my own company commander, I remind him that all my men have gone, and prepare for my quick dash to cover. I have been watching the flick of machine gun bullets in the dusty ground and have noted where the stream of fugitives is thickest. Then I make my bolt, keeping to the edge of the stream of men and running zigzag.’²²

By midday the five ‘divisions’ of XIX Corps were established on a line parallel to the River Luce, they had escaped the net which was closing around the Rosières pocket by the skin of their teeth, aided no doubt by the German failure to exploit the Königsberg Division’s success. Fortunately for the British, the German XIV Corps were unaware of the Cerisy success and did not capitalize on a move that – for a while – had threatened the whole of the British line south of the Somme with encirclement. Now the retirement was about to focus on the River Avre and Moreuil Wood.