His death salute was the artillery thunder, Praise be to God for such an Englishman.
Edward Tennant – written in memory of Percy Wyndham.
We left the bulk of Fielding’s 4 (Guards) Brigade south of the river on the night of 13 September leaving 5 Infantry Brigade, including 2/Connaught Rangers, in position on the north bank. The Connaughts subsequently moved up to La Cour de Soupir Farm arriving at 5.50am on 14 September, more of which later. GHQ operational orders for 14 September – issued at 6.00pm the previous evening – anticipated a general advance on the right flank over the Chemin des Dames with the advanced units of the BEF occupying a line from Laon in the east to Suzy, some 6 miles to the west. 2nd Division orders for the morning of the 14th were for 6 Infantry Brigade and the guns of XXXIV Brigade to form the advance guard under the command of Brigadier General Richard Davies and cross the Aisne at Pont-Arcy at 5.00am to press forward through the 5 Brigade outpost line which had been established north of Moussy. The Guards Brigade was to cross by the same pontoon bridge at 7.00am together with the XXXVI Brigade batteries and advance through Soupir village and up the Soupir spur, followed by the remainder of the division. Like so many plans it looked good on paper and at one point in the day it appeared as though it might just succeed.
Despite being at the bridge on time, the four battalions of 6 Brigade did not complete their crossing until 8.00am, the narrow pontoon bridge put across by 5/Field Company only just able to cope with the large number of troops and artillery batteries. Commanding a section of the 71/Battery guns was Lieutenant Arthur Griffith, who was relieved to find there was no shelling during the crossing, ‘owing, no doubt, to the thick mist’, he thought. The last men of 1/Royal Berks were clear of the bridge by 5.00 am and advancing up the valley towards Braye-en-Laonnois with two companies of 1/KRRC on each flank. No doubt Lieutenant Colonel Edward Northey, commanding the KRRC, felt a little uneasy about splitting his battalion but complying with orders, detailed B and C Companies under Captain Frank Willan to the right with instructions to maintain contact with 5 Brigade and A and D Companies under Major Edward Armitage to the left of La Bovette Wood to get in touch with the Guards. The Braye valley also hosts the l’Oise à l’Aisne Canal, this waterway – running north-south through the centre of the 6 Brigade advance – cuts into the main ridge of the Chemin des Dames just south of Braye and effectively bisects the valley. Lieutenant Alan Hanbury-Sparrow had a clear picture of the ground as he advanced with the Berkshires towards La Metz Farm:
‘Immediately on our west hand lies the Oise-Aisne Canal crossed by a small bridge at the large Ferme de Metz, and this is to be our right boundary. Beyond it is the country road running north and south, along which a few refugees are hastening. After a cannonade of some duration we move down towards this bridge, and see for the first time shells exploding in enormous clouds of black smoke – eleven inch, as we afterwards learn. As we approach, a young woman dragging a child by each hand rushes out of the farm and with terrified countenance scurries down the road.’124
At around 9.00am the forward company of the Berkshires had reached a line running eastwest of Le Moulin Brulé – about halfway between Moussy and Braye – when their advance was checked by heavy shell and rifle fire from both the Chemin des Dames ridge and the wooded areas on the sides of the valley.125 The delay in responding to the enemy fire suggests that the brigade had been, to some extent, taken aback by its intensity and while the 1st Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment (1/King’s) was brought forward on the Berkshires’ right, the XXXIV Brigade guns were hurriedly brought into action on the southern slopes of the Moussy spur. Thus reinforced, the 6 Brigade attack was launched at 10.30am with 1/King’s on the east side of the canal and the Berkshires on the western side, flanked by the KRRC on the edges of the two spurs bordering the valley.
The attack was badly organized and hurriedly launched before the troops on the Moussy spur had time to get into position; the Berkshires advancing up the valley soon outstripped the King’s who in turn found themselves ahead of the KRRC flank companies. Hanbury-Sparrow’s account is almost breathless with tension as he describes his platoon’s forward movement:
‘Advance then with a rush! Down! Again! Down! Still no sight of the enemy, still this fire. You are on the crest of a small billow of ground. Fifty yards ahead the canal, bordered by leafy trees, turns left handed and crosses your front. Advance by section rushes to the canal. Get on, Corporal, damn you! You are on the edge of the canal, concealed by its border of trees. The Germans are no longer firing at you. In fact their infantry seem to have ceased fire altogether. For the first time since the advance started you are able to look around undistracted by acute fear.’126
The sector given to the King’s was from the canal to the top of the Moussy spur, Lieutenant William Synge in B Company remembered the attack was, ‘arranged on the map’ and the, ‘factor of time prevented a systematic reconnaissance of the position’. Synge and his company were tasked with taking les Grelines Farm which lay in the valley below the final slope up to the Chemin des Dames:
‘In the foreground was an open field, and on the right-hand side a wood, the end of the Bois des Grelines, running up the hillside. About 300 yards in front of me was another small wood, and a gap of about 50 yards between it and the Bois des Grelines. Through the gap it was possible to see that the ground sloped down and then up again in an open space about 800 yards across. In this dip the ground appeared to run up a little into the Moussy spur … all the hillside was thickly wooded and beyond these woods, and about a mile and a half away, the ground sloped up again to the Chemin des Dames.’127
The wooded nature of the ground and the haste in which the attack was planned was a recipe for confusion, William Synge continues the story:
‘In front of us the wood got even thicker, but there was an overgrown path leading through it. There was a lot of argument here, as to who was on the right line and who was not. It seemed to me that D Company ought to have been higher up, and A [Company] lower down. However, as both company leaders concerned were senior to me, they followed each other along the narrow path, whilst I waited for my commander to come up and give me orders.’
The battalion war diary describes the King’s advance taking place on both sides of the road from Moussy to the canal towards what Captain Hudson, the battalion adjutant, describes as the Marval Ridge.128 This would confirm Synge’s recollection that they were on the eastern side of the canal and approaching the ridge above les Grelines Farm which leads directly onto the Chemin des Dames. In his account Hudson acknowledges that the Berkshires got in front of them and describes how the King’s worked along the edge of the Beaulne Spur to the point where they came under fire from behind. After reporting to his CO, Lieutenant Colonel William Bannatyne,129 who was with D Company, Hudson was sent to find Major Charles Steavenson commanding B Company, who also had part of C Company with him:
‘[They] were being fired into from behind. I went back to try and find out what it was and found our infantry were firing into the Germans who had not been cleared off the ridge above and behind our advance. A Company had pushed on, on the right, in the open; all through the advance the companies had been under very heavy rifle and artillery fire from field guns and big howitzers. C Company had got badly handled on the right and Major S. had managed to pull them back, to B Company.’130
Hudson’s assessment of the situation was probably the correct one; the enemy fire from the edges of the Beaulne spur was the result of the King’s getting too far ahead of the the KRRC troops who were on the right flank. However, William Synge was unsure as to who was firing at them, ‘someone said that it was our own people who were firing down on us from the hill top. Whether this was so I do not know, and probably never will know’. Whoever it was – friend or foe – the King’s were now under fire from German infantry to their front and from the rear. Synge tells us his company then withdrew but at some stage during the advance an attempt was made to take the trenches on the ridge ahead of them, this time with the support of a platoon of 2/Worcesters. The attack was unsuccessful:
‘It was impossible to get on until the high ground on our right had been cleared and Major S. then pulled the whole of the companies back. As the fire from behind made it nearly impossible to get forward … Capt. Tanner and Ferneran were wounded. We took 5 Germans prisoners. Our losses were 2 officers killed and 90 [other ranks] killed and wounded.’131
Even so, after crossing the canal just south of Braye, the Berkshires got a toehold on the small spur which runs down from the Chemin des Dames east of the village and by noon had two companies engaging a well dug-in German 28 Reserve Regiment established on the steep slopes rising to the Chemin des Dames road. Under heavy fire Alan Hanbury-Sparrow, who confesses freely to his fear of being killed, is driven on by what he terms as a ‘duty’ prompting him to, ‘take the initiative’:
‘You hesitate, hesitate, hesitate – doubtful, doubtful. You don’t know what you’ll do. Ten black devils chant, “You’ll be killed” and ten red devils curl their lips and sneer, “You’re afraid of being killed.” What will you do? One way or the other you must make the choice, now, at once, instantly.’132
At length the order reached him to retire and he noted with some anger that the men of his platoon were quick to obey it. Yet even as the brigade fell back in the face of a well dug-in enemy, Douglas Haig, in consultation with Major General Charles Munro the GOC 2nd Division, was planning a late-in-the-day push up the Beaulne spur in the hope of gaining the ridge before nightfall. It was an advance which was planned in conjunction with the 1st Division – considered in more depth in Chapter 9 – and as far as the infantry battalions of 5 Infantry Brigade and Brigadier General Richard Haking was concerned, it achieved its objective. Haig described the advance in the I Corps War Diary:
‘The forward movement began about sunset, and the men, of whom many had been fighting hard since before daybreak, answered readily to my demand. They were met everywhere by very heavy rifle and gun fire. The 4th (Guards) Brigade found itself pinned down by a counter attack against the exposed left, and again the danger on this flank checked a great part of the line. The 1st Division on the right gained some ground, but could not maintain itself in the face of the opposition encountered. Only in the centre, the 5th Brigade moving along the eastern slopes of the Beaulne ridges, was able to get forward and continue its advance until it reached the ridge about Tilleul de Courtcon. In the dark General Haking failed to get in touch with the 1st Division, but his patrols found German outposts on both flanks. He consequently drew back his troops under cover of darkness to the neighbourhood of Verneuil.’133
Moving ahead with 5 Brigade was Lieutenant Colonel Northey and half the 1/KRRC which reported reaching the Chemin des Dames at Tilleul de Courtcon from where they moved west to Malval farm. On arrival, instead of finding British troops, ‘they tumbled into a mass of Germans collecting near a large signal lamp’.134 The war diary gives no further information except to say they withdrew at midnight to Verneuil. The 2nd Battalion Highland Light Infantry (2/HLI) were also on the Chemin des Dames ridge at midnight but quite where and at what time the Worcesters gained the ridge is clouded by their war diary account which reported their retirement at about 9.00pm after taking a few German prisoners – all pointing to a general confusion taking place in the darkness. It was during the early part of this advance that a Highland Light Infantry reservist, Private George Wilson, single-handedly captured a German machine gun, turning it on the enemy before returning to his company with both the weapon and its ammunition. His award of the Victoria Cross took the total number of VCs won by the infantry on 14 September to three.
Nevertheless, despite the failure of 3 Brigade to establish a presence on the Chemin des Dames, a substantial body of British troops from 5 Brigade did set foot on the ridge that night, a feat which throws up a number of questions, not least of which is why did General Haking order a retirement all the way back to Verneuil and not seek to consolidate the line further forward? In mitigation it has to be said that being on a rain swept Chemin des Dames ridge in the dark would not have been conducive to establishing clear communications between bodies of tired troops. Haking presumably felt isolated – as indeed he was – and without support on his right from 3 Brigade he was in a precarious position, however, he appears not to have encountered any serious opposition apart from the German outposts. So was this an opportunity lost or a necessary tactical withdrawal? One wonders what the officer commanding 11 Brigade – Brigadier General Hunter-Weston – would have done in these circumstances.
The Guards Brigade was on the move by 4.50am and after a march of 2 miles, ‘in the pouring wet’, they were over the pontoon bridge by 8.30am. Here a disgruntled Major Bernard Gordon Lennox felt he, ‘had to wait a long time before getting across as various artillery and other units had to get across [before us]’. The 2/Grenadiers were the leading battalion and moved off towards Soupir leaving the remainder of the brigade to cross behind them. Major Gordon Lennox:
‘In Soupir we turned to our left, and after about a mile or so, turned up the hill. It was not known whether these wooded heights were held or not – it was our job to find out – we soon did. No. 1 and ½ of No. 2 [Company] formed the vanguard, and on barely reaching the top the advance party was fired on: we pushed on and two more platoons of No. 2 were sent forward. Being second-in-command I had to stay behind. Pretty steady firing was now going on, and we – the main body – got heavily shelled as we came up the road, the Dutchmen apparently having the range to a nicety. At the top of the hill was the farm of La Cour de Soupir – a building we were to become intimately acquainted with during the next few days – held or rather occupied by a regiment, which shall be nameless.’135
The ‘nameless’ regiment was of course 2/Connaught Rangers which had occupied the farm and pushed out their outposts onto the high ground around Point 197 at la Croix sans Tête. At the time of the Connaught’s arrival at the farm there had been no sign of any Germans in the vicinity. The Connaughts’ war diary recounts the arrival of the Grenadier Guards four hours later:
At about 9.30am a small party of the Guards Brigade under an officer forming the point of their advance guard arrived at the farm, but no more of the brigade arrived until about 11.30am. At about 10:00am a message despatched at 9.25am by motorcyclist was received from HQ 5 Brigade, to whom the movements of the Battalion had been reported, stating that it would be sometime yet before the Guards Brigade could arrive and instructing the OC CRs not to leave his position until they were up and had securely occupied the high ground about La Croix sans Tête. The Battalion was ordered to close on Moussy as soon as that position was secure.’136
The Grenadier officer noted in the Connaught war diary was probably 19-year-old Second Lieutenant John Pickersgill-Cuncliffe. With him was Major Gilbert Hamilton commanding No. 1 Company and Captain Cholmeley Symes-Thompson, with half of No. 2 Company, who had been sent out as flank guard on the left where the ground rises steeply above the road.137 Whether all the Grenadiers remained at the farm or continued uphill is unclear, but Cuncliffe and his platoon certainly were ahead of the main body when the attack began. Nor do we know for sure if it was his warning or that of the Connaught outposts which Major Sarsfield received at about 10.30am alerting him to a large body of German infantry approaching the farm. Sarsfield’s response was immediate and the Connaughts were deployed east and west of the farm:
‘The attack was supported by artillery fire and pushed forward with great vigour. The enemy endeavoured to turn our right flank by moving through the woods and, against our centre and left he advanced across the open ground in very large numbers. By 10.30am approximately, in spite of his losses which were very heavy, he had almost succeeded in turning our right flank and, most of our men who were holding the position close to the farm on the west having been killed and wounded, the enemy had succeeded in pushing forward to within 100 yards of the farm.’138
As the German infantry advanced towards the farm, the Connaught outposts around Point 197 were driven in along with Lieutenant Cuncliffe and his men. During the initial clash with the leading elements of the enemy the young officer was wounded along with several of his men who were taken prisoner, although it appears Cuncliffe was left lying on the battlefield.
At the farm the situation was beginning to get a little desperate on the right flank in the wooded slopes of the Bois de la Bovette. In response Major George ‘Ma’ Jeffreys, who was in temporary command of the Grenadiers, sent three platoons of No. 4 Company up to support Hamilton whilst Lieutenant Colonel Fielding sent 3/Coldstream up to the farm, supported on the right by the whole of the Irish Guards under Major Herbert Stepney. The first indication that Major Jeffreys had of the Coldstream Guards moving up to the farm was when they passed the Grenadiers’ headquarters. Jeffreys then met Lieutenant Arthur Smith the Coldstream adjutant:
‘[He] told me that Major Matheson,139 their commanding officer, was moving up to Cour de Soupir. I went and met Matheson on the road by the farm. One company of the 3rd Battalion Coldstream had come into action west and northwest of the farm and with our No. 2 had driven back the Germans, who withdrew some hundreds of yards on this side.’140
It was during a later conversation with Matheson that Jeffreys was told of the death of John Cuncliffe who had been shot dead by a German officer as he lay wounded on the ground. The incident was verified by men of his platoon who had been taken prisoner when the Germans advanced and subsequently abandoned when the situation was reversed. Jeffreys in his diary account tells us this German officer was shot immediately by the advancing Coldstream.
But the battle was not yet over. Pressure now came onto the left flank and German infantry was only held off by Nos. 1 and 2 Companies of the 2nd Battalion Coldstream which were sent in support. The 2/Coldstream were, up to this point, being held in brigade reserve but it wasn’t long before their companies were sent forward to bolster the right flank defences, leaving a mere two platoons in reserve. The fighting in the wooded area on the right flank was rendered more difficult by the steep edge of the spur which fell away sharply into the Braye valley below. Bernard Gordon Lennox was sent up to rally the Grenadiers and try to work round the left flank:
‘I found two platoons of my own company under ‘Goose’141 all right, then we went further off to the right to see if we couldn’t get round the enemy’s left. We were pulled up by a steep ravine, and we had to go some way round to get over it: a steep climb brought us onto the other side of the valley and here we found the Irish Guards and some Coldstream and Nos. 3 and 4 Companies Grenadier Guards all mixed up. It was here that the Irish Guards and Coldstream Guards paid a heavy toll in officers. There were some damnable snipers up in the trees and kept on sniping the officers. Poor Guernsey and Arthur Hay were killed at almost the same spot, and several others wounded: Dick Welby slightly in the shoulder, ‘Goose’ had also been wounded in the right hand, but these two stuck to it manfully. Sally Walker142 and Harcourt-Vernon143 also had wounds.’144
Although this action cleared the ridge to the right of the firing line there was no further appreciable advance made here but at least contact was made with Major Edward Armitage and the men of A and D Companies of the KRRC.
Any artillery support from XXXVI Brigade was hampered by the early morning mist, but as Arthur Griffith pointed out, ‘the dense woods up to and over the horizon line, permitted only a very limited view being obtained from the valley bottom’. The brigade’s guns were in place north and east of Soupir and as the mist cleared the German observers on the heights above were able to direct fire onto any movement – particularly onto the British batteries. However, the appearance of a section of 18-pounder guns from 71/Battery during the late afternoon did much to improve the situation on the right and assisted in repelling a counter attack just before dusk. Noticeably these guns were practically the only artillery support 4 Brigade had all day. The guns were under the command of Lieutenant Griffith:
‘I was unable to get any view [of the enemy] from the farm buildings, so went out and found our firing line holding a low bank a short way in front of the farm and west of it. These were chiefly Coldstreams, with some other guards oddments. I was standing up looking through my glasses, and had just been shown the Germans lining a not very distant hedge, when I was hit through the arm. A sergeant tied me up and I went back to find a position for my guns.’145
Griffith was soon joined by Captain William Cree146 who took command and decided to bring the guns into the open in order to bring a more effective fire on the enemy:
‘As soon as we left the cover of the road and trees, we were promptly shelled by our own artillery, who put over about 20–30 rounds of shrapnel before we were able to stop them with vigorous signalling rearwards. Fortunately their shooting was not accurate and we sustained no casualties. Subsequent investigation proved it was the remaining four guns of our own 71st Battery which had mistaken us for German guns retiring!’147
With Cree observing from a forward position, Griffith remained with the guns some 200 yards behind the infantry firing line. Almost as soon as they opened fire the infantry, ‘for some unknown reason now retired through us’. Griffith and his battery were now left completely isolated:
‘As we were now left between the opposing lines, and the hostile shelling had become more intense, and moreover German infantry could be seen beginning to advance, the teams were ordered up, while the guns continued firing until the last possible moment … As soon as we stopped firing the German infantry advanced at the double, firing as they came, and it now became a race as to whether we should reach the cover of the trees and our lines before they reached us. However our infantry eventually grasped our predicament and their fire on our pursuers finally settled matters in our favour.’148
It had been a close run thing and the battery only just avoided being overrun by the German infantry. Griffith’s diary demonstrates a remarkable generosity towards the Guards whose late intervention came not a moment too soon! For his coolness under fire and bravery in getting the guns limbered up and out of action, Griffith was awarded the DSO. Discretion being the better part of valour, the battery was moved back under cover of the trees and came into action again shortly afterwards but not before Griffith and two men who had been wounded in the action were sent down to Soupir.
At noon, encouraged by their success in holding off the enemy, Matheson and Jeffreys felt the time had arrived to take the offensive. The German line was static in the turnip fields north of the farm and a spirited charge might just dislodge the enemy. But even before the Guardsmen had time to fix their bayonets and move forward, the Germans in the front line stood up and with white flags waving began to run forward with their hands up in surrender. George Jeffreys witnessed the event:
‘Unfortunately men of all units – Grenadiers, Coldstream, Connaught Rangers and Irish Guards – rushed forward to seize prisoners, and though both Matheson and I shouted to them to stand fast, we could not stop them and a confused mass of British and German soldiers was the result. On this mass the German soldiers in the rear at once opened fire, causing a number of casualties.’149
Bernard Gordon Lennox watched aghast as both German and British soldiers fell, ‘it was here most of the casualties occurred. The men learnt a lesson and there will not be much more notice taken of the white flag’. Jeffreys was sure there was never any premeditated treachery intended by the Germans, the leading line, he felt, had had enough and was very low in ammunition; the support line behind them, however, had no intention of surrendering and opened fire when the British troops ran forward.
The confusion which followed was the prelude to another attack, this time from the direction of Ostel. It was met with the customary Guards resolve in the form of the 3/Coldstream machine-gun section and the Grenadiers who lined the road north of the farm. The enemy attack soon withered away but any thoughts of a further advance that afternoon seemed to be out of the question. The muddle which surrounded the fighting on the 4 Brigade front was exacerbated by the news that the 3rd Division was in trouble at Vailly. Initial reports reaching I Corps HQ at noon of a general retirement of 3rd Division units was fortunately corrected and by 2.00pm a more realistic appraisal of the situation was in front of Sir Douglas Haig. Realizing his left flank was under threat if the 3rd Division was pushed back to the river, he took steps to fill the gap between Chavonne and Vailly with 1 and 2 Cavalry Brigades which were ordered to Soupir. Haig’s own assessment of the situation is contained in the I Corps war diary:
‘A little later, an officer of the 15th Hussars rode in and reported that he had seen signs of our 3rd Division having been beaten back. The situation was critical. An advance by the enemy through Chavonne on Soupir would have cut the communications of the Corps; the last battalion of my reserve brigade had been drawn into the fight near Chivy, and I had no infantry that I could detach. The only men immediately at hand were a troop of the 15 Hussars and a squadron of the South Irish Horse. These I despatched at once to the threatened flank, and I also called upon the 2nd Cavalry Brigade to move to Soupir.’150
Captain Arthur Osburn was in reserve with 4/Dragoon Guards and remembered thinking that had the Germans counter attacked that afternoon things would have become very nasty. At about 4.00pm the brigade was halted in the woods to the northwest of Soupir:
‘Our General and some of his staff suddenly appeared. He evidently thought the situation, especially the position of the infantry who had crossed over behind us, precarious. He made us a speech … “You must stay here at all costs! Everything may depend on you! Don’t give an inch of ground. You may have to sustain seventy or eighty per cent casualties! Remain and die like gentlemen!” We looked at each other. Like Gentlemen – how else do people usually die?’151
Brigadier General de Lisle’s speech certainly put, ‘the wind up’ Osburn who then, ‘made quite elaborate and feverish’ medical arrangements for what he expected to be an, ‘enormous battle’. The men of 1 Cavalry Brigade had evidently received a similar pep talk from Brigadier General Charles Briggs as the 11/Hussars war diary betrays the urgency with which the regiment was ordered to Soupir:
‘We received an order to go to the left of the 1st Army [I Corps], Sir Douglas Haig is anxious about his left. The 2nd Army [II Corps] are not joined up with the first, and their right is being driven back over the river. We arrive at Soupir and take up a dismounted position on the left of our infantry [2/Ox and Bucks], also succeed in getting in touch with the right of the 2nd Army. The gap is a biggish one and a nasty bit of country. As we arrive, we see streams of wounded being brought down the track, the Guards have been having a bad time of it.’152
The remainder of 1 Cavalry Brigade was deployed in a second line at Chavonne which enabled 11/Hussars to be withdrawn. Shortly afterwards 2/Ox and Bucks were moved to Soupir at which point Arthur Osburn felt it was almost an anticlimax that no German counter attack actually took place and the Dragoon Guards retired to Soupir Château with the Hussars.
Back at Cour de Soupir the day was drawing in but the German batteries continued to shell the British positions as they had for most of the day. Two companies of 2/Coldstream were sent down to Chavonne where they spent a wet night with the cavalry and a further two were pushed across to the right to where the Irish Guards were digging in. Artillery support we now know was practically non-existent-apart from the 71/Battery appearance at Cour de Soupir – XLI Brigade crossed at Bourg and then retired to Veil-Arcy firing only twelve rounds all day – although Sergeant Reeve with 16/Battery was adamant that the battery, ‘stayed in action all day and night’, but conceding that they only, ‘blazed off a bit’. At least 35/Heavy Battery managed to fire thirty-four rounds which was more than 44/ (Howitzer) Battery managed at Verneuil.
The Connaught Rangers were ordered back to Soupir as soon as it was dark. As a battalion they were clearly viewed with some disdain by the Guards. Major Jeffreys remarked in his diary that they had been, ‘notorious for straggling in the retreat’ whilst Bernard Gordon Lennox dismissed them as the rabble which, ‘occupied’, rather than, ‘held’ Cour de Soupir Farm and writes in his diary that they, ‘did not remain long before making a “strategic movement to the rear’”. Not only is this allegation plainly false but even more slighting is the lack of acknowledgement by the Grenadiers themselves as to the part played by the Connaughts in the fight for Cour de Soupir Farm. Though to be fair, according to Sergeant John McIlwain, a Connaught reservist serving in D Company, Colonel Fielding, in his temporary role in commanding 4 Brigade, did send a, ‘message of congratulation … for the manner in which we had held the position after the severe counter attack by the Germans’. The final accolade as to the fighting ability of the Connaughts came from Major Henry Dillon, a company commander with the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry. Writing in a letter home on 23 September, he mentions the fight for La Cour de Soupir Farm: ‘An Irish regiment were the first to get to the top and they fought like nothing on earth’.
It has to be said that Major Sarsfield’s early occupation of the farm on 14 September was carried out with the same spirit of initiative which drove Hunter-Weston’s advance with 11 Brigade at Vénizel. Sadly it had the same outcome. What is difficult to understand is that at 5.30am the Connaughts were already halfway to the brigade objective, yet the first of the Guards battalions did not cross the river until 8.30am, despite the evidence from the Connaughts’ war diary – and that of 5 Brigade – both of which confirm that brigade headquarters were aware of the Connaughts’ position at Cour de Soupir Farm.
John McIlwain’s diary – although inaccurate in places and often quite damning of some of his officers – places him on the right flank at Cour de Soupir and describes the death of his platoon officer, 21-year-old Second Lieutenant Victor Lentaigne:153
He was the younger son of Sir John Lentaigne, the well known surgeon of Merrion Square, Dublin. He was a modest, quiet lad who could have been severe with me many times …He was over eager to get into action. His orders yesterday were to hold his platoon in reserve till called upon …He fixed his sword in the ground to mark the point of advance, went forward alone and was not seen again.’154
Victor Lentaigne was one of three Connaught officers killed with a further five wounded. In the ranks 18 men were killed, 102 wounded and 97 declared missing. The Grenadiers’ losses were comparable: two officers – John Cuncliffe and Frederick des Voeux – killed and six others wounded in addition to seventeen other ranks killed, sixty-seven wounded and seventy-seven missing.155 The Coldstream casualties amounted to two killed – including Second Lieutenant Richard Lockwood – and sixty-three wounded in the 2nd Battalion and twenty-five killed and 153 wounded in the 3rd Battalion.156 The dead included the 26-year-old Lieutenant Percy ‘Perf’ Lyulph Wyndham who had inherited the magnificent Clouds estate at East Knoyle two years previously on the death of his father, the Rt Hon George Wyndham MP.157 ‘Perf’ had been married for less than two years to the Hon Diana Lister and was a cousin of the 17-year-old Edward ‘Bim’ Tennant who himself would be killed serving with the Grenadier Guards in 1916.158 Tom Bridges – a family friend – was at Soupir Château with 4/Dragoon Guards when he heard of Wyndham’s death: ‘the evening was marred by the death of a friend, Percy Wyndham, close by, and the opening of a heavy battery on our billet later in the night’.
After dark Matheson and Jeffreys reorganized their respective battalions from the ‘proper mix-up’ which the day’s fighting had produced. It was agreed between the two battalion commanders that the Grenadiers would hold a line from the wood east of the farm as far as the Chavonne road, the 3/Coldstream along the Chavonne road to link up with the 2/Coldstream at Chavonne. On the right of the Grenadiers the Irish Guards were in contact with the KRRC of 6 Brigade. Thus the 2nd Division found itself digging in from the southern edge of the Beaulne spur, across the Braye valley north of La Metz Farm to Cour de Soupir Farm and down to Chavonne.
Darkness was also the opportunity for recovering the wounded, some of whom had been lying out in front of the lines since the engagement began. Jeffreys had seen a, ‘considerable number’, of both British and German wounded as well as, ‘a very large number of dead Germans’. There were also those who had been lying doggo and had been waiting for darkness to give themselves up. The sheer numbers of wounded men threatened to overwhelm the battalion medical teams which had been working feverishly for most of the day. The farmhouse was already full and the wounded now overflowed into the farm enclosure buildings, yet even though as many wounded men as possible were taken away that night by the few horse drawn ambulance wagons that could be spared, many were not taken down to Soupir until 16 September. Inevitably there were many wounded men in the woods on the right flank who were not found and died as a result.
The medical facilities for the 2nd Division were initially overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of wounded. Two advanced dressing stations were established at Moussy and in some caves near Chivy with the main dressing stations at the château at Verneuil and the rather ostentatious château at Soupir. At Verneuil conditions were made more difficult by the nearby artillery batteries which ensured the building was frequently shelled as German batteries searched for the British guns. 5/Field Ambulance took over the château at Verneuil around lunch time on 14 September and by the end of the day the building itself and the surrounding stables and outbuildings were filled with wounded. Major Frederick Brereton estimates some 9 officers, 166 other ranks and 54 Germans were admitted during the day, a number which included 48-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dalton159, the 2nd Division ADMS.160 Dalton was severely wounded by a shell splinter as he was assisting with the carrying of casualties into the château. 6/Field Ambulance arrived on the night of 14 September to assist in bringing in the wounded and over the course of the next twenty-four hours another seven officers and eighty-five other ranks were admitted.
But Verneuil had become too much of a shell trap to continue in its role as a divisional collecting station, it was becoming very exposed and three days later it received a direct hit which prompted the move to Viel-Arcy on the 20th. Brereton, in his account of the RAMC on the Aisne, writes of the moment when the direct hit on the château took place:
‘It smashed through the château, shrieked across the operation room, and plunged through the mirror hanging over the salon fireplace. Orderlies still hovered around. Instruments were lifted carefully from the sterilizer. The anaesthetist looked round at the mirror and dripped chloroform. He lifted up the eyelid of the unconscious patient, grunted his satisfaction and again bent to listen to his breathing. The operating surgeon had not even raised his head. His busy fingers played about the wound, one hand grasped the scalpel … finally as the patient was lifted from the table he turned and examined the mirror. “Broken it eh?” he observed; “that’s bad luck for the Germans!”.’161
The château at Soupir did not take on the role of a main dressing station until 17 September when 4/Field Ambulance moved into the building. Prior to that, No. 3/Cavalry Field Ambulance had occupied the building along with 1 and 2 Cavalry Brigades which, readers will recall, had been sent to reinforce the left flank after the 3rd Division had got into difficulties. 3/Cavalry Field Ambulance had already been severely mauled by shell fire on the night of 15 September when a large shell fell amongst a group of horses and men at the château. Five men were killed, and a further eight were wounded. The bombardment continued, forcing the ambulance to move south of the river but even as they crossed the river they attracted further salvos which followed them across the flat, open ground all the way to Viel-Arcy.
The château building and its grounds were situated close to the church at Soupir. A construction of pretentious proportions, its grand architectural design even encompassed the stable block, a magnificent building some two storeys high and so ornate it was sometimes mistaken for the main building. Surrounded by elaborately designed gardens and boasting a large lake to the southwest, the château was the home of Maria Boursin, the alleged mistress of Gaston Calmette the editor of the Paris newspaper Le Figaro.162 A diary account of an 11/Hussars officer speaks of the ‘great scramble’ in the château kitchen when the regiment arrived on 14 September:
‘We make soup and heat up bully beef. No bread, biscuits soaked in soup. The house servants produce wine from the cellars, real good claret, they gave it to us wholesale. About 11.00pm having given orders and made all the arrangements for an early start get Purser to pull off my boots and prepare to bed down in one of the bedrooms.’163
Sergeant John McIlwain had cause to visit the château with several of his platoon of Connaught Rangers and one gets the distinct impression they were on the look-out for ‘souvenirs’:
‘This château was a magnificent building inside. When I, with two or three more, entered to find the big kitchen occupied by a party of the 15th Hussars who declared they were in possession by order of their CO. Ladies boudoirs and the bedrooms were littered with empty jewel and plate cases, their contents removed probably by the owners. In chests of drawers were dainty but stoutly woven linen handkerchiefs, which was all there was worth our attention, apart from a barrel of good quality bitter wine on tap by the back door. Very welcome after a march on a hot day.’164
All this was to change on 17 September, within days the three story building was catering for the seemingly continual stream of wounded who were being brought in from the surrounding area. Under the command of Major Percy Falkner the château was taking in an average of fifty casualties per day on top of the German casualties being treated in the nearby church. Soupir Château remained in the hands of 4/Field Ambulance until it finally left on 12 October, by which time the building had suffered severely from German artillery and the ravages of war. Maria Boursin also owned property in Paris to which she hastily retired when war reached the Aisne. By November 1918 – after the war had run its course and three battles had been fought on the Aisne – the building lay in ruins and Maria Boursin never returned to Soupir to rebuild her home.