It’s only when you press yourself flat into the earth that the bullets cease to sing their song of death around you.
Lieutenant Alan Hanbury-Sparrow – The Land Locked Lake
Douglas Haig’s orders for 13 September were for his two divisions to continue the advance and cross the Aisne. The ground facing him was similar to that further west: a series of high spurs running down from the Chemin des Dames ridge towards the valley bottom and the river. Running east to west are the Pargnan and Bourg spurs with the village of Moulins at the head of the valley between them; next is the shorter Troyon spur running down from Cerny-en-Laonnois which has Vendresse to the east of it and Beaulne to the west.
Once the aqueduct at Bourg had been secured by the cavalry, Brigadier General Ivor Maxse’s 1 (Guards) Brigade and Herman Landon’s 3 Infantry Brigade followed on and advanced northeast towards Paissy where they took up a position to the left of 2 Cavalry Brigade. At 4.00pm Edward Bulfin’s 2 Infantry Brigade was across the river and gathered west of Paissy in and around Moulins, releasing 2 Cavalry Brigade which withdrew to Bourg. By 6.00pm on 13 September the last man of the 1st Division was on the north bank of the Aisne.
The crossing of several thousand infantrymen and innumerable wheeled transports over the aqueduct made life quite difficult for the sappers of 23/Field Company. Charged with maintaining the integrity of the canal towpath, Lieutenant Richard Bond was relieved to find it was wide enough but realizing it was not possible to leave the path for another mile – until the Bourg-Vailly road crossed the canal – he began supervising the construction of a corduroy road to enable the traffic to leave the towpath:
‘The towpath was hard put to it to stand the strain of the traffic, and the Company was fully employed in keeping the surface in condition, rapidly filling up holes with whatever material was handy, in intervals, between units, and suffering the objurgations of gunners temporarily held up by more than usually extensive repairs, whilst from time to time a longdistance shrapnel shell from the Chemin des Dames would fall with a sizzle into the water.’165
Second Lieutenant Jock Marden and the 9/Lancers had crossed the river further upstream and advanced ahead of the main body towards Paissy where they eventually formed up behind a battery of XXV Brigade’s guns:
‘We then climb a hill and form up in mass behind a battery in action – our usual procedure. Naturally we receive several hostile overshoots aimed at the battery. We hastily pack up our lunch and having mounted, retire in open order at a walk for 300 yards. Six horses of my troop wounded, Lucas killed, two men wounded. The General thinks it a brave thing to do to sit down behind a battery in action in close formation. Anyhow, he’s thrown away his best squadron leader – feel very depressed as I was very fond of Lucas.’166
Marden’s diary, written from a junior subaltern’s perspective of the battle, is in places quite critical of the regiment’s deployment and of the brigade staff, offering, as it does, a refreshing insight into the daily toil of a cavalry officer on the front line. He felt particularly sad at the death of his squadron commander, 33-year-old Captain Douglas Lucas-Tooth who was hit by a shell splinter.167 His thinly veiled sarcasm of Brigadier General De Lisle’s wisdom in deploying cavalry in close proximity to artillery units in action possibly stemmed from the disastrous cavalry charge in which Marden took part at Audregnies on 24 August when 2 Cavalry Brigade suffered very heavily against the guns of the German IV Corps.168
That night the 1st Division and 2 Cavalry Brigade occupied a line from Paissy through Moulins, Oeuilly and Bourg and Briggs’ 1 Cavalry Brigade was sent back across the river. All-in-all the prospects for the next day looked good. Haig – as we know – was still working on intelligence which suggested the enemy in front of him was thinly deployed, he had little, if any idea, of the movement of the German VII Reserve Corps which had already arrived on the Chemin des Dames. The local movement of German rearguards appeared to suggest the German Army was still in retreat, a belief which was repeated in the GHQ Operational Order No. 24 issued at 6.00pm on 13 September with the optimistic order to, ‘continue the pursuit tomorrow at 6.00am and act vigorously against the retreating enemy’.
For Edward Bulfin, a vigorous advance over potentially difficult ground without prior reconnaissance grated harshly on his professionalism and with this foremost in mind, he instructed Lieutenant Colonel Eric Pearce-Serocold, commanding 2/KRRC, to send an officer’s patrol forward under the cover of darkness to gather as much intelligence as possible. Accordingly, Second Lieutenant Oswald Balfour and eight riflemen managed to evade German pickets and established the presence of the enemy on the ridge:
‘The patrol moved straight up the road on to the high ground north of Troyon and succeeded in locating a German picquet at the point where the road turns northwest immediately north of Troyon. Five Germans were seen, and apparently they heard the approach of the patrol, owing to a man slipping down the bank, which caused his mess tin to rattle. Some of the enemy followed down the road, but the patrol got away on the grass siding.’169
Balfour and his men were safely back in British lines by 2.30am in time to report to the general and rejoin their battalion before the brigade moved off. No doubt the report would have indicated the road from Vendresse up to the Chemin des Dames was well sheltered from enemy view until it turned sharply to the left and continued along a sunken road to the junction at Cerny-en-Laonnois. Had the patrol not alerted the German picquet they would have found a small cluster of buildings at the junction where the abandoned sucrerie building with its conspicuously tall brick chimney was located, just yards from the Chemin des Dames. In reality Balfour’s patrol provided little intelligence of use, the sucrerie and its surroundings would all too soon become a familiar feature to all the 2 Brigade battalions.
The plan for 2 Brigade’s attack was simple enough: under the immediate command of Lieutenant Colonel Pearce-Serocold, both the KRRC and 2/Royal Sussex would move quickly to occupy the high ground above the hamlet of Troyon. Pearce-Serocold would then move to take the crossroads at Cerny whilst Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Montresor remained in support with 2/Royal Sussex at Vendresse until required. The 1/Northamptons under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Osborne Smith were under orders to climb the spur above Moulins and attack the ridge on the left of the 1st Battalion Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment (1/Queen’s) from 3 Brigade, detailed as flank guard on the extreme right.
The early start was the beginning of a day which would become forever etched into the memory of Sergeant Bradlaugh Sanderson. Apart from the 2.30am start in heavy mist and rain, he recalled, ‘we had no overcoat only a waterproof sheet’. A reservist who had been mobilized at the start of hostilities in August 1914, Sanderson had been with 2/KRRC at Mons and all through the retreat and his greatcoat – and those of the rest of the battalion – had been left at Landrecies on 25 August after their encounter with the German 7th Division. He was now advancing with D Company and feeling the cold:
‘We moved out of Paissy at 2.30am past the outposts and crept silently up the hill with fixed bayonets. We were told that we were going to surprise an outpost in front, that’s all … We went gingerly through a village – Troyon – and up the slope of a big spur in front. We got to the top, reformed and were going through a cutting in the hillside nearly at the top, marching on either side of the road in single file. Suddenly a squad of cavalry came dashing through which was upsetting the whole show.’170
The squadron of cavalry included Jock Marden who had earlier found himself leading the advanced troop and being, ‘not at all ready’, having had no breakfast! On the way up to Troyon he had great difficulty reading the map in the dark, every time he stopped to strike a match in order to get some idea as to where he was, he received an irate command from the rear to hurry up:
‘Thoroughly exasperated, I go on without being able to use the map through our own infantry in Troyon and up a valley past rows of Germans asleep in trenches. Ably supported by the squadron we retire in a hurry, as they wake up when we get to the far end. A regular steeplechase back over sunken roads and wire fences. Luckily it is too dark for accurate shooting.’171
Whether the Germans were all asleep or not, Sanderson was of the opinion that the cavalry’s blunder into the German line proved their salvation alerting Sergeant Bradlaugh Sanderson’s company of KRRC to the German presence. The German line was positioned astride the sunken road at the point where a track which ran down from the Chemin des Dames cut across the road. Duly roused, the men of the German picquet began firing straight down the road and although Marden reckoned it was too dark for accurate shooting, one round did hit Lieutenant Riversdale Grenfell who was killed immediately before the Lancers turned and galloped back down the road.172
D Company of the KRRC stood its ground. The company commander, Captain Augustus Cathcart, sent Lieutenant Seymour Mellor back to report to Colonel Pearce-Serocold, who was sheltering under the lee of the hillside near Troyon with A Company.173 Cathcart’s men were being fired on from three sides but refused to give way. Following his platoon commander, Second Lieutenant Stuart Davison, Sergeant Sanderson heard Cathcart shouting, ‘extend over the ridge right and left’:
‘The day was just breaking when we got into position. We had two killed in a few seconds. Then the Germans turned two machine guns on to us from a haystack, not thirty yards to our front. My officer seized hold of a man’s rifle, at the same time shouting, “There are hundreds of Germans behind that haystack.” Then he stood up and deliberately fired, standing. I shouted, “Get down sir.” He was shot through the eye immediately and died a few minutes after. Before he did that however, he said, “Hold on to this position as it is on the flank. Don’t retire until you get orders.”’174
Out on the right flank, Sanderson and his company were soon reinforced by A Company at about 5.45am which is more or less the time B Company appeared on the left flank. The battalion was now astride the sunken road, dawn had broken and fortunately the mist was still clinging to the hillside masking the British positions a little from the German guns which were in position some 600 yards in front. But from the weight of fire being directed onto the KRRC it was obvious this was no German rearguard but a substantial body of troops and British reinforcements were needed urgently. Pearce-Serocold responded quickly and dispatched a runner to Colonel Montresor requesting that the Royal Sussex reinforce the firing line.
The unmistakable noise of battle on the heights above had already alerted the Royal Sussex and sensing he would soon be needed, Montresor had already moved the battalion up from Vendresse in anticipation. By 6.30am the battalion was deployed on the left and right of the KRRC. The arrival of the Sussex lengthened the firing line and enabled A and B Companies of the Sussex to outflank the German position on the left; the Sussex war diary notes with some satisfaction that ‘fire was opened and continued for some minutes when it was seen that a large number of Germans were putting up their hands to surrender’. Sanderson was one of the many witnesses to the events which followed, ‘I heard a lot of shouting and everybody was standing up. The Germans had put up a white flag and were coming in by hundreds to surrender’. As the Sussex men rose to their feet to bring in the prisoners the Germans in the trenches behind them opened fire on both their own men and the British. The deadly crossfire created by that of their own men who had not thrown in the towel and the rapid fire being returned by the British riflemen cut down many of the hapless German infantrymen in the act of surrendering. Nevertheless, some 300 Germans were taken prisoner. It was a similar occurrence to that witnessed by Major Jeffreys at Cour de Soupir which had been the prelude to a number of so-called ‘white flag’ incidents all of which were anathema to the British notion of ‘fair play’.
A similar incident involving the Royal Sussex occurred a short time later on the right of the line when the Germans were again outflanked and surrendered. On this occasion the surrendering Germans were fired on by two of the guns from a German battery near the sucrerie building. We are told that practically all these men were shot down by their own side. Whether Sanderson was confusing the two surrender episodes is unclear from his account but he does express his shock when the German gunners deliberately opened fire on their own. ‘I had a sneaking fancy all wasn’t right’, he wrote, ‘then they deliberately opened fire at short range’.
With two battalions now fully committed, Bulfin, realizing he needed to reinforce the firing line, ordered 1/Loyals to move up the hill from Vendresse where the battalion had been placed in reserve earlier in the morning. On their way up to Troyon the Loyals passed German prisoners being escorted down towards the river and Second Lieutenant James Hyndson, marching with B Company, noticed the enemy soldiers, ‘were in tears’. Hyndson was the officer commanding Number 8 Platoon:
‘On approaching the crest of hill we come on signs of conflict. Helmets lying all over the place and also rifles. A good deal of blood, and several wounded and dead lying about. We reach the crest and halt just under it. The bullets now seem to be coming from all directions. After a short rest we are ordered to attack factory.’175
Bulfin’s orders from division were not to push on beyond the Chemin des Dames, but as yet the strongpoint ahead of him – consisting of the sucrerie and the adjoining farmhouse – was preventing his brigade from reaching its objective. This sector of the line was defended by three battalions of the German 27 Reserve Regiment and the guns of 14 Reserve Field Artillery Regiment, and it was against these that the Loyals advanced. Facing the barrage of fire, which was being directed at them, Hyndson described his platoon’s advance into what appeared to be certain death as beyond comprehension:
‘I extend my platoon after Loomes (he is far in front of his platoon waving them on; this is the last I saw of him). Loomes is on my right and Goldie on my left.176 Had only gone a hundred yards under a perfect hail of bullets when I heard a singing sound on my right. Two eight-inch shells had pitched 20 yards to my left and blew sky high a few of my platoon. The shells emitted a tall cloud of black dust and smoke. Truly terrible missiles. We go forward, but as yet I can see nothing. At last we reach the firing line. How anyone reached it is beyond comprehending. And such a line. All manner of regiments are there, and the dead and wounded are lying around in scores. We carry the factory and hold on like grim death. Allason is a little to my right and Goldie landed up to me. He shortly afterwards moved off to the left by rolling on his side, and that was the last I saw of him.’177
The Loyals carried the attack to the sucrerie factory building as ordered with B and D Companies advancing across a quarter of a mile of open ground. Their casualties – which were alarmingly heavy – included the commanding officer, Major Walter Lloyd and his adjutant, Captain Richard Howard-Vyse who were reported to have been killed in the first rush.178 But their advance provided the catalyst and with the Loyals now in possession of the sucrerie buildings, Lieutenant Vere Dashwood and his machine-gun section from the Royal Sussex brought up their two Vickers guns and into a position from which they could bring a heavy fire onto the German batteries to the east. Dashwood’s men effectively prevented any attempts by the German gunners to withdraw their guns, each time horses and limbers were brought up they were shot down by the fire from the sucrerie building, ‘the guns of both batteries became derelict’, exclaimed the Sussex war diary. The Loyals’ war diary suggests the factory building was occupied sometime after 11.00am but by 12.30pm they were running short of ammunition. Lieutenant Hyndson again:
‘The German machine guns were very nasty; they keep traversing up and down our line. A great increase in the noise of cracking whips overhead always heralded their return. Many men were hit and the casualties became truly appalling. We get no reinforcements or ammunition and soon exhaust our supply. Germans heavily counter attack.’179
By this stage, Sergeant Sanderson of the KRRC had lost nearly half his men and was also running short of ammunition. He sent an urgent request for both and remarked that, ‘I got the ammunition but no reinforcements’. The situation was becoming desperate, even more so since the German line was being strengthened by units of the German X Corps from the Second Army and a Horse Artillery Abteilung from the 9th Cavalry Division.
Let us leave 2 Brigade lodged precariously around the sucrerie for the moment in order to consider the movements of Brigadier General Maxse’s 1 (Guards) Brigade. Maxse’s brigade had suffered heavily during the retreat from Mons when 2/Munster Fusiliers under the command of Major Paul Charrier, had fought a desperate rearguard action at Etreux on 27 August.180 The battalion had been detailed as rearguard to the brigade but Charrier did not receive orders to retire until it was too late. Cut off just before they entered the town of Etreux, the final engagement was fought in an orchard before the surviving 256 men and 3 officers who were left standing, surrendered. Maxse was quite rightly criticised by Haig for his handling of the affair and it was not until 5 September that the 1st Battalion Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (1/Camerons) joined the brigade to bring it up to strength.
Leaving their bivouacs at Paissy, the 1/Coldstream was detailed as advance guard to the brigade and moved at 6.45am through Moussy and Vendresse. Avoiding the sunken road – where the initial engagement had begun earlier that morning – the battalion climbed the wooded slopes above Vendresse in single file to reach the high ground of the Troyon spur in order to approach Cerny from the southwest. Extending across the flat top of the plateau and guided by the tall chimney of the sucrerie, which they could just make out through the mist and driving rain, the battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel John Ponsonby, soon came under heavy rifle and shell fire, Ponsonby noting with some pride that, ‘the men advanced splendidly, no man hesitated, although many were falling on all sides’.
Meanwhile the Camerons and 1/Black Watch discovered one of the numerous tracks which ran up onto the spur from the southwest and had already arrived on the top near the quarries on Mount Faucon. Extending into skirmishing lines they moved between two of the quarries for some 500 yards and lay down with the Black Watch on the right. At 7.00am the advance began again, this time towards the distant finger of the factory chimney, but as soon as they left the cover of the wooded area they came under attack from the front and the right. Whilst A Company bore the brunt of this attack, the remaining companies continued extending their lines with one company of the Black Watch on the right and the elements of the Scots Guards on the left. It must have been a magnificent sight and one which the Germans on the Chemin des Dames had cause to remember as the highlanders swept through the enemy trenches and took up a firing line some 80 yards beyond the road.
With two half companies across the road the remainder of the battalion moved up the small Blanc Mont spur where they were able to bring fire to bear on the Chemin des Dames ridge. The Camerons now occupied an ‘S’-shaped firing line which was attacked at 8.00am along its whole length. The weight of enemy infantry eventually forced the right flank to fall back behind the bank of the Chivy road.
Attacks on the battalion continued throughout the morning, during which time Lieutenant Colonel McLachlan was wounded whilst on the left of the line C Company were introduced to the white flag ruse:
‘No 11 Platoon of C Company on the left (2/Lt Smith-Sligo) had 13 men killed altogether owing to the fact a body of Germans advanced waving their rifles above their heads and apparently wishing to surrender. On the platoon going forward they were decimated by the fire of another German line behind, and the line apparently wishing to surrender lay down and probably fired also.’181
Although this ‘white flag’ incident may have been the same one as described by Sergeant Sanderson, it is possible it was an entirely separate event, bearing in mind the Camerons were west of the sucrerie and the men of 11 Platoon went forward to receive the surrendering Germans. Nevertheless, it appears that this time it was a deliberate ploy by the Germans to lure the unsuspecting British infantry out of cover.
In the intervening time – whilst the Camerons and Black Watch were dealing with the left flank – John Ponsonby and the Coldstream Guards reached the brick wall which surrounded the sucrerie at about the time the factory chimney was brought down by enemy shell fire. Thus it was sometime around 9.30am when Ponsonby, with a mixed party of men from all regiments, and Number 2 Company of the Coldstream pushed on over the road itself:
‘We made rushes by sections and got to the sunken road and pressed on forward to a village, Cerny by name. At this time I suppose we were about 100 to 150 strong, but under the circumstances it was impossible to estimate numbers, we could only hope the remainder of the battalion would come on … Charlie Grant took 50 men down one side of the village, Aldam, Paget and myself keeping down the centre of the village with the remainder. In the village I found a large German ambulance corps; a German colonel came out of one of the houses. I saw he had about 20 medical officers with him and there appeared to be a whole medical arrangement and appliances in the house.’182
On the far side of the village they stumbled across German troops. At first Ponsonby thought they were British or even French troops but quickly realized they were in fact the enemy who, after a brief but sharp firefight, vanished into the gloom. At the northern edge of the village the party were discovered and John Ponsonby was hit in the ankle. Surrounded, they remained in the wood until dark when they managed to evade the enemy during a rainstorm:
‘We passed German troops within 50 yards, but by keeping as quiet as possible and with the aid of the storm of wind and rain, we passed through them unobserved. We could only go at the rate of about one mile an hour, as I could not be carried any faster …At 5.00am we got onto a main road and walked in to one of our field ambulances at the village of Vendresse.’183
John Ponsonby’s advance over the Chemin des Dames was not the only one that morning. A mile further east along the ridge the Queen’s, together with the 1/Northamptons, had also advanced over the road, meeting little opposition until the ground fell away from them by La Bovelle Farm. Here the battalions found themselves looking down into the valley of the Ailette which separated them from the German 8-inch artillery batteries on the far rim. Nothing was done to capitalize on this advance but the Queen’s did wreak considerable havoc with their machine guns on German troops who were unfortunate enough to be moving to the east. It is almost heartbreaking to ponder on the fact that at two separate points along the Chemin des Dames, barely a mile apart, the German line had been infiltrated with very little difficulty by a substantial number of British troops who were then forced to withdraw in the absence of any support.
The Northamptons’ advance was graphically described by Lieutenant Evelyn Needham who advanced with the battalion up the Moulins spur and was in sight of the Chemin des Dames at 11.30am. Needham, known to his friends as ‘Jack’, could see the ridge to his front and had a grandstand view of the battle around the sucrerie:
‘It was still very wet and misty and we could only just make out the ridge opposite with its telegraph poles running along the Chemin des Dames, its haystacks and its factory chimney. But we could see the 1st and 2nd Brigades attacking the terraces to our left front, and a wonderful sight it was – just like watching a field day on the Fox Hills or Salisbury Plain, except there were continuous puffs of smoke about, both on the ground and in the air, and that one saw little figures collapse and lie still! The noise of gun fire, machine guns and rifles was incessant, but only an occasional spent bullet came over us on our hill, or a very occasional shrapnel burst. Why the Germans did not plaster our hill-top with shrapnel I cannot imagine.’184
Ordered to advance in extended order, C and B Companies moved up to take a position on the left of the Queen’s. Needham and his platoon were part of C Company and were initially masked from enemy observation by the mist and a shallow depression in the ground. Intent on maintaining pace and focused very much on staying alive, Needham did not notice his passge over the first line of German trenches as they topped the rise and halted on the road itself. After straightening up their line with the Queen’s they went on:
‘About a hundred and fifty yards beyond the road the gradient begins to flatten out, and it was soon pretty evident that we had been seen! ‘Everything seemed to open on us at once – rifles, machine-guns, artillery, etc. The noise was deafening, the rifle and machine gun bullets made a noise like a stock whip being cracked in one’s ear as they passed …It never seemed to stop. Nothing seemed to stop. Men were falling now right and left. We were advancing in two lines, and my platoon was in the second line … on we went – it seemed like miles that we had advanced, whereas it was only about three hundred yards. Men continued to fall, the noise continued deafening, but we could see no shells bursting over the enemy, and we were cursing them accordingly.’185
As their advance ground to a halt Needham recalled lying flat on the ground for about twenty minutes, ‘being utterly unable to find out what was happening elsewhere’. There were no orders and they lay there not knowing whether to advance, retire or maintain their positions. ‘Then the rain stopped and the mist began to clear, and presently to our joy shrapnel started to burst about twenty to thirty yards in front of us, right over the German trenches’.
The clearing mist had enabled Lieutenant Colonel John Geddes’ XXV Brigade RFA to finally bring their guns into action. Up to this point in the battle the British brigades fighting along the Chemin des Dames had been without artillery support. Bringing guns to bear on the enemy positions was impossible in the misty conditions, as without clear observation there was every possibility the gunners would be firing on British troops. Here the Germans had a clear advantage over the British gunners; their guns had been in position well before the attack began and they knew the dispositions of their troops; but at least the mist provided some cover under which the gunners of 116/Battery could manhandle their guns up above Troyon. They were now in action just behind the firing line. Although this single battery could hardly be termed ‘substantial’ artillery support, it did fire some 1,200 rounds and was kept supplied with ammunition entirely by hand – and it at least managed to redress the balance of firepower a little. The welcome shrapnel which Needham saw bursting over the German trenches was most likely from 114/Battery which was firing from a field just east of Troyon, ‘their fire caused the enemy’s rifle and machine-gun fire to lessen a bit, which was a real blessing’.
Lying pressed to the ground north of the Chemin des Dames, the Northamptons were finally ordered to retire by Lieutenant Colonel Osborne-Smith which they did under the cover of shrapnel fire from 114/Battery. The Queen’s were also forced to pull back after the French Colonial Division had failed to make headway on their right, digging in along the line of the Chemin des Dames around 4.30pm with the Northamptons. One gets the distinct impression that once the Northamptons had advanced over the Chemin des Dames they were rather at a loss as what to do next. Needham and his platoon, ‘slithered down the slope backwards on our hands and knees for about fifty yards’, until they were out of sight of the enemy and retired to the Chemin des Dames where they dug in using the roadside ditch. ‘It was now 1.00pm and all hands set to, to dig like badgers. The men had only their entrenching tools, of course, we officers had nothing but our hands and swords, for what they were worth!’
Although the clearing mist had enabled the British gunners to get to work, it also precipitated a series of renewed German attacks on the British positions, particularly on the sucrerie. At 1.00pm an attack, launched at the entire frontage of 1 Guards Brigade and 2 Brigade, pushed the British out of the buildings – which at the same time exposed the Camerons’ right flank – forcing their eventual retirement back towards the Chivy valley. By this time it had also become obvious that the 2nd Division on the left had not made progress and their hoped for appearance on the Chemin des Dames was not going to materalise. The order to withdraw from the sucrerie were prompted by shell fire from the German batteries on the far side of the Ailette valley, James Hyndson was told to get his men out by Captain Lionel Allason. There were not many left:
‘Allason186 orders me to retire and I do so with two Loyal North Lancs, three Black Watch, two Cameron Highlanders. We move back at a fast double, and coming to a Donga, take shelter there. We are subjected to a terrific bombardment and it is death to show a hand. The shells seem to come right in and sweep the hole out. We lie there for some time and then move a little further back. I strike the Gloucester Regiment … they have come up to support us and have had no casualties. They are all very eager to go on.’187
Sergeant Sanderson of the KRRC gave the order himself to what was left of his platoon:
‘I gave the order to retire, calling one after the other, those remaining to keep up a rapid fire so as to render the retirement effective. But the hounds got a Maxim onto us. The chap next to me got hit in the leg and arm and he said, “Don’t leave me Sergeant.” Another chap and I got to him and dragged him along, crawling until we got him to a coal-box hole. The fates were unkind for the other chap got hit so I left my water bottle and scooted …I got back with four men out of sixteen.’188
The German counter attack at 1.00pm brought the 1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment (1/Gloucesters) from 3 Brigade into the fight on the ridge, although 3 Brigade had been instrumental in breaking up a German counter attack on the left flank earlier in the morning, B and C Companies were now sent up to help stabilize the line at Cerny. It was Number 7 Platoon of B Company – the advanced platoon of the Gloucesters commanded by Lieutenant Arthur Harding, which James Hyndson met up with as he retired.189 Hyndson’s account really does highlight the confusion which existed along the Chemin des Dames during the afternoon of 14 September. The Coldstream historian likened it to the Battle of Inkermann where groups of men from all regiments became mixed together in the misty conditions and were led by whoever happened to be available.190 Sixty years later the British infantrymen on the Chemin des Dames were still displaying that same stubborn obstinacy, clinging to positions that had been gained at so great a cost and maintaining a firing line from whatever cover could be found.
Having lost his regiment Hyndson bravely decided to remain with the Gloucesters. This equates to a time of around 5.00pm which corresponds to the late-in-the-afternoon order sent out earlier by Douglas Haig for a general advance of both the 2nd and 1st Divisions – a last ditch attempt to push the Germans off the Chemin des Damesand for both divisions to establish themselves securely on the ridge:
‘Towards darkness the Gloucesters are ordered to attempt to advance on the factory … They ask me to come and I do so, there being no chance of finding my unit. We move off and have several escapes from “Jack Johnsons” and move up the road. Reach top of road when half battalion in front get panicky. The General’s escort bolted and the half battalion of Welch opened fire on us. Luckily they fired high, so no damage was done. The Gloucester Regiment’s leading company had scattered, and it seemed as if we were in for another fight, for we did not know who was firing at us.’191
The 2nd Battalion Welch Regiment, mistaking the Gloucesters for the enemy, then charged and two of the Gloucesters were bayoneted. To add insult to injury, they then opened fire on the unfortunate Gloucesters again! Presumably after apologies all round the advance continued up towards the Chemin des Dames but failed to make any ground, Hyndson’s only comment being, ‘after a good deal of not knowing what to do, we got orders to retire’. The general referred to could only have been Herman Landon who was commanding 3 Brigade at the time. Thus the young Second Lieutenant had taken part in two attacks on the Chemin des Dames, been fired upon by both the Germans and his own side and remarkably, remained unscathed. Readers will not be at all surprised to hear that he ended the war intact and with the ribbon of the Military Cross on his chest. That night Hyndson sheltered under a waterproof sheet with Arthur Harding, ‘having supped off biscuits and jam’.
Darkness saw the hard-pressed units of the 1st Division digging in along a line which ran along the Chemin des Dames from a point juat under two miles east of the Cerny crossroads, with its right flank in touch with the French Moroccan Division of XVIII Corps. It then skirted south of the sucrerie and headed southwest to a point where it crossed the high ground north of Mont Faucon and on into the Chivy valley. Here it linked up with the line held by units of the 2nd Division at the southern end of the Beaulne spur.
After a heavy bombardment the sucrerie had been reoccupied by the Germans and the abandoned guns – rendered unusable by the British – had been limbered up and removed. As dusk fell 3 Infantry Brigade pressed forward in the gap between Haking’s 5 Brigade, Lieutenant Charles Paterson reporting that B and C Companies of the South Wales Borderers had reached the ridge but after being fired upon by outposts, had retired after losing the two remaining companies in the dark! Haking, we know, retired after his advance with 5 Brigade and Colonel Northy’s half battalion of 1/KRRC, after stumbling around in the dark looking for 3 Brigade, did likewise.