20
If the young Etonians on the Western Front thought that they had seen it all before the end of 1917, the final year of the Great War was to eclipse anything that they had yet witnessed. ‘The year of Our Lord 1918 was sensational and astonishing,’ wrote Pip Blacker. The stagnant trench warfare that he and his fellow officers had survived thus far was about to be replaced by the drama of a war of movement, but as yet he noted an air of ‘staleness and apathy’.
As far as the men were concerned, they had done their bit. The French and British had earned the right to take a step back and ‘take it easy until 1919 or 1920 when the war was finished, mainly by the Americans’. There was no inkling amongst any of them that this would be the year in which the conflict would draw to a close. ‘It is easy today,’ Pip wrote in the aftermath, ‘to forget how dubious the future looked till just before the end.’
The tail end of 1917 had well and truly taken it out of Henry Dundas. In December the 20-year-old was sent home. As early as November his physical health had become a concern. Henry was pulled out of the line and sent home in time for Christmas, to the joy of his parents, with an ambiguous heart complaint. It seemed that senior officers were determined to give him a rest. He spent his time relaxing at home and at Eton, which he was ecstatic to see again. ‘This place is fascinating. Just being here is a joy in itself, strolling about as one used to … ah me!’
In February, back at the front, Henry turned 21 and had a ‘marvellous’ coming-of-age dinner with the old gang. He spent the evening boozing with Ralph Gamble and Oliver Lyttelton, and deemed it ‘well worth the headache the next day!’ But nothing could detract from the grinding monotony of war. He and Ralph sat and had a heart to heart about all the friends they had lost thus far. For them, 31 July 1917 was the blackest day of the war. Eric Greer, John Dyer and Logie Leggatt were ‘absolutely irreplaceable’. The turnover weighed heavy on them both and they were beginning to feel like old men. ‘One feels it all the more so with what is practically a new generation of officers who have never even heard of Eric and John,’ lamented Henry. ‘What wonderful people they were.’
Although Ralph, Henry and their fellow OEs had had enough, 1918 promised more fighting, more hardships and ever further thinning of the ranks of Old Etonians. In fact it would prove to be the most savage year so far in terms of the scale of the fighting. As spring approached the Germans were planning a monumental offensive. They had no choice but to attempt a push on this scale as the country could not sustain itself for much longer. The burden of fighting and Britain’s naval blockade strangling their supply lines were forcing their hand.
The collapse of Russia facilitated German plans. Huge numbers of troops could now be pulled from the Eastern Front and sent into France and Flanders, where they would enjoy numerical superiority over the Allies. But this window of opportunity was destined to slam shut in their faces with the arrival in force of the Americans, and they knew it. As summer approached, there would theoretically be virtually infinite numbers of men arriving from across the Atlantic to fight for the Allied cause. It was clear to the Germans that if they had not won the war by this point, the strain of battling this new foe would tip the scales and doom them to ultimate defeat. The race was on to win the Great War.
The German high command began planning to throw everything it had at the British in the hope that defeating Haig’s armies would cause the French to capitulate. Many different plans were concocted but in the third week of January, Ludendorff, controlling the Kaiser’s army, made his choice to begin with ‘Operation Michael’. The German Army was going to attempt to smash through south of Arras and on the Somme, and then it would turn to roll north-west up the line. A few days later Operation Mars would commence, assaulting Arras. In April, as soon as the ground dried up enough, Operation George would punch through on the River Lys in the Armentières area and push up towards the English Channel. There would be no respite for the British until they had been completely destroyed.
In their planning, German military commanders could proceed safe in the knowledge that nobody at home was going to impede their endeavours. Douglas Haig did not enjoy the same freedom. He and the prime minister were engaged in a battle of their own that had soured their relations to the point of Lloyd George scheming behind Haig’s back with the French. He had now conspired with them to ensure that the British would take over more of the front. From St Quentin down to the River Oise was to come under British control at the beginning of the year.
As if this was not bad enough, Haig would be extending lines south without the reinforcements that he had told the government he needed. Astute as ever, Henry Dundas had already recognised the lay of the land. ‘Everything now depends upon Americans and the uselessness or otherwise of their fighting troops, who will be the main source of reserves against the German divisions from the Russian front. In fact they will form about the only reserve, as it doesn’t look as if [we have got] any more men and the French certainly haven’t.’
Haig had estimated that he needed over 600,000 men to maintain the BEF as it stood. He got 200,000, and many of these were not in optimum condition. In command of the Fifth Army, Hubert Gough was mortified by some of the men he received. Large numbers, he claimed, were returning wounded and he journeyed out one snowy day to inspect a draft that had just come in. Getting out of his car and kicking off the blizzard that had streamed in through the window he found more than half of the men wearing wounded stripes, some two or three. ‘It struck me at the time as unjust,’ he later recalled. ‘While there remained at home many thousands of comparatively young men who had never seen a shot fired.’
Determined not to send men to Haig to be sacrificed as had happened at Passchendaele, the prime minister wanted to keep them at home, where the politicians and not the commander-in-chief could decide when they would be needed. At this crucial juncture of the war, Haig was forced to wholly reorganise the British Army on the Western Front to accommodate his lack of manpower. Brigades were reduced from four battalions to three. Each division shrank significantly. Not only that, but this enforced restructuring destroyed the operational experience gleaned so far. Henry watched sadly as Guards battalions, including the 2nd Irish, were sent to 31st Division. ‘They looked magnificent,’ he wrote sadly when he thought of Eric Greer and what he would make of it. ‘But as I looked at all the things that Eric used to be so fond of – their drums and one or two things like that – I wept quite properly. Poor Eric.’
Gough was understandably mortified with this re-arrangement of his army. His force had been weakened immeasurably and as far as he was concerned, the set-up was not a patch on what it had replaced. But it was done, and done in the knowledge that very soon his men would be required to stand up to a large-scale German offensive. Every attempt, as Gough later put it, should have been made to ensure that when the storm came the army was in the best possible position to resist it. This was simply not the case.
For the British Army, preparing to face a large-scale offensive delivered at them and not the other way around, was a new concept and would require a monumental amount of work. Borrowing heavily from the enemy’s defensive developments, the BEF began reorganising to defend in depth. Facing the Germans first would be the Forward Zone. This was not designed to be the strongest held and most fiercely fought over position. This was to be the Battle Zone behind, the most important feature of this new, flexible British system of defence. A little over 1½ miles in depth and taking advantage of all the best features of the landscape in any given area, the Battle Zone was to be where the British Army would hold fast and try to halt the attackers. Much of it would not be permanently occupied. Troops to the rear would be on alert and would rush in to man their posts in the event of an emergency.
Between 4 and 8 miles behind the Battle Zone was a Rear Zone. Here rough defensive lines were marked out, or ‘spit-locked’ as opposed to being properly dug for now. It all sounded deliberate enough, but unfortunately the planning was not matched by the manpower available and consequently the Battle Zone, and in particular the Rear Zone, were underdeveloped.
Whilst the troops were being schooled in the principle of elastic defences, it was imperative that the RFC remain attack minded so that vital intelligence on German troop movements could be gathered. The Royal Flying Corps went to work. Along with its efforts, trench raids, patrols, the interrogation of prisoners and the knowledge that two successful German generals had been reallocated to a specific part of the front, made it clear, by late January, that the attack would fall upon the Third and Fifth Armies. Both were commanded by OEs, in Generals Byng and Gough, and formed the southern part of the British sector on the Somme and to the south of Arras. Efforts would henceforth be focused on this area as much as possible without neglecting the other end of the Western Front.
What the RFC found was disconcerting. In front of the two OE commanders there was evidence of, among other things, fourteen new aerodromes, large ammunition dumps and constant movements by rail towards the existing front. Throughout February more and more trains were spotted. Airmen daily took scores of photographs of German batteries that would enable the British gunners to work out where to direct their fire. Bombing raids were also increased. Large ammunition dumps, significant concentrations of rolling stock, aerodromes and factories took precedence as targets.
Whilst these machines went about their business, fighter squadrons made as much of a nuisance of themselves as possible. Ian Napier had worked very impressively as a liaison officer with the French on the left of the Guards Division in the summer of 1917. He returned to 40 Squadron from his sojourn, by which time they had undergone a conversion to the SE5a, one of the highest rated scouts at the front.
Work began in earnest with their first real dogfight of 1918 on 6 March. Ian and his fellow pilots took off mid afternoon and found seven enemy scouts hovering about above the lines, attempting to stop the British airmen from carrying out their bombing and reconnaissance tasks. Ian picked one out and went for it. Darting to within 30 yards of it he opened fire with both the gun above his head and the one in front of his cockpit and let off short bursts. The enemy machine appeared to spin off in a funk. Pulling away Ian spotted another German aeroplane. He let off 150 rounds at it and got lucky, the machine dropping out of the sky and coming to ground north-west of Lens. It was a profitable day for the squadron and they claimed four enemy machines destroyed and two forced down out of control. Luck was not with them three days later when they suffered the loss of one of their number. The wings fell off Leonard Tilney’s plane at 12,000ft. Aged 22 when he fell to his death, Tilney was the 61st OE to die with the flying services.
On 17 March dark clouds descended on the would-be battlefield. The RFC found itself grounded at just the wrong moment. Rain began to fall and for four days reconnaissance was impossible. It was miserable timing, for although the British airmen could not get into the air, other sources indicated that the offensive was about to begin. A captured German NCO, a pilot and a handful of deserters all confirmed the date: 21 March 1918.
Hubert Gough had been embroiled in a bitter struggle with GHQ over where to place his limited reserves but Haig had the entire front to think about and he refused to divert them all to Gough, however unjust it might have seemed to the army commander who was about to bear the brunt of the German attack.
On 20 March 1918 Etonians in the Oise Valley were changing places in the Forward Zone. Morice Julian St Aubyn came from a Cornish family and on the outbreak of war had entered his father’s regiment, the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Like most of the Etonians now manning Gough’s army, Morice was no stranger to the front. Many of the tired young men serving in 1918 had racked up multiple wounds since the beginning of the war. He had had to have shrapnel pulled from his back a week before his battalion witnessed horror at Hooge in 1915 and he had been shot in the stomach on the Somme in September 1916.
The 7th King’s Royal Rifles, which was part of the 43rd Brigade, also included George Llewelyn Davies’ brother Peter. They trudged backwards into support. If, however, an emergency called for it, they would be required to take up position in the Battle Zone, a line of strong points in front of the village of Benay. This was to be their first time engaged in this duty and so that night they planned to man the Battle Zone as a practice session. By the time they set out though, information taken from the prisoners had filtered through. Their practice was upgraded to a precautionary measure. Most of the Riflemen, however, didn’t expect an enemy push.
Passing Morice St Aubyn on their way into the Forward Zone were the 6th Somerset Light Infantry. Amongst their number was a former Colleger named Paul Hobhouse. The son of a Somerset gentleman, the 23 year old had gone up to Oxford before volunteering to join his local battalion. Wounded in the shoulder by shrapnel at Hooge and having survived huge blood loss, Paul had also been shot in 1916. That night Gough’s front was ominously quiet. The German guns lay silent. Morice St Aubyn’s battalion was in position in the Battle Zone by midnight. They sat illuminated by the moon, counting down the hours till they could return to Benay for breakfast. Paul Hobhouse’s men were digging saps in front of them. Downing their shovels they settled down to await morning in their posts.
Before dawn the foreboding silence was broken by the fiercest bombardment the war had yet seen. Gaspard Ridout had still been at Eton in October 1916. He was an exceptionally shy boy but bright, the only OE to get into Woolwich in his intake and passing out third. The son of a banker, born in Newcastle, he was still a teenager when the Germans began their offensive in March 1918. A great many of the British guns were positioned further back to await organised, strong resistance in the Battle Zone when the enemy appeared on the horizon; but some artillery remained in the Forward Zone to take up targets behind the German lines. Gaspard’s battery belonged to the 331st Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery. Stationed towards the southern end of the British Sector they had been at Hargicourt, surrounded by barbed wire to give them some semblance of protection, since the beginning of the month. For the past week they had been attempting to harass German battle preparations as much as possible, but at 4.45 a.m. on Thursday 21 March the enemy targeted the British artillery with every kind of shell imaginable.
At his headquarters, some 30 miles behind the lines, Hubert Gough was awoken by the dull roar of the fierce bombardment occurring in the distance. He jumped out of bed, ran into his office and got straight on the phone to Haig’s headquarters. After putting down the receiver he went over to his bedroom window and caught his first sight of the fog that had enveloped his army. He could barely make out the branches of a tree in the garden 40ft from the window. The weather had played right into enemy hands. ‘The stars in their courses,’ he wrote, ‘seemed to be fighting for the Germans.’ The bitter irony of the mist was not lost on Henry Dundas either. ‘It is really rather uncanny the way the weather favours the Boche. It is the general topic of interest and is shaking the faith even of the padres,’ he complained bitterly. ‘Think of our pathetic offensives – drowned at birth like so many puppies by deluges of rain.’
To the east, Gaspard Ridout and his battery were under phenomenal strain. The German artillery was to fire 3.5 million shells on that single day, 1.6 million of them in the first five hours. As soon as it began Gaspard and his battery were ordered to put down a barrage in response, but the fog turned a nightmare scenario into a veiled, hellish reality as they flailed around blindly trying to work their guns. Shrapnel and gas came out of the thick mist. All lines of communication had severed. The only way to get word was to send a runner into the fog and hope that he would survive long enough to reach his destination. If he could find it.
Elsewhere in the Forward Zone the infantry was sitting in the fog with no peripheral vision, waiting for the German infantry advance to begin and for the enemy to land on top of them. Their numbers were not high enough to maintain a continuous line and so they were strung out in a series of outposts. Paul Hobhouse’s company of the 6th Somerset Light Infantry was huddled in deep dugouts, listening to the crashing of shells outside. Runners were despatched back to take news to the 7th King’s Royal Rifles at Bernay. A significant infantry attack was quite clearly about to take place.
Even further behind the King’s Royal Rifles, at Brigade HQ, they had no idea what was going on at all. They sent their own runners into the fog towards the Battle Zone to gauge the situation and find out if anyone knew what was happening to the Somerset Light Infantry. Delays made the flow of information irrelevant before it had even found a senior officer. By the time news came back, to say that despite the intense barrage the Somersets had not yet seen any signs of the German infantry, they had been all but wiped out by the enemy troops.
After five hours of horrific shellfire the German infantry began their advance. The enemy was now becoming well versed in stormtrooper tactics. Firstly would come specially trained, handpicked troops, infiltrating the front line and bypassing strong points. They would rush for the artillery deep in the British lines with grenades, rifles and flame throwers following; attempting to take them by surprise. Attacking troops were now fully supported by aircraft flying low and firing on top of the British troops. The strong points they had ignored would then be hounded by heavily armed troops before finally the standard infantry would come over the top.
The Somerset Light Infantry stood no chance. On the left, A Company withstood the brunt of the initial assault and was brutally attacked from behind before enemy troops pushed swiftly on and decimated C Company in support. Almost immediately Paul Hobhouse and his men were surrounded. Just after nine a young officer came along from the left and popped his head into a dugout with a message to say that the rest of the A company had been overrun and captured by the Germans. Paul appeared, dishevelled without his collar and tie, but in his hurry he had still managed to grab a revolver. He ordered the men inside up and out quickly to go and support whoever might be left.
They moved up to the trench that had been occupied by A Company and found it deserted. There was not so much as a dead body about, which confirmed the young subaltern’s claim that they had been taken prisoner. The mist was so thick that they could not see more than 20 yards. They had only just arrived when a sergeant called along the trench and said that there were Germans inside it to their right. They ran back to get Paul who was in company HQ. ‘Tell Sgt Irving to block the trench,’ he ordered. ‘I will be up there in a minute.’ He jumped up into the open and made his way across to the platoon, arriving before the messengers themselves returned.
They blocked up the trench with old limbers and other debris that they found and Paul sent men off to get more ammunition. They ran back to say that they couldn’t get into their support line to complete the task because there were Germans there too. Together they all scrambled out of the front side of the trench and turned around to fire on the enemy coming up from behind.
Bullets fizzed about their ears. A few Germans approached the Somersets saying ‘prisoner’ and holding up their hands. A forty-year-old stretcher bearer who had been pressed into action was all for letting the confused-looking men surrender. ‘Don’t fire sir,’ he urged, but Paul was far more suspicious. ‘Don’t be a fool King, he retorted. ‘It’s one of their tricks.’ They opened fire and the Germans hunched over and ran away. One of the men called out, ‘We shall have to surrender,’ but Paul wasn’t having any of it. ‘We must fight to the finish,’ he shouted.
Seeing their captain’s resolve the men steeled themselves and fell back 30 yards with Paul to take up a better position. The stretcher bearer was well and truly fired up now. He noticed two young men had stopped shooting. ‘Keep on firing,’ he hollered. Paul turned around and grinned at him. Stray bullets had begun picking off this fierce little band. King was on all fours bandaging one of them up when two more enemy soldiers popped into view. Paul fired at them with his revolver, and threw himself into a nearby shell hole. The stretcher bearer hauled his wounded charge to his feet and they began making their escape too. By noon up and down the front the Germans had decimated the Forward Zone. They were now streaming past the 7th King’s Royal Rifle Corps in the Battle Zone and they too were compelled to retire.
Meanwhile Gaspard Ridout, whose belongings had been blown sky high by enemy fire and his brigade of artillery overrun by the enemy, was swamped by men fleeing the Forward Zone, pouring past the guns. By 10 a.m. both A and C battery’s anti-tank guns had been captured by the enemy although their officers and gun crews had mostly managed to run away. The same could not be said of Gaspard and his Battery. The Germans were to the front and rear. The guns still in action were firing over open sights at close range when they were ordered to fall back. There was no chance of getting their precious guns out. They began wilfully destroying them in the knowledge that they would have to be abandoned. It was a horrific day for the 331st Brigade and B Battery was particularly badly hit. In all ninety-two men were missing, dead or wounded and of their officers ten were unaccounted for, injured or dead, including 19-year-old Gaspard Ridout1.
At lunchtime the fog finally lifted and the men of the Royal Flying Corps ran for their aeroplanes. The RFC had been well versed in what to do when the attack came. Their priorities were protecting working machines, attacking troops detraining and ground strafing the German advance. Ian Napier and 40 Squadron belonged to First Army north of the River Scarpe but they were soon seized to help Byng’s force to their right. German airmen were out in force, firing machine guns on to the ground and directing artillery fire on to troops. British airmen began sending back details of masses of Germans moving forwards. Roads for 10 to 15 miles behind the lines were packed full of grey-clad men making their way up to the battle.
Similar scenarios to that of 43rd Brigade were being played out all along the Fifth Army front. The Somersets and the King’s Royal Rifles had been scattered to the wind. Hubert Gough had been receiving reports since mid morning but they made little sense. He didn’t even find out that Byng’s army had been hit in force too until late afternoon. All that was certain was that his entire army was under attack and that the Forward Zone was already a write off. Those holding it on 21 March had been largely annihilated. To try to attempt to counter-attack with so few men was tantamount to suicide and the only thing for it, so far as he could see, was to try to hold up the tidal wave of grey German infantry long enough to keep the onslaught from swallowing his army whole. Falling back with a modicum of control beat hands down the idea of wasting lives trying to fight it out. Reserves were going to be scarce. If all went to plan he could expect to have five divisions trickle in over a five-day period. They would have to suffice for a 42-mile front being overrun by hundreds of thousands of enemy troops.
Nearly 40,000 men had been wiped off the strength of the British Army in one day, with hordes of them taken prisoner. Although the Germans had made limited inroads into the Battle Zone and despite the fact that the Third Army was still holding the salient formed by the fighting at Cambrai the previous winter, the enemy advance would continue in force the next day. The situation for Gough was critical. His men would have to fill gaps, guard new flanks as they appeared, attempt to keep in touch with those either side of them in the midst of a violent attack and scrape together any man they could find to do it as the command structure fell apart. To say that the situation looked bleak for the Etonian general and the Allies as a whole was an understatement. For the life of him, Gough could not imagine how they were going to hold it together. The only light at the end of the tunnel was that the only objective of any huge strategic significance was Amiens, which was some 40 miles to the rear. Surely the enemy couldn’t push them back that far?
For all their determination and aggression, the Germans were not executing a definitive plan about how to proceed with their offensive. Seeing as they had enjoyed most of their success against the southern end of the Fifth Army and the likes of the 43rd Brigade, they made the fateful decision to press on here instead of rolling up the line towards Arras as originally envisaged. The nature of their offensive had been altered completely.
On 23 March reinforcements finally began to arrive. At dawn, shrouded again in fog, Gough was wondering just how much longer his men could hold out in the face of incredible strain and hardship. His army now resembled a rabble more than a coherent military force as they retreated for dear life. Traffic congestion on the road was unimaginable and holding back the Germans had degenerated into localised, desperate scraps. The previous afternoon much of Gough’s force had managed to get across the Somme. Haig issued orders that the river should be held at all costs. It was never viable command. Orders had been given to begin blowing up bridges and any other crossings that would carry the enemy across behind them, but these were not as effective as the retreating British hoped. It was evident that the Rear Zone, never mind the Battle Zone, was not going to hold. To the north Byng had finally given up the gains of Cambrai and pulled his men out of their salient.
The 7th King’s Royal Rifle Corps was attempting to pin back the Germans at Jussy across the Crozat Canal. The enemy was rampant. Reinforcements of cavalry had come up to join the battalion, who were also bolstered by stragglers from the Somersets and some non-combatants, but the Germans relentlessly pressed in an attempt to get across. At about 3 a.m. a small number managed to use one of the bridges just north of Jussy which had been half blown up. Morice St Aubyn was in front of them, surrounded by a unlikely band of men he had inherited, remnants from brigade and divisional works details, and he quickly rallied them and attempted to make a stand. This ramshackle group managed to hold off the German advance and push them back over the canal but just as they succeeded in throwing them across Morice was killed. He was 25 years old. Despite his hard work and the sacrifice of his own life the Germans soon began crossing in force. Heavy fighting developed as the enemy had now got across the river on either side of them and dwindling reserves were thrown in.
With 40 Squadron, Ian Napier was engaged in constant aerial activity. On 24 March the situation was critical at the juncture between the Third and Fifth armies where their SE5as had been deployed. It was alien country for them, devoid of the familiar landmarks they had come to rely on to get them safely about the country. Any snobbery about being scout pilots was gone. They spent most of the day flying as low as they could, a high-risk occupation in itself, dropping bombs on the Germans and hammering them with machine guns. After three days of relentless work they were falling asleep in their cockpits. ‘One day I got so sleepy,’ said one of Ian’s fellow pilots, ‘I didn’t know what the Dickens to do. It was with the greatest difficulty that I could keep my eyes open at all.’
Gough would have been fully aware that he was on a hiding to nothing in trying to hold the Somme. The previous day the remnant of his army had fallen back up to 6 miles in places and the Germans were swarming around Ham. He had practically no reserves, his men were exhausted, starving and were suffering the soul destroying ignominy of retreating back across the Somme battlefields of 1916. All those months of attrition were wiped out in a few hours.
The French were putting men in to the south but as dusk fell on 24 March, what was left of Gough’s Fifth Army was still imperilled and being forced back by the German onslaught, whilst Byng’s army was being pulled back with them. In his sector Albert had now fallen too. All that the British had fought and died for on the Somme in 1916 was in German hands. The enemy might have been getting further and further from their own supply lines, but as exhausted as they too were, Amiens was now properly under threat.
The following day, the weight of the RFC was thrown at trying to attack the Germans on the ground like never before as the enemy advanced on the junction between the Third and Fifth Armies. Ten squadrons from the First Army were sent down to drop everything they could carry on the enemy. They fired 313,000 machine-gun rounds into the German ranks and dropped 50 tons of bombs.
No. 40 Squadron had gone from having two squadrons at their aerodrome to having five crammed on to it. ‘It would make you roar with laughter,’ said one of their pilots. ‘We only had about three machines which would go the other day and we all three sallied forth on a squadron patrol! All the pilots seem to be new and what aren’t new are on leave, so there you are.’
Ian Napier’s squadron had come apart since the beginning of the year. He himself had been wounded and as well as the death of his fellow OE, Leonard Tilney, another pilot had had a bullet through the abdomen and more were missing. An unfortunate boy had also gone down in flames in sight of one of his fellow officers, although thankfully he got away with a miraculous slight burning to the face. Ian’s flight had become ‘a sort of training show of half a dozen new pilots’ who had been thrown in to try to rebuild the squadron. They were beginning to feel as if they lived in the air.
Something had to give. On 26 March a conference took place at Doullens at which Douglas Haig, in no position to assume power himself, advocated Foch taking over overall command on the Western Front. By this point the British commander-in-chief’s priority was ensuring that the Allies did not fall apart. Back at Fifth Army headquarters, Hubert Gough was not even aware that the meeting had taken place. He had been earmarked as a scapegoat for the tragedy that had befallen his army. The following evening he returned from visiting his commanders to find Douglas Haig’s military secretary waiting for him. He asked to see him alone. ‘He … told me as nicely as he could that the Chief thought that I and my staff must be very tired, so he had decided to put Rawlinson … [in] to take command.’ Beyond saying ‘All right;’ the only other question that Gough had was when his fellow OE would arrive to assume command. On 28 March Hubert Gough’s career as a soldier was effectively over. His fellow Etonian arrived in the early evening. Gough filled Rawlinson in as much as he could, and then made himself scarce to avoid embarrassment for either of them. His command of the now unrecognisable, shrunken Fifth Army was at an end and soon he would be bound for home. ‘I left … not at all sure where I was to get a bed or dinner that night.’
One of Gough’s last acts as commander of the Fifth Army was to establish a line to try to hold on to Amiens. Fifteen miles in front of this crucial town, and loosely based on some old French lines from 1915, anyone they could find was thrown into manning it, including non-combatants. They clung on doggedly.
Whilst their push on the Somme was petering out in the face of British and French resistance, the Germans were still intent on ending the war. Operation Mars commenced on 28 March to push the British out of their stronghold at Arras. Having lent their services to the chaos above Byng’s army, 40 Squadron’s own was being dragged into the fray. The enemy launched a series of attacks but no fog aided them. Ian Napier and his fellow pilots flew over the town and the surrounding area, again engaged on ground targets. At 1.30 p.m. they were up to patrol the main road between Arras and Cambrai and found that it and all the smaller surrounding roads were choked with troops and transports. It was the same around Douai. Going down as low as 300ft they showered them with bullets and bombs in an attempt to slow the German advance and sent the enemy troops stampeding about the countryside.
Ludendorff’s latest operation was to be unsuccessful. The impetus of the German offensives was failing across the board by 30 March. British resistance had been stubborn, Amiens had held and the exhausted Germans were getting further and further from their supply lines. The enemy had not finished though. Before the offensive on the Somme had fully petered out there were ominous rumblings to the north in the area around La Bassée. As part of their last ditch, kitchen-sink policy the Kaiser’s men were about to make an assault around the River Lys and the high ground near Arras: Operation Georgette.
The RFC was well aware of what was going on. On 31 March, scout planes spotted large concentrations of German troops on the move. One observer counted fifty-five trains moving about Armentières and roads to the German rear were full of men and supplies.
The Royal Air Force was formed on 1 April 1918 by merging the RFC with the Royal Naval Air Service, but for Ian Napier it was the least of his concerns. Number 40 Squadron was back within its own allotted area. They had flown from their hard work on the Somme back up to Flanders for what was to be yet another nightmare. Another of the squadron’s number was almost delirious. ‘The war was being slowly lost down south, but we had given up watching the show, so what did we care?’ All they could do was concentrate on their own fight and they were none too impressed when their own sector came under threat. ‘The [blank] Germans started disturbing the peace north of the canal! In no way could this have annoyed us more. We couldn’t have the Huns playing any silly little monkey tricks on our little patch.’ The powers that be within the Royal Air Force appeared to agree. In addition to returning their borrowed strength to the correct area they had also diverted extra squadrons from Dunkirk towards the Lys.
Number 40 Squadron had resumed its more familiar role of offensive patrols as German preparations on the ground gathered force. On 6 April Ian took off to patrol the area directly east of Arras on what turned out to be a highly fruitful outing. Almost immediately he saw four German machines buzzing west along the line of the Scarpe and he dived on them to attack. They scattered out of his way, all except what he took for an Albatros, which remained in his sights. Ian charged at it, spitting off rounds from his machine gun at close range.
The enemy airman zoomed up and Ian followed, firing another short burst from the Vickers and hitting his prey in the engine. The Albatros glided in front of him and for a panicked few seconds it seemed that they might collide. Ian veered off sharply and managed to get out of the way. The German machine pulled away and drifted off, steam pouring out of it and its propeller motionless.
Looking about for something else to do Ian trundled off at a calmer speed. He had lost significant altitude during the fight and he climbed steadily back up to 10,000ft as he flew north-east towards Douai. Some fifteen minutes later he spotted another enemy aircraft emerging from some cloud cover. Ian was in the mood for another scrap and he pulled up to get over the top of it and hide himself in the sunlight.
He burst down out of the glare and took it on. He got to within 100 yards of it and came from behind, blasting away with his gun. Either his fire was accurate and wounded his opponent or he did not seem to share Ian’s enthusiasm. The enemy airman didn’t return fire, he simply turned east for home and began diving away. Ian stalked him closely, emptying as much ammunition as he could into it for good measure. He followed it down to 8,000ft then watched as it continued losing height and finally crashed into some houses near Brebieres2.
Three days later the German offensive on the Lys began and the ground was once again blanketed in thick fog. Cloud remained low all day and by the time the RAF could get into the air Portuguese troops holding the middle of the line had been overrun, leaving the flank of John Ponsonby’s division dangerously exposed. The Germans were already crossing the River Lys. It was a very different scenario to that on the Somme, where no hugely significant objective was at risk until Amiens. The northern part of the Western Front was cramped and every bit of ground was critical.
Once again information was essential as was any influence that the airmen could have on slowing the German advance. Ian and his fellow pilots plummeted to low heights to strafe the enemy as they surged forward. The relentless work continued the following day. Mist and rain hampered the squadron until lunchtime but as soon as it cleared the skies were alive with activity. A bulge appeared in the middle of the front and the British line was in danger of coming apart as it stretched further and further. By nightfall German troops were in Nieppe, Merville and, heartbreakingly, Messines, so valiantly won the year before. Douglas Haig recognised the gravity of the situation and would issue his famous rallying call to his troops:
With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind … depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.
The next day, 12 April, was vital. The British line had to hold long enough for reinforcements, or the tide could turn drastically in favour of the Germans. The outnumbered Allies had already withstood the enemy onslaught for three days. Now the Kaiser’s men had their sights set on Hazebrouck and, beyond that, the Channel. It was unthinkable that either should fall into enemy hands.
Whilst troops on the ground desperately tried to close the gap at Merville, 40 Squadron was told to concentrate wholly on enemy advances coming up to the village from Estaires and Neuf Berquin. Ian Napier went up before breakfast and was over Estaires itself at a height of about 8,000ft when his patrol engaged a number of enemy aeroplanes. The scrap he was engaged in broke up and he picked on another Albatros lingering nearby. He fired long bursts from both guns, letting off nearly 300 rounds. The German plane turned and arced away south-east. Then, suddenly, it flipped over on its back in mid air and fell away out of control.
Number 40 Squadron was not done for the day. In the afternoon a special patrol of twelve fighter machines, half of them from Ian’s squadron, went looking for German observation balloons. The RAF really did perform with its back to the wall. It was the busiest day of the war thus far for the British fliers. All day long they took off, fought, hounded the Germans on the ground, landed, refuelled, re-armed and went back up again. The Royal Air Force dropped more than 2,500 bombs on the enemy and fired 115,000 rounds of ammunition whilst the working machines took nearly 3,500 photographs of events up and down the front.
On 15 April Ballieul fell but, crucially, Hazebrouck remained in British hands. The Salient had to be evacuated back to Pilckem Ridge, which was painful, but it was done in an orderly fashion. Reserves were arriving from other fronts and stalemate was setting in. Rain now began to hamper the efforts of the RAF to get into the air. ‘As far as an unbiased spectator can judge,’ quipped one of the pilots of 40 Squadron, ‘the War still continues, at least, this is the conclusion I have come to from fairly diligent reading of the Daily Mail.’ His sarcasm was in the vein of Henry Dundas. ‘Apparently we are still “winning” … We have lost all the guns and most of the men on the front, but as this was fortunately anticipated by Sir Henry Wilson and Lloyd George, we have little to worry about.’
Number 40 Squadron continued to work long, now largely unrewarding, hours in ‘beastly’ weather. Ian Napier scored another victory before the month was out but also had a narrow escape of his own. He was flying at high altitude one day when he observed an enemy machine some 12,000ft below. To get to it would require a steep dive. He shot down, engine throttle all the way back for some 6,000ft. ‘Suddenly the machine gave a terrific vibration … I pulled out of the dive by winding back a few notches.’ He plodded carefully and slowly west and on landing found that on three out of his four wings the spars were splintered badly. Ian’s machine had very nearly broken up in mid air.
Ludendorff had been fully aware of what would happen if his country failed to win the war in the spring of 1918, but fail they had. As exhausted as the faltering British and French troops were, they had reinforced themselves with reserves and more contingents of Americans had begun to arrive. The Germans had taken large areas of ground on the Somme, but the gain was negligible when it hadn’t set them up strategically for victory. They had also suffered crippling casualties and possessed limited resources to replace them.
As a result of Germany’s spring offensives, yet another group of Old Etonians had been swept aside. In fact the British Army had suffered almost a quarter of a million casualties. On 23 March 1918 the school’s list of casualties tipped over 1,000. The chaotic nature of the retreat across the Somme meant that many families suffered anguish in trying to establish what had happened to their young men. Leonard Tilney received a fitting burial3. Morice St Aubyn’s body was lost when his battalion fell away from Jussy. He was eventually commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial. Dedicated to the missing of 1918 on the Somme it names more than 14,000 casualties who vanished without a trace as the German Army surged forward. Also named is Paul Hobhouse, but his case was far from clear. In the aftermath of the battle his mother was told by another officer that he was safe, a captive in German hands. Relief must have washed over her but it was in vain. Weeks later it transpired that this piece of information had come to the officer second hand and was therefore far less reliable. She obstinately, and quite understandably, refused to believe that this literal lifeline could now be taken away. But all of her hopes were futile. It’s likely that 23-year-old Paul Edward Hobhouse never made it out of the Forward Zone on 21 March.
Hubert Gough was another sort of casualty altogether. He was far from flawless as a military commander, but to blame him for the fate of the Fifth Army during the German offensive would be wrong. A substantial amount of culpability could be laid at the feet of Lloyd George and the politicians who had been intent on interfering with military affairs. The enemy may have overrun his own force but Gough was adamant that he knew why the Germans had ultimately failed. During the course of the Fifth Army’s retirement in March he had learned of a South African contingent massacred. Gough later wrote, defending his conduct and that of his men in March 1918:
Thinking about all the far-flung elements … fighting alongside Brits the words of the Eton boating song come back to me: ‘And nothing on earth shall ever sever the chain that is round us now.’ The principal links in that chain seem to me to be a sense of duty and a generous sympathy for each other, wherever we come from. As long as those characteristics mark the people of this Empire, I do not fear its destruction.
He spoke with hindsight, but the sentiment rang true. For the German Army the future now looked ominous indeed.
Notes
1 2nd Lt Gaspard Alured Evelyn Ridout was laid to rest at Jeancourt Communal Cemetery Extension near St Quentin.
2 Ian Napier’s first victory over the Albatros on 6 April was never officially credited. He was certainly not the type to brag or claim an honour he hadn’t earned, but he did list it on his own record of his air victories, fully believing he had forced it to ground.
3 Major Leonard Arthur Tilney is buried at Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez.