THE FINAL COLLAPSE of the German war machine in October and November 1918 brought about an Armistice that few expected. For victory came less than nine months after the Allies had appeared in mortal danger of defeat, as they reeled from the Germans' massive March Offensive. This was made possible when Russia sued for peace in November 1917. Peace on the Eastern Front allowed the German army to transfer a million men to the Western Front for a last major onslaught to break the resistance of the Allied armies in France. For the cracks in the German army were already beginning to show: up to 10% of soldiers deserted while being transferred from east to west. The German High Command was also well aware of the increasing number of American soldiers arriving on the Western Front.
The launch of the German offensive on 21st March resulted initially in a great but not a decisive success, and so further efforts were made at different parts of the line in April and finally in May. The casualty figures for both sides were enormous, but while offensive action always stretches the lines of communication and supply for the attacker, the opposite is generally true for the defender. German forces inevitably thinned as they pushed deeper into Allied territory, with physical and mental exhaustion increasingly evident. Poorly fed, ill-equipped and low in morale, German troops over-ran British canteens and supply depots, discovering how much better supplied the Allied troops were. The offensive stalled, and while June and July saw a stalemate on the Western Front, the tide of the war was decisively turning in favour of the Allies. German defeat was inevitable, and was secretly acknowledged by the German High Command from August onwards.
As the Allies launched renewed attacks in August and September, the Germans were pushed back, no longer by hundreds of yards but by miles. The German retreat was in general orderly, but large numbers of prisoners, many little more than boys of fifteen or sixteen years old, were taken. They were cold and hungry and, according to the British soldiers who were there, usually glad to be out of the war. During the last 100 days of the war nearly a quarter of the German army in the field was taken prisoner, and half of its guns were captured.
Trench warfare was left behind by late September and the war took to the roads, British troops liberating towns and villages that had been under German occupation for four years, undamaged by war. The civilians were often jubilant, although many of them complained bitterly that the retreating Germans had stripped them of all remaining foodstuffs, particularly cattle, horses, and even dogs. German rations were meagre and made of ersatz ingredients, ground acorns used in coffee, fine sawdust in bread. As the British troops pushed on, they discovered the carcasses of dead horses alongside the roads, sometimes with great hunks of meat taken out of them, at other times almost stripped bare.
The similarities between the German retreat of 1918 and that of the British in 1914 were increasingly clear. By October, warfare was being conducted in the open countryside. Determined and often courageous German rearguard actions held up the Allied advance, with carefully positioned machine guns at cross-roads and the blowing up of bridges – reminiscent of actions taken by the British after the Battle of Mons. Even the cavalry, infrequently seen since September and October 1914, made a belated and final battlefield reappearance in the corresponding months of 1918, harassing the retreating Germans and disrupting communications.
Despite being on the Western Front since 1916, Royce McKenzie remained one of the few perenially lucky soldiers. From March 1918 until the end of the war, a period which saw the largest number of casualties, Royce was never hit. He finished the war at Mons, where it had all started.
The Germans broke through the Portuguese in March 1918 and we had to retire out of line, all together. I says to Bill Nielson “Come on, Bill, we've got to make us way back now.” We'd no sooner got on road than we came across a group of Canadian soldiers, I think they'd got lost and got mixed up with us. They were just to our right, going up a track, when all at once these machine guns started out right into these Canadians, ripped 'em all up, killed them all. Bill was just in front of me, and I managed to knock him into a hole that had been used as a cesspit, with me on top. Anyway the gun stopped firing and I looked up and could see this 'ere bloke top side of me, and I could see where bullet had gone in his brain, aye and he was just twitching. The whole lot of them were dead bar this one, he was still alive, but you could see it wasn't long before he'd be gone. I said to Bill “I'm not going to be taken prisoner. If I can get out I'm going to walk out there and you do the same.” I said “Don't duck and dive, just keep walking.” If we'd run, they'd have fired, I'm sure of it. I think by walking it surprised them that we got out of that bunch, eight or nine dead there were, anyway they never fired a shot at us.
We walked into a little copse and who should be there but a high-ranking officer sitting on a horse. He said “Who are you?” I said “Drake Battalion, Naval Division.” He said “Oh, where's all the battalion?” I said “They've gone back, sir, we had to retire out of line because Jerry had broke through,” and I thought to myself, if you don't get out soon you'll be captured an' all.
We walked back. It was a hot day and we'd had nothing to eat or drink so when we came across a shell hole with water in, we wet our mouths despite the water being tinged red with blood. Soon after, we came to a small river where there was a bridge and who should be there but the Adjutant. He says “No wonder they call you Lucky Mac! Are there are more of you? I've got about 150 out of the company and there might be some more further on.” He says “Can you do me a favour, can you find transport for me?” The transport was about two miles back and they had a shock when they saw us. I had a shock too. Two chaps I knew were looking through kit bags belonging to troops. I said “What are you doing?” He says “I were just looking in bags.” I said “You what! How do you know they're dead? I've got a good mind to bloody shoot you, you are doing something that's not right. These blokes might still be alive and you're raiding their bags.” Anyway, I told him I'd been sent back to get transport up to lads. “They've had three days and three nights without a wink of sleep and nowt to eat, no drinks either.” I said “The Adjutant is waiting, so you'd better get something down for those lads as soon as possible.”
Jerry was eventually held, and for a time we remained where we were, being made up with reinforcements, getting quietly ready to push him back. Then it started, we pushed forward towards Bapaume. We began taking lots of prisoners, at one point we came across twenty down an old dugout in a former German trench. We motioned for them to come out after letting Jerry see a Mills bomb, and except for one who was a bit awkward, they put their hands up. The Germans were retreating now, and we were coming across some of our prisoners who had been held behind the lines. These lads were just walking back, and one of the first I saw was Dickie Westfield, a lad from Bristol. He'd been a runner like me but had been taken prisoner. He was only a little fellow and when he saw me, tears rolled down his cheeks, in relief I suppose at seeing a few of our lads, and he says “Mac, you're still at it”, and cried his heart out. I asked him where his boots were and he said “The buggers has took me boots off me.” It was a bit rough walking without anything on your feet, shell splinters and barbed wire, so I took my puttees off and wrapped 'em around his feet. I says “That'll help ye on until you can get some boots, Dick.” “I'll see you after, sometime, I hope,” he said, but I never saw him again. It gives you that feeling when I saw that, that you hated the Germans for what they'd done.
We were waiting to go over the Canal du Nord but was held up because the Germans were still in the gatehouse. I could see an officer of B Company, he was hit, and a petty officer of the same company, he was dead and laid in the dry canal. There were about twenty of us in a bit of trench, when this here shell come right in middle of us, killing three and wounding another seven. I was unhurt. I was helping to bandage the survivors when up came the Adjutant and he says “What the hell's going on here?” Then he saw me, “You again, McKenzie!”
The Lewis gun was turned on the gatehouse and we could see the Germans running out and away, they weren't bothering about fighting or anything like that. We saw what they were eating, we came across some of their black bread and how they managed on that we just didn't know.
We were at Mons when the war ended, we were back on the battlefield where it had all started. Soon after, the C.O. rode up on his horse and said everything's stopped, and that was it, we moved to a little village called Dour, a mining village, and were billeted on the local people. I was billeted with an old couple who were very relieved that the Jerry had been kicked out. They had very little at all, Jerry had taken everything from them. The lads brought up blankets for the troops but some were dished out to the local people, and by the following morning these ladies were walking about in overcoats, they'd spent the night converting them.
Because I was a miner I was demobilised quickly. I do remember playing the Engineers in a cup-tie in Mons, which we lost 1-0, and soon after that I was sent back to England. They were all in bed when I got home, it was the middle of the night, so I got down on the front door step and went to sleep. My mum came to the door in the morning and got a shock. She said “How long have you been here?” I says “About two or three hours.” Oh, they made a right fuss then, when I got home.
During the last two months of the war, the trenches that had been such a part of life on the Western Front were left behind forever. Open warfare resumed, and the fighting resulted in the last casualties of the conflict, as Andrew Bowie poignantly remembered.
On the 3rd of October, I went over the top on my 21st birthday, and they were the last trenches I left. After that it was open warfare, and by the middle of October the Germans were certainly going back. We were confined to roads more than cross country, and it was a treat to be a soldier then after being in the trenches. Behind the German lines we found that the French inhabitants had still been using the fields for agriculture. Our advances were during the day, as we were held up at night by the German rearguard who fired their machine guns down the main roads. Mines, or rather shells, were wired up together to blow up a crossroads, to impede us, to slow us up. The Germans pulled back so quickly, and their retreat was one of the most orderly you could wish for. They hardly left a tin can when they pulled out; you would have thought they would have left equipment, guns, all sorts. As we passed through villages which had just been liberated, the flags would come out, and the civilians would cheer us by the roadside, especially when we had the band going and the pipers were playing.
We took a young prisoner. The Germans had pulled back and had had to leave him. I was assisting the intelligence officer, and they brought this boy to the officer; he was only about sixteen and the area just above his hip had been shot away by shrapnel. Oh, it was a bad wound, it was bleeding a lot at the back. This poor child could speak a little English and he said his mother had told him that at the first opportunity he was to give himself up to the English, they would look after him. He was a nice-looking boy, a healthy-looking lad with a big face. The fellows came in to look at him, about a dozen of us, and they were giving him chocolate. He could eat a little. They felt he was their own brother, there was an atmosphere of love, he wasn't the enemy then, he was a mother's son. The stretcher bearers put him in a blanket and carried him. The poor little soul, he died on the way down. You felt so sorry, he was the enemy really, but you couldn't help but feel for a little kid being killed like that. It was all fruitless.
As each new Allied thrust was made, fewer and fewer Germans had the stomach to stand and fight. A veneer of resistance was often broken within a couple of hours before a retreat. Hal Kerridge took part in one of the last offensives of the war, when crack German troops made a concerted effort to fight.
Not long after I got back, my Battalion was ordered to take part in a major attack. Most attacks on enemy trenches were made at dawn. However, in late summer 1918 I was to take part in a night attack across the La Bassée Canal. It was a big attack, about two or three miles width. The first thing we had to do was get across, to dig what we called posts on the German side of the canal, not true trenches but holes about thirty yards apart for cover whilst the attacking force assembled for the big do which was to come. We knew where the enemy trenches were, otherwise there wasn't much to guide us, all we could hope for was to see silhouettes, a line of trees that looked like lamp posts with their branches missing, that sort of thing.
If you knew what a barrage was, and thank God you don't, you'd realise that the noise was terrific. Guns were going, heavy guns at the rear, field guns in front of them. In front of the field guns there are lines of machine guns and infantry fire. And on the other side there are the Germans doing the same thing because when they are being fired at, they will fire back. The whole atmosphere was one chaotic mess of shrapnel and bullets, of metal flying about, screams and wallops. And there you are crouched in the front line waiting to go. The feeling was always “Oh for God's sake let's get it over.” You knew you would have to go, so the longer you delayed the worse you felt, just like waiting for the dentist's chair. You sit and wait, all waiting to go together, waiting until you hear either a whistle or a signal to go to be part of what we called the PBI, the Poor Bloody Infantry.
Over we went. Some of us got knocked out straightaway, most of us didn't. I was trying to keep a straight line, hoping to see the outline of things I'd seen in daylight. I reckon I was somewhere about twenty yards from the German trenches when I got hit and I went down immediately. I was hit in the back, shrapnel or bullet, whatever it was had gone through the upper part of my kilt into me. I couldn't apply a bandage, and I had no way of knowing how bad the wound was. I couldn't do anything but lie in No Man's Land in the dark and I began to panic. I didn't know if I could get back to our own lines. If our attack was repulsed, the Jerries would come over the top and we who were lying there, well, the wounded had an even chance of being shot, bayonetted, or taken prisoner and I didn't want any of those.
I was within hearing distance of the German trenches and there was an awful lot of noise, shouting and bawling and instructions being given, Germans shouting, British shouting, hand to hand fighting I suppose; hell's panic loose. Guns firing, the clatter of machine guns everywhere. I could hear other men calling out “Stretcher bearers!” but you could call stretcher bearers for ever, there were not that many about. I was capable of crawling back and got within ten yards of our barbed wire when I got up and ran. In front of the barbed wire there's what we call the trip wire, well, I hit the trip wire and went head first into the barbs, cutting myself to pieces on our own bloomin' wire – bare limbs with a kilt too! Oh it's vicious stuff, all in coils, you release yourself from one barb and find you're caught somewhere else. It had been out there for months, years on end, and was rusty as hell so if you got torn up on it the chances are you'd get blood poisoning straightaway.
I could feel blood running down my arms and legs. You're hurt and you're being hurt by the barbed wire and you struggle, you struggle mighty hard and you get out of it, somehow.... I got back into our lines, it all happened so quickly. I was glad to be out of it – temporarily anyway.
Fred Hodges had been drafted over to France only months earlier to help halt the enemy offensive. By June, when the German push petered out, Fred had seen enough action to qualify as a seasoned soldier, and had survived many close scrapes. He remained on the Western Front until the last day of the war.
We got down to this place where the Australians had made an attack. We were mopping up any remaining Jerries, sending them back as prisoners, when we came to some German guns which had been written on in chalk. The words said “Captured by the 1st AIF”, in other words, the Australian Imperial Force. We cheered out loud, we were ecstatic. The Australians were making such quick progress because the Germans were pulling back, leaving their field guns behind, something we never thought possible. In all those battles of the Somme and Ypres, we had advanced such a little way really, and, as for capturing guns, well, we never got anywhere near them. But a victory that went all through the lines of infantry and reached the guns, to be able to chalk on them, it was like winning the pools.
We were exhilarated, moving forward, it was something to cheer about, like scoring a goal. We came to what had been the rear of the German line and we went down into several dugouts and slept there, a place where the Germans had lived safe from any danger. We could still smell cigar smoke and we joked that this must have belonged to a millionaires' battalion.
Then we pushed on, and came to the place where the Germans had had a gun shelling Paris. It was a huge gun on a railway track and this too had been captured. At another place we were able to bathe in a river: imagine the satisfaction and laughter to think we could have a bathe in a river. I then heard that a train load of Germans had been captured because they thought they were going up to the Front, only to find the Front was in our hands.
I felt that the war was near the end because we were capturing men who were not infantry, old men with long tail coats with buttons on, cavalry probably, and boys of sixteen. Neuville was the last place where Jerry fought like the Germans can fight, and they defied us for eight days and inflicted heavy casualties.
We were liberating villages which had been untouched during the war. Civilians could be seen coming back with hand carts and luggage on them, surveying their devastated property. The Germans were intent on saving their lives, and prisoners were docile and were thankful they were prisoners. I didn't feel any anger towards them, rather, I just thought what an untidy-looking lot they were.
The last village we entered was on the night of 10th November. It was eerily quiet until two women opened their door to see who we were, and when they saw our uniforms they screamed “Les Anglais, les Anglais!” The Germans, they told us, had left earlier that evening and had posted a machine gun at the far end of the village, but, when we looked, it was gone. We returned to the house and found that the women had wasted little time in opening an old oak chest and producing the French Tricolour and some hot coffee.