The First Seven Divisions Part 4

The turn of the tide came on September 5th. On that day General Joffre told the C. in C. that he was going to take the offensive. The German advance had--as all the world now knows--swerved off from Paris towards the south-east, thereby half exposing its right flank to the 6th French Army. Gen. Joffre quickly made the exposure complete by wheeling that army towards the east, at the same time throwing forward the left of his line. Von Kluck was quick to realize that he was in a tight place, and with characteristic prompt.i.tude cleared out northwards.

The pursued army spun on its heels and followed, but followed at first with an excess of caution which was perhaps excusable in a tired army to whom anything but retreat was a new experience.

At the moment of the above surprising change in the tide of war, the 6th French Army line ran due north and east from Ermenonville to Lagny.

This line was pressing eastward. The British force lay between Lagny and Courtagon, facing north, and in a continuation of the same line on our right came Conneau's cavalry and the 6th French Army.

September 6th, which was practically the first day of the advance, saw little fighting, our troops advancing some ten miles only to the line of the Grand Morin, which was not defended with any great show of vigour. We took a few prisoners only, and some maxims.

On the 7th there was much more doing, but it was chiefly cavalry work.

McCracken's 7th Brigade, however, met with a fairly stubborn resistance at Coulommiers, in the course of which the S. Lancs sustained a good many casualties. De Lisle's 2nd C.B. was, as usual, in the forefront of all that was doing. This brigade got in touch with the enemy soon after leaving Fretoy. The 9th Lancers, who were doing advance guard to the brigade, pushed on, however, with great boldness, till they reached the village of Moncel, which was found to be in occupation of German cavalry. Without a moment's hesitation, and without any knowledge of the strength opposed to it, the leading troop took the village at a gallop and cleared it of the enemy. They were, however, themselves compelled shortly afterwards to withdraw, as two fresh squadrons of the enemy--who proved to be the 1st Guard Dragoons--came down on the village from the north. At the same time a third squadron appeared to the west of the village. These new arrivals were at once charged by Col. Campbell and Major Beale-Brown at top speed with a troop and half of the 9th Lancers. They rode clean through the Germans, who faced the charge, and then--wheeling to the right--the Lancers joined up with the troop that had already entered the village.

The Germans now retreated to the north side of the village. In antic.i.p.ation of this movement a squadron of the 18th Hussars had already been posted dismounted among the corn stooks on that side.

These now opened fire on the retiring Germans, some seventy of whom turned and charged the dismounted Hussars in line. The latter with great nerve and steadiness let the Dragoons get within 100 yards of them, and then practically annihilated them with a volley. Only a dozen escaped.

The casualties among the 2nd C.B. were not heavy, but Col. Campbell, while leading the charge south of the village, was wounded in the arm by a lance. Captain Reynolds at the same time was very badly wounded in the shoulder, and Lieut. Allfrey, while trying to extract the lance from the wound, was killed.

The general order was now for the British Army to advance to the north-east in the direction of Chateau Thierry and so try and reach the Marne. The country round here, however, was very difficult, especially in the thickly-wooded neighbourhood of the Pet.i.t Morin, and the advance was at first slow and cautious. The 8th Brigade on reaching the valley of the Pet.i.t Morin met with a strong resistance, which gave it some trouble before it managed to cross at Orly, where the enemy had left six machine-guns strongly posted on the opposing slope. However, after J Battery R.H.A.--which had displayed the greatest gallantry throughout these operations--had pounded the position for some time, the 4th Middles.e.x under Col. Hull (now the only colonel left in the 8th Brigade) and the R. Scots drew up on the edge of the wood topping the narrow valley, and at a given signal dashed down the slope to the bridge and up the far side; whereupon the Germans made off, abandoning their machine-guns, and the position was won.

In the course of this advance the R. Scots lost 2nd Lieut. Hewat, who was killed, and Lieut. Hay, who was badly wounded by two bullets in the side, but the casualties among the rank and file were not heavy. They captured some 200 prisoners in the village of Orly. The 2nd Division at La Tretoire met with a very similar resistance, but here the 2nd and 3rd Coldstream and some of the cavalry managed to get across higher up at La Force, and turned the flank of the resistance. The enemy's defence--as at Orly--proved to emanate from few men but many mobile machine-guns, which, by the time the pa.s.sage had been forced, were far beyond pursuit or capture, but which had been as effective for purposes of obstruction as a brigade. The Coldstream did not dislodge the enemy without casualties, among those wounded being the Hon. C. Monk, Lieut.

Trotter, Sir R. Corbet and 2nd Lieut. Jackson.

On the same day on the right of the line the Black Watch and the Camerons, the latter of whom had now been appointed to the 1st Brigade vice the Munster Fusiliers, did some very fine work between Bellot and Sabloniere, and took a quant.i.ty of prisoners; but they had to fight hard for them, and both regiments had a number of casualties, Captain Dalgleish and the Hon. M. Drummond in the Black Watch being killed. The 1st C.B. co-operated with the two Scotch regiments by attacking the village of Sabloniere, which was finally captured, together with many prisoners, by the 11th Hussars. In addition to this little cavalry success, the 3rd and 5th C.B. each had an encounter this day with German cavalry, and in both instances maintained the unquestioned superiority of the British in this particular arm of the service.

At five o'clock on the morning of the 9th the 2nd A.C. started out for the Marne. The whole A.C. had to cross by the one bridge at Chailly, so the operation was a protracted one, but by dark they were all across and had pushed ahead some miles north of the river. A German battery on the heights above Nanteint was attacked with great determination and captured by the Lincolns during this advance, the Germans sticking with great gallantry to their guns till every man of the battery had been killed or wounded.

The 3rd A.C, on the left of the 2nd, had considerable trouble in crossing at La Ferte. Here the bridge had been destroyed, and the north bank was strongly held by the enemy (with machine-guns as usual). The R.E. came to the rescue with a pontoon bridge, but the German fire was persistent, and it was night before the bridge was completed.

The 1st A.C. in the meanwhile had crossed at Chateau Thierry, but not without some destructive opposition from machine-guns.

On the morning of the 10th the advance became a race between the 5th and the 2nd Divisions. These two set out northwards at 5 a.m. covered by Gough with the 3rd and 5th C.B. The 3rd Division had been stopped at Germigny, and had consequently fallen behind, and the 4th and 6th Divisions--as we have seen--had to put up with a long wait at La Ferte.

The advance was therefore in the shape of a wedge, the effect of which was to threaten the flank of the Germans in front of the 6th French Army and cause them to retire with considerable haste. By midday, however, the 3rd Division on our left had all but come up into line, and the formation became more orthodox again. Our aeroplanes, favoured by beautiful weather, were now doing fine work, and, by the information they gave, made it possible to push the advance right up to the line of the Ourcq. There was little serious opposition, but desultory fighting took place here and there all along the line, and at Montreuil the Cornwalls suffered some serious losses.

We captured a number of prisoners during this advance to the Ourcq. The 9th Brigade alone took 600 north of Germigny, and at Haute Vesnes the 6th Brigade captured 400 and put as many more _hors de combat_, the 1st K.R.R., who were well supported by the 50th Battery R.F.A., being the main contributors to this result. In all, we took over 2,000 prisoners that day and many guns. The woods were everywhere full of stragglers, many of whom were only too glad to surrender. Others, however, put up a fight and were only taken after a stubborn resistance.

On the 11th Gen. Joffre s.h.i.+fted the advance half a point to the east, the effect of which was to narrow the front of the British troops and so cause a good deal of congestion on the few roads at our disposal.

On this day a sudden and very abominable change came over the weather, the wind chopping round to the north-west, and the temperature dropping in one day from great heat to bitter cold. Rain fell continuously, and there was wide-spread lamentation over the greatcoats thrown away in the heat of the Mons retreat.

THE Pa.s.sAGE OF THE AISNE

On September 12th the battle of the Aisne may be said to have begun.

The first and second stages of the war, the retreat from Mons, and the advance from the Grand Morin, were of the past. The third stage--the pa.s.sage and occupation of the Aisne by our troops--covers a period of some four weeks, the greater part of which was, comparatively speaking, barren of incident. The first three days, however, were eventful, and the 14th saw one of the most stubbornly contested battles of the war.

This will be dealt with in its place.

The 12th saw the first real check to our fifty-mile advance. Very early in the day it became apparent to our commanders that the retreat of the Germans had been in accordance with a plan pre-arranged (in the event of certain happenings) and that the pursued now definitely stood at bay. The situation was not one to encourage a reckless offensive. A wide valley some two miles across, down the centre of which wound the sluggish Aisne, now swollen and discoloured by the rains; steep down-like bluffs on either side of the valley, furrowed by deep-cut roads that twisted down to the lower ground--the bluffs in many places thickly and picturesquely wooded. To the west Soissons, to the east Rheims; and in face, on the opposite slope, the great German Army. It was not known at the time that, on the Craonne plateau crowning the slopes opposite, the forethought of the Germans had prepared in advance a complete system of very elaborate trenches, of a kind then new to warfare, but since horribly familiar. These were supplemented in many cases by the old stone quarries and caves which run the length of the heights.

Such was the scene in which the German and the Allied armies were destined to face one another for over a year, dealing out ceaseless death, desolation and pain, and gaining no fraction of military advantage for either side. That this was so is now history, but on September 12th, 1914, the future was still the future, and neither side had as yet had experience of the dead-wall method of fighting which has ever since characterized the Great War. The British commanders therefore, and the troops under them, prepared to push on with all the enthusiasm inspired by the events of the past week.

The first honours in the opening of this new act of the war-drama fell to the 1st C.B. who in the early hours of the morning were ordered to get possession of the village of Braine, a place of some importance, as it commanded the only road down to Missy on the southern side of the valley. The place was held by a battalion of German infantry, the houses loop-holed, and the streets barricaded. The 1st C.B. advanced from Cerseuil to the edge of the valley, and, leaving their horses on the high ground, made down the slope to the river on foot. The place was stubbornly defended, and was not taken without a certain amount of loss on our side, Captain Springfield in the Bays being killed, and Captain Pinching wounded, but after some rather fierce house-to-house fighting in the main street, the place was eventually captured and cleared of the enemy by nine o'clock, the German casualties amounting to some 300.

Sir Hubert Hamilton thereupon advanced the 3rd Division to Brenelle, while Sir Charles Fergusson pa.s.sed on with the 5th Division through the captured village of Braine to Sermoise. Away on the right the 1st and 2nd Divisions advanced as far as Courcelles and Vauxcere.

The first infantry division to come into action in the Aisne valley was the 4th, under Gen. Snow, who--having crossed the Ourcq unopposed--arrived at Buzancy on the morning of the 12th and found the right of the 6th French Army bombarding the Germans, who were in occupation of the Mont de Paris, just south of Soissons. Snow at once chimed in with his own guns, and a tremendous artillery duel resulted, in which the Germans after a time threw up the sponge and made off across the Soissons bridge, which they destroyed behind them.

The 3rd and 5th C.B. were in the meantime at Chaudun awaiting developments.

The south side of the Aisne was now clear of the enemy, and the problem arose as to how best to get our troops across. The weather was still as bad as could be, with a bitter cold driving rain from the north-west which made any air reconnaissance an impossibility. It was essential, however, to learn the state of the bridges, so other means had to be devised. The Missy bridge was of especial importance, and Lieut.

Pennycuik, R.E., volunteered to find out all about this by floating down the river on an improvised raft. This he succeeded in doing, at no little risk to himself, and reported the bridge practically destroyed, the north end having been blown up. The bridge at Conde was intact but inaccessible, the long, straight approach to it being open to concentrated machine-gun fire throughout. It had obviously been left as a bait, and to have attempted it would have been to have played straight into the enemy's hands. The question was, in fact, discussed between the C. in C. and Sir Horace, but they decided that, as its capture could only be effected at a great sacrifice of life, and as its possession was strategically of very little value to the enemy, it should be left alone.

On our extreme right near Bourg there was no trouble about crossing, the aqueduct, which here carries the ca.n.a.l across the river, having survived the attempts of the enemy to blow it up; and by this the 1st Division and some of the cavalry and artillery crossed easily enough during the middle of the day on the 13th, and pushed forward some three or four miles along the Laon road. The rest of the cavalry crossed further up the river at Villers. This wing of the army met with very little systematic opposition, but desultory sh.e.l.l-fire and machine-gun fire was going on all the time, and the 1st Scots Guards had some casualties, Houldsworth being killed and Monckton and Balfour wounded.

By nightfall the 1st Brigade had reached Moulins, the 2nd and 3rd Brigades being at Geny. The 5th Brigade had succeeded in reaching Pont d'Arcy by 9 a.m., but found the bridge there destroyed, one solitary girder partly submerged alone remaining, and by this they scrambled across in single file, with a blind sh.e.l.l-fire playing all around.

Single girders, however, are not recognized as a military means of communication, so the R.E. set to work to build a pontoon bridge alongside.

The 4th Brigade, on the left of the 2nd Division, had the worst time this day; they made an attempt to cross at Chavonne itself, but were vigorously opposed, the enemy being in possession of the village, and keeping up a ceaseless machine-gun fire which cost us some good men.

The Irish Guards were the chief sufferers, especially in officers, Captain Berners, Lord Guernsey and Lord Arthur Hay being killed.

However, late in the afternoon, some of the 2nd Coldstream got themselves ferried across in a small boat which was found--minus oars--higher up the river, whereupon the enemy, who as usual were weak in numbers, but strong in machine-guns, made off. The rest of the brigade then crossed in single file by the remains of the bridge, which--like that at Pont d'Arcy--still offered a shaky foothold from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map showing line occupied by British troops after the battle of the Aisne. Approximate scale 3 miles to an inch.]

TROYON

The 14th of September probably saw more real fighting in the old-fas.h.i.+oned sense than any other day in which the British troops had been engaged. The whole line covering a frontage of twenty miles was involved, but the fiercest conflict was always on the right with the 1st A.C. This day's fighting is sometimes referred to as the battle of the Aisne, and sometimes as the battle of Troyon. The former is too indefinite, in view of the protracted fighting on the river of that name; the latter is too parochial. In real truth there were four distinct but synchronous battles taking place that day along our front, viz., at Troyon, Verneuil, Soupir and Chivres. The most sanguinary, and undoubtedly the most important as far as results go, was the first of these. It may fairly be said that the British victory at Troyon on September 14th was one of the most brilliant achievements of the War.

The generals.h.i.+p displayed was of a high order, and the troops engaged behaved with the greatest steadiness and courage.

Proceedings commenced at the very first streak of dawn. General Bulfin's 2nd Brigade, which had got as far as Moulins on the 13th, set out at four o'clock on the following morning along the road to Vendresse. This road runs between the wooded downs on either side, and the idea was to bring the rest of the 1st Division along it as soon as the heights to right and left had been cleared. Half a mile short of Vendresse the R. Suss.e.x, the 60th and the Northamptons scaled the downs to the right of the road, and deployed in the order named, the Suss.e.x on the left, the 60th in the middle, and the Northamptons on the right, just east of Troyon. Beyond the Northamptons were the 1st Coldstream, who had been detached from the 1st Brigade. The Loyal N. Lancas.h.i.+re Regiment remained in reserve down at Vendresse, and about six o'clock the other three battalions of the 1st Brigade came marching through them, along the road towards Cerny. About half a mile further on, these three battalions scaled the heights on the left of the road, so as to continue the line of the 2nd Brigade, which was on the right of the road. Here they deployed and remained till the 3rd Brigade came up on their left some three hours later.

The day was a particularly unpleasant one. There was a cold and persistent rain from the north-west right in the faces of the British, and accompanied by a kind of fog which made it impossible to see clearly for more than a couple of hundred yards ahead, and which was responsible for a good deal of unfortunate confusion through the day as to the ident.i.ty of friend and foe. It also, as may be supposed, greatly increased the difficulty of our Gunners, who found it impossible to locate the enemy accurately, or to get exact information as to the correctness of their range.

Having dealt with the disposition of the three brigades of the 1st Division, we can now turn to the actual fight at Troyon. The main objective of our attack here was the Sugar Factory which stands near the five cross-roads on the Chemin des Dames. The Factory itself was very strongly held with machine-guns, and was flanked by two batteries of artillery. For a quarter of a mile on each side of it were the German trenches, on the one side running along the Chivy road, and on the other along the Chemin des Dames, the two forming an obtuse angle with the apex at the Factory itself. In addition, the enemy had four big eleven-inch guns behind their line, the fire from which greatly hara.s.sed our troops all through these operations as they completely outranged our batteries. The approach to this position was over turnip and beet fields, very wet and sticky with clay, and sloping gently upwards towards the Factory. As long as the 2nd Brigade was on the steep sides of the downs it was comparatively sheltered from the enemy's fire, but the moment this sloping plateau was reached, a tremendous fire burst upon it at close range from rifles, machine-guns, and from two batteries of artillery, which were in position behind the trenches along the Chemin des Dames.

It is difficult to conceive of conditions more unfavourable for attack: a driving rain in the faces of the a.s.sailants, an entrenched enemy, and an uphill approach across clay fields saturated with wet and two feet deep in beet plants. However, the order was to advance, so undeterred by the gaps ploughed in their ranks, the brigade pressed steadily on.

The objective of the R. Suss.e.x on the left was the enemy's trenches along the Chivy road. Towards this they pushed on at the slow plodding tramp which was the best pace which could be raised in the circ.u.mstances, till they reached the comparative shelter of a sunken lane. In this lane the R. Suss.e.x machine-gun section was able to get a position from which it could partially enfilade the Chivy road trenches, and so effective was its fire from this angle, that after a time a white flag was raised, and several hundred Germans were seen running forward with their hands up. Col. Montresor and many other officers and men of the Suss.e.x left the lane to accept this surrender, whereupon the enemy, from the Factory itself and from the trenches to right and left of it, poured a deadly fire into the confused ma.s.s of Germans and British, mowing them down in scores. In this indiscriminate ma.s.sacre the R. Suss.e.x lost very heavily, Col. Montresor, Maj. Cookson, and Lieuts. Daun and Hughes being killed, and Captain Cameron wounded.

The Germans too suffered severely, but about 200 of them were got safely into the lane and sent off to the rear with a platoon as escort.

The R. Suss.e.x being now very considerably reduced in numbers, the Loyal N. Lancas.h.i.+res were brought up from reserve, one company being sent to support the Suss.e.x, while two and a half companies came up on the right of the 60th, _i.e._, between the 60th and the Northamptons. These two and a half companies being fresh troops were now ordered to attack the Sugar Factory. The position of the Factory and the lie of the ground has already been described. The Loyal N. Lancas.h.i.+res, in order to carry out the attack as ordered, had to advance over a quarter of a mile of open ground under fire, not only from their front, but from both flanks as well, on account of the angle formed by the German trenches to right and left of the Factory. Their casualties during this advance were terrible. The C.O., Maj. Lloyd, and his Adjutant, Captain Howard-Vyse, were killed in the first rush. Fifty per cent. of the men fell in crossing that fire-swept zone, but the remainder carried steadily on and, at the point of the bayonet, drove out the enemy and captured the Factory, an achievement which must undoubtedly rank as one of the finest of the War.

The R. Suss.e.x now pushed forward again, and Lieut. Dashwood, the machine-gun officer, got his maxims into the Factory, and from there enfiladed the two German batteries along the Chemin des Dames. At the same time some of the R. Suss.e.x and the 6oth crept up along the road leading from Vendresse to the Factory, till they were in a position to enfilade the German trenches to the east of it. This manoeuvre produced an immediate surrender, the Germans leaving their trenches and hoisting the white flag. Warned, however, by their experience earlier in the day, the British remained prudently under cover of the road, and it was as well they did, for the two German batteries in rear of the trenches at once began bombarding this new situation at point-blank range, with the result that, while the British in the road took no harm, the unfortunate Germans who had tried to surrender were practically wiped out by their own people.

This patriotic act was destined to be the last that these particular batteries performed, for Lieut. Dashwood with the Suss.e.x machine-guns got on to them from the Factory and rendered them incapable of further damage. The horses were all killed, and such gunners as survived made off, abandoning the guns.