1918 The Last Act

by Barrie Pitt

  By March 23rd, six French divisions – which had been considered the limit of assistance Haig might need – were moving into position, but although this aid was prompt, it was ineffective for a reason which had not been foreseen or even imagined. The speed given to von Hutier’s advance by the new tactics, plus the enormous advantages conferred upon the Germans by the fog, had wrecked all estimates of time and movement, which had not unnaturally been geared to the elephantine cadence of previous experience.

  As the first French divisions came up, they therefore found themselves – instead of manning or digging positions in rear – first swamped by groups of shaken, unco-ordinated, bitter and sometimes panic-stricken British troops retreating through them, and then themselves subjected to the same fierce and incomprehensible form of attack which had caused this near-rout. As the British right flank swung back like the edge of an opening door, the last three French divisions to be sent were flung into the gap so hastily that they were compelled to leave their artillery behind, and rush their infantry and cavalry forward with only the ammunition which each man could carry. It was extremely fortunate for them that, for the moment, von Hutier was only interested in smashing back the British, and had as yet no designs for a breakout to the south – through the gap between the edge of the door and its original jamb. And as the door opened further, more troops were needed: late on March 23rd, Pétain ordered yet another six divisions into the breach.

  But if the French managed by superhuman efforts to close the gap, they never managed to get around behind Gough’s fast-disintegrating army in order to support it – to act as door-stop. This essential function, as Ludendorff and his advisers had shrewdly divined, would have to be performed by British troops brought down from the north – and they obviously could not arrive for some days.

  All day long on Sunday, March 24th, the respective Commanders-in-Chief listened to the reports coming in and watched their maps. With the anchor-point in the Flesquières Salient gone, the line of the British retreat straightened, hinging in the north now from the defences in front of Arras and Vimy Ridge: as the remnants of the Fifth Army went back and back, the right flank of the Third Army stretched out and backwards too, groping for contact with their sorely-pressed neighbours. By evening General Pétain’s cold and logical mind had forced him to certain conclusions and he set out for Dury to meet Sir Douglas Haig and place these before him.

  They met at 11 p.m.

  ‘Pétain struck me as very much upset, almost unbalanced and most anxious,’ Haig later wrote in his diary. ‘I explained my plans … and asked him to concentrate as large a force as possible about Amiens astride the Somme to co-operate on my right [sic]. He said he expected every moment to be attacked in Champagne and he did not believe that the main German blow had yet been delivered.

  ‘He said he would give Fayolle [who was to command all British and French troops south of the Somme] all his available troops. He also told me that he had seen the latter today at Montdidier where the French Reserves are now collecting and had directed him in the event of the German advance being pressed still further, to fall back south-westwards towards Beauvais in order to cover Paris.’

  What Pétain had also said, in justification of his attitude, was, ‘If you withdraw your hand in proportion as I’m stretching out mine towards you, contact between our two armies will be broken in the end; your army then risks being cornered in open country, while I shall be reduced to covering Paris.’

  One cannot feel that this was an unreasonable picture of the developing situation, but in Sir Douglas Haig’s view the continuity of the Allied line was sacrosanct, and Pétain’s proposal would break it. This spelled the end of the private arrangement for mutual assistance which, in all fairness, was never envisaged to bear such an enormous strain as that to which it was now subject. It also opened Haig’s eyes to certain benefits which could accrue to his command under a scheme which he had long spurned: if in the past he had seen little point in a Supreme Command which held British divisions in reserve to assist the French, he could now well appreciate the advantages of one which held French divisions in reserve to assist him. Bidding Pétain a rather cold farewell, he hurried back to GHQ and sent urgent signals to London requesting the immediate presence of Lord Milner (a member of the War Cabinet) and his own military bête noire, the CIGS, Sir Henry Wilson.

  © CASSELL & co. LTD. 1962

  So far as the former was concerned, Haig had been anticipated, for Lloyd George had already dispatched Milner to France during that afternoon, feeling that in such critical hours he should have a representative on the scene of action. Milner, however, was at that moment en route for Versailles (having called at GHQ during Haig’s absence) for consultation with the British representative on the Council, Sir Henry Rawlinson, and later with the French Premier, Clemenceau.

  Sir Henry Wilson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, arrived at Haig’s headquarters at 11 a.m. the following day (Monday, March 25th), to listen with sympathy to the Commander-in-Chief’s troubles and with great interest to his suggestions. Beneath his charming and affable exterior, there must have been a certain element of sardonic satisfaction, for after many months in partial eclipse, it seemed as though Sir Henry’s star might be in the ascendant again, much as a result of Haig’s own actions. And in this Sir Henry could rejoice, despite the catastrophe which brought it about. During the late afternoon, he joined Milner and Rawlinson at Versailles, and in the evening arrangements were finalized for a joint Anglo-French Conference to take place the following day.

  To Doullens, during the morning of Tuesday, March 26th, came the key figures of the Entente Cordiale, with the sole exception of the British Prime Minister. The first to arrive were the army commanders – the ‘Robber Barons’ as they were referred to by members of Haig’s Staff. From the north came the beloved Plumer, his hair whitened by the strain of almost continual command in the Ypres Salient, his cherubic pink face and absurd little pot belly giving him the flagrantly unfair appearance of a Colonel Blimp caricature. From Béthune and the threatened but still unmenaced coalfields came General Horne – a man of oak, uncommunicative, dour but obedient – and from Arras came General Sir Julian Byng, commander of the Third Army, scion of a noble house, implacable, and looking as always as though he had been carved from polished ivory.

  Only Gough was not present – and as excuse for his absence it could be argued either that as his army no longer existed he had no right to be there, or that he was too busy collecting its remnants into some form of organized retreat to be able to spare the time. (In the opinion of Sir Herbert Plumer, this last condition ought also to have applied to Byng. ‘Ought to be with his army,’ he muttered to his Chief-of-Staff. ‘Doesn’t matter for you and me, as we’re not engaged.’)

  From these men, a worried but still undaunted Sir Douglas Haig demanded fullest support (Plumer had immediately offered twelve of his fourteen divisions in exchange for exhausted ones), and above all, no retreat; the line of their armies must be held where it was, until such time as the Commander-in-Chief could arrange for French divisions to come up in support. In particular, the right flank of Byng’s Third Army must anchor itself in front of Bray-sur-Somme, ten miles south of Albert and, incidentally, some twenty-five miles behind the front line as it had existed on the morning of March 21st. To this end, the 4th and 5th Australian Divisions and the New Zealand Division were already hurrying south. (As Haig was speaking, some of them were passing through Albert.) Above all, the vital road and rail junction of Amiens, sixteen miles behind the latest known position of the front, must be covered.

  Before he had time to go into further details, the Commander-in-Chief was informed that several other important personages had arrived for conference with him, and as one of them was the French President M. Poincaré, and another the French Premier, it might be as well not to keep them waiting any longer. As Haig hurried down the steps of the Town Hall, in which the conference was being held, a French general nudged
Clemenceau and whispered, ‘There’s a man who will be obliged to capitulate in the open field within a fortnight, and we’ll be very lucky if we’re not obliged to do the same.’

  Whoever this French general was, it is quite certain that it was not that indomitable and fiery prophet of the offensive, Ferdinand Foch, Chief of the French General Staff and their representative on the Versailles Council, who was also present and whose hour was about to strike.

  Nobody had been a more ardent believer in the ‘Spirit of the Offensive’ doctrine to win immortal glory for France than Foch. As he had been for years before the war an instructor at the Ecole de Guerre, he had been in a position to preach this doctrine to many minds, since rendered sceptical by bitter experience – and the aphorisms with which he had instructed and imbued a generation of French soldiers had thus been subject to some caustic reappraisal. One such was ‘Any increase in fire-power will aid the offensive’ – which must have caused bewilderment to many a young officer caught in the open during an attack and lying flat beneath traversing machine-gun fire; another was ‘Success justifies anything’ – a creed which in an earlier war had led Napoleon to St. Helena, and in a later one, was to submerge Hitler and the entire German Nation into overwhelming disaster.

  On the other hand, Foch’s argument ‘A battle won is a battle we will not acknowledge to be lost’, has a ring of fundamental truth. Moreover, in the circumstances existing on March 26th, 1918, it was a maxim which offered hope – which at that moment was at a premium. There were thus many speculative glances cast at the short, portly figure of the ebullient general as he stumped into the Town Hall after his President and his Premier.

  Lord Milner and Sir Henry Wilson had been the last to arrive – almost as Haig came down the steps to greet Poincaré, and as Milner had not seen Haig during the previous day, he asked time for a short private discussion with the British army commanders before the beginning of the joint conference. It did not take long as – for one reason or another – almost all those present in Doullens Town Hall had come to virtually the same conclusions.

  At 12.30 p.m., the Anglo-French conference opened with M. Poincaré in the chair, and a flat inquiry from Clemenceau as to whether Haig intended to defend Amiens or to continue falling back, possibly even to the Channel ports. He was reassured on this point. Haig stated firmly that he could, and would, hold on north of the Somme, although south of the Somme he could do little – in any case, Fifth Army troops there had already been placed under French Command. This statement received immediate qualification from Pétain who interjected bleakly, ‘Very little of it remains, and in strict truth we may say that this army no longer exists.’ At this, Haig quickly finished his résumé of British intentions and inquired pertinently what the French were doing.

  They were doing, under Pétain’s direction, considerably more than could reasonably have seemed possible in the light of his previous reports upon French preparedness. Rather like a bankrupt reluctantly admitting that he could, if necessary, drive away from court in a new Rolls Royce large enough to carry the Lord Chancellor and the whole of the Supreme Court, Pétain revealed that he had thinned out the eastern sector of his front to such an extent that he was now able to concentrate twenty-four divisions in the threatened area. However, he quickly added, any optimism which might rise in his hearers’ hearts as a result of this announcement should be strictly controlled, as ‘in such a situation one ought not to hug delusions, but to face realities and, consequently, not to hide that these divisions would take some time to arrive on the scene, moving at the rate of two a day.’

  According to the account of the French Minister of Munitions, M. Loucheur, Pétain also added that it was evident that everything must be done to defend Amiens – at which Foch, who had listened so far with an obviously fast-increasing irritation, burst out, ‘We must fight in front of Amiens, we must fight where we are now. As we have not been able to stop the Germans on the Somme, we must not now retire a single inch!’

  The silence which followed this cri de coeur was apparently broken by Haig saying, with deceptive humility, ‘If General Foch will consent to give me his advice, I will gladly follow it’ – an unlikely remark for him to make, except that support for its utterance can be found in the events of the next few minutes.

  Milner and Clemenceau immediately retired for a brief talk to one corner of the room, feeling – as did everyone – that the moment of decision had arrived. They returned with the basis for a proposal which, after putting it to the meeting, Clemenceau then drafted, to read: ‘General Foch is appointed by the British and French Governments to co-ordinate the action of the British and French Armies around Amiens. To this end, he will come to an understanding with the two Generals-in-Chief, who are requested to furnish him with all necessary information.’

  To the surprise of all – with the possible exception of Pétain – this did not go far enough for Haig. With what bore a strong, but fallacious, resemblance to a magnanimous gesture, he announced that this was too narrow a brief for Foch and too limited a power. Foch should, he suggested, be placed in control of the Allied Armies as a whole, ‘from the Alps to the North Sea’ – and while Clemenceau hastily amended the draft and Foch saw at last before his eyes the realization of his fondest dreams, the atmosphere in the room changed smoothly from one of chilled despondency to one of warm and mutual admiration. French pride was at last to be assuaged by the apparent surrender of the independence of the British forces – a long-sought victory as satisfying to them as any over the Germans, and few, if any, among them remembered that Haig was a Lowland Scot with all the prudence and practicality of the breed. For undoubtedly, he seemed most likely to profit from the bargain.

  In the situation which then existed, reserves could only flow one way – to support the British line – and the greater the extension of Foch’s power, the greater therefore the number of reserve divisions he would be able to contribute to Haig’s command. For the tactical command of the troops in battle would remain with Haig in the north and Pétain in the south – where the reserves must come from. Moreover, when Clemenceau read out the draft amended by the substitution of the words ‘on the Western Front’ for ‘around Amiens’, Haig came forward with yet another suggestion – that the term ‘British and French Armies’ should be removed and ‘Allied Armies’ written in its place; and as neither General Pershing nor the King of the Belgians was present to object, the suggestion was put into effect.

  Those who believe that Sir Douglas Haig lacked shrewdness or subtlety would do well to ponder this episode.

  The meeting then broke up, and the French departed amid protestations of esteem; but the British, according to their Chief of the Imperial General Staff, remained for a little longer to ponder over the last piece of business on their agenda. Somebody, obviously, must be responsible for the unfortunate events of the last few days, and somebody’s head must roll. As Sir Hubert Gough was not embarrassing them with his presence and as in any case his army had ceased to exist, Sir Henry Wilson suggested that it might be a good thing for him to be sent home, and when an army was formed to take the place of the one whose shattered remnants were still desperately clinging together to form a screen in front of von Hutier’s victorious but now thinning ranks, who better to command it than Wilson’s old friend and fellow infantryman, Sir Henry Rawlinson, now at Versailles? In any case, some employment must now be found for Rawly, as his present position as British representative on the Versailles Council would be rendered superfluous by these newly-concluded arrangements.

  Although Haig protested that Gough had dealt with a difficult situation very well, it was apparent that he did not intend to contest the issue vigorously, so if the matter was not wholly agreed there and then, Sir Henry Wilson could at least feel that he had won his point. He had, in fact, won several points that day, for Foch had been his idol for many years, the French Army had always in his opinion, been superior to the British: and Rawlinson would be delighted to re-assume contro
l of an army in the field.

  Moreover, Wilson had disliked Gough ever since their violent disagreement in 1914 over the Curragh incident.

  There was in fact, rather more reason for the spirit of optimism with which the Doullens Conference concluded, than is at first sight apparent or could indeed have been known to its participants; especially as one of the first items of news to be given to Sir Douglas Haig as he left the Town Hall, was that despite his emphatic instructions, Bray-sur-Somme had already fallen, the corps holding the Albert–Bray line was falling back across the River Ancre, and German troops were already fighting in Albert.

  The truth was, however, that despite the apparently inexorable advance of the German Army up to that time, the troops themselves were beginning to tire and lose spirit. The dogged resistance of most of the British units – especially at the beginning – had thinned the German ranks, the first ardour of the attack had evaporated, and they were not yet clear of a devastation for which they were themselves responsible, but which complicated their supply problems a millionfold. As an illustration of their difficulties, Binding’s diary entry as early as March 23rd reads:

  We are glad if ration-carts and field-kitchens can get up to us at night; then men and horses feed for the next twenty-four hours at one sitting … We have reached the zone in which all wells and streams have been wrecked and the water for the attacking troops has to be brought up in watercarts. That applies to the men. The horses have to wait until we cross the canal at Moislaines-Nurlu … the devastation is immeasurable.