1918 The Last Act

by Barrie Pitt

  There was also a need to strengthen further General Foch’s position, for the decision at the Doullens Conference had not proved entirely satisfactory. Another conference was held at Beauvais on April 3rd, attended this time by Lloyd George, and also by the American Generals Pershing and Bliss, at which it was agreed that if Foch was to have the responsibility of ensuring inter-Allied cooperation, it would be as well if he also possessed a comparable authority. The Doullens agreement was therefore superseded by the following:

  General Foch is charged by the British, French and American Governments with the co-ordination of the action of the Allied Armies on the Western Front. To this end all powers necessary to secure effective realization are conferred on him. The British, French and American Governments for this purpose entrust to General Foch the strategic direction of military operations. The Commanders-in-Chief of the British, French and American Armies have full control of the tactical employment of their forces. Each Commander-in-Chief will have the right of appeal to his Government if in his opinion the safety of his Army is compromised by any order received from General Foch.

  This apparently satisfied Foch, and if the present-day reader wonders what might have been happening while the various generals appealed to their respective Governments, his scepticism is possibly due to the frenetic pace of life today. Whether Haig was satisfied or not is difficult to determine, for although he agreed, he did so in a statement in which he also affirmed that this new arrangement did not in any way alter his attitude towards Foch, or to Pétain. There is however, a note of vexation about some of his diary entries for the day of the Conference, at odds with his usual magisterial acceptance of life’s tribulations: ‘Generals Bliss and Pershing were also at the Conference. 120,000 American Infantry are to arrive monthly for four months – 480,000. I hope the Yankees will not disappoint us in this. They have seldom done anything yet which they have promised.

  ‘The P.M. looked as if he had been thoroughly frightened, and he seemed still in a funk. … L.G. is a fatiguing companion in a motor. He talks and argues so! And he appears to me to be a thorough impostor.’

  It seems only fair to add to this, however, that there were other observers present whose recollections do not agree with the Field-Marshal’s. The present Lord Hankey, for instance, records nothing of any apparent failure of nerve on the part of the Prime Minister, although he did think that the soft-voiced Sir Herbert Lawrence lacked confidence, and that Haig failed to inspire it in those around him; while a Regular Army colonel present later stated categorically that whereas Lloyd George kept up a confident front, Haig appeared white and shaken.

  The most hopeful factor of the entire conference was the presence at it of the two American generals – for the American Army was at last definitely committed to action, although it would be some weeks before its divisions would come into the line.

  March 28th had sounded the knell of Ludendorff’s hopes to a far greater extent than he knew. As the tattoo of fire around Arras died down at the end of the Mars attack and von Kuhl and von der Schulenberg issued instructions for the initiation of what was to become Georgette, a portentous scene was enacted at Foch’s Headquarters at Clermont. According to the official French report upon the episode, a large car drew up amid clouds of dust and from it emerged the splendid and immaculate figure of General Pershing, who immediately delivered himself of the following unlikely declamation:

  ‘I come to tell you that the American people will esteem it a great honour that our troops should take part in the present battle. I ask it in my name and theirs. There is at the moment no other question than that of fighting. Infantry, artillery, aeroplanes, tanks, all that we have is yours. Dispose of us as you wish. Other forces will soon come, as numerous as is necessary. The American people will be proud to take part in the greatest and finest battle in history.’

  This is grossly unfair to Pershing. He would not only have scorned such verbal histrionics, but he was also only too well aware of the fact that no American aeroplanes had as yet arrived in France, and neither had any artillery or tanks. In the event – though Pershing was not to know this at the time – none ever did, and the Americans finished the war fighting with British and French guns and French tanks; but at this date it seems impossible to find out exactly what Pershing did say upon that momentous occasion. It is likely that his words approximated more closely to those of General Bliss than to the French communiqué.

  General Bliss had said: ‘We’ve come over here to get ourselves killed; if you want to use us, what are you waiting for?’

  Despite its mordant note, few speeches have ever afforded greater relief. Munitions for the front were ready and to hand – so much so that the losses of material were easily replaced from British reserve stock – but only America could replace the lost legions; and as a token payment, within a week American engineers assisting the construction of defence lines threw aside their shovels and joined a mixed force of riflemen quelling the last dying spasms of the German attempt to reach Amiens.

  Problems of man-power, of course, were the most urgent in demand of all those facing Haig during the early days of April. Many divisions, especially those of the original front line south of St. Quentin, had been virtually wiped out, and even those held in reserve had suffered severe losses during the desperate attempts to hold together an extended and disintegrating line. There were, however, unexpected exceptions to the general rules, usually when some spirit of sturdy independence had kept the units compact in the face of violent attack from in front, or stupid direction from behind. The 51st Highland Division, for instance, had held together despite its ordeal on the northern flank of the Flesquières Salient, as had the 9th Division of Scots and South Africans on the south. Incredibly, the 61st Division which had stood opposite St. Quentin was still in existence as a fighting force, although reduced to less than one tenth of its rifle strength.

  But all these divisions were decimated, and not only that, their few survivors were exhausted by the physical and nervous strain of the long retreat.

  So as the battle in the south died away and fresh divisions came down to relieve them, they were withdrawn, sent north and their units brought up sometimes to as much as three-quarters of their established strength with nineteen-year-old boys, forty-five-year-old men, or seasoned soldiers almost recovered from their last wounds. Rheumatism often slowed down the pace of their training marches, but necessity knowing no laws, these divisions were very soon either again in the front line or in close reserve.

  By April 5th, the 25th, the 19th and the 9th Divisions – all of which had been closely involved in the holding of the Flesquières Salient – had been formed into the IX Corps and put into the line on the right flank of Plumer’s army to hold the front from the Ypres–Comines Canal down to the River Lys, just east of Armentières. This was the junction of Plumer’s Second Army and Sir Henry Horne’s First Army – the army which held the heights of Vimy Ridge with the Canadian Corps in great strength, as shield against the threat which Haig still considered the most dangerous – that to the Béthune coalfields.

  In these circumstances, it was obvious that Horne’s centre could not be weakened, but in a spirit of commendable co-operation he announced that he was prepared to house weak divisions on his left flank, in the sector which GHQ – and he – considered safe, between La Bassée and his northern boundary, the Lys at Armentières. This northernmost position was thus filled by the XV Corps, consisting of the re-formed 40th and 34th Divisions – the former recovering from the battle for Bapaume and the latter from the strain of clinging valiantly to the hinge of the door just south of Arras – while seven other divisions late of the Third or Fifth Armies occupied the flat basin of the Lys valley behind, ‘convalescing’ after their recent mauling.

  South of this sector, at Givenchy on the La Bassée Canal, lay the 55th Division – Territorials from West Lancashire and immensely proud of the fact – and this division had not been concerned with the fighting at St. Que
ntin and the Somme. It formed, therefore, the northern bastion of the fortifications to defend Béthune, and south of this point there should be no weakness.

  But between the 55th Division and the two battle-worn divisions of the XV Corps was a very weak front indeed, about which Sir Henry Horne had been perturbed for some time. It was held at the beginning of April by the 1st and 2nd Portuguese Divisions, who had been there far too long. The Portuguese Corps had in fact been due for relief before the onset of the St. Quentin battle, but events since then had clearly necessitated their retention in the line; they were by now very tired, and somewhat disgruntled.

  They had good cause to be.

  As Britain’s oldest ally, Portugal had offered help – as she was to do again in 1939 – within weeks of the declaration of war, but she did not actually enter it until 1916 and if it had then taken some time for the fitting out, training and dispatch of her two divisions to the Western Front, this did not detract from the worth of a fine traditional gesture. Unfortunately, since the dispatch of the two Portuguese Divisions, the Government which sent them had fallen and been replaced by one whose attitude to the war was negative, and to Allied co-operation, hostile.

  Moreover, a large percentage of the corps’ officers were in sympathy with this new Government – and utterly out of sympathy with both the peasant class from which their troops were drawn and conditions of life on the Western Front. They took extended leaves at home (the troops were allowed none) and one brigadier exercised his command entirely from Paris where he was a popular and well-known figure.

  © CASSELL & co. LTD. 1962

  On April 2nd, Sir Henry Horne decided that the Portuguese must be relieved, so the 50th Northumbrian Division was instructed to begin moving up immediately in order to carry out the relief of the Portuguese 2nd Division on April 9th. On April 5th, the Portuguese 1st Division had been withdrawn, but as no one was ordered forward to occupy the vacated trenches, their compatriots extended themselves northwards to do so for the remaining four days.

  But on April 7th and 8th Armentières to the north and the area around Lens to the south were deluged by mustard gas barrages, and at 3 a.m. on the morning of the 9th – the day of the proposed relief – an intense bombardment from almost the whole of Ludendorff’s ‘battering train’ fell on the stretch of front between. Shortly after 8 a.m., nine full-strength German divisions attacked – once again through a thick mist – and the main weight of the attack fell upon the Portuguese sector.

  Pausing only long enough to remove their boots, the troops fled – and several of them expedited their passage to the rear by commandeering the bicycles of the British 11th Cyclist Battalion, who rushed up to hold the gap.

  The remainder of the morning was a wild confusion of attack and counterattack, advance and retreat, as every available British unit was hastily flung into the breach, but by the evening the German attack had stormed directly forward for six miles as far as the banks of the River Lawe, behind which the Highlanders of the 51st Division now waited in grim anticipation for the next morning’s battle.

  On the southern flank of this penetration the British 55th Division still held Givenchy against the weight of the Prussian IV Corps, and its flank battalion had covered the gap left by the Portuguese by a skilful extension back to Festubert. Between Festubert and the Highlanders lay the 55th’s reserve brigade, together with the aggrieved survivors of the 11th Cyclist Battalion and the dismounted troopers of a squadron of King Edward’s Horse, the natural antipathy between cavalrymen and cyclists having been temporarily submerged by an acute and shared aversion for all foreigners.

  On the northern side, Yorkshire units of the 50th Division held the village of Estaires, while the newly reconstituted 40th Division was bent in a tight semi-circle around the southern outskirts of Armentières and the small town of Erquinghem, defending itself from furious attack by the Saxon XIX Corps, intent on crossing the Lys and striking up towards Bailleul. By 3 p.m. Saxon units were on the northern bank of the river Lys at Bac St. Maur, thrusting northwards and beating off frantic attempts by the British divisions holding Estaires and Erquinghem to link up and stabilize the line. The fighting here was as fierce and intense as at any time or place during the entire war, for the Saxons had a specific role to fulfil, a specific target to reach – and by a certain time.

  For only half of Georgette had as yet been delivered, and upon the progress of the Saxon Corps depended not only the launching of the second half but to a great extent the success of the entire offensive. Ludendorff’s plan was double-pronged.

  The Flanders plain east of Ypres is so flat that any slight rise – there is none really deserving the description hill – possesses a military value far greater than its height would suggest. It was, for instance, for the possession of the series of ridges, all less than fifty feet high, which curved around the ruined city of Ypres, that the British had poured away a generation’s lifeblood during the previous three years; but south and west of Ypres, the ridge continues for fifteen miles in a series of small mounds, at the eastern end of which stands Mont Kemmel and at the western end the Mont des Cats. These two are as much as three hundred feet high.

  If Ludendorff could win possession of these hills, his troops would dominate the country to both north and south, and so force a withdrawal not only to behind Hazebrouck and the vital railway which was his original objective, but also from the Ypres Salient: the objective of the two St. George attacks might thus be gained solely by Georgette.

  To the south of this ridge, the Lys winds slowly as though along the bottom of a shallow dish. The valley had not so far been greatly – or at any rate, violently – disturbed by the war. Armentières for instance, although closer to the line than the ruined ruins of Ypres, was still inhabited by civilians, though many had left as a result of the mustard gas bombardment of the previous two days. Small villages with cottages still intact stood along the Lys banks, and the woods around had not yet been reduced to pale phalanxes of splintered spars.

  A little to the north of centre of the dish stand the two towns of Armentières and Erquinghem, both on the Lys. From the Wytschaete Ridge on the northern edge of the dish, Plumer’s line came down in a slight westward curve of which that afternoon the Saxon Corps had bent the southern end backwards into a hook around the two towns – and to the north of them, facing Plumer’s line, waited the northern half of Georgette, consisting of the German Fourth Army under General Sixt von Arnim. Thus if the Saxons could reach around behind Armentières and Erquinghem on the southern side, and if von Arnim’s troops could break the British line to the north of the town and thrust forward to Neuve Eglise and Messines, not only would the two central towns be pinched out, but the conjoint force would be admirably placed for an attack on Mont Kemmel and the commanding ridge.

  Thick fog filled the entire dish the following morning (of April 10th), thus giving to the South Africans, the Scots and the Mid-landers of the newly constituted IX Corps at least the illusion of familiarity: they were used to being attacked in such conditions by now, and from experience had distilled a few safeguards. Forward posts were left booby-trapped but unmanned, reserve battalions stationed whenever possible behind the junctions of brigades, reserve brigades where possible behind the junctions of divisions: when the men heard the sound of action behind them, they retired – and on the morning of April 10th they could have done so more efficiently and more quickly had they not been sometimes delayed by the sense of duty of some of their youngest and newest officers, straight from school, keen and naïve.

  The fog cleared at about midday, by which time the lower slopes of the Wytschaete Ridge had been occupied by the enemy – to their considerable discomfort and danger as the Scots of the 9th Division still held the crest – Messines had fallen and von Arnim’s Storm Troops were working methodically towards the village of Ploegsteert. During the afternoon a brigade of South Africans retook Messines in a series of vicious street battles but could not advance beyond without exposi
ng their flanks, Ploegsteert fell into German hands, and with a sense of realism which augured well for the future, the 34th Division – which had so far not been attacked – withdrew from Armentières to the northern bank of the Lys. They thus avoided encirclement and retained contact with the 40th Division – still holding the Saxons along the line of the Bailleul-Armentières railway as far as the village of Steenwerke. Reinforcements had arrived during the night to block the Saxons, and the line thereafter curved back to Estaires (where the 50th Division had fought doggedly all day in a series of grim, closely-fought battles), and from there on around past Lestrem to Festubert and Givenchy.

  Georgette was gaining ground for the Germans, but at a high cost – and the British troops in Armentières were not to be cut off.

  It would be ludicrous to suggest that the British troops were enjoying themselves in any way whatsoever – yet there is an unusual note of satisfaction in the accounts written of this prolonged, and in some cases almost Thermopolean battle by those who took part in it. The anger, frustration and hopelessness which gripped the troops after the Somme and Passchendaele offensives, are missing. Now the lives which were lost were paid for in full by the enemy.

  In the past, the experienced soldiers of these battered British divisions had repeatedly charged forward against protected rifle and machine-gun positions and seen thousands of their compatriots die for futile and derisory gains: now they were behind the guns, and the temptation to sit tight until all the ammunition was gone and it was too late to retire was so great that some succumbed. But not many, and as day followed day during that crucial fortnight in April, and Ludendorff fed in more and more divisions – but never fast enough – the British line fell methodically back, never breaking, always exacting an extortionate price for every yard of ground.