Brave Battalion

by Mark Zuehlke

  If the Germans were allowed to conduct an orderly withdrawal into the Hindenburg Line, a return to stalemate was certain. But the Hindenburg Line was not without an Achilles’ heel. If the Allies could advance east along the Arras-Cambrai road immediately to the south of the Scarpe River and gain the rolling country beyond Cambrai, the Hindenburg Line would be outflanked and rendered indefensible. Realizing this, the Germans had been frantically preparing to meet such an offensive here and the hilly, wooded country between Arras and Cambrai was ideal for defence.

  By late summer, the Germans had created five distinct defensive zones. The first consisted of ground they had won in the spring of 1918 covered with a maze of old British and German trenches and their wire entanglements. Behind this ad hoc defensive line were four that were carefully engineered. The first lay east of Monchy le Preux, and two miles behind this was the double-barrelled Fresnes-Rouvroy Line and Vis-en-Artois Switch. Taken together, these three initial lines constituted a forward defence intended to serve the same disorganizing function of the Hindenburg Line’s outpost line. Behind these the Germans had constructed two lines, fortified as close to Hindenburg Line standards as possible. The first was the Drocourt-Quéant Line with the Canal du Nord Line behind. Breaking through these two lines would require an advance of eight miles across heavily defended ground that descended gradually toward the uncompleted Canal du Nord and was exposed to fire from a height of wooded ground to the east called Bois de Bourlon.3 Although a couple of weaker lines had been constructed behind Canal du Nord to block the way to Cambrai, once the canal fell the Germans would be hard-pressed to hold the city and the Allies would have reached the Hindenburg Line. Carrying Cambrai was the task given to First Army, and Gen. Henry Horne had specifically asked for the Canadians to lead the offensive.4

  Lt.-Gen. Arthur Currie established his headquarters at Hautecloque, a village twenty miles west of Arras, on August 23. Although 2nd and 3rd divisions were already in place, 1st and 4th divisions would not arrive until August 25 and 28 respectively. Consequently Currie was given the Scottish 51st Highland Division to participate in the first phase of his offensive. General Horne’s instructions told Currie he was to “attack eastwards astride the Arras-Cambrai Road, and by forcing … through the Drocourt-Quéant line south of the Scarpe to break the hinge of the Hindenburg System and prevent the possibility of the enemy rallying behind this powerfully defended area.” Canadian Corps’s operation would begin in conjunction with an attack by Third Army on Sunday, August 25. Currie protested that “this gave barely 48 hours to concentrate the necessary Artillery, part of which was still in the Fourth Army area, and that, furthermore, the Canadian Corps had sentimental objections to attacking on the Sabbath Day. It was then agreed that the attack should take place on Monday the 26th.”5

  Currie considered the German defences his corps must breach “among the strongest on the Western Front. The ground was pocked with the scars of 1917 and early 1918, and in the litter of old trenches and fortifications German engineers had found ready-made positions which they had considerably strengthened. Furthermore, topography was on the side of the Germans. The battle area spread over the northeastern slopes of the Artois Hills, whose summits about Monchy were over 300 feet above the valley-bottoms of the Scarpe and Sensée. The latter river, flowing generally eastward, together with its tributaries had dissected the hills into numerous deep valleys. The intervening ridges and high points, often mutually supporting, the enemy had fortified with a skill that demonstrated his mastery in military engineering.”6 The Germans had concentrated eight infantry divisions directly in the path of the Canadian line of advance.7

  Currie decided to advance two divisions in line, each rotating its brigades to the front one at a time so that they could “carry on the battle for three successive days” and then be replaced by his other two divisions, which should have arrived by then. The 51st Highland Division would cover the Canadian left flank with an advance along the Scarpe’s north bank.8

  At 0300 hours on August 26, the Canadian 2nd and 3 rd divisions struck with fifty tanks in support. The village of Monchy-le-Preux fell quickly before the Germans recovered from their surprise to bitterly contest the loss of every subsequent height of ground. Two thousand prisoners were taken, but the advance slowed as the day wore on. With heavy rain turning the battleground into a muddy morass the following day, the Canadians and Highlanders slogged grimly onward. Such was the ferocity of enemy resistance that Currie’s original plan to have only one brigade at a time on the sharp end had to be abandoned and each division put two brigades forward. Consequently, by the night of August 28, both divisions had, at a cost of 5,801 casualties, shot their bolt well short of the Drocourt-Quéant Line.9

  As the Germans were pouring reinforcements into the D-Q Line, as it was nicknamed, First Army headquarters agreed to delay the next advance to September 1. Then the Canadians would attempt to not only carry the D-Q Line but also Canal du Nord in one jump. Before this offensive could be undertaken, however, the ground between the Canadian current position and the ideal jumping-off line roughly parallelling the D-Q Line from a distance of 600 yards needed to be secured. That task was assigned to 1st Canadian Division on the right and the 4th British Division, placed under Currie’s command, to the left with Brig. Raymond Brutinel’s independent mobile brigade’s Canadian Cyclist Battalion guarding the British left flank immediately south of the Scarpe. Heavy fighting ensued and not until the evening of August 31 was the jumping-off line secured. Currie placed one of 4th Canadian Division’s brigades between 1st Division and the British 4th Division with plans to hit the D-Q Line the next morning.

  The previous fighting, however, had so worn the British division that its commander told Currie he could not advance across the breadth of frontage assigned, so Currie widened 4th Canadian Division’s frontage by another thousand yards by committing another brigade. This caused a postponement to September 2, which had the benefit of giving 1st Division’s 3rd Brigade time to capture a strongpoint known as the Crow’s Nest. This 60-foot-high bald bluff overlooked the D-Q Line from about a thousand yards. With one Canadian Scottish company in support, the 48th Highlanders of Canada stormed the Crow’s Nest and its seizure ensured that 1st Division could form for the coming assault free of German observation. 10 Several Canadian Scottish officers climbed the knoll to study the D-Q Line. “We got out our glasses and commenced to scan the country,” one officer wrote. “The first thing I saw was a line of figures emerging from a trench and advancing on the battalion [the 48th Highlanders] holding the front—no mistaking them, they were Huns.” A forward observing artillery officer on the Crow’s Nest phoned in co-ordinates for a barrage which soon “dropped and scattered the Huns.”11

  In 1st Division’s sector, 3rd Brigade would be on the right, 2nd Brigade the left. The Royal Highlanders and Canadian Scottish would lead 3rd Brigade’s advance with the latter battalion on the extreme right flank of the corps and maintaining contact with 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers of 57th (West Lancashire) Division. Beyond this broad plan many details were still hanging on the evening of September 1 when Lt.-Col. Cyrus Peck established his battalion headquarters in a large dugout alongside No. 2 Company. The other companies lacked any accommodation, their men lying in the open ground designated as forming-up positions. It was a cloudy, moonless night, but the rain had lifted so they were relatively dry.

  Peck had still to receive the brigade operational order when he called the company commanders to the dugout at 2030 hours, so they ended up waiting impatiently until after midnight. Leaning close to a candle set on a table, Peck read the order out loud—the others crowding close around because German shells exploding nearby made it difficult to hear. Their instructions were straightforward—the two lead battalions would drive straight through the D-Q Line and then the Royal Montreal Regiment and 48th Highlanders would pass through to capture Cagnicourt and two woods east of this village—Bois de Bouche and Bois de Loison.

  Peck des
ignated No. 1 and No. 2 companies to the first wave with the other two companies following at an interval of 30 yards.12 Three tanks would accompany the Canadian Scottish and it also would be followed by a mobile artillery piece from the 25th Battery of the 6th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery to provide close support as directed by the battalion commander.13 Zero Hour was 0500 hours.

  Several shells had fallen near the dugout while Peck had been reading the orders, shaking dirt down from the ceiling onto the maps spread across the table. As Peck finished up, a closer explosion rocked the dug-out and then someone shouted, “The M.O.’s killed!” Peck rushed out and discovered the battalion’s medical officer, Captain John Cathcart, had been hit. “He’s done,” Peck mournfully reported to the other officers, after examining the man’s severe wounds (which, in the end, proved not to be fatal). Word flew through the ranks that the popular medical officer, who had never hesitated to go into No Man’s Land to treat wounded, had been killed. The prospect of entering battle without a doctor to treat their wounds put many of the men on edge.14

  After this calamity the company officers returned to their units while Peck and his staff remained in the dugout. With them was No. 2 Company’s sergeant pipe major, Jimmy Groat, who had garnered the Military Medal in 1917. Peck noticed that Groat “was standing not far away from me, puffing a long black pipe and straining his eyes to read a paper in the flickering light from the candle on my table. I was leaning forward on the table close by, gazing at the map of the coming battle. Word is passed down the stairs, ‘Move on Number 2 Company.’ Groat quietly lays down the paper, nods to me and turns to go. Then, in a moment another order comes: ‘Stand fast Number 2 for ten minutes.’ He turns and lays down his Pipes on the wire bed, pulls out his old pipe and lights it, picks up the paper and reads. I don’t think I ever saw a finer picture of mental control.”15

  Beyond the dugout, things were anything but calm as Zero Hour approached and the forward companies scrambled to get into position amid “a turmoil of shellfire and bombing.”16 The redoubtable Captain Gus Lyons, who had led No. 1 Company into battle many times, was unable to reconcile the surrounding terrain to the map. A sunken road was to establish the boundary between the British troops and his company, but he found only a muddy track running directly eastward. Lyons decided this would serve and told his men to extend in line north from this point until they met up with No. 2 Company’s right-flank platoon. No. 4 Company stood 30 yards to the rear.

  No. 2 Company, meanwhile, had left the dugout and wandered through inky blackness with the clock ticking down to Zero Hour, its newly appointed commander increasingly anxious that he would fail to be in position left of No. 1 Company on time. Lt. Max Reid had taken over the company from Major James Scroggie on August 25 when he moved up to battalion second-in-command. Reid had served in the ranks until being wounded during the Battle of Festubert, returned to Canada for commissioning, and risen to the rank of Captain before voluntarily reverting to a lieutenancy in order to be posted back overseas. While not new to combat, Reid knew his debut as a company commander was off to a shaky start.

  Reid was not the only one lost. Behind, No. 3 Company had also strayed off in the wrong direction only to be gathered in by a headquarters staffer and guided to its start point. The same officer then realized No. 2 Company was missing and Peck cast out a net of men to search for it.

  No. 2 Company’s whereabouts were still unknown when No. 1 Company’s second-in-command, Captain Sydney Douglas Johnston, passed word from the right flank that there was no trace of the Royal Munsters. It was 0430 hours. Fifteen minutes later, “when every second was precious,” Johnston ran up to where Lyons was standing with a couple of other officers to report he had chanced upon a Munster outpost only to have the non-commissioned officer there claim he “knew nothing whatever of the attack about to take place, and … was positive his unit was not taking any part in it.”

  Lyons greeted this news with dumbfounded silence. Just then Peck and his piper approached and Lyons gave him the news. “Well, it doesn’t make any difference, we’ve got to go forward whether they do or not,” Peck said calmly.

  The lieutenant-colonel was putting on a show, for the British absence worried him almost as much as the presence of increasing numbers of German soldiers mysteriously popping up in small holes running along the length of the battalion start line. Peck had dismissed the first ones to appear as men stationed in advanced listening posts—all eager to surrender when approached—but soon there were just too many for that explanation to hold. Finally, one prisoner confessed that his battalion had been forming precisely on the start line for a counterattack scheduled for 0600 hours. More battalions, he said, were deployed between 800 and 1,000 yards to the front of the German wire in preparation for this attack. Peck realized the Canadian Scottish would have to drive through these forward forces to gain the D-Q Line. If his leading companies got tangled in a point-blank shootout short of the wire, the attack would be stalled. But there was no option but to proceed as planned.

  Right on schedule, the supporting barrage slammed down on the great drapes of wire and German trenches behind. The Canadians advanced toward the rising sun and the shells exploding in great gouts of flame and smoke. Lt. Reid had got his lost company into position at the last moment, so Nos. 1 and 2 Companies walked forward in a broad line. The artillery had dropped a covering smokescreen through which the Canadian Scottish glimpsed hundreds of German infantry approaching with hands raised in surrender. There was little resistance and the Canadians were soon closing on the wire, their only casualties being caused by friendly fire from one artillery battery whose rounds persistently fell short. Shrapnel from one exploding round cut down Captain Lyons with a wound that would cost him a leg.17

  At headquarters, Peck was feeling like a helpless bystander as the attack unfolded. His angry calls did nothing to get the friendly fire lifted off his men. Nor could he establish contact with the promised tanks or single artillery piece that were supposed to be advancing behind the troops.18

  As Reid’s men closed on the wire, they came under machine-gun fire from a wood identified as “Trigger Copse.” The company’s Lewis gunners immediately returned fire, while Reid sent one platoon from his company and another from No. 4 Company round to take the enemy from behind. As these troops pushed into the wood, the Germans surrendered.

  From the heights to the right of the Canadian Scottish a hellish rate of fire was cutting right across their front and many a man cursed the Royal Munsters for their absence that day. Lt. Reid’s No. 2 Company pushed through this hail of lead to the first band of wire only to find the artillery had failed to open any holes. Unable to find a way through, the two companies on this flank were rapidly shredded by the German machine gunners. All eight officers were wounded, five of them mortally.

  One survivor wrote: “I saw John Elliott dead.… [Alex] Campbell-Johnston and [Eric] Drummond-Hay gone west. Drummond-Hay was playing his [kazoo] during the advance, and when I saw him dead he had the [kazoo] in his hand.

  “We came up against the ‘darndest’ mess of barbed wire I ever saw; the Hun in front and on the right, doing a lot of damage. The wire is perfect and there we stick. I got a machine-gun bullet in the shoulder, and it entirely dispelled any preconceived notions I had as to the burning pains or sting of a bullet; it was more like the village blacksmith swinging on one with a thirty-pound hammer. It whirled me around and I heard someone laugh. Looking down I saw it was [Captain] Joe Mason in a shell-hole with one of our fellows and a scared-looking Hun.”19

  Sgt. Frank Earwaker of No. 1 Company’s No. 4 Platoon had taken cover in a shell hole until Lt. Campbell-Johnston ordered another advance. About twenty men accompanied the officer, who was only eighteen and had enlisted as a private when not yet sixteen. “We all got up together,” Earwaker wrote, “and didn’t get more than five yards before we met with the heaviest fire from the trench in front of us that I have ever faced. Down I went into a shell-hole; Lieutenant Ca
mpbell-Johnston flopped on his stomach right in the wire about twelve feet to my right.… [He] raised himself on his hands, looking to the front, evidently trying to see how much chance he would have to go forward, when they got him in the head.” Earwaker and the survivors from the two companies were trapped in the shell-holes, unable to go further or to retreat. They could hear a tank grinding around behind them and, on spotting it, a number of men waved their helmets to draw its attention to their plight. But the tank stayed back.20

  Peck had also spotted a couple of tanks. Running out in front of them, he pointed to the high ground where the German machine gunners were stationed and gestured that they should advance against that position. Instead, to Peck’s consternation, the tanks “turned about and left the vicinity.” Accompanied by Lt. John Dunlop, Peck decided to go back to headquarters and use the phone to direct artillery fire on the heights. En route he came upon a large number of Royal Munsters and encouraged them to attack the German positions, but his remonstrations “had no effect upon them.” Finding a number of Canadian heavy machine gunners in a trench near the start line, Peck pointed out the ridge and soon had them firing on it. Deciding this was as good as the artillery, he and Dunlop started back toward the front only to be driven into a shell hole by heavy enemy fire.21