BEF Campaign on the Aisne 1914
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Young’s exasperation at finding himself at the rear of the column was not an experience generally shared by the cavalry. During the advance to the Aisne the cavalry corps was usually at the forefront of any action and in the bad weather preceding the crossing of the Aisne itself – with the RFC effectively grounded at Saponay– the cavalry was the only means GHQ had of knowing exactly where the enemy were. William Read recorded his frustration at being grounded by poor weather, ‘low heavy clouds all day, heavy rain from 1pm onwards’. Twenty four hours later he described the damage caused to the squadron’s aircraft after a particularly violent storm on the night of the 12 September. ‘A sudden squall got up and turned over five BE’s and two Henri’s. They were all badly smashed up. Sheckleton’s [Second Lieutenant Alexander Sheckleton] machine was making love to Fuller’s – one was found leaning against the other’. Four aircraft of 5 Squadron were completely destroyed and over half the machines belonging to 3 Squadron ‘turned turtle’ and were badly damaged. One Henri Farman was blown 30 feet into the air and deposited on top of another and Lieutenant Louis Strange only saved his Henri Farman by pushing it up against a haystack, laying a ladder over the front skids, and piling large stones on the ladder. When daylight eventually dawned there were probably not more than ten machines serviceable.
Bad weather or not, as the BEF pressed ever closer towards the Aisne valley it was essential to have good intelligence on the state of the numerous known crossing points over the river ahead. Along the front facing the BEF – from Bourg to Vénizel – there were seven road bridges, an aqueduct and a railway bridge. Unbelievably none of the divisional staffs, apart from that of the 1st Division, appear to have ordered a technical reconnaissance to be carried out by RE officers ahead of the main body of troops. RE officers did carry out a token reconnaissance of the Bourg bridges on 13 September on orders from 1st Division HQ, not that that made a shred of difference to the overall bridging strategy which subsequently evolved. It is true there was a field squadron with the cavalry division – and this could have been used more effectively – but this hardly exonerates the lack of foresight. Had there been more forethought and consultation with senior RE officers, the heavy bridging equipment could have been directed to the crossing points where they were most needed. As it was it was a further twenty-four hours after the first troops arrived on the Aisne before the first bridging train arrived – more of which later.
Pressed into a 15 mile front, the Cavalry Division and Douglas Haig’s I Corps were allocated the crossings at Bourg, Pont Arcy and Chavonne, General Gough’s Cavalry Brigade and II Corps at Vailly, Condé and Missy and III Corps at Vénizel and Soissons. Apart from the realization that most, if not all, of these bridging points would inevitably be targeted by German demolition teams, the British sappers would have immediately recognized the difficulties posed by the Canal Latéral which ran parallel to a good deal of the river’s course on its southern bank. To cross the river east of Condé, the crossings over the canal had first to be secured – providing of course they had not been demolished. The passage of the Aisne was not going to be easy.
Although some of the units of the BEF now heading towards the Aisne valley would have already had a fleeting introduction to its geography during the retreat, it would have been the steep march in the August heat which took them out of the valley towards the Marne that most of the men would have remembered. Now, with the boot on the other foot, there was a fresh opportunity to assess the task which confronted them. Major John Mowbray, the brigade major of the 2nd Divisional Artillery had no illusions about the difficulties which the BEF faced:
‘The country on both sides of the river between Soissons and Craonne consists of high ground some 250 – 300 feet above the valley bottom. The direction of the Aisne is east to west – the main valley being about 1 mile in width. The valley bottoms are partly wooded and the slopes are almost entirely wooded with dense copses in which progress is difficult. One notable feature is a layer of limestone running at a height of about 200 feet above the valley which had been drawn upon for building stone resulting in numerous quarries and natural caves. The Aisne is about the size of the Thames at Oxford and unfordable. A feature is the canal running along the valley with a branch to the Oise at Bourg, passing the ridge north of the Aisne through a tunnel. The canal is also an unfordable obstacle. The watershed between the valley and the country further north is a continuous ridge of about 300 feet above the valley stretching from Soissons to Craonne along which runs the Chemin de Dames. From this ridge the plateau extends down in fingers.’42
The fingers were in fact a series of spurs projecting south towards the river from the Chemin des Dames ridge. Running left to right from Crouy to Bourg – a linear distance of approximately 15 miles – some nine spurs of varying size projected down towards the river. It was these spurs which were the key to gaining the Chemin des Dames ridge as Mowbray’s professional eye was quick to establish. His diary betrays his concerns as to the difficulties this valley would pose should the Germans decide to make a stand on the northern heights along the Chemin des Dames. In estimating the distance between the two ridges on either side of the valley as about 6 miles, he recognized that, ‘any point in the valley can be observed from the Chemin de Dames ridge, as can most of the spurs and valleys and be very exposed to artillery fire. The whole position on the river lends itself to artillery fire from the northern side.’ In addition he quickly and correctly weighed up the difficulties infantry and artillery would have in advancing up the numerous spurs and side valleys, ‘all of these positions’, he felt, ‘were exposed to cross fire’ and were, ‘tenable only with great difficulty.’
It would very soon become clear that the width of the valley and the wooded nature of the slopes severely handicapped artillery batteries in finding suitable positions from which to mount any form of counter-battery fire or indeed support the advancing infantry. The standard 18-pounder gun used by the Royal Field Artillery found the German guns beyond range and the thickly-wooded slopes prevented artillery observers from spotting German batteries with any degree of accuracy, or, in some cases, the British infantry formations they were attempting to support. Initially it was only the heavy 60-pounder guns which could make an impression until the field artillery batteries were able to cross the river behind the infantry. Even then the difficulty in locating suitable firing positions proved a continual headache for battery commanders.
In the absence of the RFC, intelligence on the river crossings was left largely to cavalry reconnaissance, one such patrol of the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars (4/Hussars) which was dispatched on 12 September to gather information on the Vailly and Condé river bridges, found themselves up against a German rearguard still on the south bank of the river. The Hussars were now under the leadership of Major Phillip Howell who had assumed command after Lieutenant Colonel Ian Hogg had been fatally wounded during the rearguard action in the forest north of Villers-Cotterêts eleven days previously.43 Hard pressed by the pursuing Germans, the regiment was forced to leave its mortally wounded commanding officer behind in the care of the regimental medical officer near the hamlet of Haramont.
Here, as had happened at Villers-Cotterêts, the Hussars found themselves up against a larger force, but this time they were in no mood to retire. Galloping under shell fire along the narrow approach road to the bridge at Vailly they came under fire on their right flank from German cavalry ensconced in the nearby Château de Bois Morin. With the question as to whether the bridge and its immediate area was occupied now answered, and never one to avoid a fight, Captain John Gatacre led C Squadron in a spirited attack down the length of the winding road to the chateau effectively driving off the Germans who vanished in the direction of the bridge. Howell was later able to report to brigade HQ that:
‘Gatacre’s squadron (‘C’) comfortably established north end of wood near bridge with two maxims. Bridge appears to be intact and is only about 500 yards from Gatacre. Uhlan patrols attempting to cross hav
e been driven back and except a few men cut off and still wandering about woods, I doubt if any Germans are south of the river in this quarter.’44
The bridge observed by Gatacre’s men was most likely the canal bridge, as the road bridge spanning the river was certainly not intact by that time as 56/Field Company was soon to discover. However Gatacre’s assessment of the Condé Bridge – a mile and a half downstream of Vailly – was correct. The bridge was found to be intact and very strongly held at the northern end, to which any approach was greeted with a hail of well directed machine-gun fire. As darkness fell that night Gatacre and his men were bivouacked on the banks of the river but it would be another day before the marching columns of I and II Corps heading north in the pouring rain would arrive.
Nevertheless, on the left flank of the BEF, the advance guard of the 4th Division had already arrived. At 1.00pm on 12 September Brigadier General Aylmer Haldane and 10 Infantry Brigade were directed to take the high ground above Septmonts and reconnoitre the bridge at Vénizel. According to Haldane’s diary the bridge was approached by a patrol of 16/Lancers who reported it had been damaged by the enemy – exactly how and to what extent was unclear. This was reported to Brigadier General Wilson, the acting divisional commander, who, at the time, was standing with Haldane on the heights above Septmonts watching, ‘a considerable body of German troops and transport moving northeast along the Laon road’.
That evening the daylight faded quickly as a canopy of rain cloaked the river valley, masking the arrival of the forward units of the 4th Division into Billy-sur-Aisne. Working on his own initiative, Major Charles Wilding, commanding 2/Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, sent two of his rifle companies down to the bridge at Vénizel, their appearance prompting the German engineers to blow the charges they had prepared on the bridge. The Inniskilling war diary does not note the exact time of this incident but it was after dark and there is a note that the detonation was only partially successful and that a second attempt to blow the remaining charges by the German unit on the bridge was prevented. After this encounter the battalion moved back north of Billy.
There is understandably some confusion as to when the various movements on and around the bridge took place. The three brigades of Wilson’s 4th Division were being funnelled into the Aisne crossing at Vénizel in the pouring rain, each brigade ostensibly undertaking its own reconnaissance of the bridge and divisional staff clearly not getting to grips with the logistics of movement.45 Haldane’s record of the 16/Lancers reporting the bridge damaged during the late afternoon on 12 September does conflict somewhat with the Inniskilling war diary account but fortunately the Royal Engineers’ historian is a little more precise and places Captain Francis Westland of 9/Field Company on the bridge sometime after 8.00pm on 12 September.
Westland found that only two of the demolition charges had gone off and, in his opinion, the bridge would take the weight of an infantry brigade providing they crossed in single file, thus suggesting the encounter on the bridge by Wilding’s men occurred a little earlier. The Official History also tells us that ‘after dark’ Captain Roe of the Inniskillings removed the remaining fuses by torchlight and that German units were entrenched on the opposite bank. Whether this was actually undertaken by Roe or by Westland is not known but what is not in doubt is that by dawn on 13 September Hunter-Weston’s 11 Infantry Brigade had received its orders, crossed the Aisne using the Vénizel bridge and was in position above Bucy-le-Long.
The main body of 9/Field Company arrived at Septmonts at 9.00am on 13 September, ‘We had considerable trouble getting the pontoons up to Septmonts’, recalled Bernard Young, ‘the mud had begun to give us a foretaste of what the winter of 14/15 was to be, and our horses were pretty much done up’. His new commanding officer, Major Desmond Hoysted, having joined the unit on the road near Montigny, was now faced with the task of building a pontoon bridge over the now swollen Aisne. Hoysted was replacing Major John Barstow who had been killed during the retreat whilst attempting to blow the bridge at Bailly on 30 August. Killed during an ambush by a cavalry patrol from the German Guard Cavalry Division, Barstow’s body had been left behind as the sappers had beat a hasty retreat. Hoysted was an experienced engineer and no stranger to active service – he had commanded 26/Field Company in South Africa during the Second Boer War – and realizing the urgency of establishing a safe crossing over the river – he and his sappers set about constructing a pontoon bridge alongside the damaged one. Bernard Young recalled that the bridge was:
‘Started at noon and finished at 5.00pm; 190 feet in all, three trestles, four pontoons and the remainder made with barrel piers from a convenient oil depot nearby and a superstructure from the village … As far as we could tell we were in sight of the enemy; in any case, the bridge proper, 50 yards upstream, was on the map; nevertheless these bridges were never hit by the enemy, though he was sufficiently persistent in all his attempts to hit them.’46
The road bridge was made safe and repaired in time for 12 Infantry Brigade to cross on the morning of 13 September by Lieutenant Giffard Le Quesey Martel and a troop of sappers using, ‘a few Heath Robinson iron flats and bolts and a handy steel-work telegraph pole’.
Three miles upstream at Missy-sur-Aisne, Major George Walker and the sappers of 59/Field Company were faced with a far more difficult task. The company arrived at Serches early on 13 September and after successfully descending the long hill down to Ciry without attracting fire from the opposite bank, Walker despatched Lieutenant James Pennycuick ahead to reconnoitre the road bridge. Walker then continued on to the railway station with the remainder of the company to forage for material which might be of use in rebuilding the bridge at Missy should it be required. At 3.00pm Walker was contacted by Lieutenant Colonel Arundel Martyn commanding the 1st Battalion Queen’s Own Royal West Kents (1/RWK), who had arrived with the battalion the previous evening. Martyn explained that his battalion had been ordered to attack and cross the bridge at all costs which was believed to be intact. This information had apparently been provided by a party of 4th Divisional Cyclists which it seemed, had seized the bridge at 1.00am but had been driven off by superior numbers soon afterwards. The cyclists were plainly working in isolation from the patrol of West Kents, led by Lieutenant Moulton-Barrett, which had succeeded in getting to within 150 yards of the bridge sometime during the early hours of 13 September and despite losing a senior NCO had at least ascertained that both banks were being held by a German rearguard but could shed no further light on the material state of the bridge.
Needless to say, it wasn’t long before Lieutenant Pennycuick’s reconnaissance of the bridge – which had been carried out using field glasses in daylight – served to confirm Walker’s initial fears. Two of the three spans of the bridge had been demolished and the river was too deep to ford. It was, commented Walker drily, ‘a nice job for a field company with nothing but what they carried in tool carts’. Conveying this information to Colonel Martyn, the West Kent’s had little alternative but to push on to the river as ordered and see for themselves. In what was described as, ‘a bad day for us’ by Lieutenant William Palmer, the OC of C Company, Colonel Martyn deployed B and C Companies in the woods on either side of the road leading to the bridge in support of D Company which had the task of taking the bridge if it was indeed intact. William Palmer watched with some apprehension from the cover of the wooded bank as D Company advanced over the flat, featureless ground which led to the bridge. With no indication of the strength of the enemy rearguard, Captain Frank Fisher and Lance Corporal William Atkins went on ahead but were met with a fusillade of rifle and machine-gun fire, Fisher was cut down immediately and Atkins only narrowly escaped a similar fate.
Despite the loss of their company commander, the advance continued in the face of heavy fire from the far bank – but not without casualties. No. 6 Platoon not only lost their officer, Lieutenant Horatio Vicat, but also their platoon NCO, Sergeant William Burr. Frank Fisher had only been promoted to captain a few weeks earlie
r on 5 August and had survived Mons, Le Cateau and the retreat, whereas 29-year-old Horatio Vicat, who had only joined the battalion at Tournan on 4 September, served just nine days before losing his life.47 Their loss was a grievous blow to the battalion and merely added to the lengthening casualty list of twelve officers already killed or wounded in the four weeks since the battalion had embarked for France. That evening saw the battalion in control of the southern bank which enabled Major Matthew Buckle of the West Kents and Major Walker to examine the bridge in more detail. As Walker wrote after the war, with one complete span of the bridge destroyed, ‘nothing could be done to make it fit to cross in under two or three days’.
With the bridging train still a day’s march away, and faced with the urgency of getting troops across the river, there was little alternative but to try and get the infantry across the river using makeshift rafts. By 5.00pm the German rearguard had been driven off the damaged bridge by the West Kents and 59/Field Company began ferrying the men of 13 Brigade across the river, an operation which took most of the night to accomplish. It was at this hotly contested crossing that Captain William Johnston and Lieutenant Robert Flint spent much of the next day under fire ferrying ammunition across one way and wounded the other. Major Walker later commented: