Meanwhile 15 Infantry Brigade which had crossed the river just before dawn on 14 September, courtesy of the Royal Engineers of 17/Field Company and their leaking rafts, made their way via Bucy-le-Long to Ste Marguerite, now held by 12 Brigade. With the 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment (1/Dorsets) left in reserve in the shelter of the sunken road north of the village, the three remaining battalions of Gleichen’s brigade moved on towards Missy with orders to clear the Chivres spur from the southeast and push on to Condé. It was, felt Edward Gleichen, ‘rather a large order’. Even the process of actually getting to Missy along the winding road which skirted the high ground to the north was no easy matter:
‘The road thither was spattered with bullets, and shells were bursting all along it. However, by dint of careful work we moved out bit by bit, cutting through gardens and avoiding the road, and taking advantage of a slight slope in the ground by which we could sneak to the far side of the little railway embankment which led to Missy station.’84
Gleichen met Stuart Rolt on the way and agreed with 14 Brigade’s commander to join forces and attack the Chivres spur with a combined force. One company of the Bedfords together with another of the East Surreys had already advanced some way up the wooded spur beyond the village where they consolidated their position and awaited the arrival of the main force. Gleichen’s diary summarised the situation they were in:
‘The difficulty was that it was already getting late – 4.30pm – and that there was insufficient time for a thorough reconnaissance, thought we did what we could in that direction. However my orders from the divisional commander had been to take the ridge, and I tried to do it. I had got together three companies of the Norfolks, three of the Bedfords, two Cheshires (in reserve), two East Surreys (14 Brigade) and two Cornwalls (12 Brigade who had arrived via the broken bridge at Missy) – twelve companies altogether.’85
Although reconnaissance had established the presence of wire netting and wire entanglements in the woods, a number of battalion commanders were more concerned at the level of support available to the attacking infantry. Lieutenant Colonel John Longley, the 47-year-old commanding officer of the East Surreys, was not entirely comfortable with the plan of attack. The battalion war diary recorded his concerns and the subsequent advance:
‘It was not apparent to the commanding officer where the necessary support was to come from in his attack on the spur, and in his report on the situation he pointed this out … The battalion crossed the entanglements unopposed, with the Norfolks on its right and the Bedfords on its left. After passing the wire it had a short steep climb before emerging on to a wide grass track leading up through the wood. The battalion was crossing this track with some of the Norfolks when a very heavy fire was opened on us from our right front, where on some rising ground was a German trench not 70 yards away. It was almost dark now which increased our difficulties, but the line of the track however was made good.’86
After conferring with the Norfolks and the leading company of the Bedfords, Longley was about to instigate a flanking attack when orders arrived from Edward Gleichen to retire. The Norfolks did so immediately leaving one company of Bedfords in support of the East Surreys. From Gleichen’s diary it appears that a number of men were under the impression that they were being shelled by British artillery and had taken it upon themselves to retire, he also makes reference to groups of British infantry firing at their own men in the confusion of the wood. ‘This may have been true’, wrote Gleichen, ‘for some shells were bursting over the wood; but whether they were English or German I do not know to this day’. There was undoubtedly some confusion of direction amongst some units in the gathering dusk which finally gave way to an equally confused retirement. The Cheshire’s regimental historian described the action:
‘Battalions on the left swung unconsciously to the right, and right in front of the Germans there was the most glorious jumble imaginable. Everyone blames everyone else and the Germans took full advantage of it all, as can be imagined. Men fell in every direction whilst officers and NCOs strove, by word and whistle, to reduce this chaos to some sort of order.’87
As to the incident of friendly fire noted by Gleichen, Major Cranley Onslow of the Bedfords described the proliferation of shell fire in the wood which could easily have led to the impression that British batteries were firing upon their own troops:
‘Then the enemy shelled our end (south) of the wood and our guns shelled the north end – so we went back to the village where there was evidently a German telephone as it immediately began to rain shells in the village and most of the houses were brought down, so we took up a position south of the village as it was now getting dusk.’88
While Missy was subjected to a furious bombardment the stream of men retiring from the spur increased, leaving three companies of East Surreys and one of the Bedfords on the spur. Onslow’s reference to a German telephone reflects the widely held belief at the time that the British lines were riddled with spies who were directing German artillery fire. Spies there certainly were and a number of German soldiers were discovered in situ behind British lines doing exactly that, but on the night of 14 September the artillery barrage which fell on Missy was directed by the enormous advantage of direct observation the German gunners enjoyed from the high ground.
Back on the spur Colonel John Longley redistributed his men and pushed forward Lieutenant ‘Monty’ Montanaro with B Company only to have him withdraw to the track again after he found that the German line had been reinforced. Interestingly, there is an undercurrent of implied disapproval running through the East Surreys account of the action in their war diary. Longley would have been quite justified in believing his position – albeit insecure and just 50 yards from the German trenches – was still manageable and with support could be held overnight. The orders from 14 Brigade to retire to Ste Marguerite must have bewildered him a little, particularly – as he correctly predicted – the attack would be continued the next day. Even more galling was the idea that the hard won ground upon which he was now standing should be given up to an enemy who would spend the hours of darkness strengthening their positions. Reluctantly, Longley withdrew his men to Ste Marguerite as ordered.
Before we continue with the attacks of 15 September, we should return to the plight of the battalions at the Missy bridge. The original plan of attack for 14 September included the KOSB and the West Kents from 13 Brigade who were north of the Missy Bridge. But any thoughts of advancing further towards the Chivres spur were prevented by the volume of fire which effectively kept them pinned down on the north bank. Jim Pennyman’s diary account describes the fight which was taking place along the wooded fringe to the east of the bridge:
‘An increasing rifle fire was directed on to our wood, but no shell fire. The task allotted to the Borderers was to line out in the wood in order to prevent the Germans from sneaking down to the river bank, rushing the wood and taking in the rear the troops on our left front. Our front line had its right on the river and its left about the middle of the little salient wood.’89
Aware that the enemy were indeed intending to attack their right flank, Pennyman, who was commanding D Company in the wood, deployed Second Lieutenant Gilbert Amos with his platoon to prevent any enemy intentions in that direction.
‘The bullets kept plumping in here in the most alarming manner, but we daren’t leave it unoccupied. After about a quarter-of-an-hour the message came down from Amos to say he had already had five casualties. So we withdrew his platoon into the middle of the salient and bent our own left flank to join up with them. This seemed to be successful.’90
With casualties mounting in the wood Captain Robert Dolbey decided his presence was required on the firing line. Accordingly he took whatever medical supplies he had to hand and crossed the river to establish his dressing station. It was a journey fraught with danger which began in a leaking raft:
‘A climb up the bank; a rush across the road; a swift tumble down the other side, and we were in the wood; a
wood which seemed alive with death. How thankful I was that we had come in time; for there were wounded men everywhere and one didn’t know where to begin. Then a corporal spoke to me and I turned aside to a little hollow; and there lay young Amos.’91
Gilbert Amos died almost immediately after he was hit. The 18-year-old former Wellington College schoolboy had only just joined the regiment from Sandhurst and was the youngest subaltern in the battalion. He had fought at Mons, Le Cateau and during the advance from the Marne. Mourning his death, Robert Dolbey was under no illusion that, ‘life was very short for all the officers in this battalion; and if death had not come now, it would have surely have overtaken him in the next three months’.
German snipers up in the trees on the high ground to the right of the KOSB were exacting a heavy toll on the men. Pennyman himself had a close shave shortly after Amos had been hit when a sniper’s bullet ‘went into the ground very close’ to where he was firing a machine gun. But it was the second bullet that got him:
‘I thought it might be a sniper who had seen us, so we moved three of four yards to our right. The next thing I remember was a sensation like a blow with a cricket ball in the chest. It knocked me clean down, and I remember shouting as I fell bleeding profusely at the mouth. I felt quite certain I was a gonner, but managed to get up again and give some directions to the gunner, then I flopped down again.’92
Fortunately Robert Dolbey was on hand and his prompt action undoubtedly saved the young officer’s life. ‘Pennyman was brought in all limp and grey and cold; there was blood on his shirt in front and my orderly seeing the position of the wound, said too loudly that he was gone … but the age of miracles was not past’.
After the retirement from the Chivres spur the previous day Edward Gleichen was summoned to a riverside meeting with Sir Charles Fergusson at the Missy Bridge. ‘We got there eventually and crossed the river, sliding down steep slippery banks into a punt, ferried across, and up the other side’. Fergusson ordered a fresh assault on the spur led by the 1st Battalion Norfolk Regiment (1/Norfolks) with the Bedfords in support. On this occasion the attack was preceded by a thirty minute artillery barrage which did little to suppress the enemy sniper fire that greeted the arrival of first light. Major Cranley Onslow had good reason to remember that morning very well:
‘Stand to Arms at 3.30am and await orders which arrived about 5.00am. Snipers in the village and orchards began plugging – I was going along to see everybody had got their rations when I got what was called a German ticket to England in the shape of a bullet from a sniper in my left loin about 6.00am. I got this dressed by a couple of men and lay where I was behind the parapet and eventually got to the dressing station by the haystack where I spent last night.’93
The Norfolks pushed on up the spur but were soon brought to a standstill in the wood where the German positions had been strengthened overnight.
Ordered to advance up the valley to the east of the Missy-Vregny road, 1/DCLI soon came under fire from the spur. Lieutenant Arthur Acland described the valley as, ‘a death trap, cross-fire from machine guns, infantry and artillery, no troops could have got further than ours, unsupported as we were from our artillery’. Such was the confusion brought about by the strength of the enemy defence that the rear battalions of 15 Brigade and the DCLI crowded into Missy where the congestion was spotted from above by a German Taube with the inevitable result. At around 10.00am German artillery drenched the village with shells forcing a temporary evacuation. The attack had been a total failure and it wasn’t long before Colonel John Longley was ordered to move to Missy from his battalion’s dugouts at Ste Marguerite to relieve 15 Brigade which had retired to the northern edge of the village. The Surreys’ war diary takes up the story, noting rather dryly that the 15 Brigade attack had ‘apparently’ not progressed very far:
‘The commanding officer called at Brigade Headquarters en route in order to arrange for some support from the two battalions of 13 Brigade who were still in position as yesterday S E of Missy, as it seemed to him one battalion only might be insufficient to hold the line previously held by a brigade … The night was pitch dark with incessant rain so it was not to be wondered at that a searchlight from the German lines was much in evidence or that the posts of the 15 Brigade were in a hurry to be relieved. Hurry, however, on such a night was impossible.’94
It was well past midnight before the last of 15 Brigade left Missy to cross the river via the new pontoon bridge erected by 2/Bridging Train at Vénizel. Gleichen recalls leaving the village during a heavy German artillery bombardment accompanied by, ‘German flare lights and searchlights’, whilst John Longley observed rather sardonically that it had been, ‘a very trying night’. That evening command of all 5th Division troops north of the river was placed in the hands of Brigadier General Rolt.
Longley’s request for support arrived on the evening of 16 September in the form of the 2nd Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (2/Duke of Wellington’s) which had originally been intended to be part of the attack on the Chivres spur but had not been able to get into position owing to the weight of fire from the direction of Condé. The delay occurred on the river at the pontoon bridge built by 9/Field Company. Having repaired the bridge on 13 September it was badly damaged again next day by a French ammunition limber. ‘It was a very extraordinary feeling’, wrote Lieutenant Bernard Young, ‘as the bridge gradually sank, the decking opened out and through and down we went’. Consequently the two waiting battalions of 13 Brigade were forced to take to the water in rafts. In the event it was only the Duke of Wellington’s which crossed the river that night, the 2nd Battalion King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (2/KOYLI) were caught by the breaking dawn in full view of the enemy gunners. Lieutenant Cyril Helm, the battalion medical officer, described the consequences of being caught in the open by German artillery in his diary:
‘We started off about 3.00am and marched down to the river through the village of Sermoise to within a few hundred yards of the river. Here we halted whilst the Adjutant went on to reconnoitre. Half an hour went by and we could not work out what was the matter as the first signs of dawn were appearing in the sky. We all knew that if we were still there when day broke, we were in full view of the Germans, without any cover, and only a few hundred yards from them. Well! Day broke and we were still there … The men were spread out along a single line of trees and told to lie down. We knew that we had been seen by the German observers and almost immediately four high explosive 5.9 shells burst together, exactly over our heads. They were beautifully timed and only a few yards above us. The scene after that was appalling … the groans of the wounded was too nerve racking for words. Men started to get up and run to a flank but this was no good as there was no cover.’95
Helm describes how his own terror manifested itself with a strong desire to run away but realizing it was up to him and the other officers to set an example to the men he contained his panic and encouraged those around him to remain where they were:
‘My thoughts were indescribable as I realized that lying on my belly, the next shell might blow me to smithereens. A minute afterwards, another salvo came and my orderly corporal, who was with me, only a few feet away, was frightfully shattered; one of his legs being completely blown away … that morning twenty were killed and about fifty wounded.’96
The battalion eventually crossed the river on 24 September and relieved 2/Duke of Wellington’s at Missy.
The arrangements for the evacuation of the wounded from Missy relied upon the bridges at the village and the winding road which led steeply up to the dressing station at Sermoise. Casualties for the 5th Division alone on the 13 September were 16 officers and 728 other ranks killed and wounded and of these, 11 officers and 560 other ranks were wounded. As the majority of these men were in action on the north bank of the river, and the available bridges were in constant use by troops, it is not surprising that very few casualties reached Sermoise that evening. The next day enemy shell fire prevented any mo
vement by the field ambulances during daylight to a great extent and it was only under the cover of darkness that 15/Field Ambulance was able to begin bringing out wounded men from Missy. Even above the river, the road between Ciry and Serches was heavily shelled, disrupting movement between the dressing station and the divisional collecting station at Mont de Soissons Farm. 5th Division horse drawn ambulance trains suffered the same difficulties as their counterparts in the 4th Division, the steepness of the roads leading out of the river valley severely taxed the flagging strength of the horses and it wasn’t until 20 September that motor ambulances put in an appearance to lighten the load.
Mont de Soissons Farm was described by Major Frederick Brereton as, ‘a commodious place’, with beds for between 300 and 400 casualties:
A barn here, floored with straw, an outhouse over the way with palliasses [straw-filled mattresses] ranged along beside the walls, stretchers in the wash house, more palliasses upstairs, and, thanks to the willing assistance of the farmer and his spouse, actual beds in one part of the dwelling – real, comfortable beds for the very severe cases, for those who had needed operations, perhaps for the dying.’97
It was here that Cranley Onslow was brought after being wounded at Missy, although his journey from the front line was not in one of the new motor ambulances:
‘Three miles being jolted in a Maltese Cart then four miles in a horsed ambulance wagon to a clearing hospital at Mont Des Soissons Farm where my wound was dressed again and I had some soup and milk and slept in a bed until daybreak.’98
BEF Campaign on the Aisne 1914 Page 11