Bulfin’s orders from division were not to push on beyond the Chemin des Dames, but as yet the strongpoint ahead of him – consisting of the sucrerie and the adjoining farmhouse – was preventing his brigade from reaching its objective. This sector of the line was defended by three battalions of the German 27 Reserve Regiment and the guns of 14 Reserve Field Artillery Regiment, and it was against these that the Loyals advanced. Facing the barrage of fire, which was being directed at them, Hyndson described his platoon’s advance into what appeared to be certain death as beyond comprehension:
‘I extend my platoon after Loomes (he is far in front of his platoon waving them on; this is the last I saw of him). Loomes is on my right and Goldie on my left.176 Had only gone a hundred yards under a perfect hail of bullets when I heard a singing sound on my right. Two eight-inch shells had pitched 20 yards to my left and blew sky high a few of my platoon. The shells emitted a tall cloud of black dust and smoke. Truly terrible missiles. We go forward, but as yet I can see nothing. At last we reach the firing line. How anyone reached it is beyond comprehending. And such a line. All manner of regiments are there, and the dead and wounded are lying around in scores. We carry the factory and hold on like grim death. Allason is a little to my right and Goldie landed up to me. He shortly afterwards moved off to the left by rolling on his side, and that was the last I saw of him.’177
The Loyals carried the attack to the sucrerie factory building as ordered with B and D Companies advancing across a quarter of a mile of open ground. Their casualties – which were alarmingly heavy – included the commanding officer, Major Walter Lloyd and his adjutant, Captain Richard Howard-Vyse who were reported to have been killed in the first rush.178 But their advance provided the catalyst and with the Loyals now in possession of the sucrerie buildings, Lieutenant Vere Dashwood and his machine-gun section from the Royal Sussex brought up their two Vickers guns and into a position from which they could bring a heavy fire onto the German batteries to the east. Dashwood’s men effectively prevented any attempts by the German gunners to withdraw their guns, each time horses and limbers were brought up they were shot down by the fire from the sucrerie building, ‘the guns of both batteries became derelict’, exclaimed the Sussex war diary. The Loyals’ war diary suggests the factory building was occupied sometime after 11.00am but by 12.30pm they were running short of ammunition. Lieutenant Hyndson again:
‘The German machine guns were very nasty; they keep traversing up and down our line. A great increase in the noise of cracking whips overhead always heralded their return. Many men were hit and the casualties became truly appalling. We get no reinforcements or ammunition and soon exhaust our supply. Germans heavily counter attack.’179
By this stage, Sergeant Sanderson of the KRRC had lost nearly half his men and was also running short of ammunition. He sent an urgent request for both and remarked that, ‘I got the ammunition but no reinforcements’. The situation was becoming desperate, even more so since the German line was being strengthened by units of the German X Corps from the Second Army and a Horse Artillery Abteilung from the 9th Cavalry Division.
Let us leave 2 Brigade lodged precariously around the sucrerie for the moment in order to consider the movements of Brigadier General Maxse’s 1 (Guards) Brigade. Maxse’s brigade had suffered heavily during the retreat from Mons when 2/Munster Fusiliers under the command of Major Paul Charrier, had fought a desperate rearguard action at Etreux on 27 August.180 The battalion had been detailed as rearguard to the brigade but Charrier did not receive orders to retire until it was too late. Cut off just before they entered the town of Etreux, the final engagement was fought in an orchard before the surviving 256 men and 3 officers who were left standing, surrendered. Maxse was quite rightly criticised by Haig for his handling of the affair and it was not until 5 September that the 1st Battalion Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (1/Camerons) joined the brigade to bring it up to strength.
Leaving their bivouacs at Paissy, the 1/Coldstream was detailed as advance guard to the brigade and moved at 6.45am through Moussy and Vendresse. Avoiding the sunken road – where the initial engagement had begun earlier that morning – the battalion climbed the wooded slopes above Vendresse in single file to reach the high ground of the Troyon spur in order to approach Cerny from the southwest. Extending across the flat top of the plateau and guided by the tall chimney of the sucrerie, which they could just make out through the mist and driving rain, the battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel John Ponsonby, soon came under heavy rifle and shell fire, Ponsonby noting with some pride that, ‘the men advanced splendidly, no man hesitated, although many were falling on all sides’.
Meanwhile the Camerons and 1/Black Watch discovered one of the numerous tracks which ran up onto the spur from the southwest and had already arrived on the top near the quarries on Mount Faucon. Extending into skirmishing lines they moved between two of the quarries for some 500 yards and lay down with the Black Watch on the right. At 7.00am the advance began again, this time towards the distant finger of the factory chimney, but as soon as they left the cover of the wooded area they came under attack from the front and the right. Whilst A Company bore the brunt of this attack, the remaining companies continued extending their lines with one company of the Black Watch on the right and the elements of the Scots Guards on the left. It must have been a magnificent sight and one which the Germans on the Chemin des Dames had cause to remember as the highlanders swept through the enemy trenches and took up a firing line some 80 yards beyond the road.
With two half companies across the road the remainder of the battalion moved up the small Blanc Mont spur where they were able to bring fire to bear on the Chemin des Dames ridge. The Camerons now occupied an ‘S’-shaped firing line which was attacked at 8.00am along its whole length. The weight of enemy infantry eventually forced the right flank to fall back behind the bank of the Chivy road.
Attacks on the battalion continued throughout the morning, during which time Lieutenant Colonel McLachlan was wounded whilst on the left of the line C Company were introduced to the white flag ruse:
‘No 11 Platoon of C Company on the left (2/Lt Smith-Sligo) had 13 men killed altogether owing to the fact a body of Germans advanced waving their rifles above their heads and apparently wishing to surrender. On the platoon going forward they were decimated by the fire of another German line behind, and the line apparently wishing to surrender lay down and probably fired also.’181
Although this ‘white flag’ incident may have been the same one as described by Sergeant Sanderson, it is possible it was an entirely separate event, bearing in mind the Camerons were west of the sucrerie and the men of 11 Platoon went forward to receive the surrendering Germans. Nevertheless, it appears that this time it was a deliberate ploy by the Germans to lure the unsuspecting British infantry out of cover.
In the intervening time – whilst the Camerons and Black Watch were dealing with the left flank – John Ponsonby and the Coldstream Guards reached the brick wall which surrounded the sucrerie at about the time the factory chimney was brought down by enemy shell fire. Thus it was sometime around 9.30am when Ponsonby, with a mixed party of men from all regiments, and Number 2 Company of the Coldstream pushed on over the road itself:
‘We made rushes by sections and got to the sunken road and pressed on forward to a village, Cerny by name. At this time I suppose we were about 100 to 150 strong, but under the circumstances it was impossible to estimate numbers, we could only hope the remainder of the battalion would come on … Charlie Grant took 50 men down one side of the village, Aldam, Paget and myself keeping down the centre of the village with the remainder. In the village I found a large German ambulance corps; a German colonel came out of one of the houses. I saw he had about 20 medical officers with him and there appeared to be a whole medical arrangement and appliances in the house.’182
On the far side of the village they stumbled across German troops. At first Ponsonby thought they were British or even French troops but qui
ckly realized they were in fact the enemy who, after a brief but sharp firefight, vanished into the gloom. At the northern edge of the village the party were discovered and John Ponsonby was hit in the ankle. Surrounded, they remained in the wood until dark when they managed to evade the enemy during a rainstorm:
‘We passed German troops within 50 yards, but by keeping as quiet as possible and with the aid of the storm of wind and rain, we passed through them unobserved. We could only go at the rate of about one mile an hour, as I could not be carried any faster …At 5.00am we got onto a main road and walked in to one of our field ambulances at the village of Vendresse.’183
John Ponsonby’s advance over the Chemin des Dames was not the only one that morning. A mile further east along the ridge the Queen’s, together with the 1/Northamptons, had also advanced over the road, meeting little opposition until the ground fell away from them by La Bovelle Farm. Here the battalions found themselves looking down into the valley of the Ailette which separated them from the German 8-inch artillery batteries on the far rim. Nothing was done to capitalize on this advance but the Queen’s did wreak considerable havoc with their machine guns on German troops who were unfortunate enough to be moving to the east. It is almost heartbreaking to ponder on the fact that at two separate points along the Chemin des Dames, barely a mile apart, the German line had been infiltrated with very little difficulty by a substantial number of British troops who were then forced to withdraw in the absence of any support.
The Northamptons’ advance was graphically described by Lieutenant Evelyn Needham who advanced with the battalion up the Moulins spur and was in sight of the Chemin des Dames at 11.30am. Needham, known to his friends as ‘Jack’, could see the ridge to his front and had a grandstand view of the battle around the sucrerie:
‘It was still very wet and misty and we could only just make out the ridge opposite with its telegraph poles running along the Chemin des Dames, its haystacks and its factory chimney. But we could see the 1st and 2nd Brigades attacking the terraces to our left front, and a wonderful sight it was – just like watching a field day on the Fox Hills or Salisbury Plain, except there were continuous puffs of smoke about, both on the ground and in the air, and that one saw little figures collapse and lie still! The noise of gun fire, machine guns and rifles was incessant, but only an occasional spent bullet came over us on our hill, or a very occasional shrapnel burst. Why the Germans did not plaster our hill-top with shrapnel I cannot imagine.’184
Ordered to advance in extended order, C and B Companies moved up to take a position on the left of the Queen’s. Needham and his platoon were part of C Company and were initially masked from enemy observation by the mist and a shallow depression in the ground. Intent on maintaining pace and focused very much on staying alive, Needham did not notice his passge over the first line of German trenches as they topped the rise and halted on the road itself. After straightening up their line with the Queen’s they went on:
‘About a hundred and fifty yards beyond the road the gradient begins to flatten out, and it was soon pretty evident that we had been seen! ‘Everything seemed to open on us at once – rifles, machine-guns, artillery, etc. The noise was deafening, the rifle and machine gun bullets made a noise like a stock whip being cracked in one’s ear as they passed …It never seemed to stop. Nothing seemed to stop. Men were falling now right and left. We were advancing in two lines, and my platoon was in the second line … on we went – it seemed like miles that we had advanced, whereas it was only about three hundred yards. Men continued to fall, the noise continued deafening, but we could see no shells bursting over the enemy, and we were cursing them accordingly.’185
As their advance ground to a halt Needham recalled lying flat on the ground for about twenty minutes, ‘being utterly unable to find out what was happening elsewhere’. There were no orders and they lay there not knowing whether to advance, retire or maintain their positions. ‘Then the rain stopped and the mist began to clear, and presently to our joy shrapnel started to burst about twenty to thirty yards in front of us, right over the German trenches’.
The clearing mist had enabled Lieutenant Colonel John Geddes’ XXV Brigade RFA to finally bring their guns into action. Up to this point in the battle the British brigades fighting along the Chemin des Dames had been without artillery support. Bringing guns to bear on the enemy positions was impossible in the misty conditions, as without clear observation there was every possibility the gunners would be firing on British troops. Here the Germans had a clear advantage over the British gunners; their guns had been in position well before the attack began and they knew the dispositions of their troops; but at least the mist provided some cover under which the gunners of 116/Battery could manhandle their guns up above Troyon. They were now in action just behind the firing line. Although this single battery could hardly be termed ‘substantial’ artillery support, it did fire some 1,200 rounds and was kept supplied with ammunition entirely by hand – and it at least managed to redress the balance of firepower a little. The welcome shrapnel which Needham saw bursting over the German trenches was most likely from 114/Battery which was firing from a field just east of Troyon, ‘their fire caused the enemy’s rifle and machine-gun fire to lessen a bit, which was a real blessing’.
Lying pressed to the ground north of the Chemin des Dames, the Northamptons were finally ordered to retire by Lieutenant Colonel Osborne-Smith which they did under the cover of shrapnel fire from 114/Battery. The Queen’s were also forced to pull back after the French Colonial Division had failed to make headway on their right, digging in along the line of the Chemin des Dames around 4.30pm with the Northamptons. One gets the distinct impression that once the Northamptons had advanced over the Chemin des Dames they were rather at a loss as what to do next. Needham and his platoon, ‘slithered down the slope backwards on our hands and knees for about fifty yards’, until they were out of sight of the enemy and retired to the Chemin des Dames where they dug in using the roadside ditch. ‘It was now 1.00pm and all hands set to, to dig like badgers. The men had only their entrenching tools, of course, we officers had nothing but our hands and swords, for what they were worth!’
Although the clearing mist had enabled the British gunners to get to work, it also precipitated a series of renewed German attacks on the British positions, particularly on the sucrerie. At 1.00pm an attack, launched at the entire frontage of 1 Guards Brigade and 2 Brigade, pushed the British out of the buildings – which at the same time exposed the Camerons’ right flank – forcing their eventual retirement back towards the Chivy valley. By this time it had also become obvious that the 2nd Division on the left had not made progress and their hoped for appearance on the Chemin des Dames was not going to materalise. The order to withdraw from the sucrerie were prompted by shell fire from the German batteries on the far side of the Ailette valley, James Hyndson was told to get his men out by Captain Lionel Allason. There were not many left:
‘Allason186 orders me to retire and I do so with two Loyal North Lancs, three Black Watch, two Cameron Highlanders. We move back at a fast double, and coming to a Donga, take shelter there. We are subjected to a terrific bombardment and it is death to show a hand. The shells seem to come right in and sweep the hole out. We lie there for some time and then move a little further back. I strike the Gloucester Regiment … they have come up to support us and have had no casualties. They are all very eager to go on.’187
Sergeant Sanderson of the KRRC gave the order himself to what was left of his platoon:
‘I gave the order to retire, calling one after the other, those remaining to keep up a rapid fire so as to render the retirement effective. But the hounds got a Maxim onto us. The chap next to me got hit in the leg and arm and he said, “Don’t leave me Sergeant.” Another chap and I got to him and dragged him along, crawling until we got him to a coal-box hole. The fates were unkind for the other chap got hit so I left my water bottle and scooted …I got back with four men out of sixteen.’188
The German counter attack at 1.00pm brought the 1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment (1/Gloucesters) from 3 Brigade into the fight on the ridge, although 3 Brigade had been instrumental in breaking up a German counter attack on the left flank earlier in the morning, B and C Companies were now sent up to help stabilize the line at Cerny. It was Number 7 Platoon of B Company – the advanced platoon of the Gloucesters commanded by Lieutenant Arthur Harding, which James Hyndson met up with as he retired.189 Hyndson’s account really does highlight the confusion which existed along the Chemin des Dames during the afternoon of 14 September. The Coldstream historian likened it to the Battle of Inkermann where groups of men from all regiments became mixed together in the misty conditions and were led by whoever happened to be available.190 Sixty years later the British infantrymen on the Chemin des Dames were still displaying that same stubborn obstinacy, clinging to positions that had been gained at so great a cost and maintaining a firing line from whatever cover could be found.
Having lost his regiment Hyndson bravely decided to remain with the Gloucesters. This equates to a time of around 5.00pm which corresponds to the late-in-the-afternoon order sent out earlier by Douglas Haig for a general advance of both the 2nd and 1st Divisions – a last ditch attempt to push the Germans off the Chemin des Damesand for both divisions to establish themselves securely on the ridge:
‘Towards darkness the Gloucesters are ordered to attempt to advance on the factory … They ask me to come and I do so, there being no chance of finding my unit. We move off and have several escapes from “Jack Johnsons” and move up the road. Reach top of road when half battalion in front get panicky. The General’s escort bolted and the half battalion of Welch opened fire on us. Luckily they fired high, so no damage was done. The Gloucester Regiment’s leading company had scattered, and it seemed as if we were in for another fight, for we did not know who was firing at us.’191
BEF Campaign on the Aisne 1914 Page 17