The Road Past Monchy: Fighting the First World War at Arras, 1914–1918 0253068606, 9780253068606

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“Focusing on just one part of the ‘Old Front Line’ near Arras, The Road Past Monchy is a remarkable and moving story of one small place and all the men and women who passed through it over the course of four terrible years.”

LOVERID GE

HISTORY, WORLD WAR I

—NICK LLOYD, King’s College London, author of Passchendaele: A New History

Loveridge uses experiences of junior leaders fighting around the key terrain of Monchy-le-Preux to challenge the currently accepted views and reveal that the Great War, despite subsequent impression, was a surprisingly dynamic effort conducted in an arena of constantly evolving practices, techniques, and technology. Less well known than its contemporary campaigns at the Somme, Verdun, or Passchendaele, Monchy also carries less preconceived baggage and thus offers a prime opportunity to reevaluate the accepted wisdom of the events, personalities, and understandings of the Great War. The Road Past Monchy offers readers a unique chance to uncover the “lost” perspective of junior war leaders in a theater of war that saw almost continuous operations from 1914 through to 1918.

THE ROAD PAST MONCHY

Terence Loveridge offers a unique look at the land and air operations around the strategic village of Monchy-le-Preux at the center of the western front during World War I. The story of the Great War is usually one of condemnation or rehabilitation of strategists and consecration of the common soldier, while the story of those who planned, directed, and led operations on the ground has generally been overlooked.

TERENCE LOVERIDGE is a retired professional soldier who makes his home in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. His 40 years in uniform included service as an infantry officer; Chief Instructor of the Canadian Army Tactics School; Strategic Concepts Officer at NATO Headquarters, Virginia; Assistant Professor of History at the Royal Military College of Canada; and Visiting Defense Fellow at Queen’s University, Kingston. He has served in most of the “intervening levels” of the military and has the scars and bruises to prove it. iupress.org ISBN 9780253068606

9 780253 068606

$35.00 53500 >

PRESS

TERENCE LOVERID GE

THE ROAD PAST MONCHY Fighting the First World War at Arras, 1914–1918

THE ROAD PAST MONCHY

TERENCE LOVERID GE

THE ROAD PAST MONCHY Fighting the First World War at Arras, 1914–1918

Indiana University Pr ess

This book is a publication of Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA iupress.org © 2024 by Terence Loveridge All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. Manufactured in the United States of America First printing 2024 Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-253-06860-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-253-06862-0 (ebook)

For Signalman Tom Loveridge and Sergeant Gerry Dean.

Whenever I dream again of the War, of those crowded days which, while they lasted, seemed to comprise all one’s life—past, present and to come—the first picture in my mind is always of the Roads . . . Chaplain Rob Steuart, 12th Highland Light Infantry

CONTENTS



Preface xi



Acknowledgments xvii



Author’s Note  xix



Dramatis Personae  xxi



Maps xxvii Act I. Maneuver



1.  Demolish All Creation, 1914 3



2.  Handfuls of Straw, 1915 27 Act II. Wearing-Out Battle



3.  The Amateurs, January–July 1916 49



4.  Recalibration, October–December 1916 59



5.  The Right Way, January–February 1917 79



6.  Preparing the Men, March 1917 102



7.  Preparing the Field, April 1–7, 1917 125



8.  Easter 1917 147



9.  Damned Hard Luck, April 10–11, 1917 166



10.  A Strange and Tragic Drama, April 11–12, 1917 177



11.  Topsail, April 13–14, 1917 198



12.  Worse Exists, April 16–December 31, 1917 220

x

Con ten ts

Act III. Climax

13.  Grognards, March 21–July 18, 1918 235



14.  War Become Eternal, August 21–25, 1918 252



15.  Something Great and Terrible, August 26, 1918 271



16.  What Can Be Accomplished, August 27–28, 1918 290



17. After 308

Appendix: Brief on Military Structures  327



Notes 341



Bibliography 363



Index 381

PREFACE

The thousands went into battle not ignobly, not as driven sheep or hired murderers—in many moods, doubtless—but as free men with a corporate if vague feeling of brotherhood because of a tradition they shared and an honest belief that they were doing their duty in a necessary task. He who says otherwise, lies, or has forgotten. Lieutenant Philip Child, God’s Sparrows

A century a fter the Fir st Wor ld Wa r—the Great War—poet Michael Winter concluded that the annihilation of the Newfoundland Regiment on July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, happened because “the general who would have thought differently had not yet been born.” He was wrong. The general who thought differently not only had been born but was also present that day and was already thinking differently. Importantly, every leader, planner, supplier, communicator, and medic between the general and the private was thinking differently by the end of that day. Winter’s view is informed not by what happened but by how his society has chosen to remember what happened.1 The Great War overwhelmed its contemporaries’ understanding. It destroyed empires, birthed nations, and initiated a century of ideological and cultural wars. Even the victors could feel little satisfaction. The cost had been high and could not be easily justified, especially in the English-speaking world. Never before had the British Empire fought a land campaign with a mass army, and never before (or since) had it fought a land campaign as the primary opponent of a great and competent power, so casualties exceeded comprehension. Even now, it does little good to point out that individual combatant’s odds against

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survival in other wars, including the next one, the Good War, were actuarially no better than in this one. The numbers were greater: more men fought, so more were lost. Too many. It had to be someone’s fault, and the obvious candidates were leaders and managers, even though no one has been particularly interested in their story.2 Postwar narratives generally fall into one of two dominant themes: condemnation or rehabilitation of strategists and consecration or sanctification of common soldiers. This work seeks to address the narrative gap between these by telling the stories of those who connected these two perspectives: the “intervening levels” where operations were directed and where individuals made decisions and took actions that actually decided the war’s outcome.3 These men (and women) appear in standard narratives as background characters—middle management—standing about in châteaus or hospitals, leaning over maps in bunkers or airfield huts, or blowing whistles to set events in motion. Yet these actors, most of whom had never been or seriously desired to be soldiers, led, fed, supplied, and managed others while they organized a war greater than any of them could have imagined. They built, almost from scratch, those infrastructures and superstructures of war that have become all too familiar. They created new and impossibly large armies, which evolved, Frankensteinlike, in unexpected directions even as they were assembled. It is a situation that brings to mind a recent television ad in which crews build an airliner in flight.4 And these “intervening levels” had to do all this while fighting. In the estimate of one veteran, these individuals “with no previous preparation or tradition—indeed, in very many cases with antecedents which were positively inimical to the development of military qualities . . . took to the business of war, and of leadership in war, with an ease and an understanding which really amounted to genius. . . . And he fell in hecatombs. In proportion to the numbers of his rank he gave his life with greater, with more dreadful, lavishness than any other.”5 Their story took place in a tide of overlapping revolutions. Military historians like to show this by remarking that an officer time-transported from Waterloo or Gettysburg to the 1914 battlefield would find himself on familiar ground, but the same officer transported to 1918 would be lost in an alien universe. But then, a modern reader transported to 1918 experiences a similar dislocation. Social attitudes shock and technology surprises. Social class still dictates, and a 1917 Mark II landship has surprisingly little in common with a modern tank. A flip in a reliable DASH-8 can only suggest what it was like to fly a delicate, opencockpit, linen-and-wood combat aircraft, and a bloody casualty clearing station can only suggest how a hospital emergency ward came about. More significantly, modern readers have been raised with fixed ideas on military organization and

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The Road Past Monchy-lePreux, sketched by Captain David Burles, Essex Yeomanry, 1917. (Out of copyright)

efficiency, and they would find that these routines were considered innovative experiments by those they encountered. There are two films of the Newfoundland Regiment in 1917. In the first, armed men make their way along a road, and even the uninitiated recognize these men are coming out of action. Facial muscles are too tired to hold shape, feet lack sureness, and expressions lack animation. The men move in clusters along the left of a hard-surfaced road while troops in files going in the other direction step smartly. This is the road that runs past Monchy-le-Preux, the battlefield employed to tell this story. The second film was made three weeks later in the same area, and the same men march to billets. They are now uniform in their mysterious and bulky equipment. They are in step, chat, laugh, and even smile at the camera. Mounted officers head each company, and carts, bulging with impedimenta, follow.6 The films capture the essence of a unit in the middle of the Great War. The men are sure of themselves and resilient, despite everything. Memories of their war (and they capitalized it because it was their Great War) were to be overwritten by others (who were aware of what their successors did with the peace and who were not there but who thought they knew what had happened), but the films, like their diaries and letters, keep them in 1917. For them, everything was clear. For them, nothing less than civilization was at risk. They were not wrong. They knew that their Western Front was the only important front. They knew that it was here that the war was to be decided and that many—too many— would not return home. They had survived the cocky 1915 and amateur 1916, but by 1917, they believed they had what it took to get the job done. They did not yet see themselves as being in the overlong second act of a play with short and dynamic first and third acts, but they did know that they were in for a long slog and that they were going to have to stick it. The Newfoundlanders were filmed on the road past Monchy-le-Preux, a hamlet with a name that evoked a reverence among Great War survivors that

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Monte Cassino was to evoke for the next generation. In November 1918, a veteran who had been through a hundred wartime villages whose “names convey nothing,” had to visit the famous hill and see why it had been “such a bone of contention.” He noted that “if ghosts frequent places of the dead, surely that summit must have been thick with them.”7 This “bone of contention” was the highest point of a subtle five-by-threekilometer plateau in the Artois some thirteen kilometers southeast of Vimy Ridge and ten kilometers east of Arras. Julius Caesar first identified it as a outpost that covered the vulnerable point where the Roman road from Cambrai to Boulogne entered the rolling Artois Highlands at Arras. This Mons Petrosium (Stony Mount) was itself protected by the convergence of three rivers: the Cojeul, Scarpe, and Sensée, and it provided good observation into the flat lands of the Belgae (Flanders) to the north, the rolling land of the Gauls (Picardy) to the south, and the approach from the forested frontiers of the Germani to the east. Long after Caesar, the people of Arras (the Arrageois) took to traveling his road out to the little hill for its artesian water (“artesian” comes from the Artois), and was said to be “good for the eyes.” Its panoramas and clean breezes encouraged the wealthier citizens (and this was, for a time, a wealthy region) to build grand, fortified houses on its “nipple,” in a hamlet they christened Monchy-lezPreux. (map 3) The origin of the name was lost. It might mean “Leper Hill” and be related to Jean le Berger, the saintly healer, or to the Templar leprosarium located there for a time. It might also mean “the hill near Roeux” to indicate its proximity to the nearby significant trading village. Or it might mean “Hill of the Valiants.” Monchy was positioned for war and armies from France, Spain, Holland, England, and from long-forgotten polities all marched the road that ran past it.8 In 1654, the French Marechal Turenne sited his command post in Monchy-lePreux while deploying his army to relieve Arras during one of its periodic sieges. He (with a certain d’Artagnan) deployed his troops along the high ground that ran from Roeux on the Scarpe River, over the Monchy plateau to the Wancourt ridges above the Cojeul River. More than a century later, Napoleon pronounced this a position perfectly supported by natural obstacles, and a century after that, this “perfectly supported” position was the heart of statistically the deadliest sector of the First World War’s Western Front.9 From 1914 to 1918, Arras was a major Anglo-French administrative center, and Cambrai, only thirty-seven kilometers east along the road past Monchy, was a German logistics nexus. Little Monchy-le-Preux, thereby, became a prime objective for both sides in what the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung identified as “the most important strategical point of the whole line.”10

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Despite this, the Arras sector carries little cultural baggage (apart from Vimy Ridge). It is not burdened with the anguish of Verdun, the pathos of the Somme, or the sorrow and pity of Passchendaele, so the battles for Monchy offer a relatively clean slate for assessing evolutions and devolutions in the war. Between 1914 and 1918, there were six battles for Monchy, and each time the armies fought there, they fought with new ideas, new technology, and new attitudes. In 1914, Monchy was the site of a critical encounter battle in the “Race for the Sea” between armies, organized, uniformed, and prepared for a nineteenthcentury war, and from 1915 to 1917, it was the site of a long and bitter “wearing out battle” that seemed to drown in a sea of mud and blood but which led to the technical, tactical, organizational, medical, and management evolutions that produced the climax of 1918. The climb up the road past Monchy, therefore, becomes an analog for the journey taken by ordinary humans confronting the birth of modern warfare and shaping their modern world. This biography of a war as told by its participants should, to steal a phrase, serve as a gateway drug to a renewed interest the Great War and serve as a mild purgative for national tendencies to see it in provincial or simplistic terms. I think it holds interest for anyone who wishes to understand how this most inscrutable of wars evolved, and how its field managers set the patterns and expectations for all the wars that followed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Histor i a ns h ave provided m a n y “a h a” moments to a former officer trying to gain clarity on what, to most, is an incomprehensible war and in particular how it progressed along the road past Monchy. These include, inter alia, John Terraine, Paddy Griffith, Jeremy Banning, Peter Barton, Jonathan Boff, Peter Hart, Nick Lloyd, Jonathan Nicholls, Robin Prior, Garry Sheffield, Jack Sheldon, Peter Simpkins, Alexander Watson, Trevor Wilson, Leo Van Bergen, and David Zabecki. Of special interest are the recent works by Doug Delaney, P.H. Brennan, Trevor Harvey, and Peter Hodgkinson on the staff, battalion, and brigade levels of operations—key intervening levels—and by Aimée Fox, Brian Hall, and Ian Malcolm Brown on the development of the system of systems. The most important views, however, remain those of the men and women who traveled the road. Like the 1917 films, they keep the story in their time and challenge certainties. This I learned as a young officer fortunate enough to attend a presentation on a unit action of the Great War in the presence of veterans. On completion of the detailed reconstruction, a very old and very sharp NCO thanked the officers of his regiment for finally explaining what it was he was supposed to do on that day sixty years ago. This story could not be told without the help of others. None can be held to blame for any errors of fact or impression, but all can take credit for its completion. David Bashow, former editor of the Canadian Military Journal, provided support, advice, and an education in air operations and pilots. Michael Boire, of the Royal Military College of Canada, illuminated both the character of the French Army and the 42nd Battalion. Dr. Carl Kletke, Directorate of History and Heritage, inadvertently started this work by finding that key spot at Orange Trench

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Ack now l e dgm en ts

Cemetery, west of Monchy. Keith Maxwell, comrade-in-arms and battlefield explorer, exposed the secrets of the ground and of Charlie Stewart, and Stefan Strybol of Special Travel International (STI) helped find the battlefields. Dozens of archivists and private citizens have been generous with time, pictures, and documents, and the notes and acknowledgments do them insufficient credit. This book is a credit to the professionals of Indiana University Press whose enthusiasm, cooperation, tolerance, and gentle guidance made it possible. Finally, I thank my family: my inspiration and adviser, Heather, an expert in the peripatetic life of a military nurse and military wife, and our tolerant children, Alex, Laura, and Sarah, who toured (sometimes willingly) more battlefields than they can recall and allowed that we call them holidays. Maps and diagrams were produced by the talented Mike Bechtold. Illustrations are credited individually with the following abbreviations: IWM for the Imperial War Museum, LAC for Library and Archives Canada, TNA for the National Archives, UK, and PPCLI for the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Museum and Archives.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The reader expects to hear of strategic theory, of lines and angles, and instead of these denizens of the scientific world he finds himself encountering only creatures of everyday life. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book 3, Chapter 7

A n ov er ly br ief a ppendi x e x pl a ins military formations, units of the Great War, awards and decorations, and rank differences. Even those with military experience will discover that the terminology of the day was not as employed today or even uniform across (or within) armies. I identify German Empire formations, units, and ranks with italics. Armies are identified in written form (Third Army, Sixth Army), corps in Roman numerals (IV Corps, IX Corps), and divisions in Arabic (4 Division, 3 Cavalry Division, 3 Bavarian Division). Units are identified with both official and unofficial designations, such as the 10th (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers, City of London Regiment, also being the 10 Royal Fusiliers, or the Stock Exchange Battalion, or the Stockbrokers. Unit names are rendered in English, but ranks retain their original form because similar-looking ranks often had different responsibilities (see appendix). Unless cited otherwise, details of individuals and operations are drawn from personal records and unit and formation war diaries in the National Archives UK and Library and Archives Canada, the Journaux de Marches et Opérations of the French Ministry of Defense, and German regimental histories. Specifics are in the bibliography.

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

A m er ica n Borden, Mary. Socialite, novelist, matron of French surgical hospital. Flanagan, John Joseph. NCO, Canadian infantry. Lynch, John. NCO, Canadian infantry. Wheeler, David. Volunteer doctor, French Foreign Legionnaire, Canadian and US Army doctor. Wood, Eric Fisher. Ambulance driver, British Intelligence officer, and American staff officer. Br itish A r m y Bailey, Frank. English. Professional soldier, infantry regimental sergeant major. Bragg, Lawrence, “Willy.” Anglo-Australian. Youngest Nobel laureate. Artillery officer. Bruce-Williams, Hugh, “Billy.” English. Engineer and commander, 37 Division, in controversial 1917 capture of Monchy. Bulkeley-Johnson, Charles Bulkeley. English. Cavalry brigade commander in 1917 capture of Monchy. Bunting, Frank. English resident of Yokohama. Cavalryman. Byng, Julian, “Bungo.” English. Commander Canadian Corps and Third Army, future Governor-General of Canada. Carton de Wiart, Adrian. Belgian-British. Highly decorated and muchwounded professional officer.

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Chapman, Guy. English. Author, publisher, academic, and infantry officer. Cuddeford, D. W. J. Scottish. Infantry NCO and officer. Forbes-Robertson, James. Anglo-Scottish. Commanding officer, Newfoundland Regiment, and brigade commander. First among the Monchy Ten. Fox, Frank. Anglo-Australian. Author, newsman, intelligence, and propaganda staff officer. Haldane, Almer. Scottish. Acerbic general officer; commander, VI Corps; tasked with capturing Monchy, 1917. Lipsett, Louis. Anglo-Irish. Professional soldier. Commander, 3 Canadian Division, tasked with capturing Monchy, 1918. Lushington, Franklin. English. Professional soldier, heavy artillery battery commander. Parsons, Victor. English infantry NCO. The “other Parsons” of the Monchy Ten. Mackay, Angus. Scottish. Diarist, machine-gun company NCO. Cousin to Canadian officer Mac Mackay. Mackay, Robert Lindsay. Scottish. Diarist and Scottish infantry officer. No relation to Angus. Merry, Tom. English, with family in Montreal. Infantry NCO. Nicholson, Walter Norris (WN). English. Professional staff officer. Simpkin, Albert Edward. English. Sergeant, dispatch rider. Spears, Edward Louis. Franco-English. Author and omnipresent liaison officer. Steuart, Robert. Scottish. Descendent of Robert the Bruce and chaplain, Scottish infantry. Sutcliffe, Sam. English. Underaged infantry NCO. Sylvester, Sydney. English. Rugby star, infantry NCO. Whiteman, Rupert, “Jack.” Australian. Infantry NCO. Whitmore, Francis. English. Cavalry commanding officer. Wilson, Robert, “Bob.” New Zealander. Polo player, naturalist, and artillery officer. Ca na di a n A r m y Adams, Ralph. Artillery officer with skin condition. Adamson, Agar. Diarist, half-blind chain smoker. Infantry commanding officer. Atherton, William, “Bill.” Infantry officer with a conscience. Bessent, Hubert Arthur. Artillery NCO and notable PTSD case. Biddulph Cyril, “Biddy.” Broadway thespian and infantry officer. Bird, Will. Author. Infantry NCO.

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Bouchard, Leo. Anishinaabe. Infantry NCO. Currie, Arthur. Commander, 1st Canadian Division and Canadian Corps. Dörr, Otto, aka Otto Doerr, aka George McDonald. See under “German.” Gregg, Milton. Stretcher-bearer, infantry NCO and officer. Hemming, Henry. Engineer and artillery officer. Noted innovator. Home, William J. Hockey player and infantry officer. Jucksch, Arnold Homer, “Jukes.” German immigrant family. Infantry officer. Lynch, John. See under “American.” McDonald, George Cross. Infantry and staff officer. Last of the “Golden Milers.” Macdonnell, Archibald Cameron, “Batty Mac.” Commander of 7 Brigade and 1 Canadian Division. Mackay, Mackay, “Mac.” Infantry NCO and officer. Cousin of Angus Mackay (British Army). Mackinnon, Daniel. Horse whisperer and artillery officer. Macpherson, Donald. Diarist, NCO, and artillery officer. Brother to John Ross and two other officers. Macpherson, John Ross. Infantry officer. Brother of Donald. Mason, Alfred. Artillery NCO and officer. Montgomerie, James, “Jimmie.” Professional footballer, infantry NCO, and officer. Norsworthy, Stanley. Banker, planner, and infantry and staff officer. Pearkes, George. Mounted policeman, infantry NCO, officer, and commanding officer. Rutherford, Charles. Infantry NCO and officer. The man who took Monchy, 1918. Soule, Ivan. Infantry NCO and officer. Stewart, Charles. Mounted policeman, charismatic infantry commanding officer. Topp, Charles Beresford. Newspaperman and infantry officer. Tenbroeke, Melvin. Punjab-born infantry NCO and durable officer. Whiting, Frank. Rebellious infantrymen. Willcock, Ralph. Schoolmaster and infantry officer. Young, Joseph. Infantry NCO. Hard-rock miner stronger than anything except microbes and bad luck. Fr ench Balesi, Henriette. Corsican. Escape line coordinator. Barbot, Ernest. Commander 77e Division d’infanterie (Division Barbot). Savior of Arras.

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Borden, Mary. See under “American.” Jauneaud, Marcel. Cavalry officer and pilot. Laffargue, André. Infantry officer and tactical theorist. Mallet, Christian. French-Swiss. Diarist. Cavalry NCO, infantry officer, and air observer. Mordacq, Henri. Regimental, brigade, and divisional commander and advisor to President Clemenceau. Ger m a n Bruchmuller Georg, “Breakthrough.” Berliner. Leading artillery specialist. Bucky, Hans. Thuringian. Prussian infantry reservist. Dörr Otto, aka Otto Doerr, aka George McDonald. German-Canadian. Line crosser. Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg. Monarch; regimental, brigade, and division commander. Fumetti, William von. Silesian infantry regimental commander. Kesselring, Albert. Bavarian artillery officer and future field marshal. Defended Monchy, 1917. Kohl, Hermann. Bavarian infantry officer. Defended Monchy, 1917. Koller, Hans. Schleswig-Holsteiner. Commander of an infantry battalion. Korfes, Otto. Magdeburger. Diarist and professional infantry officer. Krentel, Albert. Saxon. Infantry NCO, Prussian infantry reservist. Lais, Otto. Badener. Painter, NCO, and machine-gun company officer. Lossberg, Friedrich Karl von, “Fritz.” Prussian. Omnipresent general staff officer. Maercker, Georg. Very Prussian. Brigade and division commander. Defended Monchy, 1918. Nagel, Fritz. German. NCO and officer, anti-aircraft and anti-tank unit. Richthofen, Manfred. Prussian. Air commander and Ace of Aces. Stark, Rudolf. Bavarian. Painter, cavalry officer, pilot, and air commander. Thaer, Albrecht von. Prussian. Professional and conscientious General Staff officer. Warnecke, German. Flying observation officer. Warnke, Silesian. Infantry NCO. Defended Monchy, 1917. Wenninger, Karl von. Bavarian. General. Division commander attacked and defended Monchy, 1917. Westmann, Stefan. Prussian. Infantryman, doctor, and surgeon. Wundt, Theodor von. Wurttemburger. General, novelist, mountaineer, and division commander.

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New foundla nd R egim ent Bemister, John. Clerk, NCO, and officer. Curran, Wilfred, “Fred.” NCO. One of the Monchy Ten. Forbes-Robertson, James. See under “British Army.” Gardner, Cyril. NCO, officer, and recipient of numerous awards including a German Iron Cross. Holloway, Bert. Photographer and battalion intelligence officer. Tweedledee. Keegan, Kevin. Battalion signals officer. One of the Monchy Ten. Tweedledum. Langmead, George. Jeweler, NCO, and officer. Murphy, Leo. Clerk, diarist, NCO, and officer. Parsons, Charles. Signaler. One of the Monchy Ten. Rendell, Herbert. Church Lad’s Brigade. Officer. Rose, Albert. NCO and officer. One of the Monchy Ten. Rowsell, Reginald, “Rex.” Teacher. Officer. Stick, Moyle. NCO. Brother to officers Bob and Leonard. POW. Roya l A r m y M edica l Cor ps (R A MC)/ Ca na di a n A r m y M edica l Cor ps (CA MC) Clarke, Richard C. English. Medical officer, casualty clearing station. Hale, William. Canadian. Regimental medical officer (RMO), infantry battalion. Owston, Charles. Canadian. Medical Sergeant, infantry battalion. Selby, Ernest. Canadian. Surgeon and commander field ambulance unit. Warren, Benjamin Harmon. Canadian. Quartermaster sergeant, field ambulance unit. Roya l Fly ing Cor ps (R FC)/Roya l Nava l A ir Service (R NAS)/Roya l A ir Force (R A F) Breadner, Lloyd. Canadian. Scout pilot, RNAS. Fall, J. S. T., “Joe.” Canadian. Survivor of neurosurgery and scout pilot, RNAS. Garland, Ewart. Canadian-Australian. Reconnaissance and bomber pilot and instructor, RFC and RAF. Matheson, W. Drummond. Canadian. Fighter pilot, RFC. Morrow, Ernest. Canadian. Fighter pilot, RAF. Pretyman, George. English. Pioneer pilot, RFC; wing commander, RAF. Samson, Charles Rumney. English. RNAS pilot, aircraft carrier captain, and armored car force commander.

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Ta nk Cor ps Ambrose, Charles. English. One of the rugby group and commander of tank at Monchy, 1917. Bell, Hugh. British. Teacher, officer, and Magdalen College Choir singer. Butler, Robert Thomas Probyn Rowley, “Bob.” Canadian-Anglo-Irish aristocrat. Tank recovery expert. Drader, Harold. Canadian. Officer and companion to Percy the cat. Harris, Jack. English. Driver for Tom Toshack in Monchy. Hatton, Percy. English. Cavalry NCO and tank commander at Monchy, 1918. Hedderwick, Gerald. Scottish. Officer. One of the rugby group. Hotblack, Frederick Elliot, “Boots.” English. Officer and reconographer. Johnston, Henry. Scottish. Commander of tank at Monchy, 1917. Jones, Paul H. A. English. Schoolboy and diarist. Officer. One of the rugby group. McAdam, Lionel. Canadian. NCO, gunner, and mechanic. Nelson, Thomas. English. Publisher to whom John Buchan dedicated The Thirty-Nine Steps. Tank staff officer and one of the rugby group. Salter, Geoffrey. English. Officer. Commander of tanks at Monchy, 1917. Tarbet, William, “Jock.” Scottish. One of the rugby group. Toshack, Thomas. Scottish. Commander of tank at Monchy, 1917. Vyvyan, Frank. English. Tarbet’s tank NCO. Future CBC personality.

MAPS

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Marieux

Doullens

Savy

Villers-au-Bois

0

Bellevue

Barly

5

Point 145

10

Mont St. Eloi

kilometres

Avenes-le-Compte

Izel

Tincques

Ablain Saint Nazaire

Map 1: The road past Monchy-le-Preux

Frévent

Sains

St. Pol

Angres

Loos

15

Vimy Ridge

Lens

Roeux

Bapaume

Bullecourt

Chérisy

Monchy-le-Preux

Croisilles

ARRAS

Gavrelle

Quéant

Étaing

vitry

Douai

Oisy

Marquion

Brebières

Henin-Liètard

Mericourt Drocourt Givenchy-en-Gohelle Vimy Arleux Fresnoy Willerval Oppy Quiéry-Motte Bailleul

Avion

Cambrai

Epinoy

Orchies

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M a ps Nieuport

English Channel

Bruges

Ostend

Antwerp Ghent

Roulers Calais

Ypres

Boulogne

Passchendaele

Brussels

Messines

BELGIUM

Lille Étaples Montreuil

St Pol

Doullens

Lens Vimy

ARRAS

BeaumontHamel

Mons

Charleroi

Monchy-le-Preux Cambrai

Peronne

Amiens

St. Quentin Sedan Laon

Chemin-des-Dames Soissons

Reims Verdun

PARIS St. Mihiel

FRANCE Front line – 5 April 1917 Front line – 25 February 1917 International border

Map 2: Monchy-le-Preux on the Western Front

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40 kilometres

60

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M a ps 0

Givenchy

Souchez

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4000

Hill 145

Beaumont

Rouvroy

metres

Drocourt Acheville

Vimy

BoisBernard

Vim y

La Folie

Ridg

Neuville St. Vaast

Fresnoy

Willerval

e

Farbus

Farbus Wood

Thélus

Izel-lesEquerchin

Arleux-enGohelle

The Labyrinth

Neuvireuil

Oppy Bailleul

Ecurie

Vitry-en-Artois

Roclincourt

Gavrelle Greenland Hill

St. Laurent

Athies

Railway Triangle

St. Sauveur Ronville Tilloy les Mofflaines

Achicourt

Rœux

Feuchy

Beaurains

Monchy-le-Preux Infantry Hill

Boiry-NotreDame

Bois du Vert

Eterpigny

COJEUL R

Guémappe

Remy

Wancourt

Haucourt

Vis-en-Artois

The Egg

Mercatel

Hamblain-les-Pres

Bois du Sart

Chapel Hill

Neuville-Vitasse

E

ARP

Pelves

Orange Hill

The Harp Telegraph Hill

Agny

R SC

Observation Ridge

ARRAS

Chemical Works

R SCARPE

Blangy

Biache-St-Vaast

Plouvain

Fampoux

Héninel

Chérisy

St. Martin-sur-Cojeul

ÉE R

SENS

Hénin-sur-Cojeul SENSÉE

R

COJEUL R

BoiryBoiry- St-Martin SteRictrude Moyenneville

Boisleuxau-Mont

Boyelles

Hamelincourt

Map 3: The Arras Front, 1914–1918

Croisilles

Fontaine-lezCroisilles

Hendecourt-lezCagnicourt

Riencourt-lez-Cagnicourt St. Leger

Bullecourt EcoustSt-Mein

Quéant

2000

Mercatel

Beaurains

Ronville

NeuvilleVitasse

BCP

Telegraph Hill

The Harp

Tilloy les Mofflaines

St. Sauveur

Railway Triangle

Blangy

St. Laurent

metres

77 Div Barbot

The Egg

St. Martin-sur-Cojeul

LR

COJEU

Wancourt

7 Div

Héninel

Chapel Hill

IR 153 Bucky

BCP

Rœux

Greenland Hill

Chérisy

Guémappe

IR 72 FR 36

E ARP

ÉE R

Vis-en-Artois

SENS

8 Div

Bois du Vert

Infantry Hill

Bois du Sart

R SC

Plouvain

Pelves

Chemical Works

Monchy-le-Preux

RIA 159 Mordacq

Orange Hill

Fampoux

RIA 93 Leclerc

R SCARPE

Feuchy

Athies

Feuchy Chapel

IR 66 Kauff Korfes

4000

Map 4: First battle for Monchy, October 1–3, 1914

Agny

Achicourt

ARRAS

0

Observation Ridge

COJEUL R

Camb rai

Haucourt

Remy

Boiry-NotreDame

Biache-St-Vaast

xxxii

M a ps

0

Loos

Grenay

2000

4000

metres

Mallet

LENS Aix-Noulette

Liévin

Sallaumines

Souchez

Notre-D

Angres

ame-d

Avion

e-Lore

tte

Spears

Ablain-St-Nazaire

Méricourt

Givenchy

Souchez

Acheville

Carency

Vim y

Barbot

Vimy

Hill 145

La Folie

Fresnoy Ridg

Willerval

e

Neuville St. Vaast

Wheeler

MontSt-Eloi

Farbus

Thélus

Arleux-enGohelle

Farbus Wood

The Labyrinth

Oppy

Bailleul Laffargue

Ecurie

Gavrelle

Roclincourt

Marœuil St. Laurent

Athies R SCARPE

Blangy

ARRAS

Achicourt

Railway Triangle

St. Sauveur Ronville Tilloy les Mofflaines

Orange Hill

Beaurains NeuvilleVitasse

Monchy-lePreux Chapel Hill

The Harp

Agny Wailly

Feuchy Observation Ridge

Dainville

Fampoux

Telegraph Hill

Guémappe Wancourt The Egg

Héninel

Map 5: Artois Offensive: second battle for Monchy, May 9–10, 1915

xxxiii

M a ps LENS

Aix-Noulette

Liévin

German Front Line

Notre-D

ame-de

Angres -Loret te

Souchez

Ablain-St-Nazaire

FIRST ARMY

Hindenburg Line (Siegfriedstellung)

Avion

Carency Neuville St. Vaast

La Folie

Farbus

Ridg

e

MontSt-Eloi

Farbus Wood

Thélus

The Labyrinth

Fresnoy Willerval

Ecurie

Bailleul

Marœuil

Gavrelle

St. Laurent

Athies

Observation Ridge

Beaurains

Ficheux

Boiry-SteRictrude

Bois du Sart

Dame

Infantry Hill

Bois du Vert

COJEUL R Eterpigny Remy

Wancourt

Vis-en-Artois Héninel Chérisy ER É

SENS

Boisleuxau-Mont

Blaireville

Neuville- The Egg Vitasse

Hénin-sur-Cojeul

BoirySt-Martin

Moyenneville

Haucourt Camb rai

Fontaine-lez-Croisilles

COJEUL R

Hindenburg Line (Siegfriedstellung)

Croisilles

Boyelles FIFTH ARMY Hamelincourt

R SÉE

SEN

Map 6: Arras Front, spring 1917

Hamblain-les-Pres

Boiry-NotreGroup Arras

Guémappe 18 Res Div

Mercatel

4000

17 Res Div

E

ARP

Pelves Monchy-le-Preux Chapel Hill

Telegraph Hill

VII Corps

Wailly

R SC

Orange Hill Feuchy Chapel

The Harp

Agny

Chemical Works

Feuchy

VI Corps

THIRD ARMY

Rœux

Vitry-en-Artois Biache-St-Vaast

Plouvain

Fampoux

R SCARPE

11 Div

ARRAS

Drocourt–Quéant Line (Wotanstellung) Greenland Hill

Blangy Dainville

Neuvireuil

Oppy

Roclincourt

XIII Corps

2000

Izel-lesEquerchin

Arleux-enGohelle

Group Vimy

1 Bav Res Div

Beaumont

BoisBernard

Vimy

79 Res Div

metres

Drocourt

Acheville

Canadian Corps

0

Rouvroy

Méricourt

Givenchy Hill 145 Vim y

Henin-Liètard

Sallaumines Billy-Montigny

Souchez

Bullecourt St. Leger EcoustSt-Mein

Hendecourtlez-Cagnicourt

Quéant

xxxiv

M a ps Givenchy

Souchez 4th Cdn Div

Hill 145 Vim y

Carency 3rd Cdn Div

Canadian Corps

Neuville St. Vaast

Fresnoy Farbus

Front Line 9 April

Bailleul

Gavrelle

Vitry-en-Artois

Roclincourt

XVII Corps

34th Div

Greenland Hill

14 Bav Res Div

St. Laurent

VI Corps

ARRAS 37th Div

Blangy Railway Triangle

12th Div

THIRD ARMY

St. Sauveur Ronville Tilloy les D 14th Div Mofflaines 3rd Div

R SCARPE

C

C Rœux

Feuchy

Monchy-le-Preux

56th Div

Wailly

Mercatel

H

VII Corps

St. Martinsur-Cojeul

30th Div

COJEUL R

Hénin-sur-Cojeul

Boiry-SteRictrude

BoirySt-Martin

Boisleuxau-Mont

Boyelles

Croisilles

Eterpigny

COJEUL R

Remy Vis-en-Artois

18 Res Div

Haucourt

Camb rai

ÉE R

SENS

Chérisy

Fontaine-lez-Croisilles Hendecourt-lezCagnicourt

SENSÉE

21st Div

Boiry-NotreDame

Bois du Vert

R

Blaireville

Héninel

Bois du Sart

G

Wancourt

F

The Egg

Hamblain-les-Pres

Pelves Group Arras

Infantry Hill

17 Res Div

Guémappe

E NeuvilleVitasse

E

ARP

D

Chapel Hill

Telegraph Hill

Beaurains

R SC

Orange Hill

The Harp

Agny

Chemical Works

11 Div

Feuchy Chapel

Biache-St-Vaast

Plouvain

Athies Fampoux

Observation Ridge

15th Div

Ficheux

Neuvireuil Oppy

1 Bav Res Div

51st Div

Izel-lesEquerchin

Group Vimy

Arleux-enGohelle

Farbus Wood

4th Div

Achicourt

Willerval

B

Thélus

9th Div

Dainville

Drocourt BoisBernard

79 Res Div

e

Ecurie Marœuil

A Vimy

Ridg

The Labyrinth 1st Cdn Div

Beaumont

Rouvroy Acheville

La Folie

2nd Cdn Div

FIRST ARMY

MontSt-Eloi

16 Bav Div

Fr 12 Aont Lin pril e

Front Line 12 April

Ablain-StNazaire

220 Div

Riencourt-lez-Cagnicourt Bullecourt

Moyenneville 2000 metres

4000

Hamelincourt

St. Leger

FIFTH ARMY

EcoustSt-Mein

Line Front ril 9 Ap

0

Quéant

Map 7: Battle of Arras: third battle for Monchy, April 9–10, 1917 Legend: BEF: 1 Norsworthy, Tenbroeke, Atherton, Rutherford; 2 Carton di Wiart; 3 Vyvyan; 4 Cuddeford & Steuart; 5 Whiting & Bunting; 6 Ambrose; 7 Bell; 8 Haldane; 9 Allenby. GER Army: A Derendorf; B Volkheimer; C Fumetti; D Warnke; E Thuden; F Krentel; G Wundt; H Koller.

VII Corps Mercatel

Beaurains

3 Div

12 Div Ronville Cav

NeuvilleVitasse

E

D

Telegraph Hill

The Harp

Tilloy les Mofflaines

St. Sauveur

11 Div

F The Egg

17 Res

R SCARPE

4 Div

LR

St. Martin-sur-Cojeul

COJEU

18 Res

Wancourt

Feuchy

Feuchy Chapel

C

Athies

14 Bav

Héninel

Chapel Hill

Orange Hill

Map 8: VI Corps Attack: third battle for Monchy, April 9–11, 1917

Agny

Corps

VI Achicourt

37 Div

Railway Triangle

Blangy

St. Laurent

15 Scot

9 Scot

ARRAS

XIII Corps

Observation Ridge

H

D

0

Rœux

Chérisy

Guémappe

G

ÉE R

SENS

Vis-en-Artois

Bois du Vert

Infantry Hill

Bois du Sart

E

ARP

metres

2000

R SC

Plouvain

Pelves

Chemical Works

Monchy-le-Preux

C

Fampoux

Greenland Hill

COJEUL R

Camb ra

i

Haucourt

Remy

Boiry-NotreDame

4000

Biache-St-Vaast

xxxvi

M a ps Pelves

(1.3 km)

WARNKE

15 Scot Div CUDDEFORD

BERNARDINI

JOHNSTON

C Bn Tanks 8 Cav Bde

Château Florent main square

villa

HANSEN

11 Div

WHITEMAN, SYLVESTER

C Bn Tanks

TOSHACK, AMBROSE, SALTER

KOHL

urt R Wan co

Infantry Hill

elements

cemetery

18 Res Div

oad

les Fossés Farm

elements

Monchy-le-Preux

BUNTING

37 Div

3 Bav Div

park

SPECK

elements

la Bergère Arras –

Camb

rai Ro

ad

0

Guémappe Map 9: Capture of Monchy, April 11, 1917

500 metres

1000

NFLD

Y W B D C A

Z

9/17

10/17

X

11/18

9/18

1 Essex

1 Worc

Guémappe

Monchy-le-Preux

1000

Camb rai

12/17

5/23

6/23

7/23

12/18

12/23

11/23

11/17 Bois du Vert

Infantry Hill

8/23

10/18

Map 10: 29 Division Attack: fourth battle for Monchy, April 14, 1917

Arras

29 Div

2 Hants

500

metres

3 Bav Div

Bois du Sart

Jigsaw Wood

2 BN/BIR 18 4 companies

1 BN/BIR 17 4 companies

Boiry-NotreDame

2 BN/BIR 17 4 companies

1 BN/BIR 23 4 companies

Hatchet Wood

9/23 10/23

1 BN/BIR 18 4 companies

LR

0

COJEU

xxxviii

M a ps Vim y

Carency

Neuville St. Vaast

Farbus

1st Army

Neuvireuil Oppy

Bailleul

Ecurie

Gavrelle

I Bav Res Corps

Roclincourt

Marœuil

4 Div

3rd Army Achicourt

R SCARPE

Railway Triangle

15St.Scot Div Sauveur

Feuchy

185 Div

Wailly

Mercatel

R SC

E

ARP

Hamblain-les-Pres

III Bav Corps Bois du Sart

Monchy-le-Preux Infantry Hill

12 Div

Telegraph Hill

COJEUL R

Vis-en-Artois

236 Div

26 Res Div Hénin-sur-Cojeul

Eterpigny

Remy

Wancourt

Neuville- The Egg Héninel Vitasse St. Martinsur-Cojeul

Boiry-NotreDame

Bois du Vert

Guémappe

3 Div

COJEUL R

Chemical Works

Pelves

Chapel Hill

The Harp

Beaurains

Rœux

Orange Hill Feuchy Chapel

Ronville Tilloy les Mofflaines

Agny

Ficheux

Athies

Blangy

Biache-St-Vaast

Plouvain

Fampoux

Observation Ridge

ARRAS

Dainville

Vitry-en-Artois

Greenland Hill

56 Div St. Laurent

Blaireville

Izel-lesEquerchin

Arleux-enGohelle

Farbus Wood

Thélus

The Labyrinth

4000

Fresnoy

Willerval

e

2000 metres

Vimy

Ridg

3 Can Div MontSt-Eloi

0

La Folie

ÉE R

SENS

Chérisy ÉE R

SENS

IX Haucourt Corps

Fontaine-lez-Croisilles

Map 11: Operation Mars: fifth battle for Monchy, March 1918

Camb rai

4th

CIB

CIB 5th CMR

Front Line 26-27 Aug

R

2nd CM

Hin de Linenburg

Start Line 26 Aug

8th MR

Guémappe

Monchy-le-Preux

1st C

Orange Hill

Wancourt

Chapel Hill

4th CMR

PPCLI

49th Bn

Rœux

7th CIB

Cojeul

42nd Bn

Map 12: Sixth battle for Monchy, August 26–28, 1918

52nd Br Div

NeuvilleVitasse

2nd Cdn Div

Arras

Canadian Corps

3rd Cdn Div

B

6th CIB

Fampoux

5th CI

51st Br Div

RCR

9th CIB Chérisy

49th Bn

Jigsaw Wood

0

FresnesRouvroy Line

1 kilometres

43rd Bn

Vis-en-Artois

52nd Bn 2nd CMR

Upton Wood

Remy 43rd Bn

R 5th CM

4th CMR

Hamblainles-Près

2

3

Camb rai

Eterpigny

Vis-en-Artois Switch

Haucourt

e Sensé

Trench systems

58th Bn 58th Bn Boiry-Notre-Dame 116th Bois du Sart Bn Bn Bois du Vert 52nd

42nd Bn

PPCLI

Pelves

ée

Scarpe

Sens Front 27–28 A Line ug

9th CIB Fron 28–29 t Line Aug

7th CIB

4th CIB

7th CIB 8th CIB

act I

MANEUVER

There is in the first instance the preliminary stage of the campaign in which the opposing forces seek to deploy and maneuver for position. Field Marshal Haig, Final Despatch

one

k

DEMOLISH ALL CREATION, 1914

Particular factors can often be decisive—details only known to those who were on the spot. Carl von Clausewitz, On War Imagine a battle which begins at the very moment when the organs of the command of the army concerned (General Staff, artillery, aviation, telegraphic service, etc.) scarcely exist. Capitaine Marcel Jauneaud, “Souvenirs de la bataille d’Arras (octobre 1914)”

Fr a nce a nd Ger m a n y w er e pr epa r ed. It took only the assassination of an Austrian archduke in Sarajevo, Bosnia, to set them in motion. Both empires had trained and mobilized millions of men, so once war became official, French armies were marching east to regain the provinces lost in the last war, the Franco-Prussian War, and German armies were marching into Belgium to hook around the French fortress zone. Both sides counted on a Russian “steamroller” of armies to move against Germany’s eastern flank, and the German General Staff calculated it had forty-five days to defeat France before the Russians could complete their mobilization. Staff calculation also assumed that violating Belgian neutrality should bring the British Empire into the war but too late for Britain’s powerful navy or “contemptible” little army to interfere. In August, French and German armies collided all along the Franco-German frontiers and in Belgium. With half their forty-five days used, German soldiers

3

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Act I: M a n eu v er

with blistered feet and worn boots were marching from Belgium into northeastern France, headed for where the Marne River flowed into the Paris basin. Casualties were in excess of a half million, and the British Empire had entered the European war, turning it into a world war—a Great War. Contact: W ednesday, August 26 The first British soldier to see Monchy-le-Preux was Lieutenant George Pretyman of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), and he saw it from a two-seater Blériot monoplane. The aircraft resembled an apple crate with a latticed tail. It had no ailerons, so Pretyman steered it by warping the wings with a series of control wires—an action now made more difficult because the engine was emitting a worrying amount of black smoke—and he was emphatically descending from three thousand feet. Pretyman and his observer were from 3 Squadron, RFC, and had been scouting the German army near Cambrai when a German rifleman put a bullet into their engine, forcing Pretyman to turn west toward what he hoped was still friendly territory. He put the River Scarpe on his right, sputtered along over the straight Arras–Cambrai Road—Caesar’s Road—and pointed the machine’s nose toward the most visible rise of the distant Artois Highlands, Vimy Ridge. The ridge descended toward Arras, which as far as Pretyman knew was still in French hands (map 1). Arras proved too far. The machine’s rate of descent meant it was not going to be able to skip over a singular, oblong plateau standing thirty meters (one hundred feet) above the rolling farmland east of Arras, especially since the top of the feature was extended by the startlingly high church spire of the red-roofed village of Monchy-le-Preux. Had Pretyman stayed aloft as far as Monchy, he should have been able to see the fifty miles across the Douai Plain north to the humps of the Monts de Flandres in Belgium, near the village of Passchendaele, and forty miles south into Picardy, where the Ancre River carved its way into the Somme Valley to the south. He would have had a bird’s-eye view of what was to become the British sector of the western front. Instead, he bumped his apple crate down among French cavalry and graciously accepted the gift of bicycles for him and his observer to return to their squadron.1 (map 2) The first Germans saw Monchy not long after. They came on horseback along Caesar’s Road and turned north at the La Bergère crossroads to trot the eight hundred meters uphill to Monchy. They were looking for water and a place high enough to see down into Arras.

De molish A l l Cr e ation, 1914

5

Bleriot two-seater monoplane.

Foam-flecked horses with iron-shod hooves clopped over cobbles while their big-booted riders, with stubbled, weather-beaten faces and drooping Wilhelmine moustaches, examined everything with weary, wary eyes. They held carbines with casual authority across breastplates while their horses took the famous artesian water and their officer scouted the terrain. Then they left. The plan required that they continue south, by Arras, to protect the flank of the thirty-four German corps marching south toward the Marne River. It was two weeks before word reached Monchy of the miracle on the Marne. The French, with some British help, had won a hard battle, and the Germans were in retreat. The forty-five-day plan was dead. A French victory ensured that war was to continue, and Monchy was positioned for war. Most of the millions of Prussians, Wurttembergers, Bavarians, and Saxons who had marched to the Marne were conscripts and recalled trained reservists called to assigned caserns to be uniformed, armed, and deployed by rail in accordance with prearranged movement schedules. Conscript Stefan Westmann was serving in the 113th Infantry Regiment (5th Baden) when war was declared. His company assembled to hear its commander explain that the deteriorating international situation had rendered the new

6

Act I: M a n eu v er

German Empire under imminent threat from surrounding hostile powers, so they were to march. Stefan was a medical student, and his commander assured him that after six months in the infantry, he could transfer into the medical branch.2 Tobacco merchant Fritz Nagel had to abandon a business trip to Antwerp and report to the 18th Reserve Division artillery unit in Bremen. His personal situation was somewhat complicated by his engagement to an English girl living in Germany and by his brother in Kentucky being a member of the United States Army Reserve.3 In the Duchy of Baden, seventeen-year-old student Otto Lais reported to 169 Reserve Infantry Regiment (8th Baden) in the Lahr casern south of Baden-Baden. He was a trained reservist and so was marching west three days after war was declared.4 Hundreds of thousands of untrained volunteers, including many students, turned up to take the oath to God and kaiser (king for Saxons, Wurttembergers, or Bavarians) and be assembled into a reserve army. They did not expect to be committed to action before being trained. The war drew in outsiders from its outset. American Eric Fisher Wood was a postdoctoral architect at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris when intimations of war led him to refugee work for the American embassy. Witnessing war’s tragedies could not inoculate him against the siren call to arms once he heard French soldiers—the poilus—smashing their feet on Paris streets in time to the “greatest of national anthems.” “It was the Marseillaise of war. . . . Each word was a threat, an imprecation, intense with ferocious meaning. Their intonation carried conviction that the men meant literally every impressive line they uttered. . . . I felt exultantly certain that the French were going to smash the Germans into tiny bits, and was equally sure that they could, if need be, demolish all creation.”5 Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons! Marchons!

Wood joined the American Volunteer Ambulance Corps and was soon traversing shattered and shocking fields between the Marne and a Red Cross station at Doullens, which was being run by an American archeologist. David Everett Wheeler was a forty-two-year-old Boston surgeon descended from Sir William Pepperrell, the man who captured Louisburg for the En­glish crown in 1745. His family maintained its Canadian connection, and David hunted in and wrote about northern Canada and even spoke some Cree. Once

De molish A l l Cr e ation, 1914

7

the guns sounded, David set out with his wife, Mabel, for the American Hospital in Neuilly, Paris. Mabel was a nurse with a social pedigree as long as David’s and was the chair for the Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.6 Mary Borden, in contrast, had a police record for suffragette action. She was an American heiress from Chicago and the niece of Vice President Adlai Stevenson. An expensive education had encouraged a talent as a budding novelist, and a hasty, likely rebellious, marriage to a Scottish missionary had provided children and some facility in German, French, and Hindustani, but Eric Fisher Wood, circa 1923. even by age twenty-eight, she had no real worldliness. Missionary service had stoked passion, but a return to Britain set Mary adrift in a circle of artists who inspired an unsatisfactory affair and literary pretensions. During a third pregnancy, she announced to her louche set that war could not happen in this global age. When the war Mary said could not come, came, her group dissolved, and with it her ennui. War was an opportunity to make her life “tell for eternity.” She delivered her child, hired two nurses, and set out for a typhus hospital in France. She was on a trajectory to meet Lieutenant Edward Louis Spears, the first British officer in action on the western front. Spears, also twenty-eight, was French raised and known to fellow cavalry officers as Edward (sometimes Beaucaire), but his friends called him Louis. He was sent as liaison to the French, an appointment that placed him in the presence of the high and mighty when they made (and did not make) decisions. Personal liaison was vital. The British and French had not worked together in living memory, and their armies were organized differently. There was no real command relationship, everything had to be coordinated between mostly

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Act I: M a n eu v er

unilingual generals. Liaison officers were expected to take accurate notes, pass messages without opinion, and know their place, but Spears could be bristly (and had a suspiciously Jewish name, originally Spiers), so most British suspected he was tainted by Francophilia, and French assumed he was a wellmeaning British spy.7 Conveying messages between “brass hats” made Spears familiar with the narrow roads and narrower trenches of Artois and Picardy. He was dodging shrapnel and invective while armies across the British Empire were still drilling with sticks and waiting for uniforms. M eeting Engagem ents: W ednesday, September 30 By the time French reservists in their blue coats and red trousers arrived at Monchy, the fields were turning from green to gold, and the Scarpe marshes were active with kingfishers, ducks, and swallowtail butterflies. The reservists were a form of national guard, all old soldiers between forty and forty-five, but capable enough of manning a barricade at the La Bergère junction on the Arras–Cambrai Road by Monchy. When German cavalry came this time, it came from the south, out of Picardy and along the Sensée and Cojeul River valleys. The reservists watched the ripple of horsemen along the Mercatel-Neuville Vitasse ridge east of Arras, and as it turned toward La Bergère, they shot at it. The uhlans and dragoons made little effort to return fire but swung their horses east toward Cambrai. French cavalry was close on their heels (map 3). Children came out to call recognition of French units—heavy cavalry in dark blue on chargers and light cavalry in pale blue on friskier steeds—and they cheered most enthusiastically for the Algerian spahis in rakish fez, red waistcoat, and blue balloon pants. In return, the spahis waved their bamboo lances and flashed their sabers. It was a spectacle familiar to their grandparents and great-grandparents who had cheered French horses taking this road against Germans in 1871 and 1814. By evening, the dust had settled over the beet fields, and the villagers were out again watching columns of black smoke curling into the air to the east. Farmers were burning their crops to keep them from the enemy. One of the cavalrymen was Christian Mallet, proud to be performing his French national service in the almost fashionable 22nd Dragoons. The twentytwo-year-old son of an old Huguenot family with residences in Paris and Geneva was one of 125 dragoons in his squadron, all between 1.64 and 1.75 meters tall and weighing no more than seventy-five kilograms. When word came that Germany

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9

was on the move, the dragoons collected their three-meter-long, tubular steel lances; one-meter sabers; and three-shot Berthier carbines. They donned their dark blue coats over their red trousers, pulled on their Corinthian helmets with horsehair plumes, and rode out as part of their nation’s “invincible rampart.” Mallet’s squadron was one of four making up the 22nd Dragoons, and the Twenty-second was one of four regiments in the 5th Cavalry Division. Ten cavalry divisions—some 160 squadrons—had ridden with pennants snapping in the wind, ahead of France’s five field armies to the frontier. Mallet’s winding path took him by the outskirts of Paris, where he stole a brief moment to say farewell to his mother.8 It took less than a month to reduce Mallet’s regiment to little more than a single squadron. There had been no pause to reform or receive replacements, and promotion had come quickly for survivors. Mallet was a sergeant by the time both armies broke off battle to grope northward, looking for exposed flanks. Mallet’s new responsibility meant he rode point—at the head of the column—most of the way from Amiens to Doullens, the major communications hub halfway to Arras. The enemy had departed before Mallet cantered in from the south and an eccentric little British armada of Rolls-Royce cars purred in from the north. The cars hummed by lines of colorful French horsemen to deposit a wounded German dragoon with the Red Cross unit. The young Prussian informed his caretakers that he’d been captured by “Captain Kettle,” an infamous British bandit with a price on his head9 (map 2). Captain Kettle was Commander Charles Samson, a thirty-one-year-old aviation pioneer in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). He had been the first man to pilot an aircraft off a moving ship and was now the first British officer to command an armored force in combat. The officers of 3 Squadron (Naval 3) had donated their touring cars to secure airfields, and the Royal Navy had donated Royal Marines to crew them. Once they had strapped locally obtained iron plates onto the cars and mounted machine guns on the hoods, they had become an impromptu but deadly little counterforce to German cavalry.10 Deprived of Doullens, the kaiser’s engineers and infantry began moving earth farther east along the Ancre Heights by Beaumont-Hamel. They built strongpoints on the best tactical terrain and began connecting them with trenches, and as they extended what was becoming the western front, the cavalry continued north into the Arras corridor looking for the next open flank. French horsemen followed. This Race to the Sea became a sequence of running fights and a phantasmagoria of costly encounters between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. German lancers howled with joy as they rode down French skirmishers and

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ransacked baggage trains. Elsewhere, grim, peasant French infantry, behind barbed wire, slaughtered well-bred cavaliers and purebred mounts. Louis Spears managed a trip in a Blériot to scout Prussians lined up like “a long black shoelace,” and he was able to drop a bucket of metal darts onto men and horses.11 Mallet’s nineteenth-century saber squadron rode toward the Artois accompanied by a battery of twentieth-century French 75mm field guns. These pieces—soon to be commemorated in a gin and champagne drink, the French 75—had hydraulic recoil buffers that enabled them to rapid-fire seven-kilogram air-burst projectiles over a target five kilometers away. Mallet witnessed a 75’s projectile cone of 290 lead balls explode over an unsuspecting cavalry column to produce an instant Grand Guignol of shattered men and horses. Cavalryman Mallet was to never forget the final heartbreaking whinny of what was left as he rode by. As the cavalry rode east beyond Monchy-le-Preux, the French formed a makeshift Tenth Army at Arras. Besides the cavalry, it consisted of a score of staff officers (including British Liaison Officer Louis Spears) and a smattering of reservists. Even after the railway delivered its combat power, two infantry divisions en route from fighting in the Vosges, it would be barely a corps in size. At least the Tenth had eyes. French aircraft dropped messages describing enough German spike-helmeted infantry and horse-drawn guns lining roads from Cambrai and Picardy to indicate two, possibly more, corps—at least eighty thousand fighting men—headed into the Arras gap. French General Headquarters (Grand Quartier Général, or GQG) thought that if the Tenth Army could grip its nose, forces marching north from Picardy could strike its flank. A French staff officer with an eye for ground drew probable engagement lines on the map. His first line connected the eastern Arras suburb villages of Tilloy-lès-Mofflaines, Neuville-Vitasse, and Mercatel, and a second line farther east ran along Turenne’s old position from Roeux to Monchy-le-Preux to the hill by Wancourt on the Cojeul River. For good measure, he added a third, east of Monchy. It ran from a jigsaw-shaped wood near the River Scarpe to where the Sensée and Cojeul Rivers converged near Chérisy. The lines reflected, almost exactly, lines of battle for the next three years12 (map 3). It was afternoon before the 77th Division began detraining its two brigades, the Light Brigade and 88th Brigade. The Light Brigade’s four battalions of light infantry (Battalions de Chasseurs á Pied, or BCP) set out to secure vital points along the projected route of the enemy while the heavier brigade, the 88th, assembled its two regiments of Alpine Infantry (Regiments d’Infanterie Alpin, RIA), the 159th and 97th, with the division’s thirty-six 75mm guns, company of engineers, and squadron of reconnaissance cavalry. (See appendix for organization chart.)

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An American correspondent described these Alpins and chasseurs as “bearded as the lion’s tufts” (the army provided no razors) and the “finest human beings I have ever known.” They were the Blue Devils, and 77 Division was the Division Barbot, named for its charismatic commander, Général Ernest Barbot.13 The Alpins were to beatify Barbot. The fifty-eight-year-old was what they had grown up believing a leader should be. Machines were scraping away the last patina of chivalry, but Barbot was a throwback: a French knight “sans peur et sans reproche.” He’d lost both wife and son, so his Alpins were his family. He ate what they ate, spoke like they spoke, and dressed like they dressed. The story circulated of a recruit asking an old conscript in a worn blue overcoat why the army had not let him go yet, only to hear Barbot respond, “They won’t let me. I’m the general.” They appreciated the conceit of wearing the simple soldier’s coat because it covered the general’s lucid understanding of men and combat. They knew Barbot would always be clear about what they were to do and would be there to do it with them.14 There were two roads west to Arras: the road past Monchy-le-Preux and the road through Douai. A Bavarian corps was on the road to Douai, and a Prussian corps was on the road past Monchy. The plan was for them to snap closed on Arras like pliers (map 1). Douai was on the River Scarpe where it curved north from Monchy, and like Arras, it had once been a garrison town on the frontier of the Spanish Netherlands but had become a town of “snug comfort and prosperity.” Rail lines and roads had long since sliced through its ancient fortifications “as with a cheese knife,” and its current garrison was fewer than five thousand reservists with six field guns. At least the new telephone system functioned, so the Tenth Army knew when Bavarian infantry was within six kilometers, or about one hour, east of town and the garrison needed help.15 Enter A r mor: Mor ning, Thur sday, October 1 In the morning, the light infantry (jaegers) of the advanced guard of the 5th Bavarian Reserve Division reported that without artillery, it was “not possible to advance any further for the time being.” Douai had been reinforced by “a group of wagons armed with machine guns,” and all the jaegers could manage was to send detachments to encircle the town.16 Samson’s cars had arrived at first light sporting new armor. The armor was the product of English technicians and French steelworkers but had come at the cost of exacerbating the frustration operators felt with the anonymous “boffins” who made their kit. This was to be a particularly acute feeling in a war in which

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everything was untried, and in this case, the technicians had prioritized protecting engine and driver, so the machine-gun was only effective when firing to the rear. Samson’s men had to back, literally, into armored warfare. By now, Naval 3 had picked up the essentials of using machine guns—engage from a flank, and move often—but in Douai, it had no room to maneuver. By late afternoon, with Bavarian jaegers circling to the last bridge over the River Scarpe behind them and with artillery rounds blowing buildings into the streets, Samson opted to break clean. He knew to sound confident as he instructed hesitant reservists to stay close behind his cars, but he also knew many would not follow and “thought that here was the end of our little party.”17 The cars were soon humming along the street with trucks and cautiously jogging infantry following. Machine gunners hammered at jaegers in houses, jaegers in the streets, jaegers in a barge on the river, and jaegers on the bridge. Despite the questionable accuracy of firing on the move, the shock achieved sufficient Bavarian awe for the convoy to make it to the bridge. Once over the span, the cars backed into spots from where their guns could sweep the approaches while reservists scrambled over the bridge. Bullets pinged off armor and brick, and anyone not working a gun took up a rifle—a specialty of the Royal Marines. The machine-gun fire may have provided more sound and fury than lethal effect, but the marines had spent an excessive amount of time practicing to hit what they shot at. Samson’s men fired everything they had except for the loose rounds rattling about the floorboards, and they held the bridge open for what seemed an eternity. It was fifteen minutes. German bullets and shrapnel scored holes, chips, and scratches on every vehicle, but despite a few wounds and oil leaks, all remained functional. More than half of the garrison escaped to link up, a little incongruously, with French cavalry in breastplates. The little group had done more than knock the pliers out of alignment; it had set a precedent. Before heading to Douai, Samson had been summoned to Dunkirk to meet the first lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, who had created the RNAS specifically to counter the German zeppelin airship threat. He wanted to know about bombing airship hangars and was not best pleased when Samson explained that glide bombing with current machines and armament was about as accurate as an after-drinks game of pub darts. Samson’s tales of motorized piracy—of unleashing armored vehicles on the enemy’s lines of communication—however, energized the First Lord. Churchill was already manifesting interests that were to make him notorious in military circles: special operations, unconventional commanders, and eccentric technology.

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With so much going on, it was not surprising that the First Lord’s barrage of demands to the War Office for more capable aircraft, bigger bombs, and “steam tractors with small armored shelters in which men and machine guns might be placed” elicited a muted response, so he set up naval funding for air weapons and for a Landships Committee to investigate armored fighting vehicles. For the next four years, even when distracted by strategic fiascoes and changes in government, Churchill ensured the navy continued these developments. Finding aircrew for the RNAS was an immediate problem. The army monopolized the military pipeline, so the navy had to look further afield. The Admiralty, historically notorious for reluctance to enlist colonials because “they made indifferent officers,” now had to look for candidates from across the empire.18 One such candidate was J. S. T. (Joe) Fall of British Columbia. Joe had been rejected by the Canadian army because he had lost part of a brain lobe in a farming accident, but the RNAS showed no interest in his cranial scar so long as he could fly (perhaps originating the expression “If you have half a mind to fly, it’s enough”). Flying schools were few and far between, so Joe, like many other Canadians, headed for the United States, specifically the Stinson Flight School in Texas. Lloyd Breadner of Carleton Place, Ontario, was a product of the Wright Flying School in Georgia and another RNAS prospect. Breadner was to join Fall in Naval 3 when it returned to the skies over Monchy. By then, Samson was commanding an experimental aircraft-carrying warship, and Naval 3 was commanded by a Canadian, Major Redford Mulock.19 By the time Samson’s crews were leaving Douai, Mallet’s dragoons had withdrawn to Tilloy-lès-Mofflaines on the outskirts of Arras. They had not slept out of the saddle for five days and so collapsed on the pavement to sleep, reins in hand. Too soon, officers came to rouse them. Now the Bavarians were flowing through Douai, and Mallet’s depleted squadron had to head across the Scarpe to blocking positions. As they trotted north, columns of men in floppy berets and baggy trousers left Arras, marching east toward Monchy. Contact: A fter noon, Thur sday, October 1 Division Barbot fanned out to secure the triangle formed by the Cojeul, the Scarpe, and the Monchy butte. The Light Infantry Brigade moved to secure a Start Line, or line of departure, along the ridge connecting the villages of Neuville-Vitasse and Mercatel for the counterattack, and 88 Brigade’s two regiments of three battalions each set out toward the high ground of Monchy, Guémappe, and Wancourt (maps 3 and 4).

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It was near 5:00 p.m. when the bandy-legged Blue Devils of 159 Regiment relieved the reservists near Monchy. Barbot had commanded the 159th before taking command of the division, and his successor, Lieutenant-Colonel Henri Mordacq, was as different a character as could be cast. Mordacq was a fifty-six-year-old staff college instructor, fencing champion, and director of studies at the academy at St. Cyr. His file bulged with commendations from the likes of the Commander-in-Chief, Maréchal Joffre, and his de facto deputy, Général Foch, but Mordacq was no desk warrior. He sported serious decorations from Foreign Legion service in Africa and Indochina, and the Alpins had already pronounced him formidable in the August fighting in the Vosges. Mordacq tasked one battalion with securing Monchy and a second with securing key points either side of it. He kept the third in reserve. Mountain fighting was battalion and company action, and officers and NCOs were used to acting independently. What was beyond the rise to the Alpins front was unknown, so they flowed into their flexible advance-to-contact formation oriented to the great crucifix on the west side of Monchy. The four companies of each battalion moved as a square, two forward and two 500 meters back, with the forward companies pushing skirmishers a tactical bound ahead. Alpins marched with rifle at the ready and clay pipe in the teeth—the pipe dissipated the metallic taste of adrenaline—and each company’s machine-gun crew followed behind with its little cart. On the 159th’s right, the brigade’s other regiment, the 97th, moved up the long, gradual slope of the Neuville-Vitasse ridge toward Hill 90. From there, its battalions would be able see across the Cojeul to the large hill with the tower above Wancourt.20 Meanwhile, five kilometers east, near Chérisy, NCOs in field-gray strode down a sunken country road, calling for men to kit up. These were men of 153rd Infantry Regiment (8th Thuringians) in 8 (Prussian) Division, but they were from Altenburg and called themselves the Altenburger Regiment. Hans Bucky, like his colleagues, schoolmates, and business associates, had left “everything behind to follow the call of the Kaiser,” and he reported to the 8th Thuringians. Opinion had been divided as to whether they were to going march into France or Russia, but when the time came, their route had been from Belgium to the Marne River, then back north into the Artois.21 Hans pulled himself to his feet and arranged his equipment: six ammunition pouches, water bottle, entrenching tool, mess kit, and furry calfskin pack (his monkey, or Affe). His pouches held ninety rounds of 7.92mm ammunition in five-round “stripper clips” for rapid reloading, and his Affe held another 150 rounds along with first aid kit, two cans of meat, two cans of vegetables, two crackers, coffee, and a vial of whiskey.22

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1914–16 Infantry Advance

No. 1 Rifle Platoon

Rifleman

Skirmishers Company Commander

Machine gun cover from flank or overhead

No. 3 Rifle Platoon (less skirmishers) No. 2 Rifle Platoon

1914–16 Infantry Advance.

The war was new enough that the monkey on Bucky’s back was stiff and rubbed against his woolen coat, now damp with sweat and salt stained. He distributed the thirty kilograms of kit as best he could, and because friction created heat, he cinched it tightly. Hans and his mates had been sitting along this bit of road by Chérisy for almost half the day, but now they had to rush. Typical army: hurry up and wait. (Four years later, Regimental Sergeant Major James Hennessy was to die here in a hail of shrapnel when 24th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force [CEF] assembled in the same sunken road. At this moment, Hennessy was a floorwalker in a Montreal department store.)23 Two months of being shot at by Frenchmen, Belgians, and Britons had tempered Altenburger enthusiasm but had not corroded faith in victory or in the army that had provided them with their rite of passage. Outsiders took Prussian conscription as a sign of militaristic indoctrination, but for men like Bucky and aspirant doctor Stefen Westmann, it was a “melting pot where young men from all classes of the population met.” It was a means of integration into the new Germany, and integration was important to Jews like Westmann and Bucky.24 Altenburgers still wrote home about defending the homeland, establishing the nation’s place in the sun, and how they were being fused by kultur and pride, but the reality was they were bonded by mutual experience, shared suffering, and professional officers and NCOs who had pulled and pushed them through

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the shot, shell, and dysentery of the great advance and to an obscure hill in the Artois.25 The key leader was their commander, forty-three-year-old Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg. The duke was a War College graduate and should have been with other princes of the blood on the General Staff, but this was 1914, and Ernst chose to be at the head of his regiment and his subjects.26 Officers grumbled about losing the six hours it took for the advanced guard to clear away French cavalry, but at last, they were moving. With the sun lowering behind it, however, the little village on top of the hill was taking on a somewhat ominous character. Altenburger boots crunched along a sunken chalk road. Centuries of hooves and wheels had compressed the chalk, so its banks were head high, and arches of trees turned it into a dim tunnel where men bumped into the pack ahead, were bumped from behind, cursed, and were told to shut their cake holes. God forbid anyone had to piss. The column halted near the Cambrai–Arras Road to allow fellow Regiment 72 (4th Thuringian) to cross its front, and then it continued across the road to head north. Trust the vaunted General Staff to crisscross units in the dark. Trust the feldwebel (sergeant major) to threaten the next complainant with crucifixion. Behind the Altenburgers, 66th Infantry Regiment (3rd Magdeburg) was at the head of the other division of the corps, 7 (Prussian) Division, and it turned west before reaching the road past Monchy. Leutnant Otto Korfes was at its front. Korfes was the twenty-four-year-old son of a pastor who had earned his patent, his commission, before the war by spending eighteen months as an officer candidate (Fahnenjunker) in the regiment. Since then, he had commanded a company in action and had been made regimental adjutant and personal staff officer to the regimental commander, Major Knauff, so now he led the way west, map and compass in hand. He was headed for the Neuville–Vitasse–Mercatel ridge, where he could see the sky already alive with “shrapnel clouds.”27 Bucky and the Altenburgers continued north until they paused under the Brothers Grimm canopy of the Bois de Vert while their officers were briefed by scouts. They were within rifle shot of Monchy but were unaware that the 4th Cavalry Division had ridden into opposition here. Any report on the defenses of Monchy-le-Preux floated somewhere between the Cavalry Corps and First Army Headquarters, and as far as the Altenburgers were concerned, they were chasing superannuated national guardsmen (map 4). The officers formed the Altenburgers into files, one on each side of the road. Bucky and his mates unslung their 4.5-kilogram (9.5-pound), bolt-action Mauser Gewehr 98 rifles, and checked their five-round magazines. The 4th Company fixed its 370-millimeter (14.6-inch) butcher-blade bayonets, worked bolts to chamber rounds, and filed off behind their company NCO, the feldwebel.

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17

French Chasseurs Alpins with a St. Etienne machine gun.

The entrance to Monchy was barred by a hay-wagon barricade, and the feldwebel led them forward at the double to clear it. He was the first man shot. The bullet hit him low in the gut, and he died in pain. Gunfire crackled, and the barricade flickered into flame, lighting up Altenburgers for Alpin rifles. The 2nd Company charged past the 4th, with Hauptman the Baron von Stein leading with sword in hand and headed toward the distinctive sound of a French machine gun. The Alpin machine gun (Mitrailleuse Saint Etienne Model 1907) fired 8mm bullets fed by strips rather than magazines or belts. It was an air-cooled gun with a gas blowback action that gave it a distinctive tak-tak-tak sound that led troops to call it le moulin á café, the coffee grinder. Duke Ernst pushed two seven-hundred-man battalions of Altenburgers onto the town and moved the third battalion to a flank by a wood and windmill southeast of the buildings (later called Machine Gun Wood). By 11:30 p.m., the regiment had gained a few structures and fenced yards, but by then, the Alpins were coming for them—and the Altenburgers learned they were not playing with pensioned reservists. Blue Devils came out of the dark, long rifles popping and bayonets flickering in the flames. In the space of a dozen heartbeats, Monchy’s streets exploded into chaos.

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Sketch made by British officer in 1917 of the Cojeul slope toward Wancourt, where 97 RIA advanced in 1914. Monchy is left of Guémappe, and Hill 90 is marked by B.H.Q.

The long cruciform bayonet, the poilu’s “Rosalie,” was a critical part of the Alpin’s assault kit. The French Lebel was the first truly high-velocity, smokeless powder military rifle, and it was said its performance had discouraged any German invasion until Teutonic manufacturers could develop its equal. NCOs preached they should be able to hit a Prussian monocle at three hundred meters. The Lebel held ten rounds, giving it a threatening rate of fire, but only for those first ten. Then the poilu had to reload its tube magazine one bullet at a time, so the Rosalie was necessary. An American had pronounced the Lebel “an amusing rifle” and the French uniform comical, but no Altenburger laughed at the 8mm copper-zinc alloy bullets whistling at him at 2,400 feet per second, nor did they find the men coming out of the dark waving those long, glinting pigstickers entertaining.28 The citizens of Monchy could only huddle in their deep cellars and listen. On the other side of the Arras–Cambrai Road, a disgruntled Sergeant Leclerc of the 97th Regiment humped over the series of ridges. He had expected a rest after the Voges fighting, not a slog up a hill in full kit to the village of NeuvilleVitasse, and then down a back slope and up again to the higher crest of Hill 90. Once there, he could see the villages in the low ground along the tiny Cojeul River, which seemed nothing more than a creek. Over millennia, the little Cojeul had nevertheless carved a broad valley bounded by smooth-topped ridges, and Leclerc could see that the far bank beyond the villages was quite distant

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and seemed higher than his side. Beyond the far bank, the sky flashed as if with lightning. Someone was in contact. Leclerc’s company halted on the eastern slope facing the Cojeul River, and its captain told everyone to spread out and dig into folds in the earth. The enemy would attack in the morning. This confused Leclerc. Other companies were still headed forward, and his company was on the exposed forward slope. The men dug shallow holes—shell scrapes—but the officer returned and told them to dig deeper. A few did. Monch y a nd Hill 90: Fr iday, October 2 By midnight, the Altenburgers in Monchy had withdrawn to the edge of the buildings to wait for dawn and artillery. Few slept, at least not deliberately. Wounded were carted away, and ammunition and water were brought up. Dawn came with mist, so the battle for Monchy waited until the artillery could acquire targets. On Hill 90, battle did not wait. As Leclerc’s officer predicted, the field-gray Prussians came out of a field-gray fog. Two French machine guns did wicked execution on those coming straight from Wancourt, but the fog covered Knauff’s 66 Regiment of Magdeburgers arriving on 97 Regiment’s flank. Leclerc’s company machine gun got off a solitary burst before the Magdeburgers were on it. The Prussians were more afraid of disorganization than French fire, and their use of drums to form ranks gave Alpins in their shallow holes time to get their Lebels cracking, but they were too few. As the sun burned away the mist, four German machine guns on the high ground east of Wancourt had an amphitheater view of the French line on the open, forward slope. Fire soon scythed across French lines, felling men like rows of wheat. Officers tried to impose order, but clusters of men around officers attracted converging bullet streams, and the officers were buried quickly under mounds of dead. Leclerc scarpered back over a kilometer of open ground, following his sergeant major. About forty of the two hundred in their company kept with them and would have kept running had the regimental paymaster not stopped them and pushed them into a sunken road. The little group had but one machine gun, but it annihilated most of a pursuing Prussian platoon and gave French 75s time to find the range. Major Knauff’s artillery commander, Major de Greiff, assumed the French artillery observers were in the Neuville-Vitasse church tower, and he sent a runner to tell his field guns to give it “a good pounding.” Then, hampered with his

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ranging periscope, he scrambled toward Knauff to range fire onto the French in the sunken road. A French shrapnel ball punched through his eye and killed him. Meanwhile, as German gunners manhandled two field pieces into the streets of Monchy to blast buildings, Mordacq brought up his reserve battalion to hit the left flank of the Prussians pushing into Monchy. Alpins were sliding into their Start Line when they were confronted by a gaggle of men, women, and children lined along the edge of the village. There were “Boche” behind them. Blue Devils murmured with rage, and officers called to hold fire. It was unnecessary; no one was firing. They fingered triggers as men in field-gray and spiked helmets approached the crowd, now rippling with expectation. Alpins looked at one another with growing perplexity as the hated field-grays herded the civilians back to the buildings. Once the civilians were out of the way, the Prussians jogged back into position. The villagers had attempted escape and been trapped between the armies. They survived because trigger fingers on both sides hesitated long enough for the clearly impatient Prussians to shepherd them away.29 With surprise gone, the Alpins pulled back. More Prussians were arriving, but French reinforcements were deploying in every direction except toward Monchy. Barbot suspected it was because Tenth Army was still fantasizing about attacking the German flank, and he sent word to Mordacq to pull back outside the village. By 1:00 p.m., the Altenburgers were almost certain they had Monchy, but it would take time to search. Meanwhile, Barbot tried to convince his superiors he faced a major attack. Division Ba r bot: Satur day, October 3 An airplane dropped a note to Barbot. Tenth Army’s elements north of the Scarpe were being pressed back toward Vimy, and units marching north to attack the German flank along the Cojeul had lost direction. Only his division stood between the kaiser and the sea. He had good defensive ground. The slopes ran north–south, so Prussians had to attack over the rolls, and in doing so, they could not see what they were up against until they crested. By then, they’d be in full view of Alpin weapons, and their own guns would be unable to support them. Moreover, a million years of eroding western winds meant the Prussians faced the steeper slopes. Barbot placed Mordacq’s Regiment on the reverse slopes of the two shallow hills bracketing the road near Feuchy Chapel: Orange Hill and Chapel Hill. The 93rd was severely depleted but holding around Neuville-Vitasse, and the

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light infantry continued to hold the Neuville–Mercatel ridge, still a Start Line for an attack. Tenth Army was not the only army operating with dated assumptions and poor maps. The German First Army wanted the Prussian IV Corps to push to Arras. The map showed but one more ridgeline between it and Monchy, and staff checks indicated force ratios were sufficient for the task. The 7th Division was to push over the Neuville-Mercatel ridge while 8 Division was to move down the road past Monchy. The 8th Division was to attack with two regiments straight down the Cambrai–Arras Road while the Altenburgers struck straight west from Monchy, and 7 Division was to assault Neuville-Vitasse with one regiment while the Magdeburgers of 66 Infantry Regiment attacked across the dip from Hill 90 to Mercatel. It was after 3:00 p.m. by the time the Altenburgers had reorganized their ten depleted companies into five. It took another half hour to march them around the buildings to the park at their north end while a field battery threw rounds into the reverse slopes of Orange and Chapel Hills with more hope than assurance of hitting anything. A squadron of cavalry was sent galloping north from Monchy toward the River Scarpe, but about halfway to the river, it ran into French cavalry and tucked into a separate horse-to-horse war. The French squadron commander admitted, “We were ignorant then of the liaison of all arms which later came to be ‘usual’; and we knew nothing of what was taking place three kilometers away.”30 The French airplane buzzed overhead again, and the Altenburgers assumed it was announcing their presence. It was. The air blossomed with black smoke puffs that rained golf-ball sized shrapnel balls down into spiked helmets, arms, and chests. Officers led a quick countermarch back through the houses while bandsmen dragged off the writhing and bleeding. It was close to 5:00 p.m. before the Altenburgers were back into the assault. This time they came across the top of the Monchy spur parallel to the two regiments attacking along the road.31 Altenburgers stepped out in extended line, a meter between men, wading through long, yellowing summer grass. As the terrain sloped away to the west, they could see their objective, Orange Hill, and the tips of buildings in Arras beyond, but by then, the air was whining with bullets as French skirmishers sniped at officers, who were made obvious by pistols and swords. On the other side of Orange Hill, twenty-nine-year-old Captaine Marcel Jauneaud was arriving at Barbot’s command post to assess the situation for the Tenth Army commander. He was surprised to have to come so far forward, but today, everybody and everything was the front line, and Barbot had pronounced that the place for a commander was where the fighting was. Jauneaud tapped the

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shoulder of an old conscript in a faded coat to ask for the général. Barbot turned and introduced himself and the new corps commander standing next to him. They pointed to the skyline and told Jauneaud to watch. As spiked helmets broke the horizon, air bursts flowered above them, and Jauneaud heard cracks of the 75s behind him. The pickelhaubes disappeared into the grass, and a line of Alpins, Rosalies sparkling in the sun, rose from the same grass and moved up the slope. Jauneaud thought it “a magnificent maneuver!”32 Attacks flow like mercury. The Altenburger flow rolled sideways down the slope and into the bottlenecked attack along the road. Duke Ernst was forward, shrapnel raising dust devils all around him. He watched his regiment feed into the grinder while he assessed the rate and accuracy of French fire as calmly and dispassionately as he could. Then he called off the whole thing. Orders were orders, but he was not about to throw away good troops. In the meantime, the 66th Magdeburgers were attacking with only two battalions because its third battalion was still clearing French light infantry out of the villages along the Cojeul. The battalions advancing down from Hill 90 encountered bullets that “chirped and sang and cracked,” and their assault dissolved into a scramble through sugar beets. Men squirreled into furrows and took cover behind stones the size of apples to return fire against invisible targets. The French around Mercatel were firing volleys by platoons. It was standard practice for long-range engagement and was more distracting than deadly, but fire from a mill on the flank halfway between Neuville and Mercatel ripped across Magdeburger lines with deadly effect. NCOs taught the principle of enfilade fire by having recruits hold up a hand, palm outward and fingers spread, to show how a line looks from the front and how each target requires individual engagement. Then, the recruit is told to turn his wrist so his thumb is closest to his face to see how the line looks when enfiladed and how each bullet traverses the whole line. Enfilading fire was particularly effective when the bullets whistled parallel to the earth at about waist height. This was called grazing fire, and the mill was delivering a textbook example of deadly enfilading and grazing fire. The Magdeburgers could see masses of new red-trousered French troops beyond the mill. They were the beginning of the long-awaited counterattack stumbling up the Cojeul toward Monchy. The mill became Knauff’s objective. He directed fire onto it while a leutnant took the best part of two companies into assault. At that moment, the brigade commander of the French counterattack, Colonel Passaga, was using the mill as a command post.

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It took most of the afternoon for the leutnant’s force to get close enough to charge, and then the price of the mill was a dozen men and three officers, but the enfilading fire was stopped. (By then, Colonel Passaga had moved toward Neuville-Vitasse, and Knauff’s men missed the chance to remove a future hero of Verdun from the French order of battle.) Even with the mill neutralized, the 66th Regiment remained stuck in the beets eight hundred meters below Mercatel, listening to bugles sounding attacks in Neuville-Vitasse. They waited for the supply section to drag up ammunition, water, and machine guns, but runners arrived first with orders for a midnight assault. Anticipation of fixing bayonets had an invigorating effect. On the other side of the ridge, remnants of 97 Regiment and 54 BCP received orders. They too were to attaque à la baïonnette. The usual drill for a night attack was to unload rifles to ensure a silent assault, but neither side was enforcing the drill. Charles Dickens had once advised travel writer Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald to visit “remarkable and picturesque” Arras. Fitzgerald found the Spanish Dutch lacework spires and colonnades attractive, but he thought the Arrageois existed in a “fat, contented air of bourgeois comfort” at the end of an “umbrageous country road.” His choice of adjective was brilliant in its convergence of meanings. The kaiser experienced both the umber and the umbrage. He had come to see a conquered city, but what he saw was his tired legions buckling on assault kits once more.33 M ercatel: Sunday, October 4 When the Magdeburgers moved, Leutnant Korfes kept near Major Knauff. For the first one hundred meters, the only sounds he heard in the dark were the swishing of boots through beets and the soft jingle of battle harness. Then, a breathless runner arrived and sputtered something about Frenchmen coming to surrender, but before Korfes could have him clarify, muzzle flashes exploded fifty meters to the front, and the whole line went down. An awesome din suffocated words of command. Magdeburgers fired at flashes and dug into the dirt with hands and elbows. A bullet took away the spike on Korfes’s helmet, and both accompanying machine guns were silenced. Men fumbled in the dark with stripper clips. Firing was without pause. Knauff grabbed Korfes. “Find some help, or in the daylight, we’re all dead.” Korfes took off at the double, crouched and low. A Lebel bullet plucked at his sleeve, but he made it far enough in the dark to stand up and run the kilometer

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to St. Martin and the regiment’s third battalion. It had cleared the villages but at a cost of almost one hundred casualties. Korfes led the battalion wide around the left of the fighting so that by dawn, it was lying shoulder to shoulder along the French flank. Once it was light enough, its massed rifle fire shot down scores of Frenchmen and drove the survivors back toward Mercatel. Knauff took stock. The ground was speckled with bodies, some still crawling. One of his companies was finished as an entity, his machine gun platoon was shattered, and he had too many wounded for the bandsmen to haul away. The French were as badly damaged, but enough had escaped to hold the Mercatel high ground. Knauff sent for more machine guns and two field pieces. The sounds of bugles and intense fighting came from Neuville-Vitasse where Passaga was attacking. Tenth Army, struggling with sketchy intelligence, fed more troops into the counterattack, and the Magdeburgers were stunned to see a long blue and red column making its way in close order up the Cojeul valley less than eight hundred meters to their front. The replacement machine guns arrived and went into action as if “firing gunnery qualification at the Altengrabow Major Training Area.” In less time than it took to for the second hand on the pocket watch tied to Kauff’s wrist to complete its circuit twice, the column was flayed into heaps of dead men and horses. The firing revealed the Magdeburgers’ positions, and French 75s extracted a bloody vengeance for the range practice. Stretcher-bearers were kept at their grisly work until dark. By the time Knauff was ready to try for Mercatel, the sun was low and in his eyes. He had reorganized his regiment into two small battalions and thickened them with regimental and divisional staff. He told them to shout “Hurra!” when they charged to make them sound like more. Then, once the two field guns had destroyed the barricade across Mercatel’s main street, Knauff stood and waved his walking stick, and his Magdeburgers charged into a setting sun. There were about two hundred French survivors under a captain around Mercatel. They were short of ammunition, so waited until the Prussians were close enough to make out faces before firing. Men scrambled over fences and chicken coops and shot at others a meter beyond their muzzles. Officers fought in houses with pistol and sword, and machine-gunners dragged guns up to attics and kicked out roof tiles for fields of fire. Guns misfired. Artois chalk jammed mechanisms. As soon as breathless Magdeburgers had cleared the last house, they were ordered to push downhill into Beaurains on the outskirts of Arras. Knauff

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gathered men and headed down the ridge, but the French were not routed. Despite having lost their officers, they leapfrogged back, carefully firing their remaining rounds. As Knauff’s band approached the edge of Beaurains, he positioned each gaggle to form a bridgehead, but a French battery began firing directly into his little groups, so he grabbed a leutnant to reposition his men. An Alpin bullet took Knauff in the neck. He staggered a few paces, but blood rushed out so quickly that he was dead before he could tell the leutnant he’d been hit. The Magdeburgers ignored orders to withdraw to Mercatel and held the edge of Beaurains. They could hear the French using the darkness to set up a makeshift defense to the east in front of the village of Achicourt. Knauff was not the only senior casualty. Duke Ernst had inherited a brigade, and before this battle was done, he inherited a division. Passaga made it back from Neuville-Vitasse but without regimental and battalion commanders or most officers. With the enemy behind both flanks, Barbot ordered a step-back to the edge of Arras. Once there, he received a message that Mordacq said made his hands shake with anger. It stated that Arras was to be abandoned. He sent a reply. “We will not retreat. I am still alive.” Division Barbot was to hold.34 Along slopes east of Arras, men fortified houses, mills, and churches and then began linking them with hasty trenches. Lor ette a nd Vim y: Monday, October 5 Louis Spears was in a fugue state. Images were dissociated in time and space: a stout peasant woman walking down a road lined with nervous soldiers; batteries of 75s camouflaged with flowers; French dragoons in thick red breeches and bobbling horsehair plumes charging machine guns . . . Near a red-roofed inn, the Cabaret Rouge, between where the great monuments of Vimy Ridge and Notre Dame de Lorette were to stand, he picked up a flattened drum from the body of a “handsome young German drummer who still held the sticks in his hands.” He had no idea who held what, so he backed his car up the Lorette heights west of Vimy knowing he had no time to turn. He found bodies. And parts of bodies. He found poilus. They took him for a German, so Spears pointed to his French medal, the Légion d’Honneur, asking if a German would wear one. He received a Gallic shrug. “We thought it was for surrendering.” 35 Ten kilometers south, Général Ferdinand Foch, just arrived from his new headquarters in Doullens, was aware that Germans were on the Lorette and that the defense of Vimy had become unhinged. Foch, a Gascon and artilleryman,

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had demonstrated an aggressive knack for battle at the corps level on the Marne, so Joffre had sent him to coordinate apparently incoherent operations in the north. If posterity was to credit Barbot with saving Arras in October, then Foch was ready to accept laurels for saving it for the rest of the war. Like Montgomery arriving in Egypt three decades later, Foch’s arrival to infuse an army with new purpose became part of his legend. On arrival, he pronounced, “I know of only three ways of fighting: attack, resist, or fuck off! I forbid you to consider the last, so choose from the other two.” The Tenth Army held.36 Ferdinand Foch was forcing adjustments to long-ingrained ideas, even if it meant being a genuine bastard when called for. The coming years were to define just how much of a bastard Foch could be. After nine days of Artois fighting, Foch and the Race to the Sea moved north into Flanders. The war was seventy-five days old. By December, less than 300 of the 4,500 houses in Arras had escaped significant damage, and France had incurred more casualties than Great Britain was to incur in the entire Second World War.37 Hans Bucky was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, before dying on Vimy Ridge a day after Hanukah. It was a prestigious award, especially for an eighteen-year-old private, but it was not prestigious enough to save his family. Thirty years later, they became casualties of a greater Holocaust.38

two

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HANDFULS OF STRAW, 1915

Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings. Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 1901

Mobilization: Fa ll 1914 I also made these points. 1st. That Great Britain and Germany would be fighting for their existence. Therefore the war was bound to be a long war. . . . 2nd. Great Britain must at once take in hand the creation of an Army. I mentioned one million as the number. . . . 3rd. We only had a small number of trained officers and NCOs. These must be economized. Douglas Haig, War Diary, August 1914

Britannia’s four-hundred-ship navy ruled the waves, but her professional army was small. In August, the first of the 150,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) arrived in France to be incorporated into two corps of three divisions each. Overseas garrisons were stripped for reinforcements, and colonies and dominions were left under the protection of their militias. Britain was to be defended by its Territorial Army of 200,000 part-time soldiers. Britain’s secretary of state for war (and recruiting poster model), Lord Kitchener, recognized that a land war absorbing millions of French and Germans meant the Empire had to raise a large army, so he called for enough volunteers to expand the BEF tenfold to sixty divisions.

27

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The cultural memory of 1914 is of volunteers issuing from a last bright, green summer, but there was little brightness in Britain or in its dominions. A third of Britons lived in poverty, and the Empire was unsettled by Irish separatism, industrial militancy, suffragette terrorism, and class conflict. Half the national income was going to a ninth of the population, and middle-class schoolboys averaged five inches more height than their working-class peers. In the previous decade, more than a million Britons had left the home isles for Canada, barely enough to replace the million Canadians gone to the United States. Author and future governor-general of Canada John Buchan reflected, “If we probe into our memory we shall find that they were uncomfortable years.”1 The bright summer was more than an artifact of the end of peace. A once-ina-century North Atlantic climate anomaly was bringing unusually large waves of rain and snow to northwest Europe.2 Men (and more than a few women) volunteered, not so much because Prussia violated little Belgium but because it was what one did. And war was still the ultimate adventure. Sam Sutcliffe’s parents in London understood why Sam’s brother volunteered, but they were disturbed by sixteen-year-old Sam enlisting. He convinced them not to reveal his age by pointing out a soldier’s pay was a good wage for someone who had left school at fourteen, and besides, the war would be over before he was trained.3 Kitchener did not believe that. He knew it was to be a long enough war for his New Army to play a role, and it was not to be ready for two years. He decided not to build on the Saturday-night-soldiers of the Territorials but to assemble all-volunteer Service Battalions and graft them onto existing regiments. The affiliation would provide them with a clan identity, an ethos, and cohesion, which he knew was not to be underestimated in producing an effective soldiery.4 As one officer explained, the regiment was “a small ideal because humanity cannot encompass a larger one,” and it was “built by generations of men, one after the other . . . who all came to realize their continentality, one with the other, with those who had gone before and those yet to come. It was for this spirit that we drilled together, got drunk together, hunted, danced, played, killed, and saved life together. It was from this spirit that no man was alone, neither on the field of battle, which is a lonely place, nor in the chasm of death, nor in the dark places of life.”5 Four existing battalions of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers thereby became forty-seven battalions, and the 10th Battalion of these, organized around the London financial district, was known as the 10th (Stockbrokers) Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Its recruits assembled in the dry moat of the Tower of London, called the Ditch, and claimed rights as the first of Kitchener’s socalled Pals battalions, even if this occasioned a punch-up or two with other contenders.

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Despite its Stockbroker title, few of the “Ditchers” fit that stereotype. More typical were Rupert “Jack” Whiteman, an Australian who happened to be in England on business; Sydney Sylvester, a halfback of the First XV of the London Saracens rugby team; Scots-born Harvey Adam, a schoolmaster and Fellow of the Royal Economic Society; and William Sellwood, a twenty-one-year-old newlywed with a Canadian wife, Adelaide.6 Another Fusilier Pals battalion, the 13th (Kensington) Fusiliers forming at nearby Hounslow, included lawyer and aspiring writer Guy Chapman. Chapman was to not only record the events at Monchy in 1917 but also write what the London Sunday Times called “conceivably the finest book to come out of World War I” despite its obscure title, A Passionate Prodigality. On the other side of the Big Smoke, teenaged Sam Sutcliffe and his brother joined the London Regiment, a choice made by which recruiting sergeant was more likely to believe Sam was eighteen. Some volunteers sidestepped the rapidly implemented (and often incoherent) Kitchener training schemes by enlisting directly into the Regular Army. Douglas Cuddeford made his way from Nigeria to join the Royal Scots, a regiment with such a long pedigree that its army nickname was “Pontius Pilot’s Bodyguard.” It provided him with three things not accorded Kitchener units: sixteen weeks of solid, if brutal, training; effective leadership; and proper equipment.7 Many veterans sought to bypass both the Kitchener scheme and Regular “square-bashing.” In 1900, Lord Strathcona had set a precedent by sponsoring a Canadian cavalry regiment for use against the Boers, so in 1914 London, John Norton-Griffiths put up money to raise a regiment of veteran cavalrymen, 2nd King Edward’s Horse. It was a yeomanry (Territorial cavalry) regiment designed to recruit “colonials” in England. Others did likewise. In Canada, businessman Hamilton Gault offered to sponsor a unit of battle-ready infantry. Government associates with whom Gault hunted, dined, and clinked glasses thought his idea efficient and approved the formation of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI), named for the daughter of the governor general, Princess Patricia of Connaught. She was Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, the world’s most eligible bachelorette, and a Canadian darling who, befitting this new age, announced she would marry for love and not dynasty. It was the sort of progressive, twentieth-century attitude that won the hearts of the New World, where folk saw themselves, sometimes accurately, as progressive.8 The PPCLI was chartered within a week of the declaration of war, and two weeks after that, a thousand men (including now Major Gault) assembled in Ottawa under a camp flag hand-stitched by their princess. By August 26, when George Pretyman was crash-landing his Blériot near Monchy, they were leaving for Europe.

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The Patricias and King Edward’s horsemen were going to war with the Old, not the New, Army, and cherry-picked their officers and NCOs. For men like bon vivant Agar Adamson, this meant the Patricias overlooked graying hair and nearsightedness in favor of an impressive veld combat record, and for Percy Hatton, who had served with the old 1st King Edward’s in South Africa, it meant being accepted in 2nd King Edward’s despite being in his forties. Before 1914 was done, while the Empire was still assembling its levies, two units of condottieri were serving on the western front, one sporting its lady’s favor and the other grooming its warhorses. Other volunteers were lured more by a new century’s promise than by a gloried past. Manchester apprentice engineer Albert Simpkin heard that Signal Companies employed motorcycles and so sought one out, and nineteen-yearold Canadian-Australian Ewart Garland wanted to fly airplanes.9 The Garland family had left Canada for Australia and a life of good schools, family retainers, and team sports, but Ewart and his older brother Charles (Dick) had since moved on to London. Dick had joined King Edward’s Horse and was soon writing home about “lighthearted young boys thirsting for heroic adventure” becoming “shocked, tired, desperate, and frightened men.” It convinced their father to pay for Ewart’s flying lessons.10 Drummond Matheson, a grandson of a Nova Scotia shipping magnate, was a twenty-five-year-old, mechanically inclined, twentieth-century man who saw the war as an opportunity to work with high-technology aircraft engines. First he had to finish his degree in mechanical engineering, but after that . . . Ernie Morrow, from Waubaushene, Ontario, wanted to fly but needed his parents’ permission. They insisted Ernie finish school and establish a career before going swanning about some war zone. The accountancy field was never going to overcome the pull of the battlefield, but with luck, he would be old enough before the war was over. Morrow and the others were headed for the skies over Monchy to meet other young men pulled toward the clouds. These included two cavalrymen despairing of the lack of action, Bavarian Rudy Stark and Prussian Manfred von Richthofen. In Scotland, clans gathered. The Kyle of Tongue in the northwest Highlands was parish to the Mackay clan and the eight brothers Mackay who lived in the village of Scullomie. The two eldest were policemen, and George was already in the Royal Artillery, but now Angus, Robert, Hugh, and sixteen-year-old Magnus (who lied about his age) joined. Brother Donald was in the Antipodes and so enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, and cousin Mackay “Mac” Mackay, in the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police, joined the PPCLI.11

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The Canadian west supplied more than its share of volunteers. Leo Bouchard was a nineteen-year-old Anishinaabe Ojibwe who trekked one hundred kilometers (sixty miles) to join a unit he heard contained indigenous volunteers. The Indigenes were not enfranchised as British subjects and so had no obligation to support the crown in its wars,12 but they were willing to swear allegiance to God and King “for the duration.”13 Leo’s path crossed that of Frank Bunting, son of a lily exporter, traveling from Yokohama, Japan, via the family’s second home in Vancouver to England. At thirty, Frank was not inclined to jump into any unit of amateurs. He set out for his ancestral home near Colchester to join the Essex Yeomanry, an established Territorial mounted regiment. The Yeomanry had benefited from the post– South African War modernization, and most of its soldiers were horse-wise lads serving under gentrified fox-hunting officers who were almost all veterans of imperial wars.14 Modernization had also infused the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and, by extension, its dominion versions. The Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC), for example, consisted of fewer than 130 people of all ranks but had a practicable plan to provide a militia field ambulance unit for any brigade deployed. Even as the size of the expeditions became apparent, volunteers kept making up the numbers, and before the medical services reached capacity, there were to be more doctors in uniform than left on the home front. The supply of fully qualified volunteer nurses and socially connected Volunteer Aides (or VADs) for the armed services left hundreds of lesser qualified and connected women to make their own way to Europe where, like Mary Borden, they served in the Red Cross or at French hospitals. Equipment was not as easy to obtain, but municipalities and wealthy patrons stepped up to provide. The city of Calgary, for example, provided an entire unit, the 8th Canadian Field Ambulance, and wealthy patrons sponsored ambulances. The medicos joined the million Empire volunteers training in seemingly arbitrary military skills and waiting for uniforms, vehicles, and equipment. With most Regulars overseas, officers and NCOs had to be “dug out” from wherever they could to train this New Army. Bob Wilson, a thirty-nine-year-old former Royal Engineer returned from New Zealand, was one such “dug-out.” The army had sufficient engineers, so he interviewed for artillery. Judgment was swift: “You have played polo, Wilson. . . . You are the very sort we want.”15 The other major source of officers were the British public schools16 and Empire universities’ Officers’ Training Corps (OTC). These had been set up to provide a leadership reserve, and in the first nine months of the war, they

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provided more than twenty thousand officers and twelve thousand other ranks to the British Army. H. P. M. (Paul or HPM) Jones was typical of these “programmed for duty” candidates. The nineteen-year-old was a Dulwich College alumnus with the broad interests, firm opinions, and literate depth of his generation. HPM was a championship rugby player, spoke French, had visited Germany, and could play “Ride of the Valkyries” by heart on the piano. He was classic publicschool officer material and was determined to do something that counted, but his application for service in a line regiment was refused. The young man with glasses was commisHPM (Paul) Jones, 1916. sioned into the Army Service Corps (ASC) to monitor supply and transport.17 Robert Lindsay Mackay (OTC, University of Glasgow) was commissioned into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (not all Mackays were crofters), but even at nineteen, Bob was mature enough to entertain mixed thoughts about war and disciplined enough to never give expression to them.18 The same OTC provided Tom Toshack, a wine merchant’s clerk in the Glasgow suburb of Giffnock. Tom was headed ultimately to Churchill’s armored caterpillars while other Giffnock men who grew up within a half mile of Tom were coming back from opposite ends of the earth: John Gray was returning from British Columbia in Canadian uniform, and David Walker was returning from New South Wales in an Australian one. Going to war seemed inevitable for Rob Steuart even though his OTC experience had been decades earlier. He was a descendant of Robert the Bruce. Rob, already forty and a member of the Jesuit brotherhood, was appointed chaplain to 12th Battalion Highland Light Infantry (12 HLI) of Kitchener’s

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New Army. It was an interesting fit; the HLI’s acronymic nickname was “Hell’s Last Issue.”19 American Robert Frost penned a lighthearted poem to his dear English friend Edward Thomas entitled “The Road Not Taken.” Thomas, in turn, wrote “Now All Roads Lead to France” and donned the khaki. While the New Army assembled, the Race to the Sea ended in a muddy, bloody stalemate. Ferdinand Foch and British General Douglas Haig became soul mates in blocking the last German try at turning the flank at Ypres, and both were to always remember just how close the German army had come to collapsing the defense. It had even thrown in its student reservists (and memorialized the result as the Kindermord—the slaughter of the innocents). Foch had announced, “We must stand first. We can die afterwards,” and a quarter of a million men were killed, wounded, captured, or disappeared before success had come to the side that stuck it just that bit longer.20 Casualties had been particularly appalling among officers (Foch’s son and son-in-law being among them), and replacements had to be conjured from available material. Sergeant Christian Mallet was of the right caste and so was sent on a three-week infantry officer course. He completed it in time to hear Foch explain how to prepare his men for what was to come. Foch’s tone had been steady, almost a monotone, and he had spoken without gestures, but his words reached everyone. “Train their arms, train their legs, train their muscles, train their backs. . . . I have no use for people who are said to be animated by good intentions. Good intentions are not enough; I want people who are determined to get there, and who do. If you want to overturn that wall, don’t blunt your bayonet on it; what is necessary is to break it, shatter it, overturn it, stamp on it, and walk over the ruins, for we are going to walk over ruins.”21 Into Spr ing 1915 The Canadian minister of militia, Sam Hughes, had followed Kitchener’s example of stitching an army from whole cloth. His mobilization was extraordinary, but he sidelined the few Canadian Regulars and even sent the dominion’s only Regular infantry unit, the Royal Canadian Regiment (The RCR), to defend Bermuda. By February, his volunteers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) were experiencing the mud, damp, and discomfort of the hutments of Salisbury Plain in south-central England. Nearby Stonehenge seemed in better shape than their barracks. Salisbury exposed the shoddiness of equipment provided by Hughes’s political cronies, and the contingent struggled to update training received in Canada.

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(Hughes had insisted on learning sword fighting.) The burden of training fell largely on the contingent’s South African War veterans. At least the men were sound. There were more than enough volunteers to keep admission standards high enough that Lionel McAdam from South River, Ontario, had been rejected as being too short. McAdam had made his own way to Britain and was already training with modern British Vickers machine guns while his more superb physical specimen comrades marked time and wrestled with their finicky Canadian-made Ross rifles and outmoded Colt machine guns.22 The “Brits” thought the Canadians less consciously class oriented than the mother country, but the dominion’s military hierarchy still reflected wealth and connection. Montreal, for example, was a city of Protestants and Catholics, French and English, working class and business elite. Its socially prominent militia unit, the Royal Highland Regiment (Black Watch), was of the Protestant, English, and business persuasion. It provided three battalions of volunteers in which Montreal’s Golden Mile of millionaires was well represented. One battalion boasted of having six millionaires during a time when a million was more than a government rounding number. (Government expenditure for 1913 was $185 million.23) Such officers, like their continental peers, saw themselves as programmed to be “logical leaders in the community.” They understood noblesse oblige and paternalism and believed society authorized them to lead men. The Norsworthy banking family, for example, provided sons as officers for all three Watch battalions, and Canada’s leading magnate family, the Molsons, provided almost thirty. The most promising Molson, Percival (never Percy, and appointed to the Board of Governors of McGill University at age twenty-one), decided to join his fellow Golden-Miler George Cross McDonald in slipping off to join the PPCLI already at the front. The pair even set up an ongoing flow of enthusiasts from Canadian OTCs to serve as replacement Patricia rankers—other young men in a hurry to go to war. It was February before CEF fighting units began departing Salisbury for France, but Hubert Bessent, a twenty-three-year-old Toronto firefighter and former British soldier, had to wait. Bert left his family to travel 240 kilometers (150 miles) to join the Regular artillery, but there were no vacancies, so he joined a university volunteer battery. It needed men who knew gun smoke and gave Bert two stripes, but Corporal Bessent had to spend more time in Britain because artillery units took longer to prepare for war. By then, the Newfoundland Regiment had already left miserable Salisbury Plain. The Newfoundlanders resented being lumped in with the insufferable Canadians, so transfer to Scotland brought equal parts relief and joy.

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Britain’s oldest colony had always provided soldiers and sailors for King and Empire. It had turned out men to fight French and Americans, and now, it was sending them to fight Turks and Prussians. The British provided a professional to command the unit, and the colony’s luminaries provided sons as officers (Rendells, Rowsells, Outerbridges) for ranks filled with clerks, fishermen, and shopkeepers (Murphys, Gardiners, Sticks). The Gardiners of British Harbour on Trinity Bay sent brothers and cousins to the Regiment and a sister to the nurses’ service, and the Sticks of Devon Road sent three brothers. Len Stick turned up early enough to earn Regimental Number 001. The city fathers of St. John’s presented a silk Union Flag, and the Bible Society provided New Testaments. Other donors provided pipes and “housewife” sewing kits, but the men left Newfoundland without the rifles ordered from Canada, and because there had not been enough khaki wool, their puttees were navy blue.24 By February, the Blue Puttees were at Edinburgh Castle being readied for service in the Mediterranean with the British 29th Division. Even as British North America’s first contingents deployed, more were being raised. Thousands of Americans crossed the Canadian border to enlist to help America’s first ally, France, or perhaps they just wanted to “see the elephant.”25 John Lynch, a young Ohioan, traveled to Toronto to discover that American citizens could not enlist until age twenty-one. The recruiter told him to take a walk around the block and see if it aged him a year or three. Not every American wanted to help France. Heinrich von Heinrichshafen immigrated to the United States to fight in the Indian Wars but, having missed them, settled in St. Louis as an insurance broker. He had been a captain of Volunteers for the Spanish-American War, and because the Heinrichshafens had provided officers to Prussia for two hundred or six hundred years (the story varied), he took passage to the Netherlands (with a change of ship in England, no less) and arrived to replace a Thuringian officer lost at Monchy-le-Preux.26 Otto Dörr, the nineteen-year-old son of immigrant German farmers in Saskatchewan, simply wanted to go home to Germany. The quickest way was to join the army and get as far as France, so he enlisted in the CEF as Private George McDonald, an American from Toledo, Iowa. His story of being raised in Mexico explained his slight accent, and no one noticed that another George McDonald of Toledo, Iowa, with the same birthdate had already shipped out in a Canadian forestry unit.27 By April, the war had infested new theaters: the Alps, Poland, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Palestine, the Pacific, Africa, and the Mediterranean, where the British and French tried getting around the western front by landing

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troops in the eastern Mediterranean in the Dardanelles Strait. They were again blocked by a line of trenches (these being Turkish) on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The Germans tried to turn the flank at Ypres again, but by then the armies were in trenches, had more artillery, and were better organized, so the slaughter was more systematic. This time, the field-grays came behind a cloud of asphyxiating chlorine gas that dissolved Henri Mordacq’s new command, and the resulting hole in the line was sealed at exorbitant cost by makeshift forces that included the newly arrived Canadian contingent with its failure-prone rifles and obsolescent machine guns. By then, Monchy had become a backwater. Duty there was not soft (too many Prussian officers), but it still offered a panoramic view, albeit this time of big German howitzers pulverizing Arras. Those watching assumed the fires they saw were the result of some kind of incendiary. Monchy’s stone town hall (the mairie) now hosted a headquarters, and the village square (actually just a widening where curving roads met) was a vehicle park. Its two grand châteaus were officer quarters, with the larger one by the park, the Château Florent, an imitation of Henri IV’s sixteenth-century home at Pau, the favorite port of call for army commander (and kaiser’s son) Crown Prince William.28 The best soldier billet was the two-storied Villa Barbara at the northwest entrance of the village. It had a good view of Arras and long garden walls behind which men could stretch out and read the soldier’s newspaper, the Bapaumer Zeitung, to catch up on what the German Press Office thought of the war. It told its readers they were much more capable than their enemies and explained that although victory was taking longer than it had in 1871, the outcome was inevitable. In response to Britain’s naval blockade (which deprived children of food) and its cutting of the undersea cable linking Germany with the United States, the kaiser had authorized the bombing of London and Paris by zeppelin airships and authorized submarines to sink vessels near Britain. The British Isles were to starve. On May 7, the German U-boat U-20 sank the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania. Not all of the 1,198 international fatalities were civilians. James “Boy” Dunsmuir was a Canadian attending Loretto School, Edinburgh, but was accepted as a lieutenant in the Canadian Mounted Rifles. When newspapers in British Columbia reported his death, crowds destroyed businesses with Germanic names, and dog owners rebranded their German shepherds as Alsatians to prevent them being lynched. Dunsmuir had been at Loretto with two other early volunteers, Charles and Gerald Hedderwick, sons of the editor of the Glasgow Evening Citizen. Charles had already been killed at Ypres, but Gerald was on his

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Monchy-le-Preux, circa 1915. View from the southeast. Villa Barbara and Monchy cross are near the top left and the park at the right of the photo. (Author)

way to joining the Heavy Section of the Machine Gun Corps, the new title for Churchill’s landships program. The day after sinking the Lusitania, the PPCLI were all but annihilated on the Frezenberg Ridge east of Ypres, and some two thousand kilometers southeast, an overly brave captain on the Gallipoli Peninsula, James Forbes-Robertson, was shot through the shoulder. Had the Patricias been destroyed or had the bullet hit Forbes-Robertson two inches farther over, the history of Monchy-lePreux might have been different. The day after that, the French set the template for western-front battle. Battle: Sunday, M ay 9 Maréchal “Papa” Joffre, the sixty-two-year-old French commander in chief, thought the affair at Ypres “an unfortunate incident, but without serious results,” even though its casualties had been fifty thousand, including six thousand raw Canadians. His eyes were on Arras. This was where he intended the Tenth Army, with a hundred thousand men and 1,300 artillery pieces, to rupture the German line. Foch was to coordinate a three-corps attack while two other corps and the BEF mounted supporting attacks.29 (map 5)

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Former Alpin Henri Pétain was to command the corps taking Vimy Ridge. The fifty-eight-year-old, like Barbot, had been gliding toward retirement in 1914, but his ability to integrate artillery and infantry operations had elevated him to division and corps command. The promotion of a small-town officer on merit while scores of others were being culled signaled that an inherently conservative French army was overcoming some of its prewar class and religious divisions. The British function was to prevent German reserves deploying against the French. Joffre thought the British “tentative” in operations, but this should be within their capabilities.30 Saint Vindicianus’s abbey atop Mont-St.-Eloi was a good place to observe the whole battle area from Vimy to Monchy, but French observers had to use it with care. Its broken limestone towers were home to squadrons of nesting larks, and when disturbed, the birds flew up in rippling clouds. German artillery took them as reliable observers. After four days of resolutely miserable weather, May 9 dawned with a brilliant Austerlitz sun. It was a good omen for the first properly orchestrated attack of the war. The directions for the attack, Operational Note 5779, explained the assault was not to settle for a line or two of trenches but to rupture the defense. As a French officer explained, once the defense crumbled, the Germans “will have no place to go except into the Plain of Douai. When they get into the Plain of Douai, they must keep on going away.”31 Foch’s bombardment put the great in Great War. Prewar doctrine had stipulated fifteen minutes of fire to support an assault, but a thousand guns had harassed Bavarian lines for four days, and now they opened a three-hour preassault hammering. For once, there was sufficient ammunition. A quarter of a million rounds ripped apart chevaux-de-frise32 barbed wire fences, shallow trenches, and gun positions. The only firepower lacking was in sufficient heavy guns to destroy German batteries. To the troops in Monchy, the orange flashes and blue-black smoke crackling across Vimy Ridge were more than spectacle. They were a portent. The initiative had passed to the enemy. Motorcycles buzzed in bringing descriptions of the incredible barrage that had rolled forward fifty meters with each jump and of thousands of Alpins and Moroccans pushing almost five kilometers to La Folie at the center of Vimy Ridge. (The Moroccan Division, they learned, was not Moroccan. It included elite French colonial Tirailleurs, Zouaves, and the most famous military unit in the world, the Foreign Legion, composed of every imaginable nationality: Belgians, Czechs, Poles, Russians, Greeks, Americans, and even Germans.)

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The Bavarians were being ground to mincemeat. The French had even punched through the second line with its metal-shielded machine guns. The French had armor-piercing bullets, and a Bavarian officer noted wryly that the “Chasseurs Alpins were superb shots.”33 Lieutenant Christian Mallet’s and Captaine André Laffargue’s regiments were in supporting attacks. Mallet’s was north of Vimy, and Laffargue’s was south of the Ridge, near the “Labyrinth” trench complex close to the village of Neuville-Saint-Vaast. Their men wore white strips of cloth on their newly issued horizon-blue uniforms because they looked too Prussian blue at a distance. During the barrage, officers had held up fingers to show “five minutes,” “three minutes,” and then, just as the cracks of explosions reached a crescendo, “one minute.” They stood and waved an arm. Allons-y. This was no encounter battle. The men knew the ground. They’d rehearsed on obstacle courses resembling the objective and carried locally produced maps, anti-gas pads soaked in ammonia, bags of grenades, and wire cutters. Even so, planners had been sanguine about the first wave. It would suffer as it sought gaps between strongpoints where it could pour through like rivulets through a levy, but it was necessary so the second wave could provide the pressure that turned the rivulets into jets to wash away the dam. The third wave, the “cleaners,” were then to mop up and cleanse every dugout and strongpoint with explosives and knives. Mallet’s regiment was through the forward line quickly and into the “zone of Hell” between it and the second line, “as in a dream, tiny silhouettes, drunk with battle, charging through smoke.” He was the only officer in his company to make it into the second line, but he was not whole. Shards of shell and debris had torn into his back, but he refused evacuation. His men held him up so he could see the battle. He refused evacuation until he was sure they could hold what they had won.34 Laffargue’s regiment had less success. Laffargue was hit at the first line, where a single enfilading machine gun slaughtered his company. Louis Spears made it to Vimy Ridge to munch biscuits and scan the Douai Plain. Nearby, American doctor David Wheeler shared a shell hole with another English-speaker in his forties, John Elkington. Wheeler had exchanged scalpel and scrubs for a Lebel and Foreign Legionnaire’s blue coat, and Elkington had been a lieutenant colonel in the British Army. He had been dismissed for an incident in the August retreat from Mons, so he joined the Legion as a private.35 The last officers seen had been lying in their own blood and waving them forward, but Foch’s insistence that all ranks know the objectives ensured that

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German infantry advance on the battlefield, August 1914.

Wheeler and Elkington could carry on. Even so, less than a half of the legionnaires made the crest, and they could only watch the trucks and buses (still in their Lens livery) coming across the Douai Plain to deliver German reserves. The British attack had been stopped without their help, and the French artillery could not reach them, so the German reserves were free to come to Vimy. Barbot watched his Alpins and the Moroccans roll over successive German trenches, slaughter the field artillery, and push to the top of the Ridge and the adjoining Pimple. He listened to the frenetic German counterattacks and saw the fire being delivered onto his men by unsuppressed German guns, but he had no more troops to push forward. The Germans threw all available units, including the veterans of Monchy, into counterattacks. It was doctrine: hold, never give up ground, take it back immediately. Cynics (there were always enough of these in any army) called it “hold ground, retake it, or fertilize it.”36 Counterattacks had to race through a “hail of shellfire” that gouged mansized holes in the turf and filled the air with whistling shrapnel bullets. Men had trouble breathing against explosive air pressure as they pushed past comrades, some now “with no heads, no feet, no arms.” A few wept and hid in holes, but officers and NCOs pulled them to their feet and pushed them up the rise to the hamlet between Vimy and the Lorette—and into Alpin rifle fire.37 Fire followed them all the way to the surviving Bavarians. Men were shattered, crushed, and blown to jelly and lost all sense of time or place. It was to be more than two days before they could receive coffee, soup, bread, and tobacco, and by then they had no appetite.

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Counterattack was the defining characteristic of the German army. It came back time and time again. Success was not to be defined by penetrating its line but in staying there. The French could not know how close they came to fragmenting not only the German line but also the German command system. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria commanded the mostly Bavarian Sixth Army, but in the midst of the battle, Rupprecht’s nervous Prussian superior had inserted Prussian commanders and chiefs of staff into the command system. The issue had to go to the kaiser for resolution, but not before achieving the usual result of hampered coordination: casualties. Foch was satisfied by the capture of six thousand Germans but unimpressed with the failure of his ally to pull off German reserves. Joffre was more concerned with the French’s inability to reinforce success. He sputtered in fury on discovering no one had positioned reserves within eight kilometers of Barbot.38 As Spears descended the Ridge, he paused to watch a battery of 75s deliver extraordinarily accurate fire onto a chateau on the outskirts of Souchez. Its commander knew the target well; it was his home.39 French flanking attacks had not penetrated deep enough, so legionnaires and Alpins suffered unrelenting counterattacks and artillery fire from three sides and, by evening, had to withdraw “snake-fashion” down the ridge through acres of dead and wounded. No one had anticipated the tsunami of casualties. There were not enough medicines, bandages, transports, or doctors.40 Eric Fisher Wood unloaded men from hospital trains. Some were half mad with pain and thirst; others, dying of lockjaw and gangrene, were still in their blood-encrusted uniforms. Wood asked why the Germans were doing so well and was told it was their big guns and “the wonderfully efficient way in which their bad tactics are carried out.”41 Barbot set up to try again the next day. Impasse: M ay 10–December 31, 1915 They brought Barbot down the Ridge on a stretcher. Alpins stood as he went by and presented arms. He had been hit rushing forward. Or hit standing tall to observe the Boche line. Or been in his command post ordering up the reserve. Some said he remained conscious and waved as they carried him by. Perhaps he did. But by the time the stretcher reached a casualty post, the Savior of Arras was dead, and with him, a century. The new divisional commanders were interchangeable cogs, not personalities.42 By Friday, May 13, a “day of tempestuous weather,” the Artois offensive had stalled, and the Germans were again testing the Ypres defenses. Another attack

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on the Frezenberg Ridge after a fourteen-hour bombardment forced the “fire brigade” defense of three dismounted cavalry brigades of 3rd Cavalry Division to counterattack. The Essex Yeomanry, part of 8th Cavalry Brigade, entered its first major action. The Essex performed like young lovers compensating for lack of expertise with enthusiasm. Its gallant six hundred charged over Frezenberg Ridge and performed as magnificently as had the PPCLI five days earlier, and they paid an equivalent price. They lost almost all of their blue-blooded officers and half their NCOs and men. Frank Bunting of Yokohama was among the zeal of novitiates brought up to replace losses, and forty-four-year-old Etonian and local squire Major Francis Whitmore replaced the fallen commander. Whitmore was a Territorial known to all the lads of the Regiment as “Old Brasso” for his dedication to spit and polish of both man and horse harness. He was a proper officer and gentleman: just the type to follow into battle. His immediate task was to get new officers and NCOs through the gas, machine guns, and shooting schools set up by the popular, if intense, 3rd Cavalry Division commander, General Julian Byng.43 A paradigm had been set. Battle began with an overture of increasingly heavy and long artillery bombardments, and the main act followed as attackers broke into the defenses and defenders struggled to hem them in. The climax came with the race by both sides to bring additional forces to bear. So far, improvements in defensive construction and disposition were outpacing parallel developments in offensive firepower and maintaining momentum. The defender was consistently back in place by curtain call. Joffre tried again in the summer, in the fall, and in winter. He varied techniques, positioning, and preparation, but the Germans also continued learning. In exchange for a combined butcher’s bill of three hundred thousand, the French gained the heights of Lorette and the Germans retained Vimy. Monchy remained undisturbed. By winter, the Artois was relegated to a distraction for a twenty-division French effort in the Champagne above the Aisne River. The effort cost another 145,000 casualties, one of which was former colonel John Elkington, whose legs were shattered by gunfire. Former doctor David Wheeler had been there to save him even as Wheeler’s own calf was shot away. The pair waited for seven hours for evacuation, and Wheeler’s examinations convinced him the enemy was using explosive bullets, but they were merely victims of the latest in high-velocity projectiles. Legionnaires Elkington and Wheeler were decorated and mustered out of the Legion (at least in principle, for one never leaves the Legion). Elkington

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Edward Louis Spears (in cap) with Winston Churchill (wearing the new standard French Adrian helmet presented by Spears).

went home a cripple, but Wheeler, finding his passport invalidated for violating American neutrality, set out to join the Canadians. The recuperating Andre Laffargue produced a monograph derived from Operational Note 5779, The Attack in Trench Warfare, in which he claimed that the May 9 operation demonstrated a path to success. The attack, though, had to be deeper, wider, and overwhelming enough to prevent the defense reforming before momentum culminated. The assault needed loose, self-reliant formations with portable guns to deal with machine gun nests to enable them to flow like rivulets around major strongpoints. Artillery, rather than crushing trenches, should paralyze the defense zone: front, flanks, depth, command posts, and especially enemy guns. Assaults should push “through to a finish and the enemy drowned under successive waves calculating, however, that infantry units disappear in the furnace of fire like handfuls of straw.”44 The difficulty was that the process needed two components in short supply: reliable junior commanders and a mix of light and heavy artillery. Spears tried to explain the process to the British, but they were not yet ready to listen. British losses in their small cadre of officers meant decentralized

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operations could not “be carried out efficiently.” Planning had to remain a centralized process with step-by-step instruction even as Laffargue’s paper made its way around French, British, German, and even American readers with a vested interest in solving the trench conundrum.45 The Germans had a formal after-action process, and Crown Prince Rupprecht’s Sixth Army circulated a twenty-four-page analysis of lessons learned. The standout lesson seemed to be the need to dig deeper and defend in depth, preferably using reverse slopes. A secondary lesson warned that the French learned quickly.46 By winter, the lines were fixed. The French could not get out of Arras, and the Germans could not get in. French generals spoke less of a Joffre “piercing” and more of what Foch described as a “wearing-out battle.” Discussion of methods of attrition followed, as did debate on presidential interference in the death penalties being pronounced for combat refusals.47 “Wearing out” was not restricted to ground combat. Air reconnaissance and photography had become essential, and pilots had taken to blocking their counterparts’ efforts by shooting at one another. Mounting light machine guns on two-seater aircraft had become a common practice (even as it unbalanced and slowed the machines), and pilots had managed to shoot down other aircraft. By summer, the air war was formalizing, and the German Flying Troops (being reorganized into an air force, the Luftstreitkräfte) began fielding aircraft designed for the sole purpose of hunting for and destroying other aircraft. The primary hunter was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker monoplane. It was quick, could dive almost vertically, and could kill with a belt-fed machine gun synchronized to fire through the propeller arc. Eindeckers were few in number, but the “Fokker Scourge” was pronounced enough to force British and French aircraft to fly in groups for mutual defense. The British and French quickly fielded their own killer aircraft. The skies around Monchy and Arras were much troubled by the German flier Oswald Boelke, flying from Douai. His shooting down of a half dozen British and French airplanes took up an annoying amount of newspaper space. Reconnaissance was the focus of air operations, but the public was becoming fascinated with individuals who fought for the skies, and it kept score. Flying aces were perfect fodder for an engorged mass media in need of simple, human stories that made a vast and complex war digestible. American newspapers made the Artois battles accessible through the experience of the Missouri widow (and third wife) of local insurance salesman, Leutnant Heinrich Heinrichshafen. His death soon after his arrival at the front made the war as real as a traffic accident.48

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Such stories influenced the war effort. Prince Rupprecht demonstrated the power of the personal touch in a brilliant interview with the New York Times. Over a friendly beer, he appeared “simple, unpretentious, and democratic” as he pivoted from accusations of German soldiers shooting civilians to explaining how the United States was prolonging the war by selling armaments to the French. Meanwhile, newspapers had become aware that French and British soldiers (and generals) were not always on good terms. The comment was heard in both armies that they were fighting the wrong enemy.49 The story of nurse Edith Cavell was key in making the Great War a people’s war. The Prussian execution of Cavell in October for helping soldiers and civilians evade capture struck a Joan of Arc chord that did “more to cement the alliance of France and England to fight to the last man than all of the speeches of statesmen and conferences of generals.”50 What Canadian Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook) called the “munitions of the mind” was becoming a new and powerful weapon. Governments were quick to try to shape information to manipulate international opinion and friendly and enemy morale, but the munitions were imprecise. Human stories and prospects for a better future stoked popular passion into what was called a “war temper,” but once the temper was fired, the war could not end until it was sated. After the war, such munitions were to keep exploding in unpredictable ways and in unexpected places.

act II

WEARING-OUT BATTLE

Battle having been joined, there follows the period of real struggle in which the main forces of the two belligerent armies are pitted against each other in close and costly combat. Each commander seeks to wear down the power of resistance of his opponent. Field Marshal Haig, Final Despatch

thr ee

k

THE AMATEURS, JANUARY–JULY 1916

The military machine—the army and everything related to it—is basically simple and therefore seems easy to manage. But we should bear in mind that none of its components is of one piece; each part is composed of individuals, every one of whom retains his potential friction. Clausewitz, On War

The Ger m a n chief of sta ff, Erich von Falkenhayn, pushed for a new effort on the western front. Germany’s enemies’ center of gravity was France, so if the French army was decisively beaten, Germany could dictate an end to the war. Falkenhayn’s plan was to “bleed dry” the French army by taking what the French considered vital ground and forcing it to counterattack into orchestrated German firepower. The vital point chosen was the prominent fortress zone of Verdun. German forces elsewhere were to prevent interference by other British and French armies, a process aided by these being preoccupied in rationalizing their own lines. The expanding BEF was taking over more of the front and extending as far south as the Arras–Vimy sector and Picardy, but the extension required sorting the consequent spaghetti of lines of communication and establishing new supply, dumps, artillery positions, depots, and headquarters. Joffre was still pushing for a coordinated French-Russian-British-Italian summer assault, but the armies were begging off, claiming they needed time to assemble, train, and stockpile. The German assault on Verdun forced an acceleration of their preparations. Ready or not, France’s allies had to arrange significant and massive operations for summer. The point chosen for the debut

49

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of the BEFs New Army was the one place on the Western front not yet turned to grease by constant fighting: the Somme Valley in Picardy. Esta blishing a Centr a l R emoteness—GHQ: A pr il 1 The British returned to Montreuil-sur-Mer, a rural town an hour and a half west of Arras at the intersection of the road past Monchy and the London-to-Paris Road. The English, evicted from its bastion in 1369, were back at this “remote centrality” setting up its General Headquarters (GHQ ), which Louis Spears noted had a “considerable resemblance to the ordinary human cerebrum, for only a small section of each was given up to the production of ideas; the greater part was ceaselessly employed on routine work, just as most of the cerebral convolutions are engaged in dealing with the ordinary functions of the human body, such as breathing and digestion.”1 This brain had nerves—teletype, telephones, dispatch riders, liaison officers, wireless radio—but lacked neurons. GHQ had gone to war with seventy qualified General Staff Officers (GSO), but it needed six hundred, as well as administrative personnel, guards, riders, cooks, bakers, horse groomers, drivers, mechanics, and more. Excluding an infantry battalion attached to provide security (the “palace guard”) and attached administrators, GHQ was expanding to slightly less than five thousand souls (approximately the size of Montgomery’s 1944 headquarters).2 (map 2) No one had expertise or training in setting up an infrastructure for maintaining five field armies, and few were qualified to function even at army and corps level. The British army had been stretched to provide sufficient GSOs for two nascent corps in 1914, and now it was fielding five armies and a score of corps. Each army needed at least seventy GSOs, and each corps needed at least forty. In the meantime, New Army corps were making do with one qualified GSO, making every operation, every training exercise, every road and rail movement, every supply function, every communication, and every tactical operation an experiment.3 The army had always been expeditionary and had relied on pragmatic improvisation for imperial campaigns, but against a first-class military power, improvisation had its limits. Some civil-related affairs, like transport or communications, could be improvised from existing civilian organizations, but operational functions could not. Haig’s divisions had to be bound into corps and armies capable of planning and executing operations, and this required an incredible expansion of operational expertise—especially given continuing losses.

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In the interim, most planning and direction had to come from the center. For the foreseeable future, the BEF was to operate like a great central clockwork mechanism under a GHQ inconsiderate of local conditions or quick changes in situation. Courage and discipline would have to compensate for ritualized maneuver, insufficient transport, and poor fire planning until the army had trained commanders and staff capable of independent operations. The few surviving professionals, like Walter Norris “WN” Nicholson, had to take on the promethean task of fabricating these commanders and staff from the raw material of citizen-soldiers. It was a task Nicholson described as not like “a skilled workman applying oil as necessary to a machine in full running order,” but like working with a machine that “had never been put together.”4 The initial material provided was not as bright as a guardsman’s cap badge. It included drafts of connected sons, dugouts, and burnouts like Major Donald Gray. Gray was a decorated PPCLI officer who had been blown up, buried, concussed, and crushed by a falling horse. He’d lost weight, his fingers trembled, and he was troubled by vivid battle dreams. He had seen more than his character could handle, but his commanding officer assessed him as knowledgeable and all right for staff work beyond artillery range.5 Ca libr ations: Fr iday, M ay 19, 1916 By spring 1916, the new armies were deploying for operations. Guy Chapman, in the 13th Fusiliers, described their progress: “The ten months training, which the battalion went through before it reached France, was therefore a compound of enthusiasm and empiricism on the part of the junior subalterns and the other ranks. . . . We were in fact amateurs, and though we should stoutly have denied it, in our hearts amateurs we knew ourselves to be, pathetically anxious to achieve the status of the professional.”6 Arras was where British divisions came to learn, and its primary schoolrooms were Vimy Ridge and the Labyrinth trench complex. The Germans they faced were also adapting. Fifteen months of action in the Artois, on the Aisne, and in Flanders had worn down 17 and 18 Reserve Divisions of Prussian IX Reserve Corps, and their tour on Vimy Ridge was intended to sharpen replacements survival skills and provided some relief for the veterans, who were able to score occasional rests around Douai or Monchy. (map 3) Arras was a challenging and largely subterranean battleground. The area was chalk: mucilage on the surface, but below that, firm and easy to mine. Trenchdwellers lived in fear of being blown up, being buried alive, or having to fight

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in tunnels with picks, shovels, pistols, and teeth. Most were relieved when they received plans to push the British—the Tommies—back far enough from Vimy to limit their efforts at moling and terraforming. The orchestrator of the operation was their Corps chief of staff, forty-four-year-old Oberstleutnant Albrecht von Thaer, a known star in the German firmament. Unlike the British command system, the Germans employed a chief of staff to plan and coordinate operations on behalf of the commander, enabling him the freedom to move about and oversee subordinates. If this suggested that the brains of the operation was the staff-qualified chief of staff and not the commander, in some cases it was an accurate assessment. Some commanders seemed to hold their position more for dynastic or political reasons than operational. For example, IX Corps’s highly competent commander was on extended sick leave and was being replaced by a connected General Staff officer seeking experience (for a career resumé), so Thaer was indeed the brains for the foreseeable future. (Ironically, the new British corps commander taking over the opposite sector was also a career staff officer in his first major command.) More than twenty years earlier, lawyer turned Leutnant Thaer made a name for himself in the army speed ride from Berlin to Vienna. He came in second, but whereas the winner’s horse died of exhaustion, Thaer’s finished no worse for wear. His reputation rose higher when, as a Hauptmann, he made the Chief of the General Staff, the great von Moltke, admit to an error. Thaer had character.7 It fell to Thaer to prepare IX Corps, now receiving a new generation of replacements. These were no longer recalled reservists but civilians turned soldiers arriving in fewer than needed numbers because the French army was not the only one bleeding out at Verdun. Hardened veterans like twenty-one-year-old Leutnant Hans Thuden of Leipzig had to turn soft twenty-one-year-olds like Albert Krentel, a shoemaker from Hannover, into soldiers. He had to teach Krentel and other recruits of 1st Battalion, 163 Infantry Reserve Regiment what the old army had learned as it passed into history: they were better soldiers than their enemies, bag and bedroll was more efficient than knapsack, and machine guns and trenches were life. He had to teach them to dig trenches two meters deep with fire steps to see over the parapet in front and the protective parados behind, as well as incorporate drainage channels, wicker supports, latrines, and dugouts. He had to teach them about communications trenches and saps extending into No Man’s Land and how to hide from aircraft, pass messages, use flares, repair barbed-wire obstacles, hoard rations, throw grenades, survive bombardment, and maintain their kit. If they survived the first three weeks, they could learn about machine guns and mortars.8

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Artillery Machine Gun Bunker Trench Block Forward Obstacle Listening Post Trench

Communications trench

Front line/forward trenches Front line/forward trenches

Sap

Barbed wire lanes

German Defensive arrangement, 1916.

Their progress was being monitored from Mont Saint-Eloi by another twentyone-year-old. When Canadian Henry Hemming left McGill University to study in Paris, he did not expect to end up in the British army dodging shell bursts called down by larks, but good observation points were an absolute necessity. The days of mobile guns engaging targets they could see were long gone. Now, artillery needed observers to direct its fire onto distant targets only Forward Observing Officers (FOOs) could see. The FOO had to employ binoculars or, if on a high point like Mont Saint-Eloi, a Long Vue telescope, to call in ranging shots—at least one “over” and one “under”—before hitting the target. He also required up-to-date, large-scale, gridded maps, and communications to his guns—things yet in short supply. Henry spent time explaining to wary British Regular Army gunners how his invention, a foot-cubed box with lights and buzzers, determined the location of the most important of targets, opposing artillery batteries. The box was connected by telephone wire to observation posts along the front line, and it flashed and buzzed in response to their sightings of German muzzle flashes. The flashes and buzzes enabled Henry to plot the gun locations by intersection. It was an impressive advance in gun locating but a hard sell to his boss, the Amazon explorer Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Fawcett, who preferred locating enemy guns with his own, clearly supernatural, method. Hemming thought Regulars accepted “very slowly the ideas of the new, enormous army which they were busy creating.”9

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Yet it was old-school Regulars struggling to gain some advantage in this war who had plucked Captain Hemming from infantry obscurity and sent Lieutenant Lawrence “Willie” Bragg, a twenty-six-year-old Anglo-Australian and the youngest Nobel laureate (physics), to see how the French were using electrocardiographs to locate guns. The French had not solved the problem of separating the “the loud crack made by a shell travelling faster than sound muffled the fainter report of the gun,” but they had inspired a solution. The epiphany came to Bragg while on a gun position latrine. The time lag between the crack of the projectile and the delayed arrival of the pressure wave from the gun through the toilet against his exposed parts led him to an idea for measuring the “sound” wave. One of his section, Lance-Corporal William Tucker, a former physics lecturer at the Imperial University, had designed a directional microphone, so it was a small step to reason that a connected line of Tucker’s microphones could pass pressure waves across a thin, heated platinum wire stretched across an ammunition box while an electrocardiograph registered the wire’s reaction. The recorded result indicated direction and distance of the source of the wave.10 It was a start, but even when Hemming’s and Bragg’s devices located enemy guns, British guns could only harass them. The Royal Artillery was still waiting for the type of firepower it needed to destroy batteries. Even as the New Army demonstrated how it could enhance the Old, the Old Army retained its grip on senior management, which itself was wrestling with how to meld what it knew how to do with what was actually happening. In Hemming’s words, “we are all learning fast in the world’s best but most terrible school, real war itself.”11 Mont Saint-Eloi was also an observation point for Lieutenant General Julian Byng. Vimy Ridge engaged his professional interest. Byng was a tall man, but few remarked on it, perhaps because his head was always forward as if paying nearsighted attention to what was in front of him. There was, however, nothing myopic about Byng. His clear blue eyes were not the ice-blues of the hunter like Richthofen’s nor the sparkler-blues of a Fairbanks; they were the translucent blues of the inquisitor who takes in everything metaphysical and physical. The effect was marked by the lack of laugh lines. The fifty-four-year-old was already speaking in the past tense about too many friends. “Bungo,” as he was known to friends, was an aristocrat but not a rich one. His early career had been more about riding than soldiering, and he had trained polo ponies to meet expenses of a fashionable regiment.12 He seemed destined to become a stereotypical cavalry officer (which a New Army officer described

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The road to Arras: Mount-St.-Eloi at left and Vimy Ridge in the distance.

as “absolutely fearless . . . not overly intellectual, but . . . with fine traditions and noble instincts.” Like their horses).13 Byng’s biographer credited the blossoming of his profound professional intellect to experiencing the whistle of bullets in India and Africa, but whatever its source, it placed him on track for a rare position at staff college where his pronounced development led to accompanying the military historian G. F. R. Henderson to America to complete a study of Stonewall Jackson’s Civil War campaigns. Henderson was fascinated by Jackson not only for sheer tactical ability but because Jackson had demonstrated it while leading an army of amateurs. As Henderson’s study went on to become a staple of professional military education, Byng was making his mark as a popular and effective operational commander with a propensity for music shows. His performance in command of the Ypres “fire brigade” cavalry earned him the attention of Kitchener, who sent him to the Mediterranean to fire up the moribund Gallipoli campaign. Byng, however, sided with the cabal that wanted to end the misadventure. There were no practicable gains in sight, just more casualties from disease and

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gunfire, and cavalryman Byng could not accept stasis. Despite predictions of massacre, he extracted more than 35,000 troops with animals and artillery without casualties. His reward was a KCB,the enmity of Kitchener, and command of a corps in front of Vimy.14 So it was that Byng was positioned on Barbot’s perch near Mont-Saint-Eloi. It was fitting. The Englishman shared the Frenchman’s popularity with troops, his understanding of how men and war came together, and his distaste for trappings. Even King George V commented on his friend Bungo’s penchant for “comfortable” uniforms.15 Byng’s military education had programmed him to see beyond Vimy’s muddied slopes covered in ripe French dead to an objective: a problem of enemy, ground, and time and space to be reduced to tasks, sequences, and phases. Taking and holding it was an obvious step in pushing along the road past Monchy to Cambrai and the liberation of German-occupied France, but the men he needed to do this were dead or incapacitated, and the New Army was not ready. His job was to get it ready. The 1914 British army had entered the war with no existing corps headquarters or superstructure, but by 1916, Byng’s corps was XVII Corps, which gave some perspective on the army’s expansion and on the delicacy of its organizational structure and processes. The fragility was exacerbated by the inexperience of the new divisions. The three that made up Byng’s corps were typical: one was a Kitchener formation, and the other two were Territorial. Of the sixteen thousand men in each division, a few score were yet efficient or effective in planning, supporting, or mounting operations (see appendix for organization). The 51st Highland Division represented the breed. In a Scotland where fewer than one in five men was a highlander, the 51st considered itself the Highland Division, but as a Territorial formation, it had been left at home until the spring of 1915. This had licensed the War Office to pillage its leaders, equipment, and best units for Kitchener divisions, so when it finally arrived in France, its debut in battle had been a predicable tragedy. The War Office “degummed” obsolete leaders and sent an operationally oriented engineer to command, the fifty-two-year-old George Montague Harper.16 The Highland Division’s identifying “HD” shoulder patch thereafter became “Harper’s Duds.” Harper was a Sassenach, but to the Scots he was Moses come down from the mount. He took time to make sure his wartime soldiers understood him, and he, them. He made allowances for his citizen-soldiers—a rare trait among Regular officers themselves grappling with higher offices that peace would never have allowed them—and he took advantage of their clannish identity

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to instill cohesion. He extended leave (Scotland took longer to get to), and emphasized discipline, but not the “parade square-bashing” type of their parttime peacetime training. He ensured they understood the reasons for what they did (men had suffocated by cooking in dugouts and died storming unreconnoitred ground), and he took them to where experience showed the necessity for discipline. Harper’s Duds were being schooled in the dangerous Labyrinth trench complex below Vimy where they were close enough to Thaer’s Germans to exchange newspapers.17 Byng was as dedicated to progressive training as Harper (as Whitmore of the Essex Yeomanry could attest), but he was not to stay to see how Harper’s Duds progressed. First, the corps boundary was changed, placing Vimy into another corps sector (that of the staff officer cum corps commander), and second, the new Commander-in-Chief, General Haig, wanted Byng for the Canadian Corps. Haig pronounced the Canadians magnificent raw material, but—and Byng knew that the army considered everything said before a “but” was white bread on a shit sandwich—its development was retarded by amateurism and political interference. Byng was unsure why fixing the colonials fell to him, but if the word “colonial” carried a patronizing “whiff of inferiority,” it was also understood that “Colonials sat in judgment on the English,” and Haig remembered that Byng had been good with colonials in South Africa.18 Besides, there was precedent. Great-uncle Admiral Byng had ended his career in front of a firing squad for abandoning a fight, and his example (in Voltaire’s expression, “pour encourager les autres”) helped create a nonpareil war machine, the Royal Navy, which secured North America for the crown. (Byng had noted that “great uncle was shot for running away from Minorca. I was given a decoration for running away from Gallipoli. Now, which is right, because surely they cannot both be?”) Now, another Byng was being asked to produce another war machine. He could not foresee how his creation was to be forever tied to Vimy Ridge and Monchy-le-Preux any more than he could see how his appointment was to tie him to both Canadian politics and professional hockey.19 American Eric Fisher Wood knew what Byng had to work with. He had visited the Canadians frequently to chat to the many Americans in their ranks, and he observed they “did not lack courage or initiative, but these qualities, to have military value, must be coordinated by strict discipline. Today, having learned their lesson from experience, that most terrible of all teachers, the Canadians welcome the sternest discipline.”20 The terrible teacher, though, was not yet finished with them. The 1915 Ypres gas attack had been mere introduction to a continuing education. Even as Byng assumed command of the Canadians, the Germans struck them at Mont Sorrel near Ypres to inflict another eight thousand casualties.

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The Germans also struck on Vimy and, in exchange for securing the British tunneling sites, were left holding the vulnerable forward slope. There was no counterattack. The bulk of the BEF was headed south, beyond Arras to the “wide stretch of scarlet poppies, yellow mustard, red clover and blue cornflowers” that was the Somme valley.21 The Som m e: July–October The Battle of the Somme opened on July 1 and continued for four months. Three and a half million men battled along a fifteen-kilometer strip until a million of them had become casualties, and the term “the Somme” become military shorthand for how the confidence of a green spring becomes “blood and muck and misery” of a gray winter. At home, casualty lists generated uncomprehending shock. The war thereafter was always thought of in two parts: “before the Somme” and “after the Somme.”22

four

k

RECALIBRATION, OCTOBER–DECEMBER 1916

Thus ended an inconspicuous somewhat disillusioning, but very educative year. Captain Stair Gillon, History of the 29th Division

Br itish Gener a l Hea dqua rter s, GHQ: October Winter provided time and space for recalibrating armies and techniques. The Somme campaign provided more experienced, if less enthusiastic, material for staff training. Hundreds of New Army types found themselves “volunteered” for on-job training or for six-to-twelve-week staff courses that introduced them to the arts of the stubby pencil and an operational language suitable for electric transmission. They learned to sacrifice adjectives, adverbs, and complex construction on the altars of brevity, clarity, and accuracy. They learned to translate a commander’s intent into precise instructions, and they learned how to manage information. Reports, orders, signals, and sundry information surged into various headquarters by telephone, telegraph, dispatch rider, runner, liaison officer, letter, reports, and meteorological forecasts, and they had to learn to summarize intelligently, reproduce faithfully, disseminate appropriately, file accurately, and act upon information with alacrity. They learned to survive and function within a burgeoning bureaucracy that operated largely by trial and error. Momentum slowed, supplies lost, and men died while staff learners struggled with their new weapons, all of which were in short supply: typewriters, duplicating machines, switchboards, telephones, wireless radios, and comprehensible lines of communication.1

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Most learners had already mastered the idiosyncratic Old Army lingua franca, with its bureaucratic and Indian subcontinental terminology. They knew a compass was, in fact, a “compass, prismatic, for the use of ”; dust-color was “khaki”; a note was a “chit”; and “Blighty” was home, with a wound sending one home thereby “a Blighty.” A “dekko” was a look; tea or “char” came up in containers called “dixies”; a Regular soldier was an Old Contemptible or an Imperial; a prefabricated hut was a Nissen; and a tin of food was a Maconochie. British soldiers were Tommies, and the opponent was a Boche, the more literary Hun, the more intimate Fritz, and increasingly Jerry.2 “Iron rations” had two meanings. It was the individual emergency ration of tinned food, biscuits, tea, and sugar, with personal additions of cheese, jam, cigarettes, and a beef extract called Oxo, but it was also trench slang for artillery fire, as in “Fritz is really getting his iron rations tonight.” “Strafe” was a form of artillery or machine-gun fire (from the German plea Gott strafe England), or strong reprimand, as in, “the Chief strafed the hell out the new staff-learner.” Corruption of French was as inevitable as learning that egg and chips was a meal. Bon, comme ça, and beaucoup were universal, but the most expressive Franglais was “napoo,” from il n’y en a plus (no more). There was “napoo tea,” “napoo mortar rounds,” “napoo leave,” and saddest of all, “he’s napoo.” Staff learners now added an operational patois. Armies, corps, divisions, and brigades were formations (because they were formed of units), and a phoneticized alphabet ensured aural understanding: a.m. and p.m. became Ack Emma and Pip Emma, a machine gun was an Emma Gee, and an observation post was an O Pip. Abbreviations, acronyms, and fixed formats rendered orders into information, intention, detail, liaison, ammunition, aid posts, and reports. The word “NOT” was capitalized. “SOS” did not mean don lifejackets; it meant commence immediate defensive artillery fire. “Fire plan” was the complex arrangement of delivering fire onto targets at specific times. “Start Line” was the line on the ground crossed by the assault at Zero Hour (Z-Hour) and was the time from which all tasks were calculated. “FMO” or “FMSO” was “full marching service order” with weapon, webbing, haversack, water, large pack, overcoat, iron rations, entrenching tool, shaving kit, and personal articles. This thirty-six kilograms (eighty pounds) of kit (slightly more than the load of a Roman legionary) could be amended to “fighting order” by dropping the large pack, overcoat, and haversack on the understanding they would be reunited with their owner later.3 The authors of this language were the staff, marked by “red tab” collar patches, colored armbands, and attitude. These ruled from three branches: G (General), A (Adjutant-General), and Q (Quartermaster).4

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Table 4.1  GHQ Branch Evolution 1914–1918 GHQ First Echelon

GHQ Second Echelon (GHQ Troops) GHQ Third Echelon Admin Services Inspector-General Communications Lines of Communications Defense

Commander in chief; personal staff; principal staff three main branches, G, A, and Q Commandant GHQ ; principal medical and veterinary officers; Provost Marshal Adjutant-General; records, clerks Directors and inspectorgenerals of specialist departments Lines of communication specialists Brigade staff, defensive troops

1914: 36 officers; 116 other ranks 1918: 354 and 1,102 1914: 4 and 36 1918: 21 and 219 1914: 28 and 257 1918: 166 and 3,040 1914: 45 and 149 1918: 560 and 1,531 1914: 14 and 46 1918: 68 and 104 1914: 5 and 17 1918: N/A

G Branch were the glory boys of Operations, intelligence, and training. They were the sires of battle who marked maps and produced plans. G absorbed Fusilier publisher Guy Chapman, Patricia-Golden Miler “Red” George Cross McDonald, and Newfoundlander student Kevin Keegan and set them to learning to transmit orders by paper, by landline, and by power buzzers that transmitted by earth induction. They learned that a division held about four miles of front (6.5 kilometers) and needed a corridor twenty miles (thirty-two kilometers) long to deploy. Some of their more technically minded brethren spent thirty weeks at signals school learning how to deploy flags, lamps, telegraph, telephone, and the newfangled wireless.5 G Branch directed all the others. As a new GSO1 (senior Operations Officer), Bernard Montgomery explained his role: As Chief of Staff I have to work out plans in detail for the operations, and see that all the branches of the Staff, and administrative arrangements are working with my plans. The day generally commences with an organised attack at dawn, after which we continue to work slowly forward all day; then another organised attack is arranged for the next morning to carry us forward again, and so on. It means little sleep and continuous work; at night guns have to be moved forward, communications arranged, food

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Monty’s use of the term “Chief of Staff” had an almost German inflection, but the British version emphasized coordination, not command (despite the future field marshal’s implication he ran the war). New specialties produced new specialists. Frank Fox, a striking forty-twoyear-old Anglo-Australian, was a volunteer soldier and professional investigative journalist known (not fondly) for the reporting that had made the Breaker Morant South African war crimes trial an international sensation. Wounds had left him with a withered arm and walking stick, but he was welcome in the new Directorate of Military Intelligence (subsection MI7) and responsible for, among other things, mining foreign press to derive actionable intelligence. (Fox was also to become the chronicler of life in GHQ.) The A Branch looked after law and what a later century was to call human resources. It handled every soldier’s record, mail, promotions, transfers, pay, courts-martial, medical history, and, when the time came, replacement. Q Branch learners, like bespectacled public-schooler HPM Jones, discovered that while G dealt with fighting and A with personnel matters, Q dealt with everything. It was the biggest and, by necessity, most innovative organization. It handled not only supply and transport but also resources and functions not previously conceived. It had directors for agricultural production, postal services, canteens, engineering stores, forestry, labor, ordinance services, pay, remounts, salvage, veterinary services, war graves, works, and construction. The transport directory alone looked after roads (existing and building new), docks, inland water transport, light rail, and railways. Q coordinated the two thousand tons of biscuits, letters, ammunition, water, canteen supplies, petrol, fodder, and bully beef required for each mile of front for each day, and it ran some fifty base and infantry depots. Mail arrived regularly, and although soldiers might believe their rations unappetizing, monotonous, and of insufficient quantity, they ate better than any other army; despite the intense physical activity, almost all were gaining weight.7 The Q Branch built the theatre infrastructure, a large part of which occupied the corridor from Boulogne to Arras, with the assistance of War Office appointees in uniform: post office telephone executives, railroad managers, and horse wranglers. Some senior officers resented having these in uniform (generals’

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uniforms to boot), but Haig pointed out that with the entire nation at war, it made sense to employ men on the same work in war as they did in peace. Besides, the experts arrived with hundreds of trains, vehicles, boats, and switchboards, and thousands of telephone poles, and they trained other specialists, like HPM Jones. HPM now made “arrangements for translating the ration figures rendered to me by the Cavalry Brigades into terms of meat, bread, biscuit, forage, etc., and arranging for these to be loaded at railhead on the lorries; then, in company with the [Motor Transport] officer of the day, to take these rations up to the units, at the time obtaining the next day’s feeding strength from the Brigade Supply Officers.”8 Staff existed at all levels, but down at brigade, it was condensed into two officers: the Brigade Major (BM) for G, and a Staff Captain for A and Q. The BM was responsible for tactical planning and operational performance, and the Staff Captain A and Q was responsible for supply, transport, salvage, leave, promotions, administration, and courts-martial. No staff influenced the immediate fate and comfort of the troops quite as much as these two carefully selected minor deities, but unlike higher staffs, BMs and Staff Captains were unlikely to have prewar operational service. They had to learn quickly. When the PPCLI left its experienced and functioning British Regular division in 1916 to join the forming 3rd Canadian Division, Agar Adamson had been appalled by a system in which “nothing runs smoothly and none of the staff are sure of themselves,” but the terrible teacher of 1916 was proving a ruthless catalyst for meritocracy.9 Not all staff inhabited abandoned hotels, donated châteaus, dry houses, or large dugouts. Prince Edward Islander Dan Mackinnon lived in the saddle. He was both 3 Canadian Division’s ammunition staff officer and commander of its eight-hundred-man Divisional Ammunition Column (DAC). Dan was an outlier, a self-educated orphan who, by age fourteen, was a horse whisperer and racer. He was a champion mile-runner, footballer, marksman, and rider. Mail-order courses and militia service had earned him command of a militia howitzer battery, but on arrival in Europe, he was sent to run the DAC, an extraordinary responsibility for a new arrival (but then, what wasn’t?).10 Feeding the voracious guns and howitzers was a lethal science employing an almost constantly moving system of ammunition wagons organized across three echelons. Each weapon had a wagonload of ammunition on its position, a second wagon in an A echelon a kilometer or so back, and a third in B echelon with the DAC. Once the wagons on the gun position emptied, they made their way to the DAC to be refilled at a corps ammunition park while the A and B echelon wagons moved forward to become the new gun position and A echelon, respectively. The challenge of keeping this ammunition conveyor belt rolling

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smoothly on the Somme had been exacerbated by enemy fire, mud, exhaustion, and the nascent munitions industry. Some 30 percent of its projectiles had proven defective. Defective ammunition, poor kit, misaligned timings, worn-out transport, late mail, and the inevitable tyro mistakes of the Somme ensured that new staff had to accept the unwritten creed: they were to work nonstop, receive recognition only when things went wrong, and be despised by everyone above and below.11 Odium increased with distance. A brigade signals officer noted, The men supplying the foremost posts regarded their company headquarters as being comparatively comfortable. The infantry companies regarded battalion headquarters as leading a life of ease relieved by the spice of danger. Those at battalion headquarters looked on a visit to brigade headquarters as relaxation in a spot that knew not war. Brigade headquarters laughed coarsely if division had a shell or bomb near them. What division thought about corps headquarters and corps about army, I know not at all: they were far above my military plane, demigods of whom one heard in correspondence but rarely saw.12

Opinion of the staff was not improved by the Renaissance court atmosphere of the higher headquarters. These glowed with competing interests of careerist, Regular, Territorial, war-service, and civilian officers, and they shone more brightly as the spit, polish, and bull increased with each level. For the most part, commanders were excepted from the contempt, especially the commander in chief, Sir Douglas Haig (soon to be elevated to field-marshal). Few understood their distant chief or the constraints and restraints under which he operated. He commanded the largest army the British Empire had ever seen (or would ever see) and had to satisfy his subordinates, his government, and the French. As a product of a prebroadcast age, he emitted no public persona, and press, politicians, and historians used the image of him that best suited their purposes. To his troops, “Dougie” was a symbol, and to Dougie, his troops were not yet an army “but a collection of divisions untrained for the Field.”13 Training could provide the basics, but without education, his commanders could only follow specific and limiting instruction. Haig understood the process. He had been up to Oxford, knew Latin, spoke French and workable German, and believed his beginners might be educated by the French, who at least could maneuver large formations and coordinate artillery operations. They had already sacked more than 160 generals and colonels to make way for new ideas. He sent men to see what they were doing.14

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Ger m a n A r m y SUPR EM E Hea dqua rter s: October In contrast with GHQs improvisation and talented amateurism, its opposite number, the Great German Staff, was considered as constituting one of the world’s five perfect institutions. Even so, it had miscalculated. It had planned for a quick decision, but two years after fumbling on the Marne, it was suffering stunning losses at Verdun and on the Somme, and its armies were short men, machines, horses, food, ammunition, and equipment.15 The Magdeburgers of 66 Regiment had been required to give their Gewehr 98 rifles to the unit relieving them, and hospitals were reusing gauze until it disintegrated and then using paper. It didn’t take a Berlin tailor to detect the cardboard fiber in greatcoat cloth, just a rain-soaked soldier. The harvests had failed, and soldiers received letters from home complaining there was no meat and butter was a memory. Everything, even the marmalade, was made from turnips. It was the Turnip Winter. The situation called for new thinking. Responsibility for conduct of the war had passed to the field Supreme Headquarters (Oberste Heeresleitung or OHL) and a new command team. The new Chief of the General Staff (the third in three years) was to be the almost seventy-year-old Paul von Hindenburg, victor of Eastern front campaigns and landed aristocracy (Junker), albeit impoverished. His service had been almost entirely General Staff, but he was the essence of the Wilhelmine army officer: ein amusischer Mensch (untouched by the liberal arts), courageous, stoic, Christian, and respectable. His poised, self-assured large hand movements over small-scale maps emanated reliability, confidence, and collegiality. His deputy and alter ego, the sixty-two-year-old Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff, was something else. The von-less Ludendorff had done time as a line officer and was a new-century technocrat: clever, detail oriented, and socially uninvolved. When dinner ended and guests gathered around Hindenburg to smoke cigars and swirl brandies, Ludendorff disappeared into the backroom with his minions and large-scale maps. He was widely considered to be the brain of the Duo and knew it; he used “I” and not “we” when briefing. The kaiser thought him uncouth.16 The German armies had produced a hundred expert staff every year for more than thirty years, and the Duo saw little need for outside consultation, or a Landships Committee, or for post office or rail managers. Nevertheless, the great Somme-Verdun battle staggered the army. It lost far too many experienced leaders, and Hindenburg could only hope the newer, more middle-class cadre

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could imitate its blue-blooded predecessor’s dedication. He also hoped that, after the Somme, the enemy “would not repeat the experiment on a greater scale and with equal success.”17 The Duo understood they had to surrender the initiative—temporarily—but without surrendering the ability to dictate the course and pace of the war. The decisive arena was the Western Front, so they moved OHL to Bad Kreuznach, ninety minutes west of Frankfurt and about eight hours from Monchy. From there, they could supervise operations against all major belligerents and still retain focus on the immediate battle. There was no issue with civil-military relations or allies. All decisions were operational and theirs to make. They called for lifting the restrictions on submarines to allow them to engage anywhere without warning; set industrial priorities for men, guns, explosives, and aircraft; and imposed controls on information management. Grand strategy would follow the outcome of the next battle.18 OHL had already set out a series of fortified lines behind the front to protect occupied resource-rich regions, and the Staff assessed that if the troops manning the now-fragile Somme line moved back to one of these, the Siegfriedstellung, the move would shorten the line and free the equivalent of thirteen or fourteen divisions and fifty batteries of heavy artillery for a reserve. Such an unexpected move would also disrupt Anglo-French preparations. This option, codenamed Operation Alberich, was a major debate among the generals. It had obvious advantages for efficiency and for relieving troops scheduled to enter their third series of trench battles along the Somme, but giving ground the armies had fought so hard to hold could be a heavy blow to morale. In the meantime, so long as they held the Ancre high ground around Thiepval and Beaumont-Hamel, the Anglo-French could push no farther along the Somme valley. There were other efficiencies to be had in reorganizing, redistributing resources, and squeezing the training process. Releasing soldiers to work in defense industries could improve production of new aircraft, howitzers, and machine guns. Twelve weeks of homeland basic training could be trimmed by having divisions provide battlefield inoculation at Field Recruit Depots (FRD) within the sound of the guns, and defensive techniques could be made more efficient.19 The troops still believed in their superior tactical skill, but they were daunted by the enemy’s material superiority and the command of the air gained by the British and French flooding the skies with machines now superior to the Fokker Eindecker. Only local maneuver had prevented units being destroyed in place, so the Staff proposed formalizing this lesson by changing “hold at all costs” to maneuverable defense in depth.20

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Thaer, still Chief of Staff for IX Reserve Corps, was all too aware of the shortages. He’d kept underequipped men in the trenches for lengthier tours but wished he could be as clear-eyed and hard-nosed about this as his friend and fellow chief of staff, Oberst Friedrich Karl “Fritz” von Lossberg. Lossberg was OHL’s expert “fireman”; the man moved from emergency to emergency to apply a ruthless efficiency. When the French had achieved Vimy and struck deep in Champagne, Lossberg had been sent to put spine into the defense. He had turned up, read the situation, and, armed with the commander’s authority, instructed a defending corps to die in place rather than give ground. The situation had stabilized.21 Lossberg was the army’s most respected and experienced defense wizard. and now he was insisting that although he could accept the need to withdraw to gain advantage, he was against licensing too much maneuver. Counterattack hammers needed solid anvils, and someone had to stand and hold. Ludendorff respected the tall, always impeccably turned out, forty-seven-year-old Thuringian enough to set up a school where commanders could wargame the concepts and find the right balance of flexibility and rigidity. (Brigadier Arthur Solly-Flood was initiating a similar process for the BEF, but the mature Prussian system was, for the moment, more effective.) Continuing British and French attacks on the Somme and at Verdun soon convinced OHL that the strategic withdrawal was necessary. Alberich was a go and was set for February. Once the concrete and wire of the new line was set, the army was to swing back to the Siegfriedstellung like saloon doors with hinges forty kilometers apart, one by Monchy and the other south on the Aisne River. It was to abandon some five hundred square kilometers but make it a desert. Despite some generals’ complaints that the honor of the army was at risk, all villages, orchards, wells, and roads were to be destroyed and booby-trapped. Vandalism was demoralizing work, and no matter how OHL painted the Somme as a strategic success, the men knew Alberich was a retreat and provided their enemies with a propaganda bonanza. R econstituting 26 Reserve: W ednesday, October 11 The divisions returning to the Artois from the Somme were unlike those that had marched to the Somme. They were leaner, less optimistic, and aware they were in for a long slog. The Arrageois had learned to deal with Prussians (archetypical Boche Protestants) and Bavarians (burly bounders, but Catholic) and were now learning

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about the Wurttembergers of the 26 Reserve Division. They were as approachable as Bavarians but Protestant, and they spoke a strange German called Schwäbisch. The Arrageois, proud of their own Artois Ch’ti dialect, could not but identify with what some called the Scots of Germany. They could not know that both the British and German armies rated the sociable Wurttembergers as first-class troops.22 On July 1, these Wurttembergers had stood like Teuton heroes on the Ancre Heights at Beaumont-Hamel and resisted successive khaki waves that had come on like derailing train cars. They had noted where the British had opened lanes in their own barbed wire, and once the bombardment stopped, they’d scrambled from their deep dugouts to man their water-cooled, belt-fed machine guns aimed at those gaps. Their gun, the MG08, was a beast of thirty-five kilograms (seventy-five pounds), but it pumped out five hundred rounds per minute, was deathly accurate to two thousand meters, and was lethal to four thousand meters. It was mounted on a sled and had an elevating and traversing mechanism that allowed steady and accurate fire through smoke and darkness. Gunners employed the short tap. Pull the trigger and count, “Two . . . three . . . four,” then tap the receiver so the gun barrel traversed about five centimeters (two inches), and again: “Two . . . three . . . four . . . Tap . . . Two . . . three . . . four.” Guns sited in interlocking pairs thereby produced scything “streams of bullets which cut the air, waist high, into a diamond.”23 On July 1, six such guns shattered three attacks by the British 29th Division and had enough ammunition left to destroy the support wave of Newfoundlander and Essex battalions in less time than it took to call a parade roll. Yet by October, the Wurttembergers had been reduced to Lilliputians in a Brobdingnagian war. The Tommies had become wiser, the weather punishing, and the battle numbing. Machine guns and barbed wire had given the Somme battle its character, but artillery defined it. Adapting to field artillery “whiz-bangs” (so called for the short time between the sound of the shot and the arrival of its projectile) had long since driven men behind barricades and into trench systems and bunkers, but the Somme and Verdun initiated a new level of destruction arriving from over the far horizon. Tommy brought in new, larger guns that threw big and then bigger high-explosive (HE) rounds that came in high, slow arcs to drop with banshee screams to shatter and crush all but the deepest dugouts. They sent shockwaves rippling through body tissues to shear interfaces between muscle, ligament, tendon, and bone, and even when heads were not popped off or limbs torn away, their pressure waves crushed internal organs, leaving no mark but death. Even deep below ground, they inflicted cumulative microfractures, gut

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German machine guns: the sled-mounted MG08 and more portable MG08/15. (Library of Congress)

disruptions, and concussions. The change was one not only of scale but also of duration: bombardments went on for days.24 Officers like Hauptmann Gustav Kunlen, longtime commander of 7 Company in 26 Reserve Division’s 119th Reserve Regiment, watched men whose “expression becomes fixed and glassy, the facial skin loses all of its red color, the skin becomes yellow, the cheekbones protrude.” They watched them to see if the drone of aircraft (seemingly always British) elicited facial tics and stomach knots. They looked for signs of kriegsneurotiker—shell shock—and they led them out of the pan to fight in the fire. Artillery drumfire crushed their trenches, so they took their saviors, their machine guns, out among the shell holes.25 Now, near Monchy, the threadbare and tired survivors were reconstituting the division and distributing new lighter machine guns, the MG08/15. These replaced the heavy sled mount with a bipod and lighter water jacket, and although they were less stable as platforms, they weighed in at under eighteen kilograms (forty pounds) and were light enough to move among the shell holes.26 They regrouped the heavy sled-08s into machine gun “sharpshooter” companies, which could be positioned behind the forward trenches from where they could cover the “entire front of the position” while not being seen from the

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Fighting from shell holes in new coal-scuttle StahlHelm helmets.

enemy front. From these positions, they could lacerate any enemy trying to fight through the shell-hole, 08/15-armed, infantry.27 The veterans, the old hares (Alte Hasen) of the Iron Division, now had to teach replacements, the new meat, this new style of fighting before they set out on a special operation called Alberich. R esur r ecting 88 Br iga de: Thur sday, October 12 Not far away, 26 Reserve’s old adversaries, the “Incomparable” 29th Division, underwent its own reconstitution, although a better word for what it undertook after July 1 was resurrection. Resurrecting the Newfoundland Regiment became James ForbesRobertson’s remit. He arrived as the unit second-in-command just before the Beaumont-Hamel fiasco and survived only because policy dictated that 10 percent of unit personnel be “dumped” behind during any attack to ensure a cadre remained on which to rebuild. July 1 had validated the practice. By noon, there were few Newfoundlanders left to remember Salisbury Plain, Fort George, Edinburgh, or the setting up of their new home station in Ayr, Scotland. Less than thirty minutes of machine gun fire had wiped away memory of

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Gallipoli, leave in Alexandria, or how France had felt different, smelled different, and looked different, and how amused the lads had been by the poilus, Tommies, and Fritzies in their new baggy jackets, medieval steel hats, and hypo-helmet gasmasks that looked like sandbags with eyeholes. Few were left to remember being awed by villages with no occupants and tent cities with signs for commissaries, dumps, bakeries, hospitals, and not-yet-occupied cemeteries, or to wonder about where the thousands of horses and mules had been conscripted, or to feel relief at finding a YMCA with newspapers and a Salvation Army with bars of chocolate. Few remembered commenting on how the rose-cheeked Pals of Kitchener’s Army didn’t look hard enough to winkle Fritz out of positions he had been preparing since Christ was a lance corporal. There were few enough left to remember how it all went horribly wrong. The unit’s annihilation by machine gun at Beaumont-Hamel was to become legend, but it was only one chapter in its story. Temporary Lieutenant Colonel Forbes-Robertson became acting CO of the surviving handful. He called reveille for 5.30 Ack Emma. Every morning. Replacements arrived and wounded returned to find men drilling and weapon handling. They thought their last CO a pompous Brit, but Forbes-Robertson, they said, was a right bastard. A coded telegram came from Newfoundland: “Serious reports spreading tactlessness of Forbes-Robertson. Please advise if suitable for current position.” The answer was quick: “Forbes-Robertson most suitable.”28 Professionals understood rehabilitation. War takes priority. Work occupies mind and body. Sweat saves blood. Muscle memory works faster than conscious response. Build on lessons learned, not self-reflection. Major-General Beauvoir de Lisle, commander of 29 Division, came to them and gave them chalk-talks and maxims: “A creeping barrage doesn’t creep; it jumps.” “The counter-attack, which takes place two hours after capture of the objective is the most dangerous.” “Regard a thick barrage as a luxury.” “Avoid the front door. Shoot in the side windows and go in the back door.” “Zero is only an approximation—watch the barrage.”29 He did this at all 29 Division units, including the Newfoundland’s partner in 88 Brigade, the 1st Battalion Essex Regiment. The Essex had a link with North America as long as that of the Newfoundlanders. Essex men had marched with General Braddock to his ill-fated rendezvous with the French and Indigenes on the Monongahela River in 1755 and to the doomed assault on Ticonderoga three years later. They had returned to fight in New York in 1776 and in New Orleans in 1814.30 There were thirty Essex battalions, but the Regular 1st Battalion was pride of the litter and, after Beaumont-Hamel, literally blood brother to the

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Newfoundlanders. It too used hard men to rebuild. It used Warrant Officer Class 1 Frank Bailey, the most senior of the noncommissioned ranks, the Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM). Mister Bailey (as the RSM was always addressed) had joined the Essex in 1901 when the choice for a boy from a large and poor family was immigration or army. He served in long-forgotten outposts on four continents, and in Ireland he courted a lass ardently enough that she followed him to India and gave him a son. Bailey was a crack shot, a notable achievement in an army that prided itself on shooting, and promotion had come rapidly with the war. He had cradled a dying CO on Gallipoli and a critically wounded brother at Beaumont-Hamel, but his closest call with death had been at the hands of his officers. They brought him under effective fire while attempting to shoot deer, and they had learned that one does not shoot at the RSM.31 To the regiment, Frank “Bill” Bailey was “a fine example of the Old Army which, except for its spirit, almost ceased to exist by the summer of 1915,” and to the army, he had to be an “example to all warrant officers and non-commissioned officers of the Battalion in all things at all times.” Thus, Sergeant Tom Merry believed that while the chaplain spoke to God, God spoke to RSM Bailey. A seventeen-year-old Tom enlisted when his parents moved to Montreal, and ten years later, he was a veteran senior NCO with the task of preparing men, now including peach-faced conscripts, for the unthinkable. He had to teach them to react to signals, to fire and move, to maintain the king’s kit, and to stick it like Essex men.32 Fourteen weeks after, and five miles from, Beaumont-Hamel, 88 Brigade of 29 Division rejoined the war. On October 12, four companies each of Newfoundlanders and Essex left their trenches with bayonets fixed and, leaning into a thick barrage, made for the German lines at Gueudecourt 750 yards away. This time, it was Germans who surrendered or died. Some did both. Picking the right time to stop was a matter of some delicacy. Stopping too soon meant dying in a crossfire. Stopping too late ended with a “Newfie Twist”—the bayonet is thrust in and then given a sharp twist to free it. All training emphasized bayonet fighting. Despite the stories of close-contact fighting, some suspected stories of bayonet use were exaggerated. American correspondent Owen Johnson visited hospitals but found “no more than three cases of bayonet wounds,” but he came to understand why. Bayonet victims had no use for hospitals.33 The real point (no pun intended) was not on the end of the rifle but in the mind. Eric Wood considered the bayonet “the decisive weapon in battle” not because it was an effective killer but because merely developing the will to use it produced “confidence of the soldier in himself.”34

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Vickers machine gun. Note the tube for water-cooling and the 1916 pattern hypohelmet gas mask invented by Dr. Cluny Macpherson, Medical Officer for the Newfoundland Regiment in 1915.

When the counterattack came at Gueudecourt, it was the soldiers in field gray and in their new coal-scuttle helmets who died in grazing fire this time. The Newfoundlanders reckoned they killed between two and three hundred of them, but 88 Brigade Machine Gun Company with Corporal Angus Mackay of Scullomie Tongue did most of the killing. Angus, a machine gunner since Gallipoli, commanded a .303 caliber, watercooled, eighteen kilogram (forty-pound) Vickers machine gun, which, on its twenty-two-kilogram (forty-nine-pound) tripod, was more flexible than its evil German stepbrother. Angus commanded its crew and, with his Number 2, carried the gun while the other four in the team carried the ammunition and water for the barrel jacket. Despite having his gun blown up and three of its crew rendered unconscious, Angus wrote, “I think we might be winning.” He had been lucky enough to spend a day with Kiwi brother Donald before 29 Division left the Middle East, but Donnie had since been killed. Now, he heard young Magnus with 51 Highland Division had also been killed up near Arras.

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The London Boy Scouts had taught teenager Sam Sutcliffe Morse Code and semaphore, so a secondment to 88 Brigade Signals seemed efficient. He had been attached to Angus’s machine gun company since Gallipoli, but his age had come to light before the Gueudecourt action, and he had been sent back to England and an Essex training battalion. He was frustrated at leaving his mates but was assured he could return to France once he was eighteen and a half. Now, emphasis turned more to shooting than stabbing. Bayonets and grenades were tools for a trench fight, but 1917 promised a return to open warfare, and the lads were going to have to hit well beyond the range of a “Newfie Twist.” R eorga nizing the A ir Wa r: Satur day, October 28 Air forces were now organized into functional squadrons for reconnaissance, bombing, or air interception, and the RFC and the French Aéronautique Militaire had flooded the skies with new aircraft to claim command of the air. They paid a heavy price, but dominating the new high ground was necessary for this form of artillery-dominated siege warfare. Oswald Boelke’s death while attempting to shoot down his forty-first victim was witnessed by a young protégé, Manfred von Richthofen. Boelke had been teaching Richthofen and other acolytes his rules for aerial combat. He had taught them to drop out of the sun, to fire from close range, and to operate in pairs, but he had broken his own rule on one aircraft attacking at a time. He died in a midair collision. Young Richthofen assumed the leadership of the hunters and drove home the point that any idea of chivalric jousting in the sky was over. Disciplined flying formations, not knights of the air, were needed to address enemy’s numerical superiority.35 R eorga nizing I X R eserv e: Monday, November 13 In 1913, the fifty-nine-year-old Theodor von Wundt had been described as a “rocky crag in human form which the alpine winds have infused with life.” He had exchanged the study of war for anthropology and indulgence in his passion for mountaineering. He had even honeymooned on the Matterhorn with his English bride, Maud, and become an author of modestly selling mountainclimbing novels. But Wundt was also a third-generation soldier, so when Wurttemberg called, Generalmajor Wundt returned to command a brigade in 26 Reserve Division.36 Maud provided Theodor with many English acquaintances, and he suspected that his Wurttembergers had killed more than a few of them below

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Beaumont-Hamel on that July 1 when they had come across no-man’s-land, wave after wave, into machine gun fire. It left historians and families wondering how such a thing could happen, but Wundt knew. Every German officer knew the Birkenhead Drill. In 1852, when the steamship HMS Birkenhead began to sink, the British army contingent—officers, NCOs, bugle boys, and men—paraded on deck to allow women and children to take the few boats. Every woman and child survived, but almost four hundred soldiers perished. An impressed kaiser ordered a description be read to every unit in the German armies. It explained so much of the otherwise inexplicable.37 When the October skies were as gray as the July dead, Wundt left 26 Reserve to take command of 18 Reserve Division of IX Reserve Corps, which was recuperating near Passchendaele. The promotion was a glass half full. Placing a Wurttemberger in command of a Prussian division helped integrate Imperial armies, but the Artois and Somme had taken half the division’s infantry. Albrecht von Thaer noted its survivors were no longer entirely human or capable of energetic action. He had seen officers sobbing.38 Thaer found Wundt to be a “clever bear of a man,” and he needed to be. The new defense scheme was to be conducted as a division commander’s show, and although replacements were arriving, the army’s reorganization had reduced the division by one regiment and each battalion by a company. That left Wundt with nine battalions, some 150 machine guns, thirty-six guns and howitzers, and a mishmash of heavy and light mortars, reconnaissance, supply, and medical units to develop the new “elastic” defense—and do it while holding a sector of Flanders line. (See Appendix on organization.) The division had to learn to fight across three zones: a Forward Zone, a Battle Zone, and a Rear Zone. The Forward Zone extended from no-man’s-land to the Main Line of Defense and was to be occupied with “weak elements . . . with numerous machine guns” under good officers. It was to slow and wear down attacks before they reached the Main Defense and Battle Zone, which now was no longer a continuous line of trenches but a network of wired-in, mutually supporting strongpoints sited to absorb the attack like a sponge. Once the attackers were depleted and enmeshed in the web of strongpoints, they were to be counterattacked by forces from the Rear Zone. This lay beyond field artillery range and thus was secure enough for the divisional reserves and special “intervention” divisions preparing to block or counterattack penetrations. The ultimate object was not to hold ground but to inflict casualties. Each regiment deployed with one battalion in the Forward Zone and main defense, a second in the Battle Zone, and a third in reserve. Wundt’s function was to coordinate their micro-battles. A number of Corps support organizations

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had been apportioned into divisional “slices,” to provide Wundt with two field hospitals (feldlazarette) rather than one, as well as a more flexible artillery organization, but it added a spreading tanglefoot undergrowth of corps and army staff-officers to manage critical resources. There was also a growing problem in the lack of common standards on Forward Zone recruit depots.39 Wundt’s greatest problem was to develop corporate knowledge within regiments and battalions that had lost too many leaders. He relied heavily on his commanders, like Major Hans Koller, CO of 2nd Battalion of 84th Reserve Infantry Regiment. Koller was a professional who believed that, with training, “man can get used to anything,” but preparing new men for that anything without a full slate of experienced leaders was an unrelenting job, and he had to be everywhere. Everyone in 2nd Battalion was familiar with the sight of the impish man with the too-low ears that made him look like a car with the doors open strafing the hides off officers and NCOs in public. It was a method that shocked, but it made lessons register quickly and count for everyone. His animated frame was likely to turn up at any position or at any meal to hand out praise (sparingly) and to offer “good ideas” for doing things better. It was understood that Koller “good ideas” were orders.40 Prewar service in Schleswig-Holstein ensured Koller had a special relationship with his largely Danish-German unit. Some suspected the Danes’ ultimate loyalty was more to Koller than kaiser, but they fought well and had mastered the “elastic” maneuver defense on the Somme before it became army doctrine. The terrible teacher had taken many officers, with the best going first, and although replacement war officers (Kriegsoffiziere) were being created in an eightto-twelve-week program and were brave enough, even with service in the ranks and the new five-week army War School, they could not guarantee the same senses of officerly honor and paternalism as their predecessors. Establishing trust of them among battle-tired men was difficult. In this war of material, the men saw themselves as distinctly outclassed, and their energy and enthusiasm were not what they one had been. They were operating on a third fewer calories than the year before, and Koller and his officers had to be everywhere, ensuring what needed to be done was done.41 Before the war, consideration had been given to broadening the Prussian officer cadre, perhaps as the Bavarians had done by pulling in more middle-class officers, including Catholics and even Jews, but the Prussian secretary for war noted that such expansion meant accepting “democratic and other elements unfit for this profession,” so the army stayed with what was comfortable, even if it meant functioning with fewer officers.42 Units had to place more responsibility on the NCO cadre, and this was already weakened by placing officer candidates in NCO positions. The practice

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reduced chances of advancing by merit just as NCO ranks were being thinned by placing the better NCOs into acting officer positions. Those in appointments like Feldwebelleutnant (sergeant-major lieutenant) and Offizierstellvertreter (deputy officer) performed officer duties, wore officer’s cap and sword belt, but had no access to the Officers’ Mess.43 The IX Reserve Corps conducted training on two levels. Reserve Leutnant Hans Thuden of 17 Reserve Division, for example, had survived the annihilation of his company on the Somme to prepare another generation of replacements. The FRD could replace homeland basic training of goose-step indoctrination with intense socialization around machine gun and mortar, but Thuden had to instill the “one for all and all for one” ideology of the trench fighter and turn them into self-reliant teams. He had little help from the generation that he had trained in the Artois because those who had not been left in the mud of the Somme were training in a different cadre. Albert Krentel (now an Iron Cross recipient) and the other Somme survivors were training as special assault troops, stormtroopers. They received extra rations, a new organization, new tactics, new weapons, and even a new battle blouse, and they were developing tactics and techniques that unshackled them from old ideas. It gave them a noticeable swagger, which put them at odds with some old-school officers, who saw the stormtroopers’ elitist attitude as mulch for insubordination.44 When Wundt heard that Beaumont-Hamel had finally fallen in November, he knew the Battle of the Somme was over. With the British and French on the high ground, the Somme salient had become indefensible. The next battle had to be somewhere else. A nticipation: Satur day, November 18 Kitchener had died at sea on his way to Russia, so he never saw how much over cost his New Army paid for its Somme lessons, but by November, it was operating with a grim expertise not seen in July. Its last act of the Somme campaign had been a massive assault on the Ancre Heights with a force larger than Wellington’s at Waterloo and larger than Montgomery’s was to be on D-Day. Harper’s Duds had been at its center, attacking Beaumont-Hamel. A corps staff officer had told Harper that the 51st “didn’t have a dog’s chance,” but the Scots had used everything they had learned about air reconnaissance, creeping barrage, explosive wire destroyers, gas launchers, and follow-on troops keeping ammunition coming forward and casualties going back. They had even employed a pair of the new caterpillar-tracked and armored landships called tanks, and when the smoke had cleared, the ground was covered by men in kilts,

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equipment bouncing above bare, mudded thighs and being hustled along by gas-rasped NCOs. One highlander trudging back with a covey of slack-jawed prisoners had announced, “They winna call us ‘Harper’s Duds’ noo,” and German Intelligence appended 51 Highland to its list of elite British formations. Wherever it was deployed in the future was to be taken as an indicator of serious operations.45 By then, Haig was being criticized for not achieving a breakthrough, and the drawn-out campaign was leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of many. The transportation system had all but collapsed, the medical system been overwhelmed, and casualty lists beggared belief, but even with all that, many survivors felt that the BEF had struck the vaunted German army a staggering blow. The French had retaken key positions at Verdun, and the Germans were stuck in a defenseless bulge on the Somme. German casualties had been less than the English and French, but not significantly so, and they could afford them less. When the Allied commanders met again at Chantilly to discuss the future of the war, Papa Joffre again pushed for quick action. After the powerful blows of 1916, he proposed that France, Britain, and Russia should strike again in the spring. Each contingent again rationalized why it could not, and the French government kicked Joffre “upstairs” to an advisory position and appointed a new army commander. Louis Spears thought the conference “a monument to the inefficiency of democracy at war.”46

five

k

THE RIGHT WAY, JANUARY–FEBRUARY 1917

The company was no longer a band of amateurs, working out its salvation from its mistakes. The Somme had given it the touchstone of experience, the necessary touch of pride. We were no longer the humble seekers after the right way. We knew. Our way was the right way. Guy Chapman, Passionate Prodigality

Joffr e’s last confer ence at Ch a ntilly took place in the midst of many changes. Britain and Italy had new prime ministers, France and Germany were on the verge of replacing theirs, the Austrian prime minister had been assassinated, and the Russian Czar was about to abdicate. Hindenburg and Haig replaced underperforming predecessors, the Royal Navy changed admirals, and the French replaced Joffre. Once the conference was done, Haig assembled commanders west of Arras at St. Pol and announced there was to be a combined Anglo-French offensive in the spring. The group burbled with enthusiasm as it gathered around the map showing the thick webs of trenches between Arras and Monchy-le-Preux. Their armies and corps had been tested and would be ready, and the new assault techniques were showing success at Verdun. They were confident they had uncovered the Right Way and had a place to use it. Fee a nd A lbatros: W ednesday, Ja nua ry 24 French and Belgians continued to extract a price for the execution of Edith Cavell. Henriette Balesi, a forty-year-old Corsican nurse, had been one of

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Cavell’s acolytes, and Balesi was now working with a resistance network to run evaders along the Arras corridor. The network also monitored German activities and units and was delivering descriptions of new German construction well behind the current line. The RFC had grouped squadrons into “wings” and assigned them to support either a corps or an army. Corps wings did close reconnaissance of the battlefront while army wings executed deep reconnaissance behind the lines. Photographing the new construction thereby fell to Lieutenant-Colonel Pretyman’s 13 Army Wing. Twenty-eight months after crash-landing near Monchy, George Pretyman was still looking for the German army. Deep missions generated significant air fighting behind the German line, and the head of the RFC, Major-General Hugh Trenchard, thought this was a good thing. It kept the Hun on the back foot and away from British preparations. It kept the lads aggressive.1 Captain Drummond Matheson was one of sixteen Canadians in 25 Squadron of Pretyman’s 13 Wing. Matheson had abandoned tinkering with engines for flying. In a war of inconclusive mass killing and anonymous sacrifice, individual effort still counted for something in the air, so Matheson qualified at the Wright Flying School in Augusta, Georgia, and became a pilot for a FE2b fighter-bomber.2 The “Fee” was a big, two-seater biplane with a wingspan of almost fifteen meters (fifty feet) that allowed a fast “wingover” turn. It was a “pusher” aircraft: the engine and propeller were behind the pilot and observer, who were acutely aware that particularly hard landings launched the engine onto their backs. The British had yet to perfect synchronized or interrupter gears that allowed firing through airscrews (propellers), so the “pusher” provided an unobscured field of fire for the observer-gunner sitting in front of and slightly below the pilot. His weapon was a .303 caliber Lewis light machine gun with the larger ninety-seven-round ammunition drum. It needed a catch bag for spent casings to ensure they would not whip back into the airscrew to score an own goal, but it was reliable, and the observer could change drums rapidly. A second Lewis gun was mounted on a high pintle so it could fire back over the upper wing to the vulnerable rear. To fire this gun, the observer had to stand in the nacelle, exposed from the knees up, and rely on the pilot to not take any unexpected action that would fling him into space. The Fee’s top speed of 130–40 kph (80–90 mph) marked it as yesterday’s machine in a war in which new aerotechnology emerged monthly and where the skies now were populated by a new generation of sleek Luftstreitkräfte Albatros and Halberstadt biplane scouts. These had Mercedes engines that pushed them

Protecting the rear of the FE2b Fee.

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to 175 kph (110 mph) and ported twin, belt-fed, 7.92mm machine guns synchronized to deliver five hundred rounds a minute through their propeller arcs. Moreover, the Germans were dealing aces into the game. Once OHL sensed increased RFC activity in the skies over Arras, it deployed a cadre of crack pilots to teach how to contest command of the air. The policy was showing signs of success.3 The aristocratic ace Manfred von Richthofen had been tasked to turn Jadgstaffel 11 (Jasta 11) at Douai into a squadron of deadly aerial hunters who could then teach others. Richthofen painted his aircraft red so his students could recognize him, and they in turn decorated their own machines in bright and quickly recognizable colors—all incorporating some red. On January 24, Matheson strapped himself into his cockpit and called out that his switches were off. He was headed into the red squadron’s hunting ground. The airman behind the machine called out. “Switches off, sir.” “Suck in.” The airman spun the prop. “Switches on.” The engine coughed gray-blue smoke. Matheson took the engine to 1,300 rpm. Once it was burbling smoothly, he ran it up to full throttle and watched his dials while the airman watched the airscrew. The airman flashed a thumb up. Matheson eased back the throttle and looked toward the signal hut for the go while the machine rocked against the chocks holding its wheels. On go, the airman pulled away the chocks and Matheson throttled up. The machine lurched forward, picking up speed as it bumped along the grass strip, and Matheson kicked rudders to keep it pointed in the right direction and in line with his leader. His tail skid rose from the turf, and the three machines lifted off together in a shallow V. They were approaching Monchy within minutes, and the observer test-fired the machine gun as they turned north to take up an overwatch position over two other Fees equipped for photo reconnaissance.4 One of the photo machines was crewed by Captain Oscar Grieg and Second Lieutenant John MacLennan, both intent on capturing a series of overlapping photos that could be connected into a photomosaic of the ground. Grieg had to fly straight and match his flight path to a line on his map while MacLennan operated a stopwatch and camera. They relied on Matheson and the other escorts to watch the sky. The escorts underestimated the speed of the aircraft power-diving out of the sun. They “winged over” to engage, but a red machine rocketed right by them, and Greig discovered he was under attack only when bullets puckered his wings.

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Richthofen’s attack was specific to the FE2. He came down from above and behind its big engine, peppering it with a burst, and continued his dive until he was below the two-seater. Then he swept back upward—the Albatros climbed at three times the rate of the Fee—heading for the blind spot behind and below the Fee’s engine. From there, he fired at the Fee’s nose. The recoil of his guns slowed his speed, so the twin streams of bullets ripped all along the bottom of the machine, hitting Greig’s feet, the petrol tank, the engine, and the airscrew. The Fee lost power, but Grieg, using hands only, kept it from twisting into a deadly spin while MacLennan stood in his forward cockpit and blazed away with the rearward-facing Lewis. Richthofen tried to stay below MacLennan’s line of sight but made a rare mistake of overshooting his slowing prey. MacLennan’s Lewis gun jammed, but not before breaking one of Richthofen’s wings. Both aircraft fluttered to earth within a quarter of a mile. MacLennan pulled the wounded Grieg out of their machine and set it afire to prevent the Germans gaining intelligence. When the field-grays arrived, he asked in his best Anglo-Deutsch, “Who was ‘die rotten Teufel’?”5 “Freiherr von Richthofen” was the response. The Germans knew him, and soon so would the British. The twenty-four-year-old German ace wrote home, explaining that it “was nothing short of a miracle that I reached the ground without a mishap.” He even chatted with Greig and McLennan, the first Englishmen he had brought down alive, but he refused to credit them with shooting him down. He insisted his Albatros had suffered an all-too-common structural failure.6 While Richthofen was scoring his eighteenth victory, Matheson had been racking up his third.7 More encounters were inevitable. The positions 25 Squadron were looking for ran by Richthofen’s aerodrome. Casua lt y Clea r ing: W ednesday, Ja nua ry 31 Agnes Duisans was so much better than Doullens. Doullens would always remind Captain Richard Clarke of the Somme. On arrival there at 19 Casualty Clearing Station (19 CCS), the thirty-year-old from Bristol had introduced himself as the new physician, only to be curtly informed that he was to be physician, surgeon, counsellor, and whatever else was required. Within days, he was with nine other doctors and seven nurses, crawling over stretchers spread across the floor of the citadel château. They slipped in blood while trying to pack sucking chest wounds and reset fragmented and protruding bones. There was limited surgical capability but an overwhelming smell of putrefaction. Metal, bone shards, and unrecognizable debris had been driven deep into flesh by high-velocity projectiles, and most abdominal and chest wounds were

Front line / forward trenches

CCP RAP RAP

RAP

RAP

ADS

Evacuation Routes Returns to Units

MDS

Rest Centre CCS CCP: Casualty Collection Post RAP: Regimental Aid Post ADS: Advanced Dressing Station MDS: Main Dressing Station CCS: Casualty Clearing Station

Hospitals

Zones Stretcher Bearers Horse Ambulance Motor Ambulance Train, Barge, Motor Ambulance

Medical Evacuation System.

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fatal. Compound fractures, especially of the thigh, were almost as lethal because splinting was poor and evacuation was laborious, so broken bones tore tissue. It took far too long for the wounded to reach them from microbe-laden farmland, and septicemia and gangrene set in too quickly. Standard methods of rehydrating with saline, either subcutaneous or anal, proved too temporary, and trying to stabilize broken men long enough for them to catch the train to the general hospitals on the coast was too often a losing fight. Too many died under anesthesia. Too many died from shock. The ratio of dead to wounded was disheartening.8 The necessity for ruthless triage became obvious, but no doctor had been trained for it. The CO appointed Clarke to meet each case and decide disposition: surgery, resuscitation, evacuation, or hospice. The duty included being unit reconnaissance officer, so when 19 CCS was ordered north to Agnes Duisans, ten kilometers west of Arras, Clarke went first. Agnes Duisans impressed him. It was provided with one of the war’s innovations, the new prefabricated, semicylindrical Nissan huts, and these sat in a circle of other CCSs supported by almost thirty ambulance trains. It was an indication that the medical network was stabilizing. It was also a sign that something big was in the offing.9 On moving, 19 CCS bulked up to fourteen generalist doctors, eight surgeons, and twenty-nine nursing sisters. It acquired two hundred proper beds; an operating theater; resuscitation, sterilization, splinting, and dental huts; a dispensary; a gas isolation area; and a mortuary. There were weekly conferences to discuss medical processes, but doctors and surgeons still pushed for personal preferences in anesthetics, surgical techniques, treatments, and even medicines. Older, more established practitioners did not always seem to welcome the ideas of the newer, if more bloodied, field surgeons, but even so, the CCSs were now equipped to not only “fortify all patients against the effects of further early transport” but also “save life, limb, and function.”10 M edicine a nd Dut y—the R A P: W ednesday, Februa ry 7 The 42nd Battalion went back into the line to relieve the PPCLI in the trenches below La Folie on Vimy Ridge. That was the routine: two days in the front line, two days in the support line, two days in reserve, one day handing over. It meant a week of digging, patrolling, repairing barbed-wire obstacles, filling sandbags, and humping dixies, water cans, and rations before being marched out of the line for two to three weeks of kit checks, parades, training, sports, and, with luck, a trip to the bath, laundry, and delousing unit before heading back into the line (where being clean meant one could smell everyone else).

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The Regimental Medical Officer (RMO) knew business picked up when the unit was headed for the line. He conducted daily sick parades, made assessments of illnesses real and imagined (the current problem was mumps), and handed out pills (not all of which were placebos). The 42nd Battalion’s RMO was Captain William “Bill” Hale Jr., a twentynine-year-old physician from Gananoque, Ontario, with a medical practice across the St. Lawrence River in Utica, New York. He was responsible to the CO for unit health and for the functioning of the Regimental Aid Post (RAP), which on a good day was a ruined house, and on a bad one was a raised tarp. The man who ran RAP routine was Medical Sergeant Charles Owston. Owston, a prewar Imperial with no official medical training, had been running the Black Watch RAP for almost two years, earning both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and the Military Medal (MM) for acts like keeping the RAP running for thirty hours during the Fabek fight while being buried by shellfire five times.11 Hale also employed the most important lance-corporal in the unit. The Sanitary NCO was responsible for ensuring the arrival of potable water and departure of human waste. Water had to be carried up, and now that the trenches had been in use for years, human waste had to be carried away. The tins the water came in smelled of fuel (their previous occupation), but the waste (honey buckets) always smelled like what they were. Assignments as “gunga-din” or “shit-wallah” were useful in keeping the boys on the right side of their NCOs.12 Time was set aside to train medical assistants and stretcher-bearers (the battalion pipes and drums). These, in turn, instructed soldiers in the proper use of the aseptic first aid dressing of two padded, sterile bandages and safety pins carried in their lower right tunic pockets. There were two pads because what made a hole going in usually made another, bigger hole going out. Hale was supposed to remind officers and NCOs to mark casualties with a rifle, thrust bayonet down, into the ground and to tell their men that remaining with the casualty was forbidden. Stopping doubled or trebled the loss of fighting strength, extended the fight, and delayed casualty recovery. No amount of camping on his family’s island in the St. Lawrence River could prepare “Doc” Hale for dealing with wounds under canvas in a wet ditch. In action, the RAP had to be central and as close to the troops as possible without being under direct fire, as well as sheltered enough to be able to stop bleeding, splint fractures, and pack wounds sufficient for patients to travel the evacuation chain. Treatment could not be on the basis of wound severity but on the likelihood of making it to a dressing station, so abdominal wounds and compound fractures, which required four to six stretcher-bearers, had to wait. Furthermore,

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Doc Hale, with RMOs personal transport, circa 1917.

Hale’s supply of morphine was limited. Treatment and palliative devices were bandages, warmth, tea, and bouillon made with Oxo beef-stock cubes; according to the best medical advice, “a cigarette was of some comfort.”13 Hale was worldly enough to understand that lice-ridden, tired men still managed a sex life, albeit a commercial one, but the army was losing too many men to hospitalization, so the Doc had to conduct group “short-arms inspections,” the rather public examination of the privates’ privates. Commanders saw venereal disease as more a disciplinary than medical problem, so its victims had their pay reduced. The 52nd’s hard-rock miner, the mighty Joe Young, had been sent to England for treatment for the mysterious and incurable trench fever, but the trip exposed him to the notorious fleshpots of London. He was no sooner released from his fever ward than he was back in a gonorrhea ward and being penalized half a day’s pay for every day it took to qualify for the form. ______ Military Hospital Date__________19__ This is to certify that the marginally named man is free from all Vermin, Venereal and Contagious Disease.

Despite penalties and frighteningly graphic lectures, the Canadian VD rate remained five times higher than the British. Hale understood. His boys were not only better paid than the Brits but also farther and further from home.14

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Increasing incidences of shell shock and exhaustion were more difficult to treat. There were too many variations and too many opinions. The best the unit could manage was to send exhaustion cases to the new divisional rest centers and medical cases to the new shell-shock ward at No. 3 Canadian Stationary Hospital. Malingerers were dealt with by commanders and courts-martial, but even these now required a psychiatric opinion. The doctor’s problem was in differentiating cases. A Functioning Hea dqua rter s: W ednesday, Ja nua ry 18 Agar Adamson was already the fourth CO of the Patricias (two killed, one promoted). He was fifty-one, smoked one hundred cigarettes a day, had no night vision, and was almost blind in one eye—his monocle made him instantly recognizable throughout the division—but his other eye was for detail, which he transmitted almost daily to his wife. He expressed relief at coming out of the line but noted it meant entering a period of training made harder by absorbing many replacements for Somme losses. New men and new gear began arriving, and training updated and intensified. Agar thought this a good thing. The days of poor equipment, tenuous leadership, and unnecessarily high casualties were, he hoped, behind them. By the time Byng was back at his old perch at Mont-Saint-Eloi, the Canadian government had cleansed itself of its unreasoning minister, Sam Hughes, and Byng had cleansed the Corps of politics (for the most part) and seen off the “bumstunts” and “dollar magnates” who could only presume to lead, but melding his divisions into a proper corps had been an interrupted process from the start. The divisions had barely restocked with replacements after Mont Sorrel before entering the grind of the Somme, and it was only now, back below Vimy, that Byng might have the time and space to turn four divisions into a functioning corps. Byng’s Canadians were assigned to the BEF’s First Army, under General Henry Horne, a careful pragmatist who allowed Byng both physical and metaphysical maneuver room. Horne’s staff managed the equivalent of a large city with a population of somewhere between a quarter and half million souls while Byng’s headquarters managed the equivalent of a satellite city of more than one hundred thousand. These virtual municipalities employed specialists in communications, engineering, health, welfare, law, security, and supply functions, and they ran their own intelligence and artillery apparatuses, supply, transport, labor, hospitals, veterinary, religious functions, postal services, printing and mapmaking shops, training schools, graves registration, and anti-aircraft defenses.

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First Army was one of five British armies on the Western Front, and the Canadian Corps was one of nineteen corps, but it was an almost unique one. British corps dealt with transient populations; their divisions moved between corps as required, and the coming operation involved moving a score of them to new homes. The Canadian Corps, in contrast, was a fixed population. Its four divisions remained in the Canadian Corps, making both it and them the better for it. The stability allowed Byng to salt his corps and division staffs with highquality, mostly British, professionals and handpicked six of his twelve brigadiers and forty of forty-nine battalion commanders.15 He spent time cultivating these in get-togethers at his headquarters, where he had them explore the ins and outs of operations, training, and administration. It was the army’s method of educating officers to think more broadly, and Byng’s prize student, the current commander of 1st Canadian Division, Arthur Currie, a former realtor, was already quoting Stonewall Jackson.16 Other senior commanders employed the technique, but Byng’s touch and apprentices were special. Dominion officers were little constrained by old dogmas; they had been in battle and readily acknowledged what they did not know. They accepted ideas on a trial basis (feeling free to tweak them), and they loved novelties: wireless, flash spotting, sound ranging, armored cars, gas, machine guns, delousing machines, and anything new. Furthermore, the stability of the Corps made learning cumulative and lessons perennial. Bumstunts couldn’t vault in from outside. When the commander of 3rd Canadian Division was killed at Mont Sorrel, Byng insisted on finding a replacement from within the Corps. Finding a good replacement was important because none of Byng’s divisional commanders had been full-time soldiers before the war, and none of his division or brigade commanders had commanded anything larger than an understrength militia unit. Now, all were expected to command between five and fifteen combat units and control a headquarters staffed by volunteers learning on the job. With the new wireless radios still a fantasy, artillery promiscuous enough to slash telephone lines, and pigeons unreliable and sometimes traitorous, communications relied on runners, flags, signal lamps, and contact airplanes. Commanders had to be able to trust their headquarters staff to implement their will while they found that sweet spot from where they could maintain a picture of what was happening in front of them and still communicate to their rear. (Despite the myth of bunker-dwelling and château-living generals, more general officers were killed and wounded in this war than in any other.) Byng gave the 3rd Division to his best brigade commander, Louis Lipsett. Lipsett was a staff-qualified British Army Regular with excellent French, workable German, and twenty years of active service in theaters like India and South

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Africa. When the war broke out, the then Major Lipsett had been in Canada teaching militia officers about “higher” operations—a necessity for an army with no actual higher formations—and the War Office had allowed the fortyyear-old bachelor to take command of a Canadian unit rather than return home. He became CO of the 8th Battalion CEF of Winnipeg,17 a unit in a brigade commanded by one of his students, Arthur Currie. Lipsett had subsequently moved up to command Currie’s brigade when Currie moved up to command the 1st Division.18 Private Will Bird in 42nd Battalion was a writer and was new to this game of soldiers. He collected stories, and the best received were those with common themes (food, drink, boneheaded officers, and sadistic NCOs), but Bird learned that not all stripes carried the same weight, and not all brass hats topped Saville Row cloth. Black Watch old-timers told him it was good that Lipsett had the division. “Lippy” had kept his head at Ypres when others had waffled, and they credited him with getting the word out to use piss-soaked handkerchiefs as effective gas masks. Canadian war correspondent Fred McKenzie had a reputation for reporting from both sides in a number of wars, and he pronounced Lipsett “the real stuff.” Lippy might be Welsh-Irish by blood, but he was one of their own by blood rite.19 Bird learned more while standing sentry. An officer stopped to chat about Alberta and army life and asked Bird about his division commander. Bird confessed he did not know who that was. The stranger introduced himself as MajorGeneral Lipsett and presented Private Bird with his photograph so he would know him in future. Bird kept the picture for the rest of his life, recalling that Lipsett was “nearer to us than any other brass hat . . . I had never heard a man speak against him.” But some senior officers did speak against him.20 Louis Lipsett was an old-school warrior monk, pleasant and paternalistic with soldiers but unsparing of self, commanders, or staff. He left no memoir, but a peer explained the creed, “borne out by war, which is—never to give a man a second chance. It may sound hard, but I have found that the man who lets you down once, will, infallibly, do so again.”21 Senior officers resented Lipsett’s ever-so-understatedly British critiques. Their army had seen them as prominent and had granted them automatic As for effort in commanding militia units, but now the acerbic headmaster of this harder school was giving them Cs and demanding they learn anew. Louis Spears observed that the “man who makes colonels and majors tremble must be, in some subtle way, the unavowed ally of second lieutenants,” so these juniors loved Lipsett.22 Brigadier Archie Macdonell did appreciate Lipsett. Archie commanded 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade in Lipsett’s division, and as a Boer War veteran

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and former Northwest Mounted Police inspector, he knew command was not granted—it was earned. He had christened himself “Fighting Mac” but knew leadership took more than projecting an aggressive charisma. Charisma, he knew, had limits. (Out of earshot, the troops called him “Batty Mac,” largely for the episode in which he’d stood to inspire them and called out, “Fuck the sniper,” just before the bullet snapped through his arm.) But Batty Mac consumed all training material voraciously, and it was considerable. Even lowly company commanders could expect to receive twenty or more directives on taking over a segment of line.23 Intense study was necessary, but the only guide for senior commanders were the pre-war Field Service Regulations (FSR), and these assumed the officer on the spot had sufficient training, education, and experience to read a tactical situation well enough to make appropriate decisions. The current commanders of myriads of myriads, however, had little experience with large organizations (if any at all) and commanding a corps, considered “one of the most complex organizations in the world,” required reading a battle several days out to determine lines of operation, objectives, resource requirements, and management of those new and “strange children of war”: tanks, airplanes, and very big guns. Division commanders had to see at least as far as the day after tomorrow to coordinate units, weapons, and resources to take and hold objectives, and brigade commanders had to fight today’s battle while anticipating what came next.24 The better brigadiers could swivel units to a new course as opportunity presented, but only if units and commanders were sufficiently prepared. Macdonell thought himself lucky in this because he had been given “four of the finest battalions Canada ever sent to the war.”25 Unlike the other divisions, Lipsett’s 3rd Canadian Division had not been christened on arrival from Canada but had been assembled from odd lots in theatre. Batty Mac’s 7 Brigade received the pick of the litter. He had the Regulars of The RCR (arrived from Bermuda), the glamour-boy PPCLI (back from serving with the British), the swaggering 42nd Battalion, Black Watch, and the 49th (Edmonton) Battalion (whose first CO had recruited a disproportionate number of experienced soldiers).26 The other two brigades in the division were almost as special: 8 Brigade was contrived by compressing six units of unhorsed but veteran Canadian Mounted Rifles (CMR) into four battalions of infantry, and 9 Brigade was accumulated from odd but hard battalions. Most Canadian soldiers were immigrants, students, townies, and salarymen who swaggered like colonial rough riders to impress the enemy and the Brits. They wanted to be tough guys, so they strutted like they wore spurs, and in the end, perhaps that was what mattered, but those in 9 Brigade were actual tough

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guys. The 43rd (Cameron Highlanders), the 58th, and the new 116th Battalion were rural Ontario workers, and the 52nd Battalion had come from the mining, tree-cutting, and fur-trapping spaces between Winnipeg and Lake Superior. The 52nd was Leo Bouchard’s unit, and the slight, young Ojibwe who had moved logs down the waters as a river driver was quite at home with hard rock miners like fever-plagued 5'10", two-hundred-pound Joe Young.27 Most lieutenant-colonels commanding battalions now had combat experience but were novices at the kind of war the Corps intended to fight. Like their company commanders, platoon commanders, and specialists, they confronted a steep learning curve of tactical, technical, and procedural change. Most junior leaders were works in progress, and a significant number of soldiers were new. The 3rd Division’s loss of half its trench strength at Mont Sorrel left it short of leaders even before it rushed into action at the formidable Fabek graben trench system on the Somme. Further losses there did little to capture any lasting operational knowledge. Too many linchpins were lost, including a division commander, a brigade commander, and several commanding officers—including Hamilton Gault, who’d lost a leg. Technique: Satur day, Februa ry 17 Units built on surviving linchpins—men like Major Stanley Norsworthy of the 42nd Battalion. Stan had been in Mexico managing a bank when the war began, and he had returned to follow three brothers into the Black Watch. By the time he reached the Somme, one of the brothers was already buried at Ypres in 1915, and Stan had survived one wound. By the time he cut short his honeymoon to reach the Somme, he knew enough of war to be the unit adjutant. As such, it fell to Stan to cross six hundred yards of muddy shell holes and collapsed trenches in the attack on the Fabek Graben trench system with new orders when things, as they invariably did, went pear-shaped. Once the troops had “gone over the bags,” they were beyond unit control, so Stan had to go forward. He took bullets through both kilted legs but got things sorted before all his blood was on the outside.28 His first experience of a divisional attack was enlightening (and painful). On his way to the casualty post, he caught flashes of how the battalion operated once it crossed the veil of no-man’s-land. Troops were scattered, all runners were killed or wounded, and most subunit commanders were casualties. The unit functioned because subalterns like twenty-three-year-old journalist Lieutenant Charlie Topp (“Toppo”) and twenty-nine-year-old schoolmaster Lieutenant Ralph Willcock stepped up to command of what was left of companies and continued clearing trenches down to where Major Charlie Stewart and the PPCLI fought on their right. Private Jimmie Montgomerie, the battalion’s well-known

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soccer professional, took control of a makeshift platoon to round up prisoners, and by the time Norsworthy arrived at the RAP, Medical Sergeant Owston was again digging it out from being buried by shellfire. Not everyone was as lucky as Stan. Batty Mac, still shaken by news of the loss of his pilot son, lost his personal staffer and Golden Miler, “Red” George McDonald. He had sent George forward to find out what was really happening, and he was shocked when George came back on a stretcher, ripped open from clavicle to testicles.29 By the time the survivors arrived at Mont St. Eloi, they had absorbed what the terrible teacher provided. They knew what they did not know and had a sense of who and what they were. They knew they had much to learn about what to do after crossing no-man’s-land, but they also knew they were the tough guys who had stuck it at Mont Sorrel and taken the Fabek and were getting better at this. They added 3 Canadian Division to the German list of elite British formations.30 Platoon training had paused on Valentine’s Day morning 1917 for an inspection by Field Marshal Haig, and then the next day for one by Byng. On Friday, the newly appointed French army commander turned up, and by then, everyone figured out that big plans were in the works. The Comedy Company put on a good show Friday night, but everyone had to be up bright and early on Saturday for the special platoon demonstration. It demonstrated what they were expected to achieve in the next few weeks. Officer Factory: Tuesday, Februa ry 27 Offizierstellvertreter (soon to be Leutnant) Fritz Nagel and his English wife held the common view of the British army as “very small and trained primarily for colonial wars,” with generals “used to commanding small units,” officers “undertrained playboys,” and soldiers “unable to make a living in any other profession.” He was not entirely wrong. Fritz’s army, with ten times as many officers, was no less class conscious or sports minded, but it lacked that British eccentricity of hiding any suggestion of professionalism.31 Nevertheless, the “playboys” who had survived 1915 had trained a million citizens. After two years of war, they had standardized basic training to fourteen weeks of physical training, drill, route marching, weapons handling, and entrenching. Graduates of the program arriving in France were fit and familiar enough with discipline, authority, and obedience to be further shaped in the circle of often brutal camps around Étaples, about twenty minutes from Montreuil. Perspicacious veterans called this the “Bull Ring.”32 (map 2) The bull largely dissipated once they arrived in their units, but not the training. It included more work on individual skills, but its primary thrust was devoted to learning to operate within the collective. Specialist training with

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mortars, machine guns, grenades, signals, and gas was conducted at division and corps schools, which also ran programs of civil education to help explain why they were there. (Most settled for the song sung to the tune of Auld Land Syne, “We’re here because we’re here, because we’re here.”)33 NCOs were selected by merit and trained at field army schools, but officer production was a centralized effort. The OTC had produced barley enough candidates to stand up armies in 1915 and fill hospitals in 1916, and the Old Army had commissioned only 4 percent of its officers from its undereducated ranks. The New Army offered better prospects, but a British officer informed Eric Wood that his men “object to having anyone but a gentleman in command.” There was a whiff of truth to this. Teenager Sam Sutcliffe, having survived Gallipoli and the Somme, believed that “our men always felt happiest when commanded by men from that class which traditionally produced fine officers,” but he acknowledged that as losses mounted, “the Army tried to come up with and train new top-notchers.”34 In 1915, when suitable men could be elevated in situ, such top-notchers were the likes of Sergeant George Pearkes, a former Northwest Mounted policeman with a talent for raiding and bombing at a time when grenades were jam-jars of gun cotton and scrap iron. Once the unit bombing officer (seemingly inevitably) was rendered hors de combat, George was field-commissioned. Now, the army had proper grenades, and Pearkes was commanding a company in 5 Canadian Mounted Rifles (5 CMR).35 The Newfoundland Regiment, having lost the bulk of its officers at Gallipoli and on the Somme, was a national contingent and so was allowed to replace lost officers with its own middle-class veterans. Temporary Imperial commissions were provided for the likes of small businessmen Leo Murphy, Jack Bemister, Sid Stephenson, and George Langmead, as well as student Kevin Keegan. Even American Eric Fisher Wood wangled a British commission. After leaving the American Volunteer Ambulance, he accumulated a folder of impressive letters of reference from those back home anxious to prepare America for war, and he obtained a position as censorship (MI7 intelligence) officer in London. Once there, he agitated until the War Office sent him to Arras as a temporary Royal Marine major.36 Still, there was little enough ready material. The army needed an influx of ten thousand officers a year, so it was no surprise to Agar Adamson when he was asked to provide another twenty officer candidates from the PPCLI. It had already provided more than a hundred since 1915, so Agar was quite used to the CEF treating the Patricias’ university replacements as an army farm team. Adamson’s policy remained to recommend men based “on guts and not gamble on

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manners so we will probably have some queer fish but the side will be stronger for it.” He recommended weaker candidates for aircrew.37 Veterans like Adamson had come to see that successful officers came in classifications, like orders of raptors. Some, like him and Stan Norsworthy in the 42nd Black Watch, were owls. They were planners and preparers who could organize men and put together operations. They were old-style patrons focused on men’s health, training, and fitness, as well as on unit effectiveness and efficiency. The second category was action-man, the falcons who mastered men and battle with a combination of personal magnetism and a superior, almost inhuman, situational awareness. Men like fellow Patricia, Charlie Stewart, and former reporter Charlie Topp in the 42nd operated as if they had a constantly functioning situation map in their brain housing. They were also good at team sports. The third category was the eagle and included men like George Pearkes, Ernest Barbot, and John Forbes-Robertson. These thought like owls and performed like falcons. They were an imperiled species. War adapted officer production. From the beginning, the Regiment had sent NCOs who had proven themselves at the cannon’s mouth for commissioning, but the system had to be convinced that these were gentlemen. In 1915, Adamson had to play up twenty-three-year-old Mel Tenbroeke’s social status to get him around the waiting list of socially connected and untried sons waiting commissions. He highlighted the Tenbroeke family position among the original pirates of the Dutch East India Company and Mel’s attendance at the Bishop Cotton School in Simla, India; this was where the families that lived, married, and ruled the subcontinent sent their sons. Mel had also attended junior OTC in an English public school, and he had a younger brother already commissioned into the BEF. Though Mel might not measure to pre-war standards for posh English regiments (where financial self-sufficiency and the skin tone of generations born and bred in Asia were factors), he was more than sufficient for the Patricias or a New Army regiment. The terrible teacher took too great a toll on these “suitable” men, so the system was revised to make others suitable. Educating, training, and creating officers was formalized into a minimum three-month course in one of some thirty Officer Cadet Battalions (OCB).38 Those selected for the OCB had to be veterans with two years’ service or equivalent in an OTC—men like Ross Macpherson and Ivan Soule. Ross already had two brothers in training as officers (one infantry and the other RFC) and a third, Donald (artillery), waiting for his educational transcript to apply. Once at their OCBs, Macpherson and Soule mixed with the likes of Canadian Milton Gregg, a slight, sharp-nosed university student who had worked his way from stretcher-bearer to platoon sergeant in a Black Watch

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battalion, and with Scotsman Douglas Cuddeford, whose tour in the Royal Scots had identified him as suitable for commissioning. OCBs were more than simple schools; they were developmental nexuses. Candidates spent months in rooms made hot by thick wool uniforms and on parade squares made heavy with sweat. Days were spent in drill, law, administration, weapons, and tactics; evenings were spent learning how to use a fork without scarring the face; and all of this was accomplished while melding the gentrified Old Army’s sangfroid and chivalric ideals to the New Army’s experience and combat culture.39 Once certified, the “temporary gentlemen” attended specialist courses, like Lewis light machine gun or bombing (grenade) courses or, in Gregg’s case, a physical training course (perhaps to compensate for his slight frame). Macpherson returned to the PPCLI, which was unusual in its ability to reclaim many of its candidates. The British, assuming familiarity bred, sent their temporary gentlemen to new units. Cuddeford was to join Rob Steuart in 12 HLI, and Gregg and Soule were sent to see Snook, the regimental tailor for The Royal Canadian Regiment. As “Shino Boys” (as the Brasso-shone Royals were known), they were expected to parade out of the line in tailored uniform, bright buttons, tie, and Sam Browne belt with cross-strap. They were veterans but still junior to twenty-year-old Bill Home, who had arrived from Canada already commissioned. He had been in hockey and army uniforms since he was seventeen, but because he was too young for overseas service, he had bided his time in a Canadian “officer factory.” The thinning of the social membrane became more evident with later selections when almost 40 percent of officer candidates were working class. Alfred Mason, a Welsh immigrant carpenter from Calgary, was selected for the Royal Horse and Field Artillery School Larkhill entirely on the basis of operational performance (he had earned a Military Medal), and he was sent to join horseman Dan Mackinnon in 9 CFA. Mac Mackay, former mounted policeman and cousin of Angus of the Scullomie Tongue clan, had been accepted into the 1914 Patricias on the basis of previous service in the Lovat Scouts (a British marksman unit), but the six-footer had received headwounds in 1915 that produced a discharge as “unsuitable for further service.” There was no mention of permanent disability, so with thousands of officers needed for rearward services, Mac was able to negotiate a commission as a Pay Corps officer while conspiring to find his way back to the Regiment.40 The OCB graduates returned to an army that was no longer one in which gruff, working-class sergeants guided fresh-faced, socially elite subalterns. Now, both officer and sergeant were a year or two off “Civvie Street” and, unlike many of the OTC boys, had few romantic expectations about organized industrial violence. By 1917, the term “temporary gentleman” was all but disappeared, Frank

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Fox was commenting on the “vast change in the social conditions of the army,” and fusilier officer Guy Chapman witnessed the social crust splitting “like a mined trench.” Newfoundlander Kevin Keegan reflected new expectations when he wrote home that “hell is being raised over the question of a commission for one [name excised]. The qualification . . . [is] that he’s his father’s son.”41 With New Army replacements and temporary officers permeating all divisions, the BEF was becoming a composite or hybrid of Old, Territorial, and New Armies, but the one factor that remained universal was in the expectation that officers were to act the part of that “class apart, loved or hated” so typified by the battle-wise, mustachioed Regular.42 The stoic Regular was easy to caricature and often difficult to fathom, but one who made the journey from private in this war to general in the next remembered him as worthy of emulation. He saw him as a model of unfailing courage, of endurance of pain and discomfort without complaint, and of the rejection of self-pity. His cultural sclerosis was compensated by belief in never letting down a comrade, protecting women and children, and being unfailingly kind to animals. Although his faith in discipline “had the validity of religion,” so did his devotion to the Regiment, which ensured protection of the men from both the enemy and the greater military machine.43 Adrian Carton de Wiart was an archetype of this group, famously described by poet A. E. Housman as defending “what God abandoned.” Carton de Wiart soldiered for adventure and loved riding and pigsticking. He needed no reason to fight other than his country fought, and despite losing friends and being forever haunted by its putrefaction, he enjoyed war because it “shows the man as he really is, not as he would like to be, nor as he would like you to think he is.” By 1917, he had commanded companies, battalions, and brigades and was willing to tell stories about Somalia, South Africa, and Ypres; how he had lost his eye, a hand, an earlobe, or a piece of gut or skull; or how he cut off his own damaged fingers when the medic hesitated—but not how he earned his VC or DSO.44 Newly minted officers had more status, more leave, and whisky rations instead of rum, but in exchange they accepted a never-ending responsibility for reports, returns, and plans, counting rations and stores, censoring letters, and attending conferences. And they accepted more risk. Lesson one in their preparation had been “You can’t push a string.” It was a truism on both sides. On completing his tour as an infantryman, Berliner medical student Stefan Westmann feared being commissioned in the infantry rather than Medical Service. This, he thought, was “a one-way ticket to eternity.”45 The keen observer Eric Fisher Wood captured the junior officer’s role in four tasks. First, he trained his platoon and established its discipline and esprit. Second, he marched it to the trenches and prepared it for operations. Third, he led it in the assault. Finally, he reconstructed it from the mob it inevitably became on

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the first objective and reorganized it to take the second objective. Wood noted that the subaltern who “conquers a second objective, will by nightfall almost certainly be either dead or a captain.”46 Haig understood what was expected. “Although new to this terrible ‘game of war’ they were able, time and again, to form up their commands in the darkness of night, and in spite of shell holes, wire, and other obstacles, lead them forward in the grey of the morning to the attack of these tremendous positions. To many it meant certain death, and all must have known that before they started.”47 Some funked it. Many were lost to disease, battle, or collapse. Some were cashiered (decommissioned with dishonor, never to serve the Crown in any capacity), and some were dismissed (loss of commission, returned to the ranks). The men of the 42nd, for example, knew one of their officers had been cashiered and sentenced to hard labor for “gross indecency,” but few were aware that one of their highly decorated sergeants was a dismissed officer redeeming himself.48 Losses among officers made maintaining corporate knowledge difficult, so BEF battalions carried a surplus of junior officers. Either way, it was good that units had the winter to reconstitute. Com m a nd: W ednesday, Februa ry 28 Word among GHQ Staff was that Britain’s new prime minister, Lloyd George, was more taken with the new French commander than with their own taciturn Haig. Joffre was gone, Foch was in limbo, and Pétain was passed over in favor of the elegant Général George Nivelle. Nivelle was “good-looking, smart, plausible, and cool”; had an English mother; and promised quicker results and fewer casualties. All he needed was for the BEF to draw the Germans onto Arras while he conducted a major, lightning attack south of the vulnerable Somme line.49 “For at least a month rumors had been flying round the British front concerning the irresistible vastity of an impending French attack on a scale to which we could never aspire, and directed by brains which are not vouchsafed to British generals by a discriminating Creator. The battle of Arras was merely the Prologue. The Play was to begin on the 16th of April elsewhere.”50 Operation Alberich upset Nivelle’s plan. It was well underway before the British and French noticed, despite knowing winks. A German sent a message to 51 Highland Division. “Poor old 51st. Still sticking it! Cheery-oh!”51 British and Australian patrols probed the ground abandoned by the retreating Germans. “The country was dead, laid waste with a destructive fervor worse than anything in the Thirty Years’ War, a devastation that had no parallel since the wars of the Mongols . . . we saw a huge notice erected on the town hall: ‘NICHT ARGEN NUR WUNDERN.’ ‘Don’t be angry, only wonder!’”52

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Nivelle saw the withdrawal as an opportunity. Anglo-French armies could strike the hinges of the swinging doors of the withdrawal—Haig the northern hinge at Arras, and Nivelle, the southern hinge on the Aisne at the Chemin des Dames—once the abnormally bitter winter ended. (map 2) Nivelle suggested the British ignore Vimy, which could not be taken. They should push directly over the butte de Monchy. Haig reasoned he could not leave the Ridge on his flank without his forces being squeezed between it and the new German defenses under construction. He reckoned on taking both Vimy and Monchy.53 Air photos revealed that the new band of fortifications, christened the Hindenburg Line by the British and the Siegfriedstellung by the Germans, ran south from Arras near Neuville-Vitasse but not north of it, so most positions around Vimy and Arras remained unchanged. A second line was emerging about six miles behind Monchy-le-Preux, and it seemed to run from Drocourt, ten miles north of Monchy, to Quéant, ten miles south. This Drocourt-Quéant, or DQ , Line (Wotanstellung to the Germans) seemed to be a “switch” line for the Hindenburg, and it was likely designed to block any move around the Hindenburg positions.54 Because the Monchy plateau dominated both the ground rising from Arras and the ground descending toward the DQ Line, it was the principal objective. With three BEF armies taking part, the operation was to be planned in intricate detail, with the Third Army playing the central role at Monchy. Haig enlarged the Third Army to sixteen experienced infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, a thousand supporting guns, three hundred aircraft, and forty tanks. First Army, on its left, was to protect its flank by capturing Vimy Ridge, and Fifth Army, on its right, was to strike the curved Hindenburg Line at a convergent angle that could pinch out the salient by meeting Third Army behind the Monchy plateau.55 (map 6) Corps were the main instruments of battle, so each corps had its objective: Vimy for First Army’s Canadians; the heights of Roeux, Monchy, and Wancourt for Third Army’s three corps; and Bullecourt for Fifth Army’s Australians.56 Byng was finally getting his chance at Vimy, but the all-important thrust to Monchy was to be executed by Third Army’s VI Corps, under LieutenantGeneral Aylmer Haldane, a flint-faced Scot. He was to break into the defense with three divisions (15th Scottish, 12th, and 3rd Divisions) and then break through by passing 37 Division through to capture Monchy. Haldane was confident in his corps and in himself, if not others. He believed he had developed an understanding of modern warfare as an observer in the Russo-Japanese War, and in fighting in India and South Africa. He believed in his ability to plan; he had engineered escapes from a Boer prison in 1899 (including that of fellow prisoner Winston Churchill) and succeeded in command

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through the dark times of 1914–16 when so many others had been found wanting. (He court-martialed a CO he had believed in, James Elkington, and although he supported young Hemming’s flash-and-buzzer ideas, but also appointed the prehistoric Fawcett to oversee him.) Haldane believed his proven abilities had been overlooked by a cliquish Old Army given to promoting jumped-up cavalrymen, one of which was the man to whom he reported, Third Army commander Lieutenant-General Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby. Allenby’s nickname was “Bull,” and Haldane found serving in “the constellation of Taurus” unpleasant.57 Allenby had settled for becoming a soldier after failing to qualify for the Indian Civil Service, but like Byng, he found it a calling and his career had followed the trajectory of a successful professional: from easygoing twentyone-year-old subaltern to good-humored, if idiosyncratic, thirty-six-yearold company commander, to demanding forty-year-old unit commander, to difficult-to-please forty-eight-year-old division and corps commander, to volatile fifty-three-year-old army commander.58 The epithet “Bull” reflected both an imposing 6’2” barrel-chested physicality and a famous and temperamental explosiveness coupled to a lack of oratorical skill that led Louis Spears to note that it “took a well-drilled Staff” to bring Allenby’s ideas into “the harbour of comprehension.” Spears balanced this by noting Allenby’s “kindly, indulgent humour that was easily aroused.”59 The Bull’s staff knew him as a devoted family man of surprising shyness who scanned casualty lists daily for news of his only son and who exhibited a constant curiosity of many subjects. He may have been more “a practitioner of war, rather than a military thinker,” but he was clearly devoted to finding better ways to fight, even though Haig, an old cavalry rival, seemed always to favor suggestions from other commanders.60 Christopher D’Arcy Baker-Carr, commander of the newly formed Tank Brigade, was another who made a career of disparaging the competence of others, yet he christened Allenby the greatest of British generals, and the anticonventional T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) thought his mind “like the prow of the Mauretania. There is so much weight behind it that it does not need to be sharp like a razor.” That mind was now plowing through the problems of pushing a quarter million men down the road past Monchy.61 If the army was not to bog down in another trench maze fight, it had to attack deep and wide enough to stymie the infamous German counterattacks. Its break-in had to bite deep enough to rupture the Main Defense, and then it had to bite again to break through to the Monchy plateau. Two bites required an operational pause to consolidate, to relocate artillery, and to pass through depth divisions, but if Allenby could push Haldane over the Monchy high ground,

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he could achieve the aim: forcing Germans reserves to reposition. Moreover, if Third Army’s cavalry was quick enough, it might even reach the DQ positions before the Germans consolidated, forcing them to fall back to protect the Cambrai nexus. Regardless of cavalry success, the attack was to continue. Haldane could complain about being bullied by Allenby, but the French were not to complain again of British failure.62 One of the officers Haig had sent to learn from the French, Brigadier Arthur Solly-Flood, was appointed to coordinate army training and methodology by expanding the FSR with lessons learned. So arrived updated directions, such as SS 135, Instructions for the Training of Divisions for Offensive Action; SS 143, Instructions for the Training of Platoons for Offensive Action; SS 144, The Normal Formation for the Attack; SS 139/4, Artillery in Offensive Operations; and SS 148, Forward Inter-Communication in Battle. The three armies of the BEF at Arras were to orchestrate their infantry, artillery, aircraft, tanks, and cavalry in a grand proof of concept for new organizations and techniques.

six

k

PREPARING THE MEN, MARCH 1917

The end for which a soldier is recruited, clothed, armed, and trained, the whole object of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and marching is simply that he should fight at the right place and the right time. Clausewitz, On War

H a ig’s confer ence inspir ed his com m a nder s. The new year was bringing new troops, new organization, new weapons, and a new freedom from GHQ , which was assuming more the role of the orchestra conductor. The instruments might not yet be ready to jam, but they could play the sheet music even if every officer at the conference had personal, even idiosyncratic, ideas about how to prepare his instrument. OHL wrestled with different issues. The German orchestra was fully capable of playing its conductor’s new arrangement, but it was short instruments, musicians, and rehearsal time. Infa ntry: Fr iday, M a rch 2 Lieutenant Cyril Biddulph’s guts were in constant uproar. It was like being on stage. Before joining a University Company and the PPCLI, the thirty-year-old had been a Broadway star who threw up before every performance. Cyril was one of five brothers, all British Army brats, and so far pneumonia had killed one and the war had killed two. The constant bouts of trench fever and “capricious bowels” led Agar Adamson to suspect Cyril might be soft, but he had yet to let down the side when it counted. Besides, he had added value.

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That intangibility, morale, was critical to keeping units functioning, and the lads loved Biddy’s stories of treading the boards with his flame-headed wife, Cissie, and of touring exotic America with the infamous actress and mistress of the previous king, Lily Langtry. They also loved Biddy in their stage shows.1 The Canadian Corps called itself “Byng’s Boys” after a popular London revue The Bing Boys Are Here, and this reflected the influence of the variety show, not yet replaced as the primary entertainment by the cinema.2 Biddulph was a star of the much-loved PPCLI Comedy Company, a troupe that satisfied the Byng Boys antiheroic, heartfelt, and dark humor. Sociologists were to interpret such entertainment as making the operational environment less threatening, but British humor had always been a wry challenge to hierarchy and bureaucracy, and soldiers loved challenging the war, the army, and social stereotypes. Comedians reenacted Agar’s tough “Welcome to the Regiment” speech because it was a common experience readily rendered more amusing and because satire was a respectful corrective. Its targets, as in combat, were egalitarian.3 Adamson commented, “Everybody of any importance was taken off. Some jokes quite amusing . . . I am shown pounding my hands together and saying to Byng (who is very well taken off on the stage) ‘Damn it sir, if your maps are wrong, I must have been right in going wrong.’ “There is some foundation to this and it seems to have given some amusement.”4 Almost every division had a show, and Lipsett wanted one. The Newfoundlanders’ 29 Division had its “Diamond Troupe” (named for the divisional crest), which specialized in musicals, complete with costumes, lighting, scenery, and female impersonators. Performers even received the special diet, dentistry, wigs, trousseau, and makeup skills required to become “dainty and bewitching” ladies, and even the Essex Yeomanry could boast a quality string band. Now that they had a period of adjustment before the next major operation, Lipsett called for men with performance skills to expand the Comedy Company idea to a full divisional show to be called the “Dumbbells” (again for the divisional crest).5 The show had to include the crowd-pleasing Biddulph’s “The Warned Soldier.” Biddy knew how to raise his dark blue eyes to show the whites of exasperation as every level of command sought to load the “poor bloody infantryman” down with every piece of equipment it thought he needed to survive. It was funny because the punchline was that only the death it sought to avoid could free him of his load.6 Biddy’s primary job was platoon commander, and he had to rehearse other routines. These included tactical exercises without troops (TEWTs) in which officers were presented with tactical problems and had to explain, concisely

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PPCLI Comedy Company. Cyril Biddulph seated at center.

and formally, to the senior officer present how they would deploy troops and resources to resolve the problem. They would then endure the critiques of superiors and their peers (who were thankful not to be called on first). Cyril also had to rehearse battle procedure and battle drills with his company and platoon. Battle procedure was the process of planning and preparing for battle, and battle drills were the techniques and tactics employed in battle. There were those who disparaged drill as the mindlessness associated with catastrophic losses, but commanders knew the mind had to be freed from preoccupation in order to function.7 A medical officer explained, “Drill merely means the best way of doing a thing. Even infantry drill is nothing more than a series of directions, based upon experience, by which soldiers can the most easily move to the place they are wanted. When this ease of movement is acquired the drill disappears.”8 The old Imperials who had joined the Patricias in 1914 recognized the drills as what they had been accustomed to before being overwhelmed with citizenvolunteers, but now the drills incorporated the new Lewis light machine gun and rifle grenades, and they were performed in platoons rather than companies. They were imprinted through a process of explanation and demonstration,

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Rifle Grenadiers

Rifle Section

Worms: follow on platoons in file Lewis Light Machine Gun

1917 Blobs and Worms Rifleman Lewis gunner

Rifle Grenadiers Rifle Section

Blobs: forward platoon in diamond

BEF Infantry in the Advance 1917.

step-by-step practice, and full rehearsal, or “talk through,” “walk through,” and “run through.” The platoon (thirty to fifty men) became the tactical fighting element of battle. As the Corps noted, the platoon was the largest unit that, “under modern conditions,” could be “directly controlled and maneuvered under fire by one man,” and it now carried sufficient firepower to act as the primary tactical subunit (as Laffargue had recommended). Operations were expressed in terms of platoon tasks and objectives. Platoon commanders, like Biddulph, were supported by two sergeants and four corporals who controlled the platoon’s two sections of riflemen, section of Lewis gunners, and section of rifle grenadiers, but regardless of function, all had to be proficient with the rifle.9 After Mont Sorrel, the rest of the division ditched the mechanically challenged Canadian Ross rifle for the .303 caliber Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE), but the Patricias, having started the war with the British, always carried (and loved) the SMLE. They had adopted the Old Army standard of hitting targets at over four hundred yards and delivering rapid fire of fifteen aimed rounds a minute. Unlike the hard-edged, factoried machine gun or crude mortar, the SMLE was a tactile tool of smooth, oiled wood. The curve of the narrow “small” of the stock fit perfectly to the hand so the finger could curve easily

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around the trigger while the other hand cradled the carved forestock below the bayonet lug. Even the fourteen-inch sword bayonet had an organic, wooden handle. The rifle’s ten-round magazine (double that of its German equivalents) could be reloaded with strip-clips in seconds, and its bolt was curved so the shooter’s hand never obscured his sight picture. It was an intensely personal weapon in an intensely impersonal war, but mastering it (even if it did kick like an army mule) provided confidence, and confidence was key. The new battle drill for the advance was “blobs and worms.” The point platoon marched as a blob, a broad diamond pattern, with the Lewis gun in the center so it could strike at any quarter and be covered by its automatic weapon. Platoons following the blob moved in files, like worms. This enabled them to conserve energy, move efficiently, and be able to rush forward to support the blobs. Platoons practiced advancing behind a creeping artillery barrage represented by officers on horseback waving pennants to simulate the fall of shot. The drill imprinted the distance they were to maintain from the barrage, and although forty yards seemed close, they knew the creeper was supposed to put paid to any idea of Fritz waiting in shell holes to fell men like ninepins. Battle procedure included more than immediate preparation. It included lectures, padre visits, kit inspections, foot inspections, laundry and bath parades, delousing station visits, coordinated leaves, and “short-arms” inspections. A rtillery: Satur day, M a rch 3 Infantryman Frederick Manning, in his classic The Middle Parts of Fortune, observed that there was “too much fuckin’ artillery in this bloody war.” Almost one in seven fighting soldiers was now a gunner, and “the Guns” were preparing to throw thirty times the weight of firepower against Vimy as had Foch in 1915. Artillery sorcery had reconstructed the design for battle. Its “black box” technology had extended its capability beyond even that envisioned on the Somme. Hemming and Bragg’s techniques had matured to the point whereby signal intercepts revealed German batteries were limiting their fire to avoid being found, and Byng even brought Bragg down to explain his techniques to an eager Canadian counterbattery staff. Furthermore, the Guns had a secret explosive fuse sensitive enough to clear away barbed wire. Bob Wilson, the polo-playing Kiwi, had tested the Fuse, Direct Action, No. 106 by adjusting a hundred rounds onto a one-and-half-yard-deep, barbed-wire obstacle. He achieved three direct hits, which was enough to both destroy the wire and old ideas of breaching obstacles. The trick was in keeping the arc of the sensitized projectile above the helmets of friendly troops ascending the ridges.10

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howitzer mortar

field gun

Safe from field guns and howitzers Safe from field guns

Indirect Fire Systems.

New fuses and counterbattery fire were only effective with their means of delivery, and the BEF had upgunned. Divisional and corps artillery resources had been reorganized to deliver heavier and more flexible firepower, and muscular Heavy Artillery Groups (HAGs) formed to reach out and touch German batteries with an inhuman amount of explosive and gas. HAGs included superheavy naval and fortress artillery that threw two-thousand-pound shells more than twenty kilometers.11 John Lynch, the Ohioan enlisted in Toronto, watched an eight-hundred-man crew operate a single superheavy railway gun. Men used a chain-block hoist to place a huge shell onto a carriage, and a giant rammer slid it along a rail into the breech. They added bags of guncotton and affixed a cap in the breechblock. The long, intimidating barrel rose to an appointed height and paused long enough for all to get clear and cover their ears. When it blasted its huge bullet into the atmosphere, Lynch could follow its arc “seemingly for miles” along its path of destruction.12 At the other end of the spectrum, personal artillery—mortars—flourished and were universally loathed for their bombs being able to drop vertically into trenches. These “terriers of war that yapped incessantly” came in two pedigrees: artillery and infantry. The artillery operated massive 9.45-inch “Flying Pigs,” whereas the infantry rained ten-pound bombs from ubiquitous Stokes mortars.13 The Stokes (named for its creator) could launch twenty 10-pound bombs per minute from a simple tube mounted on a heavy metal baseplate and bipod. The

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mortarman launched the bomb by dropping it down the tube to ignite a propellant that sent it more than three hundred yards. The whole system was portable, providing it did not have to move far, and there were enough men around to hump ammunition.14 Significantly, the burgeoning Signals Service had assumed gunnery communications, so all systems, even those not yet drawn into battle, could be orchestrated onto any target. Even the vaunted German General Staff had not yet developed such a holistic, frightening internet for converting potential energy into destructive force.15 The university battery that had taken in Hubert Bessent two years earlier was now part of the eight hundred officers and men of 3 Canadian Division’s 9th Canadian Field Artillery Brigade (9 CFA). Its three original batteries of eighteen-pound guns (32, 33, and 45 Batteries), the equivalent to the French 75, now included an added battery of high-arc-firing 4.5-inch howitzers (36 Battery from Prince Edward Island) under the former commander of the Divisional Ammunition Column, Major Dan MacKinnon. The other battery commanders were prewar militiamen or graduates of the Royal Military College (all tall men), and most subalterns were now battletested. Lieutenant Ralph Adams, born in Larchmont, New York, twenty-seven years earlier, was a Somme veteran and the battery Forward Observing Officer (FOO). If the program went astray or the Germans refused to play their part in accordance with the plan, then Adams was to be with the infantry and at the end of a telephone to adjust the fire. Ralph was popular. He suffered from unrelenting psoriasis and eczema, which meant constant application of Lassar’s paste to his arms and legs. It made for easy officer humor; the paste was a diaper rash treatment. Bombardier Bessent was to be with Adams and was responsible for unrolling the telephone cable. Bert was more relaxed now. The chaplain had sorted out a mix-up in his pay allotment to his family in Toronto that imposed significant stress and forced Bert’s wife to take in lodgers. A ir Support: Sunday, M a rch 4 The RFC was to be a vital part of the operation, but the lack of new men and machines meant it struggled to keep its dated kites flying. At least learning to fly had become less dangerous. More pilots were entering training and receiving forty-eight hours of instruction before deploying—almost three times what those now at the front had received—and they were training on modern dual control aircraft. In the third year of the war, they could be shown how to recover from a spin.16

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Better aircraft were coming, but each was a new and complex construction requiring additional training for “mechanists” and artisans, already busy keeping old engines and airframes flying. The need for the mechanic was obvious, but the RFC also needed bowyers, carpenters, and sailmakers who could handle the seasoned spruce, ash, mahogany, and walnut of airframes and airscrews; keep the lacing of bracing wires that held the entire structure together under tension; and stitch and glue the 200–300 square yards of unbleached flax linen (not canvas) that made up the aircraft’s skin. Before every flight, sergeants hounded ground crews to examine cylinders, check oil and fuel systems hot and cold, calibrate vibrations, clear oil spots from optic devices, and set seats for individual pilots and observers. Armorers adjusted guns for the most likely engagement range and altitude and loaded drums and belts. Some pilots insisted they chamber every round to ensure it would not hesitate to enter the breech. After each flight, the NCOs inspected every taught inch of every craft with plum bobs to ensure the aircraft remained true. Misalignment meant lost speed, and loose wires meant loose turns. Speed and maneuverability were life.17 Drummond Matheson was two aerial victories short of the honorific of ace, a French designation not recognized by the RFC but appreciated by the young men who dueled others to the death in the skies. His Fee’s observer-gunner was thirty-one-year-old veteran Sergeant Bill Barnes from Southampton. Billy was a second-generation professional British soldier. His father had been a career soldier who wanted Bill to enter the civil service, but from the age of fifteen, Bill knew “there was nothing for him but the army.” He served in the Sudan and was among the first British soldiers in France, which was where he saw the future in the machines gliding so effortlessly above the smoke and confusion. It took three attempts to make it to observer training.18 Bill’s father asked what the war was like, and Bill responded, “Well, Dad, I’d love to tell you, but it’s a strange thing, as soon as I leave for home, I forget everything at the front until I get back there again.” Matheson and Barnes were still in the battlefield information business, as were their opposite numbers flying from an airfield twenty kilometers east of them. Drummond’s counterpart was Leutnant der Reserve Warnecke, the commander (Franz) of an LVG CII19 biplane in Flight Section (Artillery) 235 (FliegerAbteilung (A)235), a German army cooperation section. Vizefeldwebel Burgalla was his pilot (Emil). The LVG was easily recognized by the “chimney” exhausts that extended like horns above the wings, and although it was an old bird, it was not particularly vulnerable. Its Mercedes engine guaranteed 120 kph (80 mph), and its almost thirteen-meter (forty-two-foot) wingspan could lift it to almost five thousand

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meters (fifteen thousand feet) with bombs or photo equipment. Today, it carried a Messter semiautomatic, film-roll camera, a generation beyond the standard plate-cameras used by the RFC.20 Warnecke’s workspace was immediately behind the chimneys and included a board-mounted map, a stopwatch, a flash lamp, a flare gun, and a five-hundredround-a-minute 7.92mm Parabellum light machine gun. His mission—and he pulled at least two a day now—was to find British and Canadian troop concentrations and gun positions.21 Matheson and Barnes’s job was to stop such activity. They found an LVG about ten miles northeast of Arras just before noon, and it was Matheson’s fourth kill and Barnes’s first. An hour later, Richthofen shot down a British reconnaissance two-seater less than three miles away. Then he knocked down a second. There were no survivors in any of the crews. Meanwhile, Warnecke and Burgalla used up their film and went back to set up another go-around. Cava lry: Monday, M a rch 5 Cavalry exploitation (called “putting the Gee in gap”) had become a chimera by 1917, but the BEF had more than ten thousand horsemen in three cavalry divisions around Arras. Many progressives announced that the day of the horse soldier had passed and that cavalry charges remained the fantasy of old, bewhiskered colonels, but British cavalry had learned to fight a modern war. To be sure, it was still armed with sabers, but it was also armed to fight on foot with rifles (vice carbines) and machine guns (as the Essex Yeomanry had discovered at Frezenberg), and if mounted charges were called for, it charged in open formation rather than boot to boot. Such charges still had value as “shock action” against broken infantry or gun positions, but the real strength of the mounted arm was its ability to rapidly deploy firepower. Each cavalry division consisted of three brigades of three regiments of horse (battalion equivalents of 600–700 men each), two brigades of horse artillery, mounted engineers, and a cavalry ambulance unit. Each regiment rode with up to sixteen light Hotchkiss machine guns (equivalent to the infantry Lewis gun), each brigade rode with a machine gun squadron of at least six Vickers heavy machine guns, and each horse artillery brigade rode with two batteries of six 13-pounder field guns. Thus, division firepower amounted to some one hundred automatic weapons and thirty-six cannons that could be repositioned as quickly as horses could move. (See Appendix on organization) The challenge was in finding space on the battlefield to keep close enough to be able to deploy quickly, but not so close to interfere with infantry operations. Cavalry divisions were not small—a single brigade took up more than three

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kilometers of road space—and although their horses were superior to those of any other combatant, they had suffered a hard winter. Fodder had been short, and the horses had to have their winter coats cropped and be kept moving to avoid an outbreak of sarcoptic mange. Now, these winter-thin horses were being loaded with extra fodder and ammunition and carrying riders with “three days’ beards, unwashed faces, [and] rusty steel helmets” that “bore little resemblance to the smart Lancers, Dragoons or Hussars of other days.” Their resilience was suspect.22 The cavalry divisions were not the only horsemen forward. Each corps had its own cavalry reconnaissance regiment, and in Haldane’s VI Corps, this was the Northampton Yeomanry (Northants). The Northants special role for this operation was to gallop ahead as the front was breaking and secure crossings over the Scarpe by coup de main and, after that, support the 37th Division’s advance to Monchy. All in all, cavalry offered Allenby a maneuver force with potential for expanding a penetration and turning a German withdrawal into a rout. Most of the cavalry, therefore, was to concentrate south of the Scarpe near the road past Monchy, with the 3rd Cavalry Division, the Essex Yeomanry in its ranks, prepared to ride through Monchy itself once the infantry and artillery cracked the trench problem. This opportunity seemed close.23 Ta nks: W ednesday, M a rch 7 Five hundred years earlier, the field of Agincourt was the site of the death of armor, but in 1917, it was witnessing its renaissance. Canvas mock-ups of landships maneuvered across the ancient battlefield, and in the nearby village of Bermincourt, a twenty-four-acre tankdrome of hangars, sheds, Chinese workers, and workshops, Churchill’s armored caterpillars of the Heavy Branch Machine Gun Corps prepared for their debut as a tank brigade. The Canadians storming the Fabek near Courcellette five months earlier had been as surprised as the Germans by the arrival of the Tin Lizzies. They would have been more surprised to know that too-short Lionel McAdam from South River, Ontario, had been a gunner in one of them. The name “tank” proved more durable than “landship.” (Even the Germans used the word “tank”; “panzer” emerged later). A tank was what it looked like: a thirty-ton water tank with huge caterpillar tracks revolving around each side. It stood almost two and a half meters high, eight meters long, and four meters wide, but it was neither roomy nor ergonomic. Its crew of eight—commander, driver, two gearsmen, and four gunner-loaders—shared space with a sixcylinder gasoline engine that heated its toxic interior to more than 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). The tank’s viewports had steel flaps, which

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Mark II tank No. C21 (Perfect Lady, commanded by Lt. Salter) advancing at Arras. Note side sponson with shortened cannon and Lewis machine gun, and small conning tower.

crew refused to buttoned up until the last minute to forestall suffocation and heat exhaustion. To make matters more challenging, when the finicky, gravityfed engine stalled (as it tended to), crewmen had to hand-feed gasoline into the hot carburetor, usually under fire. Boffins were working on solutions, but not in time for the next battle. The driver controlled the tank from a small conning tower (right-hand drive), but major turns required coordinated action by gearsmen in the hull. Voice command was indecipherable in a running tank, so orders were passed by bangs with a wrench. The commander had a light machine gun in the conning tower, but the main armament consisted of cannons or machine guns in the two sponsons (distinctly naval-looking half-turrets), one on each side of the chassis. “Male” tanks had a cannon and machine gun in each sponson, whereas the “female” sponson sported two machine guns. The intended distaff function had been for the female to protect the cannon-mounted male, but the female’s facility to clear trenches with her multiple machine guns ended the domestic arrangement, leaving tanks to operate individually.

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The male’s cannons were naval Hotchkiss six-pounders (57 mm), which delivered explosive projectiles against field fortifications and shotgun-like cannister shot against men. The machine guns were normally Vickers and Hotchkiss, but for this operation, they were being replaced by cheaper, if less popular, Lewis guns.24 Tanks rumbled along at a walking pace (2 mph, or 3.2 kph), climbed a onein-two gradient, mounted a two-meter bank, and spanned a three-meter trench, and their presence was decisive anywhere they crossed no-man’s-land. They provided the enemy with an excuse to abandon their position. Even so, few plans relied on them; they were too mechanically fragile. Most brass hats had seen only broken-down or bogged tanks and resented how the beasts ruined roads, and too few had bothered to work with the peculiar brigands of the Heavy Branch to discover how they performed or how best to use them. Only those who went “over the bags” had witnessed the panic they instilled, the dugouts they crushed, and the barbed wire they dragged down. GHQ sent a Regular Army staff officer, J. F. C. Fuller, down to provided adult supervision to the oil-stained tank banditti, but they quickly suborned him into becoming their high priest. He was already preaching about reaching “the green fields beyond” if only the brass would use them appropriately.25 Haig was a believer. He had directed a fifteenfold expansion of the Heavy Branch, but building tanks took time. For now, he had to make do with a single brigade of two battalions, and even this required using all recruits and machines available. It meant employing Mark II training tanks, which crews suspected were finished with unhardened steel. Even this modest expansion meant having as few as one veteran to each tank. Actor Corporal Frank Vyvyan and former shop manager Sergeant Fred Saker, both twenty-six, had “done one” and so were now “teaching one.” They prepared novice crews while their officers learned to maneuver the canvas mock-ups. Both their officers, Second Lieutenants William “Jock” Tarbet and Henry Johnston, were Scots learning under veterans like twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Charles Ambrose. Ambrose was slowed by Spanish flu, so much of his crew’s indoctrination had fallen to twenty-nine-year-old Will Dawson, a motorcycle enthusiast, gunner, and veteran of the tank assaults at Courcellette in September and BeaumontHamel in November. Lieutenant Hugh Bell had been there too. Hugh was a son of a clergymen, brother of a chaplain, and graduate of St Paul’s School London (along with poet Edward Thomas). He was also a former alto of the Magdalen College Choir and pushing forty, but as training officer for his school’s OTC, it was not unexpected that he go to war, nor that he was good at it. At Beaumont-Hamel, Hugh’s tank was one of two that reached the German line before bogging down. The other

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Harry Drader holding Percy the cat, and a crew member wearing soon-to-bediscarded experimental tank helmet standing in front of tank Daphne. Note the small size of the door, which was also their escape hatch.

tank was commanded by Canadian Harold Drader, who had been on a student visit in Berlin when the war began. He had escaped, and once old enough, he enlisted and found a home in the Heavy Branch in time to become an international celebrity. A film crew captured Harry’s tank, Daphne, going into action on the Somme in September. The film’s star had been the tank’s mascot, the black cat Percy, but Lieutenant Drader was a credible costar. Harry (with Percy) went into action again at Beaumont-Hamel, where he and Bell (but not Percy) dismounted, pistols in hand, to round up scores of prisoners. Harry noted that the “black kitten, which is nearly cat size now, seems to bring us more and more luck, I don’t think the crew would part with it for anything.”26 Most tank officers were bound by the essential glue of their schools: rugby. The brightly blond Ambrose, a Dulwich alum and rugby player, was connected to that “splendid fellow” Gerald Hedderwick, who had played rugby for Loretto and Cambridge, and to newly arrived and fellow Dulwich player, the bespectacled H. P. M. Jones, who, after three attempts, had obtained a transfer to a

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fighting unit. They were all connected through rugby to the “greatest of friends,” Jock Tarbet and E. J. O’Connor (Scots and Irish players, respectively), to Tom Toshack of Giffnock, and to former international level player Thomas Nelson. Nelson was a friend and publisher of the author of the international best-seller The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan. Buchan, now an influential “information staff officer,” dedicated his bestseller to Nelson and was responsible for Nelson being at Bermincourt. Nelson looked for “more congenial work” in the RFC after the Somme, but Buchan convinced him he was too old for flying. Instead, Buchan introduced Nelson to another friend, Captain Frederick “Boots” Hotblack, a reconnaissance and intelligence officer (reconographer) for the new Tank Brigade.27 Hotblack was another tanker captured by fame. Newspapers lionized him for guiding tanks into Beaumont-Hamel on foot, but such publicity interfered with his work. The German-speaking Hotblack’s adventures included services “of a secret nature” and read like a John Buchan novel.28 Hotblack was not the only Buchanesque character at Bermincourt. Robert “Bob” Thomas Probyn Rowley Butler was described as “a Canadian sapper,” but the pale-eyed captain had little in common with the other sons of Vancouver. He was a thirty-three-year-old third son of Anglo-Irish aristocracy with a military pedigree that extended to the Norman Conquest (and included the border-raiding Butlers of the eighteenth-century Canadian-American wars).29 Butler had built railways on the Northwest Frontier of India, ranched in Canada, and been decorated for feats of daring from Gallipoli to Picardy, but he was now shaping the future of armored warfare. He managed a recovery group that returned tanks to action by fixing them under fire or bringing them back to be refitted, repaired, or cannibalized. Lionel McAdam moved to this special group and was later to reflect on the irony of knowing the only enemy he was sure he had slain was one he had to shoot in order to repair a tank. All of them, including Percy but not HPM Jones, were headed into the next scrum. HPM was a spare. Field A mbula nce: Sunday, M a rch 11 Neuville-Saint-Vaast, below Vimy, was no longer a prosperous town. It was a “frightful rubbish heap with unexploded shells, the twisted iron of babies’ perambulators, bits of dead bodies and shattered farm carts,” festooned with German and French graves from 1915. No troops were visible even though the town was full of them. They were all under the ground. Major Ernest Selby of 8 Canadian Field Ambulance traveled the electrically lit tunnels to set out a subterranean Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) while

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the unit’s commander traveled the front to lay out the 3 Canadian Division evacuation system.30 Selby was new to battlefield operations (both surgical and military), and so far, the unit’s experience had been one of a come-as-you-can war. This was the first time since leaving Calgary that Selby and the three hundred men—doctors, stretcher bearers, cooks, orderlies, wagon drivers, clerks, sanitary workers, horse handlers, quartermasters, and buglers—were to function as the unit was designed, as a singular unit with their ten Mark VI, wide-track, lock-spring, horse-drawn ambulances; seven motor ambulances, twenty-three general wagons; three water carts; a cooking wagon; and more than fifty horses.31 Selby relied on Quartermaster-Sergeant Benjamin Harmon Warren, who knew, as did all good quartermasters, how to negotiate blood from a stone. Warren was always on the scrounge for tea, chocolate, writing paper, fuel, lamps and stoves, rubber gloves, sponges, newspapers, brandy, and whatever it took to care for wounded. The twenty-six-year-old had picked up scrounging skills while working with the Canadian Pacific Railway and was putting them to good use with a network of Perth, Ontario, lads spread throughout the 3rd Canadian Division.32 Warren helped Selby find a vacant wine cellar (near where Laffargue had been wounded) and set to turning it into a textbook dressing station of two treatment areas, a dispensary, a waiting area, and a command center. Their NCOs laid out a dual-track casualty flow, one for walking wounded and one for stretchers, and then sent out men to mark the routes for casualties. Next, they set out a covered waiting area for No. 8 (Scottish) Motor Ambulance Convoy, their connection to the CCSs. It was commanded by one of their favorite and reliable Scots, Captain Francis Guppy, RAMC. In an age when few drove, Guppy’s drivers kept vehicles moving along slush-filled vehicle ruts lit only by the strobe illumination of hyperactive guns. Meanwhile, the unit CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Gunn, identified casualty collection points that were easy for stretcher-bearers to locate and sheltered from fall of shot, but the battlefront was a crowded arena. Such locations were already in demand by forward units, and he had to negotiate for real estate. The shrapnel hole in his helmet testified that this was not without risk.33 M edica l M easur es: Sunday, M a rch 14 The medical establishment, like the army, was conservative and suspicious of change, so new organization, new procedures, and new techniques were accepted on a case-by-case basis. The process of treating wounds was slowed by having to wrestle with widespread conditions like trench fever, bronchial disorders, and shell shock that took thousands out of the line and had no known

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cures. The 52nd Battalion’s magnificent specimen of muscle and might, hardrock miner Joe Young, was felled four times by a pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) before it was diagnosed as trench fever. Young was spending about two weeks of each month being treated for headache, fever, and back pains.34 Now, doctors in the crowded Étaples area were reporting spread of a virulent bronchitis “as lethal as influenza.” The Étaples hospitals and Bull Ring were on major bird migration routes, and the H1N1 virus—the Spanish flu—was an avian flu.35 One positive advance was in the enhanced ability of the casualty clearing stations to save lives. It saved Drummond Matheson’s life. There was a reason they called air engagements dogfights. Matheson had led eight RFC machines into a whirling, savage, snapping brawl with sixteen Germans. He got an Albatros for his fifth air victory, but it also got him. “The Hun that got me was lucky. He was coming straight at me when I opened fire and had 94 bullets ready for him at about 100 yards when my machine gun jammed . . . He put eight shots through my foot and one through the end of my left forefinger and many more around the machine. I landed in a bunch of Highlanders and they looked after me, until I got to the hospital.”36 The surgeon took Matheson’s left foot but saved his hand. The wound was a “Blighty.” He was going home just as everyone else was headed the other way. Depth. Golden Hor seshoe Division: Thur sday, M a rch 15 The 37th Division had to be lucky. Its shoulder patch was a golden horseshoe. It was an all-English division of three brigades: the 63rd and the 112th, both from north of London, and the 111th, from the south. The four battalions of the 111th Brigade’s southerners, 10 (Stockbrokers) Fusiliers, 13 (Kensington) Fusiliers, 13 Rifle Brigade, and 13 King’s Royal Rifles,37 were training for fighting in a built-up area. The commander of 37 Division was Major-General H. “Billy” BruceWilliams, a fifty-one-year-old engineer, husband to Canadian Mabel Heward, father to a BEF subaltern, and senior officer with a reputation for energy, reliability, and occasional malevolence. He had stated publicly that war correspondents should be shot and had been censured by Haig himself for abusing subordinates. Nevertheless, he was a genuine enough soldier to step down from a prominent staff position to command a brigade—and then refuse to commit it to an attack that replicated the fiasco of July 1. Instead of being degummed or sent to command a labor unit, he had been given command of 37 Division.38 For most of the Somme operations, the division’s units had been parceled out to other formations, so 37 Division’s headquarters was less developed than a fierce Bruce-Williams demanded. Guy Chapman was there as a staff-learner.

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Lewis Gun section.

“An atmosphere of uneasiness and irritability hung over our headquarters. The general believed in keeping his staff up to the mark and the two senior staff officers carried out his creed with Calvinistic thoroughness. The result was Genevan: absolute efficiency and complete unhappiness. Junior officers wore the faces of the hunted, as they crept out of the offices and fled with furtive hurrying steps from the building, gloomily shaking the fleas from their ear.”39

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The division had taken part in the November attack on the Ancre Heights, where it passed through the divisions assaulting Beaumont-Hamel to capture the ingloriously named Muck Trench. The battle added to a growing casualty list but established Stockbrokers Sid Sylvester, the Saracens rugby player, and Jack Whiteman, the Australian Londoner, as NCO material. Once operations closed down, the division marched up to Ypres and began the process of replacing lost Pals with conscripts.40 Whiteman became platoon sergeant of 9 Platoon, C Company, and Syd Sylvester became commander of a reinforced Lewis Gun Section. Fellow veterans Harvey Adam and William Sellwood were there to corset Stockbroker replacements while Whiteman and Sylvester put them through the new drills and trained them on the Lewis gun. Everyone in the platoon had to be trained to handle the Lewis so it was never out of action, but Sylvester’s team were the experts. The team’s commander, the No. 1, carried the fourteen-kilogram (thirty-pound) gun, with its distinctive thick jacket and a forty-seven-bullet, circular, top-mounted, drum magazine, while the No. 2 acted as loader and target indicator. Both had to be able to reload a drum in under two minutes, change drums in five seconds, and put a six-round burst into “a six-inch circle at 30 yards.” The six other members of the team provided protection and carried ammunition. The Lewis could be carried in the assault and provide close-in firepower to keep enemy heads down until riflemen could close in with bayonets and grenades. It was stable and light enough to fire bursts on the move, but the recoil and drum limit kept bursts short. A drill emphasized the three-step burst: One, pull the trigger; two, keep the trigger pressed long enough to say “son-of-abitch”; three, release the trigger.41 The Stockbrokers marched thirty kilometers west of Arras to practice their next task: to again pass through an assault to secure their objective. This one had more appeal than a Muck Trench; it was a proper village, and their training site, Buneville, was apparently similar to the target. In accordance with SS109, The Division in Attack, they rehearsed clearing buildings and moving “300 yards beyond” to consolidate because once “the enemy realizes that we have captured a wood or village, he turns concentrated artillery fire, chiefly heavy HE on to it.”42 Unit NCOs studied the gridded maps provided by the Corps Field Survey Detachment until they could draw the town from memory. They knew nothing of the Resistance but understood that there must be spies involved because they were shown photographs of Germans in a sidewalk café five miles behind the line. Five miles (eight kilometers) was a fantastical distance. It took four months to move that far on the Somme, but now they were expected to be there by the

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end of the first day, Z-Day. There was confidence that this time, they could pull it off. This time, someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure everything was prepared.43 When the name Monchy-le-Preux was finally revealed, the Rifle Brigade commander announced, “We will take Monchy or die.” Wags observed that this time they were being offered a choice.44 R eserve. The New foundla nder s: Satur day, M a rch 17 The Newfoundlanders had not yet heard the name Monchy when the Prime Minister of Newfoundland, Sir Edward Morris, visited. He saw men who “in no way appeared to be cast down . . . there was a light in the face of every man of them.” Sir Edward handed out promotions and decorations before watching demonstrations of military skills with rifle, grenade, mortar, and bayonet.45 Sir Edward knew the Regiment’s men and their stories. He presented an MC to Rex Rowsell, an original Blue Puttee and company commander, and a bar to the DCM to regimental legend Cyril Gardner before commissioning him in the field. The Prime Minister heard how Gardner had received a German Iron Cross, First Class. While performing his Acting Company Sergeant Major (CSM) role in bringing up ammunition after an assault, the twenty-two-year-old Cyril ran across a bypassed German garrison of seventy. He announced that “everyone has already kameraded,” so they surrendered to him. As he marched his little army back, a startled British officer brought weapons to bear, and Gardner had to interpose himself to prevent a massacre. Regimental lore liked to depict Gardner as threatening to shoot the officer, but Gardner was unarmed. The German commander unclasped the Iron Cross from his tunic and pinned it on the young Newfoundlander. After the ceremonies, Sir Edward chatted to Bert Rendell about mortars (perhaps joking about Bert’s buttock wound on Gallipoli); commiserated with young Norman Outerbridge, whose brother had recently been evacuated with a hole in his head the size of a golf ball; and congratulated newly commissioned photographer (and sniper) Bert Holloway and Holloway’s childhood friend, Kevin Keegan. The pair were known as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The PM also met the Sticks of Devon Road. Middle son, Len, was departing to take a commission in the Indian Army, but the eldest, Rob, was recovering from a wound. Baby brother Moyle had recently come out from England with Fred Janes. The pair had been undergoing medical training until they were underwhelmed by British food and pay. Fred’s brother, the unit orderly room sergeant, fixed it for them to get to the Regiment. Fred stayed a medic, but Moyle

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went to Captain Rex Rowsell’s company as a rifleman. Rowsell was organizing his company as best as he could for an operation that seemed close at hand, and he was already pushing the two stripes of corporal on Moyle. Another member of the company was occupying Rowsell’s attention, but not for the right reasons. Private Alf Cake was the youngest of three brothers and frequently “marched up” in front of Rowsell for indiscretions. Alf slept in, started food fights, and kept a messy tent. No one yet knew that gangly Alf, already a year in uniform, was sixteen years old. Near Vimy, Ross Macpherson and the PPCLI celebrated Princess Patricia’s birthday with sports, a Comedy Company performance, and a special dinner. It also happened to be Ross’s kid brother Donald’s birthday, but that celebration was muted. Don, the gunner, was working the phone at an artillery O Pip, and in this war, “the Guns” never rested.46 Intelligence. The Line-Crosser: Monday, M a rch 19 In Douai, I Bavarian Reserve Korps set up briefings for no less a light than General Ludendorff. He was coming to hear the Sixth Army commander’s assessment of a probable “strong British assault across the entire corps frontage,” from Vimy Ridge to “the tip of the Siegfriedstellung south of the Scarpe” with “rested, high quality, divisions, (34th, 51st [Highland] and 3rd Canadian north of the Scarpe).”47 The briefing information was constructed from observation, signals intercepts, and prisoner interrogations. Balloon observers reported massing of troops, tanks, guns, and obvious attack rehearsals, but message interceptions were fewer than expected. The British signals service use of twisted wires, Morse code, and codewords dammed the flood of information the Germans had become used to on the Somme. British signalers became quite conscientious in controlling officers’ indiscrete conversations, but the German Listening Service still managed to gather enough tidbits to verify information provided by the Canadian who had crossed the line: Private George McDonald, ostensibly of Ohio. Otto Dörr of Saskatchewan had found his way home.48 McDonald/Dörr, formerly of 7 Brigade, 3 Canadian Division, provided a relatively complete picture of preparations that included gas, tanks, inexperienced officers, understrength companies, and soldiers griping about the war. Interrogators understood that Dörr was a green private who knew little about soldiers’ grousing, but the information confirmed what they wanted to believe.49 Grousing was universal. Tired Bavarians complained, and so did divisions arriving to thicken defenses. The 79th (Prussian) Reserve Division was new to the western front experience and so grumbled about conditions and procedures,

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and 11 (Silesian) Division had come straight from the Somme and so bitched about the lack of rest. The two rebuilt divisions of IX Corps, 17 and 18 Reserve, were coming straight from Flanders, and neither was up to strength. Everyone griped about the food, the weather, and the dominance of British artillery and aircraft. Ludendorff had to be convinced to allot more artillery and aircraft. Although the ground was still too wet, too slick, and too muddy for the British and Canadians (and tanks) to climb the ridges, the additional support would allow reserves to be employed back, completing the Wotan positions. Ludendorff understood the situation better than they did. He dropped in on IX Corps and let Albrecht von Thaer know that his Corps was headed for a hot zone.50 On Vimy Ridge, Musketeer Heinrich Derendorff received a letter. My Dear Heinrich; At last after days of waiting in vain, I have received your dear letter with the scarf and thank you most sincerely for the same. I’d already written you a card this afternoon. I really thought something had happened to you . . . Letter to follow. Love and kisses from your loving Käthe.51

The French scarf was a hint. Derendorff could not reveal that Reserve Infantry Regiment 262 of 79 (Prussian) Reserve Division had left the Eastern Front for Vimy Ridge without crossing a postal security line. He couldn’t tell Käthe that his new life was one in an alternate universe. The eastern front had nothing to compare with the bombardments or the subterranean existence of Vimy. In daylight, Derendorff could move only through tunnels. He could expect no mail or hot rations—or for that matter, any regular rations. Travel from his outpost to battalion headquarters at La Folie, a distance overland of a few hundred meters, could take three to five hours through water-filled trenches, sodden tunnels, and across saturated shell holes. Heinrich knew he faced Canadians. Hauptmann Paul von Koppelow of the next-door regiment (Regiment 261) had interviewed prisoners and learned much. The Hauptmann had lived in England so long that the boys reckoned it was only a matter of time before his English accent drew a sentry’s bullet, but in the meantime, he encouraged Canadian prisoners to boast.52 Heinrich also heard trench gossip about the Bavarians. They had been here too long and were war-weary. It was said that some were crossing the line and giving themselves up, and letters from home told of Bavarians complaining of “the Prussians’ war.” They gave cause for worry.53

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The Defender s: Fr iday, M a rch 30 What is the concept of defense? The parrying of a blow. What is its characteristic feature? Awaiting the blow. Clausewitz, On War, Book 6, Chapter 1

The Silesians of 11 Division kept busy turning the Roeux Chemical Works into a warren of bunkers, but they could at least pause at first light to watch the show on the big hill, the Balloon-Hohe. It began with men wrestling with what looked like a giant, flaccid cow, which was actually a drachen balloon they were manipulating in an almost comically pornographic way to catch a breeze to help inflate it and make its hydrogen less flammable. The second act of the show began with two bundled-up men waddling across the snow humping parachutes and dragging knapsacks heavy with thermoses, cheese, biscuits, and piss bottles toward the balloon’s wicker basket, where an artillery officer waited with bundles of maps, binoculars, and telephone headsets.54 While the pair clambered into the basket with all the agility of herniated penguins, the ground crew fed the balloon’s tether through a series of pulleys to a truck. If British aircraft appeared, the vehicle was to scoot and reel down the balloon. Rubber was scarce, and the balloons were more valuable (and reliable) than airplanes. The rapid winching could not only save the balloon but also draw attacking aircraft down into the ring of machine guns sited around the hill. This would provide a third act for the watching Silesians.55 Seven kilometers west, British officers marked maps. Balloon-Hohe, or Greenland Hill, overlooked the approaches to Monchy-le-Preux and so was an objective. In the meantime, the RFC could send someone to “flame the bloody balloon.” The 11th Division’s positions were not the new elastic type. The commander of the 10th Grenadier Regiment, Major William von Fumetti, was responsible for the Scarpe banks defenses, and these were old-style trench lines. His most forward line consisted of little fortresses in Blangy and St. Laurent Blangy to guard access to both river banks, but his main line consisted of company strongpoints aligned along the raised railway embankment that crossed the River Scarpe to form a fortified Railway Triangle. From there, the line became a series of egg-shaped strongpoints along Observation Ridge. His third line, the Feuchy redoubt, followed Barbot’s 1914 position on either side of the road past Monchy.56 (map 6)

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The 11th Division’s artillery was positioned in the narrow Battery Valley between the second and third lines, but it could not fire out of fear of revealing its position, and resupplying ammunition was difficult. Until a real attack developed, therefore, Fumetti’s positions had to rely on their integral firepower. Each strongpoint contained at least one heavy MG08 and three light MG08/15s, and the Regimental Machine Gun Company and battalion’s four mortars (minenwurfer) covered the gaps between strongpoints. Each of the mortars could put twenty 4.5-kilogram (10-pound) bombs in the air in a minute, and they were supplemented by new typewriter-sized spigot grenade launchers (grenatenwurfer) that threw five grenades a minute out to three hundred meters. The boys called these “pigeons” because they warbled in flight. The defense could remain formidable only as long as the battalion maintained enough strength to man the crew-served weapons, but “daily wastage” to sickness, artillery, and patrols reduced companies, some by half. Occasional rest at Monchy was not enough to recharge batteries. Something had to happen soon. Behind the front, Generalleutnant Karl von Wenniger prepared his elite 3 Royal Bavarian Division as a countermove force. Wenniger was as proud of his Bavarians as of his sons (one an air ace and the other a U-boat commander). His red-eyed front-fighters had stood up to everything thrown at them on the Somme. The only thing that had shaken them had been the tanks arriving with a “strange spluttering, growling, scratching, spitting sound . . . like a thousand cats, a hundred dogs, and a sea-sick elephant or two scrambling and squabbling together in a dust hole.”57 British Intelligence classified 3 Bavarian as elite, but it was showing signs of wear. When fifty-five-year-old Wenniger had assumed command, each battalion was commanded by an Oberstleutnant, each company by a Major or Hauptmann, and each platoon by a Leutnant. Now, most battalions were commanded by Majors and companies by Leutnants, and too many platoons had no officers.58 One of Wenniger’s officers was Reserve Leutnant Hermann Kohl. Kohl survived the first tank attack in history on the Somme, and while OHL insisted tanks were just another trench weapon, the battle-hardened nineteen-year-old company commander knew he had been part of an evolutionary step in warfare and tried to inoculate his men against tankschrecken (tank fever). To his north, Albrecht von Thaer, preparing his corps to move to positions around Monchy, was also preoccupied by thoughts of tanks. “Landships” were an idea that Thaer had discussed with German manufacturers before the war.59

seven

k

PREPARING THE FIELD, APRIL 1–7, 1917

Every stage in this progression obviously implies a new basis for judgment. That which seems correct when looked at from one level, may, when looked at from a higher one, appear objectionable. Clausewitz, On War, Book3, Chapter 13

By 1917, the line officer operated in a battlefield that was a deep, threedimensional arena of many moving parts. An entire infrastructure existed to support his efforts, and the only facet that had not changed since 1914 was how to stay alive once no-man’s-land was crossed. Too Much A rtillery, Too Little God: Pa lm Sunday, A pr il 1 Military police removed the irreverent sign on St. Pol-Arras Road. It read, “For Fuck’s sake don’t Fuck about here . . . signed D. Haig, Field-Marshal.” The German outpost line could see the road and everything on it. Fortunately, it could not see under it.1 Underappreciated engineers and sappers constructed passages connecting the ancient caverns of Arras and hollowed out sufficient space to home twenty thousand men. Maligned staff officers implemented a traffic system for troops and stores, and they laid out a push-cart rail system that carried artillery ammunition through it to the guns. The tunnels included sleeping quarters, storage areas, armories, offices, and even churches big enough to conduct group services. Most still believed in a god, but even those who did not attended for the hot tea.

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Haig believed a good chaplain was as valuable as a good general, but just as not all generals were good, not all chaplains were on the side of the angels. Many troops considered Church of England types too establishment, too officer-class, and too seldom forward of brigade headquarters. They preferred their chaplains close when there was a chance of seeing the face of God, and Catholics and the few wandering reverend rabbis were always forward. Jesuit Rob Steuart was always in demand. He sat with men in need: commanders, NCOs, soldiers, and at least one condemned prisoner. The HLI loved him. He was a descendent of The Bruce.2 Once sermons, blessings, communion, and retrospection were done, most troops stayed for the tea, but the gunners had to go back to raining hell down on opponents who had the audacity to inscribe Gott mit uns (God is with us) on their belt buckles. The lads liked to tease prisoners, point at their buckles, and say, “We’ve got mittens, too.” They discovered Fritz was about as enamored with chaplains as they were.3 R a id: Pa lm Sunday, A pr il 1 What looked like a Neolithic lake-village of rounded huts was actually Dumbbell Camp, home to 3 Canadian Division. Each circle of sandbags with tarpaulin roof rising from the frozen bog was a home to those not training, being inspected, or playing sports. The huts’ occupants clustered around small stoves, reading, playing cards, and listening to old timers pass on what the training had left out. Training was explicit, but hut talk passed on the implicit: how to repair things, cook, identify shells by sound, and keep socks dry. Men learned what to do once the Lewis got them close, how to survive the moment, and how to deal with it afterward. Such combat culture could be validated only in action, and for now, that meant raiding. They all knew that trench raids produced casualties, inspired retaliation, and were staged for the reputation of brass hats. There was some fire to this smoke, but it was not the reputations of senior officers at risk. Raids inoculated against the realities of combat. Raids trained leaders and took the fight to the enemy. Raids made men confident in their weapons and peers and familiarized them with the battlefield. Good raids emboldened, wore down the enemy, and gained intelligence. Bad raids sapped confidence. The way to get good was to do more.4 Bavarians and Scots were known raiders, but the Canadians were upping the tempo to a raid a day. Captain Ralph Willcock, former Master of Classics at Woodstock College, and 30 men of C Company 42nd Battalion had pulled off today’s effort.

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It began with a sophisticated strafe of high explosive and fragmentation in a three-sided box that isolated a section of German trench. It used 106 Fuses to cut the barbed wire. When the first rounds landed at 6:45 a.m., Willcock’s raiders were already prone in the slush and waiting by prepared gaps in the Canadian wire. The rest of C Company was “stood to” along the parapets so once the artillery rounds splashed, the company blasted away with mortars, rifle grenades, and machine guns for fifteen minutes. Then all stopped for ten minutes. At 7:10 a.m., the furnace door reopened, and shells, bombs, grenades, and bullets hammered the target again. The assumption was that Fritz would hasten from his dugout to meet the assault and be smacked by the second strafe. When the last rounds were still in the air, the raiders stood and, in four parallel sections led by NCOs, raced across no-man’s-land. Raced is a relative term. Men laden with weapons, grenades, and P-bombs (petrol cans) could only scramble and slither across the slimy gradient until the NCOs put them to ground at the lip of the German trench. Seconds after the last artillery round landed, a volley of grenades exploded in the German trench. The pineapple-like Mills bomb was the most powerful standard grenade of the war. It weighed slightly more than a pound and half (765 grams) and had a blast radius of thirty meters (thirty-five yards). Given the weight of the bomb, the normal throw was no more than fifteen meters (twenty yds), but just as all baseball players throw the ball but pitchers throw it better, so too did the unit employ special bombers who could add a degree of distance and accuracy to the calculus of destruction. Even before the bangs subsided, attackers were into the trenches. The first in, carrying cut-down rifles, shot two sentries. The first team moved to block the ends of the trench while the second team, the “snatch team,” scoured dugouts and firing bays for a suitable prisoner. The third team continued beyond the trench to secure its access points to the rear, and the fourth team, laden with mortar and P-bombs, headed for the dugouts. Not everything went according to plan. A howitzer shell dropped short and blew up Willcock and a private. The soldier appeared to suffer some blast effects, but Willcock staggered on. Lance-Corporal Dan Kelly stayed with him to ensure he remained functional. Soon enough, the snatch team had a young German, terrified but unwounded, and set out for friendly lines blowing whistles to let the reception party know it was coming. The destruction group tossed mortar and petrol bombs into at least eight large dugouts and heard gratifying secondary explosions. Louis Spears remarked that it was “not pleasant to contemplate this burning of out of human beings as if they were vermin, but war is a savage business.”5

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Willcock, satisfied that as much had been achieved as could be in the time available, whistled the withdrawal. He kneeled in no-man’s-land and counted out the returning raiders. Once the last man passed him, he turned and followed. A shower of rifle grenades lit up the world behind him. The No. 23 and Hales rifle grenades were mounted on sticks, like lethal lollipops. Grenadiers inserted the stick end into their rifle barrels and launched the grenades with blank cartridges. In the hands of trained troops, they were as accurate as fairground beanbags, but the troops liked being able to throw explosives toward the enemy. The prisoner, a Prussian from Heinrich Derendorff’s Reserve Regiment 262, “proved intelligent and ready to talk,” and the Black Watch received appropriate and personal congratulations from the chain of command. Acting CO Stanley Norsworthy left out his own role, but Byng, Lipsett, and Macdonell acknowledged his hand in the planning.6 The raid incurred no cost beyond the expense of a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of munitions, but it enhanced the confidence of the 42nd at the expense of the new boys to the front, Regiment 262. While the 42nd’s grenades were popping, 37 Division had been on the move toward Arras led by Simpkin’s section of dispatch riders (DRs). This veritable foreign legion of motorcyclists from England, Jersey, the United States, Ceylon, Argentina, South Africa, Egypt, and Canada passed through Doullens on their way to “Agnes Doosins.” They missed seeing the nurses of the Canadian hospital there. Most of the sisters were ill. The DRs quartered in the Nissen huts near 19 CCS. The comfortable, semicylindrical shelters had wooden floors and metal walls and so had no means of hanging kit. The DRs piled everything on the ground and clustered around stoves. Outside, it was freezing, and everything suffered, especially horses and mules. On seeing the bodies of poor beasts that had not survived the night, Simpkin knew the future was motorized. Haig agreed. He was already asking for more motor transport. Cojeul Defenses: Monday, A pr il 2 From Hill 90, Theodor von Wundt could see across to Monchy, more than three kilometers away, and from his perch, he could discern the three tiers of the defense in a battlefield that rose like an amphitheater to the Monchy plateau. (See map 6.) The First Position was the lowest tier, and he could make out the trenches connecting the fortified and rubbled villages of Saint-Laurent-Blangy and Blangy to Tilloy and almost to Neuville-Vitasse. They had been in place since

Theodor von Wundt, circa 1916.

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1915, but Alberich had given away the ground west of Neuville-Vitasse, so from there, the line angled back to merge with the new Siegfriedstellung near the Cojeul River. The Second Position, the Main Defense, formed a second tier of strongpoints along Observation Ridge, Telegraph Hill, and the Neuville-Vitasse ridge, where it bent back to where Wundt stood on Hill 90 before becoming the Siegfriedstellung and crossing the Cojeul to curve back toward the Sensée River. The ground behind this Main Defense descended before rising again to the Third Position, known Monchy riegel. This third tier ran along the contour of the ridges and hills that had shaped Barbot’s old line west of Monchy that connected Feuchy, Orange, and Chapel Hills to Hill 92 above Wancourt. Then it curved to the high ground near Chérisy. The Monchy riegel was the stop-line: the final line to which the reserve was to move and everyone else withdraw to if the forward positions fell. The Monchy butte itself formed the rim of the amphitheater and, to all intents, was undefended. Wundt’s 18 Reserve Division was to squeeze into Knauff’s Magdeburgers’ old battleground: the box formed by Hill 90, the high ground along the Cojeul, and the Wancourt features. His partner division in the Corps, 17 Reserve, was to assume the defenses around Neuville-Vitasse on its right. The Cojeul split Wundt’s box front to rear, and although a fully equipped infantryman could jump the tiny river, he recognized its ancient watercourse had carved a wide and curving valley of deceitful high points with excellent fields of observation and fire. These were currently being investigated by the commanders of his three regiments.7 The day was clear and surprisingly sunny, and at least along the Cojeul, British artillery was abnormally quiet, so the officers of Battalion 2 of 84 Regiment could gather around the daunting Major Koller and try to avoid his phosgenelike clouds of cigar smoke while he pointed out key terrain features. Koller always briefed on the ground; maps did not convey atmosphere. Koller indicated how the Cojeul valley curved toward Monchy (an excellent approach for the Tommies) and explained that the prepared Siegfried trenches were deep and included new preconstructed pillboxes (MEBUs), and the improved barbed wire—razor wire—but were unfinished. The trenches lacked fire steps, there were no communications trenches linking them, the MEBUs were uncamouflaged, and British artillery had already damaged the wire.8 Furthermore, the regiment’s reserve was ten kilometers back, and the Main Defense was more than one thousand meters from the Englanders. Maintaining outposts far forward was critical, so 18 Reserve Division was to hold a major outpost at St Martin’s to block access down the Cojeul, and their right flank division, 17 Reserve, was to hold another key outpost at the Neuville Mill, to cover

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the approach from Arras. These were to be eyes of the artillery and be equipped with machine guns to disrupt any British attempt to debauch from Arras. Officers set out to mark company areas knowing that as soon as the troops arrived, Koller would turn up to see their positions and patrol plans. Intelligence had warned they might have as few as three days to prepare. Albert Krentel, Leutnant Thüden, and the rest of 1st Battalion, 163 Infantry Reserve Regiment of the neighboring 17 Reserve Division detrained in Douai and took trucks to Vitry-en-Artois on the Cambrai Road. From there, they marched a roundabout thirteen kilometers to Monchy-le-Preux, where they made themselves comfortable while senior officers sorted a relief-in-place of the line. The 163rd was to hold fortified Neuville-Vitasse and the outpost at the Neuville Mill. The mill was positioned to enfilade any British assault on NeuvilleVitasse, and since the Magdeburgers had purchased it with blood in 1914, it had been improved with trenches, wire, and concrete, but the Alberich withdrawal had surrendered Mercatel to the British, ensuring the mill received constant attention from Tommy. Krentel’s company settled into a strongpoint constructed where Major Knauf had formed his attack in 1914. It was subject to interminably long Royal Artillery concerts but had decent fighting positions, good shelters, and an easily found battalion command post. (There was a crashed RFC aircraft on its top.) Leutnant Thüden’s replacement company was not as fortunate. It was positioned in the slush swamp of the First Position, where, even more fervently than Krentel, its green troops counted the days until they could rotate back to comfortable Monchy.9 North of Neuville-Vitasse, Vizefeldwebel Warnke and his men of 76th Reserve Infantry Regiment in the same division were in a position much like Thuden’s. They were adjusting to having marched straight from a dry and warm reserve camp into the unrelentingly cold, wet, miserable, and dangerous trench system of the Main Defense by Telegraph Hill. Even the rats there looked despondent. The situation was certainly not as bad as the waterlogged First Position to their front, but it had been severely worn away by unrelenting winter. Timber supports had rotted, communication trenches collapsed, and barbed wire sagged. British artillery and aircraft ensured that repairs could be made only at night and with limited materials. Ca na di a ns a nd Scots: W ednesday, A pr il 4 Employment of the “munitions of the mind” had become more sophisticated and tactical. Author and “information officer” John Buchan was a key player in ensuring the British view of the war dominated international news. The War

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Office appointed him for his clear understanding of the “mutations of opinions and the ups and downs of popular moods,” and they provided access to cabinet ministers, generals, and editors, but he relied on his contacts in the frontline for perspective. His sources included his brother Alistair in the Scots Fusiliers and his close friend in the Tank Brigade, Thomas Nelson.10 Manpower was an issue in all armies, and the coming offensive presented an opportunity to enhance public support and recruiting. Buchan chose to highlight his Scotland’s contribution to the war. Scots still respected the army as a calling and had always gone to the wars in greater proportion than the English. Their belief that they were better educated, more pugnacious, and incurred a higher casualty rate than the English was canon, and Scottish influence permeated the entire BEF, from Haig and Haldane to the colonials. Three Scottish divisions were to go into action, and 44 out of 120 infantry battalions committed to the initial assault were Scots. Moreover, Scottish culture was deeply infused into the Canadian Corps. Many of “the Canucks” were Scots or “wannabe” Scots.11 Of the four Canadian divisions (going into battle simultaneously for the first time), at least 15,000 men had listed Scotland as their land of birth, and more than a score of Canadian units reflected Scottish heritage. Indeed, many colonials acted more Scottish than the Scots. Glaswegian Bob Mackay of 15 Scot Division was taken to task by Canadian Archie MacDonnell for not speaking the Gael. Batty Mac told him to “get up enough of the tongue to pass St. Peter at the Gate.”12 Moreover, the Canadians were physically joined to the Scots. A British Brigade assigned to assist 2 Canadian Division on Vimy included a battalion of Scots, and 51 (Highland) Division was on the Canadian Corps right flank. It was back at the Labyrinth where Harper’s dictum had first been engraved on their souls: “First, Last and Always—Don’t Forget you belong to the Highland Division and STICK IT OUT.”13 Harper was working well with his next-door neighbor, Arthur Currie of 1 Canadian Division. Currie had been another of those Haig sent to learn from the French, and both he and Harper had both been tutored by Byng. The pair were both preparing to assault Vimy Ridge and discovered they were soulmates in having little enthusiasm for working with unproven outsiders, expecting initiative from their wartime-only soldiers, and holding fixed ideas about conserving men. Significantly, this drew criticism on the white-haired and black-mustached Regular Harper but marked the portly amateur, Currie, as a man of operational savvy. The Harper bias may be why the 51st’s contribution capturing Vimy was to be overlooked.14

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A ir R econna issa nce: Mor ning, Tuesday, A pr il 3 Lieutenant Charles Smart of 16 Squadron RFC noted, “Taking photographs is a poor game, it is highly dangerous and doesn’t give one a chance of telling any fairy tales. It is of no use you coming back and saying—to use a Canadian expression—that you have been ‘Away over to hell and gone’ unless you can bring back a clear and distinct photo of Hades.”15 From the air, Arras was a lost Ozymandian civilization: “a corpse of a city that awaits a burial.” Only the Grand Place, the arrow-straight road to Cambrai, and the ruins of Mont-St.-Eloi remained obvious. Surrounding villages were smudges at crossroads, and a gray, leafless, pockmarked swath of brown no-man’s-land ran along Vimy Ridge down to the Scarpe and across where the city’s suburbs had once stood.16 On a clear day, a pilot could see the slashes and veins of the trenches and even make out the light etchings of the DQ Line seven miles back. Names assigned to German positions were obvious from the air—the Egg, the Harp, the Railway Triangle—but a key reference point was still the pristine red roofs of Monchy-le-Preux. It was a view taken in by 16 Squadron on every day of this worst April in memory. Twenty-year-old Ewart Garland was no longer enthusiastic. The excitement of flying was long overwritten by nine months of operations. Even a too-short leave was unable to reignite the feeling of adventure. Days earlier, Ewart had been enjoying dinner at the London Ritz with Canadian-born politician Bonar Law and three actresses, but now he was at Camblain l’Abbe, northwest of Vimy Ridge, watching his breath cloud while a groundcrew filled his engine with coolant. With no antifreeze yet available, they had to do this for each flight.17 The RFC had lost 120 aircraft in the last month, and 16 Squadron had been ground to the nub flying over Vimy Ridge. As a result, 10 Squadron loaned Garland and twenty-year-old Lieutenant Charles Maurice Crow and their observers to sit in for men whose sand had run out. Thirty-year-old Arthur Baerlein, Garland’s observer, was flying despite being in recovery from a “hole in the head” received when he and his previous pilot, Fred Gay, had been shot down. Fred had lived only minutes after their forced landing. Crow was Garland’s age but looked younger, so he was known as “Our Boy Crow.” His observer was former Canadian cavalryman, twenty-seven-year-old Cecil Durham, who rolled his own cigarettes and hence was “Bull” Durham. In an age of parlor entertainment, Bull’s forte was Robert Service poems, and

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“The Shooting of Dan McGrew” was his signature piece. (Service was currently serving as an ambulance driver.) It was a welcome talent in 10 Squadron, where bawdiness and bonhomie were the norm, but it was of less use in the stark and quiet mess inhabited by the ghosts of 16 Squadron.18 As if conditions were not miserable enough, Garland and Baerlein were expected to fly into a forecast of snow, hail, and high winds. It could not be otherwise. The countdown had begun. The air offensive was to begin tomorrow, which meant that Thursday was W Day, Friday X Day, Saturday Y Day, and Sunday Z, or Zero Day, and “the Guns” had to prepare the battlefield. Once airborne, Garland’s BE2e reconnaissance and light bomber had to claw for height. It took more than half an hour to reach the operating altitude of seven thousand feet. With goggles clouded by freezing drizzle and icy mist, Garland could see no Channel sparkle, no Roman road, and no verdant green of distant woods. He relied on the Germans marking the sky over his target with black puffs of smoke. This was “Archie,” anti-aircraft fire, and the color indicated who was putting it up. German Archie was black, and British Archie was white. Mostly. The BE2 vibrated like a motorbike on a corduroy road. It fought not only the wind but also pressure waves of the thousands of shells being fired through the air around him as part of the preliminary bombardment. Garland could not hear them over his engine, but he could see little black dots in the sky and could feel the close ones making his wings flap. The bigger ones he felt in the soles of his heavy boots and in his sphincter. The BE2 was a stable photographic platform carrying a thirty-seven-pound, semiautomatic, glass-plate camera bracketed to the side of the cockpit close to its center of gravity, but it was a prewar design not configured for combat. The RFC called it the Quirk, and the Germans called it the Flying Piano. It was a tractor aircraft—the engine was in front—and if that didn’t already restrict forward view of the pilot enough, he sat behind his observer-gunner. The defensive Lewis gun was an afterthought. Baerlein had to reposition it from pintle to pintle to cover his arcs while avoiding a net of bracing wires, and he had to rise onto his knees to see over Garland to cover the rear of the aircraft. Crews claimed that while crate was truing up, a canary was put between the wings, and if it escaped, there was a wire missing.19 The Quirk’s special water- and oil-resistant surface helped the nine-hundredkilogram (two-thousand-pound) machine achieve 136 kph (85 mph) in level flight, but the skin’s five coats of nitrate cellulose dope made it highly flammable. The smell of fuel in the cockpit, especially during combat, induced panic. Replacements for the antiquated BE were coming, but in too-small numbers and, too often, with unresolved technical problems. To refine the odds further,

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BE2’s unusual configuration.

Garland flew without escort. It was Trenchard’s rule. “The aim of our offensive will therefore be to force the enemy to fight well behind, and not on, the lines. This aim will only be successfully achieved if offensive patrols are pushed well out to the limits of Army reconnaissance areas . . . and not give way to requests for the close protection of corps machines.”20 Then again, scouts were no guarantee of security. Given the chance, they went “haring off” after Huns as Canadian William Avery Bishop was doing little more than three miles from Garland. Young Billy had, not without some difficulty, qualified as a scout pilot to become a favorite of George Pretyman, who was aware that scout pilots came in two types, aces and targets. He pegged Bishop as being in the 2 percent that became aces. (By month’s end, Bishop was to be credited with fourteen victories, but was one of only three pilots in his squadron to survive the month.) Garland found his target, Givenchy, late in the afternoon and took his pictures. He slid plates through the camera while Baerlein, up on his knees, scanned the skies for the hunters that, despite the Trenchard forward press, somehow always managed to be present over the Ridge.

Ewart Garland, circa 1916.

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With pictures done, Garland turned for home and pushed the nose down to get some speed. That was when he was bounced for the first time. The first attack was by a German two-seater reconnaissance machine, probably his counterpart from Flight Section (A) 235 on a parallel mission. It was more interested in getting its pictures home than starting a real fight, so it didn’t stick around. The second attack was a more serious effort. It involved three sleek, singleseat Albatros hunters, and they were in no hurry to head home. BEs were a favorite quarry of Richthofen’s eaglets—the Red Flier himself was to shoot down seven in April—but Garland’s luck in one respect was good. None of the three aircraft bearing down on him was red. Richthofen was between patrols and would be unable to claim his next victim until after four that afternoon. Although these Albatros were not the crème, they were good enough to move with confidence against a lone Flying Piano, and the sky was soon flickering with tracers and smoke trails of incendiaries. Garland hated incendiaries. He believed that such ammunition should be reserved for flaming balloons, not people. Diving or climbing would have made Garland “duck soup,” so he twisted, making his bus slide across the sky out of the path of the faster attackers. Such slide-slipping could not avoid all bullets, but it gave Baerlein a chance for a shot at enemy skidding by their slower bird. Or it would have had the Lewis gun not jammed with its first shot. This limited Garland’s options. Prey that cannot outrun a predator survives by presenting horns to suggest the cost of attack might outweigh its benefit. The enemy was not to know the Quirk’s gun was inoperable, so Garland turned into the attackers, forcing them to swerve away, and used the time it took the hunters to reacquire him to slide and dive ever closer to friendly lines. Even with the acrobatics, Garland lived to see Easter only because the cavalry, in the form of five Fees, arrived. They were inferior machines, but they were five against three and enough to get Garland back to base with only forty holes in his Quirk. Fortunately, none were in him, Baerlein, or the camera. Photographic sections processed as many as two thousand photos a day using only pure water from melting ice blocks, so getting photos out in a timely manner was a challenge. General Byng made a special request for this hop, so Garland’s photos were processed immediately and rushed to Canadian headquarters by motorbike.

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Mor a le, Discipline, Justice: A fter noon, Tuesday, A pr il 3 Agar Adamson’s small desk was in the Grange Tunnel below Vimy Ridge and almost directly below Garland’s flight path. The tunnel smelled of dank chalk, sweat, and wet wool, but it was a secure spot for Agar to update his wife, Mabel, on the latest troubles of Don Gray and the raucous activities of Charlie Stewart, and to report on their wide network of social acquaintances that included the Bruce-Williams and the Forbes-Robertsons. Adamson had to organize the slate for the PPCLI assault force. The battalion, like most others in the BEF, held about one thousand men, but a number of these were in the pack train, assigned as runners, signalers, or working parties, and a few were on leave, in hospital, or in jail. He could get those in jail released for operations, but he still had to “dump” behind that 10 percent of unit strength, including a key cadre of veterans. It meant he had between six hundred and seven hundred of all ranks for the attack. (See Appendix, Organization.) Perhaps Agar noticed that, national idiosyncrasies aside, this number was about the same for all fighting units. Organizations across armies showed remarkable similarity in operational size, which, despite staff tables and organization charts, was rooted in the human capacity for sustained relationships. The basic human organization is the “primary group,” which consists of about seven interactors (plus or minus two). This equated to Agar’s battalion’s sections and to Richthofen’s air flight. A British corps commander even insisted that the “section as a fighting unit will consist of 1 NCO and 6 men, no more, no less.”21 Primary groups functioned within an extended “family group” of about 30–35 “interactors” (the platoons), and in turn, the platoons nested within the larger group of some 100–150 “familiars” (the company). The companies nested within the larger group of 500–600 “acquaintances” (the fighting elements of a battalion) and then in the largest functioning group of up to 2,000 “recognizables” (the fighting brigade). French poilus differentiated these primary and extended groups as copains (buddies) and comrades. This meant that 3rd Canadian Division, like most British, French, and German divisions, fought with about seven thousand to eight thousand bayonets in a hierarchy held together by linchpins who were members of connected groups. For example, each section or squad commander was leader of his primary group but was also a member of the platoon commander’s primary group, along with the other section commanders and the platoon sergeants. The platoon officer was a member of the company commander’s primary group along with the second in command, sergeant-major, and other platoon officers. The company commanders were part of Agar’s primary group, and he was part of Batty Mac’s brigade primary group. The linkage continued to division and corps, and unlike

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British divisions that rotated periodically between corps, the Canadian linchpins remained strong at the corps level.22 With his strongest major, Charlie Stewart in England, Agar selected his three most experienced captains, including Mel Tenbroeke, and one veteran lieutenant to command the four assault companies. Morale was good, but Agar knew it was subject to weather, rations, mail, and the outcome of courts-martial. Two soldiers in the next-door 2 Canadian Division, Private Eugene Perry and Private Arthur Ratelle, were being tried for desertion, and bets were being taken on their fate. The “A” side of the staff system was largely invisible (except when pay went wrong), but the justice apparatus was keenly monitored. Murderers and rapists could expect to be shot or hanged, as at home, but attitudes toward explicitly military offenses were considered bellwethers by everyone from Haig to the private hauling up dixies of tea.23 Troops, especially New Army troops, expected a transparent logic. Laws were to be equitably applied and sentences mitigated by situation, character, and service. Officers were supposed to protect good soldiers. The men of the 42nd Battalion, for example, understood why sleeping on sentry was a capital offense, but they were not surprised to hear that a decent soldier had snapped awake to find Lieutenant Topp had assumed his watch. All Patricias knew of the sentry who had shot an officer in the dark but faced no consequences because the dying officer insisted the private had acted correctly. Not knowing the password was asking to be shot. Even so, widely circulated stories of men (and even officers) being sent to face a firing squad were common topics of conversation.24 Most discipline was handled within units and not by court-martial. For the most part, this satisfied both soldiers and the system. Any outcome was as likely as much a matter of unit dynamics as justice, but sentences and punishments were lesser and understandable.25 John Joseph Flanagan of Brooklyn, was a six-foot, thirty-year-old with six years in the American infantry and prized by The RCR for leadership under fire, but every time the CO promoted him, he went absent. He was not courtmartialed; the CO simply took away his stripes. Private/Corporal/Sergeant Flanagan was also overly familiar with the hospital system. His repeated visits might have been legitimate but were the usual suspects in engineering days off. Leo Bouchard, the Nipigon Ojibwe, had been absent without authority a half dozen times and had his pay cut for contracting VD. But Leo was cool under fire, and men followed him because they assumed he had supernatural warrior skills that kept them alive, so he was still wearing two stripes as a corporal. The Newfoundland Regiment was as judicious. James Gear was a twentyone-year-old former schoolteacher, a twice-wounded Gallipoli and Beaumont

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Hamel survivor, and twice in trouble with authority. The last trouble produced a court-martial sentence of a year at hard labor, but performance, and perhaps the mellowing effect of a Scottish lass named Peggy, encouraged the CO to commute the sentence. For the time being, Gear was wearing the three stripes of a sergeant. Word spread. Ratelle, a first-time offender, had been awarded fifteen years’ prison, and Perry, a repeat offender, was to be shot. The bets were not settled. First, the levels of command—Canadian Corps, First Army, and BEF—had to confirm or commute the sentences. Their unit CO had to submit a description of previous conduct, an assessment of the state of discipline in the unit, and his opinion on the effect of applying the extreme penalty. And a Big Push was coming.26 Private James Myers in the 13th (Kensington) Fusiliers in 37 Division, for example, had his death sentence suspended in light of the coming offensive. He served knowing that a suspended sentence could be reinstated with a flick of the CO’s pen, and there would be no appeal. In the meantime, three more men from Ratelle and Perry’s battalion disappeared into the French countryside. Once his schedule was done, Agar turned to the daily grind of preparing requests for more lumber for trench duckboards, shoring, tunnel supports, and plank roads. The plank roads reminded Agar of “the suburbs of Toronto,” but using so much timber was deforesting northeastern France and ensuring that the rain, snow, and bombardment produced quagmire.27 Field A mbula nce: Evening, Tuesday, A pr il 3 The 8th Canadian Field Ambulance ADS at Neuville-Saint-Vaast was ready. Antiseptics were stacked, as were dressings, anti-tetanus vials, and iodine. Indelible purple pens and injury tickets were laid out near where men rehearsed the twelve drill movements for applying the Thomas splint: an innovation of leather, canvas, and iron that held fractured legs together. Fewer men were to die from being moved. Quartermaster Sergeant Warren was scheduled to bring up a final resupply on April 6. At 8:00 p.m., Major Selby received a packet of documents marked “Secret: First Army DMS (Director of Medical Services) Medical Arrangements for Active Operations.” The operation had a Zero Hour. The first casualty at the ADS in the Battle of Arras was to be Sergeant W. E. C. Dixon. He was treated for a shrapnel ball in the neck, evacuated to a CCS, diagnosed with a spinal injury, and transferred directly to a General Hospital in Étaples. He died three days later. Dixon was a member of 8 Canadian Field Ambulance.28

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Gas a nd Gaslight: Mor ning, W ednesday, A pr il 4 Leutnant Michael Volkheimer of 1 Bavarian Reserve Division was back on the Vimy Ridge ground he had captured two years earlier, but he was suffering bombardments the likes of which he had never experienced, not even on the Somme. Shellfire over the last two weeks had turned his trenches into mud pools and his position into a moonscape. He thought it couldn’t get worse. Then he saw what happened along the Scarpe.29 On a clear spring morning, Volkheimer could see almost the entire line of German positions south to the Scarpe and across to Monchy. The Prussians held along the river, but between them and “the squareheads” were their fellow Bavarians of 14 Bavarian Division. The Third Army’s plan for a rapid advance to Roeux and Greenland Hill required degrading these defenses before Z-Hour, and Captain William H. Livens had a means to achieve that. Livens had produced a three-foot, mortar-like device that launched a ballistically unsophisticated barrel-like cylinder of gas more than 1,000 meters (1,200 yards), and although it was not particularly accurate, the Livens Projector was easy to use, virulent, and cheap. It reduced “the cost of killing Germans to a paltry sixteen shillings apiece.” Since the device’s field-test in the assault on Beaumont-Hamel in November, British factories had been pumping out four thousand projectors a month.30 Livens’s Z Company had spent several nights digging steel tubes into the earth just behind the British front line. Each had been fixed into the ground at a forty-five-degree angle, loaded with a black powder charge and thirty-pound sheet-metal drum warhead, and then connected by electrical wire to a central firing point. It was dangerous work. Z Company worked above ground with poisonous chemicals and explosives in an area regularly swept by machine gun fire and strafed by artillery. Casualties were “light.” At 6:15 a.m., an operator sent a current down the wires. A series of muted whumps followed, then thumps of 2,300 canisters bouncing through the thick morning mist, then soft crumps of 2,300 bursting charges, and finally the hiss of escaping cargo. More than thirty tons of gas swept softly into German trenches, dugouts, gun positions, and command posts. Livens, watching from an aircraft, was impressed with the speed and density of his clouds. A soft wind pulled them northeast across 14 Bavarian Division at four meters per second. A victim described a Livens attack as “distinctly unpleasant . . . the gas had such density that even the mask didn’t help, because there was simply no oxygen left in the air to breathe.” Fritz Nagel wrote how soldiers, hating the restricting German mask, waited to mask up until the cloud was close. It was not enough.31

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The drums contained two gases. Chlorine was suffocating but detectable, but the accompanying phosgene was barely noticeable. It was a slower-acting pulmonary and skin irritant, so once the victim sensed chlorine and strapped on his mask, he might discover phosgene was already in his mask. It created panic. Hours after believing they had survived, men suddenly felt as though their chests could not draw in air. They vomited yellow liquid, turned blue, and collapsed.32 Intelligence shared by the French revealed that Livens killed at least four hundred Bavarians outright (at sixteen shillings apiece) and caused hundreds of other casualties. He had damaged 14 Bavarian Division materially and spiritually, and the British fire plan was only halfway through inflicting its projected “Week of Suffering” on the Bavarians. When the Prussians heard about the attack, they wondered again about the Bavarians’ will to fight. They also heard that the United States had declared war on Germany, but they were unaware that not all news was bad. On the Aisne, a German raid captured a French command post containing complete instructions for the coming offensive. Nivelle’s GQG took immediate action. “Orders were given that on no account was news of this misfortune to be spread, as it might seriously affect the morale of the troops, and not a word was said to the Government.”33 A ir Str ik e: Night, W ednesday–Thur sday, A pr il 4–5, 1917 The RFC’s air offensive began at midweek with twenty-five squadrons throwing themselves at the balloons on Greenland Hill and at rail centers, depots, and aerodromes. They threw themselves at Richthofen. The moon was up early and the wind was light when the obsolescent Fee, painted black and gray and loaded with a hundred pounds of bombs, debuted as a night bomber. At 10:30 p.m., nineteen FEs of No. 100 Squadron growled into line. On signal, each rumbled down the strip and into the sky. Once airborne, the only evidence of their presence was engine noise and the faint glow of their exhausts. They navigated independently by hooded compass and dead reckoning, but Douai, set alight by the Guns, was easy to find. Each Fee circled Richthofen’s aerodrome until all were present, and then the squadron leader switched off his motor and dropped into a silent glide. Germans were scanning the black sky with searchlights when the “old British packing crate” swished silently out of the dark three hundred feet up. Its engine snarled back to life just as it released two 30-pound phosphorous bombs that ignited two hangers.

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For the next twenty minutes, Fees emerged from the dark, one at time, to dump explosives while their machine gunners shot up anything exposed by the firelight. Anti-aircraft fire arced through the night in an impressive firework display that continued long after the last aircraft disappeared. Richthofen later made light of the attack, insisting it was a merry shoot with carbines against slow-moving targets, but he was covering a near calamity. His pilots joined bucket brigades and struggled to save their aircraft for an hour. An hour was as long as it took 100 Squadron to get back to base, rearm, and return. When they hit this time, everyone was in the open. Incendiaries, explosions, and machine-gun fire caught aircraft, firefighters, ground crew, and pilots. In the end, 100 Squadron lost one aircraft, but Richthofen’s jasta was grounded for more than twenty-four hours.34 Over the next five days, the RFC lost seventy-five aircraft, but it kept German machines from the battlefront and blinded German artillery. The commander of the RFC, Trenchard, might have been well pleased, but it was hard to tell. The men of the RFC thought it a wry jest of the gods to choose this moment to strike him with German measles. The RFC sacrificed itself in the sky by the score to lessen the sacrifice on the ground by the thousand. It flew with increasingly inexperienced crews brought forward to replace the worn-out, the wounded, and the lost. A report submitted to the War Cabinet for Bloody April was to reveal that hours flown per aircrew killed or missing was ninety-two. In the barest of terms, this meant that the operational lifespan of a flier was fewer than four days. The dawn patrol was the stuff of legend before the month was half done.35 Pups’ Good Fr iday, A pr il 6, 1917 The air offensive continued. No. 3 Squadron RNAS, now under squadron commander “Red” Mulock, was back in theater and stationed southwest of Arras at Marieux. Naval 3 was equipped with the small but feisty single-seater Sopwith Pup scout. The Pup was among the best of British aircraft and “a dream to fly, so light to control, so effortless to handle, so sweet and amenable, and so eagerly maneuverable.” It could hit 170 kph (106 mph), flew better at high altitude than the Albatros or Halberstadt, and carried a synchronous, belt-fed, Vickers machine gun that fired through the airscrew. It was a scrapper—more wolf cub than pup.36 With Mulock, there were seven Canadians in Naval 3, including Lloyd Breadner and Joe Fall. Breadner, married little more than a month, was a typical “fine fellow” and extrovert, but Fall was quieter. Perhaps it was the brain surgery or

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Joe Fall and Sopwith Pup preparing for spring flight.

perhaps the brief tour with a French bombing squadron, but Joe looked like he was always thinking—not a stereotypical combat pilot.37 In accordance with Trenchard’s directive, Naval 3 pushed east at almost sixteen thousand feet, where the air was thin and bloody cold but where the light Pups had maneuver advantage. The pilots, bundled into cockpits in silk, wool, leather, and sheepskin, fired their guns periodically to ensure they had not frozen.

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Smell was part of the experience. Rancid whale oil–coated faces and castor oil fumes from Le Rhone rotary engines assaulted noses, and the castor oil had the expected effect: no roughage before flying. The Knights of the Air were as restricted in bodily functions as were their fully plated forebearers, and no one wanted troubled guts or a full bladder once mounted. Being caught short on patrol meant having to remove a gauntlet and fumble through several layers of clothing so by the time the pilot found what he was looking for, his hand was numb from the cold and incapable of hitting the special funnel. One confessed, “Most of us just aim at the joystick and hope for the best.”38 Naval 3 found what combat reports described antiseptically as HA (hostile aircraft) southwest of Cambrai. It was a good Friday for the Pups. They bagged five, including one each to Breadner and Fall.39 It was a promising omen. Ta nks: Satur day, A pr il 7, 1917 The BEF’s Tank Brigade was positioned to follow the infantry to its initial objectives, the enemy’s First Position, and then push through to help crush the main line of strongpoints before advancing to attack the Fampoux-Feuchy-Wancourt line. Estimates were that twenty should be back in action for the next phase, the push onto the Monchy and Wancourt high ground. The thirty-two tanks of 7, 8, and 9 Companies of C Battalion were assembled under camouflage nets in the dry moat of the Arras citadel alongside twelve from 10 Company, D Battalion. The plan called for them to operate in small packets rather than in mass, so No. 9 Company tanks were to support 15 Scot Division with two specially tasked to assist the assault on the Railway Triangle fortress. The 15th Scot Division was New Army, but already with a reputation formidable enough that it and 51 Highland were described as “the two most terrible engines of destruction ever made by man.” In its ranks were Padre Steuart and newly commissioned Lieutenant Cuddeford with 12 HLI, Lieutenant Bob Mackay in 11 Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and John Buchan’s brother, Alisdair, in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. A strange American in British uniform, Major Eric Fisher Wood, was also joining the Scots Fusiliers for the assault.40 The tanks of 8 Company were tasked to push over the ridges and through the bow-shaped trench system called the Harp, directly toward Monchy. Those of 7 Company were to operate north of the Scarpe with the other New Army Scottish division, 9 Scot Division, which intended to blow by fortified St.-LaurentBlangy to reach the defense along the rail embankment. Once the embankment

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Tank Brigade

C Battalion

D Battalion

12 Company 11 Company 10 Company

9 Company

8 Company

7 Company

Neuville/ Wancourt

Triangle/ Feuchy

Harp/ Monchy

North of Scarpe

Drader Bell

Webber Hedderwick (?)

Salter Johnston Toshack Ambrose

Tarbet Jones

8 tanks

12 tanks

12 tanks

Vimy

Bullecourt

10 tanks

10 tanks

8 tanks

Tank deployment for Battle of Arras, April 1917.

line was breached, any surviving tanks were to press on to the area around Roeux and Greenland Hill. Two of D Company’s tank companies (11 and 12) were sent to support the Canadians on Vimy and the Australians at Bullecourt, and 10 Company was to assault the Neuville Mill, Neuville-Vitasse, and Wancourt. Tank officers like Tarbet, Bell, and Ambrose scouted the most efficient routes to their start points for their petrol-hungry behemoths. NCOs like Vyvyan and Saker supervised loading ammunition, signal lamps, flares, pigeons, toolkits, and water. They checked each man’s cardigan waistcoat, gaiters, helmet, field dressings, boiler suit, rank badges, iron rations, small box respirator, and pistol. They ensured hobnails had been removed from boots. These provided grip for footsloggers but were deadly on a tank’s metal floor. Old hands like Will Dawson listened patiently to nervous newcomers ruminate about tank traps and about how every German carried a clip of armor-piercing, SmK tungsten-carbide ammunition—and how MG08s had entire belts of the stuff.

eight

k

EASTER 1917

This battle may well, in future ages, be ranked among the most desperate and heroic struggles of the war. The London Times

Pr elimina ry Str ik es: Sunday, A pr il 8 The offensive was postponed twenty-four hours. Z-Day was Easter Monday. The approach to Neuville and Wancourt was blocked by the inconvenient and dangerous ferro-concrete outpost at Neuville Mill. It was garrisoned by thirteen men of Machine Gun Company 3, including Unteroffizier Adolf Ruhle, twenty-one, from Hamburg, and Schutze Willi Kirst, twenty-three, of Kiel. They were supported by a ten-man detachment of 163 Infantry Regiment commanded by Vizefeldwebel der Reserve Apt and by Leutnant Thuden’s company of recruits in the First Position.1 During the night, the outpost reported it was under attack. There were four attacks in all. Bangs, flashes, cracks, and thumps did not stop until dawn, and by then, the area around the blockhouse was dotted with still khaki and gray-clad figures. The nearby trench contained wounded and drawn, haggard Schleswig-Holsteiners and Londoners of 56 Division sharing cigarettes. The Britons were prisoners. The Neuville Mill was still a problem. By then, Our Boy Crow and Bull Durham were at 250 feet and looking for barbed wire on the reverse slopes of Vimy while everyone below tried their level best to kill them. The BEF promised a reward of twenty pounds sterling (about one hundred dollars) and fourteen days’ leave to anyone bagging an aircraft,

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and judging by the enthusiastic ground fire, they assumed the Germans had an equally good incentive program. Once they marked their map, they wasted no time in goosing the old packing crate until its bracing wires hummed as they scarpered for home. They would be back tomorrow as eyes for the Guns.2 German guns had eyes too. The sun made a surprise appearance late Sunday, and it presented an aircraft, probably from Flight Section (A) 235, with a buffet of targets. The assault postponement gave Major Franklin Lushington’s heavy six-inch howitzer battery another day to stockpile ammunition, but this presented a traffic problem as ammunition vehicles lined up waiting for space to unload. Lushington’s battery was set up in a small quarry by the village of Achicourt, a main junction on the IV Corps main supply route. The first German artillery projectile, probably 150mm, found the battery, but the round was a dud. It knocked over poet Edward Thomas, and after shaking off the mud and dirt (with considerable display of sang-froid), he packed his kit to move to the battery O Pip below Neuville-Vitasse.3 (map 7) The next 150mm round was not a dud. It hit an ammunition convoy in Achicourt square and set off a chain reaction of explosions that “turned what had been a thriving country village into a holocaust of flame and death.” Explosions continued all day as one hundred thousand men in the IV Corps zone moved into position for the great tutorial. Achicourt was still crackling and sizzling after dark when C Battalion’s tanks passed. Jack Harris, Tom Toshack’s driver, remembered the night drive as “perishing cold.” His visor flap remained open so he could see the tiny lights put down to guide him, but it meant an icy wind froze his front while the engine roasted his back.4 Six C Company tanks bellied in soft ground and were unable to meet Z-Hour. Sta rt Line: Monday Mor ning, A pr il 9 Chaplain Steuart was at the end of the 12 HLI column as it wound out of the tunnels and through trench junctions controlled by military police. The troops, with rifles slung, Lewis guns across shoulders, grenade bags and ammunition panniers dangling, followed a braille of wood and wire to trenches that became so familiar over the weeks that they gave names to the indigenous cats as well as some of the more prominent rats. Men were stripped to leather jerkins and assault kit, so once they reached their assembly points, they could only stand and vibrate in the sleet. There was no rum issued. This was Haldane’s corps, and he forbade rum in the trenches.

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The HLI was in 15 Scot Division’s second wave. The first wave had already crawled into no-man’s-land to lie in the snow and wait. Men of 12 Division next to them waited in long, dark tunnels, cupped against one another like spoons, waiting for the sappers to blow out the end so they could file out into no-man’sland. Sappers bored small viewing holes to ensure that the blast would open at the right point. In one spot, they were gratified to note that there was a German sentry post in the blast cone. Officers checked wristlet watches obsessively and sergeants moved along the lines, checking equipment and mood and reminding the boys to stay tight behind the creeper. They listened to the shellfire slow its rate and move to distant targets. The Germans threw a few tentative rounds into Arras behind them. Sergeant Simpkin skimmed Arras’s streets on his Triumph, learning back routes. Once the ball started, the main roads would fill with carts, wagons, and ambulances (“meat wagons”), and whereas every DR was an expert driver, others were not. Right now, German guns were less dangerous than officer-driven cars. He drove by Allenby. The Bull stood silently, watching his troops. Simpkin watched too and reflected on their fate. “A greater number would be wounded, some to die others to be patched up to feed the war machine again. Those whom the ‘Fates’ allow to come through unscathed will be put through the fire again and again until they are finally expended. War has no mercy.”5 At forty-eight, Canadian correspondent Fred McKenzie6 was a decade older and two wars less romantic than most of his fellow correspondents. He had written on the South African War (from both sides) and the Russo-Japanese War, and although he had penned morale-enhancers on wartime railways and on Americans serving in Entente units, he never lost sight of how the war machine operated. Seeing how armies manipulated information made him sharper about how a varnish of progress, patriotism, and equality too often covered an underlying grain of racism, misogyny, and class. He was determined to capture the genuine experience of battle on the western front, but he had not anticipated attacking into a sleet storm. As the snow turned to drizzle and the wind picked up, men spread the empty sandbags they carried across their shoulders like ponchos, and McKenzie thought it fortunate that at least the wind was blowing directly into the eyes of Germans. German sentries sank below the parapets. What was the point of exposing eyes to icy pinpricks when they could not see? Besides, Tommy’s fire was tapering off.7 Canadians of 7 Brigade lining the trenches below La Folie made way for the runner with the red armband bringing a message from Batty Mac. “I cannot go to sleep without wishing you and your gallant lads God speed, best of good luck and victory.” Not particularly resonating. Byng, now sitting by the phone

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at Bernoval Farm, had been more direct. “On Zero Day, the Canadian Corps will capture Vimy Ridge.” Along the shivering line, spirits were lifted—literally. Jars came along the trench, and “the aura of gloom was suddenly dissipated by the thoughtfulness of those great, wise and compassionate men, the Quartermasters. Down the line came that panacea of all panaceas, the rum issue.”8 The Royals had received a clutch of volunteers from a recently disbanded allAmerican volunteer unit, and they were quick to gravitate to veteran expatriate Flanagan. He was again without stripes, but not without authority. He checked grenades and water-bottles; explained that Canadians called all Americans Yanks, even the ones from Dixie; and warned them whom to look out for (the CO, a stickler for PT and polish, and of course the RSM) and whom to look to: Major Dick Willets, prewar Regular, man of few words, but ones that counted, and young Bill Home, the hockey player. The Americans might have thought it a wry jest of fate that they had forfeited their citizenship to serve in a unit called the Royals just as their nation was entering the war. The 7th Machine Gun Company and 7th Trench Mortar Battery were setting up to fire the Royals forward, and a troop of engineers bundled with wire, corkscrew metal pickets, and shovels were preparing to follow them up the Ridge. (The pickets could be screwed into the ground and did not need hammers.) There was no smoking, which was just as well. Light would attract the attention of Flarelight Bill, the German sentry about eighty meters (ninety yards) from the main trench. His job was to signal for SOS artillery fire if he saw them coming. Adamson’s Patricias were on the Royals’ left. William Miller and the Pipes and Drums were adjusting their instruments and laying out stretchers. Miller had been a drummer in the Edmonton Police Pipe Band when it enlisted en masse to play the Patricias over in 1914. They were going to play the Regiment over the top today, and they intended to play it home when all this was over. In the meantime, they carried stretchers. Left of the Patricias, there was a soccer ball on the parapet. Kicking off into no-man’s-land was cliché, but the 42nd had its own professional football star in Sergeant James Baird Thorneycroft Montgomerie, the private who had impressed Norsworthy at the Fabek. He had just returned from leave to Ayrshire, Scotland, engaged to a young lass, Janet. Nearby, Doc Hale and Sergeant Owston, festooned with bandages, splints, dressings, and flares, made the rounds reminding the lads they were near. In the Mounted Rifles brigade to the right of the Royals, 5 CMR was behind the line. It was going up the hill as third wave, the moppers-up. George Pearkes

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and Captain Bill Atherton were ensuring that NCOs like Acting Lance Corporal Charles Rutherford were checking men for extra grenades and mortar bombs. Mopping up was not glamourous, but at least it was dangerous. The forward artillery team, including the FOO Lieutenant Ralph Adams and his assistant, Bombardier Bert Bessent, was saddled with rolls of green artillery line and bundles of bayonets to pin the wire as it went. Toppo Topp from the 42nd and Don Gray (no longer beyond artillery range) were at either end of the line, positioned to provide liaison with neighboring divisions and “ground truth” to Lipsett and Byng. They all waited, wind chilling their backs in a world gone silent.9 Dawn for April 9 was 7:10 a.m., but fighting men work with “first light,” which comes before the sun breaks the horizon. Light reflecting off the atmosphere by 5:15 was enough, under normal circumstances, to navigate, and by 5:45, there should be enough light to engage targets at a hundred yards. Drizzle, sleet, and snow delayed the light. Br ea k-in: Monday Mor ning, A pr il 9 At 5:25 a.m., as if a conductor tapped his baton, the instruments of war went silent. Fire ceased along the line as each gun, howitzer, mortar, and machine gun was laid onto the first serial of its list of pre-selected and timed targets. Artillery officers like Bob Wilson and Frank Lushington watched their guns’ No. 1s twist adjusting wheels to set barrel elevations to angles calculated days before. Projectiles, fuses preset, were ready. Containers of water were close to the guns because even in snow, gun barrels were going to get hot, and swollen barrels seize in recoil. Gunners removed overcoats and set the new Small Box Respirators on their chests. Officers checked their sequence of targets. Guns had been calibrated for barrel wear, ammunition bands were examined to ensure a tight fit, and final adjustments were made for weather. Now, only gunlayer’s error stood between a perfect curtain landing forty long paces ahead of the assault line and a “dropshort” that blotted out a dozen of their own. Officers checked their watches (again) and ordered, “Stand by.” No. 1s inserted lanyards and stood back from their pieces. It was quiet enough to hear slush patting on helmets. Are you ready number 1? Are you ready number 2? Five minutes to go.

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Act II: W e a r i ng-Ou t Batt l e 4 minutes to go. 3 minutes to go. 2 minutes to go. 1 minute to go. 10 seconds. 5 seconds. Whistle! We’re off.10

A thousand lanyards drawn . . . The air around each gun expanded in a blinding flash and ear-splitting crack. Barrels recoiled on their springs; muzzles rocked upward and then reasserted themselves, sliding back efficiently into their resting position. Gunners swayed with the expansion of air pressure and, even before the shriek of the departing shell had ended, were moving: twisting the little wheels, opening the breech, placing the round into its carrier, ramming it into the breech, closing the breech, attaching the lanyard, and standing clear. Gun commanders, lanyards in hand, looked to officers standing with one arm raised and looking at their watches. Ready for the next thousand shots. Frank Fox saw “chain-lightening [that] ran its direful course along the British line almost continuously; and along the German line there was a response in continuous sheet-lightening as the uninterrupted hail of shells burst.”11 Louis Spears heard the air scream “as it was torn by a thousand shells. Miles up the great projectiles hummed their mighty drone. Lower down through each layer of air the shells flew according to their kind, until, quite low above the lines of men closing in behind the barrage, the missiles of the light mortars and the bullets of the machine guns hissed.”12 The 10th Stockbrokers coming through Arras had to march with their mouths open against the pressure shocks, and fifteen miles back, the Newfoundland Regiment heard the thunder and saw the lightning. The Official History was more statistical than poetical, but the statistics constitute terrifying stanzas: twenty-four brigades of eighteen-pounders, or one gun for every twenty yards of front, fire a creeping barrage of half shrapnel and half HE. They fire three rounds per minute, and every four minutes, they move the impact forward one hundred yards and fire a volley of all airburst shrapnel, “woolly bears,” to indicate to the infantry the beginning of the next serial. The heavies, six-inch and sixty-pounders, strike known billets, bunkers, crossroads, routes, and strongpoints, and they intermingle smoke with HE to blind machine guns. Larger guns—8-inch., 9.2 inch, 12-inch, and 15-inch—rain explosive and gas on German artillery positions and distant headquarters,

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including Monchy. Each organization from trench mortar to HAG has a rate of fire of rounds per minute, per hour, and per day.13 Hundreds of machine guns fire in a parabolic arc that rains bullets down on crossroads, rear areas, and communications centers to impose a lethal tax on reinforcements, runners, and reserves. Trauma was evident. For the Germans, it was the “end of the world behind the heavy curtains of smoke,” and up went flares “red and white and green and tall orange-colored fountains of golden rain . . . shrieking for aid from the supports and artillery.”14 At 5:30 a.m., the Third Army and the Canadian Corps went “over the bags.”15 Bavarian Michael Volkheimer sensed, rather than heard, the fire moving off him and onto other targets. Like most Germans that morning, he was functionally deaf. Hearing returned in stages. As the higher registers came back, overwhelmed ears picked up a distant, high, piercing squeal. It came faintly at first, like the first awareness of air escaping from a balloon, but as thousands of individual amygdalae struggled to reestablish sensory input, the sound became recognizable. Bagpipes. Along thirteen miles of front, the British Empire was coming out of its trenches to the pipes of war. Volkheimer’s first sighting of enemy was behind his right flank. It meant the company strongpoint there was gone, and probably the whole of the 2nd Battalion. He scrambled back past the battalion command post, screaming at its occupants to get out, and then ran to the regimental command post where the commander was organizing a defense with overqualified riflemen. The 1st and 3rd Battalion staffs had been handing over, but now they were not majors or leutnants, just riflemen. Volkheimer’s regiment was annihilated on the ground it had taken in 1914. Of almost two thousand effectives—officers, riflemen, mortarmen, machine gunners, signalers, clerks, storemen, and cooks—fewer than three hundred were to make it back to the railway embankment behind Vimy.16 South of Volkheimer, the men of 14 Bavarian Division saw masses of infantry and tanks headed for them. The division had not yet recovered from the Livens attack and had no artillery support, so although the tanks were stuck, it did not matter. The First Position disappeared. The Second Position occupants cascaded back through the Third with a desperation that disintegrated it. A prisoner explained, “We were sick of gas, sick of shells, sick of the cold and sick of having no food. We no longer had the will to fight.”17 Volkheimer headed down the back of the Ridge toward the concrete artillery position at Farbus, where a battery of 105mm howitzers were scrambling to leave. One gun was already limbered.

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One of the Farbus 105mm cannons captured in place.

Machine gun fire rippled across the gun team from three hundred feet above. A BE2 flashed over the jumble of thrashing and falling horses, its fire arcing toward the line of gun barrels pointing impotently toward the horizon. Overhead, “Our Boy” Crowe arced over the battery while “Bull” Durham worked its chattering Lewis gun. The escaping 105mm crew cut loose the damaged horses and galloped east. It was the only gun to escape.18 As infantry closed on the guns, Crowe waggled his wings and turned for home.19 Below La Folie, a Royal drove a bayonet into Flarelight Bill. No line of infantry stormed over the bags. It was dark and muddy, and the hill was peppered with ice-filled craters. The boys threaded their way around these in their blobs and worms. Grenadier Otto Schroder, of 262 Regiment, had been shot in the arm by Canadians who looked like they were “hunting hares” as they worked along the trenches with bayonets ensuring the dead were dead and the wounded were likely going to be. Schroder thought they looked like they had consumed “a lot of schnapps.”20 Frequent reports of drunken behavior in battle gave rise to speculation on the effects of the standard issue rum, but not all intoxication was alcoholic.

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Soldiers were tired. Always. Head bobbing and involuntary REM sleep was normal in days and nights filled with manual labor and anxiety-laden watches, but when the bayonet scraped the scabbard, the organism flooded its systems with a concoction of biochemicals that readied the already disrupted organism for action. Effects included increased heart rate, time distortion, tunnel vision, impairment of fine motor skills, and hyperactivity. It was why training involved screaming NCOs, muscle-memory repetition, and drilled reaction to stimuli. It explained repeated bayonet training, battle drill, and imprinting the distance for the barrage.21 Schroder kept going until a comrade pulled him into a dugout entrance. It is an assumed norm that in a battalion operation with 600 effectives, 150 do the real fighting. Another 150 will, under most circumstances, find a way to avoid active participation. The remainder follow the lead of the active or the passive groups depending on situation, morale, leadership, and cohesion.22 Schroder’s dugout was occupied by six Canadians playing cards while the Battle of Vimy Ridge roared and sputtered above them. They paused their game to bind the Germans’ wounds and point them down the ridge toward the casualty post, and it was a slightly perplexed Schroder who marched off into captivity. The assault on Vimy was proceeding according to plan—indeed, better than expected—but success depended on the main attack south of the Ridge. (map 8) Eric Fisher Wood went into the attack along the south bank of the Scarpe. Wartime censorship prevented him from identifying his unit, but his notes leave enough clues to suggest he was with 6/7 Royal Scots Fusiliers (Alisdair Buchan’s unit) and attacking the rail embankment between the Scarpe and the Railway Triangle, which was being assaulted by Bob Mackay’s 11th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the 9th Black Watch.23 Wood was exultant in his St. Crispin’s moment of being among the first Americans in action and not at home amid “skulking pacifists and propagandists.” Here, going “over the top” looked like it was supposed to. Once the “woolly bears” signaled the creeper was moving, whistles blew, and troops rose out of the ground in extended line and began walking toward the crumps of the eighteen-pounders. They walked because running or trotting would dissipate their cohesion, exhaust them, and run them into their own barrage. Wood’s senses were heightened. He could feel sleet on the back of his neck; his widened pupils took in the German flares—the golden fountains—and the flickering shadows of advancing infantry. His ears pricked at the warble of projectiles. The assault reached the first German trenches quickly and with few casualties. The wire was gone, the trenches were gone, and the Germans were gone.

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Only churned earth, bits of wood, and body parts indicated where it had been. Wood had expected tragedy but found comedy. Tragedy waited up the slope. A large Jock with a bandaged head came by, escorting three Germans. His rifle was over his shoulder, and he held a grenade in his huge fist. As he passed, he asked if anyone had a spare pin. His prisoners had surrendered before he could throw it, so he was stuck until he could find another. The second wave caught up. The next phase was to be the difficult one: the long walk uphill to the main defense on the embankment.24 South of them, the Argylls and Black Watch had taken the First Position in fifteen minutes but had to pause another ninety minutes before assaulting the Triangle. The army had to close up, and the field guns had to move closer. The 12th HLI, with Steuart and Cuddeford, waited with the next wave by a cemetery alive with explosions. A Jock commented that “it would have been a grim joke to be knocked on the head by a chunk of marble inscribed ‘In loving memory.’” When they moved, it was in time to see the first wave moving into the fire of the machine guns embedded in the Triangle’s embankments. Major Fumetti was on Observation Ridge, six hundred meters south of the Triangle, watching his regiment collapse in segments. Four companies in the First Position were all but gone, and the machine guns in the Second Position were trying to make a fight of it. His signaling station on Orange Hill had been blasted out of existence, so he had no contact with the artillery. He sent his pioneer company to bolster the embankment, but even as he sent the order, he could see distress flares from 14 Bavarian Division positions north of the river, and they were already to his rear. South of Fumetti in 17 Reserve Division, Vizefeldwebel Warnke had emerged from his bombproof behind Telegraph Hill to see infantry and tanks coming up from where the First Position had been. The gas was still heavy, but in the distance, incredibly, he could see horses. His platoon fired into masses of Tommies, but they began maneuvering by smaller groups and kept coming. When rifle grenades began landing on Warnke’s men and the tanks were within thirty meters, he led his survivors back toward the Monchy riegel. Their officer stayed with the machine gun to cover them, and the last they saw of him, he was up to his ankles in empty casings and still firing. Farther south, 17 Reserve Division’s little garrison of the Neuville Mill blockhouse had stood to once the barrage moved on. The pillbox troglodytes wiped the dust from gas mask eyepieces and ripped open ammunition boxes while the No. 1 slammed the first round into the machine gun’s breech and traversed the barrel. There was an acrid smell of explosive, but there was no line of khaki figures in perfect enfilade, just a huge, mottled, waddling steel rhomboid growling its way through the smoke.

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Tank D2 (male, Mark II) stopped thirty meters away. The pillbox machine gunner fired a long, ripping burst that made the tank’s armor sparkle and whine with ricochets while the shark-dead eye of a six-pounder traversed to look directly into his muzzle flash. It fired a single shot directly through the blockhouse aperture.25 A narrow cloud of blue-black smoke coughed from the tank’s exhaust, and its tracks churned. Its tracks squeaked and squealed as D2 angled itself to rumble up the slope where Magdalene chorister Hugh Bell’s section of tanks was already crushing the wire. A group of Londoners closed up to the smoking bunker and tossed in grenades. After the thumps, four of the garrison of 3 Machine Gun Company crawled out, uniforms smoking and faces bleeding. The Londoners frisked them, robbed them, and shepherded them back down the line. The other nine, including Adolph Ruhle and Willy Kirst, never came out. The assault was short the six stuck tanks. When Boots Hotblack heard, he stormed off to the assembly area to see what the hell had gone wrong. He arrived, all temper and vitality, to be met by a shell. Hotblack took a nasty hit to the head, but the explosion killed his traveling companion, Thomas Nelson. John Buchan learned of the loss of his friend at almost the same time as he learned that his twenty-one-year-old brother had been killed at the Railway Triangle.26 The remaining tanks, including Drader’s (with Percy) and Hedderwick’s, snarled up the long slopes and into the trench system called the Harp. A driver recalled, “We charged straight for them and tried to crush the emplacements and everybody in them.”27 Chaplain Steuart watched one “crawling imperturbably along like a monstrous slug; pausing with a ludicrous air of reflection on the edge of a trench or shell-hole before dipping its blunt head to the descent; crunching with Olympian serenity over wire and parapet and concrete emplacement; emerging blandly from the smoke and whirling destruction of a dozen shells for all the world like an absent-minded professor momentarily disturbed in the midst of a soliloquy, and murmuring, ‘Let me see: what was I saying?’”28 Contrary to rumor, the Germans had no SmK ammunition. They did not know normal rounds could penetrate the tank’s armor at close range or flake shrapnel-like spall off the interior. They could not conceive of the tank’s hellish interior with its noise and heat. They could not imagine the stumbling on empty casings rolling beneath feet, or the searing pain of bumping against the hot engine, so they ran. Charles Ambrose and C36 reached the Harp trench complex before bullets pierced the tank’s skin. He made the Second Line before a shell punched through the tank between him and Dawson. It did not explode, but it concussed

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Ambrose and killed or disabled half his crew. The tank was still mobile, so Butler’s recovery crew brought up replacements, and C36 carried on. Meanwhile, millions of bullets from the hundreds of machine guns firing indirectly like artillery plunged down onto German positions. The troops had been doubtful about the efficacy of this enormous, parabolic expenditure of ammunition, but the defenders were not. “Many attempted to escape from this witches’ cauldron to the rear or the side but British machine guns, that we could not see, were maintaining such a weight of fire against the rear edge of the [pit] that not a man succeeded in passing through it. Just as a man would reach the lip of the [pit] and attempt to cross it, he would collapse as though hit by a mysterious, unseen hand and roll back down.”29 At Neuville, Albert Krentel scrambled out of his bomb-proof to find his fighting position destroyed. His horizon was lost in smoke, but coming through it were serried waves of khaki and giant tanks. Leutnant Thüden and the company of replacements had been annihilated. Drader and Bell’s tanks came to within thirty meters of Krentel before pivoting toward Hill 90 and Wancourt. German artillery rounds—Albert assumed they were directed by balloonists—lit one tank into flame and immobilized three others, but one of the immobilized tanks was still able to track machine gun bursts along the trenches to cover the Tommies maneuvering forward. When British signal flares popped up from the German line next to him, Albert knew the position was lost. An officer with a broken arm rounded up survivors and led them toward the reserve position, but the British were already there and guarding a huddle of prisoners. Krentel and the others beetled off while the officer raised his good hand and said, “Hello, Tommy.” A British NCO approached him carefully and then grinned. “Sorry, mate,” he said, reaching for the officer’s Zeiss binoculars, “but all you are allowed to hang onto now is your gas mask.” He tucked the glasses inside his blouse, paused, and then handed his prisoner a pack of cigarettes. A fair exchange under the circumstances.30 Albert’s group headed deeper into the trench system. By the time Eric Fisher Wood and 6/7 Royal Scots assault on the rail embankment moved into its second phase, visibility was better, and Wood could see the whole line moving steadily, three to four meters between men. Behind them, another line followed, then more lines in a continuous series “like waves following each other up a wide beach to break over and destroy forts of sand built by children.” The doggedness of the lines was a testament to training. The American walked between a tightly lipped corporal and a boyish lieutenant commanding

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his first attack. The subaltern’s face was “illuminated by an incredulous smile of self-revelation.” This was like running onto the rugger pitch at game time, he told Wood, pregame jitters disappeared. The bullets came. “‘Pyeeoou—Pyeeoou—Pyeeoou,’ they say. Faster and faster they come; and nearer and nearer. Those which pass very close exchange their gentle whisper for an angry venomous crack, like the snap of a black-snake whip. . . . There is the sound of a blow of a rattan cane beating upon a rug. It is a bullet striking the young lieutenant on my right . . . he wilts, changing in an instant from an animate being to an inert, inarticulate, crumpled object.”31 Wood thought he was hit, but it was spatters of earth thrown over him. A man nearby was not as lucky: he was cut in half. Wood did not reach the embankment. A bullet smacked him so hard that it spun him around, and he stumbled and sat down. The bone below his elbow was shattered. He sat watching the “grim-faced fighting men march past me to victory.” For Eric Fisher Wood, this battle was over. For his grim-faced fighting men, it had barely begun. By 11:00 a.m., the 10th Fusiliers arrived at the eastern edge of Arras, where they were close enough behind the assault waves to taste the battle. They watched a tiny but cocky teenaged Jock escort about forty German prisoners. He handed his rifle to the nearest prisoner to hold while he filled his pipe. Behind them, Sergeant Simpkin weaved through jumbles of vehicles to reach 37 Division Headquarters under the Ritz Hotel. A shell landed on an ammunition limber outside, and he emerged into a Dantesque shamble of smoke and viscera. Then, as he motored away, another big shell found the ammunition stored under the rail overpass and blew away the road. For the rest of the day, the DRs used its three-hundred-foot column of smoke as a reference point. On the north bank of the Scarpe, 9 Scot Division used a smokescreen and tanks to push by St.-Laurent-Blangy, and its leading battalions were soon headed for the northern extension of the railway embankment. The embankment was obvious on the map, so the artillery was able to turn its cuttings into shrapnel and gas traps, but the fire had less effect on its raised portions, where Silesians and Bavarians had burrowed through to make their machine guns invulnerable to artillery. There was no surviving senior British officer close enough to witness how the Scots breached the embankment, but Major Fumetti knew. As he withdrew his command post to avoid the Tommies mounting Observation Hill, he saw the tank across the river causing havoc among his positions. Jock Tarbet’s tank, C6 (male, Mark I, No. 752), had crunched over Fumetti’s grenadiers and their neighboring Bavarians with its guns and cannons blazing and had passed St.-Laurent-Blangy to head for the embankment. Luckily for the

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defenders, the ungainly beast had to traverse the side ditch of the road running parallel to the railway and became stuck with its nose in the air and its tracks spinning as uselessly as an upside-down tortoise’s legs. Inside the tank, it was hot, dark, and terrifying, and petrol dripped from the engine. Outside the tank, scores of infantrymen, including those of Tarbet’s old regiment, the Seaforth Highlanders, were pinned down by embankment machine guns. Tarbet eased out of the awkwardly small door to see how to maneuver out of the ditch. Bullets pinged ominously on the hull, and long minutes passed without him banging to get back in. Corporal Frank Vyvyan was next out. Tarbet lay motionless a few yards away. Vyvyan pulled a Lewis gun and an armful of drums from the tank and clawed his way onto its top. From his high and exposed perch, he began raking the machine gun embrasures. A nearby infantry officer called out, directing his fire. Son-of-a-bitch . . . son-of-a-bitch. Change drums. Son-of-a-bitch. Vyvyan did not stop until he saw a wave of sparkling Scottish bayonets pouring over the embankment.32 HPM Jones was called forward. “Tarbet was killed by a sniper about 11 A.M. while out in the open . . . I came along to relieve him an hour later, and practically fell over his dead body—a very bad moment, I assure you.”33 On the other side of the Scarpe, the Railway Triangle was holding; 15 Scot Division had gained one side of it but were unable to break into the rest of it. They could not prevent its enfilading fire along the flank of 15 Scot and 12 Divisions. The division commander, Major-General Frederick McCracken, seemed typical of 1917 division commanders: imperturbable and willing to let his staff run his battle. But now he stepped in and insisted, damn the plan, that the Guns repeat their serials over the Triangle. The second bout of drumfire caught the 10th Grenadiers out of their bombproofs and crushed enough trenches and gun positions for the Scots to try again. They also had a tank. Lusitania (male, Mark II, No. 788), commanded by Second Lieutenant Charles Weber, had arrived late but now executed what became known as the “Lusitania’s Easter Bank Holiday Tour.” Lusitania fired the lads into the Triangle, and before the fighting there was over, it chugged eastward along the rail line toward the Feuchy-Wancourt Line squelching machine guns pointed out by the Jocks. It gave troubleshooting a literal meaning. Before its magneto failed and forced the crew to abandoned it, Lusitania took the Scots over the next ridge and into Battery Valley, where some sixty German field guns were still in position. By then, 12 HLI had moved to the front of the

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Tarbet’s C6 bogged in front of Fampoux embankment.

assault, and as it crested, the guns fired point blank. At two hundred meters, the whiz and bang were concurrent. The rounds disintegrated men on either side of Cuddeford and sheared off the arm of the company cook behind him. A subaltern grabbed a bayonetted rifle from a broken soldier and call out, “Ca’ the feet from the beggars!” “Hell’s Last Issue” descended on the hated gunners, and shortly thereafter, a pigeon arrived at corps headquarters. Its message:

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“Tanks seen Zero plus five hours 15 minutes in the ‘Howitzer Valley’ accompanied by infantry. Guns still in position, gunners not.”34 McCracken’s repeat of the artillery sequence on the Triangle disconcerted subsequent fire serials so that British rounds began landing behind 12 HLI. The Scots hugged the earth as their own fire passed over them, and then they moved forward. The attack south of Haldane’s corps along the Cojeul had a later Z-Hour to compensate for the curve of the German line. It gave Theodor von Wundt time. The 18 Reserve Division outpost at St. Martin had disappeared immediately, and reports came in that 11 Division and 17 Reserve Division were streaming back to the Monchy riegel. Of the more than fifty strongpoints between Wundt and the northern tip of Vimy Ridge, perhaps five held out. The British attacking Hans Koller’s battalion hit unbroken wire and undiscovered machine guns along the Cojeul. Koller’s men dropped them—like ninepins again—but Koller thought the courage of the few Tommies that broke into the positions of 7 and 8 Companies might be contagious, so he ordered 7 Company to counterattack and reestablish its line—but there was no word from 8 Company. Wundt knew that with the corps’ right flank open, if the Australian-British force on the left attacked as suspected at Bullecourt, then the entire corps would be in the bag. He sent word for Koller to retake 8 Company’s position at any cost, and he sent a situation report to Thaer at Corps. Koller scrambled forward into the smoke and plunging machine-gun fire, armed as usual with his walking stick. By then, on Vimy Ridge, the 42nd reached its objective. Casualties were light but included Lance-Corporal Kelly and two others from Willcock’s raid. Hale and the chaplain set up the RAP in a mainline trench while Sergeant Owston moved out to gather casualties. Gunfire lanced in from the left. The fire that killed Owston made it clear that 4 Canadian Division on the flank had not secured the high ground, Hill 145. Byng had prepared for this. “In the event of any Division or Brigade being held up, the units on the flanks will on no account check their advance, but will form defensive flanks in that direction and press forward.”35 Norsworthy grabbed company commanders and had them angle the 42nd’s line to cover north while still pushing east, and the Patricias and Royals slid left accordingly, but all had to keep on to their objectives. Norsworthy made contact with Topp, liaising with 4 Canadian Division, and he built a picture of what was happening (and not happening). He led machine guns and mortars forward. It was another risk for the Norsworthy family; Stan had lost a second brother a week earlier.

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Sergeant Montgomerie’s experience as halfback gave him an enhanced feel for bodies in motion that had enabled him to stand in for fallen officers at the Fabek, and now again, it was Jimmie Montgomerie telling the lads what to do, where to put the Lewis guns, what to shoot at, and to get wounded to cover.36 Mel Tenbroeke was leading the Patricias when they reached the top of the Ridge. He had been through big battles before, but as an NCO and subaltern, his job had been simple if dangerous: pull men forward. This time he commanded a company, and it was more complicated, if no less dangerous. It was as much push as pull. Keeping his platoons moving to the objective was the main job, but he had to keep mortars, ammo bearers, and stretchers coming and information going back in order to hold the objective when they had it. The Mounted Rifles were into La Folie Farm so quickly that they trapped much of its garrison below ground, but then they had to hang on while moppersup worked their way up the hill behind them. The assault had left behind many Prussians.37 Acting Captain Bill Atherton’s company caught a line of three machine guns that had surfaced from a deep tunnel-dugout behind the forward companies to cut down troops that had bypassed them. Atherton took the company into a savage, quick, close-in fight that initiated a mass kamerading. Surrender is a matter of timing. Atherton’s men were dealing with an enemy who had shot their comrades in the back, and their blood was up. They were experiencing the biochemical fury that produces a frenzy of “surplus killing” in predators, and bayonets and butts were making short work of machine-gunners, even those with their arms raised. Atherton stood tall. He grabbed men, blocked weapons, and screamed until the rage subsided.38 A grizzled and mud-flecked Prussian feldwebel pulled an old, ragged French tricolor from his tunic and approached the panting Atherton. He gave him the flag, paused, and then led his men down to the cages. Atherton stuffed the flag in to his tunic and continued up the slope. German artillery, long blinded, was finding its eyes, and the subterranean Prussians were determined to make a fight of it. Br ea kthrough: Monday A fter noon, A pr il 9, 1917 Along the north bank of the Scarpe, knots of smoke-darkened Jocks of 9 Scot Division boiled tea on their little cookers and watched a fresh 4 Division pass through to take the lead in what was now the deepest penetration of the war. Almost everyone along the Fampoux Road to Roeux, even German prisoners, remembered the tall brigadier with the eyepatch and large field dressing

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stuck over his ear. Wounded yet again, Brigadier Carton de Wiart was traveling with his batman and staff captain to his brigade’s front. The captain had a holstered pistol, but the one-handed brigadier was unarmed and had forbidden his batman-orderly to carry a weapon; the man had once inadvertently pointed it at him.39 He found his men chewing on their helmet straps while watching enemy artillery ride off into the falling snow ahead of them; 14 Bavarian Division was gone. The only thing between 4 Division and Roeux were the nervous recruits of the German FRD, but the division was not allowed to pursue. Carton di Wiart found a telephone, but the plan anticipated German counterattacks, and Third Army was not willing to move until its guns were forward to cover the next bound. He asked for cavalry. The nearest was six miles back, waiting to ride by Monchy. Surrender is a matter of timing. Five kilometers south of the Scarpe, NeuvilleVitasse still rocked with explosions and zipped with bullets even though resistance had ended, so it was late afternoon before Krentel’s little group felt secure enough to stack weapons, raise hands, and step out into the open. Men in kilts came toward them, pointing wicked-looking sword bayonets at their eyes. “Kamerad,” said Albert. Krentel was already in enemy hands by the time his regiment’s reserve (2nd Battalion, 163 Regiment) arrived by Monchy from Jigsaw Wood, and Reserve Leutnant Hansen saw the survivors scrambling back from the Monchy riegel toward him. He left word for Reserve Leutnant Arens to move 5 Company left of Monchy while he took 6 Company to the right and down the long open slope toward the riegel, following the route traversed by the Altenburgers two years earlier. Hansen’s men ran as best they could with their kit banging on their hips and machine guns bouncing on their shoulders. They waved to men going the other way and pointed back toward the riegel. Some turned and followed, but many pretended not to see them and kept running east. It was nearly 4:00 p.m. by the time the 10th Fusiliers, its colonel leading pistol in one hand and walking stick in the other, filed over Observation Ridge and into Battery Valley. Bruce-Williams had ordered 111 Brigade to stay tight behind 12 Division to be able to push through to Monchy as quickly as possible, but staying close was entangling them in the fight. The 12th Division broke into the defenses quickly but became entangled in clearing the Main Position. As they attempted to move forward, the Stockbrokers could see spring grass showing through fresh snow and tall, budding trees marking the roads. It was as if the war had never come this far before. Ahead of them was an obvious and untouched trench line and uncut wire “almost as wide as a street and a meter

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and a half high.” They were at their Start Line, but there were no khaki figures securing it, only “an occasional hare running through the grass.” 40 Corporal Will Morton remarked loudly that this seemed to be a walkover, and as if waiting for his cue, a machine gun opened fire. Hansen’s company had joined Warnke’s survivors in the riegel. One of the fundamentals of an attack is that it begins from a secured line of departure, its Start Line. Having to struggle for a place to begin an assault upsets the plan, dislocates fire support, and disrupts coordination. The troops had been in this situation before, and they had a term for it. It was a “classic cock-up.” A Fusilier Lewis gunner laid down covering fire against the German machine gun raking the wire, until a second German gun joined in and the Lewis gunner caught a bullet in the groin. Arens had arrived. A tank chugged up the slope. It generated some excitement, especially among Hansen’s men, but the engine coughed, sputtered, and died. Lusitania had reached the end of its holiday tour. Bruce-Williams received word that 15 Scot Division to his left had secured a gap in the wire, but by the time messengers found his headquarters, his Division was already entangled in 12 Division’s fight. It had to be extracted. The light began to fail, and officers ordered the Fusiliers back behind the crest, where they covered their dead and shivered and wondered who was rifling the coats left behind. It was snowing again. Officers explained that things had gone a bit pear-shaped, so while the staff sorted the situation, they were to march back to the Railway Triangle. The march drew no fire. Hansen and Warnke had also received orders to pull back, and Erich Arens was dead. Warnke arrived into a Monchy in confusion. Cars and trucks had already taken away the civilians, and despite the number of headquarters types milling about, no one took responsibility for having ordered withdrawal from the Monchy riegel. When another order circulated instructing men to return to the riegel, it was judiciously ignored. An officer appeared and ordered Warnke to occupy the small copse outside the village, and Warnke’s little group chased a British patrol from it (showing how far Third Army could or should have advanced) before digging shell scrapes where the Altenburgers had assembled so very long ago. There was no real line, merely clusters of men and machine guns gathered around surviving officers and NCOs like beads on a string. They sweated, dug, shivered, and waited for Tommy to come and finish them off. Commanders on both sides were coming to understand, ecclesiastically, that a decisive moment was at hand, but its specifics remained unclear.

nine

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DAMNED HARD LUCK, APRIL 10–11, 1917

Every offensive lost its force as it proceeded. It was like throwing a bucket of water over the floor. It first rushed forward, then soaked forward, and finally stopped altogether until another bucket could be brought. Winston Churchill, The World Crisis

La Folie: Mor ning, Tuesday, A pr il 10 Louis Spears believed success had been assured at Vimy by the rapid seizure of La Folie by 3 Canadian Division, which had “advanced, so the enemy account tells us, with extraordinary speed.” Correspondent Fred McKenzie thought “the position of the division was by no means comfortable, for its whole left was threatened by a well-placed and active foe.”1 Lipsett’s division fought all day on front and flank. Don Gray came forward, dancing through the shell bursts, seeking “ground truth” for commanders waiting at the end of telephones, and Ralph Adams fired his batteries at German dugouts so close that his own shrapnel whined over his head. Mel Tenbroeke was still standing. He was lucky, and luck counted. The weather cleared, and he could see Douai twelve miles away and artillery puffs around Monchy. The land beyond wasn’t as flat as he’d thought it would be. Infantrymen see with different eyes, and to his perspective, there were sufficient rail and road embankments, factory row houses, and villages to enable the Germans to make any advance onto the plain a costly affair. Luck attended other 1914 Originals. CSM Gillingham, Sergeant Fox, drummer Bill Miller, and Harry Arbuckle were alive. Harry had never so much as

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twisted an ankle, and they called him “Lucky Buck” or something that rhymed with that. Survival made the boys heady, especially now that they could look down over the plain and see their enemies run. Most officers were casualties. Lieutenant James “Pinky” Carvosso, a Kentborn gentleman farmer from Calgary who had been with Tenbroeke since Ypres, had been hit again. Pinky was a bullet magnet. At Ypres, one had found the knuckles of his left hand, and he had no sooner returned to the line than another found his left thigh. At the Fabek, one had hit him just below the left armpit and exited his shoulder muscle. This time, the bullet took him in the chest, but he had stayed on his feet for half a mile until he was unable to breathe. It took five hours to evacuate him, and Tenbroeke did not expect him to survive.2 The division took more casualties consolidating than it had during the assault, but men kept moving: ammunition carriers, water parties, runners, and reinforcements. Parties trailed down the ridge with stretchers, prisoners, wounded, telephone wire, and messages. Chaplains brought up hot drinks and medical supplies. Private John Garbutt had emigrated from Hartlepool, England, to Montreal to seek his fortune as a waiter. He had returned to Europe in the 42nd Battalion without the fortune, but at least the Canadian government was sending an allowance of fifteen dollars a month to his mother. John was now making repeated trips up and down the Ridge, and the irony of his work was not lost on him. Two weeks earlier he had reported to Doc Hale with a bad case of varicose veins that made it too painful to walk more than about three kilometers, so he was assigned a soft job in Battalion headquarters. Now he was a battalion runner delivering messages while flying pigs and warbling pigeons were doing their level best to remedy his leg problem. Bert Bessent scrambled up the slope to unwind and peg artillery telephone wires, but an explosion blew him through the air. It winded him and scrambled his thought processes for a while. Time and space remained distorted until he could not recall exactly how many times he had been blown off his feet. The last act at La Folie was a taste of what was to come. The Mounted Rifles were squatting atop the German reserve dugout at La Folie when Leutnant Israels and Company 7 of 262 Regiment, together with every available man, came at them. German reports later claimed inflicting two hundred Canadian casualties, but where this figure comes from is unknown. Israels’s forlorn hope was annihilated.3 A 42nd soldier moving forward over the sloppy, churned ground paused to pick up a postcard half buried in the slush. He wiped off the mud and snow and turned it over. He might be able to get someone to translate it for him later, so he stuck it in a pocket as a reminder of this most remarkable day. It was a card to

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a former hairdresser. It began, “My Dear Heinrich; At last after days of waiting in vain, I have received your dear letter.”4 Haig and GHQ were satisfied that Vimy would be secure very soon, but the reports from the main assault were less clear. Mud a nd Muddle: A fter noon, Tuesday, A pr il 10 Guns had to come forward, but roads were blocked by fallen trees, wrecked vehicles, and slogging troops. The snow became a slick, black muck that wheels refused to grip. New Zealander Bob Wilson’s battery took six hours to travel eight kilometers (five miles), and Lushington’s heavy battery had to wait for road space. Men attached wooden girdles onto the big howitzers’ wheels to grip the mud and hitched the guns to tractors, and then they buried poet Edward Thomas. Lushington wrote to Thomas’s wife that he had been killed instantly by shell concussion when lighting his pipe. It was the sort of thing one told family. Thomas’s road taken had been to the “honours of war,” which in April 1917 meant being sewn into a blanket and being laid into a chalky hole in the ground with “a few hurried words muttered over the grave by an overworked chaplain, a sigh and perhaps a prayer from a friend standing by.”5 Engineers (sappers) and pioneers labored to establish two routes per division through what had been no-man’s-land. Pioneers and labor battalions bridged trenches, laid communication wires, and pulled out barbed wire. Some collected wounded and dead from an earth reeking of explosives, corruption, and burnt rubber. Boots Hotblack was reported as absent without authority after climbing out a hospital window to trudge toward GHQ. Haig had no desire to court-martial someone going absent to get into the line, so the hospital had to settle for a wry inquiry about its experimental treatments involving long walkabouts in the snow.6 Albert Krentel spent more than twenty-four hours shivering in a barbed-wire enclosure at the Arras citadel. He was given water and bread and huddled with others against the cold. Obviously, the Tommies had more prisoners than they expected, but their processing was impressive. Albert was interviewed by an officer who pointed out, in excellent German, that because Albert was from Hannover, the seat of the British Royal Family, he was fighting on the wrong side. West of Arras, Corporal Angus Mackay in 29 Division spent the morning cleaning his Vickers and recording in his diary, “Thousands of German prisoners passing us all morning. It must have been a real push this time. Heavy fall of snow during the afternoon. Damn hard luck.”

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Victory produced muddle. German defenses were deeper than Third Army’s communications. Haldane’s VI Corps headquarters pushed for information. The 37th Division was supposed to be attacking Monchy, but division staff, anchored to telephones, were unclear on what was happening. Haldane’s attempts to “ginger up” commanders were shouts into the wind. Commanders who had gone forward were beyond communication, and those who remained tethered to the phone lines operated on dated information. Contact aircraft were busy trying to establish locations of friendly troops, but their information was inevitably overtaken by events. Haldane told Spears, “There were too many young and ignorant officers for our divisions to do more than carry out carefully planned attacks . . . our Staffs, composed largely of amateurs, also failed for lack of experience and military training,” and “commanders showed lack of initiative and inability to grasp the situation.”7 Allenby told Haig that his “companies had been too long in the trenches” and “were now like ‘blind puppies’ unable to see the features of the ground and take advantage of the cover afforded.” In fact, the surviving officers and men of the assaulting divisions understood what they were supposed to do, but they were tired and too dependent on an unraveling plan of too many moving parts. The pauses to reorganize at the limit of its field guns inhibited action, and there were too few Carton di Wiarts to recognize opportunity when it pounded on the door. But Allenby was also misreading the situation. He believed his army was still cohesive and the Germans were broken.8 Bob Mackay, bringing up the “dumped” element to the Argylls, noted, Nobody except the C.O., Adjutant and Intelligence Officer knew where we were going. . . . (I found out afterwards that Colonel MacNeil was to take the battalion to a place which at the time the order was given would be half a mile or more inside the Boche Line!) It was the very devil of a rush—we were at ten minutes notice—no time for dinners—men tired—overloaded (we had not even in 1917 learned what was necessary and what unnecessary to carry in battle!).9

Assault on Monch y: A fter noon, Tuesday, A pr il 10 The North Atlantic anomaly had brought a hard winter and miserable spring, and April was still the cruelest month. Snowfall on April 10 was one of the three heaviest of the year. The other two were to be April 11 and 12.10 The Stockbrokers were burning railway ties to stay warm by the time the officers returned to tell them to form up. It took until noon to trudge through the

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Cavalry moving forward past British infantry west of Monchy-le-Preux, April 1917.

three-inch-deep snow to Orange Hill, where they linked with the 13th Fusiliers. As they trod by Frank Bunting and the Essex Yeomanry, someone called out to them to be ready to lay on covering fire when they galloped by Monchy. The cavalry catcalls sounded cheerful, but winter-thin horses had spent the night on a windswept slope where bridles and blankets had frozen, as had men’s hands fumbling with piquet pins and saddles. A cavalry officer wrote, “I think that night was the most miserable I have ever spent. I slept behind my saddle, but in the morning I was covered with snow from head to foot. . . . A lot more horses died from the cold and hospital claimed a good many of the men.”11 More cavalry arrived; VI Corps reconnaissance, the Northants, had captured the bridge at Fampoux and connected the forces on both sides of the river and was now arriving at Orange Hill for their second task, assisting 37 Division get to Monchy. (map 8) As they mounted Orange Hill, the Stockbrokers formed into extended lines of companies, two forward and two back. As the lead companies crested Orange

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Hill, they could see Monchy. It made Jack Whiteman “conjecture as to the future,” and a nearby divisional engineer think it “undamaged and very pretty lying as it did on the top of the hill in the trees.”12 Vizefeldwebel Warnke watched them come. His series of shell holes connected by a night of shoveling was not on any map and so had been troubled little by British artillery. He watched German artillery deliver black eruptions in the snow around the Tommies and decided it was not enough. The Tommies were too many. Meanwhile, the British looked in vain for fire support.13 Fire is a matter of perspective. Throughout the fighting for Monchy, German reports included descriptions of heavy British artillery fire and inadequate German support, and British diaries complained that although their artillery coverage was derisory, German fire was accurate and destructive. Their only point of agreement was in noting the many instances of being hit by their own guns. As Fusiliers and Riflemen traversed the dip between Orange Hill and Monchy, where Altenburgers had fought Alpins, German machine guns found the range. Time spent training to hug a creeping barrage seemed squandered. As they reached the point where the slope began to ascend, the fire increased in intensity, and the serried company lines became knots of platoons advancing by section bounds. Enfilading fire from Roeux across the river interlocked with fire from Monchy to kill, wound, and drive men to ground. Once down, they were difficult to get moving again. Because “you can’t push a string,” officers and NCOs led by example, and as their numbers inevitably thinned, the assault slowed to one hundred meters an hour.14 The 13th Fusiliers on the left bore the brunt of the flanking fire. With at least seventy men down, many trying to crawl back, the RMO and RAP went forward. A large, high-explosive round landed in the midst of the bearer party, shredding stretchers and men. The RMO was left to treat wounded alone while the other surviving RAP member, Lance-Corporal Foakes, grabbed two medical panniers and ran forward to drag the wounded into the protection of shell holes. He had dragged a score of men to relative safety by the time an air burst, a “black Woolly Bear,” struck down the MO. Foakes was to spend the next three days as a one-man unit aid post.15 A German field gun wheeled from near the large calvary cross to the end of the street leading west out of Monchy and opened a duel with the Fusiliers’ Lewis gunners. It drew back only once the wind picked up the snow, swirling it into a white veil between the troops and their objective. There was a chance. No orders were given, but subalterns and sergeants started forward, pulling thin lines of men into nature’s smokescreen. Men doubled forward, rifles at the port. They came close.

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Shell-holed western approach to Monchy.

They covered 150 panting meters before the snow stopped as suddenly as it started, and then men around Whiteman fell “like ninepins.” Ninepins had become the war’s cliché—a cliché worth a thousand pictures. Whiteman found himself a hole. It was nearly 6:00 p.m. when 37 Division reported “that situation west of Monchy was not rosy,” and 3 Cavalry Division recorded that “our infantry have NOT got Monchy.” Headquarters 37 Division, eight kilometers (five miles) back, had no clear picture of what was happening, and Headquarters 111 Brigade, four kilometers (two and a half miles) away, fared little better. Someone at 37 Division Headquarters, or perhaps at 3 Cavalry Division, suggested a reconnaissance in force by cavalry. The commander of 8 Cavalry Brigade was left to judge the moment. This was forty-eight-year-old Brigadier Charles Bulkeley Bulkeley-Johnson, a caricature of a cavalrymen: mustachioed, tall, ramrod-straight Harrow and Sandhurst graduate; cricketer; veteran of the 1885 Nile Campaign; big-game hunter; and former aide-de-camp to the king. At Ypres he had proven himself capable of reading battle and taking decisive action.

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Word of the imminent arrival of more Germans called for quick action, and cavalry were the masters of quick action. With communications sparse, the situation unclear, and men and horses taking casualties from shellfire, the brigadier decided the time had come to ride. Bulkeley-Johnson designated two squadrons, one each from the 10th Hussars and Essex Yeomanry, for a reconnaissance in force, but he cautioned against any attempt to take on prepared positions. Cold and stiff horsemen jingled across Orange Hill picking up heat and speed until they were pounding through snow toward the road between Monchy and Pelves, where French and German cavalry had collided in 1914. German infantrymen rose from shallow pits, and field guns swiveled. Fire crackled, and horses went down as if tripped by wires. The snow swirls and tendency of artillery projectiles to bury themselves in the slush prevented a little Balaklava, and the squadrons reined in, horses sliding almost onto their hindquarters, and raced back the way they had come. The reconnaissance was done. The snow covered the dead and the living. It covered the body of Corporal Morton, who had declared the operation a walkover, and it covered Whiteman, who was sniping Germans moving along a shallow trench slanting down Monchy hill. Recoil slid snow off his helmet, so every so often, he turned it around. Whiteman had no idea that the men he was sniping were a sign of desperation. The field-grays were running out of men and munitions. Leutnant Hansen and other wounded were in the line, and the men Whiteman shot were scrambling forward with desperately needed ammunition. Ludendor ff’s Late Birthday Pr esent: Tuesday, A pr il 10 On Monday, the dark dog of depression attended Erich Ludendorff’s birthday. The attack had all but destroyed seven German divisions and captured much German artillery. If the defensive concept was faulty, then “what was to be done?”16 Ludendorff is often depicted as the evil genius of the German war machine, and perhaps he was, but the moody mastermind would have collapsed had the imperturbable Hindenburg not known how to handle him. Experience taught the old marshal the first principle of battle reports: nothing is ever as bad or as good as first returns indicate. On Tuesday, “a ray appeared, though a tiny flickering ray. The English did not seem to have known how to exploit the success they had gained to the full. This was a piece of luck for us. . . . I pressed the hand of my First Quartermaster-General with the words: ‘We have lived through more critical times than today together.’ . . . I knew that reinforcements were

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marching to the battlefield and that trains were hastening that way. The crisis was over.”17 OHL reported, “The next day the enemy did not feel strong enough to increase the profits of the first day of the battle in general. On the contrary, he united all his available forces into one which, with all the strength he could muster, led to the point which was at the moment the most important to him. This was Monchy.”18 The odor of defeat had still been strong that morning at 10:00 a.m., when Fritz von Lossberg had been summoned to the phone. He was three hours’ drive southeast of Monchy, but Ludendorff wanted him to sort out the defense. Lossberg asked for, and received, full powers to act as he saw fit. This writ to act in the name of the commander, a sort of power of attorney, was an awesome imperium to give a junior colonel, but Ludendorff granted it, and Lossberg drove north. The defenders of Monchy sensed change. British waves were subsiding, and reinforcements were filling Jigsaw Wood and Bois du Sart—not the half-trained recruits from the FRDs, but fresh Bavarians. The woods were good places to lay up: they had covered approaches in and out and were out of range of all but the heavier British guns. Cover was important. Richthofen and his men were less than twenty kilometers away but were outnumbered. When they showed up, they always seemed to knock down an Englander, but they visited less frequently than did the British, and the RFC was hell-bound on making their lives miserable. The tac-tac-tac of the aircraft gun and roar of the engine came after the bullet strikes but before the dark shape swooping above their heads so low that the troops could look into the face of the man who had just tried to kill them. Artillery was far deadlier, but the damned airplanes were personal. The best defense was diving to the side. Shooting back could alleviate helplessness, but lining up on a plane coming straight on took nerve—the aircraft’s bullets preceded it by up to a kilometer—and shooting at a passing aircraft required an understanding of deflection shooting that only duck-hunting officers seemed to possess. Pilots knew little of this. They were respectful of massed fire from the ground and quite concerned with intercepting the golden bullet. Pointing an aircraft nose downward to get the best angle on a target was a high-risk proposition, and flying low was a risk in an aircraft that could be lifted or dropped several feet by an explosion, a stiff crosswind, or a hesitating engine. Skimming over the nap of the earth at twenty-five meters per second allowed little in the way of subtle interpretation of what was going on, and fliers genuinely believed their bullets and bombs hit more than the ground. They assumed they were mowing down the figures tumbling into the ditches at the side of the road. They did not

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see men reassemble once they swung back west. Airplanes were annoying and dangerous nuisances, but they were not yet efficient killers. The advance party of Wenniger’s 3 Bavarian Division making its way through Jigsaw Wood included the divisional artillery commander’s adjutant, thirtyone-year-old Albert Kesselring. Fresh from a leave, Kesselring spent twenty unyielding hours deploying guns behind Monchy. He had a decade of experience in field artillery, and unlike his Prussian counterparts, many of whom he thought had advanced on blood connection, he had worked his way from Bavarian Fahnenjunker to Hauptmann on merit. His supervisors’ only complaint was his tendency toward seriousness and reluctance to smile. Twenty-five years before the Allies fighting at Anzio and Cassino dubbed their opponent Generalfeldmarschall Kesselring as “Smiling Albert,” he was demonstrating an aptitude for taking advantage of an enemy’s failure to press. Warnke, Hansen, and the exhausted defenders of Monchy witnessed a miracle.19 “Batteries of field guns seemed to come out of the ground in the middle distance and, galloping forward across the open, took up position in a great inverted crescent shaped formation on a wide front and opened fire at once. Help had come at last. What no one till this moment had thought possible. Monchy was held.”20 Night Moves, Tuesday–W ednesday, A pr il 10–11 Darkness came early under a heavy sky and covered what had once been assaulting battalions. The CO of the 10th Fusiliers had lost an arm, leaving the surviving company commander, Captain Shutes, to consolidate survivors. Shutes took Whiteman with him to gather wounded and assemble the able-bodied in a clump of trees 250 meters from the town. The RSM arrived, bringing the dumped cadre, ammunition, a handful of engineers, and rum. For the next few hours, the sound of clinking shovels punctuated the artillery blasts on poor Monchy. Then it was more cold bully beef, more shivering, and a second night in the open. Snow continued to shroud the dead and the nearly dead while Fusiliers wondered who was going to be sent to take over the attack. (More than sixteen kilometers back, 29 Division warned the Newfoundland and Essex Regiments to prepare to move and deployed its divisional artillery forward.) It was after 3:00 a.m. when word came that the Rifle Brigade and the 10th and 13th Fusiliers were to go again. Z-Hour was 5:00 a.m. Artillery availability drove Z-Hour, but the Guns struggled under penalty of their own work. Guy Chapman, making his way forward to 37 Division’s front, watched columns wallowing in “lakes of liquid mud,” and ammunition on “pack

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mules led by weary unshaven men who could scarcely prop up their red eyelids” struggle forward. Limbers, wagons, and ambulances were in “inextricable tangles,” and movement was “almost at a standstill.”21 The artillery commander reported that he had no hope of meeting Z-Hour. It was pushed back, but a tired, inexpert divisional staff failed to tell everyone. Six surviving tanks of C Battalion assembled under Captain Charles May at Feuchy Chapel. The last May had heard was that when the infantry pushed off at 5:00 a.m., his makeshift section of boilerplate Mark IIs was to precede them to Monchy.22 At midnight, 15 Scot Division received orders to advance on 37 Division’s left and push through the positions between Pelves and Monchy that had discouraged the cavalry, then continue two miles to Boiry-Notre-Dame. This was the army way: the more objectives you take, the more you will be given, and 15 Scot Division had done well. Battle procedure was compressed to the point of incoherence. Men were tired. Too many leaders were napoo. It was after 1:00 a.m. when orders reached brigades and after 3:00 a.m. when they reached units. By the time Rob Steuart and the HLI medical section received orders, the advance was already underway. Tired and cold, the men of 37 Division prepared to attack at 5:00 a.m., when it would not be light enough for the enemy to see them against the snow. Word was sent to delay Z-Hour until 7:00 a.m., when it would be fully light. Not everyone received it. At 4:00 a.m., the six tanks at Feuchy Chapel fired up and, once the engines were warm, chugged off in two columns of three tanks each. The plan was to converge on Monchy in a pincer movement (map 9). By then, Vizefeldwebel Warnke’s group had departed on being relieved (in both senses of the word) by men of 3 Bavarian Division. Warnke’s replacement, twenty-one-year-old Unteroffizier Alfons Bernardini (23 Bavarian Infantry Regiment), put his men to cutting loopholes in walls while fellow Bavarian Hermann Kohl marched his company (17 Bavarian Infantry Regiment) from the Bois du Sart down to the La Bergère crossroads to establish a junction with the survivors of Wundt’s 18 Reserve Division.23

ten

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A STRANGE AND TRAGIC DRAMA, APRIL 11–12, 1917

It is a small place that village, but yesterday, perched high beyond Orange Hill, it was the storm-center of all this world-conflict, and the battle of Arras paused till it was taken. The story of the fight for it should live in history, and is full of strange and tragic drama. Philip Gibbs, From Bapaume to Passchendaele 1917

The Battle of Monch y: W ednesday, A pr il 11 The battle for Monchy opened in accord with plans written weeks before. Flexibility was left to the “man on the spot,” but the man on the spot, Bruce-Williams, Commander 37 Division, was relying on dispersed units, a disputed Z-hour, an impatient division of cavalry, and six independent tanks in two columns. (map 9) Captain May led the northern column in tank C28 (male) and was followed by C26 (male) under Second Lieutenant Henry Johnston and C27 (female).1 The column trundled northeast around Warnke’s copse and headed toward the Pelves road to approach Monchy from the northwest.2 (map 9) The all-female right column was under nineteen-year-old Lieutenant Geoffrey Salter in C21 and included Tom Toshack’s C29 and Charlie Ambrose’s battered C36. Salter’s tank, the only one carrying a name, Perfect Lady, led southeast, past La Fosses Farm, toward the La Bergère crossroads from where it could turn left to approach Monchy from the south. Neither column saw any infantry. The 15th Scot Division advanced with two brigades forward. Its right-hand brigade was to move past the north end of Monchy and the left, to advance

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parallel to the Scarpe. Each advanced with two battalions forward, and 12 HLI, in the brigade nearest Monchy, was again in the second wave. The most rest had by any soldier in 15 Scot Division in three days was about two hours a night. Visibility was no more than fifty meters, and ground terraformed by artillery never looked like it did on the map or in the photos, especially to tired men, so a brace of subalterns staring at luminous compasses led three thousand Scots, heads hanging forward on rubbery necks, over a soft, fresh snow that turned to muck with each step. Bob Mackay detected a fluctuation in the rate of explosions and supposed it constituted a covering barrage, but it “quickly died down to a futile series of noises.”3 To their south, the men of 111 Brigade, 37 Division, kneeled in shallow trenches and braced for the expectant barrage. Whiteman and a sergeant-major buried the company rum jar, noting how the artillery fire seemed intermittent. It was inexplicable so soon after the magnificent display of April 9.4 C27 in the northern tank column broke a track near Warnke’s lone copse, leaving the other two to continue until C28 thumped into a hole that buckled its belly armor against the engine flywheel. Johnston’s C26 trundled on alone. On the other side of Monchy, the three tanks heading to La Bergère found the battlefield so disconcertingly quiet that Salter, Toshack, and Ambrose dismounted and consulted. They decided that sitting in the open, dark hulls against the white snow was not an acceptable course of action, so they remounted and rumbled eastward in an extended line. Whiteman saw tanks moving far ahead and saw German signal flares pop, so he assumed it must be Z-Hour. He signaled his platoon to move. “There was none of the romance associated with ‘going over the top’ in novels—no stirring strains of marshal music, no colours flying in the breeze.” And no artillery.5 The Bavarians recorded that about “5.00 am, after a relatively short barrage, the British renewed their attack on Monchy.”6 Golden flares tinseled the air along the German line, and an officer grabbed Vizefeldwebel Warnke and his exhausted little group near Jigsaw Wood and told them to prepare to move. Tommies were overwhelming the line.7 As Salter and his three machines approached La Bergère, his Perfect Lady was the rightmost, most southerly tank and headed straight toward the junction of the German and Bavarian divisions, where Feldwebel Wilhelm Speck’s company of 18 Reserve Division was positioned in the sunken Wancourt road. At fifty meters we opened fire with rifles and machine guns but as it got to within thirty meters of us, it suddenly turned off to the right towards the Bavarians. We clapped and cheered . . . but our celebrations were a bit

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premature! Suddenly, the tank turned back towards us and advanced. We hoped the wide ditch at the side of the road would stop it. Little did we know of the capabilities of the tank . . . hand grenades were thrown . . . the tank crew opened up with a murderous machine-gun fire. . . . Those that were not killed instantly, screamed as they lay there wounded . . . the panic started, everyone from 1st and 3rd Companies jumped out of the trench and ran the fastest race of his life.8

After scattering the Germans, Perfect Lady turned north toward Monchy. Ambrose’s C36 was the center tank. It hit the sunken road halfway between Monchy and La Bergère and encountered Hermann Kohl’s tank-wise Bavarians. Rifle and machine gun fire was powerless against the armoured colossus, which was sweating poison from every orifice and was driving our men to desperate fighting. We took the battle to it with bundled hand grenades . . . the men had no need of leadership. Each of them went to work as though the outcome of the battle was dependent on he alone . . . Then suddenly, the monster was disabled. Its track had split and it could no longer maneuver. A great cry of Hurra! went up . . . We had knocked out the monster.9

Kohl was wrong. The monster was only wounded. Bullets had pierced the armor and wounded all the crew, but Ambrose kept working his machine gun while the wounded Will Dawson patched other men and passed up ammunition. They fought until an explosion blew in one of the sponsons on the side of the tank, rendering it quiet as death. The crew assumed that the British barrage struck them, but German guns were shooting at them over open sights. Kohl’s men, sure they were being hit by their own artillery, beetled off. Inside the tank, men shuffled about in black smoke, coughing, calling out to one another, and ripping open field dressings. By the time British infantry arrived, only Ambrose, Dawson, and two others were alive. Charlie Ambrose, so recently a Dulwich schoolboy, was collecting the identification markers of half his crew for the second time in forty-eight hours—and nursing a second concussion. Toshack’s C29 arrived at the Wancourt road north of Ambrose and turned left toward Monchy. There were no other tanks in front of it, so “the crew fired at everything in sight.” At least three enemy field guns engaged C29, but without effect.10 By this time, both the Stockbrokers and 13th Fusiliers were advancing toward the column of smoke from the burning C36. Bullet strikes traversed the line of hunched men and kicked up spurts of snow. The Fusiliers—ninepins

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again—continued forward, shambling past the small mounds in the snow that marked yesterday’s dead. Most fire was coming from a two-story house on their left front, so the Fusiliers crabbed diagonally across the field. Captain Shutes went down, stitched through both legs, so a subaltern took command. He called to Lewis gunner Frank Scales to hold fire; their partner unit, the 13th Fusiliers, were assaulting in that area, and the figures in the house could be friendlies. Scales gave no response but rolled his shoulder into the butt and put a drum’s worth of rounds, all forty-seven, through the upper floor, splintering the wood and shattering window frames. Fusiliers stormed the cottage and found bodies and a machine gun. All German. The Fusiliers headed into town to discover that Scotland was a goal up on England. Northwest of Monchy, after C28 had bellied, its gunner Harry Emans had seen infantry, but it had been German, so C28 became a pillbox. The six-pounder misfired, and Harry had to open the sponson door to deposit the dud round outside while German bullets snapped along the armor. Harry stayed cool because Captain May stayed cool, directing fire until British infantry arrived. Then, May ordered the crew to dismount a Lewis gun and join the assault. The natural tendency for men to drift uphill in poor light meant that the rightmost Scots moved into fire from machine guns at north end of Monchy, especially from Villa Barbara. Meanwhile, those on the left, including Mackay’s unit, took fire from Roeux north of the river. The leading Scots in the division diverged to address their enemies, with the left-hand battalions turning toward the river and the right-hand battalions moving toward the “terrific din at Monchy.”11 Chaplain Steuart, two days shy of his forty-third birthday, watched the swing into Monchy, “moving doggedly up the shell-tortured slope under a withering blast of machine-gun fire which swung like a scythe through their ranks laying them dead or dying in swathes and bunches. They wavered, sometimes, and stopped. Some took a few hesitating steps backwards, but always to halt again, re-form, and press on once more.”12 The villa and nearby buildings channeled the attack around Monchy’s northwest corner, and Cuddeford encouraged the flow. He wanted to avoid the builtup area because “street fighting never pays,” but others were drawn into the buildings by Johnston’s C26. Upon having reached the road, it turned to trundle toward Monchy at a flat-out 5 kph (3 mph) and drew German fire away from the infantry. The foot soldiers instinctively funneled in behind it.13 Johnston’s six-pounders banged away at muzzle flashes caught in their telescopic sights, silencing the walls of the villa’s gardens and outlying trenches.

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The crew assumed they were alone. They could not see the Jocks following in their wake, but those they were trying to kill, Unteroffizier Bernardini’s men, could. As dawn broke a tank came rattling across the cobbles of the main street, closely followed by English [sic] infantry who obviously felt quite safe. Hidden in this house, I ordered my men to hold their fire until I gave the word. I waited until the tank had got past and then we opened up with everything we had. The English [sic] were totally caught by surprise and many were shot down by our hail of fire. The rest scattered. Then we found out that the English had broken through at both ends of the village. Afraid that we would be cut off, we fought our way out back to the east side and made good our escape.14

These English were Scots (even Johnston had been a Gordon Highlander), and so C26, with a handful of (other) Scots, reached the north of Monchy just as Toshack’s C29, followed by Salter’s C21, entered its southern end. Ta nk Action Training Note 16, Tank Co-operation with Other Arms, stated, “Unless the infantry is in a position to make good what the Tank has rendered possible the power of the Tank will be wasted.” Monchy was not yet rubble, so C26 was able to chase Bavarians along the street toward the main square near the church, where it met the other surviving tanks. For Jack Harris, it had been a straightforward matter of driving Toshack’s C29 north to the square with Bavarians “getting out of the place as fast as they could,” and by the time Salter’s C21, Perfect Lady, arrived, Toshack’s C29 was returning to the square having already passed through it to the northeast corner of the village. “As far as I was concerned we could have gone on a long way beyond . . . we didn’t have any infantry with us. We swung round and pointed back the way we had come, and I could see German soldiers popping up out of cellars and dug-outs and re-occupying the positions we had just cleared. The officer said: ‘Looks like we’ve got to capture it all over again! So we did. From the other direction this time.’”15 Harris recalled the three tanks ending up sitting in the square back-to-back and firing in every direction, but they could not hang on without infantry. The Bavarian response was becoming coherent: at least one machine gun hammering the rhomboids’ thinner top armor from an upper floor, and field-grays threw bundled stick grenades at the tracks.

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As Harris drove C29 away, he thought the other tanks immobilized and perhaps on fire, but all three fought out of the village center. Salter and Perfect Lady drove out of the hamlet to the northeast. By now, Scots and Fusiliers were entering from the north and west of the village, so Salter turned east into the open ground to rake enemy leaving the buildings. As he turned, an explosion drove splinters through the tank’s back door and radiator, killing one crewman and wounding the driver and four others. Salter believed his tank had been hit by a British shell, but Bavarian gunners on Infantry Hill claimed credit. He bandaged his wounded and struck out in search of the infantry. It was 6:30 a.m., and the long-awaited British barrage crashed down, isolating Salter from Perfect Lady and his wounded. The British fire was also blamed for crippling Johnston’s C26 back by where it had first entered the hamlet, but the wounded Leutnant Hansen’s little band recorded fighting it at crossroads near the west end of the village. Hansen was sure it was Prussian guns and not the rival Bavarians that disabled C26. Oberleutnant Kolster of 17 Reserve Division artillery led a gun and ammunition cart almost to the edge of the village and claimed knocking out two tanks.16 Although the tank was crippled, Johnston blazed away with a Lewis gun, and Fred Saker posted men with pistols at the viewports until artillery fire drove off Hansen’s men. Once the Prussians were out of sight, British infantry began arriving, and Johnston, Saker, and two other survivors dismounted and fought on with them until midafternoon. In the evening, they returned to the designated rally point. Few others were there. No one from of Toshack’s C29 turned up. As C29 left the square, Harris was hit in the neck by a bullet, but it was “not very serious but a bit of a bloody mess.” The tank reached beyond the northeastern buildings by the time the 6:30 British barrage arrived, and a huge bang spun it into a fatal lurch. Everything was smoke and fire. Harris did not “remember much after that” but “managed to get out somehow.” He crawled away looking for friendlies, thinking he was the sole survivor.17 In fact, two others made it out, but Tom Toshack of Giffnock was not one of them.18 German field artillery batteries gleefully reported destroying several tanks but did not mention hitting their own infantry. British reports lacked similar detail. The tanks claimed to have fought through the village without support for more than an hour (a view influenced by the delayed Z-Hour), whereas infantry reports (and the Tank Brigade After Action Report based on these) reported that all tanks had been destroyed by friendly fire or bogged outside the village. Reports from tank crews and Bavarian defenders (both of which assessed their presence as decisive) did not make it into the official record.

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Infa ntry Fight On entering Monchy, Whiteman’s Fusiliers were confronted by men from Scots regiments jumbled like “a crowd that one sees issuing from the gates after a football match.” Surprisingly, there were also civilians. Two elderly women “full of joy” fluttered about hugging everyone. German officers had assured them that the English could not reach them for days, if at all, and had gone to bed with instructions to be awakened at 6:00 a.m. By then, there were tanks in the street, and the officers had scarpered, leaving their battalion pennant flying.19 There were other civilians in the cellars of the large Chateau Florent.20 They were drinking discarded German coffee slush when an officer stuck his head in to say that the English were five hundred meters away and would be there by morning. They remained quiet, listening to the thumps and cracks of battle, until a shadow in a kilt, grenade in hand, stalked into the cellar. A lively and befuddled Madame Fievet threw her arms around its neck in joy but had to wait two more days to be carried out of Monchy.21 Fusiliers and rifleman of 131 Brigade had rehearsed pushing straight through the village to positions beyond the buildings, but unlike the rehearsal town, Monchy’s center was high, and the ground falling away to the east was wide open and rose to a mound some one thousand meters away. Germans flowed across the dip, coattails flapping around their knees; British infantrymen, rifles popping, chased them. Germans on the mound fired back. Whiteman, in a group of about eighty, moved past a cemetery and convent to the southern end of the hamlet, but as they left the shelter of the buildings, men began dropping like marionettes with strings cut. The open dip was crisscrossed by fire going both ways, and Whiteman christened it instantly as the Valley of Death. He took shelter with Sylvester at a stone gateway and watched some 150 German prisoners being herded back before some indecipherable command got everyone moving again, and the pair separated. Sylvester found a position with an excellent field of fire down to the road past Monchy for his Lewis guns. A tank rattled by Whiteman, and a hand emerged from a porthole to wave. It seemed to be heading up toward the mound—Infantry Hill—and he took heart. He assumed it was going to chase away the Germans firing down on them, but the great mechanical beast turned, with one track driving harder to spin it on its axis. Bullets pinged over its armor as it began climbing back toward town. As it reached the slope just by the village, it erupted into a “huge sheet of flames,” apparently hit by a whiz-bang. “Clouds

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of black smoke rose from it as it stopped and some of the side doors opened and two men with their clothes in flames rolled out onto the snow, blackened and disfigured. Of the two tanks that had aided us in taking the village, both had been put out of action within 200 yards of each other. The oil and petrol which each contained burned for several hours.”22 Whiteman had seen either Salter’s Perfect Lady or Toshack’s C29 put out of action. Shortly after this, Salter arrived in front of Sylvester and identified himself as a tank commander who had been “right round the village.” An escort took him to find headquarters. Aircraft buzzed low overhead, sounding klaxon horns to get the troops to identify their positions, but no one answered. A swirling air fight ensued overhead between a flight of BE2s and several Albatros. Two German and three RFC machines fell “out of control” to the ground. Soldiers from units not part of the rehearsals moved into houses and the relative safety of the cellars, which were accumulating British, German, and civilian wounded and strays. Some took advantage of abandoned food and drink, and some fell into an exhausted sleep. Captain Philip Christison, 15 Scot Division, patrolled a now abnormally quiet center of town. He was out of his own sector and unaware of the plan for holding Monchy, but he thought something should be happening. There were Germans on the horizon hauling away guns.23 He made contact with the 37 Division reserve sitting northwest of town but was told it had received no orders. In the meantime, his runner rounded up a score of Germans claiming to be ordnance personnel. Their explanation was suspect but not wholly unbelievable. Monchy had been a headquarters, and soldiers from a variety of units from both armies were to emerge from the deep, connected cellars for days. Remaining underground until the situation up top clarified itself was a common enough practice.24 The Germans also struggled with operational inertia. Bavarians had hastened forward expecting to counterattack, only to be corseted piecemeal into the ad hoc defensive line between the Bois du Vert and Bois du Sart, where they provided stationary targets for artillery and machine guns. The ground east of the village shuddered with explosions that Whiteman assumed were of German origin but were likely British. The guns were trying to lay down a protective curtain beyond the buildings, but it was too close. There were no FOOs around to adjust the fire, but Whiteman saw one of his officers, twenty-year-old Second Lieutenant Morris Fuller, trying to set up a signal flare point at the bottom of a shell hole. He moved to give him a hand, but the spot attracted too much fire.

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The pair made a run back toward the sunken Wancourt road. It was uphill and slick, and both men were much tried by their last forty-eight hours. They ran, panting and covered in sweat despite the cold. A shell blasted the road, showering Whiteman with macadamized shrapnel. He dropped against the bank and looked back, his chest heaving. Fuller lay flat and bloody on the road. Another nearby explosion blotted out an entire section, and Whiteman scrambled to join a dozen Fusiliers and Scots behind the road embankment. A Vickers machine gun team tumbled in beside them and was soon showering Infantry Hill with fire. An ostentatiously brave Bavarian officer on horseback tried to lead a large group into a concerted assault. His perch allowed his men to see him, but it also drew the attention of every Briton along the edge of town. Both the Vickers with Whiteman and Sylvester’s Lewis guns caught the attackers from the front while the artillery crept back over them from behind. The Bavarians fell into holes and settled for a static firefight. No one saw what happened to the officer or his horse.25 German field guns, firing over open sights, began plinking British machine guns, and the Vickers was soon blasted out of action. Shortly after this, Whiteman picked up movement to the left rear. Horsemen were galloping around the village. Cavalry. “They’re going to flank the enemy on the hill,” he thought, and get “amongst the advancing Germans with sword and lance.” But then they turned and rode straight toward him. Straight into Monchy. Hundreds of them were riding straight into the town. Cava lry Ch a rge There’s a hurry & scurry as the order comes Stand to your horses while shrapnel hums Mount and be damned to those German guns For the road to Monchy-le-Preux.26

The cavalry attack elevated the Monchy action to the realm of mythology. Cuddeford was in the park at the northeast corner of town when he heard a shout that cavalry was coming. A break in the snowfall enabled him to see back as far as Orange Hill, where there were “line upon line of mounted men covering the whole hillside as far as we could see. It was a thrilling moment for us infantrymen, who had never dreamt that we should live to see a real cavalry charge.”27 The Scot Division’s split that morning had left a newly arrived Wurttemburger unit, (125th Infantry Regiment) north of Monchy relatively undisturbed,

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but now it saw what Cuddeford saw. Its riflemen stood “in the open as though they were on the ranges back home” and shot away.28 Horses fell, and the legend of the futile and bloody charge at Monchy was given instant credence. What is not remembered, or perhaps ignored, was that the cavalry, for all its medieval dash, was bringing more than a score of machine guns and three batteries of horse artillery into the fight. The commitment had been decided as the weather brightened, and with it, the situation in Monchy. It was bone-shiver cold, but thinning snowfall added to the growing impatience of a division of cavalry waiting to be discovered by German aircraft. Bulkeley-Johnson assumed that the Scots had cleared the enemy from the Pelves slope that had brought his two squadrons to a stop the day before, and he could see fighting had reached the village. If the Germans were to be kept moving backward, then the time to strike was very near. At 8:00 a.m., a liaison officer reported to 8 Cavalry Brigade that La Bergère and Monchy were clear of the enemy, but the general situation was unclear. Bulkeley-Johnson ordered Whitmore’s Essex Yeomanry and the 10th Hussars to head north past Monchy to the Bois du Sart and then continue east to Jigsaw Wood near the DQ positions. They were to be followed by a battery of thirteenpounder guns and the Brigade Machine Gun Squadron. He cautioned that if there was any sign of the sort of opposition experienced the day before, they were to turn right, head toward the village, and use the cover of the park at its northeastern edge to stream between the defenses of Monchy and Pelves. Meanwhile, the division’s other brigade, 6 Brigade, was going to ride around the south side of Monchy to the La Bergère crossroads.29 Colonel Whitmore chose C Squadron of the Essex to lead, but shrapnel found its major almost immediately, leaving a lieutenant in command. The squadron joined with B Squadron of the Hussars and fanned out to cover the ground to Monchy in a “gallop to contact” while follow-on squadrons, cannons, and machine guns followed, moving smartly in columns. German shells began “landing like hail.” As the lead squadrons approached the northern bypass, the intensity of the German fire made it obvious that the route remained blocked. Horses fell and the leaders wheeled toward the town. Whitmore, riding near Frank Bunting, turned the following squadrons to cut the corner to head for Monchy park. The Northants were not part of the brigade, but horse soldiers, being horse soldiers and having been assigned to assist 37 Division at Monchy, took 8 Brigade’s motion as a signal to charge. Two squadrons of Northants headed straight for the hamlet, galloping across white snow and dodging brown shell holes.

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Saddles emptied. A leading officer and his horse were hit by a shell and “split like a side of beef.” The Northants were into Monchy in under five minutes, and the narrow streets echoed once again to the sound of iron-shod hooves on cobblestones. Nearby, the whining of bullets and blasts of shells made it clear even to the most dashing of Yeomen and Hussars that there was no hole in the defense at the north-end park, so they joined the Northants in funneling through the streets. Men dismounted, handed horses to designated holders (one man in every four), and then scrambled into holes and behind walls while the horse-holders pulled their charges toward the cover of the village. The speed of the move and the surprisingly few (as of yet) casualties seemed to validate the flexibility of the arme blanche. It was a near run thing, but a considerable force was rapidly and decisively deployed. The Northants CO realized he was cramming more men into an already tight space and had his bugler sound recall. His squadrons galloped back out through a chaos of shellfire and flying roof tiles, but the CO was not with them. A herd of riderless horses joined their flow. Many were panicked by terrible-looking wounds and crashes of explosions, but those who joined the retreat were the lucky ones. Two Northants galloped back into the cauldron to pick up their wounded and dazed CO. South of the village, the troopers and dragoons of 6 Cavalry Brigade galloped to La Fosses Farm and the La Bergère crossroads, their bodies flat along the necks of their horses. The fire from the area of Guémappe was intense, and men and horses went down, but their arrival forced a German abandonment of four guns near the same point where, so long ago, Alpins had witnessed Prussians herding civilians. The brigade’s field guns went into a crash action between La Fosses and La Bergère and were soon pumping four hundred rounds of shrapnel onto the Germans. Viewed from Orange Hill, Monchy now “looked like a smoking furnace” into which it was impossible to send more ammunition or packhorses.30 A German aircraft circled the town, strafing horses and directing artillery onto the defenders. To those in the town, it looked like the Germans were conducting a methodical box barrage constricting to the center of Monchy. Men took shelter in trenches or bomb-proofs, but horses and handlers were exposed to shrapnel, explosives, and flying debris. It was one of the most tragic episodes of an already horrific war. Private Clarence Garnett of the Essex Yeomanry had lost his horse, Nimrod, on his way into the village, leaving him to wander to the main square. It was carpeted with dead and writhing horses and men. He recognized one comrade:

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his body from the waist up was on one side of the street, and the rest was on the other side. The cobblestones ran red with melting snow and blood. With luck, Nimrod had followed the Northants back to Orange Hill. Cuddeford’s men on the outskirts of Monchy, originally so excited about seeing the cavalry on its way, were now reduced to putting “bullets into the poor brutes that were aimlessly limping about on three legs, or else careening about madly in their agony.”31 Dismounted cavalrymen with a Hotchkiss machine gun (heavier than the Lewis but lighter than the Vickers) clustered near Sylvester. They were clearly new to this type of fighting, and their enthusiastic animation drew German attention. A strafe blasted the position, and Sylvester’s lights went out. When he came to, he had lost the use of both legs and one arm. A lance corporal dragged him off to a stable, but on the way, he was hit again. Once in the stable, he had no way of knowing whether anyone knew where he was, or even if anyone in his section was still alive. Regimental histories and war diaries step lightly over what happened next. It was not a shining moment for 111 Brigade, 37 Division, VI Corps, or Third Army. Opportunity dissolved like a dream on waking. The best part of two brigades were in and around the village, the Rifle Brigade and the 10th and 13th Fusiliers, and at least two machine gun companies were holding beyond the east side of the buildings with three regiments of cavalry scattered among the buildings. At least one reduced company of 13th Fusiliers, under Lieutenant Whalley (a man of “leonine features” according to Chapman), had managed to get well east of Monchy to the “square wood” (Bois du Vert?), but upon finding itself surrounded, it crawled most of the way back to Monchy. No headquarters seemed aware of the situation.32 The commander of 111 Brigade moved forward to about five hundred meters west of Monchy and discussed the “precarious” situation with the CO of 13th Fusiliers before settling his command post into an abandoned German bunker in the Monchy riegel. He requested reinforcements against the inevitable counterattack and acknowledged the cavalry was being useful. The 37th Division headquarters sensed no immediate danger and was preoccupied with maneuvering its two other brigades into the gap between Monchy and the Scots and with securing the La Bergère crossroads. It was not until after 10:30 a.m. that it became aware there was no gap with 15 Scot Division and ownership of the crossroads was in doubt. Meanwhile, neither Lieutenant-Colonel Whitmore nor the wounded CO of 10 Hussars was aware of any plan. They found no functioning headquarters in town and so assumed control, assigning any infantrymen they found to aiding the wounded and gathering up Lewis guns.

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“Our poor dumb” horses at Monchy.

At about 9:00 a.m., Bulkeley-Johnson cantered through the shell bursts to assume command of what he had been told was a confused situation. He grasped the first infantry officer he saw, who happened to be the peripherally involved Cuddeford, and asked to see the enemy’s positions. Cuddeford duly took the Brigadier and his small entourage to a point from where they could see Infantry Hill, but no sooner had he begun pointing out positions than fire spattered over the group, and a bullet took Bulkeley-Johnson. Cuddeford thought it hit him in the face, but the brigadier’s aide thought he’d been shot through the lungs. Either way, Charles Bulkeley Bulkeley-Johnson became the thirtieth British general officer killed on the western front. Whitmore, as the only senior officer still whole, assumed overall command in Monchy while the CO of the Northants, now senior officer at Orange Hill and sufficiently recovered from being blown up, assumed command of 8 Cavalry Brigade. Whitmore calculated that no more than half the cavalrymen were still capable of assisting the defense. He sent a stream of messages back to cavalry headquarters (with no mention of 37 or 15 Scot Divisions) asking for machine guns, ammunition, and reinforcements, and he took the time to list men for awards for their actions this day. He included Frank Bunting.

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Behind a nd A bove Gears continued to slip. Haldane went forward to see why his corps had not yet gained Monchy. An attack on Roeux north of the Scarpe on his left had been postponed for reasons that remained unclear, and on his right, Wundt’s reluctance to give up Hill 90 was frustrating syncopation. The Australian attack at Bullecourt appeared to be a fiasco. The only activity occurring on schedule was the execution of Canadian Private Eugene Perry.33 Rob Steuart made his way forward with the 12 HLI RAP, stopping to pick up a dead, but still warm, partridge. He saw “out among the spouting shell-bursts . . . a great brown hare panic-stricken, no doubt, at this new and clamorous style of hunting.” He and the RMO tried to get forward but found themselves dodging sniper fire and generally acting like “two little dogs running about among the traffic.” Meanwhile, Monchy was “melting away under the frightful concentration of heavy guns—walls, bricks, and rafters flying into the air, with spurts of flame and clouds of black smoke.”34 That morning, when 111 Brigade was rising from its holes to attack, Sergeant Simpkin at 37 Division Headquarters had been tasked to take two other DRs and deliver a message to 111 Brigade’s commander, but when Simpkin found 111 Brigade headquarters in Tilloy, he was told that the brigadier’s command post was in the German line near Feuchy Chapel, so he and his motorbikes struck out along the Arras-Cambrai Road. Once over Observation Ridge, they accelerated, dodging the felled trees and clenching jaws against the freezing wind. As they approached Feuchy Chapel, bullet strikes rippled along the road, and four aircraft roared over Simpkin’s head. It took him a moment to realize he wasn’t the target. Three Germans were chasing an RFC scout, and “our aeroplane, though of a much smaller type put up a game fight for his life. As he topped the rise and disappeared from our view he was not much more than 100 yd ahead and not more than 20 ft high.” Simpkin assumed that the pilot was looking for a place to land, but he was wrong. The pilot was Joe Fall, and he was having one of the best days of his life. Fall and the Pups had dropped onto a swarm of HAs busy attacking a flight of five BEs on route to bomb Cambrai and turned the sky into a swirling, whirling show of lethal aerobatics. A mottled green and yellow two-seater Albatros had gone after Lloyd Breadner but underestimated the Pup’s agility. Breadner pulled a deliberate stall to bring his nose up so as the heavy German machine overshot, he stitched it from stem to stern. Within seconds, he was onto a second HA, a single-seater. Meanwhile, Fall had entered into a head-to-head attack with another singleseater and put a burst into its engine. Once it stuttered by him, he “half-looped”

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Aldis Sight apparatus and cockpit configuration.

to fire into it again and watched it spin downward, leaving a trail of black smoke. He watched for too long, and three more HAs were onto him. The German Albatros was fast, but was heavy and slow to pull out of a dive and so did not like to play below five hundred feet. Fall powered for the deck, taking his more agile Pup down to where the green and brown paint of his upper surfaces made him more difficult to pinpoint against the ground. The HAs followed, and he played dodgem with their tracer-streams. He zigged and zagged, avoiding the sightlines of the three larger aircraft, which had to line up on him without banging into one another. Fall zigged the little Pup into tight enough turns to get off quick shots at his pursuers as they zagged and eventually managed a tight enough zig that brought him slightly above and to the side of the leading Albatros. As it crossed his nose, Fall was “so close to him that the pilot’s head filled the small ring in the Aldis sight.” The Aldis was a much-envied British invention. It was a thirty-two-inch-long tube that contained a series of lenses set in an inert gas that prevented fogging. It provided a very clear, if unmagnified, focal point indicating where the machinegun bullets should strike. Tracers were loaded into the machine gun’s belt on a ratio of one tracer to every four ball: or about two tracers per second. Fall took a zero-deflection (straight-on) shot and watched three tracers flare toward his enemy’s head.

Sergeant Simpkin on his motorbike.

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The Albatros flipped over and smacked the ground, and the other two turned away, perhaps because the Germans, as a rule, did not chase over the line, and right now no one was quite sure where that was. Fall had quick visions of cavalry below and thought they were German, but they could have been British. Then, as he gained height, Fall was bounced by a lone Halberstadt. Again, he used the frisky little Pup’s sharp turn radius to keep out of his opponent’s sight picture, pulling what he called a partial “side-loop” to force the bigger, heavier scout to overshoot. He repeated the maneuver until his opponent tried a slower pass, and then he made his play. Fall flew the complete side-loop—like his aircraft was flying around the inside of a barrel—and it meant losing speed, but he calculated that the HA would continue to fly straight through the arc of his barrel roll. Fall felt his shoulder pressed hard against the side of his small cockpit as he put a wing up sharply, and then came the loss of gravity and the pressure of his harness as the horizon rolled over in front of his airscrew. His peripheral vison blurred, but the Aldis picture remained clear as the shape of the Halberstadt closed with it. As the target crossed the sight, Fall pulled the bicycle-brake-like Bowden trigger on his joystick for “a very long burst.” Like an old memory in slow, silent motion, he watched his tracers rip across the HA’s cockpit. Then the image was gone, the sounds of his engine and bracing wires were back, and the Halberstadt was spiraling to the ground.35,36 In the meantime, Simpkin’s little troop had turned off the road behind Orange Hill and cut across the remains of the Monchy riegel. They whisked by Kiwi Bob Wilson’s gun battery to find the brigadier’s bunker just beyond the hull of a burned-out tank. Once the message was passed, Simpkin chatted with a telephone linesman and heard that Monchy’s streets were choked with dead men and horses. He wandered across the slope to the hulk of the silent tank he had passed, noting it “was called Lusitania, a name which seems to be unlucky.” That was the second time he had been wrong. Lusitania’s crew was back brewing tea, and Joe Fall had landed to examine his tired Pup’s wings. So many bracing wires had been shot away that they sagged almost to the ground. Night: W ednesday, A pr il 11 Just after dusk, a column marching in fours approached Monchy from Death Valley. Whiteman’s men breathed silently and leveled their weapons. Attackers ensured cohesion and speed in the dark by moving in columns. Seconds before the adrenalized Stockbrokers unleashed streams of lead at the column, someone recognized flat helmets. It was their relief. It had overshot Monchy in the dark and so turned around and marched in from the German side.

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The cavalrymen left first—on foot. An Essex Yeomanry corporal recalled the moment with infinite sadness as his captain “led us away from Monchy-lePreux past the place where the bodies of our horses lay. Dumb, dead horses.”37 Evacuating the wounded was a problem even though the Germans were not firing on stretcher parties. The only ambulances forward were the cavalry’s horse-mounted stretchers, and they could manage only a fraction of the wounded. Men bled to death in cellars, behind walls, or under collapsed masonry. Private Frank Bunting of Yokohama was one of them. Cuddeford, already shocked by the destruction of the horses and the death of Bulkeley-Johnson, had to face one more depressing episode. He wandered into the park at the north of the village. There, in the snow beneath the masses of blossom on the fruit trees in that big orchard their dead and wounded were lying in their heaps and rows. To add to the horror of it all, since the attack in the early morning in which these men had fallen, the Germans had heavily shelled the orchard and vicinity at the time the cavalry were retiring round that side of the village. . . . wounded men on every side were shouting and blowing whistles to attract attention, but too many of them lay like hummocks of snow.38

Two RAPs set up, one near the château and the other at the northwest exit of the town, but Corporal Syd Sylvester lay undiscovered. He awoke to find men of another division cleaning a machine gun in his stable, so he knew the Stockbrokers had left without him. A shell landed in the doorway and obliterated the little group, showering him with blood, dust, and debris. No one else turned up. Night, cold, and snow returned. Sylvester was not to be discovered for two days, and by then, his leg looked like a swollen python after a pig dinner. The Fusiliers left by the same route they had taken to Monchy. They were less than half as many as had marched from Arras. No one said anything about digging up the rum. They scrounged rations and water. There had been no water in artesian Monchy, just gritty, shitty snow—melted or sucked in its natural state. They arrived in Arras at about 3:00 a.m. and were loaded aboard doubledecker buses painted to military specifications. Jack Whiteman was still standing, but Private Harvey Adam, BA, BSc, and Fellow of Royal Economic Society, lay in the snow between Orange Hill and Monchy, and Lance Corporal William Sellwood’s pregnant Canadian wife, Adelaide, was about to receive a telegram telling her that her husband was missing. He was never found, and she returned to Canada. Private James Mayers of the 13th Fusiliers was found hiding in a wood behind the Start Line, and his conviction for desertion was reinstated. (On the morning of June 16, fellow Fusiliers were to affix a small circular tin lid, painted white, to his chest as an aiming mark before shooting him.)

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The 15th Scot Division’s units marched out with half their April 9 strength, and they were “wet to the skin, muddied to the eyes, unshaven, unwashed, but happy as larks.” Steuart’s little group’s only casualty had been Steuart’s trousers, irredeemably rent by the latest German innovation in barbed wire: razor wire.39 Colonel Whitmore was wounded but functional. He had to climb over mounds of his dead horses to hand over to relieving troops. In addition to Frank Bunting, he was missing 150 officers and men, and the 10th Hussars were missing almost 200. The regimental string band never again played. Lossberg A r r ives: W ednesday, A pr il 11 When British troops and tanks finally mounted Hill 90, they found only abandoned prisoners. Wundt’s men had given them coffee and left. Wundt met with Thaer, and the pair agreed that Monchy was lost. Thaer knew that 17 Reserve was battered and Wundt’s 18 Reserve lost too many good men. The 84th Regiment came back carrying the body of Hans Koller. A young Tommy had shot the major at point-blank range as he turned the corner of a trench looking for 8 Company. Thaer thought the army was bleeding to death and had to scotch rumors that tanks were already behind them, but at least Wundt discovered elements of his old 26 Reserve Division at a nearby rail siding and used them to slow the Tommies long enough to get his 18 Reserve Division back to the Third Position while he formed an emergency line five kilometers east of Monchy linking the Cojeul high ground to the Monchy butte at Infantry Hill. Even with this last-minute reprieve, Thaer’s optimism didn’t resurface until Lossberg arrived; then Thaer wrote, “With God’s help, we’ll make it.”40 Lossberg arrived with sketches, notes, and plans, but the loss of Vimy and Monchy complicated matters. A proper main defense had to be constructed to cover the incomplete Wotanstellung. He laid out this Boiry-Riegel to connect Jigsaw Wood to Chérisy. It followed the line drawn by that the astute French staff officer in 1914. Wundt’s emergency line over Infantry Hill was to provide the new Forward Zone.41 A nother 88 Br iga de to Monch y: W ednesday–Thur sday, A pr il 11–12 The 29th Division had been expecting a call since April 4, when the Burial and Casualty Officer arrived—a sure sign for commitment to operations. So far, its only action had been a stand-to on April 11, when it was warned to be prepared to capture Monchy if 37 Division failed.

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It was professional photographer Bert Holloway’s job as Intelligence Officer to maintain the operational picture for the Newfoundland battalion CO, so Holloway (still Tweedledee to Kevin Keegan’s Tweedledum) gathered what he could from his counterpart in 88 Brigade Intelligence. This was the “Staff Captain Int” and another product of a wartime course. His job was to produce the daily Brigade Intelligence summaries, and Holloway knew him well because he was frequently up to collect information and bring down the good “griff” from Divisional Intelligence. Divisional Intelligence was a triumvirate of two Regular staff officers (GSO2, a major, and GSO3, a captain) and one of those peculiarly unmilitary Intelligence Corps officers. The GSOs provided the summary of artillery patterns and likely enemy actions, and the specialist, who never seemed to know how to salute or conduct himself in the mess, summarized information from captured documents and prisoners.42 Neither Holloway nor Staff Captain Int had much idea of what happened at distant Corps Intelligence, especially as the division was currently changing corps. All they knew was that it produced fat intelligence files beyond the immediate interest of the likes of them, so they were yet unaware that Nivelle was delaying his attack for another twenty-four hours, or that Haig was cautioning a methodical approach because the tactical situation was not as advantageous as it had been twenty-four hours earlier.43 Headquarters 29 Division ordered its scattered brigades to assemble in Arras. The Newfoundlanders arrived early enough for Private Fred Curran to buy fruit in a city in a hurry to return to normalcy. He watched about four thousand Germans march west to the cages, and then he formed up with others to salute Forbes-Robinson’s old regiment, the Border Regiment, as it marched east to battle. Fred thought it was going to Monchy, but that job was already assigned. It was 6:30 p.m. before the Newfoundlanders and the rest of 29th Division’s 88 Brigade set out along the route taken by another 88 Brigade three years earlier.44 It was four and half statute miles (7.25 kilometers) as the crow flies, but the crow, in this case, marched with sixty pounds of kit (twenty-seven kilograms) on broken cobblestones and muck. Angus Mackay and the machine gunners carried more. The column passed mud-slicked sappers uncovering unexploded shells and unsmiling labor unit men still carrying away bodies. Snow blew lightly across the mud flats where Alpins and Altenburgers had once fought to the death in grassy fields and where Bob Wilson’s battery of howitzers was now throwing rounds beyond Monchy. The closer they got to the front, the more frequent was the fall of incoming shot. It took four hours to reach the outskirts of Monchy.45

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Along the way, the 1st Essex found and adopted a wounded horse in Essex Yeomanry tack. It served the battalion for the remainder of the war. Perhaps it was Trooper Clarence’s Nimrod. General De Lisle received word that 29 Division was expected to attack at first light. Third Army was now pursuing a defeated enemy, and risks must be freely taken. That was not what Haig had said, but it was what Allenby wanted to believe. The orders no longer made mention of reaching Cambrai, or even the WotanDQ Line. Wancourt Tower hill was being secured, so all that prevented observation east of Monchy was the kilometer square mound of Infantry Hill. The RFC reported Germans, busy as always, digging positions some four kilometers east of the mound near Boiry-Notre-Dame, and there were only two less-thancomplete forward trenches running across Infantry Hill: one just below the crest and the other about two to three hundred meters in front of it. These were christened Dale and Shrapnel Trenches, respectively. Given losses, a tactical poke might encourage the Boche to pull another Alberich. De Lisle’s units were still arriving at 2:30 a.m., so he asked for another twentyfour hours. It was time put to good use by all, including 3 Bavarian Division.

eleven

k

TOPSAIL, APRIL 13–14, 1917

Monchy to the residents of Arras was like Topsail would be to the citizens of St. John’s, a summer resort, with a very striking chateau and a beautiful park. Lieutenant Leo Murphy, Letter The jackyard topsail is a sail with murder on its mind, swinging long spars along the deck, intent on sweeping the crew overboard. “A Tiger of a Sail,” Wooden Boat Magazine

Ace of Aces: Fr iday, A pr il 13 Manfred von Richthofen had reached a critical career point. The German ace of aces, Boelke, had been killed going after his forty-first victory, and Richthofen had reached forty. And it was Friday the thirteenth. In March, Richthofen had been shot down a second time. An overconfident approach to a nervous rear gunner resulted in a “golden bullet” spattering him with flammable fuel and forcing a second emergency landing. He wondered whether the RFC would be third-time lucky. And it was Friday the thirteenth. Pilots did not mention the date. They flew with lucky charms, but expressing overt superstitious belief “was not done.”1 Just before 9:00 a.m., Richthofen’s flight climbed from Douai to chase a formation of photo-reconnaissance machines. The Red Flyer claimed one of the three downed, putting him at forty-one. A visitor observed to Richthofen that

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Manfred von Richthofen in his Albatros surrounded by pilots of Jasta 11. He had not yet adopted his famous Fokker Triplane. (IWM)

he expected the engagement “would be far more dramatic,” and the ace didn’t tell him that he still dreamt of the first Englishman he had shot down. At 12:45 p.m., the red ace found another reconnaissance machine over Monchy and had the satisfaction of sending it down toward British lines trailing smoke. He did not pursue. He knew better than to chase over the British side. The cripple counted as forty-two, but both aircraft and crew survived, although he had shot observer Arch Whitehouse’s leather coat to tatters.2 Richthofen’s day was not over. That evening, his section found a group of FE2s north of the Scarpe skimming home after bombing a German ammunition dump, and Richthofen dropped on the rearmost. The Fee was piloted by Drummond Matheson’s replacement, six-foot, almost twenty-one-year-old Second Lieutenant Allan Bates. Bates, like Matheson, had been an air mechanic, and he was even flying with Matheson’s observer-gunner Bill Barnes, now credited with shooting down three German machines. No one in 25 Squadron saw what occurred between the FE2 and the red Albatros—they were too busy fighting for their lives—but on return to base, they posted Bates’s aircraft as missing. Barnes’s father received the letter.

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“I am most awfully sorry to have to tell you that your son Sergeant W. A. Barnes, observer in my squadron, is missing since yesterday evening. . . . He had to come down behind the enemy’s lines, but so far as could be seen got down all right. So we have considerable hopes that he is alive and unhurt though, of course, a prisoner. . . . Hoping that the news will be good.”3 Richthofen had broken the Boelke curse threefold. And it was Friday the thirteenth. That night, the pilots of Jasta 11 held a champagne party for the new Ace of Aces, and Richthofen submitted his report for the last fight of the day. Time: 7:35 p.m. Place: Noyelle-Godault near Henin-Liérard. . . . After a short fight, my adversary began to glide down and finally crashed into a house. . . . The occupants were both killed and the machine destroyed.4

Fr esh Troops, New Pla n: Fr iday, A pr il 13 After their night march, the four battalions of 88 Brigade deployed around Monchy. The Newfoundland Regiment set up between Monchy and the La Bergère crossroad, with Acting Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes-Robertson and the headquarters sited among an uncomfortable number of dead horses at Les Fosses Farm. Lieutenant-Colonel “Tommy” Halahan took 1 Essex into Monchy (where it found the wounded Sylvester), and Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Kerans took the 4th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment (4 Worcesters) into position on the Newfoundlanders’ right, covering the Arras-Cambrai Road. LieutenantColonel Arthur Beckwith set up the 2nd Battalion Hampshire Regiment (2 Hants) a mile back at Orange Hill as brigade reserve. Corporal Angus MacKay’s machine gun team was assigned to the Essex in Monchy. Third Army orders went out to two corps. Haldane’s VI Corps was to assault Infantry Hill with 29 Division while VII Corps was to attack toward Chérisy from the Wancourt Tower with 56 London Division. Guémappe, in between, was to be neutralized by fire.5 The 88th Brigade had rehearsed the open warfare attack. The drill was for its battalions to advance on a five-hundred-yard frontage in two waves with two hundred yards between waves. Each wave comprised two companies with each company moving as a box with two platoons “up” and two “back.” The platoons moved with two sections up and two back, so the formations of boxes within boxes presented as a serried line of waves. This was believed best for encountering layered defenses, but to maintain control, battalion headquarters had to remain behind and in contact with brigade until the objective was secure.6

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Platoon

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Company Platoon

Platoon

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Rifleman Lewis gunner

Platoon

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Platoon

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500 yards

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1917 Infantry Battalion attack in open order

Company Platoon

Company

Platoon 200 yards

Platoon 200 yards

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The Attack in Open Order, 1917.

It meant the spear for each so-called corps attack was two battalions, and the tip of each spear was some eight platoons. The 88th Brigade sent out Operational Order 66 at 8:00 a.m., but telephones were scarce, so the Newfoundland adjutant, Captain Arthur Raley, had to send runner Tony Stacey to find the CO, who was off at Essex headquarters getting a look at his battlefield. Stacey delivered the message and remembered the two COs “looked at each other as if in trouble,” but this was later, when he knew what happened.7 The order stipulated the attack on Infantry Hill to be by two battalions: the Essex on the left and the Newfoundlanders’ right, both accompanied by machine gun company sections. The Worcesters were to take over the Newfoundland positions south of Monchy, and the Hants prepare a secure start line and act as reserve. A supporting barrage was to begin two hundred yards in front of the forward trench identified in the photos, Shrapnel Trench, and march forward one hundred yards every four minutes. The two assault battalions were to establish strongpoints on their flanks as they moved and along the crest of Infantry Hill from where they could overlook the eastern slope. They were to push patrols to the Bois du Vert and Bois du Sart and, if these were unoccupied, seize them8 (map 10). COs hastened to their units. Off to the right, Captain Sam Banister, veteran of Gallipoli and the Somme and promoted ten days earlier, began moving

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Worcesters Y Company to the Newfoundland positions north of the ArrasCambrai Road as the Newfoundlanders left for Monchy. Lines of stumbling, profane soldiers loaded down with shovels, picks, water cans, and ammunition boxes were soon picking their way through the rubble. The Hants came forward and exercised their shovel muscles for most of the night in preparing the Start Line, and had they listened, they might have heard Bavarian shovels working the gentle slope to their east. In Arras, the relieved Padre Rob Steuart celebrated his forty-third birthday with “ever-blessed tea—black, boiling hot, acrid, and syrupy, in chipped enameled mugs stained and gritty, but very near nectar.” His exhausted flock had yet to reflect on the past four days. “Our minds were like automatic cameras—all the time taking snapshots, as it were on a sensitive subconscious not to be developed, perhaps, for many days afterward.” It was Friday the thirteenth, and Monchy was someone else’s problem.9 Sta rt Line: Mor ning, Satur day, A pr il 14 Forbes-Robertson, Adjutant Raley, RSM Charlie White, Kevin Keegan, the Signals Officer, and a handful of signalers picked their way through the dark from La Fosses Farm. It was a trip through an imbroglio of rubble, smoke, dead horses, and, more often than comfortable, dead men in khaki and gray. Occasionally, figures emerged from the darkness, bandaged and drifting, or darting through the dark with some sense of urgency. Others hovered, temporarily lost—or wanting to be. It was 2:00 a.m. before Forbes-Robertson found a place for his tactical headquarters. It was a cellar near the highest part of Monchy and at the bottom of twenty steps. Keegan sent runners to let everyone know where they were and connected a telephone line while Raley and the RSM set up a table, maps, and lanterns. By 3:00 a.m., the companies were filing their way along dark passages that had once been streets. Some noted that the slick under their boots was not the usual muck. It was a slime of brick dust, melting snow, and horse guts. The Newfoundland A Company relieved the Hants and began digging an anchor position at the right of the long assembly trench. Soon, the remaining companies turned up to shuffled along the trench to wait and shiver. A gungadin party dumped clattering water cans, and word passed to load up. No telling how long it would be before they would get more. Each platoon sent two runners with Holloway to see where the headquarters was located; it gave him and Keegan—Tweedledee and Tweedledum—a chance to wish each other luck. Other officers pointed out key ground as it emerged in

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a slow dawn. Larger, more prominent features became obvious first: the dark Bois du Vert and Bois du Sart (correspondent Philip Gibbs later noted how they looked like threatening eyes looking down into the mouth of the Valley of Death). Then came the barely visible windmill to the right about 350 meters, and just beyond it, the ominously named Machine Gun Woods (where Duke Ernst’s Altenburgers had staged so long ago). It was about six hundred meters (about one hand’s width when the hand was held at full extension) west and forward of the Bois du Vert.10 Infantry Hill, even with a vellum sunrise behind it, was not much more than a slight hump, but it was their Lilliput Vimy, and its capture would complete the process begun on that Ridge. They could not see them yet but knew Dale Trench was almost a thousand meters away etched below the crest and Shrapnel Trench about halfway between them and Dale. Rendell’s D Company filed into the trench first and so heard Rowsell’s C Company filing in to the right and W Company of the 1st Essex shuffling into the trench on the left. The two battalions were divided by the dirt road called Green Lane, the center line for the assault. Subalterns and NCOs quietly confirmed tasks: Lewis and Vickers positions, flank watcher, moppers-up, who followed who, and (because no plan survived contact) chain of command from officer to senior private. It was almost five when word rippled down the Newfoundland line that the CO was there. Company commanders and officers sidled along the trench and gathered around Forbes-Robertson. He told them that the plan had changed. No plan survived contact with time. There was less than half an hour to Zero Hour, and a handwritten note had arrived with a new plan. Essex X and Newfoundland A Companies were still to protect the flanks with strongpoints, and Newfoundland B Company was still to consolidate in depth between Shrapnel and Dale trenches, but instead of settling on the almost bare Infantry Hill, the other five companies were to push platoons beyond the crest, and scouts and snipers were to rush forward as quickly as possible to scout the Bois du Vert and Bois du Sart and try to push reconnaissance almost to Jigsaw Wood. Pushing scouts so far forward should reduce the chance of surprise and reduce drama. No one questioned (aloud) the thinness of the assault, but Keegan was uneasy with the idea that so many platoons would be out of sight and likely out of contact with one another. Furthermore, the new order noted that the attack was to be carried out “as originally arranged” but did not repeat the original instruction for the Hants to occupy the forward positions once the battalions advanced. The division was already a fist pressed into a bulge in the German defense, and 88 Brigade was to be a middle finger extending from that fist. It might be

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enough to burst the skin of the German line, but only if the skin was thin and stretched to its limits. It seemed to assume that Fritz was ready to pull back again. Two miles to their south, two London battalions setting up to attack Chérisy were reaching the same conclusion. Third Army was offering the Germans two fingers. Word of the changes spread quickly, and even as they were being absorbed, someone called out that the enemy was coming. All eyes turned half right to where about a hundred Germans, were almost casually moving around the windmill in what the Newfoundlanders had taken to be no-man’s-land. Several were carrying planks, and none looked like they knew that they had strolled into a killing zone. A flurry of rifle fire from A Company acquainted the Germans to their new reality, and they scattered like chicks in a thunderstorm. Two ended up as prisoners. It was a good start. Forbes-Robertson made his way along the trench chatting with the men. While touching a shoulder here and an arm there, he exuded the confidence they had come to expect. Regardless of how he felt, the CO never showed doubt. Company officers gathered for quick confirmation and synchronization of watches, and NCOs pointed out now-visible Shrapnel Trench and reminded their sections to keep moving after they cleared it. A brood of second lieutenants shook hands, wished each other luck, and moved off to their platoons. Officers ditched maps and swagger sticks, and troops stripped off blankets, oilskins, and greatcoats. A greatcoat could absorb more than its own weight in water, and the mud that inevitably attached itself to the skirt could add another ten pounds of encumbrance. They settled for leather jerkins. Sergeant Pat Walsh in Leo Murphy’s B Company was a Blue Puttee who had been carried out of Gallipoli shivering with dysentery. He kept his coat. Assault: Mor ning, Satur day, A pr il 14 Sharp commands produced a chorus of bayonets scraping from scabbards. Then came well-worn utterances taken as charms. “A Victoria Cross or a wooden one.” “See you in Blighty.” And from the older vets who remembered the promise of the St. John’s socialite that she would marry the first recipient of the Victoria Cross, “Buxom Bessie or a wooden leg.” There was time for one last gasper or a plug in the cheek. Some touched rosaries, others lockets. Everyone stayed crouched. This was not yet the moment to stick a head over the parapet. That moment came with a discrete and distant single pop, followed by the sound of a small, fast steam engine scraping through the sky overhead. The

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boys strained to hear the eighteen-pounder projectile hit, but before it did, the horizon behind them lit up in a series of flashes, and the air overhead filled with the sounds of a fleet of engines. The whump, whump, whump sounds to their front brought heads up to witness the bursts. (A 29th Division maxim: Zero is only an approximation—watch the barrage.) The veterans regarded the covering fire with professional wariness. (Regard a thick barrage as a luxury.) Fifteen minutes later, the whistles sounded. “Over you go boys. Best of luck.”11 From where Kerans’ Worcesters watched, the assault looked good if not exactly as described in the Newfoundland Quarterly in which “chins were firm, and the hands that held the rifle quivered not.”12 Worcesters could discriminate separate Essex and Newfoundland company waves on the broad, light slope. It looked methodical, but they knew that closer, they could have heard the labored breathing of men slipping where the melting frost made the grass slick, the sucking sound of boots in earth ploughed by Birmingham and Krupp steel, and officers and NCOs calling to spread out, maintain the line, and watch out for that goddam hole. What they could see and hear was the fall of shot along the ridge and on the woods. It looked discontinuous—nothing like that magnificent barrage at Gueudecourt. It looked thicker on the Essex side, but perhaps that was an optical illusion. Or perhaps something was wrong with the Guns. Bob Wilson, back at Feuchy Chapel, felt his battery’s shells departing like a physical blow and “the impulses of the passing shells as if the air was as solid as water.” The German response came within three minutes. Massive 280mm naval gun rounds screamed down to swallow an entire gun and twenty men.13 Although explosives arrived to rain down on Monchy, those watching the assault could still hear the distinctive pop-pop-pop of distant and unsuppressed machine guns near Guémappe. Figures fell. Some got up again. Sound travels more slowly than light or bullets, and large-caliber artillery shells travel even more slowly, so sound was unsynchronized. Eyes saw muzzles flash and dust devil bullet strikes; then ears detected pop-pop-pop of small arms. Eyes saw black-turning-gray cotton-ball puffs of big gun bursts; then ears picked out the rushing train sounds of shells overhead and, finally, the thumps of shells landing. Those feeling the effects of the fire registered zipping and cracking of bullets first, then the sounds of guns that sent them, and then felt the concussive blasts of big shells in the same moment they heard the banshee shriek of their arrival.14 The vets knew the drill. Bullets zipped by just below waist height, so go left, go right, but, for Christ’s sake, keep going. Don’t be a ninepin. The Essex was hit by enfilade fire from their left from three machine guns in Arrowhead Woods. X Company was flank guard, so its No. 5 Platoon laid down

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covering fire while the other three platoons swept into the woods with Lewis guns and grenades. Once through, they pushed to the next tree lines, the Twin Copses and the Bois des Aubépines, as more machine guns exposed themselves. By then, they were out of sight, so RSM Frank Bailey came forward, bringing Angus Mackay and his section of Vickers guns. On the right flank, Lieutenant John Bemister’s Newfoundland platoon held the anchor strongpoint by the Start Line while the rest of A Company moved with the unit snipers against the windmill. A howitzer round landed smack on the sixteen-man sniper and scout group before it had fully extended. When the smoke cleared, no one could tell how many were still up and running. A Company kept going. There was a brief and intense crackle of fire from the windmill, and the bud-bud-bud of an MG08 was replaced by the rat-tat-tat of a Lewis gun. Lieutenant George Langmead, a hard man who had already survived a chest wound at Beaumont-Hamel, set up the second strongpoint at the mill with No. 4 Platoon while another Blue Puttee, Lieutenant Sid Stephenson, carried on to Machine Gun Wood with the two remaining platoons. He was to leave one there for a third strongpoint and take the last on to establish a fourth strongpoint on the flank of the forward companies. As Stephenson’s platoons disappeared into Machine Gun Wood, Langmead listened to the firing and watched smoke curling from the trees. Something in there was burning. In the center, little figures could be seen jumping Shrapnel Trench and moving up the slope toward shell blossoms rippling along the crest. Even from a distance, it was easy to see the great clods of earth and debris flying into the air, and it was impossible to differentiate German explosions from British. Lieutenant Leo Murphy allowed the forward companies a hundred-yard start before clambering out of the assembly trench with B Company. He came under accurate fire so quickly that he had the impression the gunner had been lined up waiting for him. He passed dead Germans. They looked like they had been there for days.15 B Company reached Shrapnel Trench about the same time that C and D Companies reached Dale on the crest and began shepherding wounded and prisoners to the rear. There were already a lot of wounded and artillery fire was increasing. By 6:30 a.m., an hour into the operation, the assaulting companies had lost about a quarter of their strength, but they were still cohesive and moving over the mound. Both Essex W and Y Company commanders had been wounded but brought back encouraging news. Their men were rounding up prisoners, and patrols were headed to the Bois du Sart. There were, however, a lot of Germans over the hill that needed to be bombarded, and quickly.

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German artillery had severed telephone lines, so runners took off for the Guns. They were never seen again. The Newfoundland assault, B Company, had to angle right because fire was arriving from south of the Arras–Cambrai Road, near Guémappe, two thousand yards away. The machine guns walking fire up and down the slope belonged to Theodor von Wundt’s units—the Wundt who had commanded the guns of Beaumont Hamel.16 Leo Murphy was a month shy of his twenty-fifth birthday when a bullet sheared away part of the bone below his kneecap. Shock delayed pain long enough for him to crawl into a slight depression, which he found occupied by two wounded sergeants, including his platoon sergeant, and several wounded Germans. Leo made himself useful by covering the prisoners with his pistol. Stretcher-bearer Fred Janes dropped down to treat Murphy, but Murphy pointed to his sergeant. Janes looked, shook his head gently, and began wrapping Murphy’s shin. At five feet two inches, Janes was a small enough target, but he had barely begun before a bullet smacked his back and dropped him across Murphy’s leg. After determining Janes was conscious, Murphy ordered him back to the aid post. A wounded Red Cross man was no good to anyone. Murphy then gave his pistol to Sergeant Hussey and told him to get the prisoners out. Once they were gone, Leo lay back with his dying platoon sergeant and reminisced about leave in London until consciousness slipped away.17 Once Rendell’s D Company reached Dale Trench, he spent a few minutes getting a look at the little copse on their left. It was the boundary with the Essex and was occupied by an active Bavarian platoon. Rendell left men to screen the Bavarians and pushed on with the company. They destroyed a machine gun and took cover in a clump of small trees just as the Essex drove the Bavarians from the bypassed copse.18 Bert set out a defense with about sixty men, a Lewis gun, and two Vickers of 88 Machine Gun Company. They had a good amount of ammunition, but there were Germans on three sides. As Rendell moved to site the guns, a bullet punched into his groin and out a buttock. Someone patched him and dragged him back far enough for him to try to crawl out. No one left in the copse knew whether he made it.19 The remaining D Company officer, Norman Outerbridge, was limping from a hit in the leg, but he pushed out from the little wood and into the smoke with a handful of men.20 Rex Rowsell was already bleeding from an arm by the time the two forward platoons of his C Company reached Dale Trench on Rendell’s right. He ordered his two depth platoons to pass through to establish the forward strongpoints over the crest. Once they’d disappeared over the mound, he sent the remainder

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of the company’s Lewis guns up to join them. They were rapping off bursts as soon as they were over the rise. Lewis gunner William Short was still carrying shrapnel from Gallipoli, and he had had both legs shot out from under him at Beaumont Hamel, but when he was hit this time, it was by his water bottle when a bullet sent fragments of it into his hip. He passed the Lewis to his No. 2 and began the long crawl back.21 Lieutenant Clouston came forward from B Company to Rowsell for an update, but by the time he arrived, he had shrapnel pieces in his abdomen. Rowsell asked him to get more ammunition and grenades brought up, so he took off with Corporal Moss. When Moss was hit twice, the pair took cover in a hole to await a break in the fire. The three Essex companies, W, Y, and Z, were about a mile from their start point when they collided with three Bavarian companies moving west from Jigsaw Wood. By then, their heavily laden machine gunners had fallen behind, and contact been lost with the X Company flank guard. Men fired until their rifles became too hot to handle while surviving officers sent runners back to Halahan and organized their platoons into all-around defense.22 An Essex lance corporal made it all the way across the front to Langmead’s Newfoundland strongpoint at the windmill. He believed half of his battalion was gone and the rest were trying to fight their way back. Langmead told him to report to Forbes-Robertson, but the lance corporal had exceeded his quotient of luck. He never arrived. Langmead had already seen signs that something had gone wrong. Firing had ceased in Machine Gun Woods, and Bert Holloway had come zigzagging back. His snipers and scouts were napoo, and he was on his way back to tell the CO that any move into the Bois du Vert was out of the question. He took off, was hit in the arm, stumbled, got control of his legs, and staggered off toward Monchy. Somewhere between the windmill and Monchy, Bert Holloway, photographer, sniper, Intelligence Officer, and Tweedledee, disappeared. Counter attack: Mor ning, Satur day, A pr il 14 Intensified firing along the crest was not a promising development. Both Langmead’s and Bemister’s strongpoints were under direct machine gun fire from two directions, and German artillery was reaching a new crescendo. Khaki figures were coming back over the low hill in crouched runs. Many fell or stumbled as fire sought them and, too often, found them. Two aircraft roared low over the battlefield from right to left engaged in a life-and-death pursuit, and then square German helmets appeared on the crest. Five companies were surrounded.

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After-action reports were to interpret what happened as a collision between a local British attack and a grand German one. The Essex Regiment history called this action “Breaking the German Counter-Attack,” and a Newfoundland Regiment history stated that it “was later discovered that our Regiment and the Essex Regiment had held up the advance of a strong German counterattack by a whole Bavarian Division.”23 The historian of 29 Division reported that “attacks had been planned by both sides for the same morning, and we had only forestalled the Germans by an hour. It was a terrible situation for the two battalions in the air, 1000 yards from any support, outnumbered and attacked on three sides by the 3rd Bavarians.”24 In contrast, many Germans (followed by a number of historians) describe what happened as the debut of elastic defense. Both official histories, British and German, are cautious in accepting either version.25 The 3rd Bavarian Division had not been preparing to attack. It had been caught with its collective pants down. Generalleutnant von Wenninger understood what he was supposed to do— counterattack—but his maneuver battalions had been used as plugs for collapsing dykes, and his Bavarians had suffered in hasty and largely uncoordinated local counterattacks against 37 Division and the cavalry. By the time the lines had stabilized outside Monchy, Wenninger had been presented with new and competing priorities. The Corps effort was to complete Lossberg’s Boiry riegel and the Wotan positions farther east. All transport and resources were sucked rearward, leaving Wenninger short of men and artillery ammunition. Thanks in part to the old soldiers, Wundt and Thaer, Wenninger at least had the Bois du Vert, the Bois du Sart, and the high ground behind Guémappe as assembly areas, and his flanks were secure. He had a fresh, reliable division on his right on the River Scarpe, and the experienced 35 Division was replacing Wundt’s tired 18 Reserve on his left. He could take solace from the forty-eight hours of relative inactivity of the British around Monchy, but his Bavarians still had to man almost four kilometers of front from the road past Monchy to Pelves. Each regiment—17th, 18th, and 23rd—had deployed with one battalion forward, one in depth, and one in reserve, and they had spent available time creating “invisible” positions by reconfiguring shell holes into reverse slope positions. They did this because it was what they had learned on the Somme, not because directions had arrived from Lossberg.26 The eight companies of 29 Division thereby hit the positions of three Bavarian companies and were engaged by two others on their flanks. The

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Newfoundlanders had already damaged one of 23 Regiment’s companies before Zero Hour when it wandered into no-man’s-land,27 and the other two companies of 23 Regiment took the brunt of the attack along the crest while one company of 17 Regiment and one from 18 Regiment were engaged in the fights for Arrow Copse and Machine Gun Wood, respectively. Each forward battalion had a depth company near the Bois du Sart and Bois du Vert, but the regiments’ depth battalions—another twelve companies—were two to four kilometers back preparing the Boiry riegel around Jigsaw Wood and Boiry-Notre-Dame. The divisional reserve—nine more companies—was back almost ten kilometers preparing the Wotanstellung.28 The wandering of men into the Newfoundlanders before Z-Hour indicates the Bavarians were not expecting 29 Division to attack, and the outposts in Shrapnel Trench were defended too irresolutely to suggest a controlled withdrawal. The 23rd Regiment’s forward companies lost half their troops and twothirds of their officers almost immediately, and they sent word they had been overwhelmed by a major onslaught—the word “broken” was used—insisting the British had tanks and follow-on waves. The singular resolute action seemed to be that of Leutnant Boeckler’s platoon in the copse at the junction between the Essex and Newfoundlanders, which resisted and then withdrew laterally toward the 18th Regiment position near Arrow Copse. The hard-done-by 23rd Regiment later reported these actions as the first use of “the maneuver of a ‘mobile defensive action,’” but it was putting the best face on a moment of dislocation that cost the regiment dearly.29 In the south, the Newfoundlanders A Company reduced the 17 Regiment company holding Machine Gun Wood to about thirty men, but reserve companies, including that of the ubiquitous Kohl, came forward by the fastest routes, making their way through artillery fire and 4 Worcesters machine-gun fire to be counterattacking by Z+90 minutes. Under pressure, soldiers revert to what they know, so 18 Regiment’s description of what happened is the most likely version of events, despite overestimating the British barrage and adopting the almost universal German habit of blaming the neighboring unit for failures. Two of our companies had just returned (from night-time working on defenses) when the British began to put down a heavy barrage and an hour later their troops attacked. It was one of those reconnaissance actions in force which the enemy often made at that time in order to seek out possible weaknesses in our positions. To our left the British broke through against the 23rd Regiment and penetrated as far as the high ground near the Bois du Sart. But on our ground they were repelled with ease. A counter-attack

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carried out by companies of the 23rd Regiment and by our own 12th Company and an equally bold advance by our 11th—perhaps the most decisive action of the day—enabled us after hours of bitter and costly fighting to recover all the lost ground.30

The 3rd Bavarian Division was a sound, battle-hardened division with experienced officers and NCOs. As soon as signal flares went up and firing began, companies everywhere reacted. Those near Boiry downed tools and raced forward in time to bump into the Essex advance and then channel across to its flank to link with those holding Arrow Wood, where Angus Mackay’s machine gun group drove them to ground. The 3rd Bavarian Division’s response was autonomic. Seeing the actions as a collision of offensives or a validation of doctrine confirmed preconceptions, but what the Essex battalion suffered at Monchy had more in common with its disastrous meeting engagement with French and Indigenous Americans on the Monongahela in 1755 than with Lossberg’s defense. In both instances, the Essex was a victim of an intuitive combat reaction rather than any prearranged scheme (and in both instances, commanders took credit for a cunning plan). It took little more than ninety minutes for the operation to devolve into rolling fights between the remains of eight Newfoundland and Essex companies and elements of some twenty German companies, all being hammered equally by promiscuous artilleries. In the copse where Rendell’s D Company was holding on, the survivors had consumed most of their “good supply” of ammunition. Private Jack Snow could see over to A Company on the far right, where the flash of bayonets in the morning sun indicated Germans were storming Langmead’s windmill. A British single-seater wobbled low over his head, followed by a German Albatros. Snow watched the RFC scout make a forced landing and be surrounded by Germans. A bullet shattered the telephone Snow had been carrying and a piece of it stopped his watch at 8:00 a.m., so he had no idea of the time. It was 8:30 a.m.31 The pilot of the downed machine was Lieutenant William Russell. Only minutes earlier, Russell had been with four other single-seat Nieuport scouts of 60 Squadron at twelve thousand feet diving on two German two-seaters. A bullet had smacked into his engine, encompassing him in black smoke and misted fuel. Red-marked German scouts were all over his flight, and he headed for the earth, escorted by one of them until he landed, where Snow saw him taken prisoner. Russell was Manfred von Richthofen’s forty-fourth victory.32 Whiteman and the 10th Fusiliers had known the dip below Infantry Hill as the Valley of Death, but Newfoundlanders and Essex were giving it renewed meaning.

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Forbes-Robertson had sent men to gather wounded and get some idea about what was happening. They brought in a sergeant from the Essex, and it was his impression that both battalions were surrounded. By then, the end was coming for Langmead’s platoon at the windmill. Fire from Machine Gun Woods and Guémappe had whittled down 4 Platoon, and two companies of 17 Regiment were closing to assault, so Langmead led the remains of his platoon, by bounds, back toward Monchy. The only route open was into the lines of the Worcesters, and once there, Langmead tried to move to link up with his unit, but Keran’s headquarters informed them that Monchy was gone. The Worcesters could see Germans moving toward the Newfoundlanders line of departure and toward Bemister’s strongpoint, the last firm position. The situation was no better on the Essex flank. A handful of X Company made it back to 5 Platoon, still acting as fire support for the company and where RSM Frank Bailey and the Adjutant were gathering survivors and wounded. The mixed group had to fight a step-by-step rearguard back to Monchy, but without Angus Mackay and the machine gunners. They remained in the woods covering the withdrawal. Near the top of the mound, C Company’s Rex Rowsell shared a broad shell hole with about fifteen others. He could see that the Essex were done for, and there was no sign of D Company. The firing from his two forward platoons had ceased. He sent Sergeant Gear out with a message. The rehabilitated James Gear took off without hesitation, but fire came from all directions, and he was hit. He carried on but was hit again, and then again, before disappearing into the smoke. Rowsell stuck his head up for a “dekko” to see how close the Bavarians had come. A bullet took him in the mouth. He drew his revolver and, spitting blood, announced he was not about to surrender. He asked if the group was “satisfied to fight it out with me?” Teenager Alf Cake and the other men assumed firing positions and began laying down fire on approaching field-grays. Others were fighting it out. Private Fred Gardner died with his cousin, the recently commissioned 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Gardner, DCM and Bar, and Iron Cross First Class. In the Essex sector, Captain H. J. B Foster, on loan from the Bedfordshire Regiment, died with X Company in the woods alongside Private John Narvidge, the son of a Russian refugee. The bullet, bayonet, or shrapnel that killed Private Fred Samwell also killed his wife; she died upon receiving notice of his death. Sergeant Tom Merry’s Montreal parents were to receive notice of his death in action. They lay intermingled with other dead: Wilhelm Elitzer and Leopold Wich of 17 Regiment and Tambour Neuner of 18 Regiment. The hill was to be the scene of several intense actions in the coming weeks and again in 1918, so even the buried lost their graves. Sid Stephenson’s remains

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were found weeks later in Machine Gun Woods, but the men who went with him remain missing. A howitzer round hit Rowsell’s little Alamo. Rowsell died with weapon in hand, as did sixteen-year-old Alf Cake and several others. The rest were too stunned and too low on ammunition to offer further resistance. The last A Company strongpoint was blasted out by shellfire. The round that crushed Bemister’s platoon was the one that knocked out the Lewis gun, killed or wounded eighteen men, and shattered both bones in Bemister’s left forearm. He led the survivors back into the Worcesters lines, where they joined Langmead’s survivors. Leo Murphy, Angus Mackay, and others were still on the field. Many were unconscious, bleeding, or otherwise hors de combat, but some, out of ammunition, sat in shell holes with bayonets fixed, staring at the lips of the craters and wondering what was to come. Remarkably, the fight had yet to reach its climax. The Monch y Ten: A fter noon, Satur day, A pr il 14 No situation is ever as good or as bad as first reported. Forbes-Robertson pushed for better information. The telephone line was out, and runners were missing. (Had the phone been working, Forbes-Robertson might have heard 4 Worcesters report that Monchy had fallen.) He sent Kevin Keegan to determine ground truth. Keegan ran out into the shitstorm that was Monchy. He darted over dead horses, through shell craters, past the burning church, and through gaggles of lost and wounded to get to a point from which he could see the battle. The foreground was populated by bodies and the middle distance by wounded trickling back down the slope. Behind this tableau, there were about two hundred men in coalscuttle helmets headed toward the assembly trench. He dashed back through the Seventh Circle of Hell to tell the CO. James Forbes-Robertson, lifelong professional and now commanding officer without a battalion, ordered the RSM to gather as many men as he could and equip them for action. As he dressed for battle, he instructed his adjutant, Arthur Raley, to make his way through the exploding masonry to Brigade Headquarters to acquaint the commander with the situation and bring artillery onto the enemy. Then he climbed the stairs. RSM White mustered a score of men—runners, signalers, cooks, provost— and as many walking wounded as he could find. Some were equipped with dead men’s weapons. Forbes-Robinson explained that they were off to provide “a little diversion,” and they set out at a quick trot through the falling bricks and rising dust. (Even now, the smell of dead horses remained overpowering.)

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The little force wound its way downhill. Not everyone made it. Wounded could not keep up, and the RSM and Corporal Hillier, the battalion clerk, disappeared in a blast of black smoke that left Private Stacey unconscious. Once up and moving, Stacey stumbled to the RAP and found it blown in. He helped dig out survivors until Lieutenant Bemister, still trying to link up with the unit, turned up. Stacey told the officer that the town was about to be filled with Germans. He was wrong.33 Forbes-Robertson loped along with his little group until it reached the lee of a large building standing, against the odds, at the edge of town. He climbed as high as he could on the brickwork to get a “dekko” of the situation. What he saw was not encouraging. Bavarians were in the assembly trench where he had briefed his troops five hours earlier, and more were moving about on Infantry Hill. There was no sign of his companies, strongpoints, or anyone backfilling the positions they had left. A corporal’s guard could take Monchy. He climbed down and briefed his little band on his plan. Across the battlefield, Wenninger’s men were rounding up survivors from both sides. Bavarian medics carried off the twice-wounded Angus Mackay and Essex soldier Fred Vere. Fred had spent six months training in England and a month in the Étaples Bull Ring before being posted to X Company, where he spent March preparing for this operation. Three hours after fixing his bayonet in anger for the first time, he was being carried away by German stretcherbearers.34 The Bavarians gathered up Jack Snow and the D Company survivors who had run out of bullets faster than they had run out of targets. With them went Lieutenant Clousten and Corporal Moss, who had not made it out with their message. They rounded up newly promoted Moyle Stick, the kid brother, and seventeen-year-old Private Albert Martin, who was wounded in the hip. The Bavarians treated Martin without removing the shrapnel. It was still with him fifty years later.35 Some Newfoundlanders got as far as the RAP, but it collapsed again. The doctor, medical assistants, and lightly wounded dug it out, but each time it collapsed, men were lost. The RMO, Scotsman Captain James Tocher, RAMC, treated Newfoundland, Essex, and German wounded throughout the ordeal as a matter of course. Medical Sergeant Archie Gooby, a Blue Puttee with Gallipoli, Beaumont Hamel, and Gueudecourt behind him, took his stretchers out into the fire and brought back wounded again and again. They found and saved Bert Rendell and William Short. Short’s shattered canteen saw him all the way to the United Kingdom for treatment. It cost him most of a buttock, but he was to be back in harness before his war was over.36

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As the end came for the Essex, the adjutant and RSM Bailey had the wounded and survivors fortify buildings in Monchy. They would fight when the Germans entered town. The Essex CO took his key personnel to Brigade Headquarters, but Forbes-Robertson had a different plan. He indicated a small hedge line just east of the buildings to his tiny crew. If they could get to it, they could bring effective fire onto the gathering Germans and, in his professional opinion, keep them out of town for fifteen minutes. It might be enough time for Raley to reach brigade and bring the Guns to bear. The little band adjusted its equipment and set out on a dangerous trip in full view of scores, and perhaps hundreds, of enemy soldiers. About half the group made it this far, but somewhere along the way, they picked up an Essex private who decided to stick with them. Their trip to glory began with an undignified monkey run. The method of crossing broken ground while not exposing too much was called the monkey run because it involved zigzagging quickly on three points of contact (knee, foot, and hand) with a weapon in the free hand. Like a monkey. Most of the thirteen monkey-ran the hundred yards to the hedge. Nine made it. Luck smiled, for once, on Newfoundland. The hedge was actually an old entrenched position and was oriented to look along the entire length of the straight assembly trench. Eight of the group were proficient shots, and the ninth, ForbesRobertson, was a competition shooter. Their old assembly trench contained what seemed to be more than a hundred Germans, and it was just under two hundred yards from the hedge—optimum range for combat shooting. Hands curled around Enfield smalls, and fingers found triggers. Keegan wrote, “We dropped them like rabbits. . . . The Commanding Officer was great, cracking jokes, controlling fire, and dropping his share of the Bosche. Personally, I never enjoyed anything so much.” He put the score at more than forty enemy almost immediately. A welcome Lewis gun joined in from somewhere well off to the left. It was likely the remnant of No. 5 Platoon, X Company. Fifteen minutes was not enough. The guns were not yet blasting Germans off the slopes. Forbes-Robertson addressed his little unit. “I am happy to have had the pleasure to know you. This will be the end of us all.” They were to fight it out. The CO ordered the other eight to conserve ammunition and engage only close and sure targets, but Keegan noted that “a Bosche at 150 yards range was easy but after a while some of them began to hesitate, and we had a chance of some long-distance shooting, about 400 yards. We kept dropping them here and there for some time.” The fifteen minutes stretched to an hour. Then longer.

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The men shared a few rations found stashed in the trench. Their luck held. The rations included extremely rare and highly prized marmalade. At about 12:30 p.m., the little force was reinforced by Private John Hillier, the clerk last seen flying through the air on a howitzer shock wave. After regaining consciousness, Hillier moved to the sound of the guns until he found the little group. RSM White also survived but was at the RAP. By midafternoon, Forbes-Robertson decided a final message was required. Private Albert Rose was the runner, so while the CO marked his map with the enemy assembly locations—targets for the artillery—Rose shook hands with his comrades, one by one. Forbes-Robertson wrote their names on the map with his recommendation for gallantry awards. Besides Forbes-Robertson, Keegan, Rose, and Hillier, the names included Sergeant Joe Waterfield and Corporal Walter Pitcher of the Provost Section, and Corporal Charles Parsons, Private Fred Curran (the fruit buyer), and Private Japheth Hounsell of the Regimental Signals Section. And the 1st Essex volunteer, another Parsons, Private Victor Parsons. Soon enough, Rose was off through the fire. Although the men in the hedge did not know it, Hillier was not their only reinforcement. Arthur Raley had made it to 2 Hants at Orange Hill despite being gassed and knocked about by shellfire. Throwing gas in with the HE might have been a deliberate means of discouraging reinforcement, but it might also have signaled Wenninger’s gunners were running low on explosive ammunition. Division and brigade were strangely silent, but Beckwith of the Hants had not been idle. From the moment the Germans began slamming Monchy, he knew that something had gone awry. He had already sent a company forward, to just short of where the shells were falling, and was prepared to take his other companies into the maelstrom. Raley informed him that Forbes-Robertson was holding his corner of the town, but he thought that Germans had penetrated the Essex sector. Beckwith made the hard decision. The shelling would most likely decimate his troops, and he had no idea whether Forbes-Robertson was still holding, but he had studied the fall of shot and thought he could detect the timing and fire pattern of the batteries. Once it repeated, he ran his battalion in an S pattern through the salvos and into the nightmare of Monchy. He took twenty-five casualties but made the village. By the time 88 Brigade managed to get out an order for the Hants to move, Beckwith was already in Monchy. To Forbes-Robertson’s south, Keran’s Worcesters were also pitching in. They could cover the slope between Infantry Hill and the Arras–Cambridge Road, but they had been reluctant to fire into an area containing friendly troops. Once the Newfoundland survivors withdrew into their lines, the Worcesters went weapons free.

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The men who saved Monchy. Back rank: Rose, Pitcher, Forbes-Robertson, Keegan, Parsons, and Waterfield. Front: Curran, Hillier, and Hounsell. Not present, the other Parsons (1st Essex).

At “10 am about 2000 Germans were seen advancing towards us with small parties of our troops retiring before them. The artillery was informed and barrage fire was immediately opened. When the retiring troops had cleared our front we opened fire with rifles and Lewis Guns and the attack was completely shattered by 1230 pm although the enemy reached a point within 100 yards from our trenches.”37 The Bavarians lost almost all the officers in their left wing. Forbes-Robertson and his band remained the only bar to the center of the town, but Bavarians clearing Infantry Hill appeared reluctant to press. The Newfoundlanders convinced them that the town was full of troops loaded for bear, even as the brash Monchy Ten, down to Nine, had to scavenge for ammunition. At 2:45 p.m., much to the unfettered joy of the men in the hedge trench, explosions rocked Machine Gun Woods and began marching across the other targets Forbes-Robertson had indicted on his map. Rose had made it. The little band then noticed that there were soldiers in the houses behind them, and that they wore thumbtack helmets, not coalscuttles. The Hants had arrived.

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Artillery drove off the last of the nearby Germans but also smashed the wounded laying in the field: Essex, Newfoundlander, and Bavarian. ForbesRobertson’s group took the opportunity to scamper out into no-man’s-land to gather up ammunition belts and drag in wounded. Keegan and two others went all the way to the abandoned assembly trench to rescue five men who had spent most of the day there. A fterwa r d: Evening, Satur day, A pr il 14 Once the sun began sliding behind Monchy, German shellfire slacked off to a merely annoying level. Then Rose came back. Upon leaving their little Thermopylae, the Monchy Ten rounded up another twenty-six unwounded Newfoundlanders.38 The ten rifles that had held Monchy were to be justly celebrated. They received help, but much of it had been invisible. Unit officers compensated for a poorly staffed plan and took action on their own. That part was a good omen. To the south, another tragedy played out. The story of the two London Division battalions was different, but the result was the same. They crested the ridge to discover three fresh companies of Pomeranian veterans of the 61st Infantry Regiment and of the newly arrived 35 Division dug in on the reverse slope of the wide-open, coverless fields of the Sensée valley. The defense showed not the slightest hint of elasticity. It was a solid position that the British artillery could not see or engage, and it shattered the two battalions in a reenactment of Beaumont Hamel. The two assaulting battalions took over six hundred casualties for no gain. (The 61st Regiment’s destiny was to return to the Monchy plateau to play another roll a year later.) When Leo Murphy regained consciousness, it was dark and cold. The men around him were dead, and the only voices were German. He wrapped himself in a German greatcoat. It was two days before a friendly patrol found him and carried him off the field. Pat Walsh lasted longer. An hour into the attack, a bullet smashed Pat’s right thigh and left him in pain in a shallow hole. Others joined him, but it was hours before the Bavarians found them. The others were marched away, but Pat’s smashed thigh meant they had to carry and drag him toward the Bois du Vert. Eventually, they decided he was too big a burden and dumped him in a shell hole with six wounded and one dead Bavarian. After a time, his companions were evacuated, leaving him to scavenge food and tobacco from the dead man. Walsh believed he had been a replacement. His uniform was brand-new. A German with a red cross armband stopped by the next day and dressed his wound with a paper dressing before moving on. His water was done, and

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none of his visitors had water to spare, so Pat urinated into his water bottle and waited for it to cool. On his third day, a Bavarian (he thought an officer) gave him coffee. Walsh remained in his hole for another four days, in too much pain to crawl, but thankful for hanging on to his greatcoat and water bottle. The Second Battle of the Scarpe opened on April 23 with a renewed attack on Infantry Hill, and Walsh decided he had enough. He rolled onto his back and, wearing a German helmet, elbowed himself by German positions and into the open. The Inniskilling Fusiliers found him, but a shell killed the stretcher-party carrying him and wounded him a second time. Pat Walsh, the last man off the hill, had been missing for ten days. In the meantime, the remnants of the two battalions were amalgamated into the Newfoundland Essex Battalion under Forbes-Robertson and returned to the line. Keegan, Tweedledum, wrote that “Dee was no more” and someone would have to tell Holloway’s wife. Moyle Stick, with hundreds of others, spent days marching toward Douai under the escort of Uhlan cavalry, which reacted viciously against civilians providing water to the prisoners. General Haldane summoned commanders for a stare-at-their-shoes postmortem. The army might be calling this a gallant action, but it had been an unforgivable disaster for this stage of the war. The Newfoundlanders lost 460 killed, wounded, and missing from a strength of 611, and the Essex lost 675 of 892 (the same loss rate as on the Monongahela in 1755). The 29th Division’s commander, de Lisle, later told the Newfoundlanders that if Monchy had been lost, it would take forty thousand troops to regain. It was an astute estimate.39

twelve

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WORSE EXISTS, APRIL 16–DECEMBER 31, 1917

After the preliminary “set piece” has faded out the kaleidoscopic death struggle begins; a battalion, a barrage, a trench and annihilation, then the same thing repeated with variations of time and strength and position, nothing seen, nothing known for certain as the hours go by. Mathematical exactitude demonstrated with no certain data. W. N. Nicholson, Behind the Lines

GQG k new th at nothing is as ever as bad or as good as first reported, but Nivelle’s Aisne offensive was every bit as bad as reported. A parliamentary deputy serving in French ranks recorded, “The battle began at 6.00 a.m. By 7 a.m. it was lost.” Delaying the start had allowed time for the Germans to tweak their defense and for Louis Spears to see French confidence strike German efficiency. On arrival, he was given a map with projected penetrations and timelines, and after witnessing what had happened in the British sector, he thought the French plan insanely optimistic.1 By April 16, the first of more than seventy-five instances of “collective disobedience” occurred in which French soldiers refused to leave trenches. OHL heard rumors of French mutinies, but the poilus on the Chemin des Dames were still butchering German counterattacks. They still hated the Boche more than the war.2 Spears, summoned to brief Lloyd George, arrived so tired that he stumbled at the prime minister’s door. He assured Lloyd George that the French could recover, but the PM asked him to swear it on his honor as an officer and a

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British troops along the Neuville–Wancourt Road in April 1917, the site of the Alpin-Magdeburger sunken road battle of 1914.

gentleman. Spears took the question as a sign that the man understood neither concept.3 The BEF was to continue to distract the Germans. Haig wrote, “The Enemy has now been given time to put the DrocourtQuéant line into a state of defence and to organise positions also in our immediate front . . . Our advance must therefore be more methodical.”4 Nothing else for it. A Second Battle of the Scarpe had to be improvised. Then, a Third Battle. Future Field Marshal Archibald Wavell was later to note that the “First battle of the Scarpe had been fought in sure faith of victory; the Second in good hope of success; but this Third Battle, on May 3, was mere charity. It was now practically certain that the French effort was spent.”5 For the first time, men openly wondered whether the war could end. A few were aware that something significant had happened. Both sides had a taste, at least, of success, and Louis Spears noticed the French spoke less of British support and more of supporting the British.6

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Even as battle dragged on, Haig was redeploying strength toward Ypres, toward his plan for the Passchendaele Ridge. A fresh offensive could relieve pressure on the French and keep the Germans from sending forces against Italy and Russia, who were both in difficulty. It could allow Haig to attack with his new, experienced army without having to conform to French plans. H a ppy a nd the Bomber: Mor ning, Monday, A pr il 23 Ewart Garland returned to 16 Squadron for a brief, dour ceremony. “We buried poor little Crow today,” he recorded. Neither Baerlein nor Durham was present. Baerlein had been wounded and captured, and Durham had departed for pilot training two days earlier.7 An hour’s drive south, Lloyd Breadner was warming up his Pup, Happy, when anti-aircraft guns opened up on a large HA flying at about ten thousand feet. Breadner was airborne within minutes. The big aircraft was two thousand feet higher than he had calculated. Its size had thrown off his estimate. It was a “great big double-engine pusher type machine” with a wingspan of almost twenty meters (eighty feet). It was a Gotha bomber. The Gotha was powered by two rearward-facing Mercedes engines and carried 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of bombs, a crew of three, and four M14 Parabellum air-cooled machine guns. It was solid plywood, so its gunner could travel a tunnel running most of its twelve-meter (forty-feet) length to a tail-gun position that allowed him to fire into the blind spot beneath the tail. This Gotha’s “Emil” was Offizierstellvertreter Alfred Heidner, the observergunner was Leutnant Otto Wirth, and the aircraft “Franz” and bombardier was Leutnant Kurt Sheuren. They were members of Kagohl III, an air group preparing to bomb England.8 Breadner chased the beast almost to Montreuil before getting close enough to fire 190 rounds into its engines, forcing Heidner to wallow the big bird to earth. Breadner landed near the crash, but the crew had set fire to his trophy. While soldiers rounded up the Germans, Breadner darted into the flames and retrieved the insignia for the squadron mess before introducing himself to his victims. Unfortunately, none of them spoke English and Breadner did not speak German, so no memorable words were exchanged. Breadner settled for confiscating Heidner’s special aeronaut helmet.9 Breadner scored again later that day east of Monchy, but his Gotha was the talk of the mess. It was the first brought down on the western front and the first brought down by a single fighter, and it signaled a new phase of aerial warfare, although one the British were slow to pick up.

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A month later, Kagohl III struck the unprepared British reinforcement facilities around Folkstone and Shorncliffe, killing 95 soldiers and civilians and injuring 195. Among them were thirteen Canadians awaiting transfer to France. M edica l Processes: Monday, A pr il 23 Medical treatment had improved, but the critical period, the “golden hour” after wounding, still relied on efficient evacuation and forward treatment. Bert Rendell and Pinky Carvosso were among the lucky, largely because dressing stations were infusing saline with gum acacia to seal leaks and slow blood loss and shock long enough for Guppy’s ambulances to get them to the likes of Richard Clarke and 19 CCS. Advanced dressing stations were better equipped to handle gas exposure, so Brooklynite and recently busted and gassed Lance-Corporal Flanagan moved quickly through the field ambulance and CCS to Étaples for recuperation and prompt return to The RCR through the Canadian Corps Reinforcement Centre. (Before leaving hospital, Flanagan managed to be charged for being out of bounds without a pass.10) Once at the CCS, casualties were triaged, cleansed, wheeled through X-ray, and deposited on surgical tables (four per surgeon) where a nursing sister, an anesthetist, and a lamp waited. As each procedure was completed, orderlies wheeled the patients out, swabbed the table, and wheeled in the next. The process was rushed, but even so, hundreds waited on stretchers outside on the snow. At least the Thomas splints and other new devices reduced the mortality rate of transporting casualties by more than 30 percent and of thigh wound fatalities by almost 80 percent.11 Once out of surgery, casualties were given a short time to recuperate and then sent on to hospitals for completion of surgery and recovery. Amputation was still more reliable than more conservative treatments, but Rendell’s and Carvosso’s wounds were not candidates for amputation. Rendell’s wound was a through-and-through (groin to buttock) with no major organs involved. It was ripe for gangrene and so was debrided daily and packed with salt tablets (and perhaps maggots to eat necrotized tissue). A nursing sister drew a gauze string through the wound daily, much like cleaning a rifle barrel, and the wound was not closed until she could detect no smell or stain. Once the wound was closed, Rendell was off for seven weeks of recuperation. Carvosso lived because the CCS included surgeons capable of opening chest cavities (a standard four-inch, hand-sized hole) to clear debris and insert tubes to flush the wounds with eusol antiseptic. He was stabilized for about ten days and then moved to the General Hospital chest ward at Boulogne, where surgeons completed the work and nurses monitored recovery by smell. They knew

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the aroma of each infection and notified the surgeon when more excising was required. Once pronounced aroma clear, Pinky’s wounds were sealed, and he was set for months of recuperation (which included rounds of golf to expand his lungs).12 German doctors experienced a more despondent scene of “medical orderlies in long lines with their stretchers, trying to get to the assembly point, large and small groups of lightly wounded, with their field dressings. Some whimper and complain so much that it rings in your ears for the rest of the day and puts you off eating, and some continue on their way silently, apathetically along the filthy, churned up road, with their heavy low boots that are nothing but lumps of mud, while others are cheerful, since now they will have a rest.”13 Before heading to Monchy, Angus Mackay flipped his diary to his birthday, August 10, and wrote, “This is my 22nd year. Don’t expect I will get to see it. Anyhow I will be damned lucky if I do.” The twice-wounded Angus was evacuated along through the stressed German system: aid post to dressing station to field hospital. There were many impromptu open-air hospitals at railheads, and the ambulance service was a circus caravan of impressed vehicles. German doctors also struggled with new procedures and techniques, and the British blockade ensured they also struggled for resources. Angus eventually arrived at a War Hospital in Darmstadt for long-term treatment. He wrote to his parents, already mourning the loss of two sons, to tell them he was wounded but alive. On May 5, 1917, fourteen weeks before his birthday, Corporal Angus Mackay succumbed to septicemia and was buried with military honors in Kassel, Germany.14 Fa ith, Hope, Ch a r it y, a nd Death on the A isne: Thur sday, M ay 3 It was almost a year since Captain Louis Spears had dropped into the French hospital at Bray-sur-Somme to ask for directions. He had been surprised to meet a petite, large-eyed woman in a blood-spattered apron and perfumed with gangrene. Mary Borden had been just as surprised to find a young, mud-splattered, British officer with a large, equally mud-splattered dog standing in front of her. She had invited him for tea and, being British, he brought the dog. War accelerated relationships, and the frisson between the Liaison Officer and the directrice ensured that Louis’s trips continued to involve frequent detours to the hospital. The war had long become part of Mary, and she of it. She tried war poetry, producing the “The Song of the Mud,” which astutely acknowledged what mud achieved.

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Soaks up the fire, the noise; soaks up the energy and the courage; Soaks up the power of armies; Soaks up the battle. Just soaks it up and thus stops it.15

Her estranged husband viewed her hospital work, like the war, as an annoyance and her writing as the hobby of a socialite, but Louis was part of this war and interested in her writing if not her politics. He understood her dedication (obsession?) to reducing her French hospital’s fatality rate, and he appreciated the pressure Nivelle’s attack put on her. The continuing Battles of the Scarpe brought the Canadians battling east from Vimy and Third Army fighting again around Monchy and Roeux. HPM Jones took his tank in support of 51 Highland and 37 Divisions when they attacked the Roeux chemical works, the “Comical Works.” Guy Chapman saw it. “Each time they won it, and each time they were driven out . . . Each time they went in they killed everything that was on the ground and each time, like dragon’s teeth, the enemy sprang up again.”16 Despite giving the battles grand names, there was no grand concept to move men like on April 9, merely tired commanders—binoculars swinging on chests, lanyards snagging on stakes, boots slipping on wet duckboards—leading wet, worn companies of too many ill-rehearsed replacements into lethal scrapes for a few yards of advantage. Infantry Hill witnessed six assaults and counterattacks. After a month of four thousand casualties a day, the British line had added only Guémappe, and by then the Scots at Roeux were throwing bully beef tins to the Germans in exchange for cigars.17 Philip Gibbs was a self-educated newshound with a sharp nose (figuratively and literally) for a story. He had singlehandedly fixed the Titanic disaster in public consciousness as an epic of British stoicism, but he had earned the enmity of GHQ in 1914 for reporting that led to him being treated as a security risk. A wiser War Office provided him with a uniform and appointment as official war correspondent, rendering his avian features more hawklike, and left him to write of soldiers, not GHQ or generals (he saved that for postwar contextualization). He blamed Haig for his GHQ troubles (Haig stated his policy had “always been to give the Press as free a hand as possible . . . provided no secrets are given to the enemy”) and riled against “the enormous, impregnable stupidity of our High Command in all matters of psychology.” He resented the Regulars for their arrogant assumption that this war belonged to them even as he was awed by their application of this arrogance “to Death himself.” Neither he nor his fraternity of writers ever gained credibility with the Old Army, but they found a welcome home among wartime soldiers. It was, therefore, the New Army’s

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war and expectations that were captured for posterity. It was the New Army’s judgment on Arras operations that was to be preserved.18 Gibbs had heard grousing at Ypres and on the Somme, but not like he now witnessed near Monchy. Attitude was colored by expectations, and after so much preparation, expectations had been high. Now, as promise descended into another brawl in the mud, Gibbs sat with an artillery officer who sputtered against staff, against generals, against civilians, and against the war. The officer shuddered with every shell burst, and his hands vibrated too much to light a cigarette.19 In the Hindenburg Line on the Cojeul, a British sergeant and a German lay bleeding into the same ground. The sergeant lit two cigarettes and passed one to the German. After a while, he pulled himself to his feet and leaned over the German. “Come on, Jerry, we’re both finished with this,” he said as he pulled him up. Leaning on one another, the two hobbled off.20 The Battles of Arras were over, and the war was about to enter its darkest period. The French battle continued, but with casualties already exceeding 130,000 and success increasingly unlikely, the government sacked Nivelle and brought in the cautious warhorse Pétain to save the army. By then, the British had recorded 150,000 casualties, and although the Germans likely incurred as many as the other two combined, they could not be sure. Too many were missing. Pr isoner s of Fate: W ednesday, June 20 Warming weather raised spirits and brought visitors. A French contingent came to Vimy to bury the dead of 1915, and Winston Churchill turned up to visit his old Sandhurst classmate, Louis Lipsett. Lipsett warned Winston’s guide that Churchill was “as mad as a hatter! He’ll want to go up to front line. Don’t let him.” Naturally, Churchill (still wearing the French helmet given to him by Louis Spears) found his way to a mortar pit to watch the Flying Pigs fly.21 Albert Krentel left Arras as part of a long column. His guards seemed less intent on preventing the Germans from escaping than on minimizing assaults on them by civilians. German marching songs upset the locals. The prisoners squeezed into railway boxcars for a long, roundabout trip that ended in green fields fewer than forty kilometers from where they had started. They built barracks and sent postcards to tell families that their new mailing address was 58 Prisoner of War Company. The Germans put Moyle Stick to work in Lille. He and about three hundred others were crowded into barns and fed gruel. Their captors insisted that the

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British had forced prisoners to work at the front, so they did not have status as prisoners-of-war. They were slave labor. Debilitated men died working in the streets. Moyle lived because scabies and dysentery hospitalized him under care of other prisoners. The War Office transferred Allenby to command the Palestine Campaign and gave Byng the Third Army. Currie took over the Canadian Corps, and Macdonell replaced him at 1 Canadian Division. Hugh “Daddy” Dyer, the only battalion commander older than Agar Adamson, replaced Batty Mac at 7 Brigade. After serving successfully on brigade and corps staff, Guy Chapman was removed abruptly from division staff by Bruce-Williams. Chapman’s delight at returning to the 13th Fusiliers was dimmed on learning that most of his peers had been killed or wounded and that his mentor, a hard-drinking, hardfighting Major Robert Smith, had been appointed as temporary commander of 10 (Stockbroker) Fusiliers. Smith had joined the 13th at the same time as Chapman, and although he was a banker by profession, he had soon been identified as a natural leader. He was born in Ceylon, spent a week alone in the jungle at eight, ran off and joined the army to serve in the South African War at sixteen, and was a natural warrior. He emanated a confident interest in danger that made the less worldly junior officers like Chapman cleave to him. Chapman’s morale rose with the return of wounded comrades and with the return of Smith, now appointed to command the 13th (with Chapman elevated to his adjutant). Such was the intimacy, the fragility, and the resilience of battalions. Smith’s appointment as CO was a rare one for a 1914 civilian, but perhaps more impressively Francis Whitmore became the only British non-Regular officer given command of a Regular cavalry unit, Byng’s old regiment, the 10th Hussars. (His old unit, the Essex Yeomanry, was slated to be reconfigured as a cyclist or machine gun unit.) Douglas Cuddeford transferred out of the HLI and back to Africa, where the Germans were conducting a nasty guerilla campaign. In 29 Division, Forbes-Robinson was decorated, confirmed in rank, and given command of a British battalion. Two other COs in 88 Brigade, Beckwith and Kerans of the Hants and Worcesters, respectively, were decorated and given brigade command. Halahan of the Essex was sent to an administrative job. Wenniger left his Bavarians to command a corps on the eastern front, but before he left, he recommended the serious Hauptmann Kesselring for an appointment on the General Staff. Richthofen was given command of a four-squadron wing, a Jagerschwader, and the “Flying Circus” was born. The war’s leading ace gave up his Albatros for a new triplane, the Fokker D1. He painted it red.22

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Ewart Garland flew on into July but was visibly shaken on returning from a photo job in which his bracing wires were shot away, tires were punctured, and propeller was shot through. He flew three more trips the next day but, on return, found his squadron commander waiting with orders sending him, with immediate effect, to brigade headquarters. The orders were annotated, “No Flying.”23 Beyond Hope: Sunday, November 11 Once the “Scarpe show” was done, Arras began to breathe again, new units arrived to rotate through trench familiarization, and old units returned for duty in a quiet sector. The battlefield and lines were cleaned up. In July, Haig’s Third Battle of Ypres began. Like the Somme, it began in a promising green July and ended in a brown November wallow, and like Arras, it began in brilliance and ended in bitterness. It added the word Passchendaele to the lexicon of disenchantment. It started with the spectacular capture of Messines Ridge. The assault employed the techniques learned at Arras and was preceded by the setting off of four hundred long tons of explosives under the ridge. The explosion, which was heard in England, killed or maimed ten thousand Germans (three thousand of which were from 3 Bavarian Division). Then, as the army struck for the Passchendaele Ridge, the North Atlantic climate anomaly deployed heavy rains that eroded both the shell-shattered ground and the confidence in men who sent others to fight in muck, mud, and misery. The old Patricia and Essex Yeomanry battlefield at Frezenberg became a graveyard of tank hulks, one of which had been the last command of HPM Jones. An old schoolmate, Gerald Roederwald, wrote a letter of condolence to Paul’s father, stating it “was an accepted tradition amongst us that old ‘H.P.M.’ would one day astonish the world.” Roederwald was in the German army. By then, Paul’s rugger mate Ambrose was in Ireland, as was fellow tanker E. J. O’Connor. Unlike Ambrose, who was demonstrating tanks and fated to return to the front, O’Conner had been sufficiently wounded to avoid further service and, like so many Irishmen serving the crown, was to quietly disappear into history with the formation of the Irish state. The sole rugger-squad member still operational for 1917 was “the fine fellow” Gerald Hedderwick. The King granted the appellation “Royal” to the Newfoundland Regiment, a rare honor during wartime, so when it was appointed as temporary “palace guard” for GHQ Montreuil, it was as the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. The 3rd Bavarian Division was pulled out of the Ypres sector to reconstitute, and Hermann Kohl, as one of the few surviving officers in his battalion, was left to pass the word that General von Wenniger had been killed in Rumania.

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Guy Chapman thought that although “the last flickers of our idealism” had died in the Arras fizzle, his Fusiliers “felt that worse did exist.” They found their “worse” at Passchendaele where they were tried “beyond hope,” and even the redoubtable banker-turned-warrior Smith knew gloom.24 Morale had not been improved by rumor of reinforcements being held back in Blighty, nor word that tank and aircraft production was slowed by strikes initiated by the hiring of women (making union members eligible for conscription). The Americans were coming too slowly and lacked everything. Even when they got into action, they could be no better than a 1916-style army of organized amateurs. The French had to share their guns with them, and the British shared their horses. The Russians were in revolt, and their People’s Soviets were burning government buildings. Workers in France were staging stoppages and strikes, and the troops were not yet aware that Pétain’s army was rebounding or that, in recalling the fierce Georges Clemenceau to its prime ministry, France was recommitting herself to the fight. Churchill (in a moment of historical foreshadowing) saw that France, in her most desperate hour, was unleashing her exiled tiger.25 If Passchendaele had smothered the promise of a more systematic approach to battle for the British, its effect on the Germans was no less depressing. When the army staffs assembled in Mons, they already knew that their counterattack system had drowned in mud and failed against the British “bite and hold” tactics of grabbing and consolidating smaller pieces of terrain. Some divisions, like 79 Reserve, which had stood so well on Vimy, had completely cracked, and desertions were up by a third. Reports indicated a significant rise in disciplinary problems. And the Americans were coming.26 The bankruptcy of ideas on both sides was captured by Will Bird in his compilation, The Communication Trench. When an enthusiastic soldier is asked if he knows what strategy is, he answers quickly that, “Strategy is when you don’t let the enemy know you are out of ammunition and keep firing.” The German army staffs assembled in Belgium to hear Ludendorff’s next idea. They were already suspicious because Ludendorff was inclined to become overinvolved in their corps operations and was showing signs of interfering in divisional movements. Despite the impassive faces, there was a great deal of anticipation and even anxiety over what he was about to announce. Future Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel defined “risk” as undertaking an operation knowing that failure will leave “sufficient forces in hand to cope with whatever situation may arise.” He defined “gamble” as being when the result leads to “either to victory or to the complete destruction of one’s force.” Ludendorff was ready to gamble.27

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The Last Ca r d: Monday, December 31 Hindenburg went along. If Germany was to be out of food by May, then he had better be dining in Paris by April. With forces redeploying from the east, the return of wounded, and the culling of support services for the infantry, the army could assemble a numerical superiority on the Western Front. Fifty divisions had received training as storm divisions and were equipped with more portable field cannons, machine guns (including a new submachine gun), mortars, grenades, and flamethrowers, and old dogs like Wundt had been replaced with younger, more dynamic commanders like Oberstleutnant Georg “Breakthrough” Bruchmuller.28 Bruchmuller was an artilleryman who had come a long way from a stressrelated retirement in 1913, and his comeback was a product of the recursive developments of the war. His Eastern Front experience had been married to Laffargue’s 1915 deep battle ideas to produce a means for paralyzing a defense immediately before an assault. Long barrages expended ammunition for diminishing returns and destroyed the ground, slowing the assault. Bruchmuller’s solution was to deliver a short, sharp, hurricane bombardment on the nexus points of the defensive zone just prior to Z-Hour, when storm troops flowed forward, infiltrating around and isolating defensive “hard points.” This concept of breaking the cohesion of the defensive position had been suggested by Laffargue in 1915, but by 1918, the German army, with the right weapons, training, and technology, could make it work on a grand scale. Hence, “Breakthrough” Bruchmuller.29 Lossberg thought the idea flawed. The army did not, in fact, have the strength, weapons, or technology needed. Forming the storm divisions hardened the tip of the spear at the expense of the shaft. Trench divisions and support troops were stripped of their better soldiers and lacked respirators, vehicles, telephones, fuel, medical supplies, and ammunition. Bruchmuller’s concept of massing of heavy guns as a battering ram required transport that was not available, so it could not redeploy quickly. The German army no longer had a cavalry arm that could turn a retreat into a rout, and it could achieve local air superiority for only a short period. But Ludendorff was not to be turned. He just needed a place to strike. The British struck first. Byng’s Third Army bypassed the road past Monchy to surge out of Picardy toward Cambrai behind almost four hundred tanks. Sound ranging, close air support, and a short, intense bombardment that anticipated Bruchmuller’s technique were employed, and the cavalry was set loose into an eight-kilometer penetration. Frank Fox thought the operation “in its conception and execution a very fine affair,” but again, there was inadequate follow-up. The

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Germans now had anti-tank troops and practiced counterattack formations, and Passchendaele had sucked up British reserves, so the brilliant Cambrai operation was all bite and no hold.30 By December 7, German ripostes pushed Third Army back to its start point, leaving both sides to examine what had worked and what had not. The Germans, as usual, were quicker to circulate ideas, and the British, as usual, were more idiosyncratic in absorbing lessons. Both blamed setbacks on failure of field commanders to fight the way they were supposed to. While the battle raged, the Colonial Office followed up letters it had sent to Newfoundland reporting husbands, sons, and fathers missing at Monchy with more letters stating that these men were now presumed killed. Miss Peggy Grey of Paisley, Scotland, was informed in May that her fiancé, Sergeant James Gear, was missing. In November, she was informed that he was now presumed dead. Others received more positive information. The Stick family was informed that Moyle was confirmed as being in enemy hands. Moyle’s luck changed. After three months at Lille, he was shipped to a prison camp near Kiel, where he had access to doctors, better food, and parcels from home. His fellow prisoners were unluckier; most were shipped to coal mines. Louis Spears and Mary Borden continued to meet. In Mary’s words, “This is a bog world and a lonely world and it is surrounded by eternal darkness, and the most wonderful thing one can hope for is to find a companion—who will stay close beside us—close enough to keep us brave and warm in our hearts.”31 Louis was wounded again and promoted again, and Mary, already a recipient of the French Croix de Guerre, received, to her embarrassment, the Croix de Guerre avec Palmes and Légion d’Honneur from Maréchal Petain himself. After Petain left, Mary collapsed and was rushed into surgery. It was pneumonia and a miscarriage.32 On December 31, British nursing sister Alice Isaacson wrote in her diary, “The beginning of another year! Personally have no regrets for the year that has just closed, nor great hope for the year just beginning!” Oberst Albrecht von Thaer’s entry on the same day was, “We can now deploy our entire strength in the West. To be sure, it is our last card.”33

act III

CLIMAX

Finally, whether from the superior fighting ability and leadership of one of the belligerents, as a result of greater resources or tenacity, or by reason of higher moral, or from a combination of all these causes, the time will come when the other side will begin to weaken and the climax of the battle is reached. Field Marshal Haig, Final Despatch

thirteen

k

GROGNARDS, MARCH 21–JULY 18, 1918

We are in truth grognards, who have known, not Marengo, Austerlitz, Wagram, and Borodino, but frustrated attack upon attack along one tract, fifty miles long, of man-stale earth. . . . Yet the Aidos still lingers in certain hearts, and in the heart of the battalion as a whole, animating it through calamities and afflictions. We have not yet lost the saving virtues of irony and humility. Guy Chapman, Passionate Prodigality

Ludendor ff’s gr eat offensive, the Kaiserschlacht (King of Battles), hit the British where they had stretched their Picardy line to cover part of the French sector. It began with the greatest concentrated artillery bombardment of the war and attacks by specially designed ground attack aircraft. The success of its first phase, Operation Michael, sent shockwaves through armies on both sides. British commanders fought an unfamiliar panic. They had tried to replicate the German defense system, but units lacked practice and confidence in isolated strongpoints and so withdrew precipitously or were surrounded. Meanwhile, their German counterparts were discovering the limits of maintaining momentum with muscle power. They had not the British and French practiced skills of leapfrogging fresh units through those in contact, and, despite impressive gains, they were stumbling, with a biblical retribution, over the very earth they had scorched in Alberich.

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The K ing of Battles: Satur day, M a rch 23 Haig’s intelligence staff had anticipated Ludendorff’s attack, but not its tsunami of fire and steel. Rumors spread like ripples across a pond once the stone is cast: thousands had gone “into the bag,” GHQ was packing up and burning papers, waves of stormtroopers had swept almost to Amiens, Fritz had tanks, and defenses had crumbled like sandcastles in a rising tide. The German army seemed to have a new technique.1 W. N. Nicholson, the Regular who had taught staff how to conduct operations, was surprised by how his New Army understood its war. During the first two days it seemed to me as if the war was over; that we had sustained an overwhelming defeat. . . . We were hunted back pell mell; yet the moment we found that the enemy had halted, we claimed the victory. We said: “thank God; now we’ve got him cold. Now at last we really have beaten him.” When his horses and men were too exhausted to follow us further, we took up our stand and said: “Now you’ve failed.” From the General on downwards everyone believed implicitly that they had won a great victory—for the life of me I don’t know why. . . . What heart-breaking work for an enemy to fight such invincible fools.2

GHQ took satisfaction in seeing Lloyd George compelled to release troops he had been hoarding in Britain, and it developed a grudging respect for the improved effectiveness of its much-maligned French and Belgian allies. Clemenceau announced plans to flood low-lying areas and to scorch the earth— French earth—anywhere the Germans threatened. Frank Fox thought this “courage of the antique model.”3 Significantly, the infrastructure held. Food, ammunition, and reinforcements kept coming. Rob Steuart remembered: Convoys of three-ton lorries—ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred at a time, in single file, loaded with ammunition or stores or carrying troops up to the line or back into rest billets—thundered along, blotting out the landscape in a storm of white dust or flinging reckless sheets of mud and water to either side; tiled mess-carts jogged nodding past; strings of field guns and limbers with their teams of mules waving ears in unison, and now and then a brigade on the march with transport stretching back out of sight, each battalion followed by its smoking and sheeted GS [General Service] waggons piled to the skies.4

The 15th Scot Division spent its winter constructing pillboxes in Monchy, but as the great thunder of Ludendorff’s battle spilled north to the Cojeul, almost to Mercatel, the Scots had to give up Monchy to angle the line. They dug new trenches on Orange Hill. (map 11)

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Despite “the griff” about German technique, outposts on the Cojeul reported that Fritz was coming on in the old style, shoulder to shoulder. Lewis gunners were dropping him like ninepins. Bob Mackay watched from Orange Hill. “Boche attacked Monchy to find it completely empty, except for a company of Camerons who were rear-guard, and did little other than guard themselves. The two men in Monchy (Camerons) who looked after the gum boot store were taken prisoner.”5 The Germans trumpeted the capture of famous Monchy, but once beyond it, 185 Division experienced the same fate as had the Altenburgers of 1914. The Scots, for once, were on the high ground, and from Orange Hill, the “day’s shooting was very valuable . . . and really demonstrated to the men the value of the rifle and its effect when firing on men who have been scattered by artillery fire.”6 The 185 Division knew 15 Scot Division. The two had met here before, in 1917. Also back were the Wurttembergers of 26 Reserve Division, now probing Haldane’s corps along the familiar Neuville-Mercatel ridge. Patients a nd Patience: Tuesday, M a rch 26 Albert Simpkin rode point again for 37 Division as it headed to meet the German juggernaut, and he had to make his way against a tide of despair. Officers were gathering units, soldiers were looking for units, and men were looking to get out. Word was the Germans were pressing forward “like a football crowd,” and 37 Division, still with the 10th and 13th Fusiliers but now also with the 1st Essex transferred from 29 Division, were confident Messieurs Enfield, Lewis, and Vickers could handle a crowd. The division passed 3 Canadian Stationary Hospital in Doullens, which was overwhelmed. Nurse and doctors were in operating theatres from 7:00 a.m. till 8:00 p.m., and new admissions arrived around the clock, but even so, the arrival of lines of polished staff cars at the train station sent rumors skittering through the wards like startled cockroaches. It had been three days since Monchy had fallen, and the enemy was at the gates, but the Anglo-French senior command structure came to town to debate priorities: defend Paris or the Channel ports? National staffs ate dinner at separate tables. VIPs took time to visit the wards. King George and Field Marshal Haig drew a crowd on a day when “the place was full to overflowing—row after row of wounded waiting, some for admission, others for transport to Base.” They spent time talking to boys on stretchers.7 Three days later, the murmuration of cars was gone. Word paraded through the hospital with the authority of an RSM: the war was back on sound footing. The tables had pushed together, and although there was no shortage of credit

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claimed for how concord was achieved, Henri Mordacq, now Clemenceau’s military advisor, and Louis Spears, still the British Liaison Officer, believed that they had nudged everyone in the right direction. Ludendorff’s stumble achieved what allied steps had not: he unified the forces against him. Ferdinand Foch was to be overall coordinator for now. It was enough until he could be made supreme commander. He quipped that they had given him another losing battle to win, and Haig cracked a rare smile. It was like 1915, the glory days before machines fought the war.8 Foch traveled light. He wanted no entourage or politiques in uniform, so he ditched Mordacq and Spears. Louis took off for Paris to marry. Mary’s divorce had come through (not without scandal), and she and Louis wed to the rumble of guns. The newly promoted brigadier and his bride watched reinforcements head to the front. They were singing. Foch and Haig could plan, but these men had to fight, and they were singing. Others were on the move. The German offensive had stripped guards from prison camps, so Moyle Stick struck out for Holland with a Welsh soldier. The pair were hungry, thin, and desperate. M a r s at A r r as: Thur sday, M a rch 28 Operation Michael stopped east of Amiens, so Ludendorff moved his thrust line north to the road past Monchy. The 15th Scot Division’s history recorded, “If ever the lid was taken off hell, it must have been on March 28, 1918.” Operation Mars began with a Bruchmuller fire plan. Phase One was thirty minutes of mixed tear gas and HE delivered onto command posts, communication nodes, and choke points as faraway as Arras and 3 Canadian Division on Vimy. It was intense and shocking and hit with an accuracy that was a tribute to German air reconnaissance. Phase Two was a two-hour saturation of trenches, gun positions, and communication nodes with HE and lethal gases—phosgene, chlorine, and the new more persistent and deadly “Yellow X” mustard gas. In Phase Three, field guns hammered forward positions with HE, phosgene, and chlorine for two hours while heavy artillery hit gun positions and command systems and sealed the flanks with mustard.9 Bruchmuller’s program killed or incapacitated hundreds and crushed many forward outposts, but it was compromised. The British Small Box Respirator was effective against the gases, and the British and Canadians had learned to occupy their forward zones lightly. Furthermore, the artillery did not wait for orders. As soon as communications were lost with forward troops, it began throwing shot and shell at suspected deployments and German batteries.10

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Small Box Respirator invented by Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Harrison, a pharmaceutical chemist who specialized in quack exposés for the British Medical Association before the War. Harrison died of the flu in November 1918, likely exacerbated by exposure to gas testing.

By 7:00 a.m., 185 Division Rhinelanders were swarming from La Fosses Farm into a curtain of Scottish artillery, mortar, and machine gun fire. Flamethrowers drew attention and were turned into searing balls of flame that sizzled for the duration of the day, but still the Rhinelanders came on. They slithered over the dead and dying and winkled into the honeycomb of old trenches. Bob Mackay noted that the Boche “seemed to be able to think for themselves in attack.”11 The Germans struck the junction between First and Third Armies. The 26th Reserve Division flowed into Neuville-Vitasse, and Rhinelanders infiltrated the Scots Orange Hill positions. By 11:00 a.m., the Scots division commander was discussing options with the corps commander. He could counterattack, but the first principle of war was “selection and maintenance of the aim,” and the aim was to hold Arras, not to score a pyrrhic decision on Orange Hill. Army headquarters sanctioned a clean break and ordered a tank battalion sitting at MontSt.-Eloi to move behind the Scots and 1 Canadian Division into reserve behind

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Arras. The moves needed time, so forward units holding the junctions between the adjoining corps were ordered to hold until the defense was synchronized. At this point, 2nd Battalion, the Essex Regiment, held the interarmy junction near where Frank Vyvyan’s tank had stuck in 1917. Londoner Sam Sutcliffe was still a teenager, but under rules revised to meet the manpower shortage, the Gallipoli and Somme veteran was back at the front and back in a Signals Section. He was the one to receive the codeword “George,” which meant “no withdrawal.” By the time Sam had destroyed his signals gear and gone looking for an officer, Germans were already pressing on three sides of the battalion. Sam found two officers. One had apparently shot himself, and the other was missing half his face, so Sam took position with his rifle. When Jerry came again, he let his training take hold. “Maintain normal aim, moving with the target, then increase movement of rifle until daylight appears between target and rifle then ‘Fire.’” Killing men so easily disturbed him, but he fired until ammunition ran out. Then at 10:30, he sent out the Signals Section’s last pigeon. Its message: “Goodbye.”12 Thirteen of the 430 Essex men made it back to friendly lines, but German momentum had ebbed. North of the River Scarpe, five German divisions broke like a wave on a rock of two well-dug-in British divisions without reaching Lipsett’s 3rd Canadian next to them. Lipsett adjusted the Mounted Rifles to pour fire into the German flank, and because much of the artillery behind Vimy Ridge could not engage, he placed Dan Mackinnon’s battery across its top to fire directly into the attack.13 The batteries recorded one of their largest expenditures of the war, and in the firestorm they created, fights became desperate, savage, and overlapping. Yet even in the midst of confusion and slaughter, overburdened stretcher-bearers moved between both sides. A German officer stopped a Londoners stretcher group near the Canadian flank and asked why they carried rifles. Before they answered (they were riflemen dragooned into the job), the officer noticed the ribbons on their patient’s chest. “He’s a brave man. Take him back. We will not shoot.”14 By 3:00 p.m., with the Scots south of the Scarpe back in the ancient trenches of Arras, the Rhinelanders knew they were going no further. Exhausted fieldgrays pulled back to the eastern slope of Orange Hill. The Scots gave them an hour, refixed bayonets, and reoccupied the western slope. South of the Arras–Cambrai Road, 26 Reserve’s 119th Regiment again took the villages on the Cojeul, but without their Hauptmann Kunlen. He was now leading a partner unit, 121 Regiment, across the same ground where Otto Korfes’ Magdeburgers had bled: the killing zone between Neuville-Vitasse and Mercatel.

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By dusk, the Germans knew that Mars, “to whom so much blood was offered,” was not to break the Arras salient. The commander of 15 Scot Division sent a message to all ranks. “I knew you could be relied on to stick it out to the end.”15 The attack culminated without encountering the Savage Rabbit. The Savage R a bbit: Fr iday, M a rch 29 The novice No. 11 Tank Battalion was equipped with hand-me-down tanks, but they were reliable Mark IVs with an autovac system that eliminated the need for hand-feeding fuel, and despite being in their first tank action, the men were not green. Reorganization broke up the Essex Yeomanry and 2 King Edward’s Horse, distributing the Yeomen among other cavalry units and absorbing the King Edward’s, including Sergeant Percy Hatton, into 11 Tank Battalion. They were provided with experienced tank officers, including chorister Hugh Bell. Extensive winter training had not covered defense (the tank was an offensive weapon), so when Ludendorff struck, GHQ was at a loss as to what to do with them. Its conclusion elicited moans. The tanks were to remain hidden until they could “emerge like Savage Rabbits from their holes” to eviscerate the attackers. Left to their owns devices, most tankers preferred to dismount and fight as machine-gunners, but as Mars surged, 11 Battalion trundled down from Mont-St.-Eloi expecting to grease its tracks with any enemies penetrating the Scots positions.16 Once Mars was pronounced dead, Bell led his metal lagomorphs south toward where Harry Drader’s tank company was busy playing Savage Rabbit with Third Army (with no word whether Percy was participating). Butler’s recovery teams followed. These teams were now operating with a menagerie of specialist vehicles: artillery movers, wireless communications hubs, and armored supply vehicles (with bullets, water, shovels, picks, loaded Lewis drums, and mortar bombs). Butler’s men were staking their claim to the future of mechanized warfare, and they were not the only ones investing in a technological revolution. Roya l A ir Force: Monday, A pr il 1 In 1914, Pretyman’s Blériot flew at 120 kph (80 mph), carried a 4.5-kilogram (tenpound) bomb, and took six minutes to claw to 1,800 meters (6,000 feet) altitude. Four years later, the equivalent machine flew at twice the speed, rose four times as fast to twice the altitude, and carried a two hundred times greater bomb load. In 1914, the RFC received fifty new aircraft a month; in 1918, it was 2,700.17 The German giant bombers convinced the British to institute a system of homeland air defense (including a seaborne air element under Charles Samson)

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and to create a heavy bomber force of their own. In a moment of historic import, the RFC and RNAS were consolidated into a single independent air service, the Royal Air Force (RAF), to take effect on April 1. The significance of the date was not lost on wry aircrew who were throwing themselves with sacrificial intensity at Ludendorff’s troops. Air casualties were at a Bloody April level, but German units were reporting “losses through the action of enemy aviators have proven to be extraordinarily high,” and Ludendorff’s strained resources were redirected toward anti-aircraft measures.18 German air operations also felt the pressure of the escalating air war. Stefan Westmann (commissioned as a medical officer rather than, as he feared, an infantry officer) was assigned to the Richthofen Jagerschwader, where he witnessed tired, worn pilots, some barely trained, tremble in their cockpits before takeoff. Otto Lais was now a machine gun officer and pushing toward Doullens. He provided the infantryman’s view of this new air-land battle. Constantly we are attacked by low-flying airplanes. Flying at an elevation of 20 and 10 meters above the earth, they fire bursts from their doublebarreled machine-guns into the open shell holes and remnants of trenches. The gun crew is constantly getting smaller; one dies, another gets a shot in the belly and another takes three shots through the upper thigh from an aircraft strafing attack, and then bleeds to death in a minute.19

Lais’s gunners had little fear of infantry, but they feared tanks and despised aircraft. They had “a rage, a hate towards these pilots who have interfered in an infantryman’s battle,” and they had even beaten one downed crew into “formless lumps with shovels and spades.” Clim a x: Thur sday, A pr il 11 When Mars failed, Ludendorff moved the effort farther north, and his veterans—the Altenburger Regiment, 11 (Silesian) Division, and 17, 18, and 79 Reserve Divisions—punched a mile-wide hole in the British-Portuguese line. Field Marshal Haig sent out a message. “Many amongst us are now tired. To those I would say that victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest . . . There is no course open but to fight it out . . . with our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end.” Some considered it melodramatic. VAD Vera Brittain had lost a brother, a fiancé, and two close friends (one at Monchy-le-Preux), but she found Haig’s words “put courage into so many men and women whose need was far greater than my own.” It was not the bit about “backs to wall” that reverberated; it was the bit about sticking it the longest.20

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Mary Borden treated two British gunners. The big redhead had a simple leg wound, but his mate had an abdominal puncture. He asked about his chances, and Mary was honest. For a moment he stared into my eyes, then he turned his head away again, shutting me out. I was dismissed, he had nothing to say to me. I rose to my feet and looked from one to the other. But just as I was moving away, the dying one turned his head again and looked across at his pal. There was a dumb interchange of some sort between them, then the red giant spoke. “Stick it,” he said. That was all he said.21

That was still the message. Even as Haig’s signal circulated, Fortune was switching horses. The Engine Stills: Sunday, A pr il 21 Newly commissioned Leutnant Fritz Nagel’s beautiful new 88mm anti-aircraft guns were stuck. “Higher ups” had reassigned his towing vehicles to other priorities, and his immobilized men sat in awe of the British bounty in guns, supplies, and transport and fretted over aircraft they couldn’t hit and tanks that could outmaneuver them. A Scottish prisoner took stock of German columns of ramshackle wagons and rail-thin animals and concluded, “If their army was expecting success with yon conglomeration, they expected what was not for them.”22 Leutnant Rudolf Stark understood. He had ridden behind Vimy Ridge with the 2nd Royal Bavarian Uhlans in 1914 at the height of his army’s success, and now, in 1918, he was at three thousand meters altitude watching it stumble. Stark was a hunter pilot operating in the Arras gap, and even with a clapped-out 1917 vintage Pfaltz DIII biplane, he had managed to shoot down four aircraft in this target-rich environment. Today, his flight arced fifteen minutes south from Monchy to assist the Richthofen Jagerschwader in a furball with a pack of RAF Sopwith Camels. The German fliers respected the Camel—it was the Pup’s successor and more powerful and better armed—so Stark joined the multicolored Fokkers and Albatros in snapping off bursts at flitting green and brown Camels. Diving slashes replaced swirls and arcs: the sky was overpopulated, and half the effort was trying not to run into another machine. Stark glimpsed a red triplane heel off after a low-flying Camel. Uncharacteristically, it broke a Boelke rule and pursued over the front line. It seemed unaware that it was taking ground fire or that another Camel was racing after it. Stark saw the red bird turn, stagger, and flutter to the ground.

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The next day, he heard that Richthofen was dead, and “laughter dies away in the mess. The hammers are silent in the workshops, the engine that was just being given its trial stands still. A gloomy silence broods over all.” Stark knew that they had lost more than the Red Flier. “The great offensive had come to a standstill.”23 Sergeant Simpkin was with his DRs east of Doullens and drinking cider when they heard that someone had brought down “the crack flier of the German Army.” They might have seen the fight, but the cider, even with a thick scum at its bottom, tasted “like the finest dry champagne.”24 Albert Krentel’s prisoner camp was near enough to see the fight, but the prisoners had already been put on a train and sent to a ship to cross the submarinehaunted Channel. At Southampton, old soldiers put them on another train for a stereotypical prisoner of war camp 120 kilometers north of London with wire fences, block barracks, dining hall, and soccer pitch. Albert was destined to spend his time on labor projects, listening to the prison orchestra and learning to read English. Meals were balanced, if blandly English, and the only threat was influenza. The Dutch held Moyle Stick in quarantine. The 5’4” Stick, at under one hundred pounds, looked decidedly unhealthy. Once declared sound, he was allowed to travel to Copenhagen, Denmark, and then to Aberdeen, Scotland, where he arrived a year and six days after being captured. Others were returning. King George rehabilitated ex-Legionnaire Elkington by restoring him to his full British Army rank, and Doctor David Wheeler, now a First Lieutenant of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), took time to congratulate his old comrade and attend the baptism of Elkington’s son. A nother New A r m y: Satur day, July 6 The Canadians built a magnificent stadium near Tinques, a half an hour from Arras, to host a Dominion Day Olympiad attended by thirty thousand men and a worn-looking Prime Minister Robert Borden. The Corps heard that German aircraft had bombed the Canadian hospital at Doullens, but now the PM came with word of the torpedoing of the hospital ship Llandovery Castle. The Uboat had machine-gunned and swamped lifeboats, and more than two hundred medical personnel perished, including fourteen nurses. Corps Headquarters announced the next Canadian operation was to be codenamed “Llandovery Castle,” and a brigadier told his men this should be the last name heard by the Hun as the bayonet went home. A week later, the stadium hosted a Highland Games, and Canadians tossed the caber with men from 15 Scot, 51 Highland, and 52 Lowland Divisions. It

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ended with a massed performance by more than three hundred pipes and drums. A chaplain thought it like the “Spartans were playing again before their Thermopylae.”25 The Scots were members of another New Army. The British followed the French in reducing divisions to nine battalions and adding firepower. The division now fielded fifteen thousand men, of which eight thousand were infantry, seven hundred were engineers, and nine hundred were pioneers (infantryengineers), but with a machine-gun brigade of sixty-four Vickers, a mortar company for each infantry brigade, and a second Lewis gun for each platoon. The smaller divisions were more agile but filled with industrial-age conscripts in such poor condition that Parliament pronounced them a source of national weakness. Training and rations provided stature and weight, but Ludendorff’s offensive limited development of organizational culture. Sam Sutcliffe, now sharing a prisoner-of-war compound with late conscripts, felt no kinship with them as he had with his Pals units.26 The Canadian Corps was the exception. Sir Arthur Currie (he had been knighted in 1917) not only maintained the old four-battalion brigade but also bulked it with more men, guns, trucks, workshops, horses, and mules by breaking up Canadian divisions forming in Britain and by absorbing conscripts. A Canadian division marched with twenty-one thousand men, of which twelve thousand were infantrymen and three thousand were engineers. The Canadians had procured not only enough machine guns to maintain the same ratio of automatic weapons as the smaller British divisions but also enough to man two motorized machine gun battalions in armored cars. Flexibility at Corps level was enabled by having each division capable of fighting for a longer period.27 The Canadian division included a more fully staffed headquarters (with more typewriters), bigger artillery formations, more horses, more motor vehicles, and fewer but healthier conscripts being trickled in so subtly that commanders underestimated their impact on operations. Once the Olympiad disbursed, Currie busied his planners with a scheme to capture Orange Hill. It was a make-work task to polish the staff while the divisions reset. Part of the reset was appointing new commanders. Agar Adamson had thought himself twenty years too old for command in 1917 and after thirty months in the line, he acknowledged, “It could only be a short time before I cracked up.” When 7 Brigade commander Daddy Dyer pulled him out, it provoked a succession crisis that revealed much about the new Corps.28 The Regiment’s founder, Hamilton Gault, was recovered from his 1916 wounds and expected to return to command the unit he had formed, but Lipsett

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and Dyer were not sentimental. This was not 1915, or even 1917. Junior leaders were no longer the gallant amateurs of a war that had as much relevance to what was to come as Stonewall Jackson’s. Even Will Bird, arrived in 1917, was looked upon as a relic of another time. The generals and the men wanted leaders for the new fighting. Gault had not been around to learn it, and Adamson couldn’t do it anymore. The battalion wanted Charlie Stewart. Charles Stewart was an outsized, vibrant, Douglas Fairbanks personality that charmed, awed, and annoyed men in equal parts. Even if only half the stories about him were true, everyone want to believe them. He was a physical presence and excelled, apparently effortlessly, in every activity he took up— even incomprehensible cricket. Charlie came from a Nova Scotian family of audacious men and strong women—characters from a Ryder Haggard adventure. His brother had made a name for himself in the British army as warrior, gambler, and debtor, and Charlie’s stay in the Royal Military College had ended in expulsion for gambling. His Mounted Police service was likewise a balance of performance and fisticuffs. The South African War sated his appetite for adventure, but when it was done, so was he. Stories of him as a western gambler, railwayman, trapper, and even mercenary followed before he turned up to join the Patricias in 1914. Since then, Charlie had taken bridge and poker money from Cabinet ministers and survived wounds, burns, and diseases that would have finished lesser men. A fellow officer described him as having “the vitality and appearance of Hercules,” undermined “by fifty cigarettes a day and an output of a whiskey factory.” Yet despite a life lived in hyperbole, Stewart’s operational performance was undeniable. He had fought for thirty-six hours straight in the Fabek graben next to Norsworthy’s 42nd Battalion and had taken the Prussian surrender.29 The old school might question Charlie’s casual approach to discipline, paperwork, and decorum, and Adamson may think him “rather inclined to forget he is grown up,” but others saw something else. Men followed him.30 Charlie might be a bit of rake, and best hidden from visitors when exuberantly pissed, but he had become necessary. Gault was a good old hound, as at home in the house as in the field, but Stewart was a wolf. If he was dangerous around the house, so be it; the battalion was headed for the woods. Adamson (and Currie) grudgingly accepted Stewart. Don Gray wanted to come back as his second in command (2IC), but domestic stress had brittled his already suspect nerve, and two years on staff had left him obsessed with detail. Instead, the division chose the dependable “Red George” Cross McDonald, recovered from his terrible 1916 wounds. George had managed Batty Mac, and he could manage Stewart.

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PPCLI commanding officers. From left: Charles Stewart (1918), Agar Adamson (1916–18), and Alfred Pearson (private in 1915, acting commanding officer in 1918).

McDonald was missing a body part or two and had to learn to write with his left hand, but he was the last of the men of promise from 1914 (Percival Molson had been killed a year earlier), so it fell to him to explain to Gault that his time had passed. Modern warfare was no place for a prosthetic leg. Lipsett softened the blow by keeping Gault close to his Regiment as a reinforcement commander.31 Pinky Carvosso came back rebuilt in time for Passchendaele, was promoted only to be wounded again, and then returned to break an ankle on patrol. Indestructible Mel Tenbroeke never left. He had been the unit’s only company commander to walk out of Passchendaele, and the closest the enemy had come to stopping him was shooting him in the finger at the Fabek. It was still a little crooked. Ross Macpherson was back. He exacerbated his hernia at Passchendaele but resolved it with a time-consuming operation in London. He even met his brothers there to celebrate the commissioning of the youngest, Donald, into the artillery.

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Mac Mackay was back. He obtained a transfer from the pay services back to the infantry, and after a trip up to Tongue in Scotland to visit the family and hand out gifts of whiskey and chocolate, he said goodbye to crunching numbers and reported to the PPCLI depot.32 Cyril Biddulph was back. Lipsett sent the Dumbbells to London for a Royal Command concert tour, but Biddy was uncomfortable performing when the battalion was due for action, so with wife Cissie’s blessing, he departed the London theater for an operational one. The unit maintained its sheen with a few Originals: Lucky Buck Arbuckle, Fred Gillingham (now Acting RSM), George Fox, and Harry Miller, the drummer. They stood as examples for new men from Canada. Typical of the new draft of “late volunteers” was Private Duncan McLaren, the eldest of seven children of a widower. McLaren had been a reserved occupation farmer and so was unable to enlist until 1917, and by then, the war had claimed one brother and placed another as a driver in 8 Field Ambulance. Duncan arrived in theater with a draft of Americans still enlisting in the CEF even after the United States entered the war. Many were late volunteer Canadians who had been living in the United States and who decided to join the CEF rather than await the American draft, but future author and then-sergeant Raymond Chandler later said he enlisted because Canada offered better next-of-kin benefits.33 Ohioan John Lynch was now a signaler in the Patricias and keeping a chronicle under a nom de guerre, which he provided for everyone in his narrative. Swarthy Tenbroeke was given the name “Captain Black.”34 Stan Norsworthy left the 42nd after leading it through Vimy and Passchendaele. The Black Watch was a tight club, and Stan was not in line for permanent command, so Lipsett made use of his talents by making him Brigade Major and primary planner for the new commander of 8 Brigade. Doc Hale was back. Medical officers rarely stayed with a unit, but after a month with a field ambulance, he returned. Since then, he had left only to fix his dislocated knee. Despite receiving replacements from across Canada, the Black Watch retained its Montreal heart. Topp and Willcock were acting majors festooned with medals, and Jimmy Montgomerie, a private at the Fabek and a sergeant at Vimy, was now a lieutenant respected even by Will Bird. Jimmy was no longer just a famous halfback; he was a temporary gentleman. Dick Willets was now CO of The RCR. Like Stewart, he left the Royal Military College early, but in his case, it was to enlist as a private for the South African War. A man of few words to the point of curtness, Willets might not exude the panache of a Charlie Stewart, but he was ready to take the Shino boys into the woods.

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There were few Regulars left among the Royals. Most were civilians in 1917. American John Flanagan, for the time being, was acting platoon sergeant, and a significant number of his men were conscripts, but no one made an issue of it. Ivan Soule and Milton Gregg were now battle-hardened subalterns, and Bill Home was a veteran twenty-one-year-old captain. Pointy-nosed Gregg showed a gift for action equal to that of falcons like Stewart, and if he survived, he might even soar with eagles like Pearkes. Charlie Rutherford, a lance corporal at Vimy, was now an officer in 5 CMR alongside the noble Bill Atherton. The men respected Charlie and Bill. They had luck. As far as the men were concerned, the pair had been out here since the kaiser raped Belgium and had survived Mont Sorrel, the big hand-to-hand by Courcellette, where Atherton had demonstrated the efficacy of the newly issued helmets by surviving a shot to the head, and at Vimy, where he’d captured the flag. The flag earned him a rare flight to Paris to receive the thanks of Franco-Prussian War veterans for recovering their tricolor. Many of the lads were at Passchendaele nine months ago when a bleeding Major Pearkes, leaning on Sergeant Rutherford, held a wet hole in the earth called Vapour Farm. Pearkes got the Big Medal—the VC—and Charlie went for officer.35 Pearkes left the Mounted Rifles to command the 116th Battalion. The high battalion number was cause for humor. The boys called them the Umpty-Umps, as in “I’ll tell you for the umpty-umpth time that it just won’t wash with the Doc.” Getting Pearkes was a godsend. The unit’s first CO had been much respected but worn-out. When he was sent for a rest, he killed himself.36 While the Canadians sorted their command structure, German infantryman turned medical officer Stefan Westmann was on the verge of tears. He had been transferred to an infantry unit and had to watch his men looting a captured casualty clearing station. They were amusing themselves by blowing up surgical gloves and letting them fly about like children’s balloons. Westmann had not seen rubber gloves in two years and had never seen some of the other equipment. The men ate and drank abandoned treasures and laughed themselves insensible with the laughter of the drunken woodcutter who has looked down to see he had cut off his foot.37 M edics in the A dva nce: W ednesday, July 17 Clarke’s 19 Casualty Clearing Station had abandoned much of its kit in the great spring retreat, but it now had forty new lorries to enable it to move quickly, even with its new X-ray and laboratory facilities. It also had access to the new Canadian-inspired blood transfusion system.

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All ranks had to be prepared to move on a moment’s notice and had to carry helmet and respirator at all times. Gas was a special concern; it came in on casualties’ clothing. The staff was accustomed to chlorine and phosgene vapor watering eyes and inhibiting breathing, but the new German mustard left a residue that blistered skin and airways and could blind for hours, so staff meeting casualties looked like characters from an H. G. Wells novel in face-distorting masks and all-rubber outfits. Some doctors even took to wearing surgical masks for operations. Clarke knew battle was imminent. He had been ordered to truck out the influenza cases to make space and to prepare to receive a mobile surgical team of a surgeon, orderly, and nursing sister (specially selected for resiliency beyond that expected of a female). The team arrived with its own instruments and hoseoff rubber suits. There were more than six hundred American doctors gaining experience in the BEF’s extended medical system, but ex-Legionnaire David Wheeler was not one of them. His transfer to the AEF was a direct result of the Canadians sending him to a hospital in England instead of the front. Tur ning Point: Thur sday, July 18 Albrecht von Thaer was posted to OHL. On OHL’s arrival in its new location in southeastern Belgium, he had briefed Hindenburg and Ludendorff with his usual frankness. He told them they were disconnected from ground truth. They were unaware of the state of the troops, the weaknesses of their divisions, the army’s logistics, and of the spread of despondency. By communicating only with staff and not commanders, they were hearing only what they wanted to hear. Hindenburg explained patiently that Thaer was generalizing from narrow personal experience, and Ludendorff pronounced commanders needed to be tougher.38 Being tougher was difficult in an army of over- and underage, hungry, and lice-infested replacements that were a perfect agar for the Spanish flu. The flu’s second wave was proving more deadly than enemy artillery, and Hindenburg had to acknowledge his war-hardened veterans were “a fast-vanishing minority, and moreover, their influence did not always and everywhere prevail.”39 The battalions that attacked Monchy in 1914 had more than twenty qualified officers each, but now it was a fortunate one that could field more than seven, and these were quickly worn out. Exhaustion smothered creativity and suffocated dedication. Fewer and less-experienced line officers meant less visibility, and less visibility engendered a perception of unequal risk. Losses of officers and

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“old hares” encouraged rot in units already culled for storm units, and the spring advance showed the troops their enemy lacked for nothing. Ludendorff convinced Hindenburg to roll the dice once last time, and they sent their desperate legions back to the Marne, where the army had begun losing the war four years ago. This time, the French knew the German plan. Foch struck back on July 18 with twenty-two French divisions, including the old reliable Moroccan Division, ten American divisions, and those two engines of destruction, 51 Highland and 15 Scot Divisions. The redoubtable Otto Korfes, now CO of the Magdeburger 66 Regiment, was carried out on a stretcher, leaving what remained of his unit to be marched out under a leutnant. Among the Americans in the attack was David Wheeler, medical officer in the 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st US Division. Not far from where he had saved Elkington three years earlier, a large shell splinter found him, and in a denouement befitting the romance of the Légion Étrangère, he was evacuated to die in the arms of a nurse, his wife, Mabel.

fourteen

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WAR BECOME ETERNAL, AUGUST 21–25, 1918

Victory instead of defeat stared us in the face, but it wore so strange a look that it was scarcely less frightening. Wilfred Bion, Tank Corps

For Hindenburg, July 18 h a d been the turning point, but for Ludendorff, it was August 8 when an Australian, Canadian, British, and French force crushed a German army at Amiens on a Napoleonic scale. Battlefield victory was not to be, but outright defeat might be avoided. A sudden Armistice, pandemic, and abrupt peace rendered the final three months a psychic blur of “disconnected pictures with periods of complete blankness.” Even the British Official History confessed, “It has not been an easy task to ascertain what actually happened.”1 More than a million Americans poured into the theater (including Eric Fisher Wood, now Assistant Chief of Staff, 83 US Division), and operations moved beyond the old trenches, but daily loss rates matched those of the Somme and Passchendaele. The ecstasy experienced in liberating towns ravaged by retreating Germans was a lost story. Liberation was a theme for another war.2 The Cor ps Move: Tuesday, August 20 Four years earlier, Doullens streets had clattered with horses’ hooves of a hundred of brightly colored dragoons headed for the Artois. Now they crunched with the boots of ten thousand factory-brown men and two hundred creaking and growling, café-au-lait-colored trucks.

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Portion of Norsworthy’s March Table from 8 Brigade War Diary.

Ross MacPherson’s little brother, Donald, the newly commissioned gunner, had been hit at Amiens, and while doctors reconstructed Don’s face and legs, Ross’s unit was headed north in response to orders that had triggered well-oiled redeployment mechanisms. The first mechanism had been the Warning. It sent brigade majors to their maps with measuring strings, pencils, and typists. The 8 Brigade War Diary captured the activity that followed. Stan Norsworthy, Brigade Major of 8 Brigade, bent over his map and dictated the key points to his clerk that were to be captured in the brigade move order: 8 Brigade will embus night 20/21 for an area to be notified. 5 CMR and 8 TM (trench mortar) already on route to train station as advance units. Capt. X (to be designated once names become available) will be in charge of embussing, which must be completed by (calculated time inserted here). Lorries to be drawn up with head of column as at March Table attached. Troops organized in parties of 25. Units to avoid marching on main road and use dry weather track. Send a watch to HQ to be synchronized. Staff Captain Q will advise units directly which baggage lorries are available. Brigade HQ will close at 5 p.m. and report to head of convoy. Units will maintain 100 yards between companies and a hundred yards between units.

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His march table indicated where the unit move was to begin (the Start Point) and assigned each unit a time to cross it (time of departure), then once the time had been calculated for the passage of the column (the “time past a point,” the time for the next unit to start could be calculated). For example, 8 Field Ambulance made a column five hundred yards long, and Stan had to check tables to see how long it would take it to pass so he could calculate the start time for the next unit, Headquarters and the Machine Gun Company. On receipt of the warning to move, units returned excess stores and turned their lines over to incoming units. Formation commanders and unit COs departed to receive orders while 2ICs like George Cross McDonald organized departure points, assembly areas, march orders, and embusing points. Company commanders like Macpherson, Topp, and Atherton marched their companies, under platoon officers like Biddulph, Montgomerie, and Rutherford, into the domains of entraining officers, railway officers, billeting officers, and administrative officers; these officers fed them, sorted them, and put them onto trains, lorries, and buses. Once it was dark enough, men mounted vehicles (twenty-five to a bus, fifteen to a lorry) and joined columns of two hundred vehicles to slither along signposted roads, all under constant repair by pioneers, engineers, forestry troops, and Chinese laborers. Vehicles swayed and juddered through stops and starts, and heads bobbed and jerked with the pitch and yaw of the trip. Traffic jams were as inevitable as driver exhaustion, and there was but a single bridge between the Artois and Somme fronts. Six hundred buses had to thread their way across in concert with two thousand truckloads of artillery ammunition. The columns joined others delivered by train at Doullens, and everyone dismounted (“disembussed”) around ‘Agnes Doosins.’ By then, most recognized where they were headed: back to where they had learned, to where they had taken Vimy Ridge, and where last spring they had held the stormtroopers coming down the road past Monchy. They were headed for Arras. The CCSs at Agnes-les-Duisans heard 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions march, arms swinging in unison and hobnailed boots crunching on gravel. They heard the marching songs. “Has anyone seen the Colonel?” “The bells of hell go ting-a-ling for you but not for me,” and “Left . . . Left . . . Left . . . We are the tough guys . . . Left . . . Left . . . Left . . .” The Last K nights: W ednesday, August 21 Leutnant Rudolf Stark, now commander of 35 Royal Bavarian Jasta, patrolled over Monchy in a Fokker DVII biplane. Pilots on both sides considered this the

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best single-seat combat aircraft of the war. It was a sleek, maneuverable viper with a BMW engine that pulled it through the air at 190 kph (120 mph). Pilots said it was able to fly straight up while firing its twin Spandau 7.92mm machine guns. It arrived in time to keep the air war as lethal as ever, but too late and in too few numbers to affect the outcome. At least Stark’s pilots, his most valuable commodity, had parachutes so they might fly again if shot down. Stark’s hunting ground had changed since he had galloped over it in 1914. Trees and buildings were few, and the ground resembled a volcanic field, but there were few blossoms of smoke below and no shadows of aircraft flitting among the silvery British balloons. Lack of activity was good. The 35th Bavarian needed time to pack up. It was retreating. Stark climbed to five thousand meters, where the air was thin and cold and from where he might see the sea in the distance. His army was not to get there, but the war would go on. His Jasta would “go on fighting, because we know of nothing else and can do nothing else. War has become eternal in us.” With luck, he would never have another day as bad as the one when he had strafed a British horse-drawn battery. The former cavalryman had cried when shooting the horses.3 His moment was interrupted by a lone British aircraft climbing to meet him. It was a single-seater flying the red streamers of a senior flight commander—a wimpelmann. He watched for a moment. His pulse accelerated, his breathing deepened, his vision became more acute, and blood pumped into his arms and legs. He winged over to engage. Leaving never occurred to him. He was a hunter pilot. The two closed at a combined speed of over 500 kph (300 mph to his opponent). They turned slightly on approach, each looking for the angle. Stark, having the height advantage, moved first, but the Briton, not unexpectedly, turned into him. They circled, swept, zoomed, and sought each other’s tails. At one stage, they flew close enough for Stark to see the other’s hands on his stick and hear the hum of the Briton’s bracing wires (the advanced Fokker had no such wires). Neither gained advantage, and remarkably they ended up flying side by side. In a gesture from a far-gone age, they waved and then slipped apart, the Briton to prepare his squadron for the coming offensive and the German to pack up his aerodrome. No record indicates the identity of Stark’s dance partner, but the clues are tantalizing. He captured the moment with a painting, An Evening Encounter Over Arras, in his memoirs and it depicts his DVII and a Sopwith Camel. The nearest Camel squadrons included the former Naval 3, now renamed 203 Squadron of the new RAF. It was returning to the Arras sector under command of Major Raymond Collishaw, one of the old boys from Red Mulock’s

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time. Flying alone and rendering a salute was his style. He had done it before, but Collishaw never mentioned an encounter over Monchy. Don Maclaren of 46 Squadron was another Canadian pilot flying a Camel with streamers that day, and he did describe a remarkably similar incident of waltzing with a lone DVII, but his memory placed it almost a month earlier. He also described the aircraft as black, but Stark’s was mottled green with lilac highlights. Stark was to end his career with eleven victories, but if he had danced a pas de deux with either Collishaw or Maclaren, then he was both a fine pilot and lucky man. Collishaw was the third highest scoring ace in the British Empire, and Maclaren was the war’s leading Sopwith Camel ace. Between them, they shot down more than a hundred aircraft.4 A ir Battle: Mor ning, Thur sday, August 22 Ernie Morrow came to 62 Squadron from Waubashene accounting only after completing the new training system of sequential schools: Officer Cadet Wing, School of Military Aeronautics, flight training depot, and specialist schooling in aerial fighting, navigation, and bombing. Like other novices, Ernie heard that the training system killed more men than enemy aces, but this was another Great War legend. Losses to all other causes—accident, training, and disease—were only slightly higher than combat losses. Training in 1916 produced one fatality for every 790 flight-hours, but the new Gosport system (named for its aerodrome of origin) was producing one fatality in 1,340 flight-hours.5 Ewart Garland returned to flying as an instructor in this system, and even he learned new aerobatics. His trainees included a disproportionate number of Canadians, whom Garland acknowledged as “good, keen pilots” but “anything but good officers.”6 The RAF was improving more than training; it was evolving a comprehensive war machine. Forward air bases were now connecting by radio so they could orchestrate tactical ground attacks, and bombing missions were packaged with close-support fighters and high-level scout-interceptors. Ancient warriors believed that the Fates decided their destinies by braiding threads of desire with cynical twists. Garland sought a return to operations and was sent as a flight commander to 104 Squadron of the new heavy bomber force. It was bombing Germany and had suffered 250 percent casualties in three months. Garland’s hope, as an old man of twenty-one, was that he could get through one more tour without cracking. Ernie Morrow was the same age as Garland but newer to the War. He was in 62 Squadron and piloting a two-seater Bristol Fighter F2b, which the crews

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called the Biff (rejecting the ugly press name Brisfit). He had five victories to his credit, and his observer, Lieutenant Louis Thompson of Saskatchewan, had seven.7 On this Thursday, Morrow flew point for fifteen Biffs escorting eleven bombers led by fellow Canadian Francis Crummy. They followed the road past Monchy on their way to the Cambrai railyards expecting a fight. They got one at 7:45 a.m., when a score of new Fokker DVIIs and similar Pfaltz DXII fighters came takka-takka-takking out of the sun.8 The HA outnumbered them, but the Biffs flew with advantage. Morrow’s crews were more experienced, their fuel more reliable, and their aircraft less likely to burst into flame. Moreover, the F2b was “a flying tiger” with both speed and teeth.9 The Biff was a big machine for a dogfighter. It had a twelve-meter (forty-feet) wingspan and weighed in at almost twice the Fokker. Its Rolls Royce engine produced more than over 190 kph (120 mph) of combat speed and enabled it to zoom to three thousand meters (ten thousand feet) in under twelve minutes. The F2-B’s teeth included a forward-firing, supercharged Vickers .303 caliber, belt-fed, machine gun synchronized to fire through the airscrew. RNAS technicians—and it always seemed to be the RNAS with the ideas—improved the firing lock and gas regulator to almost double its rate of fire. In the second that a pilot had his adversary in his Aldis, he could pump almost twice as many bullets through his target as Joe Fall had done in 1917.10 The Biff’s other teeth were with the observer, sitting back-to-back with the pilot. He operated paired Lewis guns on a rotating Scarff Ring (another RNAS adaptation) that allowed him to cover almost any quadrant. Technicians made these deadlier by adding a wind vane–like “floating” foresight that allowed the gunner to aim as if he was stationary.11 The attack was a 1918 slashing fight. The HAs came on, guns blazing, slicing through the Biffs and headed for the fatter bombers. F2B pilots threw their machines into quick, diving turns and went after them. Morrow followed a Fokker and put out a stream of lead, anticipating which way it would turn. The HA flew into about forty rounds that puckered its airframe and flipped it onto its back. It dropped toward the ground, emitting too much smoke to be playing the wounded bird. As Morrow cranked the nose of his machine around to bear on a second HA, he felt the stunning smack of a bullet hitting his right arm—his driving arm. Thompson’s twin guns shredded their attacker, which collapsed like a tent with a broken pole, but Morrow was hit again. He later claimed not to have felt the pain of the bullet shattering his knee because he was too busy trying to fly the heavy bus, but Thompson remembered it differently: he saw Morrow lose consciousness.

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The fight, like most slash-and-run furballs, broke up quickly, and the sky emptied. Morrow recovered from the initial shock but barely registered his wingman hovering nearby; he was preoccupied by flames flickering across the top of his cockpit. His fuel tank was burning, which was the ultimate dread of aircrew—trapeze artists without nets. The RAF crews flew without parachutes because cockpits were too tight and because the RAF thought they should not be encouraged to abandon their aircraft. Thompson attacked the flames with a Pyrene extinguisher, but it was a losing battle in the slipstream. Morrow’s vision tunneled, and his body fought blood loss and shock as gravitational force pushed him toward biological shutdown. Only the fire licking at his face kept him focused. He pointed the heavy nose of the machine toward the ground and pushed to full power. The aircraft screamed, but flames still arced back over, around, and into the cockpit. The ground expanded rapidly, filling Morrow’s field of vision. He hauled back on the stick with one good and one failing arm until the nose of the aircraft rose reluctantly and unsteadily above the horizon. The aircraft shuddered but held together, and the engine, starved of fuel, sputtered and coughed. With its nose up in a tail-stall, the crate slid backward, forcing the flames away from the cockpit. It was a stunt from flight training.12 It lasted too brief a moment. The heavy nose dropped, and the flames came back. Morrow, his skin singing with pain, let it fall and gather speed. This time when he pulled up, he did not quite make the climb, and the Biff made a very hard landing. Thompson, remarkably still uninjured and desperately mobile, dragged Morrow out of the burning machine as the ammunition cooked off. They were only a few feet away when the aircraft flared like a Roman candle. Exhilarated and alive, they lay back and watched flames eat their ride home. A surgeon was unable to save Ernie Morrow’s lower leg but did save his arm and prevented his burns from becoming disfiguring. He was out of the fight, but he and Thompson recorded another pair of victories. The aircraft, F2b number C895, crashed within ten kilometers (six miles) from Monchy-le-Preux—not far from where Pretyman had landed in 1914. The ambulance that picked up Morrow and Thompson rocketed down a road busy with troops—the first of the forty thousand men General De Lisle had predicted necessary for the recapture of Monchy. Com m a nd a nd Control, Cur r ie: Thur sday, August 22 Haig came to Arthur Currie’s headquarters at the motte of Noyelle-Vion west of Arras. They had met here during the 1917 battle when the forty-two-year-old Currie was presented as Byng’s Chosen One and inheritor of his Stonewall

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Jackson quotes. The profane Canadian peppered these with blasphemies that would have made the pious old Confederate blush. But for Byng, Currie would not have commanded the Corps. A British commander once suggested sacking him, but Byng saw aptitude, and even Haig came to respect his only general without facial hair. Currie was one of the chosen sent to learn from the French, and Haig often by-passed Army Commanders to come down and talk to his big Canadian. Some thought the attention gave Currie a big head.13 Haig retained faith in Currie even after Lloyd George launched a rumor campaign about replacing him with the Australian commander Monash, or with Currie. Haig understood this as a manifestation of Lloyd George’s naturally manipulative constitution and thorough lack of understanding of military affairs and military men.14 Philip Gibbs boasted that he had been the first to pick Currie as the man to watch in 1915, and in 1918, he saw him at the height of his powers. He cut clean to the heart of things, ruthlessly, like a surgeon, and I watched that man, immense in bulk, with a heavy thoughtful face and stern eyes that softened a little when he smiled. I thought of him as Oliver Cromwell. He was severe as a disciplinarian, and not beloved by many men. But his staff officers, who stood in awe of him, knew that he demanded truth and honesty, and that his brain moved quickly to sure decisions and saw big problems broadly and with understanding. He had good men with him.15

The men could not love Currie the way they loved Byng or Lipsett, or for that matter Haig. The war became busier on “Old Guts ’n Garters’s” watch, and he was pear-shaped, pompous, and (except for his profanity) bland. They suspected he took on every tough job offered and then asked for more, but they depended on him. Currie’s head was big enough to appreciate, better than most, what was to come. Vimy took months of preparation, Passchendaele took weeks, and Amiens fought against a tired, extended enemy. The next one, though, was going against Fritz’s “old system, that which he has never had anything stronger anywhere,” and the Corps had forty-eight hours to prepare.16 Currie’s earlier planning exercise for Orange Hill proved serendipitous. His corps was going to do that and more. It was going to accomplish what Third Army tried to do in 1917: push through Monchy to the DQ Line, then break the DQ Line and head for Cambrai. Currie had the men, the guns, and the support, but to maintain the tempo, he had to fight with only two divisions, which had to “carry on the battle for three successive days,” to preserve the rest for breaking the DQ Line.17

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Intelligence assessed the enemy as understrength, but little was known about who or what was behind the immediate front. The German order of battle had become too scrambled for a good read, but it had to be assumed that Fritz was still a counterpuncher. The ground was worse than 1917. It was honeycombed with years of trenches, ditches, shell holes, sunken lanes, and ruins. Only the excellent fields of fire had not changed. Caesar’s Road past Monchy was still the center line of the battlefield. The Cojeul River and Hindenburg fortifications still restricted movement to the right, and the River Scarpe restricted movement to the left. Byng’s Third Army was to deal with the Cojeul, and First Army was placing that old comrade, 51 Highland Division, under Currie to secure the Scarpe flank. Monchy’s dominance made surprise near impossible, and as experience had shown, merely capturing the hamlet did not unhinge the defense. They had to get the whole spur: Monchy, Infantry Hill, Bois du Vert, Bois du Sart, and the east end of the spur above Boiry-Notre-Dame, now named Artillery Hill. This meant piercing the Fresnes-Rouvroy Line—Lossberg’s Boiry riegel. Currie tasked Lipsett’s 3 Canadian Division and Henry Burstall’s 2 Canadian Division with the break-in. They were to fight, one each side of the road, until they broke the Fresnes-Rouvroy Line, and then they were to lean on the DQ Line. They were to have the support of seventeen brigades of field artillery and nine of heavies, and if they fought their brigades in sequence, no one should have to fight nonstop. The Start Line was closer to Monchy this time—no Railway Triangle or Observation Ridge to overcome first—but it was still important not to stall on the plateau. Commanders had to keep on without waiting for orders and without long pauses to reorganize. Fritz could not to be allowed to reset. The Corps had, in the jargon of another time, internalized its patterns of operations, so this one was down to drills, muscle memory, and intuition. There was no sheet music and no rehearsal; this was to be an improvised jam session by experienced musicians. Will Bird later admitted he was “unable to fathom how we ever captured the hill.”18 Pr epa r ing the Troops: Fr iday, August 23, to Satur day, August 24 Churchill, now minister of munitions, told Haig that the maximum output for munitions, aircraft, and tanks was to peak in July 1919, which the War Office had calculated to be the decisive period of the war. Haig surprised, perhaps shocked,

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the minister by telling him that was too late. “If we have a period of quiet, he will recover, and the ‘wearing out’ process must be recommenced.” The time for maximum effort was now.19 Churchill, like all politicians now abed in London, remembered the promises of 1916 and 1917. Another Somme, Arras, or Passchendaele could cripple the war effort, but Haig’s superior, Foch, was for attacking. Without pause. Foch’s Chief of Staff was to write, “He is not searching for the breakthrough, but for the general battle. It is applying the principles that he has not ceased to advocate since 9 May 1915, but which hitherto had not been possible because he lacked the means to do so.”20 The hinge that had defied Allenby in 1917 was again the critical point. Ludendorff’s army was fighting its way slowly back through the Siegfriedstellung on the assumption it could use winter to rebuild. If the Canadians could get beyond Monchy, there could be no winter line.21 Currie always asked for more time. He wanted twenty-four hours. His facetious excuse that the men did not want to attack on a Sunday did not satisfy the devout field marshal, but he allowed it so long as Currie could still attack in concert with Byng’s Third Army. Byng already had two divisions pushing along the Cojeul: 56 London back on its 1917 axis, and 52 Lowland arrived from the Middle East. The Chief was also concerned by Currie advancing Zero Hour to 3:00 a.m. A night attack deprived German guns of targets, but operations in the dark came quickly unstuck. Currie was relying on his veterans, but his maneuver units were absorbing ten thousand replacements, and no one was quite sure what effect this could have. Haig heard Currie and then looked into the eyes of the troops. He left satisfied but called each day to check on progress. His staff, less reassured, asked if the Corps had need of anything. Currie’s Brigadier General General Staff (BGGS—akin to a chief of staff) “Ox” Webber, stated, “All we want from General Headquarters is a headline in the Daily Mail reading ‘Canadians in Monchy before Breakfast.’”22 Word went out: FMSO, less packs, and greatcoats, but with haversacks and rubber groundsheets. Pick up crates of the improved Mills grenades, extra water bottles, cotton bandoliers with a hundred rounds per man, and the new rifle grenade adaptors that operated from cups attached to the rifle muzzle. Specialized rifle grenade sections had gone the way of the lollipop sticks; now the platoon operated with rifle and Lewis gun sections. Private Lynch noted, “It did not require a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that we were going over the top and that very soon.”23

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To the south, Byng’s Third Army was moving. Albert Simpkin recorded that 37 Division had spent weeks “rusticating in a perfect Arcadia, watching the corn grow and ripen, wakened in the morning by the cooing of wood pigeons, and lulled to sleep by the wind in the trees. Tomorrow all this comes to an end, the division is attacking at daylight.”24 The 8th Canadian Field Ambulance moved with the easy familiarity of a unit that had done this so many times that little had to be said. The medical system was so slick, troops insisted that it was under contract to return them to the line as quickly as possible. The paradox of repairing men to send them back to the “Great Sausage Machine” used to concern doctors, but now they were too pressed to wrestle with the cognitive dissonance. They fixed everyone they could fix and returned 90 percent of wounded and 95 percent of the sick to operations. (The gas gangrene mortality rate was as low as that of wars after antibiotics were available.25) The 90 percent survival rate was at the CCS, so the trick was still getting there. The evacuation system was reducing guesswork to standing operating procedures in which dressing stations and CCSs leapfrogged, combined, or colocated as ambulance convoys kept the chain-of-life functioning regardless of weather or operational tempo. The 3rd Canadian Division’s field ambulance units organized troops to tasks. Headquarters and transport positioned themselves in Agnez-lès-Duisans, 9 and 10 Field Ambulances set up dressing stations for stretcher cases in Arras, 8 Field Ambulance set up an ADS for walking wounded in a former girls’ school just off the road to Monchy, and Guppy’s 8 Scottish Motor Ambulance arrived to connect them to Clarke’s 19 CCS and four others. The 42nd’s Doc Hale had already tested the system. He had been shot through the arm and made it to 19 CCS to be patched up and returned. Selby was now CO of 8 Canadian Field Ambulance, and after Vimy, Passchendaele, and Amiens, he knew what to do and how to do it. The girls’ school had once been a medical station, so adapting it was a quick improvisation. A waiting room was connected to the outside world by a series of ropes casualties could follow in the dark or if gas-blinded. Neutralizing soda baths were readied, decontamination clothing stacked, and wards laid out. The ground was not ideal. It never was. The unit could operate motor ambulances along the Arras–Cambrai Road, but only horse ambulances, rickshawlike wheeled stretchers, and stretcher-bearers could service the sunken country lanes, the cross-country tracks, and four years’ worth of shell holes, so NCOs prepared a plan for leapfrogging collection points along the road, on the Pelves track, and in Battery Valley to stay with the advance. They relied on Quartermaster Sergeant Warren’s magic to keep them supplied.

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The Defender s: Fr iday, August 23 It had been a long a war for 214 Division. It was composed of a Rhenish Regiment, Regiment 363, and two Silesian regiments, the 50th and 358th Infantry Regiments. The last two had once been regiments of Brandenburg and Silesian Germans but now were largely of Poles. Polish soldiers being lured by both sides with promises of an independent Poland made morale delicate, but that was not a concern for 214 Division’s commander.26 Generalmajor Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker was a professional. The French had killed his father in the 1871 war, and he had grown into a small-framed, fierce Prussian nationalist with medals and wounds from the African Herero Wars, the Chinese Boxer Rebellion, Arras, Passchendaele, and the Somme. The fiftytwo-year-old had been one of the thrusters promoted to replace Wundt’s generation, and his division was bound to him and his ecumenical belief in spiritual and physical training. His men knew their elfin general always prepared and always looked after them.27 When word came that Canadian patrols were probing his lines, Maercker knew a major assault was imminent, and its main effort was to be in his sector. The small-framed general knew his soldiers had a respect for the Canadian Corps bordering on awe. They saw the colonials as big, wild types who were casual about taking prisoners. Even Corps intelligence could not hide a reverence for Canadian strength and firepower. Like all German (and many Dominion) officers, Maercker suspected that British generals threw their colonials (and Scots and Irish) at key objectives the way the French used the Moroccan Division. The Englanders used tanks all the time now, and tanks gave the troops a reason to fall back. Headquarters issued instructions for tank traps (too difficult to maintain close to the front), hand grenade bundles (not effective against the new tanks), and armor-piercing bullets (ditto). The division had two Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 rifles per regiment. The T-Gewehr was an elephant gun that fired a 13.2mm armor-piercing round, but the troops had little faith in it. It cracked collarbones.28 The only real anti-tank defense was the 77mm field guns positioned on the forward slopes, and these were called “suicide guns” for a reason: Canadian artillery and machine guns would be on them as soon as they fired. Almost three years together had bound Maercker to his Poles and Brandenburgers, and their mood might be as poor as their rations, but their spirit, their kameradschaf, was still strong. Given solid strongpoints and enough crewserved weapons and old hares, they would stand. They were fighting now to keep the War from the homeland.29

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Maercker resented Corps procedures that stove-piped artillery communications through his headquarters, but as long as the flanking trench divisions at Roeux and Neuville held firm, the countermove divisions behind him, 35 and 26 Reserve Divisions, could still deliver the sort of smack the Canadians would feel in Winnipeg, or wherever they were from. Pr epa r ing the Ground: Satur day, August 24 The Scots passed on their maps, marked with phone junctions left behind in March, and these were key to battlefield communication. Adoption of wireless and the new secure-transmission Fullerphone made communications more reliable, but existing dug-in telephone wires already in the enemy line promised sound communication as far as Monchy. Beyond that, units were to rely on signaling lamps and semaphore flags. Tails were up after the Amiens success, but old hands harbored no illusions. That had been against an extended and tired enemy, but Monchy was buttoned up with trenches, pillboxes, and wire. At Amiens, they had had hundreds of tanks; this time they were to get nine. They still had the Guns and the RAF, but this felt like a rifle, Lewis gun, and grenade fight. And bayonet. Lipsett walked commanders and their brigade majors through his plan. He explained where he expected to fight and how he intended to move the war up the road past Monchy. Once the boys went “over the bags,” the fight was going to be beyond headquarters control, so captains, lieutenants, and sergeants had to understand what they had to do and have the tools to do it. Burstall’s 2 Canadian Division was to take Chapel Hill on the right, and 51 Highland would take Roeux on the left while Lipsett’s 3rd Division went up the center and through Monchy. Lipsett’s Division was to attack one brigade at a time, with each brigade passing through the others like an extending telescope. Lipsett explained they were not going over Orange Hill, as 37 Division had done in 1917 or the Altenburgers had done in 1914. Instead, the Mounted Rifles of 8 Brigade were to use darkness and terrain folds to maneuver through the forward German positions and, if possible, grab Monchy. Stan Norsworthy was given updated maps and air photos to decide their best course. The 7th Brigade was to stay tight behind and prepared to telescope through and grab the rest of the plateau, and 9 Brigade in reserve had to be ready to extend the push. By now, the leather-skinned Myrmidons of 9 Canadian Field Artillery Brigade were experts in the issuing of iron rations in a delivery system that never

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rested. While the battalions were playing sports with the Scots, the guns stayed in the line shooting for other formations. Dan MacKinnon, the pride of Prince Edward Island, still commanded the howitzer battery and, on occasion, the brigade. After three years, Dan was aware of his slight memory lapses and “exaggerated reflexes,” and he knew the next bit was not going to be delivering by-the-numbers drumfire. It was going to be crushing wire, smashing trenches, collapsing strongpoints while on the move, and playing quick-draw with unsuppressed enemy guns. With the war become mobile, counterbattery fire was educated guesswork. Hemming’s flash-andbuzzers had given way to analysis of up-to-the-minute air photos.30 Ralph Adams was still around, as was his eczema. He was again going forward as a FOO, and joining him was the now commissioned Alf Mason. Herb Bessent was troubled less by headaches from his Vimy concussion and had been promoted to 45 Battery Sergeant Major (BSM). He had been twice decorated, once for Vimy and again for his work as BSM in keeping the ammunition flowing and animals safe. He had thrown capes over the mules and horses and led them out of an intense mustard strafe that had put him in hospital for three weeks. Gunners remembered that interactions with the BSM concerned “the polish on our buttons or shoes, or the most effective way of grooming a moke [mule], but Bert did all the talking, which made the conversation a little one-sided.”31 The batteries waited in the three feet of rubble that covered the cobblestones of Tilloy. There, where Christian Mallet had once slumped next to his cavalry mount, they prepared to head back into the heart of Vulcan’s forge. This time, they had no need to range. Each gun or howitzer sat in sight of a precisely sited survey pole, the bearing piquet, which was the aiming point for gunsights. The piquet was marked on map boards with a pin with a string attached, and once the gun was oriented, gun position officers extended the string along the carefully surveyed map to the target to obtain the angle, or bearing, from the piquet to the actual target. This enabled the guns to “aim off” so the barrels pointed at the distant target. The updated gridded maps allowed calculation of range and barrel elevation so batteries were ready to deliver rounds onto the target with a better than 90 percent probability of landing within its danger zone (a better than even chance of inflicting casualties) and a 50 percent probability of landing within its destructive zone (self-explanatory). Artillery timings were defined by what time projectiles arrived on the target, not what time they left the gun, and because batteries had different ranges and used different weapons, the rounds had different flight times to the target. The process could be expanded to a full brigade, division, or corps shoot,

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and calculations determined, to the second, when each battery fired so that all projectiles, regardless of distance travelled, arrived at the same time without warning. A brigade could saturate a target with ten thousand shrapnel balls and 115 kilograms (250 pounds) of high explosive on a fifty-to-one-hundred-meter square within two seconds, and a divisional shoot doubled the density. The only warning of the storm of steel was the bowel-clenching shriek. Ammunition was a challenge. Heavy guns had motor transport for ammunition, but field batteries relied on horses, many of which were not yet collarhardened for the haul or conditioned to air attack and artillery fire, but horses had to be close to the guns. After almost three years of firing from prepared, often comfortable, gun positions, gunners now lived on fifteen minutes’ notice to move. Anything that could not be loaded in that time was left behind. Only immediate-use ammunition was on the ground, personal kit was packed, and wagons were full. Maintaining tempo meant staying close enough to the infantry and tanks to provide direct fire at targets if required, like Stonewall Jackson’s guns had done. Fla nks: Satur day, August 24 As 2nd Canadian Division patrols probed the rubble of Neuville-Vitasse, long lines of 52 (Lowland) Division Scots wound their way toward positions once held by Wundt’s 18 Reserve. They were entering their first western front offensive but under commanders familiar with the area. The 155th Brigade was under Brigadier-General John Forbes-Robertson. Forbes-Robertson had been there when Ludendorff’s offensive had broken the Portuguese-British line in April, and he had arrived at the front on a black charger. On the anniversary of his Monchy feat, he again formed a harbor boom of survivors that held German waves. This time, it earned him a VC. An officer with a Shakespearean bent described him in action: “There are some men who in rest are gentle and retiring to the point of timidity, but who, during the heat of battle, become transfigured . . . The crash of the conflict, that numbs other and brave souls into palsy, seems only as music to them, piping them onward with head erect and eyes aflame with keen joy through danger and death itself . . . The sight does you good and you carry on anew when hope seemed very nearly dead.”32 Now, Forbes-Robertson’s brigade was joining Hugh Bell’s tanks below Mercatel, where Hugh’s section had destroyed the Neuville blockhouse in 1917. In the pitch-black of 2:00 a.m., shells landed with soft plops. Men felt mists forming and slipped respirators over faces. They clapped hands over the intake

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and sucked to ensure a snug fit. Gloves on, helmet on, gas cape on, check your mate, keep moving. The Scots, like the Alpins of 1914, swung into action off the line of march, and by 4:55 a.m., 52nd Division was into the next Battle of Arras. As half-light cracked across the upper slope, one gun or howitzer for every ten meters of frontage tilled the earth ahead of the Scots. By 6:45 a.m., the infantry was secure in the forward line with more prisoners than casualties. They simply had to keep grinding along the Cojeul until they were even with the Canadian jump-off point. Bell’s tanks growled ahead, chewing up soft earth and pushing up the deceitful little valley. Eight kilometers away, Haig stopped at 37 Division and chatted with Albert Simkins’s dispatch riders. Simpkins thought the least they could have done was to stop the procession long enough to posh up a bit for the Commander in Chief. On the other side of the Canadians. The 51st Highland Division deployed north of the Scarpe. Reorganization and battle had reduced it to a leaner and more fragile organization under new management (Harper had been given a corps) and restocked with increasingly wee lads. Roeux and Greenland Hill were again in German hands, and the historian of the Seaforth Highlanders wrote that the 51st, annoyed that its 1917 sacrifices had been in vain, volunteered for the difficult task of recapturing this area. This was his view. Few 1917 veterans looked forward to another trip to the Comical Works. Veterans and new lads rehearsed opening moves on a full-scale model of their objective while the artillery opened five gaps in the wire. Then, they swept onto the high ground north of Roeux and grappled for a wicked triangular complex of dugouts called Pippin Trench. By 11:00 a.m., the 51st held the contour that had delivered debilitating fire into the flank of 15 Scot and 37 Divisions in April 1917. This time, the Germans would not see what was coming. Ta nks: Sunday, August 25 Acting Major Hugh Bell’s tanks left the Lowland Division to trundle back past poor, blackened Achicourt on their way to the Canadian sector. Tank unit casualties had reached 40 percent, so Bell’s company was now a composite of 9th and 11th Battalions, but they were equipped with the newest machines, the Mark V and Mark V* (star), what expert Hotblack pronounced as the first “war-worthy” tanks. The Mark V looked like its rhomboid predecessors but had better armor, a more reliable engine, better vision slits, and external semaphore masts for signaling. The Mark V* was a stretched version designed to cross widened trenches

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and even carry an internal (if violently motion-sick) infantry section. The Mark V was still an overheated, noxious can but could hit an impressive 8 kph (5 mph) on the flat, and most important, its four-speed epicyclical gearboxes needed no gearsmen to maneuver.33 The 9 Battalion contingent was commanded by Acting Captain Harry Shackleton MM, from Halifax (Yorkshire, not Nova Scotia), a twenty-one-year-old former clerk who had been in France since 1915 working his way through three stripes to a commission. His tanks sported the motto of the French division they had worked with: “Qui s’y frotte, s’y brule” (Touch me, and you burn)—appropriate for working next to that damnably hot engine. Shackleton’s section of four was assigned to 2 Canadian Division to push along the south side of the Arras–Cambrai Road while the 11 Battalion contingent to 3 Canadian Division was to operate north of the road. Sergeant Percy Hatton was with the 11 Battalion tanks, and perhaps as the old King Edward’s horseman saw the PPCLI, he reflected on a long-ago age when the war had been fought by imperial condottiere. At almost fifty, Percy was one of the oldest combatants at the sharp end. The tank was a bold instrument, but with age came caution.34 Sta rt Line: Night, Sunday–Monday, August 25–26 Sunday was warm, with air so heavy that it took effort to walk through it, but at the going down of the sun, the heavens opened and the rain came. The 3rd Canadian Division marched through derelict Arras. Above rainslicked gas-capes, ten thousand helmets sparkled with tiny explosions of rain as columns tramped by the Grand Place with its rows of silent, glistening cars and motorbikes. Behind them, horses and mokes with bowed heads and saturated manes pulled creaking wagons over cobbled streets. Rain streamed over withers and croups, along belly bands, down legs and hoofs, and into broken gutters. Brakes creaked. Columns bunched up and eased apart as drivers tried to stay close to the wagon ahead. No one wanted to shuffle into the wrong line. No one wanted to be in traffic when the mustard plopped into the narrow streets. The columns snaked east toward a darkening horizon, and as they reached the old 1915 line, military police forced intervals between battalions and waved wagons toward “hides.” There was yet little artillery play, so as troops funneled through ancient trenches, they could hear the skittering of dispossessed wildlife. Rats. It was already the new day by the time lead elements reached the 1917 line. Encumbered men rustled along paths made by others before them: Frenchmen, Scots, Englishmen, Newfoundlanders, Wurttembergers, Thuringians, Silesians, and an Australian and American or two.

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Yesterday, the ground had been dusty and tan. But this was Arras, and the inevitable rain turned it into familiar shit-brown Artois muck. The moon hid in cloud, leaving little light for the darker-than-night lines of soldiers weaving around glistening, liquid-filled shell-holes. Ahead, the horizon sparkled with occasional golden flares and brief flashes of man-made lightning that provided just enough light to make the winding columns look like long, slithering, cables of a terrible machine. The Guns were speaking more loudly now, but not yet so loudly that the men couldn’t hear the clink of equipment, the stumbling cuss, and the sergeant telling them to shut the fuck up. As they crossed the old battleground to find their laying-up positions, big projectiles began banging onto something not so far off. The four battalions of 7 Brigade settled into trenches fronting the rubble of the village once called Tilloy. Cigarettes glowed against cupped palms, giving Charlie Stewart a line to follow to his company commanders. Stewart was at about eighty smokes a day himself. He found his lead company commanders, Melville Tenbroeke and Ross Macpherson, and after a quick confirmation they were in the right place, he sent them splashing away to platoons gathered about subalterns like Cyril Biddulph and Mac Mackay. Farther along, Dick Willets checked on his Royals. The word to advance Zero Hour by two hours had condensed battle procedure, so the Shino Boys’ officers had no time to change out of tailored uniforms. Glistening rank insignia and polished Sam Browne belts peeking above raincoat necks made Bill Home, Ivan Soule, and Milton Gregg easier to find. Behind Stewart and Willets, Charlie Topp and Jimmy Montgomerie shook out the 42nd Battalion and posted guides for the 49th Edmontons coming up behind them. To their right, 8 Brigade slid by, heading deeper into the dark to form the lead wave. As 8 Brigade’s four battalions of Canadian Mounted Rifles climbed toward their Start Line, Brigade Major Stan Norsworthy discovered two companies missing. He sent out runners to find them, but they squelched out of the dark at 2:55 a.m., five minutes before Zero Hour. By then, two thousand Mounted Rifles formed a rough line of company groups. Charles Rutherford and Bill Atherton walked among 5 CMR checking men, equipment, and spirits. Most of the lads had been with Rutherford, the brand-new lieutenant, two weeks ago when he had taken them into a German headquarters at Amiens and snared a stack of machine guns and paymaster’s box. The less said about that last bit, the better, but now they were preparing to follow him again. As soon as the Guns started. To the rear, signalers unreeled great spools of green and black telephone wire to connect them to headquarters and to eighteen regiments of guns and howitzers. The wires had to be laid so the tanks growling forward could not

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chew them up, and the wireless station aerials had to be laid out to be able to talk to the five squadrons of close support aircraft waiting on grass strips. Men placed signposts to the field ambulance units, to casualty reception areas, and to turn-arounds for Guppy’s Ambulance Column. Military police—the emma pips, or more familiarly, the Meatheads—were posted to ensure ambulances did not intersect with convoys of engineers waiting to come forward to fill holes, clear wire, and explode ordinance, or with the two hundred vehicles of the DAC moving into position to feed the Guns. Morning mist reduced visibility to twenty meters, and most CMRs waited on one knee. They had listened to the orders, but few had any real understanding of what was about to happen. All they knew was when the Guns began, they were going to take that place everyone had heard of: Monchy-le-Preux.

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SOMETHING GREAT AND TERRIBLE, AUGUST 26, 1918

General Currie . . . led them forward whatever the cost, but there was something great and terrible in his simplicity and sureness of judgment. Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told

Mounted R ifles in Monch y: Mor ning, Monday, August 26 The ball opened with the familiar sound of aerial locomotives scraping through the sky, and although the splash of rounds was invisible in the rain and dark, the CMRs heard it: 18-pounders cracking down two hundred meters away, 4.5-pounders thumping two hundred meters beyond that, and 60-pounders whumping seven hundred meters off. They knew that they were to press ahead until they could feel the pressure waves and then stay in that sweet zone while it rolled over “Fritzie” and ruined his day. Judging by the sound, many thought the fire a bit sketchy. Nevertheless, at 3:00 a.m., company commanders and subalterns stood and sergeants got the men up and in line. They stepped out, determined to stay with their barrage, sketchy or not. It was a peculiar one, but they knew it would be. For the most part, it rolled east in front of them, but on Orange Hill, it rolled left to right— north to south. The Guns were showing off. (map 12) The 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles led the move between Orange Hill and the Scarpe and kept moving straight ahead, parallel to the Scarpe and following the eastbound barrage. The 2nd CMR followed them but then turned right to stay with the fire rolling over Orange Hill while 1 CMR inclined its advance toward the northern end of Monchy. As the three spread like the ribs of a Japanese fan,

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5 CMR moved on its own along the south side of Orange Hill, headed straight to Monchy. William Johnson had been a law student in Canada six months earlier. He spent a month traveling and four months training at the infantry camp at Witley England before arriving in France on August 13. Thirteen days later, he was one of seven Mounted Rifles killed on Orange Hill. Shortly after his death, 5 CMR was halfway to Monchy, with Rutherford and Atherton in the lead.1 The campaign history reflects little opposition to 5 CMR’s advance, but the Mounted Rifles remembered it differently. The Fusiliers who had taken two days to complete that walk in 1917 might have considered the CMR’s repeat of the event less exacting, but it was still a walk across a 1,200-meter impact zone. Machine-gun fire sizzled in from beyond a rusted tank hulk to rake the lead platoons. They spread out, but officers pulled them as close to the barrage as they could tolerate. They had to get to Fritz before he emerged from his dugout, so NCOs kept up the mantra “Don’t stop.” Friendly shrapnel splashed all across their front. Some of it hit its own. Lewis gunners fired from the hip; marching fire along trenches became visible. Rifle grenadiers dropped to one knee and popped off rifle grenades and the new and wonderful smoke-generating grenades. They found abandoned German positions with machine guns, anti-tank rifles, and mortars, and the chaplain took charge of forty prisoners.2 C Company made straight for Monchy in a broad, extended V, like a great flight of Canadian geese with Rutherford as the lead goose. He was determined to be there as soon as the rubble stopped bouncing. Lieutenant Loggie took A Company off to the right, heading to the south of the town. Loggie was leading because Bill Atherton was down. He had run into a Canadian shell and lay dying in front of Monchy. There were four field guns waiting to deal with tanks (now heard growling their way up from the rear), but Riflemen were on them too soon, and the gunners, hands high above their heads, were jogging back to the prisoner cages. There were no defensive stores, no stacked ammo, and no Rutherford. Last seen, he had been jogging toward the big cross to look for A Company.3 When Charlie Rutherford entered Monchy, it was nearly 7:00 a.m. and the fields were still whump-whumping with slow-rate artillery fire and cack-cackcacking with irregular machine-gun bursts.4 There were a dozen men of 50 Regiment (3rd Lower Silesian) just past the big cross, stumbling from a deep cellar and trying to find their place in the sun. They had been underground all night, perhaps longer, so they were milling about like spring groundhogs getting their bearings. A feldwebel, or perhaps a vizefeldwebel, was first out of the bunker because “you can’t push a string.”

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Monchy Cross and bunker at west entrance to the village.

Like NCOs everywhere, he raised his voice and added a few resonant adjectives to get attention. The men squinted, as if squinting could make their ears work again. They were bomb-deaf, were without sleep, and moved slowly, as if in jelly.

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The NCO tried to make eye contact. An order is harder to ignore with eye contact, but it was early light, and some avoided looking at him. Perhaps his ire rose at their stunned mullet look, or perhaps by now he was used to it. The Poles spoke a peculiar German, and these were kids and old men sniffling and shivering with the grippe or scratching lice. They were what was left of the Great Offensive. This was the moment the feldwebel noticed they had frozen like a cine-film stuck on the reel. Red-rimmed eyes in mime-white faces were not looking at him but over his shoulder. He twisted to see what drew their attention, but there was a rattle of machine gun fire at the southern end of the village. By now, the reptilian part of the NCO’s brain would have sounded the alarm; senses were being overwhelmed by new, important, and dangerous information. Between mounds of rubble in the long flat space that had once been a street, there was a single figure emerging through the drizzle-mist dawn. The loose-limbed figure in the thumbtack helmet drew toward the immobile Germans with a stride of one who knew where he was going but was in no hurry. The NCO slipped his rifle off his shoulder and looked left and right along the lines of rubble. There were no others, just one Tommy with a big handgun. He was speaking, but the NCO’s ears were likely still ringing, and any English he had would have been basic school stuff. He likely knew the word “surrender” and probably wondered why, if this man was giving up, he was waving that damn hog-leg around like he was pointing out sights in the town? Most Germans wondered at the Tommies’ preference for big handguns. The NCO screamed for someone to get an officer and heard the “someone” scuttle back into the cellar—the first thing anyone had done promptly. The Tommy spoke again, and by now the NCO studying him could see that this was not a young man. Young in years maybe, but not war young. He had wound or service stripes on his sleeve, a scar on his face, and pips on his shoulder. So an officer. And maple leaves on his collar. So a Canadian. A stormtrooper. The NCO kept his rifle pointed at the Canadian, but his eyes scanned the ruins. He saw no others, just this one man. The machine gun was firing at the south end of the village, indicating that there were others nearby. None of the little party moved. All eyes remained on the Canadian. Stunned mullets. The NCO took command. “You,” he said to the Canadian, and he pointed the muzzle of his rifle toward the entrance of the dugout. Rutherford grinned—actually grinned. “I don’t think so.” An even larger group was now funneling from the bunker, with those at the back pushing their way through those who had stopped to stare at the man with the pistol. A genuine crowd was gathering.5

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The NCO fingered the bolt on his G98, likely wishing he had put a round up the spout before all of this happened—soldiers never kept a round up the spout in the dugouts. There had been too many accidental discharges, and accidental discharge, even if he managed not to shoot anyone, was a chargeable offense. By the time there was some forty men in a half circle around Rutherford, an officer moved to the front and was talking to the Canadian. Men crowded closer to hear but saw, more than heard, him say something over his shoulder. The soldier nearest him unbuckled his kit and dropped it on the ground. The NCO watched soundlessly as, one by one, the others dropped their weapons and kit. The officer turned toward where the machine gun fired again. Rutherford pointed toward the noise and said, “You go stop yours, and I’ll go stop mine.” Then he turned his back and walked, deliberately and without rushing, back the way he had come. After a bit, he took off his helmet and waved it in an arc back and forth. The NCO unbuckled his belt and let it drop to the ground, but he hesitated with the rifle. He had survived this game too long to place absolute trust in a bunker-dwelling officer. The Canadian was still looking around. Big guns thumped in the distance. Then, there they were. Lanky Canadians with their angled helmets, light machine guns, and monstrously long bayonets came through the mist. The NCO let the butt of his rifle drop. When it hit the earth, he let go of the barrel. The Canadians moved efficiently. No wasted motion. They carried weapons lightly, their heads swiveled casually, and their eyes were aware. They clustered briefly near the officer as he pointed here and there, and then they moved off quickly and spaced out well. One of them, with stripes on his arm, actually slapped the officer’s shoulder. Behind them came others.6 The second group was bunched. Equipment bounced tellingly on men’s square frames, and eyes were wide and darting. They stared at the Germans, and the NCO nodded to them. New meat. The veterans had barely spared him a glance. Rutherford later admitted, “All I could see was Germans, so I decided to go and do the best I could with them.”7 Rutherford had his Lewis guns concentrate on a field piece on Infantry Hill, forcing the crew to beetle off and leave the gun. He found two more Germans with horse teams hiding in a large trench, bringing his personal bag to about eighty men and eight horses. Loggie’s company arrived to chase off horse-drawn guns trying to come up the Arras–Cambrai Road. This time, field guns were not to save Monchy. The 5th CMR had Monchy, and it was not yet breakfast.

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Monchy-le-Preux, September 1, 1918.

Close A ir Support: Mor ning, Monday, August 26 The 61st Infantry Regiment (8th Pomeranians) of 35 Division had been here before. It had destroyed the two London battalions near Chérisy while the Bavarians annihilated the Newfoundlanders and Essex. The Pomeranians, with 2nd Jaegers, were a countermove force. Their leading companies had left Boiry just as dawn broke but did not arrive at Jigsaw Wood until after 8:00 a.m. to find themselves in “the midst of defeated and dejected troops.”8 The Pomeranian view was self-serving. Despite having its forward battalion being annihilated within minutes, 50th Regiment was showing fight. Offiziersstellvertereter Seidel and his sixteen men, for example, were holding the strongpoint by La Bergère and pouring machine-gun fire down both sides of the main road, and the regimental reserve was dodging through Canadian drumfire to reach Infantry Hill. Any effort to impose control on the battle, though, evaporated once the close air support arrived.9

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The pilots of 209 Squadron (formerly Naval 9) were proud to be the mob credited with bringing down Richthofen, and they thirsted for air combat. But this was 1918, and their Camels had been relegated to skimming the earth to hunt machine-gun nests and men moving over the ground. Rain delayed their appearance, but once it eased to a mist, 209 Squadron’s eighteen Camels, each carrying four yellow, twenty-five-pound anti-personnel Cooper bombs, snarled across their grass strip and lifted off. Each was also armed with two Vickers machine guns mounted, slightly raised, in front of the pilot. (The gun “hump” gave the Camel its name.) By 7:20 a.m., the three flights of six were zooming over Monchy at two hundred feet, with their machine guns raking trench lines, gun positions, and suspicious mounds along Infantry Hill, the Bois du Sart, the Bois du Vert, and Jigsaw Wood. Aircraft had become efficient killers. As they passed, the blasts of Cooper bombs joined those of artillery shells to drive surviving Germans into holes and ditches. Some claimed the aircraft flew low enough to be hit by grenades. The Camels beat about the zone until ammunition was expended, and then they arced away as the next wave arrived. Two more squadrons sat on the strip waiting their turn.10 RCR on Infa ntry Hill: Mor ning– A fter noon, Monday, August 26 It took time to get word to Lipsett that 8 Brigade was into Monchy, and by then, the men of 7 Brigade coming forward were wet to the skin. Again, men walked toward Monchy with purpose, faces tightening at the bang of the occasional howitzer. The ground beyond the forward trenches was green and grassy, reminding westerners of a buckwheat field. The Royals and the Patricias led, companies in diamond formations, and the Edmontons and Black Watch followed as “worms.” Bullets whined with promise overhead as they passed wounded Mounted Rifles bringing back listless prisoners. As 7 Brigade riflemen reached the crown of the slope, officers ordered them to kneel so their heads were below the crest. Hurry up and wait. Pipes and cigarettes emerged. Pipes were stem down to keep out the annoying drizzle. Someone laughed. All senses, including the sense of humor, were alive. They waited in debris: a bloodstained puttee, a piece of horse harness, a water bottle marked with a scrap of tartan, a German respirator case. . . . Had they been digging, they might have found Whiteman’s jar of rum, a button from one of Turenne’s veterans, or even a piece of Legionary’s corselet.11

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Daddy Dyer’s Report Centre—forward command post—was with 2 CMR on Orange Hill, but the brigadier himself was forward with the COs verifying the plan now that they could see the ground. The RCR companies were to skirt around Monchy to the right and head for Infantry Hill while those of the PPCLI moved north of Monchy through the Pelves dip (where cavalry had twice come to grief) and past the Bois du Sart to Jigsaw Wood, about four kilometers (2.5 miles) away. The boundary between the units was to be the cluster of stumps that had once been Warnke’s copse. The Edmontons were to screen the left along the swampy Scarpe and the Black Watch to keep tight behind the Royals. A tank liaison officer dropped down beside the command group as his landships rumbled by, and soon enough, the COs left for their battalions. It was almost 10:00 a.m. by the time everyone was moving. The Mounted Rifles on the edge of Monchy were still engaging 50th Regiment when The RCR’s A, B, and C Companies emerged between Monchy and La Bergère. They were to turn slightly left (“make a left incline”) to approach Infantry Hill from the southwest, but as they came around Monchy, they entered a tempest of machine-gun fire, with much of it drawn to officers’ uniforms. The move coincided with the arrival of 61st Regiment’s companies. Shino and Pomeranian veterans kept men moving, knowing that to pause in the beaten zone was to die, but it meant that platoons intermingled and lost contact in the scrub and in the maze of old and new trenches.12 New grass turned old trenches into hidden fortresses, and men fought sharp meeting engagements without getting more than fleeting glances of each another. The two tanks accompanying the Royals were quickly immobilized; C Company was pinned down; and A and B companies were left inching forward a shell hole at a time. Stretcher-bearers were overburdened within minutes. D Company followed but went to ground, unsure where the others had ended up. Machine-gun bullets ripped across the Valley of Death, where men of Essex and Newfoundland had died and where men of Canada were fighting and dying. And men of the United States. Corporal, acting platoon sergeant, Joseph Flanagan of Brooklyn would never again lose a stripe. He died on Infantry Hill. Communication among companies broke down. Willets sent his Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Ralph Balders, forward to establish ground truth, and Balders made the running across the same ground as had his counterpart, Bert Holloway, sixteen months earlier, but Balders survived. Each of the Royals’ platoons, like the Newfoundlanders before them, became an island of defense. With his platoon officer and sergeant down, Lance

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Corporal Melanson assumed command, and when Pomeranians and Silesians shuttled around his flank, he took up the Lewis gun and played bursts over them until they disappeared into the earth. It made him center of attention, and bullets flew at his 5'4" frame from three directions. The Lewis was smacked from his hands, so he fired the platoon’s second gun until someone shot that one from his grasp too, but the Germans came no closer. Nearby, the 5'8", gracile ex-stretcher-bearer Milton Gregg and his diminished platoon secured a little Gibraltar with a howling bomb and bayonet assault and were holding it against Silesians trying to take it back while it counted its bullets and measured its water. It was inevitable that fire crossed. Two Royals officers were killed by friendly fire. One was Ivan Soule, former Patricia of the 5th University Company. By 2:00 p.m., enough of 61 Regiment was forward to try to break the Royals’ hold on its bit of the hill, but Bill Home somehow divined their movement. There was no other explanation for the captain suddenly calling out, “Follow me,” and launching himself toward an almost invisible dip in the ground. Men followed, unsure as to why but responding to the positive lead. By the time they rose from their holes, Home was running well ahead of them toward the dip, now blossoming with square helmets. Home shot four men in field-gray before his pack caught up. Men howled and threw themselves on one another like wolves. Grenades exploded seemingly everywhere, and soldiers fired at targets within touching range. The momentum was with the Canadians, and the Germans scattered. Home’s cohort collapsed into newly won holes, panting, exhilarated, counting bullets, measuring canteens, and wondering what the hell would happen next. Honorary Captain Harry Phillips knew what was happening. It was his job. He was the Quartermaster and Transport Officer and, having served from private to RSM, knew what was needed: bullets, grenades, water, and guts. He and his little group dragged boxes, tins, cans, and stretchers through the fire until the platoons had enough to make it a fight.13 Dick Willets received new orders. Corps had ordered 3 Division to widen its front to include the Bois du Vert on his right flank. It meant Dick had to go up, grab D Company, and lead it to the right of where C Company was pinned down. While Willets scrambled forward, Brigadier Dyer sent orders to the 42nd to squeeze by the embattled Royals and CMR, but when “Toppo” Topp went forward, he found the battleground south of Monchy congested. The situation north of the village was no cleaner.

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Patr ici as in the Woods: Mor ning– A fter noon, Monday, August 26 North of Monchy, the Patricias hit the Battle Zone much where the Essex Regiment had found it in 1917. The 604 officers and men of the Patricias moved with two companies forward: Ross Macpherson and No. 1 Company on the right and Mel Tenbroeke and No. 2 on the left. The other two companies followed with two tanks.14 As the advance progressed, the ground behind came alive with engineers, stretcher-bearers, and line-layers navigating as best they could through shell bursts. Soldiers believed that a gun never hit the same spot twice, so they used the fall of shot to pattern their way through the fire. Ohioan John Lynch and the signalers, wet through after a night in the open and without even a decent dose of rum, weaved their way behind No. 1 Company. They carried a telephone and a “Lucas lamp, daylight signaling,” and each had two signal flags strapped to his rifle barrel. The phone weighed five pounds and tucked into a handy case with a strap, but the Lucas lamp with battery and cable was a seven-kilogram (fifteen-pound), bugger-awkward wooden box. They took turns humping it forward while streams of machine-gun bullets made a sis-sis-sis sound by their heads.15 As companies disappeared into rolling ground, it sounded like every machine gun on the western front chattered at the same time. Charlie Stewart’s battalion became invisible to him; he relied on George McDonald forward coordinating the two lead companies. He received word from Red George that Germans were filing into the trench system from the Pelves side, and he sent the tank liaison officer to get his machines forward, sharpish. He had to wait until 11:30 to receive feedback from Macpherson and No. 1 Company. “Strong machine gun and rifle fire from spur about Fuel Trench. Enemy reinforcing down slope from Quarry Wood. Progress very slow. In my opinion Fuel trench should be attacked from right flank after a barrage.”16 Fuel Trench was the connecting bar in an H of trenches in which the one side of the H was a long, continuous trench (Faction) along the Monchy–Pelves road. The Patricias gained it, but it extended all the way to Pelves, so Tenbroeke and 2 Company set up a platoon to block Germans coming down it. The other side of the H was the long parallel Cartridge Trench on higher ground, and it was occupied by elements of two different German regiments of Maercker’s division (50 and 358). Quarry Wood was where (as in 1917) the Germans sighted field guns to prevent movement beyond the edge of Monchy. It had been an exhausting twelve-hour drive for Percy Hatton’s Mark V* to reach No. 2 Company at Faction Trench, but almost immediately on arrival, it

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nailed a German field gun with its six-pounder and began popping off at machine guns. (Maerker was receiving a report that Percy’s tank threatened to annihilate the second of 50 Regiment’s battalions.) Hatton ground on toward Cartridge Trench until stunned by a loud bang. The tank lurched sideways and teetered on the edge of a wide hole. The engine burbled, coughed, and went quiet. Each man crawled from whatever corner the blow had thrown him. Dust sparkled in the air inside, but there was little smoke and no overwhelming odor of gasoline. Hatton checked his periscope. He had a small field of vision, but it included the gun that had tagged him. He fired the six-pounder, reloaded, and fired again. There was no answer, but the tank slid farther into the ditch, masking the gun. It was napoo. Hatton gave the order to abandon ship. The crew dribbled out while bullets chewed along the edge of the bank. The tank was operational but stuck. Percy was not about to give it up and ordered machine guns dismounted while he made a quick dekko of the surroundings. There were infantrymen moving around about eighty meters back. He waved to show they were all right, and a couple waved back. He found a raised bit of trench a few meters off that looked like an old machine-gun pit, and his crew picked up their guns and followed him. One of the infantrymen waving back was Private Frank Whiting. Whiting was a 1915 University Company veteran who had spent most of his service in the PPCLI pack train. It was strenuous duty, but it meant that he had not had to fix a bayonet in over two years. Frank was one of those soldiers who were a source of concern for officers and apoplexy in NCOs. By his own account, “After three years of war I was no longer innocent; I believed nothing except that God had died or didn’t care. My trustfulness and dependence had given place to a well-developed ability to look after myself. I was an expert at dodging parades, guards and fatigues . . . to me the war was something to be endured, and, if possible, survived. At 23 I was an old soldier in everything the term implied—and little of it was good.”17 This parade was one Frank had been unable to dodge. More elements of 35 Division arrived to bolster Maercker’s reserves just as the Patricia’s depth companies arrived to bolster forward companies. In the intensified firefight, a machine gun kneecapped George McDonald. Just after 12:30, Stewart received a note from No. 1 Company. It was signed by Cyril Biddulph. “Casualties Severe. Capt Macpherson & Lt Gammell both killed. Men about 20 . . . Advance going alright on right. We are moving ahead.”18 The 50th Regiment’s companies were reporting concurrently that they had been reduced to about twenty men each, so the Regimental Adjutant made his way forward with thirty headquarters types carrying more machine guns and a

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brace of mortars. The move coincided with Stewart sending in his reserve company commander, Captain Alf White (another Fabek vet), with reinforcements. White arrived to find Tenbroeke’s No. 2 Company being punished by enfilading fire from around Pelves and the Germans seeming to have more machine guns than the Patricias had men. Both tanks were knocked out, and White could find no officers at No. 1 Company, which was under command of a junior sergeant. All officers and most NCOs were dead or wounded. No. 2 Company had Tenbroeke and one subaltern functional, but its sergeant major was wounded, and all its platoon sergeants, including an Original, Sergeant Fox, were dead. White reported, “No hope of getting objectives. Fully expect big casualties.” Stewart sent runners to push Brigade to get the 49th upon his left flank and find out why 51 Highland was not at Pelves. Lynch and the signalers continued to dodge from hole to hole, dragging the infuriating lamp. They felt incredibly lucky that they had all made it this far. Lynch noted that officers had no such luck. They could not afford to be careful. “One of our lieutenants almost toppled on me as he fell, shot through the heart.” It was Cyril Biddulph. The 42nd at the Bois du Vert: A fter noon, Monday, August 26 By 2:30, Topp had the 42nd’s four companies moving beyond the La Bergère crossroads to hook toward the Bois du Vert—now more noir than vert—and by 4:30 p.m., they had crossed the Monchy–Wancourt road and the trenches strafed by Salter’s tank a year earlier. The road was zeroed by German howitzers, so they crossed a handful at a time, losing one officer and six men. Once into the trenches on the other side, the lads tossed grenades into every dugout and around every corner as they went. Machine guns raked the whole area, and much of the advance was on hands and knees. Among the first hit was A Company’s commander, and that put footballer Jimmie Montgomerie in command again. Jimmie ordered up rifle grenades and smoke to keep the company moving toward what used to be Machine Gun Wood, where another A Company had disappeared so long ago. They uncovered a stash of fourteen machine guns. This was not a defensive position; it was a jump-off position. A Company had reached 50 Regiment’s counterattack position. B Company fought its way up next to A and into a continuous trench about halfway between Monchy and the Bois du Vert, but the left flank was “up in the air.” They were stuck in the Valley of Death.

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Support: Monday, August 26 In order to widen his frontage as ordered, Lipsett pushed two of his three brigades into line. (So much for the expanding telescope of fighting one brigade at a time.) Behind the jumbled front, 9 CFA’s batteries wheeled into crash actions in the old gun positions behind Orange Hill, where their reconnaissance parties had placed the next bearing piquets. Ralph Adams scrambled to an earthen hump from where he could scan much of the front with binoculars. His signaler cranked his power phone to check the line because they had moved beyond the fixed Monchy line. The connection from brigade to division and corps guns was backed up by the new wireless radio van, so when Fritz came, the guns would be ready. In the meantime, Adams had MacKinnon’s howitzers throw three hundred rounds onto Jigsaw Wood as a prophylaxis. When 51 Highland Division received word that Monchy had fallen, it unleashed its guns and sent two understrength brigades of kilted infantry toward the shattered piles of bricks that had been the chemical works. The kilties advanced under the throaty rasp of overhead projectiles tunneling through the low, heavy clouds until they closed up to where the scream and burst were simultaneous. Rubble flew, shell holes sizzled in the morning drizzle, and somewhere, pipes played. A battle-hardened highlander grinned at correspondent Fred McKenzie and commented, “Man, it’s graund!” They were still fighting hours later when the aircraft sporting the new-style German cross buzzed over them.19 Pa nor a m as: Monday, August 26 Leutnant der Reserve Warnecke worked his ticket back to Flight Section (A) 235 after surviving an RAF-inspired crash. Doctors diagnosed a skull fracture with a “severe dislocation of the brain,” but dislocated brain or not, Warnecke was a trained and needed observer. Today, his Emil was Gefreiter Langer, and they were flying a contact patrol to determine exactly who was where. Their machine was a brand-new green and lilac LVG C VI, equipped with parachutes, heated flight suits, and two machine guns. It was an all-wood construction but still with the distinctive horn exhausts. It was not a particularly fast machine, but its Benz, six-cylinder, water-cooled engine and broad, staggered wings gave it impressive maneuverability and the ability to climb like the proverbial bat out hell.

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It was also equipped for Morse telegraphy. Warnecke ran out his aerial and keyed report of artillery fire on the Bois du Sart, on Pelves, and on the trenches west and south of Monchy. He flew low, very low, to determine which troops were where. No one was putting out air recognition signals. He saw six men near Pelves. They did not shoot at him, so he tapped: “We hold Pelves.” Next, Warnecke scanned the ground of the Bois du Sart as best he could while traveling at over 100 kph, and he saw two soldiers waving. No one shot at him. He tapped his key: “We hold the wood.” He reached into the slipstream and pointed northwest, and Langer turned the aircraft toward Roeux at a height of four hundred meters. Langer had to both fly and watch out for any other aircraft while Warnecke hung over the side, sweeping the ground with glasses. There were eight men in a trench near Roeux, but he could not differentiate helmets. He relied on their reaction to indicate that they were friendly. The machine turned east, and Warnecke picked out a group “casually leaning against trench walls” and waving about a kilometer east of Roeux. A counterattack preparing to contest Greenland Hill? He reported Roeux in German hands. In this, he was wrong. Langer turned the aircraft to sweep over Monchy. Warnecke saw only one man in Monchy, bareheaded and walking through its center. Machine gun tracers reached up at him from north and south of the village, and he reported that the enemy held the village, but weakly, but with strong forces either side of it. As the LVG turned away from Monchy, its luck ran out. A machine gunner lacerated the bottom of the aircraft and Langer’s lower leg. The mission was over. Warnecke turned for home before his Emil bled to death.20 The bareheaded man in Monchy was likely Fred McKenzie. He had made his way from 51 Division to 8 Field Ambulance and from there to the great black cross near the ruined Villa Barbara, where he was caught in the open by a German plane (which he believed had strafed him). It left him feeling “like nothing so much as a mouse that has wandered forth and sees the cat sitting between itself and the hole.” In Monchy, McKenzie found only abandoned kittens and the dead. A Canadian sat half upright, rifle clasped in dead hands. He had a look “of amazed surprise that a bullet had found him.”21 The Other Side of the Roa d: Monday, August 26 The Wurttembergers of 26 Reserve Division were back between Vis-en-Artois and Chérisy. The 121st Reserve Regiment was occupying the same positions it had in the spring, in 1917, and in 1915, and a few old hares in 119 Regiment even remembered staging a theatrical march here for film cameras.

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The men knew the drill. Once the Tommies got stuck into the trench units by Wancourt, they were going to hammer them back to their start. It would not be easy. If it was easy, they would get someone else to do it. To 26 Reserve’s front, 2 Canadian Division had rolled over Chapel Hill at Z-Hour and was behind the forward bunkers before their occupants emerged from their deep, dark night of the soul. A private wrote that the Germans came out “with their hands up by the hundreds and some of them were crying like babys [sic], and I’ll tell you they should rather see old man Satan himself than see a bunch of Canadians facing them with cold steel.”22 The next step was harder. Once it was light enough for German observers, artillery bursts blossomed across the Arras amphitheater, so the tanks led the run-up to Guémappe. They trundled out into the open and weaved their way around shell holes, with six-pounders and machine guns reaching out to touch die-hard machine gunners and anti-tank gunners. One or two Tankgewehr rifles fired, but their operators lacked the confidence to let the tanks get close. Only artillery could stop the tanks. Or mechanics. The first tank broke down crossing Chapel Hill, and Harry Shackleton sent a runner back to bring up the reserve tank. A second tank blasted an MG08 out of its hole and waddled across the road to crunch over horse skeletons at La Fosses Farm and fire into Offiziersstellvertereter Seidel’s little fortress at La Bergère. Shackleton jumped aboard as it climbed the slight rise to get into firing position. There was a bright flash on its armor, and the tank disappeared in a bloom of oily smoke. A tall gray plume hissed from the heart of the machine, and as troops moved up the slope, the orange flicker in its center narrowed to a red, pulsing flame of igniting ammunition. By the time the second wave passed, it had become a steady, acetylene-bright white flame chimneying from the conning tower, and by the time they were crossing the crest by Guémappe, where the last tank broke down, the hull seemed to be melting inward like a hollow chocolate figure on a stove. At 7:30 a.m., word came to change the divisional boundary, and the assault changed direction. A single Canadian battalion continued into Guémappe but the remainder of 2 Division attacked toward the rubble pile that was once the tower behind Wancourt. It took until 4:30 p.m. to get across the little Cojeul, but ten minutes after they crossed, they were up the bank and attacking into a crisscross of razor wire and machine guns. The 52nd Lowland Division was somewhere over on the right and was supposed to link up. The Scots thought the Canadians were behind schedule, and the Canadians thought the Scots were late. It was an army boundary, so communications on each side had to go up to army and across. The Canadians dug in for the night in front of the wire and waited for the Scots to catch up.

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The moves confused the Wurttembergers at Chérisy. It stalled their reaction. Forbes-Robertson’s 155th Brigade was the second wave of the 52 Division assault. An officer watched him point to “where the trenches would be attacked and taken. He and his men were as good as the spoken word.”23 Forbes-Robertson’s brigade climbed Hill 90 with two battalions of Scots Fusiliers in the lead, and they discovered what combatants of 1914 and 1917 had learned about the false crests. As the Scots climbed the bald, gentle Cojeul hills, the crests seemed to move farther eastward and into a zone of mutually supporting machine guns. German shells peppered the hill and machine-gun bullets grazed its slopes, but the Scots stayed well spread out, and with Lowland Division artillery providing one gun for every ten meters of front, the machine gunners proved too few and too irresolute to deny the crest for long. They were all “shot, bombed, or bayoneted.” The 52nd was new to this front but had already decided no one took machine gunners prisoner.24 Once they had the crest, Forbes-Robertson could take in the familiar silhouette of Monchy-le-Preux. It was surrounded by exploding black puffs, but he could see no Canadians on his immediate left. Behind Forbes-Robertson, engineers cleared booby traps and bridged trenches. Signalers laid wire, guns and ammunition wagons rolled up the rear slopes, and convoys chugged toward the pile of bricks where Neuville-Vitasse used to stand. Special salvage teams were already scavenging the battlefield for equipment that could be reused. The BEF war machine was consolidating, building, and repositioning as it went forward. There was to be no German comeback this time. Counter attack: A fter noon–Evening, Monday, August 26 John Lynch had been crisscrossing the battlefield and delivering messages, and it had made for a long day—made longer by stopping to help stretcher-bearers carry a horribly wounded English officer. The bearers were the survivors of a tank that had taken a direct hit, and the officer was not part of their regular crew, but they carried him knowing his chances of survival were slight. Even if by some miracle he survived, he would be disfigured and blind, but they carried him. He was Harry Shackleton, and he did not survive the day. On the way back, Lynch discovered a German “scarcely sixteen and a pitiful sight.” When he saw Lynch’s Canada patches, “fresh fear swept him, for he thought he was doomed.” Lynch sent him to carry out casualties then stumbled into a close battle between a Canadian section and a German machine gun. When the gun’s barrel

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swung toward him, it looked “fully as large as a six-inch howitzer,” but none of its rounds found him. He lay “doggo” for a full five minutes and then, sure that the gun had moved on to other targets, ran to a nearby trench. It was already occupied by two Germans, but neither faced him. He killed both, one with a bullet and the other with his bayonet. The bayonet fight was an atavistic, mad scramble that came back to trouble him afterward, but not immediately. He retained his composure long enough to hurl grenades at the gun.25 Not far away, Charlie Stewart was taking stock. His unit was in a rough curve bulged toward Jigsaw Wood and with one edge north of the RCR and the other a kilometer short of the River Scarpe. The Scarpe flank was still being hammered by Germans around Pelves. Companies were calling for ammunition and stretcher-bearers, and they were reporting increasing numbers of Silesians and Prussians in full packs coming from Jigsaw. Tenbroeke wanted an SOS barrage 250 meters to his front. Two years earlier, when Charlie Stewart had been decorated for the Fabek battle, he claimed all he had done was the obvious, but battlefield situational awareness was granted to the select few. Now the Patricias were pushing into the Essex April 1917 predicament, and the hair on the nape of Stewart’s neck was bristling in anticipation of counterattack. He sent Mac Mackay up with a mixed bag of Patricia and Edmonton reinforcements with ammunition, grenades, and stretchers. Mac headed for the woods where his cousin Angus had disappeared the year before, carrying a note from Stewart to White. “Hold on tight laddie & don’t take any chances.” Stewart sent a second note to 7 Brigade, where it joined a stack of others. The Royals and the 42nd were also reporting lines of square helmets covered in grass camouflage bobbling along the edges of the Bois du Vert. At 4:20 p.m., 35 Division sent unwelcome orders to the Pomeranian 61st Regiment to counterattack at 5:00 p.m. An attack is like throwing a punch: its power comes from a combination of a firm foot on the ground, weight behind the blow, and contact with the target. The collapse of 214 Division’s positions left 61 Regiment with no firm foot on the ground, its dispersion made applying weight a problem, and the target was amorphous. In 1917, the Bavarians had reacted on known ground, but this time, attackers knew not the ground or where the Canadians had “bore-holed.” All the officers of 61 Regiment had to work with was that they were launching from Jigsaw into the blue, apparently in conjunction with a company from 50 Regiment coming from the Bois du Vert. It conjured up bad memories of the Artois and the Somme. It took until 6:30 to get organized. Men dropped their packs, stuck stick grenades in their new-style baggy jackets and in their arm bags and boot tops, locked bullets into the spout of 98s or shouldered MG08 barrel or belt, and

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looked toward their officers. Then, as big shells made the battleship-gray sky sound like it was clearing its throat, officers stood and waved arms. Forward!26 Riflemen and jaegers emerged from Jigsaw Wood with the setting sun in their eyes and a jagged Canadian line across their front. The 9th CFA and the divisional artillery, along with every battery in range, were ready. Ralph Adams, wrists and legs coated in Lassar’s paste and telephone handset to his ear, gave the field-grays time to clear the wood before he opened the furnace doors. The Monchy plateau exploded. The men in gray came on, hunched and monkey-running through the eruptions with mouths open against the blasts. Airbursts smacked men to the ground, and entire squads disappeared in black howitzer smoke. An on-station reconnaissance aircraft pulled twenty-seven Camels out of a reddening sky. They came down so low and dropped their bombs so close that the Royals took them for German aircraft. The 35th Division was a formation of hard men. More than twelve thousand of them had been lost in the last year alone, but they had never broken, and they did not now. The survivors used the dusk to come on past the headless, limbless, and broken bodies and writhing and weeping wounded before melting into the matrix of trenches and holes. They picked up remnants of 50 Regiment who had stuck it and even elements of 48 Reserve Division forced down from Pelves. A m munition, Water, Casua lties: Night, Monday–Tuesday, August 26–27 Dark drew a curtain over the movements and gave men other things to think about. Water was in short supply, and wounded needed dragging out. Thoroughly whacked survivors of two Canadian brigades and two German regiments tried to sort out lines in the dark without drawing fire. Harry Phillips and other quartermasters plodded along the single road all night with ammunition, replacements, and precious water. Stretcher-bearers shuffled and stumbled on furrowed ground, trying not to drop their cargoes while they found collection points. Doc Hale was back in his usual spot, filtering casualties through the 42nd RAP. His clientele included RCR, CMR, and even Germans. PPCLI Acting Sergeant Ernie Daniels knew the drill. He had had to crawl hundreds of yards from the line at Frezenberg in 1915 with a split head and a bad case of trench foot before someone picked him up. At the Fabek in 1916, he had to stumble for an hour through trenches with shrapnel in the back and shoulder and until he found bearers, and they took three hours to get him out. Here, they were there to grab him almost when the bullets smashed his arm and leg. The

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MO stopped the bleeding, immobilized his limbs, and sent him out to the road and the ambulance. Stretcher-bearers carried out Mac Mackay. A machine gun burst had ripped through him and farmer Duncan McLaren as they arrived at No. 1 Company. The bearers picked them up within yards of the spot where German medics had picked up Mac’s cousin Angus sixteen months earlier. They got them back to the CCS before Mac died. McLaren survived. Some received more immediate attention. Lynch and a mate euthanized at least one man to end his suffering.27 When correspondent McKenzie had stopped by 8 Field Ambulance, he had seen “wounded Germans and Canadians and some [British] standing side by side.” When the wagons came up to take the men away to the casualty clearing station, wounded Germans followed wounded Canadians, and “they sat down passively together.” He noted that among the Germans, the first group taken “seemed glad to be prisoners,” but the next group “struck a different note.”28 After McKenzie departed, a large shell landed in the courtyard of the dressing station and destroyed two trucks, killing one driver. The courtyard was already full of wounded, mostly Germans, but miraculously few were hit. The station called the QMS to bring up more vehicles from Agnez-lès-Duisans. Maercker’s 214 Division used the dark to reorganize. The 50th Regiment reconfigured into two small battalions of two companies each and consolidated behind the elements of 61 Regiment, scattered across a thin line of shell holes. Getting ammunition forward was dangerous. The Canadians had not settled in to a recognizable defense; they had bore-holed around the forward positions and were sitting astride the supply tracks. The Arras Road drew artillery like a linear magnet drew filings. Reinforcements, artillery teams, ammunition transport, messengers, engineers, and ambulances had to run a gauntlet of fire that produced inevitable jams while men cleared away broken limbers and dead horses. Quartermaster Warren was in such a jam when shrapnel shredded his vehicle. He made it to the CCS to ask the sergeant major, “Do I have any chance?” Benjamin Harmon Warren died two days later. The 8th Canadian Field Ambulance had had its last Perth reunion.29

sixteen

k

WHAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED, AUGUST 27–28, 1918

The recapture of Monchy . . . is the most important item of news from this front. New York Times, August 27, 1918 What call have I to dream of anything? I am a wolf. Back to the world again, And speech of fellow-brutes that once were men Our throats can bark for slaughter: cannot sing. Second Lieutenant C. S. Lewis, “French Nocturne (Monchy-Le-Preux)”

Battle: Mor ning, Tuesday, August 27 It was still dark when the stormtroopers eased alongside the abandoned tank’s sponson. As equipment scraped against metal, the tank suddenly crackled with bullet strikes, and the leader fired blindly around the curve of the sponson while others threw grenades over. They struggled to find a way into the tank as a shower of Mills bombs came back. Machine-gun fire blistered along the hull, and ricochets found flesh and bone, sending the field-grays back along the trench dragging their wounded. The last out fired a few rounds to discourage pursuit. A hand with a pistol curved around the sponson and fired along the ditch. A grenade followed. There was no answer. Percy Hatton had taken back his tank. In his view, of course, he had never lost it.1

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Lipsett’s Operation Order, August 27, 1918.

Currie took a draft from Allenby’s cup and sent a Special Order noting that the attack so far “had paved the way for greater success tomorrow,” but they must remember “Stonewall Jackson’s motto ‘Press Forward.’” The men were developing a distinct dislike for Stonewall Jackson.2 If the order weighed on Lipsett, it didn’t show. Casualties were higher than expected and again disproportionately among officers and NCOs. He issued orders.

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In the spring of 1917, 3 Canadian Division issued a ream of orders, coordinating instructions, and training memoranda in preparation for the attack on La Folie on Vimy. It trained, prepared, and rehearsed for almost three months. In the early morning of August 27, 1918, Louis Lipsett, issued a single four-by-eightinch message page for a phased divisional attack to break what GHQ considered the most formidable line on the western front. The 7th and 8th Brigades were to hold what they had bitten. The 9th Brigade was to come forward, push between the Bois du Vert and Bois du Sart, and then go hi-diddle-diddle-straight-up-the middle between the two and into the Fresnes-Rouvroy Line at Boiry. The assault was to be coordinated with one by 2 Division south of the road. Both divisions had one fresh brigade left, so it was balls to the wall. Z-Hour was set for 4:55 a.m., so Topp had to rush to position guides from 42nd Battalion to meet the assault battalions of 9 Brigade humping through the dark from Orange Hill and sucking air through their Small Box Respirators. Bois du Sa rt a nd Bois du Vert: Mor ning, Tuesday, August 27 Major Arnold Homer “Jukes” Jucksch led the easterners of the 58th. The Jucksch family hailed, ironically, from Pomerania, and being able to speak German had made Arnie a spectacularly successful Intelligence and Scouting officer. It had earned him promotion and the privilege of leading the battalion attack. He received orders at 7:30 p.m., but it took until 11:30 to get the battalion to Monchy and the rest of the night to get everyone sorted on the Start Line.3 The 52nd Battalion’s westerners arrived on Jukes left to orient on the other big wood, the Bois du Sart. Sergeant Leo Bouchard was leading his platoon, which relied on his seemingly mystical ability to see through dark and smoke. The Umpty-Umps of the 116th, still making their way forward, were to push between the two assault battalions once the woods were secured. The two assault battalions were set along remains of the old Dale Trench in time for Z-Hour. Bad weather was a given, so rainclouds retarded first light, and wet, sweating men pulled off constraining respirators. A whiff of gas was better than a fogged-eyepiece stumble into a hole or machine gun. New boys clustered near old dogs. The veterans treated them with a casual disregard so far; few asked their names. If they lasted, their names might take on a significance, but for now, they were “the new guys.” The new guys wanted to be close to those who knew how to survive but were unaware that many of the old guys had arrived only a month ago. Still, that was

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long enough to learn the difference between incoming and outgoing fire, the difference between the sound of a Lewis and an MG08, and how to take a piss under shellfire. At 4:55 a.m., when it was just light enough to make out the woods, the lead companies began picking their way forward. Both woods were now clusters of blackened and branchless tree trunks standing starkly against a yellow dawn. They had the look of a flash prairie fire. Artillery rounds, laden with gas and thick with uncertainty, splashed across the plateau. It did not resemble an organized barrage. It was a combination of German desperation and Canadian excess. By then, battalion headquarters received word the tanks would be late. There was confusion about Z-Hour timing because 2 Division, on the other side of the road, had been delayed. Jukes scrambled forward, doing his officer bit to keep the boys moving and keeping them from dropping into inviting shell holes. Men bunched together— new guys—and he screamed at them to spread out. He pointed his pistol at the objective and waved his arm to indicate which way they should go. His lead extended until the only men he could see were those of the machine gun crew immediately in front of him, and they were swinging their MG08 in his direction. He dived for a ditch as air crackled around him. Once down and in cover, he rolled onto his back and assessed the holes in the looser folds of his uniform. The major spent the next intense portion of his life in a duel with the machine gun. He emptied his revolver at the crew, and they retaliated with a 110-round belt. Both reloaded and repeated the exercise. Being outgunned was not Jukes’s overriding concern. It was thirst. The long night march and adrenaline had sucked the moisture from his tissues, and all he had was the glop at the bottom of his hole. To Jukes’s north, Leo Bouchard pulled men through the smoke. He could see no officers and so called for men to follow him and to pop off rounds at anything to their front. Shooting kept them focused. A soldier made it far enough to join Jukes in his hole, and by then, the gun had switched to more active targets. Jukes and the private set out on a joint assault, but not before the major had a good pull at the private’s water bottle. They shot one of the crew, and the rest fled. Fewer were fighting to the end. The intrepid duo turned the gun and chopped at other enemy guns long enough for about sixty troops to get forward. It was enough. By 7:30, the Bois du Sart and Bois du Vert were pronounced secure, and Jukes and Bouchard could see the Umpty-Umps coming forward. Bouchard knew the officer leading them.

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Hi-Diddle-Diddle, Str a ight Up the Middle: A fter noon, Tuesday, August 27 George Pearkes had been left in the dumped contingent, so the 116th was being led by his 2IC, Major John Sutherland, a thirty-year-old former Winnipeg law student with the thick neck of a linebacker. John was a fighter who had had worked his way to company command and a DSO in Bouchard’s 52nd before joining Pearkes and the 116th. The two forward companies of the 116th established a Start Line of shell holes across the gap between the two captured woods. They waved the other two companies forward, but these were caught by intersecting machine-gun fire from the Pelves flank and from Jigsaw Wood. An insecure Start Line was still the classic cock-up. The advance slowed to nervous dashes. Sutherland moved, pulling men on, but fell within a few meters. Umpty-Umps carried on pushing through the beaten zone to where the most forward of the Newfoundlanders and Essex had died. They achieved a line of occupied shell-hole trenches beyond the woods and were met by a Pomeranian counterattack. The Pomeranians captured a Canadian sergeant and put him to work carrying out their wounded. A company commander assumed Sutherland’s lead and took the 116th forward a second time, so when the captured sergeant returned to pick up more wounded, he found himself back in the Umpty-Umps. The 116th men squirreled into German trenches from where they could see the silhouette of Boiry. It was apparent that they were not to get that far, but they were making 35 and 214 Divisions suffer. Alf Mason, overwatching the assault, was at the end of a seven-hundred-meter telephone wire that delivered shrapnel, HE, and gas on anything he could see. He knocked out at least seven machine guns and a field gun. The 61st Regiment reported inflicting heavy casualties on “masses of young Canadians tall as bean poles,” but its men were trickling back from the line. The regiment had lost seventeen officers and had no more than 350 all ranks capable of fight. The 50th Regiment had no idea how many men remained (more than one thousand were prisoners). Neither had enough men left to carry out wounded, so only those capable of limping or crawling were getting out. Maercker ordered them to hold on. The Other Side of the Roa d: Tuesday, August 27 South of the road, 2 Canadian Division nosed into a threshing machine. Despite Burstall’s best efforts, his brigades were unable to jump off until 10:00 a.m., allowing German artillery to focus on each Canadian division separately.

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The division’s units launched across the open fields of the Sensée valley behind Guémappe and in front of Chérisy—the same reverse slopes that had disarticulated the London battalions in April 1917. (This was when RSM James Hennessy died in a hail of shrapnel and where the Altenburgers had commenced the fight for Monchy four years earlier.) The assault made little headway, but it was enough to disjoint 26 Reserve Division’s defense. The Canadians forced 119 Regiment into a grinding death struggle around Chérisy that forced Hauptmann Kunlen to bring 121 Regiment down from Vis-en-Artois to reinforce his old unit. His adjustment left a gap by the boundary between the two Canadian divisions, and Lipsett squeezed his last uncommitted battalion between Monchy and the Arras-Cambrai Road to Vis-en-Artois. This “bore-holing” triggered Maercker’s order to the remains of his division to fall back to the Boiry-riegel—the Fresnes-Rouvroy Line.4 The 2nd Division ’s sacrificial attack enabled Forbes-Robertson’s 155 Brigade to attack southward along the Siegfried trenches and peel the German line from the front of Byng’s Third Army, diverging the Scots and Canadian attacks. Army staffs drew arrows on their maps that looked like expanding torrents breaking through a dam, but the dam was bending, not breaking. At least the dam was eroding in front of the Scots. Defenders reported being overwhelmed by artillery fire (some of which, they claimed, was from their own guns) and by smoke, gas, and tanks. Forward battalions were down to such small pockets that even withdrawal was impossible. The dam remained solid in front of the Canadians. The 35th and 26 Reserve Divisions were largely intact, and despite casualties—far too many of which were prisoners—the defense contained elements of eleven infantry regiments, five regiments of field artillery, and six regiments of heavy. It was a conglomeration that confused not only British and Canadian intelligence but also German command, so the still formidable 26 Reserve Division was assigned to coordinate efforts.5 Tr ench Clea r ing: Tuesday, August 27 The first step to sorting the defense was withdrawing Maercker’s 214 Division survivors to the Wotan positions behind Jigsaw Wood and setting 35 Division into defense north of the road past Monchy. Its 61 Regiment and 2 Jaegers were damaged, but 141 and 176 Regiments were fully effective. The 141st was freshest, so its West Prussians were assigned to anchor the Boiry riegel by holding the high ground of Jigsaw Wood. There was no elasticity, just an old-style fight like hell for as long as possible to extract a toll so the army could fill the Wotanstellung before the Canadians got there. It meant thinning out the sick, the lame, and the lazy; digging all night; and hauling up machine-gun ammunition. Artillery

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rounds were prepared and laid out next to guns in discreet piles. The largest pile was the one with the yellow Xs on the shells: mustard gas. Meanwhile, Lipsett struggled with his immediate problem: Pelves. Germans there were still chewing at his left flank, and he could not push forward while their machine guns—and they seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of ammunition as well as guns— pumped grazing fire across the plateau. The 51st Highland had yet to break the German hold on the Scarpe and remove the threat from Pelves. The Scots took Greenland Hill at 10:00 Melville Tenbroeke, circa 1927. a.m., lost it by noon, and retook half of it by dusk. Lipsett and Dyer took action. Stewart understood an Old Testament fight, so they sent him more grenades and a plan. The Patricias could clear all two thousand yards of Faction-Cartridge Trenches to Pelves and remove the threat from the left. It was after 2:00 p.m. when Stewart briefed Tenbroeke. The company commander had been on his feet for two days and in constant action for more than twenty-four hours, but he seemed to take it in stride. It didn’t take long to set up an operation with three lieutenants, Robb, Ogilvie, and Barclay, to form clearing teams—preferably of men who knew what they were about—and clear down the two parallel trenches to Pelves. It was a drill. A trench-clearing team consisted of two groups: a clearing group of seven to nine men and light machine gun support group. The clearing group Numbers 1 and 2 were armed with rifle and bayonet and covered each bend or traverse of the trench while the bombers, Numbers 3 and 4, lobbed Mills bombs around each corner. Once the grenades exploded, Numbers 1 and 2 charged around the bend and shot or stabbed anyone still standing before moving to the next traverse to take up positions for the next leg. Number 5, the team NCO, followed the bombers, and Numbers 6 through 9, carrying more bombs, followed the NCO.

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Next came the officer, positioned between the clearing team, and the support team (Numbers 10 through 14), which included the Lewis gunners, magazine carriers, and rifle grenadiers to cover the flanks and replace casualties. It was exhausting and terrifying work. A man could dash around only so many traverses. The officer and NCO focused on spacing so one explosion didn’t eliminate the whole shebang, but they also kept the operation moving to prevent it degenerating into a grenade duel. This usually resulted in the officer and NCO ending up at the tip of the spear.6 Stewart arrived as the two teams were about to jump the block in the trench. Former pack-train soldier Whiting was a Number 10. Stewart joined them in a quiet smoke while they waited for the supporting barrage. The only fire was the smack of rifle rounds hitting the trench edge. Riflemen. Snipers did not waste rounds. Z-Hour came without artillery. Stewart smoothed down the breast pocket of his tunic where he had lost a button, looked up, and said quietly, “You fellows go ahead. You can do it all right.” They stubbed out their dog-ends, placed them in the flat cigarette tins they had received as regimental commemoratives, and went.7 They snaked along the two parallel trenches for almost two hundred meters before making contact. Then it began: the blast, the shots, the yells, the filing forward, and the stepping over bodies, abandoned equipment, and holes. They passed back a captured stretcher-bearer and killed several wellequipped infantrymen. One of the officers was hit but insisted on carrying on. The bayonet men rotated, and the bombers changed. By the time Whiting had worked his way up to Number 3, they had run out of Mills bombs and were using scavenged German grenades. They made one thousand more meters to where they could see Pelves. Then, a herd of Germans in full field order with packs came down the trench, bombing the other way. Others came over the top, headed to a point behind them. Lieutenant Montie Robb, a forty-three-year-old former US cavalryman, stood up in the trench and put the barrel of the Lewis gun on his shoulder so the gunner could use him as a bipod. The gun chattered like a fast freight train in his ear, and Germans tumbled and staggered as high-velocity .303 rounds punched through thighs, stomachs, and chests. Robb turned to check on his team, and the gunner took a bullet through the face. Only later were the Patricias to realize that they had hit the Germans during repositioning of two units. Robb’s men split into two groups: one reloaded Lewis pans while the other put as many bullets toward the Germans as fast as they could. The Germans had machine guns, and Canadian ammunition supply was finite, so when someone called out, “Run like hell boys. They’re coming back,” they turned and raced

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back along the zigzag trench to outpace the mass of stormtroopers coming straight across the open. Staying in the trench kept losses to a minimum, but the German rush across the open threatened to them cut off. Artillery, like God, operates in mysterious ways, and the overdue barrage arrived to put paid to the German pursuit. Robb’s group staggered back to the start bay to find the parallel team already panting in the trench. They were pleased. They had inflicted significant casualties, destroyed machine guns, and taken a prisoner. Stewart was less pleased. Pelves was still a factor, and four of his men were missing, including old soldier Whiting. Whiting was to turn up three months later in Mons, but for the moment, he was a stretcher-bearer for the German army. Defensive M easur es: Night, Tuesday– W ednesday, August 27–28 There was no good news for 35 Division. The Canadian hole-boring was inexorable. Pelves was lost. The Patricia probe had coincided with a push by the Scots as every British heavy gun in range hammered little Pelves. What was left of the garrison was trickling back to join Maercker’s survivors in the Wotanstellung. The 35th Division, like its opposite number, 3 Canadian, was fully committed. All of its regiments were in line. The 61st Regiment on Artillery Hill was down to a single battalion, and the other regiments isolated in their defensive islands. The 141st was key. The West Prussians were a tough outfit. They had broken the Portuguese line in April, and so long as they held the Jigsaw feature, they could provide enfilading fire on any attack over the plateau. South of the Arras–Cambrai Road, 2 Canadian Division came across the Sensée valley with competence to reach Chérisy. Its assault lines took to fire and maneuver, and artillery rained down iron rations on 26 Reserve Division’s regiments, but at the end of the day, the Sensée slopes were dotted with still Canadian bodies and smoldering tank hulks, and 26 Reserve was still in position. The Wurtembergers expected the Canadians would put in another division. They seemed to have a lot of divisions. Lipsett: Night, Tuesday–W ednesday, August 27–28 Rain patted down on fields, furrows, shell holes, and leafless trees for another night. It was not a heavy rain, just an annoying one. Wet ground, puddles, and water-filled trenches held mustard long enough to poison the better forms of shelter.

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Lipsett watched the fall of German shot and concluded the German guns were unable to concentrate. In contrast, he could concentrate more weapons than angels could dance on the head of a pin. By phasing his assaults, he could employ the whole of his firepower, some two hundred guns, on one objective at a time rather than spread it across the front. He appreciated that any operation with tired men needed clear, simple steps, so he walked through his plan with his red-eyed, unshaven, and impassive staff. He explained how to phase the attack, keeping it simple and clear. Then he sent them to set it up. Worn, wet, and drained troops in makeshift holes heard their orders. Each battalion, each company, and each platoon received a clear goal. The 9th Brigade was to resume the attack in the center, another high-diddlediddle directly east from the Bois du Sart and Bois du Vert. It was to take Boiry and Artillery Hill. Its battalions were already in position but were spending a miserable night sucking air through respirators. The 8th Brigade, the Mounted Rifles brigade, with Umpty-Umps from 7 Brigade attached, was to attack on the right and strike between Boiry and Visen-Artois, where the German line was bisected by the Cojeul. It was to break the Fresnes-Rouvroy Line. The 7th Brigade was going to make sure that there would be no repeat of the Vimy Hill 145 problem. It was to crack the Jigsaw position. Even those masters of complexity, the Guns, were keeping it simple. The fire plan was straightforward: all available guns for 9 Brigade, then for 8 Brigade. They were to be on call for 7 Brigade, but for the initial move on Jigsaw, they were providing little support. Everyone needed time, so Lipsett scheduled a late morning Zero Hour: 9 Brigade at 11:00 a.m. and 8 Brigade one hour later. The 7 Brigade operation was to be concurrent to prevent the Jigsaw position interfering. The orders concluded with, “Corps Commander wishes the advance to be carried out with greatest vigor.” 8 Most of 7 Brigade came together around the Patricias facing Jigsaw Wood. Two companies of 49th Edmontons continued clearing the trenches toward Pelves to “marry up” with 51 Highland Division while its other two companies fell into place on the Patricia’s left flank. Two companies of Royals and four companies of Black Watch countermarched across the width of the battlefield to form between the Patricias and 9 Brigade by first light. Stewart, Willets, Topp, Jukes, and Pearkes slithered through drizzle, tying in flanks and ensuring lads were ready to launch. NCOs like Leo Bouchard checked on soldiers who were slumped in shallow shell holes and trying to sleep sitting up with foreheads on rifle stocks.

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Except for the shuffling, coughing, and occasional boom of nuisance howitzer, the battlefield remained largely quiet. Both sides were too tired to start a real fight and were doing their best to prepare for the morning festivities. Jigsaw Wood: W ednesday, August 28 The morning evolved slowly. Some men managed tea, but the air was foul, acrid. Not a glorious morning in any respect. A late Zero Hour left time to think, except in 49 Battalion, which was moving at 5:00 a.m. and bombing along the trenches from where the Patricias had left off the day before. Pelves may have fallen, but the adjoining trenches had to be cleansed before the main event. Everywhere else, memories, real and imagined, flitted through tired and unoccupied minds, and the closer the hands moved toward eleven, the quicker thoughts of other lives dissipated in a sentry’s dream. The remains of this day were now everything. The mirror-images, 3 Canadian Division and 35 Division, faced the “bugger it” that came with resignation and weariness, but for the Germans, the crisis was acute. They were hungry; faced a well-supplied army with what they believed was overwhelming numbers of guns, tanks, and aircraft; and were no longer sure that another sacrifice could accomplish anything. On their way forward, “rear-echelon swine” called out that they were extending the war. They were called “Kaiser’s cannon fodder” and “capitalist martyrs.” And now the guns were beginning again.9 The Prussians at Jigsaw watched as Boiry and Artillery Hill were subsumed in Vesuvian eruptions of flame and smoke. They could taste gas drifting up from the fight. They knew their wood was important, but they also knew that they had been left to hold the gates to hell and were damned. NCOs knew the lay of the land and noted the less resolute eyeing the paths out—down the Jigsaw Valley and back to the Wotanstellung. Some would get out. Some would stay in dugouts and hope for best. Others had not yet confronted options. They laid out grenades, clacked back cocking handles, and hugged the earth. Machine gunners would stay. Sometimes, courage was not a choice. Tenbroeke spent the morning reconnoitering the German position in Jigsaw Wood. He sent a lieutenant forward with a Lewis gun team to kill as many as they could before the show began. The snipers went with them. Then, Tenbroeke made his way among the waiting men. There were faces he did not know. They were not from his company and perhaps had not even been in the battalion a few days ago. After having sent his only lieutenant forward,

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he briefed sergeants and corporals. They took no notes. There was no need; the thing was simple enough. They would follow the captain and tuck into what was ahead of them. Lynch’s sergeant briefed the signals section. “Jigsaw Wood, on top of the next hill, is our objective and we’re going to take it or we’ll all be pushing up daisies . . . Eleven o’clock is Zero Hour.”10 The choir response was, “Here goes nothing.” Few were able to reconstruct what happened after Z-Hour. It was a jumble of overlapping incidents remembered starkly by new men who had seen little of war and episodically by old men who had seen too much. Sequences were jumbled in short-term memory enclosed in the frame of helmet and mask while trying to manage feet over broken ground and scan the danger horizon. Most memory was of smell, feel, and sound: acrid aroma of gas, blasts against skin, bullets thwapping into men, and primal noises of pain. And throats so raw that they could only bark. Individuals saw no more than a few meters in any direction until the end. But that was sometime in the late afternoon of August 28, 1918, when it felt like something important had happened. It was their third day, and they were beyond tired. In another time in other armies, it might have been too much. A few were cold enough, tired enough, and scared enough to funk it, to find an excuse and a hole, but surprisingly few did so. Lipsett told his officers to never let them see your fear, and, for the most part, it worked. On both sides. Training and indoctrination, polished by years under the most terrible of teachers, kicked in. Most tried to stay with leaders, running on instinct and drills. They outran fear—the fear that others might see them funk it. They were not herds; they were packs. They mimicked those who seemed to know what they were doing, the ones who communicated with the invisible signals of predators. They were conditioned to take these men as their example— the captains, leutnants, subalterns, sergeants, feldwebels, corporals, and grognard privates who were the last complete generation to graduate from an unforgiving school of duty and obligation: the last steeped in the culture of irretrievable and unapologetic stoicism and masculinity. Perhaps the last to assume that “sticking it” was the norm. For Tenbroeke’s pack, there was no real barrage. Blobs of hunched men in khaki with greaves of mud moved through greasy grass as the Lewis gun Tenbroeke sent forward began tat-tat-tatting. That sound like a big man clearing the back of his throat split the air, and a shell exploded among the blobs. Another followed. And another. Then came a sound of a hundred snare drummers and hissing steam: MG08s. Men fell. Others dropped to a knee to pop off a shot or

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squeeze a burst from a Lewis gun. Bullets snapped the air. The mud-colored figures moved faster. Dropped. Moved again. Dropped into a shell hole. Paused. Most moved again. The explosions did not follow them. Lipsett was right. It was unobserved fire from worn guns. Some of the machine-gun fire was long range and indirect. Bullets carved through the air well above them. The real problem was the diehards at Jigsaw who could see what they were shooting at. Their bullets punched through the groups, but with no two-inch tap. The MG08 with bipod and shoulder stock was less definitive in stalking prey, but it still put out a seemingly never-ending stream of bullets. The machine guns were joined by an anti-tank cannon firing at point-blank range. Both sides could hear what sounded like the buzzing of a thousand hives of angry bees where 9 Brigade was moving onto Artillery Hill. A 49th Battalion runner found Tenbroeke. Their clearing parties were now almost a kilometer forward on the left, but they were short on grenades, low on water, and facing what looked like a comprehensive effort to stop them. Tenbroeke pushed his group onward and caught the flank of a body of Germans moving toward the 49th. Their arrival scattered the countermove, and Tenbroeke’s pack continued on to a hastily laid barbed-wire entanglement. Tenbroeke diverted stretchers to the 49th as his men crossed the wire to join the Royals in tumbling into the sunken Boiry-Pelves road. It was as good as a trench, and men lay their weapons on its bank and began delivering aimed fire on Jigsaw. The road became a makeshift assembly area, and NCOs moved along the men, designating teams for assault. Two companies of Black Watch crossed the open to their right, with “Toppo” coordinating while another under Lieutenant Montgomerie eased farther right to cover the gap between 7 and 9 Brigades. Topp set out a telephone post and pointed his companies toward a series of shell holes at the southern tip of the wood. As they set out, he sent the Signals Officer and two runners to check out a bypassed dugout. A pair of “exceptionally brave” machine guns hit a forward platoon, eliminating its command element. A corporal assumed command and a private, who had somehow wandered ahead of the rest, cleared the way with grenades.11 While Topp’s troops made for the wood, packs of Patricias and Royals launched from the sunken road. They leap-frogged: half ran while other half raked the wood with fire to cover them. Germans emerged from the grass all around them with hands aloft and began streaming through the Canadians and their own gunfire toward Monchy and the prisoner cages. The Patricias and Royals had momentum as they hit the western edge of the wood, arriving at about the same time as Topp’s thin companies hit the southern

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edge. Neither assault was aware that men of the 49th Edmontons were already at the northern edge, but the men of 141 Regiment were well aware that Canadians were on three sides of them. German NCOs began orchestrating a step-back through the valley behind the wood, but it was a fragmented effort; khaki figures were already into the trees. The machine gunners stayed. For these, there was to be no “kamerading.” Bullets splintered trees. Men disappeared. Voices in the smoke called out pillboxes, called the gun group forward, and called for a stretcher-bearer or tragenträger. It was a large wood that absorbed men. Most followed only leaders they could see, so only the handful around Tenbroeke kept going. He knew to keep going east, to get through the line. German artillery found them in the woods. Someone could see how far they had come and was adjusting fire. Machine-gun fire ripped through the woods going both ways. Major Topp suddenly remembered the lieutenant and two runners that he had left to examine the dugout. No one had seen them. A quick search was mounted, but before it got far, the three caught up with the advance. They had bagged sixty prisoners. Tenbroeke had no telephone line, and headquarters was back by the Bois du Sart. He needed to tell Stewart what was happening. He needed someone to cut off the Germans running back through Jigsaw Valley. He needed artillery to stifle the increasingly accurate German guns and stop the inevitable counterattack. There had to be a counterattack. There always was. He scribbled notes in his message pad and went looking for runners, but he stumbled over Private Lynch and the signals section. They had that awkward lamp they had been carrying for three days, so Tenbroeke slid into their hole with his note. They got the lamp flashing but had to move into the open to get a visual link back to Monchy. Shells fell with increasing frequency, and the signalers were showered by clods of earth from near hits. They assumed that even if headquarters did not see what they were doing, Fritz did and was ranging on them. Lynch aimed the light while the signaler tapped out the flashes with a Morse key. A brief, bright flash answered. The signaler began tapping out Tenbroeke’s message, but the other light kept flashing “SS” rapidly. “What’s he saying?” “Send slower! For Christ’s sake, send slower! They can’t read your signals!” Another shell landed nearby, and the air over their heads crackled. The signaler tapped as slowly as his heart allowed. “Acknowledged.”12

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In minutes, big, beautiful shells were screaming over Jigsaw Wood, and loud whumps emanated from Jigsaw Valley, where Tenbroeke could see field-grays flapping down the grassy slopes. Headquarters flashed more signals, and Lynch had to run up the slope to pass them on. Concussions pressed the air from his lungs and pelted him with bits of hard ground, stones, and more clods of earth. Shock waves dulled his hearing but not enough that he couldn’t hear the atavistic whooping up ahead. The boys could see their foes running and being blasted to bits, and the bits being blasted to smaller bits. They turned the German anti-tank gun around to join in the massacre, and the Lewis guns and rifles banged away as exhausted, drained men took their revenge on the war by slaughtering those leaving it after trying to kill them. Tenbroeke watched Germans fall. Ninepins. He was with the handful of Patricias, Royals, Edmontons, and Black Watch who reached the tip of the wood. They had come far in three days. And Mel Tenbroeke, who had come far in three years—from Frezenberg, from Mont Sorrel, from the Fabek, from Vimy, and from Passchendaele—was watching his enemy break. He could see Pearkes’s 116th and Jucksch’s 58th moving onto Boiry, only hesitating because enthusiastic Canadian artillery was dropping HE and gas rounds all over hell’s half acre. Jimmie Montgomerie’s company was moving across to link up with them. The 49th appeared on Tenbroeke’s left to look down into a Jigsaw Valley littered with sad lumps of field-gray. The Roa d Past Monch y: W ednesday, August 28 The rain had stopped three hours earlier, but everyone had been too preoccupied to notice. A sun was actually shining, and 3 Canadian Division was over the Monchy plateau, over the continental divide. All of the streams and rivulets the men could see now were flowing the other way. Toward Germany. South of the road, things did not go as cleanly for 2nd Canadian Division. It took sequential attacks and almost continuous drumfire to grind down 26 Reserve Division’s rearguard, which enabled the core of the division to break for the Wotan position. Only 50 of the 350-man rearguard got out, and the invincible Hauptmann Kunlen was not one of them. South of 2 Canadian Division, 52 Lowland Division fought with enemy on three sides and changed direction of its attack three times. It had ammunition dropped in by aircraft—a practice likely to continue—and forced the Germans to abandon almost six kilometers of Siegfried Line. Byng’s Third Army was on its way through.

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The Lowland divisional history marked the moment when “the Canadian Corps, under Gen. Sir Arthur Currie, with the 51st (Highland) Division fighting in its ranks, and the 52nd (Lowland) Division on its right flank, broke into and swung across the Siegfried section of the Hindenburg Line, shattering all the German dreams of its impregnability and Gen. Ludendorff’s plans for a stand during the winter.”13 The British Official History was more specific. “The 3rd Canadian Division (Major-General L. J. Lipsett) had greater success and broke the German line.”14 Small bands of wet, relieved men celebrated the moment by collapsing into heaps. Charlie Stewart made his way up toward Jigsaw Wood. He chatted to boys in bandages and on stretchers. A citation for another DSO was to surface, noting his “sound tactical knowledge and ability” and his “complete disregard of danger, and his personal example,” but all Charlie knew was that he had lost too many of his best: Macpherson, Biddulph, McDonald, Mackay, Fox . . . Lucky Buck Arbuckle was still whole, as was Corporal Miller, the drummer, and Mel Tenbroeke, but fully half of the Battalion was napoo. He told Tenbroeke he was now second in command. Lynch and his crew rummaged German haversacks for bread and sausage and stripped the dead of their greatcoats. Pearkes and Rutherford scouted Boiry with rough-sanded eyeballs while Jucksch walked the 58th line, talking to the boys and looking for water. Bouchard showed the new guys how to brew up without making smoke. Willets meandered over the Monchy plateau passing the scattering of Lee-Enfields stuck muzzle-down in the grass and capped by soup-bowl helmets. He was still not saying much. He had lost two hundred men. Correspondent Fred McKenzie followed Canadian armored cars coming up to cover the road and gap between the divisions. These were the linear descendants of Samson’s Naval 3 but fully armored and equipped with multiple machine guns. McKenzie wandered across fields littered with bits of equipment, wire, and letters and buzzing already with bluebottles. He stumbled over a “little loose heap of bones, with moldering uniform around it.” Among the casualties of the day before, he found one from the year before.15 Forbes-Robertson watched his Scots brewing tea. Battalions were reduced to two or three hundred effectives, but there was laughter and rough jokes. That was good. He knew that their rest was not to be a long one. There would be no letup now. The generals had the bit in their teeth. Louis Lipsett stood where he could watch men filing up to relieve his boys. Long lines of prisoners ambled back along the side of the road, making way for the convoys of ambulances.

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The road past Monchy, August 1918.

The division had done well, but the cost was becoming apparent. It pierced the Fresnes-Rouvroy position and prevented many Boche from getting back to the DQ Line. The line was still formidable, but it was manned by considerably less men than it should be. He composed a message. Since 26 August the Division has advanced some 9,000 yards . . . The important and historic places of Monchy—Pelves—Bois du Vert—Bois du Sart—Jigsaw Wood—Boiry-Notre-Dame have all been captured. Five German lines of defence have been crossed . . . our casualties are about 2,400. The whole operation in my opinion was carried out with great skill and courage on the part of the officers, N.C.O.s, and men. I particularly want to thank all ranks for their final effort of 28th August . . . Every battalion in the Division was engaged in this final attack, and I think it was one of the finest examples of what can be accomplished by determined men in spite of fatigue and losses.16

Heinrich Aufderstrassen, a German soldier, composed his own message: “Three quarters of the men here wish an end, no matter how. It is only discipline keeping them together.”17 While Ludendorff issued orders for a general withdrawal across fifty-five miles of front, Philip Gibbs watched an army come up the road past Monchy.

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A sight of enormous movement behind our lines and there is not a man who is not stirred by the emotion of it, feeling that we are indeed “getting on with the war.” It is like a vast tide of life, moving very slowly but steadily. Up the road our transport goes with ammunition and food and water for the fighting lines, miles and miles of moving columns, with “Ole Bill” and his mates smoking fags above the horses, with their dogs on the baggage behind, and side glances of scorn at odd crumps that kick up the earth in the fields about them.18

Charlie Stewart and Daddy Dyer made their way together to the CCS to see the lads and Red George McDonald. Donald Macpherson was in the Prince of Wales Hospital, London, undergoing reconstructive surgery on his jaw when he received word of Ross’s death. Faraway, Bob Mackay of 15 Scot Division was attending the army company commander’s course. He wrote in his diary, “Good war news continuing. Monchy has fallen! Hurrah!”19 There were seventy-five days left in the war.

SEVENTEEN

k

AFTER

The ultimate outcome of a war is not always to be regarded as final. Clausewitz, On War

A r mistice: Monday, November 11, 1918 Out of the stress of the doing, Into the peace of the done Major General Lipsett’s Headstone

The last hundred days of the war saw unremitting combat and movement. A butcher’s bill of another million and a half was testimony to open warfare being no less costly than trench warfare. The German fought with desperation, but out of his fixed defenses, he was vulnerable to an awesome artillery, to air forces beginning to feel their power, to tanks no longer constricted by shell-holes or command ignorance, and to a merciless and increasingly triumphant infantry. Louis Lipsett was forced to leave his beloved 3 Canadian Division for the endgame. The Canadians wanted to finish the war with an “all-Canadian” command team, so Lipsett was given command of the smaller 4th British Division. While reconnoitering his new front, he became the last British general killed in the Great War. His death affected his Canadians deeply and exacerbated a mutinous dissatisfaction with his successor. Mel Tenbroeke and a large contingent

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of 3rd Division officers attended his funeral, and with some irony, the Canadian Dictionary of Biography was to call Lipsett “arguably, the best” Canadian divisional commander of the Great War.1 Charlie Stewart, George Pearkes, and Dick Willets were all hit by shellfire. A long-range gun found Pearkes in Guémappe with his battalion at rest. It smashed an arm and punched shrapnel through his back, blowing pieces of ribs and spleen out of his chest. His men were astonished that he survived and astounded when he later returned to them. Willets and Stewart were hit little more than a week later. A single shell wounded Willets and eliminated his entire headquarters, and Charles Stewart was killed leading his battalion in the attack. On November 11, when the Armistice was announced, dispatch rider Albert Simpkin delivered instructions to 37 Division units. He saw no cheering, just the “smiles of pleasure one sees on the faces of children.” Franklin Lushington passed the word to his heavy battery. “Mr. Straker.” “Sir.” “You can fall the men out for breakfast. The war is over.” “Very good, sir.”2 Rob Steuart watched his division commander announce the moment from his car and thought, “It might have been no more than the news that rations were up.” Ewart Garland’s bomber flight was warming engines for a run to Germany when it received word to stand down. Telling the men to behave themselves when they celebrated made the twenty-one-year-old feel like an old man. Douglas Cuddeford was in Kenya with the King’s African Rifles and felt an infinite sadness on remembering those left in France. Sam Sutcliffe awoke in a prisoner of war camp to discover the guards had disappeared. He and the other prisoners walked west, begging food and looking for a friendly army. Once back in England, Sam was assigned to guard German prisoners waiting to go home. Hamilton Gault was finally appointed to command the regiment he had founded. To some old Patricias, it was a sign of a return to normal; to newer veterans, it was a sign that the old order they had outpaced was being restored. Richard Clarke, Mary Borden Spears, and thousands of others worked on. Wounds did not heal with ceasefire, and Spanish flu and typhus ravaged the warzone. All they asked was that the celebration pause to allow them to sleep. Fritz Nagel led his battery home to a Germany in open revolt. The battery had to abandon its cannons and rifles to be allowed through revolutionary lines.

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Otto Lais went home alone. His Baden unit had been annihilated by Americans in the last days of the war. There was little priority in shipping for prisoners of war, so Albert Krentel did not arrive home until October 1919. Fighting continued in Ireland, in Russia, in Poland . . . Catching Up: 1920s We lived many lives during those swirling campaigns, never sparing of ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew. T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

After Second Lieutenant Norman Outerbridge’s status was changed from “missing” to “presumed killed in action” at Monchy, it took his wife until 1919 to arrange the return of his effects, settle his pay account, and have his medals sent to his father. In 1920, she received an apology from the War Graves Commission: someone had neglected to inform her that Norman’s remains had been found two years earlier. He had a grave plot east of Monchy. The great armies dissolved, taking with them their expertise. Infrastructures were dismantled, and superstructures were redesigned for small and economically manageable operations. Great Wars were a thing of the past. The Great War had accelerated history. Men coming home found the world had not stood still. For some, it had not sufficiently changed; for others, it had changed too much. “Temporary gentlemen” discovered their commissions made them ineligible for employment support and did not provide entrée to professional society. The victorious armies kept a few, but demobilization signaled a return to old, classstructured forms and old ways of doing things. Only defeated armies sought new structures and new ways. Governments sponsored employment support, but veterans had to handle their own reintegration. Haig established the Legion clubs, where they could unpack the hauntings from their mental kitbags among comrades, but for those who had led, there were long years of reliving decisions taken or not taken. Healthy men who had stayed home, had never soiled themselves in a barrage, or carried a shattered comrade over broken ground still had the best jobs. Those who had seen the breaking of the enemy behind Jigsaw Wood and who had marched through cheering crowds of liberated French and Belgian towns read

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that they had not really beaten the German Army in the field. They heard the Americans had won the war. A Canadian veteran noted, “War may kill your body but Peace your soul.”3 By 1929, the myth of the World War was established, despite the efforts of veterans to explain their Great War. One was still trying to explain it decades later. I never met an old “sweat” as we liked to describe ourselves, who accepts or enjoys the figure in which we are now presented . . . Just smile and make an old soldier’s wry joke when you see yourself on the television screen, agonized and woebegone, trudging from disaster to disaster, knee-deep in moral as well as physical mud, hesitant about your purpose, submissive to a harsh, irrelevant discipline, mistrustful of your commanders. Is it any use to assert that I was not like that, and my dead friends were not like that, and the old cronies that I meet at reunions are not like that?4

Monch y The first two hundred returnees lived in Nissan huts while they rebuilt Monchy, but by the time Will Bird visited in the 1930s, it was almost exactly as it had once been, except for the concrete emplacement under the painted advertisement and the new statues: three soldiers for 37 Division, a caribou for the Newfoundlanders, and the monument to French soldiers and resistors. (The Essex Regiment and Yeomanry’s commemorative plaque had to wait for a new century.) Schoolchildren sometimes painted the Newfoundland caribou’s testicles. It brought grins to softened Newfoundlander faces. The surrounding farmland remained riven with crumbling trenches and dotted with MEBU chicken coops. Helmets, grenades, shovels, and unexploded shells turned up daily. And horse bones. The area was under constant siege by battlefield tourists thronging to see where their kin had fought and to visit the Imperial cemeteries. The designer directed that these resemble gardens with plots of grass or flowers, shrubs and trees, and “orderly rows of headstones, uniform in height and width.”5 The “orderly rows” of smooth Portland stone stand in an all-ranks parade, each etched with a signifier badge, name, rank, decorations, religious symbol, and family commemoration. A third to a half of them have no name, just “Known unto God.” In one of the ten cemeteries within walking distance of Monchy, the sons of Manuel and Patience Cake, of St. Johns, Newfoundland, and of Dougald and Sarah Macpherson, of Orangeville, Ontario, are within a few paces.

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The Newfoundland Caribou Memorial at Monchy. As for all six Newfoundland caribou monuments, the bull stands facing the enemy. Here, he faces the Bois du Vert on the horizon on the far side of what became the “Valley of Death.”

2463 Private A. E. Cake Royal Newfoundland Regt 14th April 1917 Age 16 We shall find Our missing loved one In the Father’s mansion fair

Captain John Ross Macpherson DSO, MID Princess Patricia’s CLI 26th August 1918 Age 28 Faithful Unto Death

Nearby, between two Doric columns, are panels listing individuals either with no known grave or buried within the cemetery in an unsure location. Panel 11, the Tank Corps, includes “Serjeant Hatton P.E. DCM.” Percy was killed the month after his Monchy fight and three weeks after Major Hugh Bell was mortally wounded clearing the DQ Line. The Arras Flying Services Memorial stood next to the Arras citadel where C Battalion tanks had assembled in April 1917. Panel C4 includes “Lieutenant Salter G.C.T., MC.” The twenty-year-old Salter had left the cupola of his oilstained tank for the back seat of a linen and wood Bristol fighter on hearing his

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brother, a pilot, had been killed. On May 29, 1918, he did not return from a trip near Arras. War had not finished with Monchy, and commemorations were expanded in the 1940s. Beaurains Communal Cemetery is a ten-minute drive from the citadel. It includes a stone marked, Believed to be Major G. Hedderwick M.C. Royal Tank Regiment 21 May 1940 Age 47

War came back along the road past Monchy, and although that is another story, it included men and women who had fought there before. The Monchy, Mercatel, and Wancourt triangle was again the site for an encounter battle, and Major Gerald Hedderwick, the old rugger veteran, died leading a tank column up the same route he had taken in April 1917. He was attacking units commanded by other veterans of old Monchy battles. Louis Spears and Michael Volkheimer also returned: Spears to escort Général Charles De Gaulle to England, and Volkheimer to again climb Vimy Ridge. The redoubtable Corsican Henriette Balesi, then in her sixties, again ran evaders through the Pas de Calais. Flight Sergeant Alex Mackay of Scullomie, Tongue, nephew of Angus, served in a four-engine Halifax bomber of 427 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, that was shot down attacking a German V-rocket site five minutes north of Monchy. When the Allies returned in September 1944, Monchy was defended by a single abandoned machine gun. The larks at Mont-St.-Eloi still signaled the arrival of visitors, but Monchy le Preux was no longer positioned for war. In 1997, the bodies of twenty-seven Fusiliers were uncovered in a mass grave on the outskirts of Monchy and reburied in military cemetery. The Roa d Past Monch y-le-Pr eux Today, Monchy is a twenty-first-century village where software development operates alongside agriculture, but it retains much of its old look and size. The château, the park, and the town hall are still there, and the appearance of muddy rubber boots still signals spring. The old front line now lies under an AutoRoute, but the road past Monchy, Caesar’s road, hums with traffic. Twelve minutes

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from La Bergère crossroads, just off the road by Tilloy where Christian Mallet had slept by his horse and 9 CFA set out its gun positions, there is a McDonald’s restaurant where Major Knauff was killed in 1914. The grand Canadian monument on Vimy and the French one on AblainSt.-Nazaire are visible from the village when the atmosphere is right. The new 328-meter, oval-shaped Ring of Remembrance, across the road from Notre Dame de Lorette and Barbot’s grave, is more modern. Its five hundred 3-meterhigh bronzed-steel panels are inscribed with the names of the half a million men and women from forty nations who died in the Artois. As befitting its twentyfirst-century sensibilities, the names are equal in cause and sacrifice and show no rank, religion, or nationality. From the Ring overlook, one can see almost the entire Arras battlefield.6 But these, like the 37 Division, Essex, and Newfoundland monuments; the small settlement named Monchy on the Saskatchewan-Montana border; the Monchy Street in St. John’s, Newfoundland; and the granite block commemorative for the Canadian Corps on the road past Monchy are mere reminders. To paraphrase Pericles, take the hamlet as the real monument, for it is here, in this living village, that the men and women of destiny remain eternal. Chronicler s Edward Louis Spears retained a lifelong friendship with Winston Churchill, served in Europe and the Middle East in the next war, and was an observer in the French Indochina War. Mary ran an Anglo-French ambulance unit in the Second World War in Palestine, Africa, and Europe. Spears’s memoirs are part of the fundamental record of the Great War, and Mary Borden’s The Forbidden Zone, published the same year as Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, deserves place on the same shelf. Mary died in 1968, and Louis died in 1974. Eric Fisher Wood became a founder of the American Legion, served on Eisenhower’s staff in Britain in the next war, and was a presidential advisor until his death in 1962. His son, Eric Jr., was killed in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 under conditions of such extraordinary courage that Meyerode, Belgium, erected a memorial to him. John Buchan became High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Chancellor of Edinburgh University, and Governor General of Canada. He is remembered as an advocate of Canadian culture and the founder of the Governor General’s Awards for literary achievement. He died in office while his son was serving with Canadian Army in the next war, and Canada returned his ashes to Scotland. The Thirty-Nine Steps has not been out of print since 1915.

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Frank Fox continued writing and worked on the British Empire Cancer Campaign and the Rheumatism Council until his death in 1960. Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Lushington fought in the Second World War and died in a car crash in 1949. Adrian Carton de Wiart, after eight wounds in this war and a half a dozen in others, served as a too-active liaison officer in the Polish-Soviet War and as a general in the Second War. He fought in Norway, was shot down and captured in the Mediterranean, escaped, was recaptured, and then was released to become Churchill’s representative to Chiang Kai-Shek (during which time he broke his back). On the death of his first wife, an Austrian countess, he married a woman more than twenty years his junior. He died in 1963. Gener a ls Foch and Haig died in the decade following the war and were not there to buck up their old comrade, Pétain, in 1940, leaving him to be remembered more for his Second World War weakness than his Great War strength. Ludendorff and Hindenburg lived long enough to help Hitler into power, but they died before his war. Julian Byng became Governor-General of Canada and was immensely popular, even after instigating a constitutional crisis by refusing a prime minister’s attempt at an opportunistic election. He went on to modernize and reform the London Metropolitan Police, but he died suddenly in June 1935. In Canada, laurels for his preparation of the Canadian Corps and victory at Vimy have been transferred to his disciple, Currie. Edmund Allenby conducted a successful campaign in the Holy Land that is now celebrated as a classic example of modern air-land battle. He died eleven months after Byng. His nineteen-year-old son was killed in 1917. James Aylmer Haldane commanded a remarkable campaign in Iraq in the 1920s before retiring. During the next war, he volunteered as an air raid warden, which he considered the most challenging job he had ever undertaken. He died in 1950. George Harper died in a road accident in 1922. Henry de Beauvoir de Lisle retired in 1926 to become a foremost expert on polo and supporter of Neville Chamberlain. He died in 1955. Hugh Bruce-Williams ended the war as the eleventh longest serving British divisional commander. He retired in 1923 and wrote respected reviews of works on the war, but he was accused by theorist Liddell Hart of altering records. Given Hart’s penchant for recasting events, this may have been a compliment. Arthur Currie returned to Canada and, although holding only a high school diploma, became the principal and vice chancellor of McGill University. He

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remained venerated as a tactician and administrator, but in 1928, he had to prosecute a libel accusing him of being wasteful with men’s lives. The trial was another victory, but strokes followed, and so perhaps his death in 1933 made him a late casualty of the war. Archibald “Batty Mac” Macdonell became the commandant of the Royal Military College of Canada. He retired in 1925 and served as an honorary colonel until his death in 1941. Ernst II, the Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, lost his title, possessions, and aristocratic wife in the postwar revolution. He taught at the University of Berlin and at the Astrophysical Institute of the University of Jena, and he survived the National Socialists and the Communists to die in 1955, the last of the national princes. Theodor von Wundt died in 1929. His second son, Rolf, became an authority on radio antennae, and during 1945’s Operation Paperclip (the plan to rescue scientists with potential to help in the Cold War), he was imported to America for government work. Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker formed a prominent right-wing paramilitary (Freikorps), based largely on 214 Division, to fight the left-wing Spartacists in postwar Germany. After his death in 1924, he was revered as a national hero, with streets and buildings named for him. His image was later dulled by his association with the Herero massacres, anti-Semitism, and the rise of fascism. Fr ench Christian Mallet recovered sufficiently to serve as an air observer, but he died prematurely in Switzerland in 1920. His death did not count as one of the 1.4 million French military deaths. Henri Mordacq was present in the rail car at Compiègne when the Germans came to surrender, but he left the army in disgust with postwar policies. He wrote more than twenty books on military affairs and, like his comrade Spears, became a staunch critic of their former friend Pétain and his Vichy government: Spears because of the old marshal’s defeatism, and Mordacq for his racial laws. In 1943, Mordacq was found floating in the Seine under the Pont des Arts, a presumed suicide. Marcel Jauneaud went on to become an air commander and theoretician who advised the Japanese on their strategic bomber force. He returned to the air force for the next war and died in 1947. Henriette Balesi was decorated by France, Britain, and the United States. She died in 1947, the year French women received the right to vote.

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37th Division Guy Chapman worked in publishing, married a novelist, served again in the next war, and became a professor of modern history. His war memoir, A Passionate Prodigality, was not published until 1931, so it arrived after the fictionalized efforts of Remarque, Sassoon, or Graves, but it was a better, more honest effort than any of them. He explained how the character of his war was always changing: “There were enormous differences between one period and the next. There is all the difference in the world between August 1914 and the end of November, between early 1915 and Loos, between Loos and the Somme, between the Somme and Arras, Messines, Third Ypres, Cambrai, all terrible and hideously unlike its predecessor.”7 As for so many, the war remained forever with him. He believed the men should not be pitied for having served, concluding, “What the survivor remembers is not the fears he knew, the pains, but the faces and a few words of the men who were with him.” He died in 1972. Albert Simpkin became the manager of his prewar company’s Buenos Aires office. He died in 1966, and his wife died in 1982. Albert’s diary surfaced among her effects. Rupert “Jack” Whiteman never returned to Oz. He married and settled in England and died in 1972. Sydney Sylvester’s wound was “a Blighty,” and he received an MM (for what, he never learned) and became the author of the first Saracens Club History. He learned to fly and served as an RAF flight instructor in the next war, and he carried on Whiteman’s effort to tell their Monchy story until his death in 1983. 29th Division James Forbes-Robertson retired in 1934 having earned almost every award for valor available (VC, DSO and bar, MC). Except for service in the Home Guard in the next war, he lived the family and community-service oriented life of a Gloucestershire squire until his death in 1955. Of the rest of the Monchy Ten, Walter Pitcher and Joe Waterfield were killed in 1917, and Japeth Hounsell was killed in 1918 (on the Monchy anniversary). Donald Wilfred “Fred” Curran died suddenly on Christmas Day, 1922. Kevin Keegan met and married the daughter of a Cleveland surgeon while undergoing treatment for wounds, and he worked as a stockbroker in Ohio until his death in 1948. John Hillier moved to Concord, Massachusetts, and became a well-known architect until he died in 1949. Albert Rose was commissioned and

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returned home to the life of a Newfoundland fisherman until his death in 1979. Charles Parsons became a railroad accountant and died in 1967. The “other Parsons,” Victor Marsh Parsons, 1st Essex, immigrated to British Columbia in 1921, where he operated a fishing boat. During the Second World War, he served in the Canadian Veterans Home Guard. He died in 1981, and his medals went up for auction in 2015. After a career in the British Army, Arthur Raley became a clergyman until his death in 1964. The Stick brothers survived. Len Stick (Regimental Number 001) fought in Afghanistan and returned home to become a member of parliament when Newfoundland confederated with Canada. An investigation into Rob Stick’s peculiar behavior at Passchendaele resulted in an MC and a diagnosis of shell shock. Moyle returned home to a headmastership of a school, but despite suffering from ulcers and various debilities until his death in 1986, he still managed to serve again in the next war. John Bemister and Leo Murphy, after long convalescences, served out the war in administrative positions. Murphy played an active role in rehabilitating other veterans until his death in 1956. Medic Fred Janes was wounded again at Passchendaele, but he served as a Dental Corps officer in the next war. He died surrounded by family in 1968. The shrapnel that teenaged Albert Martin acquired at Monchy was still with him when he was inducted into the Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Hall of Fame in 1974. He was widowed but remarried late in life to Loretta, born five years after Albert’s capture at Monchy. When Martin died in 1978, Loretta became the last living Newfoundland connection to the battles at Monchy. She died in 2012. Frank Bailey fought on with 1st Essex until 1918. In 1920, he served with it in its controversial role in fighting the IRA, was commissioned in 1923, and retired as a major in 1937. He was recalled in 1939 and employed as an ordnance officer until retirement in 1942. He died in 1956, aged seventy-three. 15th Scottish Division Robert “Bob” Lindsay Mackay became a respected surgeon and consultant. During the next war, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Palestine, Normandy, and Norway. He died in 1981. Father Robert Steuart became a distinguished religious scholar. In 1939, at sixty-five, he was disconcerted to learn that he was too old to serve. He survived near hits in the Blitz, and when he died in 1948, his Times obituary remarked on his “strong and beautiful personality.”

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Douglas Cuddeford found peacetime soldiering boring and returned to Africa. Ta nk er s Frederick Hotblack, wounded five times, became military attaché in Berlin and aide-de-camp to King George VI. In 1940, he suffered a stroke, which he insisted had been brought about by foreign agents, but he continued to serve. He died in 1979. Lionel McAdam salvaged and repaired broken-down tanks from the battlefield for the remainder of the war and, in 1919, he resumed work as an electrical engineer with the Toronto Transit Commission. Mac lived in Toronto until his death in 1973. Harry Drader moved to Los Angles and died on November 14, 1956, exactly forty years to the day he dismounted from his tank with Hugh Bell above Beaumont Hamel to round up prisoners. Percy the cat went to live with the Drader family but left no further record. Tank recovery pioneer Robert “Bob” Butler died in 1938, still in uniform. Frank Vyvyan took a commission in 1919 but left the army. He married an actress or two and immigrated to Canada in 1924. He settled in Vancouver and became a staple of the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, especially in children’s programs. Frank died in 1967 and is commemorated in the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame. Charles Ambrose returned to the front to support the Canadians in October 1918. His family attributed the breakdown of a subsequent marriage to postoperational trauma. Charles died in 1964. The Flier s George Pretyman remained in the RAF and died in 1937. His wife, Maureen, went on to publish successful mysteries under the pseudonym Maureen Sarsfield, as well as children’s books under her own name. Charles Rumney Samson conducted several notable air operations, including what can be considered the first mass air attack. He also flew from, crashed off, and commanded aircraft carriers, and he set out the North Sea home air defense plan, a basis for the Second World War air defense of Britain. He became an air commodore in the RAF before retiring in ill health in 1929. He died two years later. Ewart Garland turned down service in the postwar RAF. He walked away from his aircraft and never piloted one again. “Strangely enough,” he wrote, “I

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lost interest completely the moment the war was over.” He stayed in Britain, married twice, and died in 1985. After repatriation as an invalid, Arthur Baerlein married, moved to Uganda, and died in 1966. Lloyd Breadner achieved the highest rank ever awarded to a Canadian air officer, Air Chief Marshal. While he was Air Officer Commanding in Chief RCAF Overseas in the Second World War, his only son died on active flying service. Lloyd died in 1952. Joseph Fall was credited with thirty-six aerial victories, including two “hat tricks,” and he stayed in the RAF to survive another world war, a crash off an aircraft carrier, and polio before returning to Canada and becoming a highly successful dairy farmer. He died of post-polio syndrome in 1988. Drummond Matheson served as an air staff officer until the end of the war, and then he returned to the family business in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, until his death in 1961. Cecil “Bull” Durham worked for the Coal Miner’s Association of Calgary until the next war, when he served in the RCAF as Senior Administrative Officer with 6 Group, Bomber Command, in the United Kingdom. He died in 1965. Ernest Morrow died in 1949, having spent the rest of his life in Waubashene, Ontario. Louis Thompson immigrated to the United States and died in Florida in 1972. The bomber commander Morrow escorted on his last flight, Francis Crummy, died of the Spanish flu in 1918. He caught it on November 11 and died on November 20. Rudolf Stark became a test pilot for Dornier. He spent time in South Africa and tried painting, advertising, and farming, but he settled down only upon joining the new German air force. During the Second World War, he commanded an airfield in Italy. He died in 1982. On April 21, 1961, the forty-third anniversary of the death of the Red Baron, the first jet fighter unit of the German Armed Forces was given the honorary title of Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader 71 “Richthofen.” 3r d Ca na di a n Division The war had been too much part of Agar Adamson, and like so many, he could find nothing as significant. He died of complications from injuries received in an airplane crash in the Irish Sea in 1929. He had been looking for excitement. Princess Patricia married a commoner and gave up her titles in 1919. She was the first royal to be married in Westminster Abbey since the fourteenth century, and her Royal Guard of Honor was commanded by Melville Rysdale

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Tenbroeke. Mel became CO of the PPCLI from 1927 to 1932 and died in British Columbia in 1963.8 Will Bird remains the respected soldier-bard. He initially wrote in response to surreal tracts of Remarque and others, but he eventually learned to cater to public expectation. His 1930 And We Go On, rewritten for a 1960s culture as Ghosts Have Warm Hands, recast characters as establishment stereotypes. However, his Lipsett remained whole. Will’s son was killed in Normandy in 1944. and Will died forty years later. John Lynch went into public service in Fresno, California. and died in 1975. George Cross McDonald survived his many wounds to found Coopers & Lybrand Canada with his cousin, George Currie (another Patricia). George was incredibly active in finance, education, and politics and served as governor of McGill University, director of the Wartime Merchant Shipping Board, president of the Montreal Board of Trade, and chairman of the Montreal General Hospital. McGill still sponsors the McDonald-Currie Lectures for distinguished speakers. George died in 1961. James H. “Pinky” Carvosso returned to the PPCLI in time for the capture of Mons in the last days of the war. He remained in the army, but while preparing the unit to proceed overseas for the Second War, he broke his knee (his sixth major wound). He died in 1977. Old soldier Frank Whiting spent five months as a prisoner and married an English girl. He wrote a fictionalized version of his prisoner of war adventure and, ever the wheeler-dealer, seemed able, even in a POW camp, to avoid the worse parades before escaping. He died of influenza in 1935. PPCLI Originals Fred Gillingham, William Miller, and Lucky Buck Arbuckle survived the war. Miller played the drum he had played in 1914 when the unit marched home. Stanley Norsworthy rose to assistant general manager at the Bank of Montreal Head Office in Montreal, Quebec. He died in 1966. Charles Topp wrote the 42nd Battalion’s history of the war and became secretary for Pensions Appeal Board from 1924 to 1935 and a member of the Pensions Commission from 1956 to 1964. He served as a base and brigade commander in the Second World War and died in 1976. Ralph Willcock became a housemaster at Horton Academy and managed the Shawbridge Boys’ Farm and Training School until he returned to war work in 1942. He helped found a retiree apartment facility, the Major Ralph Willcock Apartments, in Ancaster, Ontario. Professional footballer James B. T. Montgomerie played in the Quebec Cup in 1922 and for the New Bedford Whalers from 1924 to 1931. Jimmie rejoined

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the army in 1939, and by 1944, he was a battalion commander in the Palestine Brigade. Jimmie’s son, Lance Corporal John Montgomerie (of the Black Watch), was killed in action against German paratroopers in Crete. After the wars, Jimmie was a favored escort to the Queen Mother whenever she visited Canada. He died in 1987. Doctor William Hale Jr. moved to Utica, New York, just across the St. Lawrence from his family. He became a surgeon and president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. His wife, Mabel, became the delegate to the Women’s Auxiliary to the Medical Society of Oneida. Bill died in 1947, but his family retains the island in the St. Lawrence. John Garbutt’s varicose veins restricted his service to working in support areas. After the war, a medical board granted him a 10 percent disability because he could not resume a career as a waiter. John lived until 1959. Milton Fowler Gregg took up business after the war and became the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House of Commons. During the Second War, he commanded an officer training center as a brigadier. He was elected to parliament and served as cabinet minister before becoming UN representative in Iraq and Indonesia, Canadian High Commissioner to British Guiana, and chancellor of the University of New Brunswick. He died in March 1978, and the following Christmas Eve, his Victoria Cross and medals were stolen. They have not been recovered. Hockey player William Home remained in the army. At the onset of the next war, senior officers opined that he was no longer up to commanding an operational unit, so he was given command of a home unit, the Royal Rifles of Canada. The unit became part of Force C, sent to Hong Kong in November 1941 to forestall Japanese aggression. Three weeks after arriving, the force was overwhelmed, and Home spent the remainder of the war in a prison camp. He died in 1983. Arnold Homer Jucksch anglicized the family name to Jukes and made his living as a singer (The Great Arnoldi) before working for the American press baron William Randolph Hurst and as a modeler for an aircraft manufacturer. He died in California in 1958. Leo Bouchard was wounded and lost partial use of one arm. He returned home a hero and was held up as an example of Indigenous people’s pride and achievement, but he did not have access to the same veteran benefits as other Canadians, only what was allowed by treaty. Leo died in 1938, one of Canada’s most decorated indigenous soldiers. In 2019, he was commemorated, along with others of 52nd Battalion, with a memorial in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Leo’s comrade, the miner Joe Young, spent long convalescences in England for his trench fever and was transferred to Kimmel Park Camp in Wales for

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repatriation. Riots broke out among troops dissatisfied with the mismanaged Canadian repatriation program, and persons unknown stabbed the big man in the jaw and throat. He died on March 5, 1919. Horse whisperer Daniel MacKinnon took an enforced rest before returning to an entrepreneurial life as a newspaper and racetrack owner, racing columnist, silver fox farmer, and renowned horse trainer. He died in 1964. Alfred Mason became an RCMP officer, and Ralph Adams disappeared into the grain industry, but others from 9 CFA found adapting to peace difficult. In 1919, Battery Sergeant Major Hubert Bessent became a victim of the poorly planned repatriation program when his return date was changed with no reason given. Bert went absent without authority for twenty-seven days. An understanding court-martial cleared him of charges, but his family relationship was damaged. He had difficulty retaining a job and vanished in 1923. He was found seven years later in Nashville, Tennessee, wandering with an amnesia that was diagnosed as postwar psychosis. The Canadian government refused support because he had been deemed in good health upon demobilization, so the Disabled Veterans of America paid for his care. Canadian authorities refused him entry to Canada without identification, so he returned illegally. By then, his wife had established a new life with the boarder, and they decided it would be best if Bert returned to England. There was no money for travel, so he surrendered himself as an illegal immigrant and was deported. In 1941, Hubert Bessant (he had changed his name) married again. He wrote to his children in Canada over the years, but his first wife destroyed the letters. Bert suffered a heart attack and died on Christmas Day 1963, and like many of his comrades, he has no known grave.9 Three Macpherson brothers survived the war. Donald, the artillery officer, recovered from his wounds to resume his career as a Toronto teacher and principal until 1960. He passed his diaries on to his family before he died in 1991. They included a message to his family: “It must never be said that their sacrifices were in vain. No sacrifice, willingly made for others, can but make the world a better place to live in. If their hopes for a permanent peace were destined to remain yet awhile unrealized the responsibility must lie squarely on the shoulders of those who survived the holocaust and proved unequal to the task of leading the world into the millennium.” Dick Willets and George Pearkes recovered from their wounds and stayed in the Canadian Regular Army. Willets died prematurely at fifty-one, but Pearkes deployed to Britain in the next war as a divisional commander. He returned to Canada as commander of Pacific Command, where he commanded the Canadian contribution to the Aleutian campaign and defused a potential mutiny among home service conscripts in Terrace, British Columbia.

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Pearkes went on to serve as Minister of National Defence and Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, yet this man, who in the words of his VC citation exhibited “a supreme contempt of danger and wonderful powers of control and leading,” could not explain his Great War to an interviewer programmed with 1960s cultural assumptions. “We thought Currie was a good commander. We were tremendously proud of Lipsett, our divisional commander, and thought that he was the very best commander. We knew the army commanders by name and, as far as I was concerned, Haig was a hero. I looked upon him as the personification of what a general should be. Now, I’m trying to put my mind back fifty years ago and not be influenced by what other people have written.”10 The sergeant turned general loved to hoist a jar or two with young officers and sergeants until his death in 1984. The headquarters building of the Canadian Department of National Defence is the George R. Pearkes Building. The M edics Dr. Richard Clarke returned to clinical medicine but returned to service in the next war. He deployed to the Middle East as a colonel and lost his eldest son on active service. He remained devoted to child and animal welfare until his death in 1957. Ernest Selby returned to medicine in Calgary and died in 1955. Stefan Westmann qualified as a doctor and became a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Berlin University. Three months after Hitler came to power, actress Marlene Dietrich warned him that the Gestapo had listed him as a vocal anti-Nazi Jew. He fled to Britain and eventually became a Harley Street specialist with a revised name: Stephen Westman. In the next war, his son and two daughters served in the RAF and the clandestine Special Operations Executive, supporting resistance movements in Germany. Stephen died in 1964. Ger m a n A r m y Otto Korfes returned to his 66 Infantry Regiment as its commander in 1938. He rose to Generalmajor in the next war but was captured at Stalingrad. He joined the Soviet-sponsored Committee for a Free Germany, and his family was imprisoned for involvement in the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. After the war, he became the Generalmajor of the East German People’s Police (the forerunner to the East German army) and died in 1964. Otto Lais became an artist in Baden. The Nazis proscribed his work, but he returned to command a regiment in their war. He was decorated for fighting

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against 3 Canadian Division and 51 Highland Division in Normandy and was captured by Canadians in Holland. After the war, he became a school headmaster and died in 1988. His Lahr caserne became a headquarters for the Canadian Forces in Germany from 1967 to 1993. Fritz Nagel, with English wife, Dorothy, and child, immigrated to the United States to join his brother in Kentucky as a tobacco exporter. He died in 1986. Albrecht von Thaer left the army in 1922, objecting to the “stab-in-the-back” myth that the army had not been defeated in the field but was sabotaged by home front dissidence. He managed the lands of the former king of Saxony until forced to flee the Russians and died in Hannover in 1947. Frederick “Fritz” von Lossberg retired in 1926 and died in 1942. His son became a general staff officer and prepared the staff study for the invasion of Russia. The Last Charles Rutherford remained close friends with George Pearkes. He became the Sergeant at Arms of the Ontario Legislature and postmaster in Colborne, Ontario. In 1940, he served in the Veteran Home Guard. Part of his duty was guarding the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Bermuda. In 1976, Major (Retired) Charles Rutherford presented a “capturing pistol,” a Colt M1911, to the Royal Canadian Military Institute, Toronto. Charlie wrote that he had obtained his “revolver” from “someone that had no more use for it.” The M1911 is not a revolver, and many Canadian officers carried the specially commissioned Colt .45 revolver, so the identity of the real “capturing pistol” adds to the Monchy mystique.11 Rutherford, the last living Canadian recipient of the Victoria Cross from the Great War, died in 1989, four years after his friend Pearkes. His obituary described him as a man who walked with kings but remained a “humble, God fearing and unobtrusive person.” Line-crosser and new immigrant Otto Dörr returned on the same ship that had taken him across the Atlantic in the CEF (sister ship to the Titanic, the Olympic). He settled in British Columbia under the name of Doerr, claiming to be a veteran of the Royal Flying Corps, and by 1961, he became the First Principle of the Saskatchewan Grand Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons and a life member of the Royal Canadian Legion. The Legion Magazine included him in its “Last Post” section when he died in 1996 at the age of ninety-eight. Dörr/McDonald/Doerr was one of the last surviving veterans of the Great War. Norman Collins was the last commissioned BEF survivor of the trench fighting. Norman fought in 51st Highland Division at Beaumont Hamel and in the

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Chemical Works at Roeux. He returned to Beaumont Hamel in 1989 and stood on the spot where he had fought in November 1916 and where he had commanded a burial party to inter his mates and the Newfoundlanders who had lain there since July. He noted in his taped diary, “I would consider it amusing . . . if I passed out 73 years after the battle on the same spot where I should have passed on at 19 years of age. I’m sure I would be greeted by cries of ‘Late on parade, Sir?’”12 Norman “stuck it” until 1998. He was one hundred years old.

appendix

k

BRIEF ON MILITARY STRUCTURES

You ORGANISE to FIGHT—the only important thing. Before fighting you must train, and before training, ORGANISE. Lieutenant-Colonel T. C. Dalby, Notes for Commanding Officers, 1918

Gr eat Wa r a r mies beca m e very large very quickly and were organized, supported, and run by well-meaning amateurs under the supervision of a few desperate professionals struggling with new concepts and organizations. Until 1914, most nations were used to operations with units of hundreds of men and occasionally brigades of a few thousand. Almost overnight, armies of hundreds of thousands, even millions, took to the field in unfamiliar military structures. Deployed forces were organized into numbered field armies made up of formations (corps, divisions, brigades), so called because they were “formed” of units (regiments, battalions) and subunits (companies, squadrons, batteries, and platoons). Field armies consisted of two to six corps and included their own “army troops.” An army corps was comprised of at least two, but usually three to five, divisions and occupied from eight to twenty-five kilometers of western front, depending on task. The corps was a self-supporting, operational formation with its own “corps troops.” Prior to 1914, the British Army had no corps formation. Functional services included “corps” in their title, such as Medical Corps and Flying Corps, but these were job descriptions, not organizations.

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Corps Headquarters

Corps Support MT companies; Rail Dets

Corps Signals Cable Det; Signals Det

Engineer Companies Tramways Company

Schools YMCA; Military Police

Veterinarian and Labour Units; Ordnance Workshops

Mounted Troops Light Horse; Cyclist Unit

Division

Division

Division

Corps Artillery

Infantry Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Anti-Aircraft Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Artillery Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Artillery Brigade

Artillery Brigade

Artillery Brigade

Artillery Brigade

Artillery Brigade

Artillery Brigade

Artillery Brigade

Artillery Brigade

And sometimes additional Artillery Brigades

Outline BEF Corps.

Divisions were the building blocks of Great War armies and were relatively stable in terms of composition (eight thousand to eighteen thousand men depending on type, nationality, and period of the war). Although identified as either infantry or cavalry, divisions were all-arms constructions with their own engineers, artillery, trench mortar and machine gun units, medicos, veterinarians, supply and transport companies, and provost (police). Divisional identification was assumed as infantry unless otherwise noted; for example, 4 Division was 4th Infantry, but 7 Cavalry Division was 3rd Cavalry. Some carried a

Schools: Signal, Infantry, Bombing and Trench Mortars, Lewis Gun

Cavalry: Corps Cavalry Regiment (460) Corps signals company

Corps troops: (In addition to two to or more assigned divisions)

Artillery: Heavy artillery as assigned by army Heavy trench mortar battery

Engineers: 2× field company 9–16× companies 1–2 siege companies 5–8 tunneling companies electrical-mechanical company workshop company survey company 4–11× searchlight sections pontoon park filtration and drainage units

Artillery: 4× field batteries 82–194× heavy and heavier batteries Schools: 2–5× anti-aircraft batteries Artillery, Mining, Mortar, Signals, heavy trench mortar battery Infantry, Sniping, and Musketry Signal company

Army Troops: (In addition to two or more assigned corps)

Table 18.1  Army Troops and Corps Troops

Others: Cyclist battalion (320) Motor transport column Motor transport company Ordinance workshops Sharpshooters (25) Labor unit (375)

Labor unit (350)

Motor transport company plus one company per division

Infantry: Garrison battalion (1,000) Cyclist battalion (370) Sharpshooters (25) Anti-aircraft company

Others: Machine guns: 2–3× MG battalions Motor MG battalion

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77e Division

88 Brigade

Light Brigade

Division Troops

Artillery

97 RIA

54 BCP

Battery 12 x 75 mm

Engineer Company

1 battalion

1 battalion

57 BCP

Battery 12 x 75 mm

Engineer Company

2 battalion

2 battalion

60 BCP

Battery 12 x 75 mm

Engineer Company

3 battalion

3 battalion

61 BCP

159 RIA

Engineer Company

battalion 1 x MG

Company

Company

Company

Company

1 x MG

Division Barbot 1914 numbered approximately 12,000 all ranks RIA numbered 2,000 to 2,500 all ranks Battalion numbered 750-850 all ranks

77 Division Organization.

national designator, such as 3 Canadian Division for 3rd Canadian Artillery; 51 (Highland) Division for 51st (mostly) Scottish Infantry, and 3 Bavarian Division for 3rd Royal Bavarian Infantry. Divisions were made up of three infantry or cavalry brigades and one or two artillery brigades (e.g., 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 9th Canadian Field Artillery). Brigades were formed of units—battalions, regiments, or batteries—which were the home to most soldiers. Most war-raised units were recruited initially from the same community, but replacement flow made this less evident from 1917.

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Division Division HQ and Signals

Division Train

Division Trench Mortars and MGs Division Engineer Brigade and Pioneer Companies Assistant Director

Division Medical Service

A BEF division numbered approximately 19,000 all ranks

Field Ambulance Field Ambulance Field Ambulance

Infantry Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Infantry Brigade

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

MG Coy

Artillery Brigade

Artillery Brigade

18-pdr Bty

18-pdr Bty

18-pdr Bty

18-pdr Bty

18-pdr Bty

18-pdr Bty

4.5" Howitzer Bty

4.5" Howitzer Bty

MG Coy

MG Coy

Battalion Company

Company

Company

Company

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

Platoon

BEF Divisional structure, 1917.

HQ Division Artillery

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Division Headquarters

Assault Company

Infantry Brigade

Cavalry Squadron

Infantry Brigade

Infantry Regiment

Artillery Battalion

Infantry Regiment

Artillery Battalion

Mortar Company

Infantry Regiment German Divisional structure, 1917.

Infantry battalions (about one thousand strong) did most of the fighting and took most of the casualties. Most had regimental names, but British regimental designation signified cultural identity or clan, not organization. There were, for example, thirty numbered battalions of the Essex Regiment serving in different divisions across Britain, the western front, and the Middle East (e.g., 1st Battalion, the Essex Regiment or 1 Essex). German and French regiments, in contrast, were tactical organizations akin to British brigades, and they normally included all three or four of the regiment’s battalions (e.g., 1st, 2nd, and 3rd battalions of the French 159th Regiment of Alpine Infantry). Confusingly, the French and Germans sometimes also formed brigades. Canadian battalions were all of the war-raised Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) and were numbered (e.g., 42nd Battalion), but most added an

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1914 Battalion

Battalion

Battalion

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

Company 3 platoons with 9 squads each

MG Company 3 platoons with 2 MGs each

MG Company 3 platoons with 2 MGs each

MG Company 3 platoons with 2 MGs each

Summary: 3 battalions; 12 companies; 36 platoons of 81 men; no light machine guns or mortars; 18 heavy machine guns

1918 MG Company

3 platoons each with 2 heavy MGs

Battalion Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Mortar Platoon 4 heavy mortars

Battalion Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Battalion Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Company

3 platoons each with 2 rifle squads; 2 light MG squads; Rifle grenade/grenade squad

Summary: 3 battalions; 12 companies; 36 platoons of 35 to 45 men; 6 heavy machine guns (plus any assigned from Division Marksman Company; 54 light machine guns; 4 mortars

Evolution of German infantry regiment, 1914 to 1918.

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Commanding Officer (Lieutenant-Colonel)

Headquarters

Second-in-command (2ic); Regimental Sergeant Major Orderly Room; Signals Section (21 men)

Medical

(Regimental Aid Post) (7 and 16 bearers)

Company

Major/Captain OC Captain 2ic Sergeant-Major Company Quartermaster Sergeant (200 to 230 men)

Company

Major/Captain OC Captain 2ic Sergeant-Major Company Quartermaster Sergeant (200 to 230 men)

Quartermaster

(25 men, 56 horses)

Scouts and Snipers (10 to 15 men)

Machine Gun Section (17 to 20 men)

Company

Major/Captain OC Captain 2ic Sergeant-Major Company Quartermaster Sergeant (200 to 230 men)

Company

Major/Captain OC Captain 2ic Sergeant-Major Company Quartermaster Sergeant (200 to 230 men)

BEF Infantry Battalion 1917.

affiliated militia regimental identity (hence, 42nd Battalion, the Black Watch, Royal Highlanders of Canada). Most battalions were standard infantry (rifle) battalions, but the unfolding of the war produced specialized units like labor, forestry, machine gun, and cyclist battalions, among others. The infantry battalion’s four rifle companies (about two hundred men each) were subdivided into four (sometimes three) platoons of thirty to fifty men, and platoons were further subdivided into sections. For a while, sections had functions (light machine gun, rifle, and rifle grenade), but by 1918, this was distilled into light machine gun and rifle sections, as in the French and German armies. Platoons were the soldiers’ hearths. Each private reported to one officer, but his life was dominated by his platoon sergeant (three stripes); his section commander, a corporal (two stripes); and assistant section commander, a lance corporal (one stripe). For most of the war, the normal structure was therefore sixteen rifle platoons in a battalion, some sixty-four in a brigade, and about two hundred in a division.

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Type

Range

13-pdr (76.2mm) 18-pdr (84mm) 4.5-inch howitzer (114mm) 60-pdr (127mm)

Division and Corps Field artillery Field artillery Field artillery Heavy gun

5.4 km 8.7 km 6.7 km 11 km

6-inch (152.4mm) 8-inch (203mm) 9.2-inch (233.7mm) 9.2-inch (233.7mm) 12-inch (305mm) 12-inch (305mm) 15-inch (381mm) 18-inch (457mm)

Army/Heavy Artillery Group (HAG) Siege gun 13 km Siege howitzer 9.6 km Siege howitzer 12.7 km Railway howitzer Siege howitzer 10.3 km Railway howitzer 14 km Railway howitzer Unconfirmed Railway howitzer 20.4 km

Table 18.3  Typical German Artillery Weapon

Type

Range

77mm 77mm (or 20–60mm) 105mm light howitzer

Field Artillery Division Close range (anti-tank) Division

7.8 km line-of-sight 6–9 km

100mm cannon 120mm 150mm 150mm K16 210 mm 170mm

Heavy (Foot) Artillery Heavy gun Howitzer-mortar Howitzer Howitzer Mortar/howitzer Railway gun

9–12 km 6.5 km 8.6 km 22 km 11 km 24 km

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Of note, not all privates were privates. Equivalents included the cavalry trooper, engineer sapper, and artillery gunner. Mounted territorial units (Yeomanry) were cavalry but employed “private” because the “trooper” was the horse. Artillery corporals and lance corporals were “bombardiers” and “lance bombardiers,” respectively, and cavalry, artillery, and other odd units called their platoons “troops.” The artillery, or “the Guns,” became an increasingly larger part of armies and came in two species: field and heavy. Field artillery normally consisted of horsedrawn light and medium cannons supplemented by howitzers (approximately 75mm and 105mm, respectively), whereas heavy artillery (German equivalent: “foot artillery”) employed the less maneuverable weapons of the “slide-rule” siege gunners of corps and army organizations (about 127mm to 304mm). A field battery was normally four or six guns manned by about two hundred men, but a heavy artillery battery could require more than seventy men per weapon. Bafflingly for outsiders, a cavalry “battalion” equivalent was a regiment (e.g., the Essex Yeomanry) and consisted of about six hundred men, with all ranks subdivided into three squadrons (companies). Although the cavalry’s role diminished through the war, its mobility and firepower gave it a rapid-reaction capability. It was well supplied with light and heavy machine guns, and it traveled with its own field artillery. (Both light and heavy machine guns fired .303 caliber ammunition, but the heavy guns were capable of more sustained and accurate fire at a greater range.) Much of the cavalry’s battlefield role was subsumed by two technological leaps: motor vehicles and airplanes. The introduction of motor transport (MT), armor-plated cars, and tanks catalyzed new methods and organizations. MT revolutionized supply, communications, and deployments, and armored cars added significant firepower and survivability to cavalry functions. Tanks were not fielded until 1916, but by early 1917, despite criticism for their underwhelming numbers and mechanical unreliability, they were playing a major role in British and French operations, and by 1918, a fifteen-battalion Tank Corps was an essential element in all British operations. The French developed tanks independently, and although the Germans had investigated armored vehicles before the war, they lacked sufficient interest in, or resources for, development even though they were to credit tanks with a major role in their defeat. Wilbur Wright demonstrated his flying machine in France in 1908, and by 1914, all major powers were employing aerial reconnaissance machines. By 1918, air power had become indispensable to all operations. The French Aeronautique Militaire expanded from some 130 flying machines to more than 3,600 combat aircraft, and the German Army Air Service and navy grew from 200 various machines to 2,700 combat aircraft. The 160 various

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8 Cavalry Brigade Brigade HQ

Royal Horse Guards

10 (PWO) Hussars

8 Signal Troop

Essex Yeomanry

(Lt-Col Whitmore) 26 officers; 523 men; 600+ horses; 15 bicycles

Regimental HQ

Adjutant; Medical Officer; Veterinarian; Farriers; Saddlers; Shoe Smiths troop troop troop troop troop troop troop troop troop

Squadron

G Battery RCHA

8 Cav MG Squadron Hotchkiss MG Section Hotchkiss MG Section

6 officers; 10 senior NCOs; 2 trumpeters; 6 artificers; 134 other ranks

Squadron

6 officers; 10 senior NCOs; 2 trumpeters; 6 artificers; 134 other ranks

Squadron

6 officers; 10 senior NCOs; 2 trumpeters; 6 artificers; 134 other ranks

Cavalry Brigade, 1917.

flying machines of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) of 1914 expanded to 4,700 combat aircraft of the amalgamated 1918 Royal Air Force (RAF). Of note, most (but not all) pilots were commissioned officers. The French and Germans employed many noncommissioned pilots, often considered as chauffeurs for the officer-observers. The emerging concept of close air support for ground operations gave rise to the term “fighter” to describe two-seater aircraft capable of bombing, strafing, and air-to-air combat, but the British continued to call single-seater interceptors “scouts,” the Germans and French called them “hunters,” and the Americans called them “pursuit aircraft.” Air machines specifically designed for dropping bombs at greater ranges grew larger and more capable, but the concept of strategic bombing was still in its infancy at war’s end. By 1916, the functional air unit was the squadron (French escadrille or German Jagdstaffel or Jasta) and was designated by role: air interception, reconnaissance,

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or bombing. Each squadron was made up of “flights” of four to eight machines and operated as part of a wing formation (French, group; German hunters and fighters, Geschwader, and bombers, Bogohl). The British assigned wings to armies and corps, with army wings being responsible for deep reconnaissance well behind enemy lines. French and German air forces were less tied to ground organizations. The growth of army infrastructure, including medical organizations, was astounding. No army went to war with sufficient support, but as the war progressed, the zones behind the front mushroomed with administrative, logistic, and medical units and schools that included general and stationary hospitals, ordinance depots, bridging organizations, transportation units, railheads (a division could consume between 1.5 and 2.5 trainloads of consumables per day), and supply depots for coal, oil, food, ammunition, forage, and a myriad of other items. The “Rear Zone” supplied and managed thousands of kilometers of telephone wire, telephone poles, teletype and wireless (radio) stations; built, repaired, and controlled thousands of miles of road, canals, and railways; and controlled hundreds of specialized labor units, including railway companies, forestry units, and a third of a million strong Labour Corps, which did not include two hundred thousand Chinese, Egyptian, and South African laborers. Remount commissions purchased thousands of horses and mules from Canada, the United States, and other overseas suppliers; acclimatized them; shipped them; arranged for fodder and housing; and provided veterinary care and training—all while the burgeoning motor industry ballooned in size and importance. The BEF alone expanded its MT from a few hundred motorized vehicles to more than 120,000, which required a parallel expansion of rare, qualified drivers and mechanics and fuel quantities. The units of these organizations needed men (and women of the Women’s Auxiliary Force and Auxiliary Army, among others) to organize and manage them (and run their accounts), and such individuals did not exist prior to 1914. Progress was by trial and error, but in the end, the BEF proved better at it than its adversaries, but many of its medical, organizational, and business achievements are relegated to the footnotes of history. While leutnant, oberleutnant, hauptman, major, oberstleutnant, and oberst correlate to second lieutenant, lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel, respectively, German and French officers often commanded a level higher. A British major commanded a company or squadron, but his German equivalent often commanded a battalion or even a regiment. General officers had no such equivalency. Whereas British brigadier-generals (brigadiers) normally commanded brigades, major-generals commanded divisions, and lieutenant-generals commanded corps, the German armies had

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no brigadier equivalent, and a generalmajor (major-general) could command a brigade, division, or even a corps. Noncommissioned ranks had a rough equivalency of unteroffizier with corporal, sergeant with sergeant, vizefeldwebel with staff sergeant, and feldwebel with company sergeant major. A further complication arises with armies differentiating between regular and reserve ranks and with the British system of substantive (regimental, permanent), brevet (wider army eligible, if-so-employed), temporary (wartime) and acting (while-so-employed) ranks. Hence, by 1918, the commander of 155 Brigade in 52 (Lowland) Division was Substantive Major, Brevet LieutenantColonel, and Temporary Brigadier-General John Forbes-Robertson. Ranks employed in the narrative are those of the rank badges worn on the day.1 Several decorations are mentioned in the narrative. A summary of the most common of these is as follows: In the British and Commonwealth, the Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award for valor and awarded to all ranks. It was the only decoration awarded posthumously. The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) was second in prestige and usually reserved for field and general officers (major and above). The noncommissioned equivalent to the DSO was the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM). In 1916 the Military Cross (MC) was instituted for junior officer gallantry and the equivalent Military Medal (MM) for noncommissioned soldiers. These were eventually followed by the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and Distinguished Flying Medal (DFM) once the RAF was established. Old soldiers sometimes dismissed these wartime additions as mere motivations for citizen-soldiers because, unlike the VC or DCM, they came without an annuity. A “bar” indicated a second award of the same decoration. Senior officers (major-generals and above) exhibiting exemplary service were eligible for appointment to chivalric orders, such as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), but membership in such orders was specifically limited by number. The French Croix de Guerre was initiated in 1915 to replace what had previously been “mentioned in dispatches” for notable bravery and conduct and was awarded both to individuals and to units. The individual award had bronze, silver, and gold levels and an “avec Palme” for multiple awards. The five degrees of the Legion d’Honneur represented France’s highest recognition of both civil and military merit and could be awarded to any Frenchmen and to foreigners. The Iron Cross (Eisernes Kreuz or EK) was a Prussian award available in three grades. The first two, the Iron Cross First and Second grades were available to

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all ranks of the German armies (unlike the myriad of chivalric awards issued by each German state, which were rank related). The highest grade, the Grand Cross, was available to general officers. The famous Pour le Mérite was the highest Prussian award and, like the British Order of the British Empire (OBE), it conferred membership in an order of individuals identified for civil or military distinction. It was usually referred to as the “Blue Max” because of the color of its cross and, apparently, for its association with the flying ace Max Immelman, its first air recipient. There was a rare non-commissioned version, the Military Merit Cross (Militär-Verdienstkreuz), and Bavaria Saxony, Wurttemberg, and Baden had their own versions.

NOTES

Pr eface 1. Winter, Into the Blizzard, 130. 2. Terraine, The Smoke and the Fire; Corrigan, Mud, Blood and Poppycock; and Carter, “Tactics and the Cost of Victory in Normandy,” on the Imperial War Museum website, January 10, 2018. 3. “Intervening levels,” from Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, Command on the Western Front, 393. 4. “EDS Airplane,” Director John O’Hagan, at https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=L2zqTYgcpfg. 5. Steuart, March, Kind Comrade, 209. 6. IWM Film 147, Newfoundland Troops, 1917; IWM Film 222, Newfoundland Infantry on the March, 1917. 7. Smith, Four Years on the Western Front, Kindle edition. 8. Ternick, Promenades Archéologiques, 210–214. 9. Johnson, Battlefields of the World War, 165. Daily casualty rates for the Somme, Passchendaele, and Arras, respectively, were 2,943, 2,323, and 4,076. Nicholls, Cheerful Sacrifice, 211. 10. Times History of the War, XIV, 420. 1. Demolish A ll Cr e ation, 1914

1. Raleigh, The War in the Air, 1:310–12. 2. Westmann, Surgeon with the Kaiser’s Army, chap. 2. 3. Nagel’s story, unless otherwise cited, is from Nagel, Fritz. 4. The Lais diary is in Reith, Imperial Germany’s “Iron Regiment.” 5. Wood, Notebook of an Attaché.

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6. Wheeler’s story, unless cited otherwise, is from Rockwell, “Special Cable to Buffalo Commercial and Chicago Daily News,” August 12, 1918; John Hutton, August 1914. 7. Borden’s and Spears’s stories, unless cited otherwise, are from Conway, A Woman of Two Wars; Egremont, Under Two Flags; and Spears’s own Prelude to Victory and Liaison 1914. 8. Unless cited otherwise, Mallet’s story is from his Impressions and Experiences of a French Trooper. 9. Likely Gottleib Maile, 26th Dragoons, posted as missing. 10. Samson’s story, unless cited otherwise, is from his Fights and Flights. 11. Posek, German Cavalry 1914; Spears, Liaison, 292. 12. Armée Service historique, Les Armées françaises dans la Grande Guerre, Tome 3, maps. Paris, 1936. M ND, France, Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre. Tome Premier, Quatrieme Volume, 1933. 13. Johnson, The Spirit of France, 68. 14. Anon, Historique du 159ème Régiment d’Infanterie Alpin. 15. Fitzgerald, A Day’s Tour, vi. 16. Sheldon, German Army on Vimy Ridge 1914–1917, 2–5. 17. Samson, Fights and Flights, 63. 18. Hallam, The Spider Web, 12. 19. Fall’s story, unless cited otherwise, is from “My Air Force Recollections” and “G/C Joseph Fall.” 20. Hill 90 was known by a number of names, but for uniformity, it will be Hill 90 throughout. The Wancourt Tower Hill across the Cojeul was sometimes called Hill 92. 21. Sippel, “Letters of French and German Soldiers in World War One.” 22. Reith, Iron Regiment, Kindle edition. 23. Hennessy’s widow was to receive $680 a year from a grateful Canadian government. 24. Showalter, Instrument for War, 43–44. Westmann, unless otherwise cited from Surgeon with the Kaiser’s Army. 25. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 51–53. 26. Jonathan Viser, “Ernst II. Herzog von Sachsen-Altenburg H.” 27. Korfes, 66th Regiment, Kindle edition. 28. Crossman, “The European Infantryman’s Rifle,” 139–42. 29. Girardet, Jacques, and Duclos, Somewhere, 11–13. 30. Williamson, “The Race to the Sea,” 59. 31. Infantry Regiment 72 and 36 Fusilier Regiment. 32. Jauneaud, “Souvenirs de la bataille d’Arras (octobre 1914).” 33. Fitzgerald, A Day’s Tour. 34. Mordacq, “ Général Barbot.” 35. Spears, Prelude, 295; Spears, Liaison 1914, 70.

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36. Jauneaud, “Souvenirs,” 835. 37. French dead numbered 300,000, or 50,000 more than the British in the next war. Van Bergen, Before My Helpless Sight, 18. 38. Strassman, “Die Geschichte der Familien Cohn, Bucky und Levy.” 2. H a ndfuls of Str aw, 1915 1. Buchan, These for Remembrance, “Introduction.” 2. More et al., “The Impact of a Six‐Year Climate Anomaly.” 3. Sutcliffe, unless otherwise cited, is from his Nobody of Any Importance: A Foot Soldier’s Memoir of World War I. 4. Simkins, Kitchener’s Army, 40–44; Watson, Enduring the Great War, 63–64. 5. Masters, Bugles and a Tiger, 122–23. 6. Information about the 10th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, unless cited otherwise, is from Carter, The Stockbroker’s Battalion in the Great War. 7. Information from Cuddeford, unless otherwise cited, is from Cuddeford, And All for What? 8. “Royal Flirt Engaged,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1908. 9. Information from Simpkin, unless otherwise cited, is from his Despatch Rider on the Western Front 1915–1918. 10. Garland, “Papers of Captain E. J. Garland,” unless otherwise cited. See also Charles Garland’s letters from 1915, in “Charles Garland, Easter Rising 1916.” 11. Family histories, Sutherland and Mackay, The Tongue Melness and Skerray War Memorials. 12. There was no official status of Canadian citizenship until 1947, and for indigenous Canadians, not until 1960. 13. “Indigenous Peoples,” World War One Thunder Bay Centennial Project. 14. Sumiyuki, “The Life of Isaac Bunting.” 15. Information from Wilson, unless cited otherwise, is from his A Two Years Interlude. 16. Public schools in Britain were, for historical reasons, actually private schools. 17. Information about Jones, unless otherwise cited, from War Letters of a Public-School Boy. Aimeé Fox, Learning to Fight, 37–38. 18. Information from MacKay, unless cited otherwise, is from his “The Diaries of Robert Lindsay Mackay.” 19. Kendall, Father Steuart, 1. 20. Lloyd, The Western Front, 71. 21. Mallet, Impressions, 123–24. 22. Tank crew biographies from Pope, The First Tank Crews, unless noted otherwise. Also from McAdam, “Transcript, Lionel McAdam.” 23. Statistics Canada, Yearbook for 1913. 24. Puttees were strips used as wraps for the lower leg from boot top to knee to support the leg and keep water and pests out of the boot.

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25. The Canadian government was to acknowledge more than thirty-five thousand. 26. Anon, “St. Louis Man, Who Won the Iron Cross, Is Killed in Battle,” St. Louis Star and Times, November 16, 1915, 1. 27. LAC personal files for “261286 George McDonald” (Dorr) and “297775 George McDonald.” 28. Paland, Albert Krentel, 140–44. 29. Krause, Early Trench Tactics in the French Army, 23–31. 30. Joffre, Memoires, 2:72–73. 31. Anon, “French Open Fire for a New Assault,” New York Times, November 15, 1915. 32. Chevaux-de-frise: portable frames of spikes. 33. Sheldon, German Army on Vimy Ridge, 35. 34. Mallet, Impressions, 144–59. 35. Elkington’s adjutant, future Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, believed the verdict harsh. 36. Showalter, Instrument of War, 144. 37. Kittelberger, “Ofterdinger Glaser Hermann Mayer: Two letters home.” 38. The original BEF had been used up. It had taken 96,000 casualties in 1914, and although the force had been expanded by Territorials and volunteers, it had suffered at least 75,000 more up to this offensive. By the end of the month, it had lost another 65,000. The French and Germans, by then, had suffered about 700,000 each. 39. Spears, Prelude, 297. 40. Rockwell, American Fighters, 75, 118–19. 41. Wood, Attaché, chap. 2, Kindle edition. 42. Barbot’s death is reported differently in unit and official histories. 43. Newark, “A Monograph on the Life, Times and Military Service of Colonel Sir Francis Whitmore.” 44. Laffargue, The Attack in Trench Warfare, 2–3. Emphasis in the original. 45. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1915, Battles of Aubers, Festubert and Loos, vii. 46. Boff, Haig’s Enemy, 90. 47. “Shot in the First World War,” French Ministry of Defense, “Mémoire des hommes.” 48. “St. Louis Man,” St. Louis Star and Times, November 16, 1915. 49. “Rupprecht: My Job,” New York Times, June 29, 1915. 50. Anon, Times History of the War, 1916, 6:439. 3. THE A m ateur s, Ja nua ry–July 1916 1. Spears, Prelude, 73. 2. Clifton, “Staff Officers in the British Army 1914–1918.” The War Establishment of the headquarters of Montgomery’s 21st Army Group was about 3,500 not including transport, signals, and attachments.

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3. Senior Officers School, Notes for Commanding Officers, 390. 4. Nicholson, Behind the Lines, 195. 5. Adamson, Letters, 190, 234, 241, 275. 6. Chapman, Passionate Prodigality, 5–6. 7. Altenburger, “von Thaer, Albrecht Georg Otto.” 8. Paland, Albert Krentel, United States War Department, “Experiences Gained from the September (1915) Offensives.” 9. Bragg, Dowson, and Hemming, Artillery Survey in the First World War, 5. 10. Bragg, “Personal Reminiscences,” in Ewald (ed.), Fifty Years of X-Ray Diffraction, 534. 11. Bragg, Dowson, and Hemming, 6. 12. The 10th (Prince of Wales’s Own) Royal Hussars, now partnered with the Essex Yeomanry in 8 Cavalry Brigade. 13. Jones, Letters, 1918, September 9, 1915. 14. Williams, Byng of Vimy, 107–9. 15. Nikolas Gardner, “Julian Byng,” in Beckett and Corvi, Haig’s Generals, 54–74. 16. Degummed: senior officer slang for being removed from position, from the French dégommer, to unstick. 17. Bewsher, History of the 51st (Highland) Division, 19–20, 29–30. 18. Ritchie, My Grandfather’s House, 12. 19. Williams, Byng of Vimy, 110. Byng was to serve as Governor-General of Canada, and the Lady Byng Trophy is still presented to the National Hockey League player demonstrating sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct. 20. Wood, Notebook of an Intelligence Officer, 241. 21. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1916, 1:37. 22. Cuddeford, And All for What, 68. 4. R eca libr ation, October–December: 1916 1. Hall, “The British Army, Information Management,” 1001–30. 2. Information from Steuart, unless cited otherwise, is from Steuart, March, Kind Comrade. 3. Senior Officers School, Notes for Commanding Officers, 217–31. 4. Ministry Overseas Forces of Canada, Report of the Ministry Overseas Forces of Canada 1918, 9–99. Armbands indicated formation: division, red; corps, red, white, and red; army, red, black, and red; GHQ , red over blue. 5. Hall, Communications, 81–83. 6. Caddick-Adams, Monty and Rommel, 140. 7. Harris, Men Who Planned the War, 98–114. 8. Jones, Letters, September 9, 1915. 9. Adamson, Letters, 124. 10. Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, “Dan MacKinnon.”

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11. A soldier axiom is that “a REMF” [rear echelon mother-fucker] is anyone whose trench is further back than your own. Nicholson, Behind the Lines, 166; Robert T. Foley, “Dumb Donkeys or Cunning Foxes,” 279–98. 12. Scrivenor, Brigade Signals, 54–55. 13. Haig, War Diaries, 183. 14. Goya, Flesh and Steel, 103. 15. The other perfect organizations were the Roman Curia, the British parliament, the French opera, and the Russian ballet. Burke, The German Army from Within, 114. 16. Goerlitz, History of the German General Staff, 177–203. 17. Leonhard, Pandora’s Box, 139. 18. Speier, “Ludendorff: The German Concept of Total War,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Earle, 315; Michael Geyer, “German Strategy in the Age of Machine Warfare,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Paret, 533–34. 19. Murphy, “Killing in the German Army,” 64–98. 20. Foley, “Learning War’s Lessons: The German Army and the Battle of the Somme 1916,” 471–504. 21. Thaer, Generalstabdienst, 95, 98. 22. Bilton, Against the Tommies, 11. 23. Steuart, March, Kind Comrade, 73. 24. Ramasamy et al., “The Effects of Explosion on the Musculoskeletal System,” 128–39. 25. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 27; Gerster, Das Württembergische Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr.119, 94–95, 133. 26. Fleischer, Military Technology of the First World War, 29–30. 27. War Office, Handbook of the German Army. 28. Rooms, “James Forbes-Robertson.” 29. Gillon, Story of the 29th Division, 100–101. 30. Burrows, The Essex Regiment: 1st Battalion. 31. Information from Bailey, unless otherwise cited, is from his A Major Soldier. 32. Senior Officers School, Notes for Commanding Officers, 355; “Sgt. Thomas Merry 8610,” Great War Forum. 33. Johnson, The Spirit of France, 132; Miedema, Bayonets and Blobsticks. 34. Wood, Intelligence Officer, 260–61. 35. Gibbons, Red Knight, 91. 36. Park and Vertinsky, eds., Women, Sport, Society, 159–60. 37. Howard, “Leadership, Training, Duty and Discipline: The Birkenhead Drill.” 38. Thaer, Generalstabdienst, 215. 39. Reicharchiv, Die Kriegsführung im Frühjar, 240–41; US War Department, “Experiences of the Fourth German Corps in the Battle of the Somme,” German and Austrian Tactical Studies; Behrmann, Die Osterschlacht bie Arras 1917, 14–15. 40. Speck, Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 84, 144–47.

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41. Christensen, “Fighting for the Kaiser,” 126–29. 42. Wiens, “In the Service of Kaiser and King,” 227–30; Speier, “Ludendorff,” 317. 43. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 61, 121–2; Strachan, “The Morale of the German Army 1917–18,” in Facing Armageddon, edited by Cecil and Liddle, 388–89. 44. Rosinski, German Army, 98–99; Christian Stachelbeck, “Strategy ‘in a microcosm’: Processes of Tactical Learning in a WW1 German Infantry Division,” 4–7. 45. Cheyne, Last Great Battle of the Somme. 46. Haig, War Diaries, 256; Spears, Prelude, 376. 5. The R ight Way, Ja nua ry–Februa ry 1917 1. Trenchard, in H. A. Jones, The War in the Air, vol. 2, appendix IX. 2. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First World War, 398. 3. Foley, “Dumb Donkeys or Cunning Foxes,” 289–90. 4. The VintageAviator, “Flying the FE2b.” 5. Red devil. 6. Hart, Bloody April; Floyd Gibbons, Red Knight of Germany, 112–3. 7. Ashton, “Pictou County Aces of First World War.” 8. Gray, Early Treatment of War Wounds, especially chapter 1. 9. Clarke, “Evolution of a Casualty Clearing Station,” 10–12. 10. Gray, Early Treatment of Wounds, 68, 70. 11. Unit medical personnel were required to be inordinately brave. The RMOs in 3 Canadian Division were to earn eleven awards for bravery, and the most decorated noncommissioned soldier of the war was a stretcher-bearer in the North Staffordshire Regiment: Private W. H. Coltman VC, DCM & Bar, MM & Bar. 12. Harrison, The Medical War, 130–31. 13. Moran, “Stretcher Bearers and Surgeons,” 132–33. 14. Van Bergen, Before My Helpless Sight, 150–51; Harrison, Medical War, 164–68. 15. Three of Byng’s salted British staff eventually rose to the rank of field marshal and chief of the General Staff: Alanbrooke, Dill, and Ironside. 16. Delaney, “Mentoring the Canadian Corps,” 931–53. 17. The 90th Winnipeg Rifles, nicknamed the “Little Black Devils.” 18. Dictionary of Canadian Biography. sv Lipsett, Louis James. 19. McKenzie, Through the Hindenburg Line, 8–9; Savage, “Memoir, 1936.” 20. Bird, Ghosts Have Warm Hands, 13–14, 136. 21. Carton de Wiart, Happy Odyssey, 91. 22. Spears, Prelude, 308. 23. McCulloch, “‘Batty Mac’: Portrait of a Brigade Commander.” 24. McKenzie, Through the Hindenburg Line, 116; Canadian Ministry of Overseas Resources, Report of the Ministry Overseas Forces 1918, 9–99. 25. McCulloch, “The Fighting Seventh,” 55. 26. Stevens, A City Goes to War. 27. Brown and Loveridge, “Unrequited Faith: Recruiting in the CEF 1914–1918.”

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28. Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front, 173; Riggs, “Major Stanley Counter Norsworthy.” 29. Topp, 42nd Battalion, 75–88. 30. Smyth, Luptak, and Halewood, “War Time.” 31. Nagel, Fritz, 8. 32. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 56–59. 33. Baker, “Syllabus of Infantry Training.” 34. Wood, Intelligence Officer, 227; Sutcliffe, Nobody of Any Importance, chap. 23. 35. Pearkes, “My Army and Political Recollections.” 36. Recommendations included one from President Theodore Roosevelt. 37. Adamson, Letters, 110, 207–8, 252. 38. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 126 39. Fox, Learning to Fight, 53–77; Watson, Enduring the Great War, 12; Harris, Men Who Planned the War, 156. 40. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 120–21. 41. Fox, G.H.Q.; Chapman, A Kind of Survivor, 66; Keegan, “Letter home, December 1916.” 42. Sutcliffe, Nobody of Any Importance, chap. 25. 43. General E. Essame, commissioned from the ranks in the First World War and commander of a battalion, brigade, and division in the Second War. Watson, Enduring the War, 61–62, and 119–25. 44. Carton de Wiart, Happy Odyssey, 16, 91. 45. Westmann, Surgeon with the Kaiser’s Army, chap. 4. 46. Wood, Intelligence Officer, 250–51. 47. Haig, War Diaries, 42. 48. TNA. The BEF casualty rate for noncommissioned was 12 percent, and for officers it was 17 percent; Barrett, “Ruin and Redemption,” 126, 147–48. 49. Spears, Prelude to Victory, 31. 50. Gillon, Story of the 29th Division, 98. 51. Gibbs, Now It Can be Told, 56. 52. Carrington, Soldier from the Wars Returning, 141. 53. Spears, Prelude to Victory, 43; Haig, War Diaries, 271. 54. Falls, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1917, 91–93. 55. Falls, France and Belgium, 1917, 172–74. 56. Vimy and Bullecourt are largely remembered as Canadian and Australian operations, but both operations included substantial British forces. 57. Haldane, A Soldier’s Saga, 307–8, 333. 58. Hughes, “Edmund Allenby,” in Haig’s Generals, edited by Beckett and Corvi, 15–16. 59. Spears, Prelude to Victory, 308–9; Hughes, “Allenby,” 21. 60. Hughes, “Allenby,” 14–21; Wavell, Allenby, 167–70. 61. Baker-Carr, Chauffer to Brigadier, 214; Wavell, Allenby, 179–80, 300. 62. Kenyon, Horsemen in No Man’s Land, 95–111.

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6. Pr epa r ing the M en, M a rch, 1917 1. Wilson, Soldiers of Song, 108; Adamson, 293, 336–37. Langtree, the “Jersey Lily,” was widely known as mistress to Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales. 2. Remembered only for its song “If You Were the Only Girl in the World.” 3. Byng’s later command, Third Army, also referred to itself as the Byng Boys. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 90–92. 4. Adamson, Letters, 272. 5. Gillon, 29th Division, 101–9. 6. Wilson, Soldiers of Song, 39–40, 52–54, 119–25. 7. Nicholson, Behind the Lines, 141. 8. MacPhail, Medical Services, 112–13. 9. LAC Canadian Corps, “Organization and Establishment: Infantry; Battalions, Army and Corps Scheme,” December 27, 1916. 10. Wilson, Two Years Interlude, 26–27; Guy Hartcup, The War of Invention, 57–59. 11. Marble, “British Artillery in the First World War,” in King of Battle, edited by Marble, 35–61. 12. Lynch, Princess Patricia’s, 81. 13. Spears, Prelude to Victory, 396. 14. Hartcup, Invention, 65–67. 15. Priestley, The Signal Service in the European War, 160–61. 16. Morley, “Earning Their Wings: British Pilot Training, 1912–1918.” 17. Winter, The First of the Few, 110–20. 18. Gibbons, The Red Knight of Germany, 217–18. 19. LVG: Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft. The “A” designation indicates artillery spotting, and the “C” indicated general-purpose, armed two-seater. “B” types were unarmed, and “D” types were single-seat hunters. 20. Gray and Thetford, German Aircraft of the First World War. 21. Mertens, Die FA(A) 235 im Weltkriege, 93–94. 22. Times History of the War, 19:422–23. 23. Whitmore, The 10th (P.W.O.) Royal Hussars and the Essex Yeomanry, 64–68. 24. Browne, The Tank in Action, Kindle edition. 25. The officer was J. F. C. “Boney” Fuller, later the leading exponent of mechanized warfare. 26. Film of Percy is available on IWM 116, Battle of the Ancre and Advance of the Tanks (War Office, 1917). 27. Buchan, These for Remembrance, 15–16. 28. Hardy, The Reconographers, 82. 29. Campbell, Band of Brigands. Butlers appear throughout the history of Newfoundland, Virginia, Ontario, British Columbia, and New York (where the name is famous or infamous depending on whether the view is Loyalist or Patriot). 30. Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told, 291. 31. MacPhail, Medical Services, 68–72. 32. “Honour Roll,” Perth Courier. September 20, 1918.

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33. Gunn and Dutton, No 8 Canadian Field Ambulance, 37–47. 34. Fever was later determined as louse-born. 35. MacPhail, The Medical Services; Hammond, Rolland, and Shore, “Purulent Bronchitis: A Study of Cases Occurring amongst the British Troops at a Base in France.” 36. Ashton, “Pictou County ‘Aces’ of First World War.” 37. In a peculiarity of regimental designation, 13 Rifle Brigade was a battalion. 38. Williams changed to Bruce-Williams in 1920. Bourne, Lions Led by Donkeys, sv “Bruce-Williams”; Kerby, Sir Philip Gibbs, 89. 39. Chapman, Passionate Prodigality, 173, 183. 40. Whiteman and Sylvester, unless otherwise cited, from Whiteman, “Private Papers of R. S. Whiteman.” 41. Easterly, The Belgian Rattlesnake, 175–79. 42. War Office, SS109 Training of Divisions for Offensive Action, 1916. 43. Carter, Stockbroker’s Battalion, 189; War Diaries 11 Brigade and 37 Division, March 1917; Winterbotham, Survey on the Western Front, 12–13. 44. Lt. Col. C. F. Pretor-Pinney, CO of 13 Rifles, was to survive the assault on Monchy only to be killed three weeks later. 45. Times History of the War, 1918, 14:196. 46. Macpherson, A Soldier’s Diary, March 17, 1917. 47. Sheldon, German Army on Vimy Ridge, 251–54. 48. Priestly, The Signal Service, 104–7. 49. Sheldon, German Army on Vimy Ridge, 232–24 and note 10; LAC “George McDonald File Including Board of Enquiry, June 1917.” 50. Thaer, Generalstabdienst, 107. 51. King’s County Museum “German Postcard.” 52. Koppelow survived the war. Sheldon, The German Army on Vimy Ridge 1914–1917, 240. 53. Ulrich and Zieman, German Soldiers in the Great War. 54. Kilduff, Germany’s First Air Force 1914–1918, 127–30. 55. Morris, The Balloonatics, 72. 56. Schutz and Hochbaum, Das Greandier-Regiment Konig Friedrich Wilhelm II (1 Schles.) Nr 10, 180–84. 57. Fox, G.H.Q., chap. 5. 58. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 130–31. 59. Kohl, Kriegserlebnisse eines Frontsoldaten; Thaer, Generalstabdienst, 104–5. Kohl’s 17th Bavarian Regiment of Infantry, Regiment Orff, was named after a member of the Bavarian Orff family—a descendant of whom was the composer Carl Orff, who composed Carmina Burana, a favorite theme for war films. 7. Pr epa r ing the Field, A pr il 1–7, 1917 1. Nicholls, Cheerful Sacrifice, 57. 2. The disparity arose from chaplains being instructed not to go forward of the ADS prior to 1916 (RC ignored this) and from the impression that RC priests

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worked more with the poor and working class. Purdy, “Roman Catholic Army Chaplains during the First World War,” 36–37, 52; Chapman, A Kind of Survivor, 68. 3. Westmann, Surgeon with the Kaiser’s Army, chaps. 4 and 8. 4. Saunders, Raiding on the Western Front; Chapman, Passionate Prodigality, 39. 5. Spears, Prelude, 318. 6. War Diaries, 42nd Battalion, 7 Brigade, and 3rd Division, April 1917. 7. Speck, Das Koniglich Preussische Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 84, 140, 144, 149, 156; Falls, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1917, 274–75. 8. Mebu: Mannschafts-Eisen-Beton-Unterstände: shallow concrete and iron defensive post with view slits. These became known as pillboxes, likely from the British “pillar-box” resemblance to post-boxes. 9. Holger, Geschichte des Schleswig-Holstein Infanterie-Regiment Nr 163, 111. 10. Grieves, “Early Historical Responses to the Great War: Fortescue, Conan Doyle, and Buchan,” in The First World War and British Military History, edited by Bond, 15–39. 11. Royale, “The First World War,” in A Military History of Scotland, edited by Spiers, Crang, and Strickland, 529–31. 12. Comparable statistics: Canada, 30 percent; England, 19 percent; Scotland, 15 percent; the United States, 4 percent; and Unspecified, 28 percent. The Great War Project; Mackay, Diaries, July 6, 1918. 13. Campbell, Engine of Destruction, 73. 14. Critics of Harper include Pierre Berton, who needed a flesh and bone Blimp to make a nationalist point and made Harper, the nearest Brit, his foil in his unsatisfactory Vimy. 15. Hart, Bloody April, chap. 5. 16. Davis, “Arras: An Unburied City,” New York Times, December 12, 1915. 17. Fay Compton, Binnie Hale, and Vesta Tilley. Lady Curzon and Mrs. Astor were also present. 18. Dorking Museum and Heritage Museum, “2nd Lieutenant Charles Maurice Crow”; Halliday, “Eyes in the Sky: Air Force, Part 2.” 19. Finnegan, Shooting the Front; Arch Whitehouse, The Fledgling, 265. 20. Wise, Canadian Airmen, 398. 21. XVIII Corps, quoted in Griffith, Battle Tactics, 95. 22. The Dunbar Number of 150 is named for psychologist Robin Dunbar and explains the functional size of clans, offices, Christmas card lists, hunter-gatherer groups, and military companies; Dunbar, “The Social Brain Hypothesis”; Dunbar, “Social Network Size in Humans.” The classic exposition on primary group and military effectiveness is Shils and Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II.” 23. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 108–15. 24. There were more than 3,080 convictions carrying the death penalty in an army of over seven million. The BEF carried out 293 for all offenses on the

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Western Front, and of these, 23 were Canadian. Iacobelli, Death or Deliverance; Corrigan, Mud, Blood and Poppycock, 230–32. 25. Mantle, “Stripes, Pips and Crowns,” 203–34; Section 44 of the Army Act Manual of Military Law, 1914. 26. Senior Officers, School, Notes for Commanding Officers 1918, 441–2. 27. Adamson, Letters, 273. 28. Gunn and Dutton, No. 8 Canadian Field Ambulance, 37–47. 29. McKee, Vimy Ridge, 61. 30. Griffith, Battle Tactics, 118. 31. Junger, Storm of Steel, 219; Nagel, Fritz, 71. 32. Noon, “The Treatment of Casualties,” in British Fighting Methods in the Great War, edited by Griffith, 108–9; Hartcup, War of Invention, 102–3. 33. Spears, Prelude to Victory, 332. 34. This was the first recorded incidence of a successful night interception by a fighter. The crew survived to become PWs. Gibbons, Red Knight of Germany, 183–90; Baughen, Blueprint for Victory, 146. 35. Jones, War in the Air, appendix XXXVII. 36. Lee, Open Cockpit, 24. 37. Rochford, I Chose the Sky. Character sketches passim. 38. Lee, Open Cockpit, 41–45. 39. Cumming, “The Man Who Refused to Die,” 60–61; Fall’s RNAS record TNA, ADM 273/8/108). 40. Falls, France and Belgium, 1917, 187; Campbell, Engine of Destruction, 291. 8. E aster 1917 1. The names of the occupants were provided by The Great War Forum. 2. Halliday, “Eyes in the Skies.” 3. Lushington, The Gambardier, 128. 4. Foley, The Boilerplate War, 40. 5. Simpkin, Despatch Rider, Narrative Three. 6. Actually MacKenzie, but he published under McKenzie. 7. McKenzie, Through the Hindenburg Line, 86. 8. Newman, With the Patricias Capturing the Ridge, 45. 9. Newman,45–47; Topp, 42nd Battalion; Anon, “An RCR Officer’s Diary 1914–1918”; O’Leary, Regimental Rogue. 10. Barton and Banning, Arras, 108. 11. Fox, Battle of the Ridges, 29. 12. Spears, Prelude to Victory, 387–88, 397. 13. Falls, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1917, 182–85. 14. Unless otherwise cited, German accounts of the battle are from German Reicharchiv, Die Kriegsführung im Frühjar; Behrmann, Die Osterschlacht bie Arras 1917, vol. 1; Schutz and Hochbaum, Das Grenadier-Regiment Nr 10; Hugo Gropp,

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Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 76; Schutz and Hochbaum, Das Grenadier-Regiment Nr 10; Holger, Geschichte des Schleswig-Holstein Infanterie-Regiment Nr 163. 15. Unless otherwise cited, the British account is from TNA, April 1917 War Diaries; The Fifteenth (Scottish) Division, 1914–1918. 16. McKee, Vimy Ridge, 102–3. 17. Nicholls, Cheerful Sacrifice, 101. 18. McKee, Vimy Ridge, 102–3. 19. Haig later presented 16 Squadron with one of the guns to commemorate the first time in history that an air squadron had captured an artillery battery. 20. Sheldon, German Army on Vimy, 292–93. 21. US Navy, “Special Crew Rest Edition.” 22. Related to the Dunbar number again and was first conveyed to the author by an experienced battalion commander and later confirmed by a senior SAS commander. 23. The 6/7 RSF was combined from the Somme-reduced 6 and 7 RSF. Churchill had commanded 6 RSF during his brief spell in the trenches in 1915. 24. Wood, Intelligence Officer, 322–46; “Battle of Arras,” Eric Fisher Wood Collection, Box 12. 25. Of tanks in the vicinity, only D2 (789) was a gun tank. 26. Buchan, These for Remembrance. 27. Foley, Boilerplate War, 40. 28. Steuart, March, Kind Comrade, 79. 29. Sheldon, German Army in the Spring Offensives, 101. 30. Paland, Albert Krentel, 180. 31. Wood, Intelligence Officer, 322–46. 32. Maurice, Tank Corps Book of Honour. 33. Jones, War Letters, 190. 34. Steuart, March, Kind Comrade, 119; Williams-Ellis and Ellis, Tank Corps, 55. 35. Williams, Byng of Vimy, 152. 36. Topp, 42nd Battalion, 129–31, 134–36. 37. War Diary, 2 CMR, 9 April 1917. 38. Newman, With the Patricias, 45–61. 39. Years later, Carton de Wiart met a former prisoner who remembered the one-eyed British general on the Fampoux Road; Happy Odyssey, 81–82, 110. 40. Whiteman, “Papers.” 9. Da mned H a r d Luck, A pr il 10–11, 1917 1. Spears, Prelude, 409; McKenzie, Through the Hindenburg Line, 86. 2. Pinky was one nickname. Friends often claimed it was cleaned up from “Stinky.” 3. Spears, Prelude, 410. 4. Musketeer Heinrich Derendorff is in the German Cemetery at NeuvilleVitasse.

354

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5. Lushington, Gambardier, 130. 6. Hardy, Reconographers, 81–82. 7. Simpson, Directing Operations; Spears, Prelude, 428. 8. Haig, War Diaries, April 14, 1917. 9. Mackay, “Diaries,” April 10, 1917. 10. More et al., “The Impact of a Six‐Year Climate Anomaly.” 11. Aquila, With the Cavalry in the West, 98. Cavalry actions are from Essex Yeomanry War Diary, April, 1917; Kenyon, Horsemen in No Man’s Land; Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, vol. 8. 12. Stockbrokers’ actions are in Whiteman, “Private Papers”; War Diary, 10 Fusiliers, April 1917; Carter, Stockbroker’s Battalion, and Fox, Monchy-le-Preux. 13. German actions are from Gropp, Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 76, 96, 196– 99; Behrmann, Die Osterschlacht bie Arras 1917, 2:65–76. 14. War Diary, 37 Division, “Report on Operations April 9th–April 12th 1917.” 15. Foakes, “Private Papers.” 16. Ludendorff, My War Memories, 421. 17. Hindenburg, Out of My Life, 264–65. 18. OHL, “Reports from the German Great Headquarters on July 14, 16, 19, 21, 25 and 30 and August 2, 1917.” 19. Sangster, “Field Marshal Albert Kesselring in Context,” 42–43. 20. Behrmann, Die Osterschlacht bie Arras, 2:65. 21. Chapman, Passionate Prodigality, 151. 22. Tank actions from TNA, WD C Battalion, April 1917; Fletcher, Tanks and Trenches; Pullen, Beyond the Green Fields. 23. Nicholls, Cheerful Sacrifice, 141. 10. A Str a nge a nd Tr agic Dr a m a, A pr il 11–12, 1917 1. Sometimes reported as Jonston or Johnson. 2. Tank actions, unless cited otherwise, are from War Diary of C Battalion, April 1917; Pullen, Beyond the Green Fields; Foley, Boilerplate War. 3. Falls, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1917, 256–57; Mackay, “Diaries,” April 11, 1917. 4. Whiteman, “Private Papers”; Carter, Stockbrokers. 5. Whiteman, “Papers.” 6. Fox, Monchy Le Preux, 41. 7. Gropp, Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 76, 96. 8. Speck, Das KoniglichPreussiche Reserve-Infantrie-Regiment 84. 9. Sheldon, German Army in the Spring Offensives 1917, 112–13. 10. Foley, Boilerplate War, 44–45. 11. Mackay, “Diaries,” April 11, 1917. 12. Steuart, March, Kind Comrade, 68. 13. Cuddeford, And All for What, 157. 14. Nicholls, Cheerful Sacrifice, 141–42.

Note s to Page s 177–188

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15. Foley, Boilerplate War, 46. 16. Behrmann, Osterschlacht bie Arras, 2:79–80. 17. Foley, Boilerplate War, 45. 18. The Giffnock memorial lists thirty-seven names for this war, almost a third from Arras. They include Toshack and his neighbors: David Walker with the AIF, killed at Bullecourt the day before, and John Gray with the CEF, killed on the Somme the year before. 19. Gibbs, “Tremendous Struggle for Monchy Village,” The Globe, Toronto, April 13, 1917. 20. Madame Fiévet, seventy-nine, manager of the farm adjoining the castle; her crippled fifty-nine-year-old daughter, Celine; the disabled Madame Letierce, sixty-seven; and Martin Duporche, also sixty-seven, the château gardener, paralyzed by rheumatism. 21. Le Lion d’Arras, May 5, 1917. 22. Whiteman, “Papers.” 23. Later Sir Philip Christison, corps commander in the Second World War. 24. Christison, in Barton and Banning, Arras, 205. 25. Whiteman assumed he was mounted to beat his men with the flat of his sword. Such was the propagandized image of the German Army. 26. Essex Yeomanry Association, “Sergeant A. E. Smith.” 27. Cuddeford, And All for What, 159–63. 28. Sheldon, Spring Offensives, 114–15. 29. Cavalry action: Kenyon, Horsemen, 118–19, Whitmore, The 10th (P. W. O.) Royal Hussars and the Essex Yeomanry; Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry; War Diary, 6 Corps Cavalry 1/1 Northants. 30. Anglesey, Cavalry, 98. 31. Cuddeford, And All for What, 161. 32. Chapman, Passionate Prodigality, 167. 33. Smithson, A Taste of Success, 221–27. 34. Steuart, March, 68, 126–27. 35. Fall was to achieve a second hat trick three months later on July 7. 36. Jones, The War in the Air, 3:347–48; Cumming, “The Man Who Refused to Die,” 61. 37. Nicholls, Cheerful Sacrifice, 147. 38. Cuddeford, And All for What, 161. 39. Steuart, March, 130–32, 134. 40. Speck, Reserve-Infantrie-Regiment 84, 147, 156; Thaer, Generalstabdienst, 111. 41. Reicharchiv, Die Kriegsführung im Frühjar, 230–31. 42. Beach, “Intelligent Civilians in Uniform,” 1–22. 43. Haig, War Diaries, April 12, 1917. 44. Curran, “Monchy,” 51–52; Murphy “Arras, May 13th,” in his Rooms file. 45. Wilson, Two Years, 35–36.

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Note s to Page s 190 –209 11. Topsa il, A pr il 13–14, 1917

1. Gibbons, Red Knight of Germany; Garland, “Private Papers.” 2. Whitehouse, The Fledgling, 146–56. 3. Gibbons, Red Knight, 217. 4. Gibbons, Red Knight, 218. 5. Falls, France and Belgium, 1917, 288–89. 6. War Diary, 88 Brigade, March 19–25, 1917. 7. Stacey, Memoirs of a Blue Puttee, 176. 8. Description of events is from the War Diaries of 88 Brigade and its units and Kevin Keegan, “Letter Home 18 April 1917,” Captain Kevin Keegan Collection. 9. Steuart, March, Kind Comrade, 167, 140. 10. Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told, 464. 11. Curran, “Monchy,” 53. 12. “Regiment at Monchy,” Newfoundland Quarterly, 52. 13. Wilson, Two Years Interlude, 36. 14. Johnson, The Spirit of France, 139–40. 15. Murphy, “What I Remember about Infantry Hill.” 16. Behrmann, Die Osterschlacht bie Arras, 2:109–10. 17. Janes made it back. Hussey did not, nor likely did the prisoners. 18. Snow, “Monchy to Heilsberg,” 67–75. 19. Snow, “Monchy to Heilsberg,” 67–75. 20. Letter from J. R. Moakler in Norman Outerbridge personal file, September 14, 18. 21. Short, “William James Short Regt #878.” 22. Burrows, Essex Regiment, 222–223. 23. Burrows, Essex Regiment, 218. 24. Gillon, 29th Division, 112. 25. Behrmann, Die Osterschlacht bie Arras, 2:86, 110–13; Reicharchiv, Die Kriegsführung im Frühjar, 240–41; Falls, France and Belgium, 1917, 298. 26. The 3rd Battalion 17th north, 2nd Battalion 23rd center, and 3rd Battalion 18th south; see map. 27. Company 5, of the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Regiment. 28. Falls, France and Belgium, 1917, sketch 14. 29. Fox, Monchy-le-Preux, 56. 30. Fox, Monchy-le-Preux, 56–57. 31. Snow, “Monchy to Heilsberg,” 68. 32. Russell always claimed that it was his damaged engine and not Richthofen that forced him to land. Only one of the 60 Squadron pilots made it back intact. 33. Stacey, Memoirs of a Blue Puttee, 182. 34. “Private Frederick Walter (de) Vere,” in Porter, Grays (Thurrock) in the Great War. 35. Sullivan, “Loretta Mary Martin.”

Note s to Page s 209 –225

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36. McAllister, Greatest Gallantry, 129–30. 37. War Diary, 2 Worcestershire, April 14, 1917. 38. McAllister, Greatest Gallantry, 88. 39. Nicholson, The Fighting Newfoundlander, 355. 12. Wor se Ex ists, A pr il 16–December 31, 1917 1. Private Jean Ybarnégaray of 249 RI, in Murphy, Breaking Point of the French Army, 106. 2. Englander, “The French Soldier, 1914–18,” 53. 3. Spears, “Interview 12,” in BBC, I Was There. 4. Haig, War Diaries, April 12 and 17, 1917. 5. Wavell, Allenby, 151. 6. Egremont, Under Two Flags, 53. 7. Garland, “Private Papers.” 8. Pentland, “Kagohl3 War Diary,” Royal Flying Corps. 9. Rochford, I Chose the Sky, 58–59; Wise, Canadian Airmen, 470. The helmet came to rest in the Comox Air Museum, British Columbia. 10. O’Leary, Regimental Rogue, “158582 Acting Sergeant John Joseph Flanagan, M.M.” 11. Gray, Early Treatment of Wounds, 14–15. 12. Geoffrey Noon, “Treatment of Casualties in the Great War,” in Griffiths, British Fighting Methods, 87–112. 13. Van Bergen, Before My Helpless Sight, 311. 14. Sutherland, Somewhere in Blood-Soaked France, chap. 16. 15. Borden, Poems of Love and War. 16. Chapman, Passionate Prodigality, 124. 17. Van Emden, Last Man Standing, chap. 7. 18. Kerby, Sir Philip Gibbs and English Journalism, 71–75; Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told, 21–22, 26; Haig, War Diaries, 242. 19. Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told, 464. 20. Nicholls, Cheerful Sacrifice, 190. 21. Reid, Poor Bloody Murder. 22. Vizer, The Prussian Machine, sv “Karl Ritter von Wenninger.” 23. Garland, “Private Papers.” 24. Chapman, Passionate Prodigality, 180–81. 25. Churchill, Great Contemporaries, 230. 26. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 168–72. 27. Rommel, The Rommel Papers, 201. 28. Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall, 280–81. 29. Zabecki, The German 1918 Offensives, 54–56. 30. Fox, G.H.Q. 31. Egremont, Under Two Flags, 63; Mary Borden, “Come to Me Quickly,” Poems of Love and War, 43.

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32. Conway, A Woman of Two Wars, 72–73. 33. Thaer, Generalstabdienst, 150–51. 13. Grogna r ds, M a rch 21–July 18, 1918 1. Edmonds, Military Operations France and Belgium 1918, 2:456ff. 2. Nicholson, Behind the Lines, 284–85. 3. Fox, G.H.Q., chap. 17. 4. Stevenson, Backs to the Wall, 223–28, 258; Steuart, March, Kind Comrade, 3, 5–6. 5. Mackay, “Diaries,” March 21–23, 1918. 6. Stewart and Buchan, The Fifteenth (Scottish) Division, 1914–1918, 204–13. 7. Tranter, In All Those Lines, March 1918. 8. Greenhalgh, Foch in Command, 521. 9. Zabecki, “German Artillery,” in Marble, King of Battle, 120–23. 10. Great Britain War Office, SS139/7, Artillery Notes Number 7, “Artillery in Defensive Operations.” 11. Mackay, “Diaries,” March 28, 1918. 12. Sutcliffe, Nobody of Any Importance, chap. 50. 13. Mackinnon, “The 36th Battery C.F.A.” 14. Macdonald, To the Last Man: Spring 1918, 306. 15. Edmonds, France and Belgium 1918, 2:75. 16. Williams-Ellis and Ellis, The Tank Corps, 235. 17. Jones, War in the Air, appendix 22, and 6:525. 18. Marwick, The Deluge, 233; Stevenson, Backs to the Wall, 188–89. 19. Lais’s testimonies are included in Reith, Iron Regiment. 20. Brittain, Testament of Youth, 419. 21. Borden, The Forbidden Zone, 111. 22. Thompson, “BEF Logistics during the Spring Offensives 1918,” 61. 23. Stark’s story from Stark, Wings of War. 24. Simpkin, Diary, “April–August 1918.” 25. Hopkins, Canada at War Annual Review, 436–37. 26. Marwick, The Deluge, 242. 27. The oft-quoted factoid that the Canadian division exceeded the British ratio of automatic weapons to men by a factor of about five (1:61 to 1:13) comes from Winter’s polemic Haig’s Command (1992), but it is not credibly sourced. 28. Brennan “Good Men for a Hard Job”; Adamson, Letters, 332. 29. Stewart’s story, unless otherwise cited, is from Ritchie, My Grandfather’s House and Canadian Dictionary of Biography, sv “Stewart, Charles James Townshend.” 30. Adamson, Letters, 336. 31. Williams, First in the Field, 134–37. 32. Mackay, “Mackay Mackay”; Sutherland and Mackay, The Tongue Melness and Skerray War Memorials.

Note s to Page s 2 43–257

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33. Adamson, Letters, 293, 336–37. 34. Lynch, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, 1917–1919. 35. Atherton, “Taking the Time to Touch History.” 36. Sharpe, a serving member of parliament, died from a fall from his hospital window after a nervous breakdown. 37. Westmann, “Interview 5,” I Was There. 38. Zabecki, The German 1918 Offensives, 326–28. 39. Hindenburg, Out of My Life, 392. 14. Wa r Becom e Eter na l, August 21–25, 1918 1. Chapman, Passionate Prodigality, 328; Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1918, Vol. Volume II, March–April, v. 2. BEF casualties for the last one hundred days were approx. 265,000. 3. Stark, Wings of War, 106. 4. Collishaw ended the war with sixty-one, and Maclaren finished with fiftyfour. 5. Jones, War in the Air, appendices 36 and 37; Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War 1914–1920, 504. 6. Garland, “Private Papers.” 7. Guttman, Bristol F2 Fighter Aces of World War 1, 20. 8. Engagement from Baird, “Letters of Gavin Gibson Baird,” Canadian Letters and Images Project; Wise, Canadian Airmen, 549. 9. Vee, Flying Minnows, 119. 10. Hartcup, War of Invention, 146–48. 11. Warrant Officer F. W. Scarff, a forty-year-old engineer/artificer in the RNAS, was also the designer of a bombing sight and interrupter/synchronizer system. 12. Vee, Flying Minnows, 51. 13. Haig, War Diaries, April 18, 1918. 14. Lloyd George’s efforts at character assassination endure in Australian and Canadian histories. Terraine, The Smoke and the Fire, 189–193. 15. Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told, 269–70. 16. Cook, Shock Troops, 458. Vimy, Currie to Macdonnell, April 18, 1922, in Humphries, Papers of Sir Arthur Currie. 17. Currie’s “Interim Report on the Operations of the Canadian Corps During the year 1918,” Report of the Ministry Overseas Forces of Canada 1918, 144–46. 18. Bird, Thirteen Years After, 153. 19. Haig, Diaries, August 21, 1918. 20. Lloyd, Western Front, 456. 21. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1918, 310–12. 22. Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire, 74. 23. Lynch, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, 117. 24. Simpkin, Despatch Rider, chap. 8, Kindle edition.

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Note s to Page s 258–276

25. Gunn and Dutton, 8 Canadian Field Ambulance; Snell, The CAMC with the Canadian Corps during the Last Hundred Days; Van Bergen, Before My Helpless Sight, 354–55. 26. Vogt, 3. Niederschlesisches Infanterie\-Regiment Nr. 50, 1914, 230–37. 27. Niemeyer, “Maercker, Georg,” in Neue Deutsche Biographie 15, 638; Bucholtz, “Republic of Violence: The German Army and Politics, 1918–1923.” 28. Fleischer, Military Technology, 126–27. 29. Boff, “The Morale Maze: The German Army in Late 1918,” 855–78; Hew Strachan, “The Morale of the German Army 1917–18,” in Facing Armageddon, edited by Cecil and Liddle, 383–98. 30. MacKinnon, “The 36th Battery C.F.A.” 31. Kay, Magee, and MacLennan, Battery Action! 32. Young, With the 52nd (Lowland) Division in Three Continents, 111. 33. Williams-Ellis and Ellis, Tank Corps, 229–30. 34. “Percy Hatton,” in Maurice, Tank Corps Book of Honour. 15. Som ething Gr e at a nd Ter r ible, August 26, 1918 1. Denis, Reluctant Warriors, 93–94. 2. McKenzie, Through the Hindenburg Line, 257. 3. One of the field guns sits next to the Great War Memorial in Morrisburg, Ontario. 4. Climo, Let Us Remember, 301–19. 5. Rutherford, “History of the Revolver,” Presentation of his pistol to the RCMI, 1976. 6. War Diary, 5 CMR, “Narrative of Operations.” 7. Rutherford, “History.” 8. Fox, Monchy Le Preux, 117. 9. Vogt, 3. Niederschlesisches Infanterie, 230–37. 10. Jones, War in the Air, 486–88; Baughen, Blueprint for Victory, 184–85. 11. Will Bird dug up an “ancient dagger” and reburied it to return to it later. He never revealed if he found it again. 12. Home, “The Battle of Monchy-le-Preux.” 13. Honorary captains were former senior NCOs serving as officers, normally in appointments like quartermaster. They were junior to other commissioned officers, including lieutenants. 14. The PPCLI numbered its companies in the manner of Guards units. 15. Lynch, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, 123. 16. War Diary, PPCLI, “Narrative of Operations—August 25th/29th 1918.” 17. Whiting, Getaway, “Introduction.” 18. War Diary, PPCLI, “Narrative of Operations—August 25th/29th 1918.” 19. McKenzie, Through the Hindenburg Line, 260. The German Air Force changed the crosses on its aircraft: the original flared Iron Cross pattern was replaced by the straight Latin Cross.

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20. Mertens, Die FA(A) 235 im Weltkriege. 21. McKenzie, Through the Hindenburg Line, 261–64. 22. Denis, Reluctant Warriors, 96. 23. Young, With the 52nd (Lowland) Division, 111–12. 24. Thompson, The Fifty-Second (Lowland) Division, 529. 25. Lynch, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, 126–27. 26. Fox, Monchy, 117. 27. Lynch, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, 139–40. 28. McKenzie, Through the Hindenburg Line, 262–63. 29. “Honour Roll,” Perth Courier, September 20, 1918. 16. W h at Ca n Be Accomplished, August 27–28, 1918 1. “Percy Hatton,” in Maurice, Tank Corps Book of Honour. 2. Unless otherwise cited, Canadian operations are from War Diaries of 3 Canadian Division, 7, 8, and 9 Canadian Infantry Brigades; PPCLI; and 42nd, 52nd, 58th, and 116th Battalions, especially in their “Narrative of Operations 26–28 August.” 3. Shackleton, Second to None, 131–33. 4. Vogt, 3 Niederschlesisches, 236. 5. Moser, Die Württemberger im Weltkriege, 711. 6. General Staff, “SS398, The Training and Employment of Bombers, 1916,” 19–23. 7. Hodder-Williams, Princess Patricia’s, 340–42; Whiting, Getaway, 29–33. 8. War Diary, 3 Canadian Division, “Orders Pad 27 August.” 9. Watson, Enduring the Great War, 184–200. 10. Lynch, Princess Patricia’s, 153. 11. Topp, 42nd Battalion, 249–50. 12. Lynch, Princess Patricia’s, 154. 13. Lynch, Princess Patricia’s, 525. 14. Edmonds, France and Belgium 1918: 8th August–26th September, 337. 15. McKenzie, Through the Hindenburg Line, 283. 16. War Diary, 3 Canadian Division, “Narrative of Operations, 27 August.” 17. Ulrich and Zieman, German Soldiers in the Great War, 177. 18. Gibbs, Open Warfare, 371. 19. Mackay, “Diaries,” August 25, 1918. 17. A fter 1. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, sv “Lipsett, Louis James.” 2. Lushington, Gambardier, 222. 3. Scotland, “And the Men Returned: Canadian Veterans and the Aftermath of the Great War,” 144. 4. Hanna, The Great War on the Small Screen, 15. 5. Commonwealth War Graves, https://www.cwgc.org/.

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6. Architect Philippe Prost designed the ring in 2104, and Pierre di Sciullo produced the unique font, Lorette, for the names. 7. Carrington, Soldier from the Wars Returning; Bird, And We Go On, 3–4. 8. Tenbroeke adopted the spelling Ten Broeke after the war. 9. Anon, “Pathetic Story Told by Veteran,” Montreal Gazette, March 11, 1931; “Long Silence Ended at Last by Ex-Soldier,” Toronto Telegram, March 11, 1931; “Missing Eight Years Father Returns Home,” Toronto Daily Star, March 11, 1931. 10. Iacobelli, “A Participant’s History?” 337. 11. Gregory Loughton, curator, Royal Canadian Military Institute, provided the documentation on the pistol and its provenance. 12. Van Emden, Last Man Standing. A ppendi x 1. Holmes, Tommy, 200–205.

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INDEX

Page numbers appearing in italics refer to figures. Page numbers followed by ‘t’ refer to tables. A r mies, For m ations, a nd U nits Index

3 Division, 99 3 Squadron (Naval 3) RNAS (British), 9, 12, 13, 143–145, 255 British 3 Squadron, RFC, 4 First Army, 89, 99, 140, 260 4 Battalion Worcestershire Regiment (4 1 Battalion of Essex Regiment, 68, 197; Worcesters), 200, 201–202, 205, 210, Infantry Hill attack and, 200, 201, 203, 212, 216 205–212, 214–216, 218, 219, 227, 4 Division, 163, 164, 328 237, 276, 278, 280, 294, 311, 314, 332; Fifth Army, 99 recalibration of 1916 and, 71–72 VI Corps, 99, 111, 170, 200 2 Battalion of Essex Regiment, German 8 Motor Ambulance Convoy, 116, 262 offensive of 1918 and, 240 9 (Scottish) Division, 145, 159, 163 2 Battalion Hampshire Regiment (2 10 (Prince of Wales Own) Royal HusHants), 200, 201–202, 203, 216, 217 sars, 173, 186, 187, 188, 195, 227, 337 2 Canadian Division, 132, 260, 264, 268, 10 Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Stock285, 294–295, 298, 304 brokers): Artois offensive and, 2 King Edward’s Horse, 29–30, 241 28–29; German offensive of 1918 Third Army: about, 227; Battles for and, 237; offensive of 1917 and, 152, Monchy and, 170, 200; Canadian 159, 164, 169–170, 175, 179–183, offensive of 1918 and, 260, 261–262, 188, 193–194, 227; offensive of 1917 304; German offensive of 1918 and, preparation and, 117, 119 230–231, 241; offensive of 1917 and, 10 Squadron, RFC, 133, 134 99, 101, 111, 141, 153, 164, 225. See 9 Tank Battalion, 268 also specific groups of 11 Tank Battalion, 241, 268

381

382

i n de x

12 Division, 99, 149, 160, 164, 165 12 Highland Light Infantry (HLI), 32– 33, 148–149, 156, 160–161, 178, 190 13 Army Wing, RFC, 80 13 Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Kensington), 29, 117, 170–171, 175, 179–183, 188, 194, 227, 237 15 Scottish Division: about, 244; German offensive of 1918 and, 236–237, 238, 241, 251; offensive of 1917 and, 145–146, 149, 160, 165, 176, 177–178, 195 16 Squadron RFC, 133, 134, 222, 354n19 XVII Corps, 56–57, 347n15 19 Casualty Clearing Station (19 CCS), 83–85, 223, 249, 262 25 Squadron RFC, 80, 83, 199-200 29 Division (British), 68, 70–74, 103, 175, 195–196, 205, 209–210. See also specific regiments of 37 Division (Golden Horseshoe) (British): British offensive of 1918 and, 262; German offensive of 1918 and, 237; British offensive of 1917 and, 169, 172, 175–176, 178, 188; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 117–120, 128 46 Squadron, RAF, 256 51 Highland Division of XVII Corps (British): about, 56–58, 77–78, 98, 251, 305; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 264, 267, 282, 283, 296; German offensive of 1918 and, 225; offensive of 1917 and, 132, 145 60 Squadron, RFC, 211 62 Squadron, RAF, 256-258 88 Brigade of 29th Division, 70–74, 196, 200–201, 203 100 Squadron, RFC, 142–143 104 Squadron, RAF, 256 203 Squadron, RAF (former 3 Naval), 255

209 Squadron RAF (former Naval 9), 277 C Tank Battalion, 145, 146, 148, 176, 311 D Tank Battalion, 145, 146 Essex Yeomanry: about, 31, 57, 103, 227, 241, 311, 314, 337; Ypres and, 42; Monchy assault of 1917 and, 111, 170, 173, 186-194, 197 Heavy Branch Machine Gun Corps, 111–115, 114 Newfoundland Regiment: about, 34–35, 103, 228; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 294; memorial to, 311–312, 312, 314; offensive of 1917 and, 196, 200, 202–204, 206, 208, 211, 217, 219; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 94, 103, 120–121; recalibration of 1916 and, 68, 70–73, 73. See also Royal Newfoundland Regiment Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, 28–29 Royal Scots Fusiliers, 29, 145, 155, 158–159, 353n23 Seaforth Highlanders, 160, 267 Tank Brigade, 100 Canadian Canadian Corps: about, 57, 89, 103, 132, 140, 227, 245–249; memorial for, 314; offensive of 1917 and, 132, 150, 153; offensive 1918 and, 261-263, 291, 305, Reinforcement Centre and, 223. See also specific groups of 3 Canadian Division: 89, 91–92, Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 264, 268, 279, 298, 300, 304, 309; German offensive of 1918 and, 238; Lipsett and, 308; offensive of 1917 and, , 108, 121, 126, 166, 186, 347n11. See also specific brigades of 7 Brigade of 3rd Canadian Division, 91, 121, 149, 227, 245, 269, 277, 299 8 Brigade (Mounted Rifles) 3rd Canadian Division, 264, 269, 277, 299

383

i n de x 8 Canadian Field Ambulance, 31, 140, 262, 289 9 Brigade of 3rd Canadian Division, 91–92, 264–265, 299, 302 9 Canadian Field Artillery (9CFA) Brigade, 108, 264–265 42 Battalion (Black Watch): about, 34, 248, 334; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 278, 282, 288, 292, 299, 302, 304; offensive of 1917 and, 150–151, 155, 156, 162; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 85–86, 91, 95, 126, 128, 139 Canadian Mounted Rifles (CMRs): Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 253, 269, 270–275, 278, 279; offensive of 1917 and, 91, 94, 150–151, 163, 167. See also specific groups of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI): about, 29, 63, 88, 247, 361n14; Artois offensive and, 29–30, 34, 37; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 277–278, 280–282, 287–288, 296–298, 299, 302–303, 304; Comedy Company of, 93, 103, 104, 121; offensive of 1917 and, 150, 162–163; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 85, 88, 91–92, 94–96, 104, 105, 138 Royal Canadian Regiment (The RCR), 33, 91, 96, 248, 278

Foreign Legion, 14, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 245, 250, 251 Moroccan division (French), 38, 40, 251 German

3 Bavarian Division, 175, 176, 209, 211, 228, 330 3 Machine Gun Company, 163 Infantry Regiment, 147, 157 3 Royal Bavarian Division, 124, 176 IV Corps, 21, 148 Sixth Army, 41, 44, 121 8 Thuringians, 14 IX Reserve Corps, 51–52, 74–77, 122 10 Grenadier Regiment, 123, 160 11(Silesian) Division, 122, 123–124, 242 14 Bavarian Division, 141–142, 153, 156, 164 17 Reserve Division of IX Reserve Corps: about, 51, 77; battle preparations of, 122, 130–131; offensive of 1917 and, 156, 162, 182, 195, 242 18 Reserve Division of IX Reserve Corps: about, 51, 75; offensive of 1917 and, 162, 176, 195, 209, 242; offensive of 1917 preparations and, 122, 130 26 Reserve Division: 119 Reserve Regiment of, 69, 240, 284, 295; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 264, 284–285, 295, 298, 304; French German offensive of 1918 and, Tenth Army, 10–11, 20–21, 24, 26, 37–38 237, 239, 240; offensive of April 22 Dragoons, 8–9, 10, 13 1917 and, 195; recalibration of 77 Division (Division Barbot), 10–14, late 1916 and, 67–70, 74 17-18, 20-26, 40, 330 35 Royal Bavarian Jasta, 254 88 Brigade of 77th Division, 10, 35 Division, 209, 218, 276, 281, 287–288, 13–14, 330 295, 298, 300 97 Regiment of Alpine Infantry, 10, 14, 61 Infantry Regiment (Pomeranians), 18, 19, 23, 330 218, 276–277, 279, 287, 289, 294, 159 Regiment of Alpine Infantry (Blue 295, 298 Devils), 10–11, 14, 17, 20, 330 66 Infantry Regiment (Magdeburg), 16, Battalion de Chasseurs á Pied (BCP), 19–21, 22–25, 65 10, 23, 330 76 Reserve Infantry Regiment, 131, 295

384

i n de x

79 (Prussian) Reserve Division, 121–122, 229, 242 119 Reserve Regiment of 26 Reserve, 69, 240, 284, 295 121 Reserve Regiment, 284, 295 141 Regiment, 295, 298, 303 153 Infantry Regiment (Altenburger Regiment), 14–19, 21–22, 242 163 Infantry Reserve Regiment, 52, 131, 147, 164 185 Division, 237, 239 214 Division, 263, 289, 294, 295, 316 Flight Section (A) 235 (Fliegerabteilung 235 (Artillerie), 109, 137, 148, 283 Jadgstaffell 11, 82, 199, 200 Kagohl III, 222, 223 Richthofen Jagerschwader, 227, 242, 243

Agincourt, 111 Agnes Duisans, 83, 85, 254, 262 aircraft: Artois offensive and, 44; British, 80–82, 81, 147–148; German, 80–82, 83, 109–110, 349n19; military structure and, 336–337; offensive of 1917 and, 109, 147–148, 154, 353n19. See also specific aircraft air forces: about, 44, 337–338; recalibration of 1916 and, 74. See also specific air forces air reconnaissance, 44, 74, 80, 82, 133–137, 198–199, 238, 336–338 Aisne River, 42, 51, 67, 99, 142 Aitken, Max, 45 Albatros aircraft, 80, 83, 137, 184, 190–191, 199, 243 Aldis Sight apparatus, 191, 191, 193 Subject Index Allenby, Edmund Henry Hynman, 8 Brigade War Diary, 253, 253–254 100–101, 111, 169, 227, 315 88 Brigade Intelligence, 29 Division, 196 Alpine Infantry (RIA) (French), 10–11, A Branch of British GHQ, 62, 63 13–14, 17, 17–18, 19–22, 25, 40, 330 Achicourt, 25, 148, 267 Alpin-Magdeburger sunken road Adam, Harvey, 29, 119, 194 battle, 221 Adams, Ralph, 108, 151, 166, 265, 283, Altenburgers, 14–19, 21–22, 242 288, 323 Ambrose, Charles, 113, 114, 146, Adamson, Agar: about, 30, 63, 245– 157–158, 177–179, 228, 319 246, 247, 320; entertainment and, ambulances, 31, 85, 115–116, 140, 194, 102–103; offensive of 1917 and, 88, 223–224, 262, 270 94–95, 138, 140, 150 American Indigenes, 71 Advanced Dressing Stations (ADSs), American Legion, 314 115–116, 140, 223, 262 Americans: in Great War before US enaerial support and warfare: Canadian tered, 6–7, 35, 57, 150, 248, 344n25; offensive of 1918 and, 254–258, 276– as war Allies, 229, 251, 252, 311. See 277, 283–284, 288; German offensive also specific Americans of 1918 and, 241–242, 243–244; Amiens, Battle of, 252, 259, 264 Gotha bombers and, 222; at Infantry ammunition, 63–64, 266 Hill, 211; offensive of 1917 and, 174, Ancre Heights, 9, 68, 77, 119 184, 187, 190–193; offensive of 1917 And We Go On (Bird), 321 preparation and, 80–83, 81, 108–110, anti-aircraft fire, 134 133–137, 352n34; recalibration of anti-tank defense, 231, 263 1916 and, 74 Arbuckle, Harry “Lucky Buck,” 166– Aeronautique Militaire, 74, 336 167, 248, 305, 321

i n de x “Archie,” 134 Arens, Erich, 164, 165 armbands, 60, 345n4 armored vehicles: cars, 9, 11–12, 305; tanks, see tanks army corps, about, 327, 328 Arrageois, 23, 67–68 Arras: Artois offensive and, 36, 37, 44; battle for Monchy 1917 and, 194; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 255, 262, 268–269; caverns of, 125; Infantry Hill 1917 and, 196, 198, 202; lessons from battles at, 79, 228–229; memorials and, 312, 314; offensive of 1917 and, 145, 146, 149, 159, 168, 177; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 98, 99, 101, 110, 112, 119, 125, 131, 133; Operation Mars and, 238–241; Race to the Sea and, 3, 4–8, 9–10, 11, 13, 21, 24–26; resistance network of, 79–80; operations 1916 and, 51, 55; writers on, 23 Arras-Cambrai Road, 4, 8, 190, 200, 216, 262, 275 Arras Flying Services Memorial, 312 Arrow Copse, 210 artillery: about, 265–266, 335t, 336; 75mm field guns, 10, gun locating, 53-54; gun siting and firing, 265-266; resupply, 63-64, 266; battle of Somme and, 68–69; offensive of 1917 and, 106–108, 110–111, 121–122, 151, 171, 175–176; of tanks, 112–113 Artillery Hill, 260, 298, 299, 300, 302 Artois offensive of 1915, 27–45; fighting at Vimy Ridge and, 37–41; impasse of, 41–45; mobilization for, 27–35 Atherton, Bill, 151, 163, 249, 254, 269, 272 Attack in Trench Warfare, The (Laffargue), 43 Aufderstrassen, Heinrich, 306

385

Bad Kreuznach, 66 Baerlein, Arthur, 133–135, 137, 222, 320 Bailey, Frank, 72, 206, 212, 215, 318 Baker-Carr, Christopher D’Arcy, 100 Balders, Ralph, 278 Balesi, Henriette, 79–80, 313, 316 Balloon-Hohe, (Greenland Hill) 123, 141, 142, 146, 267, 296 balloons, 121, 123 Banister, Sam, 201–202 Bapaumer Zeitung, 36 Barbot, Ernest: about, 11, 95, 344n42; Race to the Sea and, 13–14, 20, 21–22, 25; at Vimy Ridge, 40, 41 Barnes, William “Bill,” 109, 110, 199–200 Bates, Allen, 199 battalions, about, 138-139, 155, 332–334, 333, 336 Battery Valley, 124, 160, 164, 262 Battle of the Somme, 58, 59, 63–68, 75, 77, 113–114, 119 Battle Zones, about, 75 bayonet fighting, 72, 74, 106, 154–155 BE2s, (Royal Aircraft Factory) 134–135, 135, 137, 154, 184 Beaumont-Hamel, 9, 66, 68, 71, 77, 113–114, 119 Beaurains, 24–25 Beaurains Communal Cemetery, 313 Beckwith, Arthur, 200, 216, 227 BEF (British Expeditionary Force): Artois offensive and, 37–38; background and overview of, 27–28; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 286; offensive of 1917 and, 145, 147–148; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 49–51, 58, 88–89, 97–99, 101, 105, 107, 110, 347n15; structure of, 50–51, 328, 331, 334, 338, 345n4 Behind the Lines (Nicholson), 51, 220, 236 Belgium, 3–4

386

i n de x

Bell, Hugh, 113, 114, 146, 157, 158, 241, 266–267 Bemister, Jack, 94, 206, 208, 212, 213, 214, 318 Bernardini, Alfons, 176 Bessent, Hubert, 34, 108, 151, 167, 265, 323 Biddulph, Cyril, 102–104, 104, 248, 281, 282 Bing Boys Are Here, The, 103, 349n2 Bion, Wilfred, 252 Bird, Will: about, 90, 246, 248, 311, 321; And We Go On, 321; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 361n11; Communication Trench, 229; Ghosts Have Warm Hands, 321 Birkenhead, HMS, 75 Bishop, William Avery, 135 “black box” technology, 106 Black Watch. See 42 Battalion (Black Watch) Blangy, 123, 128 Blériot monoplanes, 4, 5, 241 blobs and worms, 105, 106 Blue Devils, 10–11, 14, 17, 20. See also Alpine Infantry (RIA) (French) Blue Max, 340 Blue Puttees, 35, 120 Boelke, Oswald, 44, 74, 198 Boiry: Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 276, 292, 294, 299, 300, 304–305; offensive of 1917 and, 195, 209, 210, 211 Boiry-Notre-Dame, 210, 260, 304 Bois du Sart: Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 277, 278, 284, 291, 291–293, 299, 306; offensive of 1917 and, 174, 176, 184, 186, 201, 203, 209, 210 Bois du Vert: Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 279, 282, 287, 291, 291–293, 299, 306; offensive of 1917 and, 184, 188, 201, 203, 208, 209, 210;

Race to the Sea and, 16; war memorials and, 312 Borden, Mary, 7, 224–225, 231, 238, 243, 309, 314 Borden, Robert, 244 Bouchard, Leo, 31, 92, 139, 292, 293, 299, 305, 322 Bragg, Lawrence “Willie,” 54, 106 Breadner, Lloyd, 13, 143, 145, 190, 222, 320 Brigade Majors (BMs), about, 63 brigades, about, 330, 337 Bristol Fighter F2bs, (Biffs), 256–258 Britain: casualties of, 26, 343n37; public schools of, 31–32, 343n16; war beginnings and, 3–4, 27–33. See also specific military groups of British Expeditionary Force (BEF). See BEF (British Expeditionary Force) Brittain, Vera, 242 Bruce-Williams, H. “Billy,” 117, 164, 165, 177, 227, 315, 350n38 Bruchmuller, George “Breakthrough,” 230, 238 Bruchmuller fire plans, 238 Buchan, Alisdair, 132, 145, 157 Buchan, John, 28, 115, 131–132, 157, 314 Bucky, Hans, 14–15, 16, 26 Bulkeley-Johnson, Charles Bulkeley, 172–173, 186, 189 Bullecourt, 99, 162, 190, 349n58 Bull Ring, 93, 117 Buneville, 119 Bunting, Frank, 31, 42, 170, 189, 194, 195 Burgalla, Emil, 109–110 Burstall, Henry, 260, 264, 294 Butler, Robert “Bob” Thomas Probyn Rowley, 115, 241, 319 Byng, Julian: about, 42, 54–55, 57, 227, 315, 345n19; Cambrai operation

i n de x and, 230–231; Canadian Corps and, 57; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 261–262; Currie and, 258–259; offensive of 1917 and, 88, 89, 93, 99, 149–150, 162; Verdun assault and, 55–56 Byng Boys, 103, 349n3. See also Canadian Corps C21 (tank), 112, 177, 178, 179, 181– 182, 184 C26 (tank), 177, 178, 180, 181–182 C27 (tank), 177, 178 C28 (tank), 177, 178, 180 C29 (tank), 177, 179, 181–182, 184 C36 (tank), 157, 158, 177, 179 Caesar’s Road, 4, 260, 313 Cake, Alf E., 121, 212, 213, 312 Calgary, Canada, 31 Cambrai, 8, 10, 133, 230–231, 257 Cameron Highlanders, 92 Canada, about, 28, 33–35, 343n12 Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC), 31 Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), 33–34, 94, 248, 332–334. See also specific groups of Canadian Indigenes, 31, 322, 343n12 Canadian Offensive of August 1918, 252–307; aerial combat and support of, 254–258, 276–277, 283–284, 288; background and preparation for, 252–254, 258–266; Bois du Sart and Bois du Vert and, 282–283, 291, 291–293, 299; conclusions on, 304– 307; consolidation, reposition, and resupplying of, 285–286, 288–289; German counterattack of, 287–288; German defense of, 295–296, 298, 300; Infantry Hill and, 277–279; Jigsaw Wood and, 295, 299–304; medical support and, 262; Monchy

387

capture of, 271–275, 290; Patricias and, 280–282; Start Line of, 266–267, 268–270; tanks and, 266–268, 285, 290; trench clearing and, 296–298; “up the middle” and, 294–295 Canadians and Scotts, 131–132, 352n12 Canadian Stationary Hospital in Doullens, 88, 237, 244 cannons, 110, 112, 112–113, 154, 336 Captain Kettle, 9, 11–12, 13, 319 Carton de Wiart, Adrian, 97, 164, 315, 354n39 Cartridge Trench, 280–281, 296 Carvosso, James “Pinky,” 167, 223–224, 247, 321, 354n2 casualties: from aerial warfare, 223; of Battle of Arras, 226; of Battle of the Somme, 58; of BEF, 344n38, 348n50, 359n2; of France, 26, 343n37, 344n38; of German spring offensive of 1918, 242; of Germany, 344n38; of Infantry Hill attack, 219; of Race to the Sea, 26, 33, 343n37; of tank units, 267; at Vimy Ridge, 41; at Ypres, 37, 57 Casualty Clearing Stations (CCSs), 82–85, 117, 223, 249–250, 254, 262 Catholics, 34, 67, 76, 126, 351n2 cavalries, about, 336, 337 cavalry, British, 110–111, 170, 185–189 Cavell, Edith, 45, 79–80 cemeteries, war, 311, 312, 313 Chandler, Raymond, 248 Chantilly Conference, Second, 78, 79 Chapel Hill, 20–22, 130, 264, 285 chaplains, 126, 351n2. See also specific chaplains Chapman, Guy: about, 61, 227, 229, 317; offensive of 1917 and, 51, 97, 117–118, 175–176, 225; Passionate Prodigality, 29, 79, 235, 317 Château Florent, 36, 183, 355n20

388

i n de x

Chérisy, 10, 14, 15, 200, 286, 295 Chiefs of Staff, about, 52, 61–62 chivalric orders, 339 chlorine gas, 36, 142, 238, 250 Christison, Philip, 184, 355n23 Churchill, Winston, 12–13, 27, 43, 166, 226, 229, 260–261, 314 Church of England, 126 civilians, 20, 36, 183 Clarke, Richard, 83, 85, 223, 249–250, 309, 324 Clausewitz, Carl von, 3, 49, 102, 123, 125, 308 Clemenceau, Georges, 229, 236 close air support, 276–279, 337 CMRs (Canadian Mounted Rifles). See Canadian Mounted Rifles (CMRs) Cojeul River: Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 261, 267, 285, 299; offensive of 1917 and, 128–131, 162, 195; Operations Mars and Michael and, 236–237, 240; Race to the Sea and, 10, 13, 18, 18–19, 22 Cojeul River valley, 8, 22 Collins, Norman, 325–326 Collishaw, Raymond, 255–256, 359n4 Coltman, W. H., 347n11 combat refusal, 44 Comedy Company, 93, 103, 104, 121 commanders, about, 338–339 communications: Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 264, 269–270; offensive of 1917 and, 89, 108, 169; recalibration of 1916 and, 59 Communication Trench, The (Bird), 229 Cooper bombs, 277 Croix de Guerre, 231, 339 Crowe, Charles Maurice, 133, 147, 154 Crummy, Francis, 257, 320 Cuddeford, Douglas: about, 29, 96, 227, 309, 319; battle for Monchy and, 180, 185, 188, 189, 194; offensive of 1917 and, 145, 156, 161

Curran, Donald Wilfred “Fred,” 196, 216, 217, 317 Currie, Arthur: about, 227, 245, 258–259, 315–316, 324; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 259–260, 261, 271, 291, 305; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 89, 90, 132 Currie, George, 321 Dalby, T. C., 327 Dale Trench, 197, 203, 206, 207, 292 Danes, the, 76 Daniels, Ernie, 288–289 Dawson, Will, 113, 146, 179 death penalty, 44, 352n24 decorations, military, 339–340. See also specific decorations De Lisle, Henry de Beauvoir, 71, 197, 219, 258, 315 Derendorff, Heinrich, 122, 354n4 “Diamond Troupe,” 103 Dickens, Charles, 23 Dietrich, Marlene, 324 discipline and justice, 138–140, 352n24 dispatch riders (DRs), 128 Distinguished Conduct Medals (DCMs), 86, 120, 212, 339, 347n11 Distinguished Flying Crosses (DFCs), 339 Distinguished Flying Medals (DFMs), 339 Distinguished Service Orders (DSOs), 294, 305, 312, 317, 339, 347n11 Divisional Ammunition Columns (DACs), 63–64, 170 Divisional Intelligence, 196 divisions, about, 245, 328–330, 330–332 Dixon, W. E. C., 140 Dominion Day Olympiad 1918, 244 Dörr, Otto, 35, 121, 325. Douai, 11–12, 13, 38, 39–40, 51, 142 Doullens, 9, 83, 244, 252, 254 Drader, Harold, 114, 114, 157, 158, 319

i n de x drills, battle, 104–105, 106, 119, 140, 155, 296–298 Drocourt-Quéant (DQ) Line, 99, 221, 259, 260 “Dumbbells,” 103, 248 Dunbar, Robin, 352n22 Dunsmuir, James “Boy,” 36 Duporche, Martin, 355n20 Durham, Cecil, 133, 147, 154, 222, 320 Dyer, Hugh “Daddy,” 227, 245–246, 278, 279, 296, 307

389

fighter, term of, 337 Final Despatch (Haig), 1, 47, 233 Fitzgerald, Percy Hetherington, 23 Flanagan, John Joseph, 139, 150, 223, 249, 278 Flarelight Bill, 150, 154 flying aces, 44, 109, 135, 198–200, 227, 256. See also specific flying aces “Flying Circus,” 227, 242, 243 “Flying Pigs,” 107, 226 flying schools, 13, 256 Foakes, H., 171 “effectives” rates, 155, 353n22 Foch, Ferdinand: about, 315; Artois electrocardiographs, 54 offensive and, 33, 37, 38; Canadian Elitzer, Wilhelm, 212 offensive of 1918 and, 261; German Elkington, John, 39–40, 42–43, 100, offensive of 1918 and, 238; at the 244, 344n35 Marne, 251; Race to the Sea and, 25– Emans, Harry, 180 26; at Vimy Ridge, 37, 38, 39–40, 41 enfilading fire, about, 22 Fokker Eindecker monoplane, 44, 66 entertainment and recreation, 102–103, Fokker DR1Triplane, 199, 227, 228, 243 104, 244–245 Fokker DVII, 254–255, 257 Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, 16, 17, Forbes-Robertson, James: about, 37, 95, 22, 25, 316 227, 317; Canadian offensive of 1918 Étaples, 93, 117 and, 266, 286, 295, 305; Infantry Hill Evening Encounter Over Arras, An attack and, 200, 202, 203, 204, 212; (Stark), 255 Monchy and, 213–214, 215–218, 217; recalibration of 1916 and, 70–71 Faction Trench, 280–281, 296 Forbidden Zone, The (Borden), 314 Falkenhayn, Erich von, 49 Forward Observing Officers (FOOs), Fall, J. S. T. “Joe,” 13, 143, 144, 145, about, 53 190–193, 320, 356n35 Forward Zone, 75–76 “familiars,” 138 Foster, H. J. B., 212 Fampoux, 161, 170 Fox, Frank: about, 62, 96–97, 315; CamFarbus, 153–154, 154 brai operation and, 231; Clemenceau Fawcett, Percy, 53, 100 and, 236; offensive of 1917 and, FE2b fighter bombers (Royal Aircraft 152, 166 Factory, FEEs), 80–83, 81, 137, Fox, George, 248, 282 142–143, 199 France: casualties of, 26, 343n37, Feuchy, 123, 130, 145, 176, 190, 205 344n38; military structure and, 332; field armies, about, 327 war beginnings and, 3 Field Service Regulations (FSR), 91, 101 French language, 60, 68 Fiévet, Celine, 355n20 “French Nocturne (Monchy-Le-Preux)” Fiévet, Madame, 183, 355n20 (Lewis), 290

390

i n de x

French reservists, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17 French resistance network, 80 Fresnes-Rouvroy Line, 260, 292, 295, 299, 306 Frezenberg Ridge, 37, 42, 228, 288, 304 From Bapaume to Passchendaele 1917 (Gibbs), 177 Frost, Robert, 33 Fuel Trench, 280 Fuller, J. F. C., 113, 184–185, 350n25 Fullerphones, 264 Fumetti, William von, 123–124, 156, 159 Fuse, Direct Action No. 106, 106, 127 Fusiliers. See 10 Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Stockbrokers); 13 Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Kensington)

German Offensive, spring 1918, 235–243; aerial warfare of, 241–242, 243–244; climax of, 242–243; Operation Mars and, 238–241; Operation Michael and, 235–238 Germany: casualties of, 344n38; counterattacks of, 40–41, 229; military structure and, 332, 332–333; war beginnings and, 3. See also specific military groups of Ghosts Have Warm Hands (Bird), 321 Gibbs, Philip, 177, 203, 225–226, 259, 271, 306–307 Giffnock memorial, 355n18 Gillingham, Fred, 166, 248, 321 Gillon, Stair, 59 Golden Mile of millionaires, MonGarbutt, John, 167, 322 treal, 34 Gardiner family, 35 Gooby, Archie, 214 Gardner, Cyril, 120, 212 Gosport system, 256 Gardner, Fred, 212 Gotha bombers, 222–223 Garland, Charles (Dick), 30 Grand Cross, 340 Garland, Ewart, 30, 133–137, 136, 222, Grange Tunnel, 138 228, 256, 309, 319–320 Gray, Donald, 51, 151, 166, 246 Garnett, Clarence, 187 Gray, John, 32, 355n18 gas, 141–142, 216, 223, 238, 250, grazing fire, about, 22 266–267, 296 Great German Staff, 65–67 gas masks, 73, 90, 141–142, 250, Greenland Hill, (Balloon-Hohe) 123, 266–267 141, 142, 146, 267, 296 Gault, Hamilton, 29, 92, 245–247, 309 Gregg, Milton Fowler, 95–96, 249, 269, Gay, Fred, 133 279, 322 G Branch of British GHQ, 61–62, 63 grenades, 94, 124, 127–128, 261, 272 Gear, James, 139–140, 212, 231 Grey, Peggy, 231 General Headquarters (British) (GHQ), Grieg, Oscar, 82–83 50–51, 59–64, 61t, 102, 344n2, 354n4 grousing, 121–122, 224, 226 General Staff Officers (GSOs), 50, Guémappe: Canadian offensive of 1918 61, 196 and, 285, 309; offensive of 1917 and, George, Lloyd, 98, 220–221, 236, 259, 200, 205, 209, 212; Race to the Sea 360n14 and, 13, 18 George V, 56, 237, 244, 319 Gueudecourt, 72–73 German Air Force, about, 338, 361n19 gun locating, 53–54, 106 German Army Air Service, about, 336 guns: on aircraft, 134, 222; British, German Flying Troops, 44 68–70; Canadian, 34, 105–106;

i n de x cavalry, 110; German, 68–70, 69; infantry, 105–106, . See also artillery; specific guns Guppy, Francis, 116, 223, 262, 270

391

Henderson, G. F. R., 55 Hennessy, James, 15, 295, 342n23 high explosives (HE), 68, 152, 216, 238 Highlanders, 32, 77–78, 92, 145, 155, 160, 267 Haig, Douglas: about, 64, 78, 98, 237, Highland Games, 244–245 310, 315, 324; Canadian offensive of Hill 90: about, 342n20; Canadian of1918 and, 260–261, 267; Currie and, fensive of 1918 and, 286; offensive of 258–259; diary of, 27; Final Despatch, 1917 and, 190, 195; Race to the Sea 1, 47, 233; German spring offensive and, 14, 18, 18–19, 20, 342n20 of 1918 and, 238, 242; offensive of Hill 92 and Wancourt. See Wancourt and 1917 and, 93, 99, 113, 126, 196, 221, Wancourt Tower Hill 222; press and, 225; Race to the Sea Hill 145, 162 and, 33 Hillier, John, 214, 216, 217, 317 Halahan, “Tommy,” 200, 227 Hindenburg, Paul von, 65–66, 79, 173, Halberstadt biplanes, 80, 193 230, 250–251, 315 Haldane, Aylmer, 99–101, 148, 169, 190, Hindenburg Line, 99, 226, 260, 305 200, 219, 315 History of the 29th Division (Stair), 59 Hale, Mabel, 322 Holloway, Bert, 120, 196, 202, 208 Hale, William “Doc,” Jr.: about, 248, Home, William, 96, 150, 249, 269, 322; Canadian offensive of 1918 279, 322 and, 262, 288; offensive of 1917 and, honorary captains, about, 361n13 86–88, 87, 150, 162, 167 Horne, Henry, 88 Hansen, Leutnant, 164–165, 173, 182 horses, 21, 110–111, 170, 185–188, Harp, the, 133, 145, 157 189, 266 Harper, George Montague, 56–57, Hotblack, Frederick “Boots,” 115, 157, 77–78, 132, 267, 315, 351n14 168, 267, 319 Harper’s Duds, 56–57, 77–78 Hotchkiss cannons, 113 Harris, Jack, 148, 181–182 Hotchkiss machine guns, 110, 113, 188 Harrison, Edward, 239 Hounsell, Japheth, 216, 217, 317 Hart, Liddell, 315 Housman, A. E., 97 Hatton, Percy, 30, 241, 268, 280–281, Hughes, Sam, 33–34, 88 290, 312 heavy artillery, about, 68-69, 107– Immelman, Max, 340 108, 336 Indigenous people, 31, 71, 322, 343n12 Heavy Artillery Groups (HAGs), about, indirect fire systems, 106–107, 107 107, 153 infantry battalions, about, 332–334, 333 Hedderwick, Charles, 36 Infantry Hill: attack of 1917 and, Hedderwick, Gerald, 36–37, 114, 157, 204–208, 211; battles for Monchy 228, 313 and, 182, 183, 185, 189, 195, 201, Heidner, Alfred, 222 213–218; Canadian offensive of 1918 Heinrichshafen, Heinrich von, 35, 44 and, 277–279; counterattack of 1917 Hemming, Henry, 53–54, 100, 106, 265 offensive and, 208–213; preparation

392

i n de x

for attack of, 196–197, 200, 201; Start Line for attack of, 202–204 Int, Captain, 196 intelligence, 62, 121–122, 196 Iron Cross, 26, 77, 120, 339–340 iron rations, 60 Isaacson, Alice, 231 Jackson, Stonewall, 55, 89, 246, 258–259, 266, 291 Janes, Fred, 120, 207, 318, 356n17 Jauneaud, Marcel, 3, 21–22, 316 Jigsaw Wood: Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 276, 283, 294, 295, 299–304; offensive of 1917 and, 164, 174, 175, 186, 195, 203, 208, 210 Joffre, Maréchal “Papa,” 37–38, 41, 42, 49–50, 78, 79 Johnson, Owen, 72 Johnson, William, 272 Johnston, Henry, 113, 177, 180–181, 182 Jones, H. P. M. “Paul,” 32, 32, 62–63, 114–115, 160, 225, 228 Jucksch, Arnold Homer “Jukes,” 292, 293, 299, 305, 322 Keegan, Kevin: about, 61, 94, 97, 317; Holloway and, 120, 219; Infantry Hill and Monchy and, 202, 203, 213, 215–217, 217, 218 Kelly, Dan, 127, 162 Kerans, Edward, 200, 227 Kesselring, Albert, 175, 227 Kirst, Willi, 147, 157 Kitchener, Herbert, Lord, 27, 28–29, 55–56, 77 Knauff, Major, 19–20, 22–26, 314 Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), 56, 339 Kohl, Hermann, 124, 176, 179, 210, 228 Koller, Hans, 76, 130–131, 162, 195 Koppelow, Paul von, 122, 350n52

Korfes, Otto, 16, 23–24, 240, 251, 324 Krentel, Albert: about, 52, 77, 310; offensive of 1917 and, 131, 158, 164, 168; as a prisoner of war, 226, 244, 310 Kunlen, Gustav, 69, 295, 304 La Bergère, 178, 179, 186, 187, 276, 278, 285 La Bergère crossroads, 4, 8, 176, 177, 186–188, 285, 314 Labour Corps, 338 Laffargue, André, 39, 43–44, 230 La Folie, 38, 85, 122, 149, 166–168, 292 La Folie Farm, 163 La Fosses Farm, 187, 200, 202, 239, 285 Lais, Otto, 6, 242, 310, 324–325 Landships Committee, 13 Langer, Gefreiter, 283–284 Langmead, George, 94, 206, 208, 212 Langtry, Lily, 103, 349n1 Lawrence, T. E., 100, 310 Lebel rifles, 18 Leclerc, Sergeant, 18–19 Legion clubs, 310, 314 Legion d’Honneur, 25, 231, 339 Lewis, C. S., 290 Lewis light machine guns, 80, 83, 104, 113, 118, 119, 134 lingua, army, 60 Lipsett, Louis: about, 308–309, 324; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 264, 283, 291, 291–292, 295–296, 299, 301, 305; Churchill and, 226; German offensive of 1918 and, 240; New Army reset of 1918 and, 245–246, 247; offensive of 1917 and, 89–90, 103, 166 Livens, William H., 141–142 Livens Projectors, 141–142 Llandovery Castle (ship), 244 “Llandovery Castle” operation, 244

i n de x Loggie, Lieutenant, 272, 275 London Sunday Times, 29 London Times, 147 Lorette, 25–26, 42 Lossberg, Friedrich Karl “Fritz” von, 67, 174, 195, 230, 325 Ludendorff, Erich: about, 65–66, 250–251, 315; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 306; German offensive of 1918 and, 229, 230–231, 235, 238, 242; offensive of 1917 and, 121, 122, 173–174, 229, 230–231 Lushington, Franklin, 148, 151, 168, 309, 315 Lusitania (tank), 160, 165, 193 Lusitania, RMS, 36 LVG aircraft, 109–110, 283–284, 349n19 Lynch, John: about, 35, 107, 248, 321; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 261, 280, 282, 286–287, 289, 301, 303–304, 305 Macdonnell, Archie “Batty Mac,” 90–91, 93, 132, 149, 227, 316 machine guns: Hotchkisses, 110, 113, 188; Lewis lights, 80, 83, 104, 113, 118, 119, 134; M14 Parabellum, 222; MG08/15s, 68–70, 69, 124, 146, 301–302; St. Etiennes, 17, 17–18; used on aircraft, 80, 82, 143, 222, 255, 257; Vickers, 73, 73, 113, 143, 257 Machine Gun Woods, 17, 203, 206, 208, 210, 212, 213, 217 Mackay, Alex, 313 Mackay, Angus: about, 30, 73, 224; offensive of 1917 and, 168, 196, 200, 206, 211, 213, 214 Mackay, Donald, 30, 73 Mackay, George, 30 Mackay, Hugh, 30 Mackay, Mackay “Mac,” 30, 96, 248, 289

393

Mackay, Magnus, 30, 73 Mackay, Robert Lindsay: about, 30, 32, 132, 307, 318; German offensive of 1918 and, 237, 239; offensive of 1917 and, 145, 155, 169, 178 Mackay clan, 30. See also specific Mackays Mackinnon, Dan, 63, 96, 108, 240, 265, 283, 323 Maclaren, Don, 256, 359n4 MacLennan, John, 82–83 Macpherson, Cluny, 73 Macpherson, Donald, 95, 121, 247, 253, 307, 323 Macpherson, Ross, 95, 96, 121, 247, 253, 269, 280, 281, 312 Maercker, Georg Ludwig Rudolf, 263–264, 294–296, 316 Magdeburgers, 16, 19–21, 22–25, 65 Main Line of Defense, about, 75 Mallet, Christian: about, 8–9, 316; battle at Vimy and, 39; Race to the Sea and, 9, 10, 13, 33 Manning, Frederick, 106 maps, xxviii–xxxix March Tables, 253, 253–254 Mark II tanks, 112, 113, 157, 160, 176 Mark IV tanks, 241 Mark V tanks, 267–268 Mark V* tanks, 267–268, 280–281 Marne River, 4, 5, 14, 251 Martin, Albert, 214, 318 Martin, Loretta, 318 Mason, Alfred, 96, 265, 294, 323 Matheson, Drummond, 30, 80, 82, 83, 109, 110, 117, 320 Mauser Tankgewehr M1918s, 263 May, Charles, 176, 177, 180 Mayers, James, 194 McAdam, Lionel, 34, 111, 115, 319 McCracken, Frederick, 160, 162 McDonald, George Cross “Red”: about, 34, 61, 93, 321; Canadian offensive

394

i n de x

of 1918 and, 254, 280, 281, 305, 307; German offensive of 1918 and, 246–248 McKenzie, Fred, 90, 149, 166, 284, 289, 305, 353n6 McLaren, Duncan, 248, 289 MEBUs, 130, 351n8 Medical Evacuation System, 83–85, 84 medical support: about, 31, 83–88, 84, 223–224, 338; ambulances and, 31, 85, 115–116, 140, 194, 223–224, 262, 270; for Canadian offensive of 1918, 262; for offensive of 1917, 83–88, 84, 115–117, 140, 347n11. See also specific military groups of Mediterranean, war in the, 35–36 Melanson, Lance Corporal, 278–279 memorials, Great War, 311–313, 312, 314, 322 Mercatel, 10, 13, 21–25, 131, 266, 313 Merry, Tom, 72, 212 Messines Ridge, 228 MG08/15s, 68–70, 69, 124, 146, 301–302 Middle Part of Fortune, The (Manning), 106 Military Crosses (MCs), 120, 317, 318, 339, 347n11 military decorations, 339–340. See also specific decorations Military Medals (MMs), 86, 96, 317, 339, 347n11, 348n11 Military Merit Cross (German), 340 military police, 268, 270 military structures, 327–339; about, 327, 328, 329t; artillery and, 335t, 336; infrastructure and, 338; rank and, 338–339; transportation and, 336–338 Miller, Harrry, 248, 305 Miller, William, 150, 166, 305, 321 Mills bombs, 127 Molson, Percival, 34, 247

Molson family, 34 Monchy-Le-Preux, 4; assault of April 1917 on, see Monchy-Le-Preux assault of April 1917; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 264, 273, 276, 284, 286, 306; German occupation of, 36–37, 37, 42; German offensive of 1918 and, 236–237; maps of, xxviii– xxix; post Great War, 311–313; Race to the Sea and, 13–20; as a riegel, 130, 162, 164–165, 188, 193; today, 313–314; war memorials at, 311–313, 312; in WWII, 313 Monchy-Le-Preux assault of April 1917, 170, 172; air support for, 174, 184, 187, 190–193; April 10 and, 169–175; April 11 overview for, 177–181; battle preparation for, 99, 133; cavalry charge of, 185–189, 189; infantry fight of, 183–184; losses of, 193–195; medical support of, 194; Monchy Ten and, 215–218, 217; tanks and, 177, 178–182, 183–184 Monchy Ten, 213–218, 217 monkey runs, 215, 288 Montgomerie, James Baird Thorneycroft, 92–93, 150, 163, 248, 269, 282, 304, 321–322 Montgomerie, John, 322 Montgomery, Bernard, 61–62, 344n35 Montreal, Canada, 34 Montreuil-sur-Mer, 50, 228 Mont-Saint-Eloi, 38, 53, 54, 55, 56, 133, 241, 313 Mont Sorrel, 57, 92, 93, 304 monuments, Great War, 311–313, 312, 314, 322 morale, 45, 102–103, 138–139 Mordacq, Henri, 14, 20, 25, 36, 238, 316 Morris, Edward, 120 Morrow, Ernest, 30, 256–258, 320 mortars, 107–108, 124 Morton, Will, 165, 173

i n de x

395

Moss, Corporal, 208, 214 motorcycles, 38 motor transport (MT), about, 336, 338 Muck Trench, 119 Mulock, Redford, 13, 143 munitions of the mind, 45, 131–132 Murphy, Leo, 94, 198, 206, 207, 213, 218, 318 mustard gas, 238, 250, 298 mutinies, French, 220–221 Myers, James, 140

253, 253–254, 264, 269; offensive of 1917 and, 92–93, 95, 128, 162 Norsworthy family, 34 Northampton Yeomanry (Northants), 111, 170, 186–188 Norton-Griffiths, John, 29–30 Notes for Commanding Officers, 1918 (Dalby), 327 “Now All Roads Lead to France” (Thomas), 33 Now It Can Be Told (Gibbs), 271

Nagel, Fritz, 6, 93, 141, 243, 309, 325 Narvidge, John, 212 Nelson, Thomas, 115, 132, 157 Neuner, Tambour, 212 Neuville, 21, 22–23, 147, 158, 266 Neuville-Mercatel ridge, 21, 237 Neuville Mill, 130–131, 146, 147, 156 Neuville-Saint-Vaast, 39, 115, 140 Neuville-Vitasse: Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 266, 286; German offensive of 1918 and, 239; offensive of 1917 and, 130–131, 146, 164; Race to the Sea and, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18–21, 23, 24 Neuville-Wancourt Road, 221 New Army: infrastructure and, 50–51, 97; Nicholson on, 236; offensive of 1917 and, 145; press and, 225–226; reset of 1918 of, 245–249; Somme and, 77; training of, 59–60, 94, 96; Verdun assault and, 56 Newfoundland Caribou Memorial, 311, 312 New York Times, 45, 290 Nicholson, Walter Norris “WN,” 51, 220, 236 Nivelle, George, 98–99, 142, 196, 226 non-commissioned officers (NCOs), about, 76–77, 94, 95 Norsworthy, Stanley: about, 34, 248, 321; Canadian offensive of 1918 and,

Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL), about, 65–66, 67, 82, 250 Observation Ridge, 123, 130, 156, 164 OCBs (Officer Cadet Battalions), 95–96 O’Connor, E. J., 115, 228 offensive of April 1917, 141–211; aerial support of, 142–145, 174, 352n34; battle for Monchy and, see MonchyLe-Preux assault of April 1917; firing statistics of, 152–153; gas and, 141–142; Infantry Hill attack and, see Infantry Hill; La Folie and, 166–169; preliminary strikes of, 147–148; tanks and, 145–146, 146; Z-Day breakthrough of, 163–165; Z-Day Start Line of, 148–151; Z-Day wave I of, 151–156; Z-Day wave II of, 156–163. See also offensive of April 1917 preparation offensive of April 1917 preparation, 79–140; air support and, 80–83, 81, 108–110, 133–137; artillery for, 106–108, 107; background of, 79–80; cavalry and, 110–111; Cojeul defenses and, 128–131; commanders and, 98–101; Germans and, 123–124; Golden Horseshoe Division and, 117–120; headquarters and, 88–92; infantry and, 103–106, 105; Intelligence and, 121–122; morale, discipline, and justice and, 138–140,

396

i n de x

352n24; Newfoundlanders and, 120– 121; officer training for, 93–98; Palm Sunday raid and, 126–128; religion and, 125–126; Scotts and Canadians and, 131–132, 351n12; soldiers and, 92–93; tanks and, 111–115 Officer Cadet Battalions (OCBs), 95–96 Officers’ Training Corps (OTC), about, 31–32, 34, 94, 96–97 OHL, see Oberste Heeresleitung Old Army, 54, 60, 72, 94, 96 On War (Clausewitz), 3, 49, 102, 123, 125, 308 Operation Alberich, 66–67, 98, 130, 131 Operational Note 5779, 38, 43–44 Operation Mars, 238–241 Operation Michael, 235–238 Operation Orders, 291, 291–292 Orange Hill: Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 271–272, 283; Currie and, 245, 259; German offensive of 1918 and, 236–237, 239, 240; offensive of 1917 and, 170–171, 173, 185, 200, 216; Race to the Sea and, 20–22 Orff, Carl, 351n60 organization, military. See military structures OTC (Officers’ Training Corps), about, 31–32, 34, 94, 96–97 Outerbridge, Norman, 120, 207, 310 Owston, Charles, 86, 93, 150, 162

Pearkes, George: about, 94, 95, 249, 309, 323–324, 325; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 294, 299, 305; offensive of 1917 and, 150–151 Pearson, Alfred, 247 Pelves, 186, 280, 284, 287, 296, 297–298 Pepperrell, William, 6 Percy the cat, 114, 114, 115, 157, 319 perfect institutions, 65, 346n15 Perfect Lady, 112, 177, 178, 179, 181–182, 184 Perry, Eugene, 139, 140, 190 Pétain, Henri, 38, 98, 226, 229, 231, 315 Pfaltz DIII biplanes, 243 Pfaltz DXII fighters, 257 Phillips, Harry, 279, 288 phosgene, 142, 238, 250 phosphorous bombs, 142 photography, 44, 80, 82, 110, 133, 134, 137, 265 pigeons, 124 pillboxes, 130, 351n8 pilots, about, 13, 82–83, 135, 337 Pippin Trench, 267 Pitcher, Walter, 216, 217, 317 platoons, about, 105, 138, 334–336 Polish soldiers, 263, 274 Pomeranians. See 61 Infantry Regiment (Pomeranians) post-Great War, 310–314 Pour le Mérite, 340 PPCLI (Princess Patricia’s Canadian Palm Sunday raid, 126–128 Light Infantry). See Princess Patricia’s parachutes, 255, 258 Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) Parsons, Charles, 216, 217, 318 PPCLI Comedy Company, 93, 103, Parsons, Victor Marsh, 216, 318 104, 121 Passaga, Colonel, 22–23, 24, 25 Pretor-Pinney, C. F., 350n44 Passchendaele, 4, 222, 228, 229, 231, 247 Pretyman, George, 4, 80, 135, 241– Passionate Prodigality, A (Chapman), 29, 242, 319 79, 235, 317 primary groups, 138 Patricia of Connaught, 29, 121, 320 prisoners of war, 226–227, 244. See also Patricias, the. See Princess Patricia’s specific prisoners Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) privates, about, 334–336

i n de x projectiles timing, 265–266 Pups, Sopwith, 143, 144, 190–193 “pursuit aircraft,” 337 “pusher aircraft,” 80–82 puttees, 35, 343n24 Q Branch of British GHQ, 62–63 Quarry Wood, 280 Quéant, 99, 221 Quirks (FEs), 134–135, 135, 137, 154, 184 Race to the Sea, 4–26, 15, 40; 22nd Dragoons and, 8–9, 10; armored vehicles and, 9, 11; Arras and, 3, 4–8, 9–10, 11, 13, 21, 24–26; background of, 4–8; end of, 33; first engagements of, 8–11; Lorette and Vimy and, 25–26; Monchy and Hill 90 and, 13–20, 19, 21; Neuville and Mercatel and, 21–25; Orange and Chapel Hills and, 20–22 RAF (Royal Air Force). See Royal Air Force (RAF) Railway Triangle, 123, 133, 145, 155, 160 Raley, Arthur, 201, 202, 213, 215, 216, 318 RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps), 31 ranks, about, 338–339 Ratelle, Arthur, 139, 140 Rear Zone, about, 75, 338 recalibration of late 1916, 59–78; IX Reserve Corps and, 74–77; 26 Reserve Division and, 67–70, 74; 88th Brigade and, 70–74; air power and, 74; British GHQ and, 59–64, 61t, 354n4; Great German Staff and, 65–67; Harper’s Duds and, 77–78 “recognizables,” 138 reconnaissance: from air, 44, 74, 80, 82, 133–137, 198–199, 238, 336–338; from land, 111, 170, 172–173, 203 recreation and entertainment, 102–103, 104, 244–245

397

Regimental Aid Posts (RAPs), 84, 86, 194, 214, 288 Regimental Machine Gun Company (German), 124 Regimental Medical Officers (RMOs), 86, 87, 347n11 regiments, about, 332, 333 religion, 125–126 remount commissions, 338 Rendell, Bert, 120, 203, 207, 211, 214, 223 repatriation, 310, 323 RFC (Royal Flying Corps). See Royal Flying Corps (RFC) Richthofen, Manfred von: about, 74, 82, 199, 227, 244, 320; death of, 244, 277; offensive of 1917 and, 142–143, 174, 198–200, 211, 357n32; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 82, 83, 110, 137 Ring of Remembrance, 314, 362n6 RNAS see Royal Naval Air Service “Road Not Taken, The” (Frost), 33 Robb, Montie, 296, 297–298 Roederwald, Gerald, 228 Roeux: Battles of the Scarpe and, 225; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 264, 267, 284; offensive of 1917 and, 99, 141, 163–164, 190; Race to the Sea and, 10 Roeux Chemical Works, 123, 225 Rolls Royce, 9, 11–12, 257 Rommel, Erwin, 229 Rose, Albert, 216, 217, 217, 218, 317–318 Ross rifles, 34, 105 Rowsell, Reginald “Rex,” 120, 121, 203, 207–208, 212, 213 Royal Air Force (RAF): about, 241–242, 256, 337; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 255, 256–258; German offensive of 1918 and, 243 Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), 31

398

i n de x

Royal Flying Corps (RFC): about, 74, 241–242, 336–337; offensive of 1917 and, 80, 108–110, 117, 133–134, 142–145, 174, 190–191 Royal Highland Regiment. See 42 Battalion (Black Watch) Royal Marines, 9, 12 Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), 12–13, 143–145, 242, 257, 337 Royal Navy, 9, 57, 79 Royal Newfoundland Regiment, 228, 278. See also Newfoundland Regiment Ruhle, Adolf, 147, 157 rum issue, 148, 150, 154 Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, 41, 45 Russell, William, 211, 357n32 Russia, 3, 79, 222, 229 Rutherford, Charles, 151, 249, 269, 272–275, 305, 325 Saint Vindicianus’s abbey, 38 Saker, Fred, 113, 146, 182 Salisbury Plain, 33–34 Salter, Geoffrey, 112, 177, 178, 181–182, 184, 312–313 Samson, Charles Rumney, 9, 11–12, 13, 319 Samwell, Fred, 212 Sanitary NCOs, 86 Sarsfield, Maureen, 319 Scales, Frank, 180 Scarff, F. W., 359n11 Scarff Rings, 257 Scarpe River: battles of, 219, 221, 225; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 260, 271, 278, 287, 296; German offensive of 1918 and, 240; offensive of 1917 and, 141, 155, 159, 160, 163–164, 178, 209; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 111, 121, 123, 133; Race to the Sea and, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 21 Schroder, Otto, 154–155

Scotts and Canadians, 131–132, 352n12 scout pilots, 135 scouts (aircraft), 80–81, 135, 143, 211, 256, 337 Seidel, Offiziersstellvertereter, 276, 285 Selby, Ernest, 115–116, 140, 262, 324 Sellwood, William, 29, 119, 194 Sensée River, 10, 130 Sensée valley, 8, 218, 295, 298 Service, Robert, 133–134 Shackleton, Harry, 268, 285, 286 shell shock, 69, 88, 116 Sheuren, Kurt, 222 “Shooting of Dan McGrew, The” (Service), 133–134 Short, William, 208, 214 Short Magazine Lee-Enfields (SMLE), 105–106 Shrapnel Trench, 197, 201, 203, 204, 206, 210 Shutes, Captain, 175, 180 Siegfried Line, 304–305 Siegfriedstellung (Siegfried Line), 66, 67, 99, 130, 226, 261, 304–305 Signals Service, 108, 121 Silesians, 122, 123–124, 242, 263, 279 Simpkin, Albert: about, 30, 309, 317; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 262, 267; German offensive of 1918 and, 237, 244; offensive of 1917 and, 128, 149, 159, 190, 192, 193 Small Box Respirator, 238, 239 Smart, Charles, 133 Smith, Robert, 227 SMLE (Short Magazine Lee-Enfields), 105–106 Snow, Jack, 211, 214 soldiers and military structure, 329t Solly-Flood, Arthur, 67, 101 Somme, Battle of the, 58, 59, 63–68, 75, 77 “Song of the Mud” (Borden), 224–225

i n de x Sopwith Camels, 243, 255, 255–256, 277, 288 Sopwith Pups, 143, 144, 190–193 Soule, Ivan, 95, 96, 249, 269, 279 sound waves, 54 “Sourvenirs de la bataille d’Arras” ( Jauneaud), 3 spahis, Algerian, 8 Spanish flu, 117, 250, 309 Spears, Edward Louis: about, 7, 43, 90, 238, 313, 314, 316; Allenby and, 100; Artois offensive and, 39, 41, 43–44; Borden and, 224–225, 231; Chantilly Conference and, 78; German offensive of 1918 and, 238; Lloyd George and, 220–221; offensive of 1917 and, 127, 152, 166; Race to the Sea and, 7–8, 10, 25; GHQ and, 50 specialties, 62–63 Speck, Wilhelm, 178–179 spigot grenade launchers, 124 squadrons, about, 337–338 SS109, The Division in Attack, 119 Stacey, Tony, 201, 214 stadium near Tinques, 244 Staff Captains, about, 63 StahlHelm helmets, 70 Stark, Rudolf, 30, 243–244, 254–255, 256, 320 Start Lines, about, 13, 60, 165, 294 statistics, firing, 152 Stephenson, Sid, 94, 206, 212–213 St. Etienne machine guns, 17, 17–18 Steuart, Rob: about, 96, 126, 309, 318; German offensive of 1918 and, 236; offensive of 1917 and, 145, 148, 156, 157, 180, 190, 195, 202; Race to the Sea and, 32–33 Stewart, Charles: about, 246, 247, 309; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 269, 280, 282, 287, 296–299, 305, 307; offensive of 1917 and, 92, 95, 139 Stick, Len, 35, 120, 318

399

Stick, Moyle, 120–121, 214, 219, 226–227, 231, 238, 244, 318 Stick, Rob, 35, 120, 318 Stick family, 35, 318 Stinson Flight School, 13 St.-Laurent-Blangy, 123, 128, 145, 159 Stockbrokers. See 10 Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Stockbrokers) Stokes mortars, 107–108 strafe, term of, 60 strategic bombing, 337 Strathcona, Lord, 29 structures, military. See military structures submarines, 36, 66 survival rates, 262 Sutcliffe, Sam, 28, 29, 74, 94, 240, 245, 309 Sutherland, John, 294 Sutherland Highlanders, 32, 145, 155 Sylvester, Sydney, 29, 119, 183–184, 188, 194, 317 Tank Co-operation with Other Arms, 181 tanks: Battle for Monchy and, 178–182, 183–184; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 263, 266–268, 280–281, 285; debut of, 78, 100, 111; German offensive of 1918 and, 241; offensive of 1917 and, 145–146, 146, 148, 156–160, 160, 165, 176, 353n25; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 111–115, 114 Tanks Corps (Bion), 252 Tarbet, William “Jock,” 113, 115, 146, 159–160, 161 temporary gentlemen, 96–97, 310 Tenbroeke, Melville Rysdale: about, 95, 247, 248, 308–309, 320–321, 362n8; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 269, 280, 282, 287, 296, 296, 300–304, 305; offensive of 1917 and, 139, 163, 166 Territorial Army (British), 27 T-Gewehrs, 263

400

i n de x

Thaer, Albrecht von: about, 52, 67, 75, 231, 250, 325; offensive of 1917 and, 122, 124, 195, 209 Thirty-Nine Steps, The (Buchan), 115, 314 Thomas, Edward, 33, 113, 148, 168 Thomas splints, 140, 223 Thompson, Louis, 257–258, 320 Thüden, Hans, 52, 77, 131, 147, 158 Tilloy, 10, 13, 128, 190, 265, 269, 314 Tocher, James, 214 Topp, Charlie “Toppo”: about, 248, 321; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 269, 279, 282, 292, 299, 302–303; offensive of 1917 and, 92, 95, 139, 151, 162 Toshack, Tom, 32, 115, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 355n18 training: in Britain, 31–32, 343n16; of Canadian troops, 33; of Germans, 76–77; losses from, 256; of New Army, 59–60, 61, 94, 96; of officers, 31–32, 34, 93–98; of pilots, 108 Trenchard, Hugh, 80, 135, 143 trench clearing, 296–298 trench fever, 87, 102, 116–117 trench warfare, 43–44, 52, 57, 70, 74, 126–128. See also specific trenches Tucker, William, 54 tunnels, 58, 122, 125, 138 Turnip Winter, 65 Valley of Death, 183, 211, 278, 282, 312 Vapour Farm, 249 venereal diseases, 87, 139 Verdun assault, 49–58, 53; background of, 49–50; GHQ and, 50–51; making a New Army and, 51–58 veteran reintegration, 310, 323 Vickers machine guns, 73, 73, 113, 143, 257, 277 Victoria Crosses (VCs), 204, 241, 249, 266, 317, 339, 347n11 Villa Barbara, 36, 37, 180

Vimy and Vimy Ridge: Artois offensive and, 42; first attack at, 37–41; impasse at, 41–45; monument at, 314; offensive of 1917 and, 153, 155, 162, 166; offensive of 1917 preparation and, 85, 99, 121–122, 132–133; Race to the Sea and, 4, 25–26; Verdun assault and, 51, 54, 55, 56–58 Vis-en-Artois, 284, 295 Volkheimer, Michael, 141, 153, 313 Volunteer Aides (VADs), 31 Vyvyan, Frank, 113, 146, 160, 319 Walker, David, 32, 355n18 Walsh, Pat, 204, 218–219 Wancourt and Wancourt Tower Hill, 342n20; Canadian offensive of 1918 and, 285, 342n20; offensive of 1917 and, 99, 130, 145–146, 147, 197, 200; Race to the Sea and, 10, 13–14, 18, 19 Warnecke, Franz, 109–110, 283–284 “Warned Soldier, The,” 103 Warnke, Vizefeldwebel, 131, 156, 165, 171, 176, 178 Warren, Benjamin Harmon, 116, 140, 262, 289 war temper, 45 Waterfield, Joe, 216, 217, 317 Wavell, Archibald, 221 wearing out, 44, 47, 51 Webber, Norman “Ox,” 261 Weber, Charles, 160 Wenninger, Karl von, 124, 175, 209, 214, 227, 228 Westmann, Stefan, 5–6, 15, 97, 242, 249, 324 Wheeler, David Everett, 6–7, 39–40, 42–43, 244, 250, 251 Wheeler, Mabel, 7, 251 White, Alf, 282 White, Charlie, 202, 213, 216 Whitehouse, Arch, 199

i n de x Whiteman, Rupert “Jack”: about, 29, 119, 211, 317, 355n25; battle for Monchy and, 193, 194, 171–173, 175, 178, 183–185 Whiting, Frank, 281, 297, 298, 321 Whitmore, Francis, 42, 186, 188–189, 195, 227 whiz bangs, 68–70 Wich, Leopold, 212 Willcock, Ralph, 92, 126–127, 248, 321 Willets, Dick, 150, 248, 269, 278, 279, 299, 305, 309, 323 William, Crown Prince, 36 Wilson, Bob, 31, 106, 151, 168, 193, 205 Wirth, Otto, 222 Wood, Eric, Jr., 314 Wood, Eric Fisher: about, 6, 7, 94, 97–98, 252, 314; bayonets and, 72; offensive of 1917 and, 145, 155–156, 158–159; Vimy Ridge battle and, 41 Wooden Boat Magazine, 198 World Crisis, The (Churchill), 166

401

Wright, Wilbur, 336 Wright Flying School, 13, 80 Wundt, Maud von, 74 Wundt, Rolf von, 316 Wundt, Theodor von: about, 129, 316; battle for Monchy and, 195; Infantry Hill attack and, 207, 209; offensive of 1917 and, 128–130, 162; recalibration of 1917 and, 74–76, 77 Wurttembergers, 5, 67–68, 74–75, 237, 284, 286, 298 “Yellow X,” mustard 238, 250, 296 Yeomanry: Essex, see Essex Yeomanry; Northampton, 111, 170, 186–188 Young, Joe, 87, 92, 117, 322–323 Ypres, 33, 36–37, 41, 57, 119, 228, 317 Z Company, Livens projectors141 Z-Day, 120. See also under offensive of April 1917 zeppelins, 12, 36

Ter ry Lover idge is a retired professional soldier and former Assistant Professor of History at the Royal Military College of Canada. He served as an infantry officer, as Chief Instructor of the Canadian Army Tactics School, a strategic concepts officer at NATO Headquarters Virginia, Deputy Director for Operations at the Canadian Forces Staff College, and Deputy Director of Learning and Development at the Canadian Defence Academy, so he is well versed in the “intervening levels” of operations. He has degrees in psychology and history, attended two staff colleges, completed a graduate program with the US Naval War College, and was a Visiting Defence Fellow at Queen’s University, Kingston. Walking the fields mentioned in the narrative and spending an afternoon adrift in the Arctic Ocean provided some understanding of surviving an alien environment with insufficient preparation while lecturing and giving tours of the battlefields provided an appreciation of what students of the era and of the Great War needed to be able to relate to those that experienced those happenings.

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