51St Highland Division History, Part Three
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CHAPTER XIV THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE The year 1917 closed in an atmosphere of depression. Most Divisions on the Western Front had been engaged continuously in offensive operations. Some had been hurried off to Italy; all were exhausted, and either numerically weak or had been reinforced by rather indifferent material. The drain on officers had been severe during the last twelve months, and deficiencies in this respect were hard adequately to replace. The signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the complete defection of the Russians had, at the same time, enabled Germany not only to make up the wastage in her ranks, but even to increase the number of Divisions on the Western Front. There was a universal feeling that, in spite of the sacrifices of Arras and Passehendaele, and the bitter fighting at Messines, Ypres, and Cambrai, the initiative could but pass into the hands of the Germans, and that they were soon to become the aggressors. There had also been the painful incident of the ringing of the joy-bells in London, which had heralded the Germans' successful counter-attack against the shoulders of the Cambrai salient. This counter-attack had fallen on, among other Divisions, the 56th Division. It had necessitated urgent orders being sent on 30th November to the 51st Division, which was resting in the neighbourhood of Baisieux, to move at once to the Lechelle area. These orders arrived most inopportunely, as, in the first place, it was St Andrew's Day, and the numerous dinners which were to be eaten in memory of the patron saint were actually being cooked, and had to be left untouched. Further, General Harper's horse had come down with him in a hidden wire-entanglement, the General being severely shaken, and had sustained a badly-damaged wrist. On 1st December two battalions of the 153rd Brigade relieved two battalions of the 56th Division in the old British front, and on 2nd December the 154th and 153rd Brigades relieved the 56th Division in the front trenches. On 3rd December the GOC 51st Division took over command of the line. The situation was a precarious one. Our troops occupied the Hindenburg front line as far as Tadpole Copse inclusive, a trench had thence been hastily dug across No Man's Land to protect the left flank. This flank was thus highly vulnerable and liable to be heavily counter-attacked. Indeed, the Germans maintained constant pressure against our troops in that part of the field by means of bombing parties, and in this respect could only be kept in check by a systematic use of rifle grenades. To relieve this situation on 5th December our troops were withdrawn to the old British front line. After various adjustments of the frontage held, the Divisional sector was finally fixed, and ran from Betty Avenue east of Demicourt on the right to the Strand on the left, the village of Boursies on the Bapaume-Cambrai road being a little south of the centre of the sector. The total frontage held by the Division was roughly 6,000 yards. The trenches - for the defences could not be called a trench system - consisted of a front line and portions of a support line sited for the most part so that it could not perform the functions for which it was designed. About 2,000 yards in rear lay some reserve line posts. The trenches were, in fact, merely those in which men had dug themselves in in front of the Hindenburg Line when following the retreating Germans in their withdrawal in the spring of 1917. With no prospect of the enemy attacking in this sector, they had provided reasonable summer accommodation for their garrisons; at this moment, however, it was not only winter, but it was also morally certain that the Germans were preparing for a spring offensive. The trenches were therefore wholly unsuitable both in construction and siting for the purpose for which they were now required. Indeed, they were little more than a few "Bairnsfather" villas, connected by short lengths of narrow crumbling ditches, which, partly owing to the rank growth of thistles and other weeds, and partly to their siting, had practically no field of fire. It can therefore be said that the Division was given an area 6,000 yards in breadth in which to construct a defensive system de novo. The front line crossed three spurs and two valleys all running in a north-easterly direction from the main feature of the position, the ridge running from Hermies to Lebucquiere. The country was similar in nature to the upland country of the Cambrai battle, and was similarly completely dominated by Bourlon Wood. One was even in view of Bourlon Wood at the Divisional race meetings. The enemy occupied the Hindenburg Line some 2,500 yards from the British front line with outposts in an uncompleted line some 300 to 700 yards in advance of it. It was a comfortable sector, the unpleasantness attendant on being in close contact with the enemy, such as mining, trench-mortars, rifle grenades, sniping, and indirect machine-gun fire, being absent. As a rule, the German gunners, in spite of their magnificent observation of our lines, remained inactive. In view of the fact that so much new work was necessary in the sector, General Harper published a memorandum containing certain principles of defence and of trench construction, a document which at their own request was circulated to a number of Divisions, and adopted by them. The chief innovation in this document was the construction of trenches of a far larger size than had been the case in the past. The depth for all trenches was laid down as six feet, their width at the top as eight feet, later increased to nine feet six inches. Each fire-bay was to be fifteen yards in length, with a twenty-three feet traverse separating it from the next one. The minimum breadth of the berm was laid down as three feet. The document ended with the following sentences:- Nothing indicates the standard of discipline and the morale of a Division more clearly than work done on a defensive front. It may be assumed with certainty that a Division that digs well will attack well, and that bad trenches are the work of a Division that cannot be relied on in the attack. Officers and men must realise that good work stimulates interest, and consequently tends to keep up morale, and that a good trench system economises men and minimises losses. There is, perhaps, nothing more demoralising to infantry than taking over badly-constructed and badly-kept trenches, except actually constructing and keeping them in such a condition. To ensure continuity. of effort within the Division, General Harper in his memorandum laid down fixed principles on the system on which a sector was to be defended, on the system on which trenches were to be sited, and on the actual method of construction of trenches, dug-outs, entanglements, etc, and standardised their dimensions. Thus within the Division, if men were ordered to make a trench, dug-out, or entanglement, or to finish some work begun by another unit, they and their officers knew exactly how to carry on. The employment of all available labour was also reduced to a system. The Division was made responsible for all work in front of and including the line which ran through Hermies and Doignies, work in rear of this line being carried out under arrangements made by the Corps. In the Divisional area it was arranged that each of the three field companies was allotted a sector of its own, and worked continuously in that sector, finding its own reliefs. Each brigade was made responsible for its own front and support lines, and for the communication trenches connecting them and for wiring them. The pioneer battalion placed at the disposal of the CRE was made responsible for the construction of communication trenches, of which none existed. The sappers in each sector organised the infantry parties and supervised the work as regards its quality, and were generally employed as technical advisers. It was definitely laid down that the work of trench construction and wiring was the duty of the infantry and not of the RE, and also that the infantry officer and not the RE officers was responsible for the amount of work performed by the infantry and for its quality. Each infantry battalion had also to provide a mining platoon, which, with the assistance of a few sappers, was employed on the construction of deep dug-outs. Troops in reserve were employed in digging the Corps line, which ran west of Hermies and east of Beaumetz and Morehies. On this line the reserve battalions were trained in digging and drilled as working parties, and considerably benefited from the instruction given there. In order to simplify the work, reliefs were, as far as possible, arranged so that battalions always occupied the same sector. The artillery, who had many professional miners in their ranks, made their own dug- outs, with some slight assistance from the RE. No new work was allowed to be undertaken without the approval of Divisional headquarters; a definite programme could therefore be laid down and adhered to, and, as a result, the minimum of labour was wasted. This system proved highly satisfactory. The Jocks showed a keen interest in the work of trench construction, worked admirably, and took the greatest pride in the result of their labours. An orderly, who was taken on a reconnaissance into the trenches held by a neighbouring Division, summed up the opinion of the Jocks excellently by looking at the narrow trenches with their small sandbagged traverses, and saying, "It's easy seen these trenches belong to some other bodies." So successful in fact was the system, that between 3rd December and 21st March, during which period (with the exception of a three weeks' rest at Achiet le Petit) the Division held this sector, the following work was carried out:- · The front line had been reorganised and the occupied sections made habitable.