All these changes and considerations became irrelevancies, however, on the morning of 21 March. There was little wind, and by dawn when Reynolds awoke Murdoch with his usual cup of tea, a dense fog lay right across the river valleys. But Murdoch had hardly taken a sip when he heard the rumble of gunfire to the east.
‘Something’s up,’ Reynolds remarked.
‘Can’t be our chaps,’ Murdoch mused. He had not been apprised of any looming offensive.
He shaved and dressed, met Proud in the room they were using as an office in the Chateau they were occupying, and went over the morning’s reports, looking at each other from time to time as the roar of the guns seemed to grow louder and louder. ‘There’s something big going on around Cambrai,’ Murdoch said. ‘I wonder if the buggers have gone and launched another tank attack without this time letting the cavalry even know about it. What have we got on today, John?’
‘The usual exercise,’ Proud said.
Murdoch grinned at him. ‘Well, I tell you what we’ll do, Johnnie. We’ll give the lads a rest today, and ride over to Byng’s HQ and find out what’s going on.’
‘Now, that’s a splendid idea,’ Proud agreed.
They were in the middle of breakfast when the wireless telegrapher appeared in the doorway. ‘Urgent dispatches, sir,’ he said.
Murdoch glanced at the typewritten sheets of paper. ‘Bloody hell!’ he commented, and handed them to Proud. ‘Those are German guns. They’ve smashed right through Gough’s and Byng’s outer defences.’ He ran outside, stared to the east. The noise was tremendous, and he was sure he could see planes wheeling over the lines; the Germans were attacking with everything they had. ‘Brigade is to concentrate immediately on Amiens. Reynolds, where the hell is Jupiter?’
By the time they reached the cantonment assembly was already sounding and the men were falling in. ‘Orders, sir?’ Moore asked.
‘The Cavalry Corps is to concentrate on Amiens. We’ll get our orders there,’ Murdoch snapped.
They clattered along the main road, watched by alarmed French villagers. Even before they reached Amiens they were passing convoys of wounded British soldiers being driven to the coast.
‘It’s like all hell has broken loose over there,’ one of their officers said. He was a colonel, hardly older than Murdoch, and had lost his left hand. His face was pale with loss of blood, and he was sedated against the pain of the wound and the tourniquet which was keeping him alive. ‘There must be millions of the bastards.’
Kavanagh was waiting for his divisional commanders in the city, and the orders were very rapidly filtered through to the brigades. The Germans had broken through on a massive forty-two-mile front by the use of novel tactics rather than novel weapons. They had concentrated a huge number of men opposite the weakest of the four British armies, that commanded by Gough, and then had launched an-all out attack with only a limited preliminary bombardment. The secret of their rapid advance had been their refusal to become bogged down before British strong-points. Wherever one of these was encountered the attacking force had simply flowed around it, effectively ignoring what had hitherto been a required tenet of warfare; isolated and surrounded, the strongpoints were being cleaned up by second- and third-wave attackers. It was so incredibly simple a method of continuing an advance it was amazing no one had thought of it before.
That Gough and his army had been taken by surprise was evident. Perhaps his arrangements had not been of the best. His units were scattered and unable to cooperate quickly enough. Byng’s army, on his left, was better equipped to withstand the sudden onslaught, but the almost complete collapse of the Fifth left them, and the French on Gough’s right, with exposed flanks, and there was no option but to fall back. Every man was needed to plug the gap, regardless of rank or station. Murdoch found his brigade dismounted and manning newly-dug trenches about ten miles north-east of Montdidier, a long way behind the original front line, while troops with crushed morale filed silently past them, heads hanging.
The difficulty was in discovering exactly what was happening. The brigade was in position by nightfall, and listening to the bangs and crashes from in front of them. Next morning various rumours arrived from time to time, but none of these were confirmed until the arrival of Douglas Haig himself, in the course of a rapid tour of the battlefronts. Murdoch had known Haig well in South Africa and before the war, but he had not met him since 1914; Murdoch had served with Plumer’s army when first in France and had been posted to Mesopotamia before Haig took over as commander-in-chief. Now it brought back memories to see that sturdy, moustached figure, as flawlessly dressed as ever, leaving his car and striding towards him.
‘Murdoch!’ Haig shook hands. ‘Good to see you again. Can your people hold here?’
‘As long as we have ammunition, sir. But...we have no enemies at the moment.’
‘They’ll be here. There’s bugger all between you and them at the moment. The French are pulling out to the east.’
‘But...that’ll increase the gap in the line,’ Murdoch protested.
‘Of course it will. It’s that man Main. He has informed me that the preservation of Paris is more important than the preservation of the British army, and is concentrating all his force to that effect.’
‘So much for the entente cordiale,’ Murdoch remarked.
‘Yes. Well, I’ve been on to Wilson and he’s promised to do something about it. Not all the French generals are as narrow-minded as Pétain, thank God. Now tell me, have you seen Gough?’
‘No, sir. I imagine he’s up front trying to steady his people.’
‘Yes.’ Haig’s face was grim. ‘I want to get hold of him. Tell him that if he comes this way.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And hold, Murdoch. Hold. If there’s any man in this bloody army who can do it, it should be you.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
‘Just do it.’ The Field Marshal returned to his car and drove away.
*
The sound of gunfire was much closer, and Murdoch toured the brigade positions. They were dug in over a mile, and he had fifteen hundred men. In old-fashioned terms that was fairly good coverage, almost a man to a yard. In terms of modern fire power he had no idea; the last time he had manned a trench had been in 1915 and it had been a different situation then. For one thing, they were now subjected to assault from the air. In the middle of the morning a swarm of black-crossed biplanes raced above them, spotted them, and turned to swoop down behind the chatter of their machine guns. The trenches were useless against this sort of attack, as the planes could fly up and down them, strafing. The cavalrymen blazed away with their rifles, and one or two even manhandled the Lewis guns into an upright position to shoot at their tormentors, but they never seemed to hit any, while suffering over a hundred casualties themselves. More important was the damage to morale, as the troopers felt absolutely helpless against this novel form of attack.
‘Don’t we have a bloody air force?’ Proud demanded.
‘I imagine they have their hands full somewhere else,’ Murdoch suggested.
The planes at last withdrew, no doubt to refuel. But now there were more and more men streaming back from in front of them, some even without their rifles. ‘There’s no hope,’ they told the cavalrymen. ‘The buggers are everywhere. There’s no hope.’
‘Here we are and here we stay, lads,’ Murdoch said, walking up and down the trenches himself. He wanted them to see him, know he was there, remind them that he was the famous Murdoch Mackinder, who had fought against insuperable odds and won. He had never been so proud of his record, or his heritage. In fact, he had never thought about it in such terms before.
The grey-clad masses arrived in the afternoon, seeping across the meadows in front of them like water. Murdoch had telephoned for artillery support but there was none available, it seemed; several batteries had been overrun. So the brigade engaged with rifles and machine guns. The Germans flooded right up to the trenches and one or two eve
n got in, but were driven back with bayonets and even fists; the troopers’ swords had been left with their horses. Murdoch himself joined the line and emptied his revolver, and at last the enemy faded away as dusk fell.
‘All quiet on the western front,’ gasped Colonel Cawdray. His steel helmet had a hole in it but miraculously he had not been hit. Some fifty of his men were dead, however, and the other regiments had suffered similar casualties. ‘But we beat the buggers,’ he said happily.
Murdoch wasn’t so confident, remembering the reports of how Gough’s advanced positions had been overrun. And sure enough that night a message came through from General Kavanagh to pull out to prepared positions in the rear. Murdoch refused to credit it, after his conversation with the commander-in-chief, and would not allow his men to move until he had spoken with Kavanagh personally. This took some time to arrange, and then the general was not in a good mood.
‘Look, Mackinder,’ he said, ‘you’re bloody well all but surrounded. I’m keeping just a lane open for you. Get the hell out of there. Now!’
Murdoch obeyed, sent his men filing back through the darkness. He himself remained with the rearguard until the last trench had been evacuated, then joined the ghostly, silent procession, expecting at any moment to be discovered and subjected to a blaze of fire. It was like 1914 all over again, save that then at least they had turned at bay at Le Cateau. Now the procedure went on for day after day, fighting while it was light, being strafed and murdered from the air while wave after wave of German assault troops crashed against them from in front, and pulling back another few hundred yards at night as the enemy lapped around their flanks, probing, and finding, weaknesses in the ever-changing British position. The only blessing was that the Germans were advancing so fast that they were outrunning their artillery. But still...
‘How long can this go on?’ Colonel Bright groaned as he watched his men trek off into the darkness yet again. ‘One morning we’re going to find our prepared position is on the beach at Deauville.’
Actually there was intensive behind-the-scene activity going on: Haig’s plea to Wilson to have Pétain replaced by ‘Foch or some other French general who will fight’ had had almost immediate effect, and a very long-ranging effect indeed. On 3 April, when Murdoch and his men had been desperately trying to hold their positions for more than a week, Foch was appointed supreme commander of all the Allied forces, and in fact only two days later the German offensive ground to a halt. By then the Light Brigade was actually dug in in the suburbs of Montdidier, more than forty miles behind the original front line, and were so totally exhausted that Murdoch asked Kavanagh if they could not be taken out of combat for a few days’ rest and recuperation; not one of them, himself included, had changed their clothes or even shaved for a fortnight — he could not imagine what the insides of his boots must be like.
The reply was that it was not at that moment possible. The Fifth Army had just about disintegrated, and Gough had been relieved of his command — no doubt, Murdoch thought grimly, that was what Haig had been seeking him for on that second day, to sack him. Now the remnant of his command was being supported by Rawlinson’s Fourth Army, hastily being transferred round the rear of the British defences. Once that process was completed, and the additional forces being made ready in England arrived, and the eight American divisions hurriedly being moved up to the line were in position, some relief could be anticipated, but until then there was simply no reserve to utilize. And before that happened, the Germans struck again, this time further to the north, at Plumer’s army between the Lys and the Yser. Once again they penetrated deeply, and as they also resumed their advance on the southern front, British morale in general began to show signs of crumpling. It was then that Murdoch received a letter from Haig, addressed to ‘All Ranks of the British Forces in France’. Handwritten and mimeographed, it read:
Three weeks ago today the Enemy began his terrific attacks against us in a 50 mile front. His objects are to separate us from the French, to take the channel ports and destroy the British army.
Despite already throwing 106 Divisions into the battle suffering [this word was stroked out] enduring the most reckless sacrifice in human life, he has as yet made little progress towards his goals.
We owe this to the determined fighting and self sacrifice of our troops. Words fail me to express the admiration which I feel for the splendid resistance offered by all ranks of our army under the most trying circumstances.
Many amongst us now are very [word struck out] tired. To those I would say that victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest. The French army is moving rapidly and in great force to our support...
There is no other course open to us but to fight it out! Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause each one of you must fight on to the end. The safety from Horror and the Freedom of mankind alike depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment. But be of good cheer, the British Empire must win in the End. [This last sentence had also been stroked through.]
D. Haig
It was dated Thursday 11 April 1918.
This new attack lasted nine days before it too foundered on the now inspired British defence. General Ludendorff, the German chief-of-staff, then turned east, and launched a savage attack on the still shaken French armies. In a week the Germans were across the Aisne and reaching the Marne, back to where they had been in August 1914. Now it was the turn of the French and the Americans to fight with grim determination. Reinforcements had at last arrived from England, the Fourth and Fifth Armies had been amalgamated — retaining the name Fifth to restore morale to those men beaten in the first German onslaught — and Murdoch was able to lead his battered survivors in search of their horses and a hot bath.
The brigade had suffered severely. Four hundred men, a quarter of their total strength, had been killed or wounded. For those who returned to their cantonments outside Abbeville it was like awakening from a long nightmare. A very long nightmare, for the Germans were still battering away up to the middle of July. But by then it was clear that they had shot their bolt, and when the French and Americans counter-attacked at Noyon and Chateau-Thierry, it was the Germans’ turn to have to hold desperately on to the territory they had gained.
*
On 21 July, feeling fully recuperated, Murdoch was summoned to a senior officers’ conference at the headquarters of General Rawlinson’s Fifth Army, where he found himself in the company of the largest assembly of brass he had ever seen. Rawlinson’s three corps commanders were present, Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie of the Canadian Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Butler of the Third British, together with Kavanagh of course, as well as the divisional major-generals and their brigadiers, together with senior officers of both the Royal Air Force — as the Royal Flying Corps had recently been renamed — and the Tank Corps. There was even a clutch of American officers present, headed by a major-general.
‘Now gentlemen,’ Rawlinson said when everyone was seated, ‘it is time to give Jerry a taste of his own medicine. As you probably know, a small counter-attack was launched a fortnight ago, in the direction of the village of Hamel, by the Australians supported by the Fifth Tank Brigade. There was no preliminary bombardment. This operation was a complete success, and it has led Field Marshal Haig to propose to Marshal Foch that we proceed with another counter-attack, on the same lines, but on a much larger scale, with the idea of regaining control of the Amiens—Paris railway, and of course, to drive the enemy back just as far as we can while doing so. Now, as I have intimated, we are going to use the same tactics as at Hamel, on a grand scale, which means we are going to throw at Jerry every man and every machine we possess — with absolutely no advance warning.
‘Our dispositions will be as follows. On the left of our position we will have the Third Corps, with the Twelfth, Eighteenth, and Thirty-Eighth Divisions in line, the Forty-Seventh on the
extreme left as a flank guard, and the American Thirty-Third Division in reserve; on the right will be the Canadians, with the Second and Third Divisions in line, and the First and Fourth in reserve. To assist in the assault, and I do mean that, gentlemen...’ he looked towards Kavanagh and his officers, ‘will be the Cavalry Corps, consisting of the First, Second and Third Cavalry Divisions. They will cooperate in the initial breakthrough with our tank forces, the largest tank force ever concentrated on a battlefield to this time: it will consist of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tank Brigades, and the Tenth Battalion. In general reserve will be the Seventeenth, Thirty-Second and Sixty-Third infantry divisions. And air superiority will be guaranteed, as we have attached to us six corps squadrons of the Royal Air Force, eight scout squadrons, and three bomber squadrons.
‘Opposed to us will be the Second and Eighteenth German armies, commanded respectively by General von der Marwitz and General Hutier. General Hutier, I may say, is being given credit in the German press for having invented the tactics used in the recent offensive, the bypassing of strongpoints, leaving them to be mopped by the reserve elements. We will have to see how the general reacts to fighting on the defensive. Individual divisional targets will be assigned later. I just wanted to put you all into the picture. Now, are there any questions?’
The Command Page 13
