Tommies: The British Army in the Trenches

by Rosie Serdiville

  ‘South of Arras, the German advance went sweeping on and most of the land they had given up when they retired to the Hindenburg line had now been retaken. Even our old trench line system that we had held before our July 1916 Somme offensive was soon to be penetrated’. Amiens and Arras, key bastions, were threatened. It was a very black time for the BEF. George Harbottle and his machine gunners had withdrawn to an old German redoubt in the valley that lies between Tilloy and Monchy le Preux. The place was strong but isolated. George was sent back to the top of the ridge to seek further guidance from the infantry. A further withdrawal into the main Tilloy line was urgently recommended.

  ‘Where the hell are you going?’ An engineer officer demanded as he returned down the valley, with uncomfortable news that the position had been overrun. There was nothing for it but to pelt back uphill, fearful of what might have become of his company. In fact the machine gunners had wisely withdrawn beforehand; ‘I found them in a strong position in our front line on the ridge with a beautiful field of fire over the whole valley.’ For the Germans Tilloy Ridge would be a very formidable obstacle. George’s guns would have inflicted grievous loss but the swell of attacks ebbed like a receding tide. On one flank, George’s division was thrown forward to keep contact northwards. On the other, the line was bent to the right as forces southward were still being pushed back.

  In 1918, Ludendorff introduced infiltration tactics to the Western Front. This was a resurrection of the grenadier companies of the 17th and 18th centuries who were used as heavily armed shock troops to attack enemy fortified positions. The German version was battalions of chosen men, well armed with the new sub-machine gun, flamethrowers and light artillery pieces. Their job was to smash through the weak point and keep on going, a footsoldier’s blitzkrieg.

  At the Doullens conference on 26 March, Allied fears resounded like the clap of doom. Haig was under pressure from Lord Milner and from the newly appointed CIGS Sir Henry Wilson. The upshot was that Foch assumed de facto overall command of all Allied forces – for the first time the Allies would come under a unified command structure. Haig had previously agreed to be subordinate to the bombastic Nivelle, if not with good grace. Here was something different, the makings of a real partnership. Despite the disasters that had befallen the BEF, the British were was still very much in the ring.

  For George Harbottle and his gunners, there was little fresh employment. German attacks at Arras had largely petered out: ‘Our front was now unusual for trench warfare. Throughout the years we had lived most of our time in two strong trench lines, with barbed wire in front of them and a fairly narrow No-Man’s-Land in between. Our present front was much more fluid, with some debatable and some unoccupied places in the valley area between our old front line from Fampoux to Monchy and our present position at Tilloy and Feuchy. One of the most dangerous of these places was up the Scarpe River Valley, which runs from Feuchy through to Fampoux and was still fairly well wooded.’ A brace of wily Gordon Highlanders, cut off in the initial onslaught on 21 March, made it back to British lines having survived a vagabond existence in the maze of old trenches and abandoned dugouts.

  One of the machine gunners’ outposts was both remote and exposed. It could only be relieved at night. ‘Rather a difficult place to locate in the darkness because it had to be approached alongside the little Scarpe River … this narrow little valley was littered with half broken trees, branches, undergrowth and rocks and could lead us onto the German lines unless due care was exercised’. When George’s section attempted a midnight relief, their guide got hopelessly lost, quailing before the NCO’s invective. After some coaxing, he found the way. This position was at the front of the front, hopelessly exposed to shellfire during daylight hours. So, the machine gunners spent their days crouched in a rather makeshift and unsound dugout. They lived like creatures of the night, only surfacing in darkness or, should it come, in the moments before an attack. None did come.

  Their next, equally improvised, lodgings were further back, in a warren of passages burrowed into a railway embankment. Here, their existence was little more comfortable, ‘the only literature I could muster in my dugout was a month old continental Daily Mail’ and the Horsforth Chapel magazine which had been left behind by a previous occupier. Curiously enough I had often attended that chapel as a boy when visiting an aunt who lived there just outside Leeds.’ Ludendorff’s offensive was slackening into fresh attrition, the more ground taken, the greater the burden of tenure. On 28 March, he unleashed Mars – a fresh blow but like breakers beating on the shore, the hurricane force was fading. On 11 April, Haig issued his famous ‘backs to the wall’ order but the crisis had already passed.

  Next, Ludendorff would try further north where Georgette represented a weakened thrust. The more ambitious George offensive had earlier been discarded in favour of the onslaught against Gough’s Fifth Army:

  The Germans had now dug in round the perimeter of their Amiens Salient early in April and on the 8th had launched a new attack in the Lys River, Armentières area. Part of this front was being held by the Portuguese contingent (known to our troops as the ‘Pork & Beans’) and the weight of the onslaught was just too much for them …

  The Portuguese were in the line by Neuve Chapelle and Georgette inflicted another smashing blow into the British sector. All the gains of 1917 – the terrible, bloody mud-coated slog up Passchendaele Ridge – were lost and Tommies fought to hold the ancient Vauban walls of Ypres itself.

  Like their enemies, the Germans were scraping the barrel. Their surviving elite were groomed for the storm-trooper battalions but these paid a heavy price. The rank and file coming on behind often failed to exhibit the iron discipline so expected of the German war machine. ‘The German troops were not the highly disciplined quality as in the past and there were many occasions when they got out of hand and started to loot the shops of towns and villages. These places that they had now reached, such as Estaires and Merville, had up to now, been normal places untouched by the war with shops fully stocked …’

  George’s previous division, the 50th Northumbrian, was amongst those relieved when Foch sent up reinforcements. Re-deployed in a nominally quiet sector between Soissons and Rheims on the line of the Aisne and Aisne Canal, they found their welcome rest very short. This area along the Chemin des Dames, so frequently fought over was now considered ‘the sanatorium of the Western Front’. It was over this unsuspecting ground that Ludendorff unleashed Blucher, his next attempt. Again, initial gains were made and the Allied defenders, assailed by George “Breakthrough” Bruchmüllers brilliantly directed guns, were pushed back savagely. Then this fresh offensive, like its predecessors, ran out of steam. By this time the Northumbrians had lost heavily. George Harbottle, whose MG company formed part of 15th Scottish Division, found himself being redeployed further south towards the new cauldron north of Amiens.

  Books were much sought after and were a favoured form of comfort from home. In December 1915, The War Illustrated published an article about how soldiers found solace from reading and needed books to be sent from Britain. It reveals the men had no appetite for ‘literary essays by literary men. What is wanted there is the friendly companionship of a good and kindly book to take the mind away from the contemplation of the terrible environment.’ It reveals demand for romance and Jane Austen in particular but little interest in adventure novels.

  ‘Tout le monde à la bataille’

  On 3 June the Americans fought their first action at Château-Thierry. Their next and savage baptism occurred in the bloody fight for Belleau Wood where they took all their objectives though at very high cost. It was not until 18 July that Foch launched the first major Allied counter-attack, led by General Mangin’s Tenth Army. By the start of August, the initiative had passed fully to the Allies. The Americans would fight on the left flank in Lorraine whilst the British struck eastwards through Cambrai. The swelling American forces fought hard and well, their numbers growing daily. Battering through the Kriemhil
de Line to reach Sedan, heavy with history, cost them dear but it was taken nonetheless.

  George Harbottle, after some re-shuffling of company officers, with his precious guns, was being moved southwards in June. His new comrades in ‘C’ Company were known as the ‘gramophone’ unit. This on account of the fact the commanding officer and second-in-command were both ‘to put it mildly besotted about music’. C Company could boast ‘a very good instrument with a large horn’. This prized possession was carefully transported neatly packed into one of the gun limbers (more usually reserved for ammunition) along with a fine classical selection: ‘every officer who went on leave to England had to come back with a suitable record of equal calibre. The Misha Elman string quartet was very much to the fore in America at this period and we had many of their recordings.’

  George got on well with his seniors, Major Hamilton, a Yorkshireman, and the Canadian Captain Rosher. Amiable and imperturbable, the captain was a thoroughly decent type though rather eccentric in his time-keeping. ‘His morning rounds of the guns, as often as not were in the afternoon, and as he would go into great detail about any gun position and talk to everyone, he would often be having dinner in the mess at some hour nearing midnight…’ George’s previous experience with billeting arrangements and his relative mastery of French meant he was selected for this role as the company concentrated south of Doullens prior to the big move. His new mount, charmingly named ‘Jessica’, proved more than lively, attempting several times to relieve herself of her officer burden. ‘I … gave her a smack between the ears with my riding crop. She tried it again and got the same treatment, that terminated her antics and we lived very happily together until the day I was en route for England and demobilization.’

  Billeting was a tedious and frequently difficult chore. ‘We had to find accommodation for seven officers, the officers’ mess, 50 other ranks and 40 horses and mules’. The company had to spend a week or so in these billets whilst the division made ready. Getting the men onto trains, regulation two score per cattle truck, usually proved quite easy. Mules were a different matter, ‘mules are the devil’. The rail journey took 15th Scottish some 25 miles south of Compiegne to the village of Creil on the Oise. George’s Company was to be billeted in Pont St Maxence, an idyllic location, untouched by war, with the broad sweep of the Oise running through.

  It was time for cricket. The CO of ‘D’ Company, a Major Forester, had in peacetime been a fast bowler in the Derbyshire County XI. He had the kit and had managed to locate a suitable pitch. Volunteers for an inter-company game were urgently sought. George, a keen cricketer, and half a dozen other soldiers formed the nucleus of one team. Batting was opened by another county-level player, the aptly named Sergeant Bowley. Forester’s bowling was deadly, ‘Bowley being out, caught off his bat handle, when trying to protect his face, commented to me as he took off his pads that it wasn’t pads I needed but a steel helmet!’ Before George entered the fast bowler’s sights, the war trumpets sounded loud and clear and the cricketing gear went back into a gun limber.

  Such was the urgency, they moved up by motor vehicle, rather than with more sedate horse-drawn limbers. This was the time of Foch’s first counter-stroke with the Germans now falling back towards the line of the Aisne, where they’d begun digging in during autumn 1914. As the Allied blow was itself running out of steam, the 15th Scottish would relieve the American 1st Division. The chase wound rapidly through a succession of townships, to the château of Vierzy where officers slept in the superb library, miraculously spared. Next morning they moved up towards the line where another château at Buzancy had not escaped the war. The Germans had fortified the place and it formed a seemingly immovable bastion anchoring their improvised lines.

  At midday, the machine gunners grabbed rations just beyond a small river. George and his section moved forward, the guns sounding ever louder. The British were unprepared for the relative informality of their new American comrades and the rather casual handover. Their guide was fairly nonchalant but did point out a slight rise which was much visited by enemy artillery. With that helpful advice it was ‘that’s it chum, guess I beat it now – bye’. He disappeared, swift as a hare and the newcomers were on their own.

  Not by any means alone though. Their own infantry were ahead and the overall situation was extremely fluid – to the extent nobody was exactly sure of anything. A diminutive copse some 200 yards in front was thought to be an enemy nest and about to be swept by a fighting patrol. The guns would give covering fire and deal with any targets flushed out. In the event there were none. The trees proved innocent of any foe. The Germans did not intend to stand. What C Company was facing was a determined rearguard, well dug in and supported. A very determined rearguard as it proved, for a fortnight’s siege and seven attempts at break in did not budge them.

  The machine gunners found the French maps upon which they were obliged to rely inadequate compared to British OS equivalents, ‘pretty hopeless … small scale and without contours’. The next target was the formidable bulk of Buzancy. For the current British escalade, the guns would support the right flank of the assault. Happily, there were some aerial photos of the château to hand. C Company was not to advance with the first wave but to remain in support till the place was cleared, then move up and consolidate. At noon the signal came and George came forward with his two leading gun teams.

  As ever in the fog of war, matters were not as clear cut as the optimistic message might suggest. Only part of the position had fallen. Enemy defence on the right was still holding up vigorously; ‘the gap between our copse and the wall of the chateau was being swept by MG fire from a strongpoint on the right flank’. This was tricky and the gunners couldn’t simply make a dash for it. If any of the team was hit then they’d be without a vital component or bereft of ammunition. A slight fold in the ground offered possibilities. The gunners now crawled forward, dragging their cumbersome charges. Only one man was injured. In front of them now, the solid park wall of the chateau, a dozen feet high, ‘took some scaling’. Getting over with guns and gear was no mean feat. The men used each other as a human ladder, still under fire. Each climber straddled the rampart so kit could be passed up and over. At last, without loss, they were in.

  A fresh challenge arose as they crept forward to find their infantry comrades, but there were none to be found. In fact the attackers had been dislodged and were falling back over open ground. ‘I could see no officer anywhere and knew that a movement like that could develop into anything.’ Spotting a tree line and hedge some 100 yards past the field, George sent two NCOs with a brace of Vickers to take firing positions there. Next, he found a sergeant from those Gordons who had put in the attack and instructed him to rally on the guns. This worked. Very soon the machine gunners and infantry had formed a workable defensive line, backed by additional Lewis guns and an abandoned German Maxim that was soon got into action.

  His rally party swiftly attracted new members. At length several officers from the Gordons turned up and took charge of the thin khaki line. George’s instructions were, the action over, to report to Company HQ. Here, his greeting was rapturous. The sergeant leading the section behind, seeing George’s team vanish over the wall with the foot in full retreat, had assumed they were by now all dead or captured. George was already posted as missing in action. That night, the Germans withdrew leaving the battered château to the British. The place was empty, only the dead remaining: ‘These attacks on Buzancy had been costly in casualties and while I was crossing the field when taking my guns into the chateau grounds, I noticed the dead of five nations: French, American, Scots, German and English.’

  George won a Military Cross for his role in the attack on Buzancy and came safe home, married and resumed his civilian occupation. He published his memoir privately in 1981, though he wrote several other volumes on sport. He died at the age of 103. His name is on the roll of honour on the wall of the South Northumberland Cricket Club, where he played out his life-long love of the sp
ort.

  After the fight for Buzancy, the 17th French Division erected a memorial to the 15th Scottish. It reads:

  Ici fleurira toujours le glorieux

  Chardon d’Ecosse parmi les roses de France

  Here the glorious thistle of Scotland will

  Flourish for ever amid the roses of France

  That pretty much says it all.

  Black day of the German Army

  War requires an ingenious mind, always alert, and one day the reward of victory comes. Don’t talk to me about glory, beauty, enthusiasm. They are verbal manifestations. Nothing exists except facts and facts alone are of any use. A useful fact, and one that satisfied me, was the signing of the armistice … Without trying to drag in miracles just because clear vision is vouchsafed to a man, because afterwards it turns out this clear vision has determined movements fraught with enormous consequences in a formidable war, I still hold that this clear vision comes from a Providential force, in the hands of which one is an instrument, and that the victorious decision emanates from above, by the higher and Divine will.

  Marshal Ferdinand Foch

  One of the early casualties of Ludendorff’s Michael offensive was General ‘Paddy’ Gough. The failures of Fifth Army were laid at his door and his head provided the requisite sacrifice. He was replaced by Rawlinson, a general who, as Richard Holmes observes, had learnt a great deal about fighting the Germans since the Somme. Besides, the German Army, like the British and French, was not what it had been two years or even a year before. Ludendorff’s gains had been won at huge cost. The best and the bravest, as ever, paid the fullest price. What remained, in qualitative terms, was simply not the same.