BEF Campaign on the Aisne 1914

by Jerry Murland

  Lieutenant Colonel Francis Towsey, commanding 1/West Yorkshire Regiment. Douglas Haig was furious after hearing of the West Yorkshires’ retirement.

  Captain Harry Sherwood Ranken, the medical officer attached to 1/KRRC. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

  Soupir Château was the home of Madame Maria Boursin before the war.

  The château was used as a dressing station in 1914 and badly damaged. By 1917 it was totally destroyed.

  All that remains today of the once magnificent building is a stone archway constructed on the original site of the château. Close by is Soupir Churchyard Cemetery where so many of the casualties treated at the château are buried.

  La Metz Farm used as a battalion HQ by 1/Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment.

  Lieutenant Alan Hanbury-Sparrow who fought with the Berkshires as a platoon commander.

  Men of 1/Leicestershire Regiment near La Rouge Maison Farm.

  The three dispatch riders who served with 1/Signal Company, Royal Engineers. Left to right: Corporal J N Perks, Corporal T Daish and Corporal H Hodder, All three NCOs were commissioned soon after and survived the war.

  1/Leicestershire Regiment in action. A machine-gun team – probably in the La Rouge Maison Farm area – firing from a concealed position.

  Brigadier General Aylmer Hunter-Weston. ‘Reckless courage combined with technical skill and great coolness in emergency.’

  Brigadier General Beauvoir De Lisle commanding 2 Cavalry Brigade. Jock Marden held him responsible for the death of Captain Douglas Lucas-Tooth.

  Brigadier General Count Edward Gleichen who commanded 15 Infantry Brigade on the Chivres spur.

  Brigadier General Aylmer Haldane. He commanded 10 Infantry Brigade at Bucy-le-Long.

  Private Ross Tollerton, the Cameron Highlander VC who carried his company officer to safety.

  Private Frederick Dobson VC, the Coldstream Guardsman who brought in a wounded man near Cour de Soupir Farm.

  The demolished bridge at Pont Arcy in the background with the pontoon bridge constructed by the Sappers of 5/Field Company in the foreground.

  Lance Corporal Charles Fuller, 2/Welsh Regiment. He won his Victoria Cross for rescuing Captain Mark Haggard who was wounded during an attack near Chivy.

  Major Bernard Gordon Lennox who commanded Number 2 Company, 2/Grenadier Guards. He was killed near Bodmin Copse during the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914.

  Captain Robert Dolbey, the medical officer attached to 2/KOSB.

  Lieutenant Alexander Johnston who was on the staff of 7 Brigade. ‘I expect that we shall find that the enemy have been able to retire more or less unmolested on to a strong fortified position.’

  The headquarters cave of Lieutenant Colonel Pearce-Serecold, commanding 2/King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Serecold is standing third from left.

  Cave art in a cave above Bucy-le-Long. The regimental badge of the Hampshire Regiment is amongst French and German regimental insignia.

  The sucrerie at Cerny taken before the war. This building was the focus of the British attack on the Chemin des Dames on 14 September.

  The Loyal North Lancs memorial at Cerny cross-roads close to the site of the sucrerie.

  Regimental badge detail on the column.

  The château at La Fère-en-Tardenois occupied by Sir John French during the BEF campaign on the Aisne in 1914. GHQ was situated in a similar building a short walk away in the town square. In 1914 the château had a second floor which was badly damaged along with the roof during the Second World War.

  Sir John Denton Pinkstone French, Commander-in-Chief of the BEF on the Aisne. French appeared to have little control over the battle which added to the growing conviction that he was very much out of his depth.

  Caves at Paissy village, some of which were used by Captain Arthur Osburn to shelter and treat French North African casualties.

  Mont de Soissons Farm which was used as a casualty clearing station and where Captain Jim Pennyman was taken after being wounded at Missy.

  Chapter 9

  On the Chemin des Dames – 1st Division

  It’s only when you press yourself flat into the earth that the bullets cease to sing their song of death around you.

  Lieutenant Alan Hanbury-Sparrow – The Land Locked Lake

  Douglas Haig’s orders for 13 September were for his two divisions to continue the advance and cross the Aisne. The ground facing him was similar to that further west: a series of high spurs running down from the Chemin des Dames ridge towards the valley bottom and the river. Running east to west are the Pargnan and Bourg spurs with the village of Moulins at the head of the valley between them; next is the shorter Troyon spur running down from Cerny-en-Laonnois which has Vendresse to the east of it and Beaulne to the west.

  Once the aqueduct at Bourg had been secured by the cavalry, Brigadier General Ivor Maxse’s 1 (Guards) Brigade and Herman Landon’s 3 Infantry Brigade followed on and advanced northeast towards Paissy where they took up a position to the left of 2 Cavalry Brigade. At 4.00pm Edward Bulfin’s 2 Infantry Brigade was across the river and gathered west of Paissy in and around Moulins, releasing 2 Cavalry Brigade which withdrew to Bourg. By 6.00pm on 13 September the last man of the 1st Division was on the north bank of the Aisne.

  The crossing of several thousand infantrymen and innumerable wheeled transports over the aqueduct made life quite difficult for the sappers of 23/Field Company. Charged with maintaining the integrity of the canal towpath, Lieutenant Richard Bond was relieved to find it was wide enough but realizing it was not possible to leave the path for another mile – until the Bourg-Vailly road crossed the canal – he began supervising the construction of a corduroy road to enable the traffic to leave the towpath:

  ‘The towpath was hard put to it to stand the strain of the traffic, and the Company was fully employed in keeping the surface in condition, rapidly filling up holes with whatever material was handy, in intervals, between units, and suffering the objurgations of gunners temporarily held up by more than usually extensive repairs, whilst from time to time a longdistance shrapnel shell from the Chemin des Dames would fall with a sizzle into the water.’165

  Second Lieutenant Jock Marden and the 9/Lancers had crossed the river further upstream and advanced ahead of the main body towards Paissy where they eventually formed up behind a battery of XXV Brigade’s guns:

  ‘We then climb a hill and form up in mass behind a battery in action – our usual procedure. Naturally we receive several hostile overshoots aimed at the battery. We hastily pack up our lunch and having mounted, retire in open order at a walk for 300 yards. Six horses of my troop wounded, Lucas killed, two men wounded. The General thinks it a brave thing to do to sit down behind a battery in action in close formation. Anyhow, he’s thrown away his best squadron leader – feel very depressed as I was very fond of Lucas.’166

  Marden’s diary, written from a junior subaltern’s perspective of the battle, is in places quite critical of the regiment’s deployment and of the brigade staff, offering, as it does, a refreshing insight into the daily toil of a cavalry officer on the front line. He felt particularly sad at the death of his squadron commander, 33-year-old Captain Douglas Lucas-Tooth who was hit by a shell splinter.167 His thinly veiled sarcasm of Brigadier General De Lisle’s wisdom in deploying cavalry in close proximity to artillery units in action possibly stemmed from the disastrous cavalry charge in which Marden took part at Audregnies on 24 August when 2 Cavalry Brigade suffered very heavily against the guns of the German IV Corps.168

  That night the 1st Division and 2 Cavalry Brigade occupied a line from Paissy through Moulins, Oeuilly and Bourg and Briggs’ 1 Cavalry Brigade was sent back across the river. All-in-all the prospects for the next day looked good. Haig – as we know – was still working on intelligence which suggested the enemy in front of him was thinly deployed, he had little, if any idea, of the movement of the German VII Reserve Corps which had already arrived on the Chemin des Dames. The local movement of German r
earguards appeared to suggest the German Army was still in retreat, a belief which was repeated in the GHQ Operational Order No. 24 issued at 6.00pm on 13 September with the optimistic order to, ‘continue the pursuit tomorrow at 6.00am and act vigorously against the retreating enemy’.

  For Edward Bulfin, a vigorous advance over potentially difficult ground without prior reconnaissance grated harshly on his professionalism and with this foremost in mind, he instructed Lieutenant Colonel Eric Pearce-Serocold, commanding 2/KRRC, to send an officer’s patrol forward under the cover of darkness to gather as much intelligence as possible. Accordingly, Second Lieutenant Oswald Balfour and eight riflemen managed to evade German pickets and established the presence of the enemy on the ridge:

  ‘The patrol moved straight up the road on to the high ground north of Troyon and succeeded in locating a German picquet at the point where the road turns northwest immediately north of Troyon. Five Germans were seen, and apparently they heard the approach of the patrol, owing to a man slipping down the bank, which caused his mess tin to rattle. Some of the enemy followed down the road, but the patrol got away on the grass siding.’169

  Balfour and his men were safely back in British lines by 2.30am in time to report to the general and rejoin their battalion before the brigade moved off. No doubt the report would have indicated the road from Vendresse up to the Chemin des Dames was well sheltered from enemy view until it turned sharply to the left and continued along a sunken road to the junction at Cerny-en-Laonnois. Had the patrol not alerted the German picquet they would have found a small cluster of buildings at the junction where the abandoned sucrerie building with its conspicuously tall brick chimney was located, just yards from the Chemin des Dames. In reality Balfour’s patrol provided little intelligence of use, the sucrerie and its surroundings would all too soon become a familiar feature to all the 2 Brigade battalions.

  The plan for 2 Brigade’s attack was simple enough: under the immediate command of Lieutenant Colonel Pearce-Serocold, both the KRRC and 2/Royal Sussex would move quickly to occupy the high ground above the hamlet of Troyon. Pearce-Serocold would then move to take the crossroads at Cerny whilst Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Montresor remained in support with 2/Royal Sussex at Vendresse until required. The 1/Northamptons under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Osborne Smith were under orders to climb the spur above Moulins and attack the ridge on the left of the 1st Battalion Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment (1/Queen’s) from 3 Brigade, detailed as flank guard on the extreme right.

  The early start was the beginning of a day which would become forever etched into the memory of Sergeant Bradlaugh Sanderson. Apart from the 2.30am start in heavy mist and rain, he recalled, ‘we had no overcoat only a waterproof sheet’. A reservist who had been mobilized at the start of hostilities in August 1914, Sanderson had been with 2/KRRC at Mons and all through the retreat and his greatcoat – and those of the rest of the battalion – had been left at Landrecies on 25 August after their encounter with the German 7th Division. He was now advancing with D Company and feeling the cold:

  ‘We moved out of Paissy at 2.30am past the outposts and crept silently up the hill with fixed bayonets. We were told that we were going to surprise an outpost in front, that’s all … We went gingerly through a village – Troyon – and up the slope of a big spur in front. We got to the top, reformed and were going through a cutting in the hillside nearly at the top, marching on either side of the road in single file. Suddenly a squad of cavalry came dashing through which was upsetting the whole show.’170

  The squadron of cavalry included Jock Marden who had earlier found himself leading the advanced troop and being, ‘not at all ready’, having had no breakfast! On the way up to Troyon he had great difficulty reading the map in the dark, every time he stopped to strike a match in order to get some idea as to where he was, he received an irate command from the rear to hurry up:

  ‘Thoroughly exasperated, I go on without being able to use the map through our own infantry in Troyon and up a valley past rows of Germans asleep in trenches. Ably supported by the squadron we retire in a hurry, as they wake up when we get to the far end. A regular steeplechase back over sunken roads and wire fences. Luckily it is too dark for accurate shooting.’171

  Whether the Germans were all asleep or not, Sanderson was of the opinion that the cavalry’s blunder into the German line proved their salvation alerting Sergeant Bradlaugh Sanderson’s company of KRRC to the German presence. The German line was positioned astride the sunken road at the point where a track which ran down from the Chemin des Dames cut across the road. Duly roused, the men of the German picquet began firing straight down the road and although Marden reckoned it was too dark for accurate shooting, one round did hit Lieutenant Riversdale Grenfell who was killed immediately before the Lancers turned and galloped back down the road.172

  D Company of the KRRC stood its ground. The company commander, Captain Augustus Cathcart, sent Lieutenant Seymour Mellor back to report to Colonel Pearce-Serocold, who was sheltering under the lee of the hillside near Troyon with A Company.173 Cathcart’s men were being fired on from three sides but refused to give way. Following his platoon commander, Second Lieutenant Stuart Davison, Sergeant Sanderson heard Cathcart shouting, ‘extend over the ridge right and left’:

  ‘The day was just breaking when we got into position. We had two killed in a few seconds. Then the Germans turned two machine guns on to us from a haystack, not thirty yards to our front. My officer seized hold of a man’s rifle, at the same time shouting, “There are hundreds of Germans behind that haystack.” Then he stood up and deliberately fired, standing. I shouted, “Get down sir.” He was shot through the eye immediately and died a few minutes after. Before he did that however, he said, “Hold on to this position as it is on the flank. Don’t retire until you get orders.”’174

  Out on the right flank, Sanderson and his company were soon reinforced by A Company at about 5.45am which is more or less the time B Company appeared on the left flank. The battalion was now astride the sunken road, dawn had broken and fortunately the mist was still clinging to the hillside masking the British positions a little from the German guns which were in position some 600 yards in front. But from the weight of fire being directed onto the KRRC it was obvious this was no German rearguard but a substantial body of troops and British reinforcements were needed urgently. Pearce-Serocold responded quickly and dispatched a runner to Colonel Montresor requesting that the Royal Sussex reinforce the firing line.

  The unmistakable noise of battle on the heights above had already alerted the Royal Sussex and sensing he would soon be needed, Montresor had already moved the battalion up from Vendresse in anticipation. By 6.30am the battalion was deployed on the left and right of the KRRC. The arrival of the Sussex lengthened the firing line and enabled A and B Companies of the Sussex to outflank the German position on the left; the Sussex war diary notes with some satisfaction that ‘fire was opened and continued for some minutes when it was seen that a large number of Germans were putting up their hands to surrender’. Sanderson was one of the many witnesses to the events which followed, ‘I heard a lot of shouting and everybody was standing up. The Germans had put up a white flag and were coming in by hundreds to surrender’. As the Sussex men rose to their feet to bring in the prisoners the Germans in the trenches behind them opened fire on both their own men and the British. The deadly crossfire created by that of their own men who had not thrown in the towel and the rapid fire being returned by the British riflemen cut down many of the hapless German infantrymen in the act of surrendering. Nevertheless, some 300 Germans were taken prisoner. It was a similar occurrence to that witnessed by Major Jeffreys at Cour de Soupir which had been the prelude to a number of so-called ‘white flag’ incidents all of which were anathema to the British notion of ‘fair play’.

  A similar incident involving the Royal Sussex occurred a short time later on the right of the line when the Germans were again outflanked and surrendered. On th
is occasion the surrendering Germans were fired on by two of the guns from a German battery near the sucrerie building. We are told that practically all these men were shot down by their own side. Whether Sanderson was confusing the two surrender episodes is unclear from his account but he does express his shock when the German gunners deliberately opened fire on their own. ‘I had a sneaking fancy all wasn’t right’, he wrote, ‘then they deliberately opened fire at short range’.

  With two battalions now fully committed, Bulfin, realizing he needed to reinforce the firing line, ordered 1/Loyals to move up the hill from Vendresse where the battalion had been placed in reserve earlier in the morning. On their way up to Troyon the Loyals passed German prisoners being escorted down towards the river and Second Lieutenant James Hyndson, marching with B Company, noticed the enemy soldiers, ‘were in tears’. Hyndson was the officer commanding Number 8 Platoon:

  ‘On approaching the crest of hill we come on signs of conflict. Helmets lying all over the place and also rifles. A good deal of blood, and several wounded and dead lying about. We reach the crest and halt just under it. The bullets now seem to be coming from all directions. After a short rest we are ordered to attack factory.’175