CHAPTER V.

THE BATTLE OF ARRAS.

(January-July 1917.)

The Allied Plan for 1917—Sir Douglas Haig’s Scheme—The Object of the Arras Battle—The Nature of the German Defences—The Training of the Brigade—The Attack of Easter Monday—Success of the 9th Division—The Work of the South African Field Ambulance—The Attack of 12th April—The Losses of the Brigade—Transferred to Trescault Section.

In November 1916 a conference of representatives of all the Allied Powers was held at French General Headquarters, and a plan made for the campaign of the following year. In 1917 Sir Douglas Haig desired to undertake a great offensive in Flanders, with a view to clearing the Belgian coast, for in that area he believed that success would give the highest strategic reward. But before this movement began it was desirable to reap the fruits of the Battle of the Somme. In November the enemy was penned in an awkward salient between the valleys of the Ancre and the Scarpe. The British Commander-in-Chief proposed early in the spring to attack this salient simultaneously on two sides—the Fifth Army moving on the Ancre front, and the Third Army attacking from the north-west about Arras. At the same time the First Army was to carry the Vimy Ridge, the possession of which was necessary to secure the left flank of our operations farther south. So soon as this was completed, the Flanders campaign would begin with an assault on the Messines Ridge, to be followed by an attack eastward from the Ypres salient.

The reasons for Sir Douglas Haig’s plan are clear. He was fully aware of the new great German position which had been preparing during the winter, and which was known as the Hindenburg or Siegfried Line, and he did not think it good policy to make a frontal assault upon it. He knew that the Battle of the Somme had seriously weakened the enemy, and he believed—it was, indeed, a mathematical certainty—that the tactics of the Somme, if persisted in during 1917, and supported by a reasonable pressure from the Russian front, would give the Allies victory before the close of that year. He wished, therefore, to stage a second battle of the Somme type—to stage it in an area where its strategic results would be most fruitful; and to begin it sufficiently early in the season to allow a decision to be reached before the close of the good weather.

This plan had to be wholly recast. The British and French Governments decided that Haig must take over a longer front, and before the end of February 1917 the British right was as far south as a point opposite the town of Roye. Again, the retreat of the Germans during February and March 1917 destroyed the salient which Haig had purposed to attack. There now remained nothing of the preliminary movement as originally planned, except the carrying of the Vimy Ridge. But a fresh scheme had been proposed by the French and accepted by the British Government. Under the new French Commander-in-Chief, Nivelle, an ambitious operation was conceived on the heights of the Aisne, which, it was trusted, would open the way to Laon. In this action the old method of limited objectives was to be relinquished; and Nivelle hoped, by means of his new tactics and by an unexampled concentration of troops, to break through the enemy lines on a broad front and restore the war of movement. This attack was fixed for the middle of April. It would operate against the southern pivot of the Siegfried zone, and it was arranged that Haig should use his forces against the northern pillar east of Arras, and should strike a week before.

The position was, therefore, that the Arras battle, which Haig had regarded as only a preparation for the main campaign of the season in Flanders, became the principal task of the British Army during the first half of 1917. This battle in turn was conceived as an action subsidiary to the greater effort of the French in the south. It was admittedly an attack in a region where, except for an unexampled piece of fortune, great strategic results could scarcely be obtained. The British success depended upon what the French could do on the Aisne. If Nivelle failed, then they, too, must fail in the larger strategic sense, however valuable might be certain of their local gains. If, however, Nivelle succeeded, the pressure from Arras in the north would beyond doubt greatly contribute to the enemy’s discomfiture. The danger of the whole plan was that the issue might be indeterminate and the fighting at Arras so long protracted, without any decisive success, that the chances of the more vital Flanders offensive later in the summer would be imperilled. This, as we shall see, was precisely what happened.

[Sidenote: _Jan. 14, 1917._]

In December 1916 the 9th Division relieved the 35th Division, which was then holding the trenches in front of Arras. The front held by the South African Brigade extended now for 1,800 yards northward from the River Scarpe.[19] For three months they remained in this section, during the severest winter known in France for many years. For most of December it rained, and in January and February there came heavy snow and bitter frost. On 14th January the 9th Division passed from the VI. Corps to the XVII. Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Fergusson, and this involved an alteration in the divisional boundaries. The 26th Brigade, which was holding a line of trenches south of the Scarpe, now relieved certain Canadian units; and the whole of the new corps front, since several of its divisions had not yet arrived, was held by the 9th Division, with all three brigades in line. Early in February the 51st (Highland Territorial) Division took over the ground held by the 26th Brigade, and the 34th Division relieved the 27th Brigade, so that the 9th Division’s front from St. Pancras Trench to the Scarpe was held by the South Africans.

[Sidenote: _Jan. 3._]

These months were filled with preparations for the great spring attack. New trenches had to be made and old trenches diverted; headquarters had to be found for battalions and brigades, and emplacements constructed for artillery and trench mortars. In addition to this, patrols and wiring parties were busy every night. On January 3, 1917, a party from the 3rd South African Regiment, commanded by Lieutenants B. W. Goodwin and W. F. G. Thomas, made a successful raid on the German trenches. The men were picked volunteers, who, for the week before, had been thoroughly trained in the work, so that each knew exactly the task before him. All had blackened faces, and used only the Zulu language. After our barrage had drenched the enemy front line the raiders entered the German trenches, which were found to be very deep and magnificently constructed, though badly damaged by our gun-fire. Only one prisoner was brought in, but a number of dug-outs and concrete machine-gun emplacements were destroyed, and the enemy suffered many casualties.

[Sidenote: _March 4._]

On 4th March the South Africans were relieved by the 26th Brigade, and marched from Arras to the neighbourhood of Ostreville, where they began their intensive training for the coming offensive. Their casualties during the previous three months in the line had been 2 officers and 49 other ranks killed, and 5 officers and 166 other ranks wounded. The health of the men, considering the severity of the weather, had been extraordinarily good, and only twenty-eight cases of trench feet were reported. As was dryly observed, the doubt as to whether they could stand a northern winter was settled by keeping them continuously in the trenches. On 5th March Sir Douglas Haig inspected the 1st and 4th Regiments, and complimented them highly on their smartness; and on 11th March the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Regiments were inspected by the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Walter Long.

While the South Africans were beginning their intensive training, the Germans were completing their retirement from the Bapaume Ridge to the Siegfried Line. At the hamlet of Tilloy-lès-Mofflaines, on the Arras-Cambrai road, this line branched off from the old front. Beaurains was now ours, and Arras was therefore free from its former encirclement in the south. The German position from the northern pivot of the new Siegfried Line to Lens was very strong, consisting of three main systems, each constructed on the familiar pattern of four parallel lines of trenches studded with redoubts, and linked up by numerous switches. A special and very powerful switch line ran for 5½ miles from the village of Feuchy northward across the Scarpe to beyond Thélus, and constituted what was virtually a fourth line of defence. The whole defensive belt was from two to five miles deep, but the German High Command were not content with it. They had designed an independent line running from Drocourt, south-east of Lens, to the Siegfried Line at Quéant as an alternative in case of an assault on the Arras salient. Towards the close of March this position, which was to become famous as the Drocourt-Quéant Switch, was not complete. It was intended as a protection to Douai and Cambrai, the loss of which would have made the whole Siegfried system untenable. But it was designed only as an extra precaution, for there was every confidence in the mighty ramified defences between Lens and Tilloy and in the resisting power of the northern Siegfried section. The country through which the German positions ran was peculiarly suited to their purpose. It represented the breakdown of the Picardy wolds into the flats of the Scheldt, the last foothills of the uplands of northern France. Long, low spurs reach out to the eastward separating the valleys of the Scarpe, the Cojeul, and the Sensée, and their sides are scored with smaller valleys—an ideal terrain for a defensive battle.

It will be seen that Sir Douglas Haig had a formidable problem before him. The immediate key of the area was Vimy Ridge, the capture of which was necessary to protect the flank of any advance farther south. It was clear that no strategic result could be obtained unless the Drocourt-Quéant Switch were breached, and that meant an advance of well over six miles. But this position was still in the making; and if the fates were kind, and the first three German systems could be carried at a rush, there was good hope that the Drocourt-Quéant line would never be manned, and that the drive of the British, assisted by the great French attack on the Aisne, might bring them to Douai and Cambrai. It was a hope, but no more. A result so far-reaching demanded a combination of fortunate chances, which as yet had not been vouchsafed to us in any battle of the campaign.

The city of Arras, situated less than a mile inside the British lines, was, like Ypres, the neck of a bottle, and through it and its environs went most of the transport for the new battle front. For two years it had been a place of comparative peace. It had been badly shelled, but mainly in the autumn and winter of 1914. The cathedral, a poor rococo edifice, had been destroyed, and looked far nobler in its ruin than it had ever done in its integrity. The beautiful old Hôtel de Ville had been wrecked, and much damage had been done among the exquisite Spanish houses of the Grande Place. Few buildings had altogether escaped, but the place was still a habitable though a desolated city. Entering it by the Baudimont Gate on a summer’s day the stranger saw the long white street running intact towards the railway station, and it was not till he looked closer that he noted shell marks and broken windows and the other signs of war. There were many hundreds of civilians still living there, and children could be seen playing on the pavement. Visitors came often, for it was the easiest place in all France from which to enter the first lines. Across the railway, a short walk in communication trenches, or even on the open road, and you were in the actual battle front west of Blangy or in the faubourg of St. Sauveur. An inn, the Hôtel de Commerce, was still open, and men could dine there in comfort before proceeding to their posts in the line. But up to April 1917 the place had the air of a tomb. It was like a city stricken with the plague: whole, yet untenanted. Especially eerie did it seem in the winter twilight, when in the long echoing streets the only sign of life was an occasional kilted Scot or South African, or a hurrying peasant woman, and the rumble of the guns beyond Vimy alone broke the heavy silence. The gaunt ruins of the cathedral rose like a splendid headstone in a graveyard.

Towards the close of March 1917 Arras awoke to an amazing change. Its streets and lanes were once more full of life, and the Roman arch of the Baudimont Gate saw an endless procession of troops and transport. A city makes a difficult base for a great attack. It must be the route of advancing infantry and their billeting area, and it is a mark which the enemy guns can scarcely miss. To minimise this danger the British generals had recourse to a bold plan. They resolved in this section to assemble their armies underground. After the fashion of old French towns, Arras had huge ancient sewers, like those of Paris which may be read of in _Les Misérables_. A map of them was found, and the underground labyrinth was explored and enlarged. Moreover, the town had grown over the quarries from which the older part of it had been built, and these also were discovered. The result was that a second city was created below the first, where three divisions could be assembled in perfect security. The caverns were lit by electricity, plans and sign-posts were put up as if it had been a Tube railway, and a dressing station with 700 beds was constructed. Here it was arranged that the greater part of the VI. Corps should assemble for the attack due east of the city. As a matter of fact the thing was not needed. The Germans shelled the town intermittently, but there was no real bombardment, and before Arras could be methodically destroyed the enemy had been pushed many miles eastward.

[Sidenote: _April 5._]

The South African Brigade, like the other troops of assault, were trained for the battle with scientific precision. Models in clay of the German trenches were constructed on the training ground, which was laid out as near as possible to correspond to the enemy front in depth and breadth. Here the attack was practised until each man was made familiar with his proper task. During these days the British artillery was very busy. So great was the concentration of guns that they could have been placed wheel to wheel from end to end of the battle front. Various “Chinese” attacks were organized, as rehearsals and to mislead the enemy. In the third week of March a systematic cutting of the German wire began, and our heavy artillery shelled their back areas and communications. On Thursday, the 5th of April, a steady bombardment opened against all the main German positions, more especially the great fortress of the Vimy Ridge. Wonderful counter-battery work was done, and battery after battery of the enemy was put out of action, located partly by direct observation from the air, and partly by our new device for sound-identification. These were for the most part days of clear, cold, spring weather, with the wind in the north-east; and from dawn to dark our airplanes fought on their own account a mighty battle. The history of that week must rank as an epoch in the campaign in the air. It was a time of heavy losses, for at all costs the foe must be blinded, and the British airmen kept up one continuous offensive. Forty-eight of our own planes failed to return, and forty-six of the enemy’s were destroyed or driven down out of control. The attackers, as was natural, paid the heavier price.

The British front of attack was slightly over twelve miles long, from Givenchy-en-Gohelle in the north to a point just short of Croisilles in the south. On the left was the right Corps of Sir Henry Horne’s First Army—the Canadian Corps under Sir Julian Byng, with one British brigade, directed against the Vimy Ridge. On their right lay Sir Edmund Allenby’s Third Army. Its northern Corps, next to the Canadians, was the XVII., under Sir Charles Fergusson, with three divisions in line—from left to right the 51st (Highland Territorial), the 34th, and the 9th; and one, the 4th, in support. The central Corps was Aylmer Haldane’s VI., with, in line, the 15th, 12th, and the 3rd Divisions, and the 37th in support. On the right of the battle was Sir Thomas Snow’s VII. Corps, with the 14th, 56th, and 30th Divisions in line, and the 21st forming a pivot on the right. It is interesting to note that in its constituents the army of assault was largely Scottish. Thirty-eight Scots battalions were destined to go over the parapet—a larger number than the British at Waterloo, and many times the force that Bruce commanded at Bannockburn.

[Sidenote: _April 6._]

On 13th March the 9th Division had received the plan of attack, and from 5th April onward its divisional guns—269 pieces in all—were busy with the preliminary bombardment. On Friday, 6th April, the South African Brigade—with the exception of the 1st Regiment, which was in line—was inspected by Lieutenant-General J. C. Smuts, but lately returned from his East African campaign. He was deeply impressed by the fine condition of the men. They had passed through one of the worst winters on record without losing any of their ardour of spirit or vigour of body. So far their experience in battle had been bitterly hard—the long-drawn-out torture of Delville Wood, and the misery of the hopeless struggle at the Butte de Warlencourt. Now for the first time they were about to engage in a great forward movement, long and patiently prepared, and amply supported by artillery. Every man among them was strung to that pitch of expectation and confidence which is the mood of all successful offensives.

[Sidenote: _April 7._]

A proof of their spirit was given the following day. It was necessary to identify more carefully the German troops against them, and the 1st Regiment was ordered to carry out a daylight raid. The attempt was originally timed for eleven in the morning, but it was subsequently postponed to three in the afternoon. At that hour, under cover of our barrage, a party of 5 officers and 50 other ranks, under Captain T. Roffe, crossed our parapets, and reached the German trenches without a casualty. A large dug-out was found, out of which three Germans of the 8th Bavarian Regiment were taken prisoner. Their object having been accomplished the party retired, and reached their own lines with the loss of one killed and three wounded. On their way back, however, a private with a broken thigh was seen by Lieutenant Scheepers to be lying in front of the German parapet. He and Captain Roffe went back to help him; but, coming under heavy fire, were compelled to take cover in a shell-hole in No Man’s Land, where they remained until, under the cloak of darkness, they were able to bring in their wounded man.

[Sidenote: _April 8._]

That night the Brigade, less the 1st Regiment, marched from its training area to Arras, and took up its quarters in the northern outskirts. The artillery preparation continued to be intense till the next day, Sunday, 8th April, the day originally fixed for the attack. That Sunday the weather was clear and calm, with a foretaste of spring. A lull seemed to fall upon the British front, and the ear-splitting din of the past week died away into sporadic bombardments. It is possible that this sudden quiet outwitted the enemy. He was perfectly aware of the coming attack, and he knew its area and objectives. He had expected it each day, and each day had been disappointed. On the Sunday he began to reply, and rained shells at intervals into the streets of Arras, but he did little harm. The troops of attack there were waiting comfortably in cellars and underground assembly stations. In the late evening the weather changed, the wind shifted to the west, and blew up to rain and squalls of snow. During the night there were long spells of quiet, broken by feverish outbreaks of enemy fire from Vimy to Croisilles. Our own batteries were for the most part silent.

That night the South Africans began to assemble in the front and support lines preparatory to their attack. The 9th Division was holding some 1,800 yards of front from the river Scarpe to a point just north of the Bailleul road. It had the 26th Brigade on its right next the river, the South Africans in the centre, and the 27th Brigade on its left. Three objectives had been given to the division, known as the Black, the Blue, and the Brown lines. The Black Line, from the river Scarpe to Chantecler, including the village of Laurent-Blangy, represented the last line of the enemy’s front system, and was approximately 800 yards away from our own front trenches. To reach this line two, and in places three, trench lines had to be taken and passed. The Blue Line was 900 yards east of the first objective, and represented the enemy’s second trench system on the Arras-Lens railway. The Brown Line, from 800 to 1,000 yards farther east, was the German third system, running from the village of Athies to the Point du Jour. To reach the Brown Line a distance of some 2,700 yards had to be traversed. If the Brown Line were taken, General Lambton’s 4th Division was to pass through the 9th, and capture the Green Line, including the village of Fampoux—the last German system before the Drocourt-Quéant Switch.

[Sidenote: _April 9._]

The arrangements for the South African Brigade were that they should attack on a two-battalion front of 600 yards, with the 4th Regiment on the left and the 3rd on the right, each battalion attacking on a two-company front, supported by its two remaining companies, while each company in turn would be on a two-platoon front. The 2nd Regiment was in support on the left, and the 1st on the right. When the first two objectives were taken the two battalions in support were to become the attacking battalions for the third objective—the Brown Line—while the two original assaulting battalions remained in support. The 1st Regiment was under Lieutenant-Colonel Heal, the 2nd under Lieutenant-Colonel Tanner, the 3rd under Lieutenant-Colonel Thackeray, and the 4th under Lieutenant-Colonel Christian. Pontoons were thrown across the Scarpe during the night to facilitate the march of the men to the assembly area; and the Royal Engineers attached to the Brigade blew twenty-six craters in No Man’s Land to accommodate the leading waves of the attack. By 2 a.m. on the morning of Easter Monday, 9th April, all four battalions of the Brigade were in position.

Zero hour was at 5.30 in the morning. At 4 a.m. a drizzle began which changed presently to drifts of thin snow. It was intensely cold, and it was scarcely half-light, so the troops waiting for the signal saw before them only a dark mist flecked with snowflakes. But at the appointed moment the British guns broke into such a fire as had not yet been seen on any battle-ground on earth. It was the first hour of the Somme repeated, but tenfold more awful. As our men went over the parapets they felt as if they were under the protection of some supernatural power, for the heaven above them was one canopy of shrieking steel. There were now no enemy front trenches; there were no second-line trenches; only a hummocky waste of craters and broken wire, over which our barrage crept relentlessly.

The great deeds of that day are known to all: how the Canadians at a bound reached the crest of Vimy; how the 15th Division carried the Railway Triangle and Feuchy; how the fortress of the Harp fell to the 3rd Division; how Telegraph Hill fell to the 14th and Observation Hill to the 12th, and Neuville-Vitasse to the 56th. We are here concerned with only one part of the battle—the doings of the 9th Division, and especially of the South African Brigade.

At zero hour our barrage opened fifty yards in front of the first German trenches, and under its cover the 3rd and 4th South African regiments advanced to the attack. On the left “C” Company (Lieutenant Smith) and “D” Company (Captain Reid) of the 4th led, followed by “A” Company (Captain Grady) and “B” Company (Lieutenant Morrison). On the right “A” Company (Captain Vivian) and “D” Company (Lieutenant Money) of the 3rd led, followed by “B” Company (Lieutenant Elliott) and “C” Company (Lieutenant Ellis). Close on their heels came the supporting companies of the 1st and 2nd Regiments, and occupied some trenches just beyond the German front line, as the supporting point to the attack on the first objective. The 3rd Regiment, as it crossed the parapet and moved over No Man’s Land, met with heavy machine-gun fire on its right flank, and suffered many casualties, including Lieutenant Burrows killed, and Lieutenants Elliott, Money, Hyde, Gray, Thomas, Van Ryneveld, and Lee wounded. Our barrage, however, was perfect, and the skilful use of smoke shells blinded the enemy’s vision. In thirty-four minutes the Black Line was reached. The 4th Regiment on the left had fewer losses, though its leading companies had some casualties from approaching too close to our own barrage. The “mopping-up” detachments, consisting of fifty men from the 4th Regiment, two platoons from the 1st, and two platoons from the 2nd, reached the trenches with the first wave, and cleared out the dug-outs, taking many prisoners, and meeting with little resistance.

[Illustration: SOUTH AFRICAN BRIGADE AT BATTLE OF ARRAS. FIRST STAGE OF ADVANCE.]

At 7.30 the advance was continued towards the Blue Line, supported not only by the artillery, but by a creeping barrage of twenty machine guns. At first sight this was a far more formidable objective, for it included the cutting of the Arras-Lens railway, and the attackers had to descend a slope where were a number of wire entanglements not fully destroyed. It was at this point that most of the casualties occurred, for the passes through the wire were commanded by snipers on the edge of the railway cutting. Once down the slope some protection was given by the bank beside the railway. Mounting this, our men looked down into the cutting, where the enemy were sheltering from our guns in their dug-outs. Here there were many machine-gun posts, which, being visible to us, were engaged by our Lewis guns. There was one awkward incident. The South African attack had pushed slightly in advance of the 26th Brigade on its right, thus causing a gap; and the Germans were able to open machine-gun and rifle fire along the railway. Captain Vivian, however, of the 3rd Regiment, pushed forward some details of the 26th Brigade who had joined him, and cleared out the German machine gunners and snipers. The Blue Line, which lay on the eastern side of the cutting, was then consolidated. Part of it was a veritable fortress, and in the cutting itself concrete machine-gun posts had been built. By the time the whole Brigade had reached the second objective it was just on 10 o’clock.

The attack on the final objective, the Brown Line, was timed to start at 12.45. The 1st and 2nd Regiments took the place of the 3rd and 4th, who became the supporting battalions. The 1st Regiment was on the right, with a strength of 20 officers and 488 other ranks; on the left was the 2nd, with a strength of 20 officers and 480 other ranks. Punctual to time the final advance began under the same methodical barrage. The German wire in the valley just west of the Brown Line was found to be very strong and untraversable, except through a passage cut by the enemy and a communication trench. Had there been serious resistance the attack might have been long delayed at this point, but already there were signs that the enemy was breaking. Few prisoners were found in the trenches, but groups were seen to advance from the Green Line and surrender. About 2 o’clock the Brown Line was occupied, where the trenches were found in almost perfect order, having suffered little from our bombardment.

The work of the South Africans was now accomplished. General Lambton’s 4th Division, about 3 o’clock, moved up and passed through the 9th Division to the assault of the final Green Line—an operation now tried for the first time on the British front. Thanks to the admirable training of both divisions, the experiment was a brilliant success. Before dark the Green Line had fallen, the strong-post of the Hyderabad Redoubt was rushed, and Lambton was in Fampoux. This was the apex reached on the first day of the battle. The right of the XVII. Corps and the left of the VI. Corps formed a salient on both sides of the Scarpe, the point of which was facing no prepared position nearer than the Drocourt-Quéant line.

The record of the 9th Division that day was not excelled by any other unit in the battle. All three brigades had performed to the full the tasks allotted to them. They had taken the strength of a brigade in prisoners—51 officers and 2,088 other ranks; they had taken 7 howitzers, 10 field guns, and 84 machine guns. As regards the South Africans, whose advance was literally unbroken, the casualties were far less than the number of prisoners. The enemy was demoralized by our barrage, and then surprised and routed by the steady infantry pressure behind it. Seven officers fell—Major H. C. Symmes and Lieutenant Hardwich of the 2nd Regiment; Lieutenants Godfrey, Burrows, and Lee of the 3rd Regiment; and Lieutenants Hunt and Dorward of the 4th Regiment. The total casualties were: in the 1st Regiment, 15 killed and 69 wounded or missing; in the 2nd Regiment, 20 killed and 68 wounded or missing; in the 3rd Regiment, 53 killed and 226 wounded or missing; in the 4th Regiment, 57 killed and 186 wounded or missing. From dawn to dusk the troops were in the highest spirits. In the words of General Dawson: “The men are on their toes, and the wounded do not want to leave the fighting line.”

Throughout the day the work of the Field Ambulance was admirably performed. The advance was so rapid that the task of the stretcher-bearers was a heavy one, for the distance from the farthest objective to the nearest collecting post was more than 3,000 yards. Had the weather been fine, the difficulties would have been great enough, but the drizzle and sleet showers soon converted the battle area into a sea of mud. Nevertheless, by working without rest, under the brilliant direction of Captain Lawrie, before 6 o’clock that evening all the wounded of the Brigade had been collected and evacuated by the South African Field Ambulance, who had also dealt with casualties from the other two brigades of the 9th Division, and from the 34th and 4th Divisions.

The result of the first day of Arras was that all the enemy’s front positions had gone, and his final position, short of the Drocourt-Quéant line, had been breached on a front of 2½ miles. Unfortunately the weather became his ally. It changed to intense cold and wet, and with the sodden ground it took long to bring up our guns. He held us up with machine guns in pockets of the ground, which prevented the use of our cavalry, and there was no chance of a dramatic _coup de grâce_. The infantry could only push forward slowly and methodically, and complete the capture of the remains of his position. We had made a breach, a genuine breach, on a broad front in his line, but we could not exploit our success owing to the nature of the ground and the weather. Our remarkable gains, won at small cost the first day, could only be increased by small daily additions, for the elaborate preliminaries of Arras could not be improvised, and the infantry must wait on the advance of the guns.

[Sidenote: _April 10._]

[Sidenote: _April 11._]

Tuesday, 10th April, was spent by the South African Brigade in the Blue and Black lines, in cleaning rifles and equipment and replenishing ammunition. The Brigade was then placed at the disposal of the 4th Division, and early on Wednesday, the 11th, orders were received for it to relieve the 10th Brigade, which was then holding the Brown Line. That day Lambton was attacking at noon, and the 1st and 2nd South African Regiments moved up to a forward post under cover of a ridge 500 yards behind the Green Line to act in support. The attack of the 4th Division gained some ground, but failed in its main purpose; and after dark the 1st, 2nd, and 4th South African Regiments took up a position running north-west from Fampoux, with the 3rd Regiment in reserve. At that moment the enemy held a line running from south to north from Rœux through the Chemical Works and the railway station along the Gavrelle road. Behind it to the east lay the slopes of Greenland Hill.

An attack was ordered for the following day against this position. The 9th Division was to advance against the line between Rœux and the roadside inn which lay a thousand yards east of the Hyderabad Redoubt, with the 15th Division holding the front south of the Scarpe, and the 4th Division to protect the northern flank of the attack. There were two objectives—the first being the road from the inn to the station; and the second, the Chemical Works and buildings south of the railway, the wood called Mount Pleasant, and the village of Rœux. The South African Brigade on the right and the 27th Brigade on their left were to capture the first objective, after which the 26th Brigade would advance south of the railway.

[Sidenote: _April 12._]

At 3 p.m. on the 12th the 1st, 2nd, and 4th South African Regiments assembled in Fampoux. The enemy was evidently prepared, for though this movement was carried out in file, with intervals between companies, it was subjected to a heavy and steady bombardment, which cost us many casualties.

The prospects of success were not bright. All three brigades of the 9th Division were very tired, having been hard at work under shell-fire for three days, and having had no sleep for four nights, three of which they had spent lying in the snow without blankets and many without greatcoats. There was no chance of an adequate bombardment, and there was no time to reconnoitre the ground. The country between Fampoux and Rœux station was perfectly open, and was commanded in the south by a high railway embankment and three woods, all of them held by the enemy; while in the north it sloped gradually to the inn around which the Germans had organized strong-points. It was impossible, therefore, to prevent the movement of troops being observed by the enemy. The South African dispositions were the 1st Regiment on the left and the 2nd on the right, with two companies of the 4th in support of each. The 3rd Regiment was held in brigade reserve. As the different companies began to deploy from the shelter of the houses in the east end of Fampoux they were met with heavy machine-gun and rifle fire.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF ARRAS. FINAL STAGE OF ADVANCE.]

The attack was timed for 5 p.m., when our guns opened fire. Unfortunately our barrage dropped some 500 yards east of the starting-point, and behind the first enemy line of defence, so that the South Africans had a long tract of open ground to cover before they could come up with it. Our artillery, too, seemed to miss the enemy machine-gun posts on the railway embankment, which, combined with the flanking fire from the woods in the south and the south-east and from the direction of the inn, played havoc with both the attacking brigades.

[Sidenote: _April 15._]

The result was a failure. A gallant few of the South Africans succeeded in reaching the station, a point in their objective, where their bodies were recovered a month later when the position was captured. For the rest, only one or two isolated parties reached points as much as 200 yards east of the line held by the 4th Division. But as a proof of the quality of the troops, it should be recorded that before the attack was brought to a standstill, the casualties of the 2nd Regiment, who went in 400 strong, amounted to 16 officers and 285 men, while the 1st Regiment lost 2 officers and 203 men, and the 4th, 6 officers and 200 men.[20] Among the dead were Captain Grady, who commanded “A” Company of the 4th; and Lieutenants J. M. Ross, Lees, and Porteous. Since the first part of the assault had failed, the 26th Brigade, which was waiting to advance on Rœux, was not called upon. That night it took over the line from the Scarpe to the Hyderabad Redoubt, where it linked up with the 4th Division, and the South Africans withdrew to the Green Line. They were finally relieved on the night of the 15th, having, in the three days since the 12th, suffered 720 casualties.

In the unsuccessful operations in front of Fampoux the Field Ambulance, which had a collecting station in that village, had a heavy task. The stretcher-bearers were under constant shell-fire, and Captain Welsh was mortally wounded on the 12th—an irreparable loss to the unit. Many of the stretcher-bearers had been working without rest for three days, but they continued to do their duty till they dropped from sheer exhaustion. The work of one man, Private R. W. Nelson, deserves special mention. He had carried continuously from the morning of the 9th, and was already worn out when the attack opened on the 12th. He worked on steadily, until he collapsed late in the evening. Nevertheless, he refused to be relieved, and after a short rest returned to his post, and carried seven cases before morning.

The Brigade was to have no further part in the long-drawn-out struggle lasting till far on in May, which the failure of the French attack on the Aisne compelled us to continue in the Arras area. It was in the Monchy-Breton district during the latter part of April. On 5th May a composite battalion, consisting of a company from each of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Regiments, was formed under the command of Major Webber, and moved to Arras, where it was placed at the disposal of the 27th Brigade. It took its share in holding the front line till May 14th, when it was demobilised. On the 13th of that month Sir Edmund Allenby inspected the Brigade, and congratulated the men on the distinguished part they had played in the late battle. In June it was in Arras as divisional reserve, and on 5th June two composite battalions were formed to assist in the attack on Greenland Hill. That attack, carried out by troops of the XVII. Corps, was so successful that the supports were not called upon, and these battalions rejoined their Brigade on the 6th.

Its numbers had now grown sadly thin. It had suffered severe casualties in April, and there had been the usual wastage from sickness which is inevitable in any force on active service. It was clear that if the Brigade was to preserve its identity on the British front it must get larger reinforcements than it had received in the past. To replace losses, drafts to the strength of 1,448 had been sent to France between the end of April and the end of June, but even with these it was gravely under strength. On 30th June the strength of the different regiments was as follows: 1st Regiment, 38 officers, 680 other ranks; 2nd Regiment, 37 officers, 601 other ranks; 3rd Regiment, 35 officers, 691 other ranks; 4th Regiment, 39 officers, 818 other ranks.

[Sidenote: _July 28._]

In July the Brigade moved to the Somme area for training, and on the 27th of that month, along with the rest of the 9th Division, was transferred to the IV. Corps. On the 28th it relieved the 174th Infantry Brigade in the Trescault section of the line, north of Havrincourt Wood and along the Canal du Nord. This was then a quiet region, and beyond a few minor raids there was no incident to record. During the summer, while the Brigade was in training, the weather had been all but perfect; but by the close of July it had broken in a deluge of rain, and August recalled the October of the past year on the Somme. The great battle had begun in the north, the fight on which Haig had placed his highest hopes, and with it had begun that epoch of mists and gales and torrents which were more fatal to our success than any German tactics.