The 36th (Ulster) Division

HAVING once more left its Artillery and Pioneers in line, under the orders of another division, the 36th Division, after four days' rest about Winnizeele, moved south by train.

The troops detrained at Bapaume and Miraumont, ruins now, upon the church steeples of which some of them had looked from the Mesnil Ridge a little over a year before.

With the Division moved the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers. This regular battalion had joined the Division in the Salient before the Battle of Langemarck, but had not taken part in that dolorous affair.

Its arrival was highly significant. It was a sign of the shortage of recruits from home. The 36th Division had not been made up to strength between Messines and Langemarck, and was now deplorably below it.

The country into which the troops stepped from their trains was of a like they had not yet seen in all their active service. Behind them lay the "shelled" area; that in which they now stood was the "devastated" area.

The former was featureless to an indescribable degree. Marks of battle there were few, save for the stumps of trees. All the countryside, its debris and its shell-holes, was covered with a mass of very coarse grass. There were not even ruins, for buildings had been blown flat and their rubble carted away to help maintain the excellent main roads with which the area was now traversed. It was hard to discover the sites even of villages.

Most people who used the Albert-Bapaume Road will remember a wooden cross whereon was written: "This is the site of Le Sars Church." For that statement it was necessary to take the writer's word. There was no other evidence.

The devastated area, on the other hand, had not been fought upon. It represented the ground evacuated by the enemy in his retreat to the Hindenburg Line. It had, however, been cleared of civilians and scientifically demolished to make it as difficult and comfortless as possible for our troops.

All houses had been blown up by explosives, bridges destroyed, fruit-trees cut down or gashed to death. Yet it was far from being as dreadful or as ugly as the battle-field. The ground was unbroken and covered with good grass or crop run to seed.

There were still woods and copses. It was depressing, yet far less so than the Salient. It resembled primeval prairie, and the hutments springing up here and there might have been the encampments of bold pioneers.

Between the 28th and 30th of August the Division relieved the 9th (Scottish) Division in the line. The right boundary was marked by a communication trench, "Queen Lane," on the Beaucamp-Ribécourt Road, a thousand yards north of the former village; the left was on the Demicourt-Graincourt Road.

The frontage was very considerable, upwards of six thousand yards in a straight line. All three Brigades were in line, the 107th on the right, in what was known as the Trescault sector; the 108th in the centre, in the Havrincourt sector; and the 109th Brigade on the left, in the Hermies sector.

The men of the Scottish Division made a very good impression upon their comrades of the 36th by working on their trenches till the moment of relief. As the troops of the 107th Brigade filed up the long communication trenches they saw the men of the 9th Division's South African Brigade carrying up the last sacks of chalk from the deep dug-outs under construction.

It was a friendly gesture, typical of the good sportmanship of this fine Division

It was an interesting and remarkable front that was taken over by the 36th Division. Its principal feature was the Canal du Nord, designed to link up the Canal de La Sensée with the Canal de La Somme at Peronne.

The Canal du Nord had been about half completed at the outbreak of war. It ran due south to the northern skirts of Havrincourt Wood, the height from its bottom to the ground level varying from fifteen to a hundred feet, dry where it crossed the Bapaume-Cambrai Road, but with a few feet of water in it further south.

North of Havrincourt Wood it turned west along the Grand Ravin, then south again, disappearing at Ruyalcourt, and reappearing a couple of miles further on north of Etricourt. Just at the destroyed railway bridge between Hermies and Havrincourt it formed a barrier between British and German.

The other important feature was the Hindenburg system of trenches, two great lines, from five hundred to two thousand yards apart, each consisting of front and support trenches. The system constituted in all probability the most formidable fortification constructed in the course of the war. The Germans had sited and dug it at their ease, to a great extent with gangs of Russian prisoners and forced civilian labour.

The trenches were wide, deep, and well revetted. The mined dug-outs were all designed to a pattern; the stairways, supports, and all timber used in them having been turned out by the sawmills in replica by the thousand pieces. They represented the first successful application of mass production to the construction of dug-outs. The wire defences were of huge extent, generally in three or four deep belts, at least twenty feet apart.

The system had already been pierced by our troops at Bullecourt, but on a tiny front and at vast cost. It appeared practically impregnable.

From the village of Moeuvres the front system of the Hindenburg Line followed the western bank of the Canal.du Nord for four thousand yards, then crossed it, sweeping in a bold curve round the village of Havrincourt and south of that of Ribécourt.

It did not, however, represent by any means the line held by the German outposts, which were in general a thousand yards in advance of it, and frequently in themselves stout and well-wired positions. Along the banks of the Canal du Nord there were at intervals spoil heaps, consisting of the chalk dug from its bed.

Of these, two were of great importance to the Division. The northern spoil heap was on the front of the 109th Brigade, on the west bank of the Canal. Sixty feet in height, it was strongly wired and had machine-guns mounted on its flat top which swept our trenches. The southern spoil heap was smaller, at the sharp bend west of Havrincourt, where the Canal turned westward along the Grand Ravin.

It was known as Yorkshire Bank. There was a British trench on the top of it, but on its eastern rim the Germans had established posts, rather unaccountably in view of the aggressive character of the troops of the 9th Division. They, too, seemed to feel that such a legacy to a relieving division was unworthy their fame. On the night of August the 30th, before General Nugent had taken over command of the front, a party of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, advancing after the German part of the spoil heap had been shelled with gas, drove out the enemy piquets and established posts of their own.

The 9th Division, therefore, was able to leave an honourable legacy here after all, but a peculiarly lively one.

Next evening, after General Nugent had taken over the command and his headquarters in Little Wood, outside the village of Ytres, the Germans hit back.

After a bombardment of Yorkshire Bank, they drove in our posts and re-established their own. At 4-15 a.m. next morning they were re-ejected. Next night they came again, two parties bombing their way up simultaneously from either side.

At 1 a.m. on the 2nd the 12th Rifles retook the posts, with bomb and Lewis gun. That evening at dusk an officer visiting the posts saw Germans looking over the edge of the bank. They were rushed immediately and driven out, leaving a wounded prisoner.

Two nights later they tried yet again, with typical German persistence. A shower of bombs from the top of the spoil heap drove them off, and as they were retreating a shell from a Stokes mortar was seen to drop in the centre of a group.

One other attempt was made, to meet with like decisive failure. It was not an important affair, though it caused the name of Yorkshire Bank to appear in the British communiqué three days running. The 36th Division had had the better of the exchanges, but did not unduly pride itself thereon, having a manifest advantage in position.

For the rest, the area was rolling, well watered, and fairly thickly wooded. In the big Havrincourt Wood, which had originally covered some four square miles, the Germans had cut down much timber and used it on the Hindenburg trenches, besides leaving a great many trees lying on the ground. It still contained enough, however, to afford excellent cover.

The Hindenburg System was admirably sited, and afforded to the enemy good observation of the area held by us, particularly from the dark mass of Bourlon Wood, crowning the height of the hundred-metre contour north of the Bapaume-Cambrai Road. In such country as this, however, it was impossible for the Germans to deny to us all the good ground.

From the Hermies Ridge, from trees in Havrincourt Wood, from the very front line on the Trescault spur, the British had admirable views of their positions. Very tantalizing they were to men who dwelt among ruins, for the villages on the German side were intact, save for the nearest, which had been slightly damaged by our shell-fire. Very distinct from one point, and little more than eight miles off, were the steeples and roofs of the beautiful city of Cambrai.

There was a striking contrast between the trenches in the Trescault and Havrincourt sectors, and those in the northern or Hermies sector. The former consisted of a whole series of lines, so many trenches that they had to be occupied and defended at intervals only, by a system of "localities," each manned in general by a platoon. These trenches had, in fact, been prepared in the spring for assembly with view to an offensive which did not eventuate. In the Hermies sector, on the contrary, there were practically no defences at all, save a shadowy front line and some trenches round the village.

This northern sector had been held by the 27th Brigade of the 9th Division, commanded by the celebrated Brigadier-General F. A. Maxwell, V.C., who was killed in the Salient shortly after his Division had moved north. He, apparently, was not a believer in trenches, and relied on holding his position by counterattack from the Hermies defences and from behind the high ridge along which ran the Hermies-Demicourt Road.

The plan did not appeal to General Nugent or to General Ricardo, commanding the 109th Brigade, and a heavy programme of trench-digging and wiring in the Hermies sector was at once drawn up.

Meanwhile, in the Salient, the Artillery and 16th Rifles endured a bitter period. Indeed, it is to be doubted whether any Divisional Artillery, since the second Battle of Ypres in 1915, had been subjected to strain such as that which now fell to the lot of the 36th Division's gunners. They had gone into action on July the 14th, in support of the 55th Division.

They remained in action after the 36th Division had departed, and on August the 21st supported an unsuccessful attack by the 61st Division on the same front. They were not relieved till the night of the 23rd. And these six weeks had represented battle conditions in their worst form, a huge expenditure of ammunition, heavy and continuous hostile counter-battery, shelling of wagon-lines, the scantiest of accommodation, mud and indescribable wretchedness.

A great proportion of the personnel had disappeared, new officers were commanding sections and junior officers batteries, when they detrained at the end of August at Bapaume. The lot of the Pioneers was not quite so hard, but their period in the Salient was longer. Two companies worked on the ruins of the infantry barracks at Ypres, the remainder on screening the Menin Road, on a trench tramway to Railway Wood, on the construction of strong points on the Westhoek Ridge, and like tasks, till September the 30th, when the battalion was entrained at Vlamertinghe and sent to rejoin the Division.

The line now held by the Division was on the whole the pleasantest it had ever known. This does not imply that the troops were allowed to take life easily. On the contrary, the fighting arms displayed considerable aggression, with important results. The German methods of defence, with outposts far in front of the main Hindenburg System, not always very strongly defended, and sometimes held at night only, offered considerable opportunity for those little silent raids upon isolated piquets which the Canadians had perfected, and knew by the expressive term "winkling."

The first affair was on a scale rather bigger than this implies, parties of about sixty being engaged on either side. The scene was Wigan Copse, north of Yorkshire Bank, and the result the retirement of the Germans, leaving a wounded prisoner in the hands of the 12th Rifles, who had an officer and four men slightly wounded. That was on October the 6th. Three days later, at dusk, the 10th Rifles cut the wire of a post on the edge of the eastern arm of Havrincourt Wood,. known as Fémy Wood, waited for the garrison to arrive, captured its leader, a corporal, and killed the remaining ten. On the 23rd, a party of the 11th Rifles, covering work on our wire, made a neat capture of six men who approached it, closing in on them from either flank, and taking them without a shot fired.

Another prisoner was captured by the 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers, now in the 107th Brigade, when one of its saps north of Trescault was unsuccessfully attacked by the enemy. Various other deserters and single. wanderers were also taken from time to time.

On the British side was one minor disaster. A patrol of one officer and nine other ranks of the 1st Irish Fusiliers, examining the results of trench mortar fire on the German wire, was ambushed by a party of about thirty Germans.

After heavy fighting, in which they inflicted numerous casualties on the enemy, the Fusiliers were forced to withdraw, three wounded men being captured. But the most heroic of these little episodes was when a party of Germans approached a sap-head held by a section of four men of the 15th Rifles, calling out in English: "It's all right. We're coming to visit you."

Deceived by the ruse, the Riflemen's first warning was a shower of bombs, which wounded one of them. At the same moment the Germans jumped into the sap. The three remaining Riflemen might well have been excused had they retreated down the sap. Instead, upon the instant, they charged the enemy with the bayonet.

The Germans ran, but the plucky defenders laid hands upon one that they had wounded, and kept him. The prisoner stated that his party had consisted of an officer and eight men. And at dawn the body of that officer, dead from a bayonet wound, was found outside the sap-head. It was in truth a gallant exploit.

In two or three other cases our men were unsuccessful in entering posts, finding the enemy on the alert. One raid only on a big scale was carried out, on the trenches south of the Hermies-Havrincourt Road and east of the Canal. At 7-30 p.m. on November the 3rd, three parties of the 9th Irish Fusiliers, numbering in all, with stretcher-bearers and sappers, four officers and sixty-seven other ranks, moved out from Yorkshire Bank and passed through gaps in the German wire.

They then sent up a red flare, which brought down a heavy barrage on all approaches. The raid would have been a complete success had not the right party come upon some wire repaired by the Germans since it had been reported destroyed by our artillery.

Eventually they stormed the obstacle and cut down the defenders, but not without heavy loss to themselves. Our total casualties were one man killed, three missing, believed killed, and one officer and fourteen men wounded.

The Germans were estimated to have had forty killed. Had the men, for the most part newly transferred troopers of the North Irish Horse, not been more eager to kill than to capture, a considerable number of prisoners might have been taken.

Among other offensive methods employed must be recorded a new horror of war, the Livens projector, which the troops of the 36th Division now saw for the first time. It was simply a large steel drum filled with lethal gas, under compression, fired from a short tube. Its range was upwards of two thousand yards. Six hundred of these mortars were dug in at the bend of the Canal, and on the night of the 14th of September fired into Havrincourt.

It was definitely established by the evidence of prisoners captured the following month that the losses in the village were very heavy. The battalion which held it had to be relieved that night. In two dug-outs alone twenty men were killed by the gas.

The artillery also was active. The ammunition allotment was high. It was, indeed, the huge increase in the supply of 18-pounder ammunition that had made really "quiet bits" almost unknown upon the British front. For when the British had ammunition they fired it off. The French, on the other hand, on a quiet front, preferred to live quiet lives.

The IV. Corps ordered that two-thirds of the allotment should be expended at night, in harassing fire upon roads. As most of our batteries had little flash-cover, such shooting betrayed gun positions. Recourse was therefore had to single guns for night-firing, pushed forward at dusk and withdrawn before dawn. Some of these forward guns had an unpleasant reception.

One was destroyed by accurate enemy fire, The Germans, for their part, paid greater attention to our batteries than to our trenches. Their favourite method, which the 36th Division had experienced in Flanders, was a deliberate "shooting-up" of a single battery, beginning with aeroplane observation, and continued by the aid of high shrapnel bursts, which could be "spotted," for five or six hours at the rate of about a round a minute.

These bombardments did some damage and caused some loss to the gunners, but the latter had more than once the satisfaction of drawing fire upon dummy or abandoned positions, while those in use went scatheless.

Mention has already been made of the arrival of the 1st Irish Fusiliers from the 4th Division. This battalion was, on August the 27th, posted to the 107th Brigade. To make place for it two other battalions of that Brigade, the 8th and 9th Rifles, were amalgamated, becoming the 8th/9th Royal Irish Rifles.

It was a sad occasion, above all for such officers and other ranks of these original battalions as still survived with them. It meant the end, or well-nigh the end, of a cherished tradition. The next arrivals were over three hundred all ranks of the North Irish Horse, a regiment of which had been dismounted.

This large draft was posted to the 9th Irish Fusiliers, thereafter officially known as the 9th (North Irish Horse) Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers. Then came the 7th Irish Rifles from the 16th Division, and a regular battalion, the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, from the 25th Division.

The 7th Battalion, of a total strength of less than four hundred all ranks, was broken up, and its personnel transferred to the and. The latter was then posted to the 108th Brigade, while to make place for it the 11th and 13th Rifles were amalgamated, becoming the 11th/13th Royal Irish Rifles.

In each case surplus personnel was drafted to the remaining battalions of the 107th and 108th Brigades, which were now over strength.

The 109th Brigade, which received considerable reinforcements during the month of September, was little below it.

The work of the 36th Division in this area almost equalled that of Flanders. The "localities" in the front line trenches soon resembled model fortifications, such as might have been made for the instruction of an engineering school. Curving round the village of Hermies, the Pioneers dug perhaps the best trench ever made in entirety by the Division, which was christened in their honour "Lurgan Switch."

The best deep dug-outs the Division had ever known, with thirty feet of cover, were dug in the chalk under the instruction of the Field Companies, now no mean experts in such work. Here, too, what were known from their shape as "champagne" dug-outs were constructed, on a pattern invented by that artist in trench warfare, the enemy.

In these the team of a single machine-gun could shelter from the heaviest bombardment, and bring its gun into action in the time it took two men to run up a ladder

Behind the lines work was equally hard. In such country as this, with not a solitary house standing, the troops had no other accommodation than that which they constructed for themselves. This was the land of the "Nissen" hut, too well known even to people who never saw the Front to merit description here.

They sprang up everywhere, these ugly but useful buildings, with their arched roofs of corrugated iron. Excellent Divisional Headquarters were built in Ytres, to replace those in Little Wood. Fine new Brigade Headquarters appeared in Neuville and Bertincourt, to which the two northern Brigades moved back from unsafe and uncomfortable headquarters further forward. Bertincourt represented perhaps the best example of scientific work upon a ruined village. It was parcelled out between the various units, each being allotted its own section, on which no other might encroach.

General Ricardo offered prizes for the best designed and best kept billets. Under the stress of this competition Bertincourt had become, when the 109th Brigade reluctantly quitted it, a model village.

So, in line and behind it, the troops were as comfortable as conditions on any part of the British front allowed. They would have been as happy as was possible under any conditions of active service had it not been for the desolation about them, which bred a feeling of loneliness.

The British soldier had grown used to being billeted in villages, or lodged in encampments within reach of them. He missed vaguely the sights of village life, the gallant old men and the women setting about their endless toil, the clatter of the farm, the children who watched him falling in for parade, and came in the afternoon to listen to the band.

More definite was the loss of the shops, the eggs to be bought from the villagers, the warmth and comfort of the estaminet, where he drank his beer, solaced himself with bacon or fried potatoes if he had gone short of a meal, joked with the daughter of the host, or played "House" with his friends on benches about the fire.

Officers of the Provost Staff have stated that in their experience there was almost always less crime and unrest among troops in inhabited regions than among those living upon the Teuton-made veldt.

There was among the men of the Ulster Division little crime at any time, but undoubtedly they also were in some degree a prey to the inevitable nostalgia born of desolation. They would have come far more completely beneath its influence but for the efforts that were made to afford them distraction and increase their comfort. "Peace hath her victories," and a comparatively peaceful life afforded as much opportunity as battle for the Quarter-master General's Staff -" Q "- to prove its ingenuity and resource.

In this sector the work of the 36th Division "Q" was certainly triumphant in this respect; first of all under the direction of Colonel Comyn, for eighteen months A.A. and Q.M.G., and then, on his transfer to the War Office, under his successor, Colonel S. H. Green, who had worked under him as D.A.Q.M.G. It organized in the first place daily trips to Amiens.

Three lorries, one to take twelve officers, the remaining two each twenty other ranks, left Ytres at an early hour each morning for Achiet-le-Grand. Thence the party went by train to Amiens, being met again by the lorries at Achiet in the evening. The trips allowed of six hours or more being spent in the city.

Beer was provided in great quantities to replace the supplies of the lost estaminets. In September the Division was buying from brewers of Amiens no less than two railway truck-loads of forty-five barrels a day.

A soda-water factory was established on the Canal bank at Manancourt. Soda-water, labelled "Boyne Water," a fancy which appealed to the troops, was sold at a penny a bottle, and various other aerated concoctions at twopence. The Divisional Canteens, always of the greatest benefit to the troops, became then of incalculable importance.

Added to their usual "lines "- tobacco, biscuits, chocolate, tinned foods, books, candles - were now sold in great quantities fruit and vegetables, eggs, bread and cake, and, when procurable, fresh fish and even oysters; while special orders for anything required in Amiens by officers or men were taken, the goods being procured by the following evening, and sold to the buyer at cost price.

The Division had long had a cinema, a concert party -" The Merry Mauves "- and an excellent band. These passed up and down the front, all units taking turns in the pleasures of their performances. Football and boxing competitions reappeared. There was one very exciting race meeting and horse show, with numerous classes for transport turn-outs.

For animals at least the area was a paradise, there being unlimited grazing and great fields of clover. Some agriculture was attempted, over a hundred acres being ploughed and sown. A few headquarters purchased cows, and many units pigs and chickens.

To those who cared to ponder such things, the wonders of the great, creaking, rather clumsy machine, in which it took a thousand men to form the tiniest cog, never ceased to appeal. The British organization for war was assuredly by now amazingly thorough.

Was there required some new-fangled and complicated Lewis-gun-mounting for trench warfare; a message and a tracing to some workshop behind brought a hundred in a week. Copies innumerable of an enlarged aeroplane photograph wanted in a hurry for a raid could be printed off at Albert in twenty-four hours.

The little press of the IV. Corps, the Intelligence Branch of which officers of the 36th Division will remember with gratitude, seemed to pour forth up-to-date maps. If there was the slightest hitch about rations, it was the topic of conversation for a week.

The post-office was an unceasing marvel. In Flanders, Divisional Headquarters had had their newspapers the day they were published, and the rest of the troops next morning. The letters for men in the saps reached them in two or at most three days. A letter to Hermies would probably take longer now.

But, there was no doubt about the matter, the organization was expensive in man-power, and man-power at that moment was a problem that engaged G.H.Q. almost as much as did the enemy.

The writer of this book can well remember being sent, in Flanders, when the Division was very weak, to investigate the number of men a certain battalion had in the trenches.

The "paper strength" of that battalion was just six hundred men. It had in the line, exclusive of its headquarters, one hundred and seven men. He went through the state with the adjutant. That revealed, indeed, a remarkably strong battalion headquarters, and an undue number at the transport lines, but no other leakages which the adjutant had power to stop.

There was a number of men at Divisional Headquarters, clerks, draughtsmen, orderlies, a cook, five attached to the Signal Company; and about three times as many at Brigade Headquarters. The rest followed varied avocations. Five were on traffic control, a number attached to a Tunnelling Company.

There were clerks to town majors, camp wardens, guardians of coal, straw, and ration dumps; cooks and servants at the Rest Camp. There were about forty on leave, and twenty sick not evacuated.

There were also twenty at various schools. Schools were a vital necessity; but who at this period can doubt that they were ludicrously overdone? very formation had its schools - H.Q., the Army, the Corps, the Division, the Brigade.

There were infantry schools, artillery schools, and trench-mortar schools; machine-gun schools, Lewis-gun schools, bombing schools, gas schools; schools which taught horse-mastership, shoe-making, brick-laying, carpentry, sanitation, butchery, cooking.

For a weak Division, schools became a nightmare. Divisional commanders had to protest that they had either to man their trenches inadequately, or refuse vacancies allotted. And vacancies refused raised a vast to-do, because they threatened the existence of the school, and the school naturally appealed to the formation of which it was the protégé.

Up to the Division headquarters this did not so largely matter. The Division may have been inconsiderate at times, but it did know precisely how its line was held, how strong its posts, how far separated. But above the Division the situation was not always so quickly grasped. The Corps was an impersonal affair, encamped, sometimes for years, upon the same front, changing its Divisions week by week.

And when a Corps headquarters, as happened before Cambrai, resting out of the line, sent out appeals for students to attend its schools, so that they might not be idle, the most long-suffering were inclined to protest and to feel that, after all, for the idle, there was a certain work which might have been accomplished somewhat further forward. The jests of most humorists are based upon exaggeration, but there is just a kernel of truth in them, or they are not good jests.

Of such nature is the dictum of M. André Maurois, * the French interpreter who loves the British so well and pokes such clever fun at them - that a school "is a plot of ground traversed by imitation trenches, where officers who have never been near the line teach war-worn veterans their business."

The swarm of writers which, under the influence of the reaction from war, has so bitterly criticised the higher staff officers for the waste of man-power, has been hopelessly astray in its estimation of the reason. It was not inefficiency or carelessness, It was rather the Englishman's passion for organization, for orderliness and smoothness.

That passion for perfecting the machine put too many cogs and fly-wheels upon it, made it over-complicated, clumsy. Ever eager to expand their business, these directors put into it too much of the one form of capital which they could not afford - man-power.

In October began preparations for a great new offensive, a surprise offensive, which was to depend entirely upon the use of tanks. The scheme and the plans for the Battle of Cambrai must be left for discussion till the next chapter.

Here will be detailed only some of the preliminary moves. The part of the 36th Division in the first day's attack was to be confined to the capture of the German trenches bounded by the Bapaume-Cambrai Road and the Canal du Nord.

This was the task of one Brigade only, and the other two were to be withdrawn from the Trescault and Havrincourt sectors, each being replaced by a Division. These Divisions, the 51st Highland) and the 62nd (West Riding), were to be kept in rear as long as possible.

It fell, therefore, to the 36th to do much of the work of preparation in their areas; the repairing of forward roads, the excavating of new dug-outs, the construction of bridges over trenches. The C.R.E.'s of these Divisions, with their Pioneer battalions and some Engineers, moved forward early in November to work under the general control of the C.R.E., 36th Division. Havrincourt Wood was crammed with little wooden hutments, which its trees and scrub rendered invisible to the enemy. One of the most important tasks was the metalling of the roads, and the dumping of metal beside them in parts where it was impossible to lay it, in order that work might commence with the assault.

The surface of the roads was good, but only because the Division had been holding a front so wide, which made the traffic upon them relatively light. It was quite obvious that a single day of traffic such as an offensive entails would cut them to pieces. It was front-line roadmaking upon which the C.R.E., Colonel Campbell, was required to exercise his ingenuity.

Work upon tracks in Havrincourt Wood was easy; silence was all that was necessary. But work upon what was to be the most important communication of the IV. Corps in the offensive, the road from Metz to Ribécourt, was of great difficulty. In Trescault, half-way between these villages and almost in our front line, there were, to begin with, two enormous craters blown by the enemy before his retirement.

These had to be filled in by night, and it took chalk by the ton to do it. Road-metal also was stacked by night almost up to the front line, and covered with camouflage before dawn. Wooden bridges were prepared for all the trenches crossing the roads which would be required, and most of these for British trenches set in position.

The problem of gun positions on the northern part of the front was difficult. Cover there was none reasonably far forward, save among the ruins of Hermies and Demicourt. Among these the positions were prepared, and by night seven hundred rounds per 18-pounder borne up to them

During the first sixteen days of November, the 36th Division had also to provide parties of from two to six hundred men daily for unloading trains at Ytres station, for the Heavy Artillery ammunition dump at Bus, and for the Field Artillery dump in Vallulart Wood. Trains frequently did not arrive within six hours of the advertised time, and the men had to sit about and wait for them, frequently half through the night - as ill a preparation for troops on the eve of an offensive as could well be imagined.

Amid much confusion and unnecessary hardship, one officer earned the gratitude of the infantrymen by his foresight and consideration, the Staff Captain of the IV. Corps Heavy Artillery. He required parties up to seventy-five men, and always at short notice.

He kept three of his lorries always standing by at his headquarters, telephoned when he wanted men, and fetched them from Ytres, Neuville, Ruyalcourt, or Bertincourt, as detailed by the General Staff of the Division. Better still, he generally gave them tea before sending them home, to supplement their haversack rations,

The weather favoured the British arrangements amazingly. It was fine, but morning after morning dawned with a thick ground mist which hung about all day. Foden lorries carrying stone and light steam rollers to lay it were enabled, beneath this shelter, to work at a proximity to the Germans that had otherwise been out of the question.

Night after night the tanks, upon which all hinged, moved up into Havrincourt Wood. Here again the mist was a godsend, for the track of a tank across country is plain enough on an aeroplane photograph, and not hard to distinguish with a glass. Contrary to the general belief of those who have not heard them on the move, the tank is not very noisy.

It was the artillery tractors, dragging up the big howitzers, which frightened everyone by their clatter,

The relief of the 107th and 108th Brigades took place on the nights of the 17th and 18th of November. To deceive the enemy as to the great concentration in front of him, a screen of the troops of these Brigades remained to hold the outpost line. These men knew only that a raid on a large scale was intended.

In the early hours of the 18th, the Germans, evidently somewhat suspicious, raided a sap held by the 1st Irish Fusiliers behind a heavy "box" barrage, and took six prisoners. From the evidence of German prisoners taken subsequently, it appeared that the most the enemy gathered from the examination of his captives was that an attempt to capture Havrincourt might be expected.

This aroused in the German command no great uneasiness. On the 16th, the 14th Rifles had taken over the whole front of the 109th Brigade to permit the other battalions to train for their task. This training was carried out by General Ricardo over trenches laid out to scale with the plough, upon a front of four thousand yards.

Accommodation was so limited that much marching and counter-marching was necessary to provide billets for the 51st and 62nd Divisions moving up.

In its course the 108th Brigade moved back as far as Barastre, upwards of eight miles from the front line. By the night of the 19th, however, the eve of the attack, the infantry was concentrated well forward. The whole of the 109th Brigade was in assembly positions, the 108th Brigade in Vélu Wood, and the 107th Brigade in the area Ytres-Lechelle. The 16th Rifles were in Havrincourt Wood.

These details have been here given in order that the next chapter may proceed with the scheme of the Battle of Cambrai, without interruption to explain the moves which preceded it. It is in itself one of the most interesting actions in which the 36th Division took part during its combatant career, and, at the same time, measuring final result by the standard of early achievement, one of the most disappointing.

The material results that it produced were small, but it opened a new era in the history of war. No adequate conception of the victories of 1918, first of the Germans, then of the Allies, can be reached without a close study of its lessons

The year 1917 had drawn to its close leaving unfulfilled most of the high hopes that had buoyed men's spirits in the opening months. Some, at least, of the causes of their downfall were far away from the Western Front, and beyond the control of Generals Nivelle, Pétain, and Sir Douglas Haig. Russia, that strong-armed but weak-headed and weak-legged giant, had collapsed, leaving Roumania to its fate - complete overthrow.

At Carporetto the Italians had been heavily defeated by the Austro-German armies, and France and England had been forced to send divisions to Italy to act as rallying points of resistance. In France the Champagne offensive had left a legacy of doubt and exasperation among soldiers as well as civilians, and it had taken all the fostering skill and care of General Pétain to restore his troops to the standard at which they had begun the year.

The Flanders offensive, vitally necessary, crippling to Ludendorff, as he has admitted in his book, had been unduly prolonged in conditions far more dreadful even than when the 36th Division had taken part in it. Not men only but horses were drowned in the shell-holes ere it was over, and by the time Poelcappelle and Passchendaele had been reached the evacuation of wounded had become all but impossible. The heights were won, indeed on the southern flank, though at Westroosebeke the enemy still had the best ground, but, broadly speaking, the strategical value of the advance was nil.

Passchendaele, indeed, had resolved itself into a terrible object-lesson. Here was the point to which a mechanical conception of warfare had led us. Was there not, the keenest minds in every army were asking, was there not some outlet ? Were men to be forever at the mercy of the munition factory and the mud of its making, the roll of barbed wire, the slab of reinforced concrete? Was the real genius of the soldier never to have the chance to display itself outside this war of fortifications?

Often one heard the question, academic enough, but of extraordinary interest: " Could supreme genius, could the greatest captain that ever lived, could Napoleon have freed his bands from the deadlock ? "

The germ of the idea was inherent in the tank itself, and must have been present, vaguely or clearly, in the minds of all who contributed to its design and organization. Here, at any rate, had been found an ideal testing-ground for the scheme, good ground, obstacles which it would have, at that date, been madness to attack in the conventional manner, the prospect of inflicting upon the enemy a swift and signal defeat.

Moreover, a blow that would prevent the massing of more German divisions on the Italian front, where every German division put new life and dash into at least two Austrian, was urgently needed. The striking of the blow was entrusted to General Byng's Third Army.#The plan was simple. The tanks were to roll out gaps in the wire of the Hindenburg System, through which the infantry columns could push.

The aim was to overcome the enemy holding the line between the Canal du Nord and the Canal de l'Escaut, which runs parallel with it at a distance of from six to eight miles further east; to secure possession of the area bounded by these Canals on east and west, and by the marshes of the Sensée River to the north; and, as a consequence, to clear the whole area west of the Canal du Nord of hostile forces.

It must be remembered that the German line, running north from Havrincourt to Moeuvres, there turned west by north. Had the British, pressing northward, reached Oisy-le-Verger and the banks of the Sensée River, they would have been ten miles behind the German front line at that latitude. A precipitate retreat would have been certain, and a very large haul, if not of prisoners, at least of material, almost equally so. Even if the advance to the north accomplished no more than the consolidation of the high ground round Bourlon Wood, the Germans would have to abandon the Drocourt-Quéant Switch, a very strong position. The battle was to have three stages the first, a surprise infantry attack assisted by tanks and an unregistered artillery barrage to capture the crossings of the Canal de l'Escaut at Masnières and Marcoing, and a German trench east of them known as the Masnières-Beaurevoir Line; the second, the advance of the Cavalry Corps to isolate the city of Cambrai, and seize the crossings of the Sensée River, while the troops of the IV. Corps captured Bourlon Wood; and the third, the clearance of the area and of Cambrai itself. The attack was to be carried out by the III. Corps on the right and the IV. Corps on the left, with the V. Corps in reserve.

The right flank of the attack lay upon the great spur, crowned by the Bois Lateau and the hamlet of Le Pave, running from Gonnelieu to the Canal de l'Escaut at Crèvecoeur; the left roughly upon the Canal du Nord. There was to be a subsidiary attack to the north upon the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt. If one were to search for a key-word to define the general idea of the offensive, that keyword would probably be "exploitation."

It was not intended merely to break through the enemy's defences, to strike him a heavy blow; it was designed to exploit a preliminary success, to clear a great tract of country of hostile troops, to turn a flank; for, be it remembered, the advance to the Sensée marshes would have involved not merely a headlong retreat or wholesale capture for the German troops south of them, but an eventual retirement of several miles at least to the north. The Drocourt-Quéant Switch, the main Hindenburg Lines, would be gone.

Cambrai was, for the Western Front, a small battle, but great events hung upon it.

In the previous accounts of battles it has not been necessary, for the purpose of writing the History of the 36th Division, to do more than glance at the progress of the Divisions fighting upon its flanks.

In this battle, on the contrary, if any adequate conception is to be reached from. the account, the plan and the action of the IV. Corps, that is, of the two Divisions on the right of the 36th, and the 56th Division, which was under the orders of the IV. Corps for the greater part of the action, must be studied in some detail. The right boundary of the IV. Corps was the Trescault-Ribécourt Road; thence north of Noyelles. It was to attack with three Divisions, the 51st on the right, the 62nd in the centre, and the 36th on the left. The 51st and 62nd Divisions, the left of the latter on the Canal du Nord, were to advance north from the skirts of Havrincourt Wood.

The normal northern objective of the first day was the Bapaume-Cambrai Road. If, however, there was little opposition, the 51st and 62nd Divisions were to press on and take the high ground crowned by Bourlon Wood and village, or take them over from the Cavalry if the latter had occupied them, while the 107th and 108th Brigades of the 36th Division moved parallel with them east of the Canal, formed a flank-guard facing west, and seized the passages of the Canal at Moeuvres and Inchy-en-Artois. In the event of serious opposition this later programme was to be that of the next day.

The primary task of the 36th Division was to capture the German trenches west of the Canal du Nord and south of the Bapaume-Cambrai Road. For this it was to employ one Brigade, the 109th, one of its Field Artillery Brigades, the 173rd, together with the 280th Brigade and the 93rd Army Brigade R.F.A. Its other Artillery Brigade, the 153rd, was at the disposal of the 62nd Division, to take part in its preliminary barrage. The plans were entrusted to General Ricardo, who worked them out with his Artillery Group Commander, Lieut.-Colonel H. C. Simpson, D.S.O., and had thus an almost unique opportunity for a Brigadier on the Western Front of fighting his own battle in his own fashion.

Communication across the Canal was to be established by the erection of a bridge on the Demicourt-Flesquières Road, to take wagons and field guns, at the earliest possible moment. Materials for this were, of course, prepared in advance, as were some for a minor bridge, for infantry and pack transport, to be thrown across at a suitable point some fifteen hundred yards further south

A glance at the map will show that the German defences west of the Canal began at the northern spoil heap, consisted for the greater part of their length up to the Bapaume-Cambrai Road of two main lines, and at their greatest depth, on a frontage of fifteen hundred yards, of three.

No tanks were allotted to the 36th Division, so a frontal attack without artillery preparation was out of the question. It was decided, therefore, to capture the northern spoil heap, wire in front of which had been cut over a long period by artillery and a 6-inch trench mortar with instantaneous fuse - the latter the best wire-cutter the 36th Division ever discovered - and work up the trenches from south to north.

It appeared that this sixty-foot pile would enable machine and Lewis guns to cover the infantry in their advance. On paper the task of working up these trenches, traversed at frequent intervals by rays of wire, appeared of well-nigh insuperable difficulty. And, indeed, no planning and no gallantry in execution could have accomplished it had not the enemy troops been much demoralized by the advance of the tanks behind them east of the Canal, as it was intended they should be.

The attack of the 36th Division was, therefore, not to take place till the main attack had drawn level with its point of departure. Zero for the former was at 6-20 a.m.; for the 36th Division at 8-35 a.m.

The attack carried out by the 109th Brigade has been officially described as a" bombing action," and such, doubtless, to a great extent it was. But there was no fear more constantly present with General Nugent and General Ricardo than that of its developing into the conventional bombing action, which progressed at snail's pace at best, at worst reached an early deadlock, and always required bombs by the dozen for every yard of ground gained.

In this case four thousand yards, covered by two or three parallel lines of trenches, with numerous communication trenches at right angles to the attack, had to be taken. And speed was essential; for, much as the attack depended upon the advance east of the Canal, that in its turn could have been taken in flank by machine-gunners on the west had not the 109th Brigade kept pace with it.

And so the order was - no bombing till other methods failed. At the head of platoon columns to move up the trenches was to be not a bomber, but a Lewis gunner. A Lewis gun could be used by a man of large physique - and of these the Ulster Division still possessed plenty, if not such numbers as a year back - with a sling over the left shoulder, the gun resting above the right hip. It was heavy and clumsy, but its tremendous moral effect in such broad trenches as those of the Hindenburg System can readily be imagined.

It was to be the spear-head of the attack along each line of trenches. General Ricardo had learnt the idea from the Canadians, who had employed it at Vimy. Moreover, when it was found possible, riflemen were to move on top, outside the trench.

The question of artillery support was not easy, since no preliminary registration, here, or on any other part of the front of attack, was possible. Colonel Simpson, who took up his position with General Ricardo at a command post in the sunken Demicourt-Havrincourt Road, just short of the British front line, planned and controlled the artillery support in most brilliant fashion, well worthy the fame he was winning as one of the most scientific and least conventional junior artillery commanders in the British Army.

It must not be supposed that the part played here, or on the whole front, by artillery was negligible, nor that the barrage was inconsiderable. On the contrary, the artillery' support for the main attack was of vast weight. In Havrincourt Wood, along the rides, guns stood almost wheel to wheel. But these guns had not registered.

Consequently the barrage might be expected to be somewhat ragged, and was to keep considerably further in front of the tanks and infantry than would otherwise have been the case. Still, a barrage does not cut wire.

It was the tanks which were to accomplish this. Had they failed, the whole scheme would have collapsed. During the night of November the 19th, the whole line of tanks on the front of the III. and IV. Corps moved to a general distance of a thousand yards from the German outpost line. The noise of their advance was covered by long bursts of machine-gun fire.At 6-20 a.m. the great assault was launched. The tanks went forward behind the barrage, followed by their infantry columns. From the first moment it was evident that the calculations of the British staffs had been correct. The surprise was complete, showing that the Germans had learnt nothing of importance from their prisoners.

The advance had the precision of clock-work, the infantry following the tanks without difficulty through gaps in the most formidable wire entanglements in the world. It was 7-15 ere observers of the 36th Division upon the ridge east of Hermies could penetrate the mist and smother of smoke. Then they saw the tanks going forward over the ridge north of Havrincourt, well up to the barrage and waiting for each lift, the columns of the 62nd Division behind them, meeting with small opposition and suffering few casualties. It was a very impressive sight.

To the Germans it must have been appalling, this line of great engines rushing through their magnificent defences as they had been of paper, checking an instant to put down huge brushwood-bound bundles to enable them to cross the wide trenches, then moving steadily and remorselessly on. Here and there a stout-hearted officer organized momentary resistance, but for the most part the affair was on one side a rout, on the other a procession. German barrage there was none; only some desultory and ineffective shelling. By eight o'clock the first objective, which included the villages of Havrincourt and Ribécourt, and Couillet Wood, and, of course, the front system of the Hindenburg defences, was in our hands all along the line. In Havrincourt and its chateau park fighting continued till ten o'clock or later, but it was without importance.

Upon the first objective there was a pause to allow troops for the next to pass through. At 8-35 a.m. the new advance began. Here again all went well - save at one point. The 62nd Division swept on unchecking; on the front of the III. Corps all resistance was easily overcome. But the 51st Division had no such fortune. The Highlanders were baffled by the village of Flesquières, perched upon its hill top.

Field-guns, dragged from their pits on the north side of the village, came into action as the tanks approached, firing over open sights, at point-blank range, crumpling them up, one after the other. The front line of the Hindenburg Support System was pierced; but as the tanks could not cut the wire of the second line, the infantry could not penetrate it.

For the moment there was deadlock here. We must turn to our more immediate problem, the attack of the 109th Brigade, launched simultaneously with the general advance from the first objective.

For the assault upon the spoil heap a battery of four-inch Stokes mortars to fire "thermit" shell, which had been used with effect at Messines, had been procured. For four minutes these mortars and the covering artillery bombarded its south-west side.

Then the 10th Inniskillings charged home and took it, There was no serious fighting here. The effect of the "thermit" shell was terrific morally. The defenders ran northwards up the trenches. A number were, however, killed by machine-gun fire, while seventy prisoners and two machine-guns were taken.

The prisoners belonged to the 20th Landwehr Division, which had not been identified, and had come into line but two days before. This discovery was of good augury for the attack, since by this period of the war Landwehr troops were not of high quality.

The necessary point of entry into the German trenches having been won, the 10th Inniskillings pushed up them according to plan, behind their barrage. A second doorway was forced when, directly the barrage lifted from it, a company of the 14th Rifles, attached to the 10th Inniskillings, entered the communication trench on the Demicourt-Flesquières Road, fifteen hundred yards north of the first one.

The clearing of the captured trenches was carried out most systematically. The leading platoons dropped a man at the entrance to each deep dug-out, to be picked up by the fourth section following in rear, which was allotted the duty of "mopping up." As each dug-out was cleared, a notice board was set up at entrance bearing the significant inscription "Mopped" When the leading platoon exhausted its men, another moved through to the front, the first reorganizing behind it.

A single flag with the battalion colours was carried by the leading platoon, and never displayed save at the head of the advance. The 10th Inniskillings reached their objective just north of the Demicourt-Flesquières Road at 9-30 a.m., or a few minutes behind schedule time. This, however, was of no significance, since the line now held was part of the general second objective of the whole attack, and there was a pause upon it of twenty-five minutes. The second objective had been reached upon the whole front, save only at Flesquières.

Meanwhile, the 9th Inniskillings, responsible for the next phase of the attack after the 10th had captured Hill 90, had moved in. Those only who have seen the Hindenburg trenches can realize how comparatively easy it was to pass one body of troops through another in them. In ordinary trenches such methods would have resulted in hopeless congestion. Here all went smoothly owing to the great breadth of the trenches.

The 9th Inniskillings had one platoon moving along the bed of the Canal, here dry. Craters on the Demicourt-Graincourt Road, defended by machine-guns, caused trouble, but the right companies pushed on, and gradually the situation cleared. The 11th Inniskillings, for the final stage of the attack, had now moved in.

This battalion met with somewhat stronger resistance. On the right some determined German bombers held up the advance for a while, the Lewis gunner not being able to see them. Here, as was generally the case, the Germans with their stick bombs out-ranged our men with the Mills, but the Mills rifle grenade more than restored the balance, and the Germans were driven steadily back.

This company of the 11th Inniskillings was also able to give material assistance to the men of the 186th Brigade, across the Canal, by its Lewis-gun fire. Lock 6 was the last centre of strong resistance. Eventually the garrison fled across the Canal, though few of them reached the other side. About half-past three the Inniskillings crossed the Cambrai-Bapaume Road, and were soon afterward consolidating their position, with their outpost three or four hundred yards north of it. The bridge across the Canal here, it may be added, had been blown up hours earlier.

It had never been doubted by the British that the enemy had prepared it for demolition.On the left of the 109th Brigade the 56th Division now prolonged the line along the Bapaume-Cambrai Road. On its right the 62nd Division, working up the Hindenburg Support System and over open country, had met with complete success. Graincourt had been reached and taken at 1-30, and the long communicatlon trench north of the Bapaume-Cambrai Road was consolidated at the same time as the final objective of the 36th.

On the III. Corps front Noyelles had been reached. But the failure of the 51st Division to capture Flesquières constituted a serious menace to the whole scheme of the attack. It would have been greater had the village been strongly held by the Germans, for then the troops of the 62nd Division could never have advanced past it as they did.

The fact seems to be that it was the supreme gallantry of one German officer, aided by the merest handful of men, that withstood the attack. The attack was renewed with fresh tanks during the afternoon without success, that one heroic officer, it is said, firing his last gun with deadly effect with his own hands upon the tanks, the wreckage of which, horribly twisted and maimed, strewed the steep slope at nightfall.

A patrol of King Edward's Horse, attached to the 62nd Division, had early in the afternoon ridden into the village from the north-west, and reported it clear as far as the Marcoing Road. An attack from this direction by quite a small force would probably have overcome what opposition there was.

The fact that Flesquières remained untaken caused some alteration in the employment of the cavalry. The 1st Cavalry Division was to have been passed through Marcoing, but at 4-30 p.m. the 2nd Cavalry Brigade was ordered instead to occupy Cantaing, which should have been already captured had all proceeded according to plan. But the village was strongly held and the cavalrymen were beaten off.

The Brigade therefore remained that night in Noyelles. Just before dusk a company of the 186th Brigade and two squadrons of King Edward's Horse made an attack upon Anneux, but were unsuccessful, owing to wire about the village and machine-gun fire from within it.

At 1-30 the 107th and 108th Brigades moved forward, the former to the northern slope of the Grand Ravin about Square Copse, the latter to Yorkshire Bank and the old British trenches south of it. It had now begun to rain heavily, and these troops, particularly those of the 107th Brigade, which were without any shelter, were drenched to the skin.

ABOVE: 11th Inniskillings advance over newly captured ground during the attack.IWM

At 8 o'clock the 107th Brigade was ordered across into Havrincourt and the trenches and dug-outs about it. The men were not finally settled with an opportunity for rest till 3 a.m. the following morning.

The 10th Inniskillings of the 109th Brigade, which had carried out the first stages of its attack, was moved across the Canal to Kangaroo Alley, south of and parallel with the Bapaume-Cambrai Road. Patrols pushed forward on the west side by the 11th Inniskillings got within five hundred yards of the southern outskirts of Moeuvres, where they encountered resistance enough to compel them to withdraw.

There is no reason, however, to suppose that Moeuvres was at this time strongly held, or that a determined attack would have failed to take it. The progress east of the Canal did not appear to warrant such an attack. The Engineers meanwhile had progressed excellently with their bridge-making. By 4 p.m. their bridge for infantry and pack transport, about a thousand yards north of the Hermies-Havrincourt railway line, was available.

Half an hour later a still more important task had been accomplished; the existing causeway on the Demicourt-Flesquières Road having been repaired to enable field-guns and wagons to cross. The 36th Division would have been glad to have had at this stage its Pioneer Battalion to work upon its own roads, now being churned up by heavy traffic, but it was employed upon a similar task between Havrincourt and Ribécourt, 62nd Division

The Signal Service, admirably organized by Major Vigers, who on this occasion excelled, if that were possible, his successes at Messines, had opened up telephone communication, utilising the Canal bed to lay its wires. So good was this that it was a matter of no difficulty to speak from Divisional Headquarters, which still remained at Ytres, to Lock 6, just south of the Bapaume-Cambrai Road.

When dusk came down to bring operations to a halt, the situation was as follows. The 36th Division held a general line five hundred yards north of the Bapaume-Cambrai Road, in touch with the 56th on its left. East of the Canal the 62nd Division held the trench north of the road and the factory. Thence their line curved down just west of Anneux, with a long flank running east of Graincourt to the west of Flesquières. The line of the III. Corps ran well to the north of Noyelles.

This left, as will be seen from the line roughly marked on the map, an extraordinary little German salient, in the midst of which there were still apparently German guns in action in Orival Wood.

During the night there was great movement of guns. Most of the heavy artillery of the IV. Corps, since it was difficult to move it through Havrincourt, and would have been harder to feed it, took up positions about Hermies and Demicourt, with the heaviest pieces back at Doignies. Here it could easily be served with ammunition, and here it proved invaluable in the days that were to come.

The 153rd Brigade had a very long march. After covering the advance of the 62nd Division from Havrincourt Wood, the guns were withdrawn at midnight and moved, via Ruyalcourt, Hermies, and Demicourt, to positions in the old " No Man's Land," east of the last-named village. The batteries of the 173rd Brigade also moved to this neighbourhood, to be prepared to cover a further advance, The bad, narrow roads were, as may readily be imagined, in a state of much congestion. Batteries of the 153rd Brigade were not in action till 7-30 a.m. on the 21st.

In the course of the day's fighting the IV. Corps had taken over two thousand prisoners, of which the share of the 109th Brigade was five hundred and nine, The latter had also taken a great deal of booty, particularly at Lock 6, which had been used as a general store-house for the forward area.

So ended the first day's fighting. The cavalry action on a grand scale had been a complete failure. Whatever chances of success it may have had were extinguished by the failure to take Flesquières. For the rest, all had gone according to plan. The Bourlon Ridge had not, it is true, been taken. That, however, was really, except in the case of unexpectedly sweeping good fortune, to be the second day's objective. Hopes still stood high.

At dawn on the 21st the German salient was eaten up in a flash. The 51st Division, advancing through Flesquières, swept up to the Graincourt-Marcoing Road, upon which it was established by 11 a.m. A number of guns in Orival Wood were captured. Cantaing, too, fell, after stiff fighting, before the and Cavalry Brigade, assisted by battalions of the 51st Division.

Late in the afternoon the Highlanders, who made tremendous efforts to atone for the failure of the previous day, stormed Fontaine-Notre Dame, on the road from Bapaume to Cambrai, a mere two and a half miles from the latter city. The right flank of the 62nd Division also did well. Anneux was taken, and, after heavy fighting, Anneux Chapel, on the skirts of Bourlon Wood, But the attack on Bourlon Wood was a failure.

The troops went round the western slopes in gallant fashion, but were woefully thinned out by machine-gun fire and unable to hold their ground. They advanced, however, to the south-west corner.

West of the Canal the attack was pushed forward by the 109th Brigade, with the 9th Inniskillings, who reached the point where the Hindenburg trenches swung west, a thousand yards north of the Bapaume-Cambrai Road.

Here the battalion was held up by heavy machine-gun fire from Lock 5 and east of the Canal, At noon the 14th Rifles and 10th Inniskillings resumed the attack, In face of steadily-increasing opposition they penetrated to the outskirts of Moeuvres, but could not maintain their position under withering machine-gun fire from the village and the Hindenburg trenches west of it. The day's advance was one of less than a thousand yards, after considerably heavier casualties than those of the 20th.

The ground won appeared considerable on paper, but the day had not been successful. The advance had fallen very far short of the programme. It had been intended that the 62nd and 51st Divisions should reach Bourlon, while the 1st Cavalry Division followed through and seized the Canal crossings from Sains-lez-Marquion northward.

The two reserve brigades of the 36th Division were to have pressed up on the east side of the Canal, and held its line from Moeuvres to Sains-lez-Marquion. All this had gone by the board. The 40th Division from the V. Corps had moved forward to the area Beaumetz-Doignies-Boursies, to be ready to take over Bourlon Wood when captured, and resume the advance. It did not come into action that day any more than the 107th and 108th Brigades.

The orders for the 22nd were for the 51st and 62nd Divisions to improve and consolidate their positions, while the 36th and 56th gained ground on their left.

The 109th Brigade had now shot its bolt, having accomplished its task with every credit. In the early hours of the morning the 108th moved up to relieve it, and by 7 a.m, the 12th Rifles had taken over its advanced positions, the 9th Irish Fusiliers being closed up behind the leading battalion in the trenches about the Bapaume-Cambrai Road.

The relieved Brigade withdrew to the old British trenches about Hermies.

East of the Canal the role of the 107th Brigade was to clear the first and second lines of the Hindenburg Support System up to the Canal, while the 108th took Moeuvres. This task was allotted to the 15th Rifles. A second battalion, the 10th Rifles, was then to pass through and continue the attack along what was known as the Canal du Nord Line to Lock 4, opposite Inchy. General Withycombe moved up to a German dug-out west of Graincourt. Eight guns of the 107th Machine-Gun Company were to assist in covering these attacks east of the Canal. The general rate of the barrage was to be fifty yards in five minutes east of the Canal, and fifty yards in seven and a half minutes west of it.

The attack was further to be supported by four Siege and one Heavy Battery, and one 9.2-inch howitzer. It was to be launched at 11 a.m.

It was anticipated by the enemy. At 9-20 he counter-attacked upon the front of the 51st and 62nd Divisions. The latter lost no ground on its right, but its extreme left flank fell back for a short time on to the Bapaume-Cambrai Road, subsequently reoccupying its position. Worse fortune met the British further east, where the 51st Division lost Fontaine. During the counter-attack there occurred one very remarkable incident. A battery of machine-guns of the 36th Division was in action in the open, pushed forward much too far, half-way between Lock 5 and the factory on the Bapaume-Cambrai Road, when it was attacked at close quarters by a company of the enemy. The officer and section sergeant were killed and the guns surrounded. Two guns of another battery were brought into action by Major Miller, the Divisional Machine-Gun Officer, at little over a hundred yards' range.

The effect was withering, the Germans melting away before the fire, saving themselves by jumping into trenches or crouching in shell-holes. When quiet had supervened, a machine-gun officer counted forty-two dead Germans about the recaptured position.

The attack of the 36th Division was launched at 11 a.m., after a forty minutes' bombardment. On the right the leading company of the 15th Rifles reached its objective, gaining upwards of five hundred yards of the Hindenburg trenches. The companies which passed through it had a more difficult task. The trenches of the second line were here but half dug, and this, seeing that the attack was working up along them, was to the advantage of the defenders. The Germans established a block above a length of trench about a foot deep, and beat off every attempt by machine-gun fire. At dusk the 10th Rifles made an attempt to rush the machine guns, but could not get near them, losing six officers in trying to do so.

West of the Canal things went better at the opening. The 12th Rifles attacked Moeuvres with three companies in line. The two on the left penetrated the village, but the right company was held up by machine-guns in the Hindenburg Support System. On the left, troops of the 56th Division, bombing up the Hindenburg Front System, captured Tadpole Copse.

Colonel Goodwin, commanding the 12th Rifles, now handled his battalion with great skill. He ordered his right company to bomb its way up the trench leading from the sunken Moeuvres-Graincourt Road to the Hindenburg Support System, while the other companies exploited their semi-success in the village.

The right company did succeed in reaching the front trench of the Support System, and in clearing it, but the second line was full of Germans and could never be reached. Meanwhile the centre and western side of the village had been cleared, many Germans being killed in dug-outs and cellars.

Pushing on through the village, the Riflemen took the trench on the western edge, fringing the cemetery, and began to consolidate it. Then came the counter-attack.

At 4 p.m. the enemy was seen assembling in great force in Hobart Street, half-way between Moeuvres and Inchy, and in the Hindenburg Support System north-west of the former village. Messages were sent back for support and for an artillery barrage.

Both were procured, the former in the shape of a company of the 9th Irish Fusiliers, but, unfortunately, neither of them in time. The counter-attack, launched just before dusk, appeared to be made by two battalions, one working parallel with the Hindenburg Support System and one down the Canal, in several waves. The company in the trench east of the cemetery was forced to withdraw to avoid being surrounded, Our men fell back from position to position, in orderly fashion, taking toll of the enemy with their Lewis guns.

There was no trace of fluster, still less of panic. It took the Germans, in fact, an hour and forty minutes from the launching of their attack to drive the 12th Rifles to the southern outskirts of the village. It was a piece of evil fortune after a fine achievement in village fighting.

It must be remembered that there was a heavy German barrage south of Moeuvres and machine-gun fire from either flank, which delayed the supports of the 9th Irish Fusiliers.

The action once again demonstrated the disadvantages inherent in attacks on narrow fronts. The Hindenburg trenches west of Moeuvres, on higher ground, overlooked the village and permitted intense machine-gun fire to be concentrated upon it. They were outside the area of operations. In the same way, from the Hindenburg trenches east of the Canal, heavy machine-gun fire was kept up on the village and its approaches.

This ground also was, for practical purposes, outside the area of operations, since it could not be taken without artillery preparation or tanks. There had been no artillery preparation, and no tanks were available.

The close of this rather unsatisfactory day may fittingly mark the end of a chapter. After wonderful initial success the action had not continued as planned. Little has been said of the extreme right flank because space does not permit. Nor does it in any way concern the 36th Division. But here also, though Masnières, across the Canal de l'Escaut, had been taken, the great cavalry "drive" had been a failure.

Henceforth the battle was to be fought in other circumstances. Fresh German troops were up now, and resistance all along the line was fierce. Every yard of ground had to be won by hard fighting. The idea of exploitation to the Sensée River must have faded from the mind of the Commander of the Third Army.

Indeed, he permitted a Division intended for that purpose, the 40th, to relieve the 62nd, now very weary. But much had been won. It was of the highest importance now to take the Bourlon Ridge. While it remained in German hands all our positions were overlooked, and could have been made in time almost untenable. In our hands, on the contrary, it would have been a veritable thorn in the side of the Germans, and would soon have compelled an important retirement to the north, if neither so swift nor so great as that which would have been involved by our reaching Oisy-le-Verger.

A new phase was opening, of powerful forces on either side battling fiercely for position. And the crown of battle, looming up above the combatants, was the great circular mass of the Bois de Bourlon