Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 14th September 1914

 

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 14th September 1914

Sept. 14th.

When we were across it was difficult to discover the battalions asleep in the fields, and when we had found them and it was time to start it was difficult to wake them. However, we moved off just as it was getting light; but it was not easy to find the way, for there was no path at first. We had orders to go viâ Bucy-le-Long to Sainte Marguerite, and found the villages right enough, for they were close together. But as we moved into Sainte Marguerite, with a good many other troops in front of us, we became aware that there was an unnecessary number of bullets flying about, and that our fellows in front were being held up.

The village was held by the 12th Brigade (4th Division), and the 14th Brigade was somewhere on our right. The Dorsets were our leading battalion, and they were pushed on to help the 12th, and filled a gap in their line on the hill above the village front at the eastern end. But there we stuck for a long time. The enemy's artillery had meanwhile opened on us, and shells began to crash overhead and played the devil with the tiles and the houses. But they did not do us much harm.

We now received orders to move on to Missy (not a mile off to the right) and clear the Chivres ridge of the enemy and push on to Condé and take that if possible—rather a "large order." The difficulty was to get to Missy, for the road thither was spattered with bullets, and shells were bursting all along it. However, by dint of careful work we moved out bit by bit, cutting through the gardens and avoiding the road, and taking advantage of a slight slope in the ground by which we could sneak to the far side of the little railway embankment which led to Missy Station.

It took a long time, and I made what proved to be the serious mistake of staying to the end in order to see the whole Brigade clear of Sainte Marguerite. I ought really to have gone ahead with the first party to reconnoitre; for just as we were starting after the rear company I stopped to write a message to the Division in answer to one which had just arrived, and at that moment a hellish shrapnel, machine-gun, and rifle fire was opened, not only on the village but on all the exits therefrom, and this fire lasted for nearly two hours. One simply could not make the attempt; it would have been certain death. And so we had to sit in the tiny courtyard of one of the houses, with our backs against the wall, and listen to the inferno overhead, whilst the proprietor's wife plied us with most acceptable roast potatoes and milk.

I wrote a lot of messages during those two hours, but whether they all got through or not I do not know: some of the messengers never came back. Colonel Seely turned up at one moment—from General Headquarters, I think—demanding information. This I supplied, and made use of him to take some of my orders back; it really was quite a new sensation giving orders to a recent Secretary of State for War.

At one time two or three artillery waggons appeared in the little main street and remained there quietly for a bit under a heavy fire, but only losing a man or two slightly wounded. Then suddenly there was a loud crack overhead, and half a dozen horses were lying struggling and kicking on the ground, with great pools of blood forming in the road and four or five prostrate men in them. It was a horrible sight for us, for the shell had burst just opposite the gate of our courtyard. But the gunners behaved magnificently, and a farrier sergeant gave out his orders as quietly and unconcernedly as if he had been on parade. I took his name with a view to recommendation, but regret that I have forgotten it by now.

We also had some very unpleasant shaves at this time in our own courtyard. Twice did a shell burst just above the house and drive holes in the roof, bringing down showers of tiles; the second time practically all the tiles fell on me and nearly knocked me down. I do not know why they did not hurt me more—luckily the house was a low one; but they merely bruised my back.

At last, in a lull, we managed to get away, and sneaked out at a run—through a yard and back garden, behind a farm, out at the back behind a fold in the ground, then across a wide open field and on to the low railway embankment, behind which we ducked, and made our way to the little station of Missy and up behind some scattered houses to near the church.

Here, after some trouble, we got the commanding officers together, and arranged to push on and attack the wooded ridge above the town. The force was rather mixed. I had met Rolt (commanding the 14th Brigade) on the way, and we had settled that I should collect whatever of his men I could get together in Missy and join them to my attacking party. The difficulty was that it was already getting late—4.30 P.M.—and that there was insufficient time for a thorough reconnaissance, though we did what we could in that direction. However, my orders from the Divisional Commander had been to take the ridge, and I tried to do it. I had got together three companies of the Norfolks, three of the Bedfords, two Cheshires (in reserve), two East Surreys (14th Brigade), and two Cornwalls (13th Brigade, who had arrived viâ the broken bridge at Missy and some rafts hastily constructed there)—twelve companies altogether.

But when they pushed forward it became very difficult, for there turned out to be too many men for the space. What I had not known was that, though they could advance up a broad clearing to more than halfway up the hill, this clearing was bounded on both flanks, as it gradually drew to a point, by high 6-feet wire netting just inside the wood, so that the men could not get properly into the wood, but were gradually driven in towards the point, where the only entrance to the wood occurred.

Luckily the Germans had not noticed this either—or there would have been many more casualties than there were. As it was, a company of the East Surrey and another one (Allason's) of the Bedfords did get through to the top of the wood and on to the edge of the open plateau; but this I did not hear of till later. When the greater part of the force had got through the opening into the wood they found a few Germans there and drove them back, killing some. Then they surged on to a horse-shoe-shaped road further on in the wood, and some men lost their direction and began firing in front of them at what they thought were Germans. But they were others of our own, and these began firing back, also without knowing that they were their friends. Consequently, although casualties were few, an unpleasant situation arose, and numbers of men turned about and retired down the hill into Missy, saying that our artillery was firing into them. This may have been true, for some shells were bursting over the wood; but whether they were English or German I do not know to this day.

Anyhow, the stream of men coming back increased. They fell back into the village, and then came some certainly German shells after them. For an unpleasant quarter of an hour the little sloping village of Missy was heavily shelled by shrapnel; but the walls of the houses were thick, and though of course there were a certain number of casualties, they were not serious as long as the men kept close to the south side of the walls. Beilby (our Veterinary officer) for some reason would keep to the wrong side of the street and was very nearly killed, the fuse of a shell landing with a whump on a door not two feet in front of him, and a shrapnel bullet going through his skirt pocket; but he was not touched. The shrapnel were in bursts of four, and luckily Moulton-Barrett noticed it, for he calmly held up the stream of men till the fourth shell had burst, and then let as many as possible past the open space there till the next bunch arrived, when he stopped them behind cover,—just like a London policeman directing traffic.

I remember one man falling, as we thought dead, close to where the Staff were standing. But he groaned, and Weatherby ran to pick him up. There was, however, no wound of any sort on him, and after a minute he got up and went on. I think he must have been knocked down by the wind of a shell—for he certainly was as much astonished as we were at finding no damage on himself.

By this time I had given orders that the troops were to retire to their previous positions in and near the village, and it was getting dusk.

Luard (Norfolks) and a party of twenty-five men were well ahead in the wood, and received the order to retire, for Luard was heard shouting it to his men. But nothing has since been heard of him, and I much regret to say that he was either taken prisoner with most of his men, or, more probably, killed.

A message now came down from the plateau saying that some East Surreys and Bedfords were still up in the wood, and should they retire or hold on? As it was nearly dark and I consequently could not support them—for if the men could not get through the wire-netting in daylight they could hardly do so at night—I told them to retire. I gave this order after I had consulted Rolt, who was somewhere west of the village; but even if Rolt had not been there I should have given it, for it would have been impossible to reinforce them adequately in the circumstances.

So I issued orders for an early reconnaissance and attack next morning, to be led by the Norfolks; and the troops covered their front with sentries and bivouacked in and round the village. We were all short of food that night, for none of our supply carts, and not even a riding-horse, had come with us. But all or most of the men had an "iron ration" on them, and this they consumed, with the "unexpired" portion of their previous day's ration.

The Bedfords took up their position along the railway to the west, Cheshires on the right, Norfolks right front of village, D.C.L.I. left front.

As for the Staff, we retired to a farm called La Bizaie, three-quarters of a mile south of Missy, and close to the river, and took up our quarters there. There was not a whole pane of glass in the house, for it had been heavily bombarded—being empty, except for a few wounded—during the day, and great craters had been formed close by the walls by the Black Marias. But except at one corner of the roof of an outhouse, no damage had been done to the buildings—except the broken glass.

It was a very old farmhouse, as we found out afterwards, part of it dating back to 1200 and something. Curiously enough, there was a photograph of an English Colonel (of the R.A.M.C.) on the sideboard—a friend, so the farm servants told us, of the owner, whose name I have forgotten. The buildings were very superior to the ordinary farm type, and more like a comfortable country house than one would expect, but there were plenty of barns as well, and some pigs and chickens running about.

We bought, murdered, and ate an elderly chicken, but otherwise there was devilish little to eat except a store of jam, and we had only a very few biscuits and no bread.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 13th September 1914

 

The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 13th.

It was fine in the morning, but the farmyard was ankle-deep in water and slush, and the sky was leaden with lurid clouds in the east, when we started at 4.10 A.M. We pushed on slowly in column for the few miles to Serches, and there we halted at the cross-roads on the top of the plateau and parked the brigade whilst the situation was cleared up by troops in front. Shells began to drop unpleasantly near us, and a couple of field batteries which got into action just in front of us, together with a "cow-gun"[8] (60 lb.) battery, only drew the hostile fire still more. They were pretty big shells, Black Marias mostly, and the heavy battery being right out in the open suffered somewhat severely, losing eight horses and a few men killed and wounded by one shell alone.

So we prudently scattered the battalions a bit, and the field batteries limbered up and walked slowly back under cover of a slope. But the cow-guns had one gun disabled, and though they also moved back and got again into action they were evidently spotted and had rather a poor time.

Just about then, too, the transport of the 13th Brigade, which was necessarily following the infantry over the crest towards Sermoise, were noticed by the enemy, and a few shells over them killed and disabled a number of waggon-horses and men, making a very nasty mess in the road.

There we sat all day whilst the sun came out and dried us a bit. But we were not very happy at luncheon; for though hungry and with plenty to eat now, those beastly shells came nearer and nearer us, till our bully and biscuit lost their charm entirely. At last we got up, plates in hand, and moved with dignity out of range, or, rather, more under cover.

The Cheshires had meanwhile discovered a curious cave in the hillside which sheltered the whole battalion (though, in truth, the latter was not large, only 450 men or so), whilst the other battalions were well out of sight in the folds of the ground.

The shadows grew longer and longer, and we rigged up some comfortable little shelters in the coppice for the night, thinking we should bivouac where we were. But at 6 I was sent for to Divisional Headquarters at Serches, and told to reconnoitre the road towards the Aisne—only a mile or two ahead. This I did in a motor-car, and returned in time for dinner; but we had barely got through it, about 8, when marching orders came to the effect that we were to push on and cross the Aisne by rafts to-night, and the sooner the better.

So we moved off with some difficulty in the dark, for there were no connecting roads with the halting-places of the battalions, and got on to the main road, whence all was plain sailing, down to the Moulin des Roches, an imaginary mill on the river bank. Over some sloppy pasture fields in dead silence, and we found ourselves on the bank, with a darker shadow plashing backwards and forwards over the river in our front, and some R.E. officers talking in whispers.

The actual crossing of the Brigade was a long job, and had to be carefully worked out. The raft held sixty men at a time, or thirty men and three horses; but as horses on a raft in the dead of night were likely to cause a fuss, we left them behind, to follow on in the morning, and crossed without them,—four and a half hours it took; and whilst the men were crossing we tried to get a bit of sleep on the wet bank. It was not very successful, as it was horribly cold and we had no blankets. The staff crossed last of all, and we landed in a wood on the far side, in a bog but thinly covered with cut brushwood, and full of irritating, sharp, and painful tree-stumps.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 12th September 1914

 

The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 12th.

Off at 5 A.M., we did only a short march as far as the Ferme de l'Épitaphe, a huge farm standing by itself in a vast and dreary plain of ploughed fields. Here we halted in pouring rain all day, expecting orders to go on. But we eventually had to billet there, with the Divisional Headquarters, and though we could only put up the Bedfords and the Cheshires there was a terrific squash. The Dorsets and Norfolks were sent back to billet at Nampteuil, a village a mile or so back, but even here there was some confusion, as the 14th Brigade had meanwhile arrived and begun to billet there. They were, however, sent back likewise to Chrisy, and the whole Division passed a most uncomfortable night. The rain never ceased from pouring, and a gale sprang up, which made matters worse. We slept in a loft with a number of Cheshire and Bedford officers, and didn't get dinner till past nine. Some gunner officers turned up, with no food at all, and we fed them; but there wasn't much at the best of times, for we had no rations and had to depend on the contents of our Mess basket, which consisted only of Harvey sauce, knives and forks, an old ham-bone, sweet biscuits, and jam.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 11th September 1914

 

The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 11th.

Next morning we did not move off till 9.25, for the supplies to the Brigades did not arrive as soon as we expected, and hence the column was late in starting. We dawdled along, forming the rear brigade, in cool weather, and nothing in particular happened beyond reports coming in from the front that the Germans were quite demoralised. It came on to pour as we left Chouy, and at Billy we parked the transport and prepared to billet there. But it was already chokeful of other troops, and more than half our brigade would have had to bivouac in the sopping fields. So we pushed on to St Remy, and, evacuating some cavalry and making them move on to some farms a bit ahead,—including Massereene and his North Irish Horse, who, I fear, were not much pleased at having to turn out of their comfortable barns,—we billeted there, headquarters being taken up in the Curé's house. Even here his poor little rooms had been ransacked, drawers and tables upset and their contents littered over the floor, and everything of the smallest value stolen by the Germans.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 10th September 1914

 

The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 10th.

Off at 3.45 A.M., we moved out in careful fashion towards Haloup, in the direction of Montreuil. But our scouts reported all clear, and in very truth the Germans had left. What was more, they had left that field battery on Hill 189 behind them, surrounded by about twenty or more corpses and a quantity of ammunition.

It was a damp day, and progress was slow, as it was not at all certain where the enemy was. At Denizy, a small village on the way, we were told that a German general, with his staff, had received a severe shock there the day before by an unexpected British shell dropping on his headquarters whilst he was at luncheon. He had jumped up with a yell and bolted up the hill, but was driven down again by another shell which landed close by. He was reported to have died almost at once, but whether from fright or not was not quite clear.

When near Germigny we espied a German column in the distance, and shelled it heavily with the 61st howitzer battery attached to us (Major Wilson), causing it to bolt in all directions. The 3rd Cavalry Brigade now turned up in our front (Hubert Gough's), and with the 5th (Chetwode's) hustled the enemy along. We were advanced guard again, and it was difficult to get on, for the Divisional Commander kept sending messages from behind asking me why the deuce I wasn't going faster, whilst Gough was sending me protests from the front that I was treading on his heels, and not giving him time to clear up the situation!

We halted for some time the other side of Germigny, and then pushed on to Gandelu, a large village in a cleft of the hills, from the heights in front of which the German artillery might have made it extremely unpleasant for us. But none were there, nor were there any at Chézy, which would have made a perfect defensive position for them, with a glacis-like slope in all directions.

On the other side of Gandelu, in the wood, we came across the first signs of the German bolt. A broken motor-car was lying in the stream, and dead horses and men were lying about, whilst every now and then we passed two or three of our troopers with a dozen German prisoners in tow.

As we moved up the steep hill towards Chézy, we came across packs, rifles, and kit of all sorts flung away, broken-down waggons, more dead Germans, and, at last, on a whole convoy of smashed waggons, their contents mostly littered over the fields and road, and groups of our horsemen beaming with joy. The 3rd Cavalry Brigade had rounded up this convoy with their Horse Artillery, scuppered or bolted most of the escort, and captured the rest. Besides this, they had attacked a whole cavalry division and scattered it to the winds. Their first lot of prisoners numbered 348, and their second 172.

We halted near the convoy for our usual ten minutes, and examined it with much satisfaction. There were all sorts of things in the waggons—food and corn, to which I allowed our men to help themselves, for our horses were short of oats and our men of rations, and some of the tinned meats, "gulasch" and "blutwurst," were quite excellent and savoury, much more so than our everlasting bully beef. Other waggons were full of all sorts of loot—cases of liqueur and wine, musical instruments, household goods, clothing, bedding, &c., trinkets, clocks, ribbons, and an infinite variety of knick-knacks, many of which one would hardly have thought worth taking. But the German is a robber at heart, and takes everything he can lay his hands on. There was also a first-rate motor-car, damaged, by the side of the road, and in it were a General's orders and decorations, and 100 rifle cartridges (Mauser) with soft-nosed bullets. To make certain of this I kept one of the cartridges and gave it to Sir C. Fergusson. I think these were about the only things (besides food) which we took from the whole convoy, though many of the other things would have been well worth taking. The men were very good, and did not attempt even to leave the ranks till allowed by me to take the corn and food.

A short way on was the dirty village of Chézy, and here we found a heap of cavalry and many of the 3rd Division. So we branched off to the left in a frightfully heavy ten minutes' shower, and marched away to St Quentin—marked as a village, but really only a farmhouse in a big wood. As we approached the wood Headlam's guns began to shell it in order to clear it of possible hostile troops, and continued until I sent back to say that the shells were preventing us from going on; then he eased off.

We halted near St Quentin for half an hour, and then came a message to say we were to billet there. It was impossible to billet a whole brigade in one farmhouse, and that none too large. So we told off different fields for the battalions to bivouac in, and occupied the farm ourselves, first sending out cyclists to clear the wood, as there were rumoured to be parties of Uhlans in it.

It was a grubby farm with not much water, but we made the best of it, and settled down for the night. A starved-looking priest was also sleeping there, and he told me his story.

He and a fellow-priest, an Aumônier from Paris, had been on their way to join the French unit to which they had been allotted for ambulance purposes, when they fell into German hands and were treated as prisoners. The priest was robbed by a sergeant of 1200 francs, his sole possessions, and both he and the Aumônier were beaten black and blue, forced to march carrying German knapsacks, and kept practically without food or drink. After three days the Aumônier succumbed to ill usage and died, and the priest only managed to escape because his captors were themselves on the run.

The priest also told us that there were some British prisoners in the column, and that the Germans behaved perfectly brutally to them, kicking them, starving them, and forcing them to carry German knapsacks.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 9th September 1914

 The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 9th.

Next morning we moved off at 7.30 and went viâ Saacy across the Marne to Merz, and thence up an extremely steep and bad road through the woods. It was a very hot day, and as there was no prospect of getting the transport up I left it behind at Merz, meaning to send it round another way when the road was clear. Firing was going on to the left front, and we halted for a council of war with the Divisional Staff, which was immediately in front of us.

The 14th Brigade was apparently hung up somewhere to our left front and couldn't get on, so we were sent on to help them take the high ground towards the Montreuil road. They were, we were told, already in possession of Hill 189; but when we emerged from the woods there was a Prussian battery on the hill. There did not seem to be any men with it, as far as we could see, and it was not firing. But we made a good target, and not more than a battalion had got clear when the "deserted" battery opened fire and lobbed a shell or two into the Bedfords and Cheshires.

They only lost a man or two killed and wounded; but a Howitzer battery with us, which was already on the lookout, came into action at once and speedily silenced the German guns for the time being.

Bols, who was leading, reported that the hill was attackable—it was really only a rise in the ground,—and after a reconnaissance I gladly issued orders. So the Norfolks and Dorsets proceeded to attack in proper form, whilst I sent the Bedfords round to the right towards Bézu to try and take the rise in flank. The 14th Brigade were meanwhile somewhere on the left, and we got touch with them after a time; but they could not get forward, as a number of big guns from much further off kept up a heavy fire, and there was a body of infantry hidden somewhere as well, to judge from the number of bullets that came over and into us.

That was rather a trying afternoon. Dorsets and Norfolks were held up about half a mile from Hill 189, and I went forward to Bézu with the Bedfords to try to get them on to the flank. Thorpe and his company got forward into a wood, but lost a number of men in getting there; and the lie of the ground did not seem to justify my sending many more to help him, as the space up to the wood was swept by a heavy fire. Just about this time poor Roe of the Dorsets, who had taken some of his company into this wood, was shot through the head—as was also George, one of his subalterns.

Meanwhile those horrible big guns from somewhere near Sablonnières were giving us a lot of trouble, and knocked out also several of the Cheshires, who had been sent by the Divisional Commander towards the left to support the 14th Brigade. The latter—(I went to see Rolt, the Brigadier, but there was little we could combine)—seemed at one moment to be a little unhappy, as they were enfiladed from Chanoust on their left; but the Dorsets had worked carefully forward on their tummies, and with the Norfolks held a low ridge well to the front, whence, though they could not get forward themselves, they could do the enemy a good deal of damage. So the 14th Brigade stuck it out, and we kept up the game till dusk, when we dug ourselves in a little further back and posted outposts.

I might add that when Weatherby and I went forward to see Bols and Ballard, Weatherby had bad luck, for his horse was shot in the body whilst he was leading him, and died that night.

Meanwhile the 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division was on our right, under Shaw, and although his Lincolns, or some of them, had got into the wood, and we tried a combined movement, they also got hung up there and we could not get on.

The Germans certainly fought this rear-guard action remarkably well. We did not know at the time that it was a rear-guard action, for we thought a whole corps might be occupying a strong position here and intending to fight next day. But no more fighting took place that night, and by next morning they had cleared out.

The Germans had evidently only just left Bézu, for on my going to see M'Cracken (commanding 7th Brigade) there, I found him in a house with the remains of an unfinished (German) meal, including many half-empty bottles, on the table. Then we managed to get some supper in another house, and were nearly turned out of it by a subaltern of General Hamilton's staff, who, seeing a light in the window, thought he would save himself the trouble of hunting for another house for his General, and announced that it was required for the 3rd Divisional Staff. I was inclined to demur at first and sit tight; but the ever-useful Saint André, to save trouble, hurried out and secured another house for us; as a matter of fact it was better and bigger than the first one, and would have suited the Divisional Staff much better.

After issuing orders for to-morrow's attack or march we flung ourselves down dead tired, and were awakened ten minutes afterwards by a summons from General Hamilton to come and see him at once, as he was going to hold a pow-wow on the situation. I found him in a tiny, poky little attic, and there we waited for three-quarters of an hour whilst Rolt was being sent for. Two hours did this pow-wow last, and we had to write and issue fresh orders in consequence. Just as they had been sent out and we had flung ourselves down again for a little sleep, an entirely new set of orders arrived from the 5th Division, and for the third time we had to think out and write and distribute a fresh set of orders. By that time it was 12.30 A.M., and we were to move at 3.45 A.M., which meant getting up at 2.30. Two hours broken sleep that night was all we got—and lucky to get it.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 8th September 1914

 

The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 8th.

Next morning we had, before starting, the unpleasant duty to perform of detailing a firing-party to execute a deserter. I forget what regiment he belonged to (not in our brigade), but he had had rotten luck from his point of view. He had cleared out and managed to get hold of some civilian clothes, and, having lost himself, had asked the way of a gamekeeper he met. The gamekeeper happened to be an Englishman, and what was more, an old soldier, and he promptly gave him up to the authorities as a deserter.

We left at 7.25 A.M. as the last brigade in the Division. I might mention here that, for billeting, the ground for the Division was divided into "Brigade Areas," each area to hold not only an Infantry Brigade but one or two Artillery Brigades, a Field Ambulance, and generally a company of R.E., and occasionally some other odds and ends, such as Divisional Ammunition Column, Train, Irish Horse, Cyclists, &c., and for all these we had to find billets. The troops billeted in these areas varied in composition nearly every day. It was very hard work for the Staff Captain (Moulton-Barrett), whose proper job would normally have been limited to the 15th Brigade; but he and Saint André, who both worked like niggers, somehow always managed to do it satisfactorily. It would have turned my hair grey, I know, to stuff away a conflicting crowd of troops of different arms into an area which was always too small for them. But M.-B. would sit calmly on his horse amid the clamour of inexperienced subalterns and grasping N.C.O.'s, and allot the farms and streets in such a way that they always managed to get in somehow—though occasionally I expect the conditions were not those of perfect comfort. We were lucky in the weather, however, and many times troops bivouacked in the open in comparative ease when a rainy night would have caused them extreme discomfort.

It was not always easy to find billets even for our own Brigade Staff, for though we were a small unit, comparatively, we had a good number of horses and half a dozen vehicles; and besides this, we had to have a decent room or place for the Signal section, and rig up a wire for them to work in connection with the Divisional Headquarters or other troops. In this Cadell was excellent, and we rarely had a breakdown. Sometimes, of course, we were too far off to get a wire fixed in time, and then we had recourse to our Signal "push-bikists"—no motor cyclists being on our establishment. The Signal companies, by the way, had only been completely organized a month or two before the war, and what we should have done without them passes my imagination, for they were quite invaluable, and most excellently organized and trained.

And sometimes when, after all this work, we had settled down into billets for the night, an order would come to move on at once. Fresh orders had then hurriedly to be written, and despatched by the orderly of each unit (who was attached to our headquarters) to his respective unit, giving the time at which the head of the unit was to pass a given point on the road so as to dovetail into its place in the column in the dark, and all with reference to what we were going to do, whether the artillery or part of it was to be in front or in rear, what rations were to be carried, arrangements for supply, position of the transport in the column, compositions of the advanced or rear-guard, &c., &c. It sounds very complicated, and still more so when you have to fit in not only your own brigade but all the miscellaneous troops of your "Brigade Area." But Weatherby had reduced this to a fine art, and, after all, we had had heaps of practice at it; so orders were short and to the point, and issued in really an extraordinarily short time.

To return. Our march that day was through pretty country, with fighting always going on just ahead of us or on both flanks, but we were never actually engaged. At Doue we halted for an hour or so, and then received orders to push out a battalion to hold the high ground in front. But when we had got there we only found a panorama stretching out all round, dotted with troops, and our guns firing from all sorts of unseen hiding-places, with the enemy well on the run in front of us. Soon the order came for us to push on, and we moved forward through Mauroy, down a steep hill into St Cyr and St Ouen, pretty little villages in a cleft in the ground, across the Petit Morin river and up a beastly steep hill on the other side.

Then came a "pow-wow" in a stiff shower of rain, and on again slowly over the plateau, in a curious position, for there was a big fight going on amid some burning villages in the plain far on our left—I don't know what Division—probably the 4th—and a smaller fight parallel to us on the right, not two miles off; and we were marching calmly along the road in column.

Then a longer halt, whilst we got closer touch with the 14th Brigade on our right. It was a tangled fight there; for when we pushed forward some cyclists in that direction they were unintentionally fired on by the East Surrey; and the latter, who had rounded up and taken about 100 of the enemy prisoners, mostly cavalry, were just resting whilst they counted them, when some of our own guns lobbed some shells right into the crowd, and five German officers and about fifty of the prisoners escaped in the confusion.

A little farther on, near Charnesseuil, we got orders to billet for the night there, and the Brigade Headquarters moved on to Montapeine cross-roads. Here there was a good deal of confusion, stray units of several divisions trying to find their friends, and the cross-roads blocked by a small body of sixty-three German prisoners. We got the place cleared at last, and the Staff occupied an untidy, dirty, unfurnished house and grounds at the corner. It had been used by the enemy the night before, and they had luckily brought great masses of straw into the house.

I stowed away the prisoners in the stables—great big, docile, sheepish-looking men of the Garde-Schützen-Bataillon (2nd and 4th companies) and machine-gun battery attached. I talked to several of them, and they said that the battalion had lost very heavily and there were hardly any officers left. One of the latter, Fritz Wrede by name, I found wounded and lying on the straw in a dark room in the basement. Other wounded were being brought in here, and all complained of feeling very cold, although the evening was quite warm. I made some men heap straw on them, which was an improvement—but I believe that wounded always do feel cold.

Wrede had a bullet through the shoulder, but was not bad, so I got him to sign a paper to say he would not try to escape—otherwise he might have made trouble. Our men, as usual, were more than kind to the prisoners, and insisted on giving them their own bread and jam—though the Germans had already been given a lot of biscuit. I remember being struck with the extreme mild-seemingness of all the prisoners, and wondering how such men could have been capable of such frightful brutalities as they had been in Belgium—they looked and behaved as if they wouldn't have hurt a fly.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 7th September 1914

 

The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 7th.

We awoke with the sun, feeling—I speak for myself—rather touzled and chippy, and waited a long time for the orders to proceed. The cooks' waggon turned up with the Quartermaster-Sergeant and breakfast—and still we didn't move. Eventually we fell in and moved off at noon—a hot day again—very hot, in fact, as we strung along on a narrow road in the deep and wooded valley. Very pretty country it was; but what impressed itself still more on me was the gift of some most super-excellent "William" pears by a farmer's wife in a tiny village nestling in the depths—real joy on that thirsty day.

There were still some Uhlans left in the woods, and I turned a couple of Norfolk companies off the road to drive them out. Some of our artillery had also heard of them, and a Horse battery dropped a few shells into the wood to expedite matters; but I regret to say the only bag, as far as we could tell, was one of our own men killed and another wounded by them.

At Mouroux we halted for a time, and then pushed on, rather late, to Boissy le Châtel—the delay being caused by the motor-bikist carrying orders to us missing, by some mischance, our Headquarters altogether—though we were within a few hundred yards of Divisional Headquarters, and had reported our whereabouts—and going on several miles to look for us.

We were now again the advanced guard of the Division, and had to find outposts for it a mile beyond. It is always rather a grind having to ride round the outposts after a long day, but one can't sleep in peace till one is satisfied that one's front is properly protected, so it has to be done; and as the Brigade Staff is limited, the Staff Captain allotting the billets, and the Brigade Major seeing that all the troops arrive safely, one generally has to do these little excursions by oneself. On the road I came across Hubert Gough, commanding the 3rd Cavalry Brigade, in a motor, cheery as ever, with his cavalry somewhere on our right flank keeping touch with us. We put up in a little deserted château in Boissy le Châtel, but it was overcrowded with trees and bushes and very stuffy.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 6th September 1914

 

The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 6th.

What had happened, or why we were suddenly to turn against the enemy after ten days of retreat, we could not conceive; but the fact was there, and the difference in the spirits of the men was enormous. They marched twice as well, whistling and singing, back through Tournans and on to Villeneuve. Here we had orders to halt and feed, but the halt did not last long, for a summons to the 5th Division Headquarters (in a hot and stuffy little pothouse) arrived at 1 P.M., and by 2 we were marching on through the Forêt de Crécy to Mortcerf. It was frightfully hot and dusty, and the track through the forest was not easy to find. Although I had issued stringent orders about the rear of one unit always dropping a guide for the next unit (if not in sight) at any cross-roads we came to, something went astray this time, and half the Brigade turned up at one end of the village of Mortcerf, whilst the other half came in at the other. We were on advanced guard at the time, and so increasing the frontage like this did no harm; but it caused rather a complication in the billets we proceeded to allot.

A delightful little village it was, and the Maire, in whose house we put up, was extremely kind; but by the time I had covered the front with outposts and ridden back, very hot and tired, General Smith Dorrien turned up, and announced that we were to push on in an hour. He was, by the way, very complimentary about the way in which the 15th Brigade had behaved all through, and cast dewdrops upon us with both hands. It was very pleasant, but I was rather taken aback, for I genuinely did not think that we had done anything particularly glorious in the retreat. However, it appeared that the authorities considered that the Brigade was extremely well disciplined and well in hand—for which the praise was due to the C.O.'s and not to me—and were accordingly well pleased.

So we made a hurried little meal at the Maire's house, and Madame threw us delicious pears from a first-floor window as we rode away.

We had not far to go in the dusk, only two or three miles on to the turning which led to La Celle. The Dorsets were pushed on into and beyond La Celle, in rather complicated country—for there was a deep valley and a twisting road beyond; but the few Uhlans in the village bolted as they entered it, and no further disturbances occurred in our front. On our right, however, there was heavy firing, for the 3rd Division had come across a good many of the enemy at Faremoutiers, and at 9.30, and again at 11.30, general actions seemed to be developing. But they died away, and we slept more or less peacefully on a stubble field with a few sheaves of straw to keep us warm. Perpetual messengers, however, kept on arriving with orders and queries all night long, and our sleep was a broken one.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 5th September 1914

 

The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 5th.

The Divisional Orders for the march were complicated, and comprised marching in two columns from different points and meeting about ten miles off. Also, the collecting of my outposts and moving to a left flank was complicated. But it went off all right, and we marched gaily along in the cool night and effected the junction at Villeneuve. Thence on through a big wood with a network of rides, where the two officers who were acting as guides in front went hopelessly astray and took the wrong turning. The leading battalion was, however, very shortly extricated and put on the right road, and after passing Tournans we halted, after a sixteen-mile march, at a magnificent château near Gagny (Château de la Monture) at 7.30 A.M.

Here we made ourselves extremely comfortable in the best bedrooms of M. Boquet, of the Assurance Maritime, Havre, and sent him a letter expressing our best thanks. Up to 6 P.M. we slept peacefully, with no orders to disturb us, but then they arrived and gave us great joy, for we were to march at 5 A.M., not southwards, but northwards again.

Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - 25th September 1914

 

The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade

August 1914 to March 1915

BY 

Brigadier-General COUNT GLEICHEN,

(now Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen),
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.

Sept. 25th.

Rolt explained his position and the places which the different battalions were occupying; but beyond an occasional bombardment of Missy and losses from German snipers in trees and elsewhere, he had not suffered overmuch. However, he and his Brigade were not sorry to leave, and leave they did at 4 A.M. next morning. The awkward part of it was that one could never go out in the daytime, as the road in front of the farm leading towards Missy was under perpetual rifle-fire directly any one showed up, and several holes had been made in the farmyard gate, windows, and walls, not to mention bits of the roof taken off by shrapnel. Why they did not shell the farm more I cannot conceive. Perhaps the enemy thought it was deserted, but whilst we were there no shells fell within a couple of hundred yards of it, though some were pitched well over it, and exploded 500 yards to the rear.

I had gone to see the Dorsets and 13th Brigade in Missy on the evening before, and found them fairly well ensconced. The Dorsets were in Missy itself, with their headquarters in a really nice house with carpets and big shaded lamps, and a cellar full of excellent wine, and a nice garden all complete, and charming bedrooms—infinitely superior to our pig-sty of a farm. I seriously thought of turning them out and taking the house for the Brigade Staff, especially as our farm was not at all central but quite on the left of our line; but all our cable-lines converged on to the farm, and, in addition, the Dorset house would have been impossible to get out of for further control if Missy were shelled; so I settled to remain at the farm. The 13th Brigade—i.e., K.O.Y.L.I., and West Kents, were further on, the K.O.Y.L.I., on the eastern outskirts, and the West Kents in trenches beyond them. The K.O.S.B.'s were still further south-eastwards, and reached back to the river, but there were only one or two weak companies of them.

Before dawn, and just after Rolt had left, I went to inspect the Bedfords' position, which was close to Rolt's farm, in the wood in front of it, and a beastly position it was. The wood was very damp, and when one tried to dig trenches one struck water only a foot below ground, so most of the line had to be made of breastworks. There were German trenches within 20 yards of our advanced trench there, and ours was remarkably badly situated and liable to be rushed at a moment's notice; yet it was impossible from the lie of the ground to dig suitable ones unless we retired altogether for 200 yards, which of course was out of the question. So we chanced it and stuck it out, and luckily were never attacked there. The men suffered there from damp and cold, I'm afraid, for every morning a wet and freezing fog arose in the wood, although the weather was clear elsewhere; but it could not be helped.