One of the finest fights the Canadian cavalry have been in was on Sunday morning on the Amiens-Roye road, between Goyencourt and Andechy. Two giant pill-boxes of heavy steel and cement stand sentinel over the main road and two cross-roads. They held up our infantry during the first Somme advance, and although the concussion from our heavy shells killed most of the garrisons, the forts were not destroyed. After the advance they were strengthened, and used for defence in the March Allied retirement. A hasty attempt to blow them up was unsuccessful.
Now, they once more frowned on the attacking troops. A force of Canadian cavalry divided into small parties and spread over tracks which led towards the redoubts. The German outposts were surprised and killed, and there seemed a chance of gaining the position by surprise. The garrison’s attention was taken up by minor fights on either side, when suddenly a party of the Canadian cavalry charged down the main road to within 50 yards of the little forts, when they encountered barbed wire and were held up. They had considerable losses in men and horses from machine-gun fire. The mounted men galloped to shelter, but the troopers who had been dismounted, sheltered by their dead horses and what cover they could get, went on cutting wire. With a semblance of a path cut through, the cavalry commander, in conjunction with some whippet Tanks, launched another party. Guided by their unmounted comrades, the troops got through the first wire and were right on top of the positions. They fired point-blank into the little forts, and then swerved to the right into the shelter of a small wood. There were a considerable number of casualties, but the German garrisons, panic-stricken at the closeness of the horsemen and afraid of being cut off, fled out through the rear trenches. The gaining of the position meant everything to the British and French infantry. It was one of the hardest fights Canadian cavalry have been in during this tremendous battle.
The motor machine-gunners have a new mascot in a fine Dachshund bitch they took from a dugout where she refused to leave the body of her master, an officer. She is suffering from shell shock and whines at every explosion, but the unit means to bring her back to Canada.
APRIL 15,1918
The following letter has been sent by the King to Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig:France, Aug 13, 1918. My dear Field Marshal, At the beginning of the fifth year of the war I again have had the pleasure of being with my Armies. Writing to you after my last visit on March 30, and alluding to the then necessary withdrawal from certain of our positions, I dwelt upon the splendid spirit of the troops during those days. Never since that time has that spirit faltered. We have seen it reasserting itself, and carrying to a triumphant issue the operations of the past week. I gratefully recognize that this high moral is in part the outcome of a hearty cooperation between the fighting Army and the great organizations behind the line; the transport service and those vast industries in which the men and women at home maintain supplies of food and munitions of war. I have heard on all sides of the inestimable value of the Machine-gun Corps in the fighting line. I have inspected detachments of the Royal Air Force. Its prowess and established superiority over the enemy make me proud to be General-in-Chief. I was able to see the work of the Tank Corps, and thus to form some slight idea of the part which this wondrous invention has played in the present victorious battle. I gained for the first time an insight into the duties of the Forestry Department. It was a pleasure to find from the admirable condition of the horses and mules of the units I inspected that the new Armies fully uphold our national reputation as good horse-masters. Of the hospitals, their skill, devotion, and untiring efforts, I cannot speak in too high praise. I realize with thankfulness all that is done for the the troops by the chaplains of the different denominations. I am glad to find that the Army Commanders appreciate the importance of the amusement and diversion of the troops in their leisure time. I return home with profound admiration of our Armies, convinced that, in union with those of the Allied nations, we shall, with God’s help, secure a victorious peace worthy of the noble sacrifices made — which must be a surety to coming generations against sufferings such as the present world has endured throughout these years of relentless war.
Believe me, very sincerely yours,
(Signed) GEORGE RI.
Believe me, very sincerely yours,
(Signed) GEORGE RI.
Mention has been made of the share of the cavalry in the battle. Perhaps their finest and most useful feat was the operation by which they cut out the village of Harbonnieres on the first day of the battle. Infantry had made two victorious pushes and had reached the second line objectives when two squadrons of one of our cavalry brigades went through to reconnoitre Harbonnieres and the vicinity. The report came back that the ground was excellent for cavalry operations, but the village itself was strongly held with machine-guns, and direct attack impossible. The commanding officer sent a regiment to make a wide circling movement round Harbonnieres on the north, with instructions to get, if possible, to Vauvillers, a mile and a half on the other side. The cavalry reached Vauvillers practically without loss and seized the village, capturing 700 prisoners, including a hospital complete with staff and patients. Harbonnieres, thus isolated, was easily reduced. While part of the force held Vauvillers against a counter-attack, one squadron pushed on eastwards, and there they captured a train with between 400 and 500 Saxon troops returning to the front from leave. What with some casualties, and the necessity of furnishing guards to take prisoners back, the squadron found itself reduced to an effective strength of about 30, but with this strength it charged and captured the wood east of Vauvillers, containing three whole batteries of German field guns. The wood, however, was encircled on the far side with wire entanglements, and the German machine-gunners pushed forward when they realized how small our force was. The wire prevented the cavalry from charging their assailants, and they were eventually ordered to fall back and abandon the guns they had captured. But, besides some other guns, the brigade had taken 1,100 prisoners and 70 artillery horses at a cost of moderate casualties to their own horses and men. The German horses taken are poor animals, mostly Russian ponies, and not equivalent to the British cavalry mount.
The old trenches and wires of 1916 make the ground very difficult for cavalry operations except along the high roads, but so long as the country was practicable the mounted troops did valuable service and showed all their traditional dash.
From the first morning of the battle it has been impossible to go near the front without being impressed by the enormous activity of our aeroplanes. There has been so much to tell that I have said little of the exploits of the Air Force, but in no former battle has their cooperation been on a grander scale or more valuable. You already know that our losses in machines on the first day were heavy. But it was the price which had to be paid for the immense share which aircraft bore in our success, and in view of the great number of machines employed the loss was not nearly as serious as it sounds.
Many of our airmen complained that the chief difficulty of the day was the avoidance of collision with our own machines, so thick were they in the air, and to me as I watched they suggested the traffic about the entrance to a busy hive of bees. The first work at dawn of the day of attack in which our airmen engaged was the bombing and machine-gunning of enemy aerodromes in rear of the front to prevent German machines from coming to observe our movements or take a share in the battle. They then turned their attention to the machine-gunning of troops and bombing and harassing of communications and roads blocked with the turmoil of panic-stricken troops and transport.
Especially they paid attention to the bridges over the Somme in the Peronne area. The immediate casualties they caused here were very great. The confusion and fear were even greater, and the current of the German flight turned southwards and dared not try to take the shortest road.
It was in carrying on this work that nearly all our losses were incurred. With characteristic audacity our aeroplanes flew very low to make sure of their aim in dropping bombs, and to use their guns. The whole line of the Somme and the neighbourhood of Peronne bristled with aircraft defences, and German fighting aeroplanes also hung above the region well behind their lines to pounce down on our bombing machines below them.
But only by degrees, from letters and statements of prisoners, shall we learn from German sources the full extent of the havoc which our flying men wrought that day, and how largely they contributed to the rout which enabled us to take so huge a haul of prisoners.
The official bulletins do not bring the story of the battle to the end of the day on which they are issued and there is, in consequence, a great deal of confusion in the chronology. On Thursday Sir Douglas Haig delivered an attack astride the Somme which achieved complete surprise between the Somme and the Luce and advanced a distance of seven or eight miles. North of the Somme and on the British right the progress was less rapid, the surprise less complete, and the fighting much harder. On Thursday night the enemy counter-attacked with great violence north of the Somme river and drove us out of Chipilly and the ridge to the north between it and Morlancourt, which had remained in German hands. Accordingly, on Friday noon the Allies reopened their attack on a wider front. North of the Somme British and American troops carried Morlancourt, and the ridge near Chipilly. The Germans thought that our object was to manoeuvre them out of Montdidier by an attack towards Chaulnes Junction. They were right, but it was only half our plan. They had not bargained for the sudden extension of our front to the south.
South of the Somme the territorial gains take us back very much to the line held before the opening of the Somme battle. North of the Somme the Germans hold very little more than the Bray triangle in advance of their old lines. They have lost nearly 30,000 prisoners, and an immense number of guns and stores. More important, they have been outmanoeuvred, and the field war which the Germans arrogantly assumed would work out more to their advantage than the old war of fixed positions is going in our favour, thanks to the unity of command, the establishment of which has been our greatest victory since the first Marne. If there are now signs that the Germans have recovered from their surprise and are concentrating troops for a counter-attack, that need not discourage us. The war in the West is going to be won by an accumulation of surprises, not by an obstinate persistence in offensives which have realized all the advantages of a surprise. If the enemy’s resistance begins to stiffen, that is an advertisement that it is time to straighten out our line and to regain the initiative by effecting a surprise at some new point.
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