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German Offensive of 21st March 1918, Cambrai-St. Quentin front The momentous German counter-offensive known as 'Operation Michael' - the so-called 'Kaiser's Battle' - was launched along a 50-mile front at dawn on 21st March 1918. A massive preliminary bombardment (from 0505h in the northern sector, 0440h elsewhere) preceded the onslaught of massed infantry led by storm troops. The fighting in the Bullecourt Salient was probably more severe than at any other part of the front. The casualties of the 59th Division were heavier than any other British division that day... Similarly, the German 73rd (Hanoverian) and 41st (East Prussian) Infantry Regiments - both attacking this sector - had some of the highest regimental casualties reported. Immediately left of 59th Division, Croisilles and the River Sensée was to mark the northern limit of the main German attack. This sector was held by 34th Division; in line on the right was 102nd Brigade, consisting of 22nd, 23rd and 25th Northumberland Fusiliers - originally Tyneside Scottish and Tyneside Irish battalions of the New Army. Distributed around the sector, in strong-points or 'keeps', were heavy weapons: trench mortars, and the Vickers guns of the divisional battalion of the Machine Gun Corps. In one of these gun teams was Pte. 13143 William Gawthorpe of Ossett (formerly Pte. 25613, KOYLI).
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 William Gawthorpe |
Preliminary Bombardment
There were seven separate phases in Oberst 'Breakthrough' Bruchmüller's bombardment plan. For the first twenty minutes every gun and mortar in the bombardment force of artillery (this excluded the field guns attached to the infantry units) was to fire in what the Germans called 'general surprise fire'. After this the mortars dropped out of the bombardment temporarily, saving themselves for a later phase and leaving the guns and howitzers to continue the shelling. The main bombardment would be fired for five hours.
"It happened during my turn 'on duty' in the company position. The captain and the other subalterns would be asleep. I was going round inspecting the posts and just happened to be standing on the fire-step, with my head just over the parapet, looking out over No Man's Land. Then I saw this colossal flash of light. As far as I could see from left to right was lit up by it I heard nothing for a few seconds and, for a moment, I wondered what it was. I think I just managed to hear the gunfire itself before the explosions as the shells arrived all around us... The shells, I should think they were five-point-nines, were exploding in a line at intervals of fifteen yards or so, but they were just a little short. We sat down in the bottom of the trench and, for some time, we were between a succession of shells which continued to fall in the same places either side of us. We were quite safe between the two bursts and didn't suffer any casualties, but we were soon covered with mud."
(Second Lieutenant H. V. Crees, 22nd Northumberland Fusiliers, quoted by Martin Middlebrook, 'The Kaiser's Battle', (1978) p.148)
Defence in 34th Division area
The two front-line battalions had been pressed hard all morning, but the Germans do not seem to have advanced far at this point and the battalion in the Battle Zone did not suffer a frontal assault. The best witness available here is an unusual one. Captain H. H. Davies was the Brigade Intelligence Officer and had started the day at brigade headquarters.
"The battalions normally sent in situation reports before breakfast but we had heard nothing that morning. We stood around Brigade H.Q. in a sunken road; it was foggy and noisy and we had no idea what was happening. We had a little conference and the brigadier decided that someone ought to go up to the front, see what was happening, and report back. I, as Intelligence Officer, was chosen to go. I and my groom set off on horseback. I don't know how we ever got there. I had a wonderful horse and he cleared barbed wire and empty trenches - he was taking me, I wasn't taking him. We never saw a soul.
We managed to get almost to the three Battalion H.Q.s, which were all together, when a shell landed just a few yards away and I was hit by a piece of shell in my shoulder. They bandaged me up at one of the Battalion H.Q.s; everyone was on the alert waiting for the Bosche to present themselves. We expected them at any moment. They realised that I wasn't in a fit state to go back, so they sent another officer on my horse. I heard later that the horse was killed under him, the officer was thrown into a shell hole and very badly gassed. I wasn't wounded seriously, in fact I was just numb and I didn't really know I had been injured.
I went up to the front line then - it was the old German Hindenburg Line - and I spent the next few hours helping to carry wounded and dead down into the palatial dugouts that the Germans had built. The slaughter had been terrific, all caused by shellfire. By afternoon, the weather was fine; the fog had lifted and we were waiting for something to happen, perhaps the Germans to attack from the front or our own supporting troops to come up from the rear.
While we were looking to the rear with our field glasses, watching some troops approaching, thinking it was our supports, we saw to our surprise that they were Germans, coming quite steadily in the open towards us. Those of our men who could do anything were getting fewer and fewer - we had been under shellfire all the time - so we collected all the arms we could, mostly Mills bombs, and concentrated ourselves into what we called a strongpoint in those days, so that we could make a last bid for it. We held on for about two hours. The Germans simply surrounded us and outnumbered us and, when all our bombs and ammunition had gone, we could do no more."
The Germans who had attacked Captain Davies's position from the rear were from units that had successfully broken the defence of the 59th Division and then turned north to attack the 34th Division from the flank. In the greater scheme of things, this was the start of the rolling-up of the British lines from the northern flank of the main German attack. But, because of the prolonged defence put up in their Battle Zone by the 59th Division and then by the Northumberland Fusiliers, the Germans did not make much progress northwards on this day.
Martin Middlebrook, 'The Kaiser's Battle', (1978) pp.234-236
 William Gawthorpe |
The official history describes thus the known fate of 101st Brigade: There had been a minor drama at the place where the battalion headquarters of the three Northumberland Fusilier battalions had been sited, close to each other in some dugouts in a reserve trench called Bunhill Row. The German advance from the flank soon surrounded Bunhill Row and, after burning all their papers, the battalion commanders and their staffs defended this position against fierce attack. At 5 p.m., Lieutenant-Colonel Spencer Acklom, of the 22nd Northumberlands, decided that he would attempt to fight his way out with the men of his headquarters. Colonel Acklom has been described as 'a small, slight, dapper, sandy-haired Scotsman, a typical Regular officer who stood out as a faultless soldier in our New Army battalion. I don't know how he put up with us'. Acklom's bid did not succeed and he was killed, although some of his men did manage to escape. At 5.30 p.m. the Germans delivered an ultimatum to the other two battalion commanders: if they did not surrender within three minutes, fire would be opened with some heavy mortars that had been brought up. As Bunhill Row now contained many wounded men, the other two Lieutenant-Colonels decided that they had no option but to surrender. 34th Division War Diary (PRO WO95/2436) contains the following forlorn entry: "Message. 9.5 p.m., by telephone from 101st Infantry Brigade: Assistant Adjutant 22nd Northumberland Fusiliers says Colonel Acklom killed. Two Battalion H.Q.s captured. Apart from a few stragglers, none of the 22nd left. Two other battalions cut off. Three companies of 25th Northumberland Fusiliers made a counter-attack; not heard of since." |