It has never been my intention to describe in detail all that happened across the British front on the 21st March, or the days that followed.  My main interest was my grandfather’s battalion, however I will give a brief overview of what happened on the days following the German attack.

The largest withdrawal was within General Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army, much of that precipitated by the early fall back of XVIII Corps on the extreme right wing of the army.

General Gough

The right flank of the British front was held by XVIII Corps, on the right of Gough’s Fifth Army, they had been hit badly in the attack, and the trenches they had taken over from the French were of poor quality.  They were going to have to pull back. I have taken the following from the Official History.

“General Gough had already, on the afternoon of the 21st, discussed with his corps commanders the general policy to be followed in view of the smallness of the reserves and the unlikelihood of French aid materializing in sufficient strength for some days. His opinion was that if the Fifth Army fought to a finish on the ground on which it stood, there would be nothing to prevent the enemy breaking through on a broad front.  A gradual and ordered retirement until reinforcements arrived appeared to be the only means of avoiding such a calamity.  So at 6.30 am on the 22nd he ordered that every opportunity should be taken to counter-attack the Germans, who would no doubt be assembling under cover of the fog; and at 10.45 am, in order that there might be no misunderstanding, he put his policy into writing in a message which ran as follows:-

In the event of serious hostile attack corps will fight rear-guard actions back to forward line of Rear Zone [Green Line], and if necessary to rear line of Rear Zone.  Most important that corps should keep close touch with each other and carry out retirement in complete cooperation with each other and corps belonging to Armies on flanks.”

Corps commanders seem to have been left to themselves to decide whether or not an enemy attack would be deemed serious enough to warrant withdrawal, but they should report the action they took. Fifth Army diary has a record of an order timed at 9.57 pm on the 22nd part of which states that “... XVIII Corps. to retire to the Somme and hold the HAM defences ...” but there seems to be some confusion in the record as to when the pull back was ordered/initiated. It seems however that the divisional commanders were aware of an order or an intention to retire early in the afternoon; “A defensive flank was formed and the enemy was held off until at 2 pm the retirement ordered by the XVIII Corps was begun.” [Official History] “Thus by 5 pm the whole of the XVIII Corps .... had retired from the front of the Battle Zone to the Green Line.”

The pull back however would only be temporary, they would have to go further back; the Green Line was a very poor defensive position (it has been mentioned elsewhere that the preparations on Fifth Army front were not adequate), losses had been heavy and the pull back had actually extended the length of the Corps front that had to be defended.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the withdrawal by Third Army on the 22nd was that 15th Division had to pull back from Monchy-le-Preux which had been so hard fought over during the fighting outside Arras in 1917: “The retirement of the 15th Division (XVII Corps) from Monchy was particularly distasteful to the men, as many of them had fought in the division when it advanced in this vicinity in 1917.”  During the night of the 22nd 6th Division was relieved by the 41st and my Grandfather’s battalion was pulled out, but by then he was a prisoner of the Germans.  By the 26th the crisis was over, but by then Fifth Army had pulled back a number of miles before the front stabilized again and the Allies were then able to resume the advance.  One of the casualties of the German offensive was General Gough, he was blamed for the way that Fifth Army had ‘collapsed’ in the face of the attack, Haig had also offered his own resignation if it was felt necessary that it should be accepted, it wasn’t.  After the war Haig is reputed to have told Lt. Col. Beddington “ ... after considerable thought I decided that public opinion at home, whether right or wrong, demanded a scapegoat, and that the only possible ones were Hubert or me. I was conceited enough to think that the army could not spare me.”

It is worth adding a few more extracts from the Official History regarding the fall back of Fifth Army, and particularly XVIII Corps. “On the whole Fifth Army may be said to have done remarkably well on the 22nd in delaying the enemy advance; for the Germans had reinforced their front line by divisions originally in their second line, whilst the divisions of the Fifth Army, much reduced by the fighting on the 21st, worn by fatigue and want of sleep, with smaller numbers and fewer machine guns than on the first day, had a longer line to defend. The troops remained well in hand, and the few cases of panic and hurried retirement from the partial cover of shallow trenches under heavy gun fire had been easily dealt with by the voices and example of regimental officers.  Unfortunately General Gough’s declaration of general strategy seems to have been regarded by one of his corps commanders as an invitation to retire, as in a normal rear-guard action, when the enemy showed deployed strength. On the 22nd March 1918 it was not a case of gaining time by forcing an enemy advancing in column to deploy: he was already deployed and the time which it was essential to gain could only be obtained by fighting, at the longest possible range, with the fullest use of artillery.  The troops fought magnificently, but, owing to habits acquired in trench warfare, at ranges which were far too short.

In a retirement of the magnitude and nature in question, the general policy should have been to hold on during daylight and slip away a couple of miles or so to a new position during the night, leaving only a screen behind.  It was simply courting disaster to hold on and be found at daybreak in the position occupied the night before, already registered by the enemy artillery.”

The Official History is quite critical of the way in which XVIII Corps pulled back, especially because the scale of its withdrawal gave problems to XIX Corps on their left. “In the circumstances a retirement more or less in line, in view of there being practically no reserves to regain a lost position by counter-attacks, was eminently desirable.  The long bound of the XVIII Corps from the front of the Battle Zone through the Green Line to the Somme, on the supposed instructions of higher authority [italics are mine J Dillon] nearly proved disastrous:...”

“All divisions and corps were very sensitive about their flanks, and, remembering perhaps the fate of the battalions in the Forward Zone on the previous day, thought it necessary to order retirements whenever an enemy movement threatened to penetrate past them.  A fear of envelopment is well justified in battalions and small units, but less so in large formations, and still less in an array of corps and divisions stretching over fifty miles. For the large formations ought to have reserves available to send against the flanks of an enemy who has penetrated past a flank, and so perhaps into a pocket. To echelon to the rear the forces on the wings was a normal precaution even in peace time; but turning back a defensive flank, so often adopted at this period, merely widened the gap, and with troops in trenches, their heads very little above ground level, such gaps could rarely be covered by fire.”

The Fifth Army, and its commander General Gough were given a difficult assignment; they were on the right wing of the army with the French on their right; the junction between armies is always a weak point, especially so when those armies are of different nationalities. Gough had a very long front to defend, and as has been mentioned elsewhere, reserves were few and far between so that the men were tired from hard fighting on the 21st.  The trenches they had taken over from the French were in poor condition, and the Green Line hardly existed.  The early and precipitate withdrawal of XVIII Corps was like a swinging door for the German advance, but it was finally held.