R. S. H. Moody

“ What was true of England was true to an equal extent of the Colonies and oversea possessions, and the total number of soldiers raised, equipped and put into the firing line astonished ourselves almost as much as it dismayed the Germans, whose reckonings in this respect, as in all others, were completely at fault. The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, the Allied Regiment of Canadian Militia, was represented in several of those gallant battalions which sailed in such numbers from their shores and which did such glorious service in France and Flanders. ”

“ The second battle of Ypres has brought more obloquy and ill-fame on the German nation than even Marathon brought glory to the Athenians. It appears to have been well understood by scientific men that a noisome and poisonous gas could be so carried down wind that no man could breathe its suffocating fumes and live for long, and further that he must die in agony. ”

“ A cold statement that the Great War opened with a rapid retreat conveys the truth perhaps, but not all of it. Never in its long history of adventure and heroism had the British Army covered itself with such glory. There are retreats and retreats in war. When an army runs away that disaster is described under this term, and there seems to be no other correct military expression for what happened in Flanders and France in August, 1914, though, as a matter of fact, the little army sent from these shores was fighting one long continuous battle against overwhelming odds ”

“ There was a mirage, too, which interfered considerably with observation, but by the middle of the afternoon a much thinned-out firing line of Buffs, Black Watch and Seaforth Highlanders had got within about four hundred yards of the position. There were not enough men to keep up the pressure, however, and as there was every appearance of a counter-attack being contemplated, these British troops prepared a line about two hundred yards behind the place they had advanced to, and digging themselves in for the night prepared to resist any offensive on the part of the enemy. ”

“ Very few old officers of four years back, not even perhaps Colonel Eaton himself, could have thought it possible to manufacture and train a new fighting unit, even though that unit bore an ancient and honourable name, that could do the deeds that the 6th Buffs had done, not once or twice, but over and over again, and could earn at the last such an eulogy from an experienced general as is quoted above. ”

“ When the awakening began everybody, or nearly everybody, male or female, was anxious to do his or her share, and so it came to pass that, while the first fierce fighting was going on in Flanders and in France, Englishmen left in our island were enlisting, drilling, training and working with tremendous energy to equip and place in the field new and larger armies wherewith to fight out the quarrel on more even terms. The regular army, it was recognized, was but an advance guard, and it was for it to hold the field until the others had prepared themselves. ”

“ For the whole of this first day our men lay in the stifling tunnels, where the heat was tremendous and the odour most offensive. It was not till 8.30 the next night that the Buffs emerged from their unpleasant surroundings and pushed forward to relieve the 3rd Rifle Brigade in our new front line, which was, however, not as far off as had been planned; for the British advance had been halted by very heavy opposition from shells, machine guns and rifle fire. ”

“ Fifteen years before it had volunteered as a unit for active service, had been accepted and had proved its value. Now a much more weary and thankless task was required of the Special Reserve. It must accept thousands and thousands of recruits, equip them, train them and then, as soon as the men showed promise of [64] doing the battalion real credit, draft them off to the other Buffs at the seat of war, never to see them again unless, returning maimed or worn out, a few should drift back to Dover marked for “home service only.” Truly a heart-breaking job for the colonel and his staff. ”

“ The parade ground was a sea of mud, tents leaked and men were seldom dry and never very clean. On more than one occasion rows of tents were flooded out and whole companies marched out at night to find what shelter they could. The officers’ mess, the board-schools and even the station waiting-room were, at different times, used as billets for the soaked and shivering battalion. ”

“ How many of those men who route-marched with the Buffs at Aldershot in 1910 ever dreamed that in less than four years they would be fighting desperately alongside the old regiment (though, of course, a different battalion of it) in one of the greatest battles ever contested?
Sixty-one officers and nearly four thousand N.C.O.’s and men of the Queen’s Own served with this 3rd Battalion [289] during the war, and it was always commanded by one of the regiment’s own officers. ”

“ The 20th December saw the successful and skilfully arranged evacuation of Anzac and Suvla, the details for which were worked out by an old officer of the Buffs, Major-General Sir A. L. Lynden-Bell. Our Gallipoli army had fought most nobly. Whether the Peninsula ought ever to have been invaded at all or, being invaded, should have been abandoned, is not a question which can be discussed in this place. ”

“ A few men got through the wire, and then the enemy emerged from his dug-outs and commenced a tremendous fire of shells and machine-gun bullets. C and D Companies, which were in front, could do nothing but take cover in shell holes, wait and hope. The supporting A Company was just as badly off as C and D and could not move, and troops on the left fell back before a counter-attack, so that the Germans who made it were, in the nature of things and merely as a result of their success, now threatening the Buffs in rear and the battalion was in a tight place ”

“ It was quite remarkable not only in Kent, but throughout the country, how many young lads, thorough men in everything except years, struggled to get accepted as officers or soldiers. Many people in 1914 entertained the idea that the British race had deteriorated in manly qualities from the old stock, but the spirit shown at home, as well as the work done abroad, very conclusively proved the contrary.
The history of the 3rd Battalion during the momentous years was a monotonous one. ”

“ A man may be killed outright or he may be wounded, perhaps in such a way as to prevent his crawling or staggering away. Every effort is always made to retrieve and bring away the sufferers, and it is most distressing to think this cannot always be done. After the fight on the 3rd, the Buffs, together with the rest of the brigade, had a comparatively quiet time, but on the 7th 2nd Lieut. Bond left the trenches with a patrol. He reported on the German wire as being in bad condition, and he brought in five wounded men who had been lying out, poor fellows, ever since the early morning of the 3rd. ”

“ In all or nearly all foreign armies the battalions of a regiment are parts of the same tactical unit, but this does not obtain in our Army. The nature of our military duties causes the necessity of one battalion being abroad while the other remains at home, and it is almost unheard of that two battalions should serve together. There are old and retired Buffs who remember the meeting of the 1st and 2nd Battalions at Singapore about the year 1885. ”

“ On the 8th April our artillery bombardment on Vimy Ridge was very active and continuous, and reached its maximum about 5.30 a.m. the following day, which was to the battalion a more exciting one than can well be imagined by those who have never seen the like; for it falls to the lot of few soldiers to observe any fighting—that is to say, fighting not in their very immediate vicinity: the Canadians were attacking, and our men could tell by the way our barrage was creeping steadily forward that they were gaining their objective. ”

“ The most wonderful fact of the early days of the war was the way that Kitchener’s appeal for recruits was answered. Thousands and thousands of quiet, peaceable citizens, who had never dreamed of anything to do with soldiering, much less of getting into uniform and themselves going off to fight, men from every rank of life, now thronged and jostled each other at the recruiting offices. They took [7] long railway journeys at their own expense, or walked miles if they had no money, for the pleasure of standing, often for days, in queues waiting their turn to enlist. ”

“ Before trying to follow the history of any particular unit it is, of course, necessary to bear in mind the military proceedings as a whole. Most people have a general idea of what took place in the different theatres of war, but events are apt to be forgotten, and it may be as well before describing any particular operations to remind the reader how it came about that such operations became necessary. ”

“ Genuine hard work and honest efforts on the part of all to make bricks with so very little straw. It is easier to collect heroes for the defence of their country than to arm, clothe and equip them; and the number of men got very far in advance of the amount of necessaries for them. A new battalion at this period was not a pretty sight. A very ugly and shoddy suit of blue was doled [70] out to the soldier, with a civilian greatcoat and generally a dummy rifle, and with this turn-out he did real strenuous drill and training. ”

“ The defensive area or belt was divided into the forward, the battle and the rear zones, and each of these was carefully chosen; but there was a tremendous amount of work to be done in the way of preparing the ground to be defended, as well as the construction of roads, railway lines and so on. The men, too, required much, training in defensive tactics. The whole military art is not taught in a few months, nor is a man an educated soldier when he can take his part in a route march or a field day. ”

“ Whatever could be made of the existing British forces, however, could never suffice to meet the great emergency. Huge new armies must be formed, trained and, what was still more difficult, equipped to go direct to the seat of war; and so our island became for the first time in its history one vast training camp, and every man that was a man and young enough turned his hand to war. ”

“ St Quentin itself is commanded to the west and south by high ground; the Hindenburg Line ran just outside this town to the canal at Bellenglise. Holnon village lies in a hollow commanded by Round and Manchester Hills, which latter height lies in the area that was allotted to the French. From the east edge of the wood the ground is a bare slope rising to the high ground overlooking St Quentin. At the highest point and opposite where the centre of the 6th Division was to attack was a network of trenches called the Quadrilateral, which could be reinforced unseen from the enemy’s side of the hill. ”

“ Sir Douglas Haig foresaw that the enemy was likely to throw his principal weight south of Arras, and most likely about the point of juncture of the French and English forces, which at this time was about the River Oise. He therefore very greatly strengthened this threatened area, and so it came about that the 7th Battalion with its comrades were carried off in haste to the Liez area on the 26th February, and set energetically to work in what was termed the battle zone, in contradistinction to the forward zone, in which the first shock of the oncoming Teuton armies was to be received. ”

“ The usual instruction in trench warfare began on the 5th October, and Major Trueman took over command on the 7th.
On the 18th of this month the battalion passed to the 17th Infantry Brigade and two days afterwards took over the usual trench duty on its own account, and began its long acquaintance with the filthy life such duty meant: a life of danger, stinks, rats, lice, discomfort and misery such as no Englishman had ever conceived [99] it possible that he should one day be called on to endure. ”

“ The regular instruction in this branch of warfare commenced on the 11th August, 1915, and company by company went up in the firing line at Carnoy from that date until all had had the experience, and, of course, the battalion very soon had trenches of its own to be responsible for. It [110] was, as the 2nd Battalion so often was, so unfortunate at first as to take over from French troops. This is not pleasant, as these have not the same ideas on the subject of sanitation as we have, and they do not bury their dead in a satisfactory manner when the burial is of necessity an informal ceremony. ”

“ The Germans evacuated the city of Tournai only on the 9th November, and the very next day it was entered by the good King Albert of the Belgians, who was accompanied by his Queen. They came to congratulate their faithful people on their release from German thraldom which had oppressed them for so long.
The next day was the 11th November and at eleven o’clock in the morning there was no more war in France nor Flanders, and the Yeoman of Kent had done his [400] work even if it was not done on horseback. The 10th Battalion was, on receipt of the great news, in the Faubourg de Lille. ”

“ After many German offensives west of Soissons and about Ypres, the enemy appears to have definitely made up his mind to relinquish the idea of seizing Calais and the Channel ports as hopeless, and by forcing the French lines at Verdun to revert to his original plan of reaching Paris—this time by another route. It was on the 21st February that this great battle commenced, and the hostile lines swayed to and fro for days and weeks as the tremendous struggle continued. Men died by thousands and thousands, but never were our allies broken ”

“ For over three hundred and fifty years the historic name and high traditions of the Buffs have been in the keeping of the generations of men who followed each other in one or other of the so-called Regular battalions; during the Great War eight battalions, including two Territorial, took the field, and six others served at home. No less than thirty-two thousand men passed through the ranks of the regiment, of whom over five thousand gave their lives for their King and Country. ”