I.—FIRST PHASE

We reach a confused tract of warfare, punctuated, as ever, by noble deeds, through which we must strike a careful trail.

In an Order, issued by Major-General Cameron, Commanding the 49th Division, and reviewing the period from April 10th to May 5th, 1918, upon which we are now to enter, the General drew attention to the fact that his Division had not been fighting as a whole. ‘In some ways it is sad,’ he wrote; ‘but the fact that we have been separated for a great part of the time has in no way diminished the credit of your achievements. Every part of the Division in its own sphere of action has done exceptionally well, and every part has earned high praise from Commanders outside the Division.’

Partly, then, the confusion arises from the distribution of the Troops to outside Commands. But the mere fact of this distribution is itself evidence to the difficulty of responsible leadership in those days; and, before we attempt to draw a table of the activities of the Division in place and time during the period covered by that Order, a brief survey may be made from a more general point of view. ‘Every part earned high praise from Commanders outside the Division’: we are concerned, then, with outside Commands and with a wider outlook than the 49th Division’s.

We are concerned with Ludendorff’s point of view, so far as we are at liberty to re-construct it. On a previous page we tried to show how the German mind in March was divided between two strategic plans, one of which pointed to Paris and the other to the Channel ports. Both were pursued in turn, and even to some extent simultaneously, and either, if successful, would have inflicted an almost irreparable blow on the Allied forces of France and Britain. The point is, that neither quite succeeded: the union of those Forces under Foch and the response of the British Armies to Haig’s summons on April 13th, ‘With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each of us must fight to the end,’ were to prove incalculably more effective than all the odds combined against them. But the initiative in April was with the Germans. So soon as one plan miscarried, or was left standing, or was conveniently broken off, they were able to call the other plan, and to make a new push with fresh Troops. The initiative was theirs, and the superiority was theirs, in numbers and (by the offensive) in surprise. ‘The possibility of a German attack North of the La Bassée Canal had been brought to my notice,’ wrote Sir Douglas Haig, ‘prior to the 21st March. Indications that preparations for a hostile attack in this sector were nearing completion had been observed in the first days of April.’[112] But no observations, however accurate, and no prevision, however acute, could organize fifty-eight Divisions to fight battles in two sectors at one time. Forty of the fifty-eight Divisions had been engaged in the Second Battle of the Somme, and ‘the steps which I could take,’ he continued, ‘to meet a danger which I could foresee were limited by the fact that, though the enemy’s progress on the Somme had for the time being been stayed, ... [he] was in a position to take immediate advantage of any weakening of my forces in that area.’[113] And to initiative, numbers and surprise was added the fortune of the weather. The early spring had been ‘unseasonably fine,’ and the low-lying ground in the Lys Valley dried up in time for the Germans to anticipate a relief of the Portuguese, who were holding the front to the South of Armentières, and who had been in the line for several months. A shattering German assault fell suddenly (April 9th) on this thin-spread Portuguese Division, already overdue for relief; and ‘no blame,’ we instinctively know, ‘can be attached to inexperienced troops who gave way to so terrific a blow, which would have been formidable to any soldiers in the world.’[114]

Such, then, in the broadest outline, was the strategic situation, when Ludendorff, leading the Kaiser-schlacht, which had opened on March 21st, left the fate of Amiens hanging in the precarious balance to which it had been fought in ten days, and sought to add terror to exhaustion by renewing his thrust at the Channel ports.

When this underlying principle is seized, and Sir Douglas Haig’s problem is imagined, what ensued may briefly be recounted to the date of the engagement of units of the 49th. We are not now to consider the biggest aspect: the point of view of the War Council at Versailles. The facts that Americans were coming, and that British reinforcements would be poured in, did not illumine the darkness in Flanders in the middle of the second week of April. Nor is it immediately to the point, that, when Sir Frederick Maurice saw Marshal Foch on April 16th, and the Germans seemed ‘well on the road to Calais and Boulogne, ... Foch had himself measured accurately both the German strength and the endurance of the British Army.... “The battle in Flanders is practically over,” he said; “Haig will not need any more troops from me.” Not even the loss of Kemmel a few days later ruffled him. He was right, and the battle in Flanders ended in a complete repulse of the second German effort to break through.’[115] No. We should thank heaven, fasting, for the Marshal’s masterly imperturbability. It won the war, among many claimants for that boon. But the great leader himself would admit, that his estimate of ‘the endurance of the British Army’ had been calculated to the last ounce of its worn strength, and that ‘the loss of Kemmel a few days later’ (on April 25th, to be precise) imposed a well-nigh intolerable strain.

We are to contract our horizon on those days: to forget, what were then invisible, the dots and spots on the Atlantic, which marked the precious troopships bringing help from the New World to the Old; to forget the set will of Paris, raided from the air by night and day, and nearly within gunshot as well; to forget the last effort of England, and how, in a room at the War Office, all was ready to call out the Volunteers, the final arm of Home Defence; and we are to try to piece together events in Flanders from early morning on April 9th, when the brave Portuguese were overrun, till the confidence of the French Marshal was justified at the end of the battle on May 8th. Throughout that month, we are to remember the superb generalship of Sir Douglas Haig, splendidly backed as he was by Generals Sir H. Horne, Commanding the First, and Sir Herbert Plumer, Commanding the Second Army. Through all ranks of the heroic forces which they commanded, whether tired veterans from the hills and valleys of the Somme, or new drafts of young soldiery from home, and in all arms of the Service, one spirit prevailed: to obey, at whatever personal cost, the supreme call of their Commander-in-Chief, which was issued on the fourth day of the Flanders battle, and the pith of which we quoted above. The enemy’s objects, they were told, ‘are to separate us from the French, to take the Channel ports, and destroy the British Army.’ He had, as yet, ‘made little progress towards his goals.’ Time, they were reminded, was on their side, not necessarily as individuals but as Englishmen: ‘Victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest.’ And then followed the stern command: ‘There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.’

So we come to the 49th Division, which has been in the Ypres area all that year, performing necessary and at times exacting duties on a front which was never immune from Artillery attacks and sudden raids, and to its response, through its various units, to the call to stand fast and die.

The German advance on April 9th between Armentières and the La Bassée Canal had bulged in the line by that evening to a distance of three to five miles. Next day, the attack was extended North of Armentières to Wytschaete and Hollebeke, and the enemy gains were extended. The 34th Division in Armentières, though not yet attacked on their own front, had their two flanks dangerously exposed, and were withdrawn in a North-westerly direction, reaching a stopping-place at Nieppe. If we follow this action a little further, we shall be able to fit in more intelligibly the narrative of the 49th Division. On April 11th the advance was pressed in the direction of Nieppe and Neuve Église, and in the afternoon there was fierce fighting about Messines, now in enemy occupation. These losses pinched the 34th out of their temporary foothold at Nieppe. The withdrawal on this day did not cease in that particular area till about a thousand yards East of Neuve Église and Wulverghem, involving the abandonment of Hill 63. Next day, an assault in great strength was launched due westwards between Merville and Steenwerk, and affected our line below Bailleul, which looks down through Nieppe to Armentières. On the same day and the following (the 13th) Neuve Église was hotly involved, and fell before midnight on the 14th. Another twenty-four hours and Bailleul had suffered the same fate. There was now a very perilous salient in this stricken northerly region, and on the night of April 15th/16th the decision was taken to withdraw from the Passchendaele Ridge, the scene of so much bloodshed in the previous summer; and, consequently, to close in nearer to Ypres. These retirements, as may be seen on a map, brought the Kemmel sector into prominence, and the German capture on April 16th of Meteren and Wytschaete, at the two extremes of that front, was developed next morning (17th) into a determined attack on Kemmel Hill.

Recalling now from page 46 above, and from an earlier April 17th, the geographical significance of Ypres, noting that this significance was not diminished by the improvement in German heavy Artillery, as shown by the guns trained on Paris, and observing that a sentimental value had accrued to Ypres in those middle years almost bigger than its geographical significance, we are now better qualified to measure the anxiety of the British Command during the crucial week, April 9th to 16th, 1918. Would Ypres fall? Would the Channel ports follow, with all their accumulated stores, and G.H.Q. be driven to the sea? Could the hard-pressed Troops of the Second Army hold out to perform their allotted task, since ‘the constant and severe fighting in the Lys battle front, following so closely on the tremendous struggle South of Arras, had placed a very serious strain upon the British forces’? ‘Many British divisions,’ continued their Commander, ‘had taken part in the northern and southern battles, while others had been engaged almost continuously from the outset of the German offensive.’[116] We know the answer to these questions. It is time now to see in one area how those answers were dictated.

Take, first, in the 49th Division, the 147th Infantry Brigade, which moved on the night of April 9th/10th to join the 34th near Armentières with the following Group Details: ‘A’ Company of the Machine Gun Corps, a Light Trench Mortar Battery, a Field Company (57) Royal Engineers, a Field Ambulance (1/2nd West Riding), and No. 3 Company, 49th Divisional Train. On April 10th, the 1/4th Duke of Wellington’s were engaged at Erquinghem, covering a crossing of the Lys. That night, the Brigade was defending Nieppe, in support of the 34th Division in its withdrawal from Armentières. On the night of the 11th/12th, they carried out a skilful rearguard action, covering a further withdrawal. From the 12th to 14th, they maintained their position, despite repeated attacks, in the southern outskirts of Bailleul. A few hours’ rest, and on the evening of the 15th the Brigade was again in the front line, in consequence of Bailleul’s fall. On April 16th and 17th, they were successfully holding their own on the slopes to the North-west of Bailleul, and taking heavy toll of the enemy. ‘In this action,’ we read, ‘all units of the Brigade Group greatly distinguished themselves.’ On the 19th, they moved into the 34th Divisional Reserve, and two days later they rejoined their own Division in and around Poperinghe. Thus, this Group is inserted into the fighting which we summarized just now; and, before taking the other Groups in order, or expanding the narrative of this, we may fitly interpolate the praises which it won from Major-General C. L. Nicholson, Commanding the 34th Division:

Or these praises bestowed on a gallant Regiment may be tested by the record of one man: No. 24066, Pte. Arthur Poulter, of the 1/4th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding), who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his action on April 10th, commemorated in the following terms in the London Gazette of June 28th:

A Group, similarly constituted, of the 148th Infantry Brigade was sent on April 10th to Neuve Église, which was plainly threatened on that day, under orders to move at half an hour’s notice. The same night, its 1/5th York and Lancasters became attached to the 74th Brigade (25th Division) where it was drawn into the fighting near Steenwerk, to the South of Nieppe, and rendered valuable service, remaining in attachment until April 16th. Next day (11th), in the morning, the 1/4th Battalion of the same Regiment was detailed to counter-attack on a line West of Ploegsteert Wood, where the rest of the 25th Division was engaged. Hill 63 is situated immediately North of the North-west corner of that Wood, and Neuve Église lies about two miles to its North-west. We shall have to come back to the gallant record of this unit, and of the 1/4th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and of others in the Group, during the struggle for Neuve Église, which lasted till the night of April 14th/15th. It is a record of desperate valour against overwhelming odds; and, when, weary but undaunted, the Brigade was withdrawn to Poperinghe on April 19th, it had thoroughly earned the encomium of Major-General Sir E. G. T. Bainbridge, Commanding the 25th Division:

Similar praises were bestowed by the Brigadier-General Commanding the 74th Brigade (25th Division) on the Battalion of the 148th Brigade, which had been under his orders. He placed on record,

We come, last in this summary, to the 146th Infantry Brigade (49th Division).

On April 10th, it was in line in the Ypres salient, under the orders of the 21st Division.

Next day, very early in the morning, its 1/7th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, became attached to the 62nd Infantry Brigade, which had been detached from the 21st Division and placed under the orders of the 9th (Scottish) Division, commanded by Major-General G. H. Tudor. That Division (the 9th), we may note, in anticipatory compensation for its terrible losses in this area in April, was to have the honour on July 19th of capturing Meteren with great éclat. This reversal of misfortune lay in the future. To-day the situation was very grave, and the part played by the 1/7th West Yorkshires, in attachment to the attached Brigade, may best be told, in advance of the more detailed narrative, in the Report of the Brigadier-General Commanding the 62nd Brigade, which was transmitted by General Tudor to General Cameron (49th Division). It was dated April 20th and ran as follows:—

Major-General Cameron, in communicating this message to the Brigadier of the 146th, added the expression of his ‘great hope, that you will find that you have sufficient old hands remaining to carry on the spirit which has animated the 146th Brigade, and infuse it into the new drafts which I hope to see joining you soon, in order that the name of the 146th Brigade may live for ever. Please let your Battalions know that I feel deeply proud of them.’

The Battalion had rejoined its own unit on April 18th. Its casualties between the 11th and 16th had been eleven Officers and four hundred and forty-two other ranks.

Noting that Parret Camp, referred to in the above message, lay a mile and a quarter to the North-west of Kemmel, and that the 1/7th West Yorkshires were supposed to be already tired out when they marched there in high fettle in the early hours of April 11th, we return on that date to the rest of the 146th Brigade. The Group units were established in the defences of Kemmel Hill, which, though not immediately in the front line, formed a position, as we are aware, of supreme prospective importance. The Command was entrusted to Lt.-Col. H. D. Bousfield, of the West Yorkshire Regiment, a supernumerary Lieutenant-Colonel at the time, who came under the orders of the 49th Division up to April 13th, of the 19th Division on that date, and, on April 19th, of the 28th French Infantry Division. To the final assault on the Hill under its French Commander we shall presently come back.

This outline-sketch of the activities of units of the 49th Division in their places in the Valley of the Lys may be supplemented with one or two details, before we pass to the second and worse phase of the battle in that area of fire.

Take, for instance, the struggle about Neuve Église, in which the 148th Brigade bore itself so gallantly, in the grim days, April 12th to 14th. A glance at the map will show that Neuve Église lies almost midway between Messines and Steenwerk, but (in a narrow area, of course) some way to the West of either. Thus, its capture, besides re-acting on the hard-pressed 34th Division below, would enable the Germans to round back on the 19th above, where Major-General G. D. Jeffreys would be caught in the rear. Accordingly, here, as much as anywhere (we should say ‘worse than elsewhere,’ but no comparison could be sustained), the command to hold out to the last man was imperative and binding. And right well this Brigade of the 49th supported the valorous efforts of various bodies of brave troops, including a mixed lot of a thousand, whom Brigadier-General Wyatt, formerly Commanding the 1/4th York and Lancs., had collected from anywhere to do everything. General Wyatt’s old Battalion and a sister-Battalion in the Brigade, the 1/4th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, had already done stiff service in the defence of Neuve Église, where, on April 13th, the assault broke out again with added fierceness. At 7 a.m. on that day, the enemy entered the village. At 8-30, counter-attacks were launched of their own initiative by all available units of the Brigade, and were pushed with courage and determination. In this action, Major Jackson, M.C. (of the 458th Field Company, Royal Engineers), Captain J. F. Wortley, M.C., and Lieut. Gifford, M.C., (both of the 1/4th York and Lancs.), were specially mentioned in the Brigadier’s message to the Battalion. A big bag of prisoners was made, and the village was cleared of Germans. We are told that, about this time (the afternoon of April 13th), the Troops were still cheerful and in good heart, but that the continuous strain and want of sleep were beginning to tell. Unfortunately, they told in vain. On the night of 13th/14th, the enemy came on again, and forced a way into the village. Captain Wortley was killed in an attempt to establish a line about the Church, though that line was subsequently held by small parties of the 4th York and Lancs. and of the 9th Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Highlanders). We read that ‘these plucky men refused to obey the order to withdraw, and were eventually cut off completely by the enemy, and there is little doubt that they died fighting to the last.’ To lose Neuve Église under such conditions was to win imperishable renown.

Or take a difficult little operation by two Companies of the 1/5th West Yorkshires (146th Brigade), which was not less difficult because it proved successful. On the night of April 15th/16th, a partial withdrawal, as we saw above, was made perforce in the Ypres salient. These two Companies, under the Command of Major Foxton, were left to hold posts in the Corps line across the Menin Road about three miles East of Ypres. They did their job very thoroughly. By moving dummy carrying parties about the tracks, and keeping six men in the front line, right away till broad noon on that day, and by other manœuvres, they deceived the enemy so completely that no approach to our old front line was attempted till 3-30 p.m.

We need not expand the account of the exploits of the 1/7th West Yorkshires during their hard days of service with the 62nd Brigade. We know by now that a situation could be ‘saved,’ in the expressive word endorsed by General Tudor, only by endurance of a kind corresponding to the call of the British Commander-in-Chief on the 13th. We prefer to conclude on a quieter note. These few, casual illustrations of a week’s fighting, as desperate as it was heroic, for the ultimate safety of the Channel ports, would convey a false impression if they painted no scene but ‘death or glory.’ It was hard going all the time, and the conditions told, as we have seen. But the grit of the Yorkshiremen was not unequal to the incessant demands. We read nearly always of a cheerful spirit, of a line which seemed ‘good’ by comparison with other lines which they had known worse, of refreshing snatches of rest, of the welcome arrival of the limbered wagons with rations, and similar incidents of the kind, which helped to ease what had to be endured. We read, too, in an Officer’s diary, such a characteristic entry as the following: ‘Next morning, there was light shelling, but about 1-30 p.m. the Boche started a heavy bombardment, and attacked at 3 o’clock from the South-west. This was his usual time-table all through these operations.’ (The italics are ours). And, again, a page or two later on: ‘The Boche programme continued: a heavy bombardment 1 p.m.—3 p.m.’ They had taken the measure of their Boche. It was all very frightful and terrible, and good men were falling every hour; but frightfulness ‘according to plan,’ as Macbeth discovered in his day, contains an antiseptic element, which is related to the sense of humour in the British soldier. If it is too much to say that this sense would always enhearten him, at least it stood him in good stead, and even inspired him with good hope, when Hollbeke, Messines, Ploegsteert, Neuve Église and Bailleul had been left behind the German front, and the salient round Ypres had been retracted, and the storm was about to burst on Kemmel Hill.

II.—SECOND PHASE

There were four or five more or less calm days in the sector North of the Lys. The battle-fury surged a little South on a front from Merville to Givenchy, extending along the La Bassée Canal, and it broke out afresh in the Somme Valley, on the slopes just East of Amiens, where the village of Villers Bretonneux changed hands twice in two days (April 24th, 25th), remaining the second time in British possession. The interval in the Northern area, though used for rest and re-organization, so far as circumstances allowed, was less an interval than a breathing-space, in which both sides were awaiting the call of ‘Time!’ A renewed attack was obviously impending. The enemy would want to exploit his gains, and to make that push for Ypres and Dunkirk, which had haunted his day-dreams for four years. The blow fell on April 25th, at about 5 o’clock in the morning, when a very violent bombardment along the whole line from Hollbeke to Bailleul announced the commencement of the second phase of the sanguinary Battle of the Lys.

If we look once more at the familiar map, we shall see the Allied line stretching from North-east to South-west. British troops were holding the line from a point on the Ypres-Commines Canal just above St. Eloi to a point about a mile below Wytschaete. The 21st Division was on the Canal, with a composite Brigade of the 39th; the 9th Division held the Wytschaete Ridge, with three units of the 21st and 49th (chiefly the 146th Infantry Brigade). The rest of the line was French. Immediately below our 9th Division was the 28th French Division, in Command of the Kemmel Defences; next below, at Dranoutre, came the 154th, in face of an enemy assault from Neuve Église. Then came the French 34th, and their 138th at St.-Jans-Cappel. Behind the line, two Brigades of our 49th (the 147th and 148th) were in Corps Reserve in and around Poperinghe, and one Brigade each of the 30th and 31st were located between Poperinghe and the front line. Our 25th Division was in Reserve, a little behind the two Brigades of the 49th.

Against these worn and weary Troops, so lately withdrawn from the positions from which they were now to be assailed, and so hardly re-organized or recruited, the enemy launched nine Divisions, ‘of which five were fresh Divisions and one other had been but lightly engaged.’[117] Their direct objective was Kemmel Hill, an important point of observation in that country of low-lying flats, and important, too, as a jumping-off place for Ypres; their subsidiary purpose was to separate the British from the French forces by a flanking movement below Wytschaete. Accordingly, the weight of the attack fell first on the French 28th and the British 9th Divisions, with the two Brigades attached to the latter. Dealing first, with the British sector, we are not surprised to learn, in Sir A. Conan Doyle’s temperate narrative, that ‘the 9th Division in the north was forced to fall back upon the line of La Clytte [behind Kemmel], after enduring heavy losses in a combat lasting nine hours, during which they fought with their usual tenacity, as did the 64th and 146th Brigades, who fought beside them.’[118] It is rather the details which surprise us, and help to make this ‘tenacity’ real. At 2-30 a.m. on April 25th, this Brigade of our 49th Division had to endure a two hours’ bombardment with heavy gas-shells and smoke. It was followed by half an hour of the greatest intensity with High Explosives. At 5 o’clock, in the inevitable mist, which enhanced the difficulty of the defence, the Infantry attack was launched, but was held on the Brigade front. At 6-45, a Company of the 1/6th West Yorkshires was reported to be fighting a rearguard action under Captain Sanders, V.C. This gallant Officer was seen rallying his men from the top of a pill-box, and, though wounded, he continued firing with his revolver at point blank range until he fell. No news came from the front line Companies, but all the evidence goes to show that they fought and died at their posts. We need not follow the retirement of what was left of these Battalions, first, to Vierstraat Cross Roads and then to Ouderdom. The evidence of casualties is more pertinent. In the West Yorkshire Regiment, on these two days (April 25th, 26th),[119] the 1/5th’s casualties amounted to eighteen Officers and five hundred and fifty-seven other ranks; the 1/6th’s to twenty-two and four hundred and sixty-one, and the 1/7th’s to five and one hundred and thirty-nine respectively. The Trench Mortar Battery of the Brigade was engaged on Kemmel Hill during this battle, and none of those in action returned. We may add here, that, at Ouderdom on April 27th, some Brigade remnants were formed into a composite Battalion, under Major R. Clough, of the 1/6th West Yorkshires, and were placed in Divisional Reserve at the call of the 147th Brigade, the rest being withdrawn into a back area.

Turning now to the action on the French front, and to the German assault on Kemmel Hill,[120] and observing that St. Eloi and Dranoutre, to the East and West of the position, fell at an early hour into the enemy’s hands, we have to record that by 10 a.m. on April 25th Kemmel Village and Hill had both been lost. It will be recalled from our summary of this fighting that Lt.-Col. Bousfield, Commanding some units of the 49th Division (146th Brigade) had been left in Command on Kemmel Hill on April 11th, and handed over to the French Divisional Commander on the 19th. He and his fellow Yorkshiremen continued the defence till the last moment with conspicuous courage and devotion. On April 26th, at 3 a.m., counter-attacks were made by the French and British in combination, in which Troops from the 49th Division, attached to the 25th, again bore themselves gallantly. But the position then was irretrievable, at least in its main aspects, and the line in the salient was further re-adjusted during the night of April 26th/27th.

This brief account of a big event (the darkest hour of the Flemish battle, it has been called) might be extended into the local fighting which marked the course of the next few days. But an extract from one Officer’s diary may suffice as a sample of what was happening: we have trusted his judgment before, and his first and last sentences are decisive. He writes on April 28th:

This conclusion agrees with Sir F. Maurice’s: ‘The gain of Kemmel proved to be the enemy’s undoing’; and with that of all competent authorities, reviewing the battles of March and April, 1918, with the knowledge acquired since the war was ended. Ludendorff could not exploit his successes, for in no sector was any of them complete. The failure to break through in the north ‘was hardly less important in its effect on the campaign than that which the Germans had suffered on March 28th, and these two triumphs of our defence over the enemy’s attack went far in preparation for the victories which came later in the year.’[121]

So, the darkest hour gave place to the dawn.

Congratulatory messages, couched in the highest terms, reached the 49th Division in its time of merited relief.

General Sir Herbert Plumer, Commanding the Second Army, conveyed, on April 29th, the following message from Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Commander-in-Chief of the British Armies:

On May 2nd, the IXth Corps Commander, Lieut.-General Sir A. Hamilton Gordon, sent the following message:

Throughout this period (April 10th to May 2nd), the 49th Divisional Artillery had been serving with the 21st Division, and they received from Major-General Campbell the following letter of thanks:

We may add here that the 49th Division were no whit less appreciative of the gallant and efficient help which they had received from C.R.A., 9th Division, in Command of the following Artillery Brigades: 50th, 51st, 148th, 156th and 162nd R.F.A. Brigades and 30th Heavy Artillery Brigade.

D.D.M.S., XXIInd Corps, wrote to A.D.M.S., 49th Division, to congratulate him on ‘the extraordinarily efficient manner in which casualties have been evacuated from your area under the recent trying conditions. I have never seen the work more speedily and successfully carried out’; and truly Major-General Cameron might say to his ‘Comrades of the 49th Division’:

The name of Ypres is inscribed in English history: like Khartoum, Kandahar, Trafalgar, and other names in older times, it has been adopted in the title of a British Commander. It belongs, by the same token, to the 49th Division, whom, twice in the course of the War, in the Spring of 1915 and of 1918, we have seen defending its trenches or fighting in the open for its safety, and to whom a Memorial is dedicated on its site. They had well earned the praises bestowed upon them. To them, with very gallant comrades, including our Belgian Allies, fell the part of guarding the approaches to the vital line of the Channel ports. On April 9th, 1918, when the course of the Kaiser-schlacht was diverted from the Southern to the Northern front, Sir Herbert Plumer’s Second Army formed our last line of defence in Flanders. That line held at the end of April, after three weeks’ shattering blows, unsurpassed in impetus and severity; and, throughout those weeks, the 49th were in the line.