Brave Battalion (34 page)

When the crisis passed, 1
^st
Division returned, but the corps remained stretched thin and not until five British divisions relieved the Canadians in the first week of May was the situation corrected. The Canadian Corps went into a rest period that lasted until July 15. The interval was spent honing skills, with emphasis placed on “infiltration,” where the “attacking troops were trained to work around strong points and machine-gun nests that were putting up stiff resistance; to find the line of least resistance, push in, and isolate garrisons still fighting. More distant objectives, involving the capture of ground from the enemy's outpost zones back to his gun lines and beyond, were also allotted to battalions.

“These were tactics which called for an exceptional degree of daring and resources in the infantry. Front-line men had not only to close with the enemy in circumstances of comparative isolation—that is, without the moral support of the old close order formation—but they had to think and co-operate skillfully with the other troops engaged alongside of them; there could be no more blind charging. ‘Cannon fodder' had to give place to a high type of disciplined manhood, if attacks, under the new methods, were to carry the day in the face of a determined enemy.”
³²

The Canadian Scottish diligently studied the new syllabus and then applied it for real in a front-line tour toward the end of July by conducting raids with ever greater numbers of men involved. On August 4, the battalion boarded a train and headed north. The men had no idea of their destination, but knew they must be headed again toward a great battle. It would come in just four days at a place called Amiens.

- AUGUST 8-20, 1918 -

The failed March offensive did not deter the Germans from continuing to pursue a decisive victory over ensuing months. Gen. Erich Ludendorff recognized that Germany was running out of time, for soon the Allies would have thousands more troops available. Although the United States had declared war against Germany on April 6, 1917, its army had been too small, poorly trained, and ill-equipped to have any impact on the war. A year after the declaration the Americans had managed to deploy only nine divisions to Europe, but the pace of its military buildup was quickening and before 1918 was out a powerful expeditionary force would be ready for combat. The numerical superiority the Germans currently enjoyed on the Western Front would be reversed.

Ludendorff did not believe his armies could triumph once they were outnumbered. On April 9, therefore, he had ordered a new offensive in Flanders. By month's end the Allies had contained it, but Passchendaele, Messines, Ploegsteert, Wytschaete, Merville, and Mount Kemmel were all in Germans hands. Only Ypres and a fragment of the salient remained in Allied hands. At the end of May the Germans struck in the Champagne region north of Reims with an advance aimed at Paris that came within 30 miles—so close the Germans could see the Eiffel Tower—before being stopped by a French commitment of its entire reserve of twenty-seven divisions aided by two green American divisions.

“Again and again our thoughts returned to the idea of an offensive in Flanders,” Ludendorff wrote, but clearly the Allies—there now being American divisions employed there alongside the British and French—were too strong. Hoping to leech off some of this strength, Ludendorff launched a two-pronged offensive from Reims on July 15. Prepared, the French Fourth Army dealt the eastern prong a sharp defeat. But the German Seventh Army, constituting the western prong, managed to get six divisions across the Marne between Château Thierry and Epernay, creating a salient eight miles wide by four miles deep. The French counterattacked in force on July 18, and by August 7, had driven the Germans back on the defensive behind the Vesle River to the west of Reims. Ludendorff's “great gamble” had ended with the loss of a million irreplaceable troops either killed, wounded, or lost as prisoners. Of Germany's 201 divisions on the Western Front, 106 were now unfit for battle. In the British sector were fifty-three British and Commonwealth divisions with thirty-six on the front lines. Also supporting the British as a reserve were four American divisions and one Portuguese. The French had eighty-four divisions up front—seven of these being American and three British. The French-sector reserve numbered thirty-nine divisions, of which seven were American, one British, and two Italian.
¹

On May 8, sixty-seven-year-old Gen. Ferdinand Foch had been appointed commander in chief of the Allied armies to ensure operations on the Western Front were fully co-ordinated. Credited with the French victories on the Marne in 1914 that had stemmed the initial invasion, the “Hero of the Marne” was offensively minded, but could only remain on the defensive until the German offensives ran their course. By July, however, Foch saw opportunity for a limited British offensive “astride the Somme, in an easterly direction, from the Luce and Ancre [rivers], with the object of disengaging Amiens.”
²
The French would also undertake a series of small offensives. “How long these different operations will take and how far they will carry us cannot be determined now,” Foch told Field Marshal Douglas Haig. “Nevertheless, if the results at which they aim are attained before too late in the year, we can from now onwards look forward to an offensive to be launched at the end of the summer or during the autumn of such importance as will increase our advantages and leave no respite to the enemy.”
³

Amiens was ideal for offensive operations, its rolling plateau hardened now by the summer's sun and unchurned by shelling. Already the Australian Corps had launched a limited attack at the beginning of July that utilized the tactics first employed at Cambrai of advancing a massed tank force in concert with a surprise artillery bombardment. The town of Hamel had been retaken and Lt.-Gen. John Monash, the Australian Corps commander, had since vocally advocated a larger-scale operation.

Foch agreed, formally ordering on July 28 an offensive by the British Fourth Army and French First Army that would advance “as far as possible in the direction of Roye,” almost 15 miles behind German lines. Gen. Henry Rawlinson's Fourth Army was really the British Fifth Army rebuilt after its near destruction during the German March offensive. Rawlinson had just two corps, the British III and the Australian Corps, so Haig sent him the Canadian Corps. On July 30 the Canadians travelled in great secrecy by train and bus to a concentration area southwest of Amiens. Without surprise the offensive would surely fail. Considering the Canadians among B.E.F.'s best shock troops, the Germans carefully tracked their whereabouts in expectation that wherever Canadian Corps appeared an offensive might follow. To throw the Germans off the scent Allied intelligence leaked falsified reports that placed Canadian Corps near Ypres.
⁴

Dawn of August 7 found 100,000 Canadians with all their guns and transport hidden in the cover of dense forests little more than three miles from the German front lines. Overhead, Royal Air Force spotter planes scanned the woods to make sure no sign of the troops could be seen while bombers droned loudly over the German front to mask the sounds of 604 massing tanks. Fourth Army's 1,386 field guns were each assigned to cover a mere 29 yards of frontage, while each of the 684 heavies would concentrate on 59 yards. The French brought to the front another 780 field and 826 heavy or super-heavy guns.

Rawlinson followed the script devised at Cambrai. From left to right he lined up III Corps, the Australians, and then the Canadians, who rubbed shoulders with the French. The artillery barrage would begin twenty minutes before the troops went over the top. It would fall to the tanks to tear holes in the wire for the infantry to pass through, and tank fire would also have to suppress German machine guns. As the British III Corps had been badly mauled in the spring, Rawlinson was counting on the tenacity of the Australians and Canadians to carry the day. The plan called for an advance in two stages, with the final objective being a line running from Harbonnières on the left past Cayeux in the centre, to just north of Mézières on the right—distances ranging from 4 to 6 miles. Once the final objective was secured, the Cavalry Corps would plunge through to capture the old Outer Amiens Defence Line, 3 to 4 miles farther along. Zero Hour was set for 0420 on August 8.

Lt.-Gen. Arthur Currie put the 2
^nd
Division on the left, the 1
^st
in the centre, and the 3
^rd
to the right. In 1
^st
Division's sector, Maj.-Gen. Archie Macdonell had 3
^rd
Brigade forward and its commander, Brig. George Tuxford, assigned the right flank to 16
^th
Battalion, the centre to 13
^th
, and the left to 14
^th
.
⁵
Once 3
^rd
Brigade reached the Green Line, as the objective for the first bound was designated, 1
^st
Brigade would leapfrog forward and be passed in turn by 2
^nd
Brigade. Everything, Tuxford told his battalion commanders, depended on speed.
⁶

Although generally favourable ground for tanks, several tributaries of the Somme and Ancre rivers had cut narrow valleys in Fourth Army's sector. The Canadian Corps sector was particularly affected. Although the knee-deep Luce was only 30 feet wide, over the centuries it had carved out a 200-foot-deep by 200-foot-wide gully that was heavily wooded and wound in the direction of the advance while various little tributaries had created gullies that cut across the Canadian frontage.

Throughout the day preceding the attack, the Canadian Scottish lay hidden in wait. Lt.-Col. Cyrus Peck permitted only small reconnaissance parties sent forward one after the other to inspect the offensive terrain. To prevent the Germans from realizing a buildup of forces had taken place, the Australian Corps had extended its lines so that it occupied the frontage assigned to the Canadians. Come the evening the Australians would slip to the side as the Canadians moved up. The 16
^th
Battalion would relieve 49
^th
Australian Battalion. So shrouded in secrecy was the planned offensive that when officers from one Can Scot reconnaissance party quizzed the Australians they “knew nothing of the intended offensive, or the fact that tens of thousands of Canadians lay under cover a few hundred yards behind.… No direct questions affecting the operation could therefore be asked of its officers, a rather unsatisfactory state of affairs, as the jumping-off area bordered the outpost line, which was 800 yards ahead of the main trench and inaccessible by day.”
⁷

Just before midnight, the Canadian Scottish assembled by companies to receive battle supplies and rations. What would normally be a quickly executed process dragged on for hours. In order to prevent the noise of large parties coming forward from tipping the Germans to the fact something was up, the Canadian battalions were all supplied by small parties coming up one after the other. Zero Hour was almost upon them before the process was complete. Peck had anxiously watched the supplies being doled out and finally accepted that his troops would not be ready “until the last minute.”
⁸

Their kit, though, was lighter than ever before. To emphasize speed the heavy packs were left behind. Instead they slung small, light haversacks on their backs. But stuffed with 170 rounds, four grenades, forty-eight hours' worth of iron rations, water bottles, and a ground sheet, the haversacks bulged to capacity. The Lewis gun crews crammed fifty magazines into pouches and still worried about running dry.
⁹
But the troops were assured that the twenty-two tanks supporting the brigade, seven of which would advance with the Can Scots, would provide them with a mobile source of supply. Each tank was loaded with 21,000 bullets and an array of shovels, picks, water canisters, and grenades.

Peck told his officers that the Zero Hour barrage would “be laid down 200 yards in front of the jumping off position, remaining there three minutes. It will then lift 100 yards every two minutes for 2 lifts, 100 yards every three minutes for 8 lifts and then 100 yards every 4 minutes until the limit of the barrage is reached. M.Gs. will barrage after this. One mobile brigade of field artillery will move forward with the attack. A protective barrage of smoke will be placed on Green Line during the halt.”
¹⁰

After issuing these orders, Peck chanced into Padre Frederick Scott, who had come to join 16
^th
Battalion in going over the top. “If anything happens to me don't make any fuss over me; just say a few words over me in a shell hole,” Peck told his friend. “You will be all right, Colonel. There will be no shell hole for you,” Scott replied firmly.
¹¹