The spell of good weather that set in during the latter part of September did not last, and rain fell almost continuously from the 6th October onwards. On the 9th the Division was ordered to concentrate in the area of the XVIII. Corps, and under the most depressing conditions it was transferred to the vicinity of Brake Camp, the infantry arriving late on the night of the 9th. For many of the men there was no shelter from the rain, and bivouacs and tents had to be hastily erected on the sodden ground. No camps in the whole British line were more dismal than those round Ypres, sloppy with mud and persistently bombed by the enemy’s aeroplanes. So serious were the effects of bombing that all tents and horse lines were encircledby ramparts of earth to localise the explosions. On the night of the 10th/11th the Highland Brigade relieved the 144th (Forty-eighth Division) in the line near Poelcapelle, and the Ninth received orders for an attack on the 12th October.
The scene of battle was the low, flat country near the northern end of the Passchendaele Ridge. Along the left boundary of the Division ran the Lekkerboterbeek stream, and though the whole area was studded with fortined farms and houses, there were no clear landmarks. Since the 20th September performance had lagged far behind programme, an Westroosebeke lay beyond our immediate grasp. There were three objectives ; the first two (the Yellow Dotted and the Blue Dotted Lines) were to be taken by the Highland Brigade, and the final one (the Dotted Purple Line) by the Lowland. The leading battalions of the 26th, the Black 'Watch and Argylls, each on a two company front, were to capture a subsidiary objective(Green Line) and the Yellow Dotted Line, after which the Seaforths and Camerons were to pass through and go on to the 'Blue Dotted Line, while the final attack was allotted by Brig.-General Croft to the 12th and 11th Royal Scots. The assault was on a very wide frontage for a brigade, and necessitated considerable gaps between sections. The barrage was to move at the rate of 100 yards every eight minutes, with a pause on the first and second objectives, and 16 Vickers Guns were to form a machine-gun barrage and were also to support the infantry with coveringfire. On the flanks of the Ninth the attack was to be carried on by the New Zealand Division on the right and the Eighteenth Division on the left. Zero was 5.35 A.M. About midnight on the 11th, the weather broke down completely, and the march of the battalions of the 27th Brigade under torrents of rain along the slippery duckboards to their assembly positions was one prolonged ordeal. The forming-up positions were heavily barraged with gas and H.E. by the enemy’s guns; many of the taping parties were killed or wounded, and all had to wear their respirators for several hours. The assembly was in consequence a difficult matter, and slight confusion arose before tho men were placed in their correct positions.
At 5.35 A.M. our barrage opened, but was thin and ragged. The leading men lost direction almost at once, owing to the wide frontage and the execrable condition of the ground. The right company of the Black Watch, by the aid of skilful Lewis Gun and rifle-fire, rushed Adler Farm, captured several prisoners, and though some casualties were sustained reached its objective on the Green Line. But the left company ran into our own barrage, and inclining to the left, made a gap between it and the right company; it was under fire the whole way and was compelled to dig-in a few hundred yards in front of our original line. The company, which was to pass this one on the Green Line, also swung to the left to such an extent that it came up on the left of the loading company; from the very commencement it was in trouble, and its com-mander and H.Q. were all knocked out in an attempt to rush a "Pill-box." Meantime the right rear company, passing through its front one, reached Source Trench (Passchendaele) near the Yellow Dotted Line.
The first company of tho Seaforths, sadly depleted by fire from parties of Germans in organised shell-holes, advanced and filled tho space between the two leading ones of the Black Watch. The 12th Royal Scots, following close behind, became mingled with the Seaforths. There was some opposition from Inch House, and in numerous cases clusters of Germans offered resistance until they were taken in flank ; in one case two of our sergeants, both of whom had been wounded, charged a group of nine and killed every one. Small parties of our men were soon in the dim light to pass Banff House and Source Trench (Passchendaele), and some may even have reached Source Farm (Passchendaele) and Vat Cottages (Passchendaele). A mixed body of Black Watch, Seaforths, and Royal Scots entered the eastern end of Wallemolen, but being heavily enfiladed from both flanks had to fall back on the Cemetery (Passchendaele)-Inch House line.
On the left, matters were even worse ; for the ground in some places was impassable, and as a consequence the Argylls were unable to keep pace with the barrage. The right company and its supporting company maintained direction, but the others swung to the left and some of the men, crossing the Lekkerboterbeek, so churned up by shell-fire that it was unrecognisable, entered the sector of the Eighteenth Division. On the right a "Pill-box" near the front line stopped the leading company and hold up the whole advance, with the result that parties from the rear battalions, the Camerons, 11th Royal Scots, and 6th K.O.S.B. became involved in the firing-line. A combined assault by men of all units on the "Pill-box" the occupants of which had shown the white flag but continued firing, eventually mastered the defence, the garrison being killed and four machine-guns captured. But by this time the barrage was far ahead, the troops were exhausted and disorganised, and the leading ranks were able to proceed only 150 yards or so from the "Pill-box," where they consolidated a line of shell-holes. The men of the left company who crossed the Lekkerboterbeek advanced for some 80 yards, but were stopped by machine-gun fire from Beek Houses and Meunier House. The left rear company, which could make no headway, formed a defensive flank and gained touch with the Eighteenth Division on its old front line.
Except on the extreme right the advance had come to a halt about 100 yards from the starting-point. The New Zealanders on our right flank had made some progress, but the Eighteenth Division, as was the case with our left battalion, had been handicapped by the spongy nature of the ground and was back in its original position. Several unfortunate men had been drowned in the deep, water-filled shell-holes, and rifles and machine-guns were clogged with slime. The barrage having gone far ahead, nothing was to be gained by persisting in the attack, and the line taken up by the Ninth at the close of the battle ran from the Cemetery (Passchendaele) near Wallemolen in front of Inch House, thence to Oxford House and back to our original front system. Though the 26th and 27th Machine-gun Companies had been roughly handled during the action, they were able to provide efficient protection for the position now held.
During the night the front was reorganised in three sectors; the right, garrisoned by the 12th Royal Scots, the Seaforths and Black Watch, the centre held by the Camerons and Argylls with the "Rifles" in support, and the left occupied by the 11th Royal Scots and K.O.S.B. Patrols were sent out during the dark hours with orders to join up with the leading men of the Black Watch, who had been seen near Source Farm (Passchendaele), but not until next day was touch established with a few of them in Source Trench (Passchendaele), and these were relieved during the night of the 13th/14th. On the same night the South Africans took over the whole of the front, and the 26th and 27th Brigades were withdrawn from the line.
Rain and mud constitute the chief explanation for the failure of the Division in this battle, which should not have been fought; no mam could progress at more than a snail's pace, and sheer exhoustion was a factor more potent than the enemy in bringing the advance to a standstill. The breakdown in communications was understandable and largely unavoidable, since the pigeons were unable to fly against the strong wind that prevailed, and the men who had charge of the messenger dogs all became casualties. The barrage was not up to the usual standard of the Divisional Artillery, but its lack of density and its raggedness were due to the short period that had elapsed since the last action and to the weather. Many of the guns stuck in the mud, all the men were dead-beat, and Brig.-General Tudor could not get the quantity of the smoke-shells he wanted. Since the horses could not leave the roads, it was only by means of light railways that field-guns could be brought into atction off the roads and supplied with ammunition. The sappers, under Lieut.-Colonel Hearn, always a, strong advocate of the light railway, gave the greatest possible assistance to the gunners by constructing a very useful railway (Ypres-Rousselaere) system east of Springfield (Passhendaele).
Serious errors were undoubtedly committed by the infantry, but when officers and men were engaged in a long and cruel struggle against ineluctable conditions, cool leadership could scarcely be expect. As on the 3rd May, there was a deplorable loss of direction at the very start leading to confusion of units, but at the same time the vast length of the attacking frontage- 1500 yards for two battalions- with wide gaps between each section, and the absence of conspicuous landmarks made the maintenance of direction a difficult matter. Leadership, marked more by valour than by discretion, caused an unnecessary number of battalions to be involved in wasteful and confused fighting. If the mixing up of the supporting and leading units of the 26th Brigade can be understood and condoned, it was none the less regrettable, but there was less reason for throwing the battalions of the 27th into the fight. Of battalion commanders Lieut.-Colonel Lumsden alone, seeing that the attack of the 26th Brigade had been checked, kept his men back, and the net result of over-zealous leading was that General Lukin, instead of a brigade, had only one battalion intact. But even in this respect there was some excuse. It was at least a venial fault that officers and men refused to accept a check without making a desperate effort, and Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. Campbell and Major Innes Browne regarded our line as unsatisfactory, if not untenable,while the "Pill-box " that caused the left of the attack so much trouble remained in the hands of the Germans. Possibly heroism on a grander scale has never been shown than in the brutal lighting on the foul quagmires of Flanders. Often neck-deep in mud, the men floundered forward until their overtaxed limbs could no longer support them, and to wrest victory under such appalling conditions was a task beyond the power of man.
Few people at Passchendaele had a more thankless and trying time than the Sappers and personnel of the R.A.M.C. The former were constantly engaged in maintaining the shelled duckboard tracks, making plank roads, repairing paths and constructing shelters and tramways. Three hundred infantry had been attached to the latter for stretcher-bearing; they were all needed, and it was only by sheer hard work and much nervous strain that the wounded were satisfactorily evacuated from the dreary swamps of Passchendaele.
The line was held by the Division until the 24th October and during this time the hostile artillery periodically barraged the back areas and approaches, causing serious losses to reliefs and working-parties between St Julien and the front trenches. A great deal of material was carried up to the front for the Sixty-third (Naval) Division and many yards of cable were buried to ensure a rapid and reliable signal service. Advance posts were thrown out by the 27th brigade and the assemble areas for the Sixty-third Division were marked by tape. On the 22nd a feint attack in our sector, carried out by men of the XVIll.Corps Cyclist Battalion who manipulated dummy figures, assisted the Eighteenth Division in bringing its position into line with that of the Ninth. On the 24th the 27th was relieved by the 188th Brigade (Sixty-third Division) and the Ninth was concentrated in the various camps near Ypres.
On leaving the Fifth Army the Division received the following message from General Sir Hubert Gough:"The Ninth Division has fought splendidly while it has been in the Fifth Army and maintained the great reputation of the Scottish Divisions in France. The Division achieved a very notable success on 20th September and played a gallant part during the severe fighting of 12th October. ln spite of the casualties sustained and the demands made upon the men’s endurance during the past six weeks, the Division’s moral remains as high as ever. Well. done, everybody !”
A second report:
The task of the 9th Division was a difficult one, for the ground was water-logged owing to incessant rain, and since everything was pitted with deep shell-holes it was a matter of the greatest difficulty to get along at all, even if you were absolutely fit and fresh. It tired you completely by the time you had done half a mile. The Highlanders were to open the ball with an advance up the Lekkerboterbeek Valley, just south of Poelcapelle, for about 1000 yards on a front of about 1500 yards a big frontage for a brigade in those days. Then the Low-landers were to go through and endeavour to win the main Passchendaele ridge. (ln order to deal with that terrible name, mix up as many e’s and a’s as fancy takes you, then add a bundle of s’s according to taste.)
The Lekkerboterbeek- and all beeks in that dreadful Flanders at that time for the matter of that- was in spate, and it simply meant that our men would have to swim, and what about the wounded?
The Highlanders took over the battle front forty-eight hours before zero hour. Consequently they had to stand up to their knees in half-frozen mud, chewing the cud of their own reflections; for they had nothing else to do, being shelled freely and often by the Boche, and wondering why anyone could have been so devoid of intelligence as to adorn them with a specially designed mud collector -the kilt. Poor devils! We were luckier than they, for we started our misery only the night before the attack.
Now there were only two lines of approach for the whole brigade, for to move across country was impossible, though we were asked to accomplish the impossible, not for the first time, in this attack. These two lines of approach to our assembly positions consisted of duckboard tracks, which led all the way from the canal bank to beyond St Julien. How we blessed the noble men who had performed that splendid work, for it was indeed a magnificent performance, and furthermore it had been kept in an excellent state of repair. Of course the Boche had it "taped” along the whole of its length, but what would you? In the early stages of that night’s march we met the divisional commander, who, like all our divisional commanders of the 9th Division, spent most of his time near the front line. He was on his way back, and this good old regimental officer insisted on getting off the track and standing up to his knees in mud while the men went by, saying, "I have a comfortable dug-out to go back to,” when we offered to make way for him.
Then the Boche started on to us with gas. As it was pitch dark it was impossible to march in our gas masks, since one could only with difficulty stay on those treacherous boards even in daylight. So we were forced to let the gas do its worst on our eyes, just keeping the tubes between our lips.
I was sharing a headquarters with J.K. who commanded the Highlanders, since my job didn’t start till his was done. St Julien of evil memory, for that was where we had our head-quarters, was the storm centre of every area shoot by the Boche gunners. The place was stiff with our batteries, so when the Boche laid ,it on thick enough it never failed to knock out many men, guns, and horses. We had a large and completely insecure pill-box into which we all packed, sitting in our gas masks the whole of that night - a good preparation for fighting at dawn!
The Boche continued to shell our assembly positions with vigour, and Highlanders and Lowlanders had a very bumpy time. Of course the Boche knew we were going to attack. He realised perfectly well that we must get on to the ridge before winter: that we could never sit where we were in that unspeakable mud swamp.
The first news that came through was from the right. The Watch had gone on with the New Zealanders on the right and a company of the 12th Royal Scots in unbidden support! But for a long time no news came from the left, down in the worst of the swamp.
The people on our left were simply water-logged, and no progress was made. The Argylls made a most gallant effort across the Lekkerboterbeek, in which many of them were drowned, but the worst business of all was a pill-box only 100 yards from our starting-point near Burns Farm. This pill-box was the first of a group which was swarming with very lively guns who literally mowed our fellows down. Again and again the Camerons and Argylls dashed at it. Next day we saw five dead Cameron officers near the entrance, and hundreds of casualties. I doubt if there ever was a more expensive pill-box to our troops than that one near Burns Farm. Then the Bart. with the 11th and Innes Brown with the Borderers had a go, and eventually they rushed it by sheer weight of numbers. The New Zealanders were hung up on our right, but that gallant company of the Watch were last seen far away on the top of the ridge hunting Huns miles in front of our own barrage. Very few got back to tell the tale of their adventures.
The capture of the pill-box near Burns Farm was the end of our offensive that day. On the right we had secured the high ground near Inch House, which was of great importance. But at no place on our front did we get farther than a distance of 500 yards and stay there, for the gallant effort of the VVatch was wasted. Yet we had gone farther than anyone else on that fateful day of the 12th October.
Next day we took over the whole line from the Highlanders, and soon we found that our hammer-blows had not been entirely without effect on the Boche. For the day following we were able to advance our line by taking several pill-boxes in the vicinity of Burns Farm, which gave little trouble to us in their taking. But our casualties! For the two brigades it must have been well over 2000, and so many of them killed. Owing to the flooded shell-holes it was an odds-on chance that a wounded man would be drowned. Poor Johnstone of the 11th was a casein point: he had been with us since the start and he had won his commission by sheer merit. O’N- , the Highlanders Roman Catholic padre, was very badly wounded while tending wounded near Burns Farm. He was another old original. When last heard of he was met on board a man- o’-war to which he had been transferred in spite of his remonstrances and prayers to be returned to his beloved Camerons. But he insisted on wearing the Cameron trews and glengarry!
During the next few days the front line became comparatively peaceful, simply because the Boche had no idea where we had got to. But St Julien! Many a time one has walked down that road, and one’s stick would come out of the mud a dull red wherever one liked to put it in. Some of those army batteries were in for as long as six weeks, with no shelter except a few small pill-boxes, and exposed not only to the inclement weather but to those periodic storms of lead in which the Boche used to indulge and which are known as area shoots. For an Army Brigade was an orphan; or at least it had been abducted from its parents, the division, as a result of the Somme battles.
For those who do not know, every division was originally provided with three brigades of Royal Field Artillery. Now it was often necessary during the Somme fighting to keep the gunners in when the infantry were sent back to rest. And one can only suppose, knowing nothing of the reason, real or otherwise, that the staff thought things might workout better if they pinched off permanently a brigade from each division.
These Army Brigades were conspicuous by their discipline for the most part. But they had a grievance, or several; what man’s child has not? And it struck me that they used to do rather more than their fair share of battle fighting. Again, we used to know every man, horse, and gun of our own gunners. For they had been with us for years. But in the case of the Army Brigade we never knew them, and, what one ventures to think of more importance, they never really knew us or our requirements. Infantry are a strange crowd; some like one thing and some another, but it is better to give them what they want, O gunners, not what you want. It saves a deal of time, and many valuable lives.
Every division has its own views on subjects connected with war. These views are merely matters of detail, for everyone is unanimous about principles. But unless one belongs to the family, as it were, one cannot share in the tone of the division. A mutual admiration society between gunners and infantry is essential, and it is not too much to say that it always existed in every division. But strangers, especially Britishers, do not instinctively join such societies. Both sides like to winter and summer each other before cementing the bonds of` friendship. So that was one very strong reason against Army Brigades,
We in our turn relieved by South Africa, and two days later D-, who commanded the South Africans, got that poisonous pill-box which we owned at St Julien brought tumbling about his ears. I found this out on going to relieve him for yet another tour in that line.
The first night in our new pill-box was exciting, as we managed to set it on fire. Of course the Boche joined in the fun; but we succeeded in getting the fire out with the loss of all our grub, After a few days of undiluted misery, when it poured all day and all night without ceasing, we were relieved by the Naval Division, who impressed us greatly by their nautical terms. It was disappointing to find that their brigade commander was not addressed as "Admiral".
On getting back to our very comfortable dug-out in the canal bank, I found a wire telling me of the arrival of a daughter, born during the battle. She was asking to be called Ypres, absolutely asking for it, but with great magnanimity I let her off`!
Bron: The History of the 9th Scottish Division, 1914-1918; door Ewing J.
