Blood and Thunder (57 page)

Something had to give. On 26 March a conference took place at Doullens at which Douglas Haig, in no position to assume power himself, advocated Foch taking over overall command on the Western Front. By this point the British commander-in-chief's priority was ensuring that the Allies did not fall apart. Back at Fifth Army headquarters, Hubert Gough was not even aware that the meeting had taken place. He had been earmarked as a scapegoat for the tragedy that had befallen his army. The following evening he returned from visiting his commanders to find Douglas Haig's military secretary waiting for him. He asked to see him alone. ‘He … told me as nicely as he could that the Chief thought that I and my staff must be very tired, so he had decided to put Rawlinson … [in] to take command.' Beyond saying ‘All right;' the only other question that Gough had was when his fellow OE would arrive to assume command. On 28 March Hubert Gough's career as a soldier was effectively over. His fellow Etonian arrived in the early evening. Gough filled Rawlinson in as much as he could, and then made himself scarce to avoid embarrassment for either of them. His command of the now unrecognisable, shrunken Fifth Army was at an end and soon he would be bound for home. ‘I left … not at all sure where I was to get a bed or dinner that night.'

One of Gough's last acts as commander of the Fifth Army was to establish a line to try to hold on to Amiens. Fifteen miles in front of this crucial town, and loosely based on some old French lines from 1915, anyone they could find was thrown into manning it, including non-combatants. They clung on doggedly.

Whilst their push on the Somme was petering out in the face of British and French resistance, the Germans were still intent on ending the war. Operation Mars commenced on 28 March to push the British out of their stronghold at Arras. Having lent their services to the chaos above Byng's army, 40 Squadron's own was being dragged into the fray. The enemy launched a series of attacks but no fog aided them. Ian Napier and his fellow pilots flew over the town and the surrounding area, again engaged on ground targets. At 1.30 p.m. they were up to patrol the main road between Arras and Cambrai and found that it and all the smaller surrounding roads were choked with troops and transports. It was the same around Douai. Going down as low as 300ft they showered them with bullets and bombs in an attempt to slow the German advance and sent the enemy troops stampeding about the countryside.

Ludendorff's latest operation was to be unsuccessful. The impetus of the German offensives was failing across the board by 30 March. British resistance had been stubborn, Amiens had held and the exhausted Germans were getting further and further from their supply lines. The enemy had not finished though. Before the offensive on the Somme had fully petered out there were ominous rumblings to the north in the area around La Bassée. As part of their last ditch, kitchen-sink policy the Kaiser's men were about to make an assault around the River Lys and the high ground near Arras: Operation Georgette.

The RFC was well aware of what was going on. On 31 March, scout planes spotted large concentrations of German troops on the move. One observer counted fifty-five trains moving about Armentières and roads to the German rear were full of men and supplies.

The Royal Air Force was formed on 1 April 1918 by merging the RFC with the Royal Naval Air Service, but for Ian Napier it was the least of his concerns. Number 40 Squadron was back within its own allotted area. They had flown from their hard work on the Somme back up to Flanders for what was to be yet another nightmare. Another of the squadron's number was almost delirious. ‘The war was being slowly lost down south, but we had given up watching the show, so what did we care?' All they could do was concentrate on their own fight and they were none too impressed when their own sector came under threat. ‘The [blank] Germans started disturbing the peace north of the canal! In no way could this have annoyed us more. We couldn't have the Huns playing any silly little monkey tricks on our little patch.' The powers that be within the Royal Air Force appeared to agree. In addition to returning their borrowed strength to the correct area they had also diverted extra squadrons from Dunkirk towards the Lys.

Number 40 Squadron had resumed its more familiar role of offensive patrols as German preparations on the ground gathered force. On 6 April Ian took off to patrol the area directly east of Arras on what turned out to be a highly fruitful outing. Almost immediately he saw four German machines buzzing west along the line of the Scarpe and he dived on them to attack. They scattered out of his way, all except what he took for an Albatros, which remained in his sights. Ian charged at it, spitting off rounds from his machine gun at close range.

The enemy airman zoomed up and Ian followed, firing another short burst from the Vickers and hitting his prey in the engine. The Albatros glided in front of him and for a panicked few seconds it seemed that they might collide. Ian veered off sharply and managed to get out of the way. The German machine pulled away and drifted off, steam pouring out of it and its propeller motionless.

Looking about for something else to do Ian trundled off at a calmer speed. He had lost significant altitude during the fight and he climbed steadily back up to 10,000ft as he flew north-east towards Douai. Some fifteen minutes later he spotted another enemy aircraft emerging from some cloud cover. Ian was in the mood for another scrap and he pulled up to get over the top of it and hide himself in the sunlight.

He burst down out of the glare and took it on. He got to within 100 yards of it and came from behind, blasting away with his gun. Either his fire was accurate and wounded his opponent or he did not seem to share Ian's enthusiasm. The enemy airman didn't return fire, he simply turned east for home and began diving away. Ian stalked him closely, emptying as much ammunition as he could into it for good measure. He followed it down to 8,000ft then watched as it continued losing height and finally crashed into some houses near Brebieres
2
.

Three days later the German offensive on the Lys began and the ground was once again blanketed in thick fog. Cloud remained low all day and by the time the RAF could get into the air Portuguese troops holding the middle of the line had been overrun, leaving the flank of John Ponsonby's division dangerously exposed. The Germans were already crossing the River Lys. It was a very different scenario to that on the Somme, where no hugely significant objective was at risk until Amiens. The northern part of the Western Front was cramped and every bit of ground was critical.

Once again information was essential as was any influence that the airmen could have on slowing the German advance. Ian and his fellow pilots plummeted to low heights to strafe the enemy as they surged forward. The relentless work continued the following day. Mist and rain hampered the squadron until lunchtime but as soon as it cleared the skies were alive with activity. A bulge appeared in the middle of the front and the British line was in danger of coming apart as it stretched further and further. By nightfall German troops were in Nieppe, Merville and, heartbreakingly, Messines, so valiantly won the year before. Douglas Haig recognised the gravity of the situation and would issue his famous rallying call to his troops:

With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind … depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.

The next day, 12 April, was vital. The British line had to hold long enough for reinforcements, or the tide could turn drastically in favour of the Germans. The outnumbered Allies had already withstood the enemy onslaught for three days. Now the Kaiser's men had their sights set on Hazebrouck and, beyond that, the Channel. It was unthinkable that either should fall into enemy hands.

Whilst troops on the ground desperately tried to close the gap at Merville, 40 Squadron was told to concentrate wholly on enemy advances coming up to the village from Estaires and Neuf Berquin. Ian Napier went up before breakfast and was over Estaires itself at a height of about 8,000ft when his patrol engaged a number of enemy aeroplanes. The scrap he was engaged in broke up and he picked on another Albatros lingering nearby. He fired long bursts from both guns, letting off nearly 300 rounds. The German plane turned and arced away south-east. Then, suddenly, it flipped over on its back in mid air and fell away out of control.

Number 40 Squadron was not done for the day. In the afternoon a special patrol of twelve fighter machines, half of them from Ian's squadron, went looking for German observation balloons. The RAF really did perform with its back to the wall. It was the busiest day of the war thus far for the British fliers. All day long they took off, fought, hounded the Germans on the ground, landed, refuelled, re-armed and went back up again. The Royal Air Force dropped more than 2,500 bombs on the enemy and fired 115,000 rounds of ammunition whilst the working machines took nearly 3,500 photographs of events up and down the front.

On 15 April Ballieul fell but, crucially, Hazebrouck remained in British hands. The Salient had to be evacuated back to Pilckem Ridge, which was painful, but it was done in an orderly fashion. Reserves were arriving from other fronts and stalemate was setting in. Rain now began to hamper the efforts of the RAF to get into the air. ‘As far as an unbiased spectator can judge,' quipped one of the pilots of 40 Squadron, ‘the War still continues, at least, this is the conclusion I have come to from fairly diligent reading of the
Daily Mail
.' His sarcasm was in the vein of Henry Dundas. ‘Apparently we are still “winning” … We have lost all the guns and most of the men on the front, but as this was fortunately anticipated by Sir Henry Wilson and Lloyd George, we have little to worry about.'

Number 40 Squadron continued to work long, now largely unrewarding, hours in ‘beastly' weather. Ian Napier scored another victory before the month was out but also had a narrow escape of his own. He was flying at high altitude one day when he observed an enemy machine some 12,000ft below. To get to it would require a steep dive. He shot down, engine throttle all the way back for some 6,000ft. ‘Suddenly the machine gave a terrific vibration … I pulled out of the dive by winding back a few notches.' He plodded carefully and slowly west and on landing found that on three out of his four wings the spars were splintered badly. Ian's machine had very nearly broken up in mid air.

Ludendorff had been fully aware of what would happen if his country failed to win the war in the spring of 1918, but fail they had. As exhausted as the faltering British and French troops were, they had reinforced themselves with reserves and more contingents of Americans had begun to arrive. The Germans had taken large areas of ground on the Somme, but the gain was negligible when it hadn't set them up strategically for victory. They had also suffered crippling casualties and possessed limited resources to replace them.

As a result of Germany's spring offensives, yet another group of Old Etonians had been swept aside. In fact the British Army had suffered almost a quarter of a million casualties. On 23 March 1918 the school's list of casualties tipped over 1,000. The chaotic nature of the retreat across the Somme meant that many families suffered anguish in trying to establish what had happened to their young men. Leonard Tilney received a fitting burial
3
. Morice St Aubyn's body was lost when his battalion fell away from Jussy. He was eventually commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial. Dedicated to the missing of 1918 on the Somme it names more than 14,000 casualties who vanished without a trace as the German Army surged forward. Also named is Paul Hobhouse, but his case was far from clear. In the aftermath of the battle his mother was told by another officer that he was safe, a captive in German hands. Relief must have washed over her but it was in vain. Weeks later it transpired that this piece of information had come to the officer second hand and was therefore far less reliable. She obstinately, and quite understandably, refused to believe that this literal lifeline could now be taken away. But all of her hopes were futile. It's likely that 23-year-old Paul Edward Hobhouse never made it out of the Forward Zone on 21 March.

Hubert Gough was another sort of casualty altogether. He was far from flawless as a military commander, but to blame him for the fate of the Fifth Army during the German offensive would be wrong. A substantial amount of culpability could be laid at the feet of Lloyd George and the politicians who had been intent on interfering with military affairs. The enemy may have overrun his own force but Gough was adamant that he knew why the Germans had ultimately failed. During the course of the Fifth Army's retirement in March he had learned of a South African contingent massacred. Gough later wrote, defending his conduct and that of his men in March 1918:

Thinking about all the far-flung elements … fighting alongside Brits the words of the Eton boating song come back to me: ‘And nothing on earth shall ever sever the chain that is round us now.' The principal links in that chain seem to me to be a sense of duty and a generous sympathy for each other, wherever we come from. As long as those characteristics mark the people of this Empire, I do not fear its destruction.

He spoke with hindsight, but the sentiment rang true. For the German Army the future now looked ominous indeed.

Notes

  
1
  2nd Lt Gaspard Alured Evelyn Ridout was laid to rest at Jeancourt Communal Cemetery Extension near St Quentin.

  
2
  Ian Napier's first victory over the Albatros on 6 April was never officially credited. He was certainly not the type to brag or claim an honour he hadn't earned, but he did list it on his own record of his air victories, fully believing he had forced it to ground.

  
3
  Major Leonard Arthur Tilney is buried at Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez.