CHAPTER XIVTHE YEOMANRY
The pace was too fast to be kept up. The Germans could not be doing it all the time, and pauses, lengthening in duration as the fury of the attacks increased, were bound to be interposed between one onslaught and the next. Here, again, as on previous occasions, the official German historians of the war will be able to correct the impression which their daily bulletins sought to create, and will tell an attentive world how the desperate courage of the invader broke on the final factor which no resources of science can permanently disguise—fighting men’s physical exhaustion.
Such a pause, partly filled, as we shall see, by a transfusion of bloodshed to another area, occurred at the height of that darkest hour, which we followed in the last chapter; and, before pursuing our account of the West Riding Infantry Divisions through the last hundred days of the war, we may fitly utilize this interval to narrate, necessarily a little summarily, the fortunes and the disappointments of some of the West Riding Mounted Troops. For they, too, as Earl Haig has testified, ‘came forward at the beginning of the war to serve their country in the hour of need,’ and ‘performed their duty under all circumstances with thoroughness and efficiency.’
These words occur in an Order, dated September 9th, 1917, and addressed by the Field-Marshal to the 1/1st Yorkshire Hussars Yeomanry. ‘The Army Council,’ the Order starts, ‘has found it necessary to dismount certain Special Reserve and Yeomanry Regiments, and to utilize the services of Officers and other Ranks in other branches of the Service.’ Here we see the meaning of ‘under all circumstances,’ and the cause of the disappointments to which we have referred.
That the war was not a Cavalry war, and that its ‘circumstances’ did not often call for the special faculties furnished by Mounted Troops, are facts that enhance, rather than diminish, the praise of the ‘thoroughness’ and ‘efficiency’ with which the duties falling on the Yeomanry were discharged. Officers, N.C.O.’s and men adapted themselves with conspicuous cheerfulness to the shifting needs of the day’s work, and became fitted to the uses which were made of them. But no keenness, military or moral, could turn the war intotheirwar. The war in South Africa was their war, the next war may be their war again; ‘but the circumstances of the late war gave them few chances of doing the work for which they were intended, and their chief claim to credit lies in the fact, that, whatever work they weregiven to do, they carried out to the best of their ability, and to the complete satisfaction of the authorities under whom they worked.’[122]
How complete that satisfaction was, may be judged by one or two letters, which we are privileged to quote, and which it is appropriate to produce in advance of such narrative as may prove available of the miscellaneous duties which the Yeomanry actually performed. Thus, when ‘B’ Squadron of the Yorkshire Hussars left the 46th Division in May, 1916 (the particulars of this move will be found below), Major-General E. J. Montague Stuart-Wortley wrote to their Commanding Officer, Lieut.-Col. W. G. Eley:
‘Many thanks for your letter. It was a great blow to me to find on my return from leave, that your Squadron had left the Division, and that our very pleasant connection had come to an end.‘I can assure you that it has been the greatest pleasure to me to have had your Squadron under my command; and I should be very much obliged if you would tell all your Officers, N.C.O.’s and men how deeply I appreciate all the good work they have done whilst with this Division. They have frequently been called upon to do work which was quite outside of what Cavalry are trained to perform; and on every occasion, they have carried it out with zeal and efficiency which has been deserving of all praise.‘You will be glad to have the whole Regiment together again; I shall watch all you do with the greatest interest; I know that all you are called upon to do, will be done well.’
‘Many thanks for your letter. It was a great blow to me to find on my return from leave, that your Squadron had left the Division, and that our very pleasant connection had come to an end.
‘I can assure you that it has been the greatest pleasure to me to have had your Squadron under my command; and I should be very much obliged if you would tell all your Officers, N.C.O.’s and men how deeply I appreciate all the good work they have done whilst with this Division. They have frequently been called upon to do work which was quite outside of what Cavalry are trained to perform; and on every occasion, they have carried it out with zeal and efficiency which has been deserving of all praise.
‘You will be glad to have the whole Regiment together again; I shall watch all you do with the greatest interest; I know that all you are called upon to do, will be done well.’
Again, in 1917, when the same Yeomanry Regiment left the XVIIth Corps, in consequence of the decision of the Army Council, notified in the Field-Marshal’s Order as above, to dismount them and utilize them ‘in other branches of the Service,’ Lieut.-General Sir Charles Fergusson, Bt., Commanding the Corps, wrote to Lieut.-Col. Eley:
‘On the departure of the Regiment from the XVIIth Corps I wish to express to you and to the Officers and men under your command my thanks for the loyalty and assistance which has invariably been given by the Regiment during the period of its connection with the Corps.‘Its smartness, discipline, and soldierly spirit have been conspicuous; and no matter what the work has been, it has always been carried out in accordance with the best traditions of the Regiment and of the Service.‘I know that Officers and men will continue to live up to these traditions, and that no matter where duty and the serviceof the country call them, they will never forget that the reputation and good name of the Regiment remain in their hands. Whether as a unit or as individuals the spirit of the Regiment will remain; and when the time comes for it to be re-united, the knowledge that they have done their duty under all circumstances will add to the pride and satisfaction with which Officers and men will look back to their record in the war.‘I wish goodbye and good luck to all ranks.’
‘On the departure of the Regiment from the XVIIth Corps I wish to express to you and to the Officers and men under your command my thanks for the loyalty and assistance which has invariably been given by the Regiment during the period of its connection with the Corps.
‘Its smartness, discipline, and soldierly spirit have been conspicuous; and no matter what the work has been, it has always been carried out in accordance with the best traditions of the Regiment and of the Service.
‘I know that Officers and men will continue to live up to these traditions, and that no matter where duty and the serviceof the country call them, they will never forget that the reputation and good name of the Regiment remain in their hands. Whether as a unit or as individuals the spirit of the Regiment will remain; and when the time comes for it to be re-united, the knowledge that they have done their duty under all circumstances will add to the pride and satisfaction with which Officers and men will look back to their record in the war.
‘I wish goodbye and good luck to all ranks.’
Again, in 1919, when the Yorkshire Dragoons left the Rhine (these particulars, too, will be found below), Lieut.-General Sir C. W. Jacob, K.C.B., Commanding the IInd Corps of the Second Army, addresses the following letter to Major-General the Earl of Scarbrough, in his capacity as Hon. Colonel of the Regiment:
‘The Yorkshire Dragoons are leaving very shortly for England on reduction to cadre, and as you are the Hon. Colonel of the Regiment, I thought you would like to hear how well the Regiment has done all the time that it has been with the IInd Corps.‘You know that at first the Regiment was split up and its squadrons distributed among various Divisions. In the early part of 1916 it was decided to take away from Divisions their Cavalry Squadrons, and to have a Cavalry Regiment at the headquarters of every Army Corps. The three squadrons of the Yorkshire Dragoons were thus brought together and formed into a Regiment again, and in May, 1916, became the Cavalry Regiment of the IInd Corps. It was in that month, too, that I took over command of the IInd Corps.‘From the time the Yorkshire Dragoons came to the IInd Corps till hostilities ceased on the 11th November, 1918, their work has been excellent all through. They have had strenuous times, but have always shown themselves equal to the occasion.‘Yorkshire has given many thousands of splendid soldiers to the British Army, and I place the Yeoman of the Yorkshire Dragoons high up in the list. They have responded to every call made on them, and have fought magnificently.‘In October, 1917, the regiment was taken away from the IInd Corps for work with the Cavalry Corps. Later on, owing to the shortage of horses in the army, it was decided to dismount the Yeomanry Regiments and to turn them into machine-gun or cyclist units. The Yorkshire Dragoons were formed into a Cyclist Regiment, and came back to the IInd Corps as such. It was naturally a disappointment to them to be dismounted, but they accepted the situation in the right spirit and very soon became the best cyclist unit in the British Army.‘I cannot speak too highly of their work in the final phase of the war, when they took part in the attack from Ypres inSeptember, 1918, and when the Germans were driven clean out of Belgium.‘The Regiment has been fortunate in its Officers. They were first of all commanded by Lieut.-Col. Mackenzie Smith, D.S.O., up to the time they were dismounted. Since then they have been commanded by Lieut.-Colonel R. Thompson, D.S.O. Both these officers have been first-class, and I cannot speak too highly of the latter. Lieut.-Colonel Thompson is a first-rate leader, and he has been backed up by an excellent lot of junior officers.‘I regret very much to have to part with the Regiment, but their turn for demobilisation has come round. They have earned the gratitude of their country and county in the way they have worked and fought all through the war, and have made a name for themselves which will never be forgotten.’
‘The Yorkshire Dragoons are leaving very shortly for England on reduction to cadre, and as you are the Hon. Colonel of the Regiment, I thought you would like to hear how well the Regiment has done all the time that it has been with the IInd Corps.
‘You know that at first the Regiment was split up and its squadrons distributed among various Divisions. In the early part of 1916 it was decided to take away from Divisions their Cavalry Squadrons, and to have a Cavalry Regiment at the headquarters of every Army Corps. The three squadrons of the Yorkshire Dragoons were thus brought together and formed into a Regiment again, and in May, 1916, became the Cavalry Regiment of the IInd Corps. It was in that month, too, that I took over command of the IInd Corps.
‘From the time the Yorkshire Dragoons came to the IInd Corps till hostilities ceased on the 11th November, 1918, their work has been excellent all through. They have had strenuous times, but have always shown themselves equal to the occasion.
‘Yorkshire has given many thousands of splendid soldiers to the British Army, and I place the Yeoman of the Yorkshire Dragoons high up in the list. They have responded to every call made on them, and have fought magnificently.
‘In October, 1917, the regiment was taken away from the IInd Corps for work with the Cavalry Corps. Later on, owing to the shortage of horses in the army, it was decided to dismount the Yeomanry Regiments and to turn them into machine-gun or cyclist units. The Yorkshire Dragoons were formed into a Cyclist Regiment, and came back to the IInd Corps as such. It was naturally a disappointment to them to be dismounted, but they accepted the situation in the right spirit and very soon became the best cyclist unit in the British Army.
‘I cannot speak too highly of their work in the final phase of the war, when they took part in the attack from Ypres inSeptember, 1918, and when the Germans were driven clean out of Belgium.
‘The Regiment has been fortunate in its Officers. They were first of all commanded by Lieut.-Col. Mackenzie Smith, D.S.O., up to the time they were dismounted. Since then they have been commanded by Lieut.-Colonel R. Thompson, D.S.O. Both these officers have been first-class, and I cannot speak too highly of the latter. Lieut.-Colonel Thompson is a first-rate leader, and he has been backed up by an excellent lot of junior officers.
‘I regret very much to have to part with the Regiment, but their turn for demobilisation has come round. They have earned the gratitude of their country and county in the way they have worked and fought all through the war, and have made a name for themselves which will never be forgotten.’
General Jacob’s letter (May 27th, 1919) epitomizes clearly, six months after the Armistice, the successive stages of organization through which the Mounted Troops had passed. Between the lines of the various decisions therein recorded (‘to take away from the Divisions their Cavalry Squadrons,’ to take away the Cavalry Regiments from the Corps, ‘to dismount the Yeomanry Regiments and to turn them into machine-gun or cyclist units’), we may read the meaning of some remarks occurring in earlier letters: ‘They have frequently been called upon to do work which was quite outside of what Cavalry are trained to perform’ (General Stuart-Wortley); ‘No matter what the work has been, it has always been carried out in accordance with the best traditions of the Regiment and the Service’ (General Fergusson), and ‘their chief claim to credit lies in the fact, that, whatever work they were given to do, they carried out to the best of their ability’ (Col. Mackenzie Smith). The time never quite came to employ the Cavalry. They never really came into their own. But it was not till a late period in the war, when the shortage of horses in the Army and the shrinkage of man-power and shipping at home compelled the authorities to drastic action, that the repeatedly disappointed hope of employing them at last in their right capacity was finally abandoned. Accordingly, their history in the Great War is a history of partially fulfilled renown, in relation to their pre-war training and to their anticipations on mobilization. ‘It must be admitted,’ we read, ‘that the Yorkshire Dragoons never felt either pride or affection for their bicycles. The one thing to be said for them was that they were more easily cleaned than horses, and never had to be exercised or fed.’ In this sense, ‘their chief claim to credit,’ in the words of Lieut.-Col. Mackenzie Smith,[123]may be stated in thehighest terms as a claim to the credit of subordinating their own desires, and the ambition appropriate to their Arm of Service, to the needs of the Army and the Empire as a whole.
We may follow these changes more precisely.
Originally, both Yeomanry Regiments, after coast defence and other work at home, went out to France as Divisional Cavalry. The Hussars arrived at Havre in April, 1915, and were posted as follows:
The Dragoons arrived in August, and were posted:
all in General Plumer’s Second Army, to which, under General Jacob’s Command, they were to return later on as a Cyclist Corps.
Their time as Divisional Cavalry lasted till May, 1916, but was not as full as they had hoped. ‘Our work,’ writes an Hussar Officer in a personal letter, ‘was very miscellaneous. We fetched up remounts, dug trenches, buried wires, supplied M.M.P. and orderlies to the Divisional Staff, and observation posts to the Infantry in the front line;’ and Col. Smith, of the Dragoons, writes in much the same vein: ‘They did many dull, but arduous and necessary fatigues. But they took an especial interest in the Divisional observation posts, the management of which was entrusted to them by the Division,’ and which proved, as he says in another place, ‘a definite speciality of the Regiment, and earned them considerable credit.’
The first organic change is explained in a letter from G.H.Q., dated May 2nd, 1916, and addressed to the Third Army Commander. We cite here the salient extracts:
‘In consequence of the growth of the Army and the development of the Corps Organisation, much of the independence of action and movement formerly belonging to the Division has passed to the Corps. It has been found necessary, therefore, to reconsider the organization and distribution of the Mounted Troops hitherto allotted to Divisions.‘The allotment of these troops was originally made with a view to providing the Divisional Commander with a small mobile force under his immediate control for reconnaissance, protective and escort duties; and on the assumption (originally correct) that the Division would be moving either independently, or with one or more roads allotted to its exclusive use.‘These conditions are unlikely to recur; any future movement will be by Corps, marching and fighting in depth on a comparatively narrow front. The mounted troops belonging to the Corps must, therefore, be assembled under the directcontrol of the Corps Commander, and organized as Corps units.‘The Commander-in-Chief has accordingly decided—‘(a) to convert the Squadrons of Divisional Cavalry into Corps Cavalry Regiments, composed of a Headquarters and Three Squadrons each; one Regiment being allotted to each Corps.‘(b) to withdraw the Cyclist Companies from Divisions, to reconstitute them into Battalions of Three Companies each, and to allot one Battalion to each Corps.‘(c) to allot one Motor Machine-Gun Battery to each Corps. This battery will normally be attached to the Cyclist Battalion.’
‘In consequence of the growth of the Army and the development of the Corps Organisation, much of the independence of action and movement formerly belonging to the Division has passed to the Corps. It has been found necessary, therefore, to reconsider the organization and distribution of the Mounted Troops hitherto allotted to Divisions.
‘The allotment of these troops was originally made with a view to providing the Divisional Commander with a small mobile force under his immediate control for reconnaissance, protective and escort duties; and on the assumption (originally correct) that the Division would be moving either independently, or with one or more roads allotted to its exclusive use.
‘These conditions are unlikely to recur; any future movement will be by Corps, marching and fighting in depth on a comparatively narrow front. The mounted troops belonging to the Corps must, therefore, be assembled under the directcontrol of the Corps Commander, and organized as Corps units.
‘The Commander-in-Chief has accordingly decided—
‘(a) to convert the Squadrons of Divisional Cavalry into Corps Cavalry Regiments, composed of a Headquarters and Three Squadrons each; one Regiment being allotted to each Corps.
‘(b) to withdraw the Cyclist Companies from Divisions, to reconstitute them into Battalions of Three Companies each, and to allot one Battalion to each Corps.
‘(c) to allot one Motor Machine-Gun Battery to each Corps. This battery will normally be attached to the Cyclist Battalion.’
The following Table shows how the foregoing provisions were applied to the Squadrons of Yorkshire Dragoons and Yorkshire Hussars:
Thus, the Divisional Cavalry were transferred, and each Corps now received a Squadron of Cavalry, a Battalion of Cyclists, and a Battery of Motor Machine-Guns. At this time the training of the Cavalry in France was inspired mainly by General Gough, who subsequently commanded the Fifth Army; and the rôle devised for Corps Cavalry Regiments was summed up, as he said, in the one word ‘“Security”: that is, the protection of the Infantry with which it is working.’ These were the days, it will be remembered from earlier chapters of the present volume, in which a break-through was still hoped for, when the Corps Mounted Troops would have followed the five Divisions of Regular Cavalry through the ‘gap’ to be made in the German line, and would become immediately responsible for the protection of the Infantry Reserve and for general Advance Guard duties.
But events did not fall out as had been expected. ‘During the summer and autumn of 1916 there were several occasions,’ we are told, ‘on which the Higher Command had hopes of a Cavalry situation,... but these hopes never materialized.’ The main work of the Regiment in these months—and very important work it proved—was to maintain observation posts in forward areas, and it was true that opportunities occurred, and were seized with gallant alacrity, to win the Military Cross and the Military Medal for special acts of reconnaissance and daring. In less forward areas the duties were more laborious, but were not less cheerfully performed. Traffic control, unloading ammunition trains, helping at hospitals and burying the dead; the maintenance of communications in winter mud, when the Infantry were roped together in order to go into the front line, and casualties by drowning were almost as numerous as those caused by the enemy: these, with training, and the care of horses, and the usual Regimental sports, were among the functions substituted in reality for the purpose cherished by the Corps Cavalry. In March, 1917, at the time of the German retreat, the IInd Corps Cavalry had the chance, of which they fully availed themselves, of proving their mettle in mounted action, and the D.S.O. awarded to Lieut.-Col. Mackenzie Smith was a recognition of his wise insistence on a constant high level of training efficiency. The disappointment of his Mounted Troops at Cambrai in November, 1917, was their final grief before the Order for dismounting.’
We shall not follow in detail the dismounted history either of the Dragoons or the Hussars in the miscellaneous duties to which they were called. We may note, however, that, in the battles of 1918, good fighting work was done by both Regiments, and that, early as October 20th in that year, Lieut.-Col. Thompson received his D.S.O. as an immediate award, in recognition of his gallantry at the crossing of the River Lys. General Jacob’s letter to Lord Scarbrough, quoted on an earlier page, refers particularly to this Officer, and to the part taken by his cyclists ‘when the Germans were driven clean out of Belgium.’
So the Yeomanry, too, before war’s end, had their fill of fighting in the front line, and, alike in honours and casualties, through all the phases of their experience, as Divisional Cavalry, as Corps Cavalry, and as Dismounted Troops, they bore themselves with conspicuous bravery and with not less conspicuous self-sacrifice. They were content to do the task set before them, when, owing to causes beyond control, they could not do the task for which they had been trained, and neither in the West Riding nor beyond it will their splendid record be allowed to fade. Not inappropriately it happened that the IInd Corps of the Second Army[124]was chosen to form part of the Army of the Rhine. The Yorkshire Dragoons were detailed to act as Advance Guard to the Infantry of the 9th, 29th and 41st Divisions; and ‘consequently,’ we read, ‘in most of the towns and villages through which they passed, they were the first British troops which theinhabitants saw. The march through Belgium was a triumphal progress.’
But we must not anticipate the day of triumph, amply as the Yeomen had contributed to it. The battles of 1918 have still to be won, and we return at this point to the interval called by exhaustion after the First Battle of the Lys.