Saturday September 28^th, 1918

Order for moving. Left Manin 8 o’clock. Arrive Tincques 11:15. Raining hard. Entrained 2 o’clock arrived Corbie at 7 o’clock. Passed Albert & Somme – old battlefields. Awful ruins. Billeted where people of which had fled in a hurry. 

Ruined Lands

Today Frank comments upon the devastation of the old battlefields of Albert and the Somme.  His observations were echoed in the contemporary paintings of such artists as Paul Nash and John Singer-Sargeant.

This map shows what it describes as the ‘stabilized front of 1915-16’.^  In reality, the Western Front hardly moved again until spring 1918. Consequently mere hundreds of yards of territory along its 440 mile front were fought over again and again.  Combine this with the sheer power of the artillery being used and the scorched earth strategy of the Germans during their organized retreat to the Hindenburg Line in 1917; and it is clear that WWI caused huge devastation to these lands.

A Blot on the Landscape

Earlier this month, when the British Army was advancing once again through this much fought-over land, General Jack commented:

‘In the afternoon I bicycle through Ypres, along the Menin road to a company headquarters near Hellfire Corner to inspect the line…. The desolation of the countryside is beyond belief. Shell holes and rank grass cover the whole area; the debris of battle is strewn all about; rusty wire entanglements, the rotting sandbags of disused dug-outs and trenches, a few helmets, portions of uniform, smashed rifles, quantities of empty ration tins and boxes, empty shell cases, and some field guns beyond repair…’ ¹

The General continued on this topic the following day.

‘Few landmarks are left anywhere; battles have blotted out all traces of villages, churches and farms, besides reducing the large woods in the vicinity to a tangle of short stumps. But maps show the shell-pitted ground to be covered with the network of British and German trenches, wire and ‘pill-boxes’ of the 1917 struggle for Passchendaele Ridge, as well as defences constructed by the enemy since we vacated the Ridge last April, …’ ²

This was the Western Front of 1918.

9^th Battalion War Diary – 28^th  September 1918 – Manin

Battalion entrained at Tincques and moved via Arras and Albert to Corbie where it billeted for the night. Capt GT Newman proceeded on leave to UK.  Operation Order No 4 (Appendix No 9) issued.

References & Further Reading

¹ ‘General Jack’s Diary, War on the Western Front 1914-1918’ edited by John Terraine, Cassell, 2003, originally published 1964, September 21st, 1918, page 268

² ibid, September 22nd, 1918, page 268

^ map of the Western Front in 1915-16, image may be subject to copyright