Sunday November 3rd, 1918
Ready to move off again to Le-Cateau-Cambrai. Left Maurois 4:30, arrived Le-Cateau-Cambrai 6:30. Very bad marching. Billeted in wine factory. Allan warned for leave.
Forward March
After Church Services, the 9th continued its march towards the front lines. Today’s destination is Le Cateau-Cambrésis, a distance of about 8 kms. They will march through Reumont and Pont des Vaux (I cannot find the latter on any modern map). It seems that they are travelling along a busy route as, according to the Operation Order, when they stop for their hourly halt they must immediately clear the road.
The Band is to march behind Headquarters staff and in front of the four Companies of the Battalion, presumably providing some marching music.
Spoils of War
In Sir Douglas Haig’s official report for November 1st 1918 he documented the spoils of war, as captured by the British Army on the Western Front over the past three months. It was quite the list.
‘In the area of the enemy’s retreat enormous stocks of ammunition, materials, and stores of all kinds have fallen into our hands, including several locomotives and quantities of rolling stock, many wagons, and a few tanks, hundreds of tons of wire, several thousand tons of road metal, some hundred of miles of telephone cables and a great number of engineer and other dumps. On the front of one army alone the enemy abandoned some 2,000,000 feet of timber.
Our total captures in the series of successful battles fought by the British forces in France during the past three months include 172,659 prisoners, amongst them 3,957 officers, 2,378 guns, over 17,000 machine-guns, and over 2,750 trench mortars.’¹
The photograph shows a German light railway train captured by the Machine Gun Corps at a dump at Willems near Tournai in late October. It was filled with ammunition and trench stores.
Frank is billeted in a winery today. As a teetotaller, Frank won’t care – but any wine that he finds cannot be classed as the ‘spoils of war’ because it belongs to his Allies.
9th Battalion War Diary – 3rd November 1918 – Le Cateau
Operation Order No 15 issued (Appendix No 2). The Battalion moved to Le Cateau. Church Services before leaving.
References & Further Reading
¹ Sir D. Haig’s Night Report (Friday 1st Nov 1918), The Guardian, November 2nd, 1918, page 7
* Q 11420, copyright Imperial War Museums