The Germans had, during September, lost a quarter of a million of prisoners, several thousand guns, and immense quantities of irreplaceable stores. Their main line of resistance was broken and over-run throughout; and their troops in the field were feeling the demoralisation of constant withdrawals, as well as shortage from abandoned supplies. Our people had known the same depression in the March Push, when night skies, lit with burning dumps, gave the impression that all the world was going up in universal surrender.
But work was still to do. Between Cambrai, which at the end of October was under, though not actually in, our hands, and Maubeuge, lay thirty-five miles of France, all open save for such hastily made defences as the enemy had been able to throw up after the collapse of the Hindenburg systems. There, then, the screw was turned, and on the 8th October the Third and Fourth Armies attacked on a front of seventeen miles from Sequehart, north of Cambrai, where the Cambrai-Douai road crosses the Sensée, southward to our junction with the French First Army a few miles above St. Quentin. Twenty British divisions, two cavalry divisions, and one American division were involved. The Battalion faced the changed military situation, by announcing that companies were “at the disposal of their commanders for open warfare training.” After which they were instantly sent forward from their Demicourt trenches, to help make roads between Havricourt and Flesquières!
On the 3rd October they had orders to move, which were at once cancelled--sure sign that the Higher Command had something on its mind. This was proved two days later when the same orders arrived again, and were again washed out. Meantime, their reorganisation after the Flesquières fight had been completed; reinforcements were up, and the following officers had joined for duty: Lieutenants H. E. Van der Noot and G. F. Van der Noot, and 2nd Lieutenants A. L. W. Koch de Gooreynd, the Hon. C. A. Barnewall, G. M. Tylden-Wright, V. J. S. French, and R. E. Taylor.
On the 4th October the Commanding Officer went on leave, and Major A. F. L. Gordon, M.C., took command of the Battalion. Once more it was warned that it would move next day, which warning this time came true, and was heralded by the usual conference at Brigade Headquarters, on the 7th October, when the plans for next day’s battle in that sector of the line were revealed. The Second Division, on the left, and the Third, on the right of the Guards Division, were to attack on the whole of the front of the Sixth Corps at dawn of the 8th October. The Guards Division was to be ready to go through these two divisions on the afternoon of that day, or to take over the line on the night of it, and continue the attack at dawn on the 9th. The 1st Guards Brigade would pass through the Third Division, and the 2nd Brigade through the Second Division. As far as the 1st Brigade’s attack was concerned, the 2nd Coldstream would take the right, the 2nd Grenadiers the left of the line, with the 1st Irish Guards in reserve. It was all beautifully clear. So the Battalion left Demicourt, recrossed the Canal du Nord at Lock 7, and were “accommodated” in dug-outs and shelters in the Hindenburg Line, near Ribecourt.