?Under attack in World War One

The following are first hand quotes and diary extracts of soldiers under attack during the First World War. They are taken from Paul Allens book "Neath a foreign sky."

Extract: A visit from the King

Involved in the great British retreat of 1918, by the end of March the Teesside Pioneers had reached the area of Merville, where the battle worn 40TH Division had been inspected by the King on the 30TH of March. The following order had been issued soon afterwards:

?His Majesty the King visited the Division today and was pleased to express to the Divisional Commander his great appreciation of the gallant behaviour and bearing of the 40TH Division in the recent operations. He was fully conversant with the work accomplished by the Division, and while offering his sincere congratulation thereon, deplored the losses, which have been incurred.

Extract: A wretched rabble

For the troops on the ground the day had been one long miserable footsore retreat to the Somme, so reminiscent of a similar retreat from Mons almost four years earlier. A machine gunner with the 42ND Division [Lieutenant Richard Gale] would later describe...

?Dumps of kit and valises lay on the side of the road, disorganised transport and guns were moving to the rear, all intermingled with pathetic groups of refugees...Canteens had been abandoned and their stores of spirits rifled. This was a retreat with all the horrors of panic. There was, as far as we knew, nothing behind us and the Channel ports, save this wretched rabble seemed to have lost all cohesion and the will to fight?...

Extract: They remained unmoved

Relieved from the front line that same night by the 1ST Welsh Guards, the 1ST Grenadiers had moved into the support trenches behind the front for a period of short lived rest, however, by the dawn of March the thirtieth the unit had been back in the front line where the enemy?s machine gun fire that day had been described as ?very active?. Later that morning the Germans had put down a heavy artillery and ?Minenwerfer? bombardment onto the Guards trenches. Ponsenby describes the situation;

?The barrage increased in intensity later and extended to the back area. Shells fell with considerable accuracy on the front trenches, and the whole battalion had a terrible time?...Shortly the intense artillery and mortar fire had been complemented with heavy machine gun fire and fourteen aircraft that had dropped bombs behind the Guards positions. This had gone on for three hours. One could quite rightly, much like the Germans, have assumed by this time that the Guards had totally demoralised by their experiences...?but in this they were mistaken. The 1ST Battalion remained unmoved. Shattered, covered in earth, deafened by the constant explosions, dazed by the spectacle of maimed and mutilated men, the Grenadiers hung grimly on to their line, though in some places the trenches were totally obliterated?...[3]

Probably in the belief that no one could have survived the onslaught that had gone on throughout the day, during that afternoon the enemy had launched an infantry attack which had been met by a withering fire from the Grenadiers that had ?completely staggered them?. ?To their dismay they found that not only was the First Battalion waiting for them, but that the men were shooting coolly and accurately, in spite of the shelling to which they had been subjected. The attack was stopped...they never succeeded even in reaching the wire?...[3]

[3] Volume 3, The Grenadier Guards in the Great War 1914-1918; Lieutenant Colonel The Right Honourable Sir Frederick Ponsonby; McMillan; 1920.