Monchy le Preux: Arras

By Colin Fox

As the motorist speeds past Arras on the motorway south to Paris, a look to the east should bring into view the hilltop village of Monchy le Preux. This farming community dominates the ground to the North (as it falls away to the River Scarpe) and to the South ( to the River Coejeul). In the early days of the Battle of Arras in the spring of 1917 the Village fell to British attacks after a stubborn resistance by the German defenders.Therefore the struggle continued to wage just to its east as all attempts to move the line significantly further into the German defences failed. In 1918 the German spring offensive rapidly regained lost ground, but stumbled and faltered on the outskirts of Arras. When it came to the British turn to launch what was to turn put to be the final offensive of the war in this sector; it was the Canadian forces that led the way here. Monchy and the countryside round about has returned, for the most part, to a tranquil, rural spot. Few of the topographical features that loomed so important in 1917 and 1918 have disappeared, so that this is a battlefield where it is easy to follow the action, whilst walking along its tracks shows how significant a vantage point this was to the combatants of 1917 and 1918.There are a few remnants of the war, and mementoes continue to give stark reminders of the bitter struggles of eighty years and more ago. In the spring of 1998 over twenty British soldiers whose bodies had been unexpectedly unearthed in the course of land development were buried in Monchy British cemetery

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 31, 1990
• ISBN: 9781473816398

Book preview

Battleground Europe

MONCHY LE PREUX

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Battleground Europe

MONCHY LE PREUX

COLIN FOX

Series editor

Nigel Cave

LEO COOPER

First published in 2000 by

LEO COOPER

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Limited

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright © Colin Fox, 2000

ISBN 0 85052 738 4

A CIP catalogue of this book is available

from the British Library

Printed by Redwood Books Limited

Trowbridge, Wiltshire

For up-to-date information on other titles produced under the Leo Cooper imprint,

please telephone or write to:

Pen & Sword Books Ltd, FREEPOST, 47 Church Street

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CONTENTS

Series Editor’s Introduction

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Advice to Travellers

List of Maps

Chapter 1 Monchy and the Battle of Arras 1917

Chapter 2 Who captured Monchy?

Chapter 3 The men who saved Monchy

Chapter 4 Making progress: 23 April 1917

Chapter 5 A melancholy episode: 3 May 1917

Chapter 6 Infantry Hill captured?

Chapter 7 Monchy lost: 23 March 1918

Chapter 8 Monchy re-captured: 26 August 1918

Chapter 9 Post-war reconstruction

Chapter 10 The battlefield today

Further reading

Selective Index

Dedicated to the memory of Private Sydney Thomas Fox 8th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment who served at Monchy.

The photograph was taken after he was promoted to corporal; he was wounded, on 25 August 1917, near Louverval.

SERIES EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

Monchy le Preux is a village that dominates the area around it, standing high on the ridge that runs between the valley of the Scarpe to the north and the Cojeul to the south. Far enough from the speeding traffic on the Arras to Cambrai road, it retains a sleepy atmosphere but yet enough of significant buildings to illustrate its importance before the all-destructive events of the Great War. Now it boasts memorials to its close links with Britain and her Empire. One of the five caribou memorials of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment is to be found close to the main square; whilst a short way down a street to the west is the quite splendid 37th Division Memorial. The village war memorial commemorates a connection with the Isle of Wight.

The events in the Arras sector of April, May and June 1917 are not well known; even less are those of March and August 1918. Colin Fox has written a moving account of the role of Monchy in those difficult days. His narrative enables people to come to this relatively tranquil spot, to wander the field tracks and narrow lanes and stand on the spot where Forbes-Robertson and his small group of heroes fended off the German attacks; where men of various British divisions fought with such mixed results; and where the Canadians battled their way through an enemy whose exertions earlier in 1918 had left it exhausted. Blessed with his gift for languages, Colin has also been able to bring in the German side of the story – all too often a vital part of the history which is omitted.

I was always keen for a book to be written on Monchy for this series; despite a serious illness Colin has resolutely worked to produce a work of the highest standard. I should also take this opportunity to express my gratitude to both him and Bridgeen, his wife, for their kindness and hospitality on my visits to their home during the course of the preparation of this book.

German artillery in support for an attack on Monchy le Preux in October 1914. A. Jacques

Some residents of Monchy le Preux who were unable to flee before the Germans arrived.

The small chapel in Monchy. A Jacques

I would also like to thank Monsieur Alain Jacques for his kind permission to reproduce photographs from a book he has co-written with M. Jean-Marie Girardet and M. Jean-Luc Letho Duclos, Sur l’axe strategique Arras – Cambrai: Tilloy-les-Mofflaines, Monchy le Preux. M. Jacques is head of the Archaelogical Service for Arras; whilst the book is one of a series that covers the events of the twentieth century in the countryside around Arras. It is encouraging to find that the authorities in both Arras and the Departement are taking an increasing interest in the part that this region played in the Great War.

Nigel Cave

Ely Place, London.

A party for soldiers and children organised by the Bavarian 3rd (Reserve) Regt. A. Jacques

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My father first took me to Monchy. Not literally, since he was there in 1917, but it was whilst researching his service career that I went to see for myself the landscape he would have known under very different circumstances. He never talked about the war in my presence and so I acknowledge a silence which awoke in me a life-long curiosity and a desire to understand the experience which he shared with so many of his contemporaries.

Nigel Cave then cajoled me into putting some shape to my subsequent research and he has been a steady source of encouragement ever since. More than that, he has during my recent illness given me absolutely essential practical help with the final compilation of the draft materials. A former colleague at the University of Reading, Dr Julia Boorman, has likewise given me invaluable support at a time when the physical demands of the project threatened to bring it to a premature end.

I am grateful too to colleagues and friends who have generously offered guidance and material help during the writing of the book, principally Derek Bird, James Brazier, Tony Froom, Colin Hague, Maurice Johnson, Michael Orr, Sylvia Page, Graham Keech, Vic Sayer, Trevor Tasker, Barrie Thorpe, Ken Turner, Len Webb and M. Laurent Wiart. Helen Browning of the Department of Geography at the University produced the maps for the battlefield guide.

I am grateful to staff at the following institutions for making my visits there enjoyable as well as profitable: the Archives du Pas de Calais, Arras; the Imperial War Museum, London; the County Record Office, Newport Isle of Wight; the Public Record Office, Kew.

For permission to reproduce an extract from a letter contained in Letters from a Lost Generation, eds Bishop & Bostridge 1998, I am grateful to Virago Press. Likewise, extracts from Alan Thomas, A Life Apart, 1968, are reprinted by kind permission of The Peters Fraser and Dunlop Group on behalf of Victor Gollancz. The Trustees of the Imperial War Museum granted permission to quote from the papers of G Buckeridge held in the Department of Documents and through that Department every effort has been made to obtain similar permission from copyright holders of the papers of RL Mackay, NM Saunders and RS Whiteman.

Finally, heartfelt thanks go to my wife, Bridgeen, who not only cast an English teacher’s beady eye over earlier versions of the text but went way beyond the call of duty in acting as travelling companion on so many visits to the Monchy battlefield. Without her forebearance and active interest there would have been no book.

INTRODUCTION

What attracts most of today’s visitors to Monchy is perhaps the Newfoundland memorial, the caribou standing high in the centre of the village and looking out over the battlefield where on 14 April 1917 the men of the Newfoundland Regiment made their celebrated attack. This was the first of a number of attempts made to push forward the British line east of the village after its capture on 11 April. They all came up against some significant features of the landscape which were well described by the historian of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers who were in action there later in the same month:

‘The village of Monchy lies about five miles from Arras and is about 200 feet above the Scarpe. North, west and south wide views extend in clear weather, but it is with the country immediately to the east with which we are concerned. As one emerges from the village, the fields lie as a flattish plateau on a front of a 1000 yards or more in width. Due east there is a dip and then there is a rise to a point nearly a mile off, known as Infantry Hill, not quite as high as Monchy itself. East-north-east lie some small plantations, the largest and furthest off of which is the Bois du Sart. South-east of Infantry Hill is the Bois du Vert.’

Monchy’s commanding position on the Arras battlefield, perched on the high ground between the River Scarpe to the north and the Cambrai road to the south, emerges very clearly from this description. Whoever held the village enjoyed excellent observation, except from that dip just to the east which the King’s Own Scottish Borderers’ historian mentions. From here the next rise in the ground - Infantry Hill, or Hill 100 as it was originally called - limited the view. Much more will be said in the following chapters about this obstacle and how it affected British operations after the capture of the village.

Newfoundland caribou memorial 1919 IWM Q49547

The Mairie and village school in Monchy 1909.

Monchy under occupation. On the left of the dominant Mairie is the entrance to the Chateau’s park.

The Mairie in Monchy 1999.

Another recurring theme will be that of the two large woods - Bois du Sart and Bois du Vert - which compounded the problems for troops trying to push the line eastwards from the village.