In Good Company

The First World War Letters and Diaries of The Hon. William Fraser–Gordon Highlanders

William Fraser, David Fraser

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781473827332
• eBook ISBN: 9781473884359
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

In Good Company is a graphic account by the Hon. William Fraser, Gordon Highlanders, of his service in the First World War. Several times wounded, he went to Flanders in 1914 with the 2nd Battalion and commanded successively a platoon, a company, a Territorial battalion and a Regular battalion, ending the war as a lieutenant-colonel of twenty-eight, having survived the battles of First, Second and Third Ypres, Arras, Cambrai and the final triumphs of 1918. Frasers letters and diaries from the front, which compose this absorbing book, were edited by his son, General Sir David Fraser, soldier, biographer, historian, novelist. They provide a vivid, often highly critical and virtually unbroken account of those extraordinary days, seen through the eyes of a young Highland office. In Good Company gives a remarkable insight into some of the most terrible and challenging years of the Armys life.

VII

The Last Crisis

1918

[DIARY] JAN 1ST 1918 The commencement of Vol II of this most interesting work, my diary. I awoke in Boulogne and Laurence Carr and I breakfasted together off a whiting and an excellent omelette. Food is of importance during the first day of one’s leave, after which one takes it for granted. The Boat sailed at 11.15 and we reached Folkestone without incident, except such as was provided by a cold and choppy sea.

Thus Willie began 1918, as 1917, in England. His sister, Mary, was married on the second day of his leave and there was a large family wedding in London – with the sad aftermath of the loss of her husband, Commander Jack Codrington, Royal Navy, before the war’s end. ‘There is a lot of talk going on about peace,’ Willie recorded on 3 January, but he didn’t believe it. The Allies were at sixes and sevens to judge by their public statements. Lloyd George made a speech on war aims on 5 January which, Willie recorded, ‘seems to form a basis on which peace might be made – but not yet.’ Meanwhile President Wilson ‘is saying that he will never make peace with the Hohenzollerns.’ But – mistakenly – Willie wrote on the same day: ‘A military defeat of Germany requires three more years of War – are we ready to suffer this and to pay the price? I know not.’

During his leave Willie heard from his brigade commander, Harry Pelham-Burn, that he had been selected by the XVIII Corps commander, Sir Ivor Maxse, to command the Corps School. Each corps in France ran its own training school; and Maxse, a great and gifted trainer, minded a great deal about it. It was a flattering appointment: Willie’s battalion was no longer serving in XVIII Corps but Maxse had noted him well during the battles of the autumn 1917, Third Ypres. Willie was predictably sad to leave his battalion, but command in battle was a wearing business and there can be little doubt that some relief from it was timely – although as the dramatic events of early 1918 unfolded he often recorded his feelings of guilt at being behind the front.

Away from home at the time Willie wrote to Bryanston Square.

Chartley Castle, Stafford

Jan 14th 1918

Dear Mother,

I have a bit of news for you which will please you and Father I think, though my feelings are rather mixed. Anyway I have been ordered to go and command the XVIII Corps training school. Maxse who commands the Corps apparently asked for me, and Uncle Harper said ‘Right O.’ It’s a safe job and supposed to be a leg up towards a Brigade, but I’m awfully sorry to leave the 6th G.H. and I’m not at all sure I want to command a Brigade, having always been rather against very young Brigadiers. However there is no choice in the matter – it is an order and that finishes it – not the Brigade I mean, but the training school.

It’s awfully quiet and restful here – you know the sort of west-country look in a place, not strenuous like the east coast. I shall be up on Thursday. They have got a great concert on Wednesday in aid of the French Red Cross, which they were very keen I should stop for, so I said I would. It’s going to be a very good concert too.

The machine gun course at Grantham was very interesting, and I was awfully cold and the cold gave me awful gip where the dentist had been at work. I came here by Notts. and Derby – I hadn’t been in Derby (where I had to wait an hour) since the days when Master was down there. I wandered about, but it was dark and I couldn’t recognise any of his old haunts. With love to Father.

Your loving son

WILLIE

During his leave, too, the family received news that the eldest son, the Master of Saltoun, had been at last exchanged and allowed to travel to Holland. He had been a prisoner of war for three years and four months.

There were air raids on London most nights, and more often than not Willie recorded walking home to Bryanston Square after theatre or dining out amid the sound of deafening gunfire. ‘These air raids are a nuisance,’ he wrote on 29 January. ‘They killed a lot of people, too, on Monday.’

[DIARY] FEB 4TH 1918 Said goodbye to Mother and Mary and Jack at the house after an early lunch. Father came with me to the station. The train left at 2.15 p.m. I hated going back as much as usual. Gen. MacNaghten C.R.A. 15th Div. was crossing too–this is third time consecutively we’ve travelled in the same boat. I made his acquaintance the first time through his lending me some money without being asked, and he has done me a good turn every time. Today I shared his cabin. Got to Boulogne without incident about 7 p.m., but the Folkestone Hotel was full up, so I had to take a room in the Hotel de Paris, which is rather dirty and smelly. Also I find that my train goes at 7.35 tomorrow morning which is too beastly early for words. By George, it’s quite extraordinary what a different sort of place Boulogne is according as to whether one is going home or coming out again! But it’s always sad too in a way – I always remember how happy we were, Billy and I, on May 28 – 1916 when he was going home to be married. We shared a room at the Folkestone Hotel – how I hate this war.

FEB 5TH 1918 Had to get up at 6 a.m. to catch the early train to Amiens at 7.35 a.m. – Benson (comdg. a bn. in the 58th Div.) was in the train too. Got to Amiens at 11.35 a.m. and after some difficulty managed to telephone to the XVIII Corps to arrange for some means of locomotion onward. They promised a car about 3.30 p.m. Lunched in Amiens at a funny little place called ‘Les Huitres’ which Benson translated ‘The Lobsters’, and where we had a very excellent lunch. Eventually left Amiens about 4 p.m. for Ham, about two hours run. However about ¾ of an hour out of Amiens we burst a tyre and had to put in a new tube which took some time, and when we started off again it was getting dark, and we had no lights. But in France, luckily, most of the main roads are straight. They are rather wonderful, these French roads. Driving along in the gathering dusk, the trees on either side meeting overhead, it is rather like going along a giant passage and at the end there is a sort of pale light (the sky framed in a circle of branches). But you never reach the light.

Eventually we got to Ham and I found L. Carr. Found a billet at the main hotel which is a very dirty, grubby place. The Germans when they retired collected all the civilians from the surrounding country into Ham, and then proceeded to destroy all the villages. Ham itself they left intact after taking away everything worth having. There is no doubt that among the 10,000 civilians they left behind there is a good mixture of their spies. It appears that it is certain that the Boche is going to deliver a tremendous attack at this part of the line, and everyone is busy with preparations to meet it.

My school is at a place called Caix not far from Amiens, but I have to stop here for a day or two first. Turned in about 11.15 and slept like a log in spite of the small grubby room.

Ham is twelve miles south-west of the town of St Quentin, which was just behind the German lines. ‘The Boche is going to deliver a tremendous attack at this part of the line.’ He was indeed. This was the German offensive, the last – and greatest – ‘Kaiser’ schlacht’, officially christened by the Germans ‘Operation Michael’ and informally referred to by their soldiers as the ‘Hinden-burg stakes’. Ludendorff had recorded in November: ‘Our general situation requires that we should strike at the earliest possible moment, if possible at the end of February or beginning of March, before the Americans can throw strong forces into the scale. We must beat the British.’ And there were no doubts whatever that the continuous flow of German reinforcements from the now non-existent Eastern Front towards the west meant that, at last, German power was virtually concentrated against the Allies in France and Flanders. That power had been gravely weakened by the previous four years’ appalling struggle, but it was still formidable. In the west the Germans now had the numerical edge. The point of attack – the sector south of Arras, a frontage of forty miles just east of the old Somme battlefields – had been chosen. Three German armies, totalling sixty-three divisions, had been nominated. The blow would fall primarily on the British Fifth Army under Gough – four corps with twelve divisions. The second of these, numbered from Gough’s right south of St Quentin, was Maxse’s XVIII Corps.

[DIARY] 6TH FEBRUARY 1918 Had an interview with Maxse – the Corps Commander – in the morning. In the afternoon did nothing at all. It was a wonderful day from the point of view of the weather. In the evening read ‘The Fortunate Youth’. Dined with the Corps Commander, and we had a talk about various things. Bed early.

8TH FEBRUARY 1918 CAIX Another rotten day as far as the weather goes. Left Ham at 10.15 with Carr and motored to Caix to take over the XVIII Corps school. It has only recently moved here (3 weeks ago) and Caix had been left in a most appalling mess by the French, whose ideas as far as concerns sanitary arrangements of every description are almost prehistoric. Three weeks hard work has made a great improvement, ovens and cookhouses, washing places, etc. etc. are springing up and in another month or so there will be a tremendous change. Lack of labour rather hampers things. There were 50 Boche prisoners detailed for work here, but after one day they complained that they had too far to walk to their work (4 miles each way) and the authorities supported them. So they no longer work. It is astounding.

Spent the day visiting the whole place. There are three subsidiary training establishments attached, ie Lewis Gun, Signalling and Gas schools. The place has been very well run as far as administrative arrangements go, one can see that – have not seen any of the training so far. But the Chief Instructor – Hill – seems an excellent chap. It seems his hobby is archaeology, and he has chanced upon some most interesting discoveries near here. Some reindeer bones and horns, which latter are very rare I believe, and flint instruments of various dates, some fashioned (he says) 400,000 years ago, between the two glacial periods. I never knew man existed 400,000 years ago.

It’s not a very easy job taking on a school like this, and will need hard work to make it a real success. Especially when one has not much experience of this sort of thing. However it can be done all right.

9TH FEBRUARY 1918 CAIX My first whole day at the school. Spent the morning partly on parade and partly looking round the place. Did a lot of work inside in the afternoon, preparing an address for Monday, and reading a multitude of papers. Did some of the Pelman course in the evening, the first I’ve done for a long time.

There is one schoolmaster, O’Hanlon, among the instructors – he seems rather a good chap really. We had a talk at dinner about that book, ‘The Loom of Youth’, which was written about the school at which he is a master. He said it was very clever and very cruel – all the characters are recognisable at once and true to life. And perhaps the description of the house in which he (the author) was, is not too bad either. But apparently Waugh was a pretty vicious boy himself – it’s a biography, the book, and surely all biographers have been lenient to their own vices?

Heard some more interesting geological facts this evening from Hill – in another 300,000 years another glacial period is coming for the earth due to variation of the angle of its axis. It’s a nuisance of course, but I don’t think I shall alter my mode of life. At any rate it will end the war.

HAM 15TH FEBRUARY 1918 Lectured on Training – Laurence Carr and Abbott turned up about midday and we walked round the school. After lunch the three of us went to Ham. Met Guy Campbell there, who is now Camp Commandant with the 36th Div. Went to the cinema in the evening where the secretary of the Navy League, Hannon, was lecturing on the Navy. It was very interesting for the men, who applauded vehemently. Made the acquaintance of Oliver Nugent commanding 36th Div. who was there. The Boche was over and dropped some bombs and broke a lot of windows and demolished one house. Fortunately there were no casualties. He gave the army a much worse time – the first day they have been in their new headquarters – which show that his information is pretty good. There were 15 killed and 30 wounded in their village.

HAM 16TH FEBRUARY 1918 Went and watched Levey doing some of the drill etc. demonstrations he is going to do for the Conference, and then went and examined the hole they made with a bomb last night close to Tom Holland’s billet. Saw madame his hostess – a wonderful woman who is 63 and looks 40. Then he and I went off round some of defence organisations. It was a glorious day and we had a most pleasant walk for 3 ½ hours or so. He is a most pleasant and capable fellow but his legs are very long.

We shared a sandwich on Manchester Hill, and he explained his plan for winning the war. Which is a colossal raid to a limited depth with tanks – and come back.

We had a wonderful view of St. Quentin, as it did of us. The Cathedral overlooks the whole world behind our lines, and the town forms a comfortable residence for as many men as the Boche likes to put there. Because we are not allowed to shell it by the French. It is of course a beautiful town, beautifully situated, and at present almost in the Boche front line.

We saw some very good dugouts constructed by the French, they are very good at that sort of thing, though the trenches which they construct are laughable.

We walked through a lot of ruined villages, but the country has a less desolate appearance than in many other places. We got back about 4 p.m. with a great appetite for tea.

The Boche was over bombing again this evening, but did not drop anything on Ham. It is very cold.

17TH FEBRUARY 1918 Bright and cold. In the morning Laurence Carr and I walked down to the Corps Reinforcement Camp, and looked over it. It seems to be a well-run, going concern. It is commanded by a fellow called Bridcutt, now a lieut-colonel, once Sergt-Major of the Coldstream Guards. He is a fine type, and a real gentleman as so many of our old non-commissioned officers were. His H.Q. are now in a chateau once used as H.Q. by Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, and he has never been so well-housed in his life, and appreciates it accordingly.

In the afternoon the Conference opened with an address by the Corps Commander. The Army Commander, Gough, was present and all the Divisional Commanders, Brigadiers & Commanding Officers in the Corps. The object of the Conference is to get – if not exactly uniformity of training – at any rate all training done on a really sensible and thorough system. It is almost extraordinary how few officers do understand how to train, or to organise for training. If one can judge by results, that is-to hear fellows talk one would think that every battalion in France was splendidly trained.

The Corps Commander’s address was excellent in every way and very much to the point. If the result of this show is to wake fellows up and to promote discussion on these subjects of training, a very great deal will have been achieved.

18TH FEBRUARY 1918 The day commenced with a lecture by Lt. Col. Levey. He is rather a remarkable fellow in his way. His father was a P.ole, who married a Scotswoman from Aberdeen. Levey enlisted originally in the Scots Guards where he made his mark in various ways as a non-commissioned officer, and was later made Sergt-Major of the Chelsea training school, where he was at the beginning of the war. Later he was at ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Foreword by Nigel Cave
• Map
• Introduction
• I First Ypres 1914
• II The Ypres Salient 1915
• III France and England 1916-1917
• IV Arras 1917
• V Third Ypres 1917
• VI Cambrai 1917
• VII The Last Crisis 1918
• VIII Victory 1918
• Biographical Index