Wednesday 21st
November 1917
As the old
sweats in the Press Corps predicted yesterday, the enemy evacuated Flesquières
over-night leaving the exhausted highlanders to occupy it this morning. All the correspondents here at Montreuil-sur-Mer, headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force, have been frantically trying to get south to be closer
to the battlefront, your correspondent among them.
This frantic
behaviour by the non-combatants, however, has not been mirrored by similar
actions on the field of battle itself. It was widely felt last night that a
massive breakthrough was at hand. We have learned that, on 6th Division’s
front, the cavalry were even sent forward, though they failed in their attempt
to seize the village of Noyelles.
This morning
Cantaing was quickly taken but the three assaulting divisions belonging to III
Corps, including 6th Division and the 8th Bedfords, were told that their
advance had ceased and they were to consolidate. The attack has thus been given
into the hands of IV Corps alone, which was given orders to take Bourlon Ridge
and Wood.
The fighting
here and at the village of Anneux has been bloody. The enemy have been, as
usual, very quick to counter-attack and the situation is confused though last
we heard Anneux still holds out.
The adjutant
of the 8th Bedfords tells us that headquarters moved into the old German
support system for the Hindenburg Line during the day, south of the Escaut Canal and north of Ribecourt. A pack convoy brought up water for the battalion,
which was most welcome.
This
afternoon the Battalion moved into the a line just west of Marcoing, then moved
again over Prémy Ridge to a quarry (marked in pink on the map above) under shell-fire and relieved the Guernsey Light Infantry of 29th Division in
the new front line, holding a stretch in front of Nine Wood west of Noyelles
running north-west towards Cantaing. This front line is, the adjutant informs
us, not a trench system but just shellholes and posts quickly dug-in.
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