Wednesday 21st March 1917 from
our correspondent in the field
At 12
midnight the 17th Battalion, Manchester Regiment commenced to relieve the 2nd
Bedfords. The relief was complete by 6 am. The Battalion then returned to their
old front line trenches near Agny, arriving about 7.30 am.
The adjutant
remarked to me on the “blower” that: “A very noticeable point about these three
days’ operations was the systematic way the enemy had destroyed everything
which would be of any use to us. All dug-outs had been blown in, trees cut
down, trenches wired in, and all stores removed. There is no
doubt they had been preparing for this retirement for some months”.
