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Updated: June 29, 2025
Four days were spent in the front line, and the Battalion then went to Divisional reserve again at Brandhoek. After another tour in the line, it again moved to Brandhoek on Christmas Day, and there completed the 24 days which entitled it to a similar period of rest and training. The Christmas at Brandhoek was thoroughly enjoyed by the men.
The Sirdar's headquarters tents were always distinguishable by the big waving Egyptian flag, a crescent and star on a red ground, and near it a bigger "drapeau rouge" flaunted the talismanic lettering "Intelligence Headquarters." Before Major-General Gatacre's divisional headquarters flapped Britain's emblem, a full-sized Union Jack.
The troops, both old and new, were addressed, too, by Major-General Alderson, the divisional commander, who spoke of what the old men had done that the new men might understand what was expected of them, and stated that from now on he would count on us all as old troops. Then we marched away feeling we were now a definite part of the old regiment, and a few days later started our trek southward.
I turned and followed him to the ruinous cowshed which was my divisional headquarters. Wake, as I heard later, had swum the river opposite to Mitchinson's right, and reached the other shore safely, though the current was whipped with bullets. But he had scarcely landed before he was badly hit by shrapnel in the groin.
It appeared that all frontal attacks on Riquerval Wood had proved disastrous, and, although the 6th Division on the left had reached the outskirts of Vaux Andigny, our Divisional front was still the same as we had left it on the 11th.
Seventy odd immense Prussian Guards were humbly pushing in the bicycles of forty of our Divisional Cyclists, who were dancing round them in delight.
They have a right to know." Just at first though not for long there was a touch of hostility against us among divisional and brigade staffs, of the Regulars, but not of the New Army. They, too, suspected our motive in going to their quarters, wondered why we should come "spying around," trying to "see things."
He marched forward to continue his rounds, leaving the astonished divisional officer wondering if he was also to form special detachments of red-faced sailors, white-faced sailors, snub-nosed sailors, and bandy-legged sailors.
Pestilence, murder, and sudden death might be in store for them, but they would at any rate escape trench warfare, with all its attendant horrors and discomforts. Their comrades at divisional head-quarters gave them a good send-off. "Remember us to Pharaoh," they said, "and you can send us a few mummies for Christmas; they'll do for mascots."
But, if thirty brigades formed in ten divisions of three brigades are better than when formed in fifteen divisions of two brigades, it becomes necessary, in order to obtain this perfect divisional organization, to increase the numbers of the infantry by one-third, or to reduce the divisions of the army-corps from three to two, which last would be a serious disadvantage, because the army-corps is much more frequently called upon to act independently than a division, and the subdivision into three parts is specially best for that .
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