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Updated: June 11, 2025
They had fortified Aubers by using the lower or basement storeys of houses for machine gun emplacements, and a large redoubt with wire had been constructed in the woods. The commanding officers of both the battalions of the Gordons had been killed, also Colonel Fisher-Rowe of the Guards, who had turned the trenches at Fromelles over to us, was killed leading his battalion in a charge.
The storm increased, the flashes succeeded one another more rapidly, the thunder began to growl, and the wind, the precursor of a hurricane, whistled in the plumes and the hair of the horsemen. The cavalcade trotted on more sharply. A little before they came to Fromelles the storm burst. They spread their cloaks. There remained three leagues to travel, and they did it amid torrents of rain.
There is a road about every kilometer and they run roughly northwest and northeast. Running southwest and almost parallel with the trenches was Rue Pettion, a short road that terminated at the Fromelles road near our headquarters. The next street, a little over a mile back, is Rue Du Bois, north of the Fromelles Road, south of the Fromelles Road it is called the Rue De Tilleloy.
It was a wonderful sight at night to watch the trenches at Fromelles. As far as the eye could see from the North Sea, away past Bethune and death-stricken La Bassee, streamed the meteor flares like a great Milky Way, the flares crossing and recrossing each other. In front of us the German Mausers sound with their constant "to-ho," "to-ho," for the Mauser has a double report.
Late in December some one in the War Office thought that we had given up too much ground about Fromelles and Armentieres, so an attack was ordered which resulted in nothing beyond the killing of a great many Highlanders, Gordons, Black Watch, Argyles, and virtually destroying a Brigade of Guards. But nothing came of all this, and it is, as I suppose as Rudyard Kipling would say, "another story."
A branch line of railway ran from La Bassee to Fromelles and supplied the German batteries on our front with ammunition and no doubt took coal back. On the east side of the ridge ran the canal from La Bassee to Lille, also the two lines of railway between the same places. With our footing secure on the Aubers Ridge the gates of Lille and La Bassee would be at our mercy.
Aubers and Fromelles, with their ruined towers, the Bois du Biez, Aubers Ridge and other objects on the landscape. In front of us there was a partially erected factory of some kind. We suspected that its blinking, unglazed windows harboured machine guns, and I fervently urged him to try out his guns on this building as soon as he got them in position.
The man remained in the village; the woman had had a relay of horses, and continued her journey. Planchet went in search of the postillion who had driven her, and found him. He had taken the lady as far as Fromelles; and from Fromelles she had set out for Armentieres. Planchet took the crossroad, and by seven o'clock in the morning he was at Armentieres. There was but one tavern, the Post.
The next day the Battalion went by motor lorries through Locon and other places the men had known so well in 1915 and, debussing near Laventie, the Battalion marched via Fromelles to Le Maisnil en Weppes. Passing through what was formerly no man's land at Laventie, the men were able to recognise the places they had held in the trenches in the early part of the year.
The British sprang some mines near La Poisselu and bombarded the German trenches north of Fromelles and east of Ypres, the Germans responding vigorously. The British also attempted a night attack near Frelinghien, northeast of Armentières, which failed in its purpose. German troops cracked a mine at Hulluch and captured a French trench at Hartmannsweilerkopf with 200 prisoners.
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