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Updated: May 19, 2025
During the night orders arrived for a move forward to support the Warwick Brigade, which had been fighting for several days between Maissemy and Fresnoy. At 7.30 a.m. on April 9 we marched in wind and rain to Marteville, and then formed a reserve line in front of Maissemy and Keeper's House. All day we dug trenches and erected wire. A divisional relief was to take place.
He was striding towards a car when I grabbed his arm, and he turned on me a very sick face. 'Good Lord, Hannay! Where did you spring from? The news, you say? He sank his voice, and drew me into a quiet corner. 'The news is hellish. 'They told me we were holding, I observed. 'Holding be damned! The Boche is clean through on a broad front. He broke us today at Maissemy and Essigny.
Towards evening on the 21st the Berks, who were in reserve when the attack started, were sent to counter-attack against Maissemy, which had been lost by the division on our left. Near the windmill, which stands on the high ground west of the village, Dimmer, the Berks V.C. Colonel, was killed leading his men on horseback. This local attempt to stem the German onslaught proved of no avail.
The forward zone resisted heroically, but by noon the Germans were through it west of La Fère and were in our battle-zone north of St. Quentin at Ronssoy. Between these two extremes of Gough's front they reached in the afternoon Maissemy, north of St. Quentin, and the line Essigny-Benay south of it.
From Selency Château, whose thickets fringed the sky-line, on the right, to the high-perched windmill above Maissemy on the left, work to consolidate this system had commenced. It remained for us to excavate the chalk trenches deeper and erect wire. The demand for that material exceeded the supply, and it was necessary to salve old German stores.
They reached the 'Battle Line' of trenches east of Holnon Wood, and there joined the Gloucesters, who had not yet been engaged in the fighting. The enemy, having captured Maissemy, Fayet, and Holnon, paused to reorganise as evening fell.
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