THE GERMAN WITHDRAWAL TO THE HINDENBURG LINE

The Battle for Saint-Quentin Commences

The close of the Battle of the Somme in November 1916 left both the British and German Armies exhausted. The German Army had suffered particularly badly, insofar that its pre-war NCO's had, for the most part, perished in the fighting of the previous two years. The German Army was now "a Militia" according to a German General. In order to save manpower they decided to reduce the length of their front and shorten their lines of communication and in the case of their retreat to the Hindenburg Line at St. Quentin they fell back a distance of almost 40 miles. The German withdrawal was a complete surprise to the British and it was only towards the end of February 1917, when a patrol of the 21^st Manchesters at Serre on the Somme battlefield discovered that the trenches opposite them were empty, that it was realised that the German retreat eastwards had commenced.

Making every effort to delay the following British troops, the Germans lay waste everything before them. Wells were poisoned, trees felled, houses destroyed, bridges blown up, in short, a forerunner of the "scorched earth" policy followed in World War II. Every now and again the Germans would halt and a pitched battle would ensue, but by the 21^st March 1917 the retreating Germans had reached St. Quentin and occupied the Hindenburg Line defences so recently built by French and Russian slave labour. The British and French Armies now "dug in" on the outskirts of the city with the Cathedral well within view.

But the Germans were to prove difficult to dislodge and the first attacks outside the town at Savy and Francilly-Selency proved costly to the attacking British battalions. But there were successes. On the 2^nd April, the 2^nd Manchesters attacking from Roupy and beyond Savy village, towards a hill later called "Manchester Hill", succeeded in reaching Francilly-Selency and in doing so, captured a battery of German guns. Twelve days later the Manchesters were on the attack once more. This time towards Fayet. Wilfred Owen the poet was in the Manchesters successful assault on the outer trenches of the Hindenburg line reaching the St.Quentin - Gricourt road.

The French 3^rd Army had not been idle, for on the 13^th April four regiments made brave attacks on the German lines at Gauchy, Moulin de Tous Vents and towards Itancourt.. But entry into the city eluded the Allies and with the British battalions required elsewhere, the French XI Corps took over the trench line on the 20^th May 1917 – but the British would be back.