Page:The Irish guards in the great war (Volume 1).djvu/290

 1918

ARRAS TO THE ARMISTICE

The lull lasted till the 2nd of January when they marched via Warlus to Arras and were billeted in the prison there. Battalion Headquarters were in a luxurious house in the Rue d'Amiens, with a whole roof and all windows repaired with canvas. It was hard frosty weather, binding everything tight—of the kind that must be paid for when thaw comes.

At that moment our line, on the Somme side, ran from Lens just behind Oppy, through Rœux, five miles east of Arras, south to Bullecourt, south-easterly towards Boursies, round the Flesquières-Ribecourt Salient that Cambrai fight had won for us, curved back between Gonnelieu and Gouzeaucourt, and thence dropped, skirting St. Quentin and the valley of the Oise, to the junction with the French at Barisis, south of that river. This length, of close on seventy miles, was held, from Barisis to Gouzeaucourt, by Byng's Third Army, and from Gouzeaucourt to Gavrelle, by Gough's Fifth Army. North of this, the First Army took on. The working and reserve strength of the Third and Fifth Armies at the opening of 1918 was twenty-nine infantry and three cavalry divisions. So far as our arms were concerned, everything on the French and Belgian fronts was at a standstill. The Somme had cost very heavily throughout the year, and there was, or was said to be, a scarcity of men. The situation appears to have been met by reducing the number of battalions in the brigades from four to three apiece. This released the odd battalions to make what, on paper, and in the journals, looked like additional brigades, but threw extra work, which nowhere ap