Loos
The General Reserve
XI Corps (Lt General Richard Haking) provided the only reserve available and had been held under the control of Field Marshal French.
It was formed on the 29th August 1915 and consisted of :
- The Guards Division — at Lumbres
- 12th (Eastern) Division — at Armentières
- 21st Division — at Tilques, St Omer
- 24th Division — at Étaples
- 46th (North Midland) Division — at Ieper
However, only the 21st and 24th Divisions were being made available for the battle (The Guards were to follow).
Both of these Divisions were made up of Kitchener’s New Army soldiers formed in the third recruitment drive (K3). They had only arrived in France on the 13th and 4th September respectively. Neither had sufficient training or an adequate level of officer experience — this wasn’t their fault, the army had rapidly outgrown the number of suitable candidates available.
Why French chose to use them as opposed to swapping them for the 12th and 46th Divisions serving time in the quiet Ploegsteert sector has led to much debate. One suggestion has been that in their inexperienced enthusiasm they would not go to ground as quickly as more experienced troops during a follow up.
There were a lot of inconsistencies between the urgings for vigorous attack and seizing the initiative, and the actual positioning of the reserve. Haig’s understanding when compiling his own orders was that the two Line Divisions would be immediately available, and had accordingly used all of his own in the morning’s assault.
Map showing the towns concerning the Reserve
However, French had initially insisted on keeping the reserve near Lillers which is a good twenty-five kilometres away (a full day’s march). Haig wanted them closer to Noeux les Mines and Beuvry, and was quite forceful on the matter. The last written message from French to Haig was that the two Divisions would be in those areas by daybreak of the 25th September.
Haig thought (wrongly) that this meant they would be available but French still intended to keep them under his control until First Army had pierced the German front. French then made things even more difficult by moving his forward Headquarters to Château Philomel at Lillers, whilst leaving GHQ at St Omer. His only method of communication with First Army was via couriers.
On the 20th September orders were sent to the two Divisions to march towards Lillers — at night. Marching sixty kilometres on the cobbled roads took two nights and on arriving at Lillers they found that their routes crossed in order to reach their allotted billets.
At 1900 hours on the 24th September (eve of battle) the soldiers started their final march towards Loos. They were instructed to leave their cookers behind and take rations instead. Despite the warm evenings, greatcoats were also ordered to be carried.
In the aftermath, General Haking blamed what happened on the march to a lack of training and command. The roads were severely congested, some were so narrow with ditches either side that if oncoming traffic was encountered chaos ensued (even today, many roads in rural France are good for a tractor but you wouldn’t want to meet one).
At Béthune the 72nd Brigade (24th Division) was halted by military police because Brigadier General Mitford didn’t have a pass. Railway crossings held up other units as trains were shunted backwards and forwards.
At least the pouring rain eased as they approached Beuvry and Noeux les Mines. The forward units arriving towards 0200 hours and the tail end towards 0600 hours. Rest was going to be impossible because only ten kilometres away the bombardment was under way.
By 0700 hours the first positive reports from the battlefield were filtering back to Haig and he sent a staff car to Lillers. At 0845 hours Haig sent another message to Sir John asking for the reserve Divisions to be placed at his immediate disposal.
At 0930 hours 21st and 24th Divisions were ordered by French to advance to First Army trenches : “as soon as situation requires and admits…Guards Division will move up to ground vacated by 21st Division”. About 1130 hours French arrived at Haig’s Headquarters to say that he was arranging for the two Divisions to be placed under his orders. He then went on to see Haking at Noeux les Mines. The end result was that, although Haking had already stood his men to, it was not until 1320 hours that Haig received word that he had control of his reserve and that they were on their way forward.
In his dispatch of 15th October 1915, French states that he made
the two Divisions available at 0930 hours.
The messages reaching Haig during the morning had been that in many places the Germans were beaten, Hulluch and Cité St Élie had been entered, and Cité St Auguste was about to be assaulted. None of this was strictly true and there was little in the reports to suggest that the losses up to this point had been very high.
Haig that morning was not expecting much in the way of obstruction. However German reserves had been closer to hand and they swiftly sealed up any holes in their secondary lines and re-wired those areas that had been wrecked.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty the British had in facing the German Second Line was that it was impossible to accurately bombard. The openness of the ground prevented bringing forward the field artillery in numbers — they would have been sitting ducks to counter battery fire. The Germans had placed their second line behind the hill (on the reverse slope) forcing the British to fire at long range and work off aerial photographs.
If the weight of artillery had been considered less than desired for the opening of the battle that available for a second commencement as opposed to an immediate follow through was feeble.