Preface.


I first met the 7th Manchesters early in May, 1917, when they were
gaining new experiences of warfare on the Western front, not far from
Epehy in the north of France. They, with the rest of the 127th Infantry
Brigade, and in fact the whole of the 42nd Division had already had a
long war experience in Gallipoli and Egypt, but they had only recently
been transferred to France. I was taking up the command of an Infantry
Brigade for the first time. I did not know then what a lucky man I was,
but it did not take me long to find out, and we worked together without
a break from that time until the armistice.

The writer of this book passes over with considerable sang froid a
certain operation which took place on a June night in 1917. If the 7th
Manchesters, and not only the 7th, but the 5th, 6th and 8th as well will
allow me to say so, I did not enjoy the same complete confidence as to
the result before and during the night in question. The operation
consisted of digging a complete new front line trench, a mile long, on
the whole Brigade Sector, five hundred yards in advance of the existing
front line, and half way across No Man's Land. June nights are short and
it needed practically the whole brigade to get the job done in time. We
had to find not only the diggers, but the covering troops and strong
parties for carrying and wiring. Now four battalions digging on a bare
hillside within point blank range of the enemy's rifles and machine guns
are not well placed to meet attack or even to avoid fire if they are