War Memorial - Black Watch Corner

 War Memorial - Black Watch Corner

Near Zonnebeke in Belgium

 

In 2014, a statue of a Black Watch [officially the 42^nd Royal Highland Regiment of Foot] soldier was unveiled in Belgium to mark the centenary of the battle that took place here in November 1914. The bronze statue, designed by Edinburgh sculptor Alan Herriot, was installed in front of 300 regimental veterans at Black Watch Corner.

The official regimental history recorded:

Between 6.30 am and 9 am on 11 November, the heaviest bombardment so far experienced by the British forces broke out; as it lifted, a Division of the Prussian Guard, ordered by the Kaiser to break the British line at all costs, attacked the front. Under cover of the bombardment, a strong enemy force drove back D Company and the two platoons of A Company entrenched at the south west corner of Polygon Wood. C Company under the command of Lieutenant Anderson and in a strong point (point d’appui) 380 yards from the south and west corner of Polygon Wood held out firmly. This split the attack into small parties of 20–30 Prussians, many of whom were soon lost in the woods behind. As they emerged from the back of the woods the guns of 41 Brigade Royal Field Artillery, sited one thousands yards west of Nonne Bosschen Wood, opened direct fire on the enemy at a range of 300–400 yards.

The effect was devastating and the German attack faltered. At 3 pm a counter attack by the 2nd Battalion The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, supported by the Royal Field Artillery, destroyed the remnants of the Prussian Guard and the line between the Menin Road and Polygon Wood was re-established. At 3.30 pm three Companies of the 1st Battalion The Northamptonshire Regiment, supported by parties of The Black Watch and Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, advanced from Nonne Bosschen Wood to retake the south west corner of Polygon Wood. This corner was known on all later maps as Black Watch Corner.  Originally, however, it was the C Company “strong point” south west of Polygon Wood which was given that name.

On 12 November 1914, the day after the battle, the strength of the 1st Battalion The Black Watch had been reduced to 2 officers and 109 soldiers; the 1st Battalion Scots Guards to 1 officer and 69 soldiers and the 1st Battalion The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders to 2 officers and 140 soldiers. 

 

 

Arras War Memorial, France

 

On 31 August 1914 a patrol of Gemran uhlans [light cavalry armed with lances] arrived in Arras, almost directly north of Noyon. They stayed only a few hours before trotting off. Six days later they were followed into the city by an entire German division, which occupied Arras. The French attacked in October and drove the Germans out. The Germans retreated only a short distance and throughout the rest of the war the city lay within artillery range. Almost the entire city was destroyed by 1918, including the famous cathedral.

I drove into Arras on a warm day with the sun shining down. I had been told that the war memorial featuring an angel stood just outside the railway station in Place Foch. As it turned out the square was a short distance from the station, and it took me a bit of time to work out where the angel was to be found.

She is a strikingly modern angel, accompanied by a soldier. Between the two are engraved the words:

"Arras a ses enfants morts pour la défense du droit. La Paix, les ailes largement déployées, debout sur le promontoire. Le soldat français, hier soldat de Dieu, Aujourd’Hui Soldat de l’humanité. Sera toujours le soldat du droit".

My rather poor command of French makes that to mean:

"Arras has his dead children for the defense of the right. Peace, wings widely spread, standing on the promontory. The French soldier, yesterday a soldier of God, today a soldier of humanity, will always be a soldier of what is right."

This is a complex monument for the dominating figures are not the only ones here. There are reliefs on either side of the angel and the soldier. Those on one side celebrate peace, while those on the other show war. The peace reliefs start with a tractor in the fields with four farm hands, accompanied by cows, horses, beehives and sacks of flour. Next come three miners digging coal. Then there are women at work in the linen industry, a woman holding a baby and sheaves of corn. The scenes fo war include a soldier in the trenches, a donkey carrying a pack and five marching soldiers. Then there are a sailor, an infantryman and an aviator holding hands. Then there is a nurse carrying a tray of medicines and a figure representing “Notre Dame de Lorette” that most important war memorial and cemetery. At the top is a bundle of rifles flanked by two croix de guerres and above them a row of torpedoes.

This is all the work of Félix-Alexandre Desruelles (1865–1943) who was born in nearby Valenciennes. It was inaugurated in 1933 by the then famous and much admired Marshal Philippe Petain, who before the Great War had been the colonel of the 33^rd Infantry Regiment which was the main garrison force in Arras. It has been Petain who had taken command at Verdun and brought an end to the German offensive there at the end of 1916. He won ever greater plaudits from his contemporaries in 1940 when, as Prime Minister, he negotiated what appeared to be a remarkably generous peace from Hitler following the surrender of the French armies. As the war progressed, it became clear that Petain had arranged little more than an abject capitulation. By 1945 he was vilified and was thrown into prison having been convicted of treason.

This grand monument was damaged by German bombs on 19 May 1940. The town council made the rather quixotic decision not to repair the memorial. They thought the scars of 1940 merely added to the message of the horrors of war, so left them there. You can still see them today.