E-text prepared by Brian Coe, Carol Brown,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
Transcriber's Note:
This text includes characters that require UTF-8 (Unicode) fileencoding. If the œ (oe ligature) or the apostrophes and quotationmarks appear as garbage, make sure your text reader’s “character set”or “file encoding” is set to UTF-8 (Unicode). You may also need tochange the default font.
Additional notes are at the end of the book.
THE 56th DIVISION
THE 56th DIVISION
(1st LONDON TERRITORIAL DIVISION)
BY MAJOR C. H. DUDLEY WARD
D.S.O., M.C.
WITH A FOREWORD BY
GENERAL LORD HORNE OF STIRKOKE,
G.C.B., K.C.M.G.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1921
All Rights Reserved
TO THE MEMORY
OF
MAJOR-GENERAL
SIR CHARLES PATRICK AMYATT HULL,
K.C.B.
Born July 3rd, 1865
Died July 24th, 1920
FOREWORD
When day broke on the 28th March, 1918, the 56th London TerritorialDivision was in position on the southern portion of the Vimy Ridge. Atnightfall the division still held its ground, having beaten back threeseparate assaults delivered in great strength by picked German troopsspecially trained in the attack and inspired with confidence resultingfrom the successes of the previous week. Truly a great achievement,and important as great, for the Vimy Ridge covered the city of Arrasand the coalfields of Béthune.
Important as this success was held to be at the time, a time of greatstrain upon the forces of the Empire, it was not till later on, whenLudendorff took us into his confidence, that we learned its fullsignificance. Ludendorff gives us to understand that the failure ofthe German effort of 28th March constituted the turning-point of the1918 campaign. That evening Ludendorff recognised the beginning of theend; the German nation lost heart; the moral of the German Armydeteriorated rapidly.
I have selected the above—one of the many achievements of the 56thLondon Territorial Division—to illustrate the stage of efficiency towhich the troops of our Territorial Army had attained in war.
I saw much of our Territorial troops in France:I had seen something of them in pre-war days, and I recall an absenceof appreciation of the devotion of those whose patriotic enthusiasmput life into the great organisation evolved from the brain of a