Welsh Journals

A Memoir of the Final Advance and March into Germany, 1918 Sgt. W. G. Sweet late 2nd Bn. Monmouthshire Regiment Edited by Barry Johnson. The Monmouthshire Regiment, of the Infantry Territorial Force, sent all three of its first line battalions to the 28th Division in France in 1914-15. The 1st Bn., raised in Newport, and the 3rd Bn., from the Abergavenny area, eventually joined the 49th Division, while the 2nd (Pontypool) Bn. was assigned to the 4th and then the 29th Division, in which it served as Pioneer Battalion from May 1916 until the end of the War. It had been one of the first Territorial battalions in the front line, having entered the trenches on 21st November 1914. It subsequently played a part in almost every major action on the British sector of the Western Front, and after the Armistice marched into Germany with the Army of occupation. Sgt. Sweet, from Usk, joined the Battalion in 1912 and served in it throughout the war. The 1st and 3rd Bns. suffered particularly severe casualties in the Second Battle of Ypres, most of the losses being on 9th May 1915. As the 2nd Bn. was also down to half its strength, the three battalions were amalgamated. On 23rd July the 2nd Bn. regained its own identity, and in April 1916, it was designated a Pioneer Battalion. With many ex-miners in its ranks, like the other Monmouth battalions, it was well suited to the task of carrying out support work at the front, and under fire: digging trenches, wiring, mining, keeping roads serviceable, and so on. While not involved in initial assaults, pioneers followed behind to consolidate newly won positions, and, when their division was withdrawn for rest, they would often be kept hard at work just behind the front, and still under fire. This memoir was written up in 1921 from notes he made at the time. It begins in August 1918. On the 10th, the 2nd Mons were in L 'Hoffand, on the northeastern outskirts of Hazebrouck, where they spent a week sending parties to work on communication trenches in the Merris sector, 8km to the east. On 18th August, while Sgt. Sweet was on leave, 87 Bde attacked Outtersteene Ridge, with Meteren on the left of their front. The battalion spent the next twelve days on work such as improving and wiring trenches to consolidate the ground gained, while its HQ was at Pradelles, on the Hazebrouck to Bailleul Road. It was during this period that Sgt. Sweet rejoined the battalion. My leave soon came to an end and we arrived back at Calais about midnight. There we were herded into a football field with lots of lookout