Kiwis’ caring liberation forever remembered
THE seizing of the walled French town of Le Quesnoy was a dramatic feat of arms that brought a touch of chivalry to a war that was too often characterised as man’s inhumanity to man.
‘‘Picturesque’’ and ‘‘romantic’’ were not words often associated with the Great War, but these were words employed by the New Zealand correspondent Malcolm Ross when he wrote two days after the liberation: ‘‘When tales of fiercer fights have almost been forgotten, the storming and capture of Le Quesnoy by the New Zealand Rifle Brigade will be remembered as one of the most picturesque and romantic incidents of the war.’’
Le Quesnoy became an objective for the New Zealanders in the last major British offensive of the war against a German army that was in the throes of chaotic disorder and demoralisation, but which still provided pockets of fierce resistance.
The Germans held Le Quesnoy for almost the entire war — until its dramatic liberation on November 4, 1918.
The town, occupiedsince 1914 and with its civilian population still in residence, was surrounded by a moat and 17thcentury ramparts which had withstood invaders for more than 200 years. But now in the age of industrialised killing, the ramparts could be breached with a few wellplaced artillery barrages.
The Machine Gun Corps history put it succinctly: ‘‘The fiendish dogs of modern warfare had already destroyed many of the finest gems of ancient architecture; not even the most sacred had been spared; and so in the final stages of the Great World War it was decided to save this historic old town from destruction.’’
The New Zealand aim was twofold: to protect the French citizens in the town and to preserve the ramparts.
New Zealanders had the town surrounded and various attempts were made to enter but were beaten back by machinegun fire.
A coalminer from Ngapara in North Otago, James Nimmo, was among a small group who got into the town and he later wondered how on earth he survived to get back out again.
‘‘One of my mates got one through the leg and one in the arm,’’ Nimmo later wrote home. ‘‘There was no shelter and there was nothing for us to do but run for it. A good hundred yards. Could see the bullets hitting the cobbles in front of us, but neither of us was hit.’’
Nimmo sheltered in a doorway to get back his wind, then went again.
‘‘He [German] opened as soon as I appeared and helped me along the final stretch. One poor little dog ran after us barking like blazes and had his leg blown clean off. Lucky! Yes, the Corp [corporal] and I were lucky.’’
(Nimmo, who was later in the occupation force in Cologne, had been christened Captain James Matheson Nimmo, but wisely left his first given name at home when he went into the army in February 1918).
A message dropped from an aircraft calling on the Germans to surrender, saying they were surrounded by a superior force, was ignored.
Senior commanders stood around mulling over what to do.
Major Harold Barrowclough (later Majorgeneral Sir Harold, a Second World War divisional commander and later chief justice), according to the brigade history, recalled a brigade conference of a couple of days before when the possibility of cork mats (to get across the moat) and scaling ladders had been raised.
He laughed and suggested he should have a copy of Ivanhoe so ancient modes of assault might be studied.
There was no available copy of Sir Walter Scott’s tale of derringdo in 12thcentury England, and although engineers had secured scaling ladders from the Paris fire service, only one could be used. The rest had been destroyed by shellfire.
The first scaling attempt failed but they tried again a few hours later.
Lieutenant Leslie Averill was first up, followed by Lieutenant Harold Kerr, a schoolteacher from Woodville. Then followed a Lewis gun team of two and Barrowclough himself.
Signallers also made it up the ladder and Barrowclough was able to send a message to brigade headquarters that he had entered Le Quesnoy.
Averill, by being the first to scale the ladder, gave new meaning to the expression
‘‘over the top’’.
A son of the Most Rev Walter Averill, the Bishop of Auckland and later the Primate and Archbishop of New Zealand, Leslie Averill had already won the Military Cross for gallantry during the assault on Bapaume in August of 1918. He came to be forever associated with Le Quesnoy.
After the war, he advised the official war artist, George Butler, who painted a depiction of the storming of the ramparts. While he was studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, he went back to Le Quesnoy in 1923 for the unveiling of the New Zealand memorial there.
More than 40 years later, after a lifetime’s medical service in Christchurch, Le Quesnoy made him a ‘‘citoyen d’honneur’’; in 1973 he was made a chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur by the French Government and on another visit to Le Quesnoy in 1977, a new school and street were named in his honour.
Fifteen minutes after Averill, Kerr, Barrowclough and the rest ascended the ladder, one of the town’s gates was thrown open and men of the Rifle Brigade entered, cautiously at first because they didn’t know what resistance they would receive. But the Germans had fought their fight and the garrison commander with 100 men formally surrendered.
Others who had been sheltering underground or who were in machinegun posts joined the surrender as the afternoon wore on into gloaming. By night, 711 had surrendered.
Nimmo, regretfully mindful of the quality of German workmanship, recalled: ‘‘That night the whole garrison surrendered. I don’t know how many there were but I think it was about 2000. They went out the gate. That was the hardest part of the lot. What a crowd of watches a chap would have salvaged if only they had come our way.’’
Le Quesnoy was liberated at a cost of six officers and 37 men killed and 13 officers and 238 men wounded; a minor bill by World War 1 standards.
The people of Le Quesnoy have been eternally grateful. The caring liberation of their town is remembered daily by the 5000 or so who live there and who go about their business along the Avenue des NeoZelandais or stroll the rue Aotearoa; they probably know better than New Zealanders that Rue d’Averill and the l’Ecole du Lieutenant Averill are both named for Leslie Averill.
Every Anzac Day and every Armistice Day, both the New Zealand anthem and the country’s praises are sung in the small town. They have not forgotten.