A month of relative peace far from home

When the New Zealanders were sent to the little town of Armentie`res in France in 1916 they were initially received by the local inhabitants with the same suspicion they had encountered on the rural farms where they had spent their first few weeks in France.

Armies of occupation had a centuriesold tradition of mistreating French peasants but, for reasons which are still unclear, New Zealand men of that time were far more courteous to women than the English or even their own French menfolk.

The First World War was two years old, huge armies were bogged down in stalemate and little progress was being made so the New Zealanders were able to spend a lot of time in the town and soon won over the French people.

After the failed Gallipoli Campaign the British High Command sent the Australians and New Zealanders to relatively quiet locations to recover their former strength and energy, and Armentieres become a holiday camp compared to Gallipoli and Egypt.

Both colonial units, which had not been expected to match their British regular army infantry counterparts in combat, had astonished even their own senior officers with their toughness and resolve under fire.

Such infantrymen would be needed in the battles ahead and they would have to be in the best possible physical condition.

The trenches they were sent to occupy had been neglected and they worked long hard days on reconstruction and improvements.

The ground was flat and boggy and trenches could not be dug very deep before water began seeping in.

Instead of digging deeper they built parapets with sandbags and built duckboards for the bottoms.

While they worked, the Germans were engaged in similar tasks a mere three hundred yards away.

Each night New Zealand patrols were sent out to examine the enemy wire entanglements.

At the slightest sound bursts of machinegun fire swept inches above their heads.

The two sides exchanged regular rifle and machinegun fire, often without inflicting casualties, but the artillery of both sides created havoc, death and mayhem to both sets of trenches.

For the New Zealand gunners this was the way to fight a war.

After the pitiful amount of shells available to them at Gallipoli, they had seemingly endless supply of ammunition. They revelled in the chance to match the Germans shell for shell.

By mid summer, with the long days of European summer, the New Zealand batteries were firing about 3000 shells a day.

In spite of the expenditure of ammunition, it was still a stalemate with neither side ready nor willing to launch a major offensive but the patrols became increasingly aggressive.

Attempts to overrun forward positions and return with enemy prisoners for interrogation became a deadly game of tit-for-tat with casualties on both sides.

In their regular times away from the trenches, instead of trying to sleep in the disease and rat-infested holes of Gallipoli, the New Zealanders spent time in Armentie`res.

It was a rustic and charming place with red brick churches and schools the most prominent buildings.

In parts the city had been damaged by shellfire from earlier battles but, in June 1916, it was a quiet, almost peaceful place.

Most of the inhabitants had fled from their homes long before the New Zealanders arrived but enough had remained to open little coffee shops and taverns to provide the New Zealanders some of the comforts of home.

During the night a battalion would move back from the trenches after several days of heavy shelling, wiring and patrolling to take up comfortable billets in the town.

In the morning they would be brought newspapers, eggs and chocolate.

After a late breakfast the men would march to the brewery baths, reputed to be the most famous in France.

Here they would relax in steam hot water while the French women washed and ironed their clothes.

The rest of the day would be spent buying picture postcards to send home to New Zealand or flirting with the girls in the coffee and pastry shops.

A steady diet of fried potato chips, eggs, coffee and beer, on top of their meagre military rations, kept them broke but in good health.

Most important for many of the men was the company of good-natured French women who, in spite of rumours and bawdy songs, replaced mothers more than sweethearts in the lives of homesick men, many who were hardly more than boys.

Towards the end of June that year the shellfire grew more intense and the raids more frequent and bloody.

Then, one warm summer afternoon, the Germans shelled the town. The barrage lasted for several hours. Crowded coffee shops were hit, killing off-duty soldiers, women and children. The New Zealanders were furious. Apart from the loss of their comrades, which was expected in war, deliberately shelling civilians, particularly little children and their innocent mothers, was inexcusable. For the next few nights the New Zealanders who went out as usual to raid enemy positions brought back no prisoners.

On July 1 they marched out of Armentie`res towards Somme.