38TH (WELSH) AND 33RD DIVISIONS IN THE LAST FIVE WEEKS OF THE GREAT WAR

The period covered by this account extends from the beginning of October 1918 and the Battle of the Beaurevoir Line to the Armistice, during which time the 38th Division was in V Corps (Lt Gen Shute) along with 17th, 21st and 33rd Divisions, in Gen Byng’s Third Army. As the final advance proceeded the formation of the Corps for battle, movement and reliefs of divisions became almost a routine, apart for some special operation, and the divisions fought in pairs, the 33rd and 38th on the right and 17th and 21st on the left. Thus this very much the story of the 33rd Division as well as the 38th. The latter was commanded by Maj-Gen T.A.Cubitt, the former by Maj-Gen R.J.Pinney. The author, a Gunner, commanded the 115th Brigade of the 38th Division throughout the period covered in this account and after the war became the Commandant of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, before retiring in 1931.The account is made up of a series of articles from the RA Journal (as the original pagination indicates), arranged in chapters, each dealing with one or more major battles – Beaurevoir, Cambrai, Selle, Sambre etc. The narrative is compiled from the war diaries and operation orders of the various formations concerned, and from the history of the 38th and 33rd Divisions and 33rd Divisional Artillery, supplemented by notes and experiences of officers who took part in the operations. Unfortunately there is no contents list nor index to help the reader find his way around the narrative, though events are arranged in chronological order and chapters are headed so as to indicate the operations they describe. It is a very thorough and business-like account and makes a welcome expansion to the two divisional histories of which that of the 38th is a very short one while that of the 33rd consists in a large part of correspondence between commanders and of extracts from the Times and Daily Mail. This book has tha added attraction in that it includes extracts from German regimental histories giving the enemy view of operations.