Monchy-le-Preux (Newfoundland) Memorial

The Monchy-le-Preux Memorial is a Dominion of Newfoundland war memorial that commemorates the actions of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment during the Battle of Arras of World War I.^[1]

The battle

The memorial commemorates an encounter that took place during the Arras offensive in which the British First and Third Armies attacked eastward from Arras on a 22-kilometre front. The 88th Brigade, the brigade in which the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was serving, was to execute a two-battalion attack against an objective known as Infantry Hill. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel James Forbes-Robertson, was on the right and the 1st Essex Battalion on the left.

At 5:30 a.m. on 14 April, the barrage opened and the two battalions began their advance. Ninety minutes into the attack the 1st Essex Battalion had taken their part of the Infantry Hill objective. The Germans then withdrew eastwards permitting the Newfoundlanders to occupy the German forward trenches in front of Infantry Hill. As the Royal Newfoundland Regiment advanced towards the high ground of Infantry Hill they were subjected to a strong German counterattack which surrounded both the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and the 1st Essex Battalion. By 9:00am the surviving groups of men were forced to surrender. Although all communication by telephone had been cut by artillery fire, a wounded man from the 1st Essex Battalion managed to make it to battalion headquarters to report that all men in the 1st Essex Battalion and Royal Newfoundland Regiment had either been killed or captured. The Germans pressed their counterattack, and soon advanced to the edge of Monchy-le-Preux capturing the trenches from which the 1st Essex Battalion and Royal Newfoundland Regiment had launched their attack.

Lieutenant-Colonel James Forbes-Robertson quickly collected all available men of his headquarters staff, as well as weapons and ammunition from dead and wounded soldier, and led them forward under fire to a trench on the outskirts of village. Establishing themselves in a short section of unused trench the team of Ten men opened fire on the approaching Germans and kept the Germans ignorance of their pitifully weak numbers. The ten men held their position over the next four hours until they were relieved by a full battalion of the Hampshire Regiment. A final German attempt to launch an assault on Monchy-le-Preux was disbursed as heavy guns of the corps artillery bombarded German assembly areas in the Bois du Vert and the Bois du Sart.

Total casualties for the Royal Newfoundland Regiment numbered 460. 166 were killed or died of wounds, 141 were wounded and 153 became prisoners. The 1st Essex Battalion fared no better and suffered 602 casualties.

Memorial

The memorial is one of six memorials erected by the Newfoundland government following the First World War. Five were erected in France and Belgium and the sixth at Bowring Park in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.^[2] The memorials are all bronze caribou, the emblem of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, with most standing atop a cairn of Newfoundland granite and surrounded by native Newfoundland plants. The Monchy-le-Preux Memorial faces a point known at the time as Infantry Hill and is slightly different from the other Newfoundland memorials in that it stands atop the ruins of what was a German bunker.

Notes

References

• Busch, Briton Cooper (2003). Canada and the Great War: Western Front Association Papers. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 077352570X.