In a war where battles were waged over
weeks and months, a subsidiary action can all too often be
I’ve known that he was a recipient of a
decoration for bravery at some point in WWI.
My own research has turned up that Sgt Harvie (at the time, Corporal)
was listed on page 6830 of a Supplement to the London Gazette, 9th
July 1917: “4/9742 Cpl J Harvie, A &S Highrs” awarded the Military Medal.[1]
The Military Medal (MM) was created during the war, instituted on 25 March
1916. Specifically, it was to recognise
non-commissioned officers “for gallantry and devotion to duty when under fire.”[2]
Not quite as prestigious as the Victoria Cross,
The best I’m able to do is form a
general idea of the overall situation for the day Cpl Harvie was most likely to
have performed his notable act. A
difficulty within that is it very likely occurred during one of the subsequent
actions which filled the void between the major battles and campaigns of the
war. “Arras was a major Allied offensive, fought in the spring of 1917. Falling
chronologically between the much higher profile battles of the Somme in the
second half of 1916, and Passchendaele (or Third Ypres) in the second half of
1917, Arras today is not a battle that is particularly well remembered. The
battlefields also are much less known than those of the Somme and Flanders, and
are less visited.”[4]
Arras had been planned well in advance,
in cooperation with the French. A hero
of the desperate Battle of Verdun in 1916, General Robert Nivelle had gained
command of the French Army and boasted of a devastating offensive to be begun
in the spring of 1917. The British
holding Nivelle’s left flank through the Ypres salient would support this
offensive by keeping the Germans opposite them under pressure and thus unable
to reinforce the units falling under Nivelle’s attack. General Nivelle had
convinced the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George in January during a
military conference in London that diversionary attacks by the British were required
for his offensive to succeed.[5]
Part of this effort would include the Canadian Corps attack on Vimy Ridge. In planning these operations, Field Marshall
Sir Douglas Haig noted “Prior to our offensive, the new German lines of defence
on the British front ran in a general north-westerly direction…. Thence the
German original trench systems continued northwards across the valley of the
Scarpe River to the dominating Vimy Ridge, which, rising to a height of some
475 feet, commands a wide view to the south-east, east and north….The front
attacked by the Third and First Armies on the morning of the 9th April extended
from just north of the village of Croisilles, south-east of Arras, to just
south of Givenchy en Gohelle at the northern foot of Vimy Ridge, a distance of
nearly 15 miles. It included between
four and five miles of the northern end of the Hindenburg Line, which had been
built to meet the experience of the Somme Battle.”[6]
These new defenses were known to the Allies as the “Hindenburg line.”
On
the Western Front, German forces of roughly two and a half million men
organised into 134 divisions
The
Arras diversion being planned over a number of months allowed ample time for
training the attacking troops to a proficient standard which had not been
possible to achieve in other battles earlier in the war. Haig continues: “The attack on
the front of the Third and First Armies was planned to be carried out by a
succession of comparatively short advances, the separate stages of which were
arranged to correspond approximately with the enemy's successive systems of defence. As each stage was reached a short pause was
to take place, to enable the troops detailed for the attack on the next
objective to form up for the assault. Suffice
it to say here that this system consisted really of several systems of
trenches, strong points and tunnels, protected by vast networks of wire.”[9]
Because of this, the initial phases of
Arras, including Vimy, were incredibly successful. Failures in follow-up and a complete rebuff
of Nivelle’s main attack quickly ground all offensives in the West to a
standstill. Haig still had ambitions for
an enveloping assault. The Field
Marshall and his staff “developed a plan of their own, one that would combine a
new offensive out of the Ypres salient with an amphibious landing and unhinge
the German position in Belgium….they may even be forced back from the Hindenburg
Line.”[10]
It’s here that smaller, more limited
assaults were conducted, in the hope to give the British forces the best
possible positions to renew the offensive, scheduled to begin in the autumn as
the Third Battle of Ypres, more commonly known as Passchendaele. Within this
period of positioning attacks, Cpl Harvie received his MM. Based upon other accounts, it’s reasonable to
place the exact date at the 23rd of April, 1917. Two battalions of the British 33rd
Division 2/A&S H being one of them were tasked with gaining a portion of
the Hindenburg line near the River Sensée.[11]
This attack did not go well. “The enemy
began to infiltrate the two battalions’ lines even as they moved towards the
river. One company of each battalion was
cut off and recue attempts failed.”[12]
Small parties of men were on their own
and without support. Some tried to move
back towards British lines, others were surrounded and either reduced or taken
prisoner. These clusters of Highlanders
were desperately fighting for their lives.
Amongst them was the remains of the company under the command of Acting
Captain Arthur Henderson which “was suffering heavy casualties and was being
attacked from the rear as well.” Captain Henderson, who only recently had been
attached to the 2nd Battalion from the Argyll’s 4th Battalion,
had already proven himself in combat.
His permanent rank was 2nd Lieutenant, his temporary
promotion a reflection of his capability which had also seen his winning of the
Military Cross.
Without any help, his remaining men
wouldn’t last where they were, and with Germans working their way in
Cpl Harvie may or may not have been with
Captain Henderson, but he was most assuredly part of that days attack. His
inclusion in the London Gazette for the MM is coincidental with Captain
Henderson’s VC citation. This pocket
battle, known as the 2nd Battle of the Scarpe was concluded the
following day. British commanders
determined not to push forward in the face of stiff German resistance.
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