On December 14th, the battalion marched, together with the rest of the Brigade, via the village of Moullens to the village of Marioles, which was situated near Landrecies about 15 kilometres distant. Here the Brigade was formed up in ceremonial order with officers to the front and after having been obliged to stand in ranks for over an hour in a biting arctic wind, we as a Brigade were inspected by the King. George V was accompanied by Prince Edward, Prince Albert and a numerous retinue of staff officers and arrived in glass screened Rolls Royce cars flying the royal pennant at the tonneau. The inspection merely consisted of a long wait in the cold, after a long march, on short rations, followed by about three minutes inspection by the king and his retinue, who passed down once through the line of officers, turned inwards and the front rank of the Brigade. This was followed by cheers for the king, which were delivered in a rather cheerless-fashion. The king, the princes and the retinue then departed and the Brigade returned to its billets in Beaurepaire and Prisches. There is no doubt that the king looked very cold and “fed-up” and seemed very relieved when the ceremony was completed and he was enabled to depart.

After remaining a further few days at Beaurepaire, during which time Lt. Howells and Lt. K. McMillan returned to the Battalion, we were overjoyed to receive orders to prepare to march forward. By this time, the idea that we were to be part of the Army of Occupation on the Rhine had worn itself out, so that we no longer looked forward to entering German territory as a conquering host.

On December 17th, we marched out in column of route with the band leading and the transport in rear and entered the large town of Avesnes during the late afternoon, passing the village of Cartignies en route. Owing to the constant drizzling rain of the past few days, the roads were very slushy and we soon became bespattered with mud. The troops were billeted in evacuated houses in which, as usual, there was a dearth of furniture, since it had for the most part been plundered by the Huns.

There were no parades so that we spent the next day in an inspection of the town which, before the war had been a very prosperous place of some 25,000 inhabitants. There were several large public buildings, including a beautiful old Town Hall, a fine Gothic Church, a military barracks, abattoir and several large factories and buildings which were mostly in a destroyed condition. There had been no fighting at Avesnes and beyond destroying bridges and a few buildings, besides having despoiled the town of all metal, and furniture, the place was in a fairly well preserved state. It was built on a hillside which enabled a fine view to be obtained of the surrounding country and the suburbs of the town. A river divided the new portion from the old, but as the connecting bridge had been destroyed and now lay toppled over into the swiftly flowing streams, we of course, could not cross over. During the war from a German point of view, Avesnes was the equivalent of what Abbeville was to the British. The Kaiser, Ludendorf and other high German commanders established their headquarters here and an English woman who had been in the town as a Frenchman’s wife during the war, said that during the visits of the Kaiser, the town assumed a Parisian aspect, what with decorations, dancing and banquets etc. The town was also used as a distributing centre for the Northern German Army and was the source of the meat supply. On the outskirts of the town was a large well kept German and French cemetery containing over 1,000 German and French graves of soldiers with a sprinkling of English as well. In the middle of the military portion, a huge granite pyramid had been erected inscribed in German and French with the following inscription “To the memory of the brave German and French soldiers who died for their country.” The pyramid was suitably designed and stood 15 ft high and about 10 ft. square at the base.

Next morning, we marched out of Avesnes en route for Sivrey. The rain poured down as we marched and very soon we were wet through. On the further side of the town we passed the railway yards where the Germans had burnt an enormous ammunition train and the scene of destruction was terrible to behold. Unexploded shells were distributed all over the yards and in the adjoining fields and every house within five hundred yards had been partially destroyed. The train itself was nothing but a burnt up skeleton of twisted ironwork and wreckage.

At about 2 pm we reached Sivrey after a march of 23 kilometres in bleak rainy weather. We were wet through, cold and miserable. However, we had good billets for the night and after a meal of bully-beef, bread and jam with hot tea, we were soon quite happy once more. There was very little of interest to see at the village of Sivrey, the Huns had retreated in great haste with the British close on their heels only three hours behind them. The civilians took to the fields whilst the British sent a few shells into the village and four houses bore the marks of the explosions. The civilians then flocked back to their homes and were delivered amidst much rejoicing. Here, food was scarce and the prices were terrific, e.g. candles 2 francs each, soap and other fatty goods being unprocurable at all. In the morning we formed up as usual and began our march in better weather to the village of Solre-St. Gery,which village was only about nine kilometres distant. On the outskirts of Sivrey is a wood which is traversed by the main road and at the further entrance to the wood and near the roadside was an abandoned German .77 calibre gun.

This spot was supposed to be the point at which Marshal Foch met the German Armistice delegation and signed the preliminary papers. We only stayed until next morning at the picturesque village of Solre-St. Gery when we proceeded as usual until we reached the village of Daussois just across the Belgian border. We were now in Belgium and Daussois was to have been the home of the 20th Btn during the next six weeks or more. A more dreary, God-forsaken or dirty hole of a place it would be impossible to imagine and we also discovered that we were more than four kilometres away from the remainder of the Brigade, which was at Walcourt. The officers of the 20th soon made up their minds that Daussois was not a suitable place to spend six weeks, so began to look for an excuse to move the battalion out of it. On a search for a suitable excuse being made, we discovered some cattle with “foot and mouth disease” (really milk fever) which served as a good enough reason to have the battalion moved.