British cross the Rhine

On 12 December 1918 British troops crossed the Rhine. The Allied plan of advance had fixed this day for the move onto the right bank of the river. The Armistice of Compiègne gave the Allies the right to occupy three bridgeheads with a radius of 30 kilometres: around Mainz, Koblenz and Cologne. The last of these fell to the British. The first British armoured cars had been standing on the bridges in Cologne since 6 December, and by 11 December a British military governor was in office there. Now it was the army’s turn.

On 12 December the 1st Cavalry Division crossed to the right bank. Its 9th Brigade rode across the Hohenzollern Bridge, a railway and road bridge right next to Cologne Cathedral, named in honour of the ruling dynasty. The 1st Cavalry Brigade crossed the river at Bonn and set up control posts there. The next day the cavalrymen reached the edge of the bridgehead and the neutral zone that ran beyond it along the river.

On the morning of 13 December the infantry of General Herbert Plumer’s Second Army set off across the Rhine: two Canadian divisions and the 9th and 29th Divisions of II Corps, in four columns, each the size of a division. Heavy rain fell all day. According to the Canadian official history, the 1st Canadian Division crossed by the southern bridge in Cologne, marching past Plumer, while crowds of Germans in the streets watched the soldiers in steel helmets, with bayonets fixed, in silence. A photograph from those days shows Plumer taking the salute of the 29th Division on the Hohenzollern Bridge. At Bonn the crossing of the 2nd Canadian Division, a column almost 30 kilometres long, was watched by the commander of the Canadian Corps, General Arthur Currie. He spent the night in the Emperor’s apartments in the palace there and joked afterwards that he had slept in His Majesty’s bed. The Canadians considered the crossing of the Rhine more important than crossing the German frontier, and for several days beforehand they had cleaned their uniforms and equipment so as to look their best. The Canadian official history notes that for them it was a memorable day, and for the Germans a day of humiliation.

The same day American divisions also crossed the Rhine at Koblenz and French divisions at Mainz. Over the next three days the British infantry advanced towards the perimeter of the bridgehead and relieved the cavalry there. By the evening of 16 December the Cologne–Bonn bridgehead had been fully occupied, and before Christmas all units of the Second Army had settled into their permanent quarters. The British began to fortify the bridgehead so that, if necessary, troops could be moved quickly to the east bank. The armistice had for the time being been concluded only for 36 days, until 17 December, and if fighting were to resume, the bridgehead would be the starting point for a march into the interior of Germany.