divisions (and 3 cavalry, equivalent in firepower to one infantry division) rather than the seventeen he demanded. 39th and 20th (Light) Division divisions, both in GHQ Reserve, were placed in his rear. Gough had to take over two more sections of line ( and respectively) in mid January, leaving him holding of front, (as opposed to Third Army to his north, which had 14 divisions to hold ). At a corps commanders' conference on 3 February, Gough warned them that intelligence had deduced that von Hutier, who had recently taken Riga in September 1917, was opposite them. Edward Beddington acted as Fifth Army Chief of Staff until 10 February 1917, when Neill Malcolm's replacement Brigadier-General Jocelyn Percy became available. Beddington later wrote highly of Gough's active mind, "full of ideas, some excellent and some the reverse". Gough also badgered Haig and Petain (Anthoine, his old colleague from Third Ypres, was now Chief of Staff at French GQG) and was assured that Humbert's French Third Army at Clermont was earmarked to reinforce him. Asking for reinforcements A memorandum (4 Feb 1918) from Maj-Gen Davidson (Chief of Operations at GHQ) discussed the possibility of Gough having to fall back to positions defending the Somme Crossings, although he stressed that such a retreat would be bad for morale, but made no mention of Gough's lack of manpower. Davidson proposed building a fortified bridgehead around the Somme crossings at Brie and Peronne, and wanted Gough to fortify the River Tortille, which runs roughly northeast from Peronne to the Canal du Nord. A further request for reinforcements resulted in formal orders (9 February 1918) from Lt-Gen Herbert Lawrence (Chief of Staff BEF), ordering Gough to be prepared to conduct a fighting retreat and then conduct counterattacks – it may well be that although the German attack was expected it was thought it would be a subsidiary attack prior to an attack on the French in Champagne. Some extra labourers were made available. The total number of labourers in Fifth Army sector rose from 17,400 (30 December) to 24,217 (early February) to 48,154 by mid March (out of 354,577 in the BEF as a whole) but no more than 8,830 were ever available per week. Most of them were used to build roads, railways, depots, hospitals, water reservoirs – not fortifications. Derby wrote to Haig (5 March) that Gough did "not have the confidence of the