During the German Spring Offensive Seely, back from London, called on Percy Beddington, a senior staff officer of the Fifth Army, at around 2am on 24 March 1918, to inform him of the gossip in London that Fifth Army had been routed. Beddington, who had only managed to get to sleep an hour previously, for the first time since the morning of 21 March, on a camp bed in his office, recorded that he "lost (his) temper, cursed him up hill and down dale for daring to wake (him) with such drivel." Seely himself later admitted that it suddenly seemed unimportant a few days later when he was commanding the CCB in action, but it mattered a great deal in the next few days when Gough was sacked from command of the Army as a scapegoat.