The British Campaign in France and Flanders 1915

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Title: The British Campaign in France and Flanders 1915
Author: Doyle, Arthur Conan
Language: English
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FLANDERS 1915 ***

THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN

IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS

1915

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

AUTHOR OF
'THE GREAT BOER WAR,' ETC.

SECOND EDITION

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXVII

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN
IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS
1914

LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON

{v}

PREFACE

In the previous volume of this work, which dealt with the doings of
the British Army in France and Flanders during the year 1914, I
ventured to claim that a great deal of it was not only accurate but
that it was very precisely correct in its detail. This claim has
been made good, for although many military critics and many
distinguished soldiers have read it there has been no instance up to
date of any serious correction. Emboldened by this I am now putting
forward an account of the doings of 1915, which will be equally
detailed and, as I hope, equally accurate. In the late autumn a
third volume will carry the story up to the end of 1916, covering the
series of battles upon the Somme.

The three years of war may be roughly divided into the year of
defence, the year of equilibrium, and the year of attack. This
volume concerns itself with the second, which in its very nature must
be less dramatic than the first or third. None the less it contains
some of the most moving scenes of the great world tragedy, and
especially the second Battle of Ypres and the great Battle of Loos,
two desperate {vi} conflicts the details of which have not, so far as
I know, been given up to now to the public.

Now, as before, I must plead guilty to many faults of omission, which
often involve some injustice, since an author is naturally tempted to
enlarge upon what he knows at the expense of that about which he is
less well informed. These faults may be remedied with time, but in
the meantime I can only claim indulgence for the obvious difficulty
of my task. With the fullest possible information at his disposal, I
do not envy the task of the chronicler who has to strike a just
balance amid the claims of some fifty divisions.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.

WINDLESHAM, CROWBOROUGH,
_April_ 1917.

{vii}

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE OPENING MONTHS OF 1915

Conflict of the 1st Brigade at Cuinchy, and of the 3rd Brigade at
Givenchy--Heavy losses of the Guards--Michael O'Leary, V.C.--Relief
of French Divisions by the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth
British--Pressure on the Fifth Corps--Force subdivided into two
armies--Disaster to 16th Lancers--The dearth of munitions

CHAPTER II

NEUVE CHAPELLE AND HILL 60

The opening of the spring campaign--Surprise of Neuve Chapelle--The
new artillery--Gallant advance and terrible losses--The Indians in
Neuve Chapelle--A sterile victory--The night action of St. Eloi--Hill
60--The monstrous mine--The veteran 13th Brigade--A bloody
battle--London Territorials on the Hill--A contest of endurance--The
first signs of poison

CHAPTER III

THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

(Stage I.--The Gas Attack, April 22-30)

Situation at Ypres--The poison gas--The Canadian ordeal--The fight in
the wood of St. Julien--The French recovery--Miracle days--The
glorious Indians--The Northern Territorials--Hard fighting--The net
result--Loss of Hill 60

{viii}

CHAPTER IV

THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

(Stage II.--The Bellewaarde Lines)

The second phase--Attack on the Fourth Division--Great stand of the
Princess Pats--Breaking of the line--Desperate attacks--The cavalry
save the situation--The ordeal of the 11th Brigade--The German
failure--Terrible strain on the British--The last effort of May
24--Result of the battle--Sequence of events

CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE OF RICHEBOURG-FESTUBERT

(May 9-24)

The new attack--Ordeal of the 25th Brigade--Attack of the First
Division--Fateful days--A difficult situation--Attack of the Second
Division--Attack of the Seventh Division--British success--Good work
of the Canadians--Advance of the Forty-seventh London Division--The
lull before the storm

CHAPTER VI

THE TRENCHES OF HOOGE

The British line in June 1915--Canadians at Givenchy--Attack of 154th
Brigade--8th Liverpool Irish--Third Division at Hooge--11th Brigade
near Ypres--Flame attack on the Fourteenth Light Division--Victory of
the Sixth Division at Hooge

CHAPTER VII

THE BATTLE OF LOOS

(The First Day--September 25)

General order of battle--Check of the Second Division--Advance of the
Ninth and Seventh Divisions--Advance of the First Division--Fine
progress of the Fifteenth Division--Capture of Loos--Work of the
Forty-seventh London Division

{ix}

CHAPTER VIII

THE BATTLE OF LOOS

(The Second Day--September 26)

Death of General Capper--Retirement of the Fifteenth
Division--Advance of the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-first
Divisions--Heavy losses--Desperate struggle--General retirement on
the right--Rally round Loos--Position in the evening

CHAPTER IX

THE BATTLE OF LOOS

(From September 27 to the end of the year)

Loss of Fosse 8--Death of General Thesiger--Advance of the
Guards--Attack of the Twenty-eighth Division--Arrival of the Twelfth
Division--German counter-attacks--Attack by the Forty-sixth Division
upon Hohenzollern Redoubt--Subsidiary attacks--General
observations--Return of Lord French to England

INDEX

MAPS AND PLANS

Map to illustrate the British Campaign in France and Flanders
[Transcriber's note: omitted from ebook because its size and
fragility made it impractical to scan]

British Front, 1915

Ypres District

Order of Battle, May 7th

Richebourg District

Loos District

Battle of Loos--I.

Battle of Loos--II.

[Illustration: BRITISH FRONT, 1915.]

{1}

CHAPTER I

THE OPENING MONTHS OF 1915

The weather after the new year was atrocious, heavy rain, frost, and
gales of wind succeeding each other with hardly a break. The ground
was so sodden that all movements of troops became impossible, and the
trench work was more difficult than ever. The British, with their
steadily increasing numbers, were now able to take over some of the
trenches of the French and to extend their general line. This trench
work came particularly hard upon the men who were new to the work and
often fresh from the tropics. A great number of the soldiers
contracted frost-bite and other ailments. The trenches were very
wet, and the discomfort was extreme. There had been some thousands
of casualties in the Fifth Corps from this cause before it can be
said to have been in action. On the other hand, the medical service,
which was extraordinarily efficient, did everything possible to
preserve the health of the men. Wooden troughs were provided as a
stance for them in the trenches, {2} and vats heated to warm them
when they emerged. Considering that typhoid fever was common among
the civilian residents, the health of the troops remained remarkably
good, thanks to the general adoption of inoculation, a practice
denounced by a handful of fanatics at home, but of supreme importance
at the front, where the lesson of old wars, that disease was more
deadly than the bullet, ceased to hold good.

On January 25 the Germans again became aggressive. If their spy
system is as good as is claimed, they must by this time have known
that all talk of bluff in connection with the new British armies was
mere self-deception, and that if ever they were to attempt anything
with a hope of success, it must be speedily before the line had
thickened. As usual there was a heavy bombardment, and then a
determined infantry advance--this time to the immediate south of the
Bethune Canal, where there was a salient held by the 1st Infantry
Brigade with the French upon their right. The line was thinly held
at the time by a half-battalion 1st Scots Guards and a half-battalion
1st Coldstream, a thousand men in all. One trench of the Scots
Guards was blown up by a mine and the German infantry rushed it,
killing, wounding, or taking every man of the 130 defenders. Three
officers were hit, and Major Morrison-Bell, a member of parliament,
was taken after being buried in the debris of the explosion. The
remainder of the front line, after severe losses both in casualties
and in prisoners, fell back from the salient and established
themselves with the rest of their respective battalions on a straight
line of defence, one flank on the canal, the other on the main
Bethune-La Bassée high road. {3} A small redoubt or keep had been
established here, which became the centre of the defence.

Whilst the advance of the enemy was arrested at this line,
preparations were made for a strong counter-attack. An attempt had
been made by the enemy with their heavy guns to knock down the lock
gates of the canal and to flood the ground in the rear of the
position. This, however, was unsuccessful, and the counter-attack
dashed to the front. The advancing troops consisted of the 1st Black
Watch, part of the 1st Camerons, and the 2nd Rifles from the reserve.
The London Scottish supported the movement. The enemy had flooded
past the keep, which remained as a British island in a German lake.
They were driven back with difficulty, the Black Watch advancing
through mud up to their knees and losing very heavily from a cross
fire. Two companies were practically destroyed. Finally, by an
advance of the Rifles and 2nd Sussex after dark the Germans were
ousted from all positions in advance of the keep, and this line
between the canal and the road was held once more by the British.
The night fell, and after dark the 1st Brigade, having suffered
severely, was withdrawn, and the 2nd Brigade remained in occupation
with the French upon their right. This was the action of Cuinchy
falling upon the 1st Brigade, supported by part of the 2nd.

Whilst this long-drawn fight of January 25 had been going on to the
south of the canal, there had been a vigorous German advance to the
north of it, over the old ground which centres on Givenchy. The
German attack, which came on in six lines, fell principally upon the
1st Gloucesters, who held the front trench. Captain Richmond, who
commanded {4} the advanced posts, had observed at dawn that the
German wire had been disturbed and was on the alert. Large numbers
advanced, but were brought to a standstill about forty yards from the
position. These were nearly all shot down. Some of the stormers
broke through upon the left of the Gloucesters, and for a time the
battalion had the enemy upon their flank and even in their rear, but
they showed great steadiness and fine fire discipline. A charge was
made presently upon the flank by the 2nd Welsh aided by a handful of
the Black Watch under Lieutenant Green, who were there as a working
party, but found more congenial work awaiting them. Lieutenant Bush
of the Gloucesters with his machine-guns did particularly fine work.
This attack was organised by Captain Rees, aided by Major
MacNaughton, who was in the village as an artillery observer. The
upshot was that the Germans on the flank were all killed, wounded, or
taken. A remarkable individual exploit was performed by Lieutenant
James and Corporal Thomas of the Welsh, who took a trench with 40
prisoners. A series of attacks to the north-east of the village were
also repulsed, the South Wales Borderers doing some splendid work.

Thus the results of the day's fighting was that on the north the
British gained a minor success, beating off all attacks, while to the
south the Germans could claim an advantage, having gained some
ground. The losses on both sides were considerable, those of the
British being principally among Scots Guards, Coldstream and Black
Watch to the south, and Welsh to the north. The action was barren of
practical results.

There were some days of quiet, and then upon January 29 the
Fourteenth German Corps buzzed {5} out once more along the classic
canal. This time they made for the keep, which has already been
mentioned, and endeavoured to storm it with the aid of axes and
scaling ladders. Solid Sussex was inside the keep, however, and
ladders and stormers were hurled to the ground, while bombs were
thrown on to the heads of the attackers. The Northamptons to the
south were driven out for an instant, but came back with a rush and
drove off their assailants. The skirmish cost the British few
casualties, but the enemy lost heavily, leaving two hundred of his
dead behind him. "Having arranged a code signal we got the first
shell from the 40th R.F.A. twelve seconds after asking for it." So
much for the co-operation between our guns and our infantry.

On February 1 the Guards who had suffered in the first fight at
Cuinchy got back a little of what was owing to them. The action
began by a small post of the 2nd Coldstream of the 4th Brigade being
driven back. An endeavour was made to reinstate it in the early
morning, but it was not successful. After daylight there was a
proper artillery preparation, followed by an assault by a storming
party of Coldstream and Irish Guards, led by Captain Leigh Bennett
and Lieutenant Graham. The lost ground and a German trench beyond it
were captured with 32 prisoners and 2 machine-guns. It was in this
action that Michael O'Leary, the gallant Irish Guardsman, shot or
bayoneted eight Germans and cleared a trench single-handed, one of
the most remarkable individual feats of the War, for which a Victoria
Cross was awarded. Again the fight fell upon the 4th Brigade, where
Lord Cavan was gaining something of the reputation of his brother
peer, Lord {6} "Salamander" Cutts, in the days of Marlborough. On
February 6 he again made a dashing attack with a party of the 3rd
Coldstream and Irish, in which the Germans were driven out of the
Brickfield position. The sappers under Major Fowkes rapidly made
good the ground that the infantry had won, and it remained
permanently with the British.

Another long lull followed this outburst of activity in the region of
the La Bassée Canal, and the troops sank back once more into their
muddy ditches, where, under the constant menace of the sniper, the
bomb and the shell, they passed the weary weeks with a patience which
was as remarkable as their valour. The British Army was still
gradually relieving the French troops, who had previously relieved
them. Thus in the north the newly-arrived Twenty-seventh and
Twenty-eighth Divisions occupied several miles which had been held on
the Ypres salient by General D'Urbal's men. Unfortunately, these two
divisions, largely composed of men who had come straight from the
tropics, ran into a peculiarly trying season of frost and rain, which
for a time inflicted great hardship and loss upon them. To add to
their trials, the trenches at the time they took them over were not
only in a very bad state of repair, but had actually been mined by
the Germans, and these mines were exploded shortly after the
transfer, to the loss of the new occupants. The pressure of the
enemy was incessant and severe in this part of the line, so that the
losses of the Fifth Corps were for some weeks considerably greater
than those of all the rest of the line put together. Two of the
veteran brigades of the Second Corps, the 9th Fusilier Brigade
(Douglas Smith) and the 13th (Wanless {7} O'Gowan), were sent north
to support their comrades, with the result that this sector was once
again firmly held. Any temporary failure was in no way due to a
weakness of the Fifth Army Corps, who were to prove their mettle in
many a future fight, but came from the fact, no doubt unavoidable but
none the less unfortunate, that these troops, before they had gained
any experience, were placed in the very worst trenches of the whole
British line. "The trenches (so called) scarcely existed," said one
who went through this trying experience, "and the ruts which were
honoured with the name were liquid. We crouched in this morass of
water and mud, living, dying, wounded and dead together for 48 hours
at a stretch." Add to this that the weather was bitterly cold with
incessant rain, and more miserable conditions could hardly be
imagined. In places the trenches of the enemy were not more than
twenty yards off, and the shower of bombs was incessant.

The British Army had now attained a size when it was no longer proper
that a corps should be its highest unit. From this time onwards the
corps were themselves distributed into different armies. At present,
two of these armies were organised. The First, under General Sir
Douglas Haig, comprised the First Corps, the Fourth Corps
(Rawlinson), and the Indian Corps. The Second Army contained the
Second Corps (Ferguson), the Third Corps (Pulteney), and the Fifth
Corps (Plumer), all under Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien. The new
formations as they came out were either fitted into these or formed
part of a third army. Most of the brigades were strengthened by the
addition of one, and often of two territorial battalions. Each army
consisted roughly at this {8} time of 120,000 men. The Second Army
was in charge of the line to the north, and the First to the south.

On the night of February 14 Snow's Twenty-seventh Division, which had
been somewhat hustled by the Germans in the Ypres section, made a
strong counter-attack under the cover of darkness, and won back four
trenches near St. Eloi from which they had been driven by a German
rush. This dashing advance was carried out by the 82nd Brigade
(Longley's), and the particular battalions which were most closely
engaged were the 2nd Cornwalls, the 1st Royal Irish, and 2nd Royal
Irish Fusiliers. They were supported by the 80th Brigade
(Fortescue's). The losses amounted to 300 killed and wounded. The
Germans lost as many and a few prisoners were taken. The affair was
of no great consequence in itself, but it marked a turn in the
affairs of Plumer's Army Corps, whose experience up to now had been
depressing. The enemy, however, was still aggressive and
enterprising in this part of the line. Upon the 20th they ran a mine
under a trench occupied by the 16th Lancers, and the explosion
produced most serious effects. 5 officers killed, 3 wounded, and 60
men _hors de combat_ were the fruits of this unfortunate incident,
which pushed our trenches back for 40 yards on a front of 150 yards.
The Germans had followed up the explosion by an infantry attack,
which was met and held by the remains of the 16th, aided by a handful
of French infantry and a squadron of the 11th Hussars. On this same
day an accidental shot killed General Gough, chief staff officer of
the First Corps, one of the most experienced and valuable leaders of
the Army.

On the 21st, the Twenty-eighth Division near Ypres {9} had a good
deal of hard fighting, losing trenches and winning them, but coming
out at the finish rather the loser on balance. The losses of the day
were 250 killed and wounded, the greatest sufferers being the Royal
Lancasters. Somewhat south of Ypres, at Zwarteleen, the 1st West
Kents were exposed to a shower of projectiles from the deadly
_minenwerfer_, which are more of the nature of aerial torpedoes than
ordinary bombs. Their losses under this trying ordeal were 3
officers and 19 men killed, 1 officer and 18 men wounded. There was
a lull after this in the trench fighting for some little time, which
was broken upon February 28 by a very dashing little attack of the
Princess Patricia's Canadian regiment, which as one of the units of
the 80th Brigade had been the first Canadian Battalion to reach the
front. Upon this occasion, led by Lieutenants Crabb and Papineau,
they rushed a trench in their front, killed eleven of its occupants,
drove off the remainder, and levelled it so that it should be
untenable. Their losses in this exploit were very small. During
this period of the trench warfare it may be said generally that the
tendency was for the Germans to encroach upon British ground in the
Ypres section and for the British to take theirs in the region of La
Bassée.

With the opening of the warmer weather great preparations had been
made by Great Britain for carrying on the land campaign, and these
now began to bear fruit. Apart from the numerous Territorial
regiments which had already been incorporated with regular
brigades--some fifty battalions in all--there now appeared several
divisions entirely composed of Territorials. The 46th North Midland
and 48th South Midland Divisions were the first to form independent
{10} units, but they were soon followed by others. It had been
insufficiently grasped that the supply of munitions was as important
as that of men, and that the expenditure of shell was something so
enormous in modern warfare that the greedy guns, large and small,
could keep a great army of workmen employed in satisfying their
immoderate demands. The output of shells and cartridges in the month
of March was, it is true, eighteen times greater than in September,
and 3000 separate firms were directly or indirectly employed in war
production; but operations were hampered by the needs of batteries
which could consume in a day what the workshops could at that time
hardly produce in a month. Among the other activities of Great
Britain at this period was the great strengthening of her heavy
artillery, in which for many months her well-prepared enemy had so
vast an advantage. Huge engines lurked in the hearts of groves and
behind hillocks at the back of the British lines, and the cheery news
went round that even the heaviest bully that ever came out of Essen
would find something of its own weight stripped and ready for the
fray.

There was still considerable activity in the St. Eloi sector
south-east of Ypres, where the German attacks were all, as it proved,
the preliminaries of a strong advance. So persistent were they that
Plumer's men were constantly striving for elbow room. On March 2
part of Fortescue's 80th Brigade, under Major Widdington of the 4th
Rifles, endeavoured to push back the pressure in this region, and
carried the nearest trench, but were driven out again by the German
bombs. The losses were about 200, of which 47 fell upon the 3rd, and
110 upon the 4th {11} Rifles. In these operations a very great
strain came upon the Engineers, who were continually in front of the
trenches at night, fixing the wire entanglements and doing other
dangerous work under the very rifles of the Germans. It is pleasing
to record that in this most hazardous task the Territorial sappers
showed that they were worthy comrades of the Regulars. Major
Gardner, Commander of the North Midland Field Company, and many
officers and men died in the performance of this dangerous duty.

{12}

CHAPTER II

NEUVE CHAPELLE AND HILL 60

We now come to the close of the long period of petty and desultory
warfare, which is only relieved from insignificance by the fact that
the cumulative result during the winter was a loss to the Army of not
less than twenty thousand men. With the breaking of the spring and
the drying of the water-soaked meadows of Flanders, an era of larger
and more ambitious operations had set in, involving, it is true,
little change of position, but far stronger forces on the side of the
British. The first hammer-blow of Sir John French was directed, upon
March 10, against that village of Neuve Chapelle which had, as
already described, changed hands several times, and eventually
remained with the Germans during the hard fighting of Smith-Dorrien's
Corps in the last week of October. The British trenches had been
drawn a few hundred yards to the west of the village, and there had
been no change during the last four months. Behind the village was
the Aubers Ridge, and behind that again {13} the whole great plain of
Lille and Turcoing. This was the spot upon which the British General
had determined to try the effects of his new artillery.

[Sidenote: The British surprise.]

His secret was remarkably well kept. Few British and and no Germans
knew where the blow was to fall. The boasted spy system was
completely at fault. The success of Sir John in keeping his secret
was largely dependent upon the fact that above the British lines an
air space had been cleared into which no German airman could enter
save at his own very great peril. No great movement of troops was
needed since Haig's army lay opposite to the point to be attacked,
and it was to two of his corps that the main assault was assigned.
On the other hand, there was a considerable concentration of guns,
which were arranged, over three hundred in number, in such a position
that their fire could converge from various directions upon the area
of the German defences.

It was planned that Smith-Dorrien, along the whole line held by the
Second Army to the north, should demonstrate with sufficient energy
to hold the Germans from reinforcing their comrades. To the south of
the point of attack, the First Army Corps in the Givenchy
neighbourhood had also received instructions to make a strong
demonstration. Thus the Germans of Neuve Chapelle, who were believed
to number only a few battalions, were isolated on either side. It
was advisable also to hinder their reinforcements coming from the
reserves in the northern towns behind the fighting lines. With this
object, instructions were given to the British airmen at any personal
risk to attack all the railway points along which the trains could
come. This was duly done, and the junctions of Menin, Courtrai, Don,
and Douai were {14} attacked, Captain Carmichael and other airmen
bravely descending within a hundred feet of their mark.

The troops chosen for the assault were Rawlinson's Fourth Army Corps
upon the left and the Indian Corps upon the right, upon a front of
half a mile, which as the operation developed broadened to three
thousand yards. The object was not the mere occupation of the
village, but an advance to the farthest point attainable. The Second
Division of Cavalry was held in reserve, to be used in case the
German line should be penetrated. All during the hours of the night
the troops in single file were brought up to the advanced trenches,
which in many cases were less than a hundred yards from the enemy.
Before daylight they were crammed with men waiting most eagerly for
the signal to advance. Short ladders had been distributed, so that
the stormers could swarm swiftly out of the deep trenches.

The obstacle in front of the Army was a most serious one. The barbed
wire entanglements were on an immense scale, the trenches were
bristling with machine-guns, and the village in the rear contained
several large outlying houses with walls and orchards, each of which
had been converted into a fortress. On the other hand, the defenders
had received no warning, and therefore no reinforcement, so that the
attackers were far the more numerous. It is said that a German
officer's attention was called to the stir in the opposing trenches,
and that he was actually at the telephone reporting his misgivings to
headquarters when the storm broke loose.

[Sidenote: Terrific bombardment.]

It was at half-past seven that the first gun boomed from the rear of
the British position. Within a few {15} minutes three hundred were
hard at work, the gunners striving desperately to pour in the
greatest possible number of shells in the shortest period of time.
It had been supposed that some of the very heavy guns could get in
forty rounds in the time, but they actually fired nearly a hundred,
and at the end of it the huge garrison gunners were lying panting
like spent hounds round their pieces. From the 18-pounder of the
field-gun to the huge 1400-pound projectile from the new monsters in
the rear, a shower of every sort and size of missile poured down upon
the Germans, many of whom were absolutely bereft of their senses by
the sudden and horrible experience. Trenches, machine-guns, and
human bodies flew high into the air, while the stakes which supported
the barbed wire were uprooted, and the wire itself torn into ribbons
and twisted into a thousand fantastic coils with many a gap between.
In front of part of the Indian line there was a clean sweep of the
impediments. So also to the right of the British line. Only at the
left of the line, to the extreme north of the German position, was
the fatal wire still quite unbroken and the trenches unapproachable.
Meanwhile, so completely was the resistance flattened out by the
overpowering weight of fire that the British infantry, with their own
shells flowing in a steady stream within a few feet of their heads,
were able to line their parapets and stare across at the wonderful
smoking and roaring swirl of destruction that faced them. Here and
there men sprang upon the parapets waving their rifles and shouting
in the hot eagerness of their hearts. "Our bomb-throwers," says one
correspondent, "started cake-walking." It was but half an hour that
they waited, and yet to many it seemed {16} the longest half-hour of
their lives. It was an extraordinary revelation of the absolute
accuracy of scientific gunfire that the British batteries should dare
to shell the German trenches which were only a hundred yards away
from their own, and this at a range of five or six thousand yards.

[Sidenote: The infantry attack.]

At five minutes past eight the guns ceased as suddenly as they had
begun, the shrill whistles of the officers sounded all along the
line, and the ardent infantry poured over the long lip of the
trenches. The assault upon the left was undertaken by Pinney's 23rd
Infantry Brigade of the Eighth Division. The 25th Brigade of the
same division (Lowry-Cole's) was on the right, and on the right of
them again were the Indians. The 25th Brigade was headed by the 2nd
Lincolns (left) and the 2nd Berkshires (right), who were ordered to
clear the trenches, and then to form a supporting line while their
comrades of the 1st Irish Rifles (left) and the 2nd Rifle Brigade
(right) passed through their ranks and carried the village beyond.
The 1st Londons and 13th London (Kensingtons) were pressing up in
support. Colonel McAndrew, of the Lincolns, was mortally hit at the
outset, but watched the assault with constant questions as to its
progress until he died. It was nothing but good news that he heard,
for the work of the brigade went splendidly from the start. It
overwhelmed the trenches in an instant, seizing the bewildered
survivors, who crouched, yellow with lyddite and shaken by the horror
of their situation, in the corners of the earthworks. As the
Berkshires rushed down the German trench they met with no resistance
at all, save from two gallant German officers, who fought a
machine-gun until both were bayoneted.

{17}

[Sidenote: The ordeal of the 23rd Brigade.]

It was very different, however, with the 23rd Brigade upon the left.
Their experience was a terrible one. As they rushed forward, they
came upon a broad sheet of partly-broken wire entanglement between
themselves and the trenches which had escaped the artillery fire.
The obstacle could not be passed, and yet the furious men would not
retire, but tore and raged at the edge of the barrier even as their
ancestors raged against the scythe-blades of the breach of Badajoz.
The 2nd Scottish Rifles and the 2nd Middlesex were the first two
regiments, and their losses were ghastly. Of the Scottish Rifles,
Colonel Bliss was killed, every officer but one was either killed or
wounded, and half the men were on the ground. The battalion found
some openings, however, especially B Company (Captain Ferrers), upon
their right flank, and in spite of their murderous losses made their
way into the German trenches, the bombardiers, under Lieutenant
Bibby, doing fine work in clearing them, though half their number
were killed. The Middlesex men, after charging through a driving
sleet of machine-gun bullets, were completely held up by an unbroken
obstacle, and after three gallant and costly attacks, when the old
"Die-hards" lived up to their historic name, the remains of the
regiment were compelled to move to the right and make their way
through the gap cleared by the Scottish Rifles. "Rally, boys, and at
it again!" they yelled at every repulse. The 2nd Devons and 2nd West
Yorkshires were in close support of the first line, but their losses
were comparatively small. The bombers of the Devons, under
Lieutenant Wright, got round the obstacle and cleared two hundred
yards of trench. On account of the impregnable {18} German position
upon the left, the right of the brigade was soon three hundred yards
in advance and suffered severely from the enfilade fire of rifles and
machine-guns, the two flanks being connected up by a line of men
facing half left, and making the best of the very imperfect cover.

It should be mentioned that the getting forward of the 23rd Brigade
was largely due to the personal intervention of General Pinney, who,
about 8.30, hearing of their difficult position, came forward himself
across the open and inspected the obstacle. He then called off his
men for a breather while he telephoned to the gunners to reopen fire.
This cool and practical manoeuvre had the effect of partly smashing
the wires. At the same time much depended upon the advance of the
25th Brigade. Having, as stated, occupied the position which faced
them, they were able to outflank the section of the German line which
was still intact. Their left flank having been turned, the defenders
fell back or surrendered, and the remains of the 23rd Brigade were
able to get forward into an alignment with their comrades, the Devons
and West Yorkshires passing through the thinned ranks in front of
them. The whole body then advanced for about a thousand yards.

At this period Major Carter Campbell, who had been wounded in the
head, and Second Lieutenant Somervail, from the Special Reserve, were
the only officers left with the Scottish Rifles; while the Middlesex
were hardly in better case. Of the former battalion only 150 men
could be collected after the action. The 24th Brigade was following
closely behind the other two, and the 1st Worcesters, 2nd East
Lancashires, 1st Sherwood Foresters, and 2nd {19} Northampton were
each in turn warmly engaged as they made good the ground that had
been won. The East Lancashires materially helped to turn the Germans
out of the trenches on the left.

[Sidenote: Gallant Indian advance.]

Whilst the British brigades had been making this advance upon the
left the Indians had dashed forward with equal fire and zeal upon the
right. It was their first real chance of attack upon a large scale,
and they rose grandly to the occasion. The Garhwali Brigade attacked
upon the left of the Indian line, with the Dehra Duns (Jacob) upon
their right, and the Bareillys (Southey) in support, all being of the
Meerut Division. The Garhwalis, consisting of men from the mountains
of Northern India, advanced with reckless courage, the 39th Regiment
upon the left, the 3rd Gurkhas in the centre, the 2nd Leicesters upon
the right, while the 8th Gurkhas, together with the 3rd London
Territorials and the second battalion of the Garhwalis, were in
support. Part of the front was still covered with wire, and the
Garhwalis were held up for a time, but the Leicesters, on their
right, smashed a way through all obstacles. Their Indian comrades
endured the loss of 20 officers and 350 men, but none the less they
persevered, finally swerving to the right and finding a gap which
brought them through. The Gurkhas, however, had passed them, the
agile little men slipping under, over, or through the tangled wire in
a wonderful fashion. The 3rd Londons closely followed the
Leicesters, and were heavily engaged for some hours in forcing a
stronghold on the right flank, held by 70 Germans with machine-guns.
They lost 2 officers, Captain Pulman and Lieutenant Mathieson, and 50
men of A Company, but stuck to their task, and eventually, with the
help {20} of a gun, overcame the resistance, taking 50 prisoners.
The battalion lost 200 men and did very fine work. Gradually the
Territorials were winning their place in the Army. "They can't call
us Saturday night soldiers now," said a dying lad of the 3rd Londons;
and he spoke for the whole force who have endured perverse criticism
for so long.

The moment that the infantry advance upon the trenches had begun, the
British guns were turned upon the village itself. Supported by their
fire, as already described, the victorious Indians from the south and
the 25th Brigade from the west rushed into the streets and took
possession of the ruins which flanked them, advancing with an ardour
which brought them occasionally into the zone of fire from their own
guns. By twelve o'clock the whole position, trenches, village, and
detached houses, had been carried, while the artillery had lengthened
its range and rained shrapnel upon the ground over which
reinforcements must advance. The Rifles of the 25th Brigade and the
3rd Gurkhas of the Indians were the first troops in Neuve Chapelle.

It is not to be imagined that the powerful guns of the enemy had
acquiesced tamely in these rapid developments. On the contrary, they
had kept up a fire which was only second to that of the British in
volume, but inferior in effect, since the latter had registered upon
such fixed marks as the trenches and the village, while the others
had but the ever-changing line of an open order attack. How dense
was the fall of the German shells may be reckoned from the fact that
the telephone lines by which the observers in the firing line
controlled the gunners some miles behind them were continually
severed, {21} although they had been laid down in duplicate, and
often in triplicate. There were heavy losses among the stormers, but
they were cheerfully endured as part of the price of victory. The
jovial exultation of the wounded as they were carried or led to the
dressing stations was one of the recollections which stood out
clearest amid the confused impressions which a modern battle leaves
upon the half-stunned mind of the spectator.

At twelve o'clock the position had been carried, and yet it was not
possible to renew the advance before three. These few hours were
consumed in rearranging the units, which had been greatly mixed up
during the advance, in getting back into position the left wing of
the 25th Brigade, which had been deflected by the necessity of
relieving the 23rd Brigade, and in bringing up reserves to take the
place of regiments which had endured very heavy losses. Meanwhile
the enemy seemed to have been completely stunned by the blow which
had so suddenly fallen upon him. The fire from his lines had died
down, and British brigades on the right, forming up for the renewed
advance, were able to do so unmolested in the open, amid the horrible
chaos of pits, mounds, wire tangles, splintered woodwork, and
shattered bodies which marked where the steel cyclone had passed.
The left was still under very heavy fire.

[Sidenote: The reserved advance.]

At half-past three the word was given, and again the eager khaki
fringe pushed swiftly to the front, On the extreme left of the line
of attack Watts's 21st Brigade pushed onwards with fierce
impetuosity. This attack was an extension to the left of the
original attack. The 21st was the only brigade of the Seventh
Division to be employed that day. There is a hamlet {22} to the
north-east of Neuve Chapelle called Moulin-du-Piètre, and this was
the immediate objective of the attack. Several hundreds of yards
were gained before the advance was held up by a severe fire from the
houses, and by the discovery of a fresh, undamaged line of German
trenches opposite to the right of the 21st Brigade. Here the
infantry was held, and did no more than keep their ground until
evening. Their comrades of the Eighth Division upon their right had
also advanced, the 24th Brigade (Carter's) taking the place of the
decimated 23rd in the front line; but they also came to a standstill
under the fire of German machine-guns, which were directed from the
bridge crossing the stream of the little Des Layes River in front of
them.

The Bois du Biez is an important wood on the south-east of Neuve
Chapelle, and the Indians, after their successful assault, directed
their renewed advance upon this objective. The Garhwali Brigade,
which had helped to carry the village, was now held back, and the
Dehra Dun Brigade of 1st and 4th Seaforths, Jats, and Gurkhas,
supported by the Jullundur Brigade from the Lahore Division, moved
forward to carry the wood. They gained a considerable stretch of
ground by a magnificent charge over the open, but were held up along
the line of the river as their European comrades had been to the
north. More than once the gallant Indians cleared the wood, but
could not permanently hold it. The German post at the bridge was
able to enfilade the line, and our artillery was unable to drive it
out. Three regiments of the 1st Brigade were brought up to
Richebourg in support of the attack, but darkness came on before the
preparations were complete. The troops slept {23} upon the ground
which they had won, ready and eager for the renewal of the battle in
the morning. The losses had been heavy during the day, falling with
undue severity upon a few particular battalions; but the soldiers
were of good heart, for continual strings of German prisoners,
numbering nine hundred in all, had been led through their lines, and
they had but to look around them to assure themselves of the loss
which they had inflicted upon the enemy. In that long winter
struggle a few yards to west or east had been a matter for which a
man might gladly lay down his life, so that now, when more than a
thousand yards had been gained by a single forward spring, there was
no desire to flinch from the grievous cost.

[Sidenote: Subsidiary attacks.]

It has already been stated that the British had made demonstrations
to right and to left in order to hold the enemy in their trenches.
In the case of Smith-Dorrien's Second Army, a bombardment along the
line was sufficient for the purpose. To the south, however, at
Givenchy, the First Corps made an attack upon the trenches two
hundred yards in front of them, which had no success, as the wire had
been uncut. This attack was carried out by Fanshawe's 6th Infantry
Brigade, and if it failed the failure was not due to want of intrepid
leading by the officers and desperate courage of the men. The 1st
King's (Liverpool) suffered very heavily in front of the impassable
wire. "Our boys took their bayonets and hacked away. It was
impossible to break through." Colonel Carter was wounded, but
continued to lead his men. Feveran and Suatt, who led the assault,
were respectively killed and wounded. The officers were nearly all
hit, down to the young Subaltern Webb, who kept shouting "Come on,
the {24} King's!" until he could shout no more. A hundred were
killed and 119 wounded in the ranks. Both the 2nd South Staffords
and the 1st King's Royal Rifles joined in this brave, but
ineffectual, attack, and lost very heavily. The total loss of the
brigade was between six and seven hundred, but at least it had
prevented this section of the line from reinforcing Neuve Chapelle.
All along the line the night was spent in making good the ground that
had been won.

[Sidenote: Second day of battle.]

The morning of the 11th broke with thick mist, a condition which
continued during the whole of the day. Both the use of the aircraft
and the direction of the artillery were negatived by the state of the
weather--a grievous piece of ill-fortune, as it put a stop to any
serious advance during the day, since it would have been a desperate
business to march infantry against a difficult front without any
artillery preparation. In this way the Germans gained a precious
respite during which they might reinforce their line and prepare for
a further attack. They essayed a counter-attack from the Bois du
Biez in the morning, but it was easily repulsed by the Indians.
Their shell-fire, however, was very murderous. The British infantry
still faced Moulin-du-Piètre in the north and the Bois du Biez in the
south, but could make no progress without support, while they lost
heavily from the German artillery. The Indians were still at the
south of the line, the 24th Brigade in the middle and the 21st in the
north. Farther north still, at a point just south of Armentières, a
useful little advance was made, for late at night, or early in the
morning of the 12th, the 17th Infantry Brigade (Harper's) had made a
swift dash at the village of {25} l'Epinette, calculating, no doubt,
that some of its defenders had been drafted south to strengthen the
stricken line. The place was carried by storm at the small cost of
five officers and thirty men, and the line carried forward at this
point to a depth of three hundred yards over a front of half a mile.
A counter-attack upon the 13th was driven off with loss.

[Sidenote: Third day.]

So far as the main operation was concerned, the weather upon the 12th
was hardly more favourable than upon the 11th. The veil of mist
still intervened between the heavy artillery and its target. Three
aeroplanes were lost in the determined efforts of the airmen to get
close observation of the position. It also interfered with the
accuracy of the German fire, which was poured upon the area held by
the British troops, but inflicted small damage upon them. The day
began by an attack in which the Germans got possession of a trench
held by the 1st Sherwood Foresters. As the mist rose the flank
company of the 2nd West Yorks perceived these unwelcome neighbours
and, under the lead of Captain Harrington, turned them out again.
Both the Indians on the right and the Seventh Division on the left
lost a number of men during the morning in endeavouring, with poor
success, to drive the German garrisons out of the various farmhouses,
which were impregnable to anything but artillery. The gallant 20th
Brigade, which had done such great work at Ypres in October, came
into action this day and stormed up to the strongholds of the
Moulin-du-Piètre. One of them, with three hundred Germans inside,
was carried by the 2nd Borders, the defenders being made prisoners.
All the battalions of the brigade--the 2nd Scots Guards, the 1st
Grenadiers, the 2nd Gordons, and their {26} Territorial comrades, the
6th Gordons--lost heavily in this most desperate of all forms of
fighting. Colonel McLean of the latter regiment died at the head of
his men. "Go about your duty," was his last speech to those who
tended him. The Grenadiers fought like heroes, and one of them,
Corporal Fuller, performed the extraordinary feat of heading off
fifty Germans by fleetness of foot, and single-handed compelling the
surrender of all of them. At the other end of the line, the 25th
Brigade, led by the Rifle Brigade, also made desperate efforts to get
on, but were brought to a standstill by the trenches and machine-guns
in the houses. The losses of the British upon this day were heavy,
but they were a small matter compared to those of the Germans, who
made several counter-attacks in close formation from dawn onwards in
the vain hope of recovering the ground that had been lost. It is
doubtful if in the whole war greater slaughter has been inflicted in
a shorter time and in so confined a space as in the case of some of
these advances, where whole dense bodies of infantry were caught in
the converging fire of machine-guns and rifles. In front of the 1st
Worcesters, of the 24th Brigade, alone more than a thousand dead were
counted. From the ridge of Aubers, half a mile to the eastward, down
to the front of the Indian and British line, the whole sloping
countryside was mottled grey with the bodies of the fallen. All that
the British had suffered in front of the barbed wire upon the 10th
was repaid with heavy interest during the counter-attacks of the
12th. Gradually they faded away and were renewed no more. For the
first time in the war the Germans finally abandoned a position that
they had lost, and made no further {27} attempt to retake it. The
Battle of Neuve Chapelle was at an end, and the British, though their
accomplishment fell far short of their hopes, had none the less made
a permanent advance of a thousand yards along a front of three
thousand, and obtained a valuable position for their operations in
the future. The sappers were busy all evening in wiring and
sand-bagging the ground gained, while the medical organisation, which
was strained to the uttermost, did its work with a bravery and a
technical efficiency which could not be surpassed.

[Sidenote: Result of Battle of Neuve Chapelle.]

Upon the last day of the fighting some 700 more prisoners had been
taken, bringing the total number to 30 officers and 1650 men. The
original defenders had been men of the Seventh German Corps, raised
from Karlsruhe in Westphalia; but the reinforcements which suffered
so heavily were either Saxons or Bavarians. The losses of the
Germans were estimated, and possibly overestimated, at 18,000 men.
The British losses were very heavy, consisting of 562 officers and
12,239 men. Some 1800 of these were returned as "Missing," but these
were the men who fell in the advanced attack upon ground which was
not retained. Only the wounded fell into the enemy's hands. The
Fourth Corps lost 7500 men, and the Indians about 4000.

Of the six brigades of the Fourth Corps, all suffered about equally,
except the 22nd, which was not so hard hit as the others. The
remaining brigades lost over 25 per cent of their numbers, but
nothing of their efficiency and zeal, as they were very soon to show
in the later engagements. When one remembers that Julius Cæsar
describes an action as a severe one upon the ground that every tenth
man was wounded, {28} it may be conjectured that he would have
welcomed a legion of Scottish Rifles or Sherwood Foresters.
Certainly no British soldier was likely to live long enough to have
his teeth worn down by the ration bread, as was the case with the
Tenth Legion. The two units named may have suffered most, but the
2nd Lincolns, 2nd Berkshires, 2nd Borders, 2nd Scots Fusiliers, 1st
Irish Rifles, 2nd Rifle Brigade, the two battalions of Gordons, and
the 1st Worcesters were all badly cut up. Of the five commanding
officers of the 20th Brigade, Uniacke of the 2nd Gordons, McLean of
the 5th Gordons, and Fisher Rowe of the Grenadiers were killed, while
Paynter of the 2nd Scots Guards was wounded. The only survivor, the
Colonel of the Borders, was shot a few days later. It was said at
the time of the African War that the British colonels had led their
men up to and through the gates of Death. The words were still true.
Of the brave Indian Corps, the 1st Seaforths, 2nd Leicesters, 39th
Garhwalis, with the 3rd and 4th Gurkhas, were the chief sufferers.
The 1st Londons, 3rd Londons, and 13th (Kensingtons) had also shown
that they could stand punishment with the best.

So ended the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, a fierce and murderous
encounter in which every weapon of modern warfare--the giant
howitzer, the bomb, and the machine-gun--was used to the full, and
where the reward of the victor was a slice of ground no larger than a
moderate farm. And yet the moral prevails over the material, and the
fact that a Prussian line, built up with four months of labour, could
be rushed in a couple of hours, and that by no exertion could a
German set foot upon it again, was a hopeful first lesson in the
spring campaign.

{29}

On March 12 an attack was made upon the enemy's trenches south-west
of the village of Wytschaete--the region where, on November 1, the
Bavarians had forced back the lines of our cavalry. The advance was
delayed by the mist, and eventually was ordered for four in the
afternoon. It was carried out by the 1st Wilts and the 3rd
Worcesters, of the 7th Brigade (Ballard), advancing for two hundred
yards up a considerable slope. The defence was too strong, however,
and the attack was abandoned with a loss of 28 officers and 343 men.
It may be said, however, to have served the general purpose of
diverting troops from the important action in the south. It is to be
hoped that this was so, as the attack itself, though fruitless, was
carried out with unflinching bravery and devotion.

[Sidenote: Action of St. Eloi.]

On March 14, two days after the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the Germans
endeavoured to bring about a counter-stroke in the north which should
avenge their defeat, arguing, no doubt, that the considerable
strength which Haig's First Army had exhibited in the south meant
some subtraction from Smith-Dorrien at the other end of the line.
This new action broke out at the hamlet of St. Eloi, some miles to
the south-east of Ypres, a spot where many preliminary bickerings and
a good deal of trench activity had heralded this more serious effort.
This particular section of the line was held by the 82nd Brigade
(Longley's) of the Twenty-seventh Division, the whole quarter being
under the supervision of General Plumer. There was a small mound in
a brickfield to the south-east of the village with trenches upon
either side of it which were held by the men of the 2nd Cornish Light
Infantry. It is a mere clay dump about seventy feet {30} long and
twenty feet high. After a brief but furious bombardment, a mine
which had been run under this mound was exploded at five in the
evening, and both mound and trenches were carried by a rush of German
stormers. These trenches in turn enfiladed other ones, and a
considerable stretch was lost, including two support trenches west of
the mound and close to it, two breastworks and trenches to the
north-east of it, and also the southern end of St. Eloi village.

So intense had been the preliminary fire that every wire connecting
with the rear had been severed, and it was only the actual explosion
upon the mound--an explosion which buried many of the defenders,
including two machine-guns with their detachments--which made the
situation clear to the artillery in support. The 19th and 20th
Brigades concentrated their thirty-six 18-pounders upon the mound and
its vicinity. The German infantry were already in possession, having
overwhelmed the few survivors of the 2nd Cornwalls and driven back a
company of the 2nd Irish Fusiliers, who were either behind the mound
or in the adjacent trenches to the east of the village. The stormers
had rushed forward, preceded by a swarm of men carrying bombs and
without rifles. Behind them came a detachment of sappers with
planks, fascines, and sand-bags, together with machine-gun
detachments, who dug themselves instantly into the shattered mound.
The whole German organisation and execution of the attack were
admirable. Lieutenants Fry and Aston of the Cornwall Light Infantry
put up a brave fight with their handful of shaken men. As the
survivors of the British front line fell back, two companies of the
1st Cambridge Territorials took up {31} a rallying position. The
situation was exceedingly obscure from the rear, for, as already
stated, all wires had been cut, but daring personal reconnaissance by
individual officers, notably Captain Follett and Lieutenant Elton,
cleared it up to some extent. By nine o'clock preparations had been
made for a counter-attack, the 1st Leinsters and 1st Royal Irish, of
the 82nd Brigade, being brought up, while Fortescue's 80th Brigade
was warned to support the movement.

It was pitch-dark, and the advance, which could only be organised and
started at two in the morning, had to pass over very difficult
ground. The line was formed by two companies of the Royal Irish, the
Leinster Regiment, and the 4th Rifles in general support. The latter
regiment was guided to their position by Captain Harrison, of the
Cornwalls, who was unfortunately shot, so that the movement, so far
as they were concerned, became disorganised. Colonel Prowse, of the
Leinsters, commanded the attack. The Irishmen rushed forward, but
the Germans fought manfully, and there was a desperate struggle in
the darkness, illuminated only by the quick red flash of the guns and
the flares thrown up from the trenches. By the light of these the
machine-guns installed upon the mound held up the advance of the
Royal Irish, who tried bravely to carry the position, but were forced
in the end, after losing Colonel Forbes, to be content with the
nearest house, and with gaining a firm grip upon the village. The
Leinsters made good progress and carried first a breastwork and then
a trench in front of them, but could get no farther. About 4.30 the
80th Brigade joined in the attack. The advance was carried out by
the 4th Rifle Brigade upon the right {32} and the Princess Patricia's
(Canadians) upon the left, with the Shropshires and the 3rd Rifles in
support. It was all-important to get in the attack before daylight,
and the result was that the dispositions were necessarily somewhat
hurried and incomplete. The Canadians attacked upon the left, but
their attack was lacking in weight, being confined to three platoons,
and they could make no headway against the fire from the mound. They
lost 3 officers and 24 men in the venture. Thesiger's 4th Rifle
Brigade directed its attack, not upon the mound, but on a trench at
the side of it. This was carried with a rush by Captain Mostyn
Pryce's company. Several obstacles were also taken in succession by
the Riflemen, but though repeated attempts were made to get
possession of the mound, all of them were repulsed. One company,
under Captain Selby-Smith, made so determined an attack upon one
barricade that all save four were killed or wounded, in spite of
which the barricade was actually carried. A second one lay behind,
which was taken by Lieutenant Sackville's company, only to disclose a
third one behind. Two companies of the Shropshires were brought up
to give weight to the further attack, but already day was breaking
and there was no chance of success when once it was light, as all the
front trenches were dominated by the mound. This vigorous night
action ended, therefore, by leaving the mound itself and the front
trench in the hands of the Germans, who had been pushed back from all
the other trenches and the portion of the village which they had been
able to occupy in the first rush of their attack. The losses of the
British amounted to 40 officers and 680 men--killed, wounded, and
missing, about 100 coming under the last category, {33} who represent
the men destroyed by the explosion. The German losses were certainly
not less, but it must be admitted that the mound, as representing the
trophy of victory, remained in their hands. In the morning of the
15th the Germans endeavoured to turn the Leinsters out of the trench
which they had recaptured, but their attack was blown back, and they
left 34 dead in front of the position.

It is pleasing in this most barbarous of all wars to be able to
record that all German troops did not debase themselves to the
degraded standards of Prussia. Upon this occasion the Bavarian
general in charge consented at once to a mutual gathering in of the
wounded and a burying of the dead--things which have been a matter of
course in all civilised warfare until the disciples of Kultur
embarked upon their campaign. It is also to be remarked that in this
section of the field a further amenity can be noted, for twice
messages were dropped within the British lines containing news as to
missing aviators who had been brought down by the German guns. It
was hoped for a time that the struggle, however stern, was at last
about to conform to the usual practices of humanity--a hope which was
destined to be wrecked for ever upon that crowning abomination, the
poisoning of Langemarck.

A month of comparative quiet succeeded the battle of Neuve Chapelle,
the Germans settling down into their new position and making no
attempt to regain their old ones. Both sides were exhausted, though
in the case of the Allies the exhaustion was rather in munitions than
in men. The regiments were kept well supplied from the depots, and
the brutality of the German methods of warfare {34} ensured a steady
supply of spirited recruits. That which was meant to cow had in
reality the effect of stimulating. It is well that this was so, for
so insatiable are the demands of modern warfare that already after
eight months the whole of the regiments of the original expeditionary
force would have absolutely disappeared but for the frequent
replenishments, which were admirably supplied by the central
authorities. They had been far more than annihilated, for many of
the veteran corps had lost from one and a half times to twice their
numbers. The 1st Hants at this date had lost 2700 out of an original
force of 1200 men, and its case was by no means an exceptional one.
Even in times of quiet there was a continual toll exacted by snipers,
bombers, and shells along the front which ran into thousands of
casualties per week. The off-days of Flanders were more murderous
than the engagements of South Africa. Now and then a man of note was
taken from the Army in this chronic and useless warfare. The death
of General Gough, of the staff of the First Army, has already been
recorded. Colonel Farquhar, of the Princess Patricia Canadians, lost
his life in a similar fashion. The stray shell or the lurking sniper
exacted a continual toll, General Maude of the 14th Brigade, Major
Leslie Oldham, one of the heroes of Chitral, and other valuable
officers being killed or wounded in this manner.

[Sidenote: Battle of Hill 60.]

On April 17 there began a contest which was destined to rage with
great fury, though at intermittent intervals, for several weeks.
This was the fight for Hill 60. Hill 60 was a low ridge about fifty
feet high and two hundred and fifty yards from end to end, which
faced the Allied trenches in the Zillebeke region to the south-east
of Ypres. This portion of {35} the line had been recently taken over
by Smith-Dorrien's Army from the French, and one of the first tasks
which the British had set themselves was to regain the hill, which
was of considerable strategic importance, because by their possession
of it the Germans were able to establish an observation post and
direct the fire of their guns towards any portion of the British line
which seemed to be vulnerable. With the hill in British hands it
would be possible to move troops from point to point without their
being overseen and subjected to fire. Therefore the British had
directed their mines towards the hill, and ran six underneath it,
each of them ending in a chamber which contained a ton of gunpowder.
This work, begun by Lieutenant Burnyeat and a hundred miners of the
Monmouth battalions, was very difficult owing to the wet soil. It
was charged by Major Norton Griffiths and the 171st Mining Company
Royal Engineers. At seven in the evening of Saturday, April 17, the
whole was exploded with terrific effect. Before the smoke had
cleared away the British infantry had dashed from their trench and
the hill was occupied. A handful of dazed Germans were taken
prisoners and 150 were buried under the debris.

[Sidenote: Storming of the Hill.]

The storming party was drawn from two battalions of the veteran 13th
Brigade, and the Brigadier Wanless O'Gowan was in general control of
the operations under General Morland, of the Fifth Division. The two
battalions immediately concerned were the 1st Royal West Kents and
the 2nd Scottish Borderers. Major Joslin, of the Kents, led the
assault, and C Company of that regiment, under Captain Moulton
Barrett, was actually the first to reach the crest while {36} it was
still reeking and heaving from the immense explosion. Sappers of the
2nd Home Counties Company raced up with the infantry, bearing
sandbags and entrenching tools to make good the ground, while a
ponderous backing of artillery searched on every side to break up the
inevitable counter-attack. There was desperate digging upon the hill
to raise some cover, and especially to cut back communication
trenches to the rear. Without an over-crowding which would have been
dangerous under artillery fire, there was only room for one company
upon the very crest. The rest were in supporting trenches
immediately behind. By half-past one in the morning of the 18th the
troops were dug in, but the Germans, after a lull which followed the
shock, were already thickening for the attack. Their trenches came
up to the base of the hill, and many of their snipers and
bomb-throwers hid themselves amid the darkness in the numerous deep
holes with which the whole hill was pocked. Showers of bombs fell
upon the British line, which held on as best it might.

At 3.30 A.M. the Scots Borderers pushed forward to take over the
advanced fire trench from the Kents, who had suffered severely. This
exchange was an expensive one, as several officers, including Major
Joslin, the leader of the assault, Colonel Sladen, and Captains
Dering and Burnett, were killed or wounded, and in the confusion the
Germans were able to get more of their bombers thrown forward, making
the front trench hardly tenable. The British losses up to this time
had almost entirely arisen from these bombs, and two attempts at
regular counter-attacks had been nipped in the bud by the artillery
fire, aided by motor machine-guns. As the sky was beginning to
whiten {37} in the east, however, there was a more formidable
advance, supported by heavy and incessant bombing, so that at
half-past five the 2nd West Ridings were sent forward, supported by
the 1st Bedfords from the 15th Brigade. A desperate fight ensued.
In the cold of the morning, with bomb and bayonet men stood up to
each other at close quarters, neither side flinching from the
slaughter. By seven o'clock the Germans had got a grip of part of
the hill crest, while the weary Yorkshiremen, supported by their
fellow-countrymen of the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, were hanging
on to the broken ground and the edge of the mine craters. From then
onwards the day was spent by the Germans in strengthening their hold,
and by the British in preparing for a renewed assault. This second
assault, more formidable than the first, since it was undertaken
against an expectant enemy, was fixed for six o'clock in the evening.

At the signal five companies of infantry, three from the West Ridings
and two from the Yorkshire Light Infantry, rushed to the front. The
losses of the storming party were heavy, but nothing could stop them.
Of C Company of the West Ridings only Captain Barton and eleven men
were left out of a hundred, but none the less they carried the point
at which their charge was aimed. D Company lost all its officers,
but the men carried on. After a fierce struggle the Germans were
ejected once again, and the whole crest held by the British. The
losses had been very heavy, the various craters formed by the mines
and the heavy shells being desperately fought for by either party.
It was about seven o'clock on the evening of the 18th that the
Yorkshiremen of {38} both regiments drew together in the dusk and
made an organised charge across the whole length of the hill,
sweeping it clear from end to end, while the 59th Company Royal
Engineers helped in making good the ground. It was a desperate
tussle, in which men charged each other like bulls, drove their
bayonets through each other, and hurled bombs at a range of a few
yards into each other's faces. Seldom in the war has there been more
furious fighting, and in the whole Army it would have been difficult
to find better men for such work than the units engaged.

From early morning of that day till late at night the
Brigadier-General O'Gowan was in the closest touch with the fighting
line, feeding it, binding it, supporting it, thickening it, until he
brought it through to victory. His Staff-Captain Egerton was killed
at his side, and he had several narrow escapes. The losses were
heavy and the men exhausted, but the German defence was for the time
completely broken, and the British took advantage of the lull to push
fresh men into the advanced trenches and withdraw the tired soldiers.
This was done about midnight on the 18th, and the fight from then
onwards was under the direction of General Northey, who had under him
the 1st East Surrey, the 1st Bedfords, and the 9th London (Queen
Victoria) Rifles. Already in this murderous action the British
casualties had been 50 officers and 1500 men, who lay, with as many
of the Germans, within a space no larger than a moderate meadow.

During the whole of the daylight hours of April 19 a furious
bombardment was directed upon the hill, on and behind which the
defenders were crouching. Officers of experience described this
concentration {39} of fire as the worst that they had ever
experienced. Colonel Griffith of the Bedfords held grimly to his
front trench, but the losses continued to be heavy. During that
afternoon a new phenomenon was observed for and the first time--an
indication of what was to come. Officers seated in a dug-out
immediately behind the fighting line experienced a strong feeling of
suffocation, and were driven from their shelter, the candles in which
were extinguished by the noxious air. Shells bursting on the hill
set the troops coughing and gasping. It was the first German
experiment in the use of poison--an expedient which is the most
cowardly in the history of warfare, reducing their army from being
honourable soldiers to the level of assassins, even as the sailors of
their submarines had been made the agents for the cold-blooded murder
of helpless civilians. Attacked by this new agent, the troops still
held their ground.

[Sidenote: Desperate fighting.]

Tuesday, April 20, was another day of furious shell-fire. A single
shell upon that morning blew in a parapet and buried Lieutenant
Watson with twenty men of the Surreys. The Queen Victorias under
Colonel Shipley upheld the rising reputation of the Territorial
troops by their admirable steadiness. Major Lees, Lieutenant
Summerhays, and many others died an heroic death; but there was no
flinching from that trench which was so often a grave. As already
explained, there was only one trench and room for a very limited
number of men on the actual crest, while the rest were kept just
behind the curve, so as to avoid a second Spion Kop. At one time
upon this eventful day a handful of London Territorials under a boy
officer, Woolley of the Victorias, were the only troops upon the top,
but it was in safe keeping none the less. {40} This officer received
the Victoria Cross. Hour after hour the deadly bombardment went on.
About 7.30 in the evening the bombers of the enemy got into some
folds in the ground within twenty yards and began a most harassing
attack. All night, under the sudden glare of star shells, there were
a succession of assaults which tried the half-stupefied troops to the
utmost. Soon after midnight in the early morning of Wednesday, April
21, the report came in to the Brigadier that the 1st Surreys in the
trenches to the left had lost all their officers except one
subaltern. As a matter of fact, every man in one detachment had been
killed or wounded by the grenades. It was rumoured that the company
was falling back, but on a message reaching them based upon this
supposition, the answer was, "We have not budged a yard, and have no
intention of doing so." At 2.30 in the morning the position seemed
very precarious, so fierce was the assault and so worn the defence.
Of A Company of the Surreys only 55 privates were left out of 180,
while of the five officers none were now standing, Major Paterson and
Captain Wynyard being killed, while Lieutenant Roupell, who got the
Cross, and two others were wounded. It was really a subalterns'
battle, and splendidly the boys played up.

All the long night trench-mortars and mine-throwers played upon them,
while monstrous explosions flung shattered khaki figures amid a red
glare into the drifting clouds of smoke, but still the hill was
British. With daylight the 1st Devons were brought up into the
fight, and an hour later the hill was clear of the enemy once more,
save for a handful of snipers concealed in the craters of the
north-west corner. In vain the Germans tried to win back a foothold.
Nothing {41} could shift that tenacious infantry. Field-guns were
brought up by the attackers and fired at short range at the parapets
hastily thrown up, but the Devons lay flat and held tight. It had
been a grand fight. Heavy as were the strokes of the Thor hammer of
Germany, they had sometimes bent but never shattered the iron line of
Britain. Already the death-roll had been doubled, and 100 officers
with 3000 of our men were stretched upon that little space, littered
with bodies and red with blood from end to end. But now the action
was at last drawing to its close. Five days it had raged with hardly
a break. British guns were now run up and drove the German ones to
cover. Bombers who still lurked in the craters were routed out with
the bayonet. In the afternoon of the 21st the fire died gradually
away and the assaults came to an end. Hill 60 remained with the
British. The weary survivors were relieved, and limped back singing
ragtime music to their rest-camps in the rear, while the 2nd Cameron
Highlanders, under Colonel Campbell, took over the gruesome trenches.

It was a fine feat of arms for which the various brigadiers, with
General Morland of the Fifth Division, should have the credit. It
was not a question of the little mound--important as that might be,
it could not justify so excessive a loss of life, whether German or
British. Hill 60 was a secondary matter. What was really being
fought for was the ascendancy of the British or the Prussian
soldier--that subtle thing which would tinge every battle which might
be fought thereafter. Who would cry "Enough!" first? Who would
stick it to the bitter end? Which had the staying-power when tried
out to a finish? The answer to that question was of more definite
military {42} importance than an observation post, and it was worth
our three thousand slain or maimed to have the award of the God of
battles to strengthen us hereafter.

This description may well be ended by the general order in which Sir
John French acknowledged the services of the troops engaged in this
arduous affair:

"I congratulate you and the troops of the Second Army on your
brilliant capture and retention of the important position at Hill 60.
Great credit is due to Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Ferguson,
commanding Second Corps; Major-General Morland, commanding Fifth
Division; Brigadier-General Wanless O'Gowan, commanding 13th Brigade;
and Brigadier-General Northey, commanding 15th Brigade, for their
energy and skill in carrying out the operations. I wish particularly
to express my warmest admiration for the splendid dash and spirit
displayed by the battalions of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Brigades
which took part under their respective commanding officers. This has
been shown in the first seizure of the position, by the fire attack
of the Royal West Kents and the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and in
the heroic tenacity with which the hill has been held by the other
battalions of these brigades against the most violent counter-attacks
and terrific artillery bombardment. I also must commend the skilful
work of the Mining Company R.E., of the 59th Field Company R.E., and
2nd Home Counties Field Company R.E., and of the Artillery. I fully
recognise the skill and foresight of Major-General Bulfin, commanding
Twenty-eighth Division, and his C.R.E., Colonel Jerome, who are
responsible for the original conception and plan of the undertaking."

{43}

It will be noticed that in his generous commendation Sir John French
quotes the different separate units of Engineers as a token of his
appreciation of the heavy work which fell upon them before as well as
during the battle. Many anecdotes were current in the Army as to the
extraordinary daring and energy of the subterranean workers, who were
never so happy as when, deep in the bowels of the earth, they were
planning some counter-mine with the tapping of the German picks
growing louder on their ears. One authentic deed by Captain
Johnston's 172nd Mining Company may well be placed upon record. The
sapping upon this occasion was directed against the Peckham Farm held
by the Germans. Finding that the enemy were countermining, a
_camouflet_ was laid down which destroyed their tunnel. After an
interval a corporal descended into the shaft, but was poisoned by the
fumes. An officer followed him and seized him by the ankles, but
became unconscious. A private came next and grabbed the officer, but
lost his own senses. Seven men in succession were in turn rescuers
and rescued, until the whole chain was at last brought to the
surface. Lieutenants Severne and Williams, with Corporal Gray and
Sappers Hattersley, Hayes, Lannon, and Smith, were the heroes of this
incident. It is pleasant to add that though the corporal died, the
six others were all resuscitated.

[Sidenote: A military crime.]

It is with a feeling of loathing that the chronicler turns from such
knightly deeds as these to narrate the next episode of the war, in
which the gallant profession of arms was degraded to the level of the
assassin, and the Germans, foiled in fair fighting, stole away a few
miles of ground by the arts of the murderer. So long as military
history is written, the poisoning of {44} Langemarck will be recorded
as a loathsome incident by which warfare was degraded to a depth
unknown among savages, and a great army, which had long been honoured
as the finest fighting force in the world, became in a single day an
object of horror and contempt, flying to the bottles of a chemist to
make the clearance which all the cannons of Krupp were unable to
effect. The crime was no sudden outbreak of spite, nor was it the
work of some unscrupulous subordinate. It could only have been
effected by long preparation, in which the making of great retorts
and wholesale experiments upon animals had their place. Our
generals, and even our papers, heard some rumours of such doings, but
dismissed them as being an incredible slur upon German honour. It
proved now that it was only too true, and that it represented the
deliberate, cold-blooded plan of the military leaders. Their lies,
which are as much part of their military equipment as their
batteries, represented that the British had themselves used such
devices in the fighting on Hill 60. Such an assertion may be left to
the judgment of the world.

{45}

CHAPTER III

THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

Stage I.--The Gas Attack, April 22-30

It may be remembered that the northern line of the Ypres position,
extending from Steenstraate to Langemarck, with Pilken somewhat to
the south of the centre, had been established and held by the British
during the fighting of October 21, 22, and 23. Later, when the
pressure upon the British to the east and south became excessive, the
French took over this section. The general disposition of the Allies
at the 22nd of April was as follows.

The Belgians still held the flooded Yser Canal up to the
neighbourhood of Bixschoote. There the line was carried on by the
French Eighth Army, now commanded by General Putz in the place of
General d'Urbal. His troops seem to have been all either Colonial or
Territorial, two classes which had frequently shown the utmost
gallantry, but were less likely to meet an unexpected danger with
steadiness than the regular infantry of the line. These formations
held the trenches from Bixschoote on the canal {46} to the
Ypres-Poelcapelle road, two thousand yards east of Langemarck, on the
right. At this point they joined on to Plumer's Fifth Corps, the
Canadian Division, Twenty-eighth and Twenty-seventh British
Divisions, forming a line which passed a mile north of Zonnebeke,
curling round south outside the Polygon Wood to the point where the
Fifth Division of the Second Corps kept their iron grip upon Hill 60.
The average distance from Ypres to all these various lines would be
about five miles. Smith-Dorrien, as commander of the Second Army,
was general warden of the district.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

{47}

[Illustration: Ypres]

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[Sidenote: The coming of the poison gas. April 22.]

Up to the third week of April the enemy opposite the French had
consisted of the Twenty-sixth Corps, with the Fifteenth Corps on the
right, all under the Duke of Würtemberg, whose headquarters were at
Thielt. There were signs, however, of secret concentration which had
not entirely escaped the observation of the Allied aviators, and on
April 20 and 21 the German guns showered shells on Ypres. About 5
P.M. upon Thursday, April 22, a furious artillery bombardment from
Bixschoote to Langemarck began along the French lines, including the
left of the Canadians, and it was reported that the Forty-fifth
French Division was being heavily attacked. At the same time a
phenomenon was observed which would seem to be more in place in the
pages of a romance than in the record of an historian. From the base
of the German trenches over a considerable length there appeared jets
of whitish vapour, which gathered and swirled until they settled into
a definite low cloud-bank, greenish-brown below and yellow above,
where it reflected the rays of the sinking sun. This ominous bank of
vapour, impelled by a northern breeze, drifted {49} swiftly across
the space which separated the two lines. The French troops, staring
over the top of their parapet at this curious screen which ensured
them a temporary relief from fire, were observed suddenly to throw up
their hands, to clutch at their throats, and to fall to the ground in
the agonies of asphyxiation. Many lay where they had fallen, while
their comrades, absolutely helpless against this diabolical agency,
rushed madly out of the mephitic mist and made for the rear,
over-running the lines of trenches behind them. Many of them never
halted until they had reached Ypres, while others rushed westwards
and put the canal between themselves and the enemy. The Germans,
meanwhile, advanced, and took possession of the successive lines of
trenches, tenanted only by the dead garrisons, whose blackened faces,
contorted figures, and lips fringed with the blood and foam from
their bursting lungs, showed the agonies in which they had died.
Some thousands of stupefied prisoners, eight batteries of French
field-guns, and four British 4.7's, which had been placed in a wood
behind the French position, were the trophies won by this disgraceful
victory. The British heavy guns belonged to the Second London
Division, and were not deserted by their gunners until the enemy's
infantry were close upon them, when the strikers were removed from
the breech-blocks and the pieces abandoned. It should be added that
both the young officers present, Lieuts. Sandeman and Hamilton Field,
died beside their guns after the tradition of their corps.

By seven o'clock the French had left the Langemarck district, had
passed over the higher ground about Pilken, and had crossed the canal
towards {50} Brielen. Under the shattering blow which they had
received, a blow particularly demoralising to African troops, with
their fears of magic and the unknown, it was impossible to rally them
effectually until the next day. It is to be remembered in
explanation of this disorganisation that it was the first experience
of these poison tactics, and that the troops engaged received the gas
in a very much more severe form than our own men on the right of
Langemarck. For a time there was a gap five miles broad in the front
of the position of the Allies, and there were many hours during which
there was no substantial force between the Germans and Ypres. They
wasted their time, however, in consolidating their ground, and the
chance of a great coup passed for ever. They had sold their souls as
soldiers, but the Devil's price was a poor one. Had they had a corps
of cavalry ready, and pushed them through the gap, it would have been
the most dangerous moment of the war.

[Sidenote: The Canadian ordeal.]

A portion of the German force, which had passed through the gap left
by the retirement of the French, moved eastwards in an endeavour to
roll up the Canadian line, the flank of which they had turned. Had
they succeeded in doing this the situation would have become most
critical, as they would have been to the rear of the whole of the
Fifth Army Corps. General Alderson, commanding the Canadians, took
instant measures to hold his line. On the exposed flank were the
13th (Royal Highlanders) and 15th (48th Highlanders), both of the 3rd
Brigade. To the right of these were the 8th Canadians and 5th
Canadians in the order named. The attack developed along two-thirds
of a front of five thousand yards, but was most severe upon the left,
where it had become a {51} flank as well as a frontal assault; but in
spite of the sudden and severe nature of the action, the line held
splendidly firm. Any doubt as to the quality of our Canadian
troops--if any such doubt had existed--was set at rest for ever, for
they met the danger with a joyous and disciplined alacrity. General
Turner, who commanded the 3rd Brigade upon the left, extended his men
to such an extent that, while covering his original front, he could
still throw back a line several thousand yards long to the south-west
and so prevent the Germans breaking through. By bending and thinning
his line in this fashion he obviously formed a vulnerable salient
which was furiously attacked by the Germans by shell and rifle fire,
with occasional blasts of their hellish gas, which lost something of
its effectiveness through the direction of the wind. The Canadian
guns, swinging round from north to west, were pouring shrapnel into
the advancing masses at a range of two hundred yards with fuses set
at zero, while the infantry without trenches fired so rapidly and
steadily that the attack recoiled from the severity of the
punishment. The British 118th and 365th Batteries did good work in
holding back this German advance.

Two reserve battalions had been brought up in hot haste from Ypres to
strengthen the left of the line. These were the 16th (Canadian
Scottish) and the 10th Canadians. Their advance was directed against
the wood to the west of St. Julien, in which lay our four guns which,
as already described, had fallen into the hands of the Germans.
Advancing about midnight by the light of the moon, these two brave
regiments, under Colonels Leckie and Boyle, rushed at the wood which
the Germans had already {52} entrenched and carried it at the point
of the bayonet after a furious hand-to-hand struggle. Following at
the heels of the flying Germans, they drove them ever deeper into the
recesses of the wood, where there loomed up under the trees the huge
bulk of the captured guns. For a time they were once again in
British hands, but there was no possible means of removing them, so
that the Canadians had to be content with satisfying themselves that
they were unserviceable. For some time the Canadians held the whole
of the wood, but Colonel Leckie, who was in command, found that there
were Germans on each side of him and no supports. It was clear,
since he was already a thousand yards behind the German line, that he
would be cut off in the morning. With quick decision he withdrew
unmolested through the wood, and occupied the German trenches at the
south end of it. Colonel Boyle lost his life in this very gallant
advance, which may truly be said to have saved the situation, since
it engaged the German attention and gave time for reinforcements to
arrive. The immediate pressing necessity was to give the French time
to re-form, and to make some sort of line between the Canadian left
and the French right. As early as half-past two in the morning,
while the two Canadian regiments were struggling in the wood of St.
Julien, the First Cavalry Division were showing once again the value
of a mobile reserve. De Lisle's horsemen were despatched at full
speed to get across the Canal, so as to act as a support and an
immediate reserve for the French. The 2nd East Yorks from the
Twenty-eighth Division was also sent on the same errand.

[Sidenote: April 23.]

With the dawn it became of most pressing importance {53} to do
something to lessen, if not to fill, the huge gap which yawned
between the left of the Canadians and the canal, like a great open
door five miles wide leading into Ypres. Troops were already
streaming north at the call of Smith-Dorrien from all parts of the
British lines, but the need was quick and pressing. The Canadian 1st
Brigade, which had been in reserve, was thrown into the broad avenue
down which the German army was pouring. The four battalions of
General Mercer's Brigade--the 1st (Ontario), 4th, 2nd, and 3rd
(Toronto)--advanced south of Pilken. Nearer still to St. Julien was
the wood, still fringed by their comrades of the 10th and the 16th,
while to the east of St. Julien the remaining six battalions of
Canadians were facing north-eastwards to hold up the German advance
from that quarter, with their flank turned north-west to prevent the
force from being taken in the rear. Of these six battalions the most
northern was the 13th Royal Canadian Highlanders, and it was on the
unsupported left flank of this regiment that the pressure was most
severe, as the Germans were in the French trenches alongside them,
and raked them with their machine-guns without causing them to leave
their position, which was the pivot of the whole line.

[Sidenote: The crisis.]

Gradually, out of the chaos and confusion, the facts of the situation
began to emerge, and in the early morning of April 23 French saw
clearly how great an emergency he had to meet and what forces he had
with which to meet it. The prospect at first sight was appalling if
it were handled by men who allowed themselves to be appalled. It was
known now that the Germans had not only broken a five-mile gap {54}
in the line and penetrated two miles into it, but that they had taken
Steenstraate, had forced the canal, had taken Lizerne upon the
farther side, and had descended the eastern side as far south as
Boesinghe. At that time it became known, to the great relief of the
British higher command, that the left of the Canadian 1st Brigade,
which had been thrown out, was in touch with six French
battalions--much exhausted by their terrible experience--on the east
bank of the canal, about a mile south-east of Boesinghe. From that
moment the situation began to mend, for it had become clear where the
reinforcements which were now coming to hand should be applied. A
line had been drawn across the gap, and it only remained to stiffen
and to hold it, while taking steps to modify and support the salient
in the St. Julien direction, where a dangerous angle had been created
by the new hasty rearrangement of the Canadian line.

It has been said that a line had been drawn across the gap, but dots
rather than a line would have described the situation more exactly.
Patrols had reached the French, but there was no solid obstacle to a
German advance. This was partially remedied through the sacrifices
of a body of men, who have up to now received the less credit in the
matter because, being a mere chance collection of military atoms,
they had no representative character. No finer proof of soldierly
virtue could be given than the behaviour of these isolated British
regiments which were now pushed up out of their rest camps near
Ypres, many of them wearied from recent fighting, and none of them
heartened by the presence of the comrades and superior officers who
had formed their old brigades. The battalions were the 2nd Buffs,
{55} half of the 3rd Middlesex, the 1st York and Lancasters, the 5th
Royal Lancasters, the 4th Rifle Brigade, the 2nd Cornwalls, the 9th
Royal Scots, and half the 2nd Shropshires. These odd battalions were
placed under the command of Colonel Geddes of the Buffs, and may be
described as Geddes' Detachment. These scattered units, hardly
conscious of each other's presence, were ordered upon April 23 not
only to advance and fill the gap, but actually to attack the German
Army, so as to give the impression of strength, and bring the
assailants to a halt while reinforcements were being hurried to the
Ypres front. These battalions, regardless of fire and gas, marched
straight across country at the Germans, got right up to their line,
and though unable to break it, held them fast in their positions.
The 1st Royal Irish, under Colonel Gloster, had done the same farther
to the eastward. For three days these battalions played their part
in the front line, deliberately sacrificing themselves for the sake
of the army. Colonel Geddes himself, with many senior officers, was
killed, and the losses of some of these stubborn units were so heavy
that it is reported that an observer approached a long row of
prostrate men, whom he took to be the 1st York and Lancaster, only to
find that it was the helpless swathe of their dead and wounded
filling a position from which the survivors had been moved. The
other battalions were in no better case, but their audacity in
attacking at a time when even a defence might seem a desperate
business, had its effect, and held up the bewildered van of the
enemy. It might well be quoted as a classical example of military
bluff. Nearly all these battalions were in reserve to the 27th or
28th Divisions, who were {56} themselves holding a long line in face
of the enemy, and who, by turning their reserves to the West, were
like a bank which transfers money to a neighbour at a time when it
may have to face a run upon its own resources. But the times were
recognised as being desperate, and any risk must be run to keep the
Germans out of Ypres and to hold the pass until further help should
come from the south. It was of course well understood that, swiftly
as our reinforcements could come, the movement of the German troops,
all swirling towards this sudden gap in the dam, would necessarily be
even swifter, since they could anticipate such a situation and we
could not. The remains of these battalions had by the evening of the
23rd dug themselves in on a line which roughly joined up the French
and the Canadians.

In the afternoon of the 23rd those of the French troops who had
escaped the gas attack advanced gallantly to recover some of their
ground, and their movement was shared by the Canadian troops on the
British left wing and by Geddes' detachment. The advance was towards
Pilken, the French being on the left of the Ypres-Pilken road, and
the British on the right. Few troops would have come back to the
battle as quickly as our allies, but these survivors of the
Forty-fifth Division were still rather a collection of brave men than
an organised force. The strain of this difficult advance upon a
victorious enemy fell largely upon the 1st and 4th Battalions of
Mercer's 1st Canadian Brigade. Burchall, of the latter regiment,
with a light cane in his hand, led his men on in a debonair fashion,
which was a reversion to more chivalrous days. He fell, but lived
long enough to see his infantry in occupation of the front German
{57} line of trenches. No further progress could be made, but at
least the advance had for the moment been stayed, and a few hours
gained at a time when every hour was an hour of destiny.

[Sidenote: Canadian gallantry.]

A line had now been formed upon the left, and the Germans had been
held off. But in the salient to the right in the St. Julien section
the situation was becoming ever more serious. The gallant 13th
Canadians (Royal Highlanders) were learning something of what their
French comrades had endured the day before, for in the early dawn the
horrible gases were drifting down upon their lines, while through the
yellow mist of death there came the steady thresh of the German
shells. The ordeal seemed mechanical and inhuman--such an ordeal as
flesh and blood can hardly be expected to bear. Yet with admirable
constancy the 13th and their neighbours, the 15th, held on to their
positions, though the trenches were filled with choking and gasping
men. The German advance was blown back by rifle-fire, even if the
fingers which pulled the triggers were already stiffening in death.
No soldiers in the world could have done more finely than these
volunteers, who combined the dashing American spirit with the cool
endurance of the North. Little did Bernhardi think when he penned
his famous paragraph about our Colonial Militia and their uselessness
upon a European battlefield that a division of those very troops were
destined at a supreme moment to hold up one of the most vital German
movements in the Western campaign.

The French upon the left were not yet in a position to render much
help, so General Alderson, who was in command of this movement, threw
back his left {58} wing and held a line facing westwards with the 4th
Rifle Brigade and a few Zouaves, so as to guard against a German
advance between him and the canal. When the night of the 23rd fell
it ended a day of hard desultory fighting, but the Allies could
congratulate themselves that the general line held in the morning had
been maintained, and even improved.

Reinforcements were urgently needed by the advanced line, so during
the early hours of the morning of April 24 two battalions of the York
and Durham Territorial Brigade--the 4th East Yorkshires and
another--were sent from the west to Ypres to reinforce the weary 13th
Brigade, much reduced by its exertions at Hill 60, which was in
immediate support near Brielen. There was no fighting at this point
during the night, but just about daybreak some of the 2nd Canadian
Brigade upon the right of the British line, who were still holding
their original trenches, were driven out of them by gas, and
compelled to re-form a short distance behind them.

Though the British advance upon the left had gained touch with the
Canadian 3rd Brigade, the latter still formed a salient which was so
exposed that the edge of it, especially the 13th and 15th battalions,
were assailed by infantry from the flank, and even from the rear. To
them it seemed, during the long morning of April 24, as if they were
entirely isolated, and that nothing remained but to sell their lives
dearly. They were circumstances under which less spirited troops
might well have surrendered. So close was the fighting that bayonets
were crossed more than once, Major Norsworthy, of the 13th, among
others, being stabbed in a fierce encounter. Very grim was the
spirit of the Canadians. "Fine {59} men, wonderful fellows,
absolutely calm, and I have never seen such courage," wrote a
Victoria Rifle Territorial, who had himself come fresh from the
heroic carnage of Hill 60. It may be added that, good as the
Canadian infantry was, their artillery was worthy to stand behind it.
It is on record that one Canadian heavy battery, that of Colonel
McGee, was so pre-eminently efficient that it was in demand at any
threatened portion of the line.

It was clear on the morning of April 24 that the advanced angle,
where the French and Canadians had been torn apart, could no longer
be held in face of the tremendous shell-fire which was directed upon
it and the continuous pressure of the infantry attacks. The 3rd
Canadian Brigade fell slowly back upon the village of St. Julien.
This they endeavoured to hold, but a concentrated fire rained upon it
from several sides and the retreat continued. A detachment of the
13th and 14th Canadians were cut off before they could get clear, and
surrounded in the village. Here they held out as long as their
cartridges allowed, but were finally all killed, wounded, and taken.
The prisoners are said to have amounted to 700 men. The remainder of
the heroic and decimated 3rd Brigade rallied to the south of St.
Julien, but their retirement had exposed the flank of the 2nd
Canadian Brigade (Curry's), even as their own flank had been exposed
by the retirement of the French Forty-fifth Division. This 2nd
Brigade flung back its left flank in order to meet the situation, and
successfully held its ground.

[Sidenote: The arrival of reinforcements.]

In doing this they were greatly aided by supports which came from the
rear. This welcome reinforcement consisted of three battalions of
the 84th Brigade, {60} under Colonel Wallace. These three battalions
were ordered to advance about four o'clock in the afternoon, their
instructions being to make straight for Fortuin. Their assault was a
desperate one, since there was inadequate artillery support, and they
had to cross two miles of open ground under a dreadful fire. They
went forward in the open British formation--the 1st Suffolks in the
van, then the 12th London Rangers, and behind them the 1st Monmouths.
Numerous gassed Canadians covered the ground over which they
advanced. The losses were very heavy, several hundred in the
Suffolks alone, but they reached a point within a few hundred yards
of the enemy, where they joined hands with the few Canadians who were
left alive in those trenches. They hailed their advent with cheers.
The whole line lay down at this point, being unable to get farther,
and they were joined at a later date by the 9th Durhams, who came up
on the right. This body, which may be called Wallace's detachment,
remained in this position during the night, and were exposed to
severe attack next day, as will be seen later. So perilous was their
position at the time the 9th Durhams came up that preparations had
been made for destroying all confidential records in view of the
imminent danger of being overwhelmed.

In this and subsequent fighting the reader is likely to complain that
he finds it difficult to follow the movements or order of the troops,
but the same trouble was experienced by the generals at the time. So
broken was the fighting that a regimental officer had units of nine
battalions under him at one moment. The general situations both now
and for the next three days may be taken to be this: that certain
{61} well-defined clumps of British troops--Twenty-eighth Division,
10th Brigade, Canadians, and so forth--are holding back the Germans,
and that odd battalions or even companies are continually pushed in,
in order to fill the varying gaps between these ragged forces and to
save their flanks, so far as possible, from being turned. These odd
battalions coalesced into irregular brigades which are named here
Geddes', Tuson's, or Wallace's detachment, after their senior officer.

[Sidenote: Days of miracle.]

Every hour of this day was an hour of danger, and fresh ground had
been abandoned and heavy losses incurred. None the less it may be
said that on the evening of Saturday, April 24, the worst was over.
From the British point of view it was a war of narrow escapes, and
this surely was among the narrowest. The mystics who saw bands of
bowmen and of knights between the lines during the retreat from Mons
did but give definite shape to the undeniable fact that again and
again the day had been saved when it would appear that the energy,
the numbers, or the engines of the enemy must assure a defeat. On
this occasion the whole front had, from an unforeseen cause, fallen
suddenly out of the defence. Strong forces of the Germans had only
five miles to go in order to cut the great nerve ganglion of Ypres
out of the British system. They were provided with new and deadly
devices of war. They were confronted by no one save a single
division of what they looked upon as raw Colonial Militia, with such
odds and ends of reinforcements as could be suddenly called upon.
And yet of the five miles they could only accomplish two, and now
after days of struggle the shattered tower of the old Cloth Hall in
front of them was as {62} inaccessible as ever. It needs no visions
of over-wrought men to see the doom of God in such episodes as that.
The innocent blood of Belgium for ever clogged the hand of Germany.

Reinforcements were now assembling to the immediate south of St.
Julien. By evening the Northumberland Brigade and the Durham Light
Infantry Brigade--both of the Fiftieth Territorial Division--had
reached Potijze. More experienced, but not more eager, was Hull's
10th Regular Brigade, which had come swiftly from the Armentières
region. All these troops, together with Geddes' detachment and two
battalions of the York and Durham Territorials, were placed under the
hand of General Alderson for the purpose of a strong counter-attack
upon St. Julien. This attack was planned to take place on the
morning of Sunday, April 25. When night fell upon the 24th the front
British line was formed as follows:--

The Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Divisions held their original
trenches facing eastwards. In touch with their left was the 2nd
Canadian Brigade, with one battalion of the 1st Canadian Brigade.
Then came Wallace's detachment with two battalions of the York and
Durham Territorials joining with the remains of the 3rd Canadian
Brigade. Thence Geddes' detachment and the 13th Brigade prolonged
the line, as already described, towards the canal. Behind this
screen the reinforcements gathered for the attack.

[Sidenote: April 25.]

The advance was made at 6.30 in the morning of April 25, General Hull
being in immediate control of the attack. It was made in the first
instance by the 10th Brigade and the 1st Royal Irish from the {63}
82nd Brigade. The remains of the indomitable 3rd Canadian Brigade
kept pace with it upon the right. Little progress was made, however,
and it became clear that there was not weight enough behind the
advance to crush a way through the obstacles in front. Two flank
battalions retired, and the 2nd Seaforths were exposed to a terrible
cross-fire. "We shouted to our officers (what was left of them) to
give the order to charge, knowing in our minds that it was hopeless,
as the smoke was so thick from their gas shells that we could see
nothing on either side of us." Some cavalry was seen, the first for
many days, but was driven off by the machine-gun of the Highlanders.
Finally a brigade of Northumberland Territorials came up to sustain
the hard-pressed line, passing over some two miles of open country
under heavy fire on their advance. It was then nearly mid-day. From
that point onwards the attackers accepted the situation and dug
themselves in at the farthest point which they could reach near the
hamlet of Fortuin, about a mile south of St. Julien.

It will be remembered that Wallace's detachment had upon the day
before already reached this point. They were in a position of
considerable danger, forming a salient in front of the general line.
Together with the 9th Durhams upon their right, they sustained
several German assaults, which they drove back while thrusting wet
rifle rags into their mouths to keep out the drifting gas. From
their right trenches they had the curious experience of seeing
clearly the detraining of the German reserves at Langemarck Station,
and even of observing a speech made by a German general before his
troops hurried from the train into the battle. This advanced line
was held {64} by these troops, not only during the 25th, but for
three more days, until they were finally relieved after suffering
very heavy losses, but having rendered most vital service.

Whilst the British were vainly endeavouring to advance to the north,
a new German attack developed suddenly from the north-east in the
region of Broodseinde, some five miles from St. Julien. This attack
was on a front of eight hundred yards. The trenches attacked were
those of the 84th and 85th Brigades of the Twenty-eighth Division,
and no doubt the Germans held the theory that these would be found to
be denuded or at least fatally weakened, their occupants having been
drafted off to stiffen the Western line. Like so many other German
theories, this particular one proved to be a fallacy. In spite of a
constant shower of poison shells, which suffocated many of the
soldiers, the enemy were vigorously repulsed, the 2nd East Surrey
Regiment getting at one time to hand-to-hand fighting. The few who
were able to reach the trenches remained in them as prisoners. Great
slaughter was caused by a machine-gun of the 3rd Royal Fusiliers
under Lieutenant Mallandain. Still, the movement caused a further
strain upon the resources of the British General, as it was necessary
to send up three battalions to remain in reserve in this quarter in
case of a renewal of the attack. On the other hand, the 11th Brigade
(Hasler), less the 1st East Lancashires, came up from the south to
join the 10th, and Indian troops were known to be upon the way. The
flank of the 85th Brigade was in danger all day, and it was covered
by the great devotion of the 8th Durham Light Infantry to the north
of it. This battalion lost heavily both in killed, {65} wounded, and
prisoners, but it fought with remarkable valour in a very critical
portion of the field. Early in the morning of the 26th the 1st
Hants, on the right of the newly-arrived 11th Brigade, joined up with
the 3rd Royal Fusiliers on the left of the 85th Brigade, and so made
the line complete. Shortly after the arrival of the Hampshires the
enemy charged through the dim dawn with a shout of "Ve vos the Royal
Fusiliers." Wily Hampshire was awake, however, and the trick was a
failure.

Up to the evening of Sunday, April 25, the 2nd Canadian Brigade had
succeeded in holding its original line, which was along a slight
eminence called the Gravenstrafel Ridge. All the regiments had
fought splendidly, but the greatest pressure had been borne by
Colonel Lipsett's 8th Battalion (90th Winnipeg Rifles), who had been
gassed, enfiladed, and bombarded to the last pitch of human
endurance. About five o'clock their trenches were obliterated by the
fury of the German bombardment, and the weary soldiers, who had been
fighting for the best part of four days, fell back towards Wieltje.
That evening a large part of the Canadian Division, which had endured
losses of nearly 50 per cent and established a lasting reputation for
steadfast valour, were moved into reserve, while the Lahore Indian
Division (Keary) came into the fighting line. It is a remarkable
illustration, if one were needed, of the unity of the British Empire
that, as the weary men from Montreal or Manitoba moved from the
field, their place was filled by eager soldiers from the Punjab and
the slopes of the Himalayas.

That evening a fresh French Division, the One Hundred and
Fifty-second, under General de Ligne, {66} came up from the south,
and two others were announced as being on their way, so that a
powerful French offensive was assured for next day upon the further
side of the Canal. De Lisle's First Division of Cavalry continued to
support the French opposite Lizerne, while Kavanagh's Second Division
was dismounted and pushed into the French territorial trenches in
front of Boesinghe. The enemy had come within shelling distance of
Poperinghe, and caused considerable annoyance there, as the town was
crowded with wounded.

Splendid work was done during these days by the motor ambulances,
which on this one evening brought 600 wounded men from under the very
muzzles of the German rifles in front of St. Julien. Several of them
were destroyed by direct hits, but no losses damped their splendid
ardour.

[Sidenote: Glorious advance of the Indians.]

The Lahore Division having now arrived, it was directed to advance on
the left of the British and on the right of the French, along the
general line of the Ypres-Langemarck road. Encouraged by this
reinforcement, and by the thickening line of the French, General
Smith-Dorrien, who had spent several nightmare days, meeting one dire
emergency after another with never-failing coolness and resource,
ordered a general counter-attack for the early afternoon of April 26.
There was no sign yet of any lull in the German activity which would
encourage the hope that they had shot their bolt. On the contrary,
during the whole morning there had been confused and inconclusive
fighting along the whole front, and especially along the
Gravenstrafel Ridge, where the British 10th and 11th Brigades were
now opposing the advance. The 11th Brigade and 85th Brigade {67}
suffered heavily from shell-fire. About two o'clock the
counter-attack was set in motion, all forces co-operating, the
general idea being to drive the enemy back from the line between
Boesinghe on the left and Zonnebeke on the right. Of the French
attack on the east of the Canal one can only say that it kept pace
generally with the British, but on the west of the Canal it was
pushed very strongly in the direction of the village of Lizerne,
where the Germans had established an important bridge-head.

The Indians advanced to the right of the French, with the Jullundur
Brigade upon the right and the Ferozepore Brigade upon the left, the
Sirhind Brigade in reserve. This Indian advance was an
extraordinarily fine one over fifteen hundred yards of open under a
very heavy shell-fire. They had nearly reached the front line of
German trenches, and were making good progress, when before them
there rose once more the ominous green-yellow mist of the poisoners.
A steady north-east wind was blowing, and in a moment the Indians
were encircled by the deadly fumes. It was impossible to get
forward. Many of the men died where they stood. The mephitic cloud
passed slowly over, but the stupefied men were in no immediate
condition to resume their advance. The whole line was brought to a
halt, but the survivors dug themselves in, and were eventually
supported and relieved by the Sirhind Brigade, who, with the help of
the 3rd Sappers and Miners and the 34th Pioneers, consolidated the
front line. General Smith-Dorrien tersely summed up the
characteristics of this advance of the Lahore Division when he said
that it was done "with insufficient artillery preparation, up an open
slope in the face of overwhelming {68} shell, rifle, and machine-gun
fire and clouds of poison gas, but it prevented the German advance
and ensured the safety of Ypres." In this war of great military
deeds there have been few more heroic than this, but it was done at a
terrible cost. Of the 129th Baluchis, only a hundred could be
collected that night, and many regiments were in little better case.
The 1st Manchesters and 1st Connaughts had fought magnificently, but
it cannot be said that there was any difference of gallantry between
Briton and Indian.

[Sidenote: The Northern Territorials. April 26.]

Farther to the eastwards another fine advance had been made by the
Northumberland Brigade of Territorials (Riddell) of the Fiftieth
Division, who had just arrived from England. Some military historian
has remarked that British soldiers never fight better than in their
first battle, and this particular performance, carried out by men
with the home dust still upon their boots, could not have been
improved upon. In this as in other attacks it was well understood
that the object of the operations was rather to bluff the Germans
into suspending their dangerous advance than to actually gain and
permanently hold any of the lost ground. The brigade advanced in
artillery formation which soon broke into open order. The fire, both
from the German guns, which had matters all their own way, and from
their riflemen, was incessant and murderous. The 6th Northumberland
Fusiliers were on the left with the 7th upon the right, the other two
battalions being nominally in second line but actually swarming up
into the gaps. In spite of desperately heavy losses the gallant
Geordies won their way across open fields, with an occasional rest
behind a bank or hedge, until they were on the actual outbuildings of
St. Julien. They held on to the edge {69} of the village for some
time, but they had lost their Brigadier, the gallant Riddell, and a
high proportion of their officers and men. Any support would have
secured their gains, but the 151st Durham Light Infantry Brigade
behind them had their own hard task to perform. The battalions which
had reached the village were compelled to fall back. Shortly after
six in the evening the survivors had dropped back to their own
trenches. Their military career had begun with a repulse, but it was
one which was more glorious than many a facile success.

On their right the Twenty-eighth Division had been severely attacked,
and the pressure was so great that two and a half battalions had to
be sent to their help, thus weakening the British advance to that
extent. Had these battalions been available to help the
Northumbrians, it is possible that their success could have been made
good. The strain upon our overmatched artillery may be indicated by
the fact that on that one afternoon the 366th Battery of the
Twenty-eighth Division fired one thousand seven hundred and forty
rounds. The troops in this section of the battlefield had been flung
into the fight in such stress that it had been very difficult to keep
a line without gaps, and great danger arose from this cause on
several occasions. Thus a gap formed upon the left of the Hampshire
Regiment, the flank of the 11th Brigade, through which the Germans
poured. Another gap formed on the right of the Hampshires between
them and the 3rd Royal Fusiliers of the 85th Brigade. One company of
the 8th Middlesex was practically annihilated in filling this gap,
but by the help of the 8th Durham Light Infantry and other Durham and
Yorkshire Territorials the line was restored. The {70} 2nd
Shropshire Light Infantry also co-operated in this fierce piece of
fighting, their Colonel Bridgford directing the operation.

The Indians upon the left had suffered from the gas attack, but the
French near the Canal had been very badly poisoned. By 3.30 they had
steadied themselves, however, and came forward once again, while the
Indians kept pace with them. The whole net advance of the day upon
this wing did not exceed three hundred yards, but it was effected in
the face of the poison fumes, which might well have excused a
retreat. In the night the front line was consolidated and the
Sirhind reserve brigade brought up to occupy it. It was a day of
heavy losses and uncertain gains, but the one vital fact remained
that, with their artillery, their devil's gas, and their north-east
wind, the Germans were not a yard nearer to that gaunt, tottering
tower which marked the goal of their desire.

[Sidenote: A day of hard fighting. April 27.]

The night of the 26th was spent by the British in reorganising their
line, taking out the troops who were worn to the bone, and
substituting such reserves as could be found. The French had been
unable to get forward on the east of the Canal, but on the west,
where they were farther from the gas, they had made progress, taking
trenches between Boesinghe and Lizerne, and partially occupying the
latter village. In the early afternoon of the 27th our indomitable
Allies renewed their advance upon our left. They were held up by
artillery fire, and finally, about 7 P.M., were driven back by gas
fumes. The Sirhind and Ferozepore Indian Brigades kept pace with the
French upon the right, but made little progress, for the fire was
terrific. The losses of the Sirhind Brigade were {71} very heavy,
but they held their own manfully. The 1st and 4th Gurkhas had only
two officers left unwounded in each battalion. The 4th King's also
made a very fine advance. Four battalions from corps reserve--the
2nd Cornwalls, 2nd West Ridings, 5th King's Own, and 1st York and
Lancaster--were sent up at 3 P.M., under Colonel Tuson, to support
the Indians. The whole of this composite brigade was only one
thousand three hundred rifles, three out of the four battalions
having been with Geddes' decimated force. The advance could not get
forward, but when in the late evening the French recoiled before the
deadly gas, the left of the Sirhind Brigade would have been in the
air but for the deployment of part of Tuson's detachment to cover
their flank. At 9 P.M. the Morocco Brigade of the French Division
came forward once more and the line was re-formed, Tuson's detachment
falling back into support. Once again it was a day of hard fighting,
considerable losses, and inconclusive results, but yet another day
had gone and Ypres was still intact. On the right of the British the
10th and 11th Brigades had more than held their own, and the line of
the Gravenstrafel Ridge was in their hands. Across the Canal also
the French had come on, and the Germans were being slowly but surely
pushed across to the farther side. By the evening of the 28th a
continuation of this movement had entirely cleared the western side,
and on the eastern had brought the French line up to the
neighbourhood of Steenstraate.

[Sidenote: Results.]

At this point the first phase of the second battle of Ypres may be
said to have come to an end, although for the next few days there was
desultory fighting {72} here and there along the French and British
fronts. The net result of the five days' close combat had been that
the Germans had advanced some two miles nearer to Ypres. They had
also captured the four large guns of the London battery, eight
batteries of French field-guns, a number of machine-guns, several
thousand French, and about a thousand British prisoners. The losses
of the Allies had been very heavy, for the troops had fought with the
utmost devotion in the most difficult circumstances. Our casualties
up to the end of the month in this region came to nearly 20,000 men,
and at least 12,000 French would have to be added to represent the
total Allied loss. The single unit which suffered most was the
British 10th Brigade (Hull), consisting of the 1st Warwicks, 2nd
Seaforths, 1st Irish Fusiliers, 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, and 7th Argyll
and Sutherlands. These battalions lost among them no fewer than 63
officers and 2300 men, a very high proportion of their total numbers.
Nearly as high were the losses of the three Canadian brigades, the
first losing 64 officers and 1862 men; the second 71 officers and
1770 men; while the third lost 62 officers and 1771 men. The
Northumbrian Division was also very hard hit, losing 102 officers and
2423 men, just half of the casualties coming from the Northumberland
Infantry Brigade. The Lahore Division had about the same losses as
the Northern Territorials, while the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth
Divisions each lost about 2000. General Hasler, of the 11th Brigade,
General Riddell, of the Northumberlands, Colonel Geddes, of the
Buffs, Colonels Burchall, McHaig, and Boyle, of the 4th, 7th, and
10th Canadians, Colonel Martin, of the 1st King's Own Lancasters,
Colonel {73} Hicks, of the 1st Hants, with many senior regimental
officers, were among the dead. No British or Canadian guns were lost
save the four heavy pieces, which were exposed through the
exceptional circumstance of the gas attack. The saving of all the
Canadian guns was an especially fine achievement, as two-thirds of
the horses were killed, and it was necessary to use the same teams
again and again to get away pieces which were in close contact with
the enemy.

The airmen, too, did great work during this engagement, bombarding
Steenstraate, Langemarck, Poelcapelle, and Paschendaale. In so short
an account of so huge an operation it is difficult to descend to the
individual, but no finer deed could be chronicled in the whole war
than that of Lieutenant Rhodes-Moorhouse, who, having been mortally
wounded in the execution of his duty, none the less steered his
machine home, delivered her at the hangar, and made his report before
losing consciousness for ever.

As to the German losses, they were very considerable. The
Twenty-sixth Corps returned a casualty list of 10,572, and the
Twenty-seventh of 6101. These are great figures when one considers
that it was almost entirely to their rifles that the British had to
trust. There were many other units engaged, and the total could not
have been less than 25,000 killed, wounded, or taken.

In this hard-fought battle the British, if one includes the whole
area of contest, had seven divisions engaged--the Fourth, Fifth,
Twenty-seventh, Twenty-eighth, Fiftieth, Canadian, and Lahore.
Nearly half of these were immobile, however, being fixed to the long
line of eastern trenches. Forty thousand men would be a fair
estimate of those available from first {74} to last to stop the
German advance. It would be absurd to deny that the advantage rested
with the Germans, but still more absurd to talk of the honours of war
in such a connection. By a foul trick they gained a trumpery
advantage at the cost of an eternal slur upon their military
reputation. It was recognised from this time onwards that there was
absolutely nothing at which these people would stick, and that the
idea of military and naval honour or the immemorial customs of
warfare had no meaning for them whatever. The result was to infuse
an extraordinary bitterness into our soldiers, who had seen their
comrades borne past them in the agonies of asphyxiation. The
fighting became sterner and more relentless, whilst the same feeling
was reflected in Great Britain, hardening the resolution with which
the people faced those numerous problems of recruiting, food supply,
and munitions which had to be solved. Truly honesty is the better
policy in war as in peace, for no means could have been contrived by
the wit of man to bring out the full, slow, ponderous strength of the
British Empire so effectively as the long series of German outrages,
each adding a fresh stimulus before the effect of the last was
outworn. Belgium, Louvain, Rheims, Zeppelin raids, Scarborough,
poison-gas, the _Lusitania_, Edith Cavell, Captain Fryatt--these were
the stages which led us on to victory. Had Germany never violated
the Belgian frontier, and had she fought an honest, manly fight from
first to last, the prospect would have been an appalling one for the
Allies. There may have been more criminal wars in history, and there
may have been more foolish policies, but the historian may search the
past in vain for any such combination {75} of crime and folly as the
methods of "frightfulness" by which the Germans endeavoured to carry
out the schemes of aggression which they had planned so long.

[Sidenote: Reorganization.]

The gain of ground by the Germans from north to south in this
engagement necessitated a drawing-in of the line from east to west
over a front of nearly eight miles in order to avoid a dangerous
projecting salient at Zonnebeke. It was hard in cold blood to give
up ground which had been successfully held for so many months, and
which was soaked with the blood of our bravest and best. On the
other hand, if it were not done now, while the Germans were still
stunned by the heavy losses which they had sustained and wearied out
by their exertions, it might be exposed to an attack by fresh troops,
and lead to an indefensible strategic position.

[Sidenote: May 2.]

Upon Sunday, May 2, they made a fresh attack on the north of Ypres
along the front held by the French to the immediate south of Pilken
and along the British left to the east of St. Julien, where the
newly-arrived 12th Brigade (Anley) and the remains of the 10th and
11th were stationed. The 12th Brigade, which came up on May 1,
consisted at that time of the 1st King's Own Lancasters, 2nd
Lancashire Fusiliers, 2nd Essex, 5th South Lancashires (T.F.), 2nd
Monmouths (T.F.), and 2nd Royal Irish. The attack was in the first
instance carried out by means of a huge cloud of gas, which was
ejected under high pressure from the compressed cylinders in their
trenches, and rapidly traversed the narrow space between the lines.
As the troops fell back to avoid asphyxiation they were thickly
sprayed by shrapnel from the German guns. The German infantry {76}
followed on the fringe of their poison cloud, but they brought
themselves into the zone of the British guns, and suffered
considerable losses. Many of the troops in the trenches drew to one
side to avoid the gas, or even, in some cases, notably that of the
7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, waited for the gas to come,
and then charged swiftly through it to reach the stormers upon the
other side, falling upon them with all the concentrated fury that
such murderous tactics could excite. The result was that neither on
the French nor on the British front did the enemy gain any ground.
Two battalions of the 12th Brigade--the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers and
the 2nd Essex--suffered heavily, many of the men being poisoned. The
Lancashire Fusiliers lost 300 men from this cause, among them the
heroic machine-gunner, Private Lynn, who stood without a respirator
in the thick of the fumes, and beat off a German attack almost
single-handed, at the cost of a death of torture to himself.

It was found that even when the acute poisoning had been avoided, a
great lassitude was produced for some time by the inhalation of the
gas. In the case of Hull's 10th Brigade, which had been practically
living in the fumes for a fortnight, but had a specially bad dose on
May 2, it was found that out of 2500 survivors, only 500 were really
fit for duty. The sufferings of the troops were increased by the use
of gas shells, which were of thin metal with highly-compressed gas
inside. All these fiendish devices were speedily neutralised by
means of respirators, but a full supply had not yet come to hand, nor
had the most efficient type been discovered, so that many of the
Allies were still poisoned.

{77}

[Sidenote: May 3.]

Upon May 3 the enemy renewed his attack upon the 11th Brigade, now
commanded by Brigadier-General Prowse, and the 1st Rifle Brigade,
which was the right flank regiment, was badly mauled, their trenches
being almost cleared of defenders. The 1st Somersets also suffered
heavily. Part of the 1st York and Lancasters and the 5th King's Own
Lancasters were rushed up to the rescue from the supports of the
Twenty-eighth Division. The gallant Colonel of the latter battalion,
Lord Richard Cavendish, was wounded while waving on his men with his
cane and shouting, "Come along, King's Own." At the same time the
German infantry tried to push in between the 11th Brigade on our left
and the 85th on the right, at the salient between the Fourth and
Twenty-eighth Divisions, the extreme north-east corner of the British
lines. The fight was a very desperate one, being strongly supported
by field-guns at short ranges. Three more British battalions--the
2nd Buffs, 3rd Fusiliers, and 2nd East Yorks--were thrown into the
fight, and the advance was stopped. That night the general
retirement took place, effected in many cases from positions within a
few yards of the enemy, and carried out without the loss of a man or
a gun. The retirement was upon the right of the British line, and
mainly affected the Twenty-seventh, and to a less degree the
Twenty-eighth, Divisions. The Fourth Division upon the left or north
did not retire, but was the hinge upon which the others swung.
During the whole of these and subsequent operations the Fourth
Division was splendidly supported by the French artillery, which
continually played upon the attacking Germans.

[Sidenote: Lost of Hill 60.]

Before closing this chapter, dealing with the gas {78} attacks to the
north of Ypres, and beginning the next one, which details the furious
German assault upon the contracted lines of the Fifth Army Corps, it
would be well to interpolate some account of the new development at
Hill 60. This position was a typical one for the German use of gas,
just as the Dardanelles lines would have been for the Allies, had
they condescended to such an atrocity upon a foe who did not
themselves use such a weapon. Where there is room for flexibility of
manoeuvre, and a temporary loss of ground is immaterial, the gas is
at a discount; but where there is a fixed and limited position it is
without respirators practically impossible to hold it against such an
agency. Up to now the fighting at Hill 60 had furnished on both
sides a fine epic of manliness, in which man breasted man in honest
virile combat. Alas, that such a brave story should have so cowardly
an ending! Upon the evening of May 1 the poisoners got to work, and
the familiar greenish gas came stealing out from the German trenches,
eddied and swirled round the base of the hill, and finally submerged
the summit, where the brave men of the Dorsets in the trenches were
strangled by the chlorine as they lay motionless and silent, examples
of a discipline as stern as that of the Roman sentry at Herculaneum.
So dense were the fumes that the Germans could not take possession,
and it was a reinforcement of Devons and Bedfords of the 15th Brigade
who were the first to reach the trenches, where they found the bodies
of their murdered comrades, either fixed already in death or writhing
in the agonies of choking. It is said that the instructions of the
relieving force were to carry up munitions and to carry down the
Dorsets. One officer and {79} 50 men had been killed at once, while
4 officers and 150 men were badly injured, many of them being
permanently incapacitated. The 59th Company of Royal Engineers were
also overwhelmed by the fumes, three officers and many men being
poisoned.

The gas attack upon Hill 60 on May 1 may have been a mere experiment
upon the part of the Germans to see how far they could submerge it,
for it was not followed up by an infantry advance. A more sustained
and more successful attack was made by the same foul means upon May
5. Early in the morning the familiar cloud appeared once more, and
within a few minutes the British position was covered by it. Not
only the hill itself, but a long trench to the north of it was
rendered untenable, and so was another trench two thousand yards
north of Westhoek.

The 2nd West Ridings were holding the front trench at the time, and
suffered horribly from the poison. Mr. Valentine Williams, in his
admirable account of the episode, says: "There appeared staggering
towards the dug-out of the commanding officer of the Duke's in the
rear two figures, an officer and an orderly. The officer was as pale
as death, and when he spoke his voice came hoarsely from his throat.
Beside him his orderly, with unbuttoned coat, his rifle clasped in
his hand, swayed as he stood. The officer said slowly, in his
gasping voice, 'They have gassed the Duke's. I believe I was the
last man to leave the hill. The men are all up there dead. They
were splendid. I thought I ought to come and report.' That officer
was Captain Robins.... They took him and his faithful orderly to
hospital, but the gallant officer died that night." His two
subalterns, Lieut. Miller {80} and another, both remained in the
front trench until they died.

Such was the upshot of the fighting at Hill 60. What with the shells
and what with the mines, very little of the original eminence was
left. The British still held the trenches upon the side while the
Germans held the summit, if such a name could be applied. The
British losses, nearly all from poison, had been considerable in the
affair, and amounted to the greater part of a thousand men, the
Dorsets, Devons, Bedfords, and West Ridings being the regiments which
suffered most heavily. When the historian of the future sums up the
deeds of the war it is probable that he will find nothing more
remarkable than the patient endurance with which the troops faced a
death of torture from the murderous gas in the days when no
protection had yet been afforded them.

One incident of this period may be quoted as showing the peculiar
happenings of modern warfare. The village of Poperinghe was at this
time the chief depot for stores and resting-place for wounded, being
ten miles to the rear of the line. Great surprise and confusion were
caused, therefore, by a sudden fall of immense shells, which came out
of space with no indication whatever as to their origin. They caused
more fright than damage, but were excessively unnerving. From their
measured fall it was clear that they all came from one single gun of
gigantic power behind the far distant German line. To the admirable
aeroplanes was given the task of solving the mystery, and regardless
of gun-fire or hostile craft they quartered the whole country round
until at last, by a combination of luck and skill, they concluded
that a Belgian barn, five miles behind the enemy {81} line and
fifteen from Poperinghe, was the lair of the monster. A large
British gun came stealthily up and lay concealed till dawn when it
opened upon the barn. The third or fourth shell went home, a
magazine exploded, the barn went up, and there was peace henceforth
in Poperinghe.

{82}

CHAPTER IV

THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

Stage II.--The Bellewaarde Lines

It was upon the evening of May 4 that the difficult operations were
finished by which the lines of the British Army on the north-east of
Ypres were brought closer to the city. The trenches which faced
north, including those which looked towards Pilken and St. Julien,
were hardly affected at all by this rearrangement. The section which
was chiefly modified was the long curved line which was held from
Zonnebeke southwards by the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth
Divisions. Instead of averaging five miles from Ypres, these troops
were now not more than three from that centre, and the curve of their
line was from Wieltje and Frezenberg to past the Bellewaarde wood and
lake, and so through Hooge and on to Hill 60.

[Sidenote: The second phase.]

The second phase of this great battle, which began with the poisoning
of Langemarck, is dated from the time that the British line was
readjusted. {83} The Germans were naturally much encouraged by so
general a withdrawal, and it seemed to them that, with a further
effort, they would be able to burst their way through and take
possession at last of this town which faced them, still inviolate,
after nearly eight months of incessant attack. Their guns, aided by
their aeroplanes, after wasting a day in bombarding the empty
trenches, hastened to register upon the new line of defences.

During the 5th, 6th, and 7th the enemy were perfecting their new
arrangements, but no peace or rest was given to that northern portion
of the line which was still in its old trenches. The bombardment was
turned on to this or that battalion in turn. On the evening of the
5th it was the 5th South Lancashires, on the right of the 12th
Brigade, who were torn to pieces by jets of steel from the terrible
hose. The battalion was relieved by the 2nd Monmouths, who beat off
an attack next morning. All day upon the 7th the Germans were
massing for an attack, but were held back by the steady fire of the
French and British batteries. On the 8th, however, the new
preparations were complete, and a terrible storm, destined to last
for six unbroken days--days never to be forgotten by those who
endured them--broke along the whole east, north-east, and north of
the British line.

It has been shown in the last chapter that during the long and bitter
fight which had raged from the 22nd to the 28th of April the two
British divisions which together formed the Fifth Army Corps had not
only been closely engaged in their own trenches, but had lent
battalions freely to the Canadians, so that they had at one time only
a single battalion in their own {84} reserve. During the period of
the readjustment of the line nearly all these troops returned, but
they came back grievously weakened and wearied by the desperate
struggle in which they had been involved. None the less, they got to
work at once in forming and strengthening the new dyke which was to
keep the German flood out of Ypres. Day and night they toiled at
their lines, helped by working parties from the Fifth Division, the
50th Northumbrian Division, and two field companies of sappers from
the Fourth Division. All was ready when the German attack broke upon
the line. The left of this attack was borne by the Fourth Division,
the centre, in the Frezenberg sector, was held by the Twenty-eighth
Division, and the right by the Twenty-seventh Division, who joined up
with the Fifth Division in the south. This was at first almost
entirely an artillery attack, and was of a most destructive
character. Such an attack probably represents the fixed type of the
future, where the guns will make an area of country impossible for
human life, and the function of the infantry will simply be to move
forward afterwards and to occupy. Along the whole line of the three
divisions for hour after hour an inexhaustible rain of huge
projectiles fell with relentless precision into the trenches,
smashing them to pieces and burying the occupants in the graves which
they had prepared for themselves. It was with joy that the wearied
troops saw the occasional head of an infantry assault and blew it to
pieces with their rifles. For the greater part it was not a contest
between men and men, but rather one between men and metal, in which
our battalions were faced by a deserted and motionless landscape,
from which came the ceaseless {85} downpour of shells and occasional
drifting clouds of chlorine. At one point, near Frezenberg, the
trenches had been sited some 70 yards down the forward slope of a
hill, with disastrous results, as the 3rd Monmouths and part of the
2nd Royal Lancasters who held this section were almost destroyed.
When the 3rd Monmouths were eventually recalled the Battalion H.Q.
and some orderlies and signallers were all who appeared in answer to
the summons.

[Sidenote: Attack on the Fourth Division. May 8.]

About seven o'clock the German infantry attack developed against that
part of the line--the northern or left wing--which was held by the
Fourth Division. The advance was pushed with great resolution and
driven back with heavy losses, after getting within a hundred yards
of the trenches. "Company after company came swinging forward
steadily in one long, never-ending line," says an observer of the
11th Brigade, describing the attack as it appeared from the front of
the 1st East Lancashires and of the 5th London Rifle Brigade. "Here
and there their attack slackened, but the check was only temporary.
On they came again, and the sight was one that almost mesmerised us.
They were near enough for us to hear the short, sharp cries of the
officers, and the rain of bullets became more deadly than ever. It
was simple murder." The barbed wire in front of the defences was
choked and heaped with dead and wounded men. This desperate German
attack had more success farther to the south.

At this part of the line the Germans had pushed through a gap and had
seized the village of Wieltje, thus getting behind the right rear of
the 12th Brigade. It was essential to regain the village, for it was
a vital point in the line. The 1st Royal Irish, which {86} had been
attached to this brigade, together with two companies of the 5th
South Lancashire, were ordered to advance, while two reserve
battalions of the 1st Irish Fusiliers and the 7th Argyll and
Sutherlands, all under General Anley, supported the attack. It is no
light matter with an inferior artillery to attack a village held by
German troops, but the assault was brilliantly successful and the
village was regained, while the dangerous gap was closed in the
British line. That night there was some desperate fighting round
Wieltje, which occasionally got down to bayonet work. The 1st Hants
and 1st East Lancashire from the 11th Brigade had come up and helped
in the fierce defence, which ended where it began, with the British
line still intact.

So much for the fighting on May 8 in front of the Fourth Division.
Farther down the line to the south the situation was more serious. A
terrific bombardment had demolished the trenches of the Fifth Corps,
and a very heavy infantry advance had followed, which broke the line
in several places.

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{87}

[Illustration: SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES ORDER OF BATTLE FROM MAY 7th.]

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The weight of this attack fell upon the Twenty-eighth Division in
front of Frezenberg, and very particularly upon the 83rd Brigade,
which formed the unit on the right flank. The German rush was
stemmed for a time by the staunch North of England battalions which
made up this brigade--the 1st Yorkshire Light Infantry on the extreme
right, and their neighbours of the 5th Royal Lancasters, the 2nd
Royal Lancasters, and the 2nd East Yorkshires. Great drifts of gas
came over, and the gasping soldiers, with their hands to their
throats and the tears running down their cheeks, were at the same
time cut to pieces by every kind of shell beating upon them in an
{89} endless stream. Yet they made head against this accumulation of
horrors. The East Yorkshires were particularly badly cut up, and the
Monmouths, who were in support, endured a terrible and glorious
baptism of fire while advancing in splendid fashion to their support.
But the losses from the shell-fire had been very heavy, and the line
was too weak to hold. Of 2500 men in the Frezenberg trenches only
600 men were left standing. The brigade had to fall back. The left
flank of the 80th Brigade of the Twenty-seventh Division upon the
right was consequently exposed and in the air. A glance at the
accompanying diagram will show the situation created by the
retirement of any unit.

[Sidenote: Great stand of the Princess Pats. May 8.]

The flank trench was held by the Princess Patricia Canadians, and
their grand defence of it showed once more the splendid stuff which
the Dominion had sent us. Major Gault and all the other senior
officers were killed or wounded, and the command devolved upon
Lieutenant Niven, who rose greatly to the occasion. Besides the
heavy shelling and the gas, the trenches were raked by machine-guns
in neighbouring buildings. So accurate was the German artillery that
the machine-guns of the Canadians were buried again and again, but
were dug up and spat out their defiance once more. Corporal Dover
worked one of these guns till both his leg and his arm had been shot
away. When the trenches were absolutely obliterated the Canadians
manned the communication trench and continued the desperate
resistance. The 4th Rifle Brigade sent up a reinforcement and the
fight went on. Later a party of the 2nd Shropshires pushed their way
also into the fire-swept trenches, bringing with them a welcome
supply of {90} cartridges. It was at this hour that the 83rd Brigade
upon the right of the Twenty-eighth Division had to fall back,
increasing the difficulty of holding the position. The enemy charged
once more and got possession of the trench at a point where all the
defenders had been killed. There was a rush, however, by the
survivors in the other sections, and the Germans were driven out
again. From then until late at night the shell-fire continued, but
there was no further infantry advance. Late that night, when
relieved by the Rifles, the Canadian regiment, which had numbered
nearly 700 in the morning, could only muster 150 men. Having read
the service over their comrades, many of whom had already been buried
by the German shells, they were led back by Lieutenants Niven, Clark,
Vandenburg, and Papineau after a day of great stress and loss, but of
permanent glory. "No regiment could have fought with greater
determination or endurance," said an experienced British general.
"Many would have failed where they succeeded."

[Sidenote: Breaking of the line. May 8.]

It has already been described how the 83rd Brigade had been driven
back by the extreme weight of the German advance. Their fellow
brigade upon the left, the 84th (Bowes), had a similar experience.
They also held their line under heavy losses, and were finally,
shortly after mid-day, compelled to retire. The flank regiment on
the right, the 1st Suffolk, were cut off and destroyed even as their
second battalion had been at Le Cateau.

At this time the 1st Suffolk was so reduced by the losses sustained
when it had formed part of Wallace's detachment, as described in the
last chapter, that there were fewer than 300 men with the Colours.
{91} When the Germans broke through the left flank of the 83rd
Brigade they got partly to the rear of the Suffolk trenches. The
survivors of the Suffolks were crowded down the trench and mixed up
with the 2nd Cheshires, who were their immediate neighbours. The
parapets were wrecked, the trenches full of debris, the air polluted
with gas, and the Germans pushing forward on the flank, holding
before them the prisoners that they had just taken from the 83rd
Brigade. It is little wonder that in these circumstances this most
gallant battalion was overwhelmed. Colonel Wallace and 130 men were
taken. The 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers and the 1st Monmouths
sustained also very heavy losses, as did the 12th London Rangers.
The shattered remains of the brigade were compelled to fall back in
conformity with the 83rd upon the right, sustaining fresh losses as
they were swept with artillery fire on emerging from the trenches.
This was about 11.30 in the morning. The 1st Monmouths upon the left
of the line seem, however, to have kept up their resistance till a
considerably later hour, and to have behaved with extraordinary
gallantry. Outflanked and attacked in the rear after the Germans had
taken the trenches on the right, they still, under their gallant
Colonel Robinson, persevered in what was really a hopeless
resistance. The Germans trained a machine-gun upon them from a house
which overlooked their trench, but nothing could shift the gallant
miners who formed the greater part of the regiment. Colonel Robinson
was shot dead while passing his men down the trench one by one in the
hope of forming a new front. Half the officers and men were already
on the ground. The German stormers were {92} on the top of them with
cries of "Surrender! Surrender!" "Surrender be damned!" shouted
Captain Edwards, and died still firing his revolver into the grey of
them. It was a fine feat of arms, but only 120 men out of 750
reassembled that night.

After this severe blow battalions held back in reserve were formed up
for a counter-attack, which was launched about half-past three. The
attack advanced from the point where the Fourth and Twenty-eighth
Divisions adjoined, and two battalions of the Fourth Division--the
1st Warwicks and the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers--together with the 2nd East
Surreys, 1st York and Lancasters, and 3rd Middlesex, of the 85th
Brigade, took part in it, pushing forwards towards the hamlet of
Frezenberg, which they succeeded in occupying. On their left the
12th London Regiment (the Rangers) won their way back to the line
which their brigade, the 84th, had held in the morning, but they lost
very heavily in their gallant attack. Two other reserve battalions,
the 1st East Lancashires, of the 11th Brigade, and the 7th Argyll and
Sutherland Highlanders, of the 10th, fought their way up as already
mentioned on the extreme left in the neighbourhood of Wieltje, and
spliced the line at the weak point of the junction of divisions. All
these attacks were made against incessant drifts of poison-gas, as
well as heavy rifle and shell fire. It was a day of desperate and
incessant fighting, where all General Plumer's skill and resolution
were needed to restore and to hold his line. The Germans claimed to
have taken 500 prisoners, mostly of the 84th Brigade.

[Sidenote: Desperate attacks. May 9.]

The net result of the fighting upon May 8 was {93} that the area held
in the north-east of Ypres was further diminished. Early upon the
9th the Germans, encouraged by their partial success, continued their
attack, still relying upon their massive artillery, which far
exceeded anything which the British could put against it. The attack
on this morning came down the Menin road, and the trenches on either
side of it were heavily bombarded. At ten o'clock there was an
infantry advance upon the line of the 81st Brigade (Croker), which
was driven back by the 2nd Cameron Highlanders and the 2nd
Gloucesters. The shell-fire was continued upon the same line until 4
P.M., when the trench was obliterated, and a second advance of the
German infantry got possession of it. A counter-attack of the
Gloucesters was held up with considerable loss, the advance of the
regiment through the wood being greatly impeded by the number of
trees cut down by shells and forming abattis in every direction, like
the windfalls of a Canadian forest. This trench was the only capture
made by the Germans during the day, and it did not materially weaken
the position. The Gloucesters lost Colonel Tulloh, five other
officers, and 150 men.

These attacks along the line of the Menin road and to the north of
Lake Bellewaarde were all directed upon the Twenty-seventh Division,
but the Twenty-eighth Division immediately to the north, which had
been defending the sector which runs through Frezenberg and Wieltje,
had also been most violently shelled, but had held its line, as had
the Fourth Division to the north. All these divisions had
considerable losses. The general result was a further slight
contraction of the British line. It could not be broken, and it
could {94} not be driven in upon Ypres, but the desperate and (apart
from the gas outrages) valorous onslaughts of the Germans, aided by
their overpowering artillery, gained continually an angle here and a
corner there, with the result that the British position was being
gradually whittled away.

[Sidenote: May 10.]

On the 10th the Germans again attacked upon the line of the Menin
road, blasting a passage with their artillery, but meeting with a
most determined resistance. The weight of their advance fell chiefly
upon the 80th Brigade to the north of the road, the 4th Rifle Brigade
and the 4th Rifles bearing the brunt of it and suffering very
severely, though the 2nd Camerons and 9th Royal Scots, of the 81st
Brigade, were also hard hit. So savage had been the bombardment, and
so thick the gas, that the German infantry thought that they could
safely advance, but the battalions named, together with the 3rd
Battalion of Rifles, drove them back with heavy loss. It was always
a moment of joy for the British infantry when for a brief space they
were faced by men rather than machines. The pitiless bombardment
continued; the garrison of the trenches was mostly killed or buried,
and the survivors fell back on to the support trenches west of the
wood. This defence of the Riflemen was as desperate a business as
that of the Canadians upon the 8th. Several of the platoons remained
in the shattered trenches until the Germans had almost surrounded
them, and finally shot and stabbed a path for themselves till they
could rejoin their comrades. It was on this day that the 9th Argyll
and Sutherland Highlanders suffered heavy losses, including their
splendid Colonel, James Clark.

{95}

[Sidenote: May 11.]

On May 11 the attack was still very vigorous. The Twenty-seventh
Division was strongly pressed in the morning. The 80th Brigade was
to the north and somewhat to the west of the 81st, which caused the
latter to form a salient. With their usual quickness in taking
advantage of such things, the Germans instantly directed their fire
upon this point. After several hours of heavy shelling, an infantry
attack about 11 A.M. got into the trenches, but was driven out again
by the rush of the 9th Royal Scots. The bombardment was then
renewed, and the attack was more successful at 4 P.M.--an almost
exact repetition of the events upon the day before, save that the
stress fell upon the 81st instead of the 80th Brigade. During the
night the Leinsters of the 82nd Brigade drove the Germans out again,
but found that the trench was untenable on account of the shell-fire.
It was abandoned, therefore, and the line was drawn back into the
better cover afforded by a wood. Afterwards the trench was partly
reoccupied by a company of the 2nd Gloucestershires under Captain
Fane.

[Sidenote: The cavalry save the situation.]

By this date many of the defending troops had been fighting with
hardly a break from April 22. It was an ordeal which had lasted by
day and by night, and had only been interrupted by the labour of
completing the new lines. The losses had been very heavy, and
reinforcements were most urgently needed. Some idea of the stress
may be gathered from the fact that at the time the six battalions of
the 83rd Brigade had been formed into one composite battalion under
Colonel Worsley Gough. At the same time it was impossible to take
any troops from the northern sector, which was already hardly {96}
strong enough to hold a violent German attack. In the south the Army
had, as will be shown, become involved in the very serious and
expensive operations which began at Richebourg on May 9. In these
difficult circumstances it was to the never-failing cavalry that
General Plumer had to turn. It is sinful extravagance to expend
these highly trained horsemen, who cannot be afterwards improvised,
on work that is not their own, but there have been many times in this
war when it was absolutely necessary that the last man, be he who he
might, should be put forward. So it was now, and the First and Third
Cavalry Divisions, under General de Lisle, were put into the firing
line to the north of Lake Bellewaarde, taking the place of the
Twenty-eighth Division, which at that time had hardly a senior
regimental officer left standing. The First Cavalry Division took
the line from Wieltje to Verlorenhoek, while the Third carried it on
to Hooge, where it touched the Twenty-seventh Division. Their
presence in the front firing line was a sign of British weakness,
but, on the other hand, it was certain that the Germans had lost
enormously, that they were becoming exhausted, and that they were
likely to wear out the rifling of their cannon before they broke the
line of the defence. A few more days would save the situation, and
it was hoped that the inclusion of the cavalry would win them.

[Sidenote: May 12.]

They took over the lines just in time to meet the brunt of what may
have been the most severe attack of all. The shelling upon May 12
can only be described as terrific. The Germans appeared to have an
inexhaustible supply of munitions, and from morning to night they
blew to pieces the trenches in front {97} and the shelters behind
which might screen the supports.

It was a day of tempestuous weather, and the howling wind, the
driving rain, and the pitiless fire made a Dantesque nightmare of the
combat. The attack on the right fell upon the Third Cavalry
Division. This force had been reorganised since the days in October
when it had done so splendidly with the Seventh Infantry Division in
the fighting before Ypres. It consisted now of the 6th Brigade (1st
Royals, 3rd Dragoon Guards, North Somerset Yeomanry), the 7th Brigade
(1st and 2nd Life Guards and Leicestershire Yeomanry), and the 8th
Brigade (Blues, 10th Hussars, and Essex Yeomanry). This Division was
exposed all morning to a perfectly hellish fire, which was especially
murderous to the north of the Ypres-Roulers road. At this point the
1st Royals, 3rd Dragoon Guards, and Somerset Yeomanry were stationed,
and were blown, with their trenches, into the air by a bombardment
which continued for fourteen hours. A single sentence may be
extracted from the report of the Commander-in-Chief, which the
Somersets should have printed in gold round the walls of their
headquarters. "The North Somerset Yeomanry on the right of the
brigade," says the General, "although also suffering severely, hung
on to their trenches throughout the day and actually advanced and
attacked the enemy with the bayonet." The Royals came up in support,
and the brigade held its own. On one occasion the enemy actually got
round the left of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, who were the flank
regiment, upon which Captain Neville, who was killed later upon the
same day, gave the order, "Even numbers deal with the enemy in the
rear, odd {98} numbers carry on!" which was calmly obeyed with
complete success. On the right the flank of the Twenty-seventh
Division had been exposed, but the 2nd Irish Fusiliers were echeloned
back so as to cover it. So with desperate devices a sagging line was
still drawn between Ypres and the ever-pressing invaders. The strain
was heavy, not only upon the cavalry, but upon the Twenty-seventh
Division to the south of them. There was a time when the pressure
upon the 4th Rifle Brigade, a battalion which had endured enormous
losses, was so great that help was urgently needed. The Princess
Patricia's had been taken out of the line, as only 100 men remained
effective, and the 4th Rifles were in hardly a better position, but
the two maimed battalions were formed into one composite body, which
pushed up with a good heart into the fighting line and took the place
of the 3rd Rifles, who in turn relieved the exhausted Rifle Brigade.

On the left of the cavalry line, where the First Cavalry Division
joined on to the Fourth Infantry Division, near Wieltje, the
artillery storm had burst also with appalling violence. The 18th
Hussars lost 150 men out of their already scanty ranks. The Essex
Regiment on their left helped them to fill the gap until the 4th
Dragoon Guards came up in support. This fine regiment and their
comrades of the 9th Lancers were heavily punished, but bore it with
grim stoicism. To their right Briggs' 1st Brigade held splendidly,
though all of them, and especially the Bays, were terribly knocked
about. In the afternoon the 5th Dragoon Guards were momentarily
driven in by the blasts of shell, but the 11th Hussars held the line
firm.

{99}

[Sidenote: The ordeal of the 11th Brigade.]

The situation as the day wore on became somewhat more reassuring.
The British line had been badly dented in the middle, where the
cavalry had been driven back or annihilated, but it held firm at each
end. South of the Menin road the Twenty-seventh Division, much
exhausted, were still holding on, officers and men praying in their
weary souls that the enemy might be more weary still. These
buttressed the right of the line, while three miles to the north the
Fourth Division, equally worn and ragged, was holding the left. The
10th Brigade had sustained such losses in the gas battle that it was
held, as far as possible, in reserve, but the 11th and 12th were hard
pressed during the long, bitter day, in which they were choked by
gas, lashed with artillery fire, and attacked time after time by
columns of infantry. The 11th Brigade in that dark hour showed to a
supreme degree the historic qualities of British infantry, their
courage hardening as the times grew worse. The 1st East Lancashires
had their trenches destroyed, lost Major Rutter and many of their
officers, but still, under their gallant Colonel Lawrence, held on to
their shattered lines. Every point gained by the stubborn Germans
was wrenched from them again by men more stubborn still. They
carried a farmhouse near Wieltje, but were turned out again by the
indomitable East Lancashires after desperate fighting at close
quarters. It is said to have been the fourth time that this
battalion mended a broken line. Severe attacks were made upon the
trenches of the 1st Hampshires and the 5th London Rifle Brigade, but
in each case the defenders held their line, the latter Territorial
battalion being left with fewer than 200 men. It was in this action
that Sergeant Belcher, of {100} the London Rifle Brigade, with eight
of his Territorials and two Hussars, held a vital position against
the full force of a German infantry attack, losing half their little
band, but saving the whole line from being enfiladed.

The 12th Brigade had been drawn back into reserve, but it was not a
day for rest, and the 2nd Essex was hurried forward to the relief of
the extreme left of the cavalry, where their line abutted upon the
Fourth Division. The battalion made a very fine counter-attack under
a hail of shells, recovering some trenches and clearing the Germans
out of a farmhouse, which they subsequently held against all
assailants. This attack was ordered on the instant by Colonel Jones,
of the Essex, and was carried out so swiftly that the enemy had no
time to consolidate his new position.

Whilst each buttress held firm, a gallant attempt was made in the
afternoon to straighten out the line in the centre where the Third
Cavalry Division had been pushed back. The 8th Brigade of Cavalry,
under Bulkeley-Johnson, pushed forward on foot and won their way to
the original line of trenches, chasing the Germans out of them and
making many prisoners, but they found it impossible to hold them
without supports under the heavy shell-fire. They fell back,
therefore, and formed an irregular line behind the trenches, partly
in broken ground and partly in the craters of explosions. This they
held for the rest of the day.

[Sidenote: The German failure.]

Thus ended a truly desperate conflict. The Germans had failed in
this, which proved to be their final and supreme effort to break the
line. On the other hand, the advance to the north of the Bellewaarde
{101} Lake necessitated a further spreading and weakening of the
other forces, so that it may truly be said that the prospects never
looked worse than at the very moment when the Germans had spent their
strength and could do no more. From May 13 the righting died down,
and for some time the harassed and exhausted defenders were allowed
to re-form and to recuperate. The 80th Brigade, which had suffered
very heavily, was drawn out upon the 17th, the Second Cavalry
Division, under Kavanagh, taking its place. Next day the 81st
Brigade, and on May 22 the 82nd, were also drawn back to the west of
Ypres, their place being taken by fresh troops. The various units of
the Twenty-eighth Division were also rested for a time. For the
gunners and sappers there was no rest, however, but incessant labour
against overmastering force.

The second phase of this new Battle of Ypres may be said to have
lasted from May 4 to May 13. It consisted of a violent German
attack, pushed chiefly by poison and by artillery, against the
Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Divisions of the Fifth British Corps
and the Fourth Division to the north of them. Its aim was, as ever,
the capture of Ypres. In this aim it failed, nor did it from first
to last occupy any village or post which gave it any return for its
exertions. It inflicted upon the British a loss of from 12,000 to
15,000 men, but endured itself at the very least an equal slaughter
without any compensating advantage. The whole operation can only be
described, therefore, as being a costly failure. Throughout these
operations the British infantry were provided with respirators soaked
in alkalis, while many wore specially-constructed helmets to save
them from being poisoned. {102} To such grotesque expedients had
Germany brought the warfare of the twentieth century.

[Sidenote: Terrible strain on the British.]

There is no doubt that the three British regular divisions and the
cavalry were worn to a shadow at the end of these operations. Since
the enemy ceased to attack, it is to be presumed that they were in no
better case. The British infantry had been fighting almost day and
night for three weeks, under the most desperate conditions. Their
superiority to the infantry of the Germans was incontestable, but
there was no comparison at all between the number of heavy guns
available, which were at least six to one in favour of the enemy.
Shells were poured down with a profusion, and also with an accuracy,
never before seen in warfare, and though the British infantry
continually regained trenches which had been occupied by the German
infantry, it was only to be shelled out of them again by a fire
against which they could make no adequate answer. An aerial observer
has described that plain simply flaming and smoking from end to end
with the incessant heat of the shells, and has expressed his wonder
that human life should have been possible under such a fire. And yet
the road to Ypres was ever barred.

All the infantry losses, heavy as they were, are eclipsed by those of
the Third Cavalry Division, which bore the full blast of the final
whirlwind, and was practically destroyed in holding it back from
Ypres. This splendid division, to whom, from first to last, the
country owes as much as to any body of troops in the field, was only
engaged in the fighting for one clear day, and yet lost nearly as
heavily in proportion as either of the infantry divisions which had
been in the firing line for a week. Their casualties were 91
officers {103} and 1050 men. This will give some idea of the
concentrated force of the storm which broke upon them on May 12. It
was a most murderous affair, and they were only driven from their
trenches when the trenches themselves had been blasted to pieces. It
is doubtful whether any regiments have endured more in so short a
time. These three brigades were formed of _corps d'élites_, and they
showed that day that the blue blood of the land was not yet losing
its iron. The casualty lists in this and the succeeding action of
the 24th read like a society function. Colonel Ferguson, of the
Blues, Colonel the Hon. Evans-Freke, Lord Chesham, Captain the Hon.
J. Grenfell, Lord Leveson-Gower, Sir Robert Button, Lord Compton,
Major the Hon. C. B. Mitford, the Hon. C. E. A. Phillips, Viscount
Wendover--so runs the sombre and yet glorious list. The sternest of
Radicals may well admit that the aristocrats of Britain have counted
their lives cheap when the enemy was at the gate. Colonel
Smith-Bingham, of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, Colonel Steele, of the 1st
Royals, Colonel Freke, of the Leicestershire Yeomanry, and many other
senior officers were among the dead or wounded. The Leicester
Yeomanry suffered very severely, but their comrades of Essex and of
Somerset, the Blues and the 1st Royals, were also hard hit. The
losses of the First Cavalry Division were not so desperately heavy as
those of the Third, but were none the less very serious, amounting to
54 officers and 650 men.

It is possible that the German attack desisted because the infantry
were exhausted, but more probable that the great head of shells
accumulated had been brought down to a minimum level, and that the
gas cylinders were empty. For ten days, while the {104} British
strengthened their battered line, there was a lull in the fighting.

[Sidenote: The last effort of May 24.]

There was no change, however, in the German plan of campaign, and the
fight which broke out again upon May 24 may be taken as the
continuation of the battle which had died down upon the 13th. Fresh
reservoirs of poison had been accumulated, and early in the morning
in the first light of dawn the infernal stuff was drifting down wind
in a solid bank some three miles in length and forty feet in depth,
bleaching the grass, blighting the trees, and leaving a broad scar of
destruction behind it. A roaring torrent of shells came pouring into
the trenches at the instant that the men, hastily aroused from sleep,
were desperately fumbling in the darkness to find their respirators
and shield their lungs from the strangling poison. The front of this
attack was from a farm called "Shell-trap," between the Poelcapelle
and Langemarck roads on the north, to Bellewaarde Lake on the south.
The surprise of the poison in that weird hour was very effective, and
it was immediately followed by a terrific and accurate bombardment,
which brought showers of asphyxiating shells into the trenches. The
main force of the chlorine seems to have struck the extreme right of
the Fourth Division and the whole front of the Twenty-eighth
Division. but the Twenty-seventh and the cavalry were also involved
in a lesser degree.

Anley's 12th Brigade was on the left of the British line, with Hull's
10th Brigade upon its right, the 11th being in reserve. On the 12th
and 10th fell the full impact of the attack. The 12th, though badly
mauled, stood like a rock and blew back the Germans as they tried to
follow up the gas. "They doubled {105} out of their trenches to
follow it up half an hour after the emission," wrote an officer of
the Essex. "They were simply shot back into them by a blaze of fire.
They bolted back like rabbits." All day the left and centre of the
12th Brigade held firm. The Royal Irish upon the right were less
fortunate. The pressure both of the gas and the shells fell very
severely upon them, and the few survivors were at last driven from
their trenches, some hundreds of yards being lost, including the
Shell-trap Farm. The Dublin Fusiliers, in the exposed flank of the
10th Brigade, were also very hard hit. Of these two gallant Irish
regiments only a handful remained, and the Colonels of each, Moriarty
and Loveband, fell with their men. Several of the regiments of the
10th Brigade suffered severely, and the 7th Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders were left with only 2 officers and 76 men standing.
These two officers, by some freak of fate, were brothers named Scott,
the sole hale survivors of thirty-six who had been attached to the
battalion.

This misfortune upon the right left the rest of the 12th Brigade in a
most perilous position, attacked on the front, the flank, and the
right rear. No soldiers could be subjected to a more desperate test.
The flank battalion was the 1st Royal Lancasters (Colonel Jackson),
who lived up to the very highest traditions of the British Army.
Sick and giddy with the gas, and fired into from three sides, they
still stuck doggedly to their trenches. The Essex battalion stood
manfully beside them, and these two fine battalions, together with
the East Lancashires and Rifle Brigade, held their places all day and
even made occasional aggressive efforts to counter-attack. At {106}
eight in the evening they were ordered to form a new line with the
10th Brigade, five hundred yards in the rear. They came back in
perfect order, carrying their wounded with them. Up to this moment
the Fourth Division had held exactly the same line which they had
occupied from May 1.

To return to the events of the morning. The next unit from the north
was the 85th Brigade (Chapman), which formed the left flank of the
Twenty-eighth Division. Upon it also the gas descended with
devastating effect. There was just enough breeze to drift it along
and not enough to disperse it. The 2nd East Surrey, the flank
battalion, held on heroically, poison-proof and heedless of the
shells. Next to them, just south of the railway, the 3rd Royal
Fusiliers were so heavily gassed that the great majority of the men
were absolutely incapacitated. The few who could use a rifle
resisted with desperate valour while two companies of the Buffs were
sent up to help them, and another company of the same regiment was
despatched to Hooge village, where the 9th Lancers and 18th Hussars
of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade were very hard pressed. On the left of
the cavalry, between Hooge and Bellewaarde, was the Durham
Territorial Brigade, which was pushed forward and had its share of
the gas and of the attack generally, though less hard pressed than
the divisions of regular troops upon their left. In a war of large
numbers and of many brave deeds it is difficult and perhaps invidious
to particularise, but a few sentences may be devoted to one isolated
combat which showed the qualities of the disciplined British soldier.
Two platoons of the 7th Durhams, under two 19-year-old lieutenants,
Arthur Rhodes and {107} Pickersgill, were by chance overlooked when
the front line was withdrawn 200 yards. They were well aware that a
mistake had been made, but with a heroic if perhaps Quixotic regard
for duty they remained waist-deep in water in their lonely trench
waiting for their certain fate, without periscopes or machine guns,
and under fire from their own guns as well as those of the enemy.
Both wings were of course in the air. In the early morning they beat
back three German attacks but were eventually nearly all killed or
taken. Rhodes was shot again and again but his ultimate fate is
unknown. Pickersgill was wounded, and the survivors of his platoon
got him to the rear. The loss of such men is to be deplored, but the
tradition of two platoons in cold blood facing an army is worth many
such losses.

The Durham Territorial Artillery did excellent work in supporting the
cavalry, though they were handicapped by their weapons, which were
the ancient fifteen-pounders of the South African type. These
various movements were all in the early morning under the stress of
the first attack. The pressure continued to be very severe on the
line of the Royal Fusiliers and Buffs, who were covering the ground
between the railway line on the north and Bellewaarde Lake on the
south, so the remaining company of the Buffs was thrown into the
fight. At the same time, the 3rd Middlesex, with part of the 6th and
8th Durham Light Infantry, advanced to the north of the railway line.
The German pressure still increased, however, and at mid-day the
Buffs and Fusiliers, having lost nearly all their officers and a
large proportion of their ranks, fell back into the wood to the south
of the railway.

{108}

A determined attempt was at once made to recapture the line of
trenches from which they had been forced. The 84th Brigade (Bowes),
hitherto in reserve, was ordered to move along the south of the line,
while the whole artillery of the Fifth Corps supported the advance.
Meanwhile, the 80th Brigade (Fortescue) was pushed forward on the
right of the 84th, with orders to advance upon Hooge and restore the
situation there. It was evening before all arrangements were
completed. About seven o'clock the 84th advanced with the 2nd
Cheshires upon the left and the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers upon the
right, supported by the 1st Welsh, the Monmouths, and the feeble
remains of the 1st Suffolks. Darkness had fallen before the lines
came into contact, and a long and obstinate fight followed, which
swayed back and forwards under the light of flares and the sudden red
glare of bursting shells. So murderous was the engagement that the
84th Brigade came out of it without a senior officer left standing
out of six battalions, and with a loss of 75 per cent of the numbers
with which it began. The machine-gun fire of the Germans was
extremely intense, and was responsible for most of the heavy losses.
At one time men of the Welsh, the Suffolks, and the Northumberland
Fusiliers were actually in the German trenches, but at dawn they were
compelled to retire. Late in the evening the 3rd and 4th Brigades of
Cavalry were pushed into the trenches on the extreme right of the
British position, near Hooge, to relieve the 1st and 2nd Brigades,
who had sustained heavy losses for the second time within ten days.

The general result of the attack of May 24 was that this, the most
profuse emission of poison, had {109} no more solid effect than the
other recent ones, since the troops had learned how to meet it. The
result seems to have convinced the Germans that this filthy ally
which they had called in was not destined to serve them as well as
they had hoped, for from this day onwards there was no further
attempt to use it upon a large scale in this quarter. In this
action, which may be known in history as the Battle of Bellewaarde,
since it centred round the lake of that name, the British endured a
loss of some thousands of men killed, wounded, or poisoned, but their
line, though forced back at several points, was as firm as ever.

In all the fighting which forms the second half of this great battle
one is so absorbed by the desperate efforts of regimental officers
and men to hold on to their trenches that one is inclined to do less
than justice to the leaders who bore the strain day after day of that
uphill fight. Plumer, of the Second Army; Ferguson, of the Fifth
Army Corps; Wilson, Snow, and Bulfin, of the Fourth, Twenty-seventh,
and Twenty-eighth Divisions, De Lisle of the Cavalry--these were the
men who held the line in those weeks of deadly danger.

On May 25 the line was consolidated and straightened out, joining the
French at the same point as before, passing through Wieltje, and so
past the west end of Lake Bellewaarde to Hooge. At this latter
village there broke out between May 31 and June 3 what may be
regarded as an aftermath of the battle which has just been described.
The château at this place, now a shattered ruin, was the same
building in which General Lomax was wounded and General Monro struck
senseless in that desperate fight on October 31. Such was the
equilibrium of {110} the two great forces that here in May the fight
was still raging. Château and village were attacked very strongly by
the German artillery, and later by the German infantry, between May
30 and June 3, but no impression was made. The post was held by the
survivors of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, and the action, though a local
one, was as fine an exhibition of tenacious courage as has been seen
in the war. The building was destroyed, so to a large extent was the
regiment, but the post remained with the British.

[Sidenote: Result of the battle.]

This narrative is a brief outline of the series of events which make
up the second phase of that battle which, beginning in the north of
the Allied lines upon April 22, was continued upon the north-eastern
salient, and ended, as shown, at Hooge at the end of May. In this
fighting at least 100,000 men of the three nations were killed or
wounded. The advantage with which the Germans began was to some
extent neutralised before the end, for our gallant Allies had never
rested during this time, and had been gradually re-establishing their
position, clearing the west of the canal, recapturing Steenstraate
and Het Sas, and only stopping short of Pilken. On the other hand,
the British had been compelled to draw in for two miles, and Ypres
had become more vulnerable to the guns of the enemy. If any
advantage could be claimed the balance lay certainly with the
Germans, but as part of a campaign of attrition nothing could be
devised which would be more helpful to the Allies. The whole of
these operations may be included under the general title of the
second Battle of Ypres, but they can be divided into two clearly
separated episodes, the first lasting from April 22 to the end of the
month, which may be called the Battle of Langemarck, {111} and the
second from May 4th to the 24th, with a long interval in the centre,
which may, as already stated, be known as the Battle of Bellewaarde.
In this hard-fought war it would be difficult to say that any action
was more hard-fought than this, and it will survive for centuries to
come if only in the glorious traditions of the Canadian Division, who
first showed that a brave heart may rise superior to bursting lungs.
These were the greatest of all, but they had worthy comrades in the
Indians, who at the end of an exhausting march hurled themselves into
so diabolical a battle; the Northern Territorial Division, so lately
civilians to a man, and now fighting like veterans; the 13th Brigade,
staggering from their exertions at Hill 60, and yet called on for
this new effort; the glorious cavalry, who saved the situation at the
last moment; and the much-enduring Fourth, Twenty-seventh, and
Twenty-eighth Divisions of the line, who bore the bufferings of the
ever-rising German tide. Their dead lie at peace on Ypres plain, but
shame on Britain if ever she forgets what she owes to those who
lived, for they and their comrades of 1914 have made that name a
symbol of glory for ever.

[Sidenote: Sequence of events.]

It may help the reader's comprehension of the sequence sequence of
events, and of the desperate nature of this second Battle of Ypres,
if a short _résumé_ be here given of the happenings upon the various
dates. A single day of this contest would have appeared to be a
considerable ordeal to any troops. It is difficult to realise the
cumulative effect when such blows fell day after day and week after
week upon the same body of men. The more one considers this action
the more remarkable do the facts appear.

_April_ 22.--Furious attack upon the French and {112} Canadians.
Germans gain several miles of ground, eight batteries of French guns,
and four heavy British guns by the use of poison-gas. The Canadians
stand firm.

_April_ 23.--Canadians hold the line. Furious fighting. French
begin to re-form. Reserves from the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth
British Divisions, 13th Brigade, and cavalry buttress up the line.

_April_ 24.--Desperate fighting. Line pushed farther back, and
Germans took about a thousand prisoners. Line never broken.

_April_ 25.--Battle at its height. 50th Northern Territorial
Division come into the fight. 10th Regular Brigade come up.
Canadians drawn out. The French advancing.

_April_ 26.--11th Regular Brigade thrown into the fight. Also the
Lahore Division of Indians. Trenches of Twenty-eighth Division
attacked.

_April_ 27.--The French made some advance on the left. There was
equilibrium on the rest of the line. Hard fighting everywhere.

_April_ 28.--The enemy still held, and his attack exhausted for the
moment. French made some progress.

_May_ 1.--British 12th Brigade came into line.

_May_ 2.--Renewed German assault on French and British, chiefly by
gas. Advance held back with difficulty by the Fourth Division.

_May_ 3 and 4.--Contraction of the British position, effected without
fighting, but involving the abandonment of two miles of ground at the
north-eastern salient.

_May_ 5.--German attack upon Fourth Division.

_May_ 6.--Attack still continued.

{113}

_May_ 7.--Artillery preparation for general German attack.

_May_ 8.--Furious attack upon Fourth, Twenty-eighth, and
Twenty-seventh British Divisions. Desperate fighting and heavy
losses. The British repulsed the attack on their left wing (Fourth
Division), but sustained heavy loss on centre and right.

_May_ 9.--Very severe battle continued. British left held its
ground, but right and centre tended to contract.

_May_ 10.--Fighting of a desperate character, falling especially upon
the Twenty-seventh Division.

_May_ 11.--Again very severe fighting fell upon the Twenty-seventh
Division on the right of the British line. Losses were heavy, and
there was a slight contraction.

_May_ 12.--Readjustment of British line. Two divisions of cavalry
put in place of Twenty-eighth Division. Furious artillery attack,
followed by infantry advance. Cavalry and Twenty-seventh Division
terribly punished. Very heavy losses, but the line held. Fourth
Division fiercely engaged and held its line.

_May_ 13.--The Germans exhausted. The attack ceased. Ten days of
mutual recuperation.

_May_ 24.--Great gas attack. Fourth Division on left had full force
of it, lost heavily, but could not be shifted. In the evening had to
retire five hundred yards for the first time since the fighting
began. General result of a long day of furious fighting was some
contraction of the British line along its whole length, but no gap
for the passage of the enemy. This may be looked upon as a last
despairing effort {114} of the Germans, as no serious attempt was
afterwards made that year to force the road to Ypres.

Such, in a condensed form, was the record of the second Battle of
Ypres, which for obstinacy in attack and inflexibility in defence can
only be compared with the first battle in the same section six months
before. Taking these two great battles together, their result may be
summed up in the words that the Germans, with an enormous
preponderance of men in the first and of guns in the second, had
expended several hundred thousand of their men with absolutely no
military advantage whatever.

{115}

CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE OF RICHEBOURG--FESTUBERT

(May 9-24)

The New Attack--Ordeal of the 25th Brigade--Attack of the 1st
Division--Fateful days--A difficult situation--Attack of the 2nd
Division--Attack of the 7th Division--British success--Good work of
Canadians--Advance of the 47th London Division--Lull before the storm.

Whilst this desperate fighting was going on in the north a very
extensive and costly operation had been begun in the south, a great
attack being made by the First Army, with the main purpose of
engaging the German troops and preventing them from sending help to
their comrades, who were hard pressed by the French near Arras. In
this the movement was entirely successful, but the direct gain of
ground was not commensurate with the great exertions and losses of
the Army. For some days the results were entirely barren, but the
patient determination of Sir John French and of Sir Douglas Haig had
their final reward, and by May 25, when the movement had been brought
to a close, there had been a general advance of 600 yards over a
front of four miles, with a capture of 10 machine guns and some 800
prisoners. These meagre trophies of victory may, however, hardly be
said to compensate us for the {116} severe and unavoidable losses
which must always in the case of the attack be heavier than those of
the defence.

This important attack was made upon May 9, over a front of about ten
miles from the Laventie district in the north to that of Richebourg
in the south. In the case of the northern attack it was carried out
by Rawlinson's Fourth Corps, and was directed upon the sector of the
German lines to the north-west of Fromelles at the point which is
named Rouges Bancs. The southern attack was allotted to the Indian
Corps (Willcocks) and the First Corps acting together. These two
efforts represented the real foci of activity, but a general action
was carried on from one end of the line to the other in order to
confuse the issue, and hold the enemy in his trenches.

Both in the north and in the south the special attack was opened by a
sudden and severe bombardment, which lasted for about forty minutes.
This had been the prelude to the victory of Neuve Chapelle, but in
the case of Neuve Chapelle the British attack had been a complete
surprise, whereas in this action of May 9 there is ample evidence
that the Germans were well informed as to the impending movement, and
were prepared for it. Their trenches were very deep, and more
vulnerable to high explosives, in which we were deficient, than to
shrapnel. None the less, the bombardment was severe and accurate,
though, as it proved, insufficient to break down the exceedingly
effective system of defence, based upon barbed wire, machine guns,
and the mutual support of trenches.

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{117}

[Illustration: Southern Portion of Richebourg-Festubert Operations.]

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The attack in the north was confided to Lowry-Cole's 25th Brigade,
supported by the remainder of {119} the Eighth Division. This
brigade consisted of the 1st Irish Rifles, 2nd Berkshires, 2nd Rifle
Brigade, 2nd Lincoln, and two Territorial battalions--the 1st London
and the 13th London (Kensington). The latter regiment was given a
special task, which was to seize and hold a considerable mine-crater
upon the left of the line. The rest of the brigade were ordered at
5.30 to charge the German trenches, which was done with the greatest
dash and gallantry. Through a terrific fire of rifles and
machine-guns the wave of men rolled forward, and poured into the
trench, the 1st Irish Rifles and the 2nd Rifle Brigade leading the
assault. It was found, however, that further progress could not be
made. As the men sprang over the parapets they were mowed down in an
instant. Long swathes of our dead marked the sweep of the murderous
machine-guns. The Brigadier himself with his Brigade-major at his
heels, sprang forward to lead the troops, but both were shot down in
an instant, Lowry-Cole being killed and Major Dill badly wounded. It
was simply impossible to get forward. No bravery, no perseverance,
no human quality whatever could avail against the relentless sleet of
lead. The 1st Londons coming up in support deployed and advanced
over 400 yards of open with the steadiness of veterans, but lost
nearly half their numbers. The Kensingtons in their crater had a
similar experience, and could only hold on and endure a most pitiless
pelting. For a long day, until the forenoon of the 10th, the ground
which had been won was held. Then at last the bitter moment came
when the enfeebled survivors, weakened by thirty-six hours of
fighting, and fiercely attacked on all sides, were compelled to fall
back {120} upon their original lines. The retirement was conducted
with a steadiness which verged upon bravado. "These God-like fools!"
was the striking phrase of a generous German who observed the thin
ranks sauntering back under a crushing fire, with occasional halts to
gather up their wounded. The casualty figures show how terrific was
the ordeal to which the men had been exposed. The Irish Rifles lost
the very heavy numbers of 9 officers killed, 13 wounded, and 465 men
out of action. The total of the 2nd Rifle Brigade was even more
terrible, working out as 21 officers and 526 men dead or wounded.
The figures of the 2nd Berkshires and of the 2nd Lincolns were heavy,
but less disastrous than those already quoted. The former lost 20
officers and 263 men, the latter 8 officers and 258 men. The 24th
Brigade (Oxley) which had supported the 25th, and had also reached
the first trenches, endured losses which were almost as disastrous.
The 2nd East Lancashires lost 19 officers and 435 men; the 1st
Sherwood Foresters, 17 officers and 342 men; the 2nd Northamptons, 12
officers and 414 men; the 5th Black Watch, 8 officers and 140 men.
The losses of the 23rd Brigade, which remained in support, were by no
means light, for the Scottish Rifles lost 12 officers and 156 men;
while the 2nd Devons lost 7 officers and 234 men. Altogether the
Eighth Division lost 4500 men, a single brigade (the 25th),
accounting for 2232 of these casualties. Deplorable as they are,
these figures must at least show that officers and men had done all
that could be attempted to achieve the victory. When it is
remembered that these were the same battalions which had lost so
terribly at Neuve Chapelle just two months before, one can but marvel
{121} at the iron nerve which enabled them once again to endure so
searching a test.

It has been stated that the Kensingtons were given a separate mission
of their own in the capture and defence of a mine-crater upon the
left of the British line. They actually carried not only the crater,
but a considerable section of the hostile trenches, penetrating at
one time as deep as the third line; but reinforcements could not
reach them, their flanks were bare, and they were at last forced to
retire. "It was bitter and damnable!" cries one of them out of his
full heart. It was with the greatest difficulty that the remains of
the gallant band were able to make their way back again to the
British line of trenches. Nine officers were killed, 4 wounded, and
420 men were hit out of about 700 who went into action.

Such was the attack and bloody repulse which began the Battle of
Richebourg. At the same hour the Indians and the First Corps had
advanced upon the German lines to the north of Givenchy with the same
undaunted courage, the same heavy losses, and the same barren result.
The events of May 9 will always stand in military history as among
the most honourable, but also the most arduous, of the many hard
experiences of the British soldiers in France.

In the case of the Indians, the attack was checked early, and could
make no headway against the terribly arduous conditions. Their
advance was upon the right of that already described of the Fourth
Corps. Farther still to the right or to the south in the region of
Richebourg L'Avoué was the front of the First Division, which was
fated to be even more heavily punished than the Eighth had been in
the north. In this case also there was a prelude of forty minutes'
{122} concentrated fire--a period which, as the result showed, was
entirely inadequate to neutralise the many obstacles with which the
stormers were faced. During the night, the sappers had bridged the
ditches between the front trenches and the supports, and had also
crept out and thrown bridges over the ditches between the two lines.
The 2nd Brigade (Thesiger), consisting of the 1st Northamptons, 2nd
and 5th Sussex, 2nd Rifles, 1st North Lancashires, and 9th
Liverpools, attacked upon the right--indeed, they formed at that
moment the extreme right of the whole British Army, save for the
Forty-seventh London Division to the south. The weather was bright
and clear, but the effect of the bombardment was to raise such a
cloud of dust that two men from each platoon in the front line were
able to carry forward a light bridge with which they gained a line
about eighty yards from the enemy's parapet. The instant that the
guns ceased, the infantry dashed forward, but were met by a withering
fire. The 1st Northamptons and 2nd Sussex were in the lead, and the
ground between the armies was littered with their bodies. In a
second wave came the 2nd Rifles and the 5th Sussex, but human valour
could do nothing against the pelting sleet of lead. The wire had
been very imperfectly cut, and it was impossible to get through. The
survivors fell back into the front trenches, while their comrades lay
in lines and heaps upon the bullet-swept plain. The 5th Sussex
Territorials had their baptism of fire, the first and last for many,
and carried themselves like men. A line of German machine-guns was
posted in a very close position almost at right angles to the
advance, and it was these which inflicted the heaviest losses.
Hardly {123} a single man got as far as the German parapet. At 6.20
the assault was a definite failure.

On the left, the 3rd Brigade had kept pace with the 2nd, and had
shared its trials and its losses. The van of the charging brigade
was formed by the 2nd Munsters and the 2nd Welsh. The 1st
Gloucesters, 1st South Wales Borderers, and 4th Welsh Fusiliers were
in close support. Their attack was on the German line at the Rue des
Bois, 300 yards away. They reached the trenches, though Colonel
Richard of the Munsters and very many of his men were killed. This
was the third Munster Colonel--Charrier, Bent, Richard--to be killed
or disabled in the war. The men surged over the parapet, Captain
Campbell-Dick standing on the crest of it, and whooping them on with
his cap as if they were a pack of hounds. He fell dead even as they
passed him. The trenches were taken, but could not be held, as there
were no supports and the assault had failed on either side. Under
cover of a renewed artillery fire the survivors came slowly and
sullenly back. Once more, and for the third time, the 2nd Munsters
were reduced to 200 rank and file. Three officers emerged unhurt
from the action.

A second attack was ordered for mid-day, the regiments being shifted
round so as to bring the supports into the front line. It was soon
found, however, that the losses had already been so heavy that it was
impossible, especially in the 2nd Brigade, to muster sufficient force
for a successful advance. The 1st Guards Brigade (Lowther) was
therefore brought to the front, and after a renewed bombardment at 4
o'clock the two leading battalions--the 1st Black Watch and the 1st
Cameron Highlanders--rushed to the assault over the bodies of their
fallen {124} comrades. It is on record that as the Highlanders
dashed forward, a number of the wounded who had been lying in the
open since morning, staggered to their feet and joined in the charge.
It was a desperate effort, and the khaki wave rolled up to the
trenches, and even lapped over them in places; but the losses were
too heavy, and the advance had lost all weight before it reached the
German line. At one point a handful of Black Watch got over the
line, but it was impossible to reinforce them, and they were
compelled to fall back. The 3rd Brigade on their flank had pushed
forward the 1st Gloucesters and 1st South Wales Borderers. They
found the enemy "standing 3 and 4 deep in their breastworks and
fighting like demons." The British threw themselves down, and their
guns showered shrapnel on the crowded German trenches. The enemy
losses were great but the machine-guns were intact and no advance was
possible. At 6 o'clock the survivors of both Brigades were back in
their trenches once more. Late the same night the 5th Brigade of the
Second Division was brought up to take over the line, and the remains
of the First Division were withdrawn to the rear.

The losses of the 2nd Brigade were 70 officers and 1793 men, which
might have been cited as possibly the highest number incurred in the
same length of time up to that time, had it not been for the terrible
figures of the 25th Brigade upon the same fatal day. The other two
brigades of the Division were hard hit, the total losses of the
Division amounting to nearly 5000 men. If the loss of the Indian
Corps be included, the number of casualties in this assault cannot
have been less than from 12,000 to 13,000 {125} men; while the losses
to the enemy inflicted by the artillery could not possibly have
approximated to this figure, nor had any advantage been obtained.

There are few single periods of the War so crowded with incident as
from May 7 to 9, 1915. In the north the second Battle of Ypres was
at its height. In the south the Battle of Richebourg had begun. But
a third incident occurred upon the earlier date which struck the
civilised world with a horror which no combat, however murderous,
could inspire. It was the day when nearly 1200 civilians, with a
considerable proportion of women and little children, were murdered
by being torpedoed and drowned in the unarmed liner the _Lusitania_.
Such incidents do not come within the direct scope of this narrative,
and yet this particular one had an undoubted military bearing upon
the War, since it hardened our resolve, stimulated our recruiting,
and nerved our soldiers in a very marked degree, while finally
removing any possibility of peace based upon compromise. No such
crime against civilians has been committed in deliberate warfare
since the days of Tamerlane or Timour the Tartar; yet it is dreadful
to have to add that it was hailed as a triumph from one end of
Germany to the other, that medals were struck to commemorate it, and
that no protest appeared in the German Press. To such depths of
demoralisation had this once Christian and civilised nation been
reduced! Touch Germany where one would, on land or air, on the sea
or under it, one came always upon murder.

It is impossible not to admire the tenacity of Sir John French under
the very difficult circumstances in which he was now placed. His
troops at Ypres were still fighting with their backs to the wall.
Their {126} position on May 10 was precarious. The only
reinforcements they could hope for in case of disaster were from the
south. And yet the south had itself received a severe rebuff. Was
it best to abandon the attack there, and reassume the defensive, so
as to have the men available in case there should come an urgent call
from the north? A weaker general would have said so, and accepted
his check at Festubert. Sir John, however, was not so easily to be
deflected from his plans. He steadied himself by a day or two of
rest, during which he not only prepared fresh forces for striking,
but got the measure of the enemy's power at Ypres. Then it was
determined that the action should proceed, but that it should be
directed to the more southerly area of the British position, where it
would be in closer touch with the French, and receive some support
from their admirable artillery.

The centre of the British movement was still at Richebourg l'Avoué,
but the direction of the advance was to the south and west. It had
already been shown that the passage of open spaces under machine-gun
fire was difficult and deadly by daylight, so it was determined that
night should be used for the advance. Several successive nights were
unfavourable, but the days were spent in a deliberate artillery
preparation until the action was recommenced upon May 15. In the
interval, the Second Division had taken the place of the First in the
Givenchy sector, and the Seventh Division of the Fourth Corps had
been brought round from the Laventie district, and was now upon the
right of their comrades of the First Corps. The Canadian Division
was brought up in support, while the Indian Corps still preserved its
position upon the left. The {127} general line of attack was from
Richebourg by the Rue des Bois, and so south in front of Festubert.

The advance was made by the Indians upon the left, and the Second
Division upon the right at 11.30 on the night of May 15. The Indians
were held up, and maintained from that time onwards a defensive
position. When it is remembered that the Meerut Division had
suffered heavily at Neuve Chapelle, that the Lahore Division had been
very hard hit at Ypres, and that there was only a limited facility
for replacing the losses of the native regiments, it is not to be
wondered at that the Corps had weakened. The Second Division,
however, would take no denial. The attack was in the hands of the
5th and 6th Brigades, with the 4th Guards Brigade in support. It was
to sweep over the ground, which had been the scene of the repulse of
the 9th, but it was to be screened by darkness. Soon after ten
o'clock the men passed silently over the front trench, and lay down
in four lines in the open waiting for the signal. At 11.30 the word
was passed, and they advanced at a walk. The front line of the 5th
Brigade was composed of the 2nd Worcesters upon the left, and the
Inniskilling Fusiliers (taken from the 12th Brigade) upon the right.
The leading battalions of the 6th Brigade were the 1st Rifles, the
1st King's Liverpools, 1st Berkshires, and upon the extreme right two
companies (A and B) of the 7th King's Liverpools. Flares were
suddenly discharged from the German trenches, and a ghostly
flickering radiance illuminated the long lines of crouching men.
There were numerous ditches in front, but the sappers had stolen
forward and spanned them with rude bridges. The German fire was
terrific, but the uncertain quivering light made it {128} less deadly
than it had been during the daytime, though very many fell. It was
insufficient to stop the determined rush of the British infantry.
The rifles could not hold them back, and sweeping jets from
machine-guns could not kill them fast enough: nothing but Death could
hold that furious line. In three minutes they had swarmed across the
open, and poured into the trenches, killing or taking all the Germans
who were in the front line. The 2nd Worcesters on the left were held
up by unbroken barbed wire, and were unable to get forward; but all
the other battalions reached the trench, and cleared it for a
considerable distance on either flank, the bombers rushing along it
and hurling their deadly weapons in front of them. The remainder
rushed down the communication trench, and seized the second line of
defences some hundreds of yards behind the first. On the morning of
Sunday, May 16, the Second Division had gained and firmly held about
half a mile in breadth and a quarter of a mile in depth of the German
trenches. There was still an open plain in the rear between the
advanced troops and their supports, which as the light grew clearer
was so swept by German fire that it was nearly impossible to get
across it. About 8.30 in the morning, the remainder of the 7th
King's Liverpools with some of their comrades of the 5th King's
Liverpools endeavoured to join the others in front, but were shot to
pieces in the venture. During the whole of the morning, however,
single volunteers kept running forward carrying fresh supplies of
bombs and bandoliers of cartridges for the men in front. The names
of most of these brave men are to be found in the casualty lists, and
their memory in the hearts of their comrades.

{129}

Four hours after this successful attack by the Second Division, at
3.30 on the morning of Sunday May 16, another assault was made some
miles to the south, just to the north of Festubert. The attack was
made by the 20th Brigade (Heyworth) upon the left and the 22nd
(Lawford) upon the right. The 2nd Borders and 2nd Scots Guards led
the rush of the 20th, supported later by the 1st Grenadiers and 2nd
Gordons; while the 1st Welsh Fusiliers and 2nd Queen's Surrey were in
the van of the 22nd with the 2nd Warwicks, 8th Royal Scots, and 1st
South Staffords behind them. The famous Seventh Division has never
yet found its master in this campaign, and the Seventh Prussian Corps
in the south could make no more of it than the Fifteenth had done in
the north.

In the case of the 20th Brigade the Borders upon the left were held
up for a time, but the Scots Guards advanced with a fury which took
them far beyond the immediate objective, and was carried to such an
extent that one company outdistanced all their comrades, and being
isolated in the German position, were nearly all cut off. The rest
of the Guards, however, having crossed the trench line, swung across,
so that they were in the rear of the Germans who were holding up the
Borders, so that the defenders were compelled to surrender. The 1st
Grenadiers came up in support and the ground was made good.
Meanwhile the 22nd Brigade upon the right had some desperate
fighting. The 2nd Queen's Surrey had been temporarily stopped by
heavy machine-gun fire, but two companies of the Welsh Fusiliers
rushed the trenches opposite them and were quickly joined by the rest
of the battalion. The Queen's {130} Surrey refused to be rebuffed,
and with the support of the 1st Staffords they again came forward,
and dashing through a sleet of bullets got to the German line.
Colonel Gabbett of the Fusiliers and Major Bottomley of the Queen's,
one of the heroes of Gheluvelt, both met their death in this fine
attack. On reaching the trenches the South Staffords sent their
bombers under Lieutenant Hassell down the alleys of the Germans,
gathering in many prisoners. A surprising feat was performed by
Sergeant-Major Barter of the Welsh Fusiliers, while engaged in
similar work, for he and seven men brought back 94 Germans, including
3 officers. The leading companies of the South Staffords under Major
Lord and Captain Bearman got well forward into the enemy's ground,
and held on there for three days under a terrible shell-fall, until
they handed the position over to the 21st Brigade. Meanwhile, upon
the left a mixed lot of men from the Welsh Fusiliers, Scots Guards,
and Warwicks, all under Captain Stockwell, struggled along, actually
swimming one ditch which was too deep to wade, and got into the
Orchard which had been assigned as their objective. These men were
afterwards withdrawn to the German front line trenches in order to
escape from the very severe bombardment on the Orchard. Great
difficulty was experienced in bringing in the wounded, owing to the
space covered and to the incessant and extreme shelling. It is on
record that the men of the field ambulance, under Lieutenant
Greenlees of the Royal Medical Corps, were at work for thirty-six
hours with three hours' break, always in the open and always under
fire. These are the men who have all the dangers of war without its
thrills, working and dying for the {131} need of their comrades and
the honour of their corps.

In this fine day's work, in which the Seventh Division lived up to
its own reputation, Colonel Wood of the Borders and Colonel Brook of
the 8th Royal Scots were killed, making four losses in one day among
commanding officers of battalions.

On the night of May 16 the Germans made a counter-attack, which
pushed back the extreme apex of the ground gained by the Seventh
Division. All other points were held. The British had now cut two
holes in the German front over a distance of about three miles; but
between the two holes into which the heads of the Second and Seventh
Divisions had buried themselves, there lay one portion of a thousand
yards inviolate, strongly defended by intricate works and
machine-guns. Desperate endeavours had been made upon the 16th to
get round the north of this position by the Second Division, but the
fire was too murderous, and all were repulsed. At half-past nine in
the morning of the 17th the attempt was renewed from both sides with
a strong artillery support. On the north the Highland Light Infantry
and the 2nd Oxford and Bucks made a strong attack, while on the south
the 21st Brigade pushed to the front. The 4th Camerons, a
Gaelic-speaking battalion of shepherds and gillies, kept fair pace
with the veteran regular battalions of the Brigade, but lost their
gallant Colonel, Fraser. The fiery valour of the Camerons is shown
by the fact that afterwards bodies of the fallen were found far ahead
of any point reached that day by the main advance. Gradually the
valiant defenders were driven from post to post, and crushed under
the cross fire. About {132} mid-day the position was in the hands of
the British, 300 survivors having been captured. After this
consolidation of their front, the two attacking divisions drove on
together to the eastward, winning ground all the day, but meeting
everywhere the same stark resistance. Farmhouse after farmhouse was
carried. At one point a considerable body of Germans rushed out from
an untenable position; but on their putting up their hands and
advancing towards the British, they were mowed down to the number of
some hundreds by the rifles and cannon of their comrades in the rear.
South of Festubert the thick spray of bombers and bayonet men thrown
out by the Seventh Division into the German trenches were also making
ground all day, and the enemy's loss in this quarter was exceedingly
heavy. The 57th Prussian Regiment of Infantry, among others, is said
to have lost more than two-thirds of their numbers during these
operations.

By the evening of Monday, May 17, the hostile front had been crushed
in for a space of over two miles, and the British Army had regained
the ascendancy which had been momentarily checked upon May 9. If a
larger tale of prisoners was not forthcoming as a proof of victory,
the explanation lay in the desperate nature of the encounter. The
sinking of the _Lusitania_, and the murders by poison-gas, were in
the thoughts and on the lips of the assaulting infantry, and many a
German made a vicarious atonement. At the same time the little mobs
of men who rushed forward with white flags in one hand, and in many
cases their purses outstretched in the other, were given quarter and
led to the rear, safe from all violence save from their {133} own
artillery. There were many fierce threats of no quarter before the
engagement, but with victory the traditional kindliness of the
British soldier asserted itself once more.

On the evening of the 17th the men in the front line were relieved,
Lord Cavan's 4th Guards Brigade taking over the advanced trenches in
which the 1st King's Liverpools and other battalions of the 5th and
6th Brigades were lying. The Guards had to advance a considerable
distance under very heavy fire to reach their objective, and there is
a touch of other days in the fact that the Bishop of Khartoum stood
by the trenches and blessed them as they passed. They lost many men
from the terrible artillery fire, but in spite of this they at once
advanced in a most gallant attack which won several hundred yards of
ground. The Irish and 2nd Grenadiers were the attacking battalions
with the Herts territorials in close support. The Irish Guards were
especially forward and held the ground gained, but lost 17 officers
and several hundred men. All day of the 18th the Guards held the
advanced front line until relieved at midnight of that date by the
advance of another Division.

The 18th saw the general advance renewed, but it was hampered by the
fact that the heavy weather made it difficult to obtain the artillery
support which is so needful where buildings have to be carried. The
Indians upon the left sustained a heavy attack upon this day, the
losses falling chiefly upon the Sirhind Brigade, and especially on
the 1st Highland Light Infantry and the 15th Sikhs. It was in this
action that Lieutenant Smyth and Private Lal Singh of the latter
regiment saved the fight at a critical moment {134} by bringing up a
fresh supply of bombs. Ten men started on the venture, and only the
two won home. The 19th was wet and misty. It was upon this date
that the two hard-working and victorious Divisions, the Second and
the Seventh, were relieved respectively by the Fifty-first Highland
Territorial Division and by the Canadians, the guns of the two
regular Divisions being retained. The operations which had hitherto
been under Monro of the First Corps, were now confided to Alderson of
the Canadians. At this time, the general level of the advance was
the road which extends from La Quinque to Bethune. The change of
troops did not entail any alteration in strategy, and the slow
advance went forward. Upon the night of May 20-21 the Canadians
continued the work of the Seventh Division, and added several fresh
German trenches to the area already secured. From Richebourg to the
south and east there was now a considerable erosion in the German
position. The first objective of the Canadians was an orchard in the
Quinque Rue position, which was assaulted by the 14th Montreal
Regiment (Meighen) and the 16th Canadian Scottish (Leckie), after a
gallant reconnaissance by Major Leckie of the latter regiment. The
Canadians were thrust in between the 3rd Coldstream Guards of the
Second Division upon their left, and the 2nd Wiltshires of the
Seventh Division upon their right. The orchard was cleared in most
gallant fashion, and a trench upon the flank of it was taken, but the
Canadian loss was considerable in the battalions named and in the
13th Royal Canadian Highlanders in support. Another Canadian
battalion, the 10th, had attacked the German line a mile to the south
of the orchard, and had been repulsed. A {135} heavy bombardment was
organised, and the attempt was renewed upon the following day, two
companies of the 10th, preceded by a company of grenade-throwers,
carrying 400 yards of the trench at a very severe cost. It was
partly recaptured by the Germans upon May 22, while part remained in
the hands of the Canadians. Several counter-attacks were made upon
the Canadians during this day, but all withered away before the
deadly fire of the Western infantry.

On May 24 the Canadians were attacking once more at the position
where the 10th Battalion had obtained a partial success upon the
22nd. It was a strongly fortified post, which had been named
"Bexhill" by the British. The assault was carried out at daybreak by
two companies of the 5th Battalion under Major Edgar, with a company
of the 7th British Columbians in support. Before six o'clock the
position had been carried, and was held all day in face of a
concentrated shell-fire from the German guns. It was a terrible
ordeal, for the Brigade lost 50 officers and nearly 1000 men, but
never their grip of the German trench. On the same night, however,
another Canadian attack delivered by the 3rd Battalion (Rennie) with
great fire, was eventually repulsed by the machine-guns.

This long-drawn straggling action, which had commenced with such fury
upon May 9, was now burning itself out. Prolonged operations of this
kind can only be carried on by fresh relays of troops. The
Forty-seventh London Territorial Division was brought up into the
front line, and found itself involved at once in some fierce fighting
at the extreme right of the British line near Givenchy. The
Forty-seventh Division (formerly the Second London {136} Division)
was in reality the only London division, since the battalions which
composed the first, the Artists, Victorias, Rangers, Westminsters,
etc., had already been absorbed by regular brigades. The division
commanded by General Barter consisted of the 140th (Cuthbert), 141st
(Thwaites), and 142nd (Willoughby) Brigades. On the evening of May
25 the latter Brigade, which occupied the front-line trench, was
ordered to make an attack upon the German line opposite, whilst the
18th Battalion of the 141st Brigade made a strong feint to draw their
fire. The first-line battalions were the 23rd and 24th (Queen's), of
which the 23rd upon the left had some 300 yards of open to cross,
while the 24th upon the right had not more than 150. Both battalions
reached their objective in safety, and within three minutes had
established telephonic communications with their supports of the 21st
and 22nd Battalions. The capture of the trenches had not been
difficult, but their retention was exceedingly so, as there was a
ridge from which the German machine-guns commanded the whole line of
trench. Each man had brought a sandbag with him, and these were
rapidly filled, while officers and men worked desperately in building
up a defensive traverse--a labour in which Sergeant Oxman greatly
distinguished himself. Three German counter-attacks got up within
ten yards of the 24th, but all were beaten back. The German bombers,
however, were deadly, and many officers and men were among their
victims. The 21st Battalion had followed up the 23rd, and by 10.30
they were able to work along the line of the German trench and make
good the position. All day upon May 26 they were exposed to a very
heavy and {137} accurate German fire, but that afternoon about 4 P.M.
they were relieved by the 20th London from Thwaites' 141st Brigade.
The line was consolidated and held, in spite of a sharp attack on the
afternoon of May 28, which was beaten off by the 20th Battalion.

Whilst the London Division had been thrust into the right of the
British line, the Canadian infantry had been relieved by bringing
forward into the trenches the dismounted troopers of King Edward's
and Strathcona's Horse, belonging to Seely's Mounted Canadian
Brigade, who fought as well as their fellow-countrymen of the
infantry--a standard not to be surpassed. From this time onwards
there was a long lull in this section of the British line. The time
was spent in rearranging the units of the Army, and in waiting for
those great reinforcements of munitions which were so urgently
needed. It was recognised that it was absolutely impossible to make
a victorious advance, or to do more than to hold one's ground, when
the guns of the enemy could fire six shells to one. In Britain, the
significance of this fact had at last been made apparent, and the
whole will and energy of the country were turned to the production of
ammunition. Not only were the old factories in full swing, but great
new centres were created in towns which had never yet sent forth such
sinister exports. Mr. Lloyd George, a man who has made atonement for
any wrong that he did his country in the days of the Boer War by his
magnificent services in this far greater crisis, threw all his energy
and contagious enthusiasm into this vital work, and performed the
same miracles in the organisation and improvisation of the tools of
warfare that Lord Kitchener {138} had done in the case of the New
Armies. They were services which his country can never forget.
Under his energy and inspiration the huge output of Essen and the
other factories of Germany were equalled, and finally surpassed by
the improvised and largely amateur munition workers of Britain. The
main difficulty in the production of high explosives had lain in the
scarcity of picric acid. Our Free Trade policy, which has much to
recommend it in some aspects, had been pushed to such absurd and
pedantic lengths that this vital product had been allowed to fall
into the hands of our enemy, although it is a derivative of that coal
tar in which we are so rich. Now at last the plants for its
production were laid down. Every little village gasworks was sending
up its quota of toluol to the central receivers. Finally, in
explosives as in shells and guns, the British were able to supply
their own wants fully and to assist their Allies. One of the
strangest, and also most honourable, episodes of the War was this
great economic effort which involved sacrifices to the time, comfort,
and often to the health of individuals so great as to match those of
the soldiers. Grotesque combinations resulted from the eagerness of
all classes to lend a hand. An observer has described how a peer and
a prize-fighter have been seen working on the same bench at Woolwich,
while titled ladies and young girls from cultured homes earned
sixteen shillings a week at Erith, and boasted in the morning of the
number of shell cases which they had turned and finished in their
hours of night shift. Truly it had become a National War. Of all
its strange memories none will be stranger than those of the peaceful
middle-aged civilians who were seen eagerly {139} reading books upon
elementary drill in order to prepare themselves to face the most
famous soldiers in Europe, or of the schoolgirls and matrons who
donned blue blouses and by their united work surpassed the output of
the great death factories of Essen.

{140}

CHAPTER VI

THE TRENCHES OF HOOGE

The British line in June 1915--Canadians at Givenchy--Attack of the
154th Brigade--8th Liverpool Irish--Third Division at Hooge--11th
Brigade near Ypres--Flame attack on the Fourteenth Light
Division--Victory of the Sixth Division at Hooge.

The spring campaign may be said to have ended at the beginning of
June. It had consisted, so far as the British were concerned, in
three great battles. The first was that of Neuve Chapelle. The
second, and incomparably the greatest, was the second Battle of
Ypres, extending from April 22 to the end of May, in which both sides
fought themselves to a standstill, but the Germans, while gaining
some ground, failed to reach their final objective. The third was
the Battle of Richebourg, from May 9 to May 18, which began with a
check and ended by a definite but limited advance for the British.
The net result of the whole operations of these three months was a
gain of ground to the Germans in the Ypres section and a gain of
ground to the Allies in the region of Festubert and Arras. Neither
gain can be said to have been of extreme strategic importance, and it
is doubtful if there was any great discrepancy between the losses of
the two sides. There now followed a prolonged lull, during which the
Germans were content to remain {141} upon the defensive upon the west
while they vigorously and successfully attacked the Russians in the
east, combining their forces with those of Austria, and driving their
half-armed enemy from the passes of the Carpathians right across
Poland until the line of the Vistula had been secured. The Allies
meanwhile pursued their ill-fated venture in the Dardanelles, while
they steadily increased their numbers and, above all, their munitions
of war in France and Flanders, having learned by experience that no
bravery or devotion can make one gun do the work of six, or enable
infantry who have no backing from artillery to gain ground from
infantry which are well supported. For a long period to come the
most important engagements were a series of fights upon June 16, July
30, and August 9, which may be looked upon as a single long-drawn-out
engagement, since they were all concerned with the successive taking
and retaking of the same set of trenches near Hooge, in the extreme
northern section of the line. Before giving some account of these
events it would be well to interrupt the narrative for a time in
order to describe that vast expansion of the British Army which was
the most unexpected, as it was the most decisive, factor in the war.
Without entering into the question of the huge muster of men within
the island, and leaving out of consideration the forces engaged in
the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and the various Colonial campaigns,
an attempt will be made to show the reader the actual battle-line in
France, with the order and composition of the troops, during the
summer of 1915.

The extreme left wing of the Allied Army consisted now, as before, of
the Belgians and of a French corps, the right Moroccan Division of
which was the {142} neighbour of the British Army. The British line
had been extended northwards as far as the village of Boesinghe. If
now the reader could for a moment imagine himself in an aeroplane,
flying from north to south down the Imperial battle-line, he would
see beneath him first Keir's Sixth Army Corps, which was composed of
the Fourth Division (Wilson) and of the Sixth Division (Congreve).
To the south of these lay the Forty-ninth West Riding Division of
Territorials (Baldock). These three divisions, the Fourth, the
Sixth, and the Forty-ninth, formed Keir's Sixth Army Corps, lying to
the north of Hooge. Upon their right, in the neighbourhood of Hooge,
holding the ground which had been the recent scene of such furious
fighting, and was destined to be the most active section of the line
in the immediate future, was Allenby's Fifth Corps. General Allenby
had been taken from the command of the cavalry, which had passed to
General Byng, and had filled Plumer's place when the latter took over
Smith-Dorrien's Army at the end of April. Allenby's Corps consisted
of the veteran Third Division (Haldane's) on the north. Then came,
defending the lines of Hooge, the new Fourteenth Light Division
(Couper). Upon its right was the Forty-sixth North Midland Division
(Stuart-Wortley). These three divisions, the Third Regular,
Fourteenth New, and Forty-sixth Territorial, made up the Fifth Corps.

The Second Army Corps (Ferguson) lay to the south of Hooge. Their
northern unit was the old Regular Fifth Division (Morland). To its
south was a second Regular division--Bulfin's Twenty-eighth, of Ypres
renown. On its right was the Fiftieth Northumbrian Division
(Lindsay), consisting of those {143} three gallant Territorial
brigades which had done so splendidly in the crisis of the gas battle.

The Third Army Corps (Pulteney's) came next in the line. This was
the strongest corps in the whole force, containing no fewer than four
divisions. These were, counting as ever from the north, the Canadian
Division (Alderson), the Twelfth New Division (Wing), the
Twenty-seventh Division of Regulars (Snow), and the Eighth Division
of Regulars (Davies). All these troops, the Sixth, Fifth, Second,
and Third Corps, made up Plumer's Second Army, which contained no
fewer than thirteen divisions, or, approximately, 260,000 men.

The First Army, under Haig, which occupied the southern section of
the British line, consisted of three Army Corps. To the north, in
the Festubert region, was the hard-worked and depleted Indian Corps,
which had fought under such extraordinary difficulties and shown such
fine military qualities. Attached to them was the Fifty-first
Highland Territorial Division (Bannatine-Allason). The first two
brigades of this were pure Scottish, but the third contained three
battalions from that nursery of British regiments, Lancashire. South
of the Indians came the glorious old First Corps, and south of it the
equally glorious Seventh Division (Capper), forming part of
Rawlinson's Fourth Corps. Next to the Seventh Division was the new
Ninth Division (Landon), composed of Scottish regiments--a very fine
unit. South of these, carrying the British line over the Bethune-La
Bassée Canal, and six miles towards Arras, were the Forty-seventh
London Division (Barter) and the Forty-eighth South Midland Division
(Fanshawe), drawn mostly from Warwick, Worcester, Gloucester, and
{144} Bucks. Altogether, Haig's First Army at the end of June
contained nine divisions, or, roughly, 180,000 men. The whole great
Army, then, which extended from north of Ypres to north of Arras, may
have mustered in the line about 440,000 men, backed by an efficient
field service, which may easily have numbered 120,000 more.

When one contemplates this magnificent force and remembers that ten
months earlier the whole British Army at Mons had been four
divisions, that at the Aisne there were six, that in the days of the
first Ypres battle there were eight, and that now there were
twenty-two, one marvels at the extraordinary powers of creation and
organisation which had created so efficient and powerful a machine.
It was rapidly made, and yet in no way was it crude or feeble.
Particularly pleasing was it to note the names of the divisional
commanders, and to see how many of the heroic leaders of brigades in
those early classical conflicts--Landon, Snow, Bulfin, Davies,
Morland, Wing, Haldane, Wilson, and Congreve--were now at the head of
small armies of their own. Of the quality of this great force it is
superfluous to speak. The whole of this chronicle is a record of it.
One observation, however, should in justice be made. With that
breadth and generosity of mind which make them the truly imperial
people of the world, the English and the English press have
continually extolled the valour of the Scots, Irish, Welsh, or men of
the Overseas Dominions. There has hardly ever been a mention of the
English as such, and the fact has given rise to some very false
impressions. It is for the reader to bear in mind, none the less,
that four-fifths of this great army was purely English, and {145}
that the English Divisions, be they North or South, have shown a
sobriety of discipline and an alacrity of valour which place them in
the very first place among fighting races. The New Army like the Old
Fleet was in the main a triumph of England. Of its first
thirty-three divisions all but five were predominantly English.

The men and the generals were there. The delay was still with the
guns and the munitions. A heavy gun is not the product of a week or
of a month, and before a great increase can be made in the output of
shells the machinery for producing them has itself to be produced.
But energetic minds and capable hands were busied with the problem
from one end of Britain to the other, and the results were rapidly
taking form. A considerable amount of the product was being
despatched to Archangel to help our hard-pressed Russian Allies, and
constant supplies were being despatched to the Dardanelles; but an
accumulation was also being stored behind the lines in Flanders. The
whole progress of the campaign depended upon this store being
sufficient to sustain a prolonged attack, and the time had not yet
come.

Before turning to the trenches of Hooge, where the greater part of
the fighting occurred during this period of the war, some description
must be given of a brisk action upon June 15, opposite Givenchy,
immediately to the north of the La Bassée Canal, where the Canadian
Division attacked with great gallantry and partly occupied a position
which it was not found possible to retain. In this attack the
Canadians displayed their usual energy and ingenuity by bringing up
two eighteen-pounder field-pieces into their front trench, and
suddenly opening fire point-blank at the {146} German defences only
seventy-five yards away. Captain Stockwell, with Lieutenants Craig
and Kelly and their men, obviously took their lives in their hands,
as their guns became the immediate mark of the German artillery, with
the result that one was destroyed by a direct hit, and the crew of
the other were put out of action by a shrapnel-burst. But before
they were silenced the two guns did great damage to the German
front-line defence, knocking out several machine-guns and cutting the
barbed wire to pieces. After a quarter of an hour of glorious
activity they were out of action; but they had smoothed the path for
the infantry, who at six in the evening were over the parapet and
into the trench opposite. The attack was made by the 1st Ontario
Battalion (Hill), supported by the rest of the 1st Canadian Brigade.
The storming-party was checked for a moment by the explosion of their
own mine, which threw back with disastrous results, killing
Lieutenant-Colonel Beecher and burying the bomb-store of the front
line. Having seized the German trench, some remained to reverse the
parapet, while others rushed on to the second trench, which they also
carried. The supply of bombs ran short, however, and could not be
replenished. Four messengers in succession rushing back for more
were shot dead by the enemy's fire. A fort upon the left had not
been taken, and the machine-guns from its loopholes swept down the
captured trench and made it untenable. Slowly the Canadians were
forced back, and before ten o'clock what was left of the Ontarios
were back in their own trench once more. When it is stated that of
23 officers who took part in the advance 20 were killed or wounded,
no further {147} proof is needed of the stern insistence of the
attack.

This gallant though fruitless attack of the Canadians at Grivenchy
was, as it appears, intended to coincide with an advance by the
Seventh Division on their left, and of the Fifty-first upon the right
of them. In the case of the Seventh Division there were two
advances, one by day and one by night, in which single battalions
were employed and no result achieved. In the second of these the 2nd
Gordons lost heavily, having occupied a deserted trench which proved
to be so commanded as to be untenable. Before regaining their own
lines D Company was cut off and destroyed. On the right the
Fifty-first Highland Territorial Division had an experience which was
equally unsatisfactory. Hibbert's 154th Brigade made an advance
which was bravely urged and bloodily repelled. The preparatory
bombardment was answered by a very intense German fire, which was so
heavy and accurate that it buried a number of men in the advance
trenches, destroyed the bomb-stores, and made all communication
nearly impossible. The secret of this extreme readiness of the
Germans was divulged by a deserter who came over into the British
trenches at the last moment, and said that they all knew that the
attack was for six o'clock that day. It was at that very hour that
the 6th Scottish Rifles and the 4th North Lancashires, of the
Brigade, rushed the German position. Each battalion lost its
commanding officer and its adjutant in the first few minutes, but the
line of trenches was carried at one tiger-spring. The enemy's
shell-fire was exceedingly heavy, and the losses were considerable.
Having cleared the trench, the {148} attacking line, especially the
Scottish Rifles upon the left, came on unbroken wire, so they dug
themselves in in the open and awaited supports. These for some
reason were slow in coming up, and as the Germans were in force on
either side, and the North Lancashires were also held up by wire,
there was a danger lest the forward line might be cut off. It fell
back, therefore, closely followed by the enemy, until an advance of
the 4th Royal Lancasters helped them to form a line. The whole night
was spent in a prolonged rifle duel, the two sides being at very
close quarters, and the action resolving itself into a series of
stubborn encounters by little groups of men holding shell-craters or
fragments of trenches, and offering a sullen resistance to the
considerable forces which were now pressing upon them. All order had
been lost, the three battalions were hopelessly mixed together, and
the command of each little group fell into the hands of any natural
leader who won the confidence of the comrades round him. Slowly the
ragged line retired, until they found themselves in the early morning
back in the position from which they had started, having suffered and
inflicted grievous losses, but with no gain of ground to justify them.

It might well have seemed that the attack had failed, or at least
that another brigade would be needed to put matters right; but a
reserve battalion had not yet gone into action, and to this unit was
given the hard task of putting the Germans out once more from the
trench which they had re-occupied. There have been days when the
Liverpool Irish have proved themselves to be pugnacious in riotous
times at home, but now they were to efface all such memories by their
splendid bearing at this {149} critical hour. It was 4 P.M. upon
June 16, when, with a true Celtic yell, the 8th King's Liverpool, led
by Major Johnson, dashed over the parapet and stormed through a
hellish sleet of shrapnel to the German trenches. "It was pattering
like hail upon a window-pane." Officers and men went down in heaps,
but nothing could stop the glorious impetuosity of the charge,
delivered in the full light of a summer afternoon. "It's sure death,
but remember we are Irish!" yelled a sergeant as he bounded on to the
sand-bags. Next instant he had been blown to pieces. Captain
Finegan, leading the rush, was shot down, as were the greater number
of the regimental officers. Finegan's body was found afterwards at
the extreme point of the advance, with twelve of his men lying round
him. The Germans were swept out of the front trenches once more, and
the Irishmen held desperately on to it for a long time against all
the shell-fire of the enemy. It was a great day for Liverpool, July
16, when two of their citizen regiments, the 8th in the south and the
10th in the north, helped to stem the tide of two separate battles.
The 8th King's lost nearly 500 men, and gained a reputation which
will not easily die. The survivors were too few, however, to
permanently hold the shell-raked trench which they had gained. The
153rd Brigade (Campbell), consisting of Gordons and Black Watch,
relieved them in the front line, and the exhausted and decimated
battalion was drawn off. In the meantime the 152nd Brigade, upon the
left, had been unable to make progress. Of the attackers of the
Fifty-first Division some 1500 men had fallen, and there was no
permanent gain of ground.

{150}

On Wednesday, June 16, there occurred a brisk action to the immediate
north of Hooge, at a point to the west and south-west of the Château,
where the German line formed somewhat of a salient. This it was
determined to straighten out in the familiar fashion, and a
considerable force of artillery was secretly concentrated. The
assault was assigned to the Third Division, and was carried out by
Bowes' 8th Brigade on the left, and on the right by the 9th Brigade,
which consisted of the three Fusilier battalions and the Lincolns,
together with the 10th Liverpool Scottish. The latter battalion had
been seven months at the Front, doing every sort of hard work, but
never getting an opportunity for distinction in action. The 9th
Brigade, now commanded by General Douglas Smith, was in reserve near
Poperinghe, but it was brought forward through Ypres for the assault.
They marched through the shattered town on the Tuesday evening. "The
sight of the ruined beauties of that once glorious old town did lots
to make us just long to get at the Vandals who had done this wanton
act of destruction." It was a longing which was soon to be appeased.
By midnight the troops were in position, and at three in the morning
of June 16 the bombardment began. It lasted with terrific intensity
for about an hour, and was helped by the guns of the French
Thirty-sixth Corps firing towards Pilken, whence the supports might
come. Black and yellow clouds covered the whole line of the front
German trench, which lay at the fringe of a wood, and out of this
mist of death trees, sand-bags, and shattered human bodies flew high
in the air. The barbed wire was shattered to pieces and the front
parapets knocked to atoms. {151} Then, in an instant, the guns
lifted on to the more distant support trenches, and the infantry,
swarming over the low barricades, dashed in perfect order over the
two hundred yards which separated them from the Germans.

It was an admirable advance, and could not have been better carried
out. The front of the assault was about a quarter of a mile. The
three Fusilier battalions in one long line, Northumberland Fusiliers
on the left, Royals in the centre, and Scots on the right, rushed
forward with terrific impetus, the rising sun glinting upon their
lines of bayonets. They were over the lip of the front trench
without a check, and rushed on for the second one. The supports, who
were the Lincolns on the right and the Liverpool Scots on the left,
followed closely after them, and seizing the German survivors, sent
them to the rear, while they did what they could to reverse the
parapet and prepare for a counter-attack. As they charged forward,
it had been observed that one German trench upon the left was at
right angles to the line of advance, and that it had been untouched
by the bombardment. It was only about forty yards in length, but the
fire from it was very murderous as it swept across the open ground.
With quick decision the rear company of the Liverpool Scottish turned
aside, and in spite of unbroken barbed wire carried the trench,
capturing all the occupants.

Meanwhile the German artillery had opened with an intensity which was
hardly inferior to that of the British, and they shelled with great
accuracy the captured trench. The Fusiliers had dashed onwards,
while the Liverpool Scots and Lincolns followed {152} swiftly behind
them, leaving the captured trench to the leading battalions of the
7th Brigade (Ballard), which was immediately in the rear of the
attackers, So eager was every one that the van of the supporting
brigade was mixed with the rear of the attacking one. Thus the
Honourable Artillery Company were exposed to a baptism of fire only
second in severity to that of their Territorial comrades from
Liverpool. They and the 3rd Worcesters, together with the 1st
Wiltshires upon the flank, endured a very violent shelling, but held
on for many hours to the captured positions. The Worcesters had over
300 casualties, including their colonel (Stuart), who had led them
ever since Mons. The Honourable Artillery Company and Wiltshires
suffered almost as heavily.

The advance still continued with great fury. It should have ended on
the taking of the second line of trenches, but it was impossible to
restrain the men, who yelled, "Remember the _Lusitania_!" to each
other as they surged over the parapets and dashed once more at the
enemy with bayonet and bomb. The third trench was carried, and even
the fourth. But the assault had gone too far. The farther spray of
stormers had got as far as the Bellewaarde Lake. It was impossible
to hold these advanced positions. The assailants dropped sullenly
back, and finally contented themselves by settling into the first
line and consolidating their position there on a front of a thousand
yards. The losses had been heavy, especially from the high-explosive
shells, which, as usual, blew both trenches and occupants to pieces.
Men died happy, however, with the knowledge that the days were past
when no artillery answer could be made, and that now at {153} least
they had given the enemy the same intolerable experience which they
had themselves so often endured. The Liverpool Scots suffered
especially heavily, losing about 400 men and 20 officers. All the
battalions of the 9th Brigade paid the price of victory, and the 8th
Brigade, upon the left, sustained considerable losses, but these were
certainly not larger than those of the Germans. Altogether, it was a
very brisk little fight, and a creditable victory--small, of course,
when measured by the scale of Neuve Chapelle or Richebourg, but none
the less heartening to the soldiers. Two hundred prisoners and a
quantity of material were taken. The trenches gained were destined
to be retaken with strange weapons by the enemy upon July 30, and
were again carried at the point of the bayonet by the British upon
August 9. These actions will be described later.

A pause of nearly three weeks followed, broken only by the usual
bickerings up and down the line, where opposite trenches ran mines up
to each other or exchanged fusillades of hand-bombs. There was no
serious movement upon either side, the Germans being concentrated
upon their great and successful Eastern advance; while the Allies in
the West were content to wait for the day when they should have
accumulated such a head of shell as would enable them to make a
prolonged effort which would promise some definite result. More and
more it had become clear, both from the German efforts and our own,
that any _coup de main_ was impossible, and that a battle which would
really achieve a permanent gain must be an affair which would last a
month or so, with steady, inexorable advance from day to day. This
could only be hoped for by the storage of a very {154} great quantity
of ammunition. Hence the pause in the operations.

The lull was broken, however, by a sharp fight upon July 6, in which
Prowse's 11th Brigade of the Fourth Division took, and permanently
held, a section of the German line. This considerable action was
fought at the extreme northern end of the British line, where it
joined on to the French Moroccan troops to the north of Ypres. The
sudden and swift advance of the 1st Rifle Brigade, the leading
British battalion, seems to have taken the Germans by surprise, and,
dashing forwards, they seized two lines of trenches and established
themselves firmly within them. The 1st Somerset Light Infantry
shared the credit and the losses of the charge. They were in
immediate support of the Rifle Brigade, their task being to dig a
communication trench. A hundred prisoners and a number of mortars
and machine-guns were the immediate trophies. Three times during the
day did the Germans counter-attack in force, and three times they
were driven back with heavy loss. Their total casualties certainly
ran into a thousand. On the other hand, both the Rifle Brigade and
the Somersets suffered severely, partly from flanking machine-gun
fire in the attack, but chiefly, as usual, from heavy shell-fire
afterwards. Indeed, it may be said that a victorious battalion was
too often an exhausted battalion, for since the German guns had the
precise length of the captured trench, the more heroically it was
held the heavier the losses. Until the artillery of the Allies
should be able to dominate that of the enemy, it was difficult to see
how ground could be gained without this grievous after-price to be
paid. On this occasion it was {155} paid to the full, but the ground
was permanently occupied, and a heavy blow was struck at the
Bavarians and Prussians who held that portion of the line.

Part of the 12th Brigade (Anley) took over some of the captured
trenches from the 11th, and came in for some of the German anger in
consequence. The 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers were very heavily shelled,
losing their commanding officer, Colonel Griffin, the machine-gun
officer, and the adjutant on the morning of July 7. A sap ran up to
the trench, and this was the scene of desperate bomb-fighting, the
Fusiliers expending eight thousand bombs in two days. So great was
the pressure that part of the 1st Warwicks came up in support. There
were several infantry advances of the enemy, which were all crushed
by the British fire. No dervishes could have shown more devoted
courage than some of the Germans. In one rush of sixty men all were
shot down, which did not prevent another forty from emerging later
from the same trench. Gradually they learned that their task was
impossible, and the position remained with the British. Altogether
the Lancashire Fusiliers lost 8 officers and 400 men in this action.

The succession of British successes which have been recorded in their
order was broken at this point by a temporary reverse, which involved
no permanent loss of ground, but cost many valuable lives. It is a
deplorable thing that, when fighting against men who are usually
brave and sometimes heroic, we are obliged continually to associate
any success which they may obtain with some foul breach of the
ancient customs of war. With the Germans no trick was {156} too
blackguardly or unsoldierly for them to attempt. At the end of
April, as already shown, they nearly snatched an important victory by
the wholesale use of poison. Now, at the end of July, they gained an
important local success by employing the cruel expedient of burning
petrol. These different foul devices were hailed by the German Press
at the time as various exhibitions of superior chemical methods;
whereas in fact they were exhibitions of utter want of military
chivalry and of that self-restraint which even in the fiercest
contest prevents a civilised nation from sinking to such expedients.
It is the most pressing objection to such methods that if they are
once adopted the other side has no choice but to adopt them also. In
the use of gas devices, both aggressive and offensive, the British
engineers soon acquired an ascendency, but even if the Germans
learned to rue the day that they had stooped to such methods the
responsibility for this unchivalrous warfare must still rest with
them.

The attack fell upon that section of trench which had been taken by
the British in the Hooge district on June 16. It was held now by a
brigade of the Fourteenth Light Infantry Division (Couper), which had
the distinction of being the first unit of the New Army to be
seriously engaged. Nothing could have been more severe--indeed,
terrific--than the ordeal to which they were subjected, nor more
heroic than the way in which it was borne. Under very desperate
conditions, all the famous traditions of the British rifle regiments
were gloriously upheld. They were destined for defeat--but such a
defeat as shows the true fibre of a unit as clearly as any victory.

{157}

Nugent's 41st Brigade, which held this section of trench, consisted
of the 7th and 8th King's Royal Rifles, with the 7th and 8th Rifle
Brigade. The position was a dangerous little salient, projecting
right up to the German line.

It is clear that the Germans mustered great forces, both human and
mechanical, before letting go their attack. For ten days before the
onset they kept up a continuous fire, which blew down the parapets
and caused great losses to the defenders. On July 29 the 7th King's
Royal Rifles and the 8th Rifle Brigade manned the front and
supporting trenches, taking the place of their exhausted comrades.
They were just in time for the fatal assault. At 3.20 in the morning
of July 30 a mine exploded under the British parapet, and a moment
afterwards huge jets of flame, sprayed from their diabolical
machines, rose suddenly from the line of German trenches and fell in
a sheet of fire into the front British position. The distance was
only twenty yards, and the effect was complete and appalling. Only
one man is known to have escaped from this section of trench. The
fire was accompanied by a shower of aerial torpedoes from the
_minenwerfer_, which were in themselves sufficient to destroy the
garrison. The Germans instantly assaulted and occupied the
defenceless trench, but were held up for a time by the reserve
companies in the supporting trenches. Finally these were driven out
by the weight of the German attack, and fell back about two hundred
yards, throwing themselves down along the edges of Zouave and
Sanctuary Woods, in the immediate rear of the old position. What
with the destruction of the men in the front trench and the heavy
losses of the supports, {158} the two battalions engaged had been
very highly tried, but they still kept their faces to the foe, in
spite of a terrific fall of shells. The British artillery was also
in full blast. For many hours, from dawn onwards, its shells just
skimmed over the heads of the front British line, and pinned the
Germans down at a time when their advance might have been a serious
thing, in the face of the shaken troops in front of them. It is said
that during fourteen hours only five of their shells are known to
have fallen short, though they fired from a distance of about three
miles, and only a couple of hundred yards separated the lines--a
testimony to the accuracy of the munition-workers as well as of the
gunners.

The position gained by the Germans put them behind the line of
trenches held upon the British right by two companies of the 8th
Rifle Brigade. These brave men, shot at from all sides and unable to
say which was their parapet and which their parados, held on during
the whole interminable July day, until after dusk the remains of them
drew off into the shelter of the prophetically-named Sanctuary Wood.
Another aggressive movement was made by the German stormers down the
communication trenches, which enabled them to advance while avoiding
direct fire; but this, after hard fighting, was stopped by the
bombers of the Riflemen.

The two battalions of the 41st Brigade, which had just been relieved
and were already on their way to a place of rest, were halted and
brought back. They were the 8th King's Royal Rifles and the 7th
Rifle Brigade. These two battalions had been eight days under
incessant fire in the trenches, with {159} insufficient food, water,
and sleep. They were now hurried back into a hellish fire, jaded and
weary, but full of zeal at the thought that they were taking some of
the pressure off their comrades. An order for an instant
counter-attack had been given, but it was recognised that two
brigades at least were necessary for such a task, and that even then,
without a very thorough artillery preparation, the affair was
desperate, since the Germans had already consolidated the position,
and their artillery, large and small, was very masterful. For some
reason, however, instead of a brigade, only two fresh battalions
could be spared. These were the 9th King's Royal Rifles, of the 42nd
Brigade, and the 6th Cornwalls, of the 43rd. Of these the 9th King's
Royal Rifles attacked, not from the wood, but from the Menin road
upon the left.

There had been three-quarters of an hour of intense bombardment
before the attack, but it was not successful in breaking down the
German resistance. At 2.45 P.M. the infantry advance began from the
wood, all four units of the 41st Brigade taking part in it. It is
difficult to imagine any greater trial for troops, since half of them
had already been grievously reduced and the other half were greatly
exhausted, while they were now asked to advance several hundred yards
without a shadow of cover, in the face of a fire which was shaving
the very grass from the ground. "The men behaved very well," says an
observer, "and the officers with a gallantry no words can adequately
describe. As they came out of the woods the German machine-gun fire
met them and literally swept them away, line after line. The men
struggled forward, only to fall in heaps along the edge of the {160}
woods." The Riflemen did all that men could do, but there comes a
time when perseverance means annihilation. The remains of the four
battalions were compelled to take shelter once more at the edge of
the wood. Fifty officers out of 90 had fallen. By 4 P.M. the
counter-attack had definitely failed.

The attack of the 9th King's Royal Rifles, along the Menin road, led
by Colonel Chaplin, had rather better success, and was pushed home
with great valour and corresponding loss. At one time the stormers
reached the original line of trenches and took possession of one
section of it. Colonel Chaplin was killed, with many of his officers
and men, by a deadly machine-gun fire from the village of Hooge. A
gallant lad, Lieutenant Geen, with a handful of men, charged into
this village, but never emerged. The attack was not altogether
unproductive, for, though the advanced position was not held, the 9th
retained trenches which linked up the Menin road with the left of the
Zouave Wood. With the darkness, the wearied and thinned ranks of the
41st Brigade were withdrawn into reserve.

It was not destined, however, that Nugent's hard-worked brigade
should enjoy the rest that they needed so badly. They had left the
10th Durham Light Infantry and the 6th Cornwall Light Infantry to
defend the wood, but at 2.20 in the morning the Germans renewed their
diabolical tactics with liquid fire, which blazed over the trenches
and scorched the branches overhead. This time the range was farther
and the effect less deadly. An attack was evidently impending, and
the Riflemen were hurried back to reinforce the two battalions left
in possession. There {161} was a night of alarms, of shell-fire, and
of losses, but the German infantry advance was not serious, and those
who reached the woods were driven out again. For some days
afterwards there was no change in the general situation. Sixty
officers and 2000 men were the terrible losses of the 41st Brigade
during this action. The 9th battalion, in its flank attack, lost 17
officers and 333 of the ranks. The 43rd Brigade (Cockburn) endured
considerable losses whilst in support of the 41st, especially the 6th
Cornwalls, who bore the brunt of the fighting. This battalion had
only seven officers left when it returned to Ypres, and by the
unfortunate mischance of the fall of a ruined house, they lost
immediately afterwards four more, including Major Barnett, the
temporary chief, and the adjutant Blagrove. These officers perished
whilst endeavouring to save their men who were buried among the ruins.

This difficult and trying action was fought under the immediate
supervision of General Nugent, of the 41st Brigade, who was with the
firing-line in the woods during the greater part of it. When the
brigade, or the shattered remains of it, were withdrawn upon August
1, General Nugent remained behind, and consulted with General
Cockburn, of the 43rd Brigade, as to the feasibility of a near
attack. The consultation took the form of a reconnaissance conducted
on hands and knees up to a point close to the enemy line. After this
inspection it was determined that the position was far too formidable
for any merely local attempt. It was determined that General
Congreve, of the Sixth Division, should take the matter over, that
several days should be devoted to preparatory {162} bombardment, and
that the whole division should be used for the assault.

All foul advantages, whether they be gas, vitriol, or liquid fire,
bring with them their own disadvantages. In this case the fall of
their comrades filled the soldiers with a righteous anger, which gave
them a fury in the assault which nothing could withstand. The
preparations were completed in a week, and the signal was given in
the early morning of August 9. Artillery had been concentrated
during the interval, and the bombardment was extraordinarily intense
and accurate. So perfect was the co-ordination between the infantry
and the guns, that the storming battalions dashed out of the trenches
whilst the German lines were still an inferno of exploding shells,
with the certain conviction that the shell-fire would have ceased
before they had actually got across the open. The cease-fire and the
arrival of the panting, furious soldiers were practically
simultaneous. On the left, some of our men ran into our own
shrapnel, but otherwise all went to perfection.

The infantry assault had been assigned to the Sixth Division, who
advanced at 3.15, with two brigades in front and one in support. The
18th Brigade (Ainslie) was upon the right. Colonel Towsey was in
immediate command. The 2nd Durham Light Infantry were in the lead,
and got across two companies in front with little loss; while the 2nd
Sherwood Foresters, who followed, were caught in shell-fire and had
very many casualties. The attack on this flank was supported by the
1st East Yorks and the Westminsters, who lay in the woods to the
rear, the East Yorks being speedily engaged. The wave of infantry
were over the German parapet {163} in an instant. All resistance was
vain, and those who stood were bayoneted, while the fugitives were
pelted with bombs from traverse to traverse wherever they attempted
to make head against their pursuers. So sudden had been the British
rush that many of the Germans were found in the dug-outs and in the
old mine-crater, from which they had not time to emerge and to meet
the assault for which they were waiting. Over a hundred of these
were taken prisoners. The whole place was a perfect charnel-house,
for there were 200 German dead in the crater, 300 in front of the
line, and a great number also of the Riflemen who had been killed
nine days before.

On the left of the line a no less dashing attack had been made by the
16th Brigade (Nicholson), and the trenches were carried in line with
those now held by the 18th. This successful advance was carried out
by the 1st Shropshires, the 1st Buffs, and the 2nd York and
Lancasters, with the 1st Leicesters in support. The distance between
the lines at this point was very much less than on the right, which
partly accounts for the smaller casualties.

When the trenches had been taken, the sappers, with their usual cool
disregard of danger, sprang forward into the open and erected barbed
wire. The gains were rapidly consolidated, men were sent back to
avoid overcrowding, and protective cover raised against the heavy
shelling which always follows swiftly upon the flight of the German
infantry. It came in due course, and was succeeded by an attempt at
a counter-attack. "At about 10 o'clock the enemy was observed
creeping in four parties towards us. They were very near us, and
came forward on their hands and knees, laden with bombs and {164}
hand-grenades. We opened fire with rifles and machine-guns. Our
bomb-throwers worked like machines, and splendid work they did. The
Germans were all mowed down and blown to atoms, or else ran for their
lives." Many of our prisoners were killed by German shells before
they could be removed. In spite of the failure of the German
infantry, the artillery fire was very deadly, both the Durhams and
the Sherwood Foresters being hard put to it to hold on to their
trenches. At 4.30 in the afternoon the Sherwood Foresters fell back
to the edge of the wood, some of their trenches having entirely
ceased to exist.

There were several German infantry attempts during the day, but all
of them met the same fate as the first. The loss of the enemy, both
in the attack and in the subsequent attempts at recapture, was very
heavy, running certainly into some thousands of dead or wounded;
while the British losses in the actual attack, owing to the admirable
artillery arrangements, were very moderate. Some hundreds of
prisoners were taken, sixty of whom by a strange freak surrendered to
an unarmed observation officer named Booth. It was a fair revenge
for the set-back of July 30, and it was won in honest, virile fashion
by the use of the legitimate weapons of civilised warfare.

During the long day the Germans strove hard, by an infernal
shell-fire, raking all the trenches from the direction of Hill 60, to
drive the infantry from the captured position. They clung
desperately to what they had won, but they were cut off from all
supplies. Many of the Westminsters lost their lives in heroically
bringing up water and food to the advanced line. For fourteen hours
the men were {165} under a murderous fire, and for the same period
the British artillery worked hard in supporting them. Men can endure
punishment far more cheerfully when they hear the roar of their own
shells overhead and know that the others are catching it also. "The
guns put heart into us," said one of the survivors. Finally, night
put an end to the slaughter and the uproar. Under the shadow of
darkness relieving troops crept to the front, and the weary,
decimated, but triumphant brigades were drawn off to the rear.

Some of the more forward of the troops had got right across the Menin
road and established themselves in positions so far in advance that
for some time no orders could reach them; nor was their situation
known until desperate messengers came back from them clamouring for
cartridges and bombs. These men were only drawn in on the morning of
the 10th, after enduring nearly thirty hours of desperate fighting,
without food, water, or help of any kind.

The losses were, as usual, far heavier in holding the trenches than
in winning them. The 16th Brigade lost 400 and the 18th 1300 men.
The 2nd Durhams were the chief sufferers, with 12 officers and 500
men out of action; but the Shropshires lost no fewer than 19 officers
with 250 men. The 2nd Sherwoods, 1st East Yorkshires, 1st Buffs, and
2nd York and Lancasters were all hard hit.

A considerable change in the general arrangement of the Army was
carried out early in August. This consisted in the formation of a
third army under General Monro, an officer whose rapid rise was one
of the phenomena of the war. This army consisted of the Seventh
Corps (Snow) and the Tenth Corps (Morland). The rearrangement would
be of little {166} importance, since most of the units have already
been mentioned, but it was accompanied by a large extension of the
British line. Up to this date it had joined the French about six
miles south of the La Bassée Canal. Now the Tenth French Army (Foch)
was left in position before Lens, and the British took up the line
again upon the farther side of them, carrying it from the south of
Arras to the neighbourhood of Albert, thus adding a dozen miles or so
to the British region, and bringing the total to about fifty--a small
proportion, it is true, but a very vital sector, and the one most
free from any natural feature of protection. There was at this time
an ever-thickening flow of reinforcements, as well as of munitions,
from across the Channel, but the new movements of Germany in the Near
East made it very evident that their use would not be confined to the
lines of Flanders. It was towards the end of this summer that the
length of the war and the increasing pressure of the blockade began
to interfere with the food-supplies of the German people. It had
been pretended that this was so before, but this was an attempt by
the German Government to excite sympathy in neutrals. There is no
doubt, however, that it was now a fact, and that it continued to
slowly tighten from month to month, until it finally became extreme.
There are few Britons who feel satisfaction at such a method of
warfare, but so long as armies represent the whole manhood of a
nation, it is impossible to make any provision by which food shall
reach the civilian and not the soldier. It is always to be borne in
mind that the British, with an almost exaggerated chivalry,
considering the many provocations which they had received, did not
exert their full power of blockade {167} for many months. It was
only when Germany declared the British Islands to be blockaded as
from February 18, 1915, and that food-ships would be destroyed, that
the British in retaliation, by an Order of Council in March of the
same year, placed German food upon the index. Thus by one more
miscalculation the Germans called down trouble upon their own heads,
for whereas their decree proved to be worthless, that of Britain was
ever more effective. It is curious to remember that only forty-five
years before, the Germans, without one word of protest from any of
their people, had starved the two millions of Paris, while Bismarck,
in his luxurious rooms at Versailles, had uttered his brutal jest
about roast babies. They are not so very slow--those mills of God!

Before passing on to an account of the great Battle of Loos, which
terminated the operations upon the British front for this year, a few
words may be said of those happenings elsewhere which do not come
within the immediate scope of this narrative, but which cannot be
entirely omitted since every failure or success had an indirect
influence upon the position in France. This is particularly true of
the naval campaign, for the very existence of our Army depended upon
our success in holding the command of the sea. This was fully
attained during the year 1915 by the wise provisions of Admiral
Jellicoe, who held back his Grand Fleet in such a manner that, far
from the attrition upon which the German war-prophets had confidently
counted, it was far stronger at the end of the year than at the
beginning, while its influence had been such that the German High Sea
Fleet might as well have never existed for all the effect which it
had upon the campaign. In spite of the depredations {168} of German
submarines, which were restrained by no bonds of law or humanity,
British commerce flowed in its double tide, outwards and inwards,
with a volume which has seldom been surpassed, and the Channel
crossing was guarded with such truly miraculous skill that not a
transport was lost. It was a task which the Navy should never have
been called upon to do, since the need of a Channel tunnel had for
years been obvious; but granting that it had to be done, nothing
could exceed the efficiency with which it was carried out. The
success, however, cannot blind us to the waste of merchant tonnage or
of convoying cruisers absorbed in this vital task, nor to the
incessant delays and constant expense due to the want of foresight
upon the part of those who opposed this necessary extension of our
railway system.

There was little naval fighting during the year, for the simple
reason that our sailors had nothing to fight. Upon January 24 a
German squadron of battle-cruisers attempted a repetition of the
Scarborough Raid, but was nearly intercepted by a British squadron of
greater power under Admiral Beatty. In a running fight which only
came to an end when the Germans had gained the protection of their
mine-fields considerable punishment was inflicted upon them, which
included the loss of the 15,000-ton armoured cruiser _Blücher_.
There were 123 survivors out of a crew of 800. Some damage was
inflicted upon the _Lion_, but the British casualties were slight and
no vessel was lost, save in the Berlin papers.

Upon February 20 the adventure of the Dardanelles was begun by a
bombardment of the outer forts by the Allied Fleets. The British
ships engaged in these {169} operations were pre-Dreadnought
battleships, with the notable exception of the new cruiser Queen
_Elizabeth_. On March 18, in an attempt to force the Straits, the
_Ocean_ and the _Irresistible_ were lost by floating torpedoes. On
May 13 we lost in the same locality the _Goliath_, which was also
torpedoed in a very gallant surface attack delivered at night by a
Turkish or German boat. On the 26th the _Triumph_ fell a victim to a
submarine in the same waters. The other naval events of the year
include numerous actions of small craft with varying results, and the
final destruction of the _Dresden_, the _Königsberg_, and every other
German warship left upon the face of the waters. The British
anti-submarine devices in home waters reached a high point of
efficiency, and the temporary subsidence of submarine warfare is to
be attributed rather to the loss of these vessels than to any
remonstrances upon the part of neutrals.

Some allusion should be made to the Zeppelins which were malevolently
active during the year, but whose efficiency fortunately fell very
far short of either the activity or the malevolence. Instead of
proving a blessing to mankind, the results of the energy and
ingenuity of the aged German inventor were at once turned to the most
devilish use conceivable, for their raids effected no possible
military object, but caused the death or mutilation of numerous
civilians, including a large number of women and children. The huge
bombs were showered down from the airships with no regard at all as
to whether a legitimate mark lay beneath them, and the huge
defenceless city of London was twice attacked on the plea that the
possession of munition works made the whole of it a fortress. The
total result of all the {170} raids came to about 1500 killed and
wounded. It is probable that the destruction of the invading
airships in 1916 killed more German fighting adults than were killed
in England by all their raids combined. They effected nothing
decisive save the ignominy of the murderers who used them.

Of the Dardanelles Campaign nothing need be said, since it will be
fully treated in many separate accounts, save that our general
position was greatly weakened by the large number of vessels needed
for the conduct of these operations, nor did we profit much by their
abandonment since the call of Salonica soon became equally insistent.
We were able during the year to continue the absorption of the German
Colonial Empire, none of which, save East Africa, remained intact at
the end of it. Egypt was successfully defended against one or two
half-hearted advances upon the part of the Turks. The Mesopotamian
Campaign, however, had taken at the close of the year a sinister
turn, for General Townshend, having pushed forward almost to the
gates of Bagdad with a very inadequate force, was compelled to
retreat to Kut, where he was surrounded and besieged by a
considerable Turkish army. The defence was a heroic one, and only
ended in the spring of 1916, when the starving survivors were forced
to surrender.

As to the affairs of our Allies, some allusion will be made later to
the great French offensive in Champagne, which was simultaneous with
our own advance at Loos. For the rest there was constant fighting
along the line, with a general tendency for the French to gain ground
though usually at a heavy cost. The year, on the other hand, had
been a disastrous one for the Russians who, half-armed and suffering
terrible {171} losses, had been compelled to relinquish all their
gains and to retreat for some hundreds of miles. As is now clear,
the difficulties in the front were much increased by lamentable
political conditions, including treachery in high places in the rear.
For a time even Petrograd seemed in danger, but thanks to fresh
supplies of the munitions of war from Britain and from Japan they
were able at last to form a firm line from Riga in the north to the
eastern end of the Roumanian frontier in the south.

The welcome accession of Italy upon May 23 and the lamentable
defection of Bulgaria on October 11 complete the more salient
episodes of the year.

{172}

CHAPTER VII

THE BATTLE OF LOOS

(The First Day--September 25)

Whilst the Army had lain in apparent torpidity during the summer--a
torpidity which was only broken by the sharp engagements at Hooge and
elsewhere--great preparations for a considerable attack had been
going forward. For several months the sappers and the gunners had
been busy concentrating their energies for a serious effort which
should, as it was hoped, give the infantry a fair chance of breaking
the German line. Similar preparations were going on among the
French, both in Foch's Tenth Army to the immediate right of the
British line, and also on a larger scale in the region of Champagne.
Confining our attention to the British effort, we shall now examine
the successive stages of the great action in front of Hulluch and
Loos--the greatest battle, both as to the numbers engaged and as to
the losses incurred, which had ever up to that date been fought by
our Army.

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{173}

[Illustration: La Bassée-Loos area]

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The four days which preceded the great attack {175} of September 25
were days of great activity. An incessant and severe bombardment was
directed upon the German lines along the whole front, but especially
in the sector to the immediate south of the La Bassée Canal, where
the main thrust was to be made. To this severe fire the Germans made
hardly any reply, though whether from settled policy or from a
comparative lack of munitions is not clear. On each of the days a
feint attack was made upon the German line so far as could be done
without actually exposing the men. The troops for the assault were
gradually brought into position, and the gas-cylinders, which were to
be used for the first time, were sunk in the front parapets.

The assault in the main area was to extend from the La Bassée Canal
in the north to the village of Grenay in the south, a front of about
seven miles, and it was to be supported and supplemented by many
subsidiary attacks along the whole line up to the Ypres salient, and
northwards still to where the monitors upon the coast held the German
coastguards to their sand-dunes. For the moment we will deal only
with the fortunes of the main attack. This was to be delivered by
two army corps, both belonging to Haig's First Army, that tempered
blade which has so often been the spear-head for the British thrust.
The corps were the First (Hubert Gough's) and the Fourth
(Rawlinson's). It will be remembered that a British army corps now
consisted of three divisions, so that the storming line was composed
of six divisions, or about seventy thousand infantry.

The line of the advance was bisected by a high road from Vermelles to
Hulluch. This was made the boundary line between the two attacking
corps. To {176} the left, or north of this road, was the ground of
the First Corps; to the right, or south, of the Fourth. The
qualities of the Regular and Territorial regiments had already been
well attested. This was the first occasion, however, when, upon a
large scale, use was made of those new forces which now formed so
considerable a proportion of the whole. Let it be said at once that
they bore the test magnificently, and that they proved themselves to
be worthy of their comrades to the right and the left. It had always
been expected that the new infantry would be good, for they had in
most cases been under intense training for a year, but it was a
surprise to many British soldiers, and a blow to the prophets in
Berlin, to find that the scientific branches, the gunners and the
sappers, had also reached a high level. "Our enemy may have hoped,"
said Sir John French, "not perhaps without reason, that it would be
impossible for us, starting with such small beginnings, to build up
an efficient artillery to provide for the very large expansion of the
Army. If he entertained such hopes he has now good reason to know
that they have not been justified by the result. The efficiency of
the artillery of the new armies has exceeded all expectations."
These were the guns which, in common with many others of every
calibre, worked furiously in the early dawn of Saturday, September
25, to prepare for the impending advance. The high explosives were
known to have largely broken down the German system of defences, but
it was also known that there were areas where the damage had not been
great and where the wire entanglements were still intact. No further
delay could be admitted, however, if our advance was to be on the
same day as that of the {179} French. The infantry, chafing with
impatience, were swarming in the fire trenches. At 5.40 A.M. the
gas-cylinders were turned on. At 6.30 A.M. the guns ceased fire, and
the ardent soldiers--Regulars, New, and Territorials--dashed forward
upon their desperate venture.

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{177}

[Illustration: BATTLE OF LOOS I]

APPROXIMATE POSITIONS OF BRITISH
DIVISIONS ON AFTERNOON OF SEPT. 25th

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The rough diagram of the action on page 177 will help the reader to
understand the order in which the six divisions attacked, and in a
very rough way the objectives in front of them. It is impossible to
describe simultaneously the progress of so extended a line. It will
be best, therefore, to take the various divisions from the northern
end, and to follow the fortunes of each until it reached some
definite limit. Afterwards an attempt will be made to co-ordinate
these results and show their effects upon each other.

The second regular division (Horne), acting upon the extreme left of
the main attack, had two brigades north of the La Bassée Canal and
one to the south. The most northern was the 5th (Cochrane's), and
its operations really formed part of the subsidiary attacks, and will
be treated under that head. South of it was the 6th (Daly's), to the
immediate north of the canal. The gas, drifting slowly up the line
before a slight southern breeze, had contaminated the air in this
quarter, and many of the men were suffering from the effects. None
the less, at half-past six the advance was made in a most dashing
manner, but the barbed wire defences were found to be only partially
damaged and the trenches to be intact, so no progress could be made.
The 2nd South Staffords and 1st King's Liverpools on the left and
right reached the German position, but in face of a murderous fire
were unable to make good their hold, and were {180} eventually forced
back to their own trenches after enduring heavy losses, shared in a
lesser degree by the 1st Rifles and 1st Berks in support. Upon their
right, south of the canal, was the 19th Brigade (Robertson). The two
leading regiments, the 1st Middlesex and 2nd Argylls, sprang from the
trenches and rushed across the intervening space, only to find
themselves faced by unbroken and impassable wire. For some reason,
probably the slope of the ground, the artillery had produced an
imperfect effect upon the defences of the enemy in the whole sector
attacked by the Second Division, and if there is one axiom more
clearly established than another during this war, it is that no human
heroism can carry troops through uncut wire. They will most surely
be shot down faster than they can cut the strands. The two
battalions lay all day, from morning till dusk, in front of this
impenetrable obstacle, lashed and scourged by every sort of fire, and
losing heavily. Two companies of the 2nd Welsh Fusiliers, who
gallantly charged forward to support them, shared their tragic
experience. It was only under the cover of dusk that the survivors
were able to get back, having done nothing save all that men could
do. Their difficult situation was rendered more desperate by the
fact that the wind drifted the gas--that filthy and treacherous
ally--over a portion of the line, and some of our soldiers were
poisoned by the effects. The hold-up was the more unfortunate, as it
left the Germans the power to outflank the whole advance, and many of
the future difficulties arose from the fact that the enemy's guns
were still working from Auchy and other points on the left rear of
the advancing troops. In justice to the Second Division, {181} it
must be remembered that they were faced by the notoriously strong
position called "the railway triangle," and also that it is on the
flanking units that the strain must especially fall, as was shown
equally clearly upon the same day in the great French advance in
Champagne.

The advance of the next division, the Ninth Scottish Division
(Thesiger's) of the new armies, was of a most energetic nature, and
met with varying fortunes according to the obstacles in their path.
The valour and perseverance of the men were equally high in each of
its brigades. By an unfortunate chance, General Landon, the officer
who had played so essential a part on the fateful October 31, 1914,
and who had commanded the Ninth Division, was invalided home only two
days before the battle. His place was taken by General Thesiger, who
had little time in which to get acquainted with his staff and
surroundings. The front to be assaulted was of a most formidable
nature. This Hohenzollern Redoubt jutted forward from the main
German line, and was an enclosure seamed with trenches, girdled with
wire, and fringed with machine-guns. Behind and to the north of it
lay the slag-heap Fosse 8. The one favourable point lay in the fact
that the attacking infantry had only a hundred yards to cross, while
in the other parts of the line the average distance was about a
quarter of a mile.

The attack of the Ninth Division was carried out with two brigades,
the 26th (Ritchie) and 28th (Dickens), with the 27th (Bruce) in close
support.

Continuing the plan of taking each unit from the north, we will
follow the tragic fortunes of the 28th Brigade on the left. This
brigade seems to have been {182} faced by the same unbroken obstacles
which had held up their neighbours of the Second Division upon the
left, and they found it equally impossible to get forward, though the
attack was urged with all the constancy of which human nature is
capable, as the casualty returns only too clearly show.

The most veteran troops could not have endured a more terrible ordeal
or preserved a higher heart than these young soldiers in their first
battle. The leading regiments were the 6th Scottish Borderers and
the 11th Highland Light Infantry. Nineteen officers led the
Borderers over the parapet. Within a few minutes the whole nineteen,
including Colonel Maclean and Major Hosley, lay dead or wounded upon
the ground. Valour could no further go. Of the rank and file of the
Borderers some 500 out of 1000 were lying in the long grass which
faced the German trenches. The Highland Light Infantry had suffered
very little less. Ten officers and 300 men fell in the first rush
before they were checked by the barbed wire of the enemy. Every
accumulation of evil which can appal the stoutest heart was heaped
upon this brigade--not only the two leading battalions, but their
comrades of the 9th Seaforths and 10th H.L.I, who supported them.
The gas hung thickly about the trenches, and all of the troops, but
especially the 10th H.L.I., suffered from it. Colonel Graham of this
regiment was found later incoherent and half unconscious from
poisoning, while Major Graham and four lieutenants were incapacitated
in the same way. The chief cause of the slaughter, however, was the
uncut wire, which held up the brigade while the German rifle and
machine-gun fire shot them down in heaps. It was observed that {183}
in this part of the line the gas had so small an effect upon the
enemy that their infantry could be seen with their heads and
shoulders clustering thickly over their parapets as they fired down
at the desperate men who tugged and raved in front of the wire
entanglement. An additional horror was found in the shape of a
covered trench, invisible until one fell into it, the bottom of which
was studded with stakes and laced with wire. Many of the Scottish
Borderers lost their lives in this murderous ditch. In addition to
all this, the fact that the Second Division was held up exposed the
28th Brigade to fire on the flank. In spite of every impediment,
some of the soldiers fought their way onwards and sprang down into
the German trenches; notably Major Sparling of the Borderers and
Lieutenant Sebold of the H.L.I. with a handful of men broke through
all opposition. There was no support behind them, however, and after
a time the few survivors were compelled to fall back to the trenches
from which they had started, both the officers named having been
killed. The repulse on the left of the Ninth Division was complete.
The mangled remains of the 28th Brigade, flushed and furious but
impotent, gathered together to hold their line against a possible
counter-attack. Shortly after mid-day they made a second attempt at
a forward movement, but 50 per cent of their number were down, all
the battalions had lost many of their officers, and for the moment it
was not possible to sustain the offensive.

A very different fate had befallen the 26th Brigade upon their right.
The leading battalions of this brigade were the 5th Camerons on the
left, gallantly led by Lochiel himself, the hereditary chieftain of
{184} the clan, and the 7th Seaforths on the right. These two
battalions came away with a magnificent rush, closely followed by the
8th Gordons and the 8th Black Watch. It was a splendid example of
that _furor Scoticus_ which has shown again and again that it is not
less formidable than the Teutonic wrath. The battalions were over
the parapet, across the open, through the broken wire, and over the
entrenchment like a line of Olympic hurdlers. Into the trenches they
dashed, seized or killed the occupants, pressed rapidly onwards up
the communications, and by seven o'clock had made their way as far as
Fosse 8, a coal-mine with a long, low slag-heap lying in the rear of
the great work, but linked up to it in one system of defences. It
was a splendid advance, depending for its success upon the extreme
speed and decision of the movement. Many officers and men, including
Lord Sempill, the gallant Colonel of the Black Watch, were left upon
the ground, but the front of the brigade rolled ever forwards. Not
content with this considerable success, one battalion, the 8th
Gordons, with a handful of the Black Watch, preserved sufficient
momentum to carry it on to the edge of the fortified village of
Haisnes, in the rear of the German position. The reserve brigade,
the 27th, consisting of the 11th and 12th Royal Scots, 10th Argyll
and Sutherland Highlanders, and 6th Scots Fusiliers, swept onwards in
support of this movement. This brigade had varying fortunes, part of
it being held up by wire. It did not get so far forward as the
brigade upon its left, but it reached and took Fosse Alley, to the
immediate west of the Lens-Hulluch road. This position it held
against bombing attacks upon each flank until the morning of Monday
{185} the 27th, as will be described later. The Highlanders upon
their left, who had got nearly to Haisnes, dropped back when they
found themselves unsupported, and joined the rest of their brigade in
the neighbourhood of Fosse 8.

It should be mentioned that the field-guns of the 52nd Brigade R.F.A.
pushed up in the immediate rear of the firing line of the Ninth
Division, and gave effective support to the infantry. The fact that
they could do this across the open tends to show that infantry
supports could be pushed up without being confined unduly to the
communication trenches. The spirited action of these guns was
greatly appreciated by the infantry.

For the moment we will leave the Ninth Division, its left held up in
line with the Second Division, its right flung forward through the
Hohenzollern Redoubt and Fosse 8 until the spray from the wave had
reached as far as Haisnes. Let us turn now to the veterans of the
Seventh Division, the inheritors of the glories of Ypres, who filled
the space between the right of the Ninth Division and the road from
Vermelles to Hulluch which divided Gough's First and Rawlinson's
Fourth Corps. This division was constituted as before, save that the
8th and 9th Devons of the New Army had taken the place of the two
Guards battalions in the 20th Brigade. Upon receiving the word to
advance, "Over the top and the best of luck!" the men swarmed on
short ladders out of the fire trenches and advanced with cool,
disciplined valour over the open ground. On reaching the German wire
the leading brigades--the 22nd on the left with the 2nd Warwicks and
1st South Staffords in the lead, the 20th on the right with the 2nd
Gordons {186} and 8th Devons in the place of honour--lay down for a
short breather, while each soldier obeyed instructions by judging for
himself the point at which the broken, tangled mass of writhing
strands could most easily be penetrated. Then once more the whistles
blew, the men rushed forward, and, clearing the wire, they threw
themselves into the front trench. The garrison of 200 men threw
their arms down and their hands up with the usual piteous but
insincere cry of "Kameraden!" Flooding over the line of trenches,
the division pushed rapidly on without a check until they reached the
Quarries, a well-marked post in front of the village of Hulluch.
Here more prisoners and eight field-guns were taken by the 20th
Brigade. From the Quarries to the village is roughly half a mile of
uphill ground, devoid of cover. The impetus of the advance carried
the men on until they were at the very edge of the village, where
they were held up by the furious fire and by a line of barbed wire,
which was bravely cut by Private Vickers of the 2nd Warwicks and
other devoted men. Another smaller village, Cité St. Elie, to the
north of Hulluch, was also reached, the 2nd Queen's Surrey making
good the western edge of it. At both these points the division had
reached its limit, but still farther to the north its left-hand
brigade was at the southern outskirts of Haisnes in touch with the
gallant men of the Ninth Division, who were to the west of that
important village. These advanced lines could not be held without
supports; the 21st Brigade had already been absorbed farther back,
and the men of the Seventh Division fell back about 4 P.M. as far as
the Quarries, where for a time they remained, having lost many
officers and men, including Colonel {187} Stansfeld of the 2nd
Gordons, a gallant officer who was hit by a shell in the first
advance, but asked only that he should be let lie where he could see
his men. Colonel Heath of the Surreys was also killed after the
return to the Quarries.

Such was the advance of the First Army Corps, ending in a bloody
repulse upon the left of the line and a hardly less bloody success
upon the right. Across the Vermelles-Hulluch high road, the Fourth
Army Corps had been advancing on the same line, and its fortunes had
been very similar to those of its neighbour. The First Division was
operating on the left of the corps, with the Fifteenth Scottish
Division (New) in the centre and the Forty-seventh Territorial
(London) on the right. Thus the First Division was advancing upon
Hulluch on the immediate right of the Seventh Division, so that its
operations are the next to be considered.

The attack of this division was carried out by the 1st Brigade upon
the left and by the 2nd upon the right, while the 3rd was in support.
Two battalions, the 9th King's Liverpool and the London Scottish,
acted as a small independent unit apart from the brigades. The
respective objectives for the two leading brigades were the Chalk Pit
and Fosse 14 for the 2nd, while the 1st was to aim at Hulluch. These
objectives were somewhat diverging, and the two Territorial
battalions, forming what was called Green's Force, were to fill up
the gap so occasioned, and to prevent any German counter-attack
coming through.

Both brigades soon found great difficulties in their path. In the
case of each the wire was but imperfectly cut, and the German
trenches were still strong. {188} We will first follow the fortunes
of the 1st Brigade. Their rush was headed by two brave battalions of
the New Army, the 8th Berkshires on the left and the 10th Gloucesters
on the right. Both of these units did extraordinarily well, and
after bearing down a succession of obstacles got as far as the edge
of Hulluch, capturing three lines of trenches and several guns upon
the way. The 1st Camerons pressed close at their heels, lending them
the weight to carry them over each successive difficulty. The
advance took some time and was very costly. The Berkshires alone in
the course of the day lost 17 officers and 400 men, and were led by a
young sub-lieutenant (Lawrence) at the close. The Gloucesters and
Camerons suffered almost as heavily.

The experience of the 2nd Brigade to the immediate south was still
more trying, and it was held up to an extent which had a serious
bearing upon the fortunes of the day. The German trenches near Lone
Tree, which faced the brigade, were found to be intact and strongly
covered by wire. They were attacked by the 2nd Rifles and 1st North
Lancashires, with the 2nd Sussex in immediate support, but no
progress could be made. The 1st Northamptons threw themselves into
the fight, but still the trench was held at a time when it was vital
that the 2nd Brigade should be at its post in the general scheme of
advance. The ground was taken, however, on each flank of the Lone
Tree position, and Green's Force, whose function had been to link up
the diverging operations of the two brigades, was brought up for the
attack. The two battalions advanced over six hundred yards by
platoon rushes under heavy gusts of fire. As they reached a point
within fifty yards of the German line, {189} a few grey-clad,
battle-stained infantrymen clambered slowly on to the parapet with
outstretched hands. Upon the British ceasing their fire a party of 3
officers and 400 men were marched out of the trenches and gave
themselves up. Their stout resistance is a lesson in the effect
which a single obstinate detachment can exert in throwing a large
scheme out of gear.

The 1st Brigade had now got through upon the left, and the 2nd was
able to follow them, so that the whole force advanced as far as the
Lens-Hulluch road, getting in touch with the 20th Brigade of the
Seventh Division on the left. Here the resistance was strong and the
fire heavy. The division had lost very heavily. Of the 9th King's
Liverpool only Colonel Ramsay, 4 subalterns, and 120 men were left,
while many of the other battalions were almost as hard hit. It was
now raining and the light was failing. The men dug themselves in
near the old German trenches, the 3rd Brigade coming up and taking
its position on the right flank, where late that night it connected
up by means of its outer unit, the 2nd Welsh, with the Twenty-fourth
Division, which had come up in support.

The temporary check to the advance of the First Division had exposed
the left flank of its neighbour to the south, the Fifteenth
(M'Cracken's) Scottish Division of the New Army. The two divisions
were to have met at Fosse 14, but the Fifteenth Division arrived
there some hours before the others, for the reason already stated.
In spite of this a very fine advance was made, which gained a
considerable stretch of ground and pierced more deeply than any other
into the German line. The 46th Brigade was on the left, consisting
of the 7th Scots Borderers and {190} 12th Highland Light Infantry in
front, with the 8th Borderers and 10th Scottish Rifles behind them.
It was upon the parapet in front of this brigade that Piper Laidlaw
marched up and down before the attack under a heavy fire, warming the
blood of the crouching men with the maddening scream of his
war-pipes. Not until he was shot down did this gallant man cease to
urge forward his comrades. The 46th Brigade dashed forward at the
signal, and with a fine fury flooded over the German trenches, which
they carried at a rush, storming onwards across the Lens road and up
the long slope of Hill 70, taking Fosse 14 upon the way, and
eventually reaching the summit of the incline. The 45th supporting
Brigade came along after them, detaching, as they passed, 100 bombers
of the 6th Camerons to help the First Division to get forward. These
brave Highlanders held the advanced line for some hours under heavy
fire from the Lens batteries.

The 44th Brigade upon the right of the 46th had made an advance which
was equally fiery and successful. In this brigade the 9th Black
Watch and 8th Seaforths were in the lead, with the 7th Camerons and
10th Gordons behind. This brigade dashed into the main street of
Loos, where they met the Londoners of Barter's Forty-seventh
Division. They helped to consolidate this flank and to clear the
houses of Loos, while some of them pushed forward towards Hill 70.
When they reached the crest of the hill they found the remains of the
46th Brigade, consisting of remnants of the 12th H.L.I., 7th Scots
Borderers, and 10th Scottish Rifles, upon their left. It is possible
that they could have dug in and held their own, but the objective as
given in the original orders {191} had been the village of St.
Augustine, and with heroic perseverance these brave men would be
contented with nothing less than the full performance or death in the
attempt. Alas! for many of them it was the latter. Gathering
themselves together, they flung themselves forward over the crest.
On the other side was a long, low slope with isolated houses at the
bottom, the suburbs of the village of St. Laurent, which they mistook
for St. Augustine. These crackled at every window with machine-gun
fire. Of the devoted band who rushed forward none reached the
houses. The few survivors fell back upon the crest, and then,
falling back about one hundred and fifty yards, they dug in upon the
slope on the west side of it. Their position was an extraordinarily
dangerous one, for they had no protection upon the left flank, where
lay a thick wood--the Bois Hugo--through which a German attack might
come which would cut them off from the Army. Colonel Purvis, of the
Highland Light Infantry, with quick foresight, built up a thin line
of resistance upon this side from Fosse 14 in the south to the
advanced left point, manning it with a few of his own men under
Lieutenant M'Neil. A welcome reinforcement of the 6th Camerons and
7th Scots Fusiliers from the 45th Brigade were thrown in to
strengthen this weak point. This was done about 1 P.M. It was only
just in time, for in the afternoon the German infantry did begin to
debouch from the wood, but finding organised resistance they dropped
back, and their advance on this line was not renewed until the next
morning, when it fell upon the Twenty-first Division. For a time the
pressure was very great, but the men rallied splendidly round a
tattered flag bearing the Cameron tartan, and, {192} although it was
impossible to get forward, they still, in a mixed and straggling line
with hardly any officers, held firmly to their ground. Late in the
evening the 13th Royal Scots and the 11th Argyll and Sutherlands came
up to thicken the line.

Leaving the Fifteenth Division holding on desperately to that
advanced position where, as Captain Beith has tersely said, a fringe
of Jocks and Sandies lie to mark the farthest point of advance, we
turn to the remaining division upon the right--the Forty-seventh
London, under General Barter. This division upheld splendidly upon
this bloody day the secular reputation of the Cockney as a soldier.
With a keen, quick brain, as well as a game heart, the Londoner, like
the Parisian, has proved that the artificial life of a great city
does not necessarily dull the primitive qualities which make the
warrior. The cream of the London Territorial regiments had already
been distributed among regular brigades, and had made themselves an
individual name, but this was the first occasion upon which a whole
division was engaged in a really serious operation.

The left of the division was formed by Thwaites' 141st Brigade with
the 18th London Irish in the front line and the 20th Blackheath
Battalion in immediate support. To their right was Cuthbert's 140th
Brigade, which formed the extreme right of the whole attack, a
position which caused them to think as much of their flank protection
as of their frontal advance. This brigade had the 6th and 7th
Londons in the van, with the 8th and 15th (Civil Service) in support.
The 142nd Brigade (Willoughby) was in the second line.

The advance of the 141st Brigade was a splendid {193} one. At the
whistle the 18th London Irish, with a fighting yell, flooded over the
parapet with their regimental football kicked in front of them, and
were into the German trench like a thunderbolt. A few minutes later
they were followed by the Blackheath men, who passed the captured
trench, rushed on to the second, and finally won the third, which
opened for them the road to Loos. Into the south end of Loos they
streamed, while the 44th Brigade of the Fifteenth Division rushed the
north end, turning out or capturing the 23rd Silesians, who held the
post. The 19th St. Pancras Battalion followed up the attack, while
the 17th (Poplar) were in reserve. Meanwhile, the 140th Brigade had
done most useful work by making a lodgment on the Double Grassier,
formidable twin slag-heaps which had become a German fort. The
ground to the immediate south of Loos was rapidly seized and
consolidated by the Londoners, several guns being captured in the
chalk pits near the village. This operation was of permanent
importance, as the successful British advance would inevitably form a
salient projecting into the hostile lines, which would be vulnerable
if there were not some good defensive position on the flank. The
work of the Forty-seventh Division assured such a line in the south.

By mid-day, as has been shown, the British advance had spent its
momentum, and had been brought to a standstill at all points. The
German lines had been almost--but not quite--shattered. A map of the
photographed trenches shows that beyond the point reached by the
advanced troops there was only the last line which held them up. To
the east of that was open country. But the German reserves were
{194} hurrying up from all quarters in their rear, from Roulers, from
Thielt, from Courtrai and Menin and Douai. At the latter place was a
division of Guards just brought across from the Russian front. These
also were hurried into the fight. The extreme British line was too
thin for defence, and was held by exhausted men. They were shelled
and bombed and worn down by attack after attack until they were
compelled to draw slowly back and re-form on interior lines. The
grand salient which had been captured with such heroic dash and
profuse loss of life was pared down here and contracted there. The
portion to the south held by the Londoners was firmly consolidated,
including the important village of Loos and its environs. An
enormous mine crane, three hundred feet high, of latticed iron, which
had formed an extraordinarily good observation point, was one of the
gains in this direction. The Fifteenth Division had been driven back
to the western side of Hill 70, and to the line of the
Lens-Hulluch-La Bassée road. The Seventh and Ninth Divisions had
fallen back from Haisnes, but they still held the western outskirts
of Hulluch, the edge of St. Elie, the Quarries, and Fosse 8. It was
at this end of the line that the situation was most dangerous, for
the failure of the Second Division to get forward had left a weak
flank upon the north, which was weaker because the heavily-gunned
German position of Auchy lay to the north-west of it in a way that
partially enfiladed it.

The struggle was particularly desperate round the slag-heaps which
were known as Fosse 8. This position was held all day by the 5th
Camerons, the 8th Black Watch, and the 7th Seaforths of the 26th
{195} Brigade, the remaining battalion of which, the 8th Gordons,
were with the bulk of the 27th Brigade in the direction of Haisnes.
These three battalions, under a murderous fire from the Auchy guns
and from the persistent bombers, held on most tenaciously till
nightfall. When the welcome darkness came, without bringing them the
longed-for supports, the defenders had shrunk to 600 men, but their
grip of the position was not relaxed, and they held it against all
attacks during the night. About five next morning the 73rd Brigade
of the Twenty-fourth Division--a unit straight from home--pushed up
to their help under circumstances to be afterwards explained, and
shared their great dangers and losses during the second day of the
fighting.

The battalions of the Ninth Division which had got as far as the
outskirts of Haisnes held on there until evening. By that time no
reinforcements had reached them and they had lost very heavily. Both
their flanks were turned, and at nightfall they were driven back in
the direction of the Quarries, which was held by those men of the
Seventh Division (mostly of the 22nd Brigade) who had also been
compelled to fall back from Hulluch. During the night this position
was wired by the 54th Company of Royal Engineers, but the Germans, by
a sudden and furious attack, carried it, driving out the garrison and
capturing some of them, among whom was General Bruce, the Brigadier
of the 27th Brigade. After the capture of the Quarries, the flanks
of the 27th Brigade were again turned, and it was compelled to return
as far as the old German front line. The 20th Brigade had fallen
back to the same point. These misfortunes all arose from the
radically defective position of the {196} northern British line,
commanded as it was by German guns from its own left rear, and
unprotected at the flank.

Whilst this set-back had occurred upon the left of the attack, the
right had consolidated itself very firmly. The position of the
Forty-seventh Division when darkness fell was that on their right the
140th Brigade had a strong grip of part of the Double Grassier. On
their left the 19th Battalion (St. Pancras), which had lost its
Colonel, Collison-Morley, and several senior officers, was holding
South-east Loos in the rear of the right flank of the Fifteenth
Division. The 20th was holding the Loos Chalk Pit, while the 17th
and 18th were in the German second-line trenches.

There is reason to believe that the rapid dash of the stormers
accomplished results more quickly than had been thought possible.
The Twenty-first and Twenty-fourth Divisions were now brought up, as
Sir John French clearly states in his dispatch, for a specific
purpose: "To ensure the speedy and effective support of the First and
Fourth Corps in the case of their success, the Twenty-first and
Twenty-fourth Divisions passed the night of the 24th and 25th on the
line of Beuvry-Noeux-les-Mines."

Leaving the front line holding hard to, or in some cases recoiling
from, the advanced positions which they had won, we will turn back
and follow the movements of these two divisions. It is well to
remember that these divisions had not only never heard the whistle of
a bullet, but they had never even been inside a trench, save on some
English down-side. It is perhaps a pity that it could not be so
arranged that troops so unseasoned in actual warfare should {197}
occupy some defensive line, while the older troops whom they relieved
could have marched to battle. Apart, however, from this
inexperience, which was no fault of their own or of their commanders,
there is no doubt at all that the men were well-trained infantry and
full of spirit. To bring them to the front without exciting
attention, three separate night marches were undertaken, of no
inordinate length, but tiring on account of the constant blockings of
the road and the long waits which attended them. Finally they
reached the point at which Sir John French reported them in his
dispatch, but by ill-fortune their cookers came late, and they were
compelled in many cases to move on again without a proper meal.
After this point the cookers never overtook them, and the men were
thrown back upon their iron rations. Providence is not a strong
point of the British soldier, and it is probable that with more
economy and foresight at the beginning these troops would have been
less exhausted and hungry at the end. The want of food, however, was
not the fault of the supply services.

The troops moved forward with no orders for an instant attack, but
with the general idea that they were to wait as a handy reserve and
go forward when called upon to do so. The 62nd Brigade of the
Twenty-first Division was sent on first about eleven o'clock, but the
other brigades were not really on the road till much later. The
roads on which they moved--those which lead through Vermelles to
Hulluch or to Loos--were blocked with traffic: guns advancing,
ambulances returning, troops of all sorts coming and going, Maltese
carts with small-arm ammunition hurrying forward to the
fighting-line. {198} The narrow channel was choked with the crowd.
The country on either side was intersected with trenches and laced
with barbed wire. It was pouring with intermittent showers. The
soldiers, cold, wet, and hungry, made their way forward with many
stoppages towards the firing, their general direction being to the
centre of the British line.

"As we got over this plain," writes an officer, "I looked back, and
there was a most extraordinary sight; as far as you could see there
were thousands and thousands of our men coming up. You could see
them for miles and miles, and behind them a most colossal
thundercloud extending over the whole sky, and the rain was pouring
down. It was just getting dark, and the noise of our guns and the
whole thing was simply extraordinary."

Early on the march the leading brigade, the 73rd, was met by a staff
officer of the First Army, who gave the order that it should detach
itself, together with the 129th Field Company of Sappers, and hasten
to the reinforcement of the Ninth Division at Fosse 8. They went,
and the Twenty-fourth Division knew them no more. The other two
brigades found themselves between 9 and 10 P.M. in the front German
trenches. They had been able to deploy after leaving Vermelles, and
the front line were now in touch with the 63rd Brigade of the
Twenty-first Division upon the right, and with the 2nd Welsh
Regiment, who represented the right of the 3rd Brigade of the First
Division, upon their left. The final orders were that at eleven
o'clock next day these three divisions--First, Twenty-fourth, and
Twenty-first--were to make a united assault past Hulluch, which was
assumed to be in our hands, and on to the main German line. This,
then, {199} was the position of the reserves on the night of
September 25-26.

It was a nightmare night in the advanced line of the Army. The
weather had been tempestuous and rainy all day, though the men had
little time to think of such matters. But now they were not only
tired and hungry, but soaked to the skin. An aggressive enemy pelted
them with bombs from in front, and their prospects seemed as black as
the starless sky above them. It is, however, at such a time that the
British soldier, a confirmed grumbler in his hours of ease, shows to
the best advantage. The men knew that much ground had been gained.
They had seen prisoners by hundreds throwing up their hands, and had
marked as they rushed past them the vicious necks of the half-buried
captured cannon. It was victory for the Army, whatever might be
their own discomfort. Their mood, therefore, was hilarious rather
than doleful, and thousands of weary Mark Tapleys huddled under the
dripping ledges of the parapets. "They went into battle with their
tails right up, and though badly mauled have their tails up still."
So wrote the officer of a brigade which had lost more than half its
effectives.

{200}

CHAPTER VIII

THE BATTLE OF LOOS

(The Second Day--September 26)

Death of General Capper--Retirement of the Fifteenth
Division--Advance of the Twenty-fourth Division--Heavy
losses--Twenty-first Division before Bois Hugo--Desperate
struggle--General retirement on the right--Rally round Loos--Position
on the evening of September 26.

Sunday the 26th was a day of hard fighting and of heavy losses, the
reserves streaming up from the rear upon both sides, each working
furiously to improve its position. From early in the day the
fighting was peculiarly bitter round Fosse 8 in the section carried
and held by the Ninth Division. It has been already mentioned that
three battalions, the 5th Camerons, 7th Seaforths, and 8th Black
Watch of the 26th Brigade, held this place all the evening of the
25th and all night, until reduced to less than the strength of a
regiment. It has also been stated that the 73rd Brigade had been
detached from the Twenty-fourth Division to their aid. These men,
with no preliminary hardening, found themselves suddenly thrust into
one of the very hottest corners of a desperate fight. Under these
circumstances it is all to the credit of these troops that they were
able to hold their position all day, though naturally their {201}
presence was not of the same value as that of a more veteran brigade.

The 73rd Brigade were put into German trenches to the east of Fosse
8, their order from the left being 7th Northamptons, 12th Royal
Fusiliers, and 9th Sussex, with the 13th Middlesex echeloned on their
right rear. They were constantly attacked, but were suffering more
from cold, hunger, and exhaustion than from the Germans. All day
they and the remains of the Scots held the place against intermittent
assaults, which occasionally had some partial success, but never
quite enabled the enemy to re-establish his position. It was not,
however, until the morning of the 27th, as will afterwards be
narrated, that their most severe ordeal was to come.

[Sidenote: Death of General Capper.]

Close to Fosse 8, and on the south of it, was the position of the
Quarries, from which the 22nd Brigade of the Seventh Division had
been driven by a sudden rush of the Germans during the night. After
an abortive but expensive attack by the 9th Norfolks next morning,
there was a more serious effort by a body of mixed troops, led by
Captain Carter and including several units of the Second Division,
notably the 2nd Worcesters and 1st Rifles. These battalions pushed
their way up to the Quarries, and although they were unable to evict
the Germans they established themselves firmly close to the
south-western edge and there awaited events. To the south of them
the 20th Brigade of the Seventh Division held firmly to their line.
It was on this day that they lost their heroic leader, Sir Thomson
Capper, the fine soldier who had so often braced by word and example
their ever-thinning lines during the black {202} days of Ypres, with
which his name and that of his division will be eternally associated.
There was no more valiant or trusted leader in the Army. He was shot
through the lungs, was carried to the rear, and died in hospital next
day. "We are here to do the impossible" was one of the fiery
aphorisms which he left to the Army.

[Sidenote: The Fifteenth Division on Hill 70.]

On the southern front of the British there was also an inclination to
contract the line upon the morning of the 26th. The fact that the
French attack upon the right on the day before had not had much
success rendered that wing very open to a flank attack. The
Fifteenth Scottish Division still held on hard to the slopes of Hill
70, but early in the day their line had been driven somewhat to the
westward. At nine o'clock they had renewed their attack upon Hill
70, supported by some reinforcements. They were not strong enough,
nor was their artillery support sufficiently powerful to enable them
to carry the crest of the hill. When their advance was checked the
Germans returned upon them with a series of counter-attacks which
gradually drove them down the hill. In the desperate series of
rallies in which they made head against the Germans it is difficult
to distinguish regiments, since the men fought for the most part in a
long, scattered fringe of mixed units, each dour infantryman throwing
up his own cover and fighting his own battle. The 6th Camerons
preserved their cohesion, however, and particularly distinguished
themselves, their gallant leader, Douglas Hamilton, falling at their
head in the thick of the fight. "I must get up! I must get up!"
were his last words before he expired. The final effect of these
episodes was to drive the British off the greater part {203} of the
slope of Hill 70, and down towards the village of Loos.

It will be remembered that the weary Twenty-fourth Division (Ramsay),
with its comrade the Twenty-first (Forestier-Walker) upon its right
and the Regular First Division upon its left, had received its orders
to advance at eleven o'clock. It had been supposed that Hulluch was
in British hands, but this was found not to be so. The orders,
however, still held good. The Twenty-fourth Division had already
been stripped of the 73rd Brigade, and now it was further denuded by
two battalions of the 71st, the 9th Norfolks and 8th Bedfords, who
were told off to help to retake the Quarries. The Norfolks made an
attack upon a strong position, and lost 200 men and officers in the
attempt. The Bedfords, who were in support, lost touch both with
their own division and with the one that they were helping, so that
they were not strongly engaged during the day.

The hour had now come for the general advance. General Mitford with
the 72nd Brigade was leading, with two battalions of the 71st Brigade
behind, and his pioneer battalion in support. On his left was the
2nd Welsh, and, as he imagined, the whole of the First Division. On
his right was the 63rd Brigade and the rest of the Twenty-first
Division, less the 62nd Brigade, as afterwards explained. It formed
a solid wall of 20,000 infantry which might well turn the tide of a
great battle.

[Sidenote: The advance of the Twenty-fourth Division.]

We shall follow this advance of the Twenty-fourth Division upon the
left, who were compelled to go forward with their flank exposed on
account of some delay in the attack by the First Division.
Afterwards we shall return to consider the movements of the {204}
Twenty-first Division on their right. The leading brigade, the 72nd,
moved forward with the 8th West Kents upon the left, and the 9th East
Surreys upon the right. Behind them were the 8th Queen's Surreys
(left) and the 8th Buffs (right), with the pioneer battalion, the
12th Sherwood Foresters, in support. They were followed by the two
remaining battalions of the 71st Brigade, the 9th Suffolks and the
11th Essex. As the advance continued the second line joined with the
first, and the 11th Essex from behind also pushed its way abreast of
the foremost. The line of advance was to the south of Hulluch, and
this line was preserved. As matters turned out, the numerous guns in
the south of that village were all available for defence against the
advance of the Twenty-fourth Division. This caused them very heavy
losses, but in spite of them they swept onwards with an unfaltering
energy which was a monument to those long months of preparation
during which Sir John Ramsay had brought his men to a high state of
efficiency. Under every possible disadvantage of hunger, cold,
exhaustion, and concentrated fire, they behaved with a steadiness
which made them worthy of the honoured names which gleamed upon their
shoulder-straps. One platoon of the Essex diverged into Hulluch in a
vain attempt to stop the machine-guns and so shield their comrades.
Hardly a man of this body survived. The rest kept their eyes front,
took their punishment gamely, and pushed on for their objective. The
breadth of the attack was such that it nearly covered the space
between Hulluch in the north and the Bois Hugo in the south. About
mid-day the Twenty-fourth Division had reached a point across the
Lens-Hulluch road which {205} was ahead of anything attained in this
quarter the day before. They were up against unbroken wire with an
enfilade rifle and machine-gun fire from both flanks and from Hulluch
on their left rear, as well as a heavy shell-fire of asphyxiating
shells. A gallant attempt was made to pierce the wires, which were
within fifty yards of the German position, but it was more than flesh
and blood could do. They were driven back, and in the retirement
across the long slope which they had traversed their losses were
greatly increased. Their wounded had to be left behind, and many of
these fell afterwards into the hands of the Germans, receiving
honourable treatment from them. The losses would have been heavier
still had it not been that the Suffolks in support lined up in a
sunken road three hundred yards south of Hulluch, and kept down the
fire of the machine-guns. Some of these raw battalions endured
losses which have never been exceeded in this war before they could
finally persuade themselves that the task was an impossible one. The
8th West Kents lost their Colonel, Vansittart, 24 officers, and 556
men; the 8th Buffs their Colonel, Romer, 24 officers, and 534 men;
the other battalions were nearly as hard hit. These figures speak
for themselves. Mortal men could not have done more. The whole
brigade lost 78 officers and 2000 men out of about 3600 engaged in
the attack. When these soldiers walked back--and there is testimony
that their retirement was in many cases at a walk--they had earned
the right to take their stand with any troops in the world. The
survivors resumed their place about 1.30 in the German trenches,
where for the rest of the day they endured a very heavy shelling.

[Sidenote: The story of the Twenty-first Division.]

The movements of the Twenty-first Division upon {206} the right were
of a very much more complex nature, and there is a conflict of
evidence about them which makes the task of the historian a
peculiarly difficult one. The great outstanding fact, however, which
presents itself in the case of each of the three brigades is that the
men in nearly every instance behaved with a steady gallantry under
extraordinarily difficult circumstances which speaks volumes for
their soldierly qualities. Sir Edward Hutton, who raised them, and
General Forestier-Walker, who led them, had equal cause to be
contented with the personnel. "The men were perfectly magnificent,
quite cool and collected, and would go anywhere," says one wounded
officer. "The only consolation I have is the memory of the
magnificent pluck and bravery shown by our good men. Never shall I
forget it," cries another. It is necessary to emphasise the fact,
because rumours got about at the time that all was not as it should
be--rumours which came from men who were either ignorant of all the
facts or were not aware of the tremendous strain which was borne by
this division during the action. These rumours were cruel libels
upon battalions many of which sustained losses in this their first
action which have seldom been matched during the war. We will follow
the fortunes of each brigade in turn, holding the balance as far as
possible amid evidence which, as already stated, is complex and
conflicting.

The 62nd Brigade (Wilkinson), consisting of the 8th East Yorks, 10th
Yorks, 12th and 13th Northumberland Fusiliers, with the 14th
Northumberland Fusiliers as pioneer battalion, was hurried away
separately and taken to the south and east of Loos to reinforce the
Fifteenth Division, which had {207} sustained such losses on the 25th
that they could not hold both the front and the flank.

The 62nd pushed on, reached the point of danger as early as the night
of the 25th, and occupied a line of slag-heaps to the south-east of
Loos, where there was a gap through which the enemy could penetrate
from the flank. It was a prolongation of the same general defensive
line which had been established and held by the Forty-seventh
Division, and it was the more important as the French advance upon
our right had not progressed so far as our own, leaving our right
flank in the air, exactly as our left flank had been left open by the
holding up of the Second Division. The 62nd Brigade was only just in
time in getting hold of the position, for it was strongly attacked at
five in the morning of the 26th. The attack fell mainly upon the 8th
East Yorkshires and the 10th Yorkshires, who were driven back from
the farther side of the great dump which was the centre of the fight,
but held on to the Loos side of it with the support of the 13th
Northumberland Fusiliers. This line was held all day of the 26th.
So stern was the fighting that the Fusiliers lost 17 officers and 400
men, while the 8th East Yorkshires at the slag-heaps lost the same
heavy proportion of officers and 300 men. More than once the
fighting was actually hand to hand, especially with the East
Yorkshires. Colonel Hadow, together with Majors Noyes and Dent, all
of the 10th Yorkshires, were killed, while Colonel Way of the East
Yorkshires was wounded. It will be noted, then, that the 62nd
Brigade was working independently of the rest of the Twenty-first
Division on one flank, as the 73rd of the Twenty-fourth Division was
upon the other.

{208}

The main attack of the division was carried out by the 63rd and 64th
Brigades, the only ones which remained under the command of General
Forestier-Walker. A formidable line of obstacles faced them as they
formed up, including the Chalk Pit and the Chalk Pit Wood, and on the
other side of the Lens-Hulluch road, upon their right front, Fosse 14
and the Bois Hugo, the latter a considerable plantation full of
machine-guns and entanglements. The original plan had been that the
advance should be simultaneous with that upon the left, but the enemy
were very active from an early hour upon this front, and the action
seems, therefore, to have been accelerated. Indeed, the most
reasonable view of what occurred seems to be that the enemy had
themselves planned a great attack at this point at that hour, that
the bickerings of the morning were their preliminary bombardment, and
that the British attack became speedily a defensive action, in which
the 63rd Brigade was shattered by the weight of the enemy attack, but
inflicted such loss upon it that it could get no farther, and ceased
to endanger the continuity of our line. It is only on this
supposition of a double simultaneous attack that one can reconcile
the various statements of men, some of whom looked upon the movement
as an attack and some as a defence.

The 63rd Brigade (Nicholls) moved forward with the 8th Lincolns upon
the right and the 12th Yorkshires upon the left. These regiments
advanced to a point just east of the Lens-Hulluch road. In support,
on the immediate west of the road, lining the Chalk Pit Wood, were
the 10th Yorks and Lancasters, with the 8th Somersets. For several
hours this position {209} was maintained under a heavy and deadly
fire. "The shells ploughed the men out of their shallow trenches as
potatoes are turned from a furrow," says an officer. Two companies
of the 8th Somersets, however, seem to have lost direction and
wandered off to Hill 70, where they were involved in the fighting of
the Fifteenth Division. Two companies of the Yorks and Lancasters
were also ordered up in that direction, where they made a very heroic
advance. A spectator watching them from Hill 70 says: "Their lines
came under the machine-guns as soon as they were clear of the wood.
They had to lie down. Many, of course, were shot down. After a bit
their lines went forward again and had to go down again. They went
on, forward a little and then down, and forward a little and then
down, until at last five gallant figures rose up and struggled
forward till they, too, went down.... The repeated efforts to get
forward through the fire were very fine."

These four companies having left, there remained only two of the
Somersets and two of the Yorks and Lancasters in the wood. Their
comrades in advance had in the meantime become involved in a very
fierce struggle in the Bois Hugo. Here, after being decimated by the
machine-guns, they met and held for a time the full force of the
German attack. The men of Yorkshire and of Lincolnshire fought
desperately against heavy masses of troops, thrown forward with great
gallantry and disregard of loss. For once the British rifle-fire had
a chance, and exacted its usual high toll. "We cut line after line
of the enemy down as they advanced." So rapid was the fire that
cartridges began to run low, and men were seen crawling up to their
dead comrades to ransack their pouches. {210} The enemy was dropping
fast, and yet nothing could stop him. Brigadier Nicholls walked up
to the firing line with reckless bravery and gave the order to
charge. Bayonets were actually crossed and the enemy thrown back.
The gallant Nicholls fell, shot in the thigh and stomach, and the
position became impossible. The Lincolns had suffered the appalling
loss of all their officers and 500 men. The Yorkshires were in no
better case. The survivors fell back rapidly upon the supports.

Fortunately, these were in close attendance. As the remains of the
Lincolns and the West Yorkshires, after their most gallant and
desperate resistance to the overwhelming German attack, came pouring
back with few officers and in a state of some confusion from the Bois
Hugo and over the Lens-Hulluch road, the four companies under Majors
Howard and Taylor covered their retreat and held up for a time the
German swarms behind them, the remains of the four battalions
fighting in one line.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

{211}

[Illustration: BATTLE OF LOOS II]

APPROXIMATE POSITIONS OF BRITISH
DIVISIONS ON FORENOON OF SEPT. 26th

-------------------------------------------------------------------

One party of mixed Lincolns and Yorkshires held out for about seven
hours in an advanced trench, which was surrounded by the enemy about
eleven, and the survivors, after sustaining very heavy losses--"the
trench was like a shambles"--did not surrender until nearly six
o'clock, when their ammunition had all been shot away. The isolation
of this body was caused by the fact that their trenches lay opposite
the south end of the Bois Hugo. The strong German attack came round
the north side of the wood, and thus, as it progressed, a
considerable number of the Lincolns and some of the West Yorks, still
holding the line upon the right, were entirely cut off. Colonel
Walter of the Lincolns, with Major Storer, Captains {213} Coates and
Stronguist, and three lieutenants, are known to have been killed,
while almost all the others were wounded. A number of our wounded
were left in the hands of the Germans. There is no doubt that the
strength of the German attack and the resistance offered to it were
underrated by the public at the time, which led to the circulation of
cruel and unjust rumours.

The 64th Brigade (Gloster) was in support some little distance to the
right rear of the 63rd, covering the ground between the Lens-Hulluch
road and Loos. About noon a message was received by them to the
effect that the 63rd was being very strongly pressed, and that help
was urgently needed. The 14th Durham Light Infantry was moved
forward in support, and came at once under heavy fire, losing its
Colonel (Hamilton), 17 officers, and about 200 men. The 15th Durham
Light Infantry was then thrown into the fight, and sustained even
heavier losses. Colonel Logan, 18 officers, and 400 men were killed
or wounded. About one o'clock the two Durham battalions were in the
thick of the fight, while Captain Liebenrood, machine-gun officer of
the 64th Brigade, did good work in keeping down the enemy fire. The
two battalions of Yorkshire Light Infantry (9th and 10th) were held
in reserve. About 2.30 the pressure upon the front of the 63rd
Brigade had become too great, and both it and the two Durham
battalions were driven back. Their resistance, however, seems to
have taken the edge off the dangerous counter-attack, for the Germans
did not come on past the line of the road and of the Chalk Pit Wood.

It will be remembered that when the two advanced {214} brigades of
the Fifteenth Division established themselves in hastily-dug trenches
upon the western slope of Hill 70, they threw back their left flank
obliquely down the hill towards Fosse 14 in order to avoid being at
the mercy of any force which endeavoured to get behind them on this
side. Only a very thin line of men could be spared for this work,
under a young Australian subaltern named M'Neil. These soldiers held
the post for twenty-four hours, but when the heavy German
attack--which drove in the Twenty-first Division and cut off the
Lincolns--struck up against them, they were all killed or wounded,
including their gallant leader, who managed, with several bullets in
him, to get back to the British line. This led to the final
retirement down Hill 70 of the men of the Scotch Division, who dug
themselves in once more at the foot of the hill, not far from the
village of Loos.

[Sidenote: The losses.]

It may be noted that the losses of the two supporting divisions were
about 8000 men. Their numbers in infantry were about equal to the
British troops at Waterloo, and their casualties were approximately
the same. Mention has already been made of the endurance of
Mitford's 72nd Brigade. The figures of the 63rd and their comrades
of the 64th are little inferior. Of these troops more than 40 per
cent of the rank and file, 65 per cent of their officers, and 75 per
cent of their commanders lay upon the field of battle. When one
recollects that 33 per cent was reckoned a high rate of loss by the
greatest authorities upon warfare, and when one remembers that these
were raw troops fighting under every discomfort and disadvantage, one
feels that they have indeed worthily continued the traditions of the
old Army and founded {215} those of the new. There were isolated
cases of unordered retirement, but in the main the regiments showed
the steadiness and courage which one would expect from the good
North-country stock from which they came.

The divisional artillery of the Twenty-first Division had come into
action in the open behind the advancing infantry, and paid the price
for their gallant temerity. The 94th Brigade R.F.A. lost especially
heavily, eight of its guns being temporarily put out of action.
Major Dobson of this brigade was among the killed. It is to be
feared that the guns did not always realise the position of the
infantry, and that many of the 64th Brigade especially were hit by
their own shrapnel. Such painful incidents seem almost inseparable
from modern warfare. The artillery kept its place, and afterwards
rendered good service by supporting the advance of the Guards.

[Sidenote: Reorganization.]

Whilst this advance and check had taken place in the centre and right
centre of the British position, the London Division, upon the extreme
right, was subjected rather to bombardment than to assault. A heavy
fall of asphyxiating shells was experienced a little after 9 A.M.,
and many men were gassed before they were able to put on their
helmets. The second German line of captured trenches was held very
firmly by General Thwaites with the rest of the 141st Brigade, while
the 140th retained a defensive flank, the whole forming a strong
_point d'appui_ for a rally and reorganisation. Men of the
Twenty-first Division re-formed upon this line, and the battle was
soon re-established. This re-establishment was materially helped by
the action of the 9th and 10th Yorkshire Light Infantry battalions
previously mentioned of {216} the Twenty-first Division, who had
become a divisional reserve. These two battalions now advanced and
gained some ground to the east of Loos on the enemy's left flank. It
may be mentioned that one of these battalions was ordered to discard
its packs in order to ease the tired soldiers, and that on advancing
from their trenches these packs were never regained. Their presence
afterwards may have given the idea that equipment had been abandoned,
whereas an actual order had been obeyed. The movement covered the
reorganisation which was going on behind them. One small detachment
under Captain Laskie of the 10th Y.L.I. did especially good work.
The Yorkshiremen were aided by men of the Northumberland Fusiliers of
the 62nd Brigade, who held on to the trenches to the east of Loos. A
cavalry detachment from Campbell's 6th Cavalry Brigade, under
Campbell himself, had also appeared about 4 P.M. as a mobile reserve
and thrown itself into Loos to strengthen the defence.

The evening of this day, September 26, found the British lines
contracted as compared with what they had been in the morning. The
Forty-seventh Division had, if anything, broadened and strengthened
their hold upon the southern outskirts of Loos. The western slope of
Hill 70 was still held in part. Thence the line bent back to the
Loos-La Bassée road, followed the line of that road for a thousand
yards, thence onwards to near the west end of the village of Hulluch,
and then as before. But the exchanges would seem to have been in
favour of the Germans, since they had pushed the British back for a
stretch of about a mile from the Lens-Hulluch road, thus making a
dent in their front. On both sides reserves {217} were still
mustering. The Guards' Division had been brought up by Sir John
French, and were ready for operations upon the morning of the 27th,
while the Twenty-eighth Division was on its way. The Germans, who
had been repeatedly assured that the British Army extension was a
bluff, and that the units existed only upon paper, must have found
some food for thought as the waves rolled up.

{218}

CHAPTER IX

THE BATTLE OF LOOS

(From September 27 to the end of the year)

The night of September 26 was a restless and tumultuous one, the
troops being much exhausted by their long ordeal, which involved
problems of supply unknown in any former wars. The modern soldier
must be a great endurer as well as an iron fighter. The Germans
during the night were very pushful in all directions. Their reserves
are said to have been very mixed, and there was evidence of
forty-eight battalions being employed against the British line, but
their attacks were constant and spirited. The advanced positions
were, however, maintained, and the morning of the 27th found the
attackers, after two days of incessant battle, still keeping their
grip upon their gains.

[Sidenote: Loss of Fosse 8.]

The main part of the day began badly for the British, however, as in
the early morning they were pushed off Fosse 8, which was an
extremely important point and the master-key of the whole position,
as its {219} high slag-heap commanded Slag Alley and a number of the
other trenches to the south of it, including most of the Hohenzollern
Redoubt. The worn remains of the 26th Brigade were still holding the
pit when morning dawned, and the units of the 73rd Brigade (Jelf)
were in a semicircle to the east and south of it. These battalions,
young troops who had never heard the whiz of a bullet before, had now
been in close action for thirty-six hours, and had been cut off from
all supplies of food and water for two days. Partly on account of
their difficult tactical position, and partly because they were
ignorant of how communications are kept up in the trenches, they had
become entirely isolated. It was on these exhausted troops that the
storm now broke. The northern unit consisted of the 7th
Northamptons, whose left wing seems to have been in the air. Next to
them were the 12th Royal Fusiliers. There had been several infantry
attacks, which were repulsed during the night. Just at the dawn two
red rockets ascended from the German lines, and at the same moment an
intense bombardment opened upon Fosse 8, causing great loss among the
occupants. It was at this time that General Thesiger, Commander of
the Ninth Division, together with his Staff-Major, Burney, was killed
by a shell. Colonel Livingstone, Divisional C.O. of Engineers, and
Colonel Wright, of the 8th Gordons, were also hit. In the obstinate
defence of the post the 90th Company R.E. fought as infantry, after
they had done all that was possible to strengthen the defences.

A strong infantry attack had immediately followed the bombardment.
They broke in, to the number of about a thousand, between the
Northamptons and {220} Fusiliers. By their position they were now
able to command Fosse 8, where the 9th Sussex had been, and also to
make untenable the position of the 27th Brigade, which occupied
trenches to the south which could be enfiladed. In "The First
Hundred Thousand" will be found a classical account of the straits of
these troops and their retirement to a safer position. General Jelf
telephoned in vain for the support of heavy guns, and even released a
carrier pigeon with the same urgent request. Seeing that Fosse 8 was
lost, he determined to hold on hard to the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and
lined its trenches with the broken remains of his wearied brigade.
The enemy at once attacked with swarms of well-provided bombers in
the van, but were met foot to foot by the bombers of the 73rd
Brigade, who held them up. The 26th Brigade endeavoured to
counter-attack, but were unable to get forward against the
machine-guns, but their bombers joined those of the English brigade
and did splendid work. The ground was held until the troops,
absolutely at the limit of human endurance, were relieved by the 85th
Brigade of the Twenty-eighth Division, as will be described later.
The trench held by the Sussex was commanded from above and attacked
by bombers from below, so that the battalion had a very severe
ordeal. Lieutenant Shackles defended a group of cabarets at one end
of the position until he and every man with him was dead or wounded.
Having taken that corner, the Germans bombed down the trench.
Captain MacIvor with thirty men on that flank were all killed or
wounded, but the officer leading the bombers was shot by Captain
Langden and the position saved. Nineteen officers and 360 men fell
in this one battalion. {221} "We gained," said one of them, "two
Military Crosses and many wooden ones." It had been an anxious day
for all, and most of all for General Jelf, who had been left without
a staff, both his major and his captain having fallen.

[Sidenote: The coming of the Guards.]

Up to mid-day of the 27th the tide of battle had set against the
British, but after that hour there came into action a fresh force,
which can never be employed without leaving its mark upon the
conflict. This was the newly-formed division of Guards (Lord Cavan),
consisting of the eight battalions which had already done such
splendid service from Mons onwards, together with the newly-formed
Welsh Guards, the 3rd and 4th Grenadier Guards, the 2nd Coldstream,
and the 2nd Irish.

On September 25 the Guards reached Noeux-les-Mines, and on September
26 were at Sailly-la-Bourse. On the morning of the 27th they moved
forward upon the same general line which the previous attack had
taken--that is, between Hulluch on the left and Loos on the
right--and relieved the two divisions which had suffered so heavily
upon the previous day. The general distribution of the Guards was
that the 1st Brigade (Fielding), consisting of the 2nd Grenadiers,
2nd and 3rd Coldstream, and 1st Irish, were on the left. They had
taken over trenches from the First Division, and were now in touch
upon their left with the Seventh Division. On the right of the 1st
Guards' Brigade was the 2nd (Ponsonby), consisting of the 3rd
Grenadiers, 1st Coldstream, 1st Scots, and 2nd Irish. On their right
again, in the vicinity of Loos, was the 3rd Brigade (Heyworth), the
1st and 4th Grenadiers, 2nd Scots, and 1st Welsh. These last two
brigades, upon which the work fell--for the 1st Brigade remained in a
{222} holding position--were operating roughly upon the same ground
as the Twenty-first Division had covered the day before, and had in
their immediate front the same wood--the Chalk Pit Wood--from which
we had been driven, and the Chalk Pit near the Lens-Hulluch road,
which we had also lost, while a little more to the right was the
strong post of Fosse 14 and the long slope of Hill 70, the whole of
which had passed back into the hands of the enemy. These formidable
obstacles were the immediate objective of the Guards. During the
night of the 26th-27th many stragglers from the Twenty-first and
Twenty-fourth Divisions passed through the Guards, informing them
that their front was practically clear of British troops, and that
they were face to face with the enemy.

At 2.30 P.M. the British renewed their heavy bombardment in the hope
of clearing the ground for the advance. There is evidence that upon
the 25th the enemy had been so much alarmed by the rapid advance that
they had hurriedly removed a good deal of their artillery upon the
Lens side. This had now been brought back, as we found to our cost.
At four o'clock the heavy guns eased off, and the two brigades of
Guards (2nd and 3rd) advanced, moving forward in artillery
formation--that is, in small clumps of platoons, separated from each
other.

The 2nd Irish were given their baptism of fire by being placed in the
van of the 2nd Brigade with orders to make good the wood in front.
The 1st Coldstream were to support them. Advancing in splendid
order, they reached the point without undue loss, and dug themselves
in according to orders. As they lay there their comrades of the 1st
Scots passed on their right under very heavy fire in salvos of {223}
high-explosive shells, and carried Fosse 14 by storm in the most
admirable manner, while the Irish covered them with their rifle-fire.
Part of the right-hand company of the Irish Guards got drawn into
this attack and rushed forward with the Scots. Having taken Fosse
14, this body of men pushed impetuously forward, met a heavy German
counter-attack, and were driven back. Their two young leaders,
Lieutenants Clifford and Kipling, were seen no more. The German
attack came with irresistible strength, supported by a very heavy
enfilade fire. The remains of the Scots Guards were driven with
heavy losses out of Fosse 14, and both they and the Irish were thrown
back as far as the line of the Loos-Hulluch road.

The remains of the shaken battalions were joined by two companies of
the 2nd Coldstream and reformed for another effort. In this attack
of the 2nd Brigade upon Fosse 14, the Scots were supported by two
companies of the 3rd Grenadiers, the other two being in general
reserve. These two companies, coming up independently somewhat later
than the main advance, were terribly shelled, but reached their
objective, where they endured renewed losses. The officers were
nearly all put out of action, and eventually a handful of survivors
were brought back to the Chalk Pit Wood by Lieutenant Ritchie,
himself severely wounded.

Captain Alexander, with some of the Irish, had succeeded also in
holding their ground in the Chalk Pit Wood, though partly surrounded
by the German advance, and they now sent back urgently for help. A
fresh advance was made, in the course of which the other two
companies of Coldstreamers pushed forward {224} on the left of the
wood and seized the Chalk Pit. It was hard soil and trenching was
difficult, but the line of the wood and of the pit was consolidated
as far as possible. A dangerous gap had been left between the 1st
Coldstream, who were now the extreme left of the 2nd Brigade, and the
right of the 1st Brigade. It was filled up by 150 men, hastily
collected, who frustrated an attempt of the enemy to push through.
This line was held until dark, though the men had to endure a very
heavy and accurate shelling, against which they had little
protection. In the early morning the 1st Coldstream made a fresh
advance from the north-west against Fosse 14, but could make no
headway against the German fire. The line of Chalk Pit Wood now
became the permanent line of the Army.

The 3rd Brigade of Guards had advanced at the same time as the 2nd,
their attack being on the immediate right on the line of Fosse 14 and
Hill 70. It may indeed be said that the object of the 2nd Brigade
attack upon Fosse 14 was very largely to silence or engage the
machine-guns there and so make it easier for the 3rd Brigade to make
headway at Hill 70. The Guardsmen advanced with great steadiness up
the long slope of the hill, and actually gained the crest, the Welsh
and the 4th Grenadiers in the lead, but a powerful German redoubt
which swept the open ground with its fire made the summit untenable,
and they were compelled to drop back over the crest line, where they
dug themselves in and remained until this section of the line was
taken over by the Twelfth Division.

[Sidenote: Rearrangements.]

The Guards had lost very heavily during these operations. The 2nd
Irish had lost 8 officers and 324 {225} men, while the 1st Scots and
1st Coldstream had suffered about as heavily. The 3rd Brigade had
been even more severely hit, and the total loss of the division could
have been little short of 3000. They continued to hold the front
line until September 30, when the 35th and 36th Brigades of the
Twelfth Division relieved them for a short rest. The Fifteenth
Division had also been withdrawn, after having sustained losses which
had probably never been excelled up to that hour by any single
division in one action during the campaign. It is computed that no
fewer than 6000 of these gallant Scots had fallen, the greater part
upon the blood-stained slope and crest of Hill 70. Of the 9th Black
Watch little more than 100 emerged safely, but an observer has
recorded that their fierce and martial bearing was still that of
victors.

The curve of the British position presented a perimeter which was
about double the length of the arc which marked the original
trenches. Thus a considerably larger force was needed to hold it,
which was the more difficult to provide as so many divisions had
already suffered heavy losses.

The French attack at Souchez having come to a standstill, Sir John
French asked General Foch, the Commander of the Tenth Army, to take
over the defence of Loos, which was done from the morning of the 28th
by our old comrades of Ypres, the Ninth Corps. During this day there
was a general rearrangement of units, facilitated by the contraction
of the line brought about by the presence of our Allies. The
battle-worn divisions of the first line were withdrawn, while
Bulfin's Twenty-eighth Division came up to take their place.

[Sidenote: Arrival of Twenty-eighth Division.]

The Twenty-eighth Division, of Ypres renown, {226} had reached
Vermelles in the early morning of Monday the 27th--the day of the
Guards' advance. The general plan seems to have been that it should
restore the fight upon the left half of the battlefield, while the
Guards' Division did the same upon the right. General Bulfin, the
able and experienced Commander of the Twenty-eighth, found himself
suddenly placed in command of the Ninth also, through the death of
General Thesiger. The situation which faced him was a most difficult
one, and it took cool judgment in so confused a scene to make sure
where his force should be applied. Urgent messages had come in to
the effect that the defenders of Fosse 8 had been driven out, that as
a consequence the whole of the Hohenzollern Redoubt was on the point
of recapture, and that the Quarries had been wrested from the Seventh
Division by the enemy. A very strong German attack was surging in
from the north, and if it should advance much farther our advance
line would be taken in the rear. It was clear that the Twenty-eighth
Division had only just arrived in time. The 85th Brigade under
General Pereira was hurried forward, and found things in a perilous
state in the Hohenzollern Redoubt, where the remains of the 26th and
73rd Brigades, driven from Fosse 8 and raked by guns from the great
dump, were barely holding on to the edge of the stronghold. The 2nd
Buffs dashed forward with all the energy of fresh troops, swept the
enemy out of the redoubt, pushed them up the trench leading
northwards, which is called "Little Willie" ("Big Willie" leads
eastward), and barricaded the southern exit. Matters were hung up
for a time by the wounding both of General Pereira and of his
Brigade-Major Flower, but Colonel {227} Roberts, of the 3rd Royal
Fusiliers, carried on. The Royal Fusiliers relieved the Buffs, and
the 2nd East Surrey took over the left of the line.

An attack was organised upon the powerful position at Fosse 8, but it
had to be postponed until the morning of September 28. At 9 A.M. the
2nd Buffs delivered a very strong assault. The 3rd Middlesex were to
have supported them, but came under so heavy a fire in their trenches
that they were unable to get forward. The Buffs, in the face of
desperate opposition, scrambled up the difficult sides of the great
dump--a perfect hill self-erected as a monument of generations of
labour. They reached the summit, but found it swept by gusts of fire
which made all life impossible. Colonel Worthington and fifteen of
his officers were killed or wounded in the gallant venture. Finally,
the remains of the battalion took cover from the fire in Dump Trench
at the bottom of the hill. It was in this trench that the Middlesex
men had been held. Their Colonel, Neale, had also been killed. From
this time onwards Fosse 8 was left in the hands of the Germans, and
the action of the Twenty-eighth Division became more of a defensive
one to prevent any further whittling away of the ground already
gained.

As the pressure was still great from the direction of Fosse 8, two
battalions of the 83rd Brigade, the 1st York and Lancasters and 1st
Yorkshire Light Infantry, were sent up to reinforce the line. On the
29th they helped to repel two attacks all along the front of the
redoubt, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, when the
Germans came on to the surface only to be shot back into their
burrows again. On the same day the 83rd and 84th Brigades relieved
the weary Seventh Division in the Quarries.

{228}

[Sidenote: Mixed fighting.]

Whilst these operations had been carried on upon the north half of
the field of battle, to the left of the bisecting road, the Twelfth
Division, a South of England unit of the New Army, had moved forward
into the space to the right of the road, taking over the trenches
held by the Guards, and connecting up with the French at Loos. Save
in the sector occupied by the Twenty-eighth Division the action had
died down, and the British, aided partly by those pioneer battalions
which had been formed out of ordinary infantry regiments to do work
usually assigned to the sappers, strengthened their hold upon the
ground that they had won, in the sure conviction that they would soon
have to defend it. The shell-fire continued to be heavy upon both
sides, and in the course of it General Wing, of the Twelfth Division,
was unfortunately killed, being struck by a shell outside his
divisional headquarters. He had been one of the artillery officers
who had most to do with the fine handling of the guns of the Second
Corps at Le Cateau, and was a very rising soldier of the most modern
sort. Three divisional generals killed--Capper, Wing, and
Thesiger--and one brigadier a prisoner! Such losses in the higher
ranks are hardly to be matched in our history. To equal them one has
to go back a hundred years to that supreme day when Picton, De Lancy,
Ponsonby, and so many others died in front of their troops upon the
historic plateau of Waterloo.

On October 1, at eight in the evening, Bulfin's men were hard at work
once more. It will be remembered that the "Little Willie" Trench had
been plugged at the southern end by the Buffs three days before. The
Germans still held the main line of it, but could not get down it
into the Hohenzollern Redoubt. It {229} was now charged most
brilliantly and carried by the 1st Welsh, of the 84th Brigade, but
after holding it for a day they lost so heavily that they were
compelled to resume their old position once more. The 1st Suffolk
tried to win the ground back, but without success.

Upon the afternoon of Sunday, October 3, the fighting, which had died
down, broke out once more. The front line at this date was formed by
the Ninth French Corps, our splendid comrades of Ypres, upon the
right, occupying Loos and that portion of the slopes of Hill 70 which
had remained in our hands. On their left was the Twelfth British
Division up to the Vermelles-Hulluch road, and to their left Bulfin's
Twenty-eighth Division, holding the northern area, including the
Hohenzollern Redoubt. For several days the bombing parties of the
enemy had been eating their way into this fortress, and upon the 3rd
the greater part of it reverted into their hands, the enemy driving
in the 84th Brigade. These attacks were based upon their strong
positions in the north, and supported by the machine-guns of Fosse 8
and the heavy artillery of Auchy. On the same day a strong force
advanced against the right of the Twenty-eighth Division between the
Quarries and the Vermelles-Hulluch road, but this attack was repulsed
with heavy loss.

On October 4 and 5 the Twenty-eighth Division was withdrawn, and the
Guards, after three days' rest, were called upon once more, the 3rd
Guards Brigade taking its position at the section of the Hohenzollern
Redoubt which we held, while the 1st was on their right, and the 2nd
in reserve at Vermelles. At the same time the First Division moved
to the front on the right of the Guards, relieving the Twelfth {230}
Division. All these troops were keenly alive to the fact that the
Germans were unlikely to sit down under their defeat, and that the
pause was only the preliminary to a great counter-attack. All
efforts were therefore made to consolidate the ground.

[Sidenote: The great counter-attack.]

The expectations were fulfilled, for upon October 8 the enemy brought
up their reserves from far and near, determined to have back the
ground that they had lost. The British and French were no less
inexorable in their grip of that which had cost them so much to win.
It is the attacker in modern warfare who pays the price. Sometimes
he gets the value of his blood, sometimes he pays it freely and gets
nothing whatever in exchange. So it was in this instance. Along the
whole long curve of the defence, from the southern trenches of the
Hohenzollern Redoubt in the north to the French position in the
south, the roar of the battle went up. On the left of the French was
the First Division, on their left the Twelfth, on theirs the Guards,
on theirs the Seventh, stout fighters all. The Germans rushed on
boldly, swarms of bombers in front, lines of supporting infantry
behind. Everywhere they were cut down and brought to a stand by the
sleet of bullets. It was the British machine-gunner who now crouched
under cover and spread death fanwise before him, while it was the
German infantryman who rushed and tripped and rose and fell in the
desperate effort to carry out the plans of his chiefs. All honour to
him for the valour of his attempt.

To appreciate the nature of a great deal of this fighting one must
remember that the whole scene of it was intersected by a perfect maze
of trenches which belonged to the original German third line of
defence, and were therefore familiar to them, while they were {231}
strange to those British troops who now occupied them. All along
these zigzag lines the two parties were only from thirty to fifty
yards apart, so that the broad, deserted plain was really intersected
with narrow runways of desperately active life. Attacks developed in
an instant, bombing parties sprang forward at any moment, rifles were
used at point-blank range, so that an exposed bayonet was often
snapped off by a bullet. "Close to the bombers' keep fifty small
bayonet periscopes, four bayonets, and five foresights of rifles were
shot off in an hour and a half," says an officer present. Over
traverses men pelted each other with anything that was deadly, while
above their heads the great shells for ever screamed and rumbled.

A great effort was made against the trench called "Big Willie,"
running out from the Hohenzollern Redoubt, which had been taken over
by the Guards. In the afternoon of the 8th, after a heavy
bombardment had flailed the position for four hours, there was a
determined rush of bombers upon these trenches, the Germans, our old
friends of the Seventh Westphalian Corps, coming on in three
battalions, each of them down a different communication trench. The
general direction of the attack was from the north and east. The
trenches assaulted were held by the 1st and 2nd Brigades of Guards,
both of which were heavily engaged. The riflemen, however, were
useless, as only a bomber can meet a bomber. At first the stormers
had some success, for, pushing along very valiantly and with great
technical precision, they broke into the section of trench held by
the 3rd Grenadiers, putting out of action most of the bombers and
machine-gunners of that corps. "Our fellows were {232} being bombed
back from traverse to traverse, and we could just see the top of the
Bosche helmets going along the trench." Lieut. Williams, with a
machine-gun, stopped the rush, but was soon shot through the head.
General Ponsonby, commanding the 2nd Brigade, called, however, for
the bombers of the 3rd Coldstream, who swept down the trench, pelted
the Germans out of it, and gloriously avenged the prostrate
Grenadiers. The 2nd Coldstream had themselves been driven back, and
their bomb-store was temporarily captured, but they came back and
regained it after some stark face-to-face fighting, in which Sergeant
Brooks, a British berserker, won his V.C. The remains of the 3rd
Grenadiers also came back, led by Lieut. Geoffrey Gunnis, and cleared
the last corner of what they had lost. The Guards lost 100 men in
this action, many of them blown to pieces by the bombs, but they
entirely cleared the trenches and regained every inch of lost ground.
The fight lasted for two hours and a half, in the course of which
9000 bombs were thrown by the British.

Another focus of strife upon October 8 was the Chalk Pit upon the
Lens-Hulluch road, that tragic spot which had seen in turn the
advance of the Fifteenth Division, of the Twenty-first, and of the
Guards. It had now been taken over by the First Division, who had
come back into the line after a rest. Across that road of death, the
Loos-Hulluch highway, lay the ill-omened Bois Hugo, which offered a
screen for the German advance. Twelve battalions were attacking, and
as many more on the line held by the French. Here the Germans lost
very heavily, going down in heaps before the rifle-fire of the 1st
Gloucesters, 2nd Munster Fusiliers, 9th King's Liverpool, {233} and
other battalions in the First Division firing line. The French 75's
had been equally deadly and successful. Between the position held by
the Guards near the Hohenzollern Redoubt on the left and that of the
First Division at the Chalk Pit on the right, the ground was held by
the Twelfth Division, the 37th Brigade of which (Fowler) was briskly
engaged. The 6th Buffs of this brigade was immediately to the right
of the Vermelles-Hulluch road, with the 6th Royal West Kent
continuing the line northwards down to the Quarries. The 6th Queen's
Surrey and 7th East Surrey were in support. Somewhat to the right
front of this brigade was a position one hundred and fifty yards
wide, called Gun Trench, which was one of the scattered forts which
the enemy still held to the west of the Loos-Hulluch road. An attack
was organised upon this position by Colonel Venables of the West
Kents, who was badly wounded in the venture. The British, led by
Captain Margetts, reached the trench in spite of terrific fire and
corresponding losses, including the whole crew of a machine-gun of
the East Surreys which had been most gallantly rushed to the front by
Lieutenant Gibson. Half the trench was cleared, but the Germans had
themselves been on the point of attacking, and the communications
leading eastwards were stuffed with men--a prolongation, no doubt, of
the same attack which was breaking to the north upon the Guards. The
weak spray of British stormers could make no progress against the
masses in the supporting trenches, and were bombed back to their own
position. It was a brave but fruitless attempt, which was destined
to be renewed with greater success a few days later, when Gun Trench
passed completely into the hands {234} of the British. The West
Kents lost 200 killed and wounded in this affair. At night the whole
line of the French and British defences was inviolate, and though
there was an acute controversy between the official accounts as to
the number of German casualties, it is certain that, whatever they
may have been, they had nothing to show in return, nor is it a sign
of military virtue to recoil from an enterprise with little loss.
The German fighter is a tougher fellow than the cutters-down of his
casualty lists will allow. British losses were comparatively small.

Though the Germans had gained no ground upon the 8th, the British
were averse from allowing them to remain in undisputed possession of
that which they had won upon the 3rd. It was especially upon the
Hohenzollern Redoubt that the British fighting line fixed a menacing
gaze, for it had long been a centre of contention, and had now passed
almost completely into the possession of the enemy. It was
determined to make a vigorous attempt to win it back. The
Forty-sixth North Midland Territorial Division (Stuart-Wortley), who
were veterans of nine months' service at trench warfare, but had not
yet been heavily engaged, were brought up from the rear, and upon
October 12 they relieved the Guards Division on the left of the front
line. At the same time it was planned that there should be an attack
of the First Division to the west of Hulluch, and of the Twelfth
Division in the region of the Quarries. Of these we shall first
describe the attack of the Territorials upon the Hohenzollern Redoubt.

[Sidenote: Attack of the Forty-sixth Division.]

On October 13, at noon, a severe bombardment was opened which
concentrated upon the enclosure of the redoubt, and the space between
that and Fosse 8. {235} This bombardment for some reason does not
seem to have been effective, and even while it went on the sniping
and machine-guns were active in the enemy line. An hour later there
was an emission of gas, borne by a brisk breeze towards the German
trenches, and later still a smoke-cloud was sent out to cover the
advance. At two o'clock the troops dashed over the parapet, the
138th Brigade, consisting of men of Lincoln and Leicester, upon the
left, while the 137th, the men of Stafford, were on the right. In
immediate support was the 139th, a Sherwood Forester Brigade. The
line upon the left was headed by the 4th Leicesters and 5th Lincolns,
the men, with that light-hearted courage which is so intolerable to
the heavier German spirit, singing, "Here we are, here we are, here
we are again!" as they vaulted out of their trenches. The attack
upon the right was led by the 5th North and 5th South Staffords. The
advance was splendidly executed, and won the critical admiration of
some of the Guards who were privileged to see it. In the face of a
murderous fire the attacking line swept, in an order which was only
broken by the fall of stricken men, up to the front-line trench, two
hundred yards in front.

Here, however, the attack was held up by an overwhelming fire. The
5th North Staffords, whose objective was "Big Willie," were
exterminated for all immediate military purposes, their losses being
19 officers and 488 men. The gallant survivors succeeded in getting
as far as a communication trench which led to "Big Willie," and held
on there. The advance of the 5th South Staffords upon the right was
conditional upon the success of their comrades to the left. The
officer commanding the left companies saw that little progress had
been made, and exercised his discretion {236} in holding back his
men. The officer on the right of the South Staffords could not see
what was going on, and advanced his company, with the result that
they ran into the same fatal fire, and lost terribly. The two
reserve companies coming up were only able with very great difficulty
to reach the British front-line trenches, dropping half their number
in the venture. The result of all this slaughter, which seems to
have been entirely due to inadequate artillery preparation, was that
the second line of attack upon the right, consisting of the 6th North
and 6th South Staffords, could do no more than garrison the
front-line trenches, and lost very heavily in doing so.

On the left, however, things had gone better, for at that part our
guns seemed to have made more impression. The advance of the 4th
Leicesters and 5th Lincolns swept over the Hohenzollern Redoubt and
carried the whole of this formidable work up to Fosse Trench. About
a hundred yards short of this point the advance was held up by
concentrated machine-gun fire. The losses had been very heavy,
especially in officers. The rear companies won forward to the front
none the less, and the 4th Lincolns came up also to thicken the
attenuated firing-line. They held their ground with difficulty, but
were greatly helped by their pioneer battalion, the 1st Monmouths,
veterans of Ypres, who rushed forward with rifle and with spade to
consolidate the captured ground.

Bombing parties had been sent out by the British, those on the right
to reach and bomb their way down "Big Willie," those on the left to
clear Fosse Trench. The parties upon the right, drawn from the
various Stafford regiments, got into "Big Willie," and stuck to their
work until they were all destroyed, officers and {237} men. The
enemy bombers then counter-attacked, but were met by Lieutenant
Hawkes with a party of the 5th South Staffords, who drove them back
again. The pressure was very severe, however, until about four in
the afternoon, when the action upon the right died down into a duel
of heavy guns upon either side.

On the left, however, where the gallant Territorial infantry held
hard to its gains, the action was very severe. The bombing attacks
went on with varied fortunes, a company of the 5th Leicesters bombing
its way for more than two hundred yards up "Little Willie" Trench
before its supplies ran out and it had to retire. At three o'clock
there was a fresh infantry advance, the 7th Sherwood Foresters of the
reserve 139th Brigade endeavouring to get forward, but losing so many
in crossing the redoubt that they were unable to sally out from the
farther side. The redoubt was now so crowded with mixed units all
under heavy fire that there might have been a Spion Kop but for the
steadiness of all concerned. At one time the men, finding themselves
practically without officers, began to fall back, but were splendidly
rallied by Colonel Evill of the 1st Monmouths and a few other
survivors. The advent of two companies of the 5th Leicesters
retaining their disciplined order helped to avert the danger, and the
line was formed once again along the western face of the redoubt.
During this movement the 7th Sherwood Foresters who remained in the
north-east of the redoubt were cut off, but with splendid pertinacity
they held their ground, and made their way back when darkness fell.
In the early morning of the 14th, Captain Checkland, with a company
of the 5th Sherwood Foresters, pushed an advance up to the place
where {238} their comrades of the 7th Battalion had been, and found
Captain Vickars of that regiment, who, with of a bravery which
deserves to be classical, defended almost single-handed a barrier,
while he ordered a second one to be built behind him, cutting him off
from all succour. He was desperately wounded, but was brought back
by his comrades.

The 8th Sherwood Foresters had also come to the front, and made a
spirited attack in the early morning of the 14th, driving the enemy
from the western side of the redoubt and firmly establishing the
British gains in that quarter. This gain was permanent, though it
proved to be rather a visible prize for valour than a useful
strategic addition to the line. So long as the sinister, low-lying
dump of Fosse 8 overlooked it and was itself untaken, it was
impossible to make much use of the redoubt. For forty-eight hours
the advanced line was held by the 139th Brigade against several brisk
counter-attacks. At the end of that time the position was handed
over to the safe custody of the Guards, while the Forty-sixth North
Midland Division withdrew from that front line which was of their own
creation. Colonel Martin of the 4th Leicesters, who was shot through
the knee, but refused to move until he saw the result of the attack,
Colonel Fowler of the 8th Sherwoods, Colonel Sandall of the 5th
Lincolns, Major Cooper of the 4th Lincolns, and nearly 4000 officers
and men, were among the casualties during the forty-eight hours of
exposure.

The action was a very desperate one, and nothing could have been
finer than the conduct of all engaged. "It was not the actual
advance, but the holding of the position afterwards, that was
dreaded, as {239} the Germans are so quick at counter-attacking." So
wrote one of the combatants. The dread was well founded, for the
Germans proved to be very numerous and aggressive, and there can be
little doubt that at this period their bombers had a technical
proficiency which was superior to our own, whether their opponents
were Guards or Territorials. It is characteristic of the unique
warfare now prevailing that the contending parties had practically
abandoned rifles, save as so many pikes, and that each man carried a
pouch full of projectiles, the size of a duck's egg, and capable of
disabling a dozen in a single burst. It may be added that both sides
wore leathern helmets, sometimes with the visors up and sometimes
with the face entirely concealed, so that it appeared to be a
murderous strife of the strange, goggle-eyed, mask-faced creatures of
a nightmare. Such were the extraordinary products of modern European
warfare.

Could all the ground taken have been permanently held, this would
have been a fine little victory. So constant has been the phenomenon
that the extreme point cannot be held that it could now be stated as
an axiom for either side, and seemed to suggest that the methods of
attack should be in some way modified. Each successive line of
resistance has decreased the momentum of the stormers and has helped
to lessen their store of bombs, while the farther they have advanced
the more difficult it is for fresh men or supplies to reach them.
Then, again, their diminished numbers have caused a contraction and
bunching of the line, so enabling the counter-attack to get round
their flanks. Add to this the physical exhaustion caused by extreme
exertions while carrying a considerable weight, and one has the
factors which always {240} produce the same result, and which led
eventually to the more fruitful tactics of the limited objective.

When the Forty-sixth Midland Division advanced upon the Hohenzollern
Redoubt on October 13, there was a brisk attack also by the Twelfth
Division upon their right, and by the First Division on the right of
the Twelfth. In the case of the Twelfth Division, now commanded by
General Scott, the 37th Brigade (Fowler) was heavily engaged. The
7th East Surreys of this brigade carried and permanently held the Gun
Trench, a position which had cost them the lives of many officers and
men upon the 8th. Attacking the same line of trenches to the left,
the 6th Buffs lost heavily under oblique fire, without any
appreciable gain. Of three companies who went out, 11 officers and
400 men were left upon the ground, and a photograph has revealed the
perfect alignment of the dead. The 35th Brigade (Straubensee) had a
similar experience to the left near the Quarries, the losses falling
most heavily upon the 5th Berkshires and the 7th Norfolks.

At the same hour the First Division, with a smoke and gas screen
before them, had broken in upon the German lines to the south-west of
Hulluch, near the Hulluch-Lens road. About a thousand yards of
trenches were taken, but the shell-fire was so murderous that it was
found to be impossible to retain them. On the whole, it must be
admitted that, although ground was gained along the whole line from
the Hohenzollern Redoubt to Hulluch by this very desperate fighting,
the losses were so heavy and the results so barren that there was no
adequate return for the splendid efforts of the men. The attack was
urged by Territorials upon the left, New Army men {241} in the
centre, and Regulars upon the right, and at all points it was equally
gallant.

The operations at the main seat of action, the Loos sector, have been
treated continuously in order to make a consecutive narrative, but we
must now return to consider the subsidiary attacks along the line
upon September 25.

[Sidenote: Subsidiary attacks.]

While the First and Fourth Corps, supported by the Eleventh, had been
delivering this great attack between La Bassée and Grenay, a series
of holding actions had been fought from the coast downwards, so as to
pin the Germans so far as possible to their places. Some of these
attacks were little more than demonstrations, while others in less
serious times would have appeared to be considerable engagements.

The Second Regular Division (Horne), acting upon the extreme left of
the main attack, was astride of the La Bassée Canal. The most
northern brigade, the 5th (Cochrane's), was opposite to Givenchy, and
its advance seems to have been intended rather as a distraction than
as a serious effort. It took place half an hour or so before the
general attack in the hope of misleading them as to the British
plans. At the signal the three leading regiments, the 1st Queen's
Surrey, the 2nd Oxford and Bucks, and the 2nd Highland Light
Infantry, dashed forward and carried the trench line which faced
them. The 9th Glasgow Highlanders advanced upon their right. The
attack was unable to make any further progress, but the fight was
sustained for several hours, and had the desired effect of occupying
the local forces of the enemy and preventing them from detaching
reinforcements to the south.

The same remark would apply to the forward {242} movement of the 58th
Brigade of the Nineteenth Division to the immediate north of
Givenchy. This division of the New Army is mainly English in
composition, but on this their first serious engagement the work fell
chiefly upon two Welsh battalions, the 9th Welsh and the 9th Welsh
Fusiliers. Both these corps sustained heavy losses, but sacrificed
themselves, as so many others were obliged to do, in keeping up the
appearance of an attack which was never seriously intended.

Taking the subsidiary attacks from the south upwards, we come next to
that of the Indians in the vicinity of Neuve Chapelle. This was a
very brilliant affair, carried out with the true Indian tiger spring.
Had it been possible to support by adequate reserves of men and an
unrestricted gun-fire, it had in it the possibility of a fine
victory. The attack was carried out by the Meerut Division, with the
Garhwali Brigade on the right and the Bareilly upon the left, the
Dehra Dun being in reserve. On the right the Garhwalis were partly
held up by wire, but the Bareillys came through everything and swept
into the front-line trenches, taking 200 unwounded prisoners of the
Seventh Westphalian Corps. Two battalions of the Black Watch, the
2nd and 4th, with the 69th Sikhs, were in the lead, a combination
which has broken many a battle line before. The 58th Rifles
(Vaughan's) and a second Sikh regiment, the 33rd, thickened the
attack, and they swept forward into the second-line trenches, which
they also cleared. They were now half a mile within the enemy's
position, and both their flanks were open to attack. The reserve
brigade was hurried up, but the trenches were blocked with wounded
and prisoners, so that progress was very difficult. The German
counter-attack was {243} delivered with great energy and valour. It
took the form of strong bombing parties acting upon each exposed
flank. The 8th Gurkhas, who had been the only battalion which
succeeded in breaking through on the right, linked up with the 4th
Black Watch, holding back the flank advance to the south, but to the
north the Germans got so far forward that the advanced Indians were
practically cut off. The immediate neighbours of the Indians to the
north were the 60th Brigade of the Twentieth Division, another
English division of the New Army. Two battalions of this brigade,
the 12th Rifle Brigade and the 6th Shropshires, were thrown into the
fight, and covered the threatened flank until their supply of
bombs--more and more an essential of modern warfare--was exhausted.
It was clearly necessary that the advanced troops should be drawn
back, since the reserves could not be got up to support them, and the
need was becoming very great. In a little they might be attacked on
front and rear with the chance of disaster. The Sikhs and
Highlanders fell back, therefore, with great steadiness, but enduring
heavy losses. In the end no ground was gained, but considerable
punishment was inflicted as well as suffered, the German trenches
being full of their dead. The primary purpose of holding them to
their ground was amply fulfilled. It cannot be denied, however, that
in this, as in so many other episodes of the Battle of Loos, the
German showed himself to be a stubborn fighter, who rises superior to
temporary defeat and struggles on while there is still a chance of
victory. His superior supply of bombs had also a good deal to do
with the success of his counter-attack.

Whilst this very sharp conflict had been raging {244} on the Indian
line, the Eighth Division to the north was engaged in a very similar
operation in the region of Bois-Grenier. The course of events was
almost exactly the same in each instance. The attack of the Eighth
Division was carried out by the 25th Brigade (Stephens). The 2nd
Rifle Brigade were on the right, the 2nd Berks in the centre, and the
2nd Lincoln upon the left. The front trench was carried, and 120 men
of the Sixth Bavarian Reserve Division fell into the hands of the
stormers. Part of the second line was also captured. The positions
were held for the greater part of the day, and it was not until four
in the afternoon that the increasing pressure of the counter-attack
drove the British back to their original line. Here again the object
of detention had been fully achieved.

The most important, however, of all the subsidiary attacks was that
which was carried out to the extreme north of the line in the
district of Hooge. This attack was made by the Fifth Corps, which
had changed both its general and its divisions since the days of its
long agony in May. It was now commanded by General Allenby, and it
consisted of the Third Regular Division (Haldane), the Fourteenth
Light Infantry Division of the New Army (Couper), and the Forty-sixth
Division of Midland Territorials (Stuart-Wortley), the fine work of
which at a later stage of the operations has already been described.
The first two of these units bore the brunt upon September 25. The
advance, which was across the old bloody ground of Bellewaarde, was
signalled by the explosion of a large mine under the German position
in the trenches immediately south of that Via Dolorosa, the
Ypres-Menin road.

{245}

The attack upon the left was made by the 42nd Brigade (Markham), all
four battalions, the 5th Oxford and Bucks, 5th Shropshires, 9th Rifle
Brigade, and 9th Rifles being strongly engaged. The German trenches
were reached and occupied, but after some hours the counter-attack
proved to be too strong, and the brigade fell back to its original
line.

Two brigades of the Third Division attacked in the centre in the
direction of Bellewaarde Lake. The 7th Brigade upon the left ran
into unbroken wire, before which the leading regiments, the 2nd Irish
Rifles and the 2nd South Lancashire, sustained heavy losses while
making no progress. The 8th Brigade to the south of them had better
fortune, however. This brigade, strengthened by the 1st Scots
Fusiliers, made a fine advance immediately after the great mine
explosion. Some 200 prisoners and a considerable stretch of trench
were captured. A redoubt had been taken by the 4th Gordons, and was
held by them and by the 4th Middlesex, but the bombardment in the
afternoon was so terrific that it had to be abandoned. By evening
the original line had been reoccupied, the division having certainly
held the Germans to their ground, but at very heavy cost to
themselves. As these various attacks from the 5th Brigade at the La
Bassée Canal to the Fourteenth Division at Ypres never entered into
the scheme of the main fight, it is not to be wondered at that they
ended always as they began. Heavy loss of life was doubtless
incurred in nearly every case. Sad as it is that men should die in
movements which are not seriously intended, operations of this kind
must be regarded as a whole, and the man who drops in an attack which
from the beginning has been a mere pretence has enjoyed as {246}
heroic an end as he who falls across the last parapet with the yell
of victory in his dying ears.

[Sidenote: Results.]

A modern battle is a sudden furious storm, which may blow itself out
in two or three days, but leaves such a tempestuous sea behind it
that it is difficult to say when the commotion is really over. In
the case of the Battle of Loos, or of Loos-Hulluch, it may be said to
have begun with the British advance upon September 25, and to have
ended with the establishment of an equilibrium on the northern flank
of our salient on October 13. From that time onwards for many weeks
comparative peace rested upon this sector. A time therefore, has
come when the operations may be reviewed as a whole. The net result
was a gain to the British of nearly seven thousand yards of front and
four thousand of depth, though if one be asked what exact advantage
this gain brought, save as a visible sign of military virtue, it is
hard to find an answer. Had the gain gone to that farther distance
which was hoped for and aimed at, the battle might, as in the case of
the French in Champagne, have been a considerable victory. As it
was, the best that we can claim is that one or two more such advances
in the same neighbourhood would bring the valuable French coal-fields
back to their rightful owners. The most substantial proofs of
victory were 3000 prisoners, including 57 officers, 26 field-guns,
and 40 machine-guns. On the other hand, in the mixed fighting of the
26th we lost not fewer than 1000 prisoners, including a
brigadier-general. Altogether the losses to the Army during the
three weeks of fighting were not less than 50,000 men and 2000
officers. A large proportion of these were wounded.

{247}

There are some consolations for our limited success in this venture.
Having started to endeavour to break the German line in one movement,
it was natural to persevere, but now that we can see from how strong
a hand our enemy played, we may well ask ourselves whether a more
successful advance upon the 26th and 27th might not have led to grave
troubles. The French had been held on the right; the Second Division
was stationary upon the left. Therefore we were advancing from a
contracted base, and the farther the advance went the more it
resembled a long, thin tongue protruded between the jaws of the
enemy. There was considerable danger that the enemy, closing in on
either flank while holding the advance in front, might have bitten it
off, for we know for certain that we had none of those successive
rolling waves of reinforcement coming up which would turn an ebb to a
flood. However, as it was we had much for which to be thankful.
When one thinks of the almost superstitious reverence with which the
German army used to be regarded--an army which had never once been
really beaten during three European campaigns--it is surely a just
cause for sober satisfaction that a British force, half of which
consisted of new formations, should have driven such an enemy with
loss of prisoners and guns out of a triple line of fortifications,
strengthened by every device of modern art, and should afterwards
have permanently held the greater part of the field against every
effort at reconquest.

The account of this great battle, a battle in which from first to
last no fewer than twelve British divisions were engaged in the Loos
area alone, cannot be concluded without a word as to the splendid
French {248} success won in Champagne during the same period. There
is a great similarity between the two operations, but the French
attacked with at least three times as many men upon a threefold
broader front. As in our own case, their best results were gained in
the first spring, and they were able to continue their gains for
several days, until, like ourselves, they found that the
consolidating defence was too strong for the weakening attack. Their
victory was none the less a very great one, yielding 25,000 prisoners
and 125 captured cannon. It is impossible to doubt that both French
and British if they duly learned their lessons, and if they continued
to accumulate their resources, were now on the path which would lead
them to final victory.

Before settling down into the inactivity enforced by the Flemish mud,
there was one further brisk skirmish upon October 20 in that old
battle-ground, the Hohenzollern Redoubt. This was a bombing attack,
organised by the 2nd Irish Guards and led by Captain Hubbard. The
Irishmen were new to the game, and somewhat outclassed at first by
the more experienced Germans, but under the gallant encouragement of
Lieutenant Tallents, who rallied them after being himself badly
wounded, they turned the tide, and, aided by the Coldstream, made
good the section attacked. Lieutenant Hamilton was killed and 60 men
killed or wounded in this brisk encounter.

[Sidenote: Coming of winter.]

So, for a second time, wet, foggy winter settled down upon the
water-logged, clay-bottomed trenches. Little did those who had
manned them at Christmas of 1914 imagine that Christmas of 1915 would
find them in the same position. Even their brave hearts would have
sunk at the thought. And yet a move {249} back of a couple of miles
at Ypres, and a move forward of the same extent in the south, were
all that either side could show for a year's hard work and the loss
of so many thousand lives. Bloch, the military prophet of 1898, had
indeed been justified of his wisdom. Far off, where armies could
move, the year had seen great fluctuations. The Russians had been
pushed out of Poland and far over their own borders. Serbia had been
overrun. Montenegro was on the verge of utter destruction. The
great attempt upon the Dardanelles had been made and had failed,
after an epic of heroism which will surely live for ever in our
history and in that of our brave Australian and New Zealand brothers.
We had advanced in Mesopotamia to within sight of the minarets of
Bagdad, and yet again we had been compelled to leave our task
unfinished and our little force was besieged at Kut. The one new
gleam of light in the whole year had been the adhesion of Italy to
the cause of Freedom. And yet, though nearly every detail had been
adverse to us, our deepest instincts told us that the stream did in
truth move with us, however great and confusing might be the surface
current. Here on the long western line, motionless, but not passive,
locked in a vast strain which grew ever more tense, was the real war.
All others were subsidiary. And here in this real war, the one
theatre where decisive results could be looked for, our position was
very different in the opening of 1916 to that which 1915 had shown
us. In the year our actual Army in France had grown three- and
fourfold. The munitions had increased in far greater proportions.
The days had gone for ever when a serious action meant three months
of shell economy before the fight and three months {250} of
recuperation after it. To the gunners it was like an evil dream to
look back to the days when three shots per day was the allowance, and
never save on a definite target. Now, thanks to the driving power of
Lloyd George and his admirable band of assistants, there would never
again be a dearth, and no attack should ever languish for want of the
means to follow it up. Our guns, too, were clustering ever more
thickly and looming ever larger. Machine-guns were pouring forth,
though there, perhaps, we had not yet overtaken our enemy. Above
all, our Fleet still held the seas, cries of distress or at least of
discomfort from within Germany rose ever more clearly, and it was
certain that the sufferings which she had so wantonly and wickedly
inflicted upon others were beginning to be repaid to her. "Gott"
does indeed "strafe," and needs no invocation, but now, as always, it
is on the guilty that the rod falls. The close of 1915 found the
Empire somewhat disappointed at the past, but full of grim resolution
for the future.

[Sidenote: Change of command.]

One event had occurred in the latter end of the year which cannot be
allowed to pass without comment. This was the retirement of Sir John
French, and his return as Lord French to take command of the home
forces. It is a difficult matter to get the true proportion, either
of events or of characters, in so great an epoch as this. It will be
years before the true scale will gradually be found. At the same
time it can be said now with absolute certainty that the name of John
French will go down to history for the sterling work that he has done
during sixteen months of extreme military pressure. Nothing which
the future could bring, however terrific our task, could {251} be
charged with the same possibilities of absolute disaster as those
operations of the past through which he and his brilliant
subordinates had successfully brought the Army. His was the
preparation of the troops before the campaign, his the
responsibilities of mobilisation, and his the primary credit that
they were in the fighting line by August 22, 1914--they who, upon
August 4, had been scattered without their reserves or full equipment
over a dozen garrison towns. This alone was a great feat. Then came
the long, desperate fight to make head against a superior foe, the
rally, the return, the fine change of position, the long struggle for
the coast, the victory saddened by the practical annihilation of the
old Regular Army, the absorption and organisation of the new
elements, the resumption of the offensive, and that series of
spirited actions which, if they never attained full success, were
each more formidable than the last, and were all preparatory
exercises for the great Somme battles of 1916. This was the record
which Lord French took back with him to the Horse Guards, and it is
one which can never be forgotten by his fellow-countrymen.

Sir Douglas Haig, who succeeded to the chief command, was the leader
who would undoubtedly have been called to the vacant post by both
Army and public had leaders been chosen in the old Pretorian fashion.
From the beginning he and Smith-Dorrien had been the right and left
hands of the Chief, and now that ill-health had unhappily eliminated
the latter, Haig's claim was paramount. Again and again he had borne
the heaviest part in the fighting, and had saved the situation when
it seemed desperate. He was a man of the type which the {252}
British love, who shines the brighter against a dark background.
Youthful for so high a command, and of with a frame and spirit which
were even younger than his years, with the caution of a Scotchman and
the calculated dash of a leader of cavalry, he was indeed the ideal
man for a great military crisis. No task might seem impossible to
the man who had held back the German tide at Ypres. With Haig in
command and with an Army which was ever growing in numbers, in
quality, and in equipment, the British waited with quiet confidence
for the campaign of 1916.

{253}

INDEX

Ainslie, General, 162

Alderson, General, 50, 57, 62, 134, 143

Alexander, Captain, 223

Allenby, General, 142, 244

Anley, General, 75, 86, 104, 155

Army Medical Service, 1

Aston, Lieutenant, 30

Baldock, General, 142

Ballard, General, 29, 152

Bannatine-Allason, General, 143

Barnett, Major, 161

Barrett, Captain Moulton, 35

Barter, General, 136, 143, 190, 192

Barton, Captain, 37

Bearman, Captain, 130

Beatty, Admiral Sir David, 168

Beecher, Lieutenant-Colonel, 146

Beith, Captain, 192

Bellewaarde, battle of, 82

Bennett, Captain Leigh, 5

Bernhardi and our Colonial Militia, 57

Bibby, Lieutenant, 17

Blagrove, Adjutant, 161

Bliss, Colonel, 17

Bottomley, Major, 130

Bowes, General, 90, 108, 150

Boyle, Colonel, 51, 52, 72

Bridgford, Colonel, 70

Briggs, General, 98

Brook, Colonel, 131

Brooks, Sergeant, V.C., 232

Bruce, General, 181, 195

Bulfin, General, 42, 109, 142, 144, 225, 226

Bulgaria joins the Central Powers, 171

Bulkeley-Johnson, General, 100

Burchall, Colonel, 56, 72

Burnett, Captain, 36

Burney, Staff-Major, 219

Burnyeat, Lieutenant, 35

Bush, Lieutenant, 4

Byng, General Sir Julian, 142

Cameron of Lochiel, Colonel, 183

Campbell, General, 149, 216

Campbell, Colonel, 41

Campbell, Major Carter, 18

Campbell-Dick, Captain, 123

Capper, General, 143, 201, 228

Carmichael, Captain, 14

Carter, General, 22

Carter, Colonel, 23

Carter, Captain, 201

Cavan, Lord, 5, 133, 221

Cavendish, Colonel Lord Richard, 77

Champagne, French offensive in, 170, 248

Chaplin, Colonel, 160

Chapman, General, 106

Checkland, Captain, 237

Chesham, Lord, 103

Clark, Colonel James, 94

Clark, Lieutenant, 90

Clifford, Lieutenant, 223

Coates, Captain, 213

Cochrane, General, 179, 241

Cockburn, General, 161

Collison-Morley, Colonel, 196

Compton, Lord, 103

Congreve, General, V.C., 142, 144, 161

Cooper, Major, 238

Couper, General, 142, 156, 244

Crabb, Lieutenant, 9

Craig, Lieutenant, 146

Croker, General, 93

Cuinchy, action of, 2

Curry, General, 59

Cuthbert, General, 136, 192

Daly, General, 179

Dardanelles, attempt to force the, 168, 170, 249

Davies, General, 143, 144

De Ligne, General, 65

De Lisle, General, 52, 66, 96, 109

Dent, Major, 207

Dering, Captain, 36

Dickens, General, 181

Dill, Major, 119

Dobson, Major, 215

D'Urbal, General, 6

Edgar, Major, 135

Edwards, Captain, 92

Egerton, Staff-Captain, 38

Elton, Lieutenant, 31

Evans-Freke, Colonel the Hon., 103

Evill, Colonel, 237

Fane, Captain, 95

Fanshawe, General, 23, 143

Farquhar, Colonel, 34

Ferguson, General, 7, 42, 109, 142

Ferguson, Colonel, 103

Ferrers, Captain, 17

Festubert, battle of, 115

Feveran, Captain, 23

Field, Lieutenant Hamilton, 49

Fielding, General, 221

Finegan, Captain, 149

Flower, Brigade-Major, 226

Foch, General, 166, 172, 225

Follett, Captain, 31

Forbes, Colonel, 31

Forestier-Walker, General, 203, 206, 208

Fortescue, General, 8, 10, 31, 108

Fowkes, Major, 6

Fowler, General, 233, 240

Fowler, Colonel, 238

Fraser, Colonel, 131

Freke, Colonel, 103

French, General Sir John, 12, 13, 42, 43, 97, 115, 125, 176, 196,
197, 217, 225, 250, 251

Fry, Lieutenant, 30

Gabbett, Colonel, 130

Gardner, Major, 11

Gault, Major, 89

Geddes, Colonel, 55, 72

Geen, Lieutenant, 160

George, Right Hon. David Lloyd, 137, 250

Gibson, Lieutenant, 233

Givenchy, actions at, 3, 145, 147

Gloster, General, 55, 213

Gough, General, killed, 8, 34

Gough, General Hubert, 175, 185

Gough, Colonel Worsley, 95

Graham, Colonel, 182

Graham, Major, 182

Graham, Lieutenant, 5

Green, Lieutenant, 4

Greenlees, Lieutenant, 130

Grenfell, Captain the Hon. J., 103

Griffin, Colonel, 155

Griffith, Colonel, 39

Griffiths, Major Norton, 35

Gunnis, Lieutenant Geoffrey, 232

Hadow, Colonel, 207

Haig, General Sir Douglas, 7, 13, 29, 115, 143, 144, 175, 251, 252

Haldane, General, 142, 144, 244

Hamilton, Colonel (Durham Light Infantry), 213

Hamilton, Colonel Douglas, 202

Hamilton, Lieutenant, 248

Harper, General, 24

Harrington, Captain, 25

Harrison, Captain, 31

Hasler, General, 64, 72

Hassell, Lieutenant, 130

Hawkes, Lieutenant, 237

Heath, Colonel, 187

Heyworth, General, 129, 221

Hibbert, General, 147

Hicks, Colonel, 73

Hill 60, battle of, 34-44

Hill 70, fight for, 202-225

Hohenzollern Redoubt, fight for, 220-240

Hooge, action at, 140-165

Horne, General, 179, 241

Hosley, Major, 182

Howard, Major, 210

Hubbard, Captain, 248

Hull, General, 62, 72, 76, 104

Hutton, General Sir Edward, 206

Italy joins the Allies, 171, 249

Jackson, Colonel, 105

Jacob, General, 19

James, Lieutenant, 4

Jelf, General, 219, 220, 221

Jellicoe, Admiral Sir John, 167

Jerome, Colonel, 42

Johnson, Major, 149

Johnston, Captain, 43

Jones, Colonel, 100

Joslin, Major, 35, 36

Kavanagh, General, 66, 101

Keary, General, 65

Keir, General, 142

Kelly, Lieutenant, 146

Khartoum, Bishop of, 133

Kipling, Lieutenant, 223

Kitchener, Lord, 137

Kut, British force besieged in, 170, 249

Laidlaw, Piper, V.C., 190

Landon, General, 143, 144, 181

Langden, Captain, 220

Langemarck, battle of, 45

Laskie, Captain, 216

Lawford, General, 129

Lawrence, Colonel, 99

Lawrence, Lieutenant, 188

Leckie, Colonel, 51, 52

Leckie, Major, 134

Lees, Major, 39

Leveson-Gower, Lord, 103

Liebenrood, Captain, 213

Lindsay, General, 142

Lipsett, Colonel, 65

Livingstone, Colonel, 219

Logan, Colonel, 213

Lomax, General, 109

Longley, General, 8, 29

Loos, battle of, 172-252; operations reviewed, 246

Lord, Major, 130

Loveband, Colonel, 105

Lowry-Cole, General, 16, 116, 119

Lowther, General, 123

_Lusitania_, sinking of the, 125

McAndrew, Colonel, 16

M'Cracken, General, 189

McGee, Colonel, 59

McHaig, Colonel, 72

MacIvor, Captain, 220

Maclean, Colonel, 182

McLean, Colonel, 26, 28

MacNaughton, Major, 4

M'Neil, Lieutenant, 191, 214

Mallandain, Lieutenant, 64

Margetts, Captain, 233

Markham, General, 245

Martin, Colonel (Lancaster), 72

Martin, Colonel (Leicester), 238

Mathieson, Lieutenant, 19

Maude, General, 34

Mercer, General, 53, 56

Mesopotamia, campaign in, 170

Miller, Lieutenant, 79

Mitford, General, 203, 214

Mitford, Major the Hon. C. B., 103

Monro, General, 109, 134, 165

Moriarty, Colonel, 105

Morland, General, 35, 41, 42, 142, 144, 165

Morrison-Bell, Major, M.P., 2

Neale, Colonel, 227

Neuve Chapelle, battle of, 12-28

Neville, Captain, 97

Nicholls, General, 208, 210

Nicholson, General, 163

Niven, Lieutenant, 89, 90

Norsworthy, Major, 58

Northey, General, 38, 42

Noyes, Major, 207

Nugent, General, 157, 160, 161

O'Gowan, General Wanless, 6, 35, 38, 42

Oldham, Major Leslie, 34

O'Leary, Private Michael, V.C., 5

Oxley, General, 120

Papineau, Lieutenant, 9, 90

Paterson, Major, 40

Paynter, Colonel, 28

Pereira, General, 226

Phillips, Hon. C. E. A., 103

Pickersgill, Lieutenant, 107

Pinney, General, 16, 18

Plumer, General, 7, 8, 10, 29, 46, 92, 96, 109, 142, 143

Ponsonby, General, 221, 232

Prowse, General, 77, 154

Prowse, Colonel, 31

Pryce, Captain Mostyn, 32

Pulman, Captain, 19

Pulteney, General, 7, 143

Purvis, Colonel, 191

Putz, General, 45

Ramsay, General Sir John, 23, 204

Ramsay, Colonel, 189

Rawlinson, General Sir Henry, 7, 14, 116, 175, 185

Rees, Captain, 4

Regiments:

_Artillery--_

Durham Territorial Artillery, 107

Hon. Artillery Company, 152

R.F.A., 40th Brigade, 5; 52nd Brigade, 185; 94th Brigade, 215

_Cavalry--_

1st Life Guards, 97

2nd Life Guards, 97

Royal Horse Guards (Blues), 97, 103

1st Dragoons (Royals), 79, 103

3rd Dragoon Guards, 97, 110

4th Dragoon Guards, 98

5th Dragoon Guards, 98

10th Hussars, 97

11th Hussars, 8, 98

18th Hussars, 98, 106

9th Lancers, 98, 106

16th Lancers, 8

Essex Yeomanry, 97, 103

Leicestershire Yeomanry, 97, 103

North Somerset Yeomanry, 97, 103

_Guards--_

Coldstream, 2, 4, 5, 6, 134, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 232, 248

Grenadier, 25, 26, 28, 129, 133, 221, 223, 224, 231, 232

Irish, 5, 6, 133, 221, 222, 223, 224, 232, 248

Scots, 2, 4, 25, 28, 129, 130, 221, 222, 223, 225

Welsh, 221, 224

_Infantry--_

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 72, 76, 86, 92, 94, 105, 180,
184, 192

Artists' Rifles (28th London), 136

Bedford, 37, 38, 39, 78, 80, 203

Berkshire, 16, 28, 119, 120, 127, 180, 188, 240, 244

Black Watch, 3, 4, 120, 123, 125, 149, 184, 190, 194, 200, 225,
242, 243

Border, 25, 28, 129

Buffs (East Kent), 54, 77, 106, 107, 163, 165, 204, 205, 226,
227, 228, 233, 240

Cambridge, 30

Cameron Highlanders, 3, 41, 93, 94, 123, 131, 183, 188, 190, 191,
194, 200, 202

Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), 17, 28, 120, 147, 148, 190

Cheshire, 91, 108

Connaught Rangers, 68

Devon, 17, 18, 40, 41, 78, 80, 120, 185, 186

Dorset, 78, 80

Dublin Fusiliers, 72, 92, 105

Duke of Cornwall's, 8, 29, 30, 55, 71, 159, 160, 161

Durham Light Infantry, 60, 62, 64, 69, 106, 107, 160, 162, 164,
165, 213

East Lancashire, 18, 19, 64, 85, 86, 92, 99, 105, 120

East Surrey, 38, 39, 40, 64, 92, 106, 204, 227, 233, 240

East Yorkshire, 52, 58, 77, 86, 89, 162, 165, 206, 207

Essex, 75, 76, 98, 100, 105, 204

Gloucester, 3, 4, 93, 95, 123, 125, 188, 232

Gordon Highlanders, 25, 26, 28, 129, 147, 149, 184, 185, 190,
195, 245

Hampshire, 34, 65, 69, 86, 99

Herts, 133

Highland Light Infantry, 131, 133, 182, 190, 191, 241

Inniskilling Fusiliers, 127

Irish Fusiliers, 98

King's Liverpool, 23, 127, 128, 133, 149, 179, 187, 189, 232

King's Own Royal Lancaster, 71, 75, 77

King's Own Scottish Borderers, 35, 36, 42, 182, 183, 189, 190

King's Royal Rifles, 24, 71, 157, 158, 159, 160

Lancashire Fusiliers, 75, 76, 155

Leicester, 19, 28, 163, 235, 236, 237, 238

Leinster, 31, 33, 95

Lincoln, 16, 28, 119, 120, 150, 151, 208, 210, 214, 235, 236,
238, 244

Liverpool, 122

Liverpool Scottish, 150, 151, 153

London Rifle Brigade, 85, 99

London Scottish, 3, 187

1st London, 16, 28, 119

3rd London, 19, 28

6th London, 192

7th London, 192

8th London, 192

9th London (Queen Victoria Rifles), 38, 39, 136

12th London (Rangers), 60, 91, 92, 136

13th London (Kensington), 16, 28, 119, 121

15th London (Civil Service), 192

17th London (Poplar), 193, 196

18th London (Irish), 136, 192, 193, 196

19th London (St. Pancras), 193, 196

20th London (Blackheath), 136, 192, 193, 196

21st London, 136

22nd London, 136

23rd London, 136

24th London, 136

Manchester, 68

Middlesex, 17, 18, 55, 69, 92, 107, 180, 201, 227, 245

Monmouth, 35, 60, 75, 83, 85, 89, 91, 108, 236, 237

Munster Fusiliers, 123, 232

Norfolk, 201, 203, 240

Northampton, 5, 18, 120, 122, 188, 201, 219

North Lancashire, 122, 147, 148, 188

North Staffordshire, 235, 236

Northumberland Fusiliers, 68, 91, 108, 150, 151, 206, 207, 216

Oxford and Bucks, 131, 241, 245

Queen Victoria Rifles, 38, 39, 136

Queen's Westminsters, 136, 162, 164

Queen's (West Surrey), 129, 186, 204, 233, 241

Rifle Brigade, 16, 26, 28, 32, 58, 77, 89, 94, 98, 105, 119, 120,
154, 157, 158, 243, 244, 245

Rifles, 3, 10, 20, 31, 32, 90, 94, 98, 122, 127, 180, 188, 201,
245

Royal Fusiliers, 64, 65, 69, 77, 106, 107, 150, 151, 201, 219, 227

Royal Irish, 8, 31, 55, 62, 75, 85, 105

Royal Irish Fusiliers, 8, 30, 72, 86

Royal Irish Rifles, 16, 28, 119, 120, 245

Royal Lancaster, 9, 55, 85, 86, 104, 148

Royal Scots, 55, 94, 95, 129, 184, 192

Royal Scots Fusiliers, 28, 150, 151, 184, 191, 245

Royal West Kent, 9, 35, 36, 42, 204, 205, 233, 234

Seaforth Highlanders, 22, 28, 62, 72, 182, 184, 190, 194, 200

Sherwood Foresters, 18, 25, 28, 120, 162, 164, 165, 204, 235,
237, 238

Shropshire, 32, 55, 70, 89, 163, 165, 243, 245

Somerset Light Infantry, 77, 154, 208, 209

South Lancashire, 75, 83, 86, 245

South Staffordshire, 24, 129, 130, 179, 185, 235, 236, 237

South Wales Borderers, 4, 123, 125

Suffolk, 60, 90, 91, 108, 204, 205, 229

Sussex, 3, 5, 122, 188, 201, 220

Warwick, 72, 92, 129, 130, 155, 185, 186

Welsh, 4, 108, 123, 189, 198, 203, 229, 242

Welsh Fusiliers, 123, 129, 130, 180, 242

West Riding, 37, 71, 79, 80

West Yorkshire, 17, 18, 25, 210

Wiltshire, 29, 134, 152

Worcester, 18, 26, 28, 29, 127, 128, 152, 201

York and Lancaster, 55, 71, 77, 92, 163, 165, 208, 209, 227

Yorkshire, 206, 207, 208, 210

Yorkshire Light Infantry, 37, 86, 213, 215, 216, 227

Royal Engineers, 11, 35, 36, 38, 42, 43, 79, 84, 195, 198, 219

_Canadian--_

1st Canadians (Ontario), 53, 146

2nd Canadians, 53

3rd Canadians (Toronto), 53, 135

4th Canadians, 53

5th Canadians, 50, 135

7th Canadians (British Columbia), 135

8th Canadians (Winnipeg Rifles), 50, 65

10th Canadians, 51, 134, 135

13th Canadians (Royal Highlanders), 50, 53, 57, 58, 59, 134

14th Canadians (Montreal), 59, 134

15th Canadians (48th Highlanders), 50, 57, 58

16th Canadian Scottish, 51, 134

Princess Patricia's, 9, 32, 89, 98

King Edward's Horse, 137

Seely's Mounted Brigade, 137

Strathcona's Horse, 137

_Indian Army--_

129th Baluchis, 68

39th Garhwalis, 19, 28

1st Gurkhas, 71

3rd Gurkhas, 19, 20, 22, 28

4th Gurkhas, 22, 28, 71

8th Gurkhas, 19, 243

58th Indian Rifles (Vaughan's), 242

3rd Indian Sappers and Miners, 67

Jats, 22

34th Pioneers, 67

15th Sikhs, 133

33rd Sikhs, 242

69th Sikhs, 242

Rhodes, Lieutenant Arthur, 107

Rhodes-Moorhouse, Lieutenant, 73

Richard, Colonel, 123

Richebourg, battle of, 115

Richmond, Captain, 3

Riddell, General, 69, 72

Ritchie, General, 181

Ritchie, Lieutenant, 223

Roberts, Colonel, 227

Robertson, General, 180

Robins, Captain, 79

Robinson, Colonel, 91

Romer, Colonel, 205

Roupell, Lieutenant, V.C., 40

Rowe, Colonel Fisher, 28

Rutter, Major, 99

St. Eloi, action of, 29

Sackville, Lieutenant, 32

Sandall, Colonel, 238

Sandeman, Lieutenant, 49

Scott, General, 240

Scott, Lieutenant, 105

Seebold, Lieutenant, 183

Selby-Smith, Captain, 32

Sempill, Colonel Lord, 184

Severne, Lieutenant, 43

Shackles, Lieutenant, 220

Shipley, Colonel, 39

Sladen, Colonel, 36

Smith, General Douglas, 6, 150

Smith-Bingham, Colonel, 103

Smith-Dorrien, General Sir Horace, 7, 12, 13, 23, 29, 35, 46, 53, 66,
67, 142, 251

Smyth, Lieutenant, 133

Snow, General, 8, 109, 143, 144, 165

Somervail, Lieutenant, 18

Southey, General, 19

Sparling, Major, 183

Stansfeld, Colonel, 187

Steele, Colonel, 103

Stephens, General, 244

Stockwell, Captain, 130

Stockwell, Captain (Canadians), 146

Storer, Major, 210

Straubensee, General, 240

Stronguist, Captain, 213

Stuart, Colonel, 152

Stuart-Wortley, General, 142, 234, 244

Suatt, Captain, 23

Summerhays, Lieutenant, 39

Sutton, Sir Robert, 103

Tallents, Lieutenant, 248

Taylor, Major, 210

Thesiger, General, 32, 122, 181, 219, 228

Thwaites, General, 136, 192, 215

Townshend, General, 170

Towsey, Colonel, 162

Tulloh, Colonel, 93

Turner, General, 51

Uniacke, Colonel, 28

Vandenburg, Lieutenant, 90

Vansittart, Colonel, 205

Venables, Colonel, 233

Vickars, Captain, 238

Wallace, Colonel, 60, 91

Walter, Colonel, 210

Watson, Lieutenant, 39

Watts, General, 21

Way, Colonel, 207

Webb, Lieutenant, 23

Wendover, Viscount, 103

Widdington, Major, 10

Wilkinson, General, 206

Willcocks, General Sir James, 116

Williams, Lieutenant, 43

Williams, Lieutenant (Grenadier Guards), 232

Williams, Valentine, quoted, 79

Willoughby, General, 136, 192

Wilson, General, 109, 142, 144

Wing, General, 143, 144, 228

Wood, Colonel, 131

Woolley, Lieutenant, V.C., 39

Worthington, Colonel, 227

Wright, Colonel, 219

Wright, Lieutenant, 17

Würtemberg, Duke of, 46

Wynyard, Captain, 40

Ypres, second battle of, 45-114; result of the battle, 110; sequence
of events, 111-114

Zeppelin raids on Britain, 169

THE END

_Printed in Great Britain by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The British Campaign in France and Flanders 1915" ***

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