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Title: The British Campaign in France and Flanders, 1917

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Release date: April 9, 2021 [eBook #65045]

Language: English

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS, 1917 ***




  THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN

  IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS

  1917



  BY

  ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE



  AUTHOR OF
  'THE GREAT BOER WAR,' ETC.



  HODDER AND STOUGHTON
  LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
  MCMXIX




  SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S
  HISTORY OF THE WAR

  Uniform with this Volume.

  THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE
  AND FLANDERS
  1914

  THE BREAKING OF THE PEACE.
  THE OPENING OF THE WAR.
  THE BATTLE OF MONS.
  THE BATTLE OF LE CATEAU.
  THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE.
  THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE.
  THE LA BASSÉE-ARMENTIÈRES OPERATIONS.
  THE FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES.
  A RETROSPECT AND GENERAL SUMMARY.
  THE WINTER LULL OF 1914.


  THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE
  AND FLANDERS
  1915

  THE OPENING MONTHS OF 1915.
  NEUVE CHAPELLE AND HILL 60.
  THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES.
  THE BATTLE OF RICHEBOURG-FESTUBERT.
  THE TRENCHES OF HOOGE.
  THE BATTLE OF LOOS.


  THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE
  AND FLANDERS
  1916

  JANUARY TO JULY 1916.
  THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME.
  THE GAINING OF THE THIEPVAL RIDGE.
  THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME.
  THE BATTLE OF THE ANCRE.

  With Maps, Plans, and Diagrams.

  HODDER AND STOUGHTON
  LONDON, NEW YORK, AND TORONTO




{v}

PREFACE

This, the fourth volume of _The British Campaign in France and
Flanders_, carries the story through the long and arduous fighting of
1917, which culminated in the dramatic twofold battle of Cambrai.
These events are cut deep into the permanent history of the world,
and we are still too near it to read the whole of that massive and
tremendous inscription.  It is certain, however, that this year
marked the period in which the Allies gained a definite military
ascendancy over the German forces, in spite of the one great
subsequent rally which had its source in events which were beyond the
control of the Western powers.  So long as ink darkens and paper
holds, our descendants, whose freedom has been won by these
exertions, will dwell earnestly and with reverence upon the stories
of Arras, Messines, Ypres, Cambrai, and other phases of this epic
period.

I may be permitted to record with some thankfulness and relief, that
in the course of three thick volumes, in which for the first time the
detailed battle-line of these great encounters has been set out, it
has not yet been shown that a brigade has ever been out of its place,
and even a battalion has seldom gone amiss.  Such good fortune cannot
last for ever.  _Absit omen!_  But the fact is worth recording, as it
{vi} may reassure the reader who has natural doubts whether history
which is so recent can also lay claim to be of any permanent value.

The Censorship has left me untrammelled in the matter of units, for
which I am sufficiently grateful.  The ruling, however, upon the
question of names must be explained, lest it should seem that their
appearance or suppression is due to lack of knowledge or to
individual favour or caprice.  I would explain, then, that I am
permitted to use the names of Army and Corps Commanders, but only of
such divisional Generals as are mentioned in the Headquarters
narrative.  All other ranks below divisional Generals are still
suppressed, save only casualties, in connection with the action where
they received the injury, and those who won honours, with the same
limitation.  This regulation has little effect upon the accuracy of
the narrative, but it appears in many cases to involve some personal
injustice.  To record the heroic deeds of a division and yet be
compelled to leave out the name of the man who made it so efficient,
is painful to the feelings of the writer, for if any one fact is
clearer than another in this war it is that the good leader makes the
good unit.

The tremendous epic of 1918 will call for two volumes in its
treatment.  One of these, bringing the story up to June 30, 1918, is
already completed, and should appear by the summer.  The other may be
ready at the end of the year.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.

  CROWBOROUGH,
  _January_ 20, 1919.




{vii}

CONTENTS


CHAPTER I

THE GERMAN RETREAT UPON THE ARRAS-SOISSONS FRONT

Hindenburg's retreat--The advance of the Fifth and Fourth
Armies--Capture of Bapaume and Peronne--Atrocious devastation by the
Germans--Capture of guns at Selency--Definition of the Hindenburg
Line--General survey


CHAPTER II

THE BATTLE OF ARRAS

April 9 to April 23, 1917.

Vast preparations--Attack of Snow's Seventh Corps--The Ibex
Trench--Attack of Haldane's Sixth Corps--Attack of Fergusson's
Seventeenth Corps--A Scottish Front--The splendid Canadians--Capture
of Mouchy--Essex and Newfoundland--A glorious episode--The Chemical
Works--Extension of the battle to the north--Desperate fight of the
Australians at Bullecourt


CHAPTER III

OPERATIONS IN THE ARRAS SECTOR FROM APRIL 23 ONWARDS

Advance of April 23--Middlesex and Argyll--Grand fighting of the
Fifteenth Division--H.A.C. at Gavrelle--Operations of May 3--The
Gavrelle Windmill--Loss of Fresnoy--Capture of Rœux--The long
fight at Bullecourt


CHAPTER IV

THE BATTLE OF MESSINES

Plumer's long vigil--The great mines--Advance of Australians--Of New
Zealanders--Of the Twenty-fifth Division--Of the Irish {viii}
Divisions--Death of Major Redmond--Advance of Nineteenth Division--Of
the Forty-first Division--Of the Forty-seventh Division--Of the
Twenty-fourth Division--General results


CHAPTER V

OPERATIONS FROM JUNE 10 TO JULY 31

Fighting round Lens--Good work of Canadians and Forty-sixth
Division--Action on the Yser canal--Great fight and eventual
annihilation of 2nd K.R.R. and 1st Northampton--An awful ordeal--Exit
Russia


CHAPTER VI

THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES

July 31, 1917

Attack of July 31--Advance of the Guards--Of the Welsh--Capture of
Pilkem--Capture of St. Julien by Thirty-ninth Division--Advance of
Fifty-fifth Division--Advance of Jacob's Second Corps--General results


CHAPTER VII

THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES

August 1 to September 6

Dreadful weather--German reaction--Attack of August 16--Advance of
Cavan's Corps--Capture of Langemarck--Dreadful losses of the two
Irish Divisions--Failure in the south--Splendid field-gunners--The
Forty-second Division upon September 6


CHAPTER VIII

THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES

September 6 to October 3, 1917

Engagement of Plumer's Second Army--Attack of September 20--Fine
advance of Fifty-fifth Division--Advance of the Ninth {ix}
Division--Of the Australians--Strong counter-attack upon the
Thirty-third Division--Renewed advance on September 20--Continued
rain--Desperate fighting


CHAPTER IX

THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES

October 4 to November 10, 1917

Attack of October 4--Further advance of the British line--Splendid
advance of second-line Territorials--Good work of H.A.C. at
Reutel--Abortive action of October 12--Action of October 26--Heavy
losses at the south end of the line--Fine fighting by the Canadian
Corps--Capture of Paschendaale--General results of third battle of
Ypres


CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI

First phase, November 20--Tanks _en masse_--Attack on the Tunnel
Trench--Byng's great advance--Fine work of the Sixty-second
Division--Hard fighting of Pulteney's Third Corps--Exploit of Fort
Garry Horse--Second day of battle--Rally of Germans--Capture of
Bourlon Wood by Fortieth Division--Attack by the Guards on La Fontaine


CHAPTER XI

THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI.

Second phase of battle on November 30--Great German attack--Disaster
to three divisions--Desperate fight of Twenty-ninth Division--Fine
advance by the Guards--Capture and recapture of Gouzeaucourt--Hard
battle in the Bourlon Sector--Heavy losses of the Germans--Retraction
of the British line


INDEX




{xi}

MAPS AND PLANS


Fighting Line, February 24, 1917, and Fighting Line, March 1, 1917

The Arras Front

Chart of Order of Battle, Arras, April 9, 1917

Order of Battle, Messines, June 7, 1917

Line of Battle, August 16, 1917

The Ypres Front

Third Ypres Battle, September 26

Order of Battle, October 4, 1917

Fighting Line, November 20, 1917

Battle Line of Third Army, November 20, 1917

Fighting Line, November 30, 1917

Battle Order of Third Army, November 30, 1917

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




{1}

CHAPTER I

THE GERMAN RETREAT UPON THE ARRAS-SOISSONS FRONT

Hindenburg's retreat--The advance of the Fifth and Fourth
Armies--Capture of Bapaume and Peronne--Atrocious devastation by the
Germans--Capture of guns at Selency--Definition of the Hindenburg
Line--General survey.


In the latter days of 1916 and the beginning of 1917, the British
Army, which had in little more than two years expanded from seven
divisions to over fifty, took over an increased line.  The movement
began about Christmas time, and early in the New Year Rawlinson's
Fourth Army, side-stepping always to the south, had covered the whole
of the French position occupied during the Somme fighting, had
crossed the Somme, and had established its right flank at a point
near Roye.  The total front was increased to 120 miles, which may
seem a small proportion as compared to the whole.  In making such a
comparison, however, one must bear in mind the difference in the
effort of sustaining an army in one's own country and in a foreign
land with all communications by water.  The task of the British was
continually made more difficult by the precarious nature of their
connection with their base.  Dulness of vision may be as dangerous to
a nation as treason, {2} and no enemies could have harmed the country
more than those perfectly sincere and patriotic individuals who had
for so long opposed the construction of a Channel tunnel.

The general disposition of the British forces after this prolongation
to the south was as follows.  Plumer's Second Army still held that
post of danger and of honour which centred round the Ypres salient.
South of Plumer, in the Armentières district, was the First Army, now
commanded by General Horne, whose long service with the Fifteenth
Corps during the Somme Battle had earned him this high promotion.
Allenby's Third Army carried the line onwards to the south of Arras.
From the point upon which the British line had hinged during the
Somme operations Gough's Fifth Army took over the front, and this
joined on to Rawlinson's Fourth Army near the old French position.
From the north then the order of the armies was two, one, three,
five, and four.

The winter was spent by both sides in licking their wounds after the
recent severe fighting and in preparing for the greater fighting to
come.  These preparations upon the part of the British consisted in
the addition to the army of a number of fresh divisions, and the
rebuilding of those divisions, fifty-two in number, which had taken
part in the Somme fighting, most of them more than once.  As the
average loss in these divisions was very heavy indeed, the task of
reconstructing them was no light one.  None the less before the
campaign re-opened, though the interval was a short three months, the
greater part of the battalions were once again at full strength,
while the guns and munitions were very greatly {3} increased.  A
considerable addition to the strength of the army was effected by the
civilian railway advisers, under Sir Eric Geddes, who by the simple
expedient of pulling up their own lines at home, and relaying them in
France, enormously improved the communications of the army.

In the case of the Germans their army changes took the form of a
considerable new levy from those classes which had been previously
judged to be unfit, and a general comb-out of every source from which
men could be extracted.  A new law rendered every citizen liable to
national service in a civilian capacity, and so released a number of
men from the mines and the factories.  They also increased the
numbers of their divisions by the doubtful expedient of reducing the
brigades, so that the divisions were shorn of a third of their
strength.  The battalions thus obtained were formed into new
divisions.  In this way it was calculated that a reserve force had
been created which would be suddenly thrown in on one or the other
front with dramatic effect.  Some such plan may have been in
contemplation, but as a matter of fact the course of events was such
that the German generals required every man and more for their own
immediate needs during the whole of the year.

It has been shown in the narrative of 1916 how the British had ended
the campaign of that year by the brilliant little victory of Beaumont
Hamel, which gave them not merely 7000 prisoners, but command of both
sides of the Valley of the Ancre.  This victory had been the sequel
to the capture of the Thiepval Ridge, and this again had depended
upon the general success of the Somme operations, so that the turn of
{4} events which led to such considerable results always traces back
to the tragic and glorious 1st of July.  It was clear that whenever
the weather permitted the resumption of hostilities, Sir Douglas Haig
was in so commanding a position at this point that he was perfectly
certain to drive the enemy out of the salient which they held to the
north of Beaumont Hamel.  The result showed that this expectation was
well founded, but no one could have foreseen how considerable was the
retreat which would be forced upon the enemy--a retreat which gave
away for nothing the ground which cost Hindenburg so much to regain
in the following year.

Although the whole line from the sea to the Somme was a scene of
activity during the winter, and though hardly a day, or rather a
night, went by that some stealthy party did not cross No-Man's-Land
to capture and to destroy, still for the purposes of this narrative
the three northern armies may be entirely ignored in the succeeding
operations since they had no occasion to alter their lines.  We shall
fix our attention in the first instance upon Gough's Army in the
district of the Ancre, and afterwards upon Rawlinson's which was
drawn into the operations.  Gough's Army consisted, at the beginning
of the year, of three corps, the Fifth (E. A. Fanshawe) to the left
covering the ground to the north of the Ancre, the Second Corps
(Jacob) immediately south of the river, and the First Australian
Corps (Birdwood) extending to the junction with Rawlinson's Army, and
covering the greater part of the old British line upon the Somme.  It
was upon the Fifth and the Second Corps that the immediate operations
which opened the campaign were to devolve.

{5}

[Sidenote: January]

The Fifth Corps was formed at this period of three divisions, the
Eleventh, Thirty-first, and Seventh.  Each of these divisions by
constant pressure and minor operations, backed by a powerful
artillery fire, played a part in the wearing process of constant
attrition which ended in making the position of the Germans
impossible.  On January 10, the 32nd Yorkshire Brigade of the
Eleventh Division carried an important trench due east of Beaumont
Hamel, taking 140 prisoners.  On the next day the movement extended
farther north, where three-quarters of a mile of trench with 200
prisoners was the prize.  On January 17, another 600 yards north of
Beaumont fell into British hands.  Of the 1228 prisoners who were
taken in January a considerable proportion came from this small
section of the line, though the largest single haul consisted of 350
men who were captured by a brilliant advance of the Australians in
the Le Transloy sector upon January 29.

[Sidenote: February]

The movement along the valley of the Ancre was continued in February,
but at an accelerated pace, the Second Corps, which consisted of the
Sixty-third, Eighteenth, and Second Divisions, moving in conformity
with Fanshawe's men upon the northern bank.  The chief initiative
still rested with the latter, and upon February 3 another push
forward of 500 yards upon a mile front yielded a hundred more
prisoners, while two sharp counter attacks by the Germans only served
to increase their losses.  A number of small spurs run down to the
river upon the northern bank, and each of these successive advances
represented some fresh ridge surmounted.  Upon February 6 the Second
Corps was moving upon Beaucourt, which is to the immediate {6} south
of the river, and upon the 7th the village was evacuated--the first
of that goodly list which was to adorn the official communiqués
during the next two months.  On the 9th the advance crept onwards
upon both banks, gathering up a hundred prisoners, while eighty more
were taken in Baillescourt Farm upon the north bank.  These men were
Hamburgers of the 85th Regiment.  Upon February 10 the left of the
Fifth Corps began to feel out towards Serre, that village of sinister
memories, and 215 prisoners were taken from the trenches to the south
of the hamlet.  This provoked a new counter from the enemy which was
beaten back upon February 12.  A period of impossible weather
suspended the advance, but again upon February 17 the British tide
swelled suddenly into a wave which swept forward on either bank,
engulfing some crowded trenches north of Baillescourt Farm, which
yielded 12 officers and 761 men of the 65th, 75th, and 395th
Prussians.  The main success was gained by the Sixty-third Division
upon the left of the Second Corps, but it was aided by the work of
the Eighteenth and Second Divisions to the south of the Ancre.  The
latter met with strong resistance and had considerable losses.  The
burden of this work fell chiefly upon the 99th and 54th Brigades,
both of which reached their objectives in the face of mist, darkness,
uncut wire, heavy fire, and vigorous resistance.  This blow stung the
enemy into a sharp reaction, and three waves of infantry stormed up
to the lost position, which for a time they entered, but were again
beaten out of.  During their temporary success they claim to have
taken 130 prisoners.

[Sidenote: February]

All these advances, with their accompanying and {7} ever-extending
bombardments, had been like those multiplied causes, each small in
itself, which eventually loosen and start a great landslide.  The
effect must undoubtedly have been begun some weeks before when the
Germans perceived that they could no longer hold on, and favoured by
wind, rain, and fog, started their rearward movement to the great
permanent second line, the exact position of which was still vague to
the Allies.  Upon February 25 the whole German front caved in for a
depth of three miles both north and south of the Ancre.  Wading
through seas of mud Gough's infantry occupied Serre, Pys, Miraumont,
Eaucourt, Warlencourt, and all the ground for eleven miles from
Gomiecourt in the north to Gueudecourt in the south.  On February 28
Gomiecourt itself had been occupied by the North Country troops of
the Thirty-first Division, while Puisieux and Thilloy had also been
added to the British line.  The advance was not unopposed.  The
battle-patrols continually extended to attack some trench of snipers
or nest of machine-guns.  Mined roads and all manner of obstructions
impeded the onward flow of the army.  The retreat was orderly and
skilful, and the pursuit was necessarily slow and wary.  By a
pleasing coincidence the Thirty-first Division, which occupied Serre,
was the same brave North Country Division which had lost so heavily
upon July 1 and November 13 on the same front.  On entering the
village they actually found the bodies of some of their own brave
comrades who had got as far forward seven months before.

[Sidenote: March]

On March 4 the advance which had steadily continued in the north
spread suddenly southwards to Bouchavesnes north of Peronne, the
sector held {8} by the Twentieth and Forty-eighth Divisions of
Rawlinson's Army, which from this time onward was more and more
engaged in the forward movement.  Three machine-guns and 172
prisoners were taken.  There was some interruption of the operations
at this stage owing to severe snowstorms, but upon March 10 Tries,
west of Bapaume, was taken by assault by the Eighteenth Division.
This was a formidable point, well wired and trenched, so that the
artillery in full force was needed for preparation.  The infantry
went forward before sunrise, and within an hour the village with 15
machine-guns and 290 prisoners was in British hands.  The losses were
light and the gain substantial.  Grevillers also fell next day.  This
advance in front of Bapaume was of importance as it turned Loupart
Wood, forming part of a strong defensive line which might have marked
the limit of the German retreat.  It was clear from that day onwards
that the movement was not local but far reaching.  The enemy was
still too strong to be hustled, however, especially upon the northern
sector of the operations, where Jacob's Second Corps was feeling the
German line along its whole front.  An attempt at an advance at
Bucquoy upon the night of March 13, carried out by the 137th Brigade
of the Forty-sixth North Midland Division, met with a check, though
most bravely attempted.  The two battalions concerned, the 5th South
Staffords and 5th North Staffords, found themselves entangled in the
darkness amid uncut wire and suffered considerable loss before they
could extricate themselves from an impossible position.

[Illustration: Fighting Line, February 24, 1917, and Fighting Line,
March 1, 1917]

On March 19 and 20 the whole movement had become much more
pronounced, and the French as {9} well as the British were moving
over a seventy-mile front, extending from Arras in the north to
Soissons in the south.  Each day now was a day of joy in France as
some new strip of the fatherland was for a time recovered, but the
joy was tempered by sorrow and anger as it was learned with what
barbarity the Germans had conducted their retreat.  To lay a country
waste is no new thing in warfare.  It has always been held to be an
occasional military necessity though the best commander was he who
used it least.  In all Napoleon's career it is difficult to recall an
instance when he devastated a district.  At the same time it must be
admitted that it comes within the recognised chances of war, and that
when Sherman's army, for example, left a black weal across the South
the pity of mankind was stirred but not its conscience.  It was very
different here.  These devils--or to be more just--these devil-driven
slaves, with a malignity for which it would be hard to find a
parallel, endeavoured by every means at their command to ruin the
country for the future as well as for the present.  Buildings were
universally destroyed, including in many cases the parish churches.
Historical monuments, such as the venerable Castle of Coucy, were
blown to pieces.  Family vaults were violated and the graves
profaned.  The furniture of the most humble peasants was
systematically broken.  The wells were poisoned and polluted.  Worst
of all, the young fruit-trees were ringed so as to destroy them for
future seasons.  It was considered the last possibility of savagery
when the Mahdi's men cut down the slow-growing palm-trees in the
district of Dongola, but every record upon earth has been swept away
by the barbarians of Europe.  As usual these outrages {10} reacted
upon the criminals, for they confirmed those grim resolutions of the
Allies which made that peace by compromise for which the Germans were
eternally working an absolute impossibility.  Their Clausewitz had
taught them that it is of supreme importance to make peace before
there comes a turn of the tide, but he had not reckoned upon his
descendants being so brutalised that a peace with them was a
self-evident impossibility.

[Sidenote: March]

Turning from the deeds of savages to those of soldiers, we have now
to trace the progress and scope of the great German retreat, the
first pronounced movement upon either side on the Western Front since
September 1914.  From Arras to Roye the British Army was advancing
while the movement was carried on to Soissons by the French.  On the
curve of the trenches the front measured more than a hundred miles.
So close was the touch between the two Allied armies that the patrols
of French and British cavalry rode together into Nesle.  On March 18
the Australians had occupied Bapaume, with the Seventh Division
moving upon their left and the Twentieth upon their right, the
cavalry fringe being formed of the Indian Lucknow Cavalry Brigade of
the Fourth Division.  To the south the Warwick Brigade of the
Forty-eighth South Midland Division passed through Peromie.  At each
end of the long curve the Germans held fast, Arras in the north and
Soissons in the south being the two fixed points, but the country
between, to a depth of ten miles in the British sector and of thirty
miles in the French, was rapidly overrun by the Allies, the cavalry
patrols feeling their way everywhere while the infantry followed hard
upon the heels of the horses.  Guns and {11} munitions had been
successfully removed by the Germans but incredible quantities of
barbed wire and other defensive material had been abandoned in their
positions.  Towards the end of March the left of the French and the
right of the British were in touch in the immediate front of St.
Quentin.  There had been scattered fighting all along the line, and
the resistance thickened each day, so that it was evident that the
final German position had been nearly reached.  On March 24 the
Australians had a sharp fight at Beaumetz between Bapaume and
Cambrai.  The village was taken, lost, and retaken with considerable
loss upon both sides.  It was clear that in this quarter a definite
German line had been approached.  Similar reports soon came in from
Croisilles, from Lagnicourt, from Ronssoy, from Jeancourt, and all
along from Arras to St. Quentin.  So gradually the famous Hindenburg
line defined itself, and the Allied Generals became more clearly
aware of the exact nature and extent of this new German position.
Early in April, by pushing up to it and brushing aside the advanced
forces which screened it, its outlines were more clearly mapped.
This process of definition led to more serious fighting, the worst of
which, as will presently be shown, fell upon the Australians at
Bullecourt, some ten miles from the Arras end of the new line.  Some
foretaste, however, of the considerable resistance which they were
about to meet with in their section was encountered by the
Australians at Noreuil on April 2.  The brunt of the attack upon the
village was borne by the South Australians, who behaved with great
gallantry, having to rush a difficult position intersected by sunken
roads.  A small body of the stormers, some sixty in number, were cut
off {12} and overwhelmed, but the main body captured the village,
taking 137 German prisoners.  Among other brisk skirmishes occurring
at the beginning of April was one at Epehy, fifteen miles north of
St. Quentin, where the 144th Brigade of the Forty-eighth South
Midland Division cleared the hamlet and sugar factory of St. Emilie.
In this operation, which was carried out chiefly by the 4th
Gloucesters, 5 officers and 80 men fell, but the German loss was
considerable.  A few days later the 145th Brigade of the same
division distinguished itself by the capture after sharp fighting of
Ronssoy and of Lempire, the first village being carried by the 4th
Berks and the latter by the 5th Gloucesters.  This brought the
British line in that quarter up to the final German position.

[Sidenote: April]

Some sharp fighting had also taken place at Savy and Selency to the
immediate west and north-west of St. Quentin, upon the front of the
Thirty-second Division, which, together with the Thirty-fifth and
Sixty-first, had been pressing the German line.  On the morning of
April 2 the 14th Brigade of this division was ordered to attack
Selency.  On the two previous days the village of Savy had been
taken, and a strong attack made upon the Bois de Savy by the 96th and
97th Brigades.  The advance of April 2 was at early dawn and the
veteran 2nd Manchester Battalion was in the lead.  The whole
operation was conducted under heavy machine-gun fire, but by swift
movement and a judicious use of the ground the losses were minimised.
Whilst the Lancashire men made direct for the village the 15th
Highland Light Infantry kept pace with them upon their right flank.
A {13} battery of six German field-guns opened fire in the very faces
of the stormers, but C Company of the Manchesters, with admirable
steadiness and presence of mind, swerved to each side and rushed the
guns from the flank, capturing them all.  The attack was at 5 A.M.,
and by 6.30 the whole objective had been captured.  No further
advance was possible as the front line was already close to St.
Quentin, which was a German stronghold.  The position at the end of
the action was that the village was in the hands of the British but
that the six guns with their caissons were in the open where the
Germans could cover them with their fire.  The victors were
determined to have their trophies, and their enemy was no less eager
to make it impossible.  The moment that darkness had fallen a party
of Manchesters, under the lead of Lieut. Thomas, the adjutant, and
Lieut. Ward of the 161st R.F.A., endeavoured to man-handle the guns
into the British lines, but directly they began to haul so sharp a
fire of shrapnel was opened at a range of 800 yards that they were
compelled to desist.  A covering party of the 15th Highland Light
Infantry lay round the guns till dawn, and during the day they
remained safe under the rifles of the infantry.  At eight o'clock on
April 3 a further attempt to bring them in was made by Major Lumsden
of the Staff, with Lieutenants Ward and Lomax of the gunners.  Horse
teams were brought down, and amid a terrific barrage the gun wheels
began at last to revolve.  Maddened by the sight seen under the glare
of their star shells, the German infantry surged forward and for a
time were all round the Highlanders who still guarded the guns.  One
small party of Germans dashed in upon the guns with a charge of
dynamite and managed to {14} blow in the breech of one of them.  They
were driven off, however, and the six guns were all brought in, while
upon April 4 the six artillery caissons were also salved.  So ended a
most satisfactory little operation for which Major Lumsden received a
Victoria Cross and later the command of a brigade, while the other
officers were decorated.

[Sidenote: April]

On April 2 in the north of the new line, near the spot where very
great things were pending, Snow's Seventh Corps had taken Henin and
Croisilles, with the aid of the Fifth Army upon their right.  It was
a small operation in itself, but it was preparing the jumping-off
place for the great battle of April 9.  There was continued bickering
along the line where the British were pushing in the German outliers.
In this work the Thirty-fifth Division in the Epehy district
distinguished itself greatly during the early summer.  One attack
upon a hill held by the Germans and carried by the 15th Chesters and
15th Sherwoods of the 105th Brigade was particularly brilliant.  In
addition, upon April 4, the village of Metz with the adjoining
position was taken after a sharp fight by the 59th Brigade of the
Twentieth Division.  The 10th and 11th K.R.R. were the battalions
chiefly engaged in this fight, which at one time had an ugly aspect,
as the Germans slipped into a gap between the Twentieth on the left
and the Eighth Division on the right.  They were cleared out,
however, and the line was advanced beyond the village to the right of
the Australians.

A more serious action was that which began upon April 13, when the
Thirty-second Division was ordered to support the left of the French
in their unsuccessful attack upon St. Quentin.  The task {15}
assigned to the British division, with the Thirty-fifth Division
co-operating upon its left, was to attack the village of Fayet.  This
was carried out very gallantly by the 97th Brigade, with the 2nd York
Light Infantry and the 16th Highland Light Infantry in the lead.  The
village with 100 prisoners was taken at the first rush, but it was
found to be more difficult to get possession of a wood called the
Twin Copses, beyond the village.  So severe was the fighting that the
General of the 97th Brigade had seven battalions under his command
before it was finished.  Finally, the Twin Copses were splendidly
carried by the 11th Borders.  The total of prisoners came to 5
officers and 334 men in this very spirited operation.

With the conclusion of the German retreat and the solidification of
the new line, some more general view may be taken of the whole
operation.  It cannot be denied that it was cleverly planned and
deftly carried out, though it can hardly be said to have deserved the
ecstasies of admiration which were bestowed upon it by the German
Press.  It was not, for example, as formidable an operation as the
British withdrawal from Gallipoli, an extraordinarily clever
manoeuvre which received less than its fair share of recognition at
home, because it was associated with the sad ending of high hopes.
It was also universally taken for granted in Germany that Hindenburg
was going to "reculer pour mieux sauter" as he had done once before
at Tannenberg, and that some extraordinary burst of energy at some
other point would soon change the exultation of the Allies into
despair.  Nothing of the sort occurred during that year, and it
speedily became evident that the old {16} Marshal had simply moved
because his lines were untenable, and because by shortening them he
could make some compensation for the terrific losses of men at the
Somme.  That he ever regained the ground was due only to the
subsequent Russian debacle.

We have it upon the authority of Sir Douglas Haig that the great
local retreat of the Germans had no very great effect in modifying
the Allied plans.  Those plans, so far as the British were concerned,
were to make a combined assault from the north and from the south
upon the Ancre salient, Gough attacking from the south and Allenby
from the north.  As the salient had now ceased to exist, the rôle of
Gough was confined to following up the German retreat until he came
to the new Hindenburg line, which was an obstacle of so formidable a
character that it checked anything short of a very powerful attack.
Allenby's part of the programme was still feasible, however, and
resolved itself into an attack upon the high ground held by the
Germans and their whole line down to the point where the new
positions began.  How Allenby carried out this task, and the great
success which attended his efforts, will be described in the coming
chapters.

Before passing to this and the other great battles which will make
the year 1917 for ever memorable in our history, it would be well to
briefly enumerate those world events which occurred during these
three months and which directly or indirectly influenced the
operations in France.  The French line had remained stationary save
for the forward movement already described.  In Russia the lines had
also remained firm, and there was no outward indication of the
convulsions into which that unhappy country {17} was about to be
thrown by the revolution which broke out on March 12 of this year.
From Italy also there was nothing momentous to report.  The most
cheering news which reached the Allies was from the British Eastern
lines of battle, where both in the Sinai Peninsula to the east of
Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, good progress was being made.  The Sinai
desert had been practically cleared of that enemy who had advanced so
boastfully to the capture of Egypt, and the British lines were now
upon the green terrain which faces Gaza upon the frontier of
Palestine.  The chief success, however, lay in Mesopotamia.  A great
soldier had apparently appeared in the person of General Maude, whose
name may be recalled by the reader as the Commander of the 14th
Brigade upon the Western front.  Leaving his limited activities in
the prosaic trenches of Flanders, he had suddenly reappeared, moving
swiftly along the track of so many of the old conquerors, and leading
his picturesque force of Britons and Indians against the ancient
capital of Haroun-el-Raschid.  In February he had avenged Townshend
by recapturing Kut with more than 2000 prisoners.  Following up his
victory with great speed, he entered Bagdad upon March 11 at the
heels of the defeated Turks, and chased them north along the line of
the German railway, the constructors of which had never dreamed what
strange stationmaster might instal himself at their terminus.  The
approach of a Russian force seemed to hold out hopes for further
combined operations, but meanwhile the whole of southern Mesopotamia
remained in the hands of the British, and no Turk was left within
forty miles of the ancient capital.

The chief event in Great Britain was the successful {18} flotation of
the great war loan, which attained proportions never heard of before,
and ended by bringing in the huge total of one thousand million
pounds.

Beyond the usual skirmishes of light craft and isolated sinkings of
warships by mine or submarine, there was nothing of importance in
naval warfare, but an immense influence was brought to bear upon the
course of the war by the German decision in February to declare a war
zone round the allied countries, and to torpedo every merchant ship,
whether neutral or hostile, which entered it.  The measure was a
counsel either of ignorance or of despair, for no one who knows the
high spirit of the American people could imagine for a moment that
they would permit their vessels to be destroyed and their
fellow-citizens to be killed in such a manner.  Within two days of
the declaration of unlimited submarine warfare the President of the
United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, an act
which was the precursor of war, though this was not formally declared
until April 5.  Great as were the loss, discomfort, and privation
caused to Great Britain, and in a less degree to the other Allies,
the accession of the United States with its enormous reserves of men
and money to the cause of Democracy was far more than a sufficient
make-weight.  As events progressed, and as it became evident that
Russia, swinging from the extreme of autocracy to the extreme of
individualism, had ceased for a long time to come to be a useful
ally, it grew more and more clear that the help of America was likely
to save the Western Powers, not indeed from defeat, but from that
pernicious stalemate and inconclusive peace which could only be the
precursor of other {19} wars to follow.  Apart from the vast material
help, the mere thought that the great race which has inherited our
speech and so many of our traditions was lined up with us upon the
day of Armageddon was a joy and an inspiration to every Briton.




{20}

CHAPTER II

THE BATTLE OF ARRAS

April 9 to April 23, 1917

Vast preparations--Attack of Snow's Seventh Corps--The Ibex
Trench--Attack of Haldane's Sixth Corps--Attack of Fergusson's
Seventeenth Corps--A Scottish Front--The splendid Canadians--Capture
of Monchy--Essex and Newfoundland--A glorious episode--The Chemical
Works--Extension of the battle to the north--Desperate fight of the
Australians at Bullecourt.


Whilst the German line was falling back to its new positions, and the
Allies were eagerly following it across the ravished countryside
until the increased resistance and the familiar lines of barbed wire
warned them that the immediate retreat had come to an end, Sir
Douglas Haig had managed, without relaxing his pursuit, to collect a
strong striking force at the point of junction between the new German
line and the old.  The blow which he contemplated was no small local
advance, but was a wide movement extending from the neighbourhood of
Lens in the north to Arras in the south, a front of more than twelve
miles.  Upon this sector a tremendous concentration of artillery had
been effected, and four corps were waiting the signal for the
assault, the three southern ones forming Allenby's Third Army, while
the fourth or northern one was the right-hand corps of Horne's {21}
First Army.  The southern corps were the Seventh (Snow), which
operated to the south of Arras, having Croisilles for its southern
boundary; the Sixth (Haldane), which advanced due east from Arras
with the Scarpe for its northern boundary; the Seventeenth
(Fergusson), which had its right on the Scarpe and its left on
Thelus, with its front facing the three spurs which form this end of
the Vimy Ridge; and finally the Canadian Corps (Byng), which faced
this long and sinister slope, the scene of so much bloodshed in the
past.  Each corps was marshalled with three divisions in front and
one in reserve, so that there were roughly 120,000 men in the
storming line with 40,000 advancing behind them.  Maxse's Eighteenth
Corps was in reserve in the rear of the Third Army, while M'Cracken's
Thirteenth Corps was behind the First Army.  The Germans had six
divisions, the Eleventh Prussian, Fourteenth Bavarian, First Bavarian
Reserve, and the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Seventy-ninth reserve
in the line.  Their guns also were numerous, as subsequent captures
were to prove, but it is probable that an extension of the Hindenburg
retreat was in contemplation, and that some of the heavy artillery
was already on the move.  A second strong line from Drocourt to
Queant was known to exist, and its occupation would form a natural
sequel to the retirement in the south.

The German strategists had imagined that by withdrawing their troops
over a long front they would throw out of gear all the preparations
of the Allies for the spring offensive.  What they actually did was
to save their force in the Gommecourt peninsula from being cut off,
which would surely have been their fate had they waited.  But in the
{22} larger issue they proved to be singularly ill-informed, for they
had stayed their retreat at the very points of the line on which the
offensive had been prepared, so that the plans of attack were neither
modified nor delayed.  That this is true is evident, since such
tremendous blows as Arras in the north and Rheims in the south could
not possibly have been delivered had the preparations only begun
after the Hindenburg retreat.

One of the most difficult problems of this attack was how to arrange
it upon that section which was covered by the town of Arras.  It is
true that the German line was 1700 yards east of the market-place,
but the suburbs extended right up to it, and it was fringed with
houses.  The town itself, in which the storming troops must assemble
and through which all supports and supplies must pass, was full of
narrow streets within easy range of the German guns, and previous
French experience had proved that each exit was so carefully and
accurately barraged by the German fire that it was most difficult for
the troops to debouch from it.  This problem was solved by a fine
piece of military engineering.  The large cellars and other
subterranean excavations with which the place abounded were connected
up and fresh tunnels constructed, so that it was eventually found to
be possible to put three whole divisions underground, with permanent
headquarters and every necessary detail, including water, electric
light, and a three-foot tramway.  This fine work was carried out by
the New Zealand, the 179th, and the 184th Tunnelling Companies.  A
huge dressing-station with 700 beds was also constructed.  In this
great underground place of assembly the greater part of the Sixth
{23} Corps was assembled, while many of the tunnels on the south side
of the town were allotted to the use of the Seventh Corps.  All this
had been carried out during the winter in the anticipation of a big
attack being made at this point.  For purposes of communication, over
1000 miles of twin cable was buried in six-foot trenches or secured
to the sides of tunnels.  Besides these special preparations, the
usual immense labour of preparing for a modern attack had been
thoroughly carried out along the whole line, including the
construction of very many gun positions, trench mortar emplacements,
dressing-stations, and innumerable dumps of munitions and engineering
stores.  Some dislocation had been caused in the plans by a partial
withdrawal in the enemies' front trenches upon March 18, opposite the
right end of the British lines.  The abandoned works were occupied
and linked up with the old system, so that upon April 9 all was in
order for the assault.  The extreme difficulties caused by the
formidable defensive preparations of the enemy were fully realised,
but everything which human forethought could suggest had been done to
meet them.  Above all, two great lessons taught by the Somme
experience had been thoroughly assimilated; the one that the broader
the attack the more successful it is likely to be, as it prevents a
concentration of the German guns upon a single area; the other that
it is wiser, even in the heat of battle and the glow of victory, to
limit your objective to an area which is well within the range of
your guns.  That last blue line so far forward upon the map has been
the cause of many a rebuff.

The British bombardment, which came in gusts during the days
preceding the attack, did enormous {24} damage to the German
defences.  The evidence of prisoners showed that for several days
they had been reduced to their emergency rations.  The wire, which in
places was a hundred yards thick, was mostly destroyed in the first
line, and greatly damaged in the second, though in the third it was
found to be largely intact, save upon the left of the line.  The
space between the first and second German lines was roughly 500
yards.  Between the second and third it was about 3000.  The usual
forms of bombardment were varied upon April 4 by the use of a large
number of Liven's gas projectors, throwing drums of compressed gas,
which were seen to burst in the second German line.  Fifteen hundred
of these were discharged upon the front of a single corps, and they
were said to have considerable effect, the reports of prisoners
stating that in the suburb of Blangy alone there were 460 casualties
from this cause.  On April 8 there was a severe gas bombardment from
4-inch trench mortars.  Finally, in the early morning of April 9,
came the fearful whirlwind of fire which was the prelude to the
attack.  Some idea of its intensity may be gathered from the fact
that the number of guns was so great that they could have rubbed
wheels from end to end of the line had they been so placed.  At 5.30
the word was given, and in the first dim grey of a rainy, windy, and
sleety morning, the infantry dashed forward to the attack--"wave
after wave of grimy, mud-covered, determined men, with hearts as hard
as steel and as light as feathers," to use the words of one of them.
The events may best be described from the south of the line as being
the nearest to Arras from which the battle derives its name.

{25}

Snow's Seventh Corps had the Twenty-first North Country Division upon
the extreme right, the Thirtieth Lancashire Division in the centre,
the Fifty-sixth London on their left, and the Fourteenth Light
Division upon the extreme northern wing.  The soldiers, soaked to the
skin, with the rain beating upon their backs, and their feet
ankle-deep in the mud, set about their task in a calm, businesslike
fashion which would take no denial.  No village or notable fixed
points lay in their path, but they plodded without a check or halt
over the first two lines of entrenchments, finding no very strong
resistance, save at one point upon the left of their line, and
suffering little loss from the German artillery.  Considerable
numbers of the enemy were found scattered in their shattered trenches
or cowering in the dug-outs.  Over a thousand of these were sent to
the rear.  The advance was at the point where the new German line
branched away from the old one, the Twenty-first Division on the
right joining the left of Gough's Army in the neighbourhood of the
Cojeul River, while the Fourteenth Division was in touch with the
Third Division on the north.

The immediate objectives of the various divisions of this Seventh
Corps were Telegraph Hill in the north opposite to the Fourteenth
Division, Neuville Vitasse opposite to the Fifty-sixth Division, St.
Martin-sur-Cojeul opposite the Thirtieth Division, and the Hindenburg
line opposite the Twenty-first Division.  Taking them in turn from
the south, we shall first follow the fortunes of the north countrymen
of Campbell's Division.  This division upon the first day was not
expected to do more than make a strong demonstration, because both
it, and to a less extent {26} the division upon its left, had in
front of it sheets of uncut wire and all the devilries of the fixed
German line.  The object, therefore, was that they should make a
holding attack in the hope that the northern divisions of the corps
should get well forward to the east, and then swing to the south in
such a way as to make the German position untenable.  This was
eventually done, and a way was cleared so that the two divisions in
the south should be able to advance with the remainder of the line.
The whole operation of the Seventh Corps has to be continually judged
by the fact that they were on the edge of the abandoned area, and
that therefore their southern front bulged out to the east in a way
which brought the successive divisions almost into an echelon
formation.

On the left of the Twenty-first Division were the Lancashire pals of
the Thirtieth Division.  Upon April 8 they had made a good start, as
the 2nd Bedfords carried the village of St. Martin, an outlier of the
Hindenburg line, but on the same date the 21st Brigade was held up in
an attempt to advance upon the left.  They advanced on April 9 with
the 21st Brigade upon the left and the 90th upon the right.  The
first dash behind a splendid barrage was most successful, but the
21st Brigade, after passing the front German lines, ran into uncut
wire and was held, the 18th Liverpools suffering severely.  The
brigade upon the right managed, however, to get forward for some
distance, but it also was faced by uncut wire, and was compelled to
dig in as best it could.  The attack was renewed two days later with
the aid of four tanks, but the wire still held, though the devoted
infantry tried again and again.  Finally, however, the Fifty-sixth
{27} Division having cleared its own front sent the Victoria Rifles
bombing down the front of the Thirtieth Division, who in turn cleared
the front of the Twenty-first Division on their right, and so by the
evening April 11 the line was finally advanced.  The clearing of the
front of the Twenty-first was done by the 18th Manchesters, who,
unsupported, bombed their way down 1700 yards of Hindenburg line, a
very notable achievement.

To Hull's Fifty-sixth Division, the next upon the north, was assigned
the capture of Neuville Vitasse and the strong works which surrounded
it.  The advance was carried out at 7.45--the zero time was earlier
as it travelled up the line--and was led by the 167th Brigade upon
the right and by the 168th Brigade upon the left, while the 169th
were in support.  "The bombardment and the covering fire were
magnificent," says one who marched in the ranks; "I almost felt sorry
for the poor old Hun, only, after all, he is such a Hun."  The chief
fighting was on the right, where the 3rd London and 8th Middlesex
stormed the main portion of the village.  At 10.30 all the eastern
edge had been secured, and the 1st London moved forward to take the
Cojeul Switch line.  Unfortunately, they struck up against uncut wire
and a very heavy belt of fire.  Colonel Smith, the commanding
officer, and the great majority of the other officers were killed or
wounded, and the advance was brought to a stand.  The 18th Liverpools
of the 21st Brigade upon the right had also been halted by the uncut
wire.  The colonel of the 7th Middlesex took command of this
difficult situation so far as it affected the advance of his brigade,
and threw his battalion in to strengthen the 1st Londons, so that
{28} together they captured the Cojeul Switch Trench.  The Londoners
were then well ahead of the Liverpool men upon their right, so the
1st London threw back a defensive flank while the 7th Middlesex
stormed forward against the powerful Ibex Trench.  Three separate
attempts were made, much impeded by the deep mud, and all ending in
failure, so that darkness fell before the task had been accomplished,
but with true British tenacity, at 3 A.M., in the darkest hour before
dawn, the Middlesex men tried once more and carried Ibex, taking a
number of prisoners.  The 168th Brigade had with varying fortunes
kept pace upon the left, and in the early morning the London Scottish
on its right were in touch with Ibex Trench.  The position of the
167th was still dangerous upon the flank, as it was always ahead of
its southern neighbours, so that instead of advancing eastwards, the
colonel of the Middlesex now turned south, his depleted ranks being
strengthened by the 9th London (Victorias) from the reserve brigade.
The enemy were only forty yards off upon the flank, with a perfect
warren of trenches, and the mud was so dreadful that some men who got
in could hardly be dragged out again alive.  In spite of every
difficulty the Londoners, after an initial check, swept triumphantly
down Ibex and Zoo trenches, clearing in one wild, glorious rush the
whole position, capturing 197 more prisoners of the 31st Prussian
Regiment with several machine-guns.  Captain Cousens, who led this
charge, after being badly wounded, was unhappily killed by a sniper
in the moment of victory.  The Victorias were too late to join in the
victorious charge which stands to the credit of the 7th Middlesex,
but they helped to hold and to extend what had been won.  {29} The
general effect of the advance of this division was to turn the flank
of the southern German defences and to open up a road for the
Thirtieth and Twenty-first Divisions upon the right.

The Fourteenth Light Division to the north of the Londoners was faced
by the slight slope and formidable defences of Telegraph Hill.  They
went forward in close conformity with the Sixth Corps upon their
left, the 42nd Brigade being upon the left and the 43rd upon the
right.  Their movement during the day was a particularly fine one,
and they not only took the strong position of Telegraph Hill, but
they carried the British line to a point far to the east of it.
Their whole advance was largely regulated by the situation upon their
northern flank, and they were exposed to such an enfilade fire
whenever they got at all ahead, that they found it impossible to act
entirely upon their own.

Upon the left of the front was a strong German position called "The
Harp," which was very gallantly carried by the 42nd Brigade.  Sixteen
tanks which were to have lent them a hand in this difficult operation
failed for some reason to arrive in time, and the infantry had to
advance with no help save their own stout hearts.  The attack was
carried out by the 9th K.R.R. with the 4th Royal Fusiliers of the
Third Division acting upon their left, and their comrades of the 6th
Oxford and Bucks upon their right.  Their only serious opponents here
as elsewhere were snipers and machine-gunners, but these were all of
the best, and caused heavy losses before the whole objective with its
garrison had been captured.  By 9.15 in the morning it was entirely
in British hands, and as the day wore on the division kept steadily
improving {30} their position, though still short of their final
objective, that elusive line, which is so easy to draw and so hard to
attain.  In the evening, an attempt was made by the Fourteenth
Division to struggle still further eastwards.  This advance had no
success, and so the forward units of the whole Seventh Corps dug in
on the general line from Feuchy Chapel Road in the north to near
Croisilles in the south, having after a desperate day's fighting
achieved a gain which averaged two or three miles, and a total of
nearly 2000 prisoners with a number of guns.  Concerning these
prisoners, it may be unsafe to generalise, but it is certain that
many of them surrendered very readily.  As to their general type the
opinion of a commanding officer who handled many of them may be
quoted: "The officers were mild persons, none of the bullet-headed,
bristly-moustached, truculent Prussian type.  The prisoners generally
do not inspire one with respect.  Braggarts and bullies in
prosperity, in adversity they cringe."

Haldane's Sixth Corps was to the immediate left of the Seventh, and
its operations were directed due east of Arras.  The three front
divisions, counting from the south, were the Third, the Twelfth South
of England, and the Fifteenth Scottish, with the Thirty-seventh
English in reserve.  The troops of the assaulting divisions had been
assembled for three days in the caves under Arras, but on the night
of April 8 they were silently passed into the assembly trenches, an
operation which was carried through with little interference or loss.
The vile weather may have been a blessing in disguise, as it covered
all the preparations from the German observation.

The right of the attacking line was formed by the {31} 76th Brigade
of the Third Division, a unit which had distinguished itself greatly
in previous fighting.  The 8th and 9th Brigades were in close
support.  Its front was south of the Arras-Cambrai Road.  To the left
of the 76th Brigade the line was carried on by the 37th and 36th
Brigades of the Twelfth Division.  Their right rested on the
Arras-Cambrai Road.  To their left were the 44th and 45th of the
Fifteenth Division.  Their left rested upon the Scarpe.  Nothing
could have gone more smoothly than the advance, which kept well up
with the barrage.  Only at Observation Hill was vigorous resistance
encountered, and the German barrage was so belated that it fell upon
empty trenches after the stormers had left them.  The line of
infantry as it swept forward in its irresistible advance was formed,
counting from the south, by the 10th Welsh Fusiliers, the 1st
Gordons, the 6th Queen's, the 7th East Surreys, the 11th Middlesex,
the 7th Sussex, the 8/10th[1] Gordons, the 9th Black Watch, the 6/7th
Scots Fusiliers, and the 11th Argyll and Sutherlands.  To the courage
which had always been their birthright, the infantry now added all
the cool war wisdom which experience of many battles must bring with
it, and all those devices for overcoming the scattered forts of the
enemy and avoiding their machine-guns, which had been learned on the
Somme and the Ancre, were now practised to keep down the losses of
the assault.


[1] Where two numbers are given for one battalion, it means that two
battalions with these numbers have been telescoped into one.


The advance of the 76th Brigade had been to the south of the great
high road which leads from Arras to Cambrai--a road which was
destined to be second only to the Menin Road as a centre of hard
fighting.  {32} The Gordons led the attack and took the front line
with a number of the Prussian 38th Regiment.  The 10th Welsh
Fusiliers then passed through the ranks of the Highlanders and
captured Devil's Wood.  So swift were these movements that the German
barrage was always in the rear.  Having thus secured the first
objective, the 9th Brigade, strengthened by the 2nd Suffolks, stormed
forward to the next line of defence.  The 4th Royal Fusiliers on the
right took Nomeny, Spring, and Lynx Trenches, when the Suffolks
passed through them and took Neuilly Trench.  The 12th West
Yorkshires took Tilloy village.  The 13th Liverpool, after being held
up on the left, carried the line forward and, by getting its
machine-gun on to the roof of Tilloy Château, dominated the country
to the extreme discomfort of the German snipers.  Besides these
numerous trenches and strong points, the 9th Brigade helped to take
the fortified position known as The Harp, an exploit in which they
were much assisted by a couple of tanks.  Here a considerable number
of prisoners were made, including most of a battalion of the 162nd
Regiment, together with its commander.

It will save confusion if we follow the fortunes of each division for
the day, regardless of what is going on upon its flank, as it is
impossible to understand a narrative which switches continually from
one portion of the line to another.  The whole operation of the Sixth
Corps was somewhat behind the time appointed, as each division had
met with some delays, but the advance towards the third objective was
begun about one o'clock in this southern area.  The 8th Brigade had
now taken up the running, and the 9th had fallen into support.
Reinforced by the two reserve {33} battalions of the 76th Brigade,
the victorious advance was resumed, the 2nd Royal Scots and 7th
Shropshires carrying the Bois des Boeufs to the south of the Cambrai
Road, together with five guns which had been concealed in it.  To
those who had experienced what the capture of a wood meant in the
Somme fighting, it was indeed a promise for the future that this
considerable plantation should offer so slight a resistance.  The 8th
Brigade fought its way onwards for another mile or more until it had
attained the line of Feuchy Chapel.  Here the German resistance had
thickened and the artillery fire had increased in the same ratio as
the British had weakened.  A halt was called, therefore, and the
infantry consolidated their advanced position.  An attempt by the
Gordons and the 8th Royal Lancasters to reach the extreme final
objective was checked in the evening by a very heavy fire upon both
flanks.

In the centre, the Twelfth Division had met with strong resistance at
several points, which caused the assault to fall behind the barrage.
These centres of German resistance were usually isolated houses or
small redoubts, so that it was possible in many cases to mask them
and to push onwards.  No village or large fixed defence lay in their
path, and in spite of a check for some time at the estaminet upon the
Cambrai Road, they were able to line up with their comrades to the
south upon the second objective about half-past twelve o'clock.  At
this point the 35th Brigade passed through the advanced lines and
moved to the front.  A number of difficult positions were taken,
including Observation Hill, and the ground was so thoroughly cleared
that the assailants were able to go forward with the assurance that
their {34} wounds would not be in the back.  It was found, however,
as they neared the line of the third German position, that
considerable stretches of wire had been imperfectly cut, and that the
machine-gun fire was so severe as to make the final assault
impossible.  The infantry dug in, therefore, and waited for further
support from the guns, many of which were already on the move.  The
9th Essex upon the right actually reached the Feuchy Chapel Work and
held their grip of it, keeping in line with the 8th Brigade upon the
south.

The Fifteenth Division to the north of the corps' front had before
them the very strong position called the Railway Triangle, where the
line to Lens branches away from the line to Douai.  This formidable
place was attacked by the Scotch infantry, and after a severe
struggle it was captured about 11.30 save for its eastern side, which
was finally taken later in the morning, the artillery aiding the
assailants by some extraordinarily good shooting.  The advance was
then resumed, and the division found itself shortly after noon in the
line of the second objective.  Six brigades of field artillery had
followed closely upon the heels of the infantry and managed, in spite
of the unfavourable state of the ground, to take up a position to
cover the further attack.  When one recalls the dreadful weather and
the shell-pocked state of the countryside, it was a remarkable feat
upon the part of the gun-teams to get their pieces so rapidly
forward.  Several tanks came forward also, and did good work not only
upon this front, but at Tilloy and The Harp.

The Fifteenth Division was now somewhat behind the others, but
shortly after two o'clock the 46th Lowland Brigade advanced upon the
third objective.  {35} These splendid soldiers brushed aside every
obstacle, and when fired upon at short range by German guns rushed
onwards with a yell and captured the battery.  By 4 P.M. they had
fully reached their final line and had pushed out their patrols some
hundreds of yards to the eastwards.  This fine advance, which was the
only one to reach the extreme limit upon this front, was carried out
by the 7th Scots Borderers, 10th Scots Rifles, and 12th Highland
Light Infantry, with the 10/11th Highland Light Infantry mopping up
behind them.

At 7 P.M. an attempt was made by the two southern divisions to get
forward from the Feuchy Chapel Line and gain a position level with
the 46th Brigade.  Evening was setting in, however, the men were
weary and the difficulties manifold, so that no progress was made,
both the Third and the Fourteenth Divisions suffering additional
losses in the attempt.

The Thirty-seventh Division, composed entirely of English troops,
North, South, and Midland, had moved up in the rear of the fighting
line, and in the middle of the afternoon it found itself in the
German second line system, while the corps' mounted troops had
followed behind the Fifteenth Division, as far as the Railway
Triangle.  As evening fell, the Thirty-seventh Division pushed
forward with the intention of reaching the extreme point attained by
the Fifteenth Division and then swinging to the right in the hope of
capturing Monchy.  The advance seems, however, to have taken a
direction rather too much to the south, with the result that instead
of finding the opening made by the 46th Brigade they came upon the
more contracted Feuchy line held by the {36} Twelfth and Third
Divisions.  Here they were held up by a field of wire as their
comrades had already been, and the two brigades concerned--the 111th
upon the left and the 112th upon the right--remained in line with the
35th and the 8th Brigades, the units being considerably intermingled.
The 63rd Brigade, however, which was now a brigade of the
Thirty-seventh Division, though the reader will associate it with the
Twenty-first Division in the past, was able to keep its true
direction, and before night had finally established itself at the
north end of Orange Hill well up to the third objective and in touch
with the 46th Brigade.  The corps' cavalry also pushed forward along
the south bank of the Scarpe, capturing three 8-inch howitzers upon
the way, and halting opposite Fampoux, where they were in touch with
the Fourth Division upon the northern bank of the river.

Such was the splendid day's work of Haldane's Corps.  It is true that
in the south the uncut wire had made it impossible for them to reach
their ultimate objective, but they had in the space of the one Easter
day captured the villages of Feuchy and of Tilloy, the strong
redoubts of The Harp and the Railway Triangle, gained some thirty-six
square miles of ground, and taken 2000 prisoners with 60 guns.  It
was a most notable achievement.  We shall now pause on the evening of
this first day of battle and we shall go back to reconstruct the
operations upon the northern bank of the Scarpe.

The Seventeenth Corps (Fergusson) was upon the left of the Sixth.
Its right-hand unit, Lukin's Ninth Division, consisting of two
Scottish and one South African brigade, was operating upon the
immediate north of the Scarpe.  This division was to attack with {37}
three brigades in line, the 26th on the right, 27th on the left, and
South Africans between.  Upon the left of the Ninth was Nicholson's
Thirty-fourth Division, drawn largely from Scotland and Tyneside, the
same fine division which had been the very pivot upon which the
battle of July 1 had turned.  Upon the left of the corps was the
Fifty-first Highland Territorial Division which had distinguished
itself so greatly at Beaumont Hamel five months before.  It may be
said, therefore, that the fighting line of the Seventeenth Corps upon
this great day was predominantly Scottish, but Lambton's veteran
Fourth Division was in immediate support.  The whole battle-front was
from the right bank of the Scarpe near Arras up to the post known as
the Commandant's House, just south of Thelus.  There were no villages
over the greater part of this front, but there were great numbers of
fortified farms and strong posts of every description, besides the
usual lines of wired trenches.  The ground was in successive ridges
and a big tactical obstacle existed in the Lens-Arras railroad in its
alternate cuttings and embankments.  The long eager line of
Highlanders, Tynesiders, and South Africans rolled over every
obstacle, and by ten o'clock had mastered all the first objectives,
which were the three lines of German trenches.  In the south the
Ninth Division, led by a well-known South African Imperial soldier,
had carried first Blangy and then Athies by storm.  There was a time
when the 26th Brigade upon the right was hung up, but with fine
initiative the right flank of the Transvaal Regiment worked down
along the railway cutting and helped to clear the front of its
neighbours.  In the centre, the Thirty-fourth Division, after a short
check at a network {38} of trenches called "The Pump," had reached
its allotted positions.  In the north the clansmen, who as
Territorials were sprung from the very soil of the Highlands, had
swiftly advanced to the south of Thelus and had covered the right
wing of the First Canadians while they captured that village.  It was
victory all along the line, and victory without those excessive
losses which have made many of our greatest successes as tragic as
they are glorious.  The artillery barrage had been found to be a
powerful antidote against the deadly machine-guns.  "When our barrage
lifted off the railway cutting, the machine-guns had been silenced
and all the gunners were found to be dead."  Such was the report of a
South African officer.

[Illustration: THE ARRAS FRONT]

Allusion has been made to the check caused by the strong point called
"The Pump" and the trenches called the Kleemanstellung just east of
it.  Some detail should be added in this matter, for it retarded the
attack of the flanks of two divisions, and the delay caused by it had
the effect that the Canadians on the left and the Ninth upon the
right were further forward in the late afternoon than part of the
Fifty-first and the Thirty-fourth, which might have caused a
dangerous situation.  The Thirty-fourth Division had advanced upon a
three-brigade front, which consisted from the south of the 101st, the
102nd, and the 103rd.  On the north of the 103rd was the 152nd
Brigade of the Fifty-first Division with the Seaforths as the flank
battalion.  This pestilent strong point, armed with well-served and
well-concealed machine-guns, lay between the two brigades and held up
the flanks of both, inflicting considerable losses not only on the
Seaforths, but {39} on the 25th Northumberland Fusiliers, who were on
the left of the Thirty-fourth Division.  For a considerable time the
advance was held.  The 27th reserve battalion of the Northumberland
Fusiliers were sent up, and one of its companies, led with a fine
mixture of valour and cunning, carried the place by storm.  The whole
line then got forward, but the losses had been heavy, including
Colonel Hermon of the 24th Northumberland Fusiliers.  In the evening
it was found that the final objective had not yet been fully attained
at this quarter of the field, for it had been marked at a farm called
Maison de la Côte, from which the front line was still a thousand
yards distant.  A brilliant little attack, however, by the 103rd
Brigade, in the early morning of April 10, captured the whole
position.  Besides the check at The Pump, there had been another on
the Fifty-first divisional front at a post called the "Deutsche
Haus."  The consequence of this was a loss of the barrage and a delay
which led to the isolated left of the Fifty-first losing direction
entirely and wandering round in a half-circle.  The circumstances
were so complex that it was not until next morning that they could be
cleared up.  Had the Germans had the spirit for a counter-attack,
they would certainly have found a considerable gap in the line.

These events were in the northern area of the Seventeenth Corps.  In
the southern portion, at about eleven o'clock, the reserve division
came forward, and, passing through the weary ranks of the Ninth,
pushed on along the northern bank of the river.  The advance had
already been a splendid one, the Ninth Division having 2000 prisoners
to its credit, but this {40} movement of the Fourth Division against
an enemy who was already badly shaken was a very fruitful one.  The
12th Brigade was nearest the Scarpe, with the 11th upon the left,
while the 10th moved forward in close support.  Two obstacles faced
the division, the straggling village of Fampoux upon the bank of the
river, and the Hyderabad Redoubt, a considerable fort to the north of
the village.  The 12th Brigade moved swiftly forward in the nearest
approach to open warfare that had been seen for years.  The 1st Royal
Lancasters were on the right of the swift flexible line, the 2nd
Lancashire Fusiliers in the centre, and the 2nd Essex upon the left.
The brigade fought its way in the teeth of a very hot fire to the
outskirts of Fampoux, where the reserve battalion, the 2nd West
Ridings, passed through the King's Own and carried the village in
splendid style late in the evening at the point of the bayonet.  It
is a remarkable fact that the wire in front of the village had not
been cut by the artillery, and the infantry passed in single file
through the gaps in it, after disposing of the only German
machine-gunner who offered resistance.  At the same time the 11th
Brigade kept pace upon their left flank--the Hampshires to the left
and Somersets to the right, while the 1st Rifle Brigade, passing
through them, rushed the strong position of the Hyderabad Redoubt,
and the East Lancashires formed a defensive flank.  Communication was
at once opened across the Scarpe with Haldane's Corps upon the south
side.  By this fine advance of the Fourth Division the right of the
Seventeenth Corps had got considerably further forward than the
centre, so that a defensive line had to be formed sloping back from
this advanced point.  This was the position {41} upon the evening of
the first day of battle, and it was destined to remain so in the
south for many a day to come, for the formidable Chemical Works lay
immediately to the east on either side of the Arras-Douai railway
track, and these were to prove a very grave obstacle to a further
advance on this line.  Meanwhile, 3500 prisoners with 50 captured
guns testified to the success of the Seventeenth Corps.

Following upon this brief sketch of the work done by the Seventh,
Sixth, and the Seventeenth Corps upon the first day of the Battle of
Arras, we must now turn to the splendid achievement of the Canadian
Corps upon the left.  The reputation of the Canadians as brilliant
soldiers, as dashing in attack as they were steady in defence, had
already been solidly established by a long series of military feats
beginning with the ever-memorable second battle of Ypres and
continuing on to the capture of Courcelette and the fine fighting of
the Somme.  Hitherto, they had acted in comparatively small bodies,
but now the whole might of Canada was drawn together in the four fine
divisions which lay facing the historic Vimy Ridge--a long gradual
slope which reaches a height of more than 450 feet at the summit.
They were arranged in their numerical order from the south, the First
(Currie) being in touch with the Fifty-first British Division, while
the Fourth (Watson) had upon its left Holland's First Corps, which
was not engaged in the first day's operations.  The front covered by
the Canadians was from the south end of the Ridge to the Souchez
River, close to Lens.  Nothing could have been more magnificent or
more successful than their advance, the Second and Third Divisions
(Burstall and Lipsett) attaining their full objectives {42} at every
point, and the First doing the same after a short check.  There was
no rebuff save in the extreme north of the line.  Sweeping onwards
with irresistible fury, they overran three lines of German trenches,
including the famous La Folie Farm, captured the village of Farbus,
and secured the splendid total of 70 officers and 3500 men as
prisoners, the same number as were taken by their British comrades to
the immediate south.  They not only crowned the redoubtable ridge,
but they made their way down the eastern slope and established their
line beyond it.  Many of the German infantry were captured in the
great chalk excavations in which they had taken refuge, two large
tunnels in particular--the Volker and the Prinz Arnault
Tunnels--being crammed with men.  Incredible incidents happened in
these subterranean burrows, where small bodies of Canadian moppers-up
were faced suddenly by large numbers of armed Germans in hiding.  In
one well-authenticated case four Canadians bluffed and captured 2
officers and 70 men from a Bavarian unit who were found in such a
pocket, an incident which meant a V.C. for Major Macdowell.  When the
Kaiser in prophetic mood had spoken about what would happen when his
Bavarians met the British, such an incident was far from his
thoughts.  It should be mentioned that the Fifth British Division was
in close support of the Canadians, and that the 13th Brigade of this
division was incorporated with the Second Canadians upon that day.
It was used in conjunction with the 6th Canadian Brigade on its right
to take the final objectives, the eastern slopes of the Ridge, just
north of Farbus Wood, which they did successfully with slight losses.

{43}

[Sidenote: April 10]

During the night of the 9/10th April there was fighting at several
points, notably at the north end of the Vimy Ridge.  Here the Fourth
Canadian Division had some difficulty in holding its ground against
several strong counter-attacks of the Germans.  It is probable that
no body of troops in the whole battle had a harder task, or stuck to
it more tenaciously, than this Fourth Canadian Division.  Hill 145,
which was an outlier of the Ridge, was very strongly held and
desperately defended, so that it would have turned any but
first-class troops.  The final clearing of this point was effected
upon April 10, and led to further operations in conjunction with
British troops to the north, which will be afterwards described.

The second day of the Battle of Arras, April 10, was spent partly in
the consolidation of the ground gained and partly in increasing the
area now occupied.  The troops were in high heart, for although the
full extent of the victory had not yet been realised, it was already
known that at least 10,000 prisoners and 100 guns had fallen into
their hands, figures which showed that the battle had been the most
serious military disaster which had yet befallen the enemy.  A fuller
enumeration taken some days later gave 13,000 men, 3 howitzers, 28
heavy guns, 130 field-guns, 84 trench-mortars, and 250 machine-guns
as the total capture.  It may be mentioned that over 1000 prisoners
were taken from each of the six different German divisions already
enumerated, which disposes of their mendacious assertion that only
two divisions occupied their front.  It was certainly the greatest
blow delivered by the British Army up to that date, and the only
other day's fighting at all comparable in its results was the French
attack upon the Champagne {44} front on September 25, 1915, where the
number of prisoners was greater but the capture of guns was less.

The Battle of Arras may be considered as having been in truth a
one-day battle in the same sense as the succeeding Battle of
Messines, for in each case the attack was delivered in order to gain
a definite objective, which was the ridge from which observation
could be obtained.  The extreme limit of advance had not, however,
been reached either in the south or in the north, and so in both
these areas hard fighting continued, due partly to the efforts of the
British to enlarge their gains and partly to the rally of the Germans
and their attempts at counter-attack.  There was no concentration of
troops or guns, however, upon the side of the British, and no attempt
at any considerable advance.  We shall first follow these operations
in the south where they centred chiefly round the village of Monchy
and Wancourt in the areas of the Sixth and Seventh Corps.  These we
shall weave into a connected narrative, after which we shall return
to the Vimy region and trace the movements which led to hard fighting
in that quarter.

In the Seventh Corps to the south the Fifty-sixth Division of London
Territorials had, as already described, enlarged the area which it
had taken the day before in the Neuville Vitasse sector.  The general
curve of the line was such that it was not possible for the units of
the Seventh Corps to get forward until the Sixth Corps to the north
had won some ground, but upon the afternoon of the 12th a very fine
advance was made, by which the 169th Brigade stormed Heninel.  The
Cojeul River was crossed by the {45} Fourteenth Light Division, and
the heights upon the eastern bank were occupied.  The 41st Brigade of
this unit had now come into the line.  The first attempt upon the
heights failed with heavy losses.  Next morning it was found that
Hill 90 had been evacuated, and they were able to advance and seize
Wancourt.  This brought the left flank of the Seventh Corps up to the
right flank of the Sixth Corps, and ensured close co-operation in
those operations to the north which will presently be more fully
described.  This storming of the German position in this section was
the more important as the troops were faced by the new Hindenburg
Line.  It was well known that an alternative line from Drocourt to
Queant existed some miles to the eastward, but none the less the fall
of the front section at a period when much of its wire was still
intact proved to the Germans how impossible it was to hold off
British troops by mere passive obstacles.  The tanks were of great
assistance to the assailants in this difficult operation.  Upon April
13 and 14 the Twenty-first Division, with the aid of the 19th Brigade
from the Thirty-third Division, carried forward the line to the high
ground about 1000 yards east of the stream at Henin, astride of that
portion of the Hindenburg Line.  Here all further attempts to advance
were stopped by fresh German troops, until the operations were
renewed upon April 23.  This advance of the Twenty-first Division
upon April 13 and 14 was in connection with a general movement of
Snow's Corps, but neither the Fifty-sixth London Territorials in the
centre nor the Fiftieth North Countrymen on the left, both of them
enfiladed from the north, could make much progress beyond the line of
Wancourt Tower, and there was little to {46} show for a hard day's
work.  The Thirty-third Division (Pinney) now took over the front
from the Twenty-first.

[Sidenote: April 10]

The immediate task which lay before the Sixth Corps upon April 10 was
to get the Third and Twelfth Divisions forward to the same line which
the Fifteenth Division had reached.  It will be remembered that the
46th Brigade of the latter division, together with the 63rd Brigade
from the supporting Thirty-seventh Division, had pushed on as far as
Orange Hill, half a mile farther eastward than the Feuchy Line which
formed the front of the two southern Divisions.  Six brigades of
field artillery had been hurried up, and with the help of these guns,
aided by trench-mortars, the wire which held up the advance was
partly blown away.  The Third and Twelfth Divisions were then able to
move forward and to make one line with the Fifteenth--an operation
which was completed by mid-day, the 8th Brigade doing some brilliant
work.  The strongly fortified village of Monchy, elevated above the
plain, lay immediately in front of the Sixth Corps, and its capture
was their next task.  With this object in view, the 63rd Brigade was
swung round from the north and worked its way south and east, getting
into touch with the other brigades of the Thirty-seventh Division,
which passed through the newly captured third objective and occupied
the ground upon the west of the village.  A general advance was then
made on each side of the village, the 112th Brigade occupying La
Bergère upon the Cambrai road due south of Monchy, while the 1/11th
Brigade, with the 9th and 10th Royal Fusiliers in the lead, in the
face of a considerable opposition, pushed onwards until it gained a
footing on the outskirts {47} of the village and on the high ground
to the north of it, where the 154th Company R.E. dug a temporary
line.  This was the position on the evening of April 10, while the
British line had been strengthened by the presence of the 7th Brigade
of Cavalry from the Third Cavalry Division, who were following
closely behind the Thirty-seventh Division.  In all these operations
the weather greatly impeded progress, as it prevented the advance of
the guns needed to break down wire and other obstacles.

During the night of April 10 the Twelfth Division was withdrawn into
reserve, and the advance was resumed in the early morning by the
remaining divisions and the cavalry.  At 5 A.M. the infantry was
closing in upon Monchy under a heavy fire.  The line of advance
extended right across the Cambrai road, the 76th Brigade finding
itself opposite to the village of Guémappe.  Here they were exposed
to a very heavy fire of machine-guns, and this famous brigade
sustained heavy losses, which were increased by a second attempt to
get forward in the afternoon.  The 76th Brigade finally entrenched
itself some half a mile to the west of Guémappe and waited for
developments.  The 8th Royal Lancasters were particularly hard hit in
their attack.

In the meantime the 111th Brigade of the Thirty-seventh Division had
advanced directly upon Monchy, and after severe fighting, in which
the splendid infantry struggled onwards in the face of every possible
difficulty of German resistance and of driving snowstorms, the place
was carried by assault.  The three regiments of cavalry from the 8th
Brigade, the Royal Horse Guards, 10th Hussars, and Essex Yeomanry,
advanced at a gallop and did splendid service by taking {48} part in
the attack, following closely upon the infantry, and helping to
consolidate the village.  By nine o'clock in the morning the 13th
K.R.R. and 13th Rifle Brigade, greatly aided by a very active and
efficient tank, had driven their way to the farthest houses upon the
eastern side.  About 150 of the garrison remained in their hands,
while very many lay dead among the ruins of the shattered buildings.
The cavalry, who lost their brave leader, General Bulkeley Johnson,
emerged on the eastern side of the village and lost heavily at that
point, especially in horses, some 500 of which were hit.  They had
the satisfaction, however, of getting their light guns fairly on to
the Germans, as they streamed across the open.  One who was present
says: "The cavalry filled the gap between us and the 112th Brigade.
They lost heavily, and their conduct was magnificent."  The new gain
was instantly consolidated by the Colonel of the Rifles.

The Fifteenth Division upon the left of the Thirty-seventh had been
fighting its way forward upon the north, endeavouring to keep in line
with the Thirty-seventh.  It had got somewhat ahead of the Fourth
Division, however, which was to the north of the Scarpe, and in
consequence had to face the whole fire from the strong village of
Rœux, which held them up.  The general line of the corps that
night was La Bergère, Monchy, and then the line of the Monchy-Fampoux
road as far as the Scarpe.  To the north of the Scarpe there had been
no forward movement, as the Chemical Works to the east of Fampoux
presented an obstacle which was beyond the immediate scope of Sir
Charles Fergusson's operations.

[Sidenote: April 11]

On the night of April 11 the Thirty-seventh {49} Division, which had
suffered considerably in the capture of Monchy, and the Fifteenth
which had lived up to its reputation during fifty-six hours of
incessant fighting under most inclement conditions, were withdrawn
for a short rest, while the Twelfth Division returned into the line,
and the Seventeenth took the place of the Thirty-seventh.  April 12
was spent in consolidation and in bringing up heavy howitzer
batteries along the Cambrai road, and placing them in positions
between Feuchy and Tilloy where they could support the coming
operations.

[Sidenote: April 12]

From the time that the British had captured the village, both it and
the whole front line in that area had been subjected to a most severe
German bombardment, which tried the troops extremely, but did not
prevent them from repulsing several attempts at counter-attack, none
of which reached the front trenches.  On the night of April 12 the
Twelfth Division, which was considerably worn from its exertions, was
drawn out and was replaced by the famous Twenty-ninth Regular
Division, which had gained such honour and suffered such losses at
Gallipoli and on the Somme.  There was no forward movement upon April
13 in the region of Monchy, but farther south the 9th Brigade, which
had taken the place of the 76th in front of Guémappe, endeavoured to
reach that village, but were met and checked by the same murderous
machine-gun fire which had held up their comrades, a fire which came
both from the hamlet itself and from the high ground to the south
which lay within the area of the Seventh Corps.  The 1st
Northumberland Fusiliers and 12th West Yorks, which led the attack,
both suffered severely.

[Sidenote: April 14]

As no large movement was contemplated upon {50} this front it was now
held by only two divisions, the Twenty-ninth to the south and the
Seventeenth to the north, covering the whole broad area from the
north of the Cojeul River to the south of the Scarpe.  At 5.30 upon
April 14 both divisions advanced in order to test the German strength
and, if possible, to push them farther back from Monchy.  It was an
unsuccessful day, and yet it was one of those failures which will be
remembered where facile successes have been forgotten, for it brought
with it one episode which elicited in the highest degree the
historical qualities of British infantry.  It had been arranged that
the 88th Brigade, consisting of the 2nd Hants, 4th Worcesters, 1st
Essex, and the Newfoundland Regiment, should attack due east of
Monchy, while another brigade of the Twenty-ninth Division should
advance to their right, and the Seventeenth Division guard their
flank upon the left.  Both of the flank attacks failed, however, and
the result was that the storming line of the 88th Brigade, consisting
of the Essex men on the left and the Newfoundlanders on the right,
found themselves in possession of the German trenches on Infantry
Hill, east of Monchy, but with both wings exposed and with so
terrific a barrage behind them that they were practically cut off
from assistance.  This might have mattered little under ordinary
circumstances, since two such battalions might be counted upon to
hold their ground, but by an evil chance their advance had coincided
with a considerable German counter-attack from the Bois du Sart, made
by a whole Bavarian division with the intention of retaking Monchy.
The result was a Homeric contest in which two battalions held up a
whole division, shattered a considerable attack, and {51} were
practically annihilated in doing so.  Of some companies not a single
man returned and yet few were ever reported as prisoners in Germany.
No more gallant feat of arms has been performed in the war.  The 2nd
Hants and 4th Worcesters in support did their best to help their
comrades, and sustained considerable losses themselves in the
attempt, but they were never able to reach the real front line, and
it is undoubtedly true that the two battalions alone received and
broke the full strength of the Bavarian Division, which was entirely
fresh, having taken no part in any previous fighting.  It was
difficult in the barrage and confusion--the ground being
unreconnoitred--to direct reinforcements to the points where they
were so urgently needed, but a lieutenant of the Essex passed through
the German barrage and managed to bring up one company of the 2nd
Hants, who came too late to retrieve the fight, but were able to take
up the defence of the northern flank and to prevent the Germans from
getting round in that quarter.  Small parties of the enemy got up to
the fringes of the village, but the edge had been taken completely
from their assault, and in spite of the heavy barrage, the staff of
the brigade headquarters, who were the only troops available, were
sufficient to hold them off; Colonel Forbes Robertson doing
particularly good work with a Lewis gun.  No German set foot in
Monchy.  Of the headquarter staff there were only nine survivors,
each of whom was decorated.

Apart from the attack so heroically repelled, a second had developed
to the south-east of Monchy which was driven back by rifles and
machine-guns.  The total German losses during the day must have been
very heavy, and they had nothing to show for {52} it, though the
British casualties amounted to some 4000, chiefly in the Twenty-ninth
Division.

It must be admitted that the Germans, who had been strongly
reinforced in men and in guns, were fighting with great resolution on
this front, and their defence and counter-attacks were equally
gallant.

From this date onwards until April 22, there was no particular
forward movement, and every effort was concentrated upon the
improvement of defences and communications.  There were no fresh
German counter-attacks, but there was constant and heavy bombardment
upon both sides, the Germans pouring shells into Monchy and raking
every road which led to the front, while the British overwhelmed
Guémappe, Rœux, and Pelves with their fire.  The only change of
troops was that upon the night of April 19 the Fifteenth Scottish
Division, after its short rest, pushed in upon the right of the
Twenty-ninth Division, taking over the ground between La Bergère on
the north and the Cojeul River on the south.  The order of battle of
the Sixth Corps was therefore from the north the Seventeenth,
Twenty-ninth, and Fifteenth Divisions.

We shall now retrace our steps to glance at what had been going on
since the first day of the battle upon the front of the Seventeenth
Corps to the immediate north of the Scarpe.  It has already been
recorded how the flank unit, the Fourth Division, after relieving the
Ninth Division found itself faced with the strongly-fortified
Chemical Works and the village of Rœux.  The position was a very
formidable one, as future tragic experiences were to prove.  Two
brigades of the Ninth Division, the 27th Lowlanders upon the left and
the South Africans upon the right, were ordered to pass the line of
the Fourth Division {53} and to endeavour to carry the place by
assault.  The attempt was not successful, though it was urged with
great valour.  The wastage of the division had already been such that
neither brigade numbered 2000 bayonets.  The average strength of the
South African regiments was about 400 men.  As a result, the attack
was wanting in weight, and was repulsed with considerable loss, which
fell chiefly upon the 1st Cape and 2nd Natal battalions in the front
line of the South Africans.  The attackers endured heavy losses in
debouching from the narrow exits of Fampoux under fire, and they were
afterwards faced with 700 yards of open ground swept by bullets.  In
spite of this, some of the stormers did actually penetrate the German
lines, as was proved later by the discovery of their bodies.

[Sidenote: April 10]

To the north of this section of fierce fighting the line, which had
sagged upon the evening of April 9, had been brought level upon April
10 by the readjustment of the Fifty-first Division, and by the attack
of the 103rd Brigade of Tyneside Scottish upon the Maison de la Côte
position.  From that time the British front was firm in this region,
and a strong counter-attack of four German battalions, who could be
seen streaming westwards in lines of motor 'buses, was broken to
pieces upon the night of April 11 by the steady rifle-fire of the
27th Northumberland Fusiliers who occupied the front trenches.

Facing this section of the line was the village of Bailleul which was
abandoned by the Germans, and was taken over by Pereira's Second
Division, who had relieved the Highland Territorials upon April 13.
Shortly afterwards the Sixty-third Naval Division took over from the
Thirty-fourth.  These two {54} divisions belonged to the Thirteenth
Corps (M'Cracken), which from now onward occupied a space in the line
between the Seventeenth to the south and the Canadians to the north.
The strong villages of Oppy and of Gavrelle lay now in front of the
British in this quarter, but the German line was destined to remain
unbroken for a considerable period.  An attack was made upon Gavrelle
by the 190th Brigade, the landsman unit of the Naval Division, but
this was only partially successful.  Farther to the north the Second
Division had no better fortune against Oppy, which was attempted more
than once.  The further advance against these places will be found
recorded further on, where it will fit into its place among the other
incidents of the renewed general attack upon April 23.

[Sidenote: April 13]

The Canadians in the Vimy Ridge area were occupied during three days
of dreadful weather in consolidating their new positions, and in
pushing the Germans out of that northern portion which they still
held.  The Fourth Canadian Division had suffered much from
machine-gun fire from Hill 145 in the Souchez district, but this was
taken upon April 10.  There was still a good deal of work to be done,
however, at that end of the line, and upon April 12 a joint attack of
Canadians and British cleared the ground in this quarter.  Attacking
at dawn in a snowstorm, the resolute Canadian infantry drove their
way over the northern limits of Vimy Ridge, capturing among other
positions an outlier of the Vimy Ridge, the venomous little hill
called The Pimple, which had been a thorn in their side.  At the same
time the Twenty-fourth British Division moved forward nearly opposite
to Lens, the river Souchez separating them from the Canadians.  The
immediate obstacle which {55} faced the British troops was a
scattered wood, the Bois-en-Haches, which was most gallantly attacked
by the 73rd Brigade.  The front line in this fine advance was formed
by the 9th Sussex on the left and the 2nd Leinsters upon the right,
supported by the 13th Middlesex and 7th Northamptons.  Both the
Sussex and the Irish battalions, especially the latter, had heavy
losses, but they never faltered until their objective was won.  Upon
April 13 there was a general forward movement along the whole
Canadian line, in the course of which they occupied Willerval in the
south and both Vimy and Givenchy-en-Gohelle in the north.  On the
same date the 15th and 95th Brigades of the British Fifth Division
took over from the Fourth Canadian Division from the Souchez River to
south of Givenchy-en-Gohelle.  These two brigades actually took over
on the move forward, and did not stop until they had reached a line
Cité-des-Petits-Bois to the Vimy-Lens Road just short of La Coulotte.

The Twenty-fourth Division in the north joined in this attack as, to
a limited extent, did the Sixth Division upon its left.  It may be
explained that both of these divisions, together with the Forty-sixth
in support of them, formed Holland's First Corps.  The Twenty-fourth
Division advanced upon a three-brigade front, the 72nd, 17th, and
73rd Brigades in that order from the left, sweeping forward in one
line.  Complete success attended their efforts.  Angres, Lievin, and
Cité St. Pierre were all stormed and occupied.  The 17th Brigade,
which had been strengthened by the inclusion of the 1st Marine
Battalion, did particularly well, for it was faced by two dangerous
strong points called Crook and Crazy, both of which were carried, the
3rd Rifle Brigade {56} being conspicuous in each operation.  Some
days later, the Forty-sixth Division took over from the Twenty-fourth
and the new line was firmly held, the area of the Forty-sixth being
from the Souchez River in the south to Fosse 12 de Lens in the north.
Farther to the north the Sixth Division had made some progress, but
had not been able to surmount the old enemy, Hill 70, the long, clear
glacis of which had cost the British such losses at Loos.  The
Twenty-fourth Division had lost 3000 men in these operations, but
their services had been of great value, for the grip upon Lens was
appreciably tighter, and according to Sir Douglas Haig's despatch it
was the capture of this position which prevented the Germans from
attempting the retaking of the positions which they had lost.  The
British Army was close to the great mining centre, one of the springs
of wealth in France.  Ominous explosions and dense plumes of dark
smoke seemed to show that it was a spring which would be sealed for
many a day.  So precipitate had been the German retreat in this area
that candles were found burning in the dug-outs, meals were half
consumed, and large stores of engineering materials and grenades were
left behind.

Pausing for a moment at this instant, with the line advanced from
three to six miles along the whole front, one may take a glance at
the practical results of this great battle.  As a mere military
triumph it was a considerable one, since the total booty in the
immediate battle came by this date to some 14,000 men and 180 guns.
Its strategical result was to win the high ground along the whole of
a front which had been considered impregnable, and so to give both
better observation and drier foothold to the army.  {57} It was clear
that it must entail a prolongation of the same operation to the
north, and this was manifested two months later at the victory of
Messines.  That again pointed to a fresh prolongation towards the
higher ground round Ypres, which led to the severe but successful
fighting in the autumn.  Thus the Arras Battle was the prologue to
the whole campaign of 1917.

It is impossible, even in so brief an account as this, to turn away
from this great victory without a word as to the splendid service of
the airmen, and the glorious efforts by which they secured the
supremacy over their brave adversaries.  The air, the guns, the
infantry--those are the three stages which lead from one to the other
in a modern battle.  Starting with every possible disadvantage, our
knight-errants of the air, as without hyberbole they may well be
called, by a wonderful mixture of reckless dare-devil bravery and
technical skill brought their side to victory.  The mixture of the
Berserk fighter and of the cool engineer, as ready with the spanner
and oil-can as with the pistol and machine-gun, is indeed a strange
product of modern tactics.  No mention of these grand men, most of
them hardly more than boys in their years, could be complete which
did not specially name one who is likely to remain as a great memory
and inspiration in the Service, Captain Albert Ball, a gallant youth
whose bravery and modesty were equally beautiful.  He brought down
not less than forty-three German planes in single combat before
meeting his own glorious end.

[Sidenote: April 9-12]

Whilst this battle had been raging along the Arras front, the great
southern curve which marked the eventual halting-place of the German
retreat was {58} the scene of continual fighting, which attained no
great intensity save at Bullecourt, but smouldered all along the
line, as the British drove in the outlying German posts and impinged
upon the main Hindenburg position from Croisilles to St. Quentin.
Detail of these smaller operations hardly comes within the scale of
this narrative, but some indication of their nature and sequence may
be given.  On April 2 had been the successful advance upon Ecoust,
Noreuil, Louverval, and Doignies, which was carried out to the
immediate south of the Seventh Corps area by the left of Gough's
Fifth Army.  The troops engaged were the British Divisions--the
Seventh, Fifty-eighth, and Sixty-second upon the left near
Croisilles, the Fourth Australians at Noreuil, and the Fifth
Australians at Doignies and Hermies.  This brought the army in this
section up to the front Hindenburg Line, which the Australians with
little support behind them proceeded at once to break, a most valiant
but rather rash undertaking, as it was clear that the task was one
which required the massed batteries of several army corps to bring it
to success.  The idea was to connect up with the flank of the Third
Army in its new positions and the Sixty-second British Division
advance on the left for the same purpose.  The attack, which began
upon April 12, was directed against the line at a point between
Bullecourt village upon the left and Lagnicourt upon the right.  A
broad apron of barbed wire covered the whole German front, and the
only means of piercing it, in the absence of heavy gun power, was by
the crushing force of tanks.  The attack was delivered across the
snow in the early morning by men many of whom had never seen snow
{59} in their lives until they entered the war zone.  In some places
the tanks broke the wire, but for the greater part the infantry--West
Australians and New South Welshmen on right, Victorians on left--with
extraordinary gallantry and with considerable loss worked its way
through it, taking the village of Riencourt.  On the farther side,
however, they were met with repeated bombing attacks which continued
through the morning and afternoon with such pertinacity that the
Australian supply of bombs was exhausted.  There were only three
tanks, and though they behaved with the greatest audacity they were
all put out of action.  The artillery support being inadequate, the
infantry had to fall back, and one considerable party, some 700 in
number, were unable to get through the wire, so that after doing all
that men could do they were compelled to surrender.  Several of these
men escaped later with fresh tales of that German brutality to
prisoners which has been their constant policy, with a few honourable
exceptions, since the first days of the war.  When the large national
issues have been settled or forgotten, these smaller villainies will
leave Germans as outcasts among the civilised nations of the earth,
with no living men save the murderers of Armenia with whom they can
hold equal converse.  This temporary repulse upon the Hindenburg Line
by no means disheartened the Australians, who argued that if with so
little support they could effect so much, a more deliberate assault
could hardly fail of success.  Within three weeks, as will be shown,
they were to prove the truth of their contention.

[Sidenote: April 15]

In the meantime, a considerable German attack had been prepared which
fell upon the Australian line {60} in the early morning of April 15.
Two Guards Divisions and two ordinary divisions took part in it, so
that it was no small matter.  The outposts were weak and a number of
the field-guns had been brought well forward into the front line, so
that the first onset crashed through the defences and brought about a
situation which might have been dangerous.  The front line rallied,
and with the aid of supports advanced so swiftly upon the Germans
that they had little time to injure the guns which had come for the
moment into their power.  The front of the attack was nearly six
miles, from Hermies to Noreuil, with its centre at Lagnicourt, and
all along this extended position the stormers had rushed forward in
heavy masses into the Australian line.  It was easier to break than
to destroy, for every scattered post spat out bullets from rifles and
Lewis guns, fighting viciously until it was either submerged or
rescued.  In some posts, notably that of Subaltern Pope, an old
warrant-officer of the Navy from West Australia, the men fired away
every cartridge and then all died together, stabbing and thrusting
with their bayonets into the grey clouds which hemmed them in.
Seventy German dead were found round his position.  In front of
Lagnicourt, the Germans had the advanced guns in their hands for
nearly two hours, but they had been dismantled by the gunners before
they were abandoned, and the Prussian Guardsmen had apparently no
means of either moving or of destroying them.  All of them, save
five, were absolutely intact when retaken.  A rush of Queenslanders
and New South Welshmen drove back the intruders, retrieved the guns,
and followed the fugitives into Lagnicourt.  Large numbers of the
Germans were shot down in their retreat, {61} especially in their
efforts to get back through the gaps in their own wire.  Both sides
took several hundred prisoners in this action, but the German losses
were heavy, and nothing at all was gained.

The units which have been mentioned, the Seventh, Fifty-eighth, and
Sixty-second Divisions, with the Fourth and Fifth Australian
Divisions, constituted for the moment the whole of Gough's Fifth
Army.  To its south, extending from the right of the Australians at
Hermies down to the junction with the French at St. Quentin, lay
Rawlinson's Fourth Army, which consisted at this period of the
Fifteenth Corps (Du Cane) upon the left, with the Twentieth, Eighth,
and Forty-eighth Divisions in the line.  To the south of this was the
Third Corps with the Fifty-ninth, Thirty-fifth, and Thirty-second
Divisions in the line.  Their general instructions were to push the
enemy back so as to gain complete observation of the Hindenburg
system.  The Twentieth Division pushed up into Havrincourt Wood, and
gradually by many skirmishes cleared it of the enemy, an operation
which extended over some time, but was not accompanied by any hard
fighting.

A sharp little action, already described, was fought at the extreme
south of the British line upon April 13, in which the Thirty-second
Division was engaged.  This unit captured Fayet, which is only one
mile north of St. Quentin.  At the same time, the two divisions upon
the left, the Thirty-fifth and the Fifty-ninth, advanced and captured
the ground in front of them.  After some fighting, these two
divisions occupied the Gricourt-Pontruet line.  This section of the
line ceased after April to concern the {62} British commanders, for
the St. Quentin end of it was taken over by the French, while the
trenches north of that were occupied by Canadian and Indian cavalry,
so as to release fresh divisions for the operations in the north.

The full objects of the Arras battle, so far as they could be
attained, had been reached after a week of fighting.  Had he only
himself to consult, Sir Douglas would have assumed a strict defensive
from that time onwards and begun at once to transfer his forces for
those operations which he had planned in Flanders.  It was essential,
however, that he should hold and use up as many German divisions as
possible in order to help the French offensive which was about to
start in the south.  How successful the British General had been
already in this design is shown by his own statement that after this
week of fighting the Germans had twice as many divisions opposite to
him as they had at the beginning, and were driven into constant
counter-attacks which cost them heavy losses.  The whole aftermath of
the Battle of Arras, extending until the end of May, is to be judged
from this point of view, and though we may be inclined to wince at
the heavy losses and the limited results, we have to bear in mind
continually the wider strategic meaning of the operations.

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{63}

[Illustration: Chart of ORDER OF BATTLE--ARRAS April 9, 1917]

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{64}

CHAPTER III

  OPERATIONS IN THE ARRAS SECTOR FROM
  APRIL 23 ONWARDS

Advance of April 23--Middlesex and Argyll--Grand fighting of the
Fifteenth Division--H.A.C. at Gavrelle--Operations of May 3--The
Gavrelle Windmill--Loss of Fresnoy--Capture of Rœux--The long
fight at Bullecourt.


Upon April 16 the great French offensive had broken out upon the
Aisne, directed against the line of Chalk Downs which the British had
learned to know so well in 1914, and aiming at that ancient road, the
Chemin des Dames, which some of the First Division had actually
reached in that year.  The attack was very successful in the outset,
a haul of prisoners and guns being secured which brought their
victory to a level with that at Arras.  After a time, however, the
defence became too strong for the attack, and the French losses
became very serious.  Whilst they were gathering their strength for a
fresh blow, which was brilliantly delivered later in the year, it was
necessary for Sir Douglas to keep up his pressure to the north, and
to engage guns and troops which should, according to his original
plan, have been diverted long ago to the Flemish front.  This had the
effect of delaying the operations there, and this in turn brought us
into the premature rainy season which began upon {65} August 1 and
lasted with very few breaks for the rest of the autumn.  Thus the
circumstances at this date, unavoidable as they were, had a malign
effect upon the year's campaign, which was greatly increased by the
wild proceedings of the new Russian rulers, if the organisers of
anarchy can be known by such a name.  These preposterous people, who
began their career of democracy by betraying all the democracies of
the world, and exemplified their morality by repudiating the loans
which had been made to Russia in her need, reduced the armies to such
a state of impotence that they were useless as allies, so that the
Latin and Anglo-Saxon races had to fight with the full weight of the
military autocracies.  This fact made the situation both upon the
Italian and upon the Western fronts infinitely more serious than it
would otherwise have been, since not only the men, but the munitions
of the Germans, could be concentrated upon their undoing.

[Sidenote: April 23]

Upon April 23 there was a renewal of the advance all along the
British line, which took for its objectives, counting from the south,
Bois du Vert, Bois du Sart, Pelves, Rœux, Gavrelle, Oppy,
Acheville, etc.

Upon this date, Snow's Seventh Corps in the south had the
Thirty-third Division upon its right, the Thirtieth in the centre,
and the Fiftieth upon the left.  It was a day of hard fighting and of
very limited gains, for General Snow experienced all the
disadvantages which the attack has against the defence, when there is
no overwhelming artillery to blast a road for the infantry.  All
three divisions made some progress in the early hours of dawn, but
the whole of the two northern divisions and the centre of the
Thirty-third Division were soon {66} held up and were finally driven
back to their starting-point by very heavy machine-gun fire.  About
11 A.M. a heavy German counter-attack, preceded by a terrific shower
of shells, came rolling down the Cojeul Valley, driving back the
Fiftieth Division after their very fine initial advance.  The
obstacle in front of the troops was nothing less than the Hindenburg
front line, so that they might well find it a difficult nut to crack.
The Thirtieth Division fell back in touch with the Fiftieth, but the
Thirty-third managed to hold on to its gain of ground on the flank
which had brought it into the German front line south of the Sensée
River.

The position at this part of the line had become serious, and was
ever more so as the evening passed into night, for the forward
position of the Thirty-third Division had exposed its whole left
flank, its advanced units were cut off, and the Germans, pushing back
the Lancashire men of the Thirtieth Division, had worked forward to
an extent which threatened the guns.  If the advance continued, the
Thirty-third Division must either fall back under most difficult
conditions or be overwhelmed.  General Pinney held his ground, and
was comforted in doing so by the sounds all night of a brisk
rifle-fire upon his front, though it was impossible to ascertain what
troops were in so isolated a position.  With the first light of
morning, two battalions of the 19th Brigade, the 20th Royal Fusiliers
and 2nd Welsh Fusiliers, were pushed forward to clear up the
situation.  They came after advancing 1200 yards upon the remains of
two grim, battle-stained companies, one of the 1st Middlesex and one
of the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who had spent some
fifteen hours in {67} the heart of the enemy's advance, seeing their
attacks sweeping past them, but keeping as steady as two rocks in a
stream.  Apart from the other hardships of their position, they had
endured the whole of the British barrage put down to stop the German
advance.  This stout defence not only screened the face of the
Thirty-third Division, but to some extent covered the flank of the
Thirtieth--a striking example of what may be accomplished by a small
body of determined men who refuse to despair, be the situation ever
so desperate.  In their shell-holes were found a score or so of
German prisoners whom they had held in their clutch.  Lieutenant
Henderson of the Highlanders received the V.C. over the fine stand
made by his troops, and Lieut. Archibald of the same battalion,
together with Captain Belsham and Lieut. Rutter of the Middlesex,
received decorations for valour, as did many of their brave
followers.  It was a deed which was worthy of the famous 91st and of
the old Die-Hards of Albuera.  Altogether upon this day the
Thirty-third Division gained great distinction, and, as a visible
sign of its prowess, 750 prisoners from the German Sixty-first
Division.

The attack, so far as the Sixth Corps was concerned, was launched in
the early morning of April 23, with the 44th and 45th well-tried
Scottish Brigades upon the right; on their left were the 88th and
87th Brigades of Regulars, and farther north still was the 51st
Brigade with one battalion of the 50th.  The remaining brigades were
in reserve, with the Third Division in support behind them.

The advance was met by an extremely heavy machine-gun fire and by a
desperately destructive barrage of heavy artillery.  In spite of
this, the {68} infantry made good progress at several points.  The
Highlanders of the 44th and the Lowlanders of the 45th Brigades faced
the deadly fire with equal bravery, and had soon established
themselves to the north and partly to the east of Guémappe.  The
Twenty-ninth Division had also made a fine advance, being screened
from the flank fire which told heavily upon their comrades to north
and south.  By nine o'clock they had reached the line which had been
marked out as their objective, and though the Germans came swarming
down from Pelves, they could not budge them from their new positions.
On the British left, however, the advance had failed, for the guns in
Rœux on the north side of the Scarpe commanded their flank, and
the 51st Brigade was unable to get forward in the north, and only
slightly in the south.  The German counter-attacks developed so
strongly in the course of the morning that the Fifteenth Division had
to fall back from their advanced positions, taking up a line due
north of Guémappe, where it was in very close touch with the Germans
in front and with the 88th Brigade upon the left.  Both brigades of
the Twenty-ninth Division, thrown out in a large semi-circle, held
fast to their ground all day.  At six in the evening the support
brigade of the Fifteenth Division, the 46th Brigade, advanced and
again won the forward line, including the village of Guémappe; but
the Seventeenth Division upon the left was unable to get forward.
The 46th Brigade, as night fell, found its isolated position so
precarious that it fell back a little so as to get into closer touch
with the right of the Twenty-ninth Division, but still held on to the
village.  It was a long and hard day's fighting, in which both {69}
parties gave and took severe blows.  The German resistance was very
strong from the first, and though a fair amount of ground was gained,
it was at a considerable cost, which was only justified by the fact
that the enemy in their counter-attacks suffered even more heavily.
At nightfall, a portion only of the first objective had been won.
Bavarian and Scot had fought till they were weary round Guémappe, and
never had the dour tenacity of our northern troops been more rudely
tested.  It was a fine exhibition of valour on both sides, but the
village stayed with the Scots.

The Seventeenth Corps on the other side of the Scarpe had very
similar experiences upon this day of battle as their neighbours in
the south.  The Thirty-seventh Division was on their left and the
Fifty-first upon the right.  The Thirty-seventh pushed their line
forward to their final objective, which did not contain any
particular village.  This advanced line they were able to hold.  The
Fifty-first Division, charging forward with the old Celtic fire,
carried the Chemical Works by assault, and the Corona Trench beyond
them; but after a desperate day of alternate advance and retreat,
their final line was to the west of the Chemical Works.  It was a
very hard day's work upon this sector, and the losses upon both sides
were very heavy.

The Thirteenth Corps upon the same day had attacked Oppy and Gavrelle
to the north, with the result that the Sixty-third Division captured
the latter.  Oppy had proved to be, for the time, inviolable; but the
assault upon Gavrelle was brilliantly successful, the village being
stormed with a splendid rush, in spite of the most deadly fire, by
the 189th and {70} 190th Brigades of the Sixty-third Naval Division.
The German losses were greatly increased upon this occasion by their
unsuccessful counter-attacks, which spread over several successive
days, and never made an impression.  It is on record that one
gathering of 2000 men, collected in a hollow, was observed and
signalled to the guns, with the result that they were simply shot to
pieces by a sudden concentration of fire.  An officer who observed
this incident has made a statement as to the complete nature of the
catastrophe.  More than 1000 prisoners were taken on this front, and
nearly 3000 in all.  To the north of the line the Fifth Division also
advanced on the German position, the chief attack being carried out
by the 95th Brigade, having the Electric Generating Station as its
objective.  In this operation the 1st Cornwalls particularly
distinguished themselves.  The result of the advance was a mere
readjustment of the line, for the 15th Brigade upon the right was
stopped by uncut wire, though the Germans were actually seen holding
up their hands in the trenches.  Seeing the attack at a standstill,
the Germans brought up their machine-guns and drove it back.  Upon
the immediate north of the Fifth Division, the Sherwood Forester
Brigade of the Forty-sixth Division was brought to a stand in front
of Hill 65 and Fosse 3, two strong positions bristling with
machine-guns.  The 6th and 8th Foresters suffered heavily in this
attack, 9 officers and 200 men being killed, wounded, or taken.
Farther still to the north, the Sixth Division had moved towards the
Dynamite Magazine and Nash Alley, but here also the attack was held
by the defence.  On the whole, in spite of the prisoners and in spite
of Guémappe and {71} Gavrelle, it was doubtful if the gains made up
for the losses upon the day's balance.

[Sidenote: April 24]

A second day of hard fighting was destined to follow that of April
23, though the advance began later in the day.  In the area of the
Seventh Corps some advance was made in the centre and two field-guns
were captured.  The Sixth Corps also went forward again.  The front
attacked was strong, the fire heavy, and the attacking troops had
again and again been through the furnace, which had only tempered
their courage, but had woefully consumed their numbers.  The
Fifteenth Division in the south got forward some distance and dug
themselves in on the new line.  The Twenty-ninth also made some
gains, but were unable to retain them, and fell back upon their old
line.  In the movement some of the parties to flank and rear were
overwhelmed, and 250 men, including 3 officers, were taken.  In the
north, the Seventeenth Division held its old line, and did not join
in the advance.  After nightfall the Twelfth Division came into line
again, relieving the weary Twenty-ninth.  Farther north the
Seventeenth Corps and the First Army were driving back
counter-attacks.

The next day (April 25) saw the long struggle still renewed.  In the
early morning the 50th and 52nd Brigades of the Seventeenth Division
went forward and made some progress, as did the indomitable Fifteenth
Division in the south.  It was clear, however, that the forces
available for attack were not strong enough to attain any
considerable result in this portion of the line.  The Fifteenth,
however, were not to be denied, and with extraordinary tenacity they
made a sudden night attack upon April 26, and {72} for a time got
possession of a strong German post, called Cavalry Farm, which barred
the way.  The [Sidenote: April 27] enemy counter-attacked in the
early morning of April 27 and re-occupied the Farm, but the Scotsmen
held firmly to the trenches immediately south of it.  At this date
the Seventeenth drew out of the line and the Third came in again in
the centre of the Corps front, while the Twelfth moved to the left.
They were just in time to meet a strong German night attack upon
April 27, which broke before the rifle and machine-gun fire of the
infantry at the point of contact between the two divisions.  The
German losses were heavy, and they left a few prisoners behind them.

[Sidenote: April 28]

April 28 had been fixed for a forward movement of Fergusson's
Seventeenth Corps on the north of the Scarpe, so the Twelfth Division
on the south bank advanced in sympathy with it.  This attack gained
possession of part of Bayonet Trench, a formidable line which crossed
the front, but a further attack was unable to clear the whole of it,
on account of the very severe machine-gun fire down the Scarpe
Valley.  It was a day of hard fighting to the north of the Scarpe,
which only affected the line of the Sixth Corps to the extent that
the Thirty-fourth Division failed to carry the Chemical Works on the
north bank of the river.  It was the possession by the enemy of this
position and of the village of Rœux to the east of it which was so
fatal to all advances south of the Scarpe, as the guns from these
places enfiladed the southern line.  But for this the Twelfth
Division might have reached their whole objective.  The Thirty-fourth
Division made another attempt upon Rœux in the middle of the
night, but again {73} without success, and the Second Division
farther north had no better luck in front of Oppy.

Although the progress had been very limited at the southern end of
the line, there were better results to the north.  The Canadians,
whose staying power in this long-drawn fighting was as remarkable as
their valour, had taken Arleux, together with a considerable section
of trench upon either side of it.  This fine assault was opposed by
wire, by sunken roads, and by a desperate hand-to-hand encounter amid
the ruins, all of which failed to hold the Canadian infantry.  On
their right the 5th and 6th Brigades of the Second Division were
heavily engaged in front of Oppy and Oppy Wood with some success at
first, but this was neutralised by a strong German counter-attack.
Some progress had been made also by the Thirty-seventh Division upon
the left, and by the Thirty-fourth Division to the right of the
Seventeenth Corps to the north of Gavrelle, and on the slopes of the
long incline known as Greenland Hill between Gavrelle and Rœux.
In these two days of defensive fighting the German bulletins claimed
a victory, but the fact that they had lost ground and nearly 1000
prisoners was sufficient to show how hollow was the pretence.  Their
losses were greatly increased by the continual unsuccessful
counter-attacks which they threw against the new positions in the
Oppy line, which had now reached the edge of the village.  Gavrelle
village was attacked no less than seven times, and each time the
stormers were completely repulsed.

[Sidenote: April 23]

One particular deed of valour connected with these operations demands
some fuller exposition.  The front of the German line which had been
breached {74} between Gavrelle on the south and the Bailleul-Gavrelle
railway upon the north, was a narrow one, and the Naval Division had
penetrated here to a depth of nearly 1000 yards, thus creating a
narrow salient into the German defences with its apex at a fortified
windmill.  The 4th Bedfords, supported by the 7th Royal Fusiliers,
were responsible for this advance.  The attacks at the north had
failed.  Thus the troops in the salient had a most difficult task in
holding the position in view of the determined counter-attacks, which
had continued with hardly a check from April 23, when the salient was
formed.  The pressure fell upon the 190th Brigade, and very
especially upon the 7th Royal Fusiliers and the 1st Honourable
Artillery Company.

The orders had been given to endeavour to widen the base of the
salient by bombing up the German trenches to the northward, and this
work was committed to Major Osmond of the H.A.C.  The attack was to
be carried on in two parallel lines--the one up the original front
trench and the other up the original support trench.  Three young
lieutenants--Pollard, O'Brien, and Haine--led the bombers, and they
came away with a rush which would have gladdened the hearts of the
many generations of soldiers who have served in this ancient corps.
The railway to the north was their limit, and they had almost reached
it when Haine's party found itself held up by a fortress containing
200 of the Fusilier Guards.  He sat down before it, repulsed a severe
counter-attack, sent back for trench mortars, and upon April 28,
after a rest during which the 1st Marine Battalion maintained and
enlarged the line, he attacked it in due form.  After a short but
vigorous {75} bombardment, he captured it with two machine-guns and
fifty of the garrison.  He was ordered to leave a platoon in the
captured post, but they, in turn, were besieged by an attacking force
of the German Guards coming down-trench, and driving in the extreme
right of the Second Division in the north.  The platoon, or what was
left of it, blew up the guns and retreated upon the main body of
their Company, who were assembled, under Haine, just south of the
railway.  There they established a block and remained fast, while
Pollard threw out his bombers on the left to form a defensive flank.

Whilst the Royal Marines had held the line they had endeavoured to
push the Germans to the north and had lost heavily in the venture.
They--or the scanty remains of them--were now relieved by the 4th
Bedfords and 7th Royal Fusiliers.  Encouraged by this strengthening
of the general line, the indefatigable Haine, whose company now
numbered only thirty-five men, assembled his miniature siege-train,
beleaguered the fort once more, and captured it for the second time
with its garrison.  Pollard with his men then pushed past, and took
the northern objective which had already cost so dearly.  Having
seized it, he called to his aid men of the Bedfords, the 7th
Fusiliers, and of the 22nd Royal Fusiliers of the Second Division to
hold the new line.  The battle swung and swayed for a time as the
Germans made successive efforts, but the whole Naval Division front
and part of the Second Division front was cleared.  The total trench
line taken by Pollard was about a mile, and 1000 yards of this he
cleared with the help of four bombers, while Haine repelled no fewer
than fourteen attacks.  Altogether it was a remarkable {76} example
of what audacity and initiative can do, and both these young officers
obtained the V.C. for their determined valour, while Major Osmond, in
local charge of the operation, won his D.S.O.

[Sidenote: May 3]

May 3 was a day of general battle upon the British front, the attack
being arranged to help the coming French advance due upon May 5.  The
main action raged from Vimy in the north to the Scarpe, while to the
south of the Scarpe the Sixth Corps and Seventh Corps still continued
their indefatigable struggles to get forward past the Monchy-Guémappe
line on to Pelves and Cherisy.  The upshot of the long day's fighting
was the capture of Fresnoy by the Canadians at one end of the line,
and of a part of the new German line by the Australians at the other
end.  The Oppy position was also enlarged and strengthened, and
progress was made all along the front as far south as Croisilles.
Nearly a thousand additional prisoners were taken by the Seventh
Corps.

The operations in the southern area upon May 3 were carried out by
the hard-worked Twenty-first Division upon the right, the Eighteenth
in the centre, and the Fourteenth on the left.  Good progress was
made all along the line, which extended in the evening roughly from
the St. Rohart Factory through a point 1000 yards west of Cherisy to
the west edges of Fontaine.  All three divisions had hard fighting,
and all three lived up to their high reputations.  At one time, the
53rd Eastern County Brigade of the Eighteenth Division had actually
entered and passed Cherisy, but the pressure of the counter-attacks
and of the guns was too strong, and they had to relax their grip.  In
commenting upon this achievement, General Snow remarked: "I have
never met {77} a division which so persistently pushed its way
forward during the intervals between heavy fighting, and the ground
(over 1000 yards) won in this manner stands to its credit."  The 8th
Norfolk and 10th Essex did particularly well.  In the Fourteenth
Division the 42nd Brigade was in close touch with the Londoners on
their left, while the 44th were on the right.  The first 1500 yards'
advance of this division was easy going, but here as elsewhere the
darkness caused loss of touch and some confusion, which was not
improved by the severe fire into which the troops came with the
breaking of the dawn.  It is a dismal experience at any time to
trudge through that leaden sleet, but most dismal surely in that cold
ghostly hour of early morning.  The 8th Rifle Brigade and 7th K.R.R.
did all that men could do, and held a flank for the Eighteenth
Division when they advanced upon Cherisy, but when at last the latter
was forced back the Fourteenth Division retired also, and found
themselves by 10.30 in the morning little advanced from where they
started.

The exertions and losses of the 42nd Brigade upon the left of the
divisional front were not less than those upon the right, nor had
they anything solid to show for them.  Their advance was led by the
5th Oxford and Bucks upon the right, with the 9th Rifle Brigade upon
the left.  The Oxfords with great gallantry captured a position
called New Trench, and endeavoured to consolidate it, but after
sustaining a shattering fire from every sort of missile, and after
having lost 300 men, they were charged by six or seven waves of
infantry, each wave being about 150 strong.  Their numbers and the
volume of their fire were not sufficient to stop such an advance,
{78} and the remnants fell back after having taken heavy toll of
their assailants.

The advance to the immediate south of the Scarpe was started at an
hour before dawn, and was carried out by the Fifty-sixth, Third, and
Twelfth Divisions of the Sixth Corps in the order named from south to
north.  This attack from the onset met with the same terrific
machine-gun fire which had limited all our gains and made them so
costly upon this front.  On the extreme right the 69th Brigade made a
most dashing advance, passing through Cavalry Farm in the darkness,
and making good their footing in the German system of trenches to the
east of it.  In this quarter the gain of ground was permanent, but
the 167th Brigade upon the left was not so successful, and was held
up by wire and machine-guns, as was the 8th Brigade upon its left.
All the leading battalions in this quarter sustained crushing losses,
especially the 1st London, the 7th Middlesex, and the 2nd Royal
Scots.  For some reason the British artillery preparation seems to
have been entirely inadequate.  "As soon as the first wave topped the
ridge between our front line and the German trench, it was obvious
that the latter had never been adequately dealt with, and had
apparently escaped the barrage, as it was full of infantry standing
shoulder to shoulder, and waiting for our men to come on.  In
consequence, while isolated groups got forward, the great bulk of our
men were attacked by a withering fire, and pinned down into shell
holes from which they were unable to emerge until after darkness."

The hostile shelling in all this St. Rohart area was almost incessant
during the day, and of so heavy a volume that it was such as had
hardly ever been {79} witnessed by any one present.  "If we had
another day of it I verily believe we should have been reduced to
idiocy."  So wrote a brave veteran who endured it.  It was therefore
clear that the British counter-battery work had been at fault.  Add
to this that the start before dawn had the same effect as in other
parts of the line, causing clubbing of units with loss of direction,
and it must be admitted that the experience of the soldiers upon May
3 was not a happy one.  Deverell's Third Division upon the left of
the Fifty-sixth found much the same conditions and could make little
progress.  On the extreme left, however, the 36th Brigade of the
Twelfth Division, the same unit which had done so well at Ovillers,
made a fine advance, gaining the position known as Scabbard Trench.
They lost it temporarily to a counter-attack, but it was again taken
and permanently held by the 7th Sussex.  The fact that the
corresponding point on the north bank of the Scarpe had not yet been
taken by the flank unit of the Seventeenth Corps made it impossible
to get farther forward in this quarter.  The difficulty of the
Twelfth Division, which had made the farthest advance in the morning,
was that they had gone forward in the darkness, and had lost
direction and touch with each other, while leaving behind them
scattered parties of German infantry.  The result was that when the
Germans began their counter-attacks the front British lines were
practically surrounded, and several small parties of the 37th Brigade
were cut off.  One little post of the 6th Buffs was entirely isolated
a thousand yards ahead of the British line, but held off the enemy
all day, and 15 men, the survivors out of 40, made their way back in
the evening, scrambling through {80} German trenches and shooting
down all opposition.  By that time the whole right of the Twelfth
Division had been forced back to its original line, but the left
still held firm in Scabbard Trench.  The division had 2000 casualties
in this day's fighting.

The 169th Brigade had in the meanwhile maintained a difficult
position with very great gallantry.  This position had been always
isolated upon the left, but it was covered upon the right by the
successful advance of the Fourteenth Light Division to the south of
the Cojeul River.  About mid-day, however, a strong German advance
forced the Fourteenth Division back to their original line, with the
result that the right flank of the 169th Brigade became exposed.  It
was only when there seemed an imminent possibility of being cut off
that this gallant brigade, which contained the 2nd London, Victorias,
Westminsters, and London Rifle Brigade, was compelled to drop back to
their original line.  It was a barren and bloody day in this section
of the line, save for the limited gain upon the south of the Scarpe.
Two machine-guns and 100 prisoners were the meagre trophies of a long
day's fighting.  Yet in estimating results, one must never lose sight
of that necessity for constant action which is the only method by
which the side which has the stronger reserves can assert its
eventual superiority in a war of attrition.

To the north, the Fourth Division gained ground east of the Chemical
Works and penetrated into Rœux, but were driven out once more, the
10th and 11th Brigades, especially the 1st Somersets and 2nd
Seaforths, having very heavy losses.  The Ninth Division got well
forward upon their left, some of them over-shooting their
objective--Uit Trench--and {81} being cut off.  Very heavy
counter-attacks in the afternoon broke upon this and upon the other
sections of the Third Army.  In the evening, both the Fourth and
Ninth Divisions with gallant pertinacity tried to get forward again
in the hope that their advanced posts might still be rescued, but
they had no success.  A hundred prisoners were taken, but at least as
many were lost, including Highlanders, West Ridings, and Lancashire
Fusiliers, victims of their own push and valour.

To the north of the Ninth Division, two divisions of the Thirteenth
Corps, the Thirty-first to the south and the Fifth to the north, had
beaten furiously against the German line upon the Oppy-Gavrelle
sector.  The efforts of these divisions were greatly handicapped, as
in the case of others, by the very early hour at which the action had
begun, and by moonlight in the earlier hours, which exposed the
assembly of the troops.  Starting in pitch darkness the brigades lost
touch and direction, so that they were unable to reach their
objectives with the speed and precision which is so necessary if
barrages and machine-guns are to be avoided.  The 92nd East Yorkshire
Brigade of the Thirty-first Division advanced upon Oppy Wood, and
found itself among trees in the darkness with criss-cross lacings of
barbed wire from the branches in every direction, and a heavy fire
beating on their ranks.  The obstacles would have been difficult in
day-time, but were impossible at night.  The battalions got
completely mixed up, and finally a strong German attack drove them
back to their trenches, in spite of a most strenuous resistance,
notable for many deeds of valour, for one of which, the single-handed
attack upon a {82} machine-gun, Lieutenant Harrison of the 11th East
Yorks received a posthumous Victoria Cross.

The 93rd West Yorkshire Brigade had got off well and had reached its
objective, but this successful German attack exposed the 16th West
Yorkshires, who were the flank battalion, to pressure upon its left
rear, so that they had eventually to fall back.  This exposed the
15th and part of the 18th West Yorkshires, who were now holding
Gavrelle village and the trenches to the immediate north of it.  For
a time things were very critical, and the windmill which commanded
the village was retaken by the enemy.  The Colonel of the 15th West
Yorks collected sixty men of his battalion and held splendidly to the
east side of the village for the whole day.  One company of the 18th
Durhams under Lieutenant Hitchings was sent to retake the windmill,
which they did, but were driven out again by the shattering fire of
the enemy.  They re-formed at the foot of the slope and attacked and
recaptured the mill once more, only to be driven out for the third
time.  Again they took the mill, and this time they drove back the
German counter-attack and held on to the position.  Sixty out of a
hundred in the British ranks had fallen, but when the battle painter
of the future is in search for a subject, he will find none better
than that of the forty survivors under their boy leader, wearied,
blood-stained, but victorious in their shot-torn mill.  The whole
Gavrelle position was now held, the 93rd being strengthened by two
battalions from the 94th York and Lancaster Brigade.

The one outstanding success of the day was the capture of Fresnoy by
the First Division of Canadians, which was carried out with the usual
dash and gallantry {83} of this veteran unit, whose worth had now
been proved upon so many battlefields.  The fighting was the more
severe as the village was full of German troops mustered for an
attack.  Fresnoy was, however, most difficult to hold, as the enemy
had retained trench systems both to the north and to the south of it.
Shortly after its capture the First Canadians were drawn out of the
line for a rest, and the Thirteenth Corps extended to the left, so as
to take over its front and to connect with the Second Canadians.

[Sidenote: May 8]

In the early dawn of May 8 the garrison of the village was driven out
by a powerful attack from three German divisions.  This attack fell
at the point of contact between the left of the British and the right
of the Canadians, and was so severe that both were pushed back.  The
95th Brigade of the Fifth Division, which had moved down from the
Lens area, was the particular one which bore the brunt upon the
British line, and the two front battalions, the 1st East Surreys and
12th Gloucesters, lost heavily under the terrible concentrated
shellfire which a survivor who had tested both described as being "as
bad as Longueval."  For some reason the artillery support was
deficient, and the S.O.S. signals were unanswered.  The infantry were
driven out by the German rush, and a gallant counter-attack led by a
Major of the Gloucesters, with some of their men and some of the 1st
Cornwalls, failed to recover the position.  The Canadians made no
less desperate efforts, but it was impossible to stand against the
concentrated bombardment.  "You could not see for mud in the air,"
says an observer.  Fresnoy became once more a part of the German
line.  The price paid, however, was a very heavy one, for it was only
the second {84} attacking division, who were the famous 5th
Bavarians, which effected a lodgment after the leading division had
been broken and driven back with very heavy losses by the rapid fire
of the defenders.  Upon the British side a large proportion of the
small garrison was killed or wounded, while 300 were taken.  The 1st
Devons came up in the evening and the line was reconstructed about
600 yards to the rear of the old one.  It was determined, however, to
push it forward at once, and in the early morning of May 9 the Fourth
Canadians upon the left, the Devons in the centre, and the 15th
Brigade upon the right, pushed on once more, and established the line
close to the village, which still remained in the hands of the enemy.

Up to this point the new British offensive which had started upon
April 9, and had now come practically to an end, had yielded the
splendid results of 400 officers and 19,100 men prisoners, 98 heavy
guns, and 159 field-pieces captured, together with 227 trench
mortars, 464 machine-guns, and other material.

The battle of May 3, which had ended by some gain of ground, and by
the capture of nearly 1000 prisoners (as against some 300 which were
lost upon that day), was the last general action along the new line,
though it was followed by numerous local engagements.

[Sidenote: May 10]

On May 10, in the dusk of the evening, the lull upon the Scarpe was
broken by a most successful attack by the Fourth Division upon
Rœux Station, the Cemetery, the Chemical Works, and finally the
village itself, every one of these points being taken by storm.  The
value of this success may be judged by the fact that this was the
ninth assault upon the position, a fact which gives an index both of
the {85} pertinacity of British infantry and of the steadfast courage
of the successive German garrisons.  The 10th Brigade, led by that
man of many wounds and honours, de Wiart, took the village itself,
the Dublin Fusiliers and the newly formed battalion, made from
dismounted Household Cavalry, doing good service.  Berners' 11th
Brigade had advanced upon the left and captured all their objectives,
the 1st Hants taking the Château, whilst the 1st East Lancashires and
the 1st Rifle Brigade got the Chemical Works, the scene of so many
combats.  The place was defended by the 362nd Brandenburgers, who
were nearly all killed or taken, the prisoners being over 500 in
number.  The Fourth Division handed over Rœux to the 51st Highland
Territorials, who successfully held it during a very desperate
counter-attack upon the night of May 13.  The incessant and costly
counter-attacks of the Germans in all these regions proved how vital
they considered these lost positions.  On May 11 there was another
sharp little action which improved the British position.  Upon that
date the 168th Brigade of the Fifty-sixth Division made a sudden
attack at nightfall upon Tool Trench, an awkward position which ran
along a small spur and had been a cause of loss in the previous
attack.  It was captured with a rush, together with a handful of
prisoners and six machine-guns.  This position was consolidated and
permanently held.  On the same night the 169th Brigade on the right
advanced its line between Cavalry Farm and the Cojeul River.  Next
day an attempt was made to carry forward this success along the
northern portion of the corps line, but was met with so heavy a
barrage that it was not possible to carry it out.

{86}

The strain upon the divisions during this continuous fighting had
been so great that it was found necessary to give them all the rest
and relief possible.  With this object in view, the Sixth Corps front
was held now by only two divisions, the Fifty-sixth upon the right
and the Twenty-ninth on the left.  In order to cover the whole line,
the Corps mounted troops were advanced and were placed in the
trenches upon the south of the Scarpe, which were less vulnerable
since the capture of Rœux by the Fourth Division.

[Sidenote: May 16]

In the dim light of the very early morning of May 16, after a heavy
shell-fall, a new division of the enemy was thrust forward just north
of the Scarpe.  In a long day's fighting it was practically
destroyed, for though in its first ardent advance it flowed over the
shot-shattered advance posts, it was finally held, and then after a
long tussle was shot out of its new positions by the rifles and Lewis
guns, until before evening it was back whence it started.  In this
brisk action thousands of the assailants were killed or wounded with
nothing to show for it save the substantial losses which they
inflicted.  This very severe attack fell mainly upon the Fifty-first
Division, who showed once more that British formations, even if
penetrated, are very far from being defeated.

On May 18 there was a spirited local operation by the 8th Middlesex
of the 167th Brigade, in which they made a very gallant bombing
attack upon that portion of Tool Trench which was not yet in British
hands.  The opposition, however, was so strong that no permanent good
could be effected.  On the next day there was a further attempt to
get forward, both by the 167th and by its neighbour, the 87th
Brigade.  The fire was too deadly, however, and the advance {87} was
not successful.  This failure seems to have been due to a knowledge
on the part of the enemy as to the coming assault, for the
machine-gun fire and the barrage opened in full force at the very
moment when the leading line of infantry sprang over the lips of
their assembly trenches.

[Sidenote: May 20]

May 20 marked a successful advance of the Thirty-third Division on
the right of the Seventh Corps, against the Hindenburg Line in the
Sensée Valley and southwards towards Bullecourt.  On this occasion
there was no preliminary bombardment and no creeping barrage.  A mist
helped the 98th Brigade to deploy unobserved under the bulge of the
chalk hills that rise to the south of the Sensée Valley.  When this
mist rose the Germans had a fine, though transitory, view of British
tactics, for the battalions were advancing as upon an Aldershot field
day.  The 100th Brigade worked down the Hindenburg Line north of the
river, crossed it, and joined hands with their comrades on the south.
It was a complete surprise, and counter-attack was checked by the
volume of the British gun-fire which tore up the whole rear of the
German defences.  The result was the capture of more than a mile of
the front line on either side of the Sensée River, with half a mile
of the support line, and 170 prisoners, with many machine-guns.  The
losses in this well-managed affair were well under a thousand.

[Sidenote: May 30]

For ten days after this the southern front was quiet, and the only
change consisted in the withdrawal of the Fifty-sixth and the
substitution of the Thirty-seventh Division.  On May 30 a minor
operation was carried out upon a small section of German trench by
the 88th Brigade, {88} assisted by the 8th East Lancashires from the
112th Brigade.  This attack had some partial success, but was
eventually driven out of the captured by a strong counter-attack,
with the result that a small body of the 3rd Middlesex Regiment, some
thirty in number, were isolated and taken or slain.  Greater success,
however, attended the next operation, which was an attack upon June
14 upon Infantry Hill, which included Hook Trench and Long Trench.
This very successful advance was carried out by the 1st Gordons and
2nd Suffolks, the two regular battalions of the 76th Brigade.  The
whole position was stormed by a surprise attack and 180 prisoners
were taken.  A counter-attack was broken up by the British artillery.
The losses of the storming battalions were well under 400 men.  Two
days later the Germans again made a strong effort to thrust back the
British advance, but again they failed with considerable loss, save
at the more advanced posts which they occupied.  A British attempt
next morning to regain these lost posts was not successful.  Upon
June 18, the anniversary of the great day when Germany and Britain
fought together for freedom, there was a fresh attack to retake Hook
and Long Trench.  It surged up to and into the trenches, but could
not disperse the sturdy men of Suffolk, who held them.  The German
wave lost its momentum and broke up into pools, which soon were swept
back with the ebbing tide.  Nearly 200 prisoners were taken in this
spirited affair.

[Sidenote: June 5]

The Seventeenth Corps had a brisk day upon June 5, which extended
into three days of fighting.  On this date the Ninth Division upon
the right and the Thirty-fourth upon the left moved forward {89}
suddenly in the evening, covering the space between Rœux and
Gavrelle.  The attack was directed against a dangerous network of
trenches called Curly, Charlie, and Cuthbert, which guarded the
rising slope known as Greenland Hill.  The brunt of the fighting was
borne by the 27th or Lowland Brigade in the south, and by the 102nd
Tyneside Brigade in the north.  In the latter brigade the 20th and
21st Northumberland Fusiliers carried the trenches opposite to them,
while the Scottish infantry kept pace with them upon the right.
After hard fighting the whole front German position fell into the
hands of the stormers, who had to defend it against a long series of
desultory counter-attacks, which lasted until June 7, when the enemy
finally gave up the attempt to regain the ground which he had lost.
Six officers and 217 men were captured, and the German losses in
killed were very heavy, each front battalion reckoning that there
were between three and four hundred enemy dead scattered in front of
it.  It was a spirited local action attended by complete success.

It is necessary now to go back in point of time and pick up the
narrative at the northern end of the line.

[Sidenote: May 24]

On Thursday, May 24, the operations at Lens, in abeyance since April
23, broke out once more, when the Forty-sixth Division, which had
extended its left so as to occupy much of the ground formerly held by
the Sixth Division, made an attempt upon Nash Alley and other
trenches in front of it.  The attack was made by the 137th Stafford
Brigade, and was launched at seven in the evening.  The objectives
with twenty-eight prisoners were easily secured.  It was found
impossible, however, {90} to hold the captured ground, as every
German gun within range was turned upon it, and a furious succession
of assaults wore down the defenders.  Captain McGowan beat off five
of these onslaughts before he was himself blown to pieces by a bomb.
Every officer being down, Major MacNamara came forward from
Headquarters to take command, and in the morning withdrew the
detachment, an operation which was performed with great steadiness,
the men facing back and firing as they retired.  Major MacNamara was
himself killed in conducting the movement.  There were incessant
skirmishes, but no other outstanding action for some time in the
north of the line, so we must again return to the extreme south and
follow the fortunes of the Australians and their British comrades
upon the Bullecourt sector.

[Sidenote: May 3]

The operations of the Australians and of the British divisions were
renewed upon May 3 in front of Bullecourt and Lagnicourt, the scene
of the brave but unsuccessful attack of April 11, when the Australian
infantry with little support penetrated the Hindenburg Line.  On this
second occasion the British gun-power was very much heavier and
cleared a path for the attack, while laying down an excellent
barrage.  The original advance was in the first glimmer of daylight,
and by 6.30 it had penetrated well into the Hindenburg Line, the wire
having been blown to pieces.  The advance made its way by successive
rushes to the right of Bullecourt village, where it clung for the
rest of the day, the infantry engaged being almost entirely men from
Victoria.  Laterally by their bombing parties they extended their
hold upon the two front lines of German trenches to the right, in
which quarter the attack had originally {91} been held up.  In the
meantime the 62nd Yorkshire Territorial Division had fought their way
up to the village and were engaged in desperate hand-to-hand fighting
among the shattered brick houses.  An Arras English aviator, flying
at a height of only 100 feet or so, passed up and down the Australian
battle-line helping with his machine-gun, and finally dropping a
message, "Bravo, Australia!" a few moments before a bullet through
the petrol tank brought him at last to earth.  The greeting of this
brave lad might well have been the voice of the Empire, for the
Australian infantry wrought wonders that day.  The British division
having been held at Bullecourt, the result was that the Australians
projected as a salient into the Hindenburg Line, and that they were
attacked on both flanks as well as in front, but they still held on
not only for May 3, but for two days that followed, never losing
their grip of the trenches which they had won.  On the right the
Germans made counter-attacks which have been described by the
admirable Australian Official Chronicler as being done in "School of
Seals" formation, where a hundred grey-backs all dived together from
one shell crater to another, none of these attacks got up, owing to
the rapid and accurate rifle fire which met them.  The German bombing
attacks down the trenches were met by showers of trench-mortar bombs,
which broke them up.  The Germans had trench-mortars also, however,
and by their aid they made some of the right-hand positions
untenable, but West Australian bombers restored the fight, and the
New South Welshmen added further to the gains.  In vain a battalion
of Prussian Guards and a column of picked storm-troops beat up
against that solid defence.  The {92} position once taken was always
held.  The Seventh Division had relieved the Sixty-second, and had
tightened its grip upon the outskirts of Bullecourt and from this
time onwards its daily task was on the one hand to push farther into
the ruins and to eradicate more of the scattered German posts, and on
the other to move out upon the right and get close touch with the
Australians so as to cover one side of their dangerous salient.  Each
object was effected in the midst of fighting which was local and
intermittent, but none the less very desperate and exhausting.
During a week continual counter-attacks moving up from Riencourt
broke themselves upon either the British or Australian lines.  The
9th and 10th Devon battalions of the 20th Brigade, and their comrades
of the 2nd Borders and 2nd Black Watch, were especially hard pressed
in these encounters, With inexorable pressure they enlarged their
lines however, and by May 17 the British Fifty-eighth Division of
London Territorials (Cator), which had taken over the work, could
claim to have the whole of Bullecourt in their keeping, while their
brave Oversea comrades had fairly settled into the gap which they had
made in the Hindenburg front line.  Though the operations were upon a
small scale as compared with great battles like Arras, no finer
exploit was performed upon the Western front during the year than
this successful advance, in which the three British divisions and the
Australians shattered no less than fifteen attacks delivered by some
of the best troops of Germany.  Sir Douglas Haig, who is not prodigal
of praise, says in his final despatch: "The defence of this 1000
yards of double trench line, exposed to attack on every side, through
two weeks {93} of constant fighting, deserves to be remembered as a
most gallant feat of arms."  The losses were naturally heavy, those
of the three British divisions--the Seventh, Fifty-eighth, and
Sixty-second--being approximately the same.  They had been opposed by
Guards Regiments and Brandenburg Grenadiers, the very cream of the
Prussian Army, and had rooted them out of their carefully prepared
position.




{94}

CHAPTER IV

THE BATTLE OF MESSINES

June 7, 1917

Plumer's long vigil--The great mines--Advance of Australians--Of New
Zealanders--Of the Twenty-fifth Division--Of the Irish
Divisions--Death of Major Redmond--Advance of Nineteenth Division--Of
the Forty-first Division--Of the Forty-seventh Division--Of the
Twenty-fourth Division--General results.


The operations upon the Somme in the autumn of 1916 had given the
British command of the high ground in the Somme district.  The next
move was to obtain a similar command in the continuation of the same
high ground to the north.  This was accomplished from Arras to Lens
in the great battle which began upon April 9, 1917.  After the
complete conquest of this Vimy position, the next step was obviously
to attack the prolongation of the same ridge in the Ypres direction.
This was carried out with great success upon June 7 in the Battle of
Messines, when nine miles of commanding country were carried and
permanently held, from the neighbourhood of Ploegstrate in the south
to Hill 60 and Mount Sorel in the north.  Thus many spots which will
for ever be associated with the glorious dead--Hill 60 itself, with
its memories of the old 13th and 15th Brigades, Wytschaete, where the
dismounted troopers fought {95} so desperately in the fall of 1914;
Messines, sacred also to the memory of the cavalry and of the British
and Indian infantry who tried hard to hold it; finally the long,
gently sloping ridge which was reddened by the blood of the gallant
London Scots when they bore up all night amid fire and flame against
the ever-increasing pressure of the Bavarians--all these historic
places came back once more into British keeping.  It is this action,
so splendid both in its execution and in its results, which we have
now to examine, an action which was a quick sequel to the order of
the German command that "the enemy must not get Messines Ridge at any
price."

For two thankless years Sir Herbert Plumer, the officer who in his
younger days had held on in such bulldog fashion to the country north
of Mafeking, had been the warden of the Ypres salient.  His task had
been a peculiarly difficult and responsible one--indeed, many a
military critic might have said _a priori_ that it was an impossible
one.  The general outline of the British trenches formed a loop
rather than a salient, and there was no point in it which could not
be shot into from behind.  Add to this that all the rising ground,
and therefore all the observation, lay with the enemy, and that the
defending troops were very often skeleton divisions which had come up
exhausted from the south.  Taking all these circumstances together,
one can understand the facts which turned General Plumer's hair white
during these two years, but never for an instant weakened the
determination of his defence.  There was no one in the Army who did
not rejoice, therefore, when it was learned that the Second Army had
been chosen for the next attack, and that the long-suffering Plumer
{96} was at last to have a chance of showing that he could storm a
line as well as hold one.

Preparatory to the attack, some twenty great mines had been driven
into the long, low hill, which is really little more than a slope,
attaining a height of 250 feet at the summit.  These mines contained
600 tons of explosives, and had been the work of constant relays of
miners during many months.  These tunnelling companies of miners,
drawn from all sorts of material and officered by mining engineers
and foremen, did some splendid work in the war, and the British
finally outfought the Germans under the earth as completely as they
did both on it and above it.  The accumulation of guns was even
greater than at Arras, and they were packed into about half the
length of front, so that the effect of the massed fire when it broke
out in the morning of June 7 was crushing to an extent never before
known in warfare.  What with the explosions of the mines and the
downpour of shells, the German front line, with its garrison, may be
said to have utterly disappeared, so that when at 3.20 in the first
faint flush of a summer morning the infantry dashed forward to the
attack, the path of victory had already been laid out before them.
Let us examine the general composition of the British line before we
follow the fortunes of the various units.

General Plumer's Army had been moved down the line so as to cover all
its objectives, and Gough's Fifth Army from the south had been put in
to the north of it, occupying the actual salient.  This Army was not
in the first instance engaged.  The Second Army consisted of three
Corps.  The northern of these was Morland's Tenth Corps, which was in
the {97} region of St. Eloi.  This Corps consisted, counting from the
north, of the Twenty-third, Forty-seventh and Forty-first Divisions
with the Twenty-fourth in reserve.  Upon its right, facing
Wytschaete, was Hamilton Gordon's Ninth Corps, containing from the
north the Nineteenth, Sixteenth, and Thirty-sixth Divisions, with the
Eleventh in reserve.  Still farther to the right was the Second Anzac
Corps (Godley) facing Messines with the Twenty-fifth British
Division, the New Zealanders, and the Third Australians in line from
the north, and the Fourth Australians in reserve.  This was the
British battle-line upon the eventful dawn of June 7, 1917.

To take the work of individual units, we shall begin with the Third
Australian Division (Monash) upon the extreme right.  The men, like
their comrades all along the line, had endured very heavy shelling in
their assembly trenches, and sprang eagerly forward when the word to
advance was given.  The First and Second Australian Divisions had
given so splendid an account of themselves already in the Hindenburg
Line, that it was no surprise to find that their mates were as
battleworthy as any troops in the Army.  The whole country in front
of them was drenched with gas, which hung heavy with the mists of
morning, but the weird lines of masked men went swiftly onwards in
open order through the poison region, dashed over the remains of the
German trenches, crossing the small river Douve upon the way, and
then pushing on from one shot-shattered building to another, keeping
well up to the roaring cloud of the barrage, occupied without a hitch
the whole of their allotted position.  With a single pause, while
Messines was being occupied upon their left, the leading line of {98}
Victorians and Tasmanians drove straight on for their ultimate goal,
sending back a stream of captured prisoners behind them.  Only at one
trench was there a sharp hand-to-hand fight, but in general so
splendid was the artillery and so prompt the infantry that the enemy
had never a chance to rally.  It was a perfect advance and absolutely
successful.  Some indications of counter-attacks came up from the
Warneton direction during the afternoon and evening, but they were
beaten out so quickly by the shrapnel that they never came to a head.
Half-a-dozen field-guns, as well as several hundred prisoners, fell
to the lot of the Australians.

Upon the immediate left of the Australians was the New Zealand
Division (Russell), which had done so splendidly at the Somme.  Their
Rifle Brigade had been given the place of honour exactly opposite to
Messines, and by eight o'clock they had occupied the village and were
digging in upon the farther side.  Thirty-eight machine-guns and a
number of prisoners were the trophies of their advance.  There was no
severe fighting, so well had the mines and the guns together done
their work; but the men who stormed the village found numerous
cellars and dug-outs still occupied, into which they swiftly
penetrated with bayonet or bomb.  In one of these regimental
headquarters was found a message from General von Laffert ordering
the 17th Bavarian Regiment to hold the village at all costs.  It is
certainly extraordinary how these unfortunate and gallant Bavarians
were thrust into every hot corner, and if the reason lies in the fact
that their Prince Rupprecht had the honour of commanding the German
Army of Flanders, then it is an honour which will leave its grievous
trace upon {99} his country for a century to come.  It is an
extraordinary historical fact that the Bavarians, who were themselves
overrun and crushed by the conquering Prussians in 1866, should have
paid without demur the enormous blood tribute to their conquerors in
a cause in which they had no direct interest, since no annexation of
Briey metals or Belgian lands would bring prosperity to Bavaria.

The losses of the New Zealanders in their fine advance were not
heavy, but they had a number of casualties that evening and next
morning in their newly, consolidated position, which included
unfortunately Brigadier-General Brown, one of the finest officers in
the force, who was killed by a burst of shrapnel.

Upon the immediate left of the New Zealanders was the Twenty-fifth
(Bainbridge), a sound, hard-working British Division, which had a
fine and a very long record of service upon the Somme.  The task
allotted to this division was a formidable one, consisting of an
attack upon a 1200-yard front, which should penetrate 3000 yards and
cross nine lines of German trenches, the concealed Steenebeek Valley,
and crush the resistance of a number of fortified farms.  In spite of
these numerous obstacles, the advance, which was well-covered by
General Kincaid-Smith's guns, was splendidly successful.  The 74th
Brigade was on the right, the 7th upon the left, with the 75th in
reserve.  Observers have recorded how at the very instant that the
men surged forward under their canopy of shells, six miles of S.O.S.
rockets rose in one long cry for help from the German line.  From the
right the British wave of stormers consisted of the 2nd Irish Rifles,
the 13th {100} Cheshire, the 3rd Worcesters, and the 8th North
Lancashires, veterans of Ovillers and the Leipzig Redoubt.  Keeping
close behind a barrage of sixty guns, they flooded over the enemy
trenches, just missing the answering barrage which came pattering
down behind them.  These troops advanced without a check to the line
of the Steenebeek, where the work was taken up by the second wave,
consisting of the 9th Lancs, 11th Lancashire Fusiliers, 10th
Cheshires, and 1st Wilts, the order being taken from the right.  For
a time there was a dangerous gap between the Wiltshires and the flank
of the Ulstermen to the left, but this was bridged over, and the
advance rolled on, with a constant capture of prisoners and
machine-guns.  Only at one point, named Middle Farm, was there a
notable resistance, but the Lancashire Fusiliers and Irish Rifles
combined to crush it.  All this attack had been carried out in a dim
light, half mist and half dust-laden from explosions, where obstacles
were hardly seen until they were reached, and where it took fine
leading and discipline to preserve direction, so that numbers of men
lost touch with their own battalions and went forward as best they
might.  These are the times when shirkers have their chance and when
the true individual quality of troops is most highly tested.  Out of
touch with officers on either side, the British advanced and the
Germans surrendered.

On the capture of all the first objectives the 8th South Lancashires
and 11th Cheshires of the 75th Brigade passed through the victorious
ranks of their fellow brigades and pushed on against the strong
October system of trenches beyond.  The 8th Borders followed closely
behind, consolidating the ground won {101} by the forward line.  It
was still only four in the morning.  As the 75th Brigade swept
forward, it found the 1st New Zealand Brigade upon its right, and the
107th Ulster Brigade upon its left, all moving swiftly in one great
line.  By eight o'clock all immediate opposition had been beaten
down, and the full objectives were being consolidated by the 106th
Field Company Royal Engineers, five field-guns having been added to
the other trophies.  These might have been got away by the enemy had
not the machine-guns knocked out the gun teams.  The 110th and 112th
Brigades of British artillery had been pushed up after the infantry,
and though some delay was caused by the unfortunate destruction of
Major Campbell and his whole battery staff by a single shell, the
batteries were in action within the German lines by 11 A.M.

About midday a counter-attack began to develop, along the front of
the Second Anzac Corps, involving both British, New Zealanders, and
Australians, but the blow already received had been too severe, and
there was no resilience left in the enemy.  The attempt died away
under a withering fire from rifles and machine-guns.  By 2 P.M. all
was quiet once more.

The British effort was not yet at an end, however.  The long summer
day was still before them, and there was a good reserve division in
hand.  This was the Fourth Australian Division (Holmes), two brigades
of which passed through the ranks of the Twenty-fifth and New Zealand
Divisions, about 3.15 P.M.  Their objective was a further system of
trenches 500 yards to the east and well down the other slope of the
Messines Hill.  The advance of each brigade was admirable, {102} but
unfortunately they diverged, leaving a dangerous gap between, in
which for two days a party of the enemy, with machine-guns, remained
entrenched.  At the end of that time two battalions of the 13th
Australian Brigade, the 50th and 52nd, carried the place most
gallantly by storm and solidified the line.

Passing from the area of the Anzac Corps to that of the Ninth Corps,
we come first upon Nugent's Thirty-sixth Ulster Division, which had
not reappeared in any battle since its day of glory, and of tragic
loss in front of Thiepval.  It was now, by a happy chance or by a
beneficent arrangement, fighting upon the right flank of the
Sixteenth Southern Irish Division (Hickie) and the two may be treated
as one, since they advanced, step by step, in the same alignment up
the bullet-swept slope, and neither halted until they had reached
their full objectives.  The Ulstermen went forward with the 107th
Brigade of Irish Rifles upon the right in close touch with the
Twenty-fifth Division, while the 108th was on the left, keeping line
with their fellow-countrymen, both Irish divisions dashing forward
with great fire and resolution.

The Sixteenth Irish Division for the purpose of the attack consisted
of four brigades, having been strengthened by the addition of the
33rd Brigade from the Eleventh Division.  In the attack, the 47th
Brigade was upon the right and the 49th upon the left.  If some
further detail may be permitted in the case of men who were playing
so loyal a part at a time when part of Ireland had appeared to be so
disaffected, it may be recorded that the Irish line counting from the
right consisted of the 6th Royal Irish, the 7th Leinsters, the 7/8th
Royal Irish Fusiliers, and the 7th Inniskilling Fusiliers.  These
battalions sprang up {103} the Wytschaete slope, closely followed by
their second line, which was formed by the 1st Munster Fusiliers, 6th
Connaught Rangers, 2nd Royal Irish and 8th Inniskillings.  In this
order, in close touch with the Ulstermen upon their right and the
English Nineteenth Division upon their left, they swept up the hill,
their Celtic yell sounding high above the deep thunder of the guns.
The explosion of the huge mines had a disconcerting effect at the
first instant, for great masses of debris came showering down upon
the men in the advanced positions, so that the dense smoke and the
rain of falling earth and stones caused confusion and loss of
direction.  The effect was only momentary, however, and the eager
soldiers dashed on.  They swarmed over Wytschaete village and wood,
beating down all resistance, which had already been badly shaken by
the accurate fire of General Charlton's guns.  It was in the assault
of the village that that great Irishman, Major Willie Redmond, fell
at the head of his men.  "He went in advance when there was a check.
He was shot down at once.  As he fell, he turned towards his men and
tried to say something.  No words came, but he made an eloquent
gesture with his right arm towards the German line, and the Irish
swept forward."  The profound gratitude of every patriot is due to
him, to Professor Kettle, to Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., and to all
those Nationalists who had sufficient insight to understand that
Ireland's true cause was the cause of the Empire, and that it was the
duty of every Irishman of all shades of opinion to uphold it in arms.
_O si sic omnes!_  An Irishman could then hold his head higher to-day!

By 3.45 A.M. the first objective had been taken, and by five the
second, save in front of the Leinsters, {104} where there was a stout
resistance at a German machine-gun post, which was at last overcome.
It was at this period that a dangerous gap developed between the
retarded wing of the right-hand brigade and the swiftly advancing
flank of the left, but this opening was closed once more by seven
o'clock.  By 7.30 the third objective had been cleared by the 1st
Munsters on the right and the 2nd Irish Rifles on the left, for the
second line had now leap-frogged into the actual battle.  By eight
o'clock everything had fallen, and the field-guns of the 59th and
113th Brigades R.F.A. had been rushed up to the front, well-screened
by the slope of the newly conquered hill.  The new position was
swiftly wired by the 11th Hants and Royal Engineers.

There now only remained an extreme line which was, according to the
original plan, to be the objective of an entirely new advance.  This
was the Oostaverne Line, so called from the hamlet of that name which
lay in the middle of it.  Its capture meant a further advance of 2000
yards, and it was successfully assaulted in the afternoon by the 33rd
Brigade, consisting of the 7th South Staffords, 9th Sherwoods, 6th
Lincolns, and 6th Borders.  It has been frequently remarked, and
Guillemont might be quoted as a recent example, that both Englishmen
and Irishmen never fight better than when they are acting together
and all national difference is transmuted suddenly into generous
emulation.  So it was upon the field of Messines, for the advance of
the 33rd Brigade was a worthy continuation of a splendid achievement.
Keeping pace with the 57th Brigade of the Nineteenth Division to
their north, they dashed aside all obstacles, and by 5.45 were in
complete possession of the farthest {105} point which had ever been
contemplated in the fullest ambition of the Generals.

The enemy had been dazed by the terrific blow, but late in the
evening signs of a reaction set in, for the German is a dour fighter,
who does not sit down easily under defeat.  It is only by
recollecting his constant high qualities that one can appreciate the
true achievement of the soldiers who, in all this series of
battles--Arras, Messines, and the Flanders Ridges--were pitch-forking
out of terribly fortified positions the men who had so long been
regarded as the military teachers and masters of Europe.  Nerved by
their consciousness of a truly national cause, our soldiers fought
with a determined do-or-die spirit which has surely never been
matched in all our military annals, while the sagacity and
adaptability of the leaders was in the main worthy of the
magnificence of the men.  As an example of the insolent confidence of
the Army, it may be noted that on this, as on other occasions, all
arrangements had been made in advance for using the German dumps.
"This should invariably be done," says an imperturbable official
document, "as the task of rapidly getting forward engineer stores is
most difficult."

A line of mined farms formed part of the new British line, and upon
this there came a series of German bombing attacks on June 8, none of
which met with success.  The 68th Field Company of the Engineers had
inverted the position, turning the defences from west to east, and
the buildings were held by the Lincolns and Sherwoods, who shot down
the bombers before they could get within range even of the far-flying
egg-bomb which can outfly the Mills by thirty paces, though its
effect is puny in comparison {106} with the terrific detonation of
the larger missile.  From this time onwards, the line became
permanent.  In this long day of fighting, the captures amounted to 8
officers and 700 men with 4 field-guns and 4 howitzers.  The losses
were moderate for such results, being 1100 men for the Irish and 500
for the 33rd Brigade.  Those of the Ulster Division were also about
1000.

Upon the left of the Irishmen the advance had been carried out by
Shute's Nineteenth Division.  Of this hard fighting division, the
same which had carried La Boiselle upon the Somme, the 56th
Lancashire Brigade and the 58th, mainly Welsh, were in the line.  The
advance was a difficult one, conducted through a region of shattered
woods, but the infantry cleared all obstacles and kept pace with the
advance of the Irish upon the right, finally sending forward the
reserve Midland Brigade as already stated to secure and to hold the
Oostaverne Line.  The ground to be traversed by this division,
starting as it did from near Wulverghem, was both longer and more
exposed than that of any other, and was particularly open to
machine-gun fire.  Without the masterful artillery the attack would
have been an impossibility.  None the less, the infantry was
magnificently cool and efficient, widening the front occasionally to
take in fortified posts, which were just outside its own proper area.
The 9th Cheshires particularly distinguished itself, gaining part of
its second objective before schedule time and having to undergo a
British barrage in consequence.  This fine battalion ended its day's
work by blowing to shreds by its rifle-fire a formidable
counter-attack.  The Welsh battalions of the same 58th Brigade, the
9th Welsh Fusiliers, 9th Welsh, and 5th South Wales Borderers fought
their {107} way up through Grand Bois to the Oostaverne Line with
great dash and gallantry.  The village of that name was itself taken
by the Nineteenth Division, who consolidated their line so rapidly
and well that the German counter-attack in the evening failed to make
any impression.  Particular credit is due to the 57th Brigade, who
carried on the attack after their own proper task was completed.

We have now roughly sketched the advance of the Ninth Corps, and will
turn to Morland's Tenth Corps upon its left.  The flank Division of
this was the Forty-first under the heroic leader of the old 22nd
Brigade at Ypres.  This unit, which was entirely English, and drawn
mostly from the south country, had, as the reader may remember,
distinguished itself at the Somme by the capture of Flers.  It
attacked with the 122nd and 124th Brigades in the line.  They had
several formidable obstacles in their immediate front, including the
famous Dammstrasse, a long causeway which was either trench or
embankment according to the lie of the ground.  An estaminet upon
this road was a lively centre of contention, and beyond this was
Ravine Wood with its lurking guns and criss-cross of wire.  All these
successive obstacles went down before the steady flow of the
determined infantry, who halted at their farthest line in such
excellent condition that they might well have carried the attack
forward had it not been prearranged that the Twenty-fourth, the
reserve division, should pass through their ranks, as will presently
be described.

To the left of the Forty-first was the Forty-seventh London
Territorial Division containing the victors of Loos and of High Wood.
The effect of {108} the mines had been particularly deadly on this
front, and one near Hill 60 is stated by the Germans to have taken up
with it a whole Company of Wurtembergers.  The position attacked by
the Londoners was on each side of the Ypres-Comines Canal, and
included some formidable obstacles, such as a considerable wood and a
ruined country-house named "The White Château."  Again and again the
troops were held up, but every time they managed to overcome the
obstacle.  Around the ruined grandeur of the great villa, with all
its luxuries and amenities looking strangely out of place amid the
grim trimmings of rusty wire and battered cement, the Londoners came
to hand-grips with the Prussians and Wurtembergers who faced them.
In all 600 prisoners were sent to the rear.

To the left of the Forty-seventh London division, and forming the
extreme flank of the attack, was the Twenty-third Division
(Babington) of Contalmaison fame, a unit which was entirely composed
of tough North of England material.  It was in touch with the regular
Eighth Division upon the left, this being the flank division of the
Fifth Army.  The latter took no part in the present advance, and the
Twenty-third had the task of forming a defensive flank in the Hooge
direction, while at the same time it attacked and conquered the low
ridges from which the Germans had so long observed our lines, and
from which they had launched their terrible attack upon the Canadians
a year before.  No long advance was expected from this division,
since the object of the whole day's operations was to flatten out an
enemy salient, not to make one upon our own side.  Sufficient ground
was occupied, however, to cover the advance farther {109} south, and
without this advance it would have been impossible for the supporting
division to carry on, without exposing its flank, the work which had
been done by the two divisions upon the right.  At 3.10 in the
afternoon, the Twenty-fourth Division under General Bols, an officer
whose dramatic experience in the La Bassée fighting of 1914 has been
recounted in a previous volume, advanced through the ranks of the
Forty-first and Forty-seventh Divisions at a point due east of St.
Eloi, its attack being synchronised with that upon the Oostaverne
line farther south.  The operation was splendidly successful, for the
73rd Brigade upon the left and the 17th upon the right, at the cost
of about 400 casualties, carried that section of the Dammstrasse and
the whole of the historic, blood-sodden ground upon either side of
it, so rounding off the complete victory of the Second Army.  So
close to the barrage was the advance of the infantry, that the men of
the 1st Royal Fusiliers and 3rd Rifle Brigade, who led the 17th
Brigade, declared that they had the dust of it in their faces all the
way.

It only remains to be added that on the extreme left of the line the
Germans attempted a counter-attack while the main battle was going
on.  It was gallantly urged by a few hundred men, but it was destined
to complete failure before the rifles of the 89th Brigade of the
Thirtieth Division (Williams).  Few of these Germans ever returned.

It was a one day's battle, a single hammer-blow upon the German line,
with no ulterior operations save such as held the ground gained, but
the battle has been acclaimed by all critics as a model and
masterpiece of modern tactics, which show the {110} highest power of
planning and of execution upon the part of Sir Herbert Plumer and his
able Chief-of-Staff.  The main trophy of course was the invaluable
Ridge, but in the gaining it some 7200 prisoners fell into British
hands, including 145 officers, which gives about the same proportion
to the length of front attacked as the Battle of Arras.  The Germans
had learned wisdom, however, as to the disposition of their guns in
the face of "the unwarlike Islanders," so that few were found within
reach.  Sixty-seven pieces, however, some of them of large calibre,
remained in possession of the victors, as well as 294 machine-guns
and 94 trench mortars.  The British losses were about 16,000.  The
military lesson of the battle has been thus summed up in the words of
an officer who took a distinguished part in it: "The sight of the
battle-field with its utter and universal desolation stretching
interminably on all sides, its trenches battered out of recognition,
its wilderness of shell-holes, _débris_, tangled wire, broken rifles,
and abandoned equipment, confirms the opinion that no troops,
whatever their morale or training, can stand the fire of such
overwhelming and concentrated masses of artillery.  With a definite
and limited objective and with sufficient artillery, complete success
may be reasonably guaranteed."  It is the big gun then, and not, as
the Germans claimed, the machine-gun which is the Mistress of the
Battle-field.  The axiom laid down above is well proved, but it works
for either side, as will be shown presently where upon a limited area
the weight of metal was with the Germans and the defence with the
British.

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

{111}

[Illustration: Order of Battle, MESSINES, June 7, 1917]

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So fell Messines Ridge.  Only when the British {112} stood upon its
low summit and looked back upon the fields to westward did they
realise how completely every trench and post had been under German
observation during these years.  No wonder that so much of the best
blood of Britain has moistened that fatal plain between Ypres in the
north and Ploegstrate in the south.  "My God!" said an officer as he
looked down, "it is a wonder that they let us live there at all."
"It is great to look eastwards," said another, "and see the land
falling away, to know that we have this last height and have wrested
it from them in three hours."  It was a nightmare which was lifted
from the Army upon June 7, 1917.




{113}

CHAPTER V

OPERATIONS FROM JUNE 10 TO JULY 31

Fighting round Lens--Good work of Canadians and Forty-sixth
Division--Action on the Yser Canal--Great fight and eventual
annihilation of 2nd K.R.R. and 1st Northamptons--An awful
ordeal--Exit Russia.


The Battle of Messines was so complete and clean-cut within its
pre-ordained limitations that it left few readjustments to be
effected afterwards.  Of these, the most important were upon the left
flank of the Anzac Corps, where, as already narrated, some Germans
had held out for some days in the gap left between the two forward
brigades of the Fourth Australians.  These were eventually cleared
out, and upon the night of June 10 the 32nd Brigade of the Eleventh
Division extended the front of the Ninth Corps to the south, and
occupied all this sector, which had become more defensible since, by
the energy and self-sacrifice of the 6th South Wales Borderers, a
good road had been driven right up to it by which stores and guns
could proceed.

It was determined to move the line forward at this point, and for
this purpose the Twenty-fifth Division was again put in to attack,
with the 8th Borders on the left and the 2nd South Lancs on the
right, both of the 75th Brigade.  The objective was {114} a line of
farmhouses and strong posts immediately to the east.  The men were
assembled for the attack in small driblets, which skirmished forward
and coalesced into a line of stormers almost unseen by the enemy,
crouching behind hedges and in the hollows of the ground.  At 7.30 in
the evening, before the Germans realised that there had been an
assembly, the advance began, while the New Zealanders, who had
executed the same manoeuvre with equal success, kept pace upon the
right.  The result was a complete success within the limited area
attacked.  The whole line of posts, cut off from help by the barrage,
fell into the hands of the British in less than half-an-hour.  The
enemy was found lying in shell-holes and improvised trenches, which
were quickly cleared and consolidated for defence.  After this second
success, the Twenty-fifth Division was drawn out, having sustained a
total loss of about 3000 during the operations.  Their prisoners came
to over 1000, the greater number being Bavarians.

For a time there was no considerable action along the British line,
but there were large movements of troops which brought about an
entirely new arrangement of the forces, as became evident when the
operations were renewed.  Up to the date of the Battle of Messines
the Belgians had held the ground near the coast, and the five British
Armies had lain over their hundred-mile front in the order from the
north of Two, One, Three, Five, and Four.  Under the new arrangement,
which involved a huge reorganisation, it was the British Fourth Army
(Rawlinson) which came next to the coast, with the Belgians upon
their immediate right, and an interpolated French army upon the right
of them.  Then came Gough's {115} Fifth Army in the Ypres area,
Plumer's Second Army extending to the south of Armentières, Horne's
First Army to the south end of the Vimy Ridge, and Byng's Third Army
covering the Cambrai front, with dismounted cavalry upon their right
up to the junction with the French near St. Quentin.  Such was the
general arrangement of the forces for the remainder of the year.

Save for unimportant readjustments, there were no changes for some
time along the Messines front, and little activity save at the
extreme north of that section on the Ypres-Comines Canal.  Here the
British gradually extended the ground which had been captured by the
Forty-seventh Division, taking some considerable spoil-heaps which
had been turned into machine-gun emplacements by the Germans.  This
supplementary operation was brought off upon June 14 and was answered
upon June 15 by a German counter-attack which was completely
repulsed.  Some brisk fighting had broken out, however, farther down
the line in the Lens sector which Holland's First Corps, consisting
of the Sixth, Twenty-fourth, and Forty-sixth Divisions, had faced
during the Battle of Arras.  This sector was rather to the north of
the battle, and the German line had not been broken as in the south.
These divisions had nibbled their way forward, however, working up
each side of the Souchez River until they began to threaten Lens
itself.  The Germans, recognising the imminent menace, had already
blown up a number of their depots and practically destroyed
everything upon the surface, but the real prize of victory lay in the
coal seams underground.  Huge columns of black smoke which rose over
the shattered chimneys and winding gears {116} showed that even this,
so far as possible, had been ruined by the enemy.

On June 8, the Forty-sixth Division carried out a raid upon so vast a
scale that both the results and the losses were greater than in many
more serious operations.  The whole of the 138th Brigade was
concerned in the venture, but the brunt was borne by the 4th Lincolns
and 5th Leicesters.  On this occasion, use was made upon a large
scale of dummy figures, a new device of the British.  Some 400 of
these, rising and falling by means of wires, seemed to be making a
most heroic attack upon an adjacent portion of the German line, and
attracted a strong barrage.  In the meanwhile, the front trenches
were rushed with considerable losses upon both sides.  When at last
the assailants returned, they brought with them twenty prisoners and
a number of machine-guns, and had killed or wounded some hundreds of
the enemy, while their own losses came to more than 300.  A smaller
attack carried out in conjunction with the 11th Canadian Brigade upon
the right also gave good results.

On June 19, the 138th Brigade, moving in conjunction with the
Canadians, took and consolidated some of the trenches opposite them.
Unhappily, their position did not seem to be clearly appreciated, as
some of our own gas projectors fell in their new trench, almost
exterminating a company of the 5th Leicesters.  The sad tragedy is
only alleviated by so convincing if painful a proof of the powerful
nature of these weapons, and their probable effect upon the Germans.

The combined pressure of the Forty-sixth Division and of the Fourth
Canadians began now to close in {117} upon Lens.  Upon June 25 the
6th South Staffords, with the brave men of the Dominion operating to
the south of them, pushed the Germans off Hill 65.  Upon June 28
there was a further advance of the 137th and 138th Brigades, which
was much facilitated by the fact that the Canadians upon the day
before had got up to the village of Leuvette upon the south.  A
number of casualties were caused by the German snipers after the
advance, and among the killed was M. Serge Basset, the eminent French
journalist, who had followed the troops up Hill 65.

A successful advance was made by the Forty-sixth Division and by the
Canadians upon the evening of June 28, which carried them into the
village of Avion and ended in the capture of some hundred prisoners.
This operation was undertaken in conjunction with the Fifth Division
near Oppy, upon the right of the Canadians.  Their advance was also
attended with complete success, the 95th and 15th Brigades clearing
by a sudden rush more than a mile of German line and killing or
taking the occupants.  To the north of them both the 4th Canadians
and the 46th Midlanders carried the success up the line.  The advance
was an extraordinary spectacle to the many who looked down upon it
from the Vimy heights, for a violent thunderstorm roared with the
guns, and a lashing downpour of rain beat into the faces of the
Germans.  They were tired troops, men of the Eleventh Reserve
division, who had already been overlong in the line, and they could
be seen rushing wildly to the rear before the stormers were clear of
their own trenches.  An unfired and brand-new machine-gun was found
which had been abandoned by its demoralised crew.  The flooded fields
impeded {118} the advance of the Canadians, but the resistance of the
enemy had little to do with the limits of the movement.

Upon June 30 the 6th North Staffords and 7th Sherwood Foresters made
a fresh advance and gained their objectives, though with some loss,
especially in the case of the latter battalion.  This operation was
preparatory to a considerable attack upon July 1.  This was carried
out upon a three-brigade front, the order being 139th, 137th, 138th
from the north.  The 139th were in close touch with the Sixth
Division, who had lent two battalions of the 71st Brigade to
strengthen the assailants.  The objective was from the Souchez River
in the south, through Aconite and Aloof Trenches, to the junction
point of the Sixth Division, north-west of Lens.  The day's fighting
was a long and varied one, some ground and prisoners being gained,
though the full objective was not attained.  The dice are still badly
loaded against the attack save when the guns throw their full weight
into the game.  The Lincoln and Leicester Brigade in the south had
the suburb of Cité du Moulin as their objective, and the 4th Lincolns
next to the Canadians got well up; but the 5th Lincolns on their left
were held up by wire and machine-guns.  Through the gallantry of
Sergeant Leadbeater one party penetrated into the suburb and made a
lodgment in outlying houses, although their flank was entirely in the
air.  As the day wore on, the line of the 138th Brigade was driven in
several times by the heavy and accurate shell-fire, but was each time
reoccupied by the enduring troops, who were relieved in the morning
by the 4th and 5th Leicesters, who spread their posts over a
considerable area.  One of these {119} small posts, commanded by
Lieutenant Bowell, was forgotten, and held on without relief, food,
or water until July 5, when finding himself in danger of being
surrounded this young officer effected a clever withdrawal--a
performance for which he received the D.S.O.

Whilst the 138th Brigade had established itself in the fringes of
Cité du Moulin, the Stafford men upon their left (137th Brigade) had
captured Aconite Trench and also got among the houses.  A number of
the enemy were taken in the cellars, or shot down as they escaped
from them, the Lewis guns doing admirable work.  About one o'clock,
however, a strong attack drove the Stafford men back as far as Ague
Trench.  The support companies at once advanced, led by Major Graham
of the 5th North Staffords, who was either killed or taken during the
attack, which made no progress in face of the strong masses of German
infantry.  The result of this failure was that the remnants of two
companies of the 5th North Staffords, who had been left behind in
Aconite Trench, were cut off and surrounded, all who were not killed
being taken.  In spite of this untoward result, the fighting on the
part of the battalions engaged had been most spirited, and the
conflict, after the fall of most of the officers and sergeants, had
been carried on with great ardour and intelligence by the junior
non-commissioned officers.

On the left, the Sherwood Forest Brigade (strengthened by the 2nd
Regular battalion of their own regiment) advanced upon the
Lens-Lievin Road and the network of trenches in front of them.  It
was all ideal ground for defence, with houses, slag-heaps, railway
embankments, and everything which the Germans could desire or the
British abhor.  The {120} brigade had advanced upon a three-battalion
front, but as the zero hour was before dawn, and the ground was
unknown to the Regular battalion upon the right, the result was loss
of direction and confusion.  Separated parties engaged Germans in
isolated houses, and some very desperate fighting ensued.  In the
course of one of these minor sieges, Captain Chidlow-Roberts is said
to have shot fifteen of the defenders, but occasionally it was the
attackers who were overpowered by the number and valour of the enemy.
The Germans tried to drive back the British line by a series of
counter-attacks from the Lens-Bethune Road, but these were brought to
a halt during the morning, though later in the afternoon parties of
German bombers broke through the scattered line, which presented
numerous gaps.  The losses of the Sherwood Forester Brigade were
considerable, and included 5 officers and 186 men, whose fate was
never cleared up.  Most of these were casualties, but some remained
in the hands of the enemy.  The total casualties of the division in
this action came to 50 officers and about 1000 men.

This hard-fought action concluded the services of the North Midland
Division in this portion of the front.  It had been in the line for
ten weeks, and under constant fire for the greater part of that time.
The strength of the battalions had been so reduced by constant
losses, that none of them could muster more than 300 men.  Upon July
2 the Forty-sixth Division handed over their line to the Second
Canadians and retired for a well-earned rest.  Save for two very
fruitful raids in the Hulluch district in the late autumn, this
Division was not engaged again in 1917.

{121}

The Germans had strengthened the defence of Lens by flooding the
flats to the south of the town, submerging the Cité St. Augustin, so
that the Fourth Canadians on the right of the Forty-sixth Division
could not push northwards, but they had advanced with steady
perseverance along the south bank of the Souchez, and got forward,
first to La Coulotte and then as far as the village of Avion, which
was occupied by them upon June 28--a date which marked a general move
forward on a front of 2000 yards from the river to Oppy.  Meanwhile,
the Sixth Division had also pushed in upon the north and north-west
of Lens, which was closely invested.  The First Canadian Division
relieved the Sixth Division early in July, so that now the pressure
upon Lens was carried out by three Canadian Divisions, one to the
north, one to the west, and one to the south of the town.  No actual
attack was made until the middle of August, but for the sake of
continuity of narrative we may reach forward and give some short
account of the operations upon that occasion.  After constant
pressure, and the drifting of a good deal of gas over the huge
house-covered area which faced them, the Canadians made an attack
upon August 15, which brought them into the very suburbs of the town,
while advancing their line both to the north and to the south of it.
Two Canadian divisions, the First upon the left and the Second upon
the right, made the main attack, while the Fourth Division guaranteed
their southern flank.  The First Division found itself in what was
practically the old British line, as it was defined at the end of the
Battle of Loos in September 1915, nearly two years before.  This
veteran division had not far to go to find its enemy, for the German
{122} trenches were not more than 120 yards away.  Flooding over them
after a heavy discharge of flaming oil drums, the Canadians swept
with little loss up that deadly slope of Hill 70, sacred to the
memory of the Scots of the Fifteenth Division and of many other brave
men who found their last rest upon it.  The 3rd Brigade upon the left
and the 2nd upon the right topped the low hill and charged roaring
down into the Cité St. Auguste beyond.  There was a fierce fight at
Cinnebar Trench and the other points which made up the German second
line.  The enemy infantry stood up stoutly to the push of bayonet,
and there was some bloody work before the line was finally taken and
consolidated by the Canadians.  The Second Division in the meanwhile,
advancing with the 5th Brigade upon the left and the 4th upon the
right, had carried their charge right up to the edge of the city
itself, and had established themselves among the shattered houses.
As the 5th Brigade rushed forward, they encountered a body of German
infantry advancing as if to an attack, so that for a few glorious
minutes there was close bludgeon work in No-Man's-Land before the
German formation was shattered and the stormers rushed on.  A
counter-attack developed about mid-day in front of the First
Division, and the grey-clad troops could be clearly seen marching up
in fours, breaking into artillery formation and finally deploying in
line, all after the most approved British fashion--a fact which was
explained later by the discovery in the dug-outs of official copies
of a translation of the latest Aldershot regulations--surely a most
unexpected result of the clash of the two nations, and one which is a
compliment to our military instructors.  The British methods of
defence, however, proved {123} upon this occasion to be more
efficient than those for attack, and the Germans were shot back into
the rubble-heaps behind them.  The losses of the Canadians in this
advance were not heavy, save in the 5th Brigade, which had in front
of it a network of trenches in front of Cité St. Emile, and carried a
hard task through with great valour and perseverance.  From this time
forward the advanced line was held, and it was only the deflection of
the Canadian Corps to the north which prevented them from increasing
their gains at Lens.

The seven weeks of comparative peace between the conclusion of the
Battle of Messines and the beginning of those long-drawn operations
which may be called the Battle of the Ridges, was broken by one
tragic incident, which ended in the practical annihilation of two
veteran battalions which held a record second to none in the Army.
As misfortunes of this sort have been exceedingly rare in the
progress of the war, it may be well to narrate this affair in greater
detail than the general scale of this chronicle would justify.

Strickland's First Division had taken over the sector which was next
the sea, close to the small town of Nieuport.  The frontage covered
was 1400 yards and extended to Lombardzyde, where Shute's
Thirty-second Division carried the line along.  The positions had not
been determined by the British commander, but were the same as those
formerly occupied by the French.  It was evident that they were
exceedingly vulnerable and that any serious attempt upon the part of
the Germans might lead to disaster, for the front line was some six
hundred yards beyond the Yser River, and lay among sand {124} dunes
where the soil was too light to construct proper trenches or
dug-outs.  The river was crossed by three or four floating bridges,
which, as the result showed, were only there so long as the enemy
guns might choose.  The supporting battalions were east of the river,
but the two battalions in the trenches were to the west, and liable
to be cut off should anything befall the bridges behind them.  It was
indeed a very difficult situation both for Strickland and Shute, for
the Germans had complete local supremacy both in guns and in the air.

Upon July 10, the day of the tragedy, the two battalions in front
were the 2nd King's Royal Rifles, next the sea, and the 1st
Northamptons, upon their right.  The Brigadier of the 2nd Brigade had
been wounded only a few days before, and a new man was in local
command.  The story of what actually occurred may be told from the
point of view of the Riflemen, who numbered about 550 on the day in
question.  Three companies, A, D, and B, in the order given from the
left, were in the actual trenches, while C Company was in immediate
support.  The night of July 9-10 was marked by unusually heavy fire,
which caused a loss of seventy men to the battalion.  It was clear to
Colonel Abadie and his officers that serious trouble was brewing.  An
equal shellfall was endured by the Northamptons on the right, and
their casualties were nearly as heavy.  So weakened was A Company in
its post along the sand dunes that it was drawn into reserve in the
morning of July 10, and C Company took its place.  During this night
an officer and twenty men, all Rhodesians, from B Company, were
pushed forward upon a raid, but lost nine of their number on their
return.  From 8.50 {125} in the morning until 1 P.M. the fire was
exceedingly heavy along the whole line of both battalions, coming
chiefly from heavy guns, which threw shells capable of flattening out
any dug-out or shelter which could be constructed in such loose soil.
For hour after hour the men lay motionless in the midst of these
terrific ear-shattering explosions, which sent huge geysers of sand
into the air and pitted with deep craters the whole circumscribed
area of the position.  It was a horrible ordeal, borne by both
battalions with the silent fortitude of veterans.  Many were dead or
shattered, but the rest lay nursing the breech-blocks of their rifles
and endeavouring to keep them free from the drifting sand which
formed a thick haze over the whole position.  The two supporting
battalions across the canal, the 2nd Sussex and 1st North Lancashire,
were also heavily shelled, but their position was more favourable to
taking cover.  There was no telephone connection between the Rifles'
Headquarters and the advanced trenches, but Lieutenant Gott made
several journeys to connect them up, receiving dangerous wounds in
the attempt.  About twelve, the dug-out of B Company was blown in,
and a couple of hours later that of C Company met the same fate, the
greater part of the officers in each case being destroyed.  An
orderly brought news also that he had found the dug-out of D Company
with its inmates dead, and a dead Rifleman sentry lying at its door.
As the man was staggering and dazed with shell-shock, it was hoped
that his message was an exaggeration.  The telephone wire to the rear
had long been cut, and the doomed battalions had no means of
signalling their extreme need, though the ever-rising clouds of sand
were enough to show what they were enduring.  No {126} message of any
sort seems to have reached them from the rear.  The fire was far too
hot for visual signaling, and several pigeons which were released did
not appear to reach their destination.  With sinking hearts the
shaken and dazed survivors waited for the infantry attack which they
knew to be at hand.  There were really no means of resistance, for,
in spite of all care, it was found that the all-pervading sand, which
nearly choked them, had put out of gear the mechanism of all the
machine-guns and most of the rifles.  The divisional artillery was
doing what it could from the other side of the Yser, but the volume
of fire from the heavies was nothing as compared with the German
bombardment.  To add to the misery of the situation, a number of
German aeroplanes were hawking backwards and forwards, skimming at
less than 100 feet over the position, and pouring machine-gun fire
upon every darker khaki patch upon the yellow sand.

Both the battalion commanders behaved with the utmost intrepidity and
coolness.  Of Colonel Abadie of the Rifles, it was said by one of the
few survivors: "He inspired all with the utmost confidence.  He did
everything in his power and was splendid the whole time."  Great
hopes were entertained that some diversion would be effected by the
gunboats upon the flank, but for some reason there was no assistance
from this quarter.  Hour after hour passed, and the casualties
increased until the dead and wounded along the line of both
battalions were more numerous than the survivors.  At 3 P.M. the
regimental dug-out of the Rifles showed signs of collapse under the
impact of two direct hits.  Those who could move betook themselves to
an unfinished tunnel in the sand in {127} which a handful of
Australian miners were actually working.  These men had changed their
picks for their rifles, and were ready and eager to help in the
defence of the position.  In little groups, unable to communicate
with each other, each imagining itself to be the sole survivor, the
men waited for the final German rush.  At 7.15 it came.  A division
of German marines made the attack, some skirting the British line
along the seashore and approaching from the flank or even from the
rear.  As many Riflemen as could be collected had joined the
Australians in the tunnel, but before they could emerge the Germans
were dropping bombs down the three ventilation shafts, while they
sprayed liquid fire down the entrance.  The men who endured this
accumulation of horrors had been under heavy fire for twenty-four
hours with little to eat or drink, and it would not have been
wonderful if their nerve had now utterly deserted them.  Instead of
this, every one seems to have acted with the greatest coolness.  "The
Colonel called to the Riflemen to sit down, and they did so with
perfect discipline."  By this means the spray of fire passed over
them.  The entrances were blown in, and the last seen of Colonel
Abadie was when, revolver in hand, he dashed out to sell his life as
dearly as possible.  From this time the handful of survivors, cut off
from their Colonel by the fall of part of the roof, saw or heard no
more of him.  The few groups of men, Rifles or Northamptons, who were
scattered about in the sandy hollows, were overwhelmed by the enemy,
the survivors being taken.  Four officers, who had been half-buried
in the tunnel, dug their way out, and finding that it was now nearly
dark and that the Germans {128} were all round them, proceeded to
make their way as best they could back to the bank of the river.  An
artillery liaison officer made a gallant reconnaissance and reported
to the others that there was a feasible gap in the new line which the
enemy was already digging.  The adjutant of the battalion, with the
second-in-command, and his few comrades, who included an Australian
corporal, crept forward in the dusk, picking their way among the
Germans.  Altogether, there were 4 officers, 20 Australians, and 15
Riflemen.  One of the Australians, named McGrady, was particularly
cool and helpful, but was unfortunately killed before the party
reached safety.  Even at this crisis the military code was strictly
observed, and the confidential documents of the battalion carefully
destroyed by the adjutant.  As the British emerged into the gloom
from one end of the tunnel, a party of Germans began to enter at the
other, but were so skilfully delayed by two Riflemen, acting as
rearguard, that they were unable to stop the retreat.  The men
streamed out at the farther end under the very noses of their
enemies, and crept swiftly in small parties down to the river, which
at this point is from 70 to 100 yards broad.  Across their path lay a
camouflage screen some twelve feet high, which had been set on fire
by the shells.  It was a formidable obstacle, and held them up for
some time, but was eventually crossed.  Here they were faced by the
problem of the broken bridges, and several were shot while
endeavouring to find some way across.  Finally, however, the swimmers
helping the others, the greater number, including the four Rifle
officers, got safely across, being nearly {129} poisoned by gas
shells as they landed upon the farther side.  Of the Northamptons, it
would appear that only one officer, Captain Martin, made his escape,
though badly wounded.  Colonel Tollemache was heard calling out to
his men: "It may be the last time, but fight like Englishmen!"  He
and all his staff became casualties or prisoners.  The Northampton
front was not more than forty yards from that of the Germans, and the
rifle-fire of the latter swept the parapet to such an extent that it
was impossible to stop the rush.  A private who was No. 1 of a
machine-gun, with two other men, who knew nothing of the mechanism,
rushed a gun out upon the flank and held up the grey wave for a
minute or so before being submerged, while a sergeant also
distinguished himself by a determined resistance and by finally
crossing the Canal to explain the situation to those in command there.

So ended an experience which can have had few parallels even in this
era of deadly adventure.  Of the Riflemen, it was found next day that
3 officers and 52 men had rejoined their brigade.  If so many got
away it was largely due to the action of Rifleman Wambach, who swam
the canal with a rope in his mouth, and fixed it for his more
helpless comrades.  Even fewer of the Northamptons ever regained the
eastern bank.  "Like the Spartans at Thermopylae the men of
Northampton and the Riflemen had died where they had been posted.
Heroism could do no more."  Out of about 1200 men, nearly all, save
the casualties, fell into the hands of the victors.  Every officer
seems to have behaved with the utmost possible gallantry, and not
least the battalion surgeon, Captain Ward, who stood by his wounded
until both he and {130} they fell into the hands of the Germans.
Such was the deplorable affair of Nieuport, a small incident in so
great a war, and yet one which had an individuality of its own which
may excuse this more extended account.  The total German advance was
600 yards in depth, upon a front of three-quarters of a mile.

The attack had extended to the eastward upon the farther side of the
Geleide Creek, but here the positions were more favourable for
defence, as there were supports available and the communications had
not been broken.  It is a most significant sign of the enormous
respect which the German authorities entertained for the British
Army, that this limited action in which only two weak British
battalions were overwhelmed was solemnly announced by them in their
official bulletin to be "a great and magnificent victory."  When one
remembers how the British in turn would have dismissed so small an
action as a mere incident in the campaign, had they been the victors,
it is indeed a most memorable tribute.  The main cause of the defeat,
apart from the faulty position, appears to have been that the
infantry took over the new line more quickly than the artillery, and
that the French heavies had withdrawn before the British heavies were
ready for action.  A British officer, afterwards released, was
informed by the Germans that they had 182 batteries concentrated upon
the position, while there were only 13 ready for the defence.

It was hoped in Germany and feared in Britain that the new position
gained by the Germans at the north of the Yser River would enable
them to outflank the British defences at Lombardzyde, and to destroy
the 97th Brigade, which lay to the north of {131} the river.  The
situation certainly looked most alarming in the map, and no military
critic could have imagined that the position could be held.  The
British soldier has a way of doing, however, what the lecture-rooms
would denounce, and after some very desperate fighting the lines were
maintained.  The attack was not on so overwhelming a scale as on the
left, but it was severe and long continued, from 7.30 P.M. till the
evening of July 11.  The enemy had at one time won three lines of
defence, but they were eventually thrust back, General Shute feeding
his fighting line from his reserves until he had the upper hand.  The
main strain fell upon the 11th Borders and 16th H.L.I., but as the
action went on the 17th Highland Light Infantry, 15th Lancashire
Fusiliers, and 16th Northumberland Fusiliers were all in turn
involved.  It was a real infantry fight, often in the dark and
sometimes at close grips, and it ended with the line as it was before
the attack commenced.  The severity of the action may be judged by
the fact that the brigade had nearly a thousand casualties.  From
this time the line remained unchanged until the great Battle for the
Flanders Ridges turned the thoughts of both parties to larger issues.

Before we enter upon an account of that terrific and protracted
engagement, one should mention a brisk action which was fought by
those stark fighters the New Zealand Division, upon the Warneton
front, to the immediate south of the Messines area.  There is a small
ruined village, hardly rising to the dignity of a mention upon the
maps, called La Basseville, which was held by the Germans under the
very noses of the men with the red hatbands.  Upon the night {132} of
July 27 the Wellington battalion, a name of good military omen,
captured this place with some of its Bavarian garrison.  In the early
morning the Germans came again with a rush, however, and regained the
place.  The New Zealanders attacked once more in the night of July
31, so that their venture may appear to have been in connection with
the larger operations in the north.  Once more the village was
captured by the Wellington and Auckland infantry with some fifty more
prisoners and seven machine-guns.  The Germans lost heavily in
killed, and the losses were doubled or trebled by their gallant but
unsuccessful counter-attacks, which were undertaken often by such
limited groups of men that they seemed the results less of reasoned
tactics than of desperation.  From this time La Basseville passed
into the British system.

This month of July was signalised by the last efforts of the Russian
Army so long as it remained a serious force.  Under Brusiloff and
Korniloff they made an attack upon the Austro-German lines, but after
initial successes they were paralysed by the growing disaffection and
disorganisation of the soldiery, who had all the want of discipline
of the old French republicans without the fiery valour and
patriotism.  From this time onward Russia played no real military
part in the great war, save as the betrayer of Roumania, the deserter
of Serbia, and the absorber of such ill-spared supplies as she could
get from her former allies.




{133}

CHAPTER VI

THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES

July 31, 1917

Attack of July 31--Advance of the Guards--Of the Welsh--Capture of
Pilkem--Capture of St. Julien by Thirty-ninth Division--Advance of
Fifty-fifth Division--Advance of Jacob's Second Corps--General
results.


It had been accepted as an axiom at this stage of the war that no
great operation could be in the nature of a surprise--an axiom which,
like most other axioms, was shown later in the year to have some
startling exceptions.  To pack the base of the historic Ypres salient
with guns, and to assemble within and behind its trenches the
storming troops for a great advance was, however, an operation which
could not possibly be concealed.  British aircraft might have an
ascendency in observation, but that did not prevent the German fliers
from being both daring and skilful.  All camouflage, therefore, was
thrown aside, and throughout the month of July Sir Douglas Haig
openly assembled his forces for the widening or destruction of the
iron bands which had so long constricted us in this northern area.
The Fifth Army gathered for the venture, still commanded by Sir
Hubert Gough, the victor of Thiepval.  On his left, {134} opposite
Bixschoote, on the edge of the inundations, was a French army under
General Antoine, a genial giant who impresses those who meet him as a
mixture of Porthos and d'Artagnan.  The general rôle of the French
Army was to cover the British from counter-attack from the north,
especially from Houthulst Forest, in the depths of which great
reserves might lurk, for it covers no less than 600 acres.  Upon the
right, and engaged in a subsidiary degree in the operations, was the
Second Army, under Sir Herbert Plumer, fresh from the triumph of
Messines.

The direction of this new attack against the ridges of Flanders was
the logical sequence from the preceding operations of the year.  The
high ground of the Ancre had been taken late in 1916.  The high
ground of Vimy fell into British hands in April.  In June the Germans
had been driven in one strenuous day from the high ground of
Messines.  The whole line of ridges from end to end was in British
hands save only those which girt in Ypres and dominated it from the
north and north-east.  It is true that these so-called ridges were
often little more than undulations, but they meant firmer ground,
artillery observation, self-concealment, and everything which makes
for military advantage.  For these reasons Sir Douglas Haig turned
his strength now in that direction.  After his successive advances he
might say with Wellington: "Knowing well that if we laid our bloody
hands upon a town it was fated to fall."  The men who took Ciudad
Rodrigo or stormed the dreadful breach of Badajos could teach nothing
in hardihood and contempt of death to those who carried Guillemont or
Ovillers.

In attacking a salient like that of Ypres and in {135} endeavouring
to flatten it out, it is obvious that the efforts must be made at the
sides rather than in the centre, since success in the latter case
would simply mean a larger salient.  Of the two sides of the salient
the success of Messines had already relieved the pressure in the
south, and this area was clearly less important than the north, since
it was farther from the sea.  It was evident that any considerable
success upon the northern side would advance the British line towards
Bruges, and an occupation of Bruges would surely mean the abandonment
by Germany of the Flemish coast.  For these reasons the effort of the
British was chiefly directed towards the north-east, a tract of
ground which was difficult when dry, but which became grotesque in
its difficulties when it rained and the small low-lying streams or
"beeks" which meandered through it spread out into broad marshy
bottoms.  These all-pervading morasses, when ploughed up with
innumerable shell-holes, were destined to form an almost insuperable
military obstacle.  In attacking at such a point Sir Douglas could
only hope that the weather would abide as a neutral, but as a fact,
now as so often before, its action was bitterly hostile.  Up to the
very day of the advance it smiled deceitfully only to break into a
month of rain from the very hour of the attack.  If Berlin needs one
more monument in her meretricious "Sieges-Alee," she may well erect
one to the weather, which has saved her cause as surely as the geese
of old saved Rome.

So notorious were the British preparations, culminating in the usual
terrific bombardment, that the approaching conflict was discussed in
the German papers weeks before it occurred.  Their preparations {136}
had been gigantic, and took a new form which called for corresponding
ingenuity upon the side of the stormers if it was to be successfully
countered.  The continuous trench had, save in the old system, been
discarded as offering too evident a mark for the shattering guns.
The ground was held by numerous disconnected trenches, and strong
points arranged in depth rather than in breadth, so that the whole
front should form one shock-absorber which would yield at first, but
must at the last bring any pressure to a stand.  Scattered thickly
among these small posts there were concrete forts, not unlike the
Martello towers of our ancestors, but sunk deeply into the ground, so
as to present a small mark to gun-fire.  These forts were made of
cement and iron with walls so enormously thick that a direct hit from
anything less than a six-inch gun could not possibly harm them.  The
garrisons of each were composed of twenty or thirty men, with two or
three machine-guns.  There was usually no visible opening, the
entrance being approached by a tunnel, and the windows mere slits
which gave a broad traverse for a machine-gun.  They were
contrivances which might well hold up an army, and it was a fine
example of British adaptability as well as courage that they were
able to make progress against them.  The days of the gallant
bull-headed rush were over, and the soldiers had learned in a cruel
school that the fighting man must be wary as well as brave.

At four o'clock in the morning, in the first grey light of a rainy
morning, under a canopy of grey sweeping clouds, and in a fog-girt
landscape of bedraggled fields and brown patches of mire, the French
and British infantry sprang forward with splendid {137} alacrity upon
this dangerous venture which should culminate in taking the last
dominant ridge upon the British front from those who had held them so
long.

The French attacked upon the extreme left of the line, and had an
extremely difficult task, which they accomplished with a dash and
spirit which won the unstinted admiration of their British comrades.
In front of them was the canal, but they had succeeded in throwing
across some troops in the days before the battle.  It was fitting
that they should advance the line in this sector, for they were
starting from the very spot to which their comrades had been pushed
in the poison-gas battle of April 22, 1915, more than two years
before.  The ground in front of them was very marshy, and as a
background to the German position loomed the great forest of
Houthulst, which was known to be a strong gun position and place of
arms.  It was subjected, however, to such a shattering bombardment
that it was nearly silent when the attack advanced, and the French
poilus, pushing rapidly on from point to point, seized the village of
Steenstraate, and finally the larger village of Bixschoote,
establishing their line well to the north of that point.  It was a
most valorous advance, and if no detail can be given of it save this
passing mention, it is because it belongs to that weighty and
wonderful volume which shall record the glorious military deeds of
France, a volume which can only be written with proper appreciation
and knowledge by a French pen.

The British line of battle was formed by five corps, the Fourteenth
(Cavan) to the north, the Eighteenth (Maxse) upon its right, the
Nineteenth (Watts) upon the right of that, the Second (Jacob) came
next, and then upon the southern edge of the {138} area, and hardly
engaged in the main fighting, was the Tenth (Morland).  Each corps
had two divisions in the line and two in reserve.  We will take each
in turn, starting from the north.  It should be noted that the four
first corps made up Gough's Fifth Army, and that the Tenth Corps was
the only part of Plumer's Army to be engaged.

Cavan's Fourteenth Corps was next to the French, with the Guards in
immediate touch with our allies, and the Thirty-eighth Welsh Division
upon its right.  The Twentieth and the Twenty-ninth Divisions were in
support.  We shall now follow the splendid advance of the Guards, a
division which more and more as the war progressed reasserted its
position as the very cream of the Army.

On the days preceding the action a number of bridges had been thrown
across the canal, and the attacking brigades had been passed over
this impediment, so that they were able to deploy rapidly and escape
the German barrage which fell, for the most part, behind them.  This
most useful work was carried out by the 1st Guards Brigade,
especially by the 3rd Coldstream and 1st Irish, who got across the
first.  This brigade was relieved, and on the day of battle the 3rd
Brigade was upon the left in close liaison with the French, while the
2nd Brigade was on the right with their flank touching the Welshmen.
Two "Hate Companies," as they were called, were thrown out on the
divisional front, whose task it was to make special discharges of oil
drums, thermite, and other missiles which might smooth the way for
the advance of the infantry.  At 4.24 the whistles of fate were heard
shrilly all along the line, and the Guards rose up from {139} their
wet assembly ditches, and went forward in their usual sedate and
inexorable fashion.  The front line of battle of the two brigades,
counting from the French flank, were the 1st Welsh, 1st Grenadiers,
2nd Irish, and 1st Scots, while behind them in the second line were
their comrades of the 2nd Scots, 4th Grenadiers, 1st Coldstream, and
3rd Grenadiers.  Each platoon of the Irish carried a green flag
adorned with the Irish harp.

The attack at first was so strong or the opposition so weak that in
ten minutes the first-line objective had been gained.  From this
point the shock-absorber system began to act, a system which must
prevail save where the attackers know when to suspend their effort so
that the spring of resistance is never pressed back to the uttermost.
The British generals had learned this lesson and the aims of any one
day's battle were strictly limited.  Thus, although the losses grew
and the difficulties increased, the Guards were well within their
powers, in gradually pushing forwards to the Steenbeek stream, which
was the extreme limit assigned to them.  As they advanced sections
were told off to deal with the various concrete forts and other
strong points, a method of attack which gave great scope for the
initiative of individual junior officers or non-commissioned
officers, and which was fruitful in acts of valour.  About six
o'clock the German machine-guns in Hey Wood held up the line for a
time, and the 2nd Brigade had the chagrin of seeing some German guns
limbering up and withdrawing in front of them, while their own
barrage fell as an invisible steel curtain which covered them from
seizure.  It was remarked generally of the British barrage that
though extremely accurate as a rule, it {140} still consisted too
much of shrapnel and not enough of high explosives, so that it had
not the shattering and uprooting effect which was needful.  The
Germans had read the lessons differently, for at this period of the
war their barrage consisted almost entirely of 5.9 "crumps" with a
small admixture of shrapnel.

By the early afternoon the front lines of the Guards had fulfilled
their programme, and a number of prisoners, including the commanding
officer and adjutant of the 73rd Hanoverians, had been conducted to
the rear.  The losses of the Guards had not been excessive, save in
the right flank battalions, especially the 1st Scots, but they
included many valuable officers killed or wounded, including Colonel
Greer of the 2nd Irish, Colonel Romilly of the 1st Scots, and Colonel
Lord Gort of the 4th Grenadiers.  Among many deeds of valour which
were added to the records of the division upon that morning there may
be mentioned that of the heroic surgeon David Lees, who was decorated
for passing five times through the barrage carrying wounded, and of
the brave Irish priest, Father Knapp, who absolutely refused to take
shelter when his men were exposed, and met his death rather than
leave them.  It is invidious, however, to mention brave men where all
were brave.  About three o'clock the 1st Guards Brigade passed
through the ranks of their comrades and carried the advance forward
to its limit.  The order of their advance from the left was the 2nd
Coldstream, with the 2nd Grenadiers on the right, while the 3rd
Coldstream and 1st Irish took the corresponding places in the second
line.  The 2nd Grenadiers lost heavily from a flank fire, its
difficulties and those of all the right flank being increased by the
fact that the railway line, {141} dotted with German strong points,
ran as the boundary between divisions.  Captain Ritchie, of Loos
fame, was among the casualties.  The Grenadiers got so far ahead that
the protective barrage became thin and erratic, hardly existing in
many places.  The whole brigade moved forward in close touch with the
113th Brigade of Welshmen upon their right.  The latter after the
final objective was reached were shelled for a time out of their
position, so that the Irish and Grenadiers had to throw back a
defensive flank, but the Welsh with dogged spirit came back to their
work and re-established their line late in the evening.  Their work
will presently be described, but so far as the Guards are concerned
it may be added that, with the help of the 55th and 76th Field
Company R.E., all they took they kept, although the physical
surroundings were appalling, for they found themselves for three days
lying on the forward slope of a low ridge under heavy rain in deep
puddles of water, exposed to German shelling and to the constant
stinging of invisible German snipers.  No conditions could have been
more trying, but the Guards stuck it out with a quiet patient
discipline which was as fine as the valour of their assault.  "We are
just lying in a snipe bog in the rain," wrote an Irish officer.  Due
dispositions were made for relief among the three brigades, and the
line was held until a farther advance should become possible--an
event which was continually postponed by the incredible weather.

Passing to the 38th Welsh Division upon the right of the Guards,
their battle line consisted of the 113th Brigade upon the left,
consisting entirely of battalions of Welsh Fusiliers, while the {142}
114th Brigade, formed from the Welsh Regiment, was on the right.  The
order of the foremost battalions taken from the left was the 16th and
13th Welsh Fusiliers, with the 13th and 10th Welsh.  The experiences
of the division upon its advance were, as might be expected, not
unlike those of the Guards.  "It was still dark," says one graphic
correspondent, "and all we had to guide us was our barrage moving
forward like a living line of fire, from left to right as far as the
eye could see."  The first objective was captured with little loss, a
fair number of prisoners being taken in the Caesar Support Trench.
In attacking the second objectives the reserve line came through the
front one, so that the order of the troops, taken again from the left
in the 114th Brigade, was the 15th and 14th Welsh, while in the 113th
Brigade, which had a less difficult task, there was a mere change of
companies in the units already engaged.  The opposition now became
fiercer and the losses more severe.  Marsouin Farm, and Stray Farm on
the right, and the village of Pilkem upon the left poured bullets
upon the advancing infantry, who slipped from shell-hole to
shell-hole, taking such cover as they could, but resolutely pushing
onwards.  Again and again the machine-gun forts were isolated,
surrounded, and compelled to surrender.  The Welshmen had reached
their second objective in the scheduled time.  The 15th Welsh
Fusiliers were now pushed into the firing-line upon the left, and the
advance went forward.  A gap had formed between the Welshmen and the
Highlanders of the Fifty-first Division upon their right.  In this
gap lay Rudolph Farm, spitting fire from every cranny and window.  A
platoon of the 15th Welsh turned aside from their {143} path and
captured or killed all who were in the German post.  To the immediate
left of this point lay another stronghold called Iron Cross.  This
was rushed by the 14th Welsh, at considerable loss to themselves, but
twenty of the garrison were bayoneted, forty captured, and three
machine-guns secured.  Just beyond the Iron Cross was a German
dressing-station which yielded forty more prisoners.

The 15th Welsh Fusiliers on the left had in the meanwhile a severe
ordeal, for so heavy a fire poured upon them from the clump of trees
known as Battery Copse that they were left with hardly an officer and
with their protective barrage rapidly receding into the distance.
The men were staggered for a time, but struggled forward again with
fine resolution, and at last established themselves upon the same
line as Iron Cross.

Whilst the fighting line had been getting forward as described, the
113th carrying among other obstacles the village of Pilkem, and both
brigades, but especially the 114th, bursting through three separate
battalions of the famous Käferlein regiment of the Guards, the
reserve brigade had been keeping in close attendance in spite of the
German barrage.  Now two battalions of the 115th Brigade were slipped
into the front, the 11th S.W. Borderers and the 17th Welsh Fusiliers.
These fine fresh troops took up the running and made for the final
objective, which was the Steenbeek stream.  This was successfully
reached, in spite of the ever-growing resistance, and the final line
was formed with posts upon the farther side of the Steenbeek.
Shortly after three o'clock a strong counter-attack broke upon this
Welsh line, and for a time the Borderers were forced {144} from the
post at "Au bon gîte" which they had occupied and were thrown across
the river.  Aided by a good barrage of artillery and machine-guns the
attack was finally beaten off, about a hundred Germans who had
charged through the barrage being shot down by rifle fire.  After
this there was no attempt upon this day to disturb the new front of
the Welsh Division, though upon August 1 in the afternoon there was
some sign of a counter-attack, which was broken up by the British
artillery before it could materialise.  From then onwards the weather
made further operations impossible.  On August 6 the Twentieth
Division took over this new line.

The advance of the Welsh Division, including as it did the two
exploits of capturing the strongly fortified village of Pilkem, and
of utterly scattering three battalions of one of the most famous
regiments in the Prussian service, was worthy of the great reputation
which they had won at Mametz Wood.  The way in which the men followed
up the barrage and tackled the concrete forts was especially worthy
of mention.  The Cockchafers mentioned above were the dandy regiment
of Berlin, and their utter defeat at the hands of a brigade of the
New Army must indeed have been bitter to those who remembered the
cheap jests which had been made at that Army's expense.  Four hundred
prisoners from this regiment found their way to the cages.
Altogether 700 prisoners were taken, nearly all Guardsmen from the
Third Division.  The Welsh had about 1300 casualties, including
Colonels Radice, Norman, and Taylor.  Among the dead was one, Private
Ellis H. Evans of the 15th Welsh Fusiliers, whose position and
importance were peculiarly Cymric, since he was the winner {145} of
the Bardic chair, the highest honour of the Eisteddfod.  An empty
Bardic chair was afterwards erected over his grave.  It is only in
Wales that the traditions of Athens are preserved, and contests of
the body and of the mind are conducted in public with equal honour to
the victors.

To the south of Cavan's Fourteenth Corps lay Maxse's Eighteenth
Corps, extending from the right of the Thirty-eighth Division to a
point opposite to the village of St. Julien.  Maxse's Eighteenth
Corps consisted of four divisions, the Fifty-first supported by the
Eleventh being upon the left, and the Thirty-ninth supported by the
Forty-eighth upon the right.  South of the St. Julien front they
connected up with Watts' Nineteenth Corps to the south.  It should be
mentioned that the whole corps' front was occupied for some weeks
before the battle by the 33rd Brigade, who at great strain and loss
to themselves held this long stretch in the face of constant gassings
and shellings, in order that the attacking divisions might be able to
practise for the day of battle.

Taking the narrative once more from the north, the Fifty-first
Highland Territorial Division (Harper), a unit which has seen an
extraordinary amount of service during the war, advanced with the
usual dash of these magnificent clansmen.  Everything went down
before their disciplined rush.  There was no particular geographical
point in the area which they conquered, but their whole front was
covered by fortified posts, some of which fell with ease, while
others put up a considerable resistance.  Prominent among the latter
was Rudolph Farm, which was on the line between the Thirty-eighth and
Fifty-first Divisions, pouring a flanking fire upon each and holding
{146} up the left of the Fifty-first.  This post was eventually
stormed by the Welsh.  Finally the Highlanders, clearing the ground
carefully behind them, reached their full day's objective, which was
the line of the Steenbeek.  Here they dug themselves in and beat off
an enemy counter-attack.

On the right of the Highland Territorial Division was the
Thirty-ninth Division, consisting of the 116th Sussex Brigade, the
117th Rifle and Sherwood Foresters Brigade, and the 118th mixed
Territorial Brigade.  The attack was undertaken by the 117th Brigade
upon the north in touch with the Highlanders, and the 116th upon the
south.  Both of these brigades got forward in excellent style, but
the position was strong and the losses were heavy.  Canadian Farm was
taken by the 117th Brigade, and the 116th also attained its full
objective.  Finally, the spare brigade, the 118th, passed through the
ranks of the others, and fought their way into St. Julien, where no
British foot had been placed since April 24, 1915, when the heroic
remnant of the Canadians had been cut off and overpowered in its
streets.

The operation would have been entirely successful had it not been for
the attempt to advance beyond the village.  This was carried out by
the same brigade, the 118th, with the 6th Cheshires upon the right,
the 1st Herts in the centre, and the 4/5th Black Watch upon the left.
The Cambridge Battalion was in support.  The attack was
extraordinarily gallant, but was held up by uncut wire and very
severely punished.  No permanent gain was effected, but greater
constancy has seldom been seen.  The Hertfordshire men were
particularly fine.  Their Colonel Page and their {147} adjutant were
both killed, and every combatant officer was on the casualty list, so
that it was the serjeant-major who withdrew the 120 men who had gone
forth as a strong battalion.  The doctor was wounded, and only the
chaplain was left, who distinguished himself by being the last man to
recross the Steenbeek with a wounded man slung over his shoulder.
Such was the experience of the Herts, and that of the Cheshires and
of the Highlanders differed only in detail.

A counter-attack along the whole corps' front was beaten back upon
the evening of July 31, but the concentration of German artillery
upon St. Julien was so terrific that it was found necessary next day
to withdraw the 1st Cambs who garrisoned the village, the adjacent
bridge over the Steenbeek being retained.  Next day the village was
reoccupied.

The Thirty-ninth Division, very hard hit by its victorious but
strenuous service, was relieved upon August 4, after a terrible four
days of constant rainfall and shell-fall, by the Forty-eighth South
Midland Territorial Division, while a few days later their Highland
comrades were relieved by the Eleventh Division.  So battered was the
Thirty-ninth Division that it was taken forthwith out of the line and
its place in the corps was filled by the Fifty-eighth.

To return to the order of the advance, Watts' Nineteenth Corps, which
was the next one to the south, consisted of the Fifty-fifth West
Lancashire Territorials with the Thirty-sixth Ulsters upon the left,
while the Fifteenth Scottish Division supported by the Fourteenth
Light Division were on the right.  Of these we will deal first with
the attack of the men of Lancashire.

{148}

The advance was made by the 166th Brigade upon the left, and by the
165th upon the right.  The first German line was rapidly carried, and
the only serious fighting was at the strong point known as Pommern
Redoubt, which held out for some time but was eventually captured
about 10 A.M.  The 166th Brigade, which covered the space between St.
Julien in the north and the Wieltje-Gravenstafel Road in the south,
was led by the 5th King's Royal Lancasters and the 5th North
Lancashires, while the 165th Brigade, with their left upon the road
and their right in touch with the Fifteenth Division, were composed
entirely of battalions of the King's Liverpool Regiment, the 5th and
6th in front, the 7th and 9th in the second line.  This brigade upon
being counter-attacked used its liquid fire apparatus with good
results.  "From under the mantle of fire ran blazing Huns with
heartrending cries, but I cannot say we had any sympathy for them.
We remembered John Lynn and the other Lancashire lads who had been
gassed and roasted round Ypres in the battles of other days, and we
felt that the Huns were only being paid back in their own coin."  The
losses in the first stages of the advance were not severe and came
chiefly from the machine-gun fire of the three strongholds of Bank
Farm, Spree Farm, and Pommern Castle.  The latter was very
formidable, spouting bullets on three sides, so that the 165th
Brigade was held up by it for a time.  In the second stage of the
attack the 164th Brigade with the 4th North Lancashires on their
right and the 5th Lancs Fusiliers upon their left pushed through the
ranks of their comrades and carried the advance on, taking Hindu Cott
and Gallipoli, and finally reaching the {149} most advanced
objective, whence they pushed out patrols to Toronto and Aviatik
Farms.  They were exposed to strong counter-attacks as will be shown.

This fine advance had been matched by Reed's Fifteenth Scots Division
on the right.  Of their conduct that day it can only be said that it
was worthy of the reputation which they had gained at Loos and at the
Somme.  The Scottish bands who fought under Gustavus Adolphus in the
Thirty Years' War left a renown in Germany which lingers yet, and it
is certain that some memory of the terrible "Hell-hags," as they were
called by the German soldiers, will preserve the record of Scotch
military prowess so long as any of their adversaries are alive to
speak of it.  Two brigades led the advance, the 44th upon the right
and the 46th upon the left.  As in the case of the Lancashire men
upon their left the first stages of the attack were easy.  On getting
past the German line, however, the full blast of fire struck the
infantry from Douglas Villa, Frezenberg Redoubt, Pommern Castle, Low
Farm, Frost House, and Hill 37.  By ten o'clock, however, the second
objectives had been taken.  The 45th Brigade now pushed through, and
though held up on the right by Bremen Redoubt, they attained the full
objective upon the left, and kept in close touch with the 164th
Brigade.  The position, however, was perilous and, as it proved,
impossible, for Watts' Corps was now well ahead of either of its
neighbours.  About two o'clock a violent German drive struck up
against the exposed flank of the Fifty-fifth Division, causing great
losses, especially to the 4th Royal Lancasters, some of whom were cut
off.  Another counter-attack beat against the left of the enfeebled
{150} 45th Brigade.  As a result the remains of the four front line
battalions were pushed back some hundreds of yards, but at 5 P.M. the
edge was taken off the attack and the German infantry were seen to be
retiring.  About 1 P.M. next day this attack was renewed down the
line of the Ypres-Roulers Railway, and again the Fifteenth Division
bore a heavy strain which forced it back once to the Frezenberg
Ridge, but again it flooded forward and reoccupied its line.  So
severe had been the exertions and the losses of these two divisions
that they were drawn out of the line as soon as possible, their
places being taken by the 36th Ulsters upon the left and the 16th
Irish upon the right.

We now come to Jacob's Second Corps lying to the south of the
Nineteenth with its left resting upon the Ypres-Roulers Railway.  It
contained no less than five divisions, three of which were in the
line and two in support.  Those in the line, counting from the north,
were the Eighth Regular Division with its left on the railway and its
right at Sanctuary Wood, the Thirtieth Lancashire Division in the
centre, and the Twenty-fourth Division opposite Shrewsbury Forest
with its right resting upon the Zillebeke-Zandvoorde Road.  In
support was the Twenty-fifth Division upon the left, and the
Eighteenth Division upon the right.

The Eighth Division advanced upon a two-brigade front, the 23rd upon
the left and the 24th upon the right.  Many strong posts including
several woods faced the assailants, and from the beginning the
resistance was very obstinate.  None the less, in spite of numerous
checks and delays, the advance was carried forward for half a mile
and {151} captured the whole of the front line trenches without much
loss, for the German barrage was slow and late whereas the British
artillery support was excellent.  Indeed it may be remarked that one
of the features of the battle was the remarkable preparation by which
General Jacob, with the aid of his two artillery leaders, managed to
place nearly a thousand pieces into a line which was fully exposed to
enemy observation.  It was done at a considerable loss of men and
guns, but it was absolutely essential to the advance.

The low rising called the Bellewaarde Ridge was the first objective
of the division and was easily taken.  The two magnificent Regular
brigades swept onwards with a perfect order which excited the
admiration of spectators.  As they passed over the curve of the
ground they came into heavy fire from the farther rise near Westhoek,
but it neither slowed nor quickened their gait.  Hooge, Bellewaarde
Lake, The White Château, all the old landmarks were passed.  When the
full objective had been reached after more than half a mile of steady
advance the 25th Brigade passed through the ranks of their comrades
and carried on until, as they neared Westhoek, they ran into a very
heavy flank fire from Glencorse Wood in the south.  This was in the
area of the southern division, so that the 25th Brigade were aware
that their flank was open and that the Thirtieth Division had not
come abreast of them.  They halted therefore just to the west of
Westhoek, and as their flank remained open all day they had to
content themselves with consolidating the ground that they had won
and beating back two counter-attacks.  The left of the division kept
their station well forward upon the {152} Ypres-Roulers Railway, with
their left in close touch with the Scotsmen to the north.  The
division was relieved next day by the Twenty-fifth Division.  All the
battalions had done great things in the action, but some specially
fine work was put in by the 1st Sherwood Foresters upon the left of
the advance of the 24th Brigade.  At one point it was necessary to
cut through wire which held up the advance, and the gallantry of the
wire-cutting detachment was such that the dying continued to snip at
the strands, while even the dead contrived to fall forward in an
attempt to screen with their bodies their living comrades.  The
losses were very heavy, but the historic old 45th Foot, the "old
Stubborns" of the Peninsula, never in its long career carried through
more gallantly in so fierce a fight.  The 2nd Northamptons also
increased their high reputation upon this arduous day, during which
they took many prisoners.

The Thirtieth Division, which consisted, as will be remembered, to a
large extent of "Pal" battalions from Liverpool and Manchester,
advanced to the south of the Eighth.  Sanctuary Wood and other strong
points lay in front of the 90th and 21st Brigades which provided the
first lines of stormers.  The resistance was strong, the fire was
heavy, and the losses were considerable, so that the assailants were
held up and were unable to do more than carry the front trenches,
whence they repulsed repeated counter-attacks during the rest of the
day.  In the initial advance the 2nd Scots Fusiliers, that phoenix of
a battalion, so often destroyed and so often renewed, wandered in the
dusk of the morning away from its allotted path and got as far north
as Château Wood in the path of the 24th Brigade.  This caused {153}
some dislocation of the front line, but the Manchester men on the
right of the Scots pushed on and struck the Menin Road as far forward
as Clapham Junction.  The 21st Brigade in the meantime had to pass a
great deal of difficult woody ground and met so much opposition that
they lost the barrage, that best friend of the stormer.  Bodmin Copse
was reached, but few penetrated to the eastern side of it.  The
strong point of Stirling Castle was, however, taken by the
Manchesters of the 90th.  It was the line of Dumbarton Lakes which
proved fatal to the advance, and though two battalions of the 89th
and finally the East Anglians of the 53rd Brigade from the supporting
Eighteenth Division were thrown into the fight, the latter winning
forward for some distance, they found that it was finally rather a
question of holding ground than gaining it.  The ultimate line,
therefore, was across from Clapham Junction.  Since neither of the
divisions on either side was in any way held up, save perhaps at one
point, it is probable that the southern advance would have been more
successful but for the limited advance of the Thirtieth Division.

Upon August 2, much exhausted, they were drawn out of the line and
the Eighteenth Division took their place, and held the Clapham
Junction and Glencorse Wood, which their own 53rd Brigade had largely
been instrumental in winning, against repeated attacks.

Upon the right of the Thirtieth Division was the Twenty-fourth, a
famous fighting unit which was the only division able to boast that
it had been present at Vimy Ridge, Messines, and Ypres--three great
battles in the one year.  The ground in front {154} of this division
was broken and woody, including Shrewsbury Forest and other natural
obstacles.  None the less good progress was made, especially upon the
right, while the left was only retarded by the fact of the limited
advance in the north.  The advance was made upon a three-brigade
front, the 17th upon the left, the 73rd in the centre, and the 72nd
upon the right.  The 17th, advancing with that fine battalion the 3rd
Rifle Brigade alone in the front line, carried all before it at
first, but found both flanks exposed and was compelled to halt.  The
73rd, led by the 2nd Leicesters and the 7th Northamptons, were held
up by a strong point called Lower Star Post in front of them.  On the
right the 72nd, with the 8th Queen's and the North Staffords in the
lead, gained the house called the Grunenburg Farm, which marked the
line of their immediate objective.  There they dug in and held
firmly, connecting up with the left of Plumer's Army to the south.
Several unsuccessful counter-attacks were made in the succeeding days
upon this point, in one of which on August 5 Colonel de la Fontaine
of the 9th East Surreys was killed.

If the attack of the Second Corps upon this and other occasions met
with limited success, it is to be remembered that the long clear
slope leading to Glencorse and Inverness Woods upon either side of
the Menin Road represented as impossible a terrain for an advancing
force as could be imagined.  When finally these woods were won,
officers who stood among the tree-stumps and looked back were amazed
to think that such ground could have been taken, and were filled with
surprise that the Ypres salient could have been held so long under an
observation {155} from which nothing could be concealed.  When such
positions are held by troops which have a world-wide reputation, in
concrete fortifications, one should be surprised, not that the
assailants should have failures but that they should have the dour
resolution which brought them at last to success.

All the four corps already mentioned, covering the front from the
junction with the French in the north to Shrewsbury Forest in the
south, belonged to Gough's Fifth Army.  Of Plumer's Second Army only
a portion of the extreme left, consisting of Morland's Tenth Corps,
was engaged upon July 31.  The flank unit, the Forty-first English
Division, was in the front line opposite Basseville, with the New
Zealanders upon their right.  There was no intention to advance the
line to any distance in this locality, but the whole task assigned to
the troops was completely carried out, and the front was pushed
forward until it was level with the right of the Twenty-fourth
Division.  It has been explained by Sir Douglas Haig, however, that
the attack in this quarter had never any serious intentions, and that
it was in the nature of a feint in order to distribute the German
reserve of men and guns.  None the less the ground captured by the
123rd Brigade of the Forty-first Division represented a substantial
gain, including the village of Hollebeke and all the broken and
difficult country to the north of the bend of the Ypres-Comines Canal
and east of Battle Wood.  The advance along this portion of the front
varied from 200 to 300 yards, while the New Zealanders at the right
of the line covered the short area assigned to them in their usual
workmanlike fashion, taking after a short fight the hamlet of La
Basseville.  On {156} the right of the New Zealanders were the
Australians, whose movement, in accordance with the general plan was
a small one, including the capture of a ruined windmill opposite
their position.  This was captured, retaken, and captured once again
in a spirited little fight, and August 1 saw more fighting in this
sector under very trying conditions of weather and ground.

We have now briefly reviewed the work of each of the twelve divisions
which were in line upon the 31st of July.  In some places success was
absolute, in some it was partial, in none was there failure.
Speaking generally it may be said that the Thirty-ninth, Fifty-first,
Welsh, and Guards, had captured their full objectives, including the
villages of St. Julien, Pilkem, and the Pilkem Ridge; that the
Fifty-fifth and Fifteenth had carried the first and second lines,
with the villages of Verlorenhoek and Frezenberg and the
all-important ridge; finally that the units upon their right had
captured the German first lines, including Hooge, Hollebeke, Stirling
Castle, and a line of woods.  Apart from the gain of important and
dominant positions, 6000 prisoners and 133 officers were taken,
together with 25 guns, exclusive of those which had been captured by
General Antoine to the north.  The progress of the French had been
admirable, and they had not only reached their full objectives but
had gone beyond them and seized the village of Bixschoote, driving
back one severe German counter-attack which surged up to the point of
junction between them and the Guards.  With such results the first
day of the third Battle of Ypres was undoubtedly a British victory,
but it was a victory which was absolutely complete {157} in the
north, and incomplete in the south.  Only one British disaster
occurred during the day, and that was in the appearance of that
constant and formidable ally of the Central Powers, the autumn rain.
That night it began, and for many weeks it continued in a dreary
downpour upon a land which at the best of times is water-laden and
soft.  For two months to come it may be said that operations were
really impossible, and that if they were occasionally driven forward
by the fiery determination of the British leaders, they were
undertaken at such a desperate disadvantage that large results were
out of the question.  Impassable mud and unfordable craters covered
the whole German front, and a swimming collar might well have been
added to those many appliances with which the patient British soldier
was already burdened.




{158}

CHAPTER VII

THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES

August 1 to September 6

Dreadful weather--German reaction--Attack of August 16--Advance of
Cavan's Corps--Capture of Langemarck--Dreadful losses of the two
Irish Divisions--Failure in the south--Splendid field-gunners--The
Forty-second Division upon September 6.


From the evening of July 31 till that of August 1, there were
intermittent and sporadic German attacks along the whole of the new
line, which were the more dangerous as the wretched weather made it
impossible for the aircraft to operate and the artillery support was
therefore unreliable.  None the less, the wet and weary infantry
huddling in the puddles and ditches were not to be forced back.  Only
at St. Julien, as already described, was there a temporary loss of
ground.  In this quarter, the Thirty-ninth Division, especially the
118th Brigade, sustained very heavy losses, some of the battalions
being almost annihilated for military purposes.  For days in
succession they lay in improvised trenches sodden and cold in the
pitiless rain, and when the rising waters drove them out they were
shot down by the enemy.  None the less, the ground was held and the
abandoned village was regained.

{159}

Another point at which the German reaction was particularly severe
upon August 1 was near Bremen Redoubt and the Roulers Railway.  Here
at 3.30 P.M. the enemy attacked with great valour, the blow falling
chiefly upon the 24th Brigade on the left of the Eighth and the 44th
on the right of the Fifteenth Divisions.  The 10th Gordons, 2nd
Northamptons, and 1st Sherwood Foresters were for a time fighting for
their lives, the regimental staff of the Gordons having to defend the
burrow which served as Headquarters.  The 7th Camerons were also
engaged in this desperate conflict which was fought ankle-deep in mud
and under driving rain-clouds.  Finally a body of Highlanders under
Captain Geddes of the Gordons made so fierce a charge that the
Germans were driven back and abandoned the attempt in despair.  Their
advance, however, had been so sudden and so fierce that there was a
time when the line was in grave danger.  Captain Symon of the
Camerons did great work also in the charge which turned the tide.
Both Geddes and Symon were decorated for their valour.

From the first day of the battle the front had been quiet in the
sector of the Second Corps, save for constant reciprocal
bombardments, the Germans endeavouring to hinder consolidation, while
the British prepared for an advance upon Glencorse and Inverness
Woods.  Upon August 10 an attempt was made to carry the line forward,
the Twenty-fifth Division advancing upon the left opposite to
Westhoek and the Eighteenth Division coming forward upon the right.
The operation was a local one, but was attended with some success,
the Twenty-fifth reaching their full objective and occupying the
village of {160} Westhoek.  This attack was carried out by the 74th
Brigade, and was a model operation of the kind.  Westhoek itself was
rushed by the 2nd Irish Rifles, but the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers on
the north did equally well, fighting their way to the advanced line
and capturing several houses with their garrisons.  The 9th North
Lancashires had also a very fine day's work, but the 13th Cheshires,
coming up in support, lost heavily from the barrage which had been
too slow to catch the main attack.  None the less the survivors made
their way to the extreme line, where they joined up with some 7th
Bedfords from the 54th Brigade to the south, and held a covering
flank so as to block any attack upon Westhoek.  The Cheshires did
particularly well in this strenuous day's work, they and the
Fusiliers having repeated hand-to-hand fights with the German
counter-attacks.  At one time a body of the Cheshires were quite cut
off, but they held their own with determined bravery until their
comrades rescued them.  The Eighteenth Division were held up by the
heavy flanking fire from Inverness Copse.  The left of the advance
got into the south-western edge of Glencorse Wood, touching the 74th
Brigade south of Westhoek, but the right brigade could not get
farther than the road east of Stirling Castle.  On the whole,
however, it was a good advance, and in the meantime the Twenty-fourth
Division had drawn closer to Lower Star Post, the obstinate strong
point which had held up the 73rd Brigade upon July 31.  The Germans
showed their resentment at these new advances by five counter-attacks
on the evening of August 10, all of which, especially the last, were
strongly pressed.  These attacks were most strongly {161} made
against the 76th Brigade upon the left, but by the exertions of the
106th and 130th Field Companies Royal Engineers, and their pioneers,
the 6th South Wales Borderers, they had consolidated to such an
extent that they held out against extreme pressure.  The 7th Bedfords
and 7th Queens in the front of the Eighteenth Division had also much
to endure, and were pushed to the very edge of Glencorse Wood.  All
day the Irish Riflemen in Westhoek could see the Germans in small
bodies dribbling over into the Hannebeek valley in front of them
until in the evening a large force had accumulated.  From ten in the
morning the drift had been going on.  The 10th Cheshires and 3rd
Worcesters of the 7th Brigade had come up to thicken the attenuated
line, but the danger was threatening, and rockets and pigeons were
sent up to warn the guns.  A very heavy barrage was laid down by them
and stopped the attack.  The enemy could be seen running for safety
in every direction.  At the same time an attack broke upon the 11th
Lancashire Fusiliers to the north.  An isolated house, which was
occupied by a small party of this battalion, was so closely attacked
that three Germans were shot as they clambered through the windows,
but the North Countrymen stood fast, and forty-eight dead were picked
up round this post in the morning.  This ended the enemy's attempts
to recover the lost ground.  The fighting had been severe, and the
British losses were heavy.  For a second time within a year the 13th
Cheshires had their commanding officer and every other officer of the
battalion upon the casualty list.  When one reads such figures one
can ask with confidence whether all the exclusiveness of a special
{162} caste with its codes of honour and appeals to violence can
exceed the quiet courage of those civilian gentlemen who undertook
the leading of our new armies.

Six field-guns with 8 officers and 300 men were taken in this
Westhoek operation.  The enemy consisted of the German Fifty-fourth
Reserve Division, and all accounts agree that both in defence and in
counter-attack their conduct was admirable.

The ground was still very wet and the conditions deplorable, but the
advance must be continued at all costs if the preparations were not
to be thrown away and winter to find us still within the old
pent-house of Ypres.  By the end of the second week in August the
higher ground was beginning to dry, though the bogs in between were
already hardly passable.  One more fortnight would be invaluable, but
Sir Douglas could not afford to waste another day.  Upon August 16
the advance was renewed.

As the original attack had been from a concavity which was almost a
semicircle, and as it had encroached upon the German area round the
whole circumference, the result was that the front was now too large
for simultaneous attack, and the whole of the units of Plumer's Army
which had formerly taken part in the battle were now to the south of
the storm-area.  The line of battle extended from the French
positions in the north down to the north-west corner of Inverness
Wood.  Along this line the four corps of Cavan (Fourteenth), Maxse
(Eighteenth), Watts (Nineteenth), and Jacob (Second), were extended
in their former order.  In each case the divisions which had borne
the brunt of July 31 were now in support, while the old supporting
divisions were in the line.  As before, {163} we will take the corps
in their order from the north, premising that after the usual heavy
bombardment the attack began at 4.45 in the morning.

Of the French upon the extreme left of the line it can only be said
that they did all and more than they were asked to do.  With the
grand, swift dash which is the characteristic of their infantry they
stormed the various fortified farms along the line of the Steenbeek,
though some of them held out long after the main lines of our Allies
had passed them.  The two ends of the Bridge which crosses the stream
at the village of Drie-Grachten were secured, and the whole of the
peninsula made good.

The front of Cavan's Fourteenth Corps was formed by the grand old
Twenty-ninth Division upon the left, and the Twentieth Light
Division, the heroes of many fights, upon the right.  Both divisions
lived up to their highest that day, which means that many a brave man
died at his highest to carry on the record.  On the whole, the Mebus
or pill-boxes, the new German concrete forts, were less effective in
the north than in the south, which may have depended upon the general
lie of the country which gave them a shorter area of fire.  Small
bodies of brave men--sometimes a single brave man--managed to get up
to them and to silence them by hurling a sudden bomb through the
porthole from which the gun protruded.

The advance of the Twenty-ninth Division was begun by crossing in the
early dawn the bridges thrown over the Steenbeek.  Starting from the
line of the stream, the advanced mud-beplastered lines, extending as
they crossed country, coalescing as they concentrated upon any
obstacle, moved swiftly {164} forwards to their objectives, which
were taken in their entirety.  Passerelle Farm was carried by the
veterans of the Twenty-ninth, and so was Martin's Mill upon the
right, many prisoners being sent to the rear.  Another heave took
them across the grass-grown lines of the abandoned railway and on
into the hamlet of Wijdendrift, the line being established well to
the north-east of that place.

Whilst the Twenty-ninth Division had made this fine advance upon the
left, the Twentieth had done equally well upon the right, and had
ended their brilliant attack by storming after a short but sharp
contest the village of Langemarck, that old battle centre of 1914.

The start of the attack was as fine as its execution, for the two
brigades were marshalled into their positions in pitch darkness upon
ground which was bewildering in its badness, close under the untaken
redoubt of Au Bon Gite, whose garrison at any moment might give the
alarm.  So silent was the operation that the enemy was utterly
ignorant of it, though they kept up a continual machine-gun fire all
night which made the assemblage even more difficult.  In the early
dawn the German fort was rushed by two companies of the 11th Rifle
Brigade under Captain Slade.

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

{165}

[Illustration: LINE OF BATTLE, August 16, 1917]

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

Then keeping within thirty yards of the barrage the attack moved
forward as best it might through the swamps.  The 60th Brigade was on
the right and the 61st upon the left.  The latter had never yet
failed to carry its objective, and now it surged through the village
of Langemarck and out at the farther side.  The 12th King's Liverpool
with the 7th Battalion of the Sussex, Durham, and {166} Yorkshire
Light Infantry were the heroes of this exploit.  The German colonel
commanding the 3rd Battalion 261st Regiment, and a crowd of very
shaken prisoners from the 79th Prussian Reserve Division were picked
out of the ruins.  On the right the 60th Brigade had made an equally
fine advance, the King's Royal Rifles being on the flank in touch
with the 12th King's Liverpool, with the 6th Shropshires on their
right, while the 6th Oxford and Bucks, cleared up the numerous
pill-boxes at Au Bon Gite on the banks of the Steenbeek.  There were
many casualties in the advance, including Colonel Prioleau of the
Rifle Brigade, caused chiefly by the fire of the murderous Mebus
which studded the ground.  These were engaged by small groups of men,
specially trained for the work, who frequently, by their cool,
purposeful courage, succeeded in silencing what would seem to be an
impenetrable stronghold.  Sergeant Cooper of the Rifles attacked one
of these places with twelve men, and had his whole party shot down.
None the less, he closed with it, and firing through the loop-hole
with a borrowed revolver, he caused the surrender of the garrison of
forty men with seven guns, winning his V.C.  Such deeds were done all
along the line, and without them the advance must have been held up.
Finally the 60th Brigade established themselves upon the line of
Langemarck, in touch with the captors of the village, but in the late
afternoon a heavy German attack broke in between the King's
Liverpools and the Rifles, annihilating the left flank Company of the
latter battalion, which fought desperately to the end under Captain
Dove, who was among those who fell.  So critical was the situation at
one time that a defensive flank 200 yards {167} in length was held by
an officer and fifteen men, with hardly any cartridges in their
pouches.  Touch was kept, however, between the two Brigades, and
before evening they had dug in and consolidated the new position.
There had been victory along all this front, and by sunset the whole
of the objectives of the Fourteenth Corps, with the exception of a
small length of trench to the north-east of Langemarck, were in the
hands of Cavan's infantry.

Maxse's Eighteenth Corps was formed by the Eleventh Division upon the
left, and the Forty-eighth South Midland Territorials upon the right.
The advance was over the Langemarck-Zonnebeke Road, and on over
broken Mebus-studded country with no village nor even any farm-house
to give a name and dignity to the considerable gain of ground.  The
advance was, though not complete, of great tactical importance, as it
screened the flank of the successful corps in the North.

Brilliant success had marked the operations of the Fourteenth Corps,
and modified success those of the Eighteenth.  In the case of the
four gallant divisions which formed the front of the Nineteenth and
Second Corps, it can hardly be said that they had any gains, while
their losses were always heavy, and in some cases simply disastrous.
Yet, conditions of weather, and ground and position being what they
were, it was impossible to impute a shadow of blame to officers or
men, who faced a difficult and often an impossible task with the
spirit of heroes.  To show how desperate that task was, and the
extraordinary punishment which was endured by the infantry, the
narrative of the Sixteenth and Thirty-sixth Divisions which formed
Watts' Corps may be told at greater length.  {168} The Sixteenth
which is treated first was on the right of the Corps in the
Frezenberg sector of the attack.

This division, which had occupied under torrential rain and heavy
fire the Frezenberg Ridge since August 4, was much exhausted before
the advance began.  The losses had fallen mainly upon the 47th
Brigade, which had held the line, but the attacking brigades which
now took its place were by no means immune.  On the day before the
battle, Brigadier-General Leveson-Gower of the 49th Brigade and
practically all his staff became casualties from gas poisoning, and
the command had to be taken over by the C.O. of the Irish Fusiliers.
So heavy was the pressure upon the division that 107 officers and
1900 men were on the casualty lists before the advance had begun.
None the less, the spirit of the troops was high, and all were eager
for the clash.  On August 16 the attack was made at 4.45 in the
morning, the Thirty-sixth North of Ireland Division being on the left
and the Eighth upon the right of the Sixteenth Division.  It was upon
a two-brigade front, the 48th being on the right and the 49th upon
the left.  So difficult were the conditions that it was only a
quarter of an hour before zero that the concentration was complete,
most of the troops being more fit for a rest than for a battle.

The line of advance was formed by the 7th Irish Rifles and 9th Dublin
Fusiliers upon the right, while the 7th and 8th Inniskilling
Fusiliers were on the left.  At the signal they went forward over
very heavy ground, the barrage slowing down to five minutes per
hundred yards.  We shall first follow the right attack.

Both the Irish Rifles and the Dublin Fusiliers {169} found themselves
at once within the sweep of numerous machine-guns which caused very
heavy casualties.  The Rifles for a time were in touch with the 2nd
Middlesex of the Eighth Division upon their right, but the latter got
caught in their own barrage with the result that it had to fall back.
The Rifles, who had lost practically every officer, moved down the
railway and across the Hannebeek, but were so reduced in number that
it was not possible for the few survivors to hold the German
counter-attack advancing about 4 P.M. from Zonnebeke.  The Dublin
Fusiliers, who had wilted under a heavy enfilade fire from Vampire
Farm and Bremen Redoubt, were in equally bad case, and all officers
and orderlies who tried to get forward to the assaulting companies
were killed or wounded.  Two companies of the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers
which came up in support shared in the catastrophe and were
practically annihilated.  Of one company two officers and three men
survived unscathed.  Of another one non-commissioned officer and ten
men.  Such figures will show the absolute devotion with which the
Irishmen stuck to their work and are not, so far as can be known,
exceeded by any losses endured by considerable units during the war.
Some of these scattered remains lay out until the evening of August
17, endeavouring to hold a new line, until after dusk they fell back
to the trenches from which they had started.

On the left the Inniskilling Fusiliers got away in fine style with
the 7/8th Irish Fusiliers in close support moving so swiftly that
they avoided the German barrage.  Beck House and other strong points
were rapidly taken.  A fort named Borry Farm upon the right could not
be reduced, however, {170} and its five machine-guns raked the
advancing lines.  Three separate attacks upon the concrete
emplacements of this position all ended in failure.  Part of the
attacking force remained in front of the untaken position, while
another portion passed it on the north side working on to the
neighbourhood of Zevenkote.  At this side there had been more success
as the 7th Inniskillings had taken Iberian Trench and consolidated
it.  Thence they moved forward to the eminence called Hill 37, but
met with heavy blasts of fire from that position and from Zonnebeke.
The enemy now counter-attacked from Hill 37, and as the left flank of
the Inniskillings was entirely exposed, since they had outrun the
Ulster men upon their left, they were forced to retire to a position
at Delva Farm.  This was untenable, however, since both flanks were
now exposed, so the whole line fell back to Iberian Trench.  This,
however, proved to be also impossible to hold on account of the truly
terrible losses.  In the whole force in that quarter of the field
only one officer seems to have been left standing.  Both the 8th
Fusiliers upon the right and the Ulster men upon the left had
retired, and by 9.30 A.M. there was no alternative for the shattered
remnants of the 49th Brigade but to seek the shelter of their own
line, while the 6th Connaughts and 7th Leinsters were brought up to
support them.  Of the 7th Inniskillings there were left one wounded
officer and no formed body of men at all, while no other battalion of
the brigade was of greater strength than half a company.  It was
indeed a dreadful day in all this Southern section of the line.  The
losses had been so heavy that no further attack could be organised,
and in spite of the fact that scattered men were still lying {171}
out, it was impossible to form a new line.  Upon the night of August
17 the Fifteenth Division came forward again to relieve the exhausted
but heroic infantry, who had done all that men could do, and more
than men could be expected to do, but all in vain.

Nor had their brother Irishmen of the Thirty-sixth Division upon
their left any better fortune.  The failure of one division may
always be due to some inherent weakness of its own, but when four
divisions in line, of the calibre of the Thirty-sixth, Sixteenth,
Eighth, and Fifty-sixth all fail, then it can clearly be said, as on
the first day of the Somme Battle, that they were faced by the
impossible.  This impossible obstacle took the immediate form of many
concrete gun emplacements arranged chequer-wise across the front,
each holding five guns.  But the contributory causes in the case of
all the divisions except the Fifty-sixth was their long exposure in
dreadful weather to a sustained bombardment which would have shaken
the nerves of any troops in the world, apart from thinning their
ranks.  In the Sixteenth Division alone 1200 men were under treatment
for trench fever and swollen feet, besides the heavy losses from
shell fire.

The fortunes of the Thirty-sixth Ulster Division were in all ways
similar to those of the Sixteenth.  There was the same initial
advance, the same experience of devastating fire from concrete strong
points, the same slaughter, and the same retreat of a few survivors
over ground which was dotted with the bodies of their comrades.  Upon
the right the attack was urged by the 108th Brigade with the 9th
Irish Fusiliers upon the right and {172} the Irish Rifles upon the
left, with two other battalions of the same regiment in support.  The
attack starting from the line of Pommern Castle got forward as far as
Gallipoli Farm, but there it was faced by a machine-gun fire, coming
chiefly from Hill 35, which was simply annihilating in its effect.
Only the remains of the 9th Irish Fusiliers ever got back to their
original line.  For many hours the Irish Rifles held on to the rising
ground to the north-east of Pommern Castle, but by four in the
afternoon the shattered 108th Brigade was back in its own trenches.

The attack of Jacob's Second Corps was carried out upon August 16 by
two divisions, the Eighth (which had relieved the Twenty-fifth) in
the Ypres-Roulers Railway-Westhoek line, and the Fifty-sixth London
Territorials which had relieved the Eighteenth Division in the
Glencorse Wood-Stirling Castle line.

The Eighth Division advanced with the 23rd Brigade upon the left and
the 25th upon the right.  The barrage was excellent, the infantry
were on the top of their form, and all went well.  Starting at 4.45
A.M., within an hour they had taken Zonnebeke Redoubt, Iron Cross
Redoubt, and Anzac.  This marked their limit, however, for heavy
machine-gun fire was sweeping across from machine-gun emplacements of
concrete in Nonneboschen Wood in the south.  The right flank of the
25th Brigade fell back therefore to the line of the Hannebeek, and
the stormers of Zonnebeke Redoubt, men of the 2nd West Yorkshire,
were compelled to fall back also to the same line.  The Germans were
now in an aggressive mood, and were seen several times advancing in
large numbers down the wooded slopes in front of the British
positions, but were always stopped by the heavy barrage.  {173} About
2.30 P.M. their pressure caused a short retirement, and the situation
was made more difficult by the failure of the 23rd Brigade to find
touch with the division upon their left.  The pressure of the
counter-attacks still continued, and the German losses were heavy,
but the machine-gun fire was so deadly in the exposed Hannebeek
Valley that a further withdrawal was ordered until the troops were
almost in the line from which they had started.

The advance of the Fifty-sixth Division upon the right could not be
said to be more successful.  The 167th Brigade were on the left, the
169th in the centre with the desperate task of carrying Nonnebosch
and Glencorse, while the hard-worked 53rd Brigade of the Eighteenth
Division was detailed to form a defensive flank upon the south.  It
was really the failure of this attack which contributed greatly to
the failure of the whole, for there was a strong point at the
north-west corner of Inverness Copse with strong machine-gun
emplacements which could sweep the area to the north over a wide arc.
Thus all the troops north of this point were faced from the start by
a devastating fire.  The 167th Brigade got well forward to Nonne
Boschen, but was stopped by bogs and so fell behind the barrage.  On
the left they reached Albert Redoubt, but were driven in by a strong
counter-attack.  The 169th reached the east end of Glencorse Wood
where they killed many Germans and captured sixty gunners, but the
counter-attacks gradually drove the line back to whence it started.
A German officer captured a few days later has described how he saw
the London men, mostly without officers, walking slowly back in front
of his advance.  It was a day of hard slogging upon this sector with
very {174} little to show for it.  So serious were the losses of the
Fifty-sixth Division that the Fourteenth Division took its place next
day, while the other London Territorial unit, the Forty-seventh
Division (Gorringe) took over the line of the hard-worked Eighth.

Thus we have passed down the whole line upon August 16, and have
noted the victory of the north, the stalemate of the centre, and the
failure on the south.  There can be no doubt that the losses of the
British were very much in excess of those of the Germans, for the
line of the latter could be held cheaply owing to the Mebus system
which presented a new and formidable problem for the British
generals.  On the other hand the actual trophies of victory lay with
the attack, since in the north they had possessed themselves of the
German third line, and had captured 30 guns with more than 2000
prisoners.

During the wet and miserable fortnight which followed this engagement
the British line was advanced at many points by local operations,
each small in itself but yielding in the aggregate some hundreds of
prisoners, and representing a gain of ground of about 800 yards for
two miles upon the St. Julien front.  The Eleventh and Forty-eighth
Divisions which still held this sector were responsible for the
greater part of this advance which was carried out by three efforts,
upon August 19, 22, and 27.  Upon the earlier date the advance of the
South Midlanders was particularly fine, when the 145th Brigade was
heavily engaged, the Gloucesters and Buckinghams leading a fine
assault which gained an appreciable section of ground.  The bombing
parties of the 4th Berkshires, a battalion recruited from Reading,
did particularly good service, {175} following up the first line and
reducing a number of strong points which had been left untaken.  The
losses among the stormers were heavy, but the results were
substantial and there were some hundreds of prisoners.  Especially
fine during this and subsequent actions was the conduct of the
field-gunners, British, Canadian, and Australian, who habitually
worked their guns in the open with their horses in attendance,
changing positions, advancing and unlimbering in the good old fashion
with no attempt at camouflage, and defiant of the German shells or
aeroplanes.  The team-drivers had little to do in the war up to now,
but when their chance came they and their gallant horses went through
the barrage and the poison clouds as if they were no more than London
fogs.  The admiration of the gunners for each other was mutual.  Mr.
Bean, the Australian chronicler, narrates how a British artillery
Major complimented the neighbouring Australian battery saying: "We
could not believe you could carry on in such a fire": to which the
Australian Major replied: "Well, do you know, we were thinking
exactly the same thing about you."  Of such are the ties of Empire.

On August 22 the Fourteenth Division carried out an attack upon
Glencorse and Inverness Woods, going over the top at 7 A.M.  The 42nd
Brigade was on the left facing Glencorse, the 43rd upon the right
facing Inverness.  The light infantry battalions went forward in fine
style, the 5th Shropshires and 6th Cornwalls upon the left carrying
all before them and attaining their full objective, which was
strictly limited in its extent.  This was held and consolidated.  The
6th Somersets and 10th Durhams went forward on the right, but the
{176} fighting was severe and the progress slow.  None the less it
was sure, and before evening the greater part of Inverness Copse was
in the hands of these four battalions, together with nearly 200
prisoners.  An to attempt next morning, August 23, to capture
Fitz-Clarence Farm, just north of Inverness Copse, though supported
by three tanks, was not a success, two of the tanks being hit by
gun-fire and the third reaching the Farm without any infantry at its
heels.  At the same time a counter-attack upon the 5th Shropshires
was beaten back by rifle fire.  On the next day there was still heavy
fighting in this sector, for the Germans could not bear to give up
this wood, and made many attempts to regain it.  The 42nd Brigade
held every inch of their line in Glencorse, but the 43rd were pushed
back to the western edge of Inverness where they held on.

There had been a slight forward movement upon each side of the
Fourteenth Division during these three days of battle, the
Forty-seventh Division taking an advanced line in the north, while
the steadfast Twenty-fourth, still in the line of battle, came
forward in the south.  The 17th Brigade upon the right of the
Fourteenth Division guarded its flank during the advance, and a
dashing exploit was performed by one of its officers, Lieutenant
Stonebanks of the 1st Royal Fusiliers, who took a strong point with
its garrison by a sudden attack, so gaining his cross.

Among the other operations which were carried out between the larger
engagements in the hope of improving the local position were a series
which covered the ground from Fortuin in the north to the south of
the Roulers Railway.  This point, which was still occupied by the
Nineteenth Corps, was {177} covered upon the left by the Sixty-first
Division, a second line English Territorial unit, which faced Hill
35, while on the right the Fifteenth Division had come back into the
battle once more.  These two divisions made two advances upon August
22 and upon August 27 in an endeavour to enlarge their front, but
neither was successful.  Early in September the Forty-second
Division, which had returned with a considerable reputation from
Gallipoli, took the place of the hard-worked Fifteenth.  Upon
September 6 they again endeavoured to get forward, but the fact that
Hill 37 on their left flank had not been taken proved fatal to their
advance.  The ground was swept from this position of vantage so that
when the Forty-second Division went forward upon September 6 to try
and storm the line of farms, Iberian, Beck, and Borry, which lay in
front of them, they were smitten on their left flank by this deadly
fire and suffered heavy losses--the more heavy because with heroic
tenacity they held to their task long after its failure was
inevitable.  The 125th Brigade showed an intrepidity in this attack
which in any former war would have been historical, but in this
prolonged exhibition of human and military virtue does but take its
place among many as good.  The 5th and 6th Lancashire Fusiliers who
led the stormers had practically ceased to exist after the action,
while the 7th and 8th in support had heavy losses.  The general
lesson of such attacks would seem to be here, as on the Somme, that
it is better to wait for a general advance in order to rectify
inequalities of the line, rather than to approach them by local
attacks--also that an untaken strong point upon the flank is
absolutely fatal to any isolated {178} effort.  From this time
onwards the line was quiet, making preparation for the great coming
attack.

On the rest of the Allied battle-line the principal event of August
was a successful Italian attack to upon the Isonzo Front beginning
upon August 19, which not only gained ground but brought in no less
than 20,000 prisoners.  On the Verdun Front upon August 20 the French
had a fine little victory, winning back the last remains of what they
had lost in the great struggle, and taking over 5000 prisoners.
Since April 9 the Allied gains in prisoners had been British 45,000,
French 43,000, Italians 40,000, Russians 33,000.  The British at this
date held 102,000 Germans as against 43,000 British prisoners held by
the Germans.

[Illustration: THE YPRES FRONT]




{179}

CHAPTER VIII

THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES

September 6 to October 3, 1917

Engagement of Plumer's Second Army--Attack of September 20--Fine
advance of Fifty-fifth Division--Advance of the Ninth Division--Of
the Australians--Strong counter-attack upon the Thirty-third
Division--Renewed advance on September 26--Continued rain--Desperate
fighting.


The attack of August 16, with its varying and not wholly satisfactory
results, had been carried out entirely by the armies of Antoine and
of Gough.  It was clear now to Sir Douglas Haig that the resistance
of the Germans was most formidable along the line of the Menin Road,
where the long upward slope and the shattered groves which crowned it
made an ideal position for defence.  To overcome this obstacle a new
force was needed, and accordingly the Second Army was closed up to
the north, and the command in this portion of the field was handed
over to General Plumer.  This little white-haired leader with his
silky manner, his eye-glass, and his grim, inflexible resolution, had
always won the confidence of his soldiers, but the complete victory
of Messines, with the restraint which had prevented any aftermath of
loss, had confirmed the whole army in its high appreciation of his
powers.

These changes in the line, together with the {180} continued rain,
which went from bad to worse, had the effect of suspending operations
during the remainder of the month save for the smaller actions
already recorded.  Fresh dispositions had to be made also in order to
meet the new German method of defence, which had abandoned the old
trench system, and depended now upon scattered strong points, lightly
held front lines, and heavy reserves with which to make immediate
counter-attacks upon the exhausted stormers.  The concrete works
called also for a different artillery treatment, since they were so
strong that an eighteen-pounder or even a 5.9 gun made little
impression.  These new problems all pressed for solution, and the
time, like the days, was growing shorter.

The front of the new attack upon September 20 was about eight miles
in length, and corresponded closely with the front attacked upon July
31, save that it was contracted in the north so that Langemarck was
its limit upon this side.  Upon the south the flank was still fixed
by the Ypres-Comines Canal, just north of Hollebeke.  The scheme of
the limited objective was closely adhered to, so that no advance of
more than a mile was contemplated at any point, while a thousand
yards represented the average depth of penetration which was
intended.  The weather, which had given a treacherous promise of
amendment, broke again upon the very night of the assembly, and the
troops were drenched as they lay waiting for the signal to advance.
Towards morning the rain stopped, but drifting clouds and a dank mist
from the saturated soil deprived the attackers of the help of their
aircraft--so serious a handicap to the guns.  But the spirits of the
men rose with the difficulties, after the good {181} old British
fashion, and at 5.40 on this most inclement morning, wet and stiff
and cold, they went forward with cheerful alacrity into the battle.

The field of operations was now covered by two British armies, that
of Gough in the north extending from beyond Langemarck to the
Zonnebeke front, while Plumer's Army covered the rest of the line
down to Hollebeke.  It may be said generally that the task of the men
in the south was the more difficult, since they had farther to
advance over country which had seemed to be almost impregnable.  None
the less the advance in the north was admirably executed and reached
its full objectives.  Cavan's Fourteenth Corps still held the extreme
north of the British line, but neither they nor the French upon their
left were really engaged in the advance.  They covered the front as
far south as Schreiboom, where the right of the Twentieth Division
joined on to the left of the Fifty-first Highlanders.  This latter
division formed the left flank of the main advance, though the 59th
Brigade, the 60th Brigade, and the 2nd Brigade of Guards did push
their line some short distance to the front, on either side of the
Ypres-Staden Railway, the 59th Brigade capturing Eagle Trench and the
60th Eagle House.  This was a very formidable position, crammed with
machine-guns, and it took four days for its conquest, which was a
brilliant feat of arms carried out by men who would be discouraged by
no obstacle.  The garrison were picked troops, who fought
desperately, and everything was against the attack, but their
pertinacity wore down the defence and eventually, upon Sept. 23, the
10th Rifle Brigade and the 12th Royal Rifles cleared up the last
corner of the widespread stronghold.

{182}

The hard-worked Highland Territorials of the Fifty-first Division
were worn with service but still full of fire.  Their advance was
also an admirable one, and by nine o'clock they had overcome all
obstacles and dug in upon their extreme objective.  Quebec Farm was a
special stronghold which held the Highlanders up for a time, but
finally fell to their determined assault.  Rose Farm, Delva Farm, and
Pheasant Farm were also strongly defended.  About 10 A.M. many strong
counter-attacks were made in this area, one of which for a time drove
back the line of the Highlanders, but only for a short period.  This
particular attack was a very gallant one effected by Poles and
Prussians of the Thirty-sixth and Two hundred and eighth Divisions.
It was noted upon this day that the Prussians fought markedly better
than the Bavarians, which has not always been the case.  The method
adopted both by the Highland Division and in some other parts of the
line in order to overcome strong points, such as farms, was a
concentration of portable trench-mortars firing heavy charges with a
shattering effect.  Pheasant Farm was a particularly difficult
proposition, and yet it was so smothered by a cloud of these missiles
that the distracted garrison was compelled to surrender.  This use of
what may be called a miniature and mobile heavy artillery became a
feature of the last year of the War.

Next to the Fifty-first Division, and covering the ground to the
north and east of St. Julien was the Fifty-eighth Division, a new
unit of second line London Territorials which had done a good deal of
rough service in the line, but had not yet been engaged in an
important advance.  Upon this occasion {183} it bore out the old
saying that British troops are often on their top form in a first
engagement.  Their advance was a brilliant one and attained its full
objective, taking upon the way the strongly-fortified position of
Wurst Farm.  Nowhere in the line was the ground more sodden and more
intersected with water jumps.  The 173rd Brigade was on the right,
the 174th upon the left, the former being led by the young hero of
the Ancre Battle and the youngest Brigadier, save perhaps one, in the
whole army.  It was a magnificent battle _début_ for the Londoners
and their coolness under fire was particularly remarkable, for in
facing the difficult proposition of Wurst Farm they avoided making a
frontal attack upon it by swinging first left and then right with all
the workmanlike precision of veterans, The capture of Hubner Farm by
the 2/6th and 2/8th London was also a particularly fine performance,
as was the whole work of Higgins' 174th Brigade.

The two divisions last mentioned, the Fifty-first and the
Fifty-eighth, formed the fighting line of Maxse's Eighteenth Corps
upon this day.  On their right was Fanshawe's Fifth Corps, which had
taken the place of the Nineteenth Corps.  The most northern division
was that sterling West Lancashire Territorial Division, the
Fifty-fifth, which had now been in and out of the fighting line but
never out of shell fire since the evening of July 31, or seven weeks
in all.  In spite of its long ordeal, and of the vile ground which
lay at its front, it advanced with all its usual determination, the
164th Brigade upon the left, and the 165th upon the right, each of
them being stiffened by one battalion from the Reserve Brigade.  The
8th Liverpool Irish were {184} upon the extreme left, which moved
down the left bank of the Hannebeek and struck up against the
difficult obstacle of Schuber Farm, which they succeeded, with the
co-operation of the 2/4th London and of two Tanks, in carrying by
assault.  Farther south a second farm-house, strongly held, called
the Green House, was carried by the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, while
the 4th North Lancashire took Fokker Farm upon the right.  When one
considers that each of these was a veritable fortress, stuffed with
machine-guns and defended by 2nd Guards Reserve regiment, one cannot
but marvel at the efficiency to which these Territorial soldiers had
attained.  The 4th Royal Lancasters kept pace upon the right.  The
advance of the 165th Brigade was equally successful in gaining
ground, and there also were formidable obstacles in their path.
After crossing the Steenbeek they had to pass a very heavy barrage of
high explosives and shrapnel which, however, burst upon percussion
and was neutralised to some extent by the softness of the ground.
The line of advance was down the Gravenstafel Road.  A formidable
line of trenches were carried and Kavnorth Post was captured, as were
Iberian and Gallipoli, strong points upon the right.  A
counter-attack in the afternoon which moved down against the two
brigades, was broken by their rifle-fire, aided by the advent of the
two supporting battalions, the 5th South Lancashires and 5th North
Lancashires.  The ground thus taken was strongly held until next
evening, September 21, when under cover of a very heavy fire the
enemy penetrated once more into the positions in the area of the
164th Brigade.  Just as darkness fell, however, there was a fine
advance to regain the ground, in which the whole {185} of the
headquarters staff, with bearers, signallers, runners, and
men-servants, swept up to the position which was captured once more.
Among other positions taken upon September 20 was Hill 37, which had
been so formidable a stronghold for the Germans in the murderous
fighting of August 16.  This commanding point was taken and held by
the 5th, 6th, and 9th King's Liverpools, with part of the 5th South
Lancashires, all under the same officer who led the 36th Brigade in
their fine attack upon Ovillers.  The position was strongly
organised, and upon the next day it beat back a very determined
German counter-attack.

The Ninth Division was on the right of the Fifty-fifth with the South
Africans upon the left flank.  At the opening of the attack the 3rd
(Transvaal) and 4th (Scottish) South African regiments advanced upon
the German line.  Within an hour the latter had carried Borry Farm,
which had defied several previous assaults.  At eight o'clock both
these regiments had reached their full objectives and the supporting
units, the 1st (Cape) and 2nd (Natal) regiments went through their
ranks, the men of the Transvaal cheering the men of Natal and the
Cape as they passed.  By 9.30 the second objectives, including Beck
House, had also fallen.  There was a considerable concentration of
Germans beyond, and the 5th Camerons came up in support, as an attack
appeared to be imminent.  The artillery fire dispersed the gathering,
however, and the 2nd Regiment spreading out on the left to Waterend
House established touch with the Lancashire men to their north.
Bremen Redoubt had been captured, and this was made a nodal point
against any {186} counter-attack, as was Vampire Redoubt.  By mid-day
the 1st Regiment on the right had lost heavily and was forced to dig
in and act upon the defensive as German concentrations were visible
in the Hannebeke Woods.  A second battalion of the 26th Brigade, the
7th Seaforths, were at this time sent up in support.  The left flank
was also checked and a defensive post organised at Mitchell's Farm.
The shelling from the direction of Hill 37 was very heavy, the more
so as the Africans were ahead of the 165th Brigade upon their left.
A number of German aeroplanes flying low and using their machine-guns
complicated a situation which was already sufficiently serious, for
the small-arm ammunition was running low and only a few hundred
exhausted men with a thin sprinkling of officers remained in the
fighting line.  The artillery played up splendidly, however, and
though the enemy massed together at Bostin Farm he could never get a
sufficient head of troops to carry him through the pelting British
barrage.  Thus the day drew to a close with heavy losses cheerfully
borne, and also with a fine gain of ground which included several of
the most sinister strong points upon the whole line.  The South
Africans have been few in number, but it cannot be disputed that
their record in the field has been a superb one.

In the meantime the 27th Brigade, upon the right of the South
Africans, had also done a splendid day's work.  In the first dash the
battalion upon the left front, the 12th Royal Scots, had taken
Potsdam Redoubt with its garrison.  Thence the line rolled on, the
Scots Fusiliers and Highland Light Infantry joining in turn in the
advance, until evening found them with the same difficulties and also
with {187} the same success as their African comrades.  As night fell
this right wing was in touch with the Australians near Anzac, and
thence passed through the wood and along the railway bank to the
junction with the left brigade, which in turn stretched across to
Gallipoli and to Hill 37, which was now in the hands of their
Lancashire neighbours and bristling with their machine-guns.  That
night the Ninth Division lay upon the ground that they had won, but
the men had been without sleep or warm food for three days and nights
under continual fire, so that, hardy as they were, they had nearly
reached the limit of human endurance.  It is worthy of remark that
the wounded in this part of the field were attended to in many cases
by captured German surgeons, and that one of these had an experience
of Prussian amenities, for his brains were scattered by a sniper's
bullet.

The First and Second Australian Divisions joined the left unit of
Plumer's Army, but worked in close co-operation with the Ninth
Division upon their right.  In a day of brilliant exploits and
unqualified successes there was nothing to beat their performance,
for they were faced by that which tries the nerves of the stoutest
troops--an area which has already been tested and found to be
impregnable.  With all the greater fire did the brave Australian
infantry throw itself into the fray, and they had the advantage over
their predecessors in that the line was well up on either side of
them, and that enemy guns upon their flanks were too busy upon their
own front to have a thought of enfilading.  The result of the
Australian advance was instant and complete, for the remainder of
Glencorse Wood and Nonne Boschen were over-run and by ten o'clock the
{188} "Diggers" were through the hamlet of Polygonveld and into the
original German third line beyond it.  The western part of Polygon
Wood was also cleared, and so, after a sharp fight, was the strong
point called "Black Watch Corner," which is at the south-western
extremity of the wood.  At this point the advance of the Australians
was not less than a mile in depth over ground which presented every
possible obstacle.  Over at least one of their captured redoubts
their own Australian flag with the Southern Cross upon it was
floating proudly in the evening.  The losses of the division were
serious, the greater part being due to an enfilade fire from the
right, coming probably from the high ground in the south near Tower
Hamlets, which struck their flank as they approached the south of
Polygon Wood.  Anzac upon the left marked their northern limit.
Nothing could have been finer than the whole Australian attack.
"They went into battle," says their scribe, "not singing and laughing
like many British regiments, but very grim, very silent, with their
officers marching quietly at the head of each small string of men."
They are dour, determined fighters, flame-like in attack, iron in
defence, and they have woven a fresh and brilliant strand into the
traditions of the Imperial armies.  It should be mentioned that it
was the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th Brigades which carried forward the
line to victory.

Good as the Australian advance had been it could not be said to have
been better than Babington's Twenty-third Division upon their right.
They, too, had to cross ground which had been littered by the bodies
of their comrades, and to pass points which brave men had found
impassable.  But all went well {189} upon this day, and every
objective was seized and held.  Inverness Copse, of evil memory, was
occupied at the first rush, and the advance went forward without a
check to Dumbarton Lakes and on past them until the Veldhoek Ridge
had fallen.  A counter-attack which broke upon them was driven back
in ruin.  The advance was across the marshy Basseville Beek and
through the dangerous woods beyond, but from first to last there was
never a serious check.  It was on the Yorkshires, the West
Yorkshires, and the Northumberland Fusiliers of the 68th and 69th
Brigades that the brunt of the early fighting fell, and as usual the
North-country grit proved equal to the hardest task which could be
set before it.  The final stage which carried the Veldheek Ridge was
also a North-country exploit in this section of the line, as it was
the 10th West Ridings and the 12th Durhams, who with fixed bayonets
cleared the ultimate positions, reaching the western slopes of the
upper Steenbeek Valley where they dug in the new temporary lines.

On the extreme south of the line the advance had been as successful
as elsewhere, and at nearly every point the full objective was
reached.  Upon the right of the Twenty-third Division was the
Forty-first, a sound English Division which had distinguished itself
at the Somme by the capture of Flers.  The leading brigades, the
122nd and 124th, with Royal Fusiliers, King's Royal Rifles, and
Hampshires in the lead, lost heavily in the advance.  The snipers and
machine-guns were very active upon this front, but each obstacle was
in turn surmounted, and about 8.30 the Reserve Brigade, the 123rd,
came through and completed the morning's work, crossing {190} the
valley of the Basseville Beek and storming up the slope of the Tower
Hamlets, a strong position just south of the Menin Road.  Among the
points which gave them trouble was the Papooje Farm, which was found
to be a hard nut to crack--but cracked it was, all the same.  This
same brigade suffered much from machine-guns east of Bodmin Copse,
both it and the 124th Brigade being held up at the Tower Hamlet
Plateau, which exposed the wing of the 122nd who had reached all
their objectives.  So great was the pressure that the Brigadier of
the 124th Brigade came up personally to reorganise the attack.  The
11th West Kent, the southern unit of the 122nd, had their right flank
entirely exposed to German fire.  Two young subalterns, Freeman and
Woolley, held this dangerous position for some time with their men,
but Freeman was shot by a sniper, the losses were heavy, and the line
had to be drawn in.  Colonel Corfe of the 11th West Kent and Colonel
Jarvis of the 21st K.R.R. were among the casualties.  In spite of all
counter-attacks the evening found the left of the Forty-first
Division well established in its new line, and only short of its full
objective in this difficult region of the Tower Hamlets, where for
the following two days it had to fight hard to hold a line.  The
losses were heavy in all three brigades.

On the right of the 41st and joining the flank unit of Morland's
Tenth Corps was the Thirty-ninth Division.  This Division attacked
upon a single brigade front, the 117th having the post of honour.
The 16th and 17th Sherwood Foresters, the 17th Rifles, and the 16th
Rifle Brigade were each in turn engaged in a long morning's conflict
in which {191} they attained their line, which was a more limited one
than that of the divisions to the north.

South of this point, and forming the flank of the whole attack, was
the Nineteenth Division, which advanced with the West-country men of
the 57th Brigade upon the right, and the Welshmen of the 58th Brigade
upon the left.  Their course was down the spur east of Zillebeke and
then into the small woods north of the Ypres-Comines Canal.  The 8th
Gloucesters, 10th Worcesters, 8th North Staffords, 6th Wiltshires,
9th Welsh, and 9th Cheshires each bore their share of a heavy burden
and carried it on to its ultimate goal.  The objectives were shorter
than at other points, but had special difficulties of their own, as
every flank attack is sure to find.  By nine o'clock the work was
thoroughly done, and the advance secured upon the south, the whole
Klein Zillebeke sector having been made good.  The captors of La
Boisselle had shown that they had not lost their power of thrust.

This first day of the renewed advance represented as clean-cut a
victory upon a limited objective as could be conceived.  The logical
answer to the German determination to re-arrange his defences by
depth was to refuse to follow to depth, but to cut off his whole
front which was thinly held, and then by subsequent advances take
successive slices off his line.  The plan worked admirably, for every
point aimed at was gained, the general position was greatly improved,
the losses were moderate, and some three thousand more prisoners were
taken.  The Germans have been ingenious in their various methods of
defence, but history will record that the Allies showed equal skill
in their quick modifications of attack, {192} and that the British
during this year's campaign had a most remarkable record in never
being once held by any position which they attacked, save only at
Cambrai.  It is true that on some sections, as in the south of the
line on August 16, there might be a complete check, but in every
action one or other part of the attack had a success.  In this
instance it was universal along the line.

The Germans did not sit down quietly under their defeat, but the
reserve counter-attack troops came forward at once.  Instead,
however, of finding the assailants blown and exhausted, as they would
have been had they attempted a deep advance, they found them in
excellent fettle, and endured all the losses which an unsuccessful
advance must bring.  There were no less than eleven of these attempts
upon the afternoon and evening of September 20, some of them serious
and some perfunctory, but making among them a great total of loss.
They extended over into September 21, but still with no substantial
success.  As has already been recorded, the front of the 55th
Division, at Schuler Farm, east of St. Julien, was for a time driven
in, but soon straightened itself out again.  In this advance, which
embraced the whole front near St. Julien, the German columns came
with the fall of evening driving down from Gravenstafel and following
the line of the Roulers Railway.  They deployed under cover of a good
barrage, but the British guns got their exact range and covered them
with shrapnel.  They were new unshaken troops and came on with great
steadiness, but the losses were too heavy and the British line too
stiff.  Their total lodgment was not more than 300 yards, and that
they soon lost again.  By nine o'clock all was clear.  {193} Among
the British defences the ex-German pill-boxes were used with great
effect as a safe depository for men and munitions.  This considerable
German attack in the north was succeeded next day by an even larger
and more concentrated effort which surged forward on the line of the
Menin Road, the fresh Sixteenth Bavarian Division beating up against
the Thirty-third and the Australian Divisions.  There was some fierce
give-and-take fighting with profuse shelling upon either side, but
save for some local indentations the positions were all held.  The
Victorians upon the right flank of the Australians' position at
Polygon Wood were very strongly attacked and held their ground all
day.  Pinney's Thirty-third Division had come into line, and the
German attack upon the morning of September 25 broke with especial
fury upon the front of the 98th Brigade, which fought with a splendid
valour which marks the incident as one of the outstanding feats of
arms in this great battle.  Small groups of men from the two regular
battalions, the 1st Middlesex and the 2nd Argyll and Sutherlands,
were left embedded within the German lines after their first
successful rush, but they held out with the greatest determination,
and either fought their way back or held on in little desperate
groups until they were borne forward again next day upon the wave of
the advancing army.

The weight of the attack was so great, however, that the front of the
98th Brigade was pushed back, and there might have been a serious
set-back had it not been for the iron resistance of the 100th
Brigade, who stretched south to the Menin Road, joining hands with
the 11th Sussex of the Thirty-ninth {194} Division upon the farther
side.  The 100th Brigade was exposed to a severe assault all day most
gallantly urged by the German Fiftieth Reserve Division and supported
by a terrific bombardment.  It was a terrible ordeal, but the staunch
battalions who met it, the 4th Liverpools who linked up with their
comrades of the 98th Brigade, the 2nd Worcesters, 9th Highland Light
Infantry, and 1st Queens, were storm-proof that day.  On the Menin
Road side the two latter battalions were pushed in for a time by the
weight of the blow, and lost touch with the Thirty-Ninth Division,
but the Colonel of the Queens, reinforced by some of the 16th K.R.R.,
pushed forward again with great determination, and by 9 A.M. had
fully re-occupied the support line, as had the 9th Highland Light
Infantry upon their left.  So the situation remained upon the night
of the 25th, and the further development of the British
counter-attack became part of the general attack of September 26.  It
had been a hard tussle all day, in the course of which some hundreds
in the advanced line had fallen into the hands of the enemy.  It
should be mentioned that the troops in the firing-line were
occasionally short of ammunition during the prolonged contest, and
that this might well have caused disaster had it not been for the
devoted work of the 18th Middlesex Pioneer Battalion who, under heavy
fire and across impossible ground, brought up the much-needed boxes
and bandoliers.  The resistance of the Thirty-third Division was
greatly helped by the strong support of the Australians on their
flank.  It was a remarkable fact, and one typical of the
inflexibility of Sir Douglas Haig's leadership and the competence of
his various staffs, that the fact that this severe action {195} was
raging did not make the least difference in his plans for the general
attack upon September 26.

At 5.50 in the morning of that date, in darkness and mist, the
wonderful infantry was going forward as doggedly as ever over a front
of six miles, extending from the north-east of St. Julien to the
Tower Hamlets south of the Menin Road.  The latter advance was
planned to be a short one, and the real object of the whole day's
fighting was to establish a good jumping-off place for an advance
upon the important Broodseinde Ridge.  Some of the war-worn divisions
had been drawn out and fresh troops were in the battle line.  The
Northern Corps was not engaged, and the flank of the advance was
formed by the Eleventh Division (Ritchie) with the 58th Londoners
upon their right, the two forming the fighting front of Maxse's
Eighteenth Corps.  Their advance, which was entirely successful and
rapidly gained its full objectives, was along the line of St.
Julien-Poelcapelle Road.  The total gain here, and in most other
points of the line, was about 1000 yards.

Upon the right of Maxse's Corps was the Fifty-eighth Division, which
also secured its full objective.  The German line upon this front was
held by the Twenty-third Saxon Division (Reserve), which yielded a
number of prisoners.  The Londoners fought their way down the line of
the Wieltje-Gravenstafel Road, overcoming a series of obstacles and
reaching the greater portion of their objectives.  There were no
notable geographical points to be captured, but the advance was a
fine performance which showed that the Fifty-eighth was a worthy
compeer of those other fine London territorial divisions which had
placed the reputation of the mother city at the very front of all
{196} the Imperial Armies.  The Forty-seventh, the Fifty-sixth, the
Fifty-eighth, and the Sixtieth in Palestine had all shown how the
citizen-soldier of the Metropolis could fight.

Fanshawe's Corps consisted upon this date of the Fifty-ninth Division
upon the left, and the Third upon the right.  The Fifty-ninth
Division, which consisted of second-line battalions of North Midland
Territorials, made a fine advance upon the right of the Gravenstafel
Road, keeping touch with the Londoners upon the left.  Here also
almost the whole objective was reached.  The German positions, though
free from fortified villages, were very thick with every sort of
mechanical obstruction, in spite of which the attack went smoothly
from start to finish.  It is clear that the British advance was fully
expected at the south end of the line, but that for some reason,
probably the wretched state of the ground, it was not looked for in
the north.

The Third Division had kept pace with the Australians to the south
and with the Midlanders to the north, and had captured the village
and church of Zonnebeke, which formed their objective.  Very strong
counter-attacks upon all the part of the land to the immediate north
of Polygon Wood were beaten down by the masterful fire of the British
artillery.

To the right of the Fifth Corps the Australians pursued their
victorious career, going to their full limit, which entailed the
possession of the whole of Polygon Wood.  The Fourth and Fifth
Divisions were now in the battle line.  Pushing onwards they crossed
the road which connects Bacelaer with Zonnebeke, and established
themselves {197} firmly on the farther side south of Zonnebeke.  Some
300 prisoners with a number of machine-guns were taken in this fine
advance.  The pressure upon the Australians was especially heavy upon
the right flank of the Fifth Australian Division, since the left of
the Thirty-third Division had been driven in, as already described,
by the very heavy German attacks upon September 25, so that the
Victorians of the 15th Australian Brigade at the south end of the
line started with their flank exposed.  They were in close touch
throughout with the 19th Brigade of the British Division, and the 2nd
Welsh Fusiliers found themselves intermingled with the Victorians in
the advance, with whom they co-operated in the capture of Jut Farm.
It was a fine feat for the Victorians to advance at all under such
circumstances, for as they went forward they had continually to throw
out a defensive flank, since the Germans had re-occupied many of the
trenches and Mebus, from which they had been ejected upon the 20th.
This strip of ground remained for a time with the Germans, but the
Thirty-third Division had also advanced upon the right of it, so that
it was left as a wedge protruding into the British position.  Cameron
House was taken at the joining point of the two divisions, and
gradually the whole of the lost ground was re-absorbed.

To the right of the Australians the Thirty-third Division went
forward also to its extreme objective, gathering up as it went those
scattered groups of brave men who had held out against the German
assault of the preceding day.  This gallant division had a
particularly hard time, as its struggle against the German attack
upon the day before had been a very severe one, which entailed heavy
losses.  {198} Some ground had been lost at the Veldhoek Trench north
of the Menin Road, where the 100th Brigade was holding the line, but
this had been partially regained, as already described, by an
immediate attack by the 1st Queen's West Surrey and 9th Highland
Light Infantry.  The 2nd Argyll and Sutherlands were still in the
front line, but for the second time this year this splendid battalion
was rescued from the desperate situation which only such tried and
veteran soldiers could have carried through without disaster.
Immediately before the attack of September 26, just after the
assembly of the troops, the barrage which the Germans had laid down
in order to cover their own advance beat full upon the left of the
divisional line, near Glencorse Wood, and inflicted such losses that
it could not get forward at zero, thus exposing the Victorians, as
already recorded.  Hence, although the 100th Brigade succeeded in
regaining the whole of the Veldhoek Trench upon the right, there was
an unavoidable gap upon the left between Northampton Farm and Black
Watch Corner.  The division was not to be denied, however, and by a
splendid effort before noon the weak spot had been cleared up by the
Scottish Rifles, the 4th King's Liverpools, and the 4th Suffolks, so
that the line was drawn firm between Veldhoek Trench in the south and
Cameron House in the north.  A counter-attack by the Fourth Guards
Division was crushed by artillery fire, and a comic sight was
presented, if anything can be comic in such a tragedy, by a large
party of the Guards endeavouring to pack themselves into a pill-box
which was much too small to receive them.  Many of them were left
lying outside the entrance.

{199}

Farther still to the right, and joining the flank of the advance, the
Thirty-ninth Division, like its comrades upon the left, found a hard
task in front of it, the country both north and south of the Menin
Road being thickly studded with strong points and fortified farms.
It was not until the evening of September 27, after incurring heavy
losses, that they attained their allotted line.  This included the
whole of the Tower Hamlets spur with the German works upon the
farther side of it.  The extreme right flank was held up owing to
German strong points on the east of Bitter Wood, but with this
exception all the objectives were taken and held by the 116th and
118th, the two brigades in the line.  The fighting fell with special
severity upon the 4th Black Watch and the 1st Cambridge of the latter
brigade, and upon the 14th Hants and the Sussex battalions of the
former, who moved up to the immediate south of the Menin Road.  The
losses of all the battalions engaged were very heavy, and the 111th
Brigade of the Thirty-seventh Division had to be sent up at once in
order to aid the survivors to form a connected line.

The total result of the action of September 26 was a gain of over
half a mile along the whole front, the capture of 1600 prisoners with
48 officers, and one more proof that the method of the broad, shallow
objective was an effective answer to the new German system of defence
by depth.  It was part of that system to have shock troops in
immediate reserve to counter-attack the assailants before they could
get their roots down, and therefore it was not unexpected that a
series of violent assaults should immediately break upon the British
positions along the whole newly-won line.  These raged during the
{200} evening of September 26, but they only served to add greatly to
the German losses, showing them that their ingenious conception had
been countered by a deeper ingenuity which conferred upon them all
the disadvantages of the attack.  For four days there was a
comparative quiet upon the line, and then again the attacks carried
out by the Nineteenth Reserve Division came driving down to the south
of Polygon Wood, but save for ephemeral and temporary gains they had
no success.  The Londoners of the Fifty-eighth Division had also a
severe attack to face upon September 28 and lost two posts, one of
which they recovered the same evening.

Up to now the weather had held, and the bad fortune which had
attended the British for so long after August 1 seemed to have
turned.  But the most fickle of all the gods once more averted her
face, and upon October 3 the rain began once more to fall heavily in
a way which announced the final coming of winter.  None the less the
work was but half done, and the Army could not be left under the
menace of the commanding ridge of Paschendaale.  At all costs the
advance must proceed.

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{201}

[Illustration: THIRD YPRES BATTLE, September 26]

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{202}

CHAPTER IX

THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES

October 4 to November 10, 1917

Attack of October 4--Further advance of the British line--Splendid
advance of second-line Territorials--Good work of H.A.C. at
Reutel--Abortive action of October 12--Action of October 26--Heavy
losses at the south end of the line--Fine fighting by the Canadian
Corps--Capture of Paschendaale--General results of third Battle of
Ypres.


At early dawn upon October 4, under every possible disadvantage of
ground and weather, the attack was renewed, the infantry advancing
against the main line of the ridge east of Zonnebeke.  The front of
the movement measured about seven miles, as the sector south of the
Menin Road was hardly affected.  The Ypres-Staden railway in the
north was the left flank of the Army, so that the Fourteenth Corps
was once more upon the move.  We will trace the course of the attack
from this northern end of the line.

Cavan's Corps had two divisions in front--the Twenty-ninth upon the
left and the Fourth upon the right, two fine old regular units which
had seen as much fighting as any in the Army.  The Guards held a
defensive flank together with the French between Houthulst Forest and
the Staden railway.  The advance of the Twenty-ninth was along the
line of the {203} railway, and it covered its moderate objectives
without great loss or difficulty.  Vesten Farm represented the limit
of the advance.

The Fourth Division (Matheson) started from a point east of
Langemarck and ended from 1000 to 1500 yards farther on.  They
advanced upon a two-brigade front with the 11th Brigade upon the
right, with the northern edge of Poelcapelle as its objective, while
the 10th Brigade upon the left moved upon the line of 19-Metre Hill.
The fire from this strong point was very severe, and it drove back
the 2nd Seaforths, who were the right battalion of the 10th Brigade,
thus exposing the flank of the 1st Hants, who were on the left of the
11th.  The veteran Highlanders soon rallied, however, and the line
was strengthened at the gap by the advance into it of the 1st East
Lancashires.  Both the Seaforths and the Lancashire men lost very
heavily, however, by a devastating fire from machine-guns.  The 1st
Somersets upon the right had a misadventure through coming under the
fire of British artillery, which caused them for a time to fall back.
They came on again, however, and established touch with the 33rd
Brigade, who had occupied Poelcapelle.  There the Fourth Division lay
on their appointed line, strung out over a wide front, crouching in
heavy rain amid the mud of the shell-holes, each group of men unable
during the day to see or hold intercourse with the other, and always
under fire from the enemy.  It was an experience which, extended from
day to day in this and other parts of the line, makes one marvel at
the powers of endurance latent in the human frame.  An officer who
sallied forth to explore has described the strange effect of that
desolate, shell-ploughed {204} landscape, half-liquid in consistence,
brown as a fresh-turned field, with no movement upon its hideous
expanse, although every crevice and pit was swarming with life, and
the constant snap of the sniper's bullet told of watchful, unseen
eyes.  Such a chaos was it that for three days there was no
connection between the left of the Fourth and the right of the
Twenty-ninth, and it was not until October 8 that Captain Harston of
the 11th Brigade, afterwards slain, together with another officer ran
the gauntlet of the sharpshooters, and after much searching and
shouting saw a rifle waved from a pit, which gave him the position of
the right flank of the 16th Middlesex.  It was fortunate he did so,
as the barrage of the succeeding morning would either have
overwhelmed the Fourth Division or been too far forward for the
Twenty-ninth.

Upon the right of the Fourth Division was the Eleventh.  Led by
several tanks, the 33rd Brigade upon the left broke down all
obstacles and captured the whole of the western half of the long
straggling street which forms the village of Poelcapelle.  Their
comrades upon the right had no such definite mark before them, but
they made their way successfully to their objective.

Upon the right of the Eleventh Division, the 48th South Midland
Territorials had a most difficult advance over the marshy valley of
the Stroombeek, but the water-sodden morasses of Flanders were as
unsuccessful as the chalk uplands of Pozières in stopping these
determined troops.  Warwicks, Gloucesters, and Worcesters, they found
their way to the allotted line.  Winchester Farm was the chief centre
of resistance conquered in this advance.

To the right of the Midland men the New Zealanders--that {205}
splendid division which had never yet found its master, either on
battlefield or football ground--advanced upon the Gravenstafel spur.
Once more the record of success was unbroken and the full objective
gained.  The two front brigades, drawn equally from the North and
South Islands, men of Canterbury, Wellington, Otago, and Auckland,
splashed across the morass of the Hannebeek and stormed their way
forward through Aviatik Farm and Boetleer, their left co-operating
with the Midlanders in the fall of the Winzic strong point.  The
ground was thick with pill-boxes, here as elsewhere, but the soldiers
showed great resource and individuality in their methods of stalking
them, getting from shell-hole to shell-hole until they were past the
possible traverse of the gun, and then dashing, bomb in hand, for the
back door, whence the garrison, if they were lucky, soon issued in a
dejected line.  On the right, the low ridge magniloquently called
"Abraham's Heights" was carried without a check, and many prisoners
taken.  Evening found the whole of the Gravenstafel Ridge in the
strong hands of the New Zealanders, with the high ruin of
Paschendaale Church right ahead of them as the final goal of the Army.

These New Zealanders formed the left unit of Godley's Second Anzac
Corps, the right unit of which was the Third Australian Division.
Thus October 4 was a most notable day in the young, but glorious,
military annals of the Antipodean Britons, for, with the First Anzac
Corps fighting upon the right, the whole phalanx made up a splendid
assemblage of manhood, whether judged by its quality or its quantity.
Some 40,000 infantry drawn from the islands of the {206} Pacific
fronted the German and advanced the British line upon October 4.  Of
the Third Australians it can only be said that they showed themselves
to be as good as their comrades upon either flank, and that they
attained the full objective which had been marked as their day's
work.  By 1.15 the final positions had been occupied and held.

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{207}

[Illustration: ORDER OF BATTLE, October 4, 1917]

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Gravenstafel represents one end of a low eminence which stretches for
some distance.  The First and Second Australian Divisions, attacking
upon the immediate right of the Second Anzac Corps, fought their way
step by step up the slope alongside of them and established
themselves along a wide stretch of the crest, occupying the hamlet of
Broodseinde.  This advance took them across the road which leads from
Bacelaer to Paschendaale, and it did not cease until they had made
good their grip by throwing out posts upon the far side of the crest.
The fighting was in places very sharp, and the Germans stood to it
like men.  The official record says: "A small party would not
surrender.  It consisted entirely of officers and N.C.O.'s with one
medical private.  Finally grenades drove them out to the surface,
when the Captain was bayoneted and the rest killed, wounded, or
captured.  One machine-gunner was bayoneted with his finger still
pressing his trigger."  Against such determined fighters and on such
ground it was indeed a glory to have advanced 2000 yards and taken as
many prisoners.  In one of the captured Mebus a wounded British
officer was found who had been there for three days.  His captors had
treated him with humanity, and he was released by the Australians,
none the worse for his adventure.  There is no doubt that in all this
portion of the line the Germans were themselves in the very {208} act
of advancing for an assault when the storm broke loose, and the
British lines trampled down and passed over the storm troops as they
made for their allotted objectives.

On the immediate right of the Australians was Morland's Tenth Corps,
with the Seventh, Twenty-first, and Fifth Divisions in the battle
line.  The Seventh Division had stormed their way past a number of
strongholds up the incline and had topped the ridge, seizing the
hamlet of Noordhemhoek upon the other side of it.  This entirely
successful advance, which maintained the highest traditions of this
great division, was carried out by the Devons, Borderers, and Gordons
of the 20th Brigade upon the left, and by the South Staffords and
West Surreys of the 91st Brigade upon the right.  The full objectives
were reached, but it was found towards evening that the fierce
counter-attacks to the south had contracted the British line in that
quarter, so that the right flank of the 91st Brigade was in the air.
Instead of falling back the brigade threw out a defensive line, but
none the less the salient was so marked that it was clear that it
could not be permanent, and that there must either be a retirement or
that some future operation would be needed to bring up the division
on the right.

To the right of Noordhemhoek the Twenty-first Division had cleared
the difficult enclosed country to the east of Polygon Wood, and had
occupied the village of Reutel, but encountered such resolute
opposition and such fierce counter-attacks that both the advancing
brigades, the 62nd and the 64th, wound up the day to the westward of
their full objectives, which had the effect already described {209}
upon the right wing of the Seventh Division.  Both front brigades had
lost heavily, and they were relieved in the front line by the 110th
Leicester Brigade of their own division.  During the severe fighting
of the day the losses in the first advance, which gained its full
objectives, fell chiefly upon the 9th Yorkshire Light Infantry.  In
the second phase of the fight, which brought them into Reutel, the
battalions engaged were the 8th East Yorks and 12th Northumberland
Fusiliers, which had to meet a strong resistance in difficult
country, and were hard put to it to hold their own.  The German
counter-attacks stormed all day against the left of the line at this
point around Reutel, making the flanks of the Fifth and Seventh
Divisions more and more difficult, as the defenders between them were
compelled to draw in their positions.  A strong push by the Germans
in the late afternoon got possession of Judge Copse, Reutel, and
Polderhoek Château.  The two former places were recovered in a
subsequent operation.

On the flank of the main attack the old Fifth Division, going as
strongly as ever after its clear three years of uninterrupted
service, fought its way against heavy opposition up Polderhoek
Château.  The Germans were massed thickly in this quarter and the
fighting was very severe.  The advance was carried out by those
warlike twins, the comrades of many battles, the 1st West Kents and
2nd Scots Borderers upon the right, while the 1st Devons and 1st
Cornwalls of the 95th Brigade were on the left, the latter coinciding
with the edge of Polygon Wood and the former resting upon the Menin
Road.  The 13th actually occupied Polderhoek Château, but lost it
again.  The 95th was much incommoded by finding {210} that the
Reutelbeek was now an impassable swamp, but they swarmed round it and
captured their objectives, while its left sot beyond Reutel, and had
to throw back a defensive flank on its left, and withdraw its front
to the west of the village.  The chief counter-attacks of the day
were on the front of the Fifth and Twenty-first Divisions, and they
were both numerous and violent, seven in succession coming in front
of Polderhoek Château and Reutel.  This fierce resistance restricted
the advance of Morland's Tenth Corps and limited their gains, but
enabled them to wear out more of the enemy than any of the divisions
to the north.

Upon the flank of the attack, the advance of the Thirty-seventh
Division had been a limited one, and had not been attended with
complete success, as two of the German strongholds--Berry Cottages
and Lewis House--still held out and spread a zone of destruction
round them.  The 8th Somersets, 8th Lincolns, and a Middlesex
battalion of the 63rd Brigade all suffered heavily upon this flank.
On the northern wing the 13th Rifles, 13th Rifle Brigade, and Royal
Fusiliers of the 111th Brigade drove straight ahead, and keeping well
up to the barrage were led safely by that stern guide to their
ultimate positions, into which they settled with a comparative
immunity from loss, but the battalions were already greatly exhausted
by long service and scanty drafts, so that the 13th Rifles emerged
from the fight with a total strength of little over a hundred.  It
must be admitted that all these successive fights at the south of the
Menin Road vindicated the new German systems of defence and caused
exceedingly heavy losses which were only repaid by scanty {211} and
unimportant gains of desolate, shell-ploughed land.

The total result of this Broodseinde action was a victory gained
under conditions of position and weather which made it a most notable
accomplishment.  Apart from the very important gain of ground, which
took the Army a long way towards its final objective, the
Paschendaale Ridge, no less than 138 officers and 5200 men were taken
as prisoners.  The reason for this considerable increase in captures,
as compared to recent similar advances, seems to have been that the
Germans had themselves contemplated a strong attack upon the British
line, especially the right sector, so that no less than five of their
divisions had been brought well up to the front line at the moment
when the storm burst.  According to the account of prisoners, only
ten minutes intervened between the zero times allotted for the two
attacks.  The result was not only the increase in prisoners, but also
a very high mortality among the Germans, who met the full force of
the barrage as well as the bayonets of the infantry.  In spite of the
heavy punishment already received, the Germans made several strong
counter-attacks in the evening, chiefly, as stated, against the lines
of the Fifth and Twenty-first Divisions north of the Menin Road, but
with limited results.  An attack upon the New Zealanders north of the
Ypres-Roulers railway had even less success.  Victorious, and yet in
the last extremity of human misery and discomfort, the troops held
firmly to their advanced line amid the continued pelting of the
relentless rain.

The bravery and the losses of the British artillery were among the
outstanding incidents of this and subsequent fighting.  It was not
possible on that {212} water-sodden soil to push forward the great
guns.  Therefore it became necessary to make the very most of the
smaller ones, and for this object the 18-pounder batteries were
galloped up all along the line and then unlimbered and went into
action in the open within a mile of the enemy.  By this spirited
action the infantry secured a barrage which could not otherwise have
been accurately laid down.  It should be emphasised that in this and
other advances the numbers of the German were very little inferior to
those of the British, which makes the success of the attacks the more
surprising.  Thus, in this instance, Plumer had eight divisions in
line in the southern area of the battle, while opposed to him he had
the Tenth Ersatz, Twentieth Division, Fourth Guards, part of
Forty-fifth, part of Sixteenth, the Nineteenth Reserve, and the
Eighth Division.

In Sir Douglas Haig's long and yet concise despatch, which will
always serve the historian as the one firm causeway across a quagmire
of possibilities and suppositions, we are told frankly the
considerations which weighed with the British Higher Command in not
bringing the Flanders Campaign to an end for the year with the
capture of the Gravenstafel-Broodseinde Ridge.  The season was
advanced, the troops were tired, the weather was vile, and, worst of
all, the ground was hardly passable.  All these were weighty reasons
why the campaign should cease now that a good defensible position had
been secured.  There were however some excellent reasons to the
contrary.  The operations had been successful, but they had not
attained full success, and the position, especially in the north, was
by no means favourable for the passing of the winter, since the
low-lying ground {213} at Poelcapelle and around it was exposed to
fire both from the Paschendaale Ridge and from the great forest upon
the left flank and rear.  If our troops were weary, there was good
evidence that the Germans were not less so; and their minds and
morale could not be unaffected by the fact that every British attack
had been attended by loss of ground and of prisoners.  Then again, it
was known that the French meditated a fresh attack in the Malmaison
quarter, and good team play called for a sustained effort upon the
left wing to help the success of the right centre.  Again, the
rainfall had already been abnormally high, so that on a balance of
averages there was reason to hope for better weather, though at the
best it could hardly be hoped that the watery October sunshine would
ever dry the fearsome bogs which lay between the armies.  Of two
courses it has always been Sir Douglas Haig's custom to choose the
more spirited, as his whole career would show, and therefore his
decision was now given for the continuance of the advance.  In the
result the weather failed him badly, and his losses were heavy, and
yet the verdict of posterity may say that he was right.  Looking back
with the wisdom that comes after the event, one can clearly see that
had the whole operation stopped when the rains fell after the first
day, it would have been the wisest course, but when once such a
movement is well under way it is difficult to compromise.

Since the line had already been established upon high ground to the
south, it was evidently in the north that the new effort must be
made, as the front of advance was contracted to six miles from the
extreme left wing, where the French were still posted, to a {214}
point east of Zonnebeke.  The wind was high, the rain intermittent,
and the night cloudy and dark; but in spite of all these hindrances
the storming troops were by some miracle of disciplined organisation
ready in their assembly trenches, and the advance went forward at
5.20 on the morning of October 9.

Upon the left an extremely successful advance was carried out by the
French and by the Guards.  Of our gallant Allies it need only be said
that on this day as on all others they carried out to the full what
was given them to do, and established their advanced posts a mile or
so to the eastward on the skirts of Houthulst Forest, taking St.
Janshoek and pushing on, up to their waists sometimes in water, to
the swamps of Corverbeck.

Cavan's Corps consisted of the Guards upon the left, the Twenty-ninth
in the centre, and the Fourth Division upon the right.  The advance
of the Guards was as usual a magnificent one, and the 1st Brigade
upon the right, the 2nd on the left, pushed forward the line on their
sector for more than a mile, beginning by the difficult fording of
the deep flooded Brombeek and then taking in their stride a number of
farmhouses and strong points, as well as the villages of Koekuit and
Veldhoek--the second hamlet of that name which had the ill-fortune to
figure upon the war-map.  Four hundred prisoners were left in their
hands, mostly of the 417th Regiment, who had only taken over the line
at four that morning.  The 2nd Brigade of Guards worked all day in
close touch with the French, amid the dangerous swamps in the north,
while the 1st Brigade kept their alignment with the 4th Worcesters,
who formed the left unit of the 88th Brigade upon their right.  Even
under the awful {215} conditions of ground and weather the work of
the Guards was as clean and precise as ever.

The ground in front of the Guards was sown very thickly with the
German concrete forts, but it was the general opinion of experienced
soldiers that, formidable as were these defences, they were less so
than the old trench systems, which in some cases could not be passed
by any wit or valour of man.  At this stage of its development the
Mebus could usually be overcome by good infantry, for if its
loopholes were kept buzzing with the rifle bullets of the stormers,
and if under cover of such fire other parties crawled round and girt
it in, its garrison had little chance.  The infantry attained
considerable proficiency in these operations, and "to do in a
pill-box" became one of the recognised exercises of minor tactics.
The losses of the Guards in this brilliant affair were not very
heavy, though towards the latter stage the 1st Irish upon the right
got ahead of the Newfoundlanders and were exposed to a severe flank
fire in the neighbourhood of Egypt House.  The 1st Coldstreams upon
the extreme left flank were also held up by a strong point near
Louvois Farm.  It was eventually taken with its forty inmates.  The
gallant German officer absolutely refused to surrender, and it was
necessary to bayonet him.  Altogether the two brigades lost 53
officers and 1300 men.  In connection with their advance and with the
subsequent operations it should be mentioned that the Guards
artillery was worthy of the infantry, and that the way they followed
up in order to give protective barrages, slithering anywhere over the
wet ground so long as they could only keep within good slating
distance of the counter-attacks, was a fine bit of work.  The pioneer
battalion, the 4th Coldstreams, {216} and the three R.E. Companies,
55, 75, and 76, put in a great deal of thankless and unostentatious
work in the elaborate and difficult preparations for the advance.

The Twenty-ninth Division upon the right of the Guards had the 88th
Brigade in front, with the Newfoundlanders behind the Worcesters on
the left flank.  Their task was to push along the Langemarck-Staden
railway and reach the forest.  They carried the line forward to Cinq
Chemins Farm, where they established their new line.  The 1st Essex
and 2nd Hants were also heavily engaged, and all four battalions
lived up to their high reputation.

To the right of the Twenty-ninth was the 12th Brigade of the Fourth
Division, who had taken over the front line from their comrades in
that fearsome wilderness already described.  The line of advance was
along the Ypres-Staden railway, and the front was kept level with
that of the Guards.  Reinforced by the 1st Rifle Brigade, the advance
went swiftly forward over dreadful ground until it reached its limits
at Landing Farm, about half a mile north-east of Poelcapelle.

Maxse's Corps upon the right still consisted of the Eleventh and
Forty-eighth Divisions.  The Eleventh Division had already captured
the half of the long village of Poelcapelle, and now after some very
hard fighting the second half up to the Eastern skirts fell into the
hands of the 32nd Brigade.  As they advanced, the Forty-sixth Midland
men kept pace with them upon the right.  These troops had the very
worst of the low-lying ground, though they had the advantage of being
in position and not having to assemble in the dark and rain, as was
the fate of the more southern troops.  The gallant Yorkshire {217}
battalions of the 32nd Brigade made several attempts to carry the
strong point at the Brewery, east of the village, and the Midlanders
had the same difficulties at a machine-gun centre called Adler Farm
and Burn's House.  These two points, both still untaken, marked the
furthest limits of the advance in either case, and in the evening the
ground gained was contracted not so much on account of German action
as because it was impossible to get supplies up to the extreme line
under the observation from the ridge.

Upon the right of Maxse's Corps and forming the left of the Second
Anzac Corps was another Territorial Division, the Forty-ninth, drawn
from the County of Broad Acres.  This division, although it has
seldom appeared up to now in the central limelight of battle, had
done a great amount of solid work near the Ancre during the Somme
battle, and on other occasions.  All that will be said about the
difficulties of the Sixty-sixth Division apply also to the
Forty-ninth, and it may be added that in the case of both units the
barrage was too fast, so that it was impossible for the infantry to
keep up with it.  None the less, they struggled forward with splendid
courage, and if they did not win their utmost objective, at least
they gained a broad belt of new ground.  A limit was put to their
advance by Bellevue, a stronghold on one of the spurs under
Paschendaale, which was so tough a nut to crack that the weary
fighting line was brought at last to a halt.  The Sixteenth Rhineland
Division, who held this part of the line, won the respect of their
adversaries by their tenacity.  The West Yorkshires of the 146th
Brigade and the York and Lancasters and Yorkshire Light Infantry of
the 148th bore the brunt of the battle.

{218}

On the immediate right of the Yorkshire men was the Sixty-sixth
Division, a second-line unit of East Lancashire Territorials only
recently arrived upon the seat of war, and destined, like many other
new arrivals, to do conspicuously good work on their first venture.
The General who commanded the Division would be the first to admit
his obligations to the officers who had sent over these battalions in
so battle-worthy a condition.  Indeed the country owes more than it
ever knows to these retired officers, veterans of the Old Imperial
wars, who, far from the honours and excitements of the line, devoted
their time and strength to the training of the raw material at home.
They lead no charges and capture no villages, and their names are
read in few gazettes: and yet it is their solid work, based upon
their own great experience, which has really led many a charge to
victory and proved the downfall of many a village.  "If there be a
procession through London, the 'dug-outs' should lead the van," said
a soldier who had that broader vision which sees both the cause and
the effect.

In the case of all these divisions the conditions before the attack
were almost inconceivable.  For four days and nights the men were in
shell-holes without shelter from the rain and the biting cold winds,
and without protection from the German fire.  At 6 P.M. on the
evening of October 13 the Sixty-sixth and also the Forty-ninth fell
in to move up the line and make the attack at dawn.  So dark was the
night and so heavy the rain that it took them eleven hours of groping
and wading to reach the tapes which marked the lines of assembly.
Then, worn out with {219} fatigue, wet to the skin, terribly cold,
hungry, and with weapons which were often choked with mud, they went
with hardly a pause into the open to face Infantry who were supposed
to be second to none in Europe, with every form of defence to help
them which their capable sappers could devise.  And yet these men of
Yorkshire and Lancashire drove the Prussians before them and attained
the full limit which had been given them to win.

The Sixty-sixth Division advanced with the 197th Brigade on the right
of the Ypres-Roulers railway.  It consisted entirely of battalions of
the Lancashire Fusiliers, a regiment which from Minden onwards has
been in the van of England's battles.  Upon their left was the 198th
Brigade, consisting half of East Lancs and half of Manchester
battalions.  So covered with mud were the troops after their long
night march that the enemy may well have wondered whether our native
soldiers were not once more in the line.  Savagely they stuck to
their task with that dour spirit which adverse conditions bring out
in our soldiers; every obstacle went down before them; they reached
their utmost limit, and then, half buried in the mud and stiff with
cold, their blue and cramped fingers still held steady to their
triggers and blew back every counter-attack which the Germans could
launch.  It was a fine performance, and the conditions of the attack
cannot be defined better than by the following extract from the
account of an officer engaged: "After advancing through the mud for a
further three hours, I halted the Company in shell-holes to enable me
to discover our exact whereabouts; this was a bad mistake, because
when I found the direction we had to go in {220} I could not awake
the poor fellows, who had fallen asleep as soon as they had sat down.
I had to slave-drive, and somehow got them a little further forward
before getting blown up myself."  It should be added that at a later
date some Australians who got up close to Paschendaale reported that
they found "not far from the village some of the dead of the
second-line Lancashire Territorials, who had fought beside us in an
earlier battle."

Upon the south of the Second Anzac Corps were the Australian
divisions, who carried forward the movement they had so splendidly
initiated.  The advance set before them on this day was not a deep
one, but such as it was it was carried 600 yards over the ground
north of Broodseinde.  Owing to the difficult lie of the ground, the
attacking troops were particularly exposed to machine-gun fire,
especially at the cutting of the Roulers railway which at this point
comes through the low ridge.  The result was a considerable loss of
men.  The Australians had been a week in the line without rest in
continual fighting, and they were very weary, but still full of dash
and zeal and sympathy for others.  "We met one British officer," says
Mr. Bean, "stumbling back with both his puttees long since lost in
the mud.  'Bitterly disappointed we were late,' he said.  'Hard luck,
too, upon the Australians.'  One thought to oneself when one heard of
the conditions, that it was only due to their undiluted heroism that
they ever got there at all."  It was the Second Australian Division
which was chiefly engaged in this difficult battle, and it was they
who carried Daisy Wood, the chief obstacle in that area.  The First
Australian Division were hardly included in the {221} original
scheme, being too far to the right; but being unable to witness a
fight without joining in it they advanced upon Celtic Wood, passed
through it, and had some excellent fighting with a strong German
trench upon the further side of it.  The operation was a raid rather
than an advance, but it was very useful, none the less, as a
distraction to the Germans.

On the extreme south of the line Reutel, which had been left in
German hands upon October 4, was now carried by storm in a very
brilliant operation which removed the salient of the Seventh Division
to which allusion has already been made.  This advance was carried
out by two battalions, the 2nd Warwicks upon the left and the 2nd
Honourable Artillery Company upon the right.  The former took, after
hard fighting, the outlying woods and trenches to the north of the
village, but the Londoners achieved the more difficult task of
carrying the village itself.  It was a desperate enterprise, carried
out under heavy fire, which was so deadly that when the depleted
ranks reached their further objective not an officer was left
standing.  The high quality of the rank and file is shown in the
prompt way in which they took the necessary steps upon their own
initiative, by which the new line should be held.  As to their
losses, they can be best indicated by the dry official comment: "The
remnants of A, C and D Companies were withdrawn to Jolting Trench and
organised into two platoons under Sergeant Jenkinson."  The Colonel
might well be proud of his men, and London of her sons.

The extreme right of the British attacking line upon October 9 was
formed by the 15th Brigade of the Fifth Division.  Once again they
got into the {222} Polderhoek Château, and once again they had to
retire from it and resume the position in front of it.  There have
been few single points in the War which have been the object of such
fierce and fluctuating strife.

The net effect of this battle in the mud was to fling the whole line
forward, the advance being much more shallow in the south than in the
north.  The line had rolled down from the Broodseinde Ridge, crossed
the shallow valley, and now established itself upon the slope of
Paschendaale.  Two thousand one hundred prisoners had been taken in
this advance.  It was clear, however, that matters could not remain
so, and that, be the weather what it might (and worse it could not
be!) Sir Douglas was bound to plant his men upon the higher ground of
Paschendaale before he called his halt for the winter.

Upon October 12, under conditions which tended to grow worse rather
than better, Sir Douglas Haig made a fresh attempt to get forward.
As the Paschendaale Height became more clearly the final objective,
the attack narrowed at the base, so that instead of extending from
the Menin Road in the south, it was now flanked by the Ypres-Roulers
railway, and so had a front of not more than five miles.  The new
attack was carried out largely by the same troops as before in the
north, save that the 51st Brigade of the Seventeenth Division was
pushed in between the Guards upon the left and the 12th Brigade of
the Fourth Division upon the right.  Advancing along the line of the
Ypres-Sladen railway, the 3rd Brigade of Guards and their comrades of
the Fourteenth Corps got forward to their limited objectives, where
they sank once more into the sea of {223} mud through which they had
waded.  On both sides the making of trenches had entirely ceased, as
it had been found that a few shell-holes united by a small cutting
were sufficient for every purpose as long as the head of the soldier
could be kept out of the water.  So useful were these holes as
shelters and rifle-pits that it became a question with the British
artillery whether they should not confine their fire entirely to
shrapnel, rather than run the risk of digging a line of entrenchments
for the enemy.

In this advance the 51st Brigade did remarkably well, advancing 1200
yards and securing two objectives.  It is amongst the curiosities of
the campaign that Major Peddie of the 7th Lincolns, with another
officer and four men, took 148 prisoners from a farm--a feat for
which he received the D.S.O.

On Maxse's front the Eighteenth and Ninth Divisions had taken over
the front line.  The Eighteenth made some progress, but the Ninth, of
which it can truly be said that they never leave a front as they
found it, took the village of Wallemolen, making a good advance.

The New Zealanders were on the right of the Ninth Division, covering
a front of 1600 yards from Adler House on the left to the Ravebeek
upon the right, where they joined the Australian Division.  They were
faced partly by uncut wire in the Bellevue position and partly by
marsh.  The conditions for the Australians upon their right were no
better.  The matter was made worse by the impossibility of getting
the heavier guns forward, while the light ones slid their trails
about in the mud after every discharge in a manner which made
accurate shooting well-nigh impossible.  The losses were heavy in the
attack, {224} two Colonels of New Zealand battalions being among the
dead.  The New Zealand Rifle Brigade were particularly hard hit.  It
was found that progress was impossible under such conditions, and the
attack was called off.  So far as the Germans went, 1000 more were
added to the occupants of the cages--so far as the mud and weather
went, they gained a clear victory over the British Army, for the
losses were heavy, and there was very little gain of ground in
exchange.

Upon October 22, the ground having dried a little, there was some
movement at the northern end of the line, the position being improved
and 200 prisoners taken.  The two operations which effected these
results were carried out in the north by Franks' Thirty-fifth
Division co-operating with the French, and in the Poelcapelle region
by the 53rd Brigade of the Eighteenth Division, which carried the
point known as Meunier Hill, the Essex, Suffolks, and Norfolks of
this splendid unit covering themselves once more with glory.  The
Thirty-fourth Division, which had taken the place of the Fourth upon
the right of Cavan's corps, also moved forward in correspondence with
the flanking units, the Northumberland Fusiliers of the 103rd Brigade
keeping touch with the 8th Norfolks of the 53rd.

Some hard fighting was associated with the attack of the Thirty-fifth
Division in the north.  It may be remarked that the Bantam idea had
not proved to be a successful one.  It had been abandoned, and the
Thirty-fifth was now undistinguishable from any division either in
its physique or in its spirit.  Upon this occasion both the 105th
Brigade upon the left and the 104th upon the right fought with
magnificent courage.  The advance of {225} the former Brigade was
particularly fine in the region of Panama House.  The 14th Glosters
and 16th Cheshires attained their fullest objective, and though the
latter were finally bent back by the strong German attacks in the
afternoon, the Glosters' fighting line, reinforced by some of the
16th Sherwood Foresters, held fast under the most desperate
circumstances.  Their Colonel might well be proud of the fact that in
an attack carried out by one French and two British divisions his
battalion of Glosters was the only one which remained rooted and
unshaken upon the ultimate line.  The Lancashire Fusiliers shone
greatly also in the attack, though they were unable to maintain their
most advanced positions.  The German shell-fire, and especially the
German snipers from the wood on the left, and from a covered road,
were the cause of heavy losses, but the troops were in excellent
fettle, and the 104th Brigade actually executed a little raid on its
own during the night, bringing back a machine-gun and five more
prisoners.

On October 26, the rain still pouring down as heavily as ever, and
the earth about as liquid as the heavens, the advance was once again
renewed upon a narrow front which was mostly on the slope of the hill
and therefore offered some foothold for the struggling infantry.
Paschendaale was but a few hundreds of yards away, and it was
imperative that it should be held before the season ended.  Haig's
troops were weary, and several fresh divisions which he could have
called upon were already earmarked for the surprise attack which he
was planning in the south.  It was imperative, however, to have some
fresh thrusting force which could be trusted to break down the
remaining obstacles and not only seize the {226} dominant village,
but hold it after seizure.  For this object the close Canadian
beleaguerment of Lens, which was to have ended in an assault, was
abandoned, and the Canadian Corps was brought round to the Ypres
front, taking the place of the Anzac Corps.  In the new advance it
occupied, therefore, the central position of the line.

There had been several divisional changes in the north.  The front of
General Cavan's line consisted now of the Fiftieth Division next the
French, the Thirty-fifth Division, and the Fifty-seventh Division.
Maxse's battle line was the Fifty-eighth London Division and the
Sixty-third Naval.  In spite of every possible disadvantage, fresh
ground was gained by these units, and Varlet Farm, Bray Farm, and
Banff House were added to the British area.

The conditions of these low-lying valleys to the north, which had
long been difficult, had now become really impossible, and this was
the last attempt to advance in the Houlthulst Forest area.  It takes
personal and detailed narrative to enable the reader to realise the
situation which the troops had to face.  An officer of the 170th
Brigade, a Lancashire unit which displayed great valour and lost half
its numbers upon this date, writes: "I have never seen such a sight
as that country was in the valley of the Broombeek and Watervlietbeek
just south of Houthulst Forest.  Nothing on earth but the wonderful
courage of the Lancashire lads enabled them to get so far as they
did.  We went over with our rifles and Lewis guns bound up with
flannel so as to keep the mud out, and with special cleaning
apparatus in our pockets, but you can't clean a rifle when your own
hands are covered an inch thick!  We killed a great {227} number--one
of the Sergeants in the 'Loyals' laid out 13 with his bayonet;
altogether we actually killed over 600 with the bayonet: but, as I
say, the ground was too heavy to allow us to out-manoeuvre the
pill-boxes, and though we took three or four, the rest did us in.  In
one box we got 38 Boche, killed them all with a Lewis gun through the
porthole."  After that day no more advance was tried in the low-lying
valleys named.  The impossibility was seen.

The Canadian Corps went forward with one brigade of the Fourth
Division upon the right and two brigades of the Third Division upon
the left.  A brigade of the First Australian Division supported their
left upon the Ypres-Roulers railway, and the Sixty-third Naval
Division continued the attack.  Each of these units gained ground
under the most desperate conditions.  The Australians captured
Decline Wood, so securing the flank of the attack.  The Canadians
pushed forward on each side of the Revebeek, one of the innumerable
streams which meander through this country.  The Third Canadian
Division advanced finely, but their right-hand brigade was held up by
the machine-gun fire from Bellevue Spur, which had wrought such
damage in the former attack, and was compelled to fall back upon its
original line.  The Canadians rallied for a second spring, and in the
afternoon by a splendid effort, when all their Northern grit and
energy were needed, they flooded over the obstacle and lined up with
their comrades.  They were now right astride of the main ridge and
close up to the edge of the village.  To the north, the Sixty-third
Naval Division, which formed the right unit of Maxse's Corps, pushed
forward to the line of the {228} Paddebeek, while the Londoners of
the Fifty-eighth Division kept their place upon the left.  The German
artillery had greatly increased in strength, thanks to the Russian
collapse, and every fresh idiocy of Petrograd was transmuted into
showers of steel and iron in the plains of Flanders.  Their infantry
also became more aggressive with this stronger support, and two heavy
counters broke upon the Canadians in the afternoon of October 26.  In
spite of every obstacle, it was an important day in this section of
the line for Paschendaale was almost reached, and the Germans must
have viewed with despair the ever-advancing line, which neither they
nor Nature had been able to stop.

In the south the operations during the day were not so successful,
and the subsidiary aims were not attained.  In the morning, the Fifth
Division attacked and once again captured the Wood and Château of
Polderhoek.  The 1st West Kents and 13th Warwicks of the 13th Brigade
carried out this dashing and arduous operation, and took some 200
men, who formed the garrison.  The Seventh Division meanwhile had
advanced upon Gheluvelt, the 2nd West Surrey, 1st South Staffords and
Manchesters of the 91st Brigade advancing to the south of the Menin
Road in order to guard the flank of their comrades who followed the
line of the road which would lead them to this famous village.  The
flanking brigade was held up, however, at the old stumbling-block
near Lewis House and Berry Cotts, where the German fire was very
deadly.  This failure enabled the enemy to bring a very heavy
cross-fire upon the 2nd Borderers and 2nd Gordons of the 20th
Brigade, forming the column of attack.  In spite of this fire, {229}
the stormers forced their way into Gheluvelt, but found themselves
involved in very hard fighting, while their guns were choked with
mud, and useless save as pikes or clubs.  Under these circumstances
they were forced back to their own line.  Encouraged by this success,
the Germans then advanced in very heavy masses and attacked the new
positions of the Fifth Division with such fury that they also had to
loose their grip of the precious twice-conquered Château and fall
back on the line whence they started.  It cannot be denied,
therefore, that though the British gained ground in the north upon
October 26, they sustained nothing but losses after their great
exertions in the south upon that date.  The two outstanding features
of the fighting seem to have been the extreme difficulty of keeping
the weapons in a serviceable condition, a factor which naturally told
in favour of the stationary defence, and also the innocuousness of
percussion shells, since in such a swamp they bury themselves so
deeply that their explosion does little harm.  Some 500 prisoners
were made in the southern area, but many more in the north.

Upon October 30, in cold and windy weather, the attack was renewed
upon a comparatively narrow front, with the First Australian Division
upon the extreme right, then the Fourth Canadians, then the Third
Canadians, and finally the Sixty-third Division upon the left.  The
Canadians advancing along the ridge towards the doomed village were
faced by a terrific concentration of German guns upon that limited
space and by strong infantry attacks, none of which turned them from
their purpose.  The direction of the attack was from west and
south-west.  {230} The Fourth Canadians soon had all their objectives
and held them firmly, taking Crest Farm on the edge of the village.
The Third Canadians had heavy resistance to overcome, but captured
the spur in front of them and joined up with their comrades at Graf.
The Sixty-third Division found it very difficult to get forward,
however, and this held back the left wing of the Canadians.  Five
severe attacks were made upon the Canadians, but were all beaten off
by their steady fire.  In some cases, notably at Crest Farm, the
machine-guns captured from the Germans were turned upon their late
owners as they debouched from the village.  There was considerable
evidence of demoralisation among the German infantry upon this
occasion whenever the British could get to grips with it, and some
sections actually ran away at the outbreak of the fight, which is a
very unusual occurrence in so disciplined and brave an army.  The
latter part of the action was fought in driving rain, which hardly
allowed vision of more than a couple of hundred yards.

All these heroic exertions were consummated at six on the morning of
November 6, when the Canadian infantry, advancing with heroic dash,
flung themselves upon the village and carried the British line right
through it, emerging upon the naked ridge beyond.  The advance on the
left was made by the 1st Brigade, while the 5th Brigade took the
village.  Many strong points lay just north of the hamlet, but each
of them was rushed in turn.  It was a splendid success, and wrought
by splendid men.  The chronicler cannot easily forget how by a
wayside Kentish station he saw the wounded from this attack lying
silent and patient after their weary journey, {231} and how their
motionless, clay-spattered figures, their set, firm faces and their
undaunted eyes, gave him an impression of military efficiency and
virtue such as none of the glitter and pride and pomp of war have
ever conveyed.  So fell Paschendaale, and so, save for some minor
readjustments upon the Ridge, ended the great battle which can only
be all included in the title "The Third Battle of Ypres."

Several attempts were made to clear the whole of the ridge but the
rain was still continuous, the ground a nightmare, and the fire of
the German guns was concentrated upon so limited a space that the
advance was hardly possible.  Jacob's Second Corps had come back into
the line, and one of its units, the First Division, came up upon
November 9 on the left of the Canadians, and endeavoured in
co-operation with them to extend the position.  The Germans had
cleverly removed their heavy guns to such a position that they could
reach the ridge, while the British guns, immobile in the mud, could
not attempt any counter-battery work.  In this way a very intense
fire, against which no reply could be made, was kept up on the ridge.
On November 10 the 2nd Canadian Brigade upon the right and the 3rd
British Brigade upon the left endeavoured to work forward; but the
losses were heavy and the gains slight.  The two leading British
battalions, the 1st South Wales Borderers and the 2nd Munsters, were
the chief sufferers.  It was clear that the season was too far
advanced to attempt any useful work.  On November 12 the
Thirty-second Division relieved the First, and the line was again
slightly advanced; but no more could be done and the troops settled
down into the quagmire to {232} spend the winter as best they might.
The Eighth Corps took over the lines of the Canadians, who returned,
after their splendid and arduous work, to their old sector at Lens.

On the other sectors of the northern front there had been a lull
while this last stage of the Paschendaale fighting was in progress.
It was broken only by a sharp, sudden attack by the Fifth Division
upon its old enemy, the Poldershoek Château, upon November 6.  After
some severe fighting the attack failed and the British line remained
as before.

Thus, after a continuance of three months, the long struggle came to
an end.  Only the titanic Battle of the Somme had exceeded it in
length and severity.  The three great Battles of Ypres are destined
to become classical in British history, and it will be a nice
question for the judgment of posterity which of the three was the
most remarkable military performance.  Though the scene was the same,
the drama was of a very different quality in each act, but always
equally intense.  In the first, inferior numbers of British troops
with a vastly inferior artillery held up the German Army in its first
rush for the coast, and, by virtue of the high training and close
cohesion of the old regulars, barred their path even at the cost of
their own practical annihilation.  In the second, a less homogeneous
and less trained British force, still with a very inferior artillery,
held back a German line which was formidable, less for its numbers
than for the sudden use of new methods of warfare against which their
opponents could neither guard nor reply.  The line receded under the
pressure, but the way was still barred.  In the third, the British
advanced and steadily pushed back a German Army {233} which was
probably inferior in numbers--and certainly was so in gun power--but
which held a series of predominating positions stiffened by every
method which experience could suggest or ingenuity devise.  Their
resistance was helped by the most adverse weather conditions which
could be conceived.  The net result of the fighting was not only the
capture of the crest of the final ridge, but the taking of 24,000
prisoners and 72 guns.  When one remembers that the Germans in the
days of their ascendancy could not in the two battles of Ypres put
together have taken more than 5000 men, one can measure the
comparative success of each army in this conflict of giants.  It
would be vain to pretend that we did not hope for a greater gain of
ground in this great autumn movement, but the reach of a General must
often exceed his grasp, and here it was no small prize which still
remained with the victor.

One can only sum up the matter by quoting the measured words of the
Field-Marshal in Command: "This offensive, maintained for
three-and-a-half months under the most adverse conditions of weather,
had entailed almost superhuman exertions on the part of the troops of
all arms and services.  The enemy had done his utmost to hold his
ground, and in his endeavours to do so had used up no less than
seventy-eight divisions, of which eighteen had been engaged a second
or third time in the battle, after being withdrawn to rest and refit.
Despite the magnitude of his efforts, it was the immense natural
difficulties, accentuated manifold by the abnormally wet weather,
rather than the enemy's resistance, which limited our progress and
prevented the complete capture of the ridge."

Whilst this long and arduous struggle had been {234} raging the chief
events upon the other seats of war had been a fine French victory on
the Aisne which yielded nearly 10,000 prisoners.  This was upon
September 23, but the rejoicings of the Allies were turned to sorrow
by the news next day of the set back of the second Italian army at
Caporetto, where the soldiers, demoralised by insidious propaganda,
offered at the most critical sector hardly any resistance to the
enemy who had been reinforced by some German divisions.  The result
was that the other Italian armies upon right and left were compelled
to fall back and could find no standing ground until they had crossed
the Piave.  Udine and the whole Friulian Plain were lost and all the
results of so many heroic months were undone.  It was one of the
saddest tragedies of the war, though destined in the future to be
most gloriously avenged.




{235}

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI

First phase, November 20--Tanks _en masse_--Attack on the Tunnel
Trench--Byng's great advance--Fine work of Braithwaite's Sixty-second
Division--Hard fighting of Pulteney's Third Corps--Exploit of Fort
Garry Horse--Second day of battle--Rally of Germans--Capture of
Bourlon Wood by Fortieth Division--Attack by the Guards on La
Fontaine.


The year 1917 had begun with high hopes for the Allies since they had
planned a common offensive which could hardly have failed to break
the German resistance.  Both France and England had honourably
carried out their share in the common contract.  It was the sudden
and absolute break down of Russia which caused the year to set in
gloom rather than in glory.  The phenomenon of that great fermenting
putrefying country was more like some huge cataclysm of nature, some
monstrous convulsion of the elements, than any ordinary political
movement, so that anger and contempt were softened into pure
amazement as the gradual dissolution of the vast organism took place
from week to week before a wondering world.  It was as though a
robust man had suddenly softened into liquid putrescence before one's
eyes.  But from a military standpoint it was a disaster of the first
order for the Allies and checked their victorious career in the West,
where the failing {236} German line could always be buttressed up by
fresh guns and fresh divisions from the East.  Now on the top of this
misfortune another unforeseen and almost incredible occurrence placed
them at a further disadvantage.  The Italian army had done so
splendidly well and had won such unfailing ascendancy over the
Austrians that their stability seemed as firm as the mountains amid
which they fought.  It seems, however, that insidious and treasonable
propaganda of the familiar type had spread disaffection in the ranks,
and the Second Army, which held the very centre of the Gorizian line,
collapsed suddenly.  The result was a very great success for the
Austrian and German forces, who pushed through the breach, and with
little loss to themselves captured more than 200,000 prisoners and
nearly 2000 guns.  It was a very severe blow for the Allies, and
never was their fine spirit better shown than by the instant steps
which they took to hold Italy up in the moment of her extreme need.
By road and by rail reinforcements poured through the passes of the
Alps and along the shores of the Mediterranean.  Whilst the flanking
armies of the Italians fell back upon new lines French and British
divisions were hastening forward to share their pressing danger.  The
Isonzo and the Tagliamento had been in succession abandoned, for a
severe flanking attack from the north threatened to break through the
passes and debouch upon the Friulian Plain.  Finally the line of the
Piave was reached which still covered Venice.  Here the steadier
troops were halted.  In the First Army upon the right there had been
little disorganisation, and their retreat along the coast under
constant pressure was a fine bit of work.  Ten batteries of British
heavies were {237} among the artillery of this army, and every one of
them was man-handled to the new positions.  By mid-winter two French
and two British Corps, veterans of many battles, were lined up on or
near the Piave, waiting eagerly to try conclusions with these new
adversaries.  This detached British army was commanded by General
Plumer, with Generals Lord Cavan and Haking as his Corps commanders.
The two Corps, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth, were made up of the
Fifth, Seventh, Twenty-third, Forty-first, and Forty-eighth
Divisions, grand units all.  It was a sore loss to the battle-line of
Flanders--a loss which in the case of two of them was but temporary.

We shall now descend the line to the section which extends from
Bullecourt in the north to Villers-Ghislain in the south, opposite to
the important town of Cambrai, some seven miles behind the Hindenburg
Line.  It was here that the Field-Marshal had determined to strike
his surprise blow, an enterprise which he has described in so lucid
and detailed a despatch that the weary chronicler has the rare
experience of finding history adequately recorded by the same brain
which planned it.  The plan was a very daring one, for the spot
attacked was barred by the full unbroken strength of the Hindenburg
main and support lines, a work so huge and solid that it seems to
take us back from these superficial days to the era of the Cyclopean
builder or the founder of the great monuments of antiquity.  These
enormous excavations of prodigious length, depth, and finish are
object lessons both of the strength of the Germans, the skill of
their engineers, and the ruthlessness with which they exploited the
slave and captive labour with which so much of it was built.  Besides
this {238} terrific barricade there was the further difficulty that
the whole method of attack was experimental, and that to advance
without artillery fire against such a position would appear to be a
most desperate venture.  On the other hand it was known that the
German line was thin and that their man-power had been attracted
northwards by the long epic of the Paschendaale attack.  There was a
well-founded belief that the tanks would prove equal to the task of
breaking the front, and sufficient infantry had been assembled to
take advantage of any opening which might be made.  The prize, too,
was worth a risk, for apart from the possibility of capturing the
important centre of Cambrai, the possession of the high ground at
Bourlon would be of great strategic value.  The enterprise was placed
in the hands of General Byng, the famous leader of the Third Cavalry
Division and afterwards of the Canadian Corps, who had taken
Allenby's place at the head of the Third Army.  Under him were from
the north, the Sixth, Fourth, Third, and Seventh Corps under Haldane,
Woolcombe, Pulteney, and Snow, containing some of the most seasoned
fighting material in the army.  The troops were brought up stealthily
by night, and the tanks which were crawling from every direction
towards the trysting-place were carefully camouflaged.  The French
had been apprised of the attack, and had made arrangements by which,
if there were an opening made to the south some of their divisions
should be available to take advantage of it.

[Illustration: Fighting Line, November 20, 1917]

The tanks were about four hundred in number and were under the
separate command of General Elles, a dashing soldier who inspired the
utmost enthusiasm in his command.  It had always been {239} the
contention of the tank designers in England that their special weapon
needed, what it had never yet found, virgin ground which was neither
a morass nor wilderness of shell-holes.  The leading lines of tanks
had been furnished with enormous faggots of wood which they carried
across their bows and which would be released so as to fall forward
into any ditch or trench and to form a rude bridge.  These ready-made
weight-bearers were found to act admirably.

One difficulty with which the operations were confronted was that it
was impossible for the guns to register properly without arousing
suspicion.  It was left to the gunners, therefore, to pick up their
range as best they might after the action began, and this they did
with a speed and accuracy which showed their high technical
efficiency.

Taking the description of the operations upon November 20th from the
north end of the line we shall first deal with the subsidiary but
very important and successful attacks carried out by Haldaae's Sixth
Corps in the neighbourhood of Bullecourt.  The Hindenburg Line at
this point consisted of a front trench with a second or support
trench 300 yards behind it, and many scattered Mebus or concrete
machine-gun forts.  The British had already a lodgement in part of
the front trench, and the main objective now was the support trench
which was called "Tunnel Trench" because it had a tunnel 30 or 40
feet down along its whole length with staircase entrances every 25
yards.  The units to whom the attack was entrusted were the Third
Division upon the right, and the Sixteenth Irish Division upon the
left.

The morning of November 20 was overcast but not actually raining,
with low visibility, which may {240} account for the fact that the
German barrage was feeble, slow, and inaccurate.

The advance of the Sixteenth Division was by three brigades, the 47th
on the right, the 48th in the centre, and the 49th upon the left.
Every up-to-date infantry-saving device, the artillery barrage, the
machine-gun barrage, and the Stokes-mortar smoke-screen was used to
the full.  The guns had been reinforced by a portion of the artillery
of the Thirty-fourth Division, and the support which they gave was
admirably effective.  We will trace the attack from the right.

The flank battalion was the 6th Connaughts with the 1st Munsters upon
their left.  Their objective was taken with a spring.  The Munsters
were able to consolidate at once.  The Connaughts had more trouble as
a rush of German bombers came down upon their right, driving the
flank company in and forcing it back down the sap.  For several hours
there was hard fighting at this point, which was often hand-to-hand
when the Irish bayonet men rushed at the German bomb-throwers.
Finally a block and a defensive flank were formed, and two big Mebus,
Mars and Jove, were left in the hands of the stormers.

In the centre the advance of the 10th Dublin Fusiliers and of the 2nd
Dublin Fusiliers was entirely successful.  So sudden was the attack
that many of the enemy were found wearing their gas masks.  Two large
Mebus, Juno and Minerva, with a good stretch of tunnel trench
remained, together with many prisoners, in the hands of the stormers.
The position was rapidly wired with concertina wire and new trenches
dug for defence and communication by the {241} 155th Field Co. R.E.
and the 11th Hants Pioneer battalion.

On the left the storming battalions were the 2nd Royal Irish and the
7/8th Irish Fusiliers.  The Royal Irish carried both tunnel and
support trenches with the Flora Mebus, taking 200 prisoners.  Many
Germans retreated into the tunnel, but were pelted out again by Mills
grenades.  The Fusiliers were equally successful, but had one short
hold-up owing to the determined resistance of a single officer and
ten men.  This little party made a brave fight, and were so situated
that they commanded two lines of trench.  Eventually they were all
killed.  The support trench was occupied, the tunnel cleared by the
174th Tunnelling Company, and the whole position made good in a most
workmanlike way.  A series of counter-attacks were stamped out by the
barrage before they could get properly going.

The tunnel, as explained, was a continuous gallery opening into the
trench and extending eastwards.  It had numerous chambers leading
off, fitted with wire bunks, tables, etc.  This section was
elaborately mined, but the position of the leads had been accurately
disclosed by a deserter, and they were soon cut by the sappers.

In this swift and successful operation some 635 prisoners of the
470th and 471st Regiments were taken, with many minor trophies.  Many
Germans had been killed, 330 bodies being counted in the trenches
alone.  Altogether it was a remarkably smooth-running operation, and
the model of an attack with limited objective, upon which General
Haldane and all concerned might be congratulated.  It was the more
remarkable as it was carried out without {242} preliminary
bombardment, and no help from the tanks.

While the Irish had attacked upon the left a single brigade of the
Third Division, the 9th, advanced upon their right, and keeping pace
with their comrades carried out a most successful attack, securing a
further length of the tunnel trench.  There was no further fighting
of consequence in this area of the battle, save for some movement
forward on the part of the Irish division and one short
counter-attack by the Germans.

It will be understood that this attack was some miles to the north of
the main battle, and that a long section of unbroken Hindenburg Line
intervened between the two.  Along this line the Fifty-sixth Division
kept up a spirited Chinese attack all day.  The real advance was upon
a frontage of six miles which covered the front from Hermies in the
north to Gonnelieu in the south.  Every company of the advancing
units had been instructed to fall in behind its own marked tank.  At
6.20, just after dawn, in a favouring haze, General Elles gave the
signal, his iron-clad fleet flowed forward, the field of wire went
down with a long splintering rending crash, the huge faggots were
rolled forward into the gaping ditches, and the eager infantry
crowded forward down the clear swathes which the monsters had cut.
At the same moment the guns roared out, and an effective
smoke-barrage screened the whole strange spectacle from the German
observers.

The long line of tanks, magnified to monstrous size in the dim light
of early dawn, the columns of infantry with fixed bayonets who
followed them, all advancing in silent order, formed a spectacle
which none who took part in it could ever forget.  Everything went
{243} without a hitch, and in a few minutes the whole Hindenburg Line
with its amazed occupants was in the hands of the assailants.  Still
following their iron guides they pushed on to their further
objectives.  As these differed, and as the fortunes of the units
varied, it will be well to take them in turn, always working from the
left of the line.

The British front was cut across diagonally by a considerable canal
with deep sides, the Canal du Nord.  Upon the north side of this was
one division.  This flank unit was the famous Thirty-sixth Ulsters,
who behaved this day with their usual magnificent gallantry.
Advancing with deliberate determination, they carried all before
them, though exposed to that extra strain to which a flank unit must
always submit.  Their left was always enfiladed by the enemy and they
had continually to build up a defensive line, which naturally
subtracted from their numbers and made a long advance impossible.
None the less, after rushing a high bank bristling with machine-guns
they secured the second Hindenburg Line, where they were firmly
established by 10.30 after a sharp contest with the garrison.  They
then swept forward, keeping the canal upon their right, until by
evening they had established themselves upon the Bapaume-Cambrai
Road.  It was the brigade moving parallel to the Sixty-second
Division upon which the heavier work fell.

Upon the immediate right of the Irishmen was Braithwaite's
Sixty-second Division of West Riding Yorkshire Territorials--one of
those second line units whose solid excellence has been one of the
surprises of the war.  Six of them had already come to the front, and
not one of the six which had not made its {244} mark.  On this
occasion the men of the West Riding made an advance which was the
admiration of the army, and which the Field-Marshal, who weighs his
words carefully, described as "a brilliant achievement."  The first
obstacle in front of the 185th West Yorkshire Brigade upon the right
was the village of Havrincourt, which, with the aid of the tanks,
they carried in dashing style, though the resistance from the Château
was very fierce.  Behind it lay the reserve German line, which also
was taken at the point of the bayonet.  Upon the left the 187th
Brigade, containing two Yorks and Lancaster and two Yorkshire Light
Infantry battalions, swept gloriously forward and got every
objective, including the northern half of Havrincourt.  The 2/5th
Yorkshire Light Infantry was particularly fine, as it charged without
tanks and yet kept up with the line.  The 186th Brigade, consisting
of four battalions of the West Riding Regiment, then passed through
in a splendid rush which carried them up to and through the village
of Graincourt, regardless of the fact that Flesquières on the right
was untaken.  Surging on the 188th Reserve Brigade reached and
captured the important village of Graincourt, much aided by two
audacious tanks.  With an energy which was still unabated they pushed
on to Anneux, where they reached the fringe of the houses.  It was a
truly splendid day's work, in which four and a half miles of every
devilry which German sappers could build or German infantry defend
was inexorably beaten down.  In all these operations they were aided
and supported, not only by the tanks, but by the 11th Hussars, and
also by a body of King Edward's Horse.  Thirty-seven guns and 2000
prisoners were the fine trophies of this one division.

{245}

Upon the right of Braithwaite's Yorkshiremen was the Fifty-first
Highland Territorial Division.  They also made a fine advance, but
were held up by the strongly organised village of Flesquières.  The
approach to it was a long slope swept by machine-gun fire, and the
co-operation of the tanks was made difficult by a number of advanced
field-guns which destroyed the slow-moving machines as they
approached up the hill.  If the passage of the Hindenburg Line showed
the strength of these machines, the check at Flesquières showed their
weakness, for in their present state of development they were
helpless before a well-served field-gun, and a shell striking them
meant the destruction of the tank, and often the death of the crew.
It is said that a single Prussian artillery officer, who stood by his
gun to the death and is chivalrously immortalised in the British
bulletin, destroyed no less than sixteen tanks by direct hits.  At
the same time the long and solid wall of the Château formed an
obstacle to the infantry, as did the tangle of wire which surrounded
the village.  The fighting was very severe and the losses
considerable, but before evening the Highlanders had secured the
ground round the village and were close up to the village itself.
The delay had, however, a sinister effect upon the British plans, as
the defiant village, spitting out flames and lead from every cranny
and window, swept the ground around and created a broad zone on
either side, across which progress was difficult and dangerous.  It
was the resistance of this village, and the subsequent breaking of
the bridges upon the canal, which prevented the cavalry from
fulfilling their full rôle upon this first day of battle.  {246} None
the less as dismounted units they did sterling work, and one small
mounted body of Canadian Cavalry, the Fort Garry Horse from Winnipeg,
particularly distinguished itself, getting over every obstacle,
taking a German battery, dispersing a considerable body of infantry,
and returning after a day of desperate adventure without their
horses, but with a sample of the forces which they had encountered.
It was a splendid deed of arms, for which Lieutenant Henry Strachan,
who led the charge after the early fall of the squadron leader,
received the coveted Cross.

Upon the right of the Fifty-first Division was the Sixth, which was
faced by the village of Ribecourt.  Into this it stormed, and after
some heavy street and house fighting it cleared it of its German
garrison.  The advance was carried out with the 71st Brigade upon the
right and the 18th upon the left.  The village was carried by storm
by the 9th Norfolks of the 71st Brigade passing through the 1st
Leicesters, who, together with the 2nd Sherwood Foresters, had
stormed the Hindenburg Line, following close upon the tanks, upon
whose iron flanks they could hear the rifle bullets patter like
hailstones.  The losses of the division were light, as their
instructions were to dig in upon the further side of the village and
act as a connecting link.  The Foresters, however, had at least one
sharp tussle before they gained their full objective.  A shock
battalion charged them, and there was a period of desperate fighting
during which the Germans displayed a valour which sometimes was
almost that of fanatics.  "One of their companies was cut off.  We
offered them quarter, but they would not hear of {247} it.  The last
to go was a young sub.  When he saw that all was up he drew his
revolver and shot himself.  As he fell I ran forward in the hope to
save him, for he was a brave lad.  When I got to his side he looked
at me with a look of intense hate and tried to take aim with his
pistol.  It fell from his hand and he fell dead with that look of
hate still on his face."

In connection with this advance of the Sixth Division it should be
stated that the 2nd Durham Light Infantry upon the left charged a
battery and captured the guns, a fine feat of arms.

Upon the right of the Sixth Division was the Twenty-ninth Regular
Division which was held back from the advance until its flank was
secured upon the right.  When this had been accomplished by the
Twelfth Division it dashed swiftly forward upon a three-brigade
front; the 87th and 86th Brigades seizing respectively Marcoing and
Neuf Wood which is immediately beyond it.  Here they found themselves
in very close collaboration with the Sixth Division, through whom
they passed in their advance.  On the right the 88th Brigade, after
hard fighting in the Hindenburg support line, captured Les Rues
Vertes and part of Mesnières.  The taking of these two villages was
really of great importance in the general scheme of operations, and
the advances of the divisions upon either flank may be looked upon as
simply a screen to cover the Twenty-ninth while it sped forward upon
its venture.  The reason of this was that the Canal de l'Escaut, a
very formidable obstacle, covered the whole German front south of
Cambrai, and that unless it were taken all advance in this direction
was impossible.  There were bridges at Mesnières and Marcoing, and
these were the nearest {248} points to the British line.  Hence it
was that the flanks of the Twenty-ninth were carefully covered and a
clear opening made for it, that with one tiger-spring it might seize
this vital position.  The bridge at Marcoing was captured intact, the
leading tank shooting down the party who were engaged in its
demolition.  At Mesnières, which is the more important point, the
advancing troops were less fortunate, as the bridge had already been
injured and an attempt by a tank to cross it led to both bridge and
tank crashing down into the canal.  This proved to be a serious
misfortune, and coupled with the hold-up at Flesquières, was the one
untoward event in a grand day's work.  Both the tanks and the cavalry
were stopped by the broken bridge, and though the infantry still
pushed on their advance was slower, as it was necessary to clear that
part of the village which lay north of the canal and then to go
forward without support over open country.  Thus the Germans had time
to organise resistance upon the low hills from Rumilly to Crevecoeur
and to prevent the advance reaching its full limits.  A footbridge
was secured by the Newfoundlanders at Mesnières, and it may be
mentioned as a curious example of the wide sweep of the British
Empire that the first man to get across it, and to lose his life in
the gallant deed, was an Esquimaux from Labrador.  The centre brigade
got about 1500 yards beyond Marcoing, but there the Germans from
Cambrai had formed a new line which could not be forced.  The enemy
recognised this advance as being for the moment the most menacing
part of the British line, and at once adopted the very strongest
measures to push it back and secure the bridgeheads of the {249}
canal.  Several times upon November 21 they raged against this point
of the line and made desperate attempts to gain the two villages.
Noyelle, which was held by the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers, was also
strongly attacked upon that day, but with the aid of the 2nd Royal
Fusiliers and 16th Middlesex the village was held against a series of
onslaughts, one position changing hands seven times.  Some of these
counter-attacks were delivered by Prussian Guards, hastily brought
from Lens, and the fighting was as severe as it usually is when the
Kaiser's own men put in an appearance.  These events, however, were
on the 21st, and we must return to the first day of the battle.

On the right of the Twenty-ninth was the Twentieth Division.  In
front of them, upon the farther side of the line, had lain the
powerfully fortified farm of La Vacquerie, and this they had taken
with their first rush.  Beyond lay a long slope, strongly held by the
Germans, called the Welsh Ridge.  This also was stormed by the
Twentieth, who kept pace with the right flank of the Twenty-ninth,
and pushed their advance forward as far as the canal.  At the same
time the 59th Brigade was thrown out upon the right to make a
prolongation of the defensive flank built up by the Twelfth Division
and so screen the main attack.  All went well with the right of this
advance, but the left, consisting of the 10th K.R.R., was held for a
time by a strong point which eventually surrendered and yielded 200
prisoners.  Some of this battalion saw the enemy running towards
Mesnières and pursued them to the main bridge.  The troops received a
most affectionate welcome from the inhabitants of the houses along
{250} the Cambrai Road.  The attack upon the left was carried out by
the 12th K.R.R. and 6th Oxfords of the 60th Brigade, which swept with
little resistance over the Hindenburg Line, but had some trouble with
strong points beyond.  One of these points of resistance which was
carried by the 12th K.R.R. accounted for all the officers of the
party and 62 out of 96 men, before it was put out of action by the
survivors.  Captain Hoare, a veteran Rifleman who had risen from the
ranks, was killed at this point, and his orderly, a lad of twenty
named Shepherd, took over the direction of the party and carried the
operation through with such dash and valour that he was awarded the
Victoria Cross.

We now come to the Twelfth Division upon the flank, the first English
division of the New Army, a unit which had greatly distinguished
itself at Ovillers and elsewhere.  Its task was in some ways the most
difficult of any, as it had not only to advance upon important
objectives but to build up a flank line of resistance as it went,
since the whole attack might have been checked and brought to ruin by
an enemy assault from the south.  The 36th Brigade upon the left
advanced with the 9th Royal Fusiliers and 7th Sussex in their front
line, while two companies of the 8th Fusiliers were thrown out upon
the left to aid in the attack upon La Vacquerie.  On the right by the
Banteaux Spur was the 35th Brigade with the 9th Essex and 5th
Berkshires in the front.  The latter battalion lost heavily from the
fire of guns on their right.  When on the line of Bleak House the
supporting battalions, two companies of Fusiliers and the 11th
Middlesex upon the left, the 7th Suffolks and part of the 7th
Norfolks upon the right, passed {251} on to the objective.  The 37th
Brigade then passed through upon the right and settled in an echelon
of battalions along the flank, the 7th East Surreys and 6th Buffs
starting the line, while the 6th West Kent and 6th West Surrey
prolonged it.  While executing this delicate and complicated movement
the battalions were under heavy fire and had to clear Lateau Wood of
the enemy, so that it was a fine bit of work on the part both of the
leaders and of the men.  The two chief points of German resistance
outside the wood were the forts of Pam-Pam and Bonavis, both of which
were attacked by tanks and then carried by storm by the Kentish
infantry.  By 11 o'clock the whole advance, covering a front of 2000
with a depth of 5500 yards, had reached its full objectives at every
point.  The total losses of the division were about 1300 men.  Major
Alderman, commanding the West Kents, was among those who fell.  It
may be added that from this day until the fateful 30th the division
was out of the battle and made no move, save that on November 24 the
35th and 36th Brigades pushed a short way down the slope eastwards to
the St. Quentin Canal.

Some allusion has already been made to the dispositions of the
cavalry.  The original plan was that the First and Fifth Cavalry
Divisions, closely supported by the Second, should, the instant that
the way was clear, push forward to surround and isolate Cambrai, and
also to isolate and threaten Bourlon Wood from the north and east.
The situation was never such, however, as to allow any large body of
cavalry to get through.  At dawn on the morning of the 21st a patrol
of 5th Lancers ascertained that the Germans still held the
Marcoing-Beaurevoir line in {252} force.  On the left, however, the
success of the fifty-first Division had made more open space, and on
this side the Bays and the 4th Dragoon Guards penetrated upon the
21st as far as Fontaine and did some useful work.

The Twelfth Division formed the flank of Pulteney's Third Corps.
Upon its right was Snow's Seventh Corps, the left-hand unit of which
was the Fifty-fifth Division of Lancashire Territorials, which had
not been involved in the advance, and indeed was nominally resting
after its supreme exertions at Ypres where it had taken a notable
part in battle after battle.  It had been planned, however, that some
demonstration should be made upon this front in order to divert the
enemy's forces and to correspond with the attack at Bullecourt upon
the north.  This was carried out by the 164th Brigade and may have
had the desired effect although it gave no permanent gain.  A point
called the Knoll, with an adjacent farm, was carried by the stormers
and was held for most of the day, but they were forced back to their
own old lines in the evening, after a long day of battle in which
they incurred such heavy losses that the brigade was seriously
crippled at a later date when the full strength of the division was
urgently needed.

This ended the first day of the battle, which represented a
considerable victory, and one which vindicated the enterprise and
brain-power of the British inventor and engineer as much as the
valour of the soldier.  The German line was deeply indented over a
front of 6 miles and to a depth of 4½ miles.  More than 5000
prisoners with many guns had been taken.  The famous Hindenburg Line
had been severed.  The villages of Havrincourt, Graincourt, {253}
Ribecourt, Marcoing, Noyelle, and Mesnières were all in British
hands.  It was a good beginning, so good that it was determined not
to suspend the operations, but to try the results of a second day and
see what could be attained before the arrival of the full German
supports.  Even with their excellent rear organisation and their
great junction at Cambrai, it was hoped that a clear forty-eight
hours must pass from the opening of the battle before they could
build up a really formidable line.

There were no operations of any importance during the night of the
20th, but early upon November 21 the British line began to move
forward once more, the same divisions being engaged in the advance.
In the north the Ulstermen, who had attained the line of the
Cambrai-Bapaume Road, crossed that boundary and pushed onwards up the
slope for about a mile until they reached the outskirts of the
village of Mœuvres which they were unable to retain.  It was soon
apparent, both here and at other points along the line, that the
Germans with their usual military efficiency had brought up their
reserves even more rapidly than had been expected, and the resistance
at Mœuvres was so determined that the tired division was unable to
overcome it.  The 169th Brigade of the Fifty-sixth Division pushed up
on the left of the Ulstermen and occupied the German outpost line,
from which they were able later to attack the main Hindenburg Line.

The Sixty-second Division upon the right of the Ulstermen had got to
the edge of Anneux upon the night before, and now the 2/4th West
Ridings were able to complete their conquest.  The 186th Brigade then
drove across the Cambrai Road and reached the {254} edge of the
considerable plantation called Bourlon Wood which rises upon a
swelling hill, the summit being so marked in that gently undulating
country that it becomes a landmark in the distance.  Here there was
very strong opposition, with so murderous a machine-gun fire that all
progress was arrested, though a number of tanks drove their way in
among the trees in an effort to break down the resistance.  In the
meantime the flank of the Yorkshiremen had been protected by the
capture of the village of Cantaing with several hundred more
prisoners.

Early in the day the Fifty-first had got round the northern edge of
Flesquières, the village which had held up the centre of the advance
upon the first day.  As a consequence it fell and the front was
cleared for a further advance.  The Scotch infantry was then able to
make a rapid advance of nearly three miles, taking Cantaing with 500
prisoners upon the way, and winding up in front of the village of
Fontaine-Notre-Dame, which they stormed in a very brilliant fashion
with the aid of tanks and of some squadrons of the First Cavalry
Division as already noted.

Farther south the Sixth and Twenty-ninth Divisions acting in close
co-operation had pushed their way through Mesnières, where they met
and defeated a counter-attack from the direction of Rumilly.  It was
clear that every hour the German line was thickening in this quarter.
Whilst the Sixth cleared the ground upon the left, the Twenty-ninth
pushed forward and reached Noyelle, where with the aid of those
useful allies, the dismounted troopers of the First and Fifth Cavalry
Divisions, including the Umballa Brigade of Indians, they made good
the village as already described.

{255}

In the meantime the 10th Rifle Brigade of the Twentieth Division upon
the right had first taken and then lost Les Rues des Vignes, an
important position upon the British side of the canal.  In the
afternoon the 11th Rifle Brigade managed to cross the canal and
endeavoured to push up towards Crevecoeur, but at this point the
river Scheldt ran on the farther side and offered an impediment which
could not be crossed.  Orders were issued by General Byng that a
fresh attempt should be made next morning, but the troops were weary
and the losses heavy so the instructions were cancelled and the line
remained unaltered at this point.

The end of the second day of battle found the British Command faced
with a difficult problem, and we have the Field-Marshal's own lucid
analysis of the alternative courses open, and as to the reasons which
prompted his decision.  The capture of Cambrai had never been the
goal of the operations, though a cavalry raid which would have
disorganised the communications through that town had at one time
seemed possible.  A turning of the line to the south with the
co-operation of some French divisions which were ready upon the spot,
was part of the original conception, and was baulked by the
insufficient hold established upon the farther side of the Canal de
l'Escaut.  But the central idea had been the capture of the high
ground of Bourlon Hill and Wood for with this in British possession a
considerable stretch of the defensive German line would lie open to
observed artillery fire, and its retention would probably mean a
fresh withdrawal to the east.  It had been hoped that the goal would
have been attained within forty-eight hours, but this time had
elapsed and the {256} assailants were at the bottom instead of the
summit of the hill, with a resistance in front which was continually
growing more obstinate.  What was to be done?  The troops could not
remain where they were, for the Bourlon Hill overlooked their
position.  They must carry it or retire.  There was something to be
said for the latter policy, as the Flesquières Ridge could be held
and the capture of 10,000 prisoners and over 100 guns had already
made the victory a notable one, while the casualties in two days were
only 9000.  On the other hand, while there is a chance of achieving a
full decision it is hard to abandon an effort; reinforcements were
coming up, and the situation in Italy demanded a supreme effort upon
the Western front.  With all these considerations in his mind the
Field-Marshal determined to carry on.

November 22 was spent in consolidating the ground gained, in bringing
up reinforcements, and in resting the battle-weary divisions.  There
was no advance upon the part of the British during the day, but about
one o'clock in the afternoon the Germans, by a sudden impetuous
attack, regained the village of Fontaine and pushed back the
Fifty-first Division in this quarter.  No immediate effort was made
to regain it, as this would be part of the general operations when
the new line of attack was ready to advance.  Earlier in the day the
Germans had thrown themselves upon the front of the Sixty-second,
driving back its front line, the 2/6th and 2/8th West Yorkshires, to
the Bapaume-Cambrai Road, but the Yorkshiremen shook themselves
together, advanced once more, and regained the lost ground with the
help of the 2/4th York and Lancasters.  The Germans spent this day in
building up their line, and with their better railway facilities
{257} had probably the best of the bargain, although the British air
service worked with their usual utter self-abnegation to make the
operation difficult.

The new advance began upon the night November 22, when the 56th
Londoners reinforced the Ulsters upon the left of the line on the
out-skirts of the village of Mœuvres.  To the west of the village,
between it and the Hindenburg Line, was an important position,
Tadpole Copse, which formed a flank for any further advance.  This
was carried by a surprise attack in splendid style by the 1st
Westminsters of the 169th Brigade.  During the day both the Londoners
and the Ulstermen tried hard, though with limited success, to enlarge
the gains in this part of the field.

The attack was now pointing more and more to the north, where the
wooded height of Bourlon marked the objective.  In the southern part
the movements of the troops were rather holding demonstrations than
serious attacks.  The real front of battle was marked by the reverse
side of the Hindenburg Line upon the left, the hill, wood, and
village of Bourlon in the centre, and the flanking village of
Fontaine upon the right.  All of these were more or less
interdependent, for if one did not take Bourlon it was impossible to
hold Fontaine which lay beneath it, while on the other hand any
attack upon Bourlon was difficult while the flanking fire of Fontaine
was unquenched.  From Mœuvres to Fontaine was a good six miles of
most difficult ground, so that it was no easy task which a thin line
of divisions was asked.  to undertake--indeed only four divisions
were really engaged, the Thirty-sixth and Fifty-sixth on the left,
the Fortieth in the centre, and the Fifty-first on the right.

{258}

The operations of November 23 began by an attack by the enduring
Fifty-first Division, who had now been four days in the fighting line
against Fontaine Village--an attempt in which they were aided by a
squadron of tanks.  Defeated in the first effort, they none the less
renewed their attack in the afternoon with twelve more tanks, and
established themselves close to the village but had not sufficient
momentum to break their way through it.  There they hung on in most
desperate and difficult fighting, screening their comrades in the
main Bourlon attack, but at most grievous cost to themselves.

Meanwhile the Thirty-sixth Division had again attacked Mœuvres,
and at one time had captured it all, save the north-west corner, but
heavy pressure from the enemy prevented them retaining their grasp of
it.  The two brigades of this division upon the east of the canal
were unable, unfortunately, to make progress, and this fact greatly
isolated and exposed the Fortieth Division during and after its
attack.

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{259}

[Illustration: BATTLE LINE OF THE THIRD ARMY, November 20, 1917]

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This main attack was entrusted to the Fortieth Division, a unit which
had never yet found itself in the full lurid light of this great
stage, but which played its first part very admirably none the less.
It was a terrible obstacle which lay in front of it, for the sloping
wood was no less than 600 acres in extent, a thick forest with autumn
foliage, hardly touched by shell-fire, while the village upon its
north-western flank came also within the area of their attack.  The
men, however, had been specially exercised in wood fighting, a
precaution which all agree to have been of the greatest possible
value in the day of battle.  When at 10.30 A.M. the signal was given
to advance the 121st Brigade went {260} forward with alacrity upon
the left, while on the right the 119th Brigade plunged into the wood,
the brigadier, a dare-devil little warrior, setting an example to his
men which none who followed him will forget.  About thirty tanks
lumbered forward in front of the advancing lines.  The west edge of
the wood formed the dividing line between the right and left attack.

It was arranged that the tanks should, so far as possible, go down
those rides which are so conspicuous a feature of every French
forest, while the infantry should move up between them.  The 119th
Brigade moved forward with the 19th Welsh Fusiliers upon the right,
the 12th South Wales Borderers on the left, while the 17th Welsh were
in close reserve.  It was the second occasion in the war when a
splendid piece of woodland fighting was carried through by the men of
the Principality, and even Mametz was not a finer performance than
Bourlon.  They rapidly broke through the German front line, capturing
numerous prisoners and machine-guns.  The Colonel of the Fusiliers
pushed his way forward to the north edge where he established posts,
while the flank of the Welsh Borderers brushed the village of Bourlon
and got north of that point.  The 17th Welsh meanwhile formed
defensive flanks upon either side, while the 18th Welsh came up to
reinforce, and pushed ahead of their comrades with the result that
they were driven in by a violent counter-attack.  The line was
re-established, however, and before one o'clock the 119th Brigade
were dug in along the whole northern edge of the forest.  It was a
fine attack and was not marred by excessive losses, though Colonel
Kennedy of the 17th Welsh was killed.  Among {261} many notable deeds
of valour was that of Sergeant-Major Davies of the 18th Welsh, who
knelt down in the open and allowed his shoulder to be used as the
rest for a Lewis gun, until a bullet struck him down.

It was clear that the Germans would make every effort to regain the
wood, and immediate steps were taken to strengthen the defence, which
was already firmly established.  The 14th Argyll and Sutherlands were
sent up to thicken the line, as were the 15th Hussars, who were doing
great service as a mobile foot battalion.  More machine-guns were
also pushed to the front.  The result of these measures, all taken
before nightfall, was that the inevitable counter-attacks, which
materialised before dawn, were shot back by a blaze of fire from the
fringe of brushwood.  Early in the morning of November 24, a resolute
endeavour of the German stormers gained a lodgment for them to the
right of the British line, where they captured some of the
machine-guns.  During the whole of this day the enemy pressed hardly
upon the weakening line, and at three in the afternoon had pushed
them back from the whole of the right half of the wood, but Welshmen,
Highlanders, and Hussars gathered themselves for a supreme effort,
and dashing at the Germans swept them back once more to their old
position.  We shall leave the 119th Brigade still holding fast upon
the evening of the 24th to their advanced position, while we follow
the fortunes of the 121st Brigade from the time of the original
attack upon November 23.

This Brigade had, as already stated, advanced upon the village of
Bourlon with the 20th Middlesex upon the right and the 13th
Yorkshires upon the left, the latter in close touch with the 107th
Brigade {262} of Ulstermen upon the west of their front, the whole
line to swing round and attack the western edge of the village.  The
21st Middlesex were in close support to give weight to the left of
the line, while the 12th Suffolks were in reserve.  The Ulstermen had
been held up by heavy machine-gun fire which exposed the left flank
of the Yorkshires, who in turn could not get forward.  This in turn
brought the two Middlesex battalions to a halt, who were already well
up to the village.  Three out of six tanks upon this flank were put
out of action by armour-piercing bullets.  After a pause both the
Yorkshires and some of the Middlesex got into the village, but their
flank was always bare, and the best they could do was to hold on to
the southern edge.  None the less the line was firm and formidable,
as was found by a German attack carried out by the 9th Grenadier
Regiment in the late afternoon, which was swept back by the British
fire.  All day the enemy strove hard to clear the village, and all
day the 121st Brigade held splendidly to its gains.  Where all were
fine the non-commissioned officers were particularly splendid.
Sergeant-Major Hall of the 21st Middlesex, three times wounded and
still rallying his company, was but one of many.  Some critic has
finely said that if the Day of Judgment were to come a British
non-commissioned officer would still be found imploring his
neighbours not to get the wind up.  It is an interesting fact that
the attack by the 121st Brigade had been countermanded, but the wires
were broken and the message miscarried, so that the whole fine
episode was strictly unofficial.

During the night the hard-pressed line was thickened by the arrival
of the 19th Hussars and {263} Bedford Yeomanry, who took over the
left of the position.  The 14th H.L.I, were also brought up from the
reserve brigade, and twelve more tanks came into line.  The 12th
Suffolks had formed upon the left of the Highlanders, and these two
battalions with the cavalry and tanks made a united attack upon the
remaining portion of the village of Bourlon on the morning of the
24th, which was countered by the Germans in the afternoon.  In the
confusion of house-to-house combat the two battalions were separated,
the Suffolks getting penned in at the south corner of the village,
while the Highlanders, who had made a splendid advance, were isolated
in the north-east.  The situation was serious, and two reserve
battalions, the 13th Surreys and 12th Royal Lancasters, were brought
up after dusk.  A body of dismounted cavalry drawn from the 2nd and
5th Dragoon Guards and the 11th Hussars were also pushed into the
fight.  With these troops the Brigadier made a strong attempt upon
the morning of November 25 to force his way through the village,
which was now mostly in German hands, but the tanks which he had
expected did not arrive, and his infantry were not strong enough for
the task.  Colonel Battye of the Highlanders had been killed, and
Colonel Warden of the East Surreys, who had assumed local command,
did all that a man could do, but the losses were too heavy, and the
Highlanders were seen no more.  Up to the 26th Colonel Warden, with
his headquarters in the firing line, was able to send up rations to
the survivors of the three isolated companies who had made a
wonderful resistance for nearly two days.  In the end it was only by
great skill that his own battalion, the East Surreys, were rescued
from {264} their dangerous position, for the forces of the Germans
were in overwhelming strength, and overlapped the village upon both
sides.  Some of the East Surreys were cut off for two days in the
south-eastern part of the village before the survivors could be got
clear.  Colonel Warden received the D.S.O. for his splendid work.

In the meantime, from the morning of the 25th, the 119th Brigade had
made a splendid fight in the wood against fierce attacks which beat
up against their right flank.  The Guards had come up to relieve the
51st Highlanders, and on this date three battalions of the 3rd Guards
Brigade, the 2nd Scots Guards, 1st and 4th Grenadier Guards, were
thrown in to help the Fortieth Division in its heavy task.  Two
companies of the 11th Royal Lancasters were also brought forward, and
succeeded in doing some very brilliant work.  The flank was held
during the day.  Upon that night the weary division was drawn out,
being relieved by the Sixty-second Yorkshire Division, which by some
miracle after only two days of rest was judged to be battle worthy
once more.  It was indeed a case of the tired relieving those who
were only a little less tired than themselves, but the line had to be
held and not another man was available.  The artillery of the
Fortieth Division, which had shown remarkable efficiency and
co-operated very closely with the infantry, remained in action.
During its brilliant spell of service the Fortieth Division had taken
750 prisoners, but its casualties were very heavy, amounting to 172
officers and more than 3000 men.

The British position was now a difficult one, for the enemy held the
ridge above Fontaine and also the {265} high ground between Bourlon
and the Hindenburg Line, so that they had commanding observation upon
both sides.  With great persistence, however, in spite of the
continual thickening of the German line the British commanders
determined, after a pause for breath, to make one more effort to
capture both Fontaine, which had relapsed into enemy hands, and the
village of Bourlon with the whole of the Ridge.  The Guards, the
Forty-seventh London Territorials, and the Second Division had all
appeared upon the scene, so that the striking force was stronger than
before.  Upon November 27 the Guards made a strong effort upon
Fontaine, having relieved the Fifty-first Division in that sector.
The 3rd Guards Brigade had already become involved, as described in
the defence by the Fortieth Division of Bourlon Wood.  It was the 2nd
Brigade which was now marshalled to attack upon a very wide front
from Fontaine village on the right to Bourlon village on the left,
this latter advance being in support of the attack by the
Sixty-second Division upon the position which had been lost.  This
attack made at 6.20 in the morning of November 27, after a night of
snow and tempest, was carried out by the 186th and 187th Brigades,
the object being to get back Bourlon wood and village.  The latter
brigade got half-way through the village at one time, but could not
make good the ground.  The 186th, working through the woods to the
north-west of Fontaine, gained their objectives, but had both flanks
in the air, and were eventually in the evening compelled to fall
back, all the West Riding battalions having lost heavily.  Meanwhile
the 2nd Brigade of Guards had been fighting hard in support of the
Sixty-second.  This {266} attack was carried out by the 2nd Irish,
while the 3rd Grenadiers, 1st Coldstream, and 1st Scots were
respectively upon the left, centre, and right of the advance upon the
village, which came down the line of the Cambrai Road.

The attack started at 6.20 in the morning after a night of snow and
tempest.  The flank battalion of Scots Guards by the use of a sunken
road got well up to the village without heavy loss, but a blast of
machine-gun fire from a small house about 200 yards away played havoc
with the 3rd Grenadiers, who none the less rushed forward, stormed
the house, and secured their first objective.  The Coldstreams also
suffered heavily from machine-gun fire from a post north of the
railway, and half their numbers were on the ground before they also
reached their objective.  The remains of these two gallant battalions
cleared the whole village and captured about a thousand prisoners,
but were unable to get more than six hundred to the rear.  By ten
o'clock the whole position had been taken, but the victors had
suffered so severely that they were unable to cover so large a
perimeter, and about eleven o'clock the Germans, passing through the
numerous gaps in the defence, bade fair to cut off the whole British
force.  The 4th Grenadiers of the 3rd Brigade was sent up under Lord
Gort to reinforce, and the remains of the 2nd Brigade was drawn clear
of the village and settled into trenches in front of it.  The attack
was in many ways a very difficult one, for the village was strongly
fortified, there was much wire intact south of the Cambrai road, and
the machine-gun fire from La Folie Wood swept all the approaches.
Eventually the force of the enemy was so strong, and it had {267}
penetrated so far round the flanks of the battalions that Lord
Fielding, who commanded the Guards division, gave orders that they
retire to their original line.  The brigade lost heavily in the
venture.

Meanwhile the gallant Yorkshiremen of the Sixty-second, together with
the 2nd Irish Guards, drove their way through Bourlon Wood in spite
of a desperate resistance from a German line which included several
battalions of the Guards.  Many prisoners were taken, but many others
escaped in the confused fighting among the brushwood and tree-trunks.
Once again the counter-attacks were too strong for the thin ranks who
had reached their goal, and the British, after reaching both the
village and the north end of the wood, were pushed out once more.  At
the same time the British held a strong position on the hill and in
the wood, so that there were still hopes of a successful issue if the
German resistance could be outworn.  It should be remarked that
through all the fighting the battle line was greatly strengthened by
the fact that a dismounted battalion was formed from each brigade of
cavalry, or nine in all, who relieved and supported the very weary
infantry.  The trophies of the battle up to date had been over 100
German guns, 10,500 prisoners, 350 machine-guns, and, above all, the
valuable stretch of Hindenburg's Line.

It was in this last phase of the advance, and indeed after the
fighting had ended, that General Bradford was killed by a chance
shell.  This young soldier, who at the age of twenty-five commanded
one of the brigades of the Sixty-second Division, was one of the
great natural leaders disclosed by the war.  It was indeed a cruel
fate which took him away between full {268} promise and full
performance.  "He had the dash and enthusiasm of youth tempered by
the knowledge and experience which comes to most men only with later
years."  So wrote his immediate commander.  England could ill spare
such a man at such a time.

All was quiet for the next few days, during which the Fifty-ninth
Division relieved the Guards, while the Forty-seventh Division
relieved the Sixty-second Yorkshiremen.

[Illustration: FIGHTING LINE NOV. 30th 1917]




{269}

CHAPTER XI

THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI (_continued_)

Second phase of battle on November 30--Great German attack--Disaster
to three divisions--Desperate fight of Twenty-ninth Division--Fine
advance by the Guards--Capture and recapture of Gouzeaucourt--Hard
battle in the Bourlon Sector--Heavy losses of the Germans--Retraction
of the British line.


It was clear to the British Commanders before the end of November
that the enemy had grown so strong that the initiative had passed to
him, and that instead of following up attacks it was a question now
of defending positions against a determined endeavour to shove back
the intruders and splice the broken line.  The multifarious signs of
activity behind the German lines, the massing of troops, the planting
of batteries, and the registration of ranges, all warned the
experienced observers that a great counter-offensive was about to
begin.  There was no question of a surprise at any point of the line,
but Bourlon was naturally the place where the enemy might be expected
to be at his full strength, since it was vital that he should regain
that position.  At the same time it was clearly seen that the storm
would break also at the south end of the line, and General Snow had
given every instruction to General Jeudwine of the Fifty-fifth
Division which held the position next to the scene {270} of action.
This experienced leader took every step which could be thought of,
but he was sadly handicapped by the state of his division which had
been so severely hammered at Ypres, and had in the last few days had
one brigade knocked to pieces at Knoll.  With only two brigades, full
of young troops who had taken the place of the casualties incurred in
the north, he had to cover at least 10,000 yards of ground.  His line
was stretched until it was little more than a string of sentries with
an occasional strong point dotted up and down.  We will begin by
endeavouring to follow what occurred in this southern sector, and
then turn to the equally important, though less dramatic, doings in
the north.

The attack in the south was delivered upon a front of ten miles from
Vendhuille in the south to Mesnières in the north.  To take a single
comprehensive view of it, it hardly affected the Twenty-fourth
Division upon the right of Snow's Seventh Corps, it crashed with full
force upon the Fifty-fifth Division, especially the left brigade, it
swept impetuously upon the Twelfth and Twentieth Divisions, driving
in part of the line of each of these units, and finally it raged with
equal fury but less success against the Twenty-ninth Division, in the
region of Mesnières.  The weight and swiftness of the blow, coming
with the shortest possible artillery preparation, and strongly
supported by low-flying aeroplanes, must add to the reputation of
General von Marwitz who planned it.  It was a success, and it is
difficult to see how it could have been prevented from being a
success by any means which the defenders had it in their power to
adopt.  The undulating country in which troops could assemble, and
the morning mist which screened them from {271} observation were two
factors which contributed to the result.

Shortly after seven in the morning the tempest suddenly broke loose.
The surprise was so well carried out that though the British General
was expecting an attack, and though he had his wire patrols pushed up
to the German trenches only a hundred yards off, still their reports
at dawn gave no warning of any sound to herald the coming rush.  It
came like a clap of thunder.  An experienced officer in the front
British trench said: "My first impression was that of an earthquake.
Then it seemed to me that an endless procession of aeroplanes were
grazing my head with their wheels.  On recovering from the first
shock of my surprise the Germans were far behind me."  There was no
question of protective barrage, for the quickest answer to the most
urgent S.O.S. would have been too late to help.

This account refers particularly to the 166th Brigade, upon the left
of the Fifty-fifth Division, which got the full blast of the storm.
It and the guns behind it were overrun in an instant by the weight
and speed of the advance.  The General in command did all that could
be done in such an emergency, but it was impossible to form a fixed
line.  The alternative was to swing back hingeing upon the right of
the division, and this was done so that there was always a flank
formed upon the left of the stormers.  There was a ravine, called
Ravine 22 upon the maps, which ran down between the Fifty-fifth and
Twelfth Divisions.  With the terrific force of a flood the Germans
poured down this natural runway, destroying the British formations
upon each side of it.  The Fifty-fifth Division was shattered to
pieces at this point by {272} so terrific an impact upon their feeble
line, but the small groups into which they were broken put up as good
a fight as they could, while the line formed anew between the village
of Villers-Guislain and the farm Vaucelette which was a strong pivot
of resistance.  In this part of the field units of the 165th Brigade
of Liverpool battalions, together with the 5th Royal Lancasters and
the 10th Liverpool Scottish of the 166th Brigade, stood stoutly to
their work, and though the enemy after penetrating the lines were
able to get the village of Villers-Guislain, which they had turned
and surrounded, they were never able to extend their advance to the
south on account of this new line of defence through Vaucelette,
though it was composed entirely of infantry with no artillery
support.  However, even with this limitation the situation was bad
enough, since the 166th Brigade was almost cut to pieces, and so
complete was the destruction upon the extreme left that one
battalion, the 5th South Lancashires, was entirely destroyed, and
nothing heard of it until its leader, Colonel James, was reported as
a badly wounded prisoner in Germany.  Of the division generally it
was said by a higher General that "they fought like tigers," as might
be expected of men who had left a great name on the battle of Ypres,
and who were destined for even greater fame when four months later
they held Givenchy at the critical moment of the terrible battle of
Armentières.  Here, as always, it is constancy in moments of
adversity and dour refusal to accept defeat which distinguish both
the British soldier and his leaders.

We shall now see what happened to the Twelfth Division upon the left
of the Fifty-fifth.  When the German stormers poured down Ravine 22
their left-handed {273} blow knocked out the 166th Brigade, while
their right-handed crushed in the side of the Twelfth Division.  From
the ravine in the south to Quarry Farm in the north, the German
infantry surged round the position like a mountain spate round some
rock-hearted islet, where the edges might crumble and be washed out
by the torrent, but the solid core would always beat back the waters.
The line of the division was a curved one, with the 35th Brigade upon
the right, the 36th in the centre, and the 37th upon the left.  It
was upon the right-hand brigade that the storm burst with its full
shattering force.  The 7th Suffolks next to the fatal ravine shared
the fate of the 5th South Lancashires upon the southern edge of it.
By a coincidence the Colonel had been invalided for appendicitis the
day before, but Major Henty who was in command was killed.  The 5th
Berks and 9th Essex, broken up into small parties and enveloped in a
smoke cloud through which they could only catch dim glimpses of
rushing Germans, were pushed back to the north and west, still
keeping some sort of cohesion, until they reached the neighbourhood
of Bleak House where they rallied once more and gathered for a
counter-attack.  Everywhere over this area small parties were holding
on, each unconscious of all that was passing outside its own little
smoke-girt circle.  Close to Villers-Guislain upon the south side of
the ravine Sapper Company 70, together with the 5th Northampton
Pioneers, held on bravely for many hours, shooting into the flank of
the German advance who poured over the British gun positions which
were well forward at this point in order to support the troops in
Mesnières and Marcoing.  Some of the incidents round the guns were
epic in character, {274} for the British gunner does not lightly take
leave of his piece.  Many were fought to the last instant with their
crews hacking at them with pickaxes and trenching tools to disable
them even while the Germans swarmed in.  Lieut. Wallace, of the 363rd
Battery, with five men served three guns point-blank, their trails
crossing as they covered three separate fields of fire.  Each of this
band of heroes received a decoration, their leader getting the V.C.
The 92nd R.F.A. near La Vacquerie also repulsed four separate
attacks, firing with open sights at a range of 200 yards, before they
were forced to dismantle their guns and retire.

The 7th Norfolks on the left edge of the 35th Brigade were farthest
from the storm-centre, and stoutly beat off all attacks.  Only one
lieutenant was left upon his feet at the end of the day.  Separated
from their comrades the Norfolks were rather part of the 36th Brigade
upon their left, who were also fiercely attacked, but were more
happily situated as regarded their flank.  The 9th Royal Fusiliers
were pushed back to the Cambrai Road on the north, but with some of
the Norfolks built up a solid line of resistance there.  Next to them
upon the left the two companies of the 8th Royal Fusiliers which were
in the line, were practically annihilated in spite of a splendid
attempt to rescue them made by the other two companies led by their
heroic Colonel Elliott Cooper.  In this brave effort the leader
gained his Victoria Cross, but also unhappily a wound from which he
eventually died.  This counter-attack drove the Germans back for the
first time in this terrible morning, but their lines were reinforced
and they came on once more.

The 37th Brigade upon the left had their own set of troubles to
contend with.  The Germans had {275} beaten hard upon the
neighbouring Twentieth Division, breaking into their line upon the
right of their flank 59th Brigade.  In this way they got into Lateau
Wood and on to the Bonavis Ridge, which placed them upon the left
rear of the 37th Brigade.  The unit was in imminent danger of being
cut off, but held strongly to its line, the pressure falling
particularly heavily upon the 7th East Surreys and upon the 6th
Buffs.  Pam-Pam Farm was the centre of some very desperate fighting
on the part of these two units.  The Brigade was sorely tried and
forced backwards but still held its own, facing upon two and even
three different fronts, as the enemy drifted in from the north and
east.

In the meantime a train of independent circumstances had built up a
reserve line which was destined to be of great importance in limiting
the German advance until reinforcements could arrive.  Their stormers
had within an hour or two reached not only Villers-Guislain and
Gonnelieu, but had even entered Gouzeaucourt, three miles deep in the
British line.  This village, or rather a quarry upon its eastern
edge, was the Headquarters of the Twenty-ninth Division, and the
Germans were within an ace of capturing General de Lisle, its famous
commander.  The amazed Commandant of the local hospital found a
German sentry at his door instead of a British one, and with the
usual British good-humour sent him out a cup of tea.  No doubt he did
the same to the Irish Guardsman who in turn relieved the German in
the afternoon.  The C.R.A. of the Twenty-ninth Division was wounded
and taken, and Captain Crow of the Staff was killed.  General de
Lisle with quick decision organised a temporary defence for the south
end of the {276} village, and then hurried up to join his
hard-pressed men at Marcoing.  The General of the Twelfth Division
had energetically hurried up the two battalions which he held in
reserve.  They were the 6th West Surreys and the 11th Middlesex.
Some hundred of odds and ends near Headquarters were also formed into
a unit and pushed to the front.  These went forward towards the
firing with the vaguest notion of the situation, meeting broken
groups of men and catching occasional glimpses of advancing Germans.
The Brigadier of the 35th Brigade had been nearly caught in
Gonnelieu, and found the enemy between him and his men.  As he came
back with his staff, still very lightly clad, pausing occasionally to
fire at the advancing Germans, he passed Ganche Wood and there met
the advancing battalions, which he helped to marshal along a low
ridge, the Revelon Ridge.  The Northumberland Hussars lined up on the
right of these troops and two brigades of cavalry coming up from the
south formed on the left of them at a later hour.  The whole held
firm against all enemy attacks and made a bulwark until the time when
the Guards advanced in the afternoon.  As will afterwards be
described, when that event occurred this Revelon line formed roughly
a prolongation of the new line established by the Guards and Cavalry,
so that a long dam was formed.  Commanding officers in this critical
part of the field gave a sigh of relief in the early afternoon as
they realised that the worst was over.

The Twentieth Light Division was on the left of the Twelfth, and its
experience was equally trying.  It was upon the Riflemen of the 59th
Brigade that the main shock fell, and it came with such sudden
violence that the Germans were through the right unit and in {277}
the rear of the rest before the situation was fully realised.  The
61st Brigade upon the left had also a most desperate time, their
flank being penetrated and turned so that for a time they were cut
off from their comrades of the Twenty-ninth Division at Mesnières.
By this determined German attack the south bank of the canal was
partially cleared for their advance, which put them in the position
that they could possibly push along that bank and get hold of Les
Rues Vertes and the southern ends of the bridges so as to cut off
those British troops who were across the canal.  In this dangerous
movement they nearly had success, and it was only the desperate
fighting of some of the 86th Brigade which saved the situation.  The
prospects were even worse upon the right of the Division for the
Germans broke through Lateau Wood, and so got completely behind the
10th K.R.R., who were the flank battalion.  From the desperate
struggle which ensued only 4 officers and 16 Riflemen ever emerged,
for the battalion was attacked on three sides and was overwhelmed
after a long and splendid defence, which twice repulsed heavy frontal
attacks before the flank advance rolled up the line.  The battalion
got separated from its own headquarters in Lateau Wood, and Colonel
Sheepshanks with the twenty odd men who composed the Staff fought a
little battle of its own against the stormers coming down towards the
Bonavis-Mesnières Road.  The survivors of the brigade rallied upon
the reserve battalion, the 11th R.B. on the Hindenburg Line.  The
11th K.R.R. on the left of the brigade front had endured a similar
experience but their losses were not so terribly severe.  The
aeroplane attack worried the troops almost as much as the infantry,
so that it is no {278} exaggeration to say that there were times when
they were assailed from four sides, the front, each flank and above
at the same instant.  These aeroplanes gave the impression of being
armour-clad and invulnerable to rifle-fire.

Upon the left of the Twentieth Division, with its centre at the
village of Mesnières, was the Twenty-ninth Division, a good unit to
have in the heart of such a crisis.  The Twenty-ninth and Sixth
Divisions held the centre of the British line that day, and were the
solid nucleus upon which the whole battle hinged both to left and
right of them.  Both divisions were seriously compromised by the
push-back to the south of them, and their battery positions were
taken in reverse, but they held the whole of their ground without
giving an inch and completely beat off every German attack.  A
Guernsey battalion made its mark in the fighting that day and
rendered most excellent service, as did the Newfoundlanders; but the
main strength of the divisions lay of course in their disciplined
British veterans, men whose war-hardened faces, whether in Gallipoli
or Flanders, had never been turned from an enemy.  It is no light
matter to drive such a force, and the four German divisions who drove
in from Mesnières to Bauteaux were unable to make even a dint in that
formidable line.  For two days the villages, both Marcoing and
Mesnières, were firmly held, and when at last a readjustment of the
line was ordered it was carried out voluntarily and deliberately in
accordance with the new plans made necessary by the events in north
and south.

In this great fight the 86th Brigade was on the right at Mesnières
with the 16th Middlesex upon the {279} right, the 1st Lancashire
Fusiliers upon the left, and the 2nd Royal Fusiliers by the sugar
factory east of the village--details which have been rescued by the
industry of Mr. Percival Phillips.  The 87th Brigade extended to the
left, covering a wide front as far as the Cambrai Road.  The 1st
Inniskillings were on their right, the 1st Borders on their left, and
the 2nd South Wales Borderers in support.  The 88th Brigade was in
reserve at the time of the attack, but quickly moved up and was in
the heart of the subsequent fighting.

Masses of German infantry were reported at Crevecoeur, and within a
very short time a rush of grey infantry was swirling down past the
flank of the Middlesex men, and breaking the connection with the
Twentieth Division on the right.  Some of the assailants got along
the south bank, and actually seized Les Rues Vertes at the same
moment that a counter-attack by the Guernsey men swept into the
village and drove them out again.  This was a really vital point, as
the capture and retention of the village would have been most
serious.  Many soldierly actions were performed in this clash of
arms, showing that the mechanical side of modern warfare can never
quite eliminate the brave pushing heart and the strong arm.  Captain
Gee of the Staff, among others, rescued an ammunition dump armed with
a revolver and a heavy stick, with which he beat down all opposition
at the cost of a serious wound to himself--a fair price to pay for a
subsequent V.C.  The Germans were foiled for the moment, but they had
found the weak spot in the line, and all day they hammered at it with
characteristic tenacity, while all day the men of the Twenty-ninth
stood up to one {280} attack after another, their dwindling line
fraying to the last degree, but never breaking before the enemy.  Les
Rues Vertes became a Golgotha of Germans, but it was still in the
evening safe in the hands of the British defenders.  One of the
classical examples of British courage and discipline during the war,
fit to rank with Colonel Pears and his cancer at Ovillers, was
furnished by Colonel Forbes Robertson of the 16th Middlesex, now a
V.C., who, stricken in both eyes and temporarily blind, was still led
by his orderly up and down the line in order to steady it.  Let such
a story help our descendants to realise the kind of men who stood
between Germany and the conquest of the world.

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

{281}

[Illustration: BATTLE ORDER OF THIRD ARMY November 30, 1917]

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

Next morning saw no surcease of the fighting in this quarter of the
field.  If anything, the ranks of the assailants were thicker and
their rushes more insistent upon the morning of the 21st.  But the
Twenty-ninth had called up its reserves, and stood with every bristle
on end across the German path.  The trouble behind the line had
greatly weakened the artillery support, but the trench-mortars gave
all the help possible to the hard-worked infantry.  The villages were
knocked to pieces by the enemy guns, but the British stuck like
leeches to the ruins.  The General of the 86th Brigade was among his
men in the front of the battle, encouraging them to dwell upon their
aim and steadying their weary ranks.  The 87th Brigade in the north,
though itself attacked, spared some reinforcements for the
hard-pressed men in the south.  Once Les Rues Vertes was lost, but a
counter-attack led by the Brigade-Major won it back again.  This was
still the position when on the night of December 1 the orders were
given for the {282} general readjustment of the line by the
evacuation of the Mesnières salient.  Well might Sir Douglas Haig
send a special order to General de Lisle thanking him for the
magnificent services rendered during two days and a night by the
Twenty-ninth Division.

It has been stated that the Mesnières salient was evacuated, but two
battalions of the Twenty-ninth Division, the Newfoundlanders and the
South Wales Borderers, had been left upon the north bank of the
canal--with them was the 16th Brigade of the Sixth Division who had
been sent up to aid and relieve the Twenty-ninth.  These troops had a
cruel experience, as the enemy upon December 3 concentrated so heavy
a fire upon them that they were driven back across the canal, the
16th Brigade being partly broken by the severity of the attack.  This
incident led to a retraction of the line in this quarter.

For the sake of continuity of narrative we shall now, before turning
to the very important episodes in the north, show how the Guards came
up in the south and how the new line was firmly established in this
critical quarter of the field.  The reader will therefore carry back
his mind to that fateful hour when the left of the Fifty-fifth had
been swept away, the Twelfth and Twentieth shattered, and the
Twenty-ninth was holding on with all its strength in the first spate
of the German flood.

The Guards, who had been drawn out after their hard spell of service
in the Bourlon attack, were moving into a rest camp behind the lines
when they were stopped by the amazing tidings that the British line
was broken and that the Germans were scattered anywhere over the
undulating country in front of them.  It was 11.15 and they were
marching from {283} the hamlet of Metz when the first news of
disaster reached them--news which was very quickly followed by signs
as gunners were met coming back with the sights and sometimes the
broken breech-blocks of their abandoned guns in their hands.  Over
the ridge between Metz and the Gouzeaucourt Wood a number of gunners,
sappers, and infantry came in driblets, none of them hurrying, but
all with a bewildered air as though uncertain what to do.  To these
worried and broken people the sight of the taut lines of the Guards
must indeed have been a great stay in their trouble.  "There were a
good many men," says one officer, "coming towards us without arms or
equipment, but these I presumed to belong to some unit resting in the
vicinity."  It is only fair to state that several labour companies
had been caught in the sudden storm and that many of the broken
formations seem to have been from their ranks, though others behaved
with extraordinary valour, and exchanged their spades for rifles with
the greatest alacrity.  The Guards moved forward in the direction of
the turmoil, but their progress was slow, as there were gun-teams
upon the narrow road.  The 1st Brigade under General de Crespigny was
leading, being the unit which had suffered least in the Bourlon
fighting.  The young Brigadier, a famous sportsman as well as a
dashing but cool-headed soldier, galloped ahead in an effort to clear
up the situation, and after doing a mile or so across country he
suddenly saw the grey coats of German infantry among the trees around
him.  Riding back he halted his brigade in a hollow by Gouzeaucourt
Wood, fixed bayonets, and then, deploying them into the line,
advanced them in extended order across the fields.  There was no
artillery support at {284} all, but from the front there came an
occasional shell, with the constant cracking of machine-guns, which
increased as they topped the low ridge before them.  "We advanced
into the blue in perfect lines," says one who was present.  Once
under fire the brigade went forward in short rushes of alternate
companies.  "Our fellows were not shouting," says the same witness,
"but chatting among themselves, and smiling in a manner that boded
ill for the Huns."  The 2nd Coldstreams were on the right, the 2nd in
the centre, and the 1st Irish upon the left, with the 2nd Grenadiers
in close support.  As de Crespigny's brigade came upon the fringes of
the German advance they swept them up before them, keeping the
Metz-Gouzeaucourt Road as their right boundary, while a force of
dismounted cavalry moved up upon the farther side.  The Irish upon
the left passed through the wood and broke with a yell about 2 P.M.
into Gouzeaucourt village, which was not strongly held.  The Germans
bolted from the eastern exits and the Guardsmen passing through made
a line beyond, getting in touch upon the left with the 4th Grenadier
Guards of the 3rd Brigade, which formed up and advanced upon that
side.  They were aided in this advance by a small detached body
representing the Headquarters' Guard of the Twenty-ninth Division and
by a company of North Midland R.E. who held their post inviolate all
day, and were now very glad to join in an offensive.  As the line
advanced beyond the village they came into a very heavy fire, for the
St. Quentin Ridge faced them, and it bristled with machine-guns.
Field-guns and 5.9's were also playing upon them, but nothing could
check that fine advance, which was in time to save a number of heavy
guns {285} which could by no possibility be removed.  It was itself
aided in the later stages by the 20th Hussars upon the right and by a
brigade of guns of the Forty-seventh London Division which swung into
action straight from the line of march and did good service in
supporting the attack.  By nightfall the total ground gained was over
two miles in depth, and a definite line of Guardsmen and cavalry of
the Second and Fifth Divisions covered all this section of the field,
limiting and defining the German advance.  General Byng must surely
have breathed more freely when the good news reached his Headquarters
for, but for this energetic operation, there was nothing to prevent
the Germans flooding into the country behind and getting to the rear
of the whole northern portion of the Third Army.

The real work of the Guards had been done when once they had dammed
the stream, and their strength after their recent labours was hardly
sufficient to carry them through a long battle, but in spite of this
they were advancing once more upon the morning of December 1.  The
same two brigades were in front, but the 2nd Grenadiers and 3rd
Coldstreams formed the fighting line of the 1st Brigade, joining up
on the left with the Welsh Guards of the 3rd Brigade.  Cavalry was
moving on the right of them, while on the left they were in touch
with the Rifle battalions of the 60th Brigade covering the village of
La Vacquerie.  The two brigades had different objectives, the left
brigade being directed upon Gonnelieu, while the right moved upon
Ganche Wood, the divisional tanks supporting the advance.  The first
brigade advanced with the battalions already named, and they swept in
magnificent order up to the {286} fringe of the wood where they were
met by two successive counter-attacks which they repelled.  The wood
was cleared but there were many snipers in the trees, and the losses
of officers and N.C.O.'s were proportionately high.  The tanks were
held up by the denseness of the forest.  Cavalry came up upon the
right, and with their assistance the wood was finally secured,
together with some guns and several hundred prisoners.  It was a fine
feat of arms.

The 2nd Brigade had a difficult task at Gonnelieu and the Quentin
Ridge.  The 1st Welsh on the right and the 4th Grenadiers on the left
headed the advance, but they were held up at once by machine-guns on
the right until a tank lumbered up and saved the situation.  Isolated
parties of the 2nd Grenadiers forced their way into the village, but
it bristled with machine-guns and could not be held.  Finally the
line was formed 200 yards from the western edge.

That night the Guards were drawn out after their onerous and splendid
service, being relieved by the Ninth Division.  In the week they had
lost 125 officers and 3000 men, but they had turned the tide of
battle upon the critical instant of a critical day, when, amid
commencing disorganisation, the presence of the most highly
disciplined and steadiest force in the British Army was particularly
needed.  Few of our units can be fairly said to have added to their
laurels in this sector of the second phase of Cambrai, but at least
the Twenty-ninth Division and the Guards can look back to it with
every satisfaction.

At La Vacquerie village and its environs, to the left of the Guards'
advance, some very fierce fighting had broken out upon the morning of
December 1.  {287} The enemy began by endeavouring to out-flank the
village upon the right, pressing down from Gonnelieu and attacking
the sunken road known as Forster Lane which is north of Gonnelieu.  A
company of the 9th Essex, somewhat shaken by its previous experience,
and the 12th Rifles held this position.  The Colonel and the
Headquarters Staff of the Rifle battalion found itself engaged in a
very lively free fight with the heavy masses of enemy infantry who
were pouring down Fusilier Ridge.  By trickling forward small parties
they managed to capture Forster Lane, but all their attempts to get
beyond it were beaten back.  Captain Lloyd of the Rifles, who was
prominent in the defence, fell mortally wounded, but the line, though
heavily shelled and hard pressed, still held its ground.  All this
occurred to the south of the village which had itself been heavily
attacked after a very heavy shell-fall.  The German bombers, who came
on very bravely, drove their way into the village but were ejected
once more, the Riflemen leaving their trenches to pelt them with
bombs.  A second attack was even more fiercely pressed.  "The Germans
who attacked La Vacquerie," says one who was present, "were brave and
determined men and their bombers were well trained, but our men had
been told to hold the village at all costs, and gallantly led by
their officers and N.C. officers they carried out their orders."  In
the evening the Riflemen still held the shattered ruins of the
village, but they were utterly exhausted by their splendid exertions,
and never was a relief more welcome than when the 183rd Brigade of
the Sixty-first South Midland Division came up after nightfall and
took over the hazardous charge.  In the final readjustment {288} of
the British line the village of La Vacquerie remained with the
Germans.

The enemy had suffered heavily, and as will be shown gained
absolutely nothing in the north, but in the south it must be admitted
that he had substantial trophies, including a strip of British line,
some thousands of prisoners, and about 100 guns.

It was the first truly successful offensive on a large scale which he
had made since the gas attack upon April 22, 1915, nearly two and a
half years before, and it would be a sign of a poor spirit if we did
not admit it, and applaud the deftness and courage of the attack.

After several days of quiet the Germans tried one other taste of the
quality of the Guards by a sudden assault upon their new line on
December 5.  They advanced bravely in two lines from Gonnelieu, but
were beaten off by close rifle-fire.  As they turned their flight was
greeted with a volley of bombs from their own people behind them.  It
was observed that the stormers upon this occasion carried their packs
as though they meant to stay.  A good many of them did so.  Next day
the Guards were relieved by the Ninth Division.

We shall now turn to Woolcombe's Fourth Corps in the northern sector
which extends from Tadpole Copse upon the left to that solid centre
of resistance furnished by the two veteran divisions at Marcoing and
at Mesnières.  It was upon the left of this curve that the German
attack broke upon November 30 from the Hindenburg Line to the village
of Fontaine, a front of about six miles, the object being to cut off
the whole Bourlon salient.  The attack, which began about nine
o'clock, differed from that on the south, {289} because the element
of surprise was wanting and because the ground was such that the
attacking troops could be plainly seen.  The final result was to push
back the British line, but this was mainly as a readjustment to
correspond to the change in the south.  To effect this small result
all accounts are agreed in stating that the Germans incurred such
murderous losses that it is improbable that any have been more severe
since the early days of the war.  If, on the balance, the British
lost the day in the south, they gained it in the north, for with
limited loss to themselves they inflicted most severe punishment upon
the enemy.

The arrangement of the troops upon the northern curve of the battle
line was as follows.  Forming a defensive flank between the old
British line and Tadpole Copse was the 168th Brigade, and to its
right, facing Mœuvres, the 169th Brigade, both of them of the
Fifty-sixth London Territorial Division, which had been a week in the
fighting line and was very worn.  Next to them upon the right was the
Second Regular Division under General Pereira, from Mœuvres to
Bourlon, with elements of the 5th, 6th, and 99th Brigades in front.
Upon their right was the Forty-seventh London Territorial Division
occupying the line drawn through Bourlon Wood.  Upon their right
again was the Fifty-ninth South Midland Territorials near Fontaine,
who in turn linked up with the left of the Sixth Division, thus
completing the semicircle of battle.

After a short but very severe bombardment the German infantry
advanced upon the line from Tadpole Copse to Bourlon Wood, a front of
about four miles.  There were four fresh German divisions, with three
{290} others in reserve, and the attack was driven on with the utmost
resolution, falling upon the outlying British outposts with a force
which often destroyed them, although the furious resistance of these
scattered bodies of men took all the edge off the onslaught.  It was
also beaten into the earth by the British artillery, which had
wonderfully fine targets as the stormers in successive lines came
pouring over the open ground between Mœuvres and Bourlon.  The
artillery of the Fortieth Division had been left in the line, and a
gunner officer of this unit described how his guns swung round and
enfiladed the German attack upon the right as it stormed up to the
line of the Forty-seventh Division.  "It was one howitzer battery, D
178, that first tumbled to the fact that the Booties were attacking
and had driven in some of the Second Division posts.  This battery
swung its guns round at right angles, getting on to the advancing
enemy in enfilade and over open sights.  Every other battery in the
country opened within five minutes."  Every observer agrees that the
targets were wonderful, and that it was only in places where the
ground gave him protection that the German storm troops could reach
the expectant British infantry, who received him with such a
murderous fire of rifles and Lewis-guns that his dead were heaped
thickly along the whole front.  Seven brigades of British artillery
were enjoying themselves.  Taking the action from the left the
outposts of the 169th Brigade were driven in, but put up a series of
desperate fights.  From Mœuvres to Tadpole Copse the action raged,
and then the enemy poured out from the back of that portion of the
Hindenburg Line which ran upon the flank of the 168th Brigade so that
both units were involved in heavy fighting with a limited {291} field
of fire which gave fewer advantages to the defence than were found on
the rest of the line.  The Westminsters, the London Scottish, the
Post Office Rifles, and the 2nd Londons all bore themselves with
special bravery in a long day of desperate fighting during which
Commanding Officers were in at least one instance compelled to stand,
bomb in hand, defending their own headquarters.  It was a grim
battle, and the losses were heavy, coming upon troops which had
already lost enough to shake the morale of any ordinary infantry, but
the thin ranks held firm and the positions were retained.  At one
time the Germans were round the right flank of the 169th Brigade, and
so cut off a company of the 13th Essex.  There is a wonderfully dour
military spirit amongst these East Saxons.  It was an anxious
situation, and it was saved by the utter self-abnegation of the
company in question, who held a hurried council of war in which they
swore to fight to the death.  This grim gathering, which might
furnish a theme for a great artist, consisted of Captain Robinson,
Lieut. Corps, Sergeant-Major Edwards, Platoon-Sergeants Phillips,
Parsons, Fairbrass, Lodge, and Legg.  With a hand-clasp they returned
to their work, and during the whole night their rifle-fire could be
heard, though no help could reach them.  In the morning they lay with
their faces to the sky and their men around them, all true to their
vow to death.  It is a story to remember.

The left flank of the Second Division was held by this same 13th
Essex, the 2nd South Stafford, and 17th Middlesex battalions of the
6th Brigade.  This brigade was cut into two parts by the Canal du
Nord, a huge trough of brick-work without any water, eighty feet
across, with steep sloping sides.  The {292} bridges across were
swept by German fire, and the only transit was by ropes to help the
climber.  All day the fight raged furiously here, the Germans within
bombing distance of the defence, which was never penetrated for an
instant.  Save for one small isolated trench with about seventy men
this whole line held firm against every form of attack.  Snipers and
bombers fired across from bank to bank, while down in the dried bed
of the canal there was constant close-range fighting.  All night the
difficult post was held, as was the line on the extreme left where
the 17th Middlesex were blowing back every attack with their
well-sustained fire.  There was no more wonderful individual record
in the battle than that of Captain MacReady-Diarmid of the 17th
Middlesex, who fought like a d'Artagnan of romance, and is said to
have killed some eighty of the enemy in two days of fighting before
he at last himself met that fate from which he had never shrunk.  A
V.C. was assigned to his family.

On the right of the 6th Brigade was the 99th Brigade, the victors of
Delville Wood, who were also furiously engaged, meeting such waves of
German infantry as were able to get past the zone of the British
barrage.  German field-guns unlimbered suddenly on the crest looking
down on the British lines only a few hundred yards off.  The crews
were shot down so swiftly that only one gun got in three rounds.
Then there came a rush of two battalions in full marching order,
debouching in fours from Bourlon village, and deploying in the open.
These also were shot to bits.  The whole front of the brigade was
dotted with broken guns and huddled grey figures, while many,
despairing of getting back, threw up their {293} hands and sought
refuge in the British lines.  Battalion after battalion was thrown in
at this point, until the best part of a division was spread bleeding
over some twenty acres of ground.  The three battalions chiefly
engaged, the 1st Berkshires, 17th Royal Fusiliers, and 1st Rifles
from right to left, had such a day as trench warfare could never
afford.

At the outset the force of the attack pressed back the 1st Berkshires
upon the right, together with the left wing of the Forty-seventh
Division.  For a few moments the situation was alarming.  However,
after three hours of ding-dong fighting the volume of fire was too
much for the stormers and they fell back.  At the same time the 17th
Royal Fusiliers, who had rallied under cover of their outposts, shot
down everything in front of them.  The 1st K.R. Rifles had a day of
wonderful fighting--snipers, rifle grenadiers, Lewis gunners, and
machine-gunners were all equally glutted with slaughter.  "The
Germans in mass formation came on in waves offering a splendid target
at a range from 1500 to point-blank.  In addition they were enfiladed
by the machine-gunners and subjected to very heavy fire from our guns
for two and a half hours.  The second attempt never looked like
succeeding and was smothered in a very short time."

The 17th Royal Fusiliers have been mentioned as being in the line at
this point though they really belonged to the 5th Brigade.  The fact
was that in a previous operation they had won a long trench advancing
at right angles to the British position and leading up to the
Germans.  This was called the "Rat's Tail" on account of its shape,
and it was still occupied by the Royals when the attack broke out, so
that they {294} were placed in a most difficult position and were
pressed back down this long trench, fighting a desperate rearguard as
will be told later.  Their presence in the "Rat's Tail" was the more
unfortunate as it helped to screen the Germans, and to contract the
fire-field of the main line behind them.  After clearing the "Rat's
Tail" the remains of the battalion found themselves upon the right of
the 1st K.R.R.

The remaining brigade of the division, the 5th, had some of its men
also in the front line and as busy as its comrades.  It is stated in
the account already quoted that even the wounded men of the 2nd
H.L.I. were propped up, so that they might continue to fire upon the
Germans.  It was a brigade which had suffered many an evil quarter of
an hour in the past, and it is no wonder that the men took a fierce
joy in such a fight when at last they could meet their hated enemy
face to face.  Side by side with the Highlanders were those veterans
of 1914, the 2nd Oxford and Bucks, the battalion that broke the
Prussian Guard.  They also had many an arrear to wipe off, nor were
their less experienced comrades of the Royal Fusiliers less intent
upon the work in hand.  It was a costly experience for the War-lord
and his legions.

In the evening, save for the one loss at the Canal lock which has
been already recorded, the whole 3500-yard front of the Second
Division stood inviolate, and was clearly defined when the British
force withdrew by the thick pile of German dead which marked it.
Indeed it is claimed that at the end of the day the posts which were
thrown forward by the defenders were more advanced than before the
attack had broken.  Those posts which had been overwhelmed in the
morning were found to have perished most {295} gloriously, for in
almost every case the British dead were ringed round with the bodies
of their assailants.  Among the many epics of these isolated posts
none is more glorious than that of a platoon of the 17th Fusiliers
under the two Company Officers, Captain Stone and Lieut. Benzeery,
both mentioned in despatches, who fought absolutely to the last man
in order to give time for the main body behind them to get ready for
the assault.  The official report of the officer commanding says:
"The rearguard was seen fighting with bayonet, bullet, and bomb to
the last.  There was no survivor."  The annals of war can give few
finer examples of military virtue.

Another splendid epic had been furnished by the posts of the 1st
Berkshire battalion upon the right of the Second Division.  They were
all drawn from one Company under the command of Lieut. Valentin, also
mentioned for his gallantry.  The Germans surged in upon them in the
afternoon, and there was a most grim and terrible fight.  Three of
the posts were destroyed, but when the ground was regained it was
difficult to find the British bodies on account of the piles of
German dead which were heaped round and over them.  Six other posts
remained intact after six hours of close fighting, in which they were
continually attacked by superior numbers who fell in heaps before the
steady fire of these experienced soldiers.  Rapid fire had been
brought to perfection by the training system of the Second Division,
and General Pereira was justified of his wisdom.  The six weary posts
which remained intact after the storm had passed are said to have
killed not less than five hundred of their assailants.

Gorringe's Forty-seventh London Territorial {296} Division upon the
right had endured a similar experience to that of their comrades of
the Second Division, and Kennedy's 140th Brigade upon the left had
been particularly strongly engaged.  The 6th London Rifles and the
10th Civil Service Rifles held post of honour, and the conditions
were much the same as those already described, save that the field of
fire was more restricted.  In the afternoon attack, a gap was formed
between these two battalions, but was quickly closed by one of those
heterogeneous musters of signallers, orderlies, and general utility
men who have so often done good and unobtrusive service--silent
supers who suddenly spring into the limelight, play the part of the
hero, and then fade away to the wings once more.  This attack of the
afternoon fell with great force upon the right unit of the division,
the 141st Brigade who lay in their gas-masks half poisoned with
mephitic vapours among the brushwood of Bourlon Forest.  These fine
troops, the London Irish, Poplar, St. Pancras, and Blackheath
battalions, endured all that gun or gas could do, and held their
whole line intact until the evening.

In the early morning Woolcombe's Fourth Corps, exhausted in body but
triumphant in the knowledge of the terrible losses which they had
inflicted upon the enemy, withdrew unmolested and in absolute order
to the smaller perimeter which had been marked out for them by
General Byng when he had time to realise the exact effect of the
German gains upon the south end of his line.  Everything portable was
carried off by the retiring troops, who made it a point of honour to
leave nothing at all to the enemy.  Three days later, in conformity
with the general plans, the lines were laid down afresh along the
Flesquières {297} Ridge, so that the whole salient was smoothed out,
and yet Byng's troops held all the solid advantages gained upon
November 20 in the shape of a long stretch of the Hindenburg Line.
This continued to be the permanent position of the Third Army during
the winter, and up to the fateful 21st of March 1918, when the great
German thunderbolt was hurled.  In the movements entailed by this
withdrawal there was no molestation from the enemy save that the
rearguards of the Forty-seventh Division were strongly engaged.  Two
companies of the 15th Civil Service Rifles were for a time cut off,
but broke their way through all resistance and rejoined the main body.

On the north of that new portion of the line which had been
established by the Guards and taken over by the Ninth Division there
was a long ridge called Welsh Ridge, running up from La Vacquerie
Farm.  The enemy was still strong in this quarter where the British
artillery was particularly weak--a defect which was partly
compensated for by the loyalty of the neighbouring French Commander.
The Sixty-first South Midland Territorial Division had taken over
from the Twelfth in this area and found themselves involved in
several days of hard fighting, in the course of which La Vacquerie
Farm was lost to the Badeners, but the general line of the ridge was
maintained, consolidated, and turned into the permanent front of the
Army.

So ended the swaying fortunes of this hard-fought and dramatic
battle, beginning with a surprise attack of the British upon the
Germans, and ending by an attack of the Germans upon the British
which, if not a surprise to the commanders, at least produced some
surprising and untoward results.  The balance of these {298} varied
actions was greatly in favour of the British, and yet it could not be
denied that something of the glory and satisfaction of Byng's
splendid original victory were dimmed by this unsatisfactory epilogue
which was only made less disastrous to the British cause by the very
heavy losses which their enemy incurred upon the northern sector.  On
the balance in ground gained the British had a solid grip of 11,000
yards of the famous Hindenburg Line, as against an unimportant
British section between Vendhuille and Gonnelieu.  In prisoners the
British had 11,000 as against 6000 claimed by the Germans.  In guns
the British took or destroyed 145 against 100 taken or destroyed by
their enemies.  In the larger field of strategy the whole episode was
fruitful as it stopped all reinforcement of the Germans in Italy
during the critical weeks while the Italians were settling down upon
the line of the Piave.  One result of the action was a reorganisation
of the British machine-gun system which was found to have acted in an
unequal fashion during the operations, some formations giving
excellent results while others were less satisfactory.

The Battle of Cambrai virtually brought the fighting of 1917 to an
end, although there were several sharp local actions at different
points along the line--actions which would have filled special
editions in former wars, and now can hardly be afforded a paragraph
if any just proportion be observed.  Chief among them was a spirited
German attack upon the Sixty-third Naval Division upon December 29 in
the sector of the Canal du Nord, which began by the loss of some
trench elements, but ended with little change.  There was a sharp
fight also early in December at that blood-stained country-house,
Polderhoek Château, {299} where the New Zealanders attacking upon a
narrow front made an attempt upon one of the most difficult points in
the Flanders line.  The men of Otago and of Canterbury proved once
more what extraordinarily good military material is bred in the great
Pacific island, but after a sharp tussle in which both sides lost
heavily, there was no substantial change in the position.

Another local fight which was sufficiently serious to demand mention
here was upon December 2, when the 26th Brigade of the Eighth
Division with part of the Thirty-second Division stirred up the
German line in the Flanders area.  After two days of fighting matters
remained here much as they started.

The year 1917 had been a very glorious one both to the French and to
the British Armies, which, pursuing their system of the limited
objective, had hardly met with a single repulse in a long campaign.
The victories of Arras, Messines, Langemarck, Paschendaale, and
Cambrai were added to the great record of Sir Douglas Haig and his
men, while the French, save for the losses incurred in their great
April attack, had an unbroken record of success.  And yet in spite of
these results in the West the year was a disappointing one for the
Allies, since the Russian defection which involved Rumania in ruin,
greatly weakened their position and clearly showed that the year 1918
would find them confronted with the whole force of Germany aided by
contingents of her Allies.  Storm clouds piled high in the East.
Only from over the far Western rim of the Atlantic came a slowly
waxing light.

[Illustration: Map to illustration the British Campaign in France and
Flanders]




{301}

INDEX


Abadie, Colonel, 124, 126, 127

Aisne, French attack upon the, 64; victory, 234

Alderman, Major, 251

Allenby, General Sir Edmund, 2, 16, 20

America breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany, 18

Ancre, British advance on the, 5-8

Antoine, General, 134, 156, 179

Archibald, Lieutenant, 67

Arras, 9, 10, 11, 22, 30

Arras, battle of: preparations preceding the battle, 20-24; attack of
the Seventh Corps, 25-30; capture of Neuville Vitasse, 27; and of the
Ibex Trench, 28; general advance of the Sixth Corps, 30-36; attack of
the Seventeenth Corps, 36-41; Canadian success at Vimy Ridge, 41-43;
review of first day's fighting, 43-44; capture of Monchy, 46-48;
practical results of battle, 56; work of the airmen, 57; fight of the
Australians at Bullecourt and Lagnicourt, 58-61; object of battle
attained, 62; stand by the Middlesex and Argylls, 66-67; Fifteenth
Division capture Guémappe, 68-69; storming of Gavrelle, 69-70; H.A.C.
at Gavrelle, 74-76; loss of Fresnoy, 83-84; capture of Rœux,
84-85; capture of Bullecourt, 90-92

Arras-Soissons front, German retreat on, 8-16

Avion, 117, 121



Babington, General Sir J., 108, 188

Bagdad, British enter, 17

Baillescourt Farm, action at, 6

Bainbridge, General Sir E., 99

Ball, Captain Albert, 57

Bapaume occupied, 10

Basset, M. Serge, 117

Battye, Colonel, 263

Bavaria, Prince Rupprecht of, 98

Bean, Mr., Australian chronicler, quoted, 91, 175, 220

Beaumont Hamel, 3, 5, 37

Bellewarde Ridge, 151

Belsham, Captain, 67

Benzeery, Lieutenant, 295

Berners, Brigadier-General, 85

Bird wood, General Sir William, 4

Bixschoote, 137, 156

Bols, General Sir L., 109

Bourlon, 238, 257, 258, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 269, 282, 283, 289,
290, 292

Bourlon Wood, 251, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 264, 267, 289,
296

Bowell, Lieutenant, D.S.O., 119

Bradford, General, 267

Braithwaite, General, 243, 245

British extend their front in France, 1

British Armies, general disposition of, in beginning of 1917, 2

Broodseinde, 195, 206, 211, 212, 222

Brown, Brigadier-General, 99

Brusiloff, General, 132

Bullecourt, 11, 58, 87, 90-92, 237, 239, 252

Burstall, General, 41

Byng, General Sir Julian, 21, 115, 238, 255, 285, 296, 297, 298



Cambrai, 192, 237, 238, 247, 248, 251, 253, 255

Cambrai, battle of: Tanks _en masse_, 238, 242; attack on Tunnel
Trench, 239-242; great advance, 242-243; work of Sixty-second
Division, 243-244; advance of Fifty-first Division, 245-246; Fort
Garry Horse, 246; attack of the Twenty-ninth Division on Marcoing and
Mesnières, 247-249; advance of Twentieth and Twelfth Divisions,
249-251; German rally, 253-256; attack on and capture of Bourlon
Wood, 257-260; fight for Bourlon village, 261-264: attack on La
Fontaine, 265-267; great German attack, 269; the Fifty-fifth,
Twelfth, and Twentieth Divisions, 270-275, 276-278; great fight of
the Twenty-ninth Division, 275-276, 278-282; advance of the Guards,
282-286; capture of Gouzeaucourt, 284; battle in Bourlon sector,
288-297; retraction of British line, 297; observations on Cambrai
battle, 297-298

Campbell, General, 25

Campbell, Major, 101

Canal de l'Escaut, 247, 255

Canal du Nord, 243, 291, 298

Caporetto, Italian disaster at, 234, 236

Cator, General, 92

Cavan, General Lord, 137, 138, 145, 162, 163, 167, 181, 202, 214,
224, 237

Charlton, General, 103

Chemin des Dames, 64

Cherisy, 76, 77

Chidlow-Roberts, Captain, 120

Cojeul River, 25, 45, 50, 52, 66, 80, 85

Cooper, Colonel Elliott, V.C., 274

Cooper, Sergeant, V.C., 166

Corfe, Colonel, 190

Corps, Lieutenant, 291

Cousens, Captain, 28

Crevecourt, 248, 255, 279

Crow, Captain, 275

Currie, General Sir A., 41



Davies, Sergeant-Major, 261

De Crespigny, General, 283, 284

De Lisle, General, 275, 282

Deverell, General, 79

Dove, Captain, 166

Du Cane, General, 61



Edwards, Sergeant-Major, 291

Elles, General, 238, 242

Evans, Private Ellis H., 144



Fairbrass, Sergeant, 291

Fanshawe, General Sir E. A., 4, 5, 183, 196

Fayet, capture of, 15, 62

Fergusson, General Sir Charles, 21, 36, 48, 72

Fielding, General Lord, 267

Flesquières, 244, 245, 248, 254, 256, 296

Fontaine, Colonel de la, 154

Fontaine, 256, 257, 258, 265, 266, 288, 289

France: co-operation with British at third battle of Ypres, 134, 137,
156; attack and victory on the Aisne, 64, 234; victory at Verdun,
178; sends troops to help Italy, 236, 237

Freeman, Lieutenant, 190

Fresnoy, 76, 82, 83-84



Gavrelle, 54, 65, 69, 70, 73, 81, 82

Geddes, Sir Eric, 3

Geddes, Captain, 159

Gee, Captain, V.C., 279

General survey of early months of 1917, 16-19

Germany's declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare, 18

Gheluvelt, 228, 229

Glencorse Wood, 151, 153, 154, 159, 161, 173, 175, 176, 187, 198

Godley, General Sir A., 97, 205

Gonnelieu, 242, 275, 276, 285, 286, 287, 298

Gordon, General Sir Alex. Hamilton, 97

Gorringe, General, 174, 295

Gort, Colonel Lord, 140, 226

Gott, Lieutenant, 125

Gough, General Sir Hubert, 2, 4, 7, 16, 25, 58, 61, 96, 114, 133,
138, 155, 179, 181

Gouzeaucourt, 275, 283, 284

Graham, Major, 119

Graincourt, 244, 252

Greer, Colonel, 140

Guémappe, 47, 49, 52, 68, 70

Gwynn, Mr. Stephen, M.P., 103



Haig, Field-Marshal Sir Douglas, 4, 16, 20, 56, 62, 64, 92, 133, 134,
135, 155, 162, 179, 194, 212, 213, 222, 225, 233, 237, 244, 255, 256,
282, 299

Haine, Lieutenant, V.C., 74, 75, 76

Haking, General Sir R., 237

Haldane, General Sir J., 21, 30, 36, 40, 238, 239, 241

Hall, Sergeant-Major, 262

Harper, General, 145

Harrison, Lieutenant, V.C., 82

Harston, Captain, 204

Havrincourt, 244, 252

Henderson, Lieutenant, V.C., 67

Henty, Major, 273

Hermies, 242

Hermon, Colonel, 39

Hickie, General Sir W., 102

Higgins, Brigadier-General, 183

Hindenburg, Marshal von, 15

Hindenburg Line, the, 45, 56, 59, 66, 87, 90, 91, 92, 237, 239, 242,
243, 245, 246, 247, 250, 253, 257, 265, 267, 277, 288, 290, 297, 298

Hindenburg Line, the, defined, 11

Hitchings, Lieutenant, 82

Hoare, Captain, 250

Holland, General, 41, 55, 115

Holmes, General, 101

Horne, General Sir H., 2, 20, 115

Houthulst Forest, 134, 137, 202, 214, 226

Hull, General, 27



Inverness Wood, 154, 159, 160, 162, 173, 175, 176, 189

Isonzo front, successful attack on, by the Italians, 178

Italy: successful attack on the Isonzo front, 178; disaster at
Caporetto, 234, 236; effect of collapse on Western offensive, 236;
French and British send help, 236, 237



Jacob, General Sir C., 4, 8, 137, 150, 151, 162, 172, 231

James, Colonel, 272

Jarvis, Colonel, 190

Jenkinson, Sergeant, 221

Jeudwine, General Sir Hugh, 269

Johnson, General Bulkeley, 48



Kennedy, Brigadier-General, 296

Kennedy, Colonel, 260

Kettle, Professor, 103

Kincaid-Smith, General, 99

Knapp, Father, 140

Korniloff, General, 132

Kut, recapture of, 17



La Basseville, 131, 132, 155

Laffert, General von, 98

Lagnicourt, 58, 60, 90

Lambton, General, 37

Langemarck, 164, 166, 167, 181, 203

La Vacquerie, 249, 250, 274, 285, 283, 287, 288

Leadbeater, Sergeant, 118

Lees, Captain David, 140

Legg, Sergeant, 291

Lens, 20, 54, 56, 89, 226, 232

Lens, operations round, 115-123

Les Rues Vertes, 247, 277, 279, 280

Leveson-Gower, Brigadier-General, 168

Lipsett, General, 41

Lloyd, Captain, 287

Lodge, Sergeant, 291

Lomax, Lieutenant, 13, 14

Lukin, General, 36

Lumsden, Major, V.C., 13, 14



McCracken, General Sir F., 21, 54

Macdowell, Major, V.C., 42

McGowan, Captain, 90

McGrady, Private, 128

MacNamara, Major, 90

MacReady-Diarmid, Captain, V.C., 292

Marcoing, 247, 248, 253, 273, 276, 278, 288

Martin, Captain, 129

Marwitz, General von, 270

Matheson, General, 203

Maude, General Sir F. S., 17

Maxse, General Sir Ivor, 21, 137, 145, 162, 167, 183, 195, 216, 217,
223, 226, 227

Menin Road, 153, 179, 190, 193, 194, 195, 198, 199, 202, 209, 210,
211, 222, 228

Mesnières, 247, 248, 249, 253, 254, 270, 273, 277, 278, 282, 288

Mesopotamia, operations in: recapture of Kut, 17; capture of Bagdad,
17

Messines, 44, 57, 95, 97, 98, 115, 134, 135, 179

Messines, battle of: preparations for the battle, 96; composition of
British line, 96-97; advance of Australians and New Zealanders,
97-99; capture of Messines village, 98; Wytschaete captured by the
Irish Divisions, 102-104; general advance and capture of Messines
Ridge, 106-110; results of battle, 110-112

Monash, General Sir John, 97

Monchy, 35, 44, 46-48, 49, 50, 51, 52

Morland, General Sir T., 96, 107, 138, 155, 190, 208, 210

Mœuvres, 257, 258, 289, 290



Nicholson, General, 37

Nieuport, 123, 130

Norman, Colonel, 144

Nugent, General, 102



O'Brien, Lieutenant, 74

Oppy, 54, 65, 73, 76, 81, 117

Osmond, Major, 74, 76



Page, Colonel, 146

Parsons, Sergeant, 291

Paschendaale, 200, 211, 213, 217, 220, 222, 225, 230, 231, 238

Pears, Colonel, 280

Peddie, Major, 223

Pereira, General, 53, 289, 295

Peronne, capture of, 10

Phillips, Mr. Percival, quoted, 279

Phillips, Sergeant, 291

Pilkem, 142, 143, 144, 156

Pinney, General, 46, 66, 193

Ploegstrate, 94

Plumer, General Sir Herbert, 2, 95, 96, 110, 115, 134, 138, 154, 155,
162, 179, 181, 187, 212, 237

Poelcapelle, 203, 204, 213, 216, 224

Polderhoek, 209, 210, 222, 228, 232, 298

Pollard, Lieutenant, V.C., 74, 75, 76

Polygon Wood, 188, 193, 196, 200, 208, 209

Pope, Lieutenant, 60

Prioleau, Colonel, 166

Pulteney, General Sir W., 238, 252



Radice, Colonel, 144

Rawlinson, General Sir Henry, 1, 2, 4, 8, 61, 114

Redmond, Major W., M.P., 103

Reed, General, 149

Regiments:

_Artillery--_

R.F.A., 13, 104, 274

Honourable Artillery Company, 74, 221

_Cavalry--_

Royal Horse Guards, 47

2nd Dragoon Guards, 252

4th Dragoon Guards, 252

2nd Dragoons, 263

5th Dragoons, 263

5th Lancers, 251

10th Hussars, 47

11th Hussars, 244, 263

15th Hussars, 261

19th Hussars, 262

20th Hussars, 285

Bedford Yeomanry, 263

Essex Yeomanry, 47

Fort Garry Horse, 246

King Edward's Horse, 244

Lucknow Cavalry Brigade, 10

Northumberland Hussars, 276

Umballa Brigade, 254

_Guards--_

Coldstream, 138, 139, 140, 215, 266, 284, 285

Grenadier, 139, 140, 141, 264, 266, 284, 285, 286

Irish, 138, 139, 140, 141, 215, 260, 267, 284

Scots, 139, 140, 264, 266

Welsh, 139, 285, 286

_Infantry--_

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 31, 66, 67, 193, 198, 261

Bedford, 26, 74, 75, 160, 161

Berkshire, 12, 146, 147, 174, 250, 273, 293, 295

Black Watch, 31, 92, 146, 147, 199

Border, 15, 92, 100, 104, 113, 131, 208, 228, 279

Buffs (East Kent), 79, 251, 275

Cambridge, 146, 147, 199

Cameron Highlanders, 159, 185

Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), 35

Cheshire, 14, 100, 106, 146, 147, 160, 161, 191, 225

Connaught Rangers, 103, 170, 240

Devon, 84, 92, 208, 209

Dublin Fusiliers, 85, 168, 169, 240

Duke of Cornwall's, 70, 83, 175, 209

Durham Light Infantry, 82, 164, 175, 189, 247

East Lancashire, 40, 85, 88, 203, 219

East Surrey, 31, 83, 154, 251, 263, 264, 275

East Yorkshire, 82, 209

Essex, 34, 40, 50, 51, 77, 216, 224, 250, 273, 287, 291

Gloucester, 12, 83, 174, 191, 204, 225

Gordon Highlanders, 31, 32, 33, 88, 159, 208, 228

Hampshire, 40, 50, 51, 85, 104, 189, 199, 203, 216, 241

Highland Light Infantry, 12, 13, 15, 35, 131, 186, 194, 198, 263, 294

Inniskilling Fusiliers, 102, 103, 168, 169, 170, 279

King's Liverpool, 148, 164, 166, 185

King's Own Royal Lancaster, 33, 40, 47, 148, 149, 184, 263, 264, 272

King's Own Scottish Borderers, 35, 209

King's Royal Rifles, 14, 29, 48, 77, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129,
166, 181, 189, 190, 194, 210, 249, 250, 277, 285, 287, 293, 294

Lancashire Fusiliers, 40, 81, 100, 131, 148, 160, 161, 177, 184, 219,
225, 249, 279

Leicester, 116, 118, 154, 246

Leinster, 55, 102, 103, 170

Lincoln, 104, 105, 116, 118, 210, 223

Liverpool, 26, 27, 32, 152, 183, 194, 198, 272

Liverpool Scottish, 272

London Rifle Brigade, 80

London Scottish, 28, 291

London Irish, 296

1st London, 27, 28, 78

2nd London, 80, 183, 184, 291

3rd London, 27

4th London, 184

6th London, 183, 296

8th London, 183

9th London (Queen Victoria Rifles), 27, 28, 80

15th London (Civil Service), 296, 297

15th London (Queen's Westminsters), 80, 257, 291

15th London (Blackheath), 296

15th London (Poplar), 296

15th London (Post Office Rifles), 291

15th London (St. Pancras), 296

Manchester, 12, 13, 27, 152, 153, 219, 228

Middlesex, 27, 28, 31, 55, 66, 67, 78, 86, 88, 169, 193, 194, 204,
210, 249, 250, 261, 262, 276, 278, 279, 280, 291, 292

Munster Fusiliers, 103, 104, 231, 240

Norfolk, 77, 224, 246, 250, 274

Northampton, 55, 124, 127, 129, 152, 154, 159, 273

North Lancashire, 100, 125, 148, 160, 184

North Staffordshire, 8, 118, 119, 154, 191

Northumberland Fusiliers, 39, 49, 53, 89, 131, 189, 209, 224

Oxford and Bucks, 29, 77, 166, 174, 250, 294

Queen's (West Surrey), 31, 154, 161, 194, 198, 208, 228, 251, 276

Rifle Brigade, 40, 48, 55, 77, 85, 109, 154, 166, 181, 189, 210, 216,
255, 277

Royal Fusiliers, 29, 32, 46, 66, 74, 75, 109, 176, 189, 210, 249,
250, 274, 279, 293, 294, 295

Royal Irish, 102, 241

Royal Irish Fusiliers, 102, 103, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 241

Royal Irish Rifles, 99, 100, 102, 104, 160, 161, 168, 169, 172

Royal Scots, 33, 78, 186

Royal Scots Fusiliers, 31, 152, 186

Royal West Kent, 190, 209, 228, 251

Seaforth Highlanders, 38, 39, 80, 81, 186, 203

Sherwood Foresters, 14, 70, 104, 105, 118, 119, 152, 159, 190, 225,
246

Shropshire, 33, 166, 175, 176

Somerset Light Infantry, 40, 80, 175, 203, 210

South Lancashire, 100, 113, 184, 185, 272, 273

South Staffordshire, 8, 104, 117, 208, 228, 291

South Wales Borderers, 106, 113, 143, 161, 231, 260, 279, 282

Suffolk, 32, 88, 198, 224, 250, 262, 263, 273

Sussex, 31, 55, 79, 125, 164, 193, 199, 250

Tyneside Scottish, 53

Warwick, 204, 221, 228

Welsh, 106, 142, 143, 191, 260, 261

Welsh Fusiliers, 31, 32, 66, 106, 141, 142, 143, 144, 197, 260

West Riding, 40, 81, 189, 244, 253, 254, 265

West Yorkshire, 32, 49, 82, 172, 189, 217, 256

Wiltshire, 100, 191

Worcester, 50, 51, 100, 161, 191, 194, 204, 214, 216

York and Lancaster, 82, 217, 244, 256

Yorkshire, 189, 261, 262

Yorkshire Light Infantry, 15, 166, 209, 217, 244

------

Royal Engineers, 47, 101, 104, 105, 141, 161, 216, 241, 284

Tunnelling Companies, 22, 241

Royal Naval Division, 53, 54, 70, 74, 226, 227, 298

1st Marines, 55, 74, 75

_Overseas Forces--_

Australians, 5, 10, 11, 14, 58, 59, 60, 61, 76, 90, 91, 92, 97, 98,
101, 127, 128, 156, 187, 188, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 205, 206, 220,
223, 227, 229

New Zealanders, 97, 98, 99, 101, 114, 131, 132, 155, 156, 205, 211,
223, 224, 299

Canadians, 21, 38, 41, 42, 43, 54, 55, 73, 82, 83, 84, 116, 117, 121,
122, 123, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232

Newfoundland Regiment, 50, 215, 216, 248, 278, 282

South Africans, 37, 52, 53, 185, 186, 187

Reutel, 208, 209, 210, 221

Ritchie, General, 195

Ritchie, Captain, 141

Robertson, Colonel Forbes, V.C., 51, 280

Robinson, Captain, 291

Rœux, 48, 52, 65, 68, 72, 73, 80, 84, 85

Romilly, Colonel, 140

Russell, General Sir A., 98

Russia: revolution in, 17, 65; collapse of, before Central Powers,
132; effect of revolution in, on Allied offensive in the West, 235

Rutter, Lieutenant, 67



St. Eloi, 97

St. Julien, 145, 146, 147, 156, 158, 174, 182, 192, 195

St. Rohart, 76, 78, 79

Sanctuary Wood, 150, 152

Scarpe River, 31, 36, 37, 40, 50, 52, 68, 69, 72, 76, 78, 79, 84, 86

Selency, capture of guns at, 12-14

Sensée River, 66, 87

Serre, 6, 7

Sheepshanks, Colonel, 277

Shepherd, Private, V.C., 250

Shute, General, 106, 124, 131

Sinai Peninsula, progress in, 17

Slade, Captain, 164

Smith, Colonel, 27

Snow, General Sir T., 21, 25, 45, 65, 76, 238, 252, 269, 270

Soissons, 9, 10

Souchez River, 115, 121

Steenbeek, the, 143, 146, 147, 163, 166, 184, 189

Stone, Captain, 295

Stonebanks, Lieutenant, 176

Strachan, Lieutenant Henry, V.C., 246

Strickland, General, 123, 124

Symon, Captain, 159



Taylor, Colonel, 144

Tollemache, Colonel, 129



Valentin, Lieutenant, 295

Vendhuille, 270, 298

Verdun, French victory at, 178

Villers-Guislain, 237, 272, 273, 275

Vimy Ridge, 21, 41-43, 54, 94, 134



Wallace, Lieutenant, V.C., 274

Wambach, Private, 129

Ward, Captain, 129

Ward, Lieutenant, 13, 14

Warden, Colonel, D.S.O., 263, 264

Watson, General, 41

Watts, General Sir H., 137, 145, 147, 149, 162, 167

Westhoek, 151, 159, 160, 161, 162

Wiart, Colonel Carton de, 85

Williams, General, 109

Wilson, President, 18

Woolcombe, General, 238, 288, 296

Woolley, Lieutenant, 190

Wytschaete, 94, 97, 103



Ypres, 57, 94, 95, 133, 134, 154, 162

Ypres, third battle of: British and German preparation before the
battle detailed, 133-136; French co-operation, 134, 137, 156; advance
of the Guards, 138-141; advance of the Welsh Division and capture of
Pilkem village, 141-145; capture of St. Julien, 146, 147; advance of
Fifty-fifth and Fifteenth Divisions, 147-150; of Second Army Corps,
150-155; first day's operations reviewed, 156-157; German
counter-attacks, 158-159, 160-161; attack of Fourteenth Corps,
163-167; capture of Langemarck, 164; losses of the Irish Divisions,
168-172; work of the Field Artillery, 175; engagement of the Second
Army, 179; September 20, 180-192; advance of the Fifty-fifth
Division, 183-185; advance of the Ninth Division, 185-187; of the
Australians, 187-188; German counter-attack, 192-195; advance renewed
on September 26, 195-200; attack of October 4, 202-212; further
British advance, 213-222; advance of Territorials, 218-220; H.A.C. at
Reutel, 221; action of October 12, 222-224; action of October 26,
225; fine fighting by the Canadians, 226-231; capture of
Paschendaale, 230; general results of the third battle of Ypres,
232-233

Yser River, fight of the King's Royal Rifles and the Northamptons at,
123-130



Zonnebeke, 169, 170, 172, 181, 202, 214



THE END



_Printed in Great Britain by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh._









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