WITH THE SECOND CORPS.
The last ten days of October 1914 were days of furious but indecisive
fighting all along the line from Arras to the sea. "The Germans rocked
their attack from side to side, searching for the weak spot. They gained
here; they lost there; but the line remained as it had been when Haig
moved up his First Corps. The British held on, and continued to dig in.
These were days of incessant battering and continual losses; the
hospital trains running back to the base carried as many as 4,000
wounded in one day."
The Germans, as you know, were bent on winning the Channel ports at all
costs. They thought that the capture of Calais and Boulogne would create
a panic in Great Britain, and make us keep our new armies at home for
the defence of our shores, instead of sending them abroad for the
reinforcement of our Allies. They also thought that if the Channel ports
could be captured the British Navy would have to be divided, one portion
keeping watch over the German naval bases on the North Sea, the other
part operating in the English Channel. In this case the Germans hoped
that they might fight and win a naval battle against one part of our
divided fleet. There was a good deal of talk in the German papers about
mounting huge guns at Calais which would command at least half of the
Strait of Dover, and make the dispatch of transports very difficult, if
not impossible.
I have already described the three gates through which the Germans tried
to pierce the Allied line and make their descent on the shores of the
Channel. You know how they were held up at Arras and at La Bassée.
Though they did not cease their efforts to break through these gates
during the latter days of October, they began to direct a great attack
on the bulge in the Allied line to the east of Ypres. Further, they also
attempted to break through by way of the Yser. Military men still wonder
why they continued to fling themselves against four points in the Allied
line, instead of putting forward all their strength against one of them.
We can only be thankful that they wasted their energies in attacking all
these points, when they might have battered with all their force at one.
We will now return to the Second British Corps, which, you will
remember, had been under fire for twelve days, and had become so
exhausted that on 22nd October it was found necessary to withdraw it to
a line running generally from the eastern side of Givenchy, east of
Neuve Chapelle,[51] to a point about four miles south-east of Estaires.
The Lahore Division of the Indian Corps had now arrived, and was about
to receive its baptism of fire. The village of Neuve Chapelle, which was
destined to figure largely in later history, is four miles north of La
Bassée. It was captured by the Germans on the 27th, and its recapture
was entrusted to the Indians. The 28th of October will be ever memorable
in the annals of the Indian army. On that day it first showed its mettle
on a European battlefield.
At Neuve Chapelle our trenches presented a salient[52] which could be
swept by fire on both sides, and the Seaforths, who occupied some of
them, were much exposed, and suffered heavily. The 47th Sikhs, the 9th
Bhopal Infantry, and the 20th and 21st Companies of the 1st Sappers and
Miners were now ordered to advance. They dashed forward with great
spirit, and though they were under artillery fire for the first time,
showed great indifference to the bursting shells. It was noticed that
after the first few had exploded near them they hardly troubled to look
around.
The fighting was of the most desperate and confused character, and the
Germans flung their dead from their trenches to make cover, under which
they advanced. No sooner had the British won a hundred yards of trench
than they were driven back by a counter-attack. The line swayed to and
fro, now in front of the ruins of what had been Neuve Chapelle, now
behind them. Trenches were dug in the streets, and sometimes were only a
few yards apart. Part of Neuve Chapelle was won, but the whole of it
could not be recovered.
Next day there was a terrible fight at Festubert, a village less than
two miles to the north-west of La Bassée. Ever since the 18th of October
the German guns had been pounding the little place, which was held by
the thin line of the 2nd Manchesters. In the early dawn of the 29th the
Germans swarmed out of their trenches and swept down in dense masses on
the British infantry, who were driven back to their supporting trench.
Here they rallied, and thrust back the Germans who followed them. One of
the lost trenches was recaptured by two men--Lieutenant James Leach and
Sergeant Hogan, who were afterwards awarded the Victoria Cross, as you
will hear later.
More Indians now arrived, and the defence of the La Bassée gate was
entrusted to them, to two and a half British brigades, and most of the
Second Corps artillery. Amongst the Indian infantry were the 8th Gurkha
Rifles. You will remember that the Gurkhas are little men. The trenches
which they took over had been dug for taller white men, and they found
that they could not see out of them. The German machine guns
enfiladed[53] the Gurkhas, and most of their white officers fell. Little
wonder that, so placed and so strange to this new kind of warfare, they
were forced back. Wandering in the dark, they managed by good luck to
stumble on the trenches of the 1st Seaforths, a regiment to whom they
are blood brothers.
For the next two days there was a heavy bombardment all along our
position, and especially against the left wing behind Neuve Chapelle. On
2nd November the Germans again pierced the British line in one place,
but a desperate charge of the 2nd Gurkhas, the famous regiment which had
fought so bravely on the ridge at Delhi,[54] saved the situation.
For the next three weeks the troops in this section were engaged in
beating off German attacks, which gradually grew less and less violent
as the Germans concentrated their forces farther north for a great
assault on Ypres. Our line was forced back till it ran from Givenchy, to
which we stubbornly clung, north by Festubert, and onwards towards
Estaires. After an unsuccessful attack on Givenchy (7th November) there
was a fortnight's lull, during which the contest was little more than an
artillery duel.
[Footnote 51: _Noove Sha-pel´._]
[Footnote 52: See Vol. II., p. 16.]
[Footnote 53: Took them in flank and raked them from end to end.]
[Footnote 54: During the Indian Mutiny. The story of the capture of
Delhi is told on p. 149 of this volume.]