Facing Fearful Odds
This is how some twenty-six British soldiers faced 3,500 Germans after
the evacuation of Mons. The British forces reluctantly retreated.
As they were only giving ground step by step, twenty-six Fusiliers
entrenched themselves in a farm overlooking a long, straight road.
They were in possession of several machine guns and these they placed
inside the doors of the farm house. "Now, boys," shouted one of the
twenty-six, "we are going to cinematograph the grey devils when they
come along. This is going to be Coronation Day. Let each of us take as
many pictures as possible." As soon as the Germans appeared on the road
and started attacking a canal bridge the Fusiliers very coolly turned
the handle of their guns.
The picture witnessed from the farm on the "living screen" by the canal
bridge was one that will not easily be forgotten. The "grey devils"
dropped down in hundreds. Again and again they came on only to get more
machine murder. At length they thought that it was wiser to continue
their march and leave alone the twenty-six who had for a considerable
time delayed it.
A well-known Member of Parliament, when visiting a locality in France
where there had been much fighting, came to a lonely wood. Around a
large tree were significant mounds enclosed by a palisade on which were
hanging laurel wreaths. On a part of the tree from which the bark had
been stripped was a rude inscription: "Here lie the bodies of twenty
English heroes." This was a German tribute to our countrymen, who had
fought to the last against overwhelming odds. The enemy admiring their
bravery, had buried them and left this record. A company of French
soldiers passing through the wood later on saw it. They stayed to erect
the palisade to guard the graves, and upon it they hung twenty laurel
wreaths.
One of the Lancashire Fusiliers when left behind at Mons continued to
fire until his last cartridge was gone. His bayonet was also gone, so
he stood up with folded arms until he was shot down.
Here is how the brigade to which the Welsh regiment belonged faced
fearful odds.
"'The contemptible little Army' were opposed by 300,000 Germans. Our
brigade got a position that, had the enemy made a dash at us, we should
have been overwhelmed. Had they had the pluck they could have come
over a ridge and mowed us down, for we were all in a valley, but our
General knew we were safe from any attack in the open. All they did was
to keep up a terrible artillery fire. Shrapnel shells were bursting
over us, but amid all this we took heed of only one word, 'Advance,'
and advance we did. Our regiment had a centre position. On we all
went. We neared the crest of the hill behind which was our goal. About
twenty yards from the crest we lay down and our company commander,
Captain Haggard, advanced to the top, saw the Germans and then shouted,
'Fix bayonets, boys, here they are.' What an officer! What a soldier!
He himself used a rifle. We 'fixed' and were prepared to follow him
anywhere, but we were checked by a storm of maxim fire. We knew by the
sound that we were up against a tremendous force. There was only one
game to play now--bluff them into the belief that we were as strong as
themselves, so we were ordered 'rapid firing,' which gives an enemy
the impression that the firing force is strong. We popped away like
this for three hours, never moving an inch from our position, and our
officers standing up to locate the enemy every now and again. We lost
four officers in about twenty minutes. Men were getting hit, bullets
coming at us from our front and both flanks. Still we hung on. Just
near me was lying our brave captain mortally wounded. As the shells
burst over us he would occasionally open his eyes, so full of pain,
and call out--but 'twas very weak--'Stick it, Welsh Regiment, stick
it, Welsh.' Many of us wounded managed to crawl up and down the firing
line 'dishing out' the ammunition we were unable to use. So our lads
stuck at it until our artillery got into action. We won. Out in that
field were strewn thousands and thousands of German dead and wounded.
They even piled them up and made barricades of their dead. Towards
dusk, though we were still exposed to terrible shell fire, and to
move was almost courting suicide, several of our lads volunteered to
collect and carry away the wounded. Many got hit in doing so, but they
cared nothing. We were taken to a little farmhouse to wait for the
field ambulance wagons. Officers were telling us yarns, were sending
everywhere for milk and resolutely refused to be bandaged until we were
seen to."
A wounded private of the Royal Munster Fusiliers told the following
story of fighting when the regiment had to bear the brunt of the whole
German attack, while the rest of the brigade fell back: "They came at
us from all points--horse, foot, artillery, and all, and the air was
thick with screaming, shouting men waving swords and blazing away at us
like blue murder. Our lads stood up to them without the least taste
of fear, and when their cavalry came down on us we received them with
fixed bayonets in front, the rear ranks firing away as steadily as you
please. All round us we saw them collecting until there was hardly
a hole fit for a wee mouse to get through, and then it was that the
hardest fight of all took place, for we wouldn't surrender, and tried
our hardest to cut through the stone wall of the Germans.
"It was hell's own work, but we never hoisted the white flag. One of
our men has been recommended for the Distinguished Service Medal. When
the man--who was working the machine gun--was killed he came up and
took his place. Then the gun was smashed altogether, and his hand blown
off with a shell."
The nickname of the regiment is "Dirty Shirts," and because of their
heavy losses on this occasion it was said that the Germans had cleaned
up the "Dirty Shirts." "Well," said an indignant Fusilier, "it was a
moighty expensive washin' for them, anny way."
One of the Irish Dragoon Guards carried a wounded trooper to a
farmhouse under fire. A German patrol called at the house and found
them. From behind a barrier the Dragoons kept the Germans at bay. The
Germans then brought a machine gun up and threatened to destroy the
house. Rather than bring suffering on their hosts or the village
the two hunted men made a rush out with some mad idea, perhaps, of
taking the gun that had been brought against them. They got no further
than the threshold of the door, where they fell dead, their blood
bespattering the walls of the house.
The 4th Royal Fusiliers were in a warm corner. They were being fired
at by outnumbering artillery and infantry, and they were, as one of
them said, "like a lot of schoolboys at a treat" when ordered to fix
bayonets and charge. "We had about 200 yards to cover before we got
near them, and then we let them have it. It put us in mind of tossing
hay, only we had human bodies. I was separated from my neighbours and
was on my own when I was attacked by three Germans. I had a lively time
and was nearly done when a comrade came to my rescue. I had already
made sure of two, but the third would have finished me. I already had
about three inches of steel in my side when my chum finished him."
The special correspondent of _The Daily Mail_ told the following. One
hundred and fifty Highlanders were detailed to hold a bridge over the
river Aisne. The Germans opened fire from the woods around, and another
body of them greatly outnumbering the Highlanders rushed towards the
bridge. For a time they were kept at bay. Then the maxim gun belonging
to the little force ceased its fire, for the whole of its crew had been
killed, and the gun stood there on its tripod silent, amid a ring of
dead bodies. A Highlander ran forward under the bullet storm, seized
the maxim, slung tripod and all on to his back, and carried it at a run
across the exposed bridge to the far side facing the German attack.
The belt of the gun was still charged, and there, absolutely alone,
the soldier sat down in full view of the enemy, and opened a hail of
bullets upon the advancing column. Under the tempest of fire the column
wavered, and then broke. Almost the moment after the Highlander fell
dead beside his gun.
In a night attack upon the Worcester Regiment the Germans used the
bayonet, which they seldom did, and it was far from a success for them,
though there were great masses of them. "We gave them," said a sergeant
of the Worcesters, "one terrible volley, but nothing could have stopped
the ferocious impetus of their attack. For one terrible moment our
ranks bent under the dead weight, but the Germans, too, wavered, and in
that moment we gave them the bayonet, and hurled them back in disorder.
The Germans have the numbers; we have the men."
At Ypres our Army had to face and hold in check 250,000 Germans for
five days. In addition to the ordinary shell and shrapnel there were
shells from heavy siege guns brought from Antwerp. These churned up
the earth in the trenches and often buried our men who lay there. Over
and over again masses of the enemy's infantry advanced within a few
hundred yards. Then they halted and poured in a volley. They had no
relish for a bayonet charge. Over and over again men leapt from the
trenches and went at them with the bayonet. They fled, firing their
rifles over their shoulders as they ran. Many hundreds were captured,
and thousands were mown down with shell, with rifle, and machine-gun
fire. Still their shell and shrapnel rained upon our trenches. Fresh
infantry were brought up. The situation became critical; it seemed as
if our men would be over-borne by sheer weight of numbers. Still they
held on until the fifth day, when relief came and the position was
saved.