Division which was destined to do any fighting this day. The 20th
Brigade, which was at Kruiseik, some couple of miles in advance of the
22nd, never really came into action. As a matter of fact, they were in
the act of deploying for an attack on Ghelowe about 11 a.m., when news
was brought by an airman that two fresh German Army Corps had suddenly
made their appearance, moving up from the direction of Courtrai. As far
as this brigade was concerned, then, the original order to advance was
cancelled, it being clearly impracticable for one division to take the
offensive against four. By this time, however, the 22nd Brigade had
advanced some six miles from Zonnebeke to the neighbourhood of the
straight road and the parallel railway which connect Roulers and Menin.
The news of the unexpected reinforcement of the enemy in front was duly
communicated to General Lawford, commanding the brigade, and he at once
ordered the retirement of his four battalions. This order reached the
Queen's and the Warwicks about 11.30, but did not penetrate through to
the R. Welsh Fusiliers, who accordingly pressed on towards Ledeghem,
quite ignorant of the new development, or of the fact that they were
unsupported by the battalions on either flank. Ledeghem was found to be
very strongly occupied, and on reaching the high road from Roulers to
Menin, just short of the railway, the battalion found itself not only
attacked in force from in front, but at the same time enfiladed from
the direction of the main road on the left, and very heavily shelled
from Keselburg on the right front. To this artillery fire there was no
response whatever from our own gunners, who, it is to be presumed, were
in ignorance of the single-handed advance of the R. Welsh Fusiliers,
and had withdrawn with the rest of the brigade. The German artillery
accordingly had it all its own way, and their shrapnel played havoc in
the ranks of the gallant Welshmen. Nine officers[4] had already fallen
when at 1.20 the order to retire reached the C.O. The order now was
that the battalion was to withdraw to a ridge in rear, near the
windmill at Dadizeele, and there act rear-guard to the rest of the
brigade. This order was carried out without any great further loss, the
enemy showing no disposition at the moment to advance, and eventually
the brigade reached Zonnebeke in the dusk of the evening.
[4] In this engagement Captain Kingston, Captain Lloyd, Captain
Brennan and Lieut. Chance were killed, and Major Gabbett,
Captain St. John, Captain Skaife and Lieuts. Jones and Naylor
were wounded.
Throughout that night a constant stream of refugees passed through
Zonnebeke on their way westward from Roulers, which was burning. These
were all subjected to examination, but their number was too great to
make close examination possible, and that many spies got through among
them is unquestionable.
It very soon became apparent that the newly-arrived German troops had
no intention of letting the grass grow under their feet. During the
night they had put behind them the six miles which separate Ledeghem
from Zonnebeke, and at eleven o'clock on the morning of the 20th they
started bombarding the latter place. Once more fate elected that the R.
Welsh Fusiliers should stand in the path of the attack. They were now
on the left of the 22nd Brigade, and they were attacked not only from
the direction of the road, but from their left flank, which was very
much exposed, the line of the cavalrymen north of the road being even
more extended than that of the 7th Division. However, in spite of
everything, they held their ground with great determination throughout
this day and the next. Their losses, however, were again very severe
indeed. This was, in fact, the first of the 7th Division battalions to
undergo that gradual process of annihilation which was destined in time
to be the fate of all. The extreme tension of the situation at
Zonnebeke was in some part relieved by the arrival on the scene, during
the night, of the 4th (Guards) Brigade, who took over the ground north
of the Zonnebeke road from the cavalry. This brigade formed part of the
1st A.C. which had arrived at St. Omer from the Aisne on the 17th and
18th, and had been billeted outside Ypres on the night of the 19th.
The question as to how best to dispose of this 1st A.C. was an
extremely delicate one. The numerical weakness of the Cavalry Corps,
holding the Wytschate and Messines line, suggested strongly that it
would be of the greatest use in that area. On the other hand was the
very grave danger of the Allies' left flank being turned by the sudden
advance of fresh German forces north and east of Ypres, of sufficient
strength to break through the very thin line guarding that quarter. In
this dilemma, the C. in C., with consummate judgment, decided to send
Sir Douglas Haig's Army Corps to the northern side of Ypres. The wisdom
of this step became apparent on the very next day, that is on the day
when the 22nd Brigade advanced to the Roulers-Menin road, and were
forced back by the unexpected appearance of two Army Corps whose
presence was unknown to our air-scouts. These fresh German forces as we
have seen, pursued the 22nd Brigade as far as Zonnebeke, and there
attacked our line with the utmost determination on the 20th and 21st.
On the first of these two days, the brigade, as already described,
managed to hold its own--though at great sacrifice--but the German
attacking force was all the time being augmented, while our defensive
force, owing to continuous losses, was getting weaker; and it is hardly
conceivable that the enemy's advance could have been checked for
another twenty-four hours, except for the timely arrival of the 1st
A.C.
As soon as the destination of this corps had been decided on between
the C. in C. and Sir Douglas Haig, the latter hurried forward the
Guards' Brigade to the assistance of the 7th Division, and these--as
has already been explained--came up into line on the left of the R.
Welsh Fusiliers on the night of the 20th, and were unquestionably very
largely instrumental in preventing something in the nature of a
_debacle_ on the 21st.
On that morning the enemy renewed the attack in great force at
daybreak, and kept up a succession of violent assaults till four in the
afternoon. The Welsh Fusiliers were again in the very path of the
attack, but the presence of the Guards' Brigade on their left, north of
the Zonnebeke road, just made the difference. With this backing, they
successfully held out from daybreak till 4 p.m., by which time their
trenches had been wholly annihilated and a retirement became necessary.
Their difficulties were increased by the giving out of their
ammunition, but the situation was to some extent saved by the gallantry
of Sergt.-Drummer Chapman, who brought up fresh supplies under a very
heavy fire. Another Welsh Fusilier who won great distinction during the
day was Pte. Blacktin, who was awarded the D.C.M. for the continued
heroism with which he attended to the wounded throughout the two days'
fighting. Of these there were now, unfortunately, only too many, the
Welsh Fusiliers having--in three successive days' fighting--lost 23
officers and 750 men. Their retirement in the evening was assisted by
the 2nd Queen's, who (with the exception of one company, which was away
to the right, supporting the Northumberland Hussars between the 22nd
and 21st Brigade) were in the second line. This battalion too suffered
severely during the operations, Lieuts. Ingram and Ive being killed,
and Major Whinfield, Lieuts. Heath, Haigh, Williams and Gabb wounded.
They effectively, however, checked the further advance of the enemy. By
a piece of good fortune the S. Staffords, on the right of the Welsh
Fusiliers, were also in a position to give the advancing Germans a very
bad time. They had a body of expert shots posted in the upper windows
of St. Joseph's school, from which point of vantage they were able to
get the Germans in flank. The school was being shelled all the time,
but was not hit. During the night which followed, however--a night of
exceptional darkness--the Germans found an opportunity of pushing
forward round the left flank of the S. Staffords, but without
succeeding in dislodging them, till an order arrived at four o'clock in
the morning for their retirement, as they were ahead of the line.
In the meanwhile the Guards' Brigade, north of the road, had not been
idle, and it is not too much to say that, except for the arrival of
this brigade in the very nick of time, the position would have been
very nearly desperate. As it was, however, their presence at once made
itself felt. The fire of the S. Staffords from the right, the Guards'
Brigade from the left, and the 2nd Queen's from in face, was more than
the German advance was prepared at the moment to push forward against,
and it came to a standstill. The Guards' casualties were considerable,
especially in the case of the 3rd Coldstream, who had the Hon. C. Monck
and Lieut. Waller killed, and Colonel Feilding, Lieut. Darrell and
Lieut. Leese wounded. Lord Feilding was given the D.S.O. for
conspicuous gallantry on this occasion. The 52nd Oxford Light Infantry,
acting with the Guards' Brigade, proved in every way worthy of the
association, and fully lived up to its great fighting reputation.
Amongst those who particularly distinguished themselves in this
regiment during the fight were Lieut. Spencer, Corpl. Hodges and Pte.
Hastings.
In the events of these three days is to be found the origin of the
singular bulge, or--in military parlance--salient, which throughout
October characterized the disposition of our forces east of Ypres. By
the unexpected appearance to our front of 80,000 fresh German troops,
our contemplated progress eastward had perforce to be replaced, on the
spur of the moment, by a grim determination to hold on as long as
possible to the ground we had already won. This was, no doubt, a
natural desire, but its fruit was unsound.
On the evening of October 21st the position was that the 21st Brigade
at Becelaere and the 20th at Kruiseik and Zandvoorde were still very
considerably ahead of the 22nd, which, as we have seen, had been driven
back to Zonnebeke. North of Zonnebeke the line of the 1st Division fell
still further back, facing, in fact, very nearly due north, while south
of Zandvoorde there was no line at all, the 7th Division here ending in
space, for reasons already given. Later on the 3rd Cavalry
Division--when released from its duties north of Zonnebeke--were
detailed for the duty of keeping up the communication between
Zandvoorde and the Cavalry Corps far back at Hollebeke, Wytschate and
Messines, but even so, the line they occupied fell back almost at
right angles from our true front, and was a constant source of anxiety.
For a General voluntarily to relinquish ground already won is probably
the supreme act of renunciation, at the same time it is obvious that
three sides of a square are longer than the fourth side, and therefore
require more men for their defence, and it is no exaggeration to say
that between October 20th and 26th the Ypres salient bore a perilous
resemblance to three sides of a square.
The timely arrival of the 1st A.C. had undoubtedly saved the situation
for the moment, as far as the German attempt to break through at
Zonnebeke was concerned, but the position was still one for the very
gravest anxiety. Even with the addition of the 1st A.C. we had only
three infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades with which to defend
the entire front from Bixschoote, due north of Ypres, to Hollebeke,
nearly due south of it. From Bixschoote to Hollebeke, as the crow
flies, is a matter of some eight miles, but, as our front at that time
jutted out as far as Becelaere, six miles east of Ypres, it may be
reckoned that the frontage to be defended was not less than sixteen
miles in length. The strength of the enemy--that is to say, of the
force which was immediately pressing forward at this moment on the
Ypres frontage--may be approximately reckoned at 100,000; and had the
German General at this juncture pushed his forces along all the main
avenues to Ypres, it is difficult to see how he could have been held
back. The line of defence was ridiculously extended--extended indeed
far beyond the recognized limits of effective resistance, and there
were no reserves available with which to strengthen any threatened
spot. Every fighting man was in the long, thin line that swept round in
that uncomfortable curve from Bixschoote to Hollebeke. The 89th French
Territorial Division was, it is true, in general reserve, at
Poperinghe, but this division was composed entirely of untried troops
who could in no sense claim to be comparable to the French regulars.
The 87th French Territorial Division, again, had as much as it could do
to attend to its own affairs north of Ypres, and was not to be counted
on as a source of reinforcement.
From this time on, the whole of our line north of the Zonnebeke road
was gradually taken over by the 1st A.C., the 6th and 7th C.B., who had
so far been responsible for that section of the front, being thereby
released and retiring to Hooge, from which point, for the time being,
they acted as a kind of mobile reserve--the fan-like arrangement of
roads which branches out eastward from Ypres enabling them to be sent
with the least possible delay to any threatened point on the front.
For purposes of descriptive clearness, it may perhaps be pardonable,
even at the risk of labouring the point a little, to call attention
once more to the fact that the British force in Flanders now consisted
of two distinct and separate armies, which we may call the North and
South Army. The South Army was made up of the 2nd A.C., the 3rd A.C.,
and the 19th Brigade, and was supported by Conneau's cavalry, which
operated between these two Army Corps, and by the Lahore Indians in
rear. The line of this army extended as far north as Le Gheir, or,
rather, let us say, Ploegsteert, to which place the left of the 3rd
A.C. shortly withdrew.
The North Army consisted of the 1st A.C. and the 7th Division,
supported by the 3rd Cavalry Division, and the southernmost point in
its charge at the moment was Hollebeke, or, to be more precise, the
canal which turns off sharply towards Ypres just north of Hollebeke.
The eight miles gap between the North Army and the South Army was held
by the Cavalry Corps under Allenby.
The terrific fighting, then, of the end of October and beginning of
November may be considered as taking place in three distinct sections,
viz.--the South Army, the Cavalry Corps, and the North Army. The
latter, it may be added, had the 89th French Territorial Division in
support, and Gen. Bidon, with the 87th French Territorial Division, on
its left, north of Ypres.
The fact that the 1st A.C. had arrived on the scene absolutely at the
psychological moment in order to avert disaster, was made abundantly
clear, not only by the effective support which the 2nd Division of that
Army Corps was able to lend north of the Zonnebeke road on the 21st,
but also by the immediate demand which arose further south for the
services of the released 3rd Cavalry Division. These two Cavalry
Brigades, it will be remembered, had been replaced on the night of the
20th by the 2nd Division, who had taken over their position north of
the Zonnebeke road.
At 1 p.m. on the following day, that is, at the same time that the
Welsh Fusiliers were being so fiercely attacked along the Zonnebeke
road, news arrived that Gough's 2nd Cavalry Division was being very
hard pressed, and had been forced to fall back on Messines. This left a
gap, or--to be more accurate--widened the gap on the right of the 7th
Division at Zandvoorde, and the 6th C.B. (10th Hussars, Royals, and 3rd
Dragoon Guards) were sent off to fill it, as well as might be, by
occupying the two canal crossings north of Hollebeke. This they did
with success, and the 10th Hussars and 4th Hussars (from the 3rd C.B.)
even attacked the Chateau de Hollebeke itself, but were unable to take
it, on account of its being still under fire from our own artillery.
Later on in the evening, however, it was felt that the line south-west
of Zandvoorde was dangerously open, and the 6th C.B. was shifted in
that direction, the 10th Hussars at 3 o'clock in the morning taking
over the Zandvoorde trenches from the 2nd Scots Guards in the 20th
Brigade. The 7th C.B. went into reserve at St. Eloi, where it remained
for the night. In the meanwhile the C. in C. had sent up the 7th Indian
Brigade to help support Gough.
This transfer of the Zandvoorde trenches into the keeping of the 3rd
Cavalry Division was the first abridgement of the immense frontage
(from Zonnebeke to south of Zandvoorde) held by the 7th Division. From
this time on, till the moment when they were permanently abandoned, it
will be found that these Zandvoorde trenches were in the occupation
either of the 6th C.B. or the 7th C.B. They formed the most dangerous
position in the whole line of defence, being in the form of a
promontory which jutted out defiantly into the enemy's country. The 3rd
Cavalry Division suffered very severely during its nine days' defence
of these deadly trenches, the 10th Hussars, who were perhaps the worst
sufferers, losing on the very first day of occupation Col. Barnes,
Major Mitford and Captain Stewart.
THE STAND OF THE FIFTH DIVISION[5]
In the meanwhile, further south, at and around Givenchy, a situation
was developing which in point of dramatic interest, and as a test of
indomitable resolution, bid fair to rival the defence of Ypres. From
Givenchy to Le Gheir the 2nd and 3rd A.C. had now definitely assumed
the defensive, and the story of how that defence was maintained in the
face of overwhelming odds, and under conditions of extreme difficulty
and fatigue, is one of which Britain may ever be justly proud.
[5] 13th, 14th and 15th Brigades.
The 21st French Army was, throughout these La Bassee operations,
responsible for the ground up to the canal south of Givenchy. From that
point the 5th Division took up the line; then came the 3rd Division,
then the 6th, and finally, with its left resting on Le Gheir, the 4th
Division. Behind the 5th and 3rd Divisions were the Indians.
Between Le Gheir and Zandvoorde, which we may take as the southernmost
point of the arm of Ypres, was Allenby's Cavalry Corps.
In the case of the South Army, as with the Army of Ypres, the impetus
of the first advance had carried our troops to a line which was only
afterwards maintained under great strain, in the face of the masses of
troops which the enemy were gradually concentrating in this particular
area. La Bassee and Ypres became, for the time being, the two points on
which German attention was specially riveted. With the avowed intention
of breaking through to Calais by one or other of these routes, troops
were being systematically railed up from the east and massed along the
Belgian frontier. It was officially computed that by October 20th there
were 250,000 German troops north of La Bassee, and that by the middle
of November that number had been increased to 750,000.
The fact that it was the British Army which stood between this vast
mass of armed men and its projected advance was in all probability not
entirely a matter of chance. If the attempt to break through either at
Ypres or La Bassee had succeeded, the little British force would either
have been wiped out, or hopelessly disgraced in the eyes of its allies.
In either case the prestige of England would have received a rude
shock; and, with a German base established at Calais, she would have
been in imminent danger of losing something more than prestige.
The fact, then, that the Kaiser's selected road to Calais or Paris, as
the case might be, lay through the thirty miles of front held by the
British troops, was in all probability part of a carefully-thought-out
plan. One factor in the case, however, had been overlooked, or at least
under-rated, viz.--the indomitable tenacity of the British soldier in
the face of difficulties. Of this essentially British quality the
Germans had as yet had no practical experience. At Mons and Le Cateau
we had dropped back before their onslaughts--dropped back, it is true,
in obedience to orders, and in conformity with a pre-arranged plan.
Still, we had dropped back. At the Aisne there had been no serious
attempt on the part of the enemy to break through our lines. Such had
not been part of the German programme at the moment. It was therefore
not wholly unnatural, that the very thin British line between Givenchy
and Ypres, should have been reckoned at German Head Quarters as being
penetrable at any point where sufficient pressure was brought to bear.
In the face of beliefs such as these, the stone-wall resistance put up
by our three war-worn Army Corps must have been a source of equal
astonishment and exasperation to the wire-pullers in Berlin. To the
Britisher it must always bring a thrill of justifiable pride. Many of
the regiments engaged were technically "annihilated." Their officers
went; their senior N.C.O.'s went; they were worn to the last stage of
mental and physical exhaustion by sleeplessness, and by unceasing
digging and fighting. And still they held on. There were no "hands
uppers" among these men from Britain. We gave ground, of course, both
in the La Bassee area and at Ypres. In the latter case a withdrawal of
some kind was dictated by every consideration of military prudence. The
original bulge was a danger from every point of view, and with no
compensating advantage. It thinned our line and laid us open at all
times to the risk of enfilading attacks from north and south.
At La Bassee, too, we had got too far ahead, and from the military
point of view we lost nothing by falling back a few miles. But from the
three points in the line of vital strategical importance, Givenchy,
Ploegsteert and Klein Zillebeke, we were never driven. Those points
were held on to with a stubborn determination which nothing could break
through; and to the battalions on whose shoulders fell the main weight
of this burden is due the homage of all who stayed at home. It is not
suggested that there was an entirely uniform standard of excellence
throughout all the units engaged. Any attempt to make such a
representation would be a gross injustice to those battalions which
stand out, and which have for ever immortalized themselves, and the
honour of British arms, by an indomitable resistance which can find few
parallels in the history of war.
But at first we got too far ahead at La Bassee as at Ypres, and this
soon became very clear. During a thick fog on the morning of the 21st,
some of the 5th Division were driven out of their trenches; and in lieu
of making any attempt to retake the trenches so lost, Gen. Morland--who
on Sir Charles Fergusson's promotion had taken over command of the
division--thought it advisable to readjust the entire line.
Further north, just east of Fromelles, the 19th Brigade had also to
give ground. They fought all through this day with great gallantry, but
their losses were very heavy, and, in spite of all efforts, by evening
they had been forced back over a mile. The Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders were specially conspicuous on this occasion; they fought
with indomitable valour, and it was only with the greatest reluctance
that in the end they obeyed the order to abandon their trenches. In
Sergt. Ross's platoon eighty per cent. had been killed or wounded, but
the gallant sergeant still refused to give way.
This succession of small reverses was, of course, disappointing in view
of the anticipations of the week before, but they brought home to all
concerned a thorough realization of the change of outlook. This was
still further emphasized by the shifting northwards of the 3rd A.C., a
step which was rendered necessary by the obvious inadequacy of the
Cavalry Corps numbers for the frontage allotted to it. By this move
that frontage was appreciably shortened, but the gap between the 2nd
and 3rd A.C. was correspondingly widened, and the difficulty of
Conneau's gallant but highly tried corps of cavalry was proportionately
increased. The effect on the Frenchmen was at once felt, these being
driven out of Fromelles on the following afternoon with very heavy
loss. On the same afternoon the 5th Division again suffered severely.
The Cheshires were driven out of Violaines, and the Dorsets--terribly
thinned though they had been by the fighting of the 13th--seeing them
hard pressed, left their trenches and dashed up in support, but the
odds were too heavy and both were driven back with loss. The Germans
thereupon occupied Rue du Marais, a little village on the northern
slope of the Givenchy ridge, but their advantage was short-lived, for
they were promptly counter-attacked by the Manchesters and Worcesters
and driven out again.
In the meanwhile the Devons had been forced to fall back some two miles
from Canteleux, which they had now occupied for three days, to
Givenchy, the former place having been formed into an untenable salient
by the withdrawal of the troops on either flank.
In the evening General Morland told Sir Horace that the 5th Division
was completely worn out with constant digging and fighting, and that he
doubted whether they could withstand another attack. The 2nd A.C. had
already in the last ten days lost 5,000 men, to which the 5th Division
had contributed more than its share. This division had, in fact, from
first to last had a most trying time. It had borne the brunt of the
fighting at Le Cateau, and at the Aisne it had struck what proved to be
by far the most difficult crossing. It had subsequently throughout the
Aisne fighting been forced to occupy trenches in the low ground by the
river, which were throughout dominated by the German artillery on the
heights beyond. Then, within one week of leaving the Aisne trenches,
they were once more engaged in ceaseless battling day and night against
superior numbers, for on the several battalions of this division in
turn devolved the paramount duty of holding the Givenchy position at
all costs.