NEUVE CHAPELLE
Canadians' valuable help--A ride in the dark--Pictures on the
road--Towards the enemy--At the cross-roads--"Six kilometres to Neuve
Chapelle"--Terrific bombardment--Grandmotherly howitzers--British
aeroplanes--Fight with a Taube--Flying man's coolness--Attack on the
village--German prisoners--A banker from Frankfort--The Indians'
pride--A halt to our hopes--Object of Neuve Chapelle--What we
achieved--German defences under-rated--Machine gun citadels--Great
infantry attack--Unfortunate delays--Sir John French's
comments--British attack exhausted--Failure to capture Aubers
Ridge--"Digging in"--Canadian Division's baptism of
fire--"Casualties"--Trenches on Ypres salient.
"The glory dies not, and the grief is past."--BRYDGES.
"During the battle of Neuve Chapelle the Canadians held a part of the
line allotted to the First Army, and, although they were not actually
engaged in the main attack, they rendered valuable help by keeping the
enemy actively employed in front of their trenches."--_Sir John
French's Despatch on the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, which began on
March_ 10_th_, 1915.
It was night when I left the Canadian Divisional Headquarters and
motored in a southerly direction towards Neuve Chapelle. It was the
eve of the great attack, and in the bright space of light cast by the
motor lamps along the road, there came a kaleidoscopic picture of
tramping men.
Here at the front there is no need of police restrictions on motor
headlights at night as there is in London and on English country roads.
The law under which you place yourself is the range of the enemy's
guns. Beyond that limit you are free to turn your headlights on, and
there is no danger. But, once within the range of rifle fire or shell,
you turn your lights on at the peril of your own life. So you go in
darkness.
As we rode along with lamps lit, thousands of khaki-clad men were
marching along that road--marching steadily in the direction of Neuve
Chapelle. The endless stream of their faces flashed along the edge of
the _pavé_ in the light of our lamps. Their ranked figures, dim one
moment in the darkness, sprang for an instant into clear outline as the
light silhouetted them against the background of the night. Then they
passed out of the light again and became once more a legion of shadows,
marching towards dawn and Neuve Chapelle. The tramp of battalion after
battalion was not, however, the tramp of a shadow army, but the firm,
relentless, indomitable step of armed and trained men.
Every now and then there came a cry of "Halt," and the columns came on
the instant to a stand. Minutes passed, and the command for the
advance rang out. The columns moved again. So it went
on--halt--march--halt--march--hour by hour through the night along that
congested road--a river of men and guns.
For while in one direction men were marching, in the other direction
came batteries of guns, bound by another route for their position in
front of Neuve Chapelle. The two streams passed one another--legions
of men and rumbling, clattering lines of artillery, all moving under
screen of the dark, towards the line of trenches where the enemy lay.
This was no time to risk a block in traffic, and my motor, swerving off
the paved centre of the road, sank to her axles in the quagmire of
thick, sticky mud at the side. The guns passed, and we sought to
regain the paved way again, but our wheels spun round, merely churning
dirt. We could not move out of that pasty Flemish mud, until a
Canadian ambulance wagon came to our aid. The unhitched horses were
made fast to the motor, and they heaved the car out of her clinging bed.
In the early morning I came to the cross roads. The signpost planted
at the crossing and pointing down the road to the south-east bore the
inscription "Six kilometres to Neuve Chapelle."
This was the road that the legions had taken. It led almost in a
straight line to the trenches that were to be stormed, to the village
behind them that was to be captured, and to the town of La Bassée, a
few kilometres further on, strongly held by the Germans.
"Six kilometres to Neuve Chapelle "--barely four miles; one hour's easy
walking, let us say, on such a clear, fresh morning; or five minutes in
a touring car if the time had been peace. But who knew how many hours
of bloody struggle would now be needed to cover that short level
stretch of "Six kilometres to Neuve Chapelle"! Between this signpost
and the village towards which it pointed the way, many thousands of
armed men--sons of the Empire--had come from Britain, from India, from
all parts of the Dominions Overseas, to take their share in driving the
wedge down to the end of this six kilometres of country road, and
through the heart of the German lines. Here for a moment they paused.
What hopes, what fears, what joys, what sorrows, triumphs and tragedies
were suggested by that austere signpost, pointing "like Death's
lean-lifted forefinger" down that little stretch of road marked "Six
kilometres to Neuve Chapelle"!
I went on foot part of the way here, for so many battalions of men were
massed that motor traffic was impossible. These were troops held in
reserve. Those selected for the initial infantry attack were already
in the trenches ahead right and left of the further end of the road,
waiting on the moment of the advance.
I had just passed the signpost when the comparative peace of morning
was awfully shattered by the united roar and crash of hundreds of guns.
This broke out precisely at half-past seven. The exact moment had been
fixed beforehand for the beginning of a cannonade more concentrated and
more terrific than any previous cannonade in the history of the world.
It continued with extraordinary violence for half-an-hour, all calibres
of guns taking part in it. Some of the grandmotherly British howitzers
hurled their enormously destructive shells into the German lines, on
which a hurricane of shrapnel was descending from a host of smaller
guns. The German guns and trenches offered little or no reply, for the
enemy were cowering for shelter from that storm.
I turned towards the left and watched for awhile the good part which
the Canadian Artillery played in that attack. The Canadian Division,
which was a little further north than Neuve Chapelle, waited in its
trenches, hoping always for the order to advance.
Then I passed down the road until I came to a minor crossways where a
famous general stood in the midst of his Staff. Motor despatch riders
dashed up the road, bringing him news of the progress of the
bombardment. The news was good. The General awaited the moment when
the cannonade should cease, as suddenly as it had begun, and he should
unleash his troops.
Indian infantry marched down the road and saluted the General as they
passed. He returned the salute and cried to the officer at the head of
the column, "Good luck." The officer was an Indian, who, with a smile,
replied in true Oriental fashion: "Our Division has doubled in
strength, General-Sahib, since it has seen you."
While the bombardment continued, British aeroplanes sailed overhead and
crossed over to the German lines. The Germans promptly turned some
guns on them. We saw white ball-puffs of smoke as the shrapnel shells
burst in front, behind, above, below, and everywhere around the
machines, but never near enough to hit. They hovered like eagles above
the din of the battle, surveying and reckoning the damage which our
guns inflicted, and reporting progress.
[Illustration: Map--Line occupied by British in March 1915]
Once a German Taube rose in the air and lunged towards the British
lines. Then began a struggle for the mastery, which goes to the
machine which can mount highest and fire down upon its enemy. The
Taube ringed upwards. A couple of British aeroplanes circled after it.
To and fro and round and round they went, until the end came. The
British machines secured the upper air, and soon we saw that the Taube
was done. Probably the pilot had been wounded. The machine drooped
and swooped uneasily till, like a wounded bird, it streaked down
headlong far in the distance.
I walked over to where a British aeroplane was about to start on a
flight. The young officer of the Royal Flying Corps in charge was as
cool as though he were taking a run in a motor-car at home. "As a
matter of fact," he said, "I wanted change and rest. I had spent five
months in the trenches, and was worn out and tired by the everlasting
monotony and drudgery of it all. So I applied for a job in the Flying
Corps. It soothes one's nerves to be up in the air for a bit after
living down in the mud for so long."
I watched him soar up into the morning sky and saw numerous shrapnel
bursts chasing him as he sailed about over the German lines. What a
quiet, easy-going holiday was this, dodging about in the air, a clear
mark for the enemy's guns! But, to tell the truth, the British flying
men and machines are very rarely hit. Flying in war-time is not so
perilous as it looks, though it needs much skill and a calm, collected
spirit.
At length the din of the gunfire ceased, and we knew that the British
troops were rushing from their trenches to deal with the Germans, whose
nerve the guns had shaken. Astounded as they had been by our artillery
fire, the Germans were still more amazed by the rapidity of the
infantry attack. The British soldiers and the Indians swept in upon
them instantly till large numbers threw down their weapons, scrambled
out of their trenches, and knelt, hands up, in token of surrender.
The fight swept on far beyond the German trenches, through the village,
and beyond that again. The big guns occasionally joined in, and the
chatter of the machine-guns rose and broke off. Now the motor
ambulances began to come back--up that road down which the finger
pointed to Neuve Chapelle. They lurched past us as we stood by the
signpost in an intermittent stream, bearing the wounded men from the
fight.
Presently the cheerful sight of German prisoners alternated with the
saddening procession of ambulances. Large squads of prisoners went by,
many hatless and with dirt-smeared faces, their uniforms looking as
though dipped in mustard, the effect of the bursting of the British
lyddite shells among them in their trenches. The dejection of defeat
was on their faces.
Some of them were halted and were questioned by the General. One man
turned out to be a Frankfort banker, whose chief concern later was what
would become of his money, which he said had been taken charge of by
some of his captors. He was also anxious to know where he would be
imprisoned, and seemed relieved, if not delighted, when he heard that
it would be in England.
Another prisoner had been a hairdresser in Dresden. The General
questioned him, and he gave an entertaining account of his experiences
as a soldier.
"I am a Landwehr man," he said. "I was in Germany when I was ordered
to entrain. Presently the train drew up and I was ordered to get out,
and was told I had to go and attack a place called Neuve Chapelle. So
I went on with others, and soon we came into a hell of fire, and we ran
onwards and got into a trench, and there the hell was worse than ever.
We began to fire our rifles. Suddenly I heard shouting behind me, and
looked round and saw a large number of Indians between me and the rest
of the German Army. I then looked at the other German soldiers in the
trench and saw that they were throwing their rifles out of the trench.
Well, I am a good German, but I did not want to be peculiar, so I threw
my rifle out also, and then I was taken prisoner and brought here.
Although I have not been long at the war, I have had enough of it. I
never saw daylight in the battlefield until I was a prisoner."
Some of the prisoners were brought along by the Indian troops who had
captured them. They complained bitterly that they, Germans, should be
marched about in the custody of Indians! They did not understand the
grimly humorous reply: "If the Indians are good enough to take you,
they are good enough to keep you."
The Indians smiled with delight, for they are particularly fond of
making prisoners of Germans. Most of them brought back their little
trophies of the fight, which they held out for inspection with a smile,
crying, "Souvenir!"
The stream of prisoners and of wounded passed on. The fury of battle
relaxed. Now and then some of the guns still crashed, but the machine
guns rattled further and further away, and the crackle of the rifle
fire came from a distance.
The British Army had traversed in triumph those "six kilometres to
Neuve Chapelle."
At Neuve Chapelle it halted, and there halted, too, the hopes of an
early and conclusive victory for the Allied forces.
The enemy's outposts had been driven in, but beyond these, their
fortified places bristled with machine guns, which wrought havoc on our
troops, and, indeed, brought the successful offensive to a close.
Controversy has arisen over the disappointing results which were
achieved. For a month after the battle, Neuve Chapelle was heralded by
the public as a great British victory. But doubt followed confidence,
and in a few weeks the "victory" was described as a failure. The truth
lies between these extremes.
The object of this battle of Neuve Chapelle was to give our men a new
spirit of offensive and to test the British fighting machine which had
been built up with so much difficulty on the Western front. Besides,
if this attack succeeded in destroying the German lines, it would be
possible to gain the Aubers ridge which dominates Lille. That ridge
once firmly held in our hands, the city should have been ours. That
would have been a great victory. It would probably have meant the end
of the German occupation of this part of France. In any case it must
have had a marked effect upon the whole progress of the war.[1]
That was what we hoped to do. What we actually accomplished was the
winning of about a mile of territory along a three-mile front, and the
straightening of our line. The price was too high for the result.
It was the first great effort ever made by the British to pierce the
German line since it had been established after the open field battles
of the Marne and the Aisne. The British troops had faced the German
lines for months, and while the fundamental principles of the German
defences were fairly well understood, their real strength was very much
underrated.
Things went badly from the beginning of the action. The artillery
"preparation" represented quite the most formidable bombardment the
British had so far made, but even so, it was ineffective along certain
sections of the line. After the way had been paved by shrapnel and
high explosive, the British infantry moved forward in a splendid
offensive to secure what everyone believed would be a decisive victory;
and trained observers of the battle were under the impression that the
gallant British infantry had won their end. This is an impression,
too, which was shared by some of the men for a time.
For many months the British had been almost entirely on the defensive,
and over and over again been called on to repulse heavy, massed German
attacks. The casualties sustained in repulsing these attacks first
revealed our shortage of machine-guns. What they lacked in
machine-guns, however, the British troops made up for in a deadly
accuracy of rifle fire, which was at once the terror and the admiration
of the Germans. The British had thus come to an exaggerated idea of
the efficacy of rifle fire, and a consequent over-estimate of the
importance of the German first line trenches. Over these they swarmed,
and the word went forth that the day was won.
It was only when the British troops had occupied the enemy's first and
second line trenches, they discovered that, in actual fact, they had
not done more than drive in the outposts of an army. Close at hand,
the Germans' third line loomed up like a succession of closely
interlocked citadels. Nay, more, those citadels were so constructed
that the trenches from which our men had ousted the enemy with so much
heroism and loss were deathtraps for the new tenants. The
circumstances were such that to retire meant acknowledgment of failure,
and to hang on, a grisly slaughter.
Even so, there were features of the situation which made for hope.
There were positions to be won which would very seriously jeopardise
the whole German scheme of defence; but, at the critical moment of the
battle, the advanced troops seem to have passed beyond the control of
the various commanders in the rear on account of the misty weather.
The real tragedy, however, was the non-arrival of the supports at a
point and at a time when the appearance of reserves might have made all
the difference to the fortunes of the day. The enemy was still
bewildered and demoralised, and, but for the delay, might have been
completely routed. Unfortunately, the British front was in great need
of straightening out. The 23rd Brigade continued to hang up the 8th
Division, while the 25th Brigade was fighting along a portion of the
front where it was not supposed to be at all. Units had to be
disentangled and the whole line straightened before further advance
could be made.
The fatal result was a delay which, Sir John French says, would never
have occurred had the "clearly expressed orders of the General Officer
commanding the 1st Army been more carefully observed."
Sir Douglas Haig himself hurried up to set things right, but it was
then too late to retrieve the failure which had been occasioned by
delay. The attack was thoroughly exhausted, its sting was gone, and
the enemy had pulled himself together. Night was falling, and there
was nothing to be done but "dig in" beneath the ridge above Lille, the
capture of which would have altered the whole story of the campaign on
the Western front.
As I have said, the Canadian infantry took no part in the battle,
though the troops waited impatiently and expectantly for the order to
advance, but the activity of the Canadian artillery was considerable
and important. The Canadian guns took their full share in the
"preparation" for the subsequent British infantry attack, and the
observation work of our gunners was good and continuous.
After Neuve Chapelle, quiet reigned along the Canadian trenches, though
the battle raged to the north of us at St. Eloi, and the Princess
Patricia's Battalion was involved. Early in the last days of March our
troops were withdrawn and retired to rest camps.
The Canadians had received their baptism of fire, and in extremely
favourable circumstances. They had not been called on to make any
desperate attacks on the German lines. Nor had the Germans launched
any violent assaults upon theirs. The infantry had sustained a few
casualties, but that was all; while German artillery practice against
our trenches had been curtailed on account of the violent fighting both
to the south and the north.
On the other hand, we had been surrounded by all the circumstances of
great battles. We had watched the passage of the giant guns, of which
the British made use for the first time at Neuve Chapelle, and we had
moved and lived and stood to arms amid all the stir and accessories of
vehement war. The guns had boomed their deadly message in our ears, we
had seen death in many forms, and understood to the full the meaning of
"Casualties," while, day by day, the aeroplanes wheeled and circled
overhead, passing and re-passing to the enemy's lines.
The Canadians had come to make war, and had dwelt in the midst of it,
and after their turn in the trenches many of them, no doubt, accounted
themselves war-worn veterans. Little they knew of the ordeals of the
future. Little they dreamt, when towards the middle of the month of
April they were sent to take over French trenches in the Ypres salient,
that they were within a week of that terrible but wonderful battle
which has consecrated this little corner of Flanders for Canadian
generations yet unborn.
[1] The scheme of the attack on Neuve Chapelle had been worked out by
General John Gough just before he was killed, and it was explained to
his Corps Commanders by Sir John French on May 8th as follows:--The 1st
Army was to launch the main assault, the 4th Corps being on the left
flank and the Indian Corps on the right. To hold up the enemy all
along the line, and to prevent his massing reinforcements to meet the
main attack, two other supplementary attacks were also to be made--one
attack by the 1st Corps from Givenchy, and the other by the 3rd
Corps--detailed from the 2nd Army for that purpose--to the south of
Armentières.