THE BATTLE OF LOOS
(The Second Day--September 26)
Death of General Capper--Retirement of the Fifteenth
Division--Advance of the Twenty-fourth Division--Heavy
losses--Twenty-first Division before Bois Hugo--Desperate
struggle--General retirement on the right--Rally round Loos--Position
on the evening of September 26.
Sunday the 26th was a day of hard fighting and of heavy losses, the
reserves streaming up from the rear upon both sides, each working
furiously to improve its position. From early in the day the
fighting was peculiarly bitter round Fosse 8 in the section carried
and held by the Ninth Division. It has been already mentioned that
three battalions, the 5th Camerons, 7th Seaforths, and 8th Black
Watch of the 26th Brigade, held this place all the evening of the
25th and all night, until reduced to less than the strength of a
regiment. It has also been stated that the 73rd Brigade had been
detached from the Twenty-fourth Division to their aid. These men,
with no preliminary hardening, found themselves suddenly thrust into
one of the very hottest corners of a desperate fight. Under these
circumstances it is all to the credit of these troops that they were
able to hold their position all day, though naturally their {201}
presence was not of the same value as that of a more veteran brigade.
The 73rd Brigade were put into German trenches to the east of Fosse
8, their order from the left being 7th Northamptons, 12th Royal
Fusiliers, and 9th Sussex, with the 13th Middlesex echeloned on their
right rear. They were constantly attacked, but were suffering more
from cold, hunger, and exhaustion than from the Germans. All day
they and the remains of the Scots held the place against intermittent
assaults, which occasionally had some partial success, but never
quite enabled the enemy to re-establish his position. It was not,
however, until the morning of the 27th, as will afterwards be
narrated, that their most severe ordeal was to come.
[Sidenote: Death of General Capper.]
Close to Fosse 8, and on the south of it, was the position of the
Quarries, from which the 22nd Brigade of the Seventh Division had
been driven by a sudden rush of the Germans during the night. After
an abortive but expensive attack by the 9th Norfolks next morning,
there was a more serious effort by a body of mixed troops, led by
Captain Carter and including several units of the Second Division,
notably the 2nd Worcesters and 1st Rifles. These battalions pushed
their way up to the Quarries, and although they were unable to evict
the Germans they established themselves firmly close to the
south-western edge and there awaited events. To the south of them
the 20th Brigade of the Seventh Division held firmly to their line.
It was on this day that they lost their heroic leader, Sir Thomson
Capper, the fine soldier who had so often braced by word and example
their ever-thinning lines during the black {202} days of Ypres, with
which his name and that of his division will be eternally associated.
There was no more valiant or trusted leader in the Army. He was shot
through the lungs, was carried to the rear, and died in hospital next
day. "We are here to do the impossible" was one of the fiery
aphorisms which he left to the Army.
[Sidenote: The Fifteenth Division on Hill 70.]
On the southern front of the British there was also an inclination to
contract the line upon the morning of the 26th. The fact that the
French attack upon the right on the day before had not had much
success rendered that wing very open to a flank attack. The
Fifteenth Scottish Division still held on hard to the slopes of Hill
70, but early in the day their line had been driven somewhat to the
westward. At nine o'clock they had renewed their attack upon Hill
70, supported by some reinforcements. They were not strong enough,
nor was their artillery support sufficiently powerful to enable them
to carry the crest of the hill. When their advance was checked the
Germans returned upon them with a series of counter-attacks which
gradually drove them down the hill. In the desperate series of
rallies in which they made head against the Germans it is difficult
to distinguish regiments, since the men fought for the most part in a
long, scattered fringe of mixed units, each dour infantryman throwing
up his own cover and fighting his own battle. The 6th Camerons
preserved their cohesion, however, and particularly distinguished
themselves, their gallant leader, Douglas Hamilton, falling at their
head in the thick of the fight. "I must get up! I must get up!"
were his last words before he expired. The final effect of these
episodes was to drive the British off the greater part {203} of the
slope of Hill 70, and down towards the village of Loos.
It will be remembered that the weary Twenty-fourth Division (Ramsay),
with its comrade the Twenty-first (Forestier-Walker) upon its right
and the Regular First Division upon its left, had received its orders
to advance at eleven o'clock. It had been supposed that Hulluch was
in British hands, but this was found not to be so. The orders,
however, still held good. The Twenty-fourth Division had already
been stripped of the 73rd Brigade, and now it was further denuded by
two battalions of the 71st, the 9th Norfolks and 8th Bedfords, who
were told off to help to retake the Quarries. The Norfolks made an
attack upon a strong position, and lost 200 men and officers in the
attempt. The Bedfords, who were in support, lost touch both with
their own division and with the one that they were helping, so that
they were not strongly engaged during the day.
The hour had now come for the general advance. General Mitford with
the 72nd Brigade was leading, with two battalions of the 71st Brigade
behind, and his pioneer battalion in support. On his left was the
2nd Welsh, and, as he imagined, the whole of the First Division. On
his right was the 63rd Brigade and the rest of the Twenty-first
Division, less the 62nd Brigade, as afterwards explained. It formed
a solid wall of 20,000 infantry which might well turn the tide of a
great battle.
[Sidenote: The advance of the Twenty-fourth Division.]
We shall follow this advance of the Twenty-fourth Division upon the
left, who were compelled to go forward with their flank exposed on
account of some delay in the attack by the First Division.
Afterwards we shall return to consider the movements of the {204}
Twenty-first Division on their right. The leading brigade, the 72nd,
moved forward with the 8th West Kents upon the left, and the 9th East
Surreys upon the right. Behind them were the 8th Queen's Surreys
(left) and the 8th Buffs (right), with the pioneer battalion, the
12th Sherwood Foresters, in support. They were followed by the two
remaining battalions of the 71st Brigade, the 9th Suffolks and the
11th Essex. As the advance continued the second line joined with the
first, and the 11th Essex from behind also pushed its way abreast of
the foremost. The line of advance was to the south of Hulluch, and
this line was preserved. As matters turned out, the numerous guns in
the south of that village were all available for defence against the
advance of the Twenty-fourth Division. This caused them very heavy
losses, but in spite of them they swept onwards with an unfaltering
energy which was a monument to those long months of preparation
during which Sir John Ramsay had brought his men to a high state of
efficiency. Under every possible disadvantage of hunger, cold,
exhaustion, and concentrated fire, they behaved with a steadiness
which made them worthy of the honoured names which gleamed upon their
shoulder-straps. One platoon of the Essex diverged into Hulluch in a
vain attempt to stop the machine-guns and so shield their comrades.
Hardly a man of this body survived. The rest kept their eyes front,
took their punishment gamely, and pushed on for their objective. The
breadth of the attack was such that it nearly covered the space
between Hulluch in the north and the Bois Hugo in the south. About
mid-day the Twenty-fourth Division had reached a point across the
Lens-Hulluch road which {205} was ahead of anything attained in this
quarter the day before. They were up against unbroken wire with an
enfilade rifle and machine-gun fire from both flanks and from Hulluch
on their left rear, as well as a heavy shell-fire of asphyxiating
shells. A gallant attempt was made to pierce the wires, which were
within fifty yards of the German position, but it was more than flesh
and blood could do. They were driven back, and in the retirement
across the long slope which they had traversed their losses were
greatly increased. Their wounded had to be left behind, and many of
these fell afterwards into the hands of the Germans, receiving
honourable treatment from them. The losses would have been heavier
still had it not been that the Suffolks in support lined up in a
sunken road three hundred yards south of Hulluch, and kept down the
fire of the machine-guns. Some of these raw battalions endured
losses which have never been exceeded in this war before they could
finally persuade themselves that the task was an impossible one. The
8th West Kents lost their Colonel, Vansittart, 24 officers, and 556
men; the 8th Buffs their Colonel, Romer, 24 officers, and 534 men;
the other battalions were nearly as hard hit. These figures speak
for themselves. Mortal men could not have done more. The whole
brigade lost 78 officers and 2000 men out of about 3600 engaged in
the attack. When these soldiers walked back--and there is testimony
that their retirement was in many cases at a walk--they had earned
the right to take their stand with any troops in the world. The
survivors resumed their place about 1.30 in the German trenches,
where for the rest of the day they endured a very heavy shelling.
[Sidenote: The story of the Twenty-first Division.]
The movements of the Twenty-first Division upon {206} the right were
of a very much more complex nature, and there is a conflict of
evidence about them which makes the task of the historian a
peculiarly difficult one. The great outstanding fact, however, which
presents itself in the case of each of the three brigades is that the
men in nearly every instance behaved with a steady gallantry under
extraordinarily difficult circumstances which speaks volumes for
their soldierly qualities. Sir Edward Hutton, who raised them, and
General Forestier-Walker, who led them, had equal cause to be
contented with the personnel. "The men were perfectly magnificent,
quite cool and collected, and would go anywhere," says one wounded
officer. "The only consolation I have is the memory of the
magnificent pluck and bravery shown by our good men. Never shall I
forget it," cries another. It is necessary to emphasise the fact,
because rumours got about at the time that all was not as it should
be--rumours which came from men who were either ignorant of all the
facts or were not aware of the tremendous strain which was borne by
this division during the action. These rumours were cruel libels
upon battalions many of which sustained losses in this their first
action which have seldom been matched during the war. We will follow
the fortunes of each brigade in turn, holding the balance as far as
possible amid evidence which, as already stated, is complex and
conflicting.
The 62nd Brigade (Wilkinson), consisting of the 8th East Yorks, 10th
Yorks, 12th and 13th Northumberland Fusiliers, with the 14th
Northumberland Fusiliers as pioneer battalion, was hurried away
separately and taken to the south and east of Loos to reinforce the
Fifteenth Division, which had {207} sustained such losses on the 25th
that they could not hold both the front and the flank.
The 62nd pushed on, reached the point of danger as early as the night
of the 25th, and occupied a line of slag-heaps to the south-east of
Loos, where there was a gap through which the enemy could penetrate
from the flank. It was a prolongation of the same general defensive
line which had been established and held by the Forty-seventh
Division, and it was the more important as the French advance upon
our right had not progressed so far as our own, leaving our right
flank in the air, exactly as our left flank had been left open by the
holding up of the Second Division. The 62nd Brigade was only just in
time in getting hold of the position, for it was strongly attacked at
five in the morning of the 26th. The attack fell mainly upon the 8th
East Yorkshires and the 10th Yorkshires, who were driven back from
the farther side of the great dump which was the centre of the fight,
but held on to the Loos side of it with the support of the 13th
Northumberland Fusiliers. This line was held all day of the 26th.
So stern was the fighting that the Fusiliers lost 17 officers and 400
men, while the 8th East Yorkshires at the slag-heaps lost the same
heavy proportion of officers and 300 men. More than once the
fighting was actually hand to hand, especially with the East
Yorkshires. Colonel Hadow, together with Majors Noyes and Dent, all
of the 10th Yorkshires, were killed, while Colonel Way of the East
Yorkshires was wounded. It will be noted, then, that the 62nd
Brigade was working independently of the rest of the Twenty-first
Division on one flank, as the 73rd of the Twenty-fourth Division was
upon the other.
{208}
The main attack of the division was carried out by the 63rd and 64th
Brigades, the only ones which remained under the command of General
Forestier-Walker. A formidable line of obstacles faced them as they
formed up, including the Chalk Pit and the Chalk Pit Wood, and on the
other side of the Lens-Hulluch road, upon their right front, Fosse 14
and the Bois Hugo, the latter a considerable plantation full of
machine-guns and entanglements. The original plan had been that the
advance should be simultaneous with that upon the left, but the enemy
were very active from an early hour upon this front, and the action
seems, therefore, to have been accelerated. Indeed, the most
reasonable view of what occurred seems to be that the enemy had
themselves planned a great attack at this point at that hour, that
the bickerings of the morning were their preliminary bombardment, and
that the British attack became speedily a defensive action, in which
the 63rd Brigade was shattered by the weight of the enemy attack, but
inflicted such loss upon it that it could get no farther, and ceased
to endanger the continuity of our line. It is only on this
supposition of a double simultaneous attack that one can reconcile
the various statements of men, some of whom looked upon the movement
as an attack and some as a defence.
The 63rd Brigade (Nicholls) moved forward with the 8th Lincolns upon
the right and the 12th Yorkshires upon the left. These regiments
advanced to a point just east of the Lens-Hulluch road. In support,
on the immediate west of the road, lining the Chalk Pit Wood, were
the 10th Yorks and Lancasters, with the 8th Somersets. For several
hours this position {209} was maintained under a heavy and deadly
fire. "The shells ploughed the men out of their shallow trenches as
potatoes are turned from a furrow," says an officer. Two companies
of the 8th Somersets, however, seem to have lost direction and
wandered off to Hill 70, where they were involved in the fighting of
the Fifteenth Division. Two companies of the Yorks and Lancasters
were also ordered up in that direction, where they made a very heroic
advance. A spectator watching them from Hill 70 says: "Their lines
came under the machine-guns as soon as they were clear of the wood.
They had to lie down. Many, of course, were shot down. After a bit
their lines went forward again and had to go down again. They went
on, forward a little and then down, and forward a little and then
down, until at last five gallant figures rose up and struggled
forward till they, too, went down.... The repeated efforts to get
forward through the fire were very fine."
These four companies having left, there remained only two of the
Somersets and two of the Yorks and Lancasters in the wood. Their
comrades in advance had in the meantime become involved in a very
fierce struggle in the Bois Hugo. Here, after being decimated by the
machine-guns, they met and held for a time the full force of the
German attack. The men of Yorkshire and of Lincolnshire fought
desperately against heavy masses of troops, thrown forward with great
gallantry and disregard of loss. For once the British rifle-fire had
a chance, and exacted its usual high toll. "We cut line after line
of the enemy down as they advanced." So rapid was the fire that
cartridges began to run low, and men were seen crawling up to their
dead comrades to ransack their pouches. {210} The enemy was dropping
fast, and yet nothing could stop him. Brigadier Nicholls walked up
to the firing line with reckless bravery and gave the order to
charge. Bayonets were actually crossed and the enemy thrown back.
The gallant Nicholls fell, shot in the thigh and stomach, and the
position became impossible. The Lincolns had suffered the appalling
loss of all their officers and 500 men. The Yorkshires were in no
better case. The survivors fell back rapidly upon the supports.
Fortunately, these were in close attendance. As the remains of the
Lincolns and the West Yorkshires, after their most gallant and
desperate resistance to the overwhelming German attack, came pouring
back with few officers and in a state of some confusion from the Bois
Hugo and over the Lens-Hulluch road, the four companies under Majors
Howard and Taylor covered their retreat and held up for a time the
German swarms behind them, the remains of the four battalions
fighting in one line.
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[Illustration: BATTLE OF LOOS II]
APPROXIMATE POSITIONS OF BRITISH
DIVISIONS ON FORENOON OF SEPT. 26th
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One party of mixed Lincolns and Yorkshires held out for about seven
hours in an advanced trench, which was surrounded by the enemy about
eleven, and the survivors, after sustaining very heavy losses--"the
trench was like a shambles"--did not surrender until nearly six
o'clock, when their ammunition had all been shot away. The isolation
of this body was caused by the fact that their trenches lay opposite
the south end of the Bois Hugo. The strong German attack came round
the north side of the wood, and thus, as it progressed, a
considerable number of the Lincolns and some of the West Yorks, still
holding the line upon the right, were entirely cut off. Colonel
Walter of the Lincolns, with Major Storer, Captains {213} Coates and
Stronguist, and three lieutenants, are known to have been killed,
while almost all the others were wounded. A number of our wounded
were left in the hands of the Germans. There is no doubt that the
strength of the German attack and the resistance offered to it were
underrated by the public at the time, which led to the circulation of
cruel and unjust rumours.
The 64th Brigade (Gloster) was in support some little distance to the
right rear of the 63rd, covering the ground between the Lens-Hulluch
road and Loos. About noon a message was received by them to the
effect that the 63rd was being very strongly pressed, and that help
was urgently needed. The 14th Durham Light Infantry was moved
forward in support, and came at once under heavy fire, losing its
Colonel (Hamilton), 17 officers, and about 200 men. The 15th Durham
Light Infantry was then thrown into the fight, and sustained even
heavier losses. Colonel Logan, 18 officers, and 400 men were killed
or wounded. About one o'clock the two Durham battalions were in the
thick of the fight, while Captain Liebenrood, machine-gun officer of
the 64th Brigade, did good work in keeping down the enemy fire. The
two battalions of Yorkshire Light Infantry (9th and 10th) were held
in reserve. About 2.30 the pressure upon the front of the 63rd
Brigade had become too great, and both it and the two Durham
battalions were driven back. Their resistance, however, seems to
have taken the edge off the dangerous counter-attack, for the Germans
did not come on past the line of the road and of the Chalk Pit Wood.
It will be remembered that when the two advanced {214} brigades of
the Fifteenth Division established themselves in hastily-dug trenches
upon the western slope of Hill 70, they threw back their left flank
obliquely down the hill towards Fosse 14 in order to avoid being at
the mercy of any force which endeavoured to get behind them on this
side. Only a very thin line of men could be spared for this work,
under a young Australian subaltern named M'Neil. These soldiers held
the post for twenty-four hours, but when the heavy German
attack--which drove in the Twenty-first Division and cut off the
Lincolns--struck up against them, they were all killed or wounded,
including their gallant leader, who managed, with several bullets in
him, to get back to the British line. This led to the final
retirement down Hill 70 of the men of the Scotch Division, who dug
themselves in once more at the foot of the hill, not far from the
village of Loos.
[Sidenote: The losses.]
It may be noted that the losses of the two supporting divisions were
about 8000 men. Their numbers in infantry were about equal to the
British troops at Waterloo, and their casualties were approximately
the same. Mention has already been made of the endurance of
Mitford's 72nd Brigade. The figures of the 63rd and their comrades
of the 64th are little inferior. Of these troops more than 40 per
cent of the rank and file, 65 per cent of their officers, and 75 per
cent of their commanders lay upon the field of battle. When one
recollects that 33 per cent was reckoned a high rate of loss by the
greatest authorities upon warfare, and when one remembers that these
were raw troops fighting under every discomfort and disadvantage, one
feels that they have indeed worthily continued the traditions of the
old Army and founded {215} those of the new. There were isolated
cases of unordered retirement, but in the main the regiments showed
the steadiness and courage which one would expect from the good
North-country stock from which they came.
The divisional artillery of the Twenty-first Division had come into
action in the open behind the advancing infantry, and paid the price
for their gallant temerity. The 94th Brigade R.F.A. lost especially
heavily, eight of its guns being temporarily put out of action.
Major Dobson of this brigade was among the killed. It is to be
feared that the guns did not always realise the position of the
infantry, and that many of the 64th Brigade especially were hit by
their own shrapnel. Such painful incidents seem almost inseparable
from modern warfare. The artillery kept its place, and afterwards
rendered good service by supporting the advance of the Guards.
[Sidenote: Reorganization.]
Whilst this advance and check had taken place in the centre and right
centre of the British position, the London Division, upon the extreme
right, was subjected rather to bombardment than to assault. A heavy
fall of asphyxiating shells was experienced a little after 9 A.M.,
and many men were gassed before they were able to put on their
helmets. The second German line of captured trenches was held very
firmly by General Thwaites with the rest of the 141st Brigade, while
the 140th retained a defensive flank, the whole forming a strong
_point d'appui_ for a rally and reorganisation. Men of the
Twenty-first Division re-formed upon this line, and the battle was
soon re-established. This re-establishment was materially helped by
the action of the 9th and 10th Yorkshire Light Infantry battalions
previously mentioned of {216} the Twenty-first Division, who had
become a divisional reserve. These two battalions now advanced and
gained some ground to the east of Loos on the enemy's left flank. It
may be mentioned that one of these battalions was ordered to discard
its packs in order to ease the tired soldiers, and that on advancing
from their trenches these packs were never regained. Their presence
afterwards may have given the idea that equipment had been abandoned,
whereas an actual order had been obeyed. The movement covered the
reorganisation which was going on behind them. One small detachment
under Captain Laskie of the 10th Y.L.I. did especially good work.
The Yorkshiremen were aided by men of the Northumberland Fusiliers of
the 62nd Brigade, who held on to the trenches to the east of Loos. A
cavalry detachment from Campbell's 6th Cavalry Brigade, under
Campbell himself, had also appeared about 4 P.M. as a mobile reserve
and thrown itself into Loos to strengthen the defence.
The evening of this day, September 26, found the British lines
contracted as compared with what they had been in the morning. The
Forty-seventh Division had, if anything, broadened and strengthened
their hold upon the southern outskirts of Loos. The western slope of
Hill 70 was still held in part. Thence the line bent back to the
Loos-La Bassée road, followed the line of that road for a thousand
yards, thence onwards to near the west end of the village of Hulluch,
and then as before. But the exchanges would seem to have been in
favour of the Germans, since they had pushed the British back for a
stretch of about a mile from the Lens-Hulluch road, thus making a
dent in their front. On both sides reserves {217} were still
mustering. The Guards' Division had been brought up by Sir John
French, and were ready for operations upon the morning of the 27th,
while the Twenty-eighth Division was on its way. The Germans, who
had been repeatedly assured that the British Army extension was a
bluff, and that the units existed only upon paper, must have found
some food for thought as the waves rolled up.
{218}