OPERATIONS FOLLOWING NEUVE CHAPELLE
There was very little activity on the western front after the fighting
at Neuve Chapelle and St. Eloi until the beginning of a renewal of the
campaign between La Bassee and the sea. The importance of success in
this region was appreciated by both sides. The Germans north of the
Lys planned to cross the Comines-Ypres, Yperlee, and Yser Canals,
capture Ypres, take all of the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats, and then
continue west and take Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne. The Allies in
their plan included an advance south of the Lys on two sides of Lille,
the taking of the Aubers Ridge, and the turning from the north the
German salient at La Bassee. This much of the Allies' plan was to be
executed by the British. The work of the French was to drive the
Germans from the vicinity of Lens and threaten La Bassee from the
south and west. The reasons for making these plans are obvious. The
German salient was a source of much danger to the joining of the
British and French armies, and the possibility of the Germans forcing
their way through to Boulogne meant a possibility of a cutting off of
the entire British army and the French and Belgian forces between
Ypres and the sea near Nieuport. However, if La Bassee was isolated
and the Aubers Ridge taken by the British, the chances that the
Germans could retain Lille were materially lessened; and if the
British got Lille they might start to drive their enemy from Belgium.
During the lull in the fighting on land, to which reference has been
made, there was much activity in the air. Reconnaissances and raids
were of almost daily occurrence. A Zeppelin dropped twenty bombs on
Calais, slaying seven workmen at the railroad station on March 18,
1915. Three days later another, or possibly the same Zeppelin, flew
over the town, but this time it was driven away before it could do any
harm. "Taubes" bombarded the railroad junction of St. Omer and made a
similar attack on Estaires on March 23. Four days after another attack
was made on Estaires, and on the same day, March 27, the German airmen
did some damage to Sailly, Calais, and Dunkirk. The next day a "Taube"
made an attack on Calais, Estaires, and Hazebrouck. A Zeppelin closed
the month's warfare in the air for the Germans by making a dash over
Bailleul.
Aviators of the Allies, too, were busy. One of their aerial squadrons
proceeded along the coast on March 16 and attacked the military posts
at Ostend and Knocke. These aviators had as one of their main
objective points the German coast batteries at the latter place. But
the squadron was seen from a German observation balloon at Zeebrugge,
and a flock of "Taubes" made a dash for their enemy's craft. The
Germans were not as skillful airmen, however, and they found it
necessary to retire. Five British aviators made an attack on the
German submarine base at Hoboken, southwest of Antwerp, and destroyed
a submarine and wrecked two others. This raid was made without injury
to the aviators, the only accident being the necessity of one of the
aircraft to descend, which it did, only to find it had landed on Dutch
territory and must be interned. The excellence of the Allies' flying
was not confined to the English. Belgian and French airmen, as well as
British, flew almost constantly over Ostend, Zeebrugge, Roulers,
Aubers, and such other places as German soldiers and their supplies
were in evidence. The Belgian airmen dropped bombs on the aviation
field at Ghistelles on March 27, and on the following day a Zeppelin
hangar was destroyed at Berchem-Sainte-Agathe, near Brussels. On March
30, 1915, ten British and some French aviators flew along the coast
from Nieuport to Zeebrugge and dropped bombs on magazines and
submarine bases. The last day of the month saw the destruction of the
German captive balloon at Zeebrugge and the death of its two
observers. The Belgian aviators on the same day threw bombs on the
aviation field at Handzaeme and the railroad junction at Cortemarck,
and, south of Dixmude, the famous birdman, Garros, fought a successful
duel in the air with a German aviator.
An aviator of the Allies flew over the aerodrome at Lille on April 1,
1915, and dropped a football. The Germans hastened to cover. When the
ball bounced prodigiously as a result of being dropped from such a
height, the Teutons thought it was some new kind of death dealer, and
remained in their places of safety. In fact, they remained there quite
a few minutes after the football had ceased to bounce. When they
finally emerged most cautiously and approached the object of their
terror, they read this inscription on it: "April Fool--Gott strafe
England."
Though the antiaircraft guns, or "Archibalds," as the soldiers called
them, were not especially effective except in keeping the flyers at
such a height that it was not easy for them to make effective
observations, a "Taube" was brought down at Pervyse, and near Ypres
another was damaged on April 8. But on April 12 a German flyer
inflicted some loss on the Allies' lines and escaped without being
even hit. On the following day, presumably emboldened by that success,
German aeroplanes threw flares and smoke balls over the British
trenches east of Ypres, with the result that the soldiers of King
George were subjected to a severe bombardment. All things considered,
however, the Allies had ground for their belief that they more than
held their own in the air.
Afloat the Allies continued to maintain the supremacy which had been
theirs. The French and British battleships held the left of the
Allies' line. Their great guns proved their effectiveness on the
Germans who were advancing from Ostend on Nieuport. They repeatedly
bombarded the position of the kaiser's men at Westende, east of
Nieuport. The Germans had trained one of their mammoth pieces of
artillery against that town presumably because it held the sluices and
locks which regulated the overflowing of the Yser territory. If the
means of flooding the land could not be seized, the next best thing
to do was to wreck them.
The Belgians, in the meantime, assumed the offensive, their left being
protected by the Allied fleet and the French forces in the
neighborhood of Nieuport. These troops captured one of the smaller
forts east of Lombartzyde on March 11, 1915. There was also fighting
at Schoorbakke, north of the Yser loop, where the German trenches were
shelled by French artillery. This was on the eastern border of the
inundated section. After destroying the German front in the graveyard
at Dixmude, the French artillerists battered a German convoy on its
way between Dixmude and Essen on March 17, 1915. By March 23 the east
bank of the Yser held a Belgian division. In fact, from Dixmude to the
sea the Allied troops were advancing.
The Germans, however, advanced south of Dixmude. On April 1, 1915,
they shelled the farms and villages west of the Yser and the Yperlee
Canals, and took the Driegrachten farm. Thereupon the Germans crossed
the canal with three machine guns. Their plan was to proceed along the
border of the inundated district to Furnes. But the French balked the
plan by shelling the farm, and the Belgians finished the work by
driving the Germans back to Mercken on April 6, 1915.
In the meantime, from March 15 to April 17, 1915, the bombardment of
Ypres was continued, destroying most of the remaining buildings there.
Engagements of importance had not as yet started on the British front.
The British had a supply of shrapnel, and the British and French
cannon, as well as the rifle-and machine-gun fire, held the Germans in
check until they had time to perfect their plans for a vigorous
offensive. Nevertheless the British needed a much larger supply of
ammunition before they could start on a determined campaign, which was
so much desired by the troops. One of the German headquarters,
however, was shelled effectively by the British on April 1, 1915, and
on the following day mortars in the trenches did considerable damage
in the Wood of Ploegsteert. A mine blew up a hundred yards of the
trenches that were opposite Quinchy, a village to the south of
Givenchy, on April 3, 1915. To offset this the Germans bombarded the
British line at that point. They also shelled Fleurbaix, which is
three miles southwest of Armentieres, on April 5, 1915. The British on
the same day wrecked a new trench mortar south of there. On April 6,
1915, the German artillery began to be more active both north and
south of the Lys, and the British retaliated by shelling the railway
triangle that was near Quinchy. German soldiers were slain and others
wounded when a mine was exploded at Le Touquet, on the north bank of
the Lys. One of the kaiser's ammunition depots was blown up near
Quinchy on April 9, 1915, and his men were driven from their trenches
in front of Givenchy by mortar fire.
The comparative quiet along the front was broken by the fight for the
possession of Hill 60, which became famous because of the rival claims
as to victory. The mound, for it was little more, getting its name on
account of its height--sixty meters--was of importance only because it
screened the German artillery which was shelling Ypres from the bridge
to the west of Zandvoord. British trenches had been driven close to
this hill by the Bedfords, whose sappers tunneled under the mound and
there prepared three mines. At the same time the Germans were
tunneling to plant mines under the Bedfords' trench. In this
underground race the Bedfords won on the night of April 17, 1915, when
they blew three big craters in the hill, killing almost to a man all
of the 150 Germans who were on the little rise of ground. The Bedfords
then dashed forward to the three craters they had opened up and took a
quarter of a mile of the German trenches.
The Germans were apparently unprepared for the attack which followed
the explosion of the British mines, with the result that the British
had to overcome little resistance, and had ample opportunity to
prepare a defense from the bombardment that followed. The next
morning, April 18, 1915, the German infantry in close formation
advanced on the hill. This infantry was composed of Saxons, who
continued on for a bayonet charge in spite of the downpour of lead
that the British rained upon them. But the Bedfords had been
reenforced by the West Kents and about thirty motor machine guns. The
machine guns raked the charging Saxons in front, and shrapnel tore
their flank. Only their dead and dying remained on the hill; but the
German commanders continued to send their men against the British
there, who were subjected to a murderous cross-fire, the hill forming
a salient. As a result of their persistence the German troops managed
to get a foothold on the southern part of the hill by 6 p. m. In the
meantime a battalion of Highlanders and the Duke of Wellington's
regiment had been sent to reenforce the Bedfords and the West Kents.
The Highlanders made a desperate charge, using bayonets and hand
grenades on the Germans who had gained the southern edge of the hill.
The Germans were driven back.
The Duke of Wuerttemberg, the German commander, presumably believing
his troops had not only held what they had taken, but had advanced,
announced that another German victory had been gained in the capture
of Hill 60. Sir John French also sent out a message, but in his report
he set forth that Hill 60 was held by the British. Because there had
been similar conflict in official reports all too frequently, it
seemed as if a tacit agreement was made among the neutrals to
determine who was telling the truth. This resulted in making what was
a comparatively unimportant engagement one of the most celebrated
battles of the war. As soon as Duke Albrecht of Wuerttemberg discovered
his mistake he did what he could to make good his statement by
attempting to take Hill 60 without regard to sacrificing his men. Sir
John French was just as determined to hold the hill. So he moved large
numbers of troops toward the shattered mound, the British artillery
was reenforced, and the hastily constructed sandbag breastworks were
improved with all possible speed.
The Germans then attacked with gas bombs. Projectiles filled with gas
were hurled upon the British from three sides. The East Surrey
Regiment, which defended the hill in the latter part of the battle for
it, suffered severely. Faces and arms became shiny and gray-black.
Membranes in the throats thickened, and lungs seemed to be eaten by
the chlorine poison. Yet the men fought on until exhausted, and then
fell to suffer through a death struggle which continued from
twenty-four hours to three days of suffocating agony.
The German artillery kept up its almost incessant pounding of the
British. In short lulls of the big gun's work the German infantry
hurled itself against the trenches on the hill, using hand grenades
and bombs. The fight continued until the morning of May 5, 1915, when
the wind blew at about four miles an hour from the German trenches.
Then a greenish-yellow fog of poisonous gas was released, and soon
encompassed the hill. The East Surreys, who were holding the hill,
were driven back by the gas, but as soon as the gas passed they
charged the Germans who had followed the gas and had taken possession
of the hill. Notwithstanding the machine-gun fire which the Germans
poured upon them, many of the trenches were retaken by the Surrey
soldiers in their first frenzied rush to regain what they had lost
because of the gas. The battle ended when there was no hill left. The
bombardment and the mines had leveled the mound by distributing it
over the surrounding territory. The British, however, were accorded
the victory, as they had trenches near where the hill was and made
them a part of the base of the salient about Ypres.
That town has been likened to the hub of a wheel whose spokes are the
roads which lead eastward. It is true that one important road went
over the canal at Steenstraate, but practically all of the highways of
consequence went through Ypres. Thus the spokes of the wheel, whose
rim was the outline of the salient, were the roads to Menin,
Gheluvelt, Zonnebeke, Poelcapelle, Langemarck, and Pilkem. And the
railroad to Roulers was also a spoke. Hence all of the supplies for
the troops on the salient must pass through Ypres, which made it most
desirable for the Germans to take the town. It will be remembered that
they had won a place for their artillery early in November, 1914,
which gave them an opportunity to bombard Ypres through the winter. On
February 1, 1915, a portion of the French troops which had held the
salient were withdrawn and their places taken by General Bulfin's
Twenty-eighth Division. Thus, by April 20, 1915, that part of the
Allies' front was held as follows: From the canal to east of
Langemarck was the Forty-fifth Division of the French army, consisting
of colonial infantry. On the French right, to the northeast of
Zonnebeke, was the Canadian division, under the command of General
Alderson, consisting of the Third Brigade, under General Turner, on
the left, and the Second Brigade, under General Currie, on the right.
The Twenty-eighth Division extended from the Canadian right to the
southeast corner of the Polygon Wood. This division comprised the
Eighty-third, Eighty-fourth, and Eighty-fifth Brigades in order from
right to left. The next section of the salient was held by Princess
Patricia's Regiment of the Twenty-seventh Division, which division,
under the command of General Snow, guarded the front to the east of
Veldhoek along the ridge to within a short distance of Hill 60, where
the Fifth Division, under the command of General Morland, held the
line. The greater part of the German troops opposite the salient were
from Wuerttemberg and Saxony.