THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES--PREPARATIONS.
(_July 1917._)
We had begun the year in confident anticipation of a "great battle,"
which was to give the enemy such a handsome blow that he would go
reeling back towards his frontiers, and in the winter either ask for
peace or lick his sores, until in the spring-time, with a concentration
of every man and gun, we would crush him once and for all. Before Arras
optimists had hoped that we might make an end of things that season,
but the rumours abroad of delay in preparations, of the too slow
provision of material and men, and of the breaking-up of the Russian
Armies, sobered our prophecies. Even with the great battle to which we
pinned our faith, we should want another year. After Arras we were a
little crestfallen: the second act of that battle had been so obviously
a failure, and the grand attack of the French--a victory until it was
fought--made curiously little progress. The taking of the Messines
Ridge was encouraging, and for a time we cast covetous eyes on Lille;
but, thinking it over, we began to rate Messines at its true value--a
very notable but local success.
As early as March the good people of Amiens were whispering "Ypres,"
and the prognostications of the Amienois were always astonishingly
correct. It was obvious to the merest amateur that the Salient was
boiling with activity, and, as one fact after another was revealed, we
could soon make a pretty shrewd guess at the probable course of events.
The great battle was to take place in the neighbourhood of Ypres, and
our hearts sank to our boots.
The Salient represented all that was most horrible in war. The veteran,
experienced in the terrors of the Brickstacks or the Somme, would feel
that he had something still to learn and suffer if he had not done his
time in the Salient. The first and second battles, it was true, had
been triumphs of defence, but triumphs so full of tragedy that a man
cannot tell of them without bringing sorrow. It is not easy to forget
the fruitless massacre of Hill 60, that ghastly morning when the 14th
Division, never too lucky, were driven out of their trenches by liquid
fire; that night when the choking Zouaves came back to the canal, and
the moonlight shining through the green fumes of the gas shells in
Boesinghe, and the troubled old French general in the chateau whose
brigade-major was so pathetically insistent on the counter-attacks that
would surely be put in hand at once, and the shell which blotted out my
patrol....
The thought of tanks in the Salient made those of us shiver a little
who knew the country. The Salient had swallowed up so many reputations
and made so few. With water everywhere just below the surface, and a
heavy preliminary bombardment, the ground would be almost impassable
for tanks, and if it rained.... Surely, we felt, there could never have
been a more hopeless enterprise! It was an ugly business. Yet I must
confess that in the eager hustle and stir of our preparations we became
almost confident; those who had never seen the Salient made light of
our fears; perhaps, after all, Johnson's "unditching beam" would see us
through; they would never send the tanks to the Salient if they had not
made sure. We allowed ourselves to be encouraged, and, hoping against
hope, entered upon the battle.
Experiments certainly were made. One of my tanks, with a few others,
were sent away to demonstrate how easy it was for tanks to cross dykes
and ditches and wet ground....
Several crews were taken from the battalion to form a special company,
which was hedged round with mystery and secrecy. There was soon,
however, a strong rumour in the camp that this company was destined
to land at Ostend with an army under Rawlinson from England. As I had
no desire to know more about the matter than was good for me, I did
not take an early opportunity of going to Amiens to learn the truth.
However, the secret was not too badly kept--I believe the doctor's
daughter at Blangy knew nothing of it. I heard later--but I am sure
my information must have been inaccurate--that the whole project
was quite frankly discussed in the more discreet drawing-rooms of
London....
Before the battle actually began we were told little but surmised much,
and our surmises proved moderately correct. We were bidding for the
coast....
There was something of a tragic experiment in the Battle of the Somme.
We had hoped vaguely then that the German line might be broken or at
least dangerously bent, but we had seen no glittering prize to grasp.
And after the first few days when our tremendous and expensive assaults
had created but a microscopic indentation, we realised in a spirit of
grim fatalism that the battle must become, as indeed it did, a series
of terrible mechanical attacks in an atmosphere of monstrous shelling.
We looked forward to the great battle of 1917 in a different spirit.
Perhaps we knew more about it. Perhaps the early successes at Arras had
encouraged us. Perhaps the mere companionship of our tanks infected
us with optimism. We did feel that there was a cheerful breadth of
conception about it--and we knew that we had guns innumerable and
limitless ammunition....
In July 1917 the line from the coast to the Lys was divided into four
sectors, each widely different from the others. First, there was the
narrow front on the coast, where men fought among the sand-dunes.
This sector we had just taken over and stiffened with guns. It was
rumoured--I believe with truth--that here we would attack. If no attack
was intended, it is difficult to account for the concentration of guns,
infantry, and aeroplanes.
From the right flank of the coast sector practically to the left
re-entrant of the Ypres Salient stretched the inundated area, where
Belgians and Germans had looked through their field-glasses at each
other since the early days of the war. Here it was almost impossible to
attack.
Then came the infamous Salient, where for so many bitter months we had
clung desperately to the skirts of the foothills. Our trenches were
overlooked and water-logged; our approaches were observed and shelled
mercilessly, and all the areas back to Poperinghe were shelled, while
lately bombing by night had become more frequent and unpleasant. Now
we were expecting to sweep over the hills, where the Germans lay, and
out into the dead flat plains beyond. There were enormous difficulties
ahead in this sector,--the Passchendaele Ridge, which stretched into
the enemy lines, and the Houthulst Forest, set down in a marsh,--and
the average soldier was inclined to reason it out that if the enemy had
found it impossible to push us down into the plain we should find it as
impossible to push him back over his hills and through his forest--yet
as a matter of sober fact we were absurdly confident.
Finally, on the right there was the Messines Ridge, which we had just
captured. From this ridge the enemy had been able to look into our
lines. Without it we could not hope to attack from the Salient, for
the attackers would have had the enemy sitting on a hill to their left
rear. Now we had won it, and on a narrow front would give the Germans a
taste of the Salient.
This, then, was the motive of the battle--to push through along the
coast and at the Ypres Salient, forcing the German back from his
edge of the floods by threatening his flanks. At the height of the
operations a strong force equipped with tanks would land at Ostend, and
once more the German Army would possess a vulnerable right flank.
This diagram will show roughly the outline of the operations, as we
understood they would be:--
[Illustration]
We had struck the first blow in the battle of Messines; the enemy
struck the second. They made a sudden skilful attack on the coast
sector, and, showing themselves, as always, masters of the local
operation with a limited objective, did serious damage. A brigade was
practically annihilated, a division was roughly handled, and all our
preparations were put so badly out of gear that soon a number of big
guns came trundling south to the Salient....
In that little pocket-handkerchief of a tankodrome at Eclimeux we were
making our preparations in our own small way for the grand battle. We
had drawn a job lot of tanks, the majority of which had been much in
use at the driving-school at Wailly. Some of them we had even taken
over "in situ" at Wailly, where we made good in haste the damage done
by successive classes. At this period of its existence the Tank Corps
was always in a hurry. Everything was left to the last minute, and then
there was a sudden scare. It did not please the men that they had to
patch up tanks at the last minute before going north. Some tanks were
in so poor a state that the Brigade Commander very properly refused to
take them.
Leaving my men to work all day--by this time I had managed to scrape
most of my company together again--I drove north on the 2nd July to see
Jumbo, who had been sent on ahead to our destination, Oosthoek Wood,
north of Vlamertinghe, which is the village half-way between Poperinghe
and Ypres.
I found after a hot and dusty ride that the site of our proposed camp
was on the northern edge of the wood, close by a siding and a very
obvious ramp. It was a part of the world which the German gunner found
interesting. Jumbo was quite clear on the point, though Jumbo himself,
revelling in the cool and shade of the woods after hot days forward
on reconnaissance, did not turn a hair. The ramp and the northern
edge of Oosthoek Wood were shelled nightly. There were two painfully
fresh shell-holes in the middle of the area allotted to us, and "G"
Battalion across the road were not sleeping at all. One night they
actually left their camp, and I am afraid when they returned they found
one or two little things were missing. Anyway, at breakfast the next
morning, Horobin, Jumbo's batman, had a broad smile. We found too, on
examination, that the undergrowth had been thoroughly fouled by the
constant succession of troops who had stayed for a night or so, and
then had gone back to rest or forward to the line.
In short, I had no love for the place.
We took the opportunity of studying the approaches to the ramp, which
mercifully was broad and strong and approached by a nearly straight
stretch of rail. The route to the wood, in which we were instructed
to hide our tanks, was only a couple of hundred yards long with no
difficulties.
Before I left I was told that a shell had dropped into "C" Battalion
lines and nearly wiped out Battalion Headquarters. I had never
liked the Salient, and as I drove in the evening back to Humières,
it seemed to me clear enough that I should like it even less. That
night I dreamed of shells landing in the middle of foul undergrowth.
A few days later I heard with more than a little relief that the
brigade had decided to move the men's lines to the neighbourhood of
La Lovie Chateau, north of Poperinghe. The tanks would remain under a
small guard at Oosthoek, and the men would march or be carried down
every day to work on them. The scheme had its disadvantages--it is
always a nuisance to be too far from your tanks--but the decision was
incontrovertibly right. Nothing can be more fretting to the nerves of
man than this nagging gun-fire at night, and somebody is always hit
sooner or later, and the somebody cannot usually be replaced.
We discovered, when the battle had begun, that a prisoner, whom the
Germans had taken while we were making our preparations, had informed
the Germans, probably under pressure, that there were tanks at Oosthoek
Wood. Knowing what they did, it is a little astonishing that the German
gunners did not increase their nightly ration of shells, which merely
disturbed the guard, who slept under the tanks when not on duty, and
did not damage a tank.
A week before we moved my officers were seized with a fantastical idea,
and, disdaining to comb their hair, like Spartans before the battle,
cropped it almost to the skin. I have known similar outbursts of
decapillation. Ward's officers once shaved off their moustaches before
Bullecourt, and, when one subaltern indignantly refused to submit,
his fellows painted a large moustache on the lower part of his back.
Unfortunately he was wounded next day in the same spot. I have often
wondered what the nurse must have thought....
One fine morning--it was the 10th of July--my tanks pulled out of the
little tankodrome, and did their best to block the street of Eclimeux.
It was an annoying day: so many things went wrong, and we did not know
how much time we might be given at the other end to put them right. The
track led down the road, across some corn-fields, and, leaving our old
friends at Blangy on the left, beside the main road to Erin. Eventually
all the tanks arrived, and were parked up in the vast enclosure,
surrounded by a wall of canvas.
I remember that the entraining was poor. We took nearly forty minutes.
Entraining and detraining provide searching tests of a tank's
mechanical efficiency and the skill of a crew. If there is any flaw
in the tuning, any clumsiness in the driver, driving on to a train
will discover it. A tank dislikes a train. It slides on with grunts of
obstinate dissatisfaction. If it ever wants to jib, it will jib then.
Luckily we had no severe casualties, for to tow a "dud" tank on or off
a train may be heartbreaking work. At last all the tanks were neatly
covered with tarpaulins, the baggage was placed in the trucks, and the
men were settling down and making themselves comfortable. Many months,
full of hard fighting, were to pass before "D" Battalion, or what was
left of it, returned to Erin....
Cooper and I, in a car loaded, as usual, with kit, drove north through
Heuchin and over the hills, and along the main road to Aire and lunch
in a cool tea-room. Then on we went to Hazebrouck and Bailleul, and at
last to Poperinghe, thick with troops. The sign of the Fifth Army, the
Red Fox, was everywhere; and the Fifth Army was in those days known
as the Army of Pursuit. Outside the town we passed the King of the
Belgians, apparently riding alone--a fine unassuming figure of a man;
and so we came to the copses near the Chateau of La Lovie.
In a laudable attempt at hiding our camp, though the whole Salient was
an open secret, we had pitched our tents among thick undergrowth and
some saplings. Orders had been given that the undergrowth was not to
be cleared, and life in consequence had its little difficulties. At
first to walk about the camp at night was simply foolish, for, if you
had the courage to leave your tent, you either plunged into a bush,
collided with a tree, or tripped over tent-ropes decently hidden in the
vegetation. But man cannot live in a forest without itching to make
some clearance--it is the instinct of the pioneer,--and before we had
been long in the copse I am afraid that one or two of the more tempting
bushes had disappeared, paths had been trodden, and the inevitable
"temporary structures" raised on what to all outward appearance had
recently been young trees.
On the afternoon that we arrived we came to the decision that we
disliked heat and aeroplanes. There was no shade, unless you lay at
full length under a bush, and innumerable aeroplanes--"Spads"--were
ascending and descending from an enormous aerodrome close by. The
flying men were in the cheeriest mood, and endeavoured always to keep
us amused by low and noisy flying. I do not think that there is any
aeroplane more consistently noisy than a "Spad."
At dusk we drove down to the ramp at Oosthoek Wood. The train backed
in after dark. We brought off our tanks in great style, under the eye
of the Brigade Commander, who was always present at these ceremonies.
The enemy was not unkind. He threw over a few shells, but one only
disturbed our operations by bursting on the farther side of the ramp
and so frightening our company dog that we never saw her again.
There was no moon, and we found it difficult to drive our tanks into
the wood without knocking down trees that made valuable cover. It was
none too easy without lights, which we did not wish to use, to fasten
the camouflage nets above the tanks on to the branches. The track of
the tanks from the ramp to the wood was strewn with branches and straw.
By the time we had finished the night had fled, and it was in the fresh
greyness of dawn that we marched the weary miles to the camp at La
Lovie. The men were dog-tired, my guide was not certain of the road,
though he never missed it, and I had never realised the distance. After
an interminable tramp we staggered into camp. The men were given some
hot breakfast, and then, as the sun rose, you would have heard nothing
but snores. For our sins we had arrived in a "back area" of the Salient.
That was on the 11th of July: the next twenty days were crammed full of
preparations.
Every morning the men marched down to the wood, wondering a little
if the shelling during the night had done any damage--and Oosthoek
Wood was shelled every night. Gradually the tanks were "tuned" to the
last note of perfection, the new Lewis guns were fired, and finally
the tanks were taken out on a cloudy day to a field close by and the
compasses adjusted by "swinging." Names and numbers were painted.
Experiments were made with the new and not very satisfactory form of
"unditching gear." Supplies of water, petrol, and ammunition were taken
on board. Everything that the crews could do was done.
We were told soon after we had arrived in the Salient that during the
first stages of the great battle "D" Battalion would remain in reserve.
There was, in consequence, no need for us to make any elaborate
reconnaissances of our own trench system, because by the time that
we were likely to come into action it was probable that we should be
beyond trenches and operating in the open country.
If a tank company is ordered to attack with the infantry on the first
day of a battle, no reconnaissance can be too detailed and patient, for
on the night before the attack a tank can do untold mischief. There are
wires, light railways, emplacements, communication trenches, dug-outs
to be avoided, and a specific spot to be reached at a given time. Tanks
unfortunately are not allowed to roam wildly over the battlefield
either before or during a battle. The route that a tank will take from
the moment it starts to move up on the night before the battle to the
moment it rallies after the battle is only a few yards wide. It is
chosen after the most painstaking examination of aeroplane photographs
and the daily reconnaissance of the enemy country. To our own front
line the route is taped, and forward it should be taped--in the mind's
eye of the tank commander.
Nor was it necessary for us to "liaise" with the infantry. Immediately
a tank company commander learns that he is "going over" with a certain
battalion of infantry, he begins at once to establish the closest
possible "liaison." The infantry officers are entertained and shown
over the tanks. A demonstration is arranged, and if time permits a
dress rehearsal of the attack is carried out in order that there may
be a thorough understanding between the tanks and the infantry. At
the beginning of the Ypres battle combined tactics scarcely existed.
The infantry attacked, the tanks helped, and the only question to be
decided was whether the tanks went in front of the infantry or the
infantry in front of the tanks. But even in July 1917 it was just
as well to know personally the officers and men of the battalion
concerned, although as late as September 1918 one Divisional Commander
refused to tell his men that they would be attacking with tanks, in
case they should be disappointed if the tanks broke down before the
battle.
We had only to reconnoitre the routes to the canal, and make a general
study of the sector in which we might be engaged.
Nothing, I suppose, sounds more elementary than to take a marked map
and follow a tank route from a large wood to a canal which cannot be
avoided. In practice there are not a few little difficulties. First,
it is necessary to extricate the tanks from the wood without knocking
down the trees, which may later be required to shelter others from
aeroplanes. This requires care and skill. Then the tanks proceed along
a cart-track until the route crosses a main road by a camp, where
it is necessary to swing sharply to avoid important wires and some
huts. Beyond the main road we trek across a field or two until the
track divides, and it is easy enough in the dark to bear to the right
instead of to the left. Then there is a ditch to cross, with marshy
banks--a good crossing in dry weather, but doubtful after rain--and
we mark an alternative. We come to a light railway, and this under
no circumstances must be damaged. We arrange for it to be "ramped"
carefully with sleepers, but it is just as well to carry a few spare
sleepers in the tanks, because some heavy gunners live near by. The
track, which by this time is two feet deep in mud, again divides, and
bearing to the right we find that an ammunition column has camped
across it. So we suggest that tanks through horse lines at night
may produce dire results, and a narrow passage is cleared. Another
main-road crossing and a bridge--we are doubtful about that bridge,
and walk down the stream until we come to something more suitable to
our weight. Along the route we look for woods, copses, or ruins, so
that, if a tank breaks down, we may know the best cover for the night:
you cannot afford to leave a tank lying about in the open, however
skilfully you may camouflage it.
I shall never forget those hot arduous days when we tramped in the
moist heat over all the possible routes, plunging, after it had rained,
through sticky mud often up to our knees, setting up little sign-posts
wherever it was possible to make a mistake, and wondering whether the
car would meet us at the other end....
The canal was a problem in itself. To live in a Salient under the eyes
of the enemy is miserable enough, but when it is necessary to cross a
canal to reach your own trenches life becomes intolerable.
The canal ran north and south from Ypres. It was an everyday canal,
with dug-outs in its banks and only three or four feet of mud and water
at the bottom. It was crossed by a number of bridges, and on each
the enemy gunners had been "registering" for two years, so that by
July 1917 their fire had become moderately accurate. They knew it was
necessary for us to cross the canal by a bridge, unless we went through
Ypres, with the result that no man lingered on a bridge a moment longer
than he must. Even our infantry, who would march steadily through a
barrage, crossed the canal at the double, and yet were often caught.
With the tanks we determined to take no risks. Bridges might be--and
often were--destroyed by a single shell, and it was decided to build
two solid embankments. Immediately the sappers started the enemy
discovered what was happening, and shelled the work without mercy
by day and by night and dropped bombs, but resolutely the work went
forward. Gang after gang of men were swept out of existence, but the
sappers just set their teeth and hung on, until a few days before the
battle the two embankments were well and properly built, and the little
graveyard by divisional headquarters was nearly filled.
In those days the German gunners gave us no peace. It was a magnificent
duel between the two artilleries. The enemy knew, of course, that we
were about to attack, and they determined that, if shells could spoil
our preparations, our preparations should be spoiled. I believe we lost
ten thousand men in the three weeks before the battle. We were consoled
only by the thought that the enemy was getting as much as he gave. It
was pleasant, for instance, to find a long gun, whose sole object in
life was to drop shells on the station at Roulers from dusk to dawn,
particularly after a chance shell in Poperinghe had spoiled a little
dinner at "Skindles," or a salvo into St Jean had distinctly delayed an
important reconnaissance on a sweltering day. And the shelling of the
canal was beyond a joke.
As I was a little anxious about the embankments, I decided to
reconnoitre, for my own peace of mind, a passable route through the
outskirts of Ypres round the "dead end" of the canal. It was a typical
day. Cooper and I motored to within a mile, and then, leaving our
car under the shelter of some trees, walked boldly ahead along the
road to the "dead end." There was no shelling near--it was a pleasant
quiet morning. We noticed, however, that the enemy had been active
very recently. The road was covered with fresh branches and dirt. The
shell-holes were suspiciously new. We crossed two bridges, and, having
satisfied ourselves that they would easily bear tanks, we walked down
to the quayside and stopped for a moment to light our pipes, with
mutual congratulations that we had chosen such a calm morning.
We did not then know the neighbourhood. We barely heard a shell before
it dropped neatly on the farther bank. We decided to push on down the
canal, but a little barrage drove the inhabitants of the canal into
their dug-outs. Finally, the salvos of H.E. shrapnel made the quayside
a place to be avoided, and we retired hastily into a strong shelter
where some jolly gunners offered us tea. They belonged to a 6-inch
howitzer battery a little distance away, and already they had lost
two-thirds of their men, and two of their howitzers had received direct
hits.
We waited for twenty minutes. There is nothing more difficult, and at
the same time more easy, than to take cover until a "strafe" stops.
Probably, if you walk straight on, as you intended, you will not only
be just as safe as you are under cover, but you will add to your
self-respect and rise in the estimation of your fellow-prisoners. On
the other hand, there is no hurry, and the enemy cannot go on for ever.
Why not wait until he stops? Still, as a major you should set a good
example, and not take any notice of a few shells. Yes, but they are
large shells, and you are perfectly certain that the last one fell
exactly on the road. Now, if we had been there----
Twice we started and twice we were driven in. Then at last we made
up our minds that the shelling was dying down, and we began to walk
back over the bridges, which had been hit at least twice since we had
crossed them. I heard something come very, very quickly, and I do not
mind confessing that I ducked. It exploded in the back of the house
which we were passing. We walked a little more rapidly, and strained
our ears for the next. We just heard it, and this time we flung
ourselves down, and the dirt and bits of things came pattering down on
to us. I looked at Cooper. There was agreement in his eye. We ran for
our lives.... That was our final reconnaissance on the 28th July.
After mess on the 30th, I strolled out with Cooper to the corner of
the main road. It was dusk, and the coolness was sweet. We waited, and
then battalion after battalion came swinging round the corner, where
guides stood with lanterns. Some of the men were whistling, a few were
singing, and some, thinking of the battle or their homes, had set
faces. Soon it became too dark to distinguish one man from another, and
I thought it as well. What did it matter if one man was singing and
another brooding over the battle to come? They were shadowy figures,
dark masses, just so many thousand infantrymen marching to the battle,
just so many units to kill or be killed. One grave is the same as any
other, and one infantryman should be the same as any other; for it is
difficult to endure war, and at the same time to think of the fear, the
love, the songs, the hope, the courage, the devices of the individual
men who fight. There is nothing noble, glorious, or romantic in war,
unless you forget the souls of the men....
The squealing mules with their clattering limbers plunged round the
corner, and we returned to our tents. It was hard to sleep. In a few
hours there was a momentary silence. Then right along the line an
uneasy drone broke the stillness--the weary tank crews had started
their engines, and the barrage fell with a crash on the German
trenches.