same fashion, flank attacks being outflanked by the extension of the
enemy’s line, with strenuous frontal attacks of his daily increasing
forces.
The Seventh Division--the first half of the Fourth Army
Corps--reached Ypres from Dixmude on the 14th October after its
unsuccessful attempt to relieve Antwerp. As the First Army Corps had
not yet come up from the Aisne, this Division was used to cover the
British position at Ypres from the north; the infantry lying from
Zandvoorde, on the south-east, through Zonnebeke to Langemarck on
the north-west. Here again, through lack of numbers and artillery
equipment, the British position was as serious as in the south. Enemy
forces, more numerous than the British and Belgian armies, combined,
were bearing down on the British line from the eastward through
Courtrai, Iseghem, and Roulers, and over the Lys bridge at Menin.
Later on, it was discovered that these represented not less than five
new Army Corps. The Seventh Division was ordered to move upon Menin,
to seize the bridge over the river and thus check the advance of
further reinforcements. There were, of course, not enough troops for
the work, but on the 18th October the Division, the right centre of
which rested on the Ypres-Menin road, not yet lined throughout with
dead, wheeled its left (the 22nd Brigade) forward. As the advance
began, the cavalry on the left became aware of a large new German
force on the left flank of the advance, and fighting became general
all along the line of the Division.
On the 19th October the airmen reported the presence of two fresh
Army Corps on the left. No further advance being possible, the
Division was ordered to fall back to its original line, an operation
attended with heavy loss under constant attacks.
On the 20th October the pressure increased as the German Army Corps
made themselves felt against the thin line held by the Seventh
Division, which was not amply provided with heavy batteries.
Their losses were largely due to artillery fire, directed by
air-observation, that obliterated trenches, men, and machine-guns.
On the 21st October the enemy attacked the Division throughout the
day, artillery preparations being varied by mass assaults, but still
the Division endured in the face of an enemy at least four times
as strong and constantly reinforced. It is, as one writer says,
hardly conceivable that our men could have checked the enemy’s
advance for even a day longer, had it not been for the arrival at
this juncture of the First Army Corps. Reinforcements were urgently
needed at every point of the British line, but, for the moment, the
imminent danger lay to the north of Ypres, where fresh German forces,
underestimated as usual, might sweep the Belgian army aside and
enter the Channel ports in our rear. With this in mind, the British
Commander-in-Chief decided to use the First Army Corps to prolong the
British line, already, as it seemed, nearly worn through, toward the
sea, rather than to strengthen any occupied sector. He posted it,
therefore--until French reinforcements should arrive--to the north,
or left of the Seventh Division, from Zonnebeke to Bixschoote.
Our front at that date ran from Hollebeke to Bixschoote, a distance,
allowing for bends, of some sixteen miles. To protect this we had but
three depleted Infantry Divisions and two Cavalry Brigades against
opposed forces of not less than a hundred thousand. Moreover, the
ground was hampered by the flight, from Roulers and villages in
German possession, of refugees, of whom a percentage were certainly
spies, but over whom it was impossible to exercise any control. They
carried their goods in little carts drawn by dogs, and they wept and
wailed as they straggled past our men.
THE SALIENT AND THE FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES
The orders for the Guards Brigade on October 21 to “drive back the
enemy wherever met” were not without significance. All their news
in billets had been of fresh formations coming down from the north
and the east, and it was understood that the Germans counted with
confidence upon entering Calais, _via_ Ypres, in a few days.
The Brigade, less the 2nd Coldstream, “assembled in a field about
four kilometres along the Ypres-Zonnebeke Road, and after a wait
of three hours No. 4 Company of the 1st Irish Guards advanced to
the support of the 2nd Grenadiers, who had been ordered to prolong
the line to the right of the 2nd Coldstream. This company and both
the advanced battalions suffered somewhat severely from shell-fire
and occasional sniping.” Thus coldly does the Diary enter upon
what was in fact the first day of the First Battle of Ypres, in
which companies had to do the work of battalions, and battalions of
brigades, and whose only relief was a change of torn and blood-soaked
ground from one threatened sector of the line to the next.
It was not worth while to record how the people of Ypres brought hot
coffee to the Battalion as it passed through, the day before (October
20); and how, when they halted there a few hours, the men amused
their hosts by again dancing Irish jigs on the clattering pavements
while the refugees clattered past; or how it was necessary to warn
the companies that the enemy might attack behind a screen of Belgian
women and children--in which case the Battalion would have to fire
through them.
On the evening of the 21st October the Battalion was ordered up to
the support of what was left of the 22nd Brigade which had fallen
back to Zonnebeke. “It came under a heavy burst of artillery
fire and was forced to lie down (in a ploughed field) for fifteen
minutes”--at that time a novel experience. On its way a hare started
up which was captured by a man of No. 2 Company to the scandal of
discipline and the delight of all, and later sold for five shillings.
At Zonnebeke it found No. 4 Company already lining the main road on
the left of the town and took up a position in extended order on its
right, “thus establishing the line into Zonnebeke.” The casualties,
in spite of the artillery fire, are noted as only “one killed and
seven wounded,” which must have been far under the mark. The night
was lit by the flames of burning houses, by which light they hunted
for snipers in haystacks round the village, buried stray dead of a
battalion of the Seventh Division which had left them and, by order,
did a deal of futile digging-in.
The next day the 22nd Brigade retired out of Zonnebeke about a
kilometre down the main road to Ypres, the Battalion and half the
2nd Coldstream conforming to the movement. This enabled the Germans
to enter the north of Zonnebeke and post machine-guns in some of the
houses. None the less, our patrols remained in the south end of the
town and did “excellent work”; an officer’s patrol, under Lieutenant
Ferguson, capturing three mounted orderlies. One man was killed and
8 wounded in the Battalion that day.
On the 23rd October “the enemy brought up more machine-guns and
used them against us energetically all the day.” A platoon of No.
1 Company, under Lieutenant the Hon. H. Alexander, attempted an
outflanking movement through Zonnebeke, towards the church, supported
by a platoon of No. 4 Company, under Lieutenant W. C. N. Reynolds,
in the course of which the latter officer was wounded. The trenches
were shelled with shrapnel all the afternoon, and a German advance
was sprayed down with our rifle-fire. In the evening the French made
an attack through Zonnebeke helped by their .75’s and established
themselves in the town. They also, at 9 P. M., relieved the Battalion
which moved at once south-west to Zillebeke and arrived there at
2 A. M. on the morning of the 24th, when it billeted “chiefly in a
brick-yard” ready to be used afresh.
The relieving troops were a division of the Ninth French Army
Corps. They took over the line of our Second Division, while our
Second Division in turn took over part of the front of the Seventh
Division. At the same time French Territorials relieved our First
Division between Bixschoote and Langemarck, thus freeing us of all
responsibility for any ground north of the Ypres-Zonnebeke road. Our
Army on the 24th October, then, stood as follows: From the Zonnebeke
road to a point near the race-course in the historic Polygon Wood
west of Reutel was the Second Division; on its right, up to the Menin
road, lay the First Division; and from the Menin road to Zandvoorde
the Seventh Division with the 3rd Cavalry Brigade in the Zandvoorde
trenches. Our line had thus been shortened and strengthened; but the
enemy were continuously receiving reinforcements from Roulers and
Menin, and the pressure never ceased.
In the early morning of the 24th October, and before the transfer
of all the troops had been effected, the British Ypres front was
attacked throughout in force and once more the shock of the attack
fell on the remains of the Seventh Division. Reserves there were
none; each battalion stood where it was in the flood and fought on
front, flank, and rear indifferently. The Irish Guards had a few
hours’ rest in the brick-fields at Zillebeke, where, by some miracle,
it found its mail of home-letters and parcels waiting for it. Even
before it could open them it was ordered out from Zillebeke[2] along
the Ypres-Menin road to Hooge to help the 20th Brigade (Seventh
Division), which had been attacked on the morning of the 25th
October, and parties of the enemy were reported to have broken
through into Polygon Wood.
[Illustration:
_THE YPRES SALIENT_
_First Battalion Actions_
_Emery Walker Ltd. del. et sc._]
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY EMERY WALKER LTD., LONDON
That attack, however, was repulsed during the day, and in the evening
the Battalion was despatched to act in support of the 5th Brigade
near Race-course (Polygon) Wood, due north of Veldhoek, where the
Battalion bivouacked for the night in a ploughed field. This was the
first time it had marched up the Menin road or seen the Château of
Hooge, of which now no trace remains, sitting stately among its lawns.
On the 25th October, after a heavy bombardment, as bombardments were
then reckoned, the whole Division was ordered at dawn to advance
against Reutel; the 2nd Grenadier Guards and the Irish Guards being
given the work of clearing out Polygon Wood, of which the enemy
held the upper half. They were advancing through the woods, and the
trenches of the Worcester Battalion there, when a big shell burst
in Lieutenant Ferguson’s platoon, No. 3 Company, killing 4 and
wounding 9 men, as far as was known. Ferguson himself, knocked down
but unwounded, went back to advise No. 2 Company coming up behind
him to deviate a little, “for the ground was a slaughter-house.”
The Battalion fought its way to a couple of hundred yards north of
Reutel and was then brought under heavy rifle-fire from concealed
trenches on a ridge. The 2nd Grenadiers on the right had, earlier,
been held up by a German trench on their left, and, as dark came
on, touch between the battalions there was lost, and the patrol
sent out to regain it only stumbled on the German trench. The left
of the Battalion lost touch by nearly a quarter of a mile with the
5th Brigade, and as the wet night closed in they found themselves
isolated in darkness and dripping autumn undergrowth, with the old
orders “to hold ground gained at all costs.” Meantime they hung
with both flanks in the air and enemy patrols on either side. The
nearest supports of any kind were the trenches of the Worcesters,
six hundred yards behind, through the woods; so the Battalion linked
up with them by means of a double front of men, back to back, strung
out tail-wise from their bivouac to the Worcesters. The manœuvre
succeeded. There was sniping all night from every side, but thanks to
the faithful “tail” the enemy could not get round the Battalion to
make sure whether it was wholly in the air. The casualties this day
were reported as 4 killed and 23 wounded.
At 4 A. M. on the 26th October, just after the night’s rain had
ceased, word came from Brigade Headquarters that the 3rd Coldstream
were to be expected on the Battalion’s right. They arrived an hour
and a half later and the Battalion attacked, again to be held up in
a salient heavily enfiladed from every angle by machine-guns, and
though No. 2 Company carried a couple of farm-houses outside the
woods, they were forced to retire from one of them and lost heavily.
An attack by the 6th Brigade in the afternoon relieved the pressure
a little, and helped the Battalion to get in touch with, at least,
its brigade. Lieutenant Shields (R.A.M.C. attached) was killed here
while attending our wounded. He had been remonstrated with only a
few minutes before for exposing himself too much, and paid as much
heed to the rebuke as did the others who succeeded him in his office.
The casualties for the day were 1 officer and 9 men killed and 42
wounded. The night was memorable inasmuch as the Battalion, which had
had no food for forty-eight hours, was allowed to eat its emergency
rations.
There was a German attack on the night of the 27th October, lasting
for less than an hour, but the advance of the 6th Brigade on the
Battalion’s left, together with the advance of the French still
farther to the left, threatening Passchendaele, kept the enemy
moderately quiet till the Battalion was relieved in the evening of
the 27th by the 3rd Coldstream, and went into bivouac just west of
Race-course Wood. It was shelled while settling down here and at
intervals throughout the night. Major Herbert Stepney was slightly
wounded in the back by a bullet when at supper in a farm-house; 2
men were killed and 3 wounded. Captain A. H. L. McCarthy, R.A.M.C.,
joined for duty, replacing Lieutenant Shields.
Next morning (October 28) the 5th Brigade was attacking and the
Battalion was ordered to support. It was heavily shelled again in
the wood and dug itself in north-west on the race-course, where it
stayed all day ready to support the Coldstream, and had a quiet
time. The C.O. (Lord Ardee) went to hospital with a bad throat;
Lieutenant Greer was wounded while serving his machine-gun, which had
been lent to the 3rd Coldstream, and a couple of men were wounded.
Drill-Sergeant A. Winspear joined the Connaught Rangers as 2nd
Lieutenant--one of the earliest of the army officers promoted from
the ranks.
The enemy at that date were so sure of success that they made no
attempt to conceal their intentions, and all our spent forces on the
Ypres front were well aware that a serious attack would be opened
on them on the 29th. Rumour said it would be superintended by the
Kaiser himself. But, so far as the Battalion was concerned, that day
was relatively quiet. The 2nd Brigade had been ordered to retake
the trenches lost by the 1st Brigade east of Gheluvelt, and the
Battalion’s duty, with the 2nd Grenadiers, was to fill up whatever
gaps might be found in a line which was mainly gaps between the left
of the 2nd and the right of the 1st Brigade near Polderhoek. It
reached the light railway from Gheluvelt to Polderhoek, discovered
that the gap there could be filled up by a platoon, communicated with
the C.O.’s of the two brigades concerned, sent back three companies
to the 4th Brigade Headquarters, left one at the disposal of the
1st Brigade, and at night withdrew. For the moment, the line could
be held with the troops on the spot, and it was no policy to use
a man more than was necessary. The casualties to the men for that
day were but 4 killed and 6 wounded, though a shell burst on the
Brigade Reserve Ammunition Column, west of Race-course Wood, and did
considerable damage.
The 30th October opened on the heaviest crisis of the long battle of
Ypres. The Battalion, to an accompaniment of “Jack Johnsons,” dug
trenches a quarter of a mile west of Race-course Wood in case the
troops at the farther end of it should be driven back; for in those
years woods were visible and gave good cover. German aeroplanes,
well aware that they had no anti-aircraft guns to fear, swooped low
over them in the morning, and men could only reply with some pitiful
rifle-fire.
In the afternoon orders came for them and the 2nd Grenadiers to stop
digging and move up to Klein Zillebeke to support the hard-pressed
Seventh Division on whose front the enemy had broken through
again. When they reached what was more or less the line, Nos. 1
and 2 Companies were sent forward to support the cavalry in their
trenches, while Nos. 3 and 4 Companies dug themselves in behind Klein
Zillebeke.[3] A gap of about a quarter of a mile was found running
from the Klein Zillebeke-Zandvoorde road north to the trenches of the
2nd Gordon Highlanders, and patrols reported the enemy in force in a
strip of wood immediately to the east of it. Whether the gap had been
blasted out by concentrated enemy-fire, or whether what the guns had
left of our cavalry had retired, was never clear. The Battalion was
told off to hold the place and to find out who was on either side of
them, while the 2nd Grenadiers continued the line southward from the
main road to the canal. Beginning at 11 P. M., they dug themselves
in till morning light. A burning farm-house blazed steadily all
night in a hollow by Zandvoorde and our patrols on the road could
see the Germans “in their spiked helmets” silhouetted against the
glare as they stormed out of the woods and massed behind the fold
of the ground ready for the morning’s attack. Two years later, our
guns would have waited on their telephones till the enemy formation
was completed and would then have removed those battalions from the
face of the earth. But we had not those guns. During the night the
Oxfordshire Light Infantry came up and occupied a farm between the
Battalion and the Gordon Highlanders and strengthened the situation
a little. Company commanders had already been officially warned that
the position was serious and that they must “hang on at all costs.”
Also that the Kaiser himself was in front of them.
On the 31st, after an attack by the French towards Hollebeke which
did not develop, the full storm broke. The Battalion, backed by
two R.F.A. guns, was shelled from seven in the morning till eleven
o’clock at night in such trenches as it had been able to construct
during the night; while machine-gun and infantry fire grew steadily
through the hours. The companies were disposed as follows: No. 4
Company immediately to the north of the main wood; then No. 3 with
No. 1 in touch with the Oxfordshire Light Infantry at a farm-house,
next to the Gordons; No. 2 was in reserve at a farm with Headquarters.
On the afternoon of the 31st October, Lord Ardee arrived from
hospital, though he was in no state to be out of it, and was greeted
by the information that the Gordons on the left, heavily shelled, had
been driven out of their trenches. The Oxford L.I. and also No. 1
Company of the Battalion which was in touch with them had to conform
to the movement. The section of R.F.A. had to retire also with the
Gordons and, after apologies, duly delivered among bursting German
shell, for “having to look after their guns,” they “limbered up and
went off as though it were the Military Tournament.” There was a
counter-attack, and eventually the enemy were driven back and the
line was re-established before night, which passed, says the Diary
“fairly quietly.” The moonlight made movement almost impossible; nor
could the men get any hot tea, their great stand-by, but rations were
distributed. The casualties among officers that day were Lieutenant
L. S. Coke killed, and buried in the garden of the farm; Captain Lord
Francis Scott, Lieutenant the Earl of Kingston, and Lieutenant R.
Ferguson wounded. There were many casualties in the front trenches,
specially among No. 3 Company, men being blown to pieces and no
trace left. The depressing thing, above all, was that we seemed to
have no guns to reply with.
Bombardment was renewed on the 1st November. The front trenches were
drenched by field-guns, at close range, with spurts of heavy stuff
at intervals; the rear by heavy artillery, while machine-gun fire
filled the intervals. One of the trenches of a platoon in No. 3
Company, under Lieutenant Maitland, was completely blown in, and only
a few men escaped. The Lieutenant remained with the survivors while
Sergeant C. Harradine, under heavy fire, took the news to the C.O.
It was hopeless to send reinforcements; the machine-gun fire would
have wiped them out moving and our artillery was not strong enough to
silence any one sector of the enemy’s fire.
In the afternoon the enemy attacked--with rifle-fire and a
close-range small piece that broke up our two machine-guns--across
some dead ground and occupied the wrecked trench, driving back the
few remains of No. 3 Company. The companies on the right and left,
Nos. 4 and 1, after heavy fighting, fell back on No. 2 Company, which
was occupying roughly prepared trenches in the rear. One platoon,
however, of No. 1 Company, under Lieutenant N. Woodroffe (he had
only left Eton a year), did not get the order to retire, and so
held on in its trench till dark and “was certainly instrumental in
checking the advance of the enemy.” The line was near breaking-point
by then, but company after company delivered what blow it could, and
fell back, shelled and machine-gunned at every step, to the fringe
of Zillebeke Wood. Here the officers, every cook, orderly, and man
who could stand, took rifle and fought; for they were all that stood
there between the enemy and the Channel Ports. (Years later, a man
remembering that fight said: “’Twas like a football scrum. Every
one was somebody, ye’ll understand. If he dropped there was no one
to take his place. Great days! An’ we not so frightened as when it
came to the fightin’ by machinery on the Somme afterwards.”)[4]
The C.O. sent the Adjutant to Brigade Headquarters to ask for help,
but the whole Staff had gone over to the 2nd Brigade Headquarters,
whose Brigadier had taken over command of the 4th Brigade as its own
Brigadier had been wounded. About this time, too, the C.O. of the
Battalion (Lord Ardee) was wounded. Eventually the 2nd Battalion
Grenadiers was sent up with some cavalry of the much-enduring 7th
Brigade, and the line of support-trenches was held. The Battalion had
had nothing to eat for thirty-six hours, so the cavalry kept the line
for a little till our men got food.
A French regiment (Territorials) on the right also took over part
of the trenches of our depleted line. Forty-four men were known to
have been killed, 205 wounded and 88--chiefly from the blown-up No.
3 Platoon--were missing. Of officers, Lieutenant K. R. Mathieson had
been killed (he had been last seen shooting a Hun who was bayoneting
our wounded); Captain Mulholland died of his wounds as soon as he
arrived in hospital at Ypres; Lieut.-Colonel Lord Ardee, Captain
Vesey, Lieutenant Gore-Langton and Lieutenant Alexander were wounded,
and Lieutenant G. M. Maitland, who had stayed with his handful in No.
3 Company’s trench, was missing. Yet the time was to come when three
hundred and fifty casualties would be regarded as no extraordinary
price to pay for ground won or held. One small draft of 40 men
arrived from home that night.
On November 2 the Battalion was reduced to three companies since in
No. 3 Company all officers were casualties and only 26 men of it
answered their names at roll-call. They were heavily shelled all that
day. They tried to put up a little wire on their front during the
night; they collected what dead they could; they received several
wounded men of the day’s fight as they crawled into our lines; they
heard one such man calling in the dark, and they heard the enemy turn
a machine-gun on him and silence him. The regular work of sending
forward and relieving the companies in the front line went on, varied
by an attack from the enemy, chiefly rifle-fire, on the night of
the 3rd November. On that date they received “a new machine-gun,”
and another draft of sixty men (under Captain E. C. S. King-Harman)
several of whom were killed or wounded that same afternoon. The
night was filled with false alarms as some of the new drafts began
to imagine crowds of Germans advancing out of the dark. This was a
popular obsession, but it led to waste of ammunition and waking up
utterly tired men elsewhere in the line.