Lieut.-Colonel R. S. de Haviland of the Eton O.T.C.--a man of many
friends in that company. The come-and-go of visitors cheered and
interested the men in the front trenches, since their presence even
for a little proved that, somewhere in the world, life continued on
not inconceivable lines. They jested naturally enough at those who
looked on for a day or two at their hardships and went away, but
the hardships were lightened a little by the very jest. Even while
the Commandant of the Eton O.T.C. was with them the Battalion was
energetically devising means to drain out an unspeakable accumulation
of stagnant water down hill from a mine near the Shrine under the
White House barricade (the White House was scarcely more than a name
even then) into some German trenches at the foot of the slope. This
work necessitated clearing a ditch by the roadside in which were
found four German corpses, “besides pieces of other human beings,”
which were buried, and in due course the whole flood of abomination
was decanted on the enemy. “As it was very horrible, I don’t suppose
they will like it,” writes one of the officers chiefly concerned.
On the same day, April 16, while 2nd Lieutenant H. Marion-Crawford,
who it will be remembered was Brigade Bombing Instructor, was
schooling some men of the 3rd Coldstream with live grenades one
exploded and killed him instantaneously. He had shown the greatest
ability in organizing the bombing work and his loss at that time,
where bombers were being more and more leaned upon, was very
seriously felt. He was buried four hours after his death in the
cemetery near Givenchy.
On the 17th the Battalion went back to the Collège des Jeunes Filles
at Béthune for a four days’ rest while its place in the trenches
was taken by a couple of Territorial Battalions--the Post Office
Rifles and the 15th County of London. While it was route-marched,
and instructed, and washed and steadily drilled, the battle for Hill
60 was being fought with mines and hand-grenades, hand-mortars,
and the first gas-shells, a score of miles to the north, where it
was made known to the Germans how, man for man, their fresh and
fully-trained troops could not overcome ours. The demonstration cost
some three thousand casualties on our side, and, it may be presumed,
strengthened the enemy’s intention to use gas on a larger scale in
the future. But no echo of the little affair interfered with the work
at Givenchy. The question was how the new Territorial battalions
would hold their trenches, and one sees in all the documents a
justified pride in their teachings when the Battalion went up to the
front again on the 22nd and found the Territorials were keen and had
kept their trenches clean. For the Guards teach, not unsuccessfully,
that unless a man is clean he cannot be the best sort of soldier.
On the night of the 22nd April the sector was held by the 15th
County of London, the Irish Guards and the Post Office Rifles, the
remainder of the Guards Brigade being in rest. To the normal strain
of a watching front line in foul weather was added a fresh burden. A
few days before, the enemy had blown a mine in an orchard about fifty
yards short of our trenches. It did no damage at the time, but the
R.E. Mining Officer, Lieutenant Barclay, in counter-mining towards
the crater it had made, saw, through the wall of his mine, Germans
engaged in turning the crater into an advanced-post. Trench-mortars
were fired at once to discourage them. Then came reports of
underground workings heard in other directions and, notably, close
to the parapet of a trench near the White House. This was on the
evening of the 24th. Hardly had orders been given to clear the White
House trench, when the ground at the junction of Lieutenant Barclay’s
countermine and the German crater went up and the Lieutenant was
killed. At the same time an explosion occurred near the White House.
Two privates of the Irish Guards (2845 J. Mansfield and 3975 M.
Brine) volunteered to enter our mine and see what had happened.
They recovered Lieutenant Barclay’s body at great risk from the
asphyxiating gases, and both men were recommended for the D.C.M. The
explosion near the White House was, after inspection, put down as the
work of a heavy shell, not a mine; but listening parties reported
more underground noises and another section of trench was evacuated
accordingly. To prevent the Germans consolidating themselves further
in the crater which connected with Lieutenant Barclay’s mine, our
4.5 howitzers bombarded it on the 25th, and it was decided to
blow our end of the mine as soon as possible to prevent the enemy
working up it. This was difficult, for the galleries were full of
foul gas--whether leaking from some adjacent coal-pit or laid on by
the enemy was uncertain. The R.E. officer who went down to lay the
charges was asphyxiated and several of his men were injured.
Not till the 29th of April were the difficulties overcome; by which
time the enemy had driven a fresh shaft into it. After the explosion,
a field-battery (17th R.F.A.) and the 47th Howitzer Battery fired a
salvo at the German trenches. “There was a little rifle-fire, but
soon all was quiet.” Mining, like aerial and bombing work, was still
in its infancy, and the information supplied by the Intelligence was
said to be belated and inadequate.
An interesting point is the unshaken serenity with which the men
took the new developments. They were far too annoyed at being
shifted about and losing their rest to consider too curiously the
underlying causes of evil. They left the 3rd Coldstream to deal with
the situation and went into billets in Le Préol, and the next day
(April 26) into Béthune for their hot baths. A draft of 3 officers
(Captain T. M. D. Bailie and 2nd Lieutenants A. W. L. Paget and R.
S. G. Paget) with 136 N.C.O.’s and men reached them on the 27th,
when there was just time to give them a hot meal and send them at
once to the trenches in the bright moonlight under “a certain amount
of rifle-fire and intermittent shelling from small guns which did
not do much damage.” An enemy field-gun, long known as an unlocated
pest, spent the morning busily enfilading the trenches, in spite of
the assurances of our artillery that they had found and knocked it
out several times. Appeal was made to an R.A. Brigadier who, after
examining the ground, left the Battalion under the impression that
“it was likely a gun would be brought up early to-morrow.” Nothing
more is heard of the hope: but guns were scarce at that time.
There were other preoccupations for those in command. The second
battle of Ypres, that month’s miracle of naked endurance against the
long-planned and coldly thought-out horror of gas, had begun near
Langemarck with the choking-out of the French and Canadian troops,
and had continued day after day with the sacrifice of battalions
and brigades, Regulars and Territorials swallowed up in the low
grey-yellow gas banks that threatened Ypres from Langemarck to Hill
60, or beaten to pulp by heavy explosives and the remnant riddled
anew by machine-guns. Once again England was making good with her
best flesh and blood for the material and the training she had
deliberately refused to provide while yet peace held. The men who
came out of that furnace alive say that no after experience of all
the War approached it for sheer concentrated, as well as prolonged,
terror, confusion, and a growing sense of hopelessness among growing
agonies. If a world, at that time unbroken to German methods, stood
aghast at the limited revelations allowed by the press censorship
reports, those who had seen a man, or worse, a child, dying from
gas may conceive with what emotions men exposed to the new torment
regarded it, what kind of reports leaked out from clearing-stations
and hospitals, and what work therefore was laid upon officers to
maintain an even and unaffected temper in the battalions in waiting.
The records, of course, do not mention these details, nor, indeed,
do they record when gas-protectors (for masks, helmets, and boxes
were not evolved till much later) were first issued to the troops on
the Givenchy sector. But private letters of the 25th April, at the
time the German mine in the orchard occupied their attention, remark,
“we have all been issued out with an antidote to the latest German
villainy ... _i.e._ of asphyxiating gases.... What they will end by
doing one can hardly imagine. The only thing is to be prepared for
anything.”
The first “masks” were little more than mufflers or strips of cloth
dipped in lime water. A weather-cock was rigged up near Headquarters
dug-outs, and when the wind blew from the Germans these were got
ready. False alarms of gas, due to strange stenches given off by
various explosives, or the appearance of a mist over the German
line, were not uncommon, and on each occasion, it appeared that
the C.O. had to turn out, sniff, and personally pass judgment on
the case. The men had their instructions what to do in case of
emergency, concluding with the simple order, perhaps the result of
experience at Ypres, “in event of the first line being overcome, the
second immediately charge through the gas and occupy the front-line
trenches.”
But to return to the routine:
The casualties for the month of April were 2 officers and 8 men
killed and 1 officer and 42 men wounded. The strength of the
Battalion stood at 28 officers and 1133 men, higher than it had ever
been before.
The following is the distribution of officers and N.C.O.’s at that
time, a little less than three weeks before the battle of Festubert.
_Headquarters_
Major the Hon. J. F. Trefusis Commanding Officer.
Major the Earl of Rosse Second in Command.
Capt. Lord Desmond FitzGerald Adjutant.
Lieut. P. H. Antrobus Transport Officer.
Lieut. L. S. Straker Machine-gun Officer.
Capt. A. H. L. M’Carthy Medical Officer.
Lieut. H. Hickie Quartermaster.
The Rev. John Gwynne (S.J.) Chaplain.
_No. 1 Company_
Capt. J. N. Guthrie.
Lieut. R. G. C. Yerburgh.
2nd Lieut. V. W. D. Fox.
2nd Lieut. Hon. W. S. P. Alexander.
No. 2535 C.S.M. Harradine.
No. 3726 C.Q.M.S. P. M’Goldrick.
_No. 2 Company_
Capt. E. G. Mylne.
Lieut. Sir G. Burke, Bart.
2nd Lieut. R. B. H. Kemp.
2nd Lieut. S. G. Tallents.
No. 3949 C.S.M. D. Moyles.
No. 2703 C.Q.M.S. J. G. Lowry.
_No. 3 Company_
Major P. L. Reid.
2nd Lieut. J. R. Ralli.
2nd Lieut. C. Pease.
2nd Lieut. E. W. Campbell.
2nd Lieut. C. de Persse (attached 7th Dragoon Guards).
No. 2112 C.S.M. H. M’Veigh.
No. 3972 C.Q.M.S. R. Grady.
_No. 4. Company_
Capt. G. E. S. Young.
Lieut. J. S. N. FitzGerald.
Lieut. C. D. Wynter.
2nd Lieut. D. C. Parsons.
No. 2384 C.S.M. T. Curry.
No. 3132 C.Q.M.S. H. Carton.
The first ten days of May passed quietly. Mines, for the moment, gave
no further anxiety, bombing and bombardments were light, reliefs
were happily effected, and but 1 man was killed and 1 wounded. Two
officers, Lieutenant H. A. Boyse and 2nd Lieutenant R. H. W. Heard,
joined on the 2nd.
THE BATTLE OF FESTUBERT
It was judged expedient while the second battle of Ypres was in full
heat that the Germans should, if possible, be kept from sending any
help to their front near Arras, in Artois, which at the time was
under strong pressure from the French thrusting towards Lens. To this
end, our First Army was ordered to attack the German Seventh Corps
over the flat ground between Laventie and Richebourg on a front of
some ten miles. The affair opened very early on the morning of the
9th May with a bombardment, imposing in itself by the standards of
the day, but, as before, insufficient to break the wire or crush
enough of the machine-gun nests. The Germans seem to have had full
information of its coming, and dealt with it severely. The whole
attack from north to south--Indian, Scottish, Territorials, and the
rest--was caught and broken as it rolled against the well-wired
German trenches.
The Battalion, whose part, then, was to maintain the right of our
Army where it joined the French, heard the French guns open on the
night of the 8th May, and by dawn the English gun-fire was in full
swing to the north--one continuous roar broken by the deep grunt of
our howitzer-shells bursting; for these were so few that we could
pick them up by ear. The Guards had no concern with these matters
till the trouble should thicken. Their business was to stand ready
for any counter-attack and keep up bursts of rapid fire at intervals
while they waited for what little news came to hand. It was uniformly
bad, except that the French in the south seemed to be making some
headway, and so far as aeroplanes and artillery observers could make
out, there was no concentration of troops immediately in front of
them. The Germans were too busy with the immediate English front
to extend their commitments to the southward, and the next two days
were, for the Battalion in their trenches, the quietest that they had
known for some time. Then came orders to hand over to the 1st Scots
Guards and rejoin the Second Division near Le Touret in readiness
to carry on the attack which had broken down on the 9th. They
bivouacked in the open, and the weather turned cold and wet, but the
men, relieved from the trenches and assured of a change of work, sat
it out “singing songs and playing games in the wet!” They had been
forbidden to light fires, lest they should accidentally use the local
farmers’ tobacco-drying poles or hedge-stuff. And while they waited
under their mackintosh sheets the armies waited on the weather. A
fresh attack was to be launched from Richebourg by the Rue du Bois,
and southward as far as Festubert, but, this time, by night not by
day, and after longer artillery preparation. The 5th and 6th Brigades
were to open it, with the 4th (Guards) Brigade in support. It began
at 11.30 on the 15th, when, at huge cost, something like half a mile
in breadth and a quarter of a mile in depth of trenches was screwed
out of the Germans by the morning of Sunday the 16th. The Battalion
was moved from bivouac in the dawn of that day to support the 5th
Brigade which had not gone so far forward as the 6th, and spent
the day in trenches at Rue du Bois under incessant mixed artillery
fire, which killed 1 man and wounded an officer and 28 men--the
whole without being able to inflict any damage on the enemy. Indeed,
the survivors of the battle here agreed that they saw no German
dead other than some corpses left over from previous attacks. They
returned to bivouac in wet and mist, and on the afternoon of the 17th
were, with the 2nd Grenadiers, ordered to occupy the line then held
by the 21st Brigade, and to push forward and dig in near a farm (Cour
l’Avoine) bristling with machine-guns across a stretch of dead flat,
muddy ground, pitted with water-logged shell-holes. The left was to
keep touch with the 6th Brigade and the right with the Grenadiers,
the whole line facing north-east from Quinque Rue.
They extended in the dusk. The left flanking company, No. 4, found no
sign of the 6th Brigade, but received a message from the 5th King’s
Battalion that their brigade orders were that the right of that
battalion should get into touch with the Irish but would not be up
till late; so one machine-gun was sent to strengthen that company’s
flank. No. 2 Company, on the right flank, had reached its objective
and dug itself in under bursts of raking machine-gun and rifle-fire
directed against the dykes and bridges, which unfortunately wounded
both Captain Mylne and Lieutenant Kemp, and the company command
devolved on 2nd Lieutenant S. G. Tallents. The left flank, meantime,
was in the air without tools or sandbags, but luckily the night was
wet and it was allowed to dig itself in unmolested. The casualties
for the day were only 2 officers wounded, 3 men killed, and 5 wounded.
The 18th dawned in wreaths of driving rain and mist that wrapped
the flats. The preliminary bombardment of farm Cour l’Avoine was
postponed for lack of good light, and in that lull a Brigadier
whose men had already attacked the farm unsuccessfully came
across the trenches to the Battalion and gave his experiences and
recommendations. The weather made one low cluster of devastated
buildings seen across the levels look remarkably like any other; and
it seems pure luck that the attack, as originally intended, was not
launched against the wrong objective. From noon on, the enemy began
to shell the Battalion severely in its shallow trenches, and there
were forty casualties while they lay awaiting orders. The attack
began at 4.30 P. M. Cour l’Avoine was then so bombarded by heavy
shell-fire that, as usual, it seemed that nothing in or around it
could live. But as soon as the attacking companies rose and showed
over the ground-line, the hail of machine-gun fire re-opened, and
for the next three hours, the Irish suffered in the open and among
the shell-holes, beaten down, as the other battalions had been
before them, round the piled wreckage of Cour l’Avoine farm. In one
trench, abandoned by the enemy, they fell into a neat German trap.
Its parapet facing towards the British was bullet-proof enough,
but the parados, though proof against the casual splinters of our
shrapnel, which had no back-blast, had been pared thin enough to
pass all bullets. Consequently, when the trench was occupied,
accurately ranged machine-guns opened on the parados, and riddled
the men to such an extent that one company had to get out and take
refuge behind what had been the parapet. The greatest distance gained
in all was about three hundred yards, and this with their left
flank still in the air and protected by the one machine-gun which
Lieutenant Straker, the unflinching enthusiast of the weapon, had
brought into a communication-trench. At last they dug in where they
were; the next brigade on the left linked up to the one machine-gun
communication-trench, and with their old friends the Herts Battalion
and the East Anglian Field Company, with whom they had tested mines
together, they began to consolidate. The C.O. writes: “I tried to
find out what officers I had left. Out of twenty-eight there were
twelve, but four of these had been left behind with the transport a
day or two before.” Of the eight who had come through the affair on
their feet, only two were absolutely untouched. Here is the list:
Captain J. N. Guthrie and 2nd Lieutenant V. W. D. Fox, killed by
shell-fire, while leading their company--No. 1--to reinforce the
line; 11 officers were wounded, Major the Earl of Rosse very severely
in the head by a piece of shell; Major Reid, concussion from the
explosion of a shell; Captain G. E. S. Young, hand; Lieutenant H.
T. A. H. Boyse, head; 2nd Lieutenant S. G. Tallents, thigh; 2nd
Lieutenant J. R. Ralli, stomach; 2nd Lieutenant E. W. Campbell, head;
2nd Lieutenant Hon. W. S. P. Alexander, neck; 2nd Lieutenant R. S. G.
Paget, arm; 2nd Lieutenant J. K. Greer, leg and hand; 2nd Lieutenant
C. de Persse, head. Twenty-two men were killed, 284 wounded, and 86
missing. The Battalion came through it all, defeated, held down at
long range, but equable in temper and morale.
Small wonder that in the cheerless dawn of the 19th their Brigadier
came and “made some complimentary remarks to the men who were
standing about.”
The four officers who had been left behind were then ordered up to
fill the gaps, and in that dawn the company commands stood: No. 1,
Lieut. R. G. C. Yerburgh; 2nd Lieut. R. H. W. Heard. No. 2, Lieut.
Sir Gerald Burke; 2nd Lieut. A. W. L. Paget. No. 3, Capt. T. M. D.
Bailie. No. 4, Lieut. J. S. N. FitzGerald; Lieut. C. D. Wynter.
Almost at once shelling opened again, and Lieutenants Burke and Paget
were wounded and 10 men killed or wounded by three high explosives
bursting right over the line. It was sheer luck that, though
shelled at intervals for the rest of the day, there were very few
further casualties, and the Battalion returned “in small parties”
to their bivouacs near Le Touret, where a hot meal, great-coats and
a rum-ration awaited them. They were wet, tired, chilled, and caked
with dirt, and cheerful; but next day, when they paraded before going
into rest while they waited for reinforcements, there was hardly a
speck of mud to be seen on them. Rest-billets at Lapugnoy, some seven
or eight miles back, were out of range but not out of hearing of
the guns, in a valley between delightful beech-woods carpeted with
blue-bells. Here they lay off and rejoiced in the novel sight of
unscathed trees and actual hills.
FROM FESTUBERT TO LOOS
On the 24th May General Horne came to inspect and complimented them.
His compliments are nowhere recorded, but it was remarked with
satisfaction at his parade that the men “stood very steady and moved
their arms well considering that they have not had much practice in
steady drill lately.” They had merely practised unbroken discipline
among the dead and the dying in a hopeless fight.
A draft of 126 men, under Lieutenant A. F. Gordon, arrived, and
Lieutenant R. Rankin, who had been attached to the 1st Scots Guards
since February, joined them at Lapugnoy, and the Rev. S. Knapp, R.C.
Chaplain from the 25th Brigade, took temporary charge of spiritual
affairs while their own Father Gwynne, who never spared himself, was
trying electric treatment in Paris for lumbago, induced, as every one
knew, by unsparing exposure.
On the 25th May they moved from Lapugnoy _via_ Chocques to Oblinghem,
some five miles to the north-east, a village of many and varied
smells, close to an aerodrome where they lay at a moment’s notice,
which meant that no one could take off his boots. A new type of
gas-mask was issued here, and the men drilled in the use of it.
Captain A. H. L. McCarthy, the medical officer who had been with them
since October 25, accidentally broke his arm, and his duties were
taken over by Lieutenant L. W. Bain, R.A.M.C.
On the 28th May a draft of 214 N.C.O.’s, and men under Lieutenant L.
R. Hargreaves, 2nd Lieutenants N. F. Durant and L. C. Whitefoord,
arrived, and the next day (29th) twelve more officers came in from
England: Major G. H. C. Madden; Captain V. C. J. Blake; Captain
M. V. Gore-Langton; 2nd Lieutenant J. T. Robyns; 2nd Lieutenant
K. E. Dormer; 2nd Lieutenant Hon. H. B. O’Brien; 2nd Lieutenant
R. J. P. Rodakowski; 2nd Lieutenant K. W. Hogg; 2nd Lieutenant J.
Grayling-Major; 2nd Lieutenant F. H. Witts; 2nd Lieutenant W. B.
Stevens; 2nd Lieutenant P. H. J. Close; bringing the Battalion up to
28 officers and 958 other ranks.
Headquarters and Companies then stood as follows:
_Headquarters_
Major the Hon. J. F. Trefusis Commanding Officer.
Major G. H. Madden Second in Command.
Capt. Lord Desmond FitzGerald Adjutant.
Lieut. P. H. Antrobus Transport Officer.
2nd Lieut. L. S. Straker Machine-gun Officer.
The Rev. S. Knapp Chaplain.
Lieut. L. W. Bain Medical Officer.
Lieut. H. Hickie Quartermaster.
_No. 1 Company_
Capt. M. V. Gore-Langton.
Lieut. R. C. G. Yerburgh.
2nd Lieut. F. H. Witts.
2nd Lieut. R. H. W. Heard.
2nd Lieut. J. Grayling-Major.
_No. 2 Company_
Capt. T. W. D. Bailie.
Lieut. R. Rankin.
2nd Lieut. W. B. Stevens.
2nd Lieut. K. E. Dormer.
2nd Lieut. L. C. Whitefoord.
2nd Lieut. Hon. H. B. O’Brien.
_No. 3 Company_
Capt. V. C. J. Blake.
Lieut. C. D. Wynter.
2nd Lieut. J. T. Robyns.
2nd Lieut. N. F. Durant.
2nd Lieut. K. W. Hogg.
_No. 4 Company_
Lieut. J. S. N. FitzGerald.
Lieut. L. R. Hargreaves.
2nd Lieut. A. F. L. Gordon.
2nd Lieut. P. H. J. Close.
2nd Lieut. R. J. P. Rodakowski.
There is no hint of the desperate hard work of the 2nd, reserve,
Battalion at Warley, which made possible the supply at such short
notice of so many officers of such quality. These inner workings of
a regiment are known only to those who have borne the burden.
On the 31st May the 4th (Guards) Brigade was shifted from Oblinghem
to billets near the most unpleasing village of Nœux-les-Mines,
farther south than they had ever been before, as Divisional Reserve
to a couple of brigades of the 2nd Division in trenches recently
taken over from the French. The Brigade moved off in two columns,
through Béthune down the main road to Arras, where they were seen by
the Germans and shelled both _en route_ and as they were billeting,
but, as chance chose, without accident. The billets were good,
though, like most in the early days, they needed cleansing, and
a rumour went about that the trenches to which the Battalion was
assigned were peculiarly foul, in very bad shape and would probably
need re-making throughout.