the routine of company drills and exercise, sports and an Eton
dinner on the 4th June, filled the warm, peaceful days till it left
Nœux-les-Mines for Sailly-Labourse. This was not the sector they had
expected, but one farther to the north and nearer Cuinchy. Their
trenches were an unsatisfactory line with insufficient traverses,
not too many dug-outs, and inadequate parapets facing fields of
fast-growing corn, which marked the German front two hundred yards
away. They were reached from Cambrin through a mile and a half of
communication-trenches, up which every drop of water had to be
carried in tins. A recent draft of fifty had increased the Battalion
to over a thousand men, and, apparently by way of breaking in the
new hands, it was suggested that the Battalion should dig a complete
new line of trenches. They compromised, however, by improving the
existing one, which they shared with the 2nd Grenadiers, changing
over on the 12th June to a stretch of fifteen hundred yards, held by
the 2nd Coldstream. This necessitated three companies instead of two
in the front line and the fourth in support.
The enemy here confined themselves to shelling timed to catch
reliefs, but rarely heavy enough to interfere with working-parties
digging or wiring in the tough chalk. On one occasion a selection
of coloured lights, red, green, and white, had been sent up for
the battalions to test. They chose a night when the enemy was
experimenting on a collection of lights of his own, but soon
discovered that rocket-lights were inadvisable, as their fiery tails
gave away positions and drew fire. This disadvantage might have
been found out in England by the makers instead of at 1 A. M. by a
wearied Commanding Officer, whose duty was to link up and strengthen
his trenches, keep an eye on the baffling breadths of corn in front
of him, send reconnoitring parties out on all possible occasions,
procure wire and Engineers to set it up, and at the same time keep
all men and material in readiness for any possible attack that might
develop on the heels of the bombardments that came and went like the
summer thunder-storms along the tense line.
Sometimes they watched our own shells bursting in the German trenches
opposite Givenchy, where the Battalion had stayed so long; sometimes
they heard unexplained French fire to the southward. Next day would
bring its rumours of gains won and lost, or warnings to stand-to
for expected counter-attacks that turned out to be no more than
the rumble of German transport, heard at night, moving no one knew
whither. When our stinted artillery felt along the enemy’s trenches
in front of them--for the high corn made No Man’s Land blind and
patrol-work difficult--the German replies were generally liberal and
not long delayed.
On the 17th June one such outburst of ours loosed an hour’s heavy
shelling, during which Staff-Captain the Hon. E. W. Brabazon
(Coldstream), on his rounds to look at a machine-gun position under
the Battalion Machine-gun Officer, Lieutenant Straker, was killed
by a shell that fell on the top of the dug-out. Lieutenant Straker,
who was sitting in the doorway, had his foot so pinned in the fallen
timber that it took an hour to extricate him. Captain Brabazon, in
the dug-out itself, was crushed by a beam. He was buried at Cambrin
next morning at nine o’clock, while the Battalion was repairing the
damage done to the blown-in trenches and the French were fighting
again in the south.
The brotherly Herts Battalion had been doing all the work of digging
in their rear for some time past, and on the 20th the Battalion
took over their fatigue-work and their billets at Annequin and
Cambrin, while the Herts went to the front line. It was hot work in
that weather to extend and deepen unending communication-trenches
that cut off all the air. The Prince of Wales looked in on them at
Annequin and watched the German guns searching for a heavy battery
which had gone elsewhere. The movements of the Heir to the Crown,
even as guardedly recorded in this Diary, not to mention others, and
the unofficial stories of his appearance, alone, on a bicycle or
afoot in places of the most “unhealthy” character, must have been a
cause of considerable anxiety to those in charge of him. He spent
his birthday (June 23) visiting along the line, which happened to be
quiet after a bombardment of Annequin the day before. The place drew
much fire at that time, as one of our batteries lay in front of it,
and a high coal dump, used as an observation-post, just behind it.
The Battalion was still on fatigues, and, in spite of many rumours
and alerts, had suffered very little. Indeed, the total casualties
of June were but 2 men killed and an officer and 22 men wounded.
Meantime, the new drafts were learning their work.
The really serious blow they took was the departure at the month’s
end of Lord Cavan, their Brigadier, to command the Fiftieth
Division. They had known and loved him as a man who understood their
difficulties, who bore his share, and more, of their hardships, and
whose sympathy, unsparing devotion and, above all, abounding cheery
common-sense, had carried them at every turn so far through the
campaign.
He bid them farewell at Béthune on the 28th, where they were in
rest-billets, in these words:
I have come to say good-bye to you, as I have to go away and take
command of the Fiftieth Division. I wish to thank the Irish Guards
for all they have done since they have been under my command.
Before the war they had had no opportunity of proving themselves
worthy to take their place in the Brigade of Guards. But during the
course of this war they have always conducted themselves worthy
of taking their place with the other illustrious Regiments of the
Brigade of Guards--and more so. It is part of all of you young
officers, who have taken the place of those who have fallen, to
keep up the reputation of the Battalion, and you have a difficult
task, as its reputation is very high. I need hardly say how much
I feel leaving the 4th (Guards) Brigade, and I would rather remain
its Brigadier than be a Field-Marshal elsewhere.
General Feilding, whom you all know, is coming to take my place,
and I could not leave you in better hands. I wish you all luck.
His special farewell order ran:
_28th June 1915._
On leaving the Brigade to take Command of a Division it would not
be seemly to recall the various actions since 18th September in
which it has been my privilege and my delight to command you, but
I may say this--whether in action, in trenches, or in billets, no
unit of the 4th (Guards) Brigade has ever disappointed me, nor has
any Battalion ever fallen short of that great standard set us by
our predecessors.
We welcomed the 1st Herts Territorials at Ypres, and most worthily
have they borne their part with the rest of us.
To you all I convey the gratitude of a very full heart, and I wish
you Good-bye and God Speed.
(Sd.) CAVAN,
Brigadier-General
Commanding 4th (Guards) Brigade.
And for recognition of their work in the trenches for the past three
weeks, the following was sent from the G.O.C. Second Division to the
Officer commanding the Irish Guards:
The Brigadier-General has received the following letter from the
G.O.C. Second Division, and he would like C.O.’s to arrange that
all the men hear it, so that they may realise how fully their
splendid efforts are appreciated both by General Horne and himself:
“Since the 4th (Guards) Brigade went into ‘Z’ Section on June
6, it has really done splendid work. In addition to opening up
and deepening the communication-trenches and the construction of
several different minor works in rear, you have dug and wired a
new line across a front of at least 2000 yards. The 4th (Guards)
Brigade and the 11th Company R.E. have done great work on many
previous occasions, but I think that this last achievement
surpasses them all.”
_26th June 1915._
The C.O. directs that the above is read to all platoons, and not
more than one platoon at a time.
(Sd.) DESMOND FITZGERALD,
Captain Adjutant,
1st Battalion Irish Guards.
_26th June 1915._
It was the Brigadier’s reference to their having proved themselves
worthy to take place with the other regiments of the Brigade of
Guards, “and more so,” that delighted them most; for the Battalion
felt that it had won its spurs in every field. Yet, for all that, the
Diary which, under the well-worn official phrases, represents the
soul of the regiment and knows how that soul is made and tempered,
emphasizes the fact that at Béthune there are some “quite good
parade-grounds, where a good deal of steady drill will be carried
out” and plenty of country for route-marching, where the men could
learn how to bear themselves without “budging” beneath the casual
shells that dropped miles behind the line.
So they “rested” at Béthune and gave a concert in the theatre, to
which they invited many inhabitants of the town who, being new to
the manners and customs of the Irish, “could not understand much,”
but a French officer sang the “Marseillaise” with great effect, and
at dinner afterwards, when the Prince of Wales was among the guests,
there were not only red and white roses on the table, but, according
to one account, “silver spoons and forks,” provided by the owner of
the house. If Béthune did not yet comprehend the songs of these wild
outlanders, it had full confidence in them.
CUINCHY
The first week of July saw them returned to their own old trenches
at Cuinchy--the fifty times fought-over line that ran from the La
Bassée Canal to within a hundred yards of the La Bassée-Béthune
road. A couple of companies of the Herts, one on each side of the
La Bassée road, lay on their right, and right of those again, the
2nd Coldstream. They boasted as many as six machine-guns in position
belonging to the Battalion, and three to the 2nd Grenadiers, their
relief. The trenches had not improved by use since February. There
were mine-craters directly in front of them, their opposing edges
occupied by our men and the enemy; the breastworks were old bursten
sandbags; fire-steps had broken down, dug-outs were inadequate
against the large-size trench-mortar bombs that the Germans were
using, and generally the condition and repair of things was
heart-breaking to the new-comers and their Brigadier, who spent most
of his time, night and day, in the front line.
Annequin, where two of the companies were billeted, had become more
than ever a shell-trap full of English batteries for which the
Germans were constantly searching; and, since experts told them
that we now had got the upper hand of the enemy at mining, the
cynical expected that, at any moment, some really big mine would
go up beneath them. As an interlude, the companies in billets were
employed in making dug-outs without any material; which trifling task
they somehow accomplished. The big shells and the bombing from the
trench-mortars forced them to deepen all dug-outs to ten or twelve
feet. These were shored with bricks and topped with rails as material
became more plentiful.
On the 17th July Captain A. H. L. McCarthy, R.A.M.C., who had broken
his arm at Lapugnoy six weeks before, returned to duty and was
made welcome. His sick-leave, which he seems to have filled with
beseeching letters to the C.O., had been darkened by a prospect
of being detached from the Battalion and sent to the Dardanelles.
Father Gwynne, also, came back from his two months’ rheumatism
cure, relieving Father Knapp. He was not quite restored and so was
forbidden by the C.O., to show himself in the front line for at least
ten days. It is to be hoped that he obeyed, but in a battalion where
the call for the priest goes out with, or before, the call for
stretcher-bearers, neither shepherds nor flock are long separated
under any circumstances. They tell the tale of one of their priests
who, utterly wearied, dropped for an hour’s sleep in a trench that
was being deepened under fire. He was roused by a respectful whisper
from the working-party: “We’ve dug to your head an’ your feet,
Father, an’ now, if you’ll get up, we’ll dig out under the length of
ye.”
The Brigade’s system of forty-eight hours’ reliefs enabled them
to do more in a given time than battalions who went in for four
days at a stretch, as a man could carry two days’ rations on him
without drawing on the fatigue-parties, and the knowledge he would
be relieved at the end of the time kept his edge. A Brigadier
of experience could tell any section of the line held by the
Brigade as far as he could see it, simply from the demeanour of
the working-parties. This state of things was only maintained
by unbroken discipline and the gospel that if one man can keep
himself comparatively clean in all that dirt and confusion every
one else can. It behoved the Battalion, also, to make and leave a
good name among the French upon whom they were quartered, as well
as with the enemy over against them. They were at that time, as
for long afterwards, almost unmixed Irish, and for that reason,
the relations between officers and men were unlike anything that
existed elsewhere, even in nominally pure Irish battalions. If there
be any mystery in the training of war that specially distinguishes
the Brigade of Guards from their fellows it is that the officers
lie under discipline more exacting than that of the rank and file;
and that even more than in any other branch of the service they
are responsible for the comfort of their men. Forced together as
they were in the stark intimacy of the trenches, that at any moment
may test any soul to the uttermost; revealed to each other, every
other day at least, in the long and wearisome march to billets,
where the companies and platoons move slowly and sideways through
the communication-trenches, gambling against death--if the German
heavies are busy--at each step of the road, officers and men came
to a mutual comprehension and affection--which in no way prevented
the most direct and drastic criticism or penalties--as impossible
to describe as it would be to omit, since it was the background
against which their lives ran from day to day. The Celt’s national
poise and manner, his gift of courtesy and sympathy, and above all
the curious and communicable humour of his outlook in those days
made it possible for him and his officers to consort together upon
terms perhaps debarred to other races. When the men practised “crime”
they were thorough and inventive in the act and unequalled in the
defence as the records of some court-martials testify. But the same
spirit that prompted the large and imaginative sin and its unexpected
excuse or justification (as, for example, that three sinners detected
in removing a large cask of beer were but exercising their muscles
in “rowling it a piece along the pavé”) bred a crop of forceful
regimental characters. Many, very many of these, have perished and
left no record save the echo of amazing or quaint sayings passed from
mouth to mouth through the long years; or a blurred record of some
desperately heroic deed, light-heartedly conceived and cunningly
carried through to its triumphant end and dismissed with a jest. The
unpredictable incidence of death or wounds was a mystery that gave
the Irish full rein for sombre speculation. Half an hour’s furious
bombardment, with trenches blowing in by lengths at a time, would
end in no more than extra fatigues for the disgusted working-parties
that had to repair damage. On another day of still peace, one sudden
light shell might mangle every man in a bay, and smear the duckboards
with blood and horrors. A night-patrol, pinned down by a German
flare, where they sprawled in the corn, and machine-gunned till
their listening comrades gave up all hope, would tumble back at last
into their own trenches unscathed, while far back in some sheltered
corner the skied bullet, falling from a mile and a half away, would
send a man to his account so silently that, till the body slid off
the estaminet bench, his neighbours never guessed. The ironies and
extravagances of Fate were so many, so absurd, and so terrible,
that after a while human nature ceased to take conscious account of
them or clutched at the smallest trifles that could change a mind’s
current. The surest anodyne and one that a prudent commanding officer
took care to provide was that all hands should have plenty to do.
To repair a breach or to cut a fire-step was not enough. There was
a standard in these matters to be lived up to, which was insisted
upon through all the days of trench-warfare. None knew how long the
deadlock would last or when the enemy, wearied of mining, bombs, and
heavy artillery, might attempt a break-through. When the first line
was cleaned and consolidated and finished with what was deemed then
ample dug-out accommodation, supporting parties behind it had to be
brought up to a like level; and so on.
The enemy at that time, on that line, interfered very little.
They rigged a searchlight on one of the brick-stacks in their
possession one evening, but took it down after our guns had
protested. Occasionally they shelled Béthune, while trying to hit
an observation-balloon near the town; and sometimes they bombed
with trench-mortars. There were, however, days on end when nothing
could stir them up, or when a few authoritative warnings from our
guns would cut short a demonstration almost as it began. They were
bombed for some hours to keep them out of the craters and to cover
our men at work. In this work No. 4906 Private Henry won the D.C.M.
in continuing to throw bombs though twice wounded (the Irish are
gifted at hurling things) till he was at last ordered off the field.
The enemy replied with everything except rifle-fire and in the
darkness of a rainy night “his machine-guns caused some annoyance,”
till, after our artillery had failed to find them, the Battalion
trench-mortars silenced them and allowed us to finish digging the new
trenches and sap. The whole affair lasted four hours and was carried
out by No. 1 Company, under Captain M. V. Gore-Langton, at the cost
of 1 man killed, 1 officer, Lieutenant the Hon. H. A. V. Harmsworth,
slightly wounded, and 7 men wounded.
On the 3rd August Lieutenant H. F. Law was sent out with a patrol
to examine yet another mine-crater close to the two which the
Battalion had occupied on its first night. He threw bombs into it,
found it empty, and the companies began at once to dig up to it from
two points and make it all their own. The enemy “interfered” with
the working-parties for a while but was bombed off. At daybreak he
retaliated with a methodical bombardment along the line of seven-inch
minenwerfers--one every three minutes--for an hour and a half. These
could be seen dropping perpendicularly ere they exploded but they
did no great damage, and the rest of the day was peaceful till a
sudden thunderstorm made everything and everybody abominably dirty.
(Additional fatigues are always more resented than any additional
risks of death.)
When they came up again on the 6th August they found that an enemy
mine in the orchard had exploded, wounding several of the Grenadiers
whom they were relieving, and done damage to some of our own work.
While they were making good, the Mining Company overheard Germans at
work in a gallery a few feet from one of ours. The men were withdrawn
at once from the forward line till dawn, when our mine was sprung “to
anticipate enemy action.” It might have injured some of the enemy’s
work, but it certainly disorganized several of our own sap-heads
which had to be re-dug.
Into the variegated activities of that morning dropped a staff
officer of the First Army Corps anxious to get the C.O.’s notes and
instructions on mining for new troops who might later have to hold
that line “in accordance with the manner taught by experience.”
Captain J. H. T. Priestman of the Lincolnshires, a Sandhurst
instructor, arrived with him and was attached to the sector for a
few days “to see how things were carried on.” As he was being taken
round the trenches by the C.O. and the Adjutant, next morning, a
private, on sentry with a bomber, tried to throw a bomb on his own
account, but, says the Diary, “not knowing how to, he blew himself up
and wounded the bomber.” By breakfast time the enemy were shelling
the line in enfilade from the direction of Auchy and two men were
blown to pieces. A couple of hours later the bombardment was repeated
with, from first to last, 6 killed and 9 wounded. The instructor was
but one of many whose unregarded duty was to study at first hand
every device of the enemy in action and to lecture upon it at the
training-centres in England a few days later.
The Battalion relieved the Grenadiers once more on the 10th August,
after another German mine had been exploded on the salient, and had
carried away so much German wire that it seemed possible to effect
an entry into their trenches across the new-made crater. A patrol
under Lieutenant A. F. L. Gordon was therefore sent out at night but
reported the slopes too steep to climb and, since another mine had
gone up and destroyed four of our own sap-heads with it, the night
was spent in repairing these under intermittent bomb-fire on both
sides.
On the 11th August fresh attempts were made to work some sort of
foothold across the crater-pitted ground into the enemy’s trenches,
specially at the spot where a crater had been partially filled
up by the explosion of a fresh mine. The day was quiet. Captain
M. V. Gore-Langton spent the evening of it in reconnoitring the
enemy’s wire, went out across the partly filled crater, found yet
another crater which ran into the enemy’s line, and there met one
German lying out within a few yards of him, whom Private Dempsey,
his orderly, killed, thereby rousing the enemy in that particular
point. They opened with bombs on a party of ours at work on a sap
in one of the innumerable craters, and were discomfited for the
moment. An hour later, Captain Gore-Langton, with one man, went
out for the second time across the same crater to put up some more
wire. He fell into the arms of a German bombing party, was knocked
down thrice by explosions of bombs around him and only got back
to the trenches with great difficulty. The C.O., Colonel Trefusis,
then “remonstrated” with him on the grounds that “it is not the
Company Commander’s business to go out wiring.” On the heels of
this enterprise, a really vicious fight with machine-guns as well
as bombs developed in the dark. It was silenced by four rounds
of our howitzers when the roar of the bombs stopped as though by
order. A third affair broke out just on dawn when our men found
enemy working-parties in craters below them and bombed with them
exceedingly, for the Germans were not good long-range throwers.
On the morning of the 12th August came General Horne to look at the
position, which he examined leisurely from every part of the line
instead of merely through the covered loop-holes which had been built
for his convenience. “I was glad when I got him safely out of it,”
wrote the C.O., “for one never knows when bombs may come over.” Just
before they were relieved, the C.O., Colonel Trefusis, was telephoned
word that he was to command the 20th Brigade and was pathetically
grieved at his promotion. He hated leaving the Battalion which, after
eleven months of better or worse, he had come to look upon as his
own. No man could possibly wish to command a better. He was going to
a brigade where he knew no one, and his hope was that he might be
allowed to remain one day more with the Battalion “when it goes to
the trenches” before going into reserve. He had his wish when they
went into the line on the 14th August, and he faced the ordeal, worse
than war, of saying good-bye to each company in the morning, and at
evening “went round to make sure that the night companies had plenty
of bombers in the proper places.” Bombs were the one tool at that
time which could deal with nests of occupied craters, and since the
work was dangerous the Irish were qualifying for it with zeal and
interest, even though they occasionally dropped or released bombs by
accident.
They were relieved (August 15) by a battalion from the 5th Brigade,
who “had heard all sorts of dreadful stories about the position.”
“But I told them,” said Colonel Trefusis, “it was not so bad,
provided their bombers kept on bombing at night. Mines, of course,
one cannot help, and the only way to minimise their effect is to keep
as few men in the front line as possible.”
And so, Colonel the Hon. J. Trefusis passes out of the Battalion’s
story, to his new headquarters and his new staff and bombing
officers, and his brand-new troops, who “simply out of curiosity to
see what was going on put their heads over the parapet while under
instruction and so lost two men shot through the head, which I hope
will be a lesson to them.”