THE BATTLE OF LANGEMARCK: AUGUST 1917
On July the 7th the Division, less Artillery, Engineers, and
Pioneers, moved to the training area south-west of St. Omer,
headquarters being established at Wizernes. The area was considerably
smaller than that occupied the previous summer after the Somme
fighting, being in fact the southern portion of the latter.
Billeting accommodation in the villages was inadequate, and had to
be augmented by tents. Small hardship this in such weather and such
surroundings. Many officers whose lodging was entirely comfortable
chose for preference to sleep in the open air, or in tents in the
cherry orchards. The men were soaked in sunshine. Old friendships
of 1916, and of the early spring, when Brigades had been training
for Messines, were renewed. Fishermen obtained some excellent
trout-fishing. In fact, the Division probably never had, during all
its service in France and Flanders, a pleasanter period than these
twelve days of rest and training. They ended with a great gymkana at
Acquin on the 23rd, with horse-races, mule-races, jumping, transport
competitions, wrestling on horseback, and sports of all kinds. A
feature of the afternoon was the "divisional drag," whipped by Major
S. H. Green, the D.A.Q.M.G., with a team of horses borrowed from
Signals, trained and mannered to a point not unworthy of the Coaching
Club, but undoubtedly on the heavy side--and the hairy!
On moving to Wizernes the 36th Division had come under the command
of the XIX. Corps, Fifth Army, General Gough having moved north from
Artois for the impending battle. The Artillery, Engineers, and 16th
Rifles had not shared the good fortune of their comrades. Relieved
at Wytschaete on July the 5th, the former had marched straight to
wagon-lines off the Poperinghe-Ypres Road, coming under the orders
of the C.R.A., 55th Division. By the night of the 7th one section
of each 18-pounder battery was in action in the northern part of
the Salient, on the Ypres-Poelcappelle Road. A week later all the
batteries were in positions allotted by the 55th Division for the
opening attack, the preliminary bombardment for which began on the
16th. The Field Companies and Pioneers moved first to the region
about Watou, half-way between Cassel and Poperinghe, where they were
engaged in digging new wells to improve the water supply for the
great numbers of troops that would be passing through during the
offensive. This was hard work but safe. After three weeks of it,
however, they moved forward, and were henceforth employed on road
repair and the making of cross-country tracks for men and animals. At
this work they suffered much from shelling, and particularly from gas
shell. The 150th Field Company, of its complement of six officers,
had three killed and two wounded within a week; as well as losing a
high proportion of its sappers.
The Division moved up at the end of July in huge brigade convoys of
'buses and lorries, and by the 30th was in the back area of the XIX.
Corps, between Watou and Poperinghe. Headquarters were established
temporarily in the latter town at two houses in the rue d'Ypres. The
following morning began the terrible struggle which is generally
known as the third Battle of Ypres.[37]
The great attack launched that morning was the second stroke of a
campaign which had begun triumphantly at Messines. The plans made
for 1917 by the Allied Command had been thrown into some confusion by
the retirement of the German armies on the Somme to their Hindenburg
system, in March, and later by the stopping of General Nivelle's
great offensive in Champagne.[38] The British had certainly played
their part at Arras and Messines. The British Command could obviously
now not count upon another great French offensive for some little
while, and it was under the vital necessity of keeping the German
armies heavily engaged. Its greater object was to strike at the
Belgian coast, where the submarine bases of Ostend and Zeebrugge were
becoming a menace so serious to the very existence of the nation.
That scheme has not been made public, and its details can be no
more than a matter of surmise to any but those in the confidence
of the British Command, or the Imperial General Staff. It will not
be discussed here. It is known, however, pretty generally, that it
involved an attack upon the coast-line and a landing. Camps had been
formed near Dunkirk, surrounded by barbed wire, where divisions were
to be assembled in greatest secrecy. And as for the attack in the
Salient, a glance at a railway map will show how serious an advance
across the Passchendaele Ridge upon Roulers would have been to the
German communications. A threat to the next great railway, the main
Brussels line between Ghent and Bruges, would probably have led to
the abandonment of the coast by the enemy. Ludendorff, in mid-July,
while the 36th Division was enjoying its repose in peaceful country,
had made one move in the game--no more than the move of a pawn in
such a struggle, but a clever and effective one. At Lombartzyde,
outside Nieuport, he had launched an attack against our troops upon
the little slice of ground held by them north of the Yser Canal,
driving them back into the river. Two divisions had very serious
losses, including over a thousand prisoners, and, worst of all,
the "jumping-off" ground for an attack on the coast line had been
snatched away.
Even if they failed in the ambitious venture, the British could at
least hope, beside continuing their policy of striking blow upon
blow at the enemy, to make an end of the accursed Ypres Salient, and
drive the Germans from the dominating semicircle of higher ground
from which they had so long harassed our troops. Half of this task
had indeed been accomplished by the Battle of Messines. The southern
curve of the Salient had almost disappeared. It remained to cut away
the northern. The great part of the fighting of Ypres, 1917, was to
take place north of the Zonnebeke Road.
The attack launched on July the 31st by the Fifth Army of General
Gough, and the First French Army of General Anthoine on his left, met
with a considerable measure of success. At its outset, indeed, the
success appeared complete; but the Germans, holding their positions
lightly and in depth, with the local counter-attack as one of the
main weapons of defence, retook much of the ground won. The Pilkem
spur was, however, in our hands. Great as had been our losses, the
attack upon a position of tremendous strength had gone well enough
for a beginning. But the weather, so pitiless on the Somme, that
had almost startled pessimists by its unwonted mercy at Messines,
broke that very day. Ere afternoon was over rain began to fall in
torrents. By the following morning the ground, ploughed up by weeks
of shell-fire, was a sea of mud.
The 55th Division, in the fate of which the 36th Division was
particularly interested, since its artillery was supporting the
attack, and its other arms were to relieve their Lancashire comrades
in that sector at a later date, had fared as well as any other. The
troops had gone forward with great dash and had almost everywhere
reached their final objective, known as the Green Line, east and just
south of St. Julien. The leading battalions had, however, suffered
very heavy loss from the fire of German machine-guns, distributed
in depth, and had not been sufficiently strong to resist the
counter-attack when it came. They were driven in upon the second
objective, or Black Line, which followed, roughly speaking, the line
of the road running south-east from St. Julien to the farm known as
Pommern Castle, in the Pommern Redoubt.[39] It was an advance of
fifteen hundred yards. To the south affairs had gone less well, and
the Black Line remained to be taken.
It had been the intention of the Commander of the XIX. Corps to keep
the assaulting troops in line after they had made their attack,
till the eve of the next. The result of the Battle of Langemarck
was greatly affected by the fact that this resolution was not kept.
The 55th Division had suffered so greatly, and its infantry was
in a state of such fatigue, that it was decided to withdraw it at
once. The decision may have been inevitable; on that point the Corps
Commander, General Watts, was alone in a position to form a judgment.
For him and the 36th Division alike, it was disastrous. It meant that
for his next attack he had in his hands a Division jaded, weary,
shaken by deadly shell-fire, having lost a good third of its infantry
strength ere ever it left its trenches for the assault.
On the morning of August the 2nd, the 107th Brigade entrained at
Poperinghe and detrained at the famous Goldfish Château, west of
Ypres, coming under the orders of the 55th Division, to which
it had been allotted as a reserve. While his Brigade was on the
move, General Withycombe received orders from the 55th Division
for it to relieve the 164th Brigade in the old British front-line
trenches. The General reached Wieltje, the Headquarters of the 164th
Brigade, at 12-45 p.m. Three-quarters of an hour later he received a
telegram from the 55th Division ordering a further relief, that of
the much-depleted 165th and 166th Brigades in the captured German
positions. His men had a long march in heavy rain, and had not
completed the relief of the 164th Brigade till 3-40 p.m. The new
relief was entirely unexpected, and was not in accordance with the
intimation received by General Nugent that his troops were to be
used as a reserve. It was carried out in continuous rain, through
mud eighteen inches deep, under heavy fire from howitzers of heavy
calibre, and in the midst of bombing attacks launched against the
right flank of the 55th Division. Not till six o'clock on the morning
of August the 3rd was its completion announced. The Brigade had had
heavy casualties, particularly the 10th and 15th Rifles, which had
taken over the Black Line. After that night's work, in fact, there
could be no question of employing those battalions in the coming
attack.
That night two battalions of the 108th Brigade, the 13th Rifles and
9th Irish Fusiliers, relieved the 165th Brigade, which had moved back
to the old British front and support lines; and two battalions of
the 109th Brigade, the 11th Inniskillings and 14th Rifles, the 166th
Brigade; the whole force under the command of General Withycombe,
G.O.C. 107th Brigade, who had his headquarters in the great mined
dug-outs at Wieltje. Divisional Headquarters were established at
Mersey Camp, north of the Poperinghe-Ypres Road, and about mid-way
between the two towns, taking over command at 4 a.m. on August the
4th. On taking over the line from the 55th Division, General Nugent
decided that, in view of the dreadful conditions, it might be held
more lightly, and withdrew two of the supporting battalions to camps
about Brandhoek and Vlamertinghe, replacing them by companies of the
supporting battalions of the 107th Brigade. There were other reliefs
during the period of waiting, all the battalions having a turn,
though the six which were to lead over on August the 16th were saved
as much as might be. The headquarters of the Brigades also took turn
about in command of the line, in the filth and stenches of Wieltje
dug-outs.
Wieltje dug-outs! Who that saw it will forget that abominable mine,
with its "town major," its thirteen entrances, the water that flowed
down its main passages and poured down its walls, its electric light
gleaming dully through steam-coated lamps, its sickly atmosphere,
its smells, its huge population of men--and of rats? From behind
sack-curtained doorways the coughing and groaning of men in uneasy
slumber mingled with the click of typewriters. In the corridor one
would fall over a runner, slimy from head to foot with mud, resting
while he waited for a return message to the front line. One advantage
only it had: it was safe within. And that was in part counterbalanced
by the danger of exit and entrance, constantly menaced by storms of
fire. The cross-country tracks, simply paths from which wire had
been cleared, behind it, were more horrible still. Their object was
to allow troops and pack animals--even the shells for the field
artillery had to go forward by pack--to avoid roads under constant
shell-fire. But the Germans now knew them every whit as well as the
roads, and shelled them all day with every calibre up to 8-inch
howitzers. No one who used them but had at some point to lie crouched
on his belly, watching huge columns of earth and water spout up with
the burst of the big shells. Horrors were not new, nor did the sight
of dead bodies affect men overmuch, but there was one vision upon one
of these tracks, the mangled remains of a complete party of artillery
carriers, six men and twelve horses, which burnt itself upon the
brains of those that saw it.
The war had in those days reached its worst stage. Gas shelling and
aeroplane bombing were at their height. The infantry resting in the
camps between Vlamertinghe and Elverdinghe had to endure, night
after night, the crashing of great bombs among the huts and tents.
The casualties to horses were very high, a horse being ten times as
vulnerable as a man to bombs. The Casualty Clearing Stations probably
suffered higher losses than in any other battle of the war. The
counter-battery work was ferocious on both sides. For our batteries
there was little concealment, and for their guns and teams little
shelter. The gunners of the 36th Division, who had been in action at
the opening of the Battle of Langemarck for over a month, suffered
from strain and discomfort perhaps even more severely than the
infantry on this occasion. And, day after day, fell the rain.
In the trenches the mud and the artillery fire were the most serious
foes. The German infantry could easily be held. There was one
counter-attack on the 8th, on the extreme left. Our bombing squads
moved up and drove the enemy out. On the 10th the II. Corps on the
right attacked to establish itself upon the Black Line, the artillery
covering the 36th Division co-operating. The attack was in the main
successful, and the way was prepared for a further advance. On the
night of the 14th the troops of the 107th Brigade, then in front
line, were relieved, and those which were to carry out the attack
moved up, picking up their bombs and special equipment at battle
stores previously established as far forward as possible, past which
the platoons moved slowly in single file.
The final objective of the 36th Division was from a point on the
Zonnebeke-Langemarck Road near Gallipoli Copse, on the right, to
Aviatik Farm on the left. This was represented by a series of strong
concrete forts, and known as the Red Line. The 16th Division was
attacking on the right and the 48th Division on the left of the 36th.
The attack of the 36th Division was to be made by the 108th Brigade
on the right and the 109th Brigade on the left, with the 107th
Brigade in reserve. Each Brigade was to attack with two battalions
in front line, one in support, about a thousand yards in rear, and
one in reserve, in the old British front and support lines. Each
battalion was to attack on a two-company front, in four waves. The
second and fourth waves were to be only half the strength of the
first and third, owing to companies having been reduced for the time
being to three platoons. The objective of the leading companies was
the line Gallipoli-Schuler Farm, the old Green Line of the first
offensive, still so-called. On this line the rear companies were to
pass through to the final objective, the original leading companies
following in close support. The supporting battalions were then to
move up and take over the Green Line. A company from each of the
supporting battalions was allotted to the leading two battalions on
each brigade front as "moppers up." Special platoons were given as
their objectives such concrete strongholds as Somme, Pond Farm, Hindu
Cott, Green House, Schuler Farm. Four guns of each of the Machine-Gun
Companies of the attacking brigades were to go forward with the
infantry, the remainder being used for the barrage. No Stokes mortars
could be taken forward owing to the state of the ground. The task of
the R.E. was the consolidation of the Dotted Green Line. This was to
be a defensive system on our side of the wire running from Gallipoli
Copse through Green House, using that obstacle for our own purposes.
That of the Pioneers was the clearance of the Wieltje-Gravenstafel
Road.
The field artillery, under the orders of General Brock, the C.R.A.,
consisted of the 36th and 61st Divisional Artilleries and the 108th
and 150th Army Field Artillery Brigades. For the creeping barrage
there were fourteen 18-pounder batteries, giving, as at Messines,
about one gun to twenty yards. There were four 18-pounder batteries
for distant barrage, to search hidden ground, and deal with strong
points beyond the creeping barrage, while the six 4.5 howitzer
batteries fired a hundred yards ahead of the latter, resting on
all known strong points and machine-gun emplacements. The pace of
the barrage was a hundred yards in five minutes, with a pause of
thirty-five minutes in front of the Green Line. This seems as slow
as could well be, but events were to prove that it was too fast in
the conditions. There were three gas-shell bombardments prior to the
attack, the last being on the night of the 15th, "Y/Z" night. For
these there was allotted a hundred rounds per 18-pounder and fifty
rounds per howitzer. One section of tanks was to take part in the
attack, but there was at no time a probability of tanks reaching our
front line. Zero was at 4-45 a.m.
There was very heavy shelling of the assembly trenches and the roads
in rear during the night of the 15th. A small dug-out occupied
by the headquarters of the 14th Rifles near Spree Farm was hit
repeatedly, and it was impossible to keep alight a candle inside it.
So excellent, however, was the German concrete, that it held out.
Between midnight and 2-30 a.m. the four leading battalions must have
suffered on an average fifty casualties apiece.
The story of the attack, alas! is not a long one. The German barrage
came down swiftly, but, as it was for the most part on the assembly
trenches and behind them, it had small effect upon the leading
waves. But enemy machine-guns all along the front opened fire almost
simultaneously with our barrage. Gallipoli, Somme, Aisne House,
Hindu Cott, Schuler Farm, Border House, and Jew's Hill, were held
in strength by the enemy. The concrete "pill-boxes," containing in
some cases half a dozen separate compartments, seemed to be entirely
unaffected by the pounding of many weeks. Moreover, strong wire
entanglements running down obliquely from Gallipoli were encountered.
The lanes cut by artillery fire were covered by machine-guns. The
ground was a veritable quagmire. The "mopping-up" system was found to
be impossible. The concrete works had to be fought for; they could
not be passed by and left to "moppers up" in rear. The inevitable
result was that the men quickly lost the barrage. The strength of
the attacking force had become inadequate to its frontage of one
thousand five hundred yards. So heavily had the battalions lost
since the Division took over the line, and particularly during the
last twenty-four hours in the trenches, that seventy men was about
the average strength of the company. There were assuredly not two
thousand infantrymen in the force which went "over the top." The
foremost wave must have consisted of less than three hundred men,
probably reduced to a third within half a minute. Not unfitting was
the description of a sergeant who took part in the attack: "It looked
more like a big raiding party than anything else."
In the circumstances, after what they had endured, with ranks so
thinned, against such opposition, it may be said, without calling
upon superlatives or high-flown words, that none but troops of
excellent quality would have gone forward at all. The troops of the
36th Division did much more than this. On the extreme right the
9th Irish Fusiliers, attacking from the Pommern Redoubt, pressed up
across Hill 35, driving the Germans before them from the gun-pits on
its forward slope. The 13th Rifles on their left advanced equally
well. Somme, one of the strongest forts on the front, was passed by
the leading wave, but the platoon detailed to take and hold it was
unable to do so, though the rifle-grenade section strove gallantly
to work round and take it in flank. The adjutant, Captain Belt,
made an attempt to dig in in front of the place with a handful of
men, but was severely wounded and fortunate in being able to crawl
back to our lines. On the right of the 36th Division, the 16th had
at first made good progress, but a counter-attack drove its troops
back to their original line. From six o'clock onwards men began to
fall back. Colonel R. P. Maxwell, commanding the 13th, seeing what
was happening, led forward his battalion headquarters to a desperate
attack upon Somme. He was unsuccessful, being himself severely
wounded. It will be remembered that Colonel Maxwell, who had two sons
on active service, had been wounded in Martinsart on the eve of the
Somme attack. He was to reappear, none the less, in France in 1918.
Colonel Somerville, commanding the 9th Irish Fusiliers, had already
been mortally wounded. With the failure of Colonel Maxwell's forlorn
hope, it may be said that the attack on the front of the 108th
Brigade collapsed, though the 9th Irish Fusiliers made an effort to
cling to the top of Hill 35.
On the right of the 109th Brigade, the 14th Rifles had to cross
ground far worse even than the ordinary, completely under water,
in fact. In their passage they came under withering machine-gun
fire from Pond Farm. Lieutenant Ledlie made a fine attempt to
capture this place, surrounding it on three sides with the few
men remaining to him when he reached it, and killing any Germans
who showed themselves. With his numbers so greatly depleted, he
waited for support before making an attempt to rush it, sending
back two messages. But no supports came; the men could not face
the machine-gun fire. They had already suffered greatly from the
artillery barrage, which the leading waves had avoided. At eight
o'clock, seeing that his position was hopeless, he withdrew his men
a hundred and fifty yards, covering his retirement by Lewis-gun
fire. The best work of the day was accomplished by the men of the
11th Inniskillings. They also had heaviest casualties on the right,
where a mere fragment was left glued to the ground in front of the
Green Line, the men crawling in to our line after dark. On the left
the usual blast of fire came from Border House and Fort Hill. One
officer and seven men, by doubling when they fell behind the barrage,
reached the Green Line, but none could move up to their support, and
they were compelled to withdraw. The men of the supporting companies
rushed Fort Hill with bomb and bayonet, killing a number of Germans
and taking some prisoners. This was the one appreciable gain, an
advance on the extreme left of some four hundred yards. The 48th
Division had not been able to accomplish even as much on the flank.
From Fort Hill a rough line to the original position in Capricorn
Keep was consolidated. The reserve battalions of each Brigade, the
12th Rifles on the right and the 10th Inniskillings on the left,
had moved up to the Black Line, where officers busied themselves
in reorganizing the men and making preparations for a possible
counter-attack by the enemy. The latter may have had such intention.
He was at least observed to reinforce his position strongly behind
Pond Farm. On an S.O.S. rocket being sent up, our barrage fell upon
his platoons moving up at this point, and scattered them with heavy
loss.
General Nugent for a time contemplated a second attack with a
new barrage, to take at least the Green Line. The reports of
Brigadiers and Staff Officers visiting the line in the afternoon
made it clear that the troops were in no fit state for any such
attempt. Disorganization was still considerable; a high proportion
of officers and N.C.O.'s had fallen, and the men were utterly
exhausted. Moreover, neither the 108th nor the 109th Brigade could
have mustered five hundred men for a new attack. General Nugent
accordingly decided against this course, and instead ordered the
relief of the two attacking Brigades by the 107th that night. This
was carried out in circumstances of great difficulty, some platoons
not quitting the front line till after five o'clock next morning. The
weary remnants were moved straight back by 'bus to Winnizeele, and
that night a Brigade of the 61st Division relieved the 107th Brigade
in the line.
It is impossible to arrive at the exact casualties during the hours
of the actual assault. Between 6 a.m. on the 16th and 9 a.m. on
the 18th, however, there passed through the Divisional Dressing
Stations 58 officers and 1,278 other ranks, wounded or gassed. These
casualties do not include those of the attached artillery. They are
very high if the depleted state of the infantry prior to the attack
be taken into consideration. But they are almost insignificant if
compared with the total casualties suffered in the holding of the
line in the Salient, from August the 2nd to the 18th. In that period
the 36th Division lost 144 officers and 3,441 other ranks killed,
wounded, or missing. That is to say, it had more than two thousand
casualties ere launched to the attack. Two other commanding officers,
besides Colonels Somerville and Maxwell, were among the casualties.
Colonel A. C. Pratt, 11th Inniskillings, had been killed at the
entrance to Wieltje dug-outs early on the morning of the 16th, while
Colonel Macrory, 10th Inniskillings, had been severely wounded a
few days earlier. The difficulties of evacuating wounded during
the action were extraordinary. Stretcher cases had to be brought
by hand at least two thousand yards, and it took eight men to each
stretcher. There were 433 stretcher-bearers, of whom rather more than
half were R.A.M.C., the remainder being men of a Tunnelling Company
and the Divisional Salvage section. Among many who displayed great
bravery in the work of evacuating wounded under heavy shell-fire
was the Assistant Chaplain-General of the Division, the Rev. F. J.
Halahan, M.C., who by precept and personal example encouraged the
stretcher-bearers to new efforts. Search parties, sent out after
dark, brought in about a hundred wounded men from in front of our
line. The conduct of the medical officers with the battalions,
tending their wounded under the very heavy shell-fire that was
maintained throughout upon the Black Line, was beyond praise. Captain
Gavin, R.A.M.C., attached to the 14th Rifles, did splendid work at
Rat Farm, where two other medical officers were killed. This gallant
officer, who earned a bar to his Military Cross on that occasion, and
had escapes little short of miraculous, was to be killed a few months
later by no more serious an accident than a fall from his horse.
Among those good dumb soldiers, the transport animals, the casualties
were the highest ever suffered by the Division. The pack mules,
the use of which was even more necessary than at Messines, but
infinitely less favoured by the _terrain_, were pushed forward too
soon, and came under heavy machine-gun fire. Many were killed, and a
far greater number had to be destroyed, though a few survived their
wounds, and, like gallant veterans, bore their scars till the war was
over. The loss among artillery horses was also very great.
This action was the only attack made by the 36th Division which
suffered complete reverse, for that on the Ancre had been a local
victory, of which the fruits were lost through no fault of its
troops. It is important to consider what were its causes and what its
lessons.
Many of the former will have become apparent in the course of
this sketch of the battle and of the days preceding. They may be
summarized as, firstly, exhaustion and attrition of units; secondly,
weather; thirdly, lack of essential preparation.
The Division had been holding the line for thirteen days. Owing to
the dreadful state of the trenches and the heaviness of the German
shell-fire, constant reliefs had been necessary. From the "resting"
battalions parties totalling sometimes as much as a thousand men
a day had been furnished for work on forward areas under constant
fire from artillery of the highest calibres. Apart from the
question of the huge losses, there were no troops really fit or in a
normal state of efficiency when the day of the assault arrived. The
personal equation had been overlooked, with disastrous results. The
water-logged condition of the ground was another prominent factor.
What it was only those who have seen the Flanders plain strewn with
shell-holes, sometimes almost lip to lip, can imagine.
But it was the machine-guns in the "pill-boxes," and the excellent
fashion in which they were defended, that were by far the most fatal
obstacles. The new German methods of defence in depth depended,
in Flanders, upon the concrete structures built in and around the
foundations of the destroyed farms with which that countryside
is studded. They served their purpose admirably. Few that were
captured by us were found to have been damaged by artillery. The
British heavy artillery was firing from a salient, instead of, as at
Messines, upon a salient. It had against it a far greater weight of
German metal than in that battle, and suffered far more heavily from
counter-battery. The German artillery dominated ours in the early
stages of the battle, certainly in position, probably also in actual
gun-power. The observation of the latter was almost worthless. And
where any could be obtained it was well-nigh impossible to identify
the "pill-boxes" from map to ground. An instance given by the G.O.C.
109th Brigade, General Ricardo, is illuminating. A few days prior
to the attack he arranged with a liaison officer from the Corps
Heavy Artillery a series of three-minute bombardments of certain
strong points, with pauses between, so that it should be clear to
the observers exactly which was being shelled, to correct the many
various readings of maps and photographs. In several cases, he
states, the concentration, nominally upon one strong point, covered
many hundred yards. The same considerations applied to the cutting of
wire, not nearly so effective as at Messines, through no fault of the
gunners of the Division and of the batteries working beside them.
The "pill-boxes," which were mainly responsible for the losses of
the troops in the attack of July the 31st, were standing intact and
garrisoned on the 16th of August. The claims of counter-battery
sometimes prevented demands for re-bombardment being fully met.
"We felt," said a distinguished officer after the action, "that the
Battle of Messines was won at Zero, and that the Battle of Ypres was
lost long before it." In the vast armies of the late war the Army
Commander, and even the Corps Commander, was a shadowy personage,
not alone to the private soldier, but to the Colonel commanding a
battalion in the trenches or a brigade of artillery behind them. But
the Second Army and the IX. Corps, under the orders of which the
36th Division fought at Messines, had a subtle power of making their
presence felt. The system of liaison was practised by the Second
Army as in no other. General Harington's car stopped at every door,
and the cheerful young staff officers, who knew every communication
trench on the Army front, who drank with company commanders in their
front-line dug-outs before coming back to tea with a Brigadier, or
with General Nugent at his Headquarters, formed a very real link
between the Higher Command and the troops. The private soldier knew
the Army Commander and his eyeglass as he knew no Corps Commander
under whom he fought. His personality was a real accretion of
strength. The difficulties at Ypres were infinitely greater than at
Messines; that everyone recognised. But in the former case they did
not appear to be met with quite the precision, care, and forethought
of the latter. The private soldier felt a difference. He may have
been unfair in his estimate, but that estimate was none the less of
importance. For what the private soldier felt had a marked effect
upon what the private soldier, the only ultimate winner of battles,
accomplished.
Of the lessons the most obvious was that the barrage must be slower
and of greater depth. General Nugent, in notes written after the
battle as a comment upon captured orders of the Fourth German Army,
made some interesting suggestions in this regard. He stated in
the first case that the Germans could now no longer shell the area
over which our troops were advancing, since their own troops were
distributed in depth upon it. However much damage their barrage
did to our supports, it did little or none to the leading troops.
It was, however, more important to facilitate the advance of the
latter than to protect the rear area during an attack. If both could
not be accomplished, the artillery covering the front of assault
should be strengthened at the expense of counter-battery groups.
The creeping barrage, he suggested, might be slightly reduced to
one 18-pounder per twenty-five yards, and augmented by a sweeping
barrage, concentrated to cover about ten yards a gun, each group
sweeping right and left along the front allotted to it, with a higher
burst and greater searching effect upon shell-holes. The pace of the
creeping barrage must be reduced, and there must be more frequent
pauses. During these the sweeping barrage and a 60-pounder barrage
in front of it might sweep and search. He also made some remarks
upon the possibility of control of the barrage by the infantry, the
advantages of which are too obvious to merit discussion, and the
difficulties of which are equally apparent.
But the most interesting of General Nugent's suggestions were with
regard to the formations of the infantry. "With the adoption," he
wrote, "of a new form of German defensive tactics, consisting of
small parties dotted about a wide area, the disadvantages of long
lines of attack are that lines have small manœuvring capacity and
lack depth. It is for consideration whether mobile company columns
echeloned in depth on a narrow front, each a self-contained tactical
unit with a machine-gun and trench mortar, each operating within
an allotted zone, would not be a more suitable tactical formation
than the present system, which breaks up under machine-gun fire and
in badly shelled ground into a number of isolated groups without
cohesion or leaders."
It is to be noted that when, on September the 20th, the 9th
(Scottish) Division attacked at Frezenberg, the creeping barrage
advanced the first two hundred yards in eight minutes; then slowed to
a hundred yards in six minutes; halted on the first objective--four
to five hundred yards--no less than an hour, and went forward again
at the snail pace of a hundred yards in eight minutes. As regards the
infantry, the attack was carried out by lines of sections in file at
about twenty yards' interval. The system of "leap-frogging" was also
employed instead of special groups for "mopping up." This attack was
a complete success.[40]
[Illustration: Map III.
The Battle of Langemarck, 1917.]
FOOTNOTES:
[37] The official title of the campaign is "The Battles of Ypres,
1917"; that of the action of August 16th, in which the 36th Division
took part, "The Battle of Langemarck."
[38] The attack, after very heavy losses, was stopped by the orders
of the French Government. History will decide whether the stopping
was right or wrong. General Mangin, who commanded an Army in it,
has given his reasons for the belief that the attack should have
continued.
[39] See Map III.
[40] _History of the 9th (Scottish) Division._ By John Ewing.