THE BATTLE OF NEUVE CHAPELLE
On the morning of the 8th of March, being Monday, the Germans began
the week early by heaving some more shells in the direction of the
ruin that guarded our quarters. Some one of our men during the night
had trundled a Flemish cart that was in the way in the farmyard, out
into the field about two hundred yards away. The vigilant Germans'
aircraft took it for a field gun, and notifying their batteries they
proceeded to shell it with shrapnel and high explosive shells. The
cart, however, stood it well. After they quit shelling some of us
ventured over to see what damage had been done. Beyond peppering the
woodwork the dummy gun was intact. I picked up the fuse of one of the
shrapnel shells and found that the range had been set at 3,400 metres.
The shell in its flight had clipped a small limb off one of the tall
sentinel elms in front of our dug-outs. With a compass we learned the
direction of the German battery on the map, which was located behind a
hedge at the cross roads east of Fromelles. A telephone message to our
guns and a half dozen shells from our five-inch guns, and this
particular German battery troubled us no more.
After the shelling the adjutant of the Royal Scots Battalion on our
right came over to see me to talk over the battle which we knew was
now due. I had been told of this by General Turner, V.C., the day
before. We knew that the big advance was about to begin, and a study
of the map told us that the first blow would likely be struck at Neuve
Chapelle, with an idea of forcing our line forward several miles so we
would gain the command of the high ground back of Aubers, Herlies and
Fromelles, a region of coal mines. A branch line of railway ran from
La Bassee to Fromelles and supplied the German batteries on our front
with ammunition and no doubt took coal back. On the east side of the
ridge ran the canal from La Bassee to Lille, also the two lines of
railway between the same places. With our footing secure on the Aubers
Ridge the gates of Lille and La Bassee would be at our mercy. Then
with a mobile field army there would be nothing to stop us till we got
to Ghent or Brussels. This was the place to drive the wedge that would
cut the German line in two, and once we had Lille we would endanger
the whole German lines of communication north and south. It used to be
a favourite amusement among the officers of our staff in the evenings
to take the map of Western Europe, which we kept hanging on the wall,
and plan campaigns to drive the Germans out of Flanders. Invariably
two lines of advance would be chosen. The first via Lille and Ghent,
to Antwerp, along the high ground between the River Scheldt and the
Lys. The second route would invariably begin at the Somme and run
along the plateau between the Sambre and Meuse via way of Le Cateau,
Mons, Charleroi to Namur.
All this is historical ground, the Low Countries of history. Over this
ground fought Caesar, Charlemagne, William the Silent, Marlborough,
Napoleon and all the great captains of history. We used to calculate
the men, the marches and the guns required. We would plan how we would
form a great corps army behind the trenches in preparation for a grand
advance. The attack would be delivered against two different points. A
feint against one position that would bring the German corps reserves,
that were always available in some central point, to the assistance of
their comrades. This corps army we knew always come on the third day
of a fight. We would have it come to the wrong place. Then a fierce
storm of artillery fire would be delivered at the point where the real
gap in the line was to be made; a drive through it with the infantry,
with plenty of supports; such were Wellington's methods. Then a "steam
roller" advance for the objective, surrounding and disregarding
fortified villages and redoubts, that would send the Germans
scattering right and left for the Rhine. We realized that our task as
part of the trench army would be a difficult one, but we had every
confidence that the trench army could open the gate for a field army
at any point in the line required. But a trench army in so doing would
lose one third of its effectives, and putting a regiment in the
trenches for a long tour of trench work destroys its initiative as far
as field manoeuvring is concerned. All these things were planned and
marches calculated. It was figured out where the Germans might make a
stand, generally where some famous battle had been fought in the past,
how they would be overwhelmed with fresh divisions on their flanks,
brought up in motor trucks and their troops blown out of the earth
with hundreds of "four point five" and "six-inch" field howitzers
which were proving to be such excellent guns for our troops. That is
how we planned to drive the enemy out of Flanders. Alas, most of those
young ardent soldiers who were so well trained by our military
colleges to carry on the staff work of such an army of invasion were
doomed to give up their lives in the sodden and muddy trenches. We had
confidence that the day would come soon when a big field army would be
ready behind us, and it would be only a case of "whoop" and "haloo"
and the German fox would be off full tear for the cover of the Rhine
and its fortress strongholds.
For days we had been gaining superiority in various ways over the
enemy. Our riflemen dominated theirs. When we took over the trenches
first, if we fired one shot they answered with ten. Now they did not
answer at all. When our guns fired on their guns for every shell we
handed to them they religiously gave us five back. Now they kept still
and took their gruel. They had given us trouble with their trench
mortars. They had wounded several of my men with the bombs, but they
tried to move their mortar into a new position one day and we spotted
it. The artillery observing officer in our trenches, young Lieutenant
Ryerson, called up the guns and the second shell sent their mortar to
smithereens. A great artillery officer was young Lieut. Ryerson, fit
to command any battery.
For a long time the German aeroplanes flew over us every morning at
sunrise, but now we had a dozen aeroplanes to their one and theirs
were rather shy. Our guns had ranged up and down the whole front and
we had all begun to get confident and to think that it was only a
matter of a few days until we would be on the high road to Brussels.
On top of all this came a very inspiring address from General Sir
Douglas Haig, commanding our army. He pointed out that the time had
come for a fresh great effort. He also informed us that we were
stronger than the enemy, all of which gave us more confidence.
I was told privately that the drive was to take place on our right,
and as soon as the brigade on our right had cleared out the Germans on
their front that we were to echelon and follow suit and charge.
On our right the Germans were four hundred yards away across the open.
I went down and examined the lines carefully with Captain Daniels, and
found that there were two places where a lot of men could be taken out
of our trenches and led half way across to the German lines on "dead"
ground, that is ground on which they would be hidden. Lieutenant
Schonberger and Captain Warren made a sketch of this ground. I talked
the matter over with the captains and they were very much cheered up
over the prospect of a fight. Captains MacLaren and Daniels
immediately began fixing up exits from their trenches. Steps were cut
in the parapets, and in other places openings were made. The opening
in the parapets that were used for "listening" posts and for the
patrols to go in and out were widened.
What is a listening post? A listening post is made in this way: A gap
which is carefully hidden with sandbags is cut in the parapets. Then a
sap is run out several hundred feet in zigzag fashion, which
terminates in a rifle pit, about five feet deep that will accommodate
about four men. At night two sentries sit in this pit and listen to
the sounds in the enemy's lines. Sometimes if the rifle pit is wet a
couple of barrels are put in and the sentries stand in the barrels.
They notify the trenches of any unusual movement or sounds made by the
enemy.
In the evening we left the trenches and went into divisional reserve
at Rue Du Quesne. Let me give you some idea of the lay of the country.
There is a road about every kilometer and they run roughly northwest
and northeast.
Running southwest and almost parallel with the trenches was Rue
Pettion, a short road that terminated at the Fromelles road near our
headquarters. The next street, a little over a mile back, is Rue Du
Bois, north of the Fromelles Road, south of the Fromelles Road it is
called the Rue De Tilleloy. At the corner there was a shrine which had
suffered from shell fire and which Canon Scott had immortalized in a
poem, the best he has written and the best I have read since the war
began. The next street back is the Rue Du Quesne. Right through the
centre of our position ran the Fromelles Road. A kilometer southwest,
the trench line is crossed by the road to Aubers called the Rue
D'Enfer, or in our language, the Road to Hell. If this road is paved
with good intentions I have never seen any of them. It is strongly
held by the Germans. The "intentions" take the form of "crump" holes
excavated by German shells in the pavement.
The country on our side is perfectly flat and full of hedges and
ditches. Every hedge concealed a battery of guns of all kinds and
sizes. On the German side, half a mile back from their trenches, the
ground slopes up. The villages of Aubers and Fromelle are on the
western slope and the ridge behind is our true objective. On the ridge
we could see the church steeples of Herlies to the right and Fournes
to the left, while here and there peep the derricks, or as we in
America call them the "breakers" of coal pits. Beyond the ridge the
land slopes to the Scheldt. It was on the eastern slope of this ridge
that Caesar fought his greatest battles. There the Nervli charged
across the stream in thousands and fought until hardly a man of them
was left, fought until their dead were piled up breast high, fought
till Caesar had to take a buckler and spear from a fallen soldier to
defend himself. On all sides, from the horizon downward, rows of tall
elm trees cast their gaunt leafless branches in the air. Between them
were a sea of hedges and green brown boles of pollard willows. Elms
generally grew along the roadways and the limbs for fifty feet up are
trimmed off annually and tied up into faggots. The willows grew along
the ditches. They are trimmed off about twelve or fourteen feet above
the ground and the new branches that sprout out from their trunks
provide faggots for firewood as well as withes for the manufacture of
chairs, baskets and hampers. The faggots are sometimes placed in
earthen pits and burned into charcoal, providing an excellent fuel for
the interesting Dutch stoves found in the kitchens in this country.
For several days our guns had been registering on the enemy. That is
to say, our artillery observing officers would go into the trenches
with a telephone connected up with their batteries. Then the battery
fires a shot at the enemy's parapets, generally well over. He reports
the hit right or left, and then the range is reduced until the object
is hit. That range direction and elevation is recorded in a register
at the gun. The man who sets the gun does not see the object he is
firing at at all, but he knows when his gun is trained in a certain
line at a certain elevation he will hit that part of the enemy's
parapet. We had all kinds of guns ready for the fray. The Canadian
sixty pounders under Major McGee a few days before had smashed up the
brown tower of Fromelles. This tower had been used by the Germans for
an artillery observing station, and for several months the British had
been firing at it without success. In about three shots McGee's guns
got the tower and a half dozen shells reduced it to a hopeless ruin so
that it was of no use to anyone. The church tower of Aubers followed
suit. When the British Tommies heard the "birr" of the five-inch
Canadian shells they all asked whose they were. The Scots thought they
had come from Scotland. When they saw Aubers tower disappear in a
cloud of dust they inquired again, "What bally gunners are those?"
When told they were the Canadians, they said, "Bravo, Canadians, you
are some class," and cheered heartily. This gave our gunners a
reputation that lasted for the rest of the war.
Besides our five-inch guns we had our eighteen pounder batteries lined
up and down behind us, also horse artillery guns from India and an
armoured train manned by the navy. They had long six-inch guns that
threw a terrible projectile. We had also some new fifteen-inch
howitzers that had been brought over from England. "Grandmas" they
called these guns because they were short and stout. "Grandma" when
fired only gave a low grunt, but when her shell broke four or five
miles off, it burst with a "Car-u-m-p" that rattled the windows and
shook the earth down in our dugouts.
I had a very interesting time one day riding to a conference at the
headquarters of General Sir H.S. Rawlinson, Bt. I came cantering along
a road and a sudden turn brought us to a railway crossing. The naval
guns were on an armoured train, the Churchill battery on either side
of this crossing, and the gunners seemed to have wakened up for they
began firing when we were about five hundred yards off. I was riding a
powerful "Cayuse" or western horse, which Captain "Rudd" Marshall,
with rare good judgment, had selected for me at Valcartier. He turned
out to be a splendid charger. Although low set he carried me easily.
He was as wise as an owl and as sure-footed as a cat. It took a good
deal of courage on his part to face the naval battery firing for all
it was worth, the flames from the black fiery muzzles of the guns
almost scorching his hide, but he did it without flinching, although
the jar of the guns almost shook him off his feet several times. I can
quite realize the task of the Noble Six Hundred had in charging the
Russian batteries at Balaclava. I have since seen a moving picture of
this battery in action and recognized the raised gate of the railway
crossing through which we rode, in the centre of the picture, and I
wondered if the battery was "demonstrating" for the benefit of the
moving picture photographer when we were passing through.
In my rides about the country when the battalion was in billets, I
several times ran across "Archibald the Archer," which is the name
given to an anti-air craft gun which is mounted on a motor truck and
is used against the German aeroplanes. "Archibald" is capable of
firing to a great height and very rapidly. He can also move about the
country quite readily. When he starts after a Hun avatick there is
something going on in the sky. I have watched the Germans outwitting
him. Now the aeroplane would dip and glide and circle as the
"Archibald" shells broke about him. Watching with a powerful glass one
could see the airship tremble with the explosion of the shell in its
vicinity. "Archibald" does not always get the German observers, but he
hastens to make it so hot for them that they cannot observe.
Observation cannot be carried on with much accuracy above five
thousand feet, and the ordinary rifle can fire that high. Who named
the anti-air craft gun "Archibald" no one knows, but the Belgians are
credited with the naming.
The Belgians are great archers, the sport still surviving in that
country. At every village you will find a tall mast which you at first
think belongs to a wireless station. On examination, however, it will
prove to be an archery pole. At the top of a tall pole the target is
drawn up by a rope and pulley, and on holidays the local sports
indulge in shooting at the mark with a long bow. In every farm house
you will find the long bow and a bunch of arrows.
The programme for the big battle ran something like this: Everything
being in readiness several divisions were to be brought up behind the
trenches at Neuve Chapelle during the night of the ninth and tenth.
Next morning at 7.30 the ball was to open. It was to be a case of
"nibbling" as General Joffre calls it. Our guns were to form two zones
of fire. The big guns were to smash the first line of trenches for a
mile into fragments, while the second line of lighter guns were to
rain shrapnel on the ground over which supports might come so that the
first line would be isolated. When the first line was sufficiently
hammered the infantry was to rip the German parapets with rapid rifle
fire, then a charge with the bayonets across the devil's strip, and
once inside the first lines of parapets bomb throwing parties were to
be told off right and left to clear the trenches. These bombing
parties consisted of three or four men with bayonets to lead, and
behind them two or three bomb throwers to throw bombs at the enemy
ahead of the bayonet men. The leading bayonet men carried a flag which
they were to plant in the parapets as they passed along so that the
supporting infantry would know not to fire on them. The first line of
trenches was to be consolidated the first day. On the second day the
second line was to be assaulted and on the third day the third line.
In a similar manner everybody knew there was stiff work ahead. That
evening my battalion was relieved in the trenches by the Royal
Montreal Regiment. When we got back to our quarters we received orders
to "sleep on our arms" that night. That meant in our clothes, with our
belts and ammunition strapped on, ready to march at a moment's notice.
There was a good bed, but it was sleep in your boots for me. The fact
that a blighter of a sniper kept firing off three or four rounds of
rapid fire at my headquarters every few minutes, his bullets rattling
on the brick wall close to my window, was not very conducive to sleep
or good temper. I vowed that I would make it pretty hot for snipers,
and agreed with myself there and then to pay a reward of fifty dollars
for every sniper captured dead or alive inside our lines.
The German sniper is really a lineal descendant of the impenitent
thief. When I say a sniper I do not mean a sharpshooter who fires into
our lines from the German lines. I mean one of those horrible
creatures that goes about clad in a stolen uniform or the clothes of a
Flemish farmer during the day, and at night takes a Leuger automatic
pistol and haunts the billets and roads in hope of killing some lone
British or Canadian soldier or sentry, whose duty calls him abroad
during the night and relieving the dead body of any money or valuables
that may be on it. Truly this war developed into a form of warfare
akin to that between the whites and the North American Indians.
We suspect a few of the habitants of being snipers and not without
some reason. Several of these farmers and small saloon keepers would
like to see the Germans win the war so that they could "cash in" on
the German requisitions they hold. It happened in this way: When the
"Boches," as they call the Germans, overran the country last August
and September, they took all the wine from the saloon keepers and
brewers, and the best horses, cattle and hogs from the farmers. They
paid for these articles with requisitions or orders on the German
Government, payable after the war if Germany won. We were constantly
coming up against these people that were devastated by the Germans,
and when we remarked that the British or French Government would pay
the "requisitions" after the war they inform us that they hold
requisitions for 5,000 or 10,000 francs given them by the Germans for
their property. At one place where I was quartered the proprietor had
lost 40,000 francs worth of stock and wine. He was rather "frosty" to
the British. That is why we suspected some of being snipers, and there
are some cases on record where they were caught red-handed in the act.
Our experience had taught us to put a dead line of sentries several
miles behind the line of trenches, and our vigilance was rewarded
because the Germans throughout were unable to locate our batteries and
were at sea as to what was taking place behind our lines. On the other
hand our scouts were so bold that they often crept forward at night in
spite of the constant firing of flare lights or rockets by the enemy
and had looked right into the German trenches. Conversations were of
constant occurrence. "How is your bloody Ross Rifle?" a hoarse German
voice would enquire. "Stick your nose up and see" would go back the
prompt reply.
March 10th was the day set for the beginning of the battle which will
go down in history as the battle of Neuve Chapelle. The village of
Neuve Chapelle was just like every other Franco-Fleming village on the
firing line, a huddle of houses partly unroofed by shell fire,
deserted by the populace, and shunned by the soldiers. It had been at
one time a smart village of two-storey brick houses with red tiled
roofs. It possessed the typical church and graveyard such as are found
in these villages. Almost every second house was a wine or beer saloon
called an "estament." There were butcher shops, millinery shops and
shops where they mended shoes. But the British rush, which in October
had driven back the German lines beyond Armentieres, Aubers and
Fromelles, had left the Germans in possession of Neuve Chapelle. They
had a lot of stout-hearted rogues holding on there who would not let
go, so Neuve Chapelle formed the apex of a salient in the British
trenches which weakened our line north so much that later on we had to
give up good ground south of Lille in order to straighten and
consolidate along the line of the River Layes for the hard winter
campaign.
Late in December some one in the War Office thought that we had given
up too much ground about Fromelles and Armentieres, so an attack was
ordered which resulted in nothing beyond the killing of a great many
Highlanders, Gordons, Black Watch, Argyles, and virtually destroying a
Brigade of Guards. But nothing came of all this, and it is, as I
suppose as Rudyard Kipling would say, "another story." Yes, and a "top
hole" one at that, but it does not come within my province to tell it.
Now we were going to drive the Germans out of this salient and begin
the spring cleaning up. When we speak of towns and villages, please do
not get any idea of distance as in Canada or America in your heads.
There is a town or village in Flanders at every cross road. The "town
siter" has not been abroad here selling lots for miles about every
hamlet, so the result is that a town of three or four thousand people
will happen at every cross road, all within a diameter of a quarter of
a mile. As for the roads and streets, they follow the game trails
haunted by the cave dwellers and trogdolites a thousand centuries ago.
They wind in every direction and are all good. The main roads are
covered with heavy square stones, blocks. Once in a hundred years the
Flemish farmer does his road work by turning these blocks over. They
are called pave roads. All the other roads are covered with macadam
made out of black whinstone that is as hard as iron. This will explain
why the towns of Armentieres, Fleurbaix, Neuve Chapelle, Aubers,
Estaires and Bac St. Maur are all within a radius of five miles of
each other. Aubers is a short mile from Neuve Chapelle, while
Fromelles is only a mile or so from Aubers. The whole British line
from Ypres to La Bassee is not as far as from Toronto to Hamilton, not
forty miles.
Our brigade had two battalions in the trenches, the Royal Montreal
Regiment under Lieut.-Colonel Meighen and the Canadian Scottish under
Lieut.-Colonel Leckie. The Royal Highlanders of Canada were on the
left of our brigade and we were on the right, and our two battalions
were available as reserves for the British troops on our right that
were going into action. There was one British Brigade between us and
the section of the line that was to attack. We were not to move till
this brigade moved. Reveille was sounded early and the battalion fell
in by companies shortly after seven. We were ordered to march down to
the Rue De Bois and get out of sight among some farm houses and keep
out of sight, which we did. Some of the companies crossed the fields
scouting along the ditches and hedges. A company marched by the road
Croix Blanche. We found billets at farm houses a few hundred yards
east of the corner of the Rue De Bois and the Fromelles road. Across
the road from where I was quartered there was a big straw stack which
the artillery were using for observation purposes. Behind it Captain
Pope of the Third Brigade Staff had established a telephone office in
a couple of wheat sheaves of last year's crop. A cup of bad black
coffee and a hard boiled egg provided me with breakfast. The men made
tea and had plenty of food with them. In an emergency of this kind I
saw that they had two day's rations in their haversacks. They also
carried a hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition in their pouches and
two bandoliers, each of fifty rounds, slung over their shoulders. They
would not be short of grub or ammunition if it could be helped. After
I had finished the coffee I surveyed the barn and found a spot where a
hole through the straw thatch gave a good view of what was going on.
I had a very powerful pair of field binoculars with which I could
count the chickens in a barnyard five miles off. The battle was about
to begin. A few of our guns were giving the morning "straffing" as
usual. The sun was up and it was a bright clear day. I could see the
British lines marked by brown sandbags, now hidden by hedges, again
showing across the Rue D'Enfer, but hidden by the houses and church at
the corner called Fauquissart. Beyond that again to my right rear the
line crossed the Rue Du Tilleloy and swept on to Neuve Chapelle. A
clump of tall elms here interfered with the view. I could also see the
German trenches. They were crowned with rows of white sandbags,
interspersed with blue bundles that looked like army blankets or blue
bed sticks filled with earth. There was not much stirring for the
moment.
Suddenly the guns woke up behind our line. The Canadian eighteens and
five inchers took up the chorus. Back came half a dozen German forty
pounder shells bursting in the field on my right. They were miles away
from our guns. One by one the British batteries joined in the chorus
until in less than five minutes over three hundred cannon of every
description were pouring death and destruction on the German trenches.
At first I could see our shells bursting with volumes of green and
yellow smoke and blowing up the German parapets. I could see sandbags
flying fifty feet in the air and what looked like men as well. Debris
flew in every direction, and in a few minutes I could see neither
sandbags nor parapets. Nothing but the yellow smoke of lyddite and
behind this in the air a ring of fire where the shrapnel were bursting
and showering their leaden curtain to keep the enemy's supports from
coming up. I could see that there was much excitement along the
British parapets. Men clustered together like bees, and in some places
I could see soldiers climbing up on top of the parapet, waving their
rifles and caps in the air. They were telling the Huns what they were
going to do to them. They were too far away for me to hear what their
language was, but they were evidently enjoying the punishing the
Germans were getting. At 8.30 o'clock the roar of the guns died away
suddenly, only to be followed by the most intense musketry fire. It
was something like the distant sound of Niagara Falls. I never heard
anything really like it. This continued for about ten minutes, then
died away.
A light yellow cloud had settled down over the place where the German
parapets once were. I could not see through the smoke, as the more
powerful a glass is the more it exaggerates the fog or smoke. I could
hear the loud, sharp detonations of grenades, and I fancied cheers,
more detonations and cheers and cries. All this was occurring within
less than a mile of where I was standing. From the detonations I
judged we were bombing their trenches. The noise died away and our
artillery woke up again and began shelling leisurely in the rear of
the first line of German entrenchments. Evidently we had won easily. I
hurried down and over to where Captain Pope and several of my officers
were grouped about the telephone. "They have carried the first line of
trenches easily" was the answer he gave to my query as to what had
happened. "They are going after the second line of trenches right
away." I returned to my observation post and once more the guns were
hard at it. It was now a little after nine o'clock and the haze
that hung around the German positions made observation difficult. The
guns redoubled their efforts, and at about ten o'clock they stopped
and again the rifle fire followed, if anything, more intense than
before. The detonation of bombs, the rifle fire and cries of the
combatants came to my ears distinctly now that our own guns on both
sides and behind us were silent. Again I travelled over to the
telephone station wondering if they had forgotten us, or if we were
going to have a hand in the game. "The second line is taken" came over
the wire at 10.30 o'clock. "They are going to attack the third line."
So they were going to force through and make a one-day job of it after
all. That would surely bring us into the fight by the afternoon or the
next day. So my young men would be pleased.
[Illustration: FIRST AID IN THE TRENCHES]
I had had a lot of pacifying to do among my officers over the question
of "When are we going to get into this thing?" Major Osborne always
had an idea that everybody from General French down was trying to keep
the Canadians from starting a grand parade to Berlin. Lieut. "Fred"
Macdonald's question to me would always be, "How long are they going
to keep us at this rotten trench business?" "It's about time we got
into a mix-up. Look at the Princess Pats what they have done! They
must be afraid to use us," etc., etc. I would gently chide him and say
that we were on the lap of the gods, in other words sitting on our
General's knees, and Mac would look as if I were a partner in a deep
laid conspiracy to keep the regiment from being covered with glory.
When we last went into the trenches Captains Alexander and Cory had to
take the line nearest the Germans. They were only eighty yards away
and the parapets were as thin as bargain day wall paper. Lots had been
cast, and McGregor had won the reserved position and Alexander the hot
corner. I ventured to remark to Alexander that I was sorry that his
luck had put him in a dangerous place, and that he should have his
turn next in reserve. I did not get far with this speech when he
snapped back quietly and firmly, "The post of danger is the post of
honour." As for Cory and Jones, I had to threaten them with a
court-martial if they did not stop hopping on the parapets in full
view of the Germans both day and night.
They were all feeling happy to-day, even grim Captain MacLaren was
wearing a broad smile. As for McKessock, well his ancestors followed
Bruce from Kilmarnock to Ireland. There is no need for further
comment. He had the machine guns well cleaned and the cartridges in
the belts polished like front door knobs so they wouldn't jam.
After hearing that the third line was to be attacked I hurried back to
my post. The artillery had stopped firing for a while to let the haze
and smoke clear away so they could observe, but it still hung heavy
over the German lines.
Shortly after eleven o'clock the artillery started in again. Most of
the Canadian guns seemed to be firing at Aubers, and if there were any
Germans in that town they must have suffered. For nearly an hour the
bombardment of the third line continued. Then followed a longer
interval of rifle fire and then the bombs; shouting and rifle fire
died away shortly after one o'clock. At about half past one I could
see khaki figures in kilts in the outskirts of Aubers. They seemed to
be strolling around looking for something to do. When I went to the
telephone I learned that the third and last line of the German
trenches had been taken and the battle had been won. What a place to
win a victory over the same Germans that for two thousand years have
been crossing the Rhine and invading Flanders, only to be defeated and
driven back again as the Germans of to-day will be driven back.
History will surely repeat itself. What is the use of these invasions,
these fierce raids by the Germans? Nothing but the loss of thousands
upon thousands of lives. Every acre of the ground we were fighting on
has been watered with the blood of German and Fleming long ago. We
were only repeating the centuries' old feud.
All afternoon we waited patiently, expecting that in the pursuit that
would follow our battalions would be echeloned through the gap made,
but not a word came. We returned at night to our billets and were
warned again to be on the _Qui vive_.
Thursday, March 11th, was slightly hazy and we were kept in readiness
all day, but no new developments followed. Something must have
happened, lack of ammunition, or something of that kind. My officers
were worrying me all day wondering if the grand advance had gone on
and we were left behind. I could give no explanation. It is a
soldier's duty to wait and do as he is told. The impression prevailed
for the moment that the terrible tales they told about us in England
had followed us to Flanders and that General French was afraid to
trust the First Canadian Division. In the evening we were notified
that hot baths would be ready for the men and a change of clothing at
Sailly next day. That meant that we would not take part in any
advance, at least for the moment.
On March 12th, in the morning, accompanied by Dr. MacKenzie and
Lieutenant Dansereau, I set out for Estaires. We were told before we
left that the Canadian troops would not be required that day. The
battle orders given to me confidentially by Colonel Hughes burnt holes
in my pocket, but we would not need them yet. On the way we found a
lot of cannonading going on, and as we came to Estaires we met long
lines of ambulances coming in from the front with the wounded. There
were Guardsmen, Indian troops and Highlanders. At first we thought
they were the wounded picked up on the battle field on the 10th of
March. In Estaires from some of the slightly wounded we learned the
vastly important information that another big attack was on and that
the British troops were making very little headway, and were having
terrible losses. The artillery were not doing much, and the infantry
were getting the worst of it. The German corps army had been brought
up.
From a wounded Highland sergeant we learned that on the 10th the
three lines of German trenches had been carried as stated. The British
troops were in the environs of Aubers and along the Rue D'Enfer. The
Germans were apparently in full retreat and our losses were only about
five per cent, of the men engaged. The troops in the first line,
victorious, were eager to go on, but they were halted on the western
outskirts of Aubers all afternoon and then told to dig themselves in.
Next day they were for some reason ordered back to the third line of
German trenches and told to prepare these trenches, strengthening and
consolidating the lines and to prepare for a German attack which did
not come. To-day being the third day they were ordered to carry
Aubers, the Rue D'Enfer and the ground extending to the Wood of Biez.
In these places a terrible resistance had been encountered. The
Germans Corps Reserves, several divisions of them, had arrived. They
had fortified Aubers by using the lower or basement storeys of houses
for machine gun emplacements, and a large redoubt with wire had been
constructed in the woods.
The commanding officers of both the battalions of the Gordons had been
killed, also Colonel Fisher-Rowe of the Guards, who had turned the
trenches at Fromelles over to us, was killed leading his battalion in
a charge. The Gordons had lost sixteen officers from each battalion,
killed and wounded, and about half their men. The Guards Brigade had
lost about the same. Again and again the unconquerable British
infantry this day charged across the open to carry ground that was
virtually theirs two days before, but the Bois de Biez and the Rue
D'Enfer bristled with machine guns that mowed them down in hundreds.
Guards, Ghurkas, Highlanders, Pathans charged again and again till at
last towards evening the attack was called off. The German counter
attack had taken the form of a pure defensive and we had sacrificed
ten or twelve thousand troops trying to retrieve what we lost through
lack of support two days before. There was no truth in the stories
subsequently circulated that our guns fired in mistake on the British
troops. A few Indian guns that had been worn out with constant firing
since the Battle of Mons fired stray shells but that is likely to
happen at any time. An error of a line or two on the indicating ring
of the fuse when set will cause the shell to burst short.
The Battle of Neuve Chapelle was a great victory for the British, but
we did not gather much of the fruits of victory. Everybody felt that
something had gone wrong, but what it was only history will disclose.
Our younger officers were beginning to think that the old Wellington
tradition of "support promptly" had been forgotten in the army of
Flanders.
Over eight hundred German prisoners fell into our hands. They were
mostly Bavarians and Saxons. They were in the bombed trenches and had
had a very hard time from our shell fire. Their clothing, hands and
faces were stained yellow from the lyddite fumes. I saw these men at a
factory at Estaires where they were held. A number of them spoke
English. I also saw them on the street as they were being conducted by
a French reserve officer and guarded by French reserve troops. They
were a mixture of young boys and middle-aged men, well fed and well
clothed, and it did not appear as if it was costing the German
Government much effort to look after them. Like all Germans they had
let their beards grow which made them look like "Weary Willies." From
an intellectual standpoint they did not seem to be overburdened with
brains. "Blond beasts" they would be nicknamed in the London music
halls. We used to wonder why the German helmets would not fit us, they
were so small. After seeing these men we knew. A number six to six and
one-half hat would fit any of these chaps.