trenches which I saw taken by the first two waves, immediately after
the capture of Wedge Wood, in the hollow at the bottom of the Sunken
Road, and these trenches were used also as good cover for men inspired
by a great idea.
It was the idea of making a surprise rush into Leuze Wood, from its
western side, while the enemy’s attention was directed to the defence
of Falfemont Farm, half-way down the slopes to the south.
It was this surprise movement which caused all the confusion which I
saw yesterday among the enemy.
Splendid work was done by our men after dusk and during the night,
in spite of a deluge of rain, when the enemy’s artillery fired most
furiously. By dawn more troops had joined those who held the spur and
pushed on to the north of Falfemont Farm, and others had got close to
the farm on the south and west by way of Wedge Wood.
Between the black posts which were once high living trees about sixty
Germans stayed on in their shell-craters and broken dug-outs. When
the final British rush came from three sides they could do nothing
but surrender or die. Some of them died, and others lay wounded and
unconscious, but most of them put their hands up, and this afternoon
I saw some of the wounded Germans from Falfemont lying side by side
on stretchers with boys from the West Country who had been hit in
attacking them.
From first to last it was the work of infantry rather than guns, and
it was a great and terrible moment when the Germans came out in their
first counter-attack, in close ranks, moving very steadily against our
men, in a long, black undulating wave over the rise and fall of the
ground, through the waist-high weeds; and then, again, after this first
advance had been broken by our machine-gun fire and had fallen prone
into the tall thistles so that no more of them was to be seen, when
another body of big Germans came out, crouching for the last rush upon
our lines, and our men fell back a little, and opened out, so that the
machine-guns had a clear field upon which to play their hose of bullets.
For a little while at least it was fighting without the usual massacre
of shell-fire from long-range guns which annihilate the human
element as well as the bodies of men. Here at least, in spite of
the machine-guns, men looked into each other’s eyes and were killed
advancing in the sight of their enemies, which seems to me better
and less frightful than when men go forward and see nothing and are
swallowed up in a great explosion directed from machines six miles away.
The gun-fire was intense afterwards, and men, and masses of men, were
swallowed up as usual by its high-explosives, but for a couple of hours
it was more like old-fashioned fighting, damnable enough, God knows,
but not so utterly inhuman.
4
It is not sufficiently realised, I believe, how very important has
been the gain to us of the last two days of battle. The capture of
Guillemont and of the ground beyond it has given us now the whole of
the German second line, which we broke in parts on the great day of
July 14.
Since then our men have had an uphill fight all the time, a long
struggle upwards to seize the high ridge from Pozières eastwards, and
to hold it. It has been difficult to take and difficult to hold. The
cost has not been light. The heroism shown on those slopes, in those
woods, in the assault on the high trenches, has been the most wonderful
ever shown by British soldiers in continuous endeavour.
Now we have gained the crest of the ridge, and even if our offensive
were brought to a dead halt to-day, which it will not be, the position
of our men for the winter would be enormously superior over that of
the enemy on the other side of the water-shed. Again, the taking of
Guillemont and the ground by Ginchy has defended our right flank and
straightened out an awkward salient.
With Ginchy in our hands on one side and Thiépval on the other, we
should be well placed, and there would be a great gain for all the
sacrifice our men have made in fighting forward so hard, and so far,
and with such exalted courage.
5
SEPTEMBER 5
The taking of Guillemont, the quick progress to the Sunken Road beyond,
the capture of Falfemont Farm, the thrust forward, by great daring,
into Leuze Wood, the close assault on Ginchy, and the splendid advance
of the French on our right, have given to this part of the battle-line
an atmosphere of exultation, which our troops have not felt so strongly
since that day of July 14 when we broke the second German line at
Longueval. Men are fighting hereabouts with a sense of victory which
is half the battle. They feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have the
German on the run at last, and that by getting hard on to him, taking
all risks, they will keep him running.
The rapid and far progress of the French is helping our own men, not
only in a military way by “keeping the Boche busy,” as they put it,
but as a moral tonic, showing that the German strength of resistance
has begun to crack. The noise of the French guns is wonderful
music to British soldiers going forward to their own part of the
battlefields, and, by Jove! it is astounding in its uproar, as I heard
it to-day again on our right, away down to the gates of Peronne in
a great roll of drum-fire for miles. It is one ceaseless tattoo of
“soizante-quinzes” and of heavier guns, like a titanic hammering of
anvils in the smithies of the gods or devils.
“Hark at them! They seem to be getting on with it all right,” said an
English officer to-day, and listening for a moment to the great sweep
of the artillery battle—for our own guns were firing steadily and
tremendously—he added that “the enemy is having a really thin time. We
are getting on top at last.”
It is this sense of “getting on top” that is inspiring our men to fight
to the last ounce of strength on this right wing of our attack, up to
Ginchy and beyond Guillemont. It is literally as well as morally a
desire to get on top, up the hill to the crest of the ridge, to the
last vantage point of the enemy, and it is to push him off and over
that high point that our men have been fighting uphill with a really
passionate endeavour.
They got all round the place a few days ago after hard, bloody
fighting. They held on under great shell-fire and machine-gun fire, and
many men took the last hazard in trying to force their way into the
stronghold where the enemy is entrenched and covered with well-placed
machine-guns. Some of them went in, and stayed in. No message has come
back from them, but it is quite likely that they are still there as a
living wedge in the enemy’s gates.
One party, thirty strong, fought their way along a sap to the north
of the village and established a bombing post which they held against
all odds. Their rations gave out, but they would not go. They had no
water, and suffered horribly from thirst, but not a man would go. Their
ammunition was nearly spent, but they waited for new supplies, if they
should have the luck to get them. A sergeant came back to the front
trench with this tale of stubborn courage, and a request for food and
water and bombs so that the thirty might still “carry on.” That is the
spirit with which our men are fighting, and one marvels at them.
The enemy has suffered heavily against these assaults, and our
shell-fire has massacred many of his troops. A German officer brought
back from the outskirts of Ginchy yesterday was asked what casualties
he had in his company. He said, “Oh, a few, not many.” He turned away
and tried to destroy a scrap of paper in his hand, but was not quick
enough. It was a message calling urgently for rescue and saying that
his men were unable to hold out any longer, as there were only twenty
of them left out of the full strength of his company.
To-day other British troops have forced their way into the stronghold,
but as yet it is too soon to know whether they can maintain their
position. The enemy is fighting bravely, but however long his
resistance may be, I have no doubt that Ginchy will be added to the
list of all those strongholds which have fallen one after another under
our repeated assaults. For Ginchy must be ours to give us the end of
the ridge and to link up the line with Leuze Wood, where at present our
men are exposed to flanking attacks.
6
The difficulty of all this close and open fighting, where bodies of
British troops press on to the very edge of the enemy’s ditches, and
where bodies of Germans hold bits of roadway or bits of trench in
isolated positions, is that the guns on both sides cannot concentrate a
heavy barrage without killing their own men. In this kind of situation
the German gunners are ruthless, but sometimes that method does not pay.
In spite of all their skill—for they are good gunners, these
Germans—they were scared enough to withdraw their field batteries to
a safer distance before our final attack on Guillemont last Sunday.
Some of our officers fighting here told me that there were very few
“whizz-bangs” about that day, and it was all shell fire from heavy
long-range guns.
Before our attack they opened an intense bombardment upon Trones Wood.
It smashed in steady lines of shells—the great “five-point-nines”—right
through the wood, and was maintained mercilessly for many hours. Some
of our men behind the front lines had escapes from death which seem
like miracles. One young officer I know received an invitation to tea
at a dug-out a few hundred yards, I reckon, from his own hole in the
earth where he lay with two comrades. It was a pleasant and friendly
idea, that cup of tea, but he decided against it when he heard the
awful crash of shells outside.
Later a message came that he must go on a matter of business. It was
his duty to go, and so he went as fast as possible. A moment or two
after reaching the other dug-out there was the tinkle of a telephone
bell, and he heard that both his comrades had been killed by the direct
hit of a five-point-nine. He went back with a soldier to see if there
was any hope for his friends—one of them might be wounded only—and as
he went a shell exploded a yard or two away, the man by his side was
killed, and his shoulder was splashed with the man’s blood, but he was
left unscathed.
Our bombardment before the attack on Guillemont was more effective.
There were not many Germans here or in the Sunken Road, or higher up in
the trenches by Ginchy, who had miraculous escapes. They were killed in
masses. A great number of dead were found by our men outside Guillemont
in the Sunken Road, which was the German third line of defence there.
They were a frightful sight, as many of them were quite naked, all
their clothes having been stripped off by the blasting force of high
explosives. Some men, untouched by fragments of shell, were killed by
the enormous concussion of air or by heart shock, and there was one
dead man kneeling, and still grasping his rifle with fixed bayonet.
The successful attack on Guillemont was due to the effect of our
shell-fire on the garrison. When the infantry advanced they met with
but little hostile machine-gun fire. Most of the Germans were dazed and
done. They had no alertness left in them to bring up their weapons and
resist the attack. Even many of the dug-outs were blown in. A sergeant
of one of the companies who came up in support—one of those splendid
N.C.O.’s to whom the steadiness of our troops is largely due—told me
to-day that he went into one deep dug-out where forty men were lying.
Only three were alive, and of those two were badly wounded. In other
dug-outs there were many dead.
This was in the Sunken Road, where afterwards our men “organised” the
bank, digging themselves in so as to get cover from the heavy barrage
flung upon them by the German artillery after the capture of the
position. A lance-corporal was killed here by the side of my sergeant
friend, who buried him where he fell. And another shell killed six
men in a heap just as these troops were relieved and went back for a
little while into the support lines. They, too, were buried by another
lance-corporal who volunteered to go back for the purpose, and went
under heavy shell-fire to do this last service to good comrades.
Lord! how many stories of this kind I have told! The spirit of our men
in these hideous places and in these frightful hours is always the
same, indomitable and unbroken by the worst ordeals.
7
SEPTEMBER 9
The first mention that the Irish troops were fighting at Guillemont
has been made officially, and it is now possible for me to write about
them in more detail. Their charge through Guillemont last Sunday, with
English battalions of riflemen on their right, was one of the most
astonishing feats in the war, almost too fast in its impetuosity.
They went forward with their pipes playing them on, in a wild and
irresistible assault.
If there had been three times the number of enemy against them they
would not have been checked until they had carried the northern part of
the ruined waste that was once a village. The English troops who fought
with them tell me that they have never seen anything like the way in
which these Irishmen dashed ahead. “It was like a human avalanche,”
said one of them.
The officers cheered their men on as they came alongside. One of their
commanding officers, following the last across, picked up pieces of
chalk and threw them after his men, shouting good luck to them. They
stormed the first, second and third German lines through the upper part
of the village, sweeping all resistance away, and not stopping to take
breath. They were men uplifted, out of themselves, “fey,” as the Scots
would call it.
Death had no terror for them, nor all the dead men who lay in their
way. After months of dull and dogged fighting in the trenches, where
they were restless in their ditches, they were excited at getting out
into the open and meeting the enemy face to face. It was not good to be
a German in their way.
The only fault with this fighting at Guillemont was the rapidity of
pace, which gave them no time to safeguard the ground behind them. But
that was a fault due to the splendour of their gallantry, and no harm
came from it. The English riflemen who fought on their right had more
solidity in their way of going about the business, but they were so
inspired by the sight of the Irish dash and by the sound of the Irish
pipes that those who were in support, under orders to stand and hold
the first German line, could hardly be restrained from following on.
“I nearly blew my teeth out of my head, in whistling ’em back,” said an
English sergeant. But discipline prevailed.
The whole attack from first to last was a model of efficiency,
organisation and courage. All the qualities that go to the making of
victory were here, fitting in with each other, balancing each other,
making a terrific weapon driven by a high spirit. The artillery was in
perfect union with the infantry—the most difficult thing in war—the
brigadiers and the officers carried out the general plan to the letter,
and the men—it is impossible to overpraise the men, who were wonderful
in courage and wonderful in discipline.
8
As far as the English battalions were concerned they were recruited
since the first phase of the war, but as one of their officers—once
of the Guards—told me yesterday, there are no regular soldiers, no
soldiers of any army in the world, who could have attacked in a finer
and more disciplined way than these young riflemen, as cold as ice in
self-control, but on fire with the resolve to win. The first rush of
Irish on the left went over, as I have said, playing their pipes—old
songs of victory which could be heard through the swish of machine-gun
bullets and the crash of the German crumps.
The assaulting troops on the right went more quietly, and at the first
short halt to wait for the barrage of our guns, which was smashing
ahead of them, lit their cigarettes, and then went on again with their
rifles slung, as though marching on a field day.
“Where’s that village we’ve got to take?” they shouted, staring at a
choppy sea of shell-craters, where there was hardly a stick or a stone.
I have already described the assault on the first lines, where our
men found many German dead. But strange things happened between the
first and second lines. The Irish on the left, who had gone so quickly
forward in their great “hooroosh,” had failed to clear up all the
dug-outs as they went.
Some of the Germans there climbed out and began sniping in the rear.
It was a dangerous menace, but with quick judgment the colonel of an
English battalion on the right diverted five of his platoons to that
direction, and they searched all the dug-outs and broke up the enemy’s
attempt to rally.
One dug-out near the quarry at the central entrance of Guillemont was
discovered by a young gunner officer, who had come down behind the
advancing infantry “just to look round,” as he puts it, after he
had done his work with some sixty pounder plum-pudding bombs from a
neighbouring position. With him were his corporal and one or two other
men of the trench-mortar battery.
In looking round he discovered a slit in the rock, which seemed to lead
down into an underground chamber, and having explored it came down into
a deep place where twenty German soldiers and one officer were hiding.
It was a surprise, but he held his revolver ready and said “Hands up!”
They surrendered quietly, clicking their heels together and saluting,
after they had been searched for arms, and the officer, who was a
polite fellow, offered the corporal a valuable gold watch as a souvenir
of the occasion.
That was one little adventure on the edge of things. Further forward
each man was in the middle of a great adventure, gruesome and full of
peril. An enveloping movement was being made by English troops to the
south-west of the village, on the choppy ground on which Guillemont
once stood, and it was here that most opposition was encountered,
between two sunken roads. In the second sunken road, where the enemy
had a row of strong dug-outs, the ground was thick with huddled dead.
But from the dug-outs a large number of living men who climbed on to
the parapet in front of them maintained a fusillade of rifle fire and
bombs. In the ground between the two sunken roads men climbed half-way
out of shell-craters and sniped our men as they came forward. At the
same time machine-gun fire was coming down from Ginchy and up from
Falfemont Farm. It was difficult ground to cover, but our riflemen
ignored the bullets and the bombs and went straight forward, halting
only to fire, and then going on again, and firing again, as though on
manœuvres.
Some Lewis gunners ran forward and played a hose of bullets upon the
enemy’s parapet, so that the men dropped. Some of our own men had
fallen, too, but the wounded crawled into shell-holes to get out of
the way, and shouted “Go on, boys!” or just crawled in silently and
uncomplainingly, not asking for help however bad their wounds.
Then the Germans started running and our men went after them. One
fellow flung off his pack and chased one of them until he had him by
the neck. A German officer who surrendered threw up his hands and said,
“If you run like that you’ll be in Berlin before we’re in England.”
There were 150 dead in one part of the sunken road and the dug-outs
were crowded. Into one of them a smoke bomb was thrown to tease the
men out, but they would not come. Then a Mills bomb was flung in as
a stronger argument, but before it exploded it was flung back again.
After that the Germans retreated through a tunnel and ran out at
another entrance, where they were taken prisoner. Twenty-five of them
were put into a shell-crater under guard of one little rifleman, who
strutted up and down in a German helmet with his bayonet high above his
head and a pride twice as high as his bayonet.
In one dug-out, as I wrote in my first narrative, there were forty-one
bodies, of whom only three were alive, and those were weeping. All the
prisoners, of whom there were about 600, were in a pitiful condition,
as our artillery fire had prevented them from getting any rations for
three days. Their spirit was broken and they were trembling with fear.
9
In our dug-outs further back were three officers, one of whom, a young
captain, was clearly in command of the whole garrison of Guillemont,
and afterwards, when we passed the prisoners’ cage behind the lines,
all the men sprang up and saluted him with profound respect. He was the
only man who maintained a proud indifference at the moment of capture.
He stood very straight and still, as though not caring whether he lived
or died. The two officers with him clung about the necks of our own
officers crying for mercy. In another place an officer fell down on
his knees with his hands in an attitude of prayer and his head bowed,
and one man pulled out a photograph of his wife and children, holding
that out as his strongest plea for life. Our men had no thought to take
their lives. As one of the sergeants said to me, “As soon as a man
surrenders it’s an end of the fight, and I’m sorry for him.”
It was hard for some of our men to be sorry for the enemy in those wild
moments about the dug-outs, for some of them flung bombs until the
last yard had been covered by our troops, then disappeared into their
holes and came up further away with an air of innocence and meekness.
In one or two bad cases of fighting after a sign of surrender it was
the authority of the British officers which saved the lives of German
soldiers standing by.
But on the whole the prisoners were well behaved and very glad to get
away from the horror of Guillemont, grateful for being given the chance
of life. One sergeant of ours, hit in the hip by a piece of shell,
captured four men without help, and then ordered them to carry him back
on a stretcher to the dressing station, where he arrived, smoking a
cigarette, with his prisoner stretcher-bearers.
Words can convey very little of all those scenes in Guillemont—the
isolated fights, the storming of dug-outs, the searching of prisoners,
the crowds of British soldiers moving forward to new lines behind
our terrific curtain fire, the Lewis gunners rushing through with
their machine-guns to take up positions at advanced points, the
supporting and consolidating troops coming up behind the assaulting
troops, starting to dig as soon as the ground had been gained, the
stretcher-bearers rummaging about among the shell craters for stricken
men, the walking wounded making their way back across the rough ground,
dazed, and sometimes falling not to rise again, the cheers of men
taking the last sunken road to the east of Guillemont, where they
consolidated a defensive position for the night, the wild music of the
Irish pipers, the crash of German shells, the high whine of German
shrapnel, the long rush of our heavies passing overhead to “Lousy”
Wood, and, in the midst of all this tumult, the quiet dead.
10
In quiet heroism, of the suffering and not of the fighting kind, it
seems to me that the finest thing was done by a wounded man. That at
least is the opinion of a commanding officer who met him on his way.
His face had been terribly smashed by a piece of shell, but he waved
back the stretcher-bearers with a sign that others needed carrying more
than he did. Then, a solitary and ghastly figure, he walked back to the
dressing-station, and laid himself down.
Of the German garrison of 2,000 men hardly one, if any one, escaped.
The figure has been accounted for in dead, wounded and prisoners. Two
German battalions have thus been wiped out. Among them were men who
wear the word “Gibraltar” on their shoulder straps, belonging to the
famous Hanoverian regiment which fought side by side with us on the
Rock in the eighteenth century.
It was after the battle that our men suffered most, for during the
next forty-eight hours there were violent storms, which filled the
shell-craters with water so that men were up to their shoulders in
it. But they had dug magnificently before the rain came, under the
inspiration of a splendid colonel, who cried “Dig, dig, for God’s sake!
Dig, my lads!” knowing that he would save their lives by every foot of
earth turned up by the German shovels they used for the work. In three
hours they had dug an eight-foot trench in the village.
So Guillemont was taken and held, not only by great gun-fire but by men
inspired with some spirit beyond their ordinary courage, and one day
these troops will carry the name upon their colours, so that the world
may remember.
XXVIII
THE IRISH AT GINCHY
1
SEPTEMBER 10