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YPRES TO VERDUN
COUNTRY
[Illustration]
LIFE
_First published in 1921._
YPRES TO VERDUN
A Collection of Photographs of
THE WAR AREAS IN
FRANCE & FLANDERS
Specially taken by
SIR ALEXANDER B. W. KENNEDY
LL.D., F.R.S.
Past President of the Institution of Civil Engineers
Associate Member of the Ordnance Committee, etc.
LONDON:
Published at the Offices of "Country Life," Ltd., Tavistock Street,
Covent Garden, W.C. 2, and by George Newnes, Ltd., Southampton Street,
Strand, W.C. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
"Quand pensez-vous que la guerre sera finie?" dit le Docteur.
"Quand nous serons vainqueurs," coupa le Général.
"_Les Silences du Col. Bramble._"--MAUROIS.
PREFACE
An official visit to the Front during the great days of October,
1918, when our chief difficulty and our great object was to keep up
with the retreating Germans, gave me some first-hand knowledge of the
devastation of the country which had been the result of four years
of war. Familiar--too familiar--as this was to our soldiers, we at
home--if I may take myself as a fair example of the average man--could
really form no idea, even from the most vivid of the correspondents'
descriptions, of what the ruined country was actually like. Roads,
fields, orchards, were a featureless waste of shell-holes, often
already covered with rank herbage altogether disguising their original
nature. Villages were only recognisable by painted notices, "This is
Givenchy," or sometimes "This _was_ Givenchy"; not a house, not a wall,
not a gate-post to show where they had been. Large towns like Ypres
or Lens or Albert were little more than piles of brick, stone, and
timber rubbish, through which roads were being cleared between immense
piles of débris. In Rheims nearly as many houses were destroyed as the
13,000 said to have been burnt in the Great Fire of London, and smaller
places like Soissons or Cambrai or Arras had suffered terribly. It
was forbidden in our Army Areas at that time, no doubt for excellent
reasons, to use a camera, but I made up my mind that when permission
could be obtained I would do my best to secure some permanent record of
what had happened.
It was only in September of 1919 that I was able, with my friend,
Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Gill, D.S.O., R.A., to make a first
photographic visit to the War Areas, and to get over a hundred
views from Ypres to Verdun. At this time Major-General P. G. Grant
was in charge of affairs at Headquarters at Wimereux. It was not
without pardonable professional pride that I remembered that it was
General Grant, a Royal Engineer Officer, who had on the 25th-26th
of March, 1918, been chosen to organise the wonderfully constituted
Company which General Haig's despatch euphemistically called, in
enumerating the elements of which it consisted, a "mixed force." The
days were critical, the French reserves had far to come and had not
reached us, and the "mixed force," brought together in a few hours,
proved sufficient addition to enable us to hold on, until the enemy,
exhausted, could get no farther. General Grant was kind enough to give
a brother Engineer every help, especially through his Area Commanders,
Colonel Falcon, Colonel Carey, and Colonel Russell Brown, to all of
whom we were much indebted. The result of this visit, and a second a
few months later, has been that I have been able to take nearly 250
negatives of the places which were so much in our news and in our minds
during the terrible four years of the war. I have thought that it might
be interesting, both to the soldiers who fought for us all over France
and Flanders and to their friends at home who heard from day to day
of the places where they were fighting, to have something which would
show what these places were really like, to turn the too familiar
names into recognisable pictures, and this is my reason for publishing
these photographs. In 1919 very little had as yet been done by way of
reconstruction. In the spring of 1920, happily, a great deal had been
done. But the photographs which follow indicate really--as well as the
imperfections of a photograph allow--the condition of the places and
of the country previous to reconstruction, and I am glad to be able to
show my countrymen something of the condition to which our neighbour's
country was brought by the war. Some realisation of this may enable us
to understand better how keenly and overpoweringly the French desire
that the terms of Peace with our common enemies should be such as will
definitely prevent for ever the recurrence of these horrors.
In addition to my own photographs I have to acknowledge, with many
thanks, permission from Sir Martin Conway to use Plates 43, 64, 68,
and 73, which were taken officially at a time when outsiders were not
allowed to photograph. I have also to thank Mr. Basil Mott for the use
of his two picturesque views (Plates 49 and 69) of Lens and Albert
under snow, Colonel Douglas Gill for the view on Kemmel Hill (Plate
32), and Mr. R. Godai for the photograph (Plate 18) of a destroyed
pillbox.
ALEXANDER B. W. KENNEDY.
ALBANY,
_August, 1921_.
CONTENTS
PAGE PLATES
I. INTRODUCTORY 1 1-4
II. THE YPRES SALIENT 5 5-18
III. ZEEBRUGGE 18 19-23
IV. THE LYS SALIENT 20 24-34
V. BETHUNE, LA BASSÉE, AND LOOS 25 35-42
VI. ARRAS, VIMY, AND LENS 31 43-50
VII. THE SOMME 38 51-66
VIII. ALBERT AND THE ANCRE 49 67-73
IX. THE OISE AND THE AVRE 52 74-78
X. CAMBRAI TO ST. QUENTIN 55 79-87
XI. RHEIMS, THE AISNE, SOISSONS 61 88-97
XII. VERDUN, THE MEUSE, THE ARGONNE 68 98-106
XIII. THE MARNE TO MONS 76 107-124
LIST OF PLATES
I. INTRODUCTORY
Innsbruck: the Declaration
of War 1
École Militaire, Montreuil 2
Hôtel de Ville, Doullens 3
In the Compiègne Forest 4
II. THE YPRES SALIENT
The Menin Gate, Ypres 5
Dugouts in the Ypres Walls 6
Ypres from the Lille Gate 7
The Belfry Tower, Ypres 8
The "Tank Cemetery," Hooge 9
At Gheluvelt 10
"Stirling Castle" 11
"Clapham Junction" 12
The Becelaere Road 13
"Hill 60" 14, 15
At St. Julien 16
The Passchendaele Ridge 17
A "Pillbox" 18
III. ZEEBRUGGE
The Bruges Canal 19
Lock Gate at Zeebrugge 20
The Guns on the Mole 21
The Mole at Zeebrugge 22
"C 3" 23
IV. THE LYS SALIENT
Neuve Chapelle 24
On the Aubers Ridge
(Schultze Turm) 25
A Double O.P. 26
Merville 27
Estaires 28
Bailleul 29
Armentières 30
Kemmel Hill 31
Kemmel Hill 32
"Plug Street" Wood 33
A Cemetery in "Plug
Street" Wood 34
V. BETHUNE, LA BASSÉE, AND
LOOS
Bethune 35
Givenchy 36
La Bassée 37
The Canal at La Bassée 38
A Pithead 39
The Double Crassier 40
A Communication Trench
near Loos 41
"No Man's Land" 42
VI. ARRAS, VIMY, AND LENS
Arras 43
Arras Cathedral 44
On the Vimy Ridge 45
A Mine Crater on the
Ridge 46
German Gun Emplacement
at Thelus 47
The Road to Lens 48
Lens under Snow 49
Lens 50
VII. THE SOMME
The Somme Road 51
Foucaucourt 52
Mametz 53
Trones Wood 54
Delville Wood 55
Combles 56
The Bapaume Road (Butte
de Warlencourt) 57
Mont St. Quentin 58
Péronne 59
Warfusée (Lamotte) 60
Villers Bretonneux 61
The Chipilly Spur 62
Cappy 63
Villers Carbonnel 64
The Somme at Cléry 65
Brie Château 66
VIII. ALBERT AND THE ANCRE
On the Amiens-Albert Road 67
Albert on Evacuation 68
Albert in Winter 69
Albert Cathedral 70
In the Ancre Valley 71
Aveluy 72
Beaumont-Hamel 73
IX. THE OISE AND THE AVRE
The "Big Bertha" Emplacement 74
The St. Gobain Forest 75
Noyon 76
Montdidier 77
The Avre Valley 78
X. CAMBRAI TO ST. QUENTIN
Cambrai (Place d'Armes) 79
Cambrai Cathedral 80
Bourlon Wood 81
Bellicourt 82
The St. Quentin Canal 83
The Riqueval Bridge 84
Bellenglise 85
St. Quentin Cathedral 86
Ribécourt 87
XI. RHEIMS, THE AISNE, SOISSONS
Rheims 88
Rheims Cathedral (West
End) 89
Rheims Cathedral (East
End) 90
The Chemin des Dames 91
Cerny 92
Caves above Soissons 93
The Oise and Aisne Canal 94
Fismes 95
Soissons--St. Jean des
Vignes 96
Soissons Cathedral 97
XII. VERDUN, THE MEUSE, THE
ARGONNE
St. Mihiel 98
Verdun 99
Vaux Fort--North Fosse 100
Vaux Village 101
Douaumont Fort 102
The Mort Homme 103
The Mort Homme--French
Front Lines 104
The Argonne Forest 105
Varennes 106
XIII. THE MARNE TO MONS
The Mons-Condé Canal 107
Slag Heaps at Mons 108
The Mormal Forest 109
Landrecies 110
Le Cateau 111
The Marne (near La Ferté) 112
Dormans 113
Epernay 114
The Vesle at Sillery 115
Buzancy Château 116
Monument at Buzancy 117
Le Quesnoy 118
In the German Retreat,
1917 119
Hirson 120
A Pile Bridge 121
Sedan 122
Maubeuge 123
Mons 124
YPRES TO VERDUN
I.--INTRODUCTORY
(PLATES 1 TO 4.)
On the 26th of July, 1914, on my return from a pleasant motor
excursion through the Dolomites, I arrived at Innsbruck, and found the
picturesquely situated old city in a state of unsuppressed excitement
owing to the proclamation of war made on that day between Austria and
Serbia. The crowds in the Maria Theresien Strasse were reading and
discussing the proclamation (Plate 1), and were obviously in excellent
spirits, with no premonition of what would be the unhappy fate of
their country when at length the fire which they had kindled should be
finally extinguished. Among the mountains we had seen no newspapers
for weeks, so that the news of the outbreak of war came as a complete
surprise, but still as something not at all affecting ourselves. It was
not until some days later (on the 30th of July) that we found ourselves
in the thick of German mobilisation at the Kehl bridge, and were told
that we must find our way home either by Belgium or by Switzerland, for
all roads into France were closed. After some exciting days, and many
interviews with high German authorities, civil, military and police, we
happily succeeded in getting safely into Switzerland, and so eventually
back to England by way of Genoa, Gibraltar, and the Bay of Biscay.
* * * * *
The École Militaire at Montreuil (Plate 2), a sufficiently
uninteresting building in appearance, is notable for us as
constituting, after the removal from St. Omer in March, 1916, the
offices of our G.H.Q. in France. Here the schemes were prepared,
and from here the orders were issued, which--after so long a time
of suspense and anxiety--resulted finally in the Allied victory of
1918. It is interesting, and perhaps not uninstructive, to compare
the account of the manner of life at Montreuil, as described by the
author of "G.H.Q. (Montreuil)," with that which prevailed at the German
headquarters in Charleville, of which Mr. Domelier (an eyewitness
throughout the occupation) gives very interesting, if sometimes
scandalous, particulars.[1]
[1] Domelier, "Behind the Scenes at German Headquarters."
Life at Montreuil is described as "serious enough ... monkish in its
denial of some pleasures, rigid in discipline, exacting in work....
Like a college where everyone was a 'swotter.'" The precautions for
safety taken at Charleville differed as much from ours as its manner of
life. We hear of cellars reinforced with concrete in walls and roof,
of bombproof casemates with several exits and underground passages, of
netted elastic buffer mattresses overhead to intercept bombs, of felted
door joints to keep out gas. And yet the two places were about the same
distance from the enemy's lines and were equally exposed to the enemy's
air raids. The differences seem to be due to the same difference in
mentality as that which showed itself in so many other matters.
And farther north the King--and the Queen--of the Belgians "occupied
a little villa within range of the German guns, and in a district
incessantly attacked by the enemy's bombing aeroplanes."[2]
[2] Maurice, "The Last Four Months," p. 158.
* * * * *
It was at 3.30 a.m. on the 21st of March, 1918, that the great German
attack westwards over the old Somme battlefields commenced. The events
of the four following days--the days of the greatest anxiety to most
of us since the commencement of the war--are remembered only too well
and too painfully. Our armies, unavoidably thinned and for days out of
reach of reserves, were, with the French beside them, continuously
driven back, until the Germans were close to Villers Bretonneux (ten
miles from Amiens), had crossed the Avre to the south, and had taken
Albert and crossed the Ancre on the north, wiping out in a few days all
our gains of 1917. At least one benefit, the greatest of all possible
benefits, resulted from the extreme urgency of the situation. On the
26th of March a special conference was held at Doullens, which in 1914
had been General Foch's H.Q. The Hôtel de Ville of that town (Plate
3), otherwise a commonplace and uninteresting building--in which the
conference met--became at once a building notable for ever in history.
Lord Milner and General Sir Henry Wilson, who were fortunately in
France, attended, with President Poincaré, M. Clemenceau, and M.
Loucheur, as well as Sir Douglas Haig, with our four Army Commanders,
and General Pétain and General Foch. As an immediate result, arrived
at unanimously by the conference,[3] General Foch was made _de
facto_--and a few days later _de jure_--Generalissimo of the Allied
Armies in France. It was immediately after this decision (on the 28th
of March) that General Pershing nobly offered to General Foch, for
serving under his authority in any way which he thought most useful,
every man whom he had available of the Americans who had arrived.
From the moment when, under such conditions, unity of command was at
length achieved, and in spite of the further set-backs in Flanders in
April--Ludendorff's last despairing efforts--the ultimate issue of the
war was no longer in doubt.
[3] See Lord Milner's account in the _New Statesman_ of the 23rd of
April, 1921.
* * * * *
Just within the forest of Compiègne, about four miles from the town,
is a certain little knot of railway tracks (Plate 4), close to the
main Compiègne-Soissons road, on which took place, on the 8th of
November, 1918, surely the most memorable conference since 1870. There
were present General Foch and his Chief of Staff, General Weygand,
Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, and Admiral Sims in their saloon on the
rails to the left, the German representatives being brought up on the
farther track and crossing over to General Foch's carriage. An account
of the interview which has been published states that Herr Erzberger
said in the first instance that he had come to receive proposals for
an armistice, and that General Foch refused altogether to discuss
matters on any such basis, and until Erzberger had admitted that he had
come "to beg for an armistice."[4] The now well-known terms by which
an armistice would be granted, on conditions equivalent to absolute
surrender, were then given to the Germans under the obligation of their
acceptance within three days. With their final acceptance hostilities
ended at 11 o'clock on the forenoon of the 11th of November.
[4] Buchan, "History of the War," vol. xxiv., p. 78.
[Illustration: _PLATE I._
THE DECLARATION OF WAR.
_The principal street in Innsbruck, the capital of Southern Austria, on
the 30th of July, 1914, when crowds were reading the Declaration of War
between Austria and Serbia._]
[Illustration: _PLATE II._
G.H.Q.
_The École Militaire at Montreuil, which was used as the offices of our
G.H.Q. during the greater part of the war._]
[Illustration: _PLATE III._
DOULLENS.
_The Hôtel de Ville at Doullens, where, on the 26th of March, 1918,
General Foch was appointed as de facto Generalissimo of the Allied
Armies in France._]
[Illustration: _PLATE IV._
THE ARMISTICE.
_The sidings in the Forest of Compiègne where General Foch and Sir
Rosslyn Wemyss, on behalf of the Allies, met Herr Erzberger and his
colleagues on the 8th of November, 1918, and dictated to them the terms
on which an armistice would be granted._]
II.-THE YPRES SALIENT
(PLATES 5 TO 18.)
The Ypres Salient was fought over during practically the whole of the
war. The first battle of Ypres, during the "race to the sea," was in
October-November, 1914, when the Kaiser stayed at Thielt (twenty-five
miles north-east of Ypres) for five days at the beginning of November
to be ready to enter the city, only to suffer one of his many
disappointments when the "old Contemptibles" kept him out. The Germans,
however, got as far as Hooge, only two and a half miles away from the
city, and were there for more than two years. An extremely interesting
account, which is very pleasant reading, of the close co-operation of
the British and French Armies in this first Ypres battle is given by
General Dubois in a book just published.[5] It was presumably when
French and Foch met on the 31st of October, the most critical day,
that the reported conversation occurred (if it ever occurred), in
which French's view that there was nothing left but to die was met by
Foch with the characteristic rejoinder that they had better stand fast
first--they could die afterwards.
[5] Dubois, "Deux Ans de Commandement."
The second battle of Ypres lasted from April to June, 1915, and during
this battle the first use of poison gas was made, at St. Julien. Except
in the St. Julien region the lines remained practically where they were
after the three months' fighting. In spite of this a captured order
issued to the German Army in August, 1915, said that "peace in October
is certain"!
Mr. Buchan tells a story characteristic of our Tommies, that during
a retirement ordered in May one man "solemnly cleaned and swept out
his dugout before going."[6] But this was equalled by the tidiness of
the old body in Ypres (mentioned in Sister Marguerite's Journal), who
came out and swept away the débris of the last shell which had burst in
front of her house, quite regardless of the continuous bombardment.
[6] Buchan, vol. vii., p. 37.
The third battle of Ypres began with our capture of the Messines Ridge
on the 7th of June, 1917, and lasted till November of the same year,
by which time Ypres was so far "cleared" that our lines were close to
Gheluvelt (five miles from the city), and extended from Passchendaele
and Houthulst on the north to Messines and Hollebeke on the south.
Then in April, 1918, came the great German break-through, when the
Allies lost Armentières and Bailleul, Kemmel and Messines, and the
enemy was in Merville and Estaires, and was inside Zillebeke and Hooge,
and less than a couple of miles from Ypres along the Menin Road.
But the city itself still and always held out.
Finally our turn came. The Merville area was retaken in August,
1918 (the 8th of August was Ludendorff's "black day"), while on the
memorable day on which we crossed the Hindenburg Line on the St.
Quentin Canal (28th to 29th of September) the Germans were driven for
the first time back past Gheluvelt by the Belgians, the French, and
ourselves, and two days afterwards they were in full retreat.
The official despatches and many war books have told about the salient,
about the terrible hardships and the brave doings of our soldiers
there, and those of our Allies who were with us. But they do not,
because they cannot, tell us what was going on within the walls of
the city itself, during those first months of the siege, while the
unfortunate inhabitants were still trying to live there, hoping--one
supposes--from each day to the next that the bombardment would finally
come to an end. Something, however, we know of this from the account
of men who were there, either as soldiers or in the Red Cross service,
on equally dangerous duty. But among the civilians who were neither
one nor the other the names especially of two out of many will always
live in the war history of Ypres, remembered for their devotion and
heroism--Sister Marguerite and Father Charles Delaere. Father Delaere
was the Curé of Ypres in 1914, later on he became Doyen, and not long
ago a letter from him told me that he had been made a Canon. Sister
Marguerite is a native of Ypres, and was, as a nun, attached to the
Convent of St. Marie, engaged largely in teaching at the outbreak
of the war. Her simple duties were suddenly changed; she became not
only nurse and even doctor, but carpenter, fireman, baker, barber,
shoemaker--all trades! Above all, she was the universal friend and
helper of the poor creatures who were incapable of helping themselves,
for whom she found shelter while herself without any, and whose
children she mothered when their parents lay buried under the ruins of
their homes, or dying in whatever buildings served at the time for a
hospital.
The Journal[7] kept by Sister Marguerite, and published in 1918 by
her permission for Red Cross benefit, gives a picture of life--or
existence--in Ypres during the first eight months of its siege. It is
so vivid, and at the same time so simply told, that (as I fear that
copies of the Journal may no longer be obtainable) I make no apology
for quoting from it. It is the poignant story of war as it appeared
to a woman suddenly called out of a life of peaceful work to face its
realities in their grimmest form, to do so without the excitement of
fighting and without the comradeship of the regiment, or even the use
of the soldierly mask of humour, to cover up the unrecordable reality.
[7] "Journal d'une Sœur d'Ypres, October, 1914, to May, 1915."
The Germans actually entered Ypres on the 7th of October, the first
day on which any shells fell on the town, and one civilian was killed
in his own room. But the children on that day amused themselves
afterwards by picking up the shrapnel bullets! After the Germans were
turned out a week later, one of their companies was found to have left
behind a characteristic notice: "Les Allemands craignent Dieu et hors
Lui nulle chose au monde." They had succeeded in doing a fair amount of
pillaging, as well as making heavy requisitions, during their few days
of occupation.
It is pleasant to find that Sister Marguerite has nowhere anything but
praise for the behaviour of the British soldiers who occupied the city
for so long. She tells of British wounded coming into Ypres, and with
them a German wounded prisoner. A woman ran up to offer milk to the
men, but, with the recollection that her husband had been killed by a
German shell, would not give any to the German. A soldier, however, who
had been wounded by this particular German, drank only half his milk,
and passed the rest on to his prisoner. She adds: "Ce n'est pas la
première fois que nous pouvons admirer pareils actes de générosité."
On the 6th of November an operation was being carried on involving
the amputation of a man's hand; the Sister who had tried to act as
nurse had fainted, and Sister Marguerite (herself not long out of the
surgeon's hands) took her place:
"Nous commençâmes donc: la main de M. Notevaert était démise; quand,
vers 2 h. 1/2, un obus tomba sur notre couvent et détruisit deux
classes à 10 métres de l'École menagère ou nous étions. Les éclats
de verre et les pierres arrivèrent jusqu'a nous et un grand trou fut
fait dans le mur. Le docteur venait de faire la dernière entaille;
nous étions là tous les deux, pâles de frayeur, comme dans un nuage
de fumée et blancs de poussière, lui tenant encore dans sa main le
bistouri et moi la main démise dans la mienne. Quelques instants nous
restâmes indécis. Les blessés criaient, et en un moment tout fut sens
dessus-dessous. 'Ta, ta, ta,' dit M. le docteur, 'ce n'est rien.
Continuons notre besogne, car nous n'avons pas de temps à perdre.' ..."
Among the wounded at this time were three Germans, of whom one (a
Prussian) refused either to eat or drink, alleging that he would be
poisoned!--presumably an idea encouraged by his officers to prevent
surrender. Eventually he took what the sisters gave him.
A few days later came a real baptism of fire:
"Vers 11 heures, M. le Curé me dit d'aller chercher rue du Canon deux
vieilles femmes.... Comme on bombardait justement ce quartier, je le
priai de me laisser attendre le moment d'une accalmie. 'Allez-y tout
de suite,' me repondit-il, 'on pourrait oublier ces pauvres gens plus
tard et leur vie en dépend peut-être.' 'Au nom de Dieu,' me dis-je, et
je partis. Mais à peine avais-je fait quelques pas dans la rue que ...
'sss ... sss ... pon!' La tête d'un shrapnel roula dans la rue, tout
près de moi. Je retournai en courant. Mais M. le Curé avait entendu
le son de ma voix et de la cuisine il me cria: 'Eh bien! n'êtes vous
pas encore parti?' A trois reprises je retournai pour revenir presque
aussi vite. Enfins je m'enhardis et je revins cette fois avec les
petites vieilles, que je conduisis au couvent. Pas moins de cinq
shrapnels passèrent au-dessus de nos têtes, et vous pouvez penser si
le cœur me battait.... Cependant c'est à partir de ce jour que je
devins plus courageuse pour affronter les bombardements."
The "Menin Gate" of Ypres (Plate 5) is nothing now but a broad gap
in the old fortifications, where the long, straight road from Menin
through Gheluvelt bends round to enter the city. During the whole
of the siege of Ypres--that is, in fact, during the whole of the
war--this spot was continuously exposed to German shell-fire, one
of the "hottest" points over the whole war area. On the left of the
"Gate" Canada has purchased a certain amount of ground for a Canadian
memorial. The old walls, however, have remained, and the "casemates"
(Plate 6) on their inner sides were for many weeks or even months the
sole refuge of the poorer inhabitants who possessed no cellars of their
own. The story of how these poor folk had to be removed, perforce,
both for safety and for sanitary reasons, is best told in Sister
Marguerite's words:
_5 Decr._--"Chaque famille y choisit son petit coin, y installe deux
ou trois matelas, deux ou trois chaises, une petite lampe, parfois une
petite table et un réchaud à pétrole. La lourde porte d'entrée[8]
était entr'ouverte. Il n'est pas étonnant des lors qu'après peu de
temps, des maladies contagieuses s'y déclarèrent. Des habitants
restèrent six semaines dans ce réduit sans voir la lumière du jour.
J'y trouvai un jour un enfant de deux mois qui y était né et n'avait
pas encore respiré l'air pur du dehors."
[8] Probably thick wet blankets intended to be dropped when there was
danger of gas.
_7 Jan._--"Ma mission principale est de servir de guide et
d'interprète et aussi de décider les malades à se laisser conduire à
l'hôpital, ce qui n'était pas toujours facile! Quand les malades y
consentent, l'opposition de la famille soulève de nouveaux obstacles
et les protestations injurieuses souvent ne manquent pas, ces pauvres
gens ne comprenant pas qu'on ne veut que leur faire du bien. Une fois
même, une vieille femme empoigna la pelle à charbon et le tisonnier
pour me frapper. Heureusement les messieurs anglais, ignorant la
langue flamande, ne comprennent pas les termes délicats par lesquels
on paye leur dévouement."
The city was left entirely in ruins (Plate 7 is a view from the wall at
the South Gate), not a single building standing with walls and roof,
or in any condition that could be called habitable. The ruined tower
(Plate 8), of which the foundation dates from 1201, is all that remains
of the once beautiful Cloth Hall, and the Cathedral of St. Martin
behind it is just as completely destroyed. It is to be hoped that after
the celebrations of July, 1920, the miserable restaurants with their
flaunting advertisements, which seemed to smother the tragic ruins with
their commonplace banalities in 1919, may be done away with. It cannot
be impossible to find means by which the natural interest of visitors,
for too many of whom the salient is the grave of friends and relatives,
can be gratified without vulgarising ground which for generations to
come will be sacred in memory to the Allies whose soldiers fought
there, and whose sons it was who formed the "thin red line" which was
for so long the chief barrier to hold back the German hordes from the
north of France, and, in effect, from our own country.
It must be remembered, in looking at such views as Plates 7 and 8,
that the clear spaces in the foreground are only clear because all the
buildings upon them have been destroyed, wiped out. Before the war
these spaces were closely built upon, covered all over with houses.
In Plate 7 are seen two or three "reconstructions" started after the
ground had been cleared of the mass of brick and stone rubbish with
which it was thickly covered until the end of the fighting. It is
hardly necessary to say that the general tidiness of the ground in the
Grande Place (Plate 8) belongs to a time months after the Germans had
been driven finally out of range. During the war there was neither
time nor opportunity to clear away the débris, which covered road and
building sites alike.
* * * * *
The Ypres Salient, as we came to know it, is essentially the ground
north and south of the twelve miles of road running from Ypres to
Menin. Ypres itself is about 65 feet above sea-level, and Menin (on
the Lys) about 35 feet. But the ground between them rises to over
200 feet at "Clapham Junction" (three miles from Ypres) and remains
approximately at the same level for the two miles farther to Gheluvelt.
This higher ground circles round to the south-west (through Hill 60)
until it joins Wytschaete (eight miles south of Ypres) and the Messines
Ridge. To the north it continues from Gheluvelt by Broodseinde, between
Becelaere and Zonnebeke, to the Passchendaele Ridge (180 feet), some
seven miles north-east of Ypres. The unfortunate city was therefore not
only at the centre of a very narrow salient, but one in which it was
encircled by higher ground on three sides within easy observation and
shelling range. For a long time, until our advance in 1917, the German
lines were only distant two and a half miles north, east, and south
from the city, and everywhere were on levels sufficiently above that of
the city to keep it always under observation.
It would have been cold comfort to our poor fellows who had to
face the horrors of the Flanders mud to know that three centuries
ago a traveller wrote: "Near Ypres they found the road often
indistinguishable from the fields, and the mud came up to their horses'
girths."[9]
[9] Bates, "Touring in 1600," p. 287.
But in fact the physical difficulties due to the nature of the soil,
churned up by shells on every square yard, were so horrible that Lord
Haig (who is certainly not given to exaggeration in his despatches)
says of the 1917 advance:[10]
[10] Haig's Despatches, vol. i., p. 133.
"Our men advanced every time with absolute confidence in their power
to overcome the enemy, even though they had sometimes to struggle
through mud up to their waists to reach him. So long as they could
reach him they did overcome him, but physical exhaustion placed
narrow limits on the depth to which each advance could be pushed, and
compelled long pauses between the advances.... Time after time the
practically beaten enemy was enabled to reorganise and relieve his men
and to bring up reinforcements behind the sea of mud which constituted
his main protection."
The statement made that "nine-tenths of the time our men were fighting
Nature, and the remainder fighting Germans," cannot be much exaggerated.
It is, of course, impossible in photographs taken long after fighting
has ceased, and, indeed, in any photographs except those taken from
aeroplanes,[11] to give an adequate idea of what the surface of the
salient was during the war. Plate 9 gives some idea of the ground
beside the road, near Hooge, _after a dry summer_,[12] and Plate 10
gives a similar view, after rain, near Gheluvelt. The bit of "Tank
Cemetery" at "Stirling Castle" (Plate 11) on the high ground close to
"Clapham Junction," and the illustrations of Hill 60, serve also to
give some rough idea, but only a very imperfect one, of the conditions.
Even now one has to walk in serpentine fashion along the ridges between
the shell-holes in order to make any progress. But in the war winters
each shell-hole was filled with liquid, sticky mud, and over such
ground our men had to advance time and again, oftener by night than by
day, slithering down the slimy banks into slimier mud, scrambling up
the other side somehow or other, carrying full kit all the time, and
continuously exposed to murderous shell-fire from commanding positions.
There can have been no condition in the whole campaign which brought
out better the indomitable pluck and spirit of our infantry.
[11] See the photograph on p. 30 of the "Michelin Guide to Ypres."
[12] Figures in the distance are German prisoners, of whom there were a
great many at the time, occupied in "clearing" operations.
Plate 12 is taken at the cross-roads ("Clapham Junction") between
"Dumbarton Wood" and "Stirling Castle" on one side and "Glen Corse
Wood" on the other. It is at the highest point of the slope which
falls down through Hooge to Ypres. Of the woods which our men named so
picturesquely nothing whatever remains--in fact, the skeleton avenue on
the Becelaere Road (Plate 13) contained more trees than were to be seen
anywhere else in the neighbourhood, and even these I found to have been
cut down later on. Their only use would be as firewood.
On my last visit to the salient, a year ago, reconstruction in the
shape of what may be called hutments, or something a little more
substantial, had commenced at the eastern end and extended as far as
Gheluwe, while even up to Gheluvelt there were beginnings of attempts
at cultivation. If one had not seen elsewhere what has actually
been done, it would seem physically impossible that soil so utterly
destroyed could be brought again into cultivation for a generation. But
the Belgian and French peasants are capable of wonders.
"Hill 60" (Plates 14 and 15) is to all appearance little more than a
heap of spoil from the cutting for the railway running south-eastwards
from Ypres to Lille. But it forms an observation ridge some 150 feet
above the level of Ypres and only two and a half miles distant from
the city. It was captured by the Germans early in the war, and in
April, 1915, retaken by the British after very heavy fighting, in which
3,000 bodies were said to have been left on its slopes. A month later,
however, it was lost again under heavy gas attacks, and remained in
German possession substantially until the great attack on the Messines
Ridge in June, 1917 (the third battle of Ypres), when we once more
regained it, after ten months of underground fighting and tunnelling.
It was lost again during the German attack in April, 1918, and only
finally recovered in the final advance in September. Long before the
end this historical hummock had been riddled below ground by mines, and
above ground torn up by their explosions and by incessant shell-fire,
so that it is now merely a mass of craters and shell-holes, with the
remains of dugouts in the soft clay.
The two illustrations give some idea of the state of the ground and
a suggestion of the wide horizon commanded by this insignificant
elevation.
It was on the 22nd of April, 1915, that the Germans startled and
horrified the world by the use of "poison gas" at St. Julien (about
three miles north-east of Ypres), making a "scrap of paper" of Hague
agreements, as of everything else. Before the end of the war they must
have bitterly regretted their action, but on the first appearance
of the yellow death-bearing cloud it answered its purpose only too
well--the Turcos were not to be blamed for flying incontinently
before this devilish terror. The Allies, naturally, had no means of
defence--even the wet handkerchief was not thought of, but somehow or
other a couple of Canadian brigades held on magnificently--fighting
poison gas unprotected must have required even more pluck than facing
machine-guns--and for a time appear to have been all that stood between
Ypres and the enemy. Under the date of the 22nd of April Sister
Marguerite writes in her Journal:
"... Au retour de nos visites aux malades, vers 5 heures, des soldats
français [Turcos] fuyant les tranchées, nous rencontrèrent, criant et
hurlant que les Boches les avaient empoisonnés! Beaucoup moururent
sur la route; d'autres en prie à l'asphyxie demandaient à grands cris
un peu de lait. Je revins à la maison tandis que le docteur, obligé
de continuer, retourna porter ses soins à une femme. Mais celle-ci,
effrayée par le bombardement, s'était enfuie dans les champs où le
docteur Fox la retrouva après une heure de recherches. Au couvent je
trouvai d'autre soldats encore, victimes des gaz empoisonnés; on leur
servait du lait chaud condensé."
"37 nouveaux empoisonnés dans la matinée du 23. Impossible de les
mener plus loin que l'hôpital civil où ils sont logés dans les
caves.... Nous aussi, nous reçûmes notre part: un sur le couvent, et
deux, trois, aux alentours. Voilà qui est terrible! L'eau me coula des
yeux, mes lèvres bleuirent, j'étais prête à suffoquer."
But the brave lady never suggests for a moment that she should leave
the place, and did in fact remain in the city until the military
insisted on everyone leaving on the 9th of May, when there seems to
have been imminent fear of the Germans reaching the city, and when,
at any rate, the Kaiser was again waiting at Thielt in expectation of
entering it.
St. Julien was taken at the time, and the German line advanced to the
canal some miles in front of it; but the ruined village was afterwards
recaptured and gas drenched by us--a strange Nemesis--in July, 1917,
and remained in our hands until the German advance in 1918. Plate 16
certainly does not suggest the tragedy which we must always connect
with the name of St. Julien; it is a screen at the entrance to a
Chinese camp which stood there in 1919. It illustrates, oddly enough,
an ancient Chinese superstition that "spirits"--and of course spirits
are always malevolent--can only go straight forward, so that if any
kind of screen is placed in front of the house entrance the spirit will
be unable to get in, not, apparently, having the sense to go round the
barrier. The gentleman standing in front of the screen (which is in
effect a huge triptych) gave us to understand that he was the artist,
but our knowledge of Chinese and his of English were too limited to be
very certain. The screen was certainly quite a satisfactory piece of
decoration.
In 1917 we were preparing for the long-drawn attack which eventually
gave us the Passchendaele Ridge (Plate 17), fighting for months over
such ground as the foreground of the photograph shows. Defence by such
means as the construction of a "Hindenburg Line" was quite impossible
in the mud and slime of the salient, and Von Armin devised the scheme
of what we came to call "pillboxes." Each pillbox was a structure
(Plate 18) of reinforced concrete, often large enough to hold thirty
or forty men with machine-guns, and strong enough to give protection
from everything short of a direct hit by a large shell. They were only
raised above ground-level sufficiently to allow the guns to be worked,
their entrances being, of course, at the back. They were echeloned
along behind the front line, and connected and protected by barbed-wire
entanglements. They proved a serious difficulty when we first had to
deal with them in July-August, 1917. General Haig says:
"Many were reduced as our troops advanced, but others held out during
the day, and delayed the arrival of our supports."[13]
[13] Despatches, p. 118.
But a few months later General Plumer had devised tactics which
countered the pillboxes very successfully, and eventually the German
machine-gunners found that it was better to come out and fight in the
open, and even to surrender, rather than be cooped up and grenaded
when our men got round to the entrance. Already in October captured
documents showed that the German High Command were inclined to prefer
their old methods to the new ones.[14]
[14] Buchan, vol. x., p. 106.
The fight to reach the Passchendaele Ridge (the distant rising ground
shown in Plate 17) lasted in effect from July to November of 1917. The
Germans fought hard and well, but our chief enemy, as always in the
salient, was the weather, and its effect in covering the whole ground
with muddy slime.
The much-coveted Passchendaele Ridge is only about 120 feet higher than
the level of Ypres; it is the continuation northwards of the rising
ground which crosses the Menin Road at Gheluvelt and passes through
Becelaere and Broodseinde. But, once attained, it affords a clear view
over the flat Belgian country towards Roulers for many miles, just as
in the hands of the enemy it afforded a clear view over Zonnebeke and
St. Julien to Ypres.
The fight for the ridge was a long, tedious, and costly affair of
many months, and although we gained it, and incidentally gained the
knowledge of how to circumvent the pillboxes, the delays which had been
caused by the weather conditions prevented us from attaining the full
advantages that had been--quite reasonably--hoped for and expected.
[Illustration: _PLATE V._
THE MENIN GATE OF YPRES.
_This gap in the old walls of Ypres is the entrance of the road from
Menin, which runs for some eleven miles straight across the middle of
the Salient by Hooge, Gheluvelt and Gheluwe, known throughout the war
as the "Menin Road."_]
[Illustration: _PLATE VI._
DUGOUTS IN THE WALLS OF YPRES.
_The Casemates and Dugouts on the inner side of the old fortifications
of Ypres were the refuge of hundreds of the inhabitants of
Ypres--especially those who had no cellars of their own--in 1914-15._]
[Illustration: _PLATE VII._
YPRES FROM THE LILLE GATE.
_This view is taken from the City Wall above the South or Lille Gate of
the City. The church of which some white ruins are seen is St. Pierre.
The whole of the bare ground in the foreground was once covered closely
with buildings, but of these hardly a trace remains. Some beginnings of
reconstruction are already to be seen._]
[Illustration: _PLATE VIII._
THE BELFRY TOWER AT YPRES.
_The Belfry Tower of the beautiful Cloth Hall of Ypres was the oldest
part of the building. The upper part of the tower itself has gone
entirely, and of course also the beautiful spire. The foundation of the
Tower was laid in 1201._
_The Cathedral of St. Martin, of which a few ruins are seen, stood
behind and to the west of the Cloth Hall. It is entirely in ruins._]
[Illustration: _PLATE IX._
THE "TANK CEMETERY," HOOGE.
_In the Salient south of the Menin Road, at Hooge, about three miles
from Ypres. With so much water lying after a hot summer, it can be
imagined what the shell-holes were like after continuous rain. The
country was hopeless for tanks, and horrible beyond description for our
poor fellows who had to fight in it._]
[Illustration: _PLATE X._
GHELUVELT.
_The Village of Gheluvelt, on the Menin Road in the Salient, no longer
exists. But some parts of it stood on and round about this wet piece of
ground._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XI._
"STIRLING CASTLE."
_Why this little shell-holed hummock received its name is unknown. It
is on the south side of the Menin Road between Gheluvelt and Hooge, and
is obviously a portion of the "Tank Cemetery."_]
[Illustration: _PLATE XII._
"CLAPHAM JUNCTION."
_At the cross-roads on the highest point of the Menin Road, some 130
feet higher than Ypres itself. The half-derelict Tank was one of the
many such wrecks which strewed the Salient._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XIII._
THE ROAD TO BECELAERE.
_Most of the Road Avenues in the Salient east of Ypres have disappeared
entirely, by shell-fire and poison gas in the first instance, and then
by cutting down. This particular Avenue, a branch from the Menin Road,
still remained at the end of the war showing at least what it might
once have been. The dead trunks have now been cut down._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XIV._
"HILL 60."
_Many elevations in Flanders and France are known by their heights, in
metres, over sea-level. On so flat a country the importance of "Hill
60," and many another such point, as a position for observation, is
of course out of all proportion to its absolute height. This Hill,
so bitterly fought over, is only some 60 or 70 feet higher than the
surrounding country._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XV._
"HILL 60."
_What is left of a mine crater on "Hill 60," with a suggestion of the
wide horizon over the Salient obtained from this horrible heap of
churned-up clay._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XVI._
ST. JULIEN.
_On the site of the German first gas attack, on the 22nd of April,
1915, stood in 1919 a large camp of Chinese, employed in clearing and
levelling the shell-struck ground and preparing it to some extent for
agricultural operations. The painted screen guarded the entrance to the
camp._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XVII._
THE PASSCHENDAELE RIDGE.
_A photograph taken in the north of the Salient with the long low
line of the Passchendaele Ridge in the distance. It gives some idea
of the way in which the whole land surface is covered with weeds and
shell-pits._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XVIII._
A "PILLBOX."
_The wreck of one of the German Pillboxes, of very heavily reinforced
concrete, such as were brought into use with some flourish of trumpets
in July, 1917, but very successfully countered by General Plumer's
methods later on._]
III.--ZEEBRUGGE
(PLATES 19 TO 23.)
There would be no object in recapitulating here the story of the
attack on Zeebrugge on St. George's Day of 1918. Every schoolboy for
generations will, it is to be hoped, know it by heart.
Plate 19 shows the magnificent proportions of the canal which covers
the eight miles from Bruges to Zeebrugge. It was used continuously
during the war for the passage of submarines from their enormous
concrete shelters at Bruges--which had resisted all the attacks of
our bombers--to the sea. Bruges, in fact, is really the port; there
is no port at Zeebrugge except a small dock and the open water under
the shelter of the great curved mole. The gates of the lock at the
seaward end of the canal are huge caissons (Plate 20) which slide into
place from recesses on the western side of the lock, one of which can
be seen in the photograph, in which the seaward gate is shown in its
closed position. Between the two gates the lock is crossed by a girder
bridge which can be swung to one side in the usual way to allow the
passage of vessels. It is a matter of history that the lock gates of
1798 were blown up by a British naval party, but our bombers had not
been successful in hitting the gates of 1915, so that they were intact
at the time of our attack, and remained so till the end. By way of
preparation for any possibilities, however, the Germans had got a spare
caisson standing beside the canal ready to be put in place if either of
the others should be destroyed.
It will be remembered that the great curved mole at Zeebrugge is a
mile long, and about 175 feet in breadth over much of its length,
carrying several lines of railway and huge warehouses. Many of the
latter are at present destroyed, and a postcard purchased on the spot
gives an illustration of some of these, with the quaint superscription:
"Magazins des Allemands incendiés par les Tommies pour détruire les
innombrables puces!" which may or may not be a true statement. Towards
the landward end of the mole a considerable length of it becomes
a viaduct, and was carried on open steel piling, so as to leave a
clear waterway for tidal purposes. The mole was defended by artillery
(Plate 21) as well as by machine-guns, and the execution which these,
especially the latter, did on our brave fellows in the attack is still
fresh in our minds.
[Illustration: _PLATE XIX._
THE BRUGES CANAL.
_The Canal which runs from Bruges to the sea at Zeebrugge, and which
formed a chief access for the German submarines to the Channel. The
concrete submarine shelters at Bruges remained undestroyed until the
end of the war._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XX._
LOCK GATE AT ZEEBRUGGE.
_One of the sliding caissons which formed the lock gates of the Canal
at its Zeebrugge end. The dock into which the caisson slides to open
the lock can be seen beyond the little footbridge._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XXI._
ON THE MOLE.
_Two of the guns still standing on the Mole at Zeebrugge near its
outer end._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XXII._
THE MOLE AT ZEEBRUGGE.