PART VI.

VICTORY.

XXXI. THE LAST DAY

XXXII. LOOKING BACKWARD

*LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*

PORTRAITS.

Field-Marshal Sir John French (Earl of Ypres)

Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (Earl Haig of Bemersyde)

Marshal Foch

Field-Marshal Sir Edmund Allenby (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo)

Admiral Sir John Jellicoe (Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa)

Admiral Sir David Beatty (Earl Beatty of the North Sea)

Field-Marshal Earl Kitchener

MAPS.

The Critical Day in the First Battle of Ypres

The Second Battle of Ypres

Battle of Loos: Advance to Loos and Hill 70

Battle of the Somme: Longueval and Delville Wood

Cambrai: the Advance of the Infantry Divisions

The Second Battle of the Marne.

First Stages of the last Allied Offensive

The Landing Beaches at Gallipoli

Evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula

Palestine: the Decisive Battle

Battle of Coronel

Battle of the Falkland Islands--First Phase

Battle of the Falkland Islands--Second Phase

Battle of the Falkland Islands--Last Phase

Battle of Jutland: Track Chart

Zeebrugge.

The Front on the Eve of the Allied Offensive, and on the Day of the

Armistice

*PART I.*

*INTRODUCTORY.*

*DAYS TO REMEMBER.*

*CHAPTER I.*

*THE CAUSES OF THE WAR.*

It is never easy to fix upon one cause as the origin of a great war, and

the war of 1914 was the outcome of several causes combined. For twenty

years there had been growing up in Europe a sense of insecurity; the

great Powers had become restless and suspicious of one another, and one

Power, Germany, was seriously considering the possibility of some bold

stroke which would put her beyond the reach of rivalry. Germany, since

her victory over France in 1870, had become a very great and rich

nation; she had spread her commerce over the world; and she was anxious

to create an empire akin to those of Britain and France. But she began

the task too late in the day; she could succeed only at the expense of

her neighbours. The ambition of Germany was, therefore, one perpetual

source of danger.

Another danger was her nervousness, which frequently accompanies

ambition. There was an alliance between France and Russia, and a

growing friendliness between Britain and France, and Germany feared that

her rivals were combining to hem her in and put a stop to what she

considered her natural development. Russia had fallen very low after

the war with Japan, but was rapidly recovering both in wealth and armed

strength. France was making strenuous efforts to increase her army, so

that she should not be at a disadvantage as compared with the far

greater population of Germany. Britain had no ambitions of conquest;

her aim was the peaceful development of her Empire. But that was an

oversea Empire, and she required a large navy; and the size of this navy

seemed to Germany to be a menace to her future.

The result was that in the summer of 1914 the rulers of Germany had

decided that some great effort must soon be made; they must put their

land in such a position that for the future it would have no cause to

dread the aggression, or even the rivalry, of other Powers. If they

delayed too long they feared that the growing wealth of Russia and the

increased military strength of France would make such an effort for ever

impossible.

On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the

Austrian throne, was murdered, along with his wife, in the little

Bosnian town of Serajevo. Austria had long been jealous of the movement

towards unity among the Slav peoples in the Balkans, with Serbia at

their head, and she believed, or pretended to believe, that the murder

had been connived at by the Serbian Government. Germany, for reasons of

her own, was equally desirous to see the power of the Balkan states

diminished. She had a grandiose design of extending her influence

eastward through Constantinople to the Persian Gulf, with Turkey as her

ally or her tool, and planting a German outpost on the flank of our

Indian Empire; and a strong Serbian kingdom, or a union of Slav peoples,

would effectually bar the way. With the approval of Germany, therefore,

Austria sent an ultimatum to Serbia, demanding certain concessions which

would have made Serbia no longer a sovereign state. Serbia, while

willing to grant most of the demands, was compelled to refuse others,

and Austria promptly declared war.

Russia now interfered in support of Serbia, and mobilized her armies on

her southern frontiers. Every attempt was made by the statesmen of

Western Europe, and notably by the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward

Grey, to limit the quarrel and to persuade Austria to listen to reason.

Germany, however, had no desire for a peaceful settlement. She induced

Austria to refuse all mediation, and presently, after a peremptory

request to the Tsar to demobilize, she declared war upon Russia. Russia

and France were allies, and war with France followed naturally within

twenty-four hours.

The position of Britain had become extremely difficult She had no formal

alliance with France, but in her own interests she could not allow her

nearest neighbour to be crushed, and the balance of power in Europe to

be entirely changed. Britain had never seriously considered the

possibility of a European war, and was extremely averse from interfering

in a quarrel in which she had no direct concern. She might well have

hesitated till it was too late to act with effect, or have blundered

into some foolish compromise with Germany.

The situation was saved by Belgium. The German scheme of attack on

France was based upon a sudden invasion from the north, and for this a

march through Belgium was essential. The neutrality of Belgium had long

before been guaranteed by all the great Powers, but Germany argued that

her necessity must override the law of nations, and demanded a passage

through Belgium. This was refused. The invasion of Belgium accordingly

began on Sunday, the 2nd August, and this outrage determined the policy

of the British Government and the British people.

On Monday, the 3rd August, Sir Edward Grey announced that the fleet and

the army had been mobilized, and that Britain proposed to defend with

the sword her treaty obligations to Belgium. That evening an ultimatum

was sent to Germany demanding her immediate withdrawal from Belgium;

next day we were at war with Germany. On the same afternoon the German

Imperial Chancellor made a speech defending his violation of Belgian

neutrality. "He who is threatened, as we are threatened, can have but

the one thought--how he is to hack his way through." The German

Government had believed to the last that Britain would remain neutral,

and her entry into the conflict for a moment dashed their zeal for war.

"The British change the whole situation," the Emperor told the United

States Ambassador. "An obstinate nation! They will keep up the war.

It cannot end soon."

Britain had no great military force to throw into the balance, such as

the armies of France and Russia. Her small regular army was little more

than a garrison for her Oversea Dominions, and her Territorial Force was

intended for home defence. But Lord Haldane, when Secretary for War,

had foreseen the possibility of a Continental struggle, and had prepared

plans by which an Expeditionary Force of about 100,000 men could be

placed on the Continent of Europe in a very short time. This force was,

for its size, probably the most expert army in the world. It took its

place on the left of the French line, and, though small in comparison

with the mighty levy of France, it was fated to play a leading part in

the first decisive battles.

Behind the regular army was our second line of defence, the

Territorials, nominally 300,000 strong. But it was very certain that as

soon as war was declared the whole manhood of Britain would be called

upon, and that many hundreds of thousands of young men would be eager to

serve. Lord Kitchener was appointed Secretary for War, and under his

direction recruiting began. Before Christmas nearly two millions of our

men were under arms.

But Britain's main weapon was her navy, which was by far the strongest

in the world. After that came her wealth and her great manufacturing

capacity, by which she could supply the munitions of war required both

for her own forces and for those of her allies. If her navy could

dominate the seas, then her commerce would go on as before, while that

of Germany would cease, and her troops and those of her allies could be

moved about the world at her pleasure. "He who commands the sea," as

Francis Bacon said long ago, "hath great freedom."

Germany was prepared for a war which she had always foreseen, and had

the greater strength; but if the Allies did not suffer an early defeat,

their strength was certain to grow with every month, while that of

Germany must decline. But if the Allies were thus to grow in power they

must be able to maintain free communications with the outer world and

with one another, and for this they must rely on the supremacy of the

British fleet.

In the very first days of war events happened which proved that the

German Emperor was right in dreading the entry of Britain into the

struggle. The British Empire overseas awoke to action like a strong man

from slumber, and there began an epic of service which was to grow in

power and majesty up to the last hour of the campaign. No man can read

without emotion the tale of those early days in August, when from every

quarter of the globe there poured in appeals for the right to share in

Britain's struggle.

The great free nations of the Empire--Canada, South Africa, Australia,

and New Zealand--prepared to raise and send troops, and the smallest

Crown colonies made their contributions in money or supplies. India,

whom Germany believed to be disloyal, at once agreed to send two

infantry divisions and one cavalry brigade, and all the native rulers

and princes placed their resources at the King-Emperor's call. Almost

every Indian chief offered personal service in the field.

This rally of the Empire aroused a sense of an immense new comradeship

which stirred the least emotional. The British Commonwealth had

revealed itself as that wonderful thing for which its makers had striven

and prayed--a union based not upon laws and governors, but upon the

deepest feelings of the human spirit. The effect of the muster was not

less profound upon our ally across the Channel. No longer, as in 1870,

did France stand alone. The German armies might be thundering at her

gates, but the ends of the earth were hastening to her aid, and the

avenger was drawing nigh.

*CHAPTER II.*

*A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE WAR.*

Germany had foreseen and prepared for just such a conflict as now began,

and was able to put into the field in the West larger forces than those

of France and Britain combined. These forces were also better trained

and better supplied with transport, artillery, and machine-guns. Her

plan was to defeat France and Britain in the first month, and then to

turn her main armies against Russia, for she assumed that Russia would

be slow to mobilize her gigantic numbers. But if the first attack on

France should fail the situation would be changed, and Germany would be

compelled to fight on two fronts at once, the East and the West.

If the conflict was protracted Germany would lose the advantage of

numbers, for then the greater united manpower of the Allies could be

trained for the field, and if the British navy continued to rule the

seas those new armies could be supplied and moved at the Allies' will.

Moreover, though Germany could produce most of the necessaries of life

and the apparatus of war within her own borders, yet the Allied control

of the sea would cut her off from certain vital kinds of war material.

The Great War falls therefore into three stages. At the start Germany,

with the advantage of surprise and long preparation, embarked on a war

of movement in the hope of immediate victory. She failed in this, and

the campaign then became a siege in which the Allies sat round her

entrenched stronghold. That vast stronghold embraced half of Europe and

part of Asia; it could produce most things that it needed, and carry on

its normal life. Brilliant sallies were made, which more than once

nearly dispersed the besiegers; but, nevertheless, for three and a half

years the Teutonic Powers were as the garrison of a beleaguered city.

Then came the short, last stage, when the outworks of the fortress

crumbled, and the Allies pressed in and forced the garrison to

surrender.

Germany began the war with Austria as her ally. Within three months she

had been joined by Turkey, and by the end of the first year of war

Bulgaria mustered on her side. The Allies at the start were France,

Britain, Russia, Belgium, Serbia, and Japan; in May 1915 Italy joined

them, and in August 1916 Rumania. Before the end Portugal and Greece,

among the European Powers, were added; the United States of America

joined in April 1917; and in the last year of the war there were

altogether eleven Powers in Europe, Asia, and America on their side.

The main battles were fought on the Continent of Europe, and the main

belligerents, from start to finish, were the European nations. The

accession of America, however, was vital for the Allied victory, as it

counterbalanced the failure of Russia, which, after the revolution in

March 1917, rapidly went to pieces and dropped out of the fighting line.

Before telling of any special incidents of the great struggle it is

desirable to have before our minds a general bird's-eye view of the

whole war. Germany's first plan of an immediate conquest was defeated

by France and Britain at the First Battle of the Marne in September

1914. She made a second attempt upon the shores of the English Channel,

which was foiled before Ypres in November of the same year. After that

her policy was to stand on the defensive in the West and to aim at the

destruction of Russia. In this, during 1915, she nearly succeeded. The

Russian armies were driven out of Poland, but they established their

line during the autumn, and Germany's ambitious strategy had once more

failed.

In 1916 the Allies were ready for a combined advance, Germany was aware

of their policy, and tried to anticipate it by her great attack on

Verdun in February of that year--a battle which was fiercely contested

for months, and finally ebbed away about midsummer. By that time

Austria's attack on Italy had also failed and the Allied advance begun.

The Russians won great successes in Galicia, and the British and French

on the Somme dealt the German armies a blow from which they never really

recovered. In Rumania, on the other hand, Germany had a temporary

success; but by the close of 1916 it was clear to her commanders that

unless some miracle happened the war would end with an Allied victory

during the following year.

That miracle happened, in the form of the Russian revolution in the

spring of 1917. Thereafter Germany was able to get rid of the war on

her eastern frontier and to throw all her strength against the West.

During that spring and summer she staved off the French and British

attacks at Arras, at Ypres, and on the Aisne, and in the autumn of 1917

she was ready to begin her own offensive. Her first blow was directed

against Italy, whom she drove back fifty miles from the Isonzo to the

Piave, with immense losses. In March 1918 she struck her great blow in

the West. With a large superiority in men and guns, she attacked the

British at St. Quentin, and forced them to retreat almost to the gates

of Amiens.

It was a success, but only a limited success, and with this last stroke

her energy began to ebb. Foch was now Commander-in-Chief of the Allies,

and with great skill he maintained a stubborn defensive till such time

as he had gathered strength for a counter-attack. Meantime the new

armies of America were arriving in France at the rate of 10,000 a day.

In July Germany struck her last blow on the Marne in a frantic effort to

reach Paris. That blow was likewise warded off, and three days later

the Allied counter-offensive began.

Then in a series of great attacks all the prepared German defences were

broken down. By the early days of October Turkey and Bulgaria had been

defeated in the East, and the surrender of Austria followed before the

end of the month. Finally, on November 11, 1918, Germany herself was

forced to sue for an armistice in order to save her armies from

destruction. An armistice was granted, but its terms involved an

unconditional surrender to the will of the Allies.

The episodes contained in the following chapters have been chosen as

examples of the achievements of Britain and her Oversea Dominions in the

Great War. They are notable episodes, which stand out from the

day-to-day routine of the fighting. They are exploits, each of which

materially contributed to Germany's defeat. But the qualities which

they reveal in the men who shared in them were not confined to those

men; they are typical qualities, and were possessed in no less degree by

hundreds of thousands of men who fought in obscurity, but whose

unrecorded service was equally the cause of victory. A war is won not

only by the shining deeds of the few, but also by the faithfulness of

the many, though it is the brilliant deeds which stand out most clearly

in the world's memory and become the symbols and memorials of all the

unrecorded faithfulness.

Most of the chapters belong to the attacks during the time of siege

warfare, for it was by those attacks that the heart was taken out of the

enemy. But we must not pass over the marvellous story of how Germany

was reduced to a state of beleaguerment, and why she did not succeed in

her first plan and win in a war of movement. The reason of this was a

great battle, in which France played the chief part, but in which the

small British army had also an honourable share. Before we begin our

record, then, let us look at the stand on the Marne which wrecked the

first hope of a German victory in the war.

*CHAPTER III.*

*THE TURN AT THE MARNE.*

Germany, as we have seen, began the war in the West with larger forces

than those of France and Britain. She had also prepared definite plans

of action, most of which she had managed to conceal from her opponents.

General Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, was aware of her main

intention--to outflank the French left wing by a drive through Belgium;

but he did not guess how strong the enemy right wing would be, or how

wide its wheel. His own plan was to strike first, and to attack the

enemy's left and centre in Lorraine and in the Ardennes, where he

supposed the German front would be relatively weak.

He was wrong, for he had under-estimated the number of trained divisions

which Germany could place at once in the field. His attacks were

repulsed both in Lorraine and in the Ardennes. At the same moment he

found that the German right wing, sweeping round through Belgium, was

double the strength he had expected. He hurried up troops to meet it,

but at Charleroi his Fifth Army was beaten, and the British on its left

were compelled to retreat along with it. The result was that on Monday,

August 24, 1914, all the armies of the Allies were falling back from the

northern frontiers. The men did not know what had happened; but, weary

and bewildered, they kept their discipline. That the retirement was

achieved without serious losses was a proof of the stoutheartedness of

the armies of France and Britain.

Joffre was now compelled to make a new plan. He had to find reserves,

and these would take time to collect; he could not get reinforcements

brought up to his armies in time, so the armies must fall back to the

reinforcements. For nearly a fortnight the retreat went on. Notable

exploits were performed by every army, and the record of the retreat

from Mons contains the fine defensive battle fought by the British at Le

Cateau. The Allies lost heavily in the retirement, but it enabled them

to reach their supports, while the enemy had weakened his strength by

his long advance. On the 4th September the Allies, who at the start had

been outnumbered, were now slightly more numerous than the Germans.

On that day, the 4th September, Joffre halted the retreat. He was now

ready to turn and strike back. The enemy forces lay in a huge arc 200

miles wide and 30 deep--from the eastern skirts of Paris to Verdun. On

the German right was Kluck, who had led the great wheel through Belgium,

and next to him in order towards the east were the armies under Buelow,

Hausen, the Duke of Wurtemberg, and the Imperial Crown Prince. Beyond

the Meuse lay the detached German left wing, under the Crown Prince of

Bavaria, threatening Nancy. The German plan was for Kluck to turn the

left, and Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria the right, of the French line,

while their centre broke the French centre in Champagne.

[Illustration: FIELD-MARSHAL SIR JOHN FRENCH

(EARL OF YPRES).]

The Allies had been forced into a difficult position. From the south of

the Marne their line extended to Verdun, consisting of the British Army

under Sir John French, and the armies of Franchet d'Esperey, Foch,

Langle de Gary, and Sarrail; while facing the Bavarians at Nancy were

the armies of Castelnau and Dubail. In the meantime a new French army,

the Sixth, had been formed, and this, under Maunoury, lay on the extreme

left, covering Paris, and was thus in a position to threaten Kluck's

right flank and rear. Joffre's new plan was to strike hard with his

left, on the flank of the invader, and for this purpose he had gravely

thinned the rest of his front so as to strengthen the forces of Maunoury

and Franchet d'Esperey. It was a great hazard, for if the Bavarians

forced the gate of Nancy the French right would be turned, and if the

German centre broke through the weak French centre the battle would be

lost, whatever happened on the French left.

It was one of the moments of crisis on which the world's history

depends. The captains who were to win the war for the Allies were all

in the field--Foch with an army, Haig with a corps, Petain and Mangin

and Allenby with divisions. Joffre told his men that on the coming

fight depended the salvation of their country, and every private in the

ranks felt the gravity of the hour. France was fighting on the old

ground where, long centuries before, the Hun invasion had been rolled

back by Theodoric the Visigoth, and the spirit of her men was kindled to

a flame.

The First Battle of the Marne was won not, as many believed, by any

single exploit, but by the faithful performance of its duty by each

section of the long-drawn line. Let us look first at the French right

flank in Lorraine. There the battle began on the 4th September, and

three days later came the crisis when, by the slenderest margin, the

enemy failed to break Castelnau on the ridge called the Grand-Couronne.

The Kaiser himself was a spectator of the fight, for Germany had counted

on forcing the pass; but by the 8th she had failed, and by the 9th

Castelnau had firmly barred the gate.

The French centre, under Foch, Langle de Gary, and Sarrail, had a longer

period of trial. Sarrail, at Verdun, was all but broken on the 8th, and

was compelled to fall back to the west bank of the Meuse. All through

the 9th and 10th the desperate struggle continued, and by the evening of

the last day the French general was preparing for retreat. Suddenly,

however, he found the attack ebbing, and by the 12th the enemy was

mysteriously withdrawing. Farther west Langle de Gary had his worst

moment on the 8th; on the 9th he received reinforcements which eased his

position, and on the 10th he too felt the strange weakening of the

enemy. The left centre under Foch had the sternest fight of all. He

had against him the bulk of Buelow's and Hausen's armies, and on the 8th

he found his flanks turned and his whole front split into gaps.

Nevertheless he prepared to attack on the 9th with his last ounce of

strength. All that day his centre and right were falling back before

the enemy's thrust, but he still persevered in his purpose and marched

the single division he could muster to the point where he thought he

could strike with the greatest effect. The blow was never delivered,

for on the evening of the 9th the apparently triumphant advance halted

and ebbed. Like Sarrail and Langle de Gary, Foch, having resisted to

the limit of human endurance, discovered that the enemy was miraculously

disappearing.

The cause of the miracle was the doings of the French left wing. Joffre

had hurled Maunoury on Kluck's flank and rear, while Sir John French and

Franchet d'Esperey attacked in front. Kluck met the threat with vigour

and resolution. He formed front to flank, as the phrase goes--that is,

he faced round to what had been his wing--and in the three days'

fighting all but defeated Maunoury. On the night of the 7th the

outflanking French left found itself outflanked in turn, and its attack

turned into a desperate defence. But on the 9th came salvation.

Kluck's manoeuvre had left a gap of 30 miles between himself and Buelow,

and into this gap were pouring the British force and that of Franchet

d'Esperey. Suddenly Maunoury discovered that certain villages in front

of him were evacuated, and his airmen told him of enemy convoys moving

to the north. At 1 p.m. that day Buelow began his retreat, and Kluck

was forced to follow suit. Sir John French and Franchet d'Esperey had

pierced the enemy front, and the retreat of the German right caused the

retreat of all the German armies. They fell back to a line along the

Aisne, through Champagne, and down the east bank of the Meuse--a strong

line, which for four years was never really broken. But, none the less,

it was a retreat.

The First Battle of the Marne may well rank as the greatest, because the

most critical, contest of the war. It was decisive in the sense that it

defeated Germany's first plan of campaign. She had hoped for a "battle

without a morrow"; but the battle had been fought and the morrow was

come. She was now compelled to accept the slow war of entrenchments,

and to see every week bringing her nearer to the condition of a

beleaguered city. The immediate cause of victory was Maunoury's flank

attack, which opened the way for the British and Franchet d'Esperey.

But without the daring strategy of Foch and the stubborn endurance of

Langle de Gary and Sarrail--above all, without Castelnau's epic

resistance at Nancy--the chance in the West could not have been seized,

and the Marne might have realized Germany's hopes. It was in a sense the

last battle of the old regime of war, a battle of movement and surprise

and quick decisions; it was fought and won not by the army as a military

machine but by the human quality of the soldier. In the last resort the

source of victory was the ancient and unconquerable spirit of France.

*PART II.*

*THE WESTERN FRONT.*

*CHAPTER IV.*

*THE WORCESTERS AT THE FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES.*

The Battle of the Marne defeated the great plan of the Germans, and

their next object was to hold what they had won. The line to which they

had retired was open to attack on the west, as was also that of the

French, and hence there came a period of rapid movement on both sides,

each attempting to outflank the other. It became a "race for the sea,"

and ended only when the entrenched lines on either side reached the

Belgian coast. The enemy then attempted to break through the left of

the Allied front, and to seize the Channel ports, so as to threaten the

British lines of communication. He transferred large numbers of his best

troops to the north; between Armentieres and the sea he had a total of

402 battalions of infantry and an immense superiority of guns. Two

hundred and sixty-seven battalions were all that the Allies could fling

into the gap, and their cavalry were outnumbered by two to one.

Germany struck at various points; but being checked at Arras and on the

sea-coast, she made her main effort in the last week of October against

the British Army, which held the salient east of the city of Ypres. The

battle, which is known as the First Battle of Ypres, began on the 21st

of the month, and the crisis came on the 29th, when General von Fabeck

attacked with a "storm group" of specially selected regiments.

On Saturday, the 31st October, after a furious bombardment, it seemed

that the end had come. For eleven days our little army had been holding

its own against impossible odds. At the point of the Salient, north of

the Menin road, lay the 2nd and 1st British Divisions, and south of them

the 7th Division and Byng's cavalry. The men were very weary and their

ranks terribly thinned. The 7th Division had fought for nearly two days

on a front of 8 miles against forces of four times their number. The

desperate character of the fighting was only fully known when the losses

came to be reckoned up. That division had 44 officers left out of 400,

and 2,336 men out of 12,000. The 1st Brigade of the 1st Division had 8

officers left out of 153, and 500 men out of 5,000. The 2nd Royal Scots

Fusiliers, to take one battalion, was reduced to 70 men commanded by a

junior subaltern. That is the price which must be paid for fighting one

against four. Major Bellenden in _Old Mortality_ considered one to

three the utmost possible odds, and "never knew any one who cared to

take that except old Corporal Raddlebanes." At the First Battle of

Ypres the British Army would have welcomed the Major's odds as a relief.

On that Saturday morning things had grown very desperate. The 1st and

3rd Brigades of the 1st Division were driven out of Gheluvelt, our line

gave way, and soon after midday we were back among the woods towards

Veldhoek. This retirement uncovered the left of the 7th Division, which

was then slowly bent back towards the Klein Zillebeke ridge. The enemy

was beginning to pour through the Gheluvelt gap, and at the same time

pressed hard on the whole arc of the Salient. We had no reserves except

an odd battalion or two and some regiments of cavalry, all of which had

already been sorely tried during the past days. Sir John French sent an

urgent message to General Foch for reinforcements and was refused. At

the end of the battle he learned the reason. Foch had none to send, and

his own losses had been greater than ours.

[Illustration: The Critical Day in the First Battle of Ypres.]

Between 2 and 2.30 p.m. Sir Douglas Haig, commanding the 1st Corps, was

on the Menin road watching the situation. It seemed impossible to stop

the gap, though on its northern side some South Wales Borderers were

gallantly holding a sunken road and galling the flank of the German

advance. He gave orders to retire to a line a little west of Hooge and

stand there, though he well knew that no stand, however heroic, could

save the town. He considered that a further retirement west of Ypres

might be necessary, and with this Sir John French agreed.

The news grew worse. The headquarters of the 1st and 2nd Divisions at

Hooge Chateau had been shelled. The two commanders had been badly

wounded and six of the Staff killed. Brigadiers took charge of

divisions, and during that terrible afternoon officers were commanding

any troops that happened to be near. It looked as if fate had designed

to lay every conceivable burden on our breaking defences.

And then suddenly out of the mad confusion came a strange story. A

breathless Staff officer reported that something odd was happening north

of the Menin road. The enemy advance had halted. Then came word that

our 1st Division was re-forming. The anxious generals could scarcely

believe their ears, for it sounded a sheer miracle; but presently came

the proof, though it was not for months that the full tale was known.

This is what had happened. Brigadier-General the Hon. Charles

FitzClarence, V.C., commanding the 1st (Guards) Brigade in the 1st

Division, had sent in his last reserves, and had failed to fill the gap

in our line. He then rode off to the headquarters of the 1st Division

to explain how desperate was the position. But on the way, at the

south-west corner of the Polygon Wood, he stumbled upon a battalion

waiting in support. It was the 2nd Worcesters, who were part of the

right brigade of the 2nd Division. FitzClarence saw in them his last

chance. They belonged to another division, but it was no time to stand

on ceremony. Major Hankey, who commanded them, at once put them under

FitzClarence's orders.

The rain had begun and the dull wet haze of a Flanders autumn lay over

the sour fields and broken spinneys between Hooge and Gheluvelt. The

Worcesters, under very heavy artillery fire, advanced in a series of

short rushes for about 1,000 yards between the right of the South Wales

Borderers and the northern edge of Gheluvelt. There they dug themselves

in, broke up the German advance into bunches, opened a heavy flank fire,

and brought it to a standstill. This allowed the 7th Division to get

back to its old line, and the 6th Cavalry Brigade to fill the gap

between the 7th and 1st Divisions. Before night fell the German advance

west of Gheluvelt was stayed, and the British front was out of immediate

danger.

That great performance of an historic English county regiment is one of

the few instances in any campaign where the prompt decision of a

subordinate commander and the prowess of one battalion have turned the

tide of a great battle. It was the crucial moment of the First Battle

of Ypres. Gheluvelt was lost, but the gap was closed, and the crisis was

past. Eleven days later FitzClarence fell in the last spasm of the

action--the fight with the Prussian Guard. He had done his work. Ypres

was soon a heap of rubble, and for four years the Salient was a cockpit

of war, but up to the last hour of the campaign no German entered the

ruins of the little city except as a prisoner.

*CHAPTER V.*

*THE CANADIANS AT THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES.*

The Salient of Ypres was to be a second time the scene of a heroic stand

against hopeless odds. In April 1915 the front of the Salient was held

by the French on the left, the Canadian Division and the British 28th

Division in the centre, and the 27th Division on the right. On the 20th

the Germans suddenly began the bombardment of the town with heavy

shells. It was a warning to the British Command, for all their roads of

supply for the lines of the Salient ran through Ypres, and such a

bombardment must herald an attack on some part of their front.

The evening of Thursday, the 22nd, was calm and pleasant, with a light,

steady wind blowing from the north-east. About 6.30 our artillery

observers reported that a strange green vapour was moving over the

French trenches. Then, as the April night closed in and the great

shells still rained upon Ypres, there were strange and ghastly scenes on

the left between the canal and the Pilkem road. Back through the dusk

came a stream of French soldiers, blinded and coughing, and wild with

terror. Some black horror had come upon them, and they had broken

before a more than human fear. Behind them they had left hundreds of

their comrades stricken or dead, with horrible blue faces and froth on

their lips.

The rout surged over the canal, and the roads to the west were choked

with broken infantry and galloping gun teams lacking their guns. Most

of the French were coloured troops from Africa, and in the early

darkness they stumbled upon the Canadian reserve battalions. With

amazement the Canadians saw the wild dark faces, the heaving chests, and

the lips speechless with agony. Then they too sniffed something in the

breeze--something which caught at their throats and affected them with a

deadly sickness.

[Illustration: The Second Battle of Ypres.]

The immediate result of the stampede was a 5-mile breach in the Allied

line. The remnants of the French troops were thrown back on the canal,

where they were being pushed across by the German attack, and between

them and the left of the Canadians were five miles of undefended

country. Through this gap the enemy was pouring, preceded by the

poisonous fumes of the gas, and supported by heavy artillery fire.

The Canadian front was held at the moment by the 3rd Brigade under

General Turner on the left and the 2nd Brigade under General Currie on

the right. The 1st Brigade was in reserve. The 3rd Brigade, on which

the chief blow fell, had suffered from the gas, but to a less degree

than the French. With his flank exposed General Turner was forced to

draw back his left wing. Under the pressure of the four German

divisions the brigade bent backwards till its left rested on the wood

east of the hamlet of St. Julien. Beyond it, however, there was still a

gap, and the Germans were working round its flank.

In that wood there was a battery of British guns, and the Canadians

counter-attacked to save the guns and find some point of defence for

their endangered flank. Assisted by two battalions from the 1st Brigade

they carried the wood. A wilder struggle has rarely been seen than the

battle of that April night. The British reserves at Ypres, shelled out

of the town, marched to the sound of the firing, with the strange sickly

odour of the gas blowing down upon them. The roads were congested with

the usual supply trains for our troops in the Salient. All along our

front the cannonade was severe, while the Canadian left, bent back

almost at right angles, was struggling to entrench itself under cover of

counter-attacks. In some cases they found French reserve trenches to

occupy, but more often they had to dig themselves in where they could.

The right of the German assault was already in several places beyond the

canal.

The Canadians were for the most part citizen soldiers without previous

experience of battle. Among their officers were men from every kind of

occupation--lawyers, professors, lumbermen, ranchers, merchants. To

their eternal honour they did not break. Overwhelmed by superior

numbers of men and guns, and sick to death with the poisonous fumes,

they did all that men could do to stem the tide. All night long with an

exposed flank they maintained the gossamer line of the British front.

Very early in the small hours of Friday morning the first British

reinforcements arrived in the gap. They were a strange mixture of

units, commanded by Colonel Geddes of the Buffs--to be ever afterwards

gloriously known as Geddes's Detachment. But our concern for the moment

is with the Canadians. The reinforcements from the 1st Brigade

counter-attacked, along with Geddes's Detachment, early on the Friday

morning. Meantime the Canadian 3rd Brigade was in desperate straits.

Its losses had been huge, and its survivors were still weak from the

effects of the gas. No food could reach it for twenty-four hours.

Holding an acute salient, it was under fire from three sides, and by

evening was driven to a new line through St. Julien. The enemy had

succeeded in working round its left, and even getting their machine-guns

behind it.

About 3 o'clock on the morning of Saturday, the 24th, a violent

bombardment began. At 3.30 there came a second gas attack. The gas,

pumped from cylinders, rose in a cloud which at its greatest was 7 feet

high. It was thickest close to the ground, and filled every cranny of

the trenches. Instinct taught some of the men what to do. A wet

handkerchief wrapped round the mouth gave a little relief, and it was

obviously fatal to run back, for in that case a man followed the gas

zone. Its effect was to produce acute bronchitis. Those smitten by it

suffered horribly, gasping and struggling for breath, and in many cases

becoming temporarily blind. Even 1,000 yards from the place of emission

troops were afflicted with violent sickness and giddiness. Beyond that

distance it dissipated itself, and only the blanched herbage marked its

track.

That day, the 24th, saw the height of the Canadians' battle. The

much-tried 3rd Brigade, now gassed for the second time, could no longer

keep its place. Its left fell back well to the south-west of St.

Julien. Gaps were opened in its front, and General Currie's 2nd Brigade

was now left in much the same position as that of the 3rd Brigade on the

Thursday evening. About midday a great German attack developed against

the village of St. Julien. The remnants of the 13th and 14th

battalions--the Royal Highlanders of Montreal and the Royal Montreal

Regiment--could not be withdrawn in time, and remained--a few hundred

men--in the St. Julien line, fighting till far on in the night their

hopeless battle with a gallantry which has shed eternal lustre on their

motherland. Not less fine was the stand of the 8th Battalion (the 90th

Winnipeg Rifles) in the 2nd Brigade at the very point of the Salient.

With its left in the air it held out against crazy odds till

reinforcements arrived.

The battle was now passing from the Canadians' hands. On the Saturday

the 3rd Brigade was withdrawn, and the 2nd followed on the Sunday

evening. But on the Monday the latter, now less than 1,000 strong, was

ordered back to the line, and to the credit of their discipline the men

went cheerfully. They had to take up a position in daylight and cross

the zone of shell-fire--no light task for those who had lived through

the past shattering days. That night they were relieved, and on

Thursday, the 29th, the whole division was withdrawn from the Salient,

after such a week of fighting as has rarely fallen to the lot of any

troops of the Empire.

The Canadian Division was to grow into an Army, and to win many famous

triumphs before the end of the war. But in the hectic three days

between Thursday, the 22nd April, and Monday, the 26th, when the Second

Battle of Ypres was decided, the soldiers of Canada performed an exploit

which no later achievement could excel. Three battalion commanders

died; from the 5th Battalion only ten officers survived; five from the

7th; seven from the 8th; eight from the 10th. Of the machine-gun men of

the 13th Battalion thirteen were left out of fifty-eight, and in the 7th

Battalion only one. Attacked and outflanked by four divisions,

stupefied by a poison of which they had never dreamed and which they did

not understand, with no heavy artillery to support them, they endured

till reinforcements came, and they did more than endure. After days and

nights of tension they had the vitality to counter-attack, and when

called upon they cheerfully returned to the inferno which they had left.

If the Salient of Ypres will be for all time the classic battle-ground

of Britain, that blood-stained segment between the Poelcappelle and

Zonnebeke roads will remain the holy land of Canadian arms.

With the Canadians must rank the men of Geddes's Detachment. They were

eight battalions, picked out from anywhere in the line--the 2nd Buffs,

half of the 3rd Middlesex, half of the 2nd Shropshires, the 1st York and

Lancaster, the 5th Royal Lancaster, the 4th Rifle Brigade, the 9th Royal

Scots, and the 2nd Cornwalls. Their instructions were to hold the gap

on the Canadian left and bluff the enemy. The leading half-battalions

were thrown in in twos and threes into the gap, and had to keep up the

appearance of an offensive, while the other half of each battalion dug a

new line. The duty of the attacking halves was to get as far forward as

possible before they fell, and to try not to fall before evening.

All the day of Friday, the 23rd, without guns and without supports,

about 2,000 men covered a gap 8,000 yards wide and held up the

victorious Germans. Behind them the remaining 2,000 dug the new line,

which was to hold fast till the end of the war. Of the half-battalions

concerned in this marvellous bluff but little was left. One company of

the Buffs entirely disappeared. The men of the 1st York and Lancaster

lay all day in their firing lines--immovable, for every one was dead or

wounded. The Cornwalls lost all their officers but one, and all their

men but ninety-five.

But they succeeded. Colonel Geddes was killed by shellfire on the 28th

April, when he was withdrawing his men, but he died knowing that his

task had been accomplished. The Second Battle of Ypres lasted far on

into May, but the enemy failed on that day, Friday, the 23rd--St.

George's Day--when the road to Ypres was barred by two Canadian Brigades

and a handful of British regulars and Territorials.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*THE TAKING OF LOOS.*

The battle of Loos, which began on Saturday, September 25, 1915, was

part of the first combined Allied offensive. It was remarkable among

other things because it saw the first appearance in a great battle of

the troops of the New Armies raised in response to Lord Kitchener's

appeal, and in it more than one new division gained a reputation which

made their names become household words.

The battle, though it won much ground for the Allies, failed to break

the German front. But it shook that front to its foundations, and

indeed at one point came very near to being a decisive victory. It is

the story of that point with which this chapter is concerned--the attack

of the Scottish 15th Division against the village of Loos. The 15th was

a division remarkable for physique and spirit, but as yet untried in

war, for it had only been some three months in France. The men were of

every trade, rank, and profession, and drawn from all Scotland, both

Lowlands and Highlands. On its left was an old regular division, the

1st, and on its right the 47th--a London Territorial Division. The

orders of the 15th were to take Loos and the height beyond, known as

Hill 70, which looked down upon the northern suburbs of Lens.

Saturday, the 25th, was a drizzling morning, with low clouds and a light

wind from the south-west. The attack of the division was made by the

44th Brigade on the right and the 46th on the left, with the 45th

Brigade in reserve. At ten minutes to six gas was discharged from our

front, but the breeze caused it to eddy back from the hollow round Loos

and trouble the left brigade. There Piper Laidlaw of the King's Own

Scottish Borderers mounted the parapet and piped his men forward to the

tune of "Blue Bonnets over the Border."

[Illustration: Battle of Loos.--Advance to Loos and Hill 70.]

At 6.30 whistles blew and the leading battalions left the trenches. We

are concerned particularly with the attack of the 44th Brigade, which

had the 9th Black Watch and the 8th Seaforths in front, the 7th Camerons

in support, and the 10th Gordons following. A wild rush carried the

Highlanders through the whole German front line. Below in the hollow

lay Loos with the gaunt Colossus of the mining headgear, which our men

called the Tower Bridge, striding above it. In front of the village was

the German second line, about 200 yards distant from the crest of the

slope. Its defences were strong, and the barbed wire, deep and heavy,

had been untouched by our artillery, except in a few places.

After winning the first line the attack was rapidly reorganized, and our

men went hurtling down the slope. They had a long distance to cover,

and all the time they were exposed to the direct fire of the German

machine-guns; but without wavering the line pressed on till it reached

the wire. With bleeding faces and limbs and torn kilts and tunics the

Highlanders forced their way through it. These decent law-abiding

ex-civilians charged like men possessed, singing and cheering. One

grave sergeant is said to have rebuked the profanity of his men. "Keep

your breath, lads," he cried. "The next stop's Potsdam."

At 7.30 the second line was theirs, and a few minutes later the 44th

Brigade was surging through the streets of Loos. Here they had the 47th

Londoners on their right, and on their left their own 46th Brigade, and

they proceeded to clear up the place as well as the confusion of units

permitted.

But the Highlanders had not finished their task. It was not yet 9

o'clock, Loos was in their hands, but Hill 70, the gently sloping rise

to the east of the village, was still to be won. The attacking line

re-formed--what was left of the Black Watch and Seaforths leading, with

the 7th Camerons and 10th Gordons. Now, the original plan had been for

the attack to proceed beyond Hill 70 should circumstances be favourable,

and though this plan had been modified on the eve of the battle, the

change had not been explained to all the troops, and the leading

battalions were in doubt about their final objective. The Highlanders

streamed up the hill like hounds, with all battalion formation gone, the

red tartans of the Camerons and the green of the Gordons mingling in one

resistless wave. All the time they were under enfilading fire from both

south and north; but with the bayonet they went through the defences,

and by 9 o'clock were on the summit of the hill.

On the top, just below the northern crest, was a strong redoubt,

destined to become famous in succeeding days. The garrison

surrendered--they seemed scarcely to have resisted--but the Highlanders

did not wait to secure the place. They poured down the eastern side,

now only a few hundreds strong, losing direction as they went. They had

reached a district which was one nest of German fortifications. The

Highlanders were far in advance of the British line, with no supports on

south or north; in three hours they had advanced nearly four miles, and

had reached the skirts of the village called Cite St. Auguste.

The colonel of a Cameron battalion took command on Hill 70, now strewn

with the remnants of the two brigades, and attempted to recall the

pursuit, which was lost in the fog and smoke of the eastern slopes, and

to entrench himself on the summit. But very few of the Highlanders

returned. All down the slopes towards Lens lay the tartans--Gordon and

Black Watch, Seaforth and Cameron--like the drift left on the shore when

the tide has ebbed, marking out a salient of the dead which, under

happier auspices, might have been a living spear-point thrust into the

enemy's heart.

The rest of the doings of the 15th Division--how they held the line of

Hill 70 for forty-eight hours longer till they were relieved by the

Guards--does not belong to this story. Our concern is with that wild

charge which from the beginning was foredoomed to failure, for the

Highlanders had no supports except the divisional reserves. The Guards

were then 11 miles away, and the two New Army divisions which were

brought up--divisions which later on won great glory--were then only raw

recruits. The brilliant advance was not war, but a wild berserk

adventure--a magnificent but a barren feat of courage.

And yet, looking back from the vantage ground of four years of

campaigning, that madness of attack had in it the seeds of the Allies'

future success. It was the very plan which Ludendorff used against them

with such fatal effect in March 1918. Of what did those German tactics

consist? Highly-trained troops attacked various sections of the front,

found weak spots, summoned their reserves by special signals, and forced

their way through. In this way the front was not only pierced, but

crumbled in long lengths. The Highlanders at Loos were the first to

employ this deadly process, which the French called "infiltration."

They were picked troops beyond question; but there was no serious plan

to follow up their success, and no support provided. Yet, even as it

was, that lonely charge struck fear into the heart of the whole German

line from Douai to Lille. There was no prophetic eye among us which

could see what was implied by it, and it was set down as a glorious

failure. Four years later, when we had learned all that the enemy could

teach us, the same method was applied by the master hand of Foch to

break down in turn each of the German defences.

*CHAPTER VII.*

*DELVILLE WOOD.*

The Battle of the Somme was the first great British attack to be made

with ample supplies of guns and shells, and continued, not for days or

weeks, but for months. Slowly we pressed forward to the crest of the

ridges between the Somme and the Ancre, and we know from Ludendorff's

own confession that we then dealt a blow at Germany's strength from

which she never recovered. The third stage of that great battle, which

won many miles of the German second position, began on July 14, 1916.

The one serious check was on the right wing, where it was necessary to

carry the village of Longueval and the wood called Delville in order to

secure our right flank. There the South African Brigade entered for the

first time into the battle-line of the West, and there they won

conspicuous renown.

The place was the most awkward on the battle-front. It was a salient,

and, therefore, the British attack was made under fire from three sides.

The ground, too, was most intricate. The land sloped upwards to

Longueval village, a cluster of houses among gardens and orchards around

the junction of two roads. East and north-east of this hamlet stretched

Delville Wood, in the shape of a blunt equilateral triangle, with an

apex pointing north-westwards. The place, like most French woods, had

been seamed with grassy rides, partly obscured by scrub, and along and

athwart these the Germans had dug lines of trenches. The wood had been

for some days a target for our guns, and was now a maze of splintered

tree trunks, matted undergrowth, and shell-holes. North, north-east, and

south-east, at a distance of from 50 to 200 yards from its edges, lay

the main German positions, strongly protected by machine-guns.

Longueval could not be firmly held unless Delville was also taken, for

the northern part was commanded by the wood.

On the 14th July two Scottish brigades of the 9th Division attacked

Longueval, and won most of the place; but they found that the whole

village could not be held until Delville Wood was cleared. Accordingly,

the South Africans--the remaining brigade of the division--were ordered

to occupy the wood on the following morning. The South African Brigade,

under General Lukin, had been raised a year before among the white

inhabitants of South Africa. At the start about 15 per cent. were Dutch,

but the proportion rose to something like 30 per cent. before the end of

the campaign. Men fought in its ranks who had striven against Britain

in the Boer War. Few units were better supplied with men of the right

kind of experience, and none showed a better physical standard or a

higher level of education and breeding.

Two hours before dawn on the 15th July the brigade advanced from

Montauban towards the shadow which was Delville Wood, and the jumbled

masonry, now spouting fire like a volcano, which had been Longueval.

Lieutenant-Colonel Tanner of the 2nd South African Regiment was in

command of the attack. By 2.40 that afternoon Tanner reported to

General Lukin that he had won the whole wood with the exception of

certain strong points in the north-west, abutting on Longueval and the

northern orchards.

But the problem of Delville was not so much to carry the wood as to hold

it. The German counter-attacks began about 3 o'clock, and the men who

were holding the fringe of the wood suffered heavy casualties. As the

sun went down the enemy activity increased, and their shells and liquid

fire turned the darkness of night into a feverish and blazing noon;

often as many as 400 shells were fired in a minute. The position that

evening was that the north-west corner of the wood remained with the

enemy, but that all the rest was held by South Africans strung out very

thin along its edge. Twelve infantry companies, now gravely weakened,

were defending a wood a little less than a square mile in area--a wood

on which every German battery was accurately ranged, and which was

commanded at close quarters by a semicircle of German trenches.

Moreover, since the enemy had the north-west corner, he had a covered

way of approach into the place.

All through the furious night of the 15th the South Africans worked for

dear life at entrenchments. In that hard soil, pitted by unceasing

shell-fire, and cumbered with a twisted mass of tree trunks, roots, and

wire, the spade could make little way. Nevertheless, when the morning

of Sunday, the 16th, dawned, a good deal of cover had been provided. At

10 a.m. an attempt was made by the South Africans and a battalion of

Royal Scots to capture the northern entrance to the wood. The attempt

failed, and the attacking troops had to fall back to their trenches, and

for the rest of the day had to endure a steady, concentrated fire. It

was hot, dusty weather, and the enemy's curtain of shells made it almost

impossible to bring up food and water or to remove the wounded. The

situation was rapidly becoming desperate. Longueval and Delville had

proved to be far too strongly held to be over-run at the first attack by

one division. At the same time, until these were taken the object of

the battle of the 14th had not been achieved, and the safety of the

whole right wing of the new front was endangered. Longueval could not

be won and held without Delville; Delville could not be won and held

without Longueval. Fresh troops could not yet be spared to complete the

work, and it must be attempted again by the same wearied and depleted

battalions. What strength remained to the 9th Division must be divided

between two simultaneous objectives.

That Sunday evening it was decided to make another attempt against the

north-west corner. The attempt was made shortly before dawn on Monday,

the 17th July, but failed. All that morning there was no change in the

situation; but on the morning of Tuesday, the 18th, an attempt was made

to the eastward. The Germans, however, in a counter-attack, managed to

penetrate far into the southern half of the wood. The troops in

Longueval had also suffered misfortunes, with the result that the enemy

entered the wood on the exposed South African left.

[Illustration: Battle of the Somme.--Longueval and Delville Wood.]

At 2.30 that afternoon the position was very serious. Lieutenant-Colonel

Thackeray, of the 3rd South African Regiment, now commanding in the

wood, held no more than the south-west corner. In the other parts the

garrisons had been utterly destroyed. The trenches were filled with

wounded whom it was impossible to move, since most of the

stretcher-bearers had themselves been killed or wounded.

That evening came the welcome news that the South Africans would be

relieved at night by another brigade. But relief under such conditions

was a slow and difficult business. By midnight the work had been

partially carried out, and portions of the 3rd and 4th South African

regiments had been withdrawn.

But as at Flodden, when

"they left the darkening heath

More desperate grew the strife of death."

The enemy had brought up a new division, and made repeated attacks

against the South African line. For two days and two nights the little

remnant under Thackeray still clung to the south-west corner of the wood

against impossible odds, and did not break. The German method of

assault was to push forward bombers and snipers, and then to advance in

mass formation from the north, north-east, and north-west

simultaneously.

Three attacks on the night of Tuesday, the 18th, were repelled with

heavy losses to the enemy; but in the last of them the South Africans

were assaulted on three sides. All through Wednesday, the 19th, the

gallant handful suffered incessant shelling and sniping, the latter now

from very close. It was the same on Thursday, the 20th; but still relief

tarried. At last, at 6 o'clock that evening, troops of a fresh division

were able to take over what was left to us of Longueval and the little

segment of Delville Wood. Thackeray marched out with two officers, both

wounded, and 140 other ranks, gathered from all the regiments of the

South African Brigade.

The six days and five nights during which the South African Brigade held

the most difficult post on the British front--a corner of death on which

the enemy fire was concentrated from three sides at all hours, and into

which fresh German troops, vastly superior in numbers, made periodic

incursions, only to be broken and driven back--constituted an epoch of

terror and glory scarcely equalled in the campaign. There were other

positions as difficult, but they were not held so long; there were cases

of as protracted a defence, but the assault was not so violent and

continuous.

Let us measure it by the stern test of losses. At midnight on the 14th

July, when Lukin received his orders, the brigade numbered 121 officers

and 3,032 men. When Thackeray marched out on the 20th he had a remnant

of 143, and the total ultimately assembled was about 750. Of the

officers, 23 were killed or died of wounds, 47 were wounded, and 15 were

missing. But the price was not paid in vain. The brigade did what it

was ordered to do, and did not yield until it was withdrawn.

There is no more solemn moment in war than the parade of men after a

battle. The few hundred haggard survivors in the bright sunshine behind

the lines were too weary and broken to realize how great a thing they

had done. Sir Douglas Haig sent his congratulations. The Commander of

the Fourth Army, Sir Henry Rawlinson, wrote that "In the capture of

Delville Wood the gallantry, perseverance, and determination of the

South African Brigade deserves the highest commendation." They had

earned the praise of their own intrepid commanding officers, who had

gone through the worst side by side with their men. "Each individual,"

said Tanner's report, "was firm in the knowledge of his confidence in

his comrades, and was, therefore, able to fight with that power which

good discipline alone can produce. A finer record of this spirit could

not be found than the line of silent bodies along the Strand,[#] over

which the enemy had not dared to tread." But the most impressive

tribute was that of their Brigadier. When the remnant of his brigade

paraded before him, Lukin took the salute with uncovered head and eyes

not free from tears.

[#] The name of one of the rides in the wood.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES.*

The Third Battle of Ypres was in many ways the sternest battle ever

fought by British troops. It was not a defence, like the two other

actions fought at Ypres, but an attack. It was an attack against the

success of which the very stars in their courses seemed to fight.

Everything--weather, landscape, events elsewhere on the front--conspired

to frustrate its purpose. It was undertaken too late and continued too

long; but both errors were unavoidable. All the latter part of it was a

struggle without hope, carried on for the sake of our Allies at other

parts of the line. To those who fought in it, the Third Battle of Ypres

will always remain a memory of misery and horror.

The British scheme for the summer of 1917 was an offensive against the

enemy in Flanders, in order to clear the Belgian coast and turn the

German right flank in the West. It was a scheme which, if successful,

promised the most far-reaching results; but to be successful a beginning

must be made as early as possible in the summer, when the waterlogged

soil of Flanders became reasonably dry. But the whole plan was altered

for the worse at the beginning of the year. The first stage, the Battle

of Arras, began too late and, through no fault of the British Command,

lasted too long. It was not till June that Sir Douglas Haig was able to

begin operations in Flanders and make his preliminary attack upon

Messines, and it was not till the end of July that the great battle was

begun in the Ypres Salient. By that time the revolution which began in

Petrograd in March had broken up the Russian armies and prepared the way

for the triumph of Bolshevism; Russia was in ruins, and Germany was

moving her troops rapidly from the East to the West. The battle was,

therefore, a struggle against time--against the coming of enemy reserves

and of the autumn rains.

The famous Salient of Ypres had, during three years, been drawn back

till the enemy front was now less than two miles from the town. For

twelve months that front had been all but stationary, and the Germans

had spent infinite ingenuity and labour on perfecting their defences. In

the half-moon of hills round the town they had view-points which

commanded the whole countryside, and especially the British lines within

the Salient. Any preparations for attack would therefore be conducted

under their watchful eyes. Moreover, the heavy waterlogged clay of the

flats where our front lay was terribly at the mercy of the weather, and

in rain became a bottomless swamp. Lastly, the enemy was acutely

conscious of the importance of holding his position, and there was no

chance of taking him by surprise.

[Illustration: FIELD-MARSHAL SIR DOUGLAS HAIG

(EARL HAIG OF BEMERSYDE).]

If the British were to succeed at all they must succeed quickly. The

high ground east of the Salient must be won in a fortnight if they were

to move against the German bases in West Flanders and clear the coast.

This meant a gamble against the weather, for the Salient was, after

Verdun, the most tortured of the Western battlefields. Constant

shelling of the low ground west of the ridges had blocked the streams

and the natural drainage, and turned it into a sodden wilderness.

Weather such as had been experienced the year before on the Somme would

make of it a morass where transport could scarcely move, and troops

would be exposed to the last degree of misery. Moreover, the "tanks,"

which had been first used on the Somme the year before, and had done

wonders at Arras in breaking through barbed wire and silencing

machine-guns, could not be used in deep mud. Whatever might be the

strength and skill of the enemy, it was less formidable than the

obstacles which nature herself might place in the British path.

But the German commanders were no despicable antagonists. In Flanders

the nature of the ground did not permit of the kind of defence which

they had built on the Somme. Deep dug-outs and concrete trenches were

impossible because of the waterlogged soil, and they were compelled to

employ new tactics. Their solution was the "pill-box." This was a

small concrete fort situated among the ruins of a farm or in some piece

of shell-torn woodland, often raised only a yard or two above the

ground-level, and bristling with machine-guns. The low entrance was at

the rear of the pill-box, which held from eight to forty men. Such forts

were easy to make, for the wooden or steel framework could be brought up

on any dark night and filled with concrete. They were placed with great

skill, and in the barbed-wire defences alleys were left so that an

unwary advance would be trapped and exposed to enfilading fire. Their

small size made them a difficult mark for heavy guns, and since they

were protected by concrete at least 3 feet thick they were impregnable

to ordinary field artillery.

The enemy's plan was to hold his first line--which was often a mere

string of shell craters--with few men, who would fall back before an

assault. He had his guns well behind, so that they would not be

captured in the first rush, and would be available for a barrage if his

opponents became entangled in the pill-box zone. Lastly, he had his

reserves in the second line, ready for the counterstroke before the

attack could secure its position. Such tactics were admirably suited to

the exposed and contorted ground of the Salient. Any attack would be

allowed to make some advance; but if the German plan worked well this

advance would be short-lived, and would be dearly paid for. Instead of

the cast-iron front of the rest of the battleground, the Flanders line

would be highly elastic, but after pressure it would spring back into

position with a deadly rebound.

The action began on 31st July, and resulted at first in a brilliant

success. But with the attack the weather broke, and so made impossible

the series of blows which we had planned. For a fortnight we were

compelled to hold our hand; till the countryside grew drier, advance was

a stark impossibility.

The second stage began on 16th August, and everywhere fell short of its

main objective. The ground was sloppy and tangled; broken woods impeded

our advance; and the whole front was dotted with pill-boxes, against

which we had not yet discovered the proper weapon. The result was a

serious British check. Fine brigades had been hurled in succession

against a solid wall, and had been sorely battered. They felt that they

were being sacrificed blindly; that every fight was a soldier's and not

a general's fight; and that such sledge-hammer tactics could never solve

the problem. For a moment there was a real wave of disheartenment in

the British ranks.

Sir Douglas Haig took time to reorganize his front and prepare a new

plan. Sir Herbert Plumer was brought farther north, and patiently

grappled with the "pill-box" problem. He had them carefully

reconnoitred, and by directing gun fire on each side enabled his troops

to get round their undefended rear. Early in September the weather

improved, the mud of the Salient hardened, and the streams became

streams again, and not lagoons.

On 20th September the third attack was launched, and everywhere

succeeded. It broke through the German defence in the Salient, and won

the southern pivot, on which the security of the main Passchendaele

Ridge depended. Few struggles in the campaign were more desperate or

carried out on a more gruesome battlefield. The maze of quagmires,

splintered woods, ruined husks of pill-boxes, water-filled shell-holes

and foul creeks, which made up the land on both sides of the Menin road,

was a sight which to most men must seem in the retrospect a fevered

nightmare. The elements had blended with each other to make of it a

limbo outside mortal experience and almost beyond human imagining.

But successful though the advance was, not even the first stage of the

British plan had been reached. During the rest of September and

October, however, attack followed attack, though the main objective was

now out of the question. It was necessary to continue the battle for

the sake of our Allies, who at the moment were hard pressed in other

areas; and, in any case, it was desirable to complete the capture of the

Passchendaele Ridge so as to give us a good winter position.

The last stages of this Third Battle of Ypres were probably the muddiest

combats ever known in the history of war. It rained incessantly,

sometimes quieting to a drizzle or a Scots mist, but relapsing into a

downpour on any day fixed for our attack. The British movements became

a barometer. Whenever it was more than usually tempestuous it was safe

to assume that some hour of advance was near. The few rare hours of

watery sunshine had no effect upon the irreclaimable bog. "You might as

well," wrote one observer, "try to empty a bath by holding lighted

matches over it."

On the 30th October our line was sufficiently far advanced for the

attack on Passchendaele itself. On that day the Canadians, assisted by

the Royal Naval Division and London Territorials, carried much of the

Ridge, and won their way into the outskirts of Passchendaele village.

Some days of dry weather followed, and early in the morning of 6th

November the Canadians swept forward again and carried the whole main

ridge of West Flanders. By this achievement the Salient, where for

three years we had been at the mercy of the German guns, was no longer

dominated by the enemy position.

The Third Battle of Ypres was strategically a British failure; we did

not come within measurable distance of our main purpose. But that was

due to no fault of generalship or fighting qualities, but to the

malevolence of the weather in a country where the weather was all in

all. We reckoned upon a normal August, and we did not get it. The sea

of mud which lay around the Salient was the true defence of the enemy.

Ypres was to Britain what Verdun was to France--hallowed soil, which

called forth the highest qualities of her people. It was a battleground

where there could be no retreat without loss of honour. The armies

which fought there in the Third Battle were very different from the few

divisions which had held the fort during the earlier struggles. But

there were links of connection. The Guards, by more than one fine

advance, were recompensed for the awful tension of October 1914, when

some of their best battalions had been destroyed; and it fell to Canada,

by the victory of Passchendaele, to avenge the gas attack of April 1915.

when only her dauntless two brigades stood between Ypres and the enemy.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*THE TANKS AT CAMBRAI.*

During the Battle of the Somme a new weapon had appeared on the Allied

side. This was the Tank (so called because some unrevealing name had to

be found for a device developed in secret). It was a machine shaped

like a monstrous toad, which mounted machine-guns and light artillery,

and could force its way through wire and parapets and walls, and go

anywhere except in deep mud. Its main tactical use was to break down

wire entanglements and to clear out redoubts and nests of machine-guns.

When first used at the Somme the Tanks won a modified success, and in

the following spring at Arras they fully justified themselves.

Presently they began to develop into two types, one remaining heavy and

slow and the other becoming a "whippet," a type which was easy to handle

and attained a fair speed. Ultimately, as we shall see, they were to

become the chief Allied weapon in breaking the enemy front, and also to

perform the historic task of cavalry and go through the gaps which the

infantry had made. In September 1917, while two British Armies were

fighting desperately in the Ypres Salient for the Passchendaele Ridge,

Sir Julian Byng's Third Army, on the chalky plateau of Picardy, was

almost idle. An observer might have noticed that General Hugh Elles,

the commander of the Tank Corps, was a frequent visitor to Sir Julian's

headquarters at Albert. The same observer might have detected a curious

self-consciousness during the following weeks at Tanks headquarters.

Tanks officers, disguised in non-committal steel helmets and

waterproofs, frequented the forward areas of the Third Army. Tanks

motor-cars seemed suddenly to shed all distinguishing badges, and their

drivers told lengthy and mendacious tales about their doings. Staff

officers of the Tanks were never seen at any headquarters, but

constantly in front-line trenches, where, when questioned, they found

some difficulty in explaining their business. At the headquarters of

one Tanks brigade there was a locked room, with "No Admittance" over the

door, and inside--for the eye of the possible enemy spy--a quantity of

carefully marked bogus maps. Some mystery was being hatched, but,

though many hundreds suspected it, only a few knew the truth.

On the 20th October it had been decided to make a surprise attack

towards Cambrai, and to prepare the way for the infantry by Tanks

instead of guns. The Third Battle of Ypres had brought the reputation

of these machines very low. They had been used in the bottomless mud of

the Salient, where they had no chance of being successful, and the

generals in command had reported adversely on their merits. It was

argued that they could not negotiate bad ground, that the ground on a

battlefield must always be bad, and that, consequently, they were of no

use on the battlefield. The first statement was doubtful, and the

second false; but certainly if all battles had been like the Third

Battle of Ypres the conclusion would have been justified.

At Cambrai the Tanks were on their trial. It was their special "show,"

and if they failed now they would fail for good. Their commander,

General Elles, took no chances. With three brigades of Tanks he was to

break through the enemy's wire, cross the broad trenches of the

Hindenburg Line, and open the way towards Cambrai for the two Army Corps

following. The enemy defences were the strongest in the West. There

were three trench lines, each of a width extending to 15 feet, and with

an outpost line thrown forward as a screen. In front of the main line

lay barbed wire at least 50 yards wide, which sometimes jutted out in

bold salients flanked by machine-guns. It was calculated that to cut

that wire with artillery would have taken five weeks and cost twenty

millions of money. The trenches were too wide for an ordinary Tank, so

immense bundles of brushwood were made up, which a Tank carried on its

nose and dropped into the trench to make a crossing. Each bundle, or

"fascine," weighed a ton and a half, and it took twenty Chinese coolies

to roll one of them through the mud.

The attack was to be a surprise, and therefore there was to be no

preliminary bombardment. Secrecy was so vital, and the chances of

discovery so numerous, that the commanders spent anxious days prior to

the 20th November. Flotillas of Tanks were assembled in every possible

place which afforded cover, notably in Havrincourt Wood. The Tank is

not a noiseless machine, and it says much for the ingenuity of the Third

Army that the enemy had no inkling of our business. A single enemy

aeroplane over Havrincourt might have wrecked the plan. On the night of

the 18th an enemy raid took some of our men prisoners, but they must

have been very staunch, or the German Intelligence Service very obtuse,

for little appears to have been learned from them. The weather favoured

Sir Julian Byng. The days before the assault had the low grey skies and

the clinging mists of late November.

In the dark of the evening of the 19th the Tanks nosed their way from

their lairs towards the point of departure, going across country, since

the roads were crowded, and running dead slow to avoid noise. That

evening General Hugh Elles issued a special order announcing that he

proposed to lead the attack of the centre division in person, like an

admiral in his flagship. At 4.30 on the morning of the 20th a burst of

German fire suggested that the enemy had discovered the secret, but to

the relief of the British commanders it died away, and the hour before

the attack opened was dead quiet.

[Illustration: Cambrai--the Advance of the Infantry Divisions on

November 20.]

Day dawned with heavy clouds that promised rain before evening. At 6

o'clock a solitary gun broke the silence. It was the signal, and from

just north of the Bapaume road to the hamlet of Gonnelieu in the south,

a stupendous barrage crashed from the British line. The whole horizon

was aflame, and volcanoes of earth spouted from the German lines.

Wakened suddenly from sleep, and dazed with the gun-fire, the enemy sent

up star shell after star shell in appeal to his artillery; but, as he

strove to man his trenches, out of the fog of dawn came something more

terrible than shells--the blunt noses of 350 Tanks tearing and snapping

the wire and grinding down the parapets. The instant result was panic.

In a few minutes the German outposts fell; presently the main Hindenburg

Line followed, and the fighting reached the tunnels of the reserve line.

By half-past 10 that also had vanished, and the British infantry, with

cavalry close behind, was advancing in open country.

General Elles, in his flagship "Hilda," was first in the advance, and it

was reported that he did much of his observing with his head thrust

through the hatch in the roof, using his feet on the gunner's ribs to

indicate the direction of targets. The "Hilda" flew the flag of the

Tank Corps; that flag was several times hit, but not brought down.

Comedy was not absent from that wild day. One member of a Tank crew

lost his wig as his head emerged from the man-hole, and the official

mind was racked for months with the problem whether this came under the

head of loss of field equipment, of a limb, or clothing. Nor was

heroism wanting on the enemy's side. The British official dispatch

records one instance. "Many of the hits upon our defences at Flesquieres

were obtained by a German artillery officer who, remaining alone at his

battery, served a field-gun single-handed until killed at his gun. The

great bravery of this officer aroused the admiration of all ranks."

The trial of the Tanks was over. The Battle of Cambrai did not realize

to the full the expectations of the British Command. Great successes

were won, but our reserves were too scanty to maintain them, and before

the battle died away we lost much of the ground we had gained. But of

the success of the Tanks there was no question. They stood forth as the

most valuable tactical discovery of the campaigns, the weapon which

enabled a commander-in-chief to obtain the advantage of surprise and to

attack swiftly and secretly on new fronts. It was this weapon which, in

the hand of Foch, was destined to break in turn each section of the

German defences, and within a year from Cambrai to give the Allies

victory.

*CHAPTER X.*

*THE SOUTH AFRICANS AT MARRIERES WOOD.*

In the spring of 1918, owing to the Russian Revolution, the Germans were

able to concentrate all their strength in the West. Their aim was to

break the Allied front by separating the French and the British before

the United States of America could send her armies to the field. The

attempt came very near success. The first blow fell on Thursday, 21st

March; by the Saturday evening Sir Hubert Gough's Fifth Army was in

retreat, and it seemed as if nothing could save Amiens.

The South African Brigade was part of the 9th Division, on the extreme

left of the Fifth Army. It was in action from the first hour of the

battle, and for two days, at the cost of some 900 casualties, it

prevented a breach opening up at the worst danger-point--the junction of

the armies of Byng and Gough. On the Saturday it was given a short time

in reserve, but that afternoon it was again called into the fight. That

evening General Tudor, commanding the 9th Division, visited its

Brigadier, General Dawson. The 9th Division was holding an impossibly

long line, and both its flanks were in the air. The South Africans were

instructed to withdraw after dark to a position just west of the

Arras-Peronne road and the village of Bouchavesnes. The orders were that

this line was to be held "_at all costs._" Dawson accordingly began to

withdraw his men about 9.45, and by 3 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, the

24th, the brigade was in position in the new line.

When the Sunday dawned the two regiments of South Africans were holding

a patch of front which, along with Delville Wood, is the most famous

spot in all their annals. The ground sloped eastward, and then rose

again to another ridge about a thousand yards distant--a ridge which

gave the enemy excellent posts for observation and machine-gun

positions. There were one good trench and several bad ones, and the

whole area was dotted with shell-holes. Dawson took up his headquarters

in a support trench some three hundred yards in rear of the front line.

The strength of the brigade was about five hundred in all. Dawson's

only means of communication with divisional headquarters was by runners,

and he had long lost touch with the divisional artillery.

It was a weary and broken little company which waited on that hilltop in

the fog of dawn. During three days the five hundred had fought a score

of battles. Giddy with lack of sleep, grey with fatigue, poisoned by

gas and tortured by the ceaseless bombardment, officers and men had

faced the new perils which each hour brought forth with a fortitude

beyond all human praise. But wars are fought with the body as well as

with the spirit, and the body was breaking. Since the 20th of March,

while the men had received rations, they had had no hot food or tea.

Neither they nor their officers had any guess at what was happening

elsewhere. They seemed to be isolated in a campaign of their own, shut

out from all knowledge of their fellows and beyond the hope of mortal

aid.

Soon after daylight had struggled through the fog the enemy was seen

massing his troops on the ridge to the east, and about 9 o'clock he

deployed for the attack, opening with machine-gun fire, and afterwards

with artillery. Dawson, divining what was coming, sent a messenger back

to the rear with the brigade records. He had already been round every

part of the position, and had disposed his scanty forces to the best

advantage. At 10 o'clock some British guns opened an accurate fire, not

upon the enemy, but upon the South African lines, especially on the

trench where brigade headquarters were situated. Dawson was compelled

to move to a neighbouring shell-hole. He sent a man on his last horse,

followed by two runners, to tell the batteries what was happening, but

the messengers do not seem to have reached their goal, and the fire

continued for more than an hour, though happily with few casualties.

After that it ceased, because the guns had retired. One of our heavies

continued to fire on Bouchavesnes, and presently that, too, became

silent.

It was the last the brigade heard of the British artillery.

Meantime the enemy gun-fire had become intense, and the whole position

was smothered in dust and fumes. Men could not keep their rifles clean

because of the debris filling the air. The Germans were now some 750

yards from our front, but did not attempt for the moment to approach

closer, fearing the accuracy of the South African marksmanship. The

firing was mostly done at this time by Lewis guns, for the ammunition

had to be husbanded, and the men were ordered not to use their rifles

till the enemy was within 400 yards. The Germans attempted to bring a

field-gun into action at a range of 1,000 yards, but a Lewis gunner of

the 1st Regiment knocked out the team before the gun could be fired. A

little later another attempt was made, and a field-gun was brought

forward at a gallop. Once again the fire of the same Lewis gunner

proved its undoing. The team got out of hand, and men and horses went

down in a struggling mass.

This sight cheered the thin ranks of the defence, and about noon came

news which exalted every heart. General Tudor sent word that the 35th

Division had arrived at Bray-sur-Somme, and had been ordered to take up

position 1,000 yards in rear of the brigade. For a moment it seemed as

if they still might make good their stand. But the 35th Division was a

vain dream; it was never during that day within miles of the South

Africans. Dawson sent back a report on the situation to General Tudor.

It was the last communication of the brigade with the outer world.

At midday the frontal attack had been held, an attack on the south had

been beaten off, and also a very dangerous movement in the north. The

grass was as dry as tinder. The enemy had set fire to it, and, moving

behind the smoke as a screen, managed to work his way to within 200

yards of our position in the north. There, however, he was again

checked. But by this time the German thrust elsewhere on the front was

having successes. Already the enemy was in Combles on the north, and at

Peronne and Clery on the south. The 21st Division on the right had

gone, and the other brigades of the 9th Division on the South African

left were being forced back. At about 2.30 an officer, with some 30

men, began to withdraw on that flank, under the impression that a

general retirement had been ordered. As they passed headquarters, Major

Cochran and Captain Beverley, with Regimental Sergeant-Major Keith of

the 4th Regiment, went out under a concentrated machine-gun fire to stop

them. The party at once returned to the firing line, and were put into

shell-holes on the north flank. Unhappily Cochran was hit in the neck by

a machine-gun bullet and died within three minutes.

Early in the afternoon Dawson attempted to adjust his remnant. The

enemy now was about 200 yards from his front, and far in on his flank

and rear. Major Ormiston took out some 25 men as a flank-guard for the

left, in doing which he was dangerously wounded. All wounded men who

could hold a rifle were stopped on their way to the dressing-station and

sent back to the front line, and in no single instance did they show any

reluctance to return. Ammunition was conserved with noble parsimony,

and the last round was collected from those who had fallen. But it was

now clear that the enemy was well to the west of the brigade, for

snipers' fire began to come from the rear. Unless the miracle of

miracles happened, the limit of endurance must be reckoned not in hours

but in minutes. For the moment the most dangerous quarter seemed to be

the north, and Lieutenant Cooper of the 2nd Regiment, with 20 men, was

sent out to make a flank-guard in shell-holes 100 yards from brigade

headquarters. The little detachment did excellent work, but their

casualties were heavy, and frequent reinforcements had to be sent out to

them. Lieutenant Cooper himself was killed by a fragment of shell.

As it drew towards 3 o'clock there came a last flicker of hope. The

enemy in the north seemed to be retiring. The cry got up, "We can see

the Germans surrendering," and at the same time the enemy artillery

lengthened their range and put down a heavy barrage 700 yards to the

west of the brigade. It looked as if the 35th Division had arrived, and

for a little there was that violent revulsion of feeling which comes to

those who see an unlooked-for light in darkness. The hope was

short-lived. All that had happened was that the enemy machine-guns and

snipers to the west of the brigade were causing casualties to his own

troops to the east. He therefore assumed that they were British

reinforcements.

About this time Lieutenant-Colonel Heal, commanding the 1st Regiment,

was killed. He had already been twice wounded in the action, but

insisted on remaining with his men. He had in the highest degree every

quality which makes a fine soldier. I quote from a letter of one of his

officers: "By this time it was evident to all that we were bound to go

under, but even then Colonel Heal refused to be depressed. God knows

how he kept so cheery all through that hell; but right up to when I last

saw him, about five minutes before he was killed, he had a smile on his

face and a pleasant word for us all."

All afternoon the shell-fire had been terrific. A number of light

trench-mortars were also firing against the north-east corner of our

front and causing heavy losses. The casualties had been so high that

the whole line was now held only by a few isolated groups, and control

was impossible. About 4 o'clock Christian made his way to Dawson and

told him that he feared his men could not hold out much longer. Every

machine-gun and Lewis gun was out of action, the ammunition was nearly

gone, the rifles were choked, and the breaking-point of human endurance

had been reached. The spirit was still unconquered, but the body was

fainting.

Dawson had still the shadow of a hope that he might maintain his ground

until dark, and then fight his way out. Like all good soldiers in such

circumstances, he was harassed by doubts. The brigade was doomed; even

if the struggle could be protracted till dusk, only a fragment could

escape. Had he wished to withdraw he must have begun in the early

morning, as soon as the enemy appeared, for once the battle was joined

the position was a death trap. He had orders from the division to hold

his ground "at all costs"--a phrase often given a vague meaning in war,

but in this case taken literally. He wondered whether the stand might

be of value to the British front, or whether it was not a useless

sacrifice. He could only fall back for comfort on his instructions. He

wrote thus in his diary: "I cannot see that under the circumstances I

had any option but to remain till the end. Far better go down fighting

against heavy odds than that it should be said we failed to carry out

our orders. To retire would be against all the traditions of the

Service."

Some time after 4.15, enemy masses appeared to the north-east of brigade

headquarters. It was the final attack, for which three fresh battalions

had been brought up, and the assault was delivered in close formation.

There were now only 100 South Africans, some of them already wounded.

There was not a cartridge left in the front line, and very few anywhere

except in the pistols of the officers. Had they had ammunition they

might have held even this last attack; as it was, it could be met only

by a few scattered shots. The South Africans had resisted to the last

moment when resistance was possible; and now they had no weapon. The

Germans surged down upon a few knots of unarmed men. Dawson, with

Christian and Beverley, walked out in front of a group which had

gathered round them, and was greeted by the Germans with shouts of "Why

have you killed so many of us?" and "Why did you not surrender sooner?"

One man said, "Now we shall soon have peace," at which Dawson shook his

head. Before he went eastward into captivity he was allowed to find

Cochran's body and rescue his papers.

In all that amazing retreat, when our gossamer front refused to be

broken by the most overwhelming odds, no British division did more nobly

than the 9th. It held a crucial position in the line, and only by its

stubborn endurance was a breach between Gough and Byng prevented. Among

the brigades of the 9th, the chief brunt was borne by the South African.

Let us take the testimony of the enemy. During the German advance,

Captain Peirson, the brigade major of another division, was taken

prisoner. When he was examined at German headquarters an officer asked

him if he knew the 9th Division; for, said he, "we consider that the

fight put up by that division was one of the best on the whole of your

front, especially the last stand of the South African Brigade, which we

can only call magnificent." In the course of his journey to Le Cateau

Captain Peirson was spoken to by many German officers, all of whom

mentioned the wonderful resistance of the South Africans. There is a

still more striking tribute. On the road to Le Cateau a party of

British officers was stopped by the Emperor, who asked if any one

present belonged to the 9th Division. "I want to see a man of that

division," he said, "for if all divisions had fought as well as the 9th

I would not have had any troops left to carry on the attack."

It was no piece of fruitless gallantry. Dawson, as he was tramping

eastwards, saw a sight which told him that his decision had been right,

and that his work had not been in vain. The whole road for miles east

of Bouchavesnes was blocked by a continuous double line of transport and

guns, which proved that the South Africans had for over seven hours held

up not only a mass of German infantry, but all the artillery and

transport advancing on the Bouchavesnes-Combles highway. Indeed, it is

not too much to say that on that feverish Sabbath the stand of the

brigade saved the British front. It was the hour of Von der Marwitz's

most deadly thrust. While Gough was struggling at the Somme crossings,

the Third Army had been forced west of Morval and Bapaume, far over our

old battle-ground of the First Battle of the Somme. The breach between

the two armies was hourly widening. But for the self-sacrifice of the

brigade at Marrieres Wood and the delay in the German advance at its

most critical point, it is doubtful whether Byng could ever have

established that line on which, before the end of March, he held the

enemy.

*CHAPTER XI.*

*THE BATTLE OF THE LYS.*

By 6th April 1918 the great German thrust towards Amiens had failed, and

for the moment the gate of the Somme was closed. The city was under

fire, the enemy was before its gates, but his strength was exhausted and

he could not advance. Therefore his chief plan--of separating the French

and the British--had come to nought. Brought to a standstill, he cast

about for a diversion, for he could not permit the battle to decline

into a stalemate, since he was fighting against time. His main purpose

remained the same, but he sought to achieve it by a new method. He

would attack the British elsewhere, on some part of the front where they

were notoriously weak, and compel Foch to use up his reserves in its

defence. Then, when the Allied resources had shrunk, he would strike

again at the weakened door of Amiens. On the German side the operation

was meant to be merely subsidiary, designed to prepare the way for the

accomplishment of the main task farther south. They proposed to choose

a battle-ground where even a small force might obtain important results.

But so stoutly did the meagre British divisions resist that the enemy

was compelled to extend the battle well into May, to squander

thirty-five of his fresh divisions, and to forfeit for good his chance

of final victory.