By PHILIP GIBBS.
[F] _From “The Battles of the Somme.” (Heinemann.)_
And now I must tell a little more in detail the story of the Guards in
this battle. It is hard to tell it, and not all can be told yet because
of the enemy. The Guards had their full share of the fighting, and of
the difficult ground, with strong forces against them. They knew that
would be so before they went into battle, and yet they did not ask
for better things but awaited the hour of attack with strong, gallant
hearts, quite sure of their courage, proud of their name, full of trust
in their officers, eager to give a smashing blow at the enemy.
These splendid men, so tall and proper, so hard and fine, went away as
one might imagine the old knights and yeomen of England at Agincourt.
For the first time in the history of the Coldstreamers, three
battalions of them charged in line, great solid waves of men, as fine
a sight as the world could show. Behind them were the Grenadiers, and
again behind these men the Irish.
They had not gone more than 200 yards before they came under the
enfilade fire of massed machine guns in trenches not previously
observed. The noise of this fire was so loud and savage that, although
hundreds of guns were firing, not a shot could be heard. It was just
the stabbing staccato hammering of the German Maxims. Men fell, but the
lines were not broken. Gaps were made in the ranks, but they closed up.
The wounded did not call for help, but cheered on those who swept past
and on, shouting “Go on, Lily-whites!”--which is the old name for the
Coldstreamers--“Get at ’em, Lily-whites!”
They went on at a hot pace with their bayonets lowered. Out of the
crumpled earth--all pits and holes and hillocks, torn up by great
gun-fire--grey figures rose and fled. They were German soldiers
terror-stricken by this rushing tide of men.
The Guards went on. Then they were checked by two lines of trenches,
wired and defended by machine guns and bombers. They came upon them
quicker than they expected. Some of the officers were puzzled. Could
these be the trenches marked out for attack--or other unknown trenches?
Anyhow, they must be taken--and the Guards took them by frontal assault
full in the face of continual blasts of machine-gun bullets.
There was hard and desperate fighting. The Germans defended themselves
to the death. They bombed our men, who attacked them with the bayonet,
served their machine guns until they were killed, and would only
surrender when our men were on top of them. It was a very bloody hour
or more. By that time the Irish Guards had joined the others. All the
Guards were together, and together they passed the trenches, swinging
left inevitably under the machine-gun fire which poured upon them from
their right, but going steadily deeper into the enemy country until
they were 2,000 yards from their starting place.
Then it was necessary to call a halt. Many officers and men had fallen.
To go farther would be absolute death. The troops on the right had been
utterly held up. The Guards were “up in the air” with an exposed flank,
open to all the fire that was flung upon them from the enemy’s lines.
The temptation to go farther was great. The German infantry was on the
run. They were dragging their guns away. There was a great panic among
the men who had been hiding in trenches. But the German machine gunners
kept to their posts to safeguard a rout, and the Guards had gone far
enough through their scourging bullets.
They decided very wisely to hold the line they had gained, and to dig
in where they stood, and to make forward posts with strong points.
They had killed a great number of Germans and taken 200 prisoners and
fought grandly. So now they halted and dug and took cover as best they
could in shell-craters and broken ground, under fierce fire from the
enemy’s guns.
The night was a dreadful one for the wounded, and for men who did their
best for the wounded, trying to be deaf to agonizing sounds. Many of
them had hairbreadth escapes from death. One young officer in the Irish
Guards lay in a shell-hole with two comrades, and then left it for a
while to cheer up other men lying in surrounding craters. When he came
back he found his two friends lying dead, blown to bits by a shell.
But in spite of all these bad hours the Guards kept cool, kept their
discipline, their courage, and their spirit. The Germans launched
counter-attacks against them, but were annihilated. The Guards held
their ground, and gained the greatest honour for self-sacrificing
courage which has ever given a special meaning to their name. They took
the share which all of us knew they would take in the greatest of all
our battles since the first day of July, and, with other regiments,
struck a vital blow at the enemy’s line of defence.
[Illustration: THE ADVANCE ON BAGHDAD: BATTLE ON THE DIALA RIVER.
_Reproduced by permission of “The Sphere.”_]