THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES
August 1 to September 6
Dreadful weather--German reaction--Attack of August 16--Advance of
Cavan's Corps--Capture of Langemarck--Dreadful losses of the two
Irish Divisions--Failure in the south--Splendid field-gunners--The
Forty-second Division upon September 6.
From the evening of July 31 till that of August 1, there were
intermittent and sporadic German attacks along the whole of the new
line, which were the more dangerous as the wretched weather made it
impossible for the aircraft to operate and the artillery support was
therefore unreliable. None the less, the wet and weary infantry
huddling in the puddles and ditches were not to be forced back. Only
at St. Julien, as already described, was there a temporary loss of
ground. In this quarter, the Thirty-ninth Division, especially the
118th Brigade, sustained very heavy losses, some of the battalions
being almost annihilated for military purposes. For days in
succession they lay in improvised trenches sodden and cold in the
pitiless rain, and when the rising waters drove them out they were
shot down by the enemy. None the less, the ground was held and the
abandoned village was regained.
{159}
Another point at which the German reaction was particularly severe
upon August 1 was near Bremen Redoubt and the Roulers Railway. Here
at 3.30 P.M. the enemy attacked with great valour, the blow falling
chiefly upon the 24th Brigade on the left of the Eighth and the 44th
on the right of the Fifteenth Divisions. The 10th Gordons, 2nd
Northamptons, and 1st Sherwood Foresters were for a time fighting for
their lives, the regimental staff of the Gordons having to defend the
burrow which served as Headquarters. The 7th Camerons were also
engaged in this desperate conflict which was fought ankle-deep in mud
and under driving rain-clouds. Finally a body of Highlanders under
Captain Geddes of the Gordons made so fierce a charge that the
Germans were driven back and abandoned the attempt in despair. Their
advance, however, had been so sudden and so fierce that there was a
time when the line was in grave danger. Captain Symon of the
Camerons did great work also in the charge which turned the tide.
Both Geddes and Symon were decorated for their valour.
From the first day of the battle the front had been quiet in the
sector of the Second Corps, save for constant reciprocal
bombardments, the Germans endeavouring to hinder consolidation, while
the British prepared for an advance upon Glencorse and Inverness
Woods. Upon August 10 an attempt was made to carry the line forward,
the Twenty-fifth Division advancing upon the left opposite to
Westhoek and the Eighteenth Division coming forward upon the right.
The operation was a local one, but was attended with some success,
the Twenty-fifth reaching their full objective and occupying the
village of {160} Westhoek. This attack was carried out by the 74th
Brigade, and was a model operation of the kind. Westhoek itself was
rushed by the 2nd Irish Rifles, but the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers on
the north did equally well, fighting their way to the advanced line
and capturing several houses with their garrisons. The 9th North
Lancashires had also a very fine day's work, but the 13th Cheshires,
coming up in support, lost heavily from the barrage which had been
too slow to catch the main attack. None the less the survivors made
their way to the extreme line, where they joined up with some 7th
Bedfords from the 54th Brigade to the south, and held a covering
flank so as to block any attack upon Westhoek. The Cheshires did
particularly well in this strenuous day's work, they and the
Fusiliers having repeated hand-to-hand fights with the German
counter-attacks. At one time a body of the Cheshires were quite cut
off, but they held their own with determined bravery until their
comrades rescued them. The Eighteenth Division were held up by the
heavy flanking fire from Inverness Copse. The left of the advance
got into the south-western edge of Glencorse Wood, touching the 74th
Brigade south of Westhoek, but the right brigade could not get
farther than the road east of Stirling Castle. On the whole,
however, it was a good advance, and in the meantime the Twenty-fourth
Division had drawn closer to Lower Star Post, the obstinate strong
point which had held up the 73rd Brigade upon July 31. The Germans
showed their resentment at these new advances by five counter-attacks
on the evening of August 10, all of which, especially the last, were
strongly pressed. These attacks were most strongly {161} made
against the 76th Brigade upon the left, but by the exertions of the
106th and 130th Field Companies Royal Engineers, and their pioneers,
the 6th South Wales Borderers, they had consolidated to such an
extent that they held out against extreme pressure. The 7th Bedfords
and 7th Queens in the front of the Eighteenth Division had also much
to endure, and were pushed to the very edge of Glencorse Wood. All
day the Irish Riflemen in Westhoek could see the Germans in small
bodies dribbling over into the Hannebeek valley in front of them
until in the evening a large force had accumulated. From ten in the
morning the drift had been going on. The 10th Cheshires and 3rd
Worcesters of the 7th Brigade had come up to thicken the attenuated
line, but the danger was threatening, and rockets and pigeons were
sent up to warn the guns. A very heavy barrage was laid down by them
and stopped the attack. The enemy could be seen running for safety
in every direction. At the same time an attack broke upon the 11th
Lancashire Fusiliers to the north. An isolated house, which was
occupied by a small party of this battalion, was so closely attacked
that three Germans were shot as they clambered through the windows,
but the North Countrymen stood fast, and forty-eight dead were picked
up round this post in the morning. This ended the enemy's attempts
to recover the lost ground. The fighting had been severe, and the
British losses were heavy. For a second time within a year the 13th
Cheshires had their commanding officer and every other officer of the
battalion upon the casualty list. When one reads such figures one
can ask with confidence whether all the exclusiveness of a special
{162} caste with its codes of honour and appeals to violence can
exceed the quiet courage of those civilian gentlemen who undertook
the leading of our new armies.
Six field-guns with 8 officers and 300 men were taken in this
Westhoek operation. The enemy consisted of the German Fifty-fourth
Reserve Division, and all accounts agree that both in defence and in
counter-attack their conduct was admirable.
The ground was still very wet and the conditions deplorable, but the
advance must be continued at all costs if the preparations were not
to be thrown away and winter to find us still within the old
pent-house of Ypres. By the end of the second week in August the
higher ground was beginning to dry, though the bogs in between were
already hardly passable. One more fortnight would be invaluable, but
Sir Douglas could not afford to waste another day. Upon August 16
the advance was renewed.
As the original attack had been from a concavity which was almost a
semicircle, and as it had encroached upon the German area round the
whole circumference, the result was that the front was now too large
for simultaneous attack, and the whole of the units of Plumer's Army
which had formerly taken part in the battle were now to the south of
the storm-area. The line of battle extended from the French
positions in the north down to the north-west corner of Inverness
Wood. Along this line the four corps of Cavan (Fourteenth), Maxse
(Eighteenth), Watts (Nineteenth), and Jacob (Second), were extended
in their former order. In each case the divisions which had borne
the brunt of July 31 were now in support, while the old supporting
divisions were in the line. As before, {163} we will take the corps
in their order from the north, premising that after the usual heavy
bombardment the attack began at 4.45 in the morning.
Of the French upon the extreme left of the line it can only be said
that they did all and more than they were asked to do. With the
grand, swift dash which is the characteristic of their infantry they
stormed the various fortified farms along the line of the Steenbeek,
though some of them held out long after the main lines of our Allies
had passed them. The two ends of the Bridge which crosses the stream
at the village of Drie-Grachten were secured, and the whole of the
peninsula made good.
The front of Cavan's Fourteenth Corps was formed by the grand old
Twenty-ninth Division upon the left, and the Twentieth Light
Division, the heroes of many fights, upon the right. Both divisions
lived up to their highest that day, which means that many a brave man
died at his highest to carry on the record. On the whole, the Mebus
or pill-boxes, the new German concrete forts, were less effective in
the north than in the south, which may have depended upon the general
lie of the country which gave them a shorter area of fire. Small
bodies of brave men--sometimes a single brave man--managed to get up
to them and to silence them by hurling a sudden bomb through the
porthole from which the gun protruded.
The advance of the Twenty-ninth Division was begun by crossing in the
early dawn the bridges thrown over the Steenbeek. Starting from the
line of the stream, the advanced mud-beplastered lines, extending as
they crossed country, coalescing as they concentrated upon any
obstacle, moved swiftly {164} forwards to their objectives, which
were taken in their entirety. Passerelle Farm was carried by the
veterans of the Twenty-ninth, and so was Martin's Mill upon the
right, many prisoners being sent to the rear. Another heave took
them across the grass-grown lines of the abandoned railway and on
into the hamlet of Wijdendrift, the line being established well to
the north-east of that place.
Whilst the Twenty-ninth Division had made this fine advance upon the
left, the Twentieth had done equally well upon the right, and had
ended their brilliant attack by storming after a short but sharp
contest the village of Langemarck, that old battle centre of 1914.
The start of the attack was as fine as its execution, for the two
brigades were marshalled into their positions in pitch darkness upon
ground which was bewildering in its badness, close under the untaken
redoubt of Au Bon Gite, whose garrison at any moment might give the
alarm. So silent was the operation that the enemy was utterly
ignorant of it, though they kept up a continual machine-gun fire all
night which made the assemblage even more difficult. In the early
dawn the German fort was rushed by two companies of the 11th Rifle
Brigade under Captain Slade.
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{165}
[Illustration: LINE OF BATTLE, August 16, 1917]
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Then keeping within thirty yards of the barrage the attack moved
forward as best it might through the swamps. The 60th Brigade was on
the right and the 61st upon the left. The latter had never yet
failed to carry its objective, and now it surged through the village
of Langemarck and out at the farther side. The 12th King's Liverpool
with the 7th Battalion of the Sussex, Durham, and {166} Yorkshire
Light Infantry were the heroes of this exploit. The German colonel
commanding the 3rd Battalion 261st Regiment, and a crowd of very
shaken prisoners from the 79th Prussian Reserve Division were picked
out of the ruins. On the right the 60th Brigade had made an equally
fine advance, the King's Royal Rifles being on the flank in touch
with the 12th King's Liverpool, with the 6th Shropshires on their
right, while the 6th Oxford and Bucks, cleared up the numerous
pill-boxes at Au Bon Gite on the banks of the Steenbeek. There were
many casualties in the advance, including Colonel Prioleau of the
Rifle Brigade, caused chiefly by the fire of the murderous Mebus
which studded the ground. These were engaged by small groups of men,
specially trained for the work, who frequently, by their cool,
purposeful courage, succeeded in silencing what would seem to be an
impenetrable stronghold. Sergeant Cooper of the Rifles attacked one
of these places with twelve men, and had his whole party shot down.
None the less, he closed with it, and firing through the loop-hole
with a borrowed revolver, he caused the surrender of the garrison of
forty men with seven guns, winning his V.C. Such deeds were done all
along the line, and without them the advance must have been held up.
Finally the 60th Brigade established themselves upon the line of
Langemarck, in touch with the captors of the village, but in the late
afternoon a heavy German attack broke in between the King's
Liverpools and the Rifles, annihilating the left flank Company of the
latter battalion, which fought desperately to the end under Captain
Dove, who was among those who fell. So critical was the situation at
one time that a defensive flank 200 yards {167} in length was held by
an officer and fifteen men, with hardly any cartridges in their
pouches. Touch was kept, however, between the two Brigades, and
before evening they had dug in and consolidated the new position.
There had been victory along all this front, and by sunset the whole
of the objectives of the Fourteenth Corps, with the exception of a
small length of trench to the north-east of Langemarck, were in the
hands of Cavan's infantry.
Maxse's Eighteenth Corps was formed by the Eleventh Division upon the
left, and the Forty-eighth South Midland Territorials upon the right.
The advance was over the Langemarck-Zonnebeke Road, and on over
broken Mebus-studded country with no village nor even any farm-house
to give a name and dignity to the considerable gain of ground. The
advance was, though not complete, of great tactical importance, as it
screened the flank of the successful corps in the North.
Brilliant success had marked the operations of the Fourteenth Corps,
and modified success those of the Eighteenth. In the case of the
four gallant divisions which formed the front of the Nineteenth and
Second Corps, it can hardly be said that they had any gains, while
their losses were always heavy, and in some cases simply disastrous.
Yet, conditions of weather, and ground and position being what they
were, it was impossible to impute a shadow of blame to officers or
men, who faced a difficult and often an impossible task with the
spirit of heroes. To show how desperate that task was, and the
extraordinary punishment which was endured by the infantry, the
narrative of the Sixteenth and Thirty-sixth Divisions which formed
Watts' Corps may be told at greater length. {168} The Sixteenth
which is treated first was on the right of the Corps in the
Frezenberg sector of the attack.
This division, which had occupied under torrential rain and heavy
fire the Frezenberg Ridge since August 4, was much exhausted before
the advance began. The losses had fallen mainly upon the 47th
Brigade, which had held the line, but the attacking brigades which
now took its place were by no means immune. On the day before the
battle, Brigadier-General Leveson-Gower of the 49th Brigade and
practically all his staff became casualties from gas poisoning, and
the command had to be taken over by the C.O. of the Irish Fusiliers.
So heavy was the pressure upon the division that 107 officers and
1900 men were on the casualty lists before the advance had begun.
None the less, the spirit of the troops was high, and all were eager
for the clash. On August 16 the attack was made at 4.45 in the
morning, the Thirty-sixth North of Ireland Division being on the left
and the Eighth upon the right of the Sixteenth Division. It was upon
a two-brigade front, the 48th being on the right and the 49th upon
the left. So difficult were the conditions that it was only a
quarter of an hour before zero that the concentration was complete,
most of the troops being more fit for a rest than for a battle.
The line of advance was formed by the 7th Irish Rifles and 9th Dublin
Fusiliers upon the right, while the 7th and 8th Inniskilling
Fusiliers were on the left. At the signal they went forward over
very heavy ground, the barrage slowing down to five minutes per
hundred yards. We shall first follow the right attack.
Both the Irish Rifles and the Dublin Fusiliers {169} found themselves
at once within the sweep of numerous machine-guns which caused very
heavy casualties. The Rifles for a time were in touch with the 2nd
Middlesex of the Eighth Division upon their right, but the latter got
caught in their own barrage with the result that it had to fall back.
The Rifles, who had lost practically every officer, moved down the
railway and across the Hannebeek, but were so reduced in number that
it was not possible for the few survivors to hold the German
counter-attack advancing about 4 P.M. from Zonnebeke. The Dublin
Fusiliers, who had wilted under a heavy enfilade fire from Vampire
Farm and Bremen Redoubt, were in equally bad case, and all officers
and orderlies who tried to get forward to the assaulting companies
were killed or wounded. Two companies of the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers
which came up in support shared in the catastrophe and were
practically annihilated. Of one company two officers and three men
survived unscathed. Of another one non-commissioned officer and ten
men. Such figures will show the absolute devotion with which the
Irishmen stuck to their work and are not, so far as can be known,
exceeded by any losses endured by considerable units during the war.
Some of these scattered remains lay out until the evening of August
17, endeavouring to hold a new line, until after dusk they fell back
to the trenches from which they had started.
On the left the Inniskilling Fusiliers got away in fine style with
the 7/8th Irish Fusiliers in close support moving so swiftly that
they avoided the German barrage. Beck House and other strong points
were rapidly taken. A fort named Borry Farm upon the right could not
be reduced, however, {170} and its five machine-guns raked the
advancing lines. Three separate attacks upon the concrete
emplacements of this position all ended in failure. Part of the
attacking force remained in front of the untaken position, while
another portion passed it on the north side working on to the
neighbourhood of Zevenkote. At this side there had been more success
as the 7th Inniskillings had taken Iberian Trench and consolidated
it. Thence they moved forward to the eminence called Hill 37, but
met with heavy blasts of fire from that position and from Zonnebeke.
The enemy now counter-attacked from Hill 37, and as the left flank of
the Inniskillings was entirely exposed, since they had outrun the
Ulster men upon their left, they were forced to retire to a position
at Delva Farm. This was untenable, however, since both flanks were
now exposed, so the whole line fell back to Iberian Trench. This,
however, proved to be also impossible to hold on account of the truly
terrible losses. In the whole force in that quarter of the field
only one officer seems to have been left standing. Both the 8th
Fusiliers upon the right and the Ulster men upon the left had
retired, and by 9.30 A.M. there was no alternative for the shattered
remnants of the 49th Brigade but to seek the shelter of their own
line, while the 6th Connaughts and 7th Leinsters were brought up to
support them. Of the 7th Inniskillings there were left one wounded
officer and no formed body of men at all, while no other battalion of
the brigade was of greater strength than half a company. It was
indeed a dreadful day in all this Southern section of the line. The
losses had been so heavy that no further attack could be organised,
and in spite of the fact that scattered men were still lying {171}
out, it was impossible to form a new line. Upon the night of August
17 the Fifteenth Division came forward again to relieve the exhausted
but heroic infantry, who had done all that men could do, and more
than men could be expected to do, but all in vain.
Nor had their brother Irishmen of the Thirty-sixth Division upon
their left any better fortune. The failure of one division may
always be due to some inherent weakness of its own, but when four
divisions in line, of the calibre of the Thirty-sixth, Sixteenth,
Eighth, and Fifty-sixth all fail, then it can clearly be said, as on
the first day of the Somme Battle, that they were faced by the
impossible. This impossible obstacle took the immediate form of many
concrete gun emplacements arranged chequer-wise across the front,
each holding five guns. But the contributory causes in the case of
all the divisions except the Fifty-sixth was their long exposure in
dreadful weather to a sustained bombardment which would have shaken
the nerves of any troops in the world, apart from thinning their
ranks. In the Sixteenth Division alone 1200 men were under treatment
for trench fever and swollen feet, besides the heavy losses from
shell fire.
The fortunes of the Thirty-sixth Ulster Division were in all ways
similar to those of the Sixteenth. There was the same initial
advance, the same experience of devastating fire from concrete strong
points, the same slaughter, and the same retreat of a few survivors
over ground which was dotted with the bodies of their comrades. Upon
the right the attack was urged by the 108th Brigade with the 9th
Irish Fusiliers upon the right and {172} the Irish Rifles upon the
left, with two other battalions of the same regiment in support. The
attack starting from the line of Pommern Castle got forward as far as
Gallipoli Farm, but there it was faced by a machine-gun fire, coming
chiefly from Hill 35, which was simply annihilating in its effect.
Only the remains of the 9th Irish Fusiliers ever got back to their
original line. For many hours the Irish Rifles held on to the rising
ground to the north-east of Pommern Castle, but by four in the
afternoon the shattered 108th Brigade was back in its own trenches.
The attack of Jacob's Second Corps was carried out upon August 16 by
two divisions, the Eighth (which had relieved the Twenty-fifth) in
the Ypres-Roulers Railway-Westhoek line, and the Fifty-sixth London
Territorials which had relieved the Eighteenth Division in the
Glencorse Wood-Stirling Castle line.
The Eighth Division advanced with the 23rd Brigade upon the left and
the 25th upon the right. The barrage was excellent, the infantry
were on the top of their form, and all went well. Starting at 4.45
A.M., within an hour they had taken Zonnebeke Redoubt, Iron Cross
Redoubt, and Anzac. This marked their limit, however, for heavy
machine-gun fire was sweeping across from machine-gun emplacements of
concrete in Nonneboschen Wood in the south. The right flank of the
25th Brigade fell back therefore to the line of the Hannebeek, and
the stormers of Zonnebeke Redoubt, men of the 2nd West Yorkshire,
were compelled to fall back also to the same line. The Germans were
now in an aggressive mood, and were seen several times advancing in
large numbers down the wooded slopes in front of the British
positions, but were always stopped by the heavy barrage. {173} About
2.30 P.M. their pressure caused a short retirement, and the situation
was made more difficult by the failure of the 23rd Brigade to find
touch with the division upon their left. The pressure of the
counter-attacks still continued, and the German losses were heavy,
but the machine-gun fire was so deadly in the exposed Hannebeek
Valley that a further withdrawal was ordered until the troops were
almost in the line from which they had started.
The advance of the Fifty-sixth Division upon the right could not be
said to be more successful. The 167th Brigade were on the left, the
169th in the centre with the desperate task of carrying Nonnebosch
and Glencorse, while the hard-worked 53rd Brigade of the Eighteenth
Division was detailed to form a defensive flank upon the south. It
was really the failure of this attack which contributed greatly to
the failure of the whole, for there was a strong point at the
north-west corner of Inverness Copse with strong machine-gun
emplacements which could sweep the area to the north over a wide arc.
Thus all the troops north of this point were faced from the start by
a devastating fire. The 167th Brigade got well forward to Nonne
Boschen, but was stopped by bogs and so fell behind the barrage. On
the left they reached Albert Redoubt, but were driven in by a strong
counter-attack. The 169th reached the east end of Glencorse Wood
where they killed many Germans and captured sixty gunners, but the
counter-attacks gradually drove the line back to whence it started.
A German officer captured a few days later has described how he saw
the London men, mostly without officers, walking slowly back in front
of his advance. It was a day of hard slogging upon this sector with
very {174} little to show for it. So serious were the losses of the
Fifty-sixth Division that the Fourteenth Division took its place next
day, while the other London Territorial unit, the Forty-seventh
Division (Gorringe) took over the line of the hard-worked Eighth.
Thus we have passed down the whole line upon August 16, and have
noted the victory of the north, the stalemate of the centre, and the
failure on the south. There can be no doubt that the losses of the
British were very much in excess of those of the Germans, for the
line of the latter could be held cheaply owing to the Mebus system
which presented a new and formidable problem for the British
generals. On the other hand the actual trophies of victory lay with
the attack, since in the north they had possessed themselves of the
German third line, and had captured 30 guns with more than 2000
prisoners.
During the wet and miserable fortnight which followed this engagement
the British line was advanced at many points by local operations,
each small in itself but yielding in the aggregate some hundreds of
prisoners, and representing a gain of ground of about 800 yards for
two miles upon the St. Julien front. The Eleventh and Forty-eighth
Divisions which still held this sector were responsible for the
greater part of this advance which was carried out by three efforts,
upon August 19, 22, and 27. Upon the earlier date the advance of the
South Midlanders was particularly fine, when the 145th Brigade was
heavily engaged, the Gloucesters and Buckinghams leading a fine
assault which gained an appreciable section of ground. The bombing
parties of the 4th Berkshires, a battalion recruited from Reading,
did particularly good service, {175} following up the first line and
reducing a number of strong points which had been left untaken. The
losses among the stormers were heavy, but the results were
substantial and there were some hundreds of prisoners. Especially
fine during this and subsequent actions was the conduct of the
field-gunners, British, Canadian, and Australian, who habitually
worked their guns in the open with their horses in attendance,
changing positions, advancing and unlimbering in the good old fashion
with no attempt at camouflage, and defiant of the German shells or
aeroplanes. The team-drivers had little to do in the war up to now,
but when their chance came they and their gallant horses went through
the barrage and the poison clouds as if they were no more than London
fogs. The admiration of the gunners for each other was mutual. Mr.
Bean, the Australian chronicler, narrates how a British artillery
Major complimented the neighbouring Australian battery saying: "We
could not believe you could carry on in such a fire": to which the
Australian Major replied: "Well, do you know, we were thinking
exactly the same thing about you." Of such are the ties of Empire.
On August 22 the Fourteenth Division carried out an attack upon
Glencorse and Inverness Woods, going over the top at 7 A.M. The 42nd
Brigade was on the left facing Glencorse, the 43rd upon the right
facing Inverness. The light infantry battalions went forward in fine
style, the 5th Shropshires and 6th Cornwalls upon the left carrying
all before them and attaining their full objective, which was
strictly limited in its extent. This was held and consolidated. The
6th Somersets and 10th Durhams went forward on the right, but the
{176} fighting was severe and the progress slow. None the less it
was sure, and before evening the greater part of Inverness Copse was
in the hands of these four battalions, together with nearly 200
prisoners. An to attempt next morning, August 23, to capture
Fitz-Clarence Farm, just north of Inverness Copse, though supported
by three tanks, was not a success, two of the tanks being hit by
gun-fire and the third reaching the Farm without any infantry at its
heels. At the same time a counter-attack upon the 5th Shropshires
was beaten back by rifle fire. On the next day there was still heavy
fighting in this sector, for the Germans could not bear to give up
this wood, and made many attempts to regain it. The 42nd Brigade
held every inch of their line in Glencorse, but the 43rd were pushed
back to the western edge of Inverness where they held on.
There had been a slight forward movement upon each side of the
Fourteenth Division during these three days of battle, the
Forty-seventh Division taking an advanced line in the north, while
the steadfast Twenty-fourth, still in the line of battle, came
forward in the south. The 17th Brigade upon the right of the
Fourteenth Division guarded its flank during the advance, and a
dashing exploit was performed by one of its officers, Lieutenant
Stonebanks of the 1st Royal Fusiliers, who took a strong point with
its garrison by a sudden attack, so gaining his cross.
Among the other operations which were carried out between the larger
engagements in the hope of improving the local position were a series
which covered the ground from Fortuin in the north to the south of
the Roulers Railway. This point, which was still occupied by the
Nineteenth Corps, was {177} covered upon the left by the Sixty-first
Division, a second line English Territorial unit, which faced Hill
35, while on the right the Fifteenth Division had come back into the
battle once more. These two divisions made two advances upon August
22 and upon August 27 in an endeavour to enlarge their front, but
neither was successful. Early in September the Forty-second
Division, which had returned with a considerable reputation from
Gallipoli, took the place of the hard-worked Fifteenth. Upon
September 6 they again endeavoured to get forward, but the fact that
Hill 37 on their left flank had not been taken proved fatal to their
advance. The ground was swept from this position of vantage so that
when the Forty-second Division went forward upon September 6 to try
and storm the line of farms, Iberian, Beck, and Borry, which lay in
front of them, they were smitten on their left flank by this deadly
fire and suffered heavy losses--the more heavy because with heroic
tenacity they held to their task long after its failure was
inevitable. The 125th Brigade showed an intrepidity in this attack
which in any former war would have been historical, but in this
prolonged exhibition of human and military virtue does but take its
place among many as good. The 5th and 6th Lancashire Fusiliers who
led the stormers had practically ceased to exist after the action,
while the 7th and 8th in support had heavy losses. The general
lesson of such attacks would seem to be here, as on the Somme, that
it is better to wait for a general advance in order to rectify
inequalities of the line, rather than to approach them by local
attacks--also that an untaken strong point upon the flank is
absolutely fatal to any isolated {178} effort. From this time
onwards the line was quiet, making preparation for the great coming
attack.
On the rest of the Allied battle-line the principal event of August
was a successful Italian attack to upon the Isonzo Front beginning
upon August 19, which not only gained ground but brought in no less
than 20,000 prisoners. On the Verdun Front upon August 20 the French
had a fine little victory, winning back the last remains of what they
had lost in the great struggle, and taking over 5000 prisoners.
Since April 9 the Allied gains in prisoners had been British 45,000,
French 43,000, Italians 40,000, Russians 33,000. The British at this
date held 102,000 Germans as against 43,000 British prisoners held by
the Germans.
[Illustration: THE YPRES FRONT]
{179}