The little lace-making town, the younger sister of Mechlin and Bruges,
had not suffered as much as we had feared. The rattle of the bobbins was
no longer to be heard on the doorsteps; certain houses showed the
stigmata of preliminary martyrdom in their empty window-frames and
blackened facades. But her heart beat still, and around her, in the
great open conservatory which forms the outskirts of Ghent, Autumn had
gathered all her floral splendours. "We marched through fields of
magnificent begonias, among which we are perhaps about to die," wrote
Fusilier R. To die among flowers like a young girl seems a strange
destiny for the conventional sailor--the typical sea-dog with a face
tanned by sun and spray. But the majority of the recruits of the brigade
bore little resemblance to the type. Their clear eyes looked out of
faces but slightly sunburnt; the famous "Marie-Louises" were hardly
younger.[10] Their swaying walk and a touch of femininity and coquetry
in the precocious development of their muscular vigour explain the
nickname given them by the heavy Teutons, to whom they were as
disconcerting as an apparition of boyish Walkyries: _the young ladies
with the red pompons_! The Admiral, who had just reconnoitred the
position, was conferring with his lieutenants on the spot; a fraction of
the 2nd Regiment, under Commander Varney, was to take up a position
between Gontrode and Quatrecht, leaving a battalion in reserve to the
north of Melle; a fraction of the 1st Regiment, under Commander Delage,
was to advance between Heusden and Goudenhaut, and to leave a battalion
in reserve at Destelbergen. He himself would keep with him as general
reserve, at the cross-roads of Schelde, which was to be his post of
command, the rest of the brigade, that is to say, two battalions and the
machine-gun company.
The convoys, with the exception of the ambulances commanded by
Staff-Surgeon Seguin, were to stay in the rear, at the gates of Ghent.
This was an indispensable precaution in view of a rapid retreat, which,
however, the Admiral had no intention of carrying out until he had
sufficiently broken the shock of the enemy's onslaught.
Thanks to our reinforcements, the Belgian troops were able to extend
their front as much as was necessary by occupying Lemberge and
Schellerode. The artillery of the 4th mixed Brigade, emplaced near
Lendenhock, commanded the approaches of the plain. No trace of the enemy
was to be seen. But the Belgian cyclist scouts had brought in word that
the German vanguard had crossed the Dendre. We had only just time to
occupy our trenches; in the last resort, if it should be necessary to
fall back on Melle, we should find a ready-made epaulement in the
railway embankment near the station bridge.
Antwerp was burning, and the civic authorities were parleying over its
surrender; the English forces and the last Belgian division had
fortunately been able to leave the town during the night; they blew up
the bridges behind them, and made for Saint Nicolas by forced marches,
arriving there at dawn. They hoped to reach Eeclo by evening. But the
enemy was hard in pursuit; a party of German cavalry was sighted at Zele
and near Wetteren, where they crossed the Scheldt on a bridge of boats.
At the village of Basteloere they fell in with the Belgian outposts,
whose artillery stopped them for the time; other forces, further to the
north, advanced in the district of Wais as far as Loochristi, 10
kilometres from Ghent. Part of these came from Alost, the rest from
Antwerp itself; but the bulk of the German troops remained at Antwerp,
to our great satisfaction.
An enemy less arrogant or less bent on theatrical effect would
undoubtedly have thrown his whole available forces on the rear of the
retreat; the Germans preferred to make a sensational entry into
Antwerp, with fifes sounding and ensigns spread.[11]
Simultaneously, the troops they had detached at Alost had their first
encounter with the 2nd Regiment of the Brigade. They were expected, and
a few well-directed volleys sufficed to check their ardour. To quote one
of our Fusiliers, "they fell like ninepins" at each discharge. "There
was plenty of whistling round our heads, too," writes another of the
combatants, who expresses his regret at having been unable "to grease
his bayonet in the bellies of the Germans." He had his chance later. The
enemy returned in force, and Commander Varney thought it advisable to
call up his reserve, which was at once replaced at Melle by a battalion
of the general reserve. "There was," says Dr. Caradec, "a certain gun
which was run up by the Germans about 800 metres from the trenches; it
had only just fired its fourth shot when we blew up its team and its
gunners. They were not able to get it away till nightfall." Indeed,
generally speaking, the enemy's fire, which was too long in range, did
very little damage to us in the course of this battle; the town did not
suffer appreciably, and only three shells struck the church. Towards six
o'clock the attack ceased. Night was falling; a slight mist floated over
the fields, and the enemy took advantage of it to solidify his position.
Pretending to retire, he remained close at hand, occupying the woods,
the houses, the hedges, the farmyards, and every obstacle on the ground.
These were unequivocal signs of a speedy resumption of the offensive.
Commander Varney, whose contingents bore the brunt of the pressure, was
not deceived and kept a sharp look-out. The men were forbidden to stir;
they were told that they must eat when they could. Besides, they had
nothing for a meal. "It was not until midnight," says Fusilier R., "that
I was able to get a little bread; I offered some of it to my Commander,
who accepted it thankfully." The mist lifted, but it was still very
dark. Black night on every hand, save down by Quatrecht, where two
torches were blazing, two farms that had been fired. The men listened,
straining their ears. It was just a watch, on land instead of at sea.
But nothing stirred till 9 o'clock. Then suddenly the veil was rent:
shells with luminous fuses burst a few yards from the trenches; the
enemy had received artillery reinforcements; our position was soon to
become untenable. "We saw the Boches by the light of the shells,
creeping along the hedges and houses like rats. We fired into the mass,
and brought them down in heaps, but they kept on advancing. The
Commander was unwilling for us to expose ourselves further; he gave
orders to abandon Gontrode and fall back a little further upon Melle,
behind the railway bank."[12]
We lost a few men in the retreat. But our position was excellent.
About 60 metres from the trenches our machine-guns poured out hell-fire
on the enemy, whom we had allowed to approach. A splendid charge by the
Fusiliers completed his discomfiture. It was four in the morning. At 7
a.m. our patrols brought us word that Gontrode and Quatrecht were
evacuated; the Germans had not even stopped to pick up their wounded.
The Fusiliers did this good office for them when they went to reoccupy
Gontrode, taking the opportunity to collect a good number of German
helmets.[13] Meanwhile the brigade had passed under the command of
General Capper, of the 7th English Division, who had just arrived at
Ghent, where his men received an ovation like that bestowed on our own
sailors. Indeed, there is a strong likeness between them. The Englishmen
in their dark dun-coloured uniform, with their clear eyes and rhythmic
gait, are also of an ocean race, and do not forget it. They swung along,
their rifles under their arms, or held by the barrel against their
shoulders like oars, singing the popular air adopted by the whole
British army:
_It's a long, long way to Tipperary._
Apparently Ghent lies on the road to this goal, for the _Tommies_ can
never have been gayer. These fine troops, which advanced to the firing
line as if they had been going to a Thames regatta, were the admiration
not only of the citizens of Ghent, but of our own sailors, who felt an
unexpected tenderness for them. Had not the hereditary foe become our
staunchest ally? "We look upon them as brothers," wrote a sailor of the
Passage Lauriec to his family next day.
Reinforced by two of their battalions and the Belgian troops of the
sector, we were ordered to hold our former positions in the loop of the
Scheldt. But towards noon, after a visit from a Taube, the enemy
developed such a fierce attack upon Gontrode and Quatrecht that at the
end of the day we had to repeat the manoeuvre of the preceding day and
fall back upon the railway bank. Here at least the German offensive
spent itself in vain upon the glacis of this natural redoubt, defended
with conspicuous gallantry by Commander Varney's three battalions. The
rest of the night was quiet; the reliefs came into the trenches normally
at dawn, and those who wished were free to go to church. It was a
Sunday. "I have been to mass in a very pretty little church," wrote
Seaman F., of the Isle of Sein. The day passed very well. In the evening
after supper we went to bed. Scarcely had we lain down upon the straw
when the order was given to turn out again.
We were to beat a retreat, and it was time. The apparent inactivity of
the enemy during this day of the 11th of October was explained by his
desire to turn our position and surround us with all his forces in the
loop of the Scheldt. On both banks of the river, down-stream and to the
south, long grey lines were writhing. It was a question whether it would
be wise to expose ourselves further, and to give the enemy a pretext for
bombarding Ghent, an open town, which we had decided not to defend. Had
we not achieved our main object, since our resistance of the previous
days had given the Belgian army forty-eight hours' start? Headquarters
acknowledged that we had carried out our mission unfalteringly. From the
moment when they first came into touch with the enemy the Naval
Fusiliers had behaved with the firmness and endurance of tried troops,
like "old growlers," as Fusilier R. said. Twice the German infantry had
given way to their irresistible charge. This gave good hope for the
future.
Our own casualties had been inconsiderable. Ten of our men had been
killed, among them Naval Lieutenant Le Douget, who had been in the
trenches, with his company, and who had been mortally wounded by a
bullet as he was falling back on the railway embankment; we had 39
wounded and one missing, whereas, according to the official
_communique_, the enemy's losses were 200 killed and 50 prisoners.[14]
Melle was not a great battle, but it was a victory, "our first victory,"
said the men proudly, the first canto of their Iliad. And the troops
which gained this victory were under fire for the first time. They came
from the five ports, mainly from Brittany, which provides four-fifths of
the combatants for naval warfare. And the majority of them, setting
aside a few warrant-officers, were young apprentices taken from the
depots before they had finished their training, but well stiffened by
non-commissioned officers of the active list and the reserve. The
officers themselves, with the exception of the commanders of the two
regiments (Captains Delage and Varney), who ranked as colonels, and the
battalion commanders (Captains Rabot, Marcotte de Sainte-Marie, and De
Kerros, 1st Regiment; Jeanniot, Pugliesi-Conti, and Mauros, 2nd
Regiment), belonged for the most part to the Naval Reserve. It was, in
fact, a singular army, composed almost entirely of recruits and
veterans, callow youths and greybeards. There were even some novices of
the Society of Jesus, Father de Blic and Father Poisson,[15] serving as
sub-lieutenants, and a former Radical deputy, Dr. Plouzane,[16] who
acted as surgeon. The percentage of casualties was very high among the
older men at the beginning of the campaign, and this has been made a
reproach to them. If a great many officers fell, it was not due to
bravado, still less to ignorance of the profession of arms, as has been
suggested[17]; but leaders must preach by example, and there is only one
way of teaching others to die bravely. We must not forget that their men
were recruits, without homogeneity, without experience, almost without
training. The _moral_ of troops depends on that of their chiefs. "If you
go about speaking to no one, sad and pensive," said Monluc, "even if all
your men had the hearts of lions, you would turn them into sheep." This
was certainly the opinion of the officers of the brigade, and notably of
him who commanded the 2nd Regiment, Captain Varney, "always in the
breach," according to an eye-witness, "going on foot to the first lines
and the outposts and even beyond them, as at Melle. Here," adds the
narrator, "he was on an armoured car, but ... on the step, entirely
without cover, to give confidence to his men." One of the officers of
his regiment, Lieutenant Gouin,[18] wounded in the foot in the same
encounter, refused to go to the ambulance until the enemy began to
retreat; Second-Lieutenant Gautier,[19] commanding a machine-gun
section, allowed a German attack to advance to within 60 metres, "to
teach the gunners not to squander their ammunition," and when wounded in
the head, said: "What does it matter, since every one of my 502 bullets
found its billet?"
Moreover, the chief of these gallant fellows, Rear-Admiral Ronarc'h,
had proved himself a strategist on other battle-fields; the Minister's
choice was due neither to complaisance nor to chance.
Admiral Ronarc'h is a Breton; his guttural, sonorous name is almost a
birth-certificate. And physically the man answers exactly to the image
evoked by his name and race. His short, sturdy, broad-shouldered figure
is crowned by a rugged, resolute head, the planes strongly marked, but
refined, and even slightly ironical; he has the true Celtic eyes,
slightly veiled, which seem always to be looking at things afar off or
within; morally he is, as one of his officers says: "a furze-bush of the
cliffs, one of those plants that flourish in rough winds and poor soil,
that strike root among the crevices of granite rocks and can never be
detached from them: Breton obstinacy in all its strength, but a calm,
reflective obstinacy, very sober in its outward manifestations, and
concentrating all the resources of a mind very apt in turning the most
unpromising elements to account upon its object."[20] It is rather
remarkable that all the great leaders in this war are taciturn and
thoughtful men; never has the antithesis of deeds and words been more
strongly marked. It has been noted elsewhere that Admiral Ronarc'h,
though a very distinguished sailor,[21] seems destined to fight mainly
as a soldier in war; as a naval lieutenant and adjutant-major to
Commander de Marolles, he accompanied the Seymour column sent to the
relief of the European Legations when the Boxers besieged them in Pekin.
The column, which was too weak, though it was composed of sailors of the
four European naval divisions stationed in Chinese waters, was obliged
to fall back hurriedly towards the coast. It was almost a defeat, in the
course of which the detachments of the Allied divisions lost a great
many men and all the artillery they had landed. The French detachment
was the only one which brought off its guns. The author of this fine
strategic manoeuvre was rewarded by promotion to the command of a
frigate; he was then 37 years old. At the date of his promotion (March
23, 1902) he was the youngest officer of his rank. At 49, in spite of
his grizzled moustache and "imperial," he is the youngest of our
admirals. He attained his present rank in June, 1914, and was almost
immediately called upon to form the Marine Brigade.