All Saints' Day was nearly as quiet as the preceding forty-eight hours.
We re-established our trenches, and the Admiral reorganised his
regiments and transferred his headquarters to Oudecappelle. In his
journal Alfred de Nanteuil, who had been with our second line from the
day before, notices the truce from _marmites_, if not from shrapnel and
bullets, "singing past a little like summer flies." But farms were
blazing all round the vast horizon, lighting up the November night and
accentuating the fact that, although the enemy's attentions had changed
in form, they had put on no amenity. "One of my men," says De Nanteuil,
"found the severed hand of a small child in a German's knapsack...." And
at Eessen, where the _vicaire_ was a young priest of twenty-eight, the
Abbe Deman, his murderers amused themselves by forcing him to dig his
own grave before they shot him in the graveyard of his own church.[59]
A day later the temporary inertia of the enemy was explained. A few
_marmites_ on our trenches and on the farms occupied by our supply
services were not enough to deceive us. We had been aware for several
days of a continuous growling in the south-west, on the Ypres road. The
enemy had transferred a part of his forces towards Mercken, where he was
seeking contact with our Territorials and with the British troops. It
seemed a good opportunity to break the iron girdle which held us and to
afford some relief to our positions. The _moral_ of our men had never
been better. Rumours of a general offensive were current in the brigade,
and nothing stimulates the French soldier more than the hope of an
advance. On November 3 French aeroplanes passed over Dixmude, towards
the German lines, and a balloon was hanging in the sky towards the west.
"Happy omen!" wrote De Nanteuil. "We have been without such
encouragements all through the long defence.... Now my spirits rise.
Everything points to an advance. The _marmites_ have disappeared, for
which no one is sorry. I have been in the first line since last night.
The sun is shining; the lark is singing; the mud is drying. We are
fearful to behold. Relieved by the Belgians in the night, I have to find
and guide those who have to take the place of my company. On my way
back, worn out, I stop a barrel of Belgian soup and have a delicious
pull at it. My battalion is in reserve since last night. Passed the
night in a barn, men in the trench. To-day it has been a case of 'packs
on' ever since the morning."
"Where are we off to?" said this intrepid officer to himself. "Perhaps,"
he thought, "nowhere! Anyway, the guns are raging, and this time it is
our own beloved guns, which we have awaited so impatiently. I cannot
hear the others; I think it is all right."
Alfred de Nanteuil was not mistaken. This time it was our 75's which led
the dance. The General had decided that an attack should debouch from
the town "supported by a powerful mass of artillery and having for main
objective the Chateau on the road to Woumen, about a kilometre from
Dixmude." The attack was to be made by four battalions of infantry of
the 42nd Division, a Marine battalion under Commandant de Jonquieres
acting as support, and the rest of the brigade as reserve. The whole was
under the command of General Grossetti--Grossetti the invulnerable, as
he had been called ever since his splendid defence of Pervyse, where he
faced the shells sitting on a camp-stool.
The attack began about eight o'clock by an energetic clearing of the
whole position. There was, perhaps, some little hesitation in the
movements which followed. The fact is that by not moving off until
half-past eleven in the morning our infantry lost much of the advantage
given by the artillery preparation. The enemy had had time to pull
himself together. The eighth battalion of Chasseurs could not debouch
from the cemetery by the Woumen road until supported by the De
Jonquieres battalion. Then it was checked at the end of 200 metres. At
the same time the 151st Infantry had made good a similar advance on the
Eessen road. That was the total gain of the day. We renewed the
offensive at 3 next morning, but with no more success than the day
before. The attack always lacked "go." We scarcely advanced at all, well
supported as we were by our 75's, which once more showed their
superiority over the German artillery. The General now determined to
reinforce the attack with the whole 42nd Division and two fresh
battalions of Marines. A day was taken up by preparations for the
passage of the Yser, a kilometre below Dixmude. For this purpose two
flying bridges were brought down from the town. There was a thick fog,
the best sort of weather for such an operation. One of the Marine
battalions was directed to attack on a line parallel to the Yser. The
remaining two, crossing higher up, were to make straight for the
Chateau, while the 8th Chasseurs were to prolong the attack to the
north. Fifty guns concentrated their fire on the buildings and the
ground immediately about them. But this enchanted castle, with its
fougasses, its deep trenches, its lines of barbed wire, its loopholed
walls, its machine-guns on every storey, and its flanking fire, gave out
a sort of repelling electricity which had the effect, if not of
destroying the _elan_ of our troops, at least of curiously blunting it.
The ground, seamed with watercourses, was unfavourable, and trouble
brooded in the fog. In short, when night fell we were still a quarter of
a mile from the Chateau; we had not even reached the park. On the Eessen
side we had made no progress. Finally, the Belgians near Beerst, who
were defending the north front of Dixmude, sent word that they were no
longer enough to man the trenches, and the Admiral had to send to their
help two companies of the De Kerros battalion from the first reserve.
This unwelcome necessity was made up for by the arrival of two long
120-mm. pieces, which were at once put in battery south of the level
crossing at Caeskerke.
However, the night of November 5 was quiet all round Dixmude; but at
dawn the attack was renewed. This time we had good reason to hope for
success. Rising from the provisional trenches, our battalions moved
simultaneously in echelon across the plain. The charge sounded, shouts
of "Vive la France!" broke out, and, in spite of terrible machine-gun
and rifle fire, the farm and the park were carried with a rush. Our men
were at the foot of the Chateau. But there the rush was stopped.
Contrary to report, the Chateau was not taken. The internal defences had
been organised in the most formidable way, perhaps even before the war
began. The enemy left in our hands some hundred prisoners, who had been
barricaded in the pavilion at the main gate.[60] At nightfall the order
was given to retire. The De Jonquieres battalion returned to its
billets. The 42nd Division went off in another direction,[61] and the
brigade was again left alone at Dixmude with a handful of Senegalese and
the Belgians.[62]
[Illustration: (Newspaper Illustrations)
THE "KIEKENSTRAAT" (CHICKEN STREET) AFTER THE FIRST DAYS OF THE
BOMBARDMENT]
"We don't budge," writes De Nanteuil on November 6. "Our reinforcements
are being sent back. Visited the church and Hotel de Ville of Dixmude.
Frightful! They are nothing but shapeless ruins. There is not a whole
house left. Certain quarters are destroyed down to their very
foundations; they are nothing but heaps of stone and bricks.... Messina
is in better case than this unhappy town."