WEDNESDAY, THE 26TH OF AUGUST
(_continued_)
_A many of our bodies shall, no doubt
Find native graves; upon the which, I trust,
Shall witness live in brass of this day's work;
And those that leave their valiant bones in France,
Dying like men, ...
They shall be fam'd._
By midday the tide of battle had begun to roll southwards, though only
by a very little. The British lines were forced back, a mile here,
half a mile there, but they still held on with superhuman energy and
determination. And not only did they hold on, but, wherever there was
the least chance, a regiment or cavalry squadron would launch a
counter-attack. But it all seemed so hopeless, just as one might throw
pebbles into the waves of the sea as they break upon a beach.
Some day it is to be hoped that an adequate record will be published of
the remarkable work which the cavalry performed during the Retreat.
Sir John French, perhaps because he was himself a cavalry leader,
hardly mentions them in his first dispatch. Wherever they were most
wanted, there they were in the thick of the fighting. How the horses
"carried on" and where and how fresh animals were obtained remains a
mystery, in view of the muddle in which everything was.
But where every unit and every man worked as they did, it seems almost
invidious to single out for mention any particular regiment or episode.
Take a single half-hour of the fighting on the left, and you have an
example of what was repeated fifty times that day across the whole
British front.
A blue-grey mass of enemy infantry appears advancing with steady,
swinging pace. At 500 yards or a trifle more one of our regiments
opens rapid fire upon them. You can actually see the lanes in the
German ranks ploughed through by the British rifle-fire. Still they
advance, for the gaps are filled almost immediately. Nearer and
nearer, until that regiment which began the advance has almost ceased
to exist. The remnant breaks and scatters in confusion, and as they
break away another new regiment is disclosed behind them. Such is the
method of the German massed attack, overwhelming by sheer numbers.
But rarely did they get near enough to the British lines for a
hand-to-hand fight. Regiment after regiment would be held at bay by
the murderous rifle-fire of the little handful of British; regiment
after regiment would appear to fill the gap. Now and again the weight
of the attack would tell, and the Germans would get close enough for a
final rush on the British trench. Then, at the critical moment, a
British company, slightly forward on the flank, pours in a withering
enfilade fire, and while the German infantry stagger under this
unexpected attack the British cavalry charge through our own lines
straight on the front and flank of the enemy. There are a few minutes
of mad cut and thrust, and the Germans, who always dread the cold steel
as a Chinese dreads rain, break and run as though all the fiends of
hell were after them.
Just about this time General Smith-Dorrien and a couple of his Staff
officers were following the fortunes of the battle from some rising
ground not far from the centre of the line. A sudden outburst of heavy
and incessant firing was heard from the direction of Cambrai, where, it
will be remembered, the enemy were trying to outflank us.
"Good heavens," cried the General, "the Germans have got round our
left!" And, jumping on to his horse, he galloped off towards the
firing.
To his astonishment and delight he found, as he drew near the flank,
that the firing came not from victorious Germans, but from some of our
French comrades.
Never was help more opportune; seldom can it have come in more dramatic
fashion. By all accounts General Sordêt with his cavalry should have
been sitting by the roadside, forty miles away on the British right,
tending his worn-out horses. Yet, at the call for help, by sheer grit
and determination he and his Corps had carried through that long forced
march (Heaven knows how the horses did it!), and swept up on our left
with his squadrons and horse artillery. Everyone knows what splendid
work the French gunners can do, and--well, this was one of their best
days.
It was a thrilling episode, and why, in common justice to our gallant
Allies, the details have not been published I do not know. You will
find General Smith-Dorrien's record and appreciation of the invaluable
help thus given by General Sordêt in the second Appendix at the end of
the book.
While such were the conditions about midday up with the front line, the
situation immediately in the rear was fast becoming indescribable in
its confusion and complexity. Looking back at it now, after the lapse
of so many months, it seemed very much like a theatrical performance
where a "front cloth" has been lowered to conceal from the audience a
strike of stage hands and the despair of the actors at setting the
stage and getting on with the play. Before the front cloth a special
"turn" is performing to gain time and appease the growing impatience of
the audience.
There was, for instance, a particular centre of cross-roads, nearly a
mile beyond where German shells were bursting. It was just outside a
large village, and the inhabitants were streaming out with their
belongings, yet uncertain whether there was actual danger or no.
At the cross-roads were gradually arriving ammunition columns, remnants
of battered regiments, motor-lorries, and odd cavalry patrols; and no
one had the vaguest idea as to why they were there nor where they were
to go next. A Staff officer standing there was as much at sea as the
rest. Every moment more and more transport would roll up, and more and
more stragglers, while hanging on to the outskirts of the crowd were
increasing numbers of frightened women and children. An old curé alone
seemed calm and collected. Over another village a little way back down
the road the German shells come bursting ever nearer. It must be
remembered that even the Staff had but a hazy idea of the trend of
events, and that outside the Staff not a soul had any notion of what
was really happening to the Force. It was just a matter of doing your
own special bit.
Right into this confused mass came running some R..A.M.C. orderlies.
"The Germans are just behind!" they shouted. There might have been a
bad panic with all those civilians about, but there was only rather
more confusion. The Staff officer gave a general order to retire on
St. Quentin (a large town about seven miles to the south); and then
there was one mad rush.
Motor-lorries blocked the whole road, trying to reverse, while wounded
and stragglers made a dash for the nearest vehicles. Ammunition
columns struck off the road on to the open down-land. The refugees
streamed straight across country. Down the road the heavy lorries went
pounding, and soon outdistanced everyone else. At one corner there
were two R.F.A. drivers in charge of five heavy draught horses.
"Germans be'ind us," yelled a lorry driver; "better move!" And they
did move. The sight of those old "hairies" clopping down the road at a
hand gallop after the disappearing lorries was too ludicrous for words.
By 3 P.M. the weight of the enemy's attack had begun to tell, and, to
quote the Commander-in-Chief's dispatch, "it became apparent that, if
complete annihilation was to be avoided, a retirement must be
attempted; and the order was given to commence it about 3.30 P.M."
Now came the most critical time of all. At the beginning of the day
the enemy must have imagined that a retirement would be made at the
earliest opportunity. But as the hours passed, and the British line
still held, the impression may have spread that they intended to fight
the day to a finish where they stood. Certainly it is impossible to
think that had they realised a definite retirement to be in progress,
they would not have thrown every man they had upon the rear of the
Corps.
Slowly and cautiously, then, regiment after regiment fell back. I have
tried to show in an earlier chapter what that means and how much
depends upon the guns at such a juncture. Again I can only quote the
Commander-in-Chief's words: "The movement was covered with the most
devoted intrepidity and determination by the artillery, which had
itself suffered severely."
I will just give one instance of what that devotion meant, a devotion
which, as has everywhere been agreed, saved the situation.
Close under a ridge a battery had been in action without a moment's
rest for the last six hours. One gun after another had been knocked
out, the battery commander and every officer save one killed, all the
men of the detachments killed or wounded, until there was left just one
gun, one subaltern, and one driver. And still they kept the battery in
action; still they loaded and fired, as they had been doing all through
that ghastly day.
"Got a drink?" said the subaltern; "a cigarette? Good! Thank God for
a white man's cigarette again!" And he went on with his job. That was
what "covering the movement" meant.
But the battle had been won. General Smith-Dorrien, his officers and
men, had accomplished the almost superhuman task thrust upon them.
They had not merely held the German attack through all the long hours
of that blazing August day; they had _broken_ it. For the remainder of
the Retreat it never recovered its sting and energy, and so the Force
and Paris were saved.
Events have had time to shape themselves during the months that have
lapsed since August, 1914, and it is possible to view them in a certain
perspective. It has been urged that we British have exaggerated the
importance of the work of the Force in the Retreat; that while we were
holding a line of no more than 20 odd miles, the French were extended
over a front of 400 miles against an equally strong attack; that, by
the prominence given to the work of the Force to the neglect of that of
the French, a distorted picture has been given of the operations during
August from Alsace to the sea.
To these arguments I would reply that Germany was staking everything
upon that rush to Paris. For years past we had known that her
intentions were to bring France to her knees within the first month or
so, to admit of turning to meet Russia before that country had fully
mobilised. And so, with this definite task in view, Germany
concentrated her main attack through Belgium and south by Mons. She
had not only her greatest strength in the armies of von Kluck and von
Buelow, but she included in these masses of troops the flower of the
German Army, picked regiments like the Prussian Guard, the "Iron" 3rd
Corps of Brandenburg,[1] and others. Add to these facts the sustained
violence of the invasion, and the concentrated hate which was levelled
against Belgians and British by the invaders when the attack was
continually and successfully checked, and I think that there is
sufficient evidence to indicate the vital importance of the work of the
British Force.
Moreover, the French people themselves had, with fine generosity,
recognised that it was the British Force, under God's hand, which had
saved Paris: for on Sunday, August 30th, prayers of thanksgiving were
offered up in the churches on behalf of our troops.
And now, hopelessly inadequate as this record has so far been, words
utterly fail me in attempting to describe the events of the next twelve
hours, and how the Retreat was continued. It was one long, ghastly
nightmare.
As regiment after regiment received its orders to retire, the survivors
staggered to their feet, blinded by the ordeal of the day, and crept
back until they reached a point where ranks could be formed. Then they
got moving. Their destination no one knew, no one cared.... Keep
moving! Men licked their blackened lips with parched tongues. "Any
chance of a drink?" "Not here; perhaps we shall pass a village." Keep
moving! "Got a fag on you?" "Smoked the last this morning; perhaps
get some in the village." "Where the b---- 'ell is your village?"
"Gawd knows." ... Keep moving!
Ten minutes later. "Where the 'ell are we going? and why the ---- are
we retreating? Give 'em socks, didn't we? And where the ---- are them
---- Frenchies?" "Oh, shut yer 'ed, carn't yer?" ... Keep moving!
There was a tiny village called Estrées in a hollow of the downs about
three miles out from St. Quentin. Here at 4 P.M. the confusion was
indescribable. Lorries, stragglers, refugees, transport columns,
guns--all inextricably mixed up. It was, I believe, supposed to be a
bivouac point for the night, but no one knew definitely. In any case,
they were all tightly wedged in that hollow, and the Germans were but a
very few miles behind. Had an enemy battery come within range, as it
might well have done, it would have meant certain death for every soul
there. Later in the evening news got to G.H.Q. of the position, and
rations were sent up to the starving troops, with definite orders about
further retirement.
Staff work simply went to pieces. It was not that men lost their heads
or anything like that, but the various H.Q.'s found it impossible to
keep pace with events. A regiment would be in a certain position, then
it would be completely forgotten (or so it seemed), and no orders would
arrive to move. Many C.O.'s retired entirely on their own initiative,
and so got clear. Others decided to await instructions, and so got
wiped out or captured.
As dusk gathered into darkness the confusion grew worse, while
discomfort increased (if possible) with the steady downpour of ram
which followed. But there was no moment's rest for the exhausted
troops, save when a regiment came up against an obstacle across the
road--a broken-down motor-van or gun-wagon. Then, if there were any
sappers handy, the vehicle would be blown up and the road cleared....
Anyhow, keep moving!
And the dreadful agonies of the wounded. At St. Quentin there was a
big hospital which had been gradually filling during the past
twenty-four hours. Now, on this afternoon, G.H.Q. found it advisable
to pack up in a hurry and leave for farther south. And the
hospital--would it share the same fate as those of Mons and Le Cateau?
Once again the movable cases were hastily got into ambulances and other
conveyances, and carried off in the wake of G.H.Q. But for hundreds of
men there was no chance of getting even so far as St. Quentin for
attention. Through the day the R.A.M.C. had worked as hard as the
fighters, but it was very little more than first aid which could be
given. No chance for deft operation, anti-tetanus serum or the like.
So, mingled with the retreating army were the ghosts of men swathed in
bloody bandages, some clinging to vehicles on which they had found a
seat, others marching with vague, uncertain pace by the infantry,
others, again, just dropping out, to huddle exhausted by the roadside
waiting for dawn and a fate which now had no meaning for them.
Keep moving! ... Horse after horse in the slowly trekking columns of
batteries or supply transport dropped down and fouled the wheels.
Unhook or cut the traces; push the poor beast out of the road. An old
pal, was he? Aye, he was a fine "wheeler," that dark bay! Remember
the first time we had him in at practice camp? Nothing matters now but
keeping on the move. Yes, better shoot him. He deserves a clean end.
Dozens, perhaps hundreds of men got cut adrift from their regiments
that day, adrift and hopelessly lost in a strange country. No house,
no village was safe as sanctuary, for the tide of invasion lapped at
the threshold and would presently overwhelm it. One trivial incident I
heard of seems worthy of record as an instance of "individuality" in
the training of the British soldier.
A man---we will call him Headlam--got adrift by himself from the 3rd
Division out on the left flank. After many hours' wandering, he came
to a little farmhouse on the road. Here the good woman took him in,
fed him, and gave him a shakedown. There were also there a couple of
French stragglers.
A few hours later the little son of the farm came running in with the
news that a patrol of the dreaded Uhlans was coming down the road.
That meant murder for everyone. There was no time to hide, and the
French were at their wits' end.
Headlam's first thought was for cover. Out in the yard there was a big
rain-tub. Calling the two French soldiers to help, they rolled it out
longways on into the road, and one of them, with Headlam, got behind
with their rifles. The moment the patrol appeared, Headlam gave the
Uhlans an excellent example of rapid fire, and three saddles were empty
before they realised where the attack came from. Then they charged.
French and British, side by side, ground away with their rifles, and
when the Uhlans reached the little fortress there were only three left
out of the patrol of nine. The second Frenchman, by the side of the
road, accounted for another, and, with three to two, the Uhlans
surrendered.
So our three musketeers found themselves with five excellent horses and
a couple of prisoners; and I leave you to picture the triumphal
procession which passed through the villages on the southward journey.
The order of march was: Jacques and a led horse, Pierre and a led
horse, two disconsolate Uhlans on foot (and hating it), and Headlam
(with female escort), as G.O.C., bringing up the rear....
Keep moving! ... But oh, the inexpressible weariness of it! No torture
is more refined than that of preventing a worn-out human being from
sleeping; and here it was experienced to the full. The picture of the
Force that night might well have created for Dante the vision of one
more circle of Hell.
Hunger was long since forgotten, but a red-hot thirst remained. One
could appreciate as never before how Dives thirsted when he asked for
Lazarus to touch his lips with a moistened finger. On, ever on, for
hour after eternal hour, riding or trudging through the inky darkness,
never a halt.... Keep moving!
How the troops did it I cannot tell. It was not the triumph of will
over the exhausted body, for the sense of volition had fled, and men
were mere automata in their movements. The legs jerked forwards as
those of a clockwork toy. Had the men halted they could never have got
moving again; the clockwork would have run down.
In the saddle it was little better. Every muscle of the body ached
with an intolerable dull throbbing; a deadly coma crept through the
brain and dragged at the eyelids. Nerveless fingers clutched at the
pommel of the saddle, and were pulled away by the drag of the heavy
arms.
One knows how a single night of sleeplessness will tell its tale in the
face of a man or woman. Here was the fourth night of ceaseless
fighting and marching, with only an odd hour of rest now and again.
All through the night and on into the daylight hours sounded the
plod-plod of marching men, the grumble--creak--grumble of transport or
guns. And in the far rear of the moving columns were more regiments
lined out, showing a bold front to the still advancing enemy, ever
guarding the backs of their comrades so far as was humanly possible.
One particularly sad disaster befell a regiment in the course of the
retirement; it is remarkable that there were not many others of a like
nature. The 1st Gordons lost their way after dark, and began to march
in a direction across the front of the German advance. About midnight
the regiment found itself moving into masses of troops. The first
thought was that they were amongst the French, for it was supposed that
they had been marching towards French support.
Suddenly fire was opened upon the regiment from all sides, and though
the Gordons put up the gallant fight which they have ever done in a
tight corner, the odds were too impossible, and ten minutes saw the end.
I think that disaster affected the Force more than anything else in
that opening month. Men spoke of it in hushed tones. A magnificent
regiment with glorious traditions, and to be crushed out as they were
in those few minutes. And yet not crushed out! Though the older
generation of the family may die, there is the younger generation which
follows, and their sons after them. And well do I remember that
younger generation at the Aisne, when the Regiment rose again
reincarnate from the ashes of the dead. I see now the stern-set faces
of the officers, proud in their determination to avenge their honour;
faces shaded and hallowed by the knowledge of what the Regiment had
done and suffered, what it must now do and suffer that their dead may
rest in peace. As it was, so shall it be,
Rising, roaring, rushing like the tide,
(Gay goes the Gordon to a fight)
They're up through the fire-zone, not to be denied;
(Bayonets! and charge! by the right!)
Thirty bullets straight where the rest went wide,
And thirty lads are lying on the bare hillside;
But they passed in the hour of the Gordons' pride,
To the skirl of the pipers' playing.
[1] This Corps is always regarded in Germany as the finest in the
German Army.