THE SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES
First to feel the effects of German terrorism through poison gas were
the gallant Canadian troops on the afternoon of April 22, 1915, at
Ypres, Belgium. Gas had been used by the Germans previously to this,
but they were mere experimental clouds directed against Belgian troops.
Before the battle, the English and Canadians held a line from
Broodseinde to half a mile north of St. Julien on the crest of the
Grafenstafel Ridge. The French prolonged the line to Steenstraate
on the Yperlee Canal. The Germans originally planned the attack for
Tuesday, April 20th, but with satanic ingenuity the offensive was
postponed until between 4 and 5 o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday,
the 22d. During the morning the wind blew steadily from the north and
the scientists attached to the German Field Headquarters predicted
that the strong wind would continue at least twelve hours longer.
[Illustration: © _International News Service._
THE RED RUINS OF YPRES
Ypres, the British soldiers’ “Wipers,” was the scene of much of the
bloodiest fighting of the war. Three great battles were fought for its
possession. The photograph shows what was once the market place.]
The Canadian division held a line extending about five miles from the
Ypres-Roulers Railway to the Ypres-Poelcapelle road. The division
consisted of three infantry brigades, in addition to the artillery
brigades. Upon this unsuspecting body of men the poison fumes were
projected by means of pipes and force pumps. The immediate consequences
were that the asphyxiating gas of great intensity rendered immediately
helpless thousands of men. The same gas attack that was projected upon
the Canadians also fell with murderous effect upon the French. The
consequences were that the French division on the left of the Canadians
gave way and the Third brigade of the Canadian division, so far as
the left was concerned, was “up in the air,” to use the phrase of its
commanding officer.
It became necessary for Brigadier-General Turner, commanding the Third
brigade, to throw back his left flank southward to protect his rear.
This caused great confusion, and the enemy, advancing rapidly, took a
number of guns and many prisoners, penetrating to the village of St.
Julien, two miles in the rear of the original French trenches. The
Canadians fought heroically, although greatly outnumbered and pounded
by artillery that inflicted tremendous losses. The Germans, as they
came through the gas clouds, were protected by masks moistened with a
solution containing bi-carbonate of soda.
The tactics of General Turner offset the numerical superiority of the
enemy, and prevented a disastrous rout. General Currie, commanding
the Second brigade of Canadians, repeated this successful maneuver
when he flung his left flank southward and, presenting two fronts to
the enemy, held his line of trenches from Thursday at 5 o’clock until
Sunday afternoon. The reason the trenches were held no longer than
Sunday afternoon was that they had been obliterated by heavy artillery
fire. The Germans finally succeeded in capturing a line, the forward
point of which was the village of St. Julien. Reinforcements under
General Alderson had come up by this time and the enemy’s advance was
suddenly checked. Enemy attacks upon the line running from Ypres to
Passchendaele completely broke down under the withering fire of the
reinforced and re-formed artillery and infantry brigades. The record
officer of the Canadians makes this comment of the detailed fighting:
The story of the second battle of Ypres is the story of how the
Canadian division, enormously outnumbered--for they had in front of
them at least four divisions, supported by immensely heavy artillery,
with a gap still existing, though reduced, in their lines, and with
dispositions made hurriedly under the stimulus of critical danger,
fought through the day and through the night, and then through another
day and night; fought under their officers until, as happened to so
many, those perished gloriously, and then fought from the impulsion of
sheer valor because they came from fighting stock.
The enemy, of course, was aware--whether fully or not may perhaps be
doubted--of the advantage his breach in the line had given him, and
immediately began to push a formidable series of attacks upon the whole
of the newly-formed Canadian salient. The attack was everywhere fierce,
but developed with particular intensity at this moment upon the apex of
the newly-formed line, running in the direction of St. Julien.
It has already been stated that some British guns were taken in a
wood comparatively early in the evening of the 22d. In the course
of that night, and under the heaviest machine-gun fire, this wood
was assaulted by the Canadian Scottish, Sixteenth battalion of the
Third brigade, and the Tenth battalion of the Second brigade which
was intercepted for this purpose on its way to a reserve trench. The
battalions were respectively commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Leckie and
Lieutenant-Colonel Boyle, and after a most fierce struggle in the light
of a misty moon they took the position at the point of the bayonet. At
midnight the Second battalion, under Colonel Watson, and the Toronto
regiment, Queen’s Own, Third battalion under Lieutenant-Colonel Rennie,
both of the First brigade, brought up much-needed reinforcement, and
though not actually engaged in the assault, were in reserve.
All through the following days and nights these battalions shared the
fortunes and misfortunes of the Third brigade. An officer who took
part in the attack describes how the men about him fell under the fire
of the machine guns, which, in his phrase, played upon them, “like a
watering pot.” He added quite simply “I wrote my own life off.” But the
line never wavered. When one man fell another took his place, and with
a final shout the survivors of the two battalions flung themselves into
the wood.
The German garrison was completely demoralized, and the impetuous
advance of the Canadians did not cease until they reached the far side
of the wood and intrenched themselves there in the position so dearly
gained. They had, however, the disappointment of finding that the guns
had been blown up by the enemy, and later on in the same night a most
formidable concentration of artillery fire, sweeping the wood as a
tropical storm sweeps the leaves from a forest, made it impossible for
them to hold the position for which they had sacrificed so much.
The fighting continued without intermission all through the night,
and, to those who observed the indications that the attack was being
pushed with ever-growing strength, it hardly seemed possible that the
Canadians, fighting in positions so difficult to defend and so little
the subject of deliberate choice, could maintain their resistance for
any long period. At 6 A. M. on Friday it became apparent that the left
was becoming more and more involved, and a powerful German attempt to
outflank it developed rapidly. The consequences, if it had been broken
or outflanked, need not be insisted upon. They were not merely local.
[Illustration: THE TOWN OF YPRES IS FULL OF MEMORIES FOR THE
CANADIANS]
It was there decided, formidable as the attempt undoubtedly was, to
try and give relief by a counter-attack upon the first line of German
trenches, now far, far advanced from those originally occupied by the
French. This was carried out by the Ontario First and Fourth battalions
of the First brigade, under Brigadier-General Mercer, acting in
combination with a British brigade.
It is safe to say that the youngest private in the rank, as he set his
teeth for the advance, knew the task in front of him, and the youngest
subaltern knew all that rested upon its success. It did not seem that
any human being could live in the shower of shot and shell which began
to play upon the advancing troops. They suffered terrible casualties.
For a short time every other man seemed to fall, but the attack was
pressed ever closer and closer.
The Fourth Canadian battalion at one moment came under a particularly
withering fire. For a moment--not more--it wavered. Its most gallant
commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Burchill, carrying, after an
old fashion, a light cane, coolly and cheerfully rallied his men and,
at the very moment when his example had infected them, fell dead at
the head of his battalion. With a hoarse cry of anger they sprang
forward (for, indeed they loved him), as if to avenge his death. The
astonishing attack which followed--pushed home in the face of direct
frontal fire made in broad daylight by battalions whose names should
live forever in the memories of soldiers--was carried to the front line
of the German trenches. After a hand-to-hand struggle the last German
who resisted was bayoneted, and the trench was won.
[Illustration: © _Underwood and Underwood._
A FIGHT IN A CLOUD OF GAS
The Germans had sent over gas and in this spot it lingered. Then the
infantry advanced and here, amid the British wire entanglements, the
foes meet. Both sides in gas masks, they struggle amid the poisonous
vapor, and when the bayonet fails they fight, like the pair in the
foreground, to bring death by tearing away their opponent’s mask.]
The measure of this success may be taken when it is pointed out that
this trench represented in the German advance the apex in the breach
which the enemy had made in the original line of the Allies, and that
it was two and a half miles south of that line. This charge, made by
men who looked death indifferently in the face (for no man who took
part in it could think that he was likely to live) saved, and that
was much, the Canadian left. But it did more. Up to the point where
the assailants conquered, or died, it secured and maintained during
the most critical moment of all the integrity of the allied line. For
the trench was not only taken, it was held thereafter against all
comers, and in the teeth of every conceivable projectile, until the
night of Sunday, the 25th, when all that remained of the war-broken but
victorious battalion was relieved by fresh troops.