The Tervaete Charge
By Artillery Captain M---- C----
(In memory of Major Count Henri d'Oultremont.)
Refusing stubbornly to budge from the Yser, the Belgian army was
struggling desperately with the enemy, making a frantic effort to hold
on to the last shred of its beloved country. The valiant little army
had been asked to hold out for forty-eight hours in the gigantic and
unequal combat in which it was engaged. It had done this, but relief
had not come, and the fierce battle had now lasted five days. The
defenders of their country had now decided to die at this spot rather
than yield.
The stubborn fight had so undermined the strength of the heroic army
that it was now like a wrestler, out of breath and at the last gasp,
only sustained by the extreme tension of his nerves and the force of
a fixed idea. The army was short of ammunition and of reserves. It
consisted now of a meagre line of almost exhausted men, tired in every
limb, but making a last desperate effort. It seemed probable that,
under a formidable push of the Germans, some point would give way and
cause disaster along the whole of the rest of the line.
The Germans continued unceasingly to harass our wearied troops with
their machine-guns and with fresh assaults until, finally, at Tervaete
they managed to break through our line. When once the breach was made,
the stream rushed in like a wild torrent, gaining the left bank of the
river and driving back our Battalions in disorder. With a frightful
whirl, everything gave way before the massed effort of the enemy. A
furious, mute, desperate counter-attack was crushed and wasted in this
gulf of death. It was simply stifled and mown down by the deadly work
of two hundred machine-guns.
There was then a moment of terrible anguish experienced along the whole
line. Our troops had fallen back, without yielding, and were thronging
together, forming two wings on the Yser, at the extremities of the huge
bend where the Germans had broken through the defence.
This fresh front was like a fragile rampart of earth piled up in
haste before a powerful torrent, a rampart which would surely fall
away under the rush of the waters, as fast as it was built up. There
was no longer any organised unity of action. Each one was fighting on
his own account. It was an amalgamation of horrible looking men, all
covered with mud and with blood, their faces blackened by the smoke of
explosions. They no longer looked like human beings. As they fought
there, with haggard eyes and weary arms, it was more like a vision
of hell, lighted up for a moment by the wan flashes from the guns.
We wondered what would happen? Was this to be the end of everything?
In front of us, the attack was still coming along in constant and
ever-increasing waves, with an ominous roaring, beating down our
crumbling human wall with furious shocks. Could our army possibly
resist these endless assaults?
* * * * *
Just at this moment, the order arrived for this spectre of a troop
to take the offensive and, by means of a general counter-attack, to
fling the enemy back, at any cost, on the other side of the river. The
instructions given were in the following simple words: "Your charge
must be a wild rush."
The order passed through the dislocated ranks like an electrical
current. A thrill of glory was felt by every man in the line. The
blackened faces looked up once more and turned pale under the masks of
blood and dirt, and all eyes flashed once more with a superhuman light.
A splendid thing was then seen, a thing that seems incredible in its
grandeur. All these wavering fragments of an army suddenly formed up
again in a solid block. In the fresh ranks, each man took his place
just where he happened to be. Wounded men got up from the ground and
wedged their way into the mass to increase the weight. From the nearest
Sectors, troops rushed forward and mixed with the others. And then
the whole newly formed line moved forwards, with great difficulty at
first, making a formidable effort under the hurricane of fire. Then a
wild rush took place and, with a bound, they were there in the Prussian
lines; foot-soldiers, cavalrymen, pioneers, gunners, soldiers, and
officers, valid or crippled, all had flung themselves _pêle-mêle_ on
their enormous adversary, going straight ahead in the breaches that
opened before them and their bayonets. Here and there, in the chaos of
mingled troops, a clearer line marked the points where the neighbouring
troops had rushed in to reinforce them. In some places, thanks to the
impulsion of fresh energy, salient points could be seen pushing forward
and leading on the rest. And, in the midst of the fray, above the
roaring din of the battle, one cry could be heard, one conquering cry,
uttered as though by one voice coming from three thousand men, a cry
that grew louder and louder, swelling as it were under the influence of
its own frenzy, a cry that could be heard over all the plain, like the
rumbling of a wild storm: "Long live the King! Long live Belgium!"
The first enemy line was driven back under the sudden rush. Behind it,
the second line gave way, and then each wave driven back drove back the
following one, and there was general disorder among the German troops.
It was a carnage for which there are no words. There was no longer any
question of numbers or of tactics. Only one thing was evident now, a
mysterious and all-powerful thing, the force of a will stronger than
death itself, dominating all material things.
The Germans, disconcerted by the suddenness of all this, were seized
with panic. With an irresistible effort, our panting, breathless
soldiers, veritable phantoms of death, crushed all resistance. In their
rush forward, without a second's hesitation and in their continued
rush, they had driven back the enemy masses as far as the Yser; they
pushed them to the brink and then into the river itself. Half dead
themselves with their superhuman effort, they reoccupied the dyke
and--the last shred of Belgian territory was saved.