THE FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES (_continued_)
(From the Action of Gheluvelt to the Winter Lull)
Attack upon the cavalry--The struggle at Messines--The London Scots
in action--Rally to the north--Terrible losses--Action of
Zillebeke--Record of the Seventh Division--Situation at Ypres--Attack
of the Prussian Guard--Confused fighting--End of the First Battle of
Ypres--Death of Lord Roberts--The Eighth Division.
[Sidenote: Attack upon the cavalry.]
Whilst this severe fighting had been going on to the north of the
British position, the centre, where the dismounted cavalry were
holding the line of trenches, was so terribly pressed that it is an
extraordinary thing that they were able to hold their own. The
Second Corps, which at that time had just been withdrawn for a rest
from the La Bassée lines, were the only available reinforcements.
When news was flashed south as to the serious state of affairs, two
regiments, the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry and the 2nd Scottish
Borderers from the 13th Infantry Brigade, were sent up in motor-buses
by road to the relief. Strange indeed was the sight of these
vehicles flying along the Flemish roads, plastered outside with the
homely names of London suburbs and crammed with the grimy,
much-enduring infantry. The lines at Messines were in trouble, and
so also were those at Wytschaete farther to the north. To this
latter place {279} went two battalions of Shaw's 9th Brigade, the 1st
Northumberland Fusiliers and the 1st Lincolns. Hard work awaited the
infantry at Messines and at Wytschaete, for in both places Allenby's
troopers were nearly rushed off their feet.
It has already been shown that on October 30 a severe assault was
made upon the Third Cavalry Division, when the 7th Brigade
(Kavanagh's) was forced out of Zandvoorde by the Fifteenth German
Army Corps. Upon this same date a most strenuous attack, made in
great force and supported by a terrific shell-fire, was directed
along the whole line of the cavalry from Wytschaete to Messines. No
British troops have been exposed to a more severe ordeal than these
brave troopers, for they were enormously outnumbered at every point,
and their line was so thin that it was absolutely impossible for them
to prevent it from being pierced by the masses of infantry, from the
Twenty-fourth Corps and Second Bavarian Corps, which were hurled
against them. From the extreme left of the Second Cavalry Division
near Wytschaete to the right of the First Cavalry Division south of
Messines the same reports came in to the anxious General, of trenches
overwhelmed or enfiladed, and of little isolated groups of men
struggling most desperately to keep a footing against an ever-surging
grey tide which was beating up against them and flowing through every
gap. In the north Gough's men were nearly overwhelmed, the 5th Irish
Lancers were shelled out of a farmhouse position, and the 16th
Lancers, shelled from in front and decimated by rifles and
machine-guns from the flank, were driven back for half a mile until
three French battalions helped the line to reform. The pressure,
however, {280} was still extreme, the Germans fighting with admirable
energy and coming forward in never-ending numbers. An Indian
regiment of the 7th (Ferozepore) Brigade, the 129th Baluchis, had
been helping the cavalry in this region since October 23, but their
ranks were now much decimated, and they were fought almost to a
standstill. Two more British regiments from the Second Corps, the
1st Lincolns and the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers of the 9th Brigade,
together with their Brigadier, Shaw, who was a reinforcement in
himself, were, as already stated, hurried off from the south in
motor-buses to strengthen Gough's line. Advancing into what was to
them an entirely strange position these two veteran regiments
sustained very heavy losses, which they bore with extreme fortitude.
They were surprised by the Germans on the road between Kemmel and
Wytschaete on the night of October 31, the same night upon which the
London Scottish to the south of them were so heavily engaged.
Colonel Smith succeeded in extricating the Lincolns from what was a
most perilous position, but only after a loss of 16 officers and 400
men. The Fusiliers were almost as hard hit. For forty-eight hours
the battle swung backwards and forwards in front of Wytschaete, and
in the end the village itself was lost, but the defensive lines to
the west of it were firmly established. By November the second
strong French reinforcements had appeared, and it was clear that this
desperate attempt to break through the very centre of the British
position had definitely failed.
[Sidenote: The struggle at Messines.]
The struggle at Messines, some five miles to the south, had been even
more severe and sanguinary than at Wytschaete. In the early morning
of the 31st the Bays and the 5th Dragoon Guards upon the left of the
{281} Messines position, after a heavy shell-fire, were driven out of
their trenches by a sudden furious advance of the German infantry.
The front of the village of Messines was held by Wild's 57th Rifles,
who were driven in by the same attack, every officer engaged being
killed or wounded. A reserve company of Wild's Rifles and a squadron
of the 5th Dragoon Guards endeavoured to restore the fight, but could
not hold the torrent. The 9th Lancers, also in front of the village
and to the right of the Indians, held on for a long time, repulsing
the infantry attacks, until they were driven back by the deadly
shell-fire. At one time they were enfiladed on both sides and heard
the Germans roaring their war-songs in the dark all round them; but
they were able, owing to the coolness of Colonel Campbell and the
discipline of his veteran troopers, to fall back and to reform upon
the western side of the village. Lance-Corporal Seaton distinguished
himself by covering the retreat of his whole squadron, remaining
single-handed in his trench until his maxim was destroyed, after he
had poured a thousand shots into the close ranks of his assailants.
The situation was so serious after dawn upon the 31st that General De
Lisle had to call for help from Wilson's Fourth Infantry Division,
holding the line upon his right. The Inniskilling Fusiliers were
extended so as to relieve his right flank. The struggle within
Messines was still going forward with fighting from house to house,
but the Germans, who were coming on with overpowering numbers and
great valour, were gradually winning their way forward. The
Oxfordshire Hussars, fresh from the base, were thrown into the
combat. A second line of defence {282} had been arranged a mile or
so to the west, near Wulverghem, but if Messines must go the victors
should at least pay the price down to the last drop of blood which
could be wrung from them. Reinforcements were within sight, both
French and British, but they were scanty in quantity though superb in
quality. It was a most critical position, and one cannot but marvel
at the load of responsibility which Sir John French had to bear upon
this day, for from the left of Haig's First Corps in the north down
to Neuve Chapelle in the south, a stretch of twenty-five miles, there
was hardly a point which was not strained to the verge of cracking.
Cool and alert, he controlled the situation from his central post and
threw in such reinforcements as he could find, though, indeed, they
could only be got by taking them from places where they were wanted
and hurrying them to places where they were needed even more
urgently. He was strengthened always by the knowledge that General
Joffre behind him was doing all that a loyal colleague could to find
fresh columns of his splendid infantrymen to buttress up the
hard-pressed line.
For the moment, however, none of these were available, and Messines
was still partly in British, partly in German hands. Briggs's 1st
Brigade--Bays, 5th Dragoon Guards, and 11th Hussars--with the
Oxfords, held on to the western edge of the town. To their left,
linking up with Gough's men in the Wytschaete sector, was the 4th
Dragoon Guards. Late in the afternoon the 2nd Scots Borderers and
the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, the joint detachment under Major
Coke, arrived from the south, and were at once advanced upon Messines
to stiffen the defence. {283} Under heavy fire they established
themselves in the village. Evening fell with desperate street
fighting and the relative position unchanged. Twice the Bavarians
stormed into the central square, and twice they fell back after
littering it with their bodies. It seemed hopeless to hold the
village against the ever-growing pressure of the Germans, and yet the
loss of the village entailed the loss of the ridge, which would leave
a commanding position in the hands of the enemy. Village and ridge
were mutually dependent, for if either were lost the other could not
be held.
As it proved, it was the ridge and not the village which could no
longer sustain the pressure. On the night of October 31 Mullen's 2nd
Cavalry Brigade--9th Lancers, 4th Dragoon Guards, and 11th
Hussars--took over the defence from Briggs. Of these, the 4th
Dragoon Guards were to the left of the village upon the ridge. The
London Scottish had been brought up, and they were placed upon the
left of the 4th Dragoon Guards, forming a link of the defence which
connected up the Second Cavalry Division with the First. The
right-hand regiment of the latter, the 6th Carbineers, of Bingham's
4th Brigade, were upon the left of the London Scottish. These two
regiments held the centre of the ridge. The London Scottish had
already suffered considerable losses. Hurried up from the lines of
communication to St. Eloi, they were pushed forward at once into
action, and were exposed for hours to all the nerve-racking horrors
of a heavy shell-fire endured in most insufficient trenches. A more
severe ordeal was in store for them, however, during the grim night
which lay before them. The admirable behaviour of Colonel Malcolm's
men excited the more attention as they {284} were the first
Territorial infantry to come into action, and they set a standard
which has been grandly sustained by the quarter-million of their
comrades who have from first to last come into the line.
[Sidenote: The London Scots in action.]
On the early morning of November 1 there had been a strong attempt
within the village to improve the British position, and some ground
was actually gained by the cavalrymen, the Yorkshire Light Infantry,
and the Scots Borderers. What occurred, however, on the ridge to the
north made all further effort a useless waste of life. The Bavarian
infantry had come with an irresistible rush against the thin British
line. The order to hold their ground at all costs was given, and the
London Scots answered it in a way which gained the highest praise
from the many soldiers who saw it. It is not claimed that they did
better than their Regular comrades. That would be impossible. The
most that can be said is that they proved themselves worthy to fight
in line with them. After being exposed for several hours to heavy
shellfire, it was no light task for any troops to be called upon to
resist a direct assault. From nine in the evening of October 31 to
two in the morning, under the red glare of burning houses, Colonel
Malcolm's Scottish and Colonel Annesley's Carbineers held back the
Bavarian advance, an advance which would have meant the piercing of
the British line. At two o'clock the Bavarians in greatly
predominant force were all round the Scots, and even the reserve
companies found work for their bayonets, preventing the enemy from
encircling their companions. The losses were very heavy--400 men and
9 officers, including their gallant doctor, M'Nab, who was
villainously stabbed as he bandaged a patient. In spite of the great
pressure, {285} the ground was held all night, and it was not till
dawn, when the regiment found that it was outflanked on both sides
and nearly surrounded, that, under cover of the fire of E Battery
R.H.A., it fell back. The Carbineers and the Scots were close
together, and the Germans, with their usual quick ingenuity,
approached the former with a cry of "We are the London Scots." A
disaster might have occurred in the darkness but for the quickness
and bravery of a young officer, Lieutenant Hope Hawkins, who rushed
forward, discovered the identity of the Germans, and fell, riddled
with bullets, even while he gave warning to his comrades.
The Germans had won the ridge, but the British line was still intact
and growing stronger every hour. The village was held by the Scots
Borderers and Yorkshiremen until nearly ten o'clock, when they were
ordered to fall back and help to man the new line. The shock had
been a rude one, but the danger-hour was past here as in the north.
The fateful November 1 had come and gone. The villages of Messines
and Wytschaete were, it is true, in German hands, but French
reinforcements of the Sixteenth Corps were streaming up from the
south, the line, though torn and broken, still held firm, and the
road to Calais was for ever blocked. There was still pressure, and
on November 2 the 11th Hussars were badly cut up by shell-fire, but
the line was impregnable. Sir John French summed up in a few terse
words the true meaning of the operations just described, when he said
afterwards, in addressing the 9th Lancers, "Particularly I would
refer to the period, October 31, when for forty-eight hours the
Cavalry Corps held at bay two German army corps. {286} During this
period you were supported by only three or four battalions, shattered
and worn by previous fighting, and in so doing you rendered
inestimable service." There have been few episodes in the war which
have been at the same time so splendid and so absolutely vital. The
First Cavalry Division lost 50 per cent of its numbers between
October 30 and November 2, and the Second Division was hardly in
better case, but never did men give their lives to better purpose.
Their heroism saved the Army.
[Sidenote: Rally to the north.]
Meanwhile the current of operations was evidently running strongly
towards the northern end of the British line, where help was badly
needed, as Haig's men had been fought almost to exhaustion. There
was no British reinforcement available save only the weary Second
Corps, the remains of which from this date began to be drafted
northwards. It was already known that the German Emperor had
appeared in person in that region, and that a great concentration of
his troops was taking place. At the same time the French were making
splendid exertions in order to stiffen their own line and help us in
those parts, like Messines, Wytschaete, and Ploegsteert, where the
attack was most formidable. It was a great gathering towards the
north, and clearly some hard blows were to be struck. Northwards
then went General Morland, of the Fifth Division, taking with him
four more weak battalions. The whole line had moved upwards towards
the danger spot, and these troops now found themselves east of
Bailleul, close to the village of Neuve Eglise. For the moment
General Smith-Dorrien was without an army, for half his men were now
supporting General Willcocks in the south {287} and half General
Allenby or General Haig in the north. The British leaders all along
the line were, as usual, desperately endeavouring to make one man do
the work of three, but they were buoyed up by the knowledge that good
Father Joffre, like some beneficent earthly Providence, was watching
over them from the distance, and that fresh trainfuls of his brave
little men were ever steaming into the danger zone. Day by day the
line was thickening and the task of the Kaiser becoming more
difficult. It was hoped that the crisis was past. If our troops
were exhausted so also, it was thought, were those of the enemy. We
could feel elated by the knowledge that we had held our ground, while
they could hardly fail to be depressed by the reflection that they
had made little progress in spite of so many heroic efforts, and that
Calais was as far from them as ever.
The narrative must now return to the defenders of the Ypres
approaches, who were left in a state of extreme exhaustion by the
critical action of October 31. On November 1 the First Corps was not
in a condition to do more than to hold its line. This line was now
near to Veldhoek, to the west of Gheluvelt village, and to that
extent the Germans had profited by their desperate fighting, but this
was a detail of small consequence so long as an unbroken British Army
covered the town that was still the objective of the enemy. The
Ninth French Corps to the north of the British had lost heavily, but
to the south of the canal lay the Sixteenth French Corps, which was
in comparatively good condition. This corps now made an advance to
take some of the pressure off the British line, while Moussy's
regiments to the north of the canal were to co-operate with Bulfin's
men upon their {288} left. Upon the left of Bulfin's 2nd Brigade
were two battalions of the 4th Brigade of Guards.
One of these battalions had a terrible experience upon this morning.
For some reason the trenches of the Irish Guards were exposed to an
enfilading fire from the high explosives of the Germans, which
wrought even more than their customary damage. For hours the
Guardsmen lay under a terrific fire, to which they could make no
reply, and from which they could obtain no protection. When at last,
in the afternoon, they were compelled to fall back, their losses had
been great, including their colonel, Lord Ardee, 7 other officers,
and over 300 men. It is the hard fate of the side which is weaker in
artillery to endure such buffetings with no possibility of return.
The French attack of the Sixteenth Corps had been brought to a speedy
standstill, and a severe counter-attack, preceded by a heavy
shell-fire, had fallen upon General Moussy's men and upon the half of
the 2nd Brigade. Help was urgently needed, so the remains of the 7th
Brigade from the Third Cavalry Division were hurried forward. The
Germans were now surging up against the whole right and right-centre
of the line. It seems to have been their system to attack upon
alternate days on the right and on the centre, for it will be
remembered that it was on October 29 that they gained the Gheluvelt
cross-roads, and on October 31 Gheluvelt village, both in the centre,
while on October 30 they captured the Zandvoorde ridge upon the
British right, and now, on November 1, were pressing hard upon the
right once more.
That morning the Army sustained a loss in the person of General
Bulfin, who was wounded in the {289} head by shrapnel. Fortunately
his recovery was not a lengthy one, and he was able to return in
January as commander of the Twenty-eighth Division. Upon his fall,
Lord Cavan, of the 4th Brigade, took over the command upon the
hard-pressed right wing. At half-past one the hundred survivors of
the 2nd Gordons, on the right of the Seventh Division, and the 2nd
Oxford and Bucks, were desperately hard pressed by a strong German
infantry advance, and so were the remains of the Sussex and
Northamptons. The only available help lay in the 23rd Field Company
of Royal Engineers. Our sappers proved, as they have so often done
before, that their hearts are as sound as their heads. They pushed
off the enemy, but incurred heavy losses. The situation was still
critical when at the summons of Lord Cavan the 2nd Grenadiers
advanced and cleared the Germans from the woods in the front and
flank, while the 10th Hussars supported their advance. A gap had
been left in the trenches from which the Irish Guards had been
pushed, but this was now filled up by cavalry, who connected up with
the French on their right and with the Guards upon their left. The
general effect of the whole day's fighting was to drive the British
line farther westward, but to contract it, so that it required a
smaller force. Two battalions--the Gordons and the Sussex--could be
taken out and brought into reserve. The centre of the line had a
day's rest and dug itself into its new positions, but the units were
greatly mixed and confused.
November 2 brought no surcease from the constant fighting, though the
disturbance of these days, severe as it was, may be looked upon as a
mere ground swell after the terrific storm of the last days of
October. {290} On the morning of the 2nd the Ninth French Corps upon
the British left, under General Vidal, sent eight battalions forward
to the south and east in the direction of Gheluvelt. Part of this
village was actually occupied by them. The Germans meanwhile, with
their usual courage and energy, were driving a fresh attack down that
Menin road which had so often been reddened by their blood. It was
the day for a centre attack on their stereotyped system of alternate
pushes, and it came duly to hand. An initial success awaited them
as, getting round a trench occupied by the Rifles, they succeeded in
cutting off a number of them. The 3rd Brigade was hurried up by
General Landon to the point of danger, and a French Zouave regiment
helped to restore the situation. A spirited bayonet charge, in which
the Gloucesters led, was beaten back by the enemy's fire. After a
day of confused and desultory fighting the situation in the evening
was very much as it had been in the morning. Both that night and the
next day there was a series of local and sporadic attacks, first on
the front of the Second Division and then of the Seventh, all of
which were driven back. The Germans began to show their despair of
ever gaining possession of Ypres by elevating their guns and dropping
shells upon the old Cloth Hall of that historic city, a senseless act
of spiteful vandalism which exactly corresponds with their action
when the Allied Army held them in front of Rheims.
November 4 was a day of menaces rather than of attacks. On this day,
units which had become greatly mixed during the incessant and
confused fighting of the last fortnight were rearranged and counted.
The losses were terrible. The actual {291} strength of the infantry
of the First Division upon that date was: 1st Brigade, 22 officers,
1206 men; 2nd Brigade, 43 officers, 1315 men: 3rd Brigade, 27
officers, 970 men; which make the losses of the whole division about
75 per cent. Those of the Second Division were very little lighter.
And now for the 25 per cent remainder of this gallant corps there was
not a moment of breathing space or rest, but yet another fortnight of
unremitting work, during which their thin ranks were destined to hold
the German army, and even the Emperor's own Guard, from passing the
few short miles which separated them from their objective. Great was
the "will to conquer" of the Kaiser's troops, but greater still the
iron resolve not to be conquered which hardened the war-worn lines of
the soldiers of the King.
[Sidenote: Terrible losses.]
November 5 was a day of incessant shell-fire, from which the Seventh
Division, the 4th and the 6th Brigades were the chief sufferers. On
this day the Seventh Division, which had now been reduced from 12,000
infantry to 2333, was withdrawn from the line. In their place were
substituted those reinforcements from the south which have already
been mentioned. These consisted of eleven battalions of the Second
Corps under General McCracken; this corps, however, was greatly worn,
and the eleven battalions only represented 3500 rifles. The Seventh
Division was withdrawn to Bailleul in the south, but Lawford's 22nd
Brigade was retained in corps reserve, and was destined to have one
more trial before it could be spared for rest. The day was memorable
also for a vigorous advance of the Gloucester Regiment, which was
pushed with such hardihood that they {292} sustained losses of nearly
half their numbers before admitting that they could not gain their
objective. A description has been given here of the events of the
north of the line and of the cavalry positions, but it is not to be
supposed that peace reigned on the south of this point. On the
contrary, during the whole period under discussion, while the great
fight raged at Ypres, there had been constant shelling and occasional
advances against the Third Corps in the Armentières section, and also
against the Indians and the Second Corps down to the La Bassée Canal.
The most serious of these occurred upon November 9. Upon this date
the Germans, who had knocked so loudly at Messines and at Wytschaete
without finding that any opening through our lines was open to them,
thought that they might find better luck at Ploegsteert, which is a
village on the same line as the other two. Wytschaete is to the
north, Messines in the middle, and Ploegsteert in the south, each on
the main road from Ypres to Armentières, with about four miles
interval between each. The German attack was a very strong one, but
the hundredfold drama was played once more. On the 3rd Worcesters
fell the brunt, and no more solid fighters have been found in the
Army than those Midland men from the very heart of England. A
temporary set-back was retrieved and the line restored. Major
Milward, of the Worcesters, a very gallant officer, was grievously
wounded in this affair. The counter-attack which restored the
situation was carried out mainly by the 1st East Lancashires, who
lost Major Lambert and a number of men in the venture.
[Sidenote: Action of Zillebeke.]
Upon November 6, about 2 P.M., a strong German advance drove in those
French troops who were on {293} the right of Lord Cavan's
Brigade--4th--which occupied the extreme right of Haig's position.
point was between Klein Zillebeke and the canal, where a German
lodgment would have been most serious. The retirement of the French
exposed the right flank of the 1st Irish Guards. This flank was
strongly attacked, and for the second time in a week this brave
regiment endured very heavy losses. No. 2 company was driven back to
the support trenches, and No. 1 company, being isolated, was
destroyed. Their neighbours on the left, the 2nd Grenadiers stood
fast, but a great and dangerous alley-way was left for the Germans
round the British right wing. The situation was splendidly saved by
Kavanagh's 7th Cavalry Brigade, who galloped furiously down the road
to the place where they were so badly needed. This hard-worked
_corps d'élite_, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Life Guards supported
by the Blues, now dismounted and flung themselves into the gap, a
grimy line of weather-stained infantry with nothing left save their
giant physique and their spurs to recall the men who are the pride of
our London streets. The retiring French rallied at the sight of the
sons of Anak. An instant later the Germans were into them, and there
was a terrific _mêlée_ of British, French, and Prussians, which swung
and swayed over the marshland and across the road. Men drove their
bayonets through each other or fired point-blank into each other's
bodies in a most desperate fight, the Germans slowly but surely
recoiling, until at last they broke. It was this prompt and vigorous
stroke by Kavanagh's Brigade which saved a delicate situation. Of
the three cavalry regiments engaged, two lost their colonels--Wilson
of the Blues and Dawnay {294} of the 2nd Life Guards. Sixteen
officers fell in half an hour. The losses in rank and file were also
heavy, but the results were great and indeed vital. The whole
performance was an extraordinarily fine one.
[Sidenote: Record of the Seventh Division.]
Early on the morning of November 7 Lawford's 22nd Brigade, which was
now reduced to 1100 men, with 7 officers, was called upon to retake a
line of trenches which the enemy had wrested from a neighbouring
unit. Unbroken in nerve or spirit by their own terrific losses, they
rushed forward, led by Lawford himself, a cudgel in his hand, carried
the trench, captured three machine-guns, held the trench till
evening, and then retired for a time from the line. Captains
Vallentin and Alleyne, who led the two regiments into which the
skeleton brigade had been divided, both fell in this feat of arms.
After this action there remained standing the brigadier, 3 officers,
and 700 men. The losses of the brigade work out at 97 per cent of
the officers and 80 per cent of the men, figures which can seldom
have been matched in the warfare of any age, and yet were little in
excess of the other brigades, as is shown by the fact that the whole
division on November 7 numbered 44 officers and 2336 men. It is true
that many British regiments found themselves in this campaign with
not one single officer or man left who had started from England, but
these were usually the effects of months of campaigning. In the case
of the Seventh Division, all these deadly losses had been sustained
in less than three weeks. Britain's soldiers have indeed been
faithful to the death. Their record is the last word in endurance
and military virtue.
The division was now finally withdrawn from the fighting line. It
has already been stated that there {295} were reasons which made its
units exceptionally fine ones. In General Capper they possessed a
leader of enormous energy and fire, whilst his three
brigadiers--Watts, Lawford, and Ruggles-Brise--could not be surpassed
by any in the Army. Yet with every advantage of officers and men
there will always be wonder as well as admiration for what they
accomplished. For three days, before the First Corps had come
thoroughly into line, they held up the whole German advance, leaving
the impression upon the enemy that they were faced by two army corps.
Then for twelve more days they held the ground in the very
storm-centre of the attack upon Ypres. When at last the survivors
staggered from the line, they had made a name which will never die.
[Sidenote: Situation at Ypres.]
The bulk of Smith-Dorrien's Corps had now been brought north, so that
from this date (November 7) onwards the story of the First and Second
Corps is intimately connected. When we last saw this corps it will
be remembered that it had been withdrawn from the front, having lost
some twelve thousand men in three weeks of La Bassée operations, and
that the Indian Corps had taken over their line of trenches. Such
fighting men could not, however, be spared in the midst of such a
fight. The hospital was the only rest that any British soldier could
be afforded. Whilst they had still strength to stand they must line
up to the German flood or be content to see it thunder past them to
the coast. They were brought north, save only Bowes' 8th Brigade and
Maude's 14th, which remained with the Indians in the south. Although
the Seventh Division had been drawn out of the line, its attendant
cavalry division still remained to give its very efficient help to
General Haig. {296} The British position, though by no means secure,
was getting stronger day by day, for General d'Urbal of the Eighth
French Army to the north, and General Maud'huy to the south, had both
been strongly reinforced, and with their usual good comradeship did
all they could to strengthen the flanks and shorten the front of the
British line.
The men of the Second Corps who had come north from the La Bassée
district were not left long unmolested in their new sphere of
operations. On the afternoon of November 7 there was a hot German
attack upon that portion of the line which had just been vacated by
the Seventh Division. The trenches were now held by the Fifth
Division (Morland's).
The enemy may have hoped for some advantage from a change which they
may well have observed, but they found that, though the units might
be different, the same old breed still barred their path. On this
occasion, after the early rush had spent itself upon the 1st
Lincolns, it was the 2nd West Ridings who led the counter-charge.
The line, however, was never fully re-established. A number of
smaller attacks broke upon the front of the Second Division on the
same day, leaving a few score of prisoners behind them as they ebbed.
On the same day, November 7, the enemy got into the trenches of the
2nd Highland Light Infantry and remained in them, for all of them
were bayoneted or taken. Upon this day the London Scottish were
brought up into the Ypres line--a sign, if one were needed, that
after the action described they were accepted as the peers of their
comrades of the Regular Army, for no empty compliments are passed
when the breaking of a unit may mean the enfilading of a line.
{297}
November 8 was a quiet day, but it was well known from every report
of spy, scout, and aeroplane to be the lull before the storm. One
German brigade came down the Menin road, and went up it again leaving
a hundred dead on or beside the causeway. This attack inflicted some
loss upon the 1st North Lancashires and on the 1st Scots Guards. The
1st Bedfords captured a trench that night. The 9th and the 10th were
uneventful, and the tired troops rested on their arms, though never
free for an hour from the endless pelting of shells. To the north
and east the Eagles were known to be gathering. There were the
Emperor, the Emperor's Guard, and a great fresh battle of the Germans
ready for one grand final dash for Calais, with every rifle in the
firing line and every cannon to support it. Grave messages came from
headquarters, warning words were passed to anxious brigadiers, who
took counsel with their colonels as to fire-fields and supports.
Batteries were redistributed, depleted limbers refilled, and
observation posts pushed to the front, while the untiring sappers
gave the last touches to traverse and to trench. All was ready for
the fray. So close were the lines that at many points the
conversations of the enemy could be heard.
[Sidenote: Attack of the Prussian Guard.]
The Germans had already concentrated a large number of troops against
this part of the British line, and they were now secretly reinforced
by a division of the Prussian Guard. Documents found afterwards upon
the dead show that the Guard had had special orders from the Emperor
to break the line at all costs. The brigades which attacked were
made up of the 1st and 2nd Foot Guards, the Kaiser Franz Grenadiers
No. 2, the Königin Augusta Grenadiers No. 4, and {298} the battalion
of Garde Jäger--13,000 men in all. It was to be victory or death
with the _corps d'élite_ of the German army, but it was no less
victory or death with the men who opposed them. After an artillery
preparation of appalling intensity for three hours along the line of
both the First and Second Divisions, the infantry advance began about
9.30 on the morning of November 11 amid a storm of wind and rain.
They are gregarious fighters, the Germans, finding comfort and
strength in the rush of serried ranks. Even now the advance was made
in a close formation, but it was carried out with magnificent dash,
amazing valour, and a pedantic precision which caused, for example,
the leading officers to hold their swords at the carry. The Prussian
Guardsmen seemed to have lost nothing, and also to have learned
nothing, since their famous predecessors lay dead in their ranks
before St. Privat, forty-four years before. The attack was directed
against the front of the two divisions of the First British Army
Corps, but especially on the 1st Brigade, so that Guardsman faced
Guardsman, as at Fontenoy. There were none of the chivalrous
greetings of 1745, however, and a stern hatred hardened the hearts of
either side. The German Guard charged on the north of the Menin
road, while a second advance by troops of the line was made upon the
south, which withered away before the British fire. Nothing could
stop the Guards, however. With trenches blazing and crackling upon
their flank, for the advance was somewhat diagonal, they poured over
the British position and penetrated it at three different points
where the heavy shells had overwhelmed the trenches and buried the
occupants, who, in some cases, were {299} bayoneted as they struggled
out from under the earth. It was a terrific moment. The yells of
the stormers and the shrill whistles of their officers rose above the
crash of the musketry-fire and roar of the guns. The British fought
in their customary earnest silence, save for the short, sharp
directions of their leaders. "They did not seem angry--only
business-like," said a hostile observer. The troops to the immediate
north of the Menin road, who had been shelled out of their trenches
by the bombardment, were forced back and brushed aside into the woods
to the north, while the Germans poured through the gap. The 4th
Royal Fusiliers of the 9th Brigade, upon the right of the point where
the enemy had penetrated, were enfiladed and lost their gallant
colonel, MacMahon, a soldier who had done great service from the day
of Mons, and had just been appointed to a brigade. The regiment,
which has worked as hard and endured as great losses as any in the
campaign, was reduced to 2 officers and 100 men.
The German Guard poured on into the woods which lay in the immediate
rear of the British position, but their formation was broken and the
individualism of the Briton began to tell. Next to MacMahon's
regiment lay the 1st Scots Fusiliers, sister battalion to that which
had been destroyed upon October 31. With fierce joy they poured
volleys into the flank of the Guard as the grey figures rushed past
them into the woods. Four hundred dead Germans were afterwards
picked out from the underwood at this point. The Scots Fusiliers
were also hard hit by the German fire.
At this period the Germans who had come through the line had skirted
the south of a large wood of {300} half-grown trees, called the
Polygon Wood, and had advanced into the farther one, named
Nonnebusch. At this point they were close to the British artillery,
which they threatened to overwhelm. The 41st Brigade R.F.A., and
especially the 16th Field Battery, were in the immediate line of
their advance, and the gunners looking up saw the grey uniforms
advancing amid the trees. Colonel Lushington, who commanded the
artillery brigade, hurriedly formed up a firing line under his
adjutant, composed partly of his own spare gunners and partly of a
number of Engineers, reinforced by cooks, officers' servants, and
other odd hands who are to be found in the rear of the army, but
seldom expect to find themselves in the van of the fight. It was a
somewhat grotesque array, but it filled the gap and brought the
advance to a halt, though the leading Germans were picked up
afterwards within seventy yards of the guns. Whilst the position was
critical at this point of the front, it was no less so upon the
extreme right, where the French detachment, who still formed a link
between the canal on the south and the British right flank, were
shelled out of their trenches and driven back. Lord Cavan's 4th
Brigade, their nearest neighbours, were too hard pressed to be able
to help them. To the north of the Menin road a number of British
units were intact, and these held up the German flood in that region.
There are two considerable woods--the Polygon to the north and the
Nonnebusch to the south-west of the Polygon--the edges of which have
defined the British position, while their depths have harboured their
artillery. Now the 1st King's Liverpool Regiment held firm to the
south of the Polygon Wood, while north of them were {301} the 2nd
Highland Light Infantry, with a field company of Engineers. Farther
to the south-west were the 1st Connaught Rangers, while on the other
side of the Nonnebusch road was the 7th Cavalry Brigade. In the
afternoon of this day the enemy, skirting the south of the Polygon
Wood, had actually entered the Nonnebusch Wood, in which it faced the
artillery as already described. In the Polygon Wood, when they
penetrated the trenches of the 1st Brigade, they had the King's
Liverpool Regiment on their right, which refused to move, so that for
a long time the Prussian Guard and the King's lay side by side with a
traverse between them. "Our right is supported by the Prussian
Guard," said the humorous adjutant of the famous Lancashire regiment.
While the main body of the Guard passed on, some remained all day in
this trench.
The German Guardsmen had been prevented from submerging the 41st
Brigade of Artillery, and also the 35th Heavy Battery, by the
resistance of an improvised firing line. But a more substantial
defence was at hand. The 2nd Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, which
had been in divisional reserve near Ypres, had been brought forward
and found itself at Westhoek, near the threatened guns. This
regiment is the old 52nd, of the Peninsular Light Division, a famous
corps which threw itself upon the flank of Napoleon's Guard at
Waterloo and broke it in the crisis of the battle. Once again within
a century an Imperial Guard was to recoil before its disciplined
rush. Under Colonel Davies the regiment swept through the wood from
north-west to south-east, driving the Germans, who had already been
badly shaken by the artillery fire, in a headlong rout. {302} Many
threw down their arms. The loss to the Oxfords was surprisingly
small, well under fifty in all. As they emerged from the wood they
were joined by some of the 1st Northamptons from the 2nd Brigade upon
the right, while on the left there was a rush of Connaughts and
Highland Light Infantry from their own (Haking's) brigade and of
Engineers of the 25th Field Company, who showed extraordinary
initiative and gallantry, pushing on rapidly, and losing all their
officers save one and a number of their men without flinching for an
instant. A party of the Gloucesters, too, charged with the
Northamptons upon the right, for by this time units were badly mixed
up, as will always happen in woodland fighting. "It was all a
confused nightmare," said one who tried to control it. The line of
infantry dashed forward, a company of the Oxfords under Captain H. M.
Dillon in the lead, and the khaki wave broke over a line of trenches
which the Germans had taken, submerging all the occupants. There was
another line in front, but as the victorious infantry pushed forward
to this it was struck in the flank by a fire from French batteries,
which had been unable to believe that so much progress could have
been made in so short a time.
It was now nearly dark, and the troops were in the last stage of
exhaustion. Of the 1st Brigade something less than 400 with 4
officers could be collected. It was impossible to do more than hold
the line as it then existed. Two brave attempts were made in the
darkness to win back the original front trenches, but it could not be
done, for there were no men to do it. Save for one small corner of
the Polygon Wood, the Germans had been completely {303} cleared out
from the main position. At twelve and at four, during the night, the
British made a forward movement to regain the advanced trenches, but
in each case the advance could make no progress. At the very
beginning of the second attempt General FitzClarence, commanding the
1st Brigade, was killed, and the movement fizzled out. Besides
General FitzClarence, the Army sustained a severe loss in General
Shaw of the 9th Brigade, who was struck by a shell splinter, though
happily the wound was not mortal. The German losses were exceedingly
severe: 700 of their dead were picked up within a single section of
the British line, but the main loss was probably sustained in the
advance before they reached the trenches. Killed, wounded, and
prisoners, their casualties cannot have been less than 10,000 men.[1]
It was a fine attack, bravely delivered by fresh troops against weary
men, but it showed the German leaders once for all that it was
impossible to force a passage through the lines. The Emperor's
Guard, driven on by the Emperor's own personal impetus, had recoiled
broken, even as the Guard of a greater Emperor had done a century
before from the indomitable resistance of the British infantry. The
constant fighting had reduced British brigades to the strength of
battalions, battalions to companies, and companies to weak platoons,
but the position was still held. They had, it is true, lost about
five hundred yards of ground in the battle, but a shorter line was at
once dug, organised, and manned. The barrier to Ypres was as strong
as ever.
[1] The German returns for the Guard alone at this battle are
reported at 1170 dead, 3991 wounded, 1719 missing.
The strain upon the men, however, had been terrific. "Bearded,
unwashed, sometimes plagued {304} with vermin, the few who remained
in the front line were a terrible crew," says the American, Coleman.
"They were like fierce, wild beasts," says another observer. They
had given their all, almost to their humanity, to save Britain. May
the day never come when Britain will refuse to save them.
[Sidenote: Confused fighting.]
Glancing for a moment down the line to the south, there had been
continuous confused contention during this time, but no great attack
such as distinguished the operations in the north. Upon November 7
two brisk assaults were made by the Germans in the Armentières area,
one upon the Fourth Division of the Third Corps and the other upon
the Seaforth Highlanders, who were brigaded with the Indians. In
each case the first German rush carried some trenches, and in each
the swift return of the British regained them. There were moderate
losses upon both sides. On the same date the 13th Infantry Brigade
lost the services of Colonel Martyn of the 1st West Kents, who was
seriously wounded the very day after he had been appointed to a
brigade.
This attack upon November 11 represents the absolute high-water mark
of the German efforts in this battle, and the ebb was a rapid one.
Upon November 12 and the remainder of the week, half-hearted attempts
were made upon the British front, which were repulsed without
difficulty. To the north of the line, where the French had held
their positions with much the same fluctuations which had been
experienced by their Allies, the German assault was more violent and
met with occasional success, though it was finally repelled with very
great loss. The 14th was to the French what the 11th had been to the
British--the culmination of {305} violence and the prelude of rest.
The weather throughout this period was cold and tempestuous, which
much increased the strain upon the weary troops. Along the whole
line from Ypres to Bethune there were desultory shellings with an
occasional dash by one side or the other, which usually ended in the
capture of a trench and its recapture by the supports in the rear.
It was in one of these sporadic German attacks in the Klein Zillebeke
section that the 2nd King's Royal Rifles held their trench against
heavy odds, and their machine-gun officer, Lieutenant Dimmer, thrice
wounded and still fighting, won the coveted Cross by his valour.
Each gallant advance and capture of the Germans was countered by an
equally gallant counter-attack and recapture by the British. The
long line sagged and swayed, but never bent or broke. The era of
battles had passed, but for thirty miles the skirmishes were
incessant. So mixed and incessant had been the fighting that it was
a very difficult task during these days to tidy up the line and get
each scattered group of men back to its own platoon, company, and
battalion.
On Tuesday, November 17, the fighting suddenly assumed a more
important character. The attack was again in the Ypres section and
fell chiefly upon the battalions of the Second Corps, if so dignified
a name as "battalion" can be given to bodies of men which consisted
very often of less than a normal company, commanded, perhaps, by two
junior officers. The 4th Brigade of Guards was also heavily engaged
this day, and so were the cavalry of the Third Division. The general
locale of the action was the same as that which had been so often
fought over before, the Second Corps being to the south of the
Ypres-Menin {306} road, with Lord Cavan's Guardsmen upon their right
and the cavalry upon the right of the Guards. After a severe
shelling there was a serious infantry advance, about one o'clock,
which took some trenches, but was finally driven back and chased for
a quarter of a mile. McCracken's 7th Brigade bore a chief part in
this fighting, and the 1st Wiltshires particularly distinguished
themselves by a fine charge led by Captain Cary-Barnard. The 2nd
Grenadiers did great work during the day.
An even heavier advance was made in the afternoon to the south of
that which was broken in the morning. This involved an oblique
advance across the British front, which was stopped and destroyed
before it reached the trenches by the deadly fire of rifles and
machine-guns. Over a thousand dead were left as a proof of the
energy of the attack and the solidity of the resistance. Farther to
the south a similar attack was beaten back by the cavalry after a
preliminary shelling in which the 3rd Dragoon Guards suffered
severely. This attack was repelled by the Third Cavalry Division, to
which the Leicestershire and North Somerset Yeomanry were now
attached. The latter did fine service in this action. Altogether,
November 17 was a good day for the British arms and a most expensive
one for the Germans.
[Sidenote: End of the first Battle of Ypres.]
We have now reached the end of the Battle of Ypres, which attained
its maximum fury, so far as the British line was concerned, from
October 29 to November 11. This great contest raged from the sand
dunes of the north, where the Belgians fought so well, through the
French Marine Brigade at Dixmude, and the Ninth French Corps, to
General Haig's Corps, which was buttressed on the right towards {307}
the latter part of the battle by the Sixteenth French Corps. Farther
south yet another French corps supported and eventually took the
place of the British cavalry opposite the lost villages of Wytschaete
and Messines. From there ran the unbroken lines of the imperturbable
Third Corps, which ended to the south in the trenches originally held
by the Second British Corps, and later by the Indians. Across the La
Bassée Canal the French once again took up the defence.
It is not an action, therefore, which can be set down to the
exclusive credit of any one nation. Our Allies fought gloriously,
and if their deeds are not set down here, it is from want of space
and of precise information, not from want of appreciation. But,
turning to the merely British aspect of the fight--and beyond all
doubt the heavier share fell upon the British, who bore the brunt
from the start to the end,--it may be said that the battle lasted a
clear month, from October 12, when Smith-Dorrien crossed the La
Bassée Canal, to November 11, when the German Guard reeled out of the
Nonnebusch Wood. We are so near these great events that it is hard
to get their true proportion, but it is abundantly clear that the
battle, in its duration, the space covered, the numbers engaged, and
the losses endured, was far the greatest ever fought up to that time
by a British Army. At Waterloo the losses were under 10,000. In
this great fight they were little short of 50,000. The fact that the
enemy did not recoil and that there was no sensational capture of
prisoners and guns has obscured the completeness of the victory. In
these days of nations in arms a beaten army is buttressed up or
reabsorbed by the huge forces of {308} which it is part. One judges
victory or defeat by the question whether an army has or has not
reached its objective. In this particular case, taking a broad view
of the whole action, a German force of at least 600,000 men set forth
to reach the coast, and was opposed by a force of less than half its
numbers who barred its way. The Germans did not advance five miles
in a month of fighting, and they lost not less than 150,000 men
without any military advantage whatever, for the possession of such
villages as Gheluvelt, Wytschaete, or Messines availed them not at
all. If this is not a great victory, I do not know what military
achievement would deserve the term. Ypres was a Plevna--but a Plevna
which remained for ever untaken.
[Sidenote: Death of Lord Roberts.]
On November 15 Lord Roberts died whilst visiting the Army, having
such an end as he would have chosen, within earshot of the guns and
within the lines of those Indian soldiers whom he loved and had so
often led. The last words of his greatest speech to his
fellow-countrymen before the outbreak of that war which he had
foreseen, and for which he had incessantly tried to prepare, were
that they should quit themselves like men. He lived to see them do
so, and though he was not spared to see the final outcome, his spirit
must at least have been at rest as to the general trend of the
campaign. The tradition of his fascinating character, with its
knightly qualities of gentleness, bravery, and devotion to duty, will
remain as a national possession.
[Sidenote: The Eighth Division.]
About this time, though too late for the severe fighting, there
arrived the Eighth Division, which would enable Sir Henry Rawlinson
to complete his Fourth Corps.
{309}
The Eighth Division was composed as follows:--
DIVISIONAL GENERAL--General DAVIES.
23_rd Infantry Brigade--General Penny._
2nd Scots Rifles.
2nd Middlesex.
2nd West Yorkshires.
2nd Devons.
24_th Infantry Brigade--General Carter._
1st Worcesters.
2nd East Lancashires.
1st Notts and Derby.
2nd Northamptons.
25_th Infantry Brigade--General Lowry Cole._
2nd Lincolns.
2nd Berkshires.
1st Irish Rifles.
2nd Rifle Brigade.
13th London (Kensingtons).
_Artillery._
5th Brigade R.H.A., G.O.Z.
45th Brigade R.F.A.
33rd Brigade R.F.A.
Heavy Batteries 118, 119.
2, 5, F. Cos. R.E.
8 Signal Co.
Divisional Cavalry.
Northampton Yeomanry.
8th Cyclists.
We have now arrived at what may be called the great winter lull, when
the continuation of active operations was made impossible by the
weather conditions, which were of the most atrocious description. It
was the season which in a more classic age of warfare was spent in
comfortable winter quarters. There was no such surcease of hardship
for the contending lines, who were left in their trenches face to
face, often not more than fifty yards apart, and each always keenly
alert for any devilry upon the part of the other. The ashes of war
were always redly smouldering, and sometimes, as will be seen, burst
up into sudden furious flame. It was a period of rain-storms and of
frost-bites, of trench mortars and of {310} hand grenades, of weary,
muddy, goat-skinned men shivering in narrow trenches, and of depleted
brigades resting and recruiting in the rearward towns. Such was the
position at the Front. But hundreds of miles to the westward the
real future of the war was being fought out in the rifle factories of
Birmingham, the great gun works of Woolwich, Coventry, Newcastle, and
Sheffield, the cloth looms of Yorkshire, and the boot centres of
Northampton. In these and many other places oversea the tools for
victory were forged night and day through one of the blackest and
most strenuous winters that Britain has ever known. And always on
green and waste and common, from Cromarty to Brighton, wherever
soldiers could find billets or a village of log huts could be put
together, the soldier citizens who were to take up the burden of the
war, the men of the Territorials and the men of the new armies,
endured every hardship and discomfort without a murmur, whilst they
prepared themselves for that great and glorious task which the future
would bring. Even those who were too old or too young for service
formed themselves into volunteer bands, who armed and clothed
themselves at their own expense. This movement, which sprang first
from the small Sussex village of Crowborough, was co-ordinated and
controlled by a central body of which Lord Desborough was the head.
In spite of discouragement, or at the best cold neutrality from
Government, it increased and prospered until no fewer than a quarter
of a million of men were mustered and ready entirely at their own
expense and by private enterprise--one of the most remarkable
phenomena of the war.
{311}