April 5 and 6.
About 10 A.M. on April 6 the enemy renewed his attack upon the junction between the Forty-seventh and Sixty-third Divisions, but it was the British turn to mow down advancing lines with machine-gun fire. No progress was made, and there were such signs of German weakening that the British made a sudden local advance, capturing two machine-guns and some prisoners. In this affair it is characteristic of the spirit which still remained in the weary British troops, that Corporal March of the 24th London went forward and shot the opposing German officer, bringing back his maps and papers.
The German commanders were well aware that if the line was to be broken it must be soon, and all these operations were in the hope of finding a fatal flaw. Hence it was that the attacks which began and failed upon April 4 extended all along the northern line on April 5. Thus the New Zealand Division on the left of the points already mentioned was involved in the fighting, the right brigade, consisting of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, being fiercely attacked by some 2000 storm troops who advanced with great hardihood, and at the second attempt recaptured the farm of La Signy. The German officers seem upon this occasion to have given an example to their men which has often been conspicuously lacking. "A tall Wurtemburger," says the New Zealand recorder, "ran towards our line with nine of his men. In one hand he carried a cane and over his arm a light waterproof coat. He was a fine big fellow over six feet high.... Just at the critical moment some Lewis-gunners took a hand in the business, the officer was shot dead, and most of the others were killed or wounded."
On the left of the New Zealanders the attack was extended to the road between Ayette and Bucquoy. Here a brigade of the Thirty-seventh Division in the south and of the Forty-second in the north were heavily attacked and Bucquoy was taken, but before the evening the defenders returned and most of the lost ground was regained. The right of the Thirty-seventh Division had advanced in the morning upon Rossignol Wood, that old bone of contention, and had in a long day's struggle got possession of most of it. Three machine-guns and 130 men were the spoils.
April 21, 22.
From this time onwards there were no very notable events for some weeks in the Somme line, save for some sharp fighting in the Aveluy Wood sector on April 21 and 22, in which the Seventeenth, Thirty-fifth, and Thirty-eighth Divisions were all involved. The enemy tried hard to improve his position and did succeed in gaining some ground. The attacks were costly to both sides but the results were futile. The British outposts, and particularly those of the Australians, maintained an aggressive attitude throughout, and it was more and more impressed upon the German mind that in spite of his considerable advance and large captures, it was an unbeaten army which lay before him.
April 24.
On the morning of April 24 a very determined attack was made by the Germans upon the front of Butler's Third Corps in the area of Villers-Bretonneux. This small town is of great importance, as it stands on a curve of the rolling downs from which a very commanding view of Amiens is obtained, the cathedral especially standing out with great clearness. Already the city had suffered great damage, but the permanent loss of Villers-Bretonneux would mean its certain destruction. The attack was urged by four German divisions and was supported by tanks which did good service to the enemy and broke in the British line, held mainly at this point by Heneker's Eighth Division which had hardly recovered from its heroic services upon the Somme.
It is suggestive of the value of the tanks whether in German or in British hands that where the attack was unsupported by these machines it broke down under the British fire, as on the right of Cator's Fifty-eighth Division to the south and on the left of the Eighth Division. There were fifteen German tanks in all, so their array was a formidable one, the more so in a mist which was impenetrable at fifty yards. It was for the British now to experience the thrill of helpless horror which these things can cause even in brave hearts when they loom up out of the haze in all their hideous power. The 2/4th Londons on the south of the village were driven back to the line Cachy-Hangard Wood, so that their neighbours of the 2/2nd London had to conform. The 2/10th London counter-attacked at once, however, and penetrated Hangard Wood, doing something to ease the situation. The 2nd Middlesex and 2nd West Yorks were overrun by the tanks, much as the Roman legionaries were by the elephants of Pyrrhus, and even the historical and self-immolating stab in the belly was useless against these monsters. The 2nd Rifle Brigade were also dislodged from their position and had to close up on the 2nd Berkshires on their left. The 2nd East Lancashires had also to fall back, but coming in touch with a section of the 20th Battery of divisional artillery they were able to rally and hold their ground all day with the backing of the guns.
The 2nd Devons in reserve upon the right were also attacked by tanks, the first of which appeared suddenly before Battalion Headquarters and blew away the parapet. Others attacked the battalion, which was forced to move into the Bois d'Aquenne. There chanced to be three heavy British tanks in this quarter, and they were at once ordered forward to restore the situation. Seven light whippet tanks were also given to the Fifty-eighth Division. These tanks then engaged the enemy's fleet, and though two of the heavier and four of the light were put out of action they silenced the Germans and drove them back. With these powerful allies the infantry began to move forward again, and the 1st Sherwood Foresters carried out a particularly valuable advance.
Shortly after noon the 173rd Brigade of the Fifty-eighth Division saw the Germans massing behind tanks about 500 yards east of Cachy, with a view to attacking. There were three whippets still available, and they rushed out and did great work, catching two German battalions as they deployed.
The Fifty-eighth had good neighbours upon their right in the shape of the Moroccan corps, a unit which is second to none in the French Army for attack. These were not engaged, but under the orders of General Debeney they closed up on the left so as to shorten the front of General Cator's division, a great assistance with ranks so depleted. His troops were largely lads of eighteen sent out to fill the gaps made in the great battle, but nothing could exceed their spirit, though their endurance was not equal to their courage.
On the evening of April 24 General Butler could say with Desaix, "The battle is lost. There is time to win another one." The Germans not only held Villers-Bretonneux, but they had taken Hangard from the French, and held all but the western edge of Hangard Wood. The farthest western point ever reached by the Germans on the Somme was on this day when they occupied for a time the Bois l'Abbé, from which they were driven in the afternoon by the 1st Sherwoods and 2nd West Yorks. They had not attained Cachy, which was their final objective, but none the less it was very necessary that Villers-Bretonneux and the ground around it should be regained instantly before the Germans took root.
For this purpose a night attack was planned on the evening of April 24, and was carried out with great success. The operation was important in itself, but even more so as the first sign of the turn of the tide which had run so long from east to west, and was soon to return with such resistless force from west to east.
For the purposes of the attack the fresh 13th Australian Brigade (Glasgow) was placed under the General of the Eighth Division, and was ordered to attack to the south of Villers, while the 15th Australian Brigade made a similar advance upon the north. Each of these was directed to pass beyond the little town, which was to be cleared by an independent force. On the right of the Australians was the balance of the Eighth Division, which had to clear up the Bois d'Aquenne.
Rough Sketch of the General Position of Troops at the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, April 24-25
Rough Sketch of the General Position of Troops at the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, April 24-25
The attack was carried out at 10 P.M., the infantry having white arm-bands for identification in the darkness. There was no artillery preparation, and the advance was across unknown country, so that it may be placed among the most hazardous operations in the war. In the case of the 13th Australian Brigade, the 52nd Battalion was on the right in touch with the British, while the 51st was on the left, with the 50th in support. From the onset the machine-gun fire was very severe, especially against the 51st Regiment, but the admirable individuality of the Australian soldiers was of great service to them, every man getting forward through the darkness as best he could. The weather was ideal, for there was sufficient moon to give direction, but not enough to expose the troops to distant fire. The German flares were rather a help to the attack by defining the position. The Australian front got as far forward as Monument Wood, level with the village, but the 173rd Brigade on their right was in some difficulty, and they themselves were badly enfiladed from the town, so they could not maintain their more advanced position. The 2nd Northamptons, attached to the 13th Australian Brigade, had been told off to take the town itself, but both their colonel and their adjutant were killed during the assembly, and some confusion of orders caused the plans to miscarry. On the north of the town the 15th Australian Brigade, with the 22nd Durhams attached, had been an hour late in starting, but the 60th and 59th Regiments got up, after some confused fighting, to a point north of the town, which was entered after dawn and cleared up by the 2nd Berkshires, aided by a company of the Australian 58th Battalion.
The German tanks had done good work in the attack, and some of the British tanks were very useful in the counter-attacks, especially three which operated in the Bois d'Aquenne and broke down the obstinate German resistance in front of the Eighth Division. Daylight on April 25 found the British and Australian lines well up to the village on both sides, and a good deal of hard fighting, in which the troops got considerably mixed, took place. One unusual incident occurred as two blindfolded Germans under a flag of truce appeared in the British line, and were brought to Colonel Whitham of the 52nd Australian Regiment. They carried a note which ran: "My Commanding Officer has sent me to tell you that you are confronted by superior forces and surrounded on three sides. He desires to know whether you will surrender and avoid loss of life. If you do not he will blow you to pieces by turning his heavy artillery on to your trenches." No answer was returned to this barefaced bluff, but the messengers were detained, as there was considerable doubt as to the efficiency of the bandages which covered their eyes.
By 4 P.M. on April 25 the village had been cleared, and the troops were approximately in the old front line. The 22nd Durham Light Infantry had mopped up the south side of the village. About a thousand prisoners had been secured. The 54th Brigade of Lee's Eighteenth Division, which had been in support, joined in the fighting during the day, and helped to push the line forward, winning their way almost to their final objective south of the village and then having to yield 200 yards to a counter-attack. The fast whippet tanks were used during this action, and justified themselves well, though, as in the case of all tanks, the value of the instrument depends mainly upon the courage of the crew who handle it. One British tank, under the command of a leader named Craig, seems to have been all over the field wherever it was most needed, so that some weeks after the fight the present chronicler in visiting the field of battle still heard the legend of his prowess. As to the German resistance a skilled observer remarks: "The enemy handled his machine-guns with great boldness. The manner in which he pushes forward numbers of guns, relying upon the daring and initiative of the crews to use them to best advantage, may lead to a greater number being lost, but he certainly inflicts enormous casualties in this way."
April 26.
There was an aftermath of the battle on April 26 which led to some very barren and sanguinary fighting in which the losses were mainly incurred by our gallant Allies upon the right. There was a position called The Monument, immediately south of Villers, which had not yet been made good. The Moroccan Division had been slipped in on the British right, and their task was to assault the German line from this point to the north edge of Hangard Wood. Part of the Fifty-eighth Division was to attack the wood itself, while on the left the Eighth Division was to complete the clearance of Villers and to join up with the left of the Moroccans. The Eighth Division had already broken up three strong counter-attacks on the evening of April 25, and by the morning of April 26 their part of the programme was complete. The only six tanks available were given to the Moroccans. At 5.15 on the morning of April 26 the attack opened. It progressed well near the town, but on the right the Foreign Legion, the very cream of the fighting men of the French Army, were held by the murderous fire from the north edge of Hangard Wood. The 10th Essex and 7th West Kents, who had been lent to the Fifty-eighth Division by the 53rd Brigade, were held by the same fire, and were all mixed up with the adventurers of the Legion, the losses of both battalions, especially the West Kents, being terribly heavy. The Moroccan Tirailleurs in the centre were driven back by a German counter-attack, but were reinforced and came on again. Hangard village, however, held up the flank of the French. In the evening about half the wood was in the hands of the Allies, but it was an inconclusive and very expensive day.
The battle of Villers-Bretonneux was a very important engagement, as it clearly defined the ne plus ultra of the German advance in the Somme valley, and marked a stable equilibrium which was soon to turn into an eastward movement. It was in itself a most interesting fight, as the numbers were not very unequal. The Germans had five divisions engaged, the Fourth Guards, Two hundred and twenty-eighth, Two hundred and forty-third, Seventy-seventh Reserve, and Two hundred and eighth. The British had the Eighth, Fifty-eighth, Eighteenth, and Fifth Australian, all of them very worn, but the Germans may also have been below strength. The tanks were equally divided. The result was not a decided success for any one, since the line ended much as it had begun, but it showed the Germans that, putting out all their effort, they could get no farther. How desperate was the fight may be judged by the losses which, apart from the Australians, amounted to more than 9000 men in the three British divisions, the Fifty-eighth and Eighth being the chief sufferers.
As this was the first occasion upon which the Germans seem to have brought their tanks into the line of battle, some remarks as to the progress of this British innovation may not be out of place—the more so as it became more and more one of the deciding factors in the war. On this particular date the German tanks were found to be slow and cumbrous, but were heavily armed and seemed to possess novel features, as one of them advanced in the original attack upon April 24 squirting out jets of lachrymatory gas on each side. The result of the fighting next day was that two weak (female) British tanks were knocked out by the Germans while one German tank was destroyed and three scattered by a male British tank. The swift British whippet tanks were used for the first time upon April 24, and seem to have acted much like Boadicea's chariots, cutting a swathe in the enemy ranks and returning crimson with blood.
Treating the subject more generally, it may be said that the limited success attained by tanks in the shell-pocked ground of the Somme and the mud of Flanders had caused the Germans and also some of our own high authorities to underrate their power and their possibilities of development. All this was suddenly changed by the battle of Cambrai, when the Germans were terrified at the easy conquest of the Hindenburg Line. They then began to build. It may be said, however, that they never really gauged the value of the idea, being obsessed by the thought that no good military thing could come out of England. Thus when in the great final advance the tanks began to play an absolutely vital part they paid the usual price of blindness and arrogance, finding a weapon turned upon them for which they had no adequate shield. If any particular set of men can be said more than another to have ruined the German Empire and changed the history of the world, it is those who perfected the tank in England, and also those at the German headquarters who lacked the imagination to see its possibilities. So terrified were the Germans of tanks at the end of the war that their whole artillery was directed to knocking them out, to the very great relief of the long-suffering infantry.
From this time onwards this front was the scene of continuous aggressive action on the part of the Australians, which gradually nibbled away portions of the German line, until the day came for the grand advance of August 8. One of the most successful of these was on May 19, when the village of Ville-sur-Ancre was taken by a sudden assault with 20 machine-guns and 360 prisoners. A second very sharp fight, which may be mentioned here, though it is just beyond the scope of this volume, was on July 1 and following days in the Aveluy sector, near the Ancre, where the Twelfth and Eighteenth Divisions had three bouts of attack and counter-attack, in which the 37th and 54th Brigades were heavily engaged, the honours of the action being about equally divided between the British and the Germans.
April 9-12
The Flanders front—Great German onslaught—Disaster of the Portuguese—Splendid stand at Givenchy of the Fifty-fifth Division—Hard fight of the Fortieth Division—Loss of the Lys—Desperate resistance of the Fiftieth Division—Thirty-fourth Division is drawn into the Battle—Attack in the north upon the Ninth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-fifth Divisions—British retreat—General survey of the situation.
Nearly a hundred German divisions had been used against the British alone in the great offensive which began on March 21 and ended in the first week of April. At this time the British forces in France, including Portuguese and Overseas divisions, numbered sixty in all. Of these no less than forty-four had been engaged in the great battle, and all of these were either still in the line, tied to the Amiens front, or else had been drawn out in a shattered and disorganised condition, having lost on an average not less than from 4000 to 5000 men each. It will be seen that there was only a very small margin over, and that if the Germans by a supreme effort had burst the line and reached the estuary of the Somme, it would have been possible to have caused a great military disaster. Especially would this have been the case if the northern flank of the British could have been driven in as well as the southern, for then the mutilated and shaken army would have been hurled in upon itself and would have found itself crowded down upon a sea-coast which would have given few facilities for embarkation. In the hopes of a débacle in the south the Germans had prepared out of their huge reserves a considerable force in the north which would have formed the second claw of their deadly embrace. When the first claw missed its grip and could get no farther it was determined that the other should at least go forward and endeavour to reach the Channel ports. Although the Somme estuary had not been attained, none the less the Germans knew well that three-quarters of the whole British force had been engaged, and that most of it was not fit to take its place in a renewed battle. Therefore they had reason to hope for great results from their new offensive in Flanders, and they entered upon it with a good heart.
The omens were certainly propitious, but there were two factors which were in favour of the British—factors which could not yet have been adequately appreciated by the Germans. The first was the new unity of command under General Foch, a soldier famous for his writings in peace and for his deeds in war. This great leader, who had distinguished himself again and again since the first month of the war, when he had played a vital part in checking the German rush for Paris, was selected with the cordial consent of every one concerned, and especially of Sir Douglas Haig, as Generalissimo of the Allied forces. Therefore a common control and a common policy were ensured, so that the German chiefs could not turn their whole force upon half of the Allies with the assurance that the other half would find the operations outside their war map. Hence the British in Flanders, though they would have to fight their own battle for a week or two, could count confidently upon receiving help at the end of that time.
The second and more immediate factor, was that by a fine national effort a splendid stream of efficient drafts had been despatched from England during the great battle—young soldiers it is true, but full of spirit and most eager to meet the Germans and to emulate the great deeds of their elders. Their training had been short, but it had been intense and practical, with so excellent a result that one could but marvel at the old pre-war pundits who insisted that no soldier could be made under two years. These high-spirited lads flocked into the depleted battalions, which had often to be reformed from the beginning, with a skeleton framework of officers and N.C.O.'s upon which to build. It was of course impossible to assimilate these drafts in the few days at the disposal of the divisional generals, but at least they had adequate numbers once more, and they must be taught to be battle-worthy by being thrown into the battle, as Spartan fathers have taught their boys to swim.
One more sign of the times was the quick appreciation by the American authorities of the desperate nature of the crisis all along the Allied line. With magnanimous public spirit they at once gave directions that such American troops as were available and had not yet been formed into special American divisions should be placed under British or French command and fitted temporarily into their organisation. The few complete organised American divisions in France had been on the Alsace line, but some of these were now brought round to thicken the French army on the Oise. But most important of all was the effect upon the shipment of American troops, which had averaged about 50,000 a month and now rose at a bound to 250,000, a number which was sustained or increased for several months in succession. This result was helped by the whole-hearted co-operation of the British mercantile marine, which was deflected from its other very pressing tasks, including the feeding of the country, in order to carry these troops, and actually handled about two-thirds of them whilst the British Navy helped to find the escorts. So efficiently were the transport arrangements carried out both by British and Americans; that when a million men had been conveyed they were still able to announce that the losses upon the voyage were practically nil. Even the lie-fed bemused German public began to realise in the face of this fact that their much boomed submarines were only one more of their colossal failures.
The German attack upon the British lines by the army of General von Quast in Flanders broke on the morning of April 9. There had been considerable shelling on the day before along the whole line, but as the hour approached this concentrated with most extreme violence on the nine-mile stretch from the village of Givenchy in the south to Fleurbaix, which is just south of Armentières in the north. This proved to be the area of the actual attack, and against this front some eight German divisions advanced about 6 o'clock of a misty morning. So shattering had been their bombardment and so active their wire-cutters, who were covered by the fog, that the advanced positions could hardly be said to exist, and they were able to storm their way at once into the main defences.
The point upon which this attack fell was held the by four divisions, all of which formed part of Horne's First Army. The general distribution of the troops at that time was that the Second Army stretched from the junction with the Belgians near Houthulst Forest down to the Messines district where it joined the First Army. The First Army had weakened itself by an extension to the south, and Plumer's force was about to extend also, and take over the Laventie district, when the storm suddenly burst upon the very point which was to be changed.
Two corps were involved in the attack, the Fifteenth (De Lisle) in the Armentières region, and the Eleventh (Haking) in the region of Givenchy. The latter had two divisions in the line, Jeudwine's Fifty-fifth West Lancashire Territorials defending the village and adjacent lines, while the Portuguese Second Division (Da Costa) covered the sector upon their left. The depleted Fiftieth Division (Jackson) was in immediate reserve. On the left of the Portuguese was Ponsonby's Fortieth Division which had lost five thousand men in the Somme battle only a fortnight before, and now found itself plunged once more into one of the fiercest engagements of the war, where it was exposed again to very heavy losses.
The main force of the German attack fell upon the Portuguese line, and it was of such strength that no blame can be attached to inexperienced troops who gave way before so terrific a blow, which would have been formidable to any soldiers in the world. The division held the line from 2000 yards south of Richebourg l'Avoué to the east of Picantin, a frontage of 9350 yards, or more than half of the total front of the assault. The division had all three brigades in the line, and even so was very extended to meet a serious assault. The 3rd Brigade from the First Portuguese Division was in immediate support. The 5th Brigade was on the right, covering Le Touret, the 6th in the middle, and the 4th on the left, covering Laventie. Behind the whole position lay the curve of the River Lys, a sluggish stream which moves slowly through this desolate plain, the Golgotha where so many men have died, Indians, French, British, and German, since the first months of the war. In all that huge flat canalised space it was only at Givenchy that some small ridge showed above the dreary expanse.
The Portuguese had been in the line for some months, but had never experienced anything to approach the severity of the shattering bombardment which poured upon them from four in the morning. When an hour or two later the storming columns of the German infantry loomed through the thick curtain of mist, the survivors were in no condition to stand such an attack. All telephone and telegraph wires had been cut within the first half-hour, and it was impossible to direct any protective barrage. The artillery in the rear, both British and Portuguese, had been much weakened by a concentration of gas-shells extending as far as Merville, so that the infantry were left with insufficient support. The gunners stood to their work like men, and groups of them continued to fire their guns after the infantry had left them exposed. These brave men were killed or captured by the enemy, and their batteries were taken. In the rear the roads had been so shattered by the German fire that it was impossible to get a tractor or lorry up to the heavy guns, and there was no way of removing them. All observers agree that the crews of the heavy guns did excellently well. The whole front had fallen in, however, and in spite of scattered groups of infantry who showed the traditional Portuguese courage—that courage which had caused the great Duke to place them amongst his best soldiers—the position was in the hands of the enemy. By mid-day they were at Le Touret upon the right, and the guns there were blown up and abandoned. About the same time they had reached Estaires upon the left and Bout Deville in the centre. Before evening the German line was four miles from its starting-point, and had reached the River Lawe, a small affluent of the Lys. From this time onwards the Fiftieth Division, coming up from the rear, had taken over the front, and the Portuguese were out of the battle. The Germans in their day's work had taken 6000 prisoners and 100 guns, many of them in ruins. It should be mentioned that the Portuguese ordeal was the more severe, as breast-works had taken the place of trenches in this sector. All were agreed that General da Costa did what was possible. "He is a fine man, who does not know what fear is," said a British officer who was with him on the day of the battle.
The caving in of the front of the line had a most serious effect upon the two British divisions, the Fifty-fifth and the Fortieth, who were respectively upon the right and the left of the Portuguese. Each was attacked in front, and each was turned upon the flank and rear. We shall first consider the case of the Fifty-fifth Division which defended the lines of Givenchy with an energy and success which makes this feat one of the outstanding incidents of the campaign. This fine division of West Lancashire Territorials, containing several battalions from Liverpool, had some scores to settle with the Germans, by whom they had been overrun in the surprise at Cambrai at the end of the last November. At Givenchy they had their glorious revenge.
The position of the Fifty-fifth Division was a strong one, extending for some thousands of yards from the hamlet of Le Plantin in the south to Cailloux in the north, with a section of the old British line a thousand yards in front, a deserted trench half full of water and festooned with rusty wire. There were outpost companies along the scattered line of ruined houses, and a few posts were thrown far out near the old trench. The village line consisted of a series of well-concealed breast-works and loopholed walls without any continuous trench, the whole so cunningly arranged that it was difficult to get the plan of it from in front. Each post or small fort had its own independent scheme of defence, with good enfilade fire, concrete emplacements, belts of wire, and deep ditches.
Very early in the day the left flank of the position had been entirely exposed by the retirement of the Portuguese, so that during the whole long and desperate struggle the general formation of the division was in the shape of an L, the shorter arm being their proper front, and the longer one facing north and holding up the German attack from inside the old lines. The northern defensive flank does not seem to have been entirely improvised, as some precautions of this nature had already been taken. The new front extended from the hamlet of Loisne upon the stream of that name, through a second hamlet called Le Plantin, and so down to the canal. The first strain of the fighting fell chiefly upon the 165th Brigade (Boyd-Moss), consisting of three battalions of the famous King's Liverpool Regiment. The 6th and 7th Battalions were in the line with the 5th in support at Gorre, but as the day wore on and the pressure increased, units from both the other brigades were drawn into the fight, so that all participated in the glory of the victory. By 8.30 the flank was entirely naked, and the Germans in small but audacious bodies, with a constant rattle of rifle and machine-gun fire, were pushing in between the outer posts of the British division, overwhelming and obliterating some of them by a concentrated fire of trench mortars. Some of these isolated garrisons held out in the most desperate fashion, and helped to take the pressure off the main village line. One particularly brilliant example was that of Captain Armstrong of the 1/4th South Lancashires, who with A Company of that battalion defended a moated farm, literally to the death, having been warned that it was a key position.
About mid-day the German attack was still creeping in, and had gained one important outpost called Princes' Island. The 10th Liverpool Scots from the 166th Brigade, a battalion which has a great record for the war, had come up to thicken the line of defenders. Amid the crash and roar of constant shells, and a storm of bullets which beat like hail upon every wall and buzzed through every crevice, the stubborn infantry endured their losses with stoic patience, firing steadily through their shattered loopholes at any mark they could see. At 1 o'clock some audacious stormers had got so far forward on the left that they were in the rear of the Brigade Headquarters, and were only held there by spare men from the transport lines who chanced to be available. The attack was drifting down more and more from the new ground, so about this hour the 5th South Lancashires, also of the 166th Brigade, were sent across to the north of Loisne to hold the stream. Each flank was attempted in turn by the wily assailants, so that when the left proved impervious they charged in upon the right, and captured Windy Corner, which is near the canal upon that side, continuing their advance by attacking Le Plantin South from the rear and the flank, so that the defenders were in an impossible position. Having taken this point it seemed as if the Germans would roll up the whole long thin line from the end, and they actually did so, as far as Le Plantin North. Here the British rallied, and the survivors of the 6th and 7th King's made a furious advance, pushed the Germans back, retook Le Plantin South, and captured a number of prisoners. The position was still serious, however, as the Germans held Windy Corner, and had penetrated between the British right and the canal, so as to get into the rear of the position. A great effort was called for, and the men responded like heroes. The 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers from the 164th Brigade (Stockwell) had come up, and these fine soldiers, with the weary remains of the two King's Liverpool battalions, rushed the whole German position, dragging them out from the pockets and ruins amid which they lurked. In this splendid counter-attack more than 700 prisoners were taken in all, with a number of machine-guns. At the end of it the British right was absolutely intact.
Whilst these stirring events had taken place on the right flank, there had been heavy fighting also on the left. Here the British defence had been based upon two small but strong forts, called Cailloux North and Route A Keep. The latter fell early in the action, the German infantry coming upon it so unexpectedly in the fog that the machine-guns were at the moment mounted upon the parapet and elevated for indirect fire. They were put out of action, and the place was surrounded and taken. This greatly weakened the left wing of the defence. Farther still to the left the Germans were pushing through Loisne, and the fort called Loisne Central was heavily engaged. This portion of the line was held by the 166th Brigade. Once the German wave actually lapped over into the little fort, but the place was not taken, and its machine-guns still clattered and flashed. All day the Germans were held at this point though the pressure was great. During the night the 13th King's Liverpools from the 9th Brigade were sent as a reserve to the weary line. At 7.40 on the morning of April 10 the enemy, under cover of a murderous barrage, attacked Loisne once more, striving hard to break in the left of the British defence. The garrison suffered terribly, but none the less the stormers were shot back into their shell-holes and lurking-places. Two successive attacks on the forts of Cailloux and Festubert had no better success and were less strongly urged. At seven in the evening they again, with a sudden rush, got a footing in the fort of Loisnes, and again were driven out, save for twenty-one who remained as prisoners. Another day had passed, and still Lancashire stood fast and the lines were safe. On April 11 the whole position was swept by a heavy shell-storm, and the German infantry clustered thickly in front of the crumbling barricades. The guns both of the Fifty-fifth and of the Eleventh Division played havoc with them as they assembled, so that the attack was paralysed on the right, but on the left the two little forts of Festubert East and Cailloux were both overwhelmed. The former, however, was at once retaken by a mixed storming party from the 5th and 13th King's Liverpools. Late in the evening Cailloux Keep was also stormed, and once more the position was intact.
There was now only Route A Keep in possession of the enemy, and it was determined to regain it. The guns had quickly registered upon it during the day, and at midnight they all burst into a concentrated bombardment which was followed by a rush of two companies, one drawn from the Liverpool Scots and the other from the 13th King's Liverpools. The place was carried by assault, and the garrison held it strongly on the 12th and 13th against a series of attacks. It was a most murderous business, and the brave little garrisons were sadly cut about, but they held on with the utmost determination, having vowed to die rather than give the fort up. The survivors were still there, crouching among the ruins and exposed to constant heavy shelling, when on April 15 the old epic was ended and a new one was begun by the relief of the Fifty-fifth Division by Strickland's First Division. The episode will live in history, and may match in tenacity and heroism the famous defence of Ovillers by the German Guards. The casualties were heavy, but it may be safely said that they were small compared with those of the attacking battalions.
The story has been carried forward in this quarter for the sake of connected narrative, but we must now return to the events of April 9, and especially to the effect produced upon the Fortieth Division by the exposure of their southern flank. This fine unit, with its terrible wounds only half healed, was exposed all day to a desperate attack coming mainly from the south, but involving the whole of their line from Laventie to Armentières. The division, which is predominantly English, but contains one brigade of Highland troops, fought most valiantly through the long and trying day, enduring heavy losses, and only yielding ground in the evening, when they were attacked in the rear as well as in front and flank.
In the morning the Fortieth Division had the 119th Brigade (18th Welsh, 21st Middlesex, and 13th East Surrey) on the right, while the 121st Brigade (20th Middlesex, 12th Suffolks, and 13th Yorks) was on the left, joining up with Nicholson's Thirty-fourth Division which held the Armentières front. The right of the Fortieth was involved in the heavy initial bombardment and also in the subsequent infantry advance, which established a footing in the front trenches of the 119th Brigade. Whilst a counter-attack was being organised to drive the stormers out, it was found that the right and the rear of the position were threatened by the advance through the Portuguese. The 120th Scottish Brigade in reserve was ordered to form a defensive flank, but the 10/11th Highland Light Infantry, the nearest unit, found itself almost overlapped, and the brigade had to fall back upon the bridges at Nouveau Monde in order to protect the river crossings. The 2nd Scots Fusiliers covered the bridge-head, while the whole of the 119th Brigade fell back to the line of the Lys, save only the garrison of Fleurbaix. The 121st Brigade was still holding its line in the Bois Grenier sector. By 1 o'clock the bulk of the Fortieth Division was across the Lys, the bridges being destroyed one by one as the day advanced. The destruction was not in all cases complete, and in that of the Pont Levis at Estaires was absolutely checked by a chance shell which destroyed the leads, and prevented the explosion. The enemy, under cover of machine-guns mounted in the houses of Bac St. Maur, were able to cross the river here and get a footing upon the northern bank. The 74th Brigade from the Twenty-fifth Division and the 150th from the Fiftieth were coming up, however, and it was still hoped that the German advance might be checked. So severe had the fighting been that the 18th Welsh had only 5 officers and 120 men standing in the evening.
The 121st Brigade were in the meanwhile endeavouring to hold the Fleurbaix defences on the left of the line. At 11.30 A.M. the Germans were in the east of the village, but the 12th Suffolks, who formed the garrison, put up a most determined resistance, in which they were aided by a company of the 12th Yorkshires Pioneer Battalion. It was not till 5.30 that the village was nearly enveloped, and the troops had to make their way as best they could to the north bank of the Lys. The 20th Middlesex and 13th Yorkshires, with their flank badly compromised, still held on to the Bois Grenier sector. These battalions on the left were taken over by the Thirty-fourth Division, with whom they were now in close liaison.
On the morning of April 10 the two brigades which had crossed the river were in very evil case, having sustained heavy losses. They were concentrated about Le Mortier. The 74th Brigade was in position south of Croix du Bac in touch on the right with the 150th Yorkshire Territorials. All day the enemy were pushing west and north, but meeting a strong resistance from the British who had an excellent trench, the Steenwerck switch, to help them. Some ground was lost, but much of it was regained in the evening by a spirited counter-attack of the 14th and 10/11th Highland Light Infantry, the 2nd Scots Fusiliers, and the 21st Middlesex, which advanced over 600 yards. The pressure was great and unceasing, however, so that the morning of April 11 found the line farther back again. The two brigades were reduced to about 1000 men, who were concentrated at Strazeele, while the 92nd and 93rd Brigades of the Thirty-first Division came up in their place. A brave counter-attack by the 93rd Brigade at Le Verrier gained its objective, but created a dangerous gap between it and the 92nd Brigade on its right, which was filled, however, by the 11th East Yorkshires. On the 12th the remains of all three brigades were strung out to cover Strazeele and Hazebrouck from the east and south-east, but next day they were relieved by the welcome appearance of the First Australian Division, whose advent will afterwards be explained. It had been a very desperate term of service, in which for three days the sappers of the 224th, 229th, and 231st Field Companies Royal Engineers had to fight as hard as the infantry. The Fortieth, like the other divisions described, were driven back, but only as the buffer is driven back, with the ultimate result of stopping the force which drove it. They were much aided by the guns of the Fifty-seventh Division under General Wray. The losses of the division were 185 officers and 4307 other ranks. When one reflects that the losses on the Somme three weeks before had been equally heavy, one can but marvel.
We shall now follow the fortunes of the Thirty-fourth Division (Nicholson), which was on the immediate left of the Fortieth, covering a sector of 8000 yards, including the town of Armentières. On the north, near Frelinghien, it joined the right of the Twenty-fifth Division. On the night of April 7 the enemy fired an enormous number, 30,000 or 40,000, gas-shells into Armentières, and soaked it to such an extent with mephitic vapours that it became uninhabitable. Otherwise there was no warning of an impending attack, which came indeed as a surprise to all the forces engaged.
On April 9 the division lay with the 103rd Brigade upon the right section and the 102nd upon the left, with the guns of the Thirty-eighth Division behind them. The main attack on this day was entirely upon the two divisions, the Portuguese and the Fortieth, to the south. There was heavy shelling, however, of the back areas, especially Armentières and Erquinghem. When as the day advanced everything on the right had given way or weakened, the 103rd Brigade threw back a long thin defensive line, facing south, which ended in the direction of Fleurbaix. At the same time the reserve 101st Brigade was ordered up to cover Bac St. Maur Bridge. One battalion of the Reserve Brigade, the 11th Suffolks, got into Fleurbaix, when by a happy chance they were able to reinforce their own comrades of the 12th Battalion. These two sturdy East Anglian units held the village in a very desperate fight for many hours. The 15th and 16th Royal Scots of the the same brigade had some hard fighting also as they continued the defensive line formed by the 103rd Brigade, and tried to prevent the victorious Germans from swarming round and behind the Thirty-fourth Division. Some idea of the danger may be gathered from the fact that of two brigades of artillery engaged one was firing south-west and the other due east. The original front was never in danger, but it was a desperate conflict upon the refused flank.
During the afternoon the Germans crossed the Lys at Sailly and Bac St. Maur, though the bridge at the latter place had been destroyed. Their progress, however, had slowed down and become uncertain. The 74th Brigade of the Twenty-fifth Division had come under the orders of General Nicholson, and was at once directed against the village of Croix du Bac, with the ultimate design of recovering the Bac St. Maur crossing. The 74th Brigade succeeded in clearing Croix du Bac of the enemy, but night fell before they could get farther. The morning found this brigade sandwiched in between the Fortieth and Thirty-fourth Divisions, while the 147th Brigade had also moved up in support. It was soon found, however, that the enemy had got so far west in the south that they outflanked the 74th Brigade, who had to retire on April 10 through Croix du Bac and Steenwerck. On the same morning the Twenty-fifth Division had been attacked near Frelinghien, and the Germans penetrated as far as the northern bend of the Lys, north of Armentières. The left of the Thirty-fourth Division was now entirely in the air. It was clear, therefore, that a retirement north of the Lys was necessary, and about 3 P.M. in a sedate and orderly fashion it was started and carried through, covered by the fire of the 147th Brigade. The Thirty-fourth drew off in fine order, the rearguards stopping from time to time, especially in the streets of Armentières, for the purpose of beating back the advancing German patrols. All bridges were destroyed, and no unwounded prisoners were left. The men of the Thirty-fourth were loud in praise of the way in which the Yorkshire Territorials of the 147th Brigade covered their right flank during this difficult and dangerous extrication. We will now, having traced the effects upon the Fifty-fifth to the south, and upon the Fortieth and Thirty-fourth Divisions to the north, return to the situation created on April 9 by the breaking of the Portuguese.
Jackson's Fiftieth Division, without its artillery, had only arrived from the Somme on April 8, having lost half its old soldiers, so that 50 per cent of the personnel were drafts. It had also suffered severely in officers, and was very battle-weary and exhausted. It was placed in billets at Merville, with two battalions of the 151st Brigade holding redoubts at Lestrem south of the Lys close to Estaires.
As soon as it was seen that the situation was serious, about 8 o'clock in the morning, the division was put in motion. The 151st Brigade was ordered to extend its left into Estaires, while the 150th prolonged the line north of Estaires. The 149th was held in reserve, though one of its battalions, the 4th Northumberland Fusiliers, was sent in to strengthen the right. The intention was that the Fiftieth Division should hold the line until the reserves could be brought to the point of danger.
By two in the afternoon the Germans could be seen all along the front, and some of the Portuguese had made their way through and between the ranks. A very heavy fire was opened by both lines of infantry, and the Germans advancing by short rushes made continuous progress towards the eastern bank of the stream. Yorkshire and Durham stood solid upon the farther side, however, and 5000 recruits endured a long and terrible baptism of fire from the afternoon to the evening of that spring day. It was on the right at Lestrem, where the British were to the east of the Lys, that the pressure was most severe, and eventually the 151st Brigade found it impossible to hold this point, while farther to the north, upon the left of the Yorkshire men, the German infantry of the 370th Regiment had won a footing upon the western bank of the Lys at Sailly and Bac St. Maur. The British guns were beginning to concentrate, however, and invaluable time had been gained by the resistance of the Fiftieth Division. As night fell the 5th Durhams were still holding Estaires, while the 5th and 6th Northumberland Fusiliers from the reserve were standing firm along the stretch north and east of Estaires. Farther north still were the 4th East Yorks, 4th Yorks, and 5th Yorks in that order from the south, all very weary, but all holding tenaciously to their appointed line. During the night the Fifty-first Highland Division (Carter-Campbell) came up on the right of the 151st Brigade to cover the weak point at Lestrem and all the line to the south of it. A brigade of the Twenty-fifth Division also came up to Steenwerck north of where the river line had been broken, but it was too late for an effective counter-attack, as considerable forces were already across, which were spreading out north and south on the western bank.
The fall of night made no change in the battle, and the darkness was lit up by the red glare of the incessant fire. For many hours the line was held, though the Germans had brought up fresh divisions for their attack. Early in the morning of April 10, however, they won a footing in Estaires, which was desperately defended by the 5th Durhams. By 8.45, after long-continued street fighting, the Germans held the whole town, with the exception of the south-western extremity. The fight raged all day backwards and forwards through this little straggling place, the infantry upon either side showing the most determined valour. About 9.30 the 6th Northumberland Fusiliers, under Colonel Temperley, made a brilliant counter-attack, crossing 1500 yards of open country with only three batteries to cover the movement. Before 10 o'clock they were into Estaires and had cleared the main street, rushing house after house and driving the Germans down to the river edge, where they rallied and remained. The 149th Brigade had promptly sent forward its machine-guns, and these were mounted on the highest houses at the south end of the town, to fire on any enemy reserves coming up south of the Lys. They raked the Germans on the farther bank and caused heavy losses. All day the remains of the 5th Durhams and 6th Northumberlands fought desperately in Estaires, and held nearly all of it in the evening, which was in a way a misfortune, since it allowed the Germans to concentrate their heavies upon it during the night in a whole-hearted fashion which rendered it absolutely untenable. The morning of April 11 found Estaires a No Man's Land between the lines of infantry. In spite of a fresh advance by the 4th and 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, it was found impossible to regain the place, while the Germans gradually extended their line from the river crossings which they had retained all through. By mid-day on April 11, the British line was 500 yards west of the town.
In the southern portion of the line the 151st Brigade of Durhams had been slowly forced back from the Lestrem sector until they were on the line of the Lys, which they reached in the evening of April 10. At that date the 150th Yorkshire Brigade was still firm upon the river, but the left-hand battalion, the 5th Yorks, had thrown back its flank, since the enemy, brushing aside the right wing of the Fortieth Division, had crossed the stream and turned the Fiftieth from the north. The Fortieth was still fighting hard, as already described, and endeavouring to hold back the attack, so that the German advance was slow. Early in the morning of April 11 the attack became very severe, and broke through to the west of Estaires—the river at this point runs from west to east—driving back the Durham Brigade, which was absolutely exhausted after forty-eight hours of ceaseless fighting without assistance. Their resistance had been an extraordinarily fine one, but there comes a limit to human powers. The whole division was at the last extremity, but fortunately at 12 o'clock on the 11th, two brigades of the Twenty-ninth Division (Cayley) came up in relief. So close was the fighting, however, and so desperate the situation, that General Riddell of the 149th Northumberland Fusiliers Brigade refused to disengage his men from the battle, since the confusion of a relief might have led to disaster. He was at the time holding the line astride the Meteren Becque, north of Estaires, covering about 1000 yards of vital ground. Here the Germans attacked all day, making prodigious efforts to push the 4th and 5th Northumberland Fusiliers out of Trou Bayard. The ground between this point and Pont Levis, the bridge at the east end of Estaires, was dead flat, and afforded no particle of cover. Fifteen British machine-guns stationed beside the infantry swept all this expanse, and cut down each wave of attack. Four times the place was supposed to have fallen, and four times the Germans fell back, leaving long grey swathes of their dead. It was not until 3 P.M. that the stubborn Northumbrians found that their right was completely exposed, and were forced to retire from a position which they had sold at a terrible price.
Instead of dying down the German advance was attaining a greater proportion with every day that passed, for it seemed to their commanders that with so favourable an opening some very great success lay within their power. In spite of the arrival of the Fifty-first and Twenty-ninth Divisions the battle raged most furiously, and the weight of the attack was more than the thin line could sustain. The Germans had rapidly followed up the 151st Brigade as it drew out, and there was a fierce action round Merville and Robermetz in the early afternoon of April 11. The exhausted Durhams turned furiously upon their pursuers, and there was fierce hand-to-hand work in which even General Martin and his Headquarters Staff found themselves handling rifles and revolvers. The Thirty-first Division (Bridgford) had come up and taken position in the rear of the Twenty-ninth, with their left flank facing east to hold off the enemy, who were now close to Steenwerck in the north. By nightfall Merville had gone, and so had Neuf Berquin, which lay between the 151st and the 149th Brigade, rather in the rear of the latter's right. At this period the Twenty-ninth Division, with the Thirty-first behind it, was on the left or north of the 149th Brigade, covering the ground between Neuf Berquin and Steenwerck. The enemy had turned the right of this line as already described, and now through the events in the north, which will soon be narrated, the left of the Twenty-ninth Division was also turned, and the situation became most dangerous, for the enemy was in great force in front. A consultation was held by the various general officers affected, and it was decided to make a side slip under the cover of darkness to the line of Vierhouck-Meteren Becque. The British had to fight, however, to gain this position, so far had the enemy outflanked them, and when the 149th Brigade, with their indomitable Northumbrians, now reduced to a few hundred men, had cut their way through to Vierhouck it was only to find it empty and the British line about 1000 yards to the west of it, where the 4th Guards Brigade of the Thirty-first Division had just begun to arrive. The Northumbrians held on to Vierhouck none the less on the morning of April 12, and the Guards Brigade came forward.
Whilst this stern fighting had been in progress, and while the Fifty-fifth kept its iron grip upon Givenchy and Festubert, the Fifty-first Highland Division to its north, along the line of the Lawe Canal, had been very hard pressed. All three brigades had been engaged in most desperate defence and counter-attack, the fighting being so close that two at least of the Brigadiers had been compelled to drop maps and binoculars, while they seized rifles from their orderlies. The canal was half dry and offered a poor front, but it was sustained until the Germans got across in the north where the left flank of the 153rd Brigade was turned and had to fall back. The Gordons and Black Watch of this unit fought most fiercely in the neighbourhood of Vieille Chapelle, and the Germans will long remember their meeting with the clansmen. Finally their line swung back west of Lestrem, keeping in touch with the right flank of the Fiftieth Division.
At this period the 184th Brigade was the only one in the Highland Division which was still capable of service, for the others had lost so heavily and were so wearied that rest was absolutely necessary. The Sixty-first Division (Colin Mackenzie), still very weak after its service on the Somme, came up in the Robecq sector, and, with the aid of the surviving Highland Brigade, formed a barrier to the terrific German pressure, the whole coming under General Mackenzie. This line was held by these troops up to the 23rd of April.
Meanwhile, to revert to the early days of the battle, the German attack was raging with great fury upon the centre and left of this line, and finding a gap between the Twenty-ninth Division and the 149th Brigade it poured through it with most menacing results, but the 4th Guards Brigade counter-attacked and retrieved the situation west of the Vieux Berquin-Neuf Berquin Road, as will be told in detail in the next chapter. Farther north, however, the German attack made more progress and rolled forward to the south of the village of Merris. The 6th Northumbrians with only two officers left standing—one of them their gallant Colonel, Temperley,—still held on to their old stance at Vierhouck, though reduced to the strength of a company, and in such a state of physical exhaustion that the men fell to the ground fast asleep between the attacks. One young soldier woke up during his nap to find the Germans among them, on which he sprang up, shot the German officer, and organised a charge which re-established the line. As darkness fell on the evening of April 12 the survivors of the Fiftieth Division were drawn from the line, though some were so entangled with other units that they stayed and shared in the severe fighting of April 13.
As already shown the Givenchy bastion was held firm, which meant that the Fifty-first Division was also to some extent helped to resist attack, since an enfilade fire from the Fifty-fifth would beat upon any advance against them. Such advances were repeatedly made upon April 11 and were splendidly countered. North of this point the Fiftieth, Twenty-ninth, and Thirty-first Divisions had all suffered heavily, while the line had been bent back in a curve from the La Bassée Canal to a maximum depth of ten miles, ending on the night of April 12 in a position from west of Merville through the two Berquins to Merris. The Twenty-ninth Division, which is a particularly good comrade in a tight place, had been very hard pressed, with its brigades sent hither and thither wherever a leak was to be stopped. It was in this action that Colonel Forbes Robertson, one of the heroes of Cambrai, earned the coveted Cross by fighting on horseback at the head of his men like some knight of old, and repeatedly restoring the line when it was broken. In spite of all valour, however, the general movement was westwards. Whilst these misfortunes had occurred in the southern sector, others not less serious had occurred in the north, owing to the great extension of the German attack. It is to these that we must now turn.
The enemy had achieved a considerable success upon April 9 when they succeeded in establishing themselves across the Lys at Sailly and Bac St. Maur, because by doing so they had got to the south-west of Armentières. They had prepared another attack in the north, and it was evident that if it had any success the Armentières position would be impossible. Early in the morning of April 10 the usual shattering and pulverising bombardment which preceded a full-dress German attack broke out upon the right of the Second Army, involving the front from the Ypres-Comines Canal in the north down to the Lys River at Armentières, thus joining up with the battle of yesterday, and turning the ten-mile front into one of twenty. The chief points in this line are Hollebeke in the north, Wytschaete in the centre, and Messines in the south, with Ploegsteert Wood and village and Nieppe as the final connecting links with Armentières. It was all classic and sacred ground drenched with the blood of our bravest. There can be few regiments in the British Army which have not at one time or another left their dead upon this shell-pitted slope, or upon the levels which face it.
The order of the Second Army from the north at this time was Twenty-second, Eighth, Second, and Ninth Corps. It was the Ninth Corps (Hamilton-Gordon) which was now attacked. The order of divisions upon this front was Campbell's Twenty-first Division astride the Ypres-Menin Road, the Ninth (Tudor) in the Hollebeke district, the Nineteenth (Jeffreys) covering 6000 yards east of Messines and Wytschaete from Ravine Wood in the north to the Douve in the south, and finally the Twenty-fifth Division (Bainbridge) on the right, which was already in a most unfavourable position, as its right flank was menaced by the driving in of the Fortieth and threat to the Thirty-fourth on the preceding day, while one of its brigades, the 74th, had been taken away to cover Steenwerck from the German advance at Bac St. Maur. It was upon these divisions, and, in the first instance, upon the two southern ones that the new German attack from the Fourth Army of our old enemy General von Armin broke on April 10. It should be remembered that, like so many of their fellow-units, both of these divisions had been very heavily engaged in the south, and that their losses within the last two weeks had been very great. Verily we have travelled far from the day when it was laid down as an axiom that a corps which had lost a quarter of its numbers would not stand to its work until time had effaced the shock.
Since the main assault on April 10 fell upon the Nineteenth Division the story can be most plainly told from their central point of view. The left of their line was held by the 58th Brigade (Glasgow), consisting of the 6th Welsh and 9th Welsh Fusiliers. The right was held by the 57th Brigade (Cubitt) which contained the 10th Warwick, 8th Gloucester, and 10th Worcesters. The 56th (Heath) was in reserve. It was upon these troops that there fell the strain of an attack which can seldom have been exceeded in severity. The total German force on the corps front was eleven divisions, and of these no less than five were directed on the morning of April 10 upon the depleted ranks of General Jeffreys' unit.
A very thick mist prevailed, and through this protective screen the German infantry advanced about 6 o'clock, driving swiftly through all the forward posts, and putting them out of action in exactly the same fashion as on March 21. The enemy were in great numbers, and their advance was swift and resolute. Within half an hour of the first alarm they had made a lodgment in the main position of the 57th Brigade, and had also broken in the face of the left wing of the Twenty-fifth Division to the south. The garrisons of the outlying posts were never seen again, and it was observed that they were greatly hampered by their camouflage screens which they had no time to tear away in the face of so rapid and overwhelming an attack. At 6.40 the enemy were deep in the position of the 57th Brigade, especially near Gapard Spur, which marked the centre of that unit. At 7.30 the whole brigade was in difficulties, which was more marked in the centre than on either flank, but was serious at every point of the line. The 8th North Staffords of the Reserve Brigade were brought up at this hour to help in the defence of this weakening sector. Before they could arrive upon the scene the enemy had made such progress that he had reached the crest of the ridge and had occupied the village of Messines. The 68th Brigade in the north had not yet been attacked, but General Glasgow seeing his right flank entirely exposed had thrown back a defensive line. Close to this line was a post named Pick House, and upon this the mixed elements of the left of the 57th Brigade, chiefly men of the 10th Warwicks, now rallied and formed a strong centre of resistance. The Twenty-fifth Division to the south had been also very hard pressed, and was in immediate danger of losing the important knoll, Hill 63, so that the reserve brigade of the Nineteenth Division had to send the two remaining battalions, the 4th Shropshires and 9th Cheshires, to strengthen their defence. There was thus no longer any support for the Nineteenth Divisional fighting line in their great need, save for the 5th South Wales Borderers, their pioneer battalion, and the 81st Field Company R.E., both of whom were thrown into the battle, the pioneers pushing bravely forward and connecting up with the 10th Warwicks at Pick House. Meanwhile the 8th North Staffords had made a fine attempt to retake Messines, and had actually reached the western edge of the village, but were unable to gain a permanent footing. Their right was in touch with the 8th Gloucesters, and some sort of stable line began to build itself up before the Germans. They had been unable to occupy Messines in force, owing to the rifle-fire which became more deadly with the rising of the mist. The scattered groups of infantry lying upon the ridge on either side of Messines were greatly heartened by the splendid work of A Battery, 88th R.F.A., under Captain Dougall, which remained among them, firing over open sights at the advancing Germans. "So long as you stick it I will keep my guns here!" he shouted, and the crouching men cheered him in return. He was as good as his word, and only withdrew what was left of his battery, man-handling it across almost impossible ground, when he had not a shell in his limbers. This brave officer received the Victoria Cross, but unhappily never lived to wear it.
The 8th North Staffords, still lying opposite Messines, extended their left down the Messines-Wytschaete Road in an endeavour to join up with the men at Pick House. Thus a frail curtain of defence was raised in this direction also. Shortly after mid-day things began to look better, for the gallant South African Brigade (Tanner) of the Ninth Division was despatched to the rescue. So severe had been its losses, however, that it numbered only 1600 bayonets, and had hardly been re-organised into battalions. Late in the afternoon it advanced, the 1st Battalion on the left, 2nd on the right, and though it had not the weight to make any definite impression upon the German front it entirely re-established the line of the road from Messines to Wytschaete, and reinforced the thin fragments of battalions who were holding this precarious front. The South Africans incurred heavy losses from machine-gun fire in this very gallant attack.
The Ninth Division had hardly relinquished its Reserve Brigade when it found that it was itself in urgent need of support, for about 2 o'clock on August 10 the attack spread suddenly to the northern end of the line, involving the 25th, 26th, and 58th Brigades, all under General Tudor, who was now responsible for the Wytschaete front. So infernal was the barrage which preceded the attack, that the right of the Ninth Division in the vicinity of Charity Farm was driven in, and the 58th Brigade, with both flanks in the air and smothered under a rain of shells, was compelled also to fall back upon its support line. About 4 P.M. the 58th Brigade was broken near Torreken Farm, and the 6th Wiltshires, who were the flank battalion on the right, were cut off and lost heavily. The enemy were driving hard at this period towards Wytschaete, but the 9th Welsh stood fast in a cutting to the south of the village, and held the Germans off with their rifle-fire. So ended a most trying and unfortunate day, where the overborne troops had done all that men could do to hold their ground, fighting often against five times their own number. The prospects for the morrow looked very black, and the only gleam of light came with the advent, about midnight, of the 108th Brigade (Griffiths) from the Ulster Division, with orders to fight alongside the exhausted 57th, whose commander, General Cubitt, was now directing the local operations to the west of Messines. The Wytschaete front was also strengthened by the inclusion in the Ninth Division of the 62nd and later of the 64th Brigade of the Twenty-first Division. Farther south the 75th Brigade north of Armentières had been driven back by the enemy's attack, and the 7th Brigade on its left, finding its flank uncovered, had hinged back upon Ploegsteert Wood, where it held its line as best it might. Thus on the left, the centre, and the right there had been the same story of unavailing resistance and loss of valuable, dearly-bought ground. Even more serious, however, than the local loss was the strategical situation which had been created by the German advance in the lower sector, by their crossing the Lys, and by the fact that on the night of April 10 they were closing in upon Steenwerck and La Crêche far to the right rear of the defenders of the Messines line. It was a situation which called for the highest qualities of generals as of soldiers.
By the morning of April 11 General Plumer, dealing out his reserves grudgingly from his fast diminishing supply, placed the 147th Brigade of the Forty-ninth Yorkshire Territorial Division (Cameron) behind the Twenty-fifth Division in the Ploegsteert region, and a brigade of the Twenty-ninth Division to the north of it. Such succours were small indeed in the face of what was evidently a very great and well-prepared attack which had already shaken the whole northern front to its foundations. The Higher Command had, however, some points of consolation. If the vital sectors could be held there was the certainty that strong reinforcements would arrive within a few days from the south. The Amiens line was now certainly stabilised, and if once again an equilibrium could be secured then the last convulsive efforts of this titanic angel of darkness would have been held. With no illusions, but with a dour determination to do or die, the British line faced to the east.
The immediate danger was that a gap had opened between Messines and Wytschaete, while another was threatened farther south between Ploegsteert and the Nieppe-Armentières Road. The pressure upon the Damstrasse was also very great in the region of the Ninth Division. The first disposition in the Messines area was to strengthen the line of resistance by pushing up the three battalions of the 108th Brigade, the 1st Irish Fusiliers on the left near Pick House, the 9th Irish Fusiliers west of Messines, and the 12th Irish Rifles in the Wulverghem line. The attack on the morning of April 11 was not heavy in this direction, but was rather directed against the Twenty-fifth Division in the Ploegsteert district, where it came ominously close to Hill 63, a commanding point from which the Messines position of the British would be taken in reverse. General Jeffreys of the Nineteenth Division determined none the less to stand his ground, but he threw out a defensive flank along the Messines-Wulverghem Road, and mounted machine-guns to hold any attack from the south. Meanwhile the 57th, South African, and 108th Brigades, in spite of this menace to their right rear continued to hold the Messines front. There was severe fighting on this sector during the afternoon in which the remains of the 2nd and 4th (Transvaal Scots) Battalions were pushed back for some distance, but counter-attacked under the lead of Captain Green, regaining most of the ground that they had lost, and connecting up with the 5th South Wales Borderers, who were still holding fast near Pick House. This line was maintained until the general withdrawal. It was further strengthened by the 146th Brigade, one of the three units of the Forty-ninth Division, which were all engaged at different points. One battalion, the 7th West Yorkshires, called on suddenly to fill a gap, made a very fine advance under heavy fire, and restored the situation. It remained in the line until, on April 16, it was almost annihilated by a terrific German attack upon it.