During January, 1916, the 49th Division was ‘in rest’: the first period of complete rest which the Division as a whole had enjoyed since the previous April, when it first entered the field.

Even before this complete rest the Division could look back on some months of comparative military inactivity. It had not been called upon to take part in the severe fighting at Loos in September, 1915; and no other big operations, on the scale of the warfare in May and June, had occurred since the Battle of Festubert. Yet there had been fighting every day. Every day of the intervening weeks and months between the close of the spring campaign and the order to rest in January had brought difficulties and dangers here and there, up and down the line of trenches in the neighbourhood of Ypres and the Canal, in which the 49th was engaged, and which it was essential to maintain as a barrier between the invader and the sea.

It is not easy to write the history of those days, when the Division was neither ‘in rest’ nor in action. We might review them in numerical sequence, long day after long day, when according to the Battalion chroniclers, ‘nothing of importance happened,’ or one unit relieved another, or there was an inspection by the Corps or Army Commander, or there was a ‘bombardment of the whole line, varying in severity throughout the day and night.’ These entries, and entries like these recur again and again in the Diary of every unit in the Division. Or, again, when autumn arrived, the weather compelled attention. ‘Rained. Trenches very bad; practically no work could be done. Heavy bombardment all day from 4 a.m.,’ is a typical entry in October; and we are left to read between the lines the accumulated miseries of that day’s work, in which the worst hardship of all was that ‘practically no work could be done,’ in evil trenches sodden with rain and shaken by continuous fire. Minor miseries, perhaps, and less epical in retrospect than the Homeric combats of the spring, or the campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula; yet real and serious enough in their hourly call on a man’s endurance to warrant an attempt at narration.

We are told, for instance, that Sir Herbert Plumer was pleased if the Second Army casualties did not exceed two hundred a day in ordinary trench work, and a division of this figure into the Army total will yield a quotient from which we may deduce the average chance of danger in a quiet time. Or we may observe that the British first line trenches were distant from the line of German trenches by about 80 to 150 yards, but that where the line bent back on the north to the bank of the Yser Canal the distance from the German line was only 30 yards, with a very nasty corner at the bend. We may note, too, the lack of rest at night: the constant flare of Very Lights across the trenches, and the incessant contest of wit (and luck) between the men repairing trenches or bringing up rations or ammunition and the snipers watching their opportunity.

Certain days at any rate may be selected for somewhat more detailed description, not because they differed essentially from the days that went before and that came after, but because, in the cycle of days, as in a cycle of numbers at a gaming-table, they are marked with adventitious interest.

Take, for instance, July 29th (we are writing of 1915 throughout) in the story of the 7th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. They were in dug-outs on the Canal, having completed a turn in the trenches just before midnight on the 25th. On the 26th, 27th and 28th, nothing of importance happened. On the 29th from half-past eight till noon, there was a heavy shelling of the dam at the rate of two shells every five minutes; this rate was reduced by a half from noon till an hour after midnight, when the shelling ceased. The dam was untouched, but the adjoining bridge was damaged in three places. One officer was killed and ten men were wounded. Even so, the story is not exceptional, despite the 230 odd shells falling in sixteen hours. But there is a sequel to the story, which is told in the following words: The Military Cross was awarded to 2nd Lieut. A. R. Glazebrook ‘for conspicuous and gallant conduct, on the 29th July, in helping to dig out, at great personal risk, an officer and ten men whose dug-outs had been blown in, thus saving nine lives,’ and Riflemen J. Bentley and H. Garrity received the Distinguished Conduct Medal ‘for working with Lieut. Glazebrook.’

Take July 16th. On the 15th the Germans had shelled the Canal bank, and had fired three salvoes of shells into Divisional Headquarters at the Château des Trois Tours. Advanced Headquarters remained there, including the G.O.C. himself, the General Staff Officers, 1st and 2nd Grade, the Brigade Major of the Royal Artillery, and the Signal Company. The rest moved back to St. Sixte. On the 16th, at 4-30 p.m., the grounds of the Château were shelled again, and the grave difference between this day and that, otherwise so alike in experience, was the inclusion of the General’s name in the casualty list. He was just crossing a bridge which connected the Château with the mainland when he heard the shell coming, and, though he doubled back to cover, he did not reach it in time, and suffered a severe wound in the head. It was the only casualty at the time, though the house was riddled with shrapnel, and as soon as the shelling had ceased, the gallant Officer was taken to Poperinghe, where Sir Thomas Bowlby attended him. Advanced Headquarters were withdrawn to Hospital Farm. The retirement was completed on July 18th, on which day the grounds of the Château were once more heavily shelled soon after the General Staff had left.

The loss of Major-General Baldock’s services was deeply regretted by the Division, which he had commanded since September, 1911. He had accompanied it from peace to war and commanded with conspicuous success during the heavy fighting of May and June, and ‘the whole Division loved him’, it has been written. Happily, he recovered from his wound, though he was not able to resume command, and on July 17th, 1915, Major-General E. M. Perceval[35], C.B., was appointed in his place.

Take the events of July 15th, in the new line of trenches occupied by the 146th Infantry Brigade. The 8th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, had relieved the 7th at midnight on the 13th, and came in for some desultory shelling the next day. On the 15th, the usual patrol went on tour in front of the trenches. It was composed of Lieut. E. F. Wilkinson, and two Riflemen, Mudd and Clough. By bad luck, Mudd was shot through the chest, and his cries of pain attracted the German fire. It was a very ordinary little scene, but it is appropriate to imagine the sudden call on two lonely men’s courage and resourcefulness. They carried the wounded man back from in front of the German parapet under the heavy fire, and were pulled up by their own barbed-wire mesh. Clough went in to find cutters, and Lieut. Wilkinson stayed out with Mudd. The tool was brought, the wire was cut, and the patrol came back with two candidates for decoration. Lieutenant Wilkinson was awarded the Military Cross and Rifleman Clough the Distinguished Conduct Medal for their cool and gallant action in this exploit. Next day, as war’s tricky fortune had it, Lieut. C. Hartnell, of the same Battalion was killed by a shell in the front-line trench: the first officer casualty in that unit.

Take a few incidents in the trench life of the 4th and 5th Battalions of the York and Lancaster Regiment. On July 11th, the 4th relieved the 5th in an advanced trench on the East side of the Yser Canal, where the German and English lines met at an angle, with the French on the other side of the Canal, and were separated, as we saw, by a distance of only 30 yards. It was a recent capture from the enemy, and the trenches, we read, were ‘in an awful state with both English and German dead. No work could be done on them because of shell fire.’ Again, quite an ordinary experience, as trench life went in those days, but full of horror to its participants, and exacting to endure. On July 13th, the day was ‘much quieter’—plainly a comparative term—till in the evening about half-past seven a heavy bombardment was opened all along the line, punctuated by explosions of gas shells, and followed by rapid rifle-fire. There was just a breath of wind blowing, but not enough to disperse the poisonous fumes, and for some hours the corner was unhealthy. The total casualties for the two days were 13 officers wounded, 17 other ranks killed and 55 wounded, and at 10 o’clock next night the 5th Battalion again relieved the 4th. Meanwhile, Sergt. W. Hutchinson and Ptes. J. W. Biggin and J. Cowlishaw were awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal,

Eighty-five casualties and three D.C.M.’s for two days’ turn in the trenches: the period of standstill had its chances.

Take the worse experience of the 5th Battalion on July 10th, when they first took over these newly captured trenches. All day long the incessant German batteries poured their hail and thunder on the line, and not a single quiet hour was given for cleaning, clearing or repairing. The casualties mounted fast. Twenty-seven men were killed, and the list of wounded and missing included one Officer and 129 other ranks. Next day the following telegram was received: ‘Army Commander desires to commend prompt action of troops 49th Division when attacked last night’; and the severity of the ordeal may be judged from the records of Lance-Corporals J. Yates and A. Calvert and of Pte. A. Gwynette, who were all awarded the D.C.M.: Yates,

Calvert,

and Gwynette,

These, surely, are the tests that tell. In these typical examples, selected almost at random from the day’s work, we see in the making, as it were, that ‘sense of mastery over the enemy,’ which the Chairman and Secretary of the Association had observed on their visit to the front, and which was ultimately to dictate the terms of the Peace of Paris. On the East bank of the Yser Canal in the Summer of 1915, in stinking trenches filled with human wreckage, and exposed to a pitiless bombardment, the prospect of ‘ease after war’ might well seem too remote for realization. It might seem, too, an idle thing, and below the fever-point of warfare, to respond in such dismal surroundings and with so dull a hope of martial glory to the constant, recurrent calls on a courage screwed to the sticking-place or a sense of duty as its own reward. Yet, somehow, in justice to the heroic dead, and to those who earned as well as to those who received decorations, the perception must be aroused that the war was won in the last resort by the private soldier, whether Regular, Territorial or New Army. In our Military Headquarters calculus he is not Kanonenfutter, food for guns: he is always, potentially, the wearer of a medal for the distinguished conduct, which he always seizes an opportunity to display; and a period of comparative inactivity may provide more memorable opportunities of this kind than the stress and press of a big battle, precisely because the velocity of effort is measured by the daily round of marching from billets to trenches or of carrying out a normal patrol.

The word ‘always,’ though a big word, is appropriate, because this display of distinguished conduct is found to become a man’s second nature and not to depend on a sudden impulse. Take the records, for example, of Drummer F. Thickett, of the 4th York and Lancasters, and Lance-Cpl. T. Best, of the 4th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. On that night of the 13th-14th July, when the new trench was so heavily attacked, Thickett succeeded in wading through the Canal in order to carry a message from the firing-line to Headquarters, although the bridges had been broken and the telephone wires had been cut[36]. He did it again on the night of 8th-9th August. Under heavy shell and rifle fire, and when all mechanical communication had broken down, he crossed the Canal on a single plank, and took the necessary message to its destination. Best’s record is in the same kind. On July 20th and again on August 5th, a part of the trench where he was posted was blown in by enemy fire. On each occasion he kept his men in hand, and started digging-out and rebuilding at once, with the utmost pluck and coolness, and without regard to German rifles and trench-mortars. Best and Thickett were both awarded the D.C.M., which it will be agreed that they thoroughly deserved; and we see in this habit of duty, acquired in daily experience and when no big forward movement set the pace, the ultimate secret of the success of British arms.

One more sample from these records may be selected.

On November 15th, the 6th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, relieved the 8th Battalion in a line of trenches about two miles north-north-east of Ypres. The weather was frosty, and the evil condition of the trenches was not improved by the fall of about a hundred ‘whiz-bangs’[37] and thirty ‘heavies’ between 9-0 a.m. and 3-30 p.m. on the 16th. On the 17th, the shelling continued, with a regular reply by our Howitzers, and there was the ‘usual sniping’. On the 18th, as on the 17th. On the 19th, the chronicler says: ‘One of our Companies heavily shelled by enemy, six being killed and seven wounded.... Battalion relieved by 1/5th West Yorks. Regt., and went into Divisional Reserve near Poperinghe.’ So far, the day’s work was not exceptional, but there was to be a notable sequel to the day’s story. ‘For most conspicuous bravery near the Yser Canal, on November 19th, 1915,’ the supreme decoration of the Victoria Cross was awarded to Corporal Samuel Meekosha, of the 6th Battalion, in the following circumstances:

It was the first V.C. in the 49th Division, and Captain Meekosha, who rose to Commissioned rank, reflected credit on the Riding which had raised it.

Three hundred and seventy-six Honours in all, including 178 Mentions in Despatches, fell to the share of the Division during its first year’s service in the field. Of these, the Victoria Cross, 16 Military Crosses and 71 Distinguished Conduct Medals were Immediate Awards for specific acts of gallantry. A few of those gallant acts have been brought back to memory here, not because they differed in kind from others for which awards were made (or, indeed, from many others for which, from lack of evidence or other causes, no recommendation was forthcoming), but rather to illustrate a catalogue which might prove wearisome in extenso. Thus on one day, December 19th, as many as ten M.C.’s and twenty-nine D.C.M.’s were won by Officers and Other Ranks, as the reward of valorous deeds on the occasion of a sudden gas-attack, which opened at 5-15 a.m. and continued for forty or fifty minutes. The fumes, reaching the support trenches, found many men still asleep, and these were gassed before they could be roused. The gas-attack preceded intense shelling, which went on, with a slacker daylight interval, until three o’clock the following morning. ‘It was the most awful yet magnificent sight that I have ever seen,’ writes a R.F.A. Officer: ‘The whole country shaking with the explosion of shells, mostly big; and a church near my Headquarters was hit with a 17-in. shell and blown to bits. The sky was one great glow like a vast electric light, and the atmosphere was laden with a choking and sickly heaviness. Our men are splendid,’ he added. The total casualties of the day mounted up to:

The decorations were presented by General Sir Herbert Plumer, Commanding the Second Army, on the following January 23rd; and a week later the same Army Commander once more paraded the Division, in order to present awards for good service brought to notice in Dispatches. On the latter occasion he told the Division:

Stirring words, and a fine farewell, after what Major-General Perceval has described as ‘nearly six months’ continuous duty in the worst trenches of the Allied lines. During the whole of this period, runs the statement of the Divisional Commander, the men ‘had unflinchingly sustained an unrelaxing bombardment,’ and had borne ‘with unfailing cheerfulness the most trying conditions of weather in permanently flooded trenches.’

So much for this aspect of siege warfare.

Before following the 49th Division from its well-earned period in Rest Billets to its next area of activity, we shall pick up some threads in the history of the 62nd Division (the West Riding 2nd Line, it will be remembered) from February, 1915, when Major-General Sir James Trotter assumed Command. But, first, in order to complete the present picture, brief reference is due to what Lord Scarbrough, after his visit to the front, described as ‘the amenities of warfare.’ For these, too, were a part of the day’s work, just as the hours of recreation are a part of a schoolboy’s day.

The following are the relevant dates and facts:

There was also the Divisional Dump, where 6,000 rifles, for example, were salvaged in four months; and, more definitely among amenities, there was the Buzzer, published as the organ of the Divisional Signal Company, which enjoyed a wide circulation and scattered enjoyment as it circulated.

The gracious visit of His Majesty the King on October 27th, when all Arms of the 49th Division were represented at an inspection of contingents from the Second Army, belongs to a different category, but it is gratifying to recall His Majesty’s comment to General Perceval on the appearance and bearing of his men.

Plainly, the items in the above list owe their invention and inclusion to a common aim at recreation. This aim might be simple and direct, as in the construction of a Dump for restoring derelict war material; it might be a little less direct, as in the foundation of the Baths[39], which served partly for refreshment, and partly, taken in connection with their laundry, drying-sheds, etc., for the prevention of ‘trench feet’ and kindred ills; it might be purely recreative, again, as in the programmes of the Buzzer and ‘The Tykes’; or it might be recreative-utilitarian, in the Gladstonian sense of a change of occupation, as in the establishment of workshops and schools; and, in referring to any of these aspects, we should always keep clearly in mind the sharp contrast which they presented to the constant experience in the trenches, to and from which the men went and came.

Consider, first, this question of ‘trench-feet.’ It was the fate of the 49th Division to occupy during this winter the most water-logged trenches of the line. They were ‘permanently flooded,’ as General Perceval said. Yet he had the satisfaction of reporting that the number of cases of ‘trench-feet’ was among the lowest in any Division. The total number was 760; the average number was six a day. We have to add this feature to the day’s work, but, with it, we add the measures that were taken to counteract the evil. Not merely the three or four pairs of socks which each man took with him into the trenches, the arrangements for washing and drying them, and the provision of anti-frostbite grease and oil; but also the care of the inner man; soup-kitchens, hot cocoa and chocolate, supplies of Oxo and pea-soup, and the stress laid by the Divisional Commander on the importance of keeping the men’s vitality high. Nor should the gifts of the Association at home be forgotten in this context; they sent the portable bath-house with oil-pumping engine and piping complete; they sent 5,000 tins of ‘Tinned Heat’ (which sounds like an import straight from Hades); 10,000 small tins for anti-frostbite grease, 15,000 small cans for whale-oil, 4,885 short gum-boots, 722 thigh gum-boots, 7,000 mittens, 9,300 socks, oilskin-jackets, oilskins and sou’-westers, besides other contributions in kind. There were still six cases every day, but the day’s work was mollified by these means.

Another gift which reached the Division from the West Riding Association was the furniture and accessories for the theatre of ‘The Tykes.’ This capable troupe of entertainers had begun in a very modest way on improvised platforms in the open air. Perhaps they did not know, or were indifferent to the fact, that European drama, consummated in Shakespeare, had precisely similar beginnings. Though ‘The Tykes’ did not produce a Shakespeare, they hardly fell short of his success in the pleasure which they afforded to their own audiences. Historically, they were fourth on the list of Divisional Concert Parties, and it was on Christmas Day, 1915, that they definitely started on their career as a theatrical company. In January, 1916, and again in the December of that year, they went home to the West Riding, where they played at the Empire Palace, Leeds, the Opera House, Harrogate, and the Empire Palace, Sheffield, exhibiting to enthusiastic houses the simple joys of the men at the front. They performed in all in about fifty places, in improvised barns or converted stables, or very rarely in genuine halls, and they had the honour to be the first company to appear on the boards at Arras and Cambrai after their capture in 1918. Even more impressive and gratifying is the fact that over 80,000 francs was handed by ‘The Tykes’ to the Institutes’ of the Division between 1916 and 1919, for the provision of additional comforts, sports, etc., to its units. The original ‘Tyke’ was Lieut. J. P. Barker, A.S.C., who was evacuated sick to England in September, 1918. He really started and made them, and, if other names may be mentioned, we would refer to Lance-Cpl. A. Coates, of the Army Service Corps, and Pte. H. Marsden, formerly R.E., of the 243rd Employment Company, who were members of the troupe right through from August 22nd, 1915, to February 2nd, 1919. A Divisional cinema, we may add, was established in March, 1917, and, after narrowly escaping destruction in the German advance at Berthen, April 9th, 1918, it survived to hand over a profit of 27,900 francs for the worthy objects of the Institutes’ Fund.

Turning next to the facilities for education which were gradually developed in this period, we note the technical character of the instruction provided. Thus, a Drainage Section was organized in the Ypres Salient, which laid down nearly 9,000 yards of main and subsidiary drains, with valuable results in the trenches. Mining Sections were also formed to help Tunnelling Companies, and did excellent work while they lasted. A Divisional Gas School gave lessons in the use and care of anti-gas appliances, and doubtless contributed to keep down the list of casualties on December 19th. There were always Ambulance courses, and local opportunities for instruction in Sniping, Scouting, Signalling, Bombing and other special branches. The Divisional Technical School taught the use of Trench Warfare appliances, keeping parties of newly-arrived troops for twenty-four hours in mimic trenches, with the enemy trenches opposite also faithfully reproduced; and a Divisional Training School was established to give both practical and theoretical instruction to junior Officers and N.C.O.’s of Infantry.

The workshops of the Royal Engineers turned out a quantity of stuff which was really remarkable in the circumstances. All the made-up material for use in the trenches was prepared there, as well as the work in connection with the accommodation of men in the Rest Area. When we read of one and three-quarter million sandbags, or of fifteen miles of road maintained and drained by civilian labour under the supervision of the R.E., or of seventeen bridges kept up and seven constructed by this Arm, or of four thousand tons of bricks drawn from ruined houses for horse-standings, or of thirty miles of trench-gridding[40] laid and fifteen miles of trenches maintained, we are able to form some idea of the unremitting toil and admirable skill displayed by the Divisional Engineers.

Reference, too, should be made to the fact that the grave defects in Field Artillery, which that Arm of the Division was so well aware of, and which it so particularly and gallantly endured, were to some extent corrected by the issue on October 29th of 18-pounder Quick-Firer Field Guns, instead of the existing 15-pounders, and on January 30th in the next year of 4.5-inch Howitzers instead of the 5-inch Howitzers in possession.

One more item of statistics may be mentioned. In a year’s constant journeys on bad roads for long distances, amounting in all to a total mileage of 900,000 miles, no lorry had to be replaced: an extremely creditable record for the Divisional Supply Column.

But these details are carrying us too far. Our purpose in the present chapter has been to preserve an impression of the daily experience of the 49th Division from the end of June to the end of December, 1915. The same things happened every day, though they might happen with a difference. The day was fine, or the day was wet; the patrol got back, or the patrol was wounded; a shell exploded, or a shell fell ‘dud’; distinguished conduct found a grave, or distinguished conduct won a medal: but always it was relieving or being relieved, throughout this long tour of duty under the exhausting conditions of the Ypres Salient. We have sought to illustrate the life by selecting certain days for description, and we have sought, too, to set off that description by an account, however inadequate, of the other side of the picture: of the means provided from home or improvised on the spot, and alike approved by the Divisional Commander, to bring touches of warmth and colour into the chilling monotony of trench-warfare. How far such aim has been accomplished, even how far it is capable of accomplishment at this distance from 1915 and the bank of the Yser Canal, where the general gloom of the outlook was almost as difficult to banish as the mud on the physical horizon, cannot be predicated with any certainty. What is clear to the present writer, however, and what he should have made clear to his readers, is that no opportunity was let go of doing a full day’s work every day. They all pulled together all the time. The result was that, though the long strain told on the physique of the Division, it did not tell on their spirits or their resolution, and, inasmuch as their appointed day’s work was essential to the conduct of the war, and to the maintenance of equilibrium on the Western front, the 49th (West Riding) Division deserved well of their King and country in the last six months of the year 1915.