Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  [ * The German returns for the Guard alone at this battle are reported at 1170 dead, 3991 wounded, 1719 missing. ]

  It was a fine attack, bravely delivered by fresh troops against weary men, but it showed the German leaders once for all that it was impossible to force a passage through the lines. The Emperor’s Guard, driven on by the Emperor’s own personal impetus, had recoiled broken, even as the Guard of a greater Emperor had done a century before from the indomitable resistance of the British infantry. The constant fighting had reduced British brigades to the strength of battalions, battalions to companies, and companies to weak platoons, but the position was still held. They had, it is true, lost about five hundred yards of ground in the battle, but a shorter line was at once dug, organised, and manned. The barrier to Ypres was as strong as ever.

  The strain upon the men, however, had been terrific. “Bearded, unwashed, sometimes plagued with vermin, the few who remained in the front line were a terrible crew,” says the American, Coleman. “They were like fierce, wild beasts,” says another observer. They had given their all, almost to their humanity, to save Britain. May the day never come when Britain will refuse to save them.

  Glancing for a moment down the line to the south, there had been continuous confused contention during this time, but no great attack such as distinguished the operations in the north. Upon November 7 two brisk assaults were made by the Germans in the Armentières area, one upon the Fourth Division of the Third Corps and the other upon the Seaforth Highlanders, who were brigaded with the Indians. In each case the first German rush carried some trenches, and in each the swift return of the British regained them. There were moderate losses upon both sides. On the same date the 13th Infantry Brigade lost the services of Colonel Martyn of the 1st West Kents, who was seriously wounded the very day after he had been appointed to a brigade.

  This attack upon November 11 represents the absolute high-water mark of the German efforts in this battle, and the ebb was a rapid one. Upon November 12 and the remainder of the week, halfhearted attempts were made upon the British front, which were repulsed without difficulty. To the north of the line, where the French had held their positions with much the same fluctuations which had been experienced by their Allies, the German assault was more violent and met with occasional success, though it was finally repelled with very great loss. The 14th was to the French what the 11th had been to the British — the culmination of violence and the prelude of rest. The weather throughout this period was cold and tempestuous, which much increased the strain upon the weary troops. Along the whole line from Ypres to Bethune there were desultory shellings with an occasional dash by one side or the other, which usually ended in the capture of a trench and its recapture by the supports in the rear. It was in one of these sporadic German attacks in the Klein Zillebeke section that the 2nd King’s Royal Rifles held their trench against heavy odds, and their machine-gun officer, Lieutenant Dimmer, thrice wounded and still fighting, won the coveted Cross by his valour. Each gallant advance and capture of the Germans was countered by an equally gallant counter-attack and recapture by the British. The long line sagged and swayed, but never bent or broke. The era of battles had passed, but for thirty miles the skirmishes were incessant. So mixed and incessant had been the fighting that it was a very difficult task during these days to tidy up the line and get each scattered group of men back to its own platoon, company, and battalion.

  On Tuesday, November 17, the fighting suddenly assumed a more important character. The attack was again in the Ypres section and fell chiefly upon the battalions of the Second Corps, if so dignified a name as “ battalion “ can be given to bodies of men which consisted very often of less than a normal company, commanded, perhaps, by two junior officers. The 4th Brigade of Guards was also heavily engaged this day, and so were the cavalry of the Third Division. The general locale of the action was the same as that which had been so often fought over before, the Second Corps being to the south of the Ypres-Menin road, with Lord Cavan’s Guardsmen upon their right and the cavalry upon the right of the Guards. After a severe shelling there was a serious infantry advance, about one o’clock, which took some trenches, but was finally driven back and chased for a quarter of a mile. McCracken’s 7th Brigade bore a chief part in this fighting, and the 1st Wiltshires particularly distinguished themselves by a fine charge led by Captain Cary-Barnard. The 2nd Grenadiers did great work during the day.

  An even heavier advance was made in the afternoon to the south of that which was broken in the morning. This involved an oblique advance across the British front, which was stopped and destroyed before it reached the trenches by the deadly fire of rifles and machine-guns. Over a thousand dead were left as a proof of the energy of the attack and the solidity of the resistance. Farther to the south a similar attack was beaten back by the cavalry after a preliminary shelling in which the 3rd Dragoon Guards suffered severely. This attack was repelled by the Third Cavalry Division, to which the Leicestershire and North Somerset Yeomanry were now attached. The latter did fine service in this action. Altogether, November 17 was a good day for the British arms and a most expensive one for the Germans.

  We have now reached the end of the Battle of Ypres, which attained its maximum fury, so far as the British line was concerned, from October 29 to November 11. This great contest raged from the sand dunes of the north, where the Belgians fought so well, through the French Marine Brigade at Dixmude, and the Ninth French Corps, to General Haig’s Corps, which was buttressed on the right towards the latter part of the battle by the Sixteenth French Corps. Farther south yet another French corps supported and eventually took the place of the British cavalry opposite the lost villages of Wytschaete and Messines. From there ran the unbroken lines of the imperturbable Third Corps, which ended to the south in the trenches originally held by the Second British Corps, and later by the Indians. Across the La Bassée Canal the French once again took up the defence.

  It is not an action, therefore, which can be set down to the exclusive credit of any one nation. Our Allies fought gloriously, and if their deeds are not set down here, it is from want of space and of precise information, not from want of appreciation. But, turning to the merely British aspect of the fight — and beyond all doubt the heavier share fell upon the British, who bore the brunt from the start to the end, — it may be said that the battle lasted a clear month, from October 12, when Smith-Dorrien crossed the La Bassée Canal, to November 11, when the German Guard reeled out of the Nonnebusch Wood. We are so near these great events that it is hard to get their true proportion, but it is abundantly clear that the battle, in its duration, the space covered, the numbers engaged, and the losses endured, was far the greatest ever fought up to that time by a British Army. At Waterloo the losses were under 10,000. In this great fight they were little short of 50,000. The fact that the enemy did not recoil and that there was no sensational capture of prisoners and guns has obscured the completeness of the victory. In these days of nations in arms a beaten army is buttressed up or reabsorbed by the huge forces of which it is part. One judges victory or defeat by the question whether an army has or has not reached its objective. In this particular case, taking a broad view of the whole action, a German force of at least 600,000 men set forth to reach the coast, and was opposed by a force of less than half its numbers who barred its way. The Germans did not advance five miles in a month of fighting, and they lost not less than 150,000 men without any military advantage whatever, for the possession of such villages as Gheluvelt, Wytschaete, or Messines availed them not at all. If this is not a great victory, I do not know what military achievement would deserve the term. Ypres was a Plevna — but a Plevna which remained for ever untaken.

  On November 15 Lord Roberts died whilst visiting Army, having such an end as he would have chosen, within earshot of the guns and within the lines of those Indian soldiers whom he loved and had so often led. The last words of his greatest speech to his fellow-countrymen before the outbreak of that war whic
h he had foreseen, and for which he had incessantly tried to prepare, were that they should quit themselves like men. He lived to see them do so, and though he was not spared to see the final outcome, his spirit must at least have been at rest as to the general trend of the campaign. The tradition of his fascinating character, with its knightly qualities of gentleness, bravery, and devotion to duty, will remain as a national possession.

  About this time, though too late for the severe fighting, there arrived the Eighth Division, which would enable Sir Henry Rawlinson to complete his Fourth Corps.

  The Eighth Division was composed as follows: —

  EIGHTH DIVISION — GENERAL DAVIES.

  23rd Infantry Brigade. — General Penny.

  2nd Scots Rifles.

  2nd Middlesex.

  2nd West Yorkshires.

  2nd Devons.

  24th Infantry Brigade — General Carter.

  1st Worcesters.

  2nd East Lancashires.

  1st Notts and Derby.

  2nd Northamptons.

  25th Infantry Brigade — General Lowry Cole.

  2nd Lincolns.

  2nd Berkshires.

  1st Irish Rifles.

  2nd Rifle Brigade.

  13th London (Kensingtons).

  Artillery.

  5th Brigade R.H.A., G.O.Z.

  45th Brigade R.F.A.

  33rd Brigade R.F.A.

  Heavy Batteries 118, 119.

  2, 5, F. Cos. R.E.

  8 Signal Co.

  Divisional Cavalry.

  Northampton Yeomanry.

  8th Cyclists.

  We have now arrived at what may be called the great winter lull, when the continuation of active operations was made impossible by the weather conditions, which were of the most atrocious description. It was the season which in a more classic age of warfare was spent in comfortable winter quarters. There was no such surcease of hardship for the contending lines, who were left in their trenches face to face, often not more than fifty yards apart, and each always keenly alert for any devilry upon the part of the other. The ashes of war were always redly smouldering, and sometimes, as will be seen, burst up into sudden furious flame. It was a period of rainstorms and of frost-bites, of trench mortars and of grenades, of weary, muddy, goat-skinned men shivering in narrow trenches, and of depleted brigades The first resting and recruiting in the rearward towns. Such Ypres. was the position at the Front. But hundreds of miles to the westward the real future of the war was being fought out in the rifle factories of Birmingham, the great gun works of Woolwich, Coventry, Newcastle, and Sheffield, the cloth looms of Yorkshire, and the boot centres of Northampton. In these and many other places oversea the tools for victory were forged night and day through one of the blackest and most strenuous winters that Britain has ever known. And always on green and waste and common, from Cromarty to Brighton, wherever soldiers could find billets or a village of log huts could be put together, the soldier citizens who were to take up the burden of the war, the men of the Territorials and the men of the new armies, endured every hardship and discomfort without a murmur, whilst they prepared themselves for that great and glorious task which the future would bring. Even those who were too old or too young for service formed themselves into volunteer bands, who armed and clothed themselves at their own expense. This movement, which sprang first from the small Sussex village of Crowborough, was co-ordinated and controlled by a central body of which Lord Desborough was the head. In spite of discouragement, or at the best cold neutrality from Government, it increased and prospered until no fewer than a quarter of a million of men were mustered and ready entirely at their own expense and by private enterprise — one of the most remarkable phenomena of the war.

  * * *

  X. A RETROSPECT AND GENERAL SUMMARY

  Position of Italy — Fall of German colonies — Sea affairs — Our Allies

  THERE has been no opportunity during this somewhat breathless narrative of the great events which ever be associated with the names of Mens, the Marne, the Aisne, and Ypres to indicate those factors which were influencing the course of the war in other regions. They do not come properly within the scope of this narrative, nor does the author profess to have any special information concerning them, but they cannot be absolutely omitted without interfering with a correct view of the general situation. They will therefore be briefly summarised in retrospect before the reader is carried on into a more particular account of the trench warfare of the early winter of 1914.

  The most important European event at the outbreak of the war, outside the movement of the combatants, was the secession of Italy from the Central Powers on the grounds that her treaty applied only to wars of defence whilst this was manifestly one of aggression. Italian statesmen could speak with the more decision upon the point since the plot had been unfolded before their eyes. A year previously they had been asked to join in an unprovoked attack upon Serbia, and in refusing had given clear warning to their allies how such an outrage would viewed. The Central Powers, however, puffed up general by their vainglory and by the knowledge of their secret preparations, were persuaded that they had ample strength to carry out their intentions without aid from their southern ally. Italy, having denounced the treaty, remained a neutral, but it was always clear that she would sooner or later throw in her strength with those who were at war with Austria, her secular enemy. It was not, however, until May 1915 that she was in a position to take a definite step. It should be remembered to her eternal honour that the time at which she did eventually come in was one which was very overcast for the Allies, and that far from fulfilling the cynical German prophecy that she would “hasten to the assistance of the conqueror,” she took grave risks in ranging herself Fall of upon the side of her Latin sister. Upon August 24 colonies. Japan also declared war, and by November 7 had completed her share of the common task, for Tsingtau, the only German colony in Eastern Asia, was captured by a Japanese expeditionary force aided by a British contingent. Already the vast Colonial erection of Germany, those numerous places in the sun which she had annexed all over the globe, were beginning to crumble. The little Togoland colony fell upon August 26. New Zealand took over German Samoa upon August 31. The Australians occupied the Bismarck Archipelago upon September 7, and New Guinea upon the 25th. These smaller twigs were easily lopped, but the main boughs were made of tougher stuff. A premature attack upon German East Africa by an expeditionary force from India met with a severe check immediately after landing. In South Africa the Germans succeeded in blowing into a small flame the smouldering ashes of the old Boer War. De Wet and others broke their oaths and took up arms, but the majority remained splendidly loyal, and by the beginning of December Botha had brought the insurrection to an end, and was able henceforth to devote his grand powers of leadership and organisation to the extinction of the enemy’s south-western colony.

  A word, too, about sea affairs before we turn to the further detailed account of the British winter upon the Continent. In good time the Fleet had been ordered to her war-stations at the north and east of Scotland, with the result that German ocean commerce was brought to an immediate and absolute stop. The German ships Goeben and Breslau, which were cut off at the outbreak of the war in the Mediterranean, succeeded in a very clever fashion in reaching the Dardanelles and safety. Having taken refuge at Constantinople, these ships played a prominent part in determining Turkey to take action against the Allies on October 31, a most disastrous decision both for Turkey, which met her ruin, and for the Allies, who found their task greatly increased through the excellent fighting power of the Turkish forces.

  A brisk action was fought upon August 28 in the Heligoland Bight, when Admiral Beatty with his cruiser-squadron and a number of light craft visited the enemy in his own waters, sinking three German warships and sustaining no losses himself. Among the prisoners was the son of Chief Admiral Von Tirpitz. Numerous minor actions led to no noteworthy result, but the power of the submarine, already prophesied before the wa
r, speedily made itself manifest. Several small British cruisers were destroyed by these craft, and finally a considerable disaster occurred through the sinking of the three cruisers, Hogue, Aboukir, and Cressy, upon September 22. This dashing and cool-headed exploit was brought off by a young Lieutenant named Weddigen. Much as we suffered from his action, it was recognised in Britain as having been a remarkable deed of arms upon a very different plane to those execrable murders of civilians with which the German submarine service was afterwards associated. Some months later Weddigen’s submarine rose amongst the Grand Fleet whilst it was in motion, and was rammed and destroyed by the Dreadnought.

  The outbreak of war had seen a considerable number of German cruisers at large, and these would undoubtedly have been strongly reinforced had it not been for the speed with which the British Fleet took up its war-stations. As it was, the amount of damage to commerce was not serious, and by the New Year all the wanderers had been rounded up. The most successful raider was the Emden, under Captain Müller, which captured and destroyed numerous British merchant-ships, bombarded the Madras gas-works, and sank by a surprise attack a small Russian cruiser and a French destroyer before it was finally cornered and sunk by the Australian cruiser Sydney off Cocos Island upon November 10. Captain Müller, though forced by circumstances to adopt certain measures not recognised in honourable naval warfare, behaved on the whole in the manner which one associates with the term naval officer. The Karlsruhe had also considerable success as a naval raider, but met her end through an unexplained explosion some little time after her consort the Emden. On the whole, the damage inflicted by German commerce destroyers was very much less than had been anticipated.