Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  Whilst these stirring events had been in progress in the south, the north of the line had slowly drawn back in order to preserve conformity. The Seventeenth Corps, as already stated, were to the west of Monchy, and the left of the Sixth Corps was on the line of Henin, where the Third Division occupied a strong defensive position. This was strongly attacked upon the forenoon of March 24, especially on the 8th Brigade front, which was the right of the line, the Germans swarming up from the south-east of Henin and trying hard to work up the Henin-Neuville-Vitasse road. This attack fell particularly upon the 1st Scots Fusiliers, and it was completely repulsed with heavy losses, though it was facilitated by the sunken roads which converged upon Henin. The Germans in their retirement had to pass along a slope where once again they lost heavily.

  Shortly after noon the left of the Third Division was also attacked, and the enemy obtained a temporary footing between the 1st Gordons and 8th Royal Lancasters of the 76th Brigade. From this he was very soon ejected, and though many bombing attacks were pushed with great resolution they had no results. March 25 was quiet upon the front of the Third Division, though the right of the Guards Division to the south near Boyelles was subjected to one heavy unsuccessful attack. That evening both the Guards and the Third Division had to make some retraction of their line in order to conform to the situation already described in the south, but March 26 passed without an attack, the soldiers listening with anxious impatience to the roar of battle on their right, unable to see the fight, and yet keenly conscious that their own lives might depend upon its results. The 27th was also a day of anxious expectancy, and culminating upon the 28th in a very severe battle, which was the greater test coming after so long a period of strain. All three brigades were in the line, the 8th upon the right, 9th in the centre, and 76th in the north. Still farther to the north was the 44th Highland Brigade of Reed’s Fifteenth Division upon which the storm first burst.

  This brigade at 6:45 was assailed by a bombardment of so severe a character that its trenches were completely destroyed. The German infantry pushed home behind this shattering fire and drove back the front line of the Highlanders. This enabled them to get behind the left flank of the 2nd Suffolks and nearly surround them, while at the same time they pierced the front of the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers on their right. The front line of the 8th Royal Lancasters had also been penetrated, and the British infantry were pushed back and split up into various small squads of men, intermingled in the north with Highlanders of the 44th Brigade, and all fighting desperately with the enemy swarming thickly upon them. By 9:45 the whole front was in German hands. Enemy field-guns were lining Wancourt Ridge, and as the shattered formations tried to form a new line they were heavily shelled by them. The loss in officers and men was very heavy, Colonel James of the Royal Lancasters being among the dead. The withdrawal was made to the reserve line, which the 44th Brigade had already occupied in the north. This included the village of Neuville Vitasse which became untenable from shell-fire, and into the northern portion of which the enemy was able to push, but in the main the reserve system was occupied, the movement being covered by some of the 1st Gordons. At this point an equilibrium was attained and the enemy held after as desperate a conflict as any troops could be called upon to endure.

  On the right of the 76th Brigade the 9th Brigade had also been fighting very hard, and been compelled to yield some ground before the overpowering weight of the attack, especially that of the preliminary trench-mortar fire. The first enemy advance in the morning was completely beaten off with great loss. A second attack had driven in the 8th Brigade on the right, which enabled the Germans to get behind the two companies of the 13th King’s Liverpool who were in the front line. These men fought to the end and were last seen standing on the parapet without a thought of surrender. At the same time a company of the Northumberland Fusiliers on their left shared their fate, save for one officer and twelve men who survived. The front line of the 8th Brigade had now ceased to exist, but the reserve line still held. An attack upon the 7th Shropshires who, with the remains of the other battalions, held on to it, was successfully shattered, even the battalion headquarters being brought into the desperate battle, while the guns on each side fought as hard as the infantry, barrage and attack succeeding each other with mechanical accuracy, and being answered by an equally efficient barrage and defence, for the British guns were extraordinarily well handled that day. About mid-day the enemy got a lodgment on the right of the reserve line, but the Fusiliers, whose Colonel, Moulton Barrett, had been hit, and the 13th King’s still fought furiously for what was left, and retained their ground until dusk, when they were drawn back into the reserve line in order to conform with the 76th Brigade.

  The 8th Brigade upon the extreme right of the division had also endured heavy losses in men and some loss in ground. The front line was held by companies of the 1st Scots Fusiliers and of the 7th Shropshires. The enemy, after an unsuccessful attempt, got into the trenches of the latter and bombed their way along them, clearing that section of the front. It was bomb against rifle. in the tortuous ditches, and the bomb proved the more handy weapon. The Scots Fusiliers, who were the next to be assailed, made shift with rifle-grenades, but these also ran short, and they were forced back, so that the survivors of the two front companies were driven across the Arras-Bapaume road. Finally, as in the case of the other brigades, the reserve line was successfully maintained until evening.

  No soldiers could have fought with greater bravery and skill than did the Third Division on March 28. They were assailed by at least three German divisions and by a crushing artillery, but they disputed every inch of ground, and finally fought their formidable adversary to such a complete standstill that he could not, with several hours of daylight at his disposal, and disorganised ranks before him, continue his attacks. It is true that he secured Henin and Neuville Vitasse, but he paid a rich price in blood. So broken were the enemy that the British wounded came back through their ranks without let or hindrance. A strong counter would have swept them out of the ground that they had gained, but neither the Third nor the Fifteenth, which had endured an equal attack upon the left, was in a condition to advance, while the Guards had been already withdrawn in accordance with the situation on their right, sixth The blow which the Germans had received was shown even more clearly by their failure to attack upon the next day. On March 30 the Third Division was relieved by the Second Canadians. Their record was a great one, and their losses, 139 officers and 3500 men, were a measure of their services. In nine days, before a vastly superior force, they had only gone back 7000 yards, most of which was strategic withdrawal. Well might General Byng say, “By their conduct they have established a standard of endurance and determination that will be a model for all time.”

  This desperate German attack on March 28 to the north of the British line had spread right across the face of the Fifteenth Scottish Division through the line of Orange Hill and on to Telegraph Hill, finally involving the Fourth Division on the other side of the Scarpe, and the right-hand unit of the Thirteenth Corps on their left, so that Horne’s First Army was now drawn into the fray, which reached as far north as Oppy and Gavrelle. Along the whole of this long front there was constant fighting, which in the case of the Fifteenth Division was as desperate as that of the Third. All three brigades were in the line, each of them having two battalions in front and one in reserve. Never has the grand tough Scottish fibre been more rudely tested than on this terrible day of battle, and never has it stood the strain more splendidly. General Reed’s men undoubtedly saved Arras and held up at least six German divisions which broke themselves on that rugged and impenetrable line, formed in the first instance by the 7th Camerons upon the right, the 13th Royal Scots in the centre, the 9th Black Watch and 7/8 Scots Borderers on the left. As already told, the shattering bombardment destroyed a large part of the right front, burying the garrison amid the ruins of their trenches, near their junction with the Third Division. Some fifty Camerons, under Colonel MacL
eod, fought most desperately round their headquarters, and then fell back slowly upon the 8/10 Gordons, who were holding the Neuville Vitasse trench behind them. This was about 6 A.M. By 7.40 the whole front line, shot to pieces and with their right flank gone, readjusted their line to correspond, winding up near the Feuchy road. There was no rest nor respite, however, for the whole German plan of campaign depended upon their getting Arras, so they poured forward their waves of attack regardless of losses. It was a really desperate battle in which the Scots, lying in little groups among the shell-holes and ditches, mowed the Germans down as they swarmed up to them, but were themselves occasionally cut off and overpowered as the stormers found the gaps and poured through them. The pressure was very great on the front of the Black Watch, north of the Cambrai road, and there General Reed determined upon a counter-attack, for which he could only spare a single company of the 10th Scottish Rifles. In spite of the small numbers it was carried out with such dash, under the personal lead of Colonel Stanley Clarke, that the front was cleared for a time, and the Germans thrown back east of Feuchy.

  Meanwhile the Germans had made some advance to the north of the Scarpe, and the 7/8 Scots Borderers on the left wing had to fall back to preserve the line. At 11 A.M. the enemy were raging in the centre of the line, and the 6th Camerons, north of the Cambrai road, were forced backwards, the enemy piercing their front. Up to 1:45 the weight of the attack was mostly in the north, and ended by all three brigades moving back, with the enemy still striving with the utmost fury and ever fresh relays of men to burst the line. At 3 P.M. the German stormers had won the Bois des Boeufs, but were driven out again by the 9th Black Watch and by the 11th Argylls, who had lost their CO., Colonel Mitchell. The division was worn to a shadow, and yet the moment that the German attack seemed to ease both they and the Fourth Division on their north advanced their front. In this single bloody day the Fifteenth Division lost 94 officers and 2223 men, but there can be no doubt that their action, with that of the Third Division and the Fourth on either side of them, was the main determining factor in the whole of this vast battle. General Reed (a V.C. of Colenso) with his Brigadiers, Hilliard, Allgood, and Lumsden, might well be proud of the way they held the pass.

  North of the Scarpe all three brigades of the Fourth Division were exposed to a furious attack, and lost the village of Roeux, which was defended literally to the death by the 2nd Seaforths of the 10th Brigade, but the 1st Hants in the front line of the 11th Brigade and the 2nd Essex of the 12th stood like iron, and in a long day’s fighting the enemy was never able to make any serious lodgment in the position, though the rushes of his bombing parties were said by experienced British officers to have been extraordinarily determined and clever. Very little ground was gained by the Germans, and of this a section upon the left flank near Gavrelle was regained by a sudden counter-attack of the Fourth Division. Of the attack to the north of the Third Army in the Bailleul and Oppy district, it should be noted that it fell upon the Fifty-sixth London Territorial Division, who for once had the pleasant experience of being at the right end of the machine-gun. They took every advantage of their opportunity, and there are few places where the Germans have endured heavier losses with no gains to show in return. The Westminsters and L.R.B.’s of the 169th Brigade were particularly heavily engaged, and a party of the former distinguished themselves by a most desperate defence of an outlying post, named Towy Post, near Gavrelle, which they held long after it was passed by the enemy, but eventually fought their way to safety. The attack lasted from seven in the morning till six at night, and the Londoners had full vengeance for their comrades of July 1916 or August 1917, who had died before the German wire even as the Germans died that day.

  It was a successful day for the British arms, so successful that it marked the practical limit of the German advance in that quarter, which was the vital section, covering the town of Arras. There is no doubt that the attempt was a very serious one, strongly urged by six divisions of picked infantry in front and four in support, with a very powerful concentration of artillery, which was expected to smash a way through the three divisions chiefly attacked. The onslaught was whole-hearted and skilful, but so was the defence. The German losses were exceedingly high, and save for a strip of worthless ground there was really nothing to show for them. It was the final check to the German advance in this quarter of the field, so that the chronicler may well bring his record to a pause while he returns to the first day of the battle and endeavours to trace the fortunes of the Fourth and Fifth Corps, who formed the right half of the Third Army. We have fixed the northern sector of the battle-field from Bailleul in the north right across the Scarpe and down to the Cojeul in its position, from which it was destined to make no change for many months to come. It was the first solidification of the lines, for to the south all was still fluid and confused.

  A word should be said before one finally passes from this portion of the great epic, as to the truly wonderful work of the Army Medical Corps. In spite of the constant fire the surgeons and bearers were continually in the front line and conveying the wounded to the rear. Many thousands were saved from the tortures of a German prison camp by the devotion which kept them within the British lines. It may be invidious to mention examples where the same spirit of self-sacrifice animated all, but one might take as typical the case of the Fortieth Division, some details of which are available. Colonel M’Cullagh and his men conveyed to the rear during five days, always under heavy fire, 2400 cases of their own or other divisions, the whole of the casualties of the Fortieth being 2800. M’Carter, a British, and Berney, an American surgeon, both had dressing-posts right up to the battle-line, the latter being himself wounded twice. Wannan, a stretcher-bearer, carried thirty cases in one day, and ended by conveying a wounded friend several miles upon his shoulders. Private M’Intosh, attacked by a German while binding an injured man, killed the cowardly fellow with his own bayonet, and then completed his task. It is hard to work detail into so vast a picture, but such deeds were infinitely multiplied along that great line of battle. Nor can one omit mention of the untiring work of the artillery, which was in action often for several days and nights on end. Occasionally in some soldier’s letter one gets a glimpse of the spirit of the gunners such as no formal account can convey: “Our battery fired two days and nights without ceasing until spotted by the German observers. They then kept up a terrible fire until the British guns were silenced in succession. One officer was left standing when I was wounded. He shook my hand as they carried me away. I went, leaving him with about seven men and two guns, still carrying on as if nothing had happened. This is only one battery among hundreds which showed as great pluck and tenacity as we did.”

  III. THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE SOMME

  Attack on the Fourth and Fifth Corps

  Attack on Sixth and Fifty-first Divisions — Engagement of the Twenty-fifth and Forty-first Divisions — Attack on Forty-seventh, Sixty-third, Second, and Nineteenth Divisions — The German torrent — Serious situation — Arrival of Sixty-second Division — Fighting before Albert — Gallant defence by Twelfth Division — Arrival of the New Zealanders, of the Australians, of the Thirty-fifth Division — Equilibrium

  TO the immediate south of the Sixth Corps the front line upon March 21 was held by Harper’s Fourth Corps, which consisted of the Sixth Division (Harden) opposite to Lagnicourt with the Fifty-first Highland Battle Division to the right of them, which famous unit was now under the command of General Carter-Campbell, whose name has been recorded in a previous volume as the only officer left standing in his battalion after the action of Neuve Chapelle. To the south of the Fourth Corps was the Fifth Corps (Fanshawe) with the Seventeenth Division (Robertson) on the left, the Sixty-third (Lawrie) in the centre, and the Forty-seventh (Gorringe) on the right covering the whole Cambrai salient from Flesquières in the north to the point near Gouzeaucourt Wood where the Third Army met the left flank of the Fifth. The line took a considerable bend at this point, marking the ground gained a
t the battle of Cambrai, and it was part of the German scheme to break through to the north and south, so that without attacking the Fifth Battle Corps they would either cause it to fall back or else isolate and capture it. Had their advance been such as they had hoped for, they would certainly have placed it in great peril. Even as it was, it was necessary to withdraw the line, but without undue haste or confusion. Great pressure was laid upon the Fifth Corps in later stages of the battle, but beyond a considerable shell-fall and demonstration there was no actual attack upon March 21. It was by holding certain sections of the line in this fashion that the Germans were able to pile up the odds at those places which were actually attacked.

  It will be possible to describe the sequence of events with considerably less detail in this and other sectors of the line, since the general conditions of attack and defence may be taken as similar to that already described. Here also the bombardment began with its full shattering force of high explosive, blue cross invisible gas, mustard gas, phosgene, and every other diabolical device which the German chemist has learned to produce and the British to neutralise. In the case of the British infantry, many of them had to wear their gas masks for eight hours on end, and the gunners were in even worse plight; but these appliances, which will no doubt find a place in the museums of our children, were of a surprising efficiency, and hampered the experienced soldier far less than would have been thought.

  The infantry advance was at 9:45, the Germans swarming in under the cover of Nature’s smoke barrage, for here, as in several other parts of the line, a thick morning mist greatly helped the attack and screened the stormers until they were actually up to the wire, which had usually been shattered in advance by the trench-mortars. The line from Flesquières to Dernicourt in the region of the Fifty-first Division was less seriously attacked, and remained inviolate, but the northern stretch from Dernicourt to Lagnicourt was struck with terrific impact, and gave before the blow to very much the same extent as the divisions to the immediate north. The 71st Brigade in the Lagnicourt sector was especially hard hit, and was very violently assailed by a strong force of Germans, which included the 1st Prussian Guard. This famous regiment was at one time all round the 9th Norfolks, who succeeded at last in fighting themselves clear, though their Colonel, Prior, and the great majority of the officers and men in the battalion were killed or wounded. Even these wounded, however, were safely carried off, thanks to the devotion of Captain Failes and a handful of brave men. In this desperate struggle the whole brigade was decimated. The 16th and 18th Brigades had also suffered severely, but the division, in spite of its losses, was splendidly solid, and fell back slowly upon the support of the 75th Brigade of the Twenty-fifth Division, which had hastened up to the danger point. By evening, the Germans, advancing in great numbers and with fine resolution, had occupied the four villages of Doignies, Boursies, Louverval, and Lagnicourt, their total penetration from Boursies in the south to Ecoust in the north, a stretch of seven miles, averaging about 3000 yards. This advance had completely turned the left wing of the Fifty-first, which was compelled to fall back in consequence, after stopping several attacks from across the Canal du Nord. All three brigades of the Fifty-first Division were in line, and of the three the left and centre had been seriously engaged, the enemy entering the front line of both before mid-day, and finally reaching the second system between Louverval and Lagnicourt, so that the defence lay along the Beaumetz — Morchies line. The Nineteenth Division was in general support in this quarter, and the 57th Brigade became practically the right of the Fifty-first Division. About 7 P.M. in the evening two battalions of it, the 8th Gloucesters and 10th Worcesters of the 57th Brigade, tried to turn the tide of fight by a counter-attack, with the aid of tanks, against the village of Doignies. This attack was successful in retaking half the village, but in the course of the night it was found necessary to withdraw before the increasing pressure of the enemy, who brought many machine-guns into the village. During the night it was arranged that the Fifth Corps should fall back from its dangerous position in the Cambrai salient, and by eleven next day the divisions which composed it were ranged from Highland Ridge, through Havrincourt and Hermies, in touch with the Fourth Corps in the north and with the left of the Fifth Army in the south.