Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  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 fife 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 6th 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 the 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 Fusilliers 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 fr
om 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 oderlies. 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 Bassé 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 the 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 h
ad 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 fine. 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 on the left of the 67th 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 Stafford s 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, manhandling 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.