A new unit had come into line on April 13. This was the Thirty-third Division under General Pinney. It was at once thrust in to fill the gap in front of Bailleul, where it found itself involved from that date onwards in most desperate fighting, in which it was associated with the Thirty-first Division. The narrative of the services and trials, both of them very great, which were rendered and endured by these divisions may be best told in consecutive form, as a too strict adhesion to the order of dates produces an effect which makes it difficult to follow the actual happenings. We shall first consider the operations at Hazebrouck and Meteren, where these two divisions and the First Australian Division were chiefly concerned, and we shall afterwards return to the north and follow the fortunes of the Nineteenth, Twenty-fifth, Forty-ninth, Thirty-fourth, and other divisions which were holding the northern curve.
The line was very weak on April 12 in front of Hazebrouck, and yet it was absolutely vital that this important railway junction should not fall into German hands. The need was pressing and desperate, for the German attack was furious and unremitting, while the British line was so thin, and composed of such weary units, that it seemed impossible that it could hold. The exhausted remains of the Fiftieth Division, who had been at it continually ever since the breaking of the Portuguese front, were hardly capable now of covering or defending any serious front. Yet if the ground could be held, the First Australian Division, brought hurriedly back from the Somme and in the act of detraining, would be in the line within twenty-four hours. There have been few moments more heavy with fate during the whole of the campaign. Everything depended for the moment upon Finney’s Thirty-third Division, upon the worn remnants of the Twenty-ninth Division, upon the 92nd and 93rd Brigades, and upon the 4th Guards Brigade of the Thirty-first Division who were brought up from Pradelles, and thrown hurriedly across the path of the advancing Germans. Of the Thirty-first Division the 92nd and 93rd Brigades had already been heavily engaged on April II as already recorded. The Guards Brigade had been delayed in its journey and was still fresh. General Reedman of the 92nd Brigade was in local command, and the situation was a particularly difficult one. At all costs Hazebrouck must be covered until reinforcements could arrive, for if the line were cut there was no end to the possible evils. When Merris fell General Reedman still held the heights west of Merris with the 10th East Yorkshires, while the 11th East Lancashires were to the south, and the remnants of the 86th and 87th Brigades of the Twenty-ninth Division held on to Vieux Berquin. This line held until 5 P.M. on April 13 in spite of very stormy attacks and very little help from the guns. About that hour the right of the line gave way under severe pressure, and Vieux Berquin was taken, but the Germans were bottled up in it and were unable to get forward. There they remained until the great turn of the tide. We must now, however, turn our gaze to the immediate south and follow the phases of the wonderful stand made by the remaining brigade of the Thirty-first Division, the 4th Guards Brigade, who found themselves involved in a desperate battle in front of Hazebrouck.
Without enumerating a number of obscure hamlets which are rather confusing than helpful, it may be said that the brigade under General Leslie Butler covered the north of the main road from Merville to Hazebrouck, with their right resting upon the Bourre, a small sluggish stream. Vierhouck represented roughly the centre of their line. It was a country of flat cultivated fields, with many roads and water-courses lined with willows, which cut the view. There were untouched farms with their human and animal occupants on every side. To the west lay the great forest of Nieppe. On the right were the 3rd Coldstream, on the left the 4th Grenadiers, with the 2nd Irish in close support. They were in position on the morning of April 12, and at once found the enemy in front of them, who after a strong preliminary bombardment advanced in great numbers along the whole line. The rifle-fire of the Guardsmen was too deadly, however, and the attack dissolved before it. The German machine-gunners were exceedingly aggressive, “not to say impudent,” as a Guards officer explained it, and many losses were sustained from their fashion of pushing forward upon the flanks, and worming their way into every unoccupied crevice. Nothing could exceed both the gallantry and the intelligence of these men. Having cleared their front the Guards endeavoured to advance, but the Coldstream on the right met with murderous fire from the village of Pures Becques, and the movement could get no farther, nor were the Grenadiers much more fortunate on the left, though Captain Pryce with his company broke into some outlying houses, killing a number of Germans, seven of whom fell to that officer’s own automatic. This whole gallant episode occurred under the very muzzles of a German battery, firing with open sights at a range of 300 yards.
At this period the brigade seems to have got ahead of the general British line, and to have had both flanks entirely exposed to every sort of enfilade fire. About four in the afternoon the right company of the Coldstream, numbering only forty men, had to turn south to face the enemy. The Germans had thrust into the centre of the Coldstream also, but No. 2 Company of the supporting Irish, acting without orders upon the impulse of the moment, and aided by the surviving Coldstream, completely re-established the line. The Irish, who were led by Captain Bambridge, were almost annihilated in their dashing effort to ease the pressure upon their English comrades. Their leader was wounded. Lieutenant Dent was killed, and only eleven men of the company were left standing. On the left the Germans were 500 yards in the rear, and here a rearrangement was called for and steadily carried out. An hour later another violent attack was made at the junction of the two battalions, but it also was driven back in disorder.
Rough Sketch of Guards’ Position, April 13
The Germans had brought their guns well forward and into the open, but they met their match in Lieutenant Lewis of the 152nd Brigade Royal Field Artillery, who directed the scanty British artillery, and handled his pieces in a way which was much appreciated by the weary Guardsmen.
The readjustment of the line enabled the 4th Guards Brigade to link up with the 12th Yorkshire Light Infantry, pioneer battalion of their own division, which was holding the line at La Couronne, and fought that day with the utmost tenacity and resolution. On the left flank of the Yorkshiremen, near Vieux Berquin, were the worn remains of the Twenty-ninth Division.
Night fell upon a sorely-tried but unconquered line. The two front battalions had lost at least a third of their effectives. Under the screen of darkness the position was re-organised, and it was hoped that the Fifth Division, drawn back from Italy, would be able to effect a relief. This could not be fully accomplished, however, and at best only a small contraction of the front could be effected, so that the morning of April 13 found the exhausted Coldstream and Grenadiers still facing the German attack. Their line had been strengthened by the 210th Field Co. of the Royal Engineers. The front to be held was A still very wide for so weakened a force.
It had been a hard day, but it was only the prelude of a harder one. On April 13 the morning began with thick mist, of which the Germans took advantage to rush their machine-guns to very close quarters. At early dawn the Coldstream found themselves once more heavily attacked, while an armoured car came down the road and machine-gunned the outposts at a range of ten yards. After severe mixed fighting the attack was driven back. At 9:15 it was renewed with greater strength, but again it made no progress. It is typical of the truly desperate spirit of the men, that when every man save one in an outpost had been killed or wounded, the survivor. Private Jacotin of the Coldstream, carried on the fight alone for twenty minutes before he was blown to pieces with a grenade. The left flank of this battalion had also been heavily attacked, the enemy, with their usual diabolical ingenuity, shouting as they advanced through the fog that they were the King’s Company of the Grenadier Guards. They were blown back none the less into the mist from which they had emerged. The 12th Yorkshire Light Infantry was also four separate times attacked, but held to its appointed line. This gallant unit fairly earned the title of the “Yorkshire Guards “ that day, for they w
ere the peers of their comrades. Meanwhile, however, outside the area of this grim fight the Germans had taken Vieux Berquin, pushing back the scanty line of defence at that point, so that they were able to bring up trench-mortars and guns to blast the Yorkshire battalion at La Couronne out of its shallow trenches. Captain Pryce, on the extreme left of the Guards, found the Germans all round him, and his Grenadiers were standing back to back and firing east and west. The company was doomed, and in spite of the gallant effort of a party of Irish Guards, who lost very heavily in the venture, the whole of them perished, save for Sergeant Weedon and six men who reported the manner in which their comrades had met their end. Captain Pryce had led two bayonet charges, first with eighteen men, which was entirely successful, and later with fourteen men, who buried themselves in the grey of the German ranks, and there remained. Such was the end of No. 2 Company of the 4th Grenadiers, and of its commander. This brave man received a posthumous V.C. in the record of which it is stated that with forty men he had held up a German battalion for ten hours and so saved a break through.
Apart from this flank company the centre company of the Grenadiers at this period consisted of six unwounded men, while the right company was twenty strong. All the officers were down. They were hemmed in on two sides by the enemy, but they were still resisting as the shades of night fell upon them. By dawn the Grenadier battalion had ceased to exist.
The 3rd Coldstream on the right were hardly in better case. The right company was surrounded, and fought until there was only a handful left. A few survivors fell back upon the Fifth Division and the Australians who were now well up to the line. The orders to the Guards had been to keep the Germans out until the Australians could arrive. They had been faithfully obeyed. The total casualties had been 39 officers and 1244 rank and file, the greater part from two weak battalions; 17 per cent of the brigade mustered after the action. Soldiers will appreciate the last words of the official report which are: “No stragglers were reported by the A.P.M.” It is an episode which needs no comment. Its grandeur lies in the facts. Well might General de Lisle say: “The history of the British Army can record nothing finer than the story of the action of the 4th Guards Brigade on April 12 and 13.”
Whilst the Guards had made their fine stand to the east of Hazebrouck, the rest of the Thirty-first Division, covering a front of 9000 yards, had a most desperate battle with the German stormers. The fine north country material which makes up the 92nd and 93rd Brigades had never been more highly tried, for they were little more than a long line of skirmishers with an occasional post. In some parts of the line they were absolutely exterminated, but like their comrades of the Guards, they managed somehow or other to retain the positions and prevent a penetration until reinforcements arrived. The remains of the Twenty-ninth Division on the left had also fought with the utmost devotion and held the line at the price of a heavy drain upon their weakened ranks. It has been calculated that the line held by the 31st Division upon these days was 5| miles long, and that it was attacked by the 35th and 42nd German divisions, the 1st Bavarian Reserve, and 10th, 11th, and 81st Reserve divisions. It would be well to continue the action upon the Hazebrouck front by giving at once an account of the operations of the First Australian Division under General Sir Harold Walker, which had the remarkable experience of being sent from Flanders to the Amiens front, being engaged there, and now being back in the Flanders front once more, all in little over a week. They detrained on April 12, and on the 13th their 2nd Brigade (Heane) found themselves in front of Hazebrouck with the remains of the 92nd British Brigade on their left and with the hard-pressed 4th Guards Brigade in front of them. In the evening the remains of the Guards were withdrawn through their line, and they were facing the pursuing Germans. On their left the Australians were in touch with the 1st Cameronians of the 19th Brigade in the Meteren area.
This fierce fighting was going on in a country which was new to war, with unbroken soil, whole cottages, and numerous refugees, who by their flight before the German vanguard complicated a situation which was already so chaotic that it was very difficult for the generals on the spot to grasp the relative positions of the attack and the defence.
On April 14 the Germans, advancing behind a deadly barrage, came forward through Merris and Vieux Berquin. They soon found, however, that they had before them fresh and steady troops who were not to be driven. The immediate German objective was the high ground from Mont de Merris to Strazeele. The 2nd Australian Brigade was on the right and the 1st (Leslie) on the left. Both were equally attacked, and both met their assailants with a shattering fire which piled the level plain with their bodies. Three lines swept forward, but none reached the shallow trenches of the “digger” infantry. The 3rd and 4th Battalions held the line to the north where the pressure was greatest. The One hundred and twenty-third French Division was in support, but there was never any need to call for their co-operation. Strazeele, however, was blown to pieces by the German guns.
April 15 and 16 were comparatively quiet, and the Australians busily strengthened their lines. On the 17th sharp attack was made upon the 1st and 4th Battalions on the left and centre of the 1st Australian Brigade, the advance coming up the valley between Merris and Meteren. This also was cut to pieces by rifle and gun-fire, so that it made no progress whatever.
The 3rd Australian Brigade (Bennett) had been in reserve, but it was destined for severe service after Meteren had passed out of the hands of the Thirty-third Division in the manner elsewhere described. They had actually relieved some of the worn elements of the British Thirty-third and of the French One hundred and thirty-third Divisions to the west of Meteren, and on April 22 and 23 they endeavoured by two separate movements upon either flank to fight their way back into the little town. The first operations carried out by the 11th and 12th Battalions were successful, but the final push into the town by the 9th and 10th met with heavy opposition, and the casualties were so great that the attempt had to be abandoned. The three Australian brigades were shortly relieved, after their very valuable spell in the line. They were destined soon to find themselves with their comrades on the Somme once again.
Whilst the 1st Brigade had won a complete defensive victory in the north of the line, the 2nd Brigade had done equally well in the south. The 7th and 8th Battalions were in the line, and both were heavily engaged, especially the latter, which faced Vieux Berquin. The German attack was once again a complete failure, and it was clear that the Australians had the historical honour in Flanders as well as on the Somme, of saying, “Thus far and no farther,” Area. upon the sector which they manned.
We pass on to the movements of the Thirty-third Division, which arrived upon the scene of action on April 11, and from that time onwards played an ever increasing part in this great world crisis. General Pinney had the experience of first being denuded of large part of his own proper force, which was given away, brigade by brigade, to points of danger, and afterwards of not only seeing them reunited under his hand, but of having the remains of four divisions and a great number of details under him, and so being in actual command of the whole operations to the south and west of Bailleul. To his coolness, firmness, and well-tried fortitude, the nation owed much during those few desperate days.
The 100th Brigade (Baird) was moved forward at once to come under the orders of General Bainbridge, who, with his Twenty-fifth Division, had endured so much in the Ploegsteert district and was in urgent need of help. We shall follow them from the date of their detachment to that of their return to their own unit. On April 11, after dusk, they took their position, covering Neuve Église, the 16th King’s Royal Rifles on the right of the line, the 2nd Worcesters in the centre, and the 9th Highland Light Infantry in reserve, the 148th Brigade being on the left, and the 75th Brigade on their right, the latter much exhausted by two days of battle. Immediately to the north lay the much-enduring battle line of the Nineteenth Division, which has already been fully described. Two points can hardly be described simultaneously, but these facts a
re to be read in conjunctiou with those already given in the last chapter, and it is to be understood that the whole situation at Neuve Église reacted from hour to hour upon that farther north, since a German capture of the town would place the enemy in the rear of General Jeffreys and his men.
On April 12 there was no direct attack upon this area, but about 4 P.M. the 75th Brigade on the right, which was much worn, was driven back and a gap created, which was filled in by such reserves as could be got together at the shortest notice. In the morning of April 13 it was found that this flank was still very open, the nearest organised unit being the 88th Brigade of the Twenty-ninth Division, which was also stretching out its left in the hope of making connection. The enemy, however, pushed through early on April 13, getting to the rear of the 100th Brigade, and swinging north into Neuve Èglise which they captured. The Glasgow Highlanders, the only battalion of the Highland Light Infantry which wears Highland costume, attacked at once with all the vigour of fresh troops, and cleared the Germans out of the town at the point of the bayonet. The enemy had filtered into the brigade line, however, and parties of them were in the rear of the Worcesters. The hardest part of all was borne by the 16th King’s Royal Rifles, who, being the flank battalion, bore all the weight of an advance which had enveloped them upon three sides, front, flank, and rear. Of this gallant battalion there were hardly any survivors. The Worcesters threw back their right flank, therefore, in order to cover Neuve Église upon the south and south-east, while the Twenty-fifth Division were on the north and north-east.
The mishaps of a dark day were still not over, for the enemy about 4:30 made a determined attack and again punctured the over-stretched line. Some of them drove their way once more into Neuve Église, brushing aside or scattering the thin line of defence. Another strong force broke into the front of the 100th Brigade and drove a wedge between the Glasgow Highlanders and the Worcesters. The headquarters of the latter battalion was in the Municipal Building of Neuve Église, and put up a desperate, isolated resistance for many hours. Colonel Stoney and his staff finally making their way back to their comrades. In this defence the Chaplain, the Rev. Tanner, greatly distinguished, himself. The survivors of the 2nd Worcesters had also maintained themselves in Neuve Église as house neighbours to the German stormers, but after mid-day on April 14, finding themselves entirely cut off, they fought their way out, leaving the Square round the Church and Mairie piled with corpses. The town was now entirely German, with results already described upon the northern section of the outflanked line. Once more the Worcesters, the heroes of the old Gheluvelt battle, had placed fresh laurels upon their faded and battle-stained colours. The remains of the 100th Brigade were now reassembled on the Ravelsberg ridge, west of Neuve Église, where they faced their enemy once more. So worn was it that the survivors of the Rifles and of the Highlanders were clubbed together to form one very weak composite battalion. On their right now was a collection of odds-and-ends under General Wyatt about a thousand strong, while on their left was the 103rd Brigade of the Thirty-fourth Division, in support.
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