by Mark Zuehlke
This seemingly peaceful day was shattered at 1600 hours by a “furious cannonade” that dropped shells immediately north and west of St. Julien and directly onto Ypres. No. 4 Company’s second-in-command, Captain George Willis Jameson, and Lt. Hugh Urquhart rushed up to the top of the canal bank and endeavoured to make out “what sort of fight was going on, there could be no doubt that the enemy were advancing as the shrapnel bursts got nearer and nearer until at last the road east of the Canal from Ypres to Boesinghe was being shelled. We instinctively felt that it was necessary for us to ‘stand to’ and, on coming down to the billet, found orders for the Company to fall in. The order was carried out in quick time.”7
Some officers had just been sitting down to a buffet tea at battalion headquarters when they “heard a huge shell coming in with the noise of an express train, such as one we hadn’t ever heard before. When the terrific crash of the explosion took place I looked from under the buffet and some of the others were under the table. I consider we all acted with one thought and did excellent time. … We sat down to resume our meal and all was quiet again, when suddenly we heard the warning roar in the air. Again, like streaks of lightning we were in our corners. This time the crash was just outside our door. The glass blew in on the table and there was a crash of timber and falling brick-work. Then they started in earnest, shells, large and small, poured into the town. The cries of the people mingled with the crash of the houses falling to bits, the stampeding of frantic horses, and the shouts of the troops rushing to their quarters. There was the wildest confusion.”8
Brigade quickly ordered Leckie to move his battalion up the side of the canal to a point just north of Ypres and hold there in readiness for an immediate advance. Once in position, many of the men took cover in an old trench system while those unable to squeeze in began digging slit trenches.9
At about 1730 hours, Brig. Turner received a report that “the French on our left were being subjected to heavy artillery bombardment, accompanied by the projection of a pale green cloud of gas of a peculiarly pungent odour. There was at the time some doubt as to whether the gas emanated from the Germans or from the French trenches, but it was shortly determined that it was being used by the enemy to overcome resistance.”10
The Germans had opened the valves on their cylinders precisely at 1700 hours, releasing more than 160 tons of deadly gas over a period of six to eight minutes on the long-awaited northeasterly breeze. One gas cloud first seemed to be closing on the Canadian lines but it then shifted to drift across the Algerian front and joined with other green-yellow concentrations that created a towering, impenetrable, greenish-yellow fog.11 Drifting steadily along at five to six miles an hour, the giant cloud was about a half-mile deep by the time it entered the Algerian lines and those of the 87th Territorial Division at its side. There was instant pandemonium, the gas burning men’s throats and eyes, causing intense chest pains, and making it virtually impossible to draw breath. Soldiers began spitting blood and many collapsed dizzily and then suffocated. Those who survived fled the trenches.12
Advancing at a fifteen-minute interval behind the gas were the leading German infantry formations. Each man wore a primitive gas mask. There was no resistance in the forward trenches as the men stepped in their jackboots over the bodies of the dead and dying whose “faces were discoloured and contorted in grimaces of agony.”13 Within an hour the Germans had penetrated a full mile into the heart of the salient.
The first sign the Canadian Scottish had of the disaster playing out on their left was the sudden appearance of a stream of civilian refugees pouring “down the road, carrying with them their small personal belongings wrapped in bundles and then over the canal bridges came the French soldiers retiring, first by ones and twos and latterly a continuous stream.”14 The French troops were “breathless, bareheaded, without rifles or equipment.” Mixed in among the fleeing infantry were French and Belgian artillery limbers, “without guns, the drivers holding each other up as if they were wounded. The horses were being galloped amongst the refugees regardless of consequences.” Canadian Scottish officers rushed to stop some of the men, trying to get information, but they were so panicked it was useless. “The infantry showed signs of acute distress and fear. They came back at the trot, coughing and spluttering, and, although shouted at, would not stop running. At any attempt to halt their retreat they threw up their hands, and between coughs, as they passed, gasped out, ‘Asphyxié, Asphyxié!’”15
Realizing the Canadian left flank was likely completely exposed, Leckie issued each man an extra emergency ration and two additional bandoliers containing a hundred rounds of small-arms ammunition. There was no way of knowing where the battalion might be sent or when any re-supply would be possible. For two hours the Canadian Scottish waited and then at 1940 hours received orders to move to brigade headquarters in St. Julien.
Although the direct route passed through St. Jean, the village and its crossroads were being battered by artillery. So the battalion took a roundabout route through la Brique and then on to Wieltje. It was a harrowing journey, shrapnel “bursting over all the roads, and across the parts which were badly shelled we doubled by small parties, escaping with no casualties.” Once through Wieltje, Leckie led his men left off the St. Julien road for a fifteen-minute rest. “Our eyes and nostrils,” Urquhart noted, “began to smart which we could not understand but realized later that it was by reason of the poison gas. It was now a matter of three or four hours after the original attack and we were a good mile and a quarter behind the trenches held by the French before the attack took place.”16 Nobody in the battalion suspected that the physical discomfort they suffered was caused by gas. They had no sense of why their throats were inordinately tight and dry.
At 2200 hours the battalion halted in a small field near brigade headquarters. Reporting to Turner, Leckie learned that his task was to support closely the 10th Battalion of 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade in an attack aimed at driving the Germans out of a trench immediately south of woods known as Bois des Cuisiniers (later Kitchener’s Wood), due west of St. Julien. Having cleared the trench, the two battalions would then recapture the entire wood.17
The localized counterattacks 1st Canadian Infantry Division was mounting to blunt the German offensive were organized spontaneously by Maj.-Gen. Edwin Alderson, for Second Army’s command chain was thrown into confusion by the unexpected offensive. At his headquarters in Hazebrouck, Gen. Horace Smith-Dorrien only learned of the attack at 1845 hours, a full hour and forty-five minutes after the gas was released. Communications were in disarray, the German cannonade having so broken telephone lines across the entire front that passage of information ground to a standstill. Consequently, even after word of the offensive reached army headquarters, staff there were still trying to construct an accurate picture of the crisis facing them two hours later. Finally, confirmation was received that the two French divisions immediately adjacent to the Canadians had been driven back from both their first and second defensive lines, had lost all their supporting artillery, and no resistance was being offered anywhere to the east of the Yser Canal. Smith-Dorrien realized the French rout left Second Army’s left flank fully exposed everywhere along an 8,000-yard front, except in the area where the Canadians were rapidly trying to stem the German tide. If the Germans quickly exploited the situation by driving into the yawing gap on the army’s left they could overrun Ypres and cut off three divisions—including the Canadians.
Fortunately for the Allies, the German offensive had only met good success where the gas had been concentrated on its left flank—elsewhere the French had held firm. On the left, however, the 52nd Reserve Division of the XXVI Reserve Corps had penetrated deeply into the salient and won Pilckem Ridge by 1740 hours and rapidly carried on another mile to gain Mauser Ridge. On the extreme east of the German assault, 51st Reserve Division, after facing a stiff fight for control of Langemarck village, advanced out of it at 1800 hours with the intention to overrun St. Julien. By nightfall this
division’s forward elements had overrun Bois des Cuisiniers, later renamed Kitchener’s Wood, captured four British guns, and established themselves in a trench line about three-quarters of a mile immediately west of St. Julien.18
Alderson, prompted by a series of hand-delivered messages sent by Brig. Richard Turner informing him that the Canadian front was now anchored on St. Julien, had sent an urgent message to 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade “to hang on and take care of your left.” The brigade’s commander, Brig. Arthur Currie, had already grasped the severity of the situation and sent his 10th Battalion to reinforce 3rd Brigade. This enabled Turner to assign it to assaulting the German trench line in front of Bois des Cuisiniers with his Canadian Scottish in support. Currie, a Victoria militiaman instrumental in forming the 50th Gordon Highlanders and who had commanded that regiment’s first contingent sent to Valcartier until being promoted to brigadier, displayed the canny grasp for tactics that would eventually propel him to the position as Canada’s top soldier in the field. Having provided Turner with desperately needed reinforcement, he concentrated his 7th Battalion in the centre of Gravenstafel Ridge in a move that would further protect his threatened left flank should 3rd Brigade lose control of St. Julien.
Meanwhile, Smith-Dorrien had recognized that the frontage held by the Canadian division’s two forward brigades was vital to re-establishing control over the situation. To bolster forces there, he released 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade from its role as divisional reserve and returned it to Alderson’s command. The division commander immediately placed the brigade’s 2nd and 3rd Battalions directly under Turner’s authority.
Realizing that the Canadians were insufficiently strong to turn back the Germans without additional support, Smith-Dorrien reinforced Alderson with the 2nd East York Battalion from 28th British Division and promised him a free hand in both determining how to meet the offensive and calling up additional reinforcements as needed. Consequently, over the following two days, a total of thirty-three battalions would come at various times under Alderson’s direct command.
The French also realized that the Canadians were pivotal to countering the German offensive. A liaison officer at Alderson’s headquarters pleaded with him to immediately launch a counterattack that could serve to support a planned advance by the Algerian Division to regain Pilckem Ridge. Turner’s assault on Bois des Cuisiniers, Alderson decided, would precisely serve this purpose as well as forestalling a German attack on St. Julien.19 When Alderson asked for assurance that the Algerians would in fact attack, the liaison officer expressed dismay that there could be any doubt of this. So the Canadian plan developed in ignorance of the fact that the Algerian division had been effectively destroyed. The 10th and 16th Battalions would counterattack unsupported by any matching French effort.20
At 3rd Brigade headquarters, Turner, believing the French attack was about to begin any moment, was anxious to get the assault on the woods going. But he was worried about the fact that the Canadians lacked any experience in night attacks. The risk of the two battalions losing their way or becoming badly entangled with each other during the assault seemed all too likely, so Turner opted to simply have the two units advance one behind the other in a rigid formation. Such attacks were something the Canadians rehearsed so many times during training at Valcartier they could do so blindfolded—or at least on a pitch-black night. The 10th Battalion, Turner decided, would lead “on a frontage of two companies and with distances of 30 yards between lines” and the rest of the companies of the two battalions would follow in precisely the same formation.
The 16th Battalion lined up 30 yards behind the 10th with its No. 2 Company, under Captain William Rae, forward on the left and No. 4 Company, under Captain John Geddes, the right. Precisely 30 yards behind, Captain George Ross’s No. 1 Company was on the left and Captain Cecil Merritt’s No. 3 Company the right.21 Together the two battalions numbered about 1,500 men, divided neatly into eight measured lines each of which would go forward with its men so closely aligned that their shoulders almost brushed. Just thirteen guns from four Canadian and British artillery batteries were available to support the hasty attack.
Assembled in their rigid lines, the two battalions stood in the darkness adjacent to a small farm called Mouse Trap Farm a short distance from brigade headquarters. Here, Turner’s second-in-command, Lt.-Col. Garnet Hughes, walked up to give Leckie and his 10th Battalion counterpart, a tough Calgary rancher named Lt.-Col. Russell Boyle, last-minute instructions. The two battalion commanders congratulated Hughes on his thirty-fifth birthday, which most of the officers at brigade headquarters had been celebrating as the German offensive started. Hughes, who was Minister of Militia and Defence Sam Hughes’s son, pointed dramatically toward the forest, advised them to follow the North Star, and then ordered them to advance when ready. While Hughes was giving his instructions, several 10th Battalion officers had been consulting their topographical maps and realized that 300 yards southwest of the woods stood Oblong Farm, which was likely in German hands. They asked Boyle to consider detaching at least a platoon to clear the farm to ensure it could not be used by the Germans to bring machine-gun fire against the Canadian right flank. Boyle brushed aside the advice. Instead, he turned to his men and yelled: “We have been aching for a fight and now we are going to get it.”22
Leckie offered no rhetoric. In his usual conversational voice, Leckie simply told the Canadian Scottish to shed their packs and greatcoats and then fix bayonets. Everyone recognized the import of this order. They were “for it” and would be fighting with cold steel. As the minutes stretched, a solitary figure walked through the ranks shaking hands with each man he passed. This was Canon Frederick Scott, the 3rd Brigade’s beloved fifty-three-year-old chaplain. “A great day for Canada, boys! A great day for Canada, boys!” he declared. Close by, a field battery fired a single round every five minutes into the wood to conceal the sounds of the infantry forming up. Then, at 2345 the Canadians advanced into the open ground that stretched between eight hundred and a thousand yards to the edge of the wood.23
The Canadians knew nothing about the strength or composition of enemy forces facing them, for there had been no time for any reconnaissance. Advancing in the dark, they could see neither the German trench nor any sign of enemy troops. All the leading Canadian Scottish could see were the shadowy forms of the 10th Battalion men ahead of them. Each company had two platoons ahead of the other two and, in No. 4 Company, Lt. Urquhart’s 15 Platoon was leading on the left while Lt. Victor John Hasting’s 13 Platoon was to his right. At first the orderliness of this formation held but, once the troops had advanced a short way, it became clear the ground was not as open as expected. Urquhart came to a ditch bordered by a hedge and saw that 13 Platoon was on the other side and moving away from the obstacle while his own men were following the line of the hedge, which veered to the right. In the dark the hedge seemed impenetrable, so the only option was for 15 Platoon to spring alongside the hedge until they came to a break. Passing through, they jumped the ditch and ran to catch up with 13 Platoon.
German artillery began falling on the field at a rate that suggested the gunners were still seeking the range, but several men were struck down by shrapnel. Before the attack began Urquhart and the other officers in the battalion had only been told by Hughes that they were attacking a wood across the field. Urquhart kept straining his eyes for some sight of trees, but all he saw ahead was “a dark blur.” They had crossed about 500 yards and now seemed to be in a level pasture free of further hedges or ditches.24
Such was not the case for Captain William Rae’s No. 2 Company. From the outset Rae’s men had been forced to find ways through thick hedges, jump one ditch after another, and cut openings in several wire fences. Then a German flare arced into the sky. The Canadians were suddenly bathed by its harsh glare and, a second later, Oblong Farm erupted with tongues of flame as dozens of machine guns and rifles opened fire.25
There was no cover, nothing the men could do but keep adva
ncing toward the woods as the Germans in the farm tore into their flank. Urquhart walked “over absolutely bare ground as [if] on a rifle range going from the Butts to the Firing Point with ceaseless angry zip, zip of bullets from rifles and machine guns. You could see the spit of fire from the rifles to our front and left. Then came the cries of those who were hit, the cracking of the bullets so close to our ears made them sing and it was impossible to make yourself heard.”26
“I know now the meaning of a hail of bullets,” Rae later wrote his mother. “I never dreamt there could be anything like it. At first I never for one moment expected to come through alive, but afterwards in some extraordinary way I made up my mind I was not going to be hit and went right on.”27 All around other men fell. They had been ordered to make no sounds. No shouting, no cheering as they advanced. But with bullets scything them down, with those coming from behind trying not to step on the fallen underfoot, with many of the wounded screaming in agony, the need for reassurance and to muster courage to keep going overcame this order. “Come on, Seaforths!” men in Rae’s company cried. “Come on, Camerons,” Urquhart’s platoon shouted. “Come on, the 16th!” others bellowed as they realized all the Highlanders were in this together. One soldier broke from the line, screaming and tearing at his shirt which had burst into flame. Captain Geddes had been knocked to his knees with a mortal wound, but still urging No. 4 Company on he crawled forward a short distance before collapsing. Doggedly the ever-shrinking battalion made “for the spit of fire and flickering line of flame showing up in front against the darkness of the wood.”28
Rae’s company twice halted in the midst of this hell storm to straighten its line, the second pause coming while only about forty yards short of the woods. There was no set formation now, the 16th had overtaken the 10th and the two advanced the last part of the distance intermingled. Suddenly, with just yards between the Canadians and Germans the fire from the latter melted eerily away. The men let out a mighty cheer and then without Rae or any of the other officers shouting a command “rushed right at the German trench.”