They Called it Passchendaele

by Lyn Macdonald

  I wasn’t an officer, of course, but they needed soldiers to practise on, so to speak, and to show the young officers how things should be done. They picked a certain number of soldiers from each regiment and sent them there. We were a demonstration squad for bayonet fighting and hand-to-hand combat. It was a kind of commando course, jumping trenches and jumping over walls and all that sort of thing. You had to be tough. We had some really tough sergeant-majors and they certainly put us through it. They made us a really smart squad, and then we had to demonstrate in front of the officers. We were all picked troops. I’d got the stick, you see. I got it twice. That’s an award for the smartest soldier in the guard – well turned out with a good rolled coat. It had to be neatly rolled up at the back and then tied to your belt. And I was also pretty good at shouldering arms and fixing bayonets and that sort of thing. AD of us who were picked to go to St Omer were pretty good, although I’m saying it myself.

  General Plumer came down to inspect us. This was just before the Battle of Messines. A lot of the young officers were going to be in it, and General Plumer was the sort of man who wanted to see for himself that everything was going well. He was a great man. Just a little fellow and he looked a bit like Lloyd George, but he was a fine man to speak to. He wasn’t a bit standoffish. He spoke to all the ranks. We had a concert that night and he stayed over to see it. I was to sing a song and I was so excited when I saw him sitting there in the front row with all the high-ups that I completely forgot the second verse. The hall was packed with people and there was I up on the stage in a kilt. Well, there was only one song I could sing, wasn’t there?

  I’ll never forget the day I joined the 93rd,

  The chums I used to run with said

  They thought I looked absurd,

  They saluted me and ran around me in a ring,

  And when I wagged my tartan kilt

  They all began to sing:

  Chorus: He’s a braw, braw Hielan’ laddie,

  Private Jock McDade,

  There’s no’ another like him

  In the Scots Brigade.

  Reared amang the heather,

  Ye’can tell he’s Scottish built

  By the wig wig wiggle wiggle waggle

  O’ his kilt….

  Bill Morgan was well into his stride now. It hardly mattered that he had forgotten the second verse. In his excitement, he simply launched into the first verse all over again, strutting round the stage swinging his kilt in the approved manner, and the whole audience joined in. He sang it twice more and when he ran out of breath they raised the roof with applause and whistles. Beaming in the front row, General Plumer clapped harder than anyone else.

  It was a welcome moment of relaxation because Plumer, at that moment, was carrying more strain and responsibility than any other commander on the Western Front. Only a day or so previously, on 15 May, the Supreme Commander, Sir Douglas Haig, in the course of a heated altercation, had made it all too clear that the success or failure of the Messines enterprise would be on Plumer’s shoulders and on his shoulders alone.

  The Germans were well aware that something big was going on at Hill 60. On 4 April they had blown two shallow mines in an effort to destroy the tunnels. A few days later on 9 April they had sent over a strong raiding-party to try to discover the workings. There was bitter fighting but the Australians, who were then holding the line, had managed to beat them off at the cost of heavy casualties; but it was doubtful if they could protect the mines much longer.

  The Germans switched their attention below-ground and tunnelled furiously in an effort to find the mine. On 15 May the listeners in the galleries below heard them working very close to the charge – so close that they could actually hear the windlass only yards away as the spoil from the German workings was winched back to the head of the shaft. Haig lost his nerve. He proposed to Plumer that the Hill 60 charge should be exploded ahead of time. General Plumer refused. Haig raged. Plumer remained implacable. Unless all the mines went up together the Messines campaign would go off at half-cock, and in the conduct of the war so far there had been too many half-successes. In Plumer’s view a half-success was a half-failure. The engineers had calculated the rate at which the Germans were tunnelling and Plumer was convinced that they would just beat them to zero hour. Perhaps he would beat them only by inches but it was a risk he was prepared to gamble on. But all the time he watched the preparations for the battle, doubt gnawed at the back of his mind.

  The German High Command was also beset by doubt. The Germans knew very well that an attack was bound to take place soon, and from their positions on the high ground observers had been able to see the movement of troops, guns and transport. Furthermore, security was not what it might have been, for the Belgian civilians seemed to know an inordinate amount about the preparations for the battle. Certainly there was plenty to see. In the village of Dickebusch, for example – far enough away from the battle zone to be occupied still by its civilian population, but right in the middle of one of the main arteries of communication – Pastor van Walleghem, the priest of Dickebusch Church, kept a revealing daily diary throughout the war. On 15 May he wrote:

  Together with the Dean of la Clytte and three other friends went to Scherpenberg to look at a model of present-day Wytschaete. Behind Cafe DeZonne on the slope of the hill a scale model of the whole of Wytschaete has been made. All in relief as seen by air reconnaissance. Bricks to show the ruins; cement-strips to simulate the trenches; barbed wire, sticks and twigs represent the woods; numerous name-plates giving the names of farms, trenches or woods. Mostly the English names adopted by the English themselves. Those who know the area say that everything is very accurate; however, when one sees this it must be acknowledged that Wytschaete is strongly defended and will be difficult to take. Officers and soldiers come here to study the area. The walk is prohibited and we have to be satisfied with a look from the outside. All the same we’re still able to have a reasonably good look.

  If five civilians were able to stroll casually near enough to the actual plan of the forthcoming battle to take ‘a reasonably good look’ at it, it is not surprising that the Germans were suspicious. It is only surprising, in the light of the Intelligence reports which they undoubtedly received, that they did not act on their suspicions. But they were notoriously overcautious. The German Command had received full information about the mutinies in the French Army, but although they registered the fact that morale was low they did not fully believe them. Had they done so, a concerted effort against the French forces further south might virtually have brought the war to a close and this, of course, was what the offensive in Flanders was designed to prevent.

  Haig and Plumer would have given a year of their lives to know what was going on in the minds of the commanders of the German Army holding the salient. It was Haig’s fear that if the Germans had more than an inkling about the mines laid deep beneath their most heavily guarded strongpoints on the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge, they would simply withdraw to prepared positions further back – in which case the great explosion would simply go down in history as no more than the most expensive fireworks display of all time. Had he been in the place of the German Army Commander, Crown Prince Rupprecht, that is precisely what Haig himself would have done, and indeed the Germans were considering a tactical withdrawal along these lines. But the decision was made to stand fast and, when the inevitable attack came, to defend the ridge to the last man. After all, the German forces had won every round in the salient so far, and in spite of the fact that their forces were now overstretched and there was beginning to be a shortage of trained men and munitions, they presumably saw no reason why, with their geographical advantages, they should not win this round too.

  *

  With 80,000 troops going over the top after the mines went up, jumping-ofF and assembly trenches had to be dug. They were dug by night and camouflaged so that, by day, they would be invisible to the observation balloons and reconnaissance aircraft of the enemy.

&
nbsp; Private W. G. Bell, No. 4640, gth Btn., Army Cyclist Corps

  You say, ‘What did you do in the Cyclist Corps?’ ‘We dug up half of France!’, I always say. We used to cycle up as near to the front line as we could and dump our bikes, 300 of us there was. We stacked our bikes in the field and then we went to where there was a dump of pick-axes and shovels, and we’d follow the officer, single file, and we found that there was a white tape lying right across the fields. Mind you, this is pitch-dark now. There’s Very lights going up all over the place. You could only just see the bloke in front of you. No rifles. Nothing. We only had tin helmets on and a water bottle. You could see the fellow in front of you and you followed him – falling down holes and cursing and swearing. The officer would stop where the white tape ended, then he’d say, ‘You ‘ere. Step out, one, two. You ‘ere. Stick your spade in. Now, go on. Get down. Six feet deep.’ And you wouldn’t half dig! You’d dig like fury. And, of course, if your spade hit a stone out in the fields at night, it didn’t half sound. Directly old Jerry heard it, up go the Very lights and it was like daylight, and round would come his machine-guns, raking along the line. When he passed over, you were up again, digging like fury. Of course, directly you got a bit of a parapet up you felt safe.

  Well, we got artful. It was supposed to be six feet down. What we did, we got about four feet down and then we’d dig one big hole – a bit deeper than the trench we’d dug, you see. Then we used to sit down at the bottom of the trench and the artillery officer used to come along the top of the trench, you see, and he’d say, ‘Are you down there?’ ‘Yes, we’re down here.’ But we were only down about four feet. In the end, we were rumbled. Our officer used to come along the trench himself on the bottom there, and another officer used to walk along the top with a six-foot rod, and they used to guide it along with him at the top. Made sure it was six feet.

  I think we had about three months of that. Every night, every night, every night – three months. Up at night, back in the morning when it was just breaking dawn, and then the rest of the day was for ourselves but up again at night. Out in the front. You hadn’t got anything, only these picks and shovels. You couldn’t have your rifle. You couldn’t see anybody to fire at, anyway. No. You simply had to take what was coming to you, and when we got back and jumped in that front-line trench and back through the communication trenches and out on the fields at the back, and got our bikes, I don’t mind telling you, we heaved a sigh of relief. Night after night. We lost a lot of fellows though, like it.

  On 30 May the preliminary bombardment began. It was the most powerful of the war and this time there was no shortage of shells. They lay dumped near the guns by the hundred thousand, and there was a gun for every seven yards of front. At the southern end of the ridge near Ploeg-steert Wood, which the troops called Plug Street, the New Zealand gunners were on Hill 63. It was a traditional ‘hot spot’ because it was the first line of fire. Even if the flashes of the guns were not seen from their positions just over the brow of the hill, there was no mistaking where the fire was coming from, and the German guns habitually gave it their full attention. In the slit trenches behind the gun pits, and in the dug-outs burrowed and tunnelled into the hillside beside them, casualties were high and life was uncomfortable. Now that the batteries had been reinforced and the bombardment had started in earnest it was more of a hot spot than ever. Nevertheless, between hauling up ammunition, diving into the trench to escape the flying shells or trying to snatch a little off-duty peace, if not quiet, in a dug-out, Gunner Bert Stokes of Wellington, New Zealand, somehow or other managed to scribble a few words in his diary every day.

  Gunner B. O. Stokes, No. 25038, New Zealand Field Artillery, 13th Battery, 3rd Brigade

  Friday, 1 June. Into another month – how time flies. Twenty-four hours now since the bombardment started and today has been a Hun day out. All last night and today he has been strafing our batteries and roads hot and strong. During the night he put over shell-gas and our men had to sit up at the guns for a couple of hours with gas helmets on. Our battery had two casualties today. We were unloading ammunition until about 6 pm. I was one of the ration party. We have to go and draw our rations from the dump up the road. We waited until 11 pm. There was no sign of the ration cart so we came back again.

  The roads, as Bert pointed out, had been getting it hot and strong, and the 13th Battery of the New Zealand Field Artillery was not the only contingent of soldiers to go hungry to bed that night. But next day Bert Stokes, who went down early for the rations and had a hearty breakfast, had a piece of news which set him agog.

  Today I was informed that I am one of the battery forward runners. This means that when the battle gets under way we hop the parapet with the infantry, so crack hearty, Bert. There are nine of us with Lt. Jones and we go over with the third wave. I expect I’ll be just as well off there as anywhere. It will be a great experience for me and I think I’d rather this job than that of a driver bringing up ammunition. This evening the battery moved to another position on Hill 63. It was about 11 pm before all the guns were in, but I did not get to bed until after midnight.

  Sunday, 3 June. This afternoon Fritz started shelling this hell. It doesn’t take the Hun long to find out when the battery has pulled in. The majority of us got well down the tunnel out of the way. Fritz got one of our dumps of about 200 rounds. Bombardier Wallace was wounded in the leg. We had a stunt arranged for 3 pm, but Fritz got in five minutes before us and pasted the hill and all around heavily. Then all our guns started. What a din there was. Each day sees this front getting more active. We are all the time wondering when we are going to get word to kick off. I suppose the heads know best. But there seems to be a lot of delay.

  However, the padre at Dickebusch was soon able to make a pertinent entry in his diary.

  6 June. At midday was told by an officer that offensive will take place at 3 am tomorrow. We were advised to keep it quiet, which did not prevent me from hearing the same information from several other people during the course of the afternoon.

  The only thing he got wrong was the time. The mines were due to go up at 3.10 am. But not everyone was as well informed as Pastor van Walleghem.

  2nd Lieutenant Naylor of the Royal Field Artillery had been in the salient since the end of October 1915, and the first he heard of the existence of the mammoth mines was at a briefing of senior officers just two days before they went up. In ordinary circumstances a mere subaltern in charge of a gun position would not have been present on such an occasion, but Colonel Simpson, who commanded the brigade, had lost his adjutant, and Jimmy Naylor was appointed in his place to act as orderly officer and assistant adjutant. Like Bert Stokes he was to ‘hop the parapet’ with the infantry. In the heat of an attack the job of an infantry officer was to look after his troops and, if he could, to gain his objective. He could hardly be expected to send back more than the most basic information about his own situation, but, in order to direct the course of the battle, headquarters needed information, and needed it badly. It was the custom to send over officers and runners from the artillery to observe as much as possible and get the news back as best they could.

  The prospect of this job suited Jimmy Naylor very well, for he was a lad with a taste for adventure. Taking advantage of the fact that their parents were in India, where their father was serving as an officer in the Royal Horse Artillery, both Jimmy and his brother had run away from school and joined up in May 1912. At first Jimmy had been a trumpeter, and as he grew not only in experience but in stature he was promoted to NCO; a few months previously, he had been commissioned. On the eve of the battle he attended the final briefing; listened to the final pronouncements of the senior officers in the respectful silence that was expected of a junior subaltern, even if one did happen to be acting adjutant; synchronised his watch with theirs; shook hands; and left with Colonel Simpson for the front line. He was just nineteen years old.

  The 11th Battalion of the Prince of Wales’ Own West Yorkshire Regiment ha
d spent the day at Battersea Farm, just off the road from Zillebeke to Hill 60, and a lot too close to the line for comfort. ‘Farm’ was something of a misnomer, although it might have been one when a London regiment had given it its homely name in the early days of the war. Now it was nothing but a heap of ruins, with a few dug-outs huddled around it. In the cellars of this salubrious spot, the officers had done their best to make themselves at home. You couldn’t have called it an officers’ mess exactly, but by some devious miracle Levey had managed to bring up his portable gramophone. In the tension of the approaching battle no one felt much like singing, but the music helped to while away the hours of waiting, between writing letters, smoking and snoozing; and the need to keep winding up the wretched machine gave them all something to do. Levey hadn’t been able to bring many records, but among the few he had brought was a well-worn favourite:

  At seventeen hefalb in love quite madly

  With eyes offender blue.

  At twenty-four he gets it rather badly

  With eyes of a different hue.

  At thirty-five you’ll see him flirting sadly

  With two or three, or more.

  When he fancies he is past love,

  It is then he meets his last love,

  And he loves her as he’s never loved before.

  They played it over and over and over again. Outside, in the warm evening air, the soldiers stretched on the ground or leaning on their packs in assorted attitudes of repose, heard it too. It seemed like a touch of home. When you went on leave, even if you only spent a few hours in London, it was almost obligatory to go to Daly’s Theatre to see the hit musical The Maid of the Mountains. That song was the show-stopper. Hearing it now brought it all back. The music. The applause. The warm cocoon of the theatre. The warm handclasp of your girl. Home.

  The rations came up. There were canisters of stew, good and hot, and good strong tea, well-laced with rum, to wash it down.