That was the sum of information available at the moment to the Battalion — that, and orders to “drive the enemy back wherever met.” So they first were introduced to the stage of the bloody and debatable land which will be known for all time as “The Salient.”
The original intention of our Army on the Flanders flank had been offensive, but the long check on the Aisne gave the enemy time to bring forward troops from their immense and perfectly prepared reserves, while the fall of Antwerp — small wonder the Germans had cheered in their trenches when the news came! — released more. Consequently, the movement that began on the Allies’ side as an attempt to roll up the German right flank before it could reach the sea, ended in a desperate defence to hold back an overwhelmingly strong enemy from sweeping forward through Belgium to Calais and the French sea-board. Out of this defence developed that immense and overlapping series of operations centring on Ypres, extending from the Yser Canal in the north to La Bassée in the south, and lasting from mid-October to the 20th November 1914, which may be ranked as the First Battle of Ypres.
It will be remembered that the Second and Third British Army Corps were the first to leave the Aisne trenches for the west. On the 11th October the Second Army Corps was in position between the Aire and Béthune and in touch with the left flank of the Tenth French Army at La Bassée.
On the 12th of October the Third Army Corps reached St. Omer and moved forward to Hazebrouck to get touch with the Second Army Corps on its right, the idea being that the two corps together should wheel on their own left and striking eastward turn the position of the German forces that were facing the Tenth French Army. They failed owing to the strength of the German forces on the spot, and by October 19, after indescribably fierce fighting, the Second and Third Army Corps had been brought to a standstill on a line, from La Bassée through Armentieres, not noticeably differing from the position which our forces were destined to occupy for many months to come. The attempted flank attacks had become frontal all along the line, and in due course frontal attacks solidified into trench-warfare again.
North of Armentieres the situation had settled itself in much the same fashion, flank attacks being outflanked by the extension of the enemy’s line, with strenuous frontal attacks of his daily increasing forces.
The Seventh Division — the first half of the Fourth Army Corps — reached Ypres from Dixmude on the 14th October after its unsuccessful attempt to relieve Antwerp. As the First Army Corps had not yet come up from the Aisne, this Division was used to cover the British position at Ypres from the north; the infantry lying from Zandvoorde, on the south-east, through Zonnebeke to Langemarck on the north-west. Here again, through lack of numbers and artillery equipment, the British position was as serious as in the south. Enemy forces, more numerous than the British and Belgian armies, combined, were bearing down on the British line from the eastward through Courtrai, Iseghem, and Roulers, and over the Lys bridge at Menin. Later on, it was discovered that these represented not less than five new Army Corps. The Seventh Division was ordered to move upon Menin, to seize the bridge over the river and thus check the advance of further reinforcements. There were, of course, not enough troops for the work, but on the 18th October the Division, the right centre of which rested on the Ypres–Menin road, not yet lined throughout with dead, wheeled its left (the 22nd Brigade) forward. As the advance began, the cavalry on the left became aware of a large new German force on the left flank of the advance, and fighting became general all along the line of the Division.
On the 19th October the airmen reported the presence of two fresh Army Corps on the left. No further advance being possible, the Division was ordered to fall back to its original line, an operation attended with heavy loss under constant attacks.
On the 20th October the pressure increased as the German Army Corps made themselves felt against the thin line held by the Seventh Division, which was not amply provided with heavy batteries. Their losses were largely due to artillery fire, directed by air-observation, that obliterated trenches, men, and machine-guns.
On the 21st October the enemy attacked the Division throughout the day, artillery preparations being varied by mass assaults, but still the Division endured in the face of an enemy at least four times as strong and constantly reinforced. It is, as one writer says, hardly conceivable that our men could have checked the enemy’s advance for even a day longer, had it not been for the arrival at this juncture of the First Army Corps. Reinforcements were urgently needed at every point of the British line, but, for the moment, the imminent danger lay to the north of Ypres, where fresh German forces, underestimated as usual, might sweep the Belgian army aside and enter the Channel ports in our rear. With this in mind, the British Commander-in-Chief decided to use the First Army Corps to prolong the British line, already, as it seemed, nearly worn through, toward the sea, rather than to strengthen any occupied sector. He posted it, therefore — until French reinforcements should arrive — to the north, or left of the Seventh Division, from Zonnebeke to Bixschoote.
Our front at that date ran from Hollebeke to Bixschoote, a distance, allowing for bends, of some sixteen miles. To protect this we had but three depleted Infantry Divisions and two Cavalry Brigades against opposed forces of not less than a hundred thousand. Moreover, the ground was hampered by the flight, from Roulers and villages in German possession, of refugees, of whom a percentage were certainly spies, but over whom it was impossible to exercise any control. They carried their goods in little carts drawn by dogs, and they wept and wailed as they straggled past our men.
THE SALIENT AND THE FIRST BATTLE OF YPRES
The orders for the Guards Brigade on October 21 to “drive back the enemy wherever met” were not without significance. All their news in billets had been of fresh formations coming down from the north and the east, and it was understood that the Germans counted with confidence upon entering Calais, via Ypres, in a few days.
The Brigade, less the 2nd Coldstream, “assembled in a field about four kilometres along the Ypres–Zonnebeke Road, and after a wait of three hours No. 4 Company of the 1st Irish Guards advanced to the support of the 2nd Grenadiers, who had been ordered to prolong the line to the right of the 2nd Coldstream. This company and both the advanced battalions suffered somewhat severely from shell-fire and occasional sniping.” Thus coldly does the Diary enter upon what was in fact the first day of the First Battle of Ypres, in which companies had to do the work of battalions, and battalions of brigades, and whose only relief was a change of torn and blood-soaked ground from one threatened sector of the line to the next.
It was not worth while to record how the people of Ypres brought hot coffee to the Battalion as it passed through, the day before (October 20); and how, when they halted there a few hours, the men amused their hosts by again dancing Irish jigs on the clattering pavements while the refugees clattered past; or how it was necessary to warn the companies that the enemy might attack behind a screen of Belgian women and children — in which case the Battalion would have to fire through them.
On the evening of the 21st October the Battalion was ordered up to the support of what was left of the 22nd Brigade which had fallen back to Zonnebeke. “It came under a heavy burst of artillery fire and was forced to lie down (in a ploughed field) for fifteen minutes” — at that time a novel experience. On its way a hare started up which was captured by a man of No. 2 Company to the scandal of discipline and the delight of all, and later sold for five shillings. At Zonnebeke it found No. 4 Company already lining the main road on the left of the town and took up a position in extended order on its right, “thus establishing the line into Zonnebeke.” The casualties, in spite of the artillery fire, are noted as only “one killed and seven wounded,” which must have been far under the mark. The night was lit by the flames of burning houses, by which light they hunted for snipers in haystacks round the village, buried stray dead of a battalion of the Seventh Division which had left them and, by order, did a deal of futile digging-in.
The next day the 22nd Brigade retired out of Zonnebeke about a kilometre down the main road to Ypres, the Battalion and half the 2nd Coldstream conforming to the movement. This enabled the Germans to enter the north of Zonnebeke and post machine-guns in some of the houses. None the less, our patrols remained in the south end of the town and did “excellent work”; an officer’s patrol, under Lieutenant Ferguson, capturing three mounted orderlies. One man was killed and 8 wounded in the Battalion that day.
On the 23rd October “the enemy brought up more machine-guns and used them against us energetically all the day.” A platoon of No. 1 Company, under Lieutenant the Hon. H. Alexander, attempted an outflanking movement through Zonnebeke, towards the church, supported by a platoon of No. 4 Company, under Lieutenant W. C. N. Reynolds, in the course of which the latter officer was wounded. The trenches were shelled with shrapnel all the afternoon, and a German advance was sprayed down with our rifle-fire. In the evening the French made an attack through Zonnebeke helped by their .75’s and established themselves in the town. They also, at 9 P.M., relieved the Battalion which moved at once south-west to Zillebeke and arrived there at 2 A.M. on the morning of the 24th, when it billeted “chiefly in a brick-yard” ready to be used afresh.
The relieving troops were a division of the Ninth French Army Corps. They took over the line of our Second Division, while our Second Division in turn took over part of the front of the Seventh Division. At the same time French Territorials relieved our First Division between Bixschoote and Langemarck, thus freeing us of all responsibility for any ground north of the Ypres-Zonnebeke road. Our Army on the 24th October, then, stood as follows: From the Zonnebeke road to a point near the race-course in the historic Polygon Wood west of Reutel was the Second Division; on its right, up to the Menin road, lay the First Division; and from the Menin road to Zandvoorde the Seventh Division with the 3rd Cavalry Brigade in the Zandvoorde trenches. Our line had thus been shortened and strengthened; but the enemy were continuously receiving reinforcements from Roulers and Menin, and the pressure never ceased.
In the early morning of the 24th October, and before the transfer of all the troops had been effected, the British Ypres front was attacked throughout in force and once more the shock of the attack fell on the remains of the Seventh Division. Reserves there were none; each battalion stood where it was in the flood and fought on front, flank, and rear indifferently. The Irish Guards had a few hours’ rest in the brick-fields at Zillebeke, where, by some miracle, it found its mail of home-letters and parcels waiting for it. Even before it could open them it was ordered out from Zillebeke2 along the Ypres–Menin road to Hooge to help the 20th Brigade (Seventh Division), which had been attacked on the morning of the 25th October, and parties of the enemy were reported to have broken through into Polygon Wood.
That attack, however, was repulsed during the day, and in the evening the Battalion was despatched to act in support of the 5th Brigade near Race-course (Polygon) Wood, due north of Veldhoek, where the Battalion bivouacked for the night in a ploughed field. This was the first time it had marched up the Menin road or seen the Château of Hooge, of which now no trace remains, sitting stately among its lawns.
On the 25th October, after a heavy bombardment, as bombardments were then reckoned, the whole Division was ordered at dawn to advance against Reutel; the 2nd Grenadier Guards and the Irish Guards being given the work of clearing out Polygon Wood, of which the enemy held the upper half. They were advancing through the woods, and the trenches of the Worcester Battalion there, when a big shell burst in Lieutenant Ferguson’s platoon, No. 3 Company, killing 4 and wounding 9 men, as far as was known. Ferguson himself, knocked down but unwounded, went back to advise No. 2 Company coming up behind him to deviate a little, “for the ground was a slaughter-house.” The Battalion fought its way to a couple of hundred yards north of Reutel and was then brought under heavy rifle-fire from concealed trenches on a ridge. The 2nd Grenadiers on the right had, earlier, been held up by a German trench on their left, and, as dark came on, touch between the battalions there was lost, and the patrol sent out to regain it only stumbled on the German trench. The left of the Battalion lost touch by nearly a quarter of a mile with the 5th Brigade, and as the wet night closed in they found themselves isolated in darkness and dripping autumn undergrowth, with the old orders “to hold ground gained at all costs.” Meantime they hung with both flanks in the air and enemy patrols on either side. The nearest supports of any kind were the trenches of the Worcesters, six hundred yards behind, through the woods; so the Battalion linked up with them by means of a double front of men, back to back, strung out tail-wise from their bivouac to the Worcesters. The manœuvre succeeded. There was sniping all night from every side, but thanks to the faithful “tail” the enemy could not get round the Battalion to make sure whether it was wholly in the air. The casualties this day were reported as 4 killed and 23 wounded.
At 4 A.M. on the 26th October, just after the night’s rain had ceased, word came from Brigade Headquarters that the 3rd Coldstream were to be expected on the Battalion’s right. They arrived an hour and a half later and the Battalion attacked, again to be held up in a salient heavily enfiladed from every angle by machine-guns, and though No. 2 Company carried a couple of farm-houses outside the woods, they were forced to retire from one of them and lost heavily. An attack by the 6th Brigade in the afternoon relieved the pressure a little, and helped the Battalion to get in touch with, at least, its brigade. Lieutenant Shields (R.A.M.C. attached) was killed here while attending our wounded. He had been remonstrated with only a few minutes before for exposing himself too much, and paid as much heed to the rebuke as did the others who succeeded him in his office. The casualties for the day were 1 officer and 9 men killed and 42 wounded. The night was memorable inasmuch as the Battalion, which had had no food for forty-eight hours, was allowed to eat its emergency rations.
There was a German attack on the night of the 27th October, lasting for less than an hour, but the advance of the 6th Brigade on the Battalion’s left, together with the advance of the French still farther to the left, threatening Passchendaele, kept the enemy moderately quiet till the Battalion was relieved in the evening of the 27th by the 3rd Coldstream, and went into bivouac just west of Race-course Wood. It was shelled while settling down here and at intervals throughout the night. Major Herbert Stepney was slightly wounded in the back by a bullet when at supper in a farm-house; 2 men were killed and 3 wounded. Captain A. H. L. McCarthy, R.A.M.C., joined for duty, replacing Lieutenant Shields.
Next morning (October 28) the 5th Brigade was attacking and the Battalion was ordered to support. It was heavily shelled again in the wood and dug itself in north-west on the race-course, where it stayed all day ready to support the Coldstream, and had a quiet time. The C.O. (Lord Ardee) went to hospital with a bad throat; Lieutenant Greer was wounded while serving his machine-gun, which had been lent to the 3rd Coldstream, and a couple of men were wounded. Drill-Sergeant A. Winspear joined the Connaught Rangers as 2nd Lieutenant — one of the earliest of the army officers promoted from the ranks.
The enemy at that date were so sure of success that they made no attempt to conceal their intentions, and all our spent forces on the Ypres front were well aware that a serious attack would be opened on them on the 29th. Rumour said it would be superintended by the Kaiser himself. But, so far as the Battalion was concerned, that day was relatively quiet. The 2nd Brigade had been ordered to retake the trenches lost by the 1st Brigade east of Gheluvelt, and the Battalion’s duty, with the 2nd Grenadiers, was to fill up whatever gaps might be found in a line which was mainly gaps between the left of the 2nd and the right of the 1st Brigade near Polderhoek. It reached the light railway from Gheluvelt to Polderhoek, discovered that the gap there could be filled up by a platoon, communicated with the C.O’s of the two brigades concerned, sent back three companies to the 4th Brigade Headquarters, left one at the disposal of the 1st Brigade, and at night withdrew. For the moment,
the line could be held with the troops on the spot, and it was no policy to use a man more than was necessary. The casualties to the men for that day were but 4 killed and 6 wounded, though a shell burst on the Brigade Reserve Ammunition Column, west of Race-course Wood, and did considerable damage.
The 30th October opened on the heaviest crisis of the long battle of Ypres. The Battalion, to an accompaniment of “Jack Johnsons,” dug trenches a quarter of a mile west of Race-course Wood in case the troops at the farther end of it should be driven back; for in those years woods were visible and gave good cover. German aeroplanes, well aware that they had no anti-aircraft guns to fear, swooped low over them in the morning, and men could only reply with some pitiful rifle-fire.
In the afternoon orders came for them and the 2nd Grenadiers to stop digging and move up to Klein Zillebeke to support the hard-pressed Seventh Division on whose front the enemy had broken through again. When they reached what was more or less the line, Nos. 1 and 2 Companies were sent forward to support the cavalry in their trenches, while Nos. 3 and 4 Companies dug themselves in behind Klein Zillebeke.3 A gap of about a quarter of a mile was found running from the Klein Zillebeke-Zandvoorde road north to the trenches of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, and patrols reported the enemy in force in a strip of wood immediately to the east of it. Whether the gap had been blasted out by concentrated enemy-fire, or whether what the guns had left of our cavalry had retired, was never clear. The Battalion was told off to hold the place and to find out who was on either side of them, while the 2nd Grenadiers continued the line southward from the main road to the canal. Beginning at 11 P.M., they dug themselves in till morning light. A burning farmhouse blazed steadily all night in a hollow by Zandvoorde and our patrols on the road could see the Germans “in their spiked helmets” silhouetted against the glare as they stormed out of the woods and massed behind the fold of the ground ready for the morning’s attack. Two years later, our guns would have waited on their telephones till the enemy formation was completed and would then have removed those battalions from the face of the earth. But we had not those guns. During the night the Oxfordshire Light Infantry came up and occupied a farm between the Battalion and the Gordon Highlanders and strengthened the situation a little. Company commanders had already been officially warned that the position was serious and that they must “hang on at all costs.” Also that the Kaiser himself was in front of them.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 877