1915: The Death of Innocence

by Lyn Macdonald

  Chapter 15

  All down the line from Ploegstreet to Merville troops were ordered to prepare to move off at short notice but those in reserve or at rest nearest to Ypres were sent for first. They at least could cover some of the distance reasonably fast on foot. Telephone wires hummed and lights burned in Headquarters’ offices far into the night – and the next night, and the next. No matter how desperate the situation, Battalions and reserves could not be suddenly withdrawn from the line without first making complicated arrangements to ensure the safety of the line when they had gone. Vehicles had to be provided to carry them north and to follow them up with supplies of rations and ammunition, so transport parks were scoured for lorries and limbers, trains were rescheduled and diverted, and long lines of London buses trundled up to camps and villages behind the front to carry the troops away. No one had the faintest idea what had happened, or where or what they were bound for.

  The London Rifle Brigade was rudely interrupted at the start of a spell of rest, made all the more enjoyable by the fact that the weather was fine. A sports day was planned to keep the men entertained, the Adjutant had already been to Bailleul to purchase prizes from battalion funds, and the athletes, excused from parades and fatigues, were spending energetic days training for the various events, sprinting, jumping and pole-vaulting in the mild spring weather.

  The train they boarded at Steenwerck jolted first towards Hazebrouck on the first leg of the journey and prompted wild speculation. Various wagers were staked in cigarettes, although the joker who suggested that the war was over and they were bound for Calais and home found few takers. But at Hazebrouck, after much delay and shunting, the engine was reversed, the train began to head north and if there were still any doubts about their destination the trainloads of refugees they passed soon dispelled them. It was clear that something serious had happened and that it had happened at Ypres.

  The three squadrons of the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars were in billets round the small village of Pradelles on the road from Hazebrouck to Bailleul, but when the colonel received the order to turn out his men as quickly as possible he had some difficulty in laying his hands on them. They had already trotted off on various training schemes in different parts of the countryside, but it was a fine morning for a gallop, they had let the horses have their heads, and there was no sign of them for miles. It took more than an hour before dispatch-riders, scouring the countryside on motor bikes, were able to track them down and bring them back and it was well after mid-day before they reached the rendezvous at Strazeele where they were to link up with the rest of the 1st Cavalry Division on the way to Ypres.

  Tpr. P. Batchelor, D Squadron, Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars.

  We waited there for hours before anyone turned up and we didn’t have a clue what was happening. Of course we were used to that – all through Neuve Chapelle we’d waited to go into action and nothing happened. We’d had no grub, so Captain Gill let us go off a few at a time for a quarter of an hour to get some coffee and maybe a bit of bread and cheese in the village. It was half-way through the afternoon before we finally moved off, and the road was so packed with troops marching up that we could hardly get the squadron through. It took us more than three hours to cover three miles and then we were dismounted and waited for hours again while they tried to find billets. By the time we’d fed and watered the horses it was past midnight before we turned in ourselves – and we’d hardly got to sleep before we were up again and off on the road to Ypres.

  By setting off before first light when the roads were slightly quieter and the weary infantry still slept, by riding across country after daylight, spurred on by the sound of the guns booming louder as they approached, the Oxfordshire Hussars arrived shortly after nine in the morning and unsaddled in fields near Vlamertinghe three miles behind the front. One latecomer got there almost ten hours behind the others and his arrival by taxi-cab caused something of a sensation. Lieutenant Wellesley had been on a machine-gun course at Wisques and on his way back, arriving at St Omer on market day, he had indulged in a little shopping for provisions to enliven meals in the mess. Flanders is renowned for succulent asparagus, in season for a few short weeks in April and early May. One stall was piled high with the pick of the crop – the fattest, whitest, freshest stalks Wellesley had ever seen. Like most officers of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry, Wellesley belonged to the landed gentry and enjoyed a comfortable income which enabled him to indulge his epicurean tastes. He purchased a capacious hamper from a stall selling baskets, had it filled with a large quantity of asparagus and, leaving it in charge of his servant, strolled off to find a wine merchant. He bought two cases of the best champagne that St Omer could offer and, after a satisfactory lunch in a restaurant, he hired a ramshackle taxi-cab for the eighteen-mile journey to Pradelles. Wellesley’s servant sat in front with the driver and Wellesley travelled in the back with their luggage plus his bulky purchases. It was a tight squeeze, but Wellesley did not mind. For dinner there would be champagne and asparagus – dripping with country butter (for he had not forgotten that!) – and he looked forward with pleasure to surprising his brother officers with a rare feast.

  It was nothing to the surprise that awaited Wellesley himself at Pradelles when he discovered that billets were empty and the Oxfordshire Hussars had gone. Brigade Headquarters had gone too and, given the situation, the confusion of orders, the congestion of troops, no one could tell him precisely where to find his regiment. He guessed, wrongly, that it might have gone south, and the elderly cab-driver, who was no doubt congratulating himself on picking up a lucrative long-distance fare, changed his mind at Laventie when a clutch of shells exploded on the road less than three hundred yards ahead. He stopped the cab and dived beneath it for shelter, flatly refusing to go on, and it was some considerable time before he could be induced to return to the driving seat. Even then, only a large bribe with the promise of more to come dissuaded him from driving straight back to St Omer. By the time their wanderings ended, by the time they had scrounged petrol, lost their way a dozen times, made a thousand enquiries, and roamed the length of the front within earshot of the bombardments, the driver was a broken man.

  It was more than twenty-four hours before they tracked down the Oxfordshire Hussars encamped in miserable bivouacs at Vlamertinghe. The champagne and asparagus was unloaded at the entrance to a muddy field in the midst of a bombardment. The taxi-driver, lavishly paid off, set off thankfully to St Omer, and if, in the heat of the emergency, Lieutenant Wellesley did not receive precisely the welcome he had expected from the officers, at least they were impressed by his style. The mess cooks, working in difficult circumstances, were possibly less impressed by the prospect of scraping a hamperful of asparagus in the middle of a battle.

  The first task of the Cavalry Division was to reconnoitre and, in particular, to reconnoitre the French front, for the situation was still far from clear and General Wanless O’Gowan, who had crossed the canal expecting to find French positions, had been appalled to discover that there were still large gaps where no troops were to be found. The new British line was fragile and tenuous enough, but the greatest danger zone was along the canal. The bulk of the French troops had fallen back beyond it and four long miles stretched between the British left and Steenstraat where the French joined hands with the Belgian front running to the north. Reports from French headquarters were patchy and imprecise and the British Command suspected that General Putz himself was not entirely sure of the whereabouts of his men. But one thing was certain. The Germans had crossed the bridge at Steenstraat and gained a foothold on the opposite bank. Luck and the Belgians had prevented them going further, and the Belgians had indeed been lucky. By some uncharacteristic mismanagement or misunderstanding on the part of the Germans not all the gas-cylinders at this crucial juncture of the front had been opened and the gas that had been released had so little effect that the Belgians north of Steenstraat had been able to beat back the Germans and bring their artillery into actio
n to help French comrades on their right. But the Germans did manage to cross the canal. Now they were fighting at Lizerne to the west of it and although the French were fiercely resisting, the enemy was within an ace of driving a wedge between the French and Belgian armies. That would bring disaster. Disaster to the Belgians, who would be entirely cut off between the enemy and the northern swamps. Disaster to the French, already in disarray, whose lines could so easily be rolled up. Disaster to the British in their ragged vulnerable line in the salient round Ypres which could be cut off with ease from the rear. As soon as they arrived on the morning of the 23rd, as soon as the horses were watered and fed and rested, British cavalry patrols were sent off to reconnoitre. But one man was ahead of them.

  Artur Barbieur was senior policeman at Proven. The bridge at Steenstraat was in his charge and, war or no war, he did not intend to shirk this responsibility. Barbieur was a family man, and his seven-year-old daughter Paula would remember that evening for the rest of her life.

  Mevrouw Paula Hennekint.

  My mother pleaded with him not to go, but he would go. Nothing would stop him. After he set off on his bicycle I remember my mother lighting candles in front of a little crucifix and kneeling down to pray. She was a very pious woman. She did the same every night – but that night I remember especially because she was so terribly anxious. She had done the same when the German Hussars passed through our village in August 1914. I remember how frightened we were. We closed all the shutters and kept very still and quiet, my mother on her knees in front of the crucifix.

  Of course the Germans didn’t stay then, and the French came when the war really started. I had been going to school since September, and there were soldiers everywhere, French soldiers and Belgian soldiers passing through. The main road was always so blocked with troops and wagons and horses that we had to go to school by the back lanes because the main road was for the military and we were warned not to use it. Next to the police station in the village there was a little prison for soldiers who had misbehaved themselves – nothing serious, but they were under arrest, although it wasn’t rigid and they weren’t strictly guarded. We used to go and talk to them and take them water, and they asked if we could take them some wine – because the French soldiers liked wine. So my mother used to put a bottle of wine hidden in a big jug of water, and we children used to carry it to them in the prison. They could pay for it. It was all fun to us. The French soldiers were good to us. They used to give us some of their rations and white bread, which was wonderful to us.

  Then, on the evening of the first gas attack, there were so many rumours going round that no one knew what had happened. All we knew was that something had happened at the canal at Steenstraat and my father decided that he must go to see if the bridge had been blown up, because it would have been his duty to make a report if it had. My mother didn’t try to stop him, but she was very worried and upset. I can understand why she was so emotional now, because my brother was born in December 1915, so she must have just recently found that she was pregnant. It must have been dreadful for her. But my father set off, wearing his police uniform and riding his bicycle as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. We children were sent to bed, but my mother waited up all night – and he didn’t come back.

  Late in the evening, by the time Artur Barbieur reached Steenstraat, the fighting had died down. His police uniform enabled him to pass through the French lines. But the Germans were on the look-out and as Barbieur cycled towards the bridge they opened fire.

  Mevrouw Paula Hennekint.

  I shall never forget the next day. In the morning two Belgian policemen came to tell my mother that my father had been shot and wounded – but they could tell her no more, only that he had been taken away. My mother was distracted. She kept wringing her hands and saying over and over again, ‘What’s going to become of my husband!’ Mother, children, all of us, we were all crying. He just disappeared and we could find out nothing. Every day we saw trainloads of wounded going away, and there were camp hospitals all around us, but we could find out nothing. We didn’t know how badly he was wounded, we didn’t know where he was – or even if he was alive or dead. My poor mother! She almost went out of her mind. She thought he would never come back.

  Three weeks later he walked in on crutches. He had been badly shot up in the legs with a big shell splinter in his thigh. He’d had several operations in one of the British camp hospitals and when he began to recover they were going to send him on to a military hospital in England. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He said, ‘No, no. I must get home to my wife and children.’ So they let him go. He hobbled in while my mother was on her knees praying. She went wild! We all did! It was the first news we’d had of him since he went out on his bicycle three weeks before.

  Early on the morning of 23 April Sir John French drove to Cassel to discuss matters with General Foch at French headquarters. He did not by any means have a clear picture of the situation but he knew enough to judge that it was critical and that the line of the salient might have to be drastically reduced, if not withdrawn altogether. Foch was scandalised at the very idea. His only thought was to regain his original line and, he assured the British Commander-in-Chief, he had every intention of doing so. Reinforcements were on the way and as soon as they were in position the attack would go in. The British must support it. He was convinced that they would succeed.

  General French was in two minds. The salient was so small, the situation on his left so perilous, the casualties were already so large and his own resources in men and materials so small, that all his instincts as a soldier told him that the sensible course would be to draw back to a line that could be more easily defended – even, in the last resort, to contemplate relinquishing Ypres. But it was difficult to refuse an ally who was so convinced that the situation could be retrieved. French hesitated, and finally, almost against his better judgement, he agreed. But he made one stipulation. If the French did not succeed, with his support, in restoring the situation within ‘a reasonable time’ he would be forced to reconsider his position and draw in his line. Meanwhile, he would reinforce his Second Army and fight on. Already fresh troops had been ordered to stand by and be prepared to move at short notice. As soon as he returned to his advanced headquarters at Hazebrouck the Commander-in-Chief issued the orders that would send them on their way.

  The French Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Joffre, shared Sir John French’s misgivings. The unexpectedness of the German attack at Ypres was a disconcerting annoyance and not at all in conformance with his own plan for the prosecution of the war. Joffre had his sights firmly set on the triple attack that would disrupt the German lines of communication – the all-out effort, so carefully planned, that would reduce the huge German salient that swung deep into France, and release the towns and villages imprisoned in its maw. Preparations were almost complete, the British – who had risen in his estimation since their independent action at Neuve Chapelle – were committed to cooperate and, in Joffre’s view, the best way of relieving the pressure at Ypres was to distract the Germans with a major offensive elsewhere. Ypres, by comparison, was small beer and had the British 29th Division not been diverted to Gallipoli, thus preventing them from taking over his entire line in the north, Joffre would have had no French troops there at all.* As it was, in the light of the coming offensive, he was reluctant to commit any more of his men and to weaken his armies, poised for the assault, by bleeding them of badly needed resources in men and materials in order to commit them to what, at best, was a distraction and, at worst, might well turn out to be a lost cause. General Foch would have to fight hard to wrest reinforcements from the ample reserves at Marshal Joffre’s disposal.

  Sir John French, who was equally anxious to participate in a breakthrough and to capitalise on the initial success at Neuve Chapelle, was in sympathy with the French Commander’s view. But a promise was a promise. General Foch had been so optimistic, so sure that the French could recover the lost ground, that Sir John Fren
ch had only a few qualms as he issued the order for the counter-attack that would help them to get it back. General Foch, perhaps with a qualm or two of his own, had already driven to the headquarters of the unfortunate General Putz to urge him to take action as quickly as possible. He must attack, and attack at once. But it was an attack which General Putz was in no position to undertake and it had precious little chance of succeeding. The only reinforcements which Putz had yet received – two battalions and two batteries of guns rushed down from his isolated command at Nieuport – had already been thrown in at Lizerne where the French were holding back the German advance.

  There was no time for preparation, no time for reconnaissance of the ground, and no exact knowledge of the enemy’s position. Nevertheless there was no arguing with a direct order from General Headquarters and, in the circumstances, both Smith-Dorrien and Plumer agreed that if an attack must be made it ought to be made speedily. The enemy front was ominously quiet and that could only be because the Germans were digging in, wiring a line that might soon become impregnable, and bringing up reserves to replace their casualties and increase their strength. But the hold-ups were many, the arrival of fresh troops was delayed by the congestion on the roads and the attack which should have gone in at three o’clock was not launched until almost half past four. Communications were so sketchy that it was all but impossible to arrange for artillery support and the batteries which did receive the message to fire a preliminary bombardment at 2.45 in support of the three o’clock attack did not receive the news of its postponement and the precious ammunition they fired in the general direction of the enemy went for nothing. When the troops finally started off, moving in broad daylight across open country towards the unseen German positions, the guns did their best to support them, but there was not much they could do. The German guns opened up, the infantry vanished into the smoke of explosions and half of those who survived to get within striking distance of the German positions were mown down by close-range fire from rifles and machine-guns. After the attack had started four hundred French colonial troops lining the eastern bank of the canal joined in, apparently spontaneously, but they very soon withdrew and no more was seen of the French. By seven o’clock it was all over and limp bands of survivors were lying low, waiting until darkness fell to cover the long crawl back. All the time the German heavy guns were thundering, as they had thundered all day, raining shells into the battlefield and into Ypres.