1915: The Death of Innocence

by Lyn Macdonald

  At Hooge I found everything all right, but everyone very excited. I tested our firing leads – they were OK – and gave my final orders to Cassels, then went back for a thousand yards to join the Brigadier whose men were to do the attack.

  The charge was due to blow at seven o’clock just as the sun was sinking. The last few days had been showery but although it was a fine evening, Lieutenant Cassels was in no position to admire the sunset. Counting the minutes to zero as he crouched in a dug-out not far from the front line, he was waiting to fire the charge, when, with minutes to go, the worst happened. A German shell bursting close by ruptured the electrical leads that ran from the dug-out, down the shaft and along the tunnel to fire the mine. With trembling hands Cassels tested the leads. They tested negative.

  It was the signaller-corporal scrabbling frantically round the edge of the smoking shell-crater who found the break, and it was providential that the leads were cut clean and were speedily mended. There was a minute to go now. Watching anxiously from Brigade Headquarters Major Cowan was sweating.

  Major S. H. Cowan.

  A shell arrived near the work, and for two centuries my hair stood on end. But in eight actual seconds there was a cloud of smoke and dirt five hundred feet high, and an explosion and a real shake, even under our very feet. Then Hell was let loose and for twenty minutes every gun we had made a curtain of fire just beyond our objective.

  If the ground shook a thousand yards from the line it positively rocked beneath Cassels’s dug-out. He was stunned. The explosion was far greater than anything he had imagined. Tons of earth, bricks, stones, rose into the air. Uprooted trees whirled like matchsticks in the smoke. Bricks, timber, iron bars, whole slabs of concrete were tossed sky-high in a shower of splintered rifles and fragments of flesh and bones, and even the guns that immediately opened up could not muffle the crash and rumble of debris falling back round the colossal crater.

  It was an awesome sight.

  Chapter 28

  The crater was a hundred and twenty feet wide; it was twenty feet deep and the lip on the circumference was more than twice the height of an extremely tall man. The main redoubt was blown out of existence and the second was damaged and buried, just as Cassels had hoped. Unfortunately, the fountain of debris had also buried a dozen men of the 4th Middlesex waiting to dash forward to capture the crater, and waiting a little too far ahead. But the rest of their Company made it and the Brigade bombers were poised to dash ahead. Skirting the reeking crater almost before the debris had subsided, they disappeared into the smoke and pushed on, bombing their way through trenches, capturing strongpoints, sending back a few stunned prisoners, hurling grenades when they met opposition and driving the bemused Germans back three hundred yards. They advanced so rapidly that they ran beyond the protection of their own guns, and when the German bombardment thundering behind them threatened to cut them off they were forced to go back. There was no sign of anyone coming up to support them. In any event, they had run out of bombs.

  It seemed as if every gun in Belgium was pouring fire on this one small corner at the head of the Ypres salient. But the British guns, firing hard, were no match for the enemy artillery. There was no hope of sending troops forward – no means of following up the bombers’ advance. Not all the bombers got back, and among several who did not, was Sergeant Allardyce of U Company. But the troops in the line held fast.

  Sgt. A. Rule.

  The Germans retaliated with great gusto. Their barrage wrecked our parapet in many places and caused heavy casualties – but their counter-attack failed. For the next three days our trenches were strafed continuously with missiles ranging from hand grenades to whizz-bangs and 5.9s. We were even peppered one evening with machine-gun bullets from two wicked-looking taubes as they flew back and forward along our front line. A huge Minenwerfer trained on the mine crater sent over its dreaded aeriel torpedoes until it was silenced by our artillery. Sniping went on continuously and there were frequent ‘wind ups’, and there at the extreme tip of the salient we were vulnerable to deadly enfilade fire and it often appeared as if we were being fired on from our own support trenches in the rear. Our parapets only consisted of a single thickness of sandbags, and shells bursting in the soft earth in front blasted them inwards. As soon as dusk fell we had to set to work repairing the breaches – generally under fire from a German machine-gun – and all the time we were digging for material to fill sandbags we were digging up dead bodies.

  Despite the spectacular success of the mining operation the existence of the crater had not improved the position of the infantry. It had not been possible to capture more than the crater itself with bombing posts on either side and the trenches that tenuously linked them were awkwardly placed. It was difficult for the companies to keep in touch with each other, and much too easy to keep in touch with the enemy, now uncomfortably close in the uncaptured trenches which were almost a continuation of their own. The infuriated Germans were clearly determined to give no quarter, and the unfortunate Tommies who were taking the brunt of their displeasure were inclined to think that the blowing of the crater had been a good deal more trouble than it was worth.

  The explosion had been heard for miles and ecstatic rumours flying round the villages behind the line had done a good deal to uplift the spirits of civilians on the eve of Belgian Independence Day. In peacetime it had been a national holiday and a day of celebration. This year, with seven-eighths of little Belgium under German occupation, ‘independence’ had a hollow ring, but there were flags outside a few houses and estaminets, there were services in village churches and the patriotic prayers had never been more fervent.

  It was a far cry from the celebrations of peacetime when Independence Day had been the holiday of the year and country people flocked to the towns and larger villages to enjoy themselves. There were Te Deums in churches, there were parades and pageants, and there were travelling fairs set up in village squares. Town bands played, flags flew everywhere, and knots of ribbon in the national colours were worn in every button-hole or Sunday frock. Cafés and restaurants were packed with citizens celebrating the fete by consuming gargantuan meals, but enterprising restaurants set up stalls on the pavements and sold legions of sausages, mountains of shrimps, pancakes by the stack, and chips daubed with golden mayonnaise by the ton. Even if these delights were no more, at least the population in this small remaining corner of Belgian Flanders, racked and battered through it was by the war, were free to mark the occasion as they saw fit.

  In German-occupied Belgium it was very different, and in anticipation of a possible surge of nationalistic feeling on Belgium’s national day, the occupying power had issued stern edicts and made it clear that severe penalties would be exacted if their orders were flouted. The Germans were particularly anxious to avoid demonstrations in Brussels where the civilian population was adept at finding subtle ways of cocking a snook at the authorities. There was the matter of the season of Wagnerian opera which had recently been held under official German patronage. Two years earlier, a similar event had brought all Brussels to the Théatre de la Monnaie and the operas had played to glittering houses for a full week. This time all Brussels had shunned it and, apart from a handful of German officers and their wives, the audiences stayed away. Even the ambassadors of neutral countries had refused official invitations with polite excuses and, to the fury of the German ‘Governor General’, the whole thing had been a flop. Brussels was not to be so easily placated for the many indignities its citizens had suffered at the hands of the invaders, and they kicked back in any way they could.

  It was a point of honour not to keep Berlin time, and people obstinately continued to order their days by ‘l’heure des alliés’, one hour behind the hated ‘heure boche’ which had been imposed by the Germans in the first days of the occupation. Inevitably this caused confusion, especially since the proprietors of all public clocks were obliged to show Berlin time and, although the order could not be openly defied and it was explicitly forbidde
n to stop them altogether, the clocks of Brussels developed a bizarre tendency to run so fast or so slow that it was entirely pointless for passers-by to consult them. Only the clock of the Hotel de Ville (now occupied by the German Kommandatur) showed the ‘correct’ German time and this was a godsend to officials keeping appointments. It was the Spanish ambassador who conveniently noticed that to state a time according to I’heure de l’ Hotel de Ville could not offend the Germans because it was their time, and could hardly offend the Belgians because it was their clock.

  After almost a year of occupation Brussels was a gloomy city. Food was scarce, spirits were low and the only entertainment to be found in the one-time ‘Paris of the north’ was the pastime of duping the Germans. As the day of the national fête approached people turned their minds to new ways of outwitting them. The Germans had already prohibited the flying of Belgian or Allied flags and the wearing of national colours, and on 18 July a new edict was posted up.

  NOTICE

  I warn the public that on July 21, 1915 demonstrations of all kinds are expressly and emphatically prohibited. Assemblies, parades, and the decoration of private buildings fall within the scope of this prohibition. The offenders will be liable to punishment of imprisonment not exceeding three months and a fine not exceeding 10,000 marks.

  The Governor of Brussels,

  Von Kräwel, Lieutenant-General.

  But the Germans had not thought of everything. They had not forbidden the Belgians to wear flowers and the flower-vendors were out in force selling posies of red and yellow blooms which, worn in the lapel of a black frock-coat or pinned to a black dress, represented the colours of the Belgian flag. Almost everyone was in black, for Brussels was observing the occasion as a day of national mourning. Black-bordered handbills distributed clandestinely had mooted the idea and everyone took it up. Shops, cafés, restaurants, closed their doors, offices shut up for the day, householders drew their blinds and closed their shutters. Everyone went to church and in every parish the churches were full from early morning. This year there was no great Te Deum at the Cathedral of Ste Gudule, but the packed congregation heard high mass, and as it finished, the great organ began to play. It played the National Anthem, faintly at first, and people stood straining to listen, silent and a little unsure how they ought to react. And then the organist found his courage, pulled out the stops to give the great organ its voice, and began again. As the music of the ‘Brabançonne’ swelled and rolled round the cathedral the people went wild. They cheered, they laughed, they wept. They stood on chairs and called for their national anthem again and again, and when it began for the fourth or fifth time they joined in. They shouted rather than sang the words, and when they reached the last line – ‘Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté’ – they positively raised the roof. The music tailed away but the people went on shouting: ‘Vive le Roi! Vive Belgique! Vive la Liberté!’ The atmosphere was electric, and it changed the mood of the day.

  There was almost an air of carnival, just like old times, and it quickly spread. Now nobody wanted to stay indoors behind drawn blinds and soon it seemed that the entire population had thronged into the streets and parks. They ignored edgy parties of German troops, trailing machine-guns as they paraded the streets, and were careful not to provoke them. They jostled and chattered and laughed, they congregated round the statues of Belgium’s national heroes and removed their posies to pile around their pediments. It hardly mattered that the cafés were closed. The people of Brussels were already drunk on a heady cocktail of patriotism and defiance.

  The shut-down in the city had infuriated the German authorities but their face-saving effort was belated and somewhat unimaginative in its conception. Late in the afternoon German soldiers were sent into the streets to post up yet another edict. It informed the citizens that, by order of the occupying power, the shops, cafés and restaurants in Brussels were to close on 21 July. It gave all Brussels a hearty laugh to cap the emotions of a satisfying day.*

  The Belgian national fete had, not unnaturally, passed unnoticed in the trenches, although it ought to have been a day of celebration for the men of the 3rd Division who were due to be relieved. But the situation round Hooge was still fluid as the Germans relentlessly pounded the captured ground and it was thought best to postpone the relief for twenty-four hours. It was a night of teeming rain and the 4th Gordons were not happy. To crown the miserable day their relief was late and the men were exhausted long before it arrived.

  Sgt. A. Rule.

  For four days we hadn’t had more than two hours’ sleep at a time and there were a lot of cases of shell-shock among the men who were more highly strung.

  Our relief was due at dusk, but the weary hours dragged on towards midnight and still there was no sign of it. The rain that had set in about midday became heavier and heavier and our spirits flagged with the increasing emptiness of our stomachs. When the long-expected relief finally did arrive, well after midnight, we were quite past caring what happened to us.

  We were heavily shelled all the way out, some of the shell-bursts were so close that we could actually feel the vicious hot blast of the explosions and every blinding flash seemed to make the darkness even more intense than before, so that the column sagged and stumbled in all directions. We were still in the danger zone when dawn broke and although we were by now entirely dead beat we kept plodding along like automatons without a solitary breathing space. We picked up our company pipers at Kruistraat, but our progress along the Vlamertinghe Road was more of a stagger than a march – we scarcely knew whether the pipes were playing or not. I was parched with thirst and I vividly remember sucking the moisture from the lapel of my greatcoat, which was saturated by the teeming rain. At times I actually fell asleep on the march and, imagining that the files in front of me had performed a right wheel, I would wake up with a start to find myself in a ditch by the side of the road and the column going on straight ahead!

  Our first halt came at Vlamertinghe and after that nightmare journey of six miles that had taken us six hours, a drink of water tasted like the nectar of the gods! We covered the last two miles to Brandhoek at a more respectable pace, and in a final supreme effort we even attempted to double to get into camp ahead of another company that had left the trenches an hour earlier. But it was beyond us!

  Our camping ground was sodden and cheerless, but our weary company, with faces haggard and drawn in the morning light, lay down prepared to sleep anywhere and in any position! It was just my luck to be detailed as company mess orderly with another companion in misfortune! By the time breakfast duties were over we were both fairly shivering with cold. Having no groundsheet or blankets, we attempted a lugubrious duet outside the QM store – ‘If the sergeant drinks your rum, n—e—ver mind…’ – but we only got curses in reply. So there was nothing for it but to lie down on the cold wet ground and keep on shivering until the sun rose. Eventually it warmed our chilled bodies and we slept like logs.

  It had been their worst stint yet. Late in the day when the Battalion medical officer held a sick parade a long straggling queue of men waited to consult him with a string of ailments. There were men whose feet were blistered and painfully swollen after the long wet march in boots and socks they had worn for almost a week. There were men with high temperatures, men with sore throats, men with cuts and scratches, even a few who had been lightly wounded by flying shell splinters on the way out. But there were not many malingerers, for the MO had the reputation of being a hard man and lead-swingers got short shrift. He was as tired as his patients after four gruelling days in the line dealing with a steady stream of casualties, and too tired perhaps to recognise a case of shell-shock. The shell-shocked boy had queued up with the rest, but when his turn eventually came and he stood pallid and trembling in front of the MO he was incapable of describing his symptoms and Captain Maclaren’s glare was not calculated to reassure him. All he could do was gibber and eventually blurt out what was certainly the least of his troubles, I’ve lost my hat, sir. My ha
t! I’ve lost it. It’s my hat…’ They heard Maclaren’s roar two fields away. ‘And what do you take me for! A bloody milliner? Get out before I have you put on a charge!’

  The MO’s own nerves were none too good, but a few days’ rest would work wonders. At least they were out of it for a while and it was enough to live for the moment, away from the grinding anger of the guns, the splutter of machine-guns, the incessant vigilance of enemy snipers, the constant apprehension of an enemy attack. Even the toughest of them were thankful for the respite.

  The 14th Division had taken over the line round Hooge and across the Bellewaerde Ridge. For some of these Kitchener men it was their first experience of the trenches and, although Corporal Willie Lowe was a reservist, his last experience of active service had been in South Africa more than a dozen years before. Until now his company had escaped trench-duty, though the men had grumbled mightily about fatigues, but compared to the other men in his section Lowe was an old hand.

  Cpl. W. F. Lowe, 10th Bn., Durham Light Infantry, 43 Brig., 14 Div.

  I had to hold a barrier on the railway and, as we had sixty-seven whizz-bangs over even before our Captain visited us, ration carrying in retrospect assumed new and tremendous advantages. When daylight came, a further novelty was introduced by persistent sniping from the Huns. When the rations came in we learned the cheerful history of the post from the men who brought them up. The last corporal in charge there had his head blown off and seven men were maimed – then another lance-corporal and five men were killed or wounded.