Chapter III: Part VI: Victory (2)

And yet, looking back from the vantage ground of four years of campaigning, that madness of attack had in it the seeds of the Allies' future success. It was the very plan which Ludendorff used against them with such fatal effect in March 1918. Of what did those German tactics consist? Highly-trained troops attacked various sections of the front, found weak spots, summoned their reserves by special signals, and forced their way through. In this way the front was not only pierced, but crumbled in long lengths. The Highlanders at Loos were the first to employ this deadly process, which the French called "infiltration." They were picked troops beyond question; but there was no serious plan to follow up their success, and no support provided. Yet, even as it was, that lonely charge struck fear into the heart of the whole German line from Douai to Lille. There was no prophetic eye among us which could see what was implied by it, and it was set down as a glorious failure. Four years later, when we had learned all that the enemy could teach us, the same method was applied by the master hand of Foch to break down in turn each of the German defences.

*CHAPTER VII.*

*DELVILLE WOOD.*

The Battle of the Somme was the first great British attack to be made with ample supplies of guns and shells, and continued, not for days or weeks, but for months. Slowly we pressed forward to the crest of the ridges between the Somme and the Ancre, and we know from Ludendorff's own confession that we then dealt a blow at Germany's strength from which she never recovered. The third stage of that great battle, which won many miles of the German second position, began on July 14, 1916. The one serious check was on the right wing, where it was necessary to carry the village of Longueval and the wood called Delville in order to secure our right flank. There the South African Brigade entered for the first time into the battle-line of the West, and there they won conspicuous renown.

The place was the most awkward on the battle-front. It was a salient, and, therefore, the British attack was made under fire from three sides. The ground, too, was most intricate. The land sloped upwards to Longueval village, a cluster of houses among gardens and orchards around the junction of two roads. East and north-east of this hamlet stretched Delville Wood, in the shape of a blunt equilateral triangle, with an apex pointing north-westwards. The place, like most French woods, had been seamed with grassy rides, partly obscured by scrub, and along and athwart these the Germans had dug lines of trenches. The wood had been for some days a target for our guns, and was now a maze of splintered tree trunks, matted undergrowth, and shell-holes. North, north-east, and south-east, at a distance of from 50 to 200 yards from its edges, lay the main German positions, strongly protected by machine-guns. Longueval could not be firmly held unless Delville was also taken, for the northern part was commanded by the wood.

On the 14th July two Scottish brigades of the 9th Division attacked Longueval, and won most of the place; but they found that the whole village could not be held until Delville Wood was cleared. Accordingly, the South Africans--the remaining brigade of the division--were ordered to occupy the wood on the following morning. The South African Brigade, under General Lukin, had been raised a year before among the white inhabitants of South Africa. At the start about 15 per cent. were Dutch, but the proportion rose to something like 30 per cent. before the end of the campaign. Men fought in its ranks who had striven against Britain in the Boer War. Few units were better supplied with men of the right kind of experience, and none showed a better physical standard or a higher level of education and breeding.

Two hours before dawn on the 15th July the brigade advanced from Montauban towards the shadow which was Delville Wood, and the jumbled masonry, now spouting fire like a volcano, which had been Longueval. Lieutenant-Colonel Tanner of the 2nd South African Regiment was in command of the attack. By 2.40 that afternoon Tanner reported to General Lukin that he had won the whole wood with the exception of certain strong points in the north-west, abutting on Longueval and the northern orchards.

But the problem of Delville was not so much to carry the wood as to hold it. The German counter-attacks began about 3 o'clock, and the men who were holding the fringe of the wood suffered heavy casualties. As the sun went down the enemy activity increased, and their shells and liquid fire turned the darkness of night into a feverish and blazing noon; often as many as 400 shells were fired in a minute. The position that evening was that the north-west corner of the wood remained with the enemy, but that all the rest was held by South Africans strung out very thin along its edge. Twelve infantry companies, now gravely weakened, were defending a wood a little less than a square mile in area--a wood on which every German battery was accurately ranged, and which was commanded at close quarters by a semicircle of German trenches. Moreover, since the enemy had the north-west corner, he had a covered way of approach into the place.

All through the furious night of the 15th the South Africans worked for dear life at entrenchments. In that hard soil, pitted by unceasing shell-fire, and cumbered with a twisted mass of tree trunks, roots, and wire, the spade could make little way. Nevertheless, when the morning of Sunday, the 16th, dawned, a good deal of cover had been provided. At 10 a.m. an attempt was made by the South Africans and a battalion of Royal Scots to capture the northern entrance to the wood. The attempt failed, and the attacking troops had to fall back to their trenches, and for the rest of the day had to endure a steady, concentrated fire. It was hot, dusty weather, and the enemy's curtain of shells made it almost impossible to bring up food and water or to remove the wounded. The situation was rapidly becoming desperate. Longueval and Delville had proved to be far too strongly held to be over-run at the first attack by one division. At the same time, until these were taken the object of the battle of the 14th had not been achieved, and the safety of the whole right wing of the new front was endangered. Longueval could not be won and held without Delville; Delville could not be won and held without Longueval. Fresh troops could not yet be spared to complete the work, and it must be attempted again by the same wearied and depleted battalions. What strength remained to the 9th Division must be divided between two simultaneous objectives.

That Sunday evening it was decided to make another attempt against the north-west corner. The attempt was made shortly before dawn on Monday, the 17th July, but failed. All that morning there was no change in the situation; but on the morning of Tuesday, the 18th, an attempt was made to the eastward. The Germans, however, in a counter-attack, managed to penetrate far into the southern half of the wood. The troops in Longueval had also suffered misfortunes, with the result that the enemy entered the wood on the exposed South African left.

At 2.30 that afternoon the position was very serious. Lieutenant-Colonel Thackeray, of the 3rd South African Regiment, now commanding in the wood, held no more than the south-west corner. In the other parts the garrisons had been utterly destroyed. The trenches were filled with wounded whom it was impossible to move, since most of the stretcher-bearers had themselves been killed or wounded.

That evening came the welcome news that the South Africans would be relieved at night by another brigade. But relief under such conditions was a slow and difficult business. By midnight the work had been partially carried out, and portions of the 3rd and 4th South African regiments had been withdrawn.

But as at Flodden, when

"they left the darkening heath
More desperate grew the strife of death."

The enemy had brought up a new division, and made repeated attacks against the South African line. For two days and two nights the little remnant under Thackeray still clung to the south-west corner of the wood against impossible odds, and did not break. The German method of assault was to push forward bombers and snipers, and then to advance in mass formation from the north, north-east, and north-west simultaneously.

Three attacks on the night of Tuesday, the 18th, were repelled with heavy losses to the enemy; but in the last of them the South Africans were assaulted on three sides. All through Wednesday, the 19th, the gallant handful suffered incessant shelling and sniping, the latter now from very close. It was the same on Thursday, the 20th; but still relief tarried. At last, at 6 o'clock that evening, troops of a fresh division were able to take over what was left to us of Longueval and the little segment of Delville Wood. Thackeray marched out with two officers, both wounded, and 140 other ranks, gathered from all the regiments of the South African Brigade.

The six days and five nights during which the South African Brigade held the most difficult post on the British front--a corner of death on which the enemy fire was concentrated from three sides at all hours, and into which fresh German troops, vastly superior in numbers, made periodic incursions, only to be broken and driven back--constituted an epoch of terror and glory scarcely equalled in the campaign. There were other positions as difficult, but they were not held so long; there were cases of as protracted a defence, but the assault was not so violent and continuous.

Let us measure it by the stern test of losses. At midnight on the 14th July, when Lukin received his orders, the brigade numbered 121 officers and 3,032 men. When Thackeray marched out on the 20th he had a remnant of 143, and the total ultimately assembled was about 750. Of the officers, 23 were killed or died of wounds, 47 were wounded, and 15 were missing. But the price was not paid in vain. The brigade did what it was ordered to do, and did not yield until it was withdrawn.

There is no more solemn moment in war than the parade of men after a battle. The few hundred haggard survivors in the bright sunshine behind the lines were too weary and broken to realize how great a thing they had done. Sir Douglas Haig sent his congratulations. The Commander of the Fourth Army, Sir Henry Rawlinson, wrote that "In the capture of Delville Wood the gallantry, perseverance, and determination of the South African Brigade deserves the highest commendation." They had earned the praise of their own intrepid commanding officers, who had gone through the worst side by side with their men. "Each individual," said Tanner's report, "was firm in the knowledge of his confidence in his comrades, and was, therefore, able to fight with that power which good discipline alone can produce. A finer record of this spirit could not be found than the line of silent bodies along the Strand,[#] over which the enemy had not dared to tread." But the most impressive tribute was that of their Brigadier. When the remnant of his brigade paraded before him, Lukin took the salute with uncovered head and eyes not free from tears.

[#] The name of one of the rides in the wood.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES.*

The Third Battle of Ypres was in many ways the sternest battle ever fought by British troops. It was not a defence, like the two other actions fought at Ypres, but an attack. It was an attack against the success of which the very stars in their courses seemed to fight. Everything--weather, landscape, events elsewhere on the front--conspired to frustrate its purpose. It was undertaken too late and continued too long; but both errors were unavoidable. All the latter part of it was a struggle without hope, carried on for the sake of our Allies at other parts of the line. To those who fought in it, the Third Battle of Ypres will always remain a memory of misery and horror.

The British scheme for the summer of 1917 was an offensive against the enemy in Flanders, in order to clear the Belgian coast and turn the German right flank in the West. It was a scheme which, if successful, promised the most far-reaching results; but to be successful a beginning must be made as early as possible in the summer, when the waterlogged soil of Flanders became reasonably dry. But the whole plan was altered for the worse at the beginning of the year. The first stage, the Battle of Arras, began too late and, through no fault of the British Command, lasted too long. It was not till June that Sir Douglas Haig was able to begin operations in Flanders and make his preliminary attack upon Messines, and it was not till the end of July that the great battle was begun in the Ypres Salient. By that time the revolution which began in Petrograd in March had broken up the Russian armies and prepared the way for the triumph of Bolshevism; Russia was in ruins, and Germany was moving her troops rapidly from the East to the West. The battle was, therefore, a struggle against time--against the coming of enemy reserves and of the autumn rains.

The famous Salient of Ypres had, during three years, been drawn back till the enemy front was now less than two miles from the town. For twelve months that front had been all but stationary, and the Germans had spent infinite ingenuity and labour on perfecting their defences. In the half-moon of hills round the town they had view-points which commanded the whole countryside, and especially the British lines within the Salient. Any preparations for attack would therefore be conducted under their watchful eyes. Moreover, the heavy waterlogged clay of the flats where our front lay was terribly at the mercy of the weather, and in rain became a bottomless swamp. Lastly, the enemy was acutely conscious of the importance of holding his position, and there was no chance of taking him by surprise.

If the British were to succeed at all they must succeed quickly. The high ground east of the Salient must be won in a fortnight if they were to move against the German bases in West Flanders and clear the coast. This meant a gamble against the weather, for the Salient was, after Verdun, the most tortured of the Western battlefields. Constant shelling of the low ground west of the ridges had blocked the streams and the natural drainage, and turned it into a sodden wilderness. Weather such as had been experienced the year before on the Somme would make of it a morass where transport could scarcely move, and troops would be exposed to the last degree of misery. Moreover, the "tanks," which had been first used on the Somme the year before, and had done wonders at Arras in breaking through barbed wire and silencing machine-guns, could not be used in deep mud. Whatever might be the strength and skill of the enemy, it was less formidable than the obstacles which nature herself might place in the British path.

But the German commanders were no despicable antagonists. In Flanders the nature of the ground did not permit of the kind of defence which they had built on the Somme. Deep dug-outs and concrete trenches were impossible because of the waterlogged soil, and they were compelled to employ new tactics. Their solution was the "pill-box." This was a small concrete fort situated among the ruins of a farm or in some piece of shell-torn woodland, often raised only a yard or two above the ground-level, and bristling with machine-guns. The low entrance was at the rear of the pill-box, which held from eight to forty men. Such forts were easy to make, for the wooden or steel framework could be brought up on any dark night and filled with concrete. They were placed with great skill, and in the barbed-wire defences alleys were left so that an unwary advance would be trapped and exposed to enfilading fire. Their small size made them a difficult mark for heavy guns, and since they were protected by concrete at least 3 feet thick they were impregnable to ordinary field artillery.

The enemy's plan was to hold his first line--which was often a mere string of shell craters--with few men, who would fall back before an assault. He had his guns well behind, so that they would not be captured in the first rush, and would be available for a barrage if his opponents became entangled in the pill-box zone. Lastly, he had his reserves in the second line, ready for the counterstroke before the attack could secure its position. Such tactics were admirably suited to the exposed and contorted ground of the Salient. Any attack would be allowed to make some advance; but if the German plan worked well this advance would be short-lived, and would be dearly paid for. Instead of the cast-iron front of the rest of the battleground, the Flanders line would be highly elastic, but after pressure it would spring back into position with a deadly rebound.

The action began on 31st July, and resulted at first in a brilliant success. But with the attack the weather broke, and so made impossible the series of blows which we had planned. For a fortnight we were compelled to hold our hand; till the countryside grew drier, advance was a stark impossibility.

The second stage began on 16th August, and everywhere fell short of its main objective. The ground was sloppy and tangled; broken woods impeded our advance; and the whole front was dotted with pill-boxes, against which we had not yet discovered the proper weapon. The result was a serious British check. Fine brigades had been hurled in succession against a solid wall, and had been sorely battered. They felt that they were being sacrificed blindly; that every fight was a soldier's and not a general's fight; and that such sledge-hammer tactics could never solve the problem. For a moment there was a real wave of disheartenment in the British ranks.

Sir Douglas Haig took time to reorganize his front and prepare a new plan. Sir Herbert Plumer was brought farther north, and patiently grappled with the "pill-box" problem. He had them carefully reconnoitred, and by directing gun fire on each side enabled his troops to get round their undefended rear. Early in September the weather improved, the mud of the Salient hardened, and the streams became streams again, and not lagoons.

On 20th September the third attack was launched, and everywhere succeeded. It broke through the German defence in the Salient, and won the southern pivot, on which the security of the main Passchendaele Ridge depended. Few struggles in the campaign were more desperate or carried out on a more gruesome battlefield. The maze of quagmires, splintered woods, ruined husks of pill-boxes, water-filled shell-holes and foul creeks, which made up the land on both sides of the Menin road, was a sight which to most men must seem in the retrospect a fevered nightmare. The elements had blended with each other to make of it a limbo outside mortal experience and almost beyond human imagining.

But successful though the advance was, not even the first stage of the British plan had been reached. During the rest of September and October, however, attack followed attack, though the main objective was now out of the question. It was necessary to continue the battle for the sake of our Allies, who at the moment were hard pressed in other areas; and, in any case, it was desirable to complete the capture of the Passchendaele Ridge so as to give us a good winter position.

The last stages of this Third Battle of Ypres were probably the muddiest combats ever known in the history of war. It rained incessantly, sometimes quieting to a drizzle or a Scots mist, but relapsing into a downpour on any day fixed for our attack. The British movements became a barometer. Whenever it was more than usually tempestuous it was safe to assume that some hour of advance was near. The few rare hours of watery sunshine had no effect upon the irreclaimable bog. "You might as well," wrote one observer, "try to empty a bath by holding lighted matches over it."

On the 30th October our line was sufficiently far advanced for the attack on Passchendaele itself. On that day the Canadians, assisted by the Royal Naval Division and London Territorials, carried much of the Ridge, and won their way into the outskirts of Passchendaele village. Some days of dry weather followed, and early in the morning of 6th November the Canadians swept forward again and carried the whole main ridge of West Flanders. By this achievement the Salient, where for three years we had been at the mercy of the German guns, was no longer dominated by the enemy position.

The Third Battle of Ypres was strategically a British failure; we did not come within measurable distance of our main purpose. But that was due to no fault of generalship or fighting qualities, but to the malevolence of the weather in a country where the weather was all in all. We reckoned upon a normal August, and we did not get it. The sea of mud which lay around the Salient was the true defence of the enemy.

Ypres was to Britain what Verdun was to France--hallowed soil, which called forth the highest qualities of her people. It was a battleground where there could be no retreat without loss of honour. The armies which fought there in the Third Battle were very different from the few divisions which had held the fort during the earlier struggles. But there were links of connection. The Guards, by more than one fine advance, were recompensed for the awful tension of October 1914, when some of their best battalions had been destroyed; and it fell to Canada, by the victory of Passchendaele, to avenge the gas attack of April 1915. when only her dauntless two brigades stood between Ypres and the enemy.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*THE TANKS AT CAMBRAI.*

During the Battle of the Somme a new weapon had appeared on the Allied side. This was the Tank (so called because some unrevealing name had to be found for a device developed in secret). It was a machine shaped like a monstrous toad, which mounted machine-guns and light artillery, and could force its way through wire and parapets and walls, and go anywhere except in deep mud. Its main tactical use was to break down wire entanglements and to clear out redoubts and nests of machine-guns. When first used at the Somme the Tanks won a modified success, and in the following spring at Arras they fully justified themselves. Presently they began to develop into two types, one remaining heavy and slow and the other becoming a "whippet," a type which was easy to handle and attained a fair speed. Ultimately, as we shall see, they were to become the chief Allied weapon in breaking the enemy front, and also to perform the historic task of cavalry and go through the gaps which the infantry had made. In September 1917, while two British Armies were fighting desperately in the Ypres Salient for the Passchendaele Ridge, Sir Julian Byng's Third Army, on the chalky plateau of Picardy, was almost idle. An observer might have noticed that General Hugh Elles, the commander of the Tank Corps, was a frequent visitor to Sir Julian's headquarters at Albert. The same observer might have detected a curious self-consciousness during the following weeks at Tanks headquarters. Tanks officers, disguised in non-committal steel helmets and waterproofs, frequented the forward areas of the Third Army. Tanks motor-cars seemed suddenly to shed all distinguishing badges, and their drivers told lengthy and mendacious tales about their doings. Staff officers of the Tanks were never seen at any headquarters, but constantly in front-line trenches, where, when questioned, they found some difficulty in explaining their business. At the headquarters of one Tanks brigade there was a locked room, with "No Admittance" over the door, and inside--for the eye of the possible enemy spy--a quantity of carefully marked bogus maps. Some mystery was being hatched, but, though many hundreds suspected it, only a few knew the truth.

On the 20th October it had been decided to make a surprise attack towards Cambrai, and to prepare the way for the infantry by Tanks instead of guns. The Third Battle of Ypres had brought the reputation of these machines very low. They had been used in the bottomless mud of the Salient, where they had no chance of being successful, and the generals in command had reported adversely on their merits. It was argued that they could not negotiate bad ground, that the ground on a battlefield must always be bad, and that, consequently, they were of no use on the battlefield. The first statement was doubtful, and the second false; but certainly if all battles had been like the Third Battle of Ypres the conclusion would have been justified.

At Cambrai the Tanks were on their trial. It was their special "show," and if they failed now they would fail for good. Their commander, General Elles, took no chances. With three brigades of Tanks he was to break through the enemy's wire, cross the broad trenches of the Hindenburg Line, and open the way towards Cambrai for the two Army Corps following. The enemy defences were the strongest in the West. There were three trench lines, each of a width extending to 15 feet, and with an outpost line thrown forward as a screen. In front of the main line lay barbed wire at least 50 yards wide, which sometimes jutted out in bold salients flanked by machine-guns. It was calculated that to cut that wire with artillery would have taken five weeks and cost twenty millions of money. The trenches were too wide for an ordinary Tank, so immense bundles of brushwood were made up, which a Tank carried on its nose and dropped into the trench to make a crossing. Each bundle, or "fascine," weighed a ton and a half, and it took twenty Chinese coolies to roll one of them through the mud.

The attack was to be a surprise, and therefore there was to be no preliminary bombardment. Secrecy was so vital, and the chances of discovery so numerous, that the commanders spent anxious days prior to the 20th November. Flotillas of Tanks were assembled in every possible place which afforded cover, notably in Havrincourt Wood. The Tank is not a noiseless machine, and it says much for the ingenuity of the Third Army that the enemy had no inkling of our business. A single enemy aeroplane over Havrincourt might have wrecked the plan. On the night of the 18th an enemy raid took some of our men prisoners, but they must have been very staunch, or the German Intelligence Service very obtuse, for little appears to have been learned from them. The weather favoured Sir Julian Byng. The days before the assault had the low grey skies and the clinging mists of late November.

In the dark of the evening of the 19th the Tanks nosed their way from their lairs towards the point of departure, going across country, since the roads were crowded, and running dead slow to avoid noise. That evening General Hugh Elles issued a special order announcing that he proposed to lead the attack of the centre division in person, like an admiral in his flagship. At 4.30 on the morning of the 20th a burst of German fire suggested that the enemy had discovered the secret, but to the relief of the British commanders it died away, and the hour before the attack opened was dead quiet.

Day dawned with heavy clouds that promised rain before evening. At 6 o'clock a solitary gun broke the silence. It was the signal, and from just north of the Bapaume road to the hamlet of Gonnelieu in the south, a stupendous barrage crashed from the British line. The whole horizon was aflame, and volcanoes of earth spouted from the German lines. Wakened suddenly from sleep, and dazed with the gun-fire, the enemy sent up star shell after star shell in appeal to his artillery; but, as he strove to man his trenches, out of the fog of dawn came something more terrible than shells--the blunt noses of 350 Tanks tearing and snapping the wire and grinding down the parapets. The instant result was panic. In a few minutes the German outposts fell; presently the main Hindenburg Line followed, and the fighting reached the tunnels of the reserve line. By half-past 10 that also had vanished, and the British infantry, with cavalry close behind, was advancing in open country.

General Elles, in his flagship "Hilda," was first in the advance, and it was reported that he did much of his observing with his head thrust through the hatch in the roof, using his feet on the gunner's ribs to indicate the direction of targets. The "Hilda" flew the flag of the Tank Corps; that flag was several times hit, but not brought down. Comedy was not absent from that wild day. One member of a Tank crew lost his wig as his head emerged from the man-hole, and the official mind was racked for months with the problem whether this came under the head of loss of field equipment, of a limb, or clothing. Nor was heroism wanting on the enemy's side. The British official dispatch records one instance. "Many of the hits upon our defences at Flesquieres were obtained by a German artillery officer who, remaining alone at his battery, served a field-gun single-handed until killed at his gun. The great bravery of this officer aroused the admiration of all ranks."

The trial of the Tanks was over. The Battle of Cambrai did not realize to the full the expectations of the British Command. Great successes were won, but our reserves were too scanty to maintain them, and before the battle died away we lost much of the ground we had gained. But of the success of the Tanks there was no question. They stood forth as the most valuable tactical discovery of the campaigns, the weapon which enabled a commander-in-chief to obtain the advantage of surprise and to attack swiftly and secretly on new fronts. It was this weapon which, in the hand of Foch, was destined to break in turn each section of the German defences, and within a year from Cambrai to give the Allies victory.

*CHAPTER X.*

*THE SOUTH AFRICANS AT MARRIERES WOOD.*

In the spring of 1918, owing to the Russian Revolution, the Germans were able to concentrate all their strength in the West. Their aim was to break the Allied front by separating the French and the British before the United States of America could send her armies to the field. The attempt came very near success. The first blow fell on Thursday, 21st March; by the Saturday evening Sir Hubert Gough's Fifth Army was in retreat, and it seemed as if nothing could save Amiens.

The South African Brigade was part of the 9th Division, on the extreme left of the Fifth Army. It was in action from the first hour of the battle, and for two days, at the cost of some 900 casualties, it prevented a breach opening up at the worst danger-point--the junction of the armies of Byng and Gough. On the Saturday it was given a short time in reserve, but that afternoon it was again called into the fight. That evening General Tudor, commanding the 9th Division, visited its Brigadier, General Dawson. The 9th Division was holding an impossibly long line, and both its flanks were in the air. The South Africans were instructed to withdraw after dark to a position just west of the Arras-Peronne road and the village of Bouchavesnes. The orders were that this line was to be held "_at all costs._" Dawson accordingly began to withdraw his men about 9.45, and by 3 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, the 24th, the brigade was in position in the new line.

When the Sunday dawned the two regiments of South Africans were holding a patch of front which, along with Delville Wood, is the most famous spot in all their annals. The ground sloped eastward, and then rose again to another ridge about a thousand yards distant--a ridge which gave the enemy excellent posts for observation and machine-gun positions. There were one good trench and several bad ones, and the whole area was dotted with shell-holes. Dawson took up his headquarters in a support trench some three hundred yards in rear of the front line. The strength of the brigade was about five hundred in all. Dawson's only means of communication with divisional headquarters was by runners, and he had long lost touch with the divisional artillery.

It was a weary and broken little company which waited on that hilltop in the fog of dawn. During three days the five hundred had fought a score of battles. Giddy with lack of sleep, grey with fatigue, poisoned by gas and tortured by the ceaseless bombardment, officers and men had faced the new perils which each hour brought forth with a fortitude beyond all human praise. But wars are fought with the body as well as with the spirit, and the body was breaking. Since the 20th of March, while the men had received rations, they had had no hot food or tea. Neither they nor their officers had any guess at what was happening elsewhere. They seemed to be isolated in a campaign of their own, shut out from all knowledge of their fellows and beyond the hope of mortal aid.

Soon after daylight had struggled through the fog the enemy was seen massing his troops on the ridge to the east, and about 9 o'clock he deployed for the attack, opening with machine-gun fire, and afterwards with artillery. Dawson, divining what was coming, sent a messenger back to the rear with the brigade records. He had already been round every part of the position, and had disposed his scanty forces to the best advantage. At 10 o'clock some British guns opened an accurate fire, not upon the enemy, but upon the South African lines, especially on the trench where brigade headquarters were situated. Dawson was compelled to move to a neighbouring shell-hole. He sent a man on his last horse, followed by two runners, to tell the batteries what was happening, but the messengers do not seem to have reached their goal, and the fire continued for more than an hour, though happily with few casualties. After that it ceased, because the guns had retired. One of our heavies continued to fire on Bouchavesnes, and presently that, too, became silent.

It was the last the brigade heard of the British artillery.

Meantime the enemy gun-fire had become intense, and the whole position was smothered in dust and fumes. Men could not keep their rifles clean because of the debris filling the air. The Germans were now some 750 yards from our front, but did not attempt for the moment to approach closer, fearing the accuracy of the South African marksmanship. The firing was mostly done at this time by Lewis guns, for the ammunition had to be husbanded, and the men were ordered not to use their rifles till the enemy was within 400 yards. The Germans attempted to bring a field-gun into action at a range of 1,000 yards, but a Lewis gunner of the 1st Regiment knocked out the team before the gun could be fired. A little later another attempt was made, and a field-gun was brought forward at a gallop. Once again the fire of the same Lewis gunner proved its undoing. The team got out of hand, and men and horses went down in a struggling mass.

This sight cheered the thin ranks of the defence, and about noon came news which exalted every heart. General Tudor sent word that the 35th Division had arrived at Bray-sur-Somme, and had been ordered to take up position 1,000 yards in rear of the brigade. For a moment it seemed as if they still might make good their stand. But the 35th Division was a vain dream; it was never during that day within miles of the South Africans. Dawson sent back a report on the situation to General Tudor.

It was the last communication of the brigade with the outer world.

At midday the frontal attack had been held, an attack on the south had been beaten off, and also a very dangerous movement in the north. The grass was as dry as tinder. The enemy had set fire to it, and, moving behind the smoke as a screen, managed to work his way to within 200 yards of our position in the north. There, however, he was again checked. But by this time the German thrust elsewhere on the front was having successes. Already the enemy was in Combles on the north, and at Peronne and Clery on the south. The 21st Division on the right had gone, and the other brigades of the 9th Division on the South African left were being forced back. At about 2.30 an officer, with some 30 men, began to withdraw on that flank, under the impression that a general retirement had been ordered. As they passed headquarters, Major Cochran and Captain Beverley, with Regimental Sergeant-Major Keith of the 4th Regiment, went out under a concentrated machine-gun fire to stop them. The party at once returned to the firing line, and were put into shell-holes on the north flank. Unhappily Cochran was hit in the neck by a machine-gun bullet and died within three minutes.

Early in the afternoon Dawson attempted to adjust his remnant. The enemy now was about 200 yards from his front, and far in on his flank and rear. Major Ormiston took out some 25 men as a flank-guard for the left, in doing which he was dangerously wounded. All wounded men who could hold a rifle were stopped on their way to the dressing-station and sent back to the front line, and in no single instance did they show any reluctance to return. Ammunition was conserved with noble parsimony, and the last round was collected from those who had fallen. But it was now clear that the enemy was well to the west of the brigade, for snipers' fire began to come from the rear. Unless the miracle of miracles happened, the limit of endurance must be reckoned not in hours but in minutes. For the moment the most dangerous quarter seemed to be the north, and Lieutenant Cooper of the 2nd Regiment, with 20 men, was sent out to make a flank-guard in shell-holes 100 yards from brigade headquarters. The little detachment did excellent work, but their casualties were heavy, and frequent reinforcements had to be sent out to them. Lieutenant Cooper himself was killed by a fragment of shell.

As it drew towards 3 o'clock there came a last flicker of hope. The enemy in the north seemed to be retiring. The cry got up, "We can see the Germans surrendering," and at the same time the enemy artillery lengthened their range and put down a heavy barrage 700 yards to the west of the brigade. It looked as if the 35th Division had arrived, and for a little there was that violent revulsion of feeling which comes to those who see an unlooked-for light in darkness. The hope was short-lived. All that had happened was that the enemy machine-guns and snipers to the west of the brigade were causing casualties to his own troops to the east. He therefore assumed that they were British reinforcements.

About this time Lieutenant-Colonel Heal, commanding the 1st Regiment, was killed. He had already been twice wounded in the action, but insisted on remaining with his men. He had in the highest degree every quality which makes a fine soldier. I quote from a letter of one of his officers: "By this time it was evident to all that we were bound to go under, but even then Colonel Heal refused to be depressed. God knows how he kept so cheery all through that hell; but right up to when I last saw him, about five minutes before he was killed, he had a smile on his face and a pleasant word for us all."

All afternoon the shell-fire had been terrific. A number of light trench-mortars were also firing against the north-east corner of our front and causing heavy losses. The casualties had been so high that the whole line was now held only by a few isolated groups, and control was impossible. About 4 o'clock Christian made his way to Dawson and told him that he feared his men could not hold out much longer. Every machine-gun and Lewis gun was out of action, the ammunition was nearly gone, the rifles were choked, and the breaking-point of human endurance had been reached. The spirit was still unconquered, but the body was fainting.

Dawson had still the shadow of a hope that he might maintain his ground until dark, and then fight his way out. Like all good soldiers in such circumstances, he was harassed by doubts. The brigade was doomed; even if the struggle could be protracted till dusk, only a fragment could escape. Had he wished to withdraw he must have begun in the early morning, as soon as the enemy appeared, for once the battle was joined the position was a death trap. He had orders from the division to hold his ground "at all costs"--a phrase often given a vague meaning in war, but in this case taken literally. He wondered whether the stand might be of value to the British front, or whether it was not a useless sacrifice. He could only fall back for comfort on his instructions. He wrote thus in his diary: "I cannot see that under the circumstances I had any option but to remain till the end. Far better go down fighting against heavy odds than that it should be said we failed to carry out our orders. To retire would be against all the traditions of the Service."

Some time after 4.15, enemy masses appeared to the north-east of brigade headquarters. It was the final attack, for which three fresh battalions had been brought up, and the assault was delivered in close formation. There were now only 100 South Africans, some of them already wounded. There was not a cartridge left in the front line, and very few anywhere except in the pistols of the officers. Had they had ammunition they might have held even this last attack; as it was, it could be met only by a few scattered shots. The South Africans had resisted to the last moment when resistance was possible; and now they had no weapon. The Germans surged down upon a few knots of unarmed men. Dawson, with Christian and Beverley, walked out in front of a group which had gathered round them, and was greeted by the Germans with shouts of "Why have you killed so many of us?" and "Why did you not surrender sooner?" One man said, "Now we shall soon have peace," at which Dawson shook his head. Before he went eastward into captivity he was allowed to find Cochran's body and rescue his papers.

In all that amazing retreat, when our gossamer front refused to be broken by the most overwhelming odds, no British division did more nobly than the 9th. It held a crucial position in the line, and only by its stubborn endurance was a breach between Gough and Byng prevented. Among the brigades of the 9th, the chief brunt was borne by the South African.

Let us take the testimony of the enemy. During the German advance, Captain Peirson, the brigade major of another division, was taken prisoner. When he was examined at German headquarters an officer asked him if he knew the 9th Division; for, said he, "we consider that the fight put up by that division was one of the best on the whole of your front, especially the last stand of the South African Brigade, which we can only call magnificent." In the course of his journey to Le Cateau Captain Peirson was spoken to by many German officers, all of whom mentioned the wonderful resistance of the South Africans. There is a still more striking tribute. On the road to Le Cateau a party of British officers was stopped by the Emperor, who asked if any one present belonged to the 9th Division. "I want to see a man of that division," he said, "for if all divisions had fought as well as the 9th I would not have had any troops left to carry on the attack."

It was no piece of fruitless gallantry. Dawson, as he was tramping eastwards, saw a sight which told him that his decision had been right, and that his work had not been in vain. The whole road for miles east of Bouchavesnes was blocked by a continuous double line of transport and guns, which proved that the South Africans had for over seven hours held up not only a mass of German infantry, but all the artillery and transport advancing on the Bouchavesnes-Combles highway. Indeed, it is not too much to say that on that feverish Sabbath the stand of the brigade saved the British front. It was the hour of Von der Marwitz's most deadly thrust. While Gough was struggling at the Somme crossings, the Third Army had been forced west of Morval and Bapaume, far over our old battle-ground of the First Battle of the Somme. The breach between the two armies was hourly widening. But for the self-sacrifice of the brigade at Marrieres Wood and the delay in the German advance at its most critical point, it is doubtful whether Byng could ever have established that line on which, before the end of March, he held the enemy.

*CHAPTER XI.*

*THE BATTLE OF THE LYS.*

By 6th April 1918 the great German thrust towards Amiens had failed, and for the moment the gate of the Somme was closed. The city was under fire, the enemy was before its gates, but his strength was exhausted and he could not advance. Therefore his chief plan--of separating the French and the British--had come to nought. Brought to a standstill, he cast about for a diversion, for he could not permit the battle to decline into a stalemate, since he was fighting against time. His main purpose remained the same, but he sought to achieve it by a new method. He would attack the British elsewhere, on some part of the front where they were notoriously weak, and compel Foch to use up his reserves in its defence. Then, when the Allied resources had shrunk, he would strike again at the weakened door of Amiens. On the German side the operation was meant to be merely subsidiary, designed to prepare the way for the accomplishment of the main task farther south. They proposed to choose a battle-ground where even a small force might obtain important results. But so stoutly did the meagre British divisions resist that the enemy was compelled to extend the battle well into May, to squander thirty-five of his fresh divisions, and to forfeit for good his chance of final victory.

The new battle-ground was the area on both sides of the river Lys, between the La Bassee Canal and the Wytschaete Ridge. The German Staff knew that our front line had already been thinned to supply ten divisions for the struggle in the south, and at the moment it was weakly held, mainly by troops exhausted in the Somme battle. The enemy Staff chose their ground well. They had the great city of Lille behind them to screen the assembly. Certain key-points, such as Bethune and Hazebrouck, lay at no great distance behind the British front. The British communications were poor, while the German were all but perfect. If the enemy could break through at once between La Bassee and Armentieres and capture Bethune, he could swing north-westward and take Hazebrouck and the hills beyond Bailleul, and so threaten the Channel Ports, on which the British armies depended for supplies.

The attack began on Tuesday, 9th April. A Portuguese division south of the Lys was driven in at the first thrust, and through the gap the enemy streamed in. At a quarter-past ten that morning he was more than a mile to the rear of the division holding the left of the gap, which was accordingly compelled to retreat. On the right of the gap, covering Bethune, lay the 55th West Lancashire Division. The story of the Lys is a story of the successful defence of key-points against critical odds, and Givenchy, where the men of West Lancashire stood, was most vital, for unless it fell Bethune could not be taken, and unless Bethune were captured at once the enemy attack would be cramped into too narrow a gate. The 55th Division did not yield though outnumbered by four to one. They moved back their left flank but they still covered Bethune, and their right at Givenchy stood like a rock. By noon the enemy was in the ruins of Givenchy; in the afternoon the Lancashire men had recovered them; in the evening they were again lost, and in the night retaken. This splendid defence was the deciding event in the first stage of the battle. It was due, said the official report, "in great measure to the courage and determination displayed by our advance posts. Among the many gallant deeds recorded of them, one instance is known of a machine-gun which was kept in action although the German infantry had entered the rear compartment of the pill-box from which it was firing, the gun team holding up the enemy by revolver fire from the inner compartment."

Next day, 10th April, a new German army attacked north of the Lys, captured Messines, and was pouring over the Wytschaete crest. But at Wytschaete stood the 9th Division, which we have previously seen in action on the Somme at Marrieres Wood. There its South African Brigade had been completely destroyed, but a new one had been got together, and this second showed all the heroism of the first. That night they retook Messines, and during the evening cleared the Wytschaete Ridge. That stand saved the British northern flank and gave its commander time to adjust his front. For thirty hours the Germans were held up on that ridge, and when they finally advanced the worst danger was past.

The situation was still most critical. The French were sending troops, but with all possible resources utilized we were still gravely outnumbered, and the majority of the men were desperately weary from the Somme battle. On the 11th Sir Douglas Haig issued an Order of the Day, in which he appealed to his men to endure to the last. "There is no other course open to us than to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man; there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end." Not less solemn was Sir Arthur Currie's charge to the Canadian Corps before they entered the battle. "Under the orders of your devoted officers in the coming battle you will advance or fall where you stand, facing the enemy. To those who fall I say, 'You will not die, but will step into immortality. Your mothers will not lament your fate, but will be proud to have borne such sons. Your names will be revered for ever and ever by your grateful country, and God will take you unto Himself.'" It is a charge which has the noble eloquence of Cromwell or Lincoln.

Within a week it seemed as if the enemy had succeeded. On the evening of 15th April the Germans entered Bailleul, and the next day we withdrew from the ground won in the Third Battle of Ypres to a position a mile east of that town. By the 17th the enemy was in both Meteren and Wytschaete, and this meant that the northern pillar of our defence had gone. The next step for the Germans was to seize Mont Kemmel, the highest ground between them and the Channel, and a position which would presently give them Hazebrouck.