From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917 Part 19

V

THE SONG OF THE c.o.c.kCHAFERS

AUGUST 8

One of the most bitter blows to Germany, if she has heard the news, must be the destruction of the famous regiment of "Maikaefer," or c.o.c.kchafers, by our Welsh troops. The Kaiser called them his brave Coburgers. In Germany the very children sang in the streets about them.

And proud of their own exploits, they had their own soldier poets who wrote songs about the regiment, to which they marched through Belgium and France and Galicia. I saw one of these songs yesterday, picked up on the battlefield near Pilkem. It was written by one Paul Zimmermann of theirs, and was printed in a leaflet sold at ten pfennigs (a penny). It tells how the c.o.c.kchafers come out in the spring and how the children sing when they come. They are ready for battle then, wherever it may be.

The call comes for them wherever there is the hardest fighting, so the c.o.c.kchafers swarmed through Belgium, and taught the French a lesson, and pressed after the wicked English, who--so the lying legend goes--used dumdum bullets, and swept back the Russians through Galicia. Old Hindenburg calls for them every time when there are brave deeds to be done. I have copied out two verses for those who read German:

_Der Mai der bringt uns Sonnenschein, Er bringt uns Bluhtenpracht;_ _Der Mai der bringt uns Kaeferlein Viel tausend ber Nacht; Und von der Kinderlippen klingts: "Maikaefer, fliege, flieg"

Und durch den Frhlingesjubel dringts: "Dein Vater ist im Krieg."_

_Uns Garde Fusiliere nennt Maikaefer jeder Mund, Weil unser stolzes Regiment Im Mai stets fertig stand._

Well, old Hindenburg will call in vain now for his c.o.c.kchafers, the Guard Fusilier Regiment of the 3rd Guards Division, for nearly six hundred of them are in our hands and others lie dead upon the ground near Pilkem. They had relieved the 100th Infantry Reserve Regiment on the night of July 29, and lay three battalions deep in their trench systems across the Yser Ca.n.a.l north-east of Boesinghe, scattered thinly in the sh.e.l.l-craters which were all that was left of the trenches in the front lines, more densely ma.s.sed in the support lines, and defending a number of concrete emplacements and dug-outs behind. The 9th Grenadier Regiment and a battalion of the Lehr Regiment reinforced the c.o.c.kchafers and lay out in the open behind the Langemarck-Gheluvelt line, and in the support lines a battalion of the Lehr of the 3rd Guards Division had already relieved a regiment of the 392nd Infantry Reserve Regiment. Some sections of the 3rd Battalion of the 9th Grenadier Regiment had been sent forward from Langemarck to act as sniping posts, and two special machine-gun detachments were also pushed up to check our a.s.sault. They were enough to defend this part of the Pilkem Ridge, and the ground itself was in their favour as our men lay in the hollow with their backs to the Yser Ca.n.a.l, across which all their supports and supplies had to pa.s.s.

What was in the favour of the Welsh was that they knew the ground in front of them in every detail from air photographs and from night and day raids, having lived in front of it for several months, digging and tunnelling so as to get cover from ceaseless fire, and storing up a great desire to get even with the enemy for all they had suffered. They had suffered great hards.h.i.+ps and great perils, intensified before the battle because of violent sh.e.l.ling by high explosives and gas-sh.e.l.ls, so that when the hour for attack came they had been hard tried already. It made no difference to the pace and order of their a.s.sault. Our bombardment had been overwhelming, and the heavy barrage which signalled the a.s.sault was, according to all these Welshmen, perfect. They followed it very closely, so closely that they were on and over the c.o.c.kchafers before they could organize any kind of defence. Many of the enemy's machine-guns had been smashed and buried. Those still intact were never brought into action, as their gunners had no time to get out of the concrete shelters in which they were huddled to escape from the annihilating fire.

It was in these places that most of the prisoners were taken--there and in a big trench, ten feet wide and twelve deep, on the outskirts of Pilkem village, where there is no village at all. The c.o.c.kchafers came out dazed, and gave themselves up mostly without a show of fighting. In some of their concrete shelters, like those at Mackensen Farm--don't imagine any buildings there--and Gallwitz Farm and Boche House and Zouave House, there were stores of ammunition, with many sh.e.l.ls and trench-mortars.

So the Welsh went on in waves, sending back the prisoners on their way, through Pilkem to the high ground by the iron cross beyond, and then down the slopes to the Steenbeek stream. On the left were the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, who took the ground of Pilkem itself. On the right were men of the Welsh Regiment. In the ground beyond Pilkem they found the regimental headquarters in finely built dug-outs, but the staff had fled to save their skins. There was another big dug-out near by used by the enemy as a dressing-station. It had room enough for a hundred men. There were fifty men. The Welsh swarmed round it--thirty wounded and twenty unwounded Germans. The doctor in charge was a good fellow, and, after surrendering his own men, attended to some of the wounded Welsh. Two machine-guns and sixteen prisoners were taken out of a place called Jolie Farm, and thirty prisoners out of Rudolf Farm--concrete kennels in a chaos of craters--and three officers and forty-seven men came out of the ruins of a house somewhere near the Iron Cross. All the Welsh troops behaved with great courage, and a special word is due to the runners, who carried messages back under fire, and to the stretcher-bearers, who rescued the wounded utterly regardless of their own risks. Afterwards the mule drivers and leaders were splendid, bringing up supplies under heavy barrage fire. Wales did well that day, and the Welsh miners, who had already proved themselves as great diggers and great tunnellers and very brave men, showed themselves cool and fearless in the a.s.sault.

AUGUST 6

I am now able to mention more of the troops whose adventures I have described in previous dispatches, in addition to the Guards and the Welsh, who in a great a.s.sault, hardly checked by the enemy, captured the heights of Pilkem and went down the slopes beyond to the Steenbeek stream.

The Manchesters, with Royal Scots, Royal Irish Rifles, and Durham Light Infantry of the 8th Division, were amongst those who attacked Stirling Castle below Inverness Copse, as I narrated in full detail yesterday, with the incident of the runner who captured eighteen prisoners in a dug-out and of the young brigade major who reorganized the position and found five Germans in the great tunnel under the Menin road.

As I have already said, it was the men of Lancas.h.i.+re with battalions of the Liverpool Regiment of the 55th Division who went up from Wieltje against the concrete forts, where they fought in many independent little actions under platoon commanders, who shot down the gunners of five German batteries, and went forward as though on the drill-ground, in spite of heavy losses and great fire, to Wurst Farm and the high ground below the Gravenstafel, until they were forced to fall back somewhat under a heavy German counter-attack, when 160 men covered the withdrawal, and ten alone got back.

Farther south, they were Scots of the 15th Division who attacked the Frezenberg--Gordons and Camerons among them--and farther south still on their right were Sherwood Foresters and others of the 39th Division, who had some of the hardest fighting of the day, up through Hooge, that place of old ill-fame, round Bellewaerde Lake and across the Menin road to the Westhoek Ridge.

It was these Scots and these English who bore the brunt of the great German counter-attack on the afternoon of August 1. After fighting their way forward past the pill-box emplacements or concrete redoubts with a stiff and separate fight at the ruin of an estaminet on the cross-roads at Westhoek, where a sergeant and ten or twelve men captured forty of the enemy, the Sherwood Foresters and their comrades took "cover" during the night, exposed to fierce sh.e.l.l-fire and drenched in the rain, now falling steadily, and filling the sh.e.l.l-craters with mud and water, so that men were up to their waist in them. It was at about 2.30 on the following afternoon that the enemy developed his counter-attack from the direction of Bremen Redoubt and the high ground beyond our line, taking advantage of the mist to a.s.semble and get forward. It was the critical hour of the battle.

The enemy's attack was preceded by a heavy artillery barrage, and by an incessant and wide-stretching blast of machine-gun fire. His a.s.saulting troops drove first at the Midland men south of the Roulers railway, and the Sherwoods and Northamptons tried to hold their line by rifle-fire, Lewis-gun fire, and bombs. When officers fell wounded the non-commissioned officers and men carried on and fought a soldiers'

battle. One Lewis-gunner drove the enemy back from a gap in the lines and others held back the enemy's storm troops long enough to give their comrades time to get into good order as far as was possible in a fight of this kind. The Germans forced their way forward among the sh.e.l.l-craters and ruins hoping to surround the Sherwoods and the men of Nottingham and Derby, who were steadily firing and fighting, so that the enemy's losses were not light. Meanwhile the Scots of the 15th Division on the left were meeting the attack and found their flank exposed owing to these happenings on their right. It became more and more exposed as the attack proceeded, and just before three o'clock the Gordons, who were in this perilous position, had to swing back. This movement uncovered the battalion headquarters, where one of the officers, acting as adjutant, had turned out his staff, which fought to defend the position. He then gathered all the Gordons in his neighbourhood and held on to the station buildings. Meantime the left of the Gordons had been swung back to form a defensive flank, and with two Vickers guns they swept the rear lines of the storm troops with deadly fire. The enemy fell in great numbers, but other waves came on and nearly reached the top of the crest upon which our men had formed their line. There a young officer of the Gordons seized the critical moment of the battle and by his rapid action proved himself a great soldier. With some of the Camerons he led his men forward down the slopes towards the advancing enemy, each man firing with his rifle as he advanced, making gaps in the German wave. The enemy stood up to this for a minute or two, but when the Highlanders were within fifty yards of them they broke and ran. As they fled our gunners, who had not seen the first S O S signals owing to the mist, came into action and inflicted great losses upon the retreating men. But the day was saved by the action of the Scottish infantry, who had learned the use of the rifle in open warfare, and who had been trained for this kind of action in small groups, acting largely on individual initiative. Many of the enemy were surrounded by fire, and one officer and seven men gained our line in safety, while the others were caught in a death-trap. There were moments when, but for the courage and discipline of our troops, the enemy's counter-attack had a great chance of success, and the history of this battle might have been less victorious for us.

VI

WOODS OF ILL-FAME

AUGUST 12

There was violent fighting yesterday. After our successful advance at dawn across the Westhock Ridge, when more than 200 prisoners were taken, the right of our attack in Glencorse Wood, or Schloss Park as the Germans call it, and among the tree-stumps which were once woods south of that, was heavily engaged with an enemy concealed in the usual concrete emplacements, and defending himself with well-placed machine-guns.

Among our troops who had the hardest struggle were the Irish Rifles, Ches.h.i.+res, Lancas.h.i.+re Fusiliers, North Lancas.h.i.+res, and Worcesters.h.i.+res of the 25th Division against Glencorse Wood, and the Bedfords and Queen's of the 18th Division against Inverness Copse.

As on the ridge, the infantry came to close quarters and fought with bombs and rifles and bayonets, but it was mainly gun-fire again which decided the issues of the day and caused most losses on both sides. As I have said many times, since the battle of July 31 the enemy has ma.s.sed a great power of artillery against us, and has apparently no immediate lack of ammunition. For miles the horizon was seething with the smoke of heavy sh.e.l.ls. The enemy's barrage-fire was great. Ours was greater.

Between Glencorse Wood and Inverness Copse, and all about Stirling Castle and the Frezenberg, he made a h.e.l.l of fire, and many of our men had to pa.s.s through its fury, and not all pa.s.sed or came back again. But afterwards the enemy's turn came, and ma.s.ses of his men, thick waves of them, sent forward with orders to counter-attack, were caught under the fire of our guns and smashed to pieces.

The enemy attempted five separate counter-attacks yesterday, and in spite of all his losses renewed his efforts this morning with great determination, so that, after the exhaustion and ordeal of the night under continual fire, our men were compelled to give way in Glencorse Wood. That was necessary, because farther south the enemy had held their ground, and the copse was a salient exposed to hara.s.sing fire from large numbers of guns in the neighbourhood of Polygon Wood and the country east. It is a favourite device of the enemy to withdraw his guns on to the flanks of our advance, as soon as we have penetrated his lines, in order to check further progress, and he did this as soon as the battle of July 31 was fought, though he had to leave many of his field-guns in the mud of No Man's Land, where they still lie.

This method of defence did not ensure the success of his counter-attacks, though it had made the progress of our men hard south of Glencorse Wood. It was at about midday yesterday that our troops, who had made good their ground along Westhoek Ridge, had to call for further help from the guns. At the same time aeroplanes, taking advantage of wonderful visibility after the rains, were above the German lines, and saw a great gathering of German troops in Nuns' Wood and Polygon Wood.

The calls were answered by large groups of batteries over a stretch of country miles deep. The heavies, far behind the lines, answered with 15-inch and 12-inch sh.e.l.ls. The 92's heard the call in the quiet fields, where wild flowers grow over old sh.e.l.l-holes. Their 8-inch brothers heard the call and came quick into action. Six-inch and 42's made reply, and from them broke out one great salvo, followed by long rolls of drum-fire. Among the sh.e.l.l-craters of Nuns' Wood there were hundreds of men lined up for attack. They had their rifles at the slope, and they were hung round with bombs and trench-spades and cloth bags with iron rations, and they began to move forward just as that bombardment opened upon them. All the sh.e.l.l-fire burst over them and into them. They were swept by it. They were killed in heaps. Afterwards one of our airmen flew low over that stricken wood where they had been, and he came back with his report. Never before, he said, had he seen so many dead men. The German soldiers were lying there in great numbers.

Other attempts were made to get forward, but it was only on the right, where there was close fighting, that the enemy made any progress.

At about six in the evening there was another call on our gunners, and this time the report came that the enemy was a.s.sembling in the valley of the Hanebeek. Two battalions of them were able to advance into the open towards our lines before our guns found their target. Then they flung themselves down under this new storm of fire or tried to escape from it by running or plunging into sh.e.l.l-craters. There were not many who escaped.

One of them who became a prisoner in our hands said that two battalions were annihilated--he used the phrase "wiped out." Perhaps that was an exaggeration. There are always some men who slip through, but in this case whole ranks of men were blown to bits.

I talked to-day with some of our own wounded who came limping through the casualty clearing-stations. They were men of the Worcesters and Bedfords and Queen's, whose battalions I have met before after battles.

One of them told me how he lay out all night waiting for the attack in the dawn on Glencorse Wood and Inverness Copse. There are only tree-stumps there in the great white stretch of sh.e.l.l-craters, and the enemy was holding the place lightly with machine-guns in those pits that had been made by our fire. Our men were upon them quick after the barrage, and they were routed out of their holes before they had time to put up a strong defence. By bad luck, as sometimes happens, owing to the eagerness of our men to cover as much ground as possible, the Irish Rifles and the North Lancas.h.i.+res of the 25th Division went at least 200 yards beyond their goal, and were caught in our barrage, which was preventing supports coming up to the enemy. As soon as they realized their deadly error they fell back again, carrying their wounded.

LATER

There was sharp hand-to-hand fighting on the Westhoek Ridge by the Lancas.h.i.+re Fusiliers, North Lancas.h.i.+res, and Ches.h.i.+res. Both sides at last came into the open, the enemy standing about his concrete houses as our men advanced upon them, and using machine-guns and rifles. Most of these Germans were men of the 54th Reserve Division, and bold fellows who did not surrender so easily as I first imagined, in spite of the intense and prolonged barrage that had swept over them and wrecked their ground. In a strong point at the south end of the ridge, one of those concrete blockhouses which shelter machine-guns, they held out for three hours, and it was only taken when it had been battered by trench-mortars brought up into action at close range by some gallant men of ours, and when it was rushed from the flanks while the ground was still being swept by bullets. After that the ridge was ours on its forward slopes, at the northern end dropping below the western slopes southwards.

In Glencorse Wood the Lancas.h.i.+re men were enfiladed by machine-guns when a large part of the wood was no longer in our hands. It is on high ground, and with other slopes beyond, like those of Nuns' Wood and Polygon Wood, forms the barrier guarding the vital centres of the German position in the north, so that he fights to hold it with the full weight of his power in men and guns. Both are powerful, and his fire on Friday and Sat.u.r.day was the fiercest ever faced by men who have fought through the Somme and later battles.

But his counter-attacks have failed against our Westhoek positions, and everything I have heard shows that his battalions, above all the 27th Regiment, were ma.s.sacred by our artillery. Those Germans did not all die by sh.e.l.l-fire. The Lancas.h.i.+re Fusiliers and the North Lancas.h.i.+res fired their rifles all through Friday and Sat.u.r.day at human targets they could not fail to hit. German reserves hurried up to relieve the shattered battalions and flung straight into the counter-attacks, wandered about in the open, ignorant of our men's whereabouts, like lost sheep. They were in full field kit, and as they came into the open our men shot at them with deadly effect. The first sign of the first great counter-attack on Friday was when seventy men or so came forward on the left and tried to rush an old German gun-emplacement. They were seen by the Lancas.h.i.+re Fusiliers, and the commanding officer, believing that an attack was imminent, sent through the call for the guns which led to the bombardment I have described in my earlier message.

We also opened a widespread barrage of machine-gun fire, and this caused heavy slaughter. All the country was aflame throughout the afternoon of Friday, and it was before the attack, at 6.40 in the evening, that the enemy's artillery concentrated in full and frightful fury. This artillery-fire has never ceased since then, though slackening down a little from time to time, and to-day it was in full blast again. It is a day of wonderful light, so that every tree and house and field of standing corn is seen for miles from any height in a stereoscopic panorama below a fleecy sky with long blue reaches between the cloud mountains. There was a lot of air fighting this morning because of this light across the landscape, and wherever I motored to-day there was the loud drone of the flying engines, and little fat bursts of shrapnel trying to catch German planes who came over on bombing adventures above our camps and villages. The enemy is all out, and it seems to me likely that he wishes to make this battle a decisive one of the war. I do not see how he can hope to decide it in his own favour after the loss of the Pilkem and Westhoek Ridges, but he is out to kill regardless of his own losses.

VII

THE BATTLE OF LANGEMARCK

AUGUST 16

This morning our troops made a general advance beyond the line of our recent attacks and gained about 1500 yards of ground on a wide front, which includes the village of Langemarck, and goes southward in the region of Glencorse Copse and Polygon Wood. From north to south the divisions engaged were the 29th, 20th, 11th, 48th, 36th (Ulster), 16th (Irish), 8th, and 56th.

On the left of our troops the French went forward also, and struck out into the swampy neck of ground which they call the Peninsula or Presqu'ile, surrounded on three sides by deep floods. On the right of our attack the fighting has been most violent, and the enemy has made strong and repeated counter-attacks over all the high ground which drops down to Glencorse Wood from the Nuns' Wood to the Hanebeek. His losses have been high, for although the weather is still stormy, making the ground bad for our men, there is light for our flying men and artillery observers, and at various parts of the Front his a.s.sembly of troops has been signalled quickly, so that our guns have smashed up his formations and caused great slaughter.

The Germans used to call the battles of the Somme the "blood-bath."