From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917 Part 17

IX

THE STRUGGLE FOR h.e.l.l WOOD

JUNE 14

Between Wytschaete and Messines is a wood, horribly ravaged by sh.e.l.l-fire, called on our trench-maps Bois de l'Enfer, or h.e.l.l Wood.

North of it was a German strong point, with barbed-wire defences and heavy blocks of concrete, called l'Enfer--h.e.l.l itself--and south of it, behind a labyrinth of trenches, some broken walls above a nest of dug-outs, known as h.e.l.l Farm. These filthy places were central defences of great fortified positions held by the enemy just north of Messines, and just south of Wytschaete, and round them and beyond them was some of the fiercest fighting which happened on that day of battle when we gained the Messines Ridge.

Until now I have left out that part of the battle story--one cannot write the history of a battle like that in a day or two--but it must be told, because it was vastly important to the success of the general action, and the troops engaged in it showed the finest courage. They were men of the 25th Division, including Cheshires, Irish Rifles, Lancashire Fusiliers, North Lanes, and Worcesters, and other country lads who were blooded in battles of the Somme, where once I watched them surging up the high slopes under a heavy fire and fighting their way into the German trenches. In this battle of h.e.l.l Wood they were so wonderful in the cool, steady way they fought that when an airman came down to report their progress he said to their General, "I knew your fellows, because they advanced in perfect order as though on parade."

Before the battle, when they lay about Wulverghem, opposite the fortress positions they had to attack, they did some great digging in the face of the enemy a.s.sembly trenches, as plain as pikestaves to German observers, and advertising, as did the enormous ammunition dumps, new batteries and wagon-lines, the awful stroke of attack that was being prepared.

It was a record night's work of twelve hundred Lancashire lads who went out into the dead strip between their trenches and the enemy's, and dug like demons. When at dawn they crept back to their own lines they left behind them a trench four-feet-six deep and 1050 yards long for a jump-out line on the day of battle. The enemy officers saw it, and must have sickened at the sight. They marked it on their maps, which were captured afterwards. It was frightful ground in front of these troops of ours, as I have seen it partly for myself from ground about the mine-craters looking over h.e.l.l Wood.

The first part of our men's advance after the moment of attack was hardly checked, and they went forward in open order as steadily as though in the practice fields, through b.u.t.tercups and daisies. Their trouble came later, when they found themselves under machine-gun fire from h.e.l.l Wood, on the left of their advance line, and from h.e.l.l Farm in front of them. It was a body of Cheshires who side-slipped to the left to deal with that fire from the wood. They made a dash for those scarred tree-trunks, from which a stream of bullets poured, and fought their way through to the German machine-gun emplacements, though a number of them fell. As they closed upon the enemy the German gunners ceased fire in a hurry. Many of them stopped abruptly, with bullets in their brains, and fifty men surrendered with fourteen machine-guns. h.e.l.l Farm was gained and held, and at the top of h.e.l.l Wood the Cheshires routed out another machine-gun, so that all was clear in this part of the field.

Meanwhile the main body of a.s.saulting troops--Lancashire Fusiliers, North Lanes, Irish Rifles, and Worcesters--had pa.s.sed on to another system of defences known as October Trench, which was a barrier straight across their way. Here, as they drew close, they came to a dead halt against a broad belt of wire uncut by our gun-fire, and hideously tangled in coils with sharp barbs. Behind, as some of the officers knew, the enemy had brought up twenty-six machine-guns, enough to sweep down a whole battalion held by wire like this. Even now the men don't know how they went over that wire. They knew instantly that they must get across or die. From October Support Trench, farther back, with another belt of uncut wire in front of it, heavy fire was coming from Germans who had their heads up. "Over you go, men," shouted the officers. The men flung themselves over, scrambled over, rolled over, tearing hands and faces and bits of flesh on those rusty p.r.o.ngs, but getting over or through somehow and anyhow. Parties of them raced on to October Support Trench, flung themselves against that wire and got, bleeding and scratched, to the other side, unless they were killed first. Some of them fell. It was the most deadly episode of the day, but the Germans paid a ghastly price for this resistance, and 300 German dead lie on that ground round the old ruins of Middle Farm behind the wire.

Away back when fighting here began was a body of Irish Rifles who had gone as far as they had been told to go. They saw what was happening, watched those other men flinging themselves against the barbed hedge.

"To h.e.l.l with staying here," shouted one of them. "To h.e.l.l with it,"

said others. "We could do a power of good up there."

"Come on then, boys," said the first men, beginning to run. They ran fast towards the end of the wire belt, slipped round it, and fell on the flank of the enemy. It was timely help to the other men, some of whom owe their lives to it.

The second phase of the battle began when another body of the same troops pa.s.sed through those who had already a.s.saulted and won their ground, and went forward to a new line beyond. They pa.s.sed through in perfect order, which is a most difficult manoeuvre in battle when the ground is covered with troops who have already been fighting, with wounded men and stretcher-bearers, and souvenir-hunters and moppers-up and runners, and all the tumult of new-gained ground. But in long, unbroken waves the fresh troops lined up beyond these crowds, and made ready to advance upon the new line of attack. Again, groups of them had to be separated from the main body in order to seize isolated positions on the wings, where groups of Germans were holding out and sweeping our flanks with fire.

North-east and south-east of Lumm Farm were bits of trench from which the enemy was routed after sharp bouts of fighting. Beyond were some holed walls called Nameless Farm, and these were captured before the call of "cease firing," which was the signal for the party to halt while our guns began a new bombardment over the new line of attack.

It was this silence which scared an officer of the Cheshires, who had led his men away forward to capture a body of Germans trying to escape from Despagne Farm, right out in the blue this side of Owl Trench, which was the next position to be attacked, after our guns had dealt with it.

A sergeant and two men of the Cheshires ran right into Despagne Farm and bayoneted the German machine-gunners who had been spraying bullets on our men. Then the officer seemed to feel his heart stop. He looked at his wrist-watch, and was shocked at the time it gave. The realization of the frightful menace approaching as every second pa.s.sed made every nerve in his body tingle. It was our new bombardment. A vast storm of explosives which was about to sweep over this ground, already pitted with deep sh.e.l.l-holes, it seemed as though nothing could save this body of Cheshires, who had gone too far and could not get back before their own guns killed them. There was only one chance of escape for any of them, and that was for each man to dive into one of those eight-feet-deep sh.e.l.l-holes and crouch low, scratching himself into the shelving sides before the h.e.l.lish storm of steel broke loose. The Cheshires did this, flung themselves into the pits, lay quaking there like toads under a harrow, and hugged the earth as the bombardment burst out and swept over them. By an amazing freak of fortune it swept over them quickly, and there were only two casualties among all those men huddled in holes, expecting certain death. A bit of luck, said the men, getting up and gasping. Weaker men would have been broken by sh.e.l.l-shock and terror-stricken. These Cheshires went on, took the next German defences and many prisoners, and then dug in according to orders and prepared for anything that might happen in the way of trouble. It was the German counter-attack which happened. Six hundred men came debouching out of a gully called Blawepoortbeek, with its mouth opposite Despagne Farm. The Cheshires had their machine-guns in position and their rifles ready. They held back their fire until the German column was within short range. Then they fired volley after volley, and those 600 men found themselves in a valley of death, and few escaped.

PART V

THE BATTLES OF FLANDERS

I

BREAKING THE SALIENT

JULY 31

The battle which all the world has been expecting has begun. After weeks of intense bombardment, not on our side only, causing, as we know, grave alarm throughout Germany and anxiety in our enemy's command, we launched a great attack this morning on a front stretching, roughly, from the River Lys to Boesinghe. We have gained ground everywhere, and with the help of French troops, who are fighting shoulder to shoulder with our own men, in the northern part of the line above Boesinghe, we have captured the enemy's positions across the Yser Ca.n.a.l and thrust him back from a wide stretch of country between Pilkem and Hollebeke. He is fighting desperately at various points, with a great weight of artillery behind him, and has already made strong counter-attacks and flung up his reserves in order to check this sweeping advance. Many Tanks have gone forward with our infantry, sometimes in advance and sometimes behind, according to the plan of action mapped out for them, and have done better than well against several of the enemy's strong points, where, for a time, our men were held up by machine-gun fire.

So far our losses are not heavy, and many of these are lightly wounded, but it is likely that the enemy's resistance will be stronger as the hours pa.s.s, because he realizes the greatness of our menace, and will, beyond doubt, bring up all the strength he has to save himself from a complete disaster. During the past few weeks the correspondents in the field have not even hinted at the approach of the battle that has opened to-day, though other people have not been so discreet, and the enemy himself has sounded the alarm. But we have seen many of the preparations for this terrific adventure in the north, and have counted the days when all these men we have seen pa.s.sing along the roads, all these guns, and the tidal wave of ammunition which has flowed northwards should be ready for this new conflict, more formidable than any of the fighting which raged along the lines since April of this year.

I am bound to say that as the days have drawn nearer some of us have shuddered at the frightful thing growing ripe for history as the harvests of France have ripened. Poring over maps of this northern front, and looking across the country from the coast-line and newly taken hills, like those of Wytschaete, the difficulty of the ground which our men have to attack has been horribly apparent. Those swamps in the north around Dixmude, the Yser Ca.n.a.l, which must be bridged under fire, the low flats of our lines around Ypres, like the well of an amphitheatre, with the enemy above on the Pilkem Ridge, were so full of peril for attacking troops that optimism itself might be frightened and downcast.

As I have written many times lately, the enemy has ma.s.sed great gun-power against us, and has poured out fire with unparalleled ferocity in order to hinder our preparations. Our bombardments were more terrific, and along the roads were always guns, guns, guns, going up to increase the relative powers of our own and the German artillery. There was little doubt that in the long run ours would be overwhelming, but meanwhile the enemy was strong and destructively inclined. All the time he was puzzled and nerve-racked, not knowing where our attack would fall upon him, and he made many raids, mostly unsuccessful, to find out our plans, while we raided him day and night to see what strength he was ma.s.sing to meet us. Russia lured him, and in spite of our threat he has sent off some six divisions, I believe, to his Eastern theatre of operations, but at the same time he relieved many of the divisions which had been broken by our fire in the lines, replacing them by his freshest and strongest troops. They did not remain fresh, even after only a few hours, for our guns caught some of them during their reliefs, as late as two o'clock this morning in the case of the 52nd Reserve Division, so that they stepped straight into an inferno of fire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Pa.s.schendaele ridge]

The weather was against us, as many times before a battle. Yesterday it was a day of rain and heavy, sodden clouds, so that observation was almost impossible for our flying men and kite-balloons, and our artillery was greatly hampered. The night was dark and moist, but luck was with us so far that a threatening storm did not break, and our men kept dry. The darkness was in our favour, and the a.s.saulting troops were able to form up for attack very close to the enemy's lines--lines of sh.e.l.l-craters in fields of craters from which our storms of fire had swept away all trenches, all buildings, and all trees. The enemy held these forward positions lightly by small groups of men, who knew themselves to be doomed, and waited for that doom in their pits like animals in death-traps. In their second-line defences, less damaged, but awful enough in wreckage of earthworks, the enemy was in greater strength, and from these positions flares went up all through the night, giving a blurred white light along the barriers of mist, and rising high into the cloudy sky. Scores of thousands of our men, lying on the wet earth in puddles and mud-holes, watched those flares and hoped they would not be revealed before the second when they would have to rise and go forward to meet their luck. They lay there silently, never stirring, nor coughing, nor making any rattle of arms, while German sh.e.l.ls pa.s.sed over them or smashed among them, killing and wounding some of those who lay close. Enemy aircraft came out in the night bolder than by day, since they have been chased and attacked and destroyed in great numbers by British flying men, determined to get the mastery of the air, and to blind the enemy's eyes before this battle, and beyond any doubt successful as far as this day goes. The night-birds swooped over places where they thought our batteries were hidden and dropped bombs, but as they could see nothing their aim was bad, and they did no important damage, if any at all. So the hours of the night crept by, enormously long to all those men of ours waiting for the call to rise and go. Our gun-fire had never stopped for weeks in its steady slogging hammering, but shortly after half-past three this ordinary noise of artillery quickened and intensified to a monstrous and overwhelming tumult. It was so loud that twelve miles behind the lines big houses moved and were shaken with a great trembling. People farther away than that awakened with fear and went to their windows and stared out into the darkness, and saw wild fireb.a.l.l.s in the sky, and knew that men were fighting and dying in Flanders in one of the great battles of the world. This morning I watched the fires of this battle from an observation-post on the edge of the salient. I knew what I should have seen if there had been any light, for I saw those places a day or two ago from the same spot. I should have seen the ghost-city of Ypres, and the curve of the salient round by Pilkem, St.-Julien, and Zillebeke, and then Warneton and Houthem below the Messines Ridge. But now there was no light, but hundreds of sharp red flashes out of deep gulfs of black smoke and black mist. The red flashes were from our forward batteries and heavy guns, and over all this battlefield, where hundreds of thousands of men were at death-grips, the heavy, smoke-laden vapours of battle and of morning fog swirled and writhed between clumps of trees and across the familiar places of death round Ypres, hiding everything and great ma.s.ses of men. The drum-fire of the guns never slackened for hours. At nine o'clock in the morning it beat over the countryside with the same rafale of terror as it had started before four o'clock.

Strangely above this hammering and thundering of two thousand guns or more of ours, answered by the enemy's barrage, railway whistles screamed from trains taking up more sh.e.l.ls, and always more sh.e.l.ls, to the very edge of the fighting-lines, and in between the ma.s.sed batteries, using them as hard as they could be unloaded.

Over at Warneton and Oostaverne, in the valley below the Messines Ridge, the enemy was pouring fire along our line, sh.e.l.ls of the heaviest calibre, which burst monstrously, and raised great pillars of white smoke. It was a valley of death there, and our men were in it, and fighting for the slopes beyond.

It is a battle, so far, of English, Scottish, and Welsh troops, with some of the Anzacs--New-Zealanders as well as Australians--and all along the line they have fought hard and with good success over ground as difficult as any that has ever been a battlefield, because of the ca.n.a.l and the swamps and the hollow cup of the Ypres area, with the enemy on the rim of it.

Among the battalions who fought hardest were the Liverpools, the South and North Lancashires, the Liverpool Scottish and Liverpool Irish, the Lancashire Fusiliers, Lancashire Regiment, the King's Royal Rifles, West Kents, Surreys, Durham Light Infantry, the Cheshires, Warwicks, Staffords, Suss.e.x, Wiltshires and Somersets, the Royal Irish Rifles, the Black Watch, Camerons, Gordons and Royal Scots, the Welsh battalions, and the Guards. From north to south the Divisions engaged were the Guards, the 38th (Welsh), the 51st (Highland), the 39th, the 55th, the 15th (Scottish), the 8th, 30th, 41st, 19th, and Anzacs on the extreme right.

One can always tell from the walking wounded whether things are going ill or well. At least, they know the fire they have had against them, and the ease or trouble with which they have taken certain ground, and the measure of their sufferings. So now, with an awful doubt in my mind, because of the darkness and the anxiety of men conducting the battle over the signal-lines, and that awful drum-fire beating into one's ears and soul, I was glad to get first real tidings from long streams of lightly wounded fellows coming along from the dressing-station. They were lightly wounded, but pitiful to see, because of the blood that drenched them--b.l.o.o.d.y kilts and b.l.o.o.d.y khaki, and bare arms and chests, with the cloth cut away from their wounds, and bandaged heads, from which tired eyes looked out. One would not expect good tidings from men who had suffered like these, but they spoke of a good day, of good progress, of many prisoners, and of an enemy routed and surrendering. "A good day"--that was their first phrase, though for them it meant the loss of a limb or sharp pain anyhow, and remembrance of the blood and filth of battle. They were eager to describe their fighting, and I saw again the pride of men in the courage of their comrades, forgetting their own, which had been as great. These lads told me how they lay out in the night, and how the German planes came over, bombing them; how they rose and went forward in attack. The enemy was quickly turned out of his front line of sh.e.l.l-craters, and there were not many of him there. In the second line he was thickly ma.s.sed, but some of them threw up their hands at once, crying "Mercy!"

The Scots came up against a strong emplacement fitted with machine-guns, and here the German gunners fired rapidly, so that our men were checked.

They rushed the place, and at the last a German hoisted a white flag, but even then others fired, and I met one young Scot to-day who had a comrade killed after that sign of surrender.

Beyond Ypres, on the way to Menin, there was a big tunnel where our English lads expected trouble, as it could hold hundreds of Germans. But when they came to the tunnel and ferreted down it they only found forty-one men, who surrendered at once. Some of the enemy's troops were quite young boys of the 1918 cla.s.s, but most of them were older and tougher men. The success of the day is shared by English troops, including the Guards, with the Welsh, who fought abreast of them with equal heroism, and with Scottish and Anzacs. The Welsh have wiped out the most famous German regiment of the Third Guards Division, known as the "c.o.c.kchafers."

Fighting with us, the French troops kept pace with their usual gallantry, carrying all their objectives according to the time-table.

In one great and irresistible a.s.sault, these troops of two nations swept across the enemy lines and have reached heights on the Pilkem Ridge, as I hope to tell to-morrow in greater detail. For the day, it is enough to say that our success has been as great as we dared to hope.

II

FROM PILKEM RIDGE TO HOLLEBEKE

AUGUST 1

The weather is still abominable. Heavy rain-storms have water-logged the battlefields, and there are dense mists over all the countryside. It is bad for fighting on land, and worse for fighting in the air. But fighting goes on. Yesterday the enemy made strong counter-attacks at many points of our new line, and especially to the north of Frezenberg, west of Zonnebeke, where, at three in the afternoon, his infantry advanced upon the 15th (Scottish) Division after a violent bombardment.

They were swept down by artillery and machine-gun fire. At five o'clock they came on again, moving suddenly out of a dense smoke-barrage, and gained 300 yards of ground. Our guns poured sh.e.l.ls on to this ground, and at nine o'clock last night our men went behind the barrage and regained this position. The enemy's gun-fire is intense over a great part of the country taken from him, and his long-range guns are sh.e.l.ling far behind the lines. Generally the situation is exactly the same as it stood at the end of the first day of battle, when our advance was firm and complete at the northern end of the attack, where the Guards and the Welsh had swept over the Pilkem Ridge without great trouble, and where farther south the troops who had advanced beyond St.-Julien had to fall back a little, partly under the pressure of counter-attacks, but chiefly in order to get into line with their right wing, which had been engaged in the hardest fighting, and had not reached the same depth of country.

That was in the wooded ground south-east of the salient, where the enemy had a large number of machine-guns in the cover of Glencorse Copse, Inverness Wood, and Shrewsbury Forest, and repulsed the very desperate attacks of the 8th and 30th Divisions.

Outside one copse there was a very strong position, known to our men as Stirling Castle. It was once a French chteau, surrounded by a park and outbuildings, long destroyed but made into a strong point with concrete emplacements. Rapid machine-gun fire poured out of this place against our men, but it was captured after several rushes. The trenches in front of it were also gained by the Royal Scots and Durham Light Infantry of the 8th Division. Later a counter-attack was launched against them by the Germans of one of the young cla.s.ses, and here at least these lads, who do not seem to have fought very well elsewhere, came on like tiger cubs and gained some of their trenches back. From all the woods in this neighbourhood there was an incessant sweep of machine-gun bullets, and, as I have already said in earlier dispatches, many small counter-attacks were launched from them, without much success, but strong enough to make progress difficult to our men, now that the weather had set in badly, so that our guns were hampered by lack of aeroplane observation. All through the night and yesterday the enemy's barrage-fire was fiercely sustained, and our men dug themselves in as best they could, and took cover in sh.e.l.l-holes.

Hard fighting had happened that day southward and on the right of our attack past Hollebeke and the line between Oostaverne and Warneton.

Opposite Hollebeke there were English county troops of the 41st Division--West Kents, Surreys, Hampshires, Gloucesters, Oxford and Bucks, and Durham Light Infantry--and they went "over the bags," as they call it, in almost pitch-darkness, like the men on either side of them.

This was the reason of an accident which was almost a tragedy. As they went forward over that sh.e.l.l-destroyed ground they left behind them Germans hidden in sh.e.l.l-pits, who sniped our men in the rear, and picked off many of them until later in the day they were routed out. Beyond this open country the ruins of Hollebeke were full of cellars, made into strong dug-outs, and crowded with Germans who would not come out. They will never come out. Our men flung bombs down into these underground places, and pa.s.sed on to the line where they stay on the east side of the village. At a little bit of ruin there was some delay because of the machine-guns there, and for some time it was uncertain whether we held the place, as a messenger sent down to report its capture was killed on his journey. Along the line of the railway here there was a row of concrete dug-outs, and a bomber of the Middles.e.x went up alone climbed the embankment, and dropped bombs through their ventilator. So there was not much trouble from them.

In some of the dug-outs in this neighbourhood about a score of bottles of champagne were found, for a feast by German officers. But our soldiers drank it; indeed, one--a Canadian fellow--drank a whole bottle to himself, being very thirsty, and after that he found one of the officers for whom the drink was meant, but for the fortune of war. He was lying on his truckle bed below ground, hoping, perhaps, to be asleep when death should come to him out of the tornado of fire which had swept over him for days. "Come out of that," shouted the Canadian, and then, having left his arms behind him, dragged him out by the hair.