[image]Cambrai—the Advance of the Infantry Divisions on November 20.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 Flesquières 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 MARRIÈRES 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-Péronne 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 Péronne and Cléry 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 Marrières 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 Bassée 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 Béthune 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 Bassée and Armentières and capture Béthune, 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 Béthune, 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 Béthune could not be taken, and unless Béthune 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 Béthune, 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 Marrières 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.The 17th and 18th of April were perhaps the most critical days of the whole battle. The enemy had reached his greatest strength, and the British troops were not yet reinforced at any point within sight of security. On the 17th the Germans had failed in an attack on the Belgians north of Ypres, and next day they failed no less conclusively in a movement on Béthune. This gave us a breathing space, and by the morning of Sunday, the 21st, French troops had taken over the defence of Mont Kemmel, and we had been able to relieve some of the divisions which had suffered most heavily.That day saw the end of the main crisis of the battle. Mont Kemmel was lost and regained more than once, but the enemy was quickly becoming exhausted, and his gains, even when he made them, had no longer any strategic value. By the end of April he had employed in that one area of the line thirty-five fresh divisions, and nine which had been already in action. These troops were the cream of his army, and could not be replaced. Moreover, an odd feature had appeared in the last stages of the Lys battle. In March the enemy had succeeded in piercing and dislocating the British front by a new tactical method applied with masterly boldness and precision, the method which has been described as "infiltration."[#] But as the Lys battle dragged on the Germans seemed to have forgotten these new tactics, and to have fallen back upon their old methods of mass and shock. The reason was that the new tactics could only be used with specially trained troops, and with fresh troops; they put too great a strain on weary divisions and raw levies; therefore, as the enemy's losses grew, his tactics would deteriorate in the same proportion.[#] See p. 36.If we take 5th May as marking the close of the Battle of the Lys, we may pause to reflect upon the marvels of the forty-five preceding days, since the enemy torrent first broke west of St. Quentin. More history had been crowded into their span than into many a year of campaigning. They had seen the great German thrust for Amiens checked in the very moment of success. They had seen the last bold push for the Channel Ports held up for days by weak divisions which bent but did not break, and finally die away with its purpose still far from achievement. In those forty-five days divisions and brigades had been more than once destroyed as units, and always their sacrifice had been the salvation of the British front. The survivors had behind them such a record of fruitful service as the whole history of the war could scarcely parallel.CHAPTER XII.THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE.The First Battle of the Marne meant the frustration of Germany's main battle purpose, and the disappearance for ever of her hope of a complete and decisive victory. The Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918 was the beginning of Germany's defeat. In both battles the armies of Britain contributed to victory, but in both battles, as was right and proper, the main work was done by the French, and with them lies the chief glory.In March Haig had been forced back to the gate of Amiens, and Foch, at last appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the Allies, had for nearly a month looked into the eyes of defeat. But slowly the tide ebbed. Foch was able not only to repel the German assaults but to nurse and strengthen his own reserves. In spite of the desperate crises on the Lys and the Aisne midsummer found him rapidly growing in strength. And as the Allies grew, so the enemy declined.[image]MARSHAL FOCH.For the first time Foch had the advantage of numbers, and by June there were more than half a million Americans in France. Moreover, he had devised an answer to the German tactics, and in his new light tanks he had a weapon which would give him the advantage of surprise. But like a great and wary commander, he waited till the enemy had struck yet again, so that he might catch him on the rebound. Germany still maintained her confidence. Her press announced that unless the American army could swim or fly it would never arrive in Europe—that at the best the men of the United States were like the soldiers of a child's game, made of paper cuttings. The battle staged for July was to bring the Germans to Paris. One army was to strike east of Rheims and cut the railway from Paris to Nancy. Another was to press across the Marne. When Foch had hurried all his forces to the danger points a third army would break through at Amiens and descend on the capital from the north. Then the British would be finally cut off from the French, the French would be broken in two, and victory, complete and indubitable, would follow.The enemy was so confident that he made no secret of his plans, and from deserters and prisoners Foch learned the main details long before the assault was launched. The French general resolved to play a bold game. He borrowed a British corps from Haig, and he thinned the Amiens section so that it was dangerously weak. His aim was to entice the enemy south of the Marne, and then in the moment of his weakness to strike at his undefended flank.At midnight on Sunday, 14th July, Paris was awakened by the sound of great guns, and knew that the battle had begun. At 4 a.m. on the 15th the Germans crossed their parapets. The thrust beyond the Marne was at once successful, for it was no part of Foch's plan to resist too doggedly at the apex of the salient. On a front of 22 miles the Germans advanced nearly three. But the attack east of Rheims was an utter failure. Gouraud's counter-bombardment dislocated the attack before it began, and with trifling losses to himself he held the advance in his battle zone, not losing a single gun. In the west the Americans stood firm, so that the enemy salient could not be widened. These were the troops which, according to the German belief, could not land in Europe unless they became fishes or birds. The inconceivable had been brought to pass—"Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane."In two days the German advance had reached its limit—a long narrow salient south of the Marne, representing a progress at the most of 6 miles from the old battle-front. The time had now come for Foch's counterstroke. He had resolved to thrust with all his available reserves against the weak enemy flank from Soissons southward. There, in the shelter of the woods of Villers-Cotterets, lay the army of Mangin, who first won fame at Verdun.The morning of the 18th dawned after a night of thunderstorms and furious winds. There was no gunfire on the French side, but at 4.30, out from the shelter of the woods came a great fleet of French light tanks, and behind them on a front of 35 miles the French and American infantry crossed the parapets. Before the puzzled enemy could realize his danger they were through his first defences.The advance of the 18th was like a great bound forward. The chief work was done by Mangin's left wing, which at half-past 10 in the morning held the crown of the Montagne de Paris, on the edge of Soissons. All down the line the Allies succeeded. Sixteen thousand prisoners fell to them and some 50 guns, and at one point Mangin had advanced as much as 8 miles. Foch had narrowed the German salient, crumpled its western flank, and destroyed its communications. He had wrested the initiative from the Germans and brought their last offensive to a dismal close.He had done more, though at the time no eye could pierce the future and read the full implications of his victory. Moments of high crisis slip past unnoticed. It is only the historian in later years who can point to a half-hour in a crowded day and say that then was decided the fate of a cause or a people. As the wounded trickled back through the tossing woods of Villers-Cotterets, spectators noted a strange exaltation in their faces. When the news reached Paris the city breathed a relief which was scarcely justified with the enemy still so strongly posted at her gates. But the instinct was right. The decisive blow had been struck. When the Allies breasted the Montagne de Paris that July morning they had, without knowing it, won the Second Battle of the Marne, and with it the war. Four months earlier Ludendorff had stood as the apparent dictator of Europe; four months later he and his master were fleeing to a foreign exile.[image]The Second Battle of the Marne.CHAPTER XIII.THE BEGINNING OF THE END.The attack on the German flank on the morning of 18th July had put an end to the enemy's hope of an advance on Paris, and had forced him to assume the defensive. But in this he still persevered. His plan now was to defend the line of the Aisne, in the hope that the French would break their teeth on it, and that the battle would then decline into a fruitless struggle for a few miles of trench, like the other actions of the long siege warfare. He hoped in vain. Foch had no mind to waste a single hour in operations which were not vital. As early as 23rd July the Allies' great scheme for the autumn battles was framed, and on Thursday, 8th August, Sir Douglas Haig opened the attack.Foch's plan was to give the enemy no rest. He was like a swordsman who avoids his antagonist's sledge-hammer blows, who with lithe blade pinks him again and again and draws much blood, who baffles and confuses him, till the crushing weight of his opponent has been worn down by his own trained and elastic strength. It was his business to wear down the enemy continuously and methodically by a series of attacks on limited fronts, aiming at strictly limited objectives, and to keep him ceaselessly harassed over the whole battle-ground. The campaign had developed like a masterly game of chess. From 21st March to 18th July Foch had stood patiently on the defensive. From 18th July to 8th August he had won back his freedom of action, cleared his main communications, and hopelessly dislocated the German plan. From 8th August to 26th September it was his task to crumble the enemy's front, destroy the last remnant of his reserves, force him beyond all his prepared defences, and make ready for the final battle which would give victory.On 8th August Haig's striking force was the British Fourth Army, under Sir Henry Rawlinson, and part of the French First Army, under General Debeney. The front of attack was east of Amiens, astride the valleys of the Avre, the Luce, and the Somme. Haig's immediate aim was to free his communications—that is, to push the enemy out of range of the main railways behind his front—as the French had done on the Marne, and to this end the enemy must be driven out of range of Amiens.The preparations for the attack were most cunningly concealed, and infinite pains were taken to make the surprise complete. By an elaborate piece of "camouflage" the enemy was induced to believe that an attack in Flanders was preparing. The Canadians, who, along with the Australians, were the principal British attacking troops, had been secretly brought down from the north a few days before, and only came into line just before the battle. For the action Sir Douglas Haig had accumulated not less than 400 Tanks, many of the light "whippet" type and most of the newest pattern. He was to employ Foch's tactics in their purest form. There was to be no artillery bombardment except just at the moment of advance; the ground had been perfectly reconnoitred from the air; the objectives to be secured were ambitious but strictly defined; and the troops to be used were among thecorps d'éliteof the army.In the first week of August much rain fell, and on the night of the 7th a heavy mist hung over the ground. Just before daybreak on Thursday the 8th an intense bombardment was opened, so intense that the enemy's defences disappeared as if wiped out by a sponge. Four minutes later the bombardment stopped, and the Tanks and infantry moved forward. Rawlinson advanced at 4.20 a.m.; Debeney some twenty minutes later.Success was immediate and continuous. The Canadians and Australians, pressing along the two great Roman highways to St. Quentin and Roye, marched steadily towards their final objectives, and these they reached long before noon. The enemy was completely surprised. At one place the Tanks captured an entire regimental mess at breakfast. At another the whole staff of a division was seized. In some villages the Germans were taken in their billets before they knew what had happened, and parties of the enemy were actually made prisoners while working in the harvest field. The Canadian cavalry passed through the infantry and captured a train on the railway line near Chaulnes. Indeed, that day the whole British cavalry performed miracles, advancing 23 miles from their point of concentration.[image]Map showing the ground regained and the New Front reached in theFirst Stages of the last Allied Offensive.This success at the beginning of the last battle of the war was due partly to the brilliant tactical surprise, partly to the high efficiency of the new Tanks, and also in some degree to the evident deterioration in the quality of the German infantry in that part of the front. The enemy machine-gunners did not display their old tenacity. The Allied casualties were extraordinarily small, one Canadian division, which was in the heart of the battle, losing only 100 men. It was very clear that the fortitude of the German line was ebbing, and this more than any other fact disturbed the minds of its commanders. Ludendorff has recorded in his Memoirs that after the battle of 8th August he realized that Germany was beaten.The Tanks played a brilliant and dramatic part in the day's success. One Tank captured a village single-handed, and its wary commander solemnly demanded a receipt for the village before he handed it over to the Australians. But the chief performance of the day was that of the "whippet" Tank "Musical Box," commanded by Lieutenant C. B. Arnold, and carrying as crew Gunner Ribbans and Driver Carney. This Tank started off at 4.20 a.m. in company with the others, and when she had advanced the better part of 2 miles discovered herself to be the leading machine, all the others having been ditched. She came under direct shell-fire from a German field battery, and turned off to the left, ran diagonally across the front of the battery at a distance of 600 yards, and fired at it with both her guns. The battery replied with eight rounds, fortunately all misses, and the Tank now managed to get to the battery's rear under cover of a belt of trees. The gunners attempted to get away, but "Musical Box" accounted for them all.If a Tank can be said to go mad, this Tank now performed that feat. She started off due east straight for Germany, shooting down Germans whenever she saw them. The Australian infantry were following her, and for some time she was also in touch with two British cavalry patrols. Seeing a party of the enemy in a field of corn, she charged down upon them, killing three or four. She found a patrol of our cavalry dismounted and in trouble with some Germans on a railway bridge, so she made for the bridge and dispersed the Germans. She moved still farther east, and approached a small valley marked on Lieutenant Arnold's map as containing German hutments. As she entered the valley the Germans were seen packing their kits and beginning to move, and "Musical Box" opened fire. There was a general flight, but this did not prevent her guns from accounting for a considerable number. She now turned a little to the left across open country, firing at retreating German infantry at ranges of from 200 to 600 yards, and being heavily fired on by rifles and machine-guns in reply. Unfortunately she was carrying petrol tins on her roof, and these were perforated by the hail of bullets, so that the petrol ran all over the cab. The great heat from her engines and guns, which had been in action for nine or ten hours, made it necessary at this point for the crew to breathe through their box-respirators.It was now about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and "Musical Box" was still moving east, shooting at anything she could see, from motor transport to marching infantry, and getting heavily peppered in return. At last Lieutenant Arnold was compelled to withdraw the forward gun. The fumes and the heat were stifling, but the crew managed to endure it till suddenly the gallant "Musical Box" was struck by two heavy shells following close one upon the other, and the cab burst into flames. Carney and Ribbans reached the door and collapsed. Lieutenant Arnold was almost overcome, but managed to get the door open and fall out upon the ground. He was then able to drag out the other two men. Burning petrol was running on to the ground where they were lying, and the clothing of all three was on fire. They struggled to get away from the petrol, and while doing so Carney received his death wound. The enemy were now approaching from all quarters, and, having been thoroughly scared, they not unnaturally treated the two survivors somewhat roughly.Lieutenant Arnold and Gunner Ribbans, badly burned, incredibly dirty, half-suffocated, and fainting with fatigue, were led off into captivity, after having completed such an Odyssey of devastation as perhaps befell no other two men in the war.CHAPTER XIV.THE AUSTRALIANS AT MONT ST. QUENTIN.Close to the spot where the South Africans made their great stand in the retreat of March 1918, it fell to the lot of troops from another of our Dominions to perform an almost miraculous exploit in the advance eastward to victory. By 30th August, as we have seen, the tide had fully turned. All the British armies were pressing back the enemy over the old Somme battlefield, and that enemy was struggling desperately to hold on to key positions long enough to enable him to retire in good order to the Hindenburg Line, where he hoped to stand on the defence over the winter. But these key positions were now being rushed too fast to permit of an orderly retreat, and so the Hindenburg defences proved of no avail, and before the end of October the Germans were a defeated army.Of all the key positions the strongest was that of Mont St. Quentin, which commanded the old town of Péronne on the north. Péronne, as readers of Sir Walter Scott will remember, was the scene of some of the adventures of Quentin Durward. It had fallen into British hands in March 1917, when the Germans first retired to the Hindenburg Line. It had been lost in the great enemy onslaught of the following March. It was a very strong place, defended on the south and west by the links of the marshy Somme, and on the north by the low ridge called Mont St. Quentin, which provided superb gun positions. The place was held by one of the best of the German Divisions brought up from the reserve, the 2nd Prussian Guards. Their orders were to maintain it at all costs, for unless Mont St. Quentin was held, Péronne would fall, and if Péronne fell it would be a very battered remnant that would struggle back to the main Hindenburg Line.Sir Henry Rawlinson, the commander of the British Fourth Army, believed that the fight for Péronne would be long and difficult, and he entrusted it to the Australian Corps, who were unsurpassed for their fighting quality by any army in the world. This corps now performed the impossible, and in a single day's fighting, and with few losses, swept the enemy from Mont St. Quentin, took Péronne, and shook the German II. Army to its foundations. Sir Henry Rawlinson has described their exploit as the finest single action in the war.No man who once saw the Australians in action could ever forget them. In the famous landing at Gallipoli, in a dozen desperate fights in that peninsula, in the fight for Pozières during the First Battle of the Somme, at the Third Battle of Ypres, and in the action at Villers-Bretonneux just before the final advance, they had shown themselves incomparable in their fury of assault and in reckless personal valour. They had more than gallantry; they had a perfect discipline and a perfect coolness. As types of physical perfection they have probably not been matched since the time of the ancient Greeks—these long, lean men, with their slow, quiet voices, and often the shadows of great fatigue around the deep-set, far-sighted eyes.Their first task was to cross the Somme—no easy task, since Mont St. Quentin commanded every reach of it. Sir John Monash, the Australian commander, decided not to attempt to force the river south of the town; but in the darkness of night a brigade of the 2nd Australian Division managed to cross and seize the German trenches at Cléry. This placed two of the three Australian Divisions of attack on the east of the river, directly under the ridge of St. Quentin. General Rawlinson visited the Australian headquarters that evening, and whetted their keenness by frankly expressing his disbelief in their success on the morrow. "You think you are going to take Mont St. Quentin with three battalions! What presumption! However, I don't think I ought to stop you. Go ahead and try."Very early on the morning of 31st August the Australian 2nd Division lay just under the ridge, with the 3rd Division on its left, and on its right the 5th Division south of the Somme. The plan was that the 2nd Division should take Mont St. Quentin, while the 3rd Division completed the capture of the high ground towards Bouchavesnes on the north, and the 5th Division passed troops across the river for the assault on Péronne. There were no Tanks to assist the infantry, and very few heavy guns, for the men had marched far ahead of the artillery.At 5 a.m. on the 31st, while the morning was still quite dark, the 5th Brigade of the 2nd Division opened the attack. It advanced straight up the hill with the bayonet, and at 8 a.m. Sir John Monash was able to report to General Rawlinson that his men had obtained a footing on Mont St. Quentin. All day the heroic brigade beat off desperate counter-attacks, and by nightfall it still maintained its position.Meantime the 14th Brigade from the 5th Division crossed the Somme, and passed through the 2nd Division area for the assault on Péronne, for Monash had determined that the right course was to take the defences of the town by a rush while they were still being organized by the enemy. The 14th Brigade had a march of 7 miles before it could be in position to deploy for the attack. It was ten hours on the road, and reached its jumping-off ground in the darkness of the night. There it had on its left the 6th Brigade of the 2nd Division, whose business was to complete the capture of Mont St. Quentin.The final success came on 1st September. The 6th Brigade advanced well over the crest of Mont St. Quentin, and that fortress was now wholly in British hands. The 14th Brigade took Péronne. Ever since the attack of 8th August it had been the misfortune of that brigade to be the reserve unit of its Division, and therefore it had not shared in any serious fighting; but this day it made up for lost opportunities. "You see," said one company commander, "we had been trying to buy a fight off the other fellows for a matter of three weeks, and that day we got what we had been looking for, so we made the most of it."Meantime the 3rd Division, on the left, completed the capture of the Bouchavesnes spur. By 3rd September the whole of the Péronne area was in British hands, and the enemy was in headlong retreat. It was clear that he could find no resting-place short of the main Hindenburg Line, and a month later Sir Douglas Haig proved that not even in that position was there an abiding sanctuary.The actual capture of Mont St. Quentin was achieved by two brigades. It was a straightforward fight with the bayonet—the cream of the British Army against the cream of the enemy. For so resounding a success it was singularly economical of human life; on the hill itself nearly 2,000 prisoners were taken at the expense of some 200 Australian casualties.
[image]Cambrai—the Advance of the Infantry Divisions on November 20.
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Cambrai—the Advance of the Infantry Divisions on November 20.
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 Flesquières 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 MARRIÈRES 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-Péronne 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 Péronne and Cléry 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 Marrières 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 Bassée 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 Béthune 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 Bassée and Armentières and capture Béthune, 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 Béthune, 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 Béthune could not be taken, and unless Béthune 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 Béthune, 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 Marrières 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.
The 17th and 18th of April were perhaps the most critical days of the whole battle. The enemy had reached his greatest strength, and the British troops were not yet reinforced at any point within sight of security. On the 17th the Germans had failed in an attack on the Belgians north of Ypres, and next day they failed no less conclusively in a movement on Béthune. This gave us a breathing space, and by the morning of Sunday, the 21st, French troops had taken over the defence of Mont Kemmel, and we had been able to relieve some of the divisions which had suffered most heavily.
That day saw the end of the main crisis of the battle. Mont Kemmel was lost and regained more than once, but the enemy was quickly becoming exhausted, and his gains, even when he made them, had no longer any strategic value. By the end of April he had employed in that one area of the line thirty-five fresh divisions, and nine which had been already in action. These troops were the cream of his army, and could not be replaced. Moreover, an odd feature had appeared in the last stages of the Lys battle. In March the enemy had succeeded in piercing and dislocating the British front by a new tactical method applied with masterly boldness and precision, the method which has been described as "infiltration."[#] But as the Lys battle dragged on the Germans seemed to have forgotten these new tactics, and to have fallen back upon their old methods of mass and shock. The reason was that the new tactics could only be used with specially trained troops, and with fresh troops; they put too great a strain on weary divisions and raw levies; therefore, as the enemy's losses grew, his tactics would deteriorate in the same proportion.
[#] See p. 36.
If we take 5th May as marking the close of the Battle of the Lys, we may pause to reflect upon the marvels of the forty-five preceding days, since the enemy torrent first broke west of St. Quentin. More history had been crowded into their span than into many a year of campaigning. They had seen the great German thrust for Amiens checked in the very moment of success. They had seen the last bold push for the Channel Ports held up for days by weak divisions which bent but did not break, and finally die away with its purpose still far from achievement. In those forty-five days divisions and brigades had been more than once destroyed as units, and always their sacrifice had been the salvation of the British front. The survivors had behind them such a record of fruitful service as the whole history of the war could scarcely parallel.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE.
The First Battle of the Marne meant the frustration of Germany's main battle purpose, and the disappearance for ever of her hope of a complete and decisive victory. The Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918 was the beginning of Germany's defeat. In both battles the armies of Britain contributed to victory, but in both battles, as was right and proper, the main work was done by the French, and with them lies the chief glory.
In March Haig had been forced back to the gate of Amiens, and Foch, at last appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the Allies, had for nearly a month looked into the eyes of defeat. But slowly the tide ebbed. Foch was able not only to repel the German assaults but to nurse and strengthen his own reserves. In spite of the desperate crises on the Lys and the Aisne midsummer found him rapidly growing in strength. And as the Allies grew, so the enemy declined.
[image]MARSHAL FOCH.
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MARSHAL FOCH.
For the first time Foch had the advantage of numbers, and by June there were more than half a million Americans in France. Moreover, he had devised an answer to the German tactics, and in his new light tanks he had a weapon which would give him the advantage of surprise. But like a great and wary commander, he waited till the enemy had struck yet again, so that he might catch him on the rebound. Germany still maintained her confidence. Her press announced that unless the American army could swim or fly it would never arrive in Europe—that at the best the men of the United States were like the soldiers of a child's game, made of paper cuttings. The battle staged for July was to bring the Germans to Paris. One army was to strike east of Rheims and cut the railway from Paris to Nancy. Another was to press across the Marne. When Foch had hurried all his forces to the danger points a third army would break through at Amiens and descend on the capital from the north. Then the British would be finally cut off from the French, the French would be broken in two, and victory, complete and indubitable, would follow.
The enemy was so confident that he made no secret of his plans, and from deserters and prisoners Foch learned the main details long before the assault was launched. The French general resolved to play a bold game. He borrowed a British corps from Haig, and he thinned the Amiens section so that it was dangerously weak. His aim was to entice the enemy south of the Marne, and then in the moment of his weakness to strike at his undefended flank.
At midnight on Sunday, 14th July, Paris was awakened by the sound of great guns, and knew that the battle had begun. At 4 a.m. on the 15th the Germans crossed their parapets. The thrust beyond the Marne was at once successful, for it was no part of Foch's plan to resist too doggedly at the apex of the salient. On a front of 22 miles the Germans advanced nearly three. But the attack east of Rheims was an utter failure. Gouraud's counter-bombardment dislocated the attack before it began, and with trifling losses to himself he held the advance in his battle zone, not losing a single gun. In the west the Americans stood firm, so that the enemy salient could not be widened. These were the troops which, according to the German belief, could not land in Europe unless they became fishes or birds. The inconceivable had been brought to pass—"Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane."
In two days the German advance had reached its limit—a long narrow salient south of the Marne, representing a progress at the most of 6 miles from the old battle-front. The time had now come for Foch's counterstroke. He had resolved to thrust with all his available reserves against the weak enemy flank from Soissons southward. There, in the shelter of the woods of Villers-Cotterets, lay the army of Mangin, who first won fame at Verdun.
The morning of the 18th dawned after a night of thunderstorms and furious winds. There was no gunfire on the French side, but at 4.30, out from the shelter of the woods came a great fleet of French light tanks, and behind them on a front of 35 miles the French and American infantry crossed the parapets. Before the puzzled enemy could realize his danger they were through his first defences.
The advance of the 18th was like a great bound forward. The chief work was done by Mangin's left wing, which at half-past 10 in the morning held the crown of the Montagne de Paris, on the edge of Soissons. All down the line the Allies succeeded. Sixteen thousand prisoners fell to them and some 50 guns, and at one point Mangin had advanced as much as 8 miles. Foch had narrowed the German salient, crumpled its western flank, and destroyed its communications. He had wrested the initiative from the Germans and brought their last offensive to a dismal close.
He had done more, though at the time no eye could pierce the future and read the full implications of his victory. Moments of high crisis slip past unnoticed. It is only the historian in later years who can point to a half-hour in a crowded day and say that then was decided the fate of a cause or a people. As the wounded trickled back through the tossing woods of Villers-Cotterets, spectators noted a strange exaltation in their faces. When the news reached Paris the city breathed a relief which was scarcely justified with the enemy still so strongly posted at her gates. But the instinct was right. The decisive blow had been struck. When the Allies breasted the Montagne de Paris that July morning they had, without knowing it, won the Second Battle of the Marne, and with it the war. Four months earlier Ludendorff had stood as the apparent dictator of Europe; four months later he and his master were fleeing to a foreign exile.
[image]The Second Battle of the Marne.
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The Second Battle of the Marne.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
The attack on the German flank on the morning of 18th July had put an end to the enemy's hope of an advance on Paris, and had forced him to assume the defensive. But in this he still persevered. His plan now was to defend the line of the Aisne, in the hope that the French would break their teeth on it, and that the battle would then decline into a fruitless struggle for a few miles of trench, like the other actions of the long siege warfare. He hoped in vain. Foch had no mind to waste a single hour in operations which were not vital. As early as 23rd July the Allies' great scheme for the autumn battles was framed, and on Thursday, 8th August, Sir Douglas Haig opened the attack.
Foch's plan was to give the enemy no rest. He was like a swordsman who avoids his antagonist's sledge-hammer blows, who with lithe blade pinks him again and again and draws much blood, who baffles and confuses him, till the crushing weight of his opponent has been worn down by his own trained and elastic strength. It was his business to wear down the enemy continuously and methodically by a series of attacks on limited fronts, aiming at strictly limited objectives, and to keep him ceaselessly harassed over the whole battle-ground. The campaign had developed like a masterly game of chess. From 21st March to 18th July Foch had stood patiently on the defensive. From 18th July to 8th August he had won back his freedom of action, cleared his main communications, and hopelessly dislocated the German plan. From 8th August to 26th September it was his task to crumble the enemy's front, destroy the last remnant of his reserves, force him beyond all his prepared defences, and make ready for the final battle which would give victory.
On 8th August Haig's striking force was the British Fourth Army, under Sir Henry Rawlinson, and part of the French First Army, under General Debeney. The front of attack was east of Amiens, astride the valleys of the Avre, the Luce, and the Somme. Haig's immediate aim was to free his communications—that is, to push the enemy out of range of the main railways behind his front—as the French had done on the Marne, and to this end the enemy must be driven out of range of Amiens.
The preparations for the attack were most cunningly concealed, and infinite pains were taken to make the surprise complete. By an elaborate piece of "camouflage" the enemy was induced to believe that an attack in Flanders was preparing. The Canadians, who, along with the Australians, were the principal British attacking troops, had been secretly brought down from the north a few days before, and only came into line just before the battle. For the action Sir Douglas Haig had accumulated not less than 400 Tanks, many of the light "whippet" type and most of the newest pattern. He was to employ Foch's tactics in their purest form. There was to be no artillery bombardment except just at the moment of advance; the ground had been perfectly reconnoitred from the air; the objectives to be secured were ambitious but strictly defined; and the troops to be used were among thecorps d'éliteof the army.
In the first week of August much rain fell, and on the night of the 7th a heavy mist hung over the ground. Just before daybreak on Thursday the 8th an intense bombardment was opened, so intense that the enemy's defences disappeared as if wiped out by a sponge. Four minutes later the bombardment stopped, and the Tanks and infantry moved forward. Rawlinson advanced at 4.20 a.m.; Debeney some twenty minutes later.
Success was immediate and continuous. The Canadians and Australians, pressing along the two great Roman highways to St. Quentin and Roye, marched steadily towards their final objectives, and these they reached long before noon. The enemy was completely surprised. At one place the Tanks captured an entire regimental mess at breakfast. At another the whole staff of a division was seized. In some villages the Germans were taken in their billets before they knew what had happened, and parties of the enemy were actually made prisoners while working in the harvest field. The Canadian cavalry passed through the infantry and captured a train on the railway line near Chaulnes. Indeed, that day the whole British cavalry performed miracles, advancing 23 miles from their point of concentration.
[image]Map showing the ground regained and the New Front reached in theFirst Stages of the last Allied Offensive.
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Map showing the ground regained and the New Front reached in theFirst Stages of the last Allied Offensive.
This success at the beginning of the last battle of the war was due partly to the brilliant tactical surprise, partly to the high efficiency of the new Tanks, and also in some degree to the evident deterioration in the quality of the German infantry in that part of the front. The enemy machine-gunners did not display their old tenacity. The Allied casualties were extraordinarily small, one Canadian division, which was in the heart of the battle, losing only 100 men. It was very clear that the fortitude of the German line was ebbing, and this more than any other fact disturbed the minds of its commanders. Ludendorff has recorded in his Memoirs that after the battle of 8th August he realized that Germany was beaten.
The Tanks played a brilliant and dramatic part in the day's success. One Tank captured a village single-handed, and its wary commander solemnly demanded a receipt for the village before he handed it over to the Australians. But the chief performance of the day was that of the "whippet" Tank "Musical Box," commanded by Lieutenant C. B. Arnold, and carrying as crew Gunner Ribbans and Driver Carney. This Tank started off at 4.20 a.m. in company with the others, and when she had advanced the better part of 2 miles discovered herself to be the leading machine, all the others having been ditched. She came under direct shell-fire from a German field battery, and turned off to the left, ran diagonally across the front of the battery at a distance of 600 yards, and fired at it with both her guns. The battery replied with eight rounds, fortunately all misses, and the Tank now managed to get to the battery's rear under cover of a belt of trees. The gunners attempted to get away, but "Musical Box" accounted for them all.
If a Tank can be said to go mad, this Tank now performed that feat. She started off due east straight for Germany, shooting down Germans whenever she saw them. The Australian infantry were following her, and for some time she was also in touch with two British cavalry patrols. Seeing a party of the enemy in a field of corn, she charged down upon them, killing three or four. She found a patrol of our cavalry dismounted and in trouble with some Germans on a railway bridge, so she made for the bridge and dispersed the Germans. She moved still farther east, and approached a small valley marked on Lieutenant Arnold's map as containing German hutments. As she entered the valley the Germans were seen packing their kits and beginning to move, and "Musical Box" opened fire. There was a general flight, but this did not prevent her guns from accounting for a considerable number. She now turned a little to the left across open country, firing at retreating German infantry at ranges of from 200 to 600 yards, and being heavily fired on by rifles and machine-guns in reply. Unfortunately she was carrying petrol tins on her roof, and these were perforated by the hail of bullets, so that the petrol ran all over the cab. The great heat from her engines and guns, which had been in action for nine or ten hours, made it necessary at this point for the crew to breathe through their box-respirators.
It was now about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and "Musical Box" was still moving east, shooting at anything she could see, from motor transport to marching infantry, and getting heavily peppered in return. At last Lieutenant Arnold was compelled to withdraw the forward gun. The fumes and the heat were stifling, but the crew managed to endure it till suddenly the gallant "Musical Box" was struck by two heavy shells following close one upon the other, and the cab burst into flames. Carney and Ribbans reached the door and collapsed. Lieutenant Arnold was almost overcome, but managed to get the door open and fall out upon the ground. He was then able to drag out the other two men. Burning petrol was running on to the ground where they were lying, and the clothing of all three was on fire. They struggled to get away from the petrol, and while doing so Carney received his death wound. The enemy were now approaching from all quarters, and, having been thoroughly scared, they not unnaturally treated the two survivors somewhat roughly.
Lieutenant Arnold and Gunner Ribbans, badly burned, incredibly dirty, half-suffocated, and fainting with fatigue, were led off into captivity, after having completed such an Odyssey of devastation as perhaps befell no other two men in the war.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE AUSTRALIANS AT MONT ST. QUENTIN.
Close to the spot where the South Africans made their great stand in the retreat of March 1918, it fell to the lot of troops from another of our Dominions to perform an almost miraculous exploit in the advance eastward to victory. By 30th August, as we have seen, the tide had fully turned. All the British armies were pressing back the enemy over the old Somme battlefield, and that enemy was struggling desperately to hold on to key positions long enough to enable him to retire in good order to the Hindenburg Line, where he hoped to stand on the defence over the winter. But these key positions were now being rushed too fast to permit of an orderly retreat, and so the Hindenburg defences proved of no avail, and before the end of October the Germans were a defeated army.
Of all the key positions the strongest was that of Mont St. Quentin, which commanded the old town of Péronne on the north. Péronne, as readers of Sir Walter Scott will remember, was the scene of some of the adventures of Quentin Durward. It had fallen into British hands in March 1917, when the Germans first retired to the Hindenburg Line. It had been lost in the great enemy onslaught of the following March. It was a very strong place, defended on the south and west by the links of the marshy Somme, and on the north by the low ridge called Mont St. Quentin, which provided superb gun positions. The place was held by one of the best of the German Divisions brought up from the reserve, the 2nd Prussian Guards. Their orders were to maintain it at all costs, for unless Mont St. Quentin was held, Péronne would fall, and if Péronne fell it would be a very battered remnant that would struggle back to the main Hindenburg Line.
Sir Henry Rawlinson, the commander of the British Fourth Army, believed that the fight for Péronne would be long and difficult, and he entrusted it to the Australian Corps, who were unsurpassed for their fighting quality by any army in the world. This corps now performed the impossible, and in a single day's fighting, and with few losses, swept the enemy from Mont St. Quentin, took Péronne, and shook the German II. Army to its foundations. Sir Henry Rawlinson has described their exploit as the finest single action in the war.
No man who once saw the Australians in action could ever forget them. In the famous landing at Gallipoli, in a dozen desperate fights in that peninsula, in the fight for Pozières during the First Battle of the Somme, at the Third Battle of Ypres, and in the action at Villers-Bretonneux just before the final advance, they had shown themselves incomparable in their fury of assault and in reckless personal valour. They had more than gallantry; they had a perfect discipline and a perfect coolness. As types of physical perfection they have probably not been matched since the time of the ancient Greeks—these long, lean men, with their slow, quiet voices, and often the shadows of great fatigue around the deep-set, far-sighted eyes.
Their first task was to cross the Somme—no easy task, since Mont St. Quentin commanded every reach of it. Sir John Monash, the Australian commander, decided not to attempt to force the river south of the town; but in the darkness of night a brigade of the 2nd Australian Division managed to cross and seize the German trenches at Cléry. This placed two of the three Australian Divisions of attack on the east of the river, directly under the ridge of St. Quentin. General Rawlinson visited the Australian headquarters that evening, and whetted their keenness by frankly expressing his disbelief in their success on the morrow. "You think you are going to take Mont St. Quentin with three battalions! What presumption! However, I don't think I ought to stop you. Go ahead and try."
Very early on the morning of 31st August the Australian 2nd Division lay just under the ridge, with the 3rd Division on its left, and on its right the 5th Division south of the Somme. The plan was that the 2nd Division should take Mont St. Quentin, while the 3rd Division completed the capture of the high ground towards Bouchavesnes on the north, and the 5th Division passed troops across the river for the assault on Péronne. There were no Tanks to assist the infantry, and very few heavy guns, for the men had marched far ahead of the artillery.
At 5 a.m. on the 31st, while the morning was still quite dark, the 5th Brigade of the 2nd Division opened the attack. It advanced straight up the hill with the bayonet, and at 8 a.m. Sir John Monash was able to report to General Rawlinson that his men had obtained a footing on Mont St. Quentin. All day the heroic brigade beat off desperate counter-attacks, and by nightfall it still maintained its position.
Meantime the 14th Brigade from the 5th Division crossed the Somme, and passed through the 2nd Division area for the assault on Péronne, for Monash had determined that the right course was to take the defences of the town by a rush while they were still being organized by the enemy. The 14th Brigade had a march of 7 miles before it could be in position to deploy for the attack. It was ten hours on the road, and reached its jumping-off ground in the darkness of the night. There it had on its left the 6th Brigade of the 2nd Division, whose business was to complete the capture of Mont St. Quentin.
The final success came on 1st September. The 6th Brigade advanced well over the crest of Mont St. Quentin, and that fortress was now wholly in British hands. The 14th Brigade took Péronne. Ever since the attack of 8th August it had been the misfortune of that brigade to be the reserve unit of its Division, and therefore it had not shared in any serious fighting; but this day it made up for lost opportunities. "You see," said one company commander, "we had been trying to buy a fight off the other fellows for a matter of three weeks, and that day we got what we had been looking for, so we made the most of it."
Meantime the 3rd Division, on the left, completed the capture of the Bouchavesnes spur. By 3rd September the whole of the Péronne area was in British hands, and the enemy was in headlong retreat. It was clear that he could find no resting-place short of the main Hindenburg Line, and a month later Sir Douglas Haig proved that not even in that position was there an abiding sanctuary.
The actual capture of Mont St. Quentin was achieved by two brigades. It was a straightforward fight with the bayonet—the cream of the British Army against the cream of the enemy. For so resounding a success it was singularly economical of human life; on the hill itself nearly 2,000 prisoners were taken at the expense of some 200 Australian casualties.