OPERATIONS AROUND HOOGE
The next action of importance on the British front occurred at the Château of Hooge on the Menin road about three miles east of Ypres. Here had been the headquarters of Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig at the first battle of Ypres. From the Château Sir John French had seen the British line break at Gheluvelt, thereby opening the road for the Germans to Calais.That opening, however, had been closed by the Worcesters. After the Germans began to use their deadly gas in the spring of 1915 they again took possession of Hooge, and used the Menin road for a forward movement which threatened what was left of Ypres.
The Duke of Württemberg was in command of that part of the line opposed to the British, and his forces extended from near Pilkem in the north to near Hill 60 in the south, in the form of a crescent. He made use of the asphyxiating gas cloud and gas bombs so frequently on this part of the front that the British soldiers became expert in donning their hoodlike masks and in using respirators. Moreover, the British were constantly on the alert for the appearance of the poison gas. So that this method of attack was much less effective. Before the Germans discovered how well the British had prepared themselves against the gas, they met with disaster twice when using it. On both occasions they had followed their gas cloud expecting to find their foes writhing on the ground in choking agony—an easy prey for an attack.
But the British had put on their curious-appearing headgear, and were waiting for the men whom they knew would be following the cloud at a safe distance. As soon as the Germans were near enough the British turned loose everything that would hurl a projectile large or small. By the time the gas cloud had cleared, or, to be more accurate, passed on to the rear of the British line and spent itself, the only Germans to be seen were in the piles of dead and wounded in front of the British most advanced trenches. The first time this occurred did not teach the Germans its lesson sufficiently well. A second time the Germans did not follow their gas cloud so closely. The gas-filled shells, however, the British found more difficult. They did not give warning of their coming as did the appearance of the comparatively slow-moving gas cloud. Thus in the first week of May, 1915, Hill 60 was taken by the Germans in a bombardment of asphyxiating shells. The bombardment had been immediately followed by a charge of bomb throwers who made an assault on the hill from three sides at once. That forced the British toretreat to a trench line at the foot of the hill, and gave the top of the hill to the Germans who immediately set up a lookout post for their artillery back of the Zandvoord ridge.
This part of the British line was under the command of Sir Herbert Plumer. His troops occupied themselves from the first week in May to the middle of August, 1915, in fighting in the Hooge district. Most of this fighting was important only because it kept the Germans busy on that section of the line, and prevented them from being able to reenforce the Crown Prince of Bavaria or adding men to the force that was driving the Russians eastward.
The men, fresh from the training camps, fought alongside of hardened veterans and learned much from them. From being what amounted to auxiliaries in these actions the new troops became hardened to actual fighting conditions. For this reason the personnel of the British troops on this part of the line was changed frequently. This was especially true at Hooge. Princess Patricia's Canadian Regiment occupied the Château and village of Hooge on May 8, 1915. The "Princess Pats," as they were known at home, turned over their quarters to the Ninth Lancers who were followed by the Fifteenth Hussars and the Second Camerons.
On May 24, 1915, the Germans made a great gas attack. They had placed along the line from St. Julien to Hooge a great number of gas tanks. They then started a bombardment with asphyxiating shells. When the bombardment was well under way the tanks were opened. The ensuing cloud was five miles long and forty feet high; and it floated over the British trenches from 3 a. m. to 7 a. m. The cloud was followed by three columns of infantry, who dashed forward under the protection of the shells of their artillery. But the Germans made gains in only two places—at Hooge and to the north of Wieltje. For the most part the British regained by counterattacks what they lost; but they were unable to retake the Château of Hooge, though the Ninth Lancers and the Fifteenth Hussars made a heroic attempt to regain it. Thereupon the Third Dragoons received orders to attempt to retake the Château of Hooge. They went into thesecond line of the British trenches to the south of the Menin road on May 29, 1915. The Germans bombarded the trenches with high-explosive shells while from the German trenches a torrent of small arms fire poured. In spite of the continued hail of lead, the Dragoons held to their position though their trenches were wrecked.
Early in the morning of May 31, the British charged and drove their enemy from the ruins of the Château and its stables. The Germans turned all of their artillery on that part of the line against Hooge, and when the bombardment was finished there was only a heap of ruins left. The British withdrew from the Château, but only for a short distance.
The bombardment was renewed on June 1; on that day the German infantry tried to dislodge the Dragoons, but the attempt was unsuccessful. Again, on June 2, the artillery was used, the German shells being hurled a part of the time at the rate of twenty a minute. Under the cover of this terrific bombardment a part of the German infantry charged from the Bellewaarde Lake region. They got to the Château before a British battery opened fire on them. Again they entered the ruins and made a dash out on the opposite side, where they were met by more machine-gun fire. Three times they tried to escape, but practically all of them were slain. Other attempts were made by the Germans that afternoon, but none of them was successful.
The Dragoons were relieved on June 3, 1915, and their places were taken by a much larger force. It included the Third Worcesters, the First Wiltshires, the First Northumberland Fusiliers, the First Lincolnshires, the Royal Fusiliers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, and the Liverpool Scottish, a territorial organization.
The British artillery was concentrated in the neighborhood of Hooge and started a bombardment on June 16. After a fairly adequate preparation by cannonade, the infantry charged the German line for a thousand yards near the Château, and took a part of the second line of trenches. Again the British bayonet and bomb had won, though in this attack the greater credit must be given to the bomb. The Germans made an attemptto retrieve the day by battering the British out of the trenches they had won. To do this the German artillery used a plentiful supply of high-explosive shells. They continued the attempt for twenty-four hours; but all they succeeded in doing was driving the British back to the first line of German trenches where they waited for the inevitable attack of the infantry which was repulsed. Finally the Germans seemed inclined to give up trying to accomplish much on this part of their front.
In the first week of July, 1915, the British took two hundred yards of German trenches, eighty prisoners and three trench mortars. The German commander now turned once more to Hooge. An additional reason for his renewed interest in that place was the fact that the British engineers, on July 20, blew up a mine west of the Château, thereby making a great crater in which the British infantry made themselves comparatively secure. The crater was one hundred and fifty feet wide and fifty feet deep.
The Germans made an unsuccessful attempt to take the crater on July 21, 1915; and tried again on July 24. The Duke of Württemberg found his men making comparatively little progress. It is true that the British had not made much more. The gas attacks had gained ground before the British had learned how to avoid the more severe effects of the poison. The result of experience brought into existence a new device. It has been called a flame projector, and has been described as a portable tank which is filled with a highly inflammable coal-tar product. The contents of the tank were pumped through a nozzle at the end of which was a lighting arrangement. The flame could be thrown approximately forty yards.
A large supply of these flame projectors arrived in the German trenches on July 30, 1915. The action began with the usual bombardment of high-explosive shells. Other shells filled with the burning liquid were also used. At the height of the bombardment, the British lines were flame swept. No preparation had been made for such an attack; and the only thing that the British could do was to get out of the way of the flame. Thus they lost their trenches in the crater and at the Châteauand village of Hooge. The method of attack so infuriated the British that they made a desperate counterattack with the result that they regained most of what they lost with the exception of about five hundred yards of trenches.[Back to Contents]
FRANCO-GERMAN OPERATIONS ALONG THE FRONT
We have thus far dealt chiefly with the British operations in the western front, but it must not be assumed that the French, in the meantime, were idle. On the contrary, their operations, covering the far greater territory, were proportionally more important than those of their allies.
During the winter months artillery duels along the entire Franco-German front were kept up without intercession. These were varied by assaults on exposed points which were in many cases repeatedly taken and lost by the opposing forces.
The French staff applied itself with the utmost vigor to the accumulation of large stacks of munitions and supplies for the production of active movements when weather conditions should permit. For the most part, however, the Franco-German operations were desultory movements occurring in various portions of the long line. Actions of the first importance began with the attacks in the St. Mihiel salient in April, 1915.
On the night of February 6, 1915, Germans exploded three mines at La Boisselle in front of the houses in the village which the French occupied, but the attempt of the Germans to advance was checked after a small amount of ground had been gained. The next day a counterattack carried out by a French company retook this ground, and inflicted a loss of 200 men. The French seized a wood north of Mesnil-les-Hurles on the night of February 7. Here the Germans had strongly established themselves.
During the first part of February, 1915, the Germans made a series of assaults on the Marie Therese works in the Argonne. Their force comprised about a brigade; but the French repulsed all attacks. Both sides suffered severe losses. On the night of February 9, there was an infantry engagement at La Fontenelle in the Ban de Sapt. Two battalions of Germans took part in the action and gained some ground which the French regained by counterattacks on the following day.
Actions in the Vosges continued in spite of heavy snow. The French carried Hill 937, eight hundred meters northwest of the farm of Sudelle, in the region north of Hartmannsweilerkopf.
About February 9, 1915, there was considerable activity on the part of the German artillery in Champagne, especially before Rheims. The city being again bombarded. There was also a lively cannonade in the region of Lens, around Albert, between the Avre and Oise, in the neighborhood of Soissons, and at Verneuil, northeast of Vailly. In Lorraine the Germans, after having pushed back the French main guard, succeeded in occupying the height of the Xon beacon and the hamlet of Norroy. The Germans were repulsed by a counterattack as far as the slopes north of the beacon.
The French on February 18 made some progress in the region of Boureuilles on Hill No. 263. They also gained a wood south of the Bois de Cheppy. At the same time French troops took four hundred meters of trenches north of Malancourt and about as much south of the Bois de Forges. The Germans made five unsuccessful counterattacks, near Bolincourt, to retake the trenches which the French had captured. On the same day, the French recaptured the village of Norroy. In the Vosges, the French repulsed two infantry attacks north of Wisembach, in the region of the Col de Bonhomme, and consolidated their positions, progressing methodically north and south of the farm of Sudelle. The bombardment of Rheims was continued during these days. On the heights of the Meuse, at Les Eparges, three German counterattacks on the trenches which the French had won on February 17 were stopped by the French artillery fire.
In the Vosges, between Lusse and Wisembach, in the Bonhomme region, the Germans, after succeeding in getting a footing on Hill 607, were dislodged on the morning of February 19, 1915. The French held their position on the height notwithstanding the violent efforts to dislodge them. An attack by the Germans on Le Sattel north of the Sudelle farm was also repulsed.
In the evening of February 19, 1915, the Germans delivered their fourth counterattack against the trenches which the French took at Les Eparges, but the French artillery again beat them back. The Germans were also unsuccessful in a counterattack on Hill 607, at Sattel, south of the Fecht. They succeeded in gaining a footing on the eastern spur of Reichsackerkopf.
After having repulsed a sixth counterattack by the Germans at Les Eparges, the French on February 10, 1915, delivered a fresh attack which enabled them to enlarge and complete the progress they made on the day before. They took three machine guns, two trench mortars, and made two hundred prisoners, among whom were several officers.
They also repulsed a counterattack of the Germans and then took all of their trenches to the north and east of the wood which had been captured by the French on the day before. Two other counterattacks were repulsed, and the French made fresh progress, particularly to the north of Mesnil, where they captured two machine guns and one hundred prisoners. The Germans made their seventh unsuccessful counterattack on Les Eparges on February 21. The French advanced posts fell back on the main line in Alsace on both banks of the Fecht; but the main line was strongly held, and the Germans, attacking in serried and deep formations, suffered heavy losses.
On the Belgian front the French batteries demolished one of the German heavy guns near Lombaertzyde on February 22, 1915. On the same day the French artillery dispersed German troops and convoys between the Lys and the Aisne. The French made progress on the Souain-Beausejour front, taking a line of trenches and two woods, and repulsed two particularly violent counterattacks. Many prisoners were taken by the French inthis action. In the Argonne the French artillery and infantry had the better of the almost continuous fighting. This was especially true near Fontaine-aux-Charmes and Marie Therese, as well as at the Bois Bolante.
The bombardment of Rheims continued on February 22, lasting for a first period of six hours, and a second period of five hours. One thousand five hundred shells were fired into all quarters of the town. The cathedral was made a special target and suffered severely. The interior of the vaulted roof, which had resisted up to this time, fell. Twenty houses were set on fire and twenty of the civilian population were killed.
The French captured more trenches in the region of Beausejour and held their gains of previous fighting, on February 23, 1915. Their batteries blew up a German ammunition store to the northwest of Verdun at Drillancourt, in the region of the Bois de Forges, on the same day, February 23, 1915, and stopped an attempted German attack in Alsace from the village of Stossweiler.
There was an action of some importance in the Wood of Malancourt, on February 26, 1915, when the Germans sprayed the French advanced trenches with burning liquid. The French troops evacuated them, the soldiers being severely burned before they could escape. A counterattack was immediately made. This checked the German advance. On the same day, in the region of Verdun and on the heights of the Meuse, the French heavy artillery enveloped with its fire the German artillery, wrecked some guns, exploded about twenty wagons or depots, annihilated a detachment, and destroyed an entire encampment.
In Champagne the French on the night of February 26, 1915, captured five hundred meters of German trenches to the north of Mesnil-les-Hurles.
On February 28, 1915, Rheims was again bombarded and still again on March 2, 1915. About fifty shells fell on the town. In the Argonne, on March 2, 1915, in the Bagatelle-Marie Therese sector, there was mine and infantry fighting in an advanced trench which the French reoccupied after they had been forced to abandon it. At the same time in the region of Vauquois, theFrench made some progress and held the ground captured in spite of the counterattacks of the Germans. The French also took some prisoners. In the Vosges, at La Chapelotte, they captured trenches and gained three hundred meters of ground.
The bombardment of Rheims was continued on March 4, 1915, and lasted all day, a shell falling about every three minutes. While the bombardment was in progress the Germans captured an advanced trench from the French to the north of Arras, near Notre Dame de Lorette; but in the Argonne the French made fresh progress in the region of Vauquois. On the following day, March 5, however, the French made successful counterattacks in the region of Notre Dame de Lorette. The Germans lost the advanced positions which they had taken from the French and held them for two days. At Hartmannsweilerkopf, in Alsace, the French captured a trench, a small fort, and two machine guns. They also repulsed a counterattack opposite Uffholz, and blew up an ammunition store at Cernay. On the same night, the French drove back the German advanced posts which were trying to establish themselves on the Sillakerkopf, a spur east of Hohneck.
The French continued to gain ground, on March 7, to the north of Arras in the region of Notre Dame de Lorette, where their attacks carried some German trenches. The German losses were considerable. During this first week in March, 1915, the French carried successively, to the west of Münster, the two summits of the Little and the Great Reichaelerkopf. The Germans made two counterattacks starting from Mühlbach and Stossweiler; but they were unsuccessful. On the right bank of the Fecht the French captured Imburg, one kilometer southeast of Sultzern. This success was completed farther to the north by the capture of Hill 856 to the south of the Hutes Hutles. Finally, at Hartmannsweilerkopf the French repelled a counterattack delivered by a German battalion which suffered heavy losses and left numerous prisoners in the hands of the French.
On March 8, 1915, the French gained two hundred meters on the ridge northeast of Mesnil which they added to the gainsof the previous day. Here the French carried a German redoubt, took a revolver gun and three machine guns, and made some prisoners. The Germans had armored shelters supplied with revolver guns and very deep subterranean chambers. In the Argonne, between Four-de-Paris and Bolante, the French delivered an attack which made them masters of the first line of German trenches of more than two hundred meters in length.
To the north of Rheims in front of the Bois de Luxembourg, the Germans attempted, on March 14, to carry one of the French advanced trenches, but were repulsed. On the same day, between Four-de-Paris and Bolante in the Argonne, the French gained three hundred meters of trenches, and took some prisoners. Two counterattacks which the Germans made were unsuccessful.
In the region of Lombaertzyde on March 15, the French artillery very effectively bombarded the German works. When the Germans attempted to recapture the small fort which was taken from them on the night of March 1 they were repulsed and left fifty dead. The French losses were small. To the north of Arras, a brilliant attack by the French infantry enabled them to capture, by a single effort, three lines of trenches on the spur of Notre Dame de Lorette, and to reach the edge of the plateau. The French captured one hundred prisoners including several officers. They also destroyed two machine guns and blew up an ammunition store. Farther to the south, in the region of Ecurie-Roclincourt, near the road from Lille, they blew up several German trenches and prevented their reconstruction. In Champagne the French made fresh progress. They gained ground in the woods to the northeast of Souain and to the northwest of Perthes. They also repulsed two German counterattacks in front of Ridge 196, northeast of Mesnil, and extended their position in that sector. In the region of Bagatelle in the Argonne two German counterattacks were repulsed. The French demolished a blockhouse there, and established themselves on the site of it. Between Four-de-Paris and Bolante the Germans attempted two counterattacks which failed. At Vauquois the French infantry delivered an attack which gave it possession ofthe western part of the village. Here they made prisoners. At the Bois-le-Prêtre, northeast of Pont-à-Mousson, the Germans blew up with a mine four of the French advanced trenches which were completely destroyed. The Germans gained a footing there, but the French retook the first two trenches and a half of the third. Between the Bois-le-Prêtre and Pont-à-Mousson, in the Haut de Rupt, the Germans made an attack which was repulsed.
In Champagne, before Hill 196, northeast of Mesnil, on March 19, 1915, the Germans, after violently bombarding the French position, made an infantry attack which was repulsed with heavy losses.
In the Woevre, in the Bois Mortmore, on March 20, 1915, the French artillery destroyed a blockhouse and blew up several ammunition wagons and stores. At La Boisselle, northeast of Albert, the Germans, after a violent bombardment, attempted a night attack which was repulsed with large losses.
The Germans bombarded the Cathedral of Soissons again on March 21, 1915, firing twenty-seven shells and causing severe damage to the structure. On the same day Rheims was bombarded, fifty shells falling there.
Near Bagatelle the French, on March 22, blew up three mines; and two companies of their troops stormed a German trench in which they maintained their position in spite of a strong counterattack. Five hundred yards from there, the Germans, after exploding two mines, and bombarding the French trenches, rushed to an attack on a front of about two hundred and fifty yards. After some very hot hand-to-hand fighting the assailants were hurled back in spite of the arrival of their reenforcements. The French artillery caught them under its fire as they were falling back, and inflicted very heavy losses.
The French then retreated some fifteen meters at Vauquois on March 23, 1915, when the Germans sprayed one of their trenches with inflammable liquid.[Back to Contents]
CAMPAIGN IN ARGONNE AND AROUND ARRAS
There were some weak places in the French line from Switzerland to the North Sea; and one of them was that part in the region between the Forest of the Argonne and Rheims. General Langle de Cary was in command of the army which held this section. It requires no military genius to comprehend that the French center and the right wing from Belfort to Verdun were not safe until the Germans had been forced back across the Aisne at every place. The French general had made an effort to drive the Germans under General von Einem from Champagne Pouilleuse. The preliminary effort had been to stop the Germans from using the railroad which ran from near the Nort to Varennes through the Forest of the Argonne and across the upper Aisne to Bazancourt.
Prayer in a French church which the exigencies of war have converted into a Red Cross hospital.
Prayer in a French church which the exigencies of war have converted into a Red Cross hospital.
After the battle of the Marne, the crown prince's army, severely handled by the Third French Army under General Sarrail, pushed hastily toward the north and established itself on a line running perpendicularly through the Argonne Forest, at about ten or fifteen kilometers from the road connecting Ste. Ménéhould with Verdun. Almost immediately there developed a series of fights that lasted during a whole year and were really among the bloodiest and most murderous combats of the war. The German army in the Argonne, commanded by the crown prince, whose headquarters had long been established at Stenay, consisted of the finest German troops, including, among others, the famous Sixteenth Corps from Metz, which, with the Fifteenth Corps from Strassburg, is considered the cream of the Germanic forces. This corps was commanded by the former governor of Metz, General von Mudra, an expert in all branches of warfare relating to fortresses and mines. Specially reenforced by battalions of sharpshooters and a division of Württembergers, the Twenty-Seventh, accustomed to forest warfare, this corps made the mostviolent efforts from the end of September, 1914, to throw the French troops back to the south and seize the road to Verdun. The crown prince evidently meant to sever this route and the adjoining highway, leading from Verdun to Ste. Ménéhould. The road then turns to the south and joins at Revigny, the main line of Bar-le-Duc to Paris via Chalons, forming, in fact, the only possible line of communication for the fortress of Verdun. The other line, running from Verdun to St. Mihiel, was rendered useless after the Germans had fixed themselves at St. Mihiel in September, 1914.
Up to the first months of 1916 there was only a small local railway that could be used between Revigny and Ste. Ménéhould by Triaucourt. Of the two big lines, one was cut by the Germans, and the other was exposed to the fire of their heavy artillery.
The violence of the German attacks in the Argonne prove that so long ago as September, 1914, they already dreamt of taking Verdun. Their aim was to force the French troops against Ste. Ménéhould and invest the fortress on three sides to bring about its fall.
These Argonne battles were invested with a particular interest and originality. They were in progress for a whole year, in a thick forest of almost impenetrable brushwood, split with numerous deep ravines and abrupt, slippery precipices. The humidity of the forest is excessive, the waters pouring down from high promontories. The soldiers who struggled here practically spent two winters in the water.
One can hardly imagine the courage and heroism necessary to bear the terrible hardships of fighting under such conditions. All the German soldiers made prisoners by the French describe life in the Argonne as a hideous nightmare.
From the end of September, 1914, the Germans delivered day and night attacks, generally lasting ten days. These attacks were made with forces of three or four battalions up to a division or a division and a half. In each attack the Germans aimed at a very limited objective—to capture the first or second line of trenches, to seize some particular fortified point. That object once attained, the Germans held on there, consolidated the occupiedterrain, fortified their new positions and prepared for another push forward. It was thus by a process of nibbling the French trenches bit by bit that the Germans hoped to attain the Verdun-Ste. Ménéhould line.
The tactics employed in these combats were those suited to forest fighting; sapping operations methodically and minutely carried out to bring the German trenches as near as possible to the French; laying small mines to be exploded at a certain hour. Two or three hours before an attack the French positions were bombarded by trench mortars and especially heavy mine throwers.
At the short distances the effect would naturally be to cause considerable damage; trenches and their parapets were demolished, shelters, screening reserves, were torn open. At that moment when the attack is to be launched, the German artillery drops the "fire curtain" behind the enemy trenches to prevent reenforcements from arriving. Such are the tactics almost constantly employed by the Germans.
Despite their most furious efforts during the winter of 1914 and the spring and summer of 1915, in at least forty different attacks, the German gains were very insignificant, and if one considers the line they held after the battle of the Marne and compares it with their present position, one may gather some idea of how little progress they have made.
It was in June and July, 1915, that the Germans displayed their main efforts in the Argonne. Their three great attacks were made with greater forces than ever before (two or three divisions), but the results were as profitless as their predecessors. The heroism of the French barred the way.
At Arras in June, there was almost as much activity as at Ypres. During the last part of the campaign in the Artois, General d'Urbal began an advance between Hebuterne and Serre. The former had been held by the French and the latter by the Germans. The two villages were each on a small hill and not quite two miles apart. There were two lines of German trenches in front of the farm of Tout Vent which was halfway between the villages.
The trenches were held by the Seventeenth Baden Regiment which was attacked by the French on June 7, 1915. The French troops consisted of Bretons, Vendeans, and soldiers from Savoy and Dauphiné. The work of the infantry was preceded by a heavy bombardment to which the German artillery replied. Then the French charged with a dash that seemed irresistible.
On the following day, June 8, 1915, the French gained more ground to the north in spite of the activity of the German artillery. June 9, 1915, saw desperate fighting in the German communicating trenches, and on June 10, 1915, several hundred yards of trenches to the south were taken. The Seventeenth Baden Regiment was only a name and a memory when the fighting ceased; and two German battalions had fared but little better. Of the five hundred and eighty prisoners taken ten were officers.
General de Castelnau, on the day before the fighting at Hebuterne, made a break in the German line east of Forest of l'Aigle which is a continuation of the Forest of Compiègne but is separated from it by the Aisne. Within the French lines were the farms of Ecaffaut and Quennevieres. The Germans held Les Loges and Tout Vent. There was a German salient opposite Quennevieres with a small fort at the peak of the salient. Defenses had been built also where the northern and southern sides of the salient rested on the main line of trenches. There were two lines of trenches on the arc of the salient with three lines on a portion of the arc. An indented trench held the chord of the arc. The Germans had placed several guns in a ravine which ran down toward Tout Vent. Four companies of the Eighty-sixth Regiment had held the salient.
On June 5, 1915, the reserve troops were taken from the Tout Vent ravine for reenforcements. Their places were occupied then by other German troops. The French artillery bombarded the fort at the peak of the salient, and all of the trenches and defenses of the Germans in that neighborhood and the French infantry kept up a rifle and machine-gun fire which was an aid in preventing the Germans from repairing the damage done their defenses. The bombardment continued all day and all night and increasedin volume and intensity on the morning of June 6, 1915. Then it was continued intermittently. A mine under the fort at the peak of the salient blew up. The Germans who sought refuge in their dugouts found them unavailing. The shells had blown the roofs from those places of supposed safety. In many instances their occupants had been buried in the débris and suffocated. The French artillery lengthened its range and made a curtain of fire between the Germans on the front and the German supports in the rear. Then the French infantry charged. The men had dispensed with knapsack that they might not be hampered with unnecessary weight. All had three rations and two hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition. They were also provided with two hand grenades and a sack. The last was to be filled with earth. The filled sacks were sufficient to form breastworks with which any place taken might be held. With a cheer the French infantry ran across the two hundred yards between the two lines. The German infantry's nerves had been so badly shaken by the bombardment that only a scattering fire, badly directed, greeted the French. It was but the work of minutes to take the first line of German trenches. The two hundred and fifty survivors of two German battalions were made prisoners. The German reserves in the ravine on the Tout Vent farm made a dash to aid their fire line; but the French artillery shells accounted for them before the reserves ever reached those whom they would have relieved. Thus in less than an hour 2,000 Germans were put out of the fight. The French who had been selected for this work included Bretons, Zouaves, and Chasseurs.
The Zouaves then made a dash for the ravine on the Tout Vent front. There they came upon a field work equipped with three guns. This work was protected by wire entanglements. The German artillerymen retreated to their dugouts, but the Zouaves captured them and their fortification. At that stage of the fighting the French aviators saw German reenforcements on their way to take part in the battle. The aviators signaled to their troops this information. Two German battalions were being hurried in motor cars from Roye to the east of the Oise; but before they reached the scene of the fighting the Germans managedto mass for a counterattack. It was ill-planned and executed. French shrapnel and machine guns annihilated those making the counterattack. In the meantime the French sappers were fortifying with sacks of earth the ends of the salient, so that by night the French were in a position to hold what they had gained. The precautions which the French had made were shown to be extremely timely, for that night the reenforcements from Roye made eight desperate attacks.
The lack of success throughout the night did not prevent the Germans from making a reckless attack on the French works at both ends of the salient on the morning of June 7. The Germans made their advance along the lines of the communicating trenches. They were greeted with a shower of hand grenades. By nightfall the Germans seemed to have wearied of the attacks. The total German loss in killed in this engagement was three thousand. The French had lost only two hundred and fifty killed and fifteen hundred wounded. They captured a large amount of equipage and ammunition, besides twenty machine guns.
The French front south of Pont-à-Mousson, on the Moselle, through the gap of Nancy to the tops of the Vosges experienced only slight changes during the spring and summer of 1915. The Germans assumed the offensive in the region of La Fontenelle, in the Ban-de-Sapt, in April and June. The French engineers had built a redoubt to the east of La Fontenelle on Hill 627. The Germans found they could not take it by an assault; so their sappers went to work to tunnel under it; but they had to bore through very hard rock and the work was necessarily slow. The French, learning of the mining operations of their foes, started a countereffort with the result that there was a succession of fierce skirmishes under the surface of the earth. Finally the German sappers were lured into a communicating tunnel which had been mined for the purpose and they all perished. The greatest activity of the sappers was between April 6 and April 13, 1915. On the night of the latter date the officers of the Germans tried to rally their men for further operations, but their soldiers had had enough and refused to renew their work.
The Germans, however, did not give up in their attempts to take Hill 627, which they called Ban-de-Sapt, and in an assault they made upon it on June 22 they took the hill. Thereupon the general in command of the Thirtieth Bavarian Division made the following announcement:
"I have confidence that the height of Ban-de-Sapt will be transformed with the least possible delay into an impregnable fortification and that the efforts of the French to retake it will be bloodily repulsed."
On the night of July 8 the French began a bombardment which was followed by an infantry charge which forced its way through five lines of trenches and gained the redoubt on the top of the hill, in spite of its corrugated iron and gun-shield defenses to which had been added logs and tree trunks. At the same time the French made an attack on the German trenches on the left and surrounded the hill from the eastward. The Germans on the right flank of the French were kept busy by another attack. In this battle two battalions of the Fifth Bavarian Ersatz Brigade were taken from the German ranks either by death or as prisoners. The French captured eight hundred and eighty-one, of whom twenty-one were officers, who, for the most part, were men of more than ordinary education.
The principal work of the French troops at this time was in the valley of the Fecht and the neighboring mountains. They planned to go down through the valley to Münster and take the railroad to which the mountain railroads were tributaries. In connection with this campaign in the mountains the achievement of a company of French Chasseurs serves to illustrate the heroic and hardy character of these men. They were surrounded by German troops on June 14, 1915, but refused to surrender. Instead they built a square camp which they prepared to hold as long as one of them remained alive. When their ammunition began to give out, they rolled rocks down on their enemy and hurled large stones at the advancing foe. At the same time the French artillery aided them by raining shells on the Germans, though the artillery was miles from the scene of action. Thus the Chasseurs were able to hold their position until they were relievedon June 17, 1915. In the meantime the French proceeded down the valley of the Fecht and up the mountains overlooking the valley. An assault was made on the top of Braunkopf and an attack was made on Anlass on June 15 and 16, 1915. The French captured Metzeral on June 19, 1915, the Germans having set fire to it before being driven out. The soldiers of the republic then began to bombard Münster with such success that they destroyed a German ammunition depot there. The Sondernach ridge was held by the French about the middle of July, 1915, and they continued to gain ground so that they were near Münster by the end of July, 1915. In these actions the French mountaineers were pitting their skill against the mountaineers from Bavaria.
By midsummer the lines on both sides of the western front were an elaborate series of field fortifications. The shallow trenches of the preceding fall were practically things of the past. And these fortifications extended from the Vosges to the North Sea. They naturally varied with the nature of the region in which they were built. The marshy character of the soil along the Yser and about the Ypres salient made it impossible to go down very deep. Hence it was necessary to build up parapets which were easy marks for the artillery. The Germans had the better places on the higher levels from Ypres to Armentières; but the British line opposing them showed remarkable engineering skill. The advances of the Allies had resulted in making the first line of trenches somewhat temporary in character in the sections about Festubert, La Bassée, and the Artois; but in these regions there were strong fortifications in the rear of both lines. The condition of the ground from Arras to Compiègne was excellent for fortification purposes. The Teutons had the better position in the chalky region along the Aisne, though the chalk formation did not add to the comfort of the men. In the northern part of Champagne trench life was more bearable. The forests in the Argonne, the Woevre, and the Vosges made the trenches the best of all on the western front. The greater part of these so-called trenches, the like of which had never before been constructed, could not be taken without a bombardment by heavy artillery. And, in the rear of each line there was a seriesof other fortifications quite as impregnable. This condition was a gradual growth which had developed as a result of the increasingly new methods of attack. As new means of taking life were invented, new means of protection came into existence, until, for the present, the inventive genius of man seemed to be at a standstill. But all this activity and preparation at the front meant a greater activity in the rear of the opposing lines. Fighting men were a necessity; but, under existing conditions of warfare, they were useless unless they were kept supplied by an army of artisans and another army of men to transport munitions to the soldiers on the firing line. In fact it was being forced on the minds of the commanding officers that the war could be won in the workshop and laboratory rather than on the battle field.[Back to Contents]
BELGO-GERMAN OPERATIONS
For the most part the activity of the Belgian army in February, 1915, consisted of a continuous succession of advanced-post encounters, in which detachments of from thirty to forty soldiers fought with the Germans on the narrow strips of land which remained inundated, while the artillery of the contending forces bombarded the trenches and the machine-gun forts. The intermittent artillery duel continued through the forepart of February, 1915, and on February 14, 1915, the Germans bombarded Nieuport, Bains and the Dune trenches, and continued the bombardment on February 15, 1915, and again on February 20, 1915.
Near Dixmude on February 28, 1915, the Belgian artillery demolished two of the German trenches, and their infantry occupied a farm on the right bank of the Yser. One of their aviators dropped bombs on the harbor station at Ostend.
By the beginning of March, 1915, strips of dry land began to be seen in the flooded region; and, along these, the Belgians advancedat Dixmude and the bend of the Yser. They won additional bridgeheads on the northern bank of the river. By the middle of the month, March, 1915, the Belgians had obtained a strategical point by possessing Oudstuyvenkerke on the Schoorbakke highway. From there they could force the Germans back until they were in a position that would prevent any German action against the Dixmude bridgehead.
On March 18, 1915, the Belgian army continued its progress on the Yser, and on March 23, 1915, the artillery destroyed several German observation points. A division of the Belgian army made some progress on the right bank of the Yser on March 24, 1915; while another was taking a German trench on the left bank. The almost continuous artillery fighting was more active in the Nieuport region on March 26, 1915; and farther south a farm north of St. Georges in advance of the allied lines was taken and held.
But the Belgian army was unable to take any decisive action against the left wing of the German army during the spring and summer of 1915, both on account of the wetness of the land and the activity of the German artillery. Yet it harassed the Germans by so much activity that the Teutons continued to add to their heavy howitzers and large caliber naval guns. Nevertheless the Belgian strategy gained for its little army many advantages of tactical importance. It seemed to be a part of the plan of the Belgian generals to give their new troops, which were filling up the previously thinned ranks, a training under heavy bombardments without risking the lives or liberty of many of their men. They held the old cobbled roads which remained about the waters, using an almost innumerable number of trenches for that purpose.
The Germans sought to obviate this check to their activities by approaching on rafts on which were machine guns, from which attempts were made to pour an enfilading fire on the trenches. Thereupon the Belgian sharpshooters became especially active and exterminated the machine-gun crews before the Germans could take advantage of the position they had gained by using the rafts.
Finally the waters subsided and the mud which remained dried. As soon as the ground became firm enough to support troops the Belgians became so active that the Germans desired more men, but their soldiers were also needed in many other sections of the western front, and for the time being none could be sent against the Belgians. Hence King Albert's troops continued to make progress.
The Germans made an attack between Nieuport and the sea on May 9, 1915, but were repulsed. To the north of Dixmude the Belgians were violently attacked during the night of May 10, 1915, by three German battalions. They were repulsed and suffered large losses.
On the night of May 16, 1915, the Germans threatened with complete envelopment by the successful attacks of preceding days, evacuated the positions which they had occupied to the west of the Yser Canal, and they gained nothing on the eastern bank. The Germans left about two thousand dead and many rifles when they were forced from the western bank. On the following night, May 17, 1915, the positions on the eastern bank were consolidated, and a German counterattack, which was preceded by a bombardment, was repulsed. The Germans gained a footing in the trenches to the east of the Yser Canal in an attack made on the night of May 20, 1915, but they were driven out and lost some of the ground they had held before making the attack.
The Germans made a violent attack on the edge of the Belgian front at Nieuport in order to prevent the Belgians from aiding in the defense of Ypres, but the Belgians defended Nieuport with one army corps and made an advance on Dixmude with another corps, with the result that they assisted the Zouaves in taking the German bridgeheads on the western bank of the canal above Ypres. These bridgeheads were protected by forts manned by machine guns, and the approaches were commanded by heavy artillery fire, but defense was destroyed in the middle of May, 1915.
The Germans concentrated their efforts against the Belgians at one point between Ypres and Dixmude. They bombarded the trenches, using bombs filled with poisonous gas. When theybelieved the Belgians had been overcome by the gas the German infantry charged. The Belgians, however, had kept their faces close to the ground, thus escaping most of the fumes from the shells. When the Germans arrived within easy range they were greeted with machine-gun fire to such an extent that the companies leading the charge were slain.
A battalion of Belgian troops on June 14, 1915, gained the east bank of the Yser south of the Dixmude railroad bridge, and established themselves there. The Belgians also destroyed a German blockhouse in the vicinity of the Château of Dixmude. The Belgian troops, south of St. Georges, captured a German trench, all the defenders of which were killed or made prisoners on June 22, 1915.
After the canal line was won, and the Belgians were in position to hold it, they could make little headway eastward. Their advance was checked by a series of batteries which were concealed in the Forest of Houthulst. These batteries, containing many guns of large caliber, continued to shell the Belgian trenches to such an extent that it was necessary for their inhabitants to keep close to the bomb-proof chambers with which the trenches were liberally supplied. But the Belgians kept so many of the German troops occupied that, in this way, they gave great aid to their allies, and enabled the French and British to regain much of the territory which was lost in the first attack which the Germans made with poisonous gas. The remainder of the summer was occupied with intermittent artillery duels and minor engagements between the opposing trench lines. In the meantime the Belgian army was adding to the number of its troops and gathering munitions for an aggressive movement.[Back to Contents]
THE WAR ZONE
The war on the seas, with the long-expected battle between the fleets of the great nations, developed during the second six months of the war into a strange series of adventures. The fleets of the British and the Germans stood like huge phantoms—the first enshrouded in mystery somewhere in the Irish and North Seas; the second held in leash behind the Kiel Canal, awaiting the opportune moment to make its escape.
These tense, waiting days were broken by sensational and spectacular incidents—not so much through the sea fights of great modern warships as through the adventures of the raiders on the seven seas, the exploits of the submarines, and the daring attempt of the allied fleets to batter down the mighty forts in the Dardanelles and bombard their way toward Constantinople—the coveted stronghold of the Ottoman Empire. The several phases of these naval operations are described in special chapters in this volume, therefore We will now confine ourselves to the general naval developments.
In the spring of 1915 the threat made by Admiral von Tirpitz that Germany would carry on war against British and allied shipping by sinking their vessels with submarines, was made effective. The submersible craft began to appear on all the coasts of the British Isles. It infested the Irish Sea to such an extent that shipping between England and Ireland was seriously menaced.
A particularly daring raid took place on the night of February 1, 1915, when a number of submarines tried toscuttle ships lying at Dover. The attack failed, but drew fire from the guns of the fort here.[1]
On the 5th of February, 1915, the German Naval Staff announced that beginning February 18, 1915, the waters around Great Britain would be considered a "war zone." This was in retaliation for the blockade maintained against Germany by the British navy. The proclamation read as follows: