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From  the  military  history 

and  political  science  collection 

assembled  between  1933  and  1989 

by  Colonel  John  D.  Ridge 

The  collection  of  3,700  volumes 

was  presented  to  the 

University  of  Florida  Libraries 

to  encourage  interest  in  the 

Military  Services  of  the  United  States. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  FLORIDA  LIBRARIES 

1989 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Lyrasis  IVIembers  and  Sloan  Foundation 


http://www.archive.org/details/donkeysOOclar 


THE  DONKEYS 


A  Donkey  decorates  a  Lion.  General  Alderson  pins  the  D.C.M. 
on  an  unknown  Canadian  lance-corporal,  for  bravery  at  '2nd 

Ypres.' 


THE 
DONKEYS 


by  Alan  Clark 


WILLIAiM    MORROW   AND    COMPANY 
New  York  1962 


o^fvrHsiTY  OF  fwmh  mmm 


Copyright  ©  1961  by  Alan  Clark.  Published  in  Great  Britain  in 
1961.  Published  in  the  United  States  in  1962.  All  rights  reserved. 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America.  Library  of  Congress 
Catalog  Card  Number  62-8548. 


For 

JANE 


Ludendorff:  'The  English  soldiers  fight  like  lions.' 

Hoffman:  'True.  But  don't  we  know  that  they 
are  lions  led  by  donkeys.' 

falkenhayn:  Memoirs 


Contents 

Introductory  Mote  1 1 

Prelude:  On  the  Aisne  13 

1  A  Band  of  Brothers  21 

2  Winter  in  the  Trenches  35 

3  The  First  Experiment,  at  Neuve  Chapelle      44 

4  Neuve  Chapelle;  the  Passing  Hours  58 

5  Gas  74 

6  The  Dismissal  of  Smith-Dorrien  88 

7  The  Second  Experiment :  Aubers  Ridge        102 

8  Aubers  Ridge :  the  Northern  Attack  1 1 5 

9  Repercussions  and  Recriminations  128 

10  Loos:  the  Plan  138 

11  Loos:  the  Assault  147 

12  Loos:  the  Second  Day  163 

13  The  Dismissal  of  Sir  John  French  175 
Appendices  1 89 
Bibliography  209 
Index  2 1 1 


The  photographs  are  reproduced  by  permission  of 
the  Imperial  War  Museum.  The  map  on  page  45 
is  adapted  from  the  Ordnance  Survey  map  in 
The  Official  History  of  the  War  by  permission  of  the 
Controller  of  H.M.  Stationery  Office. 


Illustrations 

Donkey  decorates  Lion  frontispiece 

Pinned-down  in  their  own  wire  facing  page  68 

No-Man's-Land  in  the  salient  68 

'Rawly'  69 

Advanced  dressing  station,  Potijze  98 

Aubers:  looking  back  at  the  English  parapet  98 

Scaling-ladders  going  up  99 

Polished  boots  130 

Walking  wounded  1 3 1 

'Tower  Bridge'  and  German  wire  in  front  of 

Loos  village  1 3 1 

Highlanders  going  over  the  top  1 60 

The  German  line  on  Lone  Tree  Ridge  160 

Germans  wiring  their  'Second  Position'  161 

MAPS 

The  Northern  Section  of  the  Western  Front, 

1915  page  44 

Neuve  Chapelle  59 

The  Ypres  Salient  74 

Aubers  103 

Loos  165 


Introductory  Note 

This  is  the  story  of  the  destruction  of  an  army — the  old 
professional  army  of  the  United  Kingdom  that  always  won 
the  last  battle,  whose  regiments  had  fought  at  Quebec, 
Corunna,  in  the  Indies,  were  trained  in  musketry  at  Hythe, 
drilled  on  the  parched  earth  of  Chuddapore,  and  were 
machine-gunned,  gassed  and  finally  buried  in  1915. 

I  was  drawn  to  this  subject  almost  by  chance.  While 
working  in  another  field  I  came  across  the  diary  of  an  officer 
in  the  Leinsters  and  was  overcome  by  the  horror  of  the 
contents  and  the  sense  of  resignation  and  duty  that  character- 
ized the  writing.  I  began  serious  research,  back  through  the 
orders  of  battle  and  the  unit  records,  in  an  effort  to  find  out 
what  happened  to  these  men  who  endured  for  so  long  such 
incredible  privations,  such  extremes  of  misery  and  squalor. 
Their  casualties  were  frightful.  In  the  first  two  hours  of  the 
Battle  of  Loos  more  British  soldiers  died  than  the  total 
number  of  casualties  in  all  three  services  on  both  sides  on 
D-Day  1944.  And  slowly,  as  the  field  of  operations  widened, 
their  fate  became  apparent.  Again  and  again  they  were 
called  upon  to  attempt  the  impossible,  and  in  the  end  they 
were  all  killed.  It  was  as  simple  as  that. 

My  generation  did  not  fight  in  the  Second  World  War. 
To  many  of  us  the  First  is  as  remote  as  the  Crimean,  its 
causes  and  its  personnel  obscure  and  disreputable.  I  have 
tried  to  put  down  simply,  factually,  tediously  even,  what 
happened  to  these  men  in  one  year,  1915.  Because  in  print 
they  have  no  memorial.  The  huge  cemeteries  of  regimented 
headstones  that  stand  on  'ceded  ground' — these  are  for  the 
'New  Armies',  the  volunteers  who  died  on  the  Somme  the 
following  year  and  for  the  conscripts  slaughtered  at  Pass- 
chendaele.  The  graves  of  the  soldiers  killed  in  191 5  are 
harder  to  find:  clusters  of  white  crosses  that  stand  where 

II 


12  INTRODUCTORY    NOTE 

the  men  actually  fell  on  the  sites  of  the  German  redoubts  or 
of  the  advanced  dressing  stations,  often  away  from  the  roads, 
hidden  in  folds  of  the  ground,  signposted  only  by  the  fading 
green  notices  of  the  War  Graves  Commission.  And  in  the 
same  way  the  evidence  of  their  fate  is  scattered  among  unit 
records,  official  histories,  regimental  magazines  published 
years  afterwards.  Today  there  are  very  few  visitors  to  the 
graveyards.  The  visitors'  book  at  the  Bois  Carre  cemetery 
at  Loos  contains  only  three  English  names  for  the  whole  of 
1959.  And  so  it  is  with  the  sources  which,  undisturbed  for 
decades,  gather  dust  in  museum  libraries. 

I  am  anxious  that  this  work  should  not  be  thought  an 
'indictment'.  It  is  quite  outside  my  intention  to  take  part  in 
arguments  which  relate,  in  any  case,  chiefly  to  the  years  of 
1916  and  191 7.  This  study  is  concerned  simply  with  what 
the  Army  was  ordered  to  do,  and  what  happened  when  it 
attempted  to  carry  out  those  orders;  the  results  being  im- 
portant from  a  military-historical  standpoint  in  that  this  year, 
19 1 5,  saw  the  core  of  professional  quality  dissipated  before  it 
had  been  either  properly  equipped  or  substantially  reinforced. 

In  compiling  the  material  I  owe  an  immense  debt  to 
that  acknowledged  master  of  military  history,  Captain  B.  H. 
Liddell  Hart,  who  has  allowed  me  access  to  his  private  files 
on  the  period  and  has  been  of  the  greatest  help  at  every 
stage  in  the  development  of  the  book.  I  have  also  been 
greatly  assisted  by  Miss  Coombs  of  the  Imperial  War 
Museum  Library,  who  has  helped  me  in  tracking  down 
obscure  items — often  on  the  slenderest  of  leads.  My  thanks 
are  also  due  to  Captain  Burgon  Bickersteth,  the  historian 
of  the  Cavalry  Brigade,  for  his  help  with  documents  and  in 
conversation;  to  Colonel  L.  B.  Beuttler  for  his  assistance  in 
extracting  material  from  the  War  Office  library;  and  to 
Captain  G.  C.  Wynne  from  whose  research  on  the  period 
over  the  last  thirty  years,  and  from  whose  translations  of 
German  documents,  I  have  drawn  at  length. 

ALAN    CLARK 


Prelude:  On  the  Aisne 

Sir  John  French:  The  British  Army  will  give  battle 

on  the  line  of  the  Conde  Canal. 
Sir  Horace  Smith-Dorrien:  Do  you  mean  take  the 

offensive,  or  stand  on  the  defensive? 
Sir  John  French:  Don't  ask  questions,  do  as  you're  told.^ 

IN  THE  first  week  of  September  19 14  the  German  armies 
to  the  east  and  north  of  Paris  were  in  full  retreat.  The 
'Battle'  of  the  Marne — an  engagement  of  manoeuvre 
which,  by  the  standards  of  later  years,  can  be  accounted 
almost  bloodless — had  broken  the  nerve  of  the  German 
General  Staff  and  they  had  authorized  a  general  with- 
drawal to  the  line  of  the  Aisne  and  the  Chemin  des  Dames, 
intending,  with  their  front  thus  shortened,  to  extend  their 
right  flank  to  the  sea  and  make  junction  with  the  armies 
that  had  lately  been  investing  Antwerp. 

The  war  at  this  stage  had  a  picturesque,  traditional 
quality.  The  French  infantry  marched  into  action  in  their 
red-and-blue  uniforms  and  felt  caps,  men  and  officers 
dressed  like  the  pieces  in  'I'Attaque',  a  parlour  game  lately 
introduced  into  Edwardian  drawing-rooms,^  whose  very 
title  suggested  the  one-sided  trend  of  fashionable  military 
thought.  Photographs  of  those  days  show  whole  platoons  of 
men  forming  up,  under  fire,  in  close  order.  Sometimes 
graced  by  a  low  farm  wall,  at  others  kneeling  among  the 
corn-stooks  in  a  manner  little  different  from  that  of  the  Old 
Guard  at  Waterloo,  awaiting  the  signal  to  fire  which  their 
officer  gave  by  dropping  his  sword,  as  at  an  execution.  The 

1 .  Brigadier-General  Sir  J.  E.  Edmonds,  the  official  historian  (Liddell  Hart 
files). 

2.  'L'Attaque'  was  just  put  on  the  market  in  1890. 

13 


14  prelude:  on  the  aisne 

artillery  clattered  into  action  in  the  style  of  the  military 
displays,  or  'tattoos',  that  had  followed  an  unaltered  pattern 
for  the  last  half-century:  six-horse  teams  pulled  the  eighteen- 
pounders,  or  seventy-fives,  and  their  limbers  on  spindly, 
iron-shod  wheels,  arraying  them  in  exposed  positions  with 
a  precision  and  geometric  neatness  that  made  counter- 
battery  work  by  the  enemy  a  simple  problem  of  mathe- 
matics. The  gunners  had  no  protection  other  than  a  quarter- 
inch  steel  plate  above  the  axle  and  the  polished  brasswork 
at  breech  and  hub  glinted  in  the  September  sunlight,  often 
betraying  their  position  before  they  had  fired  a  round.  The 
French  Cuirassiers  rode  into  action  wearing  full  peacetime 
uniform  with  polished  shakos  and  breastplates — 'Dam'd 
fellows  with  their  hair  down  their  backs,'  was  the  comment 
of  General  John  Gough,  Haig's  Chief  of  Staflf — and  were 
mown  down.  Behind  the  lines  was  the  excitable  atmosphere 
of  'a  prolonged  field-day  with  a  bit  of  circus  thrown  in  for 
good  measure'.  Wealth  and  social  distinction  still  counted 
for  much,  particularly  when,  as  in  all  previous  wars,  it  was 
both  necessary  and  desirable  to  supplement  the  issued  equip- 
ment by  personal  expenditure.  'You  may  hear  at  any  time 
the  sound  of  shot-guns  and  come  across  a  party  of  officers 
shooting  pheasants.  There  is  a  pack  of  beagles  run  by  most 
cavalry  units.  .  .  .'  Charteris,  Haig's  Chief  of  Intelligence, 
tells  how  he  had  '.  .  .  a  young  Prince  of  Orleans  attached 
to  us  as  a  sort  of  unofficial  interpreter,  also  a  French  banker 
with  a  magnificent  car.  Both  are  very  anxious  to  do  anything 
for  anybody.'  (They  seem  to  have  spent  most  of  their  time 
driving  English  officers  backwards  and  forwards  from  Paris.) 
His  own  staff'  consisted  of  '.  .  .  a  diamond  merchant,  an 
engineer  from  Vickers,  and  a  brewer.  The  diamond  mer- 
chant is  appropriately  rich;  anyhow,  he  has  placed  at  my 
disposal  a  very  fine  Rolls-Royce  in  which  I  can  do  my  trips 
behind  the  lines.' 

Many  others  found  all  this  fuss  objectionable  and  tried 
to  ignore  the  war.  The  proprietor  of  the  Trois  Tours  at 
Poperinghe  was  constantly  complaining  to  all  and  sundry 


prelude:  on  the  aisne  15 

of  the  way  in  which  the  horses  of  the  9th  Lancers  were  eating 
the  bark  off  his  trees — two  years  later  the  inn  had  been 
literally  erased  from  the  face  of  the  earth  and  his  orchard 
was  a  flat  pool  of  mud.  At  least  one  of  the  grander  restaur- 
ants in  Paris  excluded  officers  in  uniform,  and  the  sign  ^Pas 
de  chevaux"  was  hung  outside  many  of  the  chateaux  in  Picardy. 

For  at  this  early  stage  in  the  fighting  the  horses  were 
everywhere.  It  was  the  cavalry,  Queen  of  the  battlefield 
since  the  Middle  Ages,  that  caught  the  eye  and  the  imagina- 
tion: the  Scots  Greys,  the  4th  Hussars,  the  5th  Lancers,  the 
gth  Lancers,  the  12th  Lancers,  the  i6th  Lancers,  the  i8th 
Hussars,  the  20th  Hussars — in  the  Expeditionary  Force  it 
seemed  that  there  were  nearly  as  many  regiments  of  horse 
as  of  foot.^  In  troop  and  squadron  strength  they  trotted 
about  the  autumn  countryside,  pennants  fluttering  from  the 
tips  of  their  lances,  young  men  and  their  grooms  from  fox- 
hunting families  the  length  and  breadth  of  Britain,  eager 
for  *a  go  at  the  Boche'. 

And  this  moment,  of  all,  was  their  opportunity.  Largely 
owing  to  the  intervention  of  Gallieni  and  the  famous  'Taxi- 
cab  Army'  the  armies  of  Kluck  and  Biilow  had  become 
separated,  one  on  each  side  of  the  Marne,  connected  by  a 
front  of  some  thirty  miles  that  was  almost  without  protec- 
tion. Across  this  exposed  flank  streamed  columns  of  trans- 
port and  supply,  and  the  whole  confused  mass  of  support 
echelons  that  were  crowding  up  on  each  other  as  the  fighting 
armies  executed  their  turnabout.  To  protect  this  vulnerable 
and  congested  region  the  Germans  were  forced  to  rely  on 
some  scattered  troops  of  Uhlans,  two  battalions  of  Jager 
(sharpshooters  on  bicycles)  and  a  few  dismounted  oddments 
that  had  straggled  in.  This  motley  force,  without  adequate 
central  direction,  had  to  hold  the  crossings  of  the  Grand  and 
Petit  Morin  rivers  for  a  period — it  could  not  be  less  than  five 
days — while  von  Kluck  withdrew  from  his  salient. 

Opposite  them  was  the  B.E.F.  with  its  mass  of  cavalry 

I.  Actually  the  proportion  was  i8  cavalry  to  78  infantry,  but  17  cavalry 
regiments  were  in  the  line  compared  with  only  42  infantry  battalions. 


i6  prelude:  on  the  aisne 

and,  under  the  command  of  cavalry  officers,  now  offered 
what  was  to  be,  in  Europe  at  any  rate,  the  last  and  greatest 
opportunity  in  the  history  of  the  arm.  A  resolute  thrust, 
pressed  with  even  a  semblance  of  the  disregard  for  casualties 
that  characterized  later  operations  under  the  same  com- 
manders, would  have  broken  through  this  screen  and  rup- 
tured the  enemy's  supply  lines.  Kluck's  army — which  had 
been  virtually  without  rations  since  the  5th  September — 
would  have  been  cut  off  and  wholesale  surrenders  would 
have  resulted. 

But  what  followed  was  disappointing.  The  forward  move- 
ment of  the  British  cavalry  was  timid  and  hesitant.  Some- 
times, very  rarely,  the  young  officers  had  their  hearts'  desire 
and  there  were  encounters  with  Uhlans  or  Garde  Dragoner.^ 
More  often  a  Maxim,  chattering  elusively  from  some  distant 
barn  or  copse,  would  cause  a  whole  squadron  to  dismount 
and  delay — perhaps  until  dusk. 

Largely  responsible  for  this  faltering  approach  was  Sir 
John  French,  the  Commander-in-Chief.  He  was  slow  even 
to  realize  that  the  Germans  had  altered  direction  and  on 
the  6th  September  his  forces  lost  all  effective  contact  with 
the  enemy.  This  seems  to  have  perplexed  him,  as  did  a  re- 
quest from  Joffre,  that  evening,  to  push  northward  (i.e. 
straight  into  the  gap,  instead  of  north-west  to  relieve  the 
imaginary  pressure  on  Franchet  D'Esperey's  5th  French 
Army).  In  his  diary  that  evening  he  wrote:  'It  now  became 
necessary  to  study  the  situation  with  great  care,'  and  the 
following  day:  'My  intention  to  close  at  all  speed  with  the 
enemy  had  to  be  tempered  by  consideration  for  the  French 
Armies  on  my  flank,  both  of  which  were  opposed  by  much 
larger  forces.' 

Thus  he  was  flatly  ignoring  the  precepts  laid  down  in  the 
Field  Service  Regulations^  that  'A  Commander  who  has 
gained  a  strategical  advantage  may  have  to  act  at  once  in 

1.  A  description  of  the  charge  of  the  gth  Lancers  at  Fr6toy  on  the  7th 
September — probably  the  last  encounter  in  which  a  member  of  the  British 
Army  was  wounded  by  a  lance — is  given  in  Appendix  No.  i 

2.  Part  I,  igog  (Sec.  gg.3). 


prelude:   on  the  aisne  17 

order  to  prevent  the  enemy  bringing  about  conditions  more 
favourable  to  himself — and  that  'AH  pursuing  troops  should 
act  with  great  boldness  and  be  prepared  to  accept  risks  that 
would  not  be  justifiable  at  other  times.' 

Attitudes  at  corps  and  divisional  level  were  equally 
cautious  and  leisurely.  General  Sir  Hubert  le  Poer  Gough, 
the  Commander  of  the  2nd  Cavalry  Division,  went,  on  the 
8th  September,  to  a  funeral  which  occupied  him  for  the 
whole  day  and,  on  the  9th,  did  not  get  his  cavalry  out  of 
their  billets  until  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  On  the 
loth  the  whole  divisional  front  was  thrown  into  confusion 
because  its  leading  echelon — the  5th  Cavalry  Brigade  under 
Sir  Philip,  later  Lord,  Chetwode — executed  a  complete  circle 
and  came  up  in  the  evening  against  the  left  flank  of  its  own 
support  line — a  manoeuvre  ascribed  in  the  Official  History  as 
due  to  'unfamiliarity  with  the  terrain  and  the  fatigued 
condition  of  horses  and  men'. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  under  such  conditions  of  leader- 
ship the  English  advance  averaged  somewhat  less  than  seven 
miles  a  day.  Of  the  two  corps,  Haig's  went  the  slower  owing 
to  its  commander's  insistence  on  keeping  his  infantry  in 
front,  with  the  cavalry  waiting  behind — an  unexpected 
order  of  battle  from  one  who  had  written  before  the  war 
that  'the  role  of  cavalry  on  the  battlefield  will  always  go  on 
increasing'  and  that  'the  organization  and  training  of 
cavalry  must  have  as  its  basis  the  necessity  of  mass  tactics'. 

For  a  week  the  British  cavalry  meandered  over  the  un- 
familiar terrain  disturbing  the  harvest,  while  among  them 
the  columns  of  infantry  stopped  and  started  and  stopped 
again.  The  enemy  was  seldom  seen.  Gunfire  was  heard  only 
occasionally.  Then,  on  the  12th,  when  it  was  already  too 
late,  Sir  John  French  ordered  Haig  to  let  his  cavalry  loose 
and  'get  over  the  Aisne  as  soon  as  you  can'. 

'By  now  everyone  was  regarding  the  advance  as  a  "pur- 
suit". The  roads  were  strewn  with  abandoned  German 
equipment.  I  myself  saw  hundreds  of  lances  left  behind  and 


i8  prelude:  on  the   aisne 

there  were  many  stragglers.  The  orders  that  "the  crossings 
over  the  Aisne  will  be  seized"  were  understood  by  all  to  mean 
that  the  advanced  guards  should  push  over  the  river,  the 
main  bodies  remaining  on  the  south  bank.  But  everyone  was 
very  tired  and,  to  put  the  lid  on  it,  the  12th  September 
provided  a  real  wet  afternoon  and  evening.  In  the  afternoon 
heavy  firing  was  heard  south  of  Soissons  and,  although 
aviators  had  reported  only  a  rearguard  at  Bazochs,  ahead 
Haig  ordered  his  divisions  not  to  proceed  as  far  as  the  Aisne 
but  to  halt  ahead  of  the  ist  Division  at  Vaucere  and  the 
2nd  at  Dhuizel!  His  later  excuse  was  that  the  3rd  Division 
on  his  left  was  not  keeping  up  and  the  French  i8th 
Corps  on  his  right  was  also  behind  and  could  not  be  relied 
on.  His  usual  Scots  caution.  As  it  happened,  even  the  re- 
duced march  ordered  by  Haig  was  not  completed  until  after 
dark.'i 

But  already  the  lava  of  the  first  eruption  was  hardening. 
The  beginnings  of  trenches  were  being  dug;  strands  of 
barbed  wire  were  being  staked  out  on  the  open  ground;  the 
last  hours  of  'fluid'  warfare  were  ticking  past  as  the  front 
took  shape  in  the  form  that  it  was  to  retain  with  but  small 
variation  for  the  next  four  years. 

It  was  twenty  years  before  this  double  failure — at  both 
tactical  and  strategic  level — was  explored  by  students  at  the 
War  Office,  and  even  then  their  findings  were  given  only  a 
restricted  circulation.^  Among  others,  these  points  were  given 
prominence : 

'  ( I )  The  necessity  for  orders  to  make  their  intention  unmistakeable 
to  the  recipients.  None  of  the  G.H.Q.  orders  at  this  time  dis- 
close the  intention  of  the  C.  in  C. 

'(2)  The  importance  of  not  losing  touch  with  the  enemy.  For 
example,  there  was  no  reconnaissance  in  front  of  ist  Corps 
(Haig)  on  the  night  of  the  13- 14th  September.  As  a  result 
of  this  the  advanced  guards  of  both  divisions  were  forced  to 

1.  Sir  J.  E.  Edmonds  (L.H.  files). 

2.  Tour  of  the  Aisne,  H.M.S.O.,  1934.  The  italics  are  mine. — A.C. 


prelude:  on  the  aisne  19 

deploy  on  the  morning  of  14th  in  the  confusion  of  surprise, 
from  cramped  valleys  about  Troyon  and  La  Maison  Brulee, 
and  found  themselves  crowded  on  ground  too  restricted  for 
their  proper  employment  and  in  complete  ignorance  of  their 
surroundings. 

'(3)  There  was  a  hopeless  lack  of  concentration.  The  B.E.F. 
advanced  to  the  Aisne  with  its  divisions  spread  over  the  front 
and  all  were  committed  to  battle  on  the  13th,  though  none 
were  heavily  engaged.  There  was  no  reserve  except  the 
19th  Infantry  Brigade  on  the  extreme  left.  No  effort  was 
made  by  G.H.Q^.  to  concentrate  superior  force  against  the 
gap  in  the  German  lines  and,  having  no  reserve,  G.H.Q. 
were  unable  to  reinforce  ist  Corps  front  on  the  13th,  where 
alone  there  was  room  for  manoeuvre.' 

It  is  of  interest  to  examine  the  conduct  of  the  'Battle'  of 
the  Aisne  because  of  its  significance  as  a  background  to  the 
offensives  of  later  years.  In  the  following  months,  and  con- 
tinuing right  up  until  the  winter  of  191 7,  the  British  com- 
manders were  to  make  every  effort,  spending  the  lives  of 
their  men  with  profligacy,  to  reproduce  the  sort  of  conditions 
of  open  warfare  and  'cavalry  country'  that  had  confronted 
them  on  the  Aisne  in  the  autumn  of  19 14.  But  their  handling 
of  operations  at  this  time  gives  no  confidence  that  they 
would  have  been  any  more  efficient  or  imaginative,  had  their 
wish  been  granted,  than  they  were  in  coping  with  the 
siege-like  conditions  that  set  in  after  the  first  great 
opportunity  was  lost. 

It  may  be  suggested  that  in  the  preceding  half-century  the 
British  commanders  had  acquired  reputations  that  were 
greatly  out  of  proportion  to  their  achievements.  Zulus, 
Afghans,  Dervishes,  Chinese — all  these  and  even,  in  the  end, 
Boers — had  been  defeated.  But  distance  had  magnified  the 
severity  of  those  'struggles'  and  they  had  been  still  further 
exaggerated  by  the  newspapers — themselves  responding  to 
the  public  appetite  for  glory  during  these  long,  tranquil  years. 
Nor  had  it  been  inconvenient  for  the  politicians  to  allow  these 


20  prelude:  on  the   aisne 

inflated  reputations  to  flourish.  For  the  generals  were  far 
away;  they  could  make  no  trouble;  and  their  prowess,  as  it 
seemed,  reflected  glory  on  the  home  Government.  Thus  a 
popular  tradition  of  heroic  infallibility  had  been  established 
which  was  to  mate  disastrously  with  the  amateurish  good 
humour  and  ignorance  of  contemporary  military  theory  that 
was  reality.  For  the  adulation  that  had  been  their  lot  from 
Press  and  public  had  deluded  the  commanders  with  notions 
of  their  own  ability  and  made  them  at  the  same  time  secure 
against  dismissal  by  the  politicians. 

So  it  was  that,  as  the  leaves  fell  and  the  ground  turned  to 
mud  and  the  German  howitzers  with  their  twelve-horse 
teams  plodded  patiently  up  to  the  line,  the  British  Army  was 
poised  over  an  abyss.  It  could  be  saved  only  by  a  reckless 
squandering  of  the  virtues  which,  like  its  delusions,  sprang 
from  a  background  of  peace  and  a  stable,  ordered  society. 
Bravery,  perfect  discipline,  absolute  conviction  of  right  and 
wrong  and  the  existence  of  God;  a  whole  code  of  behaviour 
that  is  now  little  more  than  an  object  of  derision — these 
were  to  be  pitted  against  the  largest  and  the  most  highly 
trained  army  in  the  world. 

It  could  only  be  hoped  that  the  British  officers  would 
profit  rapidly  from  experience. 


A  Band  of  Brothers 

He  [Sir  John  French]  surrounds  himself  with  capable 
leaders  and  staff  officers,  and  not  only  brings  his  troops 
to  a  high  degree  of  efficiency,  but  also  makes  his 
officers  a  band  of  brothers,  and  establishes  a  good 
comradeship  between  all  arms  and  all  ranks. 

The  Times,  on  his  appointment,  3rd  August  19 14 

IN  COMMAND  was  Sir  John  French.  'There  was  not  a 
moment's  hesitation  about  the  appointment  of  Sir  John,' 
said  The  Times,  'there  was  no  painful  canvassing  of 
candidates,  no  acrimonious  discussion,  no  odious  comparison 
of  the  merits  of  respective  generals,  no  hint  of  favouritism, 
of  Party  intrigue.'  But  to  some  it  may  have  seemed  unusual 
that  these  concepts  were  mentioned  at  all. 

He  was  a  weak-willed  man  of  medium  height,  'amiable 
enough',  though  'petulant  when  thwarted'.  He  had  'a  liking 
for  the  ladies',  and  rumour  has  it  that  this  taste  was  not 
unconnected  with  his  urgent  need  for  ^{^2,000  when  he  was 
commander  of  the  Cavalry  Brigade  at  Aldershot.  He  had 
borrowed  the  money  from  Douglas  Haig,  at  that  time  his 
Brigade  Major,  and  now  one  of  his  corps  commanders. 

For  Haig,  himself,  having  a  superior  officer  in  his  debt 
was  but  one  of  a  variety  of  fortuitous  happenings  that  had 
so  far  compensated  for  a  military  talent  which,  although 
systematic,  was  not  outstanding  or  original.  He  was  not  really 
a  Haig  of  Bemersyde,^  although  he  took  the  title  on  his 

I.  I  have  been  asked  by  the  solicitors  to  the  Haig  Trustees  to  set  out  the 
following  facts  concerning  the  late  Field  Marshal's  lineage:  'He  was  directly 
descended  from  the  1 7th  Laird  and  as  such  was  entitled  to  bear  the  Quartered 
Arms.  When  he  was  born  no  Haigs  were  living  at  Bemersyde  and  the  direct 
line  through  a  younger  son  of  the  17th  Laird  had  petered  out  about  1840  when 
the  last  male  heir  died.  Later  about  1870  the  sisters  of  that  heir  left  the  property 

21 


22  THE   DONKEYS 

ennoblement,  but  came  from  the  whisky-making  side  of  the 
family.  Hence  he  had  not  entered  the  Scots  Greys,  which 
might  have  been  considered  a  natural  choice,  but  had 
joined  the  7th  Hussars.  He  failed  the  Staff  College  examina- 
tion. However,  the  Duke  of  Cambridge,  who  at  that  time 
had  the  right  of  nominating  candidates  was  an  acquaintance 
of  Haig's  elder  sister,  Henrietta.  Under  these  auspices  Haig 
applied  a  second  time  and  the  formality  of  an  entrance 
examination  was  waived.  From  there  he  took  frequent  leave 
to  attend  shooting  parties  organized  by  his  sister  for  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  and  these  entries,  boldly  inscribed  in  the 
leave  book,  made  their  impression  on  his  instructors. 

None  the  less,  in  the  final  outdoor  examination  Haig  did 
not  shine  and  attracted  unfavourable  comment  from 
General  Plumer,  who  was  conducting  it.  At  thirty-eight  he 
was  still  only  a  captain.  During  the  Boer  War  Haig  was  Chief 
of  Staff  to  French,  who  had  command  of  the  Cavalry  Divi- 
sion. (He  thought  that  'the  Boers  were  treated  too  gener- 
ously') and  afterwards  he  was  made  an  A.D.C.  to  the  King. 
From  that  time  forward  his  ascent  was  more  rapid  and  he 
became  respected  for  his  conventional  opinions;  as  that 
'Cavalry  will  have  a  larger  sphere  of  action  in  future  wars', 
and  'Artillery  only  seems  likely  to  be  really  effective  against 
raw  troops'. 

Finally,  in  1905,  he  married  the  Hon.  Dorothy  Vivian, 
one  of  Queen  Alexandra's  maids  of  honour,  and  from  then 
on  his  position  in  Court  circles  was  unchallengeable. 

An  unfortunate  result  of  the  fact  that  his  progress  owed 
more  to  influential  connections  than  to  natural  ability  was 
that  the  Army  seemed  to  contain  many  people  who  had 
tried  to  thwart  Haig  or  who  had,  on  account  of  superior 
quality,  excelled  him. 

to  a  colateral  who  belonged  to  the  same  line  as  the  Field  Marshal,  who  owned 
Bemersyde  until  it  was  sold  to  the  group  of  subscribers  who  bought  it  for  the 
Field  Marshal  in  1921.  During  all  this  time  the  senior  branch  of  the  family  had 
been  living  in  America.  In  1948  the  Lord  Lyon  declared  that  in  his  opinion  it 
was  important  for  the  Chief  of  the  Family  to  be  living  in  the  family  home,  and 
so  the  Field  Marshal's  son  was  declared  to  be  Haig  of  Bemersyde.' 


A    BAND    OF    BROTHERS  23 

For  example  General  Griersoiij  his  fellow  corps  com- 
mander in  the  B.E.F.,  had  completely  outmanoeuvred  Haig 
at  the  autumn  exercises  of  191 2,  to  the  embarrassment  of  all 
concerned,  and  to  such  an  extent  that  the  manoeuvres  had 
to  be  closed  a  day  early.  On  arrival  in  France  Grierson  had 
died  of  a  heart  attack  and  Sir  John  French's  choice  as  his 
successor  was  General  Plumer,  the  erstwhile  Staff  College 
examiner  who  had  taken  such  a  poor  view  of  Haig's  per- 
formance. At  the  last  moment,  however,  this  decision  was 
altered  and  Sir  Horace  Smith-Dorrien  was  appointed  in  his 
place. 

As  subordinates,  too,  there  could  be  counted  several 
divisional  commanders  enjoying  only  cool  relations  with 
Haig.  One  of  these  was  General  Allenby,  commanding  the 
I  St  Cavalry  Division  who  while  at  the  Staff  College  had  been 
preferred,  when  in  direct  competition  with  Haig,  for  the 
mastership  of  the  Drag. 

Perhaps  it  is  on  account  of  a  feeling  of  insecurity  en- 
gendered by  this  background  that  Haig's  diaries,  which  are 
filled  with  information  about  his  colleagues,  seem  unusually 
critical.  For  it  is  almost  impossible  to  find  mention  of  one 
whose  abilities  do  not  fill  him  with  misgiving — unless  it  be 
Major-General  Lomax,  'an  experienced  and  practical  leader, 
most  loyal  to  me\^ 

Loyalty,  however  highly  he  may  have  regarded  it  in  sub- 
ordinates, was  not  a  virtue  that  Haig  himself  exhibited  in 
relation  to  those  above  him.  On  the  i  ith  August  he  cornered 
the  King,  who  had  been  conducting  a  farewell  review  of  the 
Expeditionary  Force  at  Aldershot,  and  told  him: 

'.  .  .  as  I  felt  it  my  duty  to  do,  that  from  my  experience 
with  Sir  John  in  the  South  African  War  he  was  certain  to 
do  his  utmost  loyally  to  carry  out  any  orders  which  the 
Government  might  give  him.  I  had  grave  doubts,  however, 
whether  either  his   temper   was    sufficiently   even,   or   his 

I.  The  italics  are  Haig's.  The  implication  shall  be  left  for  the  reader  to 
estimate — A.C. 


24  THE    DONKEYS 

military  knowledge  sufficiently  thorough,  to  enable  him  to 
discharge  properly  the  very  difficult  duties  which  would 
devolve  upon  him  during  the  coming  operations.' 

The  King's  response  to  this  disclosure  is  not  recorded. 
Perhaps  it  was  a  little  disappointing  for  Haig  wrote  further 
on  that  'the  BLing  did  not  give  me  the  impression  that  he 
fully  realized  the  grave  issues  both  for  our  country  as  well  as 
for  his  own  House,  which  were  about  to  be  put  to  the  test', 
although  (poor  man)  he  '.  .  .  seemed  anxious\ 

Haig's  doubts  about  French  extended  to  his  Chief  of  Staff, 
Major-General  Sir  Archibald  Murray: 

'I  had  a  poor  opinion  of  his  qualifications  as  a  General. 
In  some  respects  he  seemed  to  me  to  be  "an  old  woman". 
For  example,  in  his  dealings  with  Sir  John.  When  his  own 
better  judgement  told  him  that  something  which  the  latter 
wished  put  in  Orders  was  quite  unsound,  instead  of  frankly 
acknowledging  his  disagreement,^  he  would  weakly  acquiesce 
in  order  to  avoid  an  outbreak  of  temper  and  a  scene.' 

Haig  added: 

'However,  I  am  determined  to  be  thoroughly  loyal  and 
do  my  duty  as  a  subordinate  should,  trying  all  the  time  to 
see  Sir  John's  good  qualities  and  not  his  weak  ones,  though 
neither  of  them  [French  and  Murray]  is  at  all  fitted  for  the 
appointment  which  he  now  holds  at  this  moment  of  crisis.' 

Of  Monro,  who  took  Murray's  place  as  G.O.C.  2nd 
Division,  Haig  wrote: 

'Monro  proved  himself  to  be  a  good  regimental  officer  and 
an  excellent  commander  of  the  Hythe  school  of  musketry, 

I .  i.e.  Showing  'disloyalty'?  Further  evidence  that  Haig's  attitude  in  matters 
of  this  kind  was  strictly  subjective  is  offered  by  his  entry  regarding  a  slight 
disagreement  with  his  own  Chief  of  Staff,  Brigadier-General  John  Gough:  *It 
was  during  the  retreat  on  the  night  after  the  action  at  Villiers-Cotterets.  After 
dinner  at  Mareuil,  he,  in  his  impetuous  way,  grumbled  at  my  going  on  "retreat- 
ing and  retreating".  As  a  number  of  the  Staff  were  present,  I  turned  on  him 
rather  sharply,  and  said  that  retreat  was  the  only  thing  to  save  the  Army, 
and  that  it  was  his  duty  to  support  me  instead  of  criticizing.  He  was  very  sorry, 
poor  fellow.' — The  Private  Papers  of  Douglas  Haig,  p.  87. 


A    BAND    OF    BROTHERS  25 

but  some  years  with  the  territorials  has  resuhed  in  his 
becoming  rather  fat.  He  lacks  practical  experience  in 
commanding  a  division.' 

In  considering  the  younger  officers  Haig  could  find  little 
grounds  for  satisfaction.  Of  the  staff  of  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson, 
Bt.,  commander  of  the  4th  Infantry  Division,  he  wrote: 

'His  general  staff  consists  of  two  Regulars,  R.  A.  K. 
Montgomery,  r.a.,  and  Dallas,  who  had  a  bad  sunstroke 
in  India,  from  the  War  Office.  Toby  Rawlinson  (his  brother) 
acts  as  Mess  President.  He  is  now  graded  as  Colonel,  though 
he  left  the  17th  Lancers  as  a  Subaltern.  Joe  Laycock  and  the 
Duke  of  Westminster  were  A.D.C.s.  There  were  two  or  three 
other  officers  about,  who  in  peacetime  were  connected  with 
motors  or  polo  ponies.' 

Of  the  Indian  Corps: 

'I  felt  surprise  at  the  air  of  dejection  and  despondency 
which  met  me  all  round  their  headquarters,  both  outside, 
where  orderlies  and  others  were  hanging  about  numbed 
with  cold,  and  inside,  where  all  ranks,  staff  officers,  British 
and  Native  clerks  seemed  to  be  working  together  in  three  or 
four  rooms  on  the  ground  floor.  All  the  windows  were  shut 
and  the  atmosphere  was,  of  course,  very  close.  I  came  away 
feeling  that  things  were  not  altogether  in  an  efficient  state 
in  the  Indian  Corps.' 

On  visits  to  other  units  he  found  further  grounds  for  com- 
plaint. 

'I  motored  over  in  the  morning  to  see  the  17th  Lancers. 
They  gave  me  a  great  lunch  in  the  Marie.  The  regiment  is 
messing  by  squadrons.  This  may  do  very  well  at  first,  but  in 
my  opinion  the  officers  of  a  regiment  should  always  mess 
together  in  a  "Regimental  Mess"  whenever  possible.' 

Nor  were  good  manners  any  surer  a  road  to  Haig's  favour: 
he  described  D'Urbal,  commander  of  the  French  Army  on 


26  THE    DONKEYS 

his  left,  as  'a  tall  suave,  elderly  gentleman — rather  an  actor, 
the  type  of  man  seen  on  the  stage  playing  the  part  of  "the 
respectable  Uncle" — and  unpleasantly />o/z7g'. 

While  Haig  could  find  little  consolation  as  he  looked 
around  and  beneath  him,  his  superior  was  haunted  by  fear 
of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  Lord  Kitchener. 

Relations  between  Kitchener  and  French  had  been  poor 
since  the  time  of  the  South  African  War.  Now  they  were 
worsened  by  Kitchener's  reluctance  to  accept  the  restraints 
of  a  political,  civilian,  appointment.  As  the  premier  soldier 
of  the  Empire  it  seemed  to  him  intolerable  that  he  should 
not  be  allowed  to  give  Sir  John  direct  orders,  as  to  a  sub- 
ordinate. He  discussed  frequently  with  his  friends  the  possi- 
bility of  assuming  the  post  of  Captain-General,  or  Generalis- 
simo, and  of  holding  it  in  addition  to  his  existing  office 
of  Secretary  of  State,  in  order  to  formalize  the  responsi- 
bility which  he  bore  for  the  supreme  direction  of  British 
military  strategy.  When  he  travelled  to  France  he  always 
wore  his  uniform,  and  tricky  points  of  protocol — always 
a  fertile  source  of  dispute  among  soldiers — would  crop 
up. 

The  position  was  aggravated  by  Henry  Wilson,  nominally 
sub-Chief  of  Staff,  who  held  an  ill-defined  but  highly  in- 
fluential position  of  liaison  with  French  General  Head- 
quarters, or  'G.Q.G.'.  Henry  Wilson's  importance  was  two- 
fold. In  the  first  place  he  was  a  convinced  'Westerner',  that 
is  to  say  that  he  was  deeply  committed  to  the  doctrine  that 
the  whole  war  eflfort  of  the  Empire  should  be  applied  ex- 
clusively in  Flanders^  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  theatres 
such  as  the  Balkans  and  the  Middle  East.  Second,  he  en- 
joyed the  best  possible  relations  with  the  French  commanders 
— unlike  many  of  his  compatriots  whose  careers  were  equally 
involved — and  from  Foch  and  Joffre  he  would  pick  up  a 

I .  In  his  diary  he  tells  how  he  'Dined  with  the  King.  Also  Prince  of  Wales 
and  Stamfordham  [Private  secretary  to  the  King].  Had  little  talk  with  the 
King,  but  much  with  S  who  said  among  other  things  that  I  was  more  responsible 
for  England  joining  the  war  than  any  other  man.  I  think  this  is  true' 
{Memoirs  of  Sir  Henry  Wilson,  ed.  Sir  E.  Callwell,  189). 


A    BAND    OF    BROTHERS  27 

variety  of  confidential  information  and  political  tit-bits  often 
in  advance  even  of  their  arrival  at  the  Cabinet  Room  in 
London. 

Wilson  was  convinced  of  his  own  indispensability,  but 
power — real  power,  that  is,  as  compared  with  mere  leverage 
for  intrigue — seemed  to  be  eluding  him.  This  may  explain 
his  morally  tortuous  behaviour.  As  Director  of  Military 
Operations  at  the  War  Office  he  had  played  a  prominent 
role  at  the  time  of  the  scandalous  'Mutiny  at  the  Curragh'^ 
when  he  communicated  Cabinet  secrets  to  the  Opposition 
and  seems,  as  his  diary  shows,  to  have  seen  nothing  improper 
in  giving  advice  and  encouragement,  based  on  confidential 
information,  to  the  Ulster  Volunteers.  He  was  friendly  with 
Sir  John  French,  they  had  been  on  intimate  terms  since  the 
Curragh  incident  (which  had  forced  French's,  though  not 
Wilson's,  resignation)  and  the  two  men  were  joined  in  a 
mutual  dislike  of  Lord  Kitchener.  ^  The  Commander-in- 
Chief  was  less  articulate  in  his  expressions  of  dislike,  but  he 
seems  to  have  listened  happily  enough  as  Wilson  told  him 
that  the  Secretary  of  State  was  as  great  an  enemy  of  the 
B.E.F.  as  Moltke  or  Falkenhayn.  Wilson  also  complained 

1.  In  essence  the  Curragh  affair  (March  191 4)  centred  round  the  stated 
preference  of  Brigadier-General  Hubert  Gough  and  fifty-one  out  of  seventy- 
officers  of  the  3rd  Cavalry  Brigade  for  'dismissal'  rather  than  action  should  they 
be  ordered  to  enforce  the  Liberal  Government's  home  rule  policy  against  the 
protestant  north  of  Ireland.  A  muddled  War  Office  directive  and  the  incom- 
petent handling  of  the  incident  by  Sir  Arthur  Paget,  G.O.C.  Ireland,  obscured 
the  real  issue.  This  lay  in  the  unwelcome  irruption  of  the  Army  into  domestic 
politics,  and  the  establishment  of  an  entente  between  its  higher  echelons  and  the 
Conservative  opposition — an  association  of  which  there  were  to  be  several 
reminders  during  191 5. 

2.  Kitchener's  biographer,  Sir  Philip  Magnus,  explains  the  background  to 
this  hostility.  In  July  1909  Kitchener  had  visited  the  Staff  College  at  Camberley 
at  the  end  of  Wilson's  period  of  service  as  Commandant.  Kitchener  had  then 
questioned  some  aspects  of  Wilson's  teaching,  and  Wilson  had  not  replied  with 
becoming  modesty.  Relying  upon  the  licence  which  his  social  popularity  had 
earned  in  many  quarters,  he  had  displayed  a  casual  breeziness  which  the 
Field  Marshal  had  deemed  unsuitable.  Five  years  later,  on  the  7th  August  1914, 
Kitchener  had  occasion  to  summon  Wilson  to  his  room  in  the  War  Office  in 
order  to  rebuke  him  for  indiscreet  discussion  in  Mayfair  drawing-rooms  of  the 
transport  arrangements  of  the  B.E.F.  Wilson  hotly  resented  that  rebuke,  and 
thereafter  did  his  best  to  poison  the  receptive  mind  of  Sir  John  French  against 
Kitchener. 


28  THE    DONKEYS 

constantly  about  Kitchener's  policy  of  keeping  a  number  of 
trained  officers  and  N.C.O.s  in  England  to  serve  as  instruc- 
tors for  the  new  Kitchener's  Armies  that  were  being  formed. 
(Actually,  not  enough  were  kept  back.)  Wilson  professed  to 
believe  that  Kitchener  was  mad:  and  he  joked  about 
Kitchener's  'shadow  armies  for  shadow  campaigns  at 
unknown  and  distant  dates'. 

This  friction  between  French  and  Kitchener  had  unfortu- 
nate side  effects — not  least  of  these  being  that  produced  on 
the  running  of  French's  own  headquarters.  When  after  three 
months  it  became  necessary  to  replace  Sir  Archibald  Murray 
(French's  Chief  of  Staff),  there  developed  a  positive  turmoil 
of  intrigue  and  mortification.  When  the  matter  was  first 
raised  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  Wilson  would  succeed. 
On  the  igth  December  he  wrote  in  his  diary:  'Saw  Sir  John 
twice  this  morning  and  again  this  evening.  He  talked  as 
though  it  were  settled  that  I  was  to  be  C.  of  S.'  But  four 
days  later  there  was  disquieting  news: 

'Sir  John  began  by  saying  that  he  would  speak  very 
openly.  He  said  no  man  had  ever  given  another  more  loyal 
and  valuable  help  than  I  had  given  him.  He  said  that  so 
long  as  he  was  alive  and  had  power  my  future  and  my  pro- 
motion were  assured.  He  went  on  in  this  way  for  some  time 
and  then  came  to  the  real  point.  He  said  the  Government 
and  Kitchener  were  very  hostile  to  me.  They  said  my 
appointment  would  be  very  repugnant  to  the  Cabinet  and 
would  shake  confidence  in  the  Army!' 

It  is  evident  that  Wilson  was  not  content  to  leave  the 
protection  of  his  interests  in  Sir  John's  hands,  in  spite  of  the 
latter's  protestations.  On  Boxing  Day  he  drove  over  to 
G.Q^.G.  at  Chantilly  with  Huguet^  and  they  discussed  the 
whole  question  in  the  car.  On  arrival  they  recounted  the 
state  of  affairs  to  Joffre  in  the  presence  of  Delcasse^  who,  by 
chance,  was  also  there. 

1 .  French  liaison  officer  at  G.H.Q,.  at  St.  Omer. 

2.  French  Foreign  Minister. 


A    BAND    OF    BROTHERS  29 

'On  this  Delcasse  said  he  would  see  Bertie^  at  once,  and 
that  if  this  interview  was  not  satisfactory  he  would  go  over 
and  see  Asquith,  that  it  was  intolerable  that  I  should  be 
ruled  out  for  policital  reasons.  .  .  .  Delcasse  had  sent  for 
Bertie  and  was  crossing  to  England  tonight,  so  it  looks  as 
though  he  were  moving.' 

Fortified  by  this,  Wilson  had  another  meeting  with  Sir 
John  at  which  he  said  that:  '.  .  .  in  my  judgement  he  must 
remove  Murray.  He  must  beat  Asquith  on  the  matter  of 
principle,  and  he  must  offer  me  the  appointment.'  Wilson 
declared  that  when  offered  the  post  he  would  refuse  it. 
'.  .  .  I  can  do  no  more  than  refuse  the  appointment  that  I 
have  worked  for  and  dreamed  of  for  years.'  And  he  went 
on  to  assure  the  Commander-in-Chief  (though  on  what  evi- 
dence is  not  clear)  that  Murray  himself  was  anxious  to  vacate 
the  post:  '.  .  .  five  minutes  after  he  is  told  that  he  is  going 
to  be  given  a  Corps,  he  will  thank  God  that  the  strain  is 
over'.  French's  reaction  to  this  harangue  is  not  specifically 
recorded.  It  is  possible  that  from  experience  he  felt  that 
Wilson  might  after  all  be  prevented  by  his  conscience  from 
refusing  the  post  when  it  was  thus  formally  offered  to  him. 
At  the  time  he  was  no  more  than  'charming  and  grateful', 
and  gave  Wilson  to  understand  that  he  'I  think,  perhaps, 
will  use  this  loophole'.^ 

For  a  few  days  it  seemed  as  if  a  compromise,  and  a  typi- 
cally unsatisfactory  one,  was  to  be  the  result  of  all  this 
agitation;  namely  the  retention  of  Murray  in  his  position 
and  of  Wilson,  and  the  other  candidates,  in  theirs.  G.Q.G. 
were  keeping  a  watchful  eye  on  the  situation,  and  on 
5th  January  Foch  was  able  to  write  to  Joffre  and  tell  him 
that:  3 

'My  telegram  in  cipher  despatched  today  gave  you  a 
brief  account  of  my  knowledge  of  Field  Marshal  French's 

1 .  Viscount  Bertie,  British  Ambassador  in  Paris. 

2.  All  quotations  are  taken,  unless  otherwise  stated,  from  Sir  E.  Callwell's 
edition  of  Henry  Wilson's  Memoirs. 

3.  Liddell  Hart,  Foch. 


30  THE    DONKEYS 

intentions  with  regard  to  a  prospective  change  in  his  staff. 
Whether  he  has  asked  to  keep  him  [Murray]  I  don't  know; 
I  do  not  think  so.  But  he  may  have  abstained  from  asking 
for  his  recall;  for  I  know  that  when  he  learned  of  the  steps 
we  had  taken  he  said  that  in  those  circumstances  he  could 
do  nothing. 

'English  pride  demands  that  Murray  stays  where  he  is. 
Anyhow,  Lord  Kitchener  and  Mr.  Asquith  would  not  hear 
of  General  Wilson  as  his  successor.  When  Murray  is  recalled 
and  Wilson  has  gained  people's  confidence,  I  believe  that 
we  shall  be  able  to  progress.  .  .  .' 

In  the  meantime  Wilson's  hopes  had  been  raised  again 
when  French,  who  was  preparing  his  headquarters  for  a 
visit  from  Asquith  and  Kitchener  '.  .  .  leant  over  to  me  and 
said  to  me  in  a  whisper:  "You  are  such  a  brute,  you  will 
never  be  nice  to  people  you  don't  like.  Now  I  am  going  to 
get  Asquith  out  here,  why  don't  you  make  love  to  him?"  By 
which  he  means  that  he  still  wants  to  have  me  as  Chief  of 
Staff.' 

However,  Foch's  hopes  of  his  protege  'gaining  people's 
confidence'  showed  little  understanding  of  Wilson's  charac- 
ter. The  following  week  he  was  back  in  London  and  saw, 
among  others.  Lord  Lansdowne,  with  whom  he  was 
characteristically  indiscreet: 

'I  spoke  freely  about  our  relations  with  the  French,  and 
my  proposal  that  they  should  send  some  representative  men 
to  see  what  Kitchener  was  doing,  also  of  the  strained  rela- 
tions between  Sir  John  and  "K" — also  of  my  suspicions  of 
Winston's  intrigues — and  so  forth.  He  was  charming,  as 
usual.' 

When  he  got  back  to  France  Wilson  made  contact  with 
Robertson,  at  that  time  Quartermaster  General  and  his 
leading  opponent  as  candidate  for  the  post.  They  went  for 
a  drive  in  Wilson's  Rolls  and  Robertson  said  that  though 
'.  .  .  the  offer  was  a  tempting  one,  as  it  meant  an  increase  of 


A    BAND    OF    BROTHERS  3I 

pay  as  well  as  of  position,  I  did  not  wish  to  accept  it'.^ 
It  did  seem  that  for  the  time  being  the  whole  matter  was 
dying  down,  and  Wilson  left  for  a  tour  of  the  French  line  at 
the  invitation  of  Joffre:  'No  other  officer  in  any  army,  not 
even  a  Russian,  has  been  allowed  to  go  down  the  French 
line  except  me.'  Certainly  it  started  off  pleasantly  enough. 
He  was  'everywhere  met  by  the  Generals,  who  took  the 
greatest  pleasure  in  showing  me  things  and  making  me  as 
comfortable  as  they  could.  I  went  to  Amiens,  Chantilly, 
Ghagny,  Villiers  Cotterets,  Reims,  Epernay,  Bar-le-Duc, 
Remiremont.  .  .  .'  But  at  Remiremont  there  was  bad  news. 
A  message  '^en  clair^  from  Robertson  writing  as  Chief  of  Staff, 
announcing  the  relief  of  Murray  on  grounds  of  ill-health, 
and  Wilson's  formal  appointment  as  liaison  officer  with  the 
French  Army. 

Wilson  hurried  back  to  St.  Omer  where  he  saw  Sir  John 
who,  in  some  embarrassment  it  may  be  thought,  repeated 
that  'nothing  he  could  ever  do  for  me  for  the  work  I  had 
done  could  be  enough,  and  that,  so  long  as  he  held  power, 
etc.,  etc.'.  French  did,  however,  agree  to  Wilson's  immediate 
promotion  to  lieutenant-general  (although  he  had  no  power 
to  do  so  without  reference  back  to  the  War  Office)  and  there 
was  talk  of  a  K.C.B.  But  this  latter  hope  turned  out  to  be 
ill-founded;  in  the  days  immediately  preceding  publication 
it  got  around  that  Wilson's  name  was  not,  after  all,  on  the 
list.  French  approached  Kitchener,  who  replied  that  nothing 
could  now  be  done  as  the  King  had  signed  the  list.  When 
the  Honours  Gazette  appeared  it  was  found  that  Wilson  had 
been  granted  his  temporary  lieutenant-generalship  as  an 
'honour'.  Wilson  ('The  fools  have  given  me  another  open- 
ing') at  once  wrote  to  Robb,  the  Military  Secretary,  claim- 
ing that  this  gave  him  'permanent  date',  i.e.  not  a  tem- 
porary rank  at  all — 'but  happily,'  as  his  biographer  says, 
'this  question  never  had  to  be  put  to  the  test'. 

Sir  John  French  seems  to  have  had  the  idea  of  compen- 
sating for  the  only  mediocre  support  that  he  had  lent  to 

I .   Sir  William  Robertson,  From  Private  to  Field  Marshal. 


32  THE    DONKEYS 

Henry  Wilson's  aspirations  by  the  bad  manners  with  which 
he  treated  Robertson,  the  Government  nominee.  He 
ignored  Robertson  socially,  insulted  him  in  public  on  a 
variety  of  occasions,  refused  to  mess  with  him  and  continued 
to  sit  next  to  Henry  Wilson  at  meals.  Robertson  got  his  own 
back  when  Wilson  tried  to  dabble  in  Staff  matters  by  stalling 
him  on  one  pretext  or  another,  refusing  him  access  to  docu- 
ments or  sending  them  up  days  late.  Naturally  the  smooth 
running  of  the  British  G.H.Q.  was  affected.  Haig  describes 
a  characteristic  incident: 

'I  went  to  Hazebrouck  at  11.30  a.m.  to  see  Sir  John 
French.  When  I  was  shown  into  his  room,  Sir  William 
Robertson  (G.G.S.)  followed.  Sir  John  said  would  he  kindly 
wait  as  he  had  something  to  say  to  me  alone.  Then  when 
Robertson  had  gone  he  said  that  he  had  "nothing  private 
to  say,  only  he  wished  to  make  it  clear  to  R.  that  he  (F.) 
meant  to  see  his  army  commanders  alone  occasionally, 
because  R.  had  tried  to  insist  that  F.  should  not  see  any  of 
his  subordinate  commanders  unless  he  (R.)  was  present  as 
G.G.S."!' 

Gertainly  from  contemporary  documents  one  does  not 
draw  a  reassuring  picture  of  happy  personal  relations  in  the 
higher  echelons  of  the  B.E.F.  Haig  describes  the  Mess  at 
G.H.Q^.  on  a  typical  evening.^ 

'I  motored  to  St.  Omer  and  dined  with  Sir  John  French. 
Lieutenant-General  H.  Wilson  was  also  dining.  Brinsley 
Fitzgerald  told  me  that  the  G.-in-C.  had  asked  Wilson  to 
join  his  Mess — a  very  great  mistake,  we  both  agreed, 
because  he  is  such  a  terrible  intriguer  and  is  sure  to  make 
mischief.  Wilson's  face  now  looks  so  deceitful.  By  having  W. 
in  his  Mess,  while  Robertson  (the  Ghief  of  Staff)  is  only  able 
to  see  him  at  stated  times,  the  Gommander-in-Ghief  is 
courting  trouble.  Billy  Lambton  (the  Mil.  Sec.)  is  weak,  and 
quite   under  the   influence   of  Wilson,   it  seems.   Luckily, 

I.  Haig's  diary  for  I2th  March  191 5. 


A    BAND    OF    BROTHERS  33 

Lambton  is  stupid,  and  more  than  once  has  unconsciously 
given  away  what  H.  Wilson  has  been  scheming  for.' 

Personal  rivalries  at  G.H.Q.  were  complicated  at  every 
stage  by  the  intervention  of  the  French  whenever  it  was  felt 
by  them  that  the  influence  of  'dooble-Vay',  as  Wilson  was 
known,  was  threatened.  The  first  instance  of  this,  and  one 
which,  it  may  be  throught,  provides  the  key  to  the  whole 
situation,  had  arisen  at  the  Dunkirk  conference  of  November 
1914: 

'In  imagined  privacy  Kitchener  mooted  his  intention  of 
recalling  Sir  John  French  and  replacing  him  by  Sir  Ian 
Hamilton.  Joffre  and  Foch  had  thought  of  asking  that 
French  should  be  replaced  by  Henry  Wilson  but  they  were 
not  favourable  to  a  change  to  the  unknown  which  might 
weaken  their  existing  influence  over  the  British  command. 
The  following  day  Foch  told  Wilson  privately  of  Kitchener's 
proposal,  and  suggested  that  French  himself  ought  to  be 
told.  Next  day,  according  to  Wilson's  diary:  "Sir  John  and 
I  went  to  Cassel  at  3  p.m.  when  Sir  John  thanked  Foch 
personally  and  in  the  warmest  terms  for  his  comradeship  and 
loyalty.  They  shook  hands  on  it,  and  the  two  parted  great 
friends."  Through  this  breach  of  confidence  French  and  his 
staff"  were  able  to  take  steps  both  at  home  and  in  France  to 
nullify  the  proposal.  Also  there  is  little  doubt  that  some 
members  of  his  staff"  took  the  shrewd  course  of  informing 
Joffre,  quite  untruthfully,  that  Sir  Ian  Hamilton  spoke  the 
French  language  even  worse  than  Sir  John  French.  It  is 
needless  to  emphasize  the  effect  of  this  hint  at  G.Q.G. 
where  the  inter-allied  situation  in  Flanders  was  already 
compared,  with  caustic  humour,  to  The  Tower  of  Babel. '^ 

Foch's  disclosure  naturally  strengthened  his  influence  over 
French,  if  it  did  not  increase  his  respect  for  him.  It  is  clear 
that  Foch  gauged  aptly  the  character  of  the  British  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, if  also  that  admiration  for  it  was  not  the 

I.  Liddell  Hart,  Foch,  p.  149. 


34  THE    DONKEYS 

reason  for  combating  his  recall.  For,  earlier,  when  Huguet 
(the  French  liaison  officer  with  the  British)  told  Foch  that 
Sir  John  was  aggrieved  with  him,  he  jocularly  replied:  'Bah! 
It  is  of  no  importance;  you  have  only  to  tell  him  that  he 
has  just  saved  England;  that  will  put  him  in  good  humour 
again!'  On  this  message  being  conveyed  to  French  he  made 
the  gratified,  though  not  immodest,  retort:  'But,  my  dear 
fellow,  I  know  it  only  too  well,  I  knew  it  from  the  beginning.'^ 
Now,  after  Robertson's  appointment,  Foch  wrote  to  Joffire: 

'General  Murray  is  leaving  the  English  Army,  ostensibly 
because  of  his  health.  Murray  is  replaced  by  General 
Robertson,  a  good  choice  in  default  of  Wilson.  Wilson  re- 
mains head  of  operations  and  relations  with  us.  His  status 
has  not  been  raised,  but  his  position  is  growing  more 
important.' 

Lest  these  overt  intrusions  into  the  domestic  politics  of  the 
British  Army  should  have  left  too  many  ruffled  coats,  Foch 
added:  'It  might  be  advisable  to  make  another  distribution 
of  medals  among  the  English  generals.  The  Field  Marshal 
[i.e.  Sir  John  French]  wished  to  remind  me  of  it.  .  .  .'^ 


1.  Liddell  Hart,  Foch,  p.  149. 

2.  Ibid,  p.  152. 


Winter  in  the  Trenches 

The  region  of  the  Lys  basin  and  the  plain  of  Flanders 
consists  entirely  of  low-lying  meadow.  Throughout 
the  winter  months  the  clayey  subsoil  holds  the  water 
approximately  two  feet  betow  the  surface  and  there  is 
a  tendency  for  any  minor  declivity,  whether  natural 
or  artificial,  to  become  water-logged. 

Introductory  note  to  War  Office  Manual,  19 13 

No-man's-land  was  a  grassy  tufted  waste,  pock- 
marked with  brown  craters,  with  here  and  there  the 
the  stumps  of  broken  trees  and  little  greyish  mounds 
which,  from  their  situation  and  contour,  suggested  human 
origin.  At  a  distance — it  varied  from  80  to  200  yards — stood 
the  German  emplacements.  Through  half-closed  eyes,  or 
when  veiled  by  the  damp  mist  that  rose  from  the  ground  at 
dawn,  the  irregular  line  of  grey  and  fawn  hummocks  that  was 
the  enemy  breastwork  might  have  been  a  stretch  of  dunes  on 
the  seashore,  with  the  dark  bundles  of  wire  straggling  from 
their  lower  reaches  like  wild  blackthorn. 

Sometimes,  at  night,  it  was  absolutely  still  for  minutes  at 
a  time.  The  voices  of  the  enemy  could  be  heard  and  even 
the  click  of  a  sentry's  heels  at  inspection.  A  subaltern  in  the 
Black  Watch  wrote  in  his  diary: 

T  could  hear  some  Boche  playing  Schubert;  it  was  "The 
Trout",  that  bit  that  goes  up  and  down,  on  an  old  piano. 
They  must  have  got  it  in  a  forward  dug-out;  even  so  it  was 
incredible  how  clear  the  sound  came  across.  But  before  he 
got  to  the  end  someone  put  a  flare  up  over  Auchy  and  the 

35 


36  THE    DONKEYS 

whole  of  No-Man's-Land  went  pale  green.  A  nervous 
sentry  fired  a  short  M.G.  burst  and  firing  started  up  all 
along  the  line.  It  went  on  and  off  for  about  half  an  hour.  I 
never  heard  the  pianist  again,  although  Corporal  Duffy  said 
he  was  performing  on  the  following  night.  I  often  wondered 
whether  he  survived  the  War.' 

As  the  November  fighting  died  down  the  British  troops 
had  found  themselves  holding  a  'line'  of  scattered  trenches, 
the  majority  of  them  scratched  hastily  in  the  soil  while  the 
battles  were  at  their  height,  unconnected  with  each  other 
and  without  any  proper  system  of  communication  and  sup- 
port to  the  rear.  When  these  were  linked  up  into  one  con- 
tinuous strip  by  the  engineers  many  weaknesses  became 
apparent:  the  successive  counter-attacks  that  had  been  made 
in  the  last  days  of  November  had  recovered  much  of  the 
ground  lost  but,  owing  to  the  exhaustion  of  the  men  and 
their  depleted  numbers,  had  been  brought  up  short  before 
any  enemy  positions  of  natural  strength.  The  instructions 
from  G.H.Q^.  that  not  an  inch  was  to  be  yielded,  and  the 
terrible  cost  at  which  the  ground  had  been  re-won,  alike 
made  it  difficult  to  alter  the  line  where  this  might  have 
meant  giving  up  even  a  few  hundred  yards  of  territory. 
And  so  the  British  front,  like  the  last  few  inches  of  a 
high  tide,  was  everywhere  indented  by  little  areas  of  high 
ground,  or  groups  of  buildings  at  road  junctions,  or  other 
sorts  of  positions  that  offered  unusual  advantages  to  the 
enemy. 

In  this  way  whole  stretches  were  subject  to  crippling 
enfilade  fire  from  the  German  positions,  that  gave  rise  to  a 
constant  drain  of  casualties  in  holding  on  to  them;  the  dig- 
ging of  communication  trenches  was  particularly  dangerous 
in  sectors  such  as  these  and  in  some  cases  had  to  be  aban- 
doned altogether,  which  in  turn  meant  that  long  frontages 
were  without  proper  connection  to  the  support  areas  and 
were  dependent  for  the  supply  of  ammunition  and  other 
essentials,  and  for  the  evacuation  of  wounded,  the  provision 


WINTER    IN    THE    TRENCHES  37 

of  reliefs  and  so  forth,  on  the  hazardous  and  uncertain  night 
traffic  along  the  fire-trench  itself. 

The  trenches  themselves  were  pitiful  affairs.  The  infantry 
'showed  considerable  lethargy  and  a  marked  disinclination 
to  dig'/  largely  on  account  of  the  unfamiliarity  of  the 
medium  and  the  G.H.Q^.  policy  of  switching  units  from 
sector  to  sector.  This  meant  that  the  troops  were  seldom  in 
a  position  long  enough  to  effect  any  marked  improvement, 
and  there  was  a  feeling  that  they  were  simply  doing  the  work 
for  those  that  came  after,  with  the  certainty  that  in  the 
stretch  where  they  themselves  were  next  posted  they  would 
have  to  start  all  over  again.  This  attitude  persisted  for  many 
weeks,  until  it  gradually  became  obvious  that  the  condition 
of  trench  warfare  was  a  permanent  one.  Certain  regiments 
also,  notably  the  Royal  Scots  and  the  Somerset,  began  to 
make  it  a  point  of  prestige  that  'no  unit  should  ever  have 
cause  to  complain  when  it  takes  over  a  stretch  of  line  from 
us',^  and  with  the  spreading  of  this  practice  the  strength  and 
habitability  of  the  line  began  to  increase.  Even  when  the 
will  was  there,  however,  there  was  a  painful  shortage  of 
means. 

Picks  and  shovels  were  considered  plentiful  when  there 
were  as  few  as  two  or  three  per  platoon  and  efforts  to 
commandeer  them  from  civilian  sources  met  with  little 
success,  as  the  Flemish  peasants  used  to  bury  them  rather 
than  part  with  the  tools  of  their  livelihood.  There  was  also 
a  serious  shortage  of  actual  construction  material,  and  par- 
ticularly of  sandbags  and  wattling  for  'reveting'  the  sides 
of  the  trenches.  The  scarcity  of  sandbags  was  particularly 
serious  in  low-lying  areas  such  as  the  Ypres  salient  and  oppo- 
site Festubert,  where  the  trenches  were  almost  permanently 
waterlogged  throughout  the  winter.  In  places  such  as  these 
it  was  necessary  for  protection  to  construct  a  raised  breast- 
work which,  if  it  was  adequately  to  protect  against  machine- 
gun  fire,  particularly  at  the  very  close  ranges  that  separated 

1.  O.H.,  1915,  I,  28. 

2.  Ewing,  The  Royal  Scots. 


38  THE    DONKEYS 

the  troops  in  many  areas,  had  to   be  at  least  eight  feet 
thick. 

'Sergeant  Doherty  was  killed  by  a  sniper  while  supervising 
a  building  fatigue.  This  is  the  eighteenth  casualty  and  the 
fourth  N.C.O.  we  have  lost  in  this  way  since  we  came  into 
the  line  on  Tuesday — it  is  a  frustrating  business.  The  Boche 
has  got  perfect  observation  of  our  lines  from  Frezenburg 
Ridge.  The  snipers  pick  the  men  off  in  the  evening  before 
they  can  get  started.  We  slave  away  all  night  building  a 
parapet  of  loose  earth — I  have  hardly  seen  a  sandbag  since 
our  arrival — then  in  the  morning  he  calls  over  a  few 
"crumps"  and  they  blow  the  whole  thing  to  blazes,  usually 
burying  some  poor  wretches  alive  at  the  same  time  as  they 
unearth  a  lot  of  dead  ones!' 

Throughout  these  bleak  months  the  German  artillery 
dominated  the  situation,  making  life  a  misery  for  the  British 
troops  who  were  obliged  to  hold  the  line  in  greater  strength 
either  than  the  enemy  or  the  French,  owing  to  their  own 
shortage  of  guns.  For  whereas  their  allies  could  afford  to 
make  their  front  positions  little  more  than  outposts  that 
could  call  up  an  immense  weight  of  artillery  fire  at  the  least 
sign  of  any  suspicious  activity  on  the  part  of  the  enemy,  the 
British  were  dependent  on  rifle  fire  to  cope  with  marauding 
patrols  and  local  attacks.  This  was  due  to  two  things:  in  the 
first  place  the  eighteen-pounders  used  for  direct  support 
were  few  in  number,^  and  hesitated  to  expose  themselves 
except  in  an  emergency  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  heavier 
guns  needed  to  support  them  against  German  counter- 
battery  fire  were  almost  entirely  absent.  Secondly,  they  were 
so  starved  of  ammunition  as  to  make  it  futile  to  reveal  their 
position  for  the  sake  of  throwing  the  meagre  daily  'ration'  of 
shells  at  the  enemy.  In  actual  fact  for  the  entire  B.E.F  there 
was  in  the  field  only  about  three-fifths  of  the  regulation 

I.  The  regulation  number  of  batteries  per  division — not  always  achieved — 
was  obtained  by  reducing  the  number  of  guns  from  six  to  four  per  battery 
(O.H.,  1915,  I,  9). 


WINTER    IN    THE    TRENCHES  39 

amount  calculated  on  the  experience  of  the  Boer  War,  and  really 
little  more  than  a  day's  supply  in  modern  battle.^ 

The  fire-power  of  the  men  in  the  front  line  was  also 
seriously  diminished  by  the  shortage — amounting  in  cases  to 
non-existence — of  trench-mortars  and  hand-grenades.  Of  the 
latter  a  number  of  extemporized  missiles  were  tried  out,  the 
most  notorious  being  the  'jam-pot',  the  'Battye  bomb'  and 
the  'hairbrush'.  These  were  dangerous  and  difficult  to  con- 
struct, their  ignition  was  chancy  and  impossible  in  wet 
weather,  and  in  general  it  is  likely  that  they  caused  as  many 
casualties  among  the  British  as  among  the  enemy.  No  'Mills' 
hand-grenades  were  produced  until  the  spring  of  191 5 — by 
March  only  forty-eight  had  been  delivered.  The  trench- 
mortar,  an  ultra-short-range  howitzer,  more  or  less  portable, 
with  which  the  Germans  were  making  great  destruction, 
was  even  more  rare  in  the  Expeditionary  Force.  One  officer, 
however,  managed  to  do  a  private  deal  with  the  French, 
paying  cash  for  a  number  of  old  Coehorn  siege-mortars 
which  were  found  to  bear  the  cypher  of  Louis  Philippe! 


It  was  in  these  conditions,  starved  of  the  equipment 
necessary  in  trench  warfare,  with  little  pretence  even  of 
artillery  support  and  seriously  short  of  trained  junior  officers 
and  N.C.O.s,  that  the  British  troops  were  crowded  into  the 
fire-trenches  to  suffer  throughout  the  winter  months  extremes 
of  physical  privation. 

It  rained  incessantly.  From  the  25th  October  until  the 
loth  March  there  were  only  eighteen  dry  days,  and  on 
eleven  of  these  the  temperature  was  below  freezing.  The 
trenches  themselves  became  little  less  than  culverts,  re- 
placing in  rudimentary  fashion  the  drainage  system  of  the 

I .  For  example  figures  for  the  1 7th  November  (2nd  Corps)  are  3rd  Division, 
363  rounds  per  field  gun,  5th  Division,  323.  Reserve  in  park,  6,  28.  3rd  Corps, 
45>  551  for  sll  divisions — i.e.  rather  less  than  300  per  gun.  War  Establishments, 
Part  I,  p.  5  lays  down  minima  of  528  and  280  for  field-guns  and  howitzers, 
with  a  further  472  and  520  on  lines  of  communication,  in  addition  to  the 
general  reserve. 


40  THE    DONKEYS 

countryside  which  had  been  dislocated  by  the  digging  and 
artillery  fire.  It  was  impossible  to  dig  deeper  than  eighteen 
inches  without  finding  water,  and  along  whole  stretches  of 
the  line  garrisons  had  to  do  their  stint  with  the  water  waist- 
high,  for  the  fire-step  had  crumbled  away  and  there  were 
not  the  materials  to  construct  an  adequate  breastwork  after 
the  German  fashion.  Duck-boards  were  unknown  and  the 
wounded  who  collapsed  into  the  slime  would  often  drown, 
unnoticed  in  the  heat  of  some  local  engagement,  and  lie 
concealed  for  days  until  their  bodies,  porous  from  decom- 
position, would  rise  once  again  to  the  surface.  When  the 
German  guns  opened  fire  the  troops  could  only  cower  in  the 
water  because  the  dug-outs,  built  for  protection  during  a 
bombardment,  were  themselves  awash  to  roof  level  and 
stank  intolerably  from  the  dead  that  floated  there. 

In  an  effort  to  alleviate  these  conditions,  relieving  the  men 
every  twelve  hours  was  tried  (the  German  rota  was  four  days 
in  the  line,  two  in  support  and  four  at  rest),  but  this  led  to 
great  administrative  confusion,  particularly  in  the  immediate 
rear  and  over  the  allotment  of  billets  themselves  'filthy  and 
inadequate',^  and  to  heavy  casualties  from  sniping  and 
shrapnel  over  the  continuous  traffic  along  the  communica- 
tion trenches. 

It  is  thus  not  surprising  that  the  'wastage'  from  illness  was 
very  high — the  more  so  in  view  of  the  fact  that  there  were 
no  proper  facilities  for  drying  clothing  and  the  men  fre- 
quently had  to  return  to  the  line  in  the  same  soaking  gar- 
ments in  which  they  had  quitted  it.  'De-lousing'  stations 
were  established,  but  the  process  consisted  of  no  more  than 
running  a  hot  flat-iron  over  the  troops'  undergarments  about 
once  every  ten  days.  Although  the  strictest  criteria  were  ap- 
plied before  men  were  allowed  to  report  sick,  the  returns 
for  January  191 5  show  an  average  of  about  4,500  a  day, 
chiefly  from  pneumonia  and  blood-poisoning. 

Wilson  wrote  that  'The  water  and  mud  increase  and  are 
getting  horrible.  The  longer  days  will  be  very  welcome  when 

I.  O.H.,  1915,1,  28. 


WINTER    IN    THE    TRENCHES  4I 

they  come,  especially  to  officers;  the  men  do  not  mind  so 
much.'  But  he  gave  no  reasons  to  support  this  distinction  of 
taste. 

On  Christmas  Day,  1914,  there  had  been  no  firing,  and 
in  many  sectors  the  troops  had  climbed  out  of  their  trenches 
and,  meeting  in  No-Man's-Land,  had  talked  and  exchanged 
gifts.  But  such  a  development  met  with  the  strongest  dis- 
approval at  G.H.Q^.^  and  the  officers  responsible  were 
punished.  It  did  not  happen  again. 

G.H.Q^.  seems  to  have  been  slow  in  realizing  that  the  un- 
fortunate tactical  siting  of  the  line  was  making  an  important 
contribution  to  the  ' wastage'. ^  Finally,  when  it  was  seen 
that  the  line  must  be  altered,  there  never  seems  to  have  been 
any  thought  of  achieving  this  by  making  local  withdrawals 
and  inviting  the  enemy  to  step  forward  into  the  'bad  ground'. 
Instead,  a  variety  of  small,  but  extravagant,  attacks  were 
authorized  with  the  intention  of  straightening  the  line  and 
eliminating  some  of  the  more  tiresome  German  enfilade 
buttresses  that  dominated  it. 

It  is  hardly  surprising,  in  view  of  the  conditions  under 
which  they  were  ordered,  that  these  were  uniformly  un- 
successful, in  spite  of  being  pressed  with  the  utmost  gallantry. 
Sometimes,  very  rarely,  the  infantry,  or  such  small  propor- 
tion of  them  as  had  survived  the  passage  of  No-Man's-Land, 
managed  to  evict  the  Germans;  but  by  nightfall  they  were 
almost  spent,  ammunition  was  low,  they  were  under  con- 
tinuous fire  from  the  German  artillery.  The  reliefs,  stumbling 
across  a  flarelit  waste  where  the  sappers  slaved  to  dig  some 
pretence  of  a  communication  trench  in  the  mud,  some 
meagre  channel  that  would  afford  protection  in  daylight, 
were  as  often  as  not  cut  down  by  the  machine-guns  before 

1.  In  igi4,  Sir  John  French  wrote  of*.  .  .  individual  unarmed  men  running 
from  the  German  trenches  across  to  ours  holding  Christmas  trees  above  their 
heads.  These  overtures  were  in  some  places  favourably  received  and  fraterniza- 
tion of  a  limited  kind  took  place  during  the  day.  It  appeared  that  a  little 
feasting  went  on  and  junior  officers,  N.C.O.s  and  men  on  either  side  conversed 
together  in  No-Man's-Land.  When  this  was  reported  to  me  I  issued  immediate 
orders  to  prevent  any  recurrence  of  such  conduct,  and  called  the  local  com- 
manders to  strict  account,  which  resulted  in  a  good  deal  of  trouble.' 

2.  O.H.,  1915,  I,  218. 


42  THE    DONKEYS 

they  got  there.  It  became  customary  to  'send  a  company  to 
reHeve  a  platoon — only  a  platoon's  strength  will  arrive'. 


In  the  warmth  and  comfort  of  the  Allied  Headquarters, 
however,  the  mood  was  one  of  optimism.  Charteris  expressed 
the  general  view  when  he  wrote  home:  '.  .  .  don't  believe 
Captain  M.  that  the  war  will  last  another  two  years. 
Germany  has  shot  her  bolt  here  and  failed.  .  .  .'  It  was  more 
prophetic,  if  also  provoking  a  more  ominous  reaction,  when: 

'.  .  .  General  Rice,  our  senior  sapper,  has  made  the  most 
original  forecast  of  all!  He  predicts  that  neither  we  nor  the 
Germans  will  be  able  to  break  through  a  strongly  defended 
and  entrenched  line,  and  that  gradually  the  line  will  extend 
from  the  sea  to  Switzerland,  and  the  war  end  in  stalemate. 
D.H.  will  not  hear  of  it.  He  thinks  that  we  can  push  the 
Germans  back  to  the  frontier,  and  after  that  it  will  only  be 
a  matter  of  numbers.'^ 

Foch  went  even  further,  and  thought  that  the  time  was 
already  ripe.  'We  are  in  a  perfect  condition,  both  morally 
and  materially,  for  attacking,'  he  told  Henry  Wilson,  whose 
diary  also  records: 

'Long  strategical  talk  [with  Foch]  in  which  we  agreed  that 
Germany  still  has  one  chance,  and  one  only,  namely,  to 
shorten  her  front — and  retire  to  the  line  Liege-Metz,  or 
possibly  even  to  the  Rhine.  Any  middle  course  would  be 
fatal  to  her. '2 

In  the  closing  weeks  of  the  year  preparations  for  a  great 
winter  offensive  to  accelerate  this  process  were  eagerly 
rushed  forward;  so  eagerly,  indeed,  that  a  number  of 
important  considerations  were  overlooked,  chief  among 
these  being  the  waterlogged  state  of  the  terrain  and  the 
dismal  condition  of  the  soldiers  themselves.  Then,  at  the 
last  moment.  Sir  John  French,  who  was  to  co-operate  in  the 

1.  Charteris,  G.H.Q^.  The  italics  are  mine. — A.C. 

2.  Wilson,  Memoirs,  p.  i88. 


WINTER    IN    THE    TRENCHES  43 

north,  lost  his  nerve  and  'impressed  on  every  commander 
that  he  was  not  on  any  account  to  get  ahead  of  his  neigh- 
bours in  the  attack;  everybody  was  to  wait  for  the  man  on 
his  left'.  And  in  the  event  everybody  did  wait,  including  the 
left-hand  man.  Thus  the  offensive  proved  'not  merely  a 
failure,  but  a  fiasco.  The  only  effect  produced  was  on 
Franco-British  relations.'^ 

This  abortive  operation  also  had  deep  and  significant 
psychological  after-effects.  In  the  first  place  the  security  of 
Sir  John  French's  position  was  further  undermined,  both  in 
his  own  estimation  and  in  reality.  Wilson  was  sent  to  Foch 
to  plead  against  any  complaint  that  might  be  sent  out  from 

G.aG. 

'I  made  the  best  case  I  could  about  advancing  in  echelon 
from  the  left,  and  he  listened  without  saying  a  word.  At  the 
end  he  said,  ^^Mais  mon  cher  Wilson,  nous  sommes  militaires  pas 
avocats.''  That  exactly  expresses  the  straits  I  was  pushed  to. 
We  discussed  everything  and  he  was  as  nice  as  could  be;  but 
^^Pere  Joffre  n' est  pas  commode",  and  it  was  cleaf  that  Sir  John 
would  be  in  a  very  difficult  position  if  he  did  not  put  up 
some  fight. '^ 

Wilson's  mediation  was  of  little  use.  Huguet  noted  that 
'their  [those  of  Joffre  and  French]  relations  which  had 
never  been  trusting  or  cordial  became  colder  and  colder'. 
And  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  made  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  more  jittery  and  indecisive  than  ever. 

But  more  important,  because  more  lasting,  was  the  slur — 
as  it  was  thought  to  be — left  on  the  prowess  of  the  Expe- 
ditionary Force.  The  French  now  openly  declared  that  'it 
might  be  helpful  to  hold  the  line  and  act  defensively,  but 
would  be  of  little  use  in  an  attack'.  Determination  to  redeem 
this  and  their  own  reputations  was  responsible  for  many  of 
the  worst  excesses  of  stubborn  leadership  among  the  British 
commanders  in  the  years  to  come. 

1.  Liddell  Hart,  History  of  the  World  War,  igi  4-1918. 

2.  Wilson,  Memoirs,  p.  192. 


The  First  Experiment,  at  Neuve  Chapelle 

We  are  now  about  to  attack  with  48  battalions  a 
locality  held  by  three  German  battalions. 

From  a  Special  Order  of  the  Day  to  the 
I  St  Army,  issued  on  gth  March  19 15 

yys  THE  bleak  winter  days  dragged  past  there  was  little 

ZA  sign  of  improved  relations  between  the  Allied  com- 

1.    JL.  manders.  Joffre,  who  was  accumulating  troops  for  a 

further  offensive  effort  in  the  spring,  had  asked  French  to 

relieve  the  gth  Corps,  north  of  Ypres.  The  request  was  a 

reasonable  one,^  but  the  Field  Marshal  objected  to  its  'tone'. 

'Sir  John  showed  much  anger  at  the  tone  of  Joffre's  letter, 
brought  by  Belin  last  night.  And  Sir  John,  who  had  arranged 
to  meet  Foch  and  Belin  at  Cassel  at  1 1  a.m.  this  morning, 
refused  to  go.'^ 

Foch  reduced  the  French  demands  to  the  relief  of  one 
division  only,  from  the  gth  Corps,  but  'Sir  John  refuses  to 
relieve  anybody  before  April  ist'. 

Joffre,  who  knew  from  Henry  Wilson  the  rate  at  which 
the  Expeditionary  Force  had  been  sent  replacements,  was 
furious.  When  Wilson  went  to  Chantilly  the  following  week 
Joffre  began,  at  dinner,  by  loudly  remarking:  'Well,  your 

1 .  As  a  glance  at  the  map  will  show  the  French  gth  Corps  was  isolated  from 
the  main  mass  of  manoeuvre  of  the  French  Armies  by  the  stretch  of  line 
occupied  by  the  Expeditionary  Force.  (The  country  to  the  north  of  Ypres  was 
virtually  impassable  as  a  result  of  the  inundations,  and  remained  static  through- 
out the  war,  being  held  by  the  remnants  of  the  Belgian  Army.) 

2.  Wilson,  Memoirs,  p.  208. 

44 


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Thou  rout 


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SCALE  (N  MILES 


46  THE    DONKEYS 

Chief's  extremely  tiresome.'^  As  proof  of  his  own  power, 
Joffre  related  how  he  had  been  given  'absolute  carte  blanche 
till  May'  as  a  result  of  telling  the  Cabinet  'If  you  take  away 
one  single  man  that  I  can  use  on  my  front  /  will  resign.'' 

The  implication  was  plain.  And  in  fact  Sir  John,  also, 
was  trying  political  pressure  to  secure  his  material  needs, 
though  applying  it  less  blatantly.  At  this  time  it  was  by  no 
means  settled  that  the  main  mass  of  the  armed  forces  of  the 
Empire  was  to  be  fielded  in  northern  France;  other  theatres 
seemed  equally  promising  to  sections  of  the  Government  in 
London.  An  expedition  to  the  Near  East,  a  massive  naval 
effort  to  force  the  Kattegat — both  these  concepts  had  their 
supporters  at  home.  Moreover,  French  must  have  felt  doubt- 
ful as  to  how  enthusiastic  Kitchener  would  be  over  allowing 
the  six  'new'  armies,  each  of  three  corps,  that  would  become 
available  during  the  coming  year,  to  swell  the  command  of 
someone  with  whom  he  was  on  terms  of  almost  open 
hostility. 

In  an  attempt,  as  he  said,  'to  clear  the  air'  and,  at  the 
same  time,  to  emphasize  his  own  importance,  French  wrote 
direct  to  Asquith,  behind  the  back  of  the  Secretary  of  State, 
'a  letter  on  the  general  situation'  with  particular  emphasis 
on  'the  manner  of  employing  the  New  Army',  and  Asquith 
had  it  printed  and  circulated  to  members  of  the  Cabinet. 

Kitchener  was  furious,  the  more  so  as  he  had  just  com- 
pleted plans  with  the  Admiralty  for  an  offensive  against 
Ostend  and  Zeebrugge.  But  he  was  overruled  in  the  Cabinet, 
the  majority  of  whom  seem  to  have  felt,  perhaps  unjustly, 
that  he  was  allowing  strategic  considerations  to  be  sub- 
ordinated to  his  personal  distrust  of  Sir  John  French.  More- 
over, French  had  first  taken  the  precaution  of  consulting  his 
corps  commanders^  who  had,  not  unnaturally,  concurred, 
so  that  the  whole  of  the  Army  in  France  was  presenting  a 
uniform  opinion.  It  was  necessary,  though,  for  there  to  be 

I.  Wilson,  A/e/72ozVj,  p.  216. 

•2.  Haig  describes  the  summons  to  French's  house  in  St.  Omer  in  his  entry 
for  Monday,  4th  January  191 5. 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT,    AT    NEUVE    CHAPELLE         47 

some  action  that  would  justify  priority  for  the  French 
theatre  and  the  command  there,  as  well  as  restoring  faith 
in  British  fighting  ability  at  French  General  Headquarters. 
Haig  had  told  the  military  correspondent  of  The  Times  that 
'as  soon  as  we  were  supplied  with  ample  artillery  ammuni- 
tion of  high  explosive  I  thought  we  could  walk  through  the 
German  lines  at  several  places'.^  But  both  he  and  French 
realized  that  an  early  demonstration  of  this  truth  was  neces- 
sary to  establish  their  position.  French  wrote  that  'Many 
vital  considerations  induced  me  to  believe  that  a  vigorous 
offensive  movement  by  the  forces  under  my  command 
should  be  planned  and  carried  out  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment.' 

Unfortunately  two  adverse  factors  demanded  considera- 
tion. In  the  first  place,  the  ground  was  so  sodden  that  any 
serious  forward  movement  would  be  suicidal  until  the  be- 
ginning of  April,  as  attempts  to  dig  in  in  fresh  ground  would 
strike  water  at  a  depth  of  eighteen  inches.  And  in  the  second 
place,  Joffre  was  now  backing  down  on  the  promises  which 
he  had  made  earlier  of  a  joint  attack  to  the  south,  against 
the  Vimy  Ridge.  His  ostensible  reason  was  'shortage  of 
troops'  arising  out  of  French's  refusal  to  relieve  the  gth  Corps, 
although  the  state  of  the  ground  and  his  preparations  for  a 
'really  shattering'  blow  at  the  Germans  in  May  probably 
influenced  him  more.  At  all  events.  Sir  John  had  now  to 
decide  whether  to  secure  French  co-operation  by  carrying 
out  the  relief  that  Joffre  had  originally  demanded  and  thin- 
ning out  his  own  army,  or  to  launch  the  attack  in  isolation. 

For  some  days  he  discussed  the  problem  with  Haig.  Some 
sort  of  a  demonstration  was  plainly,  indeed  urgently,  neces- 
sary. A  simple  relief  of  the  French  gth  Corps  would  hardly 
be  noticed  by  the  English  papers  and,  indeed,  by  thus 
spreading  out  his  troops  Sir  John  would  be  postponing  still 
further  the  day  when  he  could  launch  his  own  offensive. 
Haig  had  a  plan  for  a  'battering-ram'  attack  against  the 
German  position  at  Neuve  Chapelle,  to  take  place  'as  soon 

I.  Private  Papers  of  Douglas  Haig,  p.  84. 


48  THE    DONKEYS 

as  possible',  and  independently  of  any  action  by  the  French. 
Of  course,  strategically  it  was  a  preposterous  notion  for  the 
small  British  Army  to  launch  an  offensive  without  French 
support.  But  tactically  there  was  a  chance,  by  making  full 
use  of  surprise  and  a  local  superiority  of  numbers,  of  break- 
ing the  German  line  and  inflicting  a  sharp  reverse.  Sir  John 
decided  to  adopt  the  plan.  With  evident  satisfaction  Haig 
noted  (13th  February  1915)  that  French 

'.  .  .  would  prefer  to  take  the  offensive  on  my  front 
rather  than  from  Ypres  because: 

'(i)  He  wished  me  to  carry  out  the  operation  as  he  could 
never  be  sure  of  getting  satisfactory  results  from  Smith- 
Dorrien,^  and  (ii)  Because  my  troops  were  better.' 

Haig  had  been  toying  with  the  plan,  on  and  off,  through- 
out the  winter.  In  many  respects  the  situation  was  full  of 
promise.  As  regards  numbers  he  was  never  again  to  enjoy 
such  favourable  circumstances  for  taking  the  offensive.  The 
Germans  had  taken  every  available  man,  gun  and  shell  from 
the  Western  Front  preparatory  to  their  great  offensive 
against  Russia  in  the  late  spring,  and  their  contempt  for  the 
abilities  of  the  British  Army — in  an  offensive  role  at  least — 
had  led  them  to  denude  their  front  in  that  sector  even  more 
extravagantly  than  elsewhere. 

Moreover  the  area  selected  for  the  attack  was  a  point 
where  the  German  line  jutted  westwards,  forming  a  salient, 
about  2,000  yards  round,  between  Port  Arthur  and  the 
Moated  Grange,  with  the  ruins  of  Neuve  Chapelle  village 
immediately  behind  its  centre.  And  here  the  local  superi- 
ority of  their  own  artillery,  arising  largely  from  shortage  of 
ammunition  on  the  British  side,  had  fostered  among  the 

I.  Smith-Dorrien's  decision  to  stand  and  fight  at  Le  Cateau  in  August  of 
1 91 4  had  saved  the  Expeditionary  Force,  it  is  now  generally  agreed.  But  this 
had  been  taken  in  defiance  of  orders  to  go  on  withdrawing  from  French,  and  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  Haig's  own  corps  had  retreated  at  such  a  pace  that  it  had 
completely  lost  touch  with  the  enemy,  besides  exposing  Smith-Dorrien's  flank. 
The  grudge  which  both  commanders  bore  against  Smith-Dorrien  as  a  result 
of  his  showing  up  their  pusillanimity  in  this  way  had  much  to  do  with  circum- 
stances of  his  dismissal  at  the  height  of  'and  Ypres'.  See  below,  pp.  88  et  seq. 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT,    AT    NEUVE    CHAPELLE         49 

Germans  a  feeling  of  security  that  was  not  warranted  either 
by  the  lie  of  their  position — it  was  exposed  to  converging 
fire  from  three  sides — its  ability  to  withstand  serious  bom- 
bardment, or  their  own  numerical  strength.  For  in  this  area 
there  were  only  six  companies  amounting  to  some  i  ,400  men 
with  twelve  machine-guns  between  them.  They  were  'en- 
trenched' behind  a  single  line  of  sandbag  breastwork  built 
up  shoulder  high  back  and  front  on  the  water-logged  ground, 
the  water-line  being  only  a  foot  or  so  below  the  surface.  The 
wire — that  was  in  later  battles  to  consist  of  entanglements 
staked  into  the  ground  and  as  much  as  a  hundred  feet  across — 
was  here  little  more  than  two  rows  of  chevaux-de-frise,  portable 
trestle-like  structures  that  two  men  could  lift  to  one  side. 

Against  this  flimsy  barrier  Haig  proposed  to  throw  no 
fewer  than  forty-eight  battalions,  that  is  to  say  approxi- 
mately 40,000  men,  a  numerical  superiority  of  thirty-five  to 
one.  The  two  batteries  of  eighteen-pounders  that  had  looked 
after  the  sector  during  the  winter  were  augmented  by  a 
further  sixty  batteries  together  with  forty  45  in.  howitzers 
and  eighty-two  siege  and  heavy  artillery  pieces  whose  task 
was  to  silence  the  enemy  counter-battery  fire.  Close  behind 
the  line  the  Cavalry  Corps  and  the  Indian  Cavalry  Corps 
were  held  in  readiness  to  ride  through  the  gap. 

I  St  Corps  Intelligence  had  accurately  predicted  the  shape 
of  the  enemy  resistance,  as  it  had  their  reserves  both  local 
(800  infantry  plus  a  cyclist  and  a  machine-gun  company 
four  miles  behind  the  line  at  Ligny-le-Grand)  and  general 
(a  forecast  of  4,000  additional  rifles  within  twelve  hours  and 
up  to  16,000  from  corps  and  army  reserves  around  Lille  by 
the  evening  of  the  second  day).  In  view  of  this  it  might  have 
been  felt  that  Haig's  plan  was  excessively  cautious:  with  such 
enormous  superiority  to  attack  on  a  frontage  as  narrow  as 
that  selected  was  far  too  conservative,  particularly  as  Intelli- 
gence told  him  that  he  could  count  on  a  ratio  of  at  least  two 
to  one  as  late  as  forty-eight  hours  afterwards.  However, 
when  Allenby,  commander  of  the  Cavalry  Corps,  suggested^ 

1.  At  a  conference  at  Haig's  H.Q,.  at  M^rville  26th  February  1915. 


50  THE    DONKEYS 

that  the  attack  frontage  be  broadened  so  as  to  avoid  the 
possibihty  of  confusion  in  the  bottleneck  during  the  follow- 
through,  he  was  sharply  reminded  of  his  'unfamiliarity  with 
commanding  masses  of  infantry'. 


Starting  in  the  last  days  of  February  began  the  assembly 
of  the  assault  troops.  Soon  the  rear  areas  were  '.  .  .  abso- 
lutely choked  with  men,  G-wagons,  temporary  bivouacs, 
long  lines  of  horses  standing  patiently'  and,  more  sinister,  the 
S.A.D.S.,  the  Supplementary  Advanced  Dressing  Stations, 
spotlessly  clean  as  yet,  and  empty. 

Two  Corps,  the  4th  (commanded  by  Lieutenant-General 
Sir  H.  Rawlinson,  Bt.)  and  Indian  (under  Lieutenant- 
General  Sir  J.  Willcocks,  k.c.b.,  d.s.o.,  etc.),  were  squeezed 
side  by  side  into  the  tip  of  the  phalanx,  each  leading  with 
one  division;  the  8th  under  Major-General  Davies,  and  the 
Meerut  under  Lieutenant-General  C.  A.  Anderson.  Here 
already  were  the  seeds  of  trouble,  for  both  these  units  would 
be  converging  from  opposite  sides  of  the  salient  towards  each 
other,  trailing  their  long  'tail'  and  chain  of  command  back 
to  corps  level  and  only  finding  unity  of  direction  once  again 
when  their  reports  reached  the  army  commander,  Haig,  at 
his  headquarters  at  Merville.  Things  might  be  all  right  if  the 
day's  progress  went  according  to  plan,  but  there  was  always 
the  possibility  that  some  unforeseen  event  would  dislocate 
the  machine,  whose  administrative  duality  threatened  to 
double  the  confusion  that  AUenby  had  foreseen. 

More  immediately  serious  was  a  muddle  over  the  artillery 
dispositions  on  the  left  flank.  In  spite  of  the  profusion  of 
artillery  and  the  sparsity  of  targets,  the  destruction  of  the 
enemy  breastwork  along  the  last  400  yards  of  front  on  the 
extreme  left  had  been  entrusted  to  a  brigade  of  six-inch 
howitzers — the  59th  and  8ist  siege  batteries — which  it  was 
discovered  later  had  not  yet  arrived  from  England.  This 
meant  that  there  would  be  no  heavy  fire  on  the  enemy 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT,    AT    NEUVE    CHAPELLE         5I 

positions  there,  as  the  eighteen-pounders  were  of  little  use  in 
breaking  up  the  breastwork,  although  they  could  cut  the 
wire  and  keep  the  defenders'  heads  down  while  the  actual 
bombardment  was  in  progress.  The  absence  of  the  two  siege 
batteries  was  noticed  and  correspondence  with  the  War 
Office  took  place  on  the  subject^  but,  inconceivable  though 
it  seems,  no  alternative  arrangements  were  made  to  cover 
the  gap.  The  two  missing  batteries  finally  appeared  on  the 
evening  of  the  gth — the  day  before  the  assault — and  had  not 
sufficient  time  to  build  up  gun  platforms  or  lay  their  tele- 
phone lines  to  the  forward  observing  officers,  much  less  to 
range  on  to  their  allotted  targets.  For  these  reasons  they 
played  no  part  in  the  bombardment  of  the  following  day: 
an  omission  that  was  to  have  far-reaching  consequences. 

The  eve  of  the  battle  was  wet.  Rain  fell  steadily,  blown 
into  occasional  gusts  of  snow  by  a  wind  that  was  just  above 
freezing  temperature.  Low  clouds  drifted  across  No-Man's- 
Land  leaving  long  streaks  of  clinging  mist  that  followed  the 
course  of  the  waterlogged  communication  trenches;  the  gun- 
barrels  dripped  with  condensation  and  by  nightfall  the 
greatcoats  of  the  waiting  infantry  were  soaked  through.  But 
morale  was  at  its  highest.  Many  of  the  men,  including  the 
whole  of  the  25th  Brigade,^  were  going  into  action  for  the 
first  time.  This  was  the  first  offensive  operation  of  the  war, 
and  the  majority  believed  that  it  would  be  the  last. 

And  when,  at  7.30  on  the  morning  of  the  loth,  the  bom- 
bardment broke,  the  effect  was  stupendous.  This  was  the 
strongest  concentration  of  guns  per  yard  ever  before  as- 
sembled— one  that  was  not  to  be  equalled  until  the  closing 
stages  of  Passchendaele,  over  two  and  a  half  years  later.  The 

1.  On  the  26th  February  the  War  Office  informed  G.H.Q.  that  the 
batteries  would  embark  on  the  ist  March.  On  the  2nd  March  they  wired  that 
embarkation  had  been  postponed  until  the  5th.  On  the  3rd  March  G.H.Q. 
wired  requesting  an  immediate  embarkation  of  the  batteries  but  they  were  not 
shipped  until  the  5th  and  did  not  arrive  at  Estaires  until  the  morning  of  the  gth 
(O.H.,  1915,  I,  84  fn.). 

2.  Under  Brigadier-General  A.  W.  G.  Lowry-Cole,  consisting  of  2nd 
Lincolnshire,  ist  Royal  Irish  Rifles,  13th  London,  2nd  Berkshire  and  2nd  Rifle 
Brigade. 


52  .  THE    DONKEYS 

defenders  were  completely  swallowed  up  in  a  storm  of 
smoke,  black  and  orange,  from  the  high  explosive,  speckled 
with  the  hard  white  flash  of  the  shrapnel;  huge  masses  of 
earth,  bodies,  fragments  of  the  enemy  emplacements  were 
tossed  up  and  blown  into  the  sky  again  and  again,  so  that 
the  battlefield  became  quite  dark. 

At  five  past  eight  the  artillery  lifted  their  fire  from  the 
German  line  and  on  to  Neuve  Chapelle  village  itself  and  the 
English  infantry  clambered  out  of  their  trenches  and  into 
No-Man's-Land. 

The  centre  of  the  attack  was  led  by  the  Berkshires  and 
Lincolnshires.  They  found  the  enemy  virtually  neutralized 
by  the  bombardment;  the  wire  had  been  shattered  and  such 
defenders  as  had  survived  were  too  dazed  by  the  shellfire  to 
offer  any  resistance.  Suffering  only  the  lightest  casualties, 
they  passed  on  over  the  crumpled  remains  of  the  enemy 
breastwork  to  their  first  objective — the  German  'support' 
line.  It  had  been  expected  that  this  might  prove  a  tougher 
obstacle — it  had  only  received  ten  minutes'  concentrated  fire 
as  compared  with  the  twenty  allotted  to  the  front  line — and 
the  orders  to  the  leading  formations  were  to  'consolidate 
here  once  the  position  has  been  captured  by  reversing  the 
parados,  etc.'.  But  on  reaching  this  objective  the  leading 
British  battalions  found  not  only  that  it  was  not  defended 
but  that  it  had  plainly  not  been  occupied  during  the  winter, 
for  the  sides  were  crumbling  and  the  trench  itself  was  full  of 
water.  However,  in  spite  of  the  complete  absence  of  oppo- 
sition here.  Colonel  Feetham  decided  not  to  attempt  the 
passage  of  this  'obstacle'  but  to  halt  his  men  just  behind  it. 
Colonel  McAndrew  of  the  Lincolns  had  been  mortally 
wounded  while  leading  his  men  across  No-Man's-Land.  He 
died  a  happy  man  for  he  had  caused  himself  to  be  held  up 
so  that  he  could  see  his  men  enter  the  German  trenches;  but 
he  was  sadly  missed  for,  without  his  leadership,  the  Lincolns, 
too,  decided  to  halt  without  passing  over  the  old  German 
'support'  line. 

However,  within  less  than  half  an  hour  the  second  row  of 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT,    AT    NEUVE    GHAPELLE         53 

the  phalanx  had  caught  up  with  the  now  stationary  first  row. 
These  troops,  the  2nd  ELifle  Brigade  and  ist  Royal  Irish 
Rifles,  passed  right  through  the  Berkshires  and  pressed  on 
into  the  ruins  of  Neuve  Ghapelle  village,  which  was  empty 
of  the  enemy.  They  crossed  the  main  street  and  advanced 
on  into  the  open  fields  beyond  towards  the  line  of  the  'Smith- 
Dorrien  trench',  the  old  British  defensive  position  that  had 
been  built  in  front  of  Neuve  Ghapelle  in  the  autumn  of  19 14. 
It  was  thought  likely,  at  G.H.Q.,  that  the  enemy  was  occupy- 
ing this  position,  or  at  least  had  it  in  such  a  state  of  readiness 
that  he  could  have  put  reinforcements  into  it  when  the 
battle  started.  But  this  was  not  so;  the  trench,  like  the 
'support'  line,  was  disused.  However,  it  had  been  scheduled 
for  a  half-hour  bombardment,  which  started,  to  the  moment, 
on  the  arrival  there  of  the  leading  elements  of  the  Rifle 
Brigade.  These  troops  were  thus  compelled  to  withdraw 
some  hundreds  of  yards  and  wait  while  the  artillery  methodi- 
cally churnca  up  the  ground  all  round  a  position  that  the 
infantry  on  the  spot  could  see  to  be  unoccupied. 

Immediately  the  bombardment  stopped  the  Rifle  Brigade 
resumed  their  advance  with  the  Irish  Rifles  on  their  right, 
and  were  soon  established  along  the  line  designated  as  their 
objective  for  the  day — and  this  within  one  and  a  half  hours 
of  the  start  of  the  attack.  Ahead  of  them  stretched  the  flat 
green  countryside,  lightly  scarred  by  the  shellfire  but  seem- 
ingly lifeless.  The  line  of  the  Layes  Brook  could  be  followed 
from  the  stunted  willow  bushes  along  its  bank,  broken  only 
at  one  point  by  the  group  of  shattered  cottages  that  was  to 
form,  the  next  day,  the  'Layes  Bridge  Redoubt' — at  that 
time,  like  the  dense  undergrowth  of  the  Bois  du  Biez  to  the 
south,  unoccupied  by  the  enemy.^ 

In  view  of  the  extraordinary  opportunity  that  seemed  to 
be  presented,  and  the  fact  that  the  only  enemy  soldiers 
visible  were  occasional  scattered  groups  that  could  be  seen 

I.  The  56th  and  57th  Infantry  Regiment  (German)  diaries  show  one  section 
of  the  reserve  Machine-Gun  Company  arriving  at  the  Layes  Bridge  at  2.45  p.m. 
but  the  two  Jager  Companies  not  getting  into  position  in  the  Bois  du  Biez  until 
6  p.m. 


54  THE    DONKEYS 

running  eastwards  without  rifles  on  the  far  side  of  the 
Mauquissart  road,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Stephens  at  once  sent 
a  message  back  to  Brigade  H.Q^.  asking  for  permission  to 
proceed  with  the  advance.  The  sending  of  this  message,  and 
the  time  taken  awaiting  a  reply,  imposed  a  most  irritating 
delay  on  the  troops  who,  by  now,  had  the  momentum  of  the 
advance  thoroughly  in  their  blood.  The  minutes  slipped  by 
into  quarters,  then  halves,  then  whole  hours.  From  their  left 
and  also  away  to  the  south  on  their  extreme  right  came  the 
intermittent  rumble  of  artillery  fire.  But  ahead  was  empti- 
ness, silence.  The  birds  could  be  heard.  After  fetid  months 
in  winter  dug-outs  the  air  was  clean  and  fresh.  In  little 
groups  the  men  stood  about  chatting;  some  of  them  lit  fires, 
others  cleaned  their  rifles,  still  others  dutifully  improvised 
small  shallow  earthworks.  Then,  after  1 1  a.m.,  a  body  of 
men  in  khaki  could  be  seen  approaching  from  the  direction 
of  Neuve  Chapelle.  Were  these,  at  last,  reinforcements  with 
which  the  spearhead  could  be  pushed  deeper?  But  no,  it  was 
simply  a  detachment  of  the  2nd  Field  Company  R.E.,  with 
instructions  'to  set  to  work  constructing  trenches  and  erect- 
ing wire'.  On  their  heels  came  another  message,  from 
Divisional  H.Q^.,  to  the  effect  that  'no  further  advance  was 
practicable'. 

This  occasion  is  of  interest  historically,  as  on  the 
loth  March  1915  was  effected  one  of  only  three  clean 
breaches  in  the  German  line  throughout  the  war  in  the 
west.^  The  complete  failure  to  exploit  it  in  a  vigorous  and 
urgent  fashion  was  due  to  concern — which  may  well  be  felt 
to  have  been  unwarranted — at  two  checks  which  had  been 
administered  on  the  extreme  flanks  of  the  break-through. 


The  more  serious  of  these  had  been  in  the  north,  at  the 
left-hand  corner  of  the  enemy  salient.   Here  there  was  a 

I.  The  others  being  the  first  day  at  Loos,  24th  September  191 5,  and  the  first 
day  of  the  'tank  offensive'  at  Cambrai  on  20th  November  191 7. 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT,    AT    NEUVE    GHAPELLE         55 

stretch  of  the  enemy  emplacement  about  400  yards  long, 
whose  destruction  had  been  allotted  to  the  59th  and  8ist 
siege  batteries  of  6  in.  guns.  For  reasons  explained  above, 
these  guns  never  fired  a  shot  and  the  worst  that  the  Germans 
suffered  was  a  spattering  of  fire  from  the  divisional  eighteen- 
pounders.  This  gave  rise  to  a  lot  of  smoke  and  noise  but  left 
the  enemy  position  virtually  undamaged,  serving  as  little 
else  than  a  warning  gong  that  called  the  Germans  to  man 
their  fire-step. 

This  section  was  assaulted  by  the  2nd  Middlesex  under 
Colonel  R.  H.  Hayes.  They  attacked  in  three  successive 
waves,  climbing  out  into  a  storm  of  point-blank  fire,  and 
some  measure  of  their  bravery  may  be  taken  from  one 
sentence  in  the  Official  History:  Tt  was  thought  at  first  that 
the  attack  succeeded  in  reaching  the  German  trenches  as  no 
one  behind  could  see  and  not  a  man  returned.'  In  fact  every 
man,  and  there  had  been  nearly  a  thousand,  was  killed. 

A  further  result  of  the  failure  here  was  that  the  2nd  Scot- 
tish Rifles,  who  had  been  put  in  on  the  right  of  the 
Middlesex,  were  subjected  to  a  vicious  enfilade  fire  that 
swept  diagonally  across  No-Man's-Land  from  the  inviolate 
section  of  the  enemy  breastwork.  This  caused  them  heavy 
casualties,  particularly  among  the  officers,  of  whom  90  per 
cent,  including  Lieutenant-Colonel  Bliss,  the  commander, 
were  killed  while  attempting  to  rally  the  men  and  wheel  the 
attack  southwards  and  round  the  enemy  flank.  On  this  set- 
back being  reported  to  the  Brigadier  he  decided  to  put  in 
more  infantry  and  ordered  the  Devons  and  the  West  York- 
shires from  Brigade  Reserve  to  follow  round  in  the  footsteps 
of  the  Scottish  Rifles.  This  decision  is  perhaps  less  inexcusable 
than  it  seems  at  first  sight.  For  at  that  time  it  was  impossible 
to  'call  up'  artillery  fire  direct  from  the  front  line.  The  re- 
quest and  accompanying  report  had  to  go  back  through 
Brigade  to  Divisional  Headquarters  for  consideration  there. 
Conscious  as  he  was  of  the  urgency  of  the  situation — his 
headquarters  were  only  200  yards  behind  the  front  line — 
Brigadier-General  Pinney  felt  that  if  extra  infantry  could  do 


56  THE    DONKEYS 

the  job  time  would  be  saved.  However,  the  renewed  assault 
and  the  outflanking  movement  that  was  to  accompany  it 
took  some  time  to  get  under  way  and,  at  the  outset,  suffered 
severely.  Before  they  were  properly  developed,  word  came 
back  from  Divisional  H.Q^.  that  a  further  bombardment  of 
the  enemy  position  was  to  be  put  in  hand  at  1 1  a.m.  and  in 
the  meantime  the  infantry  were  to  be  withdrawn  to  a  safe 
distance.  On  this  news  being  reported  back  to  4th  Corps, 
immediate  instructions  were  sent  out  to  all  the  leading 
formations  to  halt  and  'consolidate',  and  this,  of  course, 
included  the  unopposed  battalions  of  the  Rifle  Brigade  and 
the  Royal  Irish  Rifles  in  the  centre. 

In  holding  up  the  whole  of  the  offensive  in  their  sector 
the  4th  Corps  were  also  influenced  by  the  news  from  La 
Croix  Marmuse  (which  was  the  H.Q^.  of  the  Indian  Corps 
to  the  south) .  This  told  them  of  another  check — less  serious 
but  leading  to  as  great  a  muddle — on  the  extreme  right  of 
the  breach.  Here  at  zero  hour  the  Gharwali  Rifles  had  con- 
fused their  direction  on  leaving  the  trenches  and  borne 
right-handed,  running  head-on  into  a  section  of  the  German 
defences  that  had  been  unprepared  for  assault  by  artillery 
bombardment.  They  had  suffered  heavily,  losing  all  their 
British  officers,  but  managed  none  the  less  to  break  into,  and 
establish  themselves  across,  the  enemy  position.  In  the  centre 
the  2nd  Leicestershire  and  2 /3rd  Ghurka  had  a  compara- 
tively easy  passage  of  No-Man's-Land  but,  owing  to  the 
loss  of  direction  by  the  Gharwalis,  there  existed  between 
these  two  forces  a  strip  of  enemy  line,  that  had  been  on  the 
fringe  of  the  bombardment  area  and  in  which  the  defenders 
soon  came  to  their  senses  and  began  to  play  fire  up  and 
down  No-Man's-Land  to  their  right  and  left. 

The  moment  that  news  of  this  check  filtered  back  to 
Divisional  and  thence  to  Corps  Headquarters  orders  were 
sent  out  for  all  forward  units  of  the  assault  to  stop  in  their 
tracks  and  'dig  in',  while  steps  were  taken  to  eliminate  the 
offending  section.  It  was  intended  to  mount  an  infantry 
attack  with  the  troops  most  immediately  available,  the  Sea- 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT,    AT    NEUVE    CHAPELLE         57 

forth  Highlanders  and  the  3rd  London,  but,  as  wilJ  be  seen 
in  the  following  chapter,  this  took  an  inordinately  long  time 
to  get  under  way.  And  while  it  was  awaited  all  forward 
movement  of  the  Indian  Corps,  as  in  the  4th  Corps  to  the 
north,  was  halted. 

All  this  time,  although  the  movement  of  the  leading  for- 
mations had  been  stopped,  the  mass  of  the  support  battalions 
of  both  corps  continued  to  press  forward  on  their  allotted 
timetable.  Thus  the  effect  of  artificially  retaining  the  cork 
in  the  neck  of  the  bottle  was  an  intense  congestion  in  the 
rear  areas.  The  slow  traffic  of  the  reinforcements  travelled 
remorselessly  up  to  the  old  front  line,  there  petering  out 
aimlessly  among  the  shell-holes.  Against  it  ran  the  first  of 
the  wounded;  in  their  midst  the  engineers,  cable  layers, 
artillery  observation  officers  and  'runners'  attempted  to 
carry  out  their  tasks.  All  forty-eight  battalions  were  on  the 
move,  but  the  fire-power  of  the  phalanx  was  still  limited  to 
the  strength  of  the  troops  deployed  at  its  tip;  the  remainder 
were  so  much  useless  cannon-fodder  and  only  the  weakness 
of  the  enemy  artillery  at  that  time  allowed  what  was,  for  all 
too  many,  an  extra  twenty-four  hours  of  life. 


4 
Neuve  Chapelle ;  the  Passing  Hours 

...  by  I  o  a.m.  there  were  eleven  battalions,  roughly 
10,000  men,  in  that  narrow  space.  They  lay,  sat  or 
stood  uselessly  in  the  mud,  packed  like  salmon  in 
the  bridge  pool  at  Galway,  waiting  patiently  to  go 
forward. 

CAPTAIN    G.    C.    WYNNE,  FF  XII  5OI 

THREE  hours  after  the  assault,  then,  the  position  was 
as  follows:  on  the  extreme  left  of  the  line — that  is  to 
say,  at  the  northern  end  of  the  attack  frontage — the 
infantry  had  been  disengaged  from  the  enemy  positions  in 
the  region  of  the  Moated  Grange  and  were  awaiting  a 
second  bombardment  before  going  forward. 

To  the  south  of  this  sector  was  a  gap  of  about  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  of  flat  country,  traversed  by  a  track.  Signpost  Lane, 
and  the  old  enemy  communication  trench  that  ran  along- 
side and  bore  the  same  name.  On  the  far  side,  at  a  distance 
of  about  200  yards,  ran  the  sunken  road  that  led  straight 
into  the  rear  of  the  line  that  was  holding  out  against  the  re- 
mains of  the  Middlesex  and  the  Scottish  Rifles.  The  approach 
to  this  was  unprotected  other  than  by  a  few  survivors  of  the 
enemy  garrison  who  with  one  machine-gun  were  attempting 
to  put  the  shattered  group  of  cottages  on  the  Mauquissart 
road  into  a  state  of  readiness.  But,  unaccountably,  there 
were  no  British  troops  in  this  area  to  take  advantage  of  the 
gap — the  nearest  unit  was  the  left  flank  of  the  Irish  Rifles, 
to  the  east  and  south,  on  the  line  of  the  old  'Smith-Dorrien 
trench'  and  under  instructions  to  'dig  in'.  Further  on  down 
the  line  the  Rifle  Brigade,  also  completely  unopposed  at  this 

58 


6o  THE   DONKEYS 

time,  was  strung  out  with  the  ruins  of  Neuve  Chapelle  at  its 
back.  Then,  exactly  in  the  centre  of  the  breach,  was  another 
gap,  at  the  junction  of  the  two  corps  on  either  side  of 
Brewery  Road,  the  lane  that  connected  Neuve  Chapelle 
with  the  Bois  du  Biez,  and  ran  into  the  British  front  at  right 
angles. 

Below  this  line  was  the  territory  of  the  Indian  Corps. 
Their  attack  frontage  had  been  split  into  two  by  the  devia- 
tion of  the  Gharwalis  described  in  the  preceding  chapter. 
This  had  left  an  active  section  of  the  enemy  line,  again  about 
400  yards  long,  separating  the  right  flank  from  the  units  in 
the  centre.  These  units,  the  Leicesters  and  the  Ghurkas,  were 
ranged  along  the  Layes  Brook  and  the  back  of  the  'Smith- 
Dorrien  trench'  up  to  a  point  just  below  the  edge  of  Brewery 
Lane.  Like  the  centre  formations  of  the  4th  Corps  to  the 
north,  these  troops  were  quite  unopposed.  Yet  they  adopted 
strictly  defensive  positions  and  made  no  effort  to  push  for- 
ward scouting  parties  or  to  establish  a  forward  screen.  Had 
they  done  so,  they  would  have  found  the  Bois  du  Biez,  a 
perfect  natural  strongpoint  commanding  the  south-east  ap- 
proaches to  Neuve  Chapelle,  to  be  unoccupied,  and  would 
have  been  able  so  to  command  the  approaches  as  to  prevent 
any  reinforcement  of  the  thin  enemy  front  by  the  two  Jager 
companies  stationed  in  Halpegarde. 

But  it  seemed  impossible  for  any  further  advance  to  take 
place,  either  as  a  result  of  direct  orders  (as  in  the  case  of 
the  4th  Corps)  or  lack  of  initiative  on  the  part  of  the  com- 
manders on  the  spot  (as  in  the  Indian  Corps),  until  the  flanks 
had  been  'cleared'.  No  trace  of  urgency  is  detectable,  how- 
ever, in  the  direction  of  operations  to  achieve  this  purpose. 

In  the  south,  the  task  of  clearing  the  Germans  out  of  the 
Port  Arthur  sahent  had  been  entrusted  to  the  Seaforth 
Highlanders,  who  were  to  attack  down  the  trench  Hne  from 
the  north  while  the  3rd  London  were  to  make  another 
frontal  attack.  But  the  Seaforths  were  not  in  position  until 
midday  and  then  got  so  dispersed  and  confused  in  the  course 
of  their  flanking  march  across  the  morning  battlefield  that 


NEUVE  chapelle;  the  passing  hours         6i 

the  divisional  commander  was  led  to  the  assumption  that 
they  had  already  delivered  the  attack  and  had  been  held  up. 
Accordingly  a  fresh  barrage  was  put  down  on  the  northern 
sector  of  the  offending  position,  arriving  almost  simul- 
taneously— it  was  by  now  2.15  p.m. — with  the  Seaforths, 
who  had  to  withdraw  immediately  to  get  out  of  the  way  of 
their  own  artillery. 

In  the  meantime  the  Germans  at  the  northern  end  of  the 
breach,  in  the  region  of  the  Moated  Grange,  had  surrendered 
after  a  second  bombardment  and  this  flank  was  now  com- 
pletely cleared.  However,  General  Rawlinson  was  con- 
vinced that  the  small  orchard,  which  lay  just  behind  the 
enemy  position  with  one  wall  running  along  the  side  of  the 
sunken  road,  was  also  a  strongly  defended  strongpoint.  There 
was  no  evidence  that  this  was  so,  nor  had  Intelligence  re- 
ported it,  but  General  Rawlinson  none  the  less  instructed 
General  Davies  (commanding  the  8th  Division)  that  the 
men  must  be  halted  and  a  formal  assault  on  the  orchard 
prepared.  A  message  from  the  commander  who  was  on  the 
spot  (Brigadier-General  Carter),  to  the  effect  that  no  sign 
of  the  enemy  was  detectable  at  any  point  in  the  orchard, 
took  over  an  hour  to  travel  back  to  Lestrem  and  crossed 
one  from  Rawlinson  to  the  effect  that  the  bombardment  had 
been  set  for  12.30  and  the  assault  was  to  go  in  immediately 
afterwards.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  whole  of  corps  artil- 
lery was  shortly  to  be  put  down  on  the  orchard,  Brigadier- 
General  Carter  was  understandably  reluctant  to  reconnoitre 
there  and  another  half-hour's  delay  ensued.  Finally,  after 
the  bombardment  was  over,  the  'assaulting'  troops  moved 
in,  and  found  the  orchard  neither  defended  nor  even 
prepared  for  defence.^ 

At  last  there  was  no  excuse  for  further  hesitation  by  the 
left  wing.  It  is  true  that  the  complete  absence  of  enemy 
forces  which  had  characterized  the  greater  part  of  the  front 
that  morning  no  longer  applied,  for  small  groups  of  machine- 
gunners  and  other  scratch  units  had  filtered  up  to  occupy 

I.  This  episode  should  be  borne  in  mind  when  reading  the  exchange  of 
letters  referred  to  on  pp.  72-3. 


62  THE    DONKEYS 

the  skeleton  outpost  line  which  the  enemy  had  been  con- 
structing along  the  diagonal  Mauquissart-Layes  Bridge,  but 
their  numbers  were  very  few — less  than  a  hundred.  On  the 
other  hand  the  British  van  had  now  become  so  swollen  as  to 
be  highly  unwieldy,  even  by  a  skilful  commander  with  a 
clear  idea  of  objectives  and  their  priority.  For  the  'assault' 
on  the  orchard  a  number  of  units  that  had  been  accumu- 
lating just  behind  the  line  were  pressed  into  action,  so  that 
the  same  length  of  front  (i.e.  that  from  Moated  Grange  to 
the  left  flank  of  the  Irish  Rifles  on  Signpost  Lane)  that  had 
earlier  been  the  province  of  the  Middlesex  and  3rd  London 
was  now,  besides  their  remnants,  crowded  with  the  2nd 
Wiltshire,  the  2nd  Green  Howards,  the  2nd  Royal  Scots 
Fusiliers,  the  2nd  Northamptonshire,  the  ist  Worcestershire 
and  the  ist  Sherwood  Foresters. 

In  spite  of,  or  because  of,  these  massive  numbers  the 
advance  was  hesitant  and  dilatory  in  the  extreme: 

'It  took  a  long  time  to  get  under  way  as  the  men  were 
very  thick  on  the  ground  and  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
sorting  out  to  be  done.  We  advanced  in  platoon  columns  of 
sections,  preceded  by  a  posse  of  men  from  other  units  bearing 
enormous  light-coloured  planks  with  which  to  cross  the 
Layes  Brook.  These  served  to  draw  what  fire  was  about. 

'When  we  had  progressed  a  few  hundred  yards  against 
very  mediocre  opposition,  word  was  passed  along  the  line 
to  halt  the  advance.  I  gathered  that  something  had  gone 
wrong.  Actually  all  it  was  was  that  the  lines  of  advance  of 
two  brigades  had  crossed.  We  lay  in  the  open  under  desul- 
tory, but  increasing,  shellfire,  for  some  hours.  Ahead  the 
Moulin  de  Pietre  was  clearly  visible  among  the  trees  [two 
days  later  the  Grenadiers  were  to  be  practically  wiped  out 
attacking  it] — at  that  time  it  was  unoccupied.'^ 

In  the  meantime  Colonel  Stephens  had  been  desperately 
sending  messages  back  from  his  position  in  the  centre,  urging 
the  need  to  advance  immediately.  No  reply  was  made  to 

I .  Ewing,  The  Royal  Scots. 


NEUVE  chapelle;   the  passing  hours         63 

these  until  1.15  p.m.  when  the  instructions  read  simply  that 
the  men  were  'to  be  prepared  to  advance  towards  Aubers 
ridge'.  And  at  1.30  Rawlinson  sent  a  further  message,  this 
time  to  the  mass  of  troops  at  the  northern  end  of  the  breach 
who  were  fumbling  forward  after  occupying  the  orchard,  to 
the  effect  that  they  were  to  'reassemble  as  rapidly  as  possible 
with  a  view  to  a  further  advance'.  The  commanders  on  the  spot 
can  hardly  be  blamed  for  halting  their  men  in  perplexity  at 
such  instructions! 

Immediately  after  sending  these  orders,  Rawlinson  sent 
a  summary  of  the  situation  to  Haig  at  Merville.  In  this  he 
stated  that  it  was  his  intention  to  give  the  order  to  advance 
on  Aubers  at  2  p.m.  Haig  wired  his  approval,  at  the  same 
time  allotting  still  further  troops  to  the  4th  Corps  from  ist 
Army  reserve.  But  when,  five  minutes  later,  Rawlinson 
telephoned  to  La  Croix  Marmuse  and  spoke  to  General 
Willcocks  he  was  told  that  the  Indian  Corps  were  still  not 
ready  to  move  forward  as  the  Germans  holding  out  in  the 
Port  Arthur  salient  had  not  yet  been  eliminated.  Rawlinson 
therefore  postponed,  indefinitely,  the  issue  of  his  orders  to 
advance  on  Aubers.  There  followed  an  hour  of  complete  inac- 
tivity. Then,  at  2.45  p.m.,  came  an  enquiry  from  Merville: 
General  Haig  wanted  to  know  what  was  happening. 

Rawlinson  replied  that  he  was  waiting  for  the  Indian 
Corps;  but  when  Haig's  chief  of  staflf  telephoned  La  Croix 
Marmuse  Willcocks  maintained  that  his  position  had  been 
cleared  up  and  that  he  was  waiting  for  word  from  Raw- 
linson. The  Meerut  Division,  he  said,  had  already  been 
ordered  to  attack  the  Bois  du  Biez.  So  once  again  the  4th 
Corps  administrative  machine  creaked  into  motion.  A 
message  was  sent  back  to  the  ist  Army  saying  that  'they 
were  about  to  issue  orders  for  the  advance',  and  Haig  or- 
dered up  yet  more  reserves — this  time  the  5th  Cavalry 
Brigade.  But  the  orders  themselves^  envisaged  an  advance  of 
absurdly  limited  scope — when  the  second  objectives  desig- 
nated were  at  a  distance  of  less  than  a  thousand  yards. 

I.  O.H.,  1915,  I,  Appendix  17. 


64  THE    DONKEYS 

Whether  on  account  of  a  leisurely  atmosphere  generated 
by  such  unambitious  instructions,  or  on  account  of  the 
heightening  congestion  both  behind  and  in  the  front  line, 
it  was  a  considerable  time  before  these  orders  were  put  into 
execution.  They  were  received  at  Divisional  Headquarters 
just  after  3  p.m.  but  had  not  percolated  to  the  various 
brigades  concerned  until  just  before  four  o'clock.  The  attack 
had,  in  fact,  been  ordered  for  3.30  and  so  was  already  out 
of  phase  with  the  artillery  bombardment.  The  gunfire  was 
rendered  still  less  effective  by  the  fact  that  none  of  the  new 
targets  could  be  clearly  seen  from  the  existing  observation 
posts,  nor  had  they  been  previously  registered.  The  only 
effect  of  the  haphazard  and  sporadic  fall  of  shell  that 
followed  was  to  inflict  casualties  on  some  of  the  Devons  who 
had  pushed  ahead  of  the  line  and  on  a  group  of  ruined 
miners'  cottages  along  the  Mauquissart  road.  The  Devons 
withdrew,  and  about  half  an  hour  later  the  Germans  re- 
occupied  these  cottages  and  placed  two  machine-gun  sections 
in  the  cellars.  (They  were  never  evicted,  either  on  that  day 
or  those  following,  and  used  this  point  as  one  of  the  pivots 
of  their  northern  line.)  Further  delays  were  caused  by  an 
absurdly  protracted  exchange  of  messages  between  Brigadier- 
General  Carter  and  Brigadier-General  Watts,  each  en- 
quiring whether  the  other  was  ready,  their  messages  crossing 
in  transit  and  leading  to  fresh  and  differently  worded  replies, 
and  so  forth.  When,  finally,  the  leading  battalions  moved 
forward  across  the  Armentieres  road  and  in  the  direction 
of  the  enemy  it  was  after  5.30  p.m. 

By  this  time  thick  clouds  that  had  been  gathering  during 
the  afternoon  had  formed  an  unbroken  ceiling  over  the 
sodden  battle  area.  A  grim  twilight  shrouded  the  un- 
familiar terrain,  masking  the  little  clumps  of  trees,  the 
shattered  farm  buildings,  the  stunted  willows  that  marked 
the  course  of  innumerable  swollen  brooks.  And  all  the  while 
the  German  strength  had  been  increasing  so  that  as  the 
British  infantry  groped  their  way  forward  in  the  dusk  there 
could  be  heard  once  again,  in  increasing  volume,  that  most 


NEUVE  ghapelle;   the  passing  hours        65 

haunting  of  all  the  sounds  of  trench  warfare — the  drawn-out 
clatter  of  a  long  burst  on  the  machine-gun. 


Down  on  the  Indian  Corps  front  the  renewed  forward 
movement  ordered  by  General  Willcocks  had  got  under 
way  earlier,  though  still  over  half  an  hour  later  than  or- 
dered. And,  as  dusk  fell  and  the  damp  mist  rose  up  from  the 
dykes  and  water-meadows,  the  leading  Ghurkas  reached  the 
western  edge  of  the  Bois  du  Biez.  At  the  southern  end  of  the 
wood  the  2 /2nd  Ghurka  occupied  the  group  of  cottages, 
still  burning  from  the  morning's  bombardment,  known  as 
'les  Brulots',  and  sent  scouts  on  into  the  wood;  but  at  the 
northern  end  the  i  /9th  came  under  intermittent  fire  from  a 
German  machine-gun  in  the  cellar  of  one  of  the  houses  by 
the  Layes  Bridge  and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Widdicombe  kept 
back  the  greater  part  of  the  battalion  behind  the  line  of  the 
Layes  Brook  until  the  4th  Corps  should  have  cleared  his  left 
flank.  (Ironic  to  think  of  these  men  hesitating  at  one  machine- 
gun  at  that  range  when,  less  than  eight  weeks  later,  they 
were  to  be  sent  in  repeatedly  against  a  volume  of  fire  twenty 
or  thirty  times  stronger.) 

In  the  meantime  the  meagre  German  reserves  were  taking 
advantage  of  the  failing  light  to  enter  the  wood,  undetected 
from  the  eastern  side.  So  it  was  that  at  dusk  the  Bois  grad- 
ually began  to  fill  with  stealthy  little  groups  of  infantry, 
stumbling  and  crackling  in  the  unfamiliar  undergrowth. 
The  air  was  quiet.  The  two  armies  were  still  poised,  like 
boxers  in  the  first  round,  nervous  at  the  lightest  feint.  The 
artillery  was  silent  as  the  guns  trundled  to  their  new  posi- 
tions; only  to  the  north  could  be  heard  the  intermittent 
chatter  of  the  German  machine-gun  at  Layes  Bridge.  As 
darkness  deepened  some  rifle  fire  could  be  heard,  and 
shouted  orders,  Hindustani  mingling  strangely  with  English 
and  German. 

Then,  just  after  8  p.m.,  occurred  one  of  those  tricks  of 


66  THE    DONKEYS 

chance  whose  effect  was  to  be  ampHfied  by  the  timid  and 
hesitant  leadership  of  the  attackers.  Ghurka  scouts  captured 
a  corporal  of  the  56th  Infantry  Regiment,  who  stated  under 
interrogation  that  two  regiments  (in  reality  only  two  battal- 
ions, but  from  different  regiments)  were  collecting  in  the 
wood.  When  this  was  reported  to  Brigade  Headquarters, 
they  replied  with  instructions  that  all  forces  were  to  be  with- 
drawn behind  the  Layes  Brook  for  the  night,  and  with  them 
went  any  chance  of  reaping  even  a  local  success  from  the 
Neuve  Chapelle  offensive. 

During  the  hours  of  darkness  the  enemy  worked  with 
prodigious  energy  to  improve  his  position:  the  newly  arrived 
infantry  dug  a  line  of  shallow  breastwork  to  connect  the 
machine-gun  nests  at  Mauquissart  and  Layes  Bridge  and 
these  two  strongpoints  were  further  improved  and  armed 
with  additional  machine-guns.  The  Germans  also  ran  an 
outpost  line  in  front  of  the  Bois  du  Biez,  with  their  main 
body  of  machine-gunners  lying  in  the  fringe  of  the  trees  so 
that  here  there  was  defence  in  depth. 

Haig's  orders  came  through  at  dawn  on  the  nth.  They 
ordered  an  attack  at  7  a.m.  '.  .  .  to  begin  at  all  points,  and 
to  be  pressed  vigorously,  as  from  information  received  it 
appears  that  the  enemy  before  us  is  in  no  great  strength'. 
Although  this  estimate  of  the  enemy  strength  was  still  true, 
relatively  speaking,  the  task  of  the  ist  Army  was  now  im- 
measurably more  difficult.  The  element  of  surprise  had  gone, 
the  infantry  planning  had  been  thrown  out  of  mesh,  and  the 
weight  of  artillery  support  was  now  very  much  less. 

Fifteen  minutes'  bombardment  was  due  to  start  at  6.45, 
but  dull  and  misty  conditions  impeded  observation  and 
registration  of  targets.  Many  of  the  guns  never  ranged 
properly  on  to  their  targets  and  the  new  enemy  breastwork, 
being  as  yet  undetected,  was  not  shelled  at  all.  When  the 
assault  did  get  under  way  it  followed  the  same  principle  of 
'congested  development'  as  on  the  previous  day,  with 
brigades  uncovering  each  other  and  diverging  as  they  moved 
forward.  But  now  the  confusion  latent  in  such  practice  was 


NEUVE  chapelle;   the  passing  hours        67 

aggravated  by  the  much-increased  enemy  resistance.  The 
Germans  had  brought  up  several  fresh  batteries  in  the  night, 
and  their  bombardment  began  at  6.30  and  lasted  for  over 
three  hours,  deluging  Neuve  Chapelle  village  and  the  whole 
rear  area  with  shellfire  and  gravely  impeding  movement  and 
communication.  The  20th  Brigade,  which  had  come  up 
fresh,  the  Grenadier  Guards  and  Gordon  Highlanders  lead- 
ing, was  badly  knocked  about  as  it  passed  through  the  21st 
Brigade  lines  opposite  Mauquissart  and  soon  got  lost  among 
the  maze  of  ditches  that  intersected  the  area.  After  edging 
forward  through  the  smoke  and  under  fire  the  whole  time 
they  halted  some  forty  minutes  later  astride  a  deep  drainage 
dyke  mistakenly  supposed  to  be  the  Layes  Brook.  When 
their  position  was  reported  back  to  Divisional  H.Q^.  it  was 
taken  to  mean  that  a  complete  break-through  of  the  German 
lines  had  been  effected  and  the  artillery  was  lifted.  This  had 
the  effect  of  making  any  further  advance  impossible,  yet 
owing  to  the  telephone  lines  having  been  cut  by  the  enemy 
bombardment  the  higher  commanders  remained  in  ignorance 
of  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  firing  line  until  the  early  after- 
noon. 

Another  factor  contributing  to  the  muddle  was  that,  for 
some  reason  which  has  never  been  explained,  there  had 
been  no  relief  of  the  2nd  Rifle  Brigade,  the  force  exactly  in 
the  centre  of  the  wedge.  They  had,  indeed,  received  no 
further  orders  since  their  instructions  to  'consolidate'  at 
12.45  P-m-  the  previous  day,  and  now,  instead  of  finding 
themselves  opposite  a  vacuum,  they  were  directly  facing  the 
strongest  part  of  the  enemy  line — the  'Layes  Bridge  Re- 
doubt'— which  had  been  reinforced  with  an  additional 
twenty- two  machine-guns  during  the  night  of  loth 
March  and  the  morning  of  the  iith.^  Colonel  Stephens, 
their  commander,  who  had  had  his  urgent  pleas  for  per- 
mission to  advance  rejected  or  ignored  the  previous  day,  was 
now  naturally  reluctant  to  make  any  further  movement 
forward  as  his  men  were  short  of  food  and  ammunition  as 

I.  Regimental  diary,  III  Jager  Battalion. 


68  THE    DONKEYS 

well  as  exhausted  physically.  But  the  weakness  here  did  have 
the  serious  tactical  effect  of  further  emphasizing  the  division 
of  the  front  between  the  4th  and  the  Indian  Corps,  the  one 
to  the  north,  the  other  to  the  south  of  the  Layes  Bridge, 
and  each  functioning  only  along  the  ponderous  chain  of 
command  that  led  back  to  their  respective  Corps  Head- 
quarters. 

Whether  this  failure  to  relieve  2nd  Rifle  Brigade  arose 
from  oversight,  or  from  General  Rawlinson's  preference  for 
independent  action  in  a  north-easterly  direction,  is  not  clear. 
The  first  mention  of  an  intended  relief  is  at  10.25  a^-^i.  on 
the  morning  of  the  1 1  th,  but  General  Rawlinson  was  con- 
vinced that  a  German  counter-attack  would  follow  on  his 
own  failure  to  breach  the  Mauquissart  road  position  that 
morning,  and  cancelled  the  relief  order  at  the  last  moment, 
directing  the  reserves  to  support  along  the  axis  of  the  Pietre 
road — an  area  already  desperately  overcrowded  and  carry- 
ing a  heavy  traffic  of  wounded. 

In  fact  no  German  counter-attack  did  materialize  in  the 
forenoon — the  enemy  were  still  engaged  in  improving  their 
defences  and  were  certainly  not  sufficiently  numerous  to 
attempt  an  advance  across  the  open.  By  12. 19 p.m.  Rawlinson 
seems  to  have  realized  this  for  he  sent  out  orders  for  a  fresh 
attack,  and  that  'the  objectives  should  be  captured  without 
further  delay'. 

However,  the  German  artillery  fire  was  increasing  in 
severity  the  whole  time,  and  all  telephone  communication 
with  the  front  line  had  been  cut.  As  a  systematic  diffusion  of 
the  new  orders  by  runner  would  have  meant  delaying  the 
attack  for  another  two  or  three  hours  the  unorthodox  course 
was  adopted  of  sending  forward  the  support  battalions  (ist 
Worcester  and  Sherwood  Foresters)  with  instructions  to  'go 
straight  in  to  the  attack  and  carry  the  front-line  troops 
forward  with  them'.  They  set  off  late,  five  minutes,  in  fact, 
after  the  supporting  artillery  fire  had  stopped,  and  suffered 
heavily  in  crossing  the  open  ground  that  led  up  to  the  fore- 
most positions.  On  arrival  they  met  with  a  flat  refusal  on 


Advancing  infantrymen  pinned  down  in  their  own  wire. 


Looking  north-east  across  No-Man's-Land  in  the  sahent.  It  is  a 
quiet  day.  The  only  discernible  activity  is  a  puff  of  smoke  in  the 
background  from  a  4.7  shell  which  has  burst  short  of  the  enemy 

position. 


.  ^^.4^^v3^^.^;.-  f ir^t^ 


'%  :^^, 


m 


M  > 


'Rawly' 


NEUVE  chapelle;  the  passing  hours        69 

the  part  of  the  officer  in  command  to  go  into  the  attack  a 
second  time: 

*I  received  a  note  from  the  Worcestershire:  "We  have  got 
to  advance,  will  you  give  the  order?"  I  answered:  "No,  it 
is  a  mere  waste  of  life,  impossible  to  get  20  yards,  much 
less  200.  The  trenches  have  not  been  touched  by  the  artillery. 
If  artillery  cannot  touch  them  the  only  way  is  to  advance  from 
the  right  flank.  A  frontal  attack  will  not  get  near  them."  '^ 

In  spite  of  this  the  two  leading  companies  of  the  Worcester- 
shire were  ordered  over  the  top  by  their  own  commander; 
here  they  were  shot  down  almost  at  once.  On  the  left  the 
Northamptons  made  three  attempts  and  some  of  their 
number  managed  to  reach  some  dilapidated  farm  buildings 
in  No-Man's-Land  where,  in  due  course,  the  majority  of 
them  were  killed  by  enemy  artillery  fire.  The  fate  of  Colonel 
Prichard,  after  his  courageous  refusal  to  subject  his  men 
to  further  pointless  slaughter,  is  not  recorded. 

The  position  by  nightfall  on  the  nth,  then,  was  simply 
that  no  further  progress  had  been  made  but  that  casualties 
were  rising  hourly.  Simple  mathematics  should  have  forced 
the  decision  to  break  off  the  engagement — the  British  ar- 
tillery was  weaker  and  less  accurate  than  on  the  day  of  the 
assault,  the  infantry  were  exhausted  and  in  some  confusion 
while  the  enemy  was  nearly  five  times  as  numerous  as  on 
the  previous  day.  However,  General  Haig  was  determined 
to  proceed  with  his  plan.  On  the  evening  of  the  nth  he 
visited  the  support  area  and  '.  .  .  gave  personal  orders  for 
guns  to  be  brought  closer  to  the  front  in  several  places'.  On 
return  to  his  headquarters  he  issued  orders  for  a  'simul- 
taneous advance'  by  the  4th  and  the  Indian  Gorps^  at  10.30 
a.m.  the  following  day  after  a  half-hour  artillery  bombard- 
ment— an  almost  verbatim  repetition  of  his  orders  of  the 
morning  before. 

1.  Message  received  at  24th  Brigade  H.Q,.,  2.50  p.m.,  nth  March  1915, 
from  Colonel  Prichard. 

2.  O.H.,  1915,  I,  Appendix  20. 


70  THE    DONKEYS 

On  this  day,  the  12th,  ist  Army  was  given  a  last  chance 
— by  the  stupidity  of  their  opponents.  For  at  dawn  the 
Germans  had  launched  a  counter-attack  with  sixteen 
battalions  along  the  whole  length  of  the  line.  This  was 
easily  repulsed,  but  no  effort  was  made  to  follow  up  their 
confusion  and  the  precious  morning  hours  were  allowed  to 
slip  by  until  the  zero  fixed  on  the  previous  day.  Even  this 
seemed  too  early,  for  at  9.20  a.m.  Rawlinson  telephoned  to 
Haig^  and  told  him  that  'unsatisfactory'  artillery  registration 
threatened  to  jeopardize  the  effectiveness  of  the  bombard- 
ment and  asked  for  zero  to  be  put  back  two  hours.  Haig 
consented  to  this,  but  when,  at  1 1.15,  he  was  again  told  that 
the  gunners  were  not  ready  he  directed  that  'forward  move- 
ment should  not  be  postponed  any  longer'. 

At  12.30,  accordingly,  the  assault  went  in.  Within  two 
hours  it  had  been  brought  to  a  dead  stop,  with  gains  meas- 
ured quite  literally  in  yards  and  with  many  of  the  leading 
units  virtually  annihilated.  But  there  were  still,  concentrated 
in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Neuve  Chapelle  village 
and  the  old  German  front  line,  large  numbers  of  troops  who, 
if  not  fresh,  had  not,  at  least,  seen  direct  action,  and  Haig 
gave  orders  that  these  should  now  be  committed.  At  3.6 
p.m.  he  wired  all  units  that 

'Information  indicates  that  enemy  on  our  front  are  much 
demoralized.  Indian  Corps  and  the  4th  Corps  will  push 
through  the  barrage  of  fire  regardless  of  loss,  using  reserves 
if  required.' 

It  is  very  hard  to  decide  what  was  in  Haig's  mind  at  this 
time.  Certainly  the  reports  coming  in  to  ist  Army  gave  no 
indication  of  any  other  result  than  'loss'  of  life.  Along  the 
whole  front  a  new  pattern  was  emerging,  of  fresh  units 
moving  forward  to  the  line  under  fire,  intermingling  and 
hesitating  briefly  among  the  battalions  already  shattered  in 
the  morning's  attacks  and  then,  themselves,  attacking  piece- 
meal with  the  inevitable  result.   In  spite  of  this  patent 

I.  O.H.,  1915,  I,  139. 


\ 


NEUVE  chapelle;  the  passing  hours         71 

collapse  of  the  offensive  momentum  Haig  seems  to  have 
thought  that  the  answer  was  simply  to  throw  in  yet  more 
troops.  That  afternoon  he  telephoned  to  Sir  John  French 
asking  that  the  2nd  Cavalry  Division  should  be  placed  at 
his  disposal,  which  request  was  granted,  and  even  as  late  as 
6.20  p.m.  there  is  a  record  of  a  telephone  conversation  with 
G.H.Q^.  in  which  Haig  asked  that 

'In  view  of  the  promising  situation,  the  46th  Division  from 
General  Reserve  might  be  used  to  relieve  the  two  left 
Canadian  Brigades  .  .  .  and  that  these  should  be  massed 
with  a  view  to  breaking  through  opposite  Rouges  Bancs  and 
co-operating  with  the  advance  of  the  7th  Division.' 

However,  those  nearer  to  the  front  were  less  optimistic. 
Both  Rawlinson  and  Willcocks  passed  on  the  orders  to 
attack  'regardless  of  loss'  and  to  'push  forward  at  all  costs', 
but  as  these  instructions  reached  brigade  level  they  began 
to  meet  with  a  similar  reaction  to  that  of  Colonel  Prichard 
the  previous  day — although  it  found  a  more  discreet  ex- 
pression. 

In  the  Indian  Corps  the  commander  of  the  Ferozepore 
Brigade,  Brigadier-General  Egerton,  ordered  up  from  re- 
serve with  instructions  to  take  over  command  of  the  Sirhind 
and  Jullundur  Brigades  also,  and  to  mount  an  immediate 
attack  against  the  Bois  du  Biez,  first  succeeded  in  postponing 
the  time  of  the  attack  to  8.30  p.m.,  then,  after  consultation 
with  the  front-line  commanders,  telephoned  a  request  for  a 
further  postponement  until  10.30  p.m.,  'at  the  same  time 
giving  his  opinion  that  the  attack  ordered  was  not  likely 
to  succeed'.^  Thereupon  General  Willcocks  cancelled  the 
attack  altogether,  giving  as  his  reason  to  Haig,  who  had 
turned  up  at  Indian  H.Q.  at  La  Croix  Marmuse  a  few 
minutes  earlier  to  urge  the  corps  to  greater  effort,  '.  .  .  that 
he  did  not  consider  it  feasible  to  make  an  attack  with  such 
a  large  body  of  troops  by  night  over  unreconnoitred 
ground'.  The  cancellation  of  the  Indian  Corps  attack  must 

I.  O.H.  1915,  I,  144. 


72  THE    DONKEYS 

by  itself  have  sealed  the  fate  of  any  offensive  by  4th  Corps 
to  the  north  but  the  first  orders  cancelling  their  own  attack 
did  not  start  being  received  at  the  various  brigade  head- 
quarters until  1.25  a.m.,  and  by  that  time  a  number  of  ill- 
co-ordinated  forward  movements  had  already  got  under  way. 
The  confusion  was  very  great  and  heightened  by  the  ex- 
haustion of  the  men  who,  after  three  days  and  nights  con- 
tinuously under  fire,  had  fallen  asleep  and  'could  only  be 
aroused  by  the  use  of  force — a  process  made  very  lengthy 
by  the  fact  that  the  battlefield  was  covered  with  British  and 
German  dead,  who,  in  the  dark,  were  indistinguishable  from 
the  sleepers'.^ 

In  fact  the  offensive  had  run  down  completely,  and  by 
the  morning  this  was  plain,  even  at  ist  Army  H.Q.  Haig 
therefore  issued  orders  that  the  leading  units  were  to  con- 
solidate their  present  positions  and  those  in  close  support 
were  to  be  taken  back  into  reserve,  with  the  intention  of 
pushing  in  a  second  offensive  within  the  next  few  days  with 
two  fresh  divisions. 

Happily,  this  scheme  did  not  come  to  fruition  and,  as 
the  days  passed,  it  came  to  be  realized  that  ist  Army  had, 
although  'gaining  valuable  experience',  suffered  a  defeat. 

As  to  the  causes  of  the  defeat,  opinion  was  less  than 
unanimous.  Haig's  diary  for  i6th  March  tells  how 

'Sir  H.  Rawlinson  came  to  see  me  about  8  a.m.  and 
handed  me  a  letter  which  he  had  written  about  Major- 
General  Davies  commanding  8th  Division.  He  did  not  con- 
sider him  a  good  commander  of  a  division  on  the  field  of 
battle.  In  forwarding  on  the  letter  to  G.H.Q^.  I  concurred 
in  R.'s  opinion,  said  he  [Davies]  had  done  well  in  preparing 
the  attack,  but  that  he  had  failed  to  advance  from  the 
village  of  Neuve  Chapelle  at  once  after  its  capture.  I  thought 
that  he  was  unfit  to  command  a  division  at  this  critical 
period  of  the  operations  in  France  but  should  be  employed 
at  home.' 

I.  O.H.,  1915,  I,  149. 


NEUVE  chapelle;  the  passing  hours         73 

But  something  seems  to  have  gone  wrong  with  this  attempt 
to  make  Davies  the  scapegoat  because  later: 

'.  .  .  I  received  a  letter  from  Rawlinson  enclosing  one 
from  Davies.  As  a  result  of  this,  R.  at  once  wrote  that  he 
took  all  responsibility  for  delaying  the  advance  from  the 
village  until  3.30  p.m.  This  at  once  showed  that  Rawlinson 
felt  himself  to  blame  for  the  delay,  not  Davies.  I  am  afraid 
that  Rawlinson  is  unsatisfactory  in  this  respect — loyalty  to 
his  subordinates,  but  he  has  many  other  valuable  qualities. . . .' 

The  background  to  this  episode  is  not  clear.'^ 
If  relations  between  the  British  generals  had  temporarily 
deteriorated,  those  between  the  Expeditionary  Force  and 
the  French  showed  a  marked  improvement — and  for  an 
ominous  reason. 

'After  the  battle  of  Neuve  Chapelle  the  correspondence 
between  the  French  and  British  general  staffs  contained  a 
fresh  note  of  confidence  and  a  more  cordial  desire  on  the 
French  side  for  an  effective  co-operation  in  a  combined 
offensive  movement.'^ 

For  more  important  than  any  other  'lesson'  was  the  fact 
that  the  British  commanders  had  shown  their  readiness  to 
attack  'regardless  of  loss'  even  if  loss  was  to  be  the  only 
result. 

Prophetically,  Charteris  wrote: 

'I  am  afraid  that  England  will  have  to  accustom  herself 
to  far  greater  losses  than  those  of  Neuve  Chapelle  before  we 
finally  crush  the  German  Army.'^ 


1.  See  p.  61  above,  and  footnote. 

2.  O.H.,  1915,  I,  154. 

3.  Charteris,  G.H.Q,.,  86. 


Gas 

The  horrible  part  of  it  is  the  slow  lingering  death  of 
those  who  are  gassed.  I  saw  some  hundred  poor 
fellows  laid  out  in  the  open,  in  the  forecourt  of  a 
church,  to  give  them  all  the  air  they  could  get,  slowly 
drowning  with  water  in  their  lungs — a  most  horrible 
sight,  and  the  doctors  quite  powerless. 

CHARTERis,  28th  April  1915 

WITH  the  coming  of  April  the  weather  had  improved. 
One  glorious  spring  day  followed  another,  drying 
out  the  scabs  of  war  that  lay  upon  the  soil.  On 
the  22nd  temperatures  were  in  the  seventies. 

Throughout  that  morning  the  Germans  had  been  putting 
heavy  shell,  8  in.  and  17  in.  howitzers,  on  Ypres  and  the 
roads  leading  out  of  the  town,  but  during  the  afternoon  all 
was  quiet.  The  sun  shone  gently  on  the  flat  countryside, 
glinting  on  the  Beekes,  the  deep  drainage  ditches  that  mean- 
dered across  the  fields,  still  swollen  with  the  rains  of  winter. 
Everywhere  the  green  shoots  of  spring  struggled  upwards 
through  the  filth  and  squalor  of  battle.  Right  up  to  the 
support  lines  the  land  was  still  under  cultivation.  For  four 
months  the  salient  had  seen  no  serious  fighting. 

And  then  at  5  p.m.  a  new  and  furious  bombardment  of 
the  town  and  the  villages  in  front  and  to  the  north  of  it 
began.  The  enemy  artillery,  that  had  ranged  accurately  on 
to  all  these  targets  in  the  morning,  now  searched  them  out 
in  crippling  strength,  making  movement  almost  impossible. 
Soon  those  observers  who  were  on  points  of  vantage  saw 

74 


76  THE    DONKEYS 

two  greenish-yellow  clouds  creeping  out  across  No-Man's- 
Land  in  the  French  sector,  on  either  side  of  Langemarck. 
These  clouds  spread  laterally,  joined  up  and,  moving 
before  a  light  wind,  became  'a  bluish- white  mist,  such  as 
is  seen  over  water-meadows  on  a  frosty  night'.  Rapid  fire 
from  the  French  75  mm.  field  batteries  could  be  heard, 
as  could  the  rifle  fire  of  the  Germans  who  seemed  to  be 
advancing. 

The  Canadian  Division,  on  the  right  of  the  French,  had 
only  lately  arrived  and  had  as  yet  no  proper  communication 
with  them,  while  the  telephone  lines  to  and  from  Corps 
Headquarters  had  all  been  cut  by  the  bombardment.  Thus 
it  was  impossible  for  anyone  in  the  2nd  Army  to  form  a  clear 
picture  of  what  was  happening,  but,  as  the  minutes  slipped 
past,  people  in  the  rear  areas,  and  in  particular  the  British 
reserves  in  billets  around  St.  Jean  and  La  Brique  which 
were  due  south  of  the  French  positions,  became  aware  of  a 
peculiar  smell  and  smarting  of  the  eyes.  Then,  as  the  enemy 
artillery  fire  lifted,  dense  masses  of  fugitives  came  stumbling 
down  the  roads  from  the  direction  of  Langemarck  and 
Pilckem.  Few  of  them  could  speak,  none  intelligibly,  many 
were  blue  in  the  face,  others  collapsed  choking  by  the  side 
of  the  road.  At  the  same  time  onlookers  began  to  feel  a 
tingling  of  the  nose  and  throat,  and  a  tightening  of  the  chest. 
At  this  time  the  mob  was  composed  about  equally  of  Tirail- 
leurs, civilians  and  French  African  troops,  but  it  soon  be- 
came thicker  and  more  disordered  as  the  first  of  the  French 
artillery  teams  and  wagons  attempted  to  drive  their  way 
through  those  on  foot. 

The  air  was  heavy  with  fear,  with  the  stark  panic  of  the 
unknown.  The  few  British  units  in  the  path  of  the  retreat, 
the  2nd  Middlesex,  3rd  Buffs,  and  two  and  a  half  companies 
of  Canadian  troops,  began — with  a  coolness  and  discipline 
that  seems  almost  incredible  as  we  look  back  on  it — to  pre- 
pare their  positions  for  defence.  It  was  obvious  that  some- 
thing very  serious  had  happened,  although  for  about  an 
hour  the  'seventy-fives'  of  French  divisional  artillery  could 


GAS  77 

still  be  heard.  Then,  at  about  7  p.m,,  these,  too,  suddenly 
and  ominously  ceased  fire. 


Shortage  of  troops  had  restricted  the  weight  of  the  German 
attack,  but  their  hopes  that  surprise  and  the  introduction  of 
the  new  weapon  would  foster  its  chances  were  more  than 
fulfilled.  For  this  area  held  by  the  French  was  weakly  gar- 
risoned. It  had  seemed  that  the  deadlock  was  unbreakable 
here,  and  vigilance  had  relaxed.  The  trench-line  faced  north- 
east, running  across  very  gently  rolling  country,  from  the 
Belgian  positions  along  the  Ypres-Dixmude  Canal,  in  front 
of  the  town  of  Langemarck,  up  to  the  junction  with  the 
4th  Corps  of  the  British  2nd  Army  on  the  Poelcapelle-St. 
Julien  road.  A  distance  of  four  and  a  half  miles,  it  was 
covered  by  two  French  divisions,  the  87th  Territorial  and 
the  45th  Algerian.  They  were  generously  backed  by  artillery 
and  had  the  added  advantage  of  enfilade  fire  from  the 
Belgian  positions  that  were  almost  at  right  angles  to  their 
own.  But  the  quality  of  the  troops  was  poor.  An  officer  of 
the  Leinsters,  holding  the  line  adjacent,  noted: 

'These  French  native  troops  are  a  picturesque  lot,  in  their 
blue  tunics  and  baggy  red  trousers,  but  they  are  a  con- 
founded nuisance  to  us.  They  keep  up  a  rapid  fire  all  night, 
so  that  the  enemy  retaliates  and  often  catches  our  working 
parties  in  No-Man's-Land;  then,  in  the  daytime,  they  drift 
back  to  loot  in  the  ruins  of  Ypres.  They  never  bury  their 
dead  and  the  whole  place  stinks  to  heaven.'^ 

This  was  in  fact  the  old  9th  Corps  area,  that  had  proved 
such  a  source  of  trouble  between  Joffre  and  Sir  John  French 
earlier  in  the  year.  It  is  not  impossible  that  G.Q^.G.  were 
deliberately  using  it  as  a  'waste-paper  basket'  for  second-rate 
units  in  the  hope  that  trouble  here  would  force  the  British 
into  a  de  facto  relief  so  as  to  safeguard  the  left  flank  of  their 
own  divisions  in  the  salient,  although  the  French  cannot  have 

I.  F.  C.  Hitchcock,  Stand  To. 


78  THE    DONKEYS 

expected  that  the  'trouble'  would  have  been  so  sudden  or 
so  drastic. 

Nonetheless,  it  must  be  recorded  that  both  the  French  and 
the  British  had  ample  warning  of  the  Germans'  intention 
to  use  gas.  On  the  20th  March  some  prisoners  had  been 
captured  on  the  south  side  of  the  salient  and  under  interro- 
gation had  given  extensive  details  of  the  plan  and  of  the 
placing  of  the  cylinders  in  the  trenches.  The  idea  was  re- 
garded as  being  so  fantastic,  though,  that  it  took  some  time 
to  filter  up  the  chain  of  command,  and  in  the  meantime  the 
division  was  posted  to  a  new  area.  When,  finally,  it  reached 
Army  Headquarters,  it  was  duly  published  in  the  bulletin; 
but  this  circulated  only  in  the  Artois  district,  over  1 00  miles 
away.  Then,  a  week  before  the  attack,  a  deserter  surrendered 
in  the  exact  area  that  was  to  be  attacked,  near  Langemarck, 
and  supported  his  evidence  by  showing  one  of  the  crude 
respirators  with  which  the  German  infantry  there  had  al- 
ready been  issued.  The  French  divisional  commander  was 
gravely  impressed,  but  the  corps  commander,  Balfourier, 
dismissed  the  concept  as  'absurd'  and  administered  a  sharp 
rebuke  at  the  manner  in  which  the  usual  channels  had  been 
bypassed  to  warn  the  British  and  French  units  on  either 
side.^  Then,  three  days  later,  the  Belgians  captured  further 
evidence  of  the  enemy  design,  and  again  the  information 
was  not  taken  seriously  above  brigade  level. 

All  these  warnings  might  just  as  well  have  never  been  given 
for  the  heed  that  was  paid  them.  The  higher  the  rank  the 
more  ludicrous  did  the  idea  seem,  the  British  commanders 
taking  their  line  from  Haig  who,  a  fortnight  previously,  had 
given  short  shrift  to  a  visitor  whose  mind  was  working  on 
these  lines: 

'Lord  Dundonald  arrived  from  England.  He  is  studying 
the  conditions  of  War  in  the  hopes  of  being  able  to  apply  to 
modern  conditions  an  invention  of  his  great-grandfather  for 

I .  Advance  warning  of  the  gas  attack,  received  at  French  and  Belgian  H.Q,., 
is  given  in  greater  detail  in  Appendix  2. 


GAS  79 

driving  a  garrison  out  of  a  fort  by  using  sulphur  fumes.  I 
asked  him  how  he  arranged  to  have  a  favourable  wind!' 

And  now  the  front,  from  the  canal  to  the  Canadian  flank, 
was  broken,  completely  shattered.  As  dusk  fell,  the  sound 
of  rifle  fire  died  away  from  the  battlefield  as  the  last  pockets 
of  resistance  collapsed.  The  field-guns,  too,  were  silent; 
those  of  the  French  had  been  overrun  and  the  German 
infantry  had  long  since  outstripped  their  own. 

'Where  was  the  firing  line?  Nobody  seemed  to  know.  All 
around  us  there  was  a  curious  silence,  but  in  the  background 
you  could  hear  the  pounding  of  the  "Jack  Johnsons"  [Ger- 
man 5*9  in.]  on  the  town  and  the  roads  out.  It  was  impossible 
to  tell  friend  from  foe  ana  the  place  was  still  filled  with  little 
bands  of  French  native  troops.  They  were  without  officers 
and  completely  disorganized,  some  of  them  were  in  a  very 
bad  way  and  coughing  up  quantities  of  blood  and  pus.  .  .  .' 

Had  the  Germans  realized  the  probable  scope  of  their 
success  there  seems  every  likelihood  that  they  could  have 
pressed  right  through  to  the  Menin  Gate  and  taken  the 
whole  of  the  British  force  in  the  salient  in  a  noose.  For  by 
the  time  that  darkness  had  enveloped  the  battlefield  there 
were  no  French  troops  left  fighting  east  of  the  canal  and  the 
eight-thousand-yard  gap  was  covered  by  a  mere  ten  British 
and  Canadian  battalions,  many  of  them  under  strength, 
without  co-ordination,  leadership,  proper  communication 
or  prepared  positions  of  any  kind. 

However,  the  enemy  plan,  limited  by  the  absence  of 
reserves,  was  for  no  more  than  an  effective  salient  cut,  that 
would  disrupt  the  Allied  plans  for  a  spring  offensive  and,  at 
best,  compel  the  evacuation  of  the  Ypres  salient.  To  this  end 
the  German  infantry,  after  advancing  to  a  depth  of  about 
two  and  a  half  miles,  halted  at  a  shallow  though  significant 
rise  in  the  ground,  known  as  Mauser  Ridge,  that  ran  parallel 
with  the  old  front.  Here  they  began  to  dig  in,  placing  their 
main  line  on  the  reverse  slope  and  running  a  string  of  out- 


8o  THE    DONKEYS 

posts  on  the  forward  side,  with  the  flank  resting  in  'Kit- 
chener's Wood',  a  dense  copse  that  had,  up  until  that 
morning,  concealed  a  number  of  French  and  Canadian  field 
batteries. 

The  British  were  strongest  on  the  extreme  right  of  the 
breach  where  the  Canadians  were  still  occupying  their 
original  positions.  Here,  although  their  flank  was  'in  the  air', 
the  Canadians  had  sufficient  troops  in  divisional  reserve  to 
improvise  a  throwback  line  along  the  Poelcapelle-St.  Julien 
road  during  the  night,  although  the  narrow  triangle  formed 
thereby  must  obviously  prove  untenable  over  a  long  period. 
However,  at  about  8  p.m.  a  liaison  officer  arrived  at  the 
headquarters  of  the  Canadian  Division  with  the  news  that 
the  French  45th  Division  was  going  to  counter-attack  during 
the  night  against  the  other  side  of  the  gap  and  pleading  for 
'urgent  and  immediate'  support. 

In  fact  it  was  quite  out  of  the  question  for  any  offensive 
operation  to  be  mounted  by  the  French  45th  Division,  which 
had  virtually  been  destroyed  as  a  formation  and  had  lost  all 
its  artillery.  However,  this  fact  could  not,  on  the  scanty 
information  available  at  the  time,  be  appreciated  at 
Canadian  H.Q.,  and  it  was  felt  that  the  enemy  might  be 
compelled  to  withdraw  by  concerted  pressure  on  the  two 
sides  of  the  breach.  The  3rd  Canadian  Brigade  was  accord- 
ingly ordered  to  counter-attack  against  'Kitchener's  Wood' 
'and  then  press  on  east  of  Pilckem'  as  soon  as  possible. 

But  although  these  orders  were  issued  at  9.40,  it  was  not 
until  past  midnight  that  the  reserves  were  in  position.  Dark- 
ness and  the  unfamiliarity  of  the  troops  with  the  terrain  and 
their  task  hampered  the  operation  from  the  outset.  Nor  was 
the  exact  locality  of  the  Germans  known,  so  that  the 
Canadians,  when  they  finally  got  under  way,  had  to  advance 
virtually  'blind'  towards  the  dark  mass  of  'Kitchener's  Wood' 
some  half-mile  distant  in  the  failing  moonlight.  At  300  yards 
the  enemy  opened  fire  and  the  Canadians  broke  into  a  run, 
their  bayonets  glinting  in  the  green  light  of  the  phosphorus 
flares.  Within  minutes,  although  nearly  half  their  number 


GAS  8l 

had  been  killed  or  wounded,  they  had  fought  their  way  deep 
into  the  wood  and  the  enemy  was  in  flight.  By  2  a.m.  they 
had  reached  its  centre  where  stood  the  four  sad  guns  of  the 
2nd  London  heavy  battery,  their  long  barrels  still  pointing 
impotently  at  the  now  retreating  Germans. 

But  this  success,  bought  at  a  high  price  in  lives,  was  both 
local  and  short-lived.  The  French  on  the  left  flank  had  not 
moved,  nor  made  any  effort  to  distract  the  enemy.  In  the 
centre  the  British  troops  were  still  in  too  confused  a  state  to 
have  had  any  prospects  of  a  successful  night  attack  and, 
likewise,  had  made  no  demonstration.  The  Germans  in 
'Kitchener's  Wood'  had  been  little  more  than  an  outpost  line 
and,  on  their  withdrawal  being  signalled,  the  5-9s  began 
systematically  'squaring-over'  the  whole  region  with  a  hard 
insistent  bombardment  that  started  at  dawn  and  continued 
with  mounting  intensity  throughout  the  following  morning. 

With  the  exception  of  this  gallant  but  ill-conceived  sally 
the  Allies  had  made  no  direct  move  against  the  enemy  during 
the  night,  although  there  was  so  much  confused  marching 
and  counter-marching  as  a  result  of  contradictory  orders 
that  the  majority  of  the  men  were  thoroughly  exhausted  by 
daybreak.  These  conflicting  instructions  were  issued  by  a 
variety  of  officers,  each  of  whom  supposed  himself  to  be  in 
complete  charge,  as  the  motley  collection  of  units  in  the  'line' 
were  each  independent,  having  no  proper  command  struc- 
ture, or  only  one  that  ran  back  to  some  brigade  and 
divisional  headquarters  outside  the  threatened  area.  For 
example,  the  Buffs  and  the  Middlesex  had  been  resting  in 
reserve  for  the  28th  Division,  itself  in  position  in  the  extreme 
eastern  tip  of  the  salient.  At  the  very  moment  (one  o'clock 
on  the  morning  of  the  23rd)  that  they  received  instructions 
to  move  north,  the  Germans  launched  a  fierce  local  attack 
on  the  28th  Division  front  and  on  the  neighbouring  27th 
Division  that  faced  south.  Orders  were  immediately  sent  out 
to  the  reserves  of  both  these  divisions  to  'hold  themselves  in 
readiness  to  move  up  to  the  [south-eastern]  line',  and  they 
had  to  turn  about — no  easy  task  in  the  darkness,  when 


82  THE    DONKEYS 

'.  .  .  every  civilian  left  in  the  salient  seemed  bent  on  getting 
out  as  soon  as  possible,  usually  pushing  a  handcart  and 
driving  his  four  best  beasts'. 

Telephone  communication  was  almost  impossible  as  the 
enemy  artillery  fire  had  severed  all  the  direct  lines,  and  the 
liaison  officers  had  to  gallop  their  horses  across  the  darkened, 
torn-up  country,  the  main  roads  being  impassable  under  the 
constant  shellfire.  None  the  less,  by  about  3  a.m.  a  motley 
collection  of  about  4,000  men^  had  been  assembled,  under 
the  nominal  command  of  Colonel  A.  D.  Geddes  of  the  Buffs, 
with  orders  to  make  a  counter-attack  'as  soon  after  dawn  as 
was  practicable';  and  by  5.30  a.m.  these  men — the  majority 
of  whom  had  not  eaten  since  midday  of  the  22nd — were  de- 
ployed in  positions  for  advancing.  The  extreme  short  notice 
at  which  these  dispositions  had  to  be  made,  allied  to  the 
other  factors  making  for  confusion  related  above,  and  the 
commanders'  ignorance  of  the  exact  position  of  the  enemy, 
had  unfortunate  consequences. 

The  British  infantry  were  halted  and  strung  out  in  the 
long  lines  of  their  attack  formation  at  a  considerable  distance 
from,  and  out  of  sight  of,  the  enemy.  The  Germans  were  dug 
in  along  Mauser  Ridge.  Running  parallel  with  this,  and  to 
the  south  of  it,  was  another  gentle  rise — Hill  Top  Ridge.  The 
attacking  infantry  were  drawn  up  short  of  the  crest  and  were 
then  sent  off  at  irregular  intervals  'in  the  general  direction 
of  the  enemy',  and  without  any  pretence  of  serious  artillery 
support.  The  moment  that  they  breasted  Hill  Top  Ridge 
they  came  under  heavy  fire  which  played  over  them  all  the 
time  that  they  were  descending  the  reverse  slope  and  crossing 
the  declivity  between  the  two  ridges  (that  was  christened 
'Golne  Valley'  later  in  the  war).  Here  their  condition  was 
worsened  by  fierce  enfilade  fire  from  machine-guns  dug  in 
during  the  night  on  a  spur  of  the  Boesinghe  Ridge  that  the 
French  had  mistakenly  reported  as  still  being  in  their  own 
possession.  Thus  the  attack  never  succeeded  in  coming  to 

I .  Consisting  of  battalions  of  2nd  Buffs,  3rd  Middlesex,  5th  King's  Own,  and 
1st  York  &  Lancaster. 


GAS  83 

grips  with  the  Germans,  ahhough  the  survivors  managed  to 
crawl  up  to  within  a  few  hundred  feet  of  the  enemy,  where 
they  scraped  and  improvised  what  cover  they  could,  remain- 
ing pinned  down,  without  water  or  other  rations,  until 
nightfall. 


While  this  attack  was  in  progress  Sir  John  French  drove 
over  to  see  Foch  at  Cassel.  Foch,  as  usual,  was  grossly 
optimistic.  Crises  had  a  stimulating  effect  on  the  French 
general  and  seemed  to  generate  in  him  a  kind  of  excitable 
euphoria.  Reminiscing  after  the  war  he  said: 

'One  knew  nothing,  one  could  know  nothing,  and  if  one 
waited  till  the  next  day  it  meant  a  break-through.  I  sent 
Desticker  to  Elverdinghe.  He  "legged"  it  all  night  long. 
During  this  time  Weygand  and  I  at  Cassel  were  warning 
the  divisions  at  Arras — they  arrived  at  the  rate  of  one  a 
day — the  gap  was  closed!'^ 

But,  as  his  biographer  drily  comments,  'These  remarks 
show  the  fallibility  of  memory,  if  they  also  illustrate  Foch's 
peculiarly  strong  tendency  to  assume  that  the  facts  of  a 
situation  coincided  with  his  conception  of  it.'  For  the  pre- 
vention of  a  break-through  was  primarily  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  Germans  were  not  aiming  at  one,  and  so  did  not 
exploit  the  gap  actually  made.  Only  three  French  divisions 
were  brought  from  Artois  and  the  first  did  not  arrive  on  the 
battlefield  until  the  25th,  so  that  the  Germans  had  time  to 
consolidate  their  hold. 

In  point  of  fact  Foch's  aim  was  not  merely  to  'close  the 
gap',  but  to  regain  lost  ground.  For  this  purpose  the  reserves 
available  to  the  Allies  at  that  time  were  quite  inadequate, 
yet  so  strong  was  Foch's  personality,  and  so  vacillating  that 
of  Sir  John  French,  that  the  latter  found  himself  leaving 
Cassel  at  midday  on  the  23rd  committed  to  a  course  of 

I.  Liddell  Hart,  Foch,  p.  177. 


84  THE    DONKEYS 

action  exactly  opposite  to  that  which  he  had  proposed.  Sir 
John  had  gone  over  to  explain  to  Foch  that  the  situation  of 
the  British  troops  in  the  salient  was  now  so  precarious  that 
steps  in  preparation  for  their  withdrawal  would,  in  the 
absence  of  an  immediate  and  decisive  French  counter-offen- 
sive, have  to  be  taken  immediately.  There  is  no  record  of 
the  exchanges  at  this  interview  but  the  outcome  was  that 
French  agreed  to  shoulder  the  main  weight  of  the  fighting, 
and  counter-attacking,  on  the  strength  of  some  vague 
promises  by  Foch  which  a  proper  scrutiny  of  the  Allied  dis- 
positions in  the  area  would  have  shown  to  be  impossible  of 
fulfilment. 

By  the  time  that  French  got  back  to  his  headquarters  all 
the  British  reserves^  in  the  area  had  been  brought  forward 
and,  in  spite  of  the  morning  expenditure,  strength  on  the 
new  'front'  was  greater  than  at  any  time  previously.  When 
the  Commander-in-Chief's  orders  for  a  second  counter- 
attack were  received  at  5th  Corps  H.Q.,  General  Plumer 
replied  that  it  should  go  in  as  soon  as  possible  as  'the  longer 
that  the  Germans  are  given  to  entrench,  the  more  difficult 
it  is  going  to  be  to  dislodge  them'.  To  this  end  it  was  decided 
to  put  in  the  whole  of  the  1 3th  Brigade  in  the  gap  on  the 
left  flank,  i.e.  at  the  end  of  the  shortest  direct  line  of  their 
forced  march  from  billets  to  the  front. 

The  men  had  had  a  meal  earlier  in  the  day  and  observers 
who  watched  them  filing  across  the  Brielen  Bridge  described 
their  condition  as  'cheery,  but  physically  very  tired'.  The 
attack  to  which  they  were  committed  never  had  any  prospect 
of  success.  It  was  directed,  like  that  of  the  morning,  against 
Mauser  Ridge,  but  this  time  from  west-south-west.  Once 
again,  though,  the  infantry  had  to  advance  in  broad  day- 
light over  ground  that  was  very  open,  broken  only  by  a  few 
widely  separated  hedges  which  sloped  gently  up,  over  a 
distance  of  about  half  a  mile,  towards  the  enemy  positions. 

I.  These  consisted  of  the  ist  Cavalry  Division  (dismounted)  and  13th 
Brigade  of  the  5th  Division  under  Brigadier-General  Wanless  O'Gowan, 
consisting  of  2nd  K.O.S.B.,  ist  R.  West  Kent,  2nd  Duke  of  Wellingtons,  2nd 
K.O.Y.L.I.  and  gth  London. 


GAS  85 

And  once  again  this  had  to  be  done  without  any  co-opera- 
tion from  the  artillery. 

The  attack  was  originally  timed  for  3  p.m.,  but  owing  to 
the  difficulty  of  getting  the  men  into  position  by  then — 
much  less  making  even  the  most  cursory  reconnaissance — 
zero  had  been  postponed  an  hour.  Unfortunately  the 
gunners,  scattered  as  they  were,  coming  under  different 
commands  and  being  fed  from  different  telephone  ex- 
changes, were  not  informed  of  the  change.  As  a  result  of 
this  they  opened  fire  for  a  short  time  at  2.45  and  then  for  an 
hour  the  assembly  of  the  attacking  troops  proceeded  in 
almost  complete  silence. 

The  men's  boots  squelched  in  the  mud,  but  they  were  too 
exhausted  to  speak,  although  onlookers  were  eager  with 
accounts  of  the  horrifying  effects  of  the  poison.  There  had 
been  no  time  to  put  proper  protective  measures  in  hand,  but 
instructions  had  been  issued  'that  the  troops  should  hold 
wetted  handkerchiefs  or  cloths  over  their  mouths;  if  possible 
these  should  be  dipped  in  a  solution  of  bicarbonate  of  soda'. ^ 
As  the  men  trudged  up  to  the  line  they  passed  the  crowded 
dressing  stations.  In  many  cases  casualties  from  the  gas  were 
lying  outside  by  the  roadside  where  they  had  been  moved 
to  pass  their  last  hours  in  the  fresh  air,  and  to  make  room 
for  the  wounded  from  the  morning  attack. 

'The  whole  countryside  is  yellow — the  battlefield  is  fear- 
ful; a  curious  sour,  heavy,  penetrating  smell  of  dead  bodies 
strikes  one.  .  .  .  Bodies  of  cows  and  pigs  lie,  half  decayed; 
splintered  trees,  the  stumps  of  avenues;  shell-crater  after 
shell-crater  on  the  roads  and  in  the  fields.'^ 

Finally  at  4.25  p.m.,  an  hour  and  a  half  late,  the  men  pre- 
pared to  leave  this  region  of  ill-omen.  Each  battalion  had 
been  allotted  500  yards  of  front  and  was  organized  in  six  lines. 
The  attack  was  to  take  place  on  the  same  ground  as  that 
morning,  and  the  result  was  no  different.  As  they  entered 

1.  O.H.,  1915,  I,  195. 

2.  R.  G.  Binding,  Aiis  den  Kriege,  pp.  89-91. 


86  THE    DONKEYS 

the  enemy  sights  the  first  two  lines  were  cut  down  where 
they  stood,  but  the  darkening  smoke  and  a  dust  cloud  gave 
some  protection  to  those  that  followed  and  they  gradually 
worked  their  way  forward  up  the  slope,  picking  up  the  sur- 
vivors of  the  morning  attack  in  some  places,  and  got  as  far 
as  the  enemy  outpost  line  before  being  brought  to  a  stand- 
still. On  the  extreme  right  the  Canadians,  following  almost 
exactly  in  the  tracks  of  the  morning  assault,  did  manage  to 
close  with  the  enemy  and  regain  some  of  the  farms  and  out- 
buildings that  had  been  fortified  in  advance  of  the  main 
German  line,  but,  by  7  p.m.,  as  dusk  fell,  all  movement  came 
to  an  end.  Over  3,000  men  had  fallen  without  ever  having 
come  to  grips  with  the  Germans.  In  the  whole  of  the  13th 
Brigade  there  was  now  not  one  officer  or  one  man  surviving 
who  had  fought  the  previous  autumn  at  Mons  or  Le  Gateau.^ 

The  evening  was  cloudy,  without  a  moon,  and  by  10  p.m. 
the  survivors  had  been  pulled  back  to  a  line  running  along 
the  trough  of 'Colne  Valley'.  Organization  of  this  ill-chosen 
position  proceeded  only  with  great  difficulty  owing  to  the 
confusion  and  mix-up  of  units  and  the  loss  of  so  many  officers; 
the  ground  was  completely  water-logged  so  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  dig  for  cover;  and  the  distribution  of  rations  was 
scanty  and  haphazard  so  that  many  of  the  men  were  now 
twenty-four  hours  without  food.  The  verdict  of  the  Official 
History  on  the  whole  operation  could  hardly  be  more  damn- 
ing— no  ground  was  gained  that  could  not  have  been  secured, 
probably  without  any  casualties,  by  a  simple  advance  after 
dark,  to  which  the  openness  of  the  country  lent  itself. 

The  co-operation  from  the  French  troops  on  the  west  side 
of  the  canal,  which  Foch  had  promised,  never  materialized. 
In  fact,  Sir  John  French's  own  doubts  seem  to  have  returned 
even  before  he  got  back  from  Cassel  to  his  own  H.Q^.,  for  on 
arrival  there  he  had  ordered  up  the  whole  of  the  2nd  Army 
reserve^  to  the  4th  Corps  area  with  the  intention  of  mounting 

1.  O.H.,  1915,  II,  207. 

2.  These  consisted  of  the  50th  (Northumbrian)  Division,  the  loth  and  nth 
Brigades  of  the  4th  Division  and  the  Lahore  Division  of  the  Indian  Corps, 
from  rest  billets  at  Bailleul  and  M6rville. 


GAS  87 

a  heavier  counter-blow  as  soon  as  his  dispositions  would 
permit  it.  One  cannot  avoid  the  conviction  that  the  doubts 
so  evidently  felt  by  the  High  Command  about  the  results  of 
these  unco-ordinated  and  ill-prepared  attacks  make  their 
ordering  still  less  excusable. 

It  is  true  that  Foch,  after  his  meeting  with  French,  went 
to  see  Putz  to  urge  him  to  greater  efforts.  But  Putz  seems  to 
have  been  as  little  impressed  at  this  meeting  as  he  had  been 
by  Foch's  unrealistic  instructions  of  the  previous  day.  Putz 
was  of  stronger  fibre  than  Sir  John  French  and,  owing 
responsibility  only  to  the  King  of  the  Belgians,  was  less  sus- 
ceptible to  political  pressure.  He  had  seen  the  front  im- 
perilled by  the  collapse  and  flight  of  two  French  divisions 
and  felt  little  inclined  to  sacrifice  the  lives  of  the  few  re- 
maining Belgian  troops  in  hasty  counter-attacks  before 
French  reinforcements  arrived.  Consequently  Foch  could 
get  no  specific  assurances.  None  the  less  on  the  way  back  he 
called  on  French  and  told  him  Putz's  hand  was  being  'mas- 
sively strengthened' — although  knowing  that  the  sum  total  of 
these  reinforcements  was  two  infantry  battalions  and  three 
batteries  from  the  coast  defences  at  Nieuport. 

It  was  certainly  unfortunate  that  the  crisis  had  arisen  at 
the  exact  point  where  the  authority  of  the  three  commanders 
— Foch,  Putz  and  French — overlapped.  The  result  was  that 
considerations  of  personal  vanity  and  prestige  led  to  much 
bloodshed  that  might  have  been  avoided  by  a  dispassionate 
consideration  of  the  military  principles  involved. 


The  Dismissal  of  Smith-Dorrien 

S-D  has  been  very  unwise  and  tactless  in  his  deaUngs 
with  General  Putz.  His  messages  are  all  wordy — his 
pessimistic  attitude  has  the  worst  effect  on  his  com- 
manders. 

Diary  of  Sir  John  French,  26th  April  19 15 

SUBORDINATE  Only  to  Sir  John  French,  the  command  of 
the  British  troops  in  this  area  was  in  the  hands  of  Sir 
Horace  Smith-Dorrien.  Smith-Dorrien  was  a  clever, 
sensitive  and  rational  man.  No  other  officer  of  equivalent 
seniority — with  the  possible  exception  of  Sir  Ian  Hamilton — 
was  his  equal  intellectually,  and  none  could  rival  his  ability 
in  handling  large  numbers  of  men  with  economy  and 
decision.  The  Expeditionary  Force  itself  had  been  forged 
under  his  practical  and  progressive  regime  at  Aldershot 
where  he  was  C.-in-G.  from  1907  until  191 2,  and  had  been 
saved  from  extinction  by  his  decision  to  stand  and  fight  at 
Le  Gateau  in  August  of  1914.^ 

But,  throughout  the  fighting  that  followed  the  gas  attack, 
Smith-Dorrien's  ability  was  hamstrung  by  the  repeated 
interference  of  French,  who  was  himself  subject  to  constant 
and  contradictory  pressure  from  Foch.  Foch's  attitude — 
alternately  excitable  and  wooden — had  a  disastrous  effect 
on  the  nervous  and  indecisive  British  Gommander-in-Ghief. 
At  a  time  such  as  this  a  cool  head  and  a  firm  grasp  of  basic 
military  principles  were  essential.  But  Sir  John's  chief 
concern  was  twofold:  not  to  lose  'face'  with  the  French;  and 
to  avoid  any  withdrawal  which  would  show  significantly  on 

I.  See  p.  48,  fn. 

88 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SMITH-DORRIEN  89 

the  small-scale  maps  published  every  morning  in  The  Times. 
The  acquisition  of  even  the  shallowest  strips  of  ground  had 
proved  so  costly  a  procedure  that  it  was  felt  at  the  British 
Headquarters,  as  at  the  French,  that  the  reverse  must  be 
true,  namely  that  no  price  was  too  high  to  avoid  'yielding' 
territory.  The  concepts  of  flexibility  and  manoeuvre  in 
defence — that  were  to  be  so  effectively  put  into  practice  by 
the  Germans  in  the  spring  of  191 7 — had,  on  the  Allied  side 
at  least,  already  been  choked  in  the  mud.  Thus  it  comes  as 
no  surprise  to  find  that,  in  spite  of  the  day's  losses,  the  con- 
fused and  demoralized  condition  of  many  of  the  units,  the 
extreme  tactical  vulnerability  of  their  position  and  the  com- 
plete absence  of  any  effective  protection  against  the  new 
enemy  weapon — in  spite  of  all  these  things  Sir  John  French 
was  still  thinking  in  terms  of  the  offensive.  By  now  it  was 
plain  that  Putz  was  not  going  to  lift  a  finger  to  remedy  the 
situation,  and  as  much  was  realized  at  G.H.Q.;  but  without 
moderating,  it  seemed,  their  views  as  to  the  proper  manner 
to  conduct  the  battle.  In  a  message  to  Smith-Dorrien,  timed 
9.30  on  the  morning  of  the  24th,  Robertson  admitted  that 
'evidently  not  much  reliance  can  be  placed  on  the  two 
French  divisions  on  your  left',  but  continued:  'The  Chief 
thinks  that  vigorous  action  E.  of  the  Canal  will  be  the  best 
means  of  checking  the  enemy's  advance.'^ 

However,  hours  before  this  message  was  sent,  the  Germans 
had  forestalled  the  British  plans  by  a  resumption  of  their  own 
forward  movement.  They  selected  first  the  most  vulnerable 
region,  the  sharp  apex  of  the  Canadian  line  at  the  eastern 
end  of  the  breach,  bombarding  it  mercilessly  from  3  a.m. 
until  4.15,  and  then  releasing  gas.  Sentries  at  first  light  saw 
the  poison  cloud  coming  on  rapidly  like  a  greenish  fog  bank, 
fifteen  feet  high,  carried  on  the  dawn  breeze.  The  men  had 
no  protection  but  handkerchiefs,  towels  or  cotton  bandoliers 
wetted  with  water  or  any  other  liquid  available  in  the 
trenches  and  little  time  to  adapt  even  these  pathetic  devices, 
yet  they  clambered  up  and  on  to  the  parapet  from  where 

1.  O.H.,  1915,  II,  Appendix  22. 


go  THE    DONKEYS 

they  continued  to  fire  into  the  advancing  enemy  until,  as 
happened  to  over  three-quartersof  them,  they  were  overcome 
by  the  gas.  It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  bravery  of  these 
Canadians,  who,  in  their  defiance  of  an  almost  certain  and 
particularly  ugly  death,  held  on  to  these  critical  positions  at 
the  upper  hinge  of  the  Allied  line.  Gradually,  as  more  and 
more  of  their  number  succumbed  to  the  gas  and  fell  into  the 
pit  of  the  trench,  where  the  vapour  lay  strongest,  their  fire 
slackened.  But  the  enemy  had  been  so  surprised  at  meeting 
any  resistance  at  all  after  discharge  that  the  mass  of  his 
attack  had  veered  westwards  and  southwards  into  the  open 
country  below  'Kitchener's  Wood',  and  he  contented  him- 
self with  an  intermittent  bombardment  of  the  Canadian 
positions  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 

Here  was  yet  one  more  example  of  the  gallantry  of  indi- 
vidual soldiers  saving  the  commanders  from  the  eflfects  that 
should  have  followed  on  their  own  folly.  For  this  whole, 
perilously  balanced,  triangle  should  have  been  evacuated 
during  the  lull  of  the  23rd,  and  the  density  of  troops  here 
redistributed  along  the  crumbling  face  of  the  main  breach. 
Had  the  German  attack  succeeded,  as  well  it  deserved  to,  the 
28th  Division  line  as  far  south  as  Polygon  Wood  would  un- 
doubtedly have  collapsed  with  disastrous  consequences.  As 
it  was,  with  the  exception  of  a  small  inroad  in  the  eastern 
end  of  the  Canadian  line,  the  enemy  column  was  diverted 
across  the  sights  of  the  defenders  over  the  Keerselare  cross- 
roads and  up  the  valley  of  the  Steenbeek  towards  St.  Julien, 
where  it  ran  up  against  a  scratch  force  of  Highlanders,  Buffs 
and  some  Canadian  remnants,^  supported  by  some  mixed 
batteries  of  field  artillery  firing  over  open  sights,  and  here  it 
was  temporarily  checked. 

By  5  a.m.  wounded  and  gassed  men  were  streaming  back 
into  the  centre  of  the  Salient,  where  the  confusion  was,  if 
anything,  worse  than  that  of  the  evening  of  the  22nd.  Al- 
though Brigade  Headquarters  had  information  of  the  new 

I.  Chiefly  men  from  the  13th,  7th,  3rd,  and  2nd  Battalions  and  the  survivors 
of  the  original  night  attack  on  'Kitchener's  Wood'. 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SMITH-DORRIEN  9I 

attack  at  4.30  a.m.  and  was  already  calling  urgently  for 
reinforcements,  the  4th  Corps  was  not  told  before  a  message 
sent  at  7.20  but  not  received  until  7.40.  Thereafter  there  was 
no  further  news  for  General  Plumer  until  11.33,  when  a 
message  came  reporting  the  new  Canadian  line  in  the 
Gravenstafel-St,  Julien  area.  Thus  it  was  that  the  whole 
burden  of  conducting  the  fighting,  which  was  now  raging  at 
close  quarters  along  the  entire  front,  fell  on  the  battalion 
commanders  themselves,  none  of  whom  could  have  any  idea 
of  the  general  position.  It  is  plain  from  a  reading  of  the 
Official  History  that  the  command  structure,  which  cannot 
ever  be  said  to  have  been  properly  established  in  the  threat- 
ened area,  had  now  disintegrated.  The  result  was  a  series 
of  local,  limited,  last-minute  withdrawals  punctuated  by 
counter-attacks  carried  out  with  great  bravery  but  little 
regard  for  casualties  or  relation  to  the  general  situation. 

All  this  confusion  and  loss  of  life  is  directly  attributable  to 
French's  insistence  on  'vigorously  checking',  i.e.  maintaining 
close  and  aggressive  contact  with,  the  enemy.  Permission  to 
step  back  and  regroup  on  the  23rd,  when  the  Germans  had 
halted,  would  have  enabled  Smith-Dorrien  to  reassert  his 
control  over  the  4th  Corps  without  which  centralized  direc- 
tion any  serious  counter-blow  was  doomed  to  failure. 
French's  insistence  on  'directing'  the  battle  personally  meant 
that  with  four  generals  (French,  Plumer,  Alderson  and 
Smith-Dorrien)  attempting  to  control  some  five  brigades 
the  command  set-up  was  as  confused  at  the  staflf  level  as  it  was 
in  the  field. 

Students  who  have  noted  the  C.-in-C.'s  complaint,  re- 
garding Smith-Dorrien's  'wordy'  messages,  set  out  at  the 
start  of  the  chapter,  may  well  consider  the  following  example 
of  French's  own  instructions  to  his  army  commander  as 
being  a  good  example  of  a  text  at  the  same  time  ambiguous, 
prolix,  and  obscure: 

'The  Chief  does  not  want  you  to  give  up  any  ground  if  it 
can  be  helped,  but  if  pressure  from  the  north  becomes  such 


92  THE    DONKEYS 

that  the  28th  Division  ought  to  fall  back  from  its  line,  then  of 
course  it  must  fall  back,  for  such  distance  as  circumstances 
necessitate.  But  we  hope  the  necessity  will  not  arise.  The 
Germans  must  be  a  bit  tired  by  now,  and  they  are  numeri- 
cally inferior  to  us  as  far  as  we  can  judge.  In  fact  there  seems 
no  doubt  about  it.'  (The  italics  are  those  of  Sir  John  French.) 

In  this  way  the  whole  of  the  24th  April  passed  in  a  welter 
of  local  counter-attacks  and  confused  hand-to-hand  fighting, 
with  the  enemy  gradually  pressing  forward — largely  owing 
to  his  co-ordinated  direction  and  superior  artillery  support 
— into  positions  from  which  he  successively  levered  off  larger 
slices  of  the  British  line.  The  most  serious  inroad  made  was 
along  the  axis  of  the  Poelcapelle-Wieltje-Ypres  road  to- 
wards St.  Julien,  which  the  Germans  occupied  during  the 
afternoon.  This  had  the  effect  of  gravely  accentuating  the 
Canadian  salient  to  the  north-east,  which  had  already  been 
badly  split  by  a  gradual  deepening  and  widening  of  the 
small  breach  made  there  by  the  dawn  attack.  The  Canadians 
were  thus  forced  to  evacuate  their  positions,  which  they  had 
striven  so  heroically  to  hold  against  the  gas  attack  that 
morning,  and  to  fall  back  under  fire  to  a  scattered  and  un- 
connected series  of  trenches  across  the  neck  of  their  old 
salient — the  remains  of  an  old  French  redoubt  known  as 
'Locality  C. 

Almost  unbelievably,  at  the  end  of  this  day  of  carnage. 
Sir  John  French  persisted  in  ordering  the  counter-attack 
originally  planned  for  the  morning.  He  had  now  collected, 
in  the  vicinity  of  Ypres  or  less  than  a  night's  march  away, 
nearly  12,000  fresh  troops,  consisting  of  the  loth  Brigade 
(Brigadier-General  Hull),  the  150th  Brigade,  and  six  other 
battalions  scraped  up  from  the  reserves  of  other  units  in  the 
2nd  Army.  Smith-Dorrien  had  wished  to  use  these  troops  to 
shore  up  the  line  between  the  canal  and  the  Poelcapelle 
road,  which  was  still  very  thin,  being  held  only  by  the 
shattered  remnants  of  the  1 3th  Brigade  and  those  units  that 
had  taken  part  in  the  unsuccessful  counter-attacks  of  the 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SMITH-DORRIEN  93 

preceding  days,  but  both  Plumer  and  Alderson  supported 
French,  and  he  was  over-ruled. 

Accordingly  at  8  p.m.  that  evening  Brigadier-General 
Hull,  whose  men  had  not  yet  crossed  over  the  canal,  received 
orders  to  mount  an  attack  against  the  enemy  positions  in  St. 
Julien  and  'Kitchener's  Wood'  at  3.30  a.m.  that  same  night, 
superseding  his  previous  instructions  which  had  been  to 
relieve  the  survivors  of  O'Gowan's  and  Geddes'  men  behind 
Hill-top  Ridge,  and  entailing  a  four-mile  night  march  across 
unknown^  country  devastated  by  fire. 

The  men  had  a  terrible  struggle  crossing  the  torn-up 
ground.  Their  progress  was  at  right  angles  to  the  various 
tracks  that  pivoted  out  of  Ypres  like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel, 
and  the  night  was  pitch  dark  with  pouring  rain;  they  had  to 
make  endless  detours  to  avoid  the  burning  groups  of  houses 
that  stood  round  every  cross-roads  and  drew  fire  all  through 
the  night;  the  soil  was  water-logged — deep  mud  clung  to  the 
boots  and  clothing;  constantly,  in  the  darkness,  the  men 
stumbled  on  mounds  of  rotting  flesh — pigs,  mules,  cows, 
sometimes  the  bodies  of  French-African  troops  that  had  lain 
there  for  weeks.  The  whole  area  was  intersected  by  old  trench 
lines,  many  of  them  dating  from  the  previous  autumn  and 
now  fused  with  the  broken-up  drainage  ditches  to  form  long 
stagnant  dykes  up  to  eight  feet  deep.  Everywhere  were  dis- 
carded pieces  of  equipment,  empty  shell-cases,  blown-up 
G-wagons,  coils  of  barbed  wire  and  the  small  white  wooden 
crosses  that  marked  the  'combat'  graves.  Before  setting  off, 
Hull  had  sent  a  note  to  Alderson's  H.Q.  asking  for  post- 
ponement of  zero  from  3.30  until  5.30;  but,  just  as  in  the 
attack  of  the  23rd,  the  news  of  the  postponement  was  not 
conveyed  to  the  artillery.  So,  between  2.45  and  3.15,  the 
men,  still  stumbling  patiently  forward  to  get  into  position, 
heard  the  precious  ammunition  that  was  to  have  supported 
their  assault  being  fired  blindly  off  into  the  night. 

I .  When  the  brigade  arrived  at  Brielen  Bridge  the  guides  who  were  to  bring 
it  across-country  to  the  attack  positions  were  not  there,  and  after  waiting  for 
an  hour  the  men  set  off"  under  the  directions  of  two  officers  from  the  149th 
Brigade  who  had  appeared  there  'by  mistake'. 


94  THE    DONKEYS 

Finally,  as  the  sun  rose  behind  the  stumps  of  'Kitchener's 
Wood',  the  loth  Brigade  advanced.  Once  again,  like  the 
13th  Brigade  two  days  before,  they  were  being  called  upon 
to  attempt  the  impossible.  Without  adequate  artillery  pre- 
paration or  support,  on  ground  unknown  and  unrecon- 
noitred,  they  were  being  sent  off  to  turn  the  enemy  machine- 
gunners  out  of  a  position  which  had  ready-made  cover  in 
ruined  houses  and  thickets,  and  splendid  artillery  observation 
from  higher  ground  behind.  None  the  less,  the  brigade 
'advanced  in  faultless  order,  worthy  of  the  traditions  of  its 
home  at  Shorncliffe',^  but  'they  were  mown  down,  like  corn, 
the  dead  lying  in  rows  where  they  had  fallen'.  Some  of  the 
men  got  to  within  a  hundred  yards  of  St.  Julien  before  dying. 
The  brigade  was  virtually  annihilated,  losing  73  officers  and 
2,346  other  ranks  in  under  two  hours. 


That  evening  Smith-Dorrien  drove  to  Sir  John  French's 
headquarters  at  Hazebrouck  in  an  effort  to  dissuade  him 
from  ordering  any  more  attacks.  He  pointed  out  that  the 
French  contribution  was  quite  negligible,  and  that  the 
exhausted  condition  of  the  troops  and  the  confusion  of 
intermingled  and  depleted  units  made  some  sort  of  a  pause 
for  reorganization  imperative.^  Sir  John,  however,  was 
steadfast  in  his  contention  that  'he  did  not  wish  any  ground 
given  up  if  it  could  possibly  be  avoided',  and  the  situation 
should  be  'cleared  up',  and  the  area  'quieted  down',  as  soon 
as  possible.^  The  French  were  making  'a  big  effort'  on  the 
following  day,  and  it  was  his  wish  to  support  them  to  the 
fullest. 

1.  O.H.,   1915,  I.22I 

2.  After  the  defeat  of  Hull's  attack  the  command  set-up  was  reorganized  as 
follows.  All  troops  to  the  east  of  the  St.  Julien-Wieltje  road  were  placed  under 
the  command  of  General  Bulfin  (28th  Division),  those  to  the  west  up  to  the 
canal  under  General  Alderson  with  directions  '.  .  .  to  reorganize  the  command, 
putting  battalions  under  their  proper  Brigadiers  if  possible,  or  at  any  rate  under 
a  definite  General'.  O.H.,  1915,  I,  248. 

3.  O.H.,  1915,  II,  16. 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SMITH-DORRIEN  95 

As  Smith-Dorrien  drove  back  to  his  H.Q^.  he  passed  near 
the  huts  at  Ouderdom  where  the  Lahore  Division,  the  last 
major  unit  left  in  reserve,  was  arriving,  as  yet  ignorant  of  the 
fact  that  it  was  to  be  committed  to  battle  the  following  day. 
As  the  horses  were  watered  and  fed,  little  groups  of  Sikhs 
and  Pathans — they  had  only  arrived  a  fortnight  ago  from 
Hong  Kong — stood  about  miserably  in  the  mud. 

That  evening  copies  of  Putz's  orders  arrived  at  2nd  Army 
H.Q_.  and  these  showed  that  the  French  attack  was,  in  fact, 
to  carry  very  much  less  weight  than  they  had  originally 
stated.  Only  one  new  division,  less  a  brigade,  was  to  be  put 
in,  together  with  those  troops  already  in  the  line.  Hardly  had 
this  news  arrived  than  a  fresh  message  came  saying  that  zero 
was  to  be  put  forward  from  5  p.m.  to  2  p.m.  Smith-Dorrien 
immediately  telephoned  Sir  John  and  protested  that  the 
French  attack  was  not  only  too  light  to  have  any  effect  but 
was  being  put  in  at  a  time  which  would  once  again  involve 
the  British  forces  taking  part  in  an  all-night  march  to  their 
battle  stations.  However,  no  regard  was  paid  to  these  points 
and  he  was  instructed  to  proceed  as  arranged. 

The  task  of  the  Lahore  Division  was  exactly  the  same  as 
that  set  the  men  of  Geddes'  force  on  the  23rd — namely  a 
frontal  attack  against  the  German  positions  on  Mauser 
Ridge.  Although  the  attacking  troops  were  more  numerous 
this  did  not  begin  to  balance  the  fact  that  the  enemy  had 
enjoyed  an  extra  three  days  and  nights  in  which  to  improve 
his  defences.  Indeed  the  artillery  support  was,  if  anything, 
lighter  than  on  the  23rd,  for  the  division's  artillery  had, 
although  allotted  its  sites  on  the  west  bank  of  the  canal,  no 
time  to  lay  lines  to  its  observation  officers  or  range  the  guns 
on  to  their  targets.  The  Germans,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
almost  doubled  their  own  artillery  strength  since  that  day  as 
the  majority  of  their  field  batteries  had  been  moved  for- 
ward into  the  captured  territory  and  dug  in  to  their  new 
positions.^ 

Early  and  ominous  evidence  of  this  came  soon  after  10 

I.  27th  Reserve  Corps  (Reichsardiv.). 


gG  THE    DONKEYS 

a.m.  when  the  long  column  of  marching  British  and  Indian 
soldiers  was  spotted  by  observation  planes  and  heavy-calibre 
shells  from  the  enemy  long-range  guns  began  falling  among 
them.  The  fire  continued,  gradually  rising  in  intensity  as  the 
division  deployed  in  the  lea  of  Hill-top  Ridge,  causing 
casualties  and  retarding  the  organization  of  the  assaulting 
lines.  At  11.30  French's  headquarters  telephoned  what  the 
Official  History  describes  as  'a  sorely  needed  message  of 
encouragement',  stating  that  the  enemy  '.  .  .  could  not  be 
very  strong  or  very  numerous,  as  he  must  have  lost  heavily 
and  be  exhausted'.^ 

In  fact  the  British  numbered  over  15,000  for,  in  addition  to 
the  frontal  attack  on  Mauser  Ridge  by  the  Lahore,  there  was 
to  be  a  simultaneous  assault  on  the  right  flank  in  the  direc- 
tion of 'Kitchener's  Wood'  by  the  149th  (Northumberland) 
Brigade,  a  completely  fresh  unit  of  North  Country  terri- 
torials ;2  thus  the  attackers  enjoyed,  like  the  Dervishes  at 
Omdurman,  a  substantial  numerical  superiority — although 
their  chance  of  success  must  be  rated  even  lower  than  that 
of  those  naked,  stone-age  savages. 

The  battle — if  the  afternoon's  massacre  may  be  dignified 
by  such  a  term — lasted  three  hours.  The  attackers  were 
never  able,  in  the  words  of  the  official  account,  'to  close  with' 
the  enemy.  As  soon  as  the  leading  lines  of  infantry  breasted 
the  skyline  of  Hill-top  Ridge  they  came  under  a  heavy  and 
persistent  fire  from  the  German  field  batteries  and,  as  they 
trudged  their  way  patiently  down  the  reverse  slope  and  into 
'Colne  Valley',  the  first  of  the  enemy  machine-guns  began  to 
pick  up  the  range  with  long  feeler  bursts.  Shells  from  5-9  in. 
howitzers  fell  among  them  with  pitiless  accuracy,  '.  .  .  knock- 
ing out  whole  platoons  at  a  time;  British  and  Indians  were 
falling  quite  literally  in  heaps'. 

The  two  British  battalions  had  been  placed  on  the  flanks, 
with  the  Indians  stretching  along  between  them.  As  the  men 
toiled  up  the  slope  towards  the  German  wire,  through  a  dark 

1.  O.H.,  .1915,  I,  258. 

2.  In  fact  they  were  the  first  territorials  to  go  into  action  as  a  brigade. 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SMITH-DORRIEN  97 

twilight  of  brown  smoke  from  the  shell-bursts,  they  entered  a 
veritable  storm  of  machine-gun  fire. 

Very  heavy  and  very  well  directed  and  probably  owing  a 
good  deal  to  the  yellow  flags  which  had  been  issued  to  the 
leading  sections  with  instructions  that  they  were  to  be 
prominently  displayed  so  as  to  show  our  positions  to  our  own 
artillery'. 

Several  of  the  Indian  battalions,  broken  by  the  casualties 
and  the  loss  of  all  their  British  officers,  disintegrated;  some  of 
the  men  remained  crouching  in  shell-holes,  others  turned 
and  made  their  way  back  to  the  old  line  in  'Colne  Valley'. 
But  the  I  St  Manchester,  together  with  some  Pathans  and 
Sikhs  on  the  left,  and  the  Connaught  Rangers  on  the  right, 
managed  to  get  up  to  the  edge  of  the  enemy  entanglements. 
Then,  at  this  critical  moment,  the  enemy  played  their  trump 
card:  they  had  brought  a  number  of  gas  cylinders  up  during 
the  night  on  the  forecast  of  a  favourable  wind  and  as  the 
survivors  of  the  British  and  Indian  attack  reached  their  wire 
the  poison  was  released  at  the  western  end  of  the  attack 
frontage  and  blew  diagonally  down  on  the  attackers,  with 
deadly  effect.  The  assault,  which  had  been  faltering,  now 
came  to  a  dead  stop. 

On  the  extreme  right,  in  the  direction  of  'Kitchener's 
Wood',  the  attack  of  the  Northumberland  Brigade  fared 
even  worse.  Although  the  brigade  was  in  close  reserve  at 
Wieltje,  Brigadier-General  Riddell,  its  commander,  did  not 
get  his  instructions  until  1.30  p.m.,  that  is,  half  an  hour 
before  zero.  The  brigade  took  another  half-hour  to  get 
under  way — and  then  was  moving  forward  over  practically 
flat,  fireswept  ground  with  little  more  idea  of  what  was 
required  of  them  than  the  direction  of  the  attack  pointed 
out  on  the  map.  By  the  time  the  men  reached  the  British 
front  line  the  main  attack  of  the  Lahore  had  already  been 
stopped  and  Brigadier-General  Hull,  whose  remnants  of 
the  loth  Brigade  were. the  garrison  there,  and  who  had  been 
instructed  to  co-operate  in  the  attack  'with  at  least  two 


gS  THE    DONKEYS 

battalions',  refused.  The  grounds  for  his  refusal  were  the 
complete  absence  of  any  support  on  the  left  and  the  rumours 
of  gas  which  had  already  spread  along  the  line.  Doubtless  he 
was  mindful  also  of  his  brigade's  experiences  over  that  same 
stretch  of  ground  the  previous  day.  Undeterred,  Brigadier- 
General  Riddell  led  his  men  over  the  top  to  almost  certain 
death.  He  himself  was  killed  at  3.40  p.m.  after  seeing  over 
half  his  men  fall  within  a  hundred  yards  of  the  British  front 
trenches.  The  attack  never  got  anywhere  near  the  enemy, 
the  leading  troops  being  pinned  down  in  No-Man's-Land 
all  night  and  withdrawn  the  following  morning.  In  this,  its 
first  action,  the  149th  lost  42  officers  and  1,912  other  ranks, 
or  nearly  three-quarters  of  its  strength. 


The  sole  contribution  of  the  French  to  the  day's  attack 
had  been  a  noisy  and  ineffective  demonstration  by  some 
black  troops  on  the  front  between  Lizerne  and  Het  Saas. 
These  wretches,  advancing  with  a  'stiffening'  of  whites  who 
had  instructions  to  shoot  any  man  who  turned  in  his  tracks, 
broke  when  the  gas  was  released  and  shot  their  officers. 
They  fought  their  way  back  to,  and  through,  their  own  lines 
and  ran  amok  for  hours  in  the  rear  area  looting  dumps  and 
raping  the  nurses  in  the  dressing  stations.  So  disordered  did 
the  situation  become  that  General  Putz  had  to  request  the 
use  of  one  of  the  British  cavalry  brigades  from  Vlamertinghe 
to  assist  in  restoring  order. 

This  note,  coupled  with  the  feebleness  of  the  French 
preparations  for  the  following  day,  as  evidenced  in  the  copy 
of  Putz's  orders  which  reached  the  2nd  Army  that  evening, 
decided  Smith-Dorrien.  Without  consulting  Sir  John  French, 
he  issued  orders  to  the  effect  that  offensive  operations  were  to 
cease  forthwith,  and  that  'consolidation'  was  to  be  the  object 
of  all  future  dispositions.  At  the  same  time  he  despatched  a 
strong  note  to  Putz  in  which  he  protested  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  order  any  further  attacks  by  the  2nd  Army  until 
there  was  evidence  of  substantial  and  effective  co-operation 


^^((W^plr^ 


Corpsmen  pass  between  the  litters  of  the  dead  and  dying  at  an 
advance  dressing  station  near  Potijze. 


Looking  back  towards  the  English  parapet  at  Aubers.   The 

bodies  of  twenty-three  2nd  Cameronians  lie  within  forty  feet  of 

the  parapet's  edge. 


'    A '  ^.-y  IHL   '.    ..  .      ;».»^. 


Scaling  ladders  are  positioned  in  anticipation  of  a  forthcoming 

assault. 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SMITH-DORRIEN  99 

by  the  French.  He  also  sent  a  long  letter  to  Robertson, 
French's  Chief  of  Staff,  setting  out  the  position  and  going 
on  to  raise  the  question  of  a  possible  complete  evacuation 
of  the  salient.^ 

By  now  the  condition  of  the  5th  Corps  was  very  bad.  The 
Germans  had  artillery  observation  of  all  the  main  roads 
leading  east  and  north  out  of  Ypres  and  movement  across 
the  canal  was  becoming  increasingly  difficult  even  at  night. 
With  each  day  that  passed  the  number  of  casualties  accumu- 
lated and  wounded  and  gassed  men  lay  everywhere,  unable 
to  move.  There  is  a  haunting  picture  of  an  advanced  dressing 
station  taken  at  this  time.  The  detail  is  clear,  emphasizing 
many  questions  that  suggest  themselves  to  an  observer.  The 
building  itself  has  been  hit  by  a  shell.  When?  Before  or  after 
it  was  housing  wounded?  The  operating  theatre  is  inside; 
dimly,  the  M.O.  and  two  orderlies  can  be  seen  looking  out 
of  the  doorway.  Standing  about  outside,  some  of  them 
smoking,  are  the  stretcher-bearers,  glad  of  the  excuse  to  hang 
around  a  little  before  going  back  to  the  firing  line.  Among 
them  can  be  seen  the  padre,  a  stout  captain — how  many 
men  already  that  morning  have  died  under  his  blessing, 
moaning  some  final  message  to  their  dearest  in  England? 
In  the  foreground  are  many  stretchers.  A  closer  look  reveals 
that  these  nearly  all  carry  dead  men  or  those,  like  the 
wretched  being  on  the  extreme  right  of  the  picture,  whose 
wounds  are  so  grievous  that  they  have  been  given  up  for 
lost.  One  of  these  in  the  immediate  foreground  has  been 
upset  from  his  bier.  Was  he  put  down  roughly  or  suddenly 
as  the  scream  of  an  approaching  5-9  was  heard?  Or  did  he 
roll  off  in  his  death  agony?  With  this  exception  there  are  no 
empty  stretchers.  As  soon  as  the  dead  have  had  their  personal 
effects  and  identity  discs  removed  they  are  buried  and  the 
bearers  return  with  the  stretchers  to  the  battlefield. 

Of  those  in  the  5th  Corps  who  had  survived  unhurt  all 
were  completely  exhausted;  they  were  in  many  cases  serving 
under  strange  officers  and  in  amalgamation  with  other, 

I.  See  Appendix  3. 


100  THE    DONKEYS 

equally  depleted,  units. ^  There  was  a  brooding  atmosphere 
of  death  about  the  whole  region  with  its  bleached,  poisoned 
crops  and  sour  smell  of  gas. 

And  if,  tactically,  the  aggressive  holding  of  the  salient  was 
costly  and  ill-judged,  in  a  strategic  context  it  was  completely 
inexcusable.  Experience  at  Neuve  Chapelle  should  have 
shown  that  nothing  but  a  carefully  prepared  offensive, 
requiring  much  time  to  organize,  could  possibly  dislodge 
the  Germans  from  the  ground  they  had  gained  and  had 
been  methodically  fortifying  for  several  nights.  Yet  the 
French  were  organizing  a  great  offensive  in  Artois,  to  the 
assistance  of  which  Haig's  ist  Army  was  heavily  committed, 
and  two  days  earlier  Sir  Ian  Hamilton's  expedition  had 
landed  at  the  Dardanelles.  Any  further  dilution  of  the 
military  effort  was  absurd  and  dangerous. 

Yet  the  moment  that  Smith-Dorrien's  letter  arrived, 
Robertson  telephoned  back  to  say  that  'The  Chief  does  not 
regard  the  situation  nearly  as  unfavourable  as  your  letter 
represents', 2  and  directing  'vigorous'  co-operation  with  the 
French  attack  that  was  to  go  in  that  afternoon. 

By  now  no  one  nearer  than  G.H.Q^.  to  the  front  had  any 
hope  of  success.  Even  Foch  seems  to  have  tired  of  the  whole 
thing,  for  his  promises  of  reinforcement  had  dwindled;  his 
notes  had  taken  on  a  sharper  tone;  he  declared  that  the 
troops  on  the  spot  were  sufficient — 'Pour  poursuivre  Vaffaire 
et  la  resoudre\  When  zero  hour  came  the  French  infantry 
never  left  their  trenches  and  the  remnants  of  the  Lahore 
Division — the  only  'reserve'  left  for  the  attack — were  cut  to 
ribbons  in  No-Man's-Land  without  even  getting  as  far  as 
they  had  the  previous  day. 

That  evening  before  the  fighting  had  died  down  a  message 
from  G.H.Q^.  came  into  the  2nd  Army  switchboard  'in  clear' 

1.  For  example  the  2nd  Army  order  of  batde,  28th  April  191 5,  shows  a 
'brigade',  in  numbers  hardly  stronger  than  a  full-strength  battalion,  with 
units  from  three  separate  brigades:  2nd  D.C.L.I.  (82nd)  260  strong;  ist  York 
and  Lancaster  (83rd)  280  strong;  5th  King's  Own  (83rd)  400  strong;  2nd  Duke 
of  Wellingtons  (13th)  350  strong.  Total  1,290,  under  the  command  of  a 
lieutenant-colonel. 

2.  O.H.J  1915,  I,  397  (and  see  Appendix  3). 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SMITH-DORRIEN  lOI 

directing  General  Smith-Dorrien  to  hand  over  the  command 
of  all  troops  engaged  round  Ypres  to  General  Plumer,  and 
also  to  hand  over  his  chief  stafFofficer,  Major-General  Milne. 
Thus,  although  Smith-Dorrien  was  the  senior  of  the  army 
commanders,  the  effect  of  this  order  was  to  reduce  his 
command  to  that  of  a  single  corps.  For  ten  days  he  remained 
in  this  position  while  the  very  situation  which  he  had  fore- 
told came  about  under  Plumer's  command — that  is  to  say 
a  gradual,  clumsy,  forced  and  costly  withdrawal,  or  con- 
traction, of  the  lines  round  Ypres.  Even  this  was  carried 
through  half-heartedly  so  that,  instead  of  pulling  back  to  the 
town  ramparts  and  the  line  of  the  canal,  the  British  troops 
were  left  in  a  miserably  cramped  and  shallow  bulge,  dug  in 
on  the  reverse  slopes  of  ridges  that  gave  the  Germans  perfect 
observation  of  the  whole  area  and  'a  permanent  target  for 
artillery  practice  for  the  next  three  years. '^ 

Total  British  casualties  in  the  salient  for  the  period  22nd 
April  until  31st  May,  the  date  when  the  new  shape  of  the 
position  was  finally  settled  and  the  battle,  known  as  'the 
Second  Battle  of  Ypres',  officially  came  to  a  close,  were 
2,150  officers  and  57,125  other  ranks. 

But  before  this,  on  the  6th  May,  Smith-Dorrien  wrote  to 
French  suggesting  that  the  evident  lack  of  trust  in  him 
constituted  a  seriously  weak  link  in  the  chain  of  command, 
and  that  for  the  good  of  the  cause  it  would  be  better  if  he 
should  serve  elsewhere,  and  someone  else  command  the  2nd 
Army  in  his  place.  That  same  evening  he  received  written 
instructions  from  G.H.Q^.  directing  him  to  hand  over  the 
army  command  to  Plumer  and  return  to  the  United  King- 
dom. No  reason  or  explanation  was  offered. 


I .  An  excellent  impression  of  the  conditions  under  which  the  infantry  had 
to  fight  after  the  withdrawals  is  given  in  some  extracts  from  the  diary  of  an 
officer  in  the  Leinsters  over  this  period,  reproduced  in  Appendix  4. 


7 
The  Second  Experiment:  Aubers  Ridge 

...  by  means  of  careful  preparation  as  regards  details, 
it  appears  that  a  section  of  the  enemy's  front  line 
defence  can  be  captured  with  comparatively  little 
loss. 

From  a  G.H.Q^.  memo  to  officers  of 
field  rank  and  above,  i8th  April  191 5 

IN  SPITE  of  the  serious  mishandling  of  the  Neuve  Chapelle 
offensive,  and  the  fate  of  the  counter-attacks  at  Ypres, 
the  private  papers  and  public  utterances  of  the  British 
commanders  alike  show  a  mounting  confidence  in  the  weeks 
that  followed.  The  divisional  commanders  were  agreed  that 
a  future  operation  '.  .  .  should  be  Neuve  Chapelle  over 
again,  but  much  more  successful  because  we  have  learnt  its 
lessons  and  shall  know  what  to  avoid  this  time'.^ 

But  in  fact,  as  the  plan  took  shape  at  G.H.Q.,  it  was  plain 
that  no  lesson  had  been  learnt,  at  least  so  far  as  concerned 
the  direction  of  the  battle.  Tactically  it  was  to  be  fought  on 
exactly  the  same  lines.  Once  again  massed  man-power  was 
to  be  asked  to  overrun  a  thin  firing  line  and,  even  if  it  was 
overrun,  no  measures  had  been  thought  out  to  counter  the 
problem  of  the  concealed  machine-gun  nests,  800  to  1,000 
yards  behind,  that  at  Neuve  Chapelle  had  caused  such 
tremendous  losses  and  demonstrated  beyond  all  doubt  their 
effective  stopping-power.  That  the  difficulties  which  that 
battle  had  shown  might  be  expected  when  an  attack  by 
massed  man-power  enters  a  position  defended  by  intelligently 

I.  O.K.,  1915,  n,  13. 

102 


KEY 

ilQCCAil  Abback  fronbage      •  Perpetrations      L    London    Rcgfc. 
M    Munsters        IR  Irish  Rifles       BW    BlackWatch  (p.rnj 


104  THE    DONKEYS 

applied  fire-power  had  not  yet  been  considered.  It  is  thus 
not  surprising  to  find  Falkenhayn  summarizing  the  situation/ 
simultaneously  to  the  day  with  the  G.H.Q.  memorandum 
quoted  above: 

'The  English  troops,  in  spite  of  undeniable  bravery  and 
endurance  on  the  part  of  the  men,  have  proved  so  clumsy 
in  action  that  they  offer  no  prospect  of  accomplishing  any- 
thing decisive  against  the  German  Army  in  the  immediate 
future.' 

Before  examining  the  conduct  of  this  disastrous  operation 
in  detail,  however,  one  must  look  at  the  planning  that 
preceded  it. 

General  Joffre  had  conceived  the  idea  of  a  massive  spring 
offensive,  attacking  along  the  front  Arras-Lens,  with  the 
object  of  storming  the  Vimy  Ridge  and  breaking  out  and 
beyond  it  into  the  plain  of  Douai.  On  the  24th  March,  less 
than  a  fortnight  after  the  collapse  of  the  Neuve  Chapelle 
offensive,  he  wrote  to  French  asking  whether  he  would  be 
interested  in  co-operating  on  the  left  flank. ^  Joffre  was  'very 
hopeful  .  .  .  said  he  was  bringing  up  even  more  troops  and 
really  thought  he  would  break  the  line  past  mending,  and 
that  it  might  be,  and  ought  to  be,  the  beginning  of  the  end. 
He  talked  of  getting  to  Namur  and  the  War  being  over  in 
three  months.'^ 

French  conferred  with  Haig,  who  echoed  the  optimism  of 
Joffre.  Both  the  British  commanders  were  anxious  to  dispel 
the  amateurish  impression  which  had  been  left  by  the 
Neuve  Chapelle  operation  and  they  had  evolved  a  scheme 
of  attack,  operating  over  the  same  terrain  but  more  am- 
bitious in  scope,  which  was  communicated  to  Joffre  on  the 
I  St  April,  as  being  'feasible  in  approximately  four  weeks' 
time'. 

1.  General  Headquarters  {igi4-i8)  and  its  critical  decisions — English  translation, 
1919,  p.  74. 

2.  O.H.,  II,  Appendix  4. 

3.  Wilson,  Memoirs,  125. 


THE    SECOND    EXPERIMENT:    AUBERS    RIDGE       IO5 

This  time  two  sectors  of  the  German  breastwork  were  to 
be  assaulted,  on  either  side  of  the  old  Neuve  Chapelle 
battlefield:  a  front  of  2,400  yards  from  the  Rue  du  Bois  by 
the  ist  and  Indian  Corps,  and  a  front  of  1,500  yards  opposite 
Fromelles  by  the  4th  Corps.  After  forcing  two  breaches  in 
the  German  breastwork  at  those  places,  6,000  yards  apart, 
the  two  columns  were  to  spread  out  and  advance  concen- 
trically, joining  up  on  the  Aubers  Ridge  that  lay  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  behind  the  German  line. 

It  had  originally  been  intended  that  the  British  attack 
should  start  a  day  later  than  that  of  the  French,  timed  to 
hit  the  enemy  as  his  reserves  began  to  be  drawn  southwards, 
but  owing  to  the  differences  in  artillery  preparation  Sir 
John  French  insisted  that  his  attack  go  in  at  the  same  time 
as  that  of  D'Urbal,  who  was  commanding  the  French  loth 
Army  on  his  right  flank. 

This  was  reasonable  for,  once  the  element  of  surprise  was 
lost,  the  British  chances  would  be  in  serious  jeopardy. 
Although  the  French,  with  959  light  and  field  guns  and  293 
heavies,  were  intending  to  attempt  the  passage  of  No-Man's- 
Land  in  the  wake  of  a  preliminary  bombardment  of  five 
days'  duration.  General  Haig,  with  rather  less  than  half 
that  number  of  guns,  intended  to  rely  on  a  bombardment  of 
forty  minutes,  'of  which  the  final  ten  minutes  was  to  be 
intense'.^ 

In  so  placing  his  faith  once  again  in  surprise,  the  ist 
Army  commander  was  influenced,  doubtless,  by  the  shortage 
of  ammunition.  But  he  was  ignoring  also  the  repeated 
warnings  of  the  Intelligence  Section  and,  indeed,  the 
evidence  that  presented  itself  to  the  naked  eye  of  any 
observer  in  the  front  line. 

Neither  of  these  sectors  had  in  fact  been  touched  by  the 
earlier  fighting,  but  ever  since  that  time  the  Germans  had 
been  working  ceaselessly  at  their  improvement.  And  now, 
in  May,  their  front  line  resembled  more  the  huge  sprawling 
earthworks  of  Sevastopol  than  the  flimsy  structure  that  had 

I.  O.H.,  1915,  II. 


I06  THE    DONKEYS 

been  shattered  by  the  gunners  eight  weeks  earlier.  The 
front  breastwork,  built  of  sandbags  and  revetted  with  large- 
mesh  wire,  had  been  doubled  or  trebled  in  thickness  to  from 
fifteen  to  thirty  feet  across  with  frequent  traverses  and  a 
parados.^  In  addition  huge  sandbag  mounds,  provided  with 
shelters  and  a  dug-out  accommodation,  had  been  built  at 
.varying  distances — 30  to  200  yards — behind  the  front  for 
living  in  {Wohngraben) .  Then,  as  at  Neuve  Chapelle,  there 
were  a  number  of  machine-gun  nests  [Stiitzpunkt)  situated 
some  distance  behind  the  line  to  act  as  rallying  centres  in 
the  event  of  a  break. 

Although  the  enemy  front  was  lightly  held  the  defence 
plan^  was  realistic,  and  thoroughly  rehearsed.  As  ill  fortune 
would  have  it  it  was  based  on  the  very  principles  most  likely 
to  wreck  the  British  attack  scheme — namely  of  blocking  at 
once  the  flanks  of  a  break-in  by  using  the  support  companies  on 
switch  lines  formed  by  the  newly  dug  communication  trenches. 
These,  running  at  right  angles  to  the  front,  connected 
with  the  Stiitzpunkt  and  had  a  fire-step  on  each  side  so  that 
troops  occupying  them  could  shoot  right  or  left.  They  also 
contained  deep  concrete  shelters  fitted  with  water  pumps 
to  which  the  garrison  could  hurry  as  soon  as  the  bombard- 
ment began,  leaving  only  a  few  sentries  to  watch  at  the 
front  breastwork.  The  German  troops  themselves  were  sited 
in  depth,  each  battalion  holding  its  front  breastwork  with  a 
garrison  of  two  companies  (each  of  140  rifles),  with  one  in 
support  some  2,000  yards  behind  and  another  in  reserve 
about  two  miles  back. 

Against  these  two  German  regiments,  the  55th  and  57th, 
Haig's  I  St  Army  mustered  three  corps,  the  ist,  Indian  and 
4th.  The  attack  was  to  be  made  in  the  first  instance  by, 
from  south  to  north,  the  ist  Division  (Major-General  R.  C.  B. 
Haking),  the  Meerut  Division  (Lieutenant-General  Sir  C.  A. 
Anderson) ,  and  the  8th  Division  (Major-General  F.J.  Davies) , 

1.  The  facts  of  the  German  defence  are  taken  from  Das  Inf.  Regt.  55, 
Schulz,  1928;  Das  Inf.  Regt.  Castendyk,  1936,  and  the  analysis  of  these  diaries 
in  an  article  in  Army  Quarterly,  Vol.  36,  No.  2,  by  Captain  G.  C.  Wynne. 

2.  57th  (Ger.)  Regt.  diary. 


THE    SECOND    EXPERIMENT:    AUBERS    RIDGE       IO7 

with  three  more  divisions,  the  2nd,  the  Lahore  and  the  7th, 
in  close  support. 

The  final  plan  for  the  offensive  was  explained  by  Haig  to 
his  corps  and  divisional  commanders  at  two  conferences  held 
in  Bethune  on  the  27th  April  and  the  6th  May.  In  essence 
the  scheme  was  for  the  ist  and  8th  Divisions  to  fan  out  after 
a  quick  break-in,  holding  the  southern  and  northern  flanks 
of  the  breach,  while  the  Meerut  and  7th  Divisions  converged 
on  a  big  Stutzpunkt  situated  at  La  Clicqueterie  Farm,  some 
one  and  a  half  miles  behind  the  centre  of  the  German 
front. 

In  theory,  once  these  two  units  joined  hands  the  whole 
body  of  enemy  defending  the  unattacked  portion  of  the  line 
would  be  caught  in  a  noose.  However,  in  spite  of  the  experi- 
ences at  Neuve  Chapelle,  no  definite  objective  for  each  day 
was  given.  Although  many  regimental  officers  would  have 
preferred  a  limited  one  with  'systematic  exploitation  after  the 
first  assault',  the  course  of  the  battle  was  left  to  a  great 
extent  in  the  hands  of  the  local  commanders.  The  attacking 
divisions  simply  had  vague  orders  to  press  on  as  rapidly  as 
possible  from  objective  to  objective  to  the  line  of  the  Haute 
Deule  Canal,  a  distance  of  some  six  miles  beyond  Aubers 
Ridge. 

During  the  nights  of  the  first  week  in  May  there  was  great 
activity  on  the  British  front.  A  number  of  shallow  disused 
trenches  in  No-Man's-Land  were  reclaimed  as  jumping-off 
places  for  the  assaulting  lines;  blocks  of  assembly  trenches 
were  prepared  a  few  hundred  yards  behind  the  main  parapet 
where  it  was  hoped  that  the  second  and  third  waves  could 
shelter  until  their  turn  came;  and  both  these  new  areas  were 
connected  up  with  the  main  positions  by  narrow  communi- 
cation trenches.  But  it  proved  impossible  to  dig  these  to  a 
depth  greater  than  two  feet — a  failing  that  was  to  have 
serious  consequences  on  the  day  of  the  attack.  At  intervals  of 
thirty  feet  steps  were  cut  in  the  main  breastwork  to  enable 
the  infantry  to  pass  over  more  rapidly  and,  in  addition, 
the  assaulting  companies  were  provided  with  portable  step- 


I08  THE    DONKEYS 

ladders  for  this  purpose  as  well  as  a  number  of  light  foot 
bridges  that  had  to  be  carried  forward  for  use  in  crossing 
the  German  trenches,  the  Layes  Brook  and  other  dykes  and 
obstacles  that  might  hold  up  the  advance. 

It  was  thus  particularly  unfortunate,  in  view  of  the 
congested  state  of  the  forward  area,  that  the  offensive  had 
to  be  postponed  at  the  last  minute.  Haig's  final  operation 
orders  were  issued  on  the  6th  May  at  lo  p.m.,  naming  zero 
as  5.40  on  the  morning  of  the  8th,  which  meant  getting  the 
troops  into  position  the  previous  evening.  But,  on  the 
morning  of  the  7th,  there  was  a  dense  mist,  limiting  visibility 
to  fifty  yards,  and  worsened  by  intermittent  rain  and  drizzle. 
These  conditions  upset  the  French  bombardment  schedule 
as  the  guns,  which  had  been  firing  without  a  pause  since  the 
3rd,  could  no  longer  range  properly  on  to  their  objectives  or 
observe  the  effect  of  their  fire. 

It  was  thus  with  considerable  misgiving  that  the  British 
officers  heard  to  the  north  the  continuous  rumble  of  the 
French  artillery  die  gradually  away  at  the  very  moment 
their  own  attacking  battalions  were  marching  up  to  the  line 
from  their  billets.  As  the  day  lengthened,  uncertainty  spread 
and  rumour  followed  rumour.  Finally,  at  five  o'clock  that 
evening,  a  letter  arrived  at  Haig's  headquarters  from  the 
commander  of  the  French  loth  Army,^  explaining  that  the 
date  of  the  attack  would  have  to  be  put  off  until  the  9th. 
All  forward  movement  was  immediately  halted,  but  those 
men  who  had  already  got  into  position  were  kept  there 
as  it  was  felt  that,  in  spite  of  the  difficulties  in  feeding  them 
and  finding  adequate  space  for  the  two  extra  nights  for 
which  they  were  to  wait,  any  further  movement  would  add 
to  the  confusion  and  might  attract  the  attention  of  the 
enemy. 

After  midnight  the  French  guns  started  again  to  the  south, 
continuing  their  bombardment  with  mounting  intensity  all 
day  on  the  8th.  But  on  the  British  front  that  day,  and  all 

1.  This  was  D'Urbal,  for  whose  'excessively  good  manners'  Haig  had  earher 
recorded  his  distaste  (above,  page  25). 


THE    SECOND    EXPERIMENT!    AUBERS    RIDGE       I09 

through  the  night  until  dawn  of  the  Sunday,  the  silence  was 
complete. 


The  gth  May  was  a  perfect  morning  of  early  summer. 
The  larks  could  be  heard  singing  as  they  circled  to  greet  the 
rising  sun.  Then,  exactly  at  5  a.m.,  the  British  guns  opened 
fire.  The  contrast  with  the  tranquillity  that  had  preceded 
the  bombardment  made  it  seem  doubly  impressive.  Through 
their  periscopes,  observers  in  the  British  front  line  could  see 
nothing  but  a  high  wall  of  smoke,  dust  and  splinters  rising 
from  the  German  parapet,  swirling  and  boiling  as  wire- 
cutting  shrapnel  from  the  eighteen-pounders  exploded  within 
it.  But,  measured  by  its  actual  results,  the  bombardment 
was  seriously  inadequate.  Smoke  and  noise  there  were  in 
profusion  but  the  fall  of  shell  was  inaccurate,  and  their 
calibre  in  the  majority  of  cases  too  light^  to  affect  the  massive 
German  earthworks.  The  time  allotted  for  the  bombardment 
was  quite  inadequate  for  the  few  heavy  guns  that  were 
available  to  work  over  the  German  position  thoroughly. 
Moreover  the  effect  was  still  further  diminished  by  the  fact 
that  many  of  the  shells  were  duds  of  American  manufacture 
which  had  been  filled  with  sawdust  instead  of  explosive.^ 
In  the  case  of  the  4-7  in.  employed  for  counter-battery 
work  these  guns  were  now  so  worn  out  that  as  soon  as  the 
shell  left  the  muzzle  the  copper  driving  bands  stripped  and 
the  shell  turned  end  over  and  fell  anywhere,  sometimes  as 
little  as  500  yards  from  our  own  support  trenches. 

Thus  within  twenty  to  twenty-five  minutes  of  its  com- 
mencement the  German  officers  began  to  get  their  men  out 

1 .  The  only  guns  capable  of  breaking  up  the  enemy  emplacements  were  the 
sixty-pounder  and  the  9-2  in.  R.H.A.  returns  for  gth  May  show  six  9-2  in.  for 
the  whole  front  (loth  and  13th  siege  batts.)  and  twelve  sixty-pounders  (24th, 
48th  and  Canadian  heavy  batteries).  As  for  the  wire-cutting  eighteen-pounders 
— 'the  low  tra.jectory  of  this  gun  at  wire-cutting  ranges,  1,500-2,000  yds.,  and 
the  flatness  of  the  ground  did  not  make  it  an  ideal  weapon  for  the  purpose; 
and  its  shells  passing  low  over  young  troops  and  transport  horses  at  night  were 
trying  to  their  nerves'. 

2.  55th  Infantry  Regiment  (German)  diary. 


no  THE    DONKEYS 

of  the  Wohngraben  and  back  into  position  behind  the 
parapet.  According  to  the  British  plan  the  leading  companies 
of  assaulting  infantry  were  to  go  over  the  top  and  into  No- 
Man's-Land  at  5.30,  that  is  at  the  moment  when  the 
bombardment  entered  its  intense  phase  of  the  final  ten 
minutes.  But  at  about  twenty  past  a  strong  breeze  blew 
across  the  southern  edge  of  the  battlefield  dispersing, 
momentarily,  the  clouds  of  smoke  and  dust;  the  German 
breastwork  could  be  seen  with  alarming  clarity  to  be  almost 
intact  while  behind  it  showed  the  helmets  and  bayonets  of 
men  moving  about.  The  brief  duration,  and  vivid  clarity, 
of  this  vision  made  it  the  more  nightmarish,  as  any  thought 
of  holding  up  the  attack  was  impossible  to  the  junior  officers 
and  men  who  were  its  only  witnesses. 

Then,  sure  enough,  some  ten  minutes  later,  as  the  first  wave 
climbed  out  and  over  the  British  parapet,  with  the  warm 
morning  sun  in  their  faces,  the  enemy  opened  a  concentrated 
fire.  In  this  region,  the  extreme  right  flank  of  the  attack 
front,  the  assault  was  being  led  by  the  ist  Northants  and  the 
2nd  Royal  Sussex  of  2nd  Brigade,  and  the  Munster  Fusiliers 
and  2nd  Welch  of  3rd  Brigade,  from  General  Haking's  ist 
Division.  Side  by  side  with  them,  on  their  left  was  the 
Dehra  Dun  Brigade,  consisting  of  Ghurkas  and  Seaforth 
Highlanders  from  the  Meerut  Division  commanded  by 
Lieutenant-General  Anderson,  these  two  groups  forming 
together  the  southern,  or  lower,  arm  of  the  pincer. 

The  Dehra  Dun  Brigade  fared  worst.  The  diary  of  the 
German  57th  Regiment  described  how,  as  the  bombardment 
lifted  on  to  the  rear  areas  and  the  smoke  cleared,  '.  .  .  there 
could  never  before  in  war  have  been  a  more  perfect  target 
than  this  solid  wall  of  khaki  men,  British  and  Indian  side  by 
side.  There  was  only  one  possible  order  to  give — "Fire  until 
the  barrels  burst."  ' 

As  the  German  machine-guns  scythed  into  advancing 
lines  the  confusion  became  intense;  many  of  the  men  turned 
and  made  for  the  cover  of  their  old  parapet,  but  here  they 
were  met  by  the  second  and  third  waves  who  were  attempting 


THE  SECOND  EXPERIMENT:  AUBERS  RIDGE   III 

to  climb  out.  In  a  short  while  the  shallow  jumping-off 
trenches  were  clogged  with  dead  and  wounded;  the  majority 
of  units  were  in  complete  disorder  having  become  inter- 
mingled with  those  following  behind  them,  while  many  of 
their  officers  had  been  shot  down^  while  standing  on  the 
breastwork  exhorting  the  men  to  come  out  again  and  press 
the  attack.  In  the  official  account  it  is  said  that  'the  troops 
found  it  impossible  to  advance  more  than  a  few  yards  from 
the  front  parapet'  but  the  German  57th  Regiment  diary 
does  admit  that  a  handful  of  Ghurkas  got  as  far  as  the  wire. 
They  had  discarded  all  their  equipment,  including  their 
rifles,  but  'running  like  cats'  along  the  entanglement  they 
found  a  gap  and  passing  through  attacked  the  defenders 
with  knives.  Alas,  there  was  to  be  no  recognition  of  this 
desperate  gallantry  for  all  were  cut  down  and  buried  in  a 
communal  and  anonymous  grave  by  the  Germans  later  that 
day. 

On  the  right  of  the  Meerut  Division  the  attack  suffered  as 
heavy  casualties  and  was  but  slightly  more  effective.  Here, 
too,  the  artillery  support  was  seriously  deficient: 

'For  most  of  the  batteries  it  was  the  first  experience  in  wire- 
cutting  and  as  only  thirty  minutes  had  been  allowed  the 
results  were  not  unnaturally  incomplete.  Then,  when  the 
time  came  for  the  infantry  advance  the  various  artillery 
"lifts"  were  too  quick — the  first  lift  was  made  before  the 
assaulters  were  within  fifty  yards  of  the  Germans — with  the 
consequence  that  the  covering  gunfire  got  clean  ahead  of 
the  troops.  As  the  telephone  lines  back  from  the  front  had 
been  cut  and  no  other  means  of  communication  had  been 
arranged  it  was  impossible  to  correct  this.'^ 

Of  the  attacking  battalions,  the  Sussex  and  Northampton- 
shire were  practically  annihilated  in  the  passage  of  No- 
Man's-Land,  suffering  over  a  thousand  casualties.  But  there 
was  no  thought  of  turning  back  to  the  cover  of  the  trenches. 

1.  The  1st  Seaforth  lost  all  their  officers  in  this  way.  (O.H.,  1915,  11,  23.) 

2.  O.H.,  1915,  II,  22. 


112  THE    DONKEYS 

In  spite  of  losing  nearly  all  their  officers  the  men  pressed 
right  on  up  to  the  German  wire  and  then  searched  along  it 
— all  the  time  under  crippling  fire — for  gaps  through  which 
they  could  pass.  But  a  cruel  reward  awaited  them  as  it  was 
found  that  a  deep  ditch  that  had  been  dug  in  front  of  the 
German  breastwork  for  earth  to  fill  the  sandbags  had  itself 
been  filled  with  tight  coils  of  barbed  wire.  At  this  final 
obstacle  the  Sussex,  now  reduced  to  a  handful,  disintegrated; 
but  a  small  party  of  the  Northamptonshires,  about  twenty 
in  number,  managed  to  scramble  across  the  ditch  opposite 
a  breach  in  the  enemy  breastwork  and  entered  his  trench, 
where  they  were  at  once  engaged  in  desperate  hand-to-hand 
fighting. 

On  the  extreme  right  flank  of  the  attack,  also,  a  lodge- 
ment had  been  made.  Here  the  Munsters,  pressing  forward 
with  extraordinary  bravery  under  the  personal  leadership  of 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Rickard — who  was  mortally  wounded 
at  the  edge  of  the  German  wire — managed  to  penetrate  with 
their  right  company  and,  after  a  fearful  passage  of  the  wire- 
filled  ditch,  the  survivors  of  this  detachment,  also,  entered 
the  German  breastwork.  But  by  now  the  German  fire  was 
sweeping  No-Man's-Land  to  such  effect  that  the  second  and 
third  waves  had  either  been  forced  back  into  their  own 
trenches  or  pinned  down  among  the  craters  that  lay  between. 
Watchers  in  the  British  line  could  see,  for  a  few  moments, 
several  of  the  Munsters  standing  on  the  enemy  breastwork 
waving  a  green  flag;  then  one  of  them  was  shot  and  the  rest 
disappeared. 

It  soon  became  evident  to  General  Haking  that,  with  the 
exception  of  these  two  small  entries  by  fragments  of  the 
Northamptonshires  and  Munsters,  the  attack  had  failed 
completely.  More  serious,  the  leading  brigades  were  badly 
off'-balance  with  their  forward  trenches  choked  with 
wounded,  several  of  their  companies  pinned  down  in  No- 
Man's-Land  and  their  chain  of  command  disrupted  by  heavy 
casualties  among  the  officers.  In  spite  of  this,  however,  he 
ordered  a  renewed  bombardment  for  forty-five  minutes,  to 


THE  SECOND  EXPERIMENT!  AUBERS  RIDGE   II3 

be  followed  immediately  by  a  fresh  attack  at  7  a.m.,  and 
passed  word  along  to  headquarters  of  the  Meerut  Division 
requesting  them  to  conform. 

This  decision  was  an  unhappy  one,  and  not  only  on 
account  of  the  hopelessness  of  the  task  set  the  infantry.  For 
large  numbers  of  our  own  men,  the  majority  of  them 
wounded,  were  lying  out  in  front  of  the  German  wire.  Here 
they  were  ill  protected  from  small-arms  fire  but  were,  at 
least,  too  close  to  his  own  line  for  the  enemy  to  risk  turning 
artillery  fire  on  to  them.  But  now,  tumbled  in  craters,  with 
little  cover  save  what  they  could  scrape  in  the  dry  earth  of 
No-Man's-Land  with  their  own  bayonets,  they  were  nearly 
all  killed  by  this  second  bombardment,  for  the  gunners  had 
had  specific  instructions  to  concentrate  on  the  wire  as 
distinct  from  the  breastwork.  With  horror  those  few  of  the 
attackers  who  had  gained  the  relative  shelter  of  the  enemy 
breastwork  watched  their  wounded  comrades  torn  to  pieces 
by  the  storm  of  shrapnel  that  played  over  the  wire  for  the 
next  forty  minutes,  itself  emphasizing  their  own  isolation. 

When  the  time  came  for  the  second  attack  the  stricken 
and  disordered  condition  of  the  leading  brigades  made  it 
impossible  to  achieve  the  same  degree  of  co-ordination  and 
numerical  strength  as  had  characterized  the  first.  None  the 
less  a  few  officers  managed  to  group  together  the  remnants 
of  various  units  and  gallantly  led  these  once  more  over  the 
top  when  the  bombardment  stopped.  All  these  individual 
groups,  however,  were  cut  down  in  No-Man's-Land  within 
minutes  of  leaving  their  own  trenches. 

Thus  it  can  be  seen  that  Making's  use  of  the  word  'dead- 
lock' to  describe  the  situation  in  his  report  to  the  ist  Corps 
H.Q.  at  7.20  a.m.  was  nothing  if  not  optimistic.  In  the  space 
of  two  hours  he  had  dissipated  to  the  point  of  annihilation 
two  of  the  finest  brigades  in  the  British  Army  without 
achieving  any  material  success  whatever.  None  the  less,  he 
asked,  in  this  report,  if  he  could  not  commit  the  Guards 
Brigade  which  he  had  in  reserve,  stating  that  'If  the  wire 
is  cut  by  deliberate  fire  and  more  of  the  enemy's  machine- 


114  THE    DONKEYS 

guns  are  knocked  out,  the  assault  can  be  delivered  again 
after  midday.' 

Before  considering  subsequent  developments  on  this 
front,  however,  something  must  be  said  of  the  course  of 
battle  to  the  north  where  the  left  arm  of  the  British  attack 
was  also  engaged  in  bitter  fighting. 


8 

Aubers  Ridge:  the  Northern  Attack 

General  Rawlinson :  This  is  most  unsatisfactory.  Where 

are  the  Sherwood  Foresters?  Where  are  the  East 

Lancashires  on  the  right? 
Brigadier-General  Oxley:  They  are  lying  out  in  No- 

Man's-Land,  sir,  and  most  of  them  will  never  stand 

again. 

Rifle  Brigade  Official  History^  p.  1 86 

IN  THE  northern  sector,  the  attack  of  General  Rawlin- 
son's  4th  Corps  was  to  be  led  by  the  24th  and  25th 
Brigades  of  8th  Division,  operating  on  much  the  same 
plan  as  the  ist  and  the  Indian  Corps  to  the  south.  There 
were  some  minor  differences  in  execution,  however,  and 
these,  added  to  the  fact  that  the  25th  Brigade  under 
Brigadier-General  Lowry-Cole  was  made  up  of  some  of  the 
most  gallant  and  well-disciplined  troops  in  the  Expeditionary 
Force,  gave  the  attack  here  an  appearance,  to  begin  with, 
of  partial  success. 

A  number  of  ingenious  and  unconventional  means  had 
been  devised  to  break  up  the  German  emplacements.  Two 
mines  had  been  sunk  and  run  under  the  enemy  lines  on  the 
extreme  left  where  the  i/i3th  London  Regiment  was  to  break 
through  and  hold  the  enemy  communication  trench  as  a 
switch  line  protecting  the  flank.  The  sinking  of  the  shafts 
had  been  a  perilous  business,  for  the  engineers  had  first  to 
penetrate  a  thickness  of  fifteen  feet  of  water-bearing  loam 
before  they  reached  the  hard  blue  clay  in  which  the  tunnel 
was  drilled.   The  tunnel  itself  was  made  only  just  wide 

115 


Il6  THE    DONKEYS 

enough  for  a  man  to  crawl  along,  with  'lay-bys'  at  intervals 
of  twenty  feet,  and  each  ounce  of  the  tell-tale  blue  soil  had 
to  be  carried  away  in  sandbags.  Proper  ventilation  of  the 
tunnels  was  impossible  and  sometimes  men  with  a  load  of 
explosive  on  their  back  would  pass  out  unconscious  en 
route,  blocking  the  passage-way,  and  have  to  be  dragged 
out  by  their  feet  over  hundreds  of  yards.  By  the  day  of  the 
attack,  though,  over  2,000  lb.  of  black  gunpowder  had 
been  packed  at  the  base  of  each  mine. 

Then,  again  to  supplement  the  main  artillery  bombard- 
ment, a  number  of  eighteen-pounders  were  brought  right 
up  into  the  front  line  the  night  before,  using  rubber-tyred 
car  wheels  to  minimize  the  noise,  and  put  in  special  emplace- 
ments from  where  they  could  fire  into  the  German  emplace- 
ments at  point-blank  range. 

This  supplementing  of  the  barrage  to  some  extent  com- 
pensated for  its  short  duration  and  lack  of  weight.  On  the 
extreme  left,  in  particular,  the  attack  went  well  forward 
in  spite  of  heavy  losses,  and  the  London  Regiment  pushed 
right  on  over  the  line  of  the  German  third  trench,  taking 
the  Stiitzpunkt  at  Delangre  Farm  in  their  stride,  and  then 
wheeling  left  as  arranged,  to  protect  the  flank  of  the  attack. 
In  the  meantime  the  other  two  battalions  of  the  25th 
Brigade,  2nd  Rifle  Brigade  and  ist  Royal  Irish  Rifles,  had 
stormed  the  German  breastwork  in  their  sector  and  had 
pressed  on  to  their  first  objective,  the  bend  in  the  Fromelles 
road  that  lay  some  200  yards  behind  the  enemy  front  line. 
Unfortunately,  however,  portions  of  the  German  earthworks 
were  so  strong  in  this  sector  that  the  strength  of  the  enemy 
fire  had  forced  this  attack  southward  into  the  areas  where 
the  close-support  eighteen-pounders  could  be  seen  to  have 
done  their  work  properly.  Thus  a  gap  between  the  London 
Regiment  and  the  Rifle  Brigade,  latent  at  the  start  of  the 
attack,  had  widened  to  over  400  yards  by  the  time  they 
were  established  in  the  enemy  position.  Moreover,  to  the 
south,  the  attack  of  the  24tL  Brigade  had  been  virtually 
snuffed  out  before  even  the  men  had  managed  to  leave  the 


AUBERS    ridge:    THE    NORTHERN    ATTACK        II7 

assembly  trenches,  for  in  this  area  the  German  breastwork 
had  been  practically  undamaged  along  its  entire  length; 
only  a  small  party  of  Northamptonshires  about  thirty  strong 
had  managed  to  survive  the  passage  of  No-Man's-Land  and 
fight  their  way  into  the  German  position. 

Thus  these  three  lodgements — that  of  the  London  Regi- 
ment on  the  extreme  left,  of  the  Rifle  Brigade  and  Irish 
Rifles  in  the  centre  and  the  forlorn  little  group  of  Northamp- 
tonshires on  the  right — were  all  seriously  isolated.  And  when 
Brigadier-General  Lowry-Cole  arrived  at  the  front  at  6.30 
that  morning  it  seemed  that  the  situation  had  already 
deteriorated  rapidly.  The  hard  chatter  of  the  enemy  machine- 
guns  could  be  heard  all  along  the  line — the  more  clearly  as 
our  own  artillery  had  ceased  firing.  Through  field-glasses, 
whole  lengths  of  the  enemy  emplacements  could  be  followed, 
lightly  scarred  but  structurally  intact  except  in  those  few 
places  when  the  first  rush  of  attacking  infantry  had  broken 
in.  No-Man's-Land  was  being  continually  swept  by  heavy 
fire  and  all  forward  movement  had  ceased. 

But  although  they  could  get  no  further,  the  supporting 
battalions  were  still  flowing  up  from  the  back  areas  into  the 
confusion  of  the  front  trenches,  that  were  jammed  with 
stretchers  bearing  wounded,  broken  scaling-ladders,  and 
large  numbers  of  dead  who  had  been  dragged  in  off"  the 
parapet  and  lay  in  heaps  awaiting  identification  and  burial. 
The  confusion  was  heightened  by  the  presence  everywhere  of 
groups  of  leaderless  men  whose  officers  had  been  killed  and 
who  had  been  driven  back  to  take  refuge  in  a  'strange' 
section  of  trench. ^  The  conditions  for  sending  reinforce- 
ments forward  were  highly  unfavourable  and  yet  this  had 
to  be  done  unless  the  troops  whose  gallantry  had  carried 
them  into  the  enemy   position  were   not   to  be  forsaken, 

I .  Disorder  in  the  front  trenches  was  always  aggravated  by  this  factor  which 
accompanied  the  repulse  of  an  attack.  After  their  officers  had  been  shot,  the 
men  would  slowly  work  their  way  back  to  their  own  line,  but,  without  proper 
direction  in  the  smoke  and  noise  and  sameness  of  the  cratered  terrain,  would 
often  end  up  at  a  point  some  hundreds  of  yards  above  or  below  their  original 
jumping-oflF  point. 


Il8  THE    DONKEYS 

for  with  each  minute  that  passed  the  pressure  on  them  was 
increasing. 

The  most  critical  situation  was  that  of  the  i/i3th  London 
on  the  extreme  left,  for  they,  in  obedience  to  their  orders, 
had  taken  up  a  position  that  had  originally  been  conceived 
as  the  flank  of  a  clean  break-through;  this  meant  that  they 
were  facing  due  north,  not  east,  and  that  they  were  especially 
vulnerable  to  enemy  counter-attacks. 

A  succession  of  half-hearted  attempts  to  reach  them  all 
failed  until  at  ten  minutes  to  seven  two  companies  of  the 
2nd  Lincolnshire  broke  into  the  German  position  just  below 
the  London  flank.  But  once  inside  the  complex  of  enemy 
trenches  they  became  lost  in  the  maze  of  sandbagged 
buttresses,  and  the  Germans,  more  numerous  and  familiar 
with  every  twist  of  the  line,  reduced  their  numbers  to  a 
critical  level  in  the  twenty  minutes  or  so  of  hand-to-hand 
fighting  that  followed  the  break-in.  However,  a  junction  of 
sorts  was  effected  by  one  man,  Acting-Corporal  C.  Sharpe, 
who  fought  his  way  up  250  yards  of  trench,  using  captured 
enemy  grenades  and  a  bayonet  in  his  right  hand.^ 

All  efforts  to  spread  the  area  of  break-in  to  the  south, 
however,  were  ineffective  and  the  passage  of  No-Man's- 
Land  was  so  difficult  as  to  eliminate  any  prospect  of  rein- 
forcement or  relief  of  the  troops  that  were  still  holding  on 
in  the  enemy  emplacement.  Then,  quite  suddenly,  watchers 
on  the  English  parapet  saw  large  numbers  of  men  from  the 
Irish  Rifles  streaming  back  across  the  front  German  breast- 
work and  making  their  way  back  towards  their  own  lines. 
They  were  under  heavy  fire  from  the  enemy  all  the  time  and 
suffering  severely — large  numbers  could  be  seen  dropping 
as  they  ran.  To  add  to  the  confusion,  a  body  of  German 
prisoners  whom  they  were  trying  to  bring  back  with  them 
was  believed  to  be  an  enemy  counter-attack;  rumours 
flashed  round  that  the  enemy  was  disguised  in  captured 
uniforms  and  a  heavy  cross-fire  was  opened  from  our  own 

I.  He  was  awarded  a  V.G.  for  this.  He  was  killed  at  Passchendaele  in  191 7. 


AUBERS    ridge:     THE    NORTHERN    ATTACK         II9 

trenches.^  Brigadier-General  Lowry-Cole  was  himself  killed 
while  standing  on  the  parapet  and  attempting  to  rally  the 
men  and  restore  order. 

By  now  the  confusion  within  the  British  lines  was  so  great 
that  all  movement  was  impossible.  The  extra  communi- 
cation trenches  whose  shallow  depth  had  caused  disquiet 
earlier  were  proving  to  be  death-traps,  and  the  normal 
system  was  so  overloaded  with  stretcher  parties  and  walking 
wounded  as  to  be  unusable.  Furthermore,  now  that  the 
attacks  had  been  halted,  the  enemy  artillery  had  lifted  from 
No-Man's-Land  and  the  assembly  trenches  and  was  systema- 
tically 'feeling'  up  and  down  the  rear  and  support  areas. 

In  spite  of  this,  however,  some  individual  runners  from 
Haig's  H.Q.  were  able  to  get  through  to  General  Rawlinson 
with  'urgent'  instructions.  These  were  that  '.  .  .  you  must 
press  the  attack  vigorously  and  without  delay  on  Rouges 
Bancs' — i.e.  frontaily  and  in  the  same  place.  These  orders 
were  issued  at  8.45,^  and  took  about  an  hour  and  a  half  to 
be  thoroughly  disseminated.  By  the  middle  of  the  morning, 
however,  it  was  plain  to  all  the  commanders  on  the  spot  that 
it  was  physically  impossible  to  mount  an  attack  with  the 
shattered  remnants  of  the  assaulting  battalions  that  remained 
in  the  front  trenches,  while  the  acute  congestion  in  the 
immediate  rear  made  the  task  of  relieving  them  with  fresh 
troops,  and  that  of  evacuating  the  large  number  of  wounded 
that  impeded  free  circulation,  laborious  and  costly.  It  was 
plainly  impossible  to  achieve  a  state  of  readiness  before  the 
afternoon.  In  consequence  nothing  was  done  to  put  these 
orders  into  effect. 

As  the  morning  wore  on,  however,  Haig  became  impatient. 
The  reports  from  the  southern  sector,  from  Haking  and 

1.  The  Official  History  offers  no  explanation  of  this  debacle,  other  than  the 
following:  '.  .  .  exhaustive  enquiry  failed  to  discover  any  reason  for  the  retire- 
ment beyond  the  fact  that  someone  unknown  had  shouted  the  order  "Retire  at 
the  double",  \vhich  was  passed  rapidly  along  the  line'.  Of  the  Regimental 
histories  written  subsequently,  that  of  the  Irish  Rifles  makes  no  comment  at 
all;  that  of  the  Rifle  Brigade,  whose  flank  was  uncovered  thereby,  does  no  more 
than  quote  from  the  Official  History. 

2.  O.H.,  1915,  II,  36,  fn. 


120  T.HE    DONKEYS 

Anderson,  had  equally  been  disappointing,  but  with  the 
difference  that  here  both  generals  had  shown  a  readiness 
to  renew  the  attack.  At  11.45  a.m.,  therefore,  Haig  issued 
further  orders  insisting  that  the  attack  should  be  pressed 
'immediately'. 

The  arrival  of  these  fresh  and  insistent  orders  caused 
consternation  on  8th  Division  front.  It  was  plainly  impossible 
to  get  the  two  shattered  brigades,  the  24th  and  25th,  out  of 
the  way  in  time,  and  so  Major-General  Davies  decided  to 
improvise  by  ordering  them  to  attack  'with  what  men  you 
can  muster'  and  the  support  of  those  troops  that  had 
managed  to  squeeze  into  position  by  that  time — 1.15  p.m. 
These  were  the  2nd  Queen's,  which  had  come  across  from 
7th  Division,  and  two  Middlesex  Regiments  that  had  not 
been  trained  for  the  assault  at  all  but  were  garrison  troops 
who  had  already  been  in  the  line  in  that  sector  for  twelve 
days  and  were  intended  to  'consolidate'  after  the  attack. 

Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  exact  whereabouts  of  those  few 
detachments  of  London,  Rifle  Brigade  and  Northants  that 
were  still  holding  on  in  the  enemy  position  was  not  known, 
it  was  decided  to  concentrate  artillery  fire  solely  on  that 
stretch  of  500  yards  south  of  the  Fromelles  road  that  had 
remained  untouched.  In  other  words  it  was  proposed  to 
assault  the  strongest  part  of  the  enemy  position  in  isolation, 
as  distinct  from  making  a  determined  attempt  to  reinforce 
the  small  breaches  already  effected. 

In  fact,  the  attack  was  brought  to  naught  before  it  even 
got  started.  The  majority  of  the  men  were  already  shell- 
shocked  and  bewildered  by  their  experiences  that  morning; 
they  were  serving  under  strange  officers  and  with  unfamiliar 
comrades;  they  knew  only  too  well  the  strength  of  the 
enemy,  in  that  sector  above  all.  The  preliminary  bombard- 
ment was  short,  and  more  than  matched  by  the  fire  which 
the  German  guns  themselves  put  down  on  the  assembly 
trenches.  The  majority  of  men  never  even  climbed  out  into 
No-Man's-Land,  although  many  companies  were  reduced 
by  more  than  half  as  they  huddled  in  the  shallow,  crowded 


AUBERS    ridge:    THE    NORTHERN    ATTACK        121 

forming-up  places  waiting  for  the  whistle.  By  two  o'clock 
the  position  had  changed  not  at  all,  except  that  the  8th 
Division  had  suffered  a  further  2,000  casualties. 


In  the  meantime  Haig  had  arrived  at  Lestrem — head- 
quarters of  the  Indian  Corps  and  operational  centre  for  the 
direction  of  the  southern  arm  of  the  attack.  The  atmosphere 
at  lunch  was  not  an  easy  one,  although  the  talk  was  mainly 
of  horses  and  hunting,  for  General  Willcocks  had  earlier 
been  compelled  to  explain  that  the  Dehra  Dun  Brigade  had 
been  so  severely  'knocked  about'  that  it  was  not  capable  of 
launching  the  third  assault  which  Haig  had  earlier  ordered 
for  noon,  and  which  he  had  been  expecting  to  find  under 
way  on  his  arrival.  Then,  as  the  Indian  orderlies  were  serving 
coffee,  came  more  bad  news:  Brigadier-General  Southey, 
commanding  the  Bareilly  Brigade,  reported  that,  owing  to 
the  congestion  in  the  forward  areas  and  the  impossibility  of 
using  the  communication  trenches,  his  relief  of  the  Dehra 
Dun  Brigade  had  been  attended  by  serious  losses,  was  not 
yet  complete,  and  precluded  any  possibility  of  getting  the 
battalions  into  position  for  assault  before  4  p.m.  at  the 
earliest.  No  sooner  had  this  been  digested  than  a  further 
despatch  arrived,  this  time  from  the  north,  from  the  8th 
Division.  In  this  the  failure  of  the  midday  frontal  attack, 
launched  as  a  result  of  Haig's  insistent  orders,  was  reported, 
as  was  an  estimate  of  the  casualties  suffered. 

'.  .  .  the  Chief  took  it  very  hard.  We  had  been  getting 
reports  all  morning  of  how  well  the  French  were  doing  and 
he  must  have  felt  that  they  would  be  laughing  at  our  efforts, 
as  they  did  in  December.  He  wrote  something  in  pencil  and 
handed  it  to  the  D.R.  and  left  the  Indian  Corps  mess  with- 
out another  word.' 

While  Haig  was  motoring  from  Lestrem  to  Aire,  the 
position  of  the  2nd  London,  the  Munsters  and  the  Northants, 


122  THE    DONKEYS 

Still  holding  on  inside  the  enemy  lines,  was  becoming  hourly 
more  desperate.  They  had  used  up  all  their  ammunition 
and  were  compelled  to  defend  themselves  with  captured 
enemy  equipment.  Moreover  they  were  suffering  heavily 
from  their  own  artillery  which  had  been  putting  down 
intermittent  fire  ever  since  the  failure  of  the  midday  attacks 
and  which  no  longer  appeared  to  be  discriminating  between 
'captured'  and  'enemy'  stretches  of  the  line.  While  the 
Germans  would  retreat  to  the  Wohngraben  the  moment  a 
bout  of  English  shelling  started,  the  British  troops  had  no 
cover  except  the  battered  trenches  where  they  lay,  that  had 
been  reduced  virtually  to  mud  and  rubble  not  only  by  the 
gunfire  but  by  the  ceaseless  hand-to-hand  fighting  with 
hand-grenades  that  had  raged  over  them  all  day.  In  an 
attempt  to  extricate  themselves  from  this  situation  the 
Munsters,  to  the  extreme  south  of  the  line,  launched  an 
independent  attack  still  deeper  into  the  enemy  position.  The 
sheer  audacity  of  this  move  surprised  the  Germans  and  this 
small  group,  still  bearing  their  green  flag,  carried  the 
enemy's  support  position  and  broke  out  into  the  country 
beyond.  But  both  the  runners  who  had  been  detailed  to 
crawl  back  across  No-Man's-Land,  to  inform  Brigade  of 
this  plan  and  ask  for  support,  were  shot,  and  the  attackers 
were  far  too  few  in  numbers  for  any  possibility  of  success. 
The  moment  that  the  Munsters  had  passed  through  the 
German  support  line  the  garrison  ran  back  down  the  trench, 
reoccupying  it  and,  using  the  parados  as  a  fire-step,  poured 
a  stream  of  fire  into  the  backs  of  the  attackers.  A  few  hundred 
feet  further  on  the  Munsters  were  halted  by  a  deep  brook. 
Some  of  the  men  tried  to  swim  across  but  barbed  wire  had 
been  staked  across  the  bottom  and  they  were  drowned.  The 
survivors  took  up  a  position  along  the  bank,  but  their 
position  was  now  worse  than  ever  and  all  except  three  (who 
were  taken  prisoner)  were  killed  by  the  British  bombard- 
ment that  preceded  the  afternoon  attack. 

This,  the  assault  fixed  by  Haig  for  4  p.m.,  had  a  par- 
ticularly inauspicious  beginning.  For  when  Haig  got  back  to 


AUBERS    ridge:    THE    NORTHERN    ATTACK        I23 

his  H.Q.  from  Lestrem  Brigadier-General  R.  H.  K.  Butler, 
the  chief  general  staflF  officer  who  was  always  left  in  charge 
in  his  absence,  handed  him  a  despatch  from  General 
Rawlinson.  The  substance  of  this  was  that  General  Gough, 
commanding  the  7th  Division  that  had  not  yet  been  com- 
mitted to  action  but  faced  the  imminent  prospect  of  this, 
had  made  a  'personal  reconnaissance'  of  the  ground.  This 
had  left  him  convinced  not  only  of  the  'uselessness'  of  putting 
in  the  21st  Brigade,  but  also  of  '.  .  .  the  certainty  of  any 
further  attempt  to  attack  by  daylight  being  a  failure'.^ 

It  was  an  unpleasant  position  for  Haig;  for  with  the  delays 
made  by  the  Indian  brigadiers  fresh  in  his  mind  it  must  have 
seemed  that  his  commanders  were  losing  heart;  only  Haking, 
of  the  ist  Division,  was  still  filled  with  'the  attacking  spirit'. 
Moreover  this  refusal — it  amounted  to  nothing  less — of  the 
4th  Corps  to  press  the  afternoon  attack  must  obviously  have 
serious  consequences  on  the  prospects  of  the  ist  and  Meerut 
attacks  in  the  south,  which  would  now  be  without  any 
pretence  of  support  from  the  northern  arm  of  the  pincer.^ 

And  yet  there  was  never  at  any  time  thought  of  cancelling 
the  afternoon  attack.  The  Germans,  who  thought  that  the 
British  must  have  had  enough  punishment  [die  Nase  voll)  for 
the  day,  were  amazed  to  see  them  coming  across  once 
again,  in  broad  daylight,  with  the  pipers  of  the  ist  Black 
Watch  playing,  as  the  sun  lowered  in  the  western  sky.  And 
once  again  along  the  whole  length  of  the  attack  frontage  there 
broke  out  the  harsh  rasping  stutter  of  the  machine-guns; 
once  again  whole  lines  of  men  withered  away,  reduced  to 
straggling  mounds  of  twitching,  agonized  humanity.  The 
Black  Watch  was  the  only  battalion  to  get  into  position  in 
time  and  so  the  only  troops  to  go  over  the  top  at  zero.  They 
were  alone  in  No-Man's-Land,  little  groups  of  kilted  soldiers 

1.  O.H.,  1915,  II,  37-  .  . 

2.  The  enemy  had  been  steadily  reinforced  all  morning,  and  reports  to  this 
efFect  were  sent  in  both  by  artillery  observers  who  could  see  the  traffic  and  by 
the  R.F.G.  The  55th  Infantry  Regiment  (German)  diary  gives  the  morning's 
losses  as  four  hundred,  but  the  three  supporting  companies  had  all  moved  into 
position  by  2  p.m.  so  that  the  strength  of  the  troops  holding  the  front  defences 
was  actually  greater  in  the  afternoon  than  it  had  been  in  the  morning. 


124  THE    DONKEYS 

trudging  doggedly  forward  through  the  clearing  smoke, 
drawn  on  by  the  wail  of  the  pipes  that  could  be  heard  a  mile 
and  a  half  away  in  Festubert.  Miraculously,  some  fifty  of 
their  number  reached  the  enemy  position  alive;  and  once 
inside  found  the  enemy  garrison  in  flight;  standing  on  the 
parados  they  turned  the  German  machine-guns  round  and 
on  to  the  enemy,  catching  them  in  their  own  communication 
trenches  as  the  retreating  garrison  ran  into  the  reinforce- 
ments that  were  hurrying  forward. 

But  like  the  Munsters  in  the  north  they  were  too  few  in 
numbers  to  exploit  their  success.  The  enemy,  working  round 
through  other  communication  trenches,  surrounded  them 
and,  throwing  bombs  and  firing  machine-guns  from  the 
traverses  of  the  front  breastwork  which  they  had  reoccupied 
after  the  Scots  had  passed  through,  destroyed  nearly  the 
whole  party  after  an  hour's  bitter  fighting.^ 

By  the  time  the  troops  that  should  have  supported  the 
attack  of  the  Black  Watch  were  in  position — some  forty 
minutes  late — those  officers  on  the  spot  deemed  it  'inadvis- 
able', most  fortunately,  to  put  them  in  and  they  were  kept 
waiting  in  the  assembly  trenches — a  demoralizing  experience 
for  troops  waiting  for  assault  owing  to  the  large  numbers  of 
severely  wounded  that  crowded  there,  while  others  could  be 
heard  crying  in  No-Man's-Land. 

Back  in  ist  Army  H.Q^.  Haig  had,  by  tea-time,  drafted 
fresh  orders  to  all  units.  These  were  that  'slow,  deliberate 
fire  was  to  be  maintained  on  the  enemy  positions  throughout 
the  remainder  of  the  day'  and  that  an  attack  was  'to  be 
pushed  in  with  the  bayonet  at  dusk'.  But  the  report  of  his 
three  liaison  officers  with  the  divisions  concerned  suggested 
that  the  commanders  on  the  spot  were  so  reluctant  to  press 
another  assault  as  to  seriously  jeopardize  its  chances  of  getting 
started  with  any  semblance  of  cohesion.  In  the  light  of  these 
reports,  therefore,  Haig,  at  6  p.m.,  cancelled  the  orders  for 
the  attack  at  dusk  and  travelled  once  again  to  Lestrem  where 

I .  Corporal  J.  Ripley  and  Lance-Corporal  D.  Finlay  were  each  awarded 
the  V.C.  for  their  conduct  during  this  engagement. 


AUBERS    ridge:    THE    NORTHERN    ATTACK        125 

he  called  a  conference  of  the  corps  commanders  and  their 
senior  staff  officers.  At  this  meeting  Haig  addressed  his 
audience  sharply.  He  considered  the  progress  of  the  battle 
so  far  'regrettable',  he  said,  and  insisted  that  'results'  should 
follow  from  the  attack  of  the  following  day,  for  which  he  was 
allocating  fresh  brigades  out  of  army  reserve  which  was  in 
his  control. 

But  Haig's  listeners  can  have  been  less  than  enthusiastic, 
for  on  their  return  to  their  units  they  set  about  collecting 
further  evidence  with  which  to  dissuade  him.  When  Briga- 
dier-General Butler  telephoned  round  to  confirm  their  state 
of  readiness  at  11.30  p.m.  that  evening,  Gough  and  Rawlin- 
son  suggested  that,  instead  of  being  put  in  on  the  northern 
flank,  the  7th  Division  should  be  brought  round  to  the  south 
to  reinforce  the  ist  and  Indian  Corps — a  move  that  must 
have  meant  cancellation  of  the  attack  as  it  could  not  possibly 
have  been  completed  in  time,  and  would  have  disrupted  the 
whole  front.  This,  and  other  reports  of  losses  and  the  poor 
state  of  the  units  at  the  front,  continued  to  pour  in  to  Haig's 
H.Q^.  all  night.  The  army  commander  thereupon  summoned 
yet  another  conference — this  time  at  ist  Corps  headquarters 
— for  9  a.m.  on  the  loth.  At  this,  however,  the  corps  com- 
manders were  more  vocal;  earlier  they  had  talked  things 
over  among  themselves,^  and  now  they  harped  on  the 
shortage  of  ammunition,  and  on  the  worn-out  condition  of 
the  4-7  in.  guns  used  for  counter-battery  work.  In  addition 
they  had  a  fresh  and  spectacular  excuse  in  an  order  from 
Kitchener  that  20,000  rounds  of  eighteen-pounder  and  2,000 
rounds  of  4-5  in.  howitzer  ammunition  should  be  sent  from 
France  to  the  Dardanelles — instructions  which  had  arrived 
the  previous  afternoon.  They  had  news,  too,  of  those  few 
brave  remnants  that  had  been  holding  out  on  the  other  side 
of  No-Man's-Land  in  the  German  position:  all  had  finally 
been  overwhelmed  by  the  enemy,  except  for  sixteen  survivors 
of  the  Northamptonshires  who  had  managed  to  return  to  the 
British    lines    under    cover    of  darkness.    After    prolonged 

I,  O.H.,  1 91 5,  II,  39-40. 


126  THE    DONKEYS 

discussion  the  corps  commanders  had  their  way,  the  attack 
was  cancelled — '.  .  .  it  was  generally  agreed  that  the  German 
defences  were  stronger  than  anticipated' ^ — and  Gough's 
plan  of  bringing  the  7th  Division  round  to  the  south  was 
adopted. 

The  losses  of  the  one  day's  fighting  that  was  the  'Battle'  of 
Aubers  Ridge  were  458  officers  and  11,161  men.  It  had  been 
a  disastrous  fifteen  hours  of  squandered  heroism,  unre- 
deemed by  the  faintest  glimmer  of  success. 

But,  in  fact,  more  than  heroism  had  been  squandered,  for 
the  divisions  broken  on  this  day,  like  those  at  Ypres  in  the 
weeks  before,  were  the  last  of  the  old  regular  British  Army, 
that  had  the  training  and  discipline  of  years  behind  them  and 
whose  musketry  and  'fifteen  rounds  rapid'  made  German 
observers  in  191 4  think  that  there  must  be  'a  machine-gun 
behind  every  tree'.  Thereafter  the  gaps  in  individual  units 
were  filled  first  by  brave  but  hardly  trained  volunteers,  the 
'New  Armies'  of  the  Somme;  and,  later,  by  the  conscripts 
whose  turn  was  to  come  at  Passchendaele. 

It  is  one  of  the  great  strategic  ironies  that  1915,  the  year 
of  opportunity  for  the  Western  Allies  while  so  many  German 
divisions  were  tied  down  in  Russia,  was  in  fact  used  by  them 
to  blunt  the  very  instrument  needed  for  victory.  It  marked, 
too,  a  final  ossification  of  tactical  thinking;  after  Aubers 
Ridge  surprise  was  abandoned.  'Weight  of  metal'  was 
regarded  as  all-important;  the  'war  of  attrition'  was  held  to 
be  the  answer.  In  theory  the  artillery  became  the  chief 
weapon  of  offence  and  the  infantry  the  moppers-up.  This  in 
turn  led  to  a  complete  neglect  of  infantry  tactics.  As  will  be 
seen,  even  at  the  time  of  the  Somme  ofifensive  over  a  year 
later,  the  infantry  were  still  being  directed  to  advance  in 
lines,  'dressing  from  the  left'  at  a  brisk  walk,  and  forbidden, 
under  pain  of  court  martial,  to  take  cover  in  any  'trench, 
hole,  crater  or  dug-out'. 

Prevailing  military  thought  was  summed  up  by  Robert- 
son:  'We  are  like  a  gambler  who   must   always    call   his 

I.  O.H.,  1 91 5,  II,  40. 


AUBERS    ridge:    THE    NORTHERN    ATTACK        127 

opponent's  bluff.  Whatever  chips  he  puts  down,  we  must 
put  down  more.'^ 

But  he  forbore  to  state  the  obvious,  that  at  cards  all  money 
thus  staked  comes  back  to  the  victor — in  war  lives  are  gone 
for  ever. 


I .  This  remark  of  Robertson,  and  the  substance  of  the  comment  thereto, 
which  I  have  paraphrased,  are  taken  from  Captain  Liddell  Hart's  personal 
file  on  World  War  I. 


9 

Repercussions  and  Recriminations 

Our  attack  has  failed,  and  failed  badly,  and  with  heavy 
casualties.  That  is  the  bald  and  most  unpleasant  fact. 

CHARTERis,  letters,  1 1  th  May  1 9 1 5 

BEHIND  the  lines,  at  General  Headquarters  of  the 
French  and  British  commands,  and  in  the  capitals, 
distance  magnified  the  echoes  of  defeat. 
The  French  offensive  had  not  fulfilled  the  promise  of  its 
opening  days  and  their  losses,  operating  on  a  longer  front, 
were  likewise  greater  in  proportion.  None  the  less  orthodox 
military  thinking  in  both  armies  professed  itself  convinced 
that  the  'attrition'  method  was  the  key  to  success.  'We  lost 
some  10,000  men  and  never  gained  a  yard,'  wrote  Wilson 
triumphantly  in  his  diary.  'Now  whose  plans  were  right, 
Foch's  or  Haig's?' 

But  the  French  themselves  had  doubts.  Poincare  tells  how 

'Colonel  Penelon  .  .  .  leaves  me  no  illusion  whatever  as 
to  the  Arras  operations,  which  have  utterly  failed.  The  thing 
is  over,  the  casualty  list  is  very  heavy,  and  we  are  not  going 
to  get  through.  In  consolation  I  am  told  that  the  German 
losses  are  very  much  greater'  [they  were,  in  fact,  less  than 
half]  . .  .  'but  this  can  be  very  little  better  than  guesswork.'^ 

On  the  day  that  the  oflfensive  opened  Castelnau  had  told 
him  that  he  did  not  think  that  any  very  important  result 
would  be  achieved,  and,  contrary  to  the  opinion  of  Joffre, 
thought  that  they  might  have  to  look  for  a  decision  in  some 

I.  Poincar6,  Au  Service  de  la  France,  Vol.  II  (translation  Sir  George  Arthur, 
P-  »37)- 

128 


REPERCUSSIONS    AND    RECRIMINATIONS  129 

Other  theatre  of  war,  Italy  or  the  Danube.  Ten  days  later 
Henry  Wilson  saw  Castelnau  and 

'.  .  .  found  him  very  much  opposed  to  attacks  like  this  at 
Arras,  which  cost  100,000  men  and  did  nothing  except 
shatter  four  Corps.  He  is  for  big  guns,  lots  of  ammunition, 
deep  entrenchments,  wait  for  the  English  to  appear,  stop 
all  attacks  till  some  chance  of  real  decision  and  so  on.'^ 

It  is  strange  to  find  such  hard-headed  sense  among  the 
senior  generals  of  that  period,  stranger  still  to  hear  such 
sentiments  from  the  lips  of  one  who,  before  the  war,  had 
been  regarded  as  the  'High  Priest  of  the  offensive'  and  whose 
influence  had  spread  deep  into  the  Army.  But  at  that  time 
Castelnau  held  no  fighting  command,  and  jealousy  of  Joflfre 
and  Foch  may  perhaps  have  helped  to  sharpen  his  logical 
perception.  The  junior  French  commanders  on  the  other 
hand  were  only  too  keenly  aware  of  the  hopelessness  of  the 
oflfensive  and,  unlike  their  British  colleagues,  were  more 
vocal  in  expression.  Early  in  June  Poincare  wrote  that 
'Everyone  is  complaining  about  Joffre,  and  especially  about 
his  entourage.'  Clemenceau  declared  that  'if  things  go  on  as 
they  are  doing,  there  will  be  a  revolt  of  the  Generals  against 
the  High  Command'.^ 

In  response  to  a  large  volume  of  letters  Poincare  visited 
the  Arras  front  in  July  where  he  found  ample  evidence  of  the 
rift  between  'brass  and  boots'.  The  Commander  of  the  9th 
Corps  besought  him:  'Pray,  Monsieur  le  President,  do  what 
you  can  to  put  a  stop  to  these  local  oflfensives.  The  instrument 
of  victory  is  being  broken  in  our  hands.'  All  the  other 
commanders,  with  little  variation,  voiced  the  same  opinion. 
But  '.  .  .  the  Army  Commander  by  no  means  agreed  with 
them.  His  view  was  that  if  the  troops  are  having  such  a  bad 
time  where  they  are,  they  should  be  pushed  on  up  to  the 
crest  of  the  ridge. '^ 

1.  Wilson,  Memoirs,  p.  233. 

2.  Liddell  Hart,  Foch,  pp.-  189-90. 

3.  Ibid. 


130  THE   DONKEYS 

In  conclusion  he  noted  that  'One  gets  the  impression  of 
profound  disagreement  between  the  man  who  sets  the  task 
and  the  subordinates  who  have  to  execute  it.' 

Unfortunately  for  French  and  Allied  strategy,  this  bout  of 
discontent  was  largely  dissipated  by  a  few  well-selected 
reforms  on  the  part  of  Joffre.  The  bribes  that  he  distributed 
ranged  from  eight  days'  leave  for  all  the  N.C.O.s  and  men 
engaged  in  the  Arras  offensive  to  a  reshuffle  of  the  higher 
commands  that  gave  him  a  new  Chief  of  Staff  and  Castelnau 
command  of  the  centre  group  of  armies.  At  the  same  time 
he  arranged  for  a  regular  sequence  of  conferences  between 
himself  and  the  other  army  commanders  'so  that  a  unanimous 
front  may  be  presented'  thereby  doing  away,  in  name  at 
least,  with  the  duumvirate  system  of  rule  that  had  prevailed 
under  himself  and  Foch.  The  power  of  promotion  as  a 
restorative  of  harmony  was  amply  demonstrated  at  the  first 
of  these  when  Castelnau  joined  with  the  others  in  condemn- 
ing the  'Eastern  heresy',  i.e.  the  theory  that  the  Allies  should 
stand  on  the  defensive  until  British  man-power  and 
munitions  had  reached  full  tide,  declaring  that  the  English 
'.  .  .  can  pronounce  at  their  ease,  having  no  invaded 
provinces  to  liberate'. 

All  the  same  Castelnau  still  seems  to  have  been  uneasy 
at  this  subordination  of  the  practical  to  the  sentimental. 
After  getting  back  from  Chantilly  he  said:  'At  present  we 
have  no  plan,  and  we  are  like  a  cockchafer  in  a  glass 
case;  we  keep  on  putting  our  heads  out  right  and  left 
haphazard.'^ 

The  agitated  condition  of  their  Allies  had  done  nothing 
to  soothe  the  nerves  and  susceptibilities  of  the  British 
commanders.  Joffre  was  continually  pressing  Sir  John 
French  to  keep  up  local  offensives  while  his  own  attack 
corps  were  recovering  their  breath,  and  there  were  some 
tricky  scenes: 

I.  Poincard,  Au  Service  de  la  France,  Vol.  II  (translation  Sir  George  Arthur), 
p.  147. 


Polished  boots:  left  to  right,  Joffre,  Poincare,  George  V,  Foch, 

Haig. 


f%^ 


..^ 


„w'^j(*»ie^ 


The  walking  wounded,  dazed  and  benumbed,  return  from 
the  terror  of  the  front-Hne  trenches. 


Looking  across  the  German  wire  to  'Tower  Bridge'  which  rises 
in  the  background.  A  riddled  and  abandoned  farmhouse  stands 

on  the  left. 


.%. 


!••    4  / 


'  m^i 


♦  *. 


'•— '    *h»^ 


iUt'      I 


%' 


,.*S«'**'**' 


REPERCUSSIONS    AND    RECRIMINATIONS  131 

'Joffre  got  very  excited  and  pointed  out  that  we  should  be 
doing  very  little  if  we  only  relieved  the  58th  Division,  and 
hinted  at  Government  action,  which  luckily  Sir  John  did 
not  quite  catch,  and  I  got  the  chance  of  interpreting  wrong; 
but  as  both  were  getting  hot  I  got  Sir  John  to  go  away, 
saying  he  would  send  an  answer  later. '^ 

Nor  were  feelings  any  more  tranquil  on  the  'Home  Front'. 
For  some  months  past  the  Conservative  Party  had  been 
chafing  with  eagerness  to  play  a  larger  part  in  the  direction 
of  the  war  and  the  long  succession  of  disappointments, 
the  fact  that  no  early  end  to  the  war  was  in  sight,  and,  now, 
the  fresh  spate  of  rumours  and  accusations  that  spread  with 
the  return  of  wounded  and  leave-men  after  the  Aubers 
battle — all  these  were  giving  rise  to  dangerous  political 
undercurrents.  The  British  commanders  could  not  but  be 
aware  of  these,  and  being  convinced,  naturally,  of  their  own 
indispensability,  took  steps  to  secure  their  position. 

Their  excuses  centred  round  those  that  had  finally  tipped 
the  scales  at  Haig's  morning  conference  of  corps  com- 
manders on  loth  May,  namely — shortage  of  ammunition. 
This  was,  of  course,  a  distortion  of  the  facts  for  it  was 
planning,  tactics  and  leadership  that  had  lost  the  battle  on 
the  first  day.  The  real  reason  for  halting  the  battle  was  that 
the  men  were  exhausted  and  had  already  suflfered  crippling 
casualties. 

'The  answer  to  any  such  excuse  from  a  general  is  that 
you  ought  not  to  enter  into  an  oflfensive  battle  unless  you  have 
enough  ammunition.  The  Commander  who  miscalculates  is 
seriously  to  blame. 

'I  well  remember  a  soldier  and  Member  of  Parliament  at 
G.H.Q^. — Captain  Stanley  Wilson,  m.p. — describing  to  me  in 
those  critical  weeks  with  great  prescience  exactly  what  form 
this  policy  of  offensive -defensive  would  assume.  "We  have 
failed,  we  have  lost  many  lives."  This  was  the  gist  of  the 

I.  Wilson,  Memoirs,  p.  227. 


132  THE    DONKEYS 

G.H.Q^.  case.  "There  may  be  a  popular  outcry.  Very  well, 
then  let  us  concentrate  it  quickly  on  the  home  authorities."  '^ 

In  pursuance  of  this  policy  French  sent  Captain  Guest  and 
his  military  secretary,  Brinsley  Fitzgerald,  to  London, 
armed  with  a  quantity  of  secret  information  on  the  supply 
situation.  These  two  talked  most  indiscreetly  to  leading 
members  of  the  Opposition  as  well  as  'with  any  other  M.P. 
who  could  be  got  to  listen  to  them'.  They  also  put  before 
Bonar  Law,  the  Conservative  leader,  and  Lloyd  George,  who 
was  the  principal  rival  to  Asquith  in  the  Liberal  Government, 
a  carefully  edited  mass  of  correspondence  on  the  subject  that 
had  passed  between  French's  H.Q^.  and  the  War  Office. 

Their  arguments  were  given  added  force  by  the  publica- 
tion in  The  Times  of  a  series  of  articles  exposing  the  shells 
'scandal' — whose  very  content  showed  that  they  owed  much 
to  official  sources  in  the  field — over  the  name  of  Colonel 
Repington,  that  paper's  military  correspondent.  Repington 
was  much  addicted  to  fashionable  dinner  parties — it  was  in 
this  milieu  that  he  had  first  made  the  acquaintance  of  Sir 
John — but  it  so  happened  that  at  that  time  he  was  in  France, 
'touring'  the  Western  Front  with  Lord  Brooke.  Haig,  who  was 
apprehensive  of  enquiring  journalists,  refused  to  see  them  and 
did  his  best  to  obstruct  all  the  reporters  working  on  the 
ist  Army  front  at  that  time,^  but  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  took  them  in  and  poured  out  his  grievances,  supporting 
these  with  a  mass  of  secret  data  and  correspondence.  (Evi- 
dently French  did  not  scruple  to  suppress,  or  Repington  to 
overlook,  the  despatch  preceding  the  offensive  in  which  the 
Commander-in-Chief  had  stated  that  supplies  were  'ade- 
quate'— or  his  earlier  decision  to  order  ammunition  in  the 
proportion  75  per  cent  shrapnel/25  per  cent  high  explosive, 
itself  a  most  serious  error  of  judgement  when  considered 
against  the  background  of  siege  warfare  which  prevailed  on 

1.  Lord  Beaverbrook,  Politicians  and  the  War,  Vol.  I,  p.  91. 

2.  On  2 1  St  May  Haig  wrote  to  C.G.S.  'recommending  that  no  newspaper 
correspondent  be  allowed  to  come  close  to  the  front  during  active  operations'. 
i.e.  the  duration  of  the  war.  (Haig,  Diaries,  p.  93.) 


REPERCUSSIONS    AND    RECRIMINATIONS  I33 

the  Western  Front.)  Sir  John  harped  on  the  ammunition 
shortage  and  made  the  most  of  the  opportunity  for  airing 
all  his  private  grievances  concerning  the  Secretary  of  State. 

He  could  not  have  selected  a  more  timely  occasion  or  a 
more  receptive  audience,  for  Repington  was  himself  keenly 
aware  of  Kitchener's  dislike  and  contempt  for  'Social 
Soldiers'  and  had  several  times  in  the  past  attempted,  at  the 
instigation  of  Henry  Wilson,  to  spread  gossip  in  London  to 
the  effect  that  Kitchener  was  'mad'  and  'unfit  to  command 
a  platoon'  and  so  forth.  Furthermore  Northcliffe,  Reping- 
ton's  employer,  had  just  decided,  as  he  confided  in  Lord 
Beaverbrook  one  afternoon  in  the  Ritz  Hotel,  'to  go  on 
attacking  Lord  Kitchener,  day  in,  day  out,  until  he  had 
driven  him  from  office'.^ 

Repington's  first  despatch  appeared  in  The  Times  of 
Friday,  14th  May,  and  gave  rise  to  a  major  political  sensa- 
tion. Then,  on  the  Saturday,  the  Government,  already 
tottery,  suffered  a  fresh  and  fatal  blow.  Lord  Fisher,  the 
First  Sea  Lord,  resigned,  having  first  written  an  anonymous 
letter  in  his  own  flamboyant  hand  to  the  leader  of  the 
Opposition,  stating  the  fact  of  his  resignation.  The  ostensible 
reason  for  his  action  was  'disagreements  over  the  situation  in 
the  Dardanelles'  but  it  was  well  known  to  be,  in  fact,  the 
climax  to  a  long  series  of  disputes  with  the  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty,  Winston  Churchill.  Churchill  was,  at  this  time 
(as  in  the  1930's),  'a  person  peculiarly  odious  to  the  Conser- 
vative party'. ^  Even  had  he  so  wished,  Bonar  Law  would  not 
have  been  able  to  restrain  his  rank  and  file  if  Churchill  had 
stayed  in  office  with  a  new  Board  of  Admiralty  beneath  him, 
and  all  other  considerations  pointed  to  this  being  an  ideal 
moment  for  the  Tories  to  force  their  way  into  the  Govern- 
ment. Accordingly  Bonar  Law  addressed  a  letter  to 
Asquith  informing  him  that  they  would  demand  an  early 

1.  Lord  Beaverbrook,  Politicians  and  the  War,  Vol.  I,  p.  95. 

2.  Charteris  wrote :  '.  .  .  I  have  never  had  much  beHef  in  Churchill.  He  is  so 
glib  and  his  judgements  seem  always  wrong.  He  has  always  the  perfect  explana- 
tion, like  a  child  with  the  inevitable  excuse  that  you  cannot  break  down,  but 
know  to  be  untrue.  (G.i/.Q,.,  p.  95.) 


134  "^^^    DONKEYS 

debate  on  the  conduct  of  the  war  unless  he  reconstructed  his 
government.  Asquith  yielded,  sacrificing  both  Churchill  and 
Haldane,  another  member  who  was  anathema  to  the  Tories, 
and  formed  his  new  Coalition  Government  on  igth  May.^ 

For  the  British  commanders  in  France  the  significance  of 
these  Cabinet  changes  were  twofold.  In  the  first  place,  public 
and  official  attention  had  been  effectively  diverted  from  the 
Aubers  debacle.  Scapegoats  had  been  found  and  assurances 
had  been  given  that  reforms  were  in  hand.  Second,  and  more 
important  in  its  long-term  consequences,  the  'Eastern' 
group  in  the  Cabinet  had  been  routed.  Of  the  two  men  with 
real  strategic  vision  at  present  directing  the  war  policy  of 
the  Empire  one,  Churchill,  had  been  dismissed;  while  the 
other.  Kitchener,  had  had  his  authority  restricted  by  Lloyd 
George's  appointment  as  Minister  of  Munitions  and  the 
elevation  to  a  separate  department  of  what  had  hitherto  been 
a  committee  subordinate  to  the  War  Office.  While  it  was  true 
that  public  feeling  did  not  allow  Northcliflfe  and  Repington 
to  pursue  their  victimization  of  Kitchener  in  the  Press,  his  in- 
fluence within  the  Cabinet  itself  had  been  sensibly  diminished. 

These  political  changes  virtually  sealed  the  fate  of  the 
Dardanelles  Expedition — short  of  some  spectacular  and 
sudden  military  victory  which  was  unlikely  to  occur  without 
further  quantities  of  men  and  supplies  being  diverted  to  that 
theatre.  And  it  became  plain  that  the  Government  must 
back  the  view  that  the  war  would  be  decided  on  the 
Western  Front  and,  accordingly,  to  pay  every  attention  to 
the  opinions  and  demands  of  those  in  command  there. 


I.  It  is  ironic  that  the  most  lucid  account  of  'The  Shells  scandal'  and 
its  political  repercussions  should  have  been  written  by  Lord  Beaverbrook 
(Politicians  and  the  War, Vol.  I,  Chaps.  VI,  VII,  and  VIII),  the  man  who  was  most 
responsible  for  seeing  that  an  identical  situation  did  not  recur  in  World  War 
II.  In  this  he  asserts  that  the  fall  of  the  Government  was  '.  .  .  produced 
solely  and  entirely  by  the  dissensions  at  the  Admiralty'.  This  may  be  true  as 
regards. the  direct  cause,  but,  equally,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  dissemina- 
tion of  'facts'  relating  to  the  scandal  played  a  significant  part  in  conditioning 
public  opinion  to  the  need  for  a  change  and  thus  of  dissuading  Asquith  from 
taking  up  the  challenge  and  attempting,  as  well  he  might  have,  to  fight  out  the 
issue  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons. 


REPERCUSSIONS    AND    RECRIMINATIONS  I35 

At  the  beginning  of  July  two  inter-Allied  conferences  were 
held,  to  soothe  such  differences  as  remained  after  the  defeat 
in  May  and  to  co-ordinate  plans  for  a  new  offensive.  The 
first  of  these,  a  purely  Anglo-French  affair,  was  held  at 
Calais  on  the  6th.  At  this  were  present  MM.  Millerand, 
Augagneur,  Delcasse  and  Viviani,  Mr.  Asquith,  Mr.  Balfour, 
Lord  Crewe  (who  was  acting  for  Sir  Edward  Grey)  and  Lord 
Kitchener,  as  well  as  Joffre  and  French. 

In  spite  of  this  no  record  of  the  conference  can  be  found, 
and  it  is  not  mentioned  in  the  French  Official  History. 
Poincare  in  his  Memoirs  merely  states  that  Millerand  told 
him  of  an  'interview',  adding  'a  subsequent  interview  took 
place  yesterday  at  Chantilly  at  which  an  agreement  was 
reached'.  Foch  does  not  mention  the  conference  in  his 
Memoirs. 

However,  Asquith  has  given  a  diagram  of  the  seating  at 
the  conference  table  in  his  Memories  and  Reflections^  although 
he  says  little  of  what  took  place  other  than  that '.  .  .  the  man 
who  came  best,  not  only  linguistically  but  altogether,  out  of 
the  whole  thing,  was  Lord  Kitchener'.  It  does  seem,  as  is 
discussed  in  the  following  chapter,  that  at  this  meeting 
Joffre  and  Kitchener  concluded  a  private  agreement,  so 
that  they  should  know  where  they  stood  on  the  following  day. 
At  all  events  there  was  complete  harmony  at  the  military 
conference  which  took  place  the  next  day  at  Chantilly  where 
'Sir  John  French  stated  that  he  was  fully  in  accord  with 
General  Joffre's  views  that  the  general  strategic  situation 
demanded  the  offensive,  and  pledged  himself  to  the  utmost 
of  his  means'. 

It  seems  that,  the  day  before,  there  had  occurred,  not  for 
the  last  time  in  the  war,  one  of  those  mutually  agreed  but 
almost  unconscious  deceptions  of  the  politicians  by  the 
generals;  for,  in  World  Crisis,  Churchill  wrote: 

'.  .  .  the  representatives  of  the  Cabinet  had  argued  against  a 
further  Anglo-French  offensive  in  the  West  in  1915,  and 
proposed  offensive-defensive  qperations,  and  the  French  had 


136  THE    DONKEYS 

agreed;  General  Jo ffre  had  agreed.  The  agreement  was  open 
and  formal  (but  not  recorded) .  No  sooner  had  General  Joffre 
left  the  conference  than,  notwithstanding  these  agreements, 
he  had  already  resumed  the  development  of  his  plans  for  a 
great  attack.' 

Whatever  the  means  the  result  was  the  same  and,  with 
their  governments  acquiescent  and  the  memory  of  the  spring 
defeats  receding,  the  spirits  of  the  commanders  in  the  field 
rose  again. 

As  often  as  not  this  seems  to  have  happened  beyond  the 
point  of  self-deception.  Sir  Edward  Spears  conveyed  the 
atmosphere  at  headquarters:^ 

'General  Rawlinson's  bouts  of  optimism  were  apt  to  play 
ducks  and  drakes  with  the  rigid  economy  of  effort  imposed 
on  his  army  by  the  niggardly  means  at  his  disposal.  One 
day  he  came  to  see  Franchet  D'Esperey  and  to  my  horror 
spoke  as  if  he  had  unlimited  artillery  with  which  to  support 
the  French  attack.  He  sailed  in,  a  stick  under  one  arm, 
waving  the  other,  in  a  splendid  humour  due  no  doubt  to  the 
fact  that  he  was  going  on  a  few  days'  leave  which  he  was 
going  to  spend  hunting  the  wild  boar  with  the  Duke  of 
Westminster  near  Arcachon.  His  promises  were  quite  un- 
related to  what  was  possible.  I  spent  some  difficult  hours, 
tables  of  guns  and  munitions  in  hand,  dispelling  the  hopes 
Rawly  had  so  lightly  conjured  up.' 

All  the  same  the  resources  at  the  disposal  of  the  British 
commanders  increased  significantly  throughout  the  two 
months  following  the  conference.  In  all,  eighteen  new 
divisions  were  sent  out  and  grouped  into  an  additional  four 
corps.  These  were  the  first  of  the  Kitchener  'New  Armies', 
imperfectly  trained  it  was  true,  but  filled  with  enthusiasm 
.  .  .  they  were  the  very  first  of  the  volunteers  of  the  winter 
of  1914. 

One  wonders  what  they  would  have  felt  had  they  been 

I.  Spears,  Prelude  to  Victory,  p.  88. 


REPERCUSSIONS    AND    RECRIMINATIONS  I37 

able  to  read  an  entry,  in  Kitchener's  own  hand,  on  a  War 
Office  memorandum  at  this  time: 

'The  French  have  an  almost  unlimited  supply  of  ammu- 
nition and  fourteen  divisions  in  reserve,  so  if  they  cannot  get 
through  we  may  take  it  as  proved  that  the  lines  cannot  be 
forced.' 


lO 

Loos:  the  Plan 

Joffre  and  Sir  John  told  me  in  November  that  they 
were  going  to  push  the  Germans  back  over  the 
frontier;  they  gave  me  the  same  assurances  in  Decem- 
ber, March,  and  May.  What  have  they  done?  The 
attacks  are  very  costly  and  end  in  nothing. 

KITCHENER,  memo  to  Robertson, 
iSthJuly  1915 

WITHIN  a  month  of  the  inter- Allied  conference 
General  Joffre,  undeterred  by  his  hard  experiences 
of  the  spring,  had  approved  further  but  no  less 
grandiose  plans.  The  ideal,  he  felt,  was  for  two  great  con- 
vergent blows  from  the  sectors  Arras-Lens  and  Rheims. 

These  fronts  were  in  fact  too  widely  separated  for  direct 
tactical  interaction  of  the  offensives,  being  served  by 
different  railheads  and  systems,  but  Joffre  ignored  this  and 
believed,  as  he  expressed  it  in  a  memorandum  to  Sir  John 
French,  that: 

'A  successful  break-through  both  in  Champagne  and  in 
Artois  was  to  be  followed  immediately  by  a  general  offensive 
of  all  the  French  and  British  armies  on  the  Western  Front 
which  will  compel  the  Germans  to  retreat  beyond  the 
Meuse  and  possibly  end  the  war.' 

French  expressed  his  general  agreement.  He  had  to  tread 
carefully  with  Joffre,  he  thought,  for  Henry  Wilson  was 
constantly  at  his  elbow  with  fresh  evidence  of  Kitchener's 
plans  to  replace  him.  There  seems  little  doubt  that  French 
really  did  believe  that  Kitchener  had  proposed  his  replace- 
ment by  Sir  Ian  Hamilton  at  the  Dunkirk  conference  the 

138 


loos:  the  plan  139 

previous  November  and  that  he  had  been  saved  only  by  the 
support  of  Joffre  and  Poincare.  Should  he  forfeit  this  for 
some  reason,  he  would  feel  less  secure. 

But  Haig,  whose  ist  Army  was  to  conduct  the  operation, 
had  other  ideas.  The  last  thing  that  he  wanted  was  to  be 
implicated  in  a  sort  of  half-cock  offensive  with  the  French 
pulling  all  the  strings.  He  made  a  personal  reconnaissance  of 
the  area  and  found  the  ground  'for  the  most  part  bare  and 
open  .  .  .  and  so  swept  by  rifle-  and  machine-gun  fire  from 
the  German  trenches  and  the  numerous  fortified  villages 
immediately  behind  them  that  a  rapid  advance  would  be 
impossible'. 

Glumly  Sir  John  listened  to  his  Army  Commander. 
Although,  less  than  a  week  before  Haig's  visit,  when  Foch 
and  D'Urbal  had  taken  him  on  a  tour  of  the  front,  he  had 
recorded  in  his  diary,  '.  .  .  the  ground  which  extends  for 
some  distance  to  the  west  of  our  trench  line  affords  many 
advantages  to  an  attacker',  he  now  wrote  that  'Our  future 
plans  are  causing  me  a  good  deal  of  anxious  thought',  and 
that  '.  .  .  after  a  careful  examination  of  the  ground  at  Loos 
and  Lens  and  a  consideration  of  Haig's  report  I  am  doubtful 
of  the  success  of  an  attack  against  these  places,  which  I  had 
arranged  with  the  French  to  make'.^ 

Joffre,  however,  would  not  tolerate  any  objections. 
Abruptly  he  told  the  British  commanders  that  'Your  attack 
will  find  particularly  favourable  ground  between  Loos  and 
La  Bassee.' 

As  Sir  James  Edmonds  drily  commented:  'He  did  not 
enter  into  any  explanation  of  the  reasons  why  he  considered 
the  ground  favourable.' 

A  conference  with  Foch  was  arranged  for  the  27th  July  at 
Frevent,  and  at  this  Foch  '.  .  .  maintained  it  to  be  of  vital 
importance  that,  regardless  of  the  ground  and  strength  of 
the  enemy's  defences,  the  British  First  Army  should  make 
its  attack  south  of  the  canal  in  co-operation  with  the  French'. 
This  completely  upset  Sir  John,  who  had  also  to  cope  with 

I.    E.  G.  French,  The  Life  of  Field  Marshal  Sir  John  French. 


140  THE    DONKEYS 

Henry  Wilson,  daily  at  his  elbow  with  his  assertions  of  the 
superior  French  military  judgement. 

Haig,  however,  remained  adamant,  while  French  shilly- 
shallied between  the  two,  changing  his  mind  from  day  to 
day;  stroking  his  moustaches  in  perplexity  as  his  Rolls 
tourer  bumped  and  lurched  over  the  roads  between  Doullens, 
Frevent  and  St.  Omer.  There  were  four  such  conferences 
during  June  and  July  and  the  date  of  the  offensive  was 
successively  postponed  from  'the  first  week  in  August'  to 
'the  end  of  August',  to  'the  8th  of  September',  to  'the  15th 
September',  and,  finally,  to  'the  23rd  of  September'. 

At  intervals  Jo ffre  himself  was  called  in  to  deliver  oracular 
pronouncement  on  the  world-shattering  importance  of  the 
operations  planned.  Both  he  and  Foch  gradually  abandoned 
any  pretence  that  the  locale  was  favourable  and  were  taking 
their  stand  on  the  ground  that  'a  fierce  blow'  was  vital  'to 
the  honour  and  prospects  of  the  Allied  cause'. 

During  this  period  Intelligence  reports  began  to  come  in 
with  disquieting  regularity  of  the  energy  with  which  the 
Germans  were  strengthening  their  defences.  It  was  becoming 
plain  that  they,  at  least,  knew  what  was  coming.  They  had 
perfect  observation  of  the  whole  front  of  the  assault:  in  the 
north  from  Fosse  8,  a  vast  heap  of  slag  and  shale  deposit 
from  the  mine  workings  that  dominated  the  area  and  was 
virtually  indestructible;  in  the  south  from  the  Loos  pylons,  a 
tall  lattice-like  structure  of  iron  and  steel  that  stood  at  the 
pit-heads  outside  Loos  village.  (The  British  artillery  had  been 
trying  for  months  to  destroy  this  erection,  known  to  the 
troops  as  'Tower  Bridge'  on  account  of  the  similarity  in 
outline,  but  without  success.)^ 

The  general  plan  of  the  offensive  definitely  subordinated 
the  surprise  of  the  enemy  to  the  methodical  destruction  of 
his  defences.  None  the  less  it  was  disquieting  that  the  French 
Ambassador  in  Rome  should  report  that  its  delivery  was  a 
subject  of  general  gossip. 

I.  After  they  had  evacuated  them,  however,  the  Germans,  with  their  heavier 
guns,  brought  the  pylons  down  in  two  days.    • 


loos:   the  plan  141 

After  some  further  period  the  unfortunate  Sir  John  French 
hit  upon  a  compromise  solution:  might  it  not  be  possible  to 
co-operate  with  Foch's  attack  'by  threat,  and  implication', 
i.e.  without  sending  the  infantry  over  the  top  at  all?  A  'storm 
of  artillery  fire' — he  used  this  term  freely,  ignoring  the  fact  that 
one  of  his  and  Haig's  strongest  objections  to  launching  the 
attack  was  shortage  of  heavy  guns — 'a  storm  of  artillery  fire 
laid  down  for  a  period  of  days  on  the  German  positions  would 
harass  and  destroy  their  forward  elements,  and  lead  them  to 
believe  that  a  heavy  attack  might  follow  at  any  moment'.^ 

The  catch  in  this,  from  an  ethical  point  of  view,  was  that 
French  could  not  quite  decide  when,  or  how,  to  explain  to 
Foch,  with  whom  he  was  co-operating,  that  he  was  not 
going  to  attack  with  infantry.  Perhaps  he  hoped  that  he 
would  not  have  to  explain  at  all.  His  papers  show  scant 
attention  to  this  problem.  At  all  events  it  was  not  to  arise, 
or  not  in  that  form,  for  Henry  Wilson  got  wind  of  the 
scheme,  and  promptly  communicated  it  to  Pelle,  the  French 
Chief  of  Staff.2  Joffre  then  sent  a  strong  letter  to  Sir  John 
saying  that  he  expected  him  to  attack  with  all  his  forces,  and 
wished  him  to  settle  details  with  Foch.  French,  still  eager  in 
evasion,  had  a  reply  drafted  that '. . .  he  would  assist  according 
to  ammunition'.  Wilson  at  once  rushed  to  see  Foch,  who  'when 
I  told  him  the  story  was  quite  open  about  the  deplorable 
effect  if  we  don't  fight — Sir  John  had  better  walk  warily'.^ 

Once  again  Joffre  was  appealed  to.  By  now  he  was  in  a 
state  of  high  indignation.  The  insubordination,  for  it  seemed 
nothing  less,  of  the  British  generals  was  threatening  the  whole 
structure  of  his  offensive  scheme.  This  was  to  be  the  attack 
that  would  finish  the  Boche  in  the  west.  Was  it  to  be 
prejudiced  by  the  timidity  of  these  inexperienced  British? 
It  could  not,  it  must  not,  be  thwarted.  Perhaps  already  he 
was  feeling  the  first  chill  puffs  of  draught  from  the  wind  of 
popular  indignation  that  was  to  blow  him  out  of  office  a  year 

1.  E.  G.  French,  The  Life  of  Field  Marshal  Sir  John  French. 

2.  Liddell  Hart,  Foch,  p.  197. 

3.  Wilson,  Memoirs,  p.  245. 


142  THE    DONKEYS 

later.  He  appealed  to  Kitchener.  Alarmingly  he  hinted  that 
he,  Joffre,  was  being  held  responsible  for  securing  the  'full 
and  proper'  co-operation  of  the  British,  and  that  should  he 
fail  he  would  be  displaced  and  the  politicians  would  conclude 
a  separate  peace. 

Confronted  by  this  threat  Kitchener  travelled  once  again 
to  France  and  visited  French  at  his  headquarters.  'K'  was 
alarmed  by  Joffre's  threat;  he  was  still  suffering  from  reaction 
to  the  disappointment  at  the  Dardanelles.  By  now  it  was 
Augustj  the  'black  August'  of  191 5;  daily  there  were  reports 
of  fresh  disasters  on  the  Russian  front;  he  was  tired  and  he 
felt  his  own  reputation  waning.  And,  added  to  all  these 
factors,  there  is  considerable  circumstantial  evidence  of  a 
secret  agreement  contracted  some  months  before,  between 
himself  and  Joffre. 

At  the  Calais  conference  of  Gth-yth  July,  Kitchener,  who 
had  accompanied  Asquith,  Balfour  and  Crewe  in  a  strong 
delegation  that  was  to  settle  Allied  differences,  had  scored  a 
great  personal  success  in  bringing  the  French  round  to  the 
British  point  of  view.  The  Cabinet  were  duly  gratified  at  his 
achievements,  but  they  were  ignorant  of  the  background. 
The  facts  of  this  are  as  follows: 

In  the  early  morning  of  7th  July,  Kitchener  took  a  stroll 
with  Joffre,  followed  by  a  long  private  conversation  in  the 
saloon  of  the  special  train  which  had  drawn  the  French 
ministers  to  Calais.  Kitchener  would  never  reveal  any  details 
of  that  conversation;  but  the  main  conference,  which  was 
resumed  later  that  morning,  ended  in  a  complete  agreement 
within  a  remarkably  short  time. 

Joffre  accepted,  with  apparent  geniality,  the  decision  to 
stand  upon  the  defensive  on  the  Western  Front.  But  he  took 
no  notice  of  it  whatever,  and  he  continued  to  work  secretly 
and  uninterruptedly  on  his  plans  for  a  huge-scale  autumn 
offensive  in  Champagne.  He  may  have  explained  to 
Kitchener  that  the  psychology  of  the  French  people  made  a 
defensive  policy  dangerous;  and  it  is  certain  that  Kitchener 
knew  what  Joffre  was  planning.  He  probably  hoped  that 


loos:  the  plan  143 

Hamilton  would  break  through  the  Dardanelles  during 
August;  at  any  rate  the  Cabinet  reinforced  Hamilton's  force 
and  he  was  given  this  last  chance  to  succeed  there. 

But  by  the  i8th  August  Kitchener  was  back  in  France 
with  the  knowledge  that  Hamilton  had  failed  and  that  there 
was  nothing  left  but  to  honour  his  compact  with  Joffre.  On 
the  following  day  he  went  to  ist  Army  H.Q.  and,  after 
addressing  the  corps  commanders  in  the  garden  there,  he 
asked  Haig  to  see  him  privately. 

'After  washing  his  hands.  Lord  K.  came  into  my  writing- 
room  upstairs,  saying  he  had  been  anxious  to  have  a  few 
minutes'  talk  with  me.  The  Russians,  he  said,  had  been 
severely  handled,  and  it  was  doubtful  how  much  longer  their 
army  could  withstand  the  German  blows.  Up  to  the  present, 
he  had  favoured  a  poHcy  of  active  defence  in  France  until 
such  times  as  all  our  forces  were  ready  to  strike.  The  situation 
which  had  arisen  in  Russia  had  caused  him  to  modify  these 
views.  He  now  felt  that  the  AUies  must  act  vigorously  in 
order  to  take  some  of  the  pressure  off  Russia,  if  possible.  He 
had  heard,  when  with  the  French,  that  Sir  John  French  did 
not  mean  to  co-operate  to  the  utmost  of  his  power  when  the 
French  attacked  in  September.  He  [Lord  K.]  had  noticed 
that  the  French  were  anxiously  watching  the  British  on  their 
left.  And  he  had  decided  that  we  must  act  with  all  our  energy, 
and  do  our  utmost  to  help  the  French,  even  though,  by  so  doing,  we 
suffered  very  heavy  losses  indeed.''^  (The  itahcs  are  Haig's.) 

I.  Winston  Churchill  throws  an  interesting  light  on  Kitchener's  state  of 
mind  at  this  point  in  World  Crisis,  p.  463: 

'.  .  .  To  avoid  unnecessary  circulation  of  secret  documents,  it  had  been 
arranged  that  the  members  of  the  War  Committee  wishing  to  read  the  daily 
War  Office  telegrams  could  do  so  each  morning  at  the  War  Office  in  Lord 
Kitchener's  ante-room.  .  .  .  On  the  morning  of  August  21st,  I  was  thus  engaged 
when  the  private  secretary  informed  me  that  Lord  Kitchener  .  .  .  wished  to  see 
me  ...  He  looked  at  me  sideways  with  a  very  odd  expression  on  his  face.  I  saw 
he  had  some  disclosure  of  importance  to  make,  and  waited.  After  appreciable 
hesitation  he  told  me  that  he  had  agreed  with  the  French  to  a  great  offensive 
in  France.  I  said  at  once  that  there  was  no  chance  of  success.  He  said  that  the 
scale  would  restore  everything,  including  of  course  the  Dardanelles.  He  had 
an  air  of  suppressed  excitement  like  a  man  who  has  taken  a  great  decision  of 
terrible  uncertamty,  and  is  about  to  put  it  into  execution.' 


144  THE    DONKEYS 

It  may  be  remarked  that  the  reluctance  of  the  British 
higher  command  to  commit  their  infantry  in  hopeless  or 
excessively  costly  operations  stands  in  marked  contrast  to 
their  attitude  up  to  and  following  this  date,  and,  in  par- 
ticular, to  the  profligacy  with  which  lives  were  later 
squandered  on  the  Somme  and  at  Passchendaele. 

The  autumn  offensives  of  19 15  came  at  a  transitional  stage 
in  the  development  of  the  British  armies  in  France.  Hitherto 
the  battles  had  been  of  an  experimental  nature;  from  a 
strategic  aspect  they  had  been — in  spite  of  French's 
optimistic  telegrams — holding  actions.  Under  these  con- 
ditions there  was  no  room  for  indecision  or  'faint-hearted- 
ness'.  Commanders  who  wished  to  remain  in  office  for  the 
greater  struggles  that  were  to  follow  were  not  slow  in  taking 
to  heart  the  lesson  of  Smith-Dorrien's  dismissal;  there  was  to 
be  no  squeamishness  over  'losses'.  But  now,  after  a  year  of 
war,  a  change  was  coming  over  the  scene.  Soon  Kitchener's 
'New  Armies'  would  be  taking  the  field.  The  preponderance 
of  British  fighting  strength  over  that  of  France,  in  quality 
if  not  yet  in  numbers,  would  be  manifest.  The  prospect  of 
honour  and  fame  on  a  great  scale  were  heavy  in  the  air.  To 
excitable  minds  there  was  even  the  possibility  that  the  post 
of  supreme  commander,  of  Generalissimo,  might  ultimately 
be  offered  to  an  Englishman.  How  cruel  to  be  robbed  of 
such  a  prospect  by  involvement  in  a  fiasco,  at  the  bidding  of 
an  ally  whose  own  position  would  shortly  become  in  fact,  if 
not  in  name,  subordinate.  To  Haig,  and  to  French,  after 
Haig  had  explained  the  position  to  him,  all  these  dangers 
were  very  apparent.  His  own  personal  position  was  not  yet 
adequately  consolidated.  'A  new  broom',  'a  fresh  start',  'cut 
away  the  dead  wood'  .  .  .  these  and  many  other  spectres  that 
haunt  the  leaders  of  a  society,  based  on  popular  government 
and  a  popular  Press,  troubled  them.  If  the  attack  should 
prove  a  failure,  too  obvious  a  failure  .  .  . 

But  with  Kitchener's  intervention  the  burden  was  lifted 
from  their  shoulders.  The  responsibility  was  his,  and  that  of 
Joffre.  Moreover  Haig  was  in  touch  with  the  King.  As  he 


loos:  the  plan  145 

looked  about  him  he  must  have  seen  many  who  could  be 
jettisoned  if  seas  became  too  rough. 

And  now  that  the  decision  had  been  taken,  Haig's  own 
mind  began  to  warm  to  the  idea.  He  had  built  for  himself  an 
enormous  wooden  tower.  From  the  balcony  at  its  summit  he 
could  look  out  over  the  malevolent  grey-black  country  with 
its  slag-heaps,  crassiers,  and  little  clusters  of  miners'  cottages, 
roofless  from  the  perpetual  shellfire  but  housing  in  their 
cellars  the  German  machine-gun  crews.  Through  his  field- 
glasses  he  could  discern  the  coils  of  barbed  wire — in  places 
thirty  or  forty  feet  across — that  sprawled,  like  great  poisonous 
centipedes,  among  the  craters. 

When  an  M.P.,  Mr.  Shirley  Benn,  who  was  on  a  visit  as 
a  member  of  Lloyd  George's  ammunition  committee,  asked 
him  how  men  could  penetrate  this  wire  Haig  did  not  answer, 
but  an  aide  told  him  that  they  would  be  cut  by  artillery 
fire.  (Earlier  another  member  of  the  commission,  a  Mr. 
McMaster,  had  asked  Haig  whether  they  still  used  'the 
round  cannon-ball'.) 

The  scheme  that  appealed  to  Haig  at  the  present  time  was 
to  attack  behind  a  'wave'  of  chlorine  gas,  projected  from 
cylinders.  He  had  attended,  earlier,  a  convincing  demon- 
stration of  the  possibilities  of  this  technique  and  it  had, 
among  others,  the  advantage  that  it  allowed  the  widening  of 
the  front  from  a  two-  to  a  six-division  assault. 

There  was  a  danger  in  this  plan,  however.  To  be  sure  of 
an  effective  'wave'  of  gas,  the  engineers  needed  the  wind  in 
a  certain  quarter — west-south-west — and  for  it  to  be  of  at 
least  moderate  strength.  Failing  this  the  gas  would  simply 
hang  about  their  own  trenches,  poisoning  the  troops  crowded 
there  waiting  for  the  assault,  or  at  best  drift  over  towards  the 
enemy  lines  in  irregular  gusts  and  patches,  disrupting  the 
uniformity  and  cohesion  of  the  attack. 

As  some  insurance  against  this  Haig  had  an  alternative, 
'inner'  plan  for  an  attack  on  a  two-division  front  if  unfavour- 
able weather  should  cause  the  larger  scheme  to  founder  at 
the  last  moment.   But,   again,  this  was  already  seriously 


146  THE    DONKEYS 

compromised  by  the  fact  that  he  had  spread  his  guns,  in 
themselves  hardly  adequate  to  support  an  offensive  on  this 
scale,  over  the  larger  front,  so  that  the  concentrated  attack 
would  be  starting  with  the  fatal  handicap  of  dispersed 
supporting  fire. 

Other  factors,  on  a  broader  strategic  level,  were  working 
against  the  success  of  the  ist  Army's  attack.  Notwithstanding 
his  earlier  encouragement  Joffre  had  privately  become 
convinced,  in  the  few  weeks  immediately  preceding  the  date 
fixed  for  the  opening  of  the  offensive,  that  the  ground  in  the 
Loos-Lens  area  was  most  unfavourable  to  the  attacker,  and 
had  been  shifting  the  main  emphasis  of  his  own  armies  to 
the  southern  stroke  in  Champagne.  However,  on  14th  Sep- 
tember he  gave  a  final  explanation  of  his  plans  at  a  conference 
at  Chantilly,  attended  by  the  three  army  group  commanders 
and  by  French.  At  this  meeting  Joffre  declared  that  the 
time  was  'particularly  favourable  for  a  general  offensive', 
and  expressed  his  'confidence  in  a  great  and  possibly  com- 
plete victory'.  The  simultaneous  attacks  were  'a  certain 
guarantee  of  success'. 

ist  Army  Headquarters,  too,  were  by  now  infected  with 
optimism.  Those  who  had  doubts  wisely  held  their  peace,  for 
'disloyalty'  or  'lack  of  offensive  spirit'  did  not  go  unnoticed 
or  unpunished. 

It  was  generally  felt  that  the  gas  would  work  wonders — 
a  view  which  ignored  the  fact  that  although  gas  will  poison 
men,  regardless  of  nationality,  only  high  explosives  will 
destroy  wire. 


II 
Loos:  the  Assault 

Foch:  Est-ce-que  les  hommes  sont  en  bon  etat? 
Haig:  They  never  were  in  better  heart,  and  are  longing 
for  a  fight. 

At  tea,  1 2th  September  19 15  (Haig,  Diaries,  p.  103) 

ATA  quarter  past  five  on  the  morning  of  25th  September, 
Z_\   after  an  uneasy  night  spent  in  constant  consultation 
-/    X.  with  Captain  Gold,  the  R.F.C.  meteorological  officer, 
Haig  gave  the  orders  to  'Garry  on'. 

Ponderously,  for  he  had  suffered  a  mild  attack  of  asthma 
the  previous  evening,  he  climbed  up  the  stairs  of  his  wooden 
tower,  his  staff  at  his  heels.  As  the  sound  of  the  bombardment, 
which  had  been  unimpressive  even  at  its  height,  abated, 
they  peered  across  No-Man's-Land  at  the  flickering  bracelet 
of  fire  caused  by  the  exploding  shells  as  they  crept  slowly 
from  the  leading  to  the  secondary  German  positions.  So  still 
did  the  air  seem  that,  as  the  minutes  passed,  all  became 
infected  by  the  fear  that  the  gas  would  simply  hang  about 
the  British  trenches.  After  a  quarter  of  an  hour  Haig  made 
one  of  his  staff  telephone  to  ist  Corps  to  enquire  whether  it 
was  possible  to  stop  the  arrangements  for  the  attack.  The 
answer  came  that  'General  Gough  did  not  consider  it  prac- 
ticable to  get  word  in  time  to  the  front  trenches'. 

Nor  were  they  the  only  ones  in  doubt  about  the  wisdom  of 
releasing  the  gas;  in  Home's  2nd  Division  the  officer  in 
charge  of  the  gas  on  the  2nd  Brigade  front  declined  to 
assume  the  responsibility  of  turning  on  the  cylinders.  On  this 
being  reported  to  Home  he  ordered  that  'the  programme 

147 


148  THE    DONKEYS 

must  be  carried  out  whatever  the  conditions'.  The  reluctance 
of  the  corps  and  divisional  commanders  to  sanction  any  last- 
minute  alteration  in  the  plan  is  all  the  harder  to  understand 
when  one  discovers  the  very  complex  and  thorough  arrange- 
ments that  had  been  made  to  ensure  a  last-minute  cancella- 
tion if  this  should  prove  necessary.  Between  the  higher 
formations  three  routes  were  arranged,  by  telephone, 
telegraph  and  despatch-riders.  To  pass  the  order  on  to  the 
gas  units,  officers,  attended  by  runners,  were  stationed  at 
special  points.  Each  of  these  officers  had  ready  twenty 
typewritten  slips,  'Attack  postponed,  taps  not  to  be  turned  on 
until  further  notice'.^ 

However,  in  spite  of  definitely  unfavourable  conditions 
on  several  parts  of  the  attack  front,  these  precautionary 
measures  were  nowhere  implemented  and,  at  nine  minutes 
to  six,  the  taps  were  opened. 


There  was  certainly  no  shortage  of  gas.  Until  zero-hour  at 
6.30  over  150  tons  were  discharged  from  5,243  cylinders 
concealed  in  sandbagged  bays  in  the  fire-trench.  As  the 
greenish-yellow  chlorine  came  hissing  out  it  slowly  built  up 
into  a  cloud  from  thirty  to  fifty  feet  high  that  billowed 
sluggishly  forwards  into  No-Man's-Land.  Overhead  the 
German  distress  Verys  curved  red  and  white  in  the  lightening 
sky  and  their  forward  machine-guns  in  the  sap-heads  began 
to  chatter,  firing  short  warning  bursts  at  alternating 
elevations. 

As  the  sun  rose  the  wind  did  not  increase.  There  can  have 
been  few  among  the  infantry,  packed  like  animals  along  the 
narrow  slippery  communication  trenches,  sweating  in  their 
improvised  talc  and  flannel  'respirators',  who  did  not  feel 
a  sense  of  foreboding  as  they  waited  for  the  subaltern's 
whistle.  Far  from  being  'in  a  panic'  the  Germans  had 
already  begun  to  open  bursts  of  deterrent  fire  and  the  bullets 

I.  O.H.,  1915,  II,  171. 


loos:  the  assault  149 

were  slapping  into  the  sandbag  parados  just  above  the  heads 
of  the  waiting  assault  troops.  Soon  mortar-fire  was  added  to 
this  and,  fijrther  back,  the  enemy  field  artillery  began  to 
come  to  life. 

In  front  of  Loos  and  further  north  in  the  region  of  the 
Hohenzollern  Redoubt  the  gas  cloud  carried  fairly  well  over 
the  German  trenches  and  was  to  exert  a  marked  influence  on 
the  advance  of  the  47th,  15th  and  gth  Divisions,  only  falling 
short  of  complete  success  because  it  moved  too  slowly  and 
there  was  not  enough  of  it.  But  at  the  southern  end  of  the 
front  the  vapour,  after  thirty-five  minutes'  flow,  was  still 
short  of  the  enemy  parapet.  And  in  the  centre,  on  both  sides 
of  the  Vermelles-Hulluch  road,  it  drifted  in  the  right 
direction  at  first;  but  towards  the  end  of  the  discharge  began 
to  float  back  and  into  the  British  trenches,  giving  rise,  in  the 
words  of  the  Official  History^  to  'great  inconvenience  and 
some  loss'.  In  other  places,  particularly  on  the  2nd  Division 
front,  the  discharge  had  to  be  discontinued  at  once  and  no 
gas  reached  the  German  trenches. 

There  was  some  surprise  eflfect,  but  it  quickly  wore  off. 
The  official  narrative  of  the  German  6th  Army  reads:  'In 
general  the  physical  effect  on  the  men  was  trifling.' 

The  drizzle  of  rain  had  cleared,  leaving  a  thin  ground 
mist,  when,  at  6.30  a.m.,  the  infantry  clambered  out  of  the 
trenches,  and  in  the  fog  of  gas  and  smoke,  which  made  it 
difficult  to  pick  up  landmarks,  began  the  advance  across 
No-Man's-Land.  They  were  in  fighting  dress — without 
greatcoat  and  pack,  but  cumbered  with  bombs,  picks  and 
shovels,  and  extra  rations.  All  ranks  wore  the  original 
pattern  smoke  helmet — a  flannel  bag — over  their  heads,  but 
with  the  front  rolled  up,  and  had  a  second  helmet  in  their 
haversacks.  With  the  front  down  they  could  hardly  see 
through  the  talc-covered  eye-holes,  and  with  the  front  up 
the  rain  caused  the  chemicals  in  the  flannel  to  soak  out  and 
irritate  the  eyes. 

Although  casualties  were  heavy  at  every  point  these  varied 
from  mere  decimation  to  whole  battalions  being  virtually 


150  THE    DONKEYS 

obliterated,  as  did  their  achievements  vary  from  the 
substantial  and  heroic  to  the  utterly  negative.  If  the  course 
of  the  battle,  and  the  causes  of  the  ghastly  massacre  of  the 
following  day,  are  to  be  properly  understood,  it  is  best  to 
follow  briefly  the  fortunes  of  each  of  ist  Army's  six  divisions, 
starting  at  the  southern  end  of  the  attack  front  opposite  Loos 
village  itself. 

The  47th  Division,  at  the  extreme  southern  end,  broke 
cleanly  through  the  German  first  line — the  men  of  i/i8th 
London  Regiment  dribbled  a  football  in  front  of  them  as 
they  crossed  No-Man's-Land — at  a  cost  of  some  1,200 
casualties,  or  roughly  15  per  cent,  in  the  first  hour.  Unfor- 
tunately, however,  the  right  and  centre  of  the  division  halted 
at  the  German  rear  support  trench,  which  they  began  to 
organize  for  defence,  instead  of  pressing  forward  towards 
Cite  St.  Pierre.  In  the  meantime  the  London  Irish,  on  the 
left  of  the  division,  had  entered  the  southern  outskirts  of 
Loos  village  and  the  i/20th  London,  passing  through  the 
Irish,  carried  all  before  them,  taking  in  quick  succession  the 
cemetery,  the  'garden  city',  arriving  still  full  of  fight,  though 
now  sadly  depleted,  at  the  heavily  defended  'Chalk  Pit 
copse'  by  8.30  a.m.  An  hour  later  they  had  fought  their  way 
into  the  pit  itself  but  their  numbers  were  too  few  to  evict  the 
Germans  dug  in  round  the  copse  and  they  suffered  severely 
under  enfilade  fire  from  this  quarter  while  their  comrades 
looked  on  from  the  old  German  support  trench  some  800 
yards  away. 

On  the  left  of  the  47th  was  the  15th  Division,  whose 
assault  brigades  were  made  up  entirely  of  Highland  regi- 
ments. At  zero-hour  their  assault  was  seriously  impeded  by 
the  obstinacy  of  the  gas  cloud  which  simply  hung  about  the 
congested  trenches.  Many  of  the  men  lingered  in  the  hope 
that  it  would  disperse  or  drift  away  towards  the  German 
lines  and  there  was  much  difficult  to-and-fro  traffic  in  the 
crowded  fire-trench  as  platoons  made  their  way  to  places 
clear  of  cylinder  bays.  The  situation  was  saved,  however,  by 
the   extraordinary   heroism   of  Piper   D.    Laidlaw   of  7th 


loos:  the  assault  151 

K.O.S.B.,  who  rallied  the  men  by  marching  up  and  down 
the  parapet  playing  'Scotland  the  Brave'  on  the  pipes, 
regardless  of  gas  and  enemy  fire.  He  continued  to  play  even 
after  being  wounded  and  was  awarded  the  V.C.  Once  the 
assault  got  going  the  Highlanders  pressed  it  with  great 
vigour  and  complete  disregard  for  losses.  It  took  them  less 
than  an  hour  to  penetrate  both  German  trench  lines  in 
front  of  Loos  village  and  by  8  a.m.  they  were  enthusiastically 
digging  the  garrison  out  of  the  cellars  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet. 

Unfortunately  the  enemy's  fire,  and  the  prospect  of  his 
rout  in  the  village  itself,  had  drawn  all  the  Scottish  regiments 
into  the  maze  of  trenches  and  connected  cellars  there,  to 
the  detriment  of  the  broad  plan  of  advance.  Thus  the  front 
of  the  divisional  attack  narrowed  from  1,500  to  less  than  600 
yards  and  the  7th  K.O.S.B.  on  the  extreme  left,  who  had 
achieved  the  deepest  penetration  of  all,  reaching  the  line  of 
the  Lens  road  by  9.15,  were  left  in  isolation,  suffering  inter- 
mittent shellfire  from  their  own  artillery.  In  Loos  itself  the 
Highland  regiments  were  by  now  thoroughly  intermingled. 
A  very  large  proportion  of  their  officers  had  been  killed  and 
many  of  the  subalterns  remaining  did  not  like  to  assume  the 
responsibility  of  giving  orders,  believing  that  their  superiors 
were  still  alive  but  perhaps  lost  in  the  confusion.  The  men 
themselves — 'a  magnificent  Border  rabble'^ — believed  that 
it  was  all  over  bar  the  shouting  and,  by  half  past  eight,  were 
streaming  out  of  the  eastern  end  of  the  village  in  great  spirits 
and  starting  the  ascent  of  Hill  70  in  a  somewhat  leisurely 
manner.  They  had,  in  the  words  of  a  battalion  diarist,  'the 
appearance  of  a  bank  holiday  crowd'.  Furthermore,  as  they 
advanced  up  the  bare  slopes  of  Hill  70,  the  German  garrison 
in  the  redoubt  there,  which  was  at  that  time  no  more  than  a 
few  maintenance  men  and  engineers,  took  to  their  heels.  The 
sight  of  their  enemy  running  away  was  too  much  for  the 
Scots  and  with  a  renewed  cheer  they  pressed  forward  and 
over  the  crest. 

I.  R.H.  Black  Watch,  191 4-1 9,  Vol.  II. 


152  THE    DONKEYS 

But  once  they  were  on  the  downward  slope  the  troops  of 
the  1 5th  Division  were  in  full  view  of  the  Germans  waiting 
behind  the  wire  of  their  very  strong  second  line,  which  had 
been  built  outside  the  range  of  the  eighteen-pounders.  And 
after  they  had  travelled  some  half  distance  down  the  bare 
slope,  fire  was  opened  by  the  enemy.  The  Scots  were  com- 
pletely pinned  down.  With  only  a  few  inadequate  entrench- 
ing tools  they  could  make  little  impression  on  the  hard 
chalky  soil.  Some  of  them  tried  repeatedly  to  rush  the  wire. 
Others  attempted  to  make  their  way  back  over  the  crest. 
But  of  the  nine  hundred  or  so  who  had  advanced  from  the 
redoubt  scarcely  one  survived. 

During  the  day  the  Germans  were  rapidly  reinforced  and 
by  the  afternoon  they  were  counter-attacking  in  sufficient 
strength  to  recapture  the  redoubt.  The  remnants  of  the  46th 
Brigade,  now  reduced  to  a  handful,  were  rallied  by  Second 
Lieutenant  Johnstone,^  R.E.,  and  made  five  separate 
attempts  to  retake  it  but  were  beaten  off  in  each  case. 

The  casualties  of  the  division  in  this  one  day's  fighting 
were  nearly  5,400 — or  about  60  per  cent — and  some  bat- 
talions, in  particular  the  9th  Black  Watch,  8th  Seaforth, 
yth  Cameron,  7th  K.O.S.B.  and  ist  Highland  Light 
Infantry,  were  virtually  annihilated.  All  the  same  the  15th 
and  47th  Divisions  had,  though  checked  now  and  sadly 
depleted,  made  substantial  gains  in  the  first  few  hours.  But 
further  north,  for  the  ist  and  7th  Divisions,  the  situation  was 
very  different. 

The  attack  plan  of  the  ist  Division  was,  from  the  outset,  of 
doubtful  promise.  On  their  right,  or  southern,  flank  No- 
Man's-Land  was  very  wide.  The  opposing  trench  lines  ran 
along  the  slopes  of  the  Grenay  Ridge,  unobserved  by  each 
other  and  separated  by  the  blind  hump  of  the  Col  de  Grenay 
on  which  stood  'Lone  Tree',  the  enormous  flowering  cherry 
that  had  blossomed  that  May.^  In  consequence  artillery 
observation   both   for   cutting   the   wire    and   demolishing 

1.  Lieutenant  Johnstone  was  awarded  a  V.C.  for  his  part  on  that  day.  He 
was  killed  at  Delville  Wood,  191 6. 

2.  After  the  blossoms  had  fallen  a  young  lieutenant  in  the  Seaforths  had  led 


loos:   the  assault  153 

advanced  saps  had  been  very  difficult,  as  also  patrolling  by 
night  to  investigate  results.  It  had,  accordingly,  been  decided 
to  leave  this  sector  out  altogether  and  to  concentrate  the 
attack  along  the  axis  of  the  Vermelles-Hulluch  road  in  the 
north,  with  the  ist  Brigade  to  lead  the  attack  and  the  3rd 
Brigade  in  close  reserve  behind  it. 

At  a  later  stage,  however,  as  the  plan  worked  its  way  up  to 
Corps  and  Army  level,  amendments  were  made.  In  par- 
ticular it  was  ordered  that  the  Division's  2nd  Brigade  should 
after  all  make  an  attack  to  the  south  of  Lone  Tree.  These 
instructions  had  the  effect  of  weakening  divisional  concen- 
tration along  the  main  axis  of  advance  and,  as  the  two 
brigades  were  from  the  outset  directed  to  advance  on 
diverging  lines,  threatened  to  aggravate  this  condition  later. 
(To  'fill'  this  gap  a  composite  force — known  as  'Green's 
Force'  from  Lieutenant-Colonel  E.  W.  Green,  its  commander 
— was  created  by  taking  away  a  battalion  from  each  of  the 
I  St  and  2nd  Brigade,  and  putting  them  back  into  reserve.) 
In  particular,  the  orders  meant  that  the  2nd  Brigade  was 
doomed,  in  effect,  to  be  'expended',  for  it  had  been  given  a 
task  that  was  almost  impossible. 

And,  as  it  turned  out,  the  attack  was  a  complete  failure. 
The  men  were  late  in  jumping  off,  as  they  suffered  partic- 
ularly from  their  own  gas  in  this  sector,  and  were  badly 
enfiladed  by  machine-guns  in  two  sap-heads  that  the 
Germans  had  run  forward  into  No-Man's-Land.  By  the 
time  the  leading  battalions^  reached  the  wire  they  had 
suffered  over  400  casualties  including  their  commanding 
officer,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Sanderson.  The  wire  itself  was 
some  ten  yards  across,  firmly  staked  low  in  the  ground,  and 

a  night  patrol  there  and,  climbing  to  the  upper  branches,  had  attempted  to 
fasten  a  Union  Jack  to  the  trunk.  Unfortunately,  although  successful  in  this, 
he  had  been  caught  in  a  flare  on  the  way  down  and  machine-gunned.  For 
several  days  his  body  had  hung  there.  Two  attempts  to  recover  it  on  subsequent 
nights  failed  and  finally  divisional  artillery  were  directed  on  to  the  tree  in  an 
attempt  to  bury  him.  As  the  days  wore  on  all  the  branches  had  been  blown  off 
but  the  gims  never  scored  a  direct  hit  and  the  stump  remained,  standing  some 
fifteen  feet  high.  It  flowered  again  in  1920. 
I.  2nd  K.R.R.C.  ist  Loyal  North  Lanes. 


154  THE    DONKEYS 

virtually  intact.  Thus,  within  an  hour  after  zero,  the  rem- 
nants of  the  2nd  Brigade  found  themselves  pinned  down  in 
hopeless  disconnected  positions  among  the  craters  and 
depressions  immediately  in  front  of  the  main  German 
position,  their  numbers  being  steadily  reduced  by  short- 
range  artillery  fire  and  mortaring.  From  time  to  time  little 
groups  would  attempt  to  clear  a  way  through  the  obstacle 
with  wire-cutters,  but  all  were  shot.  By  7.45  the  smoke 
and  mist  had  cleared,  for  the  British  artillery  fire  had  long 
since  passed  on  to  more  distant  objectives,  and  the  prospects 
of  an  assault  became  still  more  hopeless. 

At  this  point  the  Brigade  may  be  said  to  have  disinte- 
grated. 'A  few  officers,'  the  Official  History  records,  'neverthe- 
less rallied  their  men  for  another  effort;  but  the  attackers  had 
lost  heart  and,  individually  and  by  groups,  began  to  struggle 
or  crawl  back  to  their  original  trenches.' 

The  setback  here,  and  the  influence  that  it  exercised  on 
the  mind  of  the  British  commanders,  was  to  have  very  serious 
consequences  on  the  operations  further  north. 


Initially  the  attack  of  the  ist  Brigade,  opposite  Hulluch, 
had  prospered,  although  once  again  at  tremendous  cost. 

There  were  two  small  copses  in  No-Man's-Land  in  this 
sector,  known  as  Bois  Carre  and  La  Haie.  For  many  months 
the  artillery  of  both  sides  had  passed  over  them  reducing 
them  to  little  clusters  of  shattered  scrub  and  ist  Army 
Intelligence  had  classified  them  as  'unoccupied'.  But  in  the 
weeks  immediately  preceding  the  offensive  the  Germans  had 
run  saps  out  and  into  the  undergrowth  here.  The  pre- 
paratory bombardment  began  along  a  line  further  in 
advance,  and  the  machine-gun  nests  there  escaped  un- 
touched. Their  crews  might  have  been  incapacitated  by  the 
gas  if  things  had  gone  right  but,  as  it  was,  the  cloud  pro- 
gressed so  slowly  that  the  three  lines  of  British  infantry  were 
all  deployed,  fifty  paces  between  each,  and  advancing  in  full 


loos:   the  assault  155 

view  of  the  enemy,  before  the  Germans  smelt  the  first  whiffs 
of  vapour.  Thus  fire  from  these  positions  caused  very  heavy 
casualties  before  the  attackers  had  even  got  to  grips  with  the 
enemy. 

On  the  right  of  the  Brigade  front  the  Gloucesters  were  the 
assaulting  force.  With  extraordinary  courage  they  forced 
their  way  into  three  successive  German  positions,  but  by 
the  time  they  had  penetrated  the  German  support  line  and 
reached  the  maze  of  communication  trenches  that  lay  behind 
they  were,  in  the  words  of  the  Official  History,  'destroyed  as  a 
battalion'.  The  fighting  was  desperately  exhausting  and 
there  was  the  utmost  difficulty  in  keeping  a  proper  cohesion 
to  the  attack.  By  the  time  that  they  arrived  at  the  German 
wire  the  attacking  infantry  had,  in  almost  every  case,  lost  a 
proportion  of  their  officers  and  N.C.O.s  so  that  many 
sections  were  without  proper  instruction.  The  barrier  itself 
was  seldom  penetrable  along  its  entire  length  and  platoons 
and  companies  would  become  badly  intermingled  and  the 
confusion  more  serious  as  they  searched  for  and  passed 
through  such  gaps  as  existed.  Once  in  the  German  lines  it 
became  even  harder  for  those  in  command  to  keep  a  full 
control  of  their  men.  The  enemy  system  was  very  intricate 
in  this  sector  and  the  trenches,  eight  feet  deep  with  a  raised 
fire-step  on  their  western  side,  turned  back  and  forth  every 
eighteen  feet  or  so  in  a  series  of  orderly,  buttressed,  right 
angles.  At  intervals  steps  would  lead  down  under  the  parados 
to  the  dug-outs  where  little  groups  of  unharmed  Germans 
lurked  ready  to  emerge  with  grenades  and  machine-guns 
after  the  first  attacking  wave  had  passed  over,  or  where, 
more  often,  lay  numbers  of  shell-shocked  and  badly  wounded 
defenders  suffocating  from  the  gas  that  lingered  there,  inert 
and  deadly. 

In  this  evil-smelling  maze  the  British  infantry  became  still 
further  dispersed,  and  it  was  only  with  great  difficulty  that 
they  could  be  rallied  and  induced  to  clamber  out  over  the 
parados  and  attack,  once  again  over  open  fire-swept  ground, 
the  German  support  trenches  that  lay  some  eighty  yards  in 


156  THE    DONKEYS 

the  rear.  None  the  less,  within  half  an  hour  of  first  entering 
the  trench,  the  subalterns  of  the  Gloucesters  managed  to 
mount  a  second  attack  on  the  German  positions  beyond. 
This,  too,  was  successful,  though  at  a  sad  price.  As  the  men 
advanced  across  the  broken,  cratered  earth,  whole  platoons 
would  be  reduced  to  mere  handfuls  of  individuals  as  the 
German  machine-gunners  scythed  into  them  again  and 
again.  But  at  the  last  moment  their  extraordinary  courage 
broke  the  spirit  of  the  defenders  who  turned  and  fled  down 
the  communication  trenches  to  Hulluch,  leaving  their  guns 
silent  and  smoking  on  the  parapet  and  the  British  to  cover 
the  last  fifty  feet  unmolested.  By  now,  though,  the  loth 
Gloucestershire  existed  in  name  only;  less  than  sixty,  of  all 
ranks,  survived  the  first  two  hours  of  the  assault. 

On  the  left  of  the  Gloucesters  the  attack  fared  as  well,  and 
was  less  extravagant  in  life.  It  had  been  rehearsed  for  weeks 
before  by  the  Berkshires — the  leading  battalion — against 
replicas  of  the  German  trench  system  constructed  behind  the 
lines  from  aerial  photos.  The  result  of  this  thorough  training 
was  a  clean  break-through  to  'Gun  Trench'  by  8  a.m. — 
a  penetration  of  threequarters  of  a  mile.  This  was  the 
cleanest  break  on  the  whole  front  of  the  offensive,  and  that 
most  urgently  requiring  exploitation.  Here  on  'Gun  Trench', 
a  shallow,  wandering  communication  trench  that  connected 
a  series  of  mortar  pits,  but  was  of  little  defensive  significance, 
the  Berkshires  halted  while  the  reserve  battalion,  the 
Cameron  Highlanders,  came  up.  Through  the  smoke  the 
poplar  trees  along  the  Lens-La  Bassee  road  could  be  seen. 
Immediately  in  front  of  them  the  firing  had  abated.  It  must 
have  seemed  that  they  were  nearly  through. 

On  their  arrival  the  Camerons  continued  the  advance  at 
a  good  pace  and  by  nine  o'clock  their  forward  elements  had 
actually  entered  the  village  of  Hulluch  by  progressing  up 
Alley  4,  a  long  'arterial'  communication  trench  that  ran 
from  the  outskirts  of  the  village  across  the  northern  part  of 
the  Loos  Valley  to  the  gun  positions  that  had  lain  immedi- 
ately behind.  The  German  troops  in  the  forward  positions, 


loos:  the  assault  157 

never  numerous,  had  been  killed  or  wounded — there  were 
many  gassed  and  lighdy  wounded  infantry  lying  on  the  floor 
of  Alley  4  as  the  Camerons  picked  their  way  along — and  the 
remainder  had  withdrawn,  in  considerable  confusion, 
through  the  village  and  well  behind  the  'Second  Position'  for 
which,  in  spite  of  its  natural  strength,  there  were  not  enough 
men  at  that  time. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  Camerons  found  themselves  passing 
through  'gates'  in  the  German  wire,  which  the  defenders  in 
their  haste  had  omitted  to  close,  and  heard  their  footsteps 
ringing  in  the  deserted  streets  undisturbed  by  anything  more 
lethal  than  an  occasional  shell  from  their  own  artillery,  that 
was  meant  to  be  'bombarding'  the  village.  At  the  far,  or 
eastern,  end  two  enemy  machine-guns  and  some  infantry 
discouraged  too  close  a  follow-up  without  reinforcement  but 
even  they,  in  the  words  of  the  Company  report  sent  back 
by  the  Camerons  to  ist  Brigade  at  9.10  a.m.,^  'appear  to  be 
retiring'. 


Here  then,  three  hours  after  the  start  of  the  assault,  was  the 
critical  point  on  the  Loos  front.  For  this  small  mixed  force  of 
the  I  St  Division — the  Berkshires  and  the  Camerons,  and  the 
remnants  of  the  Gloucesters — were  astride  the  German 
'Second  Position'  at  its  most  vulnerable  point — that  is,  where 
it  was  closest  to  the  original  front  line — with  the  choice  of 
rolling  it  up  to  the  north  or  the  south,  depending  upon  the 
course  of  the  battle  in  those  areas. 

It  was  now  essential  to  make  sure  that  this  spearhead  could 
be  adequately,  and  promptly,  reinforced.  Immediately 
available  were  the  reserve  battalions  of  the  ist  and  2nd 
Brigade  (Black  Watch  and  2nd  Royal  Sussex)  and,  less  than 
an  hour  away.  Colonel  Green's  force  and  the  3rd  Brigade  in 
its  entirety — a  total  of  some  6,500  men  of  whom  none  had  yet 
seen  action  that  day.  Such  numbers  were  more  than 
adequate  to  force  a  clean  break  through  the  confused  and 

I.  O.H.,  1915,  II,  213. 


1^8  THE    DONKEYS 

battered  German  elements  that  held  on  to  the  eastern  end 
of  Hulluch  village,  and  open  a  way,  at  last,  for  the  cavalry 
that  stood  patiently  among  the  copse  and  scrub  on  the  far 
side  of  the  Grenay  Ridge. 

But  speed  was  essential.  With  every  minute  that  passed  the 
German  defenders  had  time  to  recover  their  composure;  the 
reinforcements  that  had  been  directed  there  as  early  as  the 
previous  evening  began  to  arrive;  the  guns  were  manhandled 
into  their  new  emplacements;  the  infantry  were  assembled, 
given  their  orders,  shown  their  field  of  fire. 

For  the  attackers,  this  of  all  times  was  not  one  to  worry 
about  the  flanks.  Although,  in  fact,  the  extraordinary 
heroism  of  the  attacking  infantry  had  more  or  less  secured 
these  at  every  point  except  on  the  2nd  Brigade  front  on  Lone 
Tree  Ridge — which,  anyway,  it  had  originally  been  planned 
to  omit  from  the  attack  plan  on  account  of  its  strength.  But  it 
was,  most  unfortunately,  this  very  position  with  which  the 
I  St  Division  Commander,  Major-General  A.  E.  Holland,  was 
preoccupied.  It  was  incomprehensible  to  him  that  British 
infantry  should  be  stopped  dead,  as  the  2nd  Brigade  had 
been.  He  knew  from  Intelligence  reports  that  the  force 
opposing  them  must  be  a  small  one.  It  was  now,  furthermore, 
cut  off  from  any  prospect  of  help  from  either  Loos  (by  the 
15th  Division's  advance)  or  from  Hulluch  (by  his  own  ist 
Brigade).  Another  attack  would  surely  bring  about  its 
surrender  and  the  ist  Division's  front  would  be  'clean'.  With 
this  in  mind  the  two  supporting  battalions,  instead  of  being 
directed  to  reinforce  the  ist  Brigade,  were  ordered  up  with 
instructions  to  clear  the  German  position  on  Lone  Tree 
Ridge  and  'press  on'. 

As  might  have  been  foretold  by  anyone  inspecting  the 
situation  on  the  spot,  this  second  attack,  made  without  any 
pretence  of  artillery  support,  in  broad  daylight,  with  no 
protection  from  smoke  or  gas,  was  cut  to  pieces.^  More 
serious  was  the  fact  that,  on  the  assumption  that  it  would  be 

I .  The  gallantry  with  which  it  was  pressed  can  be  judged  from  the  fact  that 
three  V.C.s  were  won  on  this  short  front  during  that  same  afternoon. 


loos:   the  assault  159 

successful,  Green's  force  had  been  ordered  forward  to  fulfil 
their  originally  conceived — but  now  quite  meaningless — 
role. 

This  had  two  results.  In  the  first  place  the  men  opposite 
Hulluch  village  were  deprived  of  the  prospect  of  immediate 
tactical  reinforcement  from  the  2nd  Brigade  reserve  and, 
secondly,  they  saw  the  only  substantial  force  (other  than 
divisional  reserve)  that  could  have  rendered  them  decisive 
assistance  diverted  to  an  objective  that  was  militarily  quite 
futile. 

As  Green's  force  set  off  it  found  that  it,  too,  was  under  very 
heavy  fire  after  breasting  Lone  Tree  Ridge,  owing  to  the 
failure  of  the  latest  attack  by  the  2nd  Brigade  reserve. 
Unable  to  use  the  communication  trenches,  which  were 
filled  with  gassed  and  wounded  men  going  in  the  opposite 
direction,  both  battalions  were  compelled  to  approach  over 
open  country  under  intense  fire  from  a  quarter  which  they 
had  been  told  had  already  been  successfully  attacked.  Soon 
they  began  to  come  up  with  the  remnants  of  the  2nd 
Brigade  and  they,  also,  found  themselves  pinned  down  in  the 
long  grass  in  front  of  the  German  wire,  unable  to  go  forward 
or  retire. 

In  the  meantime  precious  hours  were  slipping  past  for  the 
ist  Brigade,  as  the  troops  that  it  needed  so  badly  for  rein- 
forcement were  thrown  away  in  frontal  attacks  directed 
against  an  enemy  position  that  had  already  been  outflanked. 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Graeme,  in  command  of  the  ist  Cameron 
Highlanders,  could  hear  intense  firing  well  to  his  rear,  as  the 
successive  2nd  Brigade  attacks  went  in.  He  realized  the 
possibilities  of  an  advance  down  the  axis  of  the  Lens  road  to 
outflank  the  enemy  instead  of  repeatedly  assaulting  this 
front,  and  sent  a  succession  of  messages  urging  this  course 
as  well  as  that  of  occupying  and  consolidating  Hulluch.  But 
without  reinforcement  it  would  obviously  be  dangerous  to 
further  disperse  his  small  mixed  force  and  so  they  held  on 
anxiously  to  the  straggling  cobweb  formed  by  captured 
German  gun-pits  and  such  improvised  trenches  that  the 


l6o  THE    DONKEYS 

exhausted  infantry  had  scratched  in  the  hard  chalk  since 
their  arrival. 

Opposite  them,  the  first  of  the  German  reserves  were 
already  beginning  to  arrive  and  move  into  the  defensive  belt 
that  stretched  away  to  the  north  and  south,  empty  and 
undamaged.  On  their  side,  too,  there  was  considerable 
confusion;  the  26th  Regiment,  ordered  up  from  Pont  a 
Vendin,  reported  at  midday:  'There  appear  to  be  no  German 
troops  ahead  on  a  front  of  about  three  miles,  and  the  forward 
batteries  have  all  been  over-run.  How  far  the  enemy  has 
advanced  is  not  known.  The  battalion  will  advance  till  it 
meets  the  enemy  and  be  prepared  for  any  eventuality.'^ 
At  intervals  the  men  of  the  ist  Brigade  would,  from  their 
advanced  position,  be  presented  with  splendid  targets  as  the 
enemy  infantry,  all  unknowing,  would  march  up  in  close 
order.  At  one  moment  the  Camerons  opened  fire  on  a 
detachment  estimated  at  over  300  that  was  proceeding 
down  the  road  between  Hulluch  and  Benifontaine,  with 
great  effect.  But  with  each  bout  of  firing  it  was  plain  that  the 
enemy  was  becoming  more  numerous  and  the  British 
ammunition  less  plentiful.  The  men  were  short  of  water, 
also,  and  gradually,  as  the  hours  slipped  past  without  relief 
or  contact  with  the  units  on  their  flanks,  an  ominous  sense  of 
isolation  began  to  envelop  them. 

There  were  now  only  two  units  left  on  the  divisional  front 
that  were  available  as  reinforcement.  These  were  the 
Brigade's  own  reserve  battalion,  the  ist  Black  Watch,  and 
the  divisional  reserve  of  three  battalions  in  the  3rd  Brigade. 
If  these  forces  had  been  sent  up  immediately  their  combined 
strength  ought  still  to  have  been  sufficient  to  'prop  open'  the 
breach  in  the  German  'Second  Position'  at  least  for  the  twelve 
hours  or  so  that  must  elapse  before  the  Army  Reserve,  the 
nth  Corps,  could  arrive  on  the  scene. 

At  this  point  in  the  battle  the  situation  for  Brigadier- 
General  Holland  was,  the  Official  History  tactfully  records, 
*full  of  difficulty'.  However,  in  spite  of  the  open  breaches  to 

1 .   1 1  th  Division,  War  Diary. 


t^  V 


With  swirling  kilts  and  bayonets  ready,  the  Highlanders  go 

over  the  top. 


Looking  south  down  the  front  German  trenches  on  Lone 
Tree  Ridge. 


'^2^ 


w-'^M''  fe  ■ 


■^XJ^ 


German  soldiers  wiring  their  'Second  Position,'  The  Lens  road 
is  in  the  background. 


loos:  the  assault  i6i 

the  north  and  south  of  the  German  position,  he  decided 
against  any  outflanking  movement  and  ordered  yet  another 
frontal  attack,  committing  the  whole  of  the  3rd  Brigade  and 
with  it  the  last  hope  for  any  substantial  help  for  the  men  in 
Hulluch.  These  orders  arrived  two  hours  late,  owing  to  the 
loss  of  three  runners  in  No-Man's-Land,  and  Colonel  Green 
read  'with  horror'  the  clear  instructions  to  put  in  one 
battalion  on  either  side  of  Lone  Tree,  to  attack  once  again 
over  this  stretch  of  ground  where  the  corpses  were  so  thick 
and  the.  groaning  and  calling  for  stretcher-bearers  so  insistent 
that  the  sound  was  'like  the  cattle  market  at  Devizes'. 

Although  he  realized,  as  did  everyone  on  the  spot,  the  ease 
with  which  the  German  position  could  be  outflanked,  the 
orders  were  quite  definite  and,  in  view  of  the  delays  that  had 
already  taken  place,  there  was  no  time  to  refer  the  question 
back  to  General  Holland.  So,  at  one  o'clock,  the  two  leading 
battalions  (London  Scottish  and  i/gth  King's)  were  sent 
over  the  top,  the  majority  of  them  to  certain  death,  for 

'.  .  .  the  approach  of  another  attack  did  not  have  the 
expected  effect  on  the  resisting  power  of  the  Germans. 
Before  the  advancing  lines  had  reached  the  wire,  still  intact, 
they  were  greeted  with  a  hail  of  bullets  at  close  range. 
Every  attempt  to  get  into  the  enemy  trenches  was  in  vain, 
the  men  being  shot  as  they  endeavoured  to  cut  a  way 
through  the  wire.'^ 

The  situation  was  aggravated  by  the  fact  that,  owing  to  the 
sparsity  of  troops  to  the  north,  and  their  forward  situation, 
the  Germans  on  the  2nd  Brigade  front  were  all  the  time 
gradually  working  their  way  forward  and  northward  along 
the  trench  line  that  the  Berkshires  and  Gloucesters  had  passed 
over  earlier  in  the  morning.  By  midday  they  had  even  got  a 
machine-gun  back  into  position  in  the  Bois  Carre,  which  had 
been  left  unguarded  in  spite  of  the  profusion  of  British  troops 
in  that  area,  and  this  had  the  effect  of  drawing  off"  the  ist 

I.  O.H.,  1915,  II,  217. 


l62  THE    DONKEYS 

Black  Watch — the  last  available  unit  that  could  have  rein- 
forced the  I  St  Brigade  at  Hulluch — who  were  instructed  to 
dig  in  and  seal  off  the  old  German  line  at  the  junction  of 
the  ist  and  2nd  Brigade  fronts. 

Thus,  by  the  early  afternoon,  there  was  a  state  of  deadlock 
along  the  whole  of  the  i  st  Division  front.  The  offensive  had 
lost  all  momentum;  the  men  were  exhausted,  without 
reserves,  had  suffered  fearful  casualties  and  the  strength  of 
the  Germans  opposite  them  was  increasing  hourly. 

At  four  o'clock  the  German  force  that  had  held  up  the 
2nd  Brigade,  and  all  but  destroyed  it  and  Green's  force, 
surrendered.  But  this  was  for  reasons  quite  unconnected  with 
the  succession  of  frontal  attacks  to  which  they  had  been 
subjected  during  the  morning.  For  the  Germans  had  been 
taken  at  last — and  quite  accidentally — in  the  rear  by  a 
small  group  of  the  2nd  Welch  from  the  3rd  Brigade  that  had 
been  driven  northwards  by  the  fierceness  of  the  fire  and, 
finding  themselves  more  or  less  lost  in  the  wide  shelving 
expanse  of  the  Loos  Valley,  had  worked  their  way  down  and 
back  towards  the  sound  of  battle  along  the  Germans'  own 
communication  trenches,  taking  the  defenders  by  surprise. 

By  now,  though,  it  was  too  late,  for  almost  at  the  same 
moment  a  German  counter-attack  was  driving  the  remnants 
of  the  I  St  Brigade  out  of  Hulluch  and,  although  it  was  not 
pressed  in  sufficient  strength  to  compel  a  withdrawal  further 
than  the  line  of  the  Lens  road,  its  success  did  mean  that  the 
enemy  'Second  Position'  had  now  been  restored  in  its 
entirety. 

As  this  last  short  engagement  died  down  the  noise  of  battle 
abated.  Leaden  clouds,  heavy  with  the  rain  that  was  to  fall 
that  night,  darkened  the  Loos  Valley  as  the  remnants  of  the 
I  St  Division  trudged  their  way  forward,  unmolested  now, 
their  backs  to  a  No-Man's-Land  of  hideous  memory.  Only 
the  howitzers,  eight  miles  in  the  rear,  kept  up  their  rumbling 
fire  as  the  first  big  raindrops  broke  on  the  packs  and  helmets 
of  exhausted  infantry. 


12 

Loos:  the  Second  Day 

The  machine-gun  is  a  much  over-rated  weapon  and 
two  per  battalion  is  more  than  sufficient. 

HAiG,  in  a  minute  to  the 
War  Council,  14th  April  1915 

BEHIND  the  assaulting  troops  was  the  newly  formed 
nth  Corps  consisting  of  the  21st  and  2/th  Divisions/ 
'  the  first  of  Kitchener's  volunteer  'New  Armies',  who 
had  only  arrived  from  England  a  fortnight  previously.  It  was 
to  this  force,  under  General  Haking  (promoted  to  corps 
commander  following  the  'aggressive  spirit'  he  had  shown  at 
Aubers  Ridge) ,  that  Haig,  now  desperately  short  of  troops, 
turned  his  eye. 

They  had  spent  the  three  nights  prior  to  the  battle  moving 
up  towards  the  line  from  their  concentration  area  west  of 
St.  Omer  and  were  in  no  condition  to  face  immediate  action. 
Moreover  they  were  the  only  units  in  reserve  behind  the 
1st  Army  front  and  Sir  John  French  did  not  wish  to  see 
them  used  in  the  offensive.  Nevertheless,  as  a  result  of  Haig's 
urgent  requests,  the  21st  and  24th  were  finally  placed  at  his 
disposal. 

Whether  French  intended  them  simply  to  consolidate  the 
ground  gained,  serving  as  replacements  for  the  enormous 
losses  that  had  been  suffered  on  the  25th,  or  whether  they 
were  to  be  used  as  an  instrument  with  which  to  renew  the 
offensive,  is  not  clear.  The  real  intentions  of  the  two  com- 
manders have  been  obscured  by  the  bitter  controversy  and 

I .  In  the  1 1  th  Corps  there  was  also  the  reorganized  Guards  Division  but  it 
was  situated  further  back  and  separate  from  the  21st  and  24th  Divisions. 

163 


164  THE    DONKEYS 

recrimination  that  followed  on  the  fate  of  the  two  divisions. 
But  there  is  no  doubt  that  Haig  and  French  diverged  at  this 
point.  Haig  saw  his  offensive  already  stalled.  Unclear  orders, 
fumbling  at  brigade  and  divisional  level,  and  the  enormous 
casualties  that  had  followed  thereon  had  seriously  impaired 
the  balance  and  condition  of  the  attacking  forces.  The  most 
that  Haig  could  hope  for  was  that  the  Germans  were  in 
similar  plight.  Perhaps  he  felt  that  another  'punch',  thrown 
quickly,  might  still  give  him  a  chance  to  let  loose  his  horses. 
The  thought  seems  to  have  occurred  to  him  that  with  these 
troops  their  very  'freshness'  might  be  an  advantage;  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  ignorance  they  v/ould  tear  their  way  through 
the  German  line.  Of  them  he  wrote  that  'having  been  so 
short  a  time  in  France  they  have  not  yet  acquired  the 
sedentary  habits  of  trench  warfare'.  ...  At  its  crudest,  they 
didn't  know  what  they  were  up  against. 

But  French  seems  to  have  been  getting  uneasy  about  the 
prospects  of  the  attack  even  some  days  before  its  actual 
launching,  and  this  may  explain  his  half-hearted  effort  to 
keep  the  i  ith  Corps  under  his  wing.  On  the  24th  September 
he  wrote:  'In  view  of  the  great  length  of  line  along  which  the 
Army  is  operating  I  feel  it  to  be  necessary  that  I  should  keep 
a  strong  reserve  under  my  own  hand.'  Twice  he  resisted 
Haig's  insistence  on  being  granted  absolute  control  of  the 
nth  Corps,  until  finally  he  relented  after  visiting  advanced 
H.Q,.  at  Lillers  at  midday  on  the  25th. 

Then,  at  the  shortest  notice,  the  21st  and  24th  Divisions 
were  ordered  up  from  their  billets — which  were  a  consider- 
able distance  from  the  firing  line — against  a  tide  of  con- 
gestion. As  they  made  their  way  forward  ugly  rumours 
spread  from  mouth  to  mouth.  Past  them,  in  the  opposite 
direction,  the  ambulances  creaked  and  jolted  in  endless 
procession;  among  them,  following  the  same  routes  and 
accorded   priority,^   were   the   convoys   of  fodder   for   the 

I.  Owing  to  the  short  notice  at  which  the  2ist  and  24th  Divisions  had  been 
ordered  forward,  no  marking  tapes  or  other  arrangements  for  directing  them 
had  been  provided  along  the  route. 


^1 

O    2^ 

oH 

•-  i> 

"o^-^ 

1, 

c  .? 

■    >• 

UJ    c 

ui 

:  c 

•     o 

o       c 

c       '^ 
^^    ^ 

X  (N    -^ 

m 

:=  *+-  tf>  . 
o»  o  a.-ij 
c  tn«-  c 

"J  c^  o 
Witt" 


V) 

o 

c  c 

O     3 


O  -Z 
c  a 
o 


^^- 


CIO 
u. 

E  o 
.§-§ 


l66  THE    DONKEYS 

cavalry.  It  was  not  until  nightfall  that  they  began  to  get 
clear  of  the  complex  of  roads  and  lanes  that  were  still 
crammed  to  capacity  with  supply  and  medical  echelon  and 
now  awash  under  the  heavy  rain,  and  began  to  deploy  in 
their  final  assembly  positions  behind  Lone  Tree  Ridge. 

As  the  men  were  formed  up  in  the  darkness  for  their  cross- 
country march  to  the  Lens-La  Bassee  road  the  confusion  was 
considerable.  Neither  division  had  had  longer  than  two  weeks 
in  France  and  their  total  training  period  in  England  had 
been  no  more  than  four  months.  They  had,  moreover,  only 
a  slight  leavening  of  regular  officers  and  N.C.O.s.  None  of 
the  divisional  staffs  were  familiar  with  the  ground  and  there 
had  been  no  time  to  issue  large-scale  maps.  The  men  were 
soaked  to  the  skin  and,  as  the  kitchens  had  been  left  behind, 
there  was  no  hot  food  available.  Thus  it  is  not  surprising  to 
find  that  their  deployment  was  only  threequarters  complete 
by  day-break.  By  this  time  the  troops  had  been  continuously 
on  the  move  for  over  eighteen  hours,  with  only  the  cus- 
tomary halt  of  ten  minutes  in  the  hour  while  on  the  road. 
Even  more  serious  was  the  fact  that  a  thick  mist,  hanging 
over  the  area  at  dawn,  led  to  the  divisional  artillery  getting 
into  positions  some  half-mile  ahead  of  that  allotted  to  them, 
so  that  when  it  cleared  they  were  in  full  view  of  the  German 
batteries  about  Haines  and  Hulluch.  Thus  the  guns  were 
effectually  neutralized  from  the  start. 

But  in  spite  of  the  complete  exhaustion  of  all  ranks,  their 
morale  was  high.  This  was  to  be  the  division's  first  action,  but 
they  had  been  told  that  all  that  was  required  of  them  would 
be  a  long  march  in  pursuit  of  a  demoralized  enemy.  Both 
Haig  and  Haking,  the  corps  commander,  had  assured  them 
that  they  would  'not  be  put  in  unless  and  until  the  Germans 
are  completely  smashed  and  retiring  in  disorder'. 

However,  in  contrast  with  his  general  assurance,  Haig's 
explicit  orders  for  the  26th  were  that  the  divisions  were  to 
continue  the  battle.  These  orders,  issued  from  ist  Army 
H.Q.  at  11.30  on  the  night  of  the  25th,  while  the  wretched 
troops  of  the  21st  and  24th  Divisions  were  still  stumbling 


loos:  the  second  day  167 

about  in  the  darkness  on  Lone  Tree  Ridge  preparing  for  their 
cross-country  march,  emphasized  the  importance  of  the  various 
'attacks'  that  were  to  start  in  at  1 1  a.m.  the  following  day. 

At  9  a.m.  Haig  saw  the  three  corps  commanders  con- 
cerned at  his  headquarters.  He  had  breakfasted.  He  enlarged 
on  the  orders  of  the  previous  evening.  The  divisions  were  to 
push  on  through  the  German  'Second  Position'  and  take  the 
Haute  Deule  Canal,  some  five  miles  distant,  as  their  ob- 
jective. Such  an  advance,  he  said,  might  turn  the  whole 
enemy  position  to  the  south  and  even  force  the  Germans  to 
evacuate  Lens  itself. 

If  given  in  good  faith  this  appreciation  must  be  reckoned 
ludicrously  optimistic.  Nor  did  it  square  well  with  his 
assurances  that  the  battle  had  entered  a  pursuit  phase.  No 
blame  for  Haig's  mental  confusion  can  be  attached  to 
Intelligence,  who  had  accurately  predicted  the  German 
dispositions.  They  had  also  sent  a  warning  to  ist  Army  H.Q. 
that  the  German  local  reserves  (a  total  of  five  divisions  in 
the  threatened  sector)  could  begin  to  reach  the  battlefield 
within  twelve  hours  of  the  alarm.  In  point  of  fact  twenty-two 
additional  battalions  arrived  in  the  battle  area  within 
twenty-four  hours,  so  that  by  zero-hour  on  the  26th  the 
German  'Second  Position'  was  as  strongly  held  as  had  been 
the  front  line  at  the  time  of  the  original  assault  the  day 
before. 

In  contrast  to  the  attack  of  the  previous  day — which  had, 
at  least,  been  preceded  by  a  four-day  artillery  bombardment 
and  a  half-hour  discharge  of  gas  along  the  entire  front,  and 
had,  moreover,  been  carried  out  by  four  selected  divisions 
trained  for  the  assault  in  every  detail  for  weeks  beforehand — 
the  hapless  21st  and  24th  Divisions  were  expected  to  cross 
No-Man's-Land  in  broad  daylight  with  no  gas  or  smoke 
cloud  to  cover  them,  with  no  artillery  support  below 
divisional  level,  and  attack  a  position  as  strongly  manned  as 
had  been  the  front  defences  and  protected  by  a  formidable 
and  intact  barbed-wire  entanglement. 


l68  THE    DONKEYS 

The  German  'Second  Position'  was  in  the  form  of  a  tall, 
shallow  'D'.  Originally,  in  depth,  it  had  consisted  of  an 
'ID'  with  the  village  of  Loos  lying  between  the  two  letters, 
and  the  'I'  representing  the  first  line.  But  this  'I'  had  been 
overrun  in  the  previous  day's  fighting.  The  very  strong 
enemy  'Second  Position'  followed  the  curve  of  the  'D', 
swinging  round  from  the  twin  villages  of  Hulluch  and 
Benifontaine  in  the  north  down  to  the  Hill  70  Redoubt  in 
the  south,  and  giving  terrible  enfilade  and  cross-fire  over  the 
gently  sloping  Loos  Valley.  The  bar  of  the  'D'  was  formed  by 
the  Lens  road  that  stretched  straight  down  from  north  to 
south,  white  with  chalk  dust,  marked  by  an  occasional 
leafless  tree.  Inside  this  area  was  a  mass  of  small  quarries  and 
mineshafts,  and  a  densely  wooded  copse,  the  Bois  Hugo. 
These,  as  has  been  seen,  were  evacuated  by  the  Germans 
during  the  fighting  of  the  25th  but  were  reoccupied  as 
reinforcements  came  up,  and  formed  an  excellent  outpost 
line  for  machine-gunners  and  sharp-shooters.  The  diary  of 
the  15th  Reserve  Regiment  records: 

'One  battalion  in  particular  had  an  excellent  position 
along  the  edge  of  a  disused  quarry  overgrown  with  thick 
bushes  and  scrub.  They  were  well  concealed  from  view, 
and  yet  had  a  perfect  field  of  fire  to  front  or  flank.  Four 
machine-guns  were  placed  in  position  there,  with  the 
champion  machine-gunner  of  the  regiment  at  one  of  them.' 

A  tragic  aspect  of  the  situation  lies  in  the  fact  that  all  of 
this  area,  and  large  stretches  of  the  German 'Second  Position', 
could  have  been  taken  for  the  picking  the  previous  afternoon. 
A  battalion  of  the  German  26th  Regiment,  marching  up 
from  Annay  to  occupy  the  sector  between  Hulluch  and  the 
Bois  Hugo,  was  told  to  make  all  haste  as  the  British  might 
already  have  entered  it.  So  probable  did  this  in  fact  seem 
that  the  battalion  deployed  half  a  mile  from  it  just  before 
dusk  and  advanced  against  it  in  extended  order,  only  to  find 
it  empty.  During  the  night  many  other  opportunities  had 
passed;  two  more  battalions,  of  the  153rd  Regiment,  came 


loos:   the  second  day  169 

up  into  the  Bois  Hugo  sector  of  the  second-line  position  south 
of  the  26th  Regiment  and  advanced  into  the  wood  itself  at 
dawn,  under  cover  of  mist.  As  this  cleared  they  attacked  the 
outposts  of  the  63rd  Brigade  at  the  western  end  of  the  wood 
and  drove  them  back,  thereby  enfilading  the  front  position 
of  the  brigade  immediately  north  of  the  wood  and  forcing 
them  to  retire  back  across  the  Lens  road.  As  the  morning 
wore  on  the  Germans  in  the  wood  were  reinforced  by  a 
battalion  each  of  the  93rd  and  165th  Regiments  and 
extended  their  line  southwards,  joining  up  with  the  rein- 
forcements— a  further  six  battalions  strong — that  had 
arrived  to  strengthen  the  position  at  Hill  70. 

These,  and  other  minor  local  counter-attacks  carried  out 
by  the  Germans  with  the  intention  of  improving  their 
defensive  position,  must  surely  have  given  i  st  Army  H.Q.,  and 
to  both  Haig  and  Haking,  ample  warning  that  an  unprepared 
attack  by  two  untrained  divisions  was  unlikely  to  succeed. 
But  the  question  of  revising  the  order  in  the  light  of  the 
Intelligence  reports  does  not  seem  to  have  been  considered. 
And  so  the  stage  was  set  for  a  repetition — at  a  distance  of 
sixty-one  years,  in  slow  time,  under  conditions  of  infinite 
squalor  and  magnified  in  scale  a  hundredfold — of  the  charge 
at  Balaclava.  For  the  set-piece  attack  of  i  ith  Corps,  that  was 
to  be  launched  in  the  broad  light  of  an  hour  before  noon  on 
the  26th,  was  as  futile,  and  as  foredoomed,  as  that  of  the 
Light  Brigade. 

As  the  morning  wore  on  the  British  perfected  their  order 
of  battle.  Theirs  was  a  depressing  situation.  They  had  had 
to  cross  the  No-Man's-Land  of  the  previous  day,  that  was 
littered  with  the  corpses  of  the  Devon  and  Highland 
Regiments,  lying  in  long  straggling  rows  as  the  German 
machine-guns  had  traversed  along  their  ranks.  Among  these 
were  still  many  wounded  who  called  out  piteously  to  the 
newcomers  for  water  and  assistance.  As  assembly  points  the 
two  divisions  were  using  the  former  German  front  line.  To 
make  access  to  this  easier,  engineers  had  cleared  gaps  in  the 
wire  at  regular  intervals,  but  no  one  had  yet  had  time  to 


170  THE    DONKEYS 

remove  the  contorted,  lifeless  figures  that  still  hung  at  so 
many  points  on  the  entanglement.  In  the  trench  itself,  and 
in  the  adjacent  dug-outs,  were  pockets  of  gas,  and  many 
German  dead,  hideously  yellow  and  blue  in  colour.  The 
stench  was  frightful. 

But  the  spirit  of  the  men  was  unshaken.  The  official 
historian  records  that:  '.  .  .  they  were  delighted  at  the 
prospect  of  getting  at  the  enemy  after  the  exertions  and 
frustrations  of  the  last  few  days',  although  they  had  had 
hardly  any  food,  and  no  sleep  for  forty-eight  hours. 

Just  after  10  a.m.  a  desultory  pattern  of  artillery  fire, 
unworthy  of  the  term  'bombardment',  was  thrown  at  the 
German  positions.  Without  their  own  artillery  the  21st  and 
24th  were  paying  the  price  of  Haig's  'flexible'  distribution 
of  guns  for  the  first  stage.  Indeed  the  gunners  could  have  no 
very  clear  idea  of  where  the  German  emplacements  were 
located  and  simply  fired  off  patches  of  shells,  assorted  H.E. 
and  shrapnel,  at  likely  looking  points.  The  Germans  suffered 
no  casualties  and  the  wire  remained  intact.  This  fire  lasted 
some  twenty  minutes,  and  then  for  half  an  hour  the  front 
was  practically  silent. 


Punctually  at  eleven  o'clock  the  British  rose  out  of  the 
ground.  Peering  across  the  shelving  valley  of  rank  grass,  slag 
and  white  chalk  craters,  the  German  look-outs  could  see 
column  after  column  moving  up  in  close  formation  at  the 
crest  of  Lone  Tree  Ridge,  the  officers  on  horseback,  marshal- 
ling successive  battalions  as  they  rose  out  of  the  old  German 
trenches  and  formed  up  in  a  dense  mass. 

At  first  the  effect  was  unnerving.  Not  since  the  German 
attacks  in  the  closing  days  of  the  first  battle  of  Ypres  had 
such  dense  masses  of  infantry  deployed  for  a  daylight  assault. 
Sheer  weight  of  numbers  must,  it  seemed,  carry  the  British 
through  the  thinly  spread  German  outposts.  The  colonel  of 
the    15th   Reserve   Regiment  has   described   how   he   was 


loos:   the  second  day  171 

walking  in  the  main  street  of  HuUuch  when  an  experienced 
N.C.O.  from  the  Machine  Gun  Company  came  running  up 
to  him  and  shouted  out,  'Two  divisions  ...  we  will  be 
surrounded  ...  we  must  retire.  .  .  .'  A  number  of  men  were 
following  close  behind,  panic-stricken.  But  almost  simul- 
taneously another  officer,  who  had  been  watching  the 
situation  from  a  housetop,  came  up  and  told  him  that  the 
situation  was  not  so  serious.  'The  machine-gun  and  rifle  fire 
from  our  position  is  terrific  and  no  enemy  can  possibly 
advance  across  the  open  against  it.'  Quickly,  extra  detach- 
ments were  organized  and  sent  into  position.  For  fully  ten 
minutes  the  Germans  held  their  fire  as  the  two  divisions 
deployed  in  column  of  extended  line  and  started  obediently 
off  on  their  progress  down  the  gentle  slope  towards  the  Lens 
road.  It  was  a  tense  moment  for  the  enemy,  watching  in 
silence  until,  as  the  leading  columns  of  the  24th  Division 
passed  under  the  south-east  front  of  Hulluch,  at  a  range  of 
1,000  yards,  the  order  to  fire  was  given. 
The  diary  of  the  15th  Reserve  Regiment  records  that: 

'Ten  columns  of  extended  line  could  clearly  be  dis- 
tinguished, each  one  estimated  at  more  than  a  thousand 
men,  and  offering  such  a  target  as  had  never  been  seen 
before,  or  even  thought  possible.  Never  had  the  machine- 
gunners  such  straightforward  work  to  do  nor  done  it  so 
effectively.  They  traversed  to  and  fro  along  the  enemy's 
ranks  unceasingly.  The  men  stood  on  the  fire-steps,  some 
even  on  the  parapets,  and  fired  triumphantly  [jauchsend] 
into  the  mass  of  men  advancing  across  the  open  grass-land. 
As  the  entire  field  of  fire  was  covered  with  the  enemy's 
infantry  the  effect  was  devastating  and  they  could  be  seen 
falling  literally  in  hundreds.' 

As  the  British  infantry  advanced  they  started  to  come 
across  little  pockets  of  dead  and  dying  from  the  detachments 
of  the  2nd  Brigade  that  had  pressed  too  far  the  previous  day. 

Some  of  these,  delirious,  stood  up  and  screamed  at  them 
to  turn  back,  or  to  fetch  stretcher-bearers,  or  to  duck  down 


172  THE    DONKEYS 

and  join  them  in  an  adjacent  crater.  But  the  discipline  of  the 
two  divisions  never  wavered.  SUghtly  in  front  of  the  lines 
walked  the  subalterns,  shouting  encouragement:  'Come  on, 
me  lads,  we're  nearly  there.'  'It  won't  last  long.'  'We'll  soon 
be  at  'em.'  'Show  'em  what  we  are,'  and  so  forth. ^ 

And  indeed  the  German  diary  noted  with  amazement: 

'In  spite  of  it  [the  intensity  of  the  fire]  the  extended 
columns  continued  their  advance  in  good  order  and  without 
interruption.  When  they  reached  the  Lens  road  one  of  our 
companies  advanced  from  the  Hulluch  trench  in  an  attempt 
to  divert  the  attack,  but  only  a  small  party  of  the  enemy 
swung  round  to  meet  it,  the  mass  took  no  notice  and  went 
on  regardless  past  the  southern  front  [of  the  village].  Here 
they  came  under  the  enfilade  fire  both  of  the  troops  lining 
the  position  and  of  a  battery  of  artillery  concealed  in  the 
village.  Their  losses  mounted  up  rapidly  and  under  this 
terrific  punishment  the  lines  began  to  get  more  and  more 
confused.  Nevertheless  they  went  on  doggedly  right  up  to  the 
wire  entanglement.' 

This  barrier  consisted  of  hard  steel  barbed  wire,  too  thick 
to  be  cut  with  the  hand-clippers  that  had  been  issued  to  some 
sections,  braced  and  criss-crossed  among  pine  stakes  and  pit- 
props  driven  thirty-five  centimetres  into  the  earth.  Its  height 
was  over  four  feet  and  its  depth  across  five  metres,  or  nearly 
nineteen  feet. 

Desperate,  the  men  hurled  themselves  at  it  in  frenzy;  some 
tried  to  scramble  over  it  as  one  might  a  thick  yew  hedge, 
others  pulled  at  it  with  their  bare  hands;  still  more  ran  up 
and  down  along  its  edge  in  the  hopes  of  finding  a  gap  that 
might  have  been  cut  by  shellfire,  until  they  were  cut  down. 

I.  Corporal  J.  Woosnam  of  the  8th  East  Yorks  of  62nd  Brigade  of  21st 
Division  has  told  me:  'The  Lieutenant  leading  our  Company,  Harris  or 
Harrison  I  think  he  was  called,  kept  on  talking  all  the  time  that  we  were  going 
forward.  He  said  the  same  thing  over  and  over  again — "Come  on,  my  lads, 
show  them  what  we  are."  After  we  had  been  advancing  for  about  ten  minutes 
he  was  hit  by  a  burst  of  machine-gun  fire  in  the  stomach  which  lifted  him  right 
off  the  ground.  He  was  calling  for  water  and  we  gave  him  some  although  he 
was  going  to  die,  which  he  did  in  a  few  minutes'  time.' 


loos:   the  second  day  173 

The  German  diary  continues:  'Confronted  by  this  hopeless 
impenetrable  obstacle  and  faced  by  continuous  machine- 
gun  and  rifle  fire  the  survivors  began  to  turn  and  retire  in 
confusion,  though  scarcely  one  in  ten  that  had  come  forward 
seemed  to  go  back  again.' 

On  the  right  flank  the  2ist  Division  was  being  dashed  to 
pieces  in  like  manner.  The  diary  of  the  153rd  Regiment  tells 
the  same  sort  of  story  as  that  of  the  15th: 

'.  .  .  dense  masses  of  the  enemy,  line  after  line,  appeared 
over  the  ridge,  some  of  their  officers  even  mounted  on  horse- 
back and  advancing  as  if  carrying  out  a  field-day  drill  in 
peacetime.  Our  artillery  and  machine-guns  riddled  their 
ranks  as  they  came  on.  As  they  crossed  the  northern  front 
of  the  Bois  Hugo,  the  machine-guns  there  caught  them  in  the 
flank  and  whole  battalions  were  annihilated.  The  English 
made  five  consecutive  efforts  to  press  on  past  the  wood  and 
reach  the  second-line  position,  but  finally,  weakened  by 
their  terrible  losses,  they  had  to  give  in.' 

For  the  troops  attacking  the  western  end  of  the  wood  and 
struggling  up  the  bare  slopes  of  Hill  70  conditions  were,  if 
anything,  worse. 

One  of  the  German  battalion  commanders  spoke  later  of 
the  revolting  and  nauseating  impression  made  on  them  all 
as  they  watched  the  slaughter;  so  much  so  that  after  the 
retreat  had  begun  they  ceased  fire.  Before  them  was  the 
'Leichenfeld  [field  of  corpses]  von  Loos',  and,  as  among  them 
dozens  of  khaki-clad  forms  rose  up  once  again  and  began  to 
limp  and  crawl  back  to  their  own  lines,  'no  shot  was  fired  at 
them  from  the  German  trenches  for  the  rest  of  the  day,  so 
great  was  the  feeling  of  compassion  and  mercy  for  the  enemy 
after  such  a  victory'. 

There  had  been  twelve  battalions  making  the  attack,  a 
strength  of  just  under  ten  thousand,  and  in  the  three  and  a 
half  hours  of  the  actual  battle  their  casualties  were  385 
officers  and  7,861  men.  The  Germans  suffered  no  casualties 
at  all. 


174  THE    DONKEYS 

In  the  late  afternoon,  as  the  remnants  of  the  two  divisions 
rallied  once  more  on  Lone  Tree  Ridge,  General  Haking,  the 
corps  commander,  came  down  from  his  H.Q^.  and  moved 
among  them,  asking  'What  went  wrong?'  The  answer  that  he 
got  from  all,  according  to  the  Official  History^  was  'We  did 
not  know  what  it  was  like.  We  will  do  all  right  next  time.' 
.  .  .  Such  was  the  spirit  of  those  who  had  answered 
Kitchener's  call  'Your  Country  needs  you.' 

For  these  men  were  volunteers.  They  were  the  flower  of 
the  richest,  most  powerful,  nation  on  earth.  Behind  them 
stretched  the  ordered  childhoods  of  Victorian  Britain; 
decency,  regularity,  a  Christian  upbringing,  a  concept  of 
chivalry;  over-riding  faith  in  the  inevitable  triumph  of  right 
over  wrong;  such  notions  were  imbued  in  them.  This  had 
been  their  first  time  in  action,  but  if  these  were  the  rules  of 
the  game,  well  then,  they  would  conform. 


13 

The  Dismissal  of  Sir  John  French 

A  very  small  memento,  my  dear,  dear  Douglas,  of  our 
long  and  tried  friendship  proved  'in  sunshine  and  in 
shadow'. — J.F. 

Inscription  on  a  flask  of  Haig's, 
now  at  Bemersyde 

BACK  in  London  the  air  was  thick  with  rumour.  After 
dusk,  as  the  October  mists  closed  on  the  city,  the 
'  hospital  trains  would  draw  into  Charing  Cross  and 
discharge  their  groaning  cargo.  Many  of  the  wounded 
talked  of  the  impossibiHty  of  the  tasks  that  they  had  been 
given,  of  the  hopeless  sacrifice  of  their  comrades.  It  was  not 
difficult  to  equate  the  casualty  lists  and  the  miserable 
stretches  of  German  line  gained  that,  even  on  maps  of  the 
largest  scale,  looked  thin  and  insubstantial.  In  his  diary 
French  noted  petulantly: 

'There  was  another  military  debate  in  the  House  of  Lords 
on  Monday  night.  The  general  tone  adopted  was  to  belittle 
and  "crab"  all  the  work  which  has  been  done  by  the  Army  in 
France.  Lord  Milner  said,  in  so  many  words,  that  the  battles 
of  Neuve  Chapelle  and  Loos  instead  of  victories  were  in 
reality  "defeats".  Lord  Courteney  adopted  the  same  line  of 
argument.'^ 

Both  he  and  Haig  still  clung,  though  without  any  real 
conviction  now,  to  the  hope  that  the  German  line  in  the 
Loos  sector  might  yet  be  broken  before  winter  set  in.  The 
thought  of  another  winter  in  the  trenches,  which  each  had 

I.  French,  p.  320. 


176  THE    DONKEYS 

felt  during  their  periodic  bouts  of  optimism  might  no  longer 
be  a  necessity,  was  disquieting.  Not  only  was  supply  of  many 
essentials  inadequate  in  quality  and  distribution,  but  the 
unsuitable  terrain  and  situation  of  the  troops  in  many 
sectors  made  it  necessary  to  consider  withdrawals  to  more 
favourable  ground  if  their  discomfort  was  not  to  be  too 
acute. 

Haig  was  opposed  to  this  notion.  By  now  his  relations  with 
French  were  very  poor  although  no  open  breach  had  taken 
place.  On  the  2nd  October  he  wrote:  'It  seems  impossible  to 
discuss  military  problems  with  an  unreasoning  brain 
[French]  of  this  kind.  At  any  rate  no  good  result  is  to  be 
expected  from  so  doing.' 

As  Haig  would  not  agree  to  any  withdrawal,  French 
concentrated  on  persuading  his  ally  to  take  over  stretches  of 
the  British  line.  He  painted  the  prospects  of  immediate 
glory  in  glowing  colours: 

'Foch  came  to  see  me  this  morning.  I  told  him  that  if  I 
was  in  the  position  of  G.-in-C.  of  the  whole  western  Allied 
front  I  would  put  every  available  man  in  just  north  of 
Hill  70  and  "rush"  a  gap  in  the  enemy's  line.  I  should  feel 
quite  confident  of  success.'^ 

But  Foch  had  a  habit  of  scrutinizing  the  projects  of 
colleagues  more  critically  than  he  did  his  own.  Tactfully  he 
replied  that :  'It  would  be  very  difficult  to  organize  so  big  an 
attack  in  so  small  an  area.'^ 

In  point  of  fact  the  British  troops  were,  during  the  first 
week  in  October,  being  subjected  to  a  series  of  determined 
and  effective  counter-attacks  that  were  steadily  prising  from 
them  all  the  ground  that  had  been  gained  at  such  cost  on  the 
25th  September.  Haig  noted  that:  'On  2nd  and  3rd  October 
the  28th  Division  steadily  lost  ground  so  that  we  no  longer 
had  a  line  of  trench  suitable  for  launching  an  attack.' 

He  added  the  by  now  customary,  though  scarcely  relevant, 

1.  French,  p.  371. 

2.  Liddell  Hart,  Foch,  p.  202. 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SIR    JOHN    FRENCH  177 

comment  that:  '.  .  .  The  fact  is  that  Sir  John  seems  incapable 
of  reahzing  the  nature  of  the  fighting  that  has  been  going  on 
and  the  difficulties  of  getting  fresh  troops  and  stores  forward 
and  adequate  communication  trenches  dug.' 

On  the  Friday,  8th  October,  Haig  drove  over  to  French's 
headquarters  at  St.  Omer  and  found  him  in  'chastened' 
mood.  The  first  rumblings  of  protest  from  London  at  the 
massacre  of  the  26th  September  were  beginning  to  be 
audible. 

'Sir  John  read  me  a  letter  which  he  had  received  from 
Lord  Kitchener  asking  for  a  report  on  the  action  of  the  21st 
and  24th  Divisions.  Some  of  the  wounded  had  gone  home 
and  said  that  they  had  been  given  impossible  tasks  to 
accomplish  and  that  they  had  not  been  fed.' 

Enquiries  at  this  level,  particularly  when  the  actual  results 
of  operations  were  so  meagre,  boded  no  good  for  the  com- 
manders. And,  sure  enough,  the  following  day,  Saturday, 
Haldane  turned  up  from  England  with  only  the  barest 
notice  and  asked  himself  to  lunch  at  Haig's  headquarters. 
After  the  meal  he  and  Haig  repaired  to  the  latter's  room  and 
the  questions  started.  Haldane  excused  himself  by  saying 
that  feelings  were  'very  strong'  on  the  subject  in  England  and 
that  he  had  come  to  France  'to  help  in  arriving  at  the  truth'. 

If  Haig  was  disconcerted  by  this  he  quickly  recovered  his 
posture,  and  submitted  an  impromptu  report^  that  was 
shamelessly  critical  of  his  superior.  He  ended  by  saying  that 
'the  arrangements  for  the  supreme  command  are  not  satis- 
factory. .  .  .  Many  of  us  feel  that  if  these  conditions  continue 
it  will  be  difficult  ever  to  win.' 

However  it  was  not  for  nothing  that  Haldane  had  been 
thirty  years  in  politics  and  he  returned  to  England  with  an 
open  mind. 

The  following  day  Robertson,  French's  Chief  of  Staflf, 
travelled  to  London.  As  has  already  been  explained 
Robertson  enjoyed  the  worst  relations  with  French.  But  his 

I.  Reproduced  in  Appendix  5. 


178  THE    DONKEYS 

friendship  with  Haig  was  of  long  standing,  and  was  fortified 
by  ties  of  mutual  dependence  which  both  hoped  to  strengthen 
in  the  immediate  future.  Although  there  is  no  direct  evidence 
for  this  it  seems  reasonable  to  assume  that  Robertson  con- 
sulted with  Haig  before  the  journey.  On  arrival  in  London 
he  made  contact  with  Lord  Stamfordham,  the  King's  private 
secretary,  and  the  question  of  'replacing'  Sir  John  French 
was  raised.  An  audience  was  arranged  and  at  it  the  King 
listened  attentively  to  French's  shortcomings  as  catalogued 
by  his  Chief  of  Staff.  No  record  is  available  of  this  meeting, 
but  its  substance  must  have  been  favourable  to  Haig,  for  at 
its  conclusion  Robertson  journeyed  post-haste  back  to  ist 
Army  H.Q.  Here  Haig  told  him  that: 

'Up  to  date  I  have  been  more  than  loyal  to  French  and 
done  my  best  to  stop  all  criticism  of  him  or  his  methods. 
Now,  at  last,  in  view  of  what  happened  in  the  recent  battle 
over  the  reserves  .  .  .  and  of  the  seriousness  of  the  general 
military  situation,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is 
not  fair  to  the  Empire  to  retain  French  in  command  on  this, 
the  main  battle  front.  Moreover  none  of  my  officers  com- 
manding Corps  have  a  high  opinion  of  Sir  John's  military 
ability.  In  fact  they  have  no  confidence  in  him.' 

Haig  went  on  to  make  the  surprising  claim  that  he  got  on 
better  with  his  Allies: 

'French  does  not  get  on  with  the  French.  Joffre  seems  to 
have  no  great  opinion  of  his  military  views  and  does  not 
really  consult  with  him.  It  is  most  important  at  the  present 
time  to  have  someone  to  put  the  British  case  and  co-operate 
with  the  French  in  aiming  at  getting  decisive  results  in  their 
theatre  of  operations.' 

All  this  was  duly  communicated  to  the  King.  His  Majesty 
decided,  before  taking  any  further  steps,  to  come  to  France 
and  see  things  for  himself.  Three  days  later  he  arrived  at 
Boulogne  where  he  found  an  uneasy  French  waiting  on  the 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SIR    JOHN    FRENCH  1 79 

quay.  Owing  to  the  shortness  of  notice  received,  there  had 
been  no  time  to  prepare  royal  quarters  and  the  King  had 
to  live  in  his  train  while  these  were  being  got  ready  for  him 
at  Aire.  French,  sensing  perhaps  a  coolness  and  warned  by 
his  friends  in  England  of  impending  trouble,  took  advantage 
of  the  dislocation  of  the  royal  schedule  to  slip  back  to 
England  for  a  few  days. 

But  before  Sir  John  got  back,  on  24th  October,  the  royal 
Mess  was  installed  and  Haig  had  been  invited  to  dinner. 
After  the  meal  he  returned  once  again  to  the  subject: 

'I  told  him  [the  King]  that  the  time  to  have  removed 
French  was  after  the  retreat,  because  he  had  so  mismanaged 
matters.  .  .  .  Since  then,  during  the  trench  warfare,  the 
Army  had  grown  larger  and  I  thought  at  first  that  there  was 
no  great  scope  for  French  to  go  wrong.  I  have  therefore  done 
my  utmost  to  stop  criticisms  and  make  matters  run  smoothly. 
But  French's  handling  of .  . .  the  last  battle,  his  obstinacy  and 
conceit,  showed  his  incapacity,  and  ...  I  therefore  thought 
strongly  that,  for  the  sake  of  the  Empire,  French  ought  to  be 
removed.' 

He  added,  superfluously  it  may  be  thought,  that  'I, 
personally,  was  ready  to  do  my  duty  in  any  capacity  .  .  .' 

The  King  listened  attentively.  That  afternoon,  he  confided 
to  Haig,  he  had  had  an  informal  chat  with  General  Haking 
who  had  told  him  much  the  same  thing.  General  Robertson, 
too,  was  very  critical  of  Sir  John.  When  Haig  got  back 
to  his  headquarters  at  Hinges  at  midnight,  he  must  have 
felt  that  he  was  on  the  point  of  achieving  a  vital  personal 
victory. 

But  then,  two  days  later,  with  things  still  in  the  balance, 
there  was  an  unfortunate  occurrence.  The  King  was  thrown 
by  a  mare.  He  was  badly  bruised.  He  had  to  take  to  his  bed 
for  several  days. 

The  incident  was  the  talk  of  the  Army  and  dominated,  as 
well,  the  pages  of  the  newspapers  at  home.  Speculation  and 


l8o  THE    DONKEYS 

gossip  about  changes  in  the  High  Command  were  forgotten. 
The  smooth  flow  of  events  which  must,  it  had  seemed,  carry 
Sir  John  from  his  position  was  interrupted.  For  not  only 
was  one  of  his  foremost  opponents  incapacitated,  but  it 
would  have  been  most  unseemly  for  any  note  of  discord  to 
have  intruded  on  the  harmonious  messages  of  sympathy  that 
poured  in  from  all  sides.  The  status  quo  must  be  preserved  at 
present,  and  later  on,  as  the  first  sprinkling  of  snow  covered 
the  Leichenfeld  von  Loos,  the  events  of  the  26th  September 
would  already  be  half  forgotten. 

For  General  Haig  the  incident  had  a  particularly  trying 
personal  aspect;  for  it  was  his  mare  that  the  King  had  been 
riding.  It  had  been  his  personal  responsibility  to  see  that  she 
was  exercised  and  'quiet'. 

What  a  compliment  it  had  been  that  His  Majesty  should 
have  selected  one  of  Haig's  personal  stable!  And  how 
nightmarishly  things  had  turned  out!  For  if  he  claimed  that 
the  mare  had  been  thoroughly  exercised  it  was  a  reflection 
on  the  King's  horsemanship,  but  if  he  admitted  that  his  staff* 
had  been  negligent  in  quieting  her  beforehand  .  .  .  Haig's 
diary  devotes  much  space  to  an  account  of,  and  apologia 
for,  this  incident;  more  space,  indeed,  than  is  occupied  by 
the  whole  of  the  battle  of  Loos.^  On  and  on  rambles  the  text, 
as  we  read  that  it  was  a  chestnut  mare,  that  Haig  had  ridden 
her  regularly  for  over  a  year,  that  she  had  been  tried  the  day 
before  with  cheering  men  and  people  waving  flags,  that 
hats — not  flags — were  waved,  that  the  grass  was  wet,  that 
the  ground  was  slippery,  that  the  King  seemed  to  clutch  the 
reins  very  firmly  (a  tricky  passage,  this),  and  to  pull  the  mare 
backwards,  that  the  cheering  would  have  upset  any  horse  at 
such  a  distance,  and  so  on. 

That  evening  Sir  Derek  Keppel  telephoned  to  Haig  and 
told  him  that  the  King  was  to  remain  in  bed  for  a  couple  of 
days  and  that  he  could  not  receive  visitors.  He  much  re- 

I.  I  am  referring  to  the  published  text  of  Haig's  diary.  Robert  Blake  has 
kindly  pointed  out  to  me  that  in  the  original  document  (which  has  not  been 
published)  this  ratio  does  not  apply. — A.C. 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SIR   JOHN    FRENCH  l8l 

gretted  that  he  would  not  be  able  to  see  Haig  again  before 
he  returned  to  England.  The  diary  records  also: 

'He  was  desired  by  the  King  to  say  that  His  Majesty  knew 
very  well  that  the  mare  had  never  done  such  a  thing  before 
and  that  I  was  not  to  feel  perturbed  at  what  had  happened 
(or  words  to  that  effect).' 

All  the  same,  the  result  of  the  whole  episode  must  have 
seemed  unsatisfactory  to  Haig. 

Sir  John  quickly  sensed  the  shift  in  fortune  and  made  every 
effort  to  consolidate  his  position.  As  soon  as  the  King  had  left 
France,  he,  too,  journeyed  to  London  where  he  consulted 
with  his  friends — themselves  a  body  of  some  influence,  and 
including  Colonel  Repington,  the  military  correspondent  of 
The  Times — and  in  concert  with  them  he  evolved  further 
measures  to  protect  his  interests. 

While  he  was  in  the  capital  he  attended  two  Cabinet 
meetings.  He  found  that  body  ineffectual  and  pusillanimous 
and  reported  this — not  without  a  glint  of  triumph,  one  may 
suspect — to  Haig  on  his  return. 

'Everyone  seemed  desirous  to  speak  at  the  same  moment. 
One  would  say  "Please  allow  me  to  finish  what  I  am  saying." 
Another  would  interrupt,  and  a  third  would  shout  from  the 
far  end  of  the  room  that  he  meant  to  have  his  say  on  the 
matter  too.  Poor  Lord  Crewe^  feebly  rapped  the  table  and 
said  "Order  please!"  in  a  disconsolate  sort  of  way.  .  .  .'^ 

.  .  .  Not  much  chance  of  that  Cabinet  dismissing  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief— and  small  wonder  that  Haig  found  'Sir 
John  seemed  in  excellent  spirits  since  his  return.  .  .  .' 

As  it  turned  out,  however,  the  measures  initiated  by 
French  in  London  proved  his  undoing.  On  the  2nd  Novem- 
ber his  'full'  despatch  dealing  with  the  attack  on  the  25th 
September  appeared  in  The  Times — filled  with  needless  in- 
accuracies that  could  with  facility  be  exposed  by  anyone 

1 .  Crewe  was  presiding  during  Asquith's  illness. 

2.  Haig,  Diaries,  p.  in. 


l82 


THE    DONKEYS 


who  had  access  to  the  relevant  documents,  telegrams,  orders, 
etc.  Haig,  of  course,  was  just  such  a  person,  and  any  reserva- 
tions that  he  might  have  felt  about  so  flagrant  a  breach  of 
the  canons  of  loyalty  and  discipline  must  have  been  finally 
dispelled  by  the  text  of  an  article  by  Colonel  Repington, 
published  alongside  French's  despatch.  In  this  article  the 
military  correspondent  of  The  Times  regretted  that  the 
operations  at  Loos  had  not  been  under  the  direct  command 
of  Sir  John,  whose  abilities  were  by  implication  contrasted 
favourably  with  those  of  Haig. 

Accordingly  two  days  later  a  long  letter  went  out  from 
ist  Army  H.Q.  to  French's  staff  pointing  out  these  'mis- 
statements' and,  in  particular,  enclosing  copies  of  telegrams 
showing  that  the  21st  and  24th  Divisions  were  not  placed 
under  Haig's  orders  at  the  beginning  of  the  battle,  and  that 
the  Guards  Division  was  not  placed  under  his  orders  until 
4.15  p.m.  on  the  26th.  (French  had  stated  that  it  came  under 
Haig's  command  'that  morning'.) 

If  anything  were  needed  to  illustrate  the  very  secondary 
mental  calibre  of  Sir  John  French,  and  his  impaired  capacity 
for  anticipation,  it  is  his  conduct  of  'The  affair  of  the 
Reserves  at  Loos'.  He  allowed  himself  to  be  completely 
outmanoeuvred — and  on  a  mere  technicality.  Haig  had 
selected  as  his  grounds  of  dispute  the  fact  that  the  reserves 
had  not  been  brought  forward  in  time.  The  fact  that  this,  in 
itself,  constituted  an  oblique  admission  that  he  had  committed 
them  to  battle  when  he  knew  that  it  was  too  late,  and  thus 
subjected  them  to  a  pointless  slaughter,  seems  not  to  have 
occurred  to  Haig.  And  a  rejoinder  was  obviously  denied  to 
Sir  John. 

When  Haig's  letter  was  received,  asking  'that  these  facts 
should  be  put  on  record',  French  collapsed  and  retired  to  his 
room. 

He  remained  in  bed — 'staying  out'  in  the  parlance  of 
Etonians — for  thirty-six  hours.  Finally  he  pulled  himself 
together  sufficiently  to  draft  a  letter  stating  that  'this  corres- 
pondence shall  henceforth  cease'.  And  that  '.  .  .  the  state- 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SIR    JOHN    FRENCH  183 

ments  in  question  are  substantially  correct,  and  call  for  no 
amendment'. 

After  a  further  three  days  of  delay  during  which  interest 
and  indignation,  as  reflected  in  the  columns  of  The  Times ^ 
rose  to  a  high  pitch,  French  sent  for  Haig.  He  told  him  that  all 
the  correspondence  would  be  sent  to  the  War  Office  together 
with  a  covering  letter,  the  text  of  which  he  would  first  show 
to  Haig.  He  also  disclaimed  any  connection  with  Repington's 
article. 

But  it  was  too  late.  Haig  brushed  aside  French's  apology 
and  declined  to  co-operate  in  hushing  the  matter  up  on  the 
grounds  that  '.  .  .  my  duties  as  G.O.C.  First  Army  take  up 
all  of  my  time'.  When  Lord  Esher  turned  up  at  his  head- 
quarters the  following  day  Haig,  with  a  subtlety  that  he  was 
more  prone  to  display  in  the  furtherance  of  his  personal 
ambition  than  in  the  planning  and  execution  of  his  military 
campaigns,  hardly  mentioned  French  but  concentrated 
instead  on  running  down  another  of  his  military  superiors. 
Kitchener.  At  this  time  the  Cabinet  were  pre-occupied  with 
the  importance  of  ridding  themselves  of  'K'.  It  may  be 
suggested  that  one  of  Sir  John  French's  few  commendable 
traits,  in  the  eyes  of  the  politicians  in  England,  lay  in  his 
implacable  hostility  to  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  and 
Haig  probably  saw  that  the  Cabinet  would  have  to  be  sure 
in  their  minds  that  these  views  were  shared  by  any  successor 
to  the  Commander-in-Cliief  that  they  might  nominate. 

'Lord  Esher  asked  what  should  be  done  with  Lord 
Kitchener.  I  repHed,  "Appoint  him  Viceroy  of  India." 
Trouble  is  brewing  there  and  in  Burma,  and  some  blood- 
letting will  become  necessary  for  the  health  of  the  body 
politic!' 

There  is  no  doubt  that  other  reasons,  also,  prompted  Haig 
to  get  rid  of  Kitchener  besides  his  desire  to  align  himself  with 
the  Cabinet.  He  was  apprehensive  of  Kitchener's  strategic 
vision,  that  dwarfed  all  other  contemporary  minds  save 
those  of  Churchill  and  Lloyd   George;   of  his   autocratic 


184  THE    DONKEYS 

manner;  and  of  the  devotion  that  he  commanded  from  the 
pubHc  at  home: 

'.  .  .in  my  opinion  it  is  important  to  remove  Lord  Kit- 
chener from  the  Mediterranean  and  Egypt  because  where- 
ever  he  is,  by  his  masterful  action  he  will  give  that  sphere  of 
of  the  operations  an  undue  prominence  in  the  strategical 
picture.' 

There  was  also  the  consideration  that  Kitchener  stood  in 
the  way  of  an  appointment  that  Haig  was  determined  to 
secure,  namely  that  of  Robertson  to  Chief  of  the  Imperial 
General  Staff — or  at  any  rate  in  the  way  of  a  full  and  free 
exercise  of  the  powers  that  went  with  such  a  post.  In  the 
course  of  Lord  Esher's  visit  Haig  pressed  vigorously  for 
Robertson's  appointment  and  also  put  forward  a  variety  of 
other  proposals  for  clipping  Kitchener's  wings. 

Robertson,  in  the  meantime,  was  in  London.  On  the 
15th  November  he  wrote: 

'My  dear  Haig,  I  have  got  your  letter.  Many  thanks^" — I 
shall  try  my  best  to  help  put  things  straight.  .  .  .' 

And  on  the  1 7th:  '.  .  .  just  a  line  to  say  that  I  am  doing  my 
best.  .  .  .' 

And  on  the  20th:  '.  .  .  it  would  do  the  world  of  good  if  you 
could  come  over  yourself  for  a  few  days.  .  .  .' 

Haig  needed  no  further  encouragement.  He  left  France  the 
day  after  receiving  Robertson's  call  and,  on  the  23rd 
November: 

'.  .  .  Doris  and  I  went  shopping.  At  1.45  we  lunched  at  10, 
Downing  Street.  I  sat  next  to  Mrs.  Asquith,  and  after  the 
ladies  left  the  room  I  sat  by  the  Prime  Minister.  .  .  .' 

There  seems  little  doubt  that  at  this  meeting  Haig  was 
briefed  for  the  Cabinet  meeting  on  the  following  day.  At  this 
he  urged  further  and  more  elaborate  measures  for  curtailing 

I .  Presumably  for  Haig's  'work'  with  Lord  Esher. 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SIR    JOHN    FRENCH  185 

Kitchener's  power  and  influence.^  These  were,  naturally, 
welcome,  and  as  Bonar  Law  drove  Haig  home  in  his  car 
'.  .  .  he  Stated  how  Lord  K  had  misled  the  Government  and 
wondered  what  appointment  could  be  found  for  him  to 
remove  him  from  London!' 

In  the  light  of  these  intrigues  there  is  a  touch  of  irony 
about  Haig's  note  of  his  next  meeting  with  Kitchener: 

'Lord  K.  was  most  friendly.  .  .  .  He  said  that  today  [3rd 
December]  he  had  written  to  the  Prime  Minister  recom- 
mending that  I  should  be  appointed  to  succeed  to  Sir  J. 
French.  If  the  P.M.  did  not  settle  the  matter  today  he  would 
again  press  for  a  settlement  tomorrow,  but  in  any  case  he  had 
taken  the  matter  in  hand  and  I  must  not  trouble  my  head 
over  it.  Meantime,  he  said  that  I  must  not  be  afraid  to 
criticize  any  of  his  actions  which  I  found  unsatisfactory;  he 
had  only  one  thought,  viz,  to  do  his  best  to  end  the  war.  .  .  . 
He  again  kindly  told  me  that  he  would  look  after  my  interests 
and  wished  me  good  luck.' 

Now  Haig  had  on  his  side  the  King,  the  Cabinet,  and  'K'. 
It  was  impossible  for  French  to  resist  any  longer,  and,  on 
December  loth,  Haig  wrote: 

'About  7  pm  I  received  a  letter  from  the  Prime  Minister 
marked  "Secret"  and  enclosed  in  three  envelopes! 

'It  was  dated  10  Downing  Street,  Dec:  8th  191 5,  and  ran 
as  follows: 

'  "Sir  John  French  has  placed  in  my  hands  his  resignation 
of  the  office  of  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Forces  in  France. 
Subject  to  the  King's  approval  I  have  the  pleasure  of 
proposing  to  you  that  you  should  be  his  successor.  I  am 
satisfied  that  this  is  the  best  choice  that  could  be  made  in  the 
interests  of  the  Army  and  the  Country."  ' 

There  were  one  or  two  final  touches  to  go  on  the  canvas 
before  the  picture  was  complete.  As  his  successor,  Haig 
recommended,  for  G.O.C.  ist  Army,  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson, 

1.  Appendix  6. 


l86  THE    DONKEYS 

noting  at  the  same  time,  'Though  not  a  sincere  man  he  has 
brains  and  experience.'^ 

And  then  there  was  the  last  meeting  with  Sir  John.  It 
could  not  be  pleasant.  In  alarm  Haig  noticed  that  his  erst- 
while superior  was  'not  looking  very  well,  and  seemed  short  of 
breath  at  times'.  In  still  greater  alarm  he  followed  Sir  John 
over  to  a  remote  part  of  the  compound  in  obedience  to  the 
latter's  request  that  there  was  a  'delicate  personal  matter' 
that  he  wished  to  speak  about.  Was  there  to  be,  at  the  last, 
some  undignified  personal  scene?  Some  bitter  recrimination 
that  might  end  in  shouting,  in  gesture,  that  would  be  noticed 
by  those  standing  around  them? 

But  no,  even  this  slight  price  was  not  to  be  paid.  All  that 
Sir  John  wished  to  say  was  that  he  had  wanted  to  give 
Winston  ChurchilP  an  infantry  brigade,  which  idea  had 
been  vetoed,  but  that  he  was  none  the  less  anxious  that  he 
should  have  a  battalion.  Haig  replied  that  he  had  no 
objection,  and  the  interview  was  at  an  end. 

Now,  at  last,  Haig  had  reached  the  summit.  His  was  the 
command  of  the  greatest  army  that  the  Empire  had  ever  put 
in  the  field  in  the  past,  or  was  ever  to  amass  in  the  future.  A 
body  whose  heroism  and  devotion  was  such  that  they  could 
twice  in  two  successive  years  be  ravaged  in  hopeless  offen- 
sives, who  were  in  a  single  day  to  lose  more  men  than  any 
other  army  in  the  history  of  the  world,  whom,  after  twenty- 
seven  months  of  slaughter  and  exhaustion,  he  was  to  leave 
so  perilously  exposed  that  they  were  nearly  annihilated — 
and  yet  whose  fortitude  was  such  that  they  could  still,  after 
three  years,  be  brought  to  final  victory. 

The  change  in  Command  became  official  on  ist  January 
191 6.  The  evening  before  there  was 

'A  regular  New  Year's  beano,  more  like  a  London  New 
Year's  Eve  festival  than  a  war  one.  There  were  present  the 

1.  Rawlinson  was  not  in  fact  appointed.  Instead  the  job  went  to  Monro, 
whose  obesity  had  earHer  aroused  Haig's  comment.  See  p.  24  above. 

2.  At  this  time  Winston  Churchill,  going  through  a  period  of  reaction  after 
the  Dardanelles,  was  doing  a  stint  in  the  front  line. 


THE    DISMISSAL    OF    SIR    JOHN    FRENCH  187 

Duke  of  Teck,  on  D.H.'s  right,  General  Macready,  Sir  A. 
Sloggett,  General  Butler,  Alan  Fletcher,  Sir  Philip  Sassoon, 
etc.  I  do  not  think  that  any  of  us  spoke  about  the  present 
war  all  through  dinner.  .  .  .  Sloggett  was  the  life  and  soul  of 
the  party  with  his  yarns,  some  of  which  were  libellous  and 
few  of  which  would  have  passed  muster  in  a  drawing-room. 
D.H.  never  shines  at  a  dinner,  but  he  was  obviously  in  very 
good  spirits  and  kept  silence  merrily.'^ 

But  in  the  line  the  trenches  were  already  heavy  with  mud 
and  that  Christmas  on  the  leave  platforms  at  Victoria  there 
began  to  be  heard  the  chorus  of  a  new  song: 

I  don't  want  to  die, 

I  want  to  go  home. 

I  don't  want  to  go  to  the  trenches  no  more, 

Where  the  whizz-bangs  and  shells  do  whistle  and  roar. 

I  don't  want  to  go  over  the  sea, 

To  where  the  alleyman  will  shoot  at  me, 

I  want  to  go  home 

I  don't  want  to  die. 


I.  Charteris,  G.i/.Q,.,  p.  129. 


Appendix  i 

The  Charge  of  the  gth  Lancers  at  Fretoy,  on  the  morning  of  yth 
September  19 14,  from  igi4,  by  Field  Marshal  Viscount  French 
of  Ypres: 

'On  reaching  Fretoy  the  village  of  Moncel  was  found  to  be 
occupied  by  a  patrol  of  Germans,  and  was  taken  at  a  gallop  by 
the  leading  troop,  followed  by  the  one  remaining  machine-gun 
of  the  regiment.  About  a  troop  and  a  half,  accompanied  by  the 
Commanding  Officer,  Lieutenant-Colonel  D.  Campbell  and 
Major  Beale-Brown,  moved  up  on  the  left  of  the  village.  Shortly 
afterwards  two  squadrons  of  the  ist  Garde  Dragoner  charged  the 
village  and  drove  out  the  troop  of  the  gth  Lancers  after  a  little 
street  fighting.  A  third  Dragoner  squadron  then  came  up  to  the 
village  from  the  north  in  support.  The  troop  and  a  half  of  the  gth 
Lancers,  led  by  the  Commanding  Officer  and  2nd  in  Command, 
attacked  this  squadron  in  perfect  order,  charged  the  left  half  of 
the  German  squadron  and  pierced  it  with  loss,  both  sides  facing 
the  charge;  the  Germans  at  a  15-mile  rate  and  the  gth  Lancers 
at  speed. 

'In  this  charge  Lieut.-Col.  Campbell  was  wounded  in  the 
arm  by  a  lance  and  in  the  leg  by  a  bullet,  both  wounds,  how- 
ever, being  slight.  The  adjutant,  Captain  G.  F.  Reynolds,  was 
severely  wounded  in  the  shoulder  by  a  lance.  Lieutenant  Alfrey 
.  .  .  was  killed  while  extracting  the  lance  from  Captain  Reynolds. 
Our  casualties  were  slight,  one  officer  and  two  men  killed,  two 
officers  and  five  men  wounded.  The  number  of  Germans  left  on 
the  ground  was  considerable.' 

This  was  Lieutenant-Colonel,  later  General,  David  Campbell, 
who  had  ridden  his  famous  gelding,  'Soarer',  in  the  Grand 
National  of  igi2.  He  commanded  the  2  ist  Division  in  the  opening 
weeks  of  the  battle  of  the  Somme. 

189 


Appendix  2 

WARNINGS    RECEIVED    BY    INTELLIGENCE    OF 
IMPENDING    GERMAN    GAS    ATTACK 

Bulletin  of  the  French  loth  Army,  joth  March  igi§ 

Employment  of  Asphyxiating  Gases  by  the  Germans 

'According  to  prisoners  of  the  XVth  Corps,  there  is  a  large 
supply  along  the  whole  front  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Zillebeke 
(this  was  where  the  enemy  first  intended  to  use  gas)  of  iron 
cylinders,  i  -4  metres  long  which  are  stored  a  little  in  rear  of  the 
trenches  in  bomb-proof  shelters  or  even  buried.  They  contain  a 
gas  which  is  intended  to  render  the  enemy  unconscious  or  to 
asphyxiate  him.  It  has  not  yet  been  made  use  of,  but  the  pioneers 
have  received  instructions  regarding  its  employment;  the  cylinder 
is  laid  on  the  ground  pointing  towards  the  enemy  and  is  opened 
by  withdrawing  the  cap;  the  gas  is  forced  out  by  its  own  pressure, 
and  remains  near  the  surface  of  the  ground.  In  order  that  the 
operation  may  be  without  danger  for  the  operator  a  favourable 
wind  is  necessary.  The  pioneer  detailed  to  open  the  cylinder  has 
a  special  apparatus  attached  to  his  head.  All  the  men  are  supplied 
with  a  cloth  pad  to  be  placed  over  the  nostrils  to  prevent  the  gas 
being  breathed  in.  The  inventor  has  been  promoted  lieutenant.' 

2nd  Army  Report  to  G.H.Q^.,  dated  i§th  April 

'A  reliable  agent  in  the  Detachment  of  the  French  Army  in 
Belgium  reports  that  .  .  .  The  German^  intend  making  use  of 
tubes  with  asphyxiating  gas,  placed  in  batteries  of  20  tubes  for 
every  40  metres  along  the  front  of  the  XXVIth  Corps  (then,  as 
far  as  was  known,  in  the  line  on  either  side  of  Langemarck, 
wholly  opposite  the  French).  This  prisoner  had  in  his  possession 
a  small  sack  filled  with  a  kind  of  gauze  or  cotton  waste  (cotton 
waste  in  a  gauze  bag)  which  would  be  dipped  in  some  solution 
to  counteract  the  effect  of  this  gas. 

190 


APPENDICES  191 

'The  German  morale  is  said  to  have  much  improved  lately, 
owing  to  the  men  having  been  told  that  there  is  not  much  in 
front  of  them. 

'It  is  possible  that  the  attack  may  be  postponed,  if  the  wind  is 
not  favourable,  so  as  to  ensure  that  the  gases  blow  over  our 
trenches.' 

Bulletin  de  Renseignemetits  sur  le  Detachement  de  rArmee  de  Belgique, 

dated  i6th  April 

'.  .  .  the  Germans  have  manufactured  in  Ghent  20,000  mouth 
protectors  of  tulle,  which  the  men  will  carry  in  a  waterproof  bag 
10  cm.  by  175  cm.  These  mouth  protectors,  when  soaked  with  a 
suitable  liquid,  serve  to  protect  the  men  against  the  effects  of 
asphyxiating  gas.' 

One  further  point  that  should  be  mentioned  is  that  in  their 
communique  of  17th  April  the  Germans  said:  'Yesterday  east  of 
Ypres  the  British  employed  shells  and  bombs  with  asphyxiating 
gas.'  To  anyone  famihar  with  the  German  mentality  this  should 
have  been  sufficient  warning  that  they  intended  to  do  something 
of  the  same  kind  themselves  and  were  putting  the  blame  on  their 
opponents  in  advance. 


Appendix  3 

THE   SMITH-DORRIEN    CORRESPONDENCE 

'Advanced  Headquarters,  2nd  Army, 
27th  April  19 1 5 
'My  dear  Robertson, 

'In  order  to  put  the  situation  before  the  Commander- 
in-Chief,  I  propose  to  enter  into  a  certain  amount  of  detail. 

'You  will  remember  that  I  told  Colonel  Montgomery  (H.  M. 
de  F.,  General  Staff,  G.H.Q.)  the  night  before  last,  after  seeing 
General  Putz's  orders,  that  as  he  was  only  putting  in  a  small 
proportion  of  his  troops  (and  those  at  different  points)  to  the 
actual  attack,  I  did  not  anticipate  any  great  results. 

'I  enclose  you  on  a  separate  paper  the  description  of  the  line 
the  troops  are  on  at  this  moment.  I  saw  General  Putz  last  night 
about  to-day's  operations,  and  he  told  me  he  intended  to  resume 
the  offensive  with  very  great  vigour.  I  saw  his  orders,  in  which  he 
claims  to  have  captured  Het  Saas,  but  on  my  asking  him  what  he 
meant  he  said  the  houses  of  that  place  which  are  to  the  west  of 
the  canal.  He  told  me  also  that  the  success  at  Lizerne  had  been 
practically  nil — in  fact,  that  the  Germans  were  still  in  possession 
of  the  village  or  were  last  night. 

'From  General  Putz's  orders  for  to-day,  he  is  sending  one 
brigade  to  cross  the  river  east  of  Brielen  to  carry  forward  the 
troops  on  the  east  of  the  canal  in  the  direction  of  Pilckem,  and  he 
assured  me  that  this  brigade  was  going  to  be  pushed  in  with 
great  vigour. 

'It  was  not  till  afterwards  that  I  noticed  that,  to  form  his  own 
reserve,  he  is  withdrawing  two  battalions  from  the  east  of  the 
canal  and  another  two  battalions  from  the  front  line  in  the  same 
part  to  be  used  as  a  reserve  on  that  bank  of  the  river,  so  the  net 
result  of  his  orders  is  to  send  over  six  fresh  battalions  to  the 
fighting  line  and  to  withdraw  four  which  had  already  been 
employed. 

192 


APPENDICES  193 

'I  have  lately  received  General  Joppe's  orders.  He  is  the 
general  commanding  the  attack  towards  Pilckem  on  the  east  of 
the  canal,  and  I  was  horrified  to  see  that  he,  instead  of  using  the 
whole  of  this  brigade  across  the  canal  for  this  offensive,  is  leaving 
one  regiment  back  at  Brielen,  and  only  putting  the  other  regiment 
across  the  canal  to  attack — 30  the  net  result  of  these  latter  orders 
with  regard  to  the  strength  of  the  troops  on  the  east  of  the  canal 
for  the  fresh  offensive  is  the  addition  of  one  battalion. 

'I  need  hardly  say  that  I  at  once  represented  the  matter  pretty 
strongly  to  General  Putz,  but  I  want  the  Chief  to  know  this  as  I 
do  not  think  he  must  expect  that  the  French  are  going  to  do  any- 
thing very  great — in  fact,  although  I  have  ordered  the  Lahore 
Division  to  co-operate  when  the  French  attack,  at  1.15  p.m.,  I 
am  pretty  sure  that  our  line  to-night  will  not  be  in  advance  of 
where  it  is  at  the  present  moment. 

'I  fear  the  Lahore  Division  have  had  very  heavy  casualties,  and 
so  they  tell  me  have  the  Northumbrians,  and  I  am  doubtful  if  it 
is  worth  losing  any  more  men  to  regain  this  French  ground 
unless  the  French  do  something  really  big. 

'Now,  if  you  look  at  the  map,  you  will  see  that  the  line  the 
French  and  ourselves  are  now  on  allows  the  Germans  to  approach 
so  close  with  their  guns  that  the  area  east  of  Ypres  will  be  very 
difficult  to  hold,  chiefly  because  the  roads  approaching  it  from 
the  west  are  swept  by  shell  fire,  and  were  all  yesterday,  and  are 
being  to-day.  Again,  they  are  now  able  to  shell  this  place, 
Poperinghe,  and  have  done  it  for  the  last  three  days;  all  day 
yesterday  at  intervals  there  were  shells  close  to  my  Report 
Centre  and  splinters  of  one  struck  the  house  opposite  in  the 
middle  of  the  day,  and  splinters  of  another  actually  struck  the 
house  itself  about  midnight — in  other  words,  they  will  soon 
render  this  place  unhealthy. 

'If  the  French  are  not  going  to  make  a  big  push  the  only  line 
we  can  hold  permanently  and  have  a  fair  chance  of  keeping 
supplied  would  be  that  passing  east  of  Wieltje  and  Potisje  with  a 
curved  switch  which  is  being  prepared  through  Hooge  to  join 
onto  our  present  line  about  a  thousand  yards  east  of  Hill  60. 

'This  of  course  means  the  surrendering  of  a  great  deal  of 
trench  line,  but  any  intermediate  line  short  of  that  will  be 
extremely  difficult  to  hold,  owing  to  the  loss  of  the  ridge  east  of 
Zonnebeke  which  any  withdrawal  must  entail. 


194  APPENDICES 

'I  always  have  to  contemplate  the  possibility  of  the  Germans 
gaining  ground  east  of  Lizerne,  and  this,  of  course,  would  make 
the  situation  more  impossible  ...  in  fact  it  all  comes  down  to 
this,  that  unless  the  French  do  something  really  vigorous  the 
situation  might  become  such  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  us  to 
hold  any  line  east  of  Ypres. 

'It  is  very  difficult  to  put  a  subject  such  as  this  in  a  letter 
without  appearing  pessimistic  ...  I  am  not  in  the  least,  but  as 
Army  Commander  I  have  to  provide  for  every  eventuality  and 
I  think  it  right  to  let  the  Chief  know  what  is  in  my  mind. 

'More  British  troops  could  restore  the  situation  but  this  I 
consider  out  of  the  question,  as  it  would  interfere  with  a  big 
offensive  elsewhere  which  is  after  all  the  crux  of  the  situation 
and  will  do  more  to  relieve  this  situation  than  anything  else. 

'Yours  sincerely, 

'H.  L.  Smith-Dorrien.' 

Telephone  message   (record  is  in  writing  of  C.G.S.   Lieutenant- 
General  Sir  W.  R.  Robertson) : 

'2.15  p.m.  27th  April 

'C.G.S.  to  Second  Army 

'Chief  does  not  regard  situation  nearly  so  unfavourable  as 
your  letter  represents.  He  thinks  you  have  abundance  of  troops 
and  especially  notes  the  large  reserves  you  have.  He  wishes  you 
to  act  vigorously  with  the  full  means  available  in  co-operation 
with  and  assisting  the  French  attack  having  due  regard  to  his 
previous  instructions  that  the  combined  attack  should  be  simul- 
taneous. The  French  possession  of  Lizerne  and  general  situation 
on  Canal  seems  to  remove  anxiety  as  to  your  left  flank. 

'Letter  follows  by  Staff  Officer.' 

But  in  fact  no  letter  was  ever  sent,  the  next  communication 
being  a  telegraphed  message  sent,  en  clair,  that  same  evening: 

'Advanced  Second  Army,  V  Corps 

'Chief  directs  you  to  hand  over  forthwith  to  General  Plumer 
the  command  of  all  troops  engaged  in  the  present  operations 
about  Ypres. 


APPENDICES  195 

'You  should  lend  General  Plumer  your  Brigadier-General 
General  Staff  and  such  other  officers  of  the  various  branches 
of  your  staff  as  he  may  require.  General  Plumer  should  send  all 
reports  direct  to  G.H.Q.  from  which  he  will  receive  his  orders. 
Acknowledge. 

'R.  Hutchinson,  Major,  G.S.' 


Appendix  4 

TRENCH    WARFARE    AT    CLOSE    QUARTERS 

Extracts  from  the  diary  of  Captain  F.  Hitchcock,  of  the 
Leinster  Regiment,  relating  to  conditions  in  the  Ypres  saUent 
following  Plumer's  withdrawal  to  the  new  line  in  the  summer  of 

'  1 1  th  August 

'The  CO.  had  a  "pow-wow"  with  all  the  officers  in  the 
Battalion.  He  told  us  that  we  were  ordered  to  consolidate  the 
new  position  at  Hooge.  He  said  we  would  have  to  dig  in  and  wire 
all  night,  and  that  we  must  be  prepared  for  a  counter-attack. 
His  final  orders  were:  "Go  and  tell  your  platoons  what  they  are 
up  against,  and  what  to  expect."  At  7  p.m.  we  marched  off  for 
Hooge  in  battle  order,  each  man  carried  sand-bags,  and  a  pick 
or  shovel.  Algeo  was  in  charge  of  the  Company,  as  Caulfield  had 
gone  up  in  advance  to  take  over  the  front  line.  Marsland  was 
attached  to  Battalion  Headquarters  as  Bombing  Officer.  We  got 
to  the  front  line  at  Hooge  after  a  rough  journey  under  shell-fire, 
over  dead  men  and  round  countless  shell-holes.  At  11  p.m.  we 
had  taken  over  the  Hooge  sector  and  the  mine  crater  from  the 
last  Battalion  The  Buffs  .  .  .  i6th  Brigade.  The  order  of  the 
Battalion  in  the  line  was  C  and  D  Companies  front  line,  with  A 
and  B  in  support  and  reserve.  We  had  hardly  taken  over  the 
line,  when  the  Huns  attacked  our  left  flank,  which  was  exposed. 
However,  Algeo  had  posted  the  Company  Bombers  there,  and 
with  a  handful  of  men  armed  with  jam-tin  bombs,  succeeded  in 
beating  them  back. 

'By  the  light  of  the  moon  and  the  glow  from  the  green-white 
star-shells  one  could  just  distinguish  the  serpentine  course  of  the 
German  lines  running  along  the  near  side  of  the  Bellewaarde  or 
Chateau  Wood,  only  50  yards  away.  The  leafless  trees  stood  out 

196 


APPENDICES  197 

in  their  shattered  forms,  and  behind  them  was  the  lake  reflecting 
the  moonhght. 

'My  left  flank  was  in  the  air,,  a  barricade  only  separating  us 
from  the  Germans.  We  actually  shared  our  front  line  with  the 
enemy!  How  this  strange  fact  came  about  was  as  follows:  the 
continuation  of  our  front  line  running  up  the  Bellewaarde  ridge 
which  had  been  captured  by  the  i6th  Brigade  on  the  gth  had  to 
be  abandoned  the  same  evening,  as  the  trench  was  untenable 
owing  to  the  enfilade  fire  which  caused  terrible  havoc  to  the 
troops  holding  it.  This  enfilade  fire  came  from  the  German 
positions  on  the  high  ground,  on  the  extreme  left  flank  at  Belle- 
waarde Farm. 

'The  1 6th  Brigade,  therefore,  evacuated  this  enfiladed  section 
and  erected  a  strong,  sand-bagged  barrier  in  the  trench  with 
a  good  field  of  fire.  After  about  twelve  hours,  the  Huns  cautiously 
worked  their  way  along  their  old  front  line,  from  Bellewaarde 
Farm,  and  found  that  our  troops  had  withdrawn.  After  the 
bombing  attack  had  been  successfully  repulsed  Algeo  and  his 
bombers  flattened  out  the  old  German  parapets,  and  filled  in 
the  trench  in  front  of  the  barricade,  so  that  the  Huns  could  not 
approach  this  post  under  cover.  Within  15  yards  of  our  barricade, 
the  enemy  switched  off  their  old  front  line  into  their  old  support 
line.  Throughout  the  night,  the  enemy  were  very  offensive  with 
bombs  and  snipers.  We  did  not  retaliate,  as  we  were  too  busily 
employed  reversing  the  parapets,  making  fire  steps  and  deepening 
the  trench  everywhere,  as  we  were  anticipating  a  bombardment 
and  a  counter-attack  on  the  morrow.  Serg.  Bennett  and 
his  machine-gun  section  worked  splendidly,  and  built  two  fine 
battle  positions  for  their  guns.  All  the  men  worked  like  Trojans 
on  top  of  the  parapets  in  their  shirt-sleeves. 

'The  place  reeked  with  the  smell  of  decomposed  bodies.  They 
lay  about  in  hundreds,  on  top  of  the  parapets,  in  our  trenches, 
in  No-Man's-Land,  and  behind  the  parados.  The  British  dead 
mostly  belong  to  the  2nd  York  and  Lanes,  and  the  2nd  D.L.I. 
The  dug-outs  were  full  of  dead  Germans,  those  that  were  not, 
two  only,  were  strengthened  for  occupation.  While  we  were 
working  bullets  spat  viciously  all  round,  and  we  had  several 
casualties. 


igS  APPENDICES 

'i2th  August 

'Dawn  broke  at  4  a.m.  and  within  half  an  hour  I  had  two 
casualties.  Pte.  Bowes  was  killed  by  an  explosive  bullet  in  the 
head,  and  Pte.  Duffey  was  wounded  by  an  enfilade  bullet  from 
the  Bellewaarde  Farm.  We  buried  Bowes  in  a  disused  trench 
behind  our  line.  One  could  now  make  out  the  country  all  round 
perfectly,  and  what  an  appalling  sight  it  was.  Everywhere  lay 
the  dead.  The  ridge  in  our  rear  was  covered  with  dead  men  who 
had  been  wiped  out  in  the  final  assault  of  the  German  position: 
their  faces  were  blackened  and  swollen  from  the  three  days' 
exposure  to  the  August  sun,  and  quite  unrecognizable.  Some 
of  the  bodies  were  badly  dismembered :  here  and  there  a  huddled- 
up  heap  of  khaki  on  the  brink  of  a  shell-crater  told  of  a  direct 
hit.  Haversacks,  tangled  heaps  of  webbed  equipment,  splintered 
rifles,  and  broken  stretchers,  lay  scattered  about.  The  ground 
was  pitted  with  shell-holes  of  all  sizes.  A  few  solitary  stakes  and 
strands  of  barbed-wire  was  all  that  was  left  of  the  dense  mass  of 
German  entanglements  by  our  artillery.  Several  khaki  figures 
were  hanging  on  these  few  strands  in  hideous  attitudes.  In  front 
of  us,  in  No-Man's-Land,  lay  a  line  of  our  dead,  and  ahead  of 
them  on  the  German  parapet  lay  a  D.L.I,  officer.  They  had 
advanced  too  far,  and  had  got  caught  by  a  withering  machine- 
gun  fire  from  the  Bellewaarde  Wood.  There  was  not  a  blade  of 
grass  to  be  seen  in  No-Man's-Land  or  on  the  ridge,  the  ground 
had  been  completely  churned  up  by  the  shells,  and  any  of  the 
few  patches  of  grass  which  had  escaped  had  been  burnt  up  by 
the  liquid  fire.  Some  50  yards  away,  around  the  edge  of  the 
Bellewaarde  Wood,  ran  the  sand-bagged  parapet  of  the  German 
line  on  its  serpentine  course  towards  the  shattered  remains  of 
Hooge. 

'The  wood  itself  had  suffered  severely  from  the  shell-fire. 
Most  of  the  trees  were  badly  splintered,  and  some  had  been  torn 
up  by  the  roots.  There  was  little  foliage  to  be  seen  on  any  of  the 
trees.  All  that  was  left  of  the  once  bushy-topped  trees  which  lined 
the  Menin  Road  were  shattered  stumps,  and  the  telegraph  poles 
stood  drunkenly  at  all  angles.  Although  numbers  of  the  Durhams 
and  the  York  and  Lanes  lay  about  in  the  open,  yet  our  trench 
was  full  of  German  dead  belonging  to  the  Wiirtembergers. 

'They  lay  in  the  dug-outs,  where  they  had  gone  to  seek  refuge 
from  our  guns,  in  fours  and  in  fives.  Some  had  been  killed  by 


APPENDICES  199 

concussion,  others  had  had  their  dug-outs  blown  in  on  top  of 
them,  and  had  suffocated.  Our  gunners  had  done  their  work 
admirably,  and  the  strong  cover  made  with  railway  lines  and 
sleepers  and  with  trunks  of  trees  had  collapsed  under  the  fierce 
onslaught  of  our  shells.  The  faces  of  the  enemy  dead,  who  had 
thus  been  caught  or  pinned  down  by  the  remnants  and  shattered 
timber  of  their  death  traps,  wore  agonized  expressions. 

'Here  and  there,  where  portions  of  the  trench  had  been 
obliterated  by  the  shells,  legs  and  arms  in  the  German  field-grey 
uniform  stuck  out  between  piles  of  sand-bags.  Thousands  of 
rounds  of  fired  and  unexpended  cartridges  lay  about  the 
parapets,  and  ground  into  the  bottom  of  the  trench.  German 
Mausers,  equipment,  helmets,  and  their  peculiar  skin-covered 
packs  lay  everywhere.  The  ground  was  littered  with  portions  of 
the  enemy  uniforms  saturated  in  blood.  Serving  in  the  Ypres 
salient  one  was  not  unaccustomed  to  seeing  men  blown  to  pieces 
and,  therefore,  I  expected  to  see  bad  sights  on  a  battle-field,  but 
I  had  never  anticipated  such  a  dreadful  and  desolate  sight  as  the 
Hooge  presented,  and  I  never  saw  anything  hke  it  again  during 
my  service  at  the  front.  The  reason  that  Hooge  was  such  a 
particularly  bloody  battle-field  was  due  to  the  fact  that  it  covered 
such  a  small  area  in  the  most  easterly  portion  of  the  salient,  and 
was  not  spread  out  over  miles  of  open  country  like  those  battle- 
fields on  the  Somme  in  19 16.  Hooge  had  been  continually  under 
shell-fire  since  the  First  Battle  of  Ypres  in  October,  and  the  ridge 
which  we  had  dug  into  had  been  captured  and  recaptured  five 
times  since  April. 

'At  5  a.m.  some  shells  fell  all  along  our  line.  Then  all  was 
silent  and  we  realized  the  meaning  of  those  dozen  shells  which 
traversed  our  line  from  left  to  right,  ranging  shots  for  a  pukka 
bombardment.  Within  fifteen  minutes  of  the  burst  of  the  last 
shot,  a  steady  bombardment  started  all  along  our  line. 

'The  enemy  gunners  carried  out  their  work  in  a  most  systematic 
manner.  They  fired  by  a  grouping  system  of  five  shells  to  a  limited 
area,  under  12  yards.  Then  they  burst  shrapnel  over  this 
area.  This  plan  for  shelling  our  position  was  undoubtedly 
successful,  as  three  out  of  the  five  shells  hit  our  trench,  oblitera- 
ting it,  blowing  in  the  parapet  on  top  of  the  occupants,  or 
exposing  them  to  a  deadly  hail  from  shrapnel  shells.  Our  casualties 
were  beginning  to  mount  up.  A  direct  hit  with  a  5-9  knocked  out 


200  APPENDICES 

six  men  of  the  Machine-Gun  Section,  Burlace,  Cleary,  and 
Scully  being  killed.  As  there  was  no  communication  trench  the 
walking  wounded  "chanced  their  arms"  going  back  over  the 
ridge  which  was  being  raked  by  shrapnel  fire,  but  the  badly 
wounded  had  to  lie  in  the  bottom  of  the  trench  and  wait  until 
the  cover  of  darkness  to  be  carried  back  by  the  stretcher  bearers. 
Some  of  these  stretcher  cases  were,  unfortunately,  hit  for  a  second 
time  and  killed. 

'At  12.30  p.m.  the  shelling  eased,  and  we  got  ready  for  a 
counter-attack.  The  order:  "Pass  along  the  word,  fix  bayonets," 
went  along  the  line.  We  all,  except  the  wounded  who  looked 
wistfully  up  at  us,  armed  to  the  teeth,  looked  forward  to  Germans 
getting  out  of  their  trenches,  but  they  did  not.  Although  there 
were  no  wire  entanglements  of  any  description  in  front  of  us, 
as  the  single  stretch  of  concertina  wire  had  been  cut  by  the  first 
shells,  yet  we  would  have  given  hell  to  the  Huns  had  they 
attacked.  They  obviously  calculated  on  us  retiring  from  our 
seemingly  hopeless  position,  but  we  did  not  budge  an  inch. 
During  the  lull,  the  men  dragged  the  wounded  under  better 
cover,  dug  out  more  funk-holes,  and  took  the  opportunity  to 
"drum  up  their  char".  Shell-fire,  the  smell  of  powder,  and  the 
continual  dust  made  us  all  very  thirsty,  and  never  did  I  relish 
a  drink  of  tea  more  than  that  dixie-full  which  L/Corpl.  Leanard 
and  Pte.  Coghlan  shared  with  me.  The  dixie  was  chipped  all 
round  the  edges  and  was  blackened  by  smoke ! 

'At  3  p.m.  exactly,  the  enemy  started  a  second  bombardment 
of  our  line.  Ail  along  our  trench  they  put  down  a  terrific  barrage 
of  shells  of  every  description.  High  explosives  and  crumps 
exploded  on  our  parapets,  leaving  burning  and  smoking  craters, 
and  torn  flesh,  and  above,  screeching  and  whining  shrapnel 
burst  over  us.  We  were  shelled  from  all  sides  by  guns  of  every 
calibre.  We  could  not  have  been  in  a  worse  position,  and  it 
seemed  that  every  enemy  gun  around  the  salient  was  turned  on 
to  our  400  yards  of  trench  on  the  left  of  the  Menin  Road.  Shells 
from  the  Bellewaarde  direction  enfiladed  us,  and  blew  in  our 
few  traverses:  shells  from  the  Hill  60  direction  ploughed  great 
rifts  in  our  parados,  and  broke  down  our  only  protection  from 
back-bursts,  and  now  and  then  some  horrible  fragments  of 
mortality  were  blown  back  from  the  ridge  with  lyddite  wreaths. 

'The  whole  place  had  become  quite  dark  from  the  shells  and 


APPENDICES  201 

the  clouds  of  earth  which  went  spouting  up  to  the  sky.  We  could 
barely  see  twenty  yards  ahead  throughout  this  terrible  tornado 
of  fire.  Our  casualties  increased  at  such  a  rapid  rate  that  we  were 
all  greatly  alarmed,  our  trench  had  ceased  to  exist  as  such  and 
the  enemy  shrapnel  caused  dreadful  havoc  amongst  the  practi- 
cally exposed  company.  L/Corpl.  Leanard,  Privates  Keenan, 
McKenna,  Digan,  and  Shea  of  my  platoon,  had  been  hit,  and 
Algeo  got  a  direct  hit  on  his  platoon,  killing  6032  Pte.  Fay,  and 
3642  Pte.  Lysaght,  and  wounding  Privates  Healey  and  Rattigan 
badly,  and  four  of  his  N.C.O.s.  If  this  went  on  much  longer,  the 
Boches  would  walk  into  our  position  without  any  opposition,  as 
we  would  all  be  casualties.  The  shells  came  down  with  tantalizing 
regularity,  which  was  nerve-racking. 

'A  most  demoralizing  effect  is  that  of  being  smothered  in  sand- 
bags. Twice  I  emerged  out  of  a  heap  of  demolished  sand-bags  to 
find  men  hit  on  either  side  of  me.  It  was  extraordinary  how  one 
got  to  know  and  understand  the  men  under  shell-fire.  "  'Tis 
different  now  beyont  in  Killyon,  sir,"  said  a  man  in  my  ear.  "Ye 
gods,  yes!"  I  replied.  The  man  had  seen  me  many  times  pre- 
war, as  Killyon  was  only  three  miles  from  my  home. 

'I  went  up  to  the  bend  where  Company  Headquarters  was 
situated.  They  had  just  got  a  direct  hit  and  the  stretcher  bearers 
were  on  their  knees  bandaging  some  lifeless-looking  forms. 
Another  yell  rang  out  for  stretcher  bearers  from  close  to  a  smoking 
crater,  and  off  Dooley  ran  to  give  first  aid  along  the  top  of  the 
trench  into  the  blackness,  and  disappeared  from  view.  Healy  and 
Rattigan,  who  had  been  hit  earlier  in  the  day,  lay  alongside  each 
other  in  the  bottom  of  the  trench.  Algeo  was  standing  beside 
Sergt.  Bennett,  who  was  sucking  at  an  old  clay  pipe.  Both  wore 
an  expression  of  defiance  on  their  determined-looking  faces. 
Rattigan  was  in  a  semi-conscious  state,  and  blackened  from  head 
to  foot  with  powder.  Healey  was  in  frightful  pain:  he  had  been 
badly  hit  in  the  stomach,  and  kept  calling  for  water.  "Mister 
Algeo,  for  the  love  of  God  give  me  a  drink."  "Stay  quiet  now, 
Healey,  and  you'll  be  all  right  soon."  But  he  would  not  stay  quiet. 
He  then  spotted  me,  and  asked  me  for  my  water-bottle,  but  I 
could  not  give  it  to  him.  Reid  came  along  and  rinsed  his  mouth 
with  water.  "Can't  ye  keep  quiet  now,  for  a  few  minuted.  Shure 
'tis  meself  that  will  be  bringing  you  along  to  the  dressing  station." 
But  Healey  would  not  stay  quiet.  "Holy  Mary,  Mother  of  God!" 


202  APPENDICES 

Bang,  crash!  A  shrapnel  shell  burst  right  over  us,  and  Healy 
lay  quiet  for  all  time.  He  had  been  hit  for  the  second  time.  "  'Tis 
as  well,  sir,"  said  Morrissey.  "He  hadn't  a  hope:  a  piece  of  shell 
as  big  as  your  fist  in  his  stomach!" 

'The  blackened  bodies  of  our  dead,  and  the  badly  wounded, 
lay  about  at  the  bottom  of  the  trench,  and  it  was  impossible  to 
move  without  treading  on  them.  Every  few  minutes  the  call  for 
the  stretcher  bearers  would  be  heard.  Then  along  came  Morrissey 
with  his  first-aid  bag,  closely  followed  by  Reid.  "Steady,  me  lad," 
they'd  say  to  a  man  who  had  lost  his  leg,  but  could  still  feel  the 
toes  of  the  lost  limb  tingling,  "  'tis  a  grand  cushy  one  you've  got. 
Sure  you're  grand  entirely,  and  when  darkness  sets  in  we'll 
carry  you  off  to  the  dressing  station,  and  then  ye'll  get  your  ticket 
for  Blighty."  How  they  stuck  it,  those  company  stretcher  bearers, 
Morrissey,  Reid,  Dooley,  and  Neary.  White  men  all! 

'  1 5th  August 

'The  CO.  came  over  and  told  Caulfield  that  C  and  D 
Companies  were  to  go  back  to  the  front  line  for  two  more  days! 
He  said  that  Piper  should  strengthen  the  barricade,  and  put  out 
barbed  wire:  also  that  the  positions  had  to  be  made  as  strong  as 
possible,  with  traverses  and  flying  traverses  to  stop  the  enfilade 
fire.  He  detailed  me  to  bury  all  the  dead  at  night. 

'At  5.30  B  Company  got  heavily  shelled  for  over  i^  hours. 
The  shrapnel-fire  was  terrific,  and  their  line  was  completely 
enveloped  in  a  dense  mass  of  smoke  from  the  bursting  shells. 

'We  stood  to  in  case  of  an  attack,  but  the  shell-fire  did  not 
materialize  into  anything.  Daly's  casualties  were  7  killed  and 
21  wounded.  These  numbers  included  most  of  his  N.C.O.s. 

'When  it  was  dark  I  set  off  with  two  platoons  to  bury  the  dead. 
It  was  a  most  unpleasant  duty,  as  they  were  all  men  of  the 
Durhams  and  York  and  Lancasters,  who  had  been  killed  on  the 
9th  in  the  charge.  There  were  many  other  bodies  lying  out  in 
this  shell-churned  area,  and  the  ghastly  stench  of  mangled 
corpses  gripped  us  all  by  the  throat  as  we  carried  out  our  task. 
It  was  very  sad,  but  headless  and  armless  got  exactly  the  same 
treatment.  We  searched  all  for  their  identity  discs,  and  their 
Army  Books  64,  and  any  other  personal  belongings  for  their 
next-of-kin.  We  salved  their  webbing  equipment  and  rifles,  and 
buried  them  in  threes  and  fours  in  large  graves.  We  buried  some 


APPENDICES  203 

fourteen  and  returned  to  the  reserve  line,  where  we  all  got  a  rum 
issue.  Barnett  got  a  bullet  through  the  stomach  when  he  was 
guiding  a  working  party  of  the  ist  North  Staffords  along  the 
Menin  Road.  Poole  and  Pearman  were  wounded  and  Louis 
Daly  slightly,  but  he  remained  at  duty,  being  the  only  officer  left 
in  B  Company.  Ducat,  who  was  transport  officer,  returned  to 
duty  to  assist  him.  C  and  D  Companies  took  over  the  front  line 
again  at  9  p.m. 

'i6th  August 

'Barnett  died  of  his  wounds.  The  Doctor  told  us  that  he  stuck 
his  wounds  splendidly,  and  that  men  who  were  only  hit  in  the 
arms  and  legs  were  groaning  all  round  him  in  the  dressing-station. 
Barnett  had  a  presentiment  that  he  would  get  killed,  and  told  us 
so  when  we  got  orders  for  Hoogc.  I  relieved  "Cherrie"  Piper  and 
Caulfield  at  9  a.m.  in  the  fire  trench.  The  Brig.  General 
came  round  to  inspect  the  line  with  the  CO.  The  Brigadier  said 
the  Battalion  had  done  splendidly,  and  that  the  place  was 
thoroughly  consolidated:  he,  however,  objected  to  a  German's 
leg  which  was  protruding  out  of  parapet,  and  I  was  told  to 
have  it  buried  forthwith  by  the  CO.  I  called  Finnegan,  and  told 
him  to  remove  the  offending  limb.  As  it  would  have  meant  pulling 
down  the  whole  parapet  to  bury  it,  he  took  up  a  shovel  and 
slashed  at  it  with  the  sharp  edge  of  the  tool.  After  some  hard 
bangs,  he  managed  to  sever  the  limb.  I  had  turned  away  and 
was  standing  in  the  next  fire  bay,  when  I  overheard  Finnegan 
remarking  to  another  man:  "And  what  the  bloody  hell  will  I 
hang  me  equipment  on  now?" 

'Three  men  of  the  Machine-Gun  Section  were  wounded.  We 
found  a  private  of  the  York  and  Lancasters  wounded  and  in  a 
dying  condition  in  a  dug-out  near  the  culvert,  he  appeared  to 
have  been  there  for  days  without  any  help.  I  had  No.  II  Platoon 
carrying  up  bombs  all  night  to  the  front  line. 

'  1 7th  August 

'On  duty  all  morning  in  the  advanced  trench.  The  CO. 
brought  the  CO.  of  the  North  Staffords,  Lieut.-Colonel  de 
Falbe,  up  to  look  round  the  line.  He  gave  me  orders  about 
burying  some  dead.  In  a  hollow  he  had  discovered  three  un- 
buried.  This  was  a  sad  sight,  as  the  trio  consisted  of  a  patient 


204  APPENDICES 

lying  on  a  stretcher  and  the  two  stretcher  bearers  lying  across 
him,  with  the  slings  of  the  stretcher  still  across  their  shoulders. 
All  had  been  knocked  out  by  the  same  shell. 

'We  were  only  shelled  in  the  support  trench  and  at  Railway 
Wood.  At  lo  p.m.  we  were  relieved  by  the  ist  North  Staffords, 
and  I  handed  over  my  line  with  its  flank  in  the  air  joyfully! 
After  relief  we  did  not  return  to  billets,  but  found  carrying  parties 
for  R.E.  material  to  the  Hooge  crater.  So  back  again  we  toiled 
along  the  Menin  road  in  Indian  file,  with  duckboards,  stakes, 
planks,  and  sand-bags.  To  make  matters  worse,  it  was  raining 
hard  and  very  dark.  It  was  a  tedious  job:  fallen  trees  had  to  be 
negotiated  and  numerous  shell-holes  full  of  water  had  to  be 
avoided.  The  enemy  was  sending  up  star-shells,  and  we  had  to 
halt  until  the  flare  fell  and  had  burnt  itself  out.  To  have  been 
seen  by  the  enemy  would  have  been  fatal,  as  we  were  on  the 
exposed  Menin  road,  right  away  from  cover  of  any  description. 
We  finished  our  work  at  1.30  a.m.  and  moved  off  for  Ypres  in 
the  dark,  and  in  heavy  rain. 

'We  had  no  guide  to  meet  us  in  Ypres,  and  we  wandered  about 
near  the  Lille  Gate.  Sergt.  Sullivan,  the  Provost  Sergeant, 
heard  me  cursing,  and  came  to  my  assistance,  and  showed  me 
our  billeting  area.' 


Appendix  5 

EXTRACT   FROM   HAIG's    DIARY,    gTH    OCTOBER    I915 

'Lord  Haldane  came  to  lunch.  Afterwards  he  came  to  my  room 
and  asked  me  to  give  him  my  views  on  the  action  of  the  Reserves, 
i.e.  of  the  2ist  and  24th  Div§.  during  the  25th  and  26th  Sep- 
tember. He  said  that  feehngs  were  so  strong  on  the  subject 
in  England  that  he  had  come  to  France  in  the  hope  of  arriving 
at  the  truth.  I  gave  him  all  the  facts.  The  main  criticism  to  my 
mind  is  the  fact  that  the  Reserves  were  not  at  hand  when  wanted. 
The  causes  for  this  seems  to  be: 

'i.  Neither  the  C-in-C  nor  his  staff  fully  realized  at  the  begin- 
ning (in  spite  of  my  letters  and  remarks)  the  necessity  for  reserves 
being  close  up  before  the  action  began. 

'2.  The  two  divisions  were  billeted  in  depth  a  long  distance 
from  where  they  would  be  wanted,  and  no  attempt  was  made  to 
concentrate  them  before  the  battle  began. 

'3.  When  the  course  of  the  fight  showed  that  reserves  were 
wanted  at  once  to  exploit  the  VICTORY,  the  two  divns.  were 
hurried  forward  without  full  consideration  for  their  food,  etc., 
with  the  result  that  the  troops  arrived  worn  out  at  the  point  of 
attack  and  unfit  for  battle. 

'4.  But  the  2 1  St  and  24th  Divns.  having  only  recently  arrived 
in  France,  with  staffs  and  commanders  inexperienced  in  war, 
should  not  have  been  detailed  for  this  work.  It  was  courting 
disaster  to  employ  them  at  once  in  fighting  of  this  nature.  There 
were  other  divisions  available  as  shown  by  the  fact  that  they 
arrived  three  days  later  upon  the  battlefield,  namely,  the  28th 
Divn.,  the  12th  Divn.  and  the  Guards  Divn. 

T  also  felt  it  my  duty  to  tell  Lord  Haldane  that  the  arrange- 
ments for  the  supreme  command  during  the  battle  were  not 
satisfactory.  Sir  John  French  was  at  Philomel  (near  Lillers) 
twenty-five  miles  nearly  from  his  C.G.S.  who  was  at  St.  Omer 

205 


206  APPENDICES 

with  G.H.Q.  Many  of  us  felt  that  if  these  conditions  continued  it 
would  bvi  difficult  ever  to  win!  Lord  Haldane  said  that  he  was 
very  glad  to  have  had  this  talk  with  me,  and  seemed  much 
impressed  with  the  serious  opinion  which  I  had  expressed  to 
him. 

'(note:  In  spite  of  these  views  I  expressed,  as  given  above, 
to  Lord  Haldane,  the  latter  went  back  to  England  and  stated 
that  no  blame  for  failure  could  be  attached  to  Sir  John  French.)'^ 


I.  This  comment  was  added  subsequently  by  Haig. 


Appendix  6 

haig's  recommendation  to  the  cabinet, 
24th  november   i9i5 

'At  6.30  p.m.  I  attended  at  the  Colonial  office  by  appointment 
and  saw  Mr.  Bonar  Law.  The  main  points  I  urged  were: 

'i.  The  immediate  removal  of  the  Imperial  General  Staff 
(with  Sir  Wm.  Robertson  as  C.I.G.S.)  to  Horse  Guards,  so  as 
to  be  free  from  War  Office  routine  and  questions  of  administra- 
tion, General  Staff  to  lay  down  the  size  of  the  Army  required  and 
how  it  is  to  be  employed. 

'2.  The  formation  of  only  one  class  of  Army  instead  of  three  as 
at  present  (Territorials,  K's  and  Regular  Armies). 

'3.  The  Divisions  to  be  of  similar  establishment  throughout  the 
Field  Force. 

'4.  Units  at  the  front  to  be  maintained  at  full  strength.  My 
Army  alone  is  21,000  of  all  ranks  deficient. 

T  did  not  mention  anything  about  Sir  J.  French.  Mr.  B.  Law 
stated  how  Lord  K  had  misled  the  Govt  and  wondered  what 
appointment  could  be  found  for  him  to  remove  him  from 
London!' 

author's  note  :  One  of  the  conditions  that  Haig  shared  with 
Sir  John  French  was  his  apprehension  that  Lord  Kitchener  might 
be  going  to  put  'his'  armies  to  a  special  and  personal  use — • 
probably  in  furtherance  of  K's  strategic  concepts  in  the  Near 
East.  Hence  Haig's  anxiety  to  take  advantage  of  any  weakness 
in  Kitchener's  position  to  prise  away  from  him  the  I.G.S.  and 
the  administrative  control  of  the  Army. 

The  reference  to  French  is  of  interest  only  as  suggesting  that 
the  subject  probably  was,  in  fact,  discussed.  Bonar  Law's  indis- 
cretion coming  from  one  habitually  so  reticent  is  yet  further 
evidence  of  Cabinet  unity  on  this  one  question,  if  on  no  other — 
namely,  how  to  get  rid  of  Lord  'K'? 

207 


Bibliography 

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Marshall,  1926). 

Beaverbrook,  Lord,  Politicians  and  the   War,  Vol.  I   (Thornton 

Butterworth,  1928). 
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(Cassell,  193 1 ). 
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and  II,  1923;  Vol.  Ill,  1927;  Vol.  IV,  1929;  Vol.  V,  1931). 
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Royal  United  Service  Institution,  Vol.  LXXXI,  1936). 
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Edinburgh,  1925). 
Falkenhayn,    Field   Marshal  von.    General   Headquarters    and   its 

Critical  Decisions  (English  translation,  H.M.S.O.,  1919). 
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of  Ypres,  K.P.,  G.C.B.,   O.M.,  G.C.V.O.,  K.C.M.G.   (Cassell, 

1930- 
French,  J.  D.  P.,  ist  Earl  of  Ypres,  igi4  (Constable,  1919). 
George,  D.  L,,  War  Memoirs  (Nicholson  and  Watson,  1933-6). 
Hitchcock,  F.   C,  Stand  To:  A  diary  of  the  trenches,   igij-igi8 

(Hurst  and  Blackett,  1937). 
Liddell  Hart,  B.  H.,  Reputations  (Murray,   1928);  History  of  the 

209 


210  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Great  War,  igi4-igi8  (Faber  and  Faber,  1936);  Foch,  The  Man 
of  Orleans  (Gassell,  1934). 
Magnus,    Philip,    Kitchener:   Portrait  of  an  Imperialist    (Murray, 
1958). 

Poincare,  R.,  Au  Service  de  la  France,  Vols.  VI,  1930;  VII,  1931 
(Plon,  Paris,  1 930-1);  The  Memoirs  of  Raymond  Poincare  igi§ 
(Translated  and  adapted  by  Sir  George  Arthur,  Heinemann, 
1930)- 

S  .  .  .  H.  L.,  'Loos'  (In  The  London  Scottish  Regimental  Gazette, 
Vol.  XXV,  No,  293,  1920). 

Spears,  Brigadier  Sir  Edward,  Prelude  to  Victory  (Cape,  1939). 

Wynne,  G.  G.,  'The  Affair  of  the  21st  and  24th  Divisions  at  Loos, 
26th  September  19 15' (In  The  Fighting  Forces,  Vol.  XI,  1934). 


Index 


General:  Officers  are  referred  to  by  the  rank  which  they  bore  at  the  time  of 
the  operations.  Regiments  are  Hsted,  but  not  by  separate  battahons. 


Alderson,      General,      commanding 

Canadian  Division,  91,  93 
Allen  by.  General 

elected    to    membership    of   Staff 

College  Drag,  23 
unwelcome  suggestion  at  Merville 
Conference,  49-50 
Ammunition,  38 

returns  for  winter  of  191 4-1 5,  39 

fn. 
duds    of   American    manufacture, 
109 
Anderson,  Lieutenant-General  C.  A. 
commands     Meerut     Division     at 

Neuve  Chapelle,  50 
commands     Meerut     Division     at 
Aubers,  106 
Artillery 

absence   of  59th    and    8ist    Seige 
batteries     at     Neuve     Chapelle, 
50-1  (and  fn.) 
strength    at    Aubers    Ridge,    105, 
109  fn. 
Asquith 

visits  headquarters  in  France,  30, 
132,  135,  142 


Balfourier,  General,  78 
Bareilly  Brigade,  The,  1 2 1 
Beaverbrook,  Lord 

conversation  with  Captain  Stanley 

Wilson,  M.P.,  131-2 
Northcliffe  confides  -views  on  Kit- 
chener to,  133 
analysis    of   'the    Shells    Scandal', 
134  fn. 
Berkshire   Regiment,   The,    52,    156, 

157 


Bertie,  Sir  F.,  29 

Black   Watch,   The,    123,    152,    157, 

162 
Bliss,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  55 
Brooke,  Lord,  132 
Buffs,  The,  76,  81,  82  fn. 
Butler,  Brigadier-General  R.  H.  K., 

123,  125 


Calais   Conference,   6th  July    1916, 

135 
Cameron     Highlanders,     The,     152, 

156,  157,  159 
Campbell,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  189 
Canadian  Division,  The,  76,  80,  89 
Carter,  Brigadier-General  David,  61, 

64 
Castlenau,  General,  128,  129 

views  on  war,  150 
Casualties 

at  '2nd  Ypres',  loi 

at  Aubers  Ridge,  126 

at  Loos  (2nd  day),  173 
Charteris,  Major 

views  on  duration  of  the  war,  42 

views  on  'losses',  73 

description  of  effect  of  poison  gas, 

74 
assessment    of    battle    of    Aubers 

Ridge,  128 
opinion  of  Winston  Churchill,  133 
description    of    New    Year's    Eve 
party  at  G.H.Q..,  187 
Chetwode,  Sir  Philip 

manoeuvring  the  5th  Cavalry  Bri- 
gade, 17 
Christmas    in    the    front   line,    1914, 
41 

211 


212 


INDEX 


Churchill,  W.  S. 
political  status,  133 
Charteris'  opinion  of,  133  fn. 
sacrificed  by  Asquith,  1 34 
description   of  meeting   with   Kit- 
chener   before    Loos,     143    fn., 
183 
given    command    of    a    battalion, 
186 
Goehorn  siege-mortars,  39 
Connaught  Rangers,  The,  97 
Cornwall's  Light  Infantry,  The  Duke 

of,  100  fn. 
Crewe,  Lord 

at  Calais  Conference,  134,  142 
presides   over  a   Cabinet  Meeting 
during  Asquith's  illness,  181 


Da  VIES,  Major-General 

commands  8th  Division  at  Neuve 
Chapelle,  50,  61 

at  Aubers  Ridge,  106,  120 
Dehra  Dun  Brigade,  The,  no,  121 
Delcasse,  28,  134 

Devonshire  Regiment,  The,  55,  64 
Dundonald,  Lord 

visits  Haig  with  prophetic  scheme, 

78-9 
Dunkirk  Conference,  November  1914, 

33 


Edmonds,  Sir  James 

account    of  conversation    between 

French  and  Smith-Dorrien,  13 
recollections    of    advance    to    the 

Aisne,  18 
comment  on  JofFre  plans,  19 
Egerton,  Brigadier-General,  71 
Esher,  Viscount 

visits  Haig's  headquarters,  183 


Falkenhayn,  Field  Marshal  von 
view  of  English  troops'   ability  in 
an  offensive  role,  104 


Feetham,  Colonel,  52 
Ferozepore  Brigade,  The,  71 
Finlay,  Lance-Corporal  D.,  v.c,  124 
Fisher,  Lord 

resigns  as  First  Sea  Lord,  133 
Fitzgerald,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Brins- 
ley,  32 

disclosures  to  Bonar  Law,  132 
Foch,  General 

writes  to  Joffre  concerning  British 
Staff  appointments,  29,  34 

tells  Wilson  of  Kitchener's  sug- 
gestion for  replacing  Sir  John 
French,  33 

formula  for  humouring  Sir  John 
French,  33 

'strategical  talk'  with  Henry  Wil- 
son, 42 

on  failure  of  December  191 4  oper- 
ations, 43 

recollections  of  the  gas  crisis,  83 

visits  Putz  and  French,  24th  April 
I9i5>  87 

losing  interest  in  operations  at 
'2nd  Ypres',  100 

threats  in  case  of  non-co-operation 
by  the  British,  141 

conversation    with     Haig    at    tea 
before  Loos,  147 
French  native  troops 

Description  of  appearance,  77 

mutiny  of,  98 
French,  Sir  John,  16,  21 

orders  for  battle  of  the  Aisne,  1 7 

concerned  with  appointing  a  new 
Chief-of-Staff,  28-31 

views  on  Christmas  fraternization, 
42 

objects  to  being  asked  to  relieve 
French  9th  Corps,  44 

writes  'a  letter  on  the  general  situa- 
tion' to  Asquith,  46 

drives  to  see  Foch  at  Cassel,  23rd 
April  1915,  83 

orders  to  Smith-Dorrien,  25th 
April  1 91 5,  89 

further  vague  instructions,  91 

attitude  concerning  'giving  up' 
ground,  94 


INDEX 


213 


French,  Sir  John — contd. 

confers  with  Haig  regarding  pros- 
pects for  the  offensive,  1 04 

indecision  regarding  practicabiHty 
of  an  attack  at  Loos,  139 

plans  for  co-operation   'by  threat 
and  impHcation',  141 

releases  nth  Corps  to  Haig,  164 

notes    a    military    debate    in    the 
House  of  Lords,  1 75 

recommends  a  course  of  action  to 
Foch,  176 

account  of  a  Cabinet  Meeting,  1 8 1 

last  meeting  with  Haig,  186 
Fretoy 

charge  of  the  gth  Lancers,  16,  189 


Gas 

warning  of  impending  attack,  78, 
1 90- 1 

quantity  of,  at  Loos,  148 
Geddes,  Colonel  A.  D.,  82,  93 
George  V,  His  Majesty,  King 

at  farewell  review  at  Aldershot,  23 

visits  France,  178-9 

thrown  by  a  mare,  179 
Gharwali  Rifles,  The,  56 
Ghurkas,  The,  56,  65,  no,  in 
Gloucestershire  Regiment,  The,  155, 

157 
Gold,     Captain,     R.F.C.     Meteoro- 
logical Officer,  147 
Gordon  Highlanders,  The,  67 
Gough,  Brigadier-General  John,  v.c, 

14,  24  fn. 
Gough,  General  Sir  H.  le  P.,  17 
'The  Curragh  Affair',  27  fn. 
commanding  7th  Division  at  Aubers 
Ridge,  123 
Graeme,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  159 
Green,  Lieutenant-Colonel  E.  W. 

'Green's  Force',  153,  157,  159 
Green  Howards,  The,  62 
Grenadier  Guards,  The,  67 
Grierson,  Lieutenant-General  Sir  J. 
outmanoeuvres  Haig  at  191 2  exer- 
cise, 28 
Guest,  Captain,  132 


Haig,  General  Sir  Douglas,  17,21 
cautious  approach  to  the  Aisne,  18 
speaks  to  H.M.  the  King  at  Aider- 
shot  farewell  review,  23 
views  expressed  to  military  corres- 
pondent of  The  Times,  47 
on  reasons  for  ist  Corps  conducting 

Neuve  Chapelle  offensive,  48 
orders  up  more  reserves  at  Neuve 

Chapelle,  63 
visits  Neuve  Chapelle  support  area 
on  evening  of  nth  March  191 5, 

69 

orders  to  attack  'regardless  of  loss', 
70 

asks  French  for  more  reserves,  71 

account  of  letters  from  Rawlinson 
and  Davies,  72-3 

explains  plan  for  Aubers  offensive 
to  Conference  of  Corps  and 
divisional  commanders  27th 
April  1 91 5,  107 

orders  to  'press  the  attack  vigor- 
ously' at  Aubers,  119 

visits  Indian  H.Q_.  at  Lestrem,  121 

account  of  the  terrain  at  Loos,  139 

describes  Kitchener's  visit  before 
Loos,  143 

conversation  with  Foch  at  tea 
before  Loos,  147 

orders  to  nth  Corps  for  26th  Sep- 
tember 1 91 5,  166 

inscription  on  a  flask  presented  to 
Haig  by  Sir  John  French,  175 

invited  to  dinner  at  the  royal  Mess, 

179 
account  of  the  King's  riding  acci- 
dent, 180 
recommendations    to    Lord    Esher 

concerning   the   future   of  Lord 

Kitchener,  183 
receives  notice  of  his  appointment 

as  Commander-in-Chief,  185 
last  meeting  with  Sir  John  French, 

186 
report  to  Lord  Haldane  on  '2nd 

day'  at  Loos,  205 
recommendations  to  the  Cabinet, 

24th  November  191 5,  207 


214 


INDEX 


Haking,    General    commanding    ist 
Division    at   Aubers,    io6,    112, 
ii3>  123 
General  commanding  1 1  th  Corps, 
163,  166,  168,  169,  174,  179 
Haldane,  Lord 

sacrificed  by  Asquith,  1 33 
visits  Haig  after  Loos,  1 77 
Hamilton,  General  Sir  Ian 

possibility    of  replacing    Sir  John 
French  by,  33,  138,  143 
Hand-grenades,   quality  of  early  is- 
sues, 39 
Hart,  see  Liddell  Hart,  B.  H. 
Hayes,  Colonel  R.  H.,  55 
Highland  Light  Infantry,  The,  152 
Holland,  Major-General  A.  E.,  CO. 

1st  Division,  158 
Home,   General,   CO.  2nd  Division 
refuses    to    cancel    orders   for   gas 
release,  147,  148 
Huguet,  General,  28,  34 

on  Anglo-French  relations,  43 
Hull,  Brigadier-General,  92,  93,  97 


Indian  Corps 

Haig's  impression  of,  25 
at  Neuve  Chapelle,  50 
at  Aubers  Ridge,  106 
Intelligence 

prediction    of  enemy   strength    at 

Neuve  Chapelle,  49 
warnings    of    enemy    strength    at 
Aubers,  106 
Irish  Rifles,  The  Royal,  53,  56,  58, 
116 


JoFFRE,  Mar^chal,  28 

irritation  with  Sir  John  French,  44 
assertion  of  carte  blanche  for  new 

offensive,  46 
conception   of  a   spring   offensive, 

104 
possibility  of  secret  compact  with 

Kitchener,  135-6,  142-3 
conception  of  an  autumn  offensive, 

138 


communication  with  Kitchener  re- 
garding British  co-operation  at 
Loos,  142 

conference     at     Chantilly     before 
Loos,  146 
Johnstone,  Second  Lieutenant,  R.E., 
v.c,  152 


Kents,  Royal  West,  84  fn. 
K.O.S.B.,84fn.,  151,  152 
K.O.Y.L.I.,  84  fn. 
King's  Own  Regiment,  The,  100  fn. 
Kitchener,  Field  Marshal  Lord,  25 
antipathy  to  Henry  Wilson,  27 
on   a   visit   to   Headquarters   with 

Asquith,  30 
adamant  over  the  honours  list,  3 1 
orders   to   send   ammunition   from 

France  to  the  Dardanelles,  125 
authority     restricted      by     Lloyd 

George's  appointment,  134 
possibility  of  a  'secret  compact'  with 

JoflTre,  135-6,  142-3 
doubt  about  the  practicability  of 

the  offensive,  137 
meeting  with  Haig,  and  efforts  on 
his  behalf,  185 
Kitchener's  Wood,  80,  81 


Lahore  Division,  The,  86  fn.,  95,  96 
Lambton,  Major-General  Sir  W.,  32 
Lansdowne,  Marquis  of 

visited  by  Henry  Wilson,  30 
Law,  Rt.  Hon.  Bonar 

writes  to  Asquith  demanding  gov- 
ernment     reconstruction,      1 32, 

133 
discusses     Kitchener    with    Haig, 

184-5 
Leicestershire  Regiment,  The,  56 
Liddell  Hart,  Captain  B.  H.,  12  fn., 

13  fn.,  29  fn.,  33  fn.,  43  fn.,  129 

fn.,  141  fn. 
Lincolnshire  Regiment,  The,  52,  118 
Lloyd  George,  Rt.  Hon.  David,  132, 

134,  183 
London  Irish,  150 


London  Regiment,  The,  57,  62,  84, 

115,  116,  120,  150 
'Lone  tree',  152 
Lowry-Cole,  Brigadier-General 

commander  25th  Brigade  at  Neuve 

Chapelle,  51 
at  Aubers  Ridge,  1 1 5 
killed  in  action,  1 1 9 


Macandrew,  Colonel,  52 
Manchester  Regiment,  The,  97 
'Mauser  ridge',  79,  84,  95,  96 
Middlesex   Regiment,    The,    55,    58, 

62,  76,  81,  82,  120 
Milne,  Major-General,  loi 
Monro,  General  Sir  C. 
Haig's  opinion  of,  24 
appointed  to  succeed  Haig,  186  fn. 
Munster  Fusiliers,  The,  no,  112 
Murray,    Major-General    Sir    Archi- 
bald 
Haig's  opinion  of,  24 
circumstances    in    relation    to    his 
replacement     as     Chief-of-Staff, 
28-31 


Northamptonshire  Regiment,  The, 
62,  69,  no,  III,  112,  120 

NorthclifFe,  Lord 

conversation    with    Lord    Beaver- 
brook  concerning  Kitchener,  133 

Northumberland  Brigade  (the  149th), 
96 

Northumbrian   Division    (the    50th), 
86  fn. 


O'GowAN,    Brigadier-General   Wan- 
less,  84  fn.,  93 
Oxley,  Brigadier-General,  1 1 5 


Pathans,  The,  97 

Pelle,  General,  141 

Pinney,  Brigadier-General,  55 


INDEX  215 

Plumer,  General 

conducts    Staff  College    examina- 
tion, 22 
orders     for     counter-attack,     23rd 
April  1915,  84,  91 
Poincare 

on     disillusionment     at     offensive 
operations,  128 
Prichard,  Colonel 

refuses  to  advance,  69  fn. 
Putz,  General,  87,  98 


Queens,  The,  120 


Rawlinson,   Lieutenant-General   Sir 
Henry,  Bt. 
Haig's  opinion  of  his  staff,  24-5 
commands    4th    Corps    at    Neuve 

Chapelle,  50 
views  as  to  the  state  of 'the  orchard' 

at  Neuve  Chapelle,  61 
orders  during  the  battle,  63,  68 
asks  Haig  to  postpone  zero  hour  on 

2nd  day,  70 
writes  to  Haig  blaming  Davies  for 

failure,  72 
withdraws  accusations,  73 
dissatisfaction  at  the  course  of  the 

battle  of  Aubers  Ridge,  1 1 5 
suggests  alteration  to  plan,  125 
on  a  visit  to  Franchet  d'Esp6rey, 

136 
selected  by  Haig  as  his  successor, 
185 
Repington,  Colonel,  132,  182 
Rice,  General 

forecast    concerning    character    of 
war,  42 
Rickard,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  112 
Riddell,      Brigadier-General,      CO. 
Northumberland     Brigade,     97, 
98 
Rifle  Brigade,  The,  53,  56,  58,  67, 

68,  116,  120 
Robertson,  General  W. 

takes  a  drive  with  Henry  Wilson, 
30.  89 


2l6 


INDEX 


Robertson,  General  W. — contd. 

comparison  of  warfare  to  gambling 

at  cards,  127 
journeys  to  London,  177 
visits  Lord  Stamfordham,  1 78 
letters  to  Haig  from  London,  184 


Sanderson,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  153 
Scots,  The  Royal,  37,  62 
Scottish  Rifles,  The,  55,  58 
Seaforth  Highlanders,  The,  56-7,  60, 

1 10,  III  fn.,  152 

'Second    Position',    the    enemy,    at 

Loos,  168 
Sharpe,    Acting-Corporal    C,    v.c, 

118 
Sherwood  Foresters,  62,  68 
Sikhs,  The,  97 

Smith-Dorrien,  General  Sir  Horace, 
23,  48  fn.,  88 
drives  to  French's  headquarters  in 
effort  to  dissuade  him  from  or- 
dering forth  counter-attacks,  94 
protests  at  instructions,  95 
directs    that    'offensive    operations 

shall  cease  forthwith',  98 
writes  to  Robertson,  99 
correspondence,  192-5 
'Smith-Dorrien  trench',  53,  60 
Somerset  Regiment,  The,  37 
Southey,     Brigadier-General,     Com- 
manding Bareilly  Brigade,  1 2 1 
Spears,  Sir  Edward,  136 
Stamfordham,  Lord 

receives  Robertson,  1 78 
Stephens,     Lieutenant-Colonel,     54, 

62,  67 
Sussex,   The  Royal  Regiment,    1 1  o, 

111,  157 


Ureal,  General  Philippe  D' 

Haig's  opinion  of,  25,  105,  108  fn., 
139 


'Wastage'  from  illness,  40 
Watts,  Brigadier-General,  64 
Welch  Regiment,  The,  no,  162 
Wellington's    Regiment,    The    Duke 

of,  84  fn.,  100  fn. 
Widdicombe,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  65 
Willcocks,  Lieutenant-General  Sir  J. 
commands  Indian  Corps  at  Neuve 

Chapelle,  50 
exchanges   with   General    Rawlin- 

son,  63 
cancels     night     attack    at    Neuve 
Chapelle  on  his  own  initiative, 

65,  71 
reluctant  to  attack  a  third  time  at 

Aubers,  121 
Wiltshire  Regiment,  The,  62 
Wilson,        Lieutenant-General        Sir 

Henry,  Bt.,  26-7 
antipathy  to  Kitchener,  27 
candidate    for    post    of    Chief-of- 

Staff,  28-30 
touring  the  French  lines,  31 
tells  Sir  J.   French  of  Kitchener's 

proposal  to  Foch  concerning  his 

replacement,  33 
on  winter  conditions,  40-1 
makes  excuses  for  B.E.F.  to  Foch, 

43 
dinner  at  Chantilly  with  JofTre,  44 
verdict    on    the    battle    of  Aubers 

Ridge,  128 
communicates    French's    plans    to 
Pell^,  141 
Woosnam,  Corporal  J.,  172 
Worcestershire   Regiment,    The,    62, 
68-9 


York  and  Lancaster  Regiment,  The, 

82  fn.,  100  fn. 
Yorkshire  Regiment,  The  West,  55 


UNIVERSITY    OF    FLOmaA 


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