In the centre, near Armentieres, our troops withstood three separate attempts of the enemy to push forward, our guns coming into play with good effect. Against our left the German Twenty-seventh Corps made a violent effort with no success.
On Sunday, the 25th, it was our turn to take the offensive. This was carried out by a portion of our left wing, which advanced, gained some ground, and took two guns and eighty prisoners. It is believed that six machine guns fell to the French.
In the centre the fighting was severe, though generally indecisive in result, and the troops in some places were engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Toward evening we captured 200 prisoners.
On the right action was again confined to that of the guns.
Up to the night of the 25th, therefore, not only have we maintained our position against the great effort on the part of the enemy to break through to the west, or to force us back, which started on the 20th; we have on our left pa.s.sed to the offensive.
These six days, as may be gathered, have been spent by us in repelling a succession of desperate onslaughts. It is true that the efforts against us have been made to a great extent by partially trained men, some of whom appear to be suffering from lack of food. But it must not be forgotten that these troops, which are in great force, have only recently been brought into the field, and are therefore comparatively fresh. They are fighting also with the utmost determination, in spite of the fact that many of them are heartily sick of the war.
The struggle has been of the most severe and sanguinary nature, and it seems that success will favor that side which is possessed of most endurance, or can bring up and fling fresh forces into the fray. Though we have undoubtedly inflicted immense loss upon the enemy, they have so far been able to fill up the gaps in their ranks and to return to the charge, and we have suffered heavily ourselves.
One feature of the tactics now employed has been the use of cavalry in dismounted action, for on both sides many of the mounted troops are fighting in the trenches alongside the infantry.
Armored motor cars, armed with Maxims and light quick-firing guns, also have recently played a useful part on our side, especially in helping to eject the enemy lurking in villages and isolated buildings. Against such parties the combined action of the quick-firer against the snipers in buildings, and the Maxim against them when they are driven into the open, is most efficacious.
XI.
*The British Defense at Ypres.*
[Dated Nov. 13.]
The diminution in the force of the German rush to the west has not lasted long. The section of the front to the north of our forces was the first to meet the recrudescence of violence in the shape of an attack in the neighborhood of Dixmude and Bixschoote.
Our turn came next. After eight days of comparative relaxation we were under constant pressure from Tuesday, Nov. 3, to Tuesday, the 10th. The next day saw a repet.i.tion of the great attempt of the Germans to break through our lines to the French coast.
What was realized might happen did happen. In spite of the immense losses suffered by the enemy during the five-day attack against Ypres, which lasted from Oct. 29 to the 2d of this month, the cessation of their more violent efforts on the latter day did not signalize the abandonment of the whole project, but merely the temporary relinquishment of the main offensive until fresh troops had been ma.s.sed to carry on what was proving to be a costly and difficult operation.
Meanwhile the interval was employed in endeavoring to wear out the Allies by repeated local attacks of varying force and to shatter them by a prolonged and concentrated bombardment. By the 11th, therefore, it seems that they considered they had attained both objects, for on that day they recommenced the desperate battle for the possession of Ypres and its neighborhood.
Though the struggle has not yet come to an end, this much can be said: The Germans have gained some ground, but they have not captured Ypres.
In repulsing the enemy so far we have suffered heavy casualties, but battles of this fierce and prolonged nature cannot but be costly to both sides. We have the satisfaction of knowing that we have foiled the enemy in what appears to be at present his main object in the western theatre of operations, and have inflicted immensely greater losses on him than those we have suffered ourselves.
To carry on the narrative for the three days of the 10th, 11th, and 12th of November:
Tuesday, the 10th, was uneventful for us. At some distance beyond our left flank the enemy advanced in force against the French and were repulsed. Directly on our left, however, along the greater part of the front, sh.e.l.ling was less severe, and no infantry attacks took place.
To the southeast of Ypres the enemy kept up a very heavy bombardment against our line, as well as that of the French. On our left centre the situation remained unchanged, both sides contenting themselves with furious cannonading. In our centre the Germans retained their hold on the small amount of ground which they had gained from us, but in doing so incurred a heavy loss from our artillery and machine gun fire.
Incidentally, one of the houses held by the enemy was so knocked about by our fire that its defenders bolted. On their way to the rear they were met by reinforcements under an officer who halted them, evidently in an endeavor to persuade them to return. While the parley Was going on one of our machine guns was quietly moved to a position of vantage, whence it opened a most effective fire on the group.
On our right one of the enemy"s saps, which was being pushed toward our line, was attacked by us. All the men in it were captured.
Wednesday, the 11th, was another day of desperate fighting. As day broke the Germans opened fire on our trenches to the north and south of the road from Menin to Ypres. This was probably the most furious artillery fire which they have yet employed against us.
A few hours later they followed this by an infantry a.s.sault in force.
This attack was carried out by the First and Fourth brigades of the Guard Corps, which, as we now know from prisoners, have been sent for to make a supreme effort to capture Ypres, since that task had proved too heavy for the infantry of the line.
As the attackers surged forward they were met by our frontal fire, and since they were moving diagonally across part of our front they were also attacked on the flank by artillery, rifles, and machine guns.
Though their casualties before they reached our line must have been enormous, such was their resolution and the momentum of the ma.s.s that in spite of the splendid resistance of our troops they succeeded in breaking through our line in three places near the road. They penetrated some distance into the woods behind our trenches, but were counter-attacked again, enfiladed by machine guns and driven back to their line of trenches, a certain portion of which they succeeded in holding, in spite of our efforts to expel them.
What their total losses must have been during this advance may be gauged to some extent from the fact that the number of dead left in the woods behind our line alone amounted to 700.
A simultaneous effort made to the south, a part of the same operation although not carried out by the Guard Corps, failed entirely, for when the attacking infantry ma.s.sed in the woods close to our line, our guns opened on them with such effect that they did not push the a.s.sault home.
As generally happens in operations in wooded country, the fighting to a great extent was carried on at close quarters. It was most desperate and confused. Scattered bodies of the enemy who had penetrated into the woods in the rear of our position could neither go backward nor forward, and were nearly all killed or captured.
The portion of the line to the southeast of Ypres held by us was heavily sh.e.l.led, but did not undergo any very serious infantry attack. That occupied by the French, however, was both bombarded and fiercely a.s.saulted. On the rest of our front, save for the usual bombardment, all was comparatively quiet.
On the right one of our trenches was mined and then abandoned. As soon as it was occupied by the enemy the charges were fired and several Germans were blown to pieces.
Thursday, Nov. 12, was marked by a partial lull in the fighting all along our line. To the north a German force which had crossed the Yser and intrenched on the left bank was annihilated by a night attack with the bayonet, executed by the French. Slightly to the south the enemy was forced back for three-quarters of a mile. Immediately on our left the French were strongly attacked and driven back a short distance, our extreme left having to conform to this movement. Our allies soon recovered the ground they had lost, however, and this enabled us to advance also.
To the southeast of Ypres the enemy"s snipers were very active. On our centre and right the enemy"s bombardment was maintained, but nothing worthy of special note occurred.
The fact that on this day the advance against our line in front of Ypres was not pushed home after such an effort as that of Wednesday tends to show that for the moment the attacking troops had had enough.
Although the failure of this great attack by the Guard Corps to accomplish their object cannot be described as a decisive event, it possibly marks the culmination if not the close of the second stage in the attempt to capture Ypres, arid it is not without significance. It has also a dramatic interest of its own. Having once definitely failed to achieve this object by means of the sheer weight of numbers, and having done their best to wear us down, the Germans brought in fresh picked troops to carry the Ypres salient by an a.s.sault from the north, the south and the east. That the Guard Corps should have been selected to act against the eastern edge of the salient may be taken as proof of the necessity felt by the Germans to gain this point in the line.
Their dogged perseverance in pursuance of their objective claims whole-hearted admiration. The failure of one great attack, heralded as it was by an impa.s.sioned appeal to the troops made in the presence of the Emperor himself, but carried out by partially trained men, has been only the signal for another desperate effort in which the place of honor was a.s.signed to the corps d"elite of the German Army.
It must be admitted that the Guard Corps has retained that reputation for courage and contempt of death which it earned in 1870, when Emperor William I., after the battle of Gravelotte, wrote: "My Guard has found its grave in front of St. Privat," and the swarms of men who came up bravely to the British rifles in the woods around Ypres repeated the tactics of forty-four years ago when their dense columns, toiling up the slopes of St. Privat, melted away under the fire of the French.
That the Germans are cunning fighters, and well up in all the tricks of the trade, has frequently been pointed out. For instance, they often succeed in ascertaining what regiment or brigade is opposed to them, and because of their knowledge of English, they are able to employ the information to some purpose. On a recent occasion, having by some means discovered the name of the commander of the company holding the trench they were attacking, they called him by name, asking if Captain ---- was there. Fortunately the p.r.o.nunciation of the spokesman was somewhat defective, and their curiosity was rewarded by discovering that both the officer in question and his men were very much there.
There have been reports from so many different quarters of the enemy having been seen wearing British and French uniforms that it is impossible to doubt their truth. One absolutely authentic case occurred during the fighting near Ypres. A man dressed in a uniform closely resembling that of a British staff officer suddenly appeared near our trenches and walked along the line. He asked if many casualties had been suffered, stated that the situation was serious, and that a general retirement had been ordered. A similar visit having been reported by several men in different trenches, orders were issued that this strange officer was to be detained if seen again. Unluckily he did not make another appearance.
The following remarks taken from the diary of a German soldier are published not because there is reason to believe they are justified with regard to the conduct of German officers but because of their interest as a human doc.u.ment. Under date of Nov. 2 this German soldier wrote:
Previous to noon we were sent out in a regular storm of bullets on the order of the Major. These gentlemen, the officers, send their men forward in a most ridiculous way. They themselves remain far behind, safely under cover. Our leadership is really scandalous.
Enormous losses on our side are partly from the fire of our own people, for our leaders neither know where the enemy lies nor where our own troops are, so that we often are fired on by our own men.
It is a marvel to me that we have got on as far as we have done.
Our Captain fell, as did also all our section leaders and a large number of our men. Moreover, no purpose was served by this advance, for we remained the rest of the day under cover; we could go neither forward nor back, nor even shoot.
The trench we had taken was not occupied by us. The English naturally took it back at night. That was the sole result. Then when the enemy had intrenched themselves another attack was made, costing us many lives and fifty prisoners. It is simply ridiculous, this leadership. If only I had known it before! My opinion of German officers has changed.
An Adjutant shouted to us from a trench far to the rear to cut down a hedge in front of us. Bullets were whistling round from in front and from behind. The gentleman himself, of course, remained behind.
The Fourth Company has now no leaders but a couple of non-coms.
When will my turn come! I hope to goodness I shall get home again.
In the trenches sh.e.l.ls and shrapnel burst without ceasing. In the evening we get a cup of rice and one-third of an apple per man. Let us hope peace will soon come. Such a war is really too awful. The English shoot like mad. If no reinforcements come up, especially heavy artillery, we shall have a poor lookout and must retire.