Brave Battalion (8 page)

Originally the offensive had been conceived as an Anglo-French joint assault. But on March 7, Gen. J. J. Joffre apologetically advised Gen. Sir Douglas Haig that, as the French army was already conducting an offensive in the Champagne area, it lacked sufficient reserves for an offensive alongside the British. Rather than cancelling the operation, Haig decided to go it alone with an assault aimed at piercing the German front and advancing out of First Army's centre a half mile to secure the gaggle of buildings that made up Neuve Chapelle. The attack was to begin on March 10 with a massive artillery barrage shattering the German breastworks and shredding their wire defences to open the way for two corps—the IV and Indian—to strike like a “battering ram” and “carry the Germans off their legs.” Once through Neuve Chapelle the combined Indian-British force would advance a further three miles to gain Aubers Ridge. Haig and Field Marshal French confidently predicted the preponderance of men they were committing to such a narrow-frontage assault assured success.
²⁴
Against an estimated three German battalions manning the defensive works with four more standing in immediate reserve, First Army was committing forty-eight. The British also had, as described in Haig's Order of the Day, artillery “both more numerous than the enemy's and also larger than any hitherto used by any army in the field. Our Flying Corps has driven the Germans from the air.” With the Germans so weak on the ground, Haig hoped to overwhelm and send them reeling backward without losing his momentum. “Quickness of movement is therefore of first importance to enable us to forestall the enemy and thereby gain success without severe loss. “At no time in this war has there been a more favourable moment for us, and I feel confident of success. The extent of that success must depend on the rapidity and determination with which we advance.”
²⁵

In the grey light of dawn, on a welcome and rare clear morning, the Canadians looked to their flank as the massive barrage began thundering at 0730 hours. Half an hour later British troops could be seen advancing on Neuve Chapelle. Within twenty minutes a 1,600-yard gap had been punched through the German front lines. An hour later Neuve Chapelle was declared clear, the leading British battalions meeting virtually no resistance as they paused on the first phase halt line to await orders from corps headquarters to resume the advance.
²⁶

Meanwhile, Canadian riflemen and machine gunners had opened up as scheduled with rapid bursts of fire they continued to lay down at fifteen-minute intervals throughout the day. At about 1000 hours, forty-two-year-old L/Cpl. Duncan Patterson was blazing away when a German sniper's bullet struck his rifle “between stock and barrel, glanced off into Patterson's cheek and then into his body.” Lt. Urquhart and a couple other men “tried to staunch [his] blood but it was impossible.” Stretcher-bearer William Mowat quietly cautioned that it was no use. “Jugular,” he whispered. Patterson quickly bled to death. “We could see him die and, as he was the first man killed and we were covered with his blood, we got quite a turn.”
²⁷

The Canadians kept up their fire while wondering how the attack on their flank was developing. There seemed little indication now that a major offensive was underway, the gunfire from that area desultory and seemingly coming from static positions. In fact, the rigid dictates that higher command must control the pace of the offensive had brought it to a grinding halt when enemy counter-artillery fire destroyed telephone and telegraph lines. Forced to rely on runners, orders from corps headquarters and reports from the front were taking more than an hour to travel to and fro. Trying to keep the battalions aligned across the breadth of their frontages, the corps commanders waited on their lagging outer flanks to catch up to those in the centre, which had broken deep into the German lines. Farther ahead than the Indian Corps, IV Corps halted to allow the other to come abreast.

At 1530 hours, French realized the attack was losing all momentum and ordered each corps to advance from where they were without regard to the position of the other. But as the order trailed from corps to each division and then down to each brigade and subsequently to the battalions, time trailed away. Not until 1730 hours, with dusk falling, did the offensive get moving again. With five hours to reorganize, the Germans had doubled their forces by this time, and as the British infantry moved in broad lines across flat fields, German machine guns opened up from well-sited positions and the slaughter began.

For the next two days the British tried to renew the offensive but were repeatedly brought to a bloody halt by heavy defensive fire. At 2240 hours on March 12, Haig cancelled the operation. Neuve Chapelle cost First Army 12,892 casualties. This included about one hundred men from the Canadian division, which was deemed to be “no more than the normal wastage period for that [length of] period in the line.”
²⁸

While the offensive had raged on, rumours and constantly changing orders had whirled through the ranks of the Canadians so that everyone was constantly on edge. Expecting the battle to spill over into its area, divisional headquarters ordered night patrols sent across No Man's Land to the German wire to explore how it might be breached. The 16
^th
Battalion, like the rest of the division, had no previous experience in such patrols. But soon men by twos and threes were creeping about in the darkness of a No Man's Land rife with slimy mud and crisscrossed by waterlogged trenches. One patrol from Urquhart's platoon consisting of privates Jack Ross and Alick MacLennan came upon a seven-foot-wide trench “and to cross it MacLennan had to get down into the water well over the waist line, carry Ross over on his shoulders and in turn be pulled out by the latter when they reached the further side.”
²⁹

Back at the forts, Urquhart grew more anxious with each passing hour that the night patrols remained out—not because of concern that the patrols would be ambushed by Germans, but rather because the men around him “were exceedingly nervous and might fire on our own patrol.” He was much relieved when the men returned after three hours of scouting.
³⁰
The news they brought was far from encouraging. Rather than suffering from low morale as higher command insisted was the case, the Germans had been busily repairing gaps created in the wire by artillery. And on returning to their lines the patrols had discovered two lanes, each about 30 feet wide, cut through the battalion's defensive wire by German patrols—hardly the behaviour of an enemy considering retreat.

The night of March 13 brought more of the same, with the battalion sending out patrols and the Germans doing likewise. At one point Pte. Walter Ahier, standing sentry duty in Fort 10, spotted some shadows prowling down one of the lanes cut in the wire that had not yet been closed and fired on them. When a flare went up a German patrol was spotted quickly beating a retreat. In the morning the corpses of two Germans were found hanging on the wire in the area where Ahier had directed his rifle fire.

For the next two weeks the division remained in place on what was now considered an inactive front. Yet this did not mean that the 16
^th
was spared casualties. The day-to-day sniping and random artillery fire ensured some men were either killed or wounded. On the evening of March 27, the Can Scots along with the rest of the Canadian division were relieved by remnants of the Northampton and Sherwood Foresters battalions which had been badly mauled in the offensive. The Canadians marched out to Estaires, a town about six-and-a-half miles behind the front lines. Their first stay of duty holding a divisional line on the front was at an end.
³¹

From the time it had entered the trenches at Fleurbaix on March 4 to its departure, 16
^th
Battalion lost ten men killed and eight wounded—a casualty rate deemed light and reflective of being posted to a quiet trench sector.
³²

Estaires, a major B.E.F. rest area a couple of miles east of the transportation junction of Hazebrouck, was congested with British and Indian troops. Having experienced severe snowstorms in the trenches the week before, the sudden outbreak of brilliant sunshine—although temperatures remained unseasonably cold—gave the town a holiday camp air. But the Canadians were not allowed to relax. Field parties were formed daily, marched toward the front, and put to work digging and improving rear communication trenches. Those not so employed were either engaged in combat training or route marches. On the last day of March the Can Scots spent the morning on entrenching duties forward and then in the afternoon completed a nine-mile route-march that Lt. Urquhart “enjoyed … very much.”
³³

The Canadians would later look back nostalgically to their time at Estaires. Meals were regular with plentiful portions and the billets comfortable, so that soon everyone felt rested up. “This good time must finish, too good to last,” one soldier scribbled in his diary. “Looks to me as though we are being fed up for the slaughter,” an officer warily confided to another.
³⁴

So there was little surprise on April Fool's Day when orders transferred 1
^st
Canadian Division to Second Army's recently formed V Corps under command of Lt.-Gen. Sir H. C. O. Plumer. One battalion after another, over a two-day period, marched to Cassel, about 17 miles west of Ypres, to take responsibility from two French divisions for the eastern section of the Ypres Salient.
³⁵

The Canadian Scottish made the move on April 7, rising at 0430 and marching off through light drizzle by 0645 in what soon became “a splendid day.” Lt. Urquhart reported that they happily left “the flat country and got into rolling uplands. … Men stood march fairly well altho[ugh] about [half] dozen had sore feet.” At 1400 hours, after marching about 17 miles, the battalion reached the Cassel billets from which it would spend the next week preparing to take over the French section.

Cassel's 3,000-strong population was overrun by French troops comprising a divisional headquarters, but also by an equally large number of men who seemed to have no unit affiliation. When Urquhart raised the matter with a French officer he learned that the majority of one regiment had been ordered to the rear after it broke because of collective cowardice. “What a fearful fate,” Urquhart thought.
³⁶

April 14 saw the battalion on the move again, with 3
^rd
Brigade in the vanguard of a Canadian divisional relief of the French 11
^th
Division to be completed over a three-day period. The move began after dark, but the Can Scots did not enter Ypres until after midnight. Two large searchlights cut the sky with their harsh, wide beams and cast the place in an eerie incandescent glow. Ypres was “sadly battered,” the historic Cloth Hall (built in 1200) shattered. Once through the ruins, the pace quickened and the men trotted over another three-mile stretch of road. A halt was then called and the battalion stood for forty-five minutes, men stamping feet to keep circulation flowing in the hard, cold night. Then they set off on the final leg of the journey to the trenches about three more miles away. “Flares were going up on all sides and again we seem to be on a salient. Passed through village of St. Julien which was shelled almost to pieces. Passed on to Reserve trench where we found Infantry officers of charming disposition and also discovered we were to relieve 79
^th
R[égiment] of French Infantry. This officer was through all war and wounded on 20
^th
August. Other officer attached from cavalry. He also had much experience and at Marne accounted for 8 Germans.” Although most pleasant in their manner, the French officers had bad news for the battalion. There was no room in the trenches for them as the French were not yet ready to hand off to the Canadians. So the battalion trudged wearily back to Ypres. Here they remained for two days until finally going back up to the trenches on the night of April 16 on a cold, rainy night.
³⁷

While the rest of the battalion moved into the front line, No. 4 Company remained in reserve at St. Julien which, its houses destroyed by artillery, was a complete ruin. “A place badly shelled smells far from pleasant,” Urquhart noted. Being in reserve entailed responsibility for carrying ammunition through the communication trenches to the front, and the job was not completed until 0500 hours.
³⁸

With the dawn, the Canadians looked about them in dismay at the parlous condition of the trenches. “The French must have slacked a great deal to leave trenches in such condition,” Urquhart groused.
³⁹
They soon learned that the forward trenches being so ill-constructed reflected a difference between British and French tactics. British doctrine held the front trenches must be defended at all costs and so they were constructed to withstand German attack. By contrast, the French only lightly manned front trenches in anticipation that when attacked a retirement to stronger lines behind would ensue. This enabled the 75-millimetre artillery to turn the front lines into a killing ground that created a “defence in depth.” As they intended no final stand in the front trenches and wanted to avoid presenting the attacking Germans with good positions, the French built only minimal forward trenches. Consequently the field works, whether below or above ground, were unconnected in many places and lacked traverse lines to offer protection from flanking fire. As water was struck at just two feet of depth it was necessary to build breastworks of sod, mud, and sandbags to a height of four feet or more. While the French had carried this work forward to some degree, they had not thickened the walls to British standards and most were deemed incapable of stopping even a bullet's penetration. In some places the French had merely dug down to the waterline without erecting any form of breastwork above the shallow trench. Also lacking were Parados—low walls behind the breastworks that provided protection from shrapnel.