Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1363 page)
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Authors: SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
It was clear that the Germans would make every effort to regain the wood, and immediate steps were taken to strengthen the defence, which was already firmly established. The 14th Argyll and Sutherlands were sent up to thicken the line, as were the 15th Hussars, who were doing great service as a mobile foot battalion. More machine-guns were also pushed to the front. The result of these measures, all taken before nightfall, was that the inevitable counter-attacks, which materialised before dawn, were shot back by a blaze of fire from the fringe of brushwood. Early in the morning of November
This Brigade had, as already stated, advanced upon the village of Bourlon with the 20th Middlesex upon the right and the 13th Yorkshires upon the left, the latter in close touch with the 107th Brigade of Ulstermen upon the west of their front, the whole line to swing round and attack the western edge of the village. The 21st Middlesex were in close support to give Weight to the left of the line, while the 12th Phase. Suffolks Were in reserve. The Ulstermen had been Nov. 24. held up by heavy machine-gun fire which exposed the left flank of the Yorkshires, who in turn could not get forward. This in turn brought the two Middlesex battalions to a halt, who were already well up to the village. Three out of six tanks upon this flank were put out of action by armour-piercing bullets. After a pause both the Yorkshires and some of the Middlesex got into the village, but their flank was always bare, and the best they could do was to hold on to the southern edge. None the less the line was firm and formidable, as was found by a German attack carried out by the 9th Grenadier Regiment in the late afternoon, which was swept back by the British fire. All day the enemy strove hard to clear the village, and all day the 121st Brigade held splendidly to its gains. Where all were fine the non-commissioned officers were particularly splendid. Sergeant-Major Hall of the 21st Middlesex, three times wounded and still rallying his company, was but one of many. Some critic has finely said that if the Day of Judgment were to come a British non-commissioned officer would still be found imploring his neighbours not to get the wind up. It is an interesting fact that the attack by the 121st Brigade had been countermanded, but the wires were broken and the message miscarried, so that the whole fine episode was strictly unofficial.
During the night the hard-pressed line was thickened by the arrival of the 19th Hussars and Bedford Yeomanry, who took over the left of the position. The 14th H.L.I. were also brought up from the reserve brigade, and twelve more tanks came into line. The 12th Suffolks had formed upon the left of the Highlanders, and these two battalions with the cavalry and tanks made a united attack upon the remaining portion of the village of Bourlon on the morning of the 24th, which was countered by the Germans in the afternoon. In the confusion of house-to-house combat the two battalions were separated, the Suffolks getting penned in at the south corner of the village, while the Highlanders, who had made a splendid advance, were isolated in the north-east. The situation was serious, and two reserve battalions, the 13th Surreys and 12th Royal Lancasters, were brought up after dusk. A body of dismounted cavalry drawn from the 2nd and 5th Dragoon Guards and the 11th Hussars were also pushed into the fight. With these troops the Brigadier made a strong attempt upon the morning of November 25 to force his way through the village, which was now mostly in German hands, but the tanks which he had expected did not arrive, and his infantry were not strong enough for the task. Colonel Batty e of the Highlanders had been killed, and Colonel Warden of the East Surreys, who had assumed local command, did all that a man could do, but the losses were too heavy, and the Highlanders were seen no more. Up to the 26th Colonel Warden, with his headquarters in the firing line, was able to send up rations to the survivors of the three isolated companies who had made a wonderful resistance for nearly two days. In the end it was only by great skill that his own battalion, the East Surreys, were rescued from their dangerous position, for the forces of the Germans were in overwhelming strength, and overlapped the village upon both sides. Some of the East Surreys were cut off for two days in the south-eastern part of the village before the survivors could be got clear. Colonel Warden received the D.S.O. for his splendid work.
In the meantime, from the morning of the 25th, the 119th Brigade had made a splendid fight in the wood against fierce attacks which beat up against their right flank. The Guards had come up to relieve the 51st Highlanders, and on this date three battalions of the 3rd Guards Brigade, the 2nd Scots Guards, 1st and 4th Grenadier Guards, were thrown in to help the Fortieth Division in its heavy task. Two companies of the 11th Royal Lancasters were also brought forward, and succeeded in doing some very brilliant work. The flank was held during the day. Upon that night the weary division was drawn out, being relieved by the Sixty-second Yorkshire Division, which by some miracle after only two days of rest was judged to be battle worthy once more. It was indeed a case of - the tired relieving those who were only a little less tired than themselves, but the line had to be held and not another man was available. The artillery of the Fortieth Division, which had shown remarkable efficiency and co-operated very closely with the infantry, remained in action. During its brilliant spell of service the Fortieth Division had taken 750 prisoners, but its casualties were very heavy, amounting to 172 officers and more than 3000 men.
The British position was now a difficult one, for the enemy held the ridge above Fontaine and also the high ground between Bourlon and the Hindenburg Line, so that they had commanding observation upon both sides. With great persistence, however, in spite of the continual thickening of the German line the British commanders determined, after a pause for breath, to make one more effort to capture both Fontaine, which had relapsed into enemy hands, and the village of Bourlon with the whole of the Ridge. The Guards, the Forty-seventh London Territorials, and the Second Division had all appeared upon the scene, so that the striking force was stronger than before. Upon November 27 the Guards made a strong effort upon Fontaine, having relieved the Fifty-first Division in that sector. The 3rd Guards Brigade had already become involved, as described in the defence by the Fortieth Division of Bourlon Wood. It was the 2nd Brigade which was now marshalled to attack upon a very wide front from Fontaine village on the right to Bourlon village on the left, this latter advance being in support of the attack by the Sixty-second Division upon the position which had been lost. This attack made at 6:20 in the morning of November 27, after a night of snow and tempest, was carried out by the 186th and 187th Brigades, the object being to get back Bourlon wood and village. The latter brigade got half-way through the village at one time, but could not make good the ground. The 186th, working through the woods to the north-west of Fontaine, gained their objectives, but had both flanks in the air, and were eventually in the evening compelled to fall back, all the West Riding battalions having lost heavily. Meanwhile the 2nd Brigade of Guards had been fighting hard in support of the Sixty-second. This attack was carried out by the 2nd Irish, while the 3rd Grenadiers, 1st Coldstream, and 1st Scots were respectively upon the left, centre, and right of the advance upon the village, which came down the line of the Cambrai road.
The attack started at 6:20 in the morning after a night of snow and tempest. The flank battalion of Scots Guards by the use of a sunken road got well up to the village without heavy loss, but a blast of machine-gun fire from a small house about
Meanwhile the gallant Yorkshiremen of the Sixty-second, together with the 2nd Irish Guards, drove their way through Bourlon Wood in spite of a desperate resistance from a German line which included several battalions of the Guards. Many prisoners were taken, but many others escaped in the confused fighting among the brushwood and tree-trunks. Once again the counter-attacks were too strong for the thin ranks who had reached their goal, and the British, after reaching both the village and the north end of the wood, were pushed out once more. At the same time the British held a strong position on the hill and in the wood, so that there were still hopes of a successful issue if the German resistance could be outworn. It should be remarked that through all the fighting the battle line was greatly strengthened by the fact that a dismounted battalion was formed from each brigade of cavalry, or nine in all, who relieved and supported the very weary infantry. The trophies of the battle up to date had been over 100 German guns, 10,500 prisoners, 350 machine-guns, and, above all, the valuable stretch of Hindenburg’s Line.
It was in this last phase of the advance, and indeed after the fighting had ended, that General Bradford was killed by a chance shell. This young soldier, who, at the age of twenty-five commanded one of the brigades of the Sixty-second Division, was one of the great natural leaders disclosed by the war. It was indeed a cruel fate which took him away between full promise and full performance. “He had the dash and enthusiasm of youth tempered by the knowledge and experience which comes to most men only with later years.” So wrote his immediate commander. England could ill spare such a man at such a time.
All was quiet for the next few days, during which the Fifty-ninth Division relieved the Guards, while the Forty-seventh Division relieved the Sixty-second Yorkshiremen.
Fighting Line, November 30, 1917
XI. THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI
Second Phase of Battle, November 30
Great German attack — Disaster to three divisions — Desperate fight of Twenty-ninth Division — Fine advance by the Guards — Capture and recapture of Gouzeaucourt — Hard battle in the Bourlon Sector — Heavy losses of the Germans — Retraction of the British line
IT was clear to the British Commanders before the end of November that the enemy had grown so strong that the initiative had passed to him, and that instead of following up attacks it was a question now of defending positions against a determined endeavour to shove back the intruders and splice the broken line. The multifarious signs of activity behind the German lines, the massing of troops, the planting of batteries, and the registration of ranges, all warned the experienced observers that a great counter-offensive was about to begin. There was no question of a surprise at any point of the line, but Bourlon was naturally the place where the enemy might be expected to be at his full strength, since it was vital that he should regain that position. At the same time it was clearly seen that the storm would break also at the south end of the line, and General Snow had given every instruction to General Jeudwine of the Fifty-fifth Division which held the position next to the scene of action. This experienced leader took every step which could be thought of, but he was sadly handicapped by the state of his division which had been so severely hammered at Ypres, and had in the last few days had one brigade knocked to pieces at Knoll. With only two brigades, full of young troops who had taken the place of the casualties incurred in the north, he had to cover at least
The attack in the south was delivered upon a front of ten miles from Vendhuille in the south to Mesnières in the north. To take a single comprehensive view of it, it hardly affected the Twenty-fourth Division upon the right of Snow’s Seventh Corps, it crashed with full force upon the Fifty-fifth Division, especially the left brigade, it swept impetuously upon the Twelfth and Twentieth Divisions, driving in part of the line of each of these units, and finally it raged with equal fury but less success against the Twenty-ninth Division, in the region of Mesnières. The weight and swiftness of the blow, coming with the shortest possible artillery preparation, and strongly supported by low-flying aeroplanes, must add to the reputation of General von Marwitz who planned it. It was a success, and it is difficult to see how it could have been prevented from being a success by any means which the defenders had it in their power to adopt. The undulating country in which troops could assemble, and the morning mist which screened them from observation were two factors which contributed to the result.
Shortly after seven in the morning the tempest suddenly broke loose. The surprise was so well carried out that though the British General was expecting an attack, and though he had his wire patrols pushed up to the German trenches only a hundred yards off, still their reports at dawn gave no warning of any sound to herald the coming rush. It came like a clap of thunder. An experienced officer in the front British trench said: “My first impression was that of an earthquake. Then it seemed to me that an endless procession of aeroplanes were grazing my head with their wheels. On recovering from the first shock of my surprise the Germans were far behind me.” There was no question of protective barrage, for the quickest answer to the most urgent S.O.S. would have been too late to. help.
This account refers particularly to the 166th Brigade, upon the left of the Fifty-fifth Division, which got the full blast of the storm. It and the guns behind it were overrun in an instant by the weight and speed of the advance. The General in command did all that could be done in such an emergency, but it was impossible to form a fixed line. The alternative was to swing back hinging upon the right of the division, and this was done so that there was always a flank formed upon the left of the stormers. There was a ravine, called Ravine 22 upon the maps, which ran down between the Fifty-fifth and Twelfth Divisions. With the terrific force of a flood the Germans poured down this natural runway, destroying the British formations upon each side of it. The Fifty-fifth Division was shattered to pieces at this point by so terrific an impact upon their feeble line, but the small groups into which they were broken put up as good a fight as they could, while the line formed anew between the village of Villers-Guislain and the farm Vaucelette which was a strong pivot of resistance. In this part of the field units of the 165th Brigade of Liverpool battalions, together with the 5th Royal Lancasters and the 10th Liverpool Scottish of the 166th Brigade, stood stoutly to their work, and though the enemy after penetrating the lines were able to get the village of Villers-Guislain, which they had turned and surrounded, they were never able to extend their advance to the south on account of this new line of defence through Vaucelette, though it was composed entirely of infantry with no artillery support. However, even with this limitation the situation was bad enough, since the 166th Brigade was almost cut to pieces, and so complete was the destruction upon the extreme left that one battalion, the 5th South Lancashires, was entirely destroyed, and nothing heard of it until its leader, Colonel James, was reported as a badly wounded prisoner in Germany. Of the division generally it was said by a higher General that “ they fought like tigers,” as might be expected of men who had left a great name on the battle of Ypres, and who were destined for even greater fame when four months later they held Givenchy at the critical moment of the terrible battle of Armentières. Here, as always, it is constancy in moments of adversity and dour refusal to accept defeat which distinguish both the British soldier and his leaders.
We shall now see what happened to the Twelfth Division upon the left of the Fifty-fifth. When the German stormers poured down Ravine 22 their left-handed blow knocked out the 166th Brigade, while their right-handed crushed in the side of the Twelfth Division. From the ravine in the south to Quarry Farm in the north, the German infantry surged round the position like a mountain spate round some rock-hearted islet, where the edges might crumble and be washed out by the torrent, but the solid core would always beat back the waters. The line of the division was a curved one, with the 35th Brigade upon the right, the 36th in the centre, and the 37th upon the left. It was upon the right-hand brigade that the storm burst with its full shattering force. The 7th Suffolks next to the fatal ravine shared the fate of the 5th South Lancashires upon the southern edge of it. By a coincidence the Colonel had been invalided for appendicitis the day before, but Major Henty who was in command was killed. The 5th Berks and 9th Essex, broken up into small parties and enveloped in a smoke cloud through which they could only catch dim glimpses of rushing Germans, were pushed back to the north and west, still keeping some sort of cohesion, until they reached the neighbourhood of Bleak House where they rallied once more and gathered for a counter-attack. Everywhere over this area small parties were holding on, each unconscious of all that was passing outside its own little smoke-girt circle. Close to Villers-Guislain upon the south side of the ravine Sapper Company 70, together with the 5th Northampton Pioneers, held on bravely for many hours, shooting into the flank of the German ‘advance who poured over the British gun positions which were well forward at this point in order to support the troops in Mesnières and Marcoing. Some of the incidents round the guns were epic in character, for the British gunner does not lightly take leave of his piece. Many were fought to the last instant with their crews hacking at them with pickaxes and trenching tools to disable them even while the Germans swarmed in. Lieut. Wallace, of the 363rd Battery, with five men served three guns point-blank, their trails crossing as they covered three separate fields of fire. Each of this band of heroes received a decoration, their leader getting the V.C. The 92nd R.F.A. near La Vacquerie also repulsed four separate attacks, firing with open sights at a range of
The 7th Norfolks on the left edge of the 35th Brigade were farthest from the storm-centre, and stoutly beat off all attacks. Only one lieutenant was left upon his feet at the end of the day. Separated from their comrades the Norfolks were rather part of the 36th Brigade upon their left, who were also fiercely attacked, but were more happily situated as regarded their flank. The 9th Royal Fusiliers were pushed back to the Cambrai road on the north, but with some of the Norfolks built up a solid line of resistance there. Next to them upon the left the two companies of the 8th Royal Fusiliers which were in the line, were practically annihilated in spite of a splendid attempt to rescue them made by the other two companies led by their heroic Colonel Elliott Cooper. In this brave effort the leader gained his Victoria Cross, but also unhappily a wound from which he eventually died. This counter-attack drove the Germans back for the first time in this terrible morning, but their lines were reinforced and they came on once more.
The 37th Brigade upon the left had their own set of troubles to contend with. The Germans had beaten hard upon the neighbouring Twentieth Division, breaking into their line upon the right of their flank 59th Brigade. In this way they got into Lateau Wood and on to the Bonavis Ridge, which placed them upon the left rear of the 37th Brigade. The unit was in imminent danger of being cut off, but held strongly to its line, the pressure falling particularly heavily upon the 7th East Surreys and upon the 6th Buffs. Pam-Pam Farm was the centre of some very desperate fighting on the part of these two units. The Brigade was sorely tried and forced backwards but still held its own, facing upon two and even three different fronts, as the enemy drifted in from the north and east.
In the meantime a train of independent circumstances had built up a reserve line which was destined ‘to be of great importance in limiting the German advance until reinforcements could arrive. Their stormers had within an hour or two reached not only Villers-Guislain and Gonnelieu, but had even entered Gouzeaucourt, three miles deep in the British line. This village, or rather a quarry upon its eastern edge, was the Headquarters of the Twenty-ninth Division, and the Germans were within an ace of capturing General de Lisle, its famous commander. The amazed Commandant of the local hospital found a German sentry at his door instead of a British one, and with the usual British good-humour sent him out a cup of tea. No doubt he did the same to the Irish Guardsman who in turn relieved the German in the afternoon. The C.R.A. of the Twenty-ninth Division was wounded and taken, and Captain Crow of the Staff was killed. General de Lisle with quick decision organised a temporary defence for the south end of the village, and then hurried up to join his hard-pressed men at Marcoing. The General of the Twelfth Division had energetically hurried up the two battalions which he held in reserve. They were the 6th West Surreys and the 11th Middlesex. Some hundred of odds and ends near Headquarters were also formed into a unit and pushed to the front. These went forward towards the firing with the vaguest notion of the situation, meeting broken groups of men and catching occasional glimpses of advancing Germans. The Brigadier of the 35th Brigade had been nearly caught in Gonnelieu, and found the enemy between him and his men. As he came back with his staff, still very lightly clad, pausing occasionally to fire at the advancing Germans, he passed Ganche Wood and there met the advancing battalions, which he helped to marshal along a low ridge, the Revelon Ridge. The Northumberland Hussars lined up on the right of these troops and two brigades of cavalry coming up from the south formed on the left of them at a later hour. The whole held firm against all enemy attacks and made a bulwark until the time when the Guards advanced in the afternoon. As will afterwards be described, when that event occurred this Revelon line formed roughly a prolongation of the new line established by the Guards and Cavalry, so that a long dam was formed. Commanding officers in this critical part of the field gave a sigh of relief in the early afternoon as they realised that the worst was over.
The Twentieth Light Division was on the left of the Twelfth, and its experience was equally trying. It was upon the Riflemen of the 59th Brigade that the main shock fell, and it came with such sudden violence that the Germans were through the right unit and in the rear of the rest before the situation was fully realised. The 61st Brigade upon the left had also a most desperate time, their flank being penetrated and turned so that tor a time they were cut off from their comrades of the Twenty-ninth Division at Mesnières. By this determined German attack the south bank of the canal was partially cleared for their advance, which put them in the position that they could possibly push along that bank and get hold of Les Rues Vertes and the southern ends of the bridges so as to cut off those British troops who were across the canal. In this dangerous movement they nearly had success, and it was only the desperate fighting of some of the 86th Brigade which saved the situation. The prospects were even worse upon the right of the Division for the Germans broke through Lateau Wood, and so got completely behind the 10th K.R.R., who were the flank battalion. From the desperate struggle which ensued only 4 officers and 16 Riflemen ever emerged, for the battalion was attacked on three sides and was overwhelmed after a long and splendid defence, which twice repulsed heavy frontal attacks before the flank advance rolled up the line. The battalion got separated from its own headquarters in Lateau Wood, and Colonel Sheepshanks with the twenty odd men who composed the Staff fought a little battle of its own against the stormers coming down towards the Bonavis-Mesnières road. The survivors of the brigade rallied upon the reserve battalion, the 11th R.B. on the Hindenburg Line. The 11th K.R.R. on the left of the brigade front had endured a similar experience but their losses were not so terribly severe. The aeroplane attack worried the troops almost as much as the infantry, so that it is no exaggeration to say that there were times when they were assailed from four sides, the front, each flank and above at the same instant. These aeroplanes gave the impression of being armour-clad and invulnerable to rifle-fire.