Arthur Conan Doyle

“ About mid-day the German attack was still creeping in, and had gained one important outpost called Princes' Island. The 10th Liverpool Scots from the 166th Brigade, a battalion which has a great record for the war, had come up to thicken the line of defenders. Amid the crash and roar of constant shells, and a storm of bullets which beat like hail upon every wall and buzzed through every crevice, the stubborn infantry endured their losses with stoic patience, firing steadily through their shattered loopholes at any mark they could see. ”

“ Every arm—cavalry, infantry, and artillery—emerged from this terrible long-drawn ordeal with an addition to their fame. The episode was rather a fresh standard up to which they and others had to live than a fault which had to be atoned. They fought impossible odds, and they kept on fighting, day and night, ever holding a fresh line, until the enemy desisted from their attacks in despair of ever breaking a resistance which could only end with the annihilation of its opponents. ”

“ If any particular set of men can be said more than another to have ruined the German Empire and changed the history of the world, it is those who perfected the tank in England, and also those at the German headquarters who lacked the imagination to see its possibilities. So terrified were the Germans of tanks at the end of the war that their whole artillery was directed to knocking them out, to the very great relief of the long-suffering infantry. ”

“ The whole situation was chaotic, but the British infantry still hung together, retreating slowly and turning continually upon their pursuers. Some twenty German aeroplanes were quartering the district like so many fierce hawks, and diving with great daring from time to time into the very streets of the village, while the British falling back into cover fired up at them with their rifles and light machine-guns. ”

“ At 9.30 the barrage lifted and the garrison rushed up from their shelters and manned their posts, but the fog rolled white and thick across their vision. The cloud banked right up to their wire, while from behind it came all the noises of the pit. So nerve-shaking was the effect that some of the outlying men came creeping into the redoubt for human company. At 9.40 the whizzing of bullets all around showed that the infantry was on the move. The garrison fired back into the mist, whence came vague shoutings and tramplings. ”

“ There was a regrettable tendency after the battle to recriminations in the Press, and General Gough, who had been the head of the Fifth Army, was sacrificed without any enquiry as to the dominant force which he had to face, or as to the methods by which he mitigated what might have been a really crushing disaster. It can be safely stated that in the opinion of many of those who are in the best position to know and to judge, there was absolutely nothing upon the military side which could have been bettered, nor has any suggestion ever been made of anything which was left undone. ”

“ In the Favreruil, Sapignies, and Gomiecourt district, north of Bapaume, the advance was mainly accomplished through the pressure of fresh German forces upon the exhausted and attenuated line of the Forty-first Division, which still struggled bravely, and in the end successfully, against overwhelming odds. In the effort to hold a line the divisions which had been drawn out as too weak for service turned back once more into the fray like wounded men who totter forward to strike a feeble blow for their comrades in distress. ”

“ The German guns were in full blast that morning, and the infantry full of ginger, but they could not break that protective line, thin, disciplined, and flexible. The two battalions could not cover the ground, and the Germans streamed past their flank. In order to support the advanced line every available man was assembled on the reverse slope of a rise, just out of sight of the Germans. In front of them they could hear the roar of the battle, ever growing nearer as the British line was rolled back. ”

“ Night fell upon as anxious a situation as ever a harassed general and weary troops were called upon to face. The Twenty-first had lost few prisoners and only six guns during the long day of battle, but its left had been continually turned, its position was strategically impossible, and its losses in casualties were very heavy. It was idle to deny that the army of General von Boehm had made a very brilliant attack and gained a complete victory with, in the end, such solid trophies as 45,000 Allied prisoners and at least 400 guns. ”

“ The Amiens line was now certainly stabilised, and if once again an equilibrium could be secured then the last convulsive efforts of this titanic angel of darkness would have been held. With no illusions, but with a dour determination to do or die, the British line faced to the east.
The immediate danger was that a gap had opened between Messines and Wytschaete, while another was threatened farther south between Ploegsteert and the Nieppe-Armentières Road. The pressure upon the Damstrasse was also very great in the region of the Ninth Division. ”

“ Late in the afternoon it advanced, the 1st Battalion on the left, 2nd on the right, and though it had not the weight to make any definite impression upon the German front it entirely re-established the line of the road from Messines to Wytschaete, and reinforced the thin fragments of battalions who were holding this precarious front. The South Africans incurred heavy losses from machine-gun fire in this very gallant attack. ”

“ I have never seen so many Germans in all my life—one huge dark mass about a mile away. With glasses one could see howitzers, machine-guns, trench-mortars, and field batteries, as well as infantry. It was a most wonderful sight. They seemed to be coming down the Roye Road, then moving off to the south, and some stopping in a mass. ”

“ It is only when one sees a map of the German forces in this part of the field, with the divisions marked upon it like flies upon fly-paper, that one understands the odds against which these men had to contend. ”

“ There is in truth no need for mutual reproach, as every one acted for the best under the almost intolerable circumstances imposed by the new conditions.
Before referring in detail to the tremendous storm which was visibly banking up in the East, and which broke upon March 21 along the British lines from the Scarpe to the Oise, some allusion should be made to one or two sharp German attacks in the extreme north, by which the enemy endeavoured to draw the attention of the Allies away from the district in which their first real attack was planned. ”

“ On April 18 the new German attack upon the First Division at Givenchy began with a bombardment of great violence. Their plan upon this day was to carry Givenchy and Festubert by storm, and to win the line of the canal as far west as Gorre. They would then capture the high ground at Hinges, and so command the canal right up to Robecq. No doubt they calculated, and with justice, that if they could overcome the men on the spot they would find that the reserves had all been drawn away to the north. Their plan was wrecked, however, by the fact that the men on the spot were not to be overcome. ”

“ Each day of arduous battle was followed by a no less arduous night, during which, under heavy fire and every conceivable difficulty the various divisions were readjusted so that the morning light should show no impossible salients, no outlying indefensible positions, no naked flanks, and no yawning gaps. ”

“ Having said so much, we must remind the German commentator that he cannot have it both ways, and that if a gain of guns, prisoners, and ground which fails to break the line is, as we admit, a victory to the Germans, then a similar result is a victory to the British also. He cannot claim the second battle of the Somme to be a victory, and yet deny the term to such battles as Arras, Messines, and Passchendaele. ”

“ They had in the course of a month's fighting won ground, prisoners, and guns, but it is possible in winning a battle to lose a war, and this is exactly what they had accomplished. An expensive and barren success had been achieved by a lavish use of their reserves, and on the day when those reserves were vitally needed, they had been wastefully strewn over the plains of the Somme and of Flanders. Never had the British Army been more severely tried than at this time when their General issued his famous "back to the wall" appeal, and never had the individual soldier risen to a greater height. ”

“ This process of infiltration by which small bodies here, there, and everywhere extend their advance where they find a cranny into which to push and establish machine-gun posts which, unless they be instantly rooted out, soon grow into formidable {106} positions, shows the remarkable adaptability of the German soldier—a quality with which, it must be admitted, the world had not credited him in the past. ”

“ The Germans had pushed far south of the Aisne, despite the continued resistance of the survivors of the Eighth, Twenty-fifth, and Fiftieth British Divisions, and of several French divisions, these débris of units being mixed up and confused, with a good deal of mutual recrimination, as is natural enough when men in overwrought conditions meet with misfortunes, the origin of which they cannot understand. When troops are actually mixed in this fashion, the difference in language becomes a very serious matter. ”

“ North of the Scarpe all three brigades of the Fourth Division were exposed to a furious attack, and lost the village of Rœux, which was defended literally to the death by the 2nd Seaforths of the 10th Brigade, but the 1st Hants in the front line of the 11th Brigade and the 2nd Essex of the 12th stood like iron, and in a long day's fighting the enemy was never able to make any serious lodgment in the position, though the rushes of his bombing parties {44} were said by experienced British officers to have been extraordinarily determined and clever. ”

“ Nowhere can one lay one's hand upon any solid ground for complaint, save against the rogues and fools of Brest-Litovsk, who by their selfish and perjured peace enabled the Germans to roll a tidal wave of a million men from east to west, with the certainty that they would wash away the first dam against which they struck. ”

“ At early dawn the Coldstream found themselves once more heavily attacked, while an armoured car came down the road and machine-gunned the outposts at a range of ten yards. After severe mixed fighting the attack was driven back. At 9.15 it was renewed with greater strength, but again it made no progress. It is typical of the truly desperate spirit of the men, that when every man save one in an outpost had been killed or wounded, the survivor, Private Jacotin of the Coldstream, carried on the fight alone for twenty minutes before he was blown to pieces with a grenade. ”

“ The account of how the British Army, upon which incomparably the greater pressure fell, rose to the occasion and first slowed and then held the terrific flood is one of the most wonderful of military epics. At the same time every credit must be given to the loyalty of the French commanders who, while guarding their own extended lines, endeavoured to spare all possible help to their hard-pressed Allies. This volume carries the story of the German attack to its close. The next and final one will describe the enormous counter-attack of the Allies leading up to their final victory. ”

“ There was no artillery preparation, and the advance was across unknown country, so that it may be placed among the most hazardous operations in the war. In the case of the 13th Australian Brigade, the 52nd Battalion was on the right in touch with the British, while the 51st was on the left, with the 50th in support. From the onset the machine-gun fire was very severe, especially against the 51st Regiment, but the admirable individuality of the Australian soldiers was of great service to them, every man getting forward through the darkness as best he could. ”

“ It should be emphasised that these deficiencies were in no way due to the British command, which was so assiduous in its preparations that it rather raised the ridicule of certain unimaginative people upon the spot who cannot see a danger until it actually materialises in front of them. The fact that General Gough had been a cavalry general, and that his actions in the war had been aggressive rather than defensive, gave a false impression at the time in certain quarters. It is certain that nothing was neglected in the way of defence which skill could devise or industry carry out. ”

“ The Allied line was pushed back along its whole front, Dranoutre and St. Eloi falling into the hands of the Germans, together with 6000 prisoners. It was the darkest hour of the Flemish battle, and was the more depressing as it came after a week of equilibrium in which the tide of invasion seemed to have been finally dammed. The German infantry had penetrated through the joining point of the French and British near Wytschaete, and at the same time through the French at Dranoutre, so that they were able to assail Kemmel Hill from both sides. It had fallen by nine o'clock. ”

“ Strategy reckons nothing of these things, but their accumulation makes up the terrible human tragedy of war, which brings humility to the most proud and fear to the most valiant. All equally feel the weakness of nature, but he is blessed who has the strength of spirit to cover and to combat it.
By mid-day on March 24 the Thirtieth Division was over the Libermont Canal, holding from Buverchy to Libermont, with the village and bridge of Raincourt as a joining point between the 90th Brigade to the north and the 89th to the south. ”

“ One attempt was made upon the Twenty-first Division, from Branscourt to Sapicourt, which was met and defeated by the 1st Lincolns and 6th Leicesters. Great activity and movement could be seen among the German troops north of the river, but the country is wooded and hilly, so that observation is difficult. Towards evening, the right flank of the fighting line was greatly comforted by the arrival of the French Division already {328} mentioned, and the hearts of the British were warmed by the news that one of their own divisions had come within the zone of battle, as will now be described. ”