The Great War. Part I

by platoon rushes under heavy gusts of fi re. As they reached a point within fi fty yards of the German line, a few grey-clad, battle-stained infantrymen clambered slowly on to the parapet with outstretched hands. Upon the British ceasing their fi re a party of 3 offi cers and 400 men were marched out of the trenches and gave themselves up. Their stout resistance is a lesson in the effect which a single obstinate detachment can exert in throwing a large scheme out of gear.

of the crouching men with the maddening scream of his war-pipes. Not until he was shot down did this gallant man cease to urge for­ward his comrades. The 46th Brigade dashed forward at the signal, and with a fi ne fury fl ooded over the German trenches, which they carried at a rush, storming onwards across the Lens road and up the long slope of Hill 70, taking Fosse 14 upon the way, and eventually reaching the summit of the incline. The 45th supporting Brigade came along after them, detaching, as they passed, 100 bombers of the 6th Camerons to help the First Division to get forward. These brave Highlanders held the advanced line for some hours under heavy fi re from the Lens batteries.

vors fell back upon the crest, and then, falling back about one hun­dred and fi fty yards, they dug in upon the slope on the west side of it. Their position was an extraordinarily dangerous one, for they had no protection upon the left fl ank, where lay a thick wood the Bois Hugo through which a German attack might come which would cut them off from the Army. Colonel Purvis, of the Highland Light Infantry, with quick foresight, built up a thin line of resistance upon this side from Fosse 14 in the south to the advanced left point, manning it with a few of his own men under Lieutenant M’Neil. A welcome rein­forcement of the 6th Camerons and 7th Scots Fusiliers from the 45th Brigade were thrown in to strengthen this weak point. This was done about 1 P.M. It was only just in time, for in the afternoon the German infantry did begin to debouch from the wood, but fi nding organised resistance they dropped back, and their advance on this line was not renewed until the next morning, when it fell upon the Twenty-fi rst Division. For a time the pressure was very great, but the men rallied splendidly round a tattered fl ag bearing the Cameron tartan, and, though it was impossible to get forward, they still, in a mixed and straggling line with hardly any offi cers, held fi rmly to their ground. Late in the evening the 13th Royal Scots and the 11th Argyll and Sutherlands came up to thicken the line.

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By mid-day, as has been shown, the British advance had spent its momentum, and had been brought to a standstill at all points. The German lines had been almost but not quite shattered. A map of the photographed trenches shows that beyond the point reached by the advanced troops there was only the last line which held them up. To the east of that was open country. But the German reserves were hur­rying up from all quarters in their rear, from Roulers, from Thielt, from CourtraI and Menin and Douai. At the latter place was a divi­sion of Guards just brought across from the Russian front. These also were hurried into the fi ght. The extreme British line was too thin for defence, and was held by exhausted men. They were shelled and bombed and worn down by attack after attack until they were com­pelled to draw slowly back and re-form on interior lines. The grand salient which had been captured with such heroic dash and profuse loss of life was pared down here and contracted there. The portion to the south held by the Londoners was fi rmly consolidated, including the important village of Loos and its environs. An enormous mine crane, three hundred feet high, of latticed iron, which had formed an extraordinarily good observation point, was one of the gains in this direction. The Fifteenth Division had been driven back to the western side of Hill 70, and to the line of the Lens-Hulluch-La Bas­sée road. The Seventh and Ninth Divisions had fallen back from Haisnes, but they still held the western outskirts of Hulluch, the edge of St. Élie, the Quarries, and Fosse 8. It was at this end of the line that the situation was most dangerous, for the failure of the Second Division to get forward had left a weak fl ank upon the north, which was weaker because the heavily-gunned German position of Auchy lay to the north-west of it in a way that partially enfi laded it.

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the 26th Brigade, the remaining battalion of which, the 8th Gor­dons, were with the bulk of the 27th Brigade in the direction of Haisnes. These three battalions, under a murderous fi re from the Auchy guns and from the persistent bombers, held on most tena­ciously till nightfall. When the welcome darkness came, without bringing them the longed-for supports, the defenders had shrunk to 600 men, but their grip of the position was not relaxed, and they held it against all attacks during the night. About fi ve next morn­ing the 73rd Brigade of the Twenty-fourth Division a unit straight from home pushed up to their help under circumstances to be af­terwards explained, and shared their great dangers and losses dur­ing the second day of the fi ghting.

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cookers came late, and they were compelled in many cases to move on again without a proper meal. After this point the cookers never overtook them, and the men were thrown back upon their iron ra­tions. Providence is not a strong point of the British soldier, and it is probable that with more economy and foresight at the beginning these troops would have been less exhausted and hungry at the end. The want of food, however, was not the fault of the supply services.

hasten to the reinforcement of the Ninth Division at Fosse 8. They went, and the Twenty-fourth Division knew them no more. The oth­er two brigades found themselves between 9 and 10 P.M. in the front German trenches. They had been able to deploy after leaving Ver­melles, and the front line were now in touch with the 63rd Brigade of the Twenty-fi rst Division upon the right, and with the 2nd Welsh Regiment, who represented the right of the 3rd Brigade of the First Division, upon their left. The fi nal orders were that at eleven o’clock next day these three divisions First, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-fi rst were to make a united assault past Hulluch, which was assumed to be in our hands, and on to the main German line. This, then, was the position of the reserves on the night of September 25-26.