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Файл:The Great War. Part III
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THE GREAT WAR
tions. The ground was regained though the losses were heavy, Colonel Cunninghame being among the wounded.
The attack of the 2nd Wiltshires had meanwhile been developed, and was launched under heavy fi re about seven in the evening,
moving up to the north of Chambrecy. The position was gained, the
Wiltshires connecting up with the Cheshires on their right and
the Gloucesters on their left. Meanwhile, advances of the enemy on
the fl ank were broken up by artillery fi re, the 87th and 88th Brigades of guns doing splendid work, and sweeping the heads of every advance from the Tardenois-Chambrecy road. So ended another
very severe day of battle. The buffer was acting and the advance was
slowing. Already its limit seemed to be marked.
On the morning of May 31 the British position extended from
a line on the left connecting Ville-en-Tardenois and Champlat.
Thence the 57th Brigade covered the ground up to the stream
which runs from Sarcy to Chambrecy. Then the 56th Brigade began, and carried on to 1000 yards east of the river Ardres. The line
of battalions (pitiful remnants for the most part) was from the left,
10th Warwicks, 10th Worcesters, 8th Gloucesters, 2nd Wilts, 9th
Cheshires, 8th Staffords, and 4th Shropshires. Neither brigade could
muster 1000 rifl es, while the 58th Brigade in reserve was reduced
to three sapper fi eld companies, the personnel of the trench-mortar
batteries, and every straggler who could be scraped up was thrust
forward to thicken the line.
The German attack was launched once more at 4 P.M. on June
1, striking up against the Fortieth French Division and the left of
the British line. Under the weight of the assault the French were
pushed back, and the enemy penetrated the Bonval Wood, crossed
the Tardenois-Jonchery road, and thrust their way into the woods of
Courmont and La Cohette. Here, however, the attack was held, and
the junction between the French and the Warwicks remained fi rm.
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
The front of the 57th Brigade was attacked at the same time, the
8th Gloucesters and the 2nd Wilts on their right being very hard
pressed. The enemy had got Sarcy village, which enabled them to get
on the fl ank of the Gloucesters, and to penetrate between them and
the Wiltshires. It was a very critical situation. The right company of
the Gloucesters was enfi laded and rolled up, while the centre was in
deadly danger. The left fl ank and the Worcesters held tight, but the
rest of the line was being driven down the hill towards Chambrecy.
A splendid rally was effected, however, by Captain Pope of B Company, who led his west countrymen up the hill once more, driving
the enemy back to his original line. For this feat he received the
D.S.O. At this most critical period of the action, great help was given
to the British by the 2nd Battalion of the 22nd French Regiment,
led in person by Commandant de Lasbourde, which joined in Pope’s
counter-attack, afterwards relieving the remains of the Gloucesters.
Lasbourde also received the D.S.O.
The success of the attack was due partly to the steadiness of the of
the 10th Worcesters on the left, who faced right and poured a crossfi re into the German stormers. It was a complete, dramatic little victory, by which the high ground north of Chambrecy was completely
regained. A withdrawal of the whole line was, however, necessary on
account of the German penetration into the left, which had brought
them complete possession of the Wood of Courmont on the British
left rear. The movement was commenced at seven in the evening,
and was completed in most excellent order before midnight. This
new line, stretching from Quisles to Eligny, included one very important position, the hill of Eligny, which was a prominence from
which the enemy could gain observation and command over the
whole valley of the Ardres, making all communications and battery
positions precarious. The general order of units in the line on June 2
was much the same as before, the 5th South Wales Borderers being
292
THE GREAT WAR
held in reserve on the left, and the 2/22nd French on the right of
the Nineteenth Division. These positions were held unbroken from
this date for a fortnight, when the division was eventually relieved
after its most glorious term of service. The British Ninth Corps was
busily engaged during this time in reorganising into composite battalions the worn and mixed fragments of the Eighth, Twenty-fi fth,
and Fiftieth Divisions, which were dribbled up as occasion served
to the new battle-line. A composite machine-gun company was also
organised and sent up.
Several days of comparative quiet followed, during which the
sappers were strengthening the new positions, and the Germans
were gathering fresh forces for a renewed attack. Congratulatory
messages from General Franchet d’Esperey, the French Army Commander, and from their own Corps General put fresh heart into the
overtaxed men. There was no fresh attack until June 6. On that date
the line of defence from the left consisted of the Fortieth French
Division, the Eighth Division Composite Battalion (could a phrase
mean more than that?), the 10th Warwicks, 10th Worcesters, 8th
Gloucesters, 58th Brigade Composite Battalion, 9th Cheshires, 8th
North Staffords, 4th Shropshires, and Twenty-eighth French Division. At 3 A.M. there began a tremendous bombardment, mostly of
gas-shell, which gave way to the infantry advance at 4 A.M., the attack striking the right and centre of the British line, in the section
of the all-important Bligny Hill. As the enemy advanced upon the
front of the 58th Composite Battalion, the men who were the survivors of the 2nd Wilts, 9th Welsh Fusiliers, and 9th Welsh, fi red
a volley, and then, in a fashion which would have delighted the old
Duke, sprang from their cover and charged with the bayonet, hurling the Germans down the slope. It was a complete repulse, as was
a second attack upon the front of the Gloucesters and Worcesters
who, with a similar suggestion of the legendary Peninsula tactics,
293
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
waited till they could see their foemen’s eyes before fi ring, with the
result that the storming column simply vanished, fl inging itself
down in the long grass and hiding there till nightfall. There was no
attack on the left of the line, but the 9th Cheshires and the North
Staffords both had their share in the victory. The Twenty-eighth
French Division on the right had given a little before the storm,
and the British line was bent back to keep touch. Otherwise it was
absolutely intact, and the whole terrain in front of it was covered
with German dead.
The German is a determined fi ghter, however, and his generals well knew that without the command of Bligny Hill no further
progress was possible for him in the general advance. Therefore they
drew together all their strength and renewed the attack at 11 A.M.
with such energy and determination that they gained the summit.
An immediate counter by the 9th Cheshires, though most gallantly
urged, was unable to restore the situation, but fortunately a battalion was at hand which had not lost so grievously in the previous
fi ghting. This was the 4th Shropshires, which now charged up the
hill, accompanied by the remains of the undefeated 9th Cheshires.
The attack was delivered with magnifi cent dash and spirit, and it
ended by the complete reconquest of the hill. For this feat the 4th
Shropshires received as a battalion the rare and coveted distinction
of the Croix de Guerre with the palm. This local success strengthened the hands of the French on the right, who were able in the late
afternoon to come forward and to retake the village of Bligny. June 6
was a most successful day, and gave fresh assurance that the German
advance was spent.
There was no further close fi ghting in this neighbourhood up
to June 19, when the young soldiers of the Nineteenth and other
divisions were withdrawn after a sustained effort which no veterans
could have beaten. In the offi cial report of General Pelle to his own
294
THE GREAT WAR
Higher Command, there occurs the generous sentence: «L’impression
produite sur le moral des troupes françaises par la belle attitude de
leurs alliés a été très bonne.» Both Allies experienced the diffi culty of
harmonising troops who act under different traditions and by different methods. At fi rst these hindrances were very great, but with
fuller knowledge they tended to disappear, and ended in complete
mutual confi dence, founded upon a long experience of loyalty and
devotion to the common end.
From this date until the end of June no event of importance
affecting the British forces occurred upon the Western front. The
German attack extended gradually in the Aisne district, until it had
reached Montdidier, and it penetrated upon the front as far south as
the forest of Villers-Cotteret, where it threatened the town of Compiègne. In the middle of June the German front was within forty
miles of Paris, and a great gun specially constructed for the diabolical work was tossing huge shells at regular intervals into the crowded city. The bursting of one of these projectiles amidst the congregation of a church on a Sunday, with an appalling result in killed and
wounded, was one of those incidents which Germans of the future
will, we hope, regard with the same horror as the rest of the world
did at the time.
The cause of the Allies seemed at this hour to be at the very
lowest. They had received severe if glorious defeats on the Somme,
in Flanders, and on the Aisne. Their only success lay in putting limits to German victories. And yet with that deep prophetic instinct
which is latent in the human mind, there was never a moment when
they felt more assured of the ultimate victory, nor when the language of their leaders was prouder and more fi rm. This general confi dence was all the stranger, since we can see as we look back that
the situation was on the face of it most desperate, and that those
factors which were to alter it – the genius of Foch, the strength of
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
his and of the reserves, and the numbers and power of the American Army – were largely concealed from the public. In the midst of
the gloom the one bright light shone from Italy, where, on June 17,
a strong attack of the Austrians across the Piave was fi rst held and
then thrown back to the other bank. In this most timely victory Lord
Cavan’s force, which now consisted of three British Divisions, the
Seventh, Twenty-third, and Forty-eighth, played a glorious part. So,
at the close of the half year Fate’s curtain rang down, to rise again
upon the most dramatic change in history.
VOLUME VI
I.
THE OPENING OPERATIONS
From July 1 to August 8, 191
The general position – German attack of July 16 – French counter-attack of July 18 – Turn of the tide – Fifty-fi rst and Sixty-second
Divisions on the Ardres – Desperate fi ghting – The Fifteenth Scots
Division at Buzancy – Le Glorieux Chardon d’Ecosse – Nicholson’s
Thirty-fourth Division at Oulchy-le-Château – The campaigns on
the periphery
WHEN the year 1918 had run half its course the Germans appeared to be triumphantly in the ascendant. In Flanders they had
pushed back the British to positions which were, on an average, to
the rear of those occupied in 1914. On the Somme they had more
than neutralised all the Allied gains of 1916, and were stretched
now from Arras to Montdidier, covering ground which they had
not touched since the early days of the war. On the Aisne they had
reconquered all that the French had so laboriously won in three
campaigns, and were back along the Marne and within gun-shot of
Paris. These results had been achieved in three great battles which
had cost the Allies some 200,000 prisoners and nearly 2000 guns.
In July it would have seemed that the German Empire was victorious, and yet ere the year had ended the very name had changed its
meaning in the map of Europe, and was known only in the list of
evil things which have had their day and then have passed. How
299
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
this extraordinary change – the most sudden and dramatic in all
history – came to pass is the theme of this fi nal volume.
There were certain factors which even at the zenith of Germany’s fortunes may have prepared a cool-headed critic for a swing of
the scales, though the wisest and best informed could not have conceived how violent the oscillation would be. In the fi rst place, the ever-pressing strangle-hold of the Navy, combined with an indifferent
harvest and the exhaustion of certain stocks within the Empire, notably of copper, rubber, wool, and lubricants, produced great internal
diffi culties which grew worse with every month. Then again German
successes had been bought in reckless fashion at a very heavy price,
and if they brought a million men across from the Russian frontier
it is probable that they had squandered nearly as many in the three
great battles. Finally, there was the all-important factor of the American reinforcements which had been speeded up to meet the pressing
emergency. By splendid international co-operation the Americans
put all their proverbial energy into marshalling and equipping the
men, while Great Britain threw every available unit of her sea power,
mercantile or naval, into the task of getting them across. The longsuffering people of this island gladly cut down their requirements in
every possible direction so as to secure the tonnage for this marvellous transfer. At a steady rate of a quarter of a million every month
the Americans fl owed into France – magnifi cent raw material which
was soon to show how quickly it could develop into the most highly
fi nished article. This constant addition to the Allied forces, with the
moral confi dence which they brought with them, was the third contributory cause to the sudden change of fortune. It would be ungenerous, however, not to add that a fourth, without which all others
might have been vain, lay in the commanding personality and extraordinary genius of the great Frenchman who now controlled the
whole Allied battle front from the sea to the Alps, while two great
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