Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1338 page)

The 111th Brigade from the Thirty-seventh Division was therefore sent up, battalion by battalion, along the river-bank until it passed the central obstacle and reached the Sunken Road. Thence the 13th Rifles were sent forward with orders to reach the advanced line, where the Hoods and Drakes, somewhat reduced in numbers but not in spirit, were lying in front of Beaucourt. It was dark before these changes could be made. The Riflemen, when they had attained their position, rested their right upon the Ancre, and prolonged their left, clearing the Germans out in that direction. This movement to the left was strengthened in the early morning when the 13th Rifle Brigade and the 13th Royal Fusiliers of the same brigade came up to join in, whilst the H.A.C. also advanced and took up a position on the right of the naval men.

About seven o’clock the assault upon the village was ordered, under the direction and leadership of Commander Freyberg of the Hoods, already twice wounded, and wounded once again before his task was finished. Sailors and Riflemen rushed forward at the signal, and dashed with fierce impetuosity over the German line and down the streets of the hamlet. The Honourable Artillery Company upon the right joined in the charge. It was completely successful, the houses were rapidly cleared, the dug-outs taken, and many hundreds of prisoners secured. The Riflemen emerging on the farther side of the village immediately dug in under the direction of their only remaining company officer. A footbridge was at the same time thrown across the Ancre, so as to connect up with the Thirty-ninth Division on the south.

The German redoubt had held out manfully until its line of retreat was entirely cut off, and even then showed signs of continued resistance. The tanks had already won such a position in the army that they had become one of the last resources of the commander who was in difficulties. During the night of November 13 three of these engines were sent for to help in reducing the intractable German centre. Their performance was typical both of their weakness and of their value in this early stage of their evolution. One was hit and disabled before ever it crossed the lines. A second stuck in the mud and refused to budge. The third won its way over the German front line and so terrorised the obstinate garrison that they were finally induced to lay down their arms. Eight hundred prisoners came from this one pocket, and the whole capture of the Naval Division amounted to nearly 2000 men.

The advance of the Fifty-first Highland Territorial Division upon the immediate left of the Naval Division had been equally successful, and had ended in the capture of the important village of Beaumont Hamel with all its network of caverns, a great store of machine-guns, and 1500 of the garrison. The objectives of the division may be said to have been the continuation of those of the Naval Division, substituting Beaumont Hamel for Beaucourt, but the position was complicated by a deep ravine, called after its shape the Y Ravine, which ran down from the village to the German trenches. The ground over which the advance was made was still littered with the skeletons clad in rags which represented the men who had fallen in the attack of July 1. Now, after five months, they were gloriously avenged. The rush of the division was headed by the 153rd Brigade, with the 4th and 7th Gordons in the lead. These two fine battalions carried the front German lines, but on reaching the Sunken Road they gave place to the 6th and 7th Black Watch behind them, who carried the attack up the Y Ravine and on to Beaumont, while the Seaforths and Argylls of the other brigades, with their staunch Lowland comrades of the 9th Royal Scots, thickened the line of attack, and gave it the weight to carry each successive obstacle. Only in the Y Ravine was there any momentary check to the fiery advance. There for a short time the Germans stood stoutly to their task, and there was some of that man-to-man work which the Scotsman loves. Then the last signs of resistance died out, and before the late afternoon the whole position was in the hands of the assailants, who pushed on and occupied the low ridge to the north which separates it from Serre. One curious incident connected with the close of the action was, that a mopping-up party of Gordons in one of the front lines of trenches were suddenly surprised and captured by a considerable body of Germans, who emerged suddenly from an underground tunnel. In the evening, however, the positions were reversed, and the prisoners were rescued, while the Germans had to surrender to the victors. Fifteen hundred prisoners and 54 machine-guns were the spoils of the Fifty-first Division; but these were considerably increased when the dug-outs were more carefully examined next day. Altogether nearly 7000 officers and men were captured in the course of the action.

Whilst the considerable action of Beaumont Hamel was fought upon the left, the various divisions upon the south of the river forming the remainder of Gough’s Fifth Army all made a forward movement and gained ground. Of these divisions, the Thirty-ninth, whose doings have already been described, was nearest to the main battle, and was most heavily engaged, winning a complete success. Upon its right in the order given were the Nineteenth and the Eighteenth, connecting up with Rawlinson’s Fourth Army upon the right. These various divisions all moved their lines forward in the direction of the river-bank, with the villages of Grandcourt and Petit Miraumont in their front. These movements were rather in the nature of a feint and a demonstration, so that they were not accompanied by any severe fighting. It had been planned, however, that as these divisions advanced to the north the space which would be left, between Gough’s right and Rawlinson’s left should be filled up by the Thirty-second Division, which, should push on in the direction of Lys. This movement gave rise to some severe fighting in which the historical 14th Brigade sustained some heavy losses. The immediate obstacle in front of the division was a powerful system of trenches lying amid morasses caused by the recent heavy rains, and known as the Munich Line, with the Frankfort line behind it. Upon November 17 the division took over the advanced trenches, while the Eighteenth Division side-stepped to the left. The Thirty-second Division had formed its line for attack, with the 14th Brigade upon the left and the 97th upon the right, the leading battalions from left to right being the 15th Highland Light Infantry, the 2nd Manchesters, the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, and another battalion of H.L.I. The advance was to have been upon the 17th, but from the beginning a series of misfortunes occurred, arising largely from the weather, the condition of the trenches, and the severe German barrage behind the line, which made all preparations difficult and costly. The attack was postponed till the 18th, and even then the advancing battalions were short of bombs, without which trench fighting becomes impossible. The ground behind the troops was so awful that one mile in an hour was considered remarkable progress for an unladen messenger; while the enemy’s fire was so severe that of six runners sent with a despatch only the last arrived unwounded. The Germans in front appeared to be both numerous and full of fight, and upon the 17th they made a vain attack upon the advanced line ‘of the 14th Brigade. Two companies of the Manchesters sustained upon this day the losses of half their number as they lay, an object lesson in silent patient discipline in the muddy bottom of a shell-swept ditch.

At 6:10 in the morning of the 18th an advance was made, but the bomb supplies had not yet come up and the disadvantages were great. None the less, the first line of German trenches was successfully carried by the Manchesters, but the 15th Highland Light Infantry were held up by wire and were unable to get forward, while the Yorkshire Light Infantry upon the right got through at some points and were held at others. The Manchesters even penetrated to the second line of trenches and sprang into them, but the fatal want of bombs tied their hands, and a counter-attack of the Germans retook the position. The Highland Light Infantry had fallen back upon Serre Trench, and were pressed by a party of the enemy, but fortunately some of the 1st Dorsets came up from the rear with some bombs, and the situation was saved. In the meantime the position of those Manchesters and Yorkshiremen who had got forward as far as the second trench, and were exposed without bombs to a bombing attack, was very serious. They had taken a number of prisoners and some of these they managed to send back, but the greater part of the British were bombed to pieces, and all died where they fought or were taken by the enemy. A single survivor who returned from the final stand made by these gallant men stated that he was the last man who had crawled out of the trench, and that his comrades lay dead or dying in a group in front of a blazing dug-out, the woodwork of which had taken fire. A patrol next day came upon the bodies of an officer and forty men who had died fighting to the last in a single group.

On the left of the Thirty-second Division some movement forward had been necessary upon the part both of the Eighteenth Division and of the Nineteenth, in order to keep the left flank of Jacob’s Second Corps on the south of the river level with the right flank of Fanshawe’s Fifth Corps upon the northern bank. This operation did not involve much work upon the part of the Eighteenth, but the movement of the Nineteenth was difficult and complex, with Grandcourt as a possible objective. It meant an attack upon a maze of trenches under the worst possible terrestrial conditions, while the advance had really to be in three The different directions — due north, north-east, and almost due east. The 57th Brigade, strengthened by the 7th South Lancashires of the 56th Brigade, was chosen for the difficult task. At
6 A
.M. upon November
18 in
a sharp snow-storm the advance began.

It was the last concerted operation of the year, but it was not unfortunately destined for success. The garrison of the trenches appear to have been as numerous as the stormers and far more advantageously placed. The ground was such that an advance over it without opposition would have been no easy matter. Upon the left two battalions, the 7th South Lanes and the 8th Gloucesters, old battle companions of La Boiselle, pushed vigorously forward and seized the western outskirt of Grandcourt, where they held on against every attempt to dislodge them. Stick bombs, egg bombs, rifle-grenades, and every sort of evil missile crashed and splintered around them, but they had in command two leaders who might be trusted to hold what they had taken. Only next evening when the rest of the attack had definitely failed did these two battalions withdraw to a new line on the immediate west of the village, taking 150 prisoners with them.

The other three battalions had fared ill owing to numerical weakness, lack of knowledge of the ground, loss of direction, bad weather, and deadly machine guns. Half of the 8th North Staffords won their way through to the objective, but their comrades could not support them, and they were so isolated that, after a gallant resistance, they were nearly all destroyed or captured, under very much the same circumstances as the 2nd Manchesters upon the preceding day. The commander of the North Staffords, Colonel Anderson, a gallant South African, and several other officers were wounded and taken. Colonel Torrie of the 7th East Lancashires was also killed in this engagement. An attempt upon the part of the 9th Cheshires later in the evening to get into touch with their lost comrades only served to swell the casualty lists, for it was dark before it was initiated, and all direction was impossible amid the labyrinth of mud-channels which faced them. Two days later the Nineteenth Division was relieved by the Eleventh. It is difficult to exaggerate the extreme hardships which had been endured by the whole of Jacob’s corps during these operations amid the viscid mud slopes of the Ancre. Napoleon in Poland had never better cause to curse the fourth element. The front trenches were mere gutters, and every attempt to deepen them only deepened the stagnant pool within. The communications were little better. The mud was on the men’s bodies, in their food, and for ever clogging both their feet and their weapons. The hostile shelling was continuous. It was a nightmare chapter of the campaign. Winter had now settled down once more cheerless and prolonged. There was much to be done in those months of gloom — divisions to be refilled, fresh divisions to be brought out, munitions of every sort to be stored for the days of wrath to come. But apart from the preparations for the future, the army was never quiet, for one long succession of trench raids, exploratory attacks, and bombardments helped to retain that ascendancy which had been gained in the long Battle of the Somme. Before the narrative passes to the German retreat of 1917, and the dramatic battles which followed it, it would be well to take a brief survey of the other events which had occurred during the last half of the year, all of which reacted more or less directly upon the campaign in the west.

The chief of these is undoubtedly the magnificent French recovery at Verdun. As already stated, the German pressure was very severe in June, but it was rapidly lessened by the counter-pressure of the Allied advance upon the Somme. In their attempt to hold back the Franco-British advance the Germans denuded their Verdun line to an extent which weakened it so much that, far from advancing, it could not hold its own. In two splendid assaults upon October 24 and December 15, the first yielding 5000 prisoners and the second 11,000 with 115 guns, the French drove the Germans back until a considerable portion of their former hard-won gains had disappeared. Considering the efforts which France was making upon the Somme it was a splendid achievement, and it may fairly be added to the credit of the Somme Battle, since without it, it could hardly have been possible.

The second considerable factor was one of those great Russian advances which, alternating with equally great Russian retreats, each of them coming with a constant rhythm, made the war of the Eastern Front resemble some sort of majestic and terrible tide, with an ebb and flow which left death and destruction strewn over those unhappy border countries. On this occasion the advance was in the Brody and Stanislau direction, and was pushed with such energy and success by the fiery Brusiloff that nearly 400,000 prisoners — or perhaps Slavonic refugees would be a more accurate description — were taken by our Allies. The movement extended from June to September, and might have been a vital one, had it not been for the political disorganisation and treachery in the rear.