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II

I THE WAR 1

ILLUSTRATED

ALBUMDELUXE

A 8

Copyright.

ADMIRAL SIR ROSSLYN E. WEMYSS, K.C.B., M.V.O. First Sea Lord and Chief ot Naval Staff.

THE WAR

ILLUSTRATED

ALBUMDELUXE

The Story of the Great European War told by Camera, Pen and Pencil

' BY

J. MERTON

CHAPTERS BY

LOVAT FRASER, HAMILTON FYFE, MAX

PEMBERTON, EDWARD WRIGHT ARTHUR D. INNES, M.A., AND THE EDITOR

•

1,350 ILLUSTRATIONS

r

VOLUME IX. THE FOURTH YEAR, 1917-18

PUBLISHED BY

THE AMALGAMATED PRESS, LIMITED LONDON, 1918

S«» Lord and C: .-.i Sufl.

Vvl/J

THE WAR

ILLUSTRATED

ALBUMDELUXE

The Story of the Great European War told by Camera, Pen and Pencil

A. HAMMERTON

CHAPTERS BY

LOVAT FRASER, HAMILTON FYFE, MAX

PEMBERTON, EDWARD WRIGHT ARTHUR D. INNES, M.A., AND THE EDITOR

1,350 ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME IX.

THE FOURTH YEAR, 1917-18

PUBLISHED BY

THE AMALGAMATED PRESS, LIMITED LONDON, 1918

* * '

523

£07586

to Folutttt

E fourth year of the war, to which this volume of THE WAR ALBUM is devoted, may well be deemed by future historians a year of world-destiny. It opened with promise. It closed with greater promise. But there was a middle period fraught with a crisis of the most tragic intensity. While Russia collapsed helplessly into the arms of Germany, weather conditions militated against the allied offensives, and these, in turn, began to break down before the increasing strength Germany was able to draw from the eastern front. The political situation was overcast, the military commands were under criticism, and America had many initial difficulties to over- come ere she could bring her weight to bear in the field.

N the opening months the British pressed forward till they were within sight of Bruges, and they broke into the famous Hindenburg defences. Then after the surprise victory of Cambrai, there was the set- back at Bourlon Wood, partially retrieved, but an earnest of the storm to come. The storm broke on March 2ist, 1918, and towards the middle of July it looked as though the forces of militarism might achieve a decision, and the appalling sacrifice and heroism of four years of tragedy prove in vain. Five separate onslaughts were made by the Huns in a desperate effort to attain decisive victory. They thrust at Amiens, to separate the British and French armies. They made an equally powerful effort to reach the Channel ports. Three distinct offensives were directed against Paris. For the first time since 1914 the French capital was in danger. As his hopes of conquest rose so the Hun grew more and more defiant of civilisation.

, as by a miracle — a miracle of strategy and tactics initiated by Marshal Foch, appointed to the chief command in France and Flanders, and carried into effect by unexampled valour of all under his direction — the crisis passed, and there came a sudden and bracing change of fortune. With colossal losses in men, material, and moral, the German hordes were steadily driven back all along the line. Mere words, can neither add to nor detract from the vital interest to humanity of this stage of the great conflict, the course of which will be found unfolded as the pages of this, our ninth volume, are turned. The facts, thus briefly stated, constitute the claim of this volume, with all its advantages of actuality as a contemporary record, by pen, pencil, and camera, upon the sympathies and interest of every reader. Apart from the lucidly-written synopsis of events by Mr. Arthur D. Innes and the Diary, our literary and pictorial contents have been arranged in sections, according as they relate to the several fronts, so that the reader is enabled to turn readily to any incident to which he may wish to refer.

' HILE epoch-making events were being wit- nessed in France, in Russia and Rumania Prussian intrigue and Prussian military power went from success to success. Kerensky gave place to Lenin, the so-called Peace of Brest Litovsk was signed, and anarchy, eventuating in the murder of Tsar and Tsarevitch, and the assassination of Count Mirbach at

Moscow and of Field-Marshal von Eichhorn at Kieff, showed that German gold had raised a blind power of destruction regardless of friend or foe. If the Brest Litovsk treaty caused dissatisfaction between Turkey and Bulgaria, and thus far helped the Allies, the peace conditions imposed by the Central Powers upon Rumania in May, when victory appeared assured to them, showed what the lot of Europe might be under Teuton domina- tion. China's formal entry into the war on the side of the Allies was counterbalanced by the spread of German influence in Finland and the Prussian bid for the control of the Murman and Trans-Siberian Railways.

O far as Salonika is concerned, the year passed with- out event of note. On the Italian front, where there was a change in the command, General Diaz succeeding General Cadorna, Austria, aided by Germany, achieved some dramatic coups, but in June had to submit to an ignominious reverse on the Piave, in in- flicting which French and British troops had an honourable share. In the East were witnessed many startling changes, to the disadvantage of Turkey, whom for a time Germany left practically unaided. In Mesopotamia the sudden death of Sir Stanley Maude, due to cholera from drinking infected coffee, cast a gloom over all the allied fronts. But General Marshall ably carried on his predecessor's policy, and was no less successful in the field. In Palestine, Beersheba, Gaza, and Jaffa fell to General Allenby, then Jerusalem, and the British crossed the Jordan.

Y sea the most important event of the year was the practically safe conduct of American forces across the Atlantic. This implied that the U boat menace, if not removed, was at least under control. By the close of the year a million and a half of United States troops had been landed in France, and additional men were reaching French soil at the rate of 10,000 a day. At first they were brigaded with their French and British Allies, but it was hot long ere they' made' themselves felt as an independent fighting force. St. George's Day witnessed an event that will go down in history with the great naval achievements of all time — -the sinking of block-ships in the harbours of Zeebrugge and Ostend, under the direction of Sir Roger Keyes. This exploit was followed on May gth by the sinking of the Vindictive at Ostend. These events are fully dealt with in one of the most absorbing sections of the volume we now present to our readers.

S the year drew to a close the enemy found plenti- ful use for his air forces on his own battle-fronts and within his own boundaries. Before that London and Paris were repeatedly raided by Gothas and airships, which inflicted considerable damage to property and loss of life. With this brief foreword, touching but a few of the features of the ninth volume of THE WAR ALBUM, I leave the work to speak for itself, confident that in no particular will it be found to fall short of the merit which won the enthusiastic appreciation accorded to the preceding volumes. J. A. H.

Principal Literary Contents

The Moving Drama of the Great War : IX.— The Fourth

Year, 1917-18. By Arthur D. Innes, M.A. . The Opening of the Third Battle of Ypres. By Max

Pemberton ...••••• The Victory of the Flanders Kidges. By Max

Pemberton . . • • • ' • General Sir Henry H. Wilson, K.C.B. The Triumph of the Tanks in the Battle of Cambrai.

By Max Pemberton ......

The Gallant Defence of the Redoubts. By Hamilton

Fyfe ..... • ' ' ' The Toughness of the Thin Brown .Line. By Hamilton

How General Carey's force Held the Gap. By Hamilton Fyff ....•••

Our Splendid Gunners in the St. Quentiu Battle. By Hamilton Fyfe ....•••

How Giverichy Defied the Hun. By Hamilton

PAGE

2889

2907

2920 2926

.2928 2945 2948 2953 2958 2965

How British Engineers Hindered the German Advance.

By Hamilton Fyfe ....•• Alfred, Viscount Milner

What Canadian M.M. Gunners Did. By Hamilton Fyfe Some Fine Australian " Shows." By Hamilton Fyfe . The Allied Triumph on the Marne. By Lovat Fraser . The Return of Goth and Hun into Italy. By Edward

Wright '• • •

The Earl of Cavan

St. George and Jerusalem

The Blockships : The Immortal Story of the Great

Naval Raid on Zeebrugge. By Edward Wright " Well Done, Vindictive ! " By Edward Wright. Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, K.C.B. . The Doom of the Aerial Armada. By Max Pemberton . The Wings of Victory. B<j Edward Wright Rear-Admiral Sir. R. Y Tyrwhitt, K.C.B . Little Journeys to the War. By the. Editor . 3162, 3166, 3168, 3170, 3172, 3174

PAGE

List of Maps

The Battles for the Ridges 2906

Area of the Great Battle for Amiens

Area of the Fighting in French Flanders

The Scene of Italy's Great Trial 3018

The Conquest of Southern Palestine ' • • •

Map Showing Zeebrugge and Ostend

Special Full-Colour Plates

Admiral Sir Rosslyn E. Wemyss, K.C.B., C.M.G., M.V.O Frontispiece

General Foch Facing page 2920

Monochrome Colour Plates

A Touch of Human Kindness in the Agony of War Facing page 2889

British Despatch Rider Halts for Welcome Refreshment , 2905

Great British Guns in Action During Critical Days of Spring of 1918 ......„„ 2953

Gas-Masked British Gunners Firing Into Advancing Masses of Enemy ,, „ 2985

Gallant Soldier of France Singing in the Officers' Mess .........„,, 3007

Enthusiastic Welcome of British Troops in Northern Italy . . . . . . . •,,,,, 3025

Germany's Greatest Liner as an American Transport .........,,., 3049

General Sir Edmund Allenby's Entry Into Jerusalem .........,,,, 3004

Water for Man and Beast: A Typical Scene in Salonika . . . . . . . . . ,, ,, 3081

Marines Storming the Zeebrugge Mole ............,,,, 30%

Tuning Up R.A.F. Machine Before Departure on Bombing Raid .......,,,, 3120

The Building of the Ships: Night Work in One of Britain's Shipyards , 3160

TABLE OF CONTENTS -continued

The Fourth Year, 1917-18

British Soldiers on Ifnvr lioat . . . The Burning Wreck of a German Aeroplane. British Anti-Aircraft Ouns In Action .

Spike-Proof Canadians

Captured German Machine-Gun Emplacement Wounded German in Machine-Gun Lair A Barrel-Borne Footbridge .

PAGE 2891 2892 2893 2894 2896 2897 2899

Third Battle of Ypres

Britons Go Forward In the Battle of Flanders . . . 2908

Thrilling Scenes in the Third Battle of Ypres . . . 2909

" Billets " in Belgium : Barely Better Than None . . 2910

Vestiges of the Vandals Flying from Vengeance . . . 2911

fining Forward to the Firing-Line in Flanders . . . 2912

Kim Positions Beyond Which the Line Advanced. . . 2913

Gallantry of the Guards at Poeleappelle .... 2914

Might and Mercy Marching on the Mcnin Road . . . 2915

Hriilging the Yser, and Well Away Beyond Ypres . . 2916 Forcing tire Foe Eastward Through Flinders . . .2917

Fine Flower of Valour in the Swamps of Flanders . . 2918

Moral Beats Mud Ujxrn the Road to Broodseinde. . . 2919

How British Troops Stormed the Westhoek Ridge . . 2921

Victors and Vanquished in the Battle of the Ridges . . 2922

British Guns and Grit Get Forward in Flanders . . . 2923

Through the Sloughs to Passchendaele 2924

PERSONALIA OF THE GREAT WAR— GENERXL SIR

HENRY H. WILSON, K.O.B 2925

The Battle of Cambrai

H.M. Landships Outdo Hannibal's Elephants . . . 2929

Triumph of the Tanks In the Assault on Cambrai . . 2930

Arid Ruins and Green Ramparts in the Trail of War . . 2931

Di-livered At Lest from Long Tribulation .... 2932

Where the Tanks Went Forward towards Cambrai . . 2933

KngliKh County Troops Who Would Not be Denied . . 2934

Inspiriting Incidents in the Cambrai Conflict . . . 2935

Heroes Who Held Up the Onrush of the Huns . . ..• 2936

Gallantry at Guislain and Mercy at Masnleres . . . 2937

Victors and Vanquished from the Combat at Camhral . . 2938

Green and Orange Brave It with Red, White and Blue . 2939

General Byng's Great Battle for Bourlon Wood . . . 2940

Booty of the " Bonnets " on the Way to Bourlon . . 2941

Smashing the Hlndenburg Line at Cambrai . . . 2942

The Mighty Battle for Amiens

The Reserves Go Forward to the Battle .... 2946

Khaki and Horizon Blue as Foils to Field Grey . . . 2947

Damming the First Flood of the Hun Offensive . . . 29(9

Hindering the Massed Offensive of Hindenburg . . . 2950

Where Die Enemy was Encountered in the Open . . . 2951

Heroes Who Kept the German Hordes At Bay . . . 2952

Men Who Kept their Spirit and the Line Unbroken . . 2954

British and French Undivided and Undaunted . . . 2055

Parrying the Germans' Most Stupendous Blow . . . 2956

Stopping the Swing of the Hun Sledge-Hummer . . . 2957

Deeds of Great Daring that Averted Disaster . . . 2959

Boches Glad to be Out of the Great Battle. . . . 2960

Whippets With Wlilch Nemes s Went Out Coursing . . 2961

King George With His Armies that Held the Huns . . 2982

The Fight for the Channel Ports

Hell-Fire Corner ....... . 2966

Ifi'n i-s Who Met the Onslaught of the Offensive . . . 2967

Guns that Fended the Foe from the Channel . . . 2968

S living Holy Objects from the Sacrilecious Hun . . . 2969

British Outposts in the German Offensive .... 2970

Fighting in the O|>en on the Western Front . . . 2971

staying the Avalanche of Massed German Might . . . 2973

Where the Hun was Held and then Driven Back. . . 2974 PERSONALIA OF THK GREAT WAR— THE RT. HON.

VISCOUNT MILNEH, O.C.B., G.C.M.G. . .. . 2975

Sons of Empire in the War

Canadian Heroes Who Captured Hill 70 .... 2978 Canadians' Care for their Equine

Wounded . . 2979

PASS

Canadians In Contrast with their Hun Captures . . . 2980

Maple-Leaf Heroes Who Held the Line at Lens . . . 2981

Spades and Clubs in Winning Hands in the West. . . 2982

Ruin Wrought, and Suffered by the Hun .... 2983

Scenes After Victory Near the Hindenburg Line . . . 2984

Horsemen from Afar in the Saddle for Action . . . 2986

Men of the Maple-Leaf Ready to Meet the Foe . . 2987

Canadian Mobile Guns Reap Fame In France . . . 2988

Gallant Charge of the Fort Garry Horse .... 2989

Australian Heroes of the Flanders Heights .... 2990

Advance, Australia ! on the Yprea Battle Front . . . 2991

Magnificent Men from the Dauntless Dominions . . . 2992

Stemming the Teuton Torrent Making for the Sea . . 2993 More Prized Positions Wrested from the Foe . . .2991

Britain's Empire Effectives— and an Enemy " Dud " . . 2995

Artillery that Aided the Australians' Advance . . . 2997

Glimpses Through the Gateway to the Battlefield . . 2998

For the Glory of France

Leaders of the Allies' Linked Line in Flanders . . . 3000

On the French Front from Flanders to the Aisne . . 3001

" Pill-Boxes " and Gun-Posts that the Germans Lost . . 3002

Courage and Faith in France and Flanders .... 3003

General Maistre's Masterstroke at Malmaison . . . 3004

French Generals Who Stayed the German Attack . . 3005

Mangin— Victor at Verdun and Master on the Marne . . 3006

French Infantry Advance in Battle Formation . . . 3008

Tiring-Line and Supports Take a German Trench . . 3009 Steady and Courageous in the Supreme Crisis . . .3010 Three-Minute Raid by the French in Champagne. . .3011

British Valour that Helped to Save Rheims . . . 3012

Calm After Storm in Troubled Chateau-Thierry . . . 3013

Flags of Enslaved Peoples Flaunt Free Anew . . . 3014

British Gallantry Praised by Grateful France . . . 3015

Happy Heirs to the Future of Fair France ; 3016

On the Italian Front

Austrians Dance to the " Mandoiinisti " Tune . . . 3019

Pouring Help Into Italy in Her Hour of Peril . . . 3020

Men and Incidents on Italy's Mountain Fronts . . '. 3021

Italy's Rampart of Rocks and Iron Will — .... 3022

—Against Which Austria Advanced In Vain . . . 3023

Arresting Attila's Advance to the Adriatic .... 3021

Coolness and Courage of Comrades In Arms . . . 3026

Ready to Reckon with the Invaders of Italy . . . 3027

Comrades In Arms Holding Converse Together . . . 3028

Where the Allies Aided the Intrepid Italians . . . 3029

Intrepid Allies Who Went to Italy's Aid .... 3030

Pushing Back the Austrians Across the Piave . . . 3031

Under the Union Jack Among the Asiago Uplands . . 3032 PERSONALIA OF THE GREAT WAR— LIEUT.-GEN. THE

EARL OF CAVAN, K.P., K.C.T! 3038

The Americans on Land and Sea

Enemy Aircraft Sighted 3035

America's Advance Army Rearing the Trenches . . . 3036

Early Arrivals from America In Action Abroad . . . 3037

I'.S. Troops in their French Training Camp. . . . 3038

America's Ardour At Home, Abroad and Afloat . . . 3039

U.S. Troops Flowing Forward to the Front — . . . 3040

— Attain a Triumph In Action at Catigny .... 3041

American Engineers Aid the British Guards . . . 3042

Men of America's Army Try On Teuton Armour. . . 3043

French Honours for American Fighting Heroes . . . 3044

American Soldiers Enter Sternly Into Action . . . 3045

America Prepared and Resourceful in the War Zone . . 3046

German Shiiw Used by United States Soldiers . . . 3047

American Ingenuity Applied to Many War Ends . . . 3048

America's Advent Brings New Hope to Alsace . . . 3049

America's Activity on French Fighting Front . . . 3050

Prussian Vainglory Abated by American Valour . . . 3051

U.S. Energy in the Battle-Line and Behind' It . . . 3052

Progress in Mesopotamia

Activity and Method in the Mesopotamian Advance . . 3054

With General Marshall's Men In Mesopotamia . . . 3055

Echoes from Eastern ' Whispering Galleries .... 3056 With Marshall's Troops Marching Towards Mosul . . 3057

TABLE OF CONTENTS— continued

From the Field of Conflict to the Camp of Care Troops that Triumphed Over the Turks at Ramadie . Ancient Rnins and Modern Doings in Mesopotamia

Victorious Advance to Jerusalem

fleneral AHenby's Great Advance in Palestine . Drawing Water from Wells where Abraham Drank Spanning the Desert and Encircling the Foe Freed by British Bravery from the Terrible Turk Clearing the Crescent Off the Permanent Way . Forcing the Entrance to Palestine at Gaza. French Allies Who Aided in Allenby's Advance . Persistent Pursuit of the Turk in Palestine. Aspects of Sir Edmund Allenby's Palestine Army Won from the Crescent by the New Crusaders . storming Beersheba with Bomb and Bayonet With General Allenby's Advance on Jerusalem . Light Relief Amid the Grim Tasks of War Allenby's Anzaes Reach Jericho and the Jordan. Alert and On Guard in the Palestine Advance .

Events in the Balkans

Camera Contrasts from the Macedonian Hills

Innocent Sufferers from Invaded Serbia ....

Stout-Hearted Soldiers of Resurgent Serbia

In Macedonia from Base to Advanced Line

Mingled Haps and Mishaps in Macedonia ....

King Alexander with the British in the Balkans

Mingled Memories of Macedonia's Many Camps .

Behind the Enemy Lines

Teutonlslng of Turkish Boys in Berlin

Turkish Activity In Syria's Ancient Capital Crown Prince Rupprecht's Concrete Boudoir Kaiser Wilhelm Gloats Over Italy at Gorizia Agents of Prussia's World-Wide Espionage. The Kaiser as Patron of the " Prince of Hell ". The Modern Attila and His Misled Minions

The War by Sea and Air

Men Who Made History at the Zeebrugge Mole. Officer Heroes of the St. George's Day Raid H.M.S. Vindictive: Battered But Victorious PERSONALIA OF THE GREAT WAR— VICE-ADMIRAL

SIR ROGER KEYES, K.C.B

With the Navy in the Far Frozen North ....

Men of the Navy Active 'Mid Arctic Snow and Ice .

The Italian David Killing the Austrian Goliath .

Last Moments of the Torpedoed Transport Medie

Gloating Pirates Give Proof of their Guilt '.

Seaplane and Destroyer versus Submarines .

Crewless Cargo Boats to Outwit the Pirates

Justicia's Twenty-four Hour Fight Against Eight Pirates .

British Airman's Marvellous Exploit ....

Leap for Life from an Observation Balloon . . '.

French Methods of Meeting tlw Zeppelin Menace

" Take Cover— The British are Coming "...

Activity and Accuracy of the Allies' Airmen . . !

Beauty and Brutality Amid the Moonlit Skies .

Bi-twixt the " Take Cover " and the " All Clear " !

Flying Men Who Held Ascendancy Over the Foe

Air Men and Methods in the Old World and the New

I'l.lISONALIA OF THE GREAT WAR-REAR-ADMIRAL

SIR REGINALD Y. TYRWHITT, K.C.B.

Golden Deeds of Heroism

Conspicuous Courage that Won the Coveted V.C. Brave Men and Women Honoured for Heroism Brave Men Decorated for Devotion to Duty Officers and Men Who Have Won Orders and Medals! Sailors and Soldiers Honoured for Gallant Deeds Chaplains Honoured for Gallantry in the Field English Soldiers' Deeds of Dash and Daring Winning the Coveted Cross for Valour's Wear For Valour! More Heroes of the Victoria Cross !

British Bravery versus Teuton Treachery .

Sailors and Soldiers Decorated for Heroism

PAGE

8058

3059 3060

3063 3005 3066 3067 3068 3069 3070 3071 3072 3073 3074 3075 3076 3077 3078

3081 3082 3083 3084 3085 3086

3088 3089 3090 3091 3092 3093 3094

309S 3099 3101

3103 3104 3105 3106 3107 3108 3109 3110 311J 3112 8113 3115 3116 3117 3118 3119 3121 3122

3123

3126 3127 3128 3129 3130 3131 3132 3133 3134 3135 3136

Woman's Work in the Fourth Year

Devotion to Duty of the Sisterhood of Service .

Daughters of Empire in Diverse Employments .

Women Who Answered Duty's Bugle-Call ....

Care of the Wounded from Battlefield to Base .

Willing Women Workers : Helpmeets for Heroes

Varied Work for Which Women have Volunteered .

Women's War Work in England and France

Varied and Wonderful War Work of the " Waacs " .

Industrious Eve in the Garden of England

Women's Splendid Work as Veterinary Surgeons

How Our Women Worked to Win the War

Civilian Service Helps Active War Service ....

Wonderful War Work of the Empire's Women .

" Wrens " at Work at the Greenwich U.K. College

Dames of the New Order of the British Empire.

Peeps at Britain in War Time

War's Sidelights on Everyday Life in England . House-Party of Heroes in a Stately Home .... German Prisoners "At Home" in Southampton. Willing Workers At Home Helping to Win the War . After Three Years : Heroes of Mons Come Home Scarred Heroes Reach the Sanctuary of Home . Our Oldest Ally and Our Youngest Auxiliaries .

Little Journeys to the War

At an Aircraft Repairing Depot ......

The Artist's Sketches of a " Little Journey "...

Above and Below Ground in Ruined Ypres

An Old French Hostelry in the War Zone.

The Day's Round with the " Heavies "

At Brigade Headquarters in a Deep Dug-Out

Incidents Depicted by Our Artist .....

The Editor's Story of His German Helmet ....

World-Wide Echoes of the War

The Queen of the Adriatic and the Holy City .

Venice Preserved and Jerusalem Delivered .

Inter-Co-operation Against the World Enemy

Energy and Endurance from Flanders to Italy .

Peaceful Contrasts with the Waste of War.

Vignettes from Three Far Fields of the War

How Christmas Came to Our Soldiers and Sailors

Where War was Waged from Belgium to Bagdad

Modern Devices in Use for the Destruction of Man

Pride in Freedom's Fighters Far and Near.

Lighter Moments on Far-Sundered Ways of War

Upon the Hazardous Edge of Life and Death

Democracy Tests Autocracy with Terms of Peace . '.

Captain Sword and Captain Pen at Brest Litovsk . !

Brought to the Fore by Revolution in Russia

Where Self-Sacriflce Flamed from West to East . '.

Glimpses of East Africa from a German Camera

Exit the Enemy from " German " East Africa . . '.

Soldiers of Japan Ready for Any Emergency

Records of the Regiments

With the Scots Greys in France

The West Ridings .....'.

The Fighting Warwicks Dream of Victory

The Middlesex .....

The 7th Australian Infantry

PAOK 3138 31.39 3140 3141 3142 3143 3144 3145 3146 3147 3148 3149 3150 3151 3152

3154 3155 3156 3157 3158 3159 3160

3161 3163 3165 3167 3169 3171 3173 3175

3178 3179 3180 3181 3182 31S3 3184 3185 3186 3187 3188 3189 3190 3191 3192 3193 3194 3195 3196

3197 3198 3199 3200 3202

....

The Highland Light Infantry ... ' 3203

The Kensingtons ..

Famous Regiments that Held Up Teuton Hordes The Royal Irish Fusiliers . . The East Kents

m , Til •

The Lmcolns . . .....

3rd South African Infantry .

The Seaforth Highlanders .

The Wiltshires ..... \

Seven " Somersets " Capture Forty-two Huns . The Newfoundlanders .....

The Northampton .....

Daring Deeds of Border Men and Midianders '. The Dorset Yeomanry ....

The Roll of Honoured Dead . 3217-3228 Diary of the War .... 3229-3240

3204 3205

3207

3212

3215

To faer pnir <_*

3889

The Moving Drama of the Great War

IX.— The Fourth Year, 1917-18 W\

Progress of Events in all Battle Areas, from the Opening of the Third Battle of Ypres to the End of the Fourth Year of the War

Written by

ARTHUR D. INNES, M.A.,

Author of "A History of the British Nation," etc.

IN the opening stages, the first two months or more, of the War's fourth year, the Allies had every reason to feel sanguine. On the whole of the western front or fronts from the North Sea to the Adriatic, in each successive round of the conflict it was apparent that the balance had turned in their favour.

From the Balkan peninsula there was little enough news, but the Rumanians, though now without even a pretence of Russian support, made good their stubborn resistance upon the Sereth lines. The campaign in Palestine was postponed when the check before Gaza showed the strength of the enemy positions in that region, and effectual progress in Mesopotamia was not to be looked for until Russian co-operation with the British forces could again become a reality. Vigorous action on Russia's part was indeed out of the question, obviously, for some time to come, but so long as Kerensky 's Provisional Government continued, it was at least clear that there would be no separate peace between Russia and the Central Powers.

Those Powers, on the other hand, could afford neither to withdraw forces from the west in order to strike a smashing blow in the east before Russia could recover her equilibrium, nor to deplete the forces in the east for the stiffening of the defence or the development of a strong offensive in the west ; because, if Russia recovered her equilibrium, disaster would be inevitable. And, meanwhile, the United States were throwing all their energies into preparations for a decisive participation in the great conflict.

The military interest, then, during this period, was concentrated entirely on the western front, and almost entirely on particular sectors thereof. The three main divisions were the British front from the North Sea to the neighbourhood of St. Quentin, the French front from St. Quentin to Alsace, and the Italian front from the Trentino to the Adriatic.

The British front fell in three sectors — the left, from the sea by Dixmude and Bixschoote, past Ypres to Armentidres ; the centre from Armentidres to Lens and the Scarpe ; the right from the Scarpe to St. Quentin . The French front was divided in effect into the Aisnc sector before Laon, the Verdun sector, and the Alsace1 sector ; the Italian into the sectors of the Trentino and the Isonzo River. The operations of the spring, early summer, and midsummer, had advanced the whole allied line from Arras to the Aisne, straightened out the Ypres salient in the north, and established the French upon the Craonne plateau without as yet ejecting the Germans. Heavy fighting was in progress in this region when the British attack was reopened on July 3ist, with a blow directed upon the German line fronting Ypres.

Prolonged Struggle (or Passchendaele

This attack was the successful opening, and was only the opening, of a prolonged struggle for the mastery of the Passchendaele Ridge, stretching from Houthulst Wood on the north to the recently-recovered Messines Ridge at its southern end. What had been accomplished on August 4th, the third anniversary of the war, was that the front line of the Passchendaele Ridge trench system had been carried, and held against heavy counter-attacks. The artillery preparation had given

ample warning of the intended thrust, and German troops were rapidly massed to recover the lost ground. The character of this battle for Passchendaele Ridge can only be made intelligible by careful study of a fairly large scale map of the Ypres area. The northern and southern limits of the German line with which we are effectively concerned were respectively, on July 3ist, Steenstraete on the Yser Canal, and Hollebeke. The southern summit of the ridge may be identified with Inverness Copse immediately behind Hollebeke. But the summit line of the whole ridge did not run immedi- ately in rear of the German front line from Hollebeke to Steenstraete, but curved farther and farther back. Thus Passchendaele was some five miles behind the front line ; the ground occupied by the Germans between the ridge and the front line formed a rough triangle with the south apex at Hollebeke, while Hout- hulst Wood on the north was its base, the wood itself not being open to direct attack.

"Haig'» Weather"

What the British, with the French force on their left before Steenbeke, had to do was to push across the triangle from its western side — the German front line — to its eastern side, the ridge summit, not capturing Houthulst Wood, but threatening to cut it off. It was only at the southern end that the first stroke brought them in face of a vital point on the ridge itself at Inverness Copse, and it followed that for some time the heaviest fighting was that for the mastery of Inverness Copse, a position of immense strength, the possession ol which was of the highest importance. Elsewhere the Allies were fighting their way up to the ridge, their ultimate objective ; here British and Germans were fighting for a part of the ridge itself. The carrying of the front line was a highly successful operation, viewed alone, but it was only the initial step towards the mastery of the ridge.

Between July 3ist and August 4th, then, the French on the left had thrust across the Ypres Canal at Steen- straete and held Bixschoote ; the British right had secured Hollebeke, and the whole intervening British line had pushed forward to a corresponding depth. St. Julien was once more in their hands, with Frezenberg and Hooge, of which we had heard much in the old struggles about the Ypres salient. As yet, however, they were not established at Westhock and Glencorse Wood on the immediate north of Inverness Copse, where the counter-attacks had stopped their further progress, aided by what in England was coming to be known as " Haig's weather," since it seemed to be a standing rule that the moment of attack should always be immediately succeeded by a spell of the worst possible weather for the operations. Thus for some days there was no farther advance, though there was some successful raiding of the enemy lines in the Scarpe area. Raids, however, are not directed to the capture of positions, and the Germans, by inventing for them imaginary objectives which were naturally not attained, habitually represent them as defeats, usually describing them as attacks in force.

On the loth the Westhoek position was definitely carried, Glencorse Wood was penetrated, and the left, from St. Julien to Bixschoote, forced its way to the

B8

THE DRAMA OF THE WAR

further bank of the Stecnbcke stream. On the I5th, the Canadians on the right of the centre — Armentie'res to the Scarpe — broke forward on the north-western side of L'ns, csptured important positions, and held them agaitst strong counter-attacks. On the i6th, the Ypres battc broke out anew, along almost the whole of the lire winch, on the left, was carried past Langemarck, v ,!c on the right new ground was won in Glencorse Vbod, from which Polygon Wood, on the eastern Declivity, was actually entered, though the ground there lost was recovered by the enemy.

Struggle for Lent

The connection between the activity at Lens and on the Passchendaele Ridge is more readily grasped when we bear in mind that Lille faces the comparatively inactive British centre and the theatre of the old Loos battle. The direct thrust at Lille was not to be repeated, but that very important point would be threatened both from the north and from the south by an advance on both the Passchendaele Ridge and the Scarpe.

For the next few days the Germans were striving desperately, but vainly, to drive the Canadians out of the positions captured at Lens, and elsewhere there was no marked progress. On the 2ist, however, the Canadians and Germans attacked each other simul- taneously, and the result was some very hot fighting, in which the enemy lost further ground. Next day began the assault upon Inverness Copse, where a footing was secured. The copse lies across the Menin road, and day after day reports continued to come in of heavy fighting about the Menin Road. Every inch of the ground was contested, every device employed ; one day there would be an advance of a few hundred yards, the next, recovery of the lost ground by a flame attack. There was only a general impression that the balance was a little in favour of the British, and that a gradually increasing share of the copse was passing into their possession from the Germans.

Every movement, however, was seriously affected by the persistency of the adverse weather, which turned what should have been tolerably firm ground into lakes of liquid mud. Moreover, the operations so far had shown that a new method of resistance had been brought into play. Realising that the old " impregnable " form of entrenchment had failed to justify its epithet against British . attack — in the face of which troops massed in the front trenches were apt to be almost wiped out — the enemy had devised the plan of holding the front line with comparatively small numbers distributed in " pill- boxes," which exposed the advance to a machine-gun cross-fire, corresponding in some degree to the British squares in old-style fighting ; while fundamentally the defence rested upon counter-attacks delivered from the second line before the captured front line could be consolidated. The counter-attacks were, in fact, generally broken, or the troops, if they effected a footing, were driven out again. Still, the new tactics of defence required to be more thoroughly mastered by new tactics of attack. Thus the circumstances combined to impose delay — greatly to the enemy's advantage, and September was well advanced before the next blow could be delivered.

The Taking of Polygon Wood

1 he assault, then, was launched on September 2nth. The practical effect was that the southern extremity of the ridge was carried, and the advance pushed down the slopes beyond it to the point called by the British " Tower Hamlets," while the western outskirts of Polygon Wood were seized. On the left of this advance Zonnebeke was reached, and the line beyond correspond- ingly pushed forward. Counter-attacks, launched with great persistence and with large forces, developed throughout the day and the days following, the enemy being fully conscious of the value of the ground lost whether for the attack or for the defence; but were completely and disastrously shattered, largely owing to the skill and audacity of the air-observation.

The success was promptly followed up. Within the

week — on September 26th — the British went forward again, from in front of St. Julicn to the " Tower Hamlets." The whole of Polygon Wood was captured and the line advanced to the east of it as well as on the Zonnebeke section, where Zonnebeke itself was carried. The usual series of counter-attacks developed immediately — as disastrously to the enemy as those of the 2oth-25th.

With the opening days of October, the counter-attacks increased in intensity. A great enemy thrust was prepared for the morning of the 4th, but the same moment had been selected for a British attack, and the British got their blow in first. The massing Germans were caught by the British barrage, and the British advance was again carried forward along the whole line, reaching as far as the outskirts of Poelcapelle on the left and the Gravenstafel spur between Passchendaele and Zonnebeke, and definitely establishing the Allies on the slopes leading up to Passchendaele. Moreover, it had become evident that the " pill-box " tactics had been successfully countered, and, being countered, were less formidable than the old system of holding the first line in strength.

Capture of Passchendaele

The blows of September aoth, September 26th, and October 4th were again followed up on October gth, between which date and the I2th Poelcapelle was established within the British lines; while the French, on the left, pushed their whole line up to the outskirts of Houthulst Wood.

The consistent bad weather, however, had meanwhile brought the ground into such a condition that rapid progress was out of the question. But a blow in another quarter was in course of preparation, and it was essential to impose upon the enemy the retention of masses of troops upon the Ypres front. Moreover, before a fort- night had passed developments on the Isonzo front made it imperative that the Germans should be allowed no rest in France. Hence, although for a few days there was only that general " pressure " which yields " nothing of interest to report," another movement began on the 26th, followed up on the 3oth and on November 6th, closing with the carrying of Passchendaele itself, and leaving only the northern end of the ridge still in the enemy's possession. That it had become impossible to capture the whole ridge before the end of the year was unfortunate, but that so much had been done in the face of incalculable difficulties reflected the highest credit at once on the command and on all the troops concerned.

Here it may be remarked that England was subjected during September and October, 1917, to persistent air- raids, mainly by Gothas and their subsidiary craft. Sometimes they were total failures ; sometimes they penetrated the air defences of London.

The threatenings of a serious panic were happily averted when a Zeppelin fleet once more made an abortive invasion on October igth, lost itself in mists on the return journey, and finally got partly scattered behind the Allied lines in France, where five of the squadron were destroyed. After this the raids became less frequent, and were also more consistently dispersed — there was, indeed, little to be gained by them if they failed to produce disorganisation by creating panic.

Blows by the French

For the first three months of the war's fourth year the British effort had been concentrated on the struggle for the Passchendaele Ridge, the whole of which, with the exception of the northern end, was in their hands on November 6th. During the same period two blows were struck by the French — though their share on the British left in the northern battle must not be overlooked. The first was in the Verdun area, where, earlier, they had restored their old line in front of Douaumont, but had not succeeded in ejecting the Germans from the positions held by them for more than a year on either bank of the Mouse. In the last ten days of August the old battle-ground of Mort Homme and Talon Hill was again

28'Jl

THE FOURTH YEAR, 1917-18

the stage of a furious conflict, and the line from Avocourt to Samogneux along the Forges stream was again restored. Two months later came the second blow, this time at the angle in front of Laon. Here the Germans had kept their hold on the ridge of the Chemin des Dames, the main observation-line overlooking Laon, though behind it still, across the Ailette and the Canal, stood two heights covering Laon and flanked on the west by the forest of St. Gobain.

The Chemin des Dame*

The attack opened, after heavy bombardment, on Tuesday, October 23rd. By the end of the week the French had carried the western part of the Chemin des Dames, including the furiously-contested Malmaison post, and had reached the canal beyond. The loss of Malmaison rendered the Chemin des Dames position untenable by the Germans, and on November and they had evacuated the ridge, and the French were pressing

demoralisation among the troops ; and although the Germans were enabled to occupy Riga early in Septem- ber, the Rumanians, conscious that they were involved in a life-and-death struggle, fought with an obstinacy which Mackensen could not break in the Sereth lines.

But the Russian generals found themselves paralysed by Kerensky's efforts to conciliate the dreamers and fanatics who were falling more and more under the domination of the Maximalists. In desperation, Korniloff attempted to force the alternative of a military dictatorship for the purposes of the war, which was easily represented as a reactionary movement aiming at the restoration of the Tsardom. Korniloff failed in an attempt which required a Napoleon for success. The failure only increased the demoralisation in the Russian ranks, destroying what was left of discipline and authority. Kerensky had himself broken the one weapon by which the situation might conceivably have been saved, and the control slipped more and more into

British soldiers, nearing home on leave from the western front, raise a cheer as they approach the shores of that " Blighty " which

they have been heroically defending while fighting the Hun invader in France and Flanders. Home leave was looked forward to with

ardent longing, and the men who so magnificently earned it as heroes hail the island home like exuberant boys.

down to the Ailette. In the course -of the operations over 10,000 prisoners had been taken ; but there still stood a substantial barrier between the French and Laon.

The western plan of campaign had rested upon two hypotheses — that the Italians would not be outmatched on the southern front, and that Russia would, at the worst, keep faith with the Allies. As long as the enemy was debarred from reinforcing one front at the expense of another, he would be held up on two fronts and beaten on the third. Without reinforcing the east, he might defeat the disorganised Russians, but could not smash them. If he withdrew troops from the east, he would run the risk of being smashed there himself. Briefly, the weakening of any front might involve him in imme- diate disaster. For a considerable period it seemed that these anticipations would be fulfilled.

On the Russian front there was no defection on the part of the commanders, though there was grievous

the hands of the Maximalists, who, for the most part, did not understand — though their wire-pullers did — that they were simply playing the game of the Central Powers.

And thus, from the latter part of September onwards, the Germans were enabled to transfer fresh, unexhausted troops from the east to the west, only in part replacing them by war-worn troops which, in the east, could lie quiet and recuperate.

The Italian Offensive

The course of events in Russia reacted upon the Italian front. At the moment when the Rumanians were definitely holding their own against Mackensen's assaults, the Italians resumed their offensive in the extremely difficult Isonzo region. Their aim was to win Monte Santo and clear the Bainsizza plateau on the north of Gorizia, and to storm the Hermada on the Carso covering Trieste.

THE DRAMA OF THE WAR

A .triklng illustration of the burning wreck of a German aeroplane that had been sent down behind the lines by a British airman.

By August 24th the former of these objects was in effect accomplished, but the Austrians still held the Hermada. In this region the entrenchments are pro- vided not by the digging of trenches, but by the profusion of natural burrows in the solid rock, which, to an immense extent, defy the heaviest of bombardments. Hence the storming infantry had an exceptionally severe and expensive task, though success was attended by the capture of large bodies of prisoners, who surrendered in masses when the attack penetrated to the shelters. Along an extensive line the Austrian front was broken and forced to retirement. If and when the Hermada should fall, it was probable that the evacuation of Trieste would very soon follow, and, though the Hermada held, the great achievement of the Italians seemed full of the highest promise. Still, while it held, there was little prospect of a further effective advance, and after the first week of September a lull in the active operations ensued.

Underground Peace Propaganda

But during the following weeks the Germans were miking full use of the Russian situation, as to which the Western Allies were necessarily very much in the dark. The underground peace propaganda, which had been so successful in undermining the loyalty of the Russian soldiery, was similarly applied to the Italians, and at the same time troops and guns were gradually trans- ferred to the Italian front. The Italian command was not unaware that preparations were in progress for a counterstroke, but was confident in the capacity of the Italian troops to meet it single-handed — unconscious of the extent of the demoralising influences which were at work in portions of the line.

The altered state of affairs in Russia satisfied the Germans that more was to be gained upon that front by waiting than by striking. Presently it appeared that the lull on the Sereth might be accounted for by other reasons besides the stubbornness of the Rumanian resistance, for German troops and guns were joining the Austrians in the Isonzo region, and when the attack was launched it was reported that Mackensen had been transferred thither from Moldavia. The blow, when it

came, was one of the most startling in the war. On October 23rd the new forces were hurled against the Italians on the line north of Tolmino and the Bainsizza plateau, and on a twenty-mile front the Italians were smashed back — their Second Army had given way. Later it became clear that a factor of first-rate conse- quence in this shattering stroke was the demoralisation produced in the ranks of that army by the " don't fight " propaganda. Some of the troops fought, but others apparently surrendered wholesale.

On the" 28th the advance had crashed forward as far as Civitale. The Third Army, which had done such magnificent work on the lower Isonzo and the Carso, was in danger of being enveloped by Austro-German forces pouring on to the Venetian plain. Its withdrawal was imperative, and all that had been won had to be given up. On the 3oth Udine fell. It had been the advanced supply-base and general headquarters of the Italian armies on the Isonzo. It did not appear that the rot had spread beyond the Second Army, but the piercing of it meant that the whole line on its right was driven hard in retreat to a safer area where the line to be held would be greatly shortened. Would the troops and the command be able to resist the demoralisation which threatens every such retirement ? In that critical hour the unity of the Allies was promptly manifested by the promise of immediate aid from France and Great Britain.

Retreat to the Piave

The Third Army escaped envelopment, but at heavy cost. The Germans, thrusting down from Udine, struck at the remnant of the Second Army and the left wing of the Third ; 60,000 prisoners and a proportionate number of guns were reported to have been captured. That left wing had suffered heavily, but the army was through, and got itself behind the Tagliamento. Also it was learnt with satisfaction that the whole of the British artillery accompanying the force had been brought away in safety.

The Tagliamento is apt to run low, and, when it does so, it presents a very meagre obstacle to an advancing foe. But on this occasion it fortunately befell that it was

2893

THE FOURTH YEAR, 1917-18

temporarily swollen with rain. Perhaps, too, the German advance had outstripped its supplies and its heavy guns. At any rate, on the Tagliamento there was a moment's breathing space while the shaken troops recovered their organisation. Still, it was no more than a breathing space ; the moment had not yet come for a successful stand. On November 5th the Germans and Austrians were over the stream. The last defence had been no more than a stubborn rearguard action, and the whole force fell back upon the Piave, the one obstacle left on the way to Venice.

Victory at Ramadie

Yet one thing was becoming manifest — Italy was rising to the emergency ; she had been stung to indignation by the Second Army disaster, which had stiffened her resolution instead of spreading demoralisation. Her troops had again shown that they could fight ; the threatenings of internal discord had been silenced, and a new War Cabinet, whose whole-heartedness could not be questioned, had been called to office. Venice might yet repeat the story of Verdun — at least, if the Franco- British reinforcements could arrive in time. The Piave line had this advantage, at any rate, of being the shortest between the sea and the mountains; and behind the Piave the Italians turned to bay.

From the Asiatic areas, in the meanwhile, there had been of necessity but meagre news. In Mesopotamia an advance, with conquest jn view, was not to be looked for without Russian co-operation. On the contrary, the Turks, in September, had been able to design a con- verging march on the Bagdad angle. The attempt, however, only led to disaster. The Turks were trapped at Ramadie, on the Euphrates ; a skilful flank movement of cavalry cut their commuunications and their line of retreat, and on September 2gth, after some sharp fight- ing, a force of 3,000 men, with their General Staff, found themselves forced to surrender.

For the time no farther news came from this region ; but in the Palestine area General Allenby had been silently preparing his campaign, and on October 3oth he struck his first blow, capturing Beersheba, with some

i, 800 prisoners, on the following day. The fall of Beersheba compelled a general retirement of the Turkish line between Beersheba and Gaza., the defences of which were carried on November ist, and the town itself was occupied on November yth. Two days earlier, near Tekrit, on the Tigris, there had been a smart and success- ful fight with the Turks, who had been compelled to a hasty retirement.

During the whole of this period naval operations had presented no new features. There was no more sign than in previous periods of any disposition on the part of the German Fleet to come out and fight, or on the part of the British Fleet to risk its existence among the defensive mine-fields. An occasional excursion of destroyers and two or three cruisers here and there effected successful attacks upon a couple of neutral convoys travelling under what proved to be insufficient guard, the attacking forces making for home at speed as soon as they had achieved their stroke ; on other occasions the raiders had to run with nothing accom- plished, and were badly damaged in the flight. The submarine war was continued, with losses in big ships fluctuating between ten and eighteen per week, and a destruction of enemy submarines the extent of which could not be generally known. But there was a general impression that the destruction of tonnage was more rapid than its replacement, and the replacement of submarines more rapid than their destruction.

Summary of the Campaign

The outcome of the campaigning, then, from July 3ist to November yth was this :

The British on the Ypres front had battled forward till they had carried the Passchendaele ridge from its southern extremity as far north as Passchendaele itself, the northern extremity beyond Passchendaele being still in the enemy's hands. The French at Verdun had recovered the whole of the ground lost in the summer of 1916, and on the Aisne had mastered the whole ridge of the Chemin des Dames.

On the Italian front our Allies had at first, by hard fighting, advanced their trans-Isonzo lines, but had later

THE MEANS AND THE END. In this photograph and that on the opposite page we have striking impressions of the war in the air as it was being carried on along the western front. The photograph above shows British anti-aircraft guns which brought

down a large enemy 'plane in France.

THE DRAMA OF THE WAR

met with the tremendous reverse which had forced the retreat of the whole line between the Asiago plateau and the sea to the Tagliamcnto, whence they were already in further retreat to the Piave, the last possible line to be held in front of Venice. There had been no new developments in the Salonika stalemate. The attacks on the Rumanians had ceased, but the total demoralisa- tion of the forces in Russia had put the Germans in complete possession of Riga, practically made a Prussian lake of the Baltic, and permitted the secure transfer of masses of troops and guns to the west.

In Mesopotamia the Russian defection had prohibited material advance, but the British had more than proved their capacity for dealing faithfully with any Turkish attempts at a counter-advance. The last remnants of German foices were being shepherded out of German East Africa — the last remnant of the German colonial possessions. General Allenby had just carried the whole frontier line of resistance to the invasion of Palestine from Beersheba to Gaza.

Allied War Council

And, finally, there had been no change in the maritime situation which still threatened Great Britain with such a scarcity of necessaries as might be successfully faced only by a strict economy of distribution and sup- pression of selfish indulgence, without producing anything approaching the hardships from which the bulk of the civilian population were already suffer- ing in the Central Empires.

Apart from the transient interest aroused by the final disappearance of the Germans from East Africa at the

beginning of December, the notable

military events before the end of the

year were the stand of the Italians on

the Piave, General Byng's brilliant

stroke on the Cambrai front, with

the German counter-stroke, and the

entry of General Allenby's forces into

Jerusalem.

The plans of the Allies ia the west

were inevitably modified by the Isonzo

disaster and all that it entailed — in- cluding the dispatch of solid Franco- British reinforcements to a field in

which they had been assured that

their direct aid would not be

needed. In plain terms, the Russian

disintegration, now threatening to

develop into a positive betrayal, had

changed the whole western situation

and imposed a revision of the

Entente's methods of co-ordination,

and yet another attempt to increase

their activity both by land and sea.

Italy had already put a new Ministry into power. The British Prime Minister announced to the world

that a new Allied War Council was to be set up to

remedy the particularism of the several commands ; the

French Ministry gave place to one having M. Clemenceau

at its head. Mr. Lloyd George, having thoroughly

startled the public, allowed it to be understood that he

meant everything he said, but not quite everything he was supposed to have implied, and that the Allied War

Council was one more attempt to solve the eternal

problem wliich had baffled all alliances since wars began — the problem of securing unity without subordination.

Victory of Bolshevists

The solution offered appeared to be of a kind which could hardly do harm and might do good, and the excitement which had arisen, with much talk of a Minis- terial crisis, was allayed. Politically speaking, however, the most serious aspect of the moment was tlie definite victory of the Maximalists, or Leninites (who were

coming to be known as the Bolshevists), over Kerensky in Russia and the capture of the " Government " by a group headed by Lenin, which believed, or pretended belief that a " democratic peace " could be obtained by Russia's desertion of the Allies who had been forced into the vortex of the war by their loyalty to her.

Now it is evident that the change in the western conditions, brought about first by the paralysis and then by the open defection of Russia, aided by the delays which adverse weather conditions had so consistently imposed had destroyed whatever prospects the summer had offered of a decisive stroke on the part of the Allies during 1917 ; and beyond this, it was threatening them with a counter-stroke on the Italian front which might even prove a decision as far as concerned Italy.

Thus, important as was the next blow delivered by Sir Douglas Haig, its immediate effect could be little more than a relief of the pressure upon the Italians by compelling a very heavy concentration against the British — a concentration which, but for the eclipse of Russia, would have been impossible. Thus the British offensive had two phases — the first, in which the British drove forward on a broad front facing Cambrai ; the second, in which the counter-concen- tration enforced the abandonment of approximately half the ground won in the thrust. But the advance itself had a significance of its own for the future, deriving from the novelty of the tactics employed — although it did not succeed in its immediate object, the capture or complete domination of Cambrai.

General Byng's Attack

The attack, long and secretly planned, was delivered on November 2oth, 1917, by General Byng. There had been no preliminary devastating bombardment, such as had preceded every other blow, and therefore no warning. No hint of the great pre- parations for it appeared to have reached the enemy. A complete sur- prise was achieved. The primary purpose of bombardment is the wiping out of the wire entanglements and defences which shatter the infantry advance, and this work was accom- plished by a line of Tanks, which had been accumulated in unprecedented numbers, and were not prevented from operating by the usual obstacle to their ponderous activities in Flan- ders— ground which has been converted into mud-swamps. The result was an advance so much more rapid than had been deemed possible, owing to the unexpected meagreness of the resistance, that a salient was thrust forward almost to the outskirts of Cambrai ; which had to be relinquished because of the impossibility of bringing up adequate supports, since the enemy, after the first surprise, was hurrying up every available jnan for the defence throughout the day.

The element of surprise had, of course, disappeared in the fighting of the following days. The British pushed forward slightly, dealing successfully with the counter-attacks ; but the main matter now was the capture of Bourlon Wood on the left of the advance, since the possession of it would gi\ e domination over the Cambrai railway system, and thereby destroy its value for the enemy. On the 25th the wood was carried and held, and the fall of Cambrai seemed imminent. Its loss, however, would be so serious a blow to the enemy that he was straining every nerve to secure it at all costs by sheer weight of numbers.

The struggle continued, apparently in full fury.

SPIKE - PROOF CANADIANS. — Those spiked boards were laid by the Germans, points upward, on the roads, but the Canadians saw the point, and were not retarded in their pursuit.

THE FOURTH YEAR, 1917-18

swaying slightly backwards and forwards for two days ; -.hen for three days was what passed as a lull ; and then on November 3Oth the Germans launched an attack with immense forces all along the new British line. The British attack ten days earlier was almost reversed ; along the southern portion the defence appears to have been taken somewhat inexplicably by surprise. To the lay mind the only conclusion possible was that some one had neglected necessary precautions ; though the authorities were fully satisfied, on examination, that no blame attached to the Higher Command. The enemy forces crashed forward, recovering half the ground that had been lost, and on their extreme left thrusting even beyond their original positions. If they had met with a like success on their right, there might have been a grave disaster — even as it was, some 4,000 prisoners were taken. But Bourlon Wood held firm, and the intended envelopment failed.

Result of the Operations

The minor salients which the attack had not driven in were withdrawn ; but the wood itself had become a salient very pronounced, and particularly unhealthy because it was reeking with gas — and to meet a gas- attack is one thing, to live in gas is another. Since it was impossible to advance beyond it, there was nothing to be done but to withdraw behind it.

This movement was carried out with no contretemps during the night of December 4th, and the new line, shortened and straightened, was securely consolidated. The fortnight's fighting had ended by leaving the British line only slightly advanced, having reached, but then been obliged to abandon, its main objective.

Efforts to break into the line again failed ; but the check had given clear proof of the heavy reinforcements liberated from the Russian front, and the resulting change in the balance of troops and armament in the theatre of the struggle — and it had also shown that the Germans must keep those masses on that front if they were to hold their own, although the critical position of the Venetian Plain was carrying off to the help of our Italian allies French and British troops which would otherwise have been accumulating in France.

We left the Italians falling back on the Piave in the second week of November. Their whole line falls into three sectors — along the Lower Piave, where it passes out of the mountains and crosses the plain in front of Venice to the Adriatic ; the mountain sector between the Piave valley and the valley of the Brenta, which flows by Padua behind Venice ; and the sector of the Asiago plateau, between the Brenta and the Adige, the historic barrier against invasion of Italy on the north-east.

Italian Stubbornness

It was primarily the political importance of covering Venice which imposed a defence on the Piave line instead of the much stronger Adige line on the rear. The enemy might make it his main object to break over the Piave and march straight on Venice, or to break through at the Brenta, the junction of the mountain sectors, and so envelop the Third Army on the Piave. Pressure all along the line had enabled the Austro-Germans to get a footing at some points on the right bank of the Piave by the middle of the month, though at other points they had failed, and it became evident that the main effort was being made in the mountains, and was directed to a descent by the Brenta, possible only if the heights on its right and left were mastered — in effect, the whole of the middle sector and the eastern pai t at least of the western sector, forming the high fringe of the whole.

For the next month the enemy was methodically ham- mering forward to this fringe, with strokes dealt now upon one part of the line, now on another, successively creating salients and compelling their abandonment.

Steadily and systematically point after point was forced, and the Italians were pressed back to the very edge of the mountain defences, but with a stubbornness of resistance which showed that the First and Fourth Armies as well as the Third had preserved their moral,

in face of superior forces encouraged by victory, and in spite of the shattering defeat of the Second Army. On the Asiago sector the Italians held.

Between the Piave and the Brenta, the enemy reached and captured Monte Tomba on the left and Asolone on the right. But by the end of the year the Italians were again in partial if not in complete possession of Asolone ; they were already strongly (though no one knew how strongly) reinforced by French and British ; and on the last day of the year the French distinguished themselves, and marked the value of the solidarity of the Allies by recovering the hold on Monte Tomba, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy and making substantial captures of prisoners and guns. The possession of this summit, the one observation point they held dominating the allied positions, was all but a necessity for the enemy before they could deliver a fresh blow ; and it was to be inferred that they would have hesitated at no effort for its recovery had they not already decided against any such effort in the immediate future.

Meanwhile, in Palestine General Allenby was con- ducting a brilliant campaign. After the fall of Gaza, the Turks were pushed back till their left rested in front of Hebron. Askelon and Ashdod w<r3 entered; the Scriptural " L-nd of the Philistines " wai all in British occupation. On November I7th Jaffa was evacuated.

Fall of Jerusalem

The grand problem in Palestine was not the defeating of the enemy, which proved to be almost a matter of course, but the maintenance of supply, especially water, which was managed with remarkable success. Stragetically, the vital point for the holding of Palestine was the retention of the ancient Shechem ; but immense political importance attached to Jerusalem, and fighting through the hills of Juda?a is no simple task. Both Shechem and Jerusalem were still covered by the Turkish lines ; but the communications with Shechem, on which Jerusalem depended, were already threatened.

On December 8th came the news of the capture of Hebron. After that the fall of Jerusalem was a certainty. It was evacuated by the enemy, with humorous declara- tions that they had withdrawn to avoid the pollution of the Holy City by bloodshed. On December gth Jerusalem surrendered, and on the nth was formally and peacefully entered by General Allenby.

The goal of the Crusaders, which had been in the hands of the Moslems ever since the days of Saladin, was once again in Christian occupation.

At the opening of 1918, the high hopes of the summer had clearly failed of fulfilment. The allied line had indeed been carried appreciably forward, but the Germans were firm in the line Cambrai-St. Quentin- Laon, and on the rest of the French front there had been no material change. On the other hand, the Austro- Germans on the Italian front had not only stopped the pressure upon Trieste, but had won the smashing victory which bears the name of Caporetto, driven the Italians back to the last standing ground in the mountains, and thrust forward into the Venetian Plain as far as the Piave. There, however, the recovery of the Italian army, reinforced by French and British, had held up their advance in the last weeks of the year.

Effect of Russian Cataclysm

But whereas in September it was apparent that the balance of strength had turned in favour of the Allies in the west, in December it was still more apparent that the balance was again in favour of the Central Empires. Lack of unity in the western command, the invariable defect of all alliances since war began, had reduced the progress of the Allies to merely local successes ; but the decisive factor had been the political and consequent military collapse of Russia, which had already released masses of men and vast stores of munitions for the western front. How tremendous was to be the effect of the Russian cataclysm the first three months of the New Year were to show.

For such control of affairs as existed at all in Russia

awe

THE DRAMA OF THE WAR

had passed into the hands of the Bolshevists, who, if they were not deliberately working as German instruments, were at least very thoroughly playing the German game. Armed resistance to the Germans ceased, and the so- called Government entered upon the amazing negotia- tions for a separate peace, which culminated in the incredible Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and forced upon Kumania, isolated and helpless, submission to the terms dictated to her by the Central Empires.

Though these treaties were not signed till the year was some weeks or months advanced, they meant that the \ustro-Germans were already freed in the east from the need of active military operations in the face of organised hostile forces, and would be able to turn to their own use the resources of the submitting countries in foodstuffs and war material.

Waiting for America

So in those first months oi 1918 steadily increasing masses of German troops were gathering in the lines on which the war was to be ended before America could bring in her reinforcements for the Allies — if, indeed, she could bring them in at all in defiance of submarines.

For the Allies, on the other hand, it seemed obvious that they must remain virtually on the defensive until those new forces should arrive to give them an actual preponderance — a preponderance which, until their coming, must rest with the Germans. It was, in effect, certain that the enemy would seek to force a decision ; in the spring their great offensive would be launched ; they must stake everything on it, since their chance could hardly come again. If it were held, then the Allies' turn would come. And nowhere was there the hint of a doubt that it would be held. Yet, as the moment drew nearer, there was in some quarters con- sciousness of a weakness. The British found themselves called upon to take over a part of the French line, south of St. Quentin. There, inevitably, was the weak link in the chain. And the Germans knew it.

Since the New Year eleven weeks had passed without any notable battle when, on March 2ist, the Germans strucR along the whole front from the Scarpe to the Oise, from Arras (in British occupation) to La Fere (in German occu- pation), between forty and fifty miles, as the crow flies.

At the outset the object of the enemy appeared to be the breaking of the British line attacked at a point north of its centre, since the heaviest pressure developed on the sector facing Cambrai. But though the whole defence was pressed back to the third or main defensive line_a result which was almost to be taken for granted on this first day — there was no sign of the intended break. The Germans had not concentrated upon the weak point. But on the second day they had found it, on the British right facing St. Quentin. In fact, it n probable that it was here rather than further north that they had proposed striking the decisive blow, and on the 22nd it came very near to success. With a tremendous concentration of troops they broke upon the British Fifth Army, actually aided, as it would seem, by a heavy mist. In effect the object was to sweep away the British right, snapping the connection with the French, turn the flank, and roll up the line northward, thus effecting a complete separation between the French and British armies.

Fall of Bapaume

But though the British right was broken it was not shattered. There were, however, no positions in the immediate rear where a fresh stand could be made; a rapid fighting retreat was the only alternative to annihila- tion— and either retreat or annihilation would mean the complete exposure of the flank, unless the whole British line swung back on its hinge at Arras in conformity with the retirement, while the French line must also extend itself rapidly westwards, both to keep touch and to harass the flank of the German advance.

By the evening of March 25th Bapaume and Peronne were once more in the hands of the Germans, and they were across the loop of the Somme which flows from Ham to Peronne.

On Tuesday, the 26th, they were in front of Albert, while Noyon and Roye had been given up. On Wednes- day Montdidier on the south and Chipilly on the Somme were abandoned. But here, or with very little farther advance, the great German rush was brought to a standstill. It had swept the Allies out of everything they had won between the Scarpe and the Oise in the campaigns of 1017. It had reached a point within a

A British officer investigating a captured Qerman machine-gun emplacement which abounded in the German lines.

THE FOURTH YEAR, 1917-18

EARTHS FROM WHICH FOXES WERE CLEARED.— This picture shows a wounded German in thg lair where he was discovered. Both this machine-gun pit and that shown on the opposite page were found on the British sector of the front, in the neighbourhood

of Meteren, between Hazebrouck and Bailleul.

dozen miles of the great railway centre at Amiens. It had delivered to the enemy a vast number of prisoners and immense quantities of war material. But it had failed in its great object — it had not thrust a wedge l)etween the British and the French armies. And while it had imposed a tremendous strain upon the French extension to keep touch with the British, it had brought the German flank into a dangerously exposed position which required to be strengthened and secured before the extended French line could be sufficiently reinforced to deliver a heavy attack.

On this Wednesday and Thursday a violent effort was made to break the hinge on which the British front had swung at Arras. Had the attack been successful, it would have turned the southern end of the Vimy Ridge and enforced a retirement along the line hitherto un- shaken. So much importance was attached to this effort that no less than ten divisions were brought into the engagement on this narrow front ; but heavy as the onslaught was, it was repulsed completely, and the Arras front remained unshaken.

Still, for another week — Easter week — the pressure forward towards Amiens was continued, making an advance of some two miles towards its objective on a front of about fifteen miles. This, however, was some- thing very different from the first ten days' rush forward, and it was apparent that the resistance was not merely stiffening but had thoroughly hardened. What was now in progress was the familiar ding-dong fighting, in which it was as likely as not that any ground won by either side on one day would be lost again in the next twenty- foul hours.

German Ruth Checked

By the end of Easter week the impetus of the rush had obviously been lost, the resistance had solidified, and confidence that the Germans would not break through or even drive their way over the ten miles that lay between them and Amiens was restored. Had the great blow succeeded, the enemy would have had his choice o' thrusting south-west, with Paris as the

objective, or enveloping the southern British flank and sweeping the British armies up to the sea. Failing that, there was another alternative — to smash the British back to the sea by a thrust at their centre.

Attack on Messines

The possibilities attendant on such a stroke were alluring. The British command would be divided between the desire of massing troops to resist it and the fear of reducing the strength of the flank which had suffered so heavily and had only just succeeded in staying its enforced retreat. If the line were pierced, the northern half would be rolled up or the southern half enveloped ; even if it were not, anxiety for the security of the seaboard would probably compel such a concentration on the left and centre as to give a new prospect of a successful stroke on the Amiens sector.

The scheme was clearly arranged for in the original programme of the offensive, and its execution organised the moment it was realised by the German Command that the chance of a break-through at Amiens was growing hourly less. For on April gth the attack was delivered in almost overwhelming force on the front between the Messines, or " Whitesheet " Ridge and the Vimy Ridge.

To ensure success the primary object was to reach and capture the north-south railway at Bethune, and next the junction of the Calais and Dunkirk railways at Hazebrouck, by an advance which would turn the southern end of the Messines Ridge and thus completely disorganise the whole British line — not merely the section attacked. In the centre, which was held by the Portuguese contingent on the allied front, the line was pierced by noon, the infantry attack having opened at daybreak.

But on the German left the plan was foiled by the magnificent resistance put up by a Lancashire division at Givenchy, covering Bethune Givenchy was, indeed, carried by sheer weight of numbers before noon, but was immediately recaptured by a fierce counter-attack, and, in spile of the masses hurled against it, was still

L'S'.l-

THE DRAMA OF THE WAR

'28U9

THE FOURTH YEAR, 1917-18

in possession of the Lancashire men on the following morning. Between Givenchy, however, and Armen- tieres, on a front of a dozen miles, a deep salient had been thrust forward, reaching to the bank of the Lys River. The tenacity of the troops at Fleurbaix, south- west of Armentieres, had prevented the extension of the base of the salient northwards.

On the second day the main objective of the enemy was the Messines Ridge, which was subjected to direct attack from the east, while the forward thrust — checked on the first day from " Plugstreet " to Fleurbaix — was pushed on well over the Lys, and beyond Armentidres, which was full of gas. But it was only on the lower eastern fringe of the Messines Ridge that the Germans were able to establish a precarious possession.

Capture of Neuve Eglise

During the next three days the arc of the salient was steadily advanced, but at its southern extremity Givenchy held fast, and though, at its northern extremity, the southern summit of Messines was reached, it was not mastered. The arc, however, had been carried as far as the fringes of the Nieppe Forest, covering Hazebrouck on the west and the foot- hills of the high ground stretching westward in rear of Messines on the north. The enemy had entered Neuve Eglise, and had been thrown out again. He was in front of Bailleul and Merris, and his entry into Merville and Locon constituted a serious menace to Bethune. But in the last two days the mean depth of his advance between Messines and Locon had been less than two miles. The situation was still in- tensely critical, but the prospect of a break through had hardly survived the indomitable defence of Givenchy and the stubborn resistance of Messines. The lateral railway behind the British line from north to south was still intact.

It was during the first and most critical stage of this desperate struggle that Sir Douglas Haig issued his famous " backs to the wall " order, which is said to have aroused the energy of America to its highest pitch, and which was accompanied by that magnificent effort in our own islands which — as was learnt later — carried a quarter of a million more troops across the Channel in three weeks, and more than made good the whole of the losses in war material suffered since March 2ist.

The Germans were once more striving to " hack through " to Dunkirk and Calais. At the end of a week of striving they had formed a great bulge between Givenchy and Messines, once more creating an Ypres salient which necessitated Ihe flattening of the line in front of Ypres from the Houthulst Wood to the Messines Ridge — in other words, the abandonment of Pass- chendaele ; an operation which was accomplished undetected by the enemy, who only made slight and not very important progress about Bailleul.

Valour of the Belgian!

On the eighth and ninth days he made two great efforts, either of which, if it had succeeded, would have once more made the situation desperately critical. Both failed. The first was directed on the north of Ypres, where at first it penetrated the Belgian lines, threatening a break through to the rear of Ypres and the northern flank of the hills behind it, already threatened by the s \Hent on the south. The valour of the Belgians, however, restored the position by a fierce counter attack, a id the line was held and thoroughly re-established. The second was a great thrust on the

A BARREL-BORNE FOOTBRIDGE

Constructed by Australian soldiers over a waterway on the western front.

southern side of the salient towards Bethune, and included an attempt to force the canal passage at Hinges, and to break the resistance at Givenchy. Both efforts were decisively broken up, and two minor movements on the northern sector of the arc likewise achieved no success.

A brief pause was followed in the next week by two more blows. One was successful in its immediate aim. The hill of Kcmmel, in rear of the Messines Ridge, was carried after long and desperate fighting. The French troops, which had come in to the support of the British, held the position till they were literally annihilated — a German success which finally necessitated the abandon- ment of the now untenable Messines Ridge. But this was the last German gain on the Ypres section.

Since the offensive against Amiens had been brought to a standstill in the second week of the great thrust there had been a lull in that region, the energies of both sides having been absorbed by the northern attack. As that in its turn was also coming to a standstill the enemy would seem to have prepared for a fresh blow in the southern s lient.

In front of Amiens a triangle is formed by the Rivers Somm? and Luce, the base being the Franco-British line covering Amiens with Villers- Bretonneux at its centre (British) and Hangard (French) at the south-east angle. Behind this line is a plateau, the mastery of which would bring the Amiens railways directly under fire. The day before the attack on Mount Kemmel (April 25th) the Germans opened an attack on this plateau, the failure of which closed this phase of the struggle in the Amiens area. Hangard, the scene of much ding-dong fighting, was entered ; Villers-Bretonneux was turned and carried, compelling the retirement of the French, whose flank at Hangard was exposed. But a determined counter-attack, in which Australian troops especially distin- guished themselves, restored the situa- tion, drove the enemy out of Villers- Bretonneux, and enabled the French to re-establish themselves at Hangard. On the second day the line again stood where it had stood when the attack opened.

Battle of Locre

Precisely corresponding to this was the battle of April 2(jth in the north, the sequel of the capture of Mount Kemmel, which may be called the Battle of Locre. The stroke, if suc- cessful, would have given the mastery of the hills behind Ypres and compelled a retirement of the whole line stretching to the sea, uncovering Dunkirk. The effort was in proportion to the value of its objec- tive. The attack was made in masses on two narrow fronts. That on the right, against the British, was held up largely by new recruits, whose mettle was put to splendid proof. That on the left broke through the French line at Locre, and for a time the situation was exceedingly critical, but the French counter-attack in the afternoon not only recovered the lost positions but drove the Germans back half a mile behind their original starting-point. Thus was the last blow broken of the great offensive which had opened on March aist, and a lull of a month followed in the operations on the western front.

Just at the moment when the defence had practically recovered its stability, on the eve of the attacks on Mount Kemmel and Villers-Bretonneux a memorable achievement was accomplished in another field by the British Fleet.

The Germans had long been in effect wiped off the surface of the seas where they had been reduced entirely

THE DRAMA OF THE WAR

to the " raid-and-run " operations of vhich the main value was that pro- tection against their expansion with- drew British ships from the business of submarine hunting. The most troublesome bases and refuges for such action was on the Belgian coast at Zeebrugge and Ostend, which were also submarine bases. The blow struck, on April 23rd, by Sir Roger Keyes, in command at Dover, was in- tended to block those two harbours. At Zeebrugge its success was prac- tically complete; at Ostend it was not. ' At Zeebrugge, the object was to sink concrete-laden ships in the mouth of the Bruges Canal which was guarded by a mole. The plan was to effect a complete surprise, without which the chance of getting the ships sunk in the right positions

GENERAL RETAIN CONGRATULATES HIS AIRMEN.— The French commander-

in-chief was described as being always with his soldiers and ever ready to recognise

special bravery with praise and congratulation. He is here seen complimenting French

airmen who have just returned from a flight over enemy territory.

was impossible ; the thing was to be done under cover of an attack upon the mole, which would appear to be the actual objective of the enterprise. Its danger was obvious, and the work was entrusted to picked crews of volunteers, every man of whom knew that his own chance of escaping alive was small. The operation had to be carried out in the daik and yet with the utmost nicety of navigation.

The attack began with a familiar bombardment by monitors, which gave no warning of a coming engage- ment at close quarters, but probably drove the garrison of the mole into shelters and fixed attention on a distant enemy. The Vindictive and her consorts, with the storming-parties, bore down undetected, under an ingeniously-developed fog-screen, but before the mole was reached a sudden change of wind swept the screen aside, and the vessels were already under heavy fire when they came alongside and grappled the mole with the " brows " or boarding-bridges specially prepared. Most of these were shot away, and one after another of the British gun-crews was wiped out, only to be replaced by a fresh crew.

Storming Zeebrugge

The " boarders " flung themselves on the mole with desperate courage against heavy odds ; there was furious hand-to-hand fighting ; an old torpedo-boat converted into a sort of super-torpedo was exploded in the piles which connected the great mole with the mainland.

All the damage that could conceivably be wrought on the mole could never have warranted the tremendous risks of the attack, but when the recall sounded from the Vindictive those who were still capable of getting aboard her knew that something else had been accom- plished— that the concrete ships had been sunk — and that if they were across the waterway Zeebrugge was

NEW TYPE OF " ARMY HORSE "-This ingenious tractor, capable of moving heavy guns end dragging tons of supplies and transports up steep Gradients, is controlled by reins precisely a. if it were a live horse. A pull on the right rein or the left turns

pull on the right it at once in the required direction ; a pull on both brings it to a stop.

rendered harmless for an indefinite length of time. It was known at once that two vessels had been sunk where it was intended that they should be sunk, and later photographic evidence proved incontestably that they had effectively blocked the waterway, and that Zeebrugge was practically out of action.

The Attempt at Ostend

The attempt at Ostend, somewhat less dangerous in character, was less successful, though through no fault of the flotilla. In both cases the essential point was that the block-vessels should be.got?into position before they were discovered, as otherwise they would almost ine\itably be sunk by gun fire before reaching the exact spot. The change of wind at Ostend removed the smoke screen and revealed the flotilla too soon, the exact spot was not reached, and the block -ships did not choke the waterway. But the failure was remedied a little later, when a complete surprise was effected and the old Vindictive crowned her career by the last service she was capable of rendering when she was sent to the bottom clean across the waterway so that its passage was virtually closed.

The skill and audacity with which these apparently impossible operations were designed and executed, and the splendid spirit with which 1hey were carried through, constitute one of the most brilliant and heroic episodes in our naval annals.

The occasional news from other war areas reported no striking activities. There was some progress in Mesopotamia and in Palestine, where such engagements as were recorded were successful enough but did not herald any great advance ; while in East Africa, the German forces still in Portuguese territory were still giving trouble and still being hunted. There was a general inclination to anticipate an Austrian thrust in Italy, whence the withdrawal of some of the French and British troops had been necessitated by the offensive on the French front ; the only active operations, however, took the form of a local offensive, not by the Austrians, but by the Allies in the Trentino, where Monte Corno was captured and held against the Austrian counter-attacks.

The brief period of the military lull was marked, however, by one particu- larly noteworthy political feature, the conclusion of the treaty of Bucharest between the Central Powers and Rumania. Even more than the treaty of Brest-Litovsk it was a demonstra- tion of the German theory of the sort of terms which a victor is entitled to impose upon the vanquished, reducing the betrayed principality to a state of unarmed serfdom, for all practical

2901

THE FOURTH YEAR, 1917-18

purposes, while it was designed at the same time to establish a permanent source of friction between Rumania and the Ukraine.

The Germans, however, as the Allies thoroughly under- stood, had been deliberately waiting while they were pre- paring for a new blow at a new spot — not a continuation of either the Amiens or the Armentieres thrust. They had succeeded in concealing the extent of their concentrations.

On May 2yth they opened the new offensive by a heavy attack in the north on the French position at Locre, where, after the first shock, they were driven back to their lines and the position was held. But their great onslaught was in another quarter. The offensive of March and April had been directed wholly against the British with a view, first, to a break through at or near the point of junction with the French army ; and, secondly, to a penetration towards the coast. The original point of junction had been about the Oise, where it flows through La Fdre. The British line hingeing on Arras fifty miles to the north had been swung back to just in front of Amiens, while the French line had been extended westward across the gap so formed on the south, keeping touch with the British.

Thrust for Paris

The new attack was directed upon what had been the French left, from the Forest of Pinon south of La Fdre to Rheims, along the sector which included the Craonne Plateau and the Chemin des Dames. So far at least as concerned the weight of the concentration, a complete surprise was effected. By sheer weight of irresistible numbers the French and the British, who ware holding part of the line, were crushed back. The Gsrmans swept over the Chemin des Dames, down to the Aisne, and over the Aisne, with a rush as swift as that at St. Quentin, in twenty-four hours. East of Rheims, and round it, the defence held. But the direction of the thrust was straight towards Paris ; the general conviction was that Paris was its objective. Certainly the danger to Paris would be immense if the French line could be snapped.

On the second day the enemy was over the Vesle, which, flowing through Rheims itself, joins the Aisne a little above Soissons. On the third he had swept (iown to the banks of the Marne, reaching Chateau- Thierry on that river, not fifty miles from the French capital. Pushing westward along the Vesle and the Aisne he was in Soissons almost due north of Chateau- Thierry, but was held up by the high ground west of Soissons and by the Villers-Cotteret woods south-west of it. And Rheims was covered from 'turning by the Mount de Rheims. He had thus occupied a dangerous salient with the Vesle as its base, Chateau-Thierry as its apex, and the angles of the base in the neighbourhood of Rheims and Soissons. For the rectification of his salient the rest of the week was occupied in establishing a blister on the west of the straight line from Soissons to Chateau- Thierry. The attempt to turn the south of Rheims, by crossing the Marne at Jaulgonne, had been foiled by an effective counter-attack of American troops (brigaded with the French and British at the request of the American Government, pending the accumulation of a separate American army), who thus successfully inaugurated the participation of America in the actual fighting.

Blow West of Noyon

For about a week the advance was held up, but on June 9th the Germans struck to the west of Noyon. Here his direct attack on the Lassigny massif was beaten off, but he succeeded in turnins; the west of the position, which consequently had to be abandoned, so that the neck of the Marne salient was materially widened. Otherwise, however, the attack failed to make material progress, in spite of the complacent declaration by the German War Minister, Von Stein, that General Foch's " army of reserve " had ceased to exist.

The enemy — and, for that matter, the general public among the Allies — was quite unconscious of the speed at which America was pouring reinforcements across the

Atlantic, while he was still convinced that even if and when they did come, they would be of no account. But General Foch's methods had also hoodwinked him as to the man- power available apart from America altogether.

But the German method which had reached so high a stage of development in the spring campaign demanded rapid blows struck by huge concentrations of troops whose impetus could not be long maintained in spite of the terrific character of the first impact.

Great Austrian Attack

The middle of June saw the offensive, begun on May ayth, brought to a standstill as the offensives of March 2ist and April gth had been held up. Again a month elapsed before the renewal of the onslaught. But in the interval another smashing blow was attempted .in a different field. Each of the blows on the Franco-British front had come perilously near to effecting a real break- through ; each had set up a great salient. But the new blow on the Italian front was completely and decisively shattered.

No change to be noted had taken place on this point since the new year. It lay in three divisions : That on the left, in the mountains, behind the upper waters of the Adige ; the centre, running from west to east, also in the mountains, from the Adige to the upper waters of the Piave ; the right, along the lower Piave to the sea. A break on the left was hardly practicable, a break in the centre would bring the Austrians down on the Venetian plain in rear of the Italian army holding the Piave line, a thrust on the Piave line would force it back along the plain to the next line where a stand could be made — the lower Adige behind Venice, the capture of which would be of great political importance, but would not involve the smashing of the Italian army, from a purely military point of view. The break down the valley of the Brenta between the Piave and the Adige would threaten the very existence of that army besides ensuring the loss of Venice after the inevitable fall of Verona and Vicenza.

The attack opened on June isth along the entire extent of the line. On the left it can have had no serious object beyond that of occupying the opposing troops. On the right it threatened a direct advance on Venice. But definite victory in the centre would create a position much more critical even than that which followed upon Caporetto, which had shattered one Italian army, while a second only escaped by the narrowest margin to recover touch with the armies on its left.

Disaster on the Piave

The first day, however, proved the complete recovery of moral on the part of the defensive, with its French and British reinforcements. Along the whole length of the centre the line held, and, though at points it was pressed back locally, all the ground temporarily lost was promptly recovered ; the point which was perhaps the most critical, the Asiago plateau, being defended by the British contingent. After the first onslaught and recovery the line was not again shaken.

However, on the Piave line the opening attack met with a measure of success. The Piave itself is a serious obstacle only when swollen. At the chosen moment it was comparatively easy to force several crossings and set about the establishment of bridge-heads. The crossing towards the Italian left at Noversa enabled the Austrians to secure a footing on the Montello, the high ground at the angle giving observation over the area.

During the following days the crossing of the Piave was made good, and progress was made on Montello, but beyond the stream no material advance was otherwise made, and the Italian resistance was stiffening and transforming itself into heavy counter-pressure. Then the river rose ; bridges in course of construction were swept away ; the supplies were almost cut off. By the end of the week an Italian force was threatening to turn the Austrian left between the sea and the crossing at St. Dona ; the troops over the Piave were more than held all along the line. On the tenth day General Diaz was able

2902

THE DRAMA OF THE WAR

to announce that the enemy was re- crossing the Piave in disorder. The offensive had definitely and decisively failed, and the following days were occupied only in completing the re- pulse. The time had not yet arrived for an effectual counter-offensive.

Battle of Rheims

The public had hardly anticipated a failure so complete. On the whole, it had kept surprisingly steady through the three months which had been, perhaps, the most critical period of the war since the Germans had been turned back from the gates of Paris after the first month. It was, however, well understood that the enemy effort was not yet exhausted. Some successful fighting in Albania materially strengthened the position of the Allied forces covering the port of Vallona ; the presence of an Allied expedition on the Murman coast of the White Sea in support of the Russian patriots was made known ; at various points on the western front there were sharp local engage- ments, to the advantage of the Allies, but all was obviously only in preparation for the reception of the next great shock, which was again delivered precisely a month after the momentum of the last had been ex- hausted.

On Monday, July I5th, the Ger- mans attacked upon the whole length of a fifty-five-mile front, of which Rheims was precisely the centre, from Chateau-Thierry to Massiges eastward. On the dozen miles or so on his extreme right he lay on the north bank of the Marne, where his object was to force a passage, thus at once thrusting towards Paris and threatening to turn the rear of Rheims, which would thus be com- pletely enveloped if the blow on the east of it also proved successful.

General Gouraud

The blow on the east failed com- pletely 'from the outset. Any hope there may have been of a surprise, or anything like a surprise, was disappointed. General Gouraud, commanding on this sector, with- drew from his screen to his battle positions, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy at very small cost to himself in casualties and without the loss of a gun. When the battle positions were approached the attack was shattered all along the line ; at no point was any appreciable impression made on the defence.

ON THE WAY TO JERICHO.— View of the stony slopes through which the road to

Jericho runs, and over which General Allenby's forces continued their victorious

advance against the Turks, capturing Jericho itself on February 21st, 1918.

In all previous

experience the first shock had been practically irresistible ; here it was completely held, and the holding it meant the definite failure of the attack. The defence had decisively proved itself the stronger.

It was not so, however, on the German right. The first day's fighting saw the Germans over the Marne from near Chateau-Thierry to Dormans, with the next section of the line pressed somewhat forward. Yet on the extreme right, where, beyond Chateau-Thierry, the Germans thrust at Vaux, a sharp reverse was inflicted upon them by the Americans brigaded there, who not only repulsed the attack but shattered it, taking many prisoners ; while at the extreme point of the passage, at

Fossoy, a little above Chateau-Thierry, the first advance of the enemy was thrown back by a counter-attack — also the work of the Americans, whose numbers had been rapidly increasing during the past month of preparation. A pocket, then, of no great depth, had been created — half on the south and half on the north of the Marne, on a front of about twenty miles — in effect pressing out the eastern side of the Chateau-Thierry salient towards the Mont de Rheims — roughly, one-third of the whole line of the attack which on the remaining two-thirds had been held up. Here, then, was the one chance of success. By continuing the push eastward along the Marne to Epernay the Mont de Rheims might still be outflanked, and with this effort the Germans were

2903

THE FOURTH YEAR, 1917-18

occupied throughout the Tuesday. There was ding-dong fighting, points being captured and recaptured two or three times in the course of the day. At the end of it the Ger- man line had actually been advanced, but it was already evident that any further progress would be of the slowest.

Foch's Counter-Blow

This was confirmed by the continuation of the struggle on Wednesday. The Marne itself was still a serious obstacle between the force which had crossed it and the supplies which came over by the pontoons ; reinforce- ment, especially in respect of munitions, was a serious difficulty. On the right of the pocket the enemy advanced less than a mile towards Epernay along the Marne. Confident, however, that the French were without power to attack, he maintained his effort on the following day, despite the very precarious position in which the troops over the Marne would find themselves if heavily attacked. But in the course of that Thursday he was suddenly to find the whole position entirely reversed.

He had assumed that all, and more than all, the force the French could muster, beyond the bare necessities for preserving the line in case of an attack elsewhere, was required to hold in check his advance in rear of Rheims and the menace of a push towards Paris. All his own movement was concentrated on the one quarter, the eastern side of the salient whose base ran from Soissons to Rheims; neglecting the possibility of a counter-stroke on the western side of the salient.

This neglected possibility was actualised on the Thursday morning. The execution of Foch's blow was the work of General Mangin. No hint of what was coming had escaped. Without a shadow of warning his attack was delivered along the front of twenty-five miles from behind Soissons to Chateau-Thierry. Adopt- ing the method inaugurated by General Byng, in his advance on Cambrai, General Mangin dispensed with all preliminary bombardment, rushed the German first- line with Tanks and infantry, and by evening had advanced a mean distance of five miles along the whole twenty-five-mile front. On the left, early in the day, he had carried the Hill of Paris immediately behind Soissons, a point from which his artillery had complete command of_the railway junction through which passed nearly all supplies for the German salient.

Nevertheless, for the whole of that day and the greater part of the next (Friday, igth), the enemy

continued his fruitless effort in the direction of Epernay, making no ground, however. He must, in fact, have understood fast enough that unless Mangin's blow was a mere demonstration with no force to back it, the troops across the Marne, and indeed the whole salient, were in a highly-critical position from which it would be well to retire at his best speed. But he was not fully convinced of the necessity till the Friday, when, under cover of night, he began his retirement across the Marne, which was completed about midday on Saturday. That the cost of the retreat was very heavy there can be no possible doubt, since a great part of it was conducted by daylight over pontoon bridges com- manded by the French fire, but the French were content with the execution so wrought, making no infantry attack.

German Offensive Fails

By the Sunday evening, July 2ist, all the ground gained by the huge offensive, which had begun a short week before, was lost, while Generals Mangin and Degoutte had advanced along a small but invaluable belt of ground to a depth of five miles, between Soissons and Chateau-Thierry. The new American contingent, too, had decisively vindicated its quality, and every effort to recover portions of the ground won by counter- attacks had been defeated.

At the end of one week's fighting it was as certain as anything can be in war that the whole offensive had failed. Failed, not in the sense that though it had gained much it had not attained its main aim, but completely. It had gained nothing at all, while the cost of it to the attack had been very much heavier than to the defence.

The German Command, however, still seemed deter- mined to maintain the great salient with its apex on the Marne and its base on the Vesle, the line from Rheims to Soissons.

Though Chateau-Thierry was abandoned, the southern front still stood for some ten or twelve miles on the bank of the Marne. Possibly the stand of the following days was maintained only for the purpose of ensuring the secure evacuation of the supplies, the guns, and the masses of men within the salient. Possibly it was imposed by the fear of the effect upon both military and civilian moral of a rapid withdrawal from ground which had been won only two months before to an accompaniment of loud and triumphant paeans of

British heavy gun at work on the Italian front, where our artillery rendered effective assistance to the forces of our gallant allies in their great offensive against the Austrians. The gun-pit, it will be seen, is well screened by a network of small branches.

THE DRAMA OF THE WAR

BRITAIN'S SMOKE-DIRT BASTIONS. — An officer on the Mersey ferry-boat Iris turning on the tap to release the smoke-screen that was employed later with such success at Zeebrugge when the ship took over part of the landing-party that stormed the

Mole, April 23rd, 1918.

victory. Possibly it was believed at headquarters that the strength of the French attack was already exhausted, or on the point of exhaustion, and that the salient could be held. Anyhow, the stand was made.

Franco-American Push

For three days, then, the stand was maintained — that is, over the tenth day of the whole battle. It was main- tained by the presence of large reinforcements in the salient, which gave colour to the belief that it was intended to be permanent, not merely to secure the withdrawal — and on the side of the Allies there were fears that it meant the coming of a fresh blow. The public was beginning to learn the folly of overrating successes, and at best only hoped without expecting that the retirement might be cut off with large captures of prisoners and guns.

On Thursday, the 25th, however, General Mangin renewed the attack on the western flank. By hard fighting, and in the face of stubborn resistance, French and Americans pushed forward towards Fere (in the Tardenois, the district of the salient, not the La Fere where the end of the British line had been on March 2ist). It was through Fere that most of the evacuating columns would have to pass. If it were first captured, the whole force in the salient would be in the utmost danger. Through the Thursday and Friday the enemy concentrated upon the defence of the line covering Fere, while the forces on the Marne were retired. On the Friday night he was able to extricate himself from the line of heaviest pressure, and on the Sunday night the Franco-American line ran from west to east in front of Fere and Ville. The depth of the pocket south of the Vesle had been reduced by one-half, and the salient had been flattened into a bulge.

Slowly the retirement continued for the next week, contesting every inch of ground against unrelenting pressure. On the Thursday Soissons had been rendered untenable by the carrying of the heights between the Ourcq and the Aisne. On August 4th the whole German line had fallen back over the Vesle, and the Allies had established their bridge-heads on the north of the river.

The great German offensive had opened on March 2ist. The first great rush had swept the British line, pivoting

on Arras, back from La Fere to^ust in front of Amiens, but the French had preserved touch along the southern flank, so that the separation of the Allies had not been attained.

The second attack, on April gth, had driven into the British line between Ypres and Givenchy, thrusting towards Dunkirk, and had come to a standstill with the capture of Mount Kemmel.

The third, hurled upon the French in a south-westerly direction (May ayth), had swept them back, on a line pivoting upon Rheims, down to the Aisne at Soissons, over the Aisne and the Vesle, and established a south- ward salient with its blunt apex on the Marne.

The fourth effort directed on the Italian front (June 1 5th) had been completely shattered. The fifth, opened against the French on July 15th, had in the first three days gained some ground upon its left sector (but nowhere else), thrusting over the Marne. But on the fourth day Foch dealt the first blow, which showed that the whole situation had been changed in the interval. The enemy was promptly forced to retire not only from the ground won in the last three days, but from the whole salient of the Marne created in the last offensive.

Initiative with the Allies

The grand fact, however, was not merely that his offensive had been held up from the beginning, but that from July i8th onwards the initiative had passed to the Allies. It was no longer they who were waiting to see where the enemy would strike, and to meet his attack, it was the Allies who chose the spot and the moment for striking, and it was the Germans who were compelled to conformity with their operations.

Thus the concluding and as yet uncompleted phase of the war's fourth year was big with promise, not indeed of immediate and overwhelming triumph, but of a rising tide of success. For nowhere could there be seen the germs of such a disaster as the Russian cataclysm which had shattered the not unreasonably high hopes of a twelvemonth before. And now, as far as human calcu- lations were concerned, there was no conceivable chance of the enemy attaining a favourable decision before the full weight of America could be brought into action.

2905

throughout the autumn of 1917. The British made substantial progress towards breaking through to the Belgian coast, capturing Pilkem a-id Westhoek Ridges and Langemarck. Later victories were those of Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, and Poelcappelle, and the battle culminated in the glorious capture of Passchendaele.

BOMBS FOR THE ROCHES.— Man of the British Second Army c->~-pleting their preparations for the Third Battle of Ypres, Aug. -Nov., 1917. They are seen drawing supplies of bombs from on* of the sand-Nagged bomb-stores in the support trenches.

C8

2906

THE BATTLES FOR THE RIDGES.— This map admir- ably illustrates the great Tights waged for the Flanders Ridges in the summer and autumn of 1917. The upper section shows ground recovered by our various offensives between July 31st (solid line) and October 12th (black- and-white line). The lower section shows the strategical

position as affected by altitudes. With the Ridges— from which Bruges can be seen — in British hands, the area between the coast and the River Lys would be dominated by the British, and the enemy obliged to retire on the line of the Scheldt, and thus be cut off from his sea and air bases at Ostend and Zeebrugge.

2907

BATTLE PICTURES OF THE GREAT WAR

The Opening of the Third Battle of Ypres

THE Third Battle of Ypres began on Tuesday, July 3ist, 1917.

That it would begin somewhere about that day was no secret even to the man in the street, and it may be said that no battle of the war has been awaited with greater expectancy, nor has any been pre- faced by omens more audible.

For many days the windows even in London were shaken. We had stories from the country which would have seemed incredible had we not known them to be true. This man brought us tidings of what he had heard in Kent ; that, of wondrous happenings as Essex recorded them. Generally, people believed that some great attack upon the Flanders coast was in preparation, and so cleverly were the secrets kept that even the Germans had massed large bodies of troops and many guns upon the Nieuport sector. These were kept amused by the appear- ance of casual monitors, which led to the belief that our assault would be amphi- bious ; and it was not until the dawn of the last day of July that the truth was revealed. It then became apparent that the old Ypres " saucer " was once more to be the centre of a bloody combat. We were to fight for the Pilkem Ridge as we had fought for Vimy and Messines ; but not for such heights as theirs — only for a mean elevation which the Germans have dominated since that memorable October in the year 1914.

Importance of Pilkem

In the early days of the war we used to describe all this country about Ypres as " flat as a dish." To the eye accustomed to the hills and dales of any Western county it is that ; but in war you measure height relatively, and here about Ypres, where twenty metres may make a moun- tain, even the gentlest slope may be of military value. Ypres itself, as all the world now knows, lies in the hollow of a mild crater of which Pilkem is the rim ; and while the Germans were in possession of that so-called height the salient below continued to be dangerous. Thus it came about that in this first great move toward the seaports of Flanders it was necessary to begin where others left off three years ago ; and right gallantly our fellows have done it, despite the set-backs which the deplorable weather made inevitable in the first days of August.

Unsurpassable Artillery

I do not know how many people knew that 3.50 a.m. was the time fixed for this critical attack, but certainly the hour was common property in France. For days to- gether the unsurpassable artillery behind our lines had been shattering and shivering the distant trenches, the woods, and the flat meadows which harboured the Hun. We have become accustomed to these bombardments by this time, and they have been too frequently detcribed that I should dwell upon their details. It may be safely said that neither upon the Sornme nor at Messines was there such an enduring thunder of sounds as Ypres knew during the last days of July. Go where you would behind the lines, the windows of your house threatened every minute to be blown in ; the earth would tremble under you ; the

By MAX PEMBERTON

very table at which you wrote start and shiver as though conscious of danger. And all this time, while the fine weather lasted, the flying men were up in swarms — silver birds in a cloudless sky ; their superiority over the Hun unquestioned, their observa- tion beyond compare. And lucky for us that it was so, for when the great day came there was observation no longer, but only a few gallant flyers in a murk of mist and solitary airmen swooping through dank clouds in a vain effort to locate and to bomb a surprised enemy.

The Kaiser's "Cockchafers"

Thunder was heard early in the morning of this day, and a sharp shower of rain prefaced our attack. The weather, how- ever, behaved fairly well until nightfall, and then the wet began again piteously. A seething downpour falling upon marsh- land and a country of canal and rivers impeded the dash of the gunners and blinded the eyes alike of friend and of enemy ; and it, more than anything else, contributed to our temporary loss of St. Julien on the first day of August. Cer- tainly, it justified the fretful complaint of the pagan, who will tell you that the Germans never want the luck when the day of reckoning comes.

The Troops Engaged

Here we anticipate. The scene for the moment is the great marshland below the waters of Dixmude. You will have read that the attack was, roughly, on a front of about 14,000 yards (about eight miles) round the circuit of the Ypres salient — - from near Boesinghe in the north to the neighbourhood of Warneton in the south. On our left we had the French co-operating magnificently and holding the line almost to the sea. The troops engaged were the Highlanders and the Welsh, some splendid English divisions, and the indispensable Canadians and Australians. Opposed to them were thirteen Boche divisions under the Crown Prince Rupprecht, four of these being Bavarians (the 4th, the 6th, the loth, and the i6th, and the 3rd Division of the Guard). But we had also the famous Berlin " Cockchafers " — the Kaiser's pet Guards Fusiliers — who at Pilkem village itself ran against the Welsh, and received a hiding they will not soon forget.

Bridge-building Under Shell-lire

Roughly speaking, all our objectives in this first day's battle were gained. The French forced the passage of the canal, building bridges in many places with superb courage and under a deluge of shell against which none but the bravest troops could have stood up. To them fell the villages of Steenstraete and Bixs- choote ; while we, upon their right, advancing to a depth of over two miles on a wide arc, were shortly in possession of Pilkem, St. Julien, Frezenberg, and Westhoek. The latter fighting found us on historic ground — broken and wooded country and the Germans lying in con- crete dug-outs, which even a direct hit from the largest shell could not destroy. But if it could not destroy them, it could overturn them ; and the troops have asam and again, since that memorable

Tuesday morning, discovered these shel- ters, upturned and overset, and reeking of a ghastly odour which betrayed the dead within. Here in these woods the fiercest fighting took place — crafty nego- tiations of shell-holes which the Hun had turned into emplacements, sweeping ad- vances upon lonely farms wherein the rifles blazed and the flame of many muzzles burst forth.

The "Tanks" in Action

It was bad country for the " tanks," and yet, when called upon, they did their work gloriously, rolling here and there in solitary state, often crossing by the newly-made bridges at the imminent peril of an overset which would drown every man within them ; sometimes going upon lonely jaunts which brought them unex- pectedly to a hidden redoubt, or a trench which they sat upon with that grim irony which is their own. And while they were thus delving and rooting like monsters that stray from a herd, else- where upon that long line English and Welsh, and Highlanders and Anzacs, were dashing forward through the wan light of the dawn to the villages and the trenches which so long had been but names to them. They fell, we hear, easily. But this is to say that our own men went with a courage which was matchless — the Welsh towards Pilkem, the Guards towards the Steenbecke River, which presently they were to cross despite their orders.

Deadly Hide-and-Seek

This kind of fighting was entirely to the liking of these famous fellows. So swiftly did they go that they found themselves where no barrage played, and there began that game of hide-and-seek whose excitements cannot be surpassed. Here a platoon would descry a monstrous shell - hole, and down went every man until it should be circumvented ; there, some farm amidst its stubble and trees would attract the wanderers and lead them to investigate. Step by step they would creep up to it, holding their fire until the enemy declared himself, but rushing it at last with wild hurrahs and the bayonets poised. Generally, the Hun appears to have put up the feeblest fight in these encounters, though the "Cock- chafers " were stubborn enough against the Welsh, and wherever the Hun officers were gathered there the men fought till the end. " We did them in," said a Guardsman afterwards, relating one such occurrence with glee — and " done in " assuredly they were to the number of 5,000 prisoners upon the second day, and a stock of booty which befitted the occasion.

No longer do the Germans hold the first line with any strength. Everywhere on the Tuesday, at any rate, we dispersed them with relative ease, but Wednesday was a day of pitiless wet, and through the murk the Germans came in their thousands upon St. Julien and the new line to the south of it. We lost the village tem- porarily, and elsewhere we " bent back," as the official phrase has it. But we held the heights, and the heights are all that matter for the moment.

2908

Britons Go Forward in the Battle of Flanders

British soldiers passing along a communication trench which runs During an attack on the enemy trenches. British bombers draw- through a French village on the western front- Ing supplies of the deadly missiles in readiness to follow on.

Along by the willows. Wounded British soldiers brought from A rest during the Battle of Flanders, the front are pushed along a light railway by their comrades. for a while outside smashed enemy m

Men of thf achine-gun

Guards pause emplacement.

Forward with the gun. ! British artillery passing through a On the way to the trenches. British troops passing through on village on the western front during a forward movement. of the sadly-shattered villages which were rewon in the west.

2909

Thrilling Scenes in the Third Battle of Ypres

Near Hollebeke and La Bass* Ville the Germans had some wonderful concrete " pill-boxes" dotted about the ground covering machine- guns, and when clustered together forming redoubts not easily destroyed by shell flre. One had no apparent entrance, being approached by tunnels coming up in the centre. It was built with a ventilation slit, in which the British " posted " bombs with great effect.

••sac- H^JH,-. fmmmm*r**i^**~~*~- ~- <*,-***/•>***'.-•-• • - —

At one point along the Comines Canal the British advance was held up by a German posted on the railway "n^™*™™^"**™ gun. An English soldier stalked him. and then, creeping up the embankment, put the German out w,th a bomb and capture

2910

'Billets' in Belgium: Barely Better Than None

London troops returning to their wretched billets in a newly-captured village in Belgium. The discomfort endured by the soldiers in Flanders was extreme, the trenches being water-logged and available billets mere skeletons of houses, afford.ng almost no pro

British troops leaving their billets in a village near Boesinghe which had been heavily shelled. Boesinghe is north of Ypres and west of Langemarck, and the fierce intensity of the fighting there was not surpassed. Every building was a ruin, the whole area a waste.

2911

Vestiges of the Vandals Flying from Vengeance

Pulling a horse from a ditch into which It had been blown by the concussion of a shell-burst on the road to Reutel, east of Polygon Wood. Right : Part of an apparatus left by hurried Germans, a two-man car dynamo, driven bicycle fashion, for supplying signal lights.

Church tower of Saint Hilaire, Marne, after being subjected to German bombardment, the intact dial still marking the hour when ruin fell upon the unhappy village. Right : A glimpse of the endless transport traffic plying to and from the battle area.

2912

Going Forward to the Firing- Line in Flanders

Fresh troops on their way to the flghting-line approaching the Polderhoek Road, where they heartily cheer a working-party returning with helmet trophies. During the advance of Oct. 5, 1917, which extended from near the Ypres-Menin Road to the neighbourhood of the Houthulst

~ -"««•"• '*'—•»•*. »••».*»•»« a*. *t^*, •wmH^^mmmr^: ?a> -.^ . T»- - ^ .• :

One of the strongest of the many strong machine-gun points captured by the British during one of the advances in Flanders. Many German dead were found lying on the ground when the position was rushed, and the survivors, being marched off to the left, surrendered.

2013

Hun Positions Beyond Which the Line Advanced

orest, there were specially strong point* on the right. One of these was near Polderhoek Chateau, but the men who were brought up, though decked for a time, soon came Into tine with the rest, and won their way a bit farther along the hotly-contested road that runs through Qheluveit.

Strong German position on the Flanders front captured by the British during an advance. »The victors were examining the position, while men of the R.A.M.C., to the left, were etill removing the wounded. One man in the foreground was bandaging his own hurt arm.

2914

Gallantry of the Guards at Poelcappelle

Making a new ammunition dump in a forward position on ground occupied on the British front, and levelling the shell-torn surface with horse-drawn " scrapers," ready for stacking yet more of the shells in readiness for the next forward move.

Episode of the fighting north of Poelcappelle. The British Guards met with severe opposition at a redoubt known as Strode House, held by men of the 227th German Division. The Guards bombed the position, and, rushing it point-blank, took forty prisoners.

2915

Might and Mercy Marching on the Menin Road

Carrying wounded off the field while the Battle of the Menin Road was still raging on Sept. 20, 1917. A shell bursting very close to the path did not check the stretcher-bearers in their heroic work. The German prisoner in the foreground was the most discomposed.

A dressing. station near the Menin Road battlefield, through which hundreds of wounded German prisoners passed, receiving as much consideration as their wounded conquerors. British losses in this battle were very light; the German losses '• never heavier."

2916

Bridging the Yser and Well Away Beyond Ypres

Bridging the Yser during the opening stages of the great Flanders Battle. This work, done at many points and carried on under the falling of enemy shells, was rapidly and heroically performed by British troops in preparation for the advance from Ypres.

British troops entering the main street of Langemarok. It was on August 16th, 1917, in continuation of the fine advance east and north-east of Ypres, that the British succeeded in taking the stubbornly defended village and in capturing in it 1,800 German prisoners.

2917

Forcing the Foe Eastward Through Flanders

Men of a North-country regiment taking up rations for comrades In the front-line trenches in the Battle of the Menin Road.

Soldiers of tne Canadian railway troops on the western front engaged in bending a rail for use on a curve. machine-gun in front of Zillebeke, ready for any enemy aeroplane that should venture over the

Right: Anti-aircraft trenches.

Some of the wounded from the Menin Road Battle receiving attention from the R.A.M.C., without distinction of race. A doctor is writing a messags home tor a wounded man. Right : German prisoners taken in the Menin Road Battle lined up for vaccination.

3918

Fine Flower of Valour in the Swamps of Flanders

'

One British fighting airman, operating near the Australians in the Battle of the Swamps, amaied them by his daring. He swooped •o low that his planes often only skimmed the ground. The Germans raked him with "Archies," 5-9 a, and rifl aeroplane was " a rag round an engine." Finally he brought his riddled machine to land in the British In

In the fighting beyond Ypres on October 4th, 1917, Midland troops, knee-deep in mud and drenched to the skin, made the attack on Terrier Farm. They were helped by a " tank," until a white rag thrust through a hole in the wall signalled the enemy's surrender.

2919

Moral Beats Mud Upon the Road to Broodseinde

What the Flanders road attack on October 12th

•*« " -'• . .,. •**% • *9 »lVaVC^B0nBMBMRHi*ia

ds were like during the Battle of the Swamps. The enemy at one point discredited the warning of impending i, 1917, deeming attack impossible upon a position no better than an island In a lake, without any approaches.

-^^^^^^^^~^^~'^~"^^^™ ^^^^^^^— — i^™^™

A dressing-station near Wieltje, on the road to Broodseinde, showing the conditions in which the medical officers worked. So was the mud upon the battlefield that from some points it took six R.A.M.C. men six hours to bring in a single casualty.

So awful

BATTLE PICTURES OF THE GREAT WAR

The Victory of the Flanders Ridges

THE bells of York Minster, we are told, were rung for the great British victory of October 4th, 1917. It is a little surprising that every other church in the land did not imitate this example. No greater triumph had been achieved by our arms since the beginning of the war. None in all our story shines with a lustre more brilliant nor has been of such moment to the Empire.

Now, this is to say that it was a battle with certain definite objectives, and that all these were attained. So far as we can learn, there was no flaw anywhere. Sir Douglas Haig has set himself tftis year the gigantic task of driving the Germans back from the highlands of France and Flanders, and he has succeeded. Begin- ning with the Somme in 1916, we went on in 1017 to Vimy and Messines, and then reached Broodseinde.

On September igth, zoth, and 26th, in the Battle of the Menin Road beyond Ypres, we laid the foundations of our success. It remained to clear the Hun from his final hold on that S-shaped ridge which runs from north-west to south-east from the swamps of Poelcappelle in the north to the equally pestilential marsh-land of the Reutelbeek in the south. Doing this, we should put ourselves upon the heights and leave him in the mud. And all that our brave fellows suffered in the early days of Armageddon would be suffered by him in the concluding stages of this titanic struggle.

"Pill-Box" Defences

So here was the ground — a low chain of sinuous hills — the Passchendaele- Ghelu velt Ridge, rising rarely to an altitude of more than two hundred feet, and formerly bountifully wooded and bedecked with chateaux and ancient farms. On the lowlands above and below it are brooks and streams and marshes so rich in mud that those who fought over them in rainy weather have sunk to their very necks in the bog. There are but stumps of trees where once stood woods, and it is difficult to find anything which resembles a village.

When, in September last, we drove the enemy from his hold on Polygon Wood and won the Battle of the Menin Road, we sent a part of him down on to the great plains of Flanders, and there he found himself for the first time fighting in the open. But, whatever else it may lack, his Higher Command is not destitute in resource, and no sooner was the situation realised than the most desperate attempts were made to fortify the new terrain.

Now we began to hear of the Pill-box ! Not unlike a glorified bathing-tent, but built of concrete four feet thick upon the side of the enemy, heavily armed with machine-guns, and often with those of a larger calibre, these shelters were deemed by the Hun to be so formidable that the stereotyped front trench henceforth might be abandoned. And he built them quickly, feverishly, upon the slopes of Brood- seinde, in the marshes of the Stroombeek, south, beyond Polygon Wood, and in the valley of the Reutel. They were to be his sure shield — the rampart which would hold the British out of Belgium.

This was the state of things upon the morning of October 4th ; but there was another. For the first time for many

By MAX PEMBERTON

weeks the Hun, apprehensive of our known preparations on this front, decided upon an attack which should anticipate our own, and, if possible, destroy it. Upon his part he had been massing guns and troops before Zonnebeke since the days of the Menin Battle. Rarely before had he made such a concentration. The battered 4th Guards were brought up from Lens; here were divisions from the east — reserves of mere youths ; guns of all calibres set against this supreme enemy effort, which might even decide the fate of the rival Empires.

A Dramatic Moment

With these guns behind him, and his Pill-boxes crammed with men. General von Armin sent five divisions to the attack at 5.30 on the morning of October 4th, and had another three divisions in reserve behind them.

It was one of the most dramatic moments in history, for our men were ready at that very hour to make the supreme assault, and no sooner were the Germans in the open than our own barrage opened on them and a dreadful scene of carnage ensued. Of one German company of 150 men but 50 survived the shell fire. The very hills seemed to quake beneath it, and it was as though the Broodseinde heights might be blown to the very heavens in the tornado which then fell upon them.

Look now upon the glorious scenes which followed after. There had been cold and heavy rain all night, and there was still a drizzle when the battle opened. The wind blew in fierce gusts from the south-west, carrying the dust and smoke and fire of the shells into the faces of the Germans. But to our men — British troops and Australians, men from the Shires and gallant Londoners — the weather did not exist They were up and away like hounds unleashed — up the steep slopes before Zonnebeke, up the Broodseinde crest, across the bogs and the marshes, in among the vaunted Pill-boxes with bomb and bayonet — a confident, virile company such as war has rarely matched.

Irresistible Attacks

Already our guns had decimated the five divisions and hurled them asunder in wild disorder. No longer were there regiments or companies. Men of the Guard, men of the 45th Reserve, of the loth Ersatz, of the 8th and the igth from Russia, and the aoth from the south, all huddled together ; leaderless, stunned, they stumbled through the fire in blind disorder, and tumbled gladly into the first hands which would receive them. Soon they came trooping back toward Zonnebeke, often too terrified to speak ; but, when they did speak, having but one story, and that of the appalling scenes they had witnessed.

Meanwhile, over and upon the heights yonder, the fight for the Pill-boxes went on with diverse experiences which are noteworthy. In some of the armoured dug-outs there were but dead men. The terrible concussion of our great shells had killed all within, though not a man had been struck. In others, there was the incentive of fear, and no sooner did our troops surround them than out came the

Boche with his plaintive cry of " Kam- erad ! " Yet, let it not be thought that this was a common experience, nor any- thing be said to minimise the thousand gallant exploits which this work of clear- ing the dug-outs demanded. Often the fighting about them was fierce and bloody. We had to stalk them as great game is stalked in a lair — losing brave fellows upon whom the machine-guns were turned, creeping up, grenade in hand, using the bayonet with a ferocity of attack which nothing could resist. And rarely did we fail in our objective. Even the nest of Pill-boxes at the foot of the Broodseinde heights was at length cleared. The German hold upon the ridge at sundown is fairly described as negligible.

In all this wonderful day, perhaps the most difficult fighting took place in the neighbourhood of Poelcappelle and, south- ward, by the Reutel. Men of Devon and Midlanders had held their ground at Polygonbeek and along Reutelbeek despite a two days' bombardment of a kind even the German has rarely put up. To the end they fought for this dangerous salient, and saved it for us. One party was clean cut off and forgotten, yet still stuck to it, without water and sometimes without officers. So fearful was the mud of the ground on the day following the attack that men were still being dug out of the morass, while an officer, who attempted to get to them, sank in the bog to his neck.

Symbol of Victory

Yet, when these Devonians and Shire- men, and, later on, Londoners, were let go for the assault, they never hesitated, despite the raking fire from the ruins of the Poldeshoek Chateau and from the dug- outs which still stood intact. Straight through — that was the watchword. And that night they slept out in the driving rain, conscious of victory alone, and caring for nothing else.

Of many regiments could similar stories be told. There was a gallant affair by Irish Fusiliers, who carried all before them with a dash and 61an that were staggering. Our old friends the "tanks" came upon the scene in the neighbourhood of Poelcappelle and Gravenstafel, and were of great assistance in clearing out the dug-outs in that district. At Broodseinde itself the Australians actually drove the enemy right down the eastern slope, and took prisoners beyond the Wervicq Road. It was no day for airmen, but, despite the fierce and gusty wind, many of our 'planes were up, and they laboured ominously against the dark banks of cloud to bring us news of the Hun artillery. Indeed, it may be said that in this titanic battle the British Army, in all its details, behaved with a gallantry which shall never be surpassed.

We had taken 4,800 prisoners by the Saturday night, and had roughly thrust forward our line a mile upon an eight-mile front. We were in possession of the main ridge to a point a thousand yards north of Broodseinde, and so had established and consolidated our new positions that all danger of successful counter-attack appeared to have passed. We stand upon the heights, and the enemy is in the valley. May that be the symbol of this glorious victory !

MARSHAL FOCH. In tiiprcmc Command ol the Alliecf.Forcei on the We.tern Front, Irom April. 1918.

BATTLE PICTURES OF THE GREAT WAR

The Victory of the Flander* Ridges

n of such

Tl>eUs of York Minster. > for the great 1

a lit'

in tl

V.

by i

war

lust;.

inoi,:

\

with certain de .ill t lean Dou. the i

Fla ning

in reai

(

Bat

we lu

It r- '•

final i

runs from

the swam

the equally

Reutelbeek in tl

should put ourselves upoi

leave him in the mud. And

brave fellows sufie:

Armageddon would be su

the concluding stages of this titanic struggle.

" Pill -Box " Defences

So here

of sinci Pa«seb«Kl»de

Gheluvelt

of i

with chateaux aixl

U,

and • • th

Wt .;' ,"'

th«

t.

n a, w

pi

hi ,,, hi

> sooner was th.

inpLs w fortify U:

i we began to hear c i .ox !

Not unlike a glorified bathing-tent, but butK in four feet thick upon

ti !e of the enemy, heavily armed with n with those of a

1.. -e deemed

i. li.dable that the

;irth might

I). ;n quickly,

"ood- i>eck.

s< m the

v h h

By MAX PEM

preparations on

an attack which shu

own. and. if possible.

art he had be- troops before /Conneb : the Menin Battle, Rarely made such a concentr 4th Guards were brought up '•-

were divisions from the < ( s of merfi youths ; guns ol it against this supreme oh might even decide th< I Kmpires.

A Dramatic Moment

'; these guns behind him, and his

mcd with men. General

i [visions to the attack

: .us of October 4th. and

sree divisions in reserve

e of the most dramatic moments

ior our men were ready at that

to make the supreme assault.

were the Germans i:i the

our own barrage opened on

.I carnage

)f one German company of 150 11 the shell ftre. The .'•emed to quake beneath it idseinde h"

t very heavens in the

tornado which then fell upon them.

Look now upon the glorious scenes

i followed after. There had been

cold and heavy rain all night, and there

drizzle when the battle opened.

blew in fierce gusts from the

-west, carrying the dust and smoke

•-hells into the faces of the

to our men — British troops

Jians, men from the Shires and

it Londoners — the weather did not

v were up and away like hounds

shed — up the steep slopes before

the Broodseinde crest,

bogs and the marshes, in among

ied Pill-boxes with bomb and

.1 confident, virile company such

Aar has rarely matched.

Irresistible Attacks

Already our guns had decimated the five divisions and hurled them asunder in wild disorder. No longer v

or companies. Men of the 1, men of the 45th 1 : the

:he 8th an,. • I the ioth from tin- huddled toget:

through tin !er, and turn:

they ca>.' Zonn< but, when

on with d

.

groun- ' that T:

to get !

men, ;i fortheassa, the r,i Polde-i outs whic! throuLi that u, rain,

caring for Of in

Fusil:-1

m the • Gravei

At P.I

actually drove th« eastern si'.' the Wervii airmen, but,

! we it of

the the th-

,ind

To the ient,

nek to it. without

• i of the 10 attack

. t of the i tempted

his neck.

i of Victory

' :-!iire-

the

\;id

Irish v:th a •urold

and

i HOC

•net. I ! linns . the ' ond , for

morning of October ifrn ; o«v in-,< ^,t, another. For the first time for many

troops surround them than out came the

wind, many of our •• up, and

they laboured oi dark

• '. the

ilun artili- " said

• < British

in .i!l its <!'•; ml with a

liich shall never be surpassed.

taken 4,Soo prisoners by the

roughly thrust

eight-mile

( the main

;ul yards north

! so had established

r new positions that

essful • .muter-attack

We stand upon

•o cii'.'my is in the

•• the symbol of this

glorious vi^^tj .

I 0/VM.;Jl/.

MARSHAL FOCH. In tupreme Command of the Allied Forces on the We.tern Front, from April. 1918.

To fan p. 2920

2921

How British Troops Stormed the Westhoek Ridge

lipped with steel helmets, body armour, daggers by the splendid dash and tenacity of our men.

D8

2922

Victors and Vanquished in the Battle of the Ridges

Men of an English county regiment taking road materials over an improvised bridge during the Battle of Broodseinde, and (right) a German commander, in the centre, and his Staff, captured during that battle. The worthy on the left whistled in the safety of

A very cheerful crowd. Men of the Argyll and Sutherland High- landers near Ypres face the camera in unconventional fashion.

Officer and soldier of the Signal Service testing the wires during the Battle of Broodseinde, and (right) British soldiers fusing Stokes trench-mortar shells before going into the lines near Wieltje in the Broodseinde Battle.

2923

British Guns and Grit Get Forward in Flanders

Moving the guns in Flanders during the British advance on the ridges. " Mud, shells, chaos, and more mud," said one writer, marked the progress of a gun from its old position to the new one whence it could take part in a renewed death-dealing barrage.

British troops going forward over bad ground — muddy earth punctuated with broad, deep, rain-and-mud-filled shell-holes — to the attack on Broodseinde. Despite the terrible nature of the ground, the indomitable men won through to their objectives.

2'JL'4

Through the Sloughs to Passchendaele

" Heavy rain has fallen " was a recurrent phrase in communiques from Flanders. What it meant for the troops is shown in this picture of men of a pioneer battalion laying a duck-board track up to the forward trenches and making ditches to divert the floods.

" w« carri«d out a successful raid last night " was another familiar phrase. Here is depicted the scene that meets the eyes of British advancing in the grey morning after a raid Germans lying dead behind their machine-guns and suffocated in pits of mud.

2925

THEWILLUSTRATED-GALLERYoFLEADEBS J£

i

GEN. SIR HENRY HUGHES WILSON. K.C.B.. D.S.O.

Chiel i.V the Imperial General Staff

2926

GENERAL SIR HENRY WILSON

WHEN, in February, 1918, Henry Hughes Wilson suc- ceeded to the post of Chief of the Imperial General Staff, one of the highest places that the Army has to offer, he was practically unknown outside the Service. Even then, though enthusiastic tributes to his abilities were paid in Parliament and in the British and French Press, the newspapers might have been searched in vain for any of the personal stories which usually accompany the printed records of military leaders.

Like Lord Roberts, of whom he was a devoted fiiend and admirer, " he did not advertise." And when his appointment was less than seven days old, he retired, so far as the mass of the public was concerned, into comparative obscuiity, leaving the results of his work at the War Office to answer any inquiries of the curious.

Son of Mr. James Wilson, D.L., J.P., of Currygrane, Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland, where he was born on May sth, 1864, the subject of this brief sketch is one of the many distinguished Irishmen whose names have lent lustre to the military annals of the Empire ; and some interest attaches to the fact that the year of his birth was the year in which Prussia committed herself definitely to a career of military aggression by the forcible annexation of Schleswig-Holstein, which involved the possession of Kiel and led to the ousting of Austria from the hegemony of the German peoples, and her complete subordination as a vassal of Potsdam.

On Active Service in Burma

Educated at Marlborough College, Henry Wilson entered the Army as a lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regiment, November I2th, 1884, but transferred to the Rifle Brigade — " the Greenjackets " — in the same monlh. A year later he went to Burma, taking part in the Third Burmese War of 1885-9, which led to the annexation of Upper Burma. Wounded in the fighting on June igth, 1887, he icceivcd the medal with two clasps.

Returning to England, he had a brilliant career at the Staff College, Camberley, wheie his versatility caused the professors of a conservative turn of mind to entertain some needless qualms as to his future. Given captain's rank on December 6th, 1893, he was from June 24th, 1895, t6 August 3ist, 1897, Staff Captain in the Intelligence Department of the War Office; and from September ist, 1897, to October 8th, 1899, he performed the duties of Brigade-Major of the 2nd Brigade at Aldershot.

Brilliant Record in South Africa

The outbreak of the South African War brought him his first great opportunity, of which he made full use. Mentioned four times • in despatches, he was awarded the Queen's medal with five clasps, a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy on promotion to the rank of major, and the D.S.O. Going out to Natal as brigade-major of an infantry brigade, it is understood that the effort that finally caused the Boers to raise the siege of Ladysmith owed more to his individual genius than is recorded in any despatch or history. He took part in the actions at Spion Kop and Colenso, and was present at Vaal Kranz, the Tugela Heights, Pieter's Hill, and Laing's Nek, and during the latter part of the war was D.A.A.G. on the Staffs of Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener respectively.

From the beginning of April to the end of May, 1903, he served at the Army Headquarters as D.A.A.G. for Military Education and Training ; and from the beginning of June, 1903, to the end of December. 1906, was A.A.G., being given the brevet rank of colonel in December, 1904, and made a G.S.O. First Class, acting as Assistant Director of Staff Duties.

Commandant at the Staff College

Other steps in rank quickly followed. He was promoted colonel and temporary brigadier-general in January, 1907, and from January ist, 1907, to July 3ist, 1910, was Commandant at the Staff College, being preceded in this post by General Rawlinson, and succeeded by General Robertson. In 1908 he was made a C.B.

For four years, from August ist, 1910, to August 4th, 1914,

he held the important post of Director of Military Operations, being made Hon. Colonel of the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion Royal Irish Rifles in 1912, and promoted major- general on November 5th, 1913. He thus played a large part in creating the new school of Staff Officers who in turn created the organisation of the British Army in the Field during the Great War, and he was personally mainly responsible for the perfection of the arrangements which brought the original Expeditionary Force into action.

In Prance and Russia

With that Force he went out as Sub-Chief of the General Staff, greatly distinguished himself during the epic ordeal of the Mons retreat, and was specially mentioned for his services in Sir John French's Third Despatch. He held successively a number of positions as corps commander, and having been promoted temporary lieutenant-general and given the K.C.B. in 1915, in addition to the appointment of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, he undertook a mission to Russia in 1916, which brought him the Order of the White Eagle.

He then went back to France as special senior liaison officer with the French Higher Command, for which post his special study of the French frontier and linguistic gifts qualified him in a high degree. W7ith the French he quickly became popular. He was known to the General Staff before the war, and with General Foch in particular he worked on terms of special intimacy.

British Representative at Versailles

In March, 1917, he was promoted to the substantive rank of lieutenant-general, and after a brief interval of home service in command of the Eastern District, he went out to Rapallo with Mr. Lloyd George, and in 'November, 1917, was appointed British Military Repre- sentative with the Supreme War Council at Versailles. The impression he made on the Prime Minister may be gauged by Mr. Lloyd George's words in the House of Commons on December aoth :

" The British Government," said Mr. Lloyd George, " have chosen as their Military Representative one of the most brilliant minds in the British Army, Sir Henry Wilson, and not merely one of the most brilliant minds in the British Army, but in any European army. A profound student of strategy, he made a great reputation as the head of the Staff College, and has had a unique experience in this war, not merely on the British, but on the French and the Russian fronts. He has the great gift of being able to get on with people of other nations, which is very valuable when you are in an alliance. It was he who organised the first British Expeditionary Force, and there is no doubt that that organisation was a very conspicuous success."

These words met with the marked approval of those who heard them. What the subject of the eulogy might have said had he been called upon to comment upon them may be gleaned from his reply to a telegram from the Mayor of Belfast, with which city he had close family relations, congratulating him on his appointment : "I shall do my best to be a credit to Belfast, to the Empire, and to the allied cause." On taking up the appointment, Sir Henry Wilson did so with the temporary rank of General.

Chief of the Imperial General Staff

When General Sir William Robertson resigned the post of Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Henry Wilson was appointed to be his successor. The terms of the appoint- ment were set out thus in the "London Gazette" of March yth, 1918 :

" Chief of the Imperial General Staff. — Lieutcnant- General (temporary General) Sir. H. H. Wilson, K.C.B., D.S.O., and to retain his temporary rank while so employed, vice General Sir W. R. Robertson, G.C.B., K.C.V.O., D.S.O. , Aide-de-Camp General to the King, igth Feb., 1918."

In 1891 Sir Henry Wilson married Cecil Mary, youngest daughter of the late George Cecil Gore Wray, J.P., of Ardnamona, County Donegal.

2927

Battle

On November 2oth, 1917, the Third British Army, under General Byng, mads a surprise attack towards Cambrai, dispensing with the usual "artillery preparation, but using a large number of Tanks. Our men advanced somi five miles, capturing La Vacquerie, Flesquieres, Marcoing, Havrincourt, Graincourt, and smashed the famous Hindenburg line. The later stages of ths fight centred round the famous Bourlon Wood, which was evacuated December $th.

BRITISH TROOPS IN THE HiNOENBURQ TRENCHES — Soldiers of East County regiments with their machine-guns in part of the

German second-line trenches on the way to Cambrai. A glimpse is afforded by this striking photograph of the wonderful surprise

offensive of November 20th, 1917, when Sir Julian Byng's forces went in triumph behind the Tanks through the Hindenburg line.

2928

BATTLE PICTURES OF THE GREAT WAR

The Triumph of the Tanks in the Battle of Cambrai

THE Battle of Cambrai it has been called, but I prefer to call it the Battle of the Tanks." Some say it is the most glorious victory of the war, while others tell you it is but a splendid presage of victories to come. One thing is quite certain, and it is this — that never was there such secrecy before about any- thing we have done or have contemplated doing. London had not an idea of it. The " Know-alls " in the clubs seem to have said no word. There were no " red tabs " to whisper, " I could an' I would." For all that London knew, we had settled down to a masterly inactivity on the western front, and if there were any awakened interest it concerned Flanders.

Here in a sense was the jest of it. Across the water they bothered about Lenin and the Maximalists, the Piave and the Italian front. In France the north merely knew that the south was going to do something, and was going to do it as it had,never been done before. " Tanks " had be.en going down to Arras for many days. The mud of Flanders had crippled them in the north, but there were other terrains, and off they crawled, these monstrous whalebacks, with hardly a word to their friends and no scruple at all to say " Good-bye." General the Hon. Sir Julian Byng, irideed, appeared to have an insatiable appetite for these much-criti- cised instruments of modern warfare. "Tanks," and still more "tanks," south- ward towards Cambrai and the old battle- fields of the immortal Somme ! They were weeks collecting them, and all that time the Hun over yonder in the Hindenburg line knew not a word of it. Serenely he slept in the vast tunnels which Ludendorff had built for him.

Preparing for the Coup

We had forgotten this old battlefield latterly, and rarely had the despatches mentioned it. Long ago it seems since we were praising the mighty deeds 'our fellows did at Combles and Thiepval — how they dug the Germans like rats from the

Eits of the river ; how they found villages ut heaps of powdered dust upon a black and barren plain ; how gallantly they fought and bled and died in that first great push for Cambrai. Now suddenly we hear of it all again, and our pulses are stirred. Not at Combles, indeed, nor Bapaume ; not at Ruvaulcourt nor in the vicinity of Pcronne, but twelve miles away as the crow flies, at the famous Havrincourt Woods, which lie distant some nine miles Inim Cambrai. Here is the centre of the great surprise that is to be. For days the " tan ks" and guns have been rolling up upon the main roads from Arras. Troops have been gathering — English, Scottish, Irish ; men from the Eastern Counties, English Rifle regiments, Highland Territorials, men of Ulster and men from the West Riding ; Welshmen, too ; the fine lads from Lanca- shire whose metal we know. Unit by unit they came and fell silently into their appointed places. Rarely has so large a force been marshalled with such perfect secrecy ; while as for the " tanks," they waddled up by the hundred while the Hun had not an idea of it. For once his aeroplanes had told him nothing.

By MAX PEMBERTON

As luck wouid have it, Ihere had been no weather for aeroplanes lor many days. Wild winds and low, sullen clouds kept Fritz to his hangars. Even on the mo- mentous morning of November 2Oth, 1917, the sky was threatening, and it looked every instant as though rain would fall. The night had been unusually quiet upon that vast plain, Hardly a star-shell had burst in the vapour which loomed upon the wilderness of prairie, while as for the artillery, for all that we or the Boche did it might have been non-existent. In our own camps all was at " rest," and men slept the tranquil sleep of those who will wield a good blade to-morrow. It is true that there was a ceaseless activity behind the lines — transport rolling on every road, guns being moved rapidly into place, ammunition made ready, the thousands of cavalry horses being diligently tended.

The Bois de Bourlon

It was the darkest hour before the dawn when the call came. Away to the vaunted " line " the " tanks " were already rolling upon their famous journey. The Battle of Cambrai had begun.

Was there ever a battle like it ? No artillery, preparation, mind you. Not a sound during the night, and then at dawn the bugles ringing, the sudden crash of great guns, the shell-backs sidling out. As the.light revealed the scene, you saw a vast plain with wan green grass upon it, and here and there the red roofs of the stricken villages, woods that were still rich in trees, mounds with thickets for their adornment, the dark waters of canals, and far distant the Bois de Bourlon, which is Nature's own citadel for Cambrai.

Over this desolation of grass and solitude, towards the monstrous wire of the Hindenburg line, our " tanks " were lurching. Behind them came the infantry, as unconcerned, as undisturbed, and,as methodical as though ft were a parade. Together they swept upon the famous entrenchments and drove the Boche out headlong. It was upon a front of nearly ten miles, and we were to penetrate it that day to a depth of between four and five miles. Yet we did it with such order and method that the soldiers themselves could hardly believe it to be true.

Chance lor the Cavalry

Here were fortifications the Hun had been twelve months building. There were tunnels in every direction — one great tunnel as the point d'appui of such a size that it should have been for a railway rather than a refuge. There was barbed- wire so thick that our artillery might have played upon it for a month, and still have left the barrier unbroken. Yet, incredible as it may seem, the " tanks " drove their noses through it like monstrous fish that butt at a broken net. In they went and out again, their machine-guns rattling, their crews in a frenzy of delight. One fell into the Nord Canal, and its crew must climb through the manhole like sailors from a stricken submarine.

Others went up to woods wherein 5-9 in. guns were lurking, and blazed away.

Some were hit and destroyed by direct hits from shells — but these were sur- prisingly few, while the gallantry ol the men who drove them was always superb. Let anything happen, and an officer was up and out in a moment. Little" he cared for snipers or machine-guns, though, alas! there were occasions when his gallantry cost him his life.

The infantry went in after the "tanks," as I have said, and, surprise of surprises, the cavalry after them. On this day there was work for it enough. How men's hearts were stirred at the sight of that long line of horsemen spreading over the wide plain ! They were going to hunt the vermin from the villages, deliberately at the trot, pushing in here and sabring there, and all with the de- liberation of a rider in Rotten Row who is wondering what restaurant he will patronise for lunch. Soon we hear that Mceuvres has been taken, and Anneux and Cantaing and Noyelles and Ribecourt, which looked so fair from afar, but is indeed but a whited sepulchre. Shells they are all, but still they stand, and there are ruins of houses, and people creep from cellars and lofts, and there are tears in their eyes when they hail the victors. Not so the Hun, who is now going back to our "cages" which await him. Docilt he is if a private ; haughty and aloof if an officer. One fur-coated aristocrat, seeing our cavalry ride past, declares that he would never have thought it possible. Another rages and curses, and cannot believe that this magnum opus, this wonderful Hindenburg, or Sieglricd, or whatever line you choose to call it, has really been broken through.

" It Was a Famous Victory "

We hurried the men into the "cages," and there were eight thousand of them by nightfall. Our own work lay right up in the very shadow of Cambrai. Easy had been our path, but soon it was to become more difficult. The sheltering woods, the villages remote, harboured Huns who fought like very devils. We had taken the first and second line, and in our zeal pushed on even to Fontaine Notre Dame, which we could not hold. Yet, then and on the morrow, the Scots- men got the defensive lines south-west of Cantaing, and Ulster regiments were into- Mceuvres. La Vacquerie had been taken, and the Welsh Ridge ; there were High- landers in Flesquieres, and English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh secured the- crossings of the canal at Masnieres and captured Marcoing and Neuf Wood. It remained for men of the West Riding to storm the villages of Graincourt and Anneux, and for Irishmen to carry the whole of the German line northwards to the Bapaume-Cambrai road.

So ran this famous victory. Become lethargic at home, men at first said little, hardly able to believe the good news. Then came reason to their aid, and per- ceiving how great a thing had been done, they called upon the churches, and throughout the land the sweet echoes ot the joy-bells were heard.

May we hear them often upon occasions, us worthy ! . .

2929

H.M. Landships Outdo Hannibal's Elephants

H.M. landehip Lusitania waiting to go into action against the Hindenburg line on the Cambrai battle-front on November 20th, 1917.

The Lusitania's sister land ship Crusty negotiating a newly-made shell-hole with imperturbability.

Imposing study of a " tank" in action poised on the top of a ridge Another impression of a " tank " thrusting its irresistible mass just before the regulated " topple " takes place. over ground tortured into great tumours and pitted with huge holes.

" Tanks " moving into action over good ground, and (right) one moving down the ruins of a village street. The German communique compared the landahipe employed in Sir Julian Byng's surprise attack near Cambrai to Hannibal's employment of elephants in warfare.

2930

Triumph of the Tanks in the Assault on Cambrai

Sir Julian Byna's victory near Cambrai on Nov. 20th, 1917, is distinguished as the triumph of the "tanks." Creeping silently through

the mists at dawn, and unheralded by any of the usual portents of battle, hundreds of them moved forward in groups, scrunching down

the German wire, heaving themselves upon the trenches, and pouring out fire before which the enemy fled.

The British wounded were In high spirits. One young Cockney kept a group of comrades in roars of laughter as he described his own

adventures, which ended In his being sniped. He was so comical that, although his story was couched in language of a raciness not

approved of by the clergy, a padre standing near Joined in the merriment he provoked.

2931

Arid Ruins & Green Ramparts in the Trail of War

ritish soldiers waiting to water their horses at a watering-station set up amid the ghastly waste of ruins that once was a prosperous village.

Under canvas on the ramparts of a town in the British sector of the western front, with the horses tethered on the road below away from observation. Inset : Colonel Swinton, one of the creators of the "tanks," whose use In large numbers was a feature of the Cambrai victory.

2932

Delivered at Last From Long Tribulation

Inhabitants of Cantaing making their way back into safety by a road thronged with the British troops who wrested their village from German hands on November 21st, 1917.

A British soldier with a French child rescued from the enemy at Masn ieres, and (right) others of the deliverers helping an old blind lady out of her house, from which the Germans had flung the furniture into the street. The Germans treated the population with severity.

From Noyelles, captured on Nov. 21st, 1O17, the inhabitants had to be rescued under German machine-gun fire. The British soldiers >nt, and, as shown in these photographs, helped them into ambulances, which bore them away to safety and freedom.

2033

Where the 'Tanks' Went Forward towards Cambrai

British "tanks" going forward to attack Bourlon Wood during the Cambrai fighting. They are passing captured German gune.

" Tank " that got into difficulties during fighting on the western front. Owing to the state of the ground it became badly bogged.

Exterior of a dressing-station on the western front. Right : British soldiers engaged in clearing up the Canal du Nord, a goodly length of which they had captured during Sir Julian Byng's advance on the Cambrai front.

2934

English County Troops Who Would Not be Denied

At a field kitchen in the Australian lines on the western front. Preparing bully-beef rissoles for the evening meal.

Some i County

of the booty, including enemy helmets, captured by English unty troops during the fighting on the Cambrai front.

Irish troops in the German trenches cpptured during Sir Julian Byng's great surprise thrust towards Cambrai. Left: Inside view of an enemy concreted machine-gun emplacement captured by our men.

In Ribecourt immediate!/ after English County troops took it early in the Cambrai attack of Nov. 20th, 1917. Ribecourt, said Mr. Q. A. B.Oewarinoneof his despatches, appeared a whole village at a short distance, but on entering it every house was found to be battered.

Inspiriting Incidents in the Cambrai Conflict

During the attack on the Hindenburg system, on the Cambrai front, a " tank " was put out of action by a direct hit. The officer in charge, when more " tanks " arrived, climbed on the top of one, and with a machine-gun opened fire on and stopped 200 advancing Germans.

Rearguard action during the stubborn fighting by which the Cambrai salient was modiflad after the grea surprse aac on ovemer 20th, 1917. Retiring steadily in short rushes, the British troops again and again lay down, and with machine-qun and rifle fire

prevented the enemy masses from breaking through.

2936

Heroes Who Held Up the Onrush of the Huns

Posted between Marcoing and IVIasnieres, on Nov. 30th, 1917, a colonel ol the "Die-Hards," after being severely wounded in the right

eye insisted upon carrying on all through that terrible day. Blinded and bandaged, he kept with his men, and, led by an orderly, went

round thanking them for what they had done and encouraging them to hold on to the last.

2937

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66 pr.8on8r8 voluntarily carried

2938

Victors & Vanquished from the Combat at Cambrai

Wounded coming in from tho battlefield over a duck-board track through the woods, German prisoners serving as stretcher-bearers.

Placing wounded on an empty supply train to be taken down to hospital by light railway. Inset: Prisoners coming in undar escort from the German second line near Cambrai. Wore than 8,000 prisoners were reported on the first day of Sir Julian Byng's attack.

2939

Green & Orange Brave it with Red, White & Blue

Irish troops resting on captured ground. These, besides co-operating with English and Scottish regiments in the main attack on the whole front, were credited with the capture of important sections of the Hindenburg Line between Bullecourt and Fontaine-les-CroisHles.

Ulster men ready logo up the line. Sir Douglas Haig reported in his early communiques after theCambrai victory that Ulster battalions moved up the west bank off the Canal du Nord and, crossing the Bapaume-Cambraf Road, entered Mceuvres, west of Bourlon Wood.

2940

General Byng's Great Battle for Bourlon Wood

Ribecourt, which was stcrmed by English County troops on November 20th, 1917. The left picture shows the entrance to the village, with the church tower in the distance, and the one on the right the church and village pond.

IN the pictures on this page — reproduced from a series of photographs in a German journal — we have interesting glimpses of French villages which had long been desecrated by the invader, but have now been happily recovered for France by the British troops of the Third Army under Sir Julian Byng. Perhaps special interest attaches to the two views of Fontaine Notre Dame, the village about two miles to the west of Cambrai at the southern foot of the important high ground on which stands Bourlon Wood. Here desperate fighting followed the successful attack on the Cambrai front, the enemy pouring in reinforcements to recover the dominating wood. Sir Douglas Haig said the capture of Bourlon Wood "opens the way to a further exploitation of the advantages already gained."

Havrincourt, captured by West Riding Territorials on their

way to Qraincourt and Anneux. The photograph shows the

principal entrance to the chateau

The North Canal, near Havrincourt. Ulster troops operating along

the west side and West Riding troops along the east carried the line

to the Bapaume-Cambrai road.

Fontaine Notre Dame, two miles west of Cambrai, which British troops captured on November 22nd, 1917, but were unable to hold.

Entrance to Ua Folie Chateau at Fontaine Notre Dame, and (right) British prisoners bcinj marched through Fremicourt, aast of Bapaume, in July, 1916. In March of 1917 they were avenged when their comrades captured the village.

2941

Booty of the 'Bonnets' on the Way to Bourlon

Two minutes late on rations parade at an artillery centre on the estern front. The cook calls attention to the clock.

Big enemy gun captured by some Highland troops at Flesquieres during Sir Julian Byng's Cambrai offensive.

Pumping-station erected on captured ground during the Cambrai advance. Water supply for men and horses is a first consideration.

Sritish soldiers amused at a capture- a small donksy and carl — which they made in a village taken on the Cambrai front.

Highlanders indulge in a wayside wash and shave in the captured village of Flesquieres, while limbers pass through with munitions.

2U42

Smashing the Hindenburg Line at Cambrai

Ribecourt, photographed within a couple of hours of its capture by the British, Nov. 20th, 191 7, with Oerman prisoners passing throuph.

Highland Territorials jumping a German communication trench while advancing to the attack on the Cambrai front. Inset : Disarming, near Havrincourt, some of the 9,774 German prisoners who had been counted since the beginning of the operations near Cambrai.

2943

^**^~

On March 2ist. igiS, the Germans attacked on a so-mile front between St. Quentin and Arras and within a week had advanced in places thirty miles. Their immediate objectivi was the important town of Amiens. The British Fifth Army had to give ground, but the Third Army held firm, and after a superb stand the British were able to check the enemy.

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2944

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AREA OF THE GREAT BATTLE FOR AMIENS. -This map shows the tract of country along which the Germans began their great attack on March 21st, 1918. The black line indicates the position of the battle front at the time that the enemy began his offensive: the dotted line shows the positions to which the British

and French Armies had fallen back by April 1st. The attack ex- tended roughly from near Arras to La Fere, and though the Allies had to relinquish much of the ground they had won in the great Somme offensive of 1916, the enemy failed to separate their armies. or to capture their objective — Amiens.

2945

The Gallant Defence of the Redoubts

THERE are some dates which stand out sharp and fresh in recollection. Emotions stirred by the events which mark them can always be recalled. They are not dimmed, like most of our experiences, by the obliterating breath of years.

Each of us has his own particular dates "i this nature. Mine are those of the Jameson Raid, the Black Week of December, 1899, August 2nd, 1914, and the moment when I read, at two o'clock in the morning, in the busy and brilliantly-lighted bufbt of a South Russian railway station, the first account in the Odessa newspapers of the Irish Revolt.

No one who was in France with the British Army in the spring ol 1918 will ever forget, I fancy, the twenty-first of March. Many who were in England or Canada or Australia will remember it, too, with a tightening of the bands across the heart. But to us in France the event of March zist came with so flashing a suddenness. Upon us all, Staffs and fighting men and men who had gone out to do other things than fight, it flung so heavy a burden — a burden fortunately of which the shouldering, with the day and night activity required, made brooding impossible and kept gloomy thoughts away. In every mind it left an impress, whether of one kind or another, which will, 1 think, be effaced only by death.

I _hear the careful reader check me.

" So flashing a suddenness, do you say ? How can that be ? You yourself had foretold the opening ol a German offensive. The Intelligence Department of our Army knew what the enemy had in preparation."

The Day Before

True, careful reader, but even though one knows a blow is about to fall, it may lal! suddenly and with startling effect, especially if through weeks one has asked oneself " Will it be to-morrow ? " and has become, as it were, blunted to the likeli- hood of its falling at all.

Our soldiers were ready for it. They had been warned to be ready for it. But, ot course, there were some who did not really expect it.

These said, " They would never make the sacrifice of lives which assaults upon strong positions require." Others said, " Germany is busy in Russia. She will develop her advantage there before she does anything on the western front." I used to ask them, " How can Germany develop Russia without having any men or money to spare ? " I used to ask whether it was conceivable that the enemy would sit quiet on the western front until the arrival of the Americans gave the Allies superior numbers once more ? They were seldom shaken in their opinion, which was that " the Boche isn't going to attack."

It is desirable that the troops in the field should be confident, even though they be wrong. It is all to the good that their spirits should be high and their minds at ease.

On the Saturday before the twenty- first ol March 1 went to the 471)1 Division's sports. The Londoners of whom this unit consists were enjoying themselves in the warm sunshine, betting

By HAMILTON FYFE

mildly on the flat races, laughing at the gas-mask competition, getting excited over the steeplechase course. On the Monday after that I was visiting an Irish division, the i6th, and came across a boxing-match on a hill-top, swept by the soft spring wind. A battalion of the Leinster Regiment was gathered round the ring. Officers and men watched every point, clapping and criticising — an after- noon's forgetfulness of war and a topic of conversation for many days.

Coming of the Fog

Now, ii those Londoners and Leinster men had fancied it possible that in less than seven days the Germans would be in possession of their racecourse and their boxing-ring, and they themselves compelled to fall back, would it not have made a difference to their enjoy- ment ? It might not. " Carpe diem " is the British soldier's motto — a very wise one. But if it had made a differ- ence, it would certainly have been to our disadvantage.

Again my critical reader breaks in :

" How can you say that ? They might have been preparing to meet the attack."

But they had prepared, my friend. All that had been ordered had been done.

" Then why "

Wait, if you please. Let me tell the story in the proper order.

March 2oth came and went without any happening of special significance, so far as we saw at the time. Looking back, I guess now that the change in the weather may have had its bearing upon the enemy's decision that the hour had come. The usual warmth of the March sunshine made the mornings thick. Heavy, damp mists rose from every valley. These were the conditions the enemy wanted. Fog lor the opening of his attack. Dry, sunny days for its development.

So in the night of the 2oth-2ist there suddenly fell upon the whole of the British line from the little Sensee River, near Arras, to the River Oise far below St. Quentin, a bombardment, partly of high explosive which rends and shatters, partly of gas which stifles and corrodes, such a > bombardment as the war had not before brought into the soldier's experience.

Waves of Attack

" Thorough in his methods, that is the Boche all over," a Staff officer, and a clever one, said to me, discussing this opening move. " If he calculates that so many guns are necessary, he says, ' Very well, we'll have that many, and then half as many again, so as to make sure.' Say he reckons that for the success of some operation he ought to have so many divisions to so many yards of front. He puts in twice so many divisions. He takes no risks."

Those were the German methods on the twenty-first of March. First his artillery bombarded as no artillery had ever bombarded before. Then his infantry advanced in masses, shoulder to shoulder, wave behind wave, more men to the mile than were ever yet put into battle, upon a battle-front nearly fifty miles long.

I am afraid that, even had there been no log, this enormous weight of Germans falling upon us alter the long-continued

storm of shell would have produced an initial success. But there is no 'disputing the great help which the fog gave them. Without it they would not have penetrated as deeply as they did. They would have suffered more than they did from our artillery and machine-guns. These did inflict fearful loss on them as soon as it grew clearer. For hours together our gunners and machine-gun companies fired into them as the never-ending waves came on. " But oh, if we could have seen them at the start ! " How many men have I heard utter that lament ?

" They were on us almost before we knew they were coming." That I have heard just as often. I know it is true, and I know it was not our men's fault. There were places where you could not see more than thirty yards. Nowhere have I heard the limit of sight on that thick morning put at more than a hundred or so. The 36th Division had the Grugies Valley, just south of St. Quentin, filled with machine-guns, so as to catch the German attack and break up the attacking force. " He slipped in to one side of us," a machine-gunner complained. " We never got in a shot at him. The first we heard was that he had got behind us. Result of the mist."

It was in this locality that the blow fell most heavily in the southern area of the battle. The enemy drove a wedge into it with the object of capturing the high ground which overlooks the River Somme, here tamed and made useful as the St. Quentin Canal. Here the Fifth Army held the first line, not by continuous trenches, but by a series of redoubts.

Heroic— "to the Last"

These were small forts, several hundred yards apart, garrisoned by forces varying from two to three hundred men, with plenty of machine-guns.

Troops of the 36th Division made a fine defence until late evening ol the Racecourse Redoubt, built on the spot where the people of St. Quentin used to amuse themselves with " le sport." Farther north the Manchesters made a magnificent fight for the Man- chester Hill Redoubt. At 10.30 a.m. the garrison reported : " We are being attacked." Telephone messages, all cheery and hopeful, continued to reach brigade headquarters at intervals. The colonel commanding the garrison was wounded. At noon he said : " I doubt if we can hold out much longer." At two he reported that all his men who had not been killed were wounded. The Germans were almost all round them, pouring in a hot machine- gun fire, which we were returning briskly, keeping them at a distance. The de- fenders were showing a spirit beyond all praise. Towards three o'clock the colonel said : " The Manchester Regiment will defend its redoubt till the last."

Not less glorious was the struggle for the Enghien Redoubt in the 6ist Division area, still farther north. These were successive messages received by a buried wire from the brave men holding it :

" Fifty of us left, fighting hard."

" Do you wish us to hold out to the- last ? "

" We are quite surrounded." no more.

2U4«

The Reserves Go Forward to the Battle Line

British field artillery galloping through a French village on the way to

take part in holding up the great German attack. T nlflo.ntly supported the indomitable infantry in their great stand.

British troops marching forward to the great battle front where Germany tried to drive '^ft £££"^"£1'* of France. Inset abovs : German prisoners taken in the great battle in the west, with their British gua

2947

Khaki and Horizon Blue as Foils to Field Grey

British field-guns going into action. The artillery withstood the German

onslaught with obstinate courage, on one occasion limbering up and retiring

only when the enemy was actually within twenty-five yards.

British troops taking a short rest in a village after being in action. Inset : British and French infantry intermixed in a rapidly dug. shallow trench, awaiting the arrival within range of the German storm troops, into whose mass they were keen to pour volleys.

2948

Toughness of the Thin Brown Line

T'A'O days after March list I drove into Noyon and found the streets of that ancient town filled with blue-coated French soldiers. That proves how quickly the allied reserves were thrown in to stem the German torrent which had pressed back the British front from the Oise River to Croflilles and Bullecourt.

This quick apparition of French troops behind us in the moment of peril was stirringly dramatic. They seemed to have arrived by magic. Two months earlier I had seen Noyon full of them. We had then just taken over the piece of line opposite and below the city of St. Quentin. But, although they had been relieved, the French were still in friendly Noyon, the sleepy, comfortable old place, with immense twin towers to its majestic cathedral, and the narrow, winding lane in it where Calvin was born.

The French did not want to leave Noyon, and I did not wonder at it ; but u.irly in February they were all gone. Placards in English appeared in the shop- windows ; tea-rooms hung their signs out. The huts of the French society which calls itself Le Foyer du Soldat (the Soldiers' Home) were turned into Y.M.C.A. reading-rooms. The streets were full of " chocolats," as the French children nickname British soldiers whom they admire so much.

Now, on this sunny Saturday morning of March 23rd there were no British troops to be seen. The French, however, had Lome back.

It was inspiriting to see them, for our position there was serious.

Against Enormous Odds

Our Fifth Army had struggled against enormous odds. The enemy's troops were so thick on the ground that they had a division to every two thousand yards. Their divisions numbered from seven to eight thousand fighting men. Not all these were in the front line, but you will see that their front line was sufficiently well garnished when I mention that the average length of front upon which the German battalions (800 to 1,000 men) attacked was five hundred yards.

Our divisional sectors averaged nine thousand yards, and as this method re- quired a smaller number of troops, we held the front with posts, redoubts, garri- sons of a hundred or two men in miniature fortresses, instead of one continuous line. Most of these had been constructed by us ; here and there either Nature or the military art of the past gave us positions ready-made.

At a place called Vendeuil, on our side of the Oise, which flowed in its broad, marshy valley between us and the enemy, there is an old fortress, built by the famous French war architect Vauban. This was occupied by a party of the Buffs. They had food and water brought to them every forty-eight hours, and always enough ammunition to last for two days. They knew they were there to delay the enemy, when he attacked, as long as pos- sible. They would be more or less isolated as soon as the offensive began, so that their situation was certainly one which required great courage.

1 cannot conceive any sharper test of soldiers' nerve and bravery than to be

By HAMILTON FYFE

put in to defend such positions as these. They did defend them magnificently. This party of the Buffs kept the Germans at a distance for several hours. If our men had had the enemy in front of them all the time he would never have got through — at all events, not until their ammunition had run out. But the Germans, in unceasing waves of attack, were able to get round the fort so as to fire on the garrison from several directions.

Heroism of the Bulls

Again and again the Buffs were almost surrounded, but they managed till the afternoon to stave this off. They were terribly diminished in number. Most of those still able to use their rifles or to work machine-guns had been wounded, some of them more than once. They fought until the sun was at their backs ; they were grimed and hoarse, the sweat dripped from their foreheads. They had no time to eat except by mouthfuls. Late in the afternoon they were still holding out. with the enemy all round them. Up to six o'clock they were signalling with lamps through the early darkness. Then the lamps flashed no more — the end had come.

Do you iccollect Sir Francis Doyle's fine poem called " A Private of the Buffs," and the noble lines with which it ends ?

Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed, Vain, those all-shattering guns,

Unless proud England keep untamed The strong heart of her sons !

Not less strong was the heart in those men of the Buffs at Vendeuil than in the private of their regiment whom Doyle made famous long ago.

In another strong post — the Keep, opposite La Fere, a fortified factory on our side of the river — there were men of the London Regiment. They were there to defend the crossing of the Oise, and they had the same orders as the Buffs — to " stick it " as long as they could.

The Germans began to try to get across the river early on March 2ist. Our post at Travecy was surrounded in the fog, and communications with it became very difficult. The enemy did not think that it would be difficult to fulfil their pro- gramme for the first day, which was to be an advance of five miles. At the very start they found themselves held up by the Londoners at La Fere.

" Sticking It " at the Keep

All the morning the unequal battle went on. Attempts of the Germans to cross in the neighbourhood of the Keep were wisely abandoned ; they were too costly. The garrison's machine-gunners swept the Germans into the stream as they made them, and their heaped-up bodies made small islands near the bank, or were carried away by the sluggish current, tinging the water as they drifted, bleeding from bullet wounds.

The enemy now tried a different plan. They crossed at other points which could not be so stoutly defended. They went to a place called La Frette. Four pontoon bridges were put down for them by their engineers. They were in considerable force. But of all who confidently went over those bridges only a few went back Our troops — these were London Regiment

men also — not only beat the enemy of!, but they pursued him as far as the river. In that disastrous expedition one German battalion was reduced to thirty men.

Unhappily, our party of Londoners had heavy losses, too, and when they fell back from the Keep they left many dead comrades within it, and they had to leave their wounded also. There were no means of getting them away. Those who were left retired, after " sticking it," stubbornly, killing a great many Germans, and delaying their advance for many hours which were of the greatest value to us.

Farther to the north some Royal West Kents were doing equally good work, making an equally valiant stand. Messages were received all the morning from the colonel commanding. The attack became heavier as the day wore on. The last message that got through was this :

" Holding out 12.30 p.m. Boche all round within fifty yards, except rear. Can only see forty yards, so it is difficult to kill the blighters."

If it had not been for such gallant and resolute defences as these, those French troops whom I saw in Noyon two days afterwards would not have been in time to reinforce our British troops who had taken on a huge task. I knew on that Saturday morning that our men were falling back in places under the weight of vastly greater hostile forces than their

own- Pathos at Noyon

The divisions of the Fifth Army could not be expected to stop nearly three times their number, the force with which the enemy had begun, reinforced already, on March 23rd, by eight or ten more. In one sector eight British bat- talions had been opposing eight German divisions — say, 6,000 men against 60,000. That was an extreme case, but in every sector we were heavily outnumbered.

The arrival of the French troops was therefore urgently needed for the avoid- ance of a big German success. It cer- tainly put heart into some of the people of Noyon, though they were leaving in large numbers none the less. It is pitiful always to see folks forced to leave their homes, and that morning I had been witness of several pathetic scenes.

I went into the hotel at the angle of the pretty old market-square in Noyon, and found Madame la Patronne and all her staff undecided whether to stay or go. Madame had coma from Paris in the autumn. The Germans had been turned out of this district, and an hotel was needed. All the furniture, all the carpets, all the crockery, everything had been brought from Paris ; therefore everything was fresh and bright. Even the gay wall- papers and window-curtains were im- ported. Nothing could be got in the town after the German occupation. It would be impossible to find anywhere a pleasanter, more friendly inn. I have thought of it sadly very often since that day.

Madame and her maids, buxom Lisette (who waited so deftly at table), and talka- tive Theresc (who looked after the rooms), luckily got away in time. Three days later so fierce and sustained was the onrush of the huge German forces that Noyon was again in Boche hands.

2949

Damming the First Flood of the Hun Offensive

British heavy gun going up to help cover the infantry withdrawing before the terrific pressure of the Qerman onslaught. On one

corps front alone the enemy used some seven hundred guns. On the other hand, the British artillery got to work more busily every

day, thudding away in the back villages with a menacing persistence that told the enemy he would require all his reserves.

British gunners bringing a heavy gun into position. The steadiness with which our gunners stuck to their positions, Mr. Hamilton

Fyfe wrote on March 25th, 1918, prevented the enemy from flooding the country with mounted forces accompanied by horse artillery, as

he would have done otherwise. " He certainly has not come along these last three days as rapidly as he did during the first two."

2050

Hindering the Massed Offensive of Hindenburg

The linked line— a French and a British soldier together i trench. In circle : Ammunition dump flred by the Britl when retiring before the German massed offensive.

Sritish officer attaching a charge of explosive to destroy a bridge and thus hinder the advancing Huns, and (right) Engineers taking down a temporary bridge so as to impede the progress of the Germans during the first rush of the offensive.

Line of British troops holding a position along a French railway during the German massed attacks on the Somme front. Right : Tha

O.O.C. of the New Zealand troops in France holding a rifle inspection.

2951

Where the Enemy was Encountered in the Open

British infantry arriving at a railway embankment which they had been detailed to defend during the pressure of the German offensive on the western front. One result of that offensive was the changing of the condition of fighting from " trench " to " open " warfare.

"Jocks " in action among the shell shattered wreckage of a village on which the tornado of battle had burst on the western front in Franc*. They were sniping at the enemy who were lurking amid ruined buildings at the outskirts of the destroyed village.

2052

Heroes Who Kept the German Hordes at Bay

The spirit of the men was

British infantry reserves in a small wood awaiting the signal to go into action in the great battle, by many records. Mr. Hamilton Fyfe, in the " Daily Mail," told of a machine-gun sergeant who fired his gun until the Germans were within twenty-five yards. When asked how he got away, he said grimly, " The ones I hadn't killed went away back!

Welcome refreshment during a pause on the way to hospital. British soldiers who had been wounded in the stubborn holding up of thy

German mass ettack on the western front journeying from the fighting-line to the base. The stories told by the wounded tallied most

wonderfully in emphasising the comparative casualties — " What they did to us isn't a third of what we did to them ! "

To Ian i

2953

How General Carey's Force Held the Gap

ONE of the features of the Battle of St. Quentin, and of the Battle of the Lys also, which will always be quoted as a tribute to the fighting spirit of the Britiih race was the brave and useful part played by the " oddments " of our Army in slowing up and stopping the German advance.

That the regular fighting men would resist stubbornly and make the enemy pay heavily for the ground which he gained by weight of superior forces was certain, but the regular fighting men were over and over again forced by the odds against them into positions •where they needed help badly. Over and over again this help was given by hastily improvised reinforcements made up ol men who were not accustomed to fight.

Behind an army in the field there are always large numbers of " other ranks." There are the men who make and mend roads ; there are the signallers and electricians, who put up and keep in order telegraph and telephone wires ; there are the cooks, the camp orderlies, the mess attendants, the grooms, the sanitary service men.

All these are, for one reason or another, not considered fit for service in the field ; yet in these battles they did excellent service in the forefront of the fighting, " not once nor twice." During those critical days and nights which followed the opening of the German offensive calls were made upon them to take their places in the firing-line, and pluckily they answered the call. Hurriedly put together in battalions, under officers whom they had never seen, without the experience •of war or the hard training which fits the soldier for steady endurance and effective manoeuvre, they we.it in and closed gaps, and presented a firm front to the masses of the enemy.

" "Carey's Force"

The most famous of these bodies of " irregular " troops was that which we knew as Carey's Force. On the night this was formed — the night of March 26th- 2yth — Amiens was in danger of being rushed. In great force, and with a large proportion of fresh troops to bear down the opposition of tired British divisions which had been fighting for nearly a week without rest, the Germans had pressed on to within striking distance of the city. Their cavalry patrols were reported to have come very near. The French were on their way to relieve our worn-out battalions, but they could not arrive for several days. It was clear that unless we could put a fresh barrier in front of the enemy, Amiens might go, and one can easily conjecture what the loss of this great railway centre would have meant.

A council of war was held at 2 a.m. on Wednesday, the 2yth, in a bare room lit by shaded lamps which threw patches of light over the maps spread out upon trestle tables. The German airmen were busy that night. I saw dead horses lying in the streets of Amiens, and men being taken up in fragments In the village where the council was being held bombs dropped, too, and shook the general's headquarters.

An arrangement, already planned and well advanced, was now completed. It •was that every man who could use a D 66

By HAMILTON FYFE

rifle should be put into the line at once. There was a considerable front so thinly held that the enemy might at any moment pierce it. A cool-headed, resolute bri- gadier of the Royal Artillery was told off to take command of the force intended to defend this front. He was given a staff and told to set to work at once.

Within a few hours a force of three thousand men was ready to march. They took the road south-eastward from Villers-Bretonneux, and by two o'clock in the afternoon Carey's Force was on the front allotted to it and was energetically digging itself in.

Keeping their End Up

Digging was work to which a large number of its members were accustomed. Several labour battalions had been drawn upon. Battles were not in their contract. But they were of British race — they knew their aid was needed, and they gave it cheerfully. An infantry training school provided a good many officers used to dealing with new troops. Field-survey men of the Royal Engineers, telegraph men, some American engineers, and all who could be spared at Army Head- quarters completed the force. It was strengthened after a day or so by fifty cavalry, and it was given guns.

The brigadier spent most of his time near the front line, keeping his men up to their task. They were told that they must hold the front unbroken until mid- night on Friday, the 2gth. That meant holding it for two days and a half against almost continuous attacks. Even well- tried troops might have found this ex- hausting. Carey's Force struggled man- fully, not only against the enemy, but against weariness and the depression that weariness is apt to cause. They kept their end up even after the time named as the iimit of their endeavour. Relief could not be hurried with the rapidity hoped for. On Saturday, March 3oth, I watched an action in which the force still barred the enemy's way to Amiens.

They had lost some ground that morn- ing. Under fierce artillery fire they had gone back, and the enemy pushed in nearer Villers-Bretonneux. But help was at hand. An Australian brigade, tough fighters ever, combined with some squadrons of Lancers, drove off the Germans, and restored the line.

That afternoon I went into a house on the edge of bombarded and deserted Villers-Bretonneux. From an attic window I had a good view over the battlefield. On the near side of a long, gentle slope our batteries were busy. Groups of gun- team horses stood about patiently in the pouring rain. Upon the sky-line stretcher- bearers could be seen moving and carrying wounded. Just over the ridge were our trenches, with those of the enemy a few hundred yards distant. The tap-tap-tap of machine-g'.jns was unceasing.

A Mixed Squadron

The Germans were trying to push for- ward small parties with machine-guns to make holes in our lines and compel our men to fall back. Presently I saw cavalry trotting in single file, a long line of them, across the open ground from one little wood to another. A shell dropped near them, but the horses took no more

notice of it than the troopers did. They went into the wood and were lost to view. If the situation had become worse, they would have been useful in checking the German advance. But this time Carey's Force could not be moved.

I went over to the brigadier's head- quarters in a group of huts. General Carey was out " looking after the line." His staff were well content with the way their men were " sticking it." They had to combat not only the open tactics of the foe, but treacherous wiles as well.

Another improvised force which did good work was a body of mounted men, composed of troopers from several British cavalry regiments and from the Fort Garry Horse (Canadian), and