The Fighting about La Bassée.
Sketch map showing front held by the Second Corps on October 19, on night of October 22, and about mid-November 1914.
The 5th Division, on the right, bore the brunt of the deadly fray. At Pont Fixe, on the La Bassée canal near Givenchy, the Dorsets, led by their brave commander, Major Roper, fought hand-to-hand combats in the lanes between the houses, and drove the enemy headlong before them. The Germans then turned their guns on to the place, and tore it to fragments. High explosives and shrapnel were hurled on the village, until it seemed that no living thing could survive the deadly hail. When, however, the infantry attack was launched, the Dorsets were still there, but were sadly reduced in numbers. Though their leader was killed, they held on to the smoking ruins all day, and when nightfall came they were still in possession. One hundred and thirty killed and two hundred and seventy wounded was the price paid for this village on that blood-drenched day. The Bedfords, of the same brigade, fought their way to Givenchy, but were driven out again by heavy shell fire.
That night news arrived that Lille had fallen and was in possession of the 14th German Corps. Though Lille was lost La Bassée might be won, and the Second Corps now devoted its energies to the task. Next day the 3rd Division suffered a heavy loss. Sir Hubert Hamilton, its commander, was struck by a shrapnel bullet while riding along his lines, and fell from his horse a dead man. He was one of the most skilful and beloved of the younger generals, and his loss was greatly deplored. An eye-witness thus describes his burial in the village graveyard:—
"Owing to the proximity of the enemy absolute silence was observed, except for the low voice of the priest, advantage being taken of a lull in the attack. Just at the moment when the priest was saying the last prayer the guns began to roar again, and projectiles whistled over the heads of the mourners. The German attack was directed from a distance of a few hundred yards. The moment was well chosen, for the volleys fired by the troops of the Allies in honour of the dead, gloriously fallen for the common cause, were at the same time volleys of vengeance. Crackling reports of rifles continued round the ruined church, but the voice of the priest, reciting the last words of the requiem, lost nothing of its calm and clearness."
Next day the 3rd Division brilliantly avenged the loss of its leader. Sir John French tells us that they "fought splendidly," crossing with planks the dykes with which this country is intersected, and driving the enemy from one entrenched position to another in loopholed villages, till at night they pushed the Germans off the road leading from Estaires,[42] on the Lys, to La Bassée. On the 16th the division advanced its left flank in front of the village of Aubers,[43] which lies behind a ridge of high ground and a stream which joins the Lys at Armentières. Aubers was captured by the 19th Brigade on the following day, and late that evening the village of Herlies,[44] about a mile and a half to the south-east, was carried at the point of the bayonet by the 1st Lincolns and the 4th Royal Fusiliers.
The Second Corps was now within four miles of La Bassée. So far it had been opposed by German cavalry; now it found itself up against the main wall of German defence. "This position of La Bassée," records Sir John French, "has throughout the battle defied all attempts at capture." Powerful counter-attacks began the next day, and continued right up to the end of the month. Against the masses of Germans now concentrated against them the Second Corps could do nothing but stand on the defence. Most resolutely they held their lines until the end of the month, and again and again repulsed very heavy attacks, in which the Germans lost heavily and left large numbers of dead and prisoners behind them.
All this heavy work was now telling on the Second Corps, and their losses had been so heavy that Smith-Dorrien on the evening of the 22nd was obliged to withdraw his forces to lines of entrenchments which had been prepared on a line running from the eastern side of Givenchy to a village on the Béthune-Armentières road, some seven miles south-west of the latter town. There they settled down into their new trenches; but their lines were very thin, and had not every soldier in them done the work of ten men, they could never have held the position against the swarming masses of the enemy. One day, it is said, General French visited these lines, and talked with a colonel who was hard pressed. "We can't hold out much longer, sir," said the colonel; "it is impossible." "I want only men who can do the impossible," said French. "Carry on."
Before I conclude this account of the very gallant but unavailing attack of the Second Corps on La Bassée, I must tell you one or two incidents which occurred during the fighting in October. On the 19th Major Daniell and his Royal Irish Regiment found the enemy in the village of Le Pilly,[45] about a mile to the north of Herlies. Every house in the place had been loopholed, and line after line of trenches had been dug, so that the position was as strong as a fortress. With loud yells the Royal Irish dashed upon the place, and, in spite of the shrapnel that was rained on them, carried it by storm. They then entrenched themselves, and prepared to defend the village. But next day the gallant battalion was cut off by German supports from Lille, and was surrounded, after suffering heavy losses.
Very early on the morning of the 24th there was a fierce German attack upon our new lines, but owing to the skilful work of the artillery it came to naught. Towards evening there was another heavy attack, which the Wiltshires and Royal West Kents repulsed. Later on the Germans drove the Gordon Highlanders out of their trenches, but they were retaken by the Middlesex Regiment, gallantly led by Lieutenant Colonel Hull.
While our men were "hanging on by their eyelids, some one, I am told, looked back from a trench and saw a solitary outpost, a turbaned, cloaked figure of the desert, very startling in the green, peaceful landscape, riding over a hill. Behind him nodded the turbans of Sikh cavalry, and the British in the trenches, who seemed past emotion, waved their rifles and cheered." It was the advance guard of the Lahore Division of the Indian army coming in the nick of time to reinforce the hard-pressed men who had fought almost continuously for nearly a fortnight. The Indians had been resting and preparing for a winter campaign near Marseilles, and had long been eager to play their part side by side with their fellow Britons. A few days before, Sir James Willcocks, their commander, had addressed them as follows:—
"You are the descendants of men who have been mighty rulers and great warriors for many centuries. You will never forget this. You will recall the glories of your race. Hindu and Mohammedan will be fighting side by side with British soldiers and our gallant French allies. You will be helping to make history. You will be the first Indian soldiers of the King-Emperor who will have the honour of showing in Europe that the sons of India have lost none of their martial instincts and are worthy of the confidence reposed in them.
"In battle, you will remember that your religions enjoin on you that to give your life doing your duty is your highest reward. . . . You will fight for your King-Emperor and your faith, so that history will record the doings of India's sons, and your children will proudly tell of the deeds of their fathers."
This timely reinforcement was at once sent off to the support of the Second Corps.
We now know how a small army of much-tried Britons barred the way through the La Bassée postern and stretched a thin line of valour and steel northwards towards the Lys. I have still to tell you how the twelve-mile gap between Armentières and Ypres was closed. While the Second Corps was forming up near Béthune, the trains carrying the Third Corps were running into St. Omer. As each unit arrived it set out for Hazebrouck, and on the 13th the whole force moved eastwards towards the line of the Armentières-Ypres road, with the object of reaching Armentières, from which it could threaten Lille. Gough's cavalry lay to the north, and French cavalry to the south.
The French cavalry had already done much hard fighting. On 9th October it was discovered that German horsemen were holding the south bank of the Lys to the west of Estaires. They had covered the river crossings with machine guns, and had set up searchlights, which at night swept their broad beams along the northern bank. The French commander assembled his men at a point on the river where the current was very swift and the water deep. The Germans believed that the river could not be forded at this spot, and had not troubled to hold it strongly. At dusk a French trooper who was a good swimmer stripped, and, carrying with him one end of a light rope, plunged into the water and swam across the river. When he arrived on the south bank his comrades on the other side fastened a heavy rope to the end of the line which he was holding, and the dripping soldier hauled it across and tied it securely to the trunk of a tree. The other end of the rope was made fast in a similar way, and during the night, assisted by the rope, men and horses crossed the stream. At daybreak, when the Germans found that the French were on their bank of the river they retired rapidly towards Armentières.
In this force of French cavalry there was a champion rider, named Lieutenant Wallon. One day, during the cavalry fighting along the Lys two squadrons of the dragoons to which he was attached advanced across the fields in a thick mist to seize a river bridge at a village where there was an important crossing. The village was held by the enemy, and the French squadrons entrenched themselves in front of a small farmhouse, and beat off an attack, during which thirty Germans were shot. After an interval, eleven men in peasants' dress, with picks and spades over their shoulders, were seen advancing towards the French lines. Supposing that they were peaceful civilians, the French refrained from firing. When, however, these "peasants" were within forty yards or so of the trenches, they suddenly dropped their implements, and, drawing concealed revolvers, opened fire. A sergeant who stood by Lieutenant Wallon laughed as a bullet whistled by, and remarked that another Boche had missed him. The lieutenant, however, had fallen. The sergeant wished to carry him to a safe place in the rear; but the dying man said, "Leave me. A wounded man is worthless. Get back to the trench; you are wanted there." The trusty non-com. could not be persuaded to abandon his leader, and dragged him to the rear, where he shortly afterwards expired. The eleven disguised Germans were captured and shot; the bridge was taken, and the village occupied.
