CHAPTER IV
THE SUGAR FACTORY AND COURCELETTE
When the Canadians came up to join the struggle on the Somme, they arrived under happy auspices. There was a sense of victory in the air. This is not less true literally than as a figure of speech; for on every hand the clear sky of early autumn in Picardy was dotted by our stationary observation balloons, and threaded by our darting 'planes, which scouted confidently far over the enemy lines or methodically registered for the massed ranks of our guns. Just at this period the supremacy of our Air Service was hardly ever disputed. The German 'planes rarely explored beyond our lines, and the German "sausages" seldom ventured aloft, having learned that such a venture was equivalent to speedy suicide. Moreover, here on the Somme Front our Battalions realised at once that, upon whatsoever hard undertaking they might be launched, they would have the support of an overmastering weight of artillery. Shell-fire, however murderous, loses half its effect upon the men's spirit when they feel that what they are enduring is mild compared to the avalanche of destruction which their own batteries, close behind them, are at the same moment letting loose upon the enemy. Altogether it was a tonic change for our Battalions, after their long gruelling in "the Salient," where at times they had felt themselves in much the position of the toad under the harrow, ground down into the Flanders mire by bombardments from three sides at once, and ceaselessly overlooked by an adversary holding superior positions. Here at last they marched up into the fight over ground wrenched from the enemy in spite of his most deliberate and desperate efforts to hold on to it. Here they felt that they would have a chance to "get a bit of their own back"—and, as the event will show, they got it, full measure and running over.
The terrain over which the attack was to be made is a gently undulating expanse of farm lands stripped naked by the incessant storm of shell-fire and closely pitted with shell-holes and craters. Of grass or herbage not a blade remained, of trees but here and there a bald and riven stump. Dividing this unspeakable waste runs the straight highway from Albert to Bapaume, thick strung with ruined, or rather obliterated, villages. Of these the most advanced in our possession was Pozières, with the great road running directly through it. A mile and a half further on the road runs midway between the twin villages of Courcelette (on the left) and Martinpuich (on the right), which lie about three-quarters of a mile apart. A little nearer our line, and flush with the left of the road—just about a mile from the eastern limit of Pozières—stood a mass of partly demolished brick buildings which had been a great sugar factory, and now, heavily entrenched and fortified by all the arts of the German engineers, constituted the most formidable outpost of Courcelette as well as an important flank defence to the position of Martinpuich. From the western extremity of Martinpuich a strong trench known as Candy Trench ran north-west to the Bapaume Road, skirted the west side of the Sugar Factory, continued in the same direction for a couple of hundred yards past that stronghold, and joined, at right angles, another deeply entrenched and strongly held line called Sugar Trench, which ran south-west for a distance of about twelve hundred yards and ended at McDonnell Road, a second-class thoroughfare almost parallel to the Bapaume highway. It was these two great trenches, each nearly three-quarters of a mile in length, forming two sides of a triangle with the Sugar Factory Fort in the apex, which constituted the grand obstacle to any advance on Courcelette itself. It was an obstacle of the first order, lavishly supported by bombing and machine-gun posts, its flanks fully guarded by trench-works outside of Martinpuich and along McDonnell Road. Such and so formidable was the objective which the 2nd Division set itself out to gain on that memorable morning of the 15th.
The troops detailed for the attack were the 4th and 6th Brigades, the 5th being held in reserve. The position from which the attack was ordered to start was a line of trench covering the front of Pozières, and something under half a mile in advance of the edge of the village. This line, roughly speaking about a mile in extent, ran south-west and north-west across the Bapaume Road, which divided it at right angles into two almost equal sectors, the major sector being that to the north or left of the road. The extreme left of the line rested on McDonnell Road, and joined up at that point with the 3rd Canadian Division. The right connected with the 15th British Division, which lay facing Martinpuich and kept the enemy force there fully occupied. The sector to the right of the Bapaume Road was in the hands of the 4th Brigade, under Brigadier-General R. Rennie, M.V.O., D.S.O., while the left sector was allotted to the 6th, under Brigadier-General H. D. B. Ketchen, C.M.G. The attacking line of the 4th Brigade was made up as follows:—On the right the 18th Battalion (Western Ontario), commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Milligan; centre, the 20th Battalion (Northern and Central Ontario), commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel C. H. Rogers; and on the left the 21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario), under Lieutenant-Colonel Elmer Jones. In Brigade Reserve was the 24th Battalion (Victoria Rifles of Canada), under Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Gunn. The attacking line of the 6th Brigade consisted of the 27th Battalion (City of Winnipeg), commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel P. J. Daly, D.S.O.; the 28th (North-West), commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel J. F. Embury, C.M.G.; and the 31st (Alberta), under Lieutenant-Colonel A. H. Bell, with the 29th (Vancouver), familiarly known as Tobin's Tigers, under Lieutenant-Colonel J. S. Tait, in Brigade Reserve. The field guns covering the attack consisted of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Canadian Divisional Artillery and four Brigades of the 18th Divisional Artillery, under Brigadier-General Metcalfe, D.S.O., on the right, and on the left three Brigades of the 1st Canadian Divisional Artillery and one Brigade of the Lahore Artillery, under the command of Brigadier-General Thacker. The barrage work of both these groups throughout the attack was of a closeness and accuracy which left nothing to be desired. It covered both the advance and the consolidation so effectually that our casualty list, though serious, was much smaller than the difficulties of the operation and the strength of the forces opposed to us had permitted us to hope.
The artillery preparation for the attack was begun, by the heavy guns and howitzers, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon of September 14th. From that hour until 3 o'clock in the morning of the 15th the enemy's position was subjected to a deluge of high explosive. At 3 o'clock this fire diminished in intensity. At 4 o'clock it ceased abruptly. A sudden calm fell upon the opposing lines—a calm as full of menace in its sinister suggestiveness, like the core of silence at the heart of the cyclone, as the devouring roar of the bombardment. At the highest pitch of expectation our Battalions waited for the fateful hour of "zero time" creeping up with the dawn.
During this slow hour of waiting, always so stern a test to the nerve of the most seasoned troops, "occurred an incident which"—to quote from Major F. Davy's spirited and picturesque account of the battle—"had it not been promptly met by the vigour and resolution of the Canadians, might have marred, perhaps prevented, the whole attack. A determined attack by a strong enemy bombing party was made upon the right sector of the 4th Brigade front. A portion of the attacking party had actually reached our trenches at the time the attack started. It was overcome by vigorous bombing and rifle fire. A bombing officer in the disputed section, Lieutenant Hugh H. Sykes, 18th Battalion, promptly organised his defence and effectually maintained his position. Lieutenant Gidley, of the 19th Battalion, and parties of bombers from that unit and the 20th Battalion also took part, and frustrated what might have developed into a formidable attack had the initial attempt been successful. The enemy's preparations for this attack eventually told against him, for the strong force he placed in his front trenches to exploit any initial success suffered heavily as our barrage came down upon it."
At dawn of the 15th the air was dry, crisp, and clear—the bite of autumn in it. Patches of pale sky glimmered abundantly between driven fleeces of cloud with promise of fine fighting weather—high visibility, and no baffling obstruction to the work of our airmen. The ground, tossed and furrowed though it was in every direction by the demoniacal ploughshares of the high explosive, gave firm footing—for the curse of the Somme mud had not yet fallen upon our operations. It was such an autumn morning indeed, as to turn men's hearts, with a homesick pang, to the remembrance that this was the date when the hunting season would open in far Canadian woods and swales and coverts. But it was other hunting that opened this day for Canadians on the Bapaume Road—the hunting of the dragon-spawn of treachery and rape.
"Zero hour" had been set for 6.20. At last it came. On the minute—nay, on the second, so exact is now the synchronising of all watches for this work—with a wide-flung, sky-splitting roar our barrage-fire opened. At the same instant all along our front appeared the round, basin-like helmets of the men of our first wave as they climbed over the parapets of the "jumping-off" trenches. Their appearance in itself marked an appreciable gain of ground already secured, for these jumping-off trenches had been dug, with infinite toil and secrecy and at heavy risk, at a distance of 100 to 150 yards in advance of our established front-line trench, by so much shortening the perilous path across the open to our objectives. This arduous and valuable work had been carried out by the 19th Battalion (Toronto and Hamilton) on the right, and by the 29th (Vancouver) on the left.
At four minutes past zero time the barrage lifted to a line about 100 yards farther on, and in another minute our first waves (the attack was ordered in four waves) was in possession of the first of the German trenches. This trench, which ran (as will be seen by the map) close along our whole attacking front, was not very strongly held, and the resistance offered by its defenders was no more than enough to warm our men up for what was to follow.
From this point it is necessary to trace the progress of the battle Brigade by Brigade rather than as a whole, for the problems confronting the 4th Brigade, on the right (as will be seen from the map), were different from those which the 6th Brigade, on the left, had to deal with. Suffice it to say here, by way of clamping the two sections of the movement together, that by 8 o'clock both Brigades were receiving the congratulations of the Divisional Commander, General Turner, upon their swift success. By 8.30 the last of our objectives was completely in our hands and being consolidated, while the enemy, dazed by the swiftness of their overthrow and demoralised to the point of panic by the implacable onslaught of the Tanks, had fled behind the inner defences of Courcelette. The way into the stronghold lay wide open.
The waves of an attack, under the latest conditions of warfare, go forward not in one long sweep, but in a succession of short advances strictly regulated by the successive steps of the barrage fire. Each time the barrage lifts forward—which it does according to a scheme previously worked out to the minute and the yard—the attacking lines must instantly move up behind it, as close as possible to the shelter of the appalling curtain of flame and death which it lets down before them. The progress of the wave being thus so strictly scheduled, it must often leave small enemy posts in its rear, or dug-outs sheltering furtive bands of machine-gunners. To deal with these "remainders"—which might easily become a serious menace, or even bring about complete disaster—behind the waves come the "mopping-up" parties, whose job it is to ferret out the hidden posts, clear the dug-outs, and gather in prisoners. The advance of the 4th Brigade on all its fronts, and in spite of desperate opposition, was so rapid and irresistible that it left behind plenty of work for its mopping-up parties.
Within fifteen minutes of going over the Brigade was in possession of another line of German trench, from three to four hundred yards behind the first line, running south-east from the Bapaume Road towards the Martinpuich Road. In the deep bays of this trench the contention was bitter and severe, and here occurred one of those instances of treachery for which the German has shown such peculiar aptitude. A party of the enemy threw up their hands, with, the customary cry of "Kamerad! Kamerad!" and surrendered to a company of the 18th Battalion, under the command of Captain S. Loghrin. As Captain Loghrin was accepting their surrender one of the party threw a bomb at him and blew him to pieces. The Captain's followers flung themselves forward in a fury, and not one German in that sector of the trench escaped the steel.
Throughout the advance the three assaulting Battalions of the Brigade, in spite of varying obstacles, succeeded in maintaining an even frontage. When the 18th, on the right, and the 20th, in the centre, fighting their way forward through the storm of shell and shrapnel and the deadly sleet of the machine-guns, had reached and taken Candy Trench, the final objective set them, it was still scarcely more than 7 o'clock. Three or four minutes in advance of them the 21st Battalion on the left, had reached the Sugar Factory and gained a footing there.
The Factory, though a redoubtable stronghold, had already been badly knocked about by our big guns. Now, within a very few minutes, it was surrounded on three sides by our exultant troops, who were not to be denied. After a mad half-hour of hand-to-hand struggle in a hell of grenade and machine-gun fire, from the dreadful turmoil of grunting, cursing, and shouting, the blood and the sweat of savage bodily combat, victory suddenly emerged, and the heap of ruins remained securely in our hands—along with 125 prisoners, of whom 10 were officers. One of the companies which distinguished themselves in this Homeric bout—"B" Company of the 21st Battalion—was commanded and most efficiently handled throughout the crisis of the affair by its senior non-commissioned officer, Sergeant-Major Dear, every one of its officers having fallen during its hard-fought advance along the Bapaume Road.
The unexpectedly swift collapse of this stronghold of the Sugar Factory—which the enemy had thought to make impregnable—was hastened, no doubt, by the intervention of one of the "Tanks." This monster, apparently eyeless, its carapace a daub of uncouth colours, squat and portentous as one of those colossal saurians which we picture emerging from the Eocene slime, had wallowed its slow, irresistible way up over the trenches and shell-holes, belching fire from its sides and its dreadful, blind, blunt snout. Bullets and shrapnel fell harmlessly as snowflakes upon its impervious shell. Bombs exploded thickly upon it, and, though wrapping it in flame, did no more than deface the fantastic patterns of its paint. Its path, wherever it moved, was spread with panic. In the teeth of the most concentrated fire it waddled deliberately up to the barriers of the Sugar Factory, trod them down without haste or effort, and exterminated a defending machine-gun with its crew. Then, crashing ponderously through or over every kind of obstacle, made a slow circuit of the Factory, halting stolidly here and there to blot out a troublesome nest of machine-gunners or to preside over the submission of a bunch of horror-stricken Huns. Its work done at this point, it lumbered off to seek adventure elsewhere, its grotesque—and, unfortunately, vulnerable—little tail bobbing absurdly over the shell-holes.
The 4th Brigade, having gained all its objectives, was now in no mood to rest content. The task of consolidation being well in hand, the 20th Battalion, in the centre of the line, sent forward a patrol under Captain Heron, M.C., the Battalion scouting officer. With great audacity and skill, Captain Heron worked his way along parallel to the Bapaume Road for a distance of 800 yards, and broke into the trench known as Gun Pit Trench. This was an important work, protecting, and in part coinciding with, the sunken road which forms the link between Courcelette and Martinpuich. Greatly daring—and profiting, no doubt, by the demoralising effect of the Tank's peregrinations in the neighbourhood—the little party bombed several dug-outs, and returned with two captured machine-guns and two prisoners to show for their splendidly insolent exploit. They reported the trench lightly held, whereupon the Brigade, promptly grasping the occasion, swept forward in a new—and thoroughly impromptu attack. Before 10 o'clock the trench was in our hands, with 50 prisoners (including two officers), a machine-gun, and three trench-mortars. Still unwearied, still unsated with success, the exultant Battalions pushed on and gained a line along the eastern side of the sunken road, where by 1 o'clock they had securely dug themselves in. This handsome and unpremeditated gain greatly simplified the consolidating of our position at Candy Trench and the Sugar Factory, and immediately made practicable the main operation against Courcelette itself.
With no less brilliancy and determination, meanwhile, the 6th Brigade, on the left, had been carrying out its share of the enterprise. From the first of the attack, or at least from its first objective (the first German trench) onward, it encountered a more stubborn resistance than that with which the 4th had to contend. Diagonally across the path of their advance, from the point on the right where the first German trench joined the Bapaume Road northwards to a juncture with McDonnell Road on the westernmost edge of Courcelette, ran a sunken road which had been strengthened by deep entrenching. It is shown on the map as Taffy Trench—and was so named by the troops doubtless in recognition of its complete harmony with the system of Sugar Trench, Candy Trench, and the Sugar Factory fitly presiding over all. Furthermore, the Brigade's advance was flanked throughout by strong enemy posts strung along McDonnell Road. The Battalion on the left (the 31st of Alberta) had not only to reduce these as it went, and to accomplish the reduction rapidly so as not to delay the main advance, but it had also to establish a defensive flank at the same time and thoroughly secure it in order to cover the advance against an enfilading assault from the network of German trenches spreading towards the north and north-west.
The attacking line of the 6th Brigade was somewhat differently organised from that of the 4th. Instead of being divided into three sectors, one for each of the three Battalions involved, it was divided into two sectors only. The 27th Battalion formed the attacking waves on the right half of the line, the 28th took the left half, while the 31st supplied the "mopping-up" parties to both sectors. The frontage allotted to the Brigade was about 1,800 yards, and the extreme depth of its attack, from the jumping-off trenches to the farthest objective, was something over a mile.
As with the 4th Brigade, the first objective (the original German front line) was carried swiftly and with little difficulty, and the whole line swept forward behind our barrage as coolly and according to book as if on the parade-ground. The German fire, both artillery and machine-gun, was fierce and effective, but as our bayonets came through it the enemy, as a rule, either fled, or threw up their hands, or scurried like rabbits into the dug-outs, refusing to face the cold steel. But on the left the wave of the 28th Battalion presently encountered a rock of sterner substance in the form of a machine-gun stronghold which had survived unscathed both our preliminary bombardment and our barrage. The little garrison here fought stubbornly in the effort to stay our onrush. The heart of their defence was an officer who both fought and directed magnificently and inspired his followers with his own courage. Our line was in some danger of being dislocated. As Canadian river-men would say, it had run up against a "snag" at this point. But one of our officers, Captain Bredin, of the 28th. perceiving a worthy foeman, ran out of the line and around the flank, and engaged him with a revolver. The German fell, and with his fall the spirit went out of his followers. The post was carried almost at once. Among the prisoners taken was a machine-gunner who was chained to his gun. It was a strange enough sight to our men, this highly-trained soldier fettered to his duty like a criminal, a steel stake driven into the ground on either side of him, one chain around his waist and another locked to an iron ring on his leg. The psychology of a race which discerns in such treatment an incentive to heroic endeavour is not unlikely to elude our apprehension.
By this time the German guns had realised the formidable nature of our advance and the depth of our penetration into the outer defences of Courcelette. The storm of shell and shrapnel that swept our line suddenly redoubled its fury. But our men went straight on through it, ignoring their casualties. The deadly diagonal of the sunken road was crowded with German troops, but our men flung themselves into it with the bayonet, and left it packed with German dead.
The course of this savage hand-to-hand struggle was thronged with incidents of individual heroism, so numerous as to make even a partial chronicling of them impossible in these pages. A couple of instances, however, may be cited as showing that the huge development of the mechanical element in modern warfare has not robbed the personal element of its opportunity or of its decisive influence. The case of Private Stevens, of the 28th Battalion, is one in point. His story may be quoted as follows from the Brigade Report:—"Just prior to the assault a party of six snipers from the 28th Battalion was posted in the shallow jumping-off trench to keep busy an enemy detachment of about 20 men which had been troubling our lines. All the members of this small party, except Private Stevens, were either killed or wounded, and Stevens himself had two holes through his steel helmet, a deep wound in his left shoulder, and a gash in his forehead. Nothing daunted, he kept on sniping and killed several of the enemy. His rifle was smashed by a shell just as the assault went forward. He picked up a rifle with fixed bayonet, and, dashing forward with the assault, entered an enemy's strong point, and single-handed captured five Boches and brought them back to our lines." The exploit of Lieutenant Clarkson, of the 27th Battalion, is, in another fashion, equally significant by reason of the unquenchable dominance of spirit which it displays. To quote again from the same Report:—"Lieutenant Clarkson was severely wounded in the knee, at the sunken road, and just as he fell four Germans came out of a deep dug-out. He at once covered them with his revolver, and, ordering them to improvise a stretcher out of a couple of rifles, made them carry him to our lines, and there handed them over prisoners. On the way in, as soon as his bearers showed the least sign of any opposition to his wishes, he quelled it with his revolver."
By a quarter to eight, in spite of all opposition and an unexpected addition to its task, the Brigade had gained its final objective and set itself strenuously to the work of consolidation, anticipating energetic counter-attacks. The addition referred to was an enforced extension to the left of about three hundred and fifty yards, which was found necessary in order to secure the flank. This operation, which was stubbornly resisted by strong German detachments in the Courcelette Road, was carried out with a rush by the 28th Battalion. Immediately the new line was secured three patrols were sent out beyond the line by the 31st Battalion. These patrols succeeded in establishing themselves, for purposes of observation, close to the southern edge of the village, and several of their scouts made their way into the village itself. The reports which they brought back were so sanguine that the Brigade, its blood being up, begged permission to pursue its success by an immediate assault upon the village. This proposal, however, was promptly vetoed, the Higher Command having already in view the plans for the afternoon. The impetuous 6th was obliged, therefore, to content itself with its very handsome achievement, which was not only so brilliant in itself as to deserve far more attention than it has received, but was also of vital importance to the unfolding of our final operations against Courcelette. The great advance of the 5th Brigade in the afternoon, with its swift success in bringing the whole village permanently within our lines, was a more outstanding exploit by reason of the conspicuousness of the goal gained thereby. But it must not be forgotten that Courcelette was fully half-won by the victories of the 4th and 6th Brigades in the early morning. The honours of the 2nd Division are fairly shared among all three Brigades. It was wholly because the morning triumph of the 4th and 6th Brigades went well beyond the utmost that had been expected of it that the afternoon attack was undertaken—and that September 15th became, in the Canadian War Calendar, COURCELETTE DAY.