Canada in Flanders, Volume III

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

CHAPTER VI

HOLDING THE NEW GROUND

Meanwhile, the 26th Battalion, the men of New Brunswick, under Lieutenant-Colonel A. E. G. McKenzie, though denied the exultation of the first irresistible onward sweep to victory, were none the less getting their fill of hard fighting and contributing their full share to the splendid achievement of the day. They came in for sharp punishment, too in passing through the barrage which the enemy had promptly put up for the purpose of walling off the assault from its support. And the task which had been set them, of "mopping up" behind the assaulting waves proved to be a long, strenuous, and costly one. As the first waves of our attack raged across the village, numbers of the enemy flung away their rifles in panic, shouted the customary Kamerad! Kamerad!" and held up their hands in surrender. They were spared, and ordered to go back behind the lines. But after the wave had passed on, many of these, though essentially prisoners on parole, picked up their rifles again and fell to sniping our troops in the rear from convenient hiding-places in the gardens and cellars. When the New Brunswickers came along these traitors usually put up a desperate fight, having little reason to expect further mercy. The New Brunswickers, however, in spite of their many casualties, were in a triumphant mood and not inclined to inquire too closely into the deserts of their captives; and those who made haste to surrender again got the benefit of the doubt. All this business of "mopping up" gave opportunity for individual prowess, and the woodsmen and river-men, small farmers and independent townsmen of the sturdy Loyalist province threw themselves into it with peculiar zeal. By nightfall their task was nominally complete, and Colonel McKenzie was able to throw two of his companies into the trenches on the right of Courcelette in support of the 22nd Battalion, while the other two companies he posted on the left to support the 25th. But during all that night and the greater part of the following day he had small parties out scouring the ruins and the cellars, unearthing fresh dug-outs and discovering craftily-hidden sniping-posts. The Battalion suffered in all about 300 casualties, of whom 11 were officers. But the casualties which they inflicted upon the enemy, chiefly in their fierce bombing and bayonet work, were very heavy, and of unwounded prisoners alone they took just over 600, making a sufficiently handsome balance to their credit. General McDonnell, in a letter to Colonel McKenzie immediately after the relief of the Battalion, wrote: "New Brunswick may justly be thrilled with pride at the deeds done by her lads in this particular fight."

As the 25th Battalion had taken about 300 prisoners, and the 22nd approximately the same number, during their final sweep through the village, the total of prisoners to the credit of the 5th Brigade in this brief and brilliant action amounted to about 1,200, exclusive of the wounded. Among these prisoners were two colonels, one a regimental and the other a battalion commander. There was also substantial booty, including three 4.1 guns, seven machine-guns, seven trench-mortars, a locomotive and several railway trucks, with quantities of bombs, ammunition, and stores.

The village having thus been carried by storm, with such fine élan and disciplined valour, by the men of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec, the exultant victors had now an even sterner test to undergo. During three nights and two days they had to hold what they had gained against the most desperate efforts of a powerful and exasperated adversary to retake it. For this duty the 5th Brigade was reinforced by two additional Battalions, the 18th from the 4th Brigade and the 27th from the 6th; and General McDonnell was given command of the whole divisional front. On their right the 15th Division (Imperials), pounding their way onward through the twin village of Martinpuich, had kept an even front with the Canadian advance. But on their left the progress of the 3rd Division had been delayed by a formidable trench system known as the Fabeck Graben. The captured village, therefore, constituted the point of a dangerous wedge driven defiantly into the heart of the German position. It was not only a salient narrow and awkward, therefore, which General McDonnell, on this night of the triumphant September 15th, found himself called upon to consolidate and to hold, but it was one which both invited assault by its exposure and insistently challenged by its menace. Throughout the night, however, the enemy made no response to the challenge except by incessant shelling, their infantry, apparently, being for the time too much demoralised to face the conquerors again. By the afternoon of the 16th they had recovered, and being heavily reinforced, they made a desperate effort to recover their lost ground. From the trenches which they still held on the right of our position, by the cemetery, and from the direction of Destremont Farm, they launched no fewer than seven counterattacks upon the apex and the eastern side of the salient. This, as we have seen, was the frontage held by the French-Canadian Battalion, worn and weary, but elated by its dashing successes of the previous evening. Supported by a portion of the New Brunswick Battalion on their right, and by a strong advanced post from the Nova Scotian Battalion on their left front, the French-Canadians beat off all these assaults without yielding up a foot of their hard-won ground. In the meantime the Nova Scotians were dealing drastically with four counterattacks against their own front where they had hastily but thoroughly consolidated themselves along a line several hundred yards beyond the north-western outskirts of the village. It was during this consolidation that an adventurous Nova Scotian bomber—by name Private McIntyre—went scouting up a section of German trench, encountered a party of twelve Germans, coolly summoned them to surrender and marched them all in as prisoners. The results of these counter-attacks against the Nova Scotians were so unsatisfactory to the enemy that he did not repeat them, but turned his attention once more to the north-eastern face of the position, where the fact that he still held, with abundance of machine-guns, an obscure tangle of trenches between the Quarry and the Bapaume Road seemed to offer him better prospects of success. Here the 22nd Battalion, and the 26th, who had taken over the frontage between the Cemetery and the Bapaume Road to enable the diminished companies of the 22nd to shorten their line, on the nights of the 16th and 17th hurled back six more counter-attacks which were pressed with fierce determination. Upon the failure of these the Germans appeared sullenly to accept the loss of Courcelette, and confined themselves to harassing us with shell-fire and sniping. They found themselves fully occupied in blocking our ceaseless efforts to gnaw our way ever a little farther along the left of the road. On the afternoon of the 17th these efforts developed into a sharp attack by the 22nd and 24th Battalions upon that troublesome maze of trenches already referred to, just beyond the Cemetery. This attack was successful upon its left and centre, but was held up on its right by overwhelming machine-gun fire. It resulted, however, in a decided improvement of our position on the exposed eastern flank of the village.

While the 22nd and 24th Battalions were making this attempt on the right the Nova Scotians threw forward one company and a party of bombers on the left, endeavouring to seize a swell of ground just north of their lines. Though a minor attack, the men of Nova Scotia pressed it with great determination, their recent successes having rendered them unwilling to acknowledge that any obstacle could baulk them. This time, however, they found themselves held up, and were forced to draw back into their trenches after heavy casualties. Encouraged by this small flicker of success, the enemy sought to follow it up by a series of counter-attacks. As these grew more and more severe the reserve company of the New Brunswickers (the 26th Battalion) was thrown in to take a hand in the strenuous game. This went on throughout the night. Finally, during the progress of the heaviest counter-attack of all, a company of the 4th Battalion, 1st Brigade, came up to begin the relief; and the enemy was hurled back with severe punishment. On the morning of the 18th, the 2nd Division, battle-weary but triumphant and covered with distinction, was relieved, and drew off for a few days in rest camp at Rubempré; while the veteran 1st Division took over its proud lines on the left.

It is impossible to conclude the story of the winning of Courcelette without paying tribute to the heroic and extraordinarily efficient work of the Canadian Engineer and Pioneer companies throughout the whole course of the struggle. In consolidating our newly-won positions, in siting and digging communication trenches, in running up light railways to the new front, they laboured under the severe and incessant scouring of shell and machine-gun fire and endured heavy casualties without the stimulus of being able to strike back at their opponents. The daring and devotion of the Field Ambulance Service were such as to make all praise seem poor; and the deeds of heroic sacrifice in the rescue of the wounded were not less splendid than those enacted in the fighting itself. Among those who gave their lives in this noble work was the gallant officer directing it in the forward area, Lieutenant-Colonel R. P. Campbell, who fell in the hail of shrapnel. The arduous duties of carrying food and supplies for the fighting lines, throughout the engagement, were performed, at heavy cost, by the 24th Battalion, which thus contributed in fullest measure to the victory—and the casualty list—though deprived, except during the operation on the afternoon of the 17th, of its hoped-for share in the fighting. The gratitude of their fellow battalions, whose hands they so efficiently upheld, had to compensate them for their loss of the acclaim and exaltation of the great attack.

Of the 22 officers who went into the attack with the French-Canadian Battalion (the 22nd), 6 were killed and 11 wounded; and the Nova Scotian Battalion, by a curious coincidence, suffered the same number of casualties among its officers, viz., 5 killed, 8 wounded, and 4 missing—in all, 17 officer casualties for each of the two Battalions. With the 11 already noted in the 26th Battalion, 9 in the 24th,[[1]] 2 in the 5th Canadian Machine-Gun Company, 1 brigade bombing officer, and 1 O.C. Trench-Mortar Battery, we have a total of 58 officer casualties in the Brigade incurred during the actual operations of the 16th, 17th, and 18th. Of other ranks our casualties numbered 1,267.

[[1]] Incurred during the perilous and essential duties of "carrying" for the Brigade throughout the whole operation.