It is, of course, impossible in photographs taken long after fighting has ceased, and, indeed, in any photographs except those taken from aeroplanes,[11] to give an adequate idea of what the surface of the salient was during the war. [Plate 9] gives some idea of the ground beside the road, near Hooge, after a dry summer,[12] and [Plate 10] gives a similar view, after rain, near Gheluvelt. The bit of "Tank Cemetery" at "Stirling Castle" ([Plate 11]) on the high ground close to "Clapham Junction," and the illustrations of Hill 60, serve also to give some rough idea, but only a very imperfect one, of the conditions. Even now one has to walk in serpentine fashion along the ridges between the shell-holes in order to make any progress. But in the war winters each shell-hole was filled with liquid, sticky mud, and over such ground our men had to advance time and again, oftener by night than by day, slithering down the slimy banks into slimier mud, scrambling up the other side somehow or other, carrying full kit all the time, and continuously exposed to murderous shell-fire from commanding positions. There can have been no condition in the whole campaign which brought out better the indomitable pluck and spirit of our infantry.
[Plate 12] is taken at the cross-roads ("Clapham Junction") between "Dumbarton Wood" and "Stirling Castle" on one side and "Glen Corse Wood" on the other. It is at the highest point of the slope which falls down through Hooge to Ypres. Of the woods which our men named so picturesquely nothing whatever remains—in fact, the skeleton avenue on the Becelaere Road ([Plate 13]) contained more trees than were to be seen anywhere else in the neighbourhood, and even these I found to have been cut down later on. Their only use would be as firewood.
On my last visit to the salient, a year ago, reconstruction in the shape of what may be called hutments, or something a little more substantial, had commenced at the eastern end and extended as far as Gheluwe, while even up to Gheluvelt there were beginnings of attempts at cultivation. If one had not seen elsewhere what has actually been done, it would seem physically impossible that soil so utterly destroyed could be brought again into cultivation for a generation. But the Belgian and French peasants are capable of wonders.
"Hill 60" (Plates [14] and [15]) is to all appearance little more than a heap of spoil from the cutting for the railway running south-eastwards from Ypres to Lille. But it forms an observation ridge some 150 feet above the level of Ypres and only two and a half miles distant from the city. It was captured by the Germans early in the war, and in April, 1915, retaken by the British after very heavy fighting, in which 3,000 bodies were said to have been left on its slopes. A month later, however, it was lost again under heavy gas attacks, and remained in German possession substantially until the great attack on the Messines Ridge in June, 1917 (the third battle of Ypres), when we once more regained it, after ten months of underground fighting and tunnelling. It was lost again during the German attack in April, 1918, and only finally recovered in the final advance in September. Long before the end this historical hummock had been riddled below ground by mines, and above ground torn up by their explosions and by incessant shell-fire, so that it is now merely a mass of craters and shell-holes, with the remains of dugouts in the soft clay.
The two illustrations give some idea of the state of the ground and a suggestion of the wide horizon commanded by this insignificant elevation.
It was on the 22nd of April, 1915, that the Germans startled and horrified the world by the use of "poison gas" at St. Julien (about three miles north-east of Ypres), making a "scrap of paper" of Hague agreements, as of everything else. Before the end of the war they must have bitterly regretted their action, but on the first appearance of the yellow death-bearing cloud it answered its purpose only too well—the Turcos were not to be blamed for flying incontinently before this devilish terror. The Allies, naturally, had no means of defence—even the wet handkerchief was not thought of, but somehow or other a couple of Canadian brigades held on magnificently—fighting poison gas unprotected must have required even more pluck than facing machine-guns—and for a time appear to have been all that stood between Ypres and the enemy. Under the date of the 22nd of April Sister Marguerite writes in her Journal:
"... Au retour de nos visites aux malades, vers 5 heures, des soldats français [Turcos] fuyant les tranchées, nous rencontrèrent, criant et hurlant que les Boches les avaient empoisonnés! Beaucoup moururent sur la route; d'autres en prie à l'asphyxie demandaient à grands cris un peu de lait. Je revins à la maison tandis que le docteur, obligé de continuer, retourna porter ses soins à une femme. Mais celle-ci, effrayée par le bombardement, s'était enfuie dans les champs où le docteur Fox la retrouva après une heure de recherches. Au couvent je trouvai d'autre soldats encore, victimes des gaz empoisonnés; on leur servait du lait chaud condensé."
"37 nouveaux empoisonnés dans la matinée du 23. Impossible de les mener plus loin que l'hôpital civil où ils sont logés dans les caves.... Nous aussi, nous reçûmes notre part: un sur le couvent, et deux, trois, aux alentours. Voilà qui est terrible! L'eau me coula des yeux, mes lèvres bleuirent, j'étais prête à suffoquer."
But the brave lady never suggests for a moment that she should leave the place, and did in fact remain in the city until the military insisted on everyone leaving on the 9th of May, when there seems to have been imminent fear of the Germans reaching the city, and when, at any rate, the Kaiser was again waiting at Thielt in expectation of entering it.
St. Julien was taken at the time, and the German line advanced to the canal some miles in front of it; but the ruined village was afterwards recaptured and gas drenched by us—a strange Nemesis—in July, 1917, and remained in our hands until the German advance in 1918. [Plate 16] certainly does not suggest the tragedy which we must always connect with the name of St. Julien; it is a screen at the entrance to a Chinese camp which stood there in 1919. It illustrates, oddly enough, an ancient Chinese superstition that "spirits"—and of course spirits are always malevolent—can only go straight forward, so that if any kind of screen is placed in front of the house entrance the spirit will be unable to get in, not, apparently, having the sense to go round the barrier. The gentleman standing in front of the screen (which is in effect a huge triptych) gave us to understand that he was the artist, but our knowledge of Chinese and his of English were too limited to be very certain. The screen was certainly quite a satisfactory piece of decoration.