Canada in Flanders, Volume I

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

In case the necessity for retreat developed, the wounded had been moved to the trenches on the right; and, under the cover of machine gun fire, Major McCuaig withdrew his men just as Major Buchanan came up with reinforcements.

The sorely tried Battalion held on for a time in dug-outs, and, under cover of darkness, retired again to a new line being formed by reinforcements. The rearguard was under Lieut. (now Captain) Greenshields. But Major McCuaig remained to see that the wounded were removed. It was then, after having escaped a thousand deaths through the long battle of the night, that he was shot down and made a prisoner.

The story of the officers of the 7th Battalion (British Columbia Regiment) is not less glorious. This Battalion was attached to the 3rd Brigade on Thursday night, and on Friday occupied a position on the forward crest of a ridge, with its left flank near St. Julien. This position was severely shelled during the day. In the course of the afternoon the Battalion received an order to make its position secure that night. At half-past four Colonel Hart-McHarg, a lawyer from Vancouver, Major Odlum (who is now Lieut.-Colonel commanding the Battalion), and Lieut. Mathewson, of the Canadian Engineers, went out to reconnoitre the ground and decide upon the position of the new trenches to be dug under cover of darkness. The exact location of the German troops immediately opposed to their position was not known to them. The reconnoitring party moved down the slope to the wrecked houses and shattered walls of the village of Keerselaere—a distance of about 300 yards—in broad daylight without drawing a shot; but, when they looked through a window in the rear wall of one of the ruins, they saw masses of Germans lining hedges not 100 yards away, and watching them intently. As the three Canadian officers were now much nearer the German line than their own, they turned and began to retire at the double. They were followed by a burst of rapid fire the moment they cleared the shelter of the ruins. They instantly threw themselves flat on the ground. Colonel Hart-McHarg and Major Odlum rolled into a shell-hole near by, and Lieut. Mathewson took cover in a ditch close at hand. It was then that Major Odlum learned that his Commanding Officer was seriously wounded. Major Odlum raced up the hill under fire in search of surgical aid, leaving Lieut. Mathewson with the wounded officer. He found Captain George Gibson, medical officer of the 7th Battalion, who, accompanied by Sergt. J. Dryden, went down to the shell-hole immediately. Captain Gibson and the sergeant reached the cramped shelter in safety in the face of a heavy fire. They moved Colonel Hart-McHarg into the ditch where Mathewson had first taken shelter, and there dressed his wound. They remained with him until after dark, when the stretcher-bearers arrived and carried him back to Battalion Headquarters; but the devotion and heroism of his friends could not save his life. The day after he passed away in a hospital at Poperinghe.[[7]] But his regiment endured, and, indeed, throughout the second battle of Ypres fought greatly and suffered greatly. Major Odlum succeeded Colonel Hart-McHarg. At one time the Battalion was flanked, both right and left, by the enemy, through no fault of its own; and it fell back when it had been reduced to about 100 men still able to bear arms. On the following day, strengthened by the remnants of the 10th Battalion, the 7th was again sent in to hold a gap in our line, which duty it performed until, again surrounded by the enemy, it withdrew under cover of a dense mist.[[8]][[9]]

Every effort was made by General Alderson from first to last, to reinforce the Canadian Division with the greatest possible speed, and on Friday afternoon the left of the Canadian line was strengthened by the 2nd King's Own Scottish Borderers and the 1st Royal West Kents, of the 13th Infantry Brigade. From this time forward the Division also received further assistance on the left from a series of French counter-attacks pushed in a north-easterly direction from the canal bank.

Map—1st Canadian Division situation at 9 a.m. April 24th 1915

But the artillery fire of the enemy continually grew in intensity, and it became more and more evident that the Canadian salient could no longer be maintained against the overwhelming superiority of numbers by which it was assailed. Slowly, stubbornly, and contesting every yard, the defenders gave ground until the salient gradually receded from the apex, near the point where it had originally aligned with the French, and fell back upon St. Julien. Soon it became evident that even St. Julien, exposed to fire from right and left, was no longer tenable.[[10]]

The 3rd Brigade was therefore ordered to retreat further south, selling every yard of ground as dearly as it had done since five o'clock on Thursday. But it was found impossible, without hazarding far larger forces, to disentangle detachments of the Royal Highlanders of Montreal, 13th Battalion, and of the Royal Montreal Regiment, 14th Battalion. The Brigade was ordered, and not a moment too soon, to move back.

The retirement left these units with heavy hearts. The German tide rolled, indeed, over the deserted village; but for several hours after the enemy had become master of the village, the sullen and persistent rifle fire which survived, showed that they were not yet master of the Canadian rearguard. If they died, they died worthily of Canada.