Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

A British machine appeared suddenly low against the blue, mounting and flying out of the west. The men in the Albatross were evidently so intent on their task of observing the landscape beneath them and keeping well ahead of our blossoming shrapnel that they failed to observe the approach of the British 'plane as soon as they should have for their own good. They were heading west when they saw their danger, and instantly the Albatross swerved round and sped towards home. But the British flier had the heels of the German and the advantage of the position. It circled and dipped, and down through the clear air aloft came the rippling "tap-tap-tap" of the aerial machine-guns. Again and again the enemy's frantic efforts to escape were frustrated by the skill and daring of the British pilot and the hedging fire of the British guns. Suddenly the gun of the German 'plane jammed and ceased; the pilot was hit and wounded; the Albatross commenced a rapid descent, in which it was followed by the British 'plane to within a thousand feet of the ground. Then, under heavy shell-fire from German batteries, the victorious machine rose and flew away undamaged, and the unfortunate Albatross struck the earth between the front and support trenches of the 14th (Montreal) Battalion and turned turtle. The German pilot was dead; the observer, slightly wounded, crawled to our support trenches and surrendered. The German batteries kept up a hot fire of high explosives and shrapnel on the machine with the object of smashing it beyond hope of repair before the Canadians could salvage it. They made several direct hits, but our men sapped out to the wreck and managed to bring most of it in, piece by piece. Among the articles brought in was the machine-gun that had jammed in the heat of the fight. This was found to be a Colt gun. Closer examination proved it to be one of the original guns of our 14th Battalion—to whose lines it had just made such a dramatic return! The gun had been abandoned during one of the desperate and confused fights of the Second Battle of Ypres half a year before.

Sept. and Oct., 1915.

In these months of September and October great efforts were expended on improving the line. Work in the front positions was done by the occupying battalions, and the troops in reserve came up night after night to assist their labours and to create new secondary positions and drive through fresh communication trenches. Even the training of new units was occasionally and rightly sacrificed to the performance of this essential task. The weather was, on the whole, favourable for these operations, with the exception of three days of rain early in September and a wet week late in October. The 1st Division, long on the ground and fortified by the experience of what good trenches mean for comfort and safety, was pre-eminent in these exertions, as would be proved by the trench-map with its continuous increase, month after month, in the black and zigzag lines of new work. Each tiny scrawl on the surface of such a map represents the labours of hundreds of men, extended over many nights. Second and third lines grew apace, so that a sudden attack of the enemy would still leave trenches to be held and would reduce the German bite to mere nibbles at the forward trench. The communication trenches are driven true and straight from well in the rear, and up these the ration parties toil in safety night after night under their burdens of food, water, ammunition, and R.E. material to feed the front line. These parties know well enough the difference between well-made lines and bad ones. Stooping under the heavy weights as they struggle on through the dark, they will bless in army fashion a smooth and dry surface underfoot and a sound high parapet which protects them from the casual German shells which are searching for them, or the intermittent whistle of the long-range bullet humming on its errand in the dusk. Messengers or stretcher-bearers with their burdens can move backwards or forwards even by day along the well-built hollow, and all those who pass are protected both from the arrow that flieth by night and the terror which walketh in the noonday. Very different is the story of a badly-kept line. It finds carrying parties struggling in, hours late, exhausted by wading through mud and water, and delayed by continually climbing out and walking outside the trench to avoid impassable sections. Here an unlucky shell or a casual bullet may take its toll. The men struggle back with difficulty, arriving hardly before the dawn, and with their period of supposed rest and recuperation turned into the most arduous of labours. It is not too much to say that the efficiency of a regiment or division can be tested by a comparison between the state in which it takes over and that in which it leaves its trenches.

The creation of secondary positions is as important as that of communication trenches, and on this task the Canadian Corps worked unsparingly throughout the autumn.

The disposition of a brigade is two, or on occasion three, battalions in the front line and one or two in support or reserve trenches. But in most cases even the leading regiments will not have their whole strength in the firing trench. One or two companies lie close up in support or reserve to reinforce any threatened point. The nearness of these supports is a very present help in time of trouble, and gives confidence to officers and men, who would be nervous if they knew that no assistance was nearer than a mile away in distance and an hour in time. But these lines must be dug under cover of dark, so the men toiled with the spade through the nights of autumn and blessed the dawn which put a term to their labours. Their record is written on the scarred earth from St. Eloi down to Ploegsteert. Let us hope that the corps which took their place in March was duly grateful for the blessing of a well-constructed line.

Nov., 1915.

With the end of October and the beginning November, however, trouble began. The mists of early autumn had enabled some of the back-line digging to be done by day, without undue attention from the German gunners, but with the rain of the end of the first-named months the efforts of weeks began to dissolve in hours. As a sudden thunderstorm fills all the ditches to the brink, so two days' rain in the horrible clay of Flanders turns every trench into a miniature mill-race. Traverses, parapets, and parados, which in the summer sun had assumed the solidity of Egyptian monuments, collapsed like melting jelly as the torrents tore under the foundations. Men struggled waist-high in water to repair the damage, only to hear the heavy splash of falling earth and sandbags as the rain broke away the trenches as a cheese-scoop cuts out cheese. Many of the communications became impassable, and parties had to walk outside them even in broad daylight and in plain view of the enemy's observers. The situation of the Germans, at any rate, was no better, and our gunners had their revenge on them when they also were compelled to walk in the open. The last fortnight of November was, however, fortunately drier, and the Canadian Corps were able by increased exertions to make their trenches safe and habitable for the winter. The weak places in the trenches were revetted with chicken-wire, and strutted wooden paths two or three feet high, like the crossings of a swollen stream, were placed in the worst parts of the communication trenches, so that even if men's feet were in water, they had a firm foothold beneath them instead of a deadly morass. In this work they were assisted by the 11th (British) Labour Battalion, which was attached on November 1st to the Canadian Corps. A scientific system of drainage was devised and carried out.[[1]]

One can cast one's eye southwards from Voormezeele and St. Eloi through Vierstraat to Kemmel, and from Kemmel and Petit Bois to Wulverghem, Neuve Eglise to Hutte and Ploegsteert, and everywhere line upon line of Canadian trenches score the ground like a succession of gigantic furrows. Far beyond the line extends till it strikes the grey seas of the Channel on the north and the snow-clad Alps on the south. The labour of these vast field-works would have built the Canadian Pacific, and one may wonder how long these gashes in the earth will survive the passions and ideals of the men who created them. For some years after the war soldiers will be able to move freely over the ground where once the bravest man dared scarcely show his head, and say, "Here we charged and here we stood our ground"; or, "It was there the captain fell." Then the kindly work of Nature will crumble the well-built trenches and cover them with grass, and the industry of man will drive the plough once more over the stricken fields of history, and Ypres and St. Eloi will become as Valmy or Gravelotte. None the less, certain great earthworks or craters will remain, and, like the hoof-prints "stamped deep into the flint," will serve to remind the Canada of the future that a line on the soil of Flanders is for the nation holy ground. These upheavals of the raw earth, covered in time by the grass and turf of centuries, may survive almost as long as the great emplacements of the Bronze Age which, after four thousand years, still guard the loop of the Thames by Dorchester, command the valley under White Horse Hill, and ring with a double forty-foot ditch the immemorial Temple of Avebury.

[[1]] On November 27th, 1915, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, led by Lieut.-Col. Buller, rejoined the Canadian Corps after a long separation.