Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

Early in March orders were issued by the 2nd Army Commander for the exchange of fronts between the V and the Canadian Corps. The sector held by the V Corps runs from the Ypres-Roulers Railway just north of Hooge down south as far as St. Eloi. It constituted the southern half of the Ypres salient, and was by common consent about the worst portion of the whole British line. In the autumn of 1914 during the first battle of Ypres, it had been heroically defended by the Guards Brigade, the Household Cavalry, and the 7th Division, seldom mustering more than 5,000 men at any given time, against the successive attacks of two German Army Corps and of the Prussian Guard lasting for a month.

The V Corps had now held it for little short of a year, and had during that period incurred heavy losses. Nor is this to be wondered at when one considers the number of general and minor actions which had taken place in the area since the great attack on Hill 60 in April, 1915. The trenches round Hooge had continually changed hands. Fierce divisional actions had been fought there on June 16th, July 30th, and August 8th, 1915; while later in the autumn an unsuccessful British assault had been launched against the Bellewarde Lake line. Of minor actions there had been no end, while the great bulge of the salient rendered every trench in it liable to that most deadly of dangers, a direct lateral fire from heavy guns placed to the south or to the north. Salients are valuable as examples of the British soldier's willingness to die rather than to live. They make a great many widows and orphans and splendid material for patriotic speeches. For the rest, their utility may be questioned—and has been.

Mar., 1916.

The transfer of a sector from one Army Corps to another is one of those operations which the layman thinks of as done by a single sweeping stroke of the Commander-in-Chief's pen. In reality, it is a slow and intricate process—nothing less than the gradual interchange of all the population of two countrysides and all the means of feeding and clothing them—a wave of immigration and emigration affecting more than 120,000 people, and this has to be carried out with the minimum of disturbance, since the inhabitants of the two areas must be ready to man the trenches and fight a battle at any stage in the process of change.

The Staffs are in the position of two householders who are exchanging residences and moving their families under the immediate threat of a burglary at either or both houses. If it is done on too large a scale, there will be confusion, but, on the other hand, every day that the move is protracted, there will be mixed Staffs and units in the same battle line and sector—a state of affairs not conducive to the efficient management of a sudden crisis. Far behind the front line trenches the ramifications of the services extend; for though a brigade may be holding a frontage of a couple of thousand yards, its section runs back through miles of land crowded with reserves, with light and heavy artillery, with transport services, hospitals and depots, and all the paraphernalia of modern war. The trench line is like a tooth, the depth of the roots of which is only discovered when one tries to pull it out. To the Staffs, at any rate, the period of movement is one of strain and anxiety, and the total changes were not completed under a period of three weeks, during which time both corps were engaged in heavy and continuous fighting.

The battle of St. Eloi was indeed a joint or rather a successive affair carried on by units of two Corps, the Canadians and the V (British).

Mar. 17th-April 8th, 1916.

The moves began as early as March 17th, when the heavy divisional artillery, supporting the 3rd Canadian Division, were taken north, and were completed by the night of April 8th. The Corps Command of the two sections was not handed over till April 4th. A glance at the map will show the problem which confronted the Corps Commanders. The V Corps held exactly the southern curve of the Ypres salient from almost due east of the town.

The left of its 24th Division rested on Bellewarde Beek, and its line continued along the rise through Sanctuary Wood to a high point south-east of the extremity of Zillebeke Lake, known as Mount Sorrel. We shall have occasion later to study this ground with more particularity, for the force which holds it holds Ypres in the hollow of its hand. Here the salient headed back violently, running almost due east and west, took a southerly turn again, crossed the railway to Comines, passed Hill 60 of glorious and tragic memory, and struck the Ypres-Comines Canal by the Bluff. This was the sector of the 50th British Division—south again was the 3rd British Division holding what was destined to be the field of St. Eloi from the canal to Bois Quarante.

At the village of St. Eloi there was another of these violent turns of the line which leave the opposing forces facing each other due north and south. The total length of this corps sector was about six miles, but the curves of the trenches and the ground would make the actual number of yards to be held considerably greater. It was, roughly, broken up into three sections of two miles each belonging to a single division. With Bois Quarante the salient of Ypres came to an end. The Canadian Corps line to the south reaching to Ploegsteert has already been described. It was devoid in the main of salients and had become increasingly peaceful since the fierce fighting in the streets of Comines and Wytschaete in the autumn of 1914.