Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

The night of the attack was, as has been stated, dark and squally. The rain blew in great gusts, drenching the waiting battalions to the skin and filling the assembly trenches knee-deep in water. But these conditions suggested to the mind of Colonel J. E. Leckie, of the 16th Battalion, or centre attack, a particularly daring scheme. Two of his subalterns, Lieuts. Adams[[2]] and Scroggie, had been for some days reconnoitring and crawling about the ground in front, with the view of guiding the Battalion during the actual assault.[[3]] In the course of these investigations they had come across an old trench marked on no map and about 100 yards in front of the Canadian first line. Such a trench is a common feature on ground which has been much fought over. It was suggested that if the leading lines of the Battalion crept up during the night to this new position they would be 100 yards nearer their objective and would probably escape the German artillery fire, which would break out on our front line the instant our guns lifted and the attack was seen to be imminent. Such a course had great advantages. On the other hand, Colonel Leckie had to consider the fact that an encounter with a patrol or a listening post of the enemy would give away the secret of an attack the prospect of which had, so far, been sedulously guarded from reaching the ears of the enemy. A premature brush on the part of a company with even a small section of the enemy would have meant flares and infantry firing along the whole line and the plan would have stood disclosed. Colonel Leckie decided to take the risk and the responsibility. His regiment was drawn up for the assault on a frontage of two half-companies in four successive lines. The first two lines were passed successfully up to the unmarked trench without any suspicion of their intention reaching the enemy. The margin between success and failure was, however, narrow to the last inch. The Germans had actually put out a listening post well in front of their line, but the advance guards of the 16th (Canadian Scottish) passed by it in the dark. By the time the Germans discovered the presence of the Canadians they were hemmed in in front and rear, and remained quiescent until dawn led to their discovery and surrender. Of course, they ought to have fired their rifles and given the alarm at any cost to themselves.

But the manoeuvre succeeded, like many risky chances taken in war. The enemy's shells missed the two front lines completely as the 16th Battalion charged straight into the German positions. The two supporting lines, on the other hand, suffered somewhat severely from ranged shell-fire as they climbed the parapet. The first two waves of the assault met, indeed, with little resistance owing to the unexpected rapidity of their advance—a plan since extensively adopted in the fighting on the Somme.

Isolated German parties of bombers or machine-gunners still put up a fleeting resistance. In the face of these assaults the Canadian infantry moved steadily on with the quietude of fate. The second two waves of the 16th, on approaching the German front line, were met in places by machine-gun fire and by a bombing resistance, in which Captain Wood, an American Army officer whose services were very valuable to the Canadians, was killed. The trench was soon taken and the enemy who resisted were bayoneted. The survivors, who were taken prisoners, appeared to be dazed and to possess neither rifles nor equipment. About thirty yards behind this line, however, a machine-gun was still in action and was causing many casualties in our ranks. Captain Bell-Irving dashed out from the line, got behind the gun, shot three of the team with his revolver, and, picking up a rifle, charged in from the rear and killed the remaining gunners with the bayonet. Line after line was carried in this fashion until the 16th were able to put up the red flares, which signalled to the division that they had recaptured the heights and stood once more on their old ground or in its immediate vicinity. Although not so quick to arrive as the 3rd Battalion, they were soon in touch with it, and the new line was linked up.

Meanwhile, on the left the 13th Battalion (Royal Highlanders of Canada), under Lieut.-Colonel Buchanan, had advanced at a given signal. The German artillery had ranged their assembly trenches during our own bombardment and inflicted somewhat severe losses on them before they climbed the parapet at the correct moment. They set out in the usual formation of four waves on a frontage of two half companies, the first two waves under Major Perry and the last two under Major McCuaig, and, advancing across broken ground under heavy shell fire, reached their first objective. Here they were held up for a time by a machine-gun on their left front; a bombing party had to be sent round its rear to destroy it before the regiment could proceed. Finally, after some isolated bombing encounters in the communication trenches, the 13th broke through to the north of Hill 62 and linked up with the 16th on their right.[[4]] The circle from left to right was now complete, for the 58th (Colonel Genet), fighting their way slowly up the communication trenches on the left of the 13th, finally established touch with them. The main action was over shortly after 2.30 on the morning of June 13th.

June 13th, 2.30 A.M.

On the right the 1st Division had not, as they thought, retaken the precise position held by the 3rd Division on June 1st, although in the heat of the assault they were fully convinced that they had done so, and, in fact, succeeded in doing so on the following day. The Germans had built a new support trench somewhat to the west of the original British line, and this was in very good condition. In the meantime, a fortnight of rain and heavy bombardments, both from British and German guns, had practically obliterated the old first line. In the confusion of the final onrush in a half-light the company commanders of the various battalions occupied at once the first sound trench which obviously held a dominating position looking towards the east, and, in doing this, they no doubt stopped on the right 50 yards short of their objective. Such an error must be regarded as trivial by those who understand the conditions of modern warfare; it is a mistake which is bound to be made over and over again, even by the best infantry in the world, and is a far less dangerous offence than the opposing one of overcharging the position. Bombing posts were at once established down the German communication trenches and all measures taken against threatened counter-attacks. Immediately behind the assaulting waves came the Pioneers carrying on them the materials for consolidating and making good the captured trench the very instant it was clear of the enemy. In this work, Major W. B. Lindsay, of the Engineers, especially distinguished himself. The enemy, indeed, threatened a counter-attack, but their concentrations were, however, dispersed by our gun-fire. The enemy, in fact, had been surprised, and appeared to be dazed by the suddenness and the success of the onset, and the various reliefs of the assaulting battalions were carried out successfully, though under heavy shellfire.

It may be pointed out in summarising the action that no military movement can be realised without a consideration of its environment. The advance of the Canadians to the final counter-assault took place in the semi-darkness which precedes the dawn. The wildness of the elements tended to produce confusion if it added security from observation. There was enough light to distinguish the features and uniform of the enemy from our own and to give the officers a general sense of their direction. In the gloomy rainstorm, just before daybreak, the 1st Division advanced in a long succession of four lines, one close behind the other, on the frontage of three companies. Each regiment maintained its correct line of attack on the objective; each leading company was reinforced at the proper moment by the company which was marching steadily behind. The fury of the German shell-fire in no way discomposed the orderly advance of these disciplined battalions. In the shadows of the shattered woods which surrounded them it was easy to be deflected from the true course by the sudden spurt of machine-gun fire from an undestroyed emplacement, or to be checked by bombs thrown by isolated detachments of Germans. But the regiments moved steadily forward in the darkness, over a ground ravaged both by British and German artillery until no landmarks remained. Here and there patches of barbed wire still stood out to show that a trench had once existed behind it. The orders were to use the bayonet until light came, for fear of firing into the other detachments. Through this chaos of shattered trees and earth the Canadian infantry moved steadily forward, and as the dawn broke once more on a ruined countryside it saw the assailants unshaken in discipline and correct in alignment—masters once more of the heights which defend the salient of Ypres.

Captain Papineau, of the Corps Staff, on June 16th surveyed the field of battle after the Canadian Corps had re-established itself in its old positions. His impressions are well worth recording. Looking north from the works which we still maintain on Hill 60, he was able to survey most of the ground over which the ebb and flow of battle had raged during the preceding fortnight. The first impression was one of blight—as though a devastating plague had suddenly descended upon these woods and fields and hills, had blotted out the natural green of Nature, and churned up the earth into sordid masses of mud. The blaze of sunshine and the blue sky flecked with slow-moving clouds could not wipe out the ugliness of the prospect. Man had defaced Nature until the charm of Nature had vanished.

Gaunt and grey and menacing, the prospect of the low hills swept out from the feet of the observers. Below were the shattered remains of Square Wood and Armagh Wood. Observatory Ridge, lost and recaptured, stood in front, its coppices full of the memories of hidden machine-guns. Behind there peeped out the higher grounds of Hills 61 and 62, to which the remains of Sanctuary Wood still climbed upwards. On the right rose Mount Sorrel, where the grim earth and shattered trunks still met the clear sky. Behind, in contrast, the green fields of high grass stretching towards Ypres ringed this land of death. The uncut crops, grown wild, had attained an unwonted luxuriance. Here and there a bunch of scarlet poppies might have drawn their intense colour from the gallant blood which had soaked the earth beneath. The unkempt hedgerows, no longer tall and neat, ran back to the city behind, and the beheaded and scarred poplars remained as mute witnesses to the strife of man. Yet Nature was attempting to assert herself, and through this summer's growth of verdure to cover the riot of battle.

Scattered beneath this innocent mantle of green are innumerable shell holes, old crumbling trenches full of the memories and odours of death, graves and graveyards marked by the crosses commemorating the long-forgotten captains once well loved by their regiments, and of humble privates perhaps still remembered. The torn and trampled equipment, the empty ammunition boxes, the remains here and there of shattered bodies, which human care and energy had been unable to bury, all await the healing tide of Nature which will cover them in its due time. On the roads behind lie the bodies of dead horses, with the flies thick on their congealed sides, killed in the effort to bring up to the assaulting battalions the necessities of war and livelihood. Yet of these, too, the poet has written that their cups are the calm pools and the winding rivers, and that care never breaks their healthy slumbers. Even over all that quiet countryside has come the continued spray of bursting shells, week after week and month after month, and if you look closely into every field and tree and ruined house, every yard of that wide landscape will show its wounds. We shall remember when the time of reckoning comes.