On the 11th the French developed a fresh attack in this sector, with the primary object of retaking the lost trench, and the secondary object of pushing such successes they might achieve right up past the end of the Double Crassier and Puits XI until they should rest upon the mineral railway running past Puits XI and Cité St. Pierre as far as Cité St. Elisabeth, thus forming an offensive line from which to threaten the Dynamitière and the enemy's approaches to Hill 70. We were called upon to assist in this enterprise, and at 2 p.m. commenced to drop shell along the Lens-La Bassée and Lens-Béthune roads, from their junction in Lens up to Cité St. Auguste and Cité St. Laurent. We also kept the church in the latter place under fire to prevent its use as an observation station. About 3 p.m. the French launched their troops to the assault, and succeeded in recapturing the lost trench, but owing to intense machine-gun fire from Puits XI and XII and from Cité St. Pierre, they failed to advance any further along the line of the Double Crassier towards the mineral railway.
The primary object of the operations so far had been the capture of Lens. The importance of the place can hardly be over-estimated. If we imagine England with Lancashire and the West Riding in hostile occupation, we shall have a parallel to the case of France deprived of the Department du Nord and part of Pas de Calais, except that in our own case we should still have left to us many manufacturing districts, and France has but few. The importance to the economic life of France of the three towns of Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing is comparable to the importance of Manchester to us, and the coal-mining districts lying round Lens, which include such fields as those of Courrières, Drocourt and Dourges occupy relatively a far more important position than those of the West Riding. Lens itself is the key to this productive area, whose energies are at least as valuable to the enemy as to its rightful owners, and Lens has in skilful hands become a fortress in the modern sense, far more difficult of capture than older works at one time deemed impregnable. It is comparatively easy to concentrate fire upon guns whose position is known, as they must be when permanently mounted in the fortifications of the text-books, and once a sufficient concentration of fire has been obtained, guns so sited, being incapable of removal, must sooner or later be put out of action, but it is impossible so utterly to destroy a city and its suburbs that its ruins are no longer sufficient to afford cover to mobile ordnance and machine guns. It has been found that a building that in itself is merely a screen from direct observation, becomes, when destroyed by artillery fire, a heap of ruins amongst which may be concealed artillery and machine guns, and which by its very mass is an excellent protection against hostile fire. Bombard this type of fortress as you will, its defenders are not tied by their gun-mountings to any one position, but can move their batteries from place to place, knowing full well that the attackers, with each round they fire, are preparing fresh situations wherein they may be concealed. It will surely be found that this war has sounded the knell of permanently fixed guns except for purposes of coast defence, where alone the immobile gun has triumphed in the face of many years' accumulation of scornful criticism.
The last phase of the operations was due to a desire on our part to strengthen as much as possible our position from the quarries to the new point of junction with the French. On October 13 our battery was ordered to open a bombardment upon the German trenches that lay along the Lens-La Bassée road to the west of Hulluch. This bombardment continued for an hour or so, and at two o'clock the infantry advanced to the assault, we at the same time lifting our fire on to the village of Hulluch itself, starting at the western end and slowly increasing the range so as gradually to drive through the whole place. But at half-past three our hopes of a capture of Hulluch similar to that of Loos were dashed to the ground by an order from headquarters to come back on to the western edge of the village. This we did until darkness supervened, and we were ordered to cease firing. As far as we were concerned, this was the most exacting day we had yet known, our expenditure of ammunition during the five or six hours that we were in action being greater than that of any previous day. So rapidly were the guns worked that the continual concussion broke the platform of one of the guns, so that in the middle of the action it had to be hauled out of its pit on to a hard road close by, and fired without concealment of any kind, regardless of the risk of observation from hostile captive balloons or aeroplanes. It may be added that next day the detachment found some rafters in a ruined building and from these constructed a new platform for themselves without any form of skilled assistance.
It was not until the next day that we learnt the history of the attack. The intention had been to capture the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and from that as a point d'appui to extend our line along the Lens-La Bassée road as far as Chalk Pit Wood, with the possibility of capturing Cité St. Elie and Hulluch as advance posts. The attempt only partially succeeded. We contrived to advance our line in front of Hulluch almost on to the road, but failed to occupy permanently any of the German trenches. The Hohenzollern was apparently taken, but could not be held, as upon September 25, under concentrated fire from Fosse 8. Between Cité St. Elie and Hulluch, also, history repeated itself. Concealed wire, so placed that the artillery observers could find no place from which satisfactorily to observe the effect of their fire, held up the infantry assault. An attempt had been made to destroy this wire by map shooting combined with the use of high-explosive shell, but the destruction was not complete, and the attack failed. It was said that a handful of men actually penetrated into Hulluch but were never seen again, and that for a short time our infantry held the German trenches in front of the village. But with the enemy established in houses overlooking them, and occupying a strong commanding line along the crassier of Puits XIII bis, these trenches were untenable and had to be evacuated. The net gain of ground during the day was a depth of some two hundred yards on a front of rather less than a mile. At the same time the French, who had been supporting our attack upon the right, reported that the northern suburbs of Lens, Cités St. Auguste, St. Laurent and St. Pierre, had been so carefully prepared and were held in such strength that for the moment a frontal attack upon them was inadvisable.
Here, then, the offensive operations that began with the Four Days' bombardment, may be said to have ended. Although the gain of ground seemed insignificant, consisting as it did of one ruined village and a few square miles of fallowland, and although Lens still stood triumphant and untaken, there is still much to be reckoned in the Allies' favour. Victory it was not, and no amount of advertisement will ever make it so. But it was an exhibition of strength on the part of the Allies, and a stern reminder to the enemy that their power of offensive on the Western Front had permanently passed into our hands. The resources in men, money and munitions of the Central Powers are decreasing, those of the Allies increasing; equal losses on either side, therefore, is a condition favourable to the latter. It is maintained that our losses were too great in proportion to the results achieved. Yes, perhaps they were, but, had they been only slightly greater, had more men been flung into the struggle at the critical time, it is impossible to forecast what the issue of the fighting might have been. The enemy knew this, and was prepared for a substantial retirement. Conjecture is unprofitable, but let us as a nation learn the lesson that men and men alone will terminate this war. Other factors may check it temporarily; it may be to the advantage of the enemy to agree to an apparently disastrous peace in order to gain a respite for fresh preparation. But a certain page of history should harden our resolution, should make us convinced of the bitter fact that there is no peace for the world except in the disappearance of the German Empire or our own. Delenda est Carthago—let us preach the lessons of the Punic wars in season and out of season till every soul in these islands realizes their significance at the present day. The world is no larger than it was then, there is still no room in it for two rival World Powers, one must sink into obscurity before the might of its rival. And, accepting this incontrovertible fact as an axiom, let us face our position, let us remember how the power of Rome trembled in the balance as she strained every nerve in her system during Hannibal's Italian campaign, and let us realize at last that the destruction of our rival will demand of us sacrifices compared to which the efforts that we have yet made are nothing, are as the puny efforts of a feeble infant contrasted with the struggle of a strong man wrestling for his life. And if the operations that have been named the Battle of Loos have any share in bringing these things home to us, their effects will be far more beneficial than those of a spectacular victory.
VII
LOOS
One of our officers was fortunate enough, very shortly after the events of September 25, to have the opportunity of reconnoitring the village of Loos, with a double purpose in view, namely to verify some landmarks that were doubtful from our observation posts, and to discover if any points existed suitable for permanent occupation as O.Ps. There were two ways open to him of reaching the village from his battery position, of which the first was to proceed to North Maroc and thence take the road to Les Cabarets and from there the track that runs into Loos at its south-western corner, and the second was to walk to Quality Street, thence along the Lens-Béthune road to the old German front-line, and so through their communication trenches into any required part of the village. Time being of importance, he chose the former method, and set out one morning at about 8 a.m. The narrative of his adventures in Loos, as throwing light upon the conditions obtaining in a place that had been heavily shelled by us until our capture of it, and has ever since been equally heavily shelled by the enemy, may be of some interest.