The new front line included the village of Poelcappelle, which consisted now of a few "pill-boxes" and naught besides. The area behind it had been the scene of the most savage fighting on the British front, and was simply a waste of shell-holes, traversed by "duck-board" tracks. In rear, however, camps had sprung up amidst the desolation. Ypres, of all places under the sky, boasted an officers' club. There was a railway station at St. Jean, which those who had seen the campaign of 1917 remembered as one of the most unpleasant spots upon the front, and a mass of sidings at Wieltje, which had been infinitely worse. Not for long was the area to enjoy these amenities, nor Ypres its unwonted isolation from the enemy. On the 9th the troops heard a tremendous bombardment to the south. The enemy's offensive on the Lys had opened.
From Givenchy, where they were magnificently held, to the neighbourhood of Gapaard, on a front of some twenty miles, the Germans had broken through. On the front of the Portuguese Corps the line was shattered, and the German wave flowed up the low valley of the Lys. The battered city of Armentières fell. For two or three days no real resistance could be organized across the gap, and the Germans pushed west upon Hazebrouck, a most important railway junction. Estaires, ten miles west of Armentières, was occupied by the evening of the 10th. By that time troops of the 36th Division were upon the scene of action.
The 108th Brigade was in II. Corps reserve. At noon on the 10th it received orders to move at once to Kemmel, with "C" Company of the Machine-Gun Battalion. 'Buses were provided for dismounted personnel. The 'bus column, moving via La Clytte, reached Kemmel village at 4-15 p.m., the Brigade coming under the orders of the G.O.C. 19th Division. That Division, with the 9th, had been fighting hotly for the defence of the Messines Ridge. The admirable steadiness of their young recruits and the gallant fashion in which their counter-attacks had been launched form a brilliant page in the history of the war, and helped to turn the Lys offensive, huge as were its gains, into one of the most expensive and fruitless of the great series of German assaults. General Griffith was ordered to put his Brigade into the Kemmel defences. His headquarters were established in Kemmel Château.
Shortly after midnight General Griffith received orders to move up to the Messines Ridge, in support of the weak South African Brigade of the 9th Division, which had been thrown into the battle under the orders of the 19th. The 1st Irish Fusiliers took up a line on the Messines-Wytschaete Road, from five hundred yards north of the former village to the neighbourhood of the 36th Division's old acquaintance, Pick House. The 12th Rifles was on the Spanbroek Ridge in support; the 9th Fusiliers about the old British front line on the Wulverghem-Messines Road. The morning passed fairly quietly, but there was ominous news as to the German advance north of Ploegsteert. General Griffith received a secret warning order that, in the event of the enemy capturing Hill 63, the whole line would have to pivot back across the Spanbroek Ridge and its prolongation east of Wulverghem, south of which village touch would be obtained with the 25th Division.
At half-past three, after heavy bombardment, the enemy launched an attack upon the crest-road. The South Africans on the left were pushed off it, and the line of the 1st Irish Fusiliers broken. A very gallant counter-attack by Fusiliers and South Africans, side by side, restored the position, though subsequent pressure on the left of the latter forced them to bend back somewhat from the road toward Hell Farm. At 7 p.m. came another assault, in face of which the Fusiliers lost not a yard of ground. None of the officers who took those raw boys into action can have dared to expect of them such steadiness and resolution as they now displayed.
At night, however, came orders to carry into effect the movement anticipated in the warning order. The advance of the enemy to the south had made it only too necessary. The ridge must go, though the 9th Division was still to cling to its northern crown, the village of Wytschaete. The retirement was carried out before dawn, but it was discovered on its completion that there was no touch with the left flank of the 25th Division. After a great deal of trouble, this was attained by withdrawing the right of the 108th Brigade some hundred yards.
All day was heavy shelling, but no infantry attack developed till after six o'clock. On this occasion, as always, the Germans placed great reliance upon a local assault delivered as dusk was falling, which just permitted attackers to consolidate a position won, and gave no time for a counter-attack before the pall of darkness descended. Such a night as this, which would be lit scarce at all by the thin sickle of a new moon, was peculiarly favourable to these tactics.
They were, however, unsuccessful. Once again the defence of the 108th Brigade prevailed. The left of the 9th Fusiliers was driven back. Quickly a counter-attack was launched. The reserve company of the 9th, led by the commanding officer of the battalion, Lieut.-Colonel P. E. Kelly, and a company of the 12th Rifles, led by Major Holt Waring, most gallantly restored the position. By eight o'clock all was quiet. But casualties had been heavy. The 1st Fusiliers in particular had had very serious losses the previous day on the Messines Ridge. This battalion was reorganized as a company, and attached to the 9th. During the night there was no touch with troops of the 25th Division, the gap having formed owing to the advance of the enemy on Neuve Eglise and the consequent lengthening of the line. In the early hours of April the 13th a battalion of the 178th Brigade, now attached to the 19th Division, was moved up to fill it.
The 13th was a day of continuous alarms. Parties of the enemy made attempts at dawn to advance by short rushes on the front of the 12th Rifles, east of Wulverghem, but were beaten off with loss by Lewis-gun and rifle fire. A couple of hours later fresh attacks appeared to be brewing. Parties of Germans were dispersed by the fire of machine and Lewis guns. The former were excellently placed by an officer who knew every foot of the ground, Captain Walker, in old positions which he had often held before the Battle of Messines in 1917. Then, all through the afternoon, small parties of the enemy strove to make ground under cover of the old camouflage screens upon the Messines-Wulverghem Road. They were counter-attacked and driven off, suffering considerable casualties from the fire of Lewis guns. The position on the right flank was, however, more desperate than ever. At nine o'clock had come from the 25th Division the evil news that the Germans were in Neuve Eglise.
During the night the 9th Fusiliers was relieved by troops of the 178th Brigade, and withdrawn to the dug-outs on Kemmel Hill. The 12th Rifles remained in line. The relieved battalion was not given long to rest. Before noon it was ordered to man the Kemmel defences, and to send up its company of the 1st Fusiliers to dug-outs behind the old British front line opposite Kruisstraat Cabaret. The 14th may be accounted a quiet day, since it passed without infantry attack. But the volume of artillery fire was immense, and distributed to a great depth in rear of the positions held. "Green Kemmel Hill," as one officer wrote, "was turning brown before our eyes." And the enemy was definitely in possession of Neuve Eglise.