The Battle of the Rivers

by Edmund Dane

This bridgehead formed at the opposite end of the aqueduct, more troops rushed across, covered by a concentration of the British artillery. In this way, at length, the whole division got over, including the cavalry. Forthwith they advanced up the road leading across the ridge from Bourg, along the side valley, towards Chamouille.

While these events were taking place, troops of the 2nd division were, five miles farther down the river, near Vailly, carrying out a feat of equal daring. Just about Vailly, the Aisne is crossed obliquely by the railway line from Soissons. The railway bridge, a structure of iron, now lay in the stream. Most of the confusion of massive ribs and girders was under water, and the deep and smoothly sweeping current, swollen by recent rains, foamed and chafed against the obstacle. One of the long girders, however, still showed an edge above the flood. It was possible for men to cross upon this girder, but only in single file. Not more than two feet in breadth at the outside, not less than 250 feet in length, this path of iron resembled, if anything could, that bridge, narrow as the edge of a scimitar, over which the faithful Mussulman is fabled to pass into Paradise. It was swept by shot and shell. From the heights across the valley belched without ceasing the hail of death. Wounded or unnerved a man saw his end as surely in the grey-green swirl of waters. But the soldiers who undertook this service did not hesitate. It may be doubted if there has ever been anything in ancient or in modern war more coolly heroic. Here was the spirit which has made Britain the mother of mighty nations. Not a few of these heroes fell, inevitably, but the spirit was in all, and if some fell, others won their way over, and having won it kept their footing against heavy odds.

In sight of this struggle, amid the unceasing roar of the batteries on either side, the 4th Guards Brigade were, a mile away at Chavonne, ferrying themselves over in boats. Notwithstanding the furious efforts to annihilate them, both as they crossed and as they sprang ashore, a whole battalion in this way got across and made good their foothold.

Half-way between Condé and Soissons, at the village of Venizel, at the same time, the 14th brigade were rafting themselves over on tree-trunks crossed with planks, derelict doors, and stairways.

These footholds won, the troops, like the 1st division, lost no time in pushing forward to seize points of vantage before the enemy could rally from his astonishment. The 2nd division advanced along the road from Vailly towards Courteçon; the 12th brigade made an attack in the direction of Chivres, situated in a small side valley to the west of the Chivres bluff. Slightly higher up this side valley, and on its opposite slope, the Germans held the hillside village of Vregny in force. The cleft at once became the scene of a furious combat.

Coincidently the work went on of throwing pontoon bridges across the river. Under persistent bombardment the Royal Engineers stuck to this business with grim resolve. The battle had gone on without a pause from daybreak. At half-past five in the evening, opposite Bucy-le-Long, three miles above Soissons, the first pontoon bridge had been completed, and the 10th brigade crossing by it drove the enemy out of Bucy. Working right through the night the Engineers completed eight pontoon bridges and one footbridge. On the following day they temporarily repaired the road bridges at Venizel, Missy, and Vailly, and the bridge at Villers. The army had thus twelve bridges connecting with the south bank, and was able to move across in force with a large part of his artillery.

Crossing the Aisne at Soissons, the main road running for about a mile and a half north-east to the little village of Crouy, there divides. On the right is a lower road eastward up the valley of the Aisne, past and under the bluffs on the north side to Berry-au-Bac. On the left is a road which climbs up hill, carried in some places through cuttings and tunnels, at others over short viaducts, until it reaches the summit of the ridge. There, parallel in direction with the lower road three miles away, it continues for some twelve miles to Craonne. From this summit road there is, between the patches of woods, a wide view of the country—to the north the valley of the Lette, and beyond it the height round which lies the town and fortress of Laon, to the south the rich woodland glimpses of the Aisne valley. This panoramic highway is the famous Chemins des Dames.

It is evident that command of the higher and of the lower roads meant command of all the part of the ridge between Soissons and Berry, and the operations were an effort on the one side to obtain, and on the other to retain, that command.

Already, with the exception of the break at Condé, the lower road, and the villages and the town of Vailly lying along its length, were, as the result of the fighting on September 13, in the hands of the British. The higher road remained in the possession of the Germans. Up the clefts and side valleys are a number of small villages and hamlets, inhabited for the most part by quarrymen and lime-burners, but with, here and there, a small factory. A sprinkling of these civilians were Germans. Most were known to the enemy, and were active spies, and one of the first measures taken by the Germans was to establish at various points secret telephones, forming an exchange of intercommunication with and along their positions. Where telephones could not be employed they arranged a system of ruses and signals. Among these devices was that of smoke from cottage chimneys.

On the morning of September 14, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Brigades, defeating a heavy counter-attack, seized the roads between Condé and Soissons. The object was to cut into the centre of the German defence.