"However, we opened on them at No. 6 with a terrific Maxim fire. They advanced in companies of quite one hundred and fifty men in files five deep. Guess the result. We could steady our rifles on the trench and take deliberate aim. The first company were simply blasted away by a volley at seven hundred yards, and in their insane formation every bullet was almost sure to find two billets. The other companies kept advancing very slowly, using their dead comrades as cover; but they had absolutely no chance, and at about 5 p.m. their infantry retired.
"We were still being subjected to a terrible artillery fire. But we had time to see what was happening on our left flank (1, 2, 3). The Royal Irish Regiment had been surprised and fearfully cut up, and so, too, had the Middlesex, and it was found impossible for our B and C Companies to reinforce them. We (D Company) were one and a half miles away, and were ordered to proceed to No. 2 and relieve the Royal Irish as much as possible. We crept from our trenches and crossed to the other side of the road, where we had the benefit of a ditch and the road camber[21] as cover. We made most excellent progress until one hundred and fifty yards from No. 1. At that distance there was a small white house flush with the road standing in a clearance. Our young sub.[22] was leading, and safely crossed the front of the house. Immediately the Germans opened a cyclone of shrapnel at the house. They could not see us, but I guess they knew the reason why troops would or might pass that house. However, we were to relieve the R.I.'s, and astounding as it may seem, we passed that house, and I was the only one to be hit. Even yet I am amazed at our luck.
"By this time dusk had set in, four villages were on fire, and the Germans had been and were shelling the hospitals. We managed to get into the R.I.'s trench, and beat off a very faint-hearted Uhlan attack on us. About 9 p.m. came our orders to retire. What a pitiful handful we were against that host, and yet we held the flower of the German army at bay all day!"
Another soldier who was present in this part of the battlefield says:—
"We were digging trenches, and were totally unaware that the enemy was near us, when all of a sudden shells came dropping all around, and the Germans bore down on us. One of the Middlesex companies was not at that time equipped in any way, with the result that they were terribly cut up. Then I witnessed what a real Britisher is made of. One of the sergeants of the Middlesex, instead of holding up hands and begging for mercy, like the Germans do, fought furiously with his fists, downing two Germans with successive blows. Other members of the Middlesex followed their sergeant's example. Later on a German sergeant-major who was taken prisoner, on viewing our numbers, said, 'Had we been aware that there were so few of you, not one of you would have escaped.'"
In scores of soldiers' letters we find references to the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. One young private wrote as follows to his father, who is a gardener: "You complained last summer, dad, of the swarm of wasps that destroyed your fruit. That will give you an idea of how the Germans came for us." Another man writes: "It looked as if we were going to be snowed under. The mass of men who came on was an avalanche, and every one of us must have been trodden to death, if not killed by shells or bullets, had not our infantry charged into them on the left wing, not five hundred yards from the trench I was in." A non-commissioned officer also refers to the odds against which our men struggled: "No regiment ever fought harder than we did, and no regiment has ever had better officers; they went shoulder to shoulder with their men. But you cannot expect impossibilities, no matter how brave the boys are, when one is fighting forces twenty to thirty times as strong." "They are more like flies," said another man: "the more you kill the more there seem to be."
