During the day (10th April) the enemy did not attack in force, but he made several local attempts to penetrate the line held by the 4th Seaforth Highlanders. On each occasion he was repulsed, and the position was maintained intact throughout.
On 11th April, about 11 A.M., the German attacked in force. The 4th Seaforth Highlanders resisted all his attempts to drive back their line. Later in the day, the battalion on their left was driven in. The Seaforths, however, formed a defensive flank, and in spite of numerous attempts made by the enemy to roll up their line, maintained themselves in their position and inflicted heavy losses on him. Subsequently the Northumberland Fusiliers, on the left of the 4th Seaforth Highlanders, delivered a counter-attack, which successfully restored the situation. The Seaforths assisted this attack by giving covering fire from the right flank, and inflicted serious losses on the enemy as he fell back in front of the Northumberland Fusiliers.
On the night of the 11th the 4th Seaforth Highlanders were relieved by the 1st Division, and took up a reserve position in rear of the stream south-west of Les Faucons. Here in the course of the fighting on 12th April they were attacked about 5 P.M., the enemy everywhere being completely repulsed. On the 13th they were relieved and moved back to billets at Oblingham.
The 4th Seaforth Highlanders had conducted themselves magnificently. They had been in action for five days, had been repeatedly attacked, but had not yielded a yard of ground to the enemy. General Kentish, in a telegram to the officer commanding, expressed his great appreciation of the splendid resistance offered by the battalion when fighting under his command. General Jeudwine, commanding the 55th Division, also wired: “Please accept from all ranks 55th Division our hearty thanks for the willing co-operation of the 4th Seaforths. Their help and plucky fighting have been an invaluable aid to maintaining our line through a long period of strain.”
The battle of the Lys was perhaps the most trying ordeal through which the Highland Division passed in the whole course of its service in France and Flanders.
It had just emerged from the operations round Bapaume, in which numbers of officers and irreplaceable N.C.O.’s had become casualties. It had received large numbers of reinforcements, mostly boys of eighteen and a half and nineteen years of age, with no previous experience of war.
With its units incomplete in their organisation and under-officered, the Division moved forward to stem the tide after the Portuguese had been driven from their trenches. Information as regards the progress of the enemy’s advance was scanty, so that he was encountered in unexpected places, with the result that in the initial stages of the attack a solid front was not opposed to the German advance until the enemy had reached the line of the river Lawe.
To increase the difficulties attending these operations, not only were the roads in the early stages of the fight so congested with the retiring Portuguese that forward movement, particularly for vehicles, became at times absolutely impracticable, but also the whole area was covered with civilians evacuating their homes, constantly under shell-fire, and at times under machine-gun fire. Indeed, the advance of the Germans had been so rapid, and the penetration made by them so deep, that in many cases fighting took place in farms and cottages still occupied by old men, women, and children. The sufferings of these poor people were deplorable; many were killed and wounded, as were also their beasts; others became involved in gas-shelling, and with no knowledge of anti-gas defence, were overcome by the poisonous fumes. Of the survivors, some fled from their houses as they stood, while others packed their household effects, surmounted by the inevitable box-mattress, on their waggons, and driving their beasts before them, congested every road and track in the area. Others, again, particularly the more elderly, overcome by the suddenness of the arrival of the German infantry, were stupefied, and could not be persuaded to take any action beyond sitting in their houses in a helpless state of collapse.
Later the capture of a complete brigade headquarters, in the course of a prolonged rear-guard action, was itself sufficient to break down the organisation. The loss sustained by the Division in this unfortunate incident was a grave one. No better successor to General Pelham Burn could have been selected than General Dick-Cunynghame. That he should have fallen into the hands of the enemy within a few days of having taken over command was a piece of cruel ill-fortune, felt as acutely by the brigade itself as by its commander. Moreover, in Captains Berney-Fiklin and Drummond, two most reliable staff officers had been lost to the Division; the latter was the embodiment of efficiency as a staff captain, and had held every rank in the British army from private soldier to captain.
In this battle the part played by the 55th Division on the right of the 51st was a memorable one. The Division, after all the troops on its left had given, formed a defensive flank and brought the German advance to a complete standstill, in spite of many violent attacks. The 51st was only able finally to hold up the German advance by the fact that its right was always thus secured.