Nov. 19.
The first battle of Ypres may be said to have ended on the 19th, although naturally the enemy continued his shelling. Some of No. 1 Company's trenches were blown in, but there were no infantry attacks. In the evening the 2nd Battalion Grenadiers was relieved by the 3rd Battalion Coldstream and marched to St. Jean, where one company went into billets, and the other three lay in the open and made themselves as comfortable as they could with straw, which they took from the ricks at the farm close by. Curiously enough, the farmer some twelve months later sent in a claim for compensation for the straw that had been taken. The few remaining officers managed to get into one room at the farmhouse.
It was bitterly cold, and there were several degrees of frost and two or three inches of snow on the ground. Before leaving, Lieut.-Colonel Smith sent the following message to Captain Cavendish:
If it is possible, will you try and identify some of the units which attacked you yesterday? Perhaps you could get a few shoulder-straps after dark, but you are not to risk life to get them. I do not want to support you unless it is necessary, but I can send a platoon of the Coldstream to a place near Irish Guards' support if you would like it. You will be relieved by Coldstream to-night about 8 P.M. after your teas, and will come to Brigade Headquarters where you will get instructions. The men of the Coldstream now with you should come back at the same time.
The shoulder-straps referred to in this message were duly secured and forwarded to the Intelligence officer of the Division. The Germans who had attacked the day before were from the Fifteenth Corps.
Lord Cavan, in a private letter to Colonel H. Streatfeild, commanding the Regiment, wrote:
No words can ever describe what the devotion of the men and officers has been under the trials of dirt, squalor, cold, sleeplessness, and perpetual strain of the last three weeks. Their state of efficiency still can, I think, be gauged by the fact that twelve attacks have been repulsed and two companies of Grenadiers fired twenty-four boxes of ammunition on the 17th, so persistent were the enemy's assaults. We are told we are to be relieved very soon and sent right back for a good fortnight to refit and reclothe and reorganise. We came into this theatre 3700 strong, and we shall go back about 2000, but nothing finer to my mind has ever been done by human men. I really should cry if the Germans got into Ypres before we go. On the 17th before the attack they threw over 200 big shells in and around my Headquarters and for one and a half hours it was pretty horrible, but the dug-outs saved us, though my signal officer and 13 men were wounded and 2 killed at the door of my dug-out. The smell of the explosion was horrible. One shell pitched in our signal cart and blew the limber 55 yards away from the body.
The 2nd Battalion remained at St. Jean the next day, and in the evening received orders to move back and refit on the following night:
The Brigadier is directed by Sir Douglas Haig to inform the 4th Guards Brigade that their relief will definitely take place to-morrow night 20th/21st for certain. He also wishes it to be explained that by sticking to their positions for an extra day, the whole British Expeditionary Force has benefited to the extent that their front is now narrowed to the line La Bassée—Wytschaete, whereas if the relief had taken place yesterday it would have had to extend from La Bassée to the Canal.
The following orders for concentration of troops when relieved from the trenches were issued: