On the Fringe of the Great Fight

by George Gallie Nasmith

At No. 3 Canadian Field Ambulance we found that 2,600 Canadian casualties had already passed through during the three days since the gas attack. We heard there that Major Mothersill, Medical officer of the Eighth Battalion, had been lying out in front of the lines for two days, unable to move and apparently paralyzed. It was one of those personal experiences which brings the war home to us with startling reality, for I had made a tour of his area with him just a few days before. You hear of the loss of a thousand men and it affects you very little, but if you know personally a single one of the thousand, the news of his death may give you the blues for days. The loss of a million unknown Russians does not really mean as much to one as the loss of a single friend.

On our return trip we passed a large number of London busses loaded with wounded; they were all sitting-up cases and were a very happy looking lot. It was an odd sight to see bus after bus tearing down that long, straight road, with the tall trees on either hand, each bus with rows of soldiers seated on the upper deck, with heads and arms bandaged, looking about at everything with the greatest interest,—like tourists rather than men who had just come from the very gates of hell. They waved hearty greetings to the French artillery which was then pouring up the side roads.

As the French 75's bumped along the roads, drawn by rat-tailed, wiry horses, they looked like pale blue, painted wooden guns, instead of what they were—the deadliest weapon that the war had till then produced. An officer who watched them the following day gallop onto the field, unlimber and start firing, told me that the way their fire covered that front was an absolutely uncanny sight. With mathematical precision the shells would begin to drop at one end of a field and cut out a belt across it from side to side, the belt growing as each explosion threw up a splash of dust from the showers of shrapnel; having completed the belt they would begin another a few yards farther back until the whole field had been covered and not a soldier hiding anywhere in it left alive.

On the day of the first gas attack there were soldiers everywhere back of the line; that day as we drove home there was not a single one to be seen. They had all gone forward toward the front where they could be of the greatest use.

When the French people of the little villages through which we passed saw the name "Canadian" on our car they nudged each other and repeated the word "Canadien." It was the name in everybody's mouth those days, for it was now general knowledge that the Canadian division had thrown itself into the gap and stemmed the German rush to Calais. The whole world was ringing with the story of how the colonial troops had barred the road to the channel to a force many times its size in men and guns, and armed with poison gas, the most terrible device of warfare that had yet been invented.

And well may it be said that the 22nd of April, 1915, was, to the allies, one of the two most vital days since the beginning of the war. The Germans had planned to break through and seize the French coast along the narrowest portion of the channel. Once established there they would have attempted to cover the channel with their long range naval guns, while they would have established for their submarines harbours which could be protected by the same guns. Under such circumstances, cross channel traffic and the maintenance of our lines of communication would have proved to be a very difficult matter indeed, for the subs would then, at any time, have easy access to our channel path.

The importance of the Canadian fight during that first twenty-four hours was out of all ratio to the size of our forces. The whole success of the battle hinged on the attack by two battalions on the morning of the 23rd of April. These two battalions were sent up into the centre of the gap left in the line by the retreat of the French colonials. Supported by four field guns, they advanced steadily under a terrific fire from the enemy. As General Mercer said to me afterwards, it was, according to the book, probably as crazy a bit of military tactics as could possibly have been tried, but the very daring of the attempt proved its success. The Germans, believing that such a counter attack must be backed up by much stronger forces, hesitated to come on and the day was saved, for while they hesitated and made sure of their ground, troops were hurried up from other parts of the line and the Huns had missed their chance. That first night if the Germans had simply walked ahead they would have found nothing to stop them, but they were too much dazed with their own success to realize the situation and take advantage of it.

Naturally we were thrilled with pride at the success of the division; we had been present at its birth; we had watched it through the various vicissitudes of its eventful career; and now its great opportunity had come. Now its name had been indelibly written on the scroll of fame. It had saved the situation in one of the most critical happenings of the whole war.

The next day the General of the fourth corps, accompanied by his staff, paid a visit to our laboratory, and the General told us that the Germans had tried their gases on the Belgians the very day after they had gassed the French and Canadian colonial troops. But the Belgians breathed through wet handkerchiefs till the gas had passed over, and when the Germans came on, full of confidence in the efficacy of their deadly new weapon, the Belgians gave them a severe punishing.

On April 27th the three of us started out after 5 o'clock to the Canadian area in search of news. The military policeman on the road at the outskirts of Poperinge on being queried said, "All right, no shells to-day in Pop." But we got only about 150 yards into the town when there was a terrific hair-raising explosion near us, followed by showers of bricks and bits of whizzing shell. It was a shell of very high calibre, and as we passed the next cross street and looked up it, we could see four houses settling into dust and a few people running towards the spot. A telephone wire cut by a flying fragment fell upon a car just ahead of us. It looked funny to see the doors of the houses along the street belch forth their inmates who rushed to the shutters, banged them to, rushed in again and no doubt hid themselves in the cellars. It reminded us exactly of the actions of a flock of chickens when a hawk appears in the sky.