"The Red Watch": With the First Canadian Division in Flanders

by John Allister Currie

In my rides about the country when the battalion was in billets, I several times ran across "Archibald the Archer," which is the name given to an anti-air craft gun which is mounted on a motor truck and is used against the German aeroplanes. "Archibald" is capable of firing to a great height and very rapidly. He can also move about the country quite readily. When he starts after a Hun avatick there is something going on in the sky. I have watched the Germans outwitting him. Now the aeroplane would dip and glide and circle as the "Archibald" shells broke about him. Watching with a powerful glass one could see the airship tremble with the explosion of the shell in its vicinity. "Archibald" does not always get the German observers, but he hastens to make it so hot for them that they cannot observe. Observation cannot be carried on with much accuracy above five thousand feet, and the ordinary rifle can fire that high. Who named the anti-air craft gun "Archibald" no one knows, but the Belgians are credited with the naming.

The Belgians are great archers, the sport still surviving in that country. At every village you will find a tall mast which you at first think belongs to a wireless station. On examination, however, it will prove to be an archery pole. At the top of a tall pole the target is drawn up by a rope and pulley, and on holidays the local sports indulge in shooting at the mark with a long bow. In every farm house you will find the long bow and a bunch of arrows.

The programme for the big battle ran something like this: Everything being in readiness several divisions were to be brought up behind the trenches at Neuve Chapelle during the night of the ninth and tenth. Next morning at 7.30 the ball was to open. It was to be a case of "nibbling" as General Joffre calls it. Our guns were to form two zones of fire. The big guns were to smash the first line of trenches for a mile into fragments, while the second line of lighter guns were to rain shrapnel on the ground over which supports might come so that the first line would be isolated. When the first line was sufficiently hammered the infantry was to rip the German parapets with rapid rifle fire, then a charge with the bayonets across the devil's strip, and once inside the first lines of parapets bomb throwing parties were to be told off right and left to clear the trenches. These bombing parties consisted of three or four men with bayonets to lead, and behind them two or three bomb throwers to throw bombs at the enemy ahead of the bayonet men. The leading bayonet men carried a flag which they were to plant in the parapets as they passed along so that the supporting infantry would know not to fire on them. The first line of trenches was to be consolidated the first day. On the second day the second line was to be assaulted and on the third day the third line. In a similar manner everybody knew there was stiff work ahead. That evening my battalion was relieved in the trenches by the Royal Montreal Regiment. When we got back to our quarters we received orders to "sleep on our arms" that night. That meant in our clothes, with our belts and ammunition strapped on, ready to march at a moment's notice. There was a good bed, but it was sleep in your boots for me. The fact that a blighter of a sniper kept firing off three or four rounds of rapid fire at my headquarters every few minutes, his bullets rattling on the brick wall close to my window, was not very conducive to sleep or good temper. I vowed that I would make it pretty hot for snipers, and agreed with myself there and then to pay a reward of fifty dollars for every sniper captured dead or alive inside our lines.

The German sniper is really a lineal descendant of the impenitent thief. When I say a sniper I do not mean a sharpshooter who fires into our lines from the German lines. I mean one of those horrible creatures that goes about clad in a stolen uniform or the clothes of a Flemish farmer during the day, and at night takes a Leuger automatic pistol and haunts the billets and roads in hope of killing some lone British or Canadian soldier or sentry, whose duty calls him abroad during the night and relieving the dead body of any money or valuables that may be on it. Truly this war developed into a form of warfare akin to that between the whites and the North American Indians.

We suspect a few of the habitants of being snipers and not without some reason. Several of these farmers and small saloon keepers would like to see the Germans win the war so that they could "cash in" on the German requisitions they hold. It happened in this way: When the "Boches," as they call the Germans, overran the country last August and September, they took all the wine from the saloon keepers and brewers, and the best horses, cattle and hogs from the farmers. They paid for these articles with requisitions or orders on the German Government, payable after the war if Germany won. We were constantly coming up against these people that were devastated by the Germans, and when we remarked that the British or French Government would pay the "requisitions" after the war they inform us that they hold requisitions for 5,000 or 10,000 francs given them by the Germans for their property. At one place where I was quartered the proprietor had lost 40,000 francs worth of stock and wine. He was rather "frosty" to the British. That is why we suspected some of being snipers, and there are some cases on record where they were caught red-handed in the act. Our experience had taught us to put a dead line of sentries several miles behind the line of trenches, and our vigilance was rewarded because the Germans throughout were unable to locate our batteries and were at sea as to what was taking place behind our lines. On the other hand our scouts were so bold that they often crept forward at night in spite of the constant firing of flare lights or rockets by the enemy and had looked right into the German trenches. Conversations were of constant occurrence. "How is your bloody Ross Rifle?" a hoarse German voice would enquire. "Stick your nose up and see" would go back the prompt reply.

March 10th was the day set for the beginning of the battle which will go down in history as the battle of Neuve Chapelle. The village of Neuve Chapelle was just like every other Franco-Fleming village on the firing line, a huddle of houses partly unroofed by shell fire, deserted by the populace, and shunned by the soldiers. It had been at one time a smart village of two-storey brick houses with red tiled roofs. It possessed the typical church and graveyard such as are found in these villages. Almost every second house was a wine or beer saloon called an "estament." There were butcher shops, millinery shops and shops where they mended shoes. But the British rush, which in October had driven back the German lines beyond Armentieres, Aubers and Fromelles, had left the Germans in possession of Neuve Chapelle. They had a lot of stout-hearted rogues holding on there who would not let go, so Neuve Chapelle formed the apex of a salient in the British trenches which weakened our line north so much that later on we had to give up good ground south of Lille in order to straighten and consolidate along the line of the River Layes for the hard winter campaign.

Late in December some one in the War Office thought that we had given up too much ground about Fromelles and Armentieres, so an attack was ordered which resulted in nothing beyond the killing of a great many Highlanders, Gordons, Black Watch, Argyles, and virtually destroying a Brigade of Guards. But nothing came of all this, and it is, as I suppose as Rudyard Kipling would say, "another story." Yes, and a "top hole" one at that, but it does not come within my province to tell it.

Now we were going to drive the Germans out of this salient and begin the spring cleaning up. When we speak of towns and villages, please do not get any idea of distance as in Canada or America in your heads. There is a town or village in Flanders at every cross road. The "town siter" has not been abroad here selling lots for miles about every hamlet, so the result is that a town of three or four thousand people will happen at every cross road, all within a diameter of a quarter of a mile. As for the roads and streets, they follow the game trails haunted by the cave dwellers and trogdolites a thousand centuries ago. They wind in every direction and are all good. The main roads are covered with heavy square stones, blocks. Once in a hundred years the Flemish farmer does his road work by turning these blocks over. They are called pavè roads. All the other roads are covered with macadam made out of black whinstone that is as hard as iron. This will explain why the towns of Armentieres, Fleurbaix, Neuve Chapelle, Aubers, Estaires and Bac St. Maur are all within a radius of five miles of each other. Aubers is a short mile from Neuve Chapelle, while Fromelles is only a mile or so from Aubers. The whole British line from Ypres to La Bassee is not as far as from Toronto to Hamilton, not forty miles.

Our brigade had two battalions in the trenches, the Royal Montreal Regiment under Lieut.-Colonel Meighen and the Canadian Scottish under Lieut.-Colonel Leckie. The Royal Highlanders of Canada were on the left of our brigade and we were on the right, and our two battalions were available as reserves for the British troops on our right that were going into action. There was one British Brigade between us and the section of the line that was to attack. We were not to move till this brigade moved. Reveille was sounded early and the battalion fell in by companies shortly after seven. We were ordered to march down to the Rue De Bois and get out of sight among some farm houses and keep out of sight, which we did. Some of the companies crossed the fields scouting along the ditches and hedges. A company marched by the road Croix Blanche. We found billets at farm houses a few hundred yards east of the corner of the Rue De Bois and the Fromelles road. Across the road from where I was quartered there was a big straw stack which the artillery were using for observation purposes. Behind it Captain Pope of the Third Brigade Staff had established a telephone office in a couple of wheat sheaves of last year's crop. A cup of bad black coffee and a hard boiled egg provided me with breakfast. The men made tea and had plenty of food with them. In an emergency of this kind I saw that they had two day's rations in their haversacks. They also carried a hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition in their pouches and two bandoliers, each of fifty rounds, slung over their shoulders. They would not be short of grub or ammunition if it could be helped. After I had finished the coffee I surveyed the barn and found a spot where a hole through the straw thatch gave a good view of what was going on.

I had a very powerful pair of field binoculars with which I could count the chickens in a barnyard five miles off. The battle was about to begin. A few of our guns were giving the morning "straffing" as usual. The sun was up and it was a bright clear day. I could see the British lines marked by brown sandbags, now hidden by hedges, again showing across the Rue D'Enfer, but hidden by the houses and church at the corner called Fauquissart. Beyond that again to my right rear the line crossed the Rue Du Tilleloy and swept on to Neuve Chapelle. A clump of tall elms here interfered with the view. I could also see the German trenches. They were crowned with rows of white sandbags, interspersed with blue bundles that looked like army blankets or blue bed sticks filled with earth. There was not much stirring for the moment.