Before the battle, the English and Canadians held a line from Broodseinde to half a mile north of St. Julien on the crest of the Grafenstafel Ridge. The French prolonged the line to Steenstraate on the Yperlee Canal. The Germans originally planned the attack for Tuesday, April 20th, but with satanic ingenuity the offensive was postponed until between 4 and 5 o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, the 22d. During the morning the wind blew steadily from the north and the scientists attached to the German Field Headquarters predicted that the strong wind would continue at least twelve hours longer.
© International News Service.
THE RED RUINS OF YPRES
Ypres, the British soldiers’ “Wipers,” was the scene of much of the bloodiest fighting of the war. Three great battles were fought for its possession. The photograph shows what was once the market place.
The Canadian division held a line extending about five miles from the Ypres-Roulers Railway to the Ypres-Poelcapelle road. The division consisted of three infantry brigades, in addition to the artillery brigades. Upon this unsuspecting body of men the poison fumes were projected by means of pipes and force pumps. The immediate consequences were that the asphyxiating gas of great intensity rendered immediately helpless thousands of men. The same gas attack that was projected upon the Canadians also fell with murderous effect upon the French. The consequences were that the French division on the left of the Canadians gave way and the Third brigade of the Canadian division, so far as the left was concerned, was “up in the air,” to use the phrase of its commanding officer.
It became necessary for Brigadier-General Turner, commanding the Third brigade, to throw back his left flank southward to protect his rear. This caused great confusion, and the enemy, advancing rapidly, took a number of guns and many prisoners, penetrating to the village of St. Julien, two miles in the rear of the original French trenches. The Canadians fought heroically, although greatly outnumbered and pounded by artillery that inflicted tremendous losses. The Germans, as they came through the gas clouds, were protected by masks moistened with a solution containing bi-carbonate of soda.
The tactics of General Turner offset the numerical superiority of the enemy, and prevented a disastrous rout. General Currie, commanding the Second brigade of Canadians, repeated this successful maneuver when he flung his left flank southward and, presenting two fronts to the enemy, held his line of trenches from Thursday at 5 o’clock until Sunday afternoon. The reason the trenches were held no longer than Sunday afternoon was that they had been obliterated by heavy artillery fire. The Germans finally succeeded in capturing a line, the forward point of which was the village of St. Julien. Reinforcements under General Alderson had come up by this time and the enemy’s advance was suddenly checked. Enemy attacks upon the line running from Ypres to Passchendaele completely broke down under the withering fire of the reinforced and re-formed artillery and infantry brigades. The record officer of the Canadians makes this comment of the detailed fighting:
The story of the second battle of Ypres is the story of how the Canadian division, enormously outnumbered—for they had in front of them at least four divisions, supported by immensely heavy artillery, with a gap still existing, though reduced, in their lines, and with dispositions made hurriedly under the stimulus of critical danger, fought through the day and through the night, and then through another day and night; fought under their officers until, as happened to so many, those perished gloriously, and then fought from the impulsion of sheer valor because they came from fighting stock.
The enemy, of course, was aware—whether fully or not may perhaps be doubted—of the advantage his breach in the line had given him, and immediately began to push a formidable series of attacks upon the whole of the newly-formed Canadian salient. The attack was everywhere fierce, but developed with particular intensity at this moment upon the apex of the newly-formed line, running in the direction of St. Julien.