The workshops of the Royal Engineers turned out a quantity of stuff which was really remarkable in the circumstances. All the made-up material for use in the trenches was prepared there, as well as the work in connection with the accommodation of men in the Rest Area. When we read of one and three-quarter million sandbags, or of fifteen miles of road maintained and drained by civilian labour under the supervision of the R.E., or of seventeen bridges kept up and seven constructed by this Arm, or of four thousand tons of bricks drawn from ruined houses for horse-standings, or of thirty miles of trench-gridding[40] laid and fifteen miles of trenches maintained, we are able to form some idea of the unremitting toil and admirable skill displayed by the Divisional Engineers.
Reference, too, should be made to the fact that the grave defects in Field Artillery, which that Arm of the Division was so well aware of, and which it so particularly and gallantly endured, were to some extent corrected by the issue on October 29th of 18-pounder Quick-Firer Field Guns, instead of the existing 15-pounders, and on January 30th in the next year of 4.5-inch Howitzers instead of the 5-inch Howitzers in possession.
One more item of statistics may be mentioned. In a year’s constant journeys on bad roads for long distances, amounting in all to a total mileage of 900,000 miles, no lorry had to be replaced: an extremely creditable record for the Divisional Supply Column.
But these details are carrying us too far. Our purpose in the present chapter has been to preserve an impression of the daily experience of the 49th Division from the end of June to the end of December, 1915. The same things happened every day, though they might happen with a difference. The day was fine, or the day was wet; the patrol got back, or the patrol was wounded; a shell exploded, or a shell fell ‘dud’; distinguished conduct found a grave, or distinguished conduct won a medal: but always it was relieving or being relieved, throughout this long tour of duty under the exhausting conditions of the Ypres Salient. We have sought to illustrate the life by selecting certain days for description, and we have sought, too, to set off that description by an account, however inadequate, of the other side of the picture: of the means provided from home or improvised on the spot, and alike approved by the Divisional Commander, to bring touches of warmth and colour into the chilling monotony of trench-warfare. How far such aim has been accomplished, even how far it is capable of accomplishment at this distance from 1915 and the bank of the Yser Canal, where the general gloom of the outlook was almost as difficult to banish as the mud on the physical horizon, cannot be predicated with any certainty. What is clear to the present writer, however, and what he should have made clear to his readers, is that no opportunity was let go of doing a full day’s work every day. They all pulled together all the time. The result was that, though the long strain told on the physique of the Division, it did not tell on their spirits or their resolution, and, inasmuch as their appointed day’s work was essential to the conduct of the war, and to the maintenance of equilibrium on the Western front, the 49th (West Riding) Division deserved well of their King and country in the last six months of the year 1915.
Tower of the Cloth Hall Ypres
CHAPTER VI
SERVING IN RESERVE
The intensive training of a 2nd Line Division, which was to take a conspicuous part in the battles of 1917 and 1918, is the subject of the present chapter.
The military confusion at home during the period prior to the passing of the first National Service Act, and prolonged to some extent through 1916, though it never affected the keenness and enthusiasm of the 2nd Line troops themselves, has yet to be taken into account in any impression which may be given of the conditions under which training was carried out. Reference to this factor will be found in the Memorandum on the Territorial Force written by General Bethune at the War Office, of which mention has been made before.[41] The then Director-General remarked: ‘Great difficulty was experienced in training, as, with so many new Armies to be formed, the majority of capable instructors went to them, and our 2nd Line Territorial Force had to train themselves as best they could. The result,’ he added, ‘was extraordinarily good and surprised anyone who had anything to do with it.’ We shall reach the element of surprise in due course. Here, for the moment, we are concerned with the ‘great difficulty’ which was encountered, and more particularly with those aspects of the difficulty which lay outside the cognizance of the Territorial Force personnel, or, at any rate, outside their control.