THE STAND OF THE FIFTH DIVISION[ [5]
In the meanwhile, further south, at and around Givenchy, a situation was developing which in point of dramatic interest, and as a test of indomitable resolution, bid fair to rival the defence of Ypres. From Givenchy to Le Gheir the 2nd and 3rd A.C. had now definitely assumed the defensive, and the story of how that defence was maintained in the face of overwhelming odds, and under conditions of extreme difficulty and fatigue, is one of which Britain may ever be justly proud.
The 21st French Army was, throughout these La Bassée operations, responsible for the ground up to the canal south of Givenchy. From that point the 5th Division took up the line; then came the 3rd Division, then the 6th, and finally, with its left resting on Le Gheir, the 4th Division. Behind the 5th and 3rd Divisions were the Indians.
Between Le Gheir and Zandvoorde, which we may take as the southernmost point of the arm of Ypres, was Allenby's Cavalry Corps.
In the case of the South Army, as with the Army of Ypres, the impetus of the first advance had carried our troops to a line which was only afterwards maintained under great strain, in the face of the masses of troops which the enemy were gradually concentrating in this particular area. La Bassée and Ypres became, for the time being, the two points on which German attention was specially riveted. With the avowed intention of breaking through to Calais by one or other of these routes, troops were being systematically railed up from the east and massed along the Belgian frontier. It was officially computed that by October 20th there were 250,000 German troops north of La Bassée, and that by the middle of November that number had been increased to 750,000.
The fact that it was the British Army which stood between this vast mass of armed men and its projected advance was in all probability not entirely a matter of chance. If the attempt to break through either at Ypres or La Bassée had succeeded, the little British force would either have been wiped out, or hopelessly disgraced in the eyes of its allies. In either case the prestige of England would have received a rude shock; and, with a German base established at Calais, she would have been in imminent danger of losing something more than prestige.
The fact, then, that the Kaiser's selected road to Calais or Paris, as the case might be, lay through the thirty miles of front held by the British troops, was in all probability part of a carefully-thought-out plan. One factor in the case, however, had been overlooked, or at least under-rated, viz.—the indomitable tenacity of the British soldier in the face of difficulties. Of this essentially British quality the Germans had as yet had no practical experience. At Mons and Le Cateau we had dropped back before their onslaughts—dropped back, it is true, in obedience to orders, and in conformity with a pre-arranged plan. Still, we had dropped back. At the Aisne there had been no serious attempt on the part of the enemy to break through our lines. Such had not been part of the German programme at the moment. It was therefore not wholly unnatural, that the very thin British line between Givenchy and Ypres, should have been reckoned at German Head Quarters as being penetrable at any point where sufficient pressure was brought to bear.
In the face of beliefs such as these, the stone-wall resistance put up by our three war-worn Army Corps must have been a source of equal astonishment and exasperation to the wire-pullers in Berlin. To the Britisher it must always bring a thrill of justifiable pride. Many of the regiments engaged were technically "annihilated." Their officers went; their senior N.C.O.'s went; they were worn to the last stage of mental and physical exhaustion by sleeplessness, and by unceasing digging and fighting. And still they held on. There were no "hands uppers" among these men from Britain. We gave ground, of course, both in the La Bassée area and at Ypres. In the latter case a withdrawal of some kind was dictated by every consideration of military prudence. The original bulge was a danger from every point of view, and with no compensating advantage. It thinned our line and laid us open at all times to the risk of enfilading attacks from north and south.
At La Bassée, too, we had got too far ahead, and from the military point of view we lost nothing by falling back a few miles. But from the three points in the line of vital strategical importance, Givenchy, Ploegsteert and Klein Zillebeke, we were never driven. Those points were held on to with a stubborn determination which nothing could break through; and to the battalions on whose shoulders fell the main weight of this burden is due the homage of all who stayed at home. It is not suggested that there was an entirely uniform standard of excellence throughout all the units engaged. Any attempt to make such a representation would be a gross injustice to those battalions which stand out, and which have for ever immortalized themselves, and the honour of British arms, by an indomitable resistance which can find few parallels in the history of war.
But at first we got too far ahead at La Bassée as at Ypres, and this soon became very clear. During a thick fog on the morning of the 21st, some of the 5th Division were driven out of their trenches; and in lieu of making any attempt to retake the trenches so lost, Gen. Morland—who on Sir Charles Fergusson's promotion had taken over command of the division—thought it advisable to readjust the entire line.