Told in gallant deeds

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

The Germans certainly had to pay attention to the observations of the three British monitors. These ships, named the Humber, Severn, and Mersey, are like nothing else in the Navy—I can only compare them to floating fortresses. Everything else is sacrificed in building them to having on board as big guns as possible. They are therefore shaped rather like barges, so that they may stand the violent shock when their big guns are all fired. Their speed is not great, and they do not lie deep in the water, so that they can come very near the coast. They are, indeed, meant entirely for coast defence.

These three curious-looking ships were being built in this country for Brazil, and our Admiralty very cleverly took possession of them, of course paying the full price, and very useful they turned out in this Battle of the Dykes.

You can easily understand that the German trenches and other positions had to be mostly, not alongside the coastline, but at right angles to it, so that the monitors could fire their shells lengthwise at the doomed Germans, and so they killed many more than they would otherwise have done.

The country in which the battle was fought is covered with little rivers and canals and dykes, and that is why I have called it the Battle of the Dykes. Parts of it also were flooded, and the German advance became extremely difficult. The British destroyers used to run up the rivers and canals and shell any German position which had escaped the shells of the monitors.

The loss of life was terrible, and not on the German side only. The gallant Belgian Army, though a good deal diminished in numbers, fought magnificently. The Germans, however, continually brought up fresh troops, regardless of the terrible slaughter. And there came a day at the end of October when the Belgian forces found that they were running short of cartridges and shells. It was then that the Germans had their great chance, but for some extraordinary reason they missed it. If they had pressed on, they must have driven their enemy before them and obtained an important success. Instead of that, to the astonishment and delight of the Belgians, they actually fell back, and the golden opportunity was gone.

What a lesson this is in the value of perseverance! The Romans had an excellent proverb, namely, “Opportunity is bald behind”; meaning that when you have once allowed your chance to pass you, there is nothing by which you can catch hold of it to drag it back.

You may have heard the expression “the romance of war.” Even in this awful conflict, where there has been so much that was frightful, certain romantic facts have come to cheer the heart of the nation. Thus, under Rear-Admiral Horace Hood, who commanded the flotilla off the Belgian coast, was Commander Charles Fremantle. They are both descended from heroes of the Napoleonic wars. A Fremantle commanded a line of battleships at Copenhagen and Trafalgar. It was Viscount Hood who, in 1759, destroyed the transports which had been got ready by the daring of the French for the invasion of England. Another Hood served with Nelson in the Mediterranean; this was Samuel Hood. His elder brother, Alexander, commanded the Mars, which fought a duel with the French warship Hercule, and he died of his wounds just as the sword of the French captain was placed in his hands.

The British Army never fought more bravely, more doggedly, and with more splendid cheerfulness than during this fierce, water-logged battle. The enemy, even with his great advantage in numbers and in weight of artillery, was no match for our men. The London Scottish, the first complete unit of our Territorial Army to fight by the side of Regulars, covered themselves with glory by magnificent charges, again and again repeated, at a place called Messines. It was at this time, too, that the Indian troops first came into action, with terrible results for the Germans.

It is difficult to select what to tell you about the Indians, there is so much that is curious and interesting. What struck me personally most was the fact that their batteries of mountain guns and Maxims, according to an observer who saw them in their French camp, are carried on mule-back. Being in Europe has made no difference at all to these wonderful people’s immemorial traditions. Thus, they have brought all their food from India, and they live when on foreign soil exactly as their ancestors lived. There are thousands of goats in the Sikh lines, and very well they bore the long journey from India.

Some of the Indian troops cannot eat any food over which has passed even the shadow of a person belonging to another religious creed. Some of the Indians, also, can only take their food separately, and as it were in secret. But, with the help of the native officers and of white officers who had served in India, such difficulties were easily met, and these gallant Sikhs, Rajputs, Gurkhas, and Pathans suffered no injury to their religious faith, while at the same time they fought shoulder to shoulder with their white comrades in defence of the British Empire.