A new line of trenches were occupied on the 22nd, and these were found to be much preferable and more desirable in every way than those last occupied. There is no doubt that the French were more careless as regards the cleanliness as well as the general efficiency of their trenches than were our own people, and it seems that the 2nd Buffs were rather unfortunate in very frequently relieving our Allies instead of other British troops. These new and better works were at Kemmel, and the battalion alternated between this place and Locre till the 23rd March, when it was billeted at Dickebusch. Captain A. S. Cresswell was killed by a sniper on the 12th March.
On the 10th April, after a trying turn at St. Eloi, the battalion marched to Zonnebeke and relieved the 153rd French Regiment, the 85th Brigade having three battalions in the front line, with the Buffs in the centre, three companies in the fire trenches and one in support. About the middle of the line was the Broodseinde cross-roads, where the enemy’s trenches approached very close to our own, at one point to within five feet. This portion of the field is upon a plateau which commands the Ypres road, and was of great tactical importance. Forward of a trench which lay to the south-west of the cross-roads, the enemy had that morning rushed a parallel in which the French had laid a mine that was to have been fired before they handed over. After blocking this mine up, the enemy had retained possession of that part of the work in which it had been laid. Of this fact the French were either ignorant or, at any rate, they made no report of it. Two attempts were made to dislodge them, in which Captain Hood, Lieut. Whitaker (both of whom were wounded) and 2nd Lieut. Chapman did good work.
In the meantime the Germans had established a heavy trench mortar in a position, secure from our artillery, from which they brought a merciless fire to bear on our lines, especially on B Company which was on the cross-roads. This was the 2nd Battalion’s first experience of this weapon. Serious damage was done to the parapets and many casualties resulted. During this four days’ tour 1 officer and 22 other ranks were killed and 4 officers and 62 other ranks wounded. The battalion was relieved by the 3rd Royal Fusiliers on the morning of the 14th and marched back to billets at St. Jean, about one mile east of Ypres. A and D Companies were sent into the reserve dug-outs west of Zonnebeke, but rejoined at St. Jean the next day. After another short turn in the trenches the battalion on the 21st found itself bivouacked in open fields near St. Jean, where shelters and dug-outs were arranged for, because the town of Ypres was now being too heavily shelled for troops to make use of billeting accommodation there, or, in fact, to pass through the town at all.
V. Second Battle of Ypres
The second battle of Ypres has brought more obloquy and ill-fame on the German nation than even Marathon brought glory to the Athenians. It appears to have been well understood by scientific men that a noisome and poisonous gas could be so carried down wind that no man could breathe its suffocating fumes and live for long, and further that he must die in agony. At the ineffectual conference at the Hague it had been arranged between the representatives of the several nations, including Germany, that the use of such a disgusting and brutal weapon should be barred between civilized enemies, and nobody thought any more about it, but the German beast is not a gentleman and he ruled that the brave old days when foeman fought with a chivalrous regard for his opponent were to cease, at any rate as far as the much-vaunted Fatherland was concerned, and so this battle which we are now to consider goes down in history as the first great combat in which unfair and blackguardly methods were adopted.
Imperial War Museum
Crown Copyright
YPRES FROM NEAR MENIN GATE
The commencement of this tremendous battle is best described in Sir John French’s own words, which are here quoted from his despatches: “It was at the commencement of the Second Battle of Ypres on the evening of the 22nd April that the enemy first made use of asphyxiating gas.