YPRES
CHAPTER III
THE PREPARATION AND THE START OF MORE BATTALIONS
I. Summary of Events
When the crash came in August, 1914, the only British forces ready to assist were, of course, the units composing the regular army, and it was soon seen that these were numerically far too few for a struggle of the present magnitude; and though we were only bound by treaty to furnish a certain number of soldiers, that number would only serve to show our goodwill, but could not possibly do much towards the decision of the result. As far as it went the old regular army proved itself to be the finest and most highly trained in Europe, but it was a lamentably small force even when reinforced by the good and seasoned Indian and other oversea regiments, battalions and batteries. England had engaged herself in an enormous task and she recognized, if but very slowly, that it was so. When the awakening began everybody, or nearly everybody, male or female, was anxious to do his or her share, and so it came to pass that, while the first fierce fighting was going on in Flanders and in France, Englishmen left in our island were enlisting, drilling, training and working with tremendous energy to equip and place in the field new and larger armies wherewith to fight out the quarrel on more even terms. The regular army, it was recognized, was but an advance guard, and it was for it to hold the field until the others had prepared themselves.
In addition to those engaged there were trained or partially trained troops, but many more than these were required. These partially trained men were the recruits at the depot, the 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion, and the Territorials. No better material could be found anywhere than these latter, but the annual fortnight’s training, together with periodical musketry work and other drills and exercises, which the soldier might attend or not as he pleased, did not suffice to enable the units to take the field at once in a great European war. In this chapter will be found a short account of how the required soldiers were provided as far as East Kent was concerned, and some of the methods by which it was arranged that the Old Buffs who hail from there should be expanded into a far larger regiment, and the ranks of all its battalions kept up to strength; for it was quite clear that draft after draft of fresh men would continually have to cross the seas to supply the waste of war.
But first it may be as well to record very briefly the progress of and changes in the general situation of the world from September, 1914, when the 1st Battalion landed in France, up to the middle of the following year. On the 29th October, 1914, Turkey entered the war as an ally of Germany. On the 2nd November the Russians, who were of course on our side, but who were slower to mobilize than other countries, entered East Prussia and great hopes were entertained that their having taken the field in force would do wonders to bring the enemy to ruin. Even the most pessimistic saw that the presence of their armies in Germany itself ought to ease the pressure on the Western Front. On the 3rd November, Turkey being now an enemy, the forts on the Dardanelles were first bombarded by an English and French fleet, and this bombardment was repeated on the 19th February, 1915, and several times during the month of March.
The 14th November saw a check to the Russians and a powerful German invasion of Poland. On the 17th November a British force landed on the shore of the Persian Gulf. The 20th November saw the commencement of a series of small fights and skirmishes in Egypt. This country was nominally part of the Turkish Empire, and the suzerain power made more than one attempt to enforce the claim and to cross the Suez Canal, without, however, any more success than the establishment of yet another theatre of war and the consequent holding up of British troops. The Australians and New Zealanders, however, arrived in Cairo two days before Christmas and the province was safe enough after that, although before that date the Indian soldiers, together with the Egyptians themselves, had gallantly kept the foe in check.
On the 22nd March, 1915, Przemysl capitulated to the Russians, who took 120,000 prisoners and 700 big guns. On the 25th April Anglo-French troops landed on both shores of the Dardanelles and soon established themselves across the Gallipoli Peninsula. On the 28th a very powerful Austro-German offensive developed in Galicia. The 3rd May was the date on which Italy denounced the Triple Alliance, to which she had been an adherent for so many years. There was much fighting in Gallipoli on the 6th, and on the 7th the world was startled by the cold-blooded cruelty of the enemy in torpedoing the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland, and it was demonstrated to all that the taking of innocent and non-combatant lives was a recognized part of the German programme.
Italy declared war on Austria on the 23rd May.