CHAPTER X
ATTACKS AT LA BASSÉE
The British had discovered the futility of attempting to smash through the German lines without an adequate supply of high-explosive shells with which to destroy the heavy wire entanglements. Moreover, in maintaining a curtain of fire between the German lines and potential reenforcements, it was necessary to increase the artillery arm of the service. At this time the Germans could fire four shells to one by the British. Another very essential equipment in which the British were lacking was machine guns. The German army had developed machine-gun warfare apparently to its highest power. They not only used it to increase their volume of fire, but also as a means of saving their infantry. When, for any reason, it was found expedient to move infantry, a few machine-gun crews would take the place of the soldiers with the rifle and maintain a fire which would be almost as effective in checking the British advance as the infantry had been. The British had no such number of machine guns. They lacked this necessary part of their equipment just as they lacked shells, cannon, aircraft, and other war material which the Germans had developed and accumulated in large quantities under the supervision of the German General Staff.
The German munition factories had been making and storing enormous supplies for an army of several millions of men. On the other hand the British had believed in the excellence of their comparatively small army to such an extent that it required all of the fighting from the time their troops landed on the Continent up to Festubert to convince them that they must make and maintain a military machine at least equal, if not superior, to the one her foes possessed. It is true the British needed more men in the ranks, but what was needed more was large additions to the supply of machine guns, artillery, and ammunition.
For those reasons the British generals avoided clashes with the Germans after the battle of Festubert, except when it was necessary to hold as many of the Germans as possible to the British part of the western front. This plan was maintained throughout the summer of 1915. In the meantime the Germans were constructing, beyond their trenches, the most elaborate series of field fortifications in the history of warfare. The German staff realized that the time was coming when the British would again take the offensive. When that time arrived the Germans would thus be prepared to make every foot of ground gained as costly as possible to their foes. In fact they had reason for believing that it would be almost impossible for their opponents to gain ground where it was held by such seemingly impregnable works.
An attack at La Bassée in the first weeks in June, 1915, started with the British Second Army making a pretended advance in the Ypres region. The British in the forest of Ploegsteert drove a mine into the German lines and blew it up. The explosion followed by a British charge, which resulted in the taking of a part of the German trenches. This forest extended northwest of Lille and south of Messines. Under the ground in this section the sappers had built a city, whose streets were named for the thoroughfare of London. Thus there was "Regent Street," "Piccadilly Circus," "Leicester Square," and many others. There was also a "Kensington Garden," in which grew wild flowers transplanted from the forest by the soldiers.
The Germans had been driven out of the forest in the fall of 1914 when they made their dash to reach Calais; but their trenches were only about 400 yards beyond the eastern edge. The earth here was especially adaptable for mines, and both sides made many attempts to work destruction by tunneling forward. In this activity it was soon found necessary to have men in advanced positions in the tunnels to listen to the mining operations of their opponents. As soon as such operations were discovered, a countertunnel was driven in that direction and a mine exploded, thereby destroying the enemy's tunnel and burying his sappers. Sometimes, however, the men in the countertunnel cut through to the other excavation and engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict beneath the surface of the earth. Then primitive methods were used. Though mining had taken place on other sections of the western front, as at Hill 60, it was in this forest area that it was probably brought to its highest development.
The British mine here, as noted above, on June 6, 1915, blew up the German trenches, and the British charged into the crater and drove the Germans out with bayonet and bomb. A similar crater was the result of the mining at La Bassée. Five mines at the end of tunnels constructed by the Germans did not go far enough toward the British trenches, and when the explosions occurred the trenches remained intact.
The sappers, however, had other things to contend with; this was the case when a tunnel was driven toward the German trenches between Rue du Bois and Rue d'Ouvert, near the La Bassée Canal. Water was found below the German intrenchments. The British managed to keep the water out of the tunnel by using sandbags. Then they planted enough dynamite to blow up a large part of the German force. The two trench lines were very close together on this part of the front; and, to prevent accidents, the British left their trenches near the mine before it was fired.
On the night of June 6, 1915, the mine tore open the trenches of both sides, and buried one of the British magazines which was filled with hand grenades and killed several British bomb throwers. At about the same moment another supply of British bombs was exploded when it was struck by a shell from a German howitzer. This occurred at a place on the line called Duck's Bill, and resulted in the British being without an adequate supply of hand grenades. The British troops in this action were the soldiers of a British division and a Canadian brigade. The latter included the First Ontario Regiment, the Second and Fourth Canadian Battalions, the Third Toronto Regiment, and the East Yorkshires.