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Two great attacks
The central feature of the day’s successes was the capture of Langemarck and the positions half a mile east of the village
August 17, 1917
In the last forty-eight hours two great and successful attacks have been delivered by the British forces on the Western front. At dawn on Wednesday the Canadians advanced on a wide front north of Lens, and carried the famous Hill 70 and the mining suburbs of Cite St Emile, Cite St Laurent, and Cite St Elizabeth. They also destroyed the bulk of the 4th Division of the Prussian Guard while it was making a counter-attack in close formation. Yesterday English and Irish units in Flanders, with the French on their left, attacked on a front which extended from the neighbourhood of the Polygon Wood, east of Ypres, to the border of the flooded area beyond Bixschoote. Much ground was gained, and the British captured the coveted site of the village of Langemarck. Meantime the French advanced on the heights north of the Aisne and west of Craonne, and took important German positions.
It will be seen that the operations now in progress in the west are steadily developing, and that the offensive initiated at the end of July before Ypres is evidently part of larger plans. The attack north of Lens on Wednesday, in which the Canadians fought so brilliantly, recalled the battle of Loos in September, 1915, for part of the conflict occurred on the samo ground. It was the 46th Brigade of the 15th Scottish Division which stormed the slope of Hill 70 in 1915. It was supported when it reached the summit by portions of the 44th Brigade and of the 47th London Division, both of which had passed through the town of Loos. Groups from these gallant units rushed down the farther slope and vainly tried to take Cite St Laurent, and they clung to the hill until it was strewn with their dead. The Canadians on Wednesday avenged their fate.
The enemy have had nearly two years in which to score the height with trenches and defensive works, but the garrison yielded almost at once to the impetuous assault of the men of Canada. The Canadians swept on to Cite St Auguste, where they found themselves confronted by further formidable defences. By their seizure of the mining suburbs already named they have tightened the grip on the main town of Lens, which is now held in a very close vice, although the flooded ground beyond Avion probably remains a serious obstacle on the southern side.
Our Special Correspondent explains and analyses today the system of rapid counter-attacks which the Germans have now devised. It appears to be conspicuously wasteful of men, and though it leads sometimes to the temporary recovery of lost ground, experience seems to show that it produces no permanent results. The quick massing of strong reserves for early counter-attacks can doubtless be practised best when an offensive limited to one area has to be met. When, however, our troops begin almost simultaneous attacks at widely separate areas, a much heavier strain is placed upon the dwindling resources of Germany. How great that strain has become is indicated by the discovery of numbers of German boys of the 1919 class in the battle-line. Such an example of the heavy simultaneous attack at two points was furnished yesterday, when the third battle of Ypres was renewed on an extensive scale.
The central feature of the day’s successes was the capture of Langemarck and the positions half a mile east of the village. This advance represents perhaps the most notable gain yet effected in the whole of the Ypres operations. Langemarck has a memorable place in the British annals of the war, for it was there that the Third Brigade crushed a formidable attack in November, 1914, and disposed of 75 par cent of its assailants. The advance yesterday was made under very difficult conditions, for the ground is reported to be exceptionally swampy.
On our left the French made admirable progress in conformity with our own movement. They are pushing out from Bixschoote, the scene of their triumph on the first day of the battle, and are moving in the direction of the Forest of Houthulst. Like ourselves, they are well across the Steenbeek brook.
Farther south in our line various strong local points have been taken north and east of St Julien. There has evidently been very bitter fighting east of Westhoek, but our troops aro drawing nearer to the Polygon Wood. Oux Correspondent records the universal praise of the work of the British artillery, which has never been more admirable in its cooperation with the infantry attack. The broad results of the last two days are most inspiriting, and they give ample promise of further developments.
We are now in the principal stage of the summer campaign in the West, and the enemy are being subjected to a pressure which exceeds anything they have known this year. Our advances are methodical and are carefully defined beforehand. There is no expectation of attaining overwhelming results by a sudden rush, but it is reasonable to assume that the full fruits of the present series of projects have still to be gathered. Much hangs upon the fate of Lens, which has held out so long; its fall might bring very extensive changes in all that part of the line.
Progress is necessarily slow around Lens, for the countryside is covered with little mining villages, while the slag-heaps furnish an interminable series of defensive points. At Lens and before Ypres great issues are in the balance, but Sir Douglas Haig’s plans are steadily moving towards attainment. If the British and French Armies can register such definite advances when the Germans are only fighting on one front, we may claim that the character of the war is undergoing yet another perceptible and most hopeful change.
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It will be seen that the operations now in progress in the west are steadily developing, and that the offensive initiated at the end of July before Ypres is evidently part of larger plans. The attack north of Lens on Wednesday, in which the Canadians fought so brilliantly, recalled the battle of Loos in September, 1915, for part of the conflict occurred on the samo ground. It was the 46th Brigade of the 15th Scottish Division which stormed the slope of Hill 70 in 1915. It was supported when it reached the summit by portions of the 44th Brigade and of the 47th London Division, both of which had passed through the town of Loos. Groups from these gallant units rushed down the farther slope and vainly tried to take Cite St Laurent, and they clung to the hill until it was strewn with their dead. The Canadians on Wednesday avenged their fate.
The enemy have had nearly two years in which to score the height with trenches and defensive works, but the garrison yielded almost at once to the impetuous assault of the men of Canada. The Canadians swept on to Cite St Auguste, where they found themselves confronted by further formidable defences. By their seizure of the mining suburbs already named they have tightened the grip on the main town of Lens, which is now held in a very close vice, although the flooded ground beyond Avion probably remains a serious obstacle on the southern side.
Our Special Correspondent explains and analyses today the system of rapid counter-attacks which the Germans have now devised. It appears to be conspicuously wasteful of men, and though it leads sometimes to the temporary recovery of lost ground, experience seems to show that it produces no permanent results. The quick massing of strong reserves for early counter-attacks can doubtless be practised best when an offensive limited to one area has to be met. When, however, our troops begin almost simultaneous attacks at widely separate areas, a much heavier strain is placed upon the dwindling resources of Germany. How great that strain has become is indicated by the discovery of numbers of German boys of the 1919 class in the battle-line. Such an example of the heavy simultaneous attack at two points was furnished yesterday, when the third battle of Ypres was renewed on an extensive scale.
The central feature of the day’s successes was the capture of Langemarck and the positions half a mile east of the village. This advance represents perhaps the most notable gain yet effected in the whole of the Ypres operations. Langemarck has a memorable place in the British annals of the war, for it was there that the Third Brigade crushed a formidable attack in November, 1914, and disposed of 75 par cent of its assailants. The advance yesterday was made under very difficult conditions, for the ground is reported to be exceptionally swampy.
On our left the French made admirable progress in conformity with our own movement. They are pushing out from Bixschoote, the scene of their triumph on the first day of the battle, and are moving in the direction of the Forest of Houthulst. Like ourselves, they are well across the Steenbeek brook.
Farther south in our line various strong local points have been taken north and east of St Julien. There has evidently been very bitter fighting east of Westhoek, but our troops aro drawing nearer to the Polygon Wood. Oux Correspondent records the universal praise of the work of the British artillery, which has never been more admirable in its cooperation with the infantry attack. The broad results of the last two days are most inspiriting, and they give ample promise of further developments.
We are now in the principal stage of the summer campaign in the West, and the enemy are being subjected to a pressure which exceeds anything they have known this year. Our advances are methodical and are carefully defined beforehand. There is no expectation of attaining overwhelming results by a sudden rush, but it is reasonable to assume that the full fruits of the present series of projects have still to be gathered. Much hangs upon the fate of Lens, which has held out so long; its fall might bring very extensive changes in all that part of the line.
Progress is necessarily slow around Lens, for the countryside is covered with little mining villages, while the slag-heaps furnish an interminable series of defensive points. At Lens and before Ypres great issues are in the balance, but Sir Douglas Haig’s plans are steadily moving towards attainment. If the British and French Armies can register such definite advances when the Germans are only fighting on one front, we may claim that the character of the war is undergoing yet another perceptible and most hopeful change.
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A battlefield of mud
We have found in advancing across the Steenbeek quite a number of German guns embedded in the mud. The Germans could not remove them, nor are we attempting to at the moment
August 18, 1917
Our successes in the fighting near Lens and in the Langemarck region - that is to say, on the northern portion of our attack above Ypres - were even more satisfactory than I dared to assume when telegraphing yesterday afternoon. At that time I could only vouch for some 1,200 prisoners, of whom about one-third were taken at Lens. You can more than double these figures. The prisoners now in our cages from the Lens fighting are close upon 1,000; in the fighting in the Ypres area they will be little under 2,000, and the casualties of the Germans must be very heavy. Of the slaughter of the Fourth Division of the Prussian Guard I have already told in detail, and in other parts also the fighting was very sanguinary.
The dominating feature of the battlefield is the mud. This is bad everywhere, but on the left, along the course of the Steenbeek and the Maartje Vaart, it is appalling, as well as near all the minor streams and hollows in the ground lower down. The advance was difficult for our men, and escape was even harder for the enemy when he wished to get away. Undoubtedly a great number of Germans, who on dry ground might have made good their escape or would have been quickly rounded up and taken, were killed in the blind scattered fighting which went on amid the swamps and flooded shell-holes. The concrete “pill-boxes”, on which the German defence now chiefly depends, while sometimes enabling the defenders to hold out for a long time, are also often mere traps to their garrisons, because, being isolated as they are, our men push round and encircle them and either kill the garrison within or compel it to surrender. One case occurred in this fighting where such a post held out until one man with a Lewis gun crept up and got the muzzle of the gun to a loophole and played into the interior, when 20 men surrendered. Another similarly isolated fortress was smoked out - that is to say, it was resisting, and we had encircled it when flames and smoke broke out from it, either from our fire or by accident, and immediately the white flag was hoisted.
GUNS EMBEDDED IN MUD
We have found in advancing across the Steenbeek quite a number of German guns embedded in the mud. The Germans could not remove them, nor are we attempting to at the moment. How many these will amount to is unknown, but six have been reported from one place and seven from another. These guns have been abandoned and useless since the attack of July 31. With them also are a much larger number of machine guns and quantities of ammunition and other stores, which in his retirement the enemy was quite unable to get out of the slime and sloughs in which they were stuck.
Much of these abandoned spoils has been captured by the French on the extreme left of the attack, who have done magnificently. The cooperation between them and the English troops on their right has been perfect. The French attack was admirably planned and executed, and they won their success at an extraordinarily light cost in killed and wounded, the number of prisoners they took being actually in excess of their total casualties of all kinds. The work of the French artillery was such as to evoke the very highest praise from our gunners. By all accounts their barrage was perfect and their counter-battery work equally fine. They seem to have attained and held complete mastery of the German batteries, whose share in the battle on this part of the front has been almost negligible. The French airmen, similarly, had complete supremacy in the air yesterday, patrolling ahead of their infantry at heights generally below 1,000ft, and absolutely keeping off all interference from, or observation of, enemy aeroplanes.
The French engineers seem to have done equally well, their work in bridging and pushing roads up through the unspeakable slush being extraordinarily good. That the French infantry has shown the greatest gallantry in the advance it is superfluous to say. In all departments, in fact, the French have been model Allies. Nothing could be more cordial than the relations between the two Armies, each, I believe, having the utmost respect and admiration for what the other has done.
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The dominating feature of the battlefield is the mud. This is bad everywhere, but on the left, along the course of the Steenbeek and the Maartje Vaart, it is appalling, as well as near all the minor streams and hollows in the ground lower down. The advance was difficult for our men, and escape was even harder for the enemy when he wished to get away. Undoubtedly a great number of Germans, who on dry ground might have made good their escape or would have been quickly rounded up and taken, were killed in the blind scattered fighting which went on amid the swamps and flooded shell-holes. The concrete “pill-boxes”, on which the German defence now chiefly depends, while sometimes enabling the defenders to hold out for a long time, are also often mere traps to their garrisons, because, being isolated as they are, our men push round and encircle them and either kill the garrison within or compel it to surrender. One case occurred in this fighting where such a post held out until one man with a Lewis gun crept up and got the muzzle of the gun to a loophole and played into the interior, when 20 men surrendered. Another similarly isolated fortress was smoked out - that is to say, it was resisting, and we had encircled it when flames and smoke broke out from it, either from our fire or by accident, and immediately the white flag was hoisted.
GUNS EMBEDDED IN MUD
We have found in advancing across the Steenbeek quite a number of German guns embedded in the mud. The Germans could not remove them, nor are we attempting to at the moment. How many these will amount to is unknown, but six have been reported from one place and seven from another. These guns have been abandoned and useless since the attack of July 31. With them also are a much larger number of machine guns and quantities of ammunition and other stores, which in his retirement the enemy was quite unable to get out of the slime and sloughs in which they were stuck.
Much of these abandoned spoils has been captured by the French on the extreme left of the attack, who have done magnificently. The cooperation between them and the English troops on their right has been perfect. The French attack was admirably planned and executed, and they won their success at an extraordinarily light cost in killed and wounded, the number of prisoners they took being actually in excess of their total casualties of all kinds. The work of the French artillery was such as to evoke the very highest praise from our gunners. By all accounts their barrage was perfect and their counter-battery work equally fine. They seem to have attained and held complete mastery of the German batteries, whose share in the battle on this part of the front has been almost negligible. The French airmen, similarly, had complete supremacy in the air yesterday, patrolling ahead of their infantry at heights generally below 1,000ft, and absolutely keeping off all interference from, or observation of, enemy aeroplanes.
The French engineers seem to have done equally well, their work in bridging and pushing roads up through the unspeakable slush being extraordinarily good. That the French infantry has shown the greatest gallantry in the advance it is superfluous to say. In all departments, in fact, the French have been model Allies. Nothing could be more cordial than the relations between the two Armies, each, I believe, having the utmost respect and admiration for what the other has done.
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A cruise in a tank
It was my first trip on something approaching battle ground inside a Tank, and it has immensely increased my admiration for them and for the men who go down in them to battle
August 25, 1917
The weather continues to be unsettled, with occasional showers and high wind and a haze, making air work difficult. No considerable and definite infantry movement has taken place on the Ypres or Lens front, though local fighting continues in several places. The struggle which I spoke of yesterday about the heap or crassier adjoining the railway yards - which the communique has spoken of as the Green Crassier - was particularly severe, and at the time of writing this the exact position is confused, but it is evident that we have again penetrated some distance into the enemy’s defences. I spent a large part of yesterday with another correspondent in a Tank helping in the salvage of a crippled sister Tank from the crater area. Let us call them the good ships Greville and Gibraltar - which are not their names. Both, though splashed with bullet marks from recent fighting, were stanch and sound, but Gibraltar unhappily had had an accident to her steering gear, so that while she could go straight ahead she refused to obey her helm. Having gone straight ahead as far as such a course would take her on the road towards home, she had to heave to and wait for help. And today Greville hitched on with a 3in steel hawser, and with this assistance, both being under their own steam, the crippled ship got safely into port.
THE BATTERED CANAL BANKS
It was an interesting ride, for after the stretch of shell-ploughed ground we had to cross the Ypres Canal. Three years of war have made the Canal a sad sight, with its battered banks, surmounted here and there with ragged shreds of trees where once was a long leafy avenue. The Canal itself is cut up into small sections by a great many bridges and causeways and crossings, so numerous that it is not worthwhile for the Germans to shell any of them. Between these obstacles a short stretch of the Canal lies stagnant, half overgrown with reeds and covered with green scum, with all sorts of ugly debris thrusting up from the mud below. It is an unlovely waterway, and it is an amazing fact that Tanks can now unconcernedly tow other Tanks across it by the newly-made causeways in broad daylight.
Then we came by what had once been a country lane, where Gibraltar in some of her ungainly veerings took liberties with the remnants of the hedgerow trees. Then there was open meadow land, somewhat shell-pitted, but still green, with patches of thistles in their down and clumps of ragwort. We ignored the shell-holes and made a sad mess of the ragwort and thistles. At a bit of swampy land the monsters became amphibious and churned their way through mud and water with as little trouble as would a dogcart on macadam.
It was my first trip on something approaching battle ground inside a Tank, and it has immensely increased my admiration for them and for the men who go down in them to battle. For a summer outing a man might reasonably prefer a caravan, for they are not luxuriously appointed. But the manageability of the great beasts is wonderful, and they waddled together yesterday in nonchalance over shell-holes and hummocks and things which would make any caravan shed its tires in horror.
Happily, on the Tanks’ route home there was only one light railway line to cross, for the Railway Operations Department out here is touchy about its railways, and the only way that a Tank can cross one, except at legitimate places, is by having the rails pulled up before it and put down again afterwards. It spoils the looks of little things like railway lines badly. As we were about to start a German aeroplane came rather impudently overhead and seemed to look at us. One of our own airmen came along and the enemy made for home, but we hoped that when he got there he would not tell his guns there was Tank salving going on and the exact place where. Apparently he did not, for apart from the noise of the guns it was a peaceful and very nove, if jolty, summer ride.
BEAUTY IN RUIN
Having left our Tank in safe waters we visited poor Ypres, which grows more battered and sadder in its beauty every day - literally every day, for there is never a day when the German does not shell its ruins, and there has not been for some 900 days or so. Pathetic are the silence and emptiness of the streets, now mere wide spaces which run straight between shapeless piles of ruins, where nothing moves except where, here and there, smoke rises slowly from fires caused by yesterday’s or this morning’s shelling. Rarely have I seen a more beautiful sight than the jagged ruins of the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral were today. There were thunder-clouds about, and in the weird half-sunlight of a thundery afternoon against the blue sky the ruins stood up white, with a translucent purity, unmatchable, I think, except by the Parthenon in moonlight. I know nothing else to which to compare their frail, tender loveliness. And as I write, the Germans are undoubtedly shelling the place again, mangling once more the fair body which they seem to hate so much for its very fairness.
THE BATTERED CANAL BANKS
It was an interesting ride, for after the stretch of shell-ploughed ground we had to cross the Ypres Canal. Three years of war have made the Canal a sad sight, with its battered banks, surmounted here and there with ragged shreds of trees where once was a long leafy avenue. The Canal itself is cut up into small sections by a great many bridges and causeways and crossings, so numerous that it is not worthwhile for the Germans to shell any of them. Between these obstacles a short stretch of the Canal lies stagnant, half overgrown with reeds and covered with green scum, with all sorts of ugly debris thrusting up from the mud below. It is an unlovely waterway, and it is an amazing fact that Tanks can now unconcernedly tow other Tanks across it by the newly-made causeways in broad daylight.
Then we came by what had once been a country lane, where Gibraltar in some of her ungainly veerings took liberties with the remnants of the hedgerow trees. Then there was open meadow land, somewhat shell-pitted, but still green, with patches of thistles in their down and clumps of ragwort. We ignored the shell-holes and made a sad mess of the ragwort and thistles. At a bit of swampy land the monsters became amphibious and churned their way through mud and water with as little trouble as would a dogcart on macadam.
It was my first trip on something approaching battle ground inside a Tank, and it has immensely increased my admiration for them and for the men who go down in them to battle. For a summer outing a man might reasonably prefer a caravan, for they are not luxuriously appointed. But the manageability of the great beasts is wonderful, and they waddled together yesterday in nonchalance over shell-holes and hummocks and things which would make any caravan shed its tires in horror.
Happily, on the Tanks’ route home there was only one light railway line to cross, for the Railway Operations Department out here is touchy about its railways, and the only way that a Tank can cross one, except at legitimate places, is by having the rails pulled up before it and put down again afterwards. It spoils the looks of little things like railway lines badly. As we were about to start a German aeroplane came rather impudently overhead and seemed to look at us. One of our own airmen came along and the enemy made for home, but we hoped that when he got there he would not tell his guns there was Tank salving going on and the exact place where. Apparently he did not, for apart from the noise of the guns it was a peaceful and very nove, if jolty, summer ride.
BEAUTY IN RUIN
Having left our Tank in safe waters we visited poor Ypres, which grows more battered and sadder in its beauty every day - literally every day, for there is never a day when the German does not shell its ruins, and there has not been for some 900 days or so. Pathetic are the silence and emptiness of the streets, now mere wide spaces which run straight between shapeless piles of ruins, where nothing moves except where, here and there, smoke rises slowly from fires caused by yesterday’s or this morning’s shelling. Rarely have I seen a more beautiful sight than the jagged ruins of the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral were today. There were thunder-clouds about, and in the weird half-sunlight of a thundery afternoon against the blue sky the ruins stood up white, with a translucent purity, unmatchable, I think, except by the Parthenon in moonlight. I know nothing else to which to compare their frail, tender loveliness. And as I write, the Germans are undoubtedly shelling the place again, mangling once more the fair body which they seem to hate so much for its very fairness.
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