The Times History of the War - The Allied advance continued, October 1918

The Allied advance continued, October 1918

This week's chapter examines the position at the beginning of OCtober 1918, the Beaurevoir-Fonsomme line attacked, October 3, American progress in the Argonne, Gouraud's success at Moronvillers, Reims freed, great British attack of October 8 between Cambrai and St Quentin, the fall of Cambrai, Germans evacuate the St Gobain Salient, German stand on the Selle, Le Cateau stormed, the enemy defeated in Champagne, La Fere and Laon taken, Americans reach Grand Pre, Allied offensive in Flanders under King Albert, Roulers taken, the Lys crossed, war in the air

The enemy's discipline was fast deteriorating, as had been revealed by an intercepted order from the Kaiser's Adjutant General to the German Army: "His Majesty the Kaiser," it ran, "is displeased to note that when he is passing through villages, along roads, by a railway crossing, and so forth, the troops fail to pay him the necessary respect, and the inhabitants fail to greet him in the proper way by removing their headgear. This must be seen to."

Read the full story

The right answer to Germany October 9, 1918

Let it never be said again that the British Army is admirable only in defence and has not the spirit of attack

Read the full story The news from France is the best of all answers to the German Note. Both on the western and on the eastern battle-fronts the Allied attacks were renewed yesterday morning. On the western front the attack covered the space of nearly twenty miles between Cambrai and St Quentin, and made a further progress of between two and three miles - greater in the centre than on the flanks - on a part of the enemy’s line where his defences had already been ruptured. The centre of our advance is now approaching Le Cateau, the scene of General Smith Dorriens severe, and perhaps unnecessary, engagement on the third day of the retreat from Mons. French, American, and British troops all took part in this new advance. On the east the French and Americans attacked down the right bank of the Meuse, and, though details are still lacking, made good progress towards the north. In addition, General Gouraud, continuing his advance in Champagne, crossed the Arnes and turned the enemy’s positions along the Suippe River from the eastern end. One cannot but marvel at the energy of these repeated attacks and the magnificent scope of the strategic plan that they unfold. And one may be pardoned for expressing especial admiration for the vigour and endurance of our own Army, which has been engaged in practically continuous fighting on this Western front ever since the opening of the Somme offensive in July, 1916. Except for the retreat in the spring of this year, the whole of this fighting has been in the attack. Let it never be said again that the British Army is admirable only in defence and has not the spirit of attack. On the contrary, though the record of the French Army is in some respects even more wonderful, there is no Army - not even the German - that has achieved so long and so sustained an offensive. For an Army that really did not exist on a Continental scale until the year before last this is an achievement that is still not appreciated here at its full value. It is not altogether out of French politeness that our Allies rute it higher than we sometimes seem to do.

But even more remarkable than the duration of the offensive is the strategic splendour of its plan. Nothing that the Germans did even in their first campaign in France or on the Russian front later can approach it. The metaphor of the pincers is familiar and intelligible, but never was there anything in war to compare with the strategic mechanism, elaborate but never complicated, of Marshal Foch’s pincers. You have enveloping movements one within the other. Inside you have the envelopment of the German centre in progress in the combined operations north of St Quentin on the one hand and on the Chemin des Dames on the other. Then you have on the western arm of the pincers the enveloping movement against Lille, and on the eastern arm the combined movements of French and Americans in Champagne and the Argonne against Vouziers and the Defile of Grand Pre. Lastly, still farther out, you have the great enveloping movements, still rudimentary, out from Ypres and down the Meuse. The bigness of the design is now apparent. How big it is may be gathered from the reflection that the great offensives reported today - the movements that threaten the German centre in the Laon-Le Fere hills, and the movement in that eastern section north of Verdun which perhaps promises the most decisive results of all - are only three out of many cogwheels in this vast machinery of constriction.

These renewed attacks, then, are our reply to the German request for an armistice, and a reply that expresses the sentiment of armies and civilians alike. But, however successful our attacks, they cannot in one respect be a complete answer to the German peace offensive. The enemy’s retreat will be through the country of our Allies, and if we may judge by what has happened at Douai, at Lens, and at Laon, hie means to go out with arson as he came in with assault and battery. Even that does not quite plumb the depravity of the enemy’s conduct, for he has made this policy of unmilitary destruction and devastation a part of his peace propaganda - as who should say, Give me the advantages of a truce, or I will burn and destroy everything in my retreat. It is a species of blackmail, both cruel and mean. Now, no military success can quite combat the enemy’s power if he wishes to commit outrage of this kind; and (unless indeed we were able to prevent the enemy from retreating at all, and to accomplish some comprehensive Sedan in the heart of’ the territories that he at present occupies) we are faced with the prospect of marching to victory over the blackened ruin of all that civilization has achieved in beauty or utility.

For special crimes special punishments have to be devised. This barbarous destruction must be made demonstrably unprofitable, and that in a currency of punishment that even the coarsest minds cannot fail to understand. If the enemy destroys cities in France and Belgium, then cities in Germany must suffer the penalty. Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, town for town.

The Allies must protect themselves from the purely wanton forms of wickedness. General threats of reprisals do not seem to us to meet the situation. They should be specific in their nature, and should be relentlessly carried out should the enemy’s malpractices continue after notice has been given. If Bruges is destroyed, either by the enemy’s arson or as the result of a hopeless defence, then Hamburg must pay; if Lille, then Frankfurt. The payment need not necessarily take the same form as the crime, but the Germans quite understand the practice of taking hostages for good behaviour. German towns must be marked down for ransom for French and Belgian towns destroyed apart from military necessity.

100 Years Ago

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november 3, 1917

Heroic story of Skipper Crisp, VC

The honours to naval officers and seamen include the posthumous award of the Victoria Cross to Skipper Thomas Crisp, RNR, of the smack Nelson, and the Distinguished Service Medal to his son, 2nd Hand Thomas William Crisp, RNR. The story of the bravery of Skipper Crisp was alluded to by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons last Monday as an illustration of the way in which British fishermen have faced the perils of the war.
The following is the official account of the action in which Skipper Crisp died; On an August afternoon, at about a quarter to 3 the trawl was shot from the smack Nelson and the smack was on the port tack. The skipper was below packing fish; one hand was on deck cleaning fish for the next morning’s breakfast, and then the skipper came on deck, saw an object on the horizon, examined it closely, and sent for his glasses. Almost directly he sang out, “Clear for Action. Submarine.” He had scarcely spoken when a shot fell about a hundred yards away on the port bow. The motor man got to his motor, the deck hand dropped his fish and went to the ammunition room, the other hands let go the warp, the gunlayer held his fire until the skipper said, “It is no use waiting any longer — we will have to let them have it.”

In the distance the submarine sent shell after shell at the smack, and about the fourth shot the shell went through the port bow just below the waterline, and the skipper shoved her round. The seventh shell struck the skipper, passed through his side, through the deck, and cut through the side of the ship. The second hand at once took charge of the tiller. All the time water was pouring into the ship, and she was sinking.
The gunlayer went to the skipper to render first aid, but it was obvious that he was mortally wounded. “It’s all right, boy, do your best,” said the skipper, and then, to the second hand, “Send a message off.” This was the message: “Nelson being attacked by submarine. Skipper killed. Send assistance at once.” The smack was sinking and only five rounds of ammunition were left, and the second hand heard the skipper say, “Abandon ship. Throw the books overboard.” He was asked if they should lift him into the boat, but he said, “Tom, I’m done, throw me overboard.” He was too badly injured to be moved, and they left him and took to the small boat. A quarter of an hour afterwards the Nelson went down by the head. The second hand, who took charge of the tiller after the skipper was shot, was his son.

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/a-country-seat-for-prime-ministers-pgs75shkz

october 5, 1917

A country seat for prime ministers

A highly interesting and important gift to the nation is announced today by which the estate of Chequers, situated in one of the choicest parts of the Chilterns, will become the official country residence of the future Prime Ministers of England. It has been decided by the present owners of Chequers, Sir Arthur and Lady Lee, to transfer the estate forthwith in trust to the nation to be used and maintained, after their deaths, in perpetuity for the Prime Minister in his official capacity. Mr Lloyd George has accepted the gift in the name of his successors.
In a memorandum setting forth the object of the gift Sir Arthur Lee speaks of Chequers as an inspiring residence for its intended occupants “in their strenuous and responsible labours”. A sufficient endowment is provided to cover a permanent nucleus staff of servants, as well as a residential allowance for the official occupant. A board of ex officio trustees is constituted, consisting of the Prime Minister, the Speaker, the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the President of the Board of Agriculture, the First Commissioner of Works, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Trust, and the Director of the National Gallery. The idea of the donors is to make the estate in every way attractive as a country seat. A sufficient sum will be allotted from the trust fund to maintain the gardens and grounds, and provision is made for the maintenance of the farms as a model or experimental farm. The contents of the house go with it. They comprise a well-known collection of Cromwellian portraits and relics; a library of valuable books, chiefly of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and mostly in their original bindings; a collection of pictures by various masters, and papers and manuscripts of historical interest, British and foreign.
Chequers has a long and unbroken history and many Parliamentary associations. It derives its name from the title of the Keeper of the King’s Exchequer under Henry I and the mansion, which has been carefully restored by the donors, is partly of Tudor and partly of Elizabethan origin. It was for years the home of descendants in the female line of Oliver Cromwell. It lies high, its situation is salubrious, and it is less than 40 miles from Downing Street.

100 Years Ago

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september 28, 1917

The fresh advance in Belgium

Although in the last two or three days the fighting in Belgium has probably been fiercer than at any period in that area since the first battle of Ypres, the renewal of the struggle has resulted in valuable progress. Our attack on Wednesday morning was made on a front of six miles, from Tower Hamlets to the ground east of St Julien, and it met with substantial success. Just north of the Ypres-Menin road English and Scottish battalions had some of the hardest fighting, for after they had attained their objective the Germans counter-attacked repeatedly until night fell. In last night’s bulletin Sir Douglas Haig says there were seven such counter-attacks.
On the whole, it was a fine and satisfactory day’s fighting, and it brings us much nearer the completion of the task of clearing the last of the ridges. There is more in all this stubborn fighting than the relation of local successes may seem to imply. The best evidence of the stake involved is found in the determination with which the enemy are resisting our advance. They know very well the kind of winter they are likely to spend in the flat plains beyond the ridges, and we know it even better, for our troops stood for three trying winters in the low ground around Ypres.
The enemy will not yield lightly, and there is more desperate work ahead. The Germans are throwing in their reserves with a recklessness which suggests that they are drawing freely on their Russian front. Some of the public are, we gather, puzzled by the frequency and violence of the counter-attacks, in view of assertions that the German rank and file show signs of deterioration. The explanation is fairly simple. About a third of the German forces are probably as good material as any we have yet encountered. These are the stout men who hold most of the “pill-boxes”, and who are thrown in when a counter-attack is delivered. The rest of the enemy’s troops are of inferior quality, and they are the units who so often surrender or break before the impetuous onslaught of our regiments.
So long as the Germans, from whatever cause, can maintain such resolute opposition as they are showing this week, we must continue to take them seriously, and not jump to the conclusion that they are at the end of their resources.

100 Years Ago - Passchendaele 2

STRETCHER-BEARER PARTY COMING THROUGH THE MUD

A DUCKBOARD TRACK THROUGH THE WATERLOGGED GROUND

NORTH-COUNTRY TROOPS AWAITING IN RESERVE TRENCHES THE ORDER TO ATTACK VELDHOEK

YORKSHIRES MOVING UP IN THE TWILIGHT


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Ypres - 1917 and 1914

The struggle for the ridges is assuredly not yet over. We have still to eject the Germans from the villages of Gheluvelt and Becelaere and Passchendaele

October 8, 1917

The successes won in the Battle of Broodseinde on Thursday have proved to be solid and enduring, and the enemy have not recovered any portion of the valuable positions which were torn from them. They have not seriously tried to do so. Since their unsuccessful counter-attacks near Gravenstafel and north-east of Langemarck, and also south-east of Polygon Wood, on the afternoon of the battle, the German infantry have remained inactive.
It is refreshing to hear of a British raid “south-east of Broodseinde” on Saturday night, because it means “the other side of the hill”. Nevertheless if the enemy’s infantry are quiet, their guns are busy enough. They are pouring shells upon our new positions on the ridge from Broodseinde southwards, by night and by day, and a strong artillery duel is evidently in progress.
The struggle for the ridges is assuredly not yet over. We have still to eject the Germans from the villages of Gheluvelt and Becelaere and Passchendaele, as well as from the Keiberg spur, east of Broodseinde. The isolated “heights” of Zandvoorde and Kruiseecke and Moorslede have also to be reckoned with, and will doubtless receive attention at the right moment. If the weather is favourable there will probably be further heavy fighting, because every yard now relinquished by the enemy adds to the ultimate peril of their western front.
On the Somme and beyond Arras they could make fresh lines in their rear with some amount of confidence, but in West Flanders they have to think constantly of the thirty miles of coast on which their whole position in the West very largely depends. Since July 31 they have been steadily driven from the ridges on which their defensive operations rest, and we are glad to note the new and general recognition that here, as in nearly every other theatre of the war, the bulk of the work has been done by English troops.
The enemy have for some time been engaged in spreading the ridiculous fiction that the English have left the Scots and the Irish and the rest of the Empire to do the fighting. The omissions in the official reports have tended in the past to give currency to this preposterous slander. An official return just published explodes it altogether. Of the troops engaged in these great operations on the Ypres front 70 per cent are English, 16 per cent are from overseas, 8 per cent are Scots, and 6 per cent are Irish. As to casualties, the English have had even more than their share. The proportions are: English, 76 per cent; Oversea, 8 per cent; Scottish, 10 per cent; and Irish, 6 per cent. The fact is that the purely English contribution in manpower (and in money) in this war has been so greatly preponderant and all-pervasive that almost insensibly it became the complimentary custom to dwell chiefly upon the achievements of the other nations which make up the Empire. The share of the English was taken for granted.

Nor should it be forgotten that these low ridges on which our troops are fighting are already hallowed ground to the old British Army, as they will also be consecrated henceforth in the eyes of Australia and New Zealand, of Canada and Newfoundland. On these very slopes fifty thousand men of the original Expeditionary Force laid down their lives or were wounded in the epic conflict of October, 1914. The German plan was shattered at the Marne, but if the first Battle of Ypres had not been afterwards won the Marne would have been fought in vain. To France belongs the chief glory of the Marne, to Great Britain the deathless pride of Ypres - but to both nations the two victories are a common heritage, for if the little British Army joined in the immortal advance at the Marne, French units were flung into the strife around Ypres, and French artillery helped to stem the tide of the German invasion.

We were fighting in those days, as now, for an issue which directly concerned both countries in almost equal degree. Had the Germans broken the line and reached Boulogne, Paris would once more have been endangered and the war in the west might have taken a different course; while the use which the Germans have made of the Belgian coast shows quite clearly how deep would have been the menace to Great Britain if the French Channel ports had gone. The two successive Commanders in Chief upon the Western front share in the renown of those great days. It was Lord French who made the desperate decision to leave the rest of his weak line unsupported, and to throw in the First Corps on the left of the battered Seventh Division in order to prevent his flank from being turned. It was Sir Douglas Haig who struck with the First Corps towards Passchendaele and Poelcappelle, and stanchly held the line from Gheluvelt through Zonnebeke and beyond, the very ground where he is fighting now; and it was he who dammed the flood and broke the final attack of the Prussian Guard north of the Menin road.
The world still knows far too little about the first battle of Ypres, in which British forces which never numbered more than 150,000 men, helped by unconquerable French troops and by the Belgians on the coast defeated, in a conflict which lasted for many days, an army of over 600,000 Germans. The critical day, when for a few hours it seemed as though the Germans must break through, was October 31, 1914, a day on which the British Empire was in greater peril than it has ever been before or since. How many people know the story of the 2nd Worcesters, who filled the hole in the dyke at Gheluvelt at a moment when all seemed lost? How many have heard of Brigadier-General FitzClarence, killed twelve days afterwards, “the man who turned the tide” by ordering on his own responsibility the attack by the Worcesters which saved the line? The story of Ypres is full of such episodes. Even India had a share in it, and the adventures of the Ferozepore Brigade are as marvellous as the rest.
Is it not time that the country did something to bear annually in remembrance the deeds of the heroes who in 1914 made Ypres a name which will shine forever in our history! The battle may be said to have lasted from October 21 to November 11, but the day of days, the day to commemorate with thanksgiving, is October 31. We agree with Lord Selborne, who said not a word too much when he declared at Birmingham last Wednesday that “the 31st of October, 1914, was the day of our fate, and not only of our Empire, but of the whole world.” Now that we are beginning at last to take notice of our national achievements, it is an anniversary which should be worthily celebrated.

100 років тому

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/a-smashing-blow-h6vzn8wms

september 21, 1917

A smashing blow

Today we have dealt the enemy another of those smashing blows which he must be coming to dread. The long period of preparation and suspense is over. We have struck, and, so far as can be seen at present, with shattering force and complete success. We did not seek to go far. The extreme depth to which we sought to penetrate was about one mile, but that mile we have overrun, and grasped, and hold. Already the enemy has been counter-attacking. He is counter-attacking now.
It is rash to prophesy, but I have been this morning where the wounded and prisoners were coming along the roads and have talked with some scores of our men, and victory is in the air. The advance included all that blood-soaked region along the Menin road with the dominating spur on the northern and southern slopes of which are Glencorse Wood and Inverness Copse and other high ground beyond. The Germans have, doubtless rightly, held this high ground to be the supreme strategic point in this section of the front, and been willing to make any sacrifice to hold that one commanding point. Here it is that they have flung no less than 16 divisions, all of which have utterly failed to drive us back. We in these last seven weeks have made no, or very little, progress, but we started this morning from slightly in advance of the line to which we won on the first attack, and no praise can be too high for the English troops who have held that ground through these last 50 days. while behind them was maturing the blow which we have just delivered.
The attack was delivered shortly before 6 o’clock this morning. After a bright but windy day yesterday, clouds blew up in the afternoon, and about 9 o’clock it began to rain. It seemed incredibly cruel that the rain should interfere with our attack, and happily, though it rained more or less all night, the ground was surface-dry and no great harm was done. The rain stopped before the hour of attack, though the sky remained black and overcast, so that it was darker than it ought to have been, and none too easy going among the shell-holes. All shell-holes are full of water. Every man I saw was coated with mud, some only to the knees, but many to their very throats, and it is to be feared that some wounded must slip into the holes and never get out again.

100 Years Ago - Passchendaele

TELEPHONE EXCHANGE WITHIN 500 YARDS OF THE GERMANS.

For transmitting orders from observation officers to batteries

THE ADVANCED LINE: ZONNEBEKE IN THE DISTANCE

MULES CARRYING WATER OVER CORDUROY TRACKS THROUGH BOGGY LAND

OFF TO CLEAH. UP THE FLOODED ROADS


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A smashing blow

Every man I saw was coated with mud, some only to the knees, but many to their very throats, and it is to be feared that some wounded must slip into the holes and never get out again

September 21, 1917

Today we have dealt the enemy another of those smashing blows which he must be coming so thoroughly to dread. The long period of waiting, of preparation, and of suspense is over. We have struck, and, so far as can he seen at present, with shattering force and complete success. We did not seek to go far. The extreme depth to which we sought to penetrate was about one mile, but that mile we have overrun, and grasped, and hold. Already the enemy has been counter-attacking. He is counter-attacking now: and will go on, and the more he counter-attacks the better we shall be pleased.
It is rash to prophesy, but I have been this morning where the wounded and the prisoners were coming along the roads and have talked with some scores of our men, and victory is in the air. We have seized what we aimed to seize, and what we have won we shall hold. The advance included as the heart of the attack all that blood-soaked region along the Menin road with the dominating spur on the northern and southern slopes of which are Glencorse Wood and Inverness Copse and other high ground beyond.
You already know how the Germans have, and doubtless rightly, held this high ground here to be the supreme strategic point in all this section of the front. As their way is, they have been willing to make any sacrifice to hold that one commanding point. Here it is that, as I have told you before, they have flung no less than 16 divisions. All their divisions have utterly failed to drive us back. We in these last seven weeks have made no, or very little, progress, but we started this morning from slightly in advance of the line to which we won on the first attack, and no praise can be too high for the English troops who have held that ground through these last 50 days. while behind them was maturing the blow which we have just delivered.
STUBBORNLY CONTESTED GROUND.
Since the middle of August alone, on a narrow front here, besides constant minor skirmishes and continuous shelling, the Germans have made seven formal attacks, in which some 24 battalions have been used, and used up. The ground which we have won today was in places literally heaped with their dead. By far the majority of our wounded today were walking cases, and they were the most hilarious and jubilant lot of wounded that I ever saw. Not one of them but knew that the attack, as far as he was able to stay with it, had gone as one man said, “like a blinking charm,” and all knew that when they could no longer follow they had seen our men go romping on. All alike shouted with laughter as they told of the Germans surrendering (”not knowing whether to dance or stand on their heads,” said one) as they streamed out of their concrete shelters.
Today’s operation was on a wide front. Along the Menin road itself we have pushed through lnverness Copse, some 100 yards to the east of it, and on the high ground about halfway to Gueluvelt. North of here we are in the western side of Polygon Wood. Above here again our men swept over all that hideous country studded with fortified farms and concrete redoubts to nearly a mile due east of Frezenberg. This region is crowded with fortresses, which have swept all the ground before our line with their machine-guns, and the garrisons of all those fortresses are now either dead or prisoners in our hands.
Premen and Zonnebeke Redoubts, Schuler Farm, Iberian Farm, Beck House, Borry Farm, Vampire Farm, and Potsdam Redoubt, each one of these with many more have been the scene of fierce action today. Farther south we have rushed all the dreadful country about Dumbarton Lake and Shrewsbury Forest. There is not one of these names which will not be famous in the histories of this war.
It is early yet to make a full category of our gains, but they are ample. How many prisoners we have taken it is impossible to say. I have seen some two or three hundred of the 7th, 60th, 56th, and 15th Regiments from the north and centre of the attack, and of the 19th, 6th, and 395th from farther south. These, however, were only the advance guards, and by tonight they will surely be nearer 4,000 than 200. And everywhere our men were confident that the enemy casualties had been very heavy, while ours, as always in the most successful attacks, were not. The German defence was almost entirely machine-gun defence from concrete fortifications, and, as experience has abundantly shown, the proportion of serious wounds among machine- gun casualties is always small.
MEN’S STORIES.
One sergeant with a tattered band told as a huge joke against himself how when a “pill-box” would not surrender he had slipped up by crawling on his stomach and slipped a bomb through the orifice. “But they sent my hand out quicker than I wanted,” he said, for a machine-gun bullet had torn a finger away. Another man had climbed on top of the pill-box and was sliding down the roof on the other side as the shortest way to reach the back door when a bullet from some unseen place caught him in the shoulder. He seemed to think it funny. Another told how, right at the start, he had been buried by a shell and, according to his tale, he had lain for three hours, being alternately buried and unburied by following shells. He thought 300 shells had fallen within 20 yards. (You cannot help these exaggerations.) But “Lord, Sir, the beggars just could not hit me.” When congratulated on his luck he said, “Luck! Well, I should say I’ve been wounded five times already in this war [which was true] and they can’t kill me.”
Men of one battalion were joyfully proud to tell how they had been led clear through by their colonel. Two Germans were running away along the railway line, and the colonel took a rifle from a man and “dropped ‘em both as pretty as you ever saw.” Those men were evidently proud of their colonel, who, said one, “was still going when I left all right.” One hopes he is going yet, to get the honour which he deserves.
A man who is fairly new to this front, having served in the German South-East African Campaign, had his life saved by his pocket-knife, which he carried most illegitimately in his gasmask slung on his chest. The knife was dented nearly double, and he opined that in hospital (for he had another bullet in his arm, of which he thought little) they could take his watch, or his money, or anything they pleased from him, but they were not going to have that little souvenir knife.
But one can tell as many tales as one pleases about these men, and nothing will ever give the real picture of their courage, their temper, and the stoutness of their hearts.
THE ATTACK
The attack was delivered shortly before 6 o’clock this morning. After a bright but windy day yesterday, clouds blew up in the afternoon, and about 9 o’clock at night it began to rain. It seemed incredibly cruel that the rain should interfere with our attack, and happily, though it rained more or less all night, the ground was surface-dry and no great harm was done. The rain stopped before the hour of attack, though the sky remained black and overcast, so that it was darker than it ought to have been, and none too easy going among the shell-holes. All shell-holes are full of water. Every man I saw was coated with mud, some only to the knees, but many to their very throats, and it is to be feared that some wounded must slip into the holes and never get out again.
The ground was worst among the woods, where the fighting had already been savage and the shelling very heavy, but everywhere it was hard travelling. Yet, in spite of it, the attack at every point swept on even faster than the anticipated time, so that our foremost positions were seized and firmly held before 10 o’clock this morning. All the men speak in terms of the utmost admiration of our artillery work, both before and during the attack.
In my message yesterday I hinted as much as discretion would allow at the splendid work our guns have done during the last five or six days, so that by hurricane counter-battery work and with gas shells they had fairly smothered the enemy’s guns wherever they could be reached, which was in as few places as the enemy could manage. The result was that, while our preliminary bombardment this morning was terrific and the barrage behind which our men advanced most admirable, the German artillery reply was generally feeble. We know that he was not entirely surprised. Prisoners tell us that at one point in his lines a regimental order came down at one o’clock this morning that an attack was imminent. About that time, or a little later, he shelled parts of our line fairly heavily, but with little effect, and when the time came our men went over in the grey dawn in splendid spirits. Our aeroplanes have during the last few days done magnificent work, and their observation during the battle, in spite of the thick air in the earlier part of the day, has been very good. A curious story comes of a new German trick of camouflaging, or somehow disguising, their aeroplanes so as to be almost invisible.
DOG MESSENGER’S MESSAGE
A detail of the battle is that this morning we caught a German dog messenger with a message tied round its neck, with instructions to the guns to prepare to cover a counter-attack. At the last reports one counter-attack had been delivered on part of the line, and had been repulsed, and elsewhere the enemy troops were massing anew. Though our men were irresistible, and tell most comic tales of the terror of the Germans when they surrendered, yet it is evident that at many places the enemy fought in his concrete shelters to the very last. Many concrete pill-boxes were found shattered by our big shells, but only a direct hit from the largest guns, 12in or upwards, is effective.
The great majority of shelters survive the bombardment. The German now has these shelters grouped in geometric patterns making strong fortified positions. As for instance seven pillboxes in two parallel lines of three, each running straight away from our advance lith one midway in the middle. This was intended to prevent our men from going round and reducing them from the rear, but it is only a question of going a little farther round and these clusters are reduced en bloc, and in cases which I heard of this morning from ten to twenty prisoners came from each.
I heard many stories of very young prisoners not more than 16 years old, but I saw none. Those I saw were all mature, especially the Prussians, though they were not first-class material.
It is too early yet to mention individual troops engaged in the attack, but they were from all parts of the British Isles, with some oversea contingents, and they have all done magnificently. The preparations for the attack and our information as to the enemy troops appear to have been beyond criticism, and at the moment the victory seems complete.

100 Years Ago - Belgium

BELGIANS COMPELLED BY THE GERMANS TO DIG TRENCHES MONSTER PRISONERS' CAMP: FRENCH AND BELGIAN PRISONERS EMPLOYED TO DRAW WAGGONS A GERMAN PICTURE OF THE CAMP HOSPITAL AT SOLTAU BELGIAN REFUGEES RETURNING FROM HOLLAND TO ANTWERP UNDER THE GERMAN GUARANTEES OF IMMUNITY, WHICH PROVED WORTHLESS


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/slave-raids-in-belgium-wzxl5xcgz?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1399025

Slave raids in Belgium

Along the railway line scraps of paper thrown out by the prisoners have been picked up. They bear the words: The young men of X and the surrounding villages have been captured.

November 8, 1916

The following information, which is of an absolutely trustworthy character, has reached us from various sources in regard to a system of slave raiding which has been put into force during the last six weeks by the German authorities in Belgian Flanders.
Since the beginning of October the two Provinces of Belgian Flanders have been the scene of tragic outrages upon the civil population. These provinces are in the Army zone, and are thus subject to the military authority, whereas the rest of Belgium under German occupation is subject to the civil administration, of which Baron von Bissing is the head. On October 3, a decree was placarded in the towns and villages of the region reproducing a decision of German Headquarters which conferred upon the military authorities the power to compel, by force if necessary, all non-invalids dependent for their livelihood upon others to undertake work away from their homes. The decree was directed against the unemployed of all classes, and especially against the men thrown out of work by thc closing of factories after the German seizures of all raw materials. These men, deprived of means of subsistence, became dependent for their food upon the local municipal authorities. The publication of the decree was quickly followed by a notice warning all persons concerned to present themselves, on a given day and hour, at places named. and to come furnished with articles of kit that were minutely specified. Failure to comply with the notice rendered absentees liable to heavy fines and imprisonment. Simultaneously, the municipal administrations, which alone possessed lists of the men who had been thrown out of work, were summoned to hand over the lists to the military authorities. They refused, as they were entitled to do, and were at once dispossessed and replaced by German military representatives. In some cases the municipal officials who had charge of the lists were brutally arrested and thrown into prison.
STARVED INTO SUBMISSION.
Not content with these arbitrary measures, the German authorities ordered the soldiery to round up workmen found in the streets and to drive them to a given spot. Here the captives were penned up like cattle. The most able-bodied among them were told off, shut up in barracks, and sent on the morrow, under military escort, to a part of Belgium where a military position was being prepared. Seeing that military work was required of them, these Flemish captives declined to do it. Thereupon they were imprisoned, and were kept without food of any kind until, in two or three days, hunger compelled them to submit. In one place, young men similarly collected were taken to camps near an aerodrome in course of construction. and compelled to perform military labour. In another place more than 2,000 men, rounded up haphazard, including many small tradesmen, were segregated and ordered to sign a German form of agreement to work in Germany.
The method was not identical in all places. In some towns the invalids, in others married men, were exempted. while the rest were told that they would only be employed on civil work and that they would be paid 3d a day. But the trains - made up of trucks open to wind and weather - in which these poor creatures were herded together, started for Germany and the North of France.

Each of these raids captured some 4,000 men. It w as literally slave raiding. Along the railway line scraps of paper thrown out by the prisoners have been picked up. They bear the words: The young men of X and the surrounding villages have been captured. The unmarried comrades of Y from the village of Z, from 18 to 30 years of age, are here together. We will never work for the Germans, and never sign their paper. Long live King Albert, Van T. and Dc R. from X were sent on October 10 to Germany, and arrived on October 20. If this note is found, please send it home to X.
During the passage of these long slave trains their unfortunate but undaunted occupants were heard singing the “Brabanconne” and “The Lion of Flanders.”