31 October, 1914
STOPPING THE PRUSSIANS
The Day the War was Nearly Lost
The date 31 October, I9I4, has been called by some the most critical day of the whole war. It was the day the Germans came within an ace of breaking the thin British line and smashing their way through to the Channel ports. The capture of these would have added immeasurably to the difficulties of the Allies. Private Polley, of the 2nd Battaliion, Bedfordshire Regiment, tells of his experience at that time. First there was the excitement of advance, then followed by the grim hours of defence.
The Germans tried to hack their way through to Calais, they were at first held and then hurled back. I am going to tell you something of the way in which this was done, for I belonged to the Bedfordshire Regiment, the old 16th Foot, and the Bedfords were part of the Glorious Seventh Division, and did their share in keeping back the German forces, which included the Prussian Guards, who at this time were being rushed up to this sector because it was thought that no troops could stand against them.
These idols of the German nation were picked men and brave fellows, and at that time had an absolute belief in their own invincibility; but events proved that they were no match for the British Guards and the rest of the British troops who fought them at Ypres.
For later these Prussian Guards from Berlin were literally mown down by our artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire, and were left lying dead in solid masses – walls of corpses. The Kaiser had planned to enter Ypres as a conqueror, at the head of his Guards; but he hurried off a beaten man, leaving his slaughtered Guards in heaps.
Originally in the 1st Battalion of the Bedfords, I later went into the 2nd, and I was serving with the 2nd in South Africa when the European War broke out. It is an interesting fact that nearly all the battalions which formed the Seventh Division came from foreign service – India, Egypt, Africa and elsewhere – which meant that many of the men of the Seventh had seen active service and were veteran fighters. They had not learned their warfare at peace manoeuvres in England.
A Prussian Guardsman – considered to be the Élite of the German Army sweeping through Belgium in 1914.
Our division consisted of the 1st Grenadier Guards, the 2nd Scots Guards, the 2nd Border, 2nd Gordon Highlanders, 2nd Bedfordshire, 2nd Yorkshire, 2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers, 2nd Wiltshire, 2nd Royal West Surrey, 2nd Royal Warwickshire, 1st Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1st South Staffordshire, and the Northumberland Hussars; and we had a pompom detachment and horse, field, and garrison artillery. We were under Major-General Sir T. Capper, D.S.O.
We had been sent to help the Naval Division at Antwerp, and early in October we landed at Zeebrugge – the only division to land at that port. But we were not there long, for we soon learned that we were too late, and that Antwerp had fallen. We were sorry, but there was no time for moping, and we were quickly on the move to the quaint old city of Bruges, where we were billeted for a night. Sir Harry Rawlinson had moved his headquarters from Bruges to Ostend, so next day we marched towards Ostend and took up outpost. Then we had a forced march back to Bruges, and from Bruges we started marching, but we did not know where we were going till we got to the city of Ypres.
So far we had not done any fighting.
We had been marching and marching, first to one place, then to another, constantly expecting to come into action, and very nearly doing so, for the Germans were swarming all over the countryside. We had to be content with being on outpost and guarding bridges, and so on – hard and necessary work, we knew; but we wanted something more thrilling, something bigger – and we eventually got it. There was practically only the Seventh Division available for anything that turned up. The Northumberland Hussars were able to give a very good account ol themselves, and were, I believe, the first Yeomanry corps to go into action.
The few Uhlans I saw while I was at the Front had been taken prisoners by these Hussars, who brought them in, lances and all. But there is very little to say about cavalry work; it was mostly a matter for the infantry, and, of course, the artillery. While we were around Ypres, waiting for the Germans to come and break through, we heard a good deal, indirectly, of what was going to happen to us and to England.
Major-General Sir Thompson Capper.
The marketplace of Thielt, north east of Ypres, Belgium. The 2nd Battalion Scots Guards pack the square, 12 October 1914.
The Germans had all sorts of monster guns, and with these they were going to bombard England across the narrow Channel when they got to the French coast, and they were going to work all sorts of miracles with their airships and aeroplanes. We soon heard, too, that the Kaiser himself was in the field; but the only effect of that information was to make us more keen to show what we could do. Truth to tell, we were far from being impressed by the presence of either the Kaiser or his vaunted Guards. We were in the best of spirits, and had a sublime belief in Sir John French and all his staff and our own officers.
It was on October 31 – which has been called the decisive day of the fight for Ypres, and which was certainly a most terrible day in every way – that the Seventh Division was ordered to attack the German position.
The weather was very fine, clear and sunny, and our spirits were in keeping with it. We were thankful to be on the move because we had had nearly three weeks in the trenches, and had been billeted in all sorts of queer places – above and below ground – under an everlasting shell fire, which became unendurable and was thoroughly nerve-destroying.
We knew what a desperate business the advance would be, because the Germans greatly outnumbered us, and they had planted vast numbers of guns. They had immense bodies of men in trenches, and in a large number of the houses and buildings which commanded the ground over which we had to advance, they had placed machine guns, with their villainous muzzles directed on us from bedroom windows and holes which had been knocked in walls.
A MOST TERRIBLE BUSINESS
From start to finish the advance was a terrible business – far more terrible than any words of mine can make you realize. The whole division was on the move, stretching along a big tract of country; but of course no man could see much of what was happening, except in his own immediate locality. Neither had he much chance of thinking about anything or anybody except himself, and then only in a numbed sort of way, because of the appalling din of the artillery on both sides, the crash of the guns and the explosions of the shells, with the ceaseless rattle of the rifles and the machine guns.
British infantry of the 7th Division on the march seen here consulting maps to determine where they are and where they are heading.
At the beginning the regiments kept fairly well together, but very soon we were all mixed up, and you could not tell what regiment a man belonged to, unless he wore a kilt; then you knew that, at any rate, he wasn’t a Bedford.
Some of us had our packs and full equipment. Others were without packs, having been compelled to throw them away. But there was not a man who had let his rifle go: that is the last thing of all to be parted from, it is the soldier’s very life. And every man had a big supply of ammunition, with plenty in reserve.
The General himself took part in the advance, and what he did was done by every other officer present. There was no difference between officer and man, and a thing to be specially noted was the fact that the officers got hold of rifles and blazed away as hard as any private soldier.
Never, during the whole of the war, had there been a more awful fire than that which we gave the Germans. Whenever we got the chance, we gave them what they call the ‘Englishman’s mad minute’ – that is, the dreadful fifteen rounds a minute rapid fire. We drove it into them and mowed them down. Many a soldier, when his own rifle was too hot to hold, threw it down and snatched the rifle of a dead or wounded comrade who had no further use for it, and with this fresh, cool weapon he continued the deadly work by which success could alone be won. I do not know what the German losses were, but I do know that I saw bodies lying around in solid masses, while we passed our own dead and wounded everywhere as we advanced. Where they fell they had to stay; it was impossible to do anything for them while the fighting continued.
The whole of the advance consisted of a series of what might be called ups and downs – a little rush, then a ‘bob down’. At most, no one rush carried us more than fifty yards; then we dropped out of sight as best we could, to get a breather and prepare for another dash. It was pretty open country, so that we were fully exposed to the German artillery and rifle fire, in addition to the hail from the machine guns in the neighbouring buildings. Here and there we found little woods and clumps of trees and bits of rising ground and ditches and hedges – and you may take it from me, that shelter of any sort was very welcome and freely used.
A remarkable feature of this striving to hide from the enemy’s fire was that it was almost impossible to escape from the shells and bullets for any appreciable time, for the simple reason that the Germans altered their range in the most wonderful manner. So surely as we got the shelter of a little wood or ditch, they seemed to have the distance almost instantly, and the range was so accurate that many a copse and ditch became a little graveyard in the course of that advance.
At one point as we went along I noticed a small ditch against a hedge. It was a dirty, uninviting ditch, deep in water; but it seemed to offer promising shelter, and so some officers and men made a rush for it, meaning to take cover. They had no sooner scrambled into the ditch and were thinking themselves comparatively safe than the Germans got the range of them with machine guns, and nearly the whole lot were annihilated. In this case, as in others, the enemy had been marvellously quick with their weapons, and had swept the ditch with bullets. I don’t know what happened to the fine fellows who had fallen. We had to leave them and continue the advance.
Reconnaissance force of the 2nd Scots Guards, October 1914.
German infantry and artillery moving up into the Ypres sector.
The forenoon passed, noon came, and the afternoon was with us; still the fighting went on, the guns on both sides crashing without cessation, and the machine guns and the rifles rattling on without a break. The air was filled with screaming, bursting shells and whistling bullets, and the ground was ploughed and torn everywhere. It was horrible beyond expression, yet it fired the blood in us, so that the only thing that mattered was to put the finish to the work, get up to the Germans, and rout them out of their positions.
At last, after endless spells of lying down and jumping up, we got near enough to make it possible to charge, and the order went round to get ready. We saw what big, fine fellows we had to tackle. Clearly now we could distinguish the enemy infantry, and a thing that particularly struck me just then was that their bayonets looked very cruel. The Germans wore cloth-covered brass helmets, and through the cloth we could see the gleam of the brass in the sunshine. The nearer we got, the more clearly we saw what splendid chaps they were, and what a desperate business it would be when we actually reached the long, snaky blades of steel – much longer than our own bayonets – with longer rifles, too, so that the Germans had the pull of us in every way. But all that counted as nothing, and there was not a man amongst us who was not hungering to be in amongst them.
A group of Prussian infantry pause for a photograph during the advance.
The order to fix bayonets came quietly, and was carried out without any fuss, just as a part of the day’s work. We were lying down when the order came, and as we lay we got round to our bayonets, drew them and fixed them and I could hear the rattle of the fixing all along the line, just as I had heard it many times on parade or at manoeuvres – the same sound, but now – with what a different purpose.
A few of the fellows did not fix their bayonets as we lay, but they managed to do it as we ran, when we had jumped up and started to rush along to put the finish to the fight. There was no bugle sound, we just got the word to charge, an order which was given to the entire Seventh Division.
When this last part of the advance arrived we started halloaing and shouting and the division simply hurled itself against the Prussian Guard. By the time we were up with the enemy we were mad. I can’t tell you much of what actually happened – and I don’t think any man who took part in it could do so – but I do know that we rushed helter-skelter, and that when we got up to the famous Guards there were only two of my own section holding together – Lance Corporal Perry and myself, and even we were parted immediately afterwards.
The next thing I clearly knew was that we were actually on the Prussians, and that there was some very fierce work going on. There was some terrific and deadly scrimmaging, and whatever the Prussian Guard did in the way of handling the steel, the Seventh Division did better.
It was every man for himself. I had rushed up with the rest, and the first thing I clearly knew was that a tremendous Prussian was making at me with his villainous bayonet. I made a lunge at him as hard and swift as I could, and he did the same to me. I thought I had him, but I just missed, and as I did so I saw his own long, ugly blade driven out at the end of his rifle. Before I could do anything to parry the thrust, the tip of the bayonet had ripped across my right thigh, and I honestly thought that it was all up with me.
Then, when I reckoned that my account was paid, when I supposed that the huge Prussian had it all his own way, one of our chaps – I don’t know who, (I don’t suppose I ever shall know, but I bless him) – rushed up and drove his bayonet into the Prussian and settled him. I am sure that if this had not been done I should have been killed by the Prussian; as it was, I was able to get away without much inconvenience at the end of the bayonet fight.
This struggle lasted about half an hour, and fierce, hard work it was all the time. In the end we drove the Guards away and sent them flying – all except those who had fallen; the trench was full of the latter, and we took no prisoners.
Then soon we were forced to retire ourselves, for the quite sufficient reason that we were not strong enough to hold the position that we had taken at such a heavy cost. The enemy did not know it then, though perhaps they found out later, that we had nicely deceived them in making them believe that we had reinforcements. But we had nothing of the sort; yet we had stormed and taken the position and driven its defenders away.
GROUND LITTERED WITH DEAD
We were far too weak to hold the position, and so we retired over the ground that we had won, getting back a great deal faster than we had advanced. We had spent the best part of the day in advancing and reaching the enemy’s position; and it seemed as if we must have covered a great tract of country, but as a matter of fact we had advanced less than a mile. It had taken us many hours to cover that short distance, but along the whole of the long line of the advance the ground was littered with the fallen – the officers and men who had gone down under such a storm of shells and bullets as had not been known since the war began.
Retiring, we took up a position behind a wood, and were thinking that we should get a bit of a rest, when a German aeroplane came flying over us, gave our hiding-place away, and brought upon us a fire that drove us out and sent us back to three lines of trenches which we had been occupying.
We made the best of things during the evening and the night in the trenches. The next day things were reversed, for the Germans came on against us; but we kept up a furious fight, and simply mowed them down as they threw themselves upon us. We used to say ‘Here comes another bunch of them!’ and then we gave them the ‘mad minute’. We had suffered heavily on the 31st, and we were to pay a big bill on this 1 November, amongst our casualties being two of our senior officers.
The second day of the fighting passed and the third came. Still we held on, but it became clear that we were too hopelessly outnumbered to hope for complete success at the time, and so we were forced to leave the trenches. Withdrawing again, we took up positions in farmhouses and woods and any other places that gave shelter. All the time there was a killing fire upon us, and it happened that entire bodies of men would be wiped out in a few moments. A party of the Warwicks got into a wood near us, and they had no sooner taken shelter than the German gunners got the range of them, shelled and killed nearly all of them.
There was not a regiment of the Glorious Seventh that had not suffered terribly in the advance during the three days’ fateful fighting. The Bedfords had lost, all told, about 600, and it was a mere skeleton of the battalion that formed up when the roll was called.
I became a member of the grenade company of the battalion, which was something like going back to the early day of the Army, when the grenadier companies of the regiments flung their little bombs at the enemy. So did we, and grim work it was, hurling home-made bombs, which had the power of doing a terrible amount of mischief.
Improvising grenades from used food tins.
MERRY PARTY SPOILT
I was with the grenade company, behind a brick wall close to the trenches, and was sitting with several others round a fire which we had made in a biscuit-tin. We were quite a merry party, and had the dixie going to make some tea. There was another dixie on, with two or three nice chickens that our fellows had got hold of – perhaps they had seen them wandering about homeless and adopted them. Anyway, they found a good home in the stew-pot, and we were looking forward to a most cosy meal. The Germans were close enough to fling hand-bombs at us. They gave us lots of these little attentions, so that, when I suddenly found myself blinded, and felt a sharp pain in my left hand. I thought they had made a lucky shot, or that something had exploded in the fire in the biscuit-tin.
For some time I did not know what had happened; then I was able to see, and on looking at my hand, I found it to be in a sorry mess, half the thumb and half a finger having been carried away. I stayed and had some tea from the, dixie, and my chums badly wanted me to wait for my share of the chickens; but I had no appetite for fowls just then. I made the best of things till darkness came, and under cover of it a couple of stretcher-bearers took me to the nearest dressing-station.
I suffered terribly, and lockjaw set in, but the splendid medical staff and the nursing saved me, and I was put into a horse ambulance and packed off home.