World War I - 9 Book Collection: Nelson's History of the War, The Battle of Jutland & The Battle of the Somme. Buchan John

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      CHAPTER XI.

       THE BATTLE OF THE LYS.

       Table of Contents

      By 6th April 1918 the great German thrust towards Amiens had failed, and for the moment the gate of the Somme was closed. The city was under fire, the enemy was before its gates, but his strength was exhausted and he could not advance. Therefore his chief plan—of separating the French and the British—had come to nought. Brought to a standstill, he cast about for a diversion, for he could not permit the battle to decline into a stalemate, since he was fighting against time. His main purpose remained the same, but he sought to achieve it by a new method. He would attack the British elsewhere, on some part of the front where they were notoriously weak, and compel Foch to use up his reserves in its defence. Then, when the Allied resources had shrunk, he would strike again at the weakened door of Amiens. On the German side the operation was meant to be merely subsidiary, designed to prepare the way for the accomplishment of the main task farther south. They proposed to choose a battle-ground where even a small force might obtain important results. But so stoutly did the meagre British divisions resist that the enemy was compelled to extend the battle well into May, to squander thirty-five of his fresh divisions, and to forfeit for good his chance of final victory.

      The new battle-ground was the area on both sides of the river Lys, between the La Bassée Canal and the Wytschaete Ridge. The German Staff knew that our front line had already been thinned to supply ten divisions for the struggle in the south, and at the moment it was weakly held, mainly by troops exhausted in the Somme battle. The enemy Staff chose their ground well. They had the great city of Lille behind them to screen the assembly. Certain key-points, such as Béthune and Hazebrouck, lay at no great distance behind the British front. The British communications were poor, while the German were all but perfect. If the enemy could break through at once between La Bassée and Armentières and capture Béthune, he could swing north-westward and take Hazebrouck and the hills beyond Bailleul, and so threaten the Channel Ports, on which the British armies depended for supplies.

      The attack began on Tuesday, 9th April. A Portuguese division south of the Lys was driven in at the first thrust, and through the gap the enemy streamed in. At a quarter-past ten that morning he was more than a mile to the rear of the division holding the left of the gap, which was accordingly compelled to retreat. On the right of the gap, covering Béthune, lay the 55th West Lancashire Division. The story of the Lys is a story of the successful defence of key-points against critical odds, and Givenchy, where the men of West Lancashire stood, was most vital, for unless it fell Béthune could not be taken, and unless Béthune were captured at once the enemy attack would be cramped into too narrow a gate. The 55th Division did not yield though outnumbered by four to one. They moved back their left flank but they still covered Béthune, and their right at Givenchy stood like a rock. By noon the enemy was in the ruins of Givenchy; in the afternoon the Lancashire men had recovered them; in the evening they were again lost, and in the night retaken. This splendid defence was the deciding event in the first stage of the battle. It was due, said the official report, "in great measure to the courage and determination displayed by our advance posts. Among the many gallant deeds recorded of them, one instance is known of a machine-gun which was kept in action although the German infantry had entered the rear compartment of the pill-box from which it was firing, the gun team holding up the enemy by revolver fire from the inner compartment."

      Next day, 10th April, a new German army attacked north of the Lys, captured Messines, and was pouring over the Wytschaete crest. But at Wytschaete stood the 9th Division, which we have previously seen in action on the Somme at Marrières Wood. There its South African Brigade had been completely destroyed, but a new one had been got together, and this second showed all the heroism of the first. That night they retook Messines, and during the evening cleared the Wytschaete Ridge. That stand saved the British northern flank and gave its commander time to adjust his front. For thirty hours the Germans were held up on that ridge, and when they finally advanced the worst danger was past.

      The situation was still most critical. The French were sending troops, but with all possible resources utilized we were still gravely outnumbered, and the majority of the men were desperately weary from the Somme battle. On the 11th Sir Douglas Haig issued an Order of the Day, in which he appealed to his men to endure to the last. "There is no other course open to us than to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man; there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end." Not less solemn was Sir Arthur Currie's charge to the Canadian Corps before they entered the battle. "Under the orders of your devoted officers in the coming battle you will advance or fall where you stand, facing the enemy. To those who fall I say, 'You will not die, but will step into immortality. Your mothers will not lament your fate, but will be proud to have borne such sons. Your names will be revered for ever and ever by your grateful country, and God will take you unto Himself.'" It is a charge which has the noble eloquence of Cromwell or Lincoln.

      Within a week it seemed as if the enemy had succeeded. On the evening of 15th April the Germans entered Bailleul, and the next day we withdrew from the ground won in the Third Battle of Ypres to a position a mile east of that town. By the 17th the enemy was in both Meteren and Wytschaete, and this meant that the northern pillar of our defence had gone. The next step for the Germans was to seize Mont Kemmel, the highest ground between them and the Channel, and a position which would presently give them Hazebrouck.

      The 17th and 18th of April were perhaps the most critical days of the whole battle. The enemy had reached his greatest strength, and the British troops were not yet reinforced at any point within sight of security. On the 17th the Germans had failed in an attack on the Belgians north of Ypres, and next day they failed no less conclusively in a movement on Béthune. This gave us a breathing space, and by the morning of Sunday, the 21st, French troops had taken over the defence of Mont Kemmel, and we had been able to relieve some of the divisions which had suffered most heavily.

That day saw the end of the main crisis of the battle. Mont Kemmel was lost and regained more than once, but the enemy was quickly becoming exhausted, and his gains, even when he made them, had no longer any strategic value. By the end of April he had employed in that one area of the line thirty-five fresh divisions, and nine which had been already in action. These troops were the cream of his army, and could not be replaced. Moreover, an odd feature had appeared in the last stages of the Lys battle. In March the enemy had succeeded in piercing and dislocating the British front by a new tactical method applied with masterly boldness and precision, the method which has been described as "infiltration."¹ But as the Lys battle dragged on the Germans seemed to have forgotten these new tactics, and to have fallen back upon their old methods of mass and СКАЧАТЬ