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By Root 1863 0

the news of its postponement and the precious ammunition they fired in the general direction of the enemy went for nothing. When the troops finally started off, moving in broad daylight across open country towards the unseen German positions, the guns did their best to support them, but there was not much they could do. The German guns opened up, the infantry vanished into the smoke of explosions and half of those who survived to get within striking distance of the German positions were mown down by close-range fire from rifles and machine-guns. After the attack had started four hundred French colonial troops lining the eastern bank of the canal joined in, apparently spontaneously, but they very soon withdrew and no more was seen of the French. By seven o’clock it was all over and limp bands of survivors were lying low, waiting until darkness fell to cover the long crawl back. All the time the German heavy guns were thundering, as they had thundered all day, raining shells into the battlefield and into Ypres.

But the Commander-in-Chief had kept his promise to General Foch, although at a fearful price. No ground was captured which could not have been occupied if the fresh troops had simply walked forward under cover of darkness and now those badly needed troops who might have served to strengthen the line had themselves been decimated. They had lost most of their officers – including three Battalion Commanders – and more than half the men. It was only some consolation that matters might have been worse for, except at Lizerne, and apart from isolated bombing raids where the out flanked angle of the weak Canadian line turned to join the new extended front, the Germans had not followed up their success of the previous evening with a full-scale assault. But no one had any doubt that sooner rather than later they would, and every man would be needed to meet the attack when it came.

It was Friday night, 23 April. St George was the patron saint of the Northumberland Fusiliers and, as they marched towards Ypres, there was not a man of the 7th Battalion who was not aware that today was St George’s Day. It was exactly seventy-two hours since the 50th Northumbrian Territorial Division had landed in France and its 149th Brigade had spent one night in troop trains chugging slowly north, and another in billets around Mount Kemmel. Now they were going into battle, and if any such thoughts as iambs to the slaughter’ occurred to the mind of their Divisional Commander he kept them to himself.

L/cpl. J. Dorgan, 7th Bn., Northumberland Fusiliers, 50 Div. (TF).

We arrived at the outskirts of Ypres and marched through the square, the market place of Ypres. Shells were dropping on the cobbled stones and some of the lighter shells and the shrapnel were spreading right across the square and the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral were on fire. We had our first casualty in going through the square, Tommy Rachael, who was a postman in Ashington. He was marching behind me and he shouted out, he said, ‘I’m wounded.’ Nobody would believe him and then somebody said, There’s blood coming down his legs,’ and another fellow said, ‘Help him, help him somebody. He’s not going to drop out. We’re the Northumberland Fusiliers!’ That was the spirit we had.

As we reached the outskirts we didn’t know where we were going, neither officers nor men. After having an hour or two’s sleep just outside of Ypres we marched on in the early hours of 24 April under heavy shell-fire.

Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien had spent an anxious dispiriting evening, counting the cost of the counter-attack and poring over maps, trying as a soldier to read the soldier’s mind of his opposite number at German Headquarters. In the position of the German Commander, what would he do? It was true that there had been local skirmishes but, from the German point of view, they had demonstrated very little other than their desire to improve their position. The absence of a full-scale infantry assault – which could hardly have been withstood – was a blessing, but the strange lack of movement was ominous. More