1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [322]
Wednesday 29th September
1st Army H.Q.
Hinges
My dear Lord Kitchener,
You will doubtless recollect how earnestly I pressed you to ensure an adequate Reserve being close in rear of my attacking Divisions, and under my orders. It may interest you to know what happened. No Reserve was placed under me. My attack, as has been reported, was a complete success. The enemy had no troops in his second line, which some of my plucky fellows reached and entered without opposition. Prisoners state the enemy was so hard put to it for troops to stem our advance that the officers’ servants, fatigue-men, etc., in Lens were pushed forward to hold their 2nd Line to the east of Loos and Hill 70.
The two Reserve Divisions (under C. in C.’s orders) were directed to join me as soon as the success of the First Army was known at GHQ. They came on as quick as they could, poor fellows, but only crossed our old trench line with their heads at 6 p.m. We had captured Loos 12 hours previously, and Reserves should have been at hand then. This, you will remember, I requested should be arranged by GHQ and Robertson quite concurred in my views and wished to put the Reserve Divisions under me, but was not allowed.
The final result is that the enemy had been allowed time in which to bring up troops and to strengthen his second line, and probably to construct a third line in the direction in which we are heading, viz., Pont à Vendin.
I have now been given some fresh Divisions, and am busy planning an attack to break the enemy’s second line. But the element of surprise has gone, and our task will be a difficult one.
I think it right that you should know how the lessons which have been learnt in the war at such cost have been neglected. We were in a position to make this the turning point in the war, and I still hope we may do so, but naturally I feel annoyed at the lost opportunity.
We were all very pleased to receive your kind telegram, and I am,
yours very truly,
D. Haig.
Lord Kitchener was obliged to investigate Haig’s complaint and he wrote a kind and tactful letter to the Commander-in-Chief. It was marked ‘Private and Secret’ and written, as he told him, ‘with great reluctance’, but it was insistent. ‘Colleagues’ had put certain facts before him and he had no alternative but to ask the Commander-in-Chief for his side of the story. Sir John French replied in formal terms stating the facts from his own point of view, but writing privately he was more forthright. ‘It is all, of course absolutely false and stupid,’ he wrote, ‘and full explanations have been given.’ There was probably little doubt in his own mind as to who the mysterious ‘colleagues’ were. He was well aware that General Haig had the ear of influential friends in high places, including that of the king himself.
Fresh troops from the Second Army in the north were already marching towards Loos. In a week’s time new attacks would be launched and the battle would drag on. But little was gained. Much later, and with hindsight, the Battle Nomenclature Committee decreed officially that the Battle of Loos ended with the failure of the joint Franco-British offensive on 8 October, but it was only on 4 November that Sir Douglas Haig was finally forced to inform the Commander-in-Chief that his efforts must be abandoned. By then many more lives had been lost. Between 25 September and 16 October alone there were more than fifty thousand casualties, and almost sixty thousand if the subsidiary attacks are included, and more than twenty-six thousand of the casualties were killed or missing. A few of the missing turned up later as prisoners of war, but more than half the casualties