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The Canadian Cavalry (the Royal Canadian Dragoons, Lord. Strathcona's Horse, and the 2nd King Edward's Horse) were made into a Cavalry Brigade before the First Division left England and were placed under the command of General Seely, formerly British Secretary of State for War. The scope for cavalry in the first year of the war was necessarily limited. The best tribute to this Brigade was paid by Sir John French, in an address to the troops :

I am very glad to have this opportunity of coming here to tell you how very highly I appreciate all the services you have rendered. The eagerness with which you came forward to place your services at the disposal of the Empire, and the great part you are playing in this war, have served to strengthen the bonds that bind our great Empire together-bonds that will never now be severed. I wish to express my appreciation to you for the splendid manner in which early in the year, when the Canadian Infantry Division had suffered great losses, you volunteered to leave your horses and to come out here. At the commencement you took a very prominent part in the battle of Festubert, where we not only gained a considerable amount of ground, but inflicted great losses on the enemy, and captured a large quantity of material. Then afterwards at Givenchy you kept up the same fighting record, and since that up till a few days ago you have been doing very hard work in other trenches. I am quite confident that whatever you are called upon to do in the future will be nobly carried out. Your record will go down to history as one of the most splendid in British history.

Almost immediately after the first Canadian contingent left Salisbury Plain for the Front

the second Canadian contingent began to arrive. The command of this division while it remained in England was given to soldier-General distinguished Canadian

a

Sam Steele a soldier whose active military record went back to the days of the Red River Expedition, and who had long been a familiar figure in Canadian life. There had been more time to organize this contingent, and it was in some ways even more distinctly Canadian than its predecessor. The great Canadian Universities were notably represented, in some

instances by separate units. The Eaton Machine Gun Brigade, named after Sir John Eaton, of Toronto, who contributed 100,000 dollars towards its organization and equipment, was efficient and valuable. There had been splendid competition, not only among the different Provinces but among the great cities, to see which should be best represented, and the result was one worthy of Canada.

In the latter part of the summer of 1915 Sir Robert Borden, the Canadian Premier, and General Hughes, the Minister of Militia and Head of the War Department, visited Europe. They were given a splendid reception. Sir Robert Borden was presented with the Freedom of the City of London, the highest civic honour England can bestow, and General Hughes was knighted before his departure home. The visit of these two Canadian leaders was almost wholly concerned with detail questions of administration, and in discovering how Canada could co-operate most effectively in the war.

The spirit of Canada at the end of the first year was the same as it had been at the beginning. Partisan quarrels had been largely wiped out. The leader of Liberalism, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, worked in accord with his old political opponent the Premier for the common end. From Halifax to Prince Rupert the Canadian people knew only one thing, and that was that this was their fight, and that they would see it through, if needs be, to the last man and to the last dollar. Politicians recognized that the war must necessarily be followed by a great development in Imperial relations, particularly by a unity of Empire forces for purposes of defence: but they were prepared to leave the discussion of such developments until afterwards. For the moment their single purpose was to aid in bringing the war to a successful conclusion.

XII

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

THE BATTLES OF AUBERS AND

FESTUBERT.

IMPORTANCE OF THE BATTLE OF AUBERS-" THE TIMES CORRESPONDENT'S TELEGRAMNECESSITY FOR INCREASED SUPPLIES OF HIGH EXPLOSIVE SHELLS-DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLE-NEW PLAN OF SIR DOUGLAS HAIG-BATTLE OF FESTUBERT VICTORY OF THE BRITISH.

O

N the early morning of Sunday,
May 9, the British troops defending
Ypres from the onslaughts of the
Germans, were aroused by the sound

of a terrific cannonade south of the Lys. This marked the opening of the fight for the Aubers ridge, part of a great Franco-British offensive extending from the south of Armentières to the north of Arras. On May 14 appeared the report of the Military Correspondent of The Times, who had been staying at British Headquarters, that the want of an unlimited supply of high-explosive shells had been a fatal bar to the success of the British attempt to storm the heights commanding Lille, which, if taken by the Allies, would render the German salient at La Bassée untenable. Five days later Mr. Asquith announced the coming formation of the Coalition Ministry, and on May 25 the list of the members of the new Cabinet was published. On June 16 Mr. Lloyd George became Minister of Munitions.

The Battle of Aubers, therefore, marks an important point in the history of the war, and deserves for this reason, as well as on its own merits, treatment in considerable detail. Although complete success did not crown the efforts of our troops, yet the losses incurred on the Aubers ridge were by no means wasted. The assaults directed by Sir Douglas Haig forced

the Crown Prince of Bavaria to concentrate a large portion of his available troops and artillery to the north of the La Bassée salient, and the consequence was that the Germans were not in sufficient strength to resist Joffre's thrust from the Arras region towards Lens.

La Bassée, the point of the salient, was surrounded by a network of brickfields, mine works and other enclosures skilfully fortified by the Germans. A direct attack on it could not be entertained for one moment by commanders who did not regard their infantry as mere food for cannon. But an advance from the Lys to the ridge which, starting near Fort Englos, four miles or so west of Lille. runs in a south-westerly direction to Aubers, two miles east of Neuve Chapelle, and terminates abruptly on the hill called Haut Pommereau, an advance across this ridge and then over a narrow strip of low-lying land to the second ridge which follows the road from Lille through Fournes to La Bassée would, if successful, turn the position of the Germans and oblige them to evacuate La Bassée and its environs.

Such an advance had been almost successfully made by the British in the first three weeks of October 1914. They had carried Neuve Chapelle, crossed the first ridge and the low ground and occupied Le Pilly, a mile

from Fournes, at the edge of the second ridge. But the German counter-attack, backed by enormous numbers and a gigantic artillery, had driven them from Le Pilly, dislodged them from the Aubers-Fromelles-Radinghem ridge, and flung them out of Neuve Chapelle. The Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 had, however, enabled Sir John French to start his second offensive to secure the ridges.

Since October the Germans had been entrenching their lines from Lille to La Bassée. They were now rabbit-warrens bristling with machine-guns and protected by barbed wire, some of extra stoutness, which could not be cut by ordinary clippers or broken by shrapnel. The lessons learnt from the bombardment to which the enemy had been subjected at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle had been turned by him to good account. Deep trenches, reinforced with concrete, and underground galleries had been constructed to shelter the garrisons defending the Heavy guns posted on the hills south-east, near Pont-à-Vendin, could deluge with shell the British if they stormed the heights.

Ypres was protected by the Second Army, under Sir Herbert Plumer, the III. Corps holding Armentières. It was the task of Sir Douglas Haig with the First Army to carry the entrenchments and redoubts on the right wing of the Crown Prince Rupprecht's Army. The IV. Corps, according to Sir John French's plan, was to attack the German trenches and redoubts in the neighbourhood of Rouges-Bancs, north-west of Fromelles, the Indian Corps and the I. Corps were to carry those in the plain at the foot of the Aubers ridge between Neuve Chapelle and Givenchy and afterwards to storm the heights.

At midnight on May 8-9 the streets of Béthune, behind the extreme right of the First Army, were crowded with reserve troops. From Béthune round to Armentières the roads and lanes leading to the British trenches were filled with marching men and the material of war. The soldiers knew that they were about to engage in one of those encounters which in Napoleonic times would have been reckoned a pitched battle, but in 1915 were held to be mere incidents. It was understood that, as at Neuve Chapelle, the action would be opened by a bombardment of the hostile lines.

At 3.30 a.m. there was sufficient light for the gunners to find their targets. Sighting shots were fired by the field guns and howitzers.

The artillerymen were feeling for the parapets of the German trenches. About 4.30 the

firing died away. Save for the humming, throbbing aeroplanes overhead or the passage of a motor ambulance, there was nothing to rouse the attention of the waiting soldiers. The aeroplanes were engaged in giving information to the gunners and, as at the battle of Neuve Chapelle, in bombing, during the day, stations and bridges (for example, the canal bridge near Don) through or over which the German reinforcements were moving or likely to be moved.

The morning was bright and clear. To the right were Cuinchy, with its brickfields, and the ruins of what had once been Givenchy. Trees and hedgerows obscured the view of the trenches on the low ground, but against the sky rose the Aubers ridge and the silhouettes of the villages crowning it. The firing round Ypres had temporarily subsided. Here and there an officer took out his watch and looked at it impatiently. Suddenly at 5 a.m. the guns spoke out, at first singly, but shortly the individual reports developed into one long roar. The air quivered as the huge shells swished through it, the earth shook as they struck their targets. On the horizon a cloud of smoke and dust speedily formed. as if one long street of houses in the distance had been bombarded and set on fire.

It was

Shortly before six o'clock the order was given to the British troops to advance. North of Fromelles battalions of the IV. Corps dashed for the German advanced trenches. Firing their rifles, they approached the first line, then flinging their hand grenades they poured into the enemy's position, thrusting back the defenders with the bayonet, and carrying everything before them.

At 6.17, from the south, beyond the ridges, a thunderous sound told that the French had also begun their advance from the south of La Bassée.

Elated by their success, the men of the IV. Corps pressed on. They saw Lille before them. The prize missed at Neuve Chapelle seemed within their grasp. They were close to Haubourdin, a suburb of the city. But at this moment masses of Germans debouched from Lille and counter-attacked, and, as the German centre was still practically intact, the order was given to retire. Sullenly the troops withdrew, turning from time to time to fire or charging to stop the pursuing foe.

[graphic]

THE CANADIANS ON THE WEST FRONT.
Private Smith carrying bombs to his comrades in the trenches.

Meanwhile the Indians and I. Corps, moving forward from the line Neuve Chapelle-Festubert had at the outset been successful. The Pathans and Gurkhas had occupied the wood in front of Fromelles; the villages of Fromelles and Aubers and the first-line German trenches on the Aubers ridge, which had been pounded to a shapeless mass, had been seized. But the second-line trenches had not received sufficient treatment from the artillery, and, when the victorious troops moved on against them, the Germans issued from their hiding

places, and with rifles and batteries of machine guns mowed down the attacking forces. The machine-guns were, as usual, the most formidable obstacle in the British path. The fire from these skimmed the ground, inflicting wounds on the lower parts of the body. Yet, still undaunted, both the Indians and British endeavoured again and again to close with the enemy.

If individual courage and initiative could have gained the day, Lille would that evening have been cleared of the enemy. At both ends

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