With Cavalry in 1915. Frederic Coleman

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       Frederic Coleman

      With Cavalry in 1915

      The British Trooper in the Trench Line, Through the Second Battle of Ypres

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066137236

Table of Contents

       CHAPTER I.

       CHAPTER II.

       CHAPTER III.

       CHAPTER IV.

       CHAPTER V.

       CHAPTER VI.

       INDEX.

      WITH CAVALRY IN 1915.

CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      January 1st, 1915, found me in damp, sodden Flanders. I was one of the dozen remaining members of the original Royal Automobile Club Corps, which had joined the British Expeditionary Force in France before Mons and the great retreat on Paris.

      I was attached, with my car, to the Headquarters Staff of the 1st Cavalry Division, Major-General H. de B. de Lisle, C.B., D.S.O., commanding. The Echelon A Divisional Staff Mess consisted of General de Lisle; Colonel "Sally" Home, 11th Hussars, G.S.O. 1; Major Percy Hambro, 15th Hussars, G.S.O. 2; Captain Cecil Howard, 16th Lancers, G.S.O. 3; Major Wilfred Jelf, R.H.A., Divisional Artillery Commander; Captain "Mouse" Tomkinson, "Royals," A.P.M.; Captain Hardress Lloyd, 4th Dragoon Guards, A.D.C.; Lieutenant "Pat" Armstrong, 10th Hussars, A.D.C., and myself.

      We were housed in a château between Cassel and St. Omer. In the latter town General French and General Headquarters (G.H.Q.) were located.

      The 1st Cavalry Division contained the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Brigades. The 1st Brigade, under Major-General Briggs, was composed of the 2nd Dragoons (Queen's Bays), 5th Dragoon Guards and 11th Hussars. Brigadier-General Mullens commanded the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, in which were the 4th Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers and 18th Hussars.

      These troops were billeted in Flemish farms and villages north of the road that led from Cassel to Bailleul.

      Sir John French's army in the field at that time was composed of the 1st Army under General Sir Douglas Haig, and the 2nd Army under General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien. The corps units were as follows:—1st Corps, General C. C. Monro; 2nd Corps, General Sir Charles Fergusson; 3rd Corps, General Pulteney; 4th Corps, General Sir Henry Rawlinson; Cavalry Corps, General Allenby; Indian Corps, General Sir James Willcocks; Indian Cavalry Corps, General Rimington; and the Flying Corps under General Henderson. Of the new 5th Corps, which was to be under the command of General Sir Herbert Plumer, only the 27th Division was as yet "out," though the 28th Division was ready to embark.

      Most of the news parcelled out to those who were "resting" in billets back of the line came from the London newspapers.

      Typed sheets, dubbed "summaries of information," and issued by G.H.Q., were distributed daily, but were never valuable and rarely really informative.

      The G.H.Q. information sheet of January 1st, 1915, read: "The Germans made an attack on the right of our line, south of Givenchy, yesterday evening, and captured an observation post. This post was retaken by a counter-attack early this morning, but later on was again captured by the enemy. The line has now been reorganized."

      A friend in the 1st Army, which was covering the part of the line thus attacked, showed me the 1st Army summary of 7 p.m., January 1st, which added the following to the news on the situation: "All is quiet in front. Fighting on right of 1st Corps last night was not as serious as at first reported. Casualties in Scots Guards believed to be about five officers and fifty other ranks. Most of these casualties occurred owing to the regiment pushing on beyond the original trench, and attacking the enemy's position. This wet weather is entailing great hardship on the men, who are fully engaged repairing trenches, some of which have had to be abandoned owing to water. The Germans are reported to be no better off."

      Such brief, dry, official summaries applied to most of the wet days of January, 1915. Trench warfare in winter has a very stoggy sameness about it.

      A 3rd Corps advance in front of the Ploegsteert Wood resulted in several of our men being drowned while attacking, so deep was the water in the submerged shell-holes in the flooded area.

      Discipline, the capacity to go forward in pursuance of an order, in spite of the fact that doing so seems utterly futile, is possessed by the British troops to a remarkable degree. Small operations, comparatively unimportant in scope and result, served to demonstrate daily the splendid spirit of the men under inconceivably trying conditions.

      One trench at Givenchy was taken and retaken time after time, and the men ordered to capture the trench were ever found ready to "go up" in the same dashing way, though they knew to a man that the assault meant inevitable loss, and would more than likely be followed by a further enforced evacuation, by their own comrades, of the untenable position.

      The Huns were well supplied with trench-mortars, bombs and hand-grenades, and used them with great effect. Our men had practically none of these indispensable attributes to trench warfare, or at least had so few of them that their use produced comparatively negligible results.

      The Christmas truce between British and German units confronting each other in the trenches produced echoes for weeks. The order from General French stating clearly that "the Commander-in-Chief views with the greatest displeasure" such fraternizing with the enemy had produced a partial effect, but instances still occurred where the Huns took the initiative in the matter of peace overtures for short periods.

      A visit to one part of our front line unearthed the following story: The opposing trenches were separated by a highway, across which, one morning, a German soldier shouted, "Let's have a truce for to-day. We don't want to kill you fellows. Why should we kill each other? We are to be relieved by the Prussians to-morrow night. You can kill them if you like. We don't care. We are Saxons."

      The extraordinary proposal was taken in good part, and the truce kept for thirty-six hours. No men of either army left their trenches, but not a shot was fired from German or English trench at that point.

      A few miles from the scene of this incident the men of the opposing armies became quite accustomed to calling across the intervening ground to their enemies. Each side, one day, boasted of the excellence of its food supply. A British Tommy declared his lunch ration included an incomparable tin of sardines. A German soldier shouted his disbelief that Tommy possessed any such delicacy. Thereupon an empty sardine tin on the point of a bayonet was raised above the British trench parapet in proof of Tommy's statement.

      "That's a sardine tin," yelled a Hun derisively, "but there is no sardine in it, mein friend."

      A few minutes passed, then a tin of sardines, unopened and temptingly whole and sound was thrown from the English trench towards the trench of the enemy. It fell short. Over his