The Story of the Great War (Vol. 1-8). Various Authors
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Germans, and again were forced to give way, leaving the Germans in possession of all the ground previously gained. The remnants of the Guards retreated until they were met by the London-Scottish regiment sent to reenforce them. Here they halted while a counterattack was being organized by the First Royal Highlanders, part of the Camerons, and the Second King's Rifle Corps which also came up.
At one o'clock on January 25, 1915, and with the cooperation of the French on their right, this rapidly improvised force moved forward, making unobstructed progress on their wings by the canal and the road. For some reason their center was delayed and held back. When they did finally arrive and pressed forward with a rush to meet the German forces, who were ready to receive them, the impact was fearful, and the casualties on both sides enormous; but no gains were made by the Allies, and the Germans held the ground they had won. At the height of the battle the Second Royal Sussex rushed into the fray in support of their hard-pressed comrades, but all to no purpose, for these as the others were forced back to the rear of their starting point with but a fraction of their forces remaining to report the events of the day.
While this terrible slaughter was in progress, the French left on the other side of La Bassée road, which separated the Allies at this point, had been attacked by the right of the German line, and driven back to a considerable distance, but not as far back as the British, so that the French left was in advance of the British right and badly exposed to flank attack from the northward.
This obliged the entire allied forces to retreat some distance farther to the rear, and as night came on and the severity of the action had ceased, the Allies had an opportunity to realign their positions and somewhat strengthen the same by the First Guard Brigade which now came up, showing the terrible suffering to which they had been subjected. Finally, however, it was found advisable to withdraw the Guard altogether and replace them by the First Infantry Brigade.
Now the German tactical idea became clear. It was to force the British to concentrate on the exposed line between Festubert and Givenchy, north of the canal, and then to turn the British right by the German forces in their new position just south of the canal, thus calling for simultaneous action on both sides of the canal.
The Germans delivered an equally severe attack upon the allied position in the village of Givenchy, about a mile north of the canal, which bounded the scene of the attack just described. As in the other attack, the Germans opened action by severe artillery fire, using high-explosive shells, and after due preparation, at about 8.15 in the morning, the infantry advanced, as is customary with the Germans, in close formation. The British met this advance by somewhat weak artillery fire, which, it was afterward explained was due to continued interruption of the telephonic communications between the observers and the batteries in the fight. However, as it was, this fire, added to the machine gun and rifle fire from the trenches, served to turn the German advance from their original direction, with the result that they crowded together in the northeast corner of Givenchy after passing over the first-line trenches of the Allies' front. Their momentum carried the Germans far into the center of the village, with remarkably few casualties considering the murderous fire to which they had been subjected throughout their impetuous advances.
In the village of Givenchy, however, the Second Welsh Regiment and the First South Wales Borderers, which had been stationed there and held in reserve, gave the Germans a warm reception, and when the First Royal Highlanders came up they delivered a fierce counterattack. In this they were supported by the fire of the French artillery, which assistance, however, proved costly to the Allies, as the French fire and bursting shells killed friend and foe alike. Street fighting became savage, amid the explosions of shells sent to enliven the occasion by the French. This concluded the action for the day and when the smoke cleared away both sides found their position comparatively little changed and nothing but the thinned ranks of the combatants reminded the observer that the most severe kind of fighting had taken place for the best part of a day.
The following day, January 26, 1915, the action was resumed, and the attack opened along the Bethune and La Bassée road. This soon died out, as though by general consent, each side reoccupying their position of the previous evening.
But on Friday, January 29, 1915, early in the morning, the Germans again opened with severe artillery fire which directed its attention particularly to the British line, where the First Army Corps lay between La Bassée Canal and the Bethune road near Cutchy. After an hour's shelling the Germans sent one battalion of the Fourteenth Corps toward the redoubt, and two battalions of the same corps were sent to the north and south of this redoubt. Now upon this point and to the north of it stood the Sussex Regiment and to the south of it the Northamptonshire Regiment. The attack was severe, but the defense was equal to it and the net results were summed up in the casualty lists on both sides. An attack upon the French, south of Bethune, on the same day met with like results. The great German objective was to open another road to Dunkirk and Calais, and had they been successful in the engagements of the past few days it is probable that they would have succeeded.
To the north in the coast district the Belgians had succeeded in flooding a vast area, which served for the time to separate the combatants for a considerable distance, obliging the Germans to resort to rafts, boats and other floating apparatus to carry on a somewhat haphazard offensive and resulting in nothing more than a change from gunfire slaughter to drowning. The immense inconvenience attendant to this mode of warfare decided the Germans to drain this area and they succeeded in doing this by the end of January, 1915.
On the other hand the Belgians captured two German trenches in the north on January 17, 1915, and the British sent a force to attack Lille on January 18. The Belgian trenches were reoccupied by the Germans and the Lille attack was successfully repulsed.
Then, for a week, there was nothing of importance until January 23, 1915, when the Germans made a strong attack upon Ypres which was repulsed. On January 24 the Germans recaptured St. Georges and bombarded a few of the towns and villages harboring allied troops.
The Belgians continued in their endeavor to flood the German position along the Yser, on January 25, 1915, and succeeded in obliging their opponents to vacate for a time at least, and on the last day of January allied forces consisting of Zouaves, Gurkhas and other Indian companies made an attack upon the German trenches upon the dunes at Lombaertzyde, gaining a temporary advantage at an expense of considerable loss in casualties.
In reviewing the activities during the month of January, 1915, the disagreeable state of the weather must be taken into consideration; this resulted in terrible suffering, to which the battling forces were subjected during the actual fighting and even more so while at rest, either on the open field or in the questionable comfort of an inhospitable and leaky trench.
While every effort was made by the respective General Staffs to supply their fighting troops with such comforts as were absolutely necessary to keep body and soul together and in trim for the next day's work, little could be accomplished and it is a marvel how these poor soldiers did withstand the rigorous weather which blighted the prospect of victory, so dear to all who wear a uniform.
CHAPTER XXXI
END OF SIX MONTHS' FIGHTING IN THE WEST
There were few military movements on the French battle front during December, 1914, along the Aisne, the Oise and in the northern Champagne. The fighting was mostly artillery duels and skirmishes by separate units. In the Argonne, however, the Crown Prince of Germany was active and there, as well as along the Moselle and on the heights of the Vosges, many engagements were fought out resulting in varying advantages to either opponent. Both sides had been strongly intrenched and the ground was covered by snow to great depths, making progress impossible except upon skis and snowshoes.
On December 3, 1914, the French captured Burnhaupt, a hill east of Mülhausen in Upper Alsace, only to give up their advantage after a German counterattack. On December 16 the Germans attacked in the Woevre region and in Alsace; but were repulsed the following day. On December 31, 1914, the French attacked Steinbach in Alsace, but were driven out again.
The New Year of 1915