Preparing for a renewed offensive, Ypres August,
1916
“all
ranks agreed in the hope that they would never
again
hold a trench in the pounded, battered and death-accursed
world
between the Hun and the stricken, dead City of Ypres”[1]
-Kim Beattie
“The 48th Highlanders of Canada”
 |
| "Fire Swept Algoma" by Frank Johnston |
A consistently heavy,
drowsy heat became the daily expectation for the first week of August, 1916
along the Ypres Salient. The war had
just gone into its second year and the lines which had solidified by that first
autumn had remained more or less intact and immovable since. In early July, the Canadian Corps had issued
warning orders to the effect that all necessary preparations be made for a
renewed assault in the Mount Sorrel area to recapture and consolidate positions
still in German hands. These
preparations were to be complete by no later than 31 July, the operation itself
to begin at a time and date to be specified later[2].
The bulk of this preliminary
work was a sequence of shifts along the Canadian held portion of the line. Moving the three divisions in sequence would
put all of them in the best possible starting positions for the assault. A critical aspect would be to form a
definitive understanding of the enemy.
Information as to the nature and complexity of his trenches, heavy
weapons emplacements, wire obstacles and even unit identification were all
valuable intelligence to ensure a well-developed plan of attack. The Corps’ directive to its divisions, and
they to their brigades was that aggressive and constant raids and patrols were
expected to gain this vital information.
3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade, holding 1st
Canadian Division’s front line positions in the first week of August issued a
directive to its component battalions (13th, 14th, 15th
and 16th) which was explicit on the subject: “Identifications- dead
or alive, are required by the Division at all costs. You will send out offensive patrols each
night and all night, in order to effect this purpose.”[3] Brigadier general Tuxford, G.O.C. 3rd
Brigade minced no words to convey the point that these patrols were not merely
reconnoitering in purpose, they were to be fighting patrols. “Any hostile patrol that is seen,” his
memorandum continued, “is to be engaged and followed up….Enemy listening posts
will be destroyed, and an endeavour made to secure the occupants.”[4]
The night before
General Tuxford issued these orders, on the 3rd of August, Major Davis’ 3rd Tunnelling
Company had used a combined total of 3,600 pounds of ammonal in two charges as
a countermine.[5] Having detected another German effort
underground, the Canadian tunnellers had once again acted pre-emptively and the
explosion collapsed the German gallery, and was powerful enough to form a
crater on the surface. It had been hoped
that this “bump” might breach the German front line, and a consolidation party
from the 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion rushed to the
crater. Opposing lines were very close
together at this juncture, and Major Davis’ work had done “more damage to our
front line than expected, in the way of pushing the parapet over and filling
the trenches with debris.”[6] Some casualties were caused by this
collateral damage, but most of the 16th’s losses (two killed,
twenty-seven wounded) were due to the swift German retaliation. The enemy front line had not been hit by the
mine as expected, and the Germans were able to keep up a steady fire of rifles,
machine guns and trench mortars which discouraged the Can Scots from entering
the trench.
The following night, in
a direct response to General Tuxford’s directive, a patrol from the 14th
(Royal Montreal Regiment) Battalion went out in search of the enemy. Having been put on the alert from the mine
the night before, the Germans were wary of any follow-up; which the Montrealers
found out first hand:
Patrol of 1 Sergt. And 3 men of the
14th Bn. went out…and entered a shell crater….There was an entrance
to an underground sap…which led to German trench. When patrol entered hole none of the enemy
were seen, but board was pushed away and simultaneously a light was fired from
trench landing close to patrol, and throwing them into relief. Two Germans then came out of the sap and attempted
to bayonet the Sergt. and one man who were in the hole, but both were shot
point-blank with revolvers-one actually lunging over the Sergt’s. shoulder and
running into his revolver. A third man
was shot through the back by another of patrol….Groans were heard but more
Germans came out of sap and started throwing bombs in all directions, while
bombs were being thrown and rifle and M.G. fire kept up from enemy trench.[7]
Outnumbered- they
estimated there were a dozen Germans in the sap they had discovered- and
outgunned the four men beat it back to their own lines without losing a man,
but likewise not gaining any enemy identification.
Activity, of the mine
blown on the third and the failed patrol on the fourth had done plenty to
really set the Germans on edge. This was
the situation facing Lt. Colonel Bent’s 15th (48th
Highlanders) Battalion on the night of the fifth. Colonel Bent had been ordered by General
Tuxford to raid enemy trenches opposite his battalion’s positions, in keeping
with the earlier, aggressive memorandum.[8] Set to go ahead at eleven that evening,
trench mortars would be employed to cut the German wire and destroy a known
machine gun position. The mortars would
then shift their fire to portions of the German front line adjacent to the
raid’s objective, isolating the area for the duration of the operation. Colonel Bent’s preparations included
detailing men to provide cover to the raiders, men to hold the point of entry
and those who would actually gain a foothold in the enemy trench. These men, a veritable gang of thugs were to
be armed with an assortment of weapons- bombs, bayonets, pistols and a type of
club called a knobkerrie- and would commit as much violent mayhem as they could
while searching for the desired information, it not mattering much if the
source was still living or not. To
ensure they gave nothing of themselves away, “All ranks must be divested of all
identities, before leaving.”[9] No
one was to carry any letters or papers, and all identifying badges or patches
would be removed from uniforms.
It was all rather
anticlimactic, as Colonel Bent would later report. Patrols sent to assess the damage done to the
wire by the trench mortars “found the wire practically untouched, and as the
T.M. fire put the enemy very much on the alert, it was impossible to cut the
wire by hand, and the original plan had to be abandoned.”[10] A subsequent patrol, sent to capture a
listening post was also held up by strong wire entanglements and resulted in a
bomb throwing match- around fifty to each side- before returning, also without
any credible intelligence.
For the other
divisions, it was much the same, there being only one prisoner taken along the
entire Corps’ frontage from 3-10 August.
A bombing post of the 43rd Battalion was attacked on the
third, but the Germans were scattered back by the quick actions of the post’s
commander, Lieutenant J. G. Young. Afterward, a wounded German was taken back
to Canadian lines and found to be a Brandenburger from the 359th
Regiment, 4th Ersatz Division.[11]
Now, at least in a very small way, the Canadians knew who they were
facing. They also knew that the enemy
was putting a great amount of work into his defenses, concrete and fresh timber
had been reported as being seen in German lines. The wire that had scuppered the Highlanders
also indicated that the Germans were ready to make a great effort to repulse
any attack upon their positions. All
indications were that the coming fight would be as hard as any the Corps had
yet seen.
This was, however, to
become someone else’s problem. The attack,
what all the previous weeks had gone towards, in effort and blood, would not
take place. Events further south
required a relatively fresh Corps to relieve another which had been heavily
embattled. The Canadians were going to
the Somme.[i]
It is with extreme
pleasure that I can announce that my first full length work of fiction,
is now available for sale through Kindle
Direct Publishing:
Moments before the men
of Six Platoon 'B' Company, King's Own Canadian Scots Regiment will go forward
to assault Vimy Ridge, each one of them must reconcile themselves to their
probable fate. Felix Strachan, a teen-aged corporal about to lead his men into
battle, has already seen a lot of this war; its arbitrary cruelty to life. In
the past eight months he's been fighting in France, he's lost friends and a
little of his faith in mankind, though nothing has bothered him more than the
death of a stranger- a transferred officer left on the field after a failed
patrol. Not only can no one seem to remember who the officer was, his death may
not have been at the enemy's hands. Felix, in the seconds before Zero hour
tries to come to terms with a question he has held for as long as he can
remember- "What does it mean to die
well?"
This book uses the
extreme human experience of war to explore ideas of morality within a
historically correct, visceral and realistic narrative. I have, in order
to achieve this, relied upon my strength as an essayist and lecturer on the
history of the First World War, as well as my own service with the Canadian
Army.
[1] Beattie, Kim, “48th Highlanders of Canada:
1891-1928” 1932, pg. 156
[2] Canadian Corps Operations Order No. 24 30 June 1916
[3] War Diary Appendix 16, 3rd Canadian Infantry
Brigade, August 1916
[5] War Diary Entry, 3rd Canadian Tunnelling
Company, 3 August 1916
[6] Leckie, J.G., Lt-Col. “Preliminary Report on Operations
Night of 3rd-4th August 1916” 16th Battalion
to 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade
[7] Intelligence Summary 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade,
4 August 1916
[8] 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade Operations
Order No. 88 5 August 1916
[9] 15th Battalion (48th Highlanders)
Raid Orders 5 August 1916
[10] Bent C.E. Lt-Col, “Report on Operations 5 August” from
15th Battalion to 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade
[11] War Diary Entry, 43rd Battalion, 3 August
1916
[i] All Primary Sources Cited, and Information Used to
Construct this Article is due to the courtesy of Library and Archives Canada.
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