Within fifteen minutes of going over the Brigade was in possession of another line of German trench, from three to four hundred yards behind the first line, running south-east from the Bapaume Road towards the Martinpuich Road. In the deep bays of this trench the contention was bitter and severe, and here occurred one of those instances of treachery for which the German has shown such peculiar aptitude. A party of the enemy threw up their hands, with, the customary cry of "Kamerad! Kamerad!" and surrendered to a company of the 18th Battalion, under the command of Captain S. Loghrin. As Captain Loghrin was accepting their surrender one of the party threw a bomb at him and blew him to pieces. The Captain's followers flung themselves forward in a fury, and not one German in that sector of the trench escaped the steel.
Throughout the advance the three assaulting Battalions of the Brigade, in spite of varying obstacles, succeeded in maintaining an even frontage. When the 18th, on the right, and the 20th, in the centre, fighting their way forward through the storm of shell and shrapnel and the deadly sleet of the machine-guns, had reached and taken Candy Trench, the final objective set them, it was still scarcely more than 7 o'clock. Three or four minutes in advance of them the 21st Battalion on the left, had reached the Sugar Factory and gained a footing there.
The Factory, though a redoubtable stronghold, had already been badly knocked about by our big guns. Now, within a very few minutes, it was surrounded on three sides by our exultant troops, who were not to be denied. After a mad half-hour of hand-to-hand struggle in a hell of grenade and machine-gun fire, from the dreadful turmoil of grunting, cursing, and shouting, the blood and the sweat of savage bodily combat, victory suddenly emerged, and the heap of ruins remained securely in our hands – along with 125 prisoners, of whom 10 were officers. One of the companies which distinguished themselves in this Homeric bout – "B" Company of the 21st Battalion – was commanded and most efficiently handled throughout the crisis of the affair by its senior non-commissioned officer, Sergeant-Major Dear, every one of its officers having fallen during its hard-fought advance along the Bapaume Road.
The unexpectedly swift collapse of this stronghold of the Sugar Factory – which the enemy had thought to make impregnable – was hastened, no doubt, by the intervention of one of the "Tanks." This monster, apparently eyeless, its carapace a daub of uncouth colours, squat and portentous as one of those colossal saurians which we picture emerging from the Eocene slime, had wallowed its slow, irresistible way up over the trenches and shell-holes, belching fire from its sides and its dreadful, blind, blunt snout. Bullets and shrapnel fell harmlessly as snowflakes upon its impervious shell. Bombs exploded thickly upon it, and, though wrapping it in flame, did no more than deface the fantastic patterns of its paint. Its path, wherever it moved, was spread with panic. In the teeth of the most concentrated fire it waddled deliberately up to the barriers of the Sugar Factory, trod them down without haste or effort, and exterminated a defending machine-gun with its crew. Then, crashing ponderously through or over every kind of obstacle, made a slow circuit of the Factory, halting stolidly here and there to blot out a troublesome nest of machine-gunners or to preside over the submission of a bunch of horror-stricken Huns. Its work done at this point, it lumbered off to seek adventure elsewhere, its grotesque – and, unfortunately, vulnerable – little tail bobbing absurdly over the shell-holes.
The 4th Brigade, having gained all its objectives, was now in no mood to rest content. The task of consolidation being well in hand, the 20th Battalion, in the centre of the line, sent forward a patrol under Captain Heron, M.C., the Battalion scouting officer. With great audacity and skill, Captain Heron worked his way along parallel to the Bapaume Road for a distance of 800 yards, and broke into the trench known as Gun Pit Trench. This was an important work, protecting, and in part coinciding with, the sunken road which forms the link between Courcelette and Martinpuich. Greatly daring – and profiting, no doubt, by the demoralising effect of the Tank's peregrinations in the neighbourhood – the little party bombed several dug-outs, and returned with two captured machine-guns and two prisoners to show for their splendidly insolent exploit. They reported the trench lightly held, whereupon the Brigade, promptly grasping the occasion, swept forward in a new – and thoroughly impromptu attack. Before 10 o'clock the trench was in our hands, with 50 prisoners (including two officers), a machine-gun, and three trench-mortars. Still unwearied, still unsated with success, the exultant Battalions pushed on and gained a line along the eastern side of the sunken road, where by 1 o'clock they had securely dug themselves in. This handsome and unpremeditated gain greatly simplified the consolidating of our position at Candy Trench and the Sugar Factory, and immediately made practicable the main operation against Courcelette itself.
With no less brilliancy and determination, meanwhile, the 6th Brigade, on the left, had been carrying out its share of the enterprise. From the first of the attack, or at least from its first objective (the first German trench) onward, it encountered a more stubborn resistance than that with which the 4th had to contend. Diagonally across the path of their advance, from the point on the right where the first German trench joined the Bapaume Road northwards to a juncture with McDonnell Road on the westernmost edge of Courcelette, ran a sunken road which had been strengthened by deep entrenching. It is shown on the map as Taffy Trench – and was so named by the troops doubtless in recognition of its complete harmony with the system of Sugar Trench, Candy Trench, and the Sugar Factory fitly presiding over all. Furthermore, the Brigade's advance was flanked throughout by strong enemy posts strung along McDonnell Road. The Battalion on the left (the 31st of Alberta) had not only to reduce these as it went, and to accomplish the reduction rapidly so as not to delay the main advance, but it had also to establish a defensive flank at the same time and thoroughly secure it in order to cover the advance against an enfilading assault from the network of German trenches spreading towards the north and north-west.
The attacking line of the 6th Brigade was somewhat differently organised from that of the 4th. Instead of being divided into three sectors, one for each of the three Battalions involved, it was divided into two sectors only. The 27th Battalion formed the attacking waves on the right half of the line, the 28th took the left half, while the 31st supplied the "mopping-up" parties to both sectors. The frontage allotted to the Brigade was about 1,800 yards, and the extreme depth of its attack, from the jumping-off trenches to the farthest objective, was something over a mile.
As with the 4th Brigade, the first objective (the original German front line) was carried swiftly and with little difficulty, and the whole line swept forward behind our barrage as coolly and according to book as if on the parade-ground. The German fire, both artillery and machine-gun, was fierce and effective, but as our bayonets came through it the enemy, as a rule, either fled, or threw up their hands, or scurried like rabbits into the dug-outs, refusing to face the cold steel. But on the left the wave of the 28th Battalion presently encountered a rock of sterner substance in the form of a machine-gun stronghold which had survived unscathed both our preliminary bombardment and our barrage. The little garrison here fought stubbornly in the effort to stay our onrush. The heart of their defence was an officer who both fought and directed magnificently and inspired his followers with his own courage. Our line was in some danger of being dislocated. As Canadian river-men would say, it had run up against a "snag" at this point. But one of our officers, Captain Bredin, of the 28th. perceiving a worthy foeman, ran out of the line and around the flank, and engaged him with a revolver. The German fell, and with his fall the spirit went out of his followers. The post was carried almost at once. Among the prisoners taken was a machine-gunner who was chained to his gun. It was a strange enough sight to our men, this highly-trained soldier fettered to his duty like a criminal, a steel stake driven into the ground on either side of him, one chain around his waist and another locked to an iron ring on his leg. The psychology of a race which discerns in such treatment an incentive to heroic endeavour is not unlikely to elude our apprehension.
By this time the German guns had realised the formidable nature of our advance and the depth of our penetration into the outer defences of Courcelette. The storm of shell and shrapnel that swept our line suddenly redoubled its fury. But our men went straight on through it, ignoring their casualties. The deadly diagonal of the sunken road was crowded with German troops, but our men flung themselves into it with the bayonet, and left it packed with German dead.
The course of this savage hand-to-hand struggle was thronged with incidents of individual heroism, so numerous as to make even a partial chronicling of them impossible in these pages. A couple of instances, however, may be cited as showing that the huge development of the mechanical element in modern warfare has not robbed the personal element of its opportunity or of its decisive influence. The case of Private Stevens, of the 28th Battalion, is one in point. His story may be quoted as follows from the Brigade Report: – "Just prior to the assault a party of six snipers from the 28th Battalion was posted in the shallow jumping-off trench to keep busy an enemy detachment of about 20 men which had been troubling our lines. All the members of this small party, except Private Stevens, were either killed or wounded, and Stevens himself had two holes through his steel helmet, a deep wound in his left shoulder, and a gash in his forehead. Nothing daunted, he kept on sniping and killed several of the enemy. His rifle was smashed by a shell just as the assault went forward. He picked up a rifle with fixed bayonet, and, dashing forward with the assault, entered an enemy's strong point, and single-handed captured five Boches and brought them back to our lines." The exploit of Lieutenant Clarkson, of the 27th Battalion, is, in another fashion, equally significant by reason of the unquenchable dominance of spirit which it displays. To quote again from the same Report: – "Lieutenant Clarkson was severely wounded in the knee, at the sunken road, and just as he fell four Germans came out of a deep dug-out. He at once covered them with his revolver, and, ordering them to improvise a stretcher out of a couple of rifles, made them carry him to our lines, and there handed them over prisoners. On the way in, as soon as his bearers showed the least sign of any opposition to his wishes, he quelled it with his revolver."
By a quarter to eight, in spite of all opposition and an unexpected addition to its task, the Brigade had gained its final objective and set itself strenuously to the work of consolidation, anticipating energetic counter-attacks. The addition referred to was an enforced extension to the left of about three hundred and fifty yards, which was found necessary in order to secure the flank. This operation, which was stubbornly resisted by strong German detachments in the Courcelette Road, was carried out with a rush by the 28th Battalion. Immediately the new line was secured three patrols were sent out beyond the line by the 31st Battalion. These patrols succeeded in establishing themselves, for purposes of observation, close to the southern edge of the village, and several of their scouts made their way into the village itself. The reports which they brought back were so sanguine that the Brigade, its blood being up, begged permission to pursue its success by an immediate assault upon the village. This proposal, however, was promptly vetoed, the Higher Command having already in view the plans for the afternoon. The impetuous 6th was obliged, therefore, to content itself with its very handsome achievement, which was not only so brilliant in itself as to deserve far more attention than it has received, but was also of vital importance to the unfolding of our final operations against Courcelette. The great advance of the 5th Brigade in the afternoon, with its swift success in bringing the whole village permanently within our lines, was a more outstanding exploit by reason of the conspicuousness of the goal gained thereby. But it must not be forgotten that Courcelette was fully half-won by the victories of the 4th and 6th Brigades in the early morning. The honours of the 2nd Division are fairly shared among all three Brigades. It was wholly because the morning triumph of the 4th and 6th Brigades went well beyond the utmost that had been expected of it that the afternoon attack was undertaken – and that September 15th became, in the Canadian War Calendar, COURCELETTE DAY.
CHAPTER V
COURCELETTE (continued)
The afternoon battle, which gave Courcelette solidly into our hands, was, as we have seen, the affair of the 5th Brigade, under Brigadier-General A. H. McDonnell, C.M.G., D.S.O. All the morning, fired by the successes of the 4th and 6th, the Brigade, held in reserve, had been fretting on the curb. As the G.O.C., with his Battalion Commanders, watched the fierce fighting and exultant progress of the other two Brigades, they began to wonder uneasily if the rôle of spectator was the only one that would fall to them in this great adventure. All doubts, however, were presently removed. At 3.30 came orders for the Brigade to take the village of Courcelette that same afternoon.
It was what in commercial terms would be called a "rush order," but the Brigade, already strung up to the highest pitch of expectancy, had no hesitation in undertaking to fill it. Operation orders were drawn up in haste; but that there was no sacrifice of explicitness and detail, on account of this haste, was proved by the accuracy and smoothness with which they worked out in the application. Officers and N.C.O.'s had to be instructed in their parts, yet all was so expeditiously managed that by 5 o'clock the advance, starting from its rendezvous point, was working its way up across the open under heavy shell-fire to the positions captured in the morning. It was from these new positions that the assault was to begin.
The three Battalions which made the attack – the three which actually carried out the storming of Courcelette – were the 22nd (French-Canadians, of Montreal), the 25th (Nova Scotia), and the 26th (New Brunswick). The 24th Battalion (Victoria Rifles of Canada) was held in reserve. The right of the attacking line was allotted to the French-Canadians, whose objective was the whole of the village to the right of the main street, running north. The left of the line was taken by the Nova Scotians, whose task was to storm the left half of the village. The steeple of the village church formed the landmark dividing the two objectives. The New Brunswickers followed close behind to support the assault, to deal with strong points which had proved too obdurate for the attacking waves, and thoroughly to mop up the whole village.
The action being a direct frontal attack, with no feints or flank diversions, and carried to its triumphant conclusion along its whole front, on schedule time and in precise accord with orders, the story of it does not afford that intense dramatic interest, those soul-racking fluctuations, those moments of terrible suspense, those snatchings of victory out of defeat, which may be found in the accounts of many lesser engagements. There were practically no fluctuations; and there was never, in the assailing waves, a moment of doubt as to the result. From flank to flank the advance was so irresistible, so implacable and undeviating, that within one hour and a quarter from the first lift of our barrage, the report went back to Headquarters that Courcelette was completely in our hands and that the work of consolidation was under way. Considering the distance and nature of the ground fought over and the tremendous obstacles to be overcome, it is obvious that there was no time for varying fortunes. By the very perfection and glory of the achievement the story of it must suffer.
Envisaged as a whole, the action may best be presented as the steady onflow of our waves close behind the successive lifts of our barrage. The movement was as deliberate and as strictly co-ordinated as if it were being executed on the parade-ground; for the enemy's fury of shell and machine-guns, though it could slash gaps in our lines, could not either check or hurry their inexorable march. Now here, now there, the lines would break into a little seething vortex of body-to-body struggle as they swept around and engulfed some rock of obstinate resistance. But for the most part these stubborn points were left to the uncompromising attention of the New Brunswickers, whose "mopping up" was thorough; and, having confidence in that thoroughness, the attacking lines refused to be delayed, but bombed and bayoneted their way straight on to their final objective. They gained it, and the most furious counter-attacks which an able and hardy enemy could afterwards hurl against it never availed to shake their grip upon it.
To grasp the details of the action it is necessary to follow the fortunes of the attacking Battalions individually. The total depth covered in the advance, as we have seen, was about 3,000 yards, and every yard of it under heavy shelling. The 22nd Battalion, on the right, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Tremblay, the Battalion Commander, in person, negotiated this portion of the advance in extended order at three paces interval (that is, in non-technical language, in an open line with a space of three yards between man and man). The two leading companies in this formation occupied a front of about 900 yards. One hundred and fifty yards behind them, in the same formation, came the other two companies of the Battalion. Two hundred yards behind them, again, came two companies of the 26th Battalion, also in two lines, to do the mopping up for their predecessors.
This first thin line, looking frail and inadequate indeed for the great task before it, moved on through the storm of death as steadily as if upon manoeuvres. But even upon manoeuvres it is difficult enough for a line so extended to maintain formation and direction. Now, with great gaps blown in it here and there, and each individual compelled to thread his way between endless shell-holes, some old and cold, some still smoking with poison fumes, the line took ground insensibly to the right and fell off toward Martinpuich. Its left was losing touch with the 25th Battalion across the Bapaume Road. Colonel Tremblay, perceiving the error in time, doubled across the whole front, swung up the right flank, and got the line once more facing its true objective. Three times he was thrown down and half-buried by shells exploding near him, but impatiently recovering himself he continued to guide the attack. The Battalion swept over the heads of the surprised 4th Brigade in Candy Trench, and then, pivoting on the Sugar Refinery, whirled to the left till its right rested on Gun Pit Trench. Fronting now due north, with shouts and cheers and shrill cries of exultation the excited French-Canadians stormed forward into Courcelette.
In their eagerness, these dark little men from the docks of Montreal were hardly to be restrained. They entered the outskirts of the village fairly on the heels of their own barrage, and suffered some loss from it before it lifted forward. The platoons of their extreme right ran into a torrent of machine-gun fire, which took heavy toll of them. But as soon these guns were located the little men were on to them like wild-cats, and from that quarter there was no further trouble.
The progress of the Battalion through the village was, in the main, one irresistible rush, scarcely delayed by the savage hand-to-hand encounters which developed all along its progress. Here and there a party of two or three would delay, perforce, to unearth and destroy a dangerous sniper's post or to bomb a threatening dug-out. But for the most part the front waves passed straight on, their left bounded by the main street running north, their right by the trenches outside the sunken road which forms the eastern limit of the village. They were not in the mood for stopping to take prisoners in their haste, but they gathered in about 300, unwounded, as they went. By 6.45 they had pushed clean through the maze of houses and established their lines clear beyond the Stone Quarry, which occupies the extreme north-eastern apex of Courcelette. They had utterly overthrown, destroyed, or captured a garrisoning force numerically superior to themselves and holding all the advantages of position and preparation.
This kind of fighting, this battling through the maze of half-ruined cottages, wrecked gardens, and tumbled walls was exactly to the taste of these eager and wiry Montreal Frenchmen. The variety of it, the scope it offered to individual adventure, appealed to them. Into such individual adventure they threw themselves with zest. A fiery sergeant, having captured a store of German bombs, loaded himself with them and set out to put them to the best possible use. He bombed a dug-out crowded with Huns. He rushed on to another and cleaned it up with equal effectiveness. He then, still single-handed attacked a third, but was shot down before he could throw his bomb. In spite of the heavy casualties which they suffered from beginning to end of their advance, the French-Canadians carried it through at a pitch of enthusiasm which made devotion easy and sacrifice of no account. But having thus gained their prize, the holding of it was presently to prove a more searching test of their quality. Throughout the next forty-eight hours they were to show, under terrible trial, as we shall see, a tenacity, an endurance, and a toughness of fibre no less admirable than the fire and élan of their attack.
Meanwhile, how had it been faring with the 25th Battalion, the men of Nova Scotia, on the left? The objective set them, it will be remembered, was that portion of Courcelette – the larger portion, as will be seen by reference to the map – which lay west of the principal street running north and south. Courcelette at this time, though much damaged, was still recognisable as a village. There were still streets to fight through, still houses and walls to serve as ambush for machine-gun or sniper. And the village church in the main street still stood, still held aloft its ancient spire, which was the landmark to guide the right flank of the Nova Scotians' line. It was the ceaseless – and futile – German bombardment of the place, after it had passed once for all into our hands, which pounded Courcelette into the dust and made of her one stony desolation with Pozières, Ovillers, and La Boiselle.
The first wave of the 25th Battalion was led by its commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel E. Hilliam. It was made up of "D" and "A" companies, led by their respective company commanders, Major Brooks and Major Tupper. And it occupied, in extended order, a frontage of about half a mile. For the work before it this line was daringly thin, but the coolness and steadiness of these Nova Scotian men fully justified the confidence of their leader, and the wide extension of the line kept down the casualties in passing through the heavy German barrage. In spite of this furious shelling; and the tortured ground to be traversed (which was nothing more than a jumble of shell-holes), this difficult formation was preserved as methodically as it on inspection parade, the whole battalion responding to its leader as a well-tuned machine responds to the touch of the operator.
At a distance of 600 yards from the village the advance came under very heavy machine-gun fire, and Major Brooks, who was leading D Company, the left half of the line, was killed, as was also Captain Dickey, the Adjutant, who accompanied Colonel Hilliam. Through this destructive fire the line swept on unwavering, without either delay or haste, to within 200 yards of the first houses. It was from among these houses that the stream of leaden death was issuing. Colonel Hilliam gave the word to charge, and the position – consisting of the whole southern outskirts of the village from the main street on the right, to the sunken road on the left – was captured with a rush. In this rush one of the enemy's machine-guns was taken, but the rest were successfully carried off by the survivors of their crews into the more northerly portion of the village.
The Nova Scotians were now somewhat ahead of their scheduled time – so much so, indeed, that they were beginning to get peppered with fragments from their own barrage. Colonel Hilliam, therefore, halted them, under cover of the cottages and garden walls, to take breath for the next thrust. He moved through the ranks, talking to each man personally, and found that, in spite of their casualties, they had small need of cheering or encouragement. Amid toppling walls and hurtling death and a pandemonium that no words can describe, they were smoking and chaffing as if their halt was a mere route-march rest along a peaceful roadside. But under this gay and laughing surface was the thrill of a fierce exultation, and, in the words of their commander, they were "like hounds straining on the leash" for the renewal of the attack. A few minutes more and the barrage lifted. The leash was loosed. The front line burst forward, and, bearing down all opposition in its rush, swept straight through to its objective, 300 yards beyond the northern boundary of the village. Here they at once began to dig in, and so judicious was the siting of their trenches that the enemy's artillery did not succeed in locating them till the next day. Colonel Hilliam, though wounded, remained on duty, personally supervising the task of consolidation. The second line, some fifty yards behind, came on more deliberately, finishing what its predecessor had left half-done, and taking up its position in support of the first. Numbers of the enemy were seen fleeing wildly up the slope and over the crest of the ridge beyond the village. They were pursued at once by the deadly individual fire of our sharpshooters and by the collective fire of certain sections working as fire-units as deliberately as if at range practice Though bomb and bayonet had been their chief weapons of late, the men had not forgotten the fine points of their musketry, and it was but a thin remnant of the fugitives that escaped over the ridge. These sons of Nova Scotia had proved themselves to be of the same indomitable temper as their forbears in "the land of the glens and the mountains and the heroes." They had displayed that blend of cold resolution and fighting fire which we associate with such storied Scottish regiments as the Gordons and the Black Watch.
Ten minutes later the Montreal men, enveloping the Stone Quarry, had joined up on the right. This was at 7 o'clock in the evening of the 15th. The whole of Courcelette was in our hands, and our grip was locked upon it, never to be shaken loose.