BATTLE OF THE LYS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 251, 11 July 1918, Page 6

BATTLE OF THE LYS

: ' .. * \ : TWO FATEFUL DAYS ■. . ■ ■ ■ . ■ [ —<v . HOW THE BRITISH FOUGHT {From the Special Representative of thi Sydney ",Sun.") : ~ . . London, April 21. It is folly to say tlmt tho attack ii the Arnientiores section was "expeetal"tho sore of, folly which has '.alliated oi ; exoused every failure and led to repe ; tition of reverses. Thu facts aro tha ; tho front was denuded, even of its aero ; planea. Under the crying necessity o ' J ' l e , st ?{' ill S n balance (on the Soiunio, all the best troops on tho Armentierei and Messiues front were sent .south. Tin lighting flying" squadrons, und even the artillery observation squadrons, iverf tossed: into tho great battle for Amiens _J.ho faont was stripped bare. It used t< k au 2 lt; Australian generals in this sectoi ; that the Germans could gather in llou- ; baix and Lille, just opposite, .huge re ■ serves theme n, collecting them unob , served in tho wide, sheltered suburbs, and then launching great attacks, Uui , men were never afraid of a break. Nei'ther was General Headquarters. But ] ■ fancy that thig thought of tens of thousands hidden in the great industrial cities of Northern Prance haunted : bir Douglas Haig also, and that whon he sent his divisions south from Messinea and Ainiontieres he had somo qualms. Many of the divisions arrived 6011 th of ; Arras and about Albert when the Ger- ; man advanco had been stopped—largely I by aeroplanes—and the need for them ■ was gone. But no one double that tho . decision to send them there was just, lor at the time it waa made great gaps ' Biisted in our southern front. _ Tho German stroke was hard, though delivered over boggy country and river ilats. And it found a weak spot. The ,' Portuguese divisions havo been i olding the Armentieres '.and Jleurbaix sector ' for some months. It is a sector full of memories, some sweet but most tragic, for the Australians. Here it_was that ; the first threo divisions wore placed on their arrival in Franco. It was their ■ "nursery." And hero also the Fifth Division came, when the first three went ■ down to light for Pozieres; and here tho Fifth stormed over against German Jine3. of machino-guns, and lost more in a single operation that any divisions in any army during this war. Nothing could have exceeded the va.lour of the .' '-Fifth, and the disaster was riot its fault; But that is another story. Tho same ;• Ifttle ealient—the "nursery" into which , the Portuguese had been placed—was 1 the econe of tho second enemy triumph on the black Monday of April 8, and the Portuguese were.- overwhelmed. and routed. In three hour; the Germans penetrated h'yo miles and took the old ■ town of Estaires—famjliar billeting zone i to all Australians, with its hell-shaped , old totfer and sixteenth-century latticed ; .windows in its pleasant square. '. Heroic British Stands, j Tho Portuguese could make no resist- . anco. They found the' avalanche irre- , sistible, and had to fleo before it in con- ; fusion. They ire most willing, eager . troops, but never had they seen any- . thing like this steady, disciplined Ger- , man fighting machine. To-day tho ■ whole garrison of Lisbon, together with proved soldiers holding important posi- , tions, has volunteered to como to the (front and vindicate and redeem the Portuguese Army. But it will bo many : weeks before file Portuguese are ready for ; even trench-holding work. Their collapse was complete, and the enemy walk- ' ed through. Those British divisions lighting on right and left clung on, and ' took their . full toll of Germans.. At one time the glorious 55th Division'from ! Uivenohy and iNeuve Chapello was like a thin linejutting out to the north, with . Germans at their back and front, and with their ilank completely "in the air." Germans, lightly wounded, would stumble hack from their advance through the . .Portuguese, and walk into this steady unswerving line, which they thought had ■ long since broken. The whole battle of ; the Lys, which looke on paper to be such a serious reverse to British arms, was based upon this first drive through all prepared defences to the open country ; across , the river. No troops on earth could have prevonted an enemy Advance ; to the borders of the Forot de Nieppe end to the edges of Bailleul after, that initial collapse. Quick to develop their gains, the Germane have thrown in thirty divisions, »nd by sheer weight have battered us off tho old battlefield of .Messiues. and coinjielled withdrawal from the blood-soaked ; ridges of Flanders. At one time only lour British divisions could be mustered on the .whole battlefield, and anxiety was intense. But Ihe enemy hecame contused and congested, and on many occasions failed to push his advances. Australian airmen, who saw the whole drama Irom the air.-describo to me how they could see tho enemy lino, lying like pockets of quicksilver-little knots of ma-chine-gunners—with no troops of ours within coo-eo of them. It was our airmen's gollant7 and ardour in preventing the enemy airmen seeing such things '. that '■Kept . tne • breaK-through from becoming ■ a disaster. The sight itras in many .ways different from /that of the southern battlefield. There munition dumps had to be left, guns deserted, great stores abandoned. The retreat had >l>een so hurried that bridges were not destroyed. But hero in tho Lys Valley all was raging destruction. Estaires, JUerville, Laventie, Bailleul, flunicd for (lays, tho thousand farm houses x burnt to cinders, adding to the black palls ever tho stricken cities. The Germans got .nothing that was of use, after their , jmtial rush—no guns, no stores, no shells. Those dumps and supplies which had not been- fired during tile retreat wore attended to by the airmen, who dropped incendiary bombs and scattered .thorn with high explosives. ' Three Days of Crisis. LudendorflV original plan was to make hie main stroke-southwards turning as ho reached the Foret de. Nieppe, and Japping up Bothuno and Lilleivs. Then iva3 to come tho great stroke at Arras, •where ho had !35 divisions gathered. I here is no knowing how soon he expected the British armies to break. But it is likely that he thought this Arras blow would be decisive. The wonderful defonsive work of the 55th and 51st Divisions held that southern line intact' Local advances wore made, such as at Locon, which was lost and burned; and at Bobecq, where the old La Baeseo Canal was crossed; but elsewhere the canal line held firm, and never was the high ground at Givenchy and Festubert out ot our hands for more than a few hours. Ludondorff. represented hero "by famous throw-in-all gambling ceneriils of the., type of von Boruhardi, turned quickly north. Fifteen divisions begaii to batter at the heights around Bailleul—the vital ridpe which forms tho keystone of our northern defences. With that ridge conu- I :with enemy guns belching at the Yprcs n loads from Kommel and Wytschaete and f ilont des Cats—the northern armies ; could not have been withdrawn without I .very * serious losses. On Sunday last, ,■ when it became plain that Ludendorf! was bringing fresh divisions [or deter- ; mined assaults upon these ridges, Sir 0 Douglas Haig held a critical council of c war. Most of the Messines ridso had T gone; Neuve Eglise, around the ruins of t . which tho Australians played so many football matches during the winter, was 0 becoming too costly a place to hold. It was decided that tho Jieighta east oi t Ypres should be abandoned. And by v Sunday night the guns were being pulled s back, munition stores were being de- ti etroyed, and the main unite began to move to a nevf line 7000 yards behind, ti running along tho old Pilkem ridge and 1-. in front of the Zillebeke Lake. { Those abandoned ridges ore scored f, in Australian history. What Australian street does not know of gallant soldier whose ( bones <. ]icr bleaching there, whose life was givjii in those heroic battles which after all had failed, won fur the Allies thoir clean conquest of these heights? Yet I am sure that, whatever doubts there had been on Sunday about the rid- t, visability of withdrawal, there was none '! on Monday. For grave crisis dovoloped. .i poor, fresh eneaiy divisions attacked with | great bravery, and with many proofs'of Reasoned training,-the line from Morris— c j the pleasant village in which Victorian q troops of the Brigade were .billeted e( Tvlipn I was last with them—to Wyt- a] Bchaeto, the ruins behind the winter lino B ( of the Now South Wales — Brigade, ai

and tho Victorian —. Tho ridge Km crumbled. Tho weight of four fresl divisions is insupportable upon exhaustw and overstrained men. Great gallantn was everywhere displayed. "Wave aftei wave was repulsed, and retirements worn to other lines behind; tl'wre was nevei a gap. But whon the German attack: onded they had oirried thu enemy oi to tho foothills. He was a mile and c halt beyond Bailleul; ho had rnterec Meteren, one-quarter of the way to Cus sol; he was lying under the Divi ho sioiis headquartei-s at Dranoutre, anc . had a hold on the slopes of Mount Kern. '• mel. ill-. Perry Uobmson, "Tho Times' in correspondent, says that tiio Germai •_ weight was ho heavy Unit day that had il 01 . been. ■pushed strongly it would have le . broken down all barriers; we were in. a t deed still hard pressed for men, and tin .„. Frondi had not yet arrived. The apot pallnig tact that night was that if the Oj . bciruians got up more fresh divisionseg and they seemed capable of doing so—thej lie would take Kemwo) and at. Jiloi, ami ] 0 cut olt tho retreat of tho Ypres armies re and tho Belgians farther north. [9. to A Desperate Counter-Attaok. w ' Tuesday was full of anxioty-but ended ii- well. That night the French divie sious, which had been put in on tho b canal line at tho south of the salient >s, to stem tho advance towards the Bruay ii- coalfields, sent reinforcements; and an !i- Australian division arrived near "Morris, lhe Germans had not deployed new « divisions, and tliei:- faw attacks with tho s- , remnants of their old ones had been :d bloodily repulsed. Wo took all chances, ie and launched what is described by Air. !* Bean as a "desperate" counter-attack. It s- was indeed desperate measures. The )t moment had come when not another foot r- of ground could be given away on theso y priceless heights; no man could afford n to look baok, no company could retreac, 10 no enemy could be nllowcd to pass exr > cept over our dead. The Australians ad)S vancwl towards Merris, gaining ground , and prisoners, and stubbornly niaintainn ing their position; tho French went in T at Meteren, fighting towards Bailleul, * and at Wvtschaete; the British advanced S in between. Heroic fighting took place that night and next morning. Metereu >' was taken, and an advance of a mile ■i was made Wytschaete was reconquered. When the phase was " endod, the Germans were in' Moteren F "again, and Wytchaete was more No ',' Man's Land than the prize of either, side. ' But the full shock of fresh troops had " been felt by the enemy. He had at last " been attacked, had stumbled, had re-' covered himself with difficulty, and was T panting. Since then, our lino has held, " despite further onslaughts. Wo bo- , lieve now that it will hold firm— j that on this northern front the posiJ tion has been stabilised, and that for j every foot of ground he wiw now x in this sector the enemy will hiivo to I pay an unreasanable price.- Kemmel j should be held; Ypres should be saved. , Hopes fluctuate and disappear, but sucli { is the firm hope of the Allied leaders 3 at this moment. 1 There will bo many more critical I moments during the-so months of tho . 1918 campaign. It is too much to dare to hope that even greater crisis' than .that of Monday, April 15, will not come ■ l upon us, The enemy -bad 220 divisions j • gathered ou this front. 'IVise, they are ; only of SOOO rifles each, as r-ompaTed with : the 10,500 rifles in a British division— " when.it is up to strength—and the 18,200 ' rifles in an, Australian and Canadian divi--1 sion—when up to strength. But there 1 are Jess than one-third tho number of ' British divisjpns heire. It is truo that ' tho French liave a larger and fresher ; army, unscathed since Ihe battle of tho ' Champagne—really viihurt i.ince that 'of Verdun. But tho Germans operate on internal lines. They can threaten lii.my ' vital ,points from their concentrations, and pin down Allied reserves to the ; Paris sectors. Tho 1 v hole Western front ' is becoming indescribably mixed, and will become more so; British and French divisions, and American battalions, and American lirigades, and Italian divisions will be freely honeycombed and intermingled. The appointment of General Foch as Generahssimj will bo justified by yet another reason—that of the mingling of all armies into one vari-coloured whole.