BATTLE OF LOOS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 173, 12 May 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

BATTLE OF LOOS.

GREATEST IN HISTORY, SAYS SIR A. CONAN DOYLE. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, lecturing on the war at His Majesty's Theatre, London, said the battle of Loos was by far the greatest battle ever fought in British history, for no fewer than twelve divisions of infantry were engaged--roughly 150,000 men. On this occasion we used gas for the first time. It was not the deadly gas of the Germans but merely a narcotic. In the advance brigades were held up by barbed wire which had not been dstro'yed by our bombardment, and this led Sir Arthur to suggest that some device should be adopted for cutting thd wire before our troops left their trenches to go forward. This disastrous result had occurred so frequently in this war that anything which could Ie devised to prevent it would ba extraordinarily valuable. The question of reserves at the battle was a very difficult one, and one which would perplex historians for a long time. They consisted of the 24th and 2ist Divisions, two very fine divisions of the New Army, and on the morning of the first day of the battle they were five or six miles behind the British trenches. We had it on the authority of Lord French that at nine o'clock in the morning he handed them over to General Haig, who in turn handed them over to the commander of the Eleventh Corps, General Haking. In warfare things did not go by clockwork; there were very many delicate links in the chain, any one of which might go wrong. What went wrong on this occasion could not be said. But what was quite certain was that tnese troops, which were badly wanted, did not get to the battlefield until late. Not a man of them had seen a shot fired in anger, nor a trench, except in England, btu when they got into action they acquitted themselves remarkably well, and in some cases with extraordinary heroism. Some very cruel and unjust accounts got about in London concerning the behaviour of the 21st Division. It was said that they had been broken. What really happened was that they had broken a very dangerous counterattack of the Germans which might have got through our Army, and that in breaking it they had themselves been broken.

9000 BOMBS IN TWO HOURS. A very remarkable action took place on October 8, when the Germans made a great counter-atfack, and endeavoured to retake the ground they had lost. In two hours the bomb parties of the. Guards discharged 9000 bombs. The-, parties only comprised 100 men from I each battalion, and this gave come idea j of the extreme vigour of the attack. The whole thing was entirely subterranean and very deadly, becasue the combatants were close to each other. The net result of the battle of Loos was that we captured twenty-five guns and forty machine-guns and about 3000 prisoners. Very likely the Germans made as many prisoners as we did. We gained also' a strip of line 7000 yards long and 4000 yards deep. No doubt there was discontent that no better result had been achieved by so great an effort. None the less, if we cast our minds back two years, and remembered with what awe and respect we looked upon the invincible Prussia a army, which had never been beaten ill a single action throughout three great wars, and if we then considered that, in spite of barbed wire and alt kinds of defences, a British Army, consisting half of vamped-up troops, lurl through their lines and token gim.3 and prisoners—he thought we must he very exacting if we decided that our men had done anything but very well indeed at the battle of Loos.

I do think, said Sir Arthur, that the valour of the British soldier has ever been more conspicuous and it has shone out equally brightly in the old Army, the Territorials, and the new Army.