THE BATTLE OF THE WAR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 92, 21 April 1915, Page 7

THE BATTLE OF THE WAR.

VALOR AND CARNAGE OF YPRES GRAPHIC STORY OF DECISIVE j FIGHT ' Mr Will Irwin, the •American journalist, has contributed to the New York Tribune an account of the great and decisive battle of V pres, which The Times refers to as “an action which will stand as one of the most glorious achievements in British military annals, for, though more English troops were engaged here than in 'any previous battle of the Empire, they numbered only 120,000, against 600,000 of the Germans, which is more than were engaged in the whole Franco-Prussian War.” Mr Irwin describes the battle as “a decisive action, perhaps the really decisive action of the war,” for it closed, The Times points out, the last gap in the defensive operations of the Allies, made impossible any further German move on Paris or any move to take Paris in the rear, and sealed the road to Calais.

' The thrilling story shows how the Allies’ line was bending dangerously and the breaking point was near when, on October 11, the iirst of the main British force detrained at St. Omer. , The American journalist goes on;— 1 By October 19 the English army was fighting a scattering, confused-look-ing battle, whose focus was Ypres, the beautiful old capital of French Flanders. By that time, also, the Belgian army, which had been given a brief breathing-spell by the Germans, das desperately engaged in holding the Yser at the point of the line nearest the sea. The bridge-head of the Yser —the critical point for them —had been lost and won hack ; falling back on the immemorial defensive measure of the Flemish, the Belgians had flooded the country ; the extreme left of the line wa.s secure.

Rawlinson, stretching his lines beyond all security, was lighting a desperate battle to hold Ypres and to maintain touch with the Belgians and their French reinforcements to his left. By the 20th that line had grown perilously thin ; by the 20th, too, the German masses were coining on taster and faster: and they were beginning to strike at his weakest spot—his touch with the French and Belgians to his left. SIR J. FIiFACE'S STRATEGY. 6 Meantime Sir John French, even before the whole army was detrained, had swung his main forces through a series of anoeuvres which, I suspect, the soldier of the future will study for their brilliance and for their defiance of military tradition. In all this torn, bleeding province of lire and death the action rose to separate battles which would have been famous in old wars. The soix-aute-quinsse guns of the French artillery support, the rifles and bayonets of the English Third Corps took the hill of Mont des Cats; did it, too, against odds. That same Third Corps -.-always the attacking force, and almost always against odds—went forward in a week to Armentieres, a gain of 20 miles or more. The Second Corps, fighting on the right of the Third, made a narrower turn. It pivoted on La Bassee; its loft went forward ten miles to a point where it was in touch with the Third. So as the critical 20th approached the main force under Sir John French extended for some 25 miles from before La Brassee to a point beyond Ypres, and now the German resistance stiffened and held. Neither the English nor the French could drive much farther. But the line was established. And it was a straight line. Halfformed, insecure, it' still reached out and touched that Franco-Belgian defence which ran from the Forest of Honthlioulet to the sea. That extreme left of the British line—tlio point where it joined the line of its, Allies—was held by Rawlinson’s

harassed, over-stretched division. And just then more Germans and still more Germans were rushed down the Belgian railroads. “They scorned to rain down on us everywhere.” a spectator has said, hut most of all they rained on that weak point to the loft. HANGING ON THEIR EYELIDS. Now French, “violating every rule of war,” had not only drawn the lines of his important Second and Third Corps very thin, but he had shot Ids last bolt of reserves. All the reinforcements available from England had been used in filling out units—this purely intellectual summary has taken no account of the heavy cost of life and limb of these British attacks. The Indian troops, hurried up from Marseilles, had been rushed to the front. The day when they arrived the English forces were hanging on by their eyelids. Someone, I am told, looked back from a trench and saw a solitary outpost, a turbanned, cloaked figure of the desert, very startling in the green, peaceful French landscape, riding over a hill. Back of him nodded the turbans of Sikh Cavalry; and the English in the trenches, who seemed past emotion, waved their rifle-barrels and cheered. But neither Indians nor French Territorials nor French Cavalry nor French Artillery seemed sufficient. Only the First Corps remained out of action. An army does not move in a day ; while the Second Corps and the Third had been battering their way through a 25-mile advance, the First, under General Sir Douglas Haig, was still coming over its old nositlon before Soissons. By the 20th they were detrained and ready for the lino. There came that night a special moment of decision of Sir John

French ; ancl on his decision perhaps 'rested the fate of the campaign, lie himself has stated it nndramatically in his despatches. Should he rise the First to reinforce the Second and Third, thereby securing the ground al- { ready won on right ? They were drawn thin, the Second and Third—thin. One day, it is said, French, visiting the lines, talked to a colonel who was hard pressed. “We can’t hold out much longer, Sir,” said the colonel. “It is impossible!” “1 want only men who can do the impossible,” said French. “Hold.”

The Second and Third were doing the impossible. If any military force since wars began ever needed reinforcements it was this one. lint there was the threat beyond Ypres at the point between the British left and the Franco-Belgian right—a place where the weak spot in the bladder might bulge; and, bulging too much, break. Sir John French, “with the air,” someone has said, “of a business man closing a deal,” made his decision and turned in for a little sleep. He chose to let the Second Corps and'the Third continue with the impossible. He sent the First Corps to the line about the city which has given name to this while series of actions—Ypres. They incorporated what was left of llawlinson’s force ; then prepared to dig in and hold. THU CRUCIAL DAY. Ten days followed in which nothing decisive happened and'everything happened. The Germans rocked their attack from side to side,. searching for the weak spot. They, gained here; they lost there; but the Ijne remained as it had been when Haig moved up his First Corps. The British held on and continued to dig jn.

Then came the 31st—the crucial day tor England. The attacks had been growing stronger; across the lines the British heard the Germans singing as though working themselves up. Gorman fashion, to a Berserk courage; captured orders showed that the Kai;er had commanded a great assault which should clear the way to Calais and to Paris. /

Before the sun was high on that morning of the 31st a British aviator volplaned down to his own line with a wing damaged by shrapnel. He dropped from ids seat pale and shaken. “A close call?” they asked. “It isn’t that!” he said, “it’s what I’ve seen —three corps, 1 toll you—against'our First!” So ho jerked out his story. He had soon the roads and ridges like anthills and antruns with men; he had seen new batteries going into position; he had seen, far away, the crawling grep serpents which were still more German regiments going to their slaughter. “And we’re so thin from up there,” he said, “and they’re so many!” Hard on this came hurried news to headquarters from the front. The German artillery and a massed attack of German infantry had broken the First Division of the First Corps near Ypres; the division was going back; the French support was going back. “We .must leave reinforce-, meiits,'” safd the" fines Sage. ■'/ “1 can giy-q you my two sentries and my staff,” replied French. Disaster after disaster followed. The Royal Scots Fusiliers, remaining too long in a hot place, were for their very valor cut off. The Germans had found new artillery positions, had shelled General Douglas Haig’s headquarters. A shell had burst in the house. Haig was outside at the time; hut nearly every staff officer of the First Corps was killed or wounded. The army up there was almost headless—was lighting as individuals on primitive fighting iustinct.

WHAT GENERAL FRENCH DHL A day’s march away from Ypres is the lord where 2000 years ago Caesar had his close call from the Nervii. That was the battle where Caesar, snatching a shield from a soldier, himself plunged into the thick of things, aid, acting as line-officer and general all at once, rallied the Roman army. Warfare has changed, but manhood and leadership remain the same. French jumped into his mocor-car amt rushed to the line of the First Division. He had not so far to go as be thought. The lino had retired four miles. Through his glasses could see the close-locked quadruple' ranks of Gorman infantrymen attacking everywhere. And everywhere the English were fighting valiantly, but without method. They were in it to the last man—even the regimental cooks. The officers of infantry and

cavalry were firing witli the men, their , servants loading spare idles behind . them. ) Nevertheless, the Germans had one more great assault on then piogramme. Ypres is the old historic capital of French Flanders; and the British observers noted a curious Lift about the operations against 5 pres. However heavy the German bombardment. the famous old, Cloth Hall, the most beautiful building of its kind :n Flanders, went unscathed by shells. It was saved, we know now, for a particular purpose. Kaiser Wilhelm jhimself was moving forward with a special force to a special assault which should finally and definitely break the Allied line at pres, lo do this was to clear Flanders of the Allies; ami then, as by custom be might, he intended to annex Belgium in the Cloth Hall of Ypres. He come with his own-Prussian Guard; it was that Guard which, on the 15th, led another terrible massed attack. It was no less vigorous than the attack of the 31st i; but the English, rein- j forced now by the,French, met it better. LOCKING THE LINE. Again the dense masses poured in ; again the very officers fired until their rifles grew too hot to hold. hen, that night, the strength of the German attack was spent, the better part of the Prussian Guard lay dead in a wood—lay. at some places, in ranks eight deep. The second and lessor climax was past. A lortnight more, and the line from La Bassee to the sea had been locked as thoroughly, as the line from Switzerland to La Bassee. it had cost England 50,000 men out of 120,000 engaged—a proportion of loss greater than any previous war ever knew. It had cost the French and Belgians 70,000. It probably cost the Germans 375,000. That is half a million in all. The American Civil War has been called the most terrible in modern history. In this one long battle Europe lost as many men as the North lost in the whole Civil War.