WHEN ANTWERP FELL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 262, 15 April 1915, Page 6

WHEN ANTWERP FELL.

VIVID STORY OF RETREAT. BRITISH FALL BACK FROM BRUGES WORSE TITAN HELL. MYSTERY OF A SPY AND DUKE. (Blackwood's Magazine for March p-.ib-lishes a remarkably vivid acceunt of the British lighting in Lelguint alter the fall of Antwerp up to Ins final stand before Yp'.as. The uar'ative, entitled, "With RavrLn.-ou in Belgium," is by 2nd Lieutenant C Underwood, interpreter to the Headquarters Stall', 21st lnfama; Biigade, 7th Division.) The complete division left the New Forest on Sunday, October 4, for the front. Embarking at Southampton, they found themselves back in Dover Harbor on Tuesday morning, wailing for the Channel to he swept of mines. That evening they ci'os-ed to Zeebrugircand went on to Bruges:— "At supper General Watts informed us that we were under the orders of Hie 4th Army Corps, commanded by Lieut.Gcneral Sir 11. S. Rawlinson, of Ladysmith fame. Later that evening we received orders that we should have to leave early next morning for the coast to cover the retreat from Antwerp, j which we were intended to have saved, but failed to do owing to our delayed departure from Dover." After some marching and countermarching to Ostend and back to Bruges, the division was moved on to Roulers and Y'pres owing to the threatening advance of the Germans. Fighting began in earnest in the Ghehivolt-Bccc! e—e region on October 17 and IS. A retiring engagement was fought on the 21st. We quote the following- passages from the narrative after that point:— "At Sl.nO a.m. the shells started dropping all round us, and while the cu'.o-.e-l and I were crossing over to the rear farm a shrapnel burst rather ■•!•'--• i than before, and we were surrounded j with bullets. One struck Colonel Lambert on the legging and proved to bo a most wonderful escape. It actually cut a piece out of the calf of the legging and did no injury to the railing breeches inside. ''When I advised the colonel to take it olf to see if he were injured at all, a bullet dropped out from the bottom of the legging inside. ITc was in no way injured. "The neighborhood surrounding Beccj larre became distinctly unhealthy. | During one of the lulls, Sir Frederick Ponsonby, and Colonels Mr.ntgomoi- vd Stewart arrived on the scene with a message from Divisional Headquarters to Generals Watts. They were standing near the corner of the farm, watching the shells burst over the trenches, when one got so close that we were, all I peppered, but none struck. Colonel | Montgomery then advised Sir Frcder- ! ick to retire to headquarters, suggesting that it might be more salubrious. "They accordingly rode off at a a.illop, making straight across a ploughed field to the corner of a wood surrounding a chateau on the Gheluvelt-Yiives Boad. Just as they were reaching this point a shrapnel burst over and behind them, and one of their saddles was emptied and the horse brought down. "We all thought it was Ponsonby, but it turned out to be Stewart, who was very badly hit, and died later from the effects iuYpros. Next day Sir Fredeck received a wire from the. King calling him back to an appointment as Keeper of the Privy Purse .... 20,000 AGAINST 1.i0.000. "The position was most critical, as we had not one man left \o support the firing line, which was being very hardly pressed, and might give way at any moment. At last, then, the long-expect-ed supports were arriving. Our men had behaved like heroes all. This was the seventh day since we first engaged the Germans, one division extending over an unheard front of eight miles and holding up what I understood from one of our prisoners yesterday to be a hostile force of three army corps—i.e., ]f>-?.(UH10 men up against 150.000! "The ordeal of the last three days had been terrible. These brave vJlowh Actually had no sleep for seven days, and had never le't tiu trenches, figbt.;g night and day. st'eking to them until thev were literally blown out of them or buried alive. I'hey were now becoming pieces of wood, =l.-eping standing up, and firing almost mi chanically, with the very slightest support from our guns, which were now outclassel as we had no howitzers with the division, having left Lyndhurst to try to accomplish a task which never came off through no fault of ours. "Having got on to the r o ad, I foord the Northumberland Hussars coinimr through the gates of the chateau, cvidenly having been brought up with the idea of their taking possession ol the trenches if the supp-rts wore not up in time. In ten minims I sighted Hie head of a battadon swinging up the road, and ran down M direrted to hurry them up- Found them to be the Highland Light Tnfantry and King's Ovui Scottish" Borderer?. "I told" the commaiul.ieg officer the position, and be double! them round the wood to the trenches our follow? were, holding with their last gasp. T (hen

returned to tlit> clmtocVJ ant 1 fount', a .signalling private named Shepherd posted at the gates, This mail Had been left with me at the chateau at Beernem, when I was told to keep up communications by telephone between headquarters and the division a3 they ndvanced on Coolscamp. KOYAL SCOTS HAUsLVO MhN'. "He asked me whether I hatj torn : - ambulance pass, as it contained a cv-i.'-i■ n of ill" Scuts Fusiliers ami 11;: iV h s hnlsuan had told him that the'r interpreter had jnst hern shot as a spy. I asked him for further details, which were as follow: —Observing tnai the Koval Scots Fusiliers were being w..i - tieuhirly marked out hy the Herman gunners wherever they moved, the cajitain began to H-.wpect the interpreter who had been attached to them recently and was a Belgian. He was therefore watched, and "the night before had been followed to a farm close to their '■-At four the 'sergeant reported that he was signalling to the German lines with an electric lamp. On the captam up with a file of men. and sud I .-illy coming upon him signalling, he turned round, and when lie found lie iva» caught, shot the captain in the shoulder with his revolver. He. was subsequently shot down where he stood. Afterwards the writer learned that "a German officer was known to be dnving round in a motor-car disguised as a British Stall" Ofttecr." Next day rode into Ypies. ". . . . Leaving the Inteliig -iu> Department, I strolled over to the t'.i' de Flandrcs, and ordered a book. I had hardly been there live minutes when a young stall' officer accompanied by a French artillery officer entered. "I hailed the French officer, whom I took for a captain, in French, and told him how pleased I was to seo the French dragoons again. To my surprise he utterly ignored me. T then asked the British "officer wdio his friend was who was so uncommonly rude for a I' roneh"To iiiv an>ii:wi A »t he replied is broken English. 'lfe is not a caiptainc; litis a cumanda-itr J then asked him to do niv the honour of sitting next to me, and I then apologised in French to the I l ']-!:it'h officer, explaining that 1 i- ul only Kt». :t Ihn-o stripes on his e:i|«' i:ist< .id of four. '•To this he merely gave a grunt, a id A ncit'iei'd that his collar hove the nssniw-r while T noted also that lie was a major. On looking at the soi-dUta.it English Stall' officer I noted that he onlv wore two star.!. I. .then asked him where he had come from, and he again replied in broken English, 'I come from London, and I have only just been appointed to the .Stall" by "Lord Kitehlmo'i-e. "DUC D'OBl-KANS!" "This appeared to me extraordinary. An Knglish Stall" officer unable to speak English except with a French accent accompanied by a French officer of artillery who refused to speak at all! I then thought of the general's stateni.-nt the day before. 'A German officer is known i.. he going about in a ear in a Itriti -!i officer's uniform.' Still, ! could not account, for the French accent. "And thin it drwncd upon me lint perhaps he might be a Herman speaking with a French accent to put me oil' the Went. I derided that ft was good enough to have them arrested fur enquiry. "I then-fore gut and, fdrolfug qui!,!!;/ to the door, opened it, and tul the tir-.i, Tummy L saw to „t(,p every r.itl 111- came across, as there were spies in the cafe. As I was about to re-enter 1 -.aw lio'ili my men, looking very niK-ora-ferfah!". rise ;ind call for the bill. "By this time. 1 had 21) Tommies under the iirst, and. I told them to wait a::-l follow the two men coming out, as 1 suspected them of being spies. They wore al! on tiptoe, and when the pair came out my men followed them down the "square for -oyds, when they both got, into a private car! This settled it. "I ordered my men to .surround the car, and they did so in a second. Just as 1 was congratulating myself on a tine capture and siuv visions "of reward and honor,-etc., out came the Stall' odiei rs head and enquired, "Vat , is 7.U : i' At the same time 1 felt a tap on my shoulder, and. turning round, found it was an infantry captain, who whispered, it's all l'igiit, old chap. Due d'Oricaos!' The French accent, Kitchener, and all was accounted for. "I stepped forward, apologised, saluted, and withdrew my men, and off went the car. On turning round to exph-.in the circumstances to the captain, to my amazement he had disappeared, although the whole thing had not taken a minute. 1 felt absolutely 'done'; saw a c!e>er plant in the English captain, and had the satisfaction of feeling that I had the finest chance in my power of »romotion and congratulation, and had been fooled into losing both. I risked a row and went over to the Intelligence repayment and reported what had taken place. f "The officer in charge was extremely interested, although it was nearly 1 o'clock, and asked me to describe the French artillery officer. I did so, and he seemed quite relieved: then he asked for the description of the young Sea! officer, which-1 gave him, and lie the-i smilingly said, 'lt is quite rkdit, and it was the Due d'Orleans!' | "Willi the morning a report cam" in j that the 7th Division was In ing very hardly pressed. The Herman guns wre heavily shelling Hhcluvelt. "A captive balloon was up all day observing from the French lines. As I was watching the woods on our left front towards the Hheluvelt-Slenin road, I saw the Yorks retiring and the Gordons advancing. I pointed this out to the general, who immediately sent out to find out by whose orders they were retiring. Presently, to our eonsterna-

tion, the Gordons came back farther] down the road towards Gheluvelt; I.e-J fore we could do anything the Yorks came streaming over the open ploughed land, crossing in front of the KruUeck woods. GERMAN OBDER. TO GORDONS. "The general galloped down the road to stop the Gordons, and 1 tried to stop the Yorks, who persisted that the order had been given them (o retire. We concluded (hat it must have been a German officer, and i'orei d (hem up along the Zan<!voorde-Gh:-!uv<-lt road under a terrible shrapnel lire, and they were being; bowled over like ninepins, as the Gemini::; must have scan them crossing the open. "We tumbled them into the ditch alongside the road, and it was a pitiable sight to see the poor fellows who were still in the open and badly hit trying to erawl along towards our headquarters to take shelter from the hail of shrapnel bullets. "They dragged themselves along, some with an arm or leg shot oil' or brokm, and others streaming with blood from head or face wounds. They were iy now all lying out under the wall of a farm, ami the place looked like a shambles. "It was a splendid sight to see ,f,vrdine (Lieut. R.A.M.C.) running out under a hail of bullets and bringing in i one wounded mail after another oir lor hack. His mackintosh in ten minute-, was covered with blood, and he looked like a butcher. Presently the shell (ire died down a bit, and the men in the ditches alongside the road, having had time to recover, advanced once more to regain the ground they had lost; hat they left dozens of corpses lving in all sorfs of position on the field at the ski,of our headquarters. "The general immediately had ordered out two machine guns which we're on (he waggon, am! under Bruce they gave, the advancing Germans such a pep;n r-' iiig that they were forced to retire, and we thus recovered our trenches aa.t saved the situation." He returned to Yprcs. "One peer chap of (he Wanvieks whom f snoke in. had been badly mauled, said: "Well, sir, England can't siiv we did hot stick it to Ihe last. I don't'think 1 shall get home, and 1 wanted to tell the padre that I am not afraid to die. I used to be afraid of hell, but hell can't possibly lie worse than what we have been through the last few days!' " ALL THAT WERE LEFT. | Later the writer heard that he was to start for Bailleul. "Generar~\\'ar.ts being most particular and jealous of the impression our troops would create on arriving in a French town, ordered an inspection. As I followed him round we came into (lie field occupied hy the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Hero they were drawn up, erect and grim as usual, but what a different regiment from 'Ue one which had swung out of Lyndhurst camp less than five weeks before. "That magnificently smart regiment of over 1000 men was now reduced to about 70 men, with the junior subaltern in command. The men were mostly without caps, coats, or even putties, wnr-sliiinrd and ragged, but still full of liriti.-h pluck and pride, with a 'iicver-s;:v-die' look about them which made the heart swell with pride at being connected with such splendid specimens of manhood. "As mv place had always been just behind the general and b'rigade-iu» Ur, right at Hie head of the column, 1 ."<ad really wxi'v had an opportunity of seeing (he extent to which our brigade had suffered until now. As we slowly .„[- vanc.-d, seeing this remnant of'what had been a regiment at full strength so short a time before, with now only a fair, curly-headed junior subaltern (the only officer left) in command, the pathos of the whole thing occurred to me, reminding me of that tine, picture of Ladv Butler's, "flie Roll-call,' and a choking lump arose in my throat, giving me as much as 1 could do to restrain the tens from rolling down my cheeks.''