YPRES, 1914-15-17.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1917, Page 5

YPRES, 1914-15-17.

a» GRAVEYARD OP THOUSANDS. INFERIORITY THAT BECAME PKE-* PONDEEANCB. Twice "before have great battles been : fougM in this war over r;early the same ground that saw the Allied triumph at Ypres and Messines early in June, hut nothing could be more impressive than/ jthe difference between the Alließ' pros'pents now and then. | An extract from the" account written , Iby Mr. Will Irwin, the American cor- ! respondent, of the first battle of Ypres, , in tho late autumn of 1014,, will show, the enormous difficulties which had then 4 " to be faced. He wrote:— "Then came October 31—the crucial day for England. Before the sun was tiigli a British aviator volplaned down to his own lines with «. wing damaged by shrapnel, lie dropped from his seat pale and shaken. "A close call?' they asked him. 'lt isn't that!' lie said, 'it's what I've seen —threo corps," I tell you—against our first!' So he jerked out his story. | " 'And we're so thin up there,' he said, 'and they're 50, many,' Hard on this came hurried new to headquarters from , the front. The German artillery and a massed attack of German infantry had 1 broken the first division of the first army . ; corps near Ypres; the division was going back; the French support was going back. " 'We must have reinforcements,' saia the message. 'I can give you my two, " ; sentries and my headquarters staff,' re-' i plied French. ( ' DISASTER ON DISASTER ■ "Disaster after disaster followed. Thfr Royal Scots Fußiliers remaining too long in a hot place, were for their very valor, cut off. The Germans had found new artillery positions, and shelled. General , Douglas Haig's headquarters. A shel) <■ had burst in the house. Haig was outside at the time; but nearly every staff officer of the First Corps was killed .01 wounded. , "French jumped into his motor-car and rushed to the lino of the First Division. He had not so far to go, as. he thought. The line has retired foul miles. Through his glasses he could see the close-locked quadruple ranks of German infantrymen attacking everywhere. And everywhere the Englisi were fighting valiantly but without method. *Thcy were in it to the last man— .; even the" regimental cooks. The officers of infantry and cavalry were firing with the men, their soldiers loading , ,! spare rifles behind them. - j "French, assisted by Haig, became a , Headquarters Staff himself. They say j he risked his iife twenty times that pi -■ - ternoon, as his motor-car took him from 5 focus of trouble to focus of more trouble. He gave an" order here, fte encouraged an officer there. In the thickest of that day's fighting ho left hie motur-car and ran on foot to a wood, whore a briea.de was giving groum'. "He gathered up a part of the bro'-on First Division and threw it at the flanK of a German attack, which was proceeding on the reckless theory that the Tinglish were totally beaten. The Gernune broke; the British retook Gheluvelt on the original line. "The English had merely, held—technically- ■•-really, they .had w,on the climacteric action in that .long battle, w.iicli much dpterraine the future tours? of , ' 'another mtracle. The second tattle of Ypres, lastiig , from the last week in April to the mid- • • die of May, 1916, found the British line again facing heavy odds and holding its positions by sheer grit against the* -. masses of men and metal hurled against, them by the Germans. This battle is ' , noteworthy in. the chronicle of the great -, war as being the first occasion on which ■ poison gas wa3 used. These were anxious days for Britain, ' when the German hopes seemed likelv to be verified. Time and agnin our fate -, hung in the balance. The' line was broken, and a soldier's battle developed in which rules and text-books w°r» forgotten, and our troops proved thenso '»s \ worthy descendants of the men of Mai- ..' [ plaquet and Albuera. .-, The breach in the line occurred in a ; four-mile front as the result of the audden poison gas attack, in which CanaI dians and French Colonial troops suf-' 1 fered agonies. A Canadian counter-at-tack partially restored the situation, andfrom this point the battle became a long chaotic struggle, which finally slackened 1 owing to tho British thrust from Festu. 1 bert in the middle ot May. From that point tho tide of big fighting swept past Ypres to the souti. '.Th« Ypres salient, the graveyard of thousands of valiant soldiers and dreaded by the German infantry as a hourae from which few over returned, entered intc . a period of comparative quietude. Then ' were severe local actions, but nothing > approaching the tremendous struggles al «j' ! the first nine 'ronnihs nf the' sft'r, Bnj J 1 the Messines Ridge, etrorafy fortified bj .' * the enemy, always ca«t its 4hMß«Bnin| > shadow over tho wJM •*&..,