204
The Ypres Times.
successful, then the enemy would have only two courses open to him either to bivouac
his counter attack divisions out of rangein which case they would arrive too late and
would find us consolidated—or to return to holding the front area strongly, thus again
bringing the German infantry under the full force of the British artillery.
A captured document dated September 29th stated
The counter-attacks made by the reserves and counter-attack divisions came as
a rule too late and the losses incurred thereby bear no relation to the results obtained.
Frequently the counter-attack was quite fruitless. Experience therefore shows the
necessity of holding the front line in strength."
The continued wet weather, combined with artillery fire, had by this time made it
impossible to obtain any large results from the fighting, on account of the condition of
the ground. Nevertheless the Fifth Army was ordered to continue its attacks.
The hostile infantry was therefore subjected to short intensive bombardments before
the assaults were launched and reduced thereby to a condition of surrender, provided
our men could have got through the mud to accept their surrender. The enemy, finding
our infantry stuck, often took up their arms again and successfully continued the fight.
The enemy was, however, forced to withdraw the bulk of his infantry from the front
area, and ceased to pin his faith on the infantry, either holding the front line or being
able to counter-attack from the rear. He organised in their place a machine-gun defence
of extraordinary density. This was overcome by taking guns away from counter battery
work during the battlewhen the hostile guns could not fire at our infantry—and attacking
the hostile machine-guns with them.
By the end of October, the hostile position was held very- much as at the end of
Julythe mud being the enemy's main protection.
The mud of Flanders was a by-word in the British Army, even in Marlborough's
days. As soldiers, we first wore spats in Flanders in the early 18th century to protect
us from the mud!
Someone in the German Array then had a brain wave and evolved a method of
defence wdrich was still undefeated when the battle closed in November.
It was recognised that an artillery defensive barrage rarely damaged the leading
attacking troops. Advantage was taken of this to crowd over immediately after zero
as many troops as possible into the comparative safety of the enemy's front line. The
supports might be delayed by the defensive barrage, but the attack was alreadv strong
enough to carry on till they caught up.
In October the enemy decided to counter this by placing his defensive barrage down
some 500 yards short of his front line. If possible, the front line was to be warned to
withdraw and was given some 15 minutes in which to do it. If not, it was apparently
to be sacrificed.
The condition of the ground again really prevented these tactics being tested out,
but no satisfactory solution could be found at this time. It appears possible that a con
tinuance of this method would have destroyed the moral of the leading infantry and
resulted in the capture of the front line whenever desired, thus upsetting the whole
scheme.
Nevertheless it is interesting to note that General Gouraud adopted this principle
in his defensive battle south of Rheims in the early summer of 1918, when the enemy
received so disastrous a repulse.
As stated at the beginning of this short sketch both sides were working in the dark
as regards the personality of their real tactical opponent.
The whole period, July to November, was one of continual appreciations of the
situation, followed by definite moves or counter moves. Battles had to be fought,
according to the manner in which it had been appreciated the enemy would act. It is
interesting to conjecture what effect the personal factor would have had, had the opponents
been known to one another.
