Ten Years Ago: "With Back to the Wall."
The Ypres Timbs.
35
From the first shot fired to the last holt sped,
When the sun rose white till the sun sank red,
A cry to the living across the dead
Hold
In March, 1918, Germany had struck in the Somme area with all the
strength, skill and courage of which her military nation was master, and though she had
regained that ravaged battlefield, she had failed to break through our defence. But the
British had turned the blow unaided by their Allies, though at so exhausting a cost that
Ludendorff judged a loss of moral would spread through the hard-hit divisions. He
granted no respite nor time for recovery, but struck again this time in the north. Once
again Germany misread the character of the British once again proved that with back
to the wall, out-numbered, desperately crippled, British soldiers show a nobility of character
that makes a last stand their most formidable hour.
The Germans opened the battle with twenty-seven divisions, reinforced during the
offensive by another twenty-twoforty-nine in all, of which forty were fresh divisions.
Our line, drained of every possible man to meet the shock on the Somme, was held chiefly
by weary troops withdrawn from that battle. Between La Bassée and the Ypres
Canal six divisions were strained out, each covering over 600 yards of front, but the
line had to be held.
The Germans assaulted about Neuve Chapelle south of the Salient at the moment
when the two Portuguese Divisions were being relieved they assaulted with fourteen
divisions on the eleven-mile front, held by three divisions, before the relief had been
completed within three hours of their assault, the Portuguese had gone. The result
was a gap of a thousand yards torn in a line that was already held with only the barest
possible numbers, and by the evening of the 9th April, five weary and depleted British
divisions with one additional brigade were holding about twenty-five miles of front
against sixteen German divisions. The rupture and this subsequent lengthening of the
line strained our troops almost to the breaking-point. But wide as was the rent, and
enormous the force of the enemy army that swept into it, the southern flank stood like a
granite cliff the German tide could not overflow the Givenchy position. Here the
55th (West Lancashire) Division met the shock with the resources of a highly fortified
and organised defence
North of them, the 50th (Northumbrian) and 51st (Highland) Divisions, wonderfully
held the enemy along the Lys throughout the 10th April, where, stretched across eleven
miles of front, they were assailed by seven divisions. But it was impossible to maintain
so long a line against such odds, and during the next few days the British troops were
pressed slowly westward, though still unbroken, nearly to the Forêt de Nieppe it seemed
almost outside the bounds of hope that the battle line could be held intact. It was at
this awful hour that Sir Douglas Haig sent out the call to every man in his armies the
appeal that rang through those stalwart hearts with fresh inspiration, rang a tocsin of
alarm through England, and-meeting with the magnificent response of that last stand
will ring through history.
Many amongst us now are tired. To those I would say that victory will
belong to the side which holds out the longest
There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be
held to the last man there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and
believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end.
A2
