38
THE YPRES TIMES
liberated by our own Army. This was not to be, for at about eight o'clock that
evening the Germans assembled us all and marched us to another camp, nine miles
farther back, at Roisel.
I was in an awfully bad condition at this time, and this night marchwith all
my belongings on my back, including blanketswas an absolute agony. We were
put into an open field at Roisel, and lay down like tired cattle.
Back at Peronne six men had dodged the column and not taken part in the
march back to Roisel, but had hidden themselves in cellars of houses, hoping that
our Army would recapture the town during the next day or two. They were
doomed to disappointment, for it was not until September 1st that the Allies
entered Peronne, and, meanwhile, the six gallant fellows were recaptured and
suffered short terms of imprisonment.
During the month of August we were continually retiring with the Germans,
and suffered much hardship and exposure, so that in September I became seriously
ill and could scarcely walk, so was sent to a hospital at Mons. This hospital became
a shambles and was crammed full of wounded prisoners—French, Italian, English
and Russian, together with wounded Germans and sick civilians, lying all over the
floors as well as in the beds. The operating-room was a mediaeval torture-chamber,
and the whole place was a Grand Guignol scene from the Dark Ages.
Early in November our Army was around Valenciennes, and once again we
had to retire.
This time we had trains and journeyed right up to Gottingen, in North
Germany. The journey took four days and nights, and as the less serious cases,
including myself, had to sit in ordinary third-class carriages, the tedium can be
imagined. We stopped once a day for soup and bread. I was too ill to attempt
any escape, although I had plenty of opportunity.
At last came the Armistice, and plans for escape became unnecessary.
All prisoners within forty miles of the Allied lines were turned adrift and
allowed to escape en masse. Many endured considerable privations before finally
staggering into the Allied outpost lines. Those who, like myself, were in hospital
camps in Germany, were fetched by British Red Cross trains and transported in
comfort to England, home and beauty.
I crossed the German frontier on Christmas Day.
FIGHTING AT YPRES IN 1658.
By Clarence L. Berry, M.A. (late 13th The Welch Regiment).
AS Flanders was for centuries the battlefield of Europe, the student of the
campaign of 1914-18 will find that, in the Great War, our troops were often
fighting where British soldiers under Wellington, and English soldiers under
Marlborough, and even earlier commanders, had fought in bygone wars. To the
survivors of the 38th (Welsh) Division no such historical association could be of
more interest than the service in Ypres of a great Welsh commander and his troops
in the days of the Commonwealth. It is an historical fact that no division was
associated so closely and continuously with the defence of Ypres as the Welsh
Division, yet few, perhaps, have ever heard of this earlier Expeditionary Force.
During the Thirty Years' War there was serving under Prince Bernard of
Saxe-Weimar one Thomas Morgan, second son of Robert Morgan of Llanrhymny,
