The British Campaign in France and Flanders, 1917Doyle, Arthur Conan
History
The British Campaign in France and Flanders, 1917
Doyle, Arthur Conan
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front
To the right of the Australians the Thirty-third Division went
forward also to its extreme objective, gathering up as it went those
scattered groups of brave men who had held out against the German
assault of the preceding day. This gallant division had a
particularly hard time, as its struggle against the German attack
upon the day before had been a very severe one, which entailed heavy
losses. {198} Some ground had been lost at the Veldhoek Trench north
of the Menin Road, where the 100th Brigade was holding the line, but
this had been partially regained, as already described, by an
immediate attack by the 1st Queen's West Surrey and 9th Highland
Light Infantry. The 2nd Argyll and Sutherlands were still in the
front line, but for the second time this year this splendid battalion
was rescued from the desperate situation which only such tried and
veteran soldiers could have carried through without disaster.
Immediately before the attack of September 26, just after the
assembly of the troops, the barrage which the Germans had laid down
in order to cover their own advance beat full upon the left of the
divisional line, near Glencorse Wood, and inflicted such losses that
it could not get forward at zero, thus exposing the Victorians, as
already recorded. Hence, although the 100th Brigade succeeded in
regaining the whole of the Veldhoek Trench upon the right, there was
an unavoidable gap upon the left between Northampton Farm and Black
Watch Corner. The division was not to be denied, however, and by a
splendid effort before noon the weak spot had been cleared up by the
Scottish Rifles, the 4th King's Liverpools, and the 4th Suffolks, so
that the line was drawn firm between Veldhoek Trench in the south and
Cameron House in the north. A counter-attack by the Fourth Guards
Division was crushed by artillery fire, and a comic sight was
presented, if anything can be comic in such a tragedy, by a large
party of the Guards endeavouring to pack themselves into a pill-box
which was much too small to receive them. Many of them were left
lying outside the entrance.
{199}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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