World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front
Many of us have been able to see for ourselves the wonderful phlegm
of the British soldiers. They are born warriors. They are soldiers
by predilection as much as by trade. Most of them have taken part
in numerous campaigns, and many fought in the Boer War, in which
they gained precious experience. We have listened with admiration
to the glorious accounts which our chivalrous French neighbours
have given to the world of the British soldiers’ coolness and
tenacity in the fight near the village of Quaregnon, where
twenty-six Britishers routed more than 3,500 Germans. The fight was
witnessed by some of our own staff, and the story is absolutely
authentic.
It happened after the different battles which resulted in the
evacuation of Mons. The Britishers, who had fought like heroes,
must have retreated with reluctance in obedience, it is true,
to orders received from the military authorities. As they were
only giving ground step by step twenty-six Fusiliers entrenched
themselves in a farm overlooking the long, straight road leading to
Quaregnon. They were in possession of several mitrailleuses, and
they made holes in the farm door, three lines of three holes in
superposition, and placed their mitrailleuses in position.
“Now, boys,” shouted one of the twenty-six, “we are going to
cinematograph the grey devils when they come along. This is going
to be Coronation Day. Let each of us take as many pictures as
possible.”
As soon as the Germans appeared on the road and started attacking
the canal bridge the Fusiliers very coolly turned the handle of
their deadly guns, commencing with the lower tier, and with the
same placidity as a bioscope operator would have done.
The picture witnessed from the farm on the “living screen” by the
canal bridge was one that will not easily be forgotten. The “grey
devils,” as the Germans are now commonly called, dropped down
in hundreds like those tin soldiers (made in Germany) which our
children arrange in long lines on the table and which fall in one
big mass when the first one is slightly touched with the finger. In
a few minutes the corpses were heaping up. Then followed another
onslaught by the mitrailleuses placed against the upper part of the
door, followed immediately by a fresh deadly sweep and by another
one.
The Germans, however, found out their difficult position, which
exposed them to this destructive fire, and they resolutely took a
turning move, and made straight for the farm. When they got there
they found neither guns nor Fusiliers, but only an opening in a
party wall, through which the plucky operators had disappeared with
their apparatus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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