The Story of the Great War, Volume 3: History of the European War from Official Sources
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume 3: History of the European War from Official Sources
World War, 1914-1918
The fighting continued all night, but shortly after midnight the
British charged with the bayonet and retook Wieltje as well as most of
that section to the north of it which they had lost. Early on May 9,
1915, the fighting was continued, and, in the afternoon, the Germans
charged from the woods in a vain attempt to take Ypres after a severe
bombardment of the British trenches. An attacking party of five
hundred was slain north of the town. On the eastern side of the
salient there were five distinct attacks. An attempt to capture the
Chateau Hooge was made early in the evening, only to result in heaping
the ground with German dead. The day closed with 150 yards of British
trenches in the hands of the Germans; but they had been taken at a
fearful cost to the kaiser's men.
The Germans began the next day, May 10, 1915, by shelling the British
north and south of the Ypres-Menin road. They followed the cannonade
with a cloud of asphyxiating gas. They then started for the opposing
trenches. Many of them, the British allege, wore British uniforms. The
British had by now been equipped with proper respirators and could
withstand a gas attack with comparative ease. When the Germans were in
close range they received a rifle and machine-gun fire that mowed them
down almost instantly. Those who had not been shot fell to the ground
to escape the leaden hail. But escape was not for them. Shrapnel was
poured upon them, and nearly all of the attacking troops perished.
Another gas attack was made between the Ypres-Menin road and the
Ypres-Comines canal. There two batteries of gas cylinders sent forth
their deadly fumes for more than a half hour. The cloud that resulted
became so dense that it was impossible for the British in the opposite
trenches to see anything; so they were withdrawn temporarily; but the
troops to the left and right kept the Germans from following up this
advantage and the trenches were saved to the British. When the gas had
passed away the men returned to their former position. North of the
Menin road, however, the Germans were successful in driving the Fourth
Rifle Brigade and the Third King's Royal Rifles to a new position, the
trenches which the British occupied having been battered by shell fire
to such an extent that some of the occupants were buried alive. Hence
the British here retreated to a new line of trenches west of the
Bellewaarde Wood where the trees had been shelled until they were part
of a hopeless entanglement rather than a forest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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