100 Years Ago
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742574.ece
Strong attacks on British line
April 28, 1916
Our trenches west of Zillebeke and north-east of Hill 60 and battery positions in rear were heavily shelled from 6pm to midnight. An attack at St Eloi was repulsed
Great activity on the British front in France is recorded in the following exceptionally long communique from Sir Douglas Haig, dispatched just before 11 o’clock last night. Seven infantry attacks were made by the Germans, and were all repulsed, although the enemy in some cases reached our lines. The fighting covered the front from Ypres to Souchez. Two gas attacks were made by the enemy near Hulluch and Loos and here a counter-attack by Irish troops caused heavy German losses.
Last night the Bedfordshire Regiment carried out a very successful raid near Carnoy. The raiding party rushed trenches, and, after fierce hand-to-hand fighting, drove the remaining Germans into their dug-outs and bombed them there. Our casualties, eight wounded - all brought in. German loss considerable. Today hostile artillery has been active about La Boisselle and Hebuterne. Last night enemy exploded a mine south-east of Neuville St Vaast. Today hostile artillery has been active about Monchy au Bois and Neuville St. Vaast.
Yesterday evening the enemy carried out heavy bombardment on our trenches east of Armentieres and about Frelinghien. South of Frelinghien enemy entered our trenches at about 8pm under cover of the bombardment, but was immediately driven out by a counter-attack. Last night, after heavy bombardment, followed by the explosion of a mine, the enemy attacked our trenches on Hill 60, but was repulsed. At the same time the enemy gained a footing in one of our sapheads north of Hill 60, but was driven out by our bombers. Our trenches west of Zillebeke and north-east of Hill 60 and battery positions in rear were heavily shelled from 6pm to midnight. An attack at St Eloi was repulsed. Today hostile artillery has been active against our trenches south-west of St Eloi. Last night enemy gained footing in one of our craters in the Hohenzollern section, but was driven out at once. During the night enemy sprang mines south-east of Souchez, north-east of Double Crassier, north-east of Vermelles, and west of Hulluch. We sprang a mine in Hulluch sector.
This morning, at 5.10am, enemy discharged gas from trenches south of Hulluch and at same time put artillery barrage on our lines to north of Loos. At 7.30am second gas cloud was released from about the same place, and, after heavy artillery bombardment, enemy gained a footing in our front and support lines east-north-east of Loos. Counter-attack by our Irish troops took place within half an hour, and enemy were driven out, leaving many dead in our trenches. Enemy also advanced from their trenches just south of Hulluch, but this attack was enfiladed by our machine-guns, and many corpses were left in front of our trenches. A few Germans reached our lines, but were driven out.
Hostile artillery has been active during the day against our trenches about Carency, Souchez, Les Brebis, and Fosse 2, de Braquemont. Yesterday there was much aerial activity. Nineteen combats in the air. The machine reported yesterday as having been brought down in our lines was a two-seater. It was attacked by a single-seater three times at a great height. The enemy pilot was shot through the heart and the observer through the body. The machine crashed to earth, with the engine full on, from a height of 14,000ft. One of our reconnaissances was attacked by eight hostile aeroplanes. All hostile attacks were driven off and one hostile machine down. Our reconnaissance was completed. Two of our aeroplanes were damaged, but all returned safely.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742577.ece
Shropshires charge through rivers of mud
May 1, 1916
The ground over which the attack had to be delivered was an almost inconceivable quagmire. The mud, diluted with the rain which fell heavily throughout, was never less than knee deep. Generally it was above the thighs.
The performance of the Shropshires, already officially mentioned in a communique, when, on the night of April 21-22, they recaptured the trenches taken from us by the Germans two nights before, was, if on a small scale, a conspicuously fine piece of work. In time to come it may be that the regiment will remembered it with pride among the list of honours which already reaches from Salamanca to Nieuport.
The Germans have asserted that they evacuated the trenches because of the wet, and that they had had no intention of retaining them. This is grossly false. In the two days that they had been there they had worked like beavers - and in almost as much water - with a view to permanent occupation. The men of the Shropshires all testify to the amount and excellence of the work of “consolidation” that had been done, to the posting of machine-guns, cutting new communication trenches, and fitting iron loopholes.
There was only one reason why the enemy evacuated; and that reason was the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. The ground over which the attack had to be delivered was an almost inconceivable quagmire. The mud, diluted with the rain which fell heavily throughout, was never less than knee deep. Generally it was above the thighs. The only way in which, in many places, our men could advance was by throwing their rifles in front of them and going forward like frogs. Not a few lives were lost by actual drowning.
It took the first attacking column some hours to cover 200 yards of so-called “ground.” After it was over, a considerable time was in many instances spent in extricating wounded men from the mud, and it is a simple but illuminating fact that one man, unwounded and quite sound, remained out, stuck in the mud, helpless and undiscovered, from the night of the attack, April 21.22 until the morning of April 25. There is no one who went through it who was not, at one time or another, up to his armpits in the slush, and, while there, under heavy fire of shells, of rides, and machine-guns. Under these conditions the affair was carried through with great gallantry.
The attack was delivered in three columns, and at all points the German trenches were carried at the first assault; in some cases very few of the defenders getting away. Many individual acts of conspicuous bravery have been officially reported. A lance-corporal spent 61/2 hours,from 4am to 10.30, getting a wounded man back a distance of 600 yards. He carried him at first, till himself wounded in the shoulder; then he dragged and pushed and heaved him through the mud, being, after daylight, all the time under heavy fire, and finally, when he got him in, was himself in a state of complete exhaustion. A private, after being wounded in the knee, managed to crawl into the German trench and refused to leave because we had insufficient strength, as he thought, to hold it. He stayed there, helping to repulse two counter-attacks, for 36 hours; and then he had to be carried out on a stretcher. Another private held a sap successfully against a counter-attack single-handed.
One officer went on directing the attack with one arm hanging almost literally by a shred. A sergeant spent two hours on the following day digging a wounded man out of the mud in daylight being sniped at the whole time. A private in the RAMC attended to between 30 and 40 wounded men in the open, being himself wounded in the head while he was doing it. He went on, and afterwards organized parties for rounding up isolated wounded left in the mud. Among the Shropshires’ losses was the colonel commanding the battalion. The officer commanding is at this moment a major who is the son of a former colonel of the Shropshires.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742600.ece
Anzacs in France
May 13, 1916
A very amusing competition took place the other day between a little party of French wood-cutters, who were working in a certain forest, and some professional Commonwealth tree-choppers.
Although it is probably true to say that never since the original British Expeditionary Force passed secretly into France has any body of troops made a less obtrusive entry into this country than the Anzac Corps, they have established a record in quick popularity with the country folk amid whom they are billeted.
The Anzacs are thoroughly at home. They unanimously declare they are having the “bon” time of their soldiering lives. They may get heavier “stuff2 put across their trenches than ever they knew in Gallipoli. But here, as one New Zealander said to me, “We are among people.” This distinction, with all that it implies, very well sums up the contrast.
A very amusing competition took place the other day between a little party of French wood-cutters, who were working in a certain forest, and some professional Commonwealth tree-choppers. A little badinage led up to the challenge, the terms of which were that a chosen champion from each side was to cut down two selected trees in the shortest possible time.
A Frenchman with biceps like shoulders of mutton, let fly with an enormous hatchet, and simultaneously the Australian began the assault with an ordinary woodman’s axe. The Australian felled his two trees in some four minutes less time than the Frenchman. But the second tree in falling came athwart another tree and rested against it, with the result that the challengers objected it was not well and truly felled; upon which the Australian, resuming his axe, attacked the supporting tree, and brought it down too, still well ahead of his opponent’s time. The Frenchman admitted himself beaten on time, but claimed superiority in style, which was admitted, he having severed his trunks so neatly as to leave almost sawn-level stumps. I understand considerable hand-shaking and singing of national melodies concluded the match.
But the matter is not resting here, for the Canadian having heard the story, a formal challenge has gone forth for the Australians to put up a tree-felling team. The challenge has been accepted, and the war talk of the past few days has become a matter of altogether secondary interest as against this forthcoming competition.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742559.ece
The whole Italian Front engaged
May 17, 1916
Most stubborn was the fighting in the Monfalcone zone, where, after an alternating struggle, the enemy were counter-attacked with success and left in our hands 254 prisoners
The Austrians have made a general attack on the Italian front, and they claim numerous successes, chiefly in Southern Tirol, where over 2,500 prisoners are said to have been taken. The Italian communique reports heavy fighting at several parts of the front and admits a retirement in the Trentino, between the Adige and Astico Valleys.
Rome, May 16. The following official communique is issued here On the Trentino frontier the enemy followed up an intense bombardment which they carried out on the 14th with an attack by masses of infantry against the part of our front between the Adige Valley and the Upper Astico. After our first resistance, during which we inflicted on the enemy very serious losses, our troops from their most advanced positions fell back upon their principal lines of defence.
Along the whole rest of the front to the sea the enemy’s activity did not deploy their artillery fire and infantry attacks having the character of a diversion. Such were the actions which developed in the Val Sugana, between Monte Collo and Santanna, in the Upper Seebach, on the heights north-west of Gorizia, on the slopes north of Monte San Michele. Everywhere the enemy were promptly repulsed.
Most stubborn was the fighting in the Monfalcone zone, where, after an alternating struggle, the enemy were counter-attacked with success and left in our hands 254 prisoners, including some officers and two machine-guns.
A raid by enemy aeroplanes upon places on the Lower Isonzo is reported to have taken place on the night of the 15th, upon Venice and Mestre the same evening, and upon Udine and Treviso at dawn on the 16th. There were few victims and the damage was very slight.
A squadron of our Caproni aeroplanes at dawn this morning bombarded the railway station of Ovcia Draga, and the enemy cantonments at Kostarievica, Lohvica, and Segeti on the Carso. Fifty bombs were thrown with very effective results.
Our squadron, though the object of fire from many batteries and assailed by very many enemy aeroplanes, returned undamaged, after having brought down two enemy aeroplanes which fell in their territory near Gorizia. Reuter.
Strong attacks on British line
April 28, 1916
Our trenches west of Zillebeke and north-east of Hill 60 and battery positions in rear were heavily shelled from 6pm to midnight. An attack at St Eloi was repulsed
Great activity on the British front in France is recorded in the following exceptionally long communique from Sir Douglas Haig, dispatched just before 11 o’clock last night. Seven infantry attacks were made by the Germans, and were all repulsed, although the enemy in some cases reached our lines. The fighting covered the front from Ypres to Souchez. Two gas attacks were made by the enemy near Hulluch and Loos and here a counter-attack by Irish troops caused heavy German losses.
Last night the Bedfordshire Regiment carried out a very successful raid near Carnoy. The raiding party rushed trenches, and, after fierce hand-to-hand fighting, drove the remaining Germans into their dug-outs and bombed them there. Our casualties, eight wounded - all brought in. German loss considerable. Today hostile artillery has been active about La Boisselle and Hebuterne. Last night enemy exploded a mine south-east of Neuville St Vaast. Today hostile artillery has been active about Monchy au Bois and Neuville St. Vaast.
Yesterday evening the enemy carried out heavy bombardment on our trenches east of Armentieres and about Frelinghien. South of Frelinghien enemy entered our trenches at about 8pm under cover of the bombardment, but was immediately driven out by a counter-attack. Last night, after heavy bombardment, followed by the explosion of a mine, the enemy attacked our trenches on Hill 60, but was repulsed. At the same time the enemy gained a footing in one of our sapheads north of Hill 60, but was driven out by our bombers. Our trenches west of Zillebeke and north-east of Hill 60 and battery positions in rear were heavily shelled from 6pm to midnight. An attack at St Eloi was repulsed. Today hostile artillery has been active against our trenches south-west of St Eloi. Last night enemy gained footing in one of our craters in the Hohenzollern section, but was driven out at once. During the night enemy sprang mines south-east of Souchez, north-east of Double Crassier, north-east of Vermelles, and west of Hulluch. We sprang a mine in Hulluch sector.
This morning, at 5.10am, enemy discharged gas from trenches south of Hulluch and at same time put artillery barrage on our lines to north of Loos. At 7.30am second gas cloud was released from about the same place, and, after heavy artillery bombardment, enemy gained a footing in our front and support lines east-north-east of Loos. Counter-attack by our Irish troops took place within half an hour, and enemy were driven out, leaving many dead in our trenches. Enemy also advanced from their trenches just south of Hulluch, but this attack was enfiladed by our machine-guns, and many corpses were left in front of our trenches. A few Germans reached our lines, but were driven out.
Hostile artillery has been active during the day against our trenches about Carency, Souchez, Les Brebis, and Fosse 2, de Braquemont. Yesterday there was much aerial activity. Nineteen combats in the air. The machine reported yesterday as having been brought down in our lines was a two-seater. It was attacked by a single-seater three times at a great height. The enemy pilot was shot through the heart and the observer through the body. The machine crashed to earth, with the engine full on, from a height of 14,000ft. One of our reconnaissances was attacked by eight hostile aeroplanes. All hostile attacks were driven off and one hostile machine down. Our reconnaissance was completed. Two of our aeroplanes were damaged, but all returned safely.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742577.ece
Shropshires charge through rivers of mud
May 1, 1916
The ground over which the attack had to be delivered was an almost inconceivable quagmire. The mud, diluted with the rain which fell heavily throughout, was never less than knee deep. Generally it was above the thighs.
The performance of the Shropshires, already officially mentioned in a communique, when, on the night of April 21-22, they recaptured the trenches taken from us by the Germans two nights before, was, if on a small scale, a conspicuously fine piece of work. In time to come it may be that the regiment will remembered it with pride among the list of honours which already reaches from Salamanca to Nieuport.
The Germans have asserted that they evacuated the trenches because of the wet, and that they had had no intention of retaining them. This is grossly false. In the two days that they had been there they had worked like beavers - and in almost as much water - with a view to permanent occupation. The men of the Shropshires all testify to the amount and excellence of the work of “consolidation” that had been done, to the posting of machine-guns, cutting new communication trenches, and fitting iron loopholes.
There was only one reason why the enemy evacuated; and that reason was the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. The ground over which the attack had to be delivered was an almost inconceivable quagmire. The mud, diluted with the rain which fell heavily throughout, was never less than knee deep. Generally it was above the thighs. The only way in which, in many places, our men could advance was by throwing their rifles in front of them and going forward like frogs. Not a few lives were lost by actual drowning.
It took the first attacking column some hours to cover 200 yards of so-called “ground.” After it was over, a considerable time was in many instances spent in extricating wounded men from the mud, and it is a simple but illuminating fact that one man, unwounded and quite sound, remained out, stuck in the mud, helpless and undiscovered, from the night of the attack, April 21.22 until the morning of April 25. There is no one who went through it who was not, at one time or another, up to his armpits in the slush, and, while there, under heavy fire of shells, of rides, and machine-guns. Under these conditions the affair was carried through with great gallantry.
The attack was delivered in three columns, and at all points the German trenches were carried at the first assault; in some cases very few of the defenders getting away. Many individual acts of conspicuous bravery have been officially reported. A lance-corporal spent 61/2 hours,from 4am to 10.30, getting a wounded man back a distance of 600 yards. He carried him at first, till himself wounded in the shoulder; then he dragged and pushed and heaved him through the mud, being, after daylight, all the time under heavy fire, and finally, when he got him in, was himself in a state of complete exhaustion. A private, after being wounded in the knee, managed to crawl into the German trench and refused to leave because we had insufficient strength, as he thought, to hold it. He stayed there, helping to repulse two counter-attacks, for 36 hours; and then he had to be carried out on a stretcher. Another private held a sap successfully against a counter-attack single-handed.
One officer went on directing the attack with one arm hanging almost literally by a shred. A sergeant spent two hours on the following day digging a wounded man out of the mud in daylight being sniped at the whole time. A private in the RAMC attended to between 30 and 40 wounded men in the open, being himself wounded in the head while he was doing it. He went on, and afterwards organized parties for rounding up isolated wounded left in the mud. Among the Shropshires’ losses was the colonel commanding the battalion. The officer commanding is at this moment a major who is the son of a former colonel of the Shropshires.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742600.ece
Anzacs in France
May 13, 1916
A very amusing competition took place the other day between a little party of French wood-cutters, who were working in a certain forest, and some professional Commonwealth tree-choppers.
Although it is probably true to say that never since the original British Expeditionary Force passed secretly into France has any body of troops made a less obtrusive entry into this country than the Anzac Corps, they have established a record in quick popularity with the country folk amid whom they are billeted.
The Anzacs are thoroughly at home. They unanimously declare they are having the “bon” time of their soldiering lives. They may get heavier “stuff2 put across their trenches than ever they knew in Gallipoli. But here, as one New Zealander said to me, “We are among people.” This distinction, with all that it implies, very well sums up the contrast.
A very amusing competition took place the other day between a little party of French wood-cutters, who were working in a certain forest, and some professional Commonwealth tree-choppers. A little badinage led up to the challenge, the terms of which were that a chosen champion from each side was to cut down two selected trees in the shortest possible time.
A Frenchman with biceps like shoulders of mutton, let fly with an enormous hatchet, and simultaneously the Australian began the assault with an ordinary woodman’s axe. The Australian felled his two trees in some four minutes less time than the Frenchman. But the second tree in falling came athwart another tree and rested against it, with the result that the challengers objected it was not well and truly felled; upon which the Australian, resuming his axe, attacked the supporting tree, and brought it down too, still well ahead of his opponent’s time. The Frenchman admitted himself beaten on time, but claimed superiority in style, which was admitted, he having severed his trunks so neatly as to leave almost sawn-level stumps. I understand considerable hand-shaking and singing of national melodies concluded the match.
But the matter is not resting here, for the Canadian having heard the story, a formal challenge has gone forth for the Australians to put up a tree-felling team. The challenge has been accepted, and the war talk of the past few days has become a matter of altogether secondary interest as against this forthcoming competition.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742559.ece
The whole Italian Front engaged
May 17, 1916
Most stubborn was the fighting in the Monfalcone zone, where, after an alternating struggle, the enemy were counter-attacked with success and left in our hands 254 prisoners
The Austrians have made a general attack on the Italian front, and they claim numerous successes, chiefly in Southern Tirol, where over 2,500 prisoners are said to have been taken. The Italian communique reports heavy fighting at several parts of the front and admits a retirement in the Trentino, between the Adige and Astico Valleys.
Rome, May 16. The following official communique is issued here On the Trentino frontier the enemy followed up an intense bombardment which they carried out on the 14th with an attack by masses of infantry against the part of our front between the Adige Valley and the Upper Astico. After our first resistance, during which we inflicted on the enemy very serious losses, our troops from their most advanced positions fell back upon their principal lines of defence.
Along the whole rest of the front to the sea the enemy’s activity did not deploy their artillery fire and infantry attacks having the character of a diversion. Such were the actions which developed in the Val Sugana, between Monte Collo and Santanna, in the Upper Seebach, on the heights north-west of Gorizia, on the slopes north of Monte San Michele. Everywhere the enemy were promptly repulsed.
Most stubborn was the fighting in the Monfalcone zone, where, after an alternating struggle, the enemy were counter-attacked with success and left in our hands 254 prisoners, including some officers and two machine-guns.
A raid by enemy aeroplanes upon places on the Lower Isonzo is reported to have taken place on the night of the 15th, upon Venice and Mestre the same evening, and upon Udine and Treviso at dawn on the 16th. There were few victims and the damage was very slight.
A squadron of our Caproni aeroplanes at dawn this morning bombarded the railway station of Ovcia Draga, and the enemy cantonments at Kostarievica, Lohvica, and Segeti on the Carso. Fifty bombs were thrown with very effective results.
Our squadron, though the object of fire from many batteries and assailed by very many enemy aeroplanes, returned undamaged, after having brought down two enemy aeroplanes which fell in their territory near Gorizia. Reuter.