- 1
- This statement is based on the following facts which at this date (the beginning of October) summarises the then immediately prospective situation as regards numbers:—
| Total German forces sent into or about to be sent into France and Belgium | | 3,390,000 | | Less casualties and wastage approximately | | 900,000 | | Net German forces | | 2,490,000 | | | Allies:— | | Nine French armies, reinforced to full strength | 1,080,000 | | | 10th French army (in formation) | 120,000 | | | British (including forces at Ghent) | 145,000 | | | Belgians | 40,000 | | | | 1,385,000 | | | 1,105,000 | | - The disparity of course was afterwards redressed. It took, as it proved, some twenty days before all the additional German forces could be sent West, and on the other hand the embodiment of French Reservists was proceeding at the same time, but the possibility, not to say the probability, that the Germans would get in first, constituted the crisis.
- 2
- Mr. N. E. Monckton Jones, formerly tutor in Modern History in the University of Liverpool, in a letter to the Observer, thus describes the impression made by the first sight of the building: "Turning perforce with the street at right angles, we passed into a narrower, more winding, one with more old gabled houses, and here and there a fine sculptured moulding or portal. Then of a sudden we were at the Place, and the Cloth Hall in all its full glory before us. It was not the size of the building nor its richness that halted us so abruptly and made us all eyes for the moment. It was, I think, the arresting dignity of it, a dignity built up of fine and simple lines and the mellow contentment of age. Many buildings in other towns were statelier, more ornate, more imposing, but from the pointed arcade below to the long line of the great roof the Hall told of a fine sense of proportion, of reserve. Its builders did not aim at outdoing other men, but they knew what they needed, and would have it seemly, and by sheer reiteration of a simple plan well conceived they made homely simplicity glorious. The Cloth Hall expressed the self-respect of burghers who had won their rights two centuries before Magna Carta."
- 3
- In the French official review of the first six months of the war it is stated that: "Field-Marshal Sir John French had, as early as the end of September, expressed the wish to see his Army resume its initial place on the left of the Allied armies. He explained this wish on the ground of the greater facility of which his communications would have the advantage in this new position, and also of the impending arrival of reinforcements from Great Britain and from India, which would be able to deploy more easily on that terrain.
- "In spite of the difficulties which such a removal involved owing to the intensive use of the railways by our own units, General Joffre decided, at the beginning of October, to meet the Marshal's wishes, and to have the British Army removed from the Aisne."
- 4
- On reaching Warneton, on the Lys, ten miles above Menin, the cavalry found the place strongly held by the Germans, who at the entrance to the town had constructed a high barricade loopholed at the bottom so that men could fire through it from a lying position. This formidable obstacle was encountered by a squadron of our cavalry. Nothing daunted, they obtained help from the artillery, who man-handled a gun into position and blew the barricade to pieces, scattering the defenders. They then advanced some three-quarters of a mile into the centre of the town, where they found themselves in a large "place." They had hardly reached the farther end when one of the buildings suddenly appeared to leap skywards in a sheet of flame, a shower of star shells at the same time making the place as light as day and enabling the enemy—who were ensconced in the surrounding houses—to pour in a devastating fire from rifles and machine guns.
- Our cavalry managed to extricate themselves from this trap with a loss of only one officer—the squadron leader—wounded and nine men killed and wounded; but, determining that none of their number should fall into the enemy's hands, a party of volunteers went back and, taking off their boots in order to make no noise on the pavement, re-entered the inferno they had just left, and succeeded in carrying off their wounded comrades.
- 5
- "On the 15th the 3rd Division fought splendidly, crossing the dykes with which this country is intersected with planks, and driving the enemy from one entrenched position to another in loopholed villages, till at night they pushed the Germans off the Estaires-La BassÉe road, and establishing themselves on the line Pont de Ham-Croix BarbÉe."—Dispatch of Sir John French of November 20, 1914.
- An episode of the fighting is thus described in an officer's letter published in the Daily Telegraph: "The enemy are no match for us in this kind of fighting, and we enjoyed thoroughly the work of hunting up the Germans, whom we shot down like rabbits. When we reached the outskirts of the wood we came under a terrible artillery fire from the enemy's guns, which were only 800 yards away. I withdrew my men under the cover of a ditch.
- "I took eight men and again moved to the outskirts of the wood, where I found a perfectly flat turnip field stretching away towards the enemy. About 300 yards out I saw a line of our infantry lying flat on the ground, and made my way towards them. No sooner did we leave the cover of the wood when the enemy's guns opened up on us.
- "It seemed impossible that my little party could escape. Three were almost immediately hit, but we others kept on and reached the line lying in the open. Half a platoon were extended at five paces. To my horror I found all were dead or wounded except about three, who were keeping perfectly still. I found the Subaltern Lieutenant B—— on one knee, with one hand resting on the ground just in the attitude of a runner who is waiting the signal for the start of a race. He was stone dead. A shrapnel bullet had pierced his head.
- "The man next him, who was badly wounded in the thigh, told me they were ordered to support the firing line, which was 200 yards ahead, and had only advanced 300 yards from the wood when the entire line was struck down as if by lightning."
- 6
- Dr. Ludwig Tasker, of the R.A.M.C., from the rear of the British line at this date wrote: "Some of the villages are nothing but masses of ruins. We are covering ground passed over by the Germans. They have not left a cupboard or a drawer alone. We respect all property, and when we go where the Germans have been we tidy the things up so that the place looks very much better by the time the people retu
Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. |
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