Ailette. Thus by the offensive forty
square miles were regained in the de-
partment of the Aisne. Petain's opera-
tion had been a triumph for the old
limited objective: less than half the
front had been attacked but success
so striking had followed that the enemy
had had to evacuate all along the
line. MURIEL BRAY.



804




Yeomanry on the Edge of a Mine Crater



CHAPTER XLIX

On the British Front in 1917

DESPERATE FIGHTING IN MUD AND RAIN GAINS TERRI-
TORY AT A TERRIBLE PRICE



\X/"HEN, in November, 1916, active
operations in the area of the
Somme and the Ancre were no longer
possible, Sir Douglas Haig directed
the efforts of the armies there toward
improvements and adjustments to pave
the way for new advances in the spring.
Trenches, roads and all means of com-
munication required immediate and
energetic attention. To help solve the
serious transport problem, England
and Canada contributed of their own
rails, locomotives, and rolling stock;
and engineers worked assiduously.
And, in order to be ready to assault
the strong enemy lines along the
Ancre and north of that stream, the
artillery was arranged in new posi-
tions.

r pHE BRITISH EXTEND THEIR LINES AND
1 MAKE PROGRESS.

In January, a decision was reached
among the Allies to extend the British
front until it should reach as far south
as Roye. Before the end of February
this had been accomplished. Through
January and February, many local
attacks near the Ancre resulted in the
gradual broadening of the reclaimed
section, as the Germans evacuated
Grandcourt, Serre, Gommecourt and
other positions, one by one. This with-
drawal of the enemy a part of Hin-
denburg's plan of retreat to the strong-
ly prepared Siegfried (or Hindenburg)



Line was aided by the heavy frosts
of an unusually cold January, which
had hardened the ground and made it
fit for the transfer of heavy guns. But
when, in March, the British started to
follow the main body of the retreat,
springtime thaws had left the earth
even more sodden and spongy than it
had been in the autumn previous.

'T^HE HINDENBURG LINE AND ITS SEVERAL
1 BRANCHES.

The reasons for the strategic Ger-
man retreat have been explained in the
previous chapter. The Siegfried Line
(renamed by the Allies the Hinden-
burg Line), branching from the old
positions just south of Arras, running
through Queant, then southward, pass-
ing west of Cambrai and St. Quentin,
crossing the Oise to the heights of the
Aisne northeast of Soissons, lying along
the Craonne plateau there, and extend-
ing on toward Rheims, "had been
built to meet the experience of the
Somme battle." Its wire entangle-
ments were so deep and close that a
man could not see through them, and
its low machine-gun shelters of con-
crete were so constructed as to be
invisible from the air and to resist
even tank attacks. The plan of mak-
ing it a development in depth where an
enemy might become ensnared only
to find himself facing stronger fortifica-
tions while under enfilading machine-

805



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



gun fire, has already been described.
In the northern area, further support
was gained by the construction of two
switch lines. First, the Oppy Line
started north of Lens and made a
broad bulge eastward through Oppy,




NORTHEAST AND SOUTHEAST OF ARRAS

The Douai and Cambrai roads, on either side the
River Scarpe, crossed the Oppy Line and the Drocourt-
Queant Line, guarding the northern end of the Hin-
denburg Line.

returning to the main line southwest of
Monchy. Beyond that, the Wotan
Line (known better as the Drocourt-
Queant Line) was under construction
between Drocourt (west of Douai) and
Queant (west of Cambrai) where it
joined the Siegfried Line.

In drawing back to their new posi-

806



tions from the salients south of Arras
and Peronne, the Teuton armies over-
stepped all bounds set by civilization
for a people at war, from the old Mosaic
injunction against destroying fruit
trees to the latest unwritten laws of the
modern Christian world. With delib-
erate intent they left in their path
utter waste, trees felled one by one,
dwellings looted and wrecked, sanc-
tuaries defiled or razed, graves torn
open, wells filled in or poisoned.
What they could use, the spoilers car-
ried away; all else they rendered use-
less. The growth, the thought, the
labor of centuries they made as nothing.

T)APAUME AND PERONNE ARE OCCUPIED
-D WITH LITTLE RESISTANCE.

When, in the middle of March, the
British commander perceived that the
enemy front was thinning in spots, a
general advance of the forces between
Arras and Roye was ordered. The
forward push began on March 17 and
proceeded at first without serious
opposition, except for a position here
and there that was contested more
hotly than the rest by German rear-
guard detachments. The greatest diffi-
culty lay in the condition of the de-
vastated country, where roads and
bridges had been demolished and
snares and mines had been planted.
Nevertheless, on the first day, the
British entered Chaulnes and
Bapaume, while the French took
possession of Roye. On the eighteenth,
Peronne was occupied and in Nesle,
farther south, French and British
cavalry came together. With several
miles of the west bank of the Somme
under their control, the Allies con-
trived to make crossings at various
points. At Brie, for instance, the en-
gineers had a single-file foot-crossing
over the ruined bridge ready in a few
hours, while in less than four days the
bridge was capable of supporting any
traffic.

Day by day the conditions improved
for the Germans, whose line was
shortening and whose communication
with their bases was growing more
direct. Of the Allied troops exactly
the reverse was true. And as the dis-
tance from their supplies broadened,




"RAGE NOT, ONLY WONDER!"
Ruthless, deliberate ruin lay in the wake of the German Army after its retreat in March, 1917. Looting, despoil-
ing, wrecking, defiling, the hordes withdrew to their new lines. Upon some examples of their handiwork of
destruction, as here in the Grande Place of Peronne, they set the derisive inscription, "Nicht argern, nur wundern!"




ON THE TRAIL OF THE HUN IN BAPAUME

The Australians, riding through the Rue de Peronne in Bapaume, beheld there such demolition as might be
found in a town where earthquake shocks or a tornado had torn up and crumpled and crushed the buildings. But
this was the intentional performance of twentieth century human beings. No wonder that a German soldier
should have written, "We live now not like men, but like beasts," and "We can scarcely be looked upon as soldiers.

807



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



enemy resistance stiffened. Yet, on
April 2, north of the Bapaume-Cambrai
road, where they were very near the
Hindenburg Line, they captured some
of its advance positions on a ten-mile
front. By that time, von Hindenburg's
armies were established in their newly
fortified lines.

THE GERMAN RETREAT INTERFERES
WITH ALLIED PLANS.

The retreat had not been actually
a surprise to the Allies, who had noted



fighting to which General Haig had
hoped to turn promptly would have
to be delayed until the outcome of the
French contest on the Craonne pla-
teau might be known.

When the moving lines came to a
halt the first week in April, the British
armies from south to north stood as
follows: Next to the French left, Sir
Henry Rawlinson's Fourth Army had
advanced to within about two miles
of St. Quentin; Sir Hubert Cough's




TREES FELLED IN HASTE AT PERONNE



"Our pioneers have sawed and cut the trees which for days have fallen until the whole surface of the earth is
swept clear," boasted the Berliner Tageblalt. Little orchard trees, too small to yield shelter, were destroyed as
mercilessly as great roadside trees which (like those being cleared away by a British working party in the picture)
became obstructions in the path of British advance. Some, because of haste, had been only partly cut through.



preparations indicating such a move-
ment; indeed, Sir Douglas Haig felt
that his efforts in the Ancre section had
accelerated the German withdrawal.
However, the plans he had made for
the spring had to be modified in view
of the change of front as well as for the
sake of co-operation with the new
French commander, General Nivelle,
whose programme of operations has
been set forth in the preceding chapter.
The German salient between the Scarpe
and the Ancre, which was to have been
pinched between the British Third and
Fifth Armies, had now dropped out.
The intended attack upon Vimy Ridge
could be undertaken ; but the Flanders

808



Fifth Army, in the Bapaume region,
had reached the very borders of the
Siegfried Line; around Arras Sir
Edmund Allenby's Third Army was
ready for action; opposite La Bassee
and Lens lay Sir Henry Home's First
Army; and beyond them, to the sea,
extended the Second Army under Sir
Herbert Plumer. The whole body
numbered fifty-two divisions, as over
against- thirty in the battle of the
Somme and seven at the time of the
first battle of Ypres. It was by this
time an army trained and tried, dis-
ciplined by sternest conflict yet in-
spirited by a measure of success, an
army ready to go forward.



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



THE ATTACK AROUND ARRAS INTENDED
TO AID THE FRENCH.

The work appointed for the British
was to occupy the attention of as large
a number of the German troops as
possible in the north, while the French
were endeavoring to shake the south-
ern pivot of the Siegfried Line.
The first part of Sir Douglas
Haig's original programme fit-
ted well into this demand, inas-
much as Vimy Ridge, forming
the key to the situation at the
northern pivot, around Arras,
was to have been one of the
main objectives for his attack.
On the Ridge the enemy com-
manded full observation over
Arras, while his own communi-
cations were shielded from view.
Established there since the fall
of 1914, he had not lost his
hold during the French offen-
sives of 1915, and now, in April,
1917, he claimed the whole
Ridge except a small section on
the northwest. Once lost, this
barrier of Vimy Ridge, unsur-
passed on all the Western Front
"alike in natural strength and
in the extent of its fortifica-
tions," would hardly be re-
gained, since its steep approach
on the eastern side would make
it an impregnable wall in the
way of a German offensive.
The following year, in fact,
furnished a demonstration that
this was true.

For the initial



the men sprang forth to the assault.
Out of the ancient quarries and cellars
of Arras, which had been transformed
into an underground camp, electric-
lighted and supplied with water, poured
hosts of warriors. The battle had
begun.




ADVANCES NEAR THE SOMME AND THE ANCRE

attack of The solid black line marks the positions of July 1, 1916 (before the

, , i -i, Battle of the Somme) ; the finely checkered line, those of March 1,

April 9 the troops responsible 1917; the black and white line farther east, those of March 18, the

Were the Third Armv and shaded area indicating the German retreat.

the Canadian Corps of the First THE CANADIANS TAKE VIMY RIDGE WITH

1 A BOUND.



Army, to the latter falling the honor
of wresting Vimy Ridge from Ger-
man mastery, "the greatest success
for them in the whole war." After
days of steady artillery preparation
and insistent battling in the air to close
the eyes of the foe, there came a hush
on Easter Sunday, April 8, a day of
clear, sunny, springlike weather. But,
the following day, through cold,
drizzling rain, in the gray dimness of
early morning, under a barrage that
was "one canopy of shrieking steel,"



Forty minutes sufficed for the cap-
ture of practically all the German first
positions. The Canadians were well
up on the Ridge; the Scottish and
English, to their right, were in the
eastern suburbs of Arras; and South
Africans were pushing forward with
their usual determination. With a
short pause before attacking each new
defensive system, the contest went on
successfully all day; and before the
end of another day the whole of Vimy

809



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



Ridge, even the difficult Hill 145, had
been cleared of its Teutonic tenants;
the German second position had been
won all along the line; and at many
points breaches had been made in the
third system of defense. It must not




ARRAS CATHEDRAL IN RUINS

When in July, 1915, the first shells fell upon the cathedral, it burned
for two days. The Descent from the Cross, attributed to Rubens,
and other pictures were saved; but the building joined the company
of ruins witnessing the barbaric work of German invasion. Ruschin.

be -overlooked that the second sys-
tem included works of extraordinary
strength, such as had cost many days'
delay in the early weeks on the Somme.
Among the intricacies of the Harp,
south of Tilloy-les-Mofflaines, the Rail-
way Triangle, east of Arras, and other
such fortifications, groups of tanks (of
which each corps had its assignment)
worked with excellent results.

The achievement of the third day,
April II, was the taking of Monchy-le-
Preux on its little plateau south of the
Scarpe River. Here cavalry worked
with the infantry and tanks came up
in time to help in overcoming the

810



sturdy defense of the enemy. Heavy
losses paid for this capture; but
Monchy, like Vimy, was of great value
for its wide outlook. The Germans did
not yield it until several counter-
attacks had been repulsed.

1-HE OBJECTIVES OF THE BRIT-
ISH TAKEN VERY EARLY.

As in most of their offen-
sives, the British had been
fighting, these three days, un-
der very adverse weather con-
ditions. Thick snowfalls, inter-
spersed with wind and rain
squalls, made the way im-
possible for rapid advance of
artillery. Nevertheless, on a
twelve-mile front, they had
driven half-way to the
Drocourt - Queant Line, and
had secured two miles of the
Siegfried Line at its northern
end. Twelve thousand prison-
ers and one hundred fifty guns
made a record capture for their
armies in an equal period of
time.

By the fourteenth of April,
in the judgment of Sir Douglas
Haig, it would have been wise
to close the offensive at Arras,
had it been an independent
movement. The enemy had
continued his withdrawal, leav-
ing in the possession of his
pursuers several towns with
numbers of guns and great
stores of all kinds. British
posts now held a front ex-
tending from the outskirts of
Lens, through Vimy, Bailleul and
Monchy to Fontaine - les - Croisilles,
about seven miles southeast of Arras.
If it had not been for the French
assault about to begin, the British com-
mander would have been satisfied to
turn at once to the Flanders problem.

SUBSEQUENT ENGAGEMENTS DESIGNED
TO HOLD THE GERMANS IN LINE.

The fighting during the remaining
weeks of the Arras battle fulfilled its
purpose of engaging great numbers of
the enemy; but it drew heavily upon
the man power of the British, as well.
Every step was contested with sharp-
ness. Fierce counter-attacks wrested




A VISTA ALONG THE SCARPE
This quiet, picturesque, tree-bordered bit of the River Scarpe at Roeux, east of Arras, lay in the path of the Brit-
ish offensive in April, 1917. Farther up its course, the Scarpe passes close beside the northern edge of Arras
itself The trade of the city is greatly facilitated by the canalization of the river.




AT DROCOURT, BETWEEN LENS AND DOUAI

The support line, branching from the main Hindenburg Line at Queant and running almost due north to Dro-
court, covered the railways to Douai and Cambrai. As it was under construction when the battle of Arras began,
Prince Rupprecht threw division after division into the front to gain time for its completion, after the British had
broken the first two German systems. The struggle raged around Gavrelle, Roeux and Guemappe.

British Omcial

811



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



back ground that had been won by
awful effort. In this way, Gavrelle,
Roeux, Guemappe and other villages
were taken and retaken and taken
again. Distinct attacks were opened
on April 23, April 28 and May 3. On
May 5, General Haig extended his
active front to a length of sixteen miles,
so as to include an attack by the Fifth
Army upon the Hindenburg Line near



tion over the Douai plain. Unhappily,
these engagements, in themselves re-
markably skilful and successful, fell
short of the full measure of their results,
because General Nivelle's major opera-
tions on the Aisne did not accomplish
their purpose. The experience had the
unfortunate but natural effect of preju-
dicing the British against the plan of
unity of command.




VIMY RIDGE AND THE DOUAI PLAIN



Bullecourt. The Australians there car-
ried a section of the Line, and the
enemy's positions were shaken along
the whole front of attack. Bullecourt
itself was not completely taken until
after the middle of May. Up to the
fifth of May, which Sir Douglas Haig
regarded as the close of the immediate
campaign, the British had taken more
than 19,500 prisoners, 257 guns, in-
cluding 98 heavy guns, with 464 ma-
chine guns, and 227 trench-mortars.
They had gained about sixty square
miles of territory, somewhat more,
in less than one month, than had re-
sulted from the whole Somme offensive.
Moreover, the possession of Vimy
Ridge meant relief from a long-suffered
menace, as well as new security due to
the command of a wide field of observa-
812



PLANS TO STRENGTHEN THE BRITISH
POSITION AROUND YPRES.

While around Arras the battle was
moving through the final stages of
consolidation and strengthening of
lines, during the end of May, farther
north preparations were being com-
pleted for a long-anticipated offensive
near Ypres. There were far-reaching
aims in this plan, which had been
made toward the close of the previous
year. If the venture proved success-
ful, the German west flank, if not
crushed, would be turned from its
firm hold in Flanders, the dangerous
bases of submarine mischief on the
Belgian coast would be cut off from
German control, and Lille and the
other industrial towns of northern
France be set free. The chances for



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



success, however, were so greatly
reduced by the change in conditions
that had come about between the
planning of the campaign and its prose-
cution that the wisdom of trying to
carry it through must be questioned.
The breaking down of the Russian
ally was making possible the release
from the Eastern Front of German



themselves of any considerable height,
they overlooked the flat country around
in such a way as to furnish the enemy,
seated solidly upon them, with most
advantageous means of observation.
One writer likens the British in Ypres
to foot-ball players in a stadium, with
the Germans for the spectators on the
benches, the sad difference being that




After centuries of varying experience this venerable city in Flanders has become the very symbol of tragedy. Her
^u"n^mng, her ffmous Cloth Hall, her streets and her towers crushed into dust and spmters will breathe
Irations a new story of romance and heroism, while their old glories remain only in the words and
Scares of g formerhistorFan S anYadmirers. These -'cliff-dwellings" are the remain, of old French barrack^



hosts that could be poured as reserves
into any section where pressure grew
heavy. Nor were conditions on the
other fronts helpful at this time.
Finally, the devotion of British re-
serves to the subsidiary action at
Arras and the unsatisfactory outcome
of the French battle on the Aisne had
further injured the prospects by caus-
ing delay and loss. But courage and
enterprise were not wanting in Sir
Douglas Haig and his supporters.
While deploring the unfortunate cir-
cumstances, they set forward upon the
campaign.

As a first move it was essential to
clear the ridges before Ypres. Not in



shells instead of cheers were showered
down into the arena. Another says
that an offensive launched from Ypres
without the precaution of clearing the
ridges would put the British in the
position of " fighting blindly against an
enemy with a hundred eyes."



T



iHE SMALL ELEVATIONS AROUND YPRES
IMPORTANT.

Before the city, ridges running north
and south formed an angle with a
ridge running east and west. Where
they came together, the village of
Wytschaete occupied the highest point,
260 feet above the sea. (The elevation
of Ypres was 82 feet.) Close by stood
the neighboring village of Messines.

813



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR




GENERAL SIR HERBERT PLUMER

Hence the battle of June 7 is known as
the battle of the Messines-Wytschaete
Ridge (or, according to the Tommy,
the Messines-"Whitesheet" Ridge).
Little remained to mark the sites
of the villages only a "dust-heap"
where Wytschaete had been, and the
"tooth of the ruined church of Mes-
sines." Since the end of 1914 no open
fighting had taken place upon the
ridge, but the Germans had spared no
labor or ingenuity in preparing the
place for defense, and the British had
been working steadily on a scheme for
its destruction.

Forming a deep curve around the
foot of the ridge the first system of
German defenses presented a convex
front of nearly ten miles for the British
to carry at the outset of their attack.
On the crest, the second system lay in
another, or inner, curve. About two
and a half miles back from the point
of this small salient, the third system
formed a chord of the arc, stretching
from near Oosttaverne to Gapaard.
This was to be the ultimate British
objective in the opening battle. Be-
sides a fourth system, about a mile

814



farther east, there were many cunning-
ly placed trenches and redoubts in the
woods north and northwest of the ridge,
devised for raking an attacking party
with a flanking fire.

From the Oise to the sea, the Ger-
man front was commanded by the
Crown Prince of Bavaria. North of
the Douve river, which skirted the
southern foot of the ridge, the Fourth
Army under General Sixt von Arnim
held the positions extending on to the
sea. Flanking them on the south, the
right wing of General Otto von Below's
Sixth Army lay partly within the area
of the prospective assault.

HPHE EXCELLENT ARRANGEMENTS OF
-L GENERAL PLUMER.

The British troops involved were
three of the six corps of the Second
Army, whose commander, Sir Herbert
Plumer, had shown himself as excellent
a leader through the peculiarly difficult
months of comparative inaction as
during the stirring hours of the Second
Ypres. That battle had been the last
great action in which this army had
taken part, and they had occupied the
same position since the spring of 1915.




RUPPRECHT, CROWN PRINCE OF BAVARIA



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



But the calm patience and steady
resolution of their commander had
held their confidence and kept their
spirit and energy alert. He had been
the "true warden of the Flanders
marches."

In the work of preparation (which
had been under way for more than a
year), his performance attained the
highest degree of excellence. Roads
and railways were improved or con-
structed lead : ng toward proposed ob-



neous explosion of nineteen mines on
the morning of the assault. It was
the culmination of a two-years' -long
offensive underground, for mining had
been going on all that time under the
control of expert operators, members
of great mining corporations. The
galleries driven through the clay stra-
tum aggregated five miles in length,
and more than a million pounds of
ammonal were used in the charges. Of
the twenty-four mines prepared, four




AMBULANCE MEN OF THE RED CROSS AT WORK IN YPRES

The world will not soon forget that at Ypres on April 22, 1915, the Germans sent out their first wave of poison
gas, adding a new horror to modern warfare. These Red Cross workers moving wounded through Ypres, when the
city had become but a shell, were wearing masks as a protection against the poison fumes.

jectives; and provision was made for
ample water supply by building cis-
terns, establishing sterilizing barges
on the Lys river, and laying lines of
pipe. So perfect were the arrange-
ments that, when the battle was on,
in one instance the pack carriers arrived
with supplies four minutes after the
troops had reached their objective, and
each section was provided with water
in about a half-hour after taking up a
position on an objective that had been
won.

\JINETEEN MINES BLOW OFF THE TOPS
1M OF THE HILLS.

The feature of the battle of the Mes-
sines-Wytschaete Ridge which makes
it unique in history was the simulta-