vo | The Daily British Whig PAGES 1320 -- YEAR 86. NO, 75 «x LE KINGSTON. ONTARIO, SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1919 ------ THIRD SECTION -- ~ 1--The Darkest Days of True Causes of the British Retreat (MARCH and APRIL, 1918) BY PHILIP GIBBS Now that victory is ours, we look back with steady eyes may at bad times when it was hard to know the | truth and still keep faith and cour. | age For the British armies in France and Belgium, and who counted upon their strength, the { for those | darkest days of all began in March | of last year, when the launched their offensive against the British lines and drove us back hard retreat over a great stretch of country which our men had gained by enormous sacrifice of life through vears of fighting I saw the scones of that retreat, and | now that when | our men back over the ld Somme battleiields, when | saw remhants of our fine divi- gions so exhausted that they could hardly stand and so weak in numbers that they had no chance of resisting the enemy's onslaught outside towns like Albert and Amiens, which had been ours since the early days of the war i was haunted by the thought that perhaps after all our enormous efforts and losses, victory might not be ours. It was worse a month af- terwards when the group of armies under Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, fn Flanders, started their northern attack, broke through our lines be- tween Festubert and Givenchy, forced the passage of the River Lys, struck northward and captured Bail- len], swarmed back over Passchen- daele and all the ridges around Ypres which had cost England the lives of thousands of her sons to take, and took Kemmel Hill from the French who had come up to support as. Then, indeed, it looked as though the worst might happen. Kemmel Hill was the key of all our northern defence and the very key of the coast and the channel ports. With Amiens menaced, the road to Abbeville thinly guarded by spent and broken divisions, and Kemmel Hill in the hands of the enemy, we who were on the ground knew that our fate hung on a thin thread 'of fortune, a thread depending for its strength on the thin lines of British soldiers, tired, fighting ° in small groups against great odds, but with no surrender in their souls. England did not know what touch- and-go it was on the edge of irrepar- able disaster. 1 don't think England knows now, nor how hard pressed her men were im these days, nor how great their losses. For though I and other war correspondents de: scribed the retreat day by day in great detail, we could not tell our people, nor the world, the full mea- sure of our peril, nor the extremity of our weakness; and in any case the spirit of England was so strong in belief of final victory that the gravest disasters did not shock her faith. Those of us in the field thea thought that this sublime confidence was almost callous, and it irritated us to anger, knowing the frightful dan- gor and the awful ldsses; but looking back to that time 1 see that 'England was right, and her faith justified. cornifess saw coming ot ine £00,000 British Casuaities in 1917. What were the causes of the great- est disaster that has ever befallen British arms? |The answer to that question i not easy because, it in- volves many factors and events in the past history of the war. It is link- ed up With the battles of Flanders, fought betweén July and December of 1817, followed by the adventure in the Cambrai salient which began 'with = brilliant victory and ended with an unfortunate reverse at the Germans | i | in | Copyright, 1919, by « Philip Gibbs, the war correspondent, officially accredited to the British Armies on the Western Front, whose dally despatches appeared in the London Daily Chron- fele, the New York Times, and many other papers throughout the world, has written f articles which reveal, as in a searchlight, his most intimage know- ledge of historical events whese inmost facts and secrets are no{ yet known. by the a special series o British people or by those of the United States and was During the progress of the war Philip Gibbs, as a putriotic Englishman as 2 war correspondent who played the game according to the rules of censorship some things which may now be known, and indeed must now be known wanted to know those things the extent of hey wanted to know the places and the periods of greatest weak- They wanted to know unable to tell The German They wanted to know their slaughter ness in the British poison gas which they fired over the British lines in vast quantities Armies and the reason of that weakness the effect of th I'hey wanted to know the exhaustion of the British reserves, the morale of British soldiers, the difficulties and mistakes of British Generals Above at! they wanted to know where and when to strike with the best chance of destroying the people they hated most --those British soldiers--so that they might roll up thé Wesiern Front and demand the price of victory If they had known all that they would have won, and therefore they could not be told So Philip Gibbs and his fellow war correspondents kept these things secret Now there is no more cause for secrecy, and in this new series of articles Philip tiibbs tells, with absolute frankness, and without any reservation, the hidden mean- ing of episodes in the war which as far as the outstanding facts went he described day by day in despatches which have won him fame. His daily narrative of the great British retreat in March and April of 1918 held the world breathless, but he could not say then why that retreat took place, nor reveal the inner causes of the tragedy, nor tell the world how close the Germans were to victory. All that he js now about to tell, and for the first time the mystery will be cleared. In this special series he will also describe with more realism than he has yet permitted himself the agonies of war- fare on the Western front, the sufferings so infernal that Dante's version of hell was not worse than what happened on the battlefields of Europe. In his articles Philip Gibbs hinted at these things and the spirit of their tragedy brooded in his sombre words, but because he.did not wish to cause despair among his people when they e McClure Newspaper Syndicate necded all courage and all hope he spared them the worst knowledge of what their boys were suffering Yet now the world must know or it will not realize the full heroism of the men who faced those tortures, nor the inhuman frightfulness of mod ern warfare, and so he will tell them as a remembrance and a warning Without taking one laurel from the crown of honor which belongs to the British army, which he loves as a true Englishman because of its valor and its sacrifice through all the years of war of its Philip Gibbs will criticise some of its weaknesses, failures and some of its follies bitter le some For it had to léarn many isons, and to gain victory by many mistakes Not all its Generals were men of genjus, and he will take the privilege of a trained critic of war to point out where hom failed in vision and leadership, and why their staff work led of life Living among the soldiers constantly, dining in their messes and dugouts, meeting them on the battlefields and in their billets when they were wounded and dying, or in the exultation of victory, Philip Gibbs knew them to the heart and soul, and so he will have somuthing remarkable to say about their mental make-up, the effect af war upon their character, their attitude<towards life in their dark days and in victory, their hopes and despairs and agonies of spirit All that will be new necause Philip Gibbs In time of war had to guard the secret of these vealed to him in their greatest suffering He will also deal with the German side of this tragic drama of war Fair in mind and with an instinct of chivalry, Philip Gibbs will pay a tribute to the heroism of many German soldiers, describing their astounding courage, their frightful suffer- ings, and their genius as fighting men It is only by a full knowledge and recogni- tion of those qualities that we can measure the achievements of our own men who beat the greatest army in the world. Philip Gibbs wiil-then show with many new facts why the German army failed and was utterly defeated Finally, after a study of the comedy of war--as he explains, "a frightful paradox like laughter in hell" -- Je will write a psychological examination, based "upon a four and a half years' expe- rience, of the effect of war upon the character and ideas of the soldiers, showing the dangers that have been bred in the life of the trenches, and the fears as well as the hopes that follow upon the most int®mse and passionate experience that has stirred hu- manity since the beginning of civilization sometimes ta unnecessary loss men's souls as they were re- | [England was not "pulling her weight" IL gaged af the same time opposite the French line had to attack the strong- est German divisions which ould be replaced on the orders of the German General Staff by fresh divisions from other parts of the line whenever they were shattered by the British assault. For nearly five months this happen- ed, our troops attacking and captur- ing the ridges in the foulest condi- tions of rain and mud, and although we inflicted enormous losses upon the finest troops of the German army--- I saw their dead in heaps about the "pill-boxes" (or concrete block houses) on the way to Passchendaele --our own casualties reached terrible figures and we failed to gain the Bel- glan coast. Lord Northcliffe's esti- mate was 800,000 casualties to the British armies in 1917, and seventy- five per cent. of those were on the Western front. The adventure in the Cambrai salient in November of that year, when our surprise attack with tanks broke the Hindenburg line and when our gallant troops after all that fighting in Flanders took 90,000 prisoners and much ground, cost us numbers of valuable lives & week late rowning to the counter surprise by General von Marwitz, when our men had to fight desperate rear guard actions. So at the end of 1917 after all these bloody battles the British armies were terribly weakened In numbers, the gaps in their ranks not being replaced in many divisions by new drafts, and their strength was still further decreased by the loss of three of their finest divisions who were rushed off to Italy under the command of General Plumer t¢ turn the tide of the Italian disaster which had then happened . : French Doubts Hurt British. It was at that time, when the Brit- ish armies on the Western front were | weakest, that Sir Douglas Haig was called upon to take over.a longer line of front south of St. Quentin, and it was at that time, in the beginning of last year, that the Germans transfer- red many of their divisions from Rus- sia to France and Belgium with the menace of an overwhelming sttack _ The pressure upon Sir Douglas Haig to take over a longer front was insis- | ~~poor old England who was strain- ing every muscle to keep her mines own needs but for the factories 'of France and Italy, and to turn out vast quantities of ammunition and} ste upon the British and French lines. |' 4 fo the process. © But the French peo- ple, sincerely and without malice, did not think so, and they started a cam- paigh in the press and in political cireles, pointing oui the length of the ling they held (forgetting that length of line does not count so much as the number of enemy divisions engaged on any front) and the greatness of their own sacrifices. Articles of a bitter tone found their way into the English press--and hurt us ' prett badly. . There was pressure at Vgr- sailles. It came over to the Pfme Minister and his advisers in ro Street and it was transferrel urgent requests to Sir Dougl yielded to the demand and our t "gide-stepped" and took over the line of battle north and south of St. Quentin down to La Fere on the Olse, where I met our London troops who stared over to the German lines, so silent there, and said: "When is this blinking battle going to begin?" "Disaster If We Lose Amiens." Meanwhile the German menace was creeping nearer to us and in- creasing in its frightful possibilities. In January there were 185 German divisions on the Western front, about equal to the allied strength. By the beginning of March there were 207 German divisions. Our Intelligence officers did wonderful work at this time, and no German unit moved wigiout their knowledge within a week or two of its departure. By espionage in German territory, by aerial reconnaissances, and informa- tion obtained from prisoners, they learned every detail of the German decigion to concentrate their full military weight in a last effort to smash their way to victory. ing practised by German storm troops for a new method of attack. As one of our Intelligence officers sald to me in February of last year: "England ought to be saying her prayers, be- cause in another month her fate, and the fate of the world, will be at stake." The evidence for this was of thous g i them standing as wé talked in sight of the German lines, where there seemed to be utter solitude, and "nothing doing" except the usual harrassing fire from isolated batter- tes, were dogmatic in explaining to me why the Germans would not risk their remaining man power in such a gamble which was bound to fail. So A few days later the tide of the German army had rolled over ythe positions wiiclt these generals had held. The British troops were just as optimistic as their leaders. "What will happen," I asked one of them, "if Fritz tries to come across?" "He will catch a cold in the head," sald the man, and this answer was typical of all those I received. A week or so before the opening of the German offensive I had an interview with General Gough, commanding the Fifth Army, ow the right of our line, through which the enemy afterwards broke. He was uot one of those who «lisbelieved in the jmpending attack, and he was very frank in facing its possibilities. He showed me .maps of his Fifth Army front, pointed out how he had adopted a system of de- fence by a series of machine gun re- diubts in advance of the main battle positions and how behind that main battle line were three other lines upon which our men could fall back if hard pressed. Then he sald: If the enemy attacks in great strength we shall have to give ground, and the public must be prepared for this. But the giving up of ground will not matter very much so long as we fall back to other good positions and keep our line intact. It will be in no They sense of the word a disaster. After all our natfiral line of defence is the River Somme . If we had to lose that the sitnation would certainly be serious, but not even then a great dis- aster. It would be a disas- ter only lost our hold on Aniiens." 1 am bound to say that these words made me feel rather ¢old. The mere possibility of losing the Somme cross- ings so far behind our front at that time was an awful thought, and the mention of Amiens, forty miles back from the 'ine sent a shiver through one's body. . . . We waited with a dreadful apprehension for the rolling up of the curtain which hid the mystery behind the German lines, and we did not have long to wait, ssn. it we repre ete ning of the battles. Our new sys- tem of defence on the Fifth Army front by which our front line was held by 4d serfes of machine gun re- doubts in advance of the main batt. positions played into the hands of the 'Germans' new method of attack, ow- ing to the foggy weather in which the offensive opened . The enemy's new form as assault, which they had first tried against the Italians with start- ling success, was by what is now known as "infiltration." That is to say while they were attacking fron- tally under the cover of storms of high explosives and gas shells and feeling for weaknesses in their en- emy"s line, they widened any gap they might make and dribbled through machine gunners of skill and courage with orders to penetrate as deeply as they could and with the assurance that they would be follow- ed and supported by a continuous chain of men also relying exclusively on machine gun fire. So it happen- ed that although the greater part of our Third Army front held on to their trenches against the German frontal attacks which they met with a wither- ing fire, causing immense slaughter in the enemy's ranks, they found themselves under deadly machine gun fire from their left and right flanks by bodies of men who were driving wedges between them in ever-increas- ing numbers, which threatened to cut in behind them and bar any way of escape. On our Fifth Army front our system of redoubts and the fog which enveloped them so that our machine gunners could not see twenty yards ahead made this method of attack easy. The German machine gun sections pushed in be- tween the redoubts, surrounded them, and thon drove arrow heads into our main battle positions and continued their policy of "infiltra- tion" while overwhelming masses of men followed up every advantage gained in this way. The British troops fought with enormous heroism and the German dead lay in heaps be- fore their lines, but this new method of attack surprised and confused them and divisional staffs were amazed when they received reporis of the enemy having broken through to places behind our battle lines, or as happened several times, gained their first knowledge of this danger been quickly overwhelmed, but many of them fought to the death, as | 16th Manchestérs," he said, "will de- fend the redoubt to the last moment." By the end of that first day many British divisions had been forced to give ground and fall back to prevent themselves being cut off In the north the enemy had forced a wedge between the 6th and 51st divisions on | the Third Army, and was driving to- wards Bapaume. On the right of our line the Germans had broken through in several places between the 30th and the 36th (Ulster) divisions and between the 14th and 58th (London) divisions, near St. Quen- tin, and were advancing on to Ham towards the crossings of the Somme A genéral retreat was decided, with orders to hold the line of the Somme at all costs. It was a difficult and tragic situation for generals and staffs as well as for battalion officers and men. All our well ordered ma- chinery of war was suddenly thrown into disorder like a watch which has lost its main spring. The headquar- ters of armies, corps and divisions were on the move hke Nomads who pitched their camps at night and re- treated hurriedly at dawn because a horde of Barbarians was bearing down upon them. So I met. our staffs day by day in the midst of this retreat with maps outspread on wood- en boxes surrounded by the litter of their kit and furniture while down the road came a slowly surging tide of traffic like a world on the move, as 'heavy 'guns, ambulances, wagons laden with hospital gear, aerodromes packed up like traveling circuses; thousands of refugees with their hand-carts, and long transport col- umns of motor lorries drew back from the advancing German lines Owing to the destruction of tele- phone wires and this general confu- sion of retreat it was difficult for the staff to keep communication with the | fighting units and responsibility for action was thrown largely on to brig- adiers and 'battalion officers... They did glorious work, and their courage never failed. throughout those days. "Will Hold On to the Last." "I am writing this report with one hand and firing a rifle with the oth- er," was a message received from General Griffith, of the Ulster divi- sion, when his headquarters \were al- most surrounded by Germans. Eng- lish, Irish and Scottish battalions fought heroic rear guard actions un- til they were overwhelmed. A col onel of the 6th division reported: "Situation Impossible without rein. forcements, but will hold on till the And he was seen leading 20 survivors against a mass of German troops. That 6th 4 in lost 80 per cent. of its infantry 48 hours ed | . un n the division, semt a tragic mes- his sTeeve," as we Freneh cavalry and the French 66th division, which had eome up to our ald at Guiscard, we could not stem the German tide which was now in full spate across our 'old battlefields, and our 19th corps with the 66th and 24th divisions, with the 50th, 18th and Sth supporting them, were, after fearfu: Josses in rear guard ac- tions, unable to hold the crossings of the Somme and the enemy passed over the bridges at %=t. Christ and | lirie, which had not been blown up | in thne And as General Gough had said: "If we lose the line of the Somme the situation will be serious." "Still Sticking It! Cheery-O!" The way was open to Amiens, and the only force that barred the way was a miscellaneous crowd of strag- glers collected under a brigadier | named Carey, from all those divisions | which had lost most of their men in la fighting retreat, supp emented by clerks, orderlies and signallers from headquarters, and a gallant section of Canadian armored cars. It was "Carey's force" which saved Amiens in the days of greatest peril until the Australians came down from Flan- ders to strengthen our line and the French rushed up to defend its southern approaches. I saw many scenes of that retreat from St. Quentin to Amiens and from Bapaume to Albert and the Ancre and was in the midst of its turmoil and tragedy. They were terrible days when all that we had gained seemed lost But even then the courage of our men and the heroie sacrifice of the rear guards who fought to the death so that the German onslaught should be checked made one feel that England eould not be defeated what- ever happened. « It would be absurd to pretend that our men retreated always in geod-order; 'and that none of them were panicky when there were gaps in our line and Germans on each side of them. Panie there was here apd there among certain bodies of men who fell back too soon from positions they might have held for longer time. Contradictory or- ders were issued, mistakes were made by generals and staff officers, the crossings of the Somme were lost too easily----though God knows many men died to hold them---and if there had been more forethought in digging trench systems and switch lines be- hind our battle positions the Ger- mans with all their weight of men might neve® have driven us back so far The British army was a hu- man machine, and as such had its weaknesses Jut thege English, Scot- tish and Irish troops fought for the most part with high, grim courage, often in isolated groups standing amidst their dead and dying and selling their own lives dearly unless surrounded and captured. "My men are glorious," sald a general of York- shire troops, "but so tired that being attacked is the only thing that keeps them awake." The Germans them- selves paid a tribute to the Scottish troops of the 51st division. in a message sent over in a small balloon they wrote: "Good o'd Fifty-first! Still sticking it. Cheery-O " All our troops kept "sticking it," with few exceptions, and for many days and nights fell back fighting against overwhelming numbers, weary, dazed, spent, for lack of .sleep or rest. Many of them were in the same divisions which went to Flanders horribly weakened by all their losses, and encountered the northern offen- sive under Princes Rupprecht of Ba- varia, which broke through the Pors tuguese at Neuve Chapelle and drove through to Merville while other forces swarmed back _ across ridges round Ypres. - Sir Douglas Haig had no reserves to fall back on. Those poor divisions of ours had to fight day after day until almost ex- terminated, and it was but a thin, weak line which barred the way to the coast until Marshal Foch in the very nick of time sent up masses of men to make a biue line behind our brown, and at the same time, with a song of thanksgiving in our hearts, we saw American troops pouring into _ France, and knew that if we could Sa-- Lloyd George's 300,000 Fill Gaps. During those eight weeks of the German offensive against the British lines the losses of the British were more than sixty per their fighting strength. great gaps torn in their filled up by drafts of 300.0 whom Lloyd George had j i §i : £ last reserves. were mostly untrained, g the older men, ful spirit, and it Bi EH g » great o later, fighting : and Australians hel