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Authors: Catherine Bailey
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awaiting news all day. Canadians standing and attacking. Ypres completely wrecked by shells, half of it burnt. All inhabitants fled. The French are trying to retrieve the 3 miles they have lost. A perfect hell has been raging all last night and all day today and going on still (12 midnight). French sending up reinforcements as hard as they can – so are we. The gas felt by our own troops.
24 April: News this morning bad, what there is of it. The Germans have got a little further over the canal and I hear the Canadian left has had to fall further back. Both the French and us are badly outnumbered by guns. We have practically none. We have sent up the 4th Division and two Cavalry Divisions but without any guns. The French talk a lot saying they are sending up a whole corps and lots of guns, but the guns have not opened fire yet and their soldiers seem unable to hold the Germans … It all looks quite bad, unless we can push the Germans back a bit. I don’t think the 27th and 28th Brigades will be able to hold out as they are being shelled from three sides. It looks as if we will have to give up the Ypres Salient and straighten our line behind Ypres.
11.30pm: News bad. Both English and French counterattacks failed owing to gas.
25 April: Battle has been going on all night with little result. The French are going to attack in force at 12 today. Again the French attack failed owing to gas. The French and English reserves still coming up. The battle still going on without ceasing.
26 April: Battle went on all night again. The French and English now have over 200,000 men and a terrific battle has been going on all day. I watched it all the afternoon from Sharpenburg Hill. I never heard anything like the noise. The whole country is darkened by the smoke.
12 midnight: At last we have made a little headway. All day we have been held back by this damnable gas. My God, the Germans are the limit. The gas kills the soldiers by causing an acute attack of pneumonia and bronchitis which makes them die black from suffocation. I am off to Boulogne to try to buy 1700 yds of gauze for our men to tie over their mouths. The whole civilized world ought to rise up in arms and wipe out Germany for this. The Canadians have done perfectly wonderfully. They saved the situation for twodays. My God, what a hell it must have been and is … We all pray for a change of wind then we should give them hell, but this gas is a knockout.
12.30am: News better just now – the French have made progress. The list of German prisoners will be small after this. I don’t fancy much quarter will be given now – the buggers.
27th April: Started at 8.30am for Boulogne to buy gauze for the Division to put over their mouths to cope with this bloody gas. Bought a lot of gauze and we got back about 7pm. It takes three hours to get there. Not much news except the French can’t make much headway, nor can we. The casualties must be terrific. The battle still goes on.
John paid for the gauze out of his own pocket. In that anxious week in April, he was viscerally engaged in the progress of the war and concerned for the welfare of his men. So why, two months later, when they were actually fighting in the Salient, had he become so detached? Did the terse entries, and the absence of any references to the fighting, or to the 4th Leicesters, conceal a bitter disappointment – even feelings of guilt on his part – at not being with them? His appointment as ADC to the division’s commanding officer had been an order; on the night his battalion marched up the wagon track into the Salient, he had no choice but to remain behind at headquarters.
The 4th Leicesters left the trenches at Sanctuary Wood at 11.45 p.m. on 5 July. ‘ The Companies marched back independently to Ouderdom covering the eight miles by 5am the next day,’ Captain Milne remembered: ‘It was a wonderful summer morning: the sun shone, the air was fresh, there was not a cloud in the sky. It felt very good to
24 April: News this morning bad, what there is of it. The Germans have got a little further over the canal and I hear the Canadian left has had to fall further back. Both the French and us are badly outnumbered by guns. We have practically none. We have sent up the 4th Division and two Cavalry Divisions but without any guns. The French talk a lot saying they are sending up a whole corps and lots of guns, but the guns have not opened fire yet and their soldiers seem unable to hold the Germans … It all looks quite bad, unless we can push the Germans back a bit. I don’t think the 27th and 28th Brigades will be able to hold out as they are being shelled from three sides. It looks as if we will have to give up the Ypres Salient and straighten our line behind Ypres.
11.30pm: News bad. Both English and French counterattacks failed owing to gas.
25 April: Battle has been going on all night with little result. The French are going to attack in force at 12 today. Again the French attack failed owing to gas. The French and English reserves still coming up. The battle still going on without ceasing.
26 April: Battle went on all night again. The French and English now have over 200,000 men and a terrific battle has been going on all day. I watched it all the afternoon from Sharpenburg Hill. I never heard anything like the noise. The whole country is darkened by the smoke.
12 midnight: At last we have made a little headway. All day we have been held back by this damnable gas. My God, the Germans are the limit. The gas kills the soldiers by causing an acute attack of pneumonia and bronchitis which makes them die black from suffocation. I am off to Boulogne to try to buy 1700 yds of gauze for our men to tie over their mouths. The whole civilized world ought to rise up in arms and wipe out Germany for this. The Canadians have done perfectly wonderfully. They saved the situation for twodays. My God, what a hell it must have been and is … We all pray for a change of wind then we should give them hell, but this gas is a knockout.
12.30am: News better just now – the French have made progress. The list of German prisoners will be small after this. I don’t fancy much quarter will be given now – the buggers.
27th April: Started at 8.30am for Boulogne to buy gauze for the Division to put over their mouths to cope with this bloody gas. Bought a lot of gauze and we got back about 7pm. It takes three hours to get there. Not much news except the French can’t make much headway, nor can we. The casualties must be terrific. The battle still goes on.
John paid for the gauze out of his own pocket. In that anxious week in April, he was viscerally engaged in the progress of the war and concerned for the welfare of his men. So why, two months later, when they were actually fighting in the Salient, had he become so detached? Did the terse entries, and the absence of any references to the fighting, or to the 4th Leicesters, conceal a bitter disappointment – even feelings of guilt on his part – at not being with them? His appointment as ADC to the division’s commanding officer had been an order; on the night his battalion marched up the wagon track into the Salient, he had no choice but to remain behind at headquarters.
The 4th Leicesters left the trenches at Sanctuary Wood at 11.45 p.m. on 5 July. ‘ The Companies marched back independently to Ouderdom covering the eight miles by 5am the next day,’ Captain Milne remembered: ‘It was a wonderful summer morning: the sun shone, the air was fresh, there was not a cloud in the sky. It felt very good to
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