- from ‘Newnes' Illustrated’ June 5, 1915
- 'Brilliant French Assault on the German Line'
The Battle of the Week
street fighting in the houses of la Bassée
THE biggest success of the new spring campaign has been gained by the French. General Joffre had set his heart on carrying three different positions by assault. The first of these was the Chapel of Our Lady of Lorette, which stood on a hill between Arras and La Bassée; the second was the village of Carenchy, further south and east, and still further south the third position was the crest of a chalk hill (known to the French infantry as the "White Works") and the village of Neuville.
On Sunday, May 9, General Joffre decided upon carrying all these positions by assault. Fresh forces of infantry were brought up and distributed before the positions I have named, and at dawn the whole French tine blazed furiously as howitzer and 75-m. gun came into action. The enemy's position was aflame with bursting high explosive shells, which the French were pumping into the defences at a tremendous rate. It is estimated that in three hours' bombardment each gun fired 272 rounds of high explosive shells. The object of the French was to destroy the elaborate system of defences which the Germans had prepared. There was a whole labyrinth of trenches, protected by barbed wire, perfectly organised communications, field works, and in the village of Carenchy the ruins of that once prosperous little commune had been so perfectly prepared as to be almost impregnable.
Suddenly the shelling ceased, and the French infantry, scrambling from their trenches, swept across the ground like a grey wave, passed the first line of enemy defences, which had been battered into chaos, flung themselves into the second trench, bayoneting its occupants, rushed triumphantly forward to the third and the last, of the lines in the series, and, after a brief but terrible struggle, occupied the captured defences.
Brilliant Bayonet Work
At Notre Dame de Lorette the battle waged for two days. There was a hill to climb — a hill innocent of cover, and the ruins of the chapel had been converted by skilled engineers into a fortress so strong that there was a moment when General Joffre had doubts in his mind as to whether it could be carried by direct assault. On the second day of the battle, however, two gallant French regiments flung themselves against the hill, scrambled over the last defences, putting the occupants of the fortress to the bayonet and establishing themselves in a position which for months they had been unable to take. All knapsacks were abandoned, and every article of equipment which would hamper the free movement of the men was dispensed with. The French guns started a furious hammering with high explosive shells against the first line of the German entrenchments, and, after three hours of this, two regiments were ordered to "get forward as far as they could." The first line of trenches had been abandoned, but in the second and third the enemy offered a strenuous resistance, and the needle bayonets of the French infantry were requisitioned to clear the trench.
Step by step, trench by trench, through little wood, over grassy slope, utilising every scrap of cover, the piou piou moved forward, the target of a score of machine guns, pelted with shrapnel, the .very road he covered ploughed to chaos by high explosive shell, yet never once did he waver. Three times he fought hand to hand for possession of a trench line, three times he swamped the opposition and drove forward to a new defensive line.
It was late in the afternoon when a handful of Frenchmen in their war-soiled uniforms scrambled over the sand-bag defences of a redoubt at one corner of the famous chapel, now little more a rubbish heap.
"One walked upon the bodies of men," said one who took part in the charge, and yet another, describing the final assault, said : "I now know what it is to wade through rivers of blood, for literally that has been my experience."
The Marvellous Bravery of the French Infantry
In the meantime a more furious battle had been waging at Carenchy. The slopes leading to the town, the ruined walls, even the cellars of the village, had been so connected as to form a continuous line of trench, which was strengthened by blockhouses and cleverly concealed machine-guns positions. Behind the village was Hill 125, which not only commanded the village itself, but which gave those who held it an uninterrupted field of fire over the village to the slopes beyond. Notwithstanding the terrific character of the fire which was poured upon them, the French came forward at a run. Whole lines of men were swept down under that terrible hail of lead. Battalions disappeared as if they had been erased. Yet the others came on. The gaps were filled by men who raced up from the rear line; the first trenches were carried, and a halt called to gain a second breath; and then, like an avalanche, the French masses poured into the village street, seized house after house, dynamiting walls that they might reach their hostile, neighbours, and held on throughout the night. A second charge made them masters of the village, and despite the fact that most of the men engaged had been without sleep for forty-eight hours, a dashing assault was delivered upon the hill position behind the village. By field and road the undaunted infantry battled its way forward. The whole force of German artillery and machine gun batteries concentrated upon the devoted French infantry. In half en hour's fighting the crest was gained, the defender driven back, and the French proclaimed their mastery of the position by planting a soiled and battered tricolour attached to a German bayonet.
The light for the village of Neuville had been no less severe. Again the French had to carry house by house, and again day and night saw hand-to-hand fighting through the once peaceful street of the village. To the eastward of the town is the big cemetery, with its bare walls in which the old peasants of the place have slept for generations. The Germans had strengthened the walls with sandbags, had planted machine guns every few yards, and had covered the approach to the cemetery with a veritable network of barbed wire. They were further protected by lines of trenches which had been dug in zig- zag fashion at the back of the village street.
Weakening La Bassée
So powerful was this defensive position that 300 trained soldiers were considered a sufficiently large number to hold it, and this they did until the French brought their 75's into action, and until their splendid infantry were again put to the task of achieving the seemingly impossible. Of the 300 garrison which held that cemetery, only 100 were captured, and most of these were wounded. Amidst the upchurned graves and the hopeless confusion of shattered gravestones and crosses lay many German dead. This in brief is the story of that battle for the salient which made the French masters t of every position they attacked, which reduced the value of La Bassée, and which gave to General Joffre command of the open plain which stretched away to Lille.
The gallantry of the French was beyond praise. Officers fell dying to the ground, yet, by a supreme effort of will, mastered their remaining faculties to urge their men forward. One commander, with his arm shattered and a bullet through his lung, led a charge, and did not halt till he dropped dead within the enemy's defences. Three soldiers of France, the first to reach the cemetery enclosure at Neuville, killed 12 Germans before they were shot down, and the whole story of this battle is studded with gems of heroism.
In these operations the Germans lost heavily, one estimate being 40,000, and this is possibly not very wide of the mark.
the village of Carency
