The fly

Having previously stated that I dislike poetry generally, and war poetry specifically, here's another poem by the great MacGill. The true enemy of the British Tommy was the fly:

"Buzz-fly and gad-fly, dragon-fly and blue,
When you're in the trenches come and visit you,
They revel in your butter-dish and riot on your ham,
Drill upon the army cheese and loot the army jam.

They're with you in the dusk and the dawning and the noon,
They come in close formation, in column and platoon.
There's never zest like Tommy's zest when these have got to die :
For Tommy takes his puttees off and strafs the blooming fly."

Rifleman Patrick MacGill

1/18th Battalion London Regiment (London Irish Rifles)

Was it only yesterday?

Dud Corner Cemetery, Loos

"Was it only yesterday
Lusty comrades marched away?
Now they're covered up with clay.

 

Seven glasses used to be
Called for six good mates and me
Now we only call for three.

 

Little crosses neat and white,
Looking lonely every night,
Tell of comrades killed in fight.

 

Hearty fellows they have been,
And no more will they be seen
Drinking wine in Nouex les Mines.

 

Lithe and supple lads were they,
Marching merrily away
Was it only yesterday?"

 

Rifleman Patrick MacGill

1/18th Battalion London Regiment (London Irish Rifles)

The morning after the Battle of Loos, 26th September, 1915

Battle of Loos

By the autumn of 1915, the Allies had launched several attacks against the Germans, all largely unsuccessful. The Battle of Loos, fought from the 25^th September until early October 1915, is often overlooked and certainly overshadowed by the Battle of the Somme which followed in 1916. However, it can be remembered for three important factors: it is the first time the British used chlorine gas, the Germans having been the first to use this horrific weapon in April 1915; it is the first time that Kitchener’s new armies, made up from the men who flocked to the flag in the early months of the war, went into battle, along with the Territorials, both largely untried and untested; it was a battle that ended in failure, but so nearly in success.

The battle was part of a wider campaign, with the French attacking further south at Vimy Ridge in Artois, but as with the later Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Loos occurred at neither the time nor place of Britain’s choosing, but rather as a gesture to the French, the senior partners in the alliance against the Germans.

Whilst Sir John French had overall command of the BEF in France, it was Douglas Haig that commanded the First Army; from this army were allocated six divisions to take part in the attack at Loos: three regular divisions, the 1^st, 2^nd and 7^th; two divisions from the New Army, the 9^th and 15^th Scottish Divisions; and the Territorials of the 47^th (London) Division. In addition, two more divisions, both New Army, the 21^st and 24^th, were held in reserve some six miles from the battlefield. All in all, this represented a total of around seventy five thousand men that would attack across a frontage of eight miles. This frontage was manned, from the north to the south, by: the 2^nd, 9^th, 7^th Divisions (I Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Gough); 1^st, 15^th, and 47^th Divisions (IV Corps commanded by Lieutenant-General Rawlinson); Lieutenant-General Haking commanded XI Corps, the reserve.

Despite the fact that the gas was a disappointment, the initial assault, especially in the south, was a great success, with many of the objectives being realised on the first day; the German front-line and parts of the second-line were taken, as was the town of Loos itself. However, German counterattacks were swift and vicious, and although the two reserve divisions were committed on the first day, they were not able to participate until late on the second day. When they did, attacking in columns across the open ground between the German front and second lines, the 21^st and 24^th Divisions paid a terrible price, with almost one man in two becoming a casualty.

By the end of the battle some three weeks later, British casualties were in the region of 50,000 dead, missing or wounded. Amongst the dead were 2^nd Lt. John Kipling, son of Rudyard Kipling; Captain Fergus Bowes-Lyon, brother of the late Queen Mother; and three divisional commanders, George Thesiger (9^th Scottish Division), Thompson Capper (7^th Division) and Frederick Wing (12^th Division, who joined the fray in early October) making a lie of the myth that the generals stayed safe miles behind the lines in beautiful chateaux.

After the failure of the battle to breach the German line, Sir John French resigned as commander of the BEF to be replaced by Douglas Haig. It is possible that had the gas been more effective and had the reserves been in closer proximity to the battlefield so that they were fresh upon arrival, then the attack could, indeed, have breached the German line and led to breakthrough and early success on the Western Front in 1915; however, that is speculation.

 

As it was, the war dragged on for another three years, but it was to be another nine months before Britain felt strong enough to go on the offensive once more; at the Somme.

In the morning

The route into Loos taken by the London Irish and 9/Black Watch

 

"The firefly haunts were lighted yet,
As we scaled the top of the parapet ;
But the East grew pale to another fire,
As our bayonets gleamed by the foeman's wire ;
And the sky was tinged with gold and grey,
And under our feet the dead men lay,
Stiff by the loop-holed barricade ;
Food of the bomb and the hand-grenade ;
Still in the slushy pool and mud
Ah ! the path we came was a path of blood,
When we went to Loos in the morning.

 

A little grey church at the foot of a hill,

With powdered glass on the window-sill.
The shell-scarred stone and the broken tile,
Littered the chancel, nave and aisle
Broken the altar and smashed the pyx,
And the rubble covered the crucifix ;
This we saw when the charge was done,
And the gas-clouds paled in the rising sun,
As we entered Loos in the morning.

 

The dead men lay on the shell-scarred plain,
Where Death and the Autumn held their reign
Like banded ghosts in the heavens grey
The smoke of the powder paled away ;
Where riven and rent the spinney trees
Shivered and shook in the sullen breeze,
And there, where the trench through the graveyard wound,
The dead men's bones stuck over the ground
By the road to Loos in the morning.

 

The turret towers that stood in the air,
Sheltered a foeman sniper there
They found, who fell to the sniper's aim,
A field of death on the field of fame ;
And stiff in khaki the boys were laid
To the sniper's toll at the barricade,
But the quick went clattering through the town,
Shot at the sniper and brought him down,
As we entered Loos in the morning.

 

The dead men lay on the cellar stair,
Toll of the bomb that found them there.
In the street men fell as a bullock drops,
Sniped from the fringe of Hulluch copse.
And the choking fumes of the deadly shell
Curtained the place where our comrades fell,
This we saw when the charge was done
And the East blushed red to the rising sun
In the town of Loos in the morning."

Rifleman Patrick MacGill

1/18th Battalion London Regiment (London Irish Rifles)

The morning of the Battle of Loos, 25th September, 1915
 

 

Patrick MacGill was wounded during the battle and never returned to active service.

Battalion orders: 1/18th London Regiment (London Irish Rifles) for attack on Loos, September 25th 1915

Trench map of London Regiment objectives
Blue is British trenches, red is German

"The Battalion has been ordered to Capture the Hostile Second Line of trenches from point 51 to point 63 and having done so to consolidate the captured position with the greatest of possible speed.

The attack will be carried out on a three Platoon frontage from Sap 6 to Sap 18 both inclusive.

In accordance with Appendix 1 of Secret BM 36 the GAS and SMOKE attacks will take place for 40 minutes prior to the hour named for the assault. This hour (the actual time when the Assault is to commence) will be known in these instructions as "TIME" and all movements having relation to this word will be carried out at the VERY SECOND laid down.

At exactly FIVE minutes before TIME all men except those in the Saps will be ordered to fix bayonets.

At TIME leading platoons of the attacking Coys will at once move forward - getting out of the Trench by scaling ladders provided (2 in each bay).

Exactly 30 seconds after TIME the SECOND line will advance from their places of formation getting out by footholds and hands pegs provided and will move forward in rear of the FIRST line doubling over the New Front Line Trench."

Taken from Battalion orders for the attack on September 25th 1915.

 

Author's picture of battlefield of Loos, from atop the current
slag heap that marks position of original double crassier.
Notice new town cemetery extreme right. London Irish crossed this whole
panorama under fire to take German positions.

Before the Charge

"The night is still and the air is keen,
Tense with menace the time crawls by,
In front is the town and its homes are seen,
Blurred in outline against the sky.

 

The dead leaves float in the sighing air,
The darkness moves like a curtain drawn,
A veil which the morning sun will tear
From the face of death. We charge at dawn."

Rifleman Patrick MacGill

1/18th Battalion London Regiment (London Irish Rifles)

The night before the Battle of Loos, 25th September, 1915

Reversed bullets

This, from the orders given to the 1/18th Battalion, London Regiment (London Irish Rifles), on the eve of the battle for Loos, 25th September 1915:



Battalion orders

"All men should be warned against probable misuse of white flags and signs of surrender by the enemy. The enemy have been known to sham death and then shoot into the backs of our assaulting troops. Officers are reminded of the procedure of dealing with prisoners found with expanding or reversed bullets."

I know it doesn't actually say anything, but you know what they mean, right?