Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dơnload Every Nonprofit's Tax Guide: How To Keep Your Tax-Exempt Status & Avoid IRS Problems, 8th Edition Fishman J.D. Full Chapter
Dơnload Every Nonprofit's Tax Guide: How To Keep Your Tax-Exempt Status & Avoid IRS Problems, 8th Edition Fishman J.D. Full Chapter
Dơnload Every Nonprofit's Tax Guide: How To Keep Your Tax-Exempt Status & Avoid IRS Problems, 8th Edition Fishman J.D. Full Chapter
https://ebookmeta.com/product/every-airbnb-hosts-tax-guide-5th-
edition-stephen-fishman/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-telegraph-tax-guide-2023-your-
complete-guide-to-the-tax-return-for-2022-23-47th-edition-tmg-
telegraph-media-group-2/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-telegraph-tax-guide-2023-your-
complete-guide-to-the-tax-return-for-2022-23-47th-edition-tmg-
telegraph-media-group/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/joint-ventures-involving-tax-
exempt-organizations-2022-4th-edition-michael-i-sanders/
The Law of Tax-Exempt Healthcare Organizations: 2021
Supplement, 4th Edition Hyatt
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-law-of-tax-exempt-healthcare-
organizations-2021-supplement-4th-edition-hyatt/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/australian-master-tax-guide-tax-
year-end-2019-cch-australia-limited/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/joint-ventures-involving-tax-
exempt-organizations-2021-cumulative-supplement-4th-edition-
michael-i-sanders/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/j-k-lasser-s-your-income-
tax-2024-for-preparing-your-2023-tax-return-j-k-lasser-institute/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/tax-advisers-guide-to-trusts-6th-
edition-nigel-eastaway/
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
once a Buff soldier was apparently killed. Someone bent over him to
take any possible last message. The man was in agony and shot in
the stomach, but he could just speak. “Where’s my bloody rifle?” was
all he said.
On St. George’s Day, 1915, the enemy had the audacity to stick
out a flag at their sap head and on it was inscribed the words “Gott
strafe England.” 2nd Lieut. Corrall, Sergt. Vigors and Pte. Russell
disapproved of this, as showing an improperly defiant attitude, so
they crept out and triumphantly brought it in with them.
The Army Commander, Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, inspected the
battalion in the spring and was much struck with the smart turn-out.
Such is custom and the result of training and education. The Buffs
must be smartly turned-out, and conditions and circumstances have
nothing to do with the matter.
It was on the 3rd May that the 1st Battalion and the rest of the
16th Brigade first heard of the German gas attacks, which occurred
north-east of Ypres and to which reference will be made in the next
chapter. Precautionary measures were taken, but the second battle
of Ypres did not greatly affect the troops so far south of the town as
was the 6th Division, but about 1,500 shells fell into Armentieres on
the 6th May. On the last day of this month a move was made to the
neighbourhood of Bailleul and Poperinghe—the village of
Wittenhoek, four miles south of the latter town, being the Buffs’ billet.
On the 2nd June it so happened that the 2nd Battalion, whose
adventures are now to be related, were in Poperinghe, and so, in the
nature of things, a meeting, which will be referred to later, had to be
arranged.
It must be remembered in reading the foregoing pages, and
indeed in studying the next chapter also, that the enemy was, during
the last quarter of 1914 and early in the next year, making a well-
organized and very determined attempt to gain Calais and the coast
of the English Channel, and that enormous masses of men were
devoted to this effort, as well as artillery vastly superior in weight of
metal to that which our side could then by any possibility bring to
bear. The English lines of communication ran across the Channel,
and it is a maxim of war that if such lines are lost the army that relies
on them must either win an overwhelming victory or surrender. If
Calais had been won by the Germans the connection between
England and her armies would have been to a great extent severed,
for how could reinforcements, munitions and necessaries daily cross
the Channel under heavy and continuous fire, and repeated and
constant attacks from submarine bases?
At Radinghem and at Ypres then, our regiment was helping to
defend England from a dreadful and unprecedented disaster, and
Men of Kent must further consider that to a certain extent, at any
rate, the Buffs were, more than any other regiment, defending their
own homeland, for if hostile batteries of modern long-range guns
could have been planted on Cape Gris Nez, not only would Dover
harbour and dockyard have been destroyed, but, knowing the
Germans as we do now, we may be pretty certain that Hythe,
Folkestone, Sandgate and perhaps Deal would soon have been in
as ruinous a condition as were, a little later, Rheims, Arras and
Ypres.
Leaving the 1st Battalion for a while doing its duty in the
neighbourhood of Poperinghe, we will now turn our attention to the
story of the 2nd Battalion from India.
CHAPTER II
Next day the Buffs embarked for Havre, for the Channel ports
were safe enough by this time. On the 21st they detrained at
Hazebrouck and marched to Rouge Croix (4½ miles N.E.), after one
of those terrible French railway journeys, during which sanitary
arrangements are non-existent. The battalion now became a fighting
unit in the great struggle that was raging round Ypres.
It is good in winter time to have plenty of warm clothing and
protection from the weather, but the kits at this period were terribly
heavy to carry. Later on regular parties were told off to take what was
required from the billets to the trenches and so on, but at first the
soldier, in addition to his regular sixty-two pounds’ weight of kit, was
burdened with a fur coat, gum boots and spare sandbags, all very
excellent things to have with one, but a bit of a job to get over the
ground with.
On the 28th January the brigade was inspected by the
Commander-in-Chief, accompanied by the Prince of Wales. During
the month of February the Germans made several more or less
determined attempts to pierce the British line near Ypres, and
sometimes with partial success. On the 4th of the month the 85th
Brigade, being at Ouderdom, received news that their comrades of
the 83rd were being attacked south-west of the city, so two battalions
started at once to the rescue, and these were followed two hours
later by the Buffs and Middlesex, who entered the place and
remained in readiness in the cavalry barracks.
The 5th February brought some counter-marching. At 4.30 a.m.
the battalion started to march back again to Ouderdom as being not
wanted and was then told to stand by in readiness to move again, as
the 84th Brigade was now in trouble to the south of Ypres. This
march, however, was not performed till the following day, by the
evening of which both the Buffs and East Surreys were back in the
cavalry barracks, and from there they went into the trenches, the
Buffs’ Headquarters being at Ferme Chapelle.
The experience of the next few days was a terrible one; the
trenches, which had just been taken over from the French, were in
very bad condition indeed: they were knee-deep in water, and with
parapets so rotten as not to be bullet proof. Very soon this state of
things had its effect and numbers of the men were suffering from
swollen feet and frost-bite.
The second battle of Ypres has brought more obloquy and ill-fame
on the German nation than even Marathon brought glory to the
Athenians. It appears to have been well understood by scientific men
that a noisome and poisonous gas could be so carried down wind
that no man could breathe its suffocating fumes and live for long,
and further that he must die in agony. At the ineffectual conference
at the Hague it had been arranged between the representatives of
the several nations, including Germany, that the use of such a
disgusting and brutal weapon should be barred between civilized
enemies, and nobody thought any more about it, but the German
beast is not a gentleman and he ruled that the brave old days when
foeman fought with a chivalrous regard for his opponent were to
cease, at any rate as far as the much-vaunted Fatherland was
concerned, and so this battle which we are now to consider goes
down in history as the first great combat in which unfair and
blackguardly methods were adopted.
Imperial War Museum Crown Copyright
YPRES FROM NEAR MENIN GATE
The commencement of this tremendous battle is best described in
Sir John French’s own words, which are here quoted from his
despatches: “It was at the commencement of the Second Battle of
Ypres on the evening of the 22nd April that the enemy first made use
of asphyxiating gas.
“Some days previously I had complied with General Joffre’s
request to take over the trenches occupied by the French, and on
the evening of the 22nd the troops holding the lines east of Ypres
were posted as follows:—
“From Steenstraate to the east of Langemarck, as far as the
Poelcappelle road, a French division.
“Thence, in a south-easterly direction towards the
Passchendaele-Becelaere road, the Canadian division.
“Thence, a division took up the line in a southerly direction east of
Zonnebeke to a point west of Becelaere, whence another division
continued the line south-east to the northern limit of the corps on its
right.
“Of the 5th Corps there were four battalions in Divisional Reserve
about Ypres; the Canadian Division had one battalion in Divisional
Reserve and the 1st Canadian Brigade in Army Reserve. An infantry
brigade, which had just been withdrawn after suffering heavy losses
on Hill 60, was resting about Vlamertinghe.
“Following a heavy bombardment, the enemy attacked the French
division at about 5 p.m., using asphyxiating gases for the first time.
Aircraft reported that at about 5 p.m. thick yellow smoke had been
seen issuing from the German trenches between Langemarck and
Bixschoote. The French reported that two simultaneous attacks had
been made east of the Ypres-Staden railway, in which these
asphyxiating gases had been employed.
“What follows almost defies description. The effect of these
poisonous gases was so virulent as to render the whole of the line
held by the French division mentioned above practically incapable of
any action at all. It was at first impossible for anyone to realize what
had actually happened. The smoke and fumes hid everything from
sight, and hundreds of men were thrown into a comatose or dying
condition, and within an hour the whole position had to be
abandoned, together with about 50 guns.
“I wish particularly to repudiate any idea of attaching the least
blame to the French division for this unfortunate incident.
“After all the examples our gallant Allies have shown of dogged
and tenacious courage in the many trying situations in which they
have been placed throughout the course of this campaign, it is quite
superfluous for me to dwell on this aspect of the incident, and I
would only express my firm conviction that, if any troops in the world
had been able to hold their trenches in the face of such a
treacherous and altogether unexpected onslaught, the French
division would have stood firm.
“The left flank of the Canadian division was thus left dangerously
exposed to serious attack in flank, and there appeared to be a
prospect of their being overwhelmed and of a successful attempt by
the Germans to cut off the British troops occupying the salient to the
east.
“In spite of the danger to which they were exposed the Canadians
held their ground with a magnificent display of tenacity and courage,
and it is not too much to say that the bearing and conduct of these
splendid troops averted a disaster which might have been attended
with the most serious consequences.
“They were supported with great promptitude by the reserves of
the divisions holding the salient and by a brigade which had been
resting in billets.”