Following the end of the First Battle of Ypres at the end of November the Germans had gone onto the defensive and reduced the number of troops on their Flanders front and sent them to the Eastern Front. In the eyes of the French this now presented an opportunity to regain lost ground. The two British battalions, 2nd Battalion Royal Scots and the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders, became involved in one of the last actions of 1914 of any importance on the northern front. It was to be a mainly French operation with the British 3rd Division and its 8th Brigade on the French right taking part. The plan was for the attack to spread south with the ultimate aim of capturing Messines Ridge. The 8th Brigade, with 9th Brigade in support and 7th Brigade in reserve, attacked with 1st Gordons on the right attacking Maedelstede Farm and 2nd Royal Scots on their left attacking Petit Bois. The preparations were inadequate with the artillery support lasting barely forty-five minutes and was ineffective with no wire cut leaving the attacking infantry to deal with the uncut wire and having to improvise under heavy fire. The Gordons were stopped some 50m from the German front line by the wire. On the left, the French failed to make any ground. This was an ill-conceived attack that lacked any tangible artillery support and cost the lives of over 400 men.
2nd Battalion Royal Scots, 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Division
At 3am the Battalion moved off through Kemmel Chateau grounds to take over trenches held by the Liverpool Scottish. ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies occupied the fire trenches, with ‘C’ Company on the right. ‘B’ Company was in support and ‘A’ Company in reserve. The wire entanglements in front of the line were cut down. At 7am a heavy bombardment of the German positions at Petit Bois began and at 7.45am ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies advanced under heavy machine gun and rifle fire from the German positions. ‘D’ Company had to file through a gate in the British line due to a thick hedge immediately in front of their fire trenches. Both companies advanced on the German trenches, at the point of the bayonet, over 150 yards in two lines at 20 yard intervals and took one officer and 60 other ranks prisoner along with two machine guns. Both ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies consolidated the trenches captured and ‘D’ Company then sent out a patrol into the wood and they discovered a second line of German trenches empty and filled with water about 100 yards in front of the captured trenches. ‘C’ Company could not make any progress due to heavy machine gun fire. ‘D’ Company, now reinforced by three platoons from ‘B’ Company, did not make any further moves forward. At 5.30pm the 2nd Suffolks relieved the battalion and which into the reserve trenches and awaited the arrival of the Liverpool Scottish before moving off to billets in Kemmel. The Royal Scots had a total 110 killed wounded or missing. Killed was Captain The Hon. Henry Lyndhurst Bruce, attached from the 3rd Battalion, age 33. He is listed on the Menin Gate Memorial Panel 11.
Victoria Cross won here - Private Henry Robson, ‘C’ Company, won his Victoria Cross when he succeeded in crawling over the open ground to rescue the wounded. He successfully rescued and NCO and then when out again however, he was hit twice and had to give up. There were twenty four other ranks killed, five officers and forty seven other ranks wounded and one officer and twenty six other ranks missing. Of the twenty six missing only one man survived the others were later listed as killed so making it fifty three dead.
1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders, 8th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Division
The Battalion were in billets at Locre on 13 December 1914. The War Diary records:
‘The Battalion marched to Kemmel where they arrived at 9pm and went into billets. At 2.30am on the morning of the 14 December the Battalion left Kemmel.’ The Battalion moved to the trenches opposite the German strong point of Maedelstede Farm, near Wytschaete. The War Diary continues: ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies who were to carry out the attack occupied the advanced trenches. ‘A’ and ‘D’ companies who were to form the reserve occupied the trenches 200 yards in the rear. At 7am the artillery bombardment commenced.’ This was planned to last forty-five minutes and to target the German frontline trenches. The War Diary again: ‘Many of the shells fell short of the German position, some even in the rear of our reserve.’ Due to inadequate communication they could not report on these shortfalls.' The War Diary continues: ‘At 7.45am, in accordance with orders received, two platoons of ‘B’ company and two platoons of ‘C’ company advanced from the fire trenches and pushed on in extended order in spite of the very heavy rifle fire which was immediately opened on them. The sodden nature of the ground and the fact that the men had been standing for several hours in trenches deep in mud rendered a rapid advance impossible.’ Those Gordons not killed managed to get to within 50m of the uncut German wire and here they were stopped. In command of ‘D’ Company which now numbered some forty men, many of them wounded, was Lieutenant Hume-Gore who was stuck in front of the German wire. He could move neither forward nor back. He recounted to Billy Congreve afterwards that he led his men over the ploughed field losing a good many men. The fact that the field was ploughed gave some kind of cover to his men however, a German sniper proceeded to pick off eighteen men on the right of this group as they lay in the furrowed ground. Hume-Gore managed to get back with only twenty men leaving his dead and wounded where they lay.
The aftermath
Captain Billy Congreve, ADC to General Haldane, 3rd Division, wrote in his diary about the Gordon Highlanders attack: ‘Imagine sending a battalion alone to attack a strongly wired position up a hill and over mud a foot deep, under frontal and enfilade fire. It was a regular Valley of Death. The losses were, of course, very heavy. They lost seven of nine officers and 250 men. Such was the attack ordered by Sir John French. Next day, I read in a paper: British troops hurl back Germans at Wytschaete. A beautiful epitaph for those poor Gordons who were little better than murdered.’ In his diary entry on 16th December, Gerald Burgoyne, a company commander of the 2/Royal Irish Rifles, wrote about the aftermath of the attack on December 14th. His company were occupying the trenches H1 and H2 from where the Gordons had attacked from on 14th December. Remember this is now two days after the attack: ' A large number of wounded are still lying out in front of our lines, too badly hit to get back, and it is death to anyone to attempt to reach them by day, and practically impossible to find them during these dark nights. Some of the men brought in this evening had been lying out in front since 8am on 14th. I have just visited the 'Dug-outs' and saw a Gordon lying there, hit through the foot. I gave him a tablet of morphia to still the pain. Each company Commander is issued with a little tube of morphia for such cases.' On the 17th he wrote: 'In front of H1 are the bodies of some thirty or more Gordons, and on my left, many more victims or heroes of the mis-directed charge last Monday. At dawn this morning, two unwounded Gordons hopped into our trenches. These two men and two others badly wounded had crept into an old French fire trench, some seventy yards in front of our line, and lain there since Monday morning (14th) not daring to come out, as they had lost direction and did not know where our trenches lay. Starving and drenched the two unwounded men, thinking they heard Irish voices, chanced it and came over. Four of my men very pluckily at once jumped over the parapet and went to the two badly wounded men, taking them some hot tea and food, but the Jocks refused to allow themselves to be brought in then, preferring to wait another day in the cold, until nightfall. Our fellows also brought in two other wounded men who were lying in front of them.’ That same day yet more wounded men were coming in and again on the 18th. He concluded his comments on the attack with this observation: 'Most of them (the wounded) were shot between the knee and the waist, as a maxim caught them and mowed them down.'
The remains of thirty Gordon Highlander NCOs and men, two officers, Lieutenant W.F.R. Dobie and Lieutenant J.J.G. Mac William, and Company Quartermaster Serjeant A McKinlay, were recovered from the battlefield following the Messines offensive on 7th June 1917. They are buried in the nearby Irish House Cemetery.
Falkirk District Dead
There are eight men from Falkirk District who died in this ill-thought-out action. One from Falkirk, one from Carronshore, two from Denny & Dunipace, two from Bo’ness, and two from Muiravonside. Six died on the day and are listed on the Menin Gate Memorial, two died of wounds with one buried in Locre Churchyard Cemetery and one in Bailleul Communal Cemetery. Locre Churchyard Cemetery, Private James McFarlane, Royal Scots, Grave II.E.18 Died at No. 7 Field Ambulance at Locre from wounds received. In a letter from the chaplain at the Field Ambulance to his sister he wrote ‘… He was shot through the knee, the bullet coming out through the back part of the left thigh. Evidently he had lost a great deal of blood and so was very weak…’ Bailleul Communal Cemetery, Corporal Robert Robertson, Gordon Highlanders, Grave E.4. Menin Gate Memorial, Royal Scots, Private David Craig, Falkirk, Private James Fraser, Denny & Dunipace, Private Robert McNaught, Bo’ness. Gordon Highlanders, Private George Walker, Carron & Carronshore, Private William Gillespie, Denny & Dunipace, Corporal James Gardiner, Muiravonside.
Comments