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010 - Sidelights of Battle · Canadas Hundred Days The Battle of Amiens

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  Speaker 1: Part one, Chapter ten of Canada's Hundred Days with the
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  Speaker 1: Canadian Corps from Amiens to mont August eighth to November eleventh,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Canada's Hundred Days by John Livesey,
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  Speaker 1: Part one, Chapter ten, Side lights of Battle, the first
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  Speaker 1: fury of the battle being spent, there comes a pause.
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  Speaker 1: Ten days have been continually on the move or in
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  Speaker 1: the firing, and a rest for many of the tired
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  Speaker 1: troops who for a week to line. The battalions rest
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  Speaker 1: on the line they have reached troops for leaving them
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  Speaker 1: carrying on forward. Throughout these operations, weather has been perfect,
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  Speaker 1: and for once in our favor, there are no rains
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  Speaker 1: to ruin the operation, as happened in the Salient a
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  Speaker 1: year before. Reinforcements and supplies all gathered beforehand are brought
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  Speaker 1: up with automatic regularity. But where everything is a sheet
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  Speaker 1: of white dust. The men lie now in the shelter
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  Speaker 1: of woods, many sleeping in enemy blankets and enemy dugouts,
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  Speaker 1: but the majority bunk on the ground. Each man scooping
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  Speaker 1: for himself a shallow trench, as it might be the
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  Speaker 1: first excavation for a grave proof against flying shrapnel. With
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  Speaker 1: night bombing going on and by day the enemy's heavy
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  Speaker 1: artillery searching, likely bits of cover safety lies in the
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  Speaker 1: open ground, but human nature feels less exposed under shelter
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  Speaker 1: of trees, and so the woods are populous, bone weary.
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  Speaker 1: They sleep off their fatigue, but soon the battalion band
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  Speaker 1: strikes up. Animated groups gather, talking over the battle and
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  Speaker 1: exhibiting their souvenirs iron crosses, automatic pistols, field glasses, old
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  Speaker 1: fashioned key winding, watches, officers swords, regimental rings, shoulder straps
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  Speaker 1: and buttons cut off protesting prisoners, queer wooden tobacco pipes,
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  Speaker 1: quaintly carved, all manner of gear. A knot of men
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  Speaker 1: are gambling with sheafs of boldly printed paper marks. Ten
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  Speaker 1: marks to the frank is their rate of exchange, not
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  Speaker 1: foreseeing the time, but a few months away, when in Belgium,
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  Speaker 1: each of those marks is to be worth one franc
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  Speaker 1: thirty centine. The men are in the best of moods
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  Speaker 1: and willingly talk about their exploits. First we come across
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  Speaker 1: Brutennel's Independent Force. This consists of two Canadian motor machine
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  Speaker 1: gun brigades, a six gun Newton mortar section and a
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  Speaker 1: wireless section, all mounted in armored cars. Together with the
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  Speaker 1: Canadian Corps Cyclist Battalion. The force came straight up to
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  Speaker 1: the line and went into action with no rest for
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  Speaker 1: three days. They were hard at it, and Saturday night
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  Speaker 1: was their first sleep. It was good fun, said one
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  Speaker 1: of them, the first chance we've had to do any
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  Speaker 1: fighting in our proper capacity. Did you hear how one
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  Speaker 1: of our cyclists took a village down on the Roy Road.
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  Speaker 1: He was scouting and rode through the village full tilt,
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  Speaker 1: steering with one hand and with the other emptying his
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  Speaker 1: automatic into flabbergasted Fritzies. He kept going right through, and
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  Speaker 1: when one of our armored cars came up behind, the
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  Speaker 1: whole garrison surrendered. Good sport. It was along the Roy
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  Speaker 1: Road that day some real hunting. The Amien Roy Road
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  Speaker 1: here traverses a difficult country bisected by ravines and bordered
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  Speaker 1: by woods, offering excellent positions for machine gun nests. Here.
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  Speaker 1: At times the armored cars were held up and lost
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  Speaker 1: heavily an enemy gun made a direct hit on one car,
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  Speaker 1: killing three of the crew and cutting off the armor
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  Speaker 1: of the gunner, removing the body of the driver. This man,
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  Speaker 1: Corporal Crews of Ottawa swung round the shattered car, bringing
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  Speaker 1: it safely back into our lines. Then he died. Less
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  Speaker 1: tragic was the experience of the crew of a ration lorry,
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  Speaker 1: which in the twilight ran through our lines on the
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  Speaker 1: roy Road and only pulled up when challenged by an
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  Speaker 1: enemy's sentry him They bayoneted, but it was too good
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  Speaker 1: to last. The bush came back with bombs and put
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  Speaker 1: the Lorry out of commission. Our men, however, though all wounded,
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  Speaker 1: crawled back to our lines in the darkness. Faced with
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  Speaker 1: the loss of their rations, the unit advanced and recaptured
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  Speaker 1: the lorry, towing it back in triumph. Padres are strictly
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  Speaker 1: non combatant and unarmed. But when the seventy eighth Battalion
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  Speaker 1: of Winnipeg captured Halloo, they found their chaplain, Captain Diesum,
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  Speaker 1: already in possession with eight prisoners. I went up there
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  Speaker 1: to help the boys through, he said, with cigarettes and things,
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  Speaker 1: but I found I'd blundered in ahead of the battalion.
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  Speaker 1: There was nothing else to do, but put a bold
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  Speaker 1: face on it. And these fellows here thought they were surrounded.
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  Speaker 1: The padre had a bullet wound in his cheek and
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  Speaker 1: four through his tunic, a perfectly good coat ruined old
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  Speaker 1: front line. They called him and told how at Passiondale,
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  Speaker 1: strictly against orders, he was in the front line, burying
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  Speaker 1: our dead, when up comes the divisional senior chaplain. A
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  Speaker 1: reprimand was due, But have you another spade, was all
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  Speaker 1: the colonel said. Here is another story of a padre,
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  Speaker 1: Father R mc gillivray of Antagonist Nova Scotia, chaplain of
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  Speaker 1: the fifth Brigade, while ministering to the wounded where they
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  Speaker 1: fell on the field of battle south of Releigh, was
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  Speaker 1: forced to take shelter in a shell hole, where he
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  Speaker 1: found the remnants of a company of which all officers
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  Speaker 1: were casualties. An enemy field battery a few hundred yards
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  Speaker 1: away was firing over open sights. Grasping the situation, father
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  Speaker 1: mc gillivrey called out, boys, we may as well die fighting.
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  Speaker 1: He leaped up from the shell hole and rushed the battery,
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  Speaker 1: followed by his brave boys. The boys say he terrified
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  Speaker 1: the huns, as with a wild war whoop, and brandishing
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  Speaker 1: his cane, he landed in their midst. The rest of
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  Speaker 1: the story is short, as all hands went up in
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  Speaker 1: the cry of comrade, The prisoners were numbered off and
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  Speaker 1: the guns were marked captured by the twenty sixth Battalion.
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  Speaker 1: Some wag remarked it should have been captured by Canadian
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  Speaker 1: chaplain service. In the dense mist of the kickoff. On Thursday,
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  Speaker 1: a section of five men of the thirteenth Battalion Montreal
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  Speaker 1: Highlanders got separated from their unit, and, groping their way about,
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  Speaker 1: came suddenly upon an enemy trench fully manned. The corporal,
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  Speaker 1: no whit abashed, gave the word to fire, when one
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  Speaker 1: after another, over a hundred bousch came tumbling out of
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  Speaker 1: the trench, hands up, the five men safely delivered the
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  Speaker 1: batch of the divisional cage. So great was the number
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  Speaker 1: of prisoners on the first day that we could not
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  Speaker 1: spare escorts. They were told to go to the rear,
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  Speaker 1: and for the most part went quietly. Two mounted men
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  Speaker 1: marshaled back over a thousand from the divisional to the
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  Speaker 1: core cage. But they were not all like this. Three
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  Speaker 1: stout Wurtembergers seized a broken down tank and turned its
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  Speaker 1: guns on the back of our men, inflicting casualties. They
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  Speaker 1: put up a stiff defence, but presently, out of the blue,
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  Speaker 1: a bombing plane swooped down and dropped a bomb neatly
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  Speaker 1: on top of the tank. Nothing was more inspiring to
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  Speaker 1: our men than the fine co operation of the tanks,
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  Speaker 1: commanded by Imperial officers. Each ran his own show, and
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  Speaker 1: although there was a good deal of confusion in the fog, again,
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  Speaker 1: gallant and resourceful lot they were. Many were our tried comrades,
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  Speaker 1: for they had fought with us at Mimi. We will
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  Speaker 1: go anywhere with the Canadians, said one of them. Such
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  Speaker 1: a show as you put on has never been seen
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  Speaker 1: in this war. Much the same thing was said on
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  Speaker 1: a later day by an officer of an Imperial heavy battery.
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  Speaker 1: We would sooner be with you than with any one,
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  Speaker 1: for we know that your wounded infantry will exploit to
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  Speaker 1: the last yard the work of the gunners. But the
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  Speaker 1: tank suffered heavily, particularly in the wooded country. This is
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  Speaker 1: what a staff officer of the eleventh Brigade witnessed. A
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  Speaker 1: tank section of three was advancing in line ahead of
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  Speaker 1: our infantry, when from the next field, a battery opened
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  Speaker 1: at point blank range. The first tank burst into flames,
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  Speaker 1: its course was run. The second stopped, and the third
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  Speaker 1: also burst into flames. Then the second tank moved forward again, stopped,
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  Speaker 1: burst into flames. Out of the manhole crawled two men, suffocating.
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  Speaker 1: A third thrust his arm from a gunport, waving back
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  Speaker 1: the infant flames looked out to his hand. In the
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  Speaker 1: early stage of the advance of the fifty fourth Battalion
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  Speaker 1: from the Coutinet came upon a wood alive. With Bousche
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  Speaker 1: strongly entrenched in defenses, the tanks had overrun it was
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  Speaker 1: impossible to pass by without being mowned down by flank fire.
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  Speaker 1: Seeing that his three companies in line were closely engaged,
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  Speaker 1: the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel A. B. Carey of Nelson,
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  Speaker 1: British Columbia, took personal command of the reserve company, organized
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  Speaker 1: it for defense, and then led it in attack on
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  Speaker 1: a corner of the wood in face of heavy machine
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  Speaker 1: gun fire. That portion of the wood thus cleared, the
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  Speaker 1: other companies were enabled to outflank it, capturing the garrison
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  Speaker 1: and proceeding to their objectives. These incidents, selected at random,
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  Speaker 1: might be multiplied an hundredfold, and they leave untouched the
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  Speaker 1: record of public honors of vcs and the like they
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  Speaker 1: were garnered from. These tired men gathered round their camp fires,
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  Speaker 1: stitching rents made by barbie er or drying out their
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  Speaker 1: sweaty shirts. Wonderful indeed their spirit for the most part.
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  Speaker 1: They went into battle after long marches and sleepless nights,
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  Speaker 1: and only their superb condition, fine discipline, and unquenchable ardor
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  Speaker 1: carried them through to go perhaps two or three days
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  Speaker 1: without sleep, and but little food will try the stoutest heart.
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  Speaker 1: It was precisely into such a state of mind that
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  Speaker 1: during a lull in the battle, one's inquiries were directed
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  Speaker 1: crossing the channel. But a few days before one had
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  Speaker 1: been struck by the fact that the nearer one got
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  Speaker 1: to the front line, the clearer was the note of confidence.
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  Speaker 1: In London, as in Montreal or Winnipeg, the defeatist had
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  Speaker 1: been at work, one had met but a day or
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  Speaker 1: two before a highly placed Canadian officer who despaired a victory.
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  Speaker 1: And as for the politicians with them, it had become
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  Speaker 1: a question whether the psammeas were to be in time
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  Speaker 1: to save us, whether we could keep going till the
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  Speaker 1: spring of nineteen nineteen. But these fellows had taken the
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  Speaker 1: measure of the bouche, and they knew that he was beaten.
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  Speaker 1: If not this year, then surely the next. But even
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  Speaker 1: here are discriminations. Hot blood youth doesn't care how long
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  Speaker 1: a war goes on. It is his great adventure. To him,
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  Speaker 1: it is a lovely war. But fathers of families, staid,
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  Speaker 1: citizens enlisted only from an imperative sense of duty. These
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  Speaker 1: have a different angle. Sha'n't we have peace this fall,
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  Speaker 1: asked a tough old blue nose. One points out that
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  Speaker 1: we can have a piece at any time, but such
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  Speaker 1: a piece as is only a truce. Never that, he replies,
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  Speaker 1: we'll fight it out here, And now I can't leave
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  Speaker 1: it to my boy. We're all fed up with the war.
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  Speaker 1: That's a cinch, says the n c O of a
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  Speaker 1: Saskatchewan battalion. None of us like it, but we'll carry
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  Speaker 1: through to October nineteen nineteen, if that's your date, or
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty if we must. But the peace must be
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  Speaker 1: the real thing. We must rub Fritzy's nose in the
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  Speaker 1: dust good and plenty. And then there is the company
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  Speaker 1: of adventurers old prospectors from the mountains, trappers of the wild,
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  Speaker 1: shanty men, from the backwood woods men whose whole life
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  Speaker 1: has been a gamble with death. And for these war
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  Speaker 1: is the greatest game of all. This is a real
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  Speaker 1: good show, and we shan't be satisfied till we're in again,
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  Speaker 1: says one. And there is a private who fought with
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  Speaker 1: the fifty second Battalion in front of Dammary military medal
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  Speaker 1: and bar who works on survey parties out of Edmonton.
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  Speaker 1: Alta the best fun I ever had, he said. I've
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  Speaker 1: had many a moose fight, and have tussled with the
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  Speaker 1: grizzlies in the Rockies, but this beat all. I used
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  Speaker 1: up two of our rifles and then grabbed a bouche,
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  Speaker 1: fired all my ammunition and two bandoliers more, borrowing off
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  Speaker 1: the men who came up in support. My rifle got
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  Speaker 1: so hot I had to work the bolt with my foot.
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  Speaker 1: The longest range was two hundred yards, most of it
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  Speaker 1: seventy five to a hundred, and every shot a bull
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  Speaker 1: one of our Lewis guns fired off thirty four pans.
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  Speaker 1: I'd never seen so much dead in my life. It
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  Speaker 1: was like spraying a potato patch our colonel is a
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  Speaker 1: real general, or our number would have been up. The
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  Speaker 1: men are wonderful, So two are the battalion officers, and
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  Speaker 1: one cannot withhold one's admiration from the juniors, who shared
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  Speaker 1: the dangers of the rank and file, as their casualties show,
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  Speaker 1: and yet carried the added responsibility of leadership. Here is
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  Speaker 1: the story of a posthumous Victoria Cross, lieutenant brilliant of
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  Speaker 1: the twenty second Battalion French Canadians for the most conspicuous
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  Speaker 1: gallantry and almost superhuman devotion to duty during the operations
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  Speaker 1: of August eighth and ninth. The official record goes he
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  Speaker 1: was in charge of a company, which he led during
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  Speaker 1: the two days with absolute fearlessness and extraordinary ability and initiative.
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  Speaker 1: At about one o'clock in the afternoon of August ninth,
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  Speaker 1: just after the day's attack had begun, his company's left
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  Speaker 1: flank was held up by an enemy machine gun. He
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  Speaker 1: rushed in and captured the gun, personally killing two of
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  Speaker 1: the gun crew. While doing this, he was wounded in
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  Speaker 1: the thigh, but he refused to be evacuated. A little
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  Speaker 1: after three o'clock the same day, his company was held
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  Speaker 1: up by heavy machine gun fire from a machine gun
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  Speaker 1: nest in a group of houses. He personally reconnoitered the ground,
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  Speaker 1: organized a party of two platoons, and rushed straight for
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  Speaker 1: the machine gun nest. Here one hundred and fifty Germans
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  Speaker 1: and fifteen machine guns were captured. The lieutenant personally killed
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  Speaker 1: five Germans, and, being wounded a second time, now in
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  Speaker 1: the shoulder, which he had immediately dressed again, refused to
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  Speaker 1: be evacuated. At about six in the evening of the
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  Speaker 1: same day, he saw a field gun firing on his
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  Speaker 1: men with open sights from a neighboring wood. He immediately
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  Speaker 1: organized and led a rushing party towards the gun. After
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  Speaker 1: progressing about six hundred yards, he was seriously wounded in
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  Speaker 1: the abdomen. In spite of this third wound, he continued
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  Speaker 1: to advance some two hundred yards when he fell unconscious
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  Speaker 1: from exhaustion and loss of blood. His wonderful example throughout
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  Speaker 1: the day fired his men with an enthusiasm and fury
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  Speaker 1: which largely contributed towards the battalion's noble achievements. This was
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  Speaker 1: in the attack of Hericourt. He died that night. Another
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  Speaker 1: posthumous v CE was Lieutenant James Edward Tate of the
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  Speaker 1: seventy eighth Battalion of Winnipeg, for most conspicuous bravery and
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  Speaker 1: initiative in attack the advance on Halloo. Having been checked
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  Speaker 1: by intense machine gun fire, Lieutenant Tate rallied his company
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  Speaker 1: and led it forward with consummate skill and dash under
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  Speaker 1: a hail of bullets. A concealed machine gun, however, continued
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  Speaker 1: to cause many casualties. Taking a rifle and bayonet, Lieutenant
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  Speaker 1: Tate dashed forward alone and killed the enemy gunner, crying,
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  Speaker 1: come on, boys, the seventy eighth don't mind machine guns.
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  Speaker 1: Inspired by his example, his men rushed the position, capturing
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  Speaker 1: twelve machine guns and twenty prisoners. Later, when the enemy
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  Speaker 1: counter attacked our positions under intense artillery bombardments, this gallant
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  Speaker 1: officer displayed outstanding courage and leadership, and, though mortally wounded
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  Speaker 1: by a shell, continued to direct and aid his men
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  Speaker 1: until his death. Owing to the exingencies of the British
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  Speaker 1: Press sen ship in France, whose instructions from General Headquarters
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  Speaker 1: was that for a certain period the participation in this
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  Speaker 1: great battle of the Canadian Corps must not be published.
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  Speaker 1: The people of Canada learned of the victory two or
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  Speaker 1: three days before they became aware of the conspicuous part
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  Speaker 1: taken in it by their sons and brothers. It was
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  Speaker 1: indeed a Canadian Corps battle, planned by the Corps and
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  Speaker 1: zero hour fixed by the Corps. What that part was
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  Speaker 1: is best summed up in the words of an impartial critic,
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  Speaker 1: the special correspondent in France of the London Times. Reviewing
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  Speaker 1: the course of events a few weeks later, he says,
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  Speaker 1: in the first scene of our offensive, which began August eighth,
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  Speaker 1: the actors were chiefly overseas. Men from the British Isles
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  Speaker 1: took only a small part of the attack north of
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  Speaker 1: the Somme to protect the flank of the Australians south
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  Speaker 1: of the river below here on the main battle front,
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  Speaker 1: the honor of the first advance was shared by the
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  Speaker 1: Australians and Canadians. In structure, it was chiefly a Canadian battle.
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  Speaker 1: It was their advance on the loose that was the
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  Speaker 1: corps and crux of the operation, and on their progress
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  Speaker 1: depended the advance of the Australians on their left and
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  Speaker 1: that of the successive French armies on their right, each
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  Speaker 1: of which was thrown in only as the advance above
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  Speaker 1: it prospered. The Canadians, I think our right in claiming
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  Speaker 1: that the fighting of these first two days was the
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  Speaker 1: biggest thing Canada has done in the war, not accepting
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  Speaker 1: the recapture of Mimi Ridge. Certainly nothing could have been better.
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  Speaker 1: The Canadian corps, flushed with victory, was to go on
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  Speaker 1: to bigger things. Yet the impression one bore away of
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  Speaker 1: the Amien's show was a kind of picnic there. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: the viands were war rations, and the skittle alleys, machine
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  Speaker 1: gun and placements, but where nevertheless, there was after the
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  Speaker 1: dreary months of the trenches, a sense of change and
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  Speaker 1: holiday side, of green fields and growing things, a clatter
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  Speaker 1: of movement and good humor. We were going back to
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  Speaker 1: quite a different thing to the long road stretching from
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  Speaker 1: Aris to Cambray, a field of bloody footsteps, Meyer and death.
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  Speaker 1: End of Part one, Chapter ten