by E. W. Hermon
This afternoon we amused ourselves by chopping up some trees for the men’s cooking fires. We found two huge trees and old Izard is a champion with an axe & we really had quite good fun. I want you to get me three splitting wedges either from old Gent or Woolven’s6 brother & send them out to me. I mean the wedges they use to split the oak posts & rails with.
Our old interpreter is full of humour. We have in the house here a very small conglomerate puppy. What it is I defy you to make out but after contemplating it for some time he said ‘I think it is a war baby.’ That reminds me, how is Benjamin?7 Have you noticed him yet? My love to you all dearie mine.
16th May 1915 – Le Quesnoy
Another nice letter from you today. No. 21. The ham is rolling up fine now & we had one case yesterday & another today. We also got your two tins with cake & oddments which have gone down well. Harrods might send us some bacon as tho’ we get bacon it is ration & of the meaty kind.
We have had very heavy fighting here this week, commencing last Sunday & continuing today. The Bombardment last Sunday which commenced at 5.4 a.m. & lasted until 5.40 absolutely beggared description & when I tell you that in those 35 minutes one howitzer Battery fired 200 rounds per gun & the field guns up to 1,600 rounds per battery you will easily imagine that this cry for more ammunition is not without due need. What we want is more howitzer guns that fire high-explosive shells, as the shrapnel is all very well for killing men but before an assault can be made it is absolutely necessary to breach the enemy’s breastworks & this can only be done by shells making direct hits & violently exploding on impact.
The country here is absolutely flat & the part we are in is only 20 feet above sea level. The consequence is that it is impossible to dig more than a foot or eighteen inches without coming to solid water. The result has been that breastworks instead of trenches are built by both sides out of sandbags & you actually stand on ground level & look over a sandbag wall.
In front of this the Germans have high wire entanglements. Their loopholes, which in the case of machine guns are about 8 inches above the ground level, are most wonderfully concealed & lots of them. Of course you can only attack with any hope of success when the wire & parapet have been destroyed by the guns, which means a lot of ammunition.
Last Sunday there were two attacks & they both failed as you will see by the enclosed cutting, which was owing principally to the wire not being sufficiently cut & the Maxim gun emplacements not being destroyed. We have attacked again today & there has again been very heavy fighting here. We have been in support all day & never actually in action & the worst of it has been that we could see very little except the shells bursting about half a mile off & tho’ we were well within range they made us no presents today. The day has been simply glorious & one could hardly believe even tho’ the guns never stopped all day that only a couple of miles over there thousands of fellows getting killed & wounded.
Tonight one of our flyers was over the line pretty low & the Germans got his range & put 8 shells all round him & he simply dived straight down about 500 feet & then went on as tho’ nothing had happened, thus causing them to have to range on him again & set a new fuse only that time he had climbed up again & was away, calmly circling about & spotting all their dispositions & gun positions.
There is nothing out here to be desperately exhilarated over, we hold our own alright & shall continue to do so, but we want more guns & more men before we can take tea with the Boche. I personally don’t think that there is any doubt that in the end we shall win but unless the country wakes up to the fact that it is everyone’s duty to come, the end will be delayed for a very long time indeed. If we had another K’s army8 it would help things a lot. The Daily Mail is taking the right line & if it succeeds in stirring up the nation to a real effort it will deserve our hearty thanks.
Really heavy guns, throwing heavy shells, not necessarily a long way, will win the war. If Germany makes them faster than we do, well it will be unpleasant. Without previous smashing by heavy guns it is impossible to succeed against these breastworks bustling with machine guns & modern rifles & covered by wire.
It is wonderful how they evacuate the wounded in the motor ambulances. Tell Arthur9 he should come out here with his car & help. Tell him 20 Sunbeams are doing good work carrying 4 lying-down cases & six sitting but the car that is streets ahead of anything is the Ford. They swear by them here, they go anywhere & through anything & where the Sunbeams stick they go on & never mind the mud.
17th May 1915 – Le Quesnoy
I am still in the feather bed billet but I have had to sleep in my clothes these last few nights. I told you a good deal last night & we have done real well today I believe, & taken lots of prisoners, 537 at lunchtime. I am sorry to say we have again not been in the show but I shouldn’t be surprised if we got hauled out tonight, but I hope we don’t as it is fearfully dark & raining like the devil.
The men really are wonderful, today a fellow came by smoking a cigarette & waving a German helmet to everyone as he passed & had just had one of his feet blown off. We are right on the road along which the ambulances pass on their way to the first collection station & see some pretty ‘bluggy’ sights occasionally. We are longing to have a go. I cannot describe the present battle to you yet but I hope to be able to when a week has gone by.
I got three nice letters from the Chugs today – please thank them.
18th May 1915 – Le Quesnoy
We have been fighting hard here since Saturday night but we are still out of it & it is most tantalizing. There is, of course, no scope for any mounted action of any sort & I don’t think they fancy wasting their small amount of cavalry in the trenches during such an attack as is going on at present. We are making good progress I am glad to say & driving the old Boche back from his entrenchments.
I heard from ‘B’ Squadron again today & poor little Cooper10 has been badly wounded. They have been spending their time digging trenches by night about 200 or 300 yards behind the front line & getting a lot of stray bullets into them & as they cannot fire back it has been most unpleasant. They have five of them wounded up to date. These wounded are rather a dismal sight coming past all day long as they do when there is an attack of this sort going on but when one is advancing like this it is possible to pick them up, but when an attack fails I am afraid that a very large number lie out between the trenches & are never recovered. It is this which accounts for so many missing.
We are all very well & most cheery. Little Henry Feilding & Izard are the life & soul of the place & we seem to live in a constant state of uproarious laughter. We have had a lot of rain. Mud over your boot-tops everywhere.
Best love old dear.
19th May 1915 – Le Quesnoy
I enclose you a cutting from The Times11 & will endeavour to tell you what I can of this last fight. [The letters A–D stand for passages he has marked in The Times article.]
A. On Sunday May the 9th the attack was preceded by what they are pleased to call an ‘intense bombardment’, i.e. 35 minutes with every gun in the vicinity firing at its maximum rate with the result that batteries fired from 1200 to 1600 rounds in the time. By this you will see that accuracy has to be sacrificed to a certain extent to intensity & tho’ the effect was shattering the material damage was less than had been hoped for. The result was that the wire wasn’t cut & two at least of our battalions were very severely handled, they reached the wire & died there & the net result was that the Germans beat off the attack & we gained nothing except that we held troops to the ground here while the French made their advance at Carency.
B. For last Sunday’s [16th May] attack a slower & more deliberate bombardment was made lasting three days & nights, careful artillery observation, correcting & directing the fire, which was quite impossible in the intense bombardment. Considerable damage was done to the German breastworks & wire, allowing the attack to get through & into the trenches. The attack started at 11.30 p.m. & the infantry rushed the trenches & breastworks & e
stablished themselves there.
C. This is close to us. About 3.15 a.m. the remainder of the attacking troops advanced & during the day we took about 2000 yards in length & 1000 yds in depth which we still hold & what is more, look like holding. We took close on 600 prisoners. The attacking troops fought for three days & nights without rest so you can see what attacking strong breastworks really means & the immensity of the task. Casualties in frontal attacks on entrenched positions must be heavy & in consequence, the need of more men and more heavy high-explosive shells to make breaches in the breastworks becomes more urgent every day.
D. There is a farm in front of the part we have captured, just such another as Eastlands, where the pony farm is. This is full of machine guns & has so far resisted all attacks tho’ large bodies of troops have repeatedly attempted its capture. If we could get this we could advance a lot as we are at this point completely through the German entrenchments & they have apparently nothing fortified behind the line we now hold. But this holds us up at present & is resisting all efforts at capture.
We amuse ourselves in the afternoons by splitting up timber both for firewood & to make racks on which to put the saddles & keep them out of the mud. Yesterday we struck a tree that defied all our efforts in spite of the wedges we had been able to get in Béthune so we then resorted to force in the shape of explosives & I gave my lads a little training in their use with great success. We bored with an auger into the heart of the tree & with the help of some primers & a fuse we fairly took tea with the tree! It really was great fun tho’ at one time rather spoilt by the damned Germans firing about a dozen of their beastly shells rather unpleasantly close, tho’ so far as I have heard they killed no one yesterday, the day before one poor old woman in the village took it right in the back of the neck. When a shell comes one hardly knows whether they are likely to increase their range with the next or not. It is rather exciting & you hear them whistling along towards you & it is most weird. You needn’t worry about my smoking, I am not increasing!!
Your new little seaside place12 sounds charming. I would even consent to bathe if I could come too, tho’ really we are having a ripping time & as today is again glorious after three days’ continuous wet, all is rosy.
I am sorry to hear Anthony has been wounded, but in a modern attack it is wonderful that anyone shouldn’t be. I wish you could come & stay a weekend with us, it is just like Watford only more comfortable. You never told me how Benjamin was. I do hope he isn’t worrying you too much? I see a Juckes in the casualty list – is this Juckes’ 3rd boy13? I fear it is & I am afraid if he is missing there is no hope. Nowadays you can write off 999 out of every 1000 missing as dead. Give old Juckes my love and tell him how sorry I am if it is his boy. Love to you, dearie mine.
20th May 1915, 8.20 p.m. – Le Quesnoy
As I write there is a rare old battle going on & our own guns are firing like steam. We hope to do well tonight & get some important points & if things really go well it will probably mean a quite decent advance.
After tea the Germans had the lip to start shelling us so we went out to see the fun & they stopped, so we went on to see the captive balloon that I told you was just behind our camp. They had it pulled down & so we went & talked to them & they showed us all their gyms [gimmicks]. While we were there the damned Germans began shelling again and put one or two very close & the man who was showing us round said very meaningly ‘If him hit, the hydrogen, him explode,’ so we withdrew & sat down & watched the shells bursting from a comparatively safe distance. It is really rather fascinating in a way when they are not too close, as you hear them coming ever so long before they plug into the ground & burst.
One dropped about 50 yards one side of our gate & another about the same distance the other side, right in the middle of the road. As it seemed to burst among a lot of men we went over to see what it had done. It didn’t damage the road very much but a poor old man coming home from working in the fields was walking along & a large piece of the shell struck him on the point of the chin & no doubt the angels are dressing his wound now.
Another bit of it went through a cottage window & hit a poor girl rather badly, but these things are now taken so much as a matter of course by the village that there was no crowd & no excitement, the women all standing in their cottage doors & taking no notice at all. Occasionally one hears some of the old women deplore the horrors of war & break down a bit but generally speaking they are most wonderful & the shells come buzzing along, generally about 6 to 7 in the evening & when the first arrives, folk come out of their houses and have a look & then go back & go on with their washing, too blasé to wait for more.
These shells tonight were high explosives, bursting on impact, and are just the ones we want & which I hope will now be forthcoming according to K’s speech in the papers we got today. As we came home tonight one fell in a wheat field & we walked over to see the hole it made which was about six feet in diameter and four deep & when it burst it threw the earth about 40 feet high.
These are the shells we want to fire into the German parapets to make breaches in them as they used to in the walls of the towns years & years ago & none of our field guns have them yet & I cannot understand why they are not forthcoming as they must have known months ago that when we came to attack the breastworks that they would be needed. I am sure they have needed them at Ypres more than anywhere.
We have an intelligence summary sent round this morning and today it contained observations on the examination of prisoners of which the following is rather amusing. ‘One officer was taken on the 17th, a lad of 19, tried to be impressively Prussian, and proved himself merely ill-mannered.’
In view of our discussions on shells I enclose you some cuttings from the Daily Mail which are good & relevant & which you may have missed. The German shrapnel differs from ours in that the case bursts as well as driving out the bullets; our charge only drives out the bullets and the case remains intact which you will no doubt remember from the old days at Potchefstroom.
Please thank old Bet & Bob for their nice letters which amused me very much. Heredity is a great handicap at times & the spelling is absolutely unique! ‘There was two great big crows on the tens cort. I thort one was lame.’
Love to you my darling & I love the Chugs’ letters.
22nd May 1915 – Le Quesnoy
I see in the paper today that Laurie Godman is hit again, the old goose, Juckes’ boy killed & I see that the Graham-Taylor boy is killed also. He only left my squadron a few months ago. I hear he is buried only a few miles from here & I shall go over & see his grave if I can manage it & write to the old people at Lindfield.
We move very slowly here tho’ we do advance which is always something. Tonight we have been out digging for the shell fuses that the Germans sent us free gratis & for nothing two nights ago & I am sending you one by this post. Have it set up as it is the first that the Boche shot at your husband & it is a very good one. It would make a very nice inkpot done as above. We got three tonight & one the other night we went out. I enclose a nice little picture which I hope you haven’t seen before.
23rd May 1915 – Le Quesnoy
Great disappointment tonight as I got no letter from you, & was looking forward to it so much as you had promised me several ‘bits’ in yours of yesterday. However I had four from the Chugs which I liked very much. You don’t know how one misses a mail here, especially as we are doing absolutely nothing and there is nothing to occupy one’s time. I have to be ready to turn out with my command at 2 hours’ notice so I cannot leave my headquarters & the squadron rides round & round a small wood for exercise from 8.30 to 11 a.m. & we do nothing else all day. I only wish we could go & have a dash in the trenches or anything to vary the monotony. We are all very well & so are the men, I am glad to say.
Smith-Dorrien14 has gone home but I do not know why, but I expect it was health tho’ the notice in orders did not say so & old Allenby has got his command. It is astonishing how some of our old friends have sh
ot up this last year. I see by the papers that the Cavalry had a warm time a bit ago & several we know hit.
We had a most awful thunderstorm last night. I have never seen anything like it before, it seemed to hang only a few feet over the house & the lightning simply whistled before you heard the thunder crash. It really was terrific. Everyone thought it was some new form of German frightfulness.
I am sorry to say that I shall have to send the camera home as ‘it has been found necessary to withdraw the permission given to commanding officers to have cameras’. It is a great pity. Anyhow I am sending you one roll which has no military significance whatsoever.
Best love my own dearie. I would give worlds to have you here for a bit tonight. It is simply glorious, & so still now. It is so funny how you get periods of absolute quiet during all this firing. My love my own dearie.
24th May 1915 – Le Quesnoy
After waiting most expectantly for the letter I got today yours No. 29 & I am sure that I have missed some.
I have no news & the heat is really tropical & having absolutely nothing to do makes it worse. I am afraid little Cooper15 got a nasty gunshot wound & I hear it has touched his spine & he is paralysed. Perhaps when they get the bullet he will get better. Damn the war!
Best love dearie mine. Tea now & then blow up trunks of trees for firewood with gun-cotton.
26th May 1915 – Le Quesnoy
