How dare he?

SO — WHO WON? That was the question pondered by commanders, both those in Flanders and in Whitehall.

The real focus of this second week of the new battle for Ypres was for the possession of the village of St. Julien. This had been safely behind the lines of the 1st Canadian Division until the poison gas attack of 22 April, when it had been suddenly catapulted into the front line.

On 26 April the Northumberland Brigade had gained a foothold, only to be forced back with the loss of more than 1,940 casualties. Within 48 hours, however, the German offensive on St Julien had been halted. They renewed it, twice, in the week which followed, but on neither occasion did the village (or its rubble-strewn remnants) fall. One effect of the heavy shelling was to make the nearby village of Poperinghe untenable and, in consequence, the British nurses who had recently based themselves there were withdrawn first to St Omer and then to Hazebrouck and Bailleul.

The interruption provided them with a welcome break from duty but Nurse Edith Appleton recorded in her diary:The house I am staying in is on the road to Ypres, and every night about 50 of the biggest lorries laden with ammunition and goods race past, taking supplies to the batteries and men in the trenches. It is a risky job and they always do it in the dark, because the Germans have a view of the road and shell it all the time. As it is, the road between our lines and Ypres is strewn with dead horses and smashed carts.

The battle was a melancholy illustration of the adaptive powers of soldiers and of High Command in a crisis. After the first German chlorine gas attacks, Allied troops were supplied with masks of cotton pads which had been soaked in urine — an unglamorous but not wholly ineffective prophylactic, since the ammonia in the pad neutralized the chlorine. Some soldiers nonetheless baulked at this latest indignity, opting instead to use handkerchiefs or a sock, or a flannel body-belt, any of which might be dampened with a solution of bicarbonate of soda, and then tied across the mouth and nose until the gas passed over. Soldiers found it difficult to fight like this and urgent attempts were made to develop a better means of protecting men against gas attacks.

By way of diversion (welcome enough to those oppressed by the land battle), German aircraft bombed Dunkirk, Pervyse, Rheims (yet again) and Dunkirk among other targets, and French aircraft peppered Friedrichshafen. These aerial excursions did not exclude the British, since Zeppelins attacked East Anglia on 30 April. Indeed, the week saw also the first ever award of a VC to one of that corpus of people then known (ponderously to modern ears) as aviators. Second Lieutenant William Rhodes- Moorhouse, of the Royal Flying Corps, had been sent to France the previous month. His squadron flew the Farnborough-designed Bleriot-Experimental (BE) 2a and 2b, which were generally considered sturdy aircraft by pilots of the day — but their maximum speed of just 70mph at ground level was a source of well-found anxiety. Reconnaissance, directing artillery and then bombing targets were their main functions, and by April Rhodes-Moorhouse was performing numerous highly dangerous missions.

On 26 April he was sent to bomb an important railway junction at Courtrai — a task he amply fulfilled, but in the course of which sustained multiple injuries. Instead of landing to be captured and given medical treatment, he managed to steer his damaged plane, with its ninety-five bullet and shrapnel holes, back behind Allied lines. Once arrived, he insisted on filing his intelligence report with its valuable information whilst his wounds were being treated. Eventually, in the casualty clearing station at Merville, it became clear, with his stomach ripped to pieces by bullets, that his condition was critical.

He told his friend Maurice Blake at his bedside, “It’s strange dying, Blake, old boy — unlike anything one has ever done before, like one’s first solo flight.” On the afternoon of 27 April, having heard he had been recommended for the Distinguished Service Order, he died. The daily bulletin issued to troops claimed that his mission had been a total success and “would appear worthy to be ranked among the most heroic stories of the world’s history.” Back in the UK, he was acclaimed a hero with the Daily Mail noting: “Such endurance is enough to make all of us ashamed of ever again complaining of any pain whatever. He was one of those who have never ‘done their bit’ until they have done the impossible.” Blake campaigned to have his friend awarded the VC which, for “most conspicuous bravery” happened on 22 May and, as Sir John French noted at the time, the pilot had been responsible for “the most important bomb dropped during the war so far.”

The major advances made by the Central Powers during the week were chiefly in the Baltic. The new joint Austrian-German offensive along the entire Eastern Front, led by the effective chief of staff General von Falkenhayn began on 27 April with a German advance towards Shavli in the Baltic Provinces. The following day, a seriously powerful Austro-German offensive under von Mackensen began between the Dunajec and Biala Rivers in western Galicia which threw the Russians back on their own defences. This marked a significant contrast to the indeterminate series of engagements of recent weeks in the Carpathians. Its success was explained largely because of the presence of the Germans, who had agreed to help the Austrians reclaim Galicia, assistance which had been contingent upon Austria’s acceptance that the “childish military dreamers” (as Ludendorff insolently but accurately described Habsburg commanders) were replaced by Germans.

The possibility of the Russians having to evacuate Przemysl, only recently ‘liberated’ from Austria, spelled very bad news indeed for the local population, and most especially the local Jews. Helena Jablonska’s diary testified to this very sharply.

1st May Over a thousand of them leave every day, and there are still many left. They are hurriedly selling off their furniture and bric-a-brac and paying vast sums for horses. We suspect the Russians are chasing them out of Przemysl so they can rob them thoroughly, as the Jews are not being allowed to take much with them. As soon as they leave town, (the Russians) fleece the empty apartments and shops, carrying off anything of value. Peasants and soldiers take whatever is left. The rest is destroyed.

2nd May We have been hearing for a few days now that the Russians, aware that they’re not doing too well at the Front, are hurrying up with the robbing of the Jews. Any day now they are going to pass a law stating that the entire male population under fifty is to leave Przemysl to be taken prisoner. They need more hostages to exchange with the Austrians.

It is striking that Jablonska’s emphasis was on the threat to property rather than persons. This may well have been the reflex of someone who had herself endured the extreme privations of a siege, but probably also reflects the authentic perspective of a world in which the concept of genocide was scarcely understood.

It was in Turkey, above all, to which the eyes now turned. The landings of the previous week had been the occasion of unalloyed horror and disaster for the Allies. To the shock of civilians in Allied countries, but hardly to commanders on the spot, the Ottomans now sought to press home their early advantage. On the afternoon of 27 April, twelve battalions of Mustafa Kemal’s 19th Division drove the six Allied brigades at Anzac back to the beach. Thanks to the support of naval gunfire, the Allies were able to hold back the enemy overnight, and the following day British and French troops attempted to capture Krithia. It rapidly transpired, however, that the plan for the attack was overly complex and poorly communicated to field commanders, and by nightfall the advance was stopped halfway between the Helles headland and Krithia village. By this time they had suffered some 3,000 casualties.

Ottoman reinforcements now arrived, rendering null and void any lingering hopes for a swift Allied victory. On 29 April, Kemal — the future Ataturk — famously directed the 57th Regiment to Anzac Cove. Believing that the Allies were on the verge of defeat, he launched strong counterattacks at Helles and Anzac. It was a moment of hubris which cost his countrymen dear. Although they briefly broke through in the French sector, the attacks were repulsed by massed Allied machine-gun fire, which inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers. When they had run out of ammunition and were left just with their bayonets to fight off the Allied troops attacking from the beaches,

Kemal gave them this command: “I do not order you to fight, I order you to die. In the time which passes until we die, other troops and commanders can come forward and take our places.” In response, every single man in the Regiment was killed or wounded (and as a mark of respect the 57th Regiment no longer exists in the Turkish army). The following night, the ANZAC commander, Lieutenant General William Birdwood, ordered the New Zealand and Australian Division to attack. The troops advanced a short distance during the night, under a combined naval and artillery barrage but in the dark became separated and were eventually forced to withdraw. They suffered some 1,000 casualties.

Allied fortunes at sea that week fluctuated dangerously. The French armoured cruiser Leon Gambetta was sunk by an Austrian submarine in the Adriatic on 27 April. Three days later came a dramatic episode in the Dardanelles in which the Australian submarine AE2 rose uncontrollably and surfaced near the Ottoman torpedo boat Sultanhisar. It then dropped — precipitously — below its safe diving depth before coming again to the surface at the stern. Sultanhisar immediately fired on the submarine, puncturing the pressure hull. Stoker, the submarine’s captain, ordered the boat’s company to abandon ship and scuttled the submarine before the crew was captured.

This was a significant psychological and practical moment. AE2‍ ‘​s achievements had shown that it was possible to force the Straits and soon Ottoman communications were being badly disrupted by British and French submarine operations. Three days earlier, on 27 April, HMS E14, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Edward Boyle, entered the Sea of Marmora on a three-week patrol in what proved to be one of the most successful Allied naval actions of the campaign — she sank four ships including the transport Gul Djemal which was carrying 6,000 troops and a field battery to Gallipoli. The effect of these sinkings on Ottoman communications and morale was significant. On his return, Boyle was immediately awarded the Victoria Cross. The French submarine Joule also attempted the passage on 1 May but struck a mine and was lost with all hands.

In the wider world, there were crumbs of comfort for the beleaguered Entente. The Russians now succeeded in expelling the Turks from Kutur in Persia. By the end of the week they had also been ejected from the neighbourhood of the Suez Canal. The Germans were also defeated in three separate engagements — at Gibeon, Kubas and the Otjimingwe — in South Westy Africa and the Kaiser’s famous boast that he, like the British and French, had a place in the sun (ie in Africa) was becoming increasingly tendentious.

The determination of all parties to fight to their uttermost was becoming daily ever clearer. The litmus tests abounded — Germany’s wholesale use of gas had enraged the Allies the previous week, however flagrantly double their standards may appear to later generations. On 27 April, Churchill — seduced as always by the chance to grab a headline — announced that 29 prisoners from German submarines were being separately confined and specially treated as a reprisal against the German submarine campaign. This was indeed a dangerous precedent, given the large numbers of Allied prisoners presently incarcerated in Germany.

From the German perspective, it might also be seen to have encouraged a va banque mentality. Why not? Germany felt friendless in the company of Great Powers. Even those not her enemies, such as the Unites States, did no more for her than exercise a tight-lipped neutrality all the time continuing to consort, commercially and socially, with her enemies. On 30 April, a prominent advertisement in the American newspapers, paid for by the German Embassy in Washington DC, reminded citizens of the United States that the Kaiser had declared the seas around Great Britain a war zone. In the light of that, the advertisement warned, there were potential risks for those American citizens still obstinately determined to sail in the forthcoming voyage, from New York to Liverpool, of the RMS Lusitania.

Rupert Brooke’s death had dominated the headlines in the British press and the reactions it had elicited were heartfelt. Prime Minister Asquith, who had come to know Brooke well through his children’s friendship with him, wrote to his confidante, Venetia Stanley, that “I can’t tell you what I feel about Rupert Brooke’s death. It has given me more pain than any loss in the war…He was clean-cut and beautiful to look at, and had a streak of something more than talent.”

Asquith’s susceptibility to a young man of talent and beauty invites no condemnation, but there is something about his words which repels — he was Prime Minister of a land in which many scores of thousands of young men had been sacrificed according to the demands of the government over which he presided. How did he dare to lament the loss of any one of them more than another?

Elan had not yet died. At the end of the month, upon his return from spending his leave in Paris — his first visit which had greatly excited him — the cavalryman and poet, Julian Grenfell, resumed his diary entries:

Wednesday 28th. Quiet day. No shelling. 12 noon long walk back to horses. Then back into billets farm near Watou at 9 p.m. Kindness to refugees. Always given best place, not to be disturbed. Lots of boys selling chocolate to troops. Horses, their patience. Mule instead of our lost (shelled ) horse, running with horses in limber.

Tuesday 29th. Moved off at 8am towards Pop.(Poperinghe). Brigade rested in field. Rested all day, and got back to our farm at 7.30pm. Pork chops for dinner. Wonderful sunny lazy days — but longing to be up and doing something. Slept out. Wrote poem — ‘Into Battle’.

Destined to become one of the most famous war poems, this celebrated the beauty of the natural world and the joys of being alive:

The naked earth is warm with spring,

And with green grass and bursting trees

Leans to the sun’s kiss glorying,

And quivers in the living breeze;

And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light

And a striving evermore for these;

And he is dead who will not fight;

And who dies fighting has increase.

Grenfell signed his copy ‘J.G. Belgium — April 1915’ and sent it to his mother, telling her she could get it published if she liked.