and shot. He died of his injuries minutes later and was buried near Hanover. This time fellow officers were permitted to attend the funeral.
The Schlieffen Plan of invasion had envisaged German forces enveloping Paris in one great sweeping move. Diverging from this overall strategy, General von Kluck, in command of the First Army, altered his line of advance to the east of the French capital in order to pursue and destroy elements of the BEF. In bypassing Paris, von Kluck’s right flank was exposed to counter-attack. The Germans, exhausted by their 200-mile fighting march from Mons, were dangerously overstretched. When the French attacked with a new, hastily formed Sixth Army, the Germans had no option but to fall back to the first defensible position on high ground north of the River Aisne. Here the opposing armies rested briefly. In an attempt to outflank each other, the Germans and the Allies engaged in a ‘race to the sea’ that eventually brought them by leaps and bounds to Nieuwpoort on the Belgian coast. A thin and primitive line of trenches had been established by both sides, with a strip of no-man’s-land between them. The British Army, in moving back towards the safety of the Channel ports, ended up at a small but pretty Belgian town called Ypres. The open and fluid nature of warfare, as conducted during August and September 1914, was about to change. Now men took to the ground as a matter of personal protection and of tactical defence.
In October and November, the regular soldiers of the BEF, increasingly reinforced by the Territorial Army, held the ground in a tightening salient in front of Ypres. The Germans once more strained every sinew to break the British that autumn. Mass, almost suicidal, shoulder-to-shoulder assaults by German infantry were broken up as the fast and accurate fire of professional soldiers took its toll. Charlie Parke, an NCO serving with the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, was astonished at the tactics.
The Germans wore grey uniforms which, when massed, gave a suggestion of a blue hue, with matching circular hats. Their packed formations were four rows deep, each row barely a foot behind the one in front; it was a stunning sight.
They started advancing at a fast march pace firing their rifles in the air whilst at the port position, an exercise that killed nobody but was just another of the Hun’s frightening tactics. At 800 yards the British started intermittent firing, approximately six rounds per minute; it was like shelling peas from a pod, the Germans were so closely massed. At 400 yards the enemy increased the speed of charge to a slow double but at the same time we switched to rapid fire. It was bloody murder: the grey masses fell like ninepins, the man behind climbing over his dead comrade and continuing the advance. It was as though those brave men had been told by their ruthless, ambitious Kaiser that they could walk through bullets.
Fighting raged for weeks around Ypres, the Germans breaking the weakest points in the Allied line and British troops trying to plug the gaps or retake lost ground before the Germans consolidated their gains. The fighting was often confused, as Lieutenant Colonel John Hawksley revealed in a letter home on 23 October. Hawksley commanded a battery of guns close to a convent where one of his subalterns, Lieutenant Macleod, was on observation. In the morning the men woke to heavy firing and shouting. The convent had been surrounded and Macleod, as Hawksley saw, was shot at. Macleod dodged behind a wall.
Presently he found a German officer coming towards him. The officer saluted; Macleod saluted. The officer bowed; Macleod bowed; and then they all bowed to each other. My subaltern then was searched, his military equipment taken from him, and his revolver bullets examined, presumably to see whether they were expanding bullets or not. His private property was given back to him. Then he and other prisoners were marshalled in the courtyard and put
The Schlieffen Plan of invasion had envisaged German forces enveloping Paris in one great sweeping move. Diverging from this overall strategy, General von Kluck, in command of the First Army, altered his line of advance to the east of the French capital in order to pursue and destroy elements of the BEF. In bypassing Paris, von Kluck’s right flank was exposed to counter-attack. The Germans, exhausted by their 200-mile fighting march from Mons, were dangerously overstretched. When the French attacked with a new, hastily formed Sixth Army, the Germans had no option but to fall back to the first defensible position on high ground north of the River Aisne. Here the opposing armies rested briefly. In an attempt to outflank each other, the Germans and the Allies engaged in a ‘race to the sea’ that eventually brought them by leaps and bounds to Nieuwpoort on the Belgian coast. A thin and primitive line of trenches had been established by both sides, with a strip of no-man’s-land between them. The British Army, in moving back towards the safety of the Channel ports, ended up at a small but pretty Belgian town called Ypres. The open and fluid nature of warfare, as conducted during August and September 1914, was about to change. Now men took to the ground as a matter of personal protection and of tactical defence.
In October and November, the regular soldiers of the BEF, increasingly reinforced by the Territorial Army, held the ground in a tightening salient in front of Ypres. The Germans once more strained every sinew to break the British that autumn. Mass, almost suicidal, shoulder-to-shoulder assaults by German infantry were broken up as the fast and accurate fire of professional soldiers took its toll. Charlie Parke, an NCO serving with the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, was astonished at the tactics.
The Germans wore grey uniforms which, when massed, gave a suggestion of a blue hue, with matching circular hats. Their packed formations were four rows deep, each row barely a foot behind the one in front; it was a stunning sight.
They started advancing at a fast march pace firing their rifles in the air whilst at the port position, an exercise that killed nobody but was just another of the Hun’s frightening tactics. At 800 yards the British started intermittent firing, approximately six rounds per minute; it was like shelling peas from a pod, the Germans were so closely massed. At 400 yards the enemy increased the speed of charge to a slow double but at the same time we switched to rapid fire. It was bloody murder: the grey masses fell like ninepins, the man behind climbing over his dead comrade and continuing the advance. It was as though those brave men had been told by their ruthless, ambitious Kaiser that they could walk through bullets.
Fighting raged for weeks around Ypres, the Germans breaking the weakest points in the Allied line and British troops trying to plug the gaps or retake lost ground before the Germans consolidated their gains. The fighting was often confused, as Lieutenant Colonel John Hawksley revealed in a letter home on 23 October. Hawksley commanded a battery of guns close to a convent where one of his subalterns, Lieutenant Macleod, was on observation. In the morning the men woke to heavy firing and shouting. The convent had been surrounded and Macleod, as Hawksley saw, was shot at. Macleod dodged behind a wall.
Presently he found a German officer coming towards him. The officer saluted; Macleod saluted. The officer bowed; Macleod bowed; and then they all bowed to each other. My subaltern then was searched, his military equipment taken from him, and his revolver bullets examined, presumably to see whether they were expanding bullets or not. His private property was given back to him. Then he and other prisoners were marshalled in the courtyard and put
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