Chapter I: Front Matter

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WITH CAVALRY IN 1915

_Frontispiece_]

WITH CAVALRY

IN 1915

THE BRITISH TROOPER
IN THE TRENCH LINE

_Through the Second Battle of Ypres_

BY

FREDERIC COLEMAN, F.R.G.S.

(_Author of "From Mons to Ypres with French"_)

_ILLUSTRATED_

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., LIMITED
1916

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.

Dedicated
TO
MY WIFE

Whose bravery and self-sacrifice in the face of trying
circumstances made it possible for me so long
to continue to do the little that lay
in my power to help the
Cause we both
thought
JUST AND RIGHT.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The more than kind reception that Press and Public accorded my first book on the War, "From Mons to Ypres with French," has encouraged me to put together a chronicle of further events.

"With Cavalry in 1915" takes up the thread of its narrative where its predecessor left it--with the closing days of 1914.

If some notes of frank criticism have been included in this volume, it has been with no unkindly feeling, or with any other object than to try to give a fair picture of things at the Front as I saw them.

My unbounded admiration for the splendid soldiers of the British Army, gained in the darker days of the Great Retreat from Mons, has never wavered in its allegiance to them.

Never have I had occasion to change my opinion, formed in the first few weeks of the War, that the British Tommy is worth five or six of any German soldiers with whom he has yet come into contact.

In the machinery and organisation of war, the small British Army was at a disadvantage, particularly when faced with the necessity of great and rapid expansion. That mistakes should have been made was more than natural--it was inevitable.

I would not be so presumptuous as to criticise so freely, but that "the old order changeth": to write of the past is, I hope, permissible, and likely to lead to no misconstruction. I mean no more than that which the plain interpretation of my simple phraseology will convey. I have no axes to grind.

The right men are in the British Army, and the right men are at the head of it.

For its work to be crowned with complete and lasting victory, it has but to have the undivided Empire behind it, and that, thank God, it has.

The man who cannot see that the Allies will win this war, and win it conclusively, is indeed blind to what the future holds for civilisation.

FREDERIC COLEMAN.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA,
_June, 1916_.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

JANUARY.

PAGES

General De Lisle and the 1st Cavalry Division Staff--Resting--Wet
winter campaigning--Echoes of the Christmas truce--A would-be
Hun prisoner--A visit to Furnes--A Belgian Officer's
standpoint--Luncheon with Colonel Tom Bridges--The Belgian
Army--Nieuport-les-Bains--The trenches along the Yser Canal--The
ruined lighthouse in the sand dunes--Snow's 27th Division in the
line in Flanders--Bad feet--Wrecked Vermelles--The devastation
of "75" shells--"Le Sport"--General Robertson appointed Chief of
Staff 1-36

CHAPTER II.

FEBRUARY.

Army Service Corps vagaries--Motor cars at the
Front--Poperinghe--French Chasseurs--The equipment of the French
foot-soldier--Belgian peasants--Flemish fatalism--The selection
of trench positions--A cavalry counter-attack--French Staff
work--British Staff officers--A run to Ypres--Scenes in the
old Flemish city--On duty in the Salient--The Menin Road--A
humble shop in the shell area--Ypres shelled--Belgian funerals
under fire--The trench-line--General De Lisle has a narrow
escape--The ruined Cloth Hall and Ypres Cathedral--Disappearing
mural paintings--An Irish giant-powder experience--Wonderful
marksmanship of the French "75's"--The way to the firing
line--Past "Cavan's House"--Under fire--Brigade Headquarters in
a dug-out 37-73