On the morning of 25 September 1915, 40,000 British and French troops lined up for the attack on the heavily fortified German line at Loos. This was no cushy patch of the Western Front. An additional 8,000 men had been drafted in to operate the 5,500 chlorine cylinders set in place for the first ever British gas attack and take part in the biggest push of the war to date. The British artillery, which had been active for the past four days, intensified throughout the night and into the breezy morning. At 5:15 am, so the story goes, Douglas Haig, then in charge of the 1st Division who mounted the attack, looked the swirling smoke rising from his pipe, looked at the leaves rustling rustling on the poplar trees in his the garden of the of his headquarters, and gave the order to release the gas.
At 5:50am the taps were turned on and gas drifted over towards the German lines, flowing low over the ground and seeping into shell holes and listening posts, but the wind changed almost immediately. Private Walter Jones, one of the thousand men who made up the 9th battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment, saw that to his left the gas it drifted back and into the trenches of the Middlesex Regiment, forcing them to flee their trenches into the cleaner air above. The German machine guns opened fire and cut them down in an instant. Enemy artillery joined the counter attack with 5.9 inch shells before the British troops had even started their attack. Shrapnel hit the gas cylinders which were not yet half empty, creating mayhem in the trenches.
Richard Trafford, a Private who fought with Walter, said “The wind turned that gas back onto our people, onto our trenches and instead of the Germans getting the gas, our old fellas got it.” Robert Graves, a Captain attached to the Welsh Regiment in the support lines on the left flank, records in “Goodbye to All That”: “The officers of the front trench had to decide on immediate action: so two companies of the Middlesex, instead of waiting for the intense bombardment which would follow the advertised forty minutes of gas, charged at once and got as far as the German wire - which our artillery had not yet cut.”
On the right, the troops around the Ninth ran towards the enemy trenches. One survivor, C.J.T. Johnson, recalled:
“Bayonets were fixed at 6:30am and the first wave of assaulting troops of the First Army scrambled out of their trenches in the fog of gas and smoke, barely able to distinguish a thing, loaded up with bombs, picks and shovels, extra ammunition, etc. Some had their gas masks down as gas was still hanging around in places. When the front was down and tucked into their tunics they could not see anything through their talc covered eyepieces and with the front rolled up the rain caused the chemicals in the flannel to seep out and make the eyes smart.
“As they scaled the parapet several appeared to slip back into the trench again, but on looking more closely it was seen that these men�s masks had a rent in them and the grey flannel was turning red. The advancing men had now disappeared into the swirling mass of smoke and gas into which shells were now bursting, throwing up clods of earth and some of the men with it. The ground was strewn with dead and the movements of the wounded. ”
The first attacks, which took place half an hour after the gas had been released, suffered the heaviest losses. A German regimental diary noted:
“Ten columns in extended line in perfect alignment could clearly be distinguished, each one at more than a thousand men, and offering such a target as had ever been seen before, or even thought possible. Never had the machine-gunners such straightforward work to do nor done it so effectively. They traversed to and fro along the enemy�s ranks unceasingly.
“Our men stood on the fire steps, some even on the parapets and fired in glee into the mass of men advancing across the open ground. As the entire field of fire was covered with the enemy�s infantry the effect was devastating and they could be seen falling literally in hundreds but they continued their march in good order and without interruption.”
By the end of the first 24 hours there were 25,000 casualties. Despite this, the Germans has been surprised by the use of gas and the waves of troops which came forward despite the heavy machine gun fire.
Walter Jones, Richard Trafford and the 9th King�s went over the top at 8am and raided an enemy trench, taking nearly prisoners, including 11 officers, mainly from the German 59th and 157th infantry divisions and contributed to a drive which pushed Western Front back by six miles, an advance not to be repeated for another three years.
Private Trafford said, “It was a shock, really, because although we knew we were in attack, we didn�t expect the losses were going to be like they were. The men were sprawled out all over the barbed wire just like mother�s washing on washing day.”
News of the few successes spread among the troops as did bad news of heavy losses. One soldier�s letter home read:
“We were on the march yesterday when the news came through that the first and second line of German trenches had been taken, of course that cheered us up a lot. We are engaged in the biggest battle of the world now, and a day of two will see us in, but cheer up it will soon be over.”
Why do I tell you this? Because Walter Jones was my grandfather, and the battlefield of Loos is becoming a landfill. I have mixed feelings about this, but they would be half as mixed if my grandfather hadn’t survived. If he had been among the 8,000 men killed that day, I wouldn’t be here, which is why I owe a degree of outrage to him.
Now, the diggers haved moved in and the earth is being turned over one last time to make way for the nappies of the generation he fought to save.
I have stood in that field with a map from 1915 and it is easy to follow the same footpaths and see the isolated farmhouse where his friends would have spent their last night and the dips in the soil where they cowered for safety. Little has changed once the graves were dug and the land returned to farming. I have picked up pieces of broken mugs among the plowed rows with “Staffs. Pottery” written on it and made more grizzly discoveries of human bones, bits of bootleather and artillery shells. I took my dad there and explained the past his own father never talked about when he returned home. History is there, right below the surface, but even that will change.
The same French government who made it illegal for scavengers to remove any artifacts or remains from the battlefields has given permission for the land to be filled in with the waste of modern living. I am not sure if I am more concerned about the waste we produce today or the lack of respect we have for the past.
One thing of which I am certain is that the very least of those chaps who lined up on the morning of 25 September 1914 is more a man than I could ever hope to be. Do me one favour, reader: I know modern life is busy, but spare a thought for their souls when you next get a second.
