CHAPTER VI

ST. ELOI (_continued_)

Counter-attacks--Obstacles to victory--The ground described--The enemy deceived--Ravage wrought by heavy guns--Impassable ground--Schemes based upon unreliable information--Forward movement ordered--The 28th severely shelled at Voormezeele--Confusion regarding the occupation of the craters--Raid on Craters 2 and 3 fails--Wrong craters attacked--The Canadian infantry in Craters 6 and 7--Enemy patrols walk straight into Canadian trenches and are taken prisoners--The actual situation revealed by aerial photographs--Unit follows unit to certain death--The brave 28th--Heavy casualties--Determination of the Higher Command--Sniper Zacharias--A gallant deserter--Imperative order to take the German positions--Crater No. 1 captured--Unfortunate lack of reliable information--Four Privates hold an exposed position for 70 hours--Individual acts of bravery common--Good work of the Lewis gun team--"Get on at any cost"--Brave though fruitless attempts--A glorious failure--Repeated counter-attacks unsuccessful--The third phase of the Battle of St. Eloi--A parallel of Verdun--The enemy seizes a dominant position--A deadlock--General Turner's suggestions--Reconstruction of the old British line under General Watson--The inglorious drudgery of digging--Perilous position of Canadians in advanced positions--Carrier pigeons used as messengers for the first time--Value of position problematical--Superior trenches of the enemy--Useful work of aircraft--Historic ground--First and second great actions of Dominion Army contrasted--Failure and success enter into the education of a nation.

[Sidenote: _April 6th, 1916._]

With the morning of April 6th began that series of counter-attacks against the Germans which continued at intervals during the remainder of the action.

Here, in estimating the causes of success or failure, three factors are of primary importance: the general lie of the land and the consequent disposition of our troops on it; the concentrated fire of the enemy's heavy artillery; and the state of the weather and the subsoil. None of these factors was in our favour, and though taken singly their hostility need not have proved fatal, taken in conjunction they formed as grave an obstacle to victory as any general has encountered.

The knoll of St. Elbi is in itself of no great magnitude. From the plateau which it crowns the ground drops suddenly to the south and the German second line trenches. But though it possesses this local advantage it is in its turn dominated both by the rise at Eikhof Farm some 1,000 yards to the east and by gun positions well back in the German line. This drawback was aggravated by the fact that, like most positions, such as Hooge or Hill 60, in the Ypres salient, it could be subjected to a converging fire from the front and either flank. The German observers could thus look north past the knoll, and watching any signs of the movements of our troops far behind the line, turn on them a rain of shells from at least three points of the compass. The Canadian Higher Command was compelled in consequence to order the dispositions of the troops accordingly. The divisional frontage was taken by only one brigade with two battalions in the advance positions. The centre and support battalion had to find cover farther back, while the reserve battalion was right back near Dickebusch nearly three miles away. Such a dispersion cannot but be disadvantageous. But the configuration of the ground would have been of less importance had there been no great concentration of German guns to face. Such a collection of heavy pieces takes days to assemble or disperse, and is not therefore to be looked for on the side of the defence. The enemy, _ex hypothesi_, should have been taken by surprise when the craters were blown up and the 3rd British Division attacked, and plenty of time given to the assailants to consolidate the new position before a great concentration of guns could be brought to bear on them. But this did not happen, by a simple piece of bad luck, as has been related in