United States or Chad ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Just nine days later the King Edward VII, a pre-dreadnought of 16,500 tons, collided with a mine in the North Sea and soon foundered. She was a second-line ship of heavy battery and carried a crew of 777 men, all of whom were taken off before the big craft sunk. This was one of the few instances in which there was no loss of life from mine or torpedo explosions.
The German mobilization was therefore directed first against France, defence against Russia being left to second-line German troops and to an Austrian offensive.
De Verne accompanied him back to the fire trench, where Dick was glad to find Captain Ribaut with the other three American officers, that party having returned from a trip down the line. De Verne soon after took his leave, hastening rearward to begin his rest. Bang! sounded a field-piece back of the German line. Between the French first-line and second-line trenches the shell exploded.
In the section in which they found themselves four French soldiers, rifles resting over the parapet, stood awaiting the onslaught. Two more men, equipped with hand bombs, stood awaiting the moment to begin casting. All the while the curtain of shell-fire, the barrage laid down by the Germans between them and the second-line trenches, continued to fall.
When the bold suggestion was made that over a three-mile front the infantry should rush the second-line trenches in the darkness, hoping to take the enemy by surprise, it was as daring a conception considering the ground and the circumstances as ever came to the mind of a British commander and might be said to be characteristic of the dash and so-called "foolhardiness" of the British soldier, accustomed to "looking smart" and rushing his enemy from colonial experiences.
Violent counter-attacks by the Germans on July 6 failed to wrest from the French the ground won by them during the previous five days, and the Allied troops resumed their advance, taking the German second-line trenches all along the front in the face of a heavy fire.
The only relief to this one-sided struggle against machinery was the hand-to-hand fighting that occurred in the two trenches before-mentioned the second-line German trench behind Pozières and the similar trench in front of it. The story of it will be told some day it would almost deserve a book to itself. France, August 1st.
From the second-line defenses the tanks led the way to the third line, where they met with the same success. This, however, took longer, and when the British found themselves in possession of these, with Cambrai, the immediate objective, less than four miles away. General Byng called a halt. He felt that his men had done enough for one day.
They were one of the first "second-line" Territorial Divisions to reach France, and were followed by our own second-line, the 59th, who went for their initiation to the most Southern end of the British front, and we consequently did not see them. The men were all warned in time and put on helmets, so that we had no casualties.
An orderly went to find the medecin-chef, and we waded after him through the mud to one after another of the cottages in which, with admirable ingenuity, he had managed to create out of next to nothing the indispensable requirements of a second-line ambulance: sterilizing and disinfecting appliances, a bandage-room, a pharmacy, a well-filled wood-shed, and a clean kitchen in which "tisanes" were brewing over a cheerful fire.
Word Of The Day