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Updated: May 8, 2025
We paused a moment, and gazed over the level miles where Poperinghe and Dixmude and the distant Furnes lay sleepy and peaceful, but, even as we looked, a "heavy" burst in Ypres, and a long column of smoke rose languidly from the centre of the town. "We shan't do much more shopping in that old spot," said the Captain as he turned his horse off the road, and set forth across country to Bailleul.
The divisional headquarters had half a dozen; whilst I did two sets of four each for two officers in the regiment. Sometimes we would go for walks around the country, and occasionally made an excursion as far as Bailleul, about five miles away. Bailleul held one special attraction for us. There were some wonderfully good baths there.
"He is a picture," exclaimed Mademoiselle de Richeval. "A man, Mademoiselle," returned de Bailleul warmly. "Has he a fortune then, Chevalier?" she laughed. "Perhaps he shall have mine," quizzed the old soldier. "He must come with us to Versailles, Chevalier," said the Princess. "So agreeable a person will be indispensable to me."
For we knew that, though Bailleul had been stripped bare by the German hussars before they evacuated it, the French, out of the warmth of their hearts, and the British, out of the fulness of their supplies, would succour this forlorn couple.
The northern attack was in many ways worse to bear and worse to see. The menace to the coast was frightful when the enemy struck up to Bailleul and captured Kemmel Hill from a French regiment which had come up to relieve some of our exhausted and unsupported men.
I cannot limit myself in expressions at my comrades who force this upon me, nor of detestation and repugnance towards the creature itself. What am I do? Your experience just now would be invaluable to me. "Peste, what a fine mess for us all!" de Lotbinière exclaimed. "The persistence of this fellow is incredible. They say de Bailleul supports him.
Our relief of the 4th Division was now complete, and our instructors marched to billets in Bailleul, only to be thrown within a few days into the furnace of the second Battle of Ypres. Before leaving they placed a great board just outside the Regent Street entrance to the wood, stating that it had been taken by the 4th Division on October, 1914, and handed over intact to us.
The President Bailleul said that the members always thought it an honour to see the Prince de Conde in his place, but that they could not dissemble their real concern to see his hands stained with the blood of the King's soldiers who were killed at Bleneau.
Still, we were all sorry to leave Bailleul, with its bright little shops, and to say good-bye to the curé and our other friends there. We fell in at night in the Grande Place the little square that has probably seen more British troops come and go than any other town in northern France and waited there for the battalion to form up.
On the 16th July the Battalion was relieved and moved from Kemmel at 7.30 p.m. proceeding via Dranoutre and Bailleul to Armentières, where it arrived at 1 a.m. the next morning and went into billets at the Blue factory. The following night it moved up to relieve Battalions of the Royal Scots and Monmouths. B Company under Lieut. R.V. Hare, took over "67" trench, C Company under Lieut.
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