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Updated: May 5, 2025
All round here we noticed numerous German prisoners working along the line; and we passed many dumps of various kinds. At 2.30 we steamed into Hazebrouck. I noticed a long hospital train standing in the station, full of wounded who were being taken to the Base hospitals. Those who were in a condition to do so looked very pleased with life.
We rattled over the pavé alongside multitudinous transport sleeping at the side of the road through Metern, through Caestre of pleasant memories, and south to Hazebrouck. Our driver was a man of mark, a racing motorist in times of peace. He left the other buses and swung along rapidly by himself. He slowed down for nothing. Just before Hazebrouck we caught up a French convoy.
The greatest battle in the history of the world had taken place near Metz. The Crown Prince's Army had been shattered and General Von Kluck's march on Paris had been stayed at the Marne. Then the Allies had assumed the offensive, and driven the Germans back to the Aisne. Ypres, Hazebrouck, Estairs and Armentieres had been retaken on the Western frontier of Belgium and France.
The trenches had certainly not taken anything out of them, for if anything they looked steadier and sturdier than they did the day they left their billets in Hazebrouck to take their first march in France.
And, finally, there was the most dangerous accident of all the break through of the Portuguese line at Richebourg St. Vaast, just as the tired division holding it was about to be relieved. Of that accident, as we all remember, the enemy, hungry for the Channel ports, made his very worst and most; till the French and British fought him to a final stand before Hazebrouck and Ypres.
Wherefore the officer relapsed into a thoughtful silence. Hazebrouck has a witty and pleasant procureur de la République, who once confided to me that the English were "irresistible." "In war?" I asked. "Vraiment," he replied, "but I meant in love." But the towns occupied by our Army are monotonously lacking in distinction.
"You have your passes?" he asks us, and we anxiously verify the new and precious papers that brought us from our last stage, and will have to be shown on our way. We drive first to Arques, and Hazebrouck, then southeast. At a certain village we call at the Divisional Headquarters. The General comes out himself, and proposes to guide us on. "I will take you as near to the fighting line as I can."
Those conferences took place in the Second Army headquarters on Cassel Hill, in a big building which was a casino before the war, with a far-reaching view across Flanders, so that one could see in the distance the whole sweep of the Ypres salient, and southward the country below Notre Dame de Lorette, with Merville and Hazebrouck in the foreground.
A Canadian corps had been in reserve along the line of the La Bassée Canal for three weeks in expectation of a renewed attempt against Hazebrouck and Béthune. From prisoners' statements more than once an attack upon the Battalion seemed imminent and special precautions were adopted.
"Vos papiers, s'il vous plait!" Again I produced bundles of papers permis de sejour in Paris, Amiens, Rouen, Orleans, Le Mans; laisser-passer to Boulogne, Dieppe, Havre, Dunkirk, Aire-sur-Lys, Bethune and Hazebrouck; British passports and papiers vises by French consuls, French police, French generals, French mayors, and French stationmasters. But they were hardly satisfied.
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