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Updated: April 30, 2025
The trenches ran along low ground between the wood and the River Douve; on the left the famous hill of Messines peered into our positions, and though itself barely 200 feet above sea-level loomed like a mountain among the mole-heaps of Flanders. The distance between the opposing lines varied from 450 to 250 yards. The amenities of trench life depend almost wholly on the enemy and the weather.
The victory came as a fitting climax to the British achievements in France during the preceding three months' campaign. By the capture during that period of Bapaume, Vimy Ridge, Monchy Plateau, and now Messines Ridge, the British had completely changed the military situation on the western front. The area gained in this vast operation was a front nine miles long to an extreme depth of five miles.
A flash! another! from what appear to be the ruins at its base. It is the English guns speaking from the lines between us and Ypres; and as we watch we see the columns of white smoke rising from the German lines as the shells burst. There they are, the German lines along the Messines ridge. We make them out quite clearly, thanks to a glass and Captain 's guidance.
All the long sullen night the earth is rocked by slow intermittent rumbling, till with the silent dawn the birds wake and the war-giants sink for a few hours in troubled sleep. Then the new day breaks and the war-planes climb in the clear morning air to begin the battle afresh. But let us turn from the hard-won ground of Messines to some of the men who fought over it and survived.
Yet here, for us, it culminates; and here and in the North Sea, we can hardly doubt whatever may be the diversions in other fields will be fought, for Great Britain, the decisive battles of the war. As I turn to those dim lines on the Messines ridge, I have come at last to sight of whither it all moves.
Front-line trenches are usually designated by letters or numbers, running in regular order, from right to left in each sector. Certain important points may have special names. Communication trenches are always given distinctive names. Probably the majority of these names are those of prominent streets and roads in England, especially in London. At Messines we had "Surrey Lane," "Stanley Road" and "Plum Avenue" for communication trenches, while our front line embraced the whole series of "C" trenches. During the winter we occupied the "N" and "O" front-line trenches, while our communication trenches bore such names as "Poppy Lane," "Bois Carré" (afterward called "Chicory Trench" because it ran through a chicory field), and the "P.
But, however that may be, we were now booked for Wulverghem, or rather the trenches which lie along the base of the Messines ridge, about a mile in front of that shattered hamlet. Two days after our tour of inspection we started off to take over.
That moment came at Hill 60 and sixteen other places below the Wytschaete and Messines Ridge at three-thirty on the morning of June 7th, after a quiet night of war, when a few of our batteries had fired in a desultory way and the enemy had sent over some flocks of gas-shells, and before the dawn I heard the cocks crow on Kemmel Hill.
So I found when I heard the guns again and watched the shells bursting about Ypres and over Kemmel Ridge and Messines church tower. Two German airplanes passed overhead, and the hum of their engines was loud in my ears as I lay in the grass. Our shrapnel burst about them, but did not touch their wings.
We did not stay long in these trenches; but before we left them the bombers of the 6th N.F. killed a German and he was brought back to our trenches. It was the first dead German that I had seen. Our next move was to a quieter part of the line, namely to Wulverghem, below the Messines Ridge.
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