Frontispiece WITH CAVALRY IN 1915 THE BRITISH TROOPER IN THE TRENCH LINE Through the Second Battle of Ypres BY FREDERIC COLEMAN, F.R.G.S. ( Author of "From Mons to Ypres with French" ) ILLUSTRATED LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., LIMITED 1916 ILLUSTRATED LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., LIMITED 1916 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W....

The more than kind reception that Press and Public accorded my first book on the War, "From Mons to Ypres with French," has encouraged me to put together a chronicle of further events. "With Cavalry in 1915" takes up the thread of its narrative where its predecessor left it—with the closing days of 1914. If some notes of frank criticism have been included in this volume, it has been with no unkindly feeling, or with any other object than to try to give a fair picture of things at the Front as I

January 1st, 1915, found me in damp, sodden Flanders. I was one of the dozen remaining members of the original Royal Automobile Club Corps, which had joined the British Expeditionary Force in France before Mons and the great retreat on Paris. I was attached, with my car, to the Headquarters Staff of the 1st Cavalry Division, Major-General H. de B. de Lisle, C.B., D.S.O., commanding. The Echelon A Divisional Staff Mess consisted of General de Lisle; Colonel "Sally" Home, 11th Hussars, G.S.O. 1; M

Broken car springs on February 1st took me to Poperinghe, where a Belgian carriage-maker made a villainous repair for a considerable charge. Motor car repairs were fearfully and wonderfully executed at the front in the earlier stages of the war. The G.H.Q. shops were not bad, and once in a while I found clever, conscientious young chaps in charge of a road-side repair shop attached to a division, an ammunition supply column, or some such unit, who had managed to organise a very creditable "first

On March 1st Captain "Babe" Nicholson, of the 15th Hussars, who had joined General de Lisle's staff in place of Captain Cecil Howard, 16th Lancers, promoted to General Allenby's staff at Cavalry Corps Headquarters, had to make a careful map of our trench position. Captain Bennie Wheeler, 15th Hussars, in temporary charge of Divisional Signals, also had duties that took him to the trench line. As neither Captain Nicholson nor Captain Wheeler had made the two-mile tramp across the fields and throu

On April 1st, I heard at G.H.Q. that within a few days the French 9th and 16th Corps, which were in the Ypres area, were to be moved south. The British were to take over the line from the Belgian left near Bixschoote, and make a continuous British line from that point to the left of the main French front near the La Bassée Canal. Events were to happen which prevented the completion of this plan—events due to a German initiative. The days grew warmer, though rain fell with sufficient frequency to

The first days of May found me with but little work to do. I spent some of my time running up into the Salient and hearing talk of preparations for a withdrawal of our line to a smaller horseshoe around Ypres. This was to be done as soon as all was ready for the move, and the utmost secrecy enveloped the operations. I saw Rex Benson, of the 9th Lancers, who was acting temporarily as liaison officer with the French troops along the canal north of Ypres. Rex said the French had made but little pro

Dawn on the 13th of May was the signal for a howitzer bombardment of the cavalry front which surpassed in intensity and duration any previous gun-fire during the whole War. From four o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the afternoon it drifted from one section to another, without respite. During the entire forenoon the trench line north and south of the Zonnebeke Road, viewed from Potijze, a thousand yards to the rear, was covered continuously with a heavy pall of smoke, as if a well-fe