In this way Thiepval was encircled so that the garrison there--the
180th Regiment, who had held it for two years--knew that they were
doomed. In this way Guillemont and Ginchy fell, so that in the first
place hardly a man out of two thousand men escaped to tell the tale of
horror in German lines, and in the second place there was no long
fight against the Irish, who stormed it in a wild, fierce rush which
even machine-guns could not check. The German General Staff was
getting flurried, grabbing at battalions from other parts of the line,
disorganizing its divisions under the urgent need of flinging in men
to stop this rot in the lines, ordering counter-attacks which were
without any chance of success, so that thin waves of men came out into
the open, as I saw them several times, to be swept down by scythes of
bullets which cut them clean to the earth. Before September 15th they
hoped that the British offensive was wearing itself out. It seemed to
them at least doubtful that after the struggle of two and a half
months the British troops could still have spirit and strength enough
to fling themselves against new lines.
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