That meant the loss of all the old Somme battlefields, and that struck
a chill in one's heart. But what I marveled at always was the absence
of panic, the fatalistic acceptance of the turn of fortune's wheel by
many officers and men, and the refusal of corps and divisional staffs
to give way to despair in those days of tragedy and crisis.
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. All
through this country between Estaires and Merville, to Steenwerck,
Metern, and Bailleul, thousands of civilians had been living on the
edge of the battlefields, believing themselves safe behind our lines.
Now the line had slipped and they were caught by German shell-fire and
German guns, and after nearly four years of war had to abandon their
homes like the first fugitives.
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