The No. 7 Armoured Car By Sub-Lieutenant G. Thiery, of the 1st Regiment of Guides, in Command of the Group of Armoured Cars of the 1st Cavalry Division
What an easy and pleasant task it is to relate the adventures of another person and to praise the exploits and the courage of a friend. But how delicate and trying it is to describe one's own deeds! To the man who considers himself rewarded by the feeling of having done his duty, it is by no means easy to have to say: "I was there and this is what happened to me...." However, since I am requested to give this account, I must do so.
It was at Wommelghem, near Antwerp, that, on the 4th of September, 1914, I was given command of the No. 7 armoured car attached to the Cavalry Division. I will begin by congratulating those who invented and thought out this engine of warfare. Some have been built which were six months in the work-shops. Of these, some are monuments which can never be utilised, and others are wonders invented in offices, which need to be stripped of three quarters of their improvements, in order to be of any use under fire. In three weeks, the Minerva factory and the Cockerill work-shops delivered to the Belgian army[Pg 156] what I believe to be the best armoured car in use. It is sure, easily worked, rapid, strong, and efficiently protected. The No. 7 car brought me a number of brave men. First there was Count Guy de Berlaymont, the personification of courage and indifference to danger; then Constant Heureux, bravery and abnegation made man; finally Dujardin and Gouffaux, two good and valiant soldiers. All of them, like myself, were volunteers.
Without any preliminaries, we found ourselves at once in the midst of the drama.
On the evening of the 5th of September, at the Criterium at Antwerp, Lieutenant Hankar, Count Henri de Villermont, Prince Baudouin de Ligne, Misson, Philippe de Zualar, Berlaymont and I were sitting round a table, discussing our departure joyfully.
On the evening of the 6th, Berlaymont and I were again at the Criterium, and big tears came to our eyes, as we looked at the empty seats which had been occupied, the previous evening, by our friends. That afternoon, whilst patrolling round Herenthals, we heard that their vehicles had been attacked near Zammel. All that we were able to snatch from the enemy had been three dead men, four wounded ones, some weapons, and two armoured cars.
The Germans had now a fresh item, and a very big one, on the account that we had to settle with them.
On the 8th of September, we had our revenge. For the second time, the army made a sortie from Antwerp, and the Cavalry Division, forming the left wing, advanced towards Louvain. Information of all kinds poured in at Headquarters and one detail struck General de Witte, that chief of whom I can[Pg 157] never speak without the greatest respect and admiration. The General had been told that the village of Werchter was only weakly guarded. A bold stroke might make us masters of the passage of the Dyle. This stroke was to be attempted.
The execution of it was confided to the Battalion of Cyclist Carabineers, that heroic phalanx which does not need to be introduced to any one, so well is it known. Everyone is acquainted with our diables noirs (black devils), those of Haelen, and of everywhere else where there were blows to be given and laurels to reap, that band of brave men who always set out laughing, dressed their wounds whilst singing, and returned to the fight the following day, their natural ardour increased by the desire to avenge the deaths of the previous day.
My armoured car set out at the head of the little column. Between Schriek and Tremeloo, a Company of Cyclists was left to serve as support for the two others who went forward. We arrived at Tremeloo. In this devastated and deserted village, Lieutenant Fritz de Menten and half a platoon of the 2nd Lancers were awaiting us. They confirmed the information that Werchter was only held by a small force. They had been assured that the Boche foot-soldiers, with the exception of those who were doing the cooking in the Square, were all busy getting drunk on yack op at the wine-shop.
What enthusiasm there was amongst us! Our two hundred and fifty Cyclists were relishing the joy that they would have in seeing their old acquaintances again, the Prussian pilferers, house-burners, and torturers. They set off in three columns. The middle one, which I led, took the direct road. Another[Pg 158] one turned to the left, in order to attack Werchter, by the Dyle. The third column took the plain to the right, in order to approach the village from the north. Lieutenant de Menten's half platoon served as scouts for the column on the left. We rushed off at full speed. The bridge over the Laak, a small tributary to the right of the Dyle, was soon crossed, the cycles were then left, and the sharp-shooters went off at a trot, stooping in order to be hidden in the harvest fields.
I reached the first houses in Werchter with my car. There was not a soul to be seen! This silence and mystery did not seem natural to us. A hundred yards away, the chief street was barricaded. An inhabitant assured us that the few Boches who had occupied Werchter had already taken flight in the direction of the bridges. We immediately took the machine-gun out of the car, together with its support and the cases of cartridges, intending to carry all this over the barricade, which the motor-car could not cross, and then sweep the bridge with balls, so that our prey should not escape us.
Berlaymont, with the machine-gun on his shoulder, and a cyclist carrying two cartridge cases, were the first to enter the street. They had not gone ten steps when they were greeted by a volley of bullets. The shooting was from all the windows and the cyclist had his arm broken. This volley was evidently a signal, as the whole circumference of Werchter now broke out into short flames. An infernal firing then took place, interspersed with the tac-tac-tac of Maxims. Werchter was a trap. We were attacking the enemy one against four, and our adversary was invulnerable behind the walls of the houses. Our[Pg 159] retreat was obligatory, but the question was, Could the destruction of the Battalion be avoided?
It is in these tragic moments that the worth of a troop can be judged. In reply to their officers' whistling, the Cyclists fell back in good order, replying at the same time to the enemy's firing. Just as though they were at drill, my men put back the machine-gun support in its box, and strapped it up, whilst the chief gunner put his cannon on its battery and awaited the order to fire. In the car, each man took the place assigned to him beforehand: the chief gunner standing up by the side of the driver. The latter charged the machine and also attended to his driving. The second gunner was seated in Turkish fashion at the back. He passed the charges full and arranged the empty cases. The chief was kneeling down at his side, the upper part of his body higher than the plating. It is his part to direct the aim, with the aid of his field-glasses. This is the dangerous post, at which three quarters of those killed in armoured cars have had their skulls pierced. I have been wounded twice in the head at this post.
Our Cyclists were now beginning to recross the Laak bridge, and we opened a rapid fire on the limits of Werchter, where the enemy appeared to be coming out in our pursuit.
Firing attracts firing, and a shower of balls crackled over the armoured car, passing close to our ears with the noise of huge, furious flies buzzing quickly through the air.
Our brave Hotchkiss fired without ceasing. The second gunner was tending his machine as though it were a pet animal. As soon as it had spit forth its shower of a hundred balls, he quickly put a pinch of[Pg 160] vaseline on the piston and a damp rag over the cannon. In five minutes, a thousand cartridges had been fired. The cannon was getting warm. From black, it had changed to blue and was mottled with spots. It had to be changed. We were advancing towards the Laak bridge, which all the Cyclists had now crossed. As we went along, we encouraged the wounded ones who were trying to crawl along as far as there. We changed the cannon, whilst under fire. There was a bolt to draw, then a few blows of the mallet on a big key, the cannon was grasped between rags and plunged into a basin of cold water. With a hissing noise, a long spurt of boiling water flowed up-hill. Whilst the chief gunner examined the mechanism of his machine and greased it, his helper drew the second cannon from its sheath and put it in its place. With a thud, it settled and, the whole operation having taken forty seconds, we were once more ready to fire.
The enemy was now coming out from Werchter. I could see the lines of sharp-shooters distinctly. They were advancing in the fields of rye and beet-root.
"Do you see them?" I asked.
"Yes."
"At three hundred yards, mow them down with volleys of sixty, if you like, Fire!"
And our Hotchkiss continued its noise, which sounded like a huge sewing machine. Over yonder, we saw the grey fellows tumbling over each other, running, hiding. And the balls whizzed round us quicker than ever.
The Cyclists were still five hundred yards away from us in their retreat, but our cannon was again getting warm and, besides this, the extractor was dirty and[Pg 161] some of the balls failed. We fell back a second time and, behind a hedge, the changing of the cannon again took place. This time we had the additional complication of changing the extractor. The enemy took advantage of this for advancing at full speed.
"Quick! quick! is everything ready?"
The car fell back. A hundred yards from the bridge there was a good place for it. From there we could see for five hundred yards along both sides of the route skirting the Laak. This time we were keenly on the watch. We no longer replied to the firing intended for us: it was no use wasting munition haphazard. The chief gunner to the right, and I to the left, watched the groups which arrived on the bank of the river.
Rrann!... and there was a charge[6] for each group. How many fell like that! It was good firing, with certain result. And there was no hurry now, so that the cannon only got gradually warm.
The combat had been going on for forty minutes. The Cyclists must have reached Tremeloo. There were still the wounded ones to look after. Berlaymont and I got down and picked up six or seven of them. We placed them on the chests, on the wings, on the platform, at the back, and even on the hood. This exasperated the Boches, who fired on us furiously. We now made off, but on the Tremeloo road, we came across about twenty poor wounded men, dragging themselves along in the most lamentable way. They stretched out their hands to us, beseeching to be picked up. It was impossible to abandon them. Six volunteers of the Cyclist rear-guard offered their services. They discovered a cart and an old horse which, by[Pg 162] some miracle, had remained among the ruins of a farm a............