Irish Voices from the Great War

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Myles Dungan. Irish Voices from the Great War

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IRISH VOICES

THE GREAT WAR

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German infantry arrived in force and allegedly used local children as cover to get close to the far side of the canal from Dorman-Smith’s B Company. By mid-afternoon a field gun had been brought up to the canal bank to shell the Northumberland’s positions. Unknown to the men of B company they were on their own, the rest of their battalion had withdrawn an hour before. Their signaller had been one of the first to die in the initial German assault. They held out, waiting for the order to blow up the bridge. Finally, after taking heavy casualties for an hour they withdrew. As they fell back towards the town of Frameries instructions arrived to destroy the bridge, which was now in German hands. The experience of the Northumberlands in Frameries was similar to that of B Company in Mariette. As the Germans attacked orders came to some battalions to pull back. The 1st Northumberlands were the last to receive such an order. By the time they joined the general retreat the town had been almost completely overrun, and the Germans were snapping at their heels.

Initial setbacks had been turned into defeat which, in turn, had become a rout by 24 August. Dorman-Smith became a part of the tired and exhausted column of soldiers which, outnumbered and outgunned, now wound it’s way southwards. But their retreat was not fast enough to elude the German advance. The first phase of Chink’s war ended near Inchy on 26 August when a German shell overshot the hastily prepared defences of General Smith-Dorrien’s retreating Corps and burst near Dorman-Smith in a reserve position. He suffered a shrapnel wound to his left arm and severe surface cuts. He was evacuated to the base hospital at Rouen and from there to England.32

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