19th October 1914
The Dorsets repeated the same routine as yesterday. On this day, or possibly the day before (it’s not clear which day in the History of the Dorsetshire Regiment 1914-1919) Major Saunders sent Lieutenant Woodhouse, the machine gun officer, with a party of men to recover the bodies from the battlefield on the 13th. Under fire from the Germans, they recovered 130 bodies and brought back twenty wounded men who had been trapped out on the field.
Gleichen met General Morland, the new CO of the 5th Division, and explained to him the difficulty of the situation facing the 15th Brigade.
Generals Morland and Franklin turned up in the afternoon. We were perpetually being urged to advance and attack, but how could we? There was nothing to attack in front of us except La Bassée, a couple of miles off, and we could not advance a yard in that direction without exposing our right flank to a deadly enfilade fire from across the Canal, for the Germans were still strongly holding that infernal railway triangle, and nothing availed to get them out of it. General Morland wisely, therefore, ordered me not to advance in force.
One thought to “Bring up the bodies”