{"id":11448,"date":"2015-06-17T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T09:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=11448"},"modified":"2015-06-17T05:00:13","modified_gmt":"2015-06-17T09:00:13","slug":"british-gains-losses-in-1915","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/british-gains-losses-in-1915\/","title":{"rendered":"British Gains & Losses in 1915"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, June 17, 1915<\/em><\/p>\n

Rest Billets,\u00a0Bethune<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Battalion War Diarist wrote for day:\u00a0\u201cBattn. standing to.\u201d<\/em>[1]<\/p>\n

\n

THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY –\u00a0BRITISH OFFICIAL REPORT<\/span>: \u00a0<\/strong>\u201cSir John French\u2019s report says: \u2018Last week there was no change in the situation. The enemy exploded five mines on different parts of our front, but none of them caused any damage to our trenches, and only one caused any casualties.<\/p>\n

Yesterday evening we captured the German first line trenches east of Festubert on a mile front, but failed to hold them during the night against strong counter-attacks.<\/p>\n

Early this morning in the neighbourhood of Ypres we successfully attacked the enemy\u2019s positions north of Hooge (to the east of Ypres). We occupied the whole of his first line trenches on a front of 1,000 yards, and also parts of his second line.<\/p>\n

By noon today 157 prisoners had passed to our rear. The German counter-attack has been repulsed with heavy losses.\u2019\u201d [2]<\/p>\n

WAR SUMMARY<\/span>:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cThe British Gain that was subsequently lost was made in the vicinity of Festubert, and it is not improbable that Canadian troops, who hold a part of the trenches in this vicinity, were engaged. Sir John French simply says that his troops captured the front line trenches east of Festubert on a mile front, but failed to hold them during the night against strong counter-attacks. The Berlin statement gives more details: \u2018Two attacks made by four English divisions\u2019 (almost 50,000 infantry, besides artillery and non-combatant units) \u2018between the Estaires-La Bass\u00e9e road and the La Bass\u00e9e Canal failed, our Westphalian troops and divisions of the Guard completely repulsing the assaults after desperate hand-to-hand fighting. The enemy sustained heavy losses, and left several machine guns and bomb-throwers in our hands.\u2019 There is a manifest intention in the report to magnify the importance of the Festubert affair, yet the fact that several divisions were engaged on each side proves it to have been a battle something like that at Neuve Chapelle, and not merely an incident of trench warfare. The losses will be considerable. The curtain of artillery fire with which the French protect their advanced lines after the capture of a trench has not yet been adapted successfully by the British artillery officers.\u201d [3]<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 War Diary, 14th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, June 17, 1915.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa\u00a0http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089758.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n
[2]\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cBritish Advance North of Ypres:\u00a0 Fail to Hold Gain at Festubert.,\u201d The Globe (1844-1936),<\/em> Toronto, Ontario, Thursday, June 17, 1915, pg. 1, col. 1.<\/pre>\n
[3]\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWar Summary,\u201d The Globe (1844-1936),<\/em> Toronto, Ontario, Thursday, June 17, 1915, pg. 1, col. 6, & pg 2. col. 2.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday, June 17, 1915 Rest Billets,\u00a0Bethune The Battalion War Diarist wrote for day:\u00a0\u201cBattn. standing to.\u201d[1] THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY –\u00a0BRITISH OFFICIAL REPORT: \u00a0\u201cSir John French\u2019s report says: \u2018Last week<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-day-in-rmr-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}