"The Greatest Act of the War"—The Canadian Attack at Kitcheners' Wood

Canadians in a Desperate Struggle at Second Battle of Ypres

From The History of the Canadian Highlanders (10th Battalion CEF)

Later in the evening [of 22 April 1915], the commander of the Canadian 1st Division's 3rd Brigade by now fully realized the delicate situation his left flank was in and requested reinforcement from the 2nd Brigade and from the division. The 10th Battalion, reserve unit for the 2nd Brigade, and the 16th Battalion, in reserve for the 3rd Brigade, were tasked for an immediate counterattack on Kitcheners' Wood. 

The name of this oak plantation derived from the French name, Bois-de-Cuisineres, a reference to the fact that French soldiers housed their field kitchens there. [Thus, it was named after the "kitcheners" who served there, not Field Marshal Kitchener.] 

Paths of the Initial Attack and Subsequent Withdrawal

The 10th Battalion was assembled and ready to go at 11:00 p.m. The 16th Battalion arrived as they were forming, tasked to support the advance. Both battalions had over 800 men at the start line and formed up in waves of two companies each. Neither unit had spent a single minute on training in night fighting, no reconnaissance had been conducted on the ground, no intelligence was available on where exactly the enemy was located or in what strength, and there was no coordination between the two units as to what each would do once they had reached the woods. The order was simply given to advance at quarter to midnight.

The leading waves of the 10th covered half the distance from the start line to the wood, running into a strong hedge interlaced with wire. No reconnaissance had been done prior and the battalion was forced to break through the obstacle with rifle butts, bringing down fire from alerted German machine gunners about 200 yards distant. Both battalions charged the last 200 yards to the wood, but the commanding officer of the 10th, Lieutenant Colonel Boyle, was mortally wounded in the opening moments of the firefight, being hit five times in the groin by a German machine gun.

As the battalions crashed into the wood, having lost many senior officers in the charge, soldiers of both battalions thoroughly intermingled and fell on the Germans with rifles, bayonets, and even rifle butts and bare hands. Algerian troops accompanying the Canadians led the attack toward the right, toward their former positions. The Germans began to surrender, but many were still shooting and there were relatively few attackers, and as a consequence, according to the battalion's second in command, "very few prisoners were taken and many lives were lost by the enemy forces." The Canadians had hit the boundary of two regiments, the 2nd Prussian Guards and the 234th Bavarian Infantry, and taken one of the German colonels prisoner.

By midnight it was over, 15 minutes after it had begun. A German prisoner paid the 10th the ultimate compliment, acknowledging to his guard, "You fellows fight like hell," as he was marched to the rear. Inside the wood, the 4.7-inch guns of the 2nd London Heavy Battery were found—with the bodies of some of their crew lying intermingled with German bodies—lying abandoned after a ferocious fight.

The battalions reorganized, but the fighting was only beginning. A German redoubt in the southwest corner of the wood was still holding out. Further attacks on the German holdouts were brushed off by machine gun and small-arms fire. By 2:30 a.m., Lieutenant Colonel Leckie of the 16th Battalion realized that there were too few men on the ground to hold the wood and he ordered a withdrawal to a trench on the south edge. During a roll call in the morning, of the 816 that had set out the previous night, only 193 were left on their feet. The 16th Battalion was down to 268 all ranks.

After the war, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Allied supreme commander, remarked that the "greatest act of the war" had been the assault on Kitcheners' Wood by the 10th and 16th Battalions.

Site of Former Kitcheners' Wood Near St. Julien Where Canadian Forces Plugged the Gap the Night of 22–23 April

The fighting in the wood continued on for several more days, as German attacks continued to mount along the salient, even though no clear advantage could be gained. The 1st Division as a whole suffered some 60 percent casualties before being relieved, and the 10th and 16th Battalions were reduced to less than 20 percent of their pre-battle strength. The commanding officer of the 10th, Lieutenant Colonel Russ Boyle, had been gravely wounded by machine gun fire in the opening attack on the wood. He succumbed to his wounds days later. Both battalions needed considerable time and effort to rebuild.