CHAPTER VII

We return from the 62nd Division in England to the 49th in France, in the same year, 1916. The battles of the Somme were fought mid the pleasant, folded hills of Picardy, where the Sussex Weald almost seems to have crossed the Channel into France, and Spring renews every year the glad tokens of that poets’ May, when the sons of Champagne and Picardy, between the valleys of the Marne and the Somme, made France splendid in history as the mother of fable and romance: classic soil, a French writer tells us, ‘entre Orléans, Rouen, Arras et Troyes, en pleine terre française, champenoise et picarde, dans toutes ces bonnes villes et villages.’[48]

Classic, too, in another aspect, as the scene of repeated assaults, in the Hundred Years’ War, and before and after, by invaders envious of Paris. The last and heaviest of those assaults, since Paris fell in 1871, now occurred in 1916, between February and June, at the eastern gate guarded by Verdun. In 1914 and again in 1918 the invader pushed nearer to Paris; but neither in the first year nor in the last year of the War were his hammer-blows quite so destructive or his heart of hate quite so hot as in the middle year, 1916, when the Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia staked his army and his dynasty on the attempt. We are not directly concerned with all that Verdun means to France. Vaguely we read from the map that it is distant about a hundred and fifty miles from Paris, and dimly we perceive that its fall, like the surrender of Strasbourg and Metz, might well, if swiftly accomplished, have brought disaster on the capital. But what even an Englishman cannot realize, despite theentente cordialeand the fellowship binding theentente, is the intense passion of the cry of General Petain’s troops on the Meuse:Passeront-pas, they shall not pass. The Crown Prince threw his brave soldiery (for their valour is the measure of French endurance), first, against the series of forts of which Verdun was the citadel, next against Verdun itself, which was no longer an objective but a symbol, and lastly, and vainly at the last, against a resolve not to yield the pass, even when the force of the resistance had robbed the passage of all profit.

This, briefly, is the story of Verdun in the early months of 1916. It is French history from start to finish. The wider vision of fuller knowledge is aware that there was unity of purpose even before there was unity of command. Sir Douglas Haig’s great Second Despatch contains several references to this feature: ‘The various possible alternatives on the Western front had been studied and discussed by General Joffre and myself, and we were in complete agreement as tothe front to be attacked.’ ‘It was eventually agreed between General Joffre and myself that the combined French and British offensive should not be postponed beyond the end of June.’ ‘To cope with such a situation unity of command is usually essential, but in this case the cordial good feeling between the Allied Armies, and the earnest desire of each to assist the other, proved equally effective.’ The French time-table at Verdun was partly regulated in conformity with these counsels. Partly, too, the situation at Verdun was affected by movements outside France: by Russia’s successes against Austria, and by the Battle of Jutland on May 31st, from which the Germans brought back so little except damaged ships and a broken moral to support their loud claims to victory. But the German tidal wave at Verdun, whatever considerations intervene, was repelled finally by French bayonets and by the spirit of France behind her steel:

‘They lie like circle-strewn soaked Autumn-leavesWhich stain the forest scarlet, her fair sons!And of their death her life is.’

‘They lie like circle-strewn soaked Autumn-leaves

Which stain the forest scarlet, her fair sons!

And of their death her life is.’

The place and the time, as we see—The Somme valley and the end of June—had been agreed between General Joffre and Sir Douglas Haig; and, in accordance with their decisions, the three-fold object of which was:

‘(i.) To relieve the pressure on Verdun,(ii.) To assist our Allies in the other theatres of war by stopping any further transfer of German troops from the Western front,(iii.) To wear down the strength of the forces opposed to us’[49],

‘(i.) To relieve the pressure on Verdun,

(ii.) To assist our Allies in the other theatres of war by stopping any further transfer of German troops from the Western front,

(iii.) To wear down the strength of the forces opposed to us’[49],

steps were taken betimes to make the necessary, elaborate preparations. It will be appropriate to follow those preparations in connection with one or more units of the 49th (West Riding) Division, which we left, it will be remembered, enjoying a welcome term of rest after their tour of duty on the east bank of the Yser Canal.

Take, for instance, the 7th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. We select it partly for the chance that Lt.-Col. Tetley, D.S.O., then Major, 2nd in Command,[50]kept a separate diary of the Battalion, which we have had the advantage of perusing, partly because, as will appear, the second Victoria Cross in the Division was awarded to a non-commissioned officer of this unit for conspicuous gallantry on the first day of the Somme campaign.

The first fortnight of 1916 was spent by the Brigade[51]at Wormhoudt, where, after Company training every forenoon, ‘the men hadplenty of time to themselves.... The Tykes gave their entertainment every night.’ On January 15th, this easeful life ended, and a march of eight miles to Merckeghem was followed on the 16th by a sixteen-mile march to Zutkerque, which the men ‘stood very well.’ On the 17th, another sixteen miles brought the Brigade as far as Calais, where they went into camp on a ‘sandy common, which was very like Strensall Common’ in Yorkshire: there is a family likeness in gorse-bushes. The New Year Honours of that date brought Major H. D. Bousfield’s D.S.O. and Captain J. D. Redmayne’s Military Cross. From 8-30 p.m. on February 1st till 3 a.m. on the 2nd the Brigade travelled by rail from Calais to Longeau, just east of Amiens, with all transport and baggage on board: the relief of Verdun had begun. About a week was spent near Amiens, where the Yorkshiremen found the landscape a pleasant ‘contrast to that round Poperinghe,’ and ‘not unlike the Yorkshire wolds.’ From February 10th to 12th the march was resumed to Authuille, where the 5th and 7th Battalions were in support and the 6th and 8th in the trenches. The 7th remained in support for eight days. On February 20th they went into the trenches on the north-east edge of Thiepval Wood. On the whole, the trenches were good and dry, but they ran down on the left to a marsh made by the River Ancre, and on the right they had been damaged by trench-mortar fire; still, it was a change for the better from the Yser. Snow was falling heavily at this time, and the trench-tours were kept down to four or five days. After three weeks of this experience, the Battalion was relieved on March 5th by the 9th Inniskilling Fusiliers, of the 36th (Ulster) Division, and went into billets at Harponville. It is observed that ‘during the three weeks the Brigade had been in the trenches, a great deal of work was done by the newly appointed Intelligence Officers, and practically everything possible was known about No Man’s Land.’ The Intelligence Officer in the 7th West Yorkshires was 2/Lieut. Beale, but for old acquaintance’ sake, we select an example of such service, which provided valuable knowledge for future use, from the record of Lieut. E. F. Wilkinson, M.C., of the 8th Battalion of the same Regiment. At mid-day on February 28th he went out to certain cross-roads. Again, on the afternoon of March 2nd, he waded up the stream which flowed under a stone bridge just west of these cross-roads, and found a plank bridge twenty-five yards up-stream, which, judging by the marks on it, was regularly used by the Germans. The information which this officer obtained in his daylight prowlings helped to compose the map of No Man’s Land; and it is worth observing that a German War Diary (2nd Guard Reserve Division), to which we refer later on, acknowledges that British Officers ‘were provided with excellent maps, which showed every German trench systematically named, and gave every detail of our positions.’

We are writing of the preparations for the Somme battles. ‘Thesepreparations’, said Sir Douglas Haig,[52]‘were necessarily very elaborate and took considerable time. Vast stocks of ammunition and stores of all kinds had to be accumulated beforehand within a convenient distance of our front. To deal with these, many miles of new railways, both standard and narrow gauge, and trench tramways were laid.’ In the Harponville period, we now read, all the Companies of the 7th West Yorkshires ‘were employed in working on a new railway, which was in course of construction from Daours to Contay.’ This work, assisted by good weather, ‘nearly every day being warm and sunny,’ was finished on March 26th. On the 30th, there was an inspection by Lord Kitchener, who expressed his approval of the appearance and turn-out of the men. The 5th Battalion of the West Yorkshires, which was billeted in Harponville at the same time, shared in the work and the inspection. Day by day they were called upon for working-parties to construct new roads, new railways, or both; and ‘all this labour,’ Sir Douglas Haig reminds us, writing of the Army as a whole, ‘had to be carried out in addition to fighting, and to the everyday work of maintaining existing defences. It threw a very heavy strain on the troops, which was borne by them with a cheerfulness beyond all praise[53].’ Certainly no sign of lack of cheerfulness is revealed in the diary of any unit. ‘The men liked the change of work,’ we are told.

Throughout April and May Battalions were busily engaged in various forms of training and fatigues. On May 29th, while in the billets at Vignacourt, orders were received by the 7th West Yorkshires to march to Aveluy Wood, just east of Martincourt, in order to provide working-parties to dig a buried-cable trench for the 36th (Ulster) Division. The move was accomplished in two days’ marches, and the 8th Battalion of the same Regiment joined them in Aveluy Wood on June 1st. The weather here was bad, the accommodation poor, and German shells were rained on the camp from an early hour in the morning on June 2nd. But the work of preparation went on apace, and the Battalion remained in Aveluy Wood till June 19th. Meanwhile, the King’s Birthday on June 3rd had brought further honours to the 49th Division. The Distinguished Conduct Medal awarded to a Company Sgt.-Major ‘for general good work and devotion to duty since the Battalion came to France in April, 1915,’ and the Military Medals awarded to a Sergeant, a Lance-Corporal and a Rifleman for devotion to duty on December 8th, 1915, when their Battalion, in front-line trenches on the Yser, was exposed to heavy shell fire, are typical of the record of the whole Division.

The time of preparation was nearly over. The appointed hour of action was close at hand. ‘It was agreed’, we remember, between General Joffre and Sir Douglas Haig, ‘that the combined French andBritish offensive should not be postponed beyond the end of June.’ Before the curtain rises on that drama, opened punctually on July 1st, and on the part taken at the opening by the gallant Battalion which we have accompanied from Wormhoudt, we may glance more rapidly at the experience of other units in the Division which Major-General Perceval led to the Somme.

Take the 5th Battalion, York and Lancasters. On February 3rd, they entrained for Longeau, marched four hours to Ailly, and reached Oissy by motor-’bus on the 4th. ‘Hilly country,’ they note again with satisfaction. Their machine-gunners were struck off strength to form a Machine-Gun Company under Captain Rideal. March was spent in railway work and training: ‘Regular hours and a fortnight’s rest have worked wonders with the Battalion,’ we read after a month’s manual labour. ‘The slackness due to nearly a year’s trench-life is no longer apparent, and an entirely new stock of N.C.O.’s are beginning to give promise for the future.’ And the future began to show more clearly. A whole week’s work at the end of April was ‘devoted to training,’ especially to an ‘attack on trenches south of Naours, which undoubtedly represent the German lines opposite the Authuille Section. The 49th Division in reserve attacks the German 3rd Line, the 1st and 2nd Lines already having been taken by other Divisions, probably of the Corps’ (we are quoting from an account of training-practice); and the Officer Commanding the Battalion, Lt.-Col. Shuttleworth Rendall, D.S.O., added with keen anticipation: ‘All training and the similarity of the ground seem to point to the fact that, at a date not far distant, the 49th Division will attack the actual 3rd Line of the German trenches in front of Authuille.’ It happened very much as Colonel Rendall foresaw; and, when we come presently to the actual fighting, we shall see that this gallant Officer was, unfortunately, severely wounded shortly after the ‘date not far distant’ from the rehearsal which he here reports. Meanwhile, on June 26th, Brigade Operation Orders were received at Battalion Headquarters: ‘the utmost secrecy still preserved. Day of attack, alluded to as Z day, not yet notified. On Z day at Zero hour, artillery bombardment will lift from German front line and attack will commence.’

There were four X and Y days still to run. Bad weather accounted for a postponement from the 28th to the 30th June; and, while awaiting the summons to the Assembly-trenches in Aveluy Wood, we may follow the story of preparation in the log-book of yet another unit, the 4th West Riding (Duke of Wellington’s) Regiment, with which we first made acquaintance in Chapter II.

On January 15th they marched from Houtkerke, where they had lived for a fortnight in farm-billets, to similar accommodation at Wormhoudt. The Battalion remained in rest: ‘Company-drill, bayonet-fighting, route-marching, bomb-throwing, etc., have been carried out, and the men appear to have greatly benefited by the change’.On February 2nd came the move to Longeau, and the march through Amiens to Ailly, which preceded, as with other units of the Division, the tours in the trenches north of Authuille and the working-parties of March to May. Lt.-Col. (later, Brig.-General) E. G. St. Aubyn, D.S.O., at that time in Command of the Battalion, was allotted special duties at Corps Headquarters at the end of June, when Major J. Walker took Command. (Major E. P. Chambers had been attached since early in April as Claims Officer to the Division). The Birthday Honours included a D.S.O. for Major R. E. Sugden, two Distinguished Conduct Medals and a Military Medal. At 2 p.m. on the last day of June, the Battalion moved to Senlis, ‘to take part in operations.’

Every unit repeated the same experience: rest and recuperation in January from the severe strain of the trenches on the Yser; a move south-south-west early in February to the hilly country about Amiens; trench-work and trench-warfare in the valleys of the Somme and the Ancre; intensive training in offensive; elaborate, tireless fatigue-duty in all kinds of labour behind the line: railways, tramways, causeways, dressing stations, magazines, water-mains, communication-, assembly- and assault-trenches, mining operations, and so forth; often under enemy fire, with the weather ‘bad, on the whole,’ and ‘the local accommodation totally insufficient,[54]’ and, at last, at the end of June, on the agreed date, ‘to relieve the pressure on Verdun.’

We are to remember in the first instance that the French and British objective was limited. In order to relieve the German pressure on Verdun, it was not necessary, however desirable it might be, to drive the enemy out of France and Belgium. Strictly speaking, he was never driven out; he begged an armistice for retirement; and, though his retreat became a rout, it falls into its place in the war-history, as Sir Douglas Haig indicated in his last Despatch, as the final stage of a gradual process, in which, compared with older battles, months and miles were consumed like hours and yards. A fairly clear perception of what was happening, albeit two years before the end, was present to the mind of the British Commander when he wrote his Second Despatch in December, 1916. There he represented the Battles of the Somme as a phase, or stage, in a longer battle, and the objects of the fighting on the Somme as subsidiary to the objects of the war. Accordingly, we are not to expect, as at home, and racked with acute anxiety, we were eager to expect at the time, that the German defeat on the Somme would be equivalent to an Allied victory in the war. Still less are we to repeat the practice, too common in 1916, of dividing the yards of Allied gains into the miles of territory in German occupation, in order to calculate a time-ratio from the quotient. Spaceand time were never measurable by one calculus. Even a surrender of space, as General Petain proved on the Meuse, and as Marshal Foch was to prove in 1918, might diminish instead of increasing the force of the enemy’s offensive. Always the war was greater than its battles, and always a chief object at every stage was to wear down the enemy’s resistance. Sir Douglas Haig, as we saw in the last chapter, was well aware that the Battles of the Somme had not broken the enemy’s strength, ‘nor is it yet possible to form an estimate of the time the war may last before the objects for which the Allies are fighting have been attained. But the Somme battle,’ he declared with conviction, ‘has placed beyond doubt the ability of the Allies to gain those objects.’ This, after all, was all that mattered, and we do well to see the view from Olympus before descending into the valley of the Somme.

It is the evening of June 30th, 1916. The diaries of units agree in their accounts of these crowded, fateful hours. The 1/7th West Yorkshires’ record says:

‘June 30th. Battalion marched to Aveluy Wood,viaHedauville, Englebelmer and Martinsart, after dark. All transport moved to position south-east of Hedauville, between that village and Bouzincourt.‘Not more than 25 Officers per Battalion were allowed to go into action; the remainder, with a certain number of Signallers, Lewis Gunners and Bombers went to Bouzincourt, ready to be called upon when wanted.‘July 1st. Battalion received orders about 8 a.m. to move to assembly-trenches in Thiepval Wood, and all had arrived there by noon. There was a good deal of shelling of the assembly-trenches while we were getting into them, and a good many casualties were caused, especially among the Lewis gun teams.’

‘June 30th. Battalion marched to Aveluy Wood,viaHedauville, Englebelmer and Martinsart, after dark. All transport moved to position south-east of Hedauville, between that village and Bouzincourt.

‘Not more than 25 Officers per Battalion were allowed to go into action; the remainder, with a certain number of Signallers, Lewis Gunners and Bombers went to Bouzincourt, ready to be called upon when wanted.

‘July 1st. Battalion received orders about 8 a.m. to move to assembly-trenches in Thiepval Wood, and all had arrived there by noon. There was a good deal of shelling of the assembly-trenches while we were getting into them, and a good many casualties were caused, especially among the Lewis gun teams.’

The 1/5th York and Lancasters state:

‘June 30th. 11 p.m. Battalion clear of Warloy on road to assembly-trenches.‘July 1st. 3-45 a.m. Whole Battalion in assembly-trenches, Aveluy Wood.—— 6-20 a.m. Intense bombardment commenced, and lasted for one hour.’

‘June 30th. 11 p.m. Battalion clear of Warloy on road to assembly-trenches.

‘July 1st. 3-45 a.m. Whole Battalion in assembly-trenches, Aveluy Wood.

—— 6-20 a.m. Intense bombardment commenced, and lasted for one hour.’

The 1/6th West Yorkshires write:

‘June 30th. Battalion marched to assembly-trenches in Aveluy Wood.‘July 1st. 6-30 a.m. Heavy bombardment by our artillery of enemy trenches. Battalion moved across the River Ancre and took up a position in Thiepval Wood.’

‘June 30th. Battalion marched to assembly-trenches in Aveluy Wood.

‘July 1st. 6-30 a.m. Heavy bombardment by our artillery of enemy trenches. Battalion moved across the River Ancre and took up a position in Thiepval Wood.’

The 1/4th West Ridings’ record runs:

‘Battalion moved from Senlis at 11-7 p.m. (30-6-16), marching to assembly-trenches in Aveluy Wood, arriving about 2 a.m. (1-7-16) under heavy shell-fire.’

We need not multiply this evidence. We should already be able to imagine the quick, dark scheme of concentration, so far as the 49th Division was concerned, in the first stage of the Allied programme for the relief of the pressure on Verdun.

At this point we may look at the map (page 92).

We spoke on a previous page[55]of the line drawn from Douai to Lens, working from east to west, on which a break-through by the French would have shaken the defences of Lille at the apex of a triangle formed with Lens and Douai at its bases. We are now to strike south of this line, and taking Douai as our apex to draw a second triangle with Arras and Bapaume at the lower angles (the further extension of this sketch is explained atpage 124below):

For the great battle for Paris or the coast, the great German invasion of France, which was also an attack on British sea-power, has shifted its centre from Ypres; and, while the Crown Prince of Prussia is hammering at Verdun, as the eastern gate to Paris, the French and British Army Commanders in the north-west of France have resolved to try to advance (to push the Germans further back, that is to say), on, roughly, a north-easterly front, looking from Amiens through Albert to Bapaume. This, broadly, is the key to a situation,which we have been following in diminishing degrees from the big, strategic plans in high places to the disposition of units and individuals. We have watched the preparations for that advance: the movements of troops by rail and road; the eyes of the army in the air; the ears of the army underground; the elaborate collection of war-material; the construction of permanent ways, and so forth. We see now the relation in space of the campaign of 1916 to the campaign of 1915. The tidal wave has ebbed away from Ypres, and has surged more furiously against Verdun; we are to change our focus, accordingly, from the Yser Canal to the River Somme, and from the Channel ports to Paris; and in this sector, narrowing our survey, as the vast movement unfolds into details, we are most particularly concerned with the straight line, laid on a Roman road, which runs south-west from Bapaume to Albert. It is rather more westerly in direction, and about half the length of the road down to Bapaume from Douai. Travelling along its well-laid surface from north-east to south-west, we pass through Le Sars, Pozières and La Boisselle, the last a little to the left of the line. The nodal point, or meeting-place, or starting-place, is the town of Albert on the Ancre, ‘a small, straggling town built of red brick along a knot of cross-roads at a point where the swift chalk-river Ancre, hardly more than a brook, is bridged and so channelled that it can be used for power.’[56]Westward from Albert is Amiens; eastward we saw, Bapaume. Next, follow the chalk-stream of the Ancre, northward under Albert’s bridges, through its native banks and braes. For our range of vision is being contracted, and we are coming through Army Commanders’ plans to the men appointed to carry them out in their destined stations along the line. About two miles north of Albert on the west bank of the Ancre are the first trees of Aveluy Wood, where our assembly-trenches lay. Martinsart lies behind this Wood, Mesnil and Hamel are beyond it, Bouzincourt just below it to the rear. Opposite, on the east bank of the Ancre, about three miles to the north of Albert, lies the village of Authuille, north of which again is Thiepval Wood, looking backwards at Hamel and Mesnil on the safe, west side of the little river, and facing ‘the German line opposite the Authuille section,’ just as Colonel Rendall (and, doubtless, many others) had imagined the situation in that dress-rehearsal by Naours which we attended at the end of April. Thiepval village is on the German side of our front line.

THE SOMME FRONT. BRITISH.

So we reach by gradual delimitation, by adiminuendoprocess, as it were, the task allotted to Major-General Perceval, Commanding the 49th Division, on July 1st, 1916.[57]‘Z’ day has arrived at last. The vast plans for the relief of Verdun are now about to be set in motion. Home Governments have expressed their approval, and have sent themunitions and the men. Due weight has been given to outside considerations in this war on many fronts: to the needs of Italy and Russia, the disappointment of Germany at sea, the inclination of the United States of America. From the dunes of Calais to the Picardy hills, north-west France has become an armed camp, with the ceaseless movement of the immense accumulation of animate and inanimate material which nearly two years’ experience has proved to be essential for modern warfare. All the while, as Sir Douglas Haig reminds us in his great Second Despatch, ‘the rôle of the other armies holding our defensive line ... was neither light nor unimportant. While required to give precedence in all respects to the Somme battle, they were responsible for the security of the line held by them and for keeping the enemy on their front constantly on the alert.’ Verily, a huge organization to be stated in terms of unit action and of the prowess of individual men. It was a long way from Sir Douglas Haig to Aveluy Wood: the 49th was only one of five Divisions (the 12th, 25th, 32nd, 36th and 49th), which composed the Xth Corps of the Fifth Army.

Our business lies between Authuille and Thiepval. We have fined down the vaster issues to the operations east of Authuille, where the British line bulged towards the Ancre in an ugly angle known as the Leipsic Salient. The fighting to which we now come is all round and about that Salient, between the point where the British front line crossed the River Ancre at Hamel to the point where it met the Albert-Bapaume road. If we realize that the object of this fighting was to straighten and push back that bulge, and so to contribute to the advance of the long Allied line on the Somme battlefield, we may return to the men who fought there in the early days of July, 1916. It is one thing to show on a map, on however large a scale, the increasing depth of the British front line at various dates after July 1st; it is another thing to visualize that line in the actual mud, trees, slopes, which composed it, and to recount the conditions day by day, under which it swayed forward and back, in front and beyond and across the magnificently fortified German trenches.

Take the 7th West Yorkshires, for example.

We left them at noon on July 1st in their assembly-trenches in Thiepval Wood. While the sun was still high in the heaven, about half-past five in the afternoon, Brigade orders (146th Infantry) arrived for the attack. The 5th and 6th Battalions of the Regiment were to go over the top in an attempt to capture Thiepval village, the 8th was detailed for support, and the 7th for reserve. Some hot hours of confused fighting ensued. The 7th Battalion was told off to man the original British front line trench, from the point where it touched the east bank of the Ancre to a point known as Hammerhead Gap, at the top of Thiepval Wood. This move was being completed with great difficulty, owing, mainly, to the congestion of the trenches by thewounded and stragglers of the 36th (Ulster) Division, when an Officer of that Division, Commanding the 9th Royal Irish Rifles, made an earnest request for help to reinforce his men in the German lines. Two Companies (C and D) of the 7th West Yorkshires made their way to these captured trenches, leaving A and B Companies to hold the British front and support lines. The fall of night brought no rest to this unit. The 36th Division became able to hold its own, and the half-Battalion from the 49th was ordered to withdraw. This order was not easy to carry out in the darkness, weariness and generalmêlée, and about forty men of C Company found themselves stranded for the night (July 1st-2nd) in the disagreeable hospitality of the German line. They were well led by a non-commissioned Officer, Corporal (later, Sergeant) George Sanders, who was recommended for his valuable work and great personal bravery by the Officers of the Royal Irish Rifles. Later, Sanders received the supreme decoration of the Victoria Cross[58]for his gallant conduct in this action, and six of the brave men with him were awarded Military Medals. The whole Battalion was withdrawn to Aveluy Wood, and reached the assembly-trenches about 11 o’clock on the night of July 2nd; thirty-six hours, or a little less, after they had assembled on the 1st. They had lost 16 killed, 144 wounded and about 20 missing; they had gained a Victoria Cross, some experience, and—four days’ rest.

Take another unit of the 49th Division: the 5th Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment, in the 148th Infantry Brigade. We left them proceeding to Aveluy Wood just before midnight on June 30th. The first instalment of their story in the present action is to last almost exactly a week: from 1-30 p.m. on July 1st, when the Battalion moved out of the assembly-trenches, till 8-30 p.m. on July 8th, when they were relieved by the 7th West Ridings, and went into huts in Martinsart Wood. The story makes sad but gallant reading. They sustained in those seven days and nights a total of 307 casualties. Their Commanding Officer was wounded and missing, their Officer 2nd in Command was killed, another Officer had died of wounds, thirteen more were wounded or missing. In other Ranks, 56 were killed and three had died of wounds; 204 were wounded and 44 missing: a heavy toll to be extracted from one Battalion towards the relief of the pressure on Verdun.

The price was paid without reckoning the cost, and we shall not follow in detail the experiences of this unit during that week. They moved first to where the British front line touched the left bank of the Ancre. Major Shaw took A and B Companies to the north side of that line; Lt.-Col. Rendall, with C and D Companies was posted on the south side. Captain G. A. G. Hewitt at this juncture retired to hospital suffering from shock. The fighting went on from hour to hour with very varying fortune: at one time, there seemed a possibility of a successful assault on St. Pierre Divion, the next village north of the line; at other times, the utmost efforts were required to extricate the wounded. On July 5th, Aveluy Wood was shelled practically for the first time. High explosive, shrapnel and lachrymatory shells were employed, and found all the assembly-trenches; captured maps and prisoners’ information were no doubt responsible for this disaster. Early in the morning of the 6th, seven officers and eighty other ranks went out in two bombing parties to capture a front-line trench; no Officer and twenty-two other Ranks returned. It was in this action that Lt.-Col. Rendall, D.S.O., Commanding the Battalion, had to be left wounded in a German dug-out, and that Major Shaw, 2nd in Command, was killed. The failure was due to the good German sniping, too heavy bombs for effective throwing, and a communication-trench not deep enough to pass them through. It was stubborn fighting, we see, and very difficult progress was made. But one Division in one Corps of one Army was not the whole fighting force which the Allies brought to the Somme, and some relief may be found by looking through German eyes at the results on July 1st in another sector. We have already referred to the War Diary for this period of the 55th Reserve Infantry Regiment (the 2nd Guard Reserve Division), which was holding the German line in front of Gommecourt six or seven miles north of Hamel. Their experience is no doubt typical of the enemy’s sufferings all along the line. Thus we read of an intense bombardment, ‘overwhelming all the trenches, and sweeping away the wire’; of the ‘thick charging waves of English infantry’; of every round from the English guns pitching into the trench, ‘thus rendering its occupation even by detached posts impossible’; of telephonic communication destroyed by the bombardment, so that ‘Regimental Headquarters were without news of the progress of events’; of the English ‘excellent maps,’ and the ‘most disturbing effect’ of English aeroplanes: and, so reading, we begin to perceive another side to the picture. Such records of failure and disappointment, of forlorn hopes and forfeited successes, as occur in the journals of our own units are seen in a truer perspective when the long line of battle is displayed. Even the rain in which some wet Yorkshiremen spent a miserable night (July 7th) by the roadside fell impartially on the other side of the road, and was duly chronicled by dripping Germans; and, when we are told that C and D Companies of the 6th Battalion of the WestYorkshires, who ‘went over the parapet to the attack’ at 4 p.m. on July 1st, had to retire to their own trenches with their Signalling Officer (Lieut. Dodd) killed, their Commanding Officer (Lt.-Col. Wade) and two other Officers wounded, we take consolation from the entry which follows next in the same journal: ‘Enemy reported to be massing opposite our front for a counter-attack, which, however, did not develop.’ ‘Enemy’ did not have it his own way all the time.

Let us follow this unit a little further. During the first fortnight of July, step by step, and with many a step backward before two steps forward could be taken, German trenches in the Leipsic Salient had been occupied, and improved footholds had been won. Every effort was being made to consolidate and extend the new positions, and it happened on July 14th, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, that this Battalion (the 6th West Yorkshires) took over that portion from the 7th. The 7th had had a rough experience. In the early morning of July 13th they had been attacked by German bombers, who, according to Colonel Tetley’s testimony, evinced ‘great bravery and disregard of danger.’ At one time they rushed a British trench, ‘but were bombed out by 2/Lieut. F. J. Baldwin and men of A Company.... Practically all our bombers were casualties.’ The Battalion lost 15 killed and 92 wounded in this exploit, but Major-General Perceval assured them that their ‘stubborn fighting had materially assisted in the success of the larger operation on the British front,’ and Lieut. Baldwin was awarded the Military Cross and two N.C.O.’s the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

The night of the 14th-15th was fairly quiet. Both sides were attending to their wounded. But early in the morning of July 15th, when the 6th Battalion had relieved the 7th, the Germans returned to the attack, and this attempt, very pluckily repulsed, is memorable for the use of a weapon, new in the experience of the defenders, and hardly less horrible in its first effect than the surprise of poison-gas at Ypres. We have the advantage of a graphic description of the three hours’ fighting on that morning from the pen of Lieut. Meekosha, V.C., who took part in it as a non-commissioned Officer.[59]He writes:

‘About 3-30 a.m. the Germans launched their dastardly attack with liquid fire, the only warning we received being the terrifying shrieks of those unfortunate sentries who came into contact with the flame. Then came a hail of hand grenades, a few of the Boches coming as far as our own parapet, hoping to find our men demoralized. For their pains they were each presented with at least one well-aimed bullet. Our men then lined the parapet with as much speed and ammunition as possible, and let the Hun have it for all they were worth. Another party of Boches, well stacked with bombs, had already stormed one of our saps, which had been blocked about half way. Our Battalion bomberswere at once called out to deal with this party, and, fighting their way foot by foot, cleared every living Boche from the sap, a fact which reflected no little credit on our men, being, as they were, at a disadvantage from the very beginning. Our Stokes Mortar Battery was then set to work on the German front line, and to see old Fritz jump on to his own parapet, run a few yards as hard as he could go, and then into his own trench again (provided that he did not get a bullet in the attempt, our machine-guns and rifles being on the look out for opportunities) was the best amusement I had had for weeks. This went on for about three hours, during which time the work of our Officers and N.C.O.’s was cut out in stopping our men from rushing headlong into the Hun trenches in their eagerness to kill as many Boches as possible in as little time as possible. Unfortunately, a few of the good men lost their lives during this fighting, but we had the satisfaction of knowing that, for every one lost, the Hun lost at least four.‘Thus ended our first experience under liquid fire.‘After this, our boys set to and cooked for themselves the breakfast they so richly deserved.’

‘Thus ended our first experience under liquid fire.

‘After this, our boys set to and cooked for themselves the breakfast they so richly deserved.’

It was after this fashion that the pressure on Verdun was relieved. Sir Douglas Haig is quite clear on this point. He admitted that, ‘north of the valley of the Ancre, on the left flank of our attack, our initial successes were not sustained’; that ‘the enemy’s continued resistance at Thiepval and Beaumont Hamel (29th Division) made it impossible to forward reinforcements and ammunition, and, in spite of their gallant efforts, our troops were forced to withdraw’; and that ‘the subsidiary attack at Gommecourt also forced its way into the enemy’s positions; but there met with such vigorous opposition that ... our troops were withdrawn’[60]. These were the first day’s experiences. The succeeding days, as we have seen, brought certain adjustments for the better, even in the difficult region where General Perceval’s gallant troops had to fight their troublesome way up slopes of mud from the valley of the Ancre to the deeply fortified positions which the Germans held with machine-guns, rifles and liquid flame. But they did not bring conspicuous success. They were not expected to bring it, as a fact. As we have looked at the fighting at close quarters, so we are to look at the results through Command spectacles. The Battle of the Somme was not won, nor was it intended to be won, between Thiepval village and Authuille, where the Leipsic Salient bulged inwards. ‘The British main front of attack,’ we are told in the same Despatch, ‘extended from Maricourt on our right, round the Salient at Fricourt, to the Ancre in front of St. Pierre Divion’; that is, from the bank ofthe River Somme to the Albert-Bapaume road and north of it. But ‘to assist this main attack by holding the enemy’s reserves and occupying his Artillery’ (not, note, by capturing his defences), ‘the enemy’s trenches north of the Ancre, as far as Serre inclusive, were to be assaulted simultaneously’; and, further north, ‘a subsidiary attack’ was to be made at Gommecourt. So clear did this distinction become in the early stages of the battle, and so plain was the dividing line between the holding and the pushing forces, that Sir Douglas Haig decided to separate the Commands: ‘In order that General Sir Henry Rawlinson might be left free to concentrate his attention on the portion of the front where the attack was to be pushed home, I also decided to place the operations against the front, La Boisselle to Serre, under the command of General Sir Hubert de la P. Gough.... My instructions to Sir Hubert Gough were that his Army was to maintain a steady pressure on the front from La Boisselle to the Serre Road, and to act as a pivot, on which our line could swing as our attacks on his right made progress towards the north.’ Moreover, ‘our attacks on his right’ (Sir Henry Rawlinson’s on Sir Hubert Gough’s) must be associated, in a larger survey, with the simultaneous French attacks under their own Command. Accordingly, it is wholly just to say that the containing action of the 49th Division, when the first impetus of the units had been checked, developed exactly according to plan, in a military phrase rendered famous by another Army. Up to July 7th, the enemy’s forces north of La Boisselle ‘were kept constantly engaged, and our holding in the Leipsic Salient was gradually increased’; and, after July 7th, as the Commander-in-Chief wrote, ‘the enemy in and about Ovillers had been pressed relentlessly, and gradually driven back by incessant bombing attacks and local assaults,[61]’ among which, one among many, may be mentioned a very gallant night attack by the 8th West Yorks. Thus, Sir Douglas Haig’s view from Olympus informs the Battalion records, and we shall see in the further course of the Somme battle how fully his instructions were observed till the time came to swing round on Sir Hubert Gough’s pivot.

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