The battle of the Somme

Contents

PAGE

I. Preliminaries 13

II. First Stage 34

CHAPTER I PR^UMINARlES

Jhe Picardy Landscape— The Sanferre— The Somme Front before Midsummer 1916— -The German Situation — Why a Shortening of the Line was Impossible — The German Position on the Somme — The Allied Plan — German Dispositions — The New British Army — Its Quality — Its Munitionment — British Dispositioss — French Dispositions — The Great Bombardment — Trench Raids and Gas Attacks — ^The Morning of the Attack, ist July.

FROM Arras southward the Western battle-front left the coalpits and sour fields of the Artois and entered the pleasant region of Picardy. The great crook of the Upper Somme and the tributary vale of the Ancre intersect a rolling tableland, dotted with little towns and furrowed by a hundred shallow chalk streams. Nowhere does the land rise higher than 500 feet, but a trivial swell — such is the nature of the landscape — may carry the eye for thirty miles. There are few detached farms, for it is a country of peasant cultivators who cluster in villages. Not a hedge breaks the long roll of cornlands, and till the higher ground is reached the lines of tall poplars flanking the great

Roman highroads are the chief landmarks. At the Hft of country between Somme and Ancre copses patch the slopes, and sometimes a church spire is seen above the trees from some woodland hamlet. The Somme winds in a broad valley between chalk bluffs, faithfully dogged by a canal — a curious river which strains, like the Oxus, "through matted rushy isles,'' and is sometimes a lake and sometimes an expanse of swamp. The Ancre is such a stream as may be found in Wiltshire, with good trout in its pools. On a hot midsummer day the slopes are ablaze with yellow mustard, red poppies, and blue cornflowers; and to one coming from the lush flats of Flanders, or the "black country" of the Pas de Calais, or the dreary levels of Champagne, or the strange melancholy Verdun hills, this land wears a habitable and cheerful air, as if remote from the oppression of war.

The district is known as the Santerre. Some derive the name from sana terra — the healthy land; others from sarta terra — the cleared land. Some say it is sancta terra, for Peter the Hermit was a Picard, and the piety of the Crusaders enriched the place with a thousand relics and a hundred noble churches. But there are those — and they have much to say for themselves — ^who read the name sang terre — the bloody land, for the Picard was the Gascon of the north, and the countryside is an old cockpit of war. It was the seat of the government of Clovis and Charlemagne. It was ravaged by the Normans, and time and again by the English. There Louis XI. and Charles the Bold fought their battles; it suffered terribly in the Hundred Years' War; German and Spaniard, the pandours of Eugene and the

SIR DOUGLAS HAIG AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR PERTAB SINGH

INFANTRY GOING INTO ACTION

ROAD MAKING ON THE BATTLEFIELD

Cossacks of Alexander marched across its fields; from the walls of Peronne the last shot was fired in the campaign of 1814. And in the greatest war of all it was destined to be the theatre of a struggle compared with which its ancient conflicts were like the brawls of a village fair.

Till Midsummer in 191 6 the Picardy front had shown little activity. Since that feverish September when de Castelnau had extended on the Allies' left, and Maud'huy beyond de Castelnau, in the great race for the North Sea, there had been no serious action. Just before the Battle of Verdun began the Germans made a feint south of the Somme and gained some ground at Frise and Dompierre. There had been local raids and local bombardments, but the trenches on both sides were good, and a partial advance offered few attractions to either. Amiens was miles behind one front, vital points like St. Quentin and Cambrai and La Fere were far behind the other. In that region only a very great and continuous offensive would offer any strategic results. In July 191 5 the British took over most of the line from Arras to the Somme, and on the whole they had a quiet winter in their new trenches. This long stagnation led to one result: it enabled the industrious Germans to excavate the chalk hills on w^hich they lay into a fortress which they believed to be impregnable. Their position was naturally strong, and they strengthened it by every device which science could provide. Their High Command might look uneasily at the Aubers ridge and Lens and Vimy, but it had no doubts about the Albert heights.

The German plan in the West after the first offensive had been checked at the Marne and Ypres, was to hold their front with abundant guns but the bare minimum of men, and use their surplus forces to win a decision in the East This scheme was foiled by the heroic steadfastness of Russia's retreat, which surrendered territory freely but kept her armies in being. During the winter of 191 5-16 the German High Command were growing anxious. They saw that their march to the Dvina and their adventure in the Balkans had failed to shake the resolution of their opponents. They were aware that the Allies had learned with some exactness the lesson of eighteen months of war, and that even now they were superior in men, and would presently be on an equality in munitions. Moreover, the Allied Command was becoming concentrated and shaking itself free from its old passion for divergent operations. Our generals had learned the wisdom of the order of the King of Syria to his captains: "Fight neither with small nor great but only with the King of Israel''; and the King of Israel did not welcome the prospect.

Now, to quote a famous saying of General Foch, *^A weakening force must always be attacking," and from the beginning of 1916 the Central Powers were forced into a continuous offensive. Their economic strength was draining steadily. Their people had been told that victory was already won, and were asking what had become of the fruits of it. They feared greatly the coming Allied offensive, for they knew that it would be simultaneous on all fronts, and they cast about for a means of frustrating it. That was the main reason of the great Verdun assault. Germany hoped, with the obtuseness that has always marked her estimate of other races, so to weaken the field strength of France that no future blow would be possible, and the French nation, weary and dispirited, would incline to peace. She hoped, in any event, to lure the Allies into a premature counter-attack, so that their great offensive might go off at half-cock and be defeated piecemeal.

None of these things happened. Petain at Verdun handled the defence like a master. With a wise parsimony he refused to use up any unit. When a division had suffered it was taken out of the line and replaced by a fresh one, so that none of the cadres were destroyed. He was willing enough to yield ground, if only the enemy paid his price. His aim was not to hold territory, but to cripple the German field army, and his plan succeeded. The German force was, as the French say, accroche at Verdun, and was compelled to go on long after any hope of true success had vanished. The place became a trap where Germany was bleeding to death. Meanwhile, with the full assent of General Joffre, the Generalissimo in the West, the British armies made no movement. They were biding their time.

Early in June the Austrian attack on the Trentino had been checked by Italy, and suddenly — in the East — Russia swung forward to a surprising victory. Within a month nearly half a million Austrians had been put out of action, and the distressed armies of the Dual Monarchy called on Germany for help. The inevitable von Hindenburg was brought into play, and such divisions as could be spared were dispatched from the West. At this moment, when the grip was tightening in the East, France and Britain made ready for a supreme effort. Germany's situation was intricate and uneasy. She had no large surplus of men immediately available at her interior depots. The wounded who were ready again for the line and the young recruits from the 19 1 7 class were all needed to fill up the normal wastage in her ranks. She might create new divisions, but it would be mainly done by skimming the old. She had no longer any great mass of free strategic reserves. Most had been sucked into the maelstrom of Verdun or dispatched east to von Hindenburg. At the best, she had a certain number of divisions which represented a local and temporary surplus in some particular area. Beyond these she could only get reinforcements by the process known as "milking the line" — taking out a battalion here and a battalion there — an expedient both cumbrous and wasteful, for these battalions were not fresh troops, and their removal was bound to leave many parts of her front perilously thin. Germany in the West was holding a huge salient — from the North Sea to Soissons, and from Soissons to Verdun. If a wedge were driven in on one side the whole apex would be in danger. The Russian field army could retire safely from Warsaw and Vilna, because it was mobile and lightly equipped, but an army which had been stationary for eighteen months and had relied mainly upon its fortifications would be apt to find a Sedan in any rapid and extensive retirement. The very strength of the German front in the West constituted its weakness. A breach in a fluid line may be mended, but a breach in a rigid and most intricate front is difficult to fill unless there are large

TRENCHES WIRE ENTANGLE

MENTS CRATERS

RAILWAYS • ROADS

TRENCH MAP SHOWING THE GERMAN DEFENCES (TRENCHES IN RED)

numbers of men available for the task or unlimited time. We have seen that there were no such large numbers, and it was likely that the Allies would see that there was no superfluity of leisure.

The path of wisdom for Germany in June, it might be argued with some force, was to fall back in good order to a much shortened line, which with her numbers might be strongly held. There is reason to believe that soon after the beginning of the Allied bombardment some such policy was considered. The infantry commanders of the 17th Corps were warned to be prepared for long marches and heavy rearguard fighting, instructions were given for holding bridgeheads well in the rear, and officers were advised that the retreat might be either a retirement at ease or a withdrawal under pressure from the enemy. Had such a course been taken it would have been unfortunate for the Allied plans. But such a course was not easy. The foolish glorification after the naval battle of 31st May forbade it. The German people had been buoyed up under the discomfort of the British blockade by tales of decisive successes in the field. The German Chancellor had appealed to his enemies to look at the map, to consider the extent of German territorial gains, and to admit that they were beaten. He was one of those who did not fulfil Foch's definition of military wisdom. ^'The true soldier is the man who ignores that science of geographical points which is alien to war, which is the negation of war and the sure proof of decadence, the man who knows and follows one vital purpose — to smash the enemy's field force."

Yet, in spite of this weakness in the strategic situation, the German stronghold in the West was still formidable in the extreme. From Arras southward they held in the main the higher ground. The front consisted of a strong first position, with firing, support, and reserve trenches, and a labyrinth of deep dug-outs; a less strong intermediate line covering the field batteries; and a second position some distance behind, which was of much the same strength as the first. Behind lay fortified woods and villages which could be readily linked up with trench lines to form third and fourth positions. The attached trench map will give some idea of the amazing complexity of the German defences. They were well served by the great network of railways which radiate from La Fere and Laon, Cambrai, and St Quentin, and many new light lines had been constructed. They had ample artillery and shells, endless machine guns, and consummate skill in using them. It was a fortress to which no front except the West could show a parallel. In the East the line was patchy and not continuous. The Russian soldiers who in the early summer were brought to France stared with amazement at a ramification of trenches compared with which the lines in Poland and Galicia were like hurried improvisations.

The German purpose in the event of an attack was purely defensive. It was to hold their ground, to maintain the mighty forts on which they had spent so many months of labour, to beat off the assault at whatever cost. In that section of their front, at any rate, they were resolved to be a stone wall and not a spear point.

The aim of the Allied Command must be clearly understood. It was not to recover so many square miles of France; it was not to take Bapaume or Peronne or St. Quentin; it was not even in the strict sense to carry this or that position. All these things were subsidiary and would follow in due course, provided the main purpose succeeded. That purpose was simply to exercise a steady and continued pressure on a certain section of the enemy's front.

For nearly two years the world had been full of theories as to the possibility of breaking the German line. Many months before critics had pointed out the futility of piercing that line on too narrow a front, since all that was produced thereby was an awkward salient. It was clear that any breach must be made on a wide front, which would allow the attacking wedge to manoeuvre in the gap, and prevent reinforcements from coming up quickly enough to reconstitute the line behind. But this view took too little account of the strength of the German fortifications. No doubt a breach could be made; but its making would be desperately costly, for no bombardment could destroy all the defensive lines, and infantry in the attack would be somewhere or other faced with unbroken wire and unshaken parapets. Gradually it had been accepted that an attack should proceed by stages, with, as a prelude to each, a complete artillery preparation, and that, since the struggle must be long drawn out, fresh troops should be used at each stage.

These were the tactics of the Germans at Verdun, and they were obviously right. Why, then, did the attack on Verdun fail? In the first place, because after the first week the assault became spasmodic and the great plan fell to pieces. Infantry were used wastefully in hopeless rushes. The pressure was relaxed for days on end, and the defence was allowed to reorganise itself. The second reason, of which the first was a consequence, was that Germany, after the initial onslaught, had not the necessary superiority either in numbers or moral or guns. At the Somme the Allies did not intend to relax their pressure, and their strength was such that they believed that, save in the event of abnormal weather conditions, they could keep it continuously at a high potential.

A strategical problem is not, as a rule, capable of being presented in a simple metaphor, but Ave may say that, to the view of the Allied strategy, the huge German salient in the West was like an elastic band drawn very tight. Each part of such a band has lost elasticity, and may be severed by friction which would do little harm to the band if less tautly stretched. That represented one element in the situation. Another aspect might be suggested by the metaphor of a sea-dyke of stone in a flat country where all stone must be imported. The waters crumble the wall in one section, and all free reserves of stone are used to strengthen that part. But the crumbling goes on, and to fill the breach stones are brought from other sections of the dyke. Some day there may come an hour when the sea will wash through the old breach, and a great length of the weakened dyke will follow in the cataclysm.

There were two other motives in the Allied purpose which may be regarded as subsidiary. One was to ease the pressure on Verdun, which during June had grown to fever pitch. The second was to prevent the transference of large bodies of enemy troops from the Western to the Eastern front, a transference which might have worked havoc with Brussilov's plans. Sir Douglas Haig would have preferred to postpone the offensive a little longer, for his numbers and munitionment were still growing, and the training of the new levies was not yet complete. But the general situation demanded that the Allies in the West must not delay their stroke much beyond midsummer.

The German front in the Somme area was held by the right wing of the Second Army, formerly von Buelow's, but now under Otto von Below.* This army's area began just south of Monchy, north of which lay the 6th Army under the Bavarian Crown Prince. At the end of June the front between Gommecourt and Frise was held as follows: North of the Ancre lay the 2nd Guard Reserve Divisiont and the 52nd Division. Between the Ancre and the Somme lay two units of the 14th Reserve Corps, J in order, the 26th Reserve Division, the

* His brother, Fritz von Below, was the general commanding the 8th Army on the extreme left of the Eastern front.

t The 2nd Guard Reserve were not true Guardsmen, but only a division used as a reserve for the Guards. The Guards proper were the Guard Corps, comprising the ist and 2nd Guard Divisions ; the Guard Reserve Corps, comprising the 4th Guard Division and the ist Guard Reserve Division; and the 3rd Guard Division (the "Cockchafers"), who were not classified in any Corps.

J The 14th Reserve Corps was a mixed formation, nominally raised in Baden, but containing also Wurtembergers, Prussians, and Alsatians. At the beginning of the campaign it formed part of the 7th Army under von Heeringen which advanced through the northern Vosges. In October

28th Reserve Division, and then the 12th Division of the 6th Reserve Corps. South of the river, guarding the road to Peronne, were the 121st Division, the nth Division, and the 36th Division, belonging to the 17th (Dantzig) Corps.

The British armies had in less than two years grown from the six divisions of the old Expeditionary Force to a total of some seventy divisions in the field, leaving out of account the troops supplied by the Dominions and by India. Behind these divisions were masses of trained men to replace wastage for at least another year. The quality of the result was not less remarkable than the quantity. The efficiency of the supply and transport, the medical services, the aircraft work, was universally admitted. Our staff and intelligence work — most difficult to improvise — was now equal to the best in the field. Our gunnery was praised by the French, a nation of expert gunners. As for the troops themselves we had secured a homogeneous army of VN^hich it was hard to say that one part was better than the other. The original Expeditionary Force — the "Old Contemptibles," who for their numbers were probably the best body of fighting men on earth — had mostly disappeared. Territorial battalions were present at the First Battle of Ypres, and New Service battalions at Hooge and Loos. By June 19 16 the term New Armies was a misnomer. The whole British force 1914 it was transferred to the 2nd Army, and since then it had remained in the same section north of the Somme. It comprised the 26th and 28th Reserve Divisions, and the 52nd Division, which was formed early in 191 5. It was commanded at the time of the Somme battle by General von Stein.

p a

PKELIMINARIES 25

in one sense was new. The famous old regiments of the Hne had been completely renewed since Mons, and their drafts were drawn from the same source as the men of the new battalions. The only difference was that in the historic battalions there was a tradition already existing, whereas in the new battalions that tradition had to be created. And the creation was quick. If the Old Army bore the brunt of the First Battle of Ypres, the Territorials were no less heroic in the Second Battle of Ypres, and the New Army had to its credit the four-mile charge at Loos. It was no patchwork force which in June was drawn up in Picardy, but the flower of the manhood of the British Empire, differing in origin and antecedents, but alike in discipline and courage and resolution.

Munitions had grown with the numbers of men. Any one who was present at Ypres in April and May 191 5 saw the German guns all day pounding our lines with only a feeble and intermittent reply. It was better at Loos in September, when we showed that we could achieve an intense bombardment. But at that date our equipment sufficed only for spasmodic efforts and not for that sustained and continuous fire which was needed to destroy the enemy's defences. Things were very different in June 19 16. Everywhere on the long British front there were British guns — heavy guns of all calibres, field guns innumerable, and in the trenches there were quantities of trench mortars. The great munition dumps, constantly depleted and constantly replenished from distant bases, showed that there was food and to spare for this mass of artillery, and in the factories and depots at home every minute saw the reserves growing. We no longer fought against a far superior machine. We had created our own machine to nullify the enemy's and allow our man-power to come to grips.

The preparations for the attack were slow and elaborate, and conducted during indifferent weather. Sir Douglas Haig has described them. "Many miles of new railways — both standard and narrow gauge — and trench tramways were laid. All available roads were improved, many others were made, and long causeways were built over marshy valleys. Many additional dug-outs had to be provided as shelter for the troops, for use as dressing stations for the wounded, and as magazines for storing ammunition, food, water, and engineering material. Scores of miles of deep communication trenches had to be dug, as well as trenches for telephone wires, assembly and assault trenches, and numerous gun emplacements and observation posts. Important mining operations were undertaken, and charges were laid at various points beneath the enemy's lines. Except in the river valleys, the existing supplies of water were hopelessly insufficient to meet the requirements of the numbers of men and horses to be concentrated in this area as our preparations for the offensive proceeded. To meet this difficulty many wells and borings were sunk, and over one hundred pumping plants were installed. More than one hundred and twenty miles of water mains were laid, and everything was got ready to ensure an adequate water supply as our troops advanced.''

The coming attack was allotted to the Fourth Army, under General Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had begun the campaign in command of the 7th Division, and at Loos had commanded the 4th Corps. His front ran from south of Gommecourt across the Ancre valley to the junction with the French north of Maricourt. In his line he had five corps — from left to right, the 8th, under Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston ; the loth, under Lieutenant- General Sir T. L. N. Morland; the 3rd, under Lieutenant-General Sir W. P. Pulteney; the 15th, under Lieutenant-General Home; and the 13th, under Lieutenant-General Congreve, V.C. Behind in the back areas lay the nucleus of another army, called first the Reserve, and afterwards the Fifth, under General Sir Hubert Gough, which at this time was mainly composed of cavalry divisions. It was a cadre which would receive its complement of infantry when the occasion arose.

The French striking force lay from Maricourt astride the Somme to opposite the village of Fay. It was the Sixth Army, once de Castelnau's, and now under General Fayolle, one of the most distinguished of French artillerymen. It comprised the 20th Corps"*" of Verdun fame, under General Balfourier; the 1st Colonial Corps under General Brandelat; and the 35th Corps under General Allonier. Petain's

* The 20th Corps was composed of the nth, 39th, and 153rd Divisions. It drew its recruits from the best fighting stocks of France, the cockneys of Paris and the countrymen of Lorraine. Each of its divisions claimed to be a ''Division de Fer," but this title was most generally bestowed upon the 39th. Besides Verdun the 20th Corps had been with Maud'huy in his great defence of Arras in October 1914, and in the Artois fighting of the summer of 191 5. It was the 153rd Division that mainly turned the tide at Douaumont on February 26, 1916, and later retook the Avocourt Redoubt.

wise plan of allowing no formation to be used up now received brilliant justification. The divisions allotted to the new offensive were all troops who had seen hard fighting, but the edge of their temper was undulled. To one who visited them in the last days of June it seemed that they awaited the day with a boyish expectancy and glee. South of Fayolle lay the Tenth Army, once d'Urbal's, but now commanded by General Micheler. Its part for the present was to wait ; its turn would come when the time arrived to broaden the front of assault.

About the middle of June on the whole ninetymile front held by the British, and on the French front north and south of the Somme there began an intermittent bombardm.ent of the German lines. There were raids at different places, partly to mislead the enemy as to the real point of assault, and partly to identify the German units opposed to us. Such raids varied widely in method, but they were extraordinarily successful. Sometimes gas was used, but more often after a short bombardment a picked detachment crossed No Man's Land, cut the enemy's wire, and dragged home a score or two of prisoners. One, conducted by a company of the 9th Highland Light Infantry (the Glasgow Highlanders) near the Vermelles-La Bassee Road, deserves special mention. Our guns had damaged the German parapets, so when darkness came a German working-party was put in to mend them. The Scots, while the engineers neatly cut off a section of German trenches, swooped down on the place, investigated the dug-outs, killed two score Germans, brought back fortysix prisoners, and had for total casualties two men slightly wounded."^ During these days, too, there were many fights in the air. It was essential to prevent German airplanes from crossing our front and observing our preparations. Our own machines scouted far into the enemy hinterland, reconnoitring and destroying.

On Saturday, 24th June, the bombardment became intenser. It fell everywhere on the front ; German trenches were obliterated at Ypres j and Arras as well as at Beaumont Hamel ^'

and Fricourt. There is nothing harder to measure than the relative force of such a ^'preparation/' but had a dispassionate observer been seated in the clouds he would have noted that from Gommecourt to a mile or two south of the Somme the Allied fire was especially methodical and persistent. On Wednesday, 2S June, from an artillery j r^ observation post in that region it seemed as if a complete devastation had been achieved. Some things like broken telegraph poles were all that remained of what, a week before, had been leafy copses. Villages had become heaps of rubble. Travelling at night on the roads behind the front — from Bethune to Amiens — the whole eastern sky was lit up with what seemed fitful summer lightning. But there was curiously little noise. In Amiens, a score or so of miles from the firing-line, the guns were rarely heard, whereas fifty miles from Ypres they sounded like a roll of drums and woke a man

* In the week preceding the attack — that is, June 24 to July I — gas was discharged at more than forty places upon a frontage which in total amounted to over fifteen miles. During the same period some seventy raids were undertaken between Gommecourt and our extreme left north of Ypres.

in the night. The configuration of that part of Picardy muffles sound, and the country folk call it the Silent Land.

All the last week of June the weather was grey and cloudy, with a thick brume on the uplands, which made air-work unsatisfactory. There were flying showers of rain and the roads were deep in mire. At the front — through the haze — the guns flashed incessantly, and there was that tense expectancy which precedes a great battle. Troops were everywhere on the move, and the shifting of ammunition dumps nearer to the firing-line foretold what was coming. There was a curious exhilaration everywhere. Men felt that the great offensive had come, that this was no flash in the pan, but a movement conceived on the grand scale as to guns and men which would not cease until a decision was reached. But, as the hours passed in mist and wet, it seemed as if the fates were unpropitious. Then, on the last afternoon of June, there