by Peter Hart
General Joseph Joffre, General Headquarters, French Army
This would entail in total a combined Franco-British attack on a front stretching some 60 miles. It was a hugely ambitious plan. In fact Joffre was being slightly tendentious. His real reason for proposing a joint offensive carried out side by side was to ensure that the French could keep a tight hold of the military agenda and prevent ‘postponements’ and other backsliding from the British. His stated reasons are almost nonsensical: true, the Somme had been a quiet sector but the German had spent their time wisely in constructing a series of defensive fortifications almost without parallel in warfare up to that time. However, Joffre did not particularly care where the attack was made as long as the British pulled their full weight. He aimed to grind down the German reserves and thereby bring nearer the possibility of a decisive breakthrough offensive to end the war once and for all. The newly promoted Haig had little choice but to fall in with the requirements of the French. Success on the Somme would offer the British no immediate tangible strategic rewards and Haig personally favoured an offensive in Flanders where he could attain the strategic objective of clearing the Belgian coast. Yet in the end he was willing to fall in line with Joffre’s plan for the sake of the alliance. Only unity of purpose amongst the Allies could ever defeat the Germans.
There was actually far more debate as to the nature of preliminary operations to be carried out before the main event, with Joffre trenchantly insisting on at least two preparatory spring offensives from the British to wear down the Germans before the main thrust. Haig was only willing to launch one such offensive and the negotiations were at times a little fraught, for he was not willing to accept tactical as opposed to strategical direction from Joffre. The debate, however, would soon be rendered irrelevant as events overtook them.
It is often forgotten that there were two sides striving to win the war on the Western Front—that the Germans, too, were more than capable of making and carrying out their own plans. General Erich von Falkenhayn was the Chief of General Staff (and therefore effective commander) of the Imperial German Army. Falkenhayn had a somewhat pessimistic view of the overall German strategic position and he developed a plan for a new offensive against the French which was designed to capitalise on the 1.43 million casualties already inflicted on the French nation and attempt to finally knock her out of the war. The Germans had around 117 divisions on the Western Front, of which twenty-five could be risked in an offensive.
Falkenhayn selected his battleground with considerable care before launching a stunning assault on the fortress of Verdun on 21 February 1916. Here a potent combination of national pride and military necessity made it almost impossible for the French to do anything but fight to the death. The original German concept for Verdun was to suck in the flower of French manhood and bleed them dry in the mincing machine established by the massed power of the German artillery. Unfortunately for Falkenhayn, in the heat of battle the local German commander, Crown Prince Wilhelm, got carried away in a desperate effort to actually capture Verdun and in doing so rashly exposed his men to losses that matched, or at times exceeded, those suffered by the French. Contrary to all Joffre’s best intentions it would after all be the French and not the British who would bear the brunt of exhausting the German reserves before the offensive on the Somme.
The Battle of Verdun was an extreme trial for the French Army, forcing them to commit most of their available reserves to the battle. It became apparent that it would be grossly unrealistic for the French to play their originally intended lead role in the joint offensive on the Somme. Indeed the strain was such that Joffre came to see the Somme offensive less as a part of the main Allied assault on Germany and more as a way of relieving the pressure piling up at Verdun. The French would still make a contribution to the offensive but it was inevitably scaled down to leave the British Army bearing the brunt of the battle.
It still had to be decided exactly when the attack should be launched. Haig was rather cautious. In his opinion his men were by no means adequately trained for the shock of battle. As he bluntly put it: ‘I have not got an army in France really, but a collection of divisions untrained for the field. The actual fighting army will be evolved from them.’14 Unfortunately, they were not to be given any chance to hone their battle skills. As the German attacks rained down on the defenders of Verdun the French reached a state of sheer desperation. At a meeting called on 26 May at Montreuil to finalise the date of the Somme attack, Joffre put a forceful case for urgent British action. This was not the sort of request that could be ignored if the military alliance was to endure in good health. Haig was backed into a corner from which there was no escape.
General Joffre explained the general situation. The French had supported for three months alone the whole weight of the German attacks at Verdun ...If this went on, the French Army would be ruined! He therefore was of the opinion that 1 July was the latest date for the combined offensive of the British and French. I said that before fixing the date I would like to indicate the state of preparedness of the British Army on certain dates and compare its condition. I took 1 and 15 July, and 1 and 15 August. The moment I mentioned 15 August, Joffre at once got very excited and shouted that ‘The French Army would cease to exist, if we did nothing till then’! The rest of us looked on at this outburst of excitement, and then I pointed out that, in spite of the 15th August being the most favourable date for the British Army to take action, yet, in view of what he had said regarding the unfortunate condition of the French Army, I was prepared to commence operations on the 1st July or thereabouts.15
General Sir Douglas Haig, General Headquarters, BEF
And what were Haig’s real intentions in launching the Battle of the Somme? In essence he hoped to achieve victory in 1916 but was well aware that it might prove impossible, even with the best will in the world.
My policy is briefly to: 1. Train my divisions, and to collect as much ammunition and as many guns as possible. 2. To make arrangements to support the French attacking in order to draw off pressure from Verdun, when the French consider the military situation demands it. But while attacking to help our Allies, not to think that we can for a certainty destroy the power of Germany this year. So in our attacks we must also aim at improving our positions with a view to making sure of the result of campaign next year.16
General Sir Douglas Haig, General Headquarters, BEF
The die was cast. The British were about to fight their first real Continental battle in modern war against the main enemy on the decisive front. They were fighting as an integral part of a Continental alliance in order to relieve the pressure on their French Allies and as part of a continuing effort to destroy the main strength of the German Army, prior to launching the decisive attack. And that battle would be fought in the valley and surrounding hills of the Somme.
CHAPTER TWO
Armies and Weapons
THE GERMAN ARMY the British were about to assault on the Somme was a formidable and well-trained body of men that had been deliberately honed for war. Germany had developed a highly efficient conscription system which ensured that almost 50 per cent of all her young men had experienced two years of military training from the age of 20 to 22 before being released to the reserve forces. There they would be liable to annual military training with the Reserve Army until they were 27, followed by a further period of intermittent training with the Landwehr until they reached 39, at which point they passed into the Landsturm, which could be mobilised as a kind of home-guard force. Only at the grand old age of 45 were German men completely free of military obligations to their country. Mobilisation was a complex but thoroughly well considered process. The serving army units would be topped up with the youngest reservists, while the rest of the reservists formed their own formations, which also took their place in the line of battle. The already huge German peacetime army of some fifty-one divisions could thus be rapidly supplemented with a further thirty-one reserve divisions and multifarious ancil
lary formations. By such means the Germans were able to mobilise a trained field army of nearly 2.5 million in 1914.
The British Army was in sharp contrast a truly New Army. Before the war Britain had relied on a volunteer system to raise her small Regular Army. In characteristically immodest fashion the British claimed that the BEF was the best trained, best equipped army in the world, but with a total of just 160,000 men it was, nevertheless, a negligible force on the battlefields of Continental Europe. At home was a further body of partially trained voluntary soldiers known as the Territorial Army. The British Army had been thoroughly reorganised in 1908 by the Secretary of State for War, Richard Haldane, assisted by the ubiquitous figure of Major General Douglas Haig in his earlier capacity as Director of Military Training. As a result six regular infantry divisions and one cavalry division would be available for overseas service, while fourteen territorial divisions complete with artillery and fourteen Yeomanry cavalry brigades were designated for home defence duties. The territorials were part-time soldiers organised into extra battalions raised by local voluntary associations, but based on the existing regular regiments. The soldiers were expected to indulge in weekly drill night-training sessions, with additional weekend training and an annual fortnight at summer camp. In the event of war it was expected that the existing territorial battalions would expand their recruitment activities to quickly raise second line battalions that would effectively double their numbers. When push came to shove on the declaration of war, the home service restriction on territorials was quickly abandoned as the men were ‘invited’ to volunteer for overseas service, which the majority duly did. Yet it soon became obvious that more troops would be needed than the existing system could supply.
In August 1914 the newly appointed Secretary of State for War, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, was far-sighted in his immediate perception that hostilities would be long and hard fought. It was apparent to him that millions of soldiers would be needed if Britain was to take her proper place in the line on the Western Front. This was completely foreign to the British military tradition and there was simply no framework on which such an expansion could be easily based. Kitchener had the usual regular soldier’s marked distrust of volunteers, which had been further reinforced by what he considered as their inadequate performance in the Boer War. As a natural autocrat, confident in his own judgement and constitutionally unable to delegate, it was inevitable that he would act on his personal instincts. He resolved, therefore, not to expand the Territorial Army, which was already in crisis in its attempts to ‘double up’ on the outbreak of war. Indeed as it still had a home defence function to perform, it clearly had enough on its plate in the short term without further pressure. Instead Kitchener would create a ‘New Army’, still based on the regiments, but administered and trained by the regular battalions rather than delegating that power to the territorial voluntary associations. Such battalions came to be known as ‘service’ battalions. Significantly his first appeal for mass volunteers referred to service for three years or until the war was over, which emphasised his belief that a war with Germany would be a prolonged trial of strength. Indeed, Kitchener would have preferred the introduction of national conscription, but reluctantly bowed to the judgement of his Cabinet colleagues that this might trigger popular unrest which would undermine the all-important spirit of national unity in the face of war.
In response to Kitchener’s iconographic ‘Your King and Country Need You’ poster and the first appeal for recruits in August 1914 the volunteers poured in. The initial stream became a torrent, until at the height of popular enthusiasm some 30,000 men a day were flooding into the recruitment offices up and down the country. Their motivations were many and varied. A simple patriotism and a genuine desire to stand up against the foe for ‘King and Country’ was undoubtedly present for many. For others it was a simple zest for adventure: a change from the tedium of the office, the hard graft of the shop floor, the loneliness of the farmyard, the filth and ever-present dangers of the pit. Many went because their best pals were going. The minimum recruiting age was just a petty rule to be overcome by young lads determined not to be left out of the ‘adventure of a lifetime’, and the hard-pressed recruiting sergeants were often all too compliant in allowing them to enlist.
I went down to Colston Hall with the hope of enlisting in the newly formed battalion by the City, called ‘Bristol’s Own’, official title, 12th Battalion The Gloucestershire Regiment. I went to the recruiting table and the recruiting sergeant was there. I knew that the age of enlistment was nineteen so that it was no good the telling the truth—I would say I was nineteen instead of seventeen and a half! But I wasn’t asked how old was I—I was asked, ‘When were you born?’ I gave the answer I’d given throughout my life—12th February, 1897! The recruiting sergeant said, ‘Well, I don’t know whether we can take you at that age....’ He must have seen my sad look, and he said, ‘But if you go outside the Colston Hall, run round the building three times—you’ll be three years older when you come back!’ That was a good enough hint for me! When I came back he said, ‘How old are you?’ and I said, ‘Twenty!’ So that got me into the battalion.1
Private Harold Hayward, 12th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, 95th Brigade, 5th Division
Faced with this mass of civilians the existing regimental structures simply could not cope and civilian committees were established by prominent local dignitaries, industrialists and politicians both to promote and manage the recruitment process. The most famous development was that of ‘Pals’ battalions raised exclusively from a single locality, or in the cities from an identifiable strata of society.
I saw this lot in the paper and it said it was all Leeds people, and I joined up, I didn’t even know that infantry walked, to be quite truthful with you, I didn’t know anything about soldiers. I ought to have joined the cavalry lot, being brought up with horses, but it appealed to me and I went and I’ve never regretted a moment of it really, because I never met a finer lot of fellows in my life. He looked at me and he says, ‘Sallow complexion, prominent nose, mole on the right cheek’. Before he’d done with me I felt a bit like Frankenstein! Then he says, ‘Initials?’ I says, ‘F.A.’ He says, ‘You’re going to have some trouble with that!—F.A. in the army doesn’t stand for your initials!’2
Private (Fewster) Arthur Dalby, 15th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, 93rd Brigade, 31st Division
Allowances could even be made to allow groups of friends to join up and serve together.
Everyone rushing to get in, thinking it was a Pals army, they were all full of sportsmanship and that sort of thing. We were all footballers together, I was one of six. The height was men five foot six and a half. I was five foot six and was worried stiff, so I filled my shoes with paper and fastened big rubber heels on the soles and heels. They asked me my height and I told them; they hummed and hawed about it so he says, ‘Well take your shoes off!’ Well that jiggered it! Anyway I says, ‘Well there’s all my pals joining and there was six of us all footballers!’ So he says, ‘Oh, go on, let him go in!’3
Private Morrison Fleming, 15th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, 93rd Brigade, 31st Division
The Pals battalions came to represent a significant proportion of the front-line service battalions that were raised. That they were the pride and joy of their communities was demonstrable by the response of the local newspaper when the Manchester and Salford Pals were paraded in front of Kitchener in Manchester on 21 March 1915.
Only now and then in these months of war has it been forced fully home to us that we are living history, but the dullest could not see the march of the 12,000 yesterday without knowing that of this, his children’s children will be told. Nor could he see it without a deep and quickening sense of his personal relation to the facts behind it. For Manchester’s army is Manchester, and the New Army is Britain, in a way no soldiers ever have been before or, it is hoped, will ever need be again. The people who cheered and the people who marched w
ere not spectators and a spectacle. They were kin in the truest sense, and every eligible man who watched the City Battalions swing by must have felt it an incongruous thing that he was not on the other side of the barrier.4
Reporter, Manchester Guardian
The fatal disadvantages of putting all the community’s eggs in one basket had not yet become apparent.
When the dust had died down the situation was somewhat complex. In a typical British county regiment the 1st and 2nd Battalions were regular; the 3rd was the original regular reserve battalion which remained at home; the 4th, 5th and 6th Battalions were usually territorial battalions, which each in turn often raised second-line battalions numbered the 2/4th, 2/5th and 2/6th Battalions; there would then follow a number of Kitchener service battalions, which typically would be numbered 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th Battalions. Sometimes they too would raise second-line battalions. The exact number of battalions would vary depending on the recruitment potential of the parent regiment’s area. Thus, while the Dorsetshire Regiment only raised eleven battalions during the course of the war, the Royal Sussex Regiment had twenty-six battalions, the Northumberland Fusiliers had fifty-one battalions, while the all-territorial London Regiment managed a total of eighty-eight battalions.
Each battalion consisted of a headquarters company and four companies totalling about 800 men when on active service. In the Royal Artillery the typical field artillery battery would have about 200 men and six guns. The various units that together made up a typical infantry division were three infantry brigades (each of four battalions), four field artillery brigades (each of four batteries) and one heavy artillery battery. In addition there was a squadron of cavalry, ambulance units, divisional supply and ammunition trains, and engineers. The total strength was nominally 18,000 men. Broadly according to this pattern the new units were fitted into Kitchener’s New Army destined for the most part for the Western Front. Thus, the Regular Army divisions were numbered 1st to 8th; the New Army divisions were numbered 9th to 26th; the anomalous 27th to 29th divisions were in fact Regular Army divisions scraped up from units on Imperial garrison service, then the 30th to 41st were more New Army divisions, before finally the 42nd through to 74th divisions were the Territorial Army divisions (with the exception of the 63rd or Royal Naval Division which was originally formed from ‘spare’ naval reservists).
