by Peter Hart
There was a terrific explosion which for the moment completely drowned the thunder of the artillery. A great cloud of smoke rose from the trenches of No. 9 Company, followed by a tremendous shower of stones, which seemed to fall from the sky all over our position. More than three sections of No. 9 Company were blown into the air, and the neighbouring dugouts were broken in and blocked. The ground all round was white with the debris of chalk as if it had been snowing, and a gigantic crater over 50 yards in diameter and some 60 feet deep gaped like an open wound in the side of the hill. This explosion was a signal for the infantry attack, and everyone got ready and stood on the lower steps of the dugouts, rifles in hand, waiting for the bombardment to lift. In a few minutes the shelling ceased, and we rushed up the steps and out into the crater positions. Ahead of us wave after wave of British troops were crawling out of their trenches and coming forward towards us at a walk, their bayonets glistening in the sun.50
Anon Officer, 119th Reserve Regiment, 26th Reserve Division, German Army
Stuck in their dugouts for seven days and nights the German soldiers knew that the assault was coming. The only question was when. Before the debris from the explosion had landed they knew the moment was nigh. As they rushed out of their dugouts they found that the British heavy artillery had lifted from what remained of their front line. When Zero Hour arrived at 0730, the artillery barrage moved off the front line in accordance with the plans for a creeping barrage. The German garrison could take up their defensive positions in the remnants of the front line and nearby shell holes without the inconvenience of shells plastering around them. In the race to occupy the lips of the smoking crater, the Germans of course had the enormous advantage of being so much closer to the objective. The entirely predictable end result was that although the 2nd Royal Fusiliers managed to get to the near lip they then found themselves under heavy flanking fire from the German front line, and point-blank fire from a strong party of Germans already in position on the far lip of the crater, a mere 50 yards away.
The main attack at 0730 of the assaulting troops of 86th and 87th Brigades was an utter disaster. They were under heavy scything fire from the moment they left their trenches. In addition in this sector of the front the gunners had failed in one of their basic duties, as the infantry found a sizeable proportion of the German barbed wire remained uncut. From his forward artillery observation post Signaller Dudley Menaud-Lissenburg watched the men of the 29th Division advance in serried ranks to oblivion.
I watched with mixed feeling the lads mount the firestep and, when at 0730 the barrage lifted, spring up the ladders on to the parapet—many sliding back immediately they had reached the top, killed or wounded. Coolly, it seemed, the survivors worked their way through our barbed wire in the face of fierce shell and machine-gun fire, leaving many of their pals on the wire, dead. On they went up the long incline in perfect order, dropping to the ground every now and then, as though on an exercise on Salisbury Plain. The line thinned as men fell, but never faltered.51
Signaller Dudley Menaud-Lissenburg, 97th Battery, 147th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 29th Division
The men of the 1st Lancashire Fusiliers, so proud of the six VCs won before breakfast during the assault on W Beach at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, discovered the reality of war on the Western Front. Once again they were in an open amphitheatre overlooked by an enemy under cover. Once again they drove themselves forward with admirable courage and discipline. But this time instead of having to contend with a mere company of Turks with at most one machine gun, they found themselves facing the mighty defensive strength of a German division as they walked into a scything hell of interlocked machine-gun fire and the withering blast of concentrated shell-fire. This was modern war at its most fiendish.
It’s time to go over the top. It was partly blown down and I’m just stepping on top, there was a corporal lying there, gone—all blown away, I think he’d been hit by a whizz-bang. He looks up at me as I passed him, ‘Go on Corporal, get the bastards!’ There were bullets everywhere. Run—that was the only thing in my mind. Run and dodge. Expecting at any second to get hit, to feel a bullet hit me. I was zig-zagging, holding my head down so a bullet would hit my tin hat, I seemed to be dodging in between them—I must have been to get there! There was gun smoke. You could hear when a bullet hit somebody, you could hear it hit him! Hear him groan and go down. It was mainly machine guns that cut us up. I was thinking, I’ve got to get forward that’s all. I dove into the Sunken Road.52
Corporal George Ashurst, 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, 86th Brigade, 29th Division
From the Sunken Road between the lines they couldn’t even see the German trenches, which were still a long way ahead of them. After a brief period of reorganisation the men were ready to try again. But the fire pouring into them was still intense and it was impossible.
Colonel Magniac said, ‘Every fit man, come with me—over the top again!’ He went over, I ran up the slope, right enough, whether a lot more did I don’t know. I ran on and there was nobody with me, I was by myself, so I got a bit frightened then. When I came across this shell hole I dropped in it. I could lie down in it and look back over our lines. I could see our wounded, they would get up and try to go on and then they’d drop, they’d been shot again. I’m lying there; I had a drink out of my water bottle. Looking back I noticed the Royal Fusiliers on the left were running back to their trenches. I didn’t know what they were doing, but I thought, ‘Jerry’s counter-attacking, what about me, if he comes over the top here, I’m for it all right, there’s nothing for me!’ So I made my mind up that I’d got to move and move very quick. I got up and dashed down this slope again and dived into the Sunken Road once more. Safe again—they’d missed again!53
Corporal George Ashurst, 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, 86th Brigade, 29th Division
All along the divisional front the story was one of failure. The attack never reached the German front line but irretrievably collapsed in No Man’s Land. The creeping barrage crept forward across the German lines but it was no longer followed by any troops, all of whom had fallen at the first fence. While the British artillery bombarded irrelevant targets the Germans pounded the British trenches and No Man’s Land. They knew which way the British reinforcements would be coming and they were determined to break them up before they had a chance to renew the assault. Once again there was a problem with unconfirmed reports, which seemed to indicate that some of the men had got through and were assaulting the German support lines. Although these had no basis in fact the divisional reserve was ordered forward by divisional headquarters to bolster the attack. Ordinary excusable mistakes made in the fog of war can cost hundreds of lives and never was this more apparent than in the futile advance of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment and the 1st Essex Regiment who went over the top at 0905. The Newfoundlanders suffered some 710 casualties. Such losses from a single battalion are beyond the necessity for comment.
Amongst the mass slaughter there were hundreds of individual stories of stoicism and courage in the face of hopeless odds. The last tortured struggle of an anonymous man was watched with physical detachment but a very real emotional involvement by Signaller Dudley Menaud-Lissenburg from the relative security of his observation post.
I watched a lone figure, a runner no doubt, coming back towards our lines, dropping every now and then into shell holes for cover. On reaching our barbed wire he was about to jump into the trench when a shell burst at his feet and blew him sky high. What a tragedy.54
Signaller Dudley Menaud-Lissenburg, 97th Battery, 147th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 29th Division
The only toehold made in the Hawthorn Redoubt crater was untenable and the isolated and partially encircled defenders were soon forced back by determined German counter-attacks which would not cede an inch. The Lancashire Fusiliers clung on to the Sunken Road for a while but their position was hopeless. That night they left just a token force to hold it as an outpost.
Late
r on in the day a message came across, ‘One officer, one NCO and twenty-five men only to man the Sunken Road.’ That meant we’d got to stop there all night and all day next day. There was only this officer knocking about. He said, ‘That means me and that means you, Corporal!’ We got twenty-five men and we put about eight men at the bottom end of the road and about eight at the top of the road and about eight or nine in the middle of the road under the oldest soldier because there were no more NCOs. The thing quietened down, the quiet after the storm, we were practically sleeping all night, just lying there. The stretcher bearers were very busy taking a lot out of it—they were cleared by morning. As dawn came I was against this bit of a barrier we’d built up at the bottom end and I hear some voices the other side of the barrier. I stand up and have a look and there’s three Jerries! About 100 yards away stood in a ditch. I said to the lads, ‘Jerries!’ I took my rifle and I fired at the middle one—he went, but whether I hit him or not I don’t know. No sooner had he ducked and the other two followed him out of sight. The officer came down to see what the trouble was. I told him. ‘Ooooh, we’re all right lads, we can dig in now, Jerry will let us bloody well have it!’ He was right you know—he did. He started with minenwerfers, you can see them coming. Dropping them here and there, he dropped one right on the body of men in the middle of the road, killed half of them and wounded the other half. One I thought was certainly ours and it was a dud! It dropped about 6 yards past us towards the far end of the Sunken Road. As soon as it was dark word came, a messenger, ‘Evacuate the Sunken Road!’ So we packed in and ran back as fast as we could.55
Corporal George Ashurst, 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, 86th Brigade, 29th Division
Soon they were back in the front line. The ‘Immortal’ 29th Division had lost 5,240 casualties on their introduction to the Western Front.
Overall, there could be no doubt that the attack of the VIII Corps had utterly failed to disturb the integrity of the German defences. Further attempts during the day to resuscitate the attack with reduced objectives centred on Beaumont Hamel all failed in the face of the continued absolute dominance of No Man’s Land by the German artillery and machine guns. After their initial failure, the battered remnants of the 31st, 4th and 29th Divisions had no chance of making a successful assault against defences that had already thrown them back when they were at full strength. Mere flesh and blood, whether they be Pals or regulars, could not triumph against such odds.
X Corps: Thiepval Ridge—a missed opportunity
Next in line to the south was X Corps who took on the daunting task of attacking astride the Ancre valley. They had been charged with the task of capturing the whole of the Thiepval Spur and Plateau which projected out from the main mass of Pozières Ridge towards the Ancre. At the tip of the Thiepval Spur lay the great Leipzig Redoubt stuffed with machine guns and completely dominating No Man’s land in deadly conjunction with two flanking redoubts: Beaucourt Spur across the Ancre, and the Nord Werk on the Ovillers Spur. At the root of Thiepval Spur where it joined the main plateau lay Thiepval village which was less obviously threatening as it had been razed to the ground by the preliminary bombardment. Yet, if anything, the thick layer of rubble that remained only increased the formidable defensive capacity of the reinforced cellars beneath, many of which were expanded and linked to form an underground fortress. In addition the Germans had constructed the Wundtwerk Redoubt on the sheltered reverse slope of the Thiepval Spur, the Schwaben Höhe Redoubt which sat above the spur on the main ridge, and finally the fortress village of St Pierre Divion, which stood sentinel high above the Ancre flank. As if this was not enough, the German Second Line system and intermediate positions ran in interconnected and supporting layers across the breadth of Pozières Ridge bearing names that would come to haunt the British over the next few months: the Hansa Line; Mouquet Switch Line and Mouquet Farm; Stuff and Goat Redoubts. These impressive fortifications reflected the importance of the high ground of Pozières Ridge and Thiepval Spur. If the British could break through here then much of the rest of the German line to the north and south would be overlooked. Taken together, as a multi-layered fortress, it was an almost unparalleled obstacle that faced the attack of the two divisions assigned to the task.
It can be safely said that the plan did not lack boldness. The 36th and 32nd Divisions were to leap with a single bound across the Thiepval Spur and Plateau to take and consolidate the Hansa Line and Mouquet Switch Line. The reserve brigades would move forward to take the German Second Line. The situation was simple: only a faultless display of coordination between the British artillery and infantry would have even a remote chance of cracking open this particular nut. In particular it was obvious that if the 32nd Division failed in front of Thiepval then the 36th (Irish) Division would be severely exposed from the right flank.
Before dawn our artillery stepped up their bombardment to the maximum. It was rapid fire by every gun and the noise was like hell let loose. As the shells passed over our heads the air hummed like a swarm of a hundred million hornets. Then at zero hour the shelling stopped abruptly, our troops emerged from the front-line trenches where they had been waiting ready for the signal to advance. Looking up to the front line from our camp I could see men appearing against the skyline, dark against the dawn fight and then disappearing as they advanced over the top of the hill.56
Second Lieutenant J. L Stewart-Moore, 107th Trench Mortar Battery, 36th Division
The barrage was intended to lift in stages, jerking back to each German line in succession according to a previously agreed timetable. There was some innovation in that with each lift some of the field artillery guns would move back slowly, tracking along the course of the German communication trenches. The assault battalions of the 108th and 109th Brigades of 36th Division attacked across No Man’s Land in successive waves.
I stood on the parapet between the two centre exits to wish them luck. They got through without delay; no fuss, no shouting, no running, everything solid and thorough—just like the men themselves. Here and there a boy would wave his hand to me as I shouted a good luck to them through my megaphone. And all had a cheery face. Most were carrying loads. Fancy advancing against heavy fire with a big roll of barbed wire on your shoulder!57
Lieutenant Colonel Ambrose Ricardo, 9th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 109th Brigade, 36th (Irish) Division
At least the German barbed wire had been cleared by the bombardment, and to some extent the advancing waves were concealed by the effect of the thunderous bombardment and the additional smoke barrages laid down by Stokes mortars. The Irish battalions smashed into the German trench system and in an amazing feat of arms burst right through to overrun the Schwaben Höhe Redoubt up on the main Pozières Ridge. The German artillery had reacted far too late in this sector but as German shells belatedly dropped down on to No Man’s Land they posed a serious threat to the designated support and exploitation troops of the 107th Brigade as they began to move forward. Amongst them was Private Davie Starrett, batman to Colonel Crazier commanding the 9th Royal Irish Rifles.
We fell in and moved off, woodbines in mouth, across the Ancre swamp. A couple of shells fell. Jerry has woken up! At Speyside we massed on the slopes, our guns thundering over us. Then the enemy artillery broke loose. On past Gordon Castle—into an inferno of screaming shells and machine-gun bullets. Crouching, we slowly moved across No Man’s Land. The Colonel stood giving last orders to his company commanders, and I beside him. Bullets cutting up the ground at his feet he watched the advance through his glasses.58
Private Davie Starrett, 9th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, 107th Brigade, 36th (Irish) Division
As they reached the forward edge of Thiepval Wood, Crazier could see that Thiepval had not fallen and that the deadly machine guns of the German garrison were still chattering away. The situation looked hopeless when he suddenly espied a brief window of opportunity in the chaos that surrounded them.
I survey the situation; still mo
re machine-gun fire: they have lowered their sights: pit pit, the bullets hit the dry earth all round. The shelling on to the wood edge has ceased. The men emerge. A miracle has happened. ‘Now’s the chance!’ I think to myself, ‘They must quicken pace and get diagonally across to the Sunken Road, disengaging from each other quickly, company by company.’ I stand still and erect in the open, while each company passes. To each commander I give the amended orders. Men are falling here and there, but the guns previously firing on the edge of the wood are quite silent. First passes ‘A’ with Montey at its head. His is the longest double to the flank. George Gaffikin comes next waving an orange handkerchief. ‘Goodbye, Sir! Good luck!’ He shouts to the en passant, ‘Tell them I died a teetotaller, put it on the stone if you find me!’ The ‘baby’ captain of ‘C comes next, ‘D’ brings up the rear with Berry at the head. Imagine a timed exposure with your camera. The button is pressed, the shutter opens, another press and it again shuts. That is what happened to us. The German shelling ceased for five minutes, we hurried through the gap of mercy.59
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Crozier, 9th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, 107th Brigade, 36th (Irish) Division
Together they raced across No Man’s Land as fast as their relative burdens allowed them; the heavily laden batman desperately trying to keep pace with his portly little officer. When they got to the Sunken Road they assessed the situation quickly to find that Colonel Bernard of the 10th Royal Irish Rifles had already been killed and Crozier perforce took control of the situation—he was determined to continue the advance up on to Pozières Ridge as planned come what may.
