by Peter Hart
Private Victor Lansdown, 16th Battalion, Welch Regiment, 115th Brigade, 38th Division
He would only crawl back into the British lines when night fell.
Meanwhile, Sergeant Perriman had no officer with him and he was ordered back to the jumping-off point in Happy Valley. Here his company commander told him the glad tidings that he had been selected with his platoon to accompany him in an effort to capture the three machine guns before the main attack was relaunched at 1630.
Our expedition was a hazardous one, to put it mildly. The German shelling on our position had intensified so as to become a living hell. What our individual feelings were as we moved off remained inexpressible. Led by our officer we moved off in single file up through Caterpillar Wood to a pathway which would take us to a farmyard and our first objective.46
Sergeant Albert Perriman, 11th South Wales Borderers, 115th Brigade, 38th Division
They did not get far before they were forced once more to ground. To continue was simply suicide; a useless sacrifice, entirely without military meaning.
Shrapnel and heavy machine-gun fire all around us spelled instant death. My officer was the first to go. I was a yard or so behind him when he fell. He fell without uttering a sound. I examined him and found he was dead. I took over, but for short duration—I became the second casualty. I received multiple wounds—in leg, stomach and hands by shrapnel. Unable to continue, I handed over to the senior NCO and I managed to crawl back to Happy Valley the best way I could. Progress was slow and painful.47
Sergeant Albert Perriman, 11th South Wales Borderers, 115th Brigade, 38th Division
The situation was obviously hopeless and the planned resumption of the attack at 1630 was abruptly cancelled. The 38th Division had undoubtedly failed, but the reports that fed back along the line of command severely under-represented the difficulties the troops had faced. When the reports reached Haig he reacted harshly.
Although the wood had been most adequately bombarded the division never entered the wood, and in the whole division the total casualties for the 24 hours are under 150! A few bold men entered the wood and found little opposition. Deserters also stated enemy was greatly demoralised and had very few troops on the ground.48
General Sir Douglas Haig, General Headquarters, British Expeditionary Force
From the perspective of Private Lansdown, Sergeant Perriman and all the others who had tried their best this was manifestly unfair, but Haig could only respond to the reports he had received. From his perspective the attack had been a failure and he sought reasons or culprits. And, after all, it had not been a divisional attack—just two battalions had gone forward. Might more have been achieved with a more concentrated effort? Who was to blame? Rightly or wrongly, Haig blamed Major General Phillips and he was summarily removed from his command.
The 38th (Welsh) Division had certainly not finished with Mametz Wood. After a period of licking their wounds, three days later at 0415 on 10 July the men were ordered forward again. This time it was the turn of the 113th and 114th Brigades. The wood was bombarded for forty-five minutes before they went over the top, partially covered by a smoke screen. On the left of the wood ready to lead the attack in eight waves were the 16th Royal Welch Fusiliers, who had the dubious pleasure of an inspirational address from their colonel.
Make your peace with God. You are going to take that position, and some of us won’t come back—but we are going to take it. This will show you where I am.49
Lieutenant Colonel Ronald Carden, 16th Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, 113th Brigade, 38th Division
So saying Carden tied a coloured handkerchief to his walking stick and led them over the top. He could hardly have been a more obvious target for the Germans if he tried. He was undoubtedly brave, but to what end? He was soon hit, but managed to struggle forward until he was hit again and killed as he got to the wood. Behind the 16th Battalion came the four waves of the 14th Royal Welch Fusiliers.
Presently the silent waves of men started moving forward, and I, with my third wave, joined in. Machine guns and rifles began to rattle, and there was a general state of pandemonium, little of which I can remember except that I myself was moving down the slope at a rapid rate, with bullet holes in my pocket and yelling a certain amount. I noticed also that there was no appearance whatsoever of waves about the movement at this time, and that the men in advance of us were thoroughly demoralised.50
Captain Glynn Jones, 14th Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, 113th Brigade, 38th Division
As the two battalions wavered and bunched up together short of the wood the situation looked hopeless. Then, a seeming miracle.
From the wood in front a number of Germans—about forty—came out, with hands up. Suspecting a trick, I ordered my men to cover them, but allowed them to approach us. When they got about halfway, I went out to meet them, accompanied by a sergeant, and sent them back to our headquarters. As this appeared to point to the wood being unoccupied, I sent a small patrol to examine it; and then we all moved forward. Crossing the trench on the fringe of it, we entered the wood at the entrance of the main ride.51
Captain Glynn Jones, 14th Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, 113th Brigade, 38th Division
To the right of the Royal Welch Fusiliers were the 13th and 14th Welch Regiment. As soon as they came clearly into the view of the German machine gunners the ominous clattering began.
We moved forward, quite open country; we had nearly 500 yards to go across towards the wood. It was breaking day and as we went up a little bit of a rise, as soon as we got where the Germans could see us they started machine gunning us right away. It was just tree stumps and all the broken branches were all down. They were wiping us down with enfilade fire. I don’t know how we got to the wood but we did get to it and we engaged them in hand-to-hand fighting. It was hectic. We were so reduced in numbers that we couldn’t hold them and they drove us back out into the field. We were there for a while and our reserves came up to give us a hand and we made a second attack then. I was about 20 yards from the edge of the wood when I was wounded, I had a bullet through my left leg and then I was laying on the field there and a shell burst above me and the shrapnel came down and hit me in the hip. Nearly took half my hip away As far as I was concerned that was the end of the war, but I dare not move because I was afraid that the snipers would catch me. I saw the Germans that had come out of the wood bayoneting our wounded—I saw the downward motion of their rifle which indicated to me that that was what they were doing—bayoneting our wounded boys. I think some of the men in our reserve battalion, the 10th and the 15th must have seen that, because they passed me in a screaming temper. I think that was the turning point of that battle. By pulling myself on the grass I had crawled into a shell hole and I lay there. I fell with my hip on the mud and that may have stopped the bleeding.52
Sergeant Tom Price, 14th Battalion, Welch Regiment, 114th Brigade, 38th Division
Sergeant Price lay there alone and untended until late in the afternoon of 11 July. In Mametz Wood itself the fighting continued unabated. It was a desperate scramble in conditions for which no training could have prepared the soldiers adequately.
Everybody for themselves. The brambles; trees falling. Almost like barbed wire in a sense except it was trees interwoven with one another, one across another. You had a battle to get over the trees and get out of their way in case they fell on you. You’ve got to experience it yourself to actually know. Our main concern was keeping alive. They wouldn’t come too close to me with the Lewis gun. I was going along firing from the hip. We managed to drive them out. They shelled us and it was making craters. We believed in the old axiom, that lightning never struck twice in the same place. If a shell had made a crater, we jumped into that for our protection.53
Private George Richards, 13th Battalion, Welch Regiment, 114th Brigade, 38th Division
The attack managed to push the Germans back to within 40 yards of the northern edge of the Mametz Wood. That night there w
as near total confusion. Amorphous parties of men frequently fired on each other as they had no idea what was happening amidst the pitch darkness and deafening clamour. All night British and German shells crashed aimlessly down into the wood to kill and maim according to chance. Not unsurprisingly some men began to panic.
Our own guns were firing short, and in spite of our attempts to communicate with the rear this continued. The numerous casualties we sustained because of this had the effect of making the men very panicky. Further, the difficulty in seeing more than a few yards in front caused ignorance amongst the men as to where the front lay and whether any of our fellows were there; any noise in the bush in front meant a hail of bullets. I, myself, saw an officer of the 15th Royal Welch Fusiliers killed in this way.54
Captain Glynn Jones, 14th Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, 113th Brigade, 38th Division
The vicious fighting would continue until the wood was finally secured on 12 July. In all the 38th Division suffered casualties amounting to 190 officers and 3,803 other ranks. Mametz Wood would cast a long shadow over Wales for many years.
All told the attacks launched on 7 July were an uncoordinated disaster that achieved next to nothing. The men were condemned to advance with their flanks gaping open allowing the Germans the freedom to concentrate their artillery and machine guns to deadly effect. The all-important artillery support was also lacking in concentrated power and failed to destroy the German barbed wire, trench positions, deep dugouts and artillery gun positions. Worst of all the guns of neighbouring formations not involved in the offensive failed to chime in to add the weight of their shells to the overall bombardment of the targeted German defences and covering artillery. This was futile; men were dying in their thousands for no reason.
Death is a very dreadful thing to those who are not flung into slaughter. It will take months for me to gain a truer perspective. When the dead lie all around you, and the man next to you, or oneself, may puff out, death becomes a very unimportant incident. It is not callousness, but just too much knowledge. Like other things, man has ignored death and treated it as something to talk of with pale cheek and bated breath. When one gets death on every side, the reaction is sudden. Two chaps go out for water and one returns. Says a pal to him, ‘Well, where’s Bill?’ ‘A bloody “whizz-bang” took his bloody head off’ may not appear sympathetic, but it is the only way of looking at the thing and remaining sane. You may be certain however, that the same man would carry Bill 10 miles if there was any chance of fixing his head on again.55
Medical Officer Captain Charles McKerrow, 10th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers, 68th Brigade, 23rd Division
At last, on 8 July, the fighting belatedly expanded to cover the XIII Corps front to the south of XV Corps. By this time over a week had elapsed since the successes of 1 July when, for a couple of days, the woods and villages that would a few days later become symbols of senseless slaughter lay tantalisingly open before the British. The days spent by Rawlinson and the Fourth Army in reorganising on this southern right flank can easily be characterised as a lost opportunity. Yet the much maligned British staff officers had a complex task in arranging for the relief of exhausted battalions whilst simultaneously moving in the fresh divisions to hold the line and make the next leap forward. It was difficult in the extreme to ensure a relatively clear passage through the crowded roads and tracks without running the risk of a horrendous traffic jam well within range of the German heavy artillery. Troop movements were just the beginning of an administrative nightmare in preparing for a renewed offensive. Stores and munitions were being consumed in prodigious quantities and everything had to be got forward to the right place at the right time. In addition all their efforts to plan the next offensive were complicated by the requirement to secure agreement in advance with the neighbouring French.
The French were still doing reasonably well south of the Somme but there was little sign of urgency and the German resistance had begun to stiffen. To the French the crux of the matter lay north of the Somme and the responsibility was firmly with the British. There was a definite ‘chicken and egg’ situation here. Both sides were waiting for the other. If they did not move forward in harmony then Rawlinson’s XIII Corps would be advancing into a pronounced salient and the Germans would inevitably not hesitate to exploit any open flanks that would inevitably be left exposed. On the other hand, it is equally valid to point out that they managed to get new divisions forward for the futile attacks on 3 and 7 July further to the north where the opportunities for progress were by no means so obvious. Risks were taken with exposed flanks there—why not take them with an overt thrust towards Longueval or Trônes Wood?
While the British prepared and got everything ‘just so’ for the attack, the Germans were naturally not idle. Where once Trônes Wood had stood open, penetrated with impunity by British patrols, now the Germans had managed by dint of sheer hard work to incorporate the wood once more into a coherent defensive line. This did not bear any comparison with the veritable fortresses that had faced the British on 1 July, but it did not have to reach such heights of military engineering as it would not have to face such a prolonged bombardment. What was important was that more German gun batteries had been moved up into their positions behind the lines, troops were safely ensconced in trenches, barbed wire had been hastily erected and machine guns were ready and waiting.
To make matters worse the XIII Corps also made no effort to launch any kind of a concerted mass attack on 8 July. Tragically the initial attempts by the 30th Division to take Trônes Wood were made by isolated companies, or at best single battalions, with derisory preliminary bombardments. Under these circumstances it is no surprise the troops made little headway. Even if they did make some small inconsequential gains the German artillery would open up, shells would isolate the incursion and then search backwards and forwards across the area before the inevitable counter-attacks threw any bedraggled survivors back to their start lines. It is incomprehensible that having waited so long the British should fail to attack in force covered by the full power of their guns. Over the next few days Trônes Wood became a place of horror. When Lieutenant William Bloor was sent up as a forward observation officer he was appalled by what he found there.
The place beggars description quite—there has been the fiercest fighting here for four days, and both sides have taken and lost the wood several times. Wounded have not been cleared away, and there are some who have been all that time without food or any attention. The horror and misery and countless tragedies of this war—even the little of it I have seen—are much too awful to let the mind dwell on it and I am surprised that more men do not go mad with the horror of it. Many of the infantry that I saw and spoke to were in a state of ‘daze’, their senses were all blurred and dull, and they neither cared if they lived or died, nor if they went forward or backward. I suppose it is as well that they can get that way.56
Lieutenant William Bloor, C Battery, 149th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 30th Division
Much of the British and German artillery within range concentrated their guns on this one small patch of woodland. Shells tore up and down between the trees like a huge rake, searching out their weedy human prey with a grim inevitability. Attack after attack was ordered. On 13 July it was the turn of the 55th Brigade, 18th Division to try their luck. The troops went forward bravely, many even managed to enter the bounds of the wood, but once inside they were lost, isolated in a tangled jungle of smashed trees, heavy undergrowth and the unmentionable mangled debris of men and equipment.
At 6.30 p.m. we started the preliminary bombardment, and at 7.30 p.m. lifted into Guillemont. At 10 p.m. I was ordered to go forward to the infantry to report progress and send down any information obtainable. At battalion headquarters found everything in confusion. It appeared that 55th Brigade had attacked from their different points and were to have joined up after getting through the wood. They had no real news as every messenger had been laid out in getting through the heavy
barrage which the Boche put up. The only information to be got was from their wounded who had contrived to get as far as us—the spot was 300 yards south-west of the wood. They said the attack was a complete failure and that they had been cut to pieces.57
Lieutenant William Bloor, C Battery, 149th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 30th Division
14 July 1916 The Battle of Bazentin Ridge
All told, the flurry of attacks on Contalmaison, Mametz Wood and Trônes Wood that characterised this period were launched with the express aim of securing a better jumping-off position and securing the flanks for the main attack, which it had by this time been decided would commence on 14 July. As each attack failed, so another was ordered. The commanders seemed to have become objective fixated, possessing a tunnel vision that prevented them from looking around them, or to pause for even a moment’s reflection as to what they were doing or how. Generalship had been reduced to noting the failure of the latest attack and ordering a repeat. Small-scale attacks that might have succeeded on 3 July were doomed in the face of reconstituted German defences. The absence of any meaningful coordination exerted at divisional, corps or army level meant that these attacks signally failed to exploit the British overall superiority in raw numbers or the sheer bludgeoning power of their massed artillery. Unfocused attacks, launched against powerful trench works with varying start times, squandered all such advantages and inevitably left individual British battalions exposed in No Man’s Land to superior concentrations of German firepower from flanking machine guns and the artillery batteries of neighbouring sectors left free from attack. The end result was mounting losses—not this time the stunning single blow as suffered on 1 July—but a trickling incremental drain that over days added up to serious losses that approached some 25,000 casualties in just under fifty separate attacks. Even then, Trônes Wood still remained partially in German hands while the distance between the hard-won British front line and the original German Second Line system still stretched to nearly a mile.
