by Peter Hart
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Maxwell VC, 12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, 54th Brigade, 18th Division
Maxwell and his men had not only achieved their physical objective of capturing Trônes Wood but also been successful in preventing the German garrison from firing into the exposed open flank of the 9th Division during their advance. But capturing the wood was less than half the job. After all, it had been captured before; the problem was keeping the wood in the face of concentrated German artillery fire and hard-pressed counterattacks.
Having cleared the wood of live Germans I had then to think of keeping what we had got with the utterly tired men. Poor things, they thought, as one always does, that having done one job, somebody else would pop up and do the next. But there was nobody else: every man in the wood was now needed to cram on the edge facing the Germans, to hold it against them—in fact, far more than were available.79
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Maxwell VC, 12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, 54th Brigade, 18th Division
As soon as he had set his men in place Maxwell attempted to make his way back to the place where he had first entered Trônes Wood. This he found more difficult than he had expected, both geographically and emotionally.
I completely lost my way, adjutant and orderly with me. It was a black, clouded day and smoke of shells hung over the shattered tree tops—those that had tops! We simply seemed to walk in circles round and round the incredibly horrible debris, amongst which were more sights to make one weep. Men wounded and lying there, some for days, unbandaged and with every sort of shattered limb. One could only do what one could do for the moment, bandage till they ran out, water till that ran out, and tell them we should send for them, but all the time knowing that if we were losing our way in hell we should never be able to lead or direct anybody else to bring them in, even if there were any available to send.80
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Maxwell VC, 12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, 54th Brigade, 18th Division
Maxwell’s inability to proffer any kind of immediate succour to the wounded caused him considerable distress and he attempted to get stretcher bearers and medical officers to move further forward to give some real practical assistance.
Not a doctor came to the wood—thought it wasn’t their job, not properly realising the ordinary battle conditions (an aid post in some sort of security a little distance behind the battle line) of fighting did not exist in wood fighting. Repeatedly I sent back messengers for doctors and stretcher bearers, but the Germans ‘barraged’ the open ground all over the route from our own rear and it is an axiom I believe that the RAMC must not run undue risks in getting to wounded. Regimental stretcher bearers—only eight per battalion—carry the cases out of the really dangerous zone to RAMC people who then dress and send them back with their stretcher bearers. In the evening as I went out of the wood, on a summons to brigade headquarters I met the Northants doctor coming in, but he was killed a few yards after passing. But I found our own right away back at brigade headquarters and told him I thought his post should be in the wood and not outside—custom or no custom. Good little man that he is (a Canadian) he immediately went off and has been in it since, searching for wounded with his three men, which is like searching for a needle in a haystack with three fingers. However, it was good his getting there, though the only other man who followed him was also killed.81
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Maxwell VC, 12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, 54th Brigade, 18th Division
Maxwell’s character bemused most of the men that encountered him on what seemed to be his natural battlefield habitat. He seemed immune to fear or any of the traumas that afflicted so many other men in the slaughterhouse of Trônes Wood. As he remarked in an earlier letter to his wife:
A man may be squandered over me without any more feeling about it, than being sorry for his poor mother or wife. I mean of course, that it does not incapacitate my system in the least.82
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Maxwell VC, 12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, 54th Brigade, 18th Division
This was not an entirely normal reaction and there is little wonder that many of his men had difficulty in living up to his standards of conduct during battle situations. Maxwell was a hero; he had already won a Victoria Cross and he was not as other men. He set a standard they could perhaps aspire to but with little hope of success.
The aftermath of the fighting that day was truly ghastly to behold. Signaller Leonard Ounsworth could barely believe his eyes when a day later he was sent across into what remained of the ‘wood’.
Well good God, there was no trees intact at all, just stumps, tree tops and barbed wire all mixed up together. Bodies all over the place, Jerries and ours. Robbins, he pulled some undergrowth up and there was a dead Jerry shot away right up his hip, all his guts were out and flies on it. He just had to step back and this leg up the tree became dislodged and fell across him on his head. Good Lord, he vomited on the spot, terrible....83
Signaller Leonard Ounsworth, 124th Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery
Most men reacted to death and destruction with deep gloom and a gradually encroaching fatalism. Soon it would be them, there was nothing they could do, no way out of the trap.
Seeing Buffs colours on the sleeve of a wounded man’s tunic I cross over to see him. It happened to be my old Signal Sergeant Lustead. As fine a man as ever breathed. He was finished, although not quite dead, shot through the throat. It makes one feel gloomy. How long will I be able to dodge the end, still I must not be too morbid. If it comes, well it comes and I daresay that I can be replaced.84
Private Robert Cude, 7th Battalion, East Kent Regiment, 55th Brigade, 18th Division
The attack on 14 July, known subsequently as the Battle of Bazentin Ridge, had undoubtedly been a triumph in its declared intention of capturing the German former Second Line. Yet for all this tactical success, it remained true that the Fourth Army had emphatically not succeeded in achieving the true breakthrough that might have beckoned towards a strategic success. Even when pushing in the area of his greatest triumphs Rawlinson was still playing catch-up for the original objectives meant to have been taken on 1 July. This perhaps is not so much a criticism of the objectives and achievements of 14 July but more a condemnation of the disaster that had preceded it. Nevertheless, some real hope existed of an accelerated British advance in the weeks that would follow in late July and early August. The German defences were steadily weakening as they struggled to recreate in just a few days from scratches in the ground, the fortress lines that had served them so well on 1 July. And now that the British stood on Bazentin Ridge the French Army would at last rejoin the attack north of the river Somme. If the British kept their nerve and pushed forward then surely victory would be theirs.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Stumbling to Disaster
THE ATMOSPHERE OF OPTIMISM engendered by the dramatic successes of 14 July was to prove the cruellest false dawn of the whole Somme campaign. During the next few weeks it seemed as if every lesson that might have been learnt from that success—the devastating use of massed artillery in support of an attack on a reasonably wide front using imaginative infantry tactics—had been deliberately and perversely cast to the winds and replaced with the tactics of a lunatic asylum. If this was a learning curve then it was a sad travesty of geometry. For the infantry the ‘High Summer’ on the Somme was a dispiriting litany of suffering, failure and ‘successes’ that were so expensive in lost lives that only the criminally short-sighted would regard them as worthwhile. Once again obscure villages, woods and trenches would attain a notoriety that would still strike a real resonance of despair some decades later.
General Sir Henry Rawlinson certainly appreciated that the situation had changed as the German reserves arrived in some considerable force. He consequently intended a moratorium on piecemeal attacks before a properly coordinated attack on a broad front could be organised—which eventually occurred on 23 July. The sense of drift in the Fourth Army was he
ightened by the realisation that whatever its army commander may have intended, his subordinates were still intent on launching isolated attacks to attain local objectives. Time after time his divisional commanders launched attacks that had little or no chance of success. All the old faults so evident in the period that had preceded 14 July were once more fully in evidence.
Inevitably, the overall character of the battle changed as the Germans moved up more of their artillery. Although the Royal Artillery still had superiority in the number of guns deployed, they had a far more onerous role in that it was required to destroy the whole fabric of the German lines, whereas the German guns merely had to break up British attacks and support infantry counter-attacks. Whenever either side launched an attack the guns would redouble or triple their efforts, flaying the frontline sectors and reaching back to seal off the area from reserves.
Delville Wood
Perhaps the most futile series of attacks were launched against a small wood with a burgeoning reputation as a hell-hole and the name to match—Delville Wood. Indeed part of the official nomenclature for the Somme refers glumly to the period 15 July to 3 September as the ‘Battle of Delville Wood’, as the British struggled to capture and then hold the blighted wood and the ruins of the adjoining village, Longueval. In peacetime the 156-acre wood had a typically sylvan aspect, with mingled oak and birch trees interspersed with thickets of hazel and undergrowth, the whole divided into sections by a series of ‘rides’ or breaks in the trees. But by mid-July the trees were smashed down, ripped into tangled heaps by the shells and the ‘Devil’s Wood’, as the troops unsurprisingly called it, presented a fearsome prospect.
On 15 July the 9th Division, who had captured the bulk of Longueval on 14 July, were given the task of completing the capture of the wood. Few could have imagined what a protracted saga they were embarking on. The South African Brigade was ordered to capture the wood at ‘all costs’ on 15 July. The three attacking battalions were placed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William Tanner the commanding officer of the 4th South African Regiment, and the attack duly went in at 0615.
We arrived at the edge of the wood at about dawn, everybody on tenterhooks and just as the last man got in old Fritz opened fire with big and little guns, rifle and machine-gun fire. What a time we had! Our men were being rolled over like ninepins, but on went the boys and by 8.30 we had accomplished our task. We gave old Fritz the time of his life. I took a slow and steady aim and made every shot tell. My only regret was that I did not get my bayonet into him. Later there was a lull and it was during this lull that I was hit. I was on guard at the time and it was my duty to keep a sharp lookout over the parapet. I had only been on a few minutes when old Fritz sent a huge shell right in front of our trench. It blew away a portion of the trench and knocked a tree over on top of us. One of the splinters of the shell landed me one on the right cheek, which of course put me out for a few moments. It made a nasty hole. I did not wish to leave, but I was told to take another wounded man into safety. We were shelled all the way to the dressing station, but I got him away without any further mishap. On my way through the wood I saw many of our brave lads dead.1
Private Hugh Mallett, 2nd Battalion, South African Regiment, South African Brigade, 9th Division
There was considerable confusion over the tactical position in and around the wood as no one could say for sure where exactly the amorphous front line was.
We are engaging troops advancing on wood from south and east. There is some uncertainty as to who they are. Can you say whether French or Huns? Am much perturbed as to uncertainty who we are fighting.2
Captain E.V.Vivian, 3rd Battalion, South African Regiment, South African Brigade, 9th Division
They managed to capture all but the north-western portion of Delville Wood but, as the severity of the German counter-attacks increased from all around the salient, almost every available man was needed to repel them.
In view of the fact that there is no wire in front of my firing line—neither is there any in front of the Huns and No Man’s Land is only about 300 yards—I think an ample supply of ammunition for Lewis Guns chiefly should be on hand with me. It was most difficult work getting the men to husband their ammunition—especially as we had to allow several hundred Huns to go in peace at a range of 800 yards. But it paid as we caught them at 500 yards. My supply of ammunition is very short.3
Captain Medlicort, 3rd Battalion, South African Regiment, South African Brigade, 9th Division
The South Africans held on till nightfall and set to entrenching the wood perimeter—no small task in ground filled with twisted roots and mangled trees. This, however, was only the beginning: there would be no relief for days and the South Africans were ordered to hold their ground—again ‘at all costs’. Inspirational orders are undoubtedly easier to give out than to follow. Since Captain Vivian had been wounded, another young officer had taken over command of the company and was desperately struggling to cope.
The enemy continued shelling the wood very heavily all last night, inflicting many casualties. The Vickers machine gun has been put out of action and the gun withdrawn. Nothing has been heard or seen of the 3rd Division. I was given to understand that they were attacking at dawn. My company has been so depleted, and the remaining few are now so exhausted that I do not consider we could put up an effective resistance if the enemy were to attack.4
Lieutenant Owen Hubert de Burgh Thomas, 3rd Battalion, South African Regiment, South African Brigade, 9th Division
The German shells were raking across the wood, the ceaseless roar gradually increasing in volume as more and more guns were brought up to the line. To allow the Germans free rein across the wood the German garrison of the north-west section were pulled back. On 18 July it has been calculated that around 20,000 shells fell on the single square mile of Devil’s Wood reaching a crescendo at the phenomenal rate of seven crashing down per second.
Absolute hell turned inside out. I never expected to get out whole. Shells dropping everywhere. We get orders to return in the afternoon late. I think, in fact I am almost sure, that our lives were saved when a very brave officer, Captain Hoptroff, made his way to our position. He wasted no time, ‘Get out!’ he said, and was almost immediately hit by a bullet and killed outright. It is strange how, in the most urgent and tragic circumstances, one notices things of minor importance. For as Captain Hoptroff dropped, my eye caught sight of his very beautiful gold wristlet watch; and I have never ceased to regret that I did not take it off, and send it to his family. I am sure that they would have appreciated it.5
Private Frank Marillier, 2nd Battalion, South African Regiment, South African Brigade, 9th Division
All around the wood perimeter young South African officers were recognising the prosaic truth that human courage alone cannot withstand huge quantities of high explosive and shrapnel.
I am now the only officer left in A Coy. One Lewis Gun crew have been blown up. Can you send another crew? I have wounded men lying all along my front & have no stretchers left, and they are dying for want of treatment, my field dressings being all used up. Can you obtain stretcher bearers? Urgent. I consider the position is now untenable, and have had my breastworks all blown in. It is impossible to spare men to take wounded away and my front is now very lightly held with many gaps. To save the balance of men it will be necessary to withdraw. Most of the men here are suffering from shell shock and I do not consider we are fit to hold the position in the event of an enemy attack.6
Lieutenant Owen Hubert de Burgh Thomas, 3rd Battalion, South African Regiment, South African Brigade, 9th Division
The South Africans had given all they could give. Despite their orders to stick it at all costs several reluctantly began to fall back on Prince’s Street, as the Scots had quaintly named the main ride that cut across the wood from Longueval to its eastern border. Colonel Tanner had been evacuated wounded and Colonel Thackeray of the 3rd South Africans had therefore taken effective command of the b
rigade. Their new positions were amongst what remained of the wood, and a new and deadly threat soon made itself apparent.
