Kiggell set out to justify his boss’s thinking, again. Writing 20 years after the fact, he said it had never been his understanding that Haig wanted a breakthrough battle.134 ‘Our hope at the time as I understood it was to force the enemy from his entrenched positions, [and] follow up success with cavalry so far as might prove possible and judicious.’135 Kiggell was arguing semantics and on thin ice. GHQ’s correspondence with Rawlinson may not have actually stated the word ‘breakthrough’ but as a sum of parts — particularly the missives of 16 and 21 June — it was abundantly clear that this was Haig’s favoured goal. This was the case as early as February, when Kitchener complained to intelligence chief Charteris that someone from GHQ had been talking about a breakthrough.136 In his post-war memoir, Charteris said he had no difficulty in believing it was Haig: ‘I fancy he himself has been using the term break-through to some of the visitors [to GHQ], and it has reached K’s [Kitchener’s] ears!’137 Kiggell was always a Haig supporter and it was tiringly predictable to find him later attempting to portray his old boss in a positive light.
Rawlinson now revealed Haig’s grand plan to his six corps commanders, which must have been difficult given he had never really believed in its most optimistic goals. At a conference with these officers on 22 June Rawlinson explained that the British attack was now the main operation on the Somme, and also outlined Haig’s increased objectives for the initial infantry attack. He told them an opportunity might occur to push cavalry through to confirm success, and then relayed Haig’s orders verbatim. Before he did, Rawlinson said it might not be possible to break the German line and push cavalry through towards more distant objectives in the first rush.138 It would not be possible at all if the first German position was not captured until the afternoon:139
A situation may supervene later when the attack on the Brown Line takes place for pushing the cavalry through; but until we can see what is the [state] of the battle, it is impossible to predict what moment we shall be able to undertake this, and the decision will rest in my hands to say when it can be carried out.140
From these words alone it was apparent that Rawlinson still had nil appetite for the most ambitious elements of Haig’s plan. His lack of enthusiasm, which could have been perceived as borderline subversive, cannot have gone unnoticed by his corps commanders, who had to implement it at the tactical level and produce results on the ground.
Haig likely suspected Rawlinson was damning his plans with faint praise. He visited Rawlinson on 27 June and was horrified by what he heard. ‘He has ordered his troops to halt for an hour and consolidate on the enemy’s last line! Covered by an artillery barrage!’141 This order ran almost contrary to Haig’s and hinged on whether the enemy had reserves on the spot for a counterattack on the day of battle.142 It vaguely suggested Rawlinson had misunderstood GHQ’s speculative operational objectives, but a more probable explanation was that he had knowingly interpreted and communicated them to corps commanders through his bite-and-hold lens.
Haig wasted no time in putting Rawlinson back on track, directing him to prepare for a rapid-advance attack. He stressed the importance of having corps commanders use their cavalry and mounted troops should the opportunity arise. ‘In my opinion,’ reiterated Haig, ‘it is better to prepare to advance beyond the Enemy’s last line of trenches, because we are then in a position to take advantage of any breakdown in the Enemy’s defence. Whereas if there is a stubborn resistance put up, the matter settles itself. On the other hand if no preparations for an advance are made till next morning, we might lose a golden opportunity.’143
So it was that Gough’s Reserve Army infantry and cavalry were expected to push on towards Bapaume, then roll up the enemy’s positions towards Monchy-le-Preux, near Arras, if German resistance broke. Neat as this sounded, the detail was only hammered out late on 27 June after lengthy talks between Haig, Kiggell, Rawlinson and Gough.144 The latter was to have his headquarters at Albert as soon as Pozières Ridge fell, with his command comprising a pair of Fourth Army’s divisions presently in corps reserve, namely III Corps’ 19th (Western) and X Corps’ 49th (West Riding) Divisions.145 Infantry of 19th and 49th would be pushed forward ahead of the cavalry towards Pys, Irles and Le Sars so that ‘no time may be lost’ in exploiting a breakdown in German resistance.146 As Reserve Army advanced, 17th (Northern) Division, which was XV Corps’ reserve, would strike out towards Bazentin-le-Petit and High Wood and protect III Corps’ southern flank, while VIII Corps would cover X Corps’ northern wing.147 One squadron of cavalry would be attached to each of 19th, 49th and 17th Divisions and the order for their advance would be given by Reserve Army. It was only after these divisions crossed the German second defensive line that they would come under Gough’s command; until then they and their committal to battle belonged entirely to Rawlinson. As Haig put it, ‘I agreed to this arrangement.’148
Rawlinson apparently agreed with all of this, too, except that he did not really. Next day he issued a memo outlining how reserve infantry divisions were to open the way for cavalry if enemy resistance broke down.149
I issued orders for the advance of the 49, 19 and 17 Divisions which are the reserves of these [III, X and XV] Corps as soon as the Green Line is taken always provided that we get the Green Line easily and without too heavy fighting. I think they all understand and Goughy [sic] will take command of these divisions as soon as they cross the Green Line.150
That was the theory, but Rawlinson, according to his diary of 30 June, doubted he would ever have to enact it. ‘I am full of hope we may succeed but we shant [sic] get the Green Line without a good hard fight.’151 In effect Rawlinson was saying his single stated condition for committing his reserve divisions on 1 July — the Green Line being ‘easily’ captured — was unlikely to be met. It was a troubling epitaph that revealed the extent of the chasm between Haig’s and Rawlinson’s operational thinking, and their differing expectations on the eve of battle.
The date of the Anglo-French operation was penned down for 29 June after a good deal of vacillation, with scope for it to be postponed due to bad weather. At a conference on 26 May at Montreuil, Haig had promised Joffre that Fourth Army would be ready to attack on 20 June, but that the best date — as far as numbers of British troops and materiel accumulated went, and he needed at least 12 days’ notice — would be 15 August.152 Joffre said the British would not be called upon to attack until about 1 July, and Haig said he would raise no objection so long as there was no postponement once a specific date had been set.153 It was a wishful request given the backcloth of change, more so given the prospect already existed that Haig’s army might have to undertake the offensive alone.154 An escalation in the fighting at Verdun and a political crisis in Paris saw 25 June mooted as a start date, but this passed quickly, and 29 June and 1 July were then suggested by the French as alternatives. Haig was concerned that the British concentration of troops would be rumbled by the enemy, who might attack at a weaker point elsewhere along the line. Eventually Haig, Joffre and their respective headquarters settled on 29 June. The bombardment was to open early on 24 June and last for five days. Rain on 28 June and again on the night of 29–30 June saw the infantry attack postponed to 1 July, with the bombardment extended, too.
By this time the War Committee had established a firm handle on Germany’s strategic direction for 1916, and recognised that Verdun had eroded France’s ability to provide a major contribution to the Somme offensive.155 Moreover, wrote a pair of historians, ‘France was developing a jaundiced attitude towards its Entente partners. The idea was developing in France . . . that the British were accumulating military resources for some future project entirely to their own benefit, and were disregarding France’s imminent needs.’156 Haig, who had travelled to London to meet with the committee in early June, confirmed all of this, and said the French army was being progressively worn threadbare. In light of this he had already agreed to a start date that was earlier than his ideal of 15 August.157 Robertson, the Chief of Imperial Gener
al Staff, now confirmed 26 British and 14 French divisions would begin the attack, that artillery and other preparations were proceeding satisfactorily, and that he ‘thought we could get on all right.’158 Few seemed bothered that he did not know how many artillery guns the German army had on the Somme, only that they were probably superior to the British accumulation.159 Perhaps that was because a day earlier gifted conversationalist and public speaker Lloyd George had given the committee well-received assurances and data showing improved British artillery and ammunition production.160 Whatever the case, Whitehall had committed to the Somme out of coalition necessity and political pragmatism and — in conflict with its earlier reservations — was allowing the British army to shoulder the main burden of the Anglo-French offensive.
In short, the British army’s final attack orders were the laboured sum of the shifting sands of coalition warfare. Haig had followed the edicts of a dithering War Committee, negotiated a sensitive relationship with Joffre, and dealt with a borderline-subversive Rawlinson along the way. Although first conceived to evict the German army by a powerful, coordinated Allied offensive of strategic attrition, the Somme was quickly bent into something else as charnel-house Verdun unfolded, French commitment waned and the Russian army went on the attack in Ukraine. Rawlinson, Foch and Fayolle were bite-and-hold realists who envisaged a lengthy campaign of tactical attrition, which began with killing lots of Germans and would eventually produce victory. Joffre thought in terms of what could be, but his initial ambitions were heavily influenced by uncertainty about British commitment to the joint offensive, and were both warped and suppressed by Verdun. Haig thought in terms of operational attrition, which meant busting the stalemate with a breakin battle, followed by a Napoleon-inspired breakthrough and a return to mobile operations. His optimistic outlook and Britain’s part in the offensive only became more speculative as the start date of 29 June, and then 1 July, neared. If the orders for Britain’s first day of the Somme were inked amid confusion out of coalition necessity in the shadow of Verdun, they were also a foolscap encapsulation of Haig’s flawed character and its influence on his operational thinking.
CHAPTER 2
‘I Learned to Hate the Place’
British trench life, training and preparations, August 1915 to 23 June 1916
‘There is something painfully sad about war. I do not speak from the soldier’s point of view. This is not really so bad. He merely takes a risk, his eyes open. If he is hit, he has lost the throw [of the dice] and there the matter ends.’1
— Captain Charlie May, 22nd Manchesters
LIFE WAS CHEAP within the muddy British trenches on the Somme in the year before the offensive began. ‘One felt a good deal of inward apprehension & realised one’s future might be pretty brief,’ wrote a fatalistic Lieutenant Derick Capper, 8th Royal Sussex.2 ‘I thought,’ noted a despairing Private George Pollard, 11th East Lancashires, ‘there is no way out of it.’3 Most everybody feared injury over death: a life lived with loss of limb, disfigured face, blindness or lingering mental trauma horrified. ‘The prospect of pain naturally appals me somewhat,’ said soon-to-bedead Lieutenant Ernest Polack, 4th Gloucesters, ‘and I am taking morphia in with me to battle.’ ‘Death,’ continued Polack, who was killed in mid-July 1916, held ‘no terrors for me in itself.’4 Memories of happier times became phantasms that might never have been, might never be again. ‘If I get killed,’ pondered an existentially minded Captain John Upcott, 9th Devons, ‘what next?’5
Suppression of fear was an ongoing struggle. Private Frank Moakler, Newfoundland Regiment, prayed to God — ‘I did not know of anyone else who could help me’ — and lived to die an old man.6 Sergeant Alex Fisher, 10th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, placed himself into a ‘sort of’ mental cocoon, but retained ‘all my faculties and my abilities and also my awareness.’7 And, yet, the mental struggle to still his quivering hands continued.8 Private Ernest Grindley, 19th Manchesters, saw one man terrified by shellfire run ‘screaming towards the rear.’9 Most did not run, but many thought twice for fear of letting their pals down, stigmatising their families or ending up in a lonely spot before a firing squad.10 Lieutenant Capper spoke for many when he said, ‘I was no hero and as scared (or “windy” as we called it then) as the next man, but most scared of all of showing it.’11 So lived thousands under the shadow of death, each unsure whether that day or the next would be their last. ‘This,’ thought Pollard, ‘is going to be my future.’12
GENERAL SIR DOUGLAS Haig brought 19 divisions together in his six army corps opening the Somme offensive. Thirteen were to be directly involved, with a further six in reserve. Eleven were Kitchener divisions, plus four each of first-line Territorial Force and Regular Army divisions that also included numerous new recruits. Fourteen of the 19 divisions had seen at least five months’ service in the trenches since 1915, and 12 would be participating in their first major offensive. Six had fought at Loos, Neuve Chapelle and Aubers Ridge in 1915, and one at Gallipoli.
The first British troops arrived on the Somme in August 1915 when Third Army took over a large portion of previously French-held land north of the River Somme. Come early March 1916, General Sir Henry Rawlinson’s just-formed Fourth Army acquired the southern 20 miles of Third Army’s positions, which would eventually comprise the rump of the 1 July battlefield, and the latter army’s VIII, X and XIII Corps. By the end of April, III and XV Corps were spliced into Rawlinson’s order of battle. Eight of his divisions were previously Third Army, and 11 more arrived in March–June 1916. The inescapable conclusion was that most of the soldiers in Haig’s Somme strike force were new to the Picardy area of northern France, and novices when it came to fighting large-scale offensives of the type he was planning, which meant there was plenty of work to be done to prepare them for the upcoming battle.
It was this Haig referred to when assessing the various divisions comprising the British army in March 1916. ‘I am strengthening the long line which I have recently taken over, and training the troops. I have not got an Army in France really, but a collection of divisions untrained for the field. The actual field Army will be evolved from them.’13
This Darwinian process began with a salutary introduction to the trenches crisscrossing more than 20 miles of downs from Gommecourt salient to just north of the Somme. Each of the six army corps was allocated a set area 3500–5000 yards wide, as the crow flew, although the yardage of actual front-line trenches within each was much longer.14 Third Army’s VII Corps surrounded Gommecourt salient. In Fourth Army’s area, VIII Corps held the line facing Serre–Beaumont Hamel, X Corps was in the trenches across the River Ancre and facing Thiepval–Leipzig Redoubt, III Corps was opposite Ovillers and La Boisselle, XV Corps faced Fricourt–Hill 110–Mametz, and XIII Corps looked over at Montauban. Each division was responsible for the front-line system in its own area, as well as the fretwork of trenches behind. Headquarters and accommodation dugouts, along with machine-gun, signalling and observation posts, were studded throughout. As a rule, each division deployed two brigades in depth in their front-line system, on a twobattalion frontage, with a third in reserve. Fourth Army’s anodyne order of battle belied its role as a defensive scheme.
Soldiers saw little of this wider tactical organisation beyond the parallelogram of trenches that was temporarily home to their platoon, company or battalion. Events beyond the several crenellated traverses bounding each twelve-man section’s little portion of the line were more often heard than seen; a barrage or firefight a hundred yards or so away might warrant a terse diary mention, but that was about it. Snatching a nosey glance over the parapet to find out what was going on was to court a bullet. For individual soldiers and sections all that mattered was surviving their own four- to eight-day trench tour, getting sufficient food and sleep, and finishing enough labouring work, sentry duty and other tasks to please the boss, not what had happened to some unknown bloke further along the line.
Some sense of life within these earthen parentheses c
an be had today from the viewing area on the Caribou Memorial at Newfoundland Memorial Park near Beaumont Hamel. Look out towards the old twostorey cottage off to the right and you can see the front-line system’s dog-legged rows of fire, support and reserve ditches, and the intersecting communication trenches for those trudging into or out of the line. You can see the traverses that once marked the worldly boundaries for innumerable small groups of soldiers for days at a time; in summer they are grass-clad, sprinkled with daisies and beguiling. Back then they were all about dirt and sandbags, and the wafting stench of corpses mixed with the aroma of Haig’s unwashed legion.
This troglodytic life was mostly about routine. ‘We did 2 hours’ sentry, 2 hours’ work & 2 hours’ rest on the fire step,’ said Sergeant Thomas Bennett, 2nd Bedfords, of his daytime rota, which included a period at dusk and dawn when every man would ‘stand to’ in case of an enemy attack in the half-light. ‘My regiment were never allowed in dugouts in the front line and always we had to look about for salvage such as old iron & used cartridge cases.’15 Sergeant George Osborn, 2nd South Wales Borderers, was ‘up all night working and doing sentry. No sleep again last night. Standing to this morning, working all day.’16 Lance-Corporal John Cousins, 7th Bedfords, complained the ‘only rest one had was to lay on a ground sheet when off sentry duty.’17 Then there was the nervous tension of after-dark lookout work, he said, recalling the ‘panic firing at night when a rat ran across the [observation] slit of the trench parapet.’18 Private Pollard was another sleep-deprived sentry:
First day of the Somme Page 6
