Most of this land was held by 26th Reserve Division. Its Württembergrecruited RIR119 and Reserve Infantry Regiment 121 (RIR121) occupied the trenches from the Ancre to just south of Serre. Thereafter, the trenches belonged to soldiers of 52nd Infantry Division, with the Baden-drawn Infantry Regiment 169 (IR169) defending Serre. These three German infantry regiments, all in XIV Reserve Corps, totalled about 9000 men. These faced an estimated 25,000 infantry, pioneer and engineer officers and men of Hunter-Weston’s corps who actually participated in the attack, from the total 96,794 soldiers of all ranks and units in VIII Corps.15
As mentioned earlier, German commanders regarded the subtle westfacing salient between Hamel, Beaumont Hamel and Serre as must-hold ground.16 Defences here were based on two spurs that curved behind and overlooked the front-line positions as they faded into the northern banks of the River Ancre. Fourteenth Reserve Corps and Second Army treated the Serre–Grandcourt (Serre Heights) and Redan Ridge–Beaucourt Spurs as essential because of the southeasterly views they afforded over Thiepval Plateau and Pozières,17 and also east over a string of villages towards Bapaume. Loss of this ground would render Beaumont Hamel, Beaucourt, Grandcourt, Miraumont and Thiepval untenable.18 Moreover, the 26th’s artillery lines just north of the Ancre would be lost, denuding Thiepval and Pozières of northern flank support. If this happened, the 26th’s positions around Pozières, Ovillers and La Boisselle would subsequently be jeopardised and potentially rolled up by the British.19 None of this had escaped the 26th’s commander, Generalleutnant Franz Freiherr von Soden, or his superiors at XIV Reserve Corps and Second Army, who knew the loss of the elevations behind Beaumont Hamel and Serre, and in particular Serre Heights, had significant tactical ramifications for the tenability of his divisional sector and thus spared no effort in making it impregnable.20
Hunter-Weston planned to break this German fortress with a frontal infantry assault supported by artillery. His three divisions would attack to a depth of 3000–3500 yards and link up side by side on Serre–Grandcourt Spur, its final objective, by midday. In so doing it would provide flank support for Fourth Army’s main thrust towards Pozières. This spur also had a wider value in that it provided a foundation from which the under-construction German third defensive line and a handful of villages could later be assaulted.21 The initial stages of Hunter-Weston’s advance were the toughest to complete as these involved a mostly uphill operation against the multiple fortified villages and redoubts. Furthest north, 31st Division would capture Serre before moving onto the high ground beyond, while immediately south 4th Division would attack astride Redan Ridge and seize Ridge Redoubt, Heidenkopf and Soden Redoubt before coming up alongside the 31st. Twenty-ninth Division was to take Bergwerk, Beaumont Hamel, Y-Ravine, Grallsburg, Beaucourt Redoubt and Beaucourt village before arriving at the southern end of the spur. Attainment of these ambitious objectives was reliant on VIII Corps’ artillery nullifying resistance during both the seven-day bombardment and the battle-day barrage.22
Eighth Corps’ gunners had three tasks. They had to kill or neutralise Württemberg and Baden infantry, destroy defensive obstacles and mechanisms such as barbed wire and machine-gun posts, and also suppress hostile artillery grouped further back. Prior to Zero hour, this was the purpose of the prolonged bombardment, and during the attack it was the job of the supporting barrage. In the period 24–30 June, VIII Corps’ artillery fired almost 363,000 heavy and field artillery shells at the German positions.23 On 1 July they would fire about 61,500 shells.24 Impressive as these figures appear, they do not take into account the number of duds, the dilution of shellfire over a wide area, the weighting to shrapnel over explosive shells, or the difficulties in locating and then destroying distant targets given the technology of 1916. There were other problems, too. In Hunter-Weston’s battle sector, Fourth Army had allocated the equivalent of about one field gun to every 20 yards of attack frontage, and about one heavy barrel for every 44 yards.25 This concentration was, even a year later, considered ridiculously low.26 At the time Hunter-Weston waxed lyrical about the cut wire, which in many places remained intact, and German trenches that were ‘blown to pieces.’27 He reckoned his corps had only to ‘walk into Serre.’28 As events would show, Hunter-Weston’s optimism was entirely misplaced because VIII Corps’ artillery had failed in all three of its essential tasks.
Brigadier-General John Charteris, General Sir Douglas Haig’s chief of intelligence, visited Hunter-Weston late on 28 June. As mentioned previously, he had Haig’s authority to stop VIII Corps’ attack if he thought it wise.29 He found Hunter-Weston and his divisional chiefs convinced they would achieve a great success and approved the attack. ‘The Corps Commander said he felt “like Napoleon before the battle of Austerlitz!”’30 It was a careless line that revealed much about Hunter-Weston’s delusions.
There were more troubling problems in that VIII Corps’ artillery programme for 1 July was unfit for purpose. The plan was for Hunter-Weston’s infantry to be presaged by a timetabled barrage. It was to start on the German front line and step back at six set intervals until the final objective was taken. But Hunter-Weston fiddled with the timetable to accommodate the mine-blast timing: infantry could not seize the crater if heavy artillery was shelling the area.31 Astoundingly, he ordered his corps’ heavy artillery to lift its shellfire off the entire German front line opposite his corps at 7.20 a.m. to targets further back, rather than just that opposite 29th Division.32 Field artillery would step its ‘thin’ fire further back at 7.30 a.m., but in the 29th’s sector it would be halved from 7.27 a.m.33 Gunnery officers tweaked their fire plans, but infantry planners were oblivious.34 It was a classic case of left hand not knowing what the right was doing. The result would be thousands of British infantrymen stranded in no-man’s-land for up to 10 minutes before their attack began and exposed to the enemy’s defensive artillery and machinegun fire. As far as blunders went, this one was pretty big and, as we shall see, guaranteed disaster for Hunter-Weston’s infantry.
Eighth Corps had at first wanted the mine blown at 6 p.m. on 30 June,35 and then changed the timing to 3.30 a.m. on 1 July, so that the crater could be seized before the main attack.36 General Headquarters (GHQ) wanted it shifted to 7.30 a.m.37 Hunter-Weston said the blast was advanced to 7.20 a.m. at the request of 29th Division to avoid having infantrymen hit by falling debris as they crossed no-man’s-land.38 The 29th’s commander, Major-General Beauvoir de Lisle, denied this.39 He blamed the mining officers. The mining officers blamed VIII Corps and one another. So it continued. Most pointed an accusatory finger at Hunter-Weston. It turned out nobody in VIII Corps had wanted the 7.20 a.m. time slot, but somehow that was what they got.40 It is damning to find Hunter-Weston begrudgingly admitting responsibility later.41
Hunter-Weston’s mine-timing decision was apparently queried several times by concerned senior artillery officers.42 But the general was ‘not to be moved from his scheme,’ wrote Major John Gibbon, Royal Artillery.43 ‘We knew [the attack] was foredoomed to failure.’44
‘EVERYONE KNEW . . . IT was important not to miss the moment that the [British shell] fire moved back [to more distant targets] and the infantry assault began,’ wrote Leutnant-der-Reserve Gerster, RIR119.45 That signalled the start of the so-called race for the parapet. The winner was whoever reached the German front line first; the greater the margin the better. As it turned out, both the shelling debacle and the mine explosion gave German defenders an unrecoverable head start as Hunter-Weston’s infantry were deploying hundreds of yards away in no-man’s-land. At the same time, as a German officer just south of Serre recalled, the British barrage ‘lifted onto our rear positions and we felt the earth shake violently — this was caused by a mine going off near Beaumont. In no time flat the slope opposite resembled an ant heap.’46 German infantrymen raced up from dugouts and into the shellfire-torn trenches, propping rifles and machine guns on broken parapets and shell-crater rims; they were ready and waiting, 5–10 minutes before the British attack even
began.47 Hunter-Weston’s meddling had lost his infantry the parapet foot race by quite some distance.
One British soldier chanced a peek towards the enemy parapet as the barrage lifted. ‘Out on the top [of the trench] came scrambling a German machine-gun team. They fixed their gun in front of their parapet and opened out a slow and deadly fire on our front.’48 At that moment many soldiers realised they were doomed. Heavy casualties were inevitable. Here and there some machine guns were chattering away before the bombardment even lifted.
Disaster, if not massacre, followed. Within moments a lopsided battle was raging.49 German machine-gunners fired staccato bursts. Riflemen drew careful bead. Shellfire tore down whole groups of British soldiers.50 ‘Despite the protection of the wooden rifle stock [around the gun barrel], the skin on their left hands burned,’51 said Gerster, who fought on Hawthorn Ridge. There were ‘shouted commands, cries for help, messages, death screams, shouts of joy, wheezing, whining, pleading, gun shots, machine gun fire crackling, and shell explosions.’52 He continued: ‘Everywhere the [British] skirmishing line crumples. Khaki-brown spots cover the broken earth. Arms are thrown in the air, indicating death. We can see people rushing back wounded, or sheltering in shell craters. The severely wounded are rolling on the ground.’53 VIII Corps’ attack was irretrievably faltering before it had even really begun.
Red flares rising skyward from the German front line and urgent calls from artillery observers quickly brought down a hurricane of shrapnel and explosive shellfire. In some places it began around 7.20 a.m. In others, such as in 31st Division’s area, it started at about 7 a.m.54 Bigger German guns systematically pummelled the British trenches. Lightercalibre weapons threw down a curtain of shellfire on no-man’s-land to impede successive waves of attacking infantry. Nominally about 61 guns, or 40% of 26th Reserve Division’s 154 artillery pieces, were deployed between the River Ancre and Heidenkopf.55 These were complemented by an estimated 35 guns of 52nd Infantry Division behind and to the north of Serre.56 While many guns had been damaged or destroyed by the British bombardment, plenty had survived, were stocked with ammunition and now began shooting at pre-allocated target zones.57 ‘On the morning of 1 July virtually all batteries [surviving the bombardment] are fully ready to fire,’ said Major Max Klaus, Reserve Field Artillery Regiment 26 (RFAR26).58 This was the benefit of XIV Reserve Corps having insisted that its gunners preserve firepower through fire discipline.
‘This barrage which fell at Zero was one of the most consistently severe I have seen,’ said Brigadier-General Hubert Rees, commanding 94th Brigade, of the scene in no-man’s-land and within the British lines.59 ‘It gave me the impression of a thick belt of poplar trees from the cones of the explosions. As soon as I saw it I ordered every man within reach to halt and lie down but only managed to stop about 2 companies because all troops had to move at once in order to capture their objectives on time. It was impossible for any but a few men to get through it.’
The botched mine blast and initial barrage lift comprised the first element of a three-act tragedy. The second act, which had yet to begin, was all about 4th, 29th and 31st Divisions’ generally disastrous attacks in the two-and-a-half hours to about 10 a.m. The third was played out on Hawthorn Ridge and at Heidenkopf, where destinedto-fail British incursions took on the qualities of epics that belied their actual importance. In truth, few soldiers would have recognised these distinctions; for them it was mostly a day-long horror story bare of any redeeming qualities.
THE SECOND ACT began with 29th Division’s attacks across a 200–600 yards-wide no-man’s-land around Beaumont Hamel failing by about 8 a.m. Here — in keeping with the popular imagery of soldiers advancing in unwavering lines — all of the 29th’s attacking battalions were ordered to press forward in columns of sections, although some minor tactical variations were used in places.60 Overall, however, the tactics used by the 29th to get its infantry across no-man’s-land and into RIR119’s trenches did precisely nothing to lessen the slaughter that was about to follow.
Each of the 29th’s three brigades had a section from either 1/1st West Riding, 1/3rd Kent or 1/2nd Field Companies, Royal Engineers (RE) attached for consolidating gains.61 Two companies of 1/2nd Monmouths* were split up across the 29th’s leading attack battalions for carrying and consolidation work. Two Russian Saps in the 29th’s area — First Avenue and Mary, both well out into no-man’s-land — were used as Stokesmortar emplacements. These tunnels were quickly clogged with wounded and battle stragglers, and repeated efforts to link and extend them to the German line by the remaining half of 1/2nd Monmouths failed under a torrent of bullets.62
Twenty-ninth Division’s 86th and 87th Brigades, respectively commanded by Brigadier-Generals Weir Williams and Cuthbert Lucas, attacked side by side. The 86th was astride the shallow Beaumont Hamel–Auchonvillers road valley. To the north, 1st Lancashire Fusiliers† — two of its companies racing forward in extended order at 7.30 a.m. from a sunken lane in no-man’s-land and the rest overland in columns of sections from the British front line behind them — was dropped by machine-gun and rifle fire.63 Sap 7, an unopened Russian Sap linking the sunken lane and the British front line, was soon filled with wounded trying to get back. It was a similar story for the rump of 2nd Royal Fusiliers* immediately south, with less than 120 from one of its companies having raced forward minutes before Zero to find German infantry already at the smouldering Hawthorn Ridge crater.64 Support battalions 16th Middlesex† and 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers‡ were similarly swept down as they crossed the front line just before 8 a.m. and attempted to pass through their own wire and move forward.65 Further south, again, the 87th’s 2nd South Wales Borderers§ began deploying at 7.20 a.m. in the area now known as Newfoundland Memorial Park and was taking casualties around its own front line and as men bunched to pass through gaps in their own wire.66 None made it across the bullet-swept no-man’s-land and into the German trenches.67 The same fate befell 1st Borders¶ as it followed immediately behind.68 Opposite Mary Redan salient, closer to the River Ancre, the decimation of 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers** began as it left the British front line at 7.30 a.m. under heavy machine-gun fire.69 A few apparently won their way into the hostile trench, but these were driven out, captured or killed.70 First King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB)†† followed and made no headway.71 Virtually none of 29th’s initial attack battalions reached the German lines; their dead, dying and wounded lay thick around the British trenches and in no-man’s-land.72
One officer of 1st KOSB complained bitterly about the lack of secrecy in preparing his battalion’s attack. This applied equally across the combined fronts of 86th and 87th Brigades. ‘The advertisement of the attack on our front was absurd. Paths were cut and marked through our wire days before. Bridges over our trenches for the 2nd and 3rd waves to cross by were put up days in advance. Small wonder the M.G. [machine-gun] fire was directed with such fatal precision.’73 The result, as 1st Borders’ war diarist noted, was that multiple battalions advanced at a slow walk ‘until only little groups of half a dozen men were left here and there, and these . . . took cover in shell holes or where ever they could. The advance was brought entirely to a standstill.’74 These grim themes were repeated in the battle reports of multiple battalions,75 and it was evident, too, in the diaries and memoirs of those lucky enough to survive the machine-gun maelstrom.
Sergeant George Osborn, 2nd South Wales Borderers, expected to die:76 ‘My word, we found ourselves in a hot shop.’77 He ducked into a shell hole and knew it was ‘certain death to move.’78 A bullet carried away Private Derek McCullock’s right eye, and soon afterwards shrapnel caught the 16th Middlesex soldier in the torso and legs. ‘My collar bone, shoulder blade and two ribs were broken and I had a bullet in my left lung. I managed to crawl back to our lines.’79 Private Peter Smith, 1st Borders, miraculously reached the intact German wire where he, too, ducked into a shell crater. ‘The Jerries started throwing bombs, we had to retire.’80 He and four others later scampered ba
ck over a field of corpses: ‘It was pure bloody murder.’81 Sergeant Alexander Fraser, 1st Borders, said seven men of his 34-strong platoon were wounded as they clambered out of a support trench well behind the British front line: ‘All I could do was lay these [seven] chaps on the fire step [of the trench]. We weren’t allowed to do anything for them and make sure the next chaps went up. Seven hit out of one Platoon going out and I still had to go up [the trench ladder].’82
It was a story repeated all around the 29th’s lines and is reflected in the division’s casualty roll for 1 July. The 29th booked about 5240 casualties, among them 1628 dead, 3107 wounded, 220 missing, 32 prisoners and 253 unspecified. Across no-man’s-land, RIR119 suffered 292 casualties on 1 July, these comprising 101 dead and 191 wounded.83 In brief, for every one German casualty opposite the 29th, there were 17.9 British: a ratio that includes a premium for Hunter Bunter’s meddling.
Shortly after 7.30 a.m., Major Edward Packe, 15th Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, was 2000 feet above the Beaumont Hamel battlefield in an open-cockpit BE2c. The sight of numerous dead in no-man’s-land horrified him: ‘Only in two places did I see any of our troops reach the German trenches, and only a handful at each.’84 Soon enough, Packe himself copped a bullet in the buttocks from ground fire and returned to base.
Somewhere out among the dead was 24-year-old Private John McDonnell, 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. The married man and father from County Tyrone is today buried at Ancre British Cemetery. His wife, Mary, later chose the epitaph upon his headstone:
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