Back in the British lines, Major-General Sir Edward Perceval, commanding 49th (West Riding) Division, had quickly realised the potential for developing the 36th’s break-in. He was with Nugent, the 36th’s commander, when reports of its initial success and the 32nd’s initial failure arrived soon after 8 a.m.139 Perceval believed the 49th should be used immediately to support and exploit the 36th’s gains.140 Nugent was concerned about over-extending the salient northwards, flanking divisions having made no supporting gains, and feared such a scenario would see his men go to ‘their own destruction.’141 Nugent favoured consolidation and to this end, at about 8.30 a.m., told X Corps headquarters he was interested in deploying the 107th, but queried whether it might be ‘stopped from advancing upon the last [German] line.’142 Nugent and Perceval understood the value of the high ground and that victory, or at least retention of the heights, rested in bold action. But, neither Perceval, Nugent nor X Corps headquarters staff had the authority to commit the 49th without Morland’s blessing. ‘Feeling that there was not a moment to be lost, he [Perceval] himself went to Englebelmer, two miles away, to urge this course on General Morland.’143 Regrettably, he failed to convince Morland, who was already at the start of a day-long fixation on Thiepval and resuming the 32nd’s moribund attack.144
Much has been made of Morland’s piecemeal use of the 49th. At 8.35 a.m., contrary to Perceval’s request, he decided only its 146th Brigade would go to Thiepval Wood to support either the 36th or the left of the 32nd.145 The leading elements of the 146th would not arrive until about 11.35 a.m., two-and-a-half hours too late to have a hope of reaching Schwaben Redoubt through the German shellfire. Later, 147th Brigade was sent to the Authuille–Aveluy area, while much of the 148th remained in Aveluy Wood. Major Frank Watson, 146th Brigade headquarters, said the 49th was ‘frittered away in a series of minor operations, based on either misinformation or misjudgement on the part of the higher staff responsible for that part of the battle.’146 Lieutenant-Colonel Abercrombie, commanding 16th Lancashire Fusiliers, was haunted by the failure to develop the 36th’s initial success, but said once the attack lost momentum ‘it seems to have been impossible to repair it.’147 Brigadier-General Archibald Cameron, X Corps’ chief of staff, later attempted to shift the blame for this away from Morland, alleging that the 49th seemed ‘terribly slow. It was most difficult at Corps HQ to find out where they had got to and what they were doing.’148
If only Morland had used the 49th to develop, or at the very least consolidate, the 36th’s gains. If only Morland had not deployed the 49th piecemeal; if only he had set that division in train earlier. If only, indeed. These propositions all assumed that the 49th was close enough to the battlefield to be deployed effectively in any scenario, which it was not.
Morland had deployed the 49th in Aveluy Wood, about a mile behind the front line, with a view to it following up a corps-wide break-in. That had not happened. If 146th Brigade was to have had any influence on the battle for the heights, it would have had to have been much closer to Thiepval Wood, or heading there well before 6.30 a.m. At that time it was still in Aveluy Wood. The 146th’s warning message to move forward arrived from Morland at 8.35 a.m., and it was in train by 8.55 a.m. There was no hope that the 146th would get forward before the former no-man’s-land became impassable. In this light, Perceval’s dash to Englebelmer was a pointless exercise: he could not turn the clock back. Events had unfolded contrary to Morland’s expectation of a uniform, wide-scale advance, and this effectively confined the 49th, by dint of its location, to the sidelines of battle. Morland now had to adapt to events in and around Schwaben Redoubt and a half-failed corps attack, but his focus was elsewhere.
This point was not lost on critics. Major Watson and Brigadier-General Michael Goring-Jones, commander of the 146th, thought the 49th was ‘too far back at Zero hour, and that it was moved up too late’ to be of any use.149 ‘A vigorous use of the Corps Reserve in support of the 36th Division would have changed the whole aspect of July 1st 1916, and resulted in a very great success at a point of vital importance.’150 Soldiers of the 49th also thought their division was left to loiter without intent. Corporal Herbert Allen, 1/8th West Yorkshires,* passed time playing cards in Aveluy Wood until his battalion moved off: ‘To us it seemed a proper mix up. No one seemed to know what was happening.’151 Perceval and Nugent would have agreed. The British official historian added that the ‘delay in taking advantage of the favourable situation created by the success of one portion of the assault was, as on so many other occasions, utilized by the enemy.’152 Morland should have considered long before 1 July how the 49th might be applied to battle without delay in any given scenario, and specifically in the case of partial success on his corps’ battle front. That Morland did not revealed his inability to think laterally, which, given the events that had unfolded, handed the initiative to Soden and ultimately consigned the 36th to failure. Haig was correct; Morland was not up to the job.
Morland, who was up his observation tree near Englebelmer, had a fair enough picture of events by 9 a.m. He knew that the 36th was in and round Schwaben Redoubt in some strength, but north of the Ancre it had failed. He also knew that the 32nd had nabbed a corner of Leipzig Redoubt, but that 14th, 96th and 97th Brigades’ morning had mostly been one of failure. Other reports indicated elements of 15th Lancashire Fusiliers were fighting around Thiepval; in reality these few men were already dead or had miraculously linked up with the 36th. Morland also knew the neighbouring III and VIII Corps had not made any progress on his flanks. For these reasons, at 9.10 a.m., almost 40 minutes after Nugent’s request to consolidate the 36th’s gains, he attempted to delay the 107th’s tilt at its final objective, but it had already advanced beyond recall.153 In contrast to Nugent and Perceval, Major-General Sir William Rycroft, commander of the 32nd, now proposed a convoluted uphill operation by his division that involved a change in direction of attack to force the spur between Thiepval and Leipzig Redoubt and bring the division up alongside the 36th. It would begin with precisely the same style of frontal assault that had already failed. Morland’s endorsement of this latter course was predictable, unimaginative and in keeping with his bent for a neat advance across his corps’ frontage.
‘The plan of attack was doomed to failure from the start,’ wrote Major Girdwood at 32nd Division headquarters. He told Rycroft the proposed change in direction mid-attack was a mistake as ‘men will always turn in the direction from which the hostile fire is coming. At that point I was told to mind my own business.’154
In reality, Morland had only one viable option to capitalise on the 36th’s gains with the purpose of restarting the 32nd’s advance and achieving a uniform advance across his corps’ sector. That was to push the 107th forward and then east behind Thiepval,155 rather than further northeast towards Battery Valley and Stuff Redoubt as planned. Leutnant-der-Reserve Matthaus Gerster, RIR119, later said that such a move might have ‘rolled up’ the companies of RIR99 immediately north and east of Thiepval that had so far fended off the frontal attacks in their sectors.156 It also promised to render Thiepval village and spur untenable for German defenders,157 only then potentially allowing the 32nd to renew its attack. As Gerster explained, nothing less than the ‘fate of the day’ hung on what happened next at Schwaben Redoubt.158
Against this backcloth, one 36th patrol found Mouquet Switch Trench, leading behind Thiepval, vacant. But there was nobody on the spot to sanction such a shift of direction. Brigade commanders had been told to remain within British lines: neither Brigadier-Generals William Withycombe, Charles Griffith nor Reginald Shuter went forward after their commands, respectively 107th, 108th and 109th Brigades. ‘No provision had been made for such a movement in the rehearsals, no reserves were sent up to carry it out,’ wrote the British official historian.159 In truth, Morland never considered this option, and Nugent allegedly did not raise the idea. Brigadier-General Cameron, Morland’s selectively minded chief of staff, who was later knighted and promoted to gene
ral, said this: ‘If 36th Division had been of [the] opinion that a move down the Mouquet Switch [behind Thiepval] would have been of assistance to it, the corps [headquarters] would have been quite ready to provide the troops.’160 Cameron was lying. He well knew that Morland had dithered over the 107th’s application for about 40 minutes, had never grasped the potential of the situation before him, and was already bent on more frontal attacks at Thiepval. In the event, the 107th’s advance on the German second line, heavy casualties and subsequent fragmentation rendered any hopes for a lateral expansion redundant. Gerster’s subsequent criticism that British senior commanders had badly misjudged the potential of their gains around Schwaben Redoubt was correct,161 and for this Morland was to blame.
Morland’s Thiepval myopia now produced a predictably bloody string of attacks throughout the afternoon. Each was preceded by an ineffectual barrage that did nothing to lessen German machine-gun fire. ‘It was impossible to show a head above the parapet without drawing a storm of M.G. fire,’ said Lieutenant-Colonel Abercrombie.162 At about 1.50 p.m., the remaining two companies of 16th Lancashire Fusiliers and two more from 2nd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers* were shot to a standstill while attacking towards the northwest corner of Thiepval.163 Another attack by 146th’s 1/6th West Yorkshires† at 4 p.m. met a similar fate. As one officer eyewitness wrote: ‘It is impossible to describe the angry despair which filled every man at this unspeakable moment.’164 Only with difficulty was 1/5th West Yorkshires’‡ part in this operation called off. At 5.10 p.m., Morland — still believing that some 15th Lancashire Fusiliers were in Thiepval and that a few 2nd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers were in a position to assault the village from the north — ordered more attacks.165 It was time for a reality check. Rycroft, who now realised the futility of his earlier plan, and that no British troops were in or near Thiepval, phoned Morland and told him so. Morland then placed the remainder of the 49th’s 146th and 148th Brigades at the disposal of the 36th but, unbelievably, also planned a midnight tilt at Thiepval, which was later cancelled. As dusk crept over the battlefield, Morland finally began to see the potential of the 36th’s break-in, but he was altogether out of time.
FROM ABOUT MIDDAY the 36th was consolidating a wedge driven deep behind the German front line. This wedge was about 1000 yards wide at the old German parapet and tapered to a point about 1200 yards into enemy territory before ending at the northeast corner of Schwaben Redoubt. The first 500–600 yards of the wedge included the old German front-line trench system and a portion of the intermediate position, with the remainder taking in the whole of the isosceles-shaped redoubt. Plotted on a map, the 36th’s stronghold even looked a bit like a wonky triangle, the right axis tracing some of the carriageway between Grandcourt and the Thiepval crossroads. The perimeter line was lumpy rather than smooth due to zigzagging German trenches and Ulster outposts sited to make best defensive use of the undulating ground and potential German counterattack approach routes. As the 36th later reported, ‘Between 11.30 a.m. and 2.00 p.m. there was a comparatively quiet time whilst consolidation was going on. Ammunition, bombs and water were short, and the men were gradually getting exhausted.’166
Soden’s first semi-organised counterthrusts went in shortly after 2 p.m. and continued through the afternoon against both flanks of the 36th’s wedge. They worked their way in via trenches, across dead ground, up the sharp inclines from the River Ancre valley and overland. Lewis gunners in 8th Royal Irish Rifles and field artillery destroyed two companies of enemy infantry advancing up the slope from Beaucourt.167 It was a success that ran against the grain. First the 36th’s outposts fell, then vulnerable sections of trench and next pressure was put on the main defensive perimeter. The barrage of shell- and machine-gun fire outside Thiepval Wood meant supplies of ammunition, hand grenades and water coming forward were negligible. Communications with the British front line were fragmentary, and reliant on runners who were all too frequently killed or wounded as they ducked and dived their way across the battlefield. Throughout the bridgehead it was a case of resisting until forced to withdraw. Casualties among officers and NCOs added to the confusion. ‘After their fine start in the morning they were thoroughly disheartened at receiving no support, and very unsteady.’168 A composite company of 1/5th York & Lancasters,* of 148th Brigade, made it over to the Ulstermen at about 4.30 p.m. and participated in the fighting.169 Of 150th Field Company, RE, which went forward with 11th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers to help with consolidation, none of the sappers returned.170 By 5 p.m. the 36th had lost Schwaben Redoubt, barring its southwest face, and held no more than a 500-yard-deep rectangle of the German front-line system and intermediate trench on a frontage of 1000 yards.171 The situation was desperate and the fighting extraordinarily bloody.172 As one eyewitness told it, ‘In one part of the B line [intermediate trench] near the [Ancre] river there was a carpet of dead and dying Ulstermen and Germans. Blood lay like a layer of mud.’173
Only now were elements of 146th Brigade arriving forward and only thanks to some slack in the German shellfire. Their orders: make good and consolidate.174 First across were three companies of 1/7th West Yorkshires,* at about 7.30 p.m.175 These were later joined by a small party of 1/5th West Yorkshires, the remainder of that battalion not going forward, while at about 8.30 p.m. a company from each of 1/7th and 1/8th West Yorkshires were ‘sent over to the German line to form a defensive flank facing north to cover the operation at Fort Schwaben & to reinforce the 107th Brigade.’176 Lance-Corporal Henderson, 14th Royal Irish Rifles, was struggling back when he ran into some of the West Yorkshire soldiers: ‘I have never seen such a look of terror on the faces of human beings.’177 The war diaries of 1/5th, 1/7th and 1/8th West Yorkshires are scant,178 while 146th Brigade’s states that subsequent events in Schwaben Redoubt were shrouded in the ‘general confusion and darkness [and] it is not possible to draw conclusions.’179 Some conclusions, however, can be drawn, and these are that the West Yorkshires — exhausted by their day-long traipse from Aveluy Wood, changing orders and the effects of the heavy shellfire on Thiepval Wood — were caught up in the scrap alongside the 36th and suffered a ‘good many casualties.’180
A few hours earlier Soden had finally lost patience and roughed his subordinates into action. Eight hours had lapsed since he had first ordered a counterattack, and still the enemy retained a footing in Schwaben Redoubt and the old German front line. Shortly after 5 p.m., Soden, confident that the rest of his divisional sector between Serre and Ovillers was intact, excluding a handful of isolated incursions, told BRIR8 to storm the redoubt. There were no shades of grey in his words: ‘This is a direct order.’181 Available artillery would provide fire support.182 Once again the concentric counterattacks began, starting at about 8.30 p.m., some at 6.30 p.m. ‘An enemy counter [attack] developed from Grandcourt direction in lines in extended order. Machine guns and artillery made them disappear in the dead ground [of Battery Valley].’183 Two battle groups — now totalling no more than 1000 men, probably far fewer — closed in from the north and northeast, along with a smaller force from the east. ‘From this time onwards,’ recorded the 36th in an after-battle report, ‘the enemy never relaxed his pressure.’184
German gains were made one trench bay at a time with grenade and bayonet. Reinforcements from Infantry Regiment 185 (IR185) were fed into battle. The 36th’s collapse was relatively swift, even though elements of the 146th and fewer of the 148th had arrived forward with limited supplies of ammunition and grenades. Soon after 8.30 p.m., the wedge won by the Ulstermen had contracted to a 1000-yard-long length of the old German front line and the support trench immediately behind it.185 It was probably defended by no more than about 500 men, likely far fewer. The only men now remaining between these trenches and the redoubt were dead and wounded; isolated pockets were surrounded then killed off or captured, or forced to retire.186 Fifty-year-old Oberstleutnant Alfons Ritter von Bram, commanding BRIR8, was Soden’s man on the spot organising the counterattacks. He now planned a final
push; it would start at 10 p.m., with the infantry assault preceded by a 60-minute barrage.
Hauptmann Herbert Ritter von Wurmb led one of the battle groups. Of the roughly 800 men in Wurmb’s band, about 200, or one in four, was killed or wounded on 1 July. That figure is misleading. It does not consider the fragmented nature of his force, which had, by dint of the fighting, been broken into smaller groups. Progress was slow and bloody, and coordination with the other assault groups problematic in the darkness and confusion of battle. Wurmb’s men shouted ‘Hurra!’ a lot and fired their weapons freely, pretending to be a much larger force. Such was their confidence that they located other German units by shouting and singing ‘Die Wacht am Rhein’ (‘The Watch on the Rhine’). Finally, at about 10.30 p.m., under the flickering light of flares, Wurmb — who later wrote a book and completed doctorates in medicine and dentistry — saw dense lines of Ulster and Leeds soldiers withdrawing from the redoubt under a hail of machine-gun and small-arms fire. The battle was won: ‘The enemy had been thrown back. Schwaben Redoubt was ours! A tiny band had succeeded in throwing out a much stronger force. It demonstrated that old truth in the Art of War: “Only the will to win gains victory.”’187 One wonders what Morland would have made of such thinking.
First day of the Somme Page 25
