All that now remained were a few isolated pockets of British and Ulster soldiers. Most would fall back overnight on 1 July; one small band of Leeds soldiers resisted for longer. Private Stewart of the 109th was there, somewhere, helping collect ammunition from the dead and resting while sentries kept watch: ‘It was hard for we kept seeing the bits and pieces of the dead bodies and the terrible bleeding of the wounded, and the smell of sweat and hunger kept us from sleeping.’188 Another was Corporal George Sanders, whose band of about 30 men of 1/7th West Yorkshires held out in a separate corner of the enemy front line till 3 July without food or water after the first night. Sanders organised and led the rag-tag, fatigued defence, fighting off several German attacks. Sanders — who won the VC for courage, determination and leadership — and his men were eventually pulled back to British lines. By that time they numbered just 19.
The butcher’s bill for X Corps was horrendous. The corps sustained 9643 casualties for the day, including 3270 dead, 5733 wounded, 326 missing, 172 prisoners and 142 unspecified other casualties.189 The 36th suffered 5104 casualties, among them 1856 dead, 2728 wounded, 213 missing, 165 prisoners and 142 unspecified others. Thirty-second Division’s 3949 casualties comprised 1283 dead, 2552 wounded, 108 missing and 6 prisoners, while the 49th accrued 590 casualties, with 131 of these dead, 453 wounded, 5 missing and 1 prisoner. These figures included five battalion commanders, two of them killed and three wounded.190 On average, then, X Corps suffered more than nine casualties a minute between 7.30 a.m. and midnight on 1 July, and all Morland really had to show for this bloodletting was an isolated toehold at Leipzig Redoubt.
The network of medical stations, trenches, woods and roads behind the British front line was clogged with wounded, dying and exhausted soldiers. One witness to the horror later reported:
As one approached Paisley Dump [at the southeast edge of Thiepval Wood] one became aware of noise — a noise inhuman. A wail as of enormous wet fingers on an enormous glass; a wail that rose and fell, interminable, unbearable. Then suddenly one became aware whence that wail came. All along the muddy roadway they lay — the wounded; hundreds of them; brown blanket shapes; some shouting, some moaning, some singing in delirium, some quite still.191
Casualties in the German units involved in the fighting numbered roughly 2400. BRIR8 recorded 835 casualties for the period 1–3 July.192 Of these, 533 were incurred on 1 July, including 178 dead, 217 wounded and 138 prisoners of war.193 RIR99’s casualties for the period 23 June–31 July totalled 2541.194 Those for 1 July, albeit based on fragmentary data, were an estimated 1800–2000.195 This range sits well with an estimate by a German veteran who said RIR99 suffered about 50% casualties on 1 July.196 Thus, for every German casualty opposite X Corps, there were about four British, a ratio that reflects the tough fighting at both Schwaben Redoubt and Leipzig Redoubt.
Tenth Corps’ failure was the result of Morland’s bungled corps command. This included his artillery’s failure to neutralise German defensive obstacles and mechanisms, his deployment of the 49th too far back, and his myopic planning. All of these factors were decided before a single X Corps soldier even stepped into no-man’s-land on 1 July; Morland had handed the pre-battle tactical advantage to Soden. His subsequent and bloody Thiepval fixation and a missed opportunity to potentially flank that village with 107th Brigade were avoidable. Intelligent use of the 107th would have required quick, lateral thinking on Morland’s part, but he did not appreciate the high ground’s tactical value. This led to the 36th’s pointless sacrifice. It was obvious to German commanders, wrote Major Klaus, that their X Corps counterparts ‘did not recognise or understand how to use their great success.’197 On the other side of the hill, Soden simply relied on his largely intact defensive network and decentralised command, both of which functioned more or less as planned. Nevertheless, his delayed counterattack was also the result of having reserves too far back, as well as severed telephone lines, but these factors were more than offset by Morland’s bungling. Morland had missed an opportunity to take advantage of the 36th’s success and with it a chance to force Soden and Stein into rethinking the tenability of their defences between Thiepval and Beaumont Hamel, potentially altering the short-term course of the Somme offensive.
Unsurprisingly, Morland distanced himself from the fiasco within days:
I am sorry to say my Corps has made little progress & has lost very heavily. The Ulster Division did magnificently to start with but got driven back later. . . . Swift advances cannot be expected in this sort of warfare & I expect we shall go on for a long time like the Germans at Verdun, perhaps not as long as that.198
In his mind the Somme offensive was always one of attrition.
IN THE CROWDED assembly trenches Sergeant Jim Maultsaid’s thoughts were alive with memories of his home and family. Others looked at photographs of their mothers, wives and children. A few sobbed quietly. Those singing hymns or praying were drowned out by the shellfire. Here and there minor scuffles broke out as tensions rose. Maultsaid worried about losing a limb, but the prospect of other injuries horrified him more. ‘God save me from the loss of my sight. How I dreaded blindness — anything but that.’199 Soon, Maultsaid, 14th Royal Irish Rifles, was scrambling up a rough trench ladder and into no-man’s-land, which was seething with advancing Ulstermen and exploding shells: ‘A wall of flame meets us. We stagger and gasp from shock. My very hair seems to scorch under the impact. The air is full of hissing, burning metal and the ground rocks beneath our feet as we tear our way through our own wire defences.’200
Maultsaid saw men fall, writhing in loud agony: ‘May I never hear such cries again!’201 He pressed on into Schwaben Redoubt, and with a small group set to digging in. ‘Shells screeched overhead, shrapnel burst above us. Big black “coalboxes” came over with the noise like an express train.’202 Soon a bullet ripped a chunk of flesh and bone from Maultsaid’s right shoulder. Eventually he made it back to the British lines. Fifty years later he pondered the memory of his friends killed that day: a generation that by then existed only in his mind. It was an existential conundrum, ‘For, had I not seen them fall?’203
Unteroffizier Friedrich Hinkel, RIR99, had a grandstand-like view of no-man’s-land from his trench, just north of Thiepval and on the southern fringes of Schwaben Redoubt. To his left, he saw British infantry attacking Thiepval Spur caught in a ‘finely meshed net’ of crossfire:204 ‘The range is great, set sights at 600 metres [656 yards]! And now the enemy leaped and turned somersaults over there. . . . Soon, without their leader [i.e. officer] to rely upon they became a mass.’205 To the right, the situation in Schwaben Redoubt was critical; Thiepval was at risk of being flanked and captured. Forceful, on-the-spot leadership was needed. A thin, ad-hoc defensive line was thrown up just north of Thiepval to try to stop 36th (Ulster) Division pushing eastwards and forcing the village’s capture from behind. Hinkel was there, ‘thirsty, hungry, listless and played out.’206 Artillery fire from a cacophony of guns firing on the lost trenches was ‘hellish.’207 But the Westphalian and his gang in a blockaded trench bay resolved to fight on: ‘Wherever a [British] steel helmet showed itself, it was dealt with, just as in a hare shoot. These lads did not seem to know where they were in our trenches and so we allowed some groups to approach us calmly before despatching them with hand grenades.’208 Under the flickering light of shell bursts and flares, the fighting reignited on Thiepval Plateau. Hinkel could see the enemy’s hazy forms, and opened fire on the fleeting targets in the half light. ‘Once more our machine guns clattered away and our rifles glowed red hot. Many an Irish mother’s son lay down to the eternal sleep from which there is no awakening.’209 He rued a shortage of hand grenades, which meant the British could not be fully evicted that night. ‘The dawn of a new day revealed to us, in the form of great piles of dead and wounded, some of the success of the violent work we had achieved in conjunction with our machine guns.’210
The dead of BRIR8 also lay thick around the blood-spattered trenches of
Schwaben Redoubt. They had been recruited from the Pirmasens area of Rhineland-Palatinate and had worked as farmers, clerks, labourers, miners and students, and in 101 other jobs. Roll books reveal much about these men. Many were in their 20s, single and still finding their way in life. Others were in their 30s, married men and fathers. Among them, brothers, co-workers and classmates who enlisted together. Had they met under different circumstances, these Rhine River valley soldiers would have had a lot in common with the Ulstermen. But such ideas were phantasms that would never be: in the maze atop the heights they were trying their very best to kill one another.
Occasionally the plough still brings the Somme dead to the surface, but mostly not. Vizefeldwebel Karl Losch, RIR119, rests somewhere in these fields. The former Stuttgart businessman was in the trenches just north of the River Ancre, opposite elements of 36th (Ulster) Division’s 108th Brigade. At about 8 a.m. he stood atop the parapet to get a better shot at the Ulstermen. A bullet caught the unmarried Losch. The 20-year-old fell, staggered to his feet and was shot twice more, once in the head. He lost consciousness, died 10 minutes later and was buried in a now-lost mass grave. Several months later, Losch’s parents learned he was dead via letters from his acquaintances still at the front. Leutnant-der-Reserve Richard Seeger, a friend serving in the neighbouring Reserve Infantry Regiment 121 who was killed at war’s end, wrote that he was grief-stricken: ‘Such a loyal friend I have lost with his death, I will probably not find anyone like him.’211
Seasoned walkers over the former battlefields occasionally find dentures that once belonged to soldiers in the plough lines. The spot where they are found can be where a soldier died, but that is not always the case. Late on 1 July, Private Henderson, 16th Northumberland Fusiliers, and chum Freddie were blown sprawling into the mud of a front-line trench by a shell blast. Freddie lay face down, motionless and apparently dead. After a while, though, he stirred and stood up with a muddy face and broad frown: ‘Oh Man, I couldn’t find my false teeth.’212
SIX OF THE nine Victoria Crosses awarded for 1 July were for actions around Thiepval. Four of the six were posthumous. Only one of the four has a known grave. What does it take to win the Victoria Cross? Who qualifies for immortality? On 1 July 1916 the six were aged 20–32. Four were rankers and working-class: two in the linen trade, one a farm labourer and the fourth a fitter. The others were middle-class and officers, one a student and the other a tea merchant. They liked rugby, rowing and music, and went to church. But for their brave deeds they might have been anybody.
Glasgow-born Sergeant James Turnbull, 17th Highland Light Infantry, won his bronze cross for a hand-grenade epic that spluttered on and off in Leipzig Redoubt. Almost single-handedly he kept German infantry at bay from an isolated post, thanks to a powerful throwing arm that allowed him to outrange enemy bombers. Eventually a sniper got Turnbull, shot him dead, but only as he defiantly hurled still more bombs. The powerfully built 32-year-old who worked in the Scottish rag trade before the war was later buried at Lonsdale Cemetery, Authuille, where about one in three of the 726 identified burials are for 1 July.
The other Victoria Crosses in X Corps’ sector were for gallantry around Schwaben Redoubt, or north of the Ancre. Early on 1 July, Rifleman Billy McFadzean, 14th Royal Irish Rifles, was blown to pieces when, in a crowded trench in Thiepval Wood, he threw himself onto an upset box of grenades that blew up, the safety pins in two having dislodged as they fell. McFadzean’s selfless act saved the lives of several soldiers nearby. His mates wept when his gore was carried away. Captain Eric Bell, 9th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, earned his posthumous award south of the Ancre for rallying knots of leaderless infantrymen. He had earlier gone forward alone, tossing mortar bombs into the German front line. His supply spent, Bell stood on the parapet under fire and coolly shot enemy soldiers until himself killed. Foundry worker Corporal Sanders, 1/7th West Yorkshires, won his VC at Schwaben Redoubt for acts of gallantry mentioned earlier. He died aged 56 in 1950. Lieutenant Geoffrey Cather, 9th Royal Irish Fusiliers, won his for lugging four wounded soldiers in from the north-bank no-man’s-land overnight on 1 July, and tending to others. He was shot dead on another such errand on 2 July.
Rifleman Robert Quigg won his Victoria Cross for hauling seven wounded soldiers in from no-man’s-land north of the Ancre. The 31-year-old farm labourer from County Antrim was looking for Second-Lieutenant Sir Edward Macnaghten, 6th Baronet Macnaghten, who owned the estate on which he worked. Time and again Quigg, 12th Royal Irish Rifles, struck out to find the 20-year-old, Eton-educated baronet, each time hauling in another wounded man in his stead. Quigg, who died aged 70 in 1955, eventually bowed to exhaustion. Macnaghten was presumed dead on 1 July and his name appears on the Thiepval Memorial. As a soldier Quigg was reckless, wanted to kill Germans, and had been told by Lady Macnaghten not to return home without her beloved son. As an old man he wore black trousers, braces and a collarless shirt, and rarely ventured beyond his garden.213 Such is the nature of yarns built up around war heroes. The story has it that King George V asked if Quigg was married when he presented the VC at York Cottage, Sandringham. The gruff rejoinder: ‘No Sir, but after what has happened to me I suppose I soon will be.’214 As it happens, he died a bachelor, as had so many of his friends on the altar of Thiepval and surrounds nearly 40 years earlier.
CHAPTER 7
Ovillers, La Boisselle or Bust
III Corps’ charge into the valleys of death
‘They flung everything at us but half-croons. . . . I saw one lad putting his hands in front of his face as if to shield himself from the hail.’1
— Private Jimmy McEvoy, 16th Royal Scots
‘NO INDICATION THAT Ovillers, Contalmaison or La Boisselle had been captured,’ wrote Major Lanoe Hawker, VC, of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), after a midday sortie over the battlefield. In the cloudless sky above the shell-pocked Albert–Bapaume road Hawker spied twin mine craters, one on either side of the carriageway, near the ruins of La Boisselle. The Y-Sap crater to the north was clear of British infantry, but, from his lattice-tailed DH2, Hawker observed minor gains around the chalkstone jaws of the massive Lochnagar cavity. ‘Many dead lying on the Eastern slopes [of Sausage Valley] outside this crater,’2 wrote the pilot who was commander of 24th Squadron.
Five hours earlier, Lieutenant Cecil Lewis, 3rd Squadron, RFC, had been 8000 feet above the old Roman road that runs between Albert and Bapaume. At 7.28 a.m. Y-Sap mine blew with a heave and flash, vaulting an earthen pillar some 4000 feet into the air. ‘A moment later came the second [Lochnagar] mine. Again the roar, the upflung machine, the strange gaunt silhouette invading the sky.’3 Through the mist and smoke Lewis watched the British barrage lift off the German trenches and lines of khaki-clad infantrymen of III Corps move forward. It had begun.
A pilot flying overhead might have likened this part of the battlefield to the splayed fingers of his left hand, the digits being spurs and the gaps between valleys. Today, looking towards Albert from outside Ovillers Military Cemetery, you are standing just below the crest of Ovillers Spur, the middle finger. Off to the immediate left — beyond the scoop of Mash Valley and the die-straight highway — is La Boisselle Spur, the ring finger. Beyond that swell are Sausage Valley and then Fricourt Spur, the little finger. Over to the right, hidden by the summit of Ovillers Spur, are Nab Valley and then Thiepval Spur, which is the index finger, with Leipzig Redoubt at its tip. Thiepval sits in the crook between that finger and your thumb.
Twenty-sixth Reserve and 28th Reserve Divisions’ trenches, redoubts and strongpoints crisscrossed the spurs overlooking III Corps’ approach routes from the lower ground towards Albert, and blocked off the grassy valleys in between. The 26th’s Infantry Regiment 180 (IR180) held the trenches from Ovillers north to Leipzig Redoubt, while the 28th’s Reserve Infantry Regiment 110 (RIR110) defended the ground between La Boisselle and Fricourt Spur. Machine-gunners in Ovillers and La Boisselle covered Mash Valley with formidable defensive firepower. South of La Boisselle
, a swell of ground known as Schwabenhöhe dominated the approaches to that village and, along with Sausage Redoubt, those to Sausage Valley. A series of trenches 1000–1500 yards beyond were designed to scotch any break-ins, as was the intermediate line proper, about the same distance back again and running from Mouquet Farm to Pozières and thence to Contalmaison. In between, Nordwerk and Mouquet Farm Redoubts covered the area north of Ovillers, while Scots Redoubt supported Sausage Redoubt and La Boisselle. A second position, 1500–2000 yards further back again, prevented access to Pozières Plateau on the main ridge. These defences conformed to the ground and were formidable; forcing them would require careful application of thought, artillery and infantry.
The task fell to Lieutenant-General Sir William Pulteney, whose corps command owed more to seniority than either professional or intellectual ability.4 He had served in Egypt and Northern Ireland before the war, with stints in Uganda, Congo and South Africa suiting this marksman’s taste for big-game hunting. By 1916 ‘Putty,’ a peaceful country squire in appearance,5 had advanced well beyond his limited abilities thanks to the wartime demand for experienced senior officers. The 55-year-old Eton alumnus had attended neither Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, nor Staff College, which explained why he lacked the professional skillset of his peers and was probably the basis for his reputation as a bungler. One officer thought him the ‘most completely ignorant general I served during the war.’6 General Sir Douglas Haig had this to say about Pulteney in May 1916: ‘He seemed very fit and cheery. But after listening to his views on the proposed operations of his Corps, I felt he had quite reached the limits of his capacity as a commander. A plucky leader of a Brigade or even a Division, he has not however, studied his profession sufficiently to be really a good corps commander.’7
First day of the Somme Page 26
