First day of the Somme

by Andrew Macdonald

  Major-General Edward Ingouville-Williams, commander of the 34th, had gone forward to watch the attack begin. Most likely he saw the 103rd deploy and move over the Tara–Usna ridge where it was ‘met by machine gun and rifle fire.’116 ‘Inky Bill,’ as Ingouville-Williams was known, returned to his headquarters at 8.30 a.m. Thereafter the 34th’s battle log is studded with increasingly disturbing reports of heavy losses and an impassable no-man’s-land: carrying parties could not lug supplies forward to the most advanced infantry.117 ‘I reported, very bluntly I’m afraid, to General [Ingouville-]Williams that no objectives had been gained and the left wing (102nd Brigade) had suffered heavily,’ said Captain David James, 34th Trench Mortar Battery.118 Ingouville-Williams had no reserves, and telegraphed Pulteney late in the morning asking for 19th (Western) Division to help clear the area south of La Boisselle and allow the attack to proceed.119 Ninth Welsh was placed at his disposal, but it was insufficient for the job and not employed.120

  The 34th’s bill: 6380 casualties, including 2480 dead, 3587 wounded and 313 prisoners or missing. Of the attacking battalions of 101st and 102nd Brigades, not one suffered fewer than 472 casualties. The undeniable conclusion is that the 34th had practically ceased to exist as an effective fighting formation by 8.30 a.m., probably much earlier. The Tynesiderecruited 102nd and 103rd were hit particularly hard. Their 20th, 23rd and 24th Northumberland Fusiliers losing 661, 640 and 630 officers and men respectively. Losses in the 103rd were particularly disturbing as its four battalions were shredded by bullet and shell on the exposed slopes of Tara and Usna Hills, well behind the British front-line trenches from which the attack began. Seven battalion commanders were casualties, five of them dead and two wounded.121 Brigadier-General Neville Cameron, commander of 103rd Brigade, was shot in the stomach at about 7.50 a.m. and hauled back to safety. ‘He smiled in that nice way of his, told me to carry on, he’d be alright,’ said Captain James. Cameron lived.

  Casualty figures for the German units directly opposite the 34th cannot yet be determined with precision. For the period 23 June–3 July, RIR110 recorded 1089 casualties, including 193 dead, 397 wounded and 499 missing.122 Among these were a total of 195 fatalities for the periods 23–30 June and 2–3 July.123 The regiment’s casualty list for 1 July must therefore be no more than 894, and is almost certainly lower if non-fatal casualties on those other days are considered.124 This figure includes 235 soldiers who are confirmed 1 July deaths, the 659 others who were wounded, declared missing or taken prisoner.125 IR23 recorded just nine fatalities among its two companies attached to RIR110.126 Casualties in Landwehr Brigade Replacement Battalion 55, which was grouped around Contalmaison, were few, but precise figures are unavailable. Altogether the 28th suffered about 903 casualties against 34th Division’s 6380, this conservative ratio equating to at least one German casualty for every 7.1 British and emphasising the lopsided nature of the battle.

  As far as 28th Reserve Division commander Hahn was concerned, the initial fighting around Mash and Sausage Valleys and La Boisselle went rather more than less to plan. First news of the British attack had reached his headquarters at about 8 a.m.127 Hahn’s artillery in this part of the battlefield had survived the bombardment in sufficient numbers to lay down defensive fire in support of the infantry positions to block enemy reinforcements coming forward.128 Overall, north of Fricourt Spur, the enemy had essentially been brought to a standstill from the outset, with heavy casualties inflicted. Any incursions were limited — such as astride the Lochnagar mine crater, or beyond Scots Redoubt and briefly towards Contalmaison. Company and battalion commanders were already organising the fightback with long-standing and well-rehearsed counterattack tactics. Wagon-loads of ammunition were already being brought forward to resupply the infantry.129 Available evidence suggests Hahn left his subordinate commanders to get on with the job, and that was because his focus and worries were already much further south, between Fricourt Spur and Mametz where the British XV and XIII Corps had made significant and critical inroads against his divisional sector.130

  ‘I COULD SEE nothing of what was going on in front. . . . Time and again we were covered with soil and debris thrown up by the [German] shells,’ wrote Major Jack, 2nd Scottish Rifles, of the assembly trenches before Ovillers where 8th Division was about to begin its attack:131

  The strain on the waiting men was very great, so I took to joking about the dirt scattered over my well-cut uniform, while dusting it off with a handkerchief. We knew at 7.30 that the assault had started through hearing the murderous rattle of German machine guns, served without a break, notwithstanding our intense bombardment which had been expected to silence them.

  Lieutenant Alfred Bundy, 2nd Middlesex, said the moments before Zero were an ‘interminable period of terrible apprehension.’132 Captain Alan Hanbury-Sparrow, 2nd Royal Berkshires, remembered the smoke of shellfire and that a ‘reddish dust was over everything. There was a mist, too, and hardly anything was visible.’133

  North of the Albert–Bapaume road, 8th Division committed all three of its brigades to the attack across the camber of Ovillers Spur, with its left and right flanks dipping into Nab and Mash Valleys respectively. It would come up against machine-gun fire from Leipzig, Nordwerk and Mouquet Farm Redoubts to the north, Ovillers centrally and La Boisselle to the south. Leipzig Redoubt and La Boisselle were outside the 8th’s sector. For these reasons it seemed to the divisional commander, Major-General Havelock Hudson — who was ‘quick enough to see what was going to go wrong’ but lacked the personality to challenge his superiors134 — that the 8th had little chance of success unless neighbouring divisions advanced a little ahead of his own.135 Hudson’s request to postpone the 8th’s Zero hour was rejected by Fourth Army,136 which meant his division was condemned to Pulteney’s generally guileless attack scheme.

  All three of the 8th’s brigades would cross a steadily rising no-man’sland that was 200–800 yards wide, but mostly 200–400 yards. In theory their objectives, including Ovillers, ran 2500–3500 yards behind the German line before finishing around Pozières on the main ridgeline. In reality, the survivors of the 8th’s heavily casualty-depleted battalions who made it across no-man’s-land were ejected within hours. Some lingered until mid-afternoon. By day’s end all that remained of the 8th’s limited gains were numerous bloody khaki bundles scattered between the scarlet poppies and grass of no-man’s-land, and in and around the German trenches.

  Eighth Division’s leading battalions crept closer to the German trenches a few minutes before Zero, while the last of the intensive shellfire rained down. Their attack was to start at 7.30 a.m., each battalion on a frontage of 250–400 yards. Machine-gun fire from Ovillers, the German first and second trenches, and in enfilade from La Boisselle tore into the infantry on the bare no-man’s-land. Survivors pressed forward. Within 80 yards of the German parapet the machine-gun and rifle fire rose to a crescendo, while 26th Reserve Division’s intact field guns threw down a curtain of shellfire on no-man’s-land and also on the British front and support lines. Casualties were predictably heavy. Survivors charged forward and soon the ‘excellent’ waves were gone, jumbled together in chaos: ‘Companies became mixed together, making a mass of men, among which the German fire played havoc.’137 Only isolated parties reached the German lines, and never in sufficient strength to alter the one-way course of battle.

  ‘The attack on our part of the line was immediately recognised by the lifting back of the enemy’s artillery fire,’ said Oberstleutnant Alfred Vischer, commander of IR180.138 ‘Everyone rushed out of their deep dugouts and occupied the crater ground and trenches, if they were still recognisable and usable. Machine guns were in position and red flares demanded our artillery barrage. A raging infantry, machine gun and artillery fire brought the attack to a halt.’ IR180 had about 24 machine guns across its sector sited to co-operate with one another and provide direct fire and enfilade in support of the front-line infantry.139 Captain Hanbury-Sparrow watched the leading companies of
2nd Royal Berkshires fade into the mist, and ‘as they did so, so did the first shots ring out from the other side.’140 Later, as the mist cleared, he saw ‘heaps of dead, with Germans almost standing up in their trenches, well over the top — firing and sniping at those who had taken refuge in shell holes.’

  The attacks of 23rd and 25th Brigades produced depressingly similar outcomes. On the Mash Valley slopes of Ovillers Spur, few of the 23rd’s 2nd Middlesex* and 2nd Devons,† which both advanced in linear-wave formations and began deploying at 7.23 a.m.,141 beat the crossfire odds after clearing the parapet and creeping through lanes cut in the wire: ‘The enemy opened with a terrific machine gun fire from the front and both flanks which mowed down our troops,’ wrote 2nd Devons’ war diarist in an entry that applied equally to 2nd Middlesex.142 Some miraculously made it to the German line just south of Ovillers, fewer of them a couple of hundred yards beyond, before being pushed back, killed or captured.143 A bit to the north, as Ovillers Spur fades into Nab Valley, the 25th’s 2nd Royal Berkshires,‡ advancing in a mix of linear waves and columns of sections from 7.30 a.m., and 2nd Lincolns,* which began deploying at 7.25 a.m. and likely used a similar attack structure,144 met a storm of machine-gun fire from the front and in enfilade.145 ‘The machine guns were in good condition and did deadly trade,’ wrote Oberleutnant-der-Reserve Vogler in a succinct after-battle summary.146

  Directly in front of Ovillers, 2nd Devons’ left companies and those on 2nd Royal Berkshires’ right were gunned down. Stand on the old German front line here, atop the spur behind Ovillers Military Cemetery, and you can still find scores of 1916 Spandau bullet casings oxidised to green. ‘The enemy had exceptionally high losses,’ said Oberstleutnant Vischer.147

  A jot further north some 2nd Lincolns worked their way into the wrecked German trenches at about 7.50 a.m. by short rushes from one shell crater to the next.148 In places they progressed a little further, but these men were soon forced back. Follow-up battalions — the 23rd’s 2nd West Yorkshires,† likely in linear waves, and the 25th’s 1st Royal Irish Rifles‡ in columns of platoons149 — suffered in the German defensive shellfire, and then in the machine-gun fire sweeping no-man’s-land. Just 10 men of 1st Royal Irish Rifles managed to cross.150 The 2nd West Yorkshires later estimated it suffered 250 casualties behind the British front line: just shy of half its casualties for the day.151 One of that battalion’s companies lost 146 of the 169 men who went into action behind 2nd Middlesex.152 Shortly after 9 a.m. both brigades’ toeholds in the German lines collapsed under concentric bomb and bayonet counterattacks. With heavy casualties, limited ammunition and essentially no prospects of being reinforced, it was only a matter of time before those few men in the German trenches were forced back into no-man’s-land to skulk in crowded shell holes.

  ‘I struggled on and seemed to be quite alone, when I was bowled over and smothered by debris from the mine,’ remembered Private Frank Lobel, 2nd Middlesex,153 more likely referring to a large shell burst as he was too far away to be hit by mine debris. ‘I tried to find some comrades, but could not do so. . . . To this day I can only think of it [1 July] in sorrow.’ Lieutenant Bundy wrote of the din, acrid fumes and smoke and dust that limited visibility: ‘Suddenly an appalling rifle and machine-gun fire opened against us and my men commenced to fall. I shouted “Down!” but most of those who were still not hit had already taken what cover they could.’154 After a series of dashes, Bundy was back within an ace of the British parapet. He watched helplessly as ‘sparks flew from the wire continuously as it was struck by bullets.’155 Eventually the fusillade abated and he scrambled into the trench. Major Henry Savile, 2nd Middlesex, said mutually supporting enfilade from Ovillers and La Boisselle caused most of the Mash Valley casualties: ‘Any sign of movement in No Man’s Land was immediately met with a burst of fire.’156 Those who made it across were reorganised in some 300 yards of the German front line, and this was ‘held for two hours until their numbers very greatly reduced they were driven out by German counter attacks from both flanks.’157 Meantime, Major Jack readied his company of 2nd Scottish Rifles* to reinforce Savile’s men in the German line: ‘I stepped back several paces to take a running jump on the parapet, sound my hunting horn and wave my waiting men on.’ Just then a message cancelling the attack arrived: ‘What a relief to be rid of such a grim responsibility.’158

  Vizefeldwebel Laasch, who was commissioned after the Somme, was one of the La Boisselle machine-gunners firing at the 2nd Devons and 2nd Middlesex in Mash Valley, among them Lobel, Bundy and Savile: ‘Tightly packed lines poured out of the English trenches, strode across the wide foreground [of Mash Valley] and ended up in the heavy defensive fire of Regiment 180. I also fired one belt after another into the flank of the ever-advancing English battalions with our machine gun. Never in the war have I experienced a more devastating effect of our fire: the fallen were tightly packed in the entire hollow up to Ovillers!’159

  Twenty-fifth Brigade’s break-in just north of Ovillers lasted only a couple of hours. Private Fred Perry, 2nd Lincolns, said ‘few of us got to the German front line and all our team got wounded. We made our way back as well as we could, when we arrived in our trenches we had to walk over dead soldiers.’160 About 70 of Perry’s battalion made it to the German trenches, where Reservist Gottlob Trost, IR180, saw a friend locked in a vicious punch-up with a soldier of 2nd Lincolns: ‘The 180th man finally incapacitated his opponent with a stiletto knife he carried with him in the shaft of his boot. The fight was over. The Englishman was seriously wounded.’161 Trost does not state whether the wounded soldier died or was taken into captivity. Among the other 2nd Lincolns in the German line was Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald Bastard: ‘We drove off a counter attack from the German 2nd line Trench, but were bombed out when we had exhausted our own bombs and all the German ones we could find, we only retired to the shell holes in no man’s land.’162 Further attempts would have been a ‘useless sacrifice of life,’ and in any case brigade headquarters had already ruled against it. Bastard later made it back to the British lines and reorganised the 100-man garrison for defence: ‘Captain [Robert] Leslie and myself were the only two not hit of the officers, I had 3 bullet holes through my clothes and Leslie 2.’163

  In Nab Valley, 70th Brigade’s attack in successive linear waves was a bloody disaster that included yet another short-lived breach of the German line.164 Thirty-second Division’s quick gains at Leipzig Redoubt, about 1000 yards northwest, briefly occupied the attention of machinegunners in Nordwerk Redoubt. It was all that remnants of 8th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry’s (KOYLI)* and 8th York & Lancasters’† leading waves needed to cross the levelled German front line, having deployed at 7.27 a.m. and started their attack at 7.30 a.m.165 Some elements of these battalions reached the German front-line system’s second trench and beyond. Schütze Fischer had hauled his machine gun up to the parapet to meet 8th KOYLI’s attack head-on: ‘At a distance of only 40–50 metres [44–55 yards] I could see figures in English uniforms with sparkling bayonets.’166 His weapon dealt ‘death and destruction’ to the incoming waves of men, but small parties broke in to the left and right of his position and closed in with rifle fire and grenades: ‘After a short bayonet fight we retreated back into our dugout. . . . The English fired a few shots into the dugout but didn’t have the guts to come down. They called then something like “Gom on,” which probably meant “Come up!” We did not react to it.’167

  It was somewhere near here that Gefreiter Karl Walz, IR180, was killed. The 25-year-old Swiss, who had volunteered to fight in the German army, wrote home not long before the battle that he had tired of trench life, but had some good news: ‘We have been fitted out with new uniforms, which was really necessary. Now we look very smart again.’168 He has no known grave.

  Seventieth Brigade’s always limited progress into the German lines petered out due to heavy casualties and loss of momentum in the face of increasing resistance. Support battalions were mauled by the German shellfire and m
achine guns, few getting across no-man’s-land and through the partially cut wire. Eighth KOYLI estimated 60% of the men in its two follow-up waves became casualties before reaching the German wire.169 Much the same bloody fate was meted out to 9th York & Lancasters* and 11th Sherwood Foresters,† which followed at 8.40 a.m. and about 8.56 a.m respectively.170 Ninth York & Lancasters lost more than half its strength either in its assembly trenches or between there and the British front line. The battalion suffered further casualties when it actually began its attack. The killing-zone ordeal of 11th Sherwood Foresters was noted by brigade headquarters: ‘It was impossible to stand at all in No Man’s Land and the Battalion crawled forward on hands and knees to the help of the Battalions in front.’171 Few got there.

  Corporal Don Murray, 8th KOYLI, recalled his passage across noman’s-land: ‘It seemed to me, eventually, I was the only man left. I couldn’t see anybody at all. All I could see were men lying dead, men screaming, men on the barbed wire with their bowels hanging down, shrieking, and I thought, “What can I do?” I was alone in a hell of fire and smoke and stink.’172 Sergeant William Cole, 11th Sherwood Foresters, made it about 50 yards into no-man’s-land: ‘I had a shock like a thousand volts of electricity going through my shoulder and out at the top of my right arm, and I knew I was finished for a bit, but not done.’173