First day of the Somme
Page 35
Congreve’s job was to storm German defences on the Mametz–Montauban ridge, providing flank support for Fourth Army’s main thrust around Ovillers and La Boisselle and keeping contact with the French XX Corps immediately to the east. To the north, the ridge faded into the generous scoop of Caterpillar Valley, with a string of woods, villages and undulations thereafter leading to the Thiepval–Morval ridge. The Mametz–Montauban ridge’s southern incline tapered towards the British front line, which was 400–700 yards in front of the villages of Carnoy and Maricourt. British observers could plainly see the chalkstone zigzags of the east–west-running German front line and, 700–1000 yards behind, its support network. Further back, the intermediate trench line of Montauban Alley ran roughly parallel to the Mametz–Montauban road and was tucked out of sight in Caterpillar Valley. Neither this trench, nor the unfinished second position, about 3000 yards behind the German front line on the valley’s far lip, held any defensive fortifications of note. Further forward, Pommiers, Glatz and Dublin Redoubts — along with strongpoints The Loop, The Castle and The Warren — all overlooked large sweeps of no-man’s-land, and were in turn watched over by British observers from high ground near Maricourt. Encouragingly, most of this German defensive network was in plain view, and each successive line was weaker than the one preceding it. This point was not lost on Congreve, who — albeit writing late on 1 July — noted that Fourth Army’s attacks between La Boisselle and Serre ‘did not get on so well but they had a much harder job.’8 It was a fair assessment.
A further complicating factor was the German order of battle opposing XIII Corps. Here, running obliquely west of Montauban, was the demarcation line between 28th Reserve and 12th Infantry Divisions. The 28th’s sector was roughly west of the Carnoy–Montauban road and held by a battalion of Reserve Infantry Regiment 109 (RIR109) and elements of Infantry Regiment 23 (IR23). East of the carriageway, before and around Montauban, the 12th’s patch was held by five companies of Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 6 (BRIR6), in the front line, and elements of Infantry Regiment 62 (IR62) in support.9 These units, along with others sprinkled throughout, numbered about 3000 men, among them Bavarians, Badeners, Württembergers and Prussians. The Bavarians, exhausted from labouring, had been revolved into the front line barely 24 hours before the attack to relieve fatigued, food-deprived Prussians suffering from poor morale. Generalleutnant Martin Châles de Beaulieu, commanding the 12th, and his boss, Generalleutnant Hermann von Stein, commanding XIV Reserve Corps, were responsible for this. Châles de Beaulieu had insisted the 62nd be replaced, even though he knew full well that a British attack was imminent.10 Stein’s error was in allowing this needless reshuffle — the Prussians’ lot was not much different from that of any other front-line unit during 24–30 June — which robbed 12th and 28th divisions of essential local reserves. It was a prospect that did not sit well with Hauptmann-der-Reserve Ernst Klug, BRIR6: ‘As hard as it sounds, we should not have replaced them. Our unweakened division [sic] could have then led a counter-attack with full strength following the attack on 1 July.’11 Klug was more likely referring to his regiment rather than 10th Bavarian Infantry Division, which had already been split up due to a corps-wide shortage of manpower. The point, however, was that Châles de Beaulieu and Stein’s eleventh-hour meddling with the composition of the front-line garrison would become a decisive factor in the looming battle.
Exposed German defences bore the brunt of British shellfire. Congreve said the 15–20-yards-wide German wire entanglements were ‘splendidly cut everywhere’ by the 60,000 tons of shells dropped on them.12 As Oberleutnant H. Reymann, IR62, recalled: ‘All three of the front line trenches were levelled and the whole area formed a large crater-field. Where our once broad wire obstacles stood you could only see shattered piles and fragments lying around.’13 Offizierstellvertreter Joseph Busl, BRIR6, added that the just-inherited positions were hardly fit for purpose. His platoon had only three or four dugouts.14 One of these collapsed with the loss of eight men.15 There were also fewer deep dugouts than elsewhere in XIV Reserve Corps’ battle front, and these were mostly under the front-line system, overcrowded, exposed to shellfire and in generally poor condition.16 In places the German front-line system had been so comprehensively destroyed that it was difficult to tell whether it even had dugouts.17 Telephone links between regimental headquarters, battalion sectors and the artillery were virtually non-existent, meaning communication was reliant on runners.18 Moreover, several Bavarian companies were under the tactical command of unfamiliar Prussian officers,19 and, because of the reshuffle, unit boundary lines were confused. Oberst Jakob Leibrock, commanding BRIR6, was concerned that Châles de Beaulieu and Stein had disregarded Supreme Army Command’s prevailing defensive doctrine of the day: ‘The independent and automatic cooperation of all departments, on which rightly so much emphasis and value had been placed during training and in the past year of war, and which had to be considered a main factor of our combat capability, was altogether absent.’20 Another factor was the lack of import that Châles de Beaulieu’s headquarters attached to the warning signals flowing in from subordinates on the ground about the disrepair of the divisional sector.21 There can be no doubt that German defences between Montauban and Mametz were vulnerable to a rehearsed infantry attack that was well supported by artillery.
Congreve’s gunners had pummelled the 12th’s and 28th’s artillery into submission, with assistance from some French heavy batteries. Thirteenth Corps had accumulated about 76 heavy guns, or about one for every 47 yards of front, and about 205 field guns, or one to every 17 yards.22 Multiple trench mortars would join the last few minutes of the bombardment from Russian Saps opened in no-man’s-land overnight on 30 June. This firepower — combined with effective location of enemy batteries by Royal Flying Corps (RFC) observers — resulted in numerous German guns being destroyed during 24–30 June and then on 1 July. Due to the lack of tactical and strategic value attached to this ground by successive German commanders, it held a comparatively poor concentration of artillery, perhaps about 50 field and heavy guns.23 Twenty-eighth Reserve Division was supposed to have 25 guns supporting its positions east of Mametz, while the 12th probably had a similar number behind Montauban.24 But, lack of fire restraint, poor camouflage and low-quality battery positions meant that this already-sparse barrel stock was quickly eroded by counter-battery fire. German accounts state that artillery in the Mametz–Montauban area suffered ‘considerable losses’ and that its ‘fighting power fell off more and more’25 as 1 July approached: ‘Numerous guns were lost, especially among the stationary batteries in Caterpillar Valley Wood and at Bazentin-le-Grand. . . . This was all the more serious because [of] the shellfire-torn positions.’26 This applied equally to RIR109 and BRIR6. Come dawn on 1 July, neither the 12th nor the 28th had sufficient surviving guns to provide close defensive shellfire for the front-line system that would destroy, impede or isolate any British attack, let alone one that broke into their positions.
Congreve’s plan to tackle these shellfire-shattered German defences with 18th (Eastern) and 30th Divisions was bold and relatively straightforward. Thirteenth Corps had a total ration strength of 74,615 all ranks, but of these an estimated 15,220 infantry officers and men, including elements from various divisional units, were directly involved in the attack.27 Congreve’s plan comprised three phases, each a progression of the one preceding it. The first phase took in the capture of the German front and reserve lines, the Mametz–Montauban ridge, Montauban village and Montauban Alley. The 18th and 30th would then establish a long flank and link up with the infantry of the French XX Corps at Dublin Redoubt, which was just east of the Maricourt–Longueval road and about halfway between Bernafay and Maricourt Woods. The second and third phases, conditional on Fourth Army’s gains north of Fricourt, would see XIII Corps’ advance swinging firmly northeast to take Bernafay and Trônes Woods, Falfemont Farm and Guillemont in combination with the neighbouring French XX Corps’ seizure of Hardecourt and Mau
repas. Thirteenth Corps was to provide flank support to Rawlinson’s main thrust around Ovillers and La Boisselle, but the proposed latter phases were never a carte-blanche licence for exploitation.
The 18th and 30th would attack uphill from the low ground in front of Carnoy and Maricourt. Their respective attack frontages were about 2000 yards and 1500 yards. No fewer than six Russian Saps had been carved out beneath no-man’s-land; these were to provide covered passage for infantry once their heads were blown open shortly after Zero hour. The 18th, commanded by Major-General Sir Ivor Maxse, would advance 1500–2000 yards to capture the Mametz–Montauban ridge and then Montauban Alley. The 30th, commanded by Major-General Sir John Shea, would, on its left, advance 2000–2500 yards, take Montauban and come up alongside the 18th, while its right would press forward 1000–1500 yards to take Dublin Trench and maintain contact with the French. Both divisions would use all three of their infantry brigades. They would follow a timetabled artillery barrage — the heavy guns lifting their shellfire from one trench line to the next, while the field guns stepped their fire back in short lifts from one German trench to the next.28 This was not a pure creeping barrage, as the timed curtain of shellfire would not creep over the German positions at consistent intervals of time and distance. Ninth (Scottish) Division was about two miles away, in corps reserve, and tucked behind Maricourt Ridge.
At dawn on 1 July, all of the pieces were in place, but Congreve was a tad unsettled: ‘Daylight hours before [Zero] very anxious as I had the Infantry of 2 Divisions packed into Carnoy Valley where every shell must have told on it but the Bosch did nothing.’29
‘IT IS A strange feeling you get just in the couple of minutes before going over, but once over, everything is alright,’ wrote Private James Smith, 17th King’s, of the moments before 30th Division’s attack began.30 Corporal Joseph Quinn, 20th King’s, downed a tot of rum in the 30th’s assembly trenches: ‘I can assure you, you don’t get enough to make you feel like telling anyone the history of your past life, let alone getting to the stage of being drunk.’31 One soldier recalled that ‘Five minutes to go’ was whispered along crowded assembly trenches.32 ‘There was much handshaking and wishing one another good luck. I think we all made silent prayer.’33 Then it was ‘Get ready,’ and the whistle blew. The same soldier, whose name is unknown, continued:
I had just got one foot against the side of the trench and my hand on my rifle to climb over, when two shells burst immediately above me, covering me with dust. I was dazed for a few seconds. One shell had carried the [trench] bridge away above me; the other shattered my rifle and blew the bayonet to pieces. I picked up a wounded man’s rifle and went over.34
The 30th’s leading four battalions, two each from 21st and 89th Brigades, were swiftly across the up-to-500-yards-wide no-man’s-land, moving quick time through the mist, rifles at the slope. Nineteenth Manchesters* and 17th† and 20th King’s‡ advanced on frontages of roughly 375 yards each, while 18th King’s§ was spread across 250 yards, its left pressed up hard against Railway Valley, which along with Talus Bois was roughly the boundary between XIII Corps’ two attacking divisions. Eighty-ninth Brigade’s 17th and 20th King’s used four-wave formations, each comprising four platoons abreast,35 with 2nd Bedfords in support and committed piecemeal to the battle, and some of its number attached to the lead battalions as mopping-up parties.36 The leading waves of 21st Brigade’s 18th King’s and 19th Manchesters moved forward in extended order.37 The 18th’s fourth line was in columns of sections, while the 19th, which expected a tough fight to capture the fortified and well-defended Glatz Redoubt, sent its final waves forward in lines of half platoons.38 Two platoons of 2nd Yorkshires* accompanied 18th King’s and 19th Manchesters as mopping-up teams,39 with the remainder advancing in columns of sections to occupy and consolidate the German front line, while much of 2nd Wiltshires† was used as carrying parties.40
The crossover was, said Private Thomas Pringle, 18th King’s, ‘no rush forward with wild Indian-like whoops’ and nothing ‘less than the execution of a set military movement.’41 Seventeenth King’s encountered only slight infantry resistance due to XIII Corps’ artillery work ‘having been very effective on the German trenches.’42 Nineteenth Manchesters noted that the ‘only checks to our advance were our own artillery barrages and these pauses were utilized for reorganisation of the lines.’43 So effective had the bombardment been that the 30th’s four-battalion vanguard was into the battered German trenches before the garrison could react. Stubbly-faced Bavarian soldiers were trapped in their dugouts with the ‘spirit knocked out of them,’44 said Lieutenant Edgar Willmer, 17th King’s. The artillery had ‘done their work well.’45 One Liverpool officer stood between two German dugout exits and turned alternately left and right, shooting the occupants as they raced out ‘just as if he were in a shooting saloon.’46
Advancing abreast, 89th Brigade’s 20th and 17th King’s and 21st Brigade’s 18th King’s and 19th Manchesters pressed on, pausing about 200 yards behind the German front line for their barrage to step back, some men sparking up cigarettes as they waited.47 The experience by 17th King’s of ‘some shelling,’ ‘very slight infantry resistance’ and ‘little machine-gun fire’ was broadly shared by 20th King’s and 19th Manchesters.48 By contrast, 18th King’s met with ‘heavy shelling and machine-gun fire enfilade.’49 The few knots of resistance encountered by Brigadier-General the Honourable Ferdinand Stanley’s 89th were overwhelmed and by 8.30 a.m. the 89th had advanced about 750 yards behind the German front line and was digging in at Dublin Trench, its final objective. The brigade’s casualties were relatively light. Not so for Brigadier-General the Honourable Charles Sackville-West’s 21st. The crammed-together 18th King’s was briefly slowed by local resistance and suffered most of its 500 casualties from a machine gun away to its left in 18th (Eastern) Division’s sector. Bombers broke the impasse, and by 8.35 a.m. the 21st had taken Train Alley and then Glatz Redoubt, which, said Private William Gregory, 18th King’s, had been hurriedly evacuated:
When we got to the Glatz Redoubt it was in a right mess. There were bodies everywhere, in all kinds of attitudes, some on fire and burning from the British bombardment. Debris and deserted equipment littered the area, and papers were fluttering round in the breeze. There were only two of us at the start, and then we met with others coming in.50
It had taken the 30th about an hour to secure its first objective; the attack was so far going rather more than less to plan thanks to the effectiveness of the pre-battle bombardment and the barrage supporting the infantry’s advance across no-man’s-land and then into the German positions.
Poor visibility, broken communications and the effective British shellfire consigned German infantry facing the 30th to failure. ‘The attack,’ wrote Oberleutnant Reymann, IR62, ‘was probably recognised too late by the companies of BRIR6 due to the dense fog, and the first trench was in the enemy’s hands right at the beginning of the attack.’51 Two Bavarian companies holding this part of the line ran up 286 casualties, including 151 prisoners, of whom many were wounded. The other 135 were killed or wounded.52 Clouds of mist, smoke and dust limited visibility to a matter of yards. Few apparently heard the bombardment step back, and broken telephone lines meant surviving artillery batteries could not be contacted. Red flares calling for support went unseen, and in any case there were too few guns to provide any meaningful defensive fire. The two German regiments defending Montauban were rapidly overrun and their soldiers promptly killed or taken prisoner.
‘I was very badly wounded during a struggle with hand grenades at the beginning of the attack when British troops advanced into our trenches,’ wrote Reservist Michael Theurlein, BRIR6.53 ‘My right leg was smashed and my arms and head were bleeding from many wounds.’54 A few hundred yards behind the Bavarians, a ‘weak’ company of IR62 was wiped out.55 The headquarters staff of Second Battalion, IR62 was killed or captured, while that of BRIR6 near Bernafay Wood was isolated by broken communications and had no idea of th
e unfolding rout.56
Offizierstellvertreter Busl, the officer deputy, claimed that the ‘joy of battle shone out of everyone’s eyes.’57 He meant his men were wide-eyed with adrenaline and fear. ‘Where the bombardment had torn large gaps [in the wire], the enemy was successful in penetrating. However our men soon fell on these Englishmen with hand-grenades and annihilated them after some time. Nevertheless the platoon was at the end of its power to resist because of the Englishmen’s superior strength.’58 Twice-wounded Busl surrendered. Others extricated themselves, making for Bernafay and Trônes Woods. Kanonier Hermann Heinrich, Field Artillery Regiment 21 (FAR21), was in Bernafay Wood: ‘Due to the constant barrage our guns were unusable. . . . Retreating infantry told us that the English were on their heels.’59 The remnants of Heinrich’s battery later pulled back to Guillemont and he found himself in an ad-hoc command post. ‘I heard nothing other than the crash of exploding shells, I was repeatedly covered with dirt from shell blasts,’ he wrote.60
‘I felt as if an elephant had kicked me,’ said Private Charles Healey, 19th Manchesters, of the advance by 21st Brigade.61 He was shot in the chest, right thumb, left thigh and genitals. ‘As the sun was sinking I thought it was near the end.’62 Stretcher bearers later picked him up. Back in the assembly trenches, machine-gun officer Lieutenant-Colonel Bidder watched the wounded raising their tin hats on entrenching-tool handles, ‘giving the effect of a field of gigantic mushrooms.’63 Private Thomas Frank, in follow-up battalion 2nd Yorkshires, said his company was mostly ‘shot down before we got over. We only had to put our heads over the top and we got it.’64 Although the German wire was well cut, ‘you had to watch yourself from not getting tripped up.’65 Private Pringle recalled ‘rivalry, you know, between the different companies, and it proves a fine incentive in an attack.’66 He said 18th King’s encountered ‘no opposition at the first trench. Our artillery had peppered it far too well, and we saw German bodies lying all along.’67 Further on, German machine-gunners sprayed the left flank of the 18th King’s with a stream of bullets. ‘You could see the flash as it passed,’ said Private Gregory, his friends felled all around him.68 Most of the battalion’s casualties lay beyond the German support line, said Private Sydney Steele, also 18th King’s, who saw ‘fellows just lying there, higgledy-piggledy all over the place, some two, three and four high — one mass of dead men as far as you could see.’69