by Peter Hart
THE NEXT GREAT OFFENSIVE on the Somme would be the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, which began on 15 September 1916. This was the battle intended to reap the rewards from all the hard graft that had preceded it. Success here might foreshorten the war; failure would certainly prolong it. Over ten divisions of the Fourth and Reserve Armies would advance together on the German lines. This was a battle the scale of which would have been unthinkable for the BEF just a year before. It also marked a significant step forward in the British tactical approach to the offensive with the first use of the tank. The gestation of the tank has been much debated, but it originated in the clear necessity for some kind of armoured vehicle that could cross No Man’s Land, brush through barbed wire and use its onboard armaments to assault German strongpoints. There was much experimentation before the emergence of the lozenge-shaped Mark I ‘tank’, an armoured tracked vehicle based on the Holt tractor which came in two variants: the ‘male’, armed with two 6-pounder guns and four machine guns, and the ‘female’, with just six machine guns. No one knew their capabilities or drawbacks: this could only be discovered in battle. What better time to test them out than at the crucial Battle of Flers-Courcelette, the climax of the main Allied offensive of 1916?
In September 1916 the British were still faced by three defensive trench systems on the Somme, but these – at least superficially – were far less fearsome than those of 1 July. The press of events meant that the Germans did not have the time to dig a sophisticated interconnected system of trenches and switch lines, nor to build the mass of concrete reinforced fortifications and deep dugouts to stiffen the line. But they still presented a formidable series of trenches, with the added threat of the hidden shell hole machine gunners. Among the British High Command there was a considerable debate as to tactics, with Rawlinson preferring a step-by-step approach while Haig pressed for a greater return for the huge investment of resources devoted to the offensive. In the end the attack was to be carried out on a wide front, but with the main thrust centred on the village of Flers-Courcelette. The powerful barrage was based on a concentration of one field gun per ten yards of front, with a further medium or heavy gun every twenty-nine yards. By now the concept of using a creeping barrage as the troops attacked was fully accepted, but the importance of counter-battery fire to silence the German guns was still not properly grasped and the fifty-six guns assigned to the task were nowhere near sufficient. The guns were still, as at Neuve Chapelle, Loos and on 1 July, at the very centre of the plans, with the tank just a promising addition. Indeed, integrating tanks into the existing tactical mix posed a complex series of problems to which there were no obvious solutions. Should they be concentrated together? Was it best if they moved in front of, alongside or behind the infantry? In the end the tanks were spread out in small groups, sent ahead of the infantry to breech the German front line and tackle machine gun posts. To facilitate this, 100-yard gaps were left in the creeping barrage tracking the planned route of each tank as far as the front line, after which the infantry and tanks would advance together behind another creeping barrage. Once they were beyond the range of the supporting field artillery the tanks would be used to flatten the German barbed wire while their guns would attempt to provide close support for the infantry. This was an ambitious programme for untested weapons. In the event, the sheer unreliability of the tanks proved greater than expected. Of the forty-nine tanks intended to be used in the attack only thirty-six reached the starting lines by the time the final barrage burst out at 06.20 on 15 September. When they went into action they often broke down or lost their way, which left the infantry in the ‘lanes’ left by the creeping barrage advancing into uncurbed fire. For the Germans it was the new British barrage techniques, not the tanks, that had the biggest impact.
A forest of guns opened up in a ceaseless rolling thunder of fire throughout the High Wood–Flers–Martinpuich–Courcelette sector. A sea of iron crashed down on all the front and support lines of the area. The noise was terrible. Impact after impact. The whole of No Man’s Land was a seething cauldron. The work of destruction grew and grew. Chaos! It was impossible to imagine that anyone could live through it. Square metre after square metre was ploughed up. An unparalleled hurricane of fire blew over from the front. It was like a crashing machine, mechanical, without feelings; snuffing out the last resistance with a thousand hammers. It is totally inappropriate to play such a game with fellow men. We are all human beings, made in the image of the Lord God. But what account does the Devil take of mankind, or God, when he feels himself to be Lord of the Elements; when chaos celebrates his omnipotence? From the direction of High Wood we can hear the sound of voices and confused shouting, which persists until the few remaining survivors, wakened from mental confusion, find themselves shocked back into the reality of the moment and fight on, until the British flood overwhelms them, consumes them and passes on. Wave upon wave. An extraordinary number of men and there, between them, spewing death, unearthly monsters: the first British tanks.29
Second Lieutenant Hermann Kohl, 17th Bavarian Infantry Regiment
Communication was almost non-existent between the tanks and the infantry. Often the tanks were left behind by the infantry desperate to keep up with the more certain protection offered by the creeping barrage. The much-advertised tank proceeding along the main street of Flers was a journalist’s dream in the days following, but the tank concerned did nothing more than trundle up and down the road before breaking down. Meanwhile, the Germans may have been stunned by the appearance of tanks on the battlefield but they could fight back hard. The C-22 ‘female’ tank was commanded by Second Lieutenant Basil Henriques which for unknown reasons advanced before Zero Hour towards German positions at the Quadrilateral. At first the German trenches remained quiet but as he crossed the front line and opened fire the Germans retaliated with small arms using armour-piercing ammunition normally employed against the loop-holed steel plates used by British snipers.
All the time I had the front flaps open, for visibility was far too restricted if they were shut; but after a hail of machine gun fire, I closed them tightly for the first time. Then the periscope got hit away; then the small prisms got broken one after another; then armour piercing bullets began to penetrate, in spite of the fact that tanks were said to be completely proof against them. Then my driver got hit; then one of my gunners; then I got splinters in the face and legs. Meanwhile the gunners claim to have killed or hit twenty or thirty of the enemy. I could see absolutely nothing. The only thing to do was to open the front flap slightly and peep through. Eventually this got hit so that it was hanging only by a thread, and the enemy could fire in at us at close range.30
Second Lieutenant Basil Henriques, C Company, Heavy Branch, Motor Machine Gun Company
Another weakness of the tanks was becoming apparent – they were susceptible to well-directed artillery fire. All told the tanks achieved little that would not have been gained by more conventional means – yet at times they did also give an inkling of what might be. They certainly made an impression on the Germans.
A man came running in from the left, shouting, ‘There is a crocodile crawling into our lines!’ The poor wretch was off his head. He had seen a tank for the first time and had imagined this giant of a machine, rearing up and dipping down as it came, to be a monster. It presented a fantastic picture, this Colossus in the dawn light. One moment its front section would disappear into a crater, with the rear section still protruding, the next its yawning mouth would rear up out of the crater, to roll slowly forward with terrifying assurance.31
Sergeant Weinert, 211th Infantry Regiment
Haig was sufficiently encouraged by the development of the tank, though, to order a thousand shortly after the battle. He was also consoled by the success of the latest version of British offensive tactics. Many of the German First Line positions had been over-run all along the 9,000-yard front, while in the Flers sector the Second Line had been breached to such an extent that a couple of days later the G
ermans retreated to Le Transloy Ridge. The Germans were in deep trouble, but the British had still not broken through.
Within ten days the British had assimilated some of the lessons learnt. In their plans for the Battle of Morval launched at 12.35 on 25 September they reined in their ambitions to a more ‘bite and hold’ format aiming for an advance of about 1,500 yards to take the latest German front line. This allowed for a more concentrated artillery bombardment with no gaps in the coverage, a much greater attention to counter-battery work and a return to the concept of a standing barrage dropping in front of newly captured ground to break up any attempted German counter-attacks. The tanks were also used in a more focussed way, following the infantry in order to assist in the destruction of troublesome strongpoints – in other words, as a useful but secondary weapon. The result was a dramatic success and indeed in most places the tanks could not keep up with the infantry as they advanced across the ground razed by the barrage. Similar tactics brought equal success the following day when Gough attacked Thiepval Spur and Schwaben Redoubt at 12.35 on 26 September. This triggered an intensive period of vicious fighting, but slowly the British were inching forward and loosening the German grip on the high ground that had remained inviolate since 1 July. Yet there was a price to pay: whenever they captured a German position there always seemed to be more lines ahead of them. In the time it took to organise and execute a ‘bite and hold’ attack the Germans could dig new trench lines; and so the process rumbled on ad infinitum. A new development in German tactics was the placing of concealed machine gun posts well behind their lines, beyond the range of British field artillery, but still able to cover open ground near or just behind their own front line. As the tactical rollercoaster ride hurtled on, each side adapted their methods to counter the other, every step forward only seemed to preface a step back. Captain Pilditch’s grim prophecy of an eternal torment of trench warfare appeared all too feasible. Yet Haig, aware that his embattled armies were creeping closer to tactically significant battlefield features, concluded that the Germans were ready for the taking.
We had already broken through all the enemy’s prepared lines and now only extemporised defences stood between us and the Bapaume ridge: moreover the enemy had suffered much in men, in material, and in morale. If we rested even for a month, the enemy would be able to strengthen his defences, to recover his equilibrium, to make good deficiencies, and, worse still, would regain the initiative! The longer we rested, the more difficult would our problem again become, so in my opinion we must continue to press the enemy to the utmost of our power.32
General Sir Douglas Haig, General Headquarters, BEF
Haig was determined to press on, trusting that the twin hammer blows of the Somme and Verdun would undermine German resolve. This time his plan was fairly simple: keep attacking in order to exert all possible pressure. But the Germans responded to the challenge by moving up more gun batteries and sending in fresh divisions. Once again the campaign degenerated into a series of small-scale assaults launched to ever-diminishing effect throughout October. Failure again became the norm for the British attacks.
As they edged forwards the British were suffering from the diminishing effectiveness of their main weapon, the massed guns of the Royal Artillery. The over-worked gunners were becoming physically exhausted; their guns too were wearing out and losing accuracy. The increasingly wet autumnal weather amplified the logistical problems of moving millions of shells across the devastated wasteland behind the British lines. The guns themselves sank deep into the mud, creating unstable platforms which made a nonsense of precise adjustments of angle and range. The all-pervading mud even smothered the explosive effects of the shells as they burst.
There was a new challenge in the air, too. By this time the Royal Artillery was relying heavily on the RFC to photograph and chart the exact locations of German trenches and gun batteries before using the aircraft artillery observation to eliminate them. But flying was often impossible due to the inclement weather. Also, the German Air Service was starting to offer more vigorous opposition. The first step was a deadly new aircraft, the Albatros DI. This was the first scout to be armed with twin Spandau machine guns firing through the propeller; it also had a powerful 160 horse power Mercedes engine which gave it a top speed of nearly 110mph. Just as deadly was the codified version of aerial tactics prepared by Captain Oswald Boelcke, who was placed in command of the newly formed Jasta 2 based at Bertincourt on 27 August. He inculcated his pilots with the simple principles of combat fighting in the air which included the importance of taking an opponent by surprise, preferably from behind coming out of the sun, and only shooting at close range. The first inkling the British had of this new force on the Western Front came when Boelcke led his ingénues into action against a group of BE2 Cs and FE2 Bs engaged in a raid on the railway junction at Marcoing. One of his young pilots, Lieutenant Manfred von Richthofen, was desperate to shoot down his first victim. Despite his inexperience, the tremendous superiority of his Albatros allowed him to get behind an FE2 B flown by veterans Lieutenant Lionel Morris and Lieutenant Tom Rees.
A struggle began and the great point for me was to get to the rear of the fellow. Apparently he was no beginner, for he knew exactly that his last hour had arrived at the moment I got at the back of him. My Englishman twisted and turned, flying in zig-zags. At last a favourable moment arrived. My opponent had apparently lost sight of me. Instead of twisting and turning, he flew straight along. In a fraction of a second, I was at his back with my excellent machine. I gave a short burst of shots with my machine gun. I had gone so close that I was afraid I might crash into the Englishman. Suddenly I nearly yelled with joy, for the propeller of the enemy machine had stopped turning. Hurrah! I had shot his engine to pieces; the enemy was compelled to land, for it was impossible for him to reach his own lines. The English machine was swinging curiously to and fro. Probably something had happened to the pilot. The observer was no longer visible.33
Second Lieutenant Manfred von Richthofen, Jasta 2, German Air Service
Both Morris and Rees were killed; all their experience could not save them. Von Richthofen’s Albatros more than compensated for his lack of combat skills. It allowed the fledgling German pilots to take their kills almost at will. But Boelcke did not stint in his training, constantly going through the minutiae of every aerial encounter with his young charges. As for Richthofen, he would rise to be the greatest German ace of the war. It was becoming apparent that the RFC would have to suffer severe casualties if they were to continue carrying out their functions in the face of this new scourge. Brigadier General Hugh Trenchard was well aware of the problem, but he was determined that the RFC would continue to carry out its duty to the men on the ground, come what may. He decided to rely on numerical supremacy and to accept casualties as best they could.
Below the leaden skies the conditions on the Somme in the late autumn and winter of 1916 began to match the horrors of Verdun. By the end of October the Somme had become a place of utter horror beyond all normal human comprehension.
I will never forget that trench – it was simply packed with German corpses in the stage where face and hands were inky black with a greenish tinge from decomposition and whites of the eyes and teeth gave them a horrible appearance. How so many came to be in one trench I cannot tell, unless one of our tanks caught them there. Fritz had tried to get rid of some, for they were laid in rows on the parapets at the level of one’s head, stuck into walls, buried in the floor and felt like an air cushion to walk on, and one was continually rubbing against heads, legs, arms etc., sticking out of the walls at all heights. The floor one walked on was in a fearful state, in some parts covered several deep with bodies or a face with grinning teeth looked up at you from the soft mud, and one often saw an arm or a leg by itself and occasionally a head cut off. Everywhere are Prussian helmets with their eagle badge, belts and equipment, many bodies had wristwatches etc. We did not collect many souvenirs, for our own skin was the best souvenir
we could think of that day.34
Signaller Ron Buckell, 1st Canadian Artillery Brigade, CEF
Morale was declining among the British soldiers called to endure these impossible conditions of service. As the months wore on, divisions, brigades and battalions who had already fought on the Somme were returned to the front, rarely having had time for deep wounds to heal, for the memories of recent sacrifices to fade. And in front of them the Germans seemed as implacable as ever.
By November it was apparent that there was no longer time for the BEF to finish their grim business that year. With the depths of winter looming, it was evident that the German Army was simply too strong – the war would continue deep into 1917. The priorities of the British High Command changed: now they sought to gain the best possible tactical positions for the winter, ready for the resumption of fighting in the new year. And so there was to be one final attack, with the Battle of the Ancre commencing at 05.45 on 13 November. This time they bit the bullet and attacked north towards St Pierre Divion to finally clear the south bank of the Ancre River, while at the same time an assault was made along the line from Serre to Beaucourt on the north bank of the river. In some ways this was a thorough exploration of the effectiveness of the new British tactics, for this was the very blood-soaked ground on which the attack of 1 July had failed.
