Elegy

by Andrew Roberts

  The British perfected their Vickers machine gun too, of course. The memorial to the Machine Gun Corps of the First World War, which stands at the end of Park Lane on Hyde Park Corner in London, is of a naked ‘Boy David’ by the sculptor Francis Derwent Wood. Its inscription—‘Saul hath slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands’—might sound harshly insensitive to modern ears but did not at its unveiling in 1925, when it was recalled that over 62,000 of the 170,000-strong unit had been killed or wounded during the First World War, earning the corps the soubriquet ‘The Suicide Club’.

  In order to counter the Maxim gun, Gens Haig and Rawlinson devised a plan to use the huge Allied superiority in artillery in the Somme sector utterly to destroy the enemy front-line trenches. Haig was persuaded by the artillerymen on the staff at General Headquarters (GHQ) that a preliminary bombardment lasting five days was better than a short surprise barrage just before the attack, as it would drive the Germans into their dugouts and destroy them there.3 After so many hours of intense and incessant bombardment, it was believed that the British infantry would then only need to advance at walking pace to occupy the trenches after the artillery fire ‘lifted’ from the front line onto the support line. They would make prisoners of any demoralized Germans who might still be alive, and then move on forward deeper into the enemy positions. That at least was the plan.

  AN 18-POUNDER IN ACTION

  The standard British field gun of the war: of the some fifteen million shells fired during the Battle of the Somme, roughly ten million were fired by 18-pounders.

  While Allenby’s 3rd Army created a diversion around Gommecourt, Rawlinson’s 4th Army would capture German positions across the 27,000 yards (24,689 m) between Serre and Montauban, with the French 6th Army pushing on to Curlu further south. After that the 4th Army would take the German second-line positions from the river Ancre to Pozières, after beating back any German counter-attacks. They were so certain the bombardment would work that they modified the ‘fire and movement’ form of attack with new tactical instructions. Training Divisions for Offensive Action (SS 109) and Tactical Notes now ordered: ‘The assaulting troops must push forward at a steady pace in successive lines, each line adding fresh impetus to the preceding line.’4

  Haig devolved the writing of the overall battle plan to Rawlinson, whose overall tactical objective has been summed up in the phrase ‘bite and hold’, whereby the infantry would seize a small amount of ground and then hold it against the inevitable German counter-attack.5*2 Rawlinson’s preferred attack would be cautious and only undertaken after a bombardment that concentrated on the German front-line positions rather than including the second and third lines behind them. When Haig saw these plans in early April, however, he thought them over-prudent, believing that the sheer weight of the bombardment they were preparing would allow the infantry to reach the German second line of defences north of Pozières, and in the south further than that, up to a distance of 5,000 yards (4,572 m). Haig’s optimistic mood persisted, and by June his intention for the attack was ‘to break the enemy’s defensive system’. He therefore demanded that the plan be changed to include a much deeper penetration of the German lines eastwards, to 2,500 yards (2,286 m), or over 1.4 miles (2.25 km), in the north and centre of the battlefield, incorporating the enemy’s second-line positions and in some cases even beyond them.6 By extending the attack to the second and sometimes third lines of German trenches, however, Haig asked for more than his 1,010 field guns and howitzers, 427 medium and heavy guns and howitzers, and 100 supporting French guns and howitzers could deliver. (To oppose these, Germany had 454 light guns, 372 field guns and 18 heavy guns.)7

  Whereas Haig saw capturing the Thiepval-Morval Ridge as the start of a larger, wider campaign to break through into the open countryside beyond the German lines, Rawlinson wanted to stop there, and deal with German counter-attacks by their reserve divisions. Originally, Rawlinson had wanted to move 1,250 yards (1,143 m) (nearly three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km)) into the German first defensive line north of the Ancre, halting at Beaucourt Ridge, where they could be supported by artillery. His intention was ‘to kill as many Germans as possible with the least loss to ourselves’, and this, as one historian has remarked, was more important to him at that moment than seizing ground he was doubtful of being able to hold.8 When Rawlinson was forced to redraw his plan, he gave no indication that he had changed his mind.

  It was not good that the commander-in-chief and his chief planner did not agree about the fundamental objectives of such a vital offensive, and Rawlinson’s chief staff officer later wrote: ‘I admit at once the objectives were too deep and too broad for the troops and guns available.’9 When Haig radically altered the plan, Rawlinson noted: ‘D. H. is for breaking the line and gambling on rushing the 3rd line on the top of a [German] panic.’10 Haig’s objective was the high ground of the Pozières Ridge across 10 miles (16 km), and once taken the BEF would turn north, enfilading along the German line. The cavalry would capture Bapaume and strike deep into the country behind the lines, with the French protecting the south.11 Haig liked and trusted Rawlinson personally, but he was also a strong-willed, highly political soldier while Haig was the commander-in-chief. Rawlinson had little way of gainsaying him even had he so desired.

  Of course in retrospect it is easy to see that this battle plan was wildly over-ambitious. The case for the prosecution was put memorably by Basil Liddell Hart. In 1938 he wrote :

  Haig gambled on a complete break-through. His justification is not easy to discover. For, even by the standards and experience of 1915, he was deficient of the means for such an ambitious plan. Only heavy guns could smash the German defences. Only surprise could open a passage quickly, and keep it open long enough for his reserves to sweep through to Bapaume into open country… yet he had far fewer heavy guns than the French alongside him, for a far wider frontage than theirs, and his plan forswore any real attempt at surprise.12

  But Haig’s plan at least had the attribute of not relying on mere attrition to win the war, on the grinding, seemingly endless tit-for-tat mutual slaughter for which both sides were to settle until almost the final hundred days up to November 1918. These were not, in fact, the unimaginative, murderous, almost criminal tactics of which Haig has so often been accused. The problem was that they were too imaginative, wishing to circumvent the pounding attritional warfare that was costing so many lives. Yet the final plan was something of a compromise between the Haig and Rawlinson versions. Haig wanted a much shorter, more intense bombardment, a breakthrough with strong patrols rather than waves of men marching in line abreast, and cavalry exploitation of any breakthroughs achieved.13 Under his revision of the plan, the BEF attacked with thirteen divisions (with four in reserve), while the French attacked with five (with six in reserve). Against these twenty-eight divisions, the Germans had a mere five, with two in reserve. The Allies thus had far greater numerical superiority in the Somme Offensive, which at least on paper should have guaranteed victory. They also enjoyed air superiority, having 386 aircraft versus Germany’s 128.14 This should have given the Allies nearly complete control of the skies above the battlefield, and the ability to detect the positions of German artillery as well as spotting the fall of their own gunners’ shells.15

  On 16 and 21 June, the 4th Army received orders from GHQ about how the cavalry should exploit a breakthrough, showing Haig’s optimism about the coming attack. Some historians, such as Gary Sheffield, believe that the very existence of this contingency plan proves he was wholly unprepared for the battle of attrition he was shortly to experience, but although he has been castigated for believing that cavalry could play any role in a modern war, in fact it did have a strictly limited one, and Haig was correct to factor it into his plans, although of course he never envisaged situations where horses would charge into machine gun fire. Haig never managed to employ cavalry en masse in the way he would have liked, but that does not mean that he was stupid to plan to use it. His post-war speech on
the importance of the ‘well-bred horse’ on the battlefield was wrenched out of context by the military historian Basil Liddell Hart further to damage Haig’s reputation, yet when it is read in full it reveals itself to be anything but the ravings of a dinosaur and is instead a moderately progressive statement of all-arms tactics as they were understood at the time. In an era before widespread mechanization, horses could move cavalrymen quickly—and Haig also wanted to use them as mounted infantry—around the rear and flanks of the battlefield. (Mobility was a real problem for commanders of this era; the French had famously been forced to use taxis at the Battle of the Marne.) The idea of retaining a cavalry corps in reserve in the hope of a breakthrough makes sense when one considers that tanks had not yet been used, went at 2 mph (3.2 kmph) at the beginning of the war (and only 8 mph (12.9 kmph) by 1918 and often broke down. Cavalry was used to exploit German weaknesses in August 1918, although by then it made up only 3 per cent of total army manpower.

  THE DECCAN HORSE LINE-UP (OVERLEAF)

  The Indian cavalry regiment wait for the order to advance during the Battle of Bazentin Ridge, 14 July 1916. Later that day, they took part in the last cavalry charge of the war.

  Although Joffre rather than Haig was responsible for where and when the attack was to take place, the British commander-in-chief must take overall responsibility for how that attack developed on the battlefield. At Verdun, Falkenhayn had attacked across an 8-mile (12.8 km) sector, which was narrow enough to leave his infantry exposed to enfilading fire from French guns on either wing. To avoid a similar fate Haig decided to attack along an enormous 18 miles (29 km) of front.16 The British infantry would come at a right angle eastwards towards Gommecourt, Beaumont Hamel, Thiepval, Ovillers and La Boisselle, and northwards towards Fricourt, Mametz and Montauban. Yet this had the effect of spreading out the artillery’s targets too thinly. ‘His feeling was that if he was prepared for a breakthrough if the opportunity presented itself, he could then take full advantage of it,’ his widow Countess Haig wrote after the war, ‘but if a breakthrough was not achieved then no harm would be done. He did not want another Loos.’17 As with so many of Lady Haig’s remarks, the unfortunate phrase ‘no harm would be done’ in relation to the first day of the Somme would not redound to her late husband’s credit. Although it is true that in the early planning stages Haig was more optimistic than Rawlinson, by late May he had become cautious, and stressed to Rawlinson the importance of establishing a good position for the 1917 campaign.18 In his diary for 15 June, Haig wrote ‘If [the] Enemy’s defence is strong and fighting continues for many days, as soon as the Pozières heights are gained, the position should be consolidated, and improved.’19

  A great deal was asked of individual units in the battle plan. It called for the 36th (Ulster) Division, for example, to gain over 3,000 yards (2,743 m) by 10.08 a.m., the very exactitude of the timing showing how little the General Staff took notice of FM Helmuth von Moltke’s classic dictum that ‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy.’ There was far too much organization and inflexibility; everything was arranged with minute attention to detail, especially the lifting barrage that in fact moved on far faster and further than the infantry it was supposed to support. The battle plan for VIII Corps alone, for example, was seventy-six pages long, with a 365-page supplement at divisional level.20 ‘There must be a colossal lack of organization somewhere’, the future poet laureate, Cecil Lewis, wrote in his Royal Flying Corps logbook, having seen the offensive develop from the air, but in fact there was too much organization.21

  Part of the explanation for this obsessive micro-managing by the General Staff can be put down to Haig and Rawlinson’s doubts about how the Kitchener’s New Army recruits would behave when they came under fire. They were uncertain about the steadiness of the volunteers when they finally went over the top. ‘I have not got an Army in France, really,’ Haig wrote in his diary as late as 29 March 1916, ‘but a collection of divisions untrained for the field.’22 On another occasion he wrote: ‘Unless successful raids are made, troops cannot be depended upon in the general attack.’23 This serious (if unfounded) concern led to the tactic of arranging the men in long lines across the battlefront, rather than in formations that made them less easy targets for the enemy’s machine-gunners. ‘The attack must be made in waves’, Rawlinson told a friend just beforehand, ‘with men at fairly close interval in order to give them confidence.’24 Yet the men had the necessary confidence in themselves and their courage under fire, and they were proved right during the attack. It was the generals who lacked confidence in them.

  Haig and Rawlinson did not expect the infantry to have to fight particularly hard for the trenches, but merely to occupy and rebuild them after they had been destroyed by the artillery, so they were given huge amounts of equipment which loaded them down as they crossed no man’s land. The shovels they were carrying, for example, were for restoring the captured trenches and for burying dead Germans. Rawlinson’s view was affected by the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915, after which he wrote that ‘It is always possible by careful preparation and adequate artillery support by heavy Howitzers to pierce the enemy’s line’, assuming that field guns were capable of cutting barbed wire defences.25 Yet at Neuve Chappelle there had been a gun for every 6 yards (5.4 m) of front, whereas on the Somme the 4th Army had 20,000 yards (18,288 m) of front, and only 245 heavy howitzers to cover it, a heavy gun to cover every 80 yards (73 m). The battle plan simply did not allocate the necessary amount of high explosive (HE) for Haig’s far more ambitious ideas: under the new plan the preliminary bombardment would only use one pound (0.45 kg) of HE for every 10 square yards (8.36 sq. m), which, astonishing though it might seem, was to be nothing like enough.26

  A serious problem for Haig’s High Command throughout this planning period was a tendency towards over-optimistic ‘group-think’, a dangerous trait amongst military planners. Haig’s Intelligence chief, Brig.-Gen. John Charteris, was a fellow Scot he had brought with him from India to his Aldershot command. His assessments tended to be consistently over-confident, yet Haig did not dismiss him until 1918, once Charteris had fallen out with the politically influential Secretary of State for War, the Earl of Derby. In May 1916, for example, Charteris underestimated the capacities of the German divisions in his briefing of Haig regarding the enemy’s reserves, on the basis that they were ‘exhausted as a result of fighting at Verdun’, not taking into account the fact that some of them were nonetheless capable, once reinforced, of fighting hard.27 A recent historian of GHQ’s Intelligence operation has suggested that there was ‘an almost unconscious process whereby Charteris moulded his assessments to fit in with what he believed were Haig’s opinions’, although this did not became fully apparent until March 1917.28 Yet if it had been going on at the time of the planning for the Somme—and Charteris owed his position entirely to Haig’s patronage—it would have been a classic example of Intelligence serving rather than directing a general’s thought patterns, and Charteris telling Haig what Haig wanted to hear, with disastrous consequences.

  Click or tap and hold image to zoom

  TOMMY’S EQUIPMENT (OVERLEAF)

  The British infantryman carried an average of 66 lb (30 kg) into battle, drastically slowing him down in no man’s land.

  Another problem with Intelligence at the time was that although aerial photography could show enemy trenches and even individual dugouts, it could not discern how strongly the lines were held. Cavalry could no longer carry out reconnaissance in the age of trench warfare, so aeroplanes had to do the job, as well as help find enemy guns and help guide fire against them. In 1915 aerial photography and ground-to-air communications were invented, revolutionizing the efficacy of the air arm. In February 1916 at Verdun, fighter aircraft were employed by both sides to protect photo-reconnaissance planes, and of course to shoot down enemy observers. Haig liked and trusted Maj.-Gen. Hugh ‘Boom’ Trenchard, commander of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), and supported his aggressive air st
rategy. His airmen paid a heavy price on the Somme, however: from 1 July to the end of the battle on 18 November the RFC lost 782 aircraft and 576 pilots.29

  Other classic sources of intelligence were similarly limited; civilians were moved out of the combat areas, prisoners were hard to capture, newspapers were censored. So trench raids, sometimes with diversions, were staged to bring back information. The evidence collected in them could be as slight as a canteen cover with a regimental number stenciled onto it, but of course documents, orders, letters and prisoners were far better. In the days before the Somme Offensive, however, only about twenty prisoners were taken by the 4th Army because of the bombardment, not enough to deduce anything very useful. ‘Although the raiders did not succeed in entering the enemy’s trenches,’ one regimental war diary noted, ‘the Corps Commander considered that they attained most useful results, as it has been established that the enemy’s front-line trenches are strongly held.’30 Part of the reason why the British High Command believed so implicitly that the bombardment would destroy the German defences, barbed wire and morale was because General Joffre had said that that was the effect the German bombardment had had on the defenders of Verdun.31 German prisoners captured on the Somme seemed to indicate that their morale had been broken. But the prisoners—even supposing they were telling the truth rather than what they thought their captors wanted to hear—were an unrepresentative group. They had been captured, after all.