Elegy

by Andrew Roberts

  *9 In the event it was 7.30 a.m.

  FOUR

  ZERO HOUR

  I, that on my familiar hill / Saw with uncomprehending eyes / A hundred of thy sunsets spill / Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice, / Ere the sun swings his noonday sword / Must say good-bye to all of this— / By all delights that I shall miss, / Help me to die, O Lord.1

  LT. NOEL HODGSON MC,

  9th Devonshire Regiment

  *

  ‘Nobody could put on paper the whole truth of what went on here on Saturday and during Saturday night— and no one could read it, if he did, without being sick.’2

  REVD MONTAGUE BERE,

  chaplain to the 43rd Casualty Clearing Station, to his wife, 4 July 1916

  ‘On july 1st the weather, after an early mist was of the kind commonly called heavenly’, recalled Siegfried Sassoon. He and his brother officers breakfasted at 6 a.m., ‘unwashed and apprehensive’, an empty ammunition box for their table. At 6.45 the final bombardment began, and there was nothing to do but sit round our candle until the tornado ended. For more than forty minutes the air vibrated and the earth rocked and shuddered. Through the sustained uproar the tap and rattle of machine guns could be identified; but except for the whistle of bullets no retaliation came our way until a few 5.9 [in.] shells shook the roof of our dugout.’ He and another officer ‘sat speechless, deafened and stupefied by the seismic state of affairs, and when he lit a cigarette the match flame staggered crazily’.3

  Cpl. Appleyard of the Queen Victoria’s Rifles noted how ‘Every gun in the sector fired rapid. This was kept up for an hour, at the end of which we sent over our smoke bombs. I witnessed the spectacle from the old original front line and it was the finest spectacle I have ever seen. The smoke varied in colour and as each cloud intermingled with the other, it formed beautiful tints.’4

  ‘The sun rose higher,’ wrote another observer of that morning, ‘and birds chirped and fed in the charlock that garnished some of the trenches.’5 Another recalled: ‘It seemed years before the first ray of light appeared in the Heavens, but gradually the light grew stronger showing up the long line of khaki-clad boys.’6 But for all its poetic delightfulness, the sun was in fact to pose a major problem for the soldiers as they prepared to clamber out of their trenches to do battle. Some British commanders wanted to attack at dawn, before the German machine-gunners could set their ranges properly. The Tommies (as the Germans nicknamed them)—who were generally attacking eastwards except in the southern sector—would otherwise have the rising sun in their eyes. Gen. Rawlinson pressed the French to accept an attack before sunrise, but, as Brig. Edmonds recorded in the Official History: ‘The splendid chance of surprise offered by an assault in the early morning before the enemy machine-gunners could see very far was lost because the proposal for an early start was definitely rejected by the French, who even wished to make Zero Hour 9 a.m. instead of 7.30 a.m.’7 This was a repetition of what had happened at Loos, where Gen. Foch had ordered French infantry not to attack until a full four hours after artillery observation was possible. Yet near the Somme River the mist was heavy, and although it cleared on the uplands it was still too thick at 7.30 a.m. for the German trenches to be seen clearly from the artillery observation posts before the attack.8

  The men were massed in the assembly trenches by 4 a.m., so there was time to write last letters home. ‘There is a big attack coming off very shortly, and we are in it’, Lt.Malcolm White—a Shrewsbury schoolmaster in his mid-twenties who had enlisted in April 1915 and was with the 1st Rifle Brigade in the 4th Division north of Beaumont Hamel—wrote to his family.

  And there is just a minute to scribble a line to you with my love and greeting. We all hope it will be a success, though it will be a difficult business, I am sure. Our job will be to take the front system of trenches in this area. Man, I can’t write a letter. There is much to think, but nothing to say really. I dare say this will not reach you, but I have asked a friend to send it for me when censorship does not apply any longer… And now, I just want to say to you all, that, if I don’t come through it, you must all be quite cheerful about it. I am quite happy about it, though of course I can’t deny that I’m quite keen to come home again… It seems to me that, if I die in this action, it gives me a great, simple chance to make up for a lot of selfishness in the past… That’s my view of it. It’s not priggish—I hope it doesn’t sound like that. It is also a great comfort to think of you all going on, living the same happy lives that we have led together, and of the new generation coming into it all. I can’t write more, My dearest love to you all.9

  Leading his men in the 1st Rifle Brigade’s attack on Beaumont Hamel, White was hit but not badly wounded, until a shell landed nearby soon afterwards and killed him.*1

  Morale was high among the men waiting to attack that morning, especially once the bombardment intensified at 7.20 a.m.10 They understood that they would have to fight, but expected that they would be matched against an enemy incapacitated and demoralized by the week-long artillery barrage. Perhaps typical was the experience of Edward ‘Ted’ Higson who had volunteered on the outbreak of war for the Clerks and Warehousemen Battalion of the Manchester Pals (18th Battalion Manchester Regiment). They had been sent to France in November 1915 and when they reached the front the next month ‘As we approached the firing line, we heard first of all the guns booming and many of us wondered how we should behave under fire, hoping for a steady nerve and a brave heart.’11 By 30 June 1916, ‘Everybody was eager to be “over the top”,*2 our first big stunt… There were no white faces, no trembling limbs. In their hearts they were hoping to come through safely, not for their own sake but for the sake of those at home, but on the other hand they were quite prepared to die for the glorious cause of freedom and love.’12*3 As for the sound of the bombardment’s great finale: ‘Hundreds of guns were firing as quickly as they could be loaded; the noise was so intense that one could not hear what the man next to you was saying… to this day I wonder why the drums of our ears were not burst open.’13

  THE FINAL MOMENTS

  The Lancashire Fusiliers fixing their bayonets prior to the assault on Beaumont Hamel.

  The ‘race to the parapet’ is something of a misnomer, because one side—the British—all too often did not treat it as a race at all. That is evident from the vast amount of equipment each man was expected to carry. After climbing the ladders and going over the top of the trench, they walked forward with their .303-in. Lee-Enfield SMLE Mark 2 1907 rifles*4 carried across their chests in front of them at a slope, each with its 18-in. steel bayonet fixed to the barrel. Yet as well as those vital weapons, the men were loaded down terribly. The 29th Division, for example, ordered that:

  Each infantryman will carry rifle and equipment, 170 rounds of small arms ammunition, one iron ration and the rations for the day of the assault, two sandbags in belt, two [pineapple-shaped No. 36] Mills Bombs, steel helmet,*5 smoke [i.e. gas] helmet in satchel, water bottle and haversack*6 on back, also first [aid] field dressing and identity disc. A waterproof sheet should also be taken. Troops of the second and third waves will carry only 120 rounds of ammunition. At least 40 per cent of the infantry will carry shovels, and 10 per cent will carry picks.14

  Many men carried their shovels across their chests for extra protection. As though this personal kit were not heavy enough, a huge amount of other military equipment also had to be carried into no man’s land. The 88th Brigade (which included the Newfoundlanders), for example, had to share out between the four battalions a total of 1,600 flares, 64 bundles of 5-foot wooden pickets, 16 sledge-hammers, 640 wire-cutters and pairs of hedging gloves, 512 special haversacks for carrying Lewis machine gun magazines, 32 trench bridges, 33 Bangalore torpedo tubes, and some 7-foot trench ladders. Some units also carried pigeon baskets, signalling gear, drums of telephone wire and tins of grey paint to put the unit’s identification on every artillery piece captured. Those carrying barbed wire carried 90 lbs (41 kg) of it. Small wonder that the l
eather straps that held the kit bit into the men’s shoulders, as the average infantryman was required to carry half his own bodyweight across no man’s land, under fire.15 ‘The total weight carried per man was about 66 lbs [30 kg],’ recorded the Official History, ‘which made it difficult to get out of a trench, impossible to move quicker than a slow walk, or to rise and lay down quickly.’16 As a footnote, Brig. Edmonds pointed out that: ‘This overloading of the men is by many infantry officers regarded as one of the principal reasons of the heavy losses and failure of their battalions, for their men could not get through the machine gun zone with sufficient speed.’17 The men also wore a woollen ‘khaki drill’ tunic which got very hot on that sweltering July day, puttees, hobnail boots and trousers so uncomfortable that the Ulster Division cut them into shorts.18

  Just before the attack, the men were given a hot meal (often stews), hot sweet tea and a tot of rum.*7 The food was carried up at night in large containers and was no longer particularly hot, but there were few complaints as it was often better than the food they ate back in Britain.*8 The daily rum ration came in large jars with SRD stamped on them, meaning ‘Special Ration Distribution’, which the Tommies joked stood for ‘Seldom Reaches Destination’. The coffee that Bert Payne of the 1st City (Manchester Pals) Battalion 18th Manchesters drank just before going into battle had been brewed in empty fuel cans that the quartermaster, who had run out of jugs and urns, had found in the supply depot. The slight taste of petrol was masked with a drop of brandy.19

  At 7.20 a.m., a full ten minutes before the main attack, a gigantic mine was detonated with 40,000 pounds of HE at the end of a long tunnel reaching under the German lines at the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt. It was set then because the miners wanted ten minutes to repair possible defects in the fuses, and Lt.-Gen. Hunter-Weston thought that much time was needed to avoid falling debris*9 and for the 2nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers to get across no man’s land, seize the high lip of the crater and lay down fire on the defenders to help the other attacking battalions.21 In the event, however, those Germans who survived the initial explosion reached the rim of the huge crater first, and were able to set up their machine guns before the Royal Fusiliers arrived.

  ‘The explosion was a signal for the infantry attack,’ the war diary of the German 119th Reserve Regiment recorded, ‘and everyone got ready and stood on the lower steps of the dugouts, rifles in hand, waiting for the bombardment to lift. In a few minutes the shelling ceased, and we rushed up the steps and out into the crater positions. Ahead of us wave after wave of British troops were crawling out of their trenches and coming towards us at a walk, their bayonets glistening in the sun.’22 The first three companies of the Royal Fusiliers were cut down in minutes.

  THE HAWTHORN RIDGE MINE

  40,000 pounds of High Explosive were detonated under the Hawthorn Ridge ten minutes before the attack.

  Hunter-Weston’s decision to blow the mine at 7.20 a.m. was a controversial one. ‘There is no doubt to my mind that,’ wrote Lt. Albert Whitlock of the 2nd Royal Fusiliers later, ‘had this been timed for firing almost simultaneously with the attack, we should, in the general confusion, have been able to overrun the Redoubt with little or no opposition and thus stop the intense direct machine gun fire.’ He believed that months of work by the Royal Engineers miners had been wasted because of an unnecessary ten-minute pause. Yet although some of the officers after the battle criticized ‘a fatal error [which] gave the game away all along the line’, saying that it ‘prejudiced our chances of success considerably’ and was even ‘fatal to the success of the attack as a whole’, the Germans were already fully alerted to the coming attack.23 (Some men did move out into no man’s land before the Hawthorn Mine exploded—including the 2nd South Wales Borderers, 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and the leading battalions of 94th Brigade.)24

  Lochnagar Redoubt was a German strongpoint defended by 200 Württembergers south of La Boisselle, but unbeknownst to them there was a 1,400 yard-long (1,280 m) tunnel reaching under it, which had been started in Becourt Wood in November 1915. ‘We were to stand at the bridge ready for the mine to blow’, recalled Pte. Elliot of the 20th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers (Tyneside Scottish) of the situation at 7.23 a.m. ‘We had short ladders. Then someone called Now! Get out of the parapet boys, she’s going up.’25 At 7.28 a.m. the Royal Engineers’ tunnelling companies blew up two mines at Y Sap, north of La Boisselle, which contained 40,000 lbs (18,000 kg) of HE, and the Lochnagar Mine which contained 60,000 lbs (27,000 kg), and left a crater 90 yards (82 m) wide and 70 (64 m) deep. Soil and stones rained down throughout the area.

  ‘At Boisselle, the earth heaved and flashed,’ recorded Cecil Lewis, who was flying overheard when the mine was exploded, ‘a tremendous and magnificent column rose into the sky. There was an ear-splitting roar, drowning out all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earthy column rose higher and higher to almost four thousand feet (1,219 m).’26 Although the Y Sap and Lochnagar Mines were on the outskirts of La Boisselle, when the 34th Division attacked two minutes later it failed to capture the fortified village, which did not fall for another three days.

  Although the Germans had evacuated the area around Y Sap, having spotted the danger beforehand, they had no inkling about the Lochnagar Mine and many of their men were killed. Half of the 7th Company of the 110th Regiment were killed and the 2nd company was completely wiped out, as was the 5th company but for one NCO and 15 men.27 Yet the survivors stayed at their posts and waited for the British attack. They crawled out onto the lip of the giant crater with their machine guns. Two brigades of Northumberland Fusiliers, the Tyneside Scottish and the Tyneside Irish were cut down; the Reserves were shot to pieces even before reaching their own front line. Because the communication trenches were full of wounded men getting back to safety, the attack of the Tyneside Reserve brigade had to take place in full view of the German machine guns, so the 34th Division took more casualties than any other unit that day, a truly appalling 6,380 in all.

  THE TYNESIDE IRISH

  Going over the top from the Tara–Usna Line to attack La Boisselle on the morning of the 1 July.

  In all five mines went up at 7.28 a.m. at various points along the front. ‘Our infantry were also holding the eastern lip of the large newly formed crater’, recorded an aviator above the Y Sap mine at La Boisselle. ‘The fighting around the crater must have been very severe as dozens of bodies could be seen lying about outside [the] crater on the white chalk, and also inside [the] crater. And as shrapnel burst over the crater others could be seen rolling down the steep incline on the inside.’28

  Lt.-Col. E. C. J. Minet of the 18th Division recalled sweating before Zero Hour, but put it down to nervous excitement.29 ‘For God’s sake,’ said a soldier in the 18th Division, ‘let us get going.’30 At 7.30 a.m. the barrage lifted and there was a brief moment of unexpected silence before the officers checked their watches,*10 ordered bayonets to be fixed and rifles loaded and then blew their whistles as the signal to go over the top. Four days earlier the order had gone out that, in order not to differentiate themselves for the benefit of snipers, ‘All Officers should dress alike as the men as near as possible’.31 They carried rifles as well as their Webley .455-in. revolvers, therefore, but they remained conspicuous because they led from the front, as casualty rates even higher than the Non-commissioned officers and other ranks eloquently attested.

  Very often the junior subalterns were fresh from their public schools and universities.*11 On 3 and 4 August 1914, for example, twenty-two of England’s best public school cricketers played in the annual schools match. By the end of the war seven of the twenty-two had been killed.32 The popular (if inappropriate) phrase differentiating the leonine soldiers and donkey-like officers did not apply to the junior regimental officers, who put a good deal of thought into the tactics that would best defeat the enemy and preserve their men’s lives. Capt. Duncan Martin of the 9th Devonshires, for example, made a plasticine model of the
assault ground with which to explain the attack on Mametz to his company, though in the end it did not help as his command was destroyed by a single German machine gun in a corner of the civilian cemetery across the Vallée Martin (an ironic coincidence of names).

  Another inventive captain, Wilfred ‘Billy’ Nevill of the 8th Royal East Surrey Regiment, bought four footballs while on leave and gave one to each of his platoons, offering a prize to the first one to kick one into the German trenches in front of Montauban. One platoon painted the words: ‘The Great European Cup. The Final. East Surreys v The Bavarians. Kick-off at Zero. No referee’ onto their ball. Sure enough, as one survivor recalled: ‘As the gunfire died away, I saw an infantryman climb over the parapet into no man’s land, beckoning others to follow. As he did so he kicked off a football; a good kick, the ball rose and travelled towards the German line. That seemed to be the signal to advance.’33 No one collected the prize, however, as Capt. Nevill was killed before he had covered 20 yards (18 m). His company Sgt.-Maj. C. Wills and Lt. R. G. Soames were also killed, but the men went on.34 His idea has been ridiculed as making light of the operation, but in fact it was intended to raise morale and encourage forward movement, and was a good one. Among many other officers who distinguished themselves that day was Lt.-Col. Reginald Bastard, 2nd Lincolnshires, who crossed no man’s land no fewer than four times to rally his troops.

  Lt.-Col. Ambrose Ricardo, who commanded the County Tyrone Battalion in the 36th Division, recalled how his men advanced with ‘no fuss, no shouting, no running: everything orderly, solid and thorough. Just like the men themselves. Here and there a boy would wave his hand at me as I shouted “Good luck!” to them through my megaphone, and all had a happy face. Many were carrying loads. Fancy advancing against heavy fire carrying a heavy roll of barbed wire on your shoulders!’35 Yet in front of the Allies along the front were almost one thousand German machine gun posts, manned by brave and well-trained men.36*12 ‘Now Jerry started,’ recalled Pte. W. Senescall of the Cambridge Battalion. ‘His machine guns let fly. Down they all went. I could see them dropping one after another as the gun swept along them.’37