Somme
Page 55
It was feckless effusions of just this kind which earned for some of the distant cushioned-staff the derisory title, ‘Plush-arsed buggers’, a coarse, happily-chosen phrase which I gladly put on record without apology. The letter opened with the following sentences, ‘Now that the wet season is approaching....’It reached me on October 26th. Since the end of September conditions had been bad almost beyond belief. I will pass over the error of at least four weeks implicit in ‘is approaching’, for that was not the most damning part of this opening sentence. Lightly to dismiss the season as wet was scarcely short of criminal meiosis. Many of the trenches were waist deep in liquid mud. Batteries were shockingly housed. Communications in the forward areas were heart-breaking of all infantry movements, for carrying parties and horses. With this in mind, and I have done little more than hint at the conditions, it is instructing to see what the letter goes on to suggest, ‘The loose trouser offers no constriction ...the over-lapping of the loose trouser will prevent rain from falling into the top of the boot.’ The letter is before me as I make these extracts which are so revealing of its writer’s dreadful innocence. The effusion was lengthy, with inanities as the above incorporated among bits of the obvious. The following sentence, in conjunction with much of the letter, thereby was somewhat pointless and made sour reading, ‘You must bear in mind that experience has shown that the presence of trench feet in a unit is an index that these hygienic rules have not been carried out’. And the document itself was an index. It indicated one of two alternatives: that the deputy director of medical services was waiving his responsibilities; or, and more probably, that he was culpably, complacently ignorant of the conditions in which the troops were slaving. We felt that his attitude was gracelessly lacking in reality. Actually we put our feelings in slightly different language! The communication ended, ‘It is your duty to point out these matters to the commanding officer, and to all ranks in the unit to which you are attached.’ I did that, quoting without embellishment. We needed something to laugh at just then.51
Medical Officer Lieutenant Lawrence Gameson, 73rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 15th Division
Of course, Gameson had already been trying his very best to ensure the health of his men’s feet. But in the circumstances it was almost an impossibility.
The feet of the gunners were sometimes shockingly clad. I happen to know, because it was part of my job to inspect their feet. Some men had only one pair of socks (don’t ask me why it was so) and in that pair of socks I have seen both heels worn threadbare. When people at home, as they constantly did, asked me what they could send for the troops, my invariable reply was SOCKS. In a single consignment from home I once received a sack full; compressed to reduce bulk and so increase the number of pairs. At various times I distributed scores of pairs from private sources; and not as a luxury, but as a downright necessity.52
Medical Officer Lieutenant Lawrence Gameson, 73rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 15th Division
Yet even amidst his concern and fury, he could not but observe the strange survival of humour in even the most difficult of circumstances.
One of our Scottish infantrymen was perched on a ledge in the wall of a sodden trench. The trench was almost knee-deep in liquid mud. The ground outside and the approaches was a viscid, glutinous morass. Pitiless rain was pouring down. He was pulling a sock through the clenched fingers of his left hand. Mud oozed through his fingers and around the top of his sock as he pulled the sock, which, saturated with mud was as slimy as an eel. I asked him what he was doing. He answered simply, with no dangerous Scottish twinkle in his eyes, ‘I’m doing a bit of washing, Sir!’ 53
Medical Officer Lieutenant Lawrence Gameson, 73rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 15th Division
As the misery of the troops increased there was a need to define more closely the medical conditions that could offer an escape from this hell on earth. One sign of this more rigorous approach was the definition and treatment of ‘shell shock’ cases. Shell shock was a difficult and somewhat controversial matter, complicated by the fact that some of the symptoms were caused by prolonged fear and stress, rather than proximity to an actual shell burst.
I have today examined a second lieutenant who had been admitted into this hospital, I understand marked ‘Shell Shock W (Wounded)’. Considering the present symptoms, and the previous history, I have no doubt that the case ought not to be regarded as a battle casualty. In his own words, ‘To tell you honestly it was not that (the shell) that made the fall; it was the horrible sight of the arm (blown off by the shell from a neighbouring soldier) flying in front of me’. I recommend that the diagnosis be changed to ‘Shell Shock S (Sick)’ His condition is mainly due to congenital and acquired nervous instability.54
Lieutenant Colonel C. S. Myers, Royal Army Medical Corps
Many front-line medical officers were incensed by this approach. It was not so much the particular example as the overall approach that worried them.
Rough justice and rough psychiatry, though probably fair and right in this particular case; a case which the Deputy Director of Medical Services offers so chirpily as ‘a useful illustration’. Indeed it is. It usefully illustrates the incompetence of the board and the system which ultimately passed this plucky unfortunate man as fit for combatant service. There is a minor point arising from Colonel Myers’ letter. The remark, ‘He was neither buried nor lifted by the shell’ seems to imply that there were no other means, barring actual wounding, by which shells could damage a man. Concussion, to my certain knowledge, could play a major part in the after-effects of the near explosion of a shell. For instance, I have seen men killed outright by concussion alone without a vestige of evidence of external injury. And there were lesser degrees of concussion. It was probably not an important factor in the cited case, but this factor should always be taken into account, especially as concussion means ‘W’. All this ‘W’ versus ‘S’ stuff seemed a shade tendentious, and it did not only apply to the admittedly difficult shell shock cases. Once a man had been officially labelled ‘W’—and here is the point—he was in a much better bargaining position than one marked ‘S’. From the DDMS’s letter there emerged, I fancied, a thinly veiled invitation to diagnose ‘S’ in preference to ‘W’. I may have been wrong but I doubt it. We all knew that shell shock was a highly debatable matter. When the diagnosis was questionable, as clearly it could be, how often, I wonder, did the official view err in the patient’s favour. I do not wonder, really.55
Medical Officer Lieutenant Lawrence Gameson, 73rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, 15th Division
As October staggered to a close, the situation on the ground was degenerating into a miserable spiral of despair for the men fighting on the Somme. Things just seemed to get worse and worse, an escalation that never seemed to end. It had never been easy, but the conditions the men at the front now had to endure were the stuff of nightmares.
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. Why in war does a trip over decayed bodies in every position and showing fearful expressions of pain on their black faces not affect
one? No one liked them of course but all were cheerful, and walked on them as though they were oat sacks, all that one did was to step between them wherever possible. Possibly the danger from bullets and shells was sufficient to take away all fear of the bodies which were of course perfectly harmless.56
Signaller Ron Buckell, 1st Artillery Brigade, Canadian Expeditionary Force
Some of those clinging to life were in not much better condition than the corpses that surrounded them. Men were trapped in No Man’s Land, in shell holes and in dugouts for days on end, before they summoned the strength to move or were rescued by stretcher bearers.
A young Hun about 21 was brought in this evening who had been lying out for six days in a shell hole with multiple slight bomb wounds. He was in an awful condition and smelt like a badger. Had had to eat a few stray biscuits and to drink his own urine. Wounds not deep but maggoty. He said that they were all sick of the war and that people in Germany had no idea of the real state of affairs out here—but neither have ours!57
Captain Arthur Hardwick, 59th Field Ambulance, 19th Division
Few men could endure such horrors without a desperate longing for the normalcy of home. In desperation, men reached to religion and thoughts of their loved ones to comfort them through their ordeal.
The Germans were flinging those awful trench mortars over and causing a terrible lot of damage. I laid down in my dugout and thought of you and Nellie. I prayed to God that I might be spared for it was an awful day. One shell burst over my head causing a dreadful crash, a lot of stuff like cinders and earth fell over me, but still I am thankful to say I am still alive and hope to come out all right.58
Private Albert Abrey, 1/23rd Battalion, 142nd Brigade, 47th Division
The miserable month of October had in effect decided the outcome of the Battle of the Somme. The high hopes of a German collapse had dissipated in a quagmire of rain and blood. The threat posed by the British onslaught had been held. And yet the battle still dragged on.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Last Shake on the Ancre
BY THE BEGINNING OF November, no one any longer seriously believed that the British Army could ever break the resolve of the German Army in 1916. The Germans had ridden out the storm: battered and torn to be sure, but they had survived. Despite the twin horrors of the Somme and Verdun they still had the strength as a nation to ensure that they could endure the tremendous strain of a global war for at least another year. The enforced winter lull would give them time to recover and as such it was also apparent that the British would have little to show for all their Herculean efforts during the pitiless summer and autumn of 1916. Yet the fighting continued as new priorities emerged for the British. Gradually the attitude of the British High Command had changed over the course of the seemingly never-ending month of October. As optimism faded with the pouring rain, Haig, Rawlinson and Gough all found their thoughts turning to the necessity of securing the best possible positions for their winter lines.
The problem was simple. The advance towards the Le Transloy Ridge had left the British lines running along the bottom of a shallow valley overlooked by the Germans. It was obviously not an ideal place to spend what looked like being a long hard winter. If they did not want to stay where they were then the choice was plain: they could either advance and wrest the next ridge from the Germans, or they could effectively fall back, metaphorical tails tucked between their legs, back up on to the Bazentin Ridge, leaving only an easily overrun outpost line in the valley. They would thereby surrender all their painfully won gains of the last month, but could winter in relative comfort.
The changing situation brought on by the failure of the October attacks forced a notable revision in Haig’s plans for the next big push. The idea of the Third Army rejoining the fray with a repeat of its early attack on Gommecourt was quietly shelved and it was decided that instead Gough’s Fifth Army would attack astride the river Ancre with the assistance of the left of the neighbouring units of the Fourth Army. The bad weather inevitably caused repeated postponements from the original date, which had been pencilled in for 23 October.
By this time Haig himself was aware of a resumption of the rumblings emanating from the Home Front. The Battle of the Somme had been fought for several compelling reasons, prime amongst which was the necessity of playing a serious role within the alliance, while her main partner, France, was under severe pressure. It was also attritional in the sense that any battle or campaign had a ‘wearing out’ phase after the initial clash of conflict before one side or the other could gain the decisive advantage. The Battle of the Somme was evidently just this phase writ large by the sheer scale of the conflict on the Western Front—the greatest extended battle the world had ever known up to that time. Yet at times, Haig had promised more than that. There had been occasional loose talk of breakthroughs, of throwing back the Germans in confusion. Politicians by their nature need and fixate on quick results, thus, when it became apparent that all the British sacrifice had been made as part of a long grind, they began to rebel and seek alternatives. As the fighting continued into November, officers with influential connections at home began to hear echoes of political skulduggery.
There is a most persistent talk of intrigues at home to oust Douglas Haig and Lloyd George and Lord F and Winston Churchill are all mentioned as being in it. I suppose if there is any truth in it, it must be because D.H. is too strong a man for them. The successors to D.H. suggested are Ian Hamilton and Gough—two men as poles apart. The story of the latter being a favourite is too comic as I don’t think they could ever make him do what they wanted. But one hears whispers such as a useless waste of life in this offensive with nothing to show for it!!! Again I must hope that it is pure gossip, such a thing at this period is unthinkable.1
Brigadier Archibald Home, Headquarters, Cavalry Corps
The plotters scurried around, but they would soon discover that the upper echelons of the British Army offered no realistic choice to Haig as commander-in-chief. Only by subverting the British Army to direct French command could they hope to discover a genuine alternative—and as Joffre was even more committed to the Western Front and the concept of the ‘wearing out’ battle they had nowhere left to go.
While the politicians manoeuvred at home the Fourth and Fifth Armies were finding that their attacks were increasingly floundering in the mud. This was not just the physical problem of getting infantry across the flooded wastelands. The British method of attack had been founded on the preeminence of her artillery, but the gunners found that they had ‘shot their bolt’ as they were slowly overwhelmed by the glutinous mire in which they had to work. It was a near-insuperable problem to sort out the logistics of getting the thousands upon thousands of shells that were needed up to the guns across the flooded maze of shell holes that lay behind the gun lines. The ever-increasing mechanical problems reduced the effectiveness of the massed batteries as gun after gun dropped out with worn barrels or faulty recuperator springs. In the deep mud there was no chance to drag a gun out for repairs and it was almost impossible to get a replacement gun forward.
Very wet weather still continues and trouble with guns on the soft ground. The three guns do the work of the battery and keep up the fire well. No. 4 out of action owing to glands leaking, so right section did all the firing which was still fairly heavy every day. No. 1 gun was out of action for twelve hours after firing 65 rounds in an hour. No. 4 gun was dismantled and owing to heavy rains the pit again flooded axle deep. Dugouts both at battery and billets falling in and all looked somewhat hopeless in the water and mud.2
Second Lieutenant Robert Blackadder, 151st Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery
The performance of the gun batteries was falling away. The conditions simply made good gunnery impossible. Gunnery required precision in all things. A small movement caused by a gun firing from an unstable platform would inevitably mean that the shell would land hundreds or even thousands of yards from its intended target and many more shel
ls than usual would come crashing to earth around the long-suffering heads of the British front-line troops. Of course, the German artillery suffered similar problems, but as they were going backwards across hitherto virgin country and their gun positions and communications had consequently not been flayed by millions of shells over the last three months, they were naturally in a better position. The end result was that although the British artillery was still a massively destructive force, there was a decline in its overall efficiency As battles are surely fought and won at the margins of endeavour then this represented a significant blow to British hopes.
The great offensive that had begun with such a fanfare all along 25 miles of the Somme front had by this time shrunk to much closer, more limiting horizons. Ceaseless pressure had to be exerted on the Germans and as a result, the hopeless small-scale attacks were still being launched for no more logical reason than to straighten the line or improve a local tactical position. The Battle of the Somme encompasses countless dramatic tales that have a tremendous resonance in particular localities across Britain and the empire. The loss of so many men struck home not only to mothers, fathers, wives and sweethearts, but it also cast a longer shadow over the whole community. For the people of County Durham, the fighting that raged over the Butte de Warlencourt in early November 1916 affected the lives of thousands who have never consciously heard of it. The Butte, an ancient burial mound from a prehistoric era, had an appropriately sinister appearance. About 50 feet high it stood out from the man-made swamp that surrounded it as a battered mass of muddy white chalk on a low ridge, and as such in theory it provided useful observation for the Germans towards High Wood and Martinpuich. The Butte was honeycombed with tunnels and dugouts, which provided shelter for the bulk of the German garrison. They had already resisted numerous British attacks over the last month.