When Lieutenant Richard Hawkins was badly wounded in the fighting near Boom Ravine on the Somme, he was removed to a Advanced Dressing Station where his wounds were dressed. A number of German prisoners were milling about and three were ordered by the doctor to take the corners of the stretcher and carry Lieutenant Hawkins away. As the men went to the stretcher, the doctor looked around for a fourth man and spotted a young German officer whom he ordered to help; the officer refused. Speaking English, the man told the doctor that it was not his job as an officer to take hold of a stretcher with three private soldiers. This may have been strictly true, but it was not advisable to say so. The doctor ordered the officer again but once more the man refused. Richard Hawkins looked on from his stretcher.
Doctor Sale was a pretty busy man. He was also a very good rugby three-quarter and he stuck his boot into this fellow’s behind and he took off. They started to go round in a very big circle, down in the shell holes, and up the other side, the doctor launching a kick at this officer every few yards and missing practically every time because of the impossible state of the ground. In the end, dear old Sale caught him and kicked his backside several more times, after which the officer decided he would take the end of the stretcher after all.
There was another option for prisoners and that was to curry favour with useful information. Colonel Roger Tempest, commanding the Scots Guards at Flers, in September 1916, recalled taking his four company commanders to a trench on the crest of a low hill to show them the line of advance. Once there, the men met a German officer who willingly pointed out the spire of Lesboufs church, ‘and so’, wrote Tempest, ‘we were able to advance with the definite knowledge that we were advancing in the right direction’. In another example, a German prisoner volunteered to show where the enemy had mined a road along which British troops were about to walk.
And then the prisoners were led away. The greatest threats to their survival were the actions either of a madman (one captured Australian private watched in horror as a German ran up and threw grenades among a party of twenty-five assembled prisoners), or the effects of desultory shelling from either side. Otherwise, with every step away from the trenches, so the chance of survival grew. Prisoners might be verbally assaulted or kicked, but they were rarely attacked.
Battalion stretcher-bearers recovered the wounded. When an assault completely failed, whether a large raid or full-blown attack, the opposing lines remained the same, leaving the wounded in a precarious position in no-man’s-land. Rescue was unlikely, or more likely impossible, until dark, and then with the dark came every possibility that stricken men would be overlooked. The wounded might be forced to make their own way back if they were able, but soldiers on both sides, battle-worn and unforgiving, were likely to have a potshot at any movement between opposing trenches.
Just occasionally, temporary truces were organised to give both sides a chance to collect casualties before, at a given time or signal, war recommenced. The Christmas Truce of 1914 began in part so that the dead could be picked up and given proper burial; fraternisation was often a result not a precursor of this cooperation. Since then, there had been other occasions when pity for the wounded overrode any desire by one side to capitalise on a local advantage. After a disastrous night attack by the Germans, one unknown private left an account of how the enemy had been given permission to venture out over the top.
We shouted to the Allemands to come and fetch their wounded. At first they seemed very dubious and would only show their helmets but we promised not to shoot and a man who wore the iron cross advanced boldly to our entanglements and proceeded to assist a wounded man. Another followed and, amidst our cheers, they carried him off. Before going, the first man saluted and said, ‘Thank you, gentlemen, one and all. I thank you very much. Good day.’ The incident quite upset me for a time and I wished that we might all be friends again.
The costly fighting on the first day of the Battle of the Somme left not hundreds but thousands of wounded caught between opposing lines. Only in one sector, on the southern flank of the advance, did British troops make real progress, allowing relatively easy recovery of casualties. Everywhere else, the lines were much as they had been before the attack. In the north, around the villages of Gommecourt, Serre and Beaumont Hamel, a number of uncoordinated armistices were brokered on the second day, and this time it was the Germans who permitted the retrieval of wounded.
Londoner Harry Siepmann, the young artillery officer of German descent encountered earlier, had arrived on the Somme opposite the enemy-held village of Serre. His battery had been party to a curious unspoken armistice with the Germans in which Serre had been left alone by British artillery, in exchange for German artillery restraint within the British-held village of Colincamps. ‘Such an arrangement was easily made by a short period of exact and immediate retaliation [i.e. a brief bombardment]: once made, it was faithfully observed,’ wrote Siepmann.
The infantry failure opposite Serre was total, and next morning Siepmann was able to see from his observation post German snipers picking off British wounded held fast in the enemy wire; by this time it was probably a mercy. Then, suddenly, he saw two men climb out of the British front-line trench; they weren’t even carrying a white flag.
A stretcher was then passed up to them and they proceeded to carry it ploddingly into no man’s land. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of eyes must have been upon them, and all firing of any sort ceased. Complete, uncanny silence descended like a pall, as the two men trudged steadily on and stopped beside a body lying on the ground. They lifted it onto a stretcher and plodded slowly back, the way they had come. The silence remained unbroken until they were safe, and then the war was resumed.
This singular act of courage relied on the stretcher-bearers’ belief, however wishful, that two men on a self-evident mission of mercy would not be attacked. Elsewhere, such pauses in the fighting lasted for many hours as men from both sides ventured out to collect casualties: it was reported by those who took part that there was little or no fraternisation.
At Gommecourt, a couple of miles to the north of Serre, the fighting had been ferocious. British troops had entered the German trenches and fought for most of the day, but in vain. As the Germans brought reinforcements, the British troops were slowly but surely driven back from deep inside enemy lines until the last few were forced to retire to their original trenches. Dead and wounded lay all over the place. Early on 2 July, the Germans raised a large Red Cross flag, and one hour’s truce was arranged. German parties were seen to leave the trenches and attend to the wounded in no-man’s-land. Stretcher-bearers from the British front line then went out and brought in many more with the assistance of men of the enemy’s 2nd Reserve Guards Division.
Immediately to the south of Serre, at Beaumont Hamel, stretcher-bearers from both sides could be seen in no-man’s-land. Here, however, a truce was forbidden but had gone ahead in any case. Lieutenant Colonel John Hall, commanding the 16th Middlesex Regiment, had been part of the initial wave that had gone over the top and been badly cut up.
About 2.30 p.m. the enemy raised a white flag on his front line, and sent over stretcher-bearers to no man’s land; in addition to helping our wounded, he no doubt was helping himself to the machine guns, Lewis guns, rifles etc lying about close to his front line. This was reported to the Brigade by telephone, and permission requested to send out our stretcher-bearers to bring in our wounded. Permission was refused (I believe from higher authority), and instead instructions were issued to fire on the enemy’s stretcher-bearers. These instructions were not acted on with any enthusiasm by our riflemen in the front line. Shortly after, our heavy artillery opened fire presumably meant for the enemy’s front line . . . Thereafter, whilst daylight lasted the enemy was reported as firing on any wounded man in NML who showed the slightest movement.
Hall’s account of the truce is poignant. Scores of men were pinned down, mostly in shell holes. Given the topography of the immediate ground, the Germans were able to look
down over the entire position. Rescues were by night, and only wounded men not too enfeebled to call out had any real chance of discovery.
Another who witnessed the truce at Beaumont Hamel was Captain William Carden-Roe, of the 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers, a very British name for an officer who had in fact changed his surname from Liesching, presumably to disguise his German roots. That was in March 1916, by which time he had already won the Military Cross.
Carden-Roe records that a truce took place on 4 July when wounded survivors of that first day’s assault still ‘dotted’ no-man’s-land. A bold scheme, he wrote, was the only one that could save them after such a lapse in time.
Accordingly a large Red Cross flag was brought up to the front line trench and then slowly elevated above the parapet, its bearers still remaining under cover. When, after a few minutes, no shots were fired, two Medical Officers scrambled on the parapet on either side of the flag. Still the enemy held their fire, and so after a short pause the two officers advanced across No Man’s Land with the bearers of the flag between them. By this time a mass of curious heads appeared above the parapet of the German trench and a German officer wearing a Red Cross brassard and carrying a white handkerchief tied to a walking stick, hastily sprang out of their lines and advanced across to meet the British party.
He was followed closely by several others all presumably of the Medical Corps. It was an impressive sight. He waited until our party had come as far as he considered fit, then raised his hand signalling them to halt. The parties of both sides stiffened to a ceremonious salute, following which he commenced to point out all the wounded lying close to our lines. A signal from our two Medical Officers brought forwards several stretcher parties, who at once set about their task. At the same time German parties carried wounded who had been lying close to the parapet of the German trench as far as the middle of No Man’s Land. Here they were carried off by the British bearers. And so this great work of humanity went on until all that could be found were carried back to their new chance of life. It was an impressive sight. Throughout the afternoon, not a word was exchanged between the two great enemy Nations. At last it all came to an end. The German officers gravely saluted and turned about; the British officers returned the salute with a feeling of gratitude.
It is probably this second truce that was photographed by a German soldier, showing not only that Germans were roaming around unmolested, but that British troops were, too. In one photograph, a British soldier can be seen standing unarmed close to the German lines. Although against orders, this localised truce ensured that on this occasion common sense prevailed.
After a battle, the temptation to collect souvenirs was often overwhelming. It was an age-old tradition and in this regard officers were no different from other ranks in their keenness for items of symbolic value. Seven months before he was wounded, Lieutenant Richard Hawkins and his battalion, 11th Royal Fusiliers, had done exceptionally well on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, and where they had gone over the top success had come quickly and at relatively little cost. The gains secured, Hawkins and fellow officers went to see what they could find before the Divisional Commander arrived to congratulate the men.
General Maxse came to see us. ‘Morning, gentlemen, damn good show, thank you very much, you did very well. Marvellous. Tell me, where would you expect to find a group of officers congregated together in the middle of the biggest battle there has ever been?’ ‘Ooh,’ we thought, ‘now wait a minute.’ ‘I’ll tell you,’ he said, ‘walking about on the skyline looking for souvenirs! I saw them through my field glasses.’ Well, there wasn’t anything else to do, all was peace and quietness where we were and I managed to pick up a marvellous German pickelhaube [helmet].
Some men disdained taking personal property from the dead, but not many. Private Stephen Graham believed even the ‘best’ men in his battalion rarely shied away from taking belongings which might otherwise remain with the dead. As a result of this, items of no value or interest such as pocket books and letters were pulled from the bodies of the dead and thrown to the winds, ‘literally to the winds,’ wrote Graham, ‘for when the wind rose they blew about like dead leaves. There were photographs, too, prints of wife and sweetheart, of mother, or perchance of baby born whilst father was at the war – the priceless, worthless possessions . . .’ Graham watched one gunner from a 60-pounder battery ‘grubbily but methodically’ examining the corpses of German machine-gunners, hoping to find a revolver. ‘I watched him examine one without success and he gave the dead body a kick. “The dirty bastard,” said he, as if he were accusing the corpse. “Somebody’s bin ’ere before me.”’
Souveniring was not risk-free. Feigning death was a ploy used by soldiers when their position was overrun, in the expectation either that their own troops might counter-attack and retake the lost ground or that when relative peace was restored they could slip back to their own lines or chance surrendering to the enemy when surrender might be more readily accepted.
Driver Ernest Reader of the Royal Field Artillery was following up the British advance close to High Wood on the Somme. Tanks had been used for the first time in action and, taken by surprise, the Germans had been pushed back over a mile leaving the hitherto lethal ground quiet and passable.
As I stood there holding the horses with the battle getting further and further away, but still plainly visible, and with piles, literally piles, of German dead all around me, a thought occurred. What about a souvenir? Now report had it that the German snipers used to creep out at night over our lines and pinch the cap badge from any of their day’s victims, these were subsequently put on their belts as trophies, rather like a Red Indian with his scalp. What a souvenir that would be if only I could get hold of one. I’d never have a better chance. Leading the horses and turning over the dead with my boot, I searched. Then Chunky [a friend] emerged from a German dugout with a box of cigars and a bottle of wine. ‘Here, hold these while I look for some more.’ With revolver at the ready he again disappeared down a German dugout. I continued my search until I spotted a lone figure, a right Prussian looking bugger he was too, close cropped hair, a pig face and a fat neck. In falling, his tunic had rolled back disclosing a belt fairly loaded with badges. Mine, I thought triumphantly. Wedging the box of cigars under my arm, through which I had also slipped the reins, and putting the wine uneasily in a pocket, I stretched my other hand down and undid the clasp. Then I had to really tug to get it away from his bulk.
Now that perisher had only been shamming dead and was probably aiming to be taken prisoner, but the idea of losing his belt to a mere stripling was too much. He rose, a mighty figure with a roar of rage and made for me. What could I do? One hand and arm holding the reins and cigars and the other his belt. I had no intention of letting either go although it looked as though I might lose the lot with my life thrown in for good measure. It was no time for niceties, anyway I was unarmed, so I kicked him hard in the groin. My boot had a sole over half an inch thick and was steel shod. It doubled him up. I don’t know what the follow up might have been had not Chunky arrived at the psychological moment and blown the chap’s brains out. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses? With all the dead lying around you have to pick out the biggest alive one to search for a souvenir.’ That was Chunky, no reference to the fact that he had just saved my life. The German belt had stamped on the buckle ‘Gott Mit Uns’ so presumably wherever he was bound for he was alright.
By the taking of souvenirs, the body was often robbed of the one piece of information that might afford the remains a decent burial in a named grave. It is understandable that men hardened to the realities of war would not think twice about taking possessions from the dead when life itself was placed at such low value, particularly enemy dead. A valuable ring, an engraved watch would be looted by someone else so, with that knowledge, it was easy to justify getting in there first.
In early 1916, Jenny Felton received a pocket book containing the last will and testament of her dead husband,
Corporal Alfred Felton. Felton, the London building contractor serving with the 9th East Surrey Regiment, was reported missing during the attack made at Loos in September 1915, the same attack in which Captain Wilfred Birt had been mortally wounded.
Felton’s body had been found by a German soldier named Heine, who took the pocket book. Quite what Heine intended to do with it is an open question. Had he in fact killed Felton and, in the ‘time-honoured’ tradition of seeking a victor’s trophy, simply appropriated the book? Was it a souvenir taken from a body he happened to stumble across or did he intend to return it to the family? Whatever the answer, Heine took it to the grave for he was killed shortly afterwards and his property, including Felton’s pocket book, was sent to his wife, Frau Berta Heine, living in Schönebeck on the River Elbe.
It was Frau Heine who forwarded the last will and testament to Jenny Felton, via the United States Legation, asking for reimbursement of the two marks eighty pfennigs postal charges. These were met from a relief fund with a conveyance of thanks from the Felton family for Frau Heine’s ‘kindly action’. Did Jenny Felton ever understand that Heine might, in fact, have cost her husband the dignity of a known grave? Felton’s body was never identified and he is remembered on the Loos Memorial to the Missing.
Meeting the Enemy Page 20