So it was that tactical-level units and formations rehearsed their schemes of attack. Each division trained on land selected because of its resemblance to their part of the battlefield. Opinions on the merits of the training varied: 10th Essex alleged its routine was ‘never once monotonous,’176 but 2nd Essex captured the mood when it described the schedule as one of ‘monotonous repetition.’177 British and German trenches, along with known machine-gun strongpoints and dugouts that had been identified by the RFC’s photographs were marked by shallow scrapes of earth, marker flags or strips of calico tape.178 Eighth Division’s historian summed it up when he said the ground had been specially prepared to represent, as far as possible, the features and defences of the sector to be attacked.179 One of the benefits, said 18th (Eastern) Division’s somewhat upbeat historian, among others, was that on the day of battle ‘each man knew the exact spot he was to make for, and what to do when he got there.’180
This was an advantage that soldiers recognised. Lieutenant Moore said his men ‘probably knew the outline of the German trench system better than they [the enemy] did. Every corner, every trench junction was engraved in our minds.’181 Corporal Norman Menzies, 2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers, added that every man had ‘his job explained to him, and each battalion had its objective, and so everything was prepared for a real advance. Also every platoon officer and platoon sergeant had a map of the German territory, which we had all seen.’182 Private Leslie Bell, 10th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, believed his battalion could have attacked ‘eyes shut [as] we had practised it so much.’183 Rifleman Tennant was overwhelmed by ‘thorough instructions as to where to make for.’184 Captain Wilfred ‘Billie’ Nevill, 8th East Surreys — who went on to find lasting fame and death on 1 July — felt that ‘altogether everything is going on quite smoothly. . . . The Company is going on A1 and doing awfully well.’185 The repetition was boring, but soldiers well knew its purpose was to give them every opportunity to produce results on the battlefield.
Nineteenth (Western) Division’s 14-day training schedule was typical. Platoons practised getting into and out of deep trenches, bayonet fighting, fire discipline and rapid reloading, movement in extended order, reconnaissance and unit intercommunication, and a variety of other exercises.186 Lewis gunners and Stokes mortar teams were given instructions specific to their weapons, usually on deploying them as mobile firepower and laying either destructive or suppressing fire on a specific point of resistance. Specialist signalling, machine-gun, engineer, pioneer and medical units rehearsed their roles alongside the infantry and also separately.187 These exercises were repeated at platoon, company, battalion and brigade levels for greater co-ordination and celerity of execution. This also ensured that on the training ground multiple units could, as part of a larger formation, seamlessly deploy and move forward under mock shellfire and distant small-arms fire represented by marker flags and umpires with whistles, and then defend just-captured ground.188 The idea was to bring all units up to a homogenous level of tactical skill, but no matter how well intended, the training obviously lacked the realism of battle.
Platoon commander Lieutenant William Colyer, 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, set the scene with more than a hint of scepticism:
The whole of the division was assembled and grouped for the attack. After the usual explanations and pow-wows, beginning from the brass-hats and commanding officers and finishing with the platoon officers and section leaders, we moved across country against imaginary Bosche trenches. As we went along the various bodies of men unfolded themselves into smaller groups, and eventually into extended order, as per programme, according to the amount of opposition which we were supposed to be encountering. After some time, having advanced a great distance and captured an immense tract of country (with such surprising ease that we all felt it was a pity we hadn’t thought of doing it this way before) a halt would be called.189
Complainants inevitably targeted staff officers, or so-called brass-hats. Private Senescall said these officers explained the purpose of the training in over-simplified terms: ‘All we had to do was to advance for three quarters of a mile. . . . That was what we were told and with the discipline and belief that Brass Hats were demi-gods we believed it.’190 Private Stanley Henderson, 16th Northumberland Fusiliers, thought the rehearsals ‘seemed just as simple as walking through a park with no opposition.’191 Pollard was more cynical: ‘We rehearsed taking Serre three times a day; it was a joke. . . . It was outlined that we would take the first line in so many minutes, on to the second line in so many minutes, and so on. Well, it didn’t seem very practical to me.’192 A somewhat highly strung Captain Upcott had a particular aversion to bayonet training: ‘Mentally it destroys my temper for several hours. My views on physical training can hardly be put on paper. I have always disliked being made an ape of.’193 Soldiers and to a lesser extent junior commanders were inveterate grumblers, although, with the benefit of hindsight, their complaints about over-simplifying the hoped-for flow of battle were not entirely without merit.
Further up the military hierarchy there were also several who questioned aspects of the training. Brigadier-General James Jardine, 97th Brigade, was concerned that the infantry was being drilled to advance too far behind mock barrages, and that on battle day ran the risk of being caught in no-man’s-land by alert German machine-gunners when the supporting British shellfire moved on. He told Rawlinson that the infantry should be within 30–40 yards of the German trenches when the shellfire lifted, and that a small number of casualties due to friendly fire was also to be expected: ‘I could see he did not like what I said for he replied, “Oh, 30 to 40 yards!!” “Well, Sir,” I said, “that’s what the Japanese did [in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–5].” And his reply was, “Oh, the Japanese,” in a rather sneering way.’194 Another, Brigade-Major Johnston, the staff officer at 7th Brigade headquarters, queried the value of intensive training:
These very detailed Training Programmes seem to regimental officers as little more than eyewash to alleviate the suspicions of Superior Authority that without them troops will perform no training, or the wrong kind of training. The programmes are, however, generally cut down to meet day-to-day conditions, experienced commanding officers using some discretion in the matter.195
Overall these varied complaints were given little consideration by division, corps and army headquarters staffs that were almost entirely focused on installing a basic level of tactical know-how rather than addressing more qualitative questions about the purpose and value of training.
Criticisms designed to improve the training and standard attained by the various units were dealt out by officer observers. At the boots-onthe-ground level it was platoon and company commanders who provided critique. As Private Pollard recalled, all the ‘mistakes of the day were later gone over.’196 First Essex said great care was taken to ‘remedy defects, and particular attention was paid to efficient mopping up and consolidation of strongpoints.’197 Some platoons and companies learned their work quickly. Lieutenant Douglas Branson, 1/4th York & Lancasters, said his platoon was ‘praised for our attack practices while others get the reverse.’198 More pointed suggestions came from battalion, brigade and divisional commanders inspecting formation manoeuvres.199 Corporal Coppard explained how this worked: ‘Staff officers, red-tabbed and beribboned, dashed all over the place with immense bravado, giving their orders and comments in crackling military style. I certainly admired them for their immaculate appearance. Most Tommies looked such a scruffy lot by comparison.’200 Two officers of 10th Essex commented dryly that ‘We soon got the hang of our [divisional] commander’s instructions.’201 Lieutenant Colyer remembered pauses to allow staff officers to ‘ride up again and there would be criticisms, more explanations and pow-wows.’202 Schooling an entire army in the template of attack to be used on the first day of the Somme was not without its challenges, and the onus of responsibility fell largely on the tactical-level officers accompanying their men into battle.
Part of
that work involved discussing the battlefield and objectives with fellow officers and their men. Captain Duncan Martin, 9th Devons, famously made a plasticine model of the land and reckoned his battalion would be raked by fire from a specific strongpoint near Mametz.203 He was not alone; Private Wilfred Crook, 1st Somerset Light Infantry, and his platoon also ‘carefully studied models and the layout of the network of trenches.’204 Some platoons supplemented their first-hand knowledge of the battlefield with maps showing objective lines and enemy defences. Others, such as one Liverpool Pals platoon going over the top at Montauban, were shown through ‘the trench periscope the ground over which we had to advance.’205 The commander of 9th Royal Irish Rifles, Crozier, explained how his company commanders prepared for attacking Schwaben Redoubt: ‘I lecture the whole battalion in a big barn, aided by a cloth map twenty feet square. . . . I hear each company commander lecture his company in the same way. We are word-perfect. Will our acting be as good? Shall we play our parts well?’206 Come late June, Haig was pleased with the results. ‘Several have said that they have never before been so instructed and informed of the nature of the operation before them.’207 He clearly wanted to believe that pre-Somme training had started the process of converting his ‘collection’ of divisions into a well-trained army. But he was wrong to place store in assessments obviously tailored to please his ear. Besides, it was far too early to determine whether the training was even suitable for the type of attack Haig envisaged.
For the six corps commanders, the weeks leading to 1 July were jammed with administrative work, inspections, conferences, meetings, reconnoitring of the ground, and assessment of divisional training. To these ends, Rawlinson thought his corps commanders were the ‘best we have got,’ ‘know their job’ and ‘the great majority are proved fighters.’208 However, ‘VIII Corps is the weak one.’209 Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Horne, XV Corps, found it ‘very hot walking about the trenches’ opposite Fricourt, and said he had yet to familiarise himself with the divisions under his command.210 Lieutenant-General Sir Walter Congreve, VC, commanding XIII Corps, spent much of May–June meeting with other commanders, inspecting training and assessing preparations, whether ammunition stores, artillery or roads.211 Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Morland, X Corps, was similarly occupied,212 as was Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston, VIII Corps. Hunter-Weston was ‘entirely content’ that all possible had been done to ensure success on 1 July, which included his critiquing the tactical training organised by divisional commanders.213 He wanted VIII Corps’ attack to retain its structure for as long as possible, and for reserve troops to be intelligently committed to battle. ‘This has been a very pronounced fault in most of the training exercises that I have seen,’ he wrote.214 These commanders all told Haig and Rawlinson that their preparations and training were thorough and proceeding to plan. ‘Work of all kinds is being pushed forward as rapidly as possible,’ wrote Rawlinson in a summary of corps-level preparations.215 It was scarcely surprising that on the eve of battle Haig assessed his subordinates, whose busy schedules and upbeat feedback he was well aware of, as ‘full of confidence.’216
By midnight on 23 June, Haig had all but run out of time to prepare for battle. Artillery, infantry and aircraft were all forward, ammunition stockpiled and distributed, jumping-off lines prepared and the troops trained according to the latest tactical doctrine. The logistics network feeding resources onto the Somme front was groaning under the strain of peak capacity, but was nonetheless managing to fulfil its role. Overworked infantry, pioneer and engineering units revealed a shortage of manpower, but morale remained firm. Against this backcloth, the pace of work was more frenetic than efficient. Soldiers wrote of relentless, mostly onedimensional training, yet their superiors told Haig and Rawlinson all was going well. The template training in linear-wave tactics was useful but over-simplified exercises, was predomininatly infantry focused, marginalised the role of the enemy, lacked realism and assumed the battle would unfold almost exactly as planned. Everything, then, hinged on whether the artillery could smash a path forward for and support the infantry on battle day, both jobs requiring huge supplies of guns and ammunition. At the time, few were asking tough questions about whether this plan would succeed, or if it was well enough resourced, and certainly not Haig, Rawlinson or their corps commanders. Optimists outnumbered realists and the belief shared by Haig and Rawlinson the day before battle was that everything possible had been done to ensure success on 1 July. So began the final countdown to a day that would be remembered as Britain’s worst-ever military tragedy.
CHAPTER 3
‘Artillery is Decisive’
German Second Army and XIV Reserve Corps prepare for battle, January 1915 to 23 June 1916
‘In April 1916 the English positions before us stirred into life, where before they had been quiet.’1
— Unteroffizier Peter Collet, Infantry Regiment 66
MUD-SPATTERED GERMAN soldiers cocked their weary eyes skyward from beneath pork-pie caps, spiked leather Pickelhauben or the occasional coalscuttle helmet when any aircraft zipped overhead.2 By the spring of 1916 they reckoned most aircraft were British and these, wrote Vizefeldwebel Georg Frisch, Reserve Infantry Regiment 109 (RIR109), snooped deep behind the German lines or swooped low and peppered trenches and artillery emplacements with machine-gun fire.3 Soon enough the gripes began. ‘Actually, where are our planes?’ pondered Oberst Robert Mack, commander of Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment 19 (BFAR19).4 It was a fair question, and hardly surprising given the numerical superiority enjoyed by the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in early 1916.5 As Leutnant Paul Fiedel, Infantry Regiment 23 (IR23), said of aerial dogfights, ‘All too often the German trench garrison gave an anxious glance skyward as the more numerous enemy aircraft fell like hawks onto a dove.’6
The dangerous work of German aerial observation continued. Fliegertruppoffizier Arthur Koch, Artillery Air Detachment 221, arrived on the Somme with his squadron in March 1916 and by June most of its flights produced aerial skirmishes.7 The squadron was occasionally put to work photographing British positions astride the Albert–Bapaume highway, but was more often used by Generalleutnant Hermann von Stein’s XIV Reserve Corps for target-spotting and for observing the fall of shellfire for 26th Reserve and 28th Reserve Divisions’ gunners. Dogfights, flying accidents and casualties meant the four-aeroplane squadron of LVG biplanes was frequently at three-quarter strength. ‘Our artillery is glad when we can at least keep the British airmen from their neck,’ said Koch.8 By early June the build-up of British artillery, aircraft and troops opposite XIV Reserve Corps left him in no doubt as to exactly what was afoot: ‘An attack is to be expected.’9
Such news was no surprise to the senior German commanders. General-der-Infanterie Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of General Staff, Supreme Army Command, later referred to the Anglo-French attack as ‘long-expected and hoped-for.’10 Falkenhayn’s subordinate, General-der-Infanterie Fritz von Below, commanding Second Army on the Somme, had anticipated a British attack north of the waterway from as early as February 1916.11 As the year progressed, the Danzig-born general — who had an impressive moustache and unkempt eyebrows that made him appear wild-eyed — had grown increasingly alarmed at the accumulation of enemy forces and materiel. In March, 62-year-old Below had proposed a bold thrust to ‘pre-empt the British and throw their plans into confusion.’12 In theory it was a grand idea; in practice there was not enough time or resources.13 Below restated his concerns in late May, once again championing a multi-phase operation on a 12.4-mile front to a depth of 15.5 miles, with a mid-June start:14 ‘The attack cannot begin soon enough. The British have been reinforced so strongly north of the Somme that there can hardly be any remaining doubt concerning their plans for an offensive.’15 It was unclear, he said, exactly what part of XIV Reserve Corps’ lines would be targeted and how, and whether the British would launch their attack within days, or were ‘waiting for further reinforcements, or an improvement in the training of their troops.’16
Below was back in touch with Supreme Army Command on 2 June, this time with plans for a limited pre-emptive strike between St Pierre Divion and Ovillers,17 effectively conceding that a larger operation was unviable, but signalling that this otherwise anonymous tract of land needed to be held as a priority.
Two days later the Russian army began its Brusilov Offensive in Galicia — nowadays western Ukraine — which proved to be the end of Below’s proposed plans to disrupt the British accumulation of men and materiel. General Aleksei Brusilov’s four armies buckled the Austro-Hungarian defensive line in Galicia after a short, sharp preparatory bombardment on 4 June. Within the month the Austro-Hungarian army, unable to concentrate its reserves to stem the wide-fronted breakthough, had lost 350,000 prisoners and 400 artillery guns. Tireless, quickthinking Falkenhayn later agreed to fling all available reserves into the threatened area, lest ‘we should have seen a complete collapse of the whole front in Galicia.’18 He continued: ‘There is no doubt that even so limited a withdrawal of reserves made the position on the Western Front much less favourable. The intention of nipping in the bud, by means of a heavy counter-attack, the offensive then being prepared by the English had to be dropped.’19
So it was that Below’s requests for reinforcements in June were met by Falkenhayn only as far as events elsewhere allowed.20 By 1 July, XIV Reserve Corps had five divisions — 2nd Guards Reserve, 52nd Infantry, 26th Reserve, 28th Reserve and 12th Infantry — in the line between Monchy-au-Bois and the River Somme. Another, 10th Bavarian Infantry, was in immediate support, about one-third in the line and two-thirds just behind. In army reserve were the three divisions of VI Reserve Corps: 185th Infantry around Bapaume, 12th Reserve near Rancourt and 11th Reserve much further back around Marcoing. Many of VI Reserve Corps’ artillery batteries had been attached to Stein’s XIV Reserve Corps.21 South of the river, Below had seven more divisions. With these resources in mind, Falkenhayn rejected a proposed tactical withdrawal from the Somme that would have seen ‘excellent positions’ exchanged for ‘others less good.’22 He also believed the French were too weakened by Verdun to play a major role in any Somme offensive, placed little store in the fighting capabilities of the British New Armies,23 and reckoned Second Army could weather the looming storm.24 In effect, Verdun- and Galiciafocused Falkenhayn was betting that Below and Stein had the resources and defensive positions to defeat the looming Allied attack.25
First day of the Somme Page 10