First day of the Somme

by Andrew Macdonald

  Tenth Corps faced fortress-like German defences that followed the rolling downs around the ruins of Thiepval. From the air, the German front line in X Corps’ sector formed a giant numeral ‘7’. The cross bar of the 7 began just north of the River Ancre and ran southeast over the camber of sharply rising ground that held Thiepval Plateau and Schwaben Redoubt (Feste Schwaben), and thence down to Thiepval. The down stroke of the 7 ran along Thiepval Spur before ending at Leipzig Redoubt (Granatloch), a leafy former quarry now home to a silage barn facing Authuille Wood. As elsewhere, this defensive network comprised three successive arteries — the interconnected front, intermediate and second trench lines, each separated by about 1000 yards, but more to the south and east of Thiepval — that were sited to command the slopes as they tapered down towards the British lines. The British assembly trenches for the attack — wrote Major Austin Girdwood, a staff officer at 32nd Division headquarters — were ‘dug a few days before the attack and being in chalk only advertised the fact that the attack was imminent. They should have been dug at a much earlier stage and properly camouflaged.’9

  Once again the backbone of the German defences lay in their string of mutually supporting redoubts, strongpoints and fortified villages. In the front-line system, the houses and cellars of St Pierre Divion and Thiepval were turned into mini-fortresses with numerous machine guns, while Leipzig Redoubt salient became a latticework of trenches and machinegun posts. Further back, Wonderwork (Wundtwerk) strongpoint covered Thiepval and the redoubt. It was also sited to defend the roughly 2250 yards of ground between the German front line at the tip of the redoubt and the intermediate trench system due east of Thiepval. The intermediate trench ran southeast from near Beaucourt, in the River Ancre valley, via Schwaben Redoubt and Mouquet Switch Trench to Mouquet Farm, near Pozières. It held regularly spaced machine-gun posts and was crowned by Thiepval Plateau and Schwaben Redoubt, about 500 feet above sea level. Machine-gunners at Beaucourt could enfilade the plateau from the north, while the Nordwerk strongpoint to the south, outside X Corps’ sector, could cover both Leipzig Redoubt and Wonderwork. The second position ran southeast from Grandcourt in the river valley towards Pozières and included Stuff (Feste Staufen) and Goat Redoubts (Feste Zollern), which offered further fire support to Schwaben Redoubt and Thiepval respectively. These co-ordinated defences were designed to block enemy attacks in no-man’s-land with a significant volume of firepower, as well as to stop any penetration beyond the German front line.

  Trudge over the wind-swept Thiepval Plateau today and its military value in 1916 is obvious. From a German viewpoint, Stuff and Schwaben Redoubts afforded sweeping panoramas over the patchwork of farmland from Beaumont Hamel to the northwest, around to Leipzig Redoubt in the south. If the British held this ground, they could observe large portions of the German defensive network as it zigzagged over the undulating land from Beaumont Hamel, via Beaucourt and Grandcourt, to Thiepval. German artillery positions north and south of the Ancre would become immediately untenable.10 Whoever held the heights had the power of observation over, and well beyond, the other’s front line, and with it the ability to accurately direct artillery fire. This was vital ground to Second Army commander General-der-Infanterie Fritz von Below and Generalleutnant Hermann von Stein, commanding XIV Reserve Corps, because they realised its loss would see their defences astride the Ancre and then, by extension, those north of the River Somme quickly unravelled.11

  Morland’s plan to crack this stronghold with a frontal infantry attack supported by artillery lacked imagination. He ordered an advance to a depth of 3000–3500 yards, with three objectives achieved by mid-morning, taking X Corps onto Thiepval Plateau.12 On 27 June, he said the barrage on the German lines was ‘pounding them properly,’13 implying he expected any resistance to be crushed. Tenth Corps had a total ration roll of 93,796 soldiers of all ranks and branches of service, but the estimated number of infantry officers and men directly involved in the attack, along with those from various pioneer and engineer units, was about 21,000.14 On the corps’ left, 36th (Ulster) Division would attack astride the slow-moving waters of the Ancre, capturing Schwaben Redoubt and the plateau, both north of Thiepval. On the right, 32nd Division would assault the western face of Thiepval Spur, capturing the village and Leipzig Redoubt, before moving on to the plateau to the northeast of the village. The 32nd’s infantry was supplemented by a total of three sections attached from 206th, 218th and 219th Field Companies, Royal Engineers (RE), while the 36th had a total of five sections furnished by 121st, 122nd and 150th Field Companies.15 Fortyninth (West Riding) Division was in corps reserve at Aveluy Wood and about a mile behind the lines. Morland’s objectives were ambitious, and even he believed them a ‘very hard task.’16 But none of his paperwork suggests he appreciated the wider tactical importance of the plateau, or how it might be used to outflank and capture Thiepval village and spur. Morland’s objectives simply required a succession of irrepressible steps through to completion and relied on his artillery to smash a path for his infantry.

  Morland’s field and heavy gunners had three essential jobs. These were to neutralise the German infantry in its trenches and dugouts, nullify German artillery, and sweep away defensive obstacles such as barbed wire and machine-gun posts. Excluding the Ancre swamps, which for obvious reasons were not being attacked, there was one heavy gun in X Corps’ sector to every 57 yards of attack frontage, and one field gun to every 28 yards.17 These had fired an estimated 330,400 shells at the German positions in the period 24–30 June.18 On 1 July, the corps would fire an estimated 56,000 shells,19 with the barrage lifting from the German front line at Zero hour and stepping deeper into the German positions, six strides for the heavy guns and 10 for the field guns.20 In practice there were insufficient guns, their fire was diluted across too wide an area and there were plenty of dud shells. It was easier to observe the fall of shellfire in some places than in others, which meant that gauging the guns’ overall effectiveness was difficult. As events would show, X Corps’ counter-battery, destructive and neutralising shellfire was, both prior to and on battle day, largely ineffectual.

  Major Alfred Gibbs, whose Royal Field Artillery battery supported 96th Brigade’s attack on Thiepval, later said he thought the village was inadequately bombarded by heavy guns and confessed to ‘very grave misgivings as to the chances of our attack succeeding.’21 He reckoned the speed at which Morland’s barrage stepped back from the German front line was too quick. ‘It should have combed the ground by moving back 50 yards at a time,’ he said,22 referring to the denser shellfire of creeping barrages that characterised later attacks on the Somme.

  It was sadly ironic that many British soldiers were impressed by the final hour of Morland’s preparatory bombardment. ‘As the shells passed over our heads the air hummed like a swarm of a hundred million hornets,’ said Second-Lieutenant John Stewart-Moore, 107th Trench Mortar Battery.23 Then, at 7.30 a.m., there was an audible pause as sweating artillerymen lifted their fire onto more distant targets.24

  THIRTY-SECOND Division’s attack along an 1800-yard length of Thiepval Spur was mostly a failure. Thick pickets of German barbed wire had survived the barrage; only at Leipzig Redoubt was it sufficiently cut. Here, the 17th Highland Light Infantry* stole into no-man’s-land minutes before Zero to get closer to the enemy parapet, and when the barrage lifted at 7.30 a.m., its successive lines won into the German trenches before the garrison emerged from its dugouts.25 ‘The leading lines pressed on, while moppers-up proceeded to clear the dugouts.’26 Brigadier-General James Jardine, commanding 97th Brigade, said the 17th benefitted from ‘some rising ground on their left in no man’s land that interfered with any enfilade there was [from Thiepval].’27 Although the 17th’s limited gains were later reinforced by elements from other battalions — including men of 16th Highland Light Infantry, the right platoons of the following 2nd King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI), 2nd Manchesters† and that night a section of 219th Field Company, RE28 — its progres
s was limited by stout resistance and machine-gun fire from Wonderwork.

  The theme for the remainder of the 32nd’s 14th, 96th and 97th Brigades was one of carnage. Their men were shot down ‘as soon as’, ‘immediately,’ and ‘the moment’ they left their trenches.29 One battalion commander blamed this on the ‘complete failure’ of Morland’s artillery, noting he had ‘distinctly’ heard German machine guns firing before the 7.30 a.m. start time.30 On the left, closest to Thiepval, about 100 of the 15th Lancashire Fusiliers* surprisingly entered the hostile front line before defenders manned the parapet, and pushed north of the village. The rump of that battalion, 16th Northumberland Fusiliers† and 16th Highland Light Infantry‡ — the latter with the left platoons of 2nd KOYLI§ behind — made little if any impression with their linear waves, all suffering heavily.31 The Northumberlands went forward behind a football drop-kicked into noman’s-land. As 2nd KOYLI’s war diarist noted the ‘hostile machine gun and shell fire was so intense that all efforts to cross the fire swept zone between the opposing [trench] lines failed.’32 It was essentially the same story for the other two battalions.33 Private Stanley Henderson, 16th Northumberland Fusiliers, recalled that his battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel William Ritson, repeatedly wailed ‘“My men, my men, what can I do?”’34

  A trinity of uphill advances from Authuille Wood towards their own front line and then the southern face of Leipzig Redoubt by 11th Borders,¶ 1st Dorsets** and 19th Lancashire Fusiliers†† either side of 9 a.m. were pelted by the Nordwerk machine-gunners. As the war diarist of 17th Highland Light Infantry remarked, 11th Borders, 97th Brigade, was ‘absolutely wiped out by Enemy Machine Gun fire,’ and 1st Dorsets, 14th Brigade, was ‘unable to make any progress.’35 The Dorsets’ ordeal, as told by the battalion’s war diarist, was representative:

  It was during the dash across country from Authuille Wood to our own front line trench about 100 yds ahead that at least half our total casualties were sustained. By the time half the Battalion had left the wood, the end of Dumbarton Track and the ground up to our front line trench was covered with our killed and wounded; yet the men continued to jump up and advance over their fallen comrades as the word to go was given.36

  Lance-Corporal William Bush, 1st Dorsets, said one bullet grazed his waist: ‘I lay flat on the ground with my head to the Huns, as the steel helmet was a good protector for me.’37 A second bullet clipped his hand, followed by a ‘corker through the left elbow.’38 Only about 66 of the 400-odd 1st Dorsets reached the redoubt.39 Private George Ingham, 19th Lancashire Fusiliers, was probably among the 42 of his battalion in 14th Brigade who made it over: ‘The German bayonets are awful things — one edge is like a razor and the other like a double saw. The sight of them makes you ratty!’40 Ingham, 19, was killed two weeks later and is today buried at Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery Extension. Private John Farrer, 11th Borders, was among the dead outside Authuille Wood. The Carlisle coalminer enlisted in 1915 when his wife, Mary, was pregnant with their fourth child. He has no known grave and is today named on the Thiepval Memorial. A year later Mary penned a poem to her late husband that included the line: ‘We think we see his smiling face as he bade his last good-bye.’41

  Lieutenant-Colonel James Graham, 19th Lancashire Fusiliers, said even a smoke screen failed to lessen the effectiveness of the German machine-gun fire, which remained ‘so annihilating’ on the ground outside Authuille Wood.42 Fifteenth Highland Light Infantry* was supporting 14th Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Charles Compton, but at about 9 a.m. was ‘checked’ in Authuille Wood, where it spent the rest of the day.43 At 10.30 a.m. the 14th’s advance was wisely stopped, but the damage had already been done.44

  Wounded and living alike on the bullet-swept land between Authuille Wood and Leipzig Redoubt sheltered in shell holes or in Sanda, an opened Russian Sap. By about 4.30 p.m., Sanda had been dug through to the redoubt.45 ‘A good deal of the traffic which had originally to go over the top [to Leipzig Redoubt] was diverted down this passage. This was fortunate, as the overland track had by now been marked down by Machine Guns and snipers, and we were incurring considerable losses.’46 Apparently a second Russian Sap in the area, this one named Inverary, was also opened and used as a means of communication.47

  Elsewhere, at about 9.15 a.m., two companies of the 96th’s 16th Lancashire Fusiliers,* attacking the trenches outside the northwest corner of Thiepval, met a similarly bloody fate as they attempted to reach the 100-odd 15th Lancashire Fusiliers believed to be in or near the village:48 ‘All were mowed down; a few men crawling met the same fate.’49 Remnants of the two companies were forced back into their own line.50

  Thiepval Spur’s no-man’s-land was a graveyard in progress: ‘Occasionally I can see the hands thrown up and then a body flops to the ground,’ wrote one eyewitness.51 Worse yet, the killing zone of machine guns and artillery covering no-man’s-land extended hundreds of yards behind the British front line. Many of the 32nd’s follow-up battalions took heavy casualties as they moved forward from their own support and reserve trenches, or while waiting to advance.52 Private Henderson, 16th Northumberland Fusiliers, described the scene in and just behind the British lines as that of a massacre: ‘The cries from the wounded and dying were horrible to remember!’53 By 9.30 a.m., the 32nd’s initial attack was almost entirely cowed — stopped dead in no-man’s-land and within its own lines — and its toehold in Leipzig Redoubt sealed off.

  Five months later, as autumn rain lashed the ground, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Abercrombie returned to the 96th’s battlefield. ‘The dead [of the 15th Lancashire Fusiliers] were still lying in the long grass, thickly scattered all the way from our front line right up to the enemy’s wire. We could trace also the hopeless effort that my men [of the 16th Lancashire Fusiliers] made.’54 One of the dead there was Private Harold Stephenson, 15th Lancashire Fusiliers, who today rests at Connaught Cemetery. His two brothers were also killed on 1 July. Private Edward Stephenson, a father of six in 1st Lancashire Fusiliers, killed near Beaumont Hamel, and Rifleman Ernest Stephenson, 2nd Rifle Brigade, killed near Ovillers, are named on the Thiepval Memorial. No wonder Brigadier-General Clement Yatman, commanding 96th Brigade, said ‘only bullet proof soldiers’ could have taken Thiepval.55 He was correct: the 32nd’s 1200-plus dead were proof enough.

  Gefreiter Peter Kuster, Reserve Infantry Regiment 99 (RIR99), said the shell-pocked German front line near Thiepval ‘came alive’ with defenders when the attack began. ‘My company was about 120 men before the attack, when we were relieved only 35 men were left.’56 Soldat Wilhelm Lange, RIR99, a 28-year-old farmer’s son from Magdeburg, stood atop a trench parapet, firing indiscriminately at British infantry in no-man’sland. ‘You fool, can’t you hear the bullets whistling?’ shouted his officer.57 Leutnant-der-Reserve Friedrich Kassel, RIR99, was in the line just north of Leipzig Redoubt, his trench and dugout steps quickly bloody with the gore of dead men.58 Over the parapet, 20 yards away, Kassel saw the leading waves of 16th Highland Light Infantry heaving into sight: ‘No boys, we are still alive, the moles come out of their holes. Machine-gun fire tears holes in their rows. They discover our presence [and] throw themselves on the ground, now a mass of craters, welcomed by handgrenades and gun fire.’59 Later, Kassel led a patrol into Leipzig Redoubt, working gingerly from one breastwork to the next, winkling Scotsmen out with grenades and bayonets. Lange, meantime, was caught in a brutal bomb duel with some of the Highlanders.60 ‘We threw grenades for all we were worth. I’ve no idea how many.’61 The savagery was veiled in smoke and dust, and rent with shots, shouts and grenade blasts. Kassel again takes up the story:

  I felt my right hand hit by a heavy stroke, a bullet from a distance of 20 metres [22 yards]. The gun fell out of my hand, blood is running. I can still see how a [British] rifleman tries to throw himself out of reach of a hand grenade thrown by Kühnel. In vain. It explodes and will probably have finished him.62

  Killing took place around trench corners, over blockades and in shell c
raters. ‘Badly wounded “Tommies” fall into our hands and their rations provide something to satisfy our hunger and thirst.’63 Kassel’s patrol, and others like it, soon ran into stout resistance and consolidated its limited gains. While part of Leipzig Redoubt had been lost, the fortress of Thiepval and Nordwerk, Wonderwork and Goat Redoubts remained defiant.

  THIRTY-SIXTH (ULSTER) Division’s six leading attack battalions produced vastly different outcomes from one another in their initial charge. On the Ancre’s northern bank, half of 108th Brigade failed. Leading elements of 12th Royal Irish Rifles,* on the left, and 9th Royal Irish Fusiliers† clambered from their trenches two minutes before Zero in an attempt to get some distance across the unusually wide no-man’sland. Their linear waves64 were immediately under fire. Their supporting barrage was too thin and German machine-gunners fired on ‘our people going through our own wire.’65 Few made it across the up to 600-yardwide no-man’s-land, which included a ravine on the 9th’s front. Sergeant Sam McKeever, 12th Royal Irish Rifles, was there:

  Our ranks were getting very thin, but we had to go on. . . . We had about 300 yards to cross before we reached the German trenches, which gave the Germans a temporary advantage. We were now running forward in order to get the job done. . . . There were two brothers Smith. I remember seeing these two brothers in contact with the Germans. They were using their bayonets.66

  In places, German riflemen laden with ammunition and festooned with stick grenades clambered atop their parapets to get a better shot. ‘They were all full of anger,’ wrote Reservist Gottlob Mauss, Reserve Infantry Regiment 119 (RIR119), referring to the commonplace desire among German infantrymen for payback after living through the prolonged British bombardment.67