First day of the Somme

by Andrew Macdonald

  Support battalions 15th Durham Light Infantry* and 1st East Yorkshires† followed behind the two KOYLI battalions. They, too, suffered in the German defensive machine-gun and rifle fire, but with ‘magnificent dash’ made the crossing and were soon at close quarters with the enemy.82

  Feldwebel Karl Eiser, Reserve Field Artillery Regiment 29 (RFAR29), was near what would become the high-tide mark of 64th Brigade’s advance on Fricourt Spur, where two machine guns hammered a ‘long drawn-out’ fire.83 He saw an officer whose ‘reckless spirit and black humour was well known to everybody,’ but who soon looked ‘pale and bleary-eyed.’84 Two field guns were lost before being retaken and then inflicting an ‘appalling harvest’ among the enemy.85 ‘At least our division [on Fricourt Spur] had warded off the breakthrough for today.’86

  Closer to Fricourt, the lead battalions of Brigadier-General Edward Hill’s 63rd Brigade, 4th Middlesex‡ and 8th Somerset Light Infantry, were also punished by machine-gun fire when they began at 7.25 a.m. The 8th’s lead platoons suffered about 50% casualties and the 4th’s leading wave stalled in the fusillade before restarting four or five minutes later.87 The 4th’s ordeal might also be linked to Bavarian pioneers apparently detonating a mined dugout in the area moments after the Tambour blasts, allegedly burying 80 British soldiers and forcing the rest back into their own trench under heavy fire.88 Elements of both 8th Somerset and 4th Middlesex, the latter now moving forward again, breached the German front line. ‘Survivors pushed on in small groups beyond the [German] support line,’ recorded 4th Middlesex’s war diarist.89 Eighth Lincolns§ and 10th York & Lancasters¶ followed from about 8.40 a.m. and also suffered in the crossover.90

  ‘I’m for it this time,’ shouted one soon-to-die 10th York & Lancasters company commander to Constantinople-born Major Arthur Willis, of the same battalion, who turned left and then right to wave his men forward. Within moments a German sniper shot Willis through the chest: ‘I was knocked over and lay for some time before a stretcher-bearer came. . . . On the way a H.E. [high explosive] shell dropped near us and covered me with earth etc. However I was able to get my hands to uncover my face and the bearers did the rest.’91 Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Johnston, 8th Lincolns, was one of those caught up in fighting through the fretwork of trenches west of the sunken Fricourt–Contalmaison road. He and his men repeatedly engaged small German counterattack parties with bombs and rifle grenades. ‘If these bombing attacks had been successful, and the Germans had got a foothold in Lozenge Alley [running between the German front line and Fricourt Farm] at this point . . . they would have taken our troops in Sunken Road to the north of Lozenge Alley in flank as well as in rear, and turned them out.’92

  German efforts to eject the break-in with immediate local counterattacks failed. Too many of the 21st were in their trenches. Resistance slowly fragmented and casualties mounted. The 21st’s gains were made one trench bay at a time with grenade, bayonet and rifle. Both brigades reached the sunken lane north of Fricourt by about 8 a.m., with the 64th moving a couple of hundred yards on and taking some of Crucifix Trench. Sixty-second Brigade’s four battalions — 12th* and 13th Northumberland Fusiliers,† 1st Lincolns‡ and 10th Yorkshires§ — were committed throughout the day, sometimes piecemeal, first as ammunition carriers and then as reinforcements for the 64th. Several companies of 14th Northumberland Fusiliers¶ went forward to help with consolidation.93 By 9 a.m., the 21st held a tactically important mini-salient high on Fricourt Spur; this was in keeping with Horne’s plan to outflank and capture the village below.

  From his observation post on a knoll of high ground near Bécourt, Major Musard Nanson, Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA), watched the progress of 64th Brigade through a telescope:

  I saw the occupation of the Sunken Road [running north across Fricourt Spur] by our infantry; I saw reinforcements enter the sunken road until it was packed close with men. Later I saw a fairly dense line advance from the Sunken Road to Crucifix Trench, from my telescope point of view apparently without resistance or casualty. As soon as Crucifix Trench was occupied a large mass of Germans in long overcoats rose out of a trench higher-up, Shelter Trench, and descended towards Crucifix Trench. As it was too far away for me to see that they were surrendering I concluded that they were and withheld the order to fire on them.94

  Approaching midday, the 21st’s mini-salient was far from secure. This worried Brigadier-General Hugh Headlam, commanding 64th Brigade, who had followed his men forward. At about 11 a.m. he told divisional headquarters that there were ‘none of our troops west of [the] sunken road within supporting distance. . . . Both of his [64th Brigade’s] flanks were in the air, except for such local protection as he himself had arranged.’95 Fifteen minutes later Major-General Campbell committed two battalions. First Lincolns went up to the old German front line in the 64th’s sector, while 10th Yorkshires were placed under Headlam’s command and dispatched in the wake of 8th Somerset Light Infantry and 8th Lincolns to join the Fricourt Spur fighting. The arrival of 10th Yorkshires was ‘considerably delayed by congestion in the communication trenches. Two Coys [companies] were sent to Crucifix Trench with orders to work along this trench towards Fricourt Farm.’96 Such were the understated words of Campbell’s report on this Victoria Cross action, revisited below. For the minute, Private Matthew Watkin, 10th Yorkshires, struggled through the clogged-with-wounded British trenches. He thought it ironic: ‘people at home will be going to the beaches, unaware of the carnage.’97

  Well-to-do Temporary-Major Stewart Loudoun-Shand enjoyed adventure and travel and believed in serving his country. The former banker and merchant had worked between London, Ceylon and South Africa. His battalion, 10th Yorkshires, was stopped by a tornado of bullets as its soldiers scrambled into the open.98 The 36-year-old officer and veteran of the South African War did what few others would: he stood on the parapet, helped his men up and rallied them forward. Soon he was shot. Propped up against a trench wall, he died offering up still more encouragement to his men. He won a posthumous Victoria Cross and is buried in Norfolk Cemetery, near Bécordel-Bécourt. As eyewitness Corporal Harry Fellows, 12th Northumberland Fusiliers, said of Loudoun-Shand’s bravery, ‘Since that day he has remained my hero of the Great War.’99

  The fortunes of war . . . Sergeant Alex Fisher, 10th KOYLI, steeled himself for battle by entering ‘some sort of mental coma that enabled me to carry on and think clearly.’100 He darted from one shell crater to the next, betting a second shell would not land there:101 ‘I quickly formed the opinion that by observing these particular hazards I could overcome my terror and anticipate what the next thing would be in the way of shellfire or even rifle fire.’102 Private Maurice Symes, 8th Somerset Light Infantry, was wounded early in the attack. He did not make it across no-man’sland, did not see a single enemy soldier, and did not see the machine guns firing at him: ‘You could see people going down all the way around, you know, getting shot.’103 Private John Mortimer, 10th York & Lancasters, was sickened by the sight of mutilated soldiers. ‘The fact that it could happen to me I did not realise straight away, but when I did I trembled with fear. I forced myself to keep up with the others and as I became a fatalist in my mind, the trembling ceased to a degree.’104 Captain Robin Money, 15th Durham Light Infantry, saw ‘all these poor fellows lying there in rows’ as he stalked across no-man’s-land. A splinter of shrapnel broke his wrist and left him unable to cock his revolver: ‘So, one wonders what to do.’105

  ON THE OTHER side of the salient, German positions facing 7th Division ran down from Hill 110 into the Mametz–Carnoy valley before ascending the western shoulder of the Mametz–Montauban ridge. Brigadier-General Cyril Deverell — then commanding 20th Brigade, later at the helm of 3rd Division and after the war Field Marshal and Chief of Imperial General Staff (1936–37) — identified enemy positions on the eastern inclines of Hill 110 as key ground; these had to be captured, stopping RIR109’s machine-gunners and riflemen there from enfilading and potentially breaking the neighbouring 91s
t Brigade’s drive towards Mametz along the scoop of the valley. ‘Unless the German position opposite Mansel Copse was engaged, the success of the whole of the 7th Division to the right [of its 20th Brigade] was jeopardised.’106 Other German machine-gunners in and around Mametz, such as at The Shrine strongpoint in the cemetery just southwest of the village, and in Fricourt Wood further away, had fields of fire either along or across the Mametz–Carnoy valley, or both. It was essential for British gunners providing the artillery to support, destroy or suppress the streams of fire from these points to facilitate the infantry’s advance and minimise its casualties.

  The 7th was spread across a roughly 3000-yard, three-brigade front around Mametz. Seven mines were blown here, three around the frontline trenches held by elements of RIR109 just south of Hidden Wood and not under direct attack. On the right, 91st Brigade’s 22nd Manchesters* shouldered the spur east of Mametz after a 700-yard uphill advance against a company of IR23 that had suffered ‘exceedingly large’ losses thanks to the British barrage107 and a 500-pound mine blast.108 The neighbouring 1st South Staffords,† its passage facilitated by the 2000-pound Bulgar Point mine under a German front-line strongpoint, also attacked uphill and entered the village’s southeast outskirts, before being forced back to Cemetery Trench on its south side.109 Both had begun at 7.30 a.m., and suffered heavily crossing no-man’s-land and pushing beyond the German front line. Reinforcements from 2nd Queen’s‡ and 21st Manchesters§ initially failed to alter the impasse.110 This impasse was, explained Major Frank More-Molyneux, 2nd Queen’s, ‘owing to the bombardment having had very little effect’ on Dantzig Alley (North) and machine guns there ‘causing severe casualties to the leading battalions.’111 In the centre, spread out across the Mametz–Carnoy valley, 20th Brigade’s 2nd Gordon Highlanders* and 9th Devons,† the former helped by a 200-pound mine blast under German lines, suffered heavy losses as they set off at 7.30 a.m. and 7.27 a.m respectively.112 Both penetrated a few hundred yards beyond the German line to the south and southwest of the village. Eighth Devons‡ was punished as three of its companies went forward separately — to support either the 9th Devons or Gordons, or both — at about 10.30 a.m.113 Deverell, who saw tactical value in securing the German positions beyond Mansel Copse, concluded that the Devons had done the job at great cost from machine guns in The Shrine and thus ‘permitted the troops on their flanks to get on.’114 On the left, atop Hill 110, 2nd Borders§ began at 7.27 a.m. and, helped by yet another 500-pound mine, quickly entered the line held by RIR109, swung northwest towards Bois Français and was caught up in close-quarter fighting.115 ‘From here we advanced in short rushes, all companies and lines by this time mixed up,’ wrote Lieutenant George Prynne, 2nd Borders.116 While 7th Division was short of its initial objective and casualties were heavy, it had made solid inroads into the high ground east of Mametz and on Hill 110, and needed to develop these footings if that village then Fricourt were to fall later as planned.

  Private James McCauley, 2nd Borders, watched horrified in a captured German dugout as a British infantryman swung a slime-covered sandbag onto a Baden soldier’s hideous, gaping stomach wound and then stomped it in: ‘Years after the war, I still sit by my fireside and see in the flickering flames that poor German boy with his hands outstretched in tearful appeal.’117 Private Charles Wicks, 2nd Queen’s, had spent the night of 30 June sitting on a trench fire-step wondering what fortunes the following day would bring. Years later he remembered a spick-and-span secondlieutenant with gleaming boots and Sam Browne belt. ‘I can always see him going over the top when we did get out [of the assembly trench] and just in front of me, he caught it, he hadn’t gone two steps before he was killed.’118 Private Howard Wide, 9th Devons, saw numerous men hit by the stream of lead coming from The Shrine. It intrigued him that some wounded read their Bibles, ‘as if they knew they faced a lingering death, and desired some comfort of hope.’119

  Sergeant Richard Tawney, 22nd Manchesters, saw some German infantrymen kneeling atop their parapet to get a better shot. One was even standing. He was just 100 yards away: ‘It was insane. It seemed one couldn’t miss them. Every man I fired at dropped, except one. Him, the boldest of the lot, I missed more than once. I was puzzled and angry. Three hundred years ago I should have tried a silver bullet. Not that I wanted to hurt him or anyone else. It was missing I hated.’120 The Calcutta-born soldier, later a seminal lecturer in economics, saw his platoon commander lying prone, with his breathing laboured and face blanched: ‘His soul was gone. He was really dead already; in a minute or two he was what the doctors called “dead”.’ Then a bullet slammed into Tawney’s chest:

  What I felt was that I had been hit by a tremendous iron hammer, swung by a giant of inconceivable strength, and then twisted with a sickening sort of wrench so that my head and back banged on the ground, and my feet struggled as though they didn’t belong to me. For a second or two my breath wouldn’t come. I thought — if that’s the right word — ‘This is death’, and hoped it wouldn’t take long. By-and-by, as nothing happened, it seemed I couldn’t be dying.121

  Tawney lay for 30 hours in no-man’s-land before being rescued.

  Grenadier Emil Goebelbecker, RIR109, was on sentry duty just east of Mametz when the attack began. He recalled that his regiment’s forwardmost companies were in the dugouts of the front-line system’s second and third trenches, not the first: ‘The British troops left their trenches and attacked en masse. Our front lines gave in immediately. There were very few defenders left and with no NCOs or commissioned officers to take command, everyone dropped back on their own.’122 Just south of the village, Grenadier Kury, RIR109, was shot in the chest and felt blood flow from the exit wound in his back.123 He recalled ‘lying semi-conscious and seeing British soldiers jumping over our trench.’124 Somewhere near Bois Français, Leutnant-der-Reserve Georg Bauer’s men of Bavarian Pioneer Regiment clashed with the 2nd Borders in a brutal fight with bomb and bayonet.125 Bauer snatched a glance down the hill towards Mametz and saw the Devons and Gordon Highlanders advancing: ‘Wave upon wave of Englishmen penetrated forward through the Carnoy Valley on the left of us, so that the danger of being surrounded became ever greater.’126 This was the benefit of Deverell’s plan to engage and then take the German defences on the eastern slopes of Hill 110, helping the neighbouring 91st Brigade’s advance. As Bauer put it, the ‘difficulties of my own defence grew from minute to minute’ and his outnumbered men slowly yielded ground.127

  ‘The Devonshires held this trench; The Devonshires hold it still.’ So reads the dedication stone at Devonshire Cemetery, Mansel Copse. Among the dead here are 30-year-old Captain Duncan Martin and 23-year-old Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson, respectively artist and poet, killed by machine-gun fire from The Shrine. Martin had made a plasticine model of the land and correctly predicted that 9th Devons would be raked by a fusillade of bullets from the strongpoint. A fellow officer later wrote that ‘Iscariot [Martin] was shot through the heart below Mansel Copse and all his staff killed round him; Smiler [Hodgson] killed about the same place, getting his bombs up. He was smiling in death when they found him.’128 Two days before battle, Hodgson — a Cambridge University contemporary of dead war poet Rupert Brooke, minus the naivety — had expected death: ‘Must say good-bye to all of this; By all delights that I shall miss.’129 Weeks earlier Private Albert Conn, a former dockworker in the same battalion, saw a corporal shoot a warbling lark out of a tree: ‘A couple of the lads told him to fuck off out of it.’130 Not everyone possessed the silky talents of Martin and Hodgson; think of those other men, too, when you walk among the headstones in this cemetery and others on the Somme.

  Aerial patrols by the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) further unpicked the 28th’s defences. Several machine-gun positions were spotted by observers of 3rd and 9th Squadrons, RFC, and destroyed by targeted shellfire.131 ‘This was all the more serious because the shellfire-damaged positions of RIR109 required artillery protection,’ wrote one German historian.132 Further back, t
he artillery lost more guns as the RFC accurately directed counterbattery fire.133 These gun losses, which were in addition to those suffered during the pre-battle bombardment and artillery barrage supporting the attack, further undermined the 28th’s already negligible artillery capabilities. One German historian said the 28th’s ‘few guns still firing could not prevent enemy reinforcements moving up.’134 Leutnant-der-Reserve August Bielefeld, Reserve Foot Artillery Regiment 16 (RFtAR16), remembered that an RFC spotter plane located his 15-centimetre heavy gun hidden in the southern fringes of Mametz Wood: ‘We were subjected to aimed fire. After every shot we fled into the adjacent dugout [and then from the British guns] we received a heavy shell, which pushed in the entrance and trapped the whole gun crew in the dugout.’135 Six hours later, Bielefeld’s men had managed to dig their way free, only to find their gun’s barrel and aiming mechanism wrecked by shrapnel.

  Twenty-eighth Reserve Division’s front-line positions on the high ground either side of Fricourt had been quickly overrun, and casualties were heavy. RIR111 was still fighting on Fricourt Spur and Hill 110, while RIR109 was fully engaged around Mametz. In all three locations crude defensive lines were thrown up. Local reserves were applied to battle piecemeal, and counterattack groups were quickly depleted in number.136 Telephone links between headquarters were cut.137 Multiple runners became casualties and battle haze made semaphore unreliable.138 Organised resistance and the work of ejecting British infantry fell to junior commanders with whatever men they could organise on the spot,139 but these officers and NCOs were being spent at an alarming rate. Numerous small-scale counterattacks failed through lack of manpower and organisation. There was insufficient artillery left either to cast down a defensive barrage on no-man’s-land, or to limit the enemy’s advance.140 Surviving machine-gunners had to fulfil both roles.141 Supplies of ammunition and hand grenades were limited and dwindling quickly.142 One Badener said it ‘was heart-breaking to have no guns or reinforcements worth mentioning.’143 Retention of the 28th’s positions now depended on how Hahn deployed his negligible reserves to battle.