German soldiers well knew that British preparations opposite the salient meant an attack was being prepared for. Leutnant-der-Reserve Adolf Kümmel, Reserve Infantry Regiment 91 (RIR91), explained why: ‘The new British assault trenches, the pushing forward of saps, the frequent bombardment of important points, the appearance of heavy trench-mortars, and the increasing artillery fire, which from time to time rose to “drum-fire,” left no doubt as to the intention of the enemy.’43 The precise location of the attack could not have been flagged more clearly. That neither neighbouring division — 37th and 48th (South Midlands) Divisions, respectively north and south — undertook any meaningful activity to suggest they would be participating only served to concentrate German attention on the salient. These points were not lost on Süsskind-Schwendi, noted Oberleutnant Alfred Wohlenberg, Reserve Infantry Regiment 77 (RIR77): ‘When on 29 June a deserter confirmed the major attack we suspected the enemy would make, the division issued orders for an increased state of alarm.’44 Rifleman Aubrey Smith, 1/5th Londons (London Rifle Brigade), recalled that German prisoners said the attack was expected.45 One afternoon a placard was hoisted above the German parapet with the scrawled challenge ‘Come On.’46
‘They know we are coming all right,’ said a chipper Snow before battle.47 It was a pithy one-liner to please Haig, who had agreed that no attempt should be made to hide VII Corps’ preparations for its diversionary attack.48 The British official historian wrote that the outcome of this decision was ‘immediate and satisfactory,’ citing the arrival of 2nd Guards Reserve Division at Gommecourt as proof that VII Corps’ diversion was succeeding in drawing in German reserves.49 As it happened, that division had arrived at the salient on 23 May, several days before the 56th began digging its assembly trenches, and almost two weeks before Snow even submitted his final attack plans to Haig for approval.50 The official historian’s language was curious: ‘satisfactory’ implied plenty of room for improvement. A more obvious conclusion was that 2nd Guards Reserve’s arrival intentionally strengthened XIV Reserve Corps’ order of battle by reducing the sector sizes of each of its four other front-line divisions. Front-line battalions all along the corps’ front were more concentrated rather than over-extended and the cast of supporting artillery south to Montauban increased as a ratio of guns per yard of front line defended. If anything, 2nd Guards Reserve’s arrival effectively served to bolster XIV Reserve Corps’ entire battle front, which was actually quite unsatisfactory.
All of this, along with the preparatory bombardment’s failure, meant that Snow’s infantry was entirely reliant on whatever artillery support it had on battle day. Soldiers had no idea that the last moments of the final intense bombardment, which began at 6.25 a.m., were flawed. Half of the heavy guns were to lift their fire off the German front-line system onto second-phase objectives at 7.28 a.m., with the remainder following at 7.30 a.m., before both shifted their metal curtain further on.51 Field artillery either side of the salient would step its fire back at 7.30 a.m. to either the German support or reserve trench, and then at intervals beginning at three to four minutes jump increasingly further back. This meant the German front-line trench would be free of suppressive shellfire from 7.30 a.m., just as the 46th’s and 56th’s leading waves began to cross over no-man’s-land, and within 10–20 minutes the entire frontline system would be clear. At this point all Snow’s infantry had for cover in the open expanse of no-man’s-land was smoke, which was no kind of barrier to either bullets or shrapnel.
‘It was hard at first to recognise individual [British] figures in the dense smoke clouds,’ said Leutnant-der-Reserve Kümmel of the moments immediately after 7.30 a.m.52 Ten minutes earlier, German front-line infantrymen had been roused by shock waves rippling through their dugouts from the massive Hawthorn Ridge mine blast three miles away. In the trenches, when the British attack began, shellfire-dodging sentries frantically belted alarm gongs and roared ‘They’re coming!’ into shadowy dugout entrances. It was now a tickle after 7.30 a.m. and several minutes had passed since the first throaty bursts of range-finding German machine-gun fire had raced towards the British lines, while shrapnel shells coughed overhead and dispatched their cargo of marble-sized lead balls. Within moments the cacophony travelled to the ears of Hauptmann Kurt Freiherr von Forstner, Reserve Infantry Regiment 15 (RIR15), at Bucquoy:53 ‘There was the clatter and thump of rifles, the “Tack-Tack” of machine guns and the crash of hand grenades, intermingled with the howling, roaring, barking and bursting of red-hot iron shells.’54
‘WHAT WAS THE difference between twenty minutes and twenty years? Really and truly what was the difference?’ pondered Second-Lieutenant Edward Liveing, 1/12th Londons (Rangers) as he and other infantrymen counted down the last few minutes before the attack began in 56th (1st London) Division’s sector.55 ‘I was living at present, and that was enough.’56 Rifleman Reg Mason, also Rangers, said those around him in the assembly trenches were ‘trembling with a mixture of fear, noise and the long sitting in a cramped position.’57 Mason said that at this time his ‘mental concentration was impaired, and the automatic soldier moved forward.’58
Two brigades of the 56th were to attack on a frontage of about 1250 yards with a total of about 5820 men.59 All of its lead battalions and those following in support were ordered to advance in successive linear waves.60 The 169th, on the left adjacent to the salient’s head and with two battalions advancing abreast, had the toughest job. The brigade’s London Rifle Brigade,* at left, and 1/9th Londons (Queen Victoria’s Rifles)† would lead off, followed immediately by 1/16th Londons (Queen’s Westminster Rifles)‡ and then 1/2nd Londons (Royal Fusiliers).§ The 169th — with a company of 1/5th Cheshires¶ and 2/2nd London Field Company, Royal Engineers (RE), attached — was to finish up to 800 yards behind the German front line, isolating the salient head from the south. On the division’s right, the 168th would provide flank support by storming the German front-line system to a depth of 300–500 yards. This brigade, also with two battalions advancing side by side, was led by 1/12th Londons (Rangers),* on the left, and 1/14th Londons (London Scottish),† with 1/4th Londons (Royal Fusiliers)‡ and 1/13th Londons (Kensington)§ in support. The 168th also had 2/1st London Field Company and a company of 1/5th Cheshires attached. Meanwhile, 167th Brigade’s 1/1st Londons¶ and 1/7th Middlesex** remained in reserve all day, while the remaining half of 1/3rd Londons and 1/8th Middlesex†† were to hold the assembly trenches and supply working and carrying parties. Smoke was discharged from the British lines at 7.25 a.m. Its light-grey-to-white tints billowed along no-man’s-land, sparking immediate German shellfire there and on the assembly trenches. Then the attack began.
‘Everything stood still for a second, as a panorama painted with three colours — the white of the smoke, the red of the shrapnel and blood, the green of the grass,’ wrote Second-Lieutenant Liveing.61 ‘I felt as if I was in a dream, but I had all my wits about me.’62 Corporal Arthur Schuman, London Rifle Brigade, heard the stutter of machine guns: ‘I kept my head down as low as possible, helmet tilted to protect my eyes, but I could still see men dropping all around me.’63 Rifleman Henry Russell, same battalion, sheltered in a scoop of dead ground: ‘I believed that I would be dead within seconds and would be rotting on the ground, food for the rats next day. I am now convinced that when it comes to the last crunch nobody has any fear at all.’64 Away to the right, onlooker Major Charles Carrington, of 1/5th Royal Warwicks, 48th (South Midland) Division, which was holding the trenches south of VII Corps, glimpsed a few London Scottish ‘in their hodden-grey kilts’ dashing into the smoke: ‘That was all. That and a growing hullabaloo of noise.’65 Rifleman Noel Lockhart, London Rifle Brigade, felt there was ‘not enough air to breathe, so many shells were bursting. Small bodies of men simply disappeared when a shell burst near them.’66
Beneath the silver smoke swirls, bullet and shrapnel ripped, eviscerated, pierced, severed and shattered. Men fell. Some lay still. Others, wracked with pain, stumbled through the knee-length
grass looking for shelter, or lay writhing.67 A young Londoner staggered back, cut about the face, bleeding, his limp arm broken in several places. ‘Is there a dressing station down there, mate?’ he asked Signaller William Smith, RE, who offered to collar a stretcher bearer. ‘Oh,’ said the private, ‘I don’t want him for me. I want someone to come back with me to get my mate. He’s hurt!’68
The Londoners’ steady walk accelerated as German artillery and machine-gun fire roared. Depleted leading waves increasingly lost formation in the smoke and confusion. Small groups blundered forward. On the left, 169th’s London Rifle Brigade benefitted from mostly cut wire at the southern corner of Gommecourt Park and several collapsed German dugouts. Two companies ventured into the jagged wood towards Kernwerk and Gommecourt village, but were blunted by a scratch force of 2nd Guards Reserve Division’s pioneers and engineers. Some British troops are alleged to have made it to the Quadrilateral grouping of trenches, which was 800 yards behind the German front line and east of Gommecourt. At the southern end of the battle front, the 168th’s London Scottish won into the German line, although its right was heavily enfiladed. Mostly intact wire slowed the Queen Victoria’s Rifles and Rangers, the two central battalions of the attack, and soldiers of Infantry Regiment 170 (IR170) were soon at their parapet, firing. Eyewitnesses told of ‘mangled barbed-wire with parts of human beings hanging on them.’69
London Rifle Brigade groups that had made it into the German front line now struck southeast along the trench and rolled up its defenders holding the Queen Victoria’s Rifles and Queen’s Westminster Rifles at bay.70 The impasse broken, these men — like those of the London Scottish, who lacerated ‘shins, legs & things’ on loose wire71 — pushed into the third trench of the German front-line system, several small parties advancing even further on. Some Rangers, reinforced by two companies of 1/4th Londons, now managed to get through the wire, and a few filtered through to the German second trench, but the rest of that battalion’s attack failed. Smoke, speed of advance, patchy wire and some collapsed German dugouts had allowed the depleted 56th limited initial gains, albeit far short of its final objectives. Its infantrymen found the German trenches a shambles of piled-up chalkstone, splintered planks, frayed wicker revetments and bloodied corpses.
Smoke and dust clouds shrouding no-man’s-land obscured the attacking infantry.72 A Leutnant Koch, of Machine-gun Sharp-shooter Troop 73, told of a ‘first rush’ of London Rifle Brigade, which ‘suddenly’ materialised from the smoke.73 He said five of a seven-man machinegun team at the southern corner of Gommecourt Park were killed or wounded within minutes by shadowy forms amid the pall. Its two unscathed survivors were surrounded; Unteroffizier Gustav Schultheiss and Gefreiter August Berkefeld resisted until killed by a storm of hand grenades.74 Nearby, in another gun team, cut-off-but-calm machinegunner Gefreiter August Niemeyer held out until shot in the face.75 The trio are buried at the Neuville-St Vaast Kriegsgräberstatte (German War Cemetery), Berkefeld and Niemeyer side by side and Schultheiss nearby.76 Further back, German artillery observers reported that the Londoners had ‘over-run’ Gommecourt South’s forward trenches, which were held by IR170 and Reserve Infantry Regiment 55 (RIR55).77
Rifleman Frank Hawkings, Queen Victoria’s Rifles, lay wounded in no-man’s-land and saw a ‘medley of Huns and QVRs [Queen Victoria’s Rifles] at close quarters with bomb and bayonet. The tide of battle rolled on as our fellows forced their way to the Hun trench.’78 Second-Lieutenant Liveing later remembered a hare, eyes bulbous with fear, bounding towards him. Men dropped all around; others kneeled to draw bead on German infantry at their parapet. Liveing moved towards a defile in the wire: ‘There was a pile of our wounded here on the German parapet.’79 Corporal Schuman thought the journey endless, but eventually fell into the German trench: ‘I sat on the firing platform to regain my breath. I felt something very soft. Looking under a groundsheet I saw the body of a German officer.’80 Private Arthur Hubbard, London Scottish, emptied his rifle ‘on three Germans that came out of their dug outs bleeding badly and put them out of their misery. They cried for mercy, but I had my orders.’81 Sergeant Henry Smith, same battalion, killed ‘my first German — shot him clean through the forehead and sent his helmet spinning in the air.’82 Others took prisoners who were sent jogging back towards the British lines; several were killed or wounded by their own defensive shellfire.83
This metal curtain on no-man’s-land grew in ferocity, and by 8 a.m. was essentially impassable. Machine-gunners belted out two-second taps of bullets from Garde Stellung, 750–1000 yards behind their old front line, Nameless Farm further forward, the Quadrilateral closer to Gommecourt and also the Kernwerk. IR66 further south and elements of RIR55 in the unassailed salient head enfiladed no-man’s-land lengthwise from north and south. Shellfire further thwarted subsequent waves of the 56th’s leading battalions, and those following, while they were either forming up or attempting to cross.84 Hauptmann Ulrich Lademann, IR66, said that ‘only isolated parts of the attack waves arrived at the [wire] obstacles.’85 Leutnant-der-Reserve Georg Büsing, Reserve Field Artillery Regiment 20 (RFAR20), said that 2nd Guards Reserve Division’s guns in Gruppe Süd alternated between ‘blocking fire’ and a ‘rolling barrage,’ stopping successive masses of enemy infantry all day: ‘Troops gathering for fresh attacks, particularly at Patrol Wood [in 169th Brigade’s sector] . . . were identified and engaged with complete success.’86 Major John Bowles, Royal Garrison Artillery, at VII Corps headquarters, agreed that when these guns joined the defensive fire, ‘hopes of success were finished.’87 German bombardiers and machine-gunners alike fired to pre-ranged target zones, meaning they did not even need to see their targets to be sure of hitting them. Second Guards Reserve’s 80 artillery guns fired 22,603 shells on 1 July, most on no-man’s-land and the British assembly trenches.88 This noman’s-land maelstrom effectively isolated men of the 56th that had made it into the German lines and guaranteed it would only be a matter of time before their limited, unsupported gains were lost.89
German junior commanders of RIR55 and IR170 on the spot knew their work. They immediately organised their men and resistance, and reinforced key points, such as Kernwerk, with support companies. London Rifle Brigade later reported that shortly after 8 a.m. the ‘first serious opposition was encountered in the shape of strong enemy bombing parties, whose advance was covered by snipers, some of whom were even up trees.’90 Rifleman Percy Harris, Queen Victoria’s Rifles, explained how this played out: ‘I did not feel a bit frightened as the Germans gave very little resistance, and seemed to be retiring, and they were until we took their first two trenches, and then they started to throw over hand grenades.’91 Progress slowed. It was the beginning of the end. By about 8.30 a.m. the 56th had been blocked along a 1500-yard front of Gommecourt South by three battalions of RIR55, IR170 and assorted engineer and pioneer units. Ground between Garde Stellung and the front-line system’s third trench was the flotsam mark, with to-andfro bomb battles sputtering in the handful of communication trenches between. For the rest of the day Garde Stellung became a defensive perimeter for RIR55 and IR170, and also a staging line for units coming forward and launching counterattacks.92
Probably no more than 500–700 men of the 56th had made it into the German lines. The exact number will never be known. Small groups led by NCOs and subalterns pressed deeper into the foreign trenches and linked up with others. Lewis guns were sited, ammunition totted up, sandbags filled, new firing steps cut, and coils of wire, wood and whatever could be scrounged from dugouts and trenches used to block ditches running back to the still-German-held ground. Rifleman Frank Jacobs, London Rifle Brigade, was near Kernwerk and said consolidating the ‘smashed’ ground was an ‘awful job.’93 Lance-Corporal John Foaden, same battalion, saw snipers kill three of his 10 men in two minutes. He thereafter filled sandbags ‘whilst lying down, until there was sufficient cover to work our Lewis gun.’94 Corporal Roland Ebbetts’ posse of London Rifle Brigade men was in ‘isolated groups in [s
hell] holes with heaps of earth between them. These heaps were very large, but communication was maintained between them by men crawling over the top.’95 Their priority was to form a defensive line that would not be easily penetrated by German soldiers.
Chaos reigned in the British trenches from which the attack had begun as explosive shells pitched to earth and heaved soil, debris and men skyward. Shrapnel shells burst overhead, issuing their lethal cargo. It continued all day. ‘1.10 p.m.: Shelling fearful. [Second-Lieutenant Noel] Mackenzie killed. Trench practically untenable, full of dead and wounded. Very few men indeed left,’ wrote Major Cedric Dickens, Kensingtons, in a staccato message. Nineteen-year-old Mackenzie, of Dickens’ battalion, is named on the Thiepval Memorial. Dickens continued, this time at 2.40 p.m.: ‘Trenches unrecognisable. Quite impossible to hold. Bombardment fearful for two hours. I am the only officer left.’ If his words oozed urgency and the terror of those in the British trenches, they were also a stark contrast to the easy turn of his grandfather, novelist Charles Dickens. Soldiers all along the 56th’s front line experienced similar ordeals to Dickens’. Orderly Sergeant Harry Coates, London Scottish, described his section of the British assembly trenches as ‘all knocked in and chaps buried underneath. We were treading over dead bodies and all sorts of things going along.’96
Attempts to run bombs, ammunition, extra machine guns and reinforcements across no-man’s-land were cut down amid the ‘merry hell’ of defensive fire.97 Throughout the late morning and afternoon such sorties by the remnants and support elements of London Rifle Brigade, 1/4th Londons, Queen’s Westminster Rifles, Kensingtons, Queen Victoria’s Rifles and 1/2nd Londons, among others, were shot into submission. A few made it over, but never in high enough numbers or with sufficient munitions to help the bridgehead’s defence.
First day of the Somme Page 40