Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  Some stress has in this narrative been laid upon the fact that the difficulties to be overcome in the south were less than those in the north. Such an assertion is only fair to the gallant men who failed. At the same time nothing should detract from the credit due to those splendid southerly divisions who really won the battle and made the hole through which the whole army eventually passed.

  Though the French operations do not primarily come within the scope of this record, it is necessary to give some superficial account of them, since they form an integral and essential part of the battle. So important were they, and so successful, that it is not too much to say that it was the complete victory upon their line which atoned for our own want of success in the north, and assured that the balance of this most bloody day should be in our favour. It is true, as they would be the first to admit, that the troops of General Foch had none of those impassable barrages, concentrations of machine-guns, and desperately defended inner lines of trenches which inflicted such losses upon our stormers. Both the positions and the men who held them were less formidable. On the other hand, it is for us to bear in mind that the French had already made their great effort in the common cause at Verdun, and that this attack upon the West was primarily a British offensive in which they were playing a subsidiary part. It is the more remarkable that their success should have been so great and that they should have been able for months to come to play so notable a part in the battle that the tale of their prisoners and booty was not less than our own.

  The attack of the British was roughly upon a twenty-mile front, from the Gommecourt salient to Maricourt. On this stretch they broke the German lines for 7 miles from the north of Fricourt to Montauban. The French front was about 8 miles long, and moved forward for its whole extent. Thus it may be said that the whole battle line was 28 miles, and that more than one-half, or 15 miles, represented the area of victory. During the whole operations for many months the French army was cut in two by the marshy valley of the Somme, the detachment to the north of it acting in close unison with the British Thirteenth Corps upon their left. We will call these the northern and the southern French armies, both being under the direction of General Foch.

  It may briefly be stated that the advance of the French army was carried out with great dash and valour on both banks of the river. After carrying several lines of trenches at very little loss to themselves, the northern army found itself, on the evening of July 1, holding the outskirts of the villages of Curlu and of Hardecourt. On July 2 Curlu was entirely occupied, and shortly afterwards Hardecourt also fell. The southern army, which consisted of of the the fiery Colonial Division upon the left and the Twentieth upon the right, under the immediate leadership of General Fayolle, had even greater success. Not only all the lines of trenches but the villages of Dompierre, Becquincourt, Bussu, and Fay were stormed upon July 1. On the 2nd Frise and the Moreaucourt Wood had also been taken, and several counter-attacks repelled. On that evening the French were able to report that they had taken 6000 prisoners, while the British operations had yielded 3500 — or 9500 in all.

  When the sun set upon that bloody day — probably the most stirring of any single day in the whole record of the world — the higher command of the Allies must have looked upon the result with a strange mixture of feelings, in which dismay at the losses in the north and pride at the successes in the south contended for the mastery. The united losses of all the combatants, British, French, and Germans, must have been well over 100,000 between the rising and the setting of one summer sun. It is a rout which usually swells the casualties of a stricken army, but here there was no question of such a thing, and these huge losses were incurred in actual battle. As the attackers our own casualties were undoubtedly heavier than those of the enemy, and it is natural that as we turn from that list we ask ourselves the question whether our gains were worth it. Such a question might be an open one at Neuve Chapelle or at Loos, but here the answer must be a thousand times Yes. Together we had done the greatest day’s work in the War up to that time — a day’s work which led to many developments in the future, and eventually to a general German retreat over 70 miles of front. It was not a line of trenches which we broke, it was in truth the fortified frontier of Germany built up by a year and a half of unremitting labour. By breaking it at one point we had outflanked it from the Somme to the sea, and however slow the process might be of getting room for our forces to deploy, and pushing the Germans off our flank, it was certain that sooner or later that line must be rolled up from end to end. It was hoped, too, that under our gunfire no other frontier of similar strength could grow up in front of us. That was the great new departure which may be dated from July 1, and is an ample recompense for our losses. These young lives were gladly laid down as a price for final victory — and history may show that it was really on those Picardy slopes that final victory was in truth ensured. Even as the day of Gettysburg was the turning-point of the American Civil War, and as that of Paardeberg was the real death-blow to the Boers, so the breaking of the line between Fricourt and Frise may well prove to have been the decisive victory in the terrible conflict which the swollen dreams of Prussia had brought upon the world.

  When one considers the enormous scale of the action, the desperate valour of the troops engaged, and the fact that the German line was fairly and permanently broken for the first time, one feels that this date should be for ever marked in British military annals as the glorious First of July.

  * * *

  V. THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME

  From July 2 to July 14, 1916

  General situation — Capture of La Boiselle by Nineteenth Division — Splendid attack by 36th Brigade upon Ovillers — Siege and reduction of Ovillers — Operations at Contalmaison — Desperate fighting at the Quadrangle by Seventeenth Division — Capture of Mametz Wood by Thirty-eighth Welsh Division — Capture of Trones Wood by Eighteenth Division

  THE terrible fighting just described, during which the German line was broken at its southern end, was but the opening of a most desperate battle, which extended of the over many months. This, while it cost very heavy losses on both sides, exacted such a toll from the Germans in prisoners and lost material, as well as in casualties, that it is probable that their army would have been largely disorganised had not the wet weather of October come to hamper the operations. As it was, the letters of the soldiers and the intercepted messages of the Generals show an amount of demoralisation which proves the mighty pressure applied by the allied armies. It was a battle which was seldom general throughout the curve into which the attackers had encroached, but which confined itself to this or that limited objective — to the north, to the east, or to the south, the blow falling the more suddenly, since during the whole of this time the Allies preserved the command of the air to an extent which actually enabled them to push their guns forward across the open. Sometimes it was a fortified village which was carried. Sometimes it was the trenches between villages, so that the garrisons might feel in danger of being cut off. Sometimes — the worst obstacle of all — it was one of the patches of wood dotted over the country-side, which had to be cleared of the enemy’s stubborn infantry and machine-gunners. But whatever the task might be, it may be stated generally that it was always carried out, if not at the first, then at the second, third, or some subsequent attempt. It may also be said that never once during all that time did a yard of ground which had been taken by the Allies pass permanently back to the enemy. Before the winter had fallen more than forty villages had been carried and held by the attack — but not one by the counter-attack. The losses were heavy, sometimes very heavy, but so perfect now was the co-ordination between infantry and guns, and so masterful the allied artillery, that it is highly probable that at last the defence was losing as many as the attack. Those deep ravines which had enabled the Germans to escape the effects of the early bombardments no longer existed in the new lines, and the superficial ditches which now formed the successive lines of defence offered little protection fro
m a fire directed by a most efficient air service. On the other hand, since the German air service had been beaten out of the sky, the sight of the German gunners was dim, and became entirely blind when by their successive advances the Allies had pushed them over the low ridges which formed their rearward positions. The map, however skilfully used, is a poor substitute for the observation officer and the aeroplane.

  Standing on the edge of this welter, and gazing at this long haze info which vigorous divisions continually plunge, relieving exhausted units, only to stagger out in their turn, rent and torn, while yet others press to the front, one feels appalled at the difficulty of following such complex operations and of conveying them clearly and in their due order to the mind of the reader. Some fixed system must evidently be followed if the narrative is to remain intelligible and the relation of the various actions to each other to be made evident. Therefore the course of events will still, so far as possible, be traced from the north, and each incident be brought to some sort of natural pause before we pass onwards down the line. We can at once eliminate the whole northern portion of the British line from the Gommecourt salient down to Albert, since for that long stretch attack had changed definitely to defence, and we start our narrative from the south of the Albert-Bapaume road. From that point four villages immediately faced the old British line, and each was now a centre of fighting. From the north they were La Boiselle, Fricourt, Mametz, and Montauban. The latter had been held against a strong counter-attack on the early morning of July 2, and it was firmly in the possession of the Thirtieth Division. Mametz was held by the Seventh Division, who were pushing on to the north, driving a weak resistance before them. Fricourt had been deserted by the morning of July 2, and had been occupied by the Seventeenth Division, who also at once pushed on towards the woodlands behind. La Boiselle was closely assailed with part of the Thirty-fourth Division to the south of it, and the Twelfth and Nineteenth Divisions with other troops all round it. These four villages and the gaps between them represented the break in the German front line.

  The second German main line ran through the Bazentins and Longueval, and it was reached and carried by the British Army upon July 14. The intervening fortnight between the battle of the front and of the second line was occupied in clearing the many obstacles, consisting for the most part of woods and subsidiary trenches which filled the space between the two lines, and also in attacking the two villages of Ovillers and Contalmaison, which hampered operations upon the left wing. It will help the reader very much to understand these apparently complex movements if he will realise that they divide themselves into three distinct groups of activity, counting from the north of the line. The first group is concerned with the capture of Ovillers, and in it the Twelfth, Nineteenth, Thirty-second, and Twenty-fifth Divisions are concerned. The second group is connected with the capture of the strong position which is bastioned by Contalmaison upon one side and Mametz Wood at the other, with the Quadrangle system of trenches between. In this very severe conflict the Twenty-third, Seventeenth, Seventh, and Thirty-eighth Divisions were engaged. Finally there is the group of operations by which the right wing was advanced through Bernafoy Wood and up to Trones Wood. In these, the Ninth, Thirtieth, and Eighteenth Divisions were chiefly concerned. We shall now take each of these in turn, beginning with the northern one, the taking of Ovillers, and carrying each narrative to a definite term. Before embarking upon this account it should be mentioned that the of the two northern corps of Rawlinson’s army — the Eighth and Tenth — were from now onwards detached as a separate Fifth Army under Sir Hubert Gough, one of the most rising commanders in the Service. The functions of this Army were to hold the line from La Boiselle to Serre, and to form a defensive flank and pivot for the Third, Fifteenth, and Thirteenth Corps to the south.

  We shall first follow the further fortunes of the troops which operated in the north. Upon July 3 there was a short but severe action upon that part of the old British line immediately to the left of the gap which had been broken. In this action, which began at 6 A.M., the Thirty-second Division, already greatly weakened by its exertions two days before, together with the 75th Brigade, lent them by the Twenty-fifth Division, tried to widen the rent in the’ German line by tearing open that portion of it which had been so fatal to the Eighth Division. The attack failed, however, though most bravely delivered, and the difficulties proved once more to be unsurmountable. The attempt cost us heavy casualties, a considerable proportion of which fell upon the 75th Brigade, especially upon the 11th Cheshires, whose colonel was killed, and upon the 2nd South Lancashires, who ran into wire and were held up there. The 8th Borders reached their objective, but after one-and-a-half hours were forced to let go of it. The operation proved that whatever misfortunes had befallen the Germans to the south, they were still rooted as firmly as ever in their old positions. The same lesson was to be taught us on the same morning at an adjacent portion of the line.

  This episode was at the immediate south of the unsuccessful attack just described. It has already been stated that the Twelfth, the English division which had seen so much hard fighting at Loos, had taken over part of the trenches of the Eighth Division, and so found themselves facing Ovillers. Their chances of a successful advance upon the village were increased by the fact that the Nineteenth Division, after hard fighting, had got into La Boiselle to the south, and so occupied a flank to their advance.

  Some further definition is required as to the situation at La Boiselle, how it was brought about, and its extreme importance to the general plan of operations. When the left of the Thirty-fourth Division had failed to hold the village, while some mixed units of the right brigade had established themselves within the German lines as already narrated, it became very vital to help them by a renewed attempt upon the village itself. For this purpose the Nineteenth Division had moved forward, a unit which had not yet been seriously engaged. It was under the command of a fighting Irish dragoon, whose whimsical expedient for moving forwards the stragglers at St. Quentin has been recorded in a previous volume. On the evening of July 1, one battalion of this division, the 9th Cheshires, had got into the German front line trench near the village, but they were isolated there and hard put to it to hold their own during a long and desperate night. On the following afternoon, about 4 o’clock, two of their fellow-battalions of the 58th Brigade, the 9th Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the 6th Wilts, charged suddenly straight across the open at the village, while by a clever device the British barrage was turned elsewhere with the effect of misleading the German barrage which played upon the wrong area. By 9 P.M. on July 2 the south end of the village had been captured, but the resistance was still very fierce. Early next morning the whole of the division was drawn into this street fighting, and gradually the Germans were pushed back. There was one desperate counter-attack during which the British line was hard put to it to hold its own, and the house-to-house fighting continued throughout the whole day and night. Two British colonels, one of the 7th South Lancashires and the other of the 8th Gloucesters, particularly distinguished themselves in this close fighting. The latter, a dragoon like his commander, was a hard soldier who had left an eye in Somaliland and a hand at Ypres, but the sight of him in this day of battle, tearing out the safety-pin of bombs with his teeth and hurling them with his remaining hand, was one which gave heart to his men. Slowly the Germans were worn down, but the fighting was fierce and the British losses heavy, including three commanding officers, Wedgwood of the North Staffords, Royston Piggott of the 10th Worcesters, and Heath of the 10th Warwicks, the first two killed, the latter wounded. In the midst of the infantry fighting a single gun of the 19th Battery galloped with extraordinary gallantry right into the village and engaged the enemy point-blank with splendid effect. For this fine performance Captain Campbell and ten men of the gun’s crew received decorations. By the evening of the 6th the whole village was solidly consolidated by the Nineteenth Division, they had broken up a strong counter-attack from the direction of Pozières, and th
ey had extended their conquest so as to include the redoubt called Heligoland. We must turn, however, to the attack which had in the meanwhile been prepared upon the line to the immediate north of La Boiselle by the Twelfth Division.