Those who were thought to be suffering from some sort of hysterical response, a temporary breakdown of the nerves, were classed as ‘Shell Shock S’ (for Sick). The two words ‘Wounded’ and ‘Sick’ signified a lot more in First World War army parlance than might be obvious today. Being classified ‘Wounded’ meant that a man had been injured as a consequence of enemy action. He could wear the blue outfit of a wounded soldier and would be accorded the dignity which came with this. A man might be regarded as ‘Sick’, however, if he had dysentery or flu, something from which he could recover quickly with the correct treatment. When it came to Shell Shock ‘S’ this category included men who had congenital nervous instability or had become unstable or hysterical in the trenches. They were not classed as genuine wounded caused by enemy action and were to be returned to their units after a period of rest, relaxation, regular meals and time in a positive environment. The final category, usually reserved for officers, was Neurasthenia, caused by prolonged mental strain and manifested by symptoms of chronic fatigue, headache and the loss of appetite.
This classification did little to improve the already confused situation. The distinction between ‘W’ and ‘S’ was artificial and arbitrary. It did however succeed in helping to make the problem look less serious by allowing a large proportion of men suffering from shell shock to be categorised as simply being ‘sick’. Just like those suffering from flu, they would not then be listed as battle casualties.
No doubt the RAMC congratulated itself that at a stroke it had made shell shock seem less acute. However, obvious inequities soon became apparent. Men suffering from a genuine breakdown were not always given proper treatment. Others with similar or even less serious symptoms were evacuated to England. Charles Samuel Myers noted the case of an artillery officer whose battery came under heavy bombardment, during which he tried to keep going for as long as possible before eventually collapsing. He was diagnosed with a nervous complaint and categorised ‘Shell Shock S’. Two of his men who had given way as soon as the bombardment began were categorised as ‘Shell Shock W’, having suffered according to regulations from the ‘effects of an explosion due to enemy action’. According to Myers, the two soldiers, ‘by giving way immediately, became entitled to rank as wounded and wear a wound stripe’; the officer, by bravely carrying on, was sent down stigmatised as ‘nervous’.48 This was clearly inappropriate and unfair; nor would it help solve the core problem of how to treat nervous diseases.
This was the rather confused state of affairs within the army concerning shell shock by early 1916. But while the doctors argued about causes and treatments and senior officers looked on in puzzlement, large numbers of men suffering from war neurosis kept coming in from the front. Care arrangements had been simple at first. A specialist treatment unit dedicated to shell shock victims had been set up at the base hospital at Etaples. At first no more than a small wooden hut segregated from the rest of the hospital, in late 1915 and early 1916 the unit had been overwhelmed with patients and had increased in size to over 2,000 beds. By this time the battalions of the New Army were arriving in France in large numbers. Senior officers were already sceptical about the training of these new battalions and the quality of the men recruited into them, most of whom had no military background. But over the next few months the army would face the biggest test it had confronted in its history. In the summer of 1916, with the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, what had been a frustrating and troublesome medical issue was suddenly transformed into a problem that threatened to undermine the fighting capability of the entire British army.
4
The Big Push
By the beginning of 1915, the German military leadership had decided that the war on the Western Front was to be primarily defensive. They turned east, sensing an opportunity to defeat the Russian armies and to knock Russia, the weakest of the Allied nations, out of the war. The German armies achieved real success here, forcing the Russians out of most of Poland and overrunning Serbia. Meanwhile, along the Western Front the German army entrenched and created formidable defensive lines, protected by acres of barbed wire with huge concrete redoubts in support, and hiding well-situated machine gun posts backed by seemingly endless batteries of artillery.
Trench warfare in the west became a matter of routine. ‘Stand To’ came just before dawn, when officers would rally their men and put them on alert. Then followed several hours of lookout and sentry duties, broken up sometimes by hot meals and the constant need to repair and rebuild trench walls and fortifications or pump water out of them. The men would doze along the fire step or in any cubbyhole they could find; officers slept in dugouts domesticated by photos, books and parcels from home. On most ‘quiet’ days there was still shelling and the constant need to avoid exposing oneself to sniper fire. But often the only action came at night when raiding parties went out, trying to claim dominance over No Man’s Land and to capture prisoners or gather intelligence from the other side. Most battalions were on the front lines for anything between three days and a week; in the reserve or second line for about the same length of time, often endlessly carrying supplies back and forth along congested communication trenches; then, for a similar period, on rest duty, behind the lines and usually out of artillery range. Here, the men would go through more training or drilling and usually enjoy some sport; officers would attend courses, catch up with administration and spend evenings in the local estaminet or bar. Then, back up to the front and the routine would start all over again.
In addition to the regular rhythms of trench life, the Western Front saw considerable offensive activity during 1915. In March, the British attacked at Neuve Chapelle; the French, two months later, in the Artois region. Initially the Neuve Chapelle attack was successful and British soldiers breached the German lines. But, as so often happened in the First World War, the reserves were inadequate and were not sent forward in time. The Germans were able to counter-attack and reoccupy the lost ground. More seriously, the assault at Neuve Chapelle revealed a huge shortage in the supply of shells. No one in the War Office had anticipated a war of this sort in which such vast numbers of shells would be required. The armaments factories were far too small and were not producing anything like enough.
All the nations at war experienced similar crises in 1915, but Britain’s was particularly severe. It tipped the political balance between those who thought the war would be short, that Britain’s liability would be limited and the country could ride it out on the strength of its navy, and those who held that the nation needed to mobilise far more efficiently to fight a modern, industrial European war. The crisis led to the fall of Herbert Asquith’s Liberal government. It was replaced by a Coalition government of Liberals and Conservatives, although Asquith remained Prime Minister. The fall of the government also led to the creation of a Ministry of Munitions to coordinate and dramatically improve the supply of ammunition. At its head was David Lloyd George – the radical Welshman who firmly believed the war needed to be run on more professional and scientific grounds.
In April 1915, the Germans carried out their one offensive act in the west that year when they launched an attack at Ypres to try to break through to the Channel ports. It was in this attack that they first resorted to chemical warfare, releasing chlorine gas from canisters, letting it drift in the wind over the Allied lines. The gas attack caused panic and created a gaping hole in the French lines, but the Canadians on the flank were able to hold on and this time it was the Germans who failed to follow up swiftly enough. The Allies loudly condemned the Germans for their use of chemical warfare as an abhorrence, a violation of the terms of war; and then quickly prepared to use gas themselves. Haig soon convinced himself that this was a war-winning technology and wrote to the War Office saying that decisive results ‘are almost certain to be obtained’ by the ‘very extensive’ use of gas.1
In September the French and British made their first full-scale joint attack – the French in Champagne and the British at the industrial town
of Loos. Six British divisions participated; again the initial assault was successful but the British bungled the use of their reserves. British casualties amounted to 59,000 men, including more than 2,000 officers. The French bore the brunt of the fighting, but their attacks also failed with the loss of 191,000 men. And these dreadful losses resulted in negligible territorial gain.
At the end of 1915, therefore, both sides looked at a war that had gone way beyond anything they had anticipated in 1914. All the armies had suffered massive casualties. The French had lost 1.43 million killed and wounded by the end of 1915. The Germans had lost more than half a million men on the Western Front alone in what was supposed to be a quiet year. The British, meanwhile, had tried to bypass the war in France and Belgium by attacking Germany’s ally Turkey, first by a naval campaign in the Dardanelles then with an amphibious landing on the Gallipoli peninsula supported by French, Australian and New Zealand forces. Amphibious operations are some of the most complex an army can attempt, and British forces were not up to it. The command and planning was appalling. The Turks were well led and fought ferociously. The result was further stalemate and dreadful loss of life, the number of British, Allied and ANZAC dead and wounded amounting to 132,000. All sides needed to consider new tactics for 1916.
At the beginning of December 1915, at a conference held at Chantilly, the Allied war leaders agreed on a joint attack in the early summer of 1916. The Russians would attack on the Eastern Front. The Italians, who had joined the war on the Allied side, would attack in the south, in the Alpine region. The French and British armies would attack on the Western Front. While the planners realised that none of these actions would be likely in themselves to bring a decisive breakthrough to victory, together they would put immense strain on the German army and its weaker ally, the Austro-Hungarians. It was a good strategy. And it was a case of ‘combined thinking’ long before this was common.
At the end of 1915 two key changes took place in the British army. First, Sir William Robertson was appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff in London. Unusually for the British army, Robertson, known as ‘Wuffy’, had risen right through the ranks from private to field marshal. He had a reputation for plain speaking – and for dropping his aitches. A convinced advocate of the need to defeat Germany on the Western Front, he would bring renewed commitment to the importance of that theatre. Accordingly, the expedition to Gallipoli was ended and the troops were evacuated from the peninsula.
Second, of even greater significance, Sir John French had proved to be inadequate as commander-in-chief of the British army in France. He was unable to cope emotionally with the level of losses the army was experiencing and had fouled up the use of the reserves at Loos. Prime Minister Asquith, after some manoeuvring, demanded French’s resignation. He was replaced by Sir Douglas Haig, then aged fifty-five. Having worked closely in the mid-1900s with the reforming Secretary of War Richard Haldane and rewritten the army regulations for the infantry, also playing a key role in the creation of a new War Staff to oversee the planning of strategy, Haig definitely belonged to the modernising wing of the British army. In August, he had gone to France as commander of I Corps – consisting of two divisions totalling around 40,000 men. His men had fought at Mons and on the Marne, and had heroically held the line in the First Battle of Ypres. At the end of 1914 he was promoted to commander of First Army – with up to fifteen divisions, or over 200,000 men. During 1916 he would take command of a little more than fifty divisions, or more than one million men and growing. Moreover, he had commanded the two major British assaults in 1915 at Neuve Chapelle and Loos. Of all British generals in 1916, Haig appeared well equipped to be commander-in-chief.
However, he suffered from being extremely inarticulate, almost shy, with strangers. He liked to surround himself with familiar figures he had known and worked with before – and this was not always the best way to bring out new ideas and strong leadership. He felt tongue-tied and awkward when he met the press, which he hated doing. In this way he was very unlike a general of the early twenty-first century, who has to be media savvy and good with soundbites, whether in messages to his men or to a waiting television reporter. But Haig possessed a strong faith. This was partly a religious conviction – he was a committed member of the Church of Scotland and much enjoyed Sunday sermons – but he also had great confidence in his own abilities. At times this manifested itself as a conviction that he had a divine mission, was acting as God’s instrument, and that God was on his side. However, he was no fanatic. He was thorough, intelligent and utterly professional. He recognised the complexity of the machine he led and realised the importance of getting the logistics right. And, for his day, he looked the part of a great general: tall, blue eyed and moustachioed, always immaculately turned out, determined and strong. Most people thought he had the necessary qualities to command an army in the field that was struggling to understand a type of warfare that had never been expected.
When Haig took command of the British Expeditionary Force in France, Kitchener gave him written instructions on his role. His ‘governing policy’ was to achieve ‘the closest co-operation between the French and British as a united army’. However, Kitchener further wrote, ‘I wish you distinctly to understand that your command is an independent one, and that you will in no case come under the orders of any Allied General further than the necessary co-operation with our Allies referred to.’2 Thus, from the start, Haig’s brief suggested the complexity of his command. He was to co-operate fully with the French as part of a coalition army but to act as an independent force and not to follow French orders. Meanwhile he also had political masters in London who had not signed up to the idea that warfare on the Western Front should continue when it seemed to bring no clear victories but generated endless and long casualty lists. Sir William Robertson warned Haig in January about ‘deplorable’ politicians who ‘fight and intrigue against each other … They have no idea how war must be conducted in order to be given a reasonable chance of success, and they will not allow professionals a free hand.’3 In carrying out his command, Haig would have to balance pressure not only from Paris but also from Westminster.
The military strategy that Haig inherited was for all the Allied armies to grow their strengths and to prepare for a combined offensive in the east, south and west, to take place in the middle of 1916. Haig showed initial enthusiasm for attacking around Ypres in Flanders, where the capture of the Belgian channel ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge offered a clear strategic objective. But in discussion with General Joffre, the French commander-in-chief, he was persuaded to take part in a joint Anglo-French offensive at the point where the British and French lines met in Picardy along the river Somme. Haig agreed to this strategy in mid-February. Like all the best military plans, however, it was soon blown aside by events.
On 21 February, the Germans launched a full-scale offensive against the French positions at Verdun. The German generals knew the French would not surrender the city, which had great symbolic significance for them as one of the fortress towns that had held out in the war against Prussia in 1870. An intense siege of Verdun began, the Germans amassing heavy artillery to fire on French lines that were then assaulted by storm troopers. None other than the Kaiser’s son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, commanded the German Fifth Army at Verdun. General Philippe Pétain, in command of the French defences, brought up artillery and seemingly endless reserves of infantry. In the first three months of the battle, forty French divisions took part in the defence of Verdun. The determination of the French lived up to German expectations and their defiant catchphrase became ‘Ils ne passeront pas’ (They shall not pass). By the end of March the French had suffered nearly 90,000 casualties. Field Marshal von Falkenhayn, Chief of the German War Staff, later said that he hoped the Battle of Verdun would ‘bleed the French army white’.4 He nearly succeeded in doing so.
In March, French commanders came back to the British, pleading with them to help relieve German pressure at Verdun. Haig ordered British
divisions to take over twenty miles of the Western Front from the French so their troops could be sent to relieve Verdun. But as the butchery of the French forces continued, Joffre met with Haig at his headquarters on 26 May, and told him that French losses at Verdun would amount to 200,000 men by the end of the month. He asked when Haig would be ready to launch his offensive; between 1 July and 15 August, Haig replied. At the mere mention of the later date, according to Haig’s diary, Joffre ‘got very excited and shouted that “The French Army would cease to exist, if we did nothing till then.”’ Embarrassed by this ‘outburst of excitement’, Haig immediately agreed to launch the attack on 1 July or thereabouts.5
Instead of the offensive being a 50-50 joint venture, however, Haig now realised that he must bear the greater part of the attack. Joffre’s initial plan had been for the French to attack on the Somme with thirty-nine divisions supported by 1,700 heavy guns. By the time the attack took place, this had been reduced to twelve divisions and 688 guns. For the first time, the British army would dominate a joint Anglo-French military enterprise. Soon the upcoming offensive would be widely referred to as ‘the Big Push’.
The area selected for the great Anglo-French offensive was far from favourable. A low chalk ridge, known as the Thiepval ridge, ran from north-west to south-east. The German front line ran along the west-facing slope of this ridge, incorporating a line of villages whose names would come to acquire iconic status in British military history – Serre, Beaumont-Hamel, Thiepval, Ovillers, Pozières, La Boiselle, Fricourt, Mametz. British troops were to attack up the slope of this ridge, where the Germans had not only dug a network of defensive trenches but also deep dugouts penetrating thirty feet and more into the chalk, most of them interconnected by tunnels and linked to more than one trench. Several were lit by electricity and some were even carpeted. The front was also defended by a series of formidable bunkers or redoubts, where well-protected machine guns were able to direct fire not only across No Man’s Land itself, but down into the territory behind the British front line. At the north end, the small marshy valley of the Ancre river cut through the ridge, and further north still was a German salient protruding into the British line at the woods of Gommecourt.
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