Tommies: The British Army in the Trenches

by Rosie Serdiville

  British attempts to break the deadlock of the trenches comprised attacks at Neuve Chapelle (10–13 March), at Aubers Ridge on 9 May and a fresh attempt at Festubert between 10 and 25 May. Despite some gains, all of these largely stalled with heavy losses. Massive firepower was not complimented by advanced communications. Telephone wires were soon cut and battalion runners struggling through a hell of ruined trenches and shell-lashed no man’s land could not hope to provide commanders with fluid and accurate action reports. Ground gained was soon lost to counter-attacks. Allied operations were temporarily derailed when the Germans attacked at Ypres, a seesaw slogging match of positions lost and re-taken, only to be lost again. Despite this murderous baptism, many Saturday night soldiers still managed to churn the horror into verse, such as this anonymous verse:

  The Fiery cross is out, now

  There’s a beacon on each hill,

  The Scottish pipes are sounding,

  ’Tis the slogan wild and shrill

  The Call of the Pipes

  I heard the bugles callin’ an’ join I felt I must,

  Now I wish I’d let them, go on blowin’ till they bust!

  Cavalry, the essence of exploitation, could no longer be effectively deployed. Whatever criticisms could be and have been launched against Allied generals, the fact remains that the deadlock simply could not, at this stage in the war, be broken. French attacks in Artois fared even worse and at terrible cost. When the British attack at Aubers Ridge foundered – as did the French offensive – broken against the deepening fortress of the German defence, the relative weakness of Allied artillery was starkly highlighted. Lack of ammunition, in terms of type, quantity and quality, became a temporary cause célèbre and the ‘shell scandal’ brought Asquith’s tottering ministry to its knees, ushering in the wartime coalition. Lloyd George took up responsibility for munitions. Nonetheless, lack of shells contributed to the British failure at Festubert in May.

  French, Joffre and Haig visit the front line 1915 (from GWS – The Great War: The Standard History of the All Europe Conflict (volume four), 1915, via Wikimedia Commons)

  Despite these repeated disappointments and the immense tide of casualties, French and Joffre, when they met at Chantilly on 24 June, remained wedded to further action along the Western Front. In this they were correct. The war would not be won on other, peripheral fronts but the price of victory would be very high indeed. Joffre pushed for an attack by Haig’s First Army at Loos, the British having now extended their own lines eastwards into the dense mining belt of Artois. This was a fit setting for Germinal, a dense, bleak patchwork of collieries and huddled townships, slagheaps erupting over the largely flat ground like satanic sores. Haig was not impressed: ‘most unfavourable ground’. French shared his subordinate’s concerns. ‘Papa’ Joffre was insistent and received unexpected support from Kitchener himself, committed on account of the Russians’ deteriorating position in the east to do whatever must be done to aid the French, even though heavy losses became inevitable.

  From 25 September to the night of 13/14 October the battle of Loos consumed 43,000 British casualties. Despite prodigies of valour – none more Homeric than Piper Daniel Laidlaw of 7th Battalion, KOSB, leading the fight for Hill 70 on the first day – the battle achieved little. The strategic balance was unaffected. Field Marshal French’s career was another casualty. His position had steadily crumbled throughout 1915 and Haig had unashamedly been jockeying for his job. He fully exploited his influence with the king to undermine his commanding officer. Their final meeting on 18 December, by which time French was all too painfully aware of how he had been intrigued against and betrayed, was far from cordial.

  Hang on and hope

  Sergeant Robert Constantine served in 9th Battalion, DLI. Born in Newcastle in 1887, he had enlisted at the age of 23. He served at Second Ypres and wrote to his brother, Jim, from Potijze on 13 May:

  After nine days nice rest we are back again in the trenches and it’s hell all day long, shells of all sorts bursting about but the German shells are not very good because I’ve seen a lot of them not burst at all and others are full of marbles and some of our chaps were saying they had seen some burst that were full of nails, a nice thing to put in shells, eh? I put in an awful day in yesterday, it was the longest day I’ve ever had and I felt properly upset and could not get a bit nap at all.

  Already, those who had ‘cushy’ jobs back home were becoming objects of envy: ‘Tell Ben Hodgson he should be very thankful to be where he is, I would just like to change places with him now! We passed a large city on Tuesday night on our way to the trenches and the whole place from end to end was on fire, what a sight, it’s just done for wilful destruction and nothing else. We all know about “Lusitania” but have not seen the papers with any of the news yet … You shouldn’t grumble about going to bed without a light, you should be lucky you have such a nice bed, I know I would just now.’

  John Walcote Gamble, originally a native of Derbyshire, volunteered with the Public Schools Battalion at Ashtead in Surrey, transferring firstly to 16th Battalion, DLI but actually serving with the 14th. He went to France in October 1914 and served till he was wounded on 8 January 1916. He wrote to his family on 23 October, describing life in the trenches that autumn: ‘In our company mess (there are six of us) we do have some cakes, and also a few extras which we are able with difficulty to get from villages nearby, such as tinned fruit, salmon or sardines and vegetables … A three-days-old newspaper usually drags through but I shall always be glad to get papers or magazines of any description.’

  The network of estaminets which would be so crucial to the comfort of men in the trenches was starting to be established by this time. People who had lost their living to the fighting now began to provide services for troops running small cafés where Tommy could try exotic delights like vin blanc for the first time. One Belgian dish really caught on and was taken home: egg and chips.

  Life in the trenches was uncongenial:

  We are in these alleged trenches for a week, and hope to get relieved on Sunday night. They are more breastworks than trenches, and are by no means sound. We spend all spare time strengthening and repairing them. At one point we are right up close to the Germans and can hear them quite plainly at times. It rained hard last night and the ‘ditches’ were in a frightful mess this morning, literally over the boot tops in mud everywhere. I think, considering that the British have held them for many months, that the regiments who have been in before ought to have seen to it, that they were well-drained, bomb-proof and comfortable long ago.

  I suppose the explanation is that one regiment only occupies this part of the line for a short period at a time and they don’t like wasting time improving trenches for someone else’s benefit. The last lot the 14th [DLI] were in were absolutely top notch, properly drained, boarded and concreted, and in every way comfortable and safe; but you see a Territorial Brigade had been there for two months and taken real pains to get their quarters jolly good.

  On 20 November, Second Lieutenant Gamble acquainted his readers with a new parody of Little Grey Home in the West:

  There’s a shallow wet trench near Houplines

  ’Tis the wettest there ever has been,

  There are bullets that fly,

  There are shells in the sky,

  And it smells like a German ‘has been’.

  My dug-out’s a haven of rest,

  Though it’s only a tumble down nest,

  But with ‘Johnsons’ around,

  I must keep underground,

  Till the golden sun sinks in the west.

  Humour masked a dank, exhausting and unendingly miserable existence with the added zest of constant danger:

  It was intensely cold; the hail came across with such force that it seemed to be mixed with bullets and I’m sure many men must have thought they were shot by hail-stones. The harder we pumped, the deeper the water seemed to become. If we had left it undisturbed, we should have been frozen in and the Boc
he was rather active with his artillery. We discussed various ways of using or abusing the liquid devil. One bright idea was to cut a trench through from our line to theirs, make it fairly deep, run in the water and torpedo them! Boat and swimming races were dismissed as frivolous but the idea of skating about the support trenches was seriously considered!

  Getting out proved as hazardous as staying in:

  There were great rejoicings when we were relieved yesterday morning at dawn, although we had quite an exciting time getting out; you see we usually empty about half a dozen communication trenches along the line but on this occasion only one was really safe from drowning casualties. It was an extremely tedious business getting a battalion out by one route and we could not get started till after the appointed time, owing to the relieving people meeting with similar difficulties.

  As winter deepened, the harsh weather continued, sliding into deep cold. Opportunities for relief were few, even shell-shattered Ypres proved a slight diversion. Gamble recorded in his letter of 23 December: ‘On Saturday then I took advantage of the temporary calm, and had another look round Ypres. It is really a wonderful sight – weird, grotesque, and desolate of course, but most interesting. I expect the place will be flooded with sightseers and tourists after the war, and they will be amazed by what they see. The ancient ruins of Pompeii and such places will be simply out of it.’ The following day, Sunday, was rather far from restful:

  About 05.30, I was aroused in my dug-out by a gas-helmeted and scared sentry, the sound of voluminous rifle fire and big guns, and above all a choking feeling. Our dug-out was already full of gas, and for a moment the terror of waking up to such a situation properly put the wind up both Eyre (who shared my dug-out) and me. I could not at first find my gas helmet, and began to splutter and choke, but eventually I got it fixed on, and went out to get to business at once. And how terrible it was! The gas was rolling across towards us in thick whitish-yellow clouds; men were running about with their weird-looking gas-helmets on, and shells were bursting all around. It was, of course, quite dark and, as each shell burst, it caused a tremendous crash and a horrible flash of fire.

  As I emerged from my dug-out there seemed to be a hundred big shells bursting, lighting up everything. The noise of all these tons of high explosives bursting all around was almost unbearable, and then to put the tin hat on it, every British gun in the vicinity began to pound away at top speed. It took me some time to realise what was happening but I soon got information and orders that there was a gas attack on in the front line and we were to man the reserve trenches at once. A number of men were already gassed, but we got into those trenches amid a huge bombardment and expected to see the Boche coming across at any moment. The men began to stifle and choke, and the shells were doing a great deal of damage amongst our troops but they stuck it wonderfully. The gas still came over in great clouds and the shelling continued unceasingly.

  They evidently anticipated a big attack as they were peppering all the roads, rails and communications up which reinforcements might be brought, and were simply battering our reserve position to nothing, they seemed to be using every big gun they had, and were sending over every kind of shell from a 17 inch down to a small whizz-bang. The noise was appalling and nerve wracking, and there was no cessation for three hours. Then the gas began to thin and the shelling toned down, and the joyous news came through that our two companies in the front line had repulsed the first German attack.

  The Germans first used chlorine gas at Second Ypres and the Allies were totally unprepared. Early gas hoods were improvised, uncomfortable and disorientating to wear, proofed with acetone which was processed from conkers – a cash bonus for children who were paid to collect bags of them!

  Their ordeal was not yet over:

  We stood to all that Sunday morning, strained and waiting after 3½ hours under gas and shell-fire and without food, and then came the order for us to go up to the front trench to relieve the companies who had had a shocking time. We’d already had a lot of casualties and Willis was horribly wounded early on, and Iveson knocked out by shell-shock. Iveson had recovered splendidly by the time we went up into action however, and we’d just got the company formed up and were starting up the road from our reserve trenches, when we got a ‘Jack Johnson’ right into us and laid out a lot of good fellows. We had a nasty job getting right up, but we manned that front line, and were ready for the Huns coming over. They did not attack again on Sunday but we were on the watch all night and early the next morning, they gassed again, but we did not allow them to get into our trench, and all day Monday we potted away hard, until by the evening the show seemed about over…

  Though the fury of attacks ebbed, gas and shells continued to arrive: ‘They gave our line a furious strafing to finish up with though, and Eyre got two wounds in the hand and back, and another 16th officer, Hickson, had been gassed previously; well, we hung on until late that night, and then came out; of course getting shelled and machine-gunned coming out. We got back about 0200 hours on Tuesday. We had been without rest or food for nearly 48 hours; been under gas for over three hours at one time, and I just collapsed, but am alright again now, except for sickness and headache, owing to that devilish gas.’ As ever in the maelstrom, odd anecdotal details stuck in the mind:

  I had just been bandaging up a couple of wounded, when one of them called my attention to a couple of big rats which were staggering about on their hind legs as though drunk. It really was one of the funniest sights imaginable. One usually gets only glimpses of rats as they scuttle rapidly by during the day, but these two were right out in the open, and their antics were too quaint. They were half-gassed of course but strangely enough it was one of the things I remembered best after the show was over – one good thing the gas did was to kill a lot of the little beasts!

  One man and his dog. (From The Book of Dogs, 1919, via Wikimedia Commons)

  1915 would be the year of stalemate. The plain fact was that mere flesh and blood could never get through barbed wire and machine guns. Industrial war was a game for the well-dug-in defender. The Germans were very good at digging in.

  CHAPTER 3

  ATTRITION

  1916

  AT THE CHANTILLY CONFERENCE IN DECEMBER 1915, Haig and Joffre had discussed ideas for joint offensives in 1916. Haig was by no means confident of his ally’s capacity to do more and was increasingly (and correctly) of the view that Britain must shoulder the greater burden. A week before Verdun furiously erupted, the two commanders met again. The concept of a major joint offensive astride the River Somme was, at least in general terms, agreed with a proposed start date of 1 July. Haig was not a fan of the Somme area. Strategically it had little to offer. As ever, he preferred to look toward Flanders.

  Verdun, the cauldron, changed all this. Without Haig’s full support it was feared the French would crumble. When, on 26 May, Haig informed his ally that his New Army divisions would not be ready till perhaps August, Joffre was appalled. The French, he expostulated, might very well not survive that long. Haig rather drily observed that a fine vintage brandy calmed Joffre’s Gallic nerves most admirably. That the British would attack in the Somme department was now a given. Haig’s misgivings were secondary to his need to prop up Britain’s ally before the weight of German blows proved too much.

  The Plan

  General Henry Rawlinson, leading Fourth Army, now held the right of the British line and the brunt of the coming battle would be borne by divisions under his command. The fight would be spread over a front of some 20 miles, across the deceptively mild chalk downs of Picardy, from Foncquevillers in the north to Mericourt in the south where the British and French sectors would intersect on the line of the River Somme. The Somme is probably the best known of all World War I battles; as with Verdun for the French, it symbolises the loss of a generation, a frightful gobbling up of blood and manhood for seemingly trifling gains.

  Along the otherwise insignificant ridge running from Thiepval to Ginchy the Germans had
turned sleepy hamlets into bristling fortresses: Serre, Thiepval, La Boisselle and Fricourt. Their front line studded with strong redoubts, with successive belts riding the crests of ridges behind, like spume on breakers, each a major tactical problem in itself. Chalk, firm and clear to Tommies after the mud and slop of Flanders, was ideal for carving deep dugouts, the enemy line was immensely strong and utterly formidable. Rawlinson himself was an advocate of ‘bite and hold’; a series of limited assaults, each quickly consolidated and then built up in readiness for the next. Haig needed rather more. He had to have breakthrough, a smashing of the enemy line and a clear run for his cavalry to Bapaume, up the dead straight Roman road from Albert.

  Rawlinson diplomatically, if with reservations, bowed to his superior’s wishes but insisted on massive, drenching bombardment as a necessary prelude. A continuous deluge of fire so utterly overwhelming it would crush the enemy front-line defences to dust and decimate the troops holding it. Kitchener’s New Army men would be the main attacking force and it was feared their training was insufficient to instil complex ‘fire and movement’ tactics. Instead, they would move forward from their start lines in four orderly waves, rifles sloped and walk towards the enemy front line, which would simply be theirs for the taking.

  ‘Trench strategists’, note the newly introduced Brodie helmets, pictured in The War Illustrated, November 1917. (Author’s collection)

  Charles Moss, a lance corporal commanding a Lewis gun section of the Durham Pals, was very much a product of the radical tradition. He was scathing about the direction of the war and the scant regard paid to the efforts of the PBI: