Manning their outpost in no man’s land during the night of 1/2 July, Charles Moss and his comrades had no leisure for pondering on grand tactics:
The darkness of the night was often broken by brilliant glow from arching Verey lights being fired across No-Man’s-Land. As each light died out, we were blinded, the darkness being deeper than ever. The sudden change from blackness to such weird and ghostly light thrown onto the tragic shapes of the charred stumps of trees whose tops had been blasted off during previous bombardments made the place such a terrible eerie sight, that I felt as though I was no longer on the civilised world.
People have heard a lot about Hell, but no one has come back from there to tell us what it really is like. I know I was very near to it as the red light from the star shell and explosions fell on the hollow, whilst the cries of despair from the wounded mingled with the Devil’s tattoo of rifle and machine-gun fire. We thought the Germans might send a bombing raid over so we’d had to struggle out into No-Man’s-Land where we got into a big shell hole and set to with picks and shovels to make it into a Lewis gun post.
One of my gunners ‘got the wind up’ very badly. He would dash himself from one side of the hole to the other at each shell-burst. I was urging him to keep still in the bottom of the hole when he gave a great gasp and groaned ‘Death, oh death! They’ve knocked a bloody hole right through us’. He scrambled out of the shell-hole before anyone could help him and I saw no more of him till I reached the 3rd Battalion at South Shields in 1917 where I found that the shrapnel had wounded him in the shoulder and given him a Blighty that got him to England.
Next morning the gun team had scrambled back to the wrecked front line and ‘stood to’ with the remainder of ‘C’ Company. Despite their fragile position, no attacks came. Charles and his comrades retired along a communication trench:
This was one of the shelters that had been used as an advanced dressing station. The duckboards inside were covered with a horrible mixture of blood and chalk puddle, used field dressings and the remains of hurried operations. It looked so repulsive that we were hesitating about going inside when there was the crash of a 5.9 shell a bit further down the trench, the blast from it nearly blew us inside and as the strafe continued close by we went inside and thought it best to stay there. We shovelled out, as best we could, the shocking evidence of the suffering of the wounded and the harrowing work of the ‘worst paid’ (first aid) wallahs. Then we set about cleaning our rifles, Lewis Guns and ammunition drums…
While we were in the shelter the talk amongst the team became very morbid and downhearted. They would persist in talking about the cruel and gruesome sights they had seen, and how easily such things could happen to them. One of the youngest, a lad of about 17, was becoming very distressed as the despondent talk continued. I realised I would have to get their minds onto other and more cheerful things, so when one of them passed the remark, that had become a favourite army saying when things were looking black, ‘it’s a bloody good job we’ve got a navy’, I took this as my cue to turn the talk to ships and the sea. So I got them interested in some of my trips with the Merchant Navy, especially my trips to Europe on the Londonderry boats out of Seaham Harbour. It was marvellous how they responded to the change of subject, the young gunner brightened up considerably and the rest of them stopped their depressing gossip.
At Agincourt in October 1415, particularly glutinous Somme mud had slowed down heavily harnessed French men-at-arms as they slogged forward into the arrow storm. Five hundred years later the mud was the same: wet, slithering, and everywhere. A damp summer churned chalk into mire, a dismal humid season dominated by the incessant roar of the guns. Artillery was fast becoming dominant on the battlefield and though the British gunners had much to learn from their mistakes, they proved apt pupils. The Royal Flying Corps’ local air superiority gave them clear eyes, though this was not necessarily apparent to those mud-caked and weary survivors of the Durham Pals.
Prevailing German tactical doctrine, hammered home to local commanders by Falkenhayn, was that ground must firstly be held at all costs and if lost, recovered at all costs. These grim summer battles of attrition cost both sides equally dear. In the course of this bitter, savage stalemate, Fourth Army sustained another 82,000 casualties, a butcher’s bill undreamed of in previous conflicts. Waterloo, a very great battle by the standards of the day, cost the British and their allies 17,000 dead and wounded. The Somme would cost at least 27 times as many. For the moment, as the July offensive was resumed south of the Durhams’ positions, Charles Moss and his gunners remained largely out of harm’s way:
At daylight on Tuesday morning we moved to the notorious Monk Trench. This trench was looked upon by our fellows as a suicide post because of the bad name it had for casualties while we were there on tours of duty. It was on a spur of high ground which overlooked the narrow part of No-Man’s-Land. It was a favourite place for the Jerries to vent their hate in the shape of Minnies, coal-boxes and Whizz-bangs. The weather had been close and overcast all that time from Zero Hour but, as we reached this trench, there came of a terrific thunderstorm and deluge of rain which poured into the trenches from the higher ground and the trench was soon filling up with water.
We had a setback right at the entrance to the trench, the man who was leading the gun-team backed away from a disembowelled body lying beside the firestep. I eventually led them into position where we found several of my platoon…
The storm had increased so much that we had to climb onto the parados to save ourselves from the danger of drowning. We had put the Lewis guns on the parapet in ground sheets, the chalk was bouncing up, driven by the force of the rain. I was having to shake the guns clear of chalk to prevent them getting buried in it. To have fired them would have been impossible. We were wondering what we could do to get the flood out of the trench when we saw two or three Jerries climb onto the parapet of their trench and start digging with those long handled shovels of theirs. They must have seen us because as the water came pouring out of their trench, one of them lifted the blade of his shovel into the air and waved a ‘washout’. I at once gave them the same signal with the butt of my rifle. It seemed to me that this was an event that was apart from the ordeal and enmity of battle. The forces of nature had restored the sense of common humanity after all the carnage there had been since the battle started. Not a shot was fired on either side while we stood in danger of being drowned.
For the Durham Pals their current purgatory was nearly at an end, as a company of the Gloucesters came up as their relief, ‘splashing towards us, I was surprised to see that they were in khaki shorts’. Charles Moss and his gunners plodged back along Eczema trench, away from the front line: ‘It was nearly dark when we got out of the communication trench. Here we found a great dump where troops from other regiments who had been relieved were dumping fighting equipment they had salvaged from the battlefield. We had to leave on this dump the Lewis gun that we’d picked up. But when the gun we carried back to battalion was checked the next day, it was found, by its number, which we had not been able to check in the dark, that we had left our gun on the dump and brought back the one we’d found. This incident gave me further proof of the callousness and inflexibility of army routine and discipline. We had survived five days and nights of exhausting experiences but these stood for nothing in comparison to having brought the wrong gun back to Battalion!’
Despite the suffering and horrors of their tour in the trenches, Charles Moss and his Pals had not quailed in their terrible ordeal. Their baptism on the Western Front had been both harrowing and relentless. Yet these were not regular soldiers, they were a citizen army:
Our feelings had not been brutalised by our civilian occupations, we were not time-serving professional soldiers. Most of us had left soft jobs. We had in the ranks many with college and university educations, who had volunteered for the duration of the war. When our battalion had been formed we had not been psychologically hardened for the hardship and mentality
of the rank and file regulars … I was deeply thankful to be able to answer the roll-call that so many thousands would fail to do after the first phase of the many phases of the criminal waste of men and material in the Battle of the Somme.
The year 1916 drew to a close with both the Allies and Germans pretty much where they’d been at the start. Two great battles, dwarfing in scale those which had gone earlier, had demanded a vast blood sacrifice. Neither side was seemingly any nearer to breaking the deadlock.
CHAPTER 4
MUD
1917
FOR SIR DOUGLAS HAIG, 1917 WOULD not prove to be a vintage year. His early offensive at Arras and Vimy achieved wonders at the outset, though the former swiftly degenerated into costly attrition. General Plumer and the Second Army performed tremendous feats at Messines. But then Haig’s great summer offensive, the third battle of Ypres, popularly better known by the name of one of its objectives, Passchendaele, became the very symbol of fruitless slaughter in a hellish sea of mud.
Arras and Messines
On 9 April, Haig attacked at Arras. This was essentially a large-scale diversion intended to keep German reserves pinned in that sector whilst General Nivelle’s master plan unfolded. On the first day the Canadian Corps, fighting as a single cohesive force for the first time, performed magnificently and took Vimy Ridge. This seemingly impregnable bastion had bloodily defied all Allied attempts for the preceding three years. Allenby’s Third Army made astonishing progress on the first day at Arras. Despite the vastly improved bombardment and deep penetrations the British could not capitalise on this initial success. The Germans, resilient as ever, recovered their breath and stood their ground. The battle went grinding on, the same weary and bloody toll of attrition; Allenby losing over four thousand men a day till further attacks were finally called off on 17 May.
Sir Douglas Haig had plans for that approaching summer. He was always of the belief that Flanders was the crucial sector and that it was here the war would be lost and won. His plan for 1917 was an ambitious one. He proposed that a major thrust would secure the higher ground that was crowned by the small town of Passchendaele whilst a strong left hook would punch a path clear towards the Channel ports which could be seized in a coordinated amphibious operation. This was bold indeed and flew in the face of more conservative, purely military concepts of ‘bite and hold’. Haig’s task was an unenviable one for whatever he proposed had to pass a hostile war cabinet and thus he had to dangle the carrot of great gains – almost certainly unattainable.
Before this great offensive could be launched, vital high ground around Messines and Wytschaete, ceded in 1914, had to be won back, a mission entrusted to ‘Daddy’ Plumer. This was indeed a herculean task but the commander of the Second Army was ready. His 30,000 tunnellers had been digging beneath German lines since 1915. Mining was an area where the British had built up vast expertise and a clear superiority. Plumer’s preparations were meticulous.
Logistics and intensive training were undertaken methodically and efficiently. Artillery preparation was far more sophisticated and effective than in the previous year. At 03.10 on the morning of 7 June, 19 great mines exploded beneath Messines Ridge, eruptions of biblical and apocalyptic proportions, which jellified stunned survivors. By Great War standards the battle was a resounding success with moderate losses, an impressive bag of enemy dead and some 7,000 prisoners.
Captain John Evelyn Carr, destined for a role in this offensive, was serving with 11th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters in Flanders in the early part of 1917:
On Easter Monday which was somewhere near the end of March the Germans made a very determined attack on that portion of the line, held by 11th Sherwood Foresters. They came over very suddenly in large numbers, in the early morning just before daylight; they got through our front line and there were heavy casualties on both sides. Some of the Boche got right down to our Battalion HQ. Amongst others who were killed was our adjutant Lieutenant Cavell who was a cousin of Nurse Cavell who was murdered in Brussels. He met the Boche face to face and was shot at arm’s length, a good many of the HQ personnel were also killed with another officer named Thorn. The Germans all carried dozens of egg bombs and had picks and shovels with them, so they’d evidently intended to stay. They were all driven out; either killed or wounded but the operation cost us between 40–50 men and three officers.
By late April, he was assigned in a training role, based at Toronto Camp, and in early May, the drums could clearly be heard, their tempo building: ‘We have come to this area so the brigade can practice for the attack we are to make at the beginning of June. Trenches have all been prepared as near as possible to the German lines we shall have to take which are on Wytschaete Ridge, near Messines.’ Carr was, by this time, attached to Battalion HQ: ‘We were kept very busy and had to do most of our work between six and ten in the morning so the ground would be fully ready. In this village [Boeschepe] cock fighting is carried on and we got to two or three fights while we were here.’ He returned to the line 22/23 May, now as CO of ‘Halifax’ training camp:
Captain Oliver Woodward was a Queensland miner who earned the Military Cross for his service with the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, a battalion of miners and engineers recruited to tunnel silently under the German lines. Their mission was to detonate a massive store of explosives 30 metres underground and plunge the German troops in the trenches above into chaos. At 03.10 on 7 June 1917, their work culminated in what was then the largest man-made explosion in history as a series of 19 underground bombs, totalling 450,000 kg of high explosives were detonated in a mighty eruption that was reportedly felt in London, 200 kilometres away.
It is not very far from Vlamertinghe, the camp was a little distant from my billet and my mess was inside the camp in a hut. On 24th May, Goldman (gas officer) and I went up to Poperinghe for dinner at Skindles. In the middle of dinner the town was bombarded and there was a great panic. One shell hit the building we were in, glass and brick were hurled onto our plates. The waiters quite simply flew down to the cellar and left us all to help ourselves and we did so, especially with the wine! There was a great amount of damage done in Poperinghe and on our way home we noticed one house, the front of which had been ripped clean off and the house opened up from top to bottom with everything, furniture, bedding etc intact. In the dusk and walking along dusty roads we passed long, long lines of transport; a most wonderful sight, miles and miles of men, mules, lorries and carts.
By 26 May, the drums were sounding louder still: ‘Our camps were rather badly shelled this afternoon so we dug some trenches for the men to get into when we are bombarded and thereby saved a good many lives. A band from one of the Welsh regiments was playing in our camp during the afternoon. What an extraordinary contrast when a band plays “Come to my garden of Roses” accompanied by the thundering of the guns! Both camps and dumps were badly hit, 7th Division’s beautiful theatre was absolutely blown away and they lost everything, together with the canteen, YMCA hut and other timber buildings.’
On 5 June the brigade went up into the line: ‘The huge mine at Hill 60 at which miners have been working for the last year or two is to be blown up at 3 a.m. on the 7th. I shall not forget that march. It is a sad sort of feeling for all. The band played ‘Tipperary’ and many other well known tunes, the men were joking all the way along and I felt quite out of it having to come back. Now and then we had a shell near us as we went up. Darkness fell and the voices faded away, the men seemed to have been swallowed up!’ The night of 6/7 June was electric. Everyone knew the offensive was due to unfold and that the mines would explode first:
Captain Payne came along to our bivouac and we sat with our watches on the table. The time for Hill 60 to go was 3.30 a.m. ten minutes before; we filled up our glasses and waited. The time came and, almost to the second, there was a rumbling noise and the whole world seemed to shake. I could see the whisky and water in our glasses quivering for some time but there was no huge report. Mr. Lloyd George at Walton Heath
who said he heard the report must have had his nerves worked up to some pitch as it was a dead sort of noise and how we knew it had gone was by the shaking ground but the noise from the guns after that moment was fearsome and deafening.
On 7 June the assaults drove forward, British gains were impressive and optimism prevailed.
We had a very large haul of prisoners during the day. I cannot remember how many, a curious crowd including many officers who were very surly and resented being examined. The men were very dirty, haggard, hungry and thirsty looking creatures. Some were terrible looking creatures, Russians who the Germans had made fight for them. As soon as they got out of sight of their officers, they became different men and appeared to be very glad to be caught and their spirits rise the further away from the shelling of their own guns they get. Generally, the news was very good and things had gone almost better than we had expected, we’d got well onto Messines Ridge.
Despite the success at Messines, there was no immediate follow-up and Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, commanding German forces in Flanders, was given time to take in the lessons of Messines and strengthen his line accordingly. He was advised by Colonel Fritz von Lossberg, the Vauban of trench warfare. He now created a series of grid fortifications studded with redoubts and fronted by a deep but thinly held outpost line, manned primarily by machine gunners sheltering in blockhouses or ruined farms. These, the elite of the German army, promised to exact a high toll of any attacker before the main line was ever reached.
Tommies: The British Army in the Trenches Page 8