Brave Battalion

by Mark Zuehlke

  Before them the ground proved open, passage easier. Winnipeg fell in a matter of minutes and from there it was a quick dash to Vancouver where the enemy “offered no fight; the Battalion walked unmolested into its final objective.” It was 0215 hours. Major Cyrus Peck arrived minutes later, having kept the battalion’s forward headquarters close on the heels of the rifle companies. Not until 0310 did his message reporting the news reach Leckie’s headquarters. As with all the other objectives, the trenches here had been smashed by the artillery. In one small section a “stretch of the fire step was left upstanding giving a resting place to the crumpled bodies of its defenders, whose blood tinged with redness the water at the bottom of the trench.”

  As dawn lit the sky, Lt. Pete Osler ignited the red flare that signalled success, mounted the parapet, and walked back and forth “waving it on high like the fiery cross of old.” But the battle was not over. Groups of Germans could be seen near the trenches attempting to rally a counterattack. Seeing this, and also spotting a German machine gun nearby, Cpl. Hugh Arthur Rees, a machine gunner with No. 2 team, brought the weapon into action. For the next four hours, as Vancouver was increasingly pounded by German artillery, Rees kept the gun in operation and broke up one attempted counterattack after another even when it became clear the enemy artillery was attempting to zero in on him. Finally a shell found the mark and the crewmen with him were all killed while Rees was badly wounded. It was the first act of heroism that would see the British-born twenty-three-year-old awarded a Military Medal for valour.

  In the light of day, the Canadian Scottish looked back from the heights they held at the battleground crossed during a bloody night. Through “the blur of rain,” they saw “a dreary waste of desolation—sodden earth, water-logged shell-holes, shattered tree stumps, and limp, bedraggled groups of men cautiously picking their way back over the morass into a curtain of watery mist, which entirely obscured the rear area.” They had won at a terrible cost. From June 3 to June 14, the loss of officers—with ten killed—proved the highest number the battalion would sustain in any engagement over the course of the war. So many were dead or wounded that three non-commissioned officers—Gus Lyons, Jas Russell, and J.R.M. Ellis (all given commissions only the night before the battle)—ended up in senior positions—two commanding rifle companies and the third being second-in-command of one.44 During the period June 11- 14, 16th Battalion lost five officers killed and four wounded. Other rank casualties totalled 23 dead, 155 wounded, and 65 missing.45

  The other battalions suffered similar casualty rates and all achieved their objectives at about the same time, so that the Battle of Mount Sorrel was mostly concluded in just a little over an hour. The Germans effectively lost all the ground won on June 2 and the lines were restored as before. During the twelve days when the salient’s survival had hung in the balance, Canadian Corps suffered almost 8,000 casualties while the Germans sustained 5,765. The Canadians and Germans glared at each other for the rest of the summer, in trenches lying 150 yards apart.46 On August 9, the Canadians left the salient and moved to the rear for a short respite before once again marching toward battle.

  In 1915, the Canadian Scottish had spent only three weeks in the salient. This time it served four and a half months. Both sojourns had been costly, but the latest had brought two hundred more casualties than the first and a greater loss of “trusted leaders.” As the Canadian Scottish marched away they timed their step to a new piece of doggerel:

  Far from Ypres I long to be,

  Where the Allemand cannot get me;

  Think of me crouching where the worms creep,

  Waiting for Sergeant to sing me to sleep.

  Sleep? Sergeant—sleep?

  Does anyone sleep?

  They certainly sleep; everyone sleeps,

  But not surely—surely not, Sergeant!

  Not in the Yeep-pres Salient.47

  chapter seven

  Crisis in the Somme

  - AUGUST 9-OCTOBER 11, 1916 -

  The River Somme bisects France’s great northern plain, following a northwesterly course along a broad, marshy valley that leads to the English Channel. South of the river is lowland, while to the north high, rolling chalk grassland is cut laterally by tributaries. In the summer of 1916, the river generally stood between the two combatants with the Germans enjoying the benefit of possessing the higher ground. Between Peronne and Amiens, an eight-mile-long, 500-foot-high ridge running from Thiepval to Morval divided the watersheds of the Somme and its Ancre tributary that drained into the parent river east of Amiens. The Allies called this Pozières Ridge, after a village holding the highest point. Before the war this had been a gentle, bucolic land where farmers retained a somewhat medieval lifestyle—still clustering together in large villages from which they ventured during the day to work the land. Cattle grazed the rolling hills while grain, fodder, and sugar beets sprouted richly from the fertile plains and reclaimed marshes. The forests had been cleared long ago, so only a few scattered woods remained. The valleys created by the Somme and Ancre were home to wide, untamed marshes because both rivers regularly overflowed their banks.

  Summer of 1916 saw this land gripped in the fury of war. In late August, the Canadians began their march to the Somme. The news coming out of the Somme battleground had cast the veterans into a fatalistic mood that even the most naïve reinforcements, those who still believed war a place where heroism and glory could be found, were unable to shrug off.

  There had been no glory found on the Somme since the British Expeditionary Force’s greatest offensive of the war began here on July 1. Despite its grand scope, Field Marshal Douglas Haig’s purpose had been quite limited—to take pressure off the French who were being cut apart at Verdun by killing as many Germans in one place as possible. Slaughter had been the goal.

  The Somme had not been Haig’s first choice for the killing ground. North of the River Lys near Messines some strategic advantage might be won, beyond attrition, if the Germans to the north could be cut off and eliminated. But the French would have had no role to play in an offensive near Messines, and Field Marshal J.J. wanted Tommies and poilus attacking side-by-side. On the Somme, the French would be on the British right flank, and Joffre had won the argument by assuring Haig he would send two armies forward to fight beside the British so that the entire advance would span an incredible 60 miles. Haig distrusted Joffre, had heard such promises before. But the French were allies he could not ignore. Acceding to the Somme strategy, Haig suggested delaying until August 15. The British would have received badly needed reinforcements and alleviated their ammunition shortage by then. There would also be the tank, which the British hoped might loosen the damnable chains of trench warfare.

  No delays, Joffre had shouted. “The French Army would cease to exist” before August.1 They were bleeding to death at Verdun where the Germans had struck the massive fortress on February 1916 with no greater purpose than to kill three Frenchmen for every German. If the fort fell, the way would be open to the Marne River. The French, as German Chief of Staff Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn had known, were forced “to throw in every man they have. If they do so the forces of France will bleed to death.”2

  Bleed the French had, but the Germans had spilled equal amounts. The Verdun battlefront stalemated, with both sides so heavily invested that neither could give way. France met counterattack with counterattack, but by early summer its armies were faltering. Haig must attack. July 1 was agreed.

  By then French losses had become so severe Joffre reneged on his grand promise. He could send only the Sixth Army, comprising eight divisions. Six of these would strike across a six-mile front with the other two in reserve. The modest French commitment made the Somme primarily a British show. Haig committed new troops—the so-called Kitchener’s Army—thirteen Fourth Army divisions with five in reserve and a three-division strong corps from the also newly formed Third Army. To a man, Kitchener’s Army were volunteers. Droves of them had enlisted in early 1915, swelling B
ritish army ranks to more than a million men. Organized into units by geography, most were familiar with the men they served alongside. Sometimes a single company had all walked off the same factory floor together to the recruiting halls. Untainted by the fatalism of veterans in their midst, they headed for the trenches exuding optimism. That same optimism prevailed in the other new units assigned to serve in the two new armies. These were the Territorials from various colonies and included the 1st Newfoundland Regiment.

  Because of the French reductions, the offensive’s front was cut from 60 miles to 28, with its northern flank facing Beaumont-Hamel. Running south from there, the British sector cut across the Ancre River, passed behind Thiepval and Pozières and in front of Albert before curving tightly through the ruin of Fricourt to meet the French boundary at Maricourt. The French line passed through a large marsh on the Somme’s northern bank southward past Dompiere. Facing the Allies were three consecutive trenches protected by two vast wire entanglements, each 30 yards wide. Separating the trenches were 150-yard-wide kill zones. Following the crest of Pozières Ridge at distances ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 yards behind the forward position, a secondary line boasted equally impressive wire obstacles with dugouts 20 to 30 feet deep that could each shelter twenty-five men from artillery bombardment. Although formidable, the defences were lightly held by just five full divisions.

  Fourth Army’s assault would strike a 16-mile-wide front to the left of the French while, on the right, Third Army’s three-division corps would attack five miles north at Gommecourt to pin the German forces there and hopefully serve to decoy reserves away from the main thrust. Fourth Army’s geographic objective was the heights of Pozières Ridge, but Haig’s major aim remained to fix the German defenders in place and butcher them with artillery.3

  To this aim, a seven-day bombardment, which threw in regular discharges of poisonous gas along with the firing of 1.5-million shells, preceded the July 1 attack. Then, at 0730 hours, the troops went over the top only to find the Germans on full alert and seemingly unscathed by the massive bombardment. Kitchener’s Army advanced into a maelstrom of machine-gun fire and all but a few perished in a single day—57,470 men killed, wounded, or missing. The Newfoundland Regiment was decimated in its attack at Beaumont-Hamel, taking 684 casualties, 310 of whom died. Only the French, having fired so few shells that the Germans expected no attack from their quarter, gained their objectives and at relatively little cost.

  For the ensuing two months the battle raged, the British making painful gains that finally gave them a toehold on the ridge when its namesake village was captured by I Anzac Corps in late July. But every inch of ground was won at a staggering cost. By August’s end, the British had suffered 200,000 casualties and the French 70,000. The Germans, ordered to surrender not a single inch of ground, had taken 200,000 casualties. 4 Attrition remained the goal but, as Canadian Corps entered the trenches on September 1, the rate of casualties on both sides seemed tipped moderately against the Allies.

  Haig hoped to re-invigorate the offensive in mid-September with “fresh forces and all available resources.” While Canadian Corps was arguably far from fresh, it was attached to Gen. Sir Hubert Gough’s Reserve Army. This new unit had taken over the northern Somme battlefront so that the badly reduced Fourth Army could shorten its lines. The Canadian front was 3,000 yards wide. To enable 2nd and 3rd Divisions to prepare for their role in the forthcoming offensive, Lt.-Gen. Julian Byng fed only 1st Canadian Division into the line. This extended from Fourth Army’s left flank westward along Pozières Ridge to a point 700 yards west of Mouquet Farm to the east of Thiepval. During their time on this front, the Australians had repeatedly tried wresting the farm—a stronghold anchored on a cluster of deep dugouts—from the Germans without success. Although a last-gasp attempt on September 3 had been repulsed, the Australians had seized a 300-yard-long chunk of Fabeck Graben Trench, which stretched northeastward to Courcelette.

  The 2,000-yard stretch of front that became 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade’s responsibility included the ground before Mouquet Farm and the piece of Fabeck Green. It was poor country for warfare. “Valleys and ridges, broad and narrow, ran into and across each other at all sorts of angles and grades.” A “broad, rough ditch of tumbling chalk zigzagging down the valley, was the wreck of the German trenches; the heaps of ruins on both sides of the Albert-Bapaume road was la Boisselle; the mounds and bare tree stumps to the left, Ovillers; the crater to the right, so huge that a large house might have been easily placed in it, was a mine blown by the British on July 1st .... The hollow, in which la Boisselle lay, ran parallel to the front; Sausage Valley to the right of the village, ran straight toward the trenches. It closed into a bottle neck at the top of the slope, and spread out again into more valleys, pits, and sunken roads, which gave excellent cover to the guns and men defending the area, and made the task of attacking troops difficult and costly.”

  Two forward Canadian Scottish companies entered this hellhole by burrowing into mine craters while the two in reserve set up alongside battalion headquarters in la Boiselle. Somewhere ahead were Australian troops waiting to be relieved, and the gunfire and explosions from that direction meant they were still engaged. Taking over a hot front was a bad scenario. The village was rubble, so acting-commander Major Cyrus Peck and his staff took over a three-storey, fifty-foot-deep German dug-out that had served the Australians before them. Although amply furnished with tables, couches, and upholstered chairs, the place was also damp, filthy, and fetid. Peck worried it was too distant from the front lines to properly control the battalion, but nothing closer was suitable. Streams of Australian ambulances, followed by walking wounded, flowed down the muddy road past the dugout, which did little to lift Peck’s spirits as he set off late on September 3 to hear how the relief was to be carried out.

  The meeting took place at the Australian brigade headquarters. Peck learned that the location of the Australian troops on the front was uncertain because conditions “were chaotic. The enemy was systematically sweeping the area backward and forward with a field-gun barrage. He left no part of it untouched. The ground was churned up beyond recognition by shellfire. The only distinguishable landmarks on it were the mounds of bricks and earth representing Pozières, and “Gibraltar,” the ten-foot-high German observation post on the Bapaume road at the southwesterly edge of the village. None of these features was of assistance in determining front-line positions. There were four badly smashed, second-class roads intersecting the area, but they, if anything, added to the confusion.”5

  To the left, 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade reported having successfully relieved its Australian counterparts the night of August 31. Back at his headquarters, Peck could only send the battalion groping almost blindly through heavy rain toward map co-ordinates where the last Australian positions had been identified. The Canadian Scottish companies soon lost contact with each other, each continually bumping into apparently randomly scattered parties of Australians.

  Back at the dugout, a patrol reported finding a better location for headquarters about a mile closer to the front. But if they moved now, Peck would be out of contact for some time both with brigade headquarters and his own companies. He decided to stay put until the relief was complete.6

  Morning found the 3rd Brigade still relieving the Australians, but the Germans seemed to overlook the opportunity the intermingling of troops might have presented them. The shelling tapered off and no attack materialized as finally the brigade’s three forward battalions deployed within a roughly triangular-shaped front. The Royal Highlanders held the left side, the Canadian Scottish the apex, and the 48th Highlanders the right side. Things were less tidy than the dispositions sounded, for the Can Scots had no contact with the Toronto battalion and nobody knew the width of the gap between.

  The gap still existed the following night when the Germans hit the brigade with a heavy artillery barrage that covered patrols probing its front. Three patrols trying to pierce the Canadian Scottish line
s were repulsed. No. 4 Company’s major, George Lynch, observed that he saw a silver lining presented by these actions, believing they “saved the morale of our men, for, however demoralizing the shellfire, directly the sentries called ‘they’re coming over’ all were on their toes.” But the shelling was deadly and continued through the ensuing day without relent. By the evening of September 5, Lynch’s company had been whittled down from 135 to 53 and many men still standing nursed light wounds but refused evacuation because the situation was so dire. There were “stretches of line … forty to fifty yards long and not a man in them, and our posts consisted of but two to three men.”7

  Again nightfall coincided with intensified shelling and the Can Scots grew desperate. What was left of No. 4 Company had gone three days now without any fresh supply of food or water. They could ward off the hunger by munching a stale and dry bread ration carried into the trenches with them, “but the thirst was the awful thing.” “My throat and mouth felt parched and cracked,” one infantryman wrote his family.

  On the battalion’s left flank, No. 3 Company was hanging in the wind next to the gap and being harassed by German fire from that quarter. Then a shell destroyed the trench facing that direction, killing or wounding all but twelve of the platoon there. That appeared to be the signal for a German bombing attack that tried to overrun the entire company and was only narrowly repulsed. With his shrinking company headquarters section in tow, Major John Hall was forced to duck through one collapsing shelter after another to stay ahead of the marauding Germans. Finally he got word back to Peck that the company needed reinforcement, for if the Germans got serious about this, “the line could not be held.”8