Now, on the eve of the long-planned campaign, the Commander-in-Chief, with his Chiefs of Intelligence, was about to move to Advanced Headquarters for the duration of the battle. A château had been prepared for him at Beauquesne, fifteen miles behind the battle-line. Meanwhile, Sir Douglas Haig was on his way to church.
Some boys were kicking a ball around on the patch of grass in front of the bridge that crossed the moat to the massive citadel, where a pair of immaculate sentries stamped and strutted beneath the Union Jack, fluttering above the postern gate. They stopped to nudge each other and to admire as the small group of horsemen clattered by. Raymond Wable, thirteen years old and home for the weekend from his school at Berck Plage, noticed that they seemed to shine in the sunlight – polished buttons, polished belts, high-polished riding boots, glistening harness and burnished silver spurs against the glossy coats of the horses. ‘‘Aig,’ they whispered to each other, their eyes swivelling towards the sentries in delighted anticipation of the full ‘Present Arms’.
But the destination of the Commander-in-Chief was not the citadel; it was a modest wooden barrack, twenty yards away on the ramparts, and the flag that fluttered above its modest entrance was the blue and white of the St Andrew’s cross, announcing that this was the Church of Scotland Hut. Meticulously punctual, Sir Douglas Haig had arrived with just two minutes to spare before the start of the Sunday morning service. He was in need of a little quiet meditation.
The Reverend Mr Duncan had prepared his sermon with some care. He preached on a text from Chronicles, ‘Yea, I will go in the power of the Almighty God,’ and he drew from these words a simple theme. God is ever present. His plans rule the Universe. We are merely tools in His hands, used for a special purpose. The Commander-in-Chief listened intently. Duncan’s words struck a chord in his mind and, later that day, he carefully noted the details of the sermon. ‘He quoted a saying of Abraham Lincoln’s when asked if he was sure The Lord was with him. He replied that the important point was that “he should be on the side of The Lord”. Mr Duncan also told the story of how, before the attack began, the Scots knelt down in prayer on the battlefields of Bannockburn in 1314. Altogether it was a most inspiring sermon.’
Sir Douglas Haig was a devout man. He was worried about the battle. He was uplifted, even reassured, by the re-statement of one of the tenets of his simple faith. At the door of the hut, shaking hands with the minister after the service, with one ear cocked towards the distant murmur of the bombardment seventy miles away on the Somme, the Commander-in-Chief was struck by a happy thought. Would Mr Duncan care to accompany him when he moved to Advanced Headquarters for the forthcoming battle? Mr Duncan was ‘very pleased at the idea’. He would have forty-eight hours to make his arrangements. On Tuesday, the Commander-in-Chief would be moving to Beauquesne.
All across the seventy miles that separated GHQ at Montreuil from the front, in fields and meadows beyond the tumbledown barns and cottages of some hundreds of villages where the troops were encamped, the routine church parades took on a special significance on this last Sunday before the men went into battle. Just as the Church of Scotland Minister at Montreuil had sought to inspire the Commander-in-Chief, padres of all denominations had cast round for themes that would encourage and sustain the men through the ordeal ahead. Most of them automatically struck on the same choice of hymns. Fight the Good Fight and Onward Christian Soldiers were usually selected as being the most appropriate note to wind up the service before the men marched off. The 6th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment sang them both at their service in the orchard at Puchevillers before marching off to dismiss for dinners and an afternoon of comparative leisure.
There had been no parades for several days. ‘Enjoy yourselves,’ Colonel Wade had said and, after months of heavy training, the implication of this benevolence was not lost on the troops. There was a wholesale exodus to Beauquesne and, on the philosophical principle that there was no point in going into battle with money in your pocket, champagne corks popped merrily in its cafés all afternoon. The less affluent played cricket or simply indulged in horseplay in the orchard. The favourite pastime which, even after two months’ ragging and rough and tumble, still amused a few, was ‘testing’ the efficiency of the new tin helmets by assaulting hard-headed volunteers with whatever implements were to hand – entrenching tools, knobkerries, or even spades. After ‘casualties’ amounting to one fractured skull and several cases of concussion the Colonel had forbidden this pastime, but the risk of retribution merely added spice to the proceedings and, if some amateur bookie was willing to give odds, the amusement of a mild flutter. Serious gamblers huddled round the forbidden Crown and Anchor board, set up in a discreetly distant corner of the orchard, and soldiers, at a loose end, strolled through the village, up the country road and gathered in curious groups outside the empty tents of the newly erected casualty clearing station, to indulge in the time-honoured holiday entertainment of watching other people at work. A little distance from the big marquees, the orderlies were hard at it. They were digging graves. The wags of the battalion, with heavy witticism aimed at the new recruits, speculated ghoulishly on who was destined to occupy them.
Forty-eight hours before the march-off there were a thousand details to be seen to and Colonel Wade had called a meeting of his officers to discuss them and to detail those who were to be left behind. Six officers and extra detachments of bombers, Lewis-gunners, signallers and scouts were to march off with the battalion but would stay behind at Bouzincourt ready to move forward to replace casualties. The main body was ordered to Thiepval – not to attack it but, timing their arrival for Zero plus two hours, to pass through the triumphant ranks of the 36th Ulsters of the first wave and to stride on to consolidate the third objective and wait there for the next move.
Now that the maps were actually being distributed, the next move looked interesting. The first was a mere leaflet, a sketchy affair covering three miles at most and showing the area behind and in front of the first three familiar objectives. The officers glanced at it with passing interest and turned their attention to the more beguiling attractions of the maps which only the senior officers would carry into action. They were large maps and, on the scale of one inch to a thousand yards, they illustrated the fifty miles of country between Douai and St Quentin and the thirty miles that lay between it and Bapaume.
There was no Sunday rest for the Gunners. The field guns, ranged in batteries a thousand yards behind the front, and the line of heavy siege guns a mile or so to the rear, were pounding the German defences sending over 150,000 shells non-stop every twenty-four hours. They went on firing until the recoil buffers of some field guns snapped under the strain. They fired until the breeches were so red hot that they had to be broken open with an axe. And they were firing precisely to programme, for the barrage tables issued to each battery were as finely delineated as the detailed orders to which every battalion of the infantry was expected to adhere.
The ‘heavies’ in the rear were entrusted with the main task of pulverizing the German trenches and dugouts with shells so numerous and so huge that, if you watched carefully, you could see them in flight on the lowest part of their trajectory as they left the muzzles of the guns. The infantry and the gunners of the field artillery within sight of the Germans, watching the awesome effect of the bombardment, were moved to feel pity for the men caught up in it.
Sheltering in a deep dugout in the Wunderwerk, passing the terrible hours of waiting by scribbling in his diary, young Freiwilliger Eversmann of the 143rd Regiment of Infantry, found that it was not quite deep enough to protect his nerves.1
They went at it left and right with heavy calibre guns and hammered us with shrapnel and light calibre pieces. Only with difficulty and distress have we obtained rations today. Two of my comrades got fatal hits while fetching dinner. One of them was Drummer Ollersch, of Gelschenkirchen, a dear chap – three days back from leave and there he’s gone…
25 June, 7 o’clock: The barra
ge has now lasted thirty-six hours. How long will it go on?
9 o’clock: A short pause of which we avail ourselves to bring up coffee. Each man got a portion of bread.
10 o’clock: Veritable Trommelfeuer. In twelve hours’ shelling they estimate that 60,000 shells have fallen on our battalion sector… When will they attack? Tomorrow or the day after? Who knows?
27 June, 4 a.m.: Ran to the cookhouse and fetched coffee, some having been brought up. There was also some bread to be had. By 6 o’clock the fire had increased and soon we had a headache. But, sit tight, it cannot last much longer. They say their munitions will soon be done… There must be an end sometime to this horrible bombardment…
But the British gunners were not having it all their own way. On the other side of the line, a little distance to the south, Sergeant Frank Spencer was also keeping a diary and recording remarkably similar experiences:
Sergeant Frank Spencer, No. 1113, C Bty., 152nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
25 June: Lovely morning. Once again still heavy bombardments being carried out on either side. We were shelled for three and a half hours and had to cease our own firing and taking sights to seek refuge in tunnels. One gunner was slightly hit and the adjoining battery on our left was shelled very heavily (several casualties). Myself and four gunners now venture to fetch dinner and we have to dodge the shells which are falling down like rain upon us. We all had to jump into a cable trench. Although the soup is not absolutely spoilt, it is filled with chalk from bursting shells which are again chiefly directed towards C Battery.
26 June, Monday: Bombardments all night.
27 June: Bombardment continues no more than was expected. We still have further trouble due to springs going again, so two more guns are exchanged with ordnance. One was badly damaged as well as having springs broken due to the extraordinary strain from incessant firing. We bombarded all night.
28 June 1916: Bombardment continued. The coming attack is practised on German front lines with heavy curtain fire and ‘lifts’ at a pre-arranged moment. The infantry raid the enemy lines to report the damage done and bring back with them prisoners from whom we hope to gain some valuable news… Our wire was well cut, but the left division had not cut theirs very well.
The field artillery had been schooled and trained in its role with the same scrupulous attention to detail as the infantry had been trained in theirs, for it was the artillery which would orchestrate the battle and the success or failure of the infantry would depend on its playing its part to the full. This had been made very clear to the infantry:
CO-OPERATION OF ARTILLERY WITH INFANTRY
The ideal is for the artillery to keep their fire immediately in front of the infantry as the latter advances, battering down all opposition with a hurricane of projectiles. The difficulties of observation, especially in view of dust and smoke… the probable interruption of telephone communications between infantry and artillery… renders this idea very difficult to obtain.
Experience has shown that the only safe method of artillery support during an advance, is a fixed timetable of lifts to which both the infantry and artillery must rigidly conform.
This timetable must be regulated by the rate at which it is calculated the infantry can reach their successive objectives:1
The calculations had been made with meticulous care. The shallow scratchings on the practice grounds that simulated German trenches had been laid out on the same scale as the known trench system of the enemy.
Stop watches in hand, Staff Officers had watched the Tommies blundering in full battle gear across the carefully measured ground, had timed them and, making allowance for the actual conditions of battle, had made their provisions accordingly.
The guns would operate in a series of carefully planned ‘lifts’. For the last hour before the attack, the bombardment would fall with redoubled intensity on the enemy’s front line – lifting at Zero to rake forward to his second line and to shell it for precisely as long as it would take the infantry to subdue the first defences and start off for the second. Travelling ahead of the infantry in a series of flea-hops, raining shells on successive lines of German positions, the guns would so prepare the way that all the infantry would have to do would be to take possession of what remained of the trenches and capture such of their defenders as had miraculously survived.
It worked superbly on paper. It would only work on the battlefield if both troops and gunners worked so rigorously hand in hand and adhered so exactly to the timetable that there was no room for error, no room for manoeuvre and no question of failure. The Army thundered instructions accordingly:
No changes must be made in the timetables by subordinate formations without reference to Corps Headquarters or confusion is sure to ensue.
The warning was reasonable enough. Having completed its part in the massed preliminary bombardment, when the attack started the artillery of each division was to pass back to the ‘command’ of its Divisional General. But he would not be in a position to know what was happening to his neighbours on either side and, if he adjusted his own fire-power to suit the position of his own men, the ‘overs’ might fall, with disastrous results, on other troops who were further ahead or less advanced than those in his own battle-line. It was no secret that the guns were getting ‘tired’ with incessant firing, that they were unreliable and that the gunners were still, for the most part, inexperienced. No matter how carefully they calculated ranges, their firing could not always be described as accurate.
Charlie Burrows, who belonged to the 7th Divisional Artillery and had been firing guns in France and Belgium since October 1914, was firing, for the first time, with sufficient ammunition.
Gunner Charles E. Burrows, 104th Bty., 22nd Brigade, RFA, 7th Division (his diary)
Fritz spots our position and shells us heavily. One gunner blown to pieces, one sergeant and one gunner wounded. One gunpit wrecked by a direct hit and the gun is out of action. They shell us continually for three hours. They get a few hits on our gunpit and smother us with shell-holes. We have a few anxious moments as we have about a thousand rounds of shells in our pits, high explosives. If they had hit us we would all have blown to pieces. They stopped suddenly. We are very relieved and very lucky. We afterwards heard that our heavies had got on to that battery and finished them. There is a quiet time for a short period, and we tidy the position and send the wrecked gun away, and get a new one the same night. Our heavies very busy. I was nearly wounded in the morning from the 25th Battery on our left rear by a premature shell. Something struck me on the left arm but glanced off quickly. Our section fire all night. Heavy artillery fire on both sides the whole night.
26 June: Battery fire all day. All our artillery keep up the bombardment. We have had no sleep for nights. Heard the infantry made another series of raids last night. They were after information.
28 June: Heavy rain last night and tonight towards evening. Bombardment still on. Our section fire all night on the 28th. No sleep for two nights. Still wire cutting.
The week which had started off with a fine Sunday and Monday, gradually deteriorated to chilly, showery weather, unseasonable for late June, hampering the work of the gunners ranging on distant targets and misting the eyes of the Royal Flying Corps as they tried to assess the effects of the bombardment. Because of the weather, the attack was postponed for forty-eight hours.
Whatever the feelings of the infantry, officers of the artillery were glad of this postponement. There was no doubt that they would have to be more sparing with ammunition, that the bombardment would have to be lightened, if they were not to be short of shells in the battle itself; on the other hand there were now two more days to devote to the all important task of wire-cutting.
Major J. Marshall-Cornwall, GSO (Intelligence Officer), GHQ Staff. (Now General Sir James Marshall-Cornwall, KCB, CBE, DSO, MC)
The infantry had in front of them a triple line of German defences which went back from the front line for six or eight kilometres –
three lines of defence, each defended by a chain of concrete pillboxes, which were machine-gun posts, surrounded by acres of barbed-wire entanglements. The whole thing depended on our artillery being able first of all to locate and then smash up the concrete machine-gun posts and then with the field guns to sweep away the wire entanglements. This was the primary essential. Well, bombardments started with 1,500 British guns – 450 of them were heavies – but, unfortunately, the weather broke. For five days out of the six of the bombardment there was low cloud and drizzle. Air observation was impossible and artillery observation was very hampered. The fact was that neither did they pinpoint the machine-gun posts opposite them, they also failed to cut the wire and the failure of the cutting of the wire was most disastrous.
Our procedure at that time was to use a shrapnel shell which burst about twenty feet above the ground and the hail of bullets going forward when the shell burst in the air swept away the wire entanglements. But it all depended on the accurate setting of the time fuze which ignited the shrapnel shells and our munition factories were only just getting into full swing. There were a lot of manufacturing faults in the fuzes. They didn’t all burn the right length and, I’m afraid, a lot of the half-trained gunners of the New Army Divisions didn’t set the fuzes exactly accurate. The fact was that many of the shells burst too high and the bullets dropped into
The Line from Gommecourt to Thiepval
The Line from Thiepval to Montauban
the ground, and the fuze didn’t work and it buried itself into the ground so the wire was left.1
2nd Lieutenant Kenneth Page, MC, 40 Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
I was in charge of a section of an 18-pounder battery and we were given the job of cutting lanes through the German wire. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. You had to do it very slowly and very deliberately. You would go on plugging away at one short stretch of wire, you see, and, bearing in mind that there was wire all the way along the front, the tendency was for a gap to get cut here and then a gap got cut a little way along there and the infantry had obviously got to get through this wire, so they tended to get in the gaps and, if the Germans knew the gaps were there – after all they’d watched them being cut – they could line their machine-guns up to cover them.
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