SOMME

by Lyn Macdonald

  General Balfourier was an advocate of classic warfare. He was a soldier of the old school. He had seen no need to modernize his uniform from the style of the attire in which he had graduated from the military college at St Cyr some forty years earlier. In his high-necked blue coat and wide red trousers, looking much as he might have looked had he been a general in the army of Napoleon III halfway through the reign of Queen Victoria, he had shaken his grizzled head in doubt and consternation and, via his liaison officer, Captain Spears, he had sent repeated messages, begging the British to reconsider.

  Captain Spears, weary of fruitless discussions on the same subject, weary of pressing General Balfourier’s case with the passion felt by the General himself, weary of bearing back a succession of diplomatic but repetitious replies, returned on the evening of 13 July, having received Fourth Army’s last word on the matter from the lips of Major-General Montgomery. ‘Tell General Balfourier, with my compliments, that, if we are not on the Longueval Ridge at eight tomorrow morning, I will eat my hat.’ Like Captain Spears, Major-General Montgomery had had enough, but, although he had not intended Captain Spears to repeat the message verbatim, the general jubilation at Fourth Army Headquarters was enhanced by much amusement when General Balfourier telephoned through, with Bastille Day bonhomie, to congratulate Major-General Montgomery on having avoided the unfortunate necessity of making such an indigestible breakfast.

  General Haig had also telephoned his congratulations early in the morning and they were particularly appreciated by Sir Henry Rawlinson for, as he well knew, Haig had shared the misgivings of General Balfourier and he had made his feelings on the matter very clear. They had come as close to altercation as urbanity and military etiquette would allow and, in the end, Rawlinson had had to insist on going ahead with his plan. Now he had been vindicated, and vindicated triumphantly.

  This time there had been no long preliminary bombardment to warn the enemy that the troops were coming. This time there had been no long lines of soldiers advancing in brilliant daylight. The troops had assembled in darkness. Five minutes of brisk and violent bombardment had been sufficient to get the Germans’ heads down and send them to their dugouts and, almost before they had time to realize that it had ceased, before the dawn was more than a grey hint in the sky behind their trenchline, the attack was upon them and on a front of more than three miles the German second line was overwhelmed by Kitchener’s Army.

  Taking off from the northern edge of Mametz Wood, wrested at terrible cost from the enemy’s hands, the troops had wheeled east and captured the woods that protected the villages of Bazentin le Grand and Bazentin le Petit in as many hours as it had taken days to capture Mametz Wood. Launching forward into the mangled remains of Trones Wood, they had driven the Germans out of it and carried on to capture most of the village of Longueval in the shadow of Delville Wood and had even penetrated a little way into the wood itself. Now was the moment to press on, and that, as the 7th Division put it to Fourth Army Headquarters, was precisely what they wished to do.

  The village of Bazentin le Petit was easily cleared. By nine o’clock, all was quiet. Ominously quiet. In the shelter of the sloping ground – hardly worthy of being called a ridge – which rose beyond a valley on the eastern edge of the village, headquarters had been set up in the village cemetery and in the little quarry which lay conveniently beside it. Quickly, and for once unimpeded by shellfire, cables were run down and communications established. Soldiers filtered down from the village to assemble in the valley while, behind them, Royal Engineers set to work immediately to consolidate the captured line. Officers conferred. Patrols were cautiously sent forward to reconnoitre whatever might lie on the other side of the hill. They brought back astonishing reports. There was not a German to be seen. The commanders decided to look for themselves. General Potter of the 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division, with Lieutenant-Colonel Elliott and Major-General Watts, Commander of the 7th Division, were not so foolhardy as to expose themselves by walking along the track at the top of the slope but, hugging the shelter immediately below, clambered along to the ruined windmill, a hundred yards or so to the right. Beneath the jagged outcrop of its rubble, the Germans had constructed a strongpoint with a dugout running deep down, but it had been hastily vacated and was as still and empty as the scene that met their eyes as they squinted across from the shelter of the ruin. They were looking across the gentlest of valleys, where the ridge on which they stood sloped down to a hollow and rose almost imperceptibly to the dark mass of High Wood itself, less than a thousand yards from where they stood, gazing incredulously across fields of waving corn. Here, behind the Germans’ second line, where the seed corn had dropped from ears heavy with grain in the quiet autumn of 1915, the unhusbanded crop of 1916 was growing thick and lush and ripening fast. Some had already been prematurely harvested by the guns and, only hours before, broad tracks had been trampled through it when the Germans had beaten their hasty retreat from Bazentin to the shelter of High Wood. But there were great patches, still untouched, still standing yellow and rich, and, where the earth had been tumbled by shellfire, red poppies shone through the standing corn. Off to the right, shells were screaming on to Longueval village and Delville Wood, the smoke of battle hung thick in the air, but ahead all was quiet. Nothing stirred in the cornfields. High Wood was silent.

  The officers grew bolder. Tentatively at first, and then, with rising confidence, they walked down to the little valley, stopped prudently halfway across in the concealment of a low chalk bank and, peering through binoculars, surveyed the land ahead. Then they crossed the cornfield almost to the edge of High Wood. Not a shot was fired. High Wood was empty.

  Jubilant, excited, and anxious to push ahead, they almost ran back to the line. The troops were fresh and ready to go, General Watts had a brigade of fresh troops in reserve and he could get all four battalions across within the hour, with more ready to follow.

  Fifteenth Corps Headquarters – although congratulatory – was not impressed with his plan. They had a plan of their own, or rather, GHQ had a plan, and Thirteen Corps had no choice but to fall in with it. If they were correct in the belief that the enemy had retired, it would be pointless to send the infantry forward to take possession of the wood. An infantryman can move only as fast as his feet will carry him; a cavalryman can move as fast as his horse, and therefore they must wait for the cavalry – the fast-moving mobile arm which could exploit the breakthrough and, who knows, with the infantry behind them, could speed through High Wood, fan out to Martinpuich, and gallop through le Sars to the very gates of Bapaume. It was a chance too good to be missed and it was the chance that both Rawlinson and Haig had been waiting for.

  It was unfortunate that the cavalry did not arrive until five o’clock in the evening. For two weeks now they had been ready, waiting and eager to go – but the Indian Cavalry, which had been earmarked for the job of pushing through in this locality, if the opportunity arose, was waiting at Morlancourt, and Morlancourt, four miles south of Albert, was separated from High Wood by many miles of shell-battered ground. It took the cavalrymen a long time to negotiate it. They had started to move forward not long after eight o’clock in the morning, and by midday they should have been at Carnoy, just behind the old front line of 1 July, a good seven kilometres from High Wood but with a clear run towards it from the left of Montauban. By a quarter-past twelve, although the fight still raged a mile away at Longueval, High Wood and the valley beyond still lay tranquil under the hot noon sun.

  At Fourth Army Headquarters there were anxious conferences. In the absence of the cavalry, should the 7th Division be sent forward to occupy the wood? Yes. The order was issued and almost immediately cancelled in the light of new information that Longueval village had not been completely captured. Now the cavalry was reported to be arriving in the Carnoy valley, but would it not be dangerous to send them forward on a great gallop across open country towards High Wood when they would have to pass between Longueval and Bazentin le Grand
? It was unfortunate that early reports had been misleading and that it now appeared that part of the wood north of the village was still holding out. Could they commit the cavalry, fast moving though it was, to pass between the Scylla and Charybdis of two embattled points where the enemy was acting in a manner that was very far from tranquil and where the situation was not, as yet, fully understood? It was decided to hold the cavalry back and to wait.

  Like the calm epicentre of a whirlpool, the corn in front of High Wood waved on throughout the long afternoon.

  Slowly, cautiously, unable to believe their good fortune, the Germans filtered back into High Wood and took up defensive positions, and snipers and machine-gunners crawled out in front to lie low among the thick corn, on the qui vive, for the first hint of attack.

  It had been such a day of confusion, of orders and counter-orders, of brilliant successes and partial reverses, that in the hasty issuing of last-minute orders it was not entirely surprising that some failed to reach the units concerned. The 33rd Division arrived in the area at two o’clock in the afternoon when the situation was at its most muddled and were happily ensconced in the devastated valley at Fricourt, a good seven kilometres away, and they were resting before moving up to the front line early in the evening. The only orders their Divisional General had yet received were that they were to attack through the 21st Division the following day and to consolidate the line beyond High Wood after the cavalry had swept across it and put its German garrison to rout.

  For the infantry, there was time enough to rest for a bit, but their guns were already moving forward up the newly constructed plank road to positions less than a thousand yards behind the new front line. Ahead of them went Second Lieutenant Fred Beadle. As Forward Observation Officer in the Divisional Artillery, his job was to survey the ground and to assess the target so that the guns might be ranged and registered for the barrage that would usher the infantry across. Accompanied by a signaller to send back information to the battery, he went up through the battlefield. It was a long trek over unfamiliar ground. Even a map was not much of a help and in a maze of captured trenches it was not surprising that they lost direction. Where two half-obliterated tracks met at Crucifix Corner they took the wrong road, and, instead of leading to the forward observation post in the British line, the old German communication trench led directly to the corner of High Wood. It also led, late in the afternoon, to Fred Beadle’s first encounter, face to face, with the enemy, for the Germans were reconnoitring, and one man well out in front of the patrol was creeping down from High Wood as stealthily as Fred Beadle and his signaller were creeping towards it in the opposite direction.

  2nd Lieutenant F. W. Beadle, Royal Artillery, 159th Brigade, 33rd Division

  I had no idea that we were so near the Germans, but the mass of trenches there were so involved that we had the utmost difficulty and really were simply taking a chance. There was a terrific noise going on with shellfire and it seemed to me extraordinary that this trench was more or less abandoned. We were being very cautious as we went and I had my revolver at the ready – ready for trouble! Then, as we turned the corner of one of the traverses of the trench, there, approaching me, was a German soldier armed with a rifle. The extraordinary thing was that he had his rifle slung on his shoulder and the other odd thing was that he was wearing an overcoat and this was July, although it had been showery.

  He saw me at exactly the same time as I saw him and he raised his rifle, but he must have been impeded by this overcoat because he couldn’t get it up to his shoulder quick enough. I knew jolly well that if he had I should have caught it. It was either him or me. It was the first time I’d ever fired my revolver in anger, so to speak. The first time I’d ever seen a German soldier, apart from prisoners. I killed him with one shot.

  I felt nothing. All I felt was relief. I knew I had no option, but I didn’t stop to think of the morality. It was either him or me. Afterwards, I often wondered who he was and where he’d come from and whether he was married and whether he had any family. I’ve thought about that very often but, at the time, I didn’t think of anything except where on earth were we, and where on earth was the infantry we were supposed to contact?

  It seemed incredible that the German had been on his own. But his companions, if he had had any, alerted by the shots in front, had beaten a hasty retreat. Five long minutes passed. Resisting the temptation to scuttle back down the trench, Beadle carefully raised himself above the parapet and looked across. He saw with horror that he had brought his signaller more than two-thirds of the way across the valley to within three hundred yards of High Wood, and as he looked he saw the cavalry galloping into action. They were the Deccan Horse, and the 7th Dragoon Guards, and, far across the valley, the infantry were moving towards the northern corner of High Wood to support them.

  It was seven in the evening, and the British were attacking more than twelve hours after the Germans had been driven back across the meadows and cornfields to the shelter of High Wood.

  2nd Lieutenant F. W. Beadle, Royal Artillery, 159th Brigade, 33rd Division

  It was an incredible sight, an unbelievable sight, they galloped up with their lances and with pennants flying, up the slope to High Wood and straight into it. Of course they were falling all the way because the infantry were attacking on the other side of the valley furthest away from us, and the cavalry were attacking very near to where we were. So the German machine-guns were going for the infantry and the shells were falling all over the place. I’ve never seen anything like it! They simply galloped on through all that and horses and men dropping on the ground, with no hope against the machine-guns, because the Germans up on the ridge were firing down into the valley where the soldiers were. It was an absolute rout. A magnificent sight. Tragic.

  The cavalry had advanced in classic historic style with lances glistening in the sun. They entered High Wood. They killed a number of infantry and machine-gunners in the crops in front of it, and killed them with the lance. They captured thirty-two prisoners. When darkness fell they lined the road between Longueval and the corner of High Wood, and held this position through the night. Some must have wondered what had become of their comrades. The fact was that the two remaining cavalry brigades had never left the rendezvous and were now ordered to go ‘back to bivouac’. The First and Third Cavalry Divisions waiting all day well south of Albert had received no order at all. The casualties that the cavalry inflicted on the Germans were precisely two less than the casualties they themselves had suffered. The troops were in High Wood – but only just, and now the Germans were answering back with all the fire power they could muster.

  By seven o’clock the 33rd Division was in position at Bazentin with the 100th Brigade in front ready, according to the orders they had received, to ‘attack through the 21st Division’ on the following morning, and they were feeling distinctly uneasy now with the noise hammering from the other side of the slope and shells falling a great deal too close for comfort. At a quarter to eight, while Beadle and his shaken companion were scuttling back, this time in the right direction, Brigadier-General Baird, having seen his troops disposed and having made contact with the 21st Division, now received a nasty surprise. He visited the headquarters of the 91st Brigade in the 7th Divisional sector on his right and he was not greeted with open arms. It came as news to the Brigadier that the 7th Division had been told that his troops would be supporting them, that they had been expected to take part in the attack which was even now in progress and, not to put too fine a point upon it, where the hell had they been and where the hell were they now?

  They were bivouacked along the western edge of the wood behind Bazentin le Petit, but they did not stay there for long. Baird had had enough of Army, enough of Corps and even enough of Division. He did not even trouble to refer to HQ for revised orders. There was no time to shilly-shally. On his own responsibility, he ordered two battalions of the 100th Brigade forward to hold the dangerous gap that now existed in the line between High Wood a
nd Bazentin le Petit. So, on the right of the valley, the Glasgow Highlanders moved up into the communication trench so recently and hurriedly vacated by Fred Beadle and, on the left of the valley, the 1st Queen’s took up a line along a sunken road. By midnight he had succeeded in moving both battalions into those positions. Only then, as an afterthought, he transmitted a brusque uncompromising message to Divisional Headquarters, informing them that he had done so. Darkness had fallen, the Germans were back in High Wood and all night the shelling and the fighting never abated.

  The 16th Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, although part of the 100th Brigade, had remained behind and were glad of the respite of a night’s comparative rest, even in the open air, even on the qui vive, even with the din of shelling in front of them at High Wood and away to the right at Longueval and Delville Wood. They were the ‘Black Buttoned Bastards’ of the 100th Brigade and were as proud as the Rifle Brigade of the traditions of their adopted regiment and of their quick step and rifleman’s bearing. Like the 13th Rifle Brigade, the 16th King’s Royal Rifle Corps were merely Riflemen ‘for the duration’ but this did not deter them from patronizing the Rifle Brigade in the well-founded knowledge that they were the senior regiment, nor from perpetuating the traditional rivalry between the regiments which, since 1858, had expressed itself in emotions ranging from friendly sparring to downright animosity. Even the Kitchener’s Battalions of the Rifle Brigade had been quick to learn the taunting words that went with their regimental march, composed by some wag years before any of them had been born and they were quick to launch into it whenever they came within jibing distance of a battalion of The King’s Royal Rifle Corps.