by Lloyd, Nick
This army really was a bit of a deadweight to get going, not entirely believing in its success and it’s the one which got things rolling because the others had even less confidence in it . . . I had to get angry and I never do so during battle; I had to threaten, and it’s the first time; had to order the Major-Generals to get on their horses with their staff and to ride at the front of the main body of the army, tearing themselves away from the disastrous headquarters where they draft the progress reports so well.
Mangin’s aggression and confidence may not have been welcomed in the French Army, but he was much loved by the Americans. One captain who served at his headquarters told him that, in America, Mangin was their ‘idol’ and he would do well to go to the United States after the war to ‘receive honours’.29 Another observer found him to be ‘quick and wiry’, who constantly suggested ‘an English fox terrier’. He was ‘a bundle of vigour, nerve, and activity. His manner was very friendly, his words quick, brief, and incisive. He spoke with great clearness: and you knew what he had said.’30
Mangin was mightily pleased with Tenth Army’s achievements, recording in his diary, rather immodestly, that ‘my plan succeeded perfectly’. Almost smelling out German weakness, like the terrier he always reminded people of, Mangin wanted to push on. He was, however, increasingly concerned whether he would get any reserves; indeed, whether the French Army had enough left to continue the battle. He admitted on 22 August that ‘it is most annoying that I did not have the necessary forces’ to take advantage of the situation, and two days later at a conference with his Army Group commander, General Fayolle, he appealed for more troops to continue the attack. ‘I will still be able to do something but they don’t want to understand what harm is being caused by the process which consists of doling things out a bit at a time instead of putting at my disposal everything I’m asking for.’ He saw Pétain on 27 August and urged him to push on, but he was increasingly aware that High Command was ‘nervous’ and lacked ‘the steadfastness which could become necessary’ in future operations. Mangin had to do his best with whatever resources Pétain gave him.31
For Fayolle and his chief, Pétain, there was no question of giving Mangin ‘everything he asked for’. The objective was to keep the front moving and to follow the enemy, but little more. There would be no more deep penetrations into the German position, only gradual, fully supported operations that were as risk-free as possible. Let the Americans and the tanks take the strain, Pétain was fond of saying; and in August and September 1918 he was able to do this. Some of his army commanders, most notably Mangin, may have wanted to push further, deeper and more aggressively, but Pétain kept them on a tight leash. Risks could no longer be justified. On 17 August, Debeney, whose force had been gradually moving up on Rawlinson’s right flank, issued orders which underlined the care with which French commanders now had to take in offensive operations.
I stress again the importance of the artillery fire. The destruction one by one of the German batteries is a gain of absolute value. We advance as a result of superiority in fire power. Hence, the capital importance of careful regulation of the use of ammunition; we should consume only what is strictly necessary at any given moment, forbidding all useless firing. Since we have the benefit of the initiative, the artillery should carefully regulate its fire, strike hard and to the point, and expend little. We shall continue to employ the infantry in the same manner: to push into the advance what is necessary, leaving the remainder resting in the rear, but relieving the leading units before they are worn out.32
Foch might try and prod Pétain on every so often, urging him to grip his commanders and inject some urgency into the attack, but many of the senior command positions were held by men, like Debeney and Fayolle, who had come to prominence under Pétain and shared his caution. In the last weeks of August, French forces followed up the German retreat, and apart from minor skirmishes encountered little resistance from their rearguards. From 8 September, advance guards began to enter the German zone of fire and were thus ‘obliged to become more cautious in their advance’, moving forward more slowly and making sure areas were clear before pushing on.33 It was not spectacular, but it was enough; the Allies were finally on their way.
5. ‘The incredible roar of massed guns’
We’re in the land of rotting men in the Year of Our Lord, 1918.
Edward Lynch1
21–31 August 1918
As Foch had been promised, the Allied attacks would go on. By the final weeks of August, the British and French Armies found themselves facing devastated countryside, littered with cemeteries and old dug-outs, shattered villages and splintered woods. While the British looked grimly upon the old Somme battlefield, their French allies, to the south, marched through a strip of tortured ground that had been razed by the Germans in 1917. It was a time-consuming and treacherous business. General Eugène Debeney, commanding First Army, remembered the suffering his troops endured as they moved through this awful sector. The terrain was ‘full of shell holes, all the houses destroyed, ruins, nothing but ruins in the midst of which the steel skeletons of the refineries stretched their great bare arms up towards a grey sky’. They were advancing towards Saint-Quentin but the destruction they encountered was ‘methodical’. Even the fruit trees, Debeney swore, had been cut down. ‘For six weeks we had to fight our way forward in this dismal desert, battling at night with a veritable invasion of voles, which made sleep impossible.’ His men were also ‘ravaged by influenza’, which, he admitted, was ‘a great burden to us’. His men endured this ordeal with ‘remarkable courage’.2
Like Pétain, Debeney was, at heart, a realist. One acquaintance described him as ‘a typical-looking French officer: black hair, black moustache, military in deportment, and neat in dress; well kept, handsome, and of pleasing manners: very keen and alert and with sharp but kindly eyes’. He had apparently served so long with Pétain that he retained some of his master’s ‘noble fatalism’; receiving ‘ill news as quietly as good . . . his judgment did not seem to be unsettled by either’.3 Debeney was confident his troops would ‘put their backs’ into breaking the Hindenburg Line, which lay in front of them, but doubted whether they would be able to go much further, believing that the Germans would fall back to the Meuse, thus ensuring the war would drag on through a long winter campaign. These sober judgements stood in sharp contrast to those of Douglas Haig, whom he met regularly at this time. Despite the poor conditions and the continuing stubborn resistance from the enemy, Haig was convinced that much could be achieved before the end of the year. After Amiens, Debeney wrote, Haig ‘could clearly see all the possible consequences of the victory and he immediately pursued them, in spite of all the obstacles, with conviction and a stubborn will to defeat the enemy and to finish the war before the end of the year’. By 21 August the British were ready for their renewed push.
Two days before the attack was to go in, Haig met the commander of Third Army, Sir Julian Byng, and explained his thoughts on the coming operation. Haig was upbeat and urged Byng to keep up the pressure on the German line. His objective, Haig explained, was to ‘break the Enemy’s front, and gain Bapaume as soon as possible . . . Now is the time to act with boldness, and in full confidence that, if we only hit the Enemy hard enough, and continue to press him, he will give way and acknowledge that he is beaten.’4 For his part, Byng was a little more cautious than Haig would have liked, but prepared to do his best. Three corps would push forward between Albert and Arras against the battered Seventeenth Army commanded by General Otto von Below. Third Army had not made any alterations to its usual routine. There had been no obvious artillery preparation or extra road building, and no greater use of wireless communications. Everything was done to give the impression that it was just another day at the front. Troops were moved up at night, reinforcing artillery batteries were carefully hidden in woods and villages, while aircraft flew low over the lines drowning out the noise of approaching tanks. The ‘Amiens method’ was now standard opera
ting procedure in the BEF.5
The attack began at dawn on 21 August, a day of mist and cool breezes across Picardy. As at Amiens, the attacking battalions were both helped and hampered by thick, grey fog that covered the battlefield like a shroud. While certainly interfering with German observation, it made it very difficult for the assaulting waves to maintain their correct direction: several tanks got lost; some groups, including two belonging to the Grenadier Guards, became hopelessly confused and were eventually found behind their support companies. During the day Third Army secured a number of objectives, including the villages of Courcelles and Moyenneville, and had pushed forward about three miles, but after running into heavy artillery fire, the leading units were unable to go much further. The tanks, shuffling along in support, also suffered heavy losses.6 At first glance it might have seemed that nothing much had been achieved; after all they had not broken through like at Amiens. Gone were the mass use of tanks and the joyful sight of lines of Germans retreating over open, rolling countryside. Tanks could only be employed in small numbers, often not at all. Now the enemy could not be seen, other than the occasional glimpse of sinister grey-clad figures manning thin trenches or sunken roads, like wraiths in the distance. Nevertheless, these battles were important and effective; part of a gruelling series of engagements, messy and not always successful, that brought the Allied armies to a position where they could assault the last German defensive position in the west: the much-vaunted Hindenburg Line.
Typical of the experience of Third Army was 5th Division, which contained Tom Cotterill’s battalion, the 15/Royal Warwickshire Regiment. This division was in almost constant action between 21 August and 4 September, pushing eastwards along the Bapaume Road, watching its flanks, taking prisoners, and dealing with the occasional machine-gun position. It advanced over fourteen miles, but suffered casualties of 210 officers and 4,065 men. This was, as the divisional history admitted, ‘severe’, but not ‘out of proportion to the results gained’.7 The division had attacked on 21 August as it pushed on towards Achiet-le-Petit and the Albert–Arras railway line that ran parallel to Third Army’s front. The morning was foggy, and the division encountered the usual problem of keeping direction in the haze. Good progress was achieved, however, and the division was assisted by twelve Mark IV tanks and a creeping barrage provided by the field artillery. Two days later it was the turn of 13 Brigade, containing 15/Warwicks, to continue the advance. Its attack on 23 August was hampered by familiar problems: not enough time to reconnoitre and prepare adequately; poor ground conditions; and the need for combined arms and personal bravery. It was also conducted at night, which meant that organizing the battalions proved more difficult than usual. A brigade report concluded that:
The artillery had been advancing during the day, and a barrage was organised. Owing to the width of the front to be attacked the barrage could only be a thin one, but what there was of it was reported after the battle to have been extremely good . . . The whole operation was rendered extremely difficult owing to the very short time available to get battalions into assembly positions, and to the fact that it was dark very early that night on account of clouds . . .8
On the right the attacking lines got pinned down and it was up to Lieutenant-Colonel Colt, the Commanding Officer of 12/Glosters, to act on his own initiative. He formed the men personally and led them through the village of Irles, pushing forward to the other side and gaining their objective. For 15/Warwicks, their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, had only thirty-five minutes in which to issue his orders. He gathered his company commanders and told them that the attack would begin at 7.30 p.m. They would advance and gain the high ground commanding the village of Grévillers. Fortunately, the situation they encountered was much easier than they expected. They gained the ridge, and captured over 220 enemy prisoners and eight guns, and a large haul of machine-guns and ammunition, suffering only five casualties, all of whom were wounded.9
The fighting may have been less bloody than many had feared, but as Third Army continued its attacks, few units were immune from the daily toll of casualties. One British battery commander, R. C. Foot, whose guns were supporting 37th Division in its attack on Achiet-le-Grand, remembered 23 August (‘a heavy day of fighting’) for two reasons: firstly that his guns were afflicted by a number of terrifying premature explosions; and, secondly, that he met the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig. ‘Once the attack, and our barrage, started,’ recalled Foot, ‘we were busy at the guns, when, with a roar and a cloud of dust, the adjoining howitzer of the battery on our left blew up, one of its own shells bursting within the gun. A few minutes later the same thing happened to the adjoining howitzer of the battery on our right; in both cases, the whole gun detachment was either killed or wounded. Consequently, we all had the jitters, expecting a similar premature burst in one of our howitzers. Behind us, across the valley a line of 18-pounder batteries was firing over our heads, and, at intervals, one of their guns would have a premature shrapnel burst, peppering us with a hail of whirring bullets; and this did not add to our composure . . .’10
Evidently the effect of witnessing their own guns exploding had reduced some of Foot’s men to a state of exhaustion and panic. As their rate of fire slackened, he withdrew three gunners from each detachment and made them shelter in shell holes to the rear, relieving the others every fifteen minutes or so. Unfortunately, after another 18-pounder had gone up in a cloud of smoke, Foot found one of his subalterns, Jack Massey-Beresford, stone dead; he had been hit by a shell case on the back of the head. Later that day, when the battery had been withdrawn and was making its way forward, Foot was called to the head of the column to find Haig by the roadside, alone except for a Sergeant of the 7/Hussars with his Union Flag lance pennon. ‘He was a very taciturn man,’ wrote Foot, ‘but as the Battery filed by on the road and saluted him, he asked about the body on the leading gun, and I told him about Jack’s death, complained, rather bitterly and brashly no doubt, about our day’s troubles with faulty ammunition. After the Battery had passed, he fell in behind them on the road with me, got out a notebook and made a note of Jack’s name; later I heard that he had indeed taken the trouble to write a personal note of condolence in his own hand to Jack’s family . . . this did a lot to cheer us up after a horrid day.’ Although you would be hard pressed to find a gunner who would swap places with the infantry, the artillery fought a war that was as demanding in its own way. While infantry battalions would be relieved from the front line at regular intervals, artillery batteries could look forward to weeks, sometimes months, of uninterrupted front-line service, often firing every day. And each day, as Foot knew only too well, could be exhausting and demoralizing in equal measure.
Despite the daily carnage, there was a growing acknowledgement that finally, after all that had passed, the British knew how to fight effectively. ‘We had never previously witnessed a preparation of this magnitude; it was awesome in its enormity,’ wrote Private A. J. Turner, serving with 38th (Welsh) Division, as they prepared to attack on the Somme in late August.
On the morning of our departure significant solemnity was lent to the scene by long lines of boys kneeling in the bright sunshine whilst Padres administered absolution. When at last we moved up toward our allotted position each yard of ground was occupied by artillery of every size and shape; menacing howitzers, long-range guns with their evil snouts pointing skyward, whole families of cannon of all calibres, and the collection stretching on each side as far as the eye could see.11
When these batteries opened fire, the experience was both frightening and reassuring. Turner described the bombardment as one ‘continuous deafening vibrating sound; a sound such as human ears could not endure, and men cowered under the pressure of it. Behind, the incredible roar of massed guns growing in intensity with each second, overhead the slithering metallic scream of passing missiles, in front an inferno of explosions, heaving earth, and pulsating vivid light.’ This kind of artillery support – usually in the form
of a creeping barrage – was, by 1918, a staple element of battlefield tactics. It was designed to shield the attacking infantry from enemy machine-gunners and riflemen. It advanced in front of the infantry at a set pace, forcing the defenders to keep their heads down, so that the attackers would not be murdered in no-man’s-land. While, with some practice, British and French troops learnt to rely heavily on their guns (to ‘lean’ on them), it was never a particularly comfortable experience, and there was always the fear of running into your own barrage, getting hit by stray shells, or even ‘losing’ the cover and being left exposed to enemy firing points.
Like Private Turner, many of those who experienced creeping barrages found it hard to adequately express the intensity of the experience. ‘One writes of the thunder of the gunfire,’ remembered one British officer, ‘but in reality it is not like that at all. My mother once asked me what it was like, and I answered that if you stood on the platform of any railway junction as an express train roared through, and multiplied that sound by about twenty times, you would have a fairly good idea what a barrage was like.’12 Similarly, another British veteran, T. G. Mohan, noted that ‘It would be absolutely futile for me to attempt to describe the barrage. It was at once terrible and magnificent. It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the awful and majestic hellishness of it all; only by experience can it possibly be appreciated. It was wonderful and grand from our point of view, and when we got used to it, gave us great confidence.’13 Behind this shellfire the infantry would advance, scurrying across no-man’s-land as quickly as they could. T. H. Holmes, a Private with 13/London Regiment of 56th (London) Division, remembered fighting on the Somme in this period. He got up out of his trench and gazed out into the distance: ‘through the smoke, stretched vaguely a flat plain with low hills in the far distance’. He felt ‘naked’ – a ‘long line of men, ten to twenty yards apart, extended each side of us’ – but pressed on, going about the length of a football pitch before the rattle of machine-gun fire spat out at them.14