by Robin Prior
Affairs were hardly different on other parts of the 29 Division front. On the right some troops found a gap in the enemy wire, crossed the front trench and advanced on the support line. However, so heavy was the enemy barrage that follow-up troops were unable even to leave their own trenches until half an hour later. When they finally ventured forth most were shot down. Only a handful reached the advanced troops, who soon had to withdraw to shell holes in no man's land.32
The advance of these few men on the right was to have unfortunate consequences. Back at 29 Divisional Headquarters a view prevailed that the entire rightward brigade was across the German front line. At the same time reports arrived that troops to the right and left of the division were making substantial progress. Therefore at 8.37 a.m. General de Lisle ordered the leading battalions of his reserve brigade (the Essex and the Newfoundlanders) to reinforce the supposed success.33 So blocked with dead and wounded were the trenches in front of the Essex that initially they failed to deploy. Somehow the Newfoundlanders got through. At 9.15 a.m. they advanced from where their Caribou monument now stands down a bare slope towards Y Ravine. What happened next is best described in the War Diary:
Machine gun fire from our right front was at once opened on us and then artillery fire also. The distance to our objective varied from 650 to 900 yards. The enemy's fire was effective from the outset but the heaviest casualties occurred on passing through the gaps in our front wire where the men were mown down in heaps ... In spite of losses the survivors steadily advanced until close to the enemies wire by which time very few remained. A few men are believed to have actually succeeded in throwing bombs into the enemy's trench.34
In other words not one Newfoundlander got so far as the German front line. The cost to the battalion was 272 killed and 438 wounded out of 790 who deployed; a casualty rate of 90 per cent.35 Attempts made by the British command to halt the Essex were only partially successful. Two companies responded but the remaining two attacked at 9.30 a.m. The result was 229 casualties and no success.36
Further attacks were planned but the British trenches were now so full of killed and wounded that the reserve troops could not get close enough to the front to deploy. The attack was postponed, once, twice and then at 1.50 p.m. cancelled altogether.37
The 29 Division had suffered nearly 5,000 casualties, gained not a yard, and for many months was finished as a fighting formation.
Only in the centre did troops in any number enter the German front defences and then only briefly. Here 4 Division attacked on a one-brigade front with two brigades in reserve. All along their line the results were patchy. Despite encountering heavy machine-gun and artillery fire some units managed to cross no man's land and, finding the wire destroyed, entered the German trenches.38 One such battalion was the 1/8 Warwicks, on loan to 4 Division from a reserve unit. Here, the men advancing in skirmishing lines with minimal equipment had occupied the German trenches by 7.50 a.m. However, their numbers were insufficient to maintain a coherent defence and it was only a matter of time before they were driven out by counter-attack. When they mustered after the battle only 27 of the 600 men who had advanced were not dead or wounded. Of the 30 officers 13 were dead and 17 wounded, a casualty rate of 100 per cent.39
Others, such as the 11 Hampshires, suffered 500 casualties without being able to cross no man's land;40 yet others (1 East Lancashire) crossed no man's land but were unable to penetrate the German wire.41 The follow-up brigades had similar experiences. The Royal Dublin Fusiliers were destroyed as a formation before they reached their own front line. The King's Own and the 2 Essex suffered heavily but managed to push some troops into the German positions in support of the original attackers.42
The result was that by 9 a.m. some sections of the German line opposite 4 Division were in British hands, most of a formidable strongpoint known as the Quadrilateral had been captured, and a few men had pushed forward towards Pendant Copse in the German second line.
A very different assessment was conveyed by the telephone messages received at divisional headquarters. At 7.42 a.m. it was reported that the entire German front line had been captured. At 10.07 a.m. the leading brigade was thought to be moving on its final objective, Munich Trench some 4,000 yards behind the German front. At noon parties of the 2 Essex were said to be in Munich Trench. Only after 1.14 p.m. did the true situation start to become clear. At that moment the Essex reported, not from Munich Trench but from the Quadrilateral, ‘for goodness sake send reinforcements’. Then at 1.40 p.m. two battalions reported that they were back in their own front line. By 2.15 p.m. it was obvious that only in the Quadrilateral were British forces occupying any of the German defences at all.
What is evident from the telephone log is that at no time did divisional headquarters have a clear idea of the state of the battle on their section of the front. In these circumstances, their attempts to reinforce what was thought to be a success only added to the casualty list. Attempts to redirect the artillery (for example in support of the supposed position of the Essex in Munich Trench) were simply inappropriate and by the time the true position was realised most of the division's 5,000 casualties had already occurred. By then the only course of action was to try to supply the men with enough reinforcements and ammunition to hang on until nightfall and then withdraw them. In the end this was done quite efficiently. But it meant that as 2 July dawned, not a man from VIII Corps was occupying even a yard of the enemy defences.43
For this result VIII Corps had suffered about 14,000 casualties or about 50 per cent of its strength. But even this horrific figure understates the carnage among the battalions that actually attacked, for there were eight battalions from the corps reserve which did not attack at all and two that were only briefly engaged. So of the 29 battalions that attacked, the average number of casualties was 490 and the casualty rate approximately 66 per cent. And in the case of some unfortunate battalions the rate was even higher: we noted earlier that the Newfoundlanders suffered 90 per cent casualties, but the 11 East Lancashire (31 Division), the 1/8 Royal Warwick, 11 Hampshire (4 Division) and 1 Borders (29 Division) each had about 80 per cent casualties.
Why had the attack of the VIII Corps ended in slaughter? In essence the answer was simple. The British bombardment had failed comprehensively to subdue any element of the German defence: wire entanglements, dug-outs and their garrisons, machine-gunners and artillery. Essentially the story was the same right across the VIII Corps front. As soon as troops began deploying in no man's land, whether that was before zero hour or not, they were met immediately with heavy machine-gun fire. On the front of 31 Division, a German map reveals the position of the 10 machine guns which wiped out the advanced battalions of that formation. Between them, these guns could deliver 6,000 rounds per minute. Troops in no man's land, whether prone or moving, had no chance against this concentration of fire. No doubt the situation was somewhat the same on the front of the 29 and 4 Divisions. And those who did survive devastation by machine-gun fire and endeavoured to get forwards found their efforts frustrated by uncut wire.
So in VIII Corps' area the bombardment had failed in two of its essential tasks: destruction of a fair percentage of the defending garrison, whether located in dug-outs or machine-gun strongpoints, and removal of the wire.
It had also failed in its third task: the destruction or neutralisation of the enemy artillery. All the war diaries record an intense German artillery barrage falling in no man's land and on the British front and assembly trenches. In the north it is recorded as starting as early as 7 a.m. (30 minutes before zero hour). Elsewhere German shells certainly started falling in numbers shortly after the explosion of the Hawthorn mine at 7.20 a.m. No assessment was made of how many German batteries survived the hostile bombardment in this area, but in all probability at least 240 guns opened fire on VIII Corps between 7.00 a.m. and 7.30 a.m. Counter-battery fire, which had been given such a low priority by Fourth Army and which was diluted even further on account of Haig's extended objectives,
was evidently wholly ineffective. Furthermore, in the north, German observation over the British positions was almost total. Nothing could be concealed from it. So the bare plateau of the Redan Ridge in front of Serre, which confronted 4 Division and the downward-sloping ground in front of Y Ravine in the 29 Division area made advancing troops perfect targets.
On the very north of this sector it was obvious to the Germans that 31 Division formed the flank of the attack. Assembly trenches dug for the attacking troops stopped abruptly like a straight line drawn on the ground. With this in mind German batteries to the north of the attack could fire on the ‘Pals’ battalions in the sure knowledge that no attack would eventuate directly to their front. In the area of 29 Division, failure by X Corps to their right exposed them to heavy enfilade fire from around Thiepval.
In certain instances the British command added to their difficulties. The leading troops of 4 Division were reinforced in the mistaken belief that they had been successful. In 29 Division the follow-up attack, which led to the elimination of the Newfoundland Regiment, was based on information that was either false or misleading. Yet not too much emphasis should be placed on these command failures. Divisional commanders acted on the best information they could get. They had been told that opportunities to exploit success might be fleeting and to seize the moment. They did not wilfully sacrifice their men, and all halted their attacks when the true situation became known. The overall fact is plain. VIII Corps was doomed from the start by the failure of the artillery plan. Local decisions may have compounded failure but they did not cause it. The fault for that lay elsewhere.
X Corps, 1 July
8 ‘The Enemy's Fire Was So Intense’: X Corps on 1 July
I
To the south of VIII Corps, the British X Corps under General Morland had been given one of the most difficult tasks of the day. Its two divisions (36 and 32) were to capture the area between Thiepval and Mouquet Farm. This presented a formidable problem for any attacking force. The ridge in this area was 140 to 160 metres high, while the British positions ran through the low-lying marshes of the Ancre Valley on the lower slopes of the ridge. From wherever they attacked, Morland's troops would therefore face a steep uphill advance across bare slopes. In the X Corps sector only Authuille Wood, with its tree canopy intact, offered protection from German observation.
Facing the British was the German 26 Reserve Division. In the 20 months during which they occupied this sector of the front, the Germans had gone to considerable lengths to fortify it. First, the villages of St-Pierre Divion and Thiepval were converted into fortresses with dug-outs for machine-gun crews and infantry. These only the heaviest British guns could penetrate. Then, on some high ground between the villages, they constructed the Schwaben Redoubt, a complex of tunnels and dug-outs which was extensive enough to contain hospital facilities and a telephone exchange. Beyond Schwaben attackers faced further formidable obstacles. To the north of the River Ancre, Bécourt Redoubt housed a nest of machine-guns ideally placed to enfilade troops advancing towards the German second line near Grandcourt. To the south of Schwaben, the Mouquet Farm Switch Line contained a series of equally strong redoubts.
South of Thiepval on the very right of X Corps sector, in a salient in the German front line, the enemy had constructed the Leipzig Redoubt, a maze of interlocking trenches capable of all-round defence and containing many machine-guns. Should this position fall, the advancing troops would be subjected to flanking machine-gun fire from two additional redoubts, the Wonderwerk to the north-east and Nordwerk to the south. Both of these positions were situated on a reverse slope, out of sight of direct British artillery fire.1
As ever, the crucial question would be whether the British artillery had managed to eliminate or neutralise those elements of the German defence most deadly to the attacking troops – the distant enemy guns and the more proximate machine-guns.
In the event the results of the preliminary bombardment in this sector proved extremely variable. It was noted earlier that X Corps could not observe with any certainty whether the enemy wire had been cut. The events of the day would reveal (too late) that the wire had been reasonably well cut between the River Ancre and Thiepval but hardly at all elsewhere. Further, as already noted, three of X Corps' super-heavy howitzers were out of action for ‘most of the [preliminary] bombardment’. Yet only these guns had the weight of shell which could penetrate into the deep dug-outs inhabited by the Thiepval machine-gunners. In consequence Thiepval was only subjected to sporadic shelling by the less heavy guns. This was sufficient to destroy the buildings in Thiepval but not the dug-outs beneath them. No one in the artillery commented on this matter.2
II
Here, as on other sectors of the front, the troops moved into position in the early hours of the morning. The diarist of the 14 Royal Irish Rifles, which was bivouacking in Thiepval Wood, was moved to lyricism:
At this time [1.10 a.m.] a lull seemed to settle over all the earth, as if it were a mutual tightening up for the great struggle shortly to commence. A water hen called to its mate midst the reedy swamp, and a courageous nightingale made so bold as to treat us with a song.3
Shortly after this dawn chorus came the first indications that all was not well. At 3 a.m. the Germans heavily shelled the remains of Thiepval Wood. Then at 6.15 a.m. sectors to the south of this wood were deluged with shells in response to the commencement of the intense British bombardment.
On the left of X Corps front was the 36 (Ulster) Division, raised by Sir Edward Carson to fight the British government over Home Rule. In 1914 they volunteered almost to a man to fight the Germans instead. Much was made (at least by the leadership of that division) of the fact that the battle would commence on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, a symbol of the triumph of Protestantism in the province.4
The operation of the Ulster Division was divided in two by the River Ancre and its valley. As the subsidiary operation occurred to the north of the river, it will be convenient to deal with it first.
The attack was, in fact, a fiasco. The leading troops found the wire well cut but the trenches strongly held by enemy riflemen and machine-gunners. Those few troops who penetrated to the German front system were cut down by defenders in Bécourt Redoubt, which had entirely escaped the attentions of the British artillery. The experience of the 12 Royal Irish Rifles on the left of the attack was typical. At 7.30 a.m. about 750 men from this unit moved off under the cover of a trench mortar smoke barrage. They were immediately hit by concentrated machine-gun fire and pinned down in no man's land. When at 10.20 a.m. a new attack was attempted only 100 men could be mustered. This too resulted in heavy casualties. At 11 a.m. a third attack was ordered for 12.30 p.m. in conjunction with 29 Division to the north. Just 46 men made ready to advance. Luckily for them, when zero hour arrived the 29 Division was nowhere to be seen. The operation was called off.5
The failure of this attack had grave consequences for the main assault south of the river. The German machine-guns at Bécourt Redoubt, which had dealt such a rapid blow to the northern attack, could from about 10 a.m. turn their attention to the troops attempting to advance south of the Ancre. And as events would prove, the further these troops penetrated into the defences, the more effective the fire from this redoubt would become.
In the area of the main attack (from south of the Ancre to Thiepval), the wire had been well cut. And in addition, as the Ulstermen deployed in no man's land, they were hidden from German view by an effective smoke-screen.6 The operation can be dealt with in two parts – the flanks and the centre.
The flanking forces fared no better than their compatriots to the north of the Ancre. On the left the troops were cut down by machine-gun fire from St-Pierre Divion and the Beaucourt Redoubt, both of which had been left unbombarded by the British artillery.7 On the right, the Thiepval machine-gunners stopped the attack in the German front system of trenches.8
In the centre, a most startling event occurred – the Ulstermen ca
ptured the Schwaben Redoubt. As it happened, around Schwaben, the artillery had wreaked havoc with the German defences. In the words of one German account:
The position had suffered quite exceptionally under the long bombardment; the trenches had been practically wiped out, wire swept aside, and dug-outs mostly battered in. The 9th Company of the 99th west of Schwaben Redoubt, suffered particularly severe losses. The enemy assault therefore found favourable conditions.9
Facing only sporadic fire from this shaken defence the Ulstermen swept forward into the redoubt. Small parties even managed to advance beyond it and enter the Mouquet Farm Switch Line. The farm itself lay just 500 yards to the south; the German second line a similar distance to the east.
The 36 Division appeared to be on the brink of a major success. But in truth the break-in had been made by too few men on too narrow a front to amount to anything substantial. Just 1,000 soldiers were holding a salient 1,000 yards deep and 200 yards wide. German flanking fire was becoming increasingly severe. Moreover, German artillery had put down a curtain of fire on no man's land. Nothing could penetrate this barrier and so no ammunition, water, or other supplies reached the forward troops. So unpromising did the situation appear to the divisional command that they issued orders for the troops to fall back on Schwaben and consolidate. Orders were also sent to the reserve brigade to remain in place.10
Unfortunately for the reserves the orders were never received, so these formations had been set in motion at 8 a.m. according to their original orders. As they attempted to cross no man's land they were hit by the German barrage, the Thiepval machine-gunners, and then by machine-guns in Beaucourt and StPierre Divion.11 Incredibly, a small number survived this ordeal and advanced towards Grandcourt past the troops in the Mouquet Switch.12 They were never seen again.