by Robin Prior
The 7 Division generally fared better. The men found the trenches completely destroyed, the wire gone, few dug-outs to clear, and resistance slight. By 4 a.m. the German second line and its support trenches were entirely in their hands.32
Further right, 3 Division met with varying fortune. Their left brigade had little difficulty with wire or trench-defenders but on the right the 8 Brigade ran into belts of uncut wire and could make no progress. Only when their successful brigade could spare troops to fight along the German front line towards their beleaguered comrades did the situation improve. So in this area it was 1 p.m. before the German front line was finally secured by the British.33
On the very right of the attack, 9 Division had an easier time. Both of its attacking brigades stormed through the German positions and within a few minutes had entered the ruins of Longueval and Delville Wood and were approaching Waterlot Farm.34
Shortly after zero, therefore, with the exception of the area opposite 8 Brigade, the entire German front system had fallen. This was a considerable achievement, but significant obstacles to further progress lay ahead. In the immediate rear of the German position lay three woods and three villages in which the Germans had constructed defences and which barred the progress of Rawlinson's troops almost all along their front of attack. From left to right these defended localities were Bazentin-le-Petit Wood and village, Bazentin-le-Grand Wood and village, and Longueval and Delville Wood. The widest gap between any of these positions was the 2,000 yards between Bazentin-le-Grand and Longueval but this distance could easily be traversed by machine-guns. And even when these positions fell, High Wood, on the very crest of the ridge and able to dominate approaches from left and right, provided a further barrier. In fact the triangle of ground formed by the Bazentins–Longueval–High Wood could everywhere be covered by hostile machine-gun fire from one of these points or the other.
So by midday Rawlinson's troops had achieved their first objective – the capture of the German second line. But the purpose of the operation was much greater: to overrun in short order the three villages and woods in rear of this second line, and thereby unleash the cavalry towards distant objectives. Had GHQ predictions of collapsing German morale been at all warranted, and had Rawlinson's artillery plan reduced that morale further, then the next phase of the 14 July operation would have been a relatively straightforward matter. But none of it was warranted. German morale did not collapse. The bombardment which was to follow on the first phase proved difficult to arrange and when delivered proved hopelessly inadequate Opportunities for a great cavalry movement never presented themselves (even if the British command in some instances acted as if they had). As a consequence, the attack on 14 July, after such a hopeful beginning, became bogged down into a protracted, costly, and ill-rewarded endeavour. This negative aspect is little remembered.
What after the initial success the British found themselves facing was not the predicted demoralised enemy in precipitate flight, but a succession of heavily defended positions manned by well dug in infantry, lavishly supplied with machine-guns. So for most of the day the attacking forces could at best struggle forward against fierce resistance towards some of their more proximate objectives.35 In the area of the Bazentins, the woods and villages did not fall into British hands until late afternoon.36 Further right, only the southern section of Longueval village was captured, along with a small area of Delville Wood.37 Casualties were heavy, some battalions losing half their number – a scale of loss on a par with that of 1 July.38
Prospects for further advance by Rawlinson's infantry were not good. And prospects for cavalry action were plainly non-existent. Nevertheless, there was a growing impression as the day wore on that German resistance in the Longueval area might be collapsing. So some units of the 2nd Indian Cavalry Division were ordered forward. With scant justification, Rawlinson became enthusiastic about their prospects. At 7.35 p.m., he sent to Haig the (surely astonishing) message, ‘Indian Cavalry sharpening their swords.’39 By then, as it happened, the horsed soldiers were already in action. Some squadrons of the Secunderabad Cavalry Brigade charged through the wheatfields between High Wood and Longueval. They immediately ran into machine-gun fire from Delville Wood and High Wood and were struck by an artillery barrage fired from around Flers. Nevertheless, they actually managed to spear sixteen Germans with their lances (certainly one of the strangest episodes in all of the fighting on the Western Front, and sixteen of the unluckiest victims) before being forced to dismount and take up defensive infantry positions.40 This episode cost them ten men killed and wounded and 138 horses.41 Thus ended cavalry participation, on which such hopes had been placed, in the 1916 Somme campaign.
The striking opening of the 14 July operation and the meagre achievements which followed have given rise to the notion that 14 July was a day of unfulfilled promise and lost opportunities. So it has been claimed that only tardiness and ill-organisation prevented the cavalry from getting forward in time to accomplish a great success, and that lack of initiative robbed the infantry of the uncontested occupation of High Wood. These views disregard the essential fact of the fighting on that day: that the initial successes of the British did not result in the collapse of German resistance on which the rest of the attack had been predicated. To the rear of their front positions, the Germans maintained an intact defence. So the cavalry would have suffered the fate awaiting the Indian horsemen whenever they attacked. And although an officer, Brigadier-General Potter, managed to walk to the edge of High Wood without encountering German defenders, any attempt by Rawlinson's forces to enter the wood would certainly have found key areas of it occupied.42 Throughout the day, High Wood was garrisoned by rather more than a battalion of German troops, supported by heavy machine-guns and occupying a strong defensive position (later known as the Switch Line) within the wood.43 Although it is true that a series of mishaps caused the attack on the wood to be delayed, there is no reason to believe that any earlier action would have been better rewarded.44
A summing up is in order.
The capture of the German second line by the Fourth Army was a considerable achievement. It demonstrated that if enough artillery shells could be brought to bear against a discrete objective, that objective could be overcome. The problem was that this accomplishment was only the preliminary stage of what Rawlinson had set out to achieve. His other aims had nothing to do with firing great quantities of shells at a limited objective. They envisaged an advance over a vast area – beyond the range of even the heaviest guns – an advance to be made by foot soldiers and the cavalry. None of this made sense in terms of what had been accomplished in the opening stage of 14 July. He had proved that weight of artillery could secure for his army the enemy front position. He had definitely not proved that anything more grandiose was on offer.
Rawlinson at least managed to identify the source of his limited success. After the battle he noted:
There is no doubt that the success of the enterprise must be attributed in a very large measure to the accuracy and volume of the artillery bombardment. The enemy's wire, as well as his front and second line trenches were smashed to pieces. The morale of the defenders had been greatly reduced by the din and concussion of the constant explosions, and it was clear from the number of dead that were found in the trenches that he had likewise suffered heavy casualties from the artillery bombardment.45
What this passage fails to acknowledge is that the ‘enterprise’ of whose success he wrote was something quite different from that on which he had embarked. This remark is not intended to reflect on Rawlinson's failure to capture his larger objectives or on the inability of his infantry to advance into areas which had not been assailed by a devastating bombardment. Nor does it amount to a reflection on the inability of the cavalry (whatever the condition of their swords) to make any progress whatever.
The flaw in this analysis was to be an enduring feature of all British battle-analyses on the Somme – that is, in making the most of what had been ach
ieved, the command failed to analyse the reasons why these achievements fell short of their original intentions. This proceeding might have provided Rawlinson and Haig with some comfort but it denied them the chance to learn from their mistakes. At this rate any learning curve would be very flat indeed.
14 ‘We Are a Bit Stuck’, 15–31 July
I
The atmosphere at Rawlinson's headquarters on 15 July was euphoric. In fourteen days the German first and second lines had been captured, admittedly at brutal cost, on a front of 6,000 yards. The units of the German Second Army defending the area had, in some cases, been wiped out, and in others been reduced to a chaotic shambles as they were thrown in piecemeal in an attempt to stabilise the line. Moreover, from just south of Pozières on the left to Delville Wood on the right, Haig's armies were within a short distance of the heights of the Thiepval–Ginchy ridge, a position which dominated the high ground behind the German front line for some miles.
Yet this optimism did not last 24 hours. Next day Rawlinson noted in his diary that things ‘had not gone well’.1 While XIII Corps had gained a little ground, the XV had been repulsed at the Switch Line and III Corps had been driven back from the outskirts of Pozières. His conclusion was that the enemy had evidently brought up fresh troops and were fighting better. In addition there was news that further German reserves had arrived at Bapaume and therefore could be expected on the battlefield at any moment.2
The trouble was this. The Germans were not only recovering from 14 July, but the British successes on that day had left Rawlinson's force in an awkward tactical situation. The German positions they now faced were divided into two distinct sections by a right angle at Delville Wood. To the left of this position the front faced north; to the right it faced east. So an advance along the whole front would result in the attacking forces diverging from each other the further they progressed. And operations around Delville Wood would be faced with German artillery concentrations from three sides,
The British tactical difficulties did not cease there. Pozières, the high ground around Mouquet Farm and High Wood, Longueval, Delville Wood and the second German line to its south remained to be captured. Each of these positions was a formidable obstacle in its own right; in combination they presented great challenges to the British command.
15–31 July
All this led Rawlinson to call a conference with his corps commanders on the 16th. He told them that because of enemy resistance ‘the time for isolated attacks had now finished and an organised attack on a broad front was now necessary’.3 There was much wisdom in this. As the British had already experienced between 2 and 13 July, narrow-front attacks against individual woods and villages could be subjected to murderous flanking fire. This method of attack enabled the enemy to concentrate great amounts of artillery fire against relatively small targets. A broader front attack would deprive them of both these advantages. Yet even a broad-front attack would need careful thought because the awkward nature of the front might mean that a success would see British troops diverging from each other on either side of the Delville Wood right angle.
In the event the organisation of any broad-front attack, well thought-out or ill, proved beyond Rawlinson. Three factors told against him. In the first instance he had set an overly optimistic timetable. He told his commanders that the new attack must begin within 24 hours – that is on 17 July. Later he conceded that the 18th was more propitious.4 In fact both dates were impracticable. They gave a quite inadequate amount of time in which to distribute orders, and to organise a thoroughly planned, intense artillery bombardment.
The second factor was the weather. The 16th was dull and overcast. So was the 17th and, as it happened, the 18th and 19th.5 This made aerial spotting for the artillery extremely difficult in circumstances where such observation was vital because some sections of the German line (from the east of Pozières to Delville Wood) were on a reverse slope and therefore out of direct sight of British forward observers in their own front line.
The third factor was the matter of co-ordination with the French. Rawlinson first mooted a combined operation with the French VI Army for the 18th. This seemed propitious because Foch had indicated that he would be launching a large-scale attack to the north and south of the Somme River on that date.6 Then Foch postponed the French attack because of the weather. As the British also were not ready, the combined operation was amicably moved to the 20th.7 But on the 19th an embarrassed Rawlinson had to admit to the French that his own preparations would not now be completed until the 22nd.8 So the French, impatient with what they saw as unreasonable British delay, attacked alone on the 20th. Their operation did not prosper, whereupon Foch proposed to the British a joint attack on the 23rd confined to the area north of the Somme. This date was accepted by Rawlinson, only for him to find on the 22nd that Balfourier, the French Corps Commander adjacent to them, would not be ready until the 24th.9 This time the British lost patience. Rawlinson announced he would attack alone on the 23rd. Even this did not quite settle the matter. At the last moment and under pressure from Foch, Balfourier agreed to allow a small force on the right flank of the British to take part in the attack.
It might be thought that this enforced delay would have given the Fourth Army staff time to develop a measured response to the difficult tactical situation in which their forces were now placed. This was not the case. The front of attack would extend from just east of Pozières to Guillemont. If it succeeded all along the front, the right angle would merely have been moved to another location, or (more dangerously) the attacks to the left and right of the angle would diverge. In the latter case a gap might be created through which a strong German counter-attack might roll up their entire position.
What meanwhile was occurring on the front of the Fourth Army during the interval between 15 July when Rawlinson conceived his night attack and 23 July when he carried it out? Having acknowledged in his diary on the 15th and to his Corps Commanders on the 16th that the time for isolated attacks was now over, did Rawlinson maintain a quiescent front and rest his troops for the coming battle? Puzzlingly, he did not. The incessant attacks which Rawlinson had ordered in the flush of victory on 14 July proceeded as if his rethink on the 15th had never occurred. Between the 15th and the 22nd, in quite separate operations, XIII Corps attacked in the Longueval–Delville Wood sector on six occasions and against Guillemont once, XV Corps carried out two attacks against High Wood, and III Corps attacked to the east of Pozières five times. Hardly any of these operations gained more than derisory amounts of ground. Yet they were not cheap. Rather than chronicle each of these blighted, futile operations, let us turn our attention to just one set, those around Longueval and Delville Wood.
This was the most difficult part of the front, the very apex of the right angle. Here it was essential that German forces and batteries to left and right be distracted by simultaneous attacks so they could not bring murderous fire on the attacking troops from three directions. Yet on most occasions, no such supporting operations were mounted. This meant that even when some progress was made, as it was by the South African Brigade on the 15th, retention of the captured ground proved impossible. Great groups of German batteries on the three sides of the wood poured a deluge of shells into the newly won areas, followed by German counter-attacks (delivered by fresh troops) which forced the South Africans back to their original positions.10
Between 18 and 23 July repeated attempts were made to capture the wood and village. Troops from four divisions were consumed in these attacks. Yet these operations were not taking place in defiance of the wishes of the command. On the same day that Congreve, who had been present at Rawlinson's conference of corps commanders, heard his chief announce that the time for isolated attacks was now over, he received instructions from Fourth Army headquarters ordering him to capture Delville Wood at all costs and without delay.11 In other words, isolated attacks were being ordered by the same commander who earlier had announced that they should cease.
&nbs
p; Haig contributed nothing meaningful in this period. To start with he seemed to favour operations against Delville Wood, on the grounds that it commanded the German line around Guillemont to the south. Then he changed his mind and decided that operations against Guillemont could proceed without the capture of Delville Wood. After that he then instructed Rawlinson to broaden his front and include High Wood in any future attacks.12 In the end nothing of this signified. Rawlinson continued to blast away at Delville Wood and Guillemont and High Wood as though Haig had never spoken.
The lower-order commanders who participated in these operations were quite aware of the futility of their endeavours. General Higginson's 53 Brigade (18 Division) suffered severely in Delville Wood on 17 July and he wrote a bitter report in which he compared this operation unfavourably with his brigade's successful operation on 1 July. The attack on the first day of campaigning, he noted, was characterised by: careful attention to all details of the attack; artillery preparation and wire-cutting; and co-operation of the artillery with the infantry in the attack. The latter operation, by contrast, was characterised by: insufficient time for careful consideration of plans; insufficient time for artillery preparation; difficulty of communication with battalions; lack of co-operation between artillery and infantry; difficulty of obtaining accurate information about the situation; intense hostile artillery bombardment and machine-gun fire; lack of co-operation with neighbouring units; and (perhaps most damningly) the fact that the attack was not launched until 45 minutes after the artillery bombardment had ceased.13
Eighteen years later Higginson's indignation is still manifest in a letter he wrote to Edmonds complaining about the description of this attack in the draft Official History: