Tour One:

The Somme

If two words in the English language can evoke visions of carnage and heroism, loss and futility, pathos and history, then surely none are better than: the Somme.

The Battle of the Somme took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916. More than 1,000,000 soldiers from Britain and her Empire, France and Germany were casualties and it is one of those events in history which has become part of Britain’s collective memory. The Somme is one of the most discussed, misunderstood and important occurrences, not just in the war, but also in how mankind developed after it.

A visit to the battlefields of the Somme can be haunting, it is always moving but, more than most other areas of the Western Front, it is a visit which brings alive the conflict. It is, comparatively to Ypres and Arras, quite straight forward to follow the battle lines, walk the footsteps of individual soldiers and enjoy views of battlefield vistas. It is an immediate and illuminating visit. It will bring sense to what, for many, were a senseless few months.

The Prelude

The Allies had agreed a broad strategy for 1916 in early December 1915 at Chantilly. Whilst Russia would attack German forces from the East and Italy opened an offensive against the Austro-Hungarians, French and British forces would launch a major assault on the Western Front. Douglas Haig had wished for this attack to be made in the Ypres Salient, with a desire to break through and capture German held channel ports. However, it was eventually decided that the main campaign would be carried out in France – either side of the River Somme, a previously quiet sector of the front. The original planning was for an attack by forty French divisions and twenty five British over a fifty mile front.

Then came Verdun

On 21 February, a single shell, fired from a 38cm gun, travelled twenty miles and slammed in to the Bishop of Verdun’s palace. Ten months later, 37 million more had been fired and 976,000 men had become casualties of the mincer of men that was the gruesome brain-child of General Erich von Falkenhayn. The Battle of Verdun was the longest single battle of the war and its aim was to ‘bleed France white’ or, simply, to draw as many French troops into the defence of this symbolic ancient fortress town and kill as many as was possible. Falkenhayn hoped to destroy the French Army and then Germany could turn its attention to an isolated Britain.

Verdun is a movingly evocative and terrible story. It deserves far more time than can be apportioned it here. However, the major effect, in the short term, of this German assault was seriously to alter Allied plans for 1916. The entire French TenthArmy was withdrawn from the Somme and sent as reinforcements to Verdun. With French generals and politicians demanding an urgent British attack in the north, in order to draw German forces away from Verdun and relieve pressure on the French, the battle plans for the Somme were redrawn, with the British now the dominant player in the ill-fated game that was about to begin.

It is not entirely clear why an attack on the Somme would be of any great benefit to theAllies, given the obvious difficulty in capturing the German positions, which were on high ground, defended in depth, with deep dugouts as protection and with no obvious strategic objective. However, this was very much a political move with operational considerations a distant second – not much comfort for either the general or the ordinary soldier.

The Plan

The attack would take place over a twenty six mile front, with the British responsible for just short of sixteen of these, stretching from Gommecourt in the north to Maricourt in the south. The French were responsible for the assaults south of Maricourt, with General Sir Henry Rawlinson’s Fourth Army carrying out the main advance. The Third Army would carry out a diversionary effort at Gommecourt, in the hope that German forces would be drawn away from Rawlinson’s troops to his south.

The plan aimed for an advance of some 4,000 yards on the first day, with the intention of capturing the high ground from Montauban to Serre, taking place after a massive artillery bombardment that would obliterate German defences. This high ground could then act as a good observation point or, even better, from here Rawlinson could pivot the Fourth Army northwards and “roll-up” the German forces, forcing a major, possibly decisive, withdrawal eastward. The cavalry had Bapaume as a objective.

The Somme would be the major debut of Kitchener’s New Army. Some of the Pals Battalions first saw action at Loos in 1915. They would bleed far more heavily in 1916.

The Secretary of State for War, Field Marshal Earl Horatio Herbert Kitchener, had been proven entirely correct in his early predictions that the war would be far from brief and it would be one of such carnage that Great Britain would require many more soldiers than were in the regular army at the outbreak of hostilities. Thus Kitchener created a volunteer army, with over 500,000 men answering the call. Whole battalions were formed from men from single towns; football teams joined up together, factory workers downed tools and joined queues, whole streets were seemingly emptied of their young men.

In order to incorporate the new volunteer army, Rawlinson had instructed them to advance in lines or waves of attack in order to maintain cohesion; although there were some differences in application of this at corps and divisional level. The idea that men wandered in straight lines into machine gun fire is a myth; many of the soldiers adapted and took up crouched running and used the battlefield to shield from enemy fire, as best they could. Haig, in fact, had wanted the British to rush the enemy trenches after a brief, surprise, artillery bombardment but he allowed Rawlinson, at the operational level, to make the final decisions; he chose the more measured and deliberate “bite-and-hold” tactics with the waves of infantry attack at its heart. This, alone, should encourage all those who portray Haig as an ignorant buffoon who sent soldiers to certain death because of an inelastic mind and outdated military dogma, to think again. However, one major criticism that can be made is the poor decision to bastardize Haig’s plan for a broad offensive with the hope of a cavalry breakthrough with Rawlinson’s of a limited attack on a smaller battle front. The result was a broad offensive with limited aims and a significant dilution of artillery fire. The Fourth Army had 1,437 guns at its disposal but only 182 of these were heavy and shell supply was inadequate. Also, as the weather worsened, the bombardment was extended from five to seven days, thus making the dilution complete.

The artillery was charged with two major objectives: destroy the masses of wire in front of the German positions, which were likely to be impassable otherwise, and annihilate German trenches. The British were largely unaware of the German dugouts which, in places, were almost forty feet underground. It was predicted that the advancing infantry would be able to stroll into the German positions; such was the confidence in the intensity of the prelude bombardment.

Battle was scheduled for 25 June. The weather, as it is wont to do, decided otherwise and the attack was eventually to go ahead on 1 July. The British favoured an attack under the cloak of darkness, but the French wished for daylight, so that their artillery had accurate sight of the battlefield. A compromise (always fear the worst) was made and 0730 would be “jumping off” time for the British and 0900 for much of the French attack.

On Saturday, 24 June, a seven day preliminary bombardment of the German lines began. The noise was astonishing.

1 July

A beautiful summer’s day

At 0730 the artillery bombardment finally ceased. A series of mines, seventeen in all, were fired underneath German positions, apart from that at Hawthorn Ridge, which had gone off ten minutes earlier. Watches were checked one final time and then the sound of whistles filled the air. The first waves of attack were already in No Man’s Land and the second was about to go over the top. These twenty-seven allied divisions were up against sixteen German divisions. With the artillery bombardment and the clear numerical advantage, men left their trenches sure in the fact that this, if anything really can be in war, was to be a resounding victory.

And then the Germans, largely untouched by the artillery bombardment, emerged from the depths of the earth and manned their machine guns and artillery pieces.

By 0830 at least 30,000 British were dead or injured. By 1200, 100,000 had gone over the top. One of the worst disasters in British military history was underway.

However, the Germans had completely underestimated the propensity and ability of the French to launch any attack unconnected to Verdun and, therefore, the French had made good advances in the south. The British XIII Corps had captured Montauban and Mametz but news further north was terrible. The German stronghold at Thiepval had held, and fighting in and around La Boisselle and Serre was turning into a slaughter.

As the glorious summer sun faded into darkness, the stark reality was that almost half of the original British attack force were dead, dying, wounded or a prisoner; 57,470 men.

What had gone so wrong?

Clearly the artillery bombardment had not done what it was supposed to do. The Germans, safely ensconced in their subterranean shelters, had endured a nerve shattering week, as the shells rained down upon them, but there were simply not enough High Explosive shells for the size of the front attacked. The dilution of artillery fire had been a crucial error. The quality of shells, following the 1915 shell scandal, had not really been rectified and many duds were fired. Shrapnel shells were also little use in destroying the barbed wire; if anything, they made matters worse due to the entanglement effect they created. Therefore, when the British left their positions, the German Army was virtually untouched. Add in to this the inexperience of the New Army and disaster was likely. But that, of course, is the beauty of hindsight. Professor Gary Sheffield puts it well when he says: ‘The BEF had attempted to run before it could properly walk, and had paid a horrific price in human life as a result’.

But, as Sheffield also points out, the BEF would learn vital lessons from this horrific day that would be key to their eventual victory in 1918. At a strategic level, 1 July had taken the initiative back from the Germans, who were shocked to find that the French could mount a separate attack on the Somme whilst the fighting in Verdun raged on. Also, 1 July was just one day. One awful day that the Germans won. But it was only one day. The battle continued.

After the first day

If the first day belonged to the German Army, then over the following weeks the struggle equalled out, before, arguably, tipping in favour of the Allies.

Furthermore, disproving the line that the British Army was led by incompetents, La Boisselle was captured on 5 July in part by using a clever “Chinese” or diversionary bombardment to the north, coupled with an attack on the real target by two battalions carrying the lightest of equipment.

By 11 July Mametz Wood was taken (but at some cost) by the 38th (Welsh) Division. In another ‘wood’, this time Delville, the South African Infantry Brigade underwent five days of the most brutal warfare; at one point it is estimated that shells were falling at 400 per minute on the hapless souls trying to hold that position. The Germans threw nine of their very best available battalions in to the mix, but still the South Africans held until, on 20 July, they were relieved. Of the 121 officers and 3,032 men who went into Delville Wood, only 29 and 751 walked out; fewer than 200 of those were in a fit state to fight any longer.

On 15 September, Haig decided to roll the dice and unleash a new weapon of war: the tank. These slow, cumbersome, unreliable monsters, nevertheless had such an effect when they rumbled in to operation between Combles and Martinpuich, that it was clear to Haig that mechanised and mobile warfare was very much the future. Out of the thirty one that managed to cross the German lines (many had broken down before reaching them) only nine operated properly in tandem with the infantry, but hundreds of Germans surrendered on sighting these beasts or simply fled for their lives. Although a success, it was a limited one and now Haig had shown his hand.

On 25 September another big push was attempted by the Allied command and now the Germans realized that holding the Somme position was neither wise nor useful. Again, on 13 November, and much to German surprise and disillusionment, the Fifth Army, under Sir Hubert Gough, launched a massive attack, breaking through the lines at Beaumont.

By 18 November, Haig concluded that, given the winter months ahead, enough had been done and he halted the Battle of the Somme with an overall gain of close to 120 square miles with a maximum six mile penetration. The British and French had suffered at least 600,000 casualties.

The German Army had lost half a million men. One member of the German General Staff called the battle ‘the muddy grave of the German Field Army’. As a result of the acute shortage of manpower, particularly after the Somme and the Austro-Hungarian performance in Russia, the German’s set about constructing the Hindenburg Line, to which they would retreat in March 1917, thus giving up their positions on the Somme entirely.

Legacy

The Somme stands in the collective public conscience for everything that was wrong with the First World War: extreme loss of life, terrible generals and futility of the highest order. Sir Douglas Haig has certainly fared the worst from this assessment and the bile spewed upon him during the anti-war laced interpretations of the 1960s was particularly corrosive to his reputation. It is fair to say that the majority of the British public view the Somme through the prism of Alan Clark’s book Lions Led by Donkeys, the musical Oh! What a Lovely War and the TV comedy Blackadder. None of these offer a particularly useful or accurate insight, apart from that of a cultural study.

I am far from offering a blanket pardon to the British army commanders on the Somme; simply continuing after 1 July is a highly questionable decision. Using the BEF so soon for such a large undertaking and continuing until November also deserves challenge.

However, what is plainly unfair is the argument that soldiers were sent to certain death without means of adaptation – officers on the ground took operational decisions and reacted to the situation. New weapons and clever tactics were also seen. Yet one of the most obvious conclusions to make is that the Somme hardened the BEF, taught the British Army harsh but vital lessons and seriously hurt the Germans, who, by early 1917, were no longer looking like an army that was confident of victory.

If one looks at the cautious revisionism of the late and great Richard Holmes, or the more controversial arguments of Gary Sheffield and Gordon Corrigan, then it is convincing to look at the Somme, as German and French historians do, as part of a much larger perspective of the fighting on the Western Front and where the British learned some of the lessons that would eventually lead to victory. Nigel Cave argues that historians should focus on the transition: before the Somme the British Army was hugely inexperienced, with many of its senior commanders having never fought a major battle since their appointment to their current position, and lacked sufficient material – especially artillery. After the Somme the German army’s fighting ability was still very good but the British would get better.

The Somme was awful, bloody and long; but there was little by way of strategic alternative in 1916. The Germans suffered losses that they could ill-afford and they retreated to the Hindenburg Line just months later.

True, the Somme may be the graveyard of idealism, but it was far from futile.