The First World War, or the Great War as it was called until 1939, started for Britain on 4 August 1914, when she declared war on Germany. Britain’s stated war aim was to secure the neutrality of Belgium, but in reality she wished to curb the power of Germany, whom she regarded as a growing rival to her trade, maritime and imperial interests. It was for Britain a very popular declaration of war. The entire country, and beyond it, the Empire, entered wholeheartedly into the conflict. For most of the men who wished to fight there was only one anxiety: that the war would end before they could get into action. The popular forecast was ‘all over before Christmas’.
Britain had no formal treaty with France but the two governments had long had an understanding that, in the event of a war with Germany, a British Expeditionary Force (which became known more simply as the B.E.F.) would cross to France and take up a position alongside the French Army. Britain had earmarked six infantry divisions and a cavalry division for this purpose and these duly crossed to France, safely escorted by the Royal Navy. The B.E.F. was superbly trained but, by Continental standards, it was a minute force; the Germans described it as ‘a contemptible little army’ – a phrase adopted with great pride by the perverse British, the members of the original B.E.F. from that time calling themselves the ‘Old Contemptibles’.
In the autumn of 1914, Belgium and northern France was the scene of a massive war of movement. The Germans, who held the initiative from the start and showed the greater ability, had the best of the fighting; they reached the Channel coast in Belgium and advanced deep into France. They were frustrated, however, in their main aim – to take Paris and gain a swift and complete victory over the French.
Consequent upon this German failure to take the French capital, there developed attempts by both sides to turn the other’s northern flank. The result was a campaign known as the Race to the Sea. Neither side was able to outflank the other and gradually the war of movement ceased with all parties exhausted: the Belgians, their army nearly destroyed and all but a small corner of their country occupied by the Germans; the French, whose large professional army had fought with more courage and audacity than skill, badly mauled ; the Germans, baffled in their failure to get a decisive victory and uncertain what to do next. Russia had come in with France and Britain, and Germany was facing something that she had wanted to avoid – a prolonged war on two fronts.
In all this the B.E.F. had played its small part. Actions – they could hardly be classed as battles – at Mons, Le Cateau and on the Marne had enabled it to show its skill and gain more respect from the Germans. In the final desperate fighting, during the Race to the Sea, they had helped in the successful defence of the Belgian town of Ypres. The B.E.F.’s casualties had reached 86,000 by the end of the year and, although this was small compared with those of the other armies, it represented a large proportion of Britain’s Regular Army.*
With the end of the war of movement came the beginning of trench warfare. The exhausted armies dug themselves into the ground wherever they happened to be until a continuous line of trenches stretched from neutral Switzerland to the Belgian coast; after that there were no more flanks to turn. The soldiers of all countries, unprepared for this type of warfare, passed a miserable winter. Troops from Britain’s Empire arrived to enlarge her force, Indians and Canadians being the first, the former suffering particularly severely in the winter conditions.†
In 1915 the British were the first to attack, in March, at Neuve Chapelle. The Germans followed this, in April, with a series of heavy attacks on Ypres (these becoming known as the Second Battle of Ypres). Again the British played an honourable part in the defence of the town. The attacks were repulsed, and this proved to be the only German offensive of the year in the West. The Allies persisted with fresh attacks throughout the summer and autumn, the British adding the names of Aubers Ridge, Festubert and, finally, Loos to their battle honours.*
Each fresh effort was more demanding than the last; the scale, of troop involvement, artillery preparation and eventual failure, went remorselessly up. The more ambitious an attack, the heavier the cost. 1915 was a year of complete victory for defence; a combination of machine-guns, barbed wire and artillery defied all offensive moves.
Meanwhile further countries had entered the war, Turkey joining the Germans and Italy the Allies. In an attempt to use their superior naval power, a combined French and British force of warships and troops was dispatched to the Mediterranean in an endeavour to capture the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli. The operation, if successful, would have opened up the sea route to Russia, protected the Suez Canal from attack and might even have forced Turkey out of the war.
This imaginative effort aroused much controversy inside the British military and political establishments, there being a strong faction who thought victory could only be gained by fighting the Germans in France.† The expedition failed partly through strong Turkish opposition, partly through disease and partly through military incompetence on the Allied part. Casualties were heavy – the British and French losing 250,000 men between them – and the troops were withdrawn, mainly for service in France, to the satisfaction of those who had not wanted them to be diverted to the East in the first place.
Once again the armies settled down for the winter. While the soldiers made the best of their miserable conditions, the politicians and generals made their plans for 1916. The main Allies – France, Britain, Russia and Italy – planned to make simultaneous offensives on three separate fronts; the British and French efforts were to be side-by-side in France. But the Germans struck first. Their attack at Verdun, in February, gained striking early successes but the battle soon settled down to the normal situation of the defence holding the attack. The Germans persisted, determined to break at least one of the Allies. The French, having already lost much territory in 1914, were equally determined to hold them and a terrible battle of attrition ensued.
So hard did the Germans press their attacks that it was feared the French would not be able to hold on at Verdun. The Allied plans for their own simultaneous offensives were thrown into disarray as the French cried out for help.
The British were in a difficult position. Their old Regular Army had been nearly wiped out and a large new one had been raised and was in France, but it had not been fully trained and was intended to fight in 1916 only as part of a combined Franco-British offensive. After Verdun the French share in this was reduced drastically and it fell to the British to assume the greater burden. The British were not even to be allowed time to complete their training and gain experience, for the battle would have to be fought before mid-summer as the French insisted that they could not hold out at Verdun after June. The Allies were in danger of losing the war. In these desperate straits lay the origins of the Battle of the Somme.
At 7.30 A.M. on Saturday, 1 July 1916, the opening British and French attack was launched astride the River Somme in northern France. For Britain it was the biggest battle her army had ever fought, or probably ever would fight, in a single day. As events were to prove, it was fought on the middle day of the middle year of the war. This book tells the story of the battle fought on that day and of the men who fought it – what I call the Army of 1916.
In writing this book I freely admit the advantage of hindsight and have some sympathy for the politicians and generals who had to make the decisions in 1916.
I realize that the French role in the battle is given little space but make no apology for a deliberate omission; the French effort is not the subject of this book. I would also like to point out that I have chosen to describe the British Army of 1916 through the men and the units who were present on the Somme on 1 July of that year. Many others equally brave fought in 1916 but, once again, this is not their story.