Field Marshal Sir John French’s order for 16 September accepted the reality of the end of mobile operations on the Aisne by stating that he wished ‘the line held by the Army to be strongly entrenched’.1 This marked the first stage in the development of trench warfare, which by the end of the year would dominate military operations and provide a new name borrowed from the Germans for the static battlefield: the Western Front.
As the intensity of the first phase of fighting on the Aisne died down, Major-General Henry Wilson asked each corps to provide GHQ with information analysing the conduct of the war so far and asking what lessons might be learned from it. The replies provided an insight into the way in which the British Army was attempting to come to terms with the demands of modern warfare.
Both I and II Corps stressed the accuracy and destructive power of German artillery. II Corps wrote: ‘Perhaps the most unexpected feature of the present war has been the arresting power of modern artillery, and especially of howitzers and heavy artillery, both as regards their material and moral effect.’2 I Corps agreed: ‘It is the most formidable arm we have to encounter.’3
In the initial phase of the battle, the British gunners were at a marked disadvantage. The shortage of heavy, long-range pieces firing high explosive was an obvious problem, but this was compounded by an inability to locate the well-hidden German guns on the reverse slopes of the Chemin des Dames, while their own gun positions were too often visible to aircraft and the excellent German forward observers scanning the Aisne valley. And from 17 September onwards, the first concerns were raised over what would develop into a chronic and sometimes acute shortage of artillery ammunition (German gunners were also complaining of ammunition shortages, although this would have surprised the soldiers of the BEF).
German artillery domination was clear to all. Lieutenant Alexander Johnston of the 7th Brigade remarked: ‘I cannot help feeling that we are being rather let down by our gunners: they do not seem to be as nearly as scientific as these Germans.’4 Medical Officer Arthur Martin, an observer of the artillery battles around the Chivres spur, wrote: ‘The Germans never refused an artillery duel, and when our batteries seemed to wake up the Germans did too, and hurled across their shot at a tremendous pace.’5 General Haig was even more forthright: ‘The enemy’s big guns possess a real superiority for some of our gunners! In fact, our gunners cannot “take on” the enemy’s heavy batteries.’6
The solution to the British artillery’s predicament lay in concealment and indirect fire with either terrestrial or aerial forward observers. Battery commanders were firmly instructed to ensure their guns and attendant gun flashes were to be hidden from both ground and air. Each battery needed its own aircraft spotter and all firing was to cease when an enemy machine was located in the vicinity. Horses and limbers were to be removed from the battery area and all wheel tracks erased. Alternative emplacements were to be constructed, as were dummy batteries (with logs as gun barrels) to confuse German aerial observers. On a more homely note, the instructions concluded: ‘Tins should not be left about near the guns, nor should washing be hung about in the vicinity.’7
Unable to see their targets, the battery commanders required a forward observation officer (FOO) who would direct and correct fire by telephone from a vantage point that overlooked the target. As cables were easily cut communications could be sporadic at the most critical moments, and signallers repairing the line became a regular feature of trench warfare. Despite this continuing weakness – only resolved through the introduction of effective wireless radio – there were few other alternatives.
Lieutenant Robert Money, the machine-gun officer of the 1st Cameronians, witnessed an instance of the effectiveness of indirect fire under the control of an FOO from a howitzer battery operating in front-line trenches held by the 4th Division: ‘One day we spotted the flash of German guns. The young officer at the end of his telephone got his guns on to them straight away, knocked the Germans out. His guns were about 1,000 yards in the rear.’8
The use of the telephone extended beyond the artillery to the whole command structure, as senior officers tried to maintain direct contact with their forward troops. At this early stage of the war, the demand for telephones far outstripped supply. Artillery officers were reminded of the telephone receiver’s vulnerability and rarity: ‘The equipment should, therefore, be treated as if it were made of glass, and if it were as valuable as diamonds.’9
No matter how well placed the FOO might be, he lacked the panoramic overview provided by aircraft. The Germans had pioneered the use of aircraft for artillery co-operation, but on the Aisne the RFC and Royal Artillery began to catch up with their opponent. An RFC squadron each was assigned to I and II Corps, along with a few aircraft fitted with wireless transmitters. Techniques for aircraft to guide artillery to their targets had been developed pre-war, but they were used for the first time on the Aisne. In a somewhat complex process – demanding good visibility – an aircraft would fire a flare to alert the guns to the presence of its target, and when the battery began to bombard the enemy position further flares would be fired to indicate the fall of shot.
Rather more effective were the aircraft fitted with wireless, and which through morse-code allowed the pilot to transmit detailed instructions to a battery several miles distant. Commanders were appreciative; Haig noted that ‘machines fitted with wireless have been particularly successful, and each day has shown improved results as experience has been gained. The good results are apparent.’10
Captain Louis Strange flew several flights a day, weather permitting, accompanied by his observer. Strange’s log-book entry for 3 October read: ‘Went up with Captain Furze at 12.15 p.m. to observe artillery fire, and made flight in one hour twenty minutes. Put the 36th Howitzer battery on to four targets; thirty-two rounds were fired, with four direct hits.’11 Although Strange and other flyers preferred more direct action, dropping small hand-held bombs onto the Germans below or taking pot shots at enemy aircraft, their artillery co-operation duties took precedence. The following day, low cloud forced Strange down to 3,500 feet. He suddenly encountered a blizzard of ground fire, and was subsequently relieved to have returned safely to base: ‘At one time the shells were simply all around us; in addition to the deafening roar of their bursts we could easily hear the whistle and shriek of bullets, which was all very awe-inspiring. I am getting used to being shelled now, almost indifferent to it, in fact; it is simply marvelous that we don’t get hit more often.’12
German anti-aircraft fire – nicknamed ‘Archie’ by one of Strange’s 5th Squardon pilots after a risqué line from a music-hall song, ‘Archibald, certainly not!’ – became an increasing nuisance to the British flyers, especially when the range of the Germans’ guns extended from 4,000 to 10,000 feet. The BEF, by comparison, was equipped with 1-pounder pom-pom guns, universally judged to be useless in an anti-aircraft role. Archie was not the only problem faced by British flyers over the Aisne. Maurice Baring described a tragic incident:
One of the [RFC] pilots was practising and dropping lights. He was flying quite low over our trenches backwards and forwards. The machine, as so often occurred later during the war, was thought to be behaving in a ‘suspicious manner’ and was fired at by our troops, and before the men could be stopped firing it was brought down amid the cheers of the men. When the machine crashed they saw that the pilot was an Englishman and that he was dead.13
In addition to their work assisting the guns, the RFC maintained its vital reconnaissance role, informing GHQ of changes in German deployment, the construction of new trenches or the arrival of reserves. For the first time, on 14 September, during a gap in the bad weather of that day, a British machine took photographs of previously hidden gun emplacements as it flew over the German lines. This was a private initiative, but, with assistance from the French aviation service, photographic reconnaissance became the best means of providing the commander with a view – literally in this case – of ‘the other side of the hill’.
The advances made in artillery deployment and target acquisition were augmented by the introduction of a more flexible artillery command system, although shortages of telephones and cable prevented its full implementation. In I Corps, Haig and Brigadier-General H. S. Horne, his senior artillery adviser, pioneered the use of corps artillery ‘groups’ that took batteries from both the 1st and 2nd Divisions and concentrated their fire on specific points along the frontage of the corps. This system was used as early as 16 September, when I Corps massed 152 of its guns against the enemy. Haig wrote: ‘The air reconnaissance had given us the dispositions behind the ridge. The firing was kept up for 20 minutes and seemed effective. The enemy did not reply very effectively so I hope we warmed him up.’14
These improvements could not, however, hide the fact that the BEF was severely deficient in heavy artillery firing high-explosive shells. This was partially remedied by the arrival of four four-gun batteries of 6in. (155mm) howitzers on 23 September (followed by two more batteries a week later). First introduced in 1896, the 6in. (30cwt) howitzer had seen service in the Boer War and by 1914 was nearing obsolescence. Captain John Mowbray, an artilleryman on the 2nd Division’s staff, was concerned at the high number of ‘prematures’ from these guns, noting that the ‘shells are too old and not really safe’.15 But whatever its failings, the 6in. howitzer was the only such weapon then available to the BEF, capable of lobbing a 100lb high-explosive shell at German positions.
Given the dominant role of artillery in the 1914 campaign, it is perhaps surprising to discover numerous first-hand accounts from British soldiers downplaying the material effect of German shelling. That German shrapnel regularly burst too high was commonly acknowledged, but it seemed counter-intuitive to dismiss the destructive power of high-explosive shells.
At the battle of Le Cateau, Lieutenant G. C. Wynne had come under heavy German artillery fire – shrapnel and high explosive – while holding the forward line with the KOYLI, and yet he wrote: ‘It seemed indeed that only a direct hit by a shell had mortal effect. Time after time shells burst on the road or in the turnips within ten or twenty yards of me, having no more effect than to cover one with clods of earth and turnip leaves.’16 These observers commented on the localized nature of shell damage, as well as its potential to lower morale. Captain White of the 39th Brigade RFA ammunition column wrote on the 15th that ‘the big siege gun has a demoralising effect but does little damage’,17 while Lieutenant Money described how ‘the big shells are impressive – they whistle for ages before they arrive and then make an immense bang; however, it is very local. I have seen hundreds fall and do no damage to anyone.’18
This view was subsequently confirmed by Captain Patterson of the 1st South Wales Borderers at Ypres: ‘We are shelled from every side and the big coal boxes are almost more than flesh and blood can bear, though the damage they do is next to nothing unless one lucky shot happens to get in the middle of a mass of men.’19 But it took a brave and seasoned soldier to withstand an artillery bombardment with equanimity. Inexperienced soldiers, by contrast, were especially affected by shell fire. Infantry from the 7th Infantry Brigade had been unnerved when under heavy howitzer fire for the first time within the confines of the village of Caudry during the battle of Le Cateau. On the Aisne a panicked reaction was witnessed by MO Captain H. B. Owens, while supervising the withdrawal of horse-drawn ambulances over the river on 16 September:
Around the corner of a bend in the road came a most appalling sight – heavy wagons, water carts, cavalrymen, spare horses, riderless horses, cavalry limbers, all coming hell for leather [going] past like mad. Most extraordinary sight. They wouldn’t stop for me. Thought the Germans must really have burst through and it was a case of ‘sauve qui peut’ [‘every man for himself’]. Went back to see what had happened and found they had shelled the tail lot of some cavalry. Dropped about five shells among them. Some of our men were hurt, but horses were scared and bolted.20
That the effect of shell fire as a whole was as much moral as physical should not disguise the devastating consequence of just a single shell if it exploded ‘in the middle of a mass of men’ – made worse if it happened in a confined space, where the blast was concentrated back onto the victims. Such incidents happened on a number of occasions on the Aisne. On the 16th, a howitzer shell landed in a quarry sheltering infantry from the 2nd Grenadier Guards and the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckhamshire Light Infantry, killing and wounding at least 80 men. On 29 September a chance shell hit the 9th Lancers in their billets at Longueval, over 2 miles south of the River Aisne. It was an exceptionally fortunate shot from a German perspective, fired from a position at least 9,000 yards from the village. Captain Arthur Osburn, temporarily acting as the Lancers’ MO, had just passed a detachment of new reinforcements in a parade yard when the shell exploded. His description reveals the visceral horror of such an event:
Fragments of stone, manure, pieces of clothing and hair came falling about me as I ran through the archway into the yard and beheld one of the most heart-rending sights I have ever seen, even in war. The detachment of 9th Lancers had almost completely disappeared. In the centre of the yard where I had seen them but a moment before, there was now a mound four or five feet high of dead men and horses, yet still they were moving, men and horses twitching and sliding over one another with slow writhing movements, the men’s faces purple, crimson or ash-grey. For a moment, rooted to the ground, I stared at this heap – a moving mound of death.
Then, from all sides of the yard, a chorus of screams, shouts and groans. Around this central heap of dead men, the wounded lay on all sides. Some had been blown to the other end of the yard, their backs broken. One sat up dazed and whimpering, his back against the wall, holding part of his intestine in his hands. Those nearest to the heap, with terrible stomach wounds, or with legs and arms torn away, were only moaning and writhing; it was those further off, comparatively speaking the least damaged yet terribly injured, who shouted and screamed in agony. For a moment or two, alone in that desolate scene, I ran hither and thither, hardly knowing what to do or where to begin. I began to shout to my groom outside to go for assistance, to my corporal to fetch bags of dressings and chloroform.21
Officers and men from the Lancers and 4th Dragoon Guards then ran into the yard to help, as Osburn began tending to those strewn on the outer edges of the blast who might have a chance of survival. Osburn continued to work – ‘oblivious to time’ – until only the dead remained. All told, the 9th Lancers lost 40 officers and men.
As the BEF adopted a defensive position on the Aisne from 15 September onwards they were subjected to German assaults of varying intensity that lasted to almost the end of the month. These attacks were a result of a fundamental change in the strategic direction of the war by Germany and France. Even in open warfare, neither side had been able to achieve a breakthrough; with a line of entrenchments running from the Swiss border to just north of the Aisne, any such breakthrough was now all but impossible. Consequently, the Allied and German commanders looked to the open northern flank that stretched more than 100 miles to the English Channel. Apart from German cavalry and French Territorials the whole northern flank was virtually empty of troops.
Both sides desperately began to transfer forces in an attempt to outflank the other, but in a strange symmetry an advance by one side was almost immediately and proportionally countered by one from the other, again producing stalemate. During September and into the first half of October a defensive line advanced steadily northward – the ‘Race to the Sea’ – until reaching the Channel.
Both sides adopted a policy of making limited offensives against the existing trench system, to hold enemy troops in place and deter their redeployment to the vital northern sector. This reasoning lay behind the attacks against the BEF on the Aisne, although at the time the British reasonably believed them to be genuine attempts to break through their lines.
On 16 September, the 6th Division (Major-General J. L. Keir) had arrived at the front, its progress delayed by autumn storms during its sea voyage to St Nazaire. As a temporary measure the division was broken up to support the formations already in place on the Aisne: the 16th Brigade to the 3rd Division and the 17th and 18th Brigades to I Corps. On the 19th another batch of general reinforcements arrived, along with a first consignment of 18-pounders to replace those lost at Le Cateau.
The Germans instigated a fairly long constant bombardment as a prelude to the assault on 20 September against the 3rd Division and I Corps. The gap that had formerly existed between these two formations had been virtually closed, so that the 4th (Guards) Brigade (on the left of I Corps) was able to provide fire support to the right of the 3rd Division. The German assault on the 3rd Division opened with a diversionary strike against the 9th Brigade followed by the main attack on the 7th Brigade. The two forward battalions – the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles and the 1st Wiltshires – held firm in their trenches but the Germans broke through on their right, pressing forward on brigade HQ, which deoloyed two weak companies of the 2nd South Lancashires in reserve. Captain Alexander Johnston was caught up in the action after he had rallied one of the South Lancs companies unsettled by shell fire:
We called up the last company of the 2nd South Lancs, who were in the cutting below us, but had great difficulty in getting them to go forward. The situation now seemed serious, the Germans were right in our position now, the wood within 150 yards of brigade HQ was full of German snipers picking men off as they showed themselves. They had a Maxim there too which was doing a lot of damage, and one could hear the German officers collecting their men probably for a further advance. All this time heavy firing continued in the wood which told us that anyway someone was holding out in front all right.22
The Germans in the woods were then shelled by accurate fire from the guns of the 4th Brigade, forcing them to retire. But immediately, as the German infantry began to retreat, the British came under a fierce bombardment, another example, Johnston recalled, ‘of the excellence of the German artillery’.
This brought the action against the 3rd Brigade to a close, although there was more serious fighting still going on along the line held by I Corps. An attack against the 2nd Division was repulsed after some hard fighting, but that made on the 1st Division seemed, for a time at least, to threaten a British collapse.
On 19 September the 1st and 2nd Brigades were withdrawn and replaced by the newly arrived 18th Brigade. For security reasons the change-over took place at night, with the new units having very little idea of the nature of their surroundings until daybreak. The most vulnerable position was taken by the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment, holding a series of unconnected rifle pits on the far right of the British line just north of Paissy. To their right was a unit of French colonial troops with whom they had yet to make contact. It was the novice West Yorkshires’ misfortune that the Germans made a determined assault against both British and French units at first light.
In accordance with French practice, the colonial troops fell back in the face of the German attack with the intention of regaining their trenches in a subsequent counter-attack – which duly took place. This behaviour perplexed the West Yorkshires – especially when they were briefly fired upon by the returning French – but they managed to fight off the initial German attack in the midst of heavy rain and hail. As the Germans pushed harder, however, the two forward companies gave way. The regimental history maintained that they had been ‘first tricked and then shot down or taken prisoner’ and that ‘the whole affair was a mystery’.23 But what was clear in the confusion of battle was a lack of determination among the troops of the battalion; the officers were unable to rally their men, many of whom were captured with comparative ease. As the Germans advanced into the British trenches they turned enfilade fire on the flank of the 2nd Durham Light Infantry and then on the 1st East Yorkshire Regiment, who, due to heavy artillery fire, were pinned down and unable to mount a counter-attack.
The BEF’s cavalry was acting as a mobile reserve for the trench-bound infantry, and Major-General de Lisle was with the 2nd Cavalry Brigade when he heard the sound of battle. In his report on the action he wrote: ‘I then saw part of the West Yorkshire Regiment retire from their trenches and expected them to halt on reaching the cover occupied by the ½ battalion in reserve. Instead of this I saw them running in disorder down the valley. I then hurried down to meet them and sent my ADC to turn out a squadron to bring them back to their position.’24 He then encountered the West Yorkshires’ dazed and wounded CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Towsey, and ordered him to turn his men around, promising to provide cavalry support, which was supplied by some troopers from the 18th Hussars and most of the 4th Dragoon Guards.
In the forefront of the cavalry counter-attack was, perhaps inevitably, Major Tom Bridges. His squadron galloped up to the scarp where the infantry were sheltering, dismounted and then advanced towards the Germans: ‘I ran up to the crown of the hill which was bare stubble, and seemed quite deserted until I saw a German officer’s head coming up the other side. I saw him wave to his men, and I did the same to mine, giving the signal to “double”. We met the “pickelhaubers” almost face-to-face, and standing up poured rapid fire into them which put them to flight.’25 The counter-attack gained momentum with the arrival of more cavalry and two infantry battalions, so that a new line was established in advance of that originally held by the West Yorkshires.
In the ensuing inquest, blame was laid at the door of the West Yorkshires, although Brigadier-General Congreve (18th Brigade) and Major-General Lomax (2nd Division) pleaded mitigating circumstances of general misfortune and inexperience. Haig was furious and his handwritten comment on Lomax’s report fizzed with indignation: ‘I find it difficult to write in temperate language regarding the very unsoldier like behaviour of the W. Yorks on the 20th inst: Apparently they fled from their trenches on the appearance of some 150 Germans. This is the worst incident of which I have heard during the campaign.’ He was for sacking the unfortunate CO on the spot, only relenting in the light of his subordinates’ entreaties, but he recommended that Colonel Towey’s ‘battalion be strongly rebuked and that they be told that it rests with them to regain the good name and reputation which our infantry holds’.26
Further German assaults were launched against I Corps positions between the 25th and the 27th. The British were well prepared and the Germans were beaten back, the fiercest fighting taking place on the 26th around the position held by the South Wales Borderers, their resolute defence earning praise from Haig. After 27 September, offensive actions ended, both sides improving the trench systems they had first begun in mid-September. Trench warfare developed on the Aisne with remarkable swiftness, many of the features that were to become standard in ‘mature’ trench warfare being evident in the first two or three weeks of combat.
That the Germans were well ahead in the materials and techniques for waging trench warfare came as little surprise. Apart from the German Army’s greater awareness of the requirements of modern warfare, the German Supreme Command had devoted much time and energy to the problem of breaking through the formidable enemy defences stretching along the French and Belgian frontiers, and experience gained in the preparation for siege operations translated easily into trench warfare. The British soldier, looking up towards the ridge of the Chemin des Dames, faced an enemy not only well equipped with large-calibre howitzers, but also with trench mortars, grenades, rifle grenades, illuminating flares, searchlights and an array of entrenching tools and materials.
The British, by contrast, had to improvise; the only useful items arriving at the front were sandbags, some coils of barbed wire and new supplies of picks and spades to supplement the infantryman’s ‘grubber’. The cavalry – now acting as mounted infantry – had not been issued with entrenching tools, and particularly welcomed any digging implements. Arthur Osburn, with the 4th Dragoon Guards, recalled, ‘passing along to the left a message that came to me from my right: “Will A Squadron lend C Squadron the spade?”’27
The first imperative for the men of the BEF was to dig themselves out of danger. Formerly, an acceptable trench was one excavated to a depth of 3 feet 6 inches with the spoil shovelled in front as a makeshift parapet 2 feet above ground level. This was clearly insufficient to protect men against artillery fire. In the light of the infantry’s experiences at Le Cateau, an officer from the 5th Division wrote: ‘A bad trench is worse than none at all. Trenches must be narrow and deep.’28
Instructions were also issued to construct trenches with traverses, especially as long sections of the British line were vulnerable to enfilade fire from German artillery and machine guns sited on the spurs projecting from the Chemin des Dames. More thought was given to the siting of trenches, with the emphasis placed on concealment. The firmly worded directives on this matter from the corps commands seemed to have filtered down the line. Ammunition supply officer Captain C. A. L. Brownlow encountered some recently dug reserve trenches: ‘They were placed behind the crest, with a very restricted field of fire, of about a hundred yards, instead of being placed beyond the crest with a wide field, according to pre-war ideas. This was done in accordance with a new theory that at all costs our trenches must be concealed from enemy artillery.’29
Trenches were dug deeper and short sections joined up, although a continuous, unbroken trench line remained in the future. Second-line support trenches in vulnerable areas also began to be excavated, with plans for communications trenches to connect them. The trenches were also made more comfortable, as men installed rudimentary drainage systems and hollowed-out ‘funk-holes’ in the trench sides to rest and shelter. Captain Patterson and a fellow officer from the South Wales Borderers constructed their own ‘dug-out’ (the name being sufficiently new to require quotation marks): ‘A good cave into the hill-side with three doors which the Germans pulled off their hinges in the village. These doors [placed] over the top and about a foot of earth on top, very cosy [in] this cold weather and proof against anything except a “coal-box” or percussion shell.’30
The quarried-out limestone caves, dotted along the slopes of the Chemin des Dames, were invaluable as shell-proof temporary hospitals for the treatment of the wounded. If sufficiently close to the front line they were also used to protect soldiers against the heaviest fire. ‘Our procedure,’ wrote Sergeant John McIlwain of the 2nd Connaught Rangers, ‘was to occupy the caves when bombardments began; have a half-platoon or so on duty near the exit to rush out when the shelling ceased, occupy the entrenchments and stone breastworks and await an enemy attack.’31
The static nature of the fighting encouraged sniping, which in this early phase of trench warfare ranged from bored officers taking pot shots at enemy troops to more scientific methods using marksmen with a knowledge of fieldcraft, and armed with accurate rifles, some fitted with telescopic sights. The Germans were once again in the ascendency. The British sniper authority, Major H. Hesketh-Prichard wrote: ‘These Germans, who were often Forest Guards, and sometimes Battle Police, did their business with a skill and a gallantry which must be very freely acknowledged.’32 The British approach was exemplified by Lieutenant V. E. C. Dashwood of the 2nd Sussex, who noted in his diary for 30 September: ‘Did some sniping and believed I bagged a couple.’ But the following day he admitted the uncertainty of the amateur sniping process: ‘Several of us claim bull-eyes as the result of sniping, but of course we don’t know what we bagged.’33
The strip of ground between the British and German front-line trenches would soon take on that most resonant of names: No Man’s Land. And it was here that another feature of trench warfare emerged, the patrol or, in its aggressive form, the trench raid – usually conducted at night. The width of No Man’s Land during the war varied enormously – in some places, less than a dozen yards, in others, several hundred yards. On the Aisne the distance between the two trench lines might typically range from 100 to 400 yards, within which was dead ground, woods, hay stacks and farmers’ huts – features that provided concealment for those operating in No Man’s Land.
Trench raids were partly intended to gain information about the enemy (especially from the capture of prisoners) but were also to overawe them and encourage an aggressive spirit among the troops making the raid. Senior officers in the BEF showed an ongoing concern for any signs of the weakening of the soldiers’ resolve. Brigadier-General Forestier-Walker, II Corps’ chief of staff, was a pessimist in this matter. He wrote: ‘During the occupation of a defensive position, the morale of officers and men is apt to deteriorate to an alarming degree unless drastic steps are taken to counteract the tendency.’ This decline in morale, he continued, ‘leads rapidly to a loss of initiative, and the desire soon becomes apparent, not only to avoid attacking but even to do nothing which will tend to draw the enemy’s fire.’34
The remedy, according to Forestier-Walker, was ‘probably to insist on small local attacks and enterprises, even with the knowledge that they must entail loss of men on missions of minor importance’. It was this latter aspect that caused ongoing controversy. Critics rejected the whole notion that military effectiveness and sound morale were a direct product of an overtly aggressive attitude, and saw the casualties from trench raids as wasteful rather than reluctantly necessary. But it was the view propounded by Forestier-Walker that typically prevailed in the British command during the war.
On the Aisne, trench raids were certainly necessary to prevent the Germans dominating No Man’s Land at the BEF’s expense. German snipers needed to be dissuaded from adopting forward positions, as their accurate fire chipped away at a battalion’s strength and its morale. More dangerous still were the intrepid German artillery observers, whose careful observation of the Aisne valley brought down a swift and accurate bombardment from the hills above whenever a British unit advanced from cover. It was this seemingly uncanny phenomenon that exacerbated the already strong spy mania of the period, a belief that undercover agents within or behind British lines must somehow be signalling detailed information of British movements to the Germans.
The better British battalions contested control of No Man’s Land with the enemy. Lieutenant Rees of the 2nd Welch Regiment recalled how he and his men were plagued by a German battery deployed behind a ridge close to their part of the line:
The German observer established himself on a haystack 300 yards away, and our guns with whom there was not telephone connection, failed to hit him. We tried to dislodge him with rifle fire, but as he usually gave us a dose of shrapnel in reply it was not very popular. The observer became such a public nuisance that a sergeant crawled out to the haystack at night, bayonetted the German on guard, put a match to it and made good his escape. A fine performance. The smoking heap next morning was a very gratifying sight.35
Rees briefly alluded to another aspect of trench warfare that so concerned Forestier-Walker, the tendency of troops not to initiate offensive operations to avoid enemy retaliation. This developed into the ‘live and let live’ system that became common in ‘quiet’ sectors of the Western Front. A fully formed example of this tendency, from early October, can be found in an account by Arthur Mills, who had just arrived as a reinforcement officer in an unnamed battalion on the 5th Division’s front, where fighting was minimal:
It did not take more than an hour or two to pick up the rudiments of trench life. We passed the morning sitting in the dug-out reading a few old papers and smoking and talking. By eleven the sun was high enough to peep over the parapet and warm us, and it all seemed to me a very pleasant, lazy sort of existence. There was no firing except for an occasional ‘ping’ from a sniper [Captain] Goyle kept posted at the corner of the trench, and an answering shot or two from the German side. Rifle fire seemed a matter of tacit arrangement. When our sniper was joined by a friend, or fired two or three times in a minute instead of once every three of four, the German fire grew brisker and life in the trench less tranquil. Our sniper was thereon reproved by Goyle and was silent, whereupon the German fire died down.36
The peaceful equilibrium of ‘live and let live’ was easily disturbed, however, whether through the actions of real snipers (rather than Sunday sharpshooters), the (subsequent) installation of trench mortars with plenty of ammunition or a bellicose attitude towards the enemy from the more aggressive company and battalion commanders.
Wars in the past had typically comprised long periods of manoeuvre culminating in the short, concentrated experience of battle and its immediate aftermath, to be followed by a period of respite. Trench warfare, by contrast, was continuous. The intensity of the fighting would vary over time and place, but the front-line soldier was always exposed to danger, whether through the sniper’s bullet or a random shell blast. Combined with the often grim conditions of trench life, soldiers had to endure levels of physical and psychological pressure rarely encountered before.
Lieutenant George Roupell of the 1st East Surreys recorded how his troops were suffering ‘from the continual strain of never being out of the reach of the enemy’s guns. It is scarcely surprising that under these conditions traces of panic and loss of self-control occasionally appeared.’37 Roupell also believed that the continual stress of trench warfare had eroded the initiative of his NCOs. In one rather irascible diary entry he wrote: ‘The few remaining officers did everything. NCOs were there but could not be relied on to do anything but the most simple and unmistakable directions.’38 This comment may well have been a result of Roupell’s own feelings of strain, but it was also indicative of the pre-war army’s failure to encourage NCOs to develop and use their initiative.
Roupell’s concerns also extended to officers, in particular his company commander: ‘Torren’s nerves were really terribly bad at this time and I was practically assuming command of the company, but his presence made things difficult, and it was very bad for the men.’39 Sergeant McIlwain of the Connaught Rangers was one of the other ranks who had to endure an officer close to breaking point. Lieutenant de Stacpoole, whose brother had recently been killed, was the sole officer in McIlwain’s company: ‘He was in a bad way indeed. He could not give an order without shouting at the men. This habit of uncontrolled yelling I soon found to be infectious at times of stress and alarm. It was bad for discipline and I succeeded in resisting it. De Stacpoole was almost beyond control, and was sent away just in time.’40
Officers overwhelmed by psychological stress – especially if the taint of cowardice hung in the air – were swiftly and discretely removed from the front line. Senior officers correctly reasoned that if field officers were seen to fail this ultimate test of leadership in battle, then the whole edifice of command was in danger of collapse. Accordingly, Roupell’s company commander was removed and sent to brigade HQ. Arthur Osburn became aware of the ‘growing effect of nerves’ for the first time on the Aisne. Meeting one officer with this affliction his response was justifiably cynical: ‘My companion had influence. Fear in high places usually meant a job at the Base and “happy ever afterwards”.’41
The other ranks did not fare so well. Although personal honour was the prime motivational force binding both officers and other ranks, the latter were also subject to punitive disciplinary measures if their courage wavered. In McIlwain’s company, a sergeant was repeatedly discovered to be skulking in the rear areas, and was finally court-martialled, reduced to the ranks and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. There were, of course, more serious punishments: for those convicted of ‘desertion in the face of the enemy’ the firing squad was a real possibility. A few days before the start of the Aisne battle, Smith-Dorrien recorded in his diary that one of his soldiers had been shot for desertion.42
A partial solution to the problem of battlefield exhaustion lay in the rotation of units from the front to the rear on a regular basis, providing an opportunity of recovery for both the individual and the unit. Haig was quick to realize the necessity of replacing exhausted front-line battalions with fresh troops. He had lobbied Field Marshal French for such a system, even before the arrival of the 6th Division provided the BEF with an opportunity to carry this out in a comprehensive manner. By the end of September unit rotation had become a standard practice. But at the start of October a more fundamental change of scene was being proposed, as plans were drawn up for the wholesale removal of the BEF from the Aisne to a new zone of operations in Flanders.