#8943 Lance Corporal Morgan William Hughes
10TH ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS
THERE WAS ONLY ONE CONCERTED effort at operations during August in which a significant number of troops were engaged, and in charge of the French contingent, General Joffre was not happy at the lack of progress in the Somme Campaign. On the 12th he met Haig and they agreed on a joint offensive for British and French troops from the river up to High Wood on 18th August.
From Bangor, Morgan Hughes had worked as a farm labourer before travelling to Cardiff to enlist in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1905. The army had sent him abroad with his battalion and he had spent nearly six years prior to the war serving in Burma and India. Returning home in 1912, he had married two years later and had a young son before he journeyed to the Western Front. As the war progressed, Morgan began to serve in one of the New Army battalions and was in Billy Congreve’s brigade the day he was killed at Longueval, being wounded himself. In mid-August the 10th Royal Welsh Fusiliers were employed as working parties for trench improvements and carried out practice attacks in the rain. On 14th August they began moving up to put their new training into action, having to halt on the way as the enemy was shelling the valley ahead. Delays caused considerable congestion of men all along their route and Morgan and his battalion did not get into their new trenches until after dark; a highly unsavoury prospect.
During the attack of the 18th, yet again the area around Guillemont was to be one of the objectives. Morgan’s battalion would be attacking Lonely Trench, an isolated line to the east of Maltz Horn Farm at the very southern end of the British Front, on the way to Falfemont Farm. In the wet days leading up to the attack, the battalion’s senior officers went up over the deteriorating ground to look at the state of the trenches, then once their men had taken up residence on the front in general, they then investigated the specific objectives they faced. At 5pm on the 17th the Welshmen were issued with flares, smoke bombs, tools and wire cutters.
There were complications with the preliminary bombardment, owing to how close British troops were to targets, but promptly at 8pm Morgan Hughes moved off to attack towards Falfemont Farm with his battalion. As they made their way up to form lines on tape laid out for them out in no-man’s-land, German shells rained down. The men were in position ready for 10pm when suddenly an order came to delay the assault by half an hour. It was impossible, argued Morgan’s commanding officer. The men were already over the parapet and waiting; there would be no time to tell the artillery, ready with their timetable, and so when their shells began pounding no-man’s-land all the element of surprise would be lost and his troops would not be adequately protected.
And so the 10th Royal Welsh Fusiliers went forward in the dark towards the German lines. All along their front they found themselves pinned down by enemy fire. The Kaiser’s men had been waiting for them and they lay in front of the German trenches, behind wire and a screen of bombs being thrown for them. A platoon of the King’s Own Royal Lancasters was sent up to try and push through. In the meantime, the commanders of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers sought to achieve at least something and ordered a party of supporting troops to dig a new forward trench where the tape had been placed prior to the attack.
At 4am the men were ordered to go forward again. Through the dawn hours on 18th August the Welshmen, along with men of the Lancasters, the Suffolks and the West Yorkshire Regiment, all tried to beat down German resistance, but before 6am Battalion Headquarters had received word from the men in the lines that they had failed again. The ordeal for Morgan’s battalion was not yet over. Two fresh companies came up and preparations were made to attack once again.
The 18th August was periodically wet and miserable. Many of the men were novices and not accustomed to being confined to trenches under shellfire. It appeared that they may be making progress on their objective, for Germans were seen leaving the southern end of Lonely Trench. Ominously though, when Morgan’s battalion advanced again mid-afternoon, they vanished from view into a cloud of smoke and dust thrown up from shellfire. As soon as they breached the parapet the Welshmen came under heavy machine-gun fire that scythed down and cut through the ranks and their officers. Shrapnel shells burst overhead. Contact aeroplanes were taking signals back, pigeons were being carried up into battle. The battalion had even taken coloured flags up to mark the furthest points reached but on 18th August it was all to no avail. Awaiting progress reports, headquarters was ominously silent. Morgan Hughes’ battalion managed to rush the southern end of Lonely Trench and some of them also reached the road to Combles beyond. Unfortunately the troops on their left could not get forward and the 10th Royal Welsh Fusiliers, for all their hard work, taken in flank, had to withdraw.
La Neuville British Cemetery. (Andrew Holmes)
As afternoon faded to dusk and the day ended, German shelling was heavy and accurate. At about 9pm, a staff officer went up to the captured line and found a mixture of troops, including the remaining Welshmen, consolidating their gains; the trench crammed with men. To the south the French were being counter-attacked back towards Maurepas Ravine, dragging back elements of British troops too. All the ground that had been gained initially was being lost. Lonely Trench remained in German hands, a stubborn obstacle in the way of the Allied advance.
During the night of the 18th, parties were extended over the ground on which the attacks had taken place and men collected the wounded, including Morgan Hughes. He had been shot in the back, but such was the confusion of the battle that nobody knew when. As he was carried away from the battlefield, shrapnel continued to explode overhead. In all, the 10th Royal Welsh Fusiliers lost more than 320 men. Morgan died at a casualty clearing station on 19th August. He left behind his wife, Elizabeth, and son Henry. He was laid to rest at La Neuville British Cemetery, plot I.F.74.