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The Battle of the Somme has passed into popular
folklore. For many it is simply remembered for the terrible losses on the first day, 20,000 dead and nearly 60,000 casualties
in total. The official history shows that the Battle of the Somme consisted of 12 separate battles, fought between 1st
July and 18th November 1916 on ground north of the River Somme from Maricourt in the south to Gommecourt in the
north.
Battle
of Albert
1st – 13th July
Battle of Bazentin Ridge
14th – 17th July
Battle of Delville Wood 15th
July – 3rd September
Battle
of Pozières Ridge 23rd July –
3rd September
Battle of Guillemont
3rd – 6th September
Battle of Ginchy
9th September
Battle of Flers-Courcelette 15th –
22nd September
Battle of Morval 25th
– 28th September
Battle of Thiepval Ridge 26th
– 28th September
Battle of Transloy Ridges 1st
– 18th October
Battle of the Ancre Heights
3rd – 11th November
Battle of the Ancre 13th
– 18th November
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The
River Ancre cuts across from the northeast through Albert, the main town of the region, and into the Somme at Amiens. In 1916 Albert lay just behind the British lines and the road to Bapaume over
the Pozières
Ridge along the route of an old Roman road was to provide the axis for the attack.
The
first casualty on the Somme had been Boromée Vaquette, a dairy farmer, who was shot on Thiepval Ridge on 27th
September 1914 by a French patrol who had mistaken him for a German soldier. The
advance guard of the German Army was close by and took up positions on the ridge and occupied the village later that day. This sector of the front would be quiet for the next 12 months and the French and
Germans adopted a ‘live and let live’ policy.
The
Germans had selected their positions well and built a line that hugged the ridges and high contours of the chalky downland,
so that every slope, every natural ravine, each natural declivity, every wood and hilltop could be turned to maximum advantage
for observation, for concealment, for defence. When, in autumn 1915, the British
3rd Army took over the line, they became active with artillery bombardment and dominated no man’s land with
fighting patrols and trench raids. The Germans, with typical thoroughness, completed
a complex of trenches set from horizon to horizon in two distinct lines. They
then set about working the chalk and tunnelled beneath their trenches and carved out a network of deep galleries and shelters
which would be impregnable to everything but an earthquake. By the summer of
1916, every hilltop was a redoubt, every wood an arsenal, every farm a stronghold and every village a fortress, and a third
line of defence was under construction. Much of the fighting on and after 1st
July was for the strong-points in or on either side of the Ancre valley or on the Pozières Ridge.
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Background
The seeds of the Battle of the Somme were sown at the Allied Conference at Chantilly on 6th December
1915 where Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, sought successfully to encourage the Allied Powers to co-ordinate their
strategies. General Sir Douglas Haig took over command of the BEF on 19th
December 1915 and met Joffre on 29th December to agree co-ordination of activities for 1916.
Joffre proposed a continuation of a policy of attrition whilst Haig, fearing that forces would be frittered
away in such operations, proposed a British offensive in Flanders, matched by a French offensive further south, a development
of similar plans tried in 1915. The compromise solution proposed by Joffre was
for the British to extend their lines to the River Somme, allowing all the French Armies to be united south of the river. The Somme would then form a natural boundary between the French and British, which
could be the axis for a massive allied offensive in the following year. Although
unconvinced by these proposals, Haig eventually agreed in the interests of Anglo-French harmony.
Haig remained convinced that a Flanders offensive would be successful and instructed General Plumer,
Commander of the 2nd Army at Ypres, to prepare the ground for a possible offensive late in 1916. Ironically, had this offensive taken place in 1916, the preparedness of the German defences were such that
the chances for a successful breakthrough were greater than those existing in 1917 when Third Ypres eventually took place.
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By early 1916, Haig had approximately 1½ million men under his command, organised into 43 Divisions, making
up 12 Corps in 4 armies. The army commanders were as follows:
1st Army - General Sir Charles Monro
2nd Army -
General Sir Herbert Plumer
3rd Army -
General Sir Edmund Allenby
4th Army - Lt-General Sir Henry Rawlinson
The Reserve (later the 5th) Army under Lt-General Sir Hubert Gough, was created in May
1916.
Rawlinson was appointed to command the 4th Army on 4th February and was ordered
to join Allenby in studying the ground north of the Somme River, where the British were, to make their attack as part of the
joint Anglo-French offensive. The British were to join the offensive on a front
of 12 miles and, by mid-February, Joffre and Haig had agreed to commence the great offensive on or about 1st July.
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Having surveyed the ground, Rawlinson recorded: ‘It is capital country in which to make an
offensive when we get a sufficiency of artillery, for the observation is excellent and, with plenty of guns and ammunition,
we ought to be able to avoid the heavy losses which the infantry have suffered on previous occasions.’ (Rawlinson Papers, National Army Museum, London) Rawlinson
was obviously happy that the rolling uplands and woodland features of this part of the Somme Departement would offer good
cover for his infantry, provided sufficient artillery support was available.
However, the Germans had their own ideas and opened a great offensive of their own against the
French at Verdun on 21st February. General Erich von Falkenhayn, the German Commander-in-Chief, had planned this
battle to draw in the French Army and its reserves to ‘bleed it white’ in an attritional battle. The French were indeed drawn in and reserves, including units designated for the Somme offensive, were
committed at Verdun, reducing their ability to commit elsewhere. Joffre pleaded
with Haig to take over more of the line and open the Somme offensive earlier as more of a British affair to draw German attention
away from Verdun. When the battle finally started, the French share of the front
to be assaulted had reduced from 25 to 8 miles.
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As was the practice in all the main combatant armies, the Commander-in-Chief was responsible for
overall strategy, but the task of drawing up detailed plans of attack was delegated to the local army Commander. The C-in-C would advise the strategic objective and the factors affecting the attack, such as number of
reserve units and guns available, and the army Commander would reconnoitre the ground and submit a plan for approval. In the event of doubt, the views of the army Commander would prevail on the basis
that he would have to fight the battle and knew his men. This process is repeated
in declining scale to corps, division, brigade, battalion, company and even platoon commanders.
Haig and Rawlinson held divergent views on the nature of the offensive. The tactical dilemma of the Great War was – should maximum effort be concentrated at a number of
points to effect breakthrough into open country and a return to mobile warfare, or a more cautious bite and hold operation
to seize and consolidate parts of the enemy line before bringing up guns to cover the next push. Haig, the cavalry officer, was clearly in favour of rapid breakthrough, whereas Rawlinson, the infantry
officer, was a ‘bite and hold’ man.
The old regular army was now gone, and this battle would be fought largely by Kitchener’s
New Volunteer Army. Their perceived inexperience led Rawlinson to be adamant
in his view that he should not send his infantry beyond the effective range of his artillery.
He insisted on a pre-assault bombardment uniformly along the front of at least seven days in order to destroy the German
wire, front-line positions and cut off supplies and reinforcements to those positions.
Rawlinson also insisted on a final daylight bombardment as did the French, rather than the dawn attack favoured by
Haig. It was thought that the relatively inexperienced troops would have a better
chance of maintaining contact through the smoke and confusion of a battlefield in daylight rather than the half-light of dawn,
and artillery spotting would be easier. On 12th April, having argued
the matter out with Rawlinson, Haig sent a formal letter of instruction encapsulating Rawlinson’s wishes although proposing
an initial average advance of some 1½ miles on a front of 14 miles, which was ambitious and probably beyond what Rawlinson
would have been comfortable with.
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Final preparations were now made. What the Generals
agreed, given the chronic problems of communication that dogged all the Great War battles, was the need to be able to move
reserves rapidly and that the attack must be a ‘set-piece’ battle, planned to the last detail, with the artillery,
the detonating of mines and the advance of the infantry all co-ordinated in one carefully timed plan.
The main attack was to be made by Rawlinson’s 4th Army whilst two divisions of
Allenby’s 3rd Army were to make a diversionary attack and pinch out the Gommecourt salient. Allenby was unimpressed with the plan, as a mile gap existed between his action at Gommecourt and 3rd
Army’s northernmost action at Serre, providing scope for the Germans to counterattack his flanks, which is what happened.
Instructions issued to 4th Army by Rawlinson, Fourth Army Tactical Notes, called for
an attack in extended line, ‘…the leading lines should not be more than 100 yards apart and the men in each line
should be extended at two or three paces interval, the number of lines, depending on the distance and nature of the objective’. It further explained, ‘the idea is for the artillery to keep their fire immediately
in front of the infantry as the latter advances, battering down all opposition with a flurry of projectiles.’ This was the embryonic development of the creeping barrage, which would become standard practice on the
Western Front. The problem would be controlling the advance and barrage lift
simultaneously and to assist artillery observation each man would carry a marker on his back to aid spotting by the Forward
Observation Officers (FOO’s) and the RFC from the air. In the event, the
barrage lift set by pre-arranged timetable, in many instances, outdistanced the infantry, clearing German front line positions
in time for them to beat off the British infantry attack.
Each infantryman was also required to carry a backpack containing 60lbs of equipment including
ammunition, gas masks, entrenching tools, spare clothing, food and water, allowing him to consolidate positions taken without
the need for immediate re-supply. The initial assault was planned for 30th
June although heavy rain intervened and, on 28th June the attack was postponed by one day and set for 07.30 on
1st July.
After the problems of 1915, the production of guns and shells had increased dramatically. On 24th June the bombardment started and the German lines were pounded by 1,010 field guns,
808 of them the wire-cutting 18-pounders; by 182 heavy guns, 4.7 inch calibre and 60-pounders, and by 345 heavy howitzers,
of 6 inch calibre and above, 100 of these heavy howitzers were French guns deployed on the right of the British line at Maricourt,
but engaging targets in the British sector. This provided one field gun to every
21 yards of German trench, and one heavy gun to every 57 yards. These guns fired
a total of 1,508,752 shells in the week before the assault, and another 250,000 shells on the first day and, although this
bombardment was supported by trench mortars and medium machine guns, it was not sufficient to subdue the enemy on 1st
July, and was a much less heavy weight of shells than would be expended in later battles.
Unfortunately, whilst a significant quantity of shells were now available, their quality was variable. Many of the heavy shells failed to explode and the 18 pounder shrapnel shells proved
ineffective in cutting the German wire. Intelligence, gathered from night patrols,
showed that much of the German wire was in tact and positions remained untouched by the bombardment, but this was largely
ignored at staff level. In their final briefings, senior officers encouraged
their men by stating the barrage had been so effective that resistance to the initial assault would be light and the men could
walk into the enemy front line positions with their ‘rifles at the slope.’
Finally, a number of mines had been prepared, the three largest at Hawthorne Ridge and two either
side of the Albert-Bapaume Road (Y-Sap and Lochnagar). The mines were due to
be blown at 07.28 in an attempt to further disorientate the Germans. The one
at Hawthorne Ridge was blown at 07.20. The decision to do this was a compromise. The corps commander, Lt-General Hunter Weston wished to blow the mine much earlier
so as to consolidate the crater before the main attack, but this was strictly forbidden by GHQ.
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| Lochanagar Crater at La Boiselle |
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1
July 1916
At 07.30, 60,000 men rose from the British trenches to file through their own wire to form up in
their waves. As they moved forward and the barrage lifted from the German front
lines, the race was on although they didn’t know it.
The Germans, alerted by the mine explosions, scrambled from their underground shelters, rushed
to their parapets and set their machine guns. The German artillery, some not
previously brought into action to avoid detection, now ranged a murderous bombardment on no man’s land which, together
with the efficiency of their machine guns, began to cut down the advancing troops, many dying trapped on the uncut wire which
they had been assured would be destroyed. Attack after attack broke down and,
as the day wore on, a further 40,000 men were sent in, stepping over the bodies of their dead, dying and wounded comrades
– all ranks were forbidden to divert attention from the enemy in order to attend wounded officers or men – with similar results.
Although not every attack met with disaster, the result by nightfall could be summarised as having
succeeded on the right flank, met with mixed fortunes in the centre and failed with great loss on the left flank. XIII corps, attacking beside the French, took all its main objectives, from Pommiers Redoubt east of Mametz,
to just short of Dublin Redoubt north of Maricourt. Between La Boisselle and
Fricourt there was a penetration of about ½ mile on the left flank and the capture of Mametz village on the other by XV corps. North of the Albert-Bapaume Road on a front of almost 9 miles, VIII, X and III corps
had failed and achieved no realistic gains.
The ‘Pals’ battalions
had been decimated. These were battalions formed from local communities and workplaces
in response to Kitchener’s recruiting campaign. The events of 1st
July left these communities grieving the loss of a generation of young men. Never
again would the British army recruit on the basis of living, working, playing, fighting together. The wounded, if returned to duty, would be posted to other regiments.
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The
Next Few Days
The 2nd
July was something of a hiatus. The General Staff were not yet aware of the full
extent of the disaster of the first day and, other than minor corps activity, which included the capture of Fricourt, little
happened or was decided.
Rawlinson,
anxious to pursue attacks north of the Albert-Bapaume Road to achieve his first day objectives, was overruled by Haig who
wished to reinforce success in the southern sector.
Generals
Joffre and Foch visited Haig on 3rd July, anxious to encourage him in any fruitless attack in the northern sector
that might occupy the Germans and not require French co-operation, irrespective of the cost in lives to the British. Haig dismissed this notion and explained he had already issued orders to continue
the attack south of the Albert-Bapaume Road and trusted he could rely on French support where the two armies met just north
of the Somme.
Haig reorganised
his armies, Rawlinson retained command of III, XV and XIII corps as the 4th Army and was charged with following
up the success in the southern sector, whilst Gough was given command of X and VIII corps which, together with his Reserve
Army, was to make up the northern sector and was renamed the 5th Army during the course of the continuing battle.
On taking up his command, Gough’s priority was to capture and secure the two
villages, La Boisselle and Ovillers astride the Albert-Bapaume Road, so that Rawlinson could clear his front by capturing
Mametz Wood and Contalmaison. Gough’s initial attacks on 3rd
July failed, La Boisselle finally falling on 4th July and Ovillers on 17th July.
Meanwhile,
Rawlinson opened his attacks on 7th July. These were initially driven
off but eventually Contelmaison fell on 10th July and Mametz Wood was in British hands on 12th July.
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| 38th (Welsh) Div Memorial at Mametz Wood |
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Delville
and High Wood
The next
phase of the battle was to breach the German 2nd Line at Longueval. The
French declined to support the operation which was to be a night advance and a dawn attack at 03.25 hours on 14th
July after a hurricane bombardment of just 5 minutes. The first phase was an
outstanding success, gaining ground on the Ginchy Pozières Ridge along a front of some 6,000 yards. The
second phase was to deploy elements of 2nd Indian Cavalry Division to attack and capture High Wood. Unfortunately, delays in bringing the cavalry forward gave time for the Germans to reoccupy the wood and
beat off the attack. Had an infantry attack gone in before 10.00 hours, then
the way was open to occupy the wood unopposed. High Wood was to become the scene
of severe fighting for the next two months and was eventually taken after heavy losses by the 47th (London) Division
on 15th September.
The
9th (Scottish) Division took Longueval Village on 14th July and committed the South African Brigade
to take Delville Wood just behind the village on 15th July. When relieved
on 20th July, only 143 Springboks of the original 3,150 came out of the wood.
It was the 14th (Light) Division that finally took the wood on 25th August.
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| South African Memorial, Delville Wood |
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Pozières Ridge
After securing La Boisselle and Ovillers, Gough’s next objective was to advance up the line of
the Albert-Bapaume Road and dislodge the Germans from the Pozières Ridge. The 1st Australian Division supported by the 48th (Midland)
Division were brought into the line and opened the attack on 23rd July after a three-day bombardment. This was to be a monumental struggle over the next month and saw the 1st, 2nd and
4th Australian Division committed to the battle. In 45 days the Australians
launched 19 attacks and lost 23,000 officers and men.
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| 1st Australian Division Memorial at Pozieres |
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The Advent of the Tank
With the support of Winston Churchill, Lt-Colonel Swinton, Royal Engineers, was encouraged to develop a tracked
vehicle which could cross trenches, flatten barbed wire and provide close support for infantry and was referred to as a ‘landship’. The word ‘tank’ was used to preserve secrecy of this weapon when transported
on railway wagons, covered by tarpaulin and labelled ‘water tanks’. Tank
then gradually came into accepted usage.
Although Swinton did not wish to deploy ‘his’ tanks in small numbers, Haig insisted they be used
on the Somme, although only 40 were available for shipment to France by August.
On 14th September 32 tanks were assembled near Trônes Wood. 18 finally took part
in the battle on the next morning. The XV corp’s attack on Flers and Courcelette
opened at 06.20, following a three-day bombardment. 9 tanks moved forward with
the infantry, whilst 9 mopped up behind. A little over three hours later the
infantry on the left flank were seen following 1 remaining tank up the main street of Flers through the German third line. The 2nd (Canadian) Division then took Courcelette in a combined infantry/tank
action.
The tank, although proving to be unreliable, had been a success, the Germans were clearly stunned and terrified
at their first sight of the tank. The Germans would soon develop effective anti-tank
tactics but, for the moment, the action of 15th September saw the largest gains on the whole Somme front.
The dramatic advance allowed the fortress of Thiepval to be captured on 26th September, with the aid of
the tanks permitting the British to at last occupy the Thiepval-Pozières-High Wood Ridge, although Beaumont Hamel and Serre to the north still
held out.
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The Ancre
Ever anxious to keep their ally engaged with the enemy, Joffre continued to insist that Haig pursue the Somme
offensive. By 1st October, the Somme front had formed a huge salient
in the German line. On the axis of the Albert-Bapaume Road the British had advanced
to the edge of Le Sars with their line falling away westward north of the road to Beaumont Hamel and Serre, whilst bulging
slightly forward to include Grandcourt and Lesboeufs south of it. The French
had thrust forward to Combles, taking in Morval, and they were now approximately level with the right flank of Rawlinson’s
4th Army. The obvious task was now for Gough’s Reserve Army
to push up the Ancre to straighten the British line from Serre through Miraumont to Le Sars.
The Battle of the Transloy Ridges, south of the Albert-Bapaume Road, came to an end on 20th October,
whereupon Gough’s Reserve Army took the full weight of the advance in what became known as the Battle of the Ancre Heights,
driving north on a line between St Pierre Divion and Grandcourt, succeeding in taking several German strongpoints up to Beaumont
Hamel.
On 30th October, the Reserve Army was renamed the 5th Army but by 11th November
their attacks towards the Ancre had petered out.
In a final attempt to finish the Somme battle on a high note, Haig asked Gough to pursue his attack along the
line of the Ancre and take Beaumont Hamel. This battle, known as the Battle of
the Ancre, opened on 13th November in poor weather. Sappers had again
tunnelled under Hawthorn Ridge under an old crater, now a German fortification and blew 30,000lbs of explosive at 05.45 hours,
covering the German trenches with debris.
The attack went in just before dawn under the cover of fog. Beaumont Hamel
and Y Ravine were taken by the 51st (Highland) Division and, to the south, the Royal Naval Division took Beaucourt
early on the morning of 14th November. Fighting continued until 18th
November, finally bringing the Somme battles to an end.
Casualties
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