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IX
35-13"
, S 7
G 44
THE BATTLES OF
THE SOMME
PHILIP GIBBS
THE BATTLES OF
THE SOMME
.
BY .# g |
PHILIP GIBBs
AUTHOR OF “THE SOUL OF THE WAR”
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

:
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
g
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
i
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XXII.
XXIII.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . g
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY
THE FIRST CHARGE
THE FIELD OF HONOUR
THE DEATH-SONG OF THE GERMANS .
THE ATTACK ON THE LEFT -
THE LONDON MEN AT GOMMECOURT
THE MEN WHO FOUGHT AT FRICOURT
HOW THE PRUSSIANS FELLAT CONTALMAISON .
A CAMEO OF WAR .
THE ASSAULT ON CONTALMAISON
THE BATTLE OF THE WOODS .
THE FIGHT FOR OVILLERS
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE
THE WOODS OF DEATH
PRISONERS OF WAR
THE LAST STAND IN OVILLERS
THE SCOTS AT LONGUEVAL
THE DEVIL’s WOOD
THE WORK OF THE GUNS . e
THE FIGHTING ROUND WATERLOT FARM
THE PETER PANS OF WAR
THE HIGH GROUND AT PozièRES
THE GERMANS’ SIDE OF THE SOMME .
PAGE
2I
38
46
57
65
71
79
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95
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ISI
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178
I82
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V
vi
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXXII.
XXXIII.
XXXIV.
XXXV.
XXXVI.
XXXVII.
XXXVIII.
XXXIX.
THE ATTACK ON THIáPVAL ſº
THE LAST FIGHTS IN DEVIL's WooD
THE AUSTRALIANS AT MoUQUET FARM .
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT
THE IRISH AT GINCHY .
THE COMING OF THE TANKS .
FIGHTING BEYOND FLERS .
MONSTERS AND MEN
LONDON PRIDE .
THE SPLENDID NEW ZEALANDERS.
THE CANADIANS AT COURCELETTE
THE ABANDONMENT OF COMBLES
THE DOOM of THIáPVAL .
NoRTHWARD FROM THIEPVAL.
THE WAY TO BAPAUME * > tº gº
THE GERMAN VERDICT OF THE SOMME BATTLES
PAGE
227
244
25o
258
276
284
3OO
3O5
318
324
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336
345
356
366
37I
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INTRODUCTION
THE CoMING OF THE NEw ARMIES
IN this book I have put together the articles which I have
written day by day for more than three months, since that
first day of July, IQI6, when hundreds of thousands of
British troops rose out of the ditches held against the en-
emy for nearly two years of trench warfare, advanced over
open country upon the most formidable system of defences
ever organised by great armies, and began a series of battles
as fierce and bloody as anything the old earth has seen on
such a stretch of ground since the beginning of human
strife.
Before July I I had an idea of writing a book about
all that I had seen for nearly eighteen months, since I aban-
doned the hazardous game of a free lance in the war-zones
of France and Belgium (to me those were the great and
wonderful days) and became officially accredited as a cor-
respondent with the British armies in the field. I had seen
a good deal in the trenches and behind the lines—nearly
all there was to see—of stationary warfare from Ypres
to the Somme, and enough to understand with every nerve
in my body not only the abomination of this doom which
put fine sensitive men into dirty mudholes and sinister ruins,
in exile from the comforts and beauty and decency of life,
under the continual menace of death or mutilation, but
also the valour of great numbers of simple souls who hated
it all and yet endured it with a queer gaiety, and laughed
even while they cursed its beastliness, and resigned them-
selves to its worst miseries like Christian martyrs with a
taste for beer and the pictures of the “vie parisienne.” I
had seen, and suffered from, the boredom of this sta-
VII
viii INTRODUCTION
tionary warfare—an intolerable boredom it is, demoralising
to men whose imaginations demand something brighter and
more varied than a glimpse through the sandbags at the
same old fringe of broken tree, the same old ruined house,
the same old line of chalky trenches, from which death may
come at any moment by rifle-grenade, sniper's bullet, or
whizz-bang—which is not an exciting form of death giv-
ing men the thrill of dramatic moments before they drop.
Even in this danger there was no cure for the deadening
monotony after the first few days of new experience. It
was just another part of the dirty business, and, for men
of nerves, a nagging, apprehensive thought, varied by mo-
ments of cold, horrible fear. Behind the lines, on supply
columns, at railheads, in billets, in squalid villages of Flan-
ders and Picardy with their rows of miserable estaminets
and evil-smelling farmyards, Boredom, monstrous and
abominable, sat like a witch-hag on the shoulders of many
men, divorced from the interests of their old home life,
from their women-folk, from the reasonable normal rou-
tine of peaceful careers. Discipline and duty had taken
the place of personal ambitions and the joy of life, and
they are cold virtues, very comfortless. Artists, actors,
barristers, writers, sportsmen, and men who had found
good fun in youth and the wide world, or some corner of it,
found themselves as officers on supply columns, R.T.O.'s,
D.A.D.O.S.'s, and in other administrative jobs, condemned
to a drudgery melancholy in its limitations and apparently
interminable. To many of them their area of activity was
confined between one squalid village and another, and the
chance of a stray shell or of an aeroplane bomb did not
really brighten up the scene.
They fought against this desolation of mind valiantly—
and it wanted valour—forced themselves to get absorbed in
the minute details of their work, sent for the old banjo
from home, organised canteens, smoking concerts, boxing
matches, cultivated cheeriness as the first law of daily life
until it became a second nature, beneath which the first
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES ix
nature only obtruded at night when they went back to sleep
in their billets and before sleeping cried out in a kind of
agony, “How long is this going on?—this Insanity, this
waste of life, this unnatural, damned existence!”
The fighting men had all the danger and, on the whole,
were less dull during the long period of stationary warfare.
They too cultivated cheerfulness as the first law of daily
life, and it was a harder job, yet they succeeded wonderfully
in spite of the filthy trenches, the rats and vermin, the ice-
cold water in which they waded up to the front line during
the long months of a Flemish winter (beginning in Octo-
ber and ending—perhaps—in April) the trench-feet which
for a time—until the rubbing-drill was adopted—drained
the strength of many battalions, and the enemy's shell-fire
and mining activities which took a daily toll of life and
limbs. Many of them found a gruesome humour in all
this, laughed at death as a low comedian, guffawed if they
dodged its knock-about tricks by the length of a traverse,
and did not go very sick if it laid out their best pal. “You
know, sir, it doesn’t do to take this war seriously.” So
said a sergeant to me as we stood in a trench beyond our
knees in water. It was a great saying, and I saw the phi-
losophy which had kept men sane. Without laughter, some-
how, anyhow, by any old joke, we should have lost the war
long ago. The only way to avoid deadly depression was
to keep smiling. And so for laughter's sake and to keep
normal in abnormal ways of life there was a great uncon-
scious conspiracy of cheerfulness among officers and men,
and the most popular man in a platoon was the fellow who
could twist a joke out of a dead German, or the subaltern
who could lead a patrol into No Man's Land with men
chuckling over some whimsical word about his widow, or
the comic corporal who could play ragtime tunes on a
comb and tissue-paper. Behind the lines there were variety
theatres in old warehouses ventilated by shell-holes, packed
by muddy men just out of the trenches, who found it diffi-
cult to laugh for the first half-hour and then roared with
X INTRODUCTION
laughter at funny fellows dressed as Mrs. Twankey, or
Charlie Chaplin, or the red-nosed comic turn who satirised
“brass hats” and the Army Safety Corps and Kaiser Bill,
and the effect of a 17-inch shell in the neighbourhood of Pri-
vate Spoofkins, V.C.
Discipline and hard work helped men to forget the voice
that called back to the days of individual liberty and peace.
There was always something to do up in the trenches, build-
ing up the parapets which in the Salient slipped down after
every rain-storm, wiring, revetting, digging new communi-
cation-trenches (under the enemy's machine-gun fire),
keeping German heads down by sniping every head that
came up, between the stand-to at dusk and dawn. After
the relief in the trenches—getting out was the risky job—
there was not much rest in the rest camps, what with
parades, bombing Schools, bayonet drill, machine-gun
courses, and practice at the rifle-range. “I’d rather be in
the blinkin’ trenches again,” groused the tired Tommy.
“Oh, you’ll soon be back again, my lad,” said the sergeant.
“Yet another week of your bright young life.”
It was the youngest men who were most cheerful—young
officers especially, just down from the Universities or the
Public Schools. Life was beginning for them, and even here
in the dirty ditches they found the thrill of life, the splen-
dour of life, the beauty of life. They found it splendid to
command men, to win their trust, to “make good” with
them. The comradeship with fellow-officers, the respon-
sibility of their rank, the revelation of their own manhood
and of their own courage—they had been afraid of failing
in pluck—and their professional interest in their jobs as
gunners or sappers or bombers, whatever they might be,
were great rewards for the dirt and the danger. I saw
many of these boys in places where death lay in wait for
them, and they had shining eyes and strode along cheerily,
talking proudly of some little “stunt” they had done with
their men, and not worrying about the menace overhead.
It was all “topping” to them, until the strain began to tell.
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES xi
The ideals of the Public Schools, the old traditional ideals
of British boyhood—“Dulce et decorum est . . .” Play
the game,” “Floreat Etona,” or whatever the old school
motto of chivalry and service might be—inspired them and
made a little white flame of enthusiasm in their hearts at
which their spirit warmed itself when the body was very
cold and everything comfortless. One by one many of them
were soon picked off by German snipers or laid out by Ger-
man shells, but others came out, and others, in an endless
procession of splendid boyhood, still “to play the game.”
With them came new battalions of men, whistling and sing-
ing along the roads of France.
I saw the first Territorial Divisions come out, and then
the first of the “Kitchener crowd,” and gradually, month
after month, the building up of the New Army. The Old
Army, that little Regular army which fought on the retreat
from Mons to the Marne and then upon the Aisne, and
then had swung up into Flanders to bar the way to Calais—
was gone for ever and was no more than an heroic mem-
ory. In the first Battle of Ypres and the second they had
done all that human nature could do, and the fields were
strewn with their dead until only a pitiful remnant held
the lines of that salient against which the enemy had hurled
himself in massed attacks supported by tremendous artil-
lery. Battalions had been wiped out, divisions had been cut
to pieces. A year ago a battalion commander told me that he
was one out of only I 50 officers belonging to the original
Expeditionary Force still serving in the trenches—and a
year is a long time in such a war as this. I met men who
had passed unscathed through all of that, but there were
not many of them. The regiments remained, but they
were filled up with new drafts. The old traditions re-
mained, fostered by the old soldiers here and there, and
by officers who know the value of tradition, but they were
new men and new armies who were beginning to crowd the
roads of France and to straighten the lines of defence.
They were the lads who had been called to the colours by
xii INTRODUCTION
the shouts of the street placards: “Your King and Country
need you,” “What did you do, daddy, in the Great War?”
(I could not print the outrageous answers I have heard to
that little simple question!) and “What will your best girl
say if you don't wear khaki?” They had been called by
quieter and nobler voices also, speaking to their hearts
above the clicking of typewriters in city offices and the
whirr of machinery in great workshops and in the silence
of the fields where they followed the plough. It was an
army of amateurs hastily drilled, hastily trained, knowing
very little of the real business of war, but quick to learn
and full of pluck. They were led for the most part by
temporary officers “for the period of the war only,” with
a few old “dug-outs” among them and some old non-com-
missioned officers to stiffen them. The Germans jeered at
them—not the enemy in the trenches but the enemy in hos-
tile newspaper offices. “What can this rabble of amateurs
do?” they asked. The answer was kept waiting for a little
while. -
The New Armies were learning. They were bearing the
hardships, the cruelties, the brutalities of war, and had to
suffer and “stick” them. They were learning the craft
of modern warfare in trenches, mine-shafts, and saps, be-
hind field-guns and “heavies,” and they had to pay for their
lessons by blood and agony. I went to see the New Armies
learning their lesson in frightful places. Always the
worst place was the Ypres Salient, where the enemy had
the advantage of ground and observation, so that he could
shoot at our men from three points of the compass and
even hit them in the back. The names of all these places
in the Salient are a litany of death—Pilkem, Potije, Hooge,
Zillebeke, Vlamertinghe, Sanctuary Wood—and Hooge was
the concentration-ground of all that was devilish. Dead
bodies were heaped there, buried and unburied. Men dug
into corruption when they tried to dig a trench. Men sat
on dead bodies when they peered through their periscopes.
They ate and slept with the stench of death in their nostrils.
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES xiii
Below them were the enemy's mine-shafts; beyond them
were our own mine-shafts. It was a competition in blowing
up the tumbled earth, and men fought like devils with
bombs and bayonets over mine-craters which had buried an-
other score or so of men. The story of Hooge was a serial
carried on from week to week, but the place was only one
of our little schools of war for bright young men.
Always the City of the Salient—the ghost-city of Ypres
—stood as a memorial of death, and of that dreadful day in
April of 1915 when the enemy first discharged his poison-
gas, flung a storm of great shells into the streets and
strewed them and the fields around with dead men, dead
horses, and dead women. I had been first into Ypres in
March, when the beauty of its Cloth Hall and of all its
churches and of its quaint old houses was untouched. The
Grande Place was full of cheerful English soldiers chaffing
the Flemish girls at their booths and stalls, buying picture
post cards and souvenirs in the shops, and strolling into
the Cloth Hall to stare at the painted frescoes and the
richness of its mediaeval decorations. I had tea with a party
of officers in a bun-shop facing the Cathedral. . . . When
I went into Ypres again, a few weeks later, there was a
great hole where the bun-shop had been and only litters of
stone and brickwork where the soldiers had bought their
picture post cards, and the Grande Place was a desert
about the tragic ruins of the great Cloth Hall and Cathe-
dral, which were but skeletons in stone with broken arches,
broken pillars, broken walls standing gaunt above great
piles of masonry. The Horror had come, when suddenly
on the breath of the wind a poisonous cloud stole into the
city, and there was a wild stampede of people choking and
gasping, terror-stricken, black in the face with the struggle
to breathe. British soldiers and Indian soldiers joined the
flight of the people of Ypres in a wild turmoil through the
streets. Many of them fell and died on the way. A des-
patch-rider rode the other way, towards the poison cloud.
He had a message to carry to the lines beyond. The gas
xiv INTRODUCTION
caught him in the throat and he fell off his motor-cycle and
lay dead, while his machine went on until it crashed into
a wall. Then the storm of shells burst over the city, fling-
ing down houses, tearing great holes in them, and lighting
great bonfires which blazed high, so that from a distance
Ypres was one flaming torch. . . . There were people who
could not get away, poor women and children who were
caught in their cellars. One woman lay ill and could not be
moved. An officer of the R.A.M.C. promised to get back to
her if he could get an ambulance through the fires and
shells. Late in the evening he found her in a field two miles
away with a new-born baby by her side. A young French
officer stayed with a crowd of wounded all huddled in an
an underground drain-pipe and tried to bandage them and
keep them alive till other help came. For four days they
could not move out of the hole, so that it was pestilential.
Two little wounded girls lay there among the dead and
dying. One of them, with eyes strangely bright, talked
continually in a voice preternaturally clear, sharp and metal-
lic, without intonation. She was a Flemish child, but
again and again she spoke three words of French: “Moi,
morte demain. . . . Moi, morte demain.” She died in the
arms of the young Frenchman. “I am astonished that I
did not go mad,” says the young Baron de Rosen, remem-
bering these hours.
In the summer of 1915 I went into Ypres several times,
and always the sinister horror of the place put its spell upon
me. I spent a night there with a friend—a strange, fan-
tastic night, when shells came whirring overhead, falling
with heavy crashes into the ruins. Beyond, the line of the
Salient was outlined by the white light of flares. In aban-
doned dug-outs were wild cats who spat at me when I
peered in. A lonely sentry—poor boy!—had the jim-jams
and saw ghosts about; and truly Ypres should be full of
ghosts if they walk o' nights—the ghosts of all the men
who have been buried alive here under the fallen masonry,
and have been killed here by shells which have dug enor-
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES XV
mous craters in the roadways. One day two German aero-
planes flung down bombs as I stood in the Grande Place
staring at its desolation. I was amazed to know how
q1'ickly I found a hole under a wall which I had not seen
before. . . . Ypres was never a safe place, and in the
minds of many thousands of British soldiers who once
passed through its ruins it is etched as one of the ghastly
pictures of war.
All through IQI5 we had in France not an army of attack
but an army of defence. This was not properly realised by
the people at home, by our Allies, or by some of our gen-
erals. There were demands for attack before we had
enough men or enough guns or enough ammunition. It was
a tragedy that we had to make several attacks without a real
chance of success. Neuve Chapelle was one of them. Loos
was another, more formidable and brilliantly carried out
as far as Hill 70 by the I5th (Scottish) Division and the
47th (London Territorial) Division, supported on their left
by the 9th (Scottish) Division and co-operating with a
strong French attack on the right along the Vimy Ridge,
but unable to inflict as much damage upon the enemy as
we suffered in the assault and the following days when
the Guards attacked at Hulluch.
It was the first great bombardment of ours I had seen,
though I had seen many small ones since an attack on
Wyghtschaete in March of 1915, and was the first time
when we showed any real strength in massed artillery, but
we did not support the first assault with strong reserves,
tactical blunders were made, and the enemy was able to
rally after some hours of panic, when their gunners began
to move away from Lens and we had a great chance. The
disappointment came very quickly upon one's first hopes,
but to me the memory of Loos is the revelation of the as-
tounding courage of those men of the London, the Scottish,
and the Guards Divisions who proved the mettle of the
New Armies (for even most of the Guards were new men)
and went into battle with a high-spirited valour which could
wº
xvi INTRODUCTION
not have been surpassed by the old Regulars. The Scots
were played on by their pipers. The London men played
mouth-organs, dribbled a football—as every one knows—
all the way to Loos, and sang “Who’s Your Lady Friend?”
amidst the crash of shell-fire.
So now there were other classrooms in the school of
war—the Hohenzollern Redoubt, Hulluch, Loos, and other
hot spots in that broad, flat, barren, villainous plain pimpled
by black slag-heaps—Fosse 8 and Fosse I4 bis—which one
approached through miles of communication-trenches under
the whirring of many shells. I went to these places when
the battle was on, and afterwards. Quite a long way away
from them there were spots where one hated to linger, and
through which one had to pass to get to the battlefields.
Noyelles-les-Vermelles was one of them, and I had some
nasty hours there when I went for afternoon tea with some
officers and found the enemy searching for that house with
four-inch shells, which knocked out three gunners in the
back yard just as I arrived, and killed some horses as I
walked across the field between the bursting crumps—there
was a blue sky overhead and fleecy clouds and a golden sun-
shine—to a hall door where a number of young men were
expecting death—disliking it exceedingly, but chatting about
trivial things with occasional laughter which did not ring
quite true. Vermelles was another of them, and I never
went without foreboding into that village of ruins where
the French had fought like tigers from garden to garden
and house to house before the capture of the château—do
you remember how they fought on the ground floor with the
Germans above and below them, until the first-floor ceiling
gave way and Germans came through and a young French
lieutenant swung a marble Venus round his head in the
midst of a writhing mob of men clutching at each other's
throats? Shells made smaller dust day by day of all these
rubbish-heaps and bigger holes in the standing walls. The
smell of poison-gas reeked from the bricks and the litter.
Other smells lurked about like obscene spectres. At any
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES xvii
moment of the day or night death might come here, and did,
without warning. . . . Higher up one felt safer in the wind-
ing ditches leading to the front lines. But it was the ostrich
sense of safety. One had only to mount a sandbag and
glance over the side of the trench to see how the enemy's
“crumps” were flinging up fountains of earth in all directions.
They came whining with their high gobbling notes over-
head. Dead bodies lay about. Up in the front trenches, by
Hulluch and the Hohenzollern, men lived always close to
mine-shafts which might open the earth beneath them at
any moment and bury them or hurl them high. There were
bombing fights on the lips of the shell-craters. In some
places a few yards only separated British soldiers and Ger-
man soldiers. They fought with each other in saps. It
was another Hooge.
I was only a looker-on and reporter of other men's cour-
age and sacrifice—a miserable game, rather wearing to the
nerves and spirit. There were many places to visit along
the front, and although they were not places where it is
agreeable to pass a few hours for amusement's sake, there
was an immense interest in these peep-shows of war where
one saw the real thing and the spirit of it all and the ugli-
ness, and the simple heroism of the men there. “Plug
Street” was the elementary training school for many of the
new divisions, with a touch of Arcadia in its woods in spite
of the snipers' bullets which came “zip-zip” through the
branches and the brushwood fringes along the outer walks,
past which one had to creep warily lest watchful eyes should
see one and stop one dead. A fairly safe place “Plug
Street” was supposed to be, but men were killed there all
right—each time I went I saw a dead body carried down
one of the glades—and at Hyde Park Corner, on the edge
of it, a colleague of mine was hit in the stomach by the
nose of a shell, and here I first heard the voice of “Percy,” a
high-velocity fellow who kills you before you know he is
coming.
Then there was Kemmel and its neighbourhood for an
xviii INTRODUCTION
afternoon’s adventure any time one liked to be brave or felt
inclined to look down into the German trenches from Hill
65, which gave a very fine view of them, up above Kemmel
village, strafed into a miserable huddle of ruins and damna-
bly sinister about the deep shell-craters and the overthrown
crosses in a wrecked churchyard. I went there one day in
a snowstorm, and coming back out of its desolation—where
plucky young men lived with their guns and wondered now
and then, at their mess-table in a broken barn, whose num-
ber would be written up next—saw a man in full evening
dress without an overcoat and with a bowler-hat upon his
head, walking in a leisurely way through the snowflakes and
past the churchyard with its opened graves. A fantastic
figure to meet on a battlefield, but not madder than many
things in this mad dream which is war.
Up in the trenches at Neuve Chapelle, beyond the ruins of
Croix Barbée, there were bits of open country across which
one had to sprint between one trench and another because
of German machine-guns trained upon them day and night.
I ran across them on Christmas Day to wish good luck to
some country boys who were sitting in puddles below the
fire-step and chatting with grave irony about peace on earth,
goodwill to men, and the Christmas stockings—waders,
really—which they had hung up outside their dug-outs to
see how the trick would work in war-time. It hadn’t
worked, and they groused against Santa Claus and laughed
at this little joke of theirs to hide the sentiment in their
hearts.
Festubert and Givenchy, Armentières and Houplines, were
other familiar places which one approached through ruins
before getting into the ditches where the British Army was
learning its lessons. Then as the armies grew the British
line was lengthened and we took over from the French,
from Hébuterne to Vaux-sur-Somme, and afterwards, in
February, when the Germans began their great attack upon
Verdun, from the Vimy Ridge to the south of Arras.
There was plenty of room here for the new Divisions who
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES xix
were coming out to learn, and plenty of practical object-
lessons in the abominable business of war. We learnt a lot
of French geography, and dozens of small villages unknown
before to history are now famous among British soldiers as
places where they lived under daily shell-fire, where they
escaped death by the queerest flukes, or where they were
hit at last after a thousand escapes.
Sailly-au-Bois was a village on the way to Hébuterne. A
charming little place it must have been once, with quaint
old cottages and a market square. When I went there first
the Germans disliked it, plugged shells into most of the
houses and into one where a number of Sussex gentlemen
were sitting down to lunch. It spoilt their meal for them
and made a new entrance through the dining-room wall. Be-
yond the village was the road to Hébuterne. It led through
open fields and past a belt of trees less than a thousand
yards away, where the Germans lay watching behind their
rifle-barrels. But the French had made a friendly little ar-
rangement. If an open car crawled down slowly the Ger-
mans did not snipe. If it were a covered car, presumably
a General's, or went fast, they had the right to shoot.
Queer, though it seemed to work. But I was always glad
to get the length of that road and to find some cover in the
fortress-village of Hébuterne, with its deep dug-outs, proof
against the lighter kind of shells. The Germans had been
here first and had dug in with their usual industry. Then
the French had turned them out after ferocious fighting—
there are many French graves there in the Orchard and in
the trenches, and a little altar still kept in good order by
British soldiers to Notre-Dame-des-Tranchées; they had
gone on digging and strengthening the place, and when our
men took over the ground they continued the fortifications,
so that it was a model of defensive work. But the Ger-
mans shelled it with method, and it was safer below ground
than above. In the Orchard young fruit of life fell before
it had ripened, and I did not like to linger there among the
apple-trees.
XX INTRODUCTION
The taking over of Arras and its neighbourhood down
from the Vimy Ridge to Souchez, Ablain-St.-Nazaire, La
Targette, Neuville-St.-Vaast—the very names make me
feel cold—liberated a complete French army for the defence
of Verdun, and it was our biggest service to France before
the battles of the Somme.
I went into Arras and saw the despoiled beauty of this old
city of Artois, silent and desolate, in its ruined gardens
where white statues lay in the rank grass, except when shells
opened great craters in the Grande Place or tore off a gable
from one of the Spanish houses in the Petite Place, or came
crashing into the wreckage of the railway station or knocked
a few more stones out of the immense walls of the Cathe-
dral and the Bishop's Palace, through which I wandered,
gazing up long vistas of white ruin. In the suburbs of St.-
Laurent and St.-Nicholas the enemy was very close across
the garden walls, and in the Maison Rouge one had to tip-
toe and talk in whispers by chinks in the wall (there was a
rosewood piano in the front room), through which one
could look at the enemy’s sandbags a few yards away.
Wrinkled old women and wan-faced girls lived still in the
deep cellars of the city, coming up for a little sunlight when
the air was quiet, and scuttling down again at the scream of
a shell. In the dusk small boys roamed the broken streets,
searched among the litter of stones for shrapnel-bullets for
games of marbles (I Once played such a game in a night at
Ypres), and cocked a snook at German shells falling a street
or two away. Our soldiers became familiar with all these
places, strode through them with that curious matter-of-fact
way of the British Tommy, who makes himself at home in
hell-on-earth as though it were the usual thing, and in Sou-
chez, Neuville-St.-Vaast, Ablain-St.-Nazaire, and on the
ridge of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette held the lines in spite of
five-point-nines, aerial torpedoes, every kind of high-explo-
sive force which tried to blast them out. For miles the
ground was strewn with “duds”—so that one had to pick
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES xxi
one's way lest one should kick a fuse—and with the litter
of men's clothes and bodies.
The months passed. Spring came, and nightingales sang
in the bushes of old French châteaux and the woodpecker
laughed in the forest glades; the fields were strewn with
flowers, and the beauty of France sang a great song in one's
heart. The wheat grew tall and green. And all this time
the roads in the British war-zone were becoming more
crowded with the traffic of men and horses and guns and
lorries—miles of motor-lorries—as new Divisions came out,
with belts and harness looking very fresh, making their way
slowly forward to the firing-lines to learn their lesson like
others who had gone before them. The billeting areas
widened, became congested districts from Boulogne to the
Somme. In Picardy and Artois there was khaki every-
where. In old market-places of St.-Omer, Bailleul, Bé-
thune, St.-Pol, Hesdin, Fruges, Doullens, our Tommies jos-
tled among the stalls and booths, among the old women
and girls and blue-coated “poilus,” making friends with
them, learning a wonderful lingua franca, settling down into
the queer life, which alternated between the trenches and the
billets, as though it would last for ever.
The human picture changed. New types of men arrived
and some of the old stagers departed. The Indian infantry
also went, and the flat fields behind Neuve Chapelle, where
the canals cut straight between the rushes, lost those grave,
sad-eyed, handsome men who seemed like fairy-book princes
to the French peasants, whose language they had learnt to
speak with a courtesy, and with soft, simple manners which
won the friendship of these people. In the winter trenches
the Indians had shivered; in the dank mists across the flats
they had wandered dolefully. They had fought gallantly
under officers who sacrificed their own lives with noble de-
votion, but they hated modern shell-fire and all the misery
of trench-warfare in a wet, cold climate, and were, I think,
glad to go.
xxii INTRODUCTION
The Australians came, and for the first time we saw in
France those bronzed, hatchet-faced, handsome fellows who
brought a new character of splendid manhood into the med-
ley of British types. The New Zealanders followed, with
Maoris among them. The Canadians were adding many
new battalions to their strength. The South African Scot-
tish sent more kilts swinging down the roads of war. There
were Newfoundlanders, West Indians from Barbados. All
the Empire was sending her men. For what?
That was the question which we were all asking. How
and when were these men going to be used? The months
were dragging on and there was no great attack. There
had been savage fighting on a small scale up in the Salient at
St.-Eloi and the Bluff. The Canadians lost ground under a
sudden storm of shell-fire which flattened out their trenches,
and retook it after bloody counter-attacks. The Vimy
Ridge had seen heavy and costly fighting which gained noth-
ing. All along the line there were raids into the enemy's
trenches, but it was Red Indian warfare and not the big
thing. France, after four months of desperate fighting at
Verdun, asked when the English were going to strike. And
British soldiers who had been in and out of the trenches,
month after month, seeing heavy losses mount up by the
usual daily toll, with nothing to show for them, began to
despair a little. Was it going on for ever like this? This
existence was intolerable. To sit in a trench and be shelled
to death—what was the sense of it? At the mess-table
there were men who found the world all black, the war a
monstrous horror, an outrage to God and life. I had queer
conversations with men in dug-outs, in wooden huts under
shell-fire, in French châteaux inhabited by British officers,
and heard the secrets of men's souls, their protests against
the doom that had enchained them, their perplexities, their
strivings to find some spiritual meaning in the devilish ap-
pearance of things, their revolt against the brutality and
senselessness of war, their ironic laughter at the bloody con-
trast between Christian teaching and Christian practice,
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES xxiii
their blind gropings for some light in all the darkness and
damnation.
Then suddenly all changed. The “Big Push” was to come
at last. Trench warfare was to end, and all this great army
of ours in France was to get out of its ditches and out into
the open and strike. Enormous hope took the place of the
doubts and dolefulness that had begun to possess men of
melancholy minds. It would be a chance of ending the
business. At least we had the strength to deliver a smash-
ing, perhaps a decisive, blow. All our two years of organi-
sation and training and building up would be put to the
test, and the men were sure of themselves, confident in the
new power of our artillery, which was tremendous, without
a doubt in the spirit of attack which would inspire all our
battalions. They would fight with the will to win.
So we came to July 1, that day so great in hope, in
achievement, and in tragedy, and what happened then and
for three and a half months of fighting days is told in the
articles now printed in this book. I might have rewritten
them, polished their style, put in new facts here and there,
and written a narrative of history with a more considered
judgment than was possible day by day. But I have thought
it best to let them stand as they were written at great speed,
sometimes in utter exhaustion of body and brain, but always
with the emotion that comes from the hot impress of new
and tremendous sensations. They may hold some qualities
that would be lost if I wrote them with more coldness and
criticism of words and phrases. Even the repetition of in-
cidents and impressions has some value, for that is true of
modern warfare—a continual repetition of acts and sounds,
sights and smells and emotions.
The method of attack has become a formula—the intense
preliminary bombardment almost annihilating the enemy's
front trenches (but not all his dug-outs), the advance across
No Man's Land under the enemy's curtain-fire, the rush
over the enemy's broken parapets in the face of machine-gun
fire, the bombing-out of the dug-outs, the taking of pris-
xxiv. INTRODUCTION
oners. One captured “village” destroyed utterly by shell-
fire days before the final attack upon its earth-works is ex-
actly like another in its rubbish-heaps of bricks and wood-
work. The pictures repeat themselves. Heroic acts—the
knocking-out of a machine-gun, the bombing down a section
of trench, the rescue of wounded—repeat themselves also
through all the battles. In my chronicles these repetitions
will be found, and the effect of them on the reader’s mind
should be the effect in a faint, far-off way of the real truth.
Some people imagine, and some critics have written, that
the war correspondents with the armies in France have been
“spoon-fed” with documents and facts given to them by
General Headquarters, from which they write up their des-
patches. They recognise the same incident, told in different
style by different correspondents, and say, “Ah, that is how
it is done!” They are wrong. All that we get from the
General Staff are the brief bulletins of the various army
corps, a line or two of hard news about the capture or loss
of this or that trench, such as appears afterwards in the
official communiqués. For all the details of an action we
have to rely upon our own efforts in the actual theatre of
operations day by day, seeing as much of the battle as it is
possible to see (sometimes one can see everything and some-
times nothing but smoke and bursting shells), getting into
the swirl and traffic of the battlefields, talking to the walk-
ing wounded and prisoners, the men going in and the men
coming out, going to headquarters of brigades, divisions,
and corps for exact information as to the progress of the
battle from the generals and officers directing the opera-
tions, and getting into touch as soon as possible with the
battalions actually engaged. All this is not as easy as it
sounds. It is not done without fatigue, and mental as well
as physical strain. It takes one into unpleasant places from
which one is glad and lucky to get back. But we have full
facilities for seeing and knowing the truth of things, and
see more and know more of the whole battle-line than is
possible even to Divisional Generals and other officers in
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES xxv.
high command. For we have a pass enabling us to go to
any part of the front at any time and get the facts and
points of view from every class and rank, from the trenches
to G.H.Q. Because the correspondents sometimes tell the
same stories it is because we tell them to each other, not
believing in professional rivalry in a war of this greatness.
Our only limitations in truth-telling are those of our own
vision, skill, and conscience under the discipline of the mili-
tary censorship. I have no personal quarrel with that cen-
sorship—though all censorship is hateful. After many al-
terations in method and principle it was exercised through-
out the battles of the Somme (and for months before that,
when there was no conspiracy of silence but only the lack
of great events to chronicle) with a really broad-minded
policy of allowing the British people to know the facts
about their fighting men save those which would give the
enemy a chance of spoiling our plans or hurting us. If
there had been no censorship at all it would be impossible
for an honourable correspondent to tell some things within
his knowledge—our exact losses in a certain action, failures
at this or that point of the line, tactical blunders which
might have been made here or there, the disposition or
movement of troops, the positions of batteries and observa-
tion-posts.
These are things which the enemy must not know. So
I do not think that during the whole of the Somme fighting
there was more than a line or two taken out of one or the
other of my despatches, and with the exception of those
words they are printed as they were written. They tell the
truth. There is not one word, I vow, of conscious falsehood
in them. But they do not tell all the truth. I have had to
spare the feelings of men and women who have sons and
husbands still fighting in France. I have not told all there
is to tell about the agonies of this war, nor given in full real-
ism the horrors that are inevitable in such fighting. It is
perhaps better not to do so, here and now, although it is a
moral cowardice which makes many people shut their eyes
xxvi INTRODUCTION
to the shambles, comforting their souls with fine phrases
about the beauty of sacrifice.
One thing hurt me badly in writing my accounts and
hurts me still. For military reasons I have not been permit-
ted to give the names of all the troops engaged from day
to day, but only a few names allowed by our Intelligence.
The Germans were counting up our divisions, reckoning
how many men we had in reserve, how many were against
them in the lines. It was not for us to help them in this
arithmetic. But it is hard on the men and on their people.
They do not get that immediate fame and honour for their
regiments which they have earned by the splendour of their
courage and achievements. It is not my fault, for I would
give all their names if I could, and tire out my wrist in
praising them if it could give them a little spark of pleasure
and pride. But, after all, each man who fought on the
Somme shares the general honour which belongs to all of
them.
The correspondents with the armies in the field do not
prophesy or criticise or sit in judgment. That is not within
our orders, and belongs to the liberty of writing-men who
sit at home with their maps and the official bulletins and our
despatches from the front. “There is not one of these in-
dustrious men,” writes a critic of our work, “who has had
the experience to form a military judgment.” Well, that is
as may be, though we have had more experience of war than
most men will have, I think, for another fifty years. In our
own mess we are critics and prophets and judges, and I
fancy we could give a point or two to the experts at home,
and, with luck, later on, may do so. Now in the war-zone
we are but chroniclers of the fighting day by day, trying to
get the facts as fully as possible and putting them down as
clearly as they appear out of the turmoil of battle. Even
now in this Introduction I shall attempt no summing up of
the results achieved by these battles of the Somme, except
by saying that by enormous sacrifices, by individual cour-
age beyond the normal laws of human nature as I thought
THE COMING OF THE NEW ARMIES xxvii
I knew them once, by great efficiency in organisation and a
resolute purpose not checked or weakened by any obstacles,
our troops broke through positions which the enemy be-
lieved, and had a right to believe, impregnable, carried by
assault his first, second, and third systems of trenches, drew
in his reserves with many guns and men from Verdun so
that the French could counter-attack with brilliant success,
and inflicted upon the enemy heavy and irreparable loss
which, as we hope and believe, though with imperfect knowl-
edge, he cannot afford without weakening his line of de-
fence on our own front and facing our Allies. These ham-
mer-strokes were not decisive in victory. I believe that the
German strength of resistance and attack is still great. I
do not see a quick ending of this most horrible massacre in
the fields of Europe. But it was only the weather which
stopped for a time our forward progress when at the end
of October the rain-storms made all the battlefield a swamp
and obscured the observation which our men had won by
three months and a half of uphill fighting and desperate
strife. Even then in the mud they took many more prison-
ers in heavy fighting up by the Stuff and Schwaben Redoubts
which the enemy hated us to hold because of their domi-
nating ground to the north of Thiépval—and then in the
fog made that great, audacious attack on Beaumont-Hamel,
which captured one of the strongest positions against our
own front with over 6,000 prisoners. Of that last attack I
saw nothing, being home on sick-leave.
I must say a word or two about the Tanks. After the
first great surprise, the exaltation of spirits caused by these
new motor-monsters, there followed a disappointment in the
public mind and even among our soldiers. Some of the in-
fantry, poor lads, hoped that at last the enemy's deadly ma-
chine-gun fire would be killed by these things and that in
future infantry attacks would be a walk-over behind the
Tanks. That was hoping too much. It would require thou-
sands of Tanks to do that and we had only a few. But I
have the record of what each Tank did in action up to the
xxviii INTRODUCTION
middle of October, and it leaves no room for doubt that,
balancing success with failure, these new machines of war
have justified their inventors a hundred-fold. They saved
many casualties at certain points of the line and helped to
gain many important positions, as at Thiépval and Flers,
Courcelette and Martinpuich. If we had enough of them
—and it would be a big number—trench warfare would go
for ever and machine-gun redoubts would lose their terror.
The battles of the Somme—as we call this fighting, curi-
ously, for on our side it is not very near the Somme—are
not yet finished. As I write these words it is only a lull
which seems to end them, and does end at least the first
phase with which I deal in the pages that follow. They are
pages written on the evenings of battle hastily and some-
times feverishly, after days of intense experience and tiring
sensation. Yet there is in them and through them one pas-
sionate purpose. It is to reveal to our people and the world
the high valour, the self-sacrificing discipline of soul, the
supreme endurance of those men of ours who fought and
suffered great agonies and died, and if not killed or
wounded, came out to rest a little while and fight again,
not liking it, you understand—hating it like the hell it is—
but doing their duty, with a great and glorious devotion,
according to the light that is in them.
THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
I
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY
I
WITH THE BRITISH ARMIES IN THE FIELD, JULY 1, 1916
THE attack which was launched to-day against the German
lines on a 20-mile front began well. It is not yet a victory,
for victory comes at the end of a battle, and this is only a
beginning. But our troops, fighting with very splendid
valour, have swept across the enemy's front trenches along
a great part of the line of attack, and have captured villages
and strongholds which the Germans have long held against
us. They are fighting their way forward not easily but
doggedly. Many hundreds of the enemy are prisoners in
our hands. His dead lie thick in the track of our regiments.
And so, after the first day of battle, we may say: It is,
on balance, a good day for England and France. It is a day
of promise in this war, in which the blood of brave men is
poured out upon the sodden fields of Europe.
For nearly a week now we have been bombarding the
enemy's lines from the Yser to the Somme. Those of us
who have watched this bombardment knew the meaning of
it. We knew that it was the preparation for this attack.
All those raids of the week which I have recorded from day
to day were but leading to a greater raid when not hun-
dreds of men but hundreds of thousands would leave their
trenches and go forward in a great assault.
We had to keep the secret, to close our lips tight, to write
vague words lest the enemy should get a hint too soon, and
the strain was great upon us and the suspense an ordeal to
2I
22 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
the nerves, because as the hours went by they drew nearer
to the time when great masses of our men, those splendid
young men who have gone marching along the roads of
France, would be sent into the open, out of the ditches
where they got cover from the German fire.
This secret was foreshadowed by many signs. Travel-
ling along the roads we saw new guns arriving—heavy
guns and field-guns, week after week. We were building
up a great weight of metal.
Passing them, men raised their eyebrows and smiled
grimly. . . . A tide of men flowed in from the ports of
France—new men of new divisions. They passed to some
part of the front, disappeared for a while, were met again
in fields and billets, looking harder, having stories to tell of
trench life and raids.
The Army was growing. There was a mass of men here
in France, and some day they would be ready, trained
enough, hard enough, to strike a big blow.
A week or two ago the whisper passed, “We’re going to
attack.” But no more than that, except behind closed doors
of the mess-room. Somehow by the look on men's faces,
by their silences and thoughtfulness, one could guess that
Something was to happen.
There was a thrill in the air, a thrill from the pulse of
men who know the meaning of attack. Would it be in
June or July 2 . . . The fields of France were very beauti-
ful this June. There were roses in the gardens of old
French chateaux. Poppies put a flame of colour in the
fields, close up to the trenches, and there were long stretches
of gold across the countryside. A pity that all this should
be spoilt by the pest of war.
So some of us thought, but not many soldiers. After the
misery of a wet winter and the expectations of the spring
they were keen to get out of the trenches again. All their
training led up to that. The spirit of the men was for an
assault across the open, and they were confident in the new
power of our guns. . . .
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY 23
The guns spoke one morning last week with a louder
voice than has yet been heard upon the front, and as they
crashed out we knew that it was the signal for the new
attack. Their fire increased in intensity, covering raids at
many points of the line, until at last all things were ready
for the biggest raid.
2
The scene of the battlefields at night was of terrible
beauty. I motored out to it from a town behind the lines,
where through their darkened windows French citizens
watched the illumination of the sky, throbbing and flashing
to distant shellfire. Behind the lines the villages were
asleep, without the twinkle of a lamp in any window. The
shadow forms of sentries paced up and down outside the
stone archways of old French houses.
Here and there on the roads a lantern waved to and fro,
and its rays gleamed upon the long bayonet and steel casque
of a French Territorial, and upon the bronzed face of an
English soldier, who came forward to stare closely at a
piece of paper which allowed a man to go into the fires of
hell up there. It was an English voice that gave the first
challenge, and then called out “Good-night” with a strange
and unofficial friendliness as a greeting to men who were
going towards the guns.
The fields on the edge of the battle of guns were very
peaceful. A faint breeze stirred the tall wheat, above which
there floated a milky light transfusing the darkness. The
poppy fields still glowed redly, and there was a glint of gold
from long stretches of mustard flower. Beyond, the woods
stood black against the sky above little hollows where British
soldiers were encamped.
There by the light of candles which gave a rose-colour to
the painted canvas boys were writing letters home before
lying down to sleep. Some horsemen were moving down a
24 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
valley road. Further off a long column of black lorries
passed. It was the food of the guns going forward.
A mile or two more, a challenge or two more, and then a
halt by the roadside. It was a road which led straight into
the central fires of one great battlefield in a battle line of
80 miles or more. A small corner of the front, yet in itself
a broad and far-stretching panorama of our gunfire on this
night of bombardment.
I stood with a few officers in the centre of a crescent
sweeping round from Auchonvillers, Thiépval, La Boisselle,
and Fricourt, to Bray, on the Somme, at the southern end
of the curve. Here in this beetroot field on high ground,
we stood watching one of the greatest artillery battles in
which British gunners have been engaged. Up to that night
the greatest.
The night sky, very calm and moist, with low-lying
clouds not stirred by wind, was rent with incessant flashes
of light as shells of every calibre burst and scattered. Out
of the black ridges and woods in front of us came explo-
sions of white fire, as though the earth had opened and let
loose its inner heat. They came up with a burst of intense
brilliance, which spread along a hundred yards of ground
and then vanished abruptly behind the black curtain of the
night. It was the work of high explosives and heavy trench
mortars falling in the German lines. Over Thiépval and
La Boisselle there were rapid flashes of bursting shrapnel
shells, and these points of flame stabbed the sky along the
whole battle front.
From the German lines rockets were rising, continually.
They rose high and their star-shells remained suspended for
half a minute with an intense brightness. While the light
lasted it cut out the black outline of the trees and broken
roofs, and revealed heavy white smoke-clouds rolling over
the enemy's positions.
They were mostly white lights, but at one place red
rockets went up. They were signals of distress, perhaps,
from German infantry calling to their guns. It was in the
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY 25
zone of these red signals, over towards Ovillers, that our
fire for a time was most fierce, so that sheets of flame waved
to and fro as though fanned by a furious wind. All the
time along the German line red lights ran up and down
like little red dancing devils.
I cannot tell what they were, unless they were some other
kind of signalling, or the bursting of rifle-grenades. Some-
times for thirty seconds or so the firing ceased, and dark-
ness, very black and velvety, blotted out everything and
restored the world to peace. Then suddenly, at one point
or another, the earth seemed to open to furnace fires.
Down by Bray, southwards, there was one of these violent
shocks of light, and then a moment later another, by
Auchonvilliers to the north.
And Once again the infernal fires began, flashing, flicker-
ing, running along a ridge with a swift tongue of flame,
tossing burning feathers above rosy smoke-clouds, concen-
trating into one bonfire of bursting shells over Fricourt
and Thiépval upon which our batteries always concentrated.
3
There was one curious phenomenon. It was the silence
of all the artillery. By some atmospheric condition of
moisture or wind (though the night was calm), or by the
configuration of the ground, which made pockets into which
the sound fell, there was no great uproar, such as I have
heard scores of times in smaller bombardments than this.
It was all muffled. Even our own batteries did not crash
out with any startling thunder, though I could hear the rush
of big shells, like great birds in flight. Now and then there
was a series of loud strokes, an urgent knocking at the doors
of night. And now and again there was a dull, heavy thun-
der-clap, followed by a long rumble, which made me think
that mines were being blown further up the line.
But for the most part it was curiously quiet and low-
26 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
toned, and somehow this muffled artillery gave one a greater
sense of awfulness and of deadly work.
Along all this stretch of the battle-front there was no sign
of men. It was all inhuman, the work of impersonal pow-
ers, and man himself was in hiding from these great forces
of destruction. So I thought, peering through the dark-
ness, over the beetroots and the wheat.
But a little later I heard the steady tramp of many feet
and the thud of horses' hoofs walking slowly, and the grind-
ing of wheels in the ruts. Shadow forms came up out of
the dark tunnel below the trees, the black figures of mounted
officers, followed by a battalion marching with their trans-
port. I could not see the faces of the men, but by the shape
of their forms could see that they wore their steel helmets
and their fighting kit. They were heavily laden with their
packs, but they were marching at a smart, Swinging pace,
and as they came along were singing cheerily.
They were singing some music-hall tune, with a lilt in it,
as they marched towards the lights of all the shells up there
in the places of death. Some of them were blowing mouth-
organs and others were whistling. I watched them pass—
all these tall boys of a North Country regiment, and some-
thing of their spirit seemed to come out of the dark mass
of their moving bodies and thrill the air. They were going
up to those places without faltering, without a backward
look and singing—dear, splendid men.
I saw other men on the march, and some of them were
whistling the “Marseillaise,” though they were English sol-
diers. Others were gossiping quietly as they walked and
once the light of bursting shells played all down the line of
their faces—hard, clean-shaven, bronzed English faces, with
the eyes of youth there staring up at the battle-fires and
unafraid.
A young Officer walking at the head of his platoon called
out a cheery good-night to me. It was a greeting in the
darkness from one of those gallant boys who lead their
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY 27
men out of the trenches without much thought of self in that
moment of sacrifice.
In the camps the lights were out and the tents were dark.
The soldiers who had been writing letters home had sent
their love and gone to sleep. But the shell fire never ceased
all night.
4
A staff officer had whispered a secret to us at midnight in
a little room, when the door was shut and the window
closed. Even then they were words which could be only
whispered, and to men of trust.
“The attack will be made this morning at 7.30.”
So all had gone well, and there was to be no hitch. The
preliminary bombardments had done their work with the
enemy's wire and earthworks. All the organisation for
attack had been done, and the men were ready in their as-
sembly trenches waiting for the words which would hold
all their fate.
There was a silence in the room where a dozen officers
heard the words—men who were to be lookers-on and who
would not have to leave a trench up there on the battlefields
when the little hand of a wrist watch said “It is now.”
The great and solemn meaning of next day's dawn made
the air seem oppressive, and our hearts beat jumpily for
just a moment. There would be no sleep for all those men
crowded in the narrow trenches on the north of the Somme.
God give them courage in the morning. . . .
The dawn came with a great beauty. There was a pale
blue sky flecked with white wisps of cloud. But it was cold
and over all the fields there was a floating mist which rose
up from the moist earth and lay heavily upon the ridges,
so that the horizon was obscured. As soon as light came
there was activity in the place where I was behind the lines.
A body of French engineers, all blue from casque to puttee,
and laden with their field packs, marched along with a steady
28 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
tramp, their grave, grim faces turned towards the front.
British staff officers came motoring swiftly by and despatch
riders mounted their motor cycles and scurried away
through the market carts of French peasants to the open
roads. French sentries and French soldiers in reserve raised
their hands to the salute as our officers passed.
Each man among them guessed that it was England's day,
and that the British Army was out for attack. It was the
spirit of France saluting their comrades in arms when the
oldest “poilu” there raised a wrinkled hand to his helmet
and said to an English soldier, “Bonne chance, mon
camarade l’’
Along the roads towards the battlefields there was no
movement of troops. For a few miles there were quiet
fields, where cattle grazed and where the wheat grew green
and tall in the white mist. The larks were singing high in
the first glinting sunshine of the day above the haze. And
another kind of bird came soaring overhead.
It was one of our monoplanes, which flew steadily towards
the lines, a herald of the battle. In distant hollows there
were masses of limber, and artillery horses hobbled in lines.
The battle line came into view, the long sweep of country
stretching southwards to the Somme. Above the lines
beyond Bray, looking towards the German trenches, was a
great cluster of kite balloons. They were poised very high,
held steady by the air pockets on their ropes, and their bas-
kets, where the artillery observers sat, caught the rays of
the sun. I counted seventeen of them, the largest group
that has ever been seen along our front; but I could see no
enemy balloons opposite them. It seemed that we had more
eyes than they, but to-day theirs have been staring out of
the veil of the mist.
5
We went farther forward to the guns, and stood on the
same high field where we had watched the night bombard-
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY 29
ment. The panorama of battle was spread around us, and
the noise of battle swept about us in great tornadoes. I
have said that in the night one was startled by the curious
quietude of the guns, by that queer muffled effect of so great
an artillery. But now on the morning battle this phenom-
enon, which I do not understand, no longer existed. There
was one continual roar of guns which beat the air with
great waves and shocks of sound, prodigious and over-
whelming.
The full power of our artillery was let loose at about 6
o'clock this morning. Nothing like it has ever been seen or
heard upon our front before, and all the preliminary bom-
bardment, great as it was, seemed insignificant to this. I do
not know how many batteries we have along this battle line
or upon the section of the line which I could see, but the
guns seemed crowded in vast numbers of every calibre, and
the concentration of their fire was terrific in its intensity.
For a time I could see nothing through the low-lying mist
and heavy smoke-clouds which mingled with the mist, and
stood like a blind man, only listening. It was a wonderful
thing which came to my ears. Shells were rushing through
the air as though all the trains in the world had leapt their
rails and were driving at express speed through endless
tunnels in which they met each other with frightful col-
lisions.
Some of these shells firing from batteries not far from
where I stood ripped the sky with a high, tearing note.
Other shells whistled with that strange, gobbling, sibilant
cry which makes one's bowels turn cold. Through the mist
and the smoke there came sharp, loud, insistent knocks, as
separate batteries fired salvoes, and great clangorous strokes,
as of iron doors banged suddenly, and the tattoo of the
light field guns playing the drums of death.
The mist was shifting and dissolving. The tall tower of
Albert Cathedral appeared suddenly through the veil, and
the sun shone full for a few seconds on the golden Virgin
and the Babe, which she held head-downwards above all this
30 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
tumult as a peace-offering to men. The broken roofs of
the town gleamed white, and the two tall chimneys to the
left stood black and sharp against the pale blue of the sky,
into which dirty smoke drifted above the whiter clouds.
I could see now as well as hear. I could see our shells
falling upon the German lines by Thiépval and La Boiselle
and further by Mametz, and southwards over Fricourt.
High explosives were tossing up great vomits of black
smoke and earth all along the ridges. Shrapnel was pour-
ing upon these places, and leaving curly white clouds, which
clung to the ground.
Below there was the flash of many batteries like Morse
code signals by stabs of flame. The enemy was being
blasted by a hurricane of fire. I found it in my heart to
pity the poor devils who were there, and yet was filled by a
strange and awful exultation because this was the work of
our guns, and because it was England's day.
Over my head came a flight of six aeroplanes, led by a
single monoplane, which steered steadily towards the enemy.
The sky was deeply blue above them, and when the sun
caught their wings they were as beautiful and delicate as
butterflies. But they were carrying death with them, and
were out to bomb the enemy's batteries and to drop their
explosives into masses of men behind the German lines.
Farther away a German plane was up. Our anti-aircraft
guns were searching for him with their shells which dotted
the sky with snowballs.
Every five minutes or so a single gun fired a round. It
spoke with a voice I knew, the deep, gruff voice of old
“Grandmother,” one of our 15-inch guns, which carries a
shell large enough to smash a cathedral with one enormous
burst. I could follow the journey of the shell by listening
to its rush through space. Seconds later there was the
distant thud of its explosion.
Troops were moving forward to the attack from behind
the lines. It was nearly 7.30. All the officers about me
kept glancing at their wrist-watches. We did not speak
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY 31
much then, but stared silently at the smoke and mist which
floated and banked along our lines. There, hidden, were
our men. They, too, would be looking at their wrist-
watches.
The minutes were passing very quickly—as quickly as
men's lives pass when they look back upon the years. An
officer near me turned away, and there was a look of sharp
pain in his eyes. We were only lookers-on. The other men,
our friends, the splendid Youth that we have passed on the
roads of France, were about to do this job. Good luck go
with them! Men were muttering such wishes in their
hearts.
6
It was 7.30. Our watches told us that, but nothing else.
The guns had lifted and were firing behind the enemy's first
lines, but there was no sudden hush for the moment of
attack. The barrage by our guns seemed as great as the first
bombardment. For ten minutes or so before this time a
new sound had come into the general thunder of artillery.
It was like the “rafale” of the French soixante-quinze, very
rapid, with distant and separate strokes, but louder than
the noise of field-guns. They were our trench-mortars at
work, along the whole length of the line before me.
It was 7.30. The moment for the attack had come.
Clouds of smoke had been liberated to form a screen for the
infantry, and hid the whole line. The only men I could
see were those in reserve, winding along a road by some
trees which led up to the attacking points. They had their
backs turned, as they marched very slowly and steadily
forward. I could not tell who they were, though I had
passed some of them on the road a day or two before. But,
whoever they were, English, Irish or Welsh, I watched them
until most had disappeared from sight behind a clump of
trees. In a little while they would be fighting, and would
need all their courage.
32 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
At a minute after 7.30 there came through the rolling
smoke-clouds a rushing sound. It was the noise of rifle
fire and machine-guns. The men were out of their trenches,
and the attack had begun. The enemy was barraging our
lines.
7
The country chosen for our main attack to-day stretches
from the Somme for some 20 miles northwards. The
French were to operate on our immediate right. It is very
different country from Flanders, with its swamps and flats,
and from the Loos battlefields, with their dreary plain
pimpled by slack heaps.
It is a sweet and pleasant country, with wooded hills and
little valleys along the river beds of the Ancre and the
Somme, and fertile meadow-lands and stretches of wood-
land, where soldiers and guns may get good cover. “A
clean country,” said one of our Generals, when he first went
to it from the northern war zone.
It seemed very queer to go there first, after a knowledge
of war in the Ypres salient, where there is seldom view of
the enemy's lines from any rising ground—except Kemmel
Hill and Observatory Ridge—and where certainly one can-
not walk on the skyline in full view of German earthworks
2,000 yards away.
But at Hebuterne, which the French captured after des-
perate fighting, and at Auchonvilliers (opposite Beaumont),
and on the high ground by the ruined city of Albert, look-
ing over to Fricourt and Mametz, and further south on the
Somme, looking towards the little German stronghold at
Curlu, beyond the marshes, one could see very clearly and
with a strange, unreal sense of safety.
I saw a German sentry pacing the village street of Curlu,
and went within 20 paces of his outposts. Occasionally one
could stare through one's glasses at German working parties
just beyond sniping range round Beaumont and Fricourt,
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY 33
and to the left of Fricourt the Crucifix between its seven
trees seemed very near as one looked at it in the German
lines.
Below this Calvary was the Tambour and the Bois Fran-
çais, where not a week passed without a mine being blown
on one side or the other, so that the ground was a great
upheaval of mingling mine-craters and tumbled earth, which
but half-covered the dead bodies of men.
It was difficult ground in front of us. The enemy was
strong in his defences. In the clumps of woodland beside
the ruined villages he hid many machine-guns and trench
mortars, and each ruined house in each village was part of a
fortified stronghold difficult to capture by direct assault. It
was here, however, and with good hopes of success that our
men attacked to-day, working eastwards across the Ancre
and northwards up from the Somme.
8
At the end of this day's fighting it is still too soon to
give a clear narrative of the battle. Behind the veil of
smoke which hides our men there were many different ac-
tions taking place, and the messages that come back at the
peril of men's lives and by the great gallantry of our sig-
mallers and runners give but glimpses of the progress of
our men and of their hard fighting.
I have seen the wounded who have come out of the battle,
and the prisoners brought down in batches, but even they
can give only confused accounts of fighting in some single
sector of the line which comes within their own experience.
At first, it is certain, there was not much difficulty in tak-
ing the enemy's first line trenches along the greater part of
the country attacked. Our bombardment had done great
damage, and had smashed down the enemy's wire and flat-
tened his parapets. When our men left their assembly
trenches and swept forward, cheering, they encountered no
34 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
great resistance from German soldiers, who had been hid-
ing in their dug-outs under our storm of shells.
Many of these dug-outs were blown in and filled with
dead, but out of others which had not been flung to pieces
by high explosives crept dazed and deafened men who held
their hands up and bowed their heads. Some of them in
one part of the line came out of their shelters as soon as our
guns lifted, and met our soldiers half-way, with signs of
surrender.
They were collected and sent back under guard, while
the attacking columns passed on to the second and third
lines in the network of trenches, and then if they could get
through them to the fortified ruins behind.
But the fortunes of war vary in different places, as I
know from the advance of troops, including the South
Staffords, the Manchesters, and the Gordons. In crossing
the first line of trench the South Staffordshire men had a
comparatively easy time, with hardly any casualties, gath-
ering up Germans who surrendered easily. The enemy's
artillery fire did not touch them seriously, and both they and
the Manchesters had very great luck.
But the Gordons fared differently. These keen fighting
men rushed forward with great enthusiasm until they
reached one end of the village of Mametz, and then quite
suddenly they were faced by rapid machine-gun fire and a
storm of bombs. The Germans held a trench called Danzig-
avenue on the ridge where Mametz stands, and defended it
with desperate courage. The Gordons flung themselves
upon this position, and had some difficulty in clearing it of
the enemy. At the end of the day Mametz remained in
our hands.
It was these fortified villages which gave our men greatest
trouble, for the German troops defended them with real
courage, and worked their machine-guns from hidden em-
placements with skill and determination.
Fricourt is, I believe, still holding out (its capture has
since been officially reported), though our men have forced
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY 35
their way on both sides of it, so that it is partly surrounded.
Montauban, to the north-east of Mametz, was captured
early in the day, and we also gained the strong point at
Serre, until the Germans made a somewhat heavy counter-
attack, and succeeded in driving out our troops.
Beaumont-Hamel was not in our hands at the end of the
day, but here again our men are fighting on both sides of
it. The woods and village of Thiépval, which I had watched
under terrific shell-fire in our preliminary bombardments,
was one point of our first attack, and our troops swept from
one end of the village to the other, and out beyond to a
new objective.
They were too quick to get on, it seems, for a considerable
number of Germans remained in the dug-outs, and when the
British soldiers went past them they came out of their hid-
ing-places and became a fighting force again. Farther north
our infantry attacked both sides of the Gommecourt salient
with the greatest possible valour.
That is my latest knowledge, writing at midnight on the
first day of July, which leaves our men beyond the German
front lines in many places, and penetrating to the country
behind like arrow-heads between the enemy's strongholds.
9
In the afternoon I saw the first batches of prisoners
brought in. In parties of 50 to IOO they came down,
guarded by men of the Border Regiment, through the little
French hamlets close behind the fighting-lines, where peas-
ants stood in their doorways watching these first-fruits of
victory.
They were damaged fruit, some of these poor wretches,
wounded and nerve-shaken in the great bombardment. Most
of them belonged to the IOOth and I IOth Regiments of the
14th Reserve Corps, and they seemed to be a mixed lot of
Prussians and Bavarians. On the whole, they were tall,
36 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
strong fellows, and there were striking faces among them,
of men higher than the peasant type, and thoughtful. But
they were very haggard and worn and dirty.
Over the barbed wire which had been stretched across a
farmyard, in the shadow of an old French church, I spoke
to Some of them. To One man especially, who answered all
my questions with a kind of patient sadness. He told me
that most of his comrades and himself had been without
food and water for several days, as our intense fire made it
impossible to get supplies up the communication-trenches.
About the bombardment he raised his hands and eyes a
moment—eyes full of a remembered horror—and said, “Es
war schrecklich” (It was horrible). Most of the officers had
remained in the second line, but the others had been killed,
he thought. His own brother had been killed, and in Baden
his mother and sisters would weep when they heard. But
he was glad to be a prisoner, out of the war at last, which
would last much longer.
A new column of prisoners was being brought down, and
suddenly the man turned and uttered an exclamation with
a look of surprise and awe.
“Ach, da ist ein Hauptmann'” He recognised an officer
among these new prisoners, and it seemed clearly a surpris-
ing thing to him that one of the great caste should be in this
plight, should suffer as he had suffered.
Some of his fellow-prisoners lay on the ground all bloody
and bandaged. One of them seemed about to die. But the
English soldiers gave them water, and one of our officers
emptied his cigarette-case and gave them all he had to
smoke.
Other men were coming back from the fields of fire, glad
also to be back behind the line. They were our wounded,
who came in very quickly after the first attack to the cas-
ualty clearing stations close to the lines, but beyond the
reach of shell-fire. Many of them were lightly wounded in
the hands and feet, and sometimes 50 or more were on one
THE HISTORIC FIRST OF JULY 37
lorry, which had taken up ammunition and was now bring-
ing back the casualties.
They were wonderful men. So wonderful in their gaiety
and courage that one's heart melted at the sight of them.
They were all grinning as though they had come from a
“jolly” in which they had been bumped a little. There was
a look of pride in their eyes as they came driving down like
wounded knights from a tourney.
They had gone through the job with honour, and have
come out with their lives, and the world was good and beau-
tiful again, in this warm sun, in these snug French villages,
where peasant men and women waved hands to them, and in
these fields of scarlet and gold and green.
The men who were going up to the battle grinned back
at those who were coming out. One could not see the faces
of the lying-down cases, only the soles of their boots as
they passed; but the laughing men on the lorries—some of
them stripped to the waist and bandaged roughly—seemed
to rob war of some of its horror, and the spirit of our
British soldiers shows bright along the roads of France, so
that the very Sun seems to get some of its gold from these
men's hearts.
TO-night the guns are at work again, and the sky flushes
as the shells burst over there where our men are fighting.
II
THE FIRST CHARGE
I
JULY 2
It is possible now to get something like a clear idea of the
fighting which began yesterday morning at 7.30, when the
furious tempest of our guns passed farther over the German
lines and our infantry left their trenches for the great
adventure.
The battle goes on, with success to our arms. Fricourt,
partly surrounded yesterday (by the 21st Division), was
taken by assault to-day, and a German counter-attack upon
Montauban was repulsed with losses that tore gaps into the
enemy's ranks. Prisoners come tramping down in batches,
weary, worn men, who have the gallantry to praise our own
infantry and remember with a shudder the violence of our
gunfire.
Wounded men who are coming out of the fighting-lines
ask one question, “How are we doing?” Men suffering
great pain have a smile in their eyes when the answer comes,
“We are doing well.” The spirit of our men is so high
that it is certain we shall gain further ground, however
great the cost.
The ground we have already gained was won by men who
fought to win, and who went “all out,” as they say, with a
fierce enthusiasm to carry their objective, quickly and ut-
terly and cleanly. This wonderful spirit of the men is
praised by all their officers as a kind of new revelation,
though they saw them in trench life and in hard times.
“They went across toppingly,” said a wounded boy of the
38
THE FIRST CHARGE 39
West Yorkshires, who was in the first attack on Fricourt.
“The fellows were glorious,” said another young officer who
could hardly speak for the pain in his left shoulder, where
a piece of shell struck him down in Mametz Wood. “Won-
derful chaps l’” said a lieutenant of the Manchesters. “They
went cheering through machine-gun fire as though it were
just the splashing of rain. . . . They beat everything for
real pluck.”
They beat everything for pluck except their own officers,
who, as usual, led their men forward without a thought of
their own risks.
2
The attack on Montauban was one of our best successes
yesterday. The men were mainly Lancashire troops (of the
Manchester Regiment) supported by men of the Home
Counties, including those of Surrey, Kent, Essex, Bedford,
and Norfolk. They advanced in splendid order straight for
their objective, swept over the German trenches, and cap-
tured large numbers of prisoners, without great loss to
themselves.
Their commanding officers were anxious about a German
strong point called the Briqueterie, or brickfield, which had
been full of machine-guns and minenwerfers, and the orig-
inal intention was to pass this without a direct attempt to
take it.
But the position was found to be utterly destroyed by our
bombardment, and a party of men (the Liverpools) were
detached to seize it, which they did with comparative ease.
The remainder of the men in those battalions went on to the
ruined village of Montauban and, in spite of spasmodic
machine-gun fire from some of the broken houses, carried it
in one great flood of invasion. &
Large numbers of Germans were taking cover in dug-
outs and cellars, but as soon as Our men entered they came
up into the open and surrendered. Many of them were so
40 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
cowed by the great bombardment they had suffered and by
the waves of men that swept into their stronghold that they
fell upon their knees and begged most piteously for mercy,
which was granted to them.
The loss of Montauban was serious to the enemy, and
they prepared a counter-attack, which was launched this
morning, at 3 o'clock, at a strength of two regiments. Our
men were expecting this and had organised their defence.
The Germans came on in close order, very bravely, rank
after rank advancing over the dead and wounded bodies
of their comrades, who were caught by our machine-gun
fire and rifle-fire and mown down. Only a few men were
able to enter our trenches, and these died. Montauban re-
mains in our hands, and so far the enemy has not attempted
another attack.
3
Our line winds round the village in a sharp salient which
drops south-eastwards to Mametz, which is full of German
dead and wounded, who are being found in the cellars and
taken back to our hospitals. It was in the taking of Mametz
that some of the Gordons suffered heavily. With English
troops they advanced across the open with sloped arms.
There was very little shell-fire and not a rifle-shot came
from the enemy's broken trenches.
“Suddenly,” says one of their officers, “a machine-gun
opened fire upon us point-blank, and caught us in the face.
I shouted to my men to advance at the double, and we ran
forward through a perfect stream of shattering bullets.
Many of my poor boys dropped, and then I fell and knew
nothing more for a while. But afterwards I heard that we
had taken Mametz, and hold it still. . . . My Gordons were
fine, but we had bad luck.”
It was the fire of German machine-guns which was most
trying to our men. Again and again soldiers have told me
to-day that the hard time came when these bullets began to
THE FIRST CHARGE 41
play upon them. In spite of our enormous bombardment
there remained here and there, even in a front-line trench, a
machine-gun emplacement so strongly built with steel gird-
ers and concrete cover that it had defied our high explosives.
And inside were men who were defiant also.
A young officer of the Northumberland Fusiliers paid a
high tribute to them. “They are wonderful men,” he said,
“and work their machines until they are bombed to death.
In the trenches by Fricourt they stayed on when all the
other men had either been killed or wounded, and would
neither surrender nor escape. It was the same at Loos, and
it would not be sporting of us if we did not say so, though
they have knocked out so many of our best.”
The same opinion in almost the same words was given
to me to-day by many men whose bodies bore witness to
these German Maxims, and though their words were a
tribute to the enemy, they also proved the fine generosity in
the heart of our own men.
While the attacks were being made on Montauban and
Mametz very hard fighting was in progress on the left, or
western, side of our line from Gommecourt downwards. So
far I have heard very little of the action at Gommecourt,
where the German salient was most difficult to assault owing
to formidable defences. In that direction our progress has
not been great.
Farther south at Ovillers and La Boisselle our attacks
were rather more fortunate, and some ground was gained
with great loss in life to the enemy, though not without
many casualties to ourselves. Fortunately, as in all this
fighting, the proportion of lightly wounded men is wonder-
fully high.
The advance upon the ridge of La Boisselle was a splendid
and memorable thing. The men who took part in it were
hard, tough fellows who fear neither man nor devil, nor
engines of war. They went forward cheering, and the
Tyneside pipers played on their men. The German guns
42 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
were flinging Jack Johnsons over, but they did not inflict
much damage, and the men jeered at them.
“Silly old five-point-nine crumps!” said a young officer
to-day who had been among them. “They only made a
beastly stink and the devil of a noise. It was the machine-
guns which did all the work.”
The machine-guns were enfilading our men from La Bois-
Selle, and from the high ground above their bullets came
pattering down in showers, so that when they hit men in the
shoulder they came out at the wrist. They swept No Man's
Land like a scythe.
But our troops passed on steadily with fixed bayonets at
parade step, not turning their heads when comrades dropped
to right and left of them. They took the first line of Ger-
man trenches, which were blown to dust-heaps with the
bodies of the men who had held them. In the second line
there were men still living, and still resolute enough to
defend themselves. They were bombed out of this position,
and our men went on to the third line still under machine-
gun fire.
“It seemed to me,” said a Lincolnshire lad, “as if there
was a machine-gun to every five men.” Without exaggera-
tion there were many of these machines and they were
served skilfuly and terribly by their gunners. Beyond La
Boisselle, which was pressed on one side, the fire became
very intense. High explosives, shrapnel, and trench-mortars
ploughed up the ground.
“They threw everything at us except half-croons,” said a
man of the Royal Scots.
It was the Royal Scots who charged with the bayonet
into a body of German troops, and the other battalions ad-
vanced at the double and captured batches of men who had
no more stomach for the fight.
Some of the hardest fighting at La Boisselle was done by
men of Dorset and Manchester with Highland Light Infan-
try and Borderers. They had an easy time over the front
line, but when the second was reached had to engage in a
THE FIRST CHARGE 43
battle of bombs with a large body of Germans. This re-
sistance was broken down and when there was a show of
bayonets the enemy surrendered. They were haggard men,
who had suffered, like most of our prisoners, from long
hunger and thirst as our bombardment had cut off their
supplies and broken the water-pipes.
Farther north there was a severe struggle for the posses-
sion of Thiépval, which was once in our hands but is now
again in the enemy's grip. It is clear from all the evidence
I can get that our men passed beyond to a further objective
without staying to clear out the dug-outs where Germans
were in hiding or to search for all the machine-gun emplace-
ments. The enemy came out of their hiding-places and
served their machine-guns upon the British troops who had
gone forward.
A sergeant-major of the Manchesters, who took part in
one of the attacks which followed each other in waves upon
the Thiépval positions, says that he and his comrades forced
their way across the front trenches and had to walk over
the bodies of large numbers of German dead, who had fallen
in the bombardment. With his regiment he went forward
into a wood known to the men as “Blighty,” and then fell
wounded.
Machine-gun bullets and shrapnel were slashing through
it with a storm of lead, lopping off branches and ricochetting
from the tree-trunks. The men stood this ordeal superbly,
and those who were not wounded fought their way through
towards the village. Some battalions working on the left
of Thiépval had a very severe ordeal. One of them,
wounded, told me that they seized the first system of
trenches in the face of machine-gun fire and captured the
men who remained alive in the dug-outs.
They were deep dug-outs, going 30 feet below ground,
and in some cases, even at that depth, had trap-doors lead-
ing to still lower chambers, so that our bombardment had
not touched them. Many of them were elaborately fitted
and furnished, and were well stocked with wine and beer.
44 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
A great deal of correspondence was found and sent back to
our lines in Sandbags.
4
It was when our men advanced upon the Thiépval woods
that they had their hardest hours, for the enemy's fire was
heavy, and they had to pass through an intense barrage.
Meanwhile big fighting was in progress at Fricourt, and
some of the North-countrymen had a great ordeal of fire.
They have done magnificently, and Fricourt is ours.
Other troops were engaged, for masses of men of many
British regiments advanced on both sides of the village
endeavouring to get possession of Shelter Wood, Lozenge
Wood, and the high ground to the north of the village from
the position known as the Crucifix. Large numbers of Ger-
mans were killed and wounded, but the garrison of Fricourt
maintained a very stout resistance, and until this morning
our attacks did not succeed in taking this stronghold, al-
though it was nearly surrounded.
Heroic acts were done by our men, as I know from the
comrades who were with them. One boy of eighteen, to
give only one instance, was so good a captain, although a
private soldier, that when the officers of his platoon had
fallen he rallied the men and led them forward. “Come on,
my lads,” he cried. “We’ll get them out !” A pipe-major
of the Royal Scots led this battalion forward to an old
Scottish tune, and during the attack stood out alone in No
Man's Land playing still until he fell wounded.
Early this morning a very fine flanking attack was made
on Fricourt by the men who had held on to the ground
during the night, and Crucifix Trench was taken after the
explosion of two big mines. The attack then closed in, one
body of troops working round to the north and another
fighting their way round the south side in order to get the
village within a pair of tongs.
The operation succeeded and the village was taken, but
THE FIRST CHARGE 45
fighting still went on to gain possession of the high ridge
above. A whole company of German soldiers were seen to
come suddenly across the open with their hands up. Other
men straggled singly over the shell-beaten ground to sur-
render to our men.
But the enemy's guns put up a heavy barrage of shrapnel
and high explosives when our men tried to advance along
the ridge, and from the upper end of the Fricourt Wood
there came the incessant clatter of machine-gun fire. Our
attack did not falter, and as far as I can learn the position
to-night is good. w
Here, then, are some scraps of fact about a great battle
still in progress and covering a wide stretch of ground, in
which many separate actions are taking place. It is impos-
sible for an eye-witness to see more than a corner of these
battlefields, and at this hour for one man to write a clear,
straight chronicle of so great an adventure. I have been
travelling to-day about the lines, trying to gather the threads
together, talking to many of our fighting men, going among
the wounded and the prisoners, and in the intense and
immediate interest of this great drama of war which is all
about me, trying to get at the latest facts of our progress
from hour to hour.
But what I have written is only the odds and ends of a
long heroic story which must be written later with fuller
knowledge of men and deeds. Only one thing is really very
clear and shining in all this turmoil of two days of battle—
it is the unconquerable spirit of our men.
III
THE FIELD OF HONOUR
I
JULY 3
As the hours pass we are gaining new ground and extending
our line slowly but steadily to straighten it out between the
German strongholds which have been captured by the great
gallantry of our men after heavy fighting.
To-day when I went into the heart of these battlefields in
and around Fricourt, where we have made our most success-
ful advance, I could see the progress we have made since
the first day’s attacks by the elevation of the shell-fire, which
traced out the German and British lines. To the right of
me was Mametz, held by our troops, and our encircling loop
no longer dipped so steeply southwards as before, but curved
gradually westwards below the Bois de Mametz until it
reached Fricourt itself.
Here we are not only in possession of the village but have
the wood on the high ground beyond, the Crucifix Trench
on the edge to the left, and Lozenge Wood still farther to
the left. Our line then runs to La Boisselle, most of which
was in our hands early this morning after a fierce bombard-
ment by our guns, followed by the infantry advance. It
seemed to me, from my own observation to-day, that the
German guns are retiring farther back to escape capture
or direct hits, for many of their shrapnel shells appeared
to come from an extreme range by high angle fire. All
this shows that we are pressing the enemy hard, and that
so far he is unable to bring up supports to secure his defence.
The scene here was wonderful, and though I have been
46
THE FIELD OF HONOUR 47
in many battlefields since this war began I have never
watched before such a complete and close picture of war in
its infernal grandeur. The wood of La Boisselle was to
my left on the rising slopes, up which there wound a white
road to that ragged fringe of broken tree-trunks, standing
like gallows-trees against the sky-line.
Immediately facing me was Lozenge Wood and the Cruci-
fix, with two separate trees known as the Poodles, and just
across the way to my right in the hollow that dips below
the wood was Fricourt. Montauban, which our troops took
by assault in the first day's fighting, was marked only by
one tall chimney, the rest of its ruins being hidden behind a
crest of ground, but to the right, near enough for me to see
and count its ruined houses, was Mametz lying in a cup
below the ridge.
A great bombardment was raging from both sides, the
enemy shelling the places we had taken from him, and our
guns putting a heavy barrage on to his positions. La Bois-
selle was being shelled by shrapnel with great severity, and
there was one spot at the northern end of the tree stumps
where British and German shells seemed to meet and mingle
their explosions.
In what was once a village there were dense clouds of
smoke which rose up in columns and then spread out into
a thick pall. In the very centre of this place, which looked
like one of Dante's visions of hell-fire, one of our soldiers
was signalling with a flaming torch.
The red flame moved backwards and forwards through
the wrack of smoke, and was then tossed high, as a new
burst of shrapnel broke over the place where the signaller
stood.
Our batteries were firing single rounds and salvos in the
direction of Contalmaison from many places behind our
lines, so that I was in the centre of a circle of guns all con-
centrating upon the enemy's lines behind Fricourt and
Mametz Wood and La Boisselle. Shells from our heavies
came screaming overhead with a high rising note which
48 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
ends with a sudden roar as the shell bursts, and our field-
batteries were firing rapidly and continuously so that the
sharp crack of each shot seemed to rip the air as though
it were made of calico.
It was a tornado of shell-fire, and though one's head
ached at it and each big shell as it travelled over seemed in
a queer way to take something from one's vitality by its
rush of air, there was a strange exultation in one's senses
at the consciousness of this mass of artillery supporting our
men. Those were our guns. Ours!
They had the mastery. They were all registered on the
enemy. Our guns at last had given us a great chance. The
infantry had something behind them, and it was not all flesh
and blood against great engines, as in the early days it used
to be.
2
The enemy was replying chiefly on the ground about La
Boisselle, so that I hated to think of our men up there, for
though it was nothing like our bombardment it was heavy
enough to increase the cost we have had to pay for progress.
I could see nothing of the men in that smoke and flame, but
I could see men going up towards it, in a quiet, leisurely
way as though strolling on a Summer morning in peaceful
fields.
It was curious to watch our soldiers walking about this
battlefield. They seemed very aimless, in little groups, wan-
dering about as though picking wild flowers—some of those
poppies which made great splashes of Scarlet up to the
trenches, or some of the blue cornflowers and purple scabi-
ous and white stitchwort which weaved the colours of
France over these poor stricken fields of hers, now hers
again, and the charlock which ran with a riot of gold in all
this great luxuriance between the tumbled earthworks where
dead bodies lay.
The shells were whining and rending the air above their
THE FIELD OF HONOUR 49
heads, but they did not glance upwards or forwards to
where the shells burst and vomited black smoke. They
seemed as careless of war as holiday-makers on Hampstead
Heath. Yet when I went among them I found that each
man had his special mission, and was part of a general pur-
pose guided by higher powers. Some of them were laying
new wires for new telephones over ground just captured
from the enemy.
Others were runners coming down with messages through
the barrage higher up the roads. Artillerymen and engi-
neers were getting on with their job, quietly, without fuss.
From over the ridge where Crucifix Trench runs from the
Poodles into Fricourt Wood came a body of men. I could
see their heads above the trench. Then they seemed to
rest a while. After that they came into full view below the
ridge.
Had they been seen by the German gunners? Why were
they running like that down the slope? Some shrapnel-
clouds came white and curly above the sky-line; others
fluffed lower, nearer to the men. They were in such a
bunch that one shell would do great damage there. . . .
They scattered a little and I saw their figures taking cover
in the hummocky ridges. It was only later that I heard that
these men had been fighting heavily down near the two
trees known as the Poodles, and that they had captured a
number of German prisoners, who came towards them with
uplifted hands. The prisoners were being brought down in
small batches, whom I met on the road.
3
Up at La Boisselle the shelling was still intense, but our
troops had already surrounded part of the position, and
after a concentration by our guns advanced and captured it.
A number of Germans were there in their dug-outs, the
remnant of a battalion which had suffered frightful things
50 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
under our gun-fire. Some of the officers, it seems, from
what the prisoners told me, went away to Bush Tree Copse,
Contalmaison, saying that they were going to bring up re-
serves. But they did not come back.
The other men—about 250 of them—stayed in the dug-
outs, without food and water, while our shells made a fury
above them and smashed up the ground. They had a Ger-
man doctor there, a giant of a man with a great heart, who
had put his first-aid dressing-station in the second-line trench
and attended to the wounds of the men until our bombard-
ment intensified so that no man could live there.
He took the wounded down to a dug-out—those who had
not been carried back—and stayed there expecting death.
But then, as he told me, to-day at about eleven o'clock this
morning the shells ceased to scream and roar above-ground,
and after a sudden silence he heard the noise of British
troops. He went up to the entrance of his dug-out and said
to some English soldiers who came up with fixed bayonets,
“My friends, I surrender.” Afterwards he helped to
tend our own wounded, and did very good work for us
under the fire of his own guns, which had now turned upon
this position.
There was another German to-day at La Boisselle, but his
work was not that of helping wounded men. It was one
of those machine-gunners who kept up a fire of dropping
bullets upon our troops when we first made an assault upon
this position. And to-day he was there still in his emplace-
ment doing very deadly work, and though he was wounded
in nine places when we found him he was still working his
terrible little gun.
Our men took him prisoner, and, in the English way, bore
no grudge against him, but sang his praises. Many other
machine-guns were captured, and round one of them all the
team was laid out dead by one of Our shells.
THE FIELD OF HONOUR 51
4.
At about II.30 in the morning I walked down into Fri-
court, which was captured yesterday afternoon. It was a
strange walk, not pleasant, but full of a terrible interest.
Fighting was still going on on the high ground above, a
few hundred yards away, and while I had been watching
the scene of war from a field near by I had seen heavy
shells, certainly five-point-nines, falling near the village and
raising clouds of black and greenish smoke, and they were
falling into Mametz some distance to the right.
Fricourt was not an inviting place, but other men had
been there at a worse time. And the interest of it called
to one to get into this bit of ruined ground with its broken
brickwork which for more than a year we have stared at
across barbed wire and through holes in the ground as an
evil place beyond our knowledge, as a place from which
death came to our men from trench-mortars and machine-
guns, separated from us by lines of trenches full of snipers
who waited and watched for any of our heads to appear,
even for a second, above the parapet, and by No Man's
Land into which some of our brave boys went out at night
at great peril, hiding in shell-holes, and avoiding the mine-
fields of the Bois Français and other ground honeycombed
below by German galleries which, night after night—do
you remember the line in the official communiqué?—flung
up the soil and formed another crater and buried some more
of our men. “There was mining activity near Fricourt.”
Well, there will be no more of it there.
I went across the fields—Lord God! that would have
meant death a week or two ago, before the enemy was busy
with other things close by—and came down to our old sys-
tem of trenches. Here were the little wooden bridges across
which our men made their advance, and litters of sandbags
no more to be used for the parapets here, and the abandoned
properties of men who had left these old familiar places—
52 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
the old rat-holes, the bays in the trenches where they stood
on guard at night, the dug-outs where they had pinned up
photographs—upon the morning of the great adventure,
which was yesterday.
Here was a redoubt from which I had first looked across
to the Crucifix and the communication-trench up which the
men used to come at night. Now all abandoned, for the
men had gone forward.
The flowers were growing richly in No Man's Land, red
and yellow and blue, except where the earth was white and
barren above the mine-fields of the famous Tambour, and
brown and barren in the Bois Français, where never a tree
now grows.
We walked across No Man's Land in the full sunlight of
this July day, and though shells were rushing overhead,
those from our batteries seemed low enough to cut off the
heads of the flowers, and mine. They were mostly our
shells.
Lightly wounded men, just hit up there beyond the wood,
walked along unaided, or helped by a comrade. One of
them, a boy of 18 or so, with blue eyes under his steel
helmet, stopped me and showed me a bloody bandage round
his hand, and said with an excited laugh:
“They got me all right. I was serving my Lewis when
a bullet caught me smack. Now I'm off. And I’ve had 18
months of it.”
He went away grinning at his luck, because the bullet
might have chosen another place.
Some German prisoners followed him. Two of them
were carrying a stretcher on which an English soldier lay
with his eyes shut. A wounded German behind turned and
smiled at me—a strong, meaningful Smile. He was glad to
be wounded and Out of it.
Other Germans came down under guard, and little groups
of English soldiers and Red Cross men. I struck across the
field again to the old German lines of trenches, and saw the
full and frightful horror of war. The German trenches
THE FIELD OF HONOUR 53
were smashed at some places, by our artillery fire, into
shapelessness. Green sandbags were flung about, timbers
from the trench sides had been broken and tossed about like
match-sticks.
I stumbled from one shell-crater to another, over bits of
indescribable things, and the litter of men's tunics and
pouches and haversacks, and dug-outs. Rifles lay about,
and the ground was strewn with hand-grenades, and here
and there was a great unexploded shell which had nosed
into the soil. There were many German dead lying there
in Fricourt, and some of our own poor men. The Germans
were lying thick in one part of the trenches.
They had been tall, fine men in their life. One of them
lying with many wounds upon him was quite a giant. An-
Other poor man lay on his back with his face turned up to
the blue sky and his hands raised up above his body as
though in prayer. . . .
But I turned my head away from these sights, as most
people hide these things from their imagination, too cow-
ardly to face the reality of war. &
I followed an officer down into a German dug-out until
he halted half-way down its steps and spoke a word of
surprise.
“There's a candle still burning!”
It gave one an uncanny feeling to see that lighted candle
in the deep subterranean room, where yesterday German
officers were living, unless dead before yesterday.
It could not have been burning all that time. For a mo-
ment we thought an enemy might still be hiding there, and
it was not improbable, as two of them had been found in
Fricourt, only a few hours before. But in all likelihood it
had been lit by an English soldier after the capture of the
place.
The dug-out was littered with German books and papers.
I picked up one of them, and saw that it was “Advice on
Sport.” Here was sad sport for Germans. There was a
tragic spirit in that little roomſ, and we went out quickly. I
54 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
peered into other German dug-outs, and saw how splendidly
built they were, so deep and so strongly timbered that not
even our bombardment had utterly destroyed them. They
are great workers, these Germans, and wonderful soldiers.
Everywhere there lay about great numbers of steel hel-
mets, some of them with vizors, and well designed, so that
they come down to the nape of the neck and protect all the
head. Some of our soldiers were bringing them back as
Souvenirs. One man had ten dangling about him, like the
tin pots on a travelling tinker.
In the wood beyond the Crucifix our machine-guns were
firing fiercely, and the noise was like that of a great flame,
beyond the village. Fricourt itself is just a heap of fright-
ful ruin, with the remains of houses which the enemy had
used as machine-gun emplacements. Every yard of it was
littered with the débris of war's aftermath. Before our
final attack yesterday many of the German troops filtered
out in retreat, leaving some of their wounded behind, and
one poor puppy—a fox terrier—which is now the trophy
of one of our battalions.
But a number of men—about I 50, I should say—could
not get away owing to the intensity of our first bombard-
ment, and when our men stormed the place yesterday after-
noon they came up out of their dug-outs with their hands
up for mercy. I saw them all to-day, and spoke with some
of them.
They belonged to the IOOth, I IOth and IIIth regiments
of the 14th Reserve Corps, and were mostly from Baden.
It would be absurd to talk of these fellows as being under-
sized or underfed men. They were tall, strong, stout men,
in the prime of life. Only a few were wounded, and lay
about in a dazed way. The others answered me cheerfully,
and expressed their joy at having escaped from our gun-
fire, which they described as “schrecklich”—terrible. They
had had no food or drink since yesterday morning until
their English guards gave it to them.
I spoke also with a little group of officers. They were
THE FIELD OF HONOUR 55
young men of an aristocratic type, and spoke very frankly
and politely. They, too, acknowledged the new power of
our artillery and the courage of our men, which was not
new to them. It was here that I had a talk with the German
medical officer whom I had seen walking down between
two guards close to Fricourt. After describing his own
experiences during the bombardment this morning he
laughed in a sad way.
“This war!” he said. “We go on killing each other to no
purpose. Europe is being bled to death, and will be im-
poverished for long years. It is a war against religion, and
against civilisation, and I see no end to it. Germany is
strong and England is strong and France is strong. It is
impossible for one side to crush the other, so when is the
end to come P’’ Because of his services to our own men he
was given special privileges and an English Soldier had
brought down all his personal belongings. A little apart
from all his fellow officers stood a German lieutenant-
colonel who was charged with having killed two of our
officers by bombing them after his surrender. A tall,
gloomy, truculent man of the worst Prussian type, he stood
awaiting an inquiry, and I could only hope that he was not
guilty of such a crime.
From personal observation I know nothing of what has
happened elsewhere in the line to-day, but I have heard a
story of an attack on the Gommecourt salient which shows
that this action was one of the most tragic and heroic
things in British history. The enemy had concentrated a
great mass of guns here in the belief that our main attack
was to be directed against this part of the front. The
existence of this belief has been proved by German orders
which have come into our hands.
As soon as our men left their trenches after the bombard-
ment yesterday the enemy barraged our front and support
trenches with a most infernal fire. Our men advanced
through this barrage absolutely as though on parade, and
56 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
in spite of heavy losses made their way over 500 yards of
No Man's Land to the enemy's front line.
The German soldiers also behaved with great courage, and
carried their machine-guns right through our barrage until
they faced our men in the open and swept them with fire so
that large numbers fell.
The attack did not succeed in this part of the line. But
it drew on the enemy's reserves, and great honour is due to
the valour of those men of ours, who fought as heroes in
one of the most glorious acts of self-sacrifice ever made by
British troops.
IV
THE DEATH-SONG OF THE GERMANS
Morning bright; morning bright—
Light that leads me to the grave—
Soon shall dawn with summons brazen
Call me to my death to hasten—
I and many a comrade brave.
“Morgenroth” (Dr. Blackie's translation).
“Morgenroth !” the haunting death-song of the forlorn hopes of
the German armies, is the song which was sung so often in the
Franco-Prussian War of I870, and is being sung again to-day.
The words were written by Wilhelm Hauff, a patriotic German
writer of the first half of the nineteenth century.
I
JULY 4
No sensational progress has been made by us since I wrote
my last despatch, yesterday, but our guns are in a good
position to follow up our advance, and the battle is develop-
ing, I believe, according to the original plan which antici-
pated slow and steady fighting from one German position
to another. That is being done, and another point was
gained to-day by the capture of Bernafay Wood to the
north-east of Montauban, from which I have just come
back after seeing the shelling of this wood, from close range.
It is behind the lines on the outskirts of the battlefields
that one sees most of the activity of war, as I saw it to-day
again when I went up to this captured ground of Montau-
ban. Up there where fighting was in progress not many
men were visible. Until the advance, after the work of
our guns, and the short, sharp rush from open ground under
57
58 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
the enemy's shrapnel, our men are hidden and the only
movement to be seen is that of the shells bursting and toss-
ing up the earth.
But on the way up, now that the war is no longer station-
ary, there is a great turmoil of men and mules and guns
and wagons and again and again to-day I wished that I
could put on to paper sketches rather than words to describe
these scenes. For here all along the way were historic
pictures of the campaign full of life and colour.
Great camps had been assembled in the dips and hollows
of the hills with painted tents between the lines and great
masses of horses and wagons and gun-limbers crowded to-
gether, with thousands of men busy as ants. Transport
columns came down or went up the hilly roads driven by
tired men who drooped in their seats or saddles after three
days of battle, in which they have had but little sleep. One
of them was asleep to-day. He had fallen backwards in his
wagon still holding the reins, and while he slept his horses
jogged on steadily following the leaders of the column.
On the roadside and among the wild flowers of uncultivated
fields batches of infantry, who had been marching all night,
had flung themselves down and slept also while they had a
half-hour's chance, with their arms outstretched, with their
rifles and packs for their pillows.
Other men were moving up towards the fighting lines,
marching with a steady tramp along the chalky roads, which
plastered them with white dust from steel helmet down-
wards, and put a white mask upon their faces, except where
the sweat came down in gullies. Artillerymen were leading
up reserve horses, who put their ears back for a moment,
as though to switch off flies when heavy guns blared forth
close to them and shells of at least 8in. calibre went howling
overhead to the enemy's lines.
At wayside corners were field dressing stations flying the
Red Cross flag, and surrounded by little parks of ambu-
lances, where stretcher men were busy. And every now
and then, at a cross-road or a by-path, a wooden notice-
THE DEATH-SONG OF THE GERMANS 59
board directed the way in red letters and the words “Walk-
ing wounded.”
This was the Via Dolorosa of men who could hobble
away from the battlefield up there and get back on their legs
to save transport more badly needed by stricken comrades.
Closer to the lines there was a scene which would make
one weep if one had the weakness of tears after two years
of war. Our dead were being buried in a newly-made ceme-
tery, and some of their comrades were standing by the open
graves and sorting out the crosses—the little wooden crosses
which grow in such a harvest across these fields of France.
They were white above the brown earth, and put into
neat rows, and labelled with strips of tin bearing the names
of those who now have peace.
French troops were mingled among our own men. A
working party of them came along shouldering picks and
shovels. They were Territorials, past the fighting age, but
tall, sturdy, hardened men, with a likeness to their young
sons who, with less weight, but with the same hard bronzed
look, are fighting the new battles of the war.
It was the sound of French guns away to the south which
was making most commotion in the air to-day. Big fighting
was going on there, as though the French were making a
further advance, and the rafale of their field guns was
incessant, and like the roll of many drums.
2
As I went over the battlefield of Montauban the enemy's
shells and our own were falling over Bernafay Wood, where
each side held part of the ground. A little to my left
Mametz was being pounded heavily by the German gun-
ners, and they were flinging shrapnel and “crumps” into the
ragged fringe of trees, just in front of me, which marks the
place where the village of Montauban once stood. They
were also barraging a line of trench just below the trees,
60 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
and keeping a steady flow of five-point-nines into one end
of the wood to the right of Montauban, for which our men
are now fighting.
Other shells came with an irregular choice of place over
the battlefield, and there were moments when those clouds
of black shrapnel overhead suggested an immediate dive
into the nearest dug-out.
I passed across our old line of trenches from which on
Saturday morning our men went out cheering to that great
attack which carried them to the furthest point gained that
day, in spite of heavy losses. The trenches now were filled
with litter collected from the battlefield—stacks of rifles and
kit, piles of hand-grenades, no longer needed by those who
owned them.
This old system of trenches, in which French troops lived
for many months of war before they handed them over to
our men, was like a ruined and deserted town left hurriedly
because of plague, and in great disorder. Letters were
lying about, and bully beef tins, and cartridge clips. Our
men had gone forward and these old trenches are aban-
doned.
It is beyond the power of words to give a picture of the
German trenches over this battlefield of Montauban, where
we now hold the line through the wood beyond. Before
Saturday last it was a wide and far-reaching network of
trenches, with many communication ways and strong
traverses, and redoubts—so that one would shiver at their
strength to see them marked on a map. No mass of in-
fantry, however great, would have dared to assault such a
position with bombs and rifles.
It was a great underground fortress, which any body of
men could have held against any others for all time apart
from the destructive power of heavy artillery. But now!
. . . Why now it was the most frightful convulsion of earth
that the eyes of man could see.
The bombardment by our guns had tossed all these earth-
works into vast rubbish-heaps. We had made this ground
THE DEATH-SONG OF THE GERMANS 61
one vast series of shell craters, so deep and so broad that it
was like a field of extinct volcanoes.
The ground rose and fell in enormous waves of brown
earth, so that standing above one crater I saw before me
these solid billows with 30 feet slopes stretching away like a
sea frozen after a great storm. We had hurled thousands
of shells from our heaviest howitzers and long-range guns
into this stretch of field.
3
I saw here and touched here the awful result of that
great gunfire which I had watched from the centre of our
batteries on the morning of July I. That bombardment had
annihilated the German position. Even many of the dug-
outs, going 30 feet deep below the earth and strongly tim-
bered and cemented, had been choked with masses of earth
so that many dead bodies lay buried there. But some had
been left in spite of the upheaval of earth around them, and
into some of these I crept down, impelled by the strong
grim spell of those little dark rooms below where German
soldiers lived only a few days ago.
They seemed haunted by the spirits of the men who had
made their homes here and had carried into these holes the
pride of their souls, and any poetry they had in their hearts,
and their hopes and terrors, and memories of love and life
in the good world of peace. I could not resist going down
to such places, though to do so gave me gooseflesh.
I had to go warily, for on the stairways were unexploded
bombs of the “hair-brush” style. A stumble or a kick might
send one to eternity by high explosive force, and it was dif-
ficult not to stumble, for the steps were broken or falling
into a landslide.
Down inside the little square rooms were filled with the
relics of German officers and men. The deal tables were
strewn with papers, on the wooden bedsteads lay blue-grey
overcoats. Wine bottles, photograph albums, furry haver-
62 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
sacks, boots, belts, kit of every kind had all been tumbled
together by British soldiers who had come here after the
first rush to the enemy's trenches and searched for men in
hiding.
There were men in hiding now, though harmless. In one
of the dug-outs where I groped my way down it was pitch
dark. I stumbled against something, and fumbled for my
matches. When I struck a light I saw in a corner of the
room a German.
He lay curled up, with his head on his arm, as though
asleep. I did not stay to look at his face, but went up
quickly. And yet I went down others and lingered in one
where no corpse lay because of the tragic spirit that dwelt
there and put its spell on me. I picked up some letters.
They were all written to “dear brother Wilhelm,” from
sisters and brothers, sending him their loving greetings,
praying that his health was good, promising to send him
gifts of food, and yearning for his homecoming. “Since
your last letter and card,” said one of them, “we have heard
nothing more from you.
“Every time the postman comes we hope for a little note
from you. . . . Dear Wilhelm, in order to be patient with
your fate you must thank God because you have found
fortune in misfortune.”
Poor, pitiful letters! I was ashamed to read them be-
cause it seemed like prying into another man's secrets,
though he was dead.
There was a little book I picked up. It is a book of sol-
diers' songs, full of old German sentiment, about “the little
mother” and the old house at home and the pretty girl who
kissed her soldier boy before he went off to the war. And
here is the sad old “Morgenlied,” which has been sung along
many roads of France.
“Red morning sun' Red morning sun' Do you light
me to an early death? Soon will the trumpets sound, and
I must leave this life, and many a comrade with me.
“I scarcely thought my joy would end like this. Yester-
THE DEATH-SONG OF THE GERMANS 63
day I rode a proud steed; to-day I am shot through the
chest; to-morrow I shall be in the cold grave, O red morning
sun l’’
On the front page of this book, which I found to-day at
Montauban, there is an Army Order from Prince von Rup-
precht of Bavaria to the soldiers of the Sixth Army.
“We have the fortune,” it says, “to have the English on
our front, the troops of those people whose envy for years
has made them work to Surround us with a ring of enemies
in order to crush us. It is to them that we owe this bloody
and most horrible war. . . . Here is the antagonist who
stands most in the way of the restoration of peace. For-
wards!”
It seemed to me that the preface by Prince Rupprecht of
Bavaria spoilt the sentiment in the German folksongs, which
were full of love rather than of hate.
4
I stood again above ground, in the shell craters. Other
shells were coming over my head with their indescribable
whooping, and the black shrapnel was still bursting about
the fields, and the Germans were dropping five-point-nines
along a line a hundred yards away.
“Be careful about those dug-outs,” said an officer. “Some
of them have charged mines inside, and there may be Ger-
mans still hiding in them.” -
Two Germans were found hiding there to-day. Some of
our men found themselves being sniped, and after a search
found that the shots were coming from a certain section
of trench in which there were communicating dug-outs.
After cunning trappers' work they isolated one dug-out in
which the snipers were concealed.
“Come out of that,” shouted our men. “Surrender like
good boys.”
But the only answer they had was a shot.
64 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
The dug-out was bombed, but the men went through an
underground passage into another one. Then a charge of
ammonal was put down and the dug-out blown to bits.
5
This afternoon, while I was still on the battlefield of
Montauban, a great thunderstorm broke. It was sudden
and violent, and rain fell in sheets. The sky became black
with a greenish streak in it when the lightning forked over
the high wooded ridges towards La Boiselle and above
Fricourt Wood.
“Heaven's artillery !” said an officer, and his words were
not flippant. There was something awe-inspiring in the
darkness that closed in upon these battlefields and the great
rolls of thunder that mingled with the noise of the guns.
Artillery observation was impossible, but the guns still fired,
and their flashes were as vivid as the lightning, revealing
through the murk the dark figures of marching men, and
the black woods slashed with shell-fire just above Montau-
ban. In a little while the low-lying ground was flooded, so
that the guns in the valleys were in water, and the horse
transport splashed through ponds, scattering fountains
above their axles, and rivers ran down the broken trenches
of the old German line.
I stood in the storm watching this scene of war, and the
gloom and terror of it closed about me.
V
THE ATTACK ON THE LEFT
I
JULY 5
LAST night and this morning the enemy made attempts to
drive our men out of their positions at Thiépval, but were
repulsed with heavy losses. Their bombers advanced in
strong numbers upon the Leipzig trench, south of the village
of Thiépval, and at the same time north of the cemetery to
St. Pierre Divion, but in neither case did they have any
S11CCéSS.
At other parts of the line, between La Boiselle and
Montauban, there were bombardments by the enemy's bat-
teries and by our own; and by hard fighting we have cap-
tured Peak trench and the important system of trenches
known as the Quadrangle, north-east of La Boiselle and
on the way to Contalmaison.
Standing to-day on the battlefield north of Ovillers-la-
Boiselle, I was able to look over a wide area of the zone of
fire, and to see our new positions. Straight in front of me
was Thiépval Wood, marked by a ragged fringe of broken
trees, through which appeared the ruins of the village.
Heavy shells were falling there and our shrapnel was
bursting thickly upon the high ground held by the enemy.
To the left of me was Beaumont-Hamel, opposite Auchon-
villers, and the village of Authuille.
It is historic ground. A hundred years hence men of
our blood will come here with reverence as to sacred soil.
For over this stretch of country, a few miles wide, has been
fought one of the great battles of history, and here many
- 65
66 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
thousands of our men advanced upon the enemy with a
spirit of marvellous self-sacrifice, beyond the ordinary
courage of men.
They faced hellish fires, but without faltering. There was
not one man who turned and fled at a time when the bravest
of them might have quailed. They were all heroes worthy
of the highest honour which may be given for valour in the
field. Something supernatural seemed to animate these bat-
talions of English boys and these battalions of Irish and
Scots, so that they went forward into furnace fires at
Beaumont Hamel and Gommecourt as though to fair fields,
and when many of them stood in the very presence of death
it was to the cry of “No surrender l’’ Then they went
forward again to meet their fate.
2
Their losses were heavy. It is tragic as well as wonder-
ful, this story of our advance upon the German lines, when
we captured their trenches by an assault that could not be
resisted at first even by overwhelming gunfire. I have
spoken to Brigadiers who mourn many of their dear men.
The agony in their eyes made it difficult to face them. The
number of casualties was high, throughout the whole length
of front on the left of our attack, and inevitable because the
valour of the men counted no cost in their assault against
positions terribly strong, as they knew, but not stronger
than their resolve to carry them.
The enemy's losses were frightful, too, and his courage
great. It was because very brave men were on both sides
that the battlefield in this region was strewn with stricken
111611. &
They were men of the North Country who were on the
left of our attack between Ovillers-La Boiselle and a point
south of Hebuterne. As soon as Our bombardment lifted
at 7.30 on the morning of July I the brigade left its trenches
THE ATTACK ON THE LEFT 67
and advanced line by line in perfect order as though on
parade.
The ground in front of them was wrecked by our shell-
fire. Several times during the bombardment the trenches
had heaved and changed their form, so that all the con-
tours of the earth were altered. But there were many men
still left alive below ground in the German dug-outs, those
deep dug-outs of theirs that go below the reach of even the
heaviest shells, and with them were many machine-guns and
deadly weapons.
Behind them also was a great concentration of artillery,
for it is evident that the enemy had expected attack here,
perhaps our main attack, and had massed his heaviest guns
at this point. His barrage was immense in its effect of fire
upon our trenches and the ground between ours and his.
To reach his line our men had to pass through a wall of
bursting shells. Our own barrage continued intensely, but
at the moment of the infantry attack the German soldiers
stood up on their parapets in the very face of this bombard-
ment and fired upon our advancing men with automatic
rifles.
Their machine-gunners also showed an extreme courage,
and with amazing audacity forced their way over the broken
parapets into No Man's Land and swept our ranks with a
scythe of bullets. Numbers of our men dropped, but others
went on, charging the machine-guns with fixed bayonets,
hurling bombs at the men on the parapets, and forcing their
way into and across the German trenches. Wave after
wave followed, and those who did not fall went on, into
the enemy's first line, into the enemy’s second line, then on
again to his third line, and by a kind of miracle even to
his fourth line. There were men who went as far as Serre.
They never came back.
The enemy's guns kept up a continuous bombardment
from 7.30 till mid-day, like an incessant roll of drums, and
the ground over which our men continued to advance was
cratered like a system of trous-de-loups. An orderly who
68 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
tried to come back with a message from the men in front
was buried three times on his way, but struggled out and
delivered his report. Human courage could not reach
greater heights than these men showed.
3
On the right of these North Countrymen were other bod-
ies of troops from the West of England, the Midlands, and
Eastern Counties, with battalions of Irish and Scottish
troops. They, too, had to face a great ordeal. When
they went towards the German trenches, not at a rush, but
at parade step, under a storm of shells, the enemy came up
out of their dug-outs, and with machine-guns and rifles, and
fought very stubbornly, even when the Midland men and
other English troops reached them with bombs and bayo-
nets. There was a fierce corps-à-corps in the first-line trench
until most of the enemy were killed.
Then our men went on to the second German line under
still fiercer fire. By this time they were in an inferno of
shell fire and smoke as nothing was seen of them by ar-
tillery observers until at 8.45 some rockets went up very far
into the German lines showing that some of the Territorials
had got as far as their last objective. Some of the infantry
(they were two of the Essex Regiments and the King's Own
of the 4th Division) went as far as Pendant Copse south-
east of Serre. Messages came through from them. Urgent
messages calling for help. “For God's sake send us bombs.”
But the enemy's gun-fire was so violent and so deep in its
barrage that nothing could pass through it, and it was im-
possible to send up relief to men who had gone too far in
their keen desire to break the German lines.
A little further south were some Irish, Welsh, and Scot-
tish troops. When they left their trenches our bombard-
ment was still at its full weight, but suddenly the noise of it
THE ATTACK ON THE LEFT 69
was obliterated entirely, so that not a gun was heard, by
a new and more terrible sound.
It was the Sound as though great furnace fires were weep-
ing flames across No Man's Land with a steady blast, and
it came from German machine-guns in the stronghold of
Beaumont Hamel and from more German machine-guns in
concrete emplacements which had escaped our gunfire upon
the enemy's trenches.
Many of our men fell. Some of the Irish troops (the
Ulster men) lost severely. But other ranks marched on, not
quickly, but at a quiet leisurely pace, never faltering as gaps
were made in their ranks.
Some of them did not even trouble to wear their steel
casques, but carried them, as though for future use if need
be. And they went across the German trenches and right
ahead into the very heart of a storm of fire, too quickly, in
spite of their calm way of going, because they did not clear
the German dug-outs as they passed, and men came out and
bombed them from the rear. South of Beaumont Hamel
were some other battalions, whose advance was upon Thiép-
val Wood, and they fought with extraordinary resolution
and hardihood.
It was they who shouted “No surrender!” as their battle-
cry, and these tough, hard gallant men forced their way
forward over ground raked by every kind of shot and shell.
The enemy's trenches could not resist their attack, and they
stormed their way through, killing many of the enemy who
resisted them. In Thiépval Wood, where the trees were
slashed by shrapnel, they collected their strength, formed
into line, and stood the shock of several German counter-
attacks. Then they charged and flung down the enemy's
ranks, taking more than 200 prisoners.
Another counter-attack was made upon the soldiers who
had forced their way to the outskirts of Thiépval village,
from which there came an incessant chatter of machine-gun
fire. Some of them were cut off from all support, but they
70 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
fought forward, and the shout of “No surrender!” came
from them again, though they were sure of death.
This attack by our troops on the left of the theatre of
attack is one of the greatest revelations of human courage
ever seen in history. The tragedy of it—for the loss of
many brave men makes it tragic—is brightened by the shin-
ing valour of all these splendid soldiers, to whom death, in
those great hours, had no kind of terror.
The lightly wounded men who came back, and there were
large numbers of lightly wounded men, were proud of their
adventure and hopeful of victory. They had no panic in
their eyes or hearts. It was a weary walk for many of
them down to the Red House, where their wounds were
staunched. They had two miles to go, and it was a long
two miles to men weak from the loss of blood, dizzy, tired
to the point of death. Some of them staggered and fell
at the very gate of the dressing station, but even then they
spoke brave words and said, “We’ve got 'em on the run!”
The enemy behaved well, I am told, to our wounded men
at some parts of the line, and helped them over the para-
pets. This makes us loth to tell other stories, not so good.
Let us not think, just now, of the ugliness of battle, but
rather of the beauty of these men of ours, who were forget-
ful of self and faced the cruellest fire with a high and noble
courage.
VI
THE LONDON MEN AT GOMMECOURT
I
JULY 19
As long ago as Loos, which seems an enormous time ago,
it was proved that London produces men of great fighting
qualities, not weakened by City life, and, in spite of more
sensitive nerves than country-bred men, able to stand the
strain of battle just as well, with a quick intelligence in a
tight corner, and with pride and imagination that do not
let them surrender self-respect.
“London men fight on their nerves,” said one of our
Generals the other day, “but they make great soldiers. More
stolid men often give way to shell shock and strain more
easily than the Londoner, with all his sensibility.”
In our great attack of July I some of the London bat-
talions again showed a very fine courage and a most self-
sacrificing devotion to duty in hours of Supreme ordeal.
They broke the German line at Gommecourt and when
ill-luck beset them on either side, so that they found them-
selves in utterly untenable positions, with heavy losses, they
held on stubbornly against the enemy's counter-attacks, and
suffered all that war can make men suffer—there is hardly
a limit to that, God knows—with Stoic endurance.
These men belonged to old Volunteer regiments, famous
in times of peace, when once a year young City clerks and
professional men took a fortnight's leave at Easter for
manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain, and came back rather stiff
and rather bronzed, with stories of sham fights and jolly
bivouacs at night, and smoking concerts with good fellows
71
72 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
who lead a chorus. It was a great adventure—in times of
peace! -
But even when the Volunteers changed their form into
the Territorials and war tightened up in discipline, and at-
tended more drills and had a harder time in camp, no man
guessed that before a year or two had passed the Queen's
Westminsters would be fighting through hell-fire in France,
or that “the old Vics”—the Queen Victoria Rifles—would
be smashing through German barbed wire under machine-
gun fire, or that the Rangers and the London Rifle Brigade
and the London Scottish would be crossing ground, strewn
with dead and wounded, in a storm of high explosives.
“Punch” made funny pictures about this amateur soldier-
ing. The “Terriers” were not thought to count for much by
military critics who had seen service in South Africa. . . .
Well, in this war the Territorial infantry and the Terri-
torial gunners have counted for a great deal, and during
these last few days they have proved themselves, once again,
great soldiers—great in attack and great in resistance.
2
When the four leading battalions left their trenches near
Gommecourt at 7.30 after the great bombardment of the
German position they had a long way to go before they
reached the enemy's front lines.
No Man's Land was a broad stretch of ground, 400
yards across in some parts, and not less than 200 yards at
the narrowest point. -
It was a long, long journey in the open, for 50 yards, or
2O, are long enough to become a great graveyard if the en-
emy’s machine-guns get to work.
But they advanced behind dense smoke-clouds, which
rolled steadily towards the German trenches and kept down
the machine-gunners in their dug-outs. Unlike the experi-
ence of most of our men in other parts of the line, they
THE LONDON MEN AT GOMMECOURT 73
escaped lightly from machine-gun fire, and their chief risk
was from the barrage of shell-fire which the enemy flung
across No Man's Land with some intensity.
But the Londoners started forward to this line of high
explosives and went on and through at a quick pace, in open
order. On the left was the London Rifle Brigade, in the
centre came the Rangers and “Vics.,” on the right the Lon-
don Scottish, and, behind, the Queen's Westminsters and
Kensingtons, who were to advance through the others.
Men fell across the open ground, caught by flying bits of
shell or buried by the great bursts of high explosives which
opened up the earth. But the others did not look back,
afraid to weaken themselves by the sight of their stricken
comrades, and at a great pace, half walking and half run-
ning, reached the German line. It was no longer a system
of trenches.
It was a sea of earth with solid waves. Our heavy guns
had annihilated parapet and parados, smashed the timbers
into matchwood, strewn sandbags into rubbish heaps, and
made a great wreckage. But German industry below ground
was proof against all this shell-fire, and many of the dug-
outs still stood.
They were full of Germans, for the line was strongly
held, and many of these men came up with their machine-
guns and bombs to resist the attack. But the Londoners
sprang upon them, swept over them, and captured the front
network of trenches with amazing speed.
It was not a steady-going business, slow and deliberate.
The quick mind of the London man spurred him to quick
action.
He did not linger to collect souvenirs, or to chat with
English-speaking Germans. “London leads!” was the shout
of Victorias and Westminsters.
The London Scottish were racing forward on the right
with their brown kilts swinging across the broken ground.
But the officers kept their heads and as much order as pos-
sible at such a time.
74 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
They held back enough men to clear the dug-outs and
collect prisoners—the best kind of Souvenirs.
Two hundred of them were captured in the dugouts and
brought up and sent back over the place that had been No
Man's Land and now, for a time, was ours.
At least 200 came back, but there were many more who
never got back, though they started on the journey under
armed guard. -
3
The enemy's artillery was increasing the density of the
barrage upon our old front-line trenches and the ground in
front of it.
He made a wall of high explosives through which no
living thing could pass. The escorts and their prisoners
tried to pass—and failed.
At the time the London men fighting forward did not
think of that barrage behind them. They were eager to get
on, to be quick over the first part of their business before
taking breath for the next.
And they got on with astounding speed. In less than
the time it has taken me to write this narrative No Man's
Land had been crossed, the trenches had been taken, the
prisoners collected and sent back on their way, and Ger-
man strongholds and redoubts behind the first system of
trench work had been seized by London regiments.
It would have taken them longer to walk from Charing-
cross to St. Paul’s-churchyard with no Germans in the way.
It was the quickest bit of work that has been done by any
freemen of the city.
The Riflemen had swarmed into a strong point on the left,
knocking out the machine-guns, and on the right the Lon-
don Scots were holding a strong redoubt in a very ugly cor-
ner of ground. Everything had been won that London had
been asked to win.
Before some hours had passed these London soldiers
THE LONDON MEN AT GOMMECOURT 75
knew that they were in a death-trap and cut off from es-
Cape.
Owing to the great strength of the enemy to the right and
left of the position where they had concentrated masses of
guns, and where the ground was more difficult to carry, the
troops on either side of the Londoners, in spite of heroic
courage and complete self-sacrifice, had advanced so far.
The London men had therefore thrust forward a salient
into the German lines, and were enclosed by the enemy.
Behind them, on the way to their own lines, the enemy's
barrage was steadily becoming more violent. Having
stopped the other attacks to the north and south, he was
now able to concentrate the fire of his guns upon the
ground in the London area, and by the early afternoon he
had smashed our trenches and communication trenches,
while still flinging out a line of high explosives to prevent
supports coming up to the men who were in the captured
salient.
They were cut off, and had no other means of rescue but
their own courage.
Desperate efforts were made by their comrades behind to
send up supplies of ammunition and other means of defence.
The carrying parties attempted again and again to cross
No Man’s Land, but suffered heavy casualties.
One party of 60 men, with supplies of hand grenades,
set out on this journey, but only three came back. Single
men went on with a few grenades, determined to carry some
kind of support to the men in front, but fell dead or
wounded before they reached their goal.
On the right the London Scottish were holding on to
their redoubt, building barricades and beating off the Ger-
man bombers. But as the hours passed ammunition became
scarce. Our supplies of bombs were almost exhausted, here
and there quite exhausted. The London men went about
collecting German bombs, and for some time these served,
but not enough could be found to maintain effective fire.
The position became more ugly.
76 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
But the men did not lose heart. In those bad hours there
were many men who showed great qualities of courage, and
were great captains whatever their rank. One officer—to
mention only one—was splendid when things were worst.
He had taken command of a company when his senior
officer was killed in the first assault, and kept his men in
good heart so that they could organise a defence against the
enemy's counter-attacks.
They were surrounded by German grenadiers and suf-
fered heavily from artillery, machine-gun and sniping fire.
The number of the wounded increased steadily. The bomb-
ing party keeping the enemy back flung all their bombs, and
then had empty hands and were helpless. Not many rounds
of ammunition were left for the riflemen. After that there
would be no defence. But the officer would not give way to
hopelessness. He rallied six or seven good men about him,
and ordered the others to retreat with the wounded and take
their chance across No Man's Land while he put up a last
fight.
With his small band he held the barricade until the others
had gone away, and held on still until all but two of his
men were killed. -
He was the last to leave, and by a miracle of luck came
back to his own lines unwounded, except for a few scars and
scratches. The courage of the man and his fine spirit saved
the situation at the most critical time, and saved also many
good lives.
There were many men of fine valour there. Men of
London, not bred for war, and liking life as one sees it when
there are pretty faces in Kensington Gardens, and when
there's sunlight on the windows in the Strand, and when
the dome of St. Paul’s rises like a white cloud above the
busses in Ludgate-hill.
THE LONDON MEN AT GOMMECOURT 77
4.
One of them was a lance-corporal who was wounded in
two places, so badly that his right arm hung useless by his
side. But he would not give in.
“If I can’t use a weapon,” he said, “I can give a lead to
my chums.” And he gave them a lead, taking charge of a
group of men holding the left flank of a position, organising
them into bombing parties, and directing them to build bar-
ricades. He held on to his post until the German attack
became too strong and was the last to leave.
A boy in the London Scottish—I played at ball with him
once in an old garden when there was laughter in the world
—escaped death by a kind of miracle.
The trench he was in, with forty men, was being shelled
to bits, and rather than fall into the hands of the Germans
he decided to attempt escape. With one of his sergeants he
made his way towards our lines, but had only gone a short
distance when the sergeant was shot dead.
A bullet came a moment later and struck my friend. It
was deflected from his brandy flask and went through his
thigh, knocking him head over heels into a shell-hole. Here
he lay for some hours until it was dark, when he succeeded
in crawling back to his lines.
He was the only one saved of his forty comrades.
Gradually the men withdrew, straggling back across No
Man's Land, which was still under great shell-fire, so that
the way of escape was full of peril.
It was the turn of the stretcher-bearers, and they worked
with great courage. And here one must pay a tribute to
the enemy.
“We had white men against us,” said one of the officers,
“and they let us get in our wounded without hindrance as
soon as the fight was over.” *
It is only fair to say that they acted with humanity, and
one wishes to God that they would not use such foul means
78 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
of destruction as those newly invented by chemists with
devilish cruelty.
The soldiers are better than their scientists, and in this
case at least they remembered the spirit of chivalry which
they have not often remembered in all the foulness of this
Wa1.
It was difficult enough to get in the wounded. Many of
them could not be found or brought back and stayed on the
field of battle suffering great anguish for days and nights.
One man who was wounded early in the battle of July I
crawled over to three other wounded men and stayed with
them until the night of July 6.
During that time he tended his comrades, who were
worse than he was, and went about among dead men gath-
ering food and water from their haversacks and bottles.
But for him his friends would have died. On the night
of the 6th he succeeded in getting back to our lines across
that awful stretch of No Man's Land, and then insisted upon
going back as the guide of the stretcher-bearers who brought
in the others.
VII
THE MEN WHO FOUGHT AT FRICOURT
I
JULY 6
THERE is something strangely inhuman in the aspect of a
battle watched from the edge of its furnace fires, or even
as I stood watching it within the crescent of our guns. Bat-
talions move forward like ants across the field, and one can-
not see the light in men's eyes nor distinguish between one
man and another.
In this war and in this latest battle I have seen the quality
of manhood uplifted to wonderful heights of courage be-
yond the range of normal laws; and these soldiers of ours,
these fine and simple men go forward to the highest terrors
with such singing hearts that one can hardly keep a little
moisture from one's eyes when they go passing on the
roads.
They picked wild flowers and put them in their belts and
caps—red poppies and blue cornflowers—and when the
word came to march again they went forward towards
the front with a fine swinging pace and smiling faces under
the sweat and dust. Yet they know what battle means.
I went to-day again among the men who fought at Fri-
court. Some of them had come back behind the lines, and
outside their billets the divisional band was playing, but not
to much of an audience, for of those who fought at Fricourt
in the first assault there are not large numbers left. The of-
ficers who came round the village with me had a lonely look.
After battle, such a battle as this, it is difficult to keep the
Sadness out of one's eyes. So many good fellows have gone.
79
80 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
. . . But they were proud of their men. They found a joy
in that. The men had done gloriously. They had won their
ground and held it, through frightful fire. “The men were
topping.”
There were a lot of Yorkshire men among them who
fought at Fricourt and it was those I saw to-day. They
were the heroes, with other North Country lads, of one of
the most splendid achievements of British arms ever written
down in history. *
Some of them were still shaken. When they spoke to me
their words faltered now and then, and a queer look came
into their eyes. But, on the whole, they were astoundingly
calm, and had not lost their sense of humour. Of the first
advance over No Man's Land, which was I 50 yards across
to the enemy's front line trench, some of these men could
remember nothing. It was just a dreadful blank.
“I was just mad at the time,” said one of them. “The
first thing I know is that I found myself scrambling over
the German parapets with a bomb in my hand. The dead
were lying all round me.”
But a sergeant there remembered all. He kept his wits
about him, strangely clear at such a time. He saw that his
men were being swept with machine-gun fire, so that they all
lay down to escape its deadly scythe. But he saw also that
the bullets were just washing the ground so that the pros-
trate men were being struck in great numbers.
He stood up straight and called upon the others to stand,
thinking it would be better to be hit in the feet than in the
head. Then he walked on and came without a scratch to
the German front line.
2
Here and in the lines behind there was a wreckage of
earth from our bombardment, but several of the dug-outs
had been untouched and in them during our gunfire men
were sitting 30 feet down, with machine-guns ready, and
THE MEN WHO FOUGHT AT FRICOURT 81
long periscopes, through which they could see our lines and
the first wave of advancing men. Before the word reached
them, those German machine gunners had rushed upstairs
and behind the cover of their wrecked trenches fired bursts
of bullets at our men.
Each gun team had with them a rifleman who was a crack
shot, and who obeyed his army orders to pick off English
officers. So they sniped our young lieutenants with cool
and cruel deliberation. Two of them who were dressed as
privates escaped for this reason. Many of the others fell.
“With so many officers gone,” said one of the Yorkshire
lads, “it was every man for himself, and we carried on as
best we could.”
They carried on as far as the second and third lines, in
a desperate fight with German soldiers who appeared out
of the tumbled earth and flung bombs with a grim refusal
of surrender.
“Well, if you're asking for it,” said one of our men—and
he hurled himself upon a great German and ran his bayonet
through the man’s body.
It was bloody work for boys who are not butchers by
instinct. Passion caught hold of them and they saw red.
“I don’t know how it was,” said one of them with a
queer thoughtfulness in his eyes as he groped back to this
moment of fierce excitement. “Before I went over I had
no rage in me. I didn't want this hand-to-hand business.
But suddenly I found myself fighting like a demon. It was
my life or theirs, and I was out to kill first.”
There was not much killing at that spot. When most
of our men were within ten yards many of the Germans who
had been flinging bombs lifted up their hands and cried
“Mercy!” to those whom they had tried to blow to bits.
It was rather late to ask for mercy, but it was given to
them. There was a search into the dug-outs—do you under-
stand that all this was under great shell fire?—and many
Germans were found in hiding there.
“I surrender,” said a German officer, putting his head
º
82 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
out of a hole in the earth, “and I have a wounded man with
me.” “All right,” said a Yorkshire sergeant; “fetch him
up, and no monkey tricks.”
But out of the hole came not one man, but forty, in a
long file that seemed never to end, all of whom said “Kame-
rad!” to the sergeant, who answered, “Good day to you!—
and how many more?”
They were a nuisance to him then. He wanted to get on
and this was waste of time. But he sent back 42 prisoners
with three lightly wounded fellows of his company—he
could not spare more—and then advanced with his men be-
yond the German third line.
Bunches of men were straggling forward over the shell-
broken ground towards the German line at Crucifix Trench,
to the left Of Fricourt. -
They knew that this trench was important, that their
lives were well given if they could capture it. And these
Yorkshire boys from the hills and dales thought nothing of
their lives so that they could take it.
3
They unslung their bombs, looked to the right and left,
where German heavies were falling, cursed the chatter of
machine-guns from Fricourt village, and said “Come on,
lads!” to the men about them. Not one man faltered or
turned back, or lingered with the doubt that he had gone
far enough.
They stumbled forward over the shell craters, over dead
bodies, over indescribable things. Crucifix Trench was
reached. It was full of Germans, who were hurling bombs
from it, from that trench and the sunken road near by.
The Yorkshire boys went through a barrage of bombs,
hurled their own, worried through the broken parapets and
over masses of tumbled earth, and fought single fights with
THE MEN WHO FOUGHT AT FRICOURT 83
big Germans, like terrier dogs hunting rats and worrying
them. Parties bombed their way down the sunken road.
Those who fell, struck by German bombs, shouted “Get on
to 'em, lads,” to others who came up. In bits of earthwork
German heads looked up, white German faces, bearded, and
covered with clay like dead men risen.
They put up trembling hands and cried their word of
comradeship to those enemy boys.
“Well, that's all right,” said a Yorkshire captain. “We’ve
got the Crucifix. And meanwhile our guns are giving us
the devil.”
4
Our gunners did not know that Crucifix Trench was
taken. Some of our shells were dropping very close.
“It's time for a red light,” said the Yorkshire captain.
He had a bullet in his ribs, and was suffering terribly, but
he still commanded his men.
A red rocket went up, high through the smoke over all
this corner of the battlefield. Somewhere it was seen by
watchful eyes, in some O.P. or by some flying fellow. Our
guns lifted. The shells went forward, crashing into Shelter
Wood beyond.
“Good old gunners!” said a sergeant. “By God, they're
playing the game to-day!”
But other men had seen the red rocket above Crucifix
Trench. It stood in the sky like a red eye looking down
upon the battlefield. The German gunners knew that the
British were in Crucifix Trench. They lowered their guns
a point or two, shortening their range, and German shells
came crumping the earth, on either side, registering the
ground.
“And where do we go next, captain?” asked a Yorkshire
boy. It seemed he felt restless where he was.
The captain thought Shelter Wood might be a good place
84 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
to see. He chose ten men to see it with him, and they were
very willing.
With the bullet in his ribs—it hurt him horribly—he
climbed out of Crucifix Trench, and crawled forward, with
his ten men to the wood beyond.
It was full of Germans. At the south-west corner of it
was a redoubt, with machine-guns and a bomb-store. The
German bombers were already flinging their grenades across
to the Crucifix. -
The wounded captain said that ten men were not enough
to take Shelter Wood—it would need a thousand men, per-
haps, so he crawled back with the others.
They stayed all night in Crucifix Trench, and it was a
dreadful night. At ten o’clock the enemy opened an intense
bombardment of heavies and shrapnel, and maintained it
at full pitch until two o'clock next morning.
There were 900 men up there and in the neighbourhood.
When morning came there were not so many, but the others
were eager to get out and get on.
The Yorkshire spirit was unbeaten. The grit of the
North Country was still there in the morning after the first
assault.
5
Queer adventures overtook men who played a lone hand
in this darkness and confusion of battle. One man I met
to-day—true Yorkshire, with steel in his eyes and a burr
in his speech—it was strange to hear the Saxon words he
used—rushed with some of his friends into Birch Tree
Wood, which was not captured until two days later.
There were many Germans there, but not visible. Sud-
denly the Yorkshire lad found himself quite alone, his com-
rades having escaped from a death-trap, for the wood was
being shelled—as I saw myself that day—with an intense
fire from our guns.
The lonely boy, who was a machine-gunner without his
THE MEN WHO FOUGHT AT FRICOURT 85
gun, thought that things were “pretty thick,” as, indeed,
they were, but he decided that the risks of death were less
if he stayed still than if he moved.
Presently, as he crouched low, he saw a German coming.
He was crawling along on his hands and knees, and blood
was oozing from him. As he crawled, a young Yorkshire
soldier, also badly wounded, passed him at a little distance in
the wood.
The German stared at him. Then he raised himself,
though still on his knees, and fired at the boy with his re-
volver, so that he fell dead. The German went on his
hands again to go on with his crawling, but another shot
ripped through the trees, and he crawled no more.
It was fired by the man who had been left alone—the
young man I saw to-day. “I killed the brute,” he said, “and
I’m glad of it.”
Our shells were bursting very fiercely over the wood,
slashing off branches and ploughing-up the earth. The
lonely boy searched about for a dug-out and found One.
When he went down into it he saw three dead Germans
there, and he sat with them for more than eight hours while
our bombardment lasted. There was another lad I met
who was also a machine-gunner, and alone in the battle
zone. He was alone when fourteen of his comrades had
been knocked out. But single-handed he carried and served
his gun, from one place to another, all through the day, and
part of next day, sniping odd parties of Germans with
bursts of bullets.
Another sturdy fellow I met came face to face with a Ger-
man, who called out to him in perfect English.
“Don’t shoot. I was brought up in England and played
footer for Bradford City. . . . By Jove! I know your
face, old man. Weren't you at the Victoria Hotel, Shef-
field P”
It was a queer meeting on a battlefield. One of the grim-
mest things I have heard was told me by another York-
shire boy. A German surrendered, and then suddenly, as
86 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
this lad approached to make him prisoner, pulled the det-
onator of a bomb and raised it to throw.
“I put my bayonet right close to him so suddenly that
he was terrified, and forgot to fling his bomb. Then a
queer kind of look came into his eyes. He remembered
that the blooming bomb was going off. It went off, and
blew him to bits.”
That is war. And the men who have told me these
things are young men who do not like the things they have
seen. But, because it is war, they go through to the last
goal with a courage that does not quail.
The men of this division next day took Shelter Wood
and Fricourt, and captured many prisoners.
VIII
HOW THE PRUSSIANS FELLAT CONTALMAISON
I
JULY 8
AFTER the first four days of battle there was something like
a lull of twenty-four hours—a lull filled with the great noise
of guns—which was broken by fresh assaults made by our
troops in the direction of Mametz Wood and Contalmaison.
For two days now—on Thursday and Friday—there has
been severe fighting in that territory, and although we lost
Contalmaison last night after taking it in the morning, it
is, I am sure, only a temporary set-back, for our position is
strong in its neighbourhood, and great loss has been in-
flicted upon the enemy. The battle of Contalmaison, not yet
finished, will be a distinct and important episode in the
history of this campaign.
I was able to see something of the battle—all the fierce
picture of our shell fire—but, at the time, with no accurate
idea of what was really happening beyond our guns, and
with that sense of confusion and mystery which all soldiers
have when they are on the battlefield, knowing very little
of what is going on to the left or right of them, not know-
ing what is happening to themselves, or why they stand
where they do, or what order will next come to them, or
whether our men are doing well or badly.
2
It was early in the morning that I went out beyond many
of our batteries and watched the bombardment that was to
87
88 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
precede the infantry attacks upon the enemy's positions in
front of Contalmaison and, to the right, on Mametz Wood,
where some of our men held the south-west corner. There
were large bodies of troops about on high ground where
our old trenches are, and bunched about in groups beyond,
up a slope leading to the line from which our attack was
to be made. They seemed to have nothing in the world to
do except hang about in a casual way. Many of them
were lying on the grass, or along roadsides, asleep. Not all
the roar of the guns made them turn uneasily. They had
been there all night, waiting to go up in support, and now,
dog-tired, they were taking their chance of rest.
It was not quite a safe spot for sleep. Although the
enemy's guns were busy on different places, there was no
knowing whether they might not shift a point or two this
way at any moment. The roadway had already tempted
some of their shells earlier in the morning. Tall beech
trees here and there had been cut clean in half, and a litter
of branches and foliage lay below the broken stumps. There
were new shell craters in the field over the way, just where
a company of R.A.M.C. men had sat down on their stretch-
ers, waiting for work. But nobody seemed to worry.
A captain of Pioneers spoke to me and said, “Any news?”
He was a middle-sized, keen-looking man, with a humor-
ous look in his grey eyes which were shaded by a steel hel-
met, khaki covered. He was as muddy as a scarecrow,
and shivered a little after his night in the rain.
“Dashed if I know what's happening,” he said; “one never
does. Our fellows are supposed to be going up, but no
orders come along. There's our adjutant, waiting for ‘em.”
I looked across the road and saw the adjutant. He was
lying on his back, quite straight, at full length, with his
head on his pack and his waterproof coat over him. He
was profoundly asleep.
The Pioneer captain pointed towards little masses of
men below the crest of the rising ground, beyond which
were hell-fires.
THE PRUSSIANS AT CONTALMAISON 89
“I thought they would go up an hour ago, but they're still
waiting, poor lads. I expect they'll go in it all right in less
than half an hour.”
He stared towards Mametz village. It was under a pall
of greenish Smoke, and not a minute passed without a big
German shell bursting over it and raising black columns of
cloud.
“Nasty kind of place,” said the Pioneer. “Thought I
should have to spend the night there. Glad I didn't, though
And such a night! I never saw anything like it. Exactly
like hell, only worse; a sky full of shells, and lights bursting
like blazes. A regular Brock's benefit. . . . Hulloa, some
of 'em are going up.”
The men who were in small bunches on the low ground
were getting into a new kind of order. They were mov-
ing up towards the crest in extended formation. . . .
A German shell was coming our way. I heard its high
gobbling note, and shifted my steel hat a little, and hoped
it might serve. There was a nasty crash fifty yards away
below the road, where some of the men were bunched. . . .
A whistle sounded, and the R.A.M.C. men, who had been
Squatting on their stretchers, sprang up and ran, carrying
their stretchers, down a side track. They had found some
work to do.
Two other shells came closer, and we changed our posi-
tion a little. It was getting rather hot.
3
But not so hot as other places, compared with which our
ground was Paradise. Mametz Village, behind our lines
now, was being shelled heavily by the enemy, and was a
very ugly spot, but even that was a health resort, as soldiers
say, compared with any of the German positions in the
neighbourhood of Contalmaison. Our guns were concen-
trating their fire along a line north of Birch Tree Wood
90 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
from Horseshoe Trench, now in our hands, across to Peak
Wood and Quadrangle Trench away to Mametz Wood on
the right. We were also putting a terrific barrage round
the village of Contalmaison and Acid Drop Copse. Our
batteries, heavy and light, seemed to be in rings round this
Storm Centre.
The heavies were away behind, and I could only know
their existence by the great shells that came rushing over-
head, from invisible places at long range, with a long drone
like some great harp plucked by old god Thor, as each shell
crossed the valley and smashed over the enemy's lines. They
came in great numbers and from half the points of the
compass, to fall upon that one stretch of ground a mile or
so broad. Our field guns were not invisible.
I could see them winking and blinking in the valleys
and up the slopes as far as the eye could range. They fired
salvoes or rounds with sharp and separated rat-tat-tats.
Every kind of gun and howitzer—old “Grandmothers,” the
long six-inchers, four-point-Sevens, French Soixante-quinze,
and our own eighteen pounders—played the devil over the
German lines.
I think it was about eleven that they lifted and put a dense
barrage of shells further back. For the first time in my ex-
perience, this moment was perceptible. It was a kind of
hush for just a second, as though all the guns were taking
breath. Then the tumult began again, while the infantry
went forward into and through the smoke. A little while
later I saw rockets high above the smoke in the direction
of Contalmaison. Something told me, though without any
certainty, that our men were in that village.
4.
From a visual point of view that is all I can tell, but to-day
have seen some of the officers who were directing this bat-
tle, and what happened is now much clearer, though not
•
THE PRUSSIANS AT CONTALMAISON 91
absolutely clear in all its details. The day before yesterday,
after heavy fighting in the early stages of the battle, some
of our battalions took possession of the Horseshoe Trench
to the north-west of Birch Tree Wood and to the south-west
of Contalmaison. Other battalions to the right were stretch-
ing along a line through Birch Tree Wood to the south of
Mametz Wood. A curious affair was happening in a trench
called the Old Jaeger Trench, running out of the Horseshoe
towards a German redoubt to the west of Peak Wood.
Part of this trench was held by the troops on the left and
part by the troops on the right, and both reported and be-
lieved that they held all of it. The truth was that a gap
in the middle was still held by a party of Germans, who
had machine-guns and bombs with which, presently, they
made themselves unpleasant. Orders were sent to clear
the trench of these ugly customers, and it was done by the
troops on the left. Then orders were given to clear for-
ward to a triangle trench to the right of the Old Jaeger.
It was a strong redoubt, and the Germans defended them-
selves so tenaciously at this point that it changed hands
three times before our men held it for good.
It yielded finally when the troops on the right fought
their way up to Peak Wood, captured it, and enfiladed the
enemy with machine-gun fire. At that moment they saw
their position was hopeless, and came running out with
their hands up. Further on there was a machine-gun em-
placement which was giving us a good deal of trouble, but
this was bombarded and rushed, and on the evening of
July 6 the machine-gun, to use the words of one of the
officers, was “done in.” -
Yesterday morning the attack following the bombardment
extended from these points south-west of Contalmaison
away to the right. Unfortunately, although the fortune
of war favoured us in another way, the troops on the
right were unable to make much headway. But at this time
an extraordinary, and, for the enemy, a terrible, thing hap-
pened. Some battalions of the Prussian Guard Reserve,
92 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
hurriedly brought up a day or two ago from Valenciennes,
and thrown into this battlefield without maps or guidance
or local knowledge, advanced to meet our men on the right,
and walked up, by an awful stroke of chance, straight into
the terrific barrage which our guns had just started round
Contalmaison. A whole battalion was cut to pieces.
Many others suffered frightful things. I am told by some
of the prisoners that they lost three-quarters of their num-
ber in casualties, and although this may be an exaggeration
—prisoners always have the tendency to exaggerate their
losses—it is certain that a mass of men were killed and
wounded. As soon as our barrage lifted our troops on
the right, most of them men of Yorkshire and northern
counties, swept forward and without great trouble entered
Contalmaison and Bailiff Wood to the north-west. It was
their lights which I had seen signalling through the smoke.
It was a magnificent success, not too dearly bought. But
just when our position looked full of promise for the
morrow disappointing news came in last night. It is here
that the details of what happened are not clear. Germans
were reported to be streaming out of Mametz Wood towards
Contalmaison, apparently to make a counter-attack there.
The enemy's guns were shelling the place. Rain fell heavily,
and our men who had fought so well and so long were
exhausted.
Owing to the difficulty of communication and other
troubles which happen at those times, the situation became
confused, and late in the evening it was reported that Con-
talmaison had been evacuated as a temporary measure for
defensive reasons.
At the same time it was also reported that Mametz Wood
had been so heavily shelled by our guns that much damage
had been inflicted upon the Germans inside, some of whom
had escaped to our lines. We are now holding the outskirts
of Contalmaison, in, or in the neighbourhood of, the ceme-
tery, and, I believe, Acid Drop Copse, so that we are in a
sound position for further attack.
THE PRUSSIANS AT CONTALMAISON 93
5
A large number of prisoners were taken, and they came
straggling back over the battlefield in miserable little groups.
Some of them carried our wounded on stretchers or on their
backs, and our men carried their wounded.
They were the remnants of the 3rd Prussian Guards Di-
vision which has been so utterly broken that it no longer
exists as a fighting unit. Those who did not fall into our
hands have been withdrawn from the line. The moral
of the men as well as their fighting force has been smashed.
Even the officers admit that they have no more stomach for
the fight, and several of the men with whom I spoke to-day
were frank in saying that they are glad to be prisoners
to be safe at last from the frightfulness of this war.
Some of them told me that after leaving Valenciennes a
few days ago, after our attack had started, they were
brought to Cambrai, and while the officers were sent on by
motor-car they marched a long distance through unknown
country to the front. They do not know the names of the
villages through which they passed, their officers had no
maps, and they had an ominous feeling that they were going
to their doom. But the strength of our artillery, and its
deadly accuracy of aim, surprised them.
They did not know the English had such gunners. Still
more were they surprised by the dash of our infantry when
they heard that they had against them “men of the ‘New
Army.’” “We thought they were Guards,” said these Prus-
sian prisoners, who belonged chiefly to the Lehr, Grenadiers
and Fusiliers—all Guards' Divisions—the 70th Jaeger and
the IIoth, I I4th and 190th regiments of the line. Some
of them I spoke to were Poles from Silesia—“ich kann nur
ein wenig Deutsch sprechen” (I can only speak a little Ger-
man), said one of them. Yet they were tall, hefty men of
good physique and well-fed. Some of them were middle-
aged fellows, and fathers of families, corresponding to the
94 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
French Territorials. They spoke of their wives and chil-
dren, and their tired, dazed eyes (for they were just down
from the field of fire) lighted up at the thought of going
home again after the war.
“God send a quick ending to the war!” said one of them,
and he spoke the words as a prayer with his hands up-
raised.
I sat in a little dug-out, bomb-proof, perhaps, but not
sound-proof, because the noise of guns was appallingly close
and loud while some of the men were being brought in to be
examined by a bright-eyed officer, who spoke their dialects
as well as their language, and had an easy way with him
so that they were not frightened.
They answered frankly, in a manly way, and were grate-
{ul for our treatment of them. A queer scene inside these
walls of sandbags, lighted by German candles, filled with all
sorts of litter from German pockets—great clasp-knives,
leaden spoons, cartridge clips, compasses, watches, pencils.
One of the investigating officers was the son of a famous
musician, and seemed to find an intense interest in his job,
though new batches of prisoners keep arriving through day
and night, so that his meals and his sleep are interrupted.
But with his brother officers he is accumulating a store
of 1nformation, and sees all the drama of the war, and all
its misery for the enemy, between these sand-bags, and in
the dim candlelight which flickers upon the worn faces of
German soldiers taken an hour before up there where the
shells are falling.
IX
A CAMEO OF WAR
I
JULY 9
SLowLY, but quite steadily, we are drawing our lines closer
about the enemy's strong places along the whole extent
of our attacking front in order that one by one he must
abandon them. Last night our troops captured new trenches
about Ovillers-La Boiselle, so that the pressure upon that
place is tighter, and during the past eighteen hours we have
established ourselves in the Bois des Trones, and its neigh-
bourhood to the east of Montauban.
The meaning of our attacking methods and of the hard
fighting at different points may not be clear to people who do
not realise the position which our men have to storm. It has
often been said that the enemy's lines, which stretch from
the sea to the Vosges, are one great fortress, and this is
true, but it is more essentially and even technically true of
the line through which we broke on the first day of July.
The great German salient which curves round from Gom-
mecourt to Fricourt is like a chain of mediaeval fortresses
connected by earthworks and tunnels. The fortresses, or
strong places as we now call them, are the ruined villages—
stronger in defence than any old tower because they are
filled with machine-guns, trench-mortars, and other deadly
engines—of Gommecourt, Beaumont-Hamel, Thiépval,
Ovillers, La Boiselle and Fricourt. w
In spite of the superb courage of those British battalions
which flung themselves against those strongholds on the
left side of the German salient they did not fall, but breaches
95
96 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
were made in their defences which are now being widened
and deepened. On the southern side, where the attack suc-
ceeded, La Boiselle and Fricourt and further eastwards
Mametz and Montauban, are ours, and the attack is pushing
further in to turn the strong places on the left from within
the fortress walls, as it were, while they are being weakened
by assaults from without, gradually putting the strangle-grip
upon them. If we have luck and keep striking deeper into
the salient, as we have done during the past twenty-four
hours at Contalmaison and Ovillers, it would seem to me as
if the strong places on the left must either be evacuated by
the enemy or surrounded and taken, with their imprisoned
troops, by us.
I saw the scene of this struggle for the enemy's strong-
holds to-day almost as if I were looking into the mirror of
the Lady of Shalott. It seemed like that, strangely unreal,
as though in an image—and yet terribly real and vivid—be-
cause I came upon it suddenly, by accident, arranged for me
by a gap in a hedge and by two trees on each side of the gap,
like the frame of a picture.
I had been up to the lines in search of an officer whose
headquarters is in dug-outs below the crest of a hill. Be-
yond this crest and another one beyond that the fires of hate
were burning all right. I could tell that by the smoke
clouds which came black, and white, and green, into the
fleecy sky of this July day in France, and by the noise of the
guns all about me. But I did not trouble to climb to the
crest. There were interesting things to see below and fine
men whom I wanted to meet again before they go nearer
to those fires.
I passed two friends on the roadway riding in the centre
of a long column of troops, and when I waved my hands
to them and shouted “Good luck!” they turned in their sad-
dles and waved back and smiled in a way that one remembers
through a lifetime. I did not trouble to climb the crest be-
cause there were some captured German guns below it worth
seeing as the first fruits of victory.
A CAMEO OF WAR 97
They were being fastened to our own gun-carriages and
taken off to the place where such trophies go, cheered by
French townsfolk on the way. Queer, beastly things were
some of these captured engines. There were long wooden
barrels hooped with steel, and with a touch-hole to fire the
charge for a “plum-pudding” bomb large enough to blow up
ten yards of trench—as primitive as the engines of war used
in the fifteenth century.
It was on the way back that I came upon the gap in the
hedge. I passed camps of men and horses, masses of guns
and long lines of dug-outs in chalk banks, where soldiers
sat in the entries on this Sunday afternoon, smoking their
pipes with an air of profound peace in spite of the noise of
shell-fire; and large bodies of splendid troops, English and
Scottish, tramping up the roads, all powdered with white
dust, or lying under the shadows of wayside trees, sleeping
on their backs with the sun full on their bronzed, sweat-be-
grimed faces. It was the madding crowd of war, with a
tangle of traffic on the roads, and kicking mules making
beasts of themselves at the sight of a motor-car, and artillery
wagons with creaking axles plunging through it all under
the daring guidance of red-faced boys with short whips.
Turning off the road, away from all this turmoil, and
presently, through the gap in the hedge, I saw, quite unex-
pectedly, the scene of war across the fields in front of me,
all gold with that weed which is ruining so many harvest
fields of France. It was Mametz Wood. I knew at once
the queer shape of it with a great bite out of its western
side. In spite of all our shell fire it is still thick with foliage,
upon which the sunlight lay, casting a great black shadow
underneath. Just below it was Peak Wood, a row of broken
trees by a sunken road, and a triangle trench, for which our
men fought desperately, so that it changed hands three times
before they won it finally, on Friday afternoon.
To the left of Mametz Wood and on a line with it was
Contalmaison, and on the left of that Bailiff Wood, which
we captured and lost again the day before yesterday, and
98 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
then further left Ovillers-La Boiselle, and completing the
crescent, La Boiselle itself.
2
Between the gap in the hedge I saw again one of the
world's great battlefields, and every detail of it was so clear-
ly and sharply defined in the sunlight that it was like a Pre-
Raphaelite picture painted in vivid colours. I could count
the shell-holes in the roofs of Contalmaison village, and
the château there, standing to the right of a little wood,
was brought so closely forward by a stereoscopic effect that
I could look into the blackness of its broken windows.
Down below me were our trenches, and I saw our men
in them. Some of them were outside the trenches, strolling
about in the open, in little groups, or walking about on a
lone track, as though taking a quiet half-hour on this Sun-
day afternoon.
And yet they were in the centre of the battlefield, and
over their heads came an incessant flight of shells, our shells
which I could see falling in the German lines, and in the
fields about them German shells, bursting with dull crashes
and with clouds of black and greenish smoke. All the power
of destruction was at work, but because of the utter calm
and beauty of the sky and the golden light over all the scene
it seemed to me, standing on the edge of it, less deadly, like
a dream of war.
It was no dream. Three of our shells followed each other
in a group and burst with one explosion against the left-
hand tower of Contalmaison château, Smashing off a turret
as though it were a card-castle.
Our shells were flinging up fountains of black earth and
smoke in the German lines beyond—at Posières. All round
the battlefield there were the black clouds of shell fire break-
ing and rising and spreading over Bailiff Wood, at Ovillers,
and between the broken tree trunks of La Boiselle. Men
A CAMEO OF WAR 99
were being killed as usual, lá-bas. But our shells were doing
most of the damage.
An extraordinary thing happened as I looked across the
château of Contalmaison. The earth seemed suddenly to
open in the enemy's lines and let forth the smoke of its
inner fires. It gushed out in great round, dense masses,
and rose to a vast height, spreading like the foliage of some
gigantic tree. It was not a mine.
The explosion from a mine flings up a black mass with
jagged edges like a piece of black-cardboard cut into teeth.
But this was a regular uprising of curly black clouds of
great volume, getting denser, and coming continuously. I
watched it for twenty minutes or more, and could not make
out its meaning, but guessed that we had blown up an am-
munition store.
Two great explosions which came quite a few seconds
after the first vomit of smoke suggested this. So I went
away from the picture through the gap in the trees. Down
in the valley where I passed the enemy's shells were coming
rather near. A heavy crump burst on a knoll close by, and
some officers and men were watching with that curious smile
men have at times when they know their lives depend upon
a freak of chance. It is an ironical Smile, and rather grim.
4
* -
•
* * *
X
THE ASSAULT ON CONTALMAISON
I
JULY 9
I HAD an idea that there would be “something doing” to-day
at Contalmaison, and I went over the fields towards it, past
some of our batteries, past columns of troops marching with
their bands along the roads which powder them with white
blinding dust, past great camps and ammunition columns,
and litters of empty shell cases remaining over from the
great bombardment, and past bodies of soldiers stretched
out upon the grass and sleeping in the warm sunlight close
behind the fighting lines, until I came to a little crest looking
down to Contalmaison village, and the woods about it.
Mametz Wood was very quiet this afternoon. As neither
side could see exactly the position of its troops underneath
the heavy foliage—our men, who were fighting last night,
hold a line about halfway through—the gunners were chary
of shelling it severely. Now and again a burst of shrapnel
smoke puffed against the dark background of the trees, and
the shell slashed through the branches, but that was not
often, and the wood seemed very peaceful. Looking at it
one's imagination found it difficult to realise that perhaps
there were men there who had dug themselves into the
earth beneath the spreading roots, and that British and
German patrols were feeling their way, perhaps, from one
tree to another, through the glades, until they came into
touch and exchanged some rifle shots before falling back
to their own line. I could only guess at that, and could see
IOO
THE ASSAULT ON CONTALMAISON I01
nothing but the tight foliage, yellow in the sun and black
in the shadows.
There were plenty of shells falling elsewhere, and it
seemed to me that the enemy had brought up new batteries
to strengthen his defence. His shell-fire was certainly more
intense, and wider-spreading, than during the past few days
round here. He was bombarding our positions from La
Boiselle to Montauban very fiercely. The poor broken wood
of La Boiselle, which our men captured after desperate
fighting, was being searched by his black shrapnel, and every
now and then by one of his “universals,” which broke with
a vivid cloud of greenish fumes, very prolonged in density,
and forming fantastic shapes as it dissolved. One such
cloud, metallic in the brilliance of its green, was like a
winged woman with a Medusa face.
High explosives were falling into Montauban village, rais-
ing volumes of rose-coloured clouds, beautiful in the sun-
light. I think it must have been the dust of red bricks flung
up from ruined houses.
2
At half-past three in the afternoon the enemy put a very
heavy barrage in a straight line below Contalmaison. One
by one the shells burst, and so quickly down the line and
back again that they formed a wall of black smoke with only
a few gaps.
“It is so nice to get a little fresh air!” said a young
gunner officer who was next to me, reporting for his bat-
tery, which speaks from afar with a very gruff voice. “Dur-
ing the first few days of the ‘show’ I lived indoors”—he
pointed to the dark entry of a dug-out—“but now I’m get-
ting sunburnt again. The men enjoy this open fighting.
Look at 'em!”
There were men moving about the battlefield utterly re-
gardless of the trenches—the old German trenches, marked
by billows of brown earth (brown because of our gun-fire
102 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
which ploughed it up), and more regular lines of white
earth-works, which were our own parapets before the ad-
vance. A long column of them was winding very slowly
round towards Contalmaison.
“Looks as if they were going up to support an attack,”
said an officer close to me.
Other groups of khaki-coloured men were moving over
the ground which one sees southward from the tall chimney
of Pozières village which we were bombarding heavily.
I thought back to the Ypres salient for a moment. Men
do not move about so freely there! Or between Loos and
Hulluch, where over the wide barren stretch of desolation no
human being is ever seen, or, if seen, killed. But—“it is
nice to get a little fresh air” after the imprisonment in
the trenches, and this open warfare is enormously better.
It is better even to die in the open, with the wind upon one's
face, standing among the poppies, underneath the blue sky,
which to-day was glorious with white snow-mountains piled
high with dazzling peaks in its sea of blue and sunlight.
And so our men are touched with a kind of spiritual joy
to be fighting above ground again instead of crouching in
ditches—though personally I like a handy hole at times.
In the very centre of the battlefield for which some of our
men fought and died a day or two ago, one tall fellow
was signalling to somebody about something. Now and
then a German shell fell dangerously close to his position
sending up a fountain of earth and smoke, but he kept talk-
ing with his dot-and-dash to a far and invisible friend. It
seemed an interesting monologue, as though he had im-
portant things to tell. It seemed to be addressed to the
ruins of Contalmaison. There were moments when its old
French château, set in a little wood, was lit up by a splash
of golden light as the white clouds drifted by, so that I
could almost count its bricks, and could see how the shells
which I watched yesterday had opened its roofs. But the
left hand tower was knocked off this morning by a direct
hit from that same battery whose fire was being observed
THE ASSAULT ON CONTALMAISON 103
by the young gunner officer with whom I sat to-day. It is
a wonder the shell did not smash the whole château to a
pitiful ruin, but it took the tower en passant as chess players
Say.
At four o'clock our guns concentrated upon Contalmaison,
Acid Drop Copse—the poor little straggly wood to the
right of Mametz—and the German trenches defending the
Contalmaison ridge. Smoke belched over the battlefield,
and the Song of the shells was loud and high. It was under
those shells falling beyond them and through the smoke
that a body of our men moved forward to the assault upon
the village.
3
JULY Io
The village of Contalmaison is ours again. Whether we
ever held it before, by more than handfuls of men, who went
in and went out, is doubtful. Certainly some men succeeded
in getting there from Caterpillar Wood and Acid Drop
Copse, because I met them afterwards with wounds in their
bodies, but it is difficult to know what happened.
One can only guess that Germans came up from their
dug-outs after our men had penetrated the outskirts and
made use of the darkness with their machine-guns and
bombs.
What happened last night is clear enough. I have already
described in a previous dispatch how we concentrated our
fire upon the positions in front of the village and then
shelled the village itself with terrific intensity.
I saw the beginning of this bombardment, and watched
Our men going up to support the attack which was to
follow. It was begun when fresh troops who had been
brought up to help the tired men who had been fighting in
this part of the line under heavy shell-fire for several days
advanced under the cover of our guns to the left and right
of the village.
It was already hemmed in on both sides, for other British
104 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
troops were in firm possession of Bailiff Wood to the left,
and during the evening, by a series of bombing attacks,
Mametz Wood to the right had been almost cleared of
Germans, who are now only in the outer fringe of it.
The enemy in Contalmaison knew that their position was
hopeless. When our guns lifted they heard the cheers of
our infantry on both sides of the village, and many of them
—at least many of those who were still alive and unwounded
—streamed out of the village in disorderly retreat, only to
be caught behind by our extended barrages between Contal-
maison, Pozières and Bazentin-le-Petit, so that their rout
became a shambles.
Our men were quickly into the village, and having learnt
a lesson by the experience of other troops at other places
made a thorough search of machine-gun emplacements and
dug-outs, so that there should be no further trouble with
this wasps' nest.
4.
The men left in Contalmaison were in a dreadful state,
having suffered to the very limit of human endurance, and
beyond. They were surprised to find themselves living
enough to be taken prisoners.
One of these men with whom I talked this morning told
me a tragic tale. He spoke a little English, having been a
cabinet-maker in the Tottenham Court Road some years
ago before he went back to Württemberg, where, when the
war began, he was, as he said, taken and put in a uniform
and told to fight, though it was not his trade, poor devil.
With other men of the 122nd (Bavarian) Regiment he
went into Contalmaison five days ago. Soon the rations they
had brought with them were finished, and owing to our
ceaseless gun-fire it was impossible to get fresh supplies.
They suffered great agonies of thirst, and the numbers of
their dead and wounded increased steadily.
“There was a hole in the ground,” said this German cabi-
THE ASSAULT ON CONTALMAISON 105
net-maker, whose head was bound with a bloody bandage
and who was dazed and troubled when I talked with him.
“It was a dark hole which held twenty men, all lying in a
heap together, and that was the only dug-out for my com-
pany, so that there was not room for more than a few.
“It was necessary to take turns in this shelter, while out-
side the English shells were coming and bursting every-
where. Two or three men were dragged out to make room
for two or three others.
“Then those who went outside were killed or wounded.
Some of them had their heads blown off, and some of them
had both legs torn off, and some of them their arms.
“But we went on taking turns in the hole, although those
who went outside knew that it was their turn to die, very
likely. At last most of those who came into the hole were
wounded, some of them badly, so that we lay in blood.
“There was only one doctor there, an ‘unteroffizier’”—he
pointed to a man who lay asleep on the ground, face down-
wards—“and he bandaged some of us till he had no more
bandages.
“Then, last night, we knew the end was coming. Your
guns began to fire all together—the dreadful ‘trommel-
feuer,’ as we call it—and the shells burst and smashed up
the earth about us.
“We stayed down in the hole waiting for the end. Then
we heard your soldiers shouting. Presently two of them
came down into our hole. They were two boys and they
had their pockets full of bombs.
“They had bombs in their hands also, and they seemed
to wonder whether they would kill us. But we were all
wounded, nearly all, and we cried ‘Kameraden' . . . And
now we are prisoners—and I am thirsty.”
Other prisoners told me that the effect of our fire was
terrible in Contalmaison, and that at least half of their
men holding it were killed or wounded, so that when our
soldiers entered last night they walked over the bodies of
the dead.
106 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
These men who had escaped were in a pitiful condition.
They lay on the ground utterly exhausted most of them,
and—that was strange—with their faces to the earth. Per-
haps it was to blot out the vision of things seen.
I shall remember the cabinet-maker of the Tottenham
Court Road. In spite of the clay which caked his face
and clothes and the bloody rag round his head he was a
handsome bearded fellow with blue eyes which once or
twice lighted up with a tragic smile, as when I asked him
when he thought the war would end.
“In 1915,” he said, “when I was wounded at Ypres, I
thought the war would end in a few months. And a little
while ago I thought so again!”
Then he muttered something to himself, but loudly
enough for me to hear the words—“Surely we cannot go on
much longer?”
I left these men, and further down the road saw many
more prisoners. There were nearly three hundred of them
marching down a side track, between some ripening corn,
under mounted escort, their grey-blue uniforms hardly
visible until I was closer to them against the background of
the wheat.
Most of them were young, healthy-looking men, who
walked briskly, and it was only a few behind who limped
as they walked, and looked broken and beaten men.
5
It was a good day for us in prisoners, for about 500 have
come down from Contalmaison, Mametz Wood and the
Trones Wood as living proofs of our advance in all those
places.
All the prisoners speak of the terror of our artillery fire,
and documents captured in their dug-outs tell the same tale
in words which reveal the full horror of bombardment.
“We are quite shut off from the rest of the world,”
THE ASSAULT ON CONTALMAISON 107
wrote a German soldier on the day before our great attack.
“Nothing comes to us; no letters. The English keep such
a barrage on Our approaches, it is terrible. To-morrow
morning it will be seven days since this bombardment be-
gan; we cannot hold out much longer. Everything is shot
to pieces.”
“Our thirst is terrible,” wrote another man. “We hunt
for water, and drink it out of shell-holes.”
Many of the men speak of the torture of thirst which
they suffered during our bombardment.
“Every one of us in these five days has become years
older. We hardly know ourselves. Bechtel said that, in
these five days, he lost IO lbs. Hunger and thirst have also
contributed their share to that. Hunger would be easily
borne, but the thirst makes one almost mad.
“Luckily it rained yesterday, and the water in the shell-
holes, mixed with the yellow shell sulphur, tasted as good
as a bottle of beer. To-day we got something to eat. It
was impossible before to bring food up into the front line
under the violent curtain fire of the enemy.”
One other out of hundreds tells all in a few words:
“We came into the front line ten days ago. During those
ten days I have suffered more than any time during the last
two years. The dug-outs are damaged in places, and the
trenches are completely destroyed.”
We do not gloat over the sufferings of our enemy, though
we must make them suffer, and go on suffering, that they
may yield. It is the curse of war, the black horror which
not even the heights of human courage may redeem, nor all
the splendour of youth eager for self-sacrifice.
I have seen things to-day before which one's soul swoons,
and which, God willing, my pen shall write, so that men
shall remember the meaning of war.
But now, when these things are inevitable, we must look
only to our progress towards the end, and to-day we have
made good progress.
Yesterday I wrote of the position we attacked on July
108 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
I as a great German fortress with a chain of strongholds
linked by underground works. -
In ten days, by the wonderful gallantry of our men and
the great power of our guns we have smashed several of
those forts—as strong as any on the Western front, and
defended stubbornly by masses of guns and troops—and
have stormed our way in so deeply that the enemy is now
forced to fall back upon his next line of defence.
The cost has been great, but the enemy's losses and the
present position in which he finds himself prove the success
of our main attack.
For the first time since the beginning of the war the initia-
tive has passed to us, and the German Headquarters Staff is
hard pushed for reserves.
XI
THE BATTLE OF THE WOODS
I
JULY 12
FoR several days now I have been giving a chronicle of hard
fighting at several important points on the way to the second
German line, with such scenes as one eye-witness may de-
scribe in a great battle in which many different bodies of
troops are engaged upon a wide front.
The fortunes of war have varied from day to day, almost
from hour to hour, so that positions taken one evening have
been lost in the morning and again captured by the after-
noon. Writing as events are happening, one’s narrative
becomes as confused as the confusion of the battlefield itself,
where troops know nothing, or very little, of what is doing
to their right and left, until some general scheme of opera-
tions is completed.
By the capture of Contalmaison and ground to each side
of it a general scheme of progress has been achieved, and,
although fighting does not cease about these points, it is now
possible to give a clearer idea of the battle as it has de-
veloped up to the present moment.
I think it may very well be called the Battle of the
Woods, for the chief characteristic of it has been the de-
termined effort of our troops to take and hold a number of
copses and small forests between the first and second Ger-
man lines.
On the left of Contalmaison is Bailiff Wood, north-east-
wards of the Horseshoe Redoubt. If we could get that and
keep it Contalmaison itself could be enfiladed and attacked
IO9
110 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
from the west as well as from the south. Away to the right
of Contalmaison is Mametz Wood, even more important,
both in size and position with Bernafay Wood still further
eastwards and Trones Wood on the right again. Other
Small woods or copses to the south of Contalmaison were
strong fighting points, from Shelter Wood to Round Wood
and Birch Wood at the top of the Sunken Road and Peak
Wood to the left of the Quadrangle Trench.
Some of these places are but a few shell-slashed trees
serving as landmarks, but Bailiff Wood, Mametz Wood,
Bernafay Wood, and Trones Wood are still dense thickets
under heavy foliage hiding the enemy's troops and our own,
but giving no protection from shell-fire.
It is for these woodlands on high ground that our men
have been fighting with the greatest gallantry and most
stubborn endurance, Suffering more than light losses, meet-
ing heavy counter-attacks, gaining ground, losing it, retak-
ing it, and thrusting forward again, with a really uncon-
querable spirit, because they know that these woods are the
way to the second bastion of the German stronghold.
It would be good to say something about the different
battalions who have been fighting the Battle of the Woods,
and it is hard not to give some honour to them now, by
name. But there are reasons against it—the enemy wants
to know their names for other reasons—and we must wait
until some weeks have passed. They are men from nearly
all our English counties—from Northumberland, Durham,
Lancashire, and Yorkshire, from the Midlands, the Home
Counties, and the “West Countrie.” Welshmen were there,
and Irish, and Highlanders and Lowlanders. It was a
British battle, but the greater share of it fell to England
alone, and it was English lads from the North, and English
lads from old county towns like Worcester and Northamp-
ton, York and Bedford, Guildford and Arundel, Norwich,
and old London Town itself, who fought on the way to
Contalmaison and took this stronghold of the woodlands.
I passed some of them on the roads to-day. They were
THE BATTLE OF THE WOODS 111
the men who captured Contalmaison the day before yester-
day, and they were marching with such a steady swing that
it was hard to think they had been through such fighting
and fatigues, and that they had left behind them many good
fellows who will never come back along the road.
They were bringing back trophies of victory. On their
wagons, beside their own steel hats, were German helmets.
Some of the enemy's machine-guns were passing back with
them, and although the men were tired, they held their
heads high and there was a fine pride in their eyes. An
officer who watched them pass called out the names of their
regiments and said, “Well done!” and one of their own
officers waved his hand and called back, “Cheery-O!” It
was the greeting of gallant fighting men.
2
But before the taking of Contalmaison the day before
yesterday there were other men who had done their best to
take it, and did take it for a while, in spite of bad luck and
every kind of hardship.
Their attack depended a good deal upon the progress
made by other troops who were fighting for Bailiff Wood
on the left, and by troops who were attacking up to the
line of Pearl Alley on the right.
Neither of these attempts was successful at the time, and
the men who had been ordered to take Contalmaison were
not in a happy position. The weather had been foul, and it
was this which on July 7 and 8 made all attacks difficult.
When the troops of the attacking columns tried to get for-
ward the ground was bogged, their rifles and bombs and
machine-guns were covered with muddy slime, and they
stumbled through water-logged trenches. Apart from this
the way was perilous and tragic.
The main trench leading up to Contalmaison was the
Sunken Road which goes up between Round Wood and
112 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
Birch Wood, and this was being heavily barraged by the
enemy's guns sweeping down the valley from Pozières.
Further up and slanting right to Pearl Alley was a shal-
low trench.
Dead bodies lay there in the mud, and soon it was choked
with wounded men. How could any one pass? How was
it possible to bring up bombs and ammunition and machine
guns and all the stores which must follow an attack? That
was not done, but our men, fellows who know the chimes
of Worcester Cathedral, struggled forward over open
ground and made a dash for Contalmaison, enfiladed by ma-
chine-gun fire from Bailiff Wood and Mametz Wood, which
were not yet in our hands. Round the western side of Con-
talmaison was a shallow trench in which the enemy also
kept his machine-guns, but when the remnants of the attack-
ing force rushed forward these were withdrawn into the
village, from which the German gunners swept the ground.
It seems to me quite an astonishing feat of arms that our
men, in such small numbers and in such adverse conditions,
should have penetrated a good way into the village. And
it is wonderfully to their credit that they should have taken
eighty prisoners at such a time.
They found themselves “up in the air,” as soldiers say,
and they were being badly hurt by machine-gun fire. It was
a bad position, and after rummaging through some German
dug-outs and taking their prisoners they fell back to a strong
point to the south of the village, which they held for two
or three days, establishing a machine-gun post which did
valuable service in the next attack.
They did not succeed in holding Contalmaison, and in
war, which is a hard thing, it is only success that counts.
But I see nothing to blame in the adventure of those com-
panies who got through at great hazard. Luck was against
them, and against their other battalions. Luck, and the
weather.
THE BATTLE OF THE WOODS 113
3
In the meantime great fighting was in progress for the
woods around. A very splendid body of men, among them
true descendants of Sir Hugh Evans and other brave men
across the Marches, had fought their way up on July 5 to
Birch Tree Copse and Shelter Alley, to Quadrangle Trench
on the 6th, then to Caterpillar Wood and Marlborough
Wood, and they had placed, with a cunning that belongs
to the genius of war, a machine-gun which covered an exit
from Mametz Wood, where the enemy was still in force.
At 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon last our troops ad-
vanced to the capture of the wood—a wood whose bloom
was brightened by the frightful flash of shells, whose tree
trunks were broken and splintered and slashed by sharp
axes hurtling through the leaves, and about whose gnarled
roots, in shell-holes and burrows, German soldiers crouched
with their bombs and machine-guns. A wood of terror.
Yet not dismaying to those men of ours who went into its
twilight. Our Own guns were shelling it with a progressive
barrage.
Our men were to pass forward in short, sharp rushes be-
hind the barrage, but some of them in their eagerness went
too fast, and too far, and went through the very barrage
itself until a signal warned a gunner officer sitting in an
O.P. behind, so that he suddenly seized a telephone and
whispered some words into it, and made the guns “lift”
again. t
Waves of bullets were streaming like water through the
trees from German machine-guns. Many of our men fell,
and the others, checked awhile, lay down in any holes they
could find or dig. All through the night shells broke over
them, and through the glades there came always that hor-
rible chatter of machine-guns. g
It was a night to which men think back through a life-time
with a wonderment that it brought any dawn for them.
114 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
But when dawn came their spirit was unbroken and they
made a new attack, and went forward with bombs and bay-
onets to the encounter of other men not less brave. Not less
brave, in truth and in fairness to them. There was a fierce
fight before the last of them surrendered, so that Mametz
Wood was ours, for a while, at least.
4
Meanwhile to the left of Contalmaison—our left—other
men had worked their way up into Bailiff Wood and had
established posts there. It was still impossible to attack
Contalmaison from the south, and, as it happened, perhaps
a lucky thing because the enemy had expected an attack
from the south and had most of his machine-guns facing
that way when our troops advanced upon him from the
West.
They advanced after a series of artillery barrages from a
great number of batteries working in most perfect harmony
with the plan of the infantry attack.
At 4.50 the infantry went forward to their first stage in
four waves and in extended order. They had to cover
about I, IOO yards of open ground, and they travelled light,
without their packs, fighting troops, searching parties for
house-fighting, and consolidating troops.
“They went across magnificently,” said their General, and
in spite of the enemy's shells and machine-guns penetrated
the town. They worked across in time to the successive
barrage which preceded them, and at 7 o'clock they had the
whole of Contalmaison. The enemy defended himself
bravely, and there was some fierce hand-to-hand fighting, in
which 200 Germans were killed, refusing to surrender.
Many prisoners were taken in the dug-outs.
So at last the stronghold of the Woods was ours, and
there is good hope that we shall keep it.
One other wood in this stretch of woodlands is still not
THE BATTLE OF THE WOODS II5
ours. It is the Wood of Trones, where also there has been
desperate fighting by the men who captured Bernafay Wood
and Caterpillar Wood and the ground about Montauban,
shelled and shelled again by the enemy, who hates to have
us there.
We have taken it several times, but the evening's shell
fire forced us from part of it. When they come, our shell-
fire slashes them to death. So much of it is No Man's Land,
and a devilish place.
But we hold a great stretch of ground after the Battle
of the Woods.
XII
THE FIGHT FOR OVILLERS
I
JULY I3
At Ovillers there has been fierce fighting to-day which
has gained for us several important bits of trench and
ground, linking up with other separate points already won,
so that this German stronghold is closely besieged.
The enemy to-day was bombarding our positions round
Contalmaison and Mametz Wood with a most formidable
barrage, and as I watched this from a vantage point look-
ing across a wide stretch of the battlefields it seemed to me
that the Germans might be preparing a strong counter-
attack along that line.
Nearer to Thiépval it was strangely quiet after the great
fighting a week and more ago.
The village of Thiépval itself was deadly quiet in the
German lines of brown, bombarded earth, beyond our whiter
trenches. What was once a wood there, about red-roofed
barns and houses and an old church tower, is now only a
number of charred stumps sticking up from the brick dust
and ruin of these buildings.
Behind Thiépval, captured and lost by our soldiers after
heroic fighting and great sacrifice on July I, could be seen
the places which the enemy is holding in his second line of
defence, the next line of village fortresses.
They were marked by the tall chimney of Courcelette, the
woods of Grandcourt, and the church spire of Irles. And
there, standing high and clear above the ridge, was one land-
mark which has been famous before in the war and will be
II6
THE FIGHT FOR OWILLERS 117
again before the war is ended. It was the clock-tower of
Bapaume, and if the sun had been shining on it we could
have read the time of day.
On the ridge above Thiépval were little moving figures.
“Germans,” said a sergeant with one eye to his glass.
There was a lot of them, crawling about like ants, but
none of our shells fell among them. All guns were busy
on other work further to the right, where the smoke of
great shells rose like Smouldering fires over all the ground
from Ovillers to Montauban.
2
The fighting for Ovillers has been hard, bloody, and
close. Many of our men have died to gain a yard or two
of earth-work. There have been great adventures in the
capturing of some bits of broken brick or the working round
a ditch below the remnants of a wall.
Under a steady drive of machine-gun bullets sweeping all
the ground, men of ours from Cheshire and another Eng-
lish county in the north have crept forward at night with a
few hand-grenades and flung themselves against the enemy's
bombing-posts and barricades and fought fiercely to smash
down the sandbags or brickwork and get a few more yards
of clear ground.
They have sapped their way underground and blown up
the roofs of vaults where Germans lay in hiding with ma-
chine-guns. They have fought in Small parties, gaining
isolated points in the southern part of the village, and hold-
ing on to them under heavy fire until only a few men re-
mained alive, still holding on.
There have been fights to the death between a handful
of English or Irish soldiers and a dozen or more Germans,
meeting each other in the darkness of deep cellars quarried
out from the chalk subsoil, and German gunners peering
out of slits in concrete emplacements below ground and ,
118 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
firing bursts of bullets down the roadway have found them-
selves suddenly in the grasp of men covered with white clay
rising out of holes in the earth, with no weapons but their
picks.
Ovillers is a place of abominable ruin.
“Do you know Neuville St. Vaast?” asked an officer this
morning, and when I nodded (because I had a near call
there), he said, “Ovillers beats it hollow, for sheer annihila-
tion.”
There is nothing left of it except dust. There is not a
wall standing two feet high, or a bit of a wall. The guns
have swept it flat.
But underground there are still great cellars quarried out
by inhabitants who have long fled, and in these the Germans
are holding out against our attacks and our bombardments.
Heavy shells have opened up some of them, and filled
them with dead and wounded, but many still stand strong,
and out of them come the enemy's machine-guns and bomb-
ers to make counter-attacks against the ditches and débris
from which our men are working forward. The ground is
pitted with enormous shell holes, in which men lie buried.
Ovillers is perhaps more ghastly than any ruined ground
along the front.
3
It was at 8 o’clock on the morning of July 7 that the
south-eastern part of the village. was taken by assault. The
North-Country men advanced from a line to the north of
La Boiselle after a great bombardment, and went over
open ground to the labyrinth of trenches which defend the
village. These had been smashed. into a tumult of earth
and sandbags, but, as usual, Some of the German machine
gunners had been untouched in their dug-outs, and they
came up to serve their machines as soon as our barrage
lifted.
Other Germans defended themselves with bombs. There
THE FIGHT FOR OVILLERS 119
was savage fighting between the broken traverses, in shell
craters, and in ditches. Many of our men fell, but others
came up and pushed further forward. One officer and a
man or two ran straight towards a German machine-gun
which was doing deadly work, and knocked it out with a
well-aimed bomb. But higher up on this maze of broken
trenches was a German redoubt, from which machine-gun
fire came in streams.
Some Irish soldiers tried to storm the place but suffered
heavy casualties in front of the redoubt. It was decided to
fall back a little, and reform the line for the night, and all
through the night the men worked to build up barricades
to cut off the enemy from the southern end of the village.
That end was being “cleaned out” of Germans, who were
routed out of cellars. Many of them were glad to surrender
and grateful for the life they had expected to lose.
“We took bags of 'em,” said an officer in charge of this
work.
Next day the men worked their way forward above
ground and below ground. Some crept out of a ditch and
worked up to a bombing post made by others on the left
of the village.
Another body of troops made a sudden forward move-
ment and, taking the enemy by surprise, marched round
the left and took up a line right across the south-west end
of Ovillers without loss. That was a great gain which
enabled our men to link up from separate points. The fight-
ing to-day has been a further process of fitting up this jig-
saw puzzle of isolated groups who have been burrowing
into the German stronghold.
4.
A great adventure, or what the officers call a fine “stunt,”
was carried out by some Lancashire men on the right of the
village. They were told to send out a patrol overland in the
direction of Pozières.
120 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
I think, to the young officers in charge, it must have
seemed rather like a pleasant suggestion to go and discover
the North Pole or the Magnetic North. However, the idea
appealed to them; they would see some new country, and
there was quite a chance of individual fighting, which is so
much better than being killed in a ditch by shell-fire.
With them went a young machine-gun officer, who is
justly proud of having gone out with sixteen machine-guns
and, as you shall hear, of coming back with twenty.
I know that he is pleased with himself, as he ought to be,
because he had a laughing light in his eyes when I gave
him a lift in a car on the way back to a good dinner, and,
having escaped without a scratch (and four extra guns)
it is no wonder that he thought this adventure “a topping
bit of work.”
It was gallant work, and as far as the first day went,
without loss. The little company of men struck north-east-
wards up an old bit of communication trench, and part of
the way in the open, in the twilight and the darkness that
followed. They were going steadily into German territory,
to the high ground which slopes down from Pozières.
There were lots of Germans about—thousands of them
not enormously far away—but they did not expect a visit
like this, and were not watchful of this piece of ground.
After working forward for something like a mile they
came to a redoubt inhabited by German bombers.
What happened then is not very clear to me, and was
certainly not very clear to the Germans. But this place was
passed successfully, and it was further on that my machine-
gun friend (the fellow with the sparkle in his eyes) in-
creased his number of guns.
This part of his adventure is also somewhat confused, as
most fighting is. He tells me that he “pinched” the guns.
Also that he made “a bag of 'em.” Anyhow, he captured
them, and has brought them back, which is a very good
proof that they were taken.
So far all went well. The night was spent in consolidat-
THE FIGHT FOR OVILLERS 121
ing this extraordinary position right in the heart of German
territory, and all next day our men stayed there. They had
a wonderful view of the country below them, saw many
things worth noting for future use, and sent bursts of
machine-gun fire at the enemy's infantry moving down to
attack our troops.
But it was too good to last. The enemy became aware
that they were being hit from a position where none of our
troops could possibly be, according to the logic of things.
They could hardly believe their eyes, I imagine, when they
saw these illogical young gentlemen making themselves at
home in this extremely advanced post.
There must have been some frightful words used by Ger-
man officers before they ordered an infantry attack to clear
these Englishmen out. The infantry came down a trench
from Pozières, but as they came they were met by a stream
of machine-gun fire directed by the young officer who had
“pinched” four more guns than he had taken out.
They suffered heavy casualties, and the attack broke
down. But then the enemy put his guns to work, as he
always does when his infantry fails, and what had been a
great adventure, with a sporting chance, became a deadly
business, with all the odds against our men.
The enemy's shell-fire was concentrated heavily upon this
one bit of trench away out in the open, and the ground was
ploughed up with high explosives. The machine-guns were
taken back, but the British held on until at last only an
officer and six men were left.
Those who came back unwounded numbered in the end
only one officer and one man—with the exception of a
sergeant who stayed behind with a wounded Irishman. He
would not leave his comrade, and for thirty-six hours stayed
out in his exposed position, with heavy shells falling on
every side of him.
The Irishman was delirious, and making such a noise
that his friend knocked him on the head to keep him quiet.
122 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
Every time a shell burst near him he shouted out, “You’ve
missed me again, Fritz.”
But the sergeant himself kept his wits. He is a Lanca-
shire man and with all the dogged pluck of Lancashire.
When the bombardment quieted down he brought back
his friend, and then went out to No Man's Land to search
for another one.
5
But let us not forget that our men have not the monopoly
of courage in this war. We have against us a brave enemy,
and again and again during this battle our officers and men
have paid a tribute to the stubborn fighting qualities of the
German soldiers.
“For goodness sake,” said one officer, “get rid of that
strange idea in the minds of many people at home that we
are fighting old men and boys and cripples.
“All the Germans we have met and captured have been
big, hefty fellows, well fed until our bombardment stopped
their food and with plenty of pluck in them.
“The courage of their machine-gunners especially, is—
worse luck for us—quite splendid.”
As far as food goes the watchword of the German people
is “soldiers first.”
That they are suffering themselves seems certain from
the letters found in great numbers in their captured dug-out.
It seems to me incredible that these should be fictitious.
They bear in every line the imprint of bitter truth, and
they read like a cry from starving people.
“You reproach me with writing so little to you. What
can I write? If I told the truth about conditions here I
should be locked up, and as I do not wish to write lies to
you I had better say nothing.
“We have tickets for everything now—flour, meat,
sausage, butter, fat, potatoes, sugar, soup, &c. We are
really nothing more than tickets ourselves.”
THE FIGHT FOR OWILLERS 193
And in another letter from Cologne:–
“Hunger is making itself felt here. During the week
none of the families received any potatoes. The allowance
now is one egg per head per week and half a pound of
bread and fifty grammes of butter per head per day.
“England is not so wrong about starving us out. If the
war lasts three months longer we shall be done. It is a
terrible time for Germany. God is punishing us too
severely.”
There is only one satisfaction in these pitiful letters. It
is the hope it gives us that the enemy—not these poor
women and children, but the Devil at the back of the busi-
ness—will realise soon that war does not pay, and will haul
down the flag with its skull and crossbones.
XIII
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE
I
JULY I 5
For a little while—yes, and even now—it has seemed some-
thing rather marvellous. We have broken through the
enemy's second line; through, and beyond on a front of two
and a half miles, and for the first time since October of
1914 cavalry has been in action. Men who fought in the
retreat from Mons, the little remnant left, look back on the
old days when the enemy's avalanche of men swept down
on them, and say, as one said to me yesterday, “Through
the second line? Then we have broken the evil spell.” So
it seems to men who fought in the first battle of Ypres, or
in the second, and then for a year more stood in their
trenches staring through loopholes at the zigzag of German
lines, barbwired, deeply dug, fortified with redoubts, ma-
chine-gun emplacements and strong places—a great system
of earthworks on high ground, nearly always on high
ground, which made one grow cold to see in aeroplane
photographs—supported by masses of guns which had been
registered on every road and trench of ours.
To smash through that could be done at a great cost.
Given a certain number of guns on a certain length of front,
with hardened troops ready for a big dash, and there was
no doubt that we could break the enemy's first line, or
system, as we broke through at Neuve Chapelle and at
Loos. But afterwards? That was the hard thing to solve.
No one on the Western front had found the formula to
carry the offensive beyond the first line without coming to
I24 -
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE 195
a dead check at a river of blood. The French troops who
broke through in the Champagne fell before they reached
the second line. At Loos Highlanders and Londoners
swept through the first line and then, at Hill 70 and Hulluch,
were faced by annihilating fire, and could go no further
except to death. . . . But to-day we broke the second
German line.
2
I had the luck to give the news to some of our men who
had been wounded early in the battle. It was worth a
king's ransom to see their gladness. “Have we got through,
sir?” asked an English boy, bandaged about the head and
face. When I told him a great light came into his eyes, and
he said “By Jove! . . . That’s pretty good!”
A wounded officer raised himself on a stretcher and called
out to me as I passed, “Any news? . . . How are we doing
up there? . . . What, right through? . . . Oh, splendid!”
Because I had come down from the battlefield, and might
know something, officers and men on the roads asked eager
questions. A doctor came out of an operating theatre in
a field hospital. He was very busy there with men who
could not answer questions. He stood for a moment in the
doorway of the tent wiping his hands on a towel.
“How's it going? Have we broken through P”
He stared at me when I answered, as though searching
for the truth in me, and said, “Sure? . . . I hardly thought
we could do it.”
The news spread quickly behind the lines, and there has
been a queer thrill in the air to-day, exciting men with the
promise of victory. I think they, too, feel that an evil spell
has been broken because British soldiers have broken the
second German line. Their hopes run ahead of the facts.
Their imagination has visions of an immediate German
rout, and the enormous patience of the French people, in-
credulous, after two years, of any quick ending, is not
126 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
shared by some of our young officers and men, who believe
that we have the enemy on the run, not remembering his
third line, and fourth, and God knows how many more.
For a day, anyhow, victory has been in the air, and be-
cause it was the I4th of July, France's day, there are flags
waving everywhere, on wayside cottages and barns and
across the streets of an old French town. Women and
children are carrying the tricolour, and as our wounded
come down in ambulances and lorries, mostly lightly-
wounded men straight out of the battle, wearing German
helmets on bandaged heads, waving bandaged hands, or
staring out gravely, with a pain in their eyes, at the life of
the roads which is theirs again, the flags flutter up to them
and laughing girls cry “Merci, camarades!” and old men
stand on the roadsides raising their hats to these boys of
ours who have won back a mile or two more of the soil of
France, and have been touched by fire.
All this is part of the emotion which belongs to war, the
sentiment and the faith and the hope without which men
could not fight nor women hide their tears.
But the business of war itself is different and of a grim-
mer kind, not admitting sentiment to those Generals of ours
who have been calculating chances based upon the position
of their guns, the quantity of their ammunition, their re-
serves of men, the enemy's dispositions, resources and dif-
ficulties, and all the mechanics of a great battle. They have
had to study human nature, too, as well as the mechanism
of war. To how great a test could they put these battalions
of ours, in the plan to smash the German second line? How
long, for instance, could they “stick it” in Bernafay Wood
and the Trones Wood? Was it possible to put in troops
already tired by hard fighting? How could they be replaced
by fresh troops? . . . a thousand problems of man-power
and gun-power which must be reckoned out, without much
margin of error, if all the cost of the first part of the battle
—a tragic cost—were to be justified by success in the second
part.
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE 127
Working night and day, snatching a little sleep and a little
food at odd hours, in constant touch with telephones whis-
pering messages from headquarters, batteries, battalion
commanders in the field, receiving reports of local successes
and local failures of German counter-attacks, of German
reinforcements in guns and men, our divisional Generals
and Brigadiers, keeping in touch with Corps Generals and
Army Generals, had to prepare for the second big blow. It
would have to be quick and hard.
3
There had been a whole fortnight's fighting since the
great attack was launched on the First of July, and it had
been very desperate fighting. On the left from Hebuterne
down to Beaumont-Hamel the heroic self-sacrifice of great
numbers of men had not been rewarded by success. That
side of the German fortress lines had remained standing—
broken in places, but not carried nor held after the first
bloody assaults.
The enemy had concentrated his defensive strength at
that part of the line, believing the main attack was to be
delivered there, and it was one vast redoubt crammed with
machine-guns which scythed down battalions of our men
as they advanced with incomparable valour. Further south
the stronghold of Ovillers was not yet taken, though almost
surrounded, and penetrated by bodies of grenadiers bombing
their way into the quarries and cellars.
It was through the southern bastion of the German fort-
ress-position that our troops had stormed their way, and in
fourteen days of hard stubborn fighting they had struggled
forward up the high ground from the Fricourt ridge to the
Montauban ridge. In my despatches I have endeavoured to
record the narrative of these daily battles, and to give some
faint idea of the wonderful courage and tenacity of our
men, who captured Contalmaison and lost it and captured
128 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
it again under terrible storms of fire, who went forward
to the Battle of the Woods, fighting for every yard of the
way in Bailiff Wood on the left, and Trones Wood on the
right, and Mametz Wood in the centre, with little copses of
naked tree-trunks round about, into which the enemy hurled
his high explosives.
Wave after wave of splendid men went up. Not one of
these places was won easily. The spirit of our race, all the
steel in it, all the fire in its blood, was needed to gain the
ground swept by machine-guns and ploughed by shells.
There were hours when men of weaker stock would have
despaired and yielded. But these men of ours would not be
beaten. Fresh waves of them went to get back in the
morning what had been lost at night, or at night what had
been lost by day because of the fire which had destroyed
those who had gone up first. And every day they made a
little progress, thrusting forward an advance post here,
winning a new bit of wood there, bombing the Germans back
from ground we needed for a new advance.
There was not a man among all our men who had any
misunderstanding as to the purpose of the struggle. I have
spoken to hundreds of them, and all knew that it was “up
to them,” as they say, to push on to the second German line
so that other men could break it. I know that many of these
men, quite simple fellows, felt individually that upon his
single courage, his last bit of pushful strength, his last
stumble over a yard of earth towards that second German
line, depended, as far as one man's strength tells, the suc-
cess of the great attack. It was this spirit which made them
shout “No surrender!” when surrender would have been an
easy way of escape, and “stick it” in places of infernal hor-
ror. I write the plain unvarnished truth.
It was when Contalmaison—the Stronghold of the Woods
—was finally and securely taken, when Mametz Wood and
Bailiff Wood were mostly ours, and when our positions were
strengthened at Montauban with some footing in Trones
Wood, that the attack upon the second German line became
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE 129
possible. It was for that moment that our generals were
now waiting and preparing. Men were there who had
fought long in the Ypres salient, hardened to every phase
of trench warfare, and men who had won great honour in
the Loos salient, and men, all of them, who had the spirit of
attack.
I watched them passing along the roads towards the
front, saw old friends in their ranks, and knew, as I looked,
that in all the world there are not more splendid soldiers.
Hardened by a long campaign, bronzed to the colour of their
belts, marching with most perfect discipline, these hand-
some, clean-cut men went into the battlefield whistling as on
the first day of the battle their comrades had gone singing,
though they knew that in a few hours it would be hell for
them. As I watched them pass something broke in my
heart so that I could have wept silly tears. There were
other men, harder than I, who were stirred by the same
emotion, and cursed the war.
4.
The attack was to begin before the dawn. Behind the
lines, as I went up to the front in the darkness, the little
villages of France were asleep. It was a night of beauty,
very warm and calm, with a moon giving a milky light to
the world. Clouds trailed across it without obscuring its
brightness, and there was only one star visible—a watchful
eye up there looking down upon the battlefields.
The whitewashed walls of cottages and barns appeared
out of great gulfs of shadow, and trees on high ground
above the fields were cut black against the moonlight. Warm
scents of hay and moist earth, and new-baked bread, and the
acrid smell of French farmyards came upon the air. Fur-
ther forward there was still great quietude along the roads,
but here and there long supply columns and ambulance con-
voys loomed black under the trees.
130 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
The ambulances were empty before the battle. For sev-
eral miles only one figure stood at every cross-road. It was
the figure of Christ on a wayside Calvary. Sentries gave
their challenge, as on the first night of battle, and pres-
ently I saw other soldiers about in the dark entries of French
courtyards, their bayonets shining like a streak of light, and
officers standing together with whispered consultations, and,
along side roads men marching.
A long column of them came to a halt to let our car pass,
and I looked into the men's eyes. There was a young officer
there whose face I should know if I saw him again in the
world, because it was in the rays of a lantern, and had a
white light on it. He had the look of Lancelot.
The men were very quiet. Very quiet also were camps of
men and horses in fields dipping down to hollows where a
few lanterns twinkled, and presently quite close to the edge
of the battlefields I passed great columns of horse-gunners
and horse transport and cavalry with their lances up, and
Indian native cavalry, still as statues. The men were drawn
up along the side of the road, and their figures were utterly
black in the darkness between an old millhouse and some
other buildings. Except for one man who was humming a
tune, they were quite silent, and they hardly stirred in their
saddles. They seemed to be waiting, with some grim
expectation.
The road was lined with trees which made a tunnel with
its foliage, and at one end of the tunnel which showed a
patch of sky, there were strange lights flashing, like flaming
swords cutting through the darkness. We went up towards
the lights and towards a monstrous tumult of noise, and
walked straight across country towards the centre of a circle
of fire which was all around us. Our artillery was smash-
ing the German line.
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE 131
5
I described, perhaps at too great length, the bombardment
on the night before the Ist of July. Then it seemed to me
that nothing could be more overwhelming to one's soul and
senses. But this was worse—more wonderful and more
terrible. As I stumbled over broken ground and shell holes,
and got caught in coils of wire, a cold sweat broke out
upon me, and for a little while I was horribly afraid. It
was not fear for myself. It was just fear, the fear that an
animal may have when the sky is full of lightning—a
sensuous terror. The hell of war encircled us, and its waves
of sound and light beat upon us.
Our batteries were firing with an intense fury. The
flashes of them were away back behind us—where the
heavies have their hiding places—and over all the ground in
front of our new line of attack. They came out of the black
earth with short, sharp stabs of red flame whose light filled
the hollows with pools of fire. And the sky and the ridges
of ground and the earthworks and ruins and woods across
our lines were blazing with the flashes of bursting shells.
Blinding light leapt about like a will o' the wisp. For a
second it lit up all the horizon over Contalmaison, and gave
a sudden picture, ghastly white, of the broken chateau with
stumps of trees about it. Then it was blotted out by a
great blackness, and instantly shifted to Mametz Wood or
to Montauban, revealing their shapes intensely and the
shells crashing beyond them, until they, too, disappeared
with the click of a black shutter. A moment later and
Fricourt was filled with white brilliance, so that every bit of
its ruin, its hideous rummage of earth, its old mine-craters,
and its plague-stricken stumps of trees were etched upon
one's eyes. Along the German second line by Bazentin-le-
Grand, Bazentin-le-Petit, and Longueval, at the back of the
woods, our shells were bursting without a second's pause
and in great clusters. They tore open the ground and let
132 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
out gusts of flames. Flame fountains rose and spread from
the German trenches above Pearl Wood. The dark night
was rent with all these flames, and hundreds of batteries
were feeding the fires.
Every calibre of gun was at work. The heavy shells, 15-
inch, I2-inch, 8-inch, 6-inch, 4.7, came overhead like flocks
of birds—infernal birds with wings that beat the air into
wavés and came whining with a shrill high note, and
stooped to earth with a monstrous roar. The lighter bat-
teries, far forward, were beating the devil's tattoo, one-two-
three-four, one-two-three-four, with sharp knocks that
clouted one’s ears. I sat on a wooden box on the top of
an old dug-out in the midst of all this fury. There was a
great gun to my left, and every time it fired it shook the
box, and all the earth underneath, with a violent vibration.
The moon disappeared soon after 3 o'clock, and no stars
were to be seen. But presently a faint ghost of dawn ap-
peared. The white earth of the old, disused trenches about
me became visible. A lark rose and sang overhead. And
at 3.30 there was a sudden moment of hush. It was the
lifting of the guns, and the time of attack. Over there in
the darkness by Mametz Wood and Montauban thousands
of men, the men I had seen going up, had risen to their feet,
and were going forward to the second German line, or to
the place where death was waiting for them, before the
light came.
6
The light came very quickly. It was strange what a
difference a few minutes made. Very faintly, but steadily,
the dawn crept through the darkness, revealing the forms
of things and a little colour in the grass. The sandbags at
my feet whitened. Over at Ovillers there were clouds of
smoke, and from its denseness red and white rockets shot
up and remained in the sky for several seconds. Other
rockets, red and white and green, rose to the right of Con-
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE 133
talmaison towards Bazentin-le-Grand. Our infantry was
advancing.
A new sound came into the general din of gunfire. It was
a kind of Swishing noise, like that of flames in a strong
wind. I knew what it meant.
“Enemy machine-guns,” said an artillery observer, who
had just come out of his hole in the ground. There must
have been many of them to make that noise.
Our own artillery had burst out into a new uproar. I
could see our shells bursting further forward, or thought I
could.
“I believe our men are getting on,” said an officer, staring
through his glasses.
The gunner observer had one eye to a telescope.
“There's too much mist about. And, anyhow, one can't
make out the confusion of battle. It's always hopeless.
And what the devil is that light?”
“Must be a signal,” said the gunner officer. “I think I'd
better report it.”
He put his head into the dug-out, and spoke to a man
sitting by a telephone.
At 3.55 the light was clear enough for one to see German
shrapnel, very black and thick, between Mametz Wood
and Bazentin Wood. High explosives were bursting there
too. The enemy had got his guns to work upon Our
infantry.
At 4 o'clock there was a humming sound overhead, and
I looked up and saw the first aeroplane flying towards the
German lines, just as I had seen one on the first day of
battle. It flew very low—no more than 500 ft. high—and
went very steadily on towards the furnace, brave moth !
At 4. Io there was a red glow to the right of Montauban.
It rose with a pulsing light and spread upwards—a great
torch with sparks dancing over it.
“By Jove!” said one of the men near me. “That's
Longueval on fire!”
In a little while there was no doubt about it. I could see
134 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
the sharp edge of broken buildings in the heart of the red
glow. The village of Longueval was in flames.
From behind the north-west corner of Mametz Wood a
great rosy light rose like a cloud in the setting sun, but more
glowing at its base. It died out three times and rose again,
vividly, and then appeared no more. The gunner observer
was bothered again. Was it a signal or an explosion?
With so many lights and flames about it was difficult to tell.
At about 4.30 I heard another furious outburst of ma-
chine-gun fire in the direction of Longueval, and it seemed
to spread westwards along Bazentin-le-Grand and Bazen-
tin-le-Petit. I strained my eyes to see any of our in-
fantry, but dense clouds of smoke were rolling over the
ground past Contalmaison and between Mametz and Bazen-
tin woods. It seemed as if we were putting up a Smoke
barrage there, and later a great volume of smoke hid the
ground by Montauban.
The enemy's artillery was now firing with great violence.
Enormous shellbursts flung up the earth along the line of
our advance, and the black shrapnel Smoke was hanging
heavily above. It seemed to me that some of their guns
were firing wildly and blindly. High explosives burst down
below Fricourt, where there was nothing to hurt, and in
places far afield. The German gunners had got the wind
up, as soldiers say, and now that darkness had gone and
daylight come our men must have gone far ahead, if luck
was theirs. Had they broken the second German line? Men
waiting for any news of them found the strain of ignorance
intolerable. . . . What were they doing up there?
7
The first men to come back from the battle were the
wounded. They were the lightly wounded, or at least men
who could walk. They came across the fields in twos and
threes at first, or alone, single limping figures, at a slow
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE 135
pace. But after an hour or two they came in a straggling
procession from the first-aid dressing stations up in the
lines—men with bandaged heads, men with their arms in
slings, men with wounded feet, so that they could only hop
along with an arm round a comrade's neck.
Some of them were all blood-stained, with blood on their
faces and hands and clothes. Others had their uniforms
torn to tatters, and there were men who were bare almost
to the waist, with a jacket slung over one shoulder. There
was hardly a man among them who wore his steel helmet,
though some carried them slung to the rifle, and others wore
German helmets and German caps. Ambulances were wait-
ing for them, and the stretcher-bearers were busy with the
bad cases. The stretcher-bearers had done their duty as
gallantly as the fighting men, and some of their own com-
rades were among the wounded.
But they had been reinforced by men who do not belong
to the R.A.M.C. Some of the stretchers were being carried
by men in grey uniforms with flat round caps, who walked
stolidly looking about them, at all those British soldiers, and
at those fields on the British side, with curious eyes as
though everything were strange to them. They were Ger-
man prisoners paying for the privilege of life, and glad
to pay.
Later in the day there came down a long column of these
men, not carrying stretchers, but marching shoulder to
shoulder, under armed escort. There were over 700 of
them in this one convoy, as a living proof that the day had
gone well for British arms. They were tall, sturdy men for
the most part, and in spite of their ordeal by fire most of
them looked in good physical health, though haggard and
hollow-eyed and a little dazed. There was a number of
wounded among them who dragged wearily by the side of
their luckier friends, but those who were badly hurt trav-
elled with our own wounded, and I saw several of them
on the lorries with their hands on the shoulders of men
who had gone out to kill them.
• * > * ,
136 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
* * * * *
So the backwash of battle came down like a tide, but long
before then I knew that we had broken the second German
line and that our men were fighting on the high ground
beyond. The village of Longueval was ours. Bazentin-le-
Grand, both wood and village, and Bazentin-le-Petit, were
ours. A gallant body of men had swept through Trones
Wood, on the extreme right of the line, and patrols were
pushing into Delville Wood and towards the highest ridge
behind the broken German trenches. On the left our men
had swept up and beyond Contalmaison Villa, which stands
far north of the village.
Every objective of the attack had been carried and our
losses were not enormously heavy. The German lines had
been captured on a front of nearly three miles—and the
cavalry was going in.
Scottish troops were amongst those who went first into
Longueval—men belonging to famous old regiments—and
they fought very grimly, according to the spirit of their
race, with their blood set on fire by the music of the pipes
that went with them. Before the light of dawn came, and
when our guns lifted forward, they rose from the ground
just north of Montauban and went forward across No
Man's Land towards the German trenches. They had to
make a distance of I,2OO yards Over open ground and came
at once under heavy shell-fire and an enfilade fire from
machine-guns.
The enemy also used smoke bombs, and the ground was
ploughed with high explosives. A number of men fell, but
the others went forward shouting and reached the German
line. In some parts the wire had not been cut by our bom-
bardment, but the Highlanders hurled themselves upon it
and beat their way. Machine-guns were pattering bullets
upon their ranks, but not for long. The men poured through
and surged in waves into and across the German trenches.
Every man among them was a grenadier, provided with
bombs and with supplies coming up behind. It was with
the bomb, the most deadly weapon of this murderous war
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE 137
for close combat, that the men fought their way through.
The German soldiers defended themselves with their own
hand grenades when their machine-guns had been knocked
out in the first line trenches, but as they sprang out of their
dug-outs when the bombardment lifted and our men were
upon them they had but a poor chance of life unless they
were quick to surrender. I hear that these trenches in the
second German line were not deeply dug, and that the dug-
outs themselves were hardly bomb-proof.
For once in a way the enemy had been lazy and over-
confident, and he paid now a bitter price for his pride in
believing that the first line was impregnable. I do not care
to write about this part of the fighting. It was bloody
work, and would not be good to read. One incident was
told me by a kilted sergeant as he lay wounded. From one
of the dug-outs came a German officer. He had a wild
light in his eyes, and carried a great axe.
“I surrender,” he said, in good English.
And in broad Scotch the sergeant told him that if he had
an idea of surrendering it would be a good and wise thing
to drop his chopper first. But the German officer swung it
high, and it came like a flash past the sergeant's head. Like
a flash also a bayonet did its work.
8
While men were “cleaning up” the dug-outs in the first-
line trenches other men pressed on and stormed their way
into Longueval village. The great fires there which I had
seen in the darkness had died down, and there was only the
glow and smoulder of them in the ruins. But machine-guns
were still chattering in their emplacements.
In one broken building there were six of them firing
through holes in the walls. It was a strong redoubt sweep-
ing the ground, which had once been a roadway and was
now a shambles, Scottish soldiers rushed the place and
138 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
flung bombs into it until there was no more swish of bullets
but only the rising of smoke-clouds and black dust. Longue-
val was a heap of charred bricks above ground, but there was
still trouble below ground, before it was firmly taken. There
were many cellars in which Germans fought like wolves at
bay. And down in the darkness of these places men fought
savagely, seeing only the glint of each other's eyes, and
feeling for each other's throats, unless there were still
bombs handy to make a quicker ending. It was primitive
warfare. The cave-men fought like that, in such darkness,
though not with bombs, which belong to our age in this
Christian era of grace and civilisation.
To the right of Longueval and south of the second Ger-
man line lies the Trones Wood, and as it was on the right
flank of our attack it could not be left in the enemy's hands.
We had held most of it once, a few days ago, and for a few
hours, but the enemy's shell-fire had made the place unten-
able. It was into that fire that some of our English bat-
talions advanced yesterday morning from Bernafay Wood.
“They shelled us like hell,” said a boy who came from a
quiet place in Sussex before he knew what hell is like.
There were machine-guns sweeping the southern end of
the woods with cross-fire; and with bursting shells overhead
it was a place of black horror in the night. But these Eng-
lish boys kept crawling on to gain a yard or two before the
next crash came, and then another yard or two, and at last
they came up to the German line, and flung themselves sud-
denly upon German machine-gunners and German riflemen
sheltered behind earthworks and trunks of trees. . . . The
wood was captured again, and then a queer kind of miracle
happened, and it seemed as if those who had been dead had
come to life again. For out of holes in the ground, and
from behind the fallen timbers of shelled trees, came a num-
ber of English boys, dirty and wild-looking, who shouted
out, “Hullo, lads!” and “What cheer, matey?” or just
shouted and laughed with a sob in their throats and big
tears down their grimy faces. They were West Kents,
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE 139
who had first taken the Trones Wood and then had been
caught in a barrage of fire. With one officer 300 men had
dug themselves into the roots of trees on the eastern edge
of the wood and kept the Germans at bay with a machine-
gun.
9
Meanwhile a number of battalions, mostly English, but
with some Scots—men who have done as well in this war
since the early days of it as any troops who have fought
in France—were attacking the line between Longueval and
the two Bazentins. They, too, found the wire uncut in
places, but they went through in a tearing hurry, hating the
machine-gun fire and resolved to end it quickly. They
stormed the German trenches and fought down them with
bombs and bayonets. German soldiers came out of the dug-
outs and begged for mercy. They came holding out their
watches, their pocket-books, their helmets, anything that
they thought would ransom their lives, and when they had
been taken prisoners they made no trouble about carrying
back the English wounded, but were glad to go. It was all
in the darkness, except when shell-bursts lit the ground, and
some of our battalions lost their sense of direction towards
Bazentin Woods. Prisoners acted as guides to their own
lines. Five or six of them unwillingly led the way back.
A British officer of nineteen, a boy who had only been in
France a month or two, led one of the companies forward
because his brother officers had fallen.
“Come on, lads!” he shouted, “I’m only a kid, but I’ll
show you the way all right.”
They liked those words, “only a kid,” and laughed at
them.
“He’s a plucked 'un, he is,” said one of the men who fol-
lowed him. They went after him into Bazentin Wood,
and others followed on, into and through a heavy barrage
of fire.
140 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
So it was on the left, where other battalions were at
work pressing forward in waves to Contalmaison Villa and
the ground beyond. The second German line had fallen
before our men, and they were over it and away.
IO
It was at about 6 o'clock in the evening that some British
cavalry came into action. They were the men whom I had
seen on my way up to the battlefield, a small detachment of
the Dragoon Guards and also of the Deccan Horse. They
worked forward with our infantry on a stretch of country
between Bazentin Wood and Delville Wood, rising up to
High Wood (Foureaux Wood), and then rode out alone
in reconnaissance, in true cavalry formation, with the com-
mander in the rear. Lord ' Not one in a thousand would
have believed it possible to see this again. When they
passed, the infantry went a little mad, and cheered wildly
and joyously, as though these men were riding on a road of
triumph.
So they rode on into open country, skirting Delville
Wood. Presently a machine-gun opened fire upon them.
It was in a cornfield, with German infantry, and the officer
in command gave the word to his men to ride through the
enemy. The Dragoons put their lances down and rode
straight into the wheat. They killed several men and then
turned and rode back, and charged again, among scattered
groups of German infantry. Some of them prepared to
withstand the charge with fixed bayonets. Others were
panic-stricken and ran forward crying “Pity! Pity" and
clung to the saddles and stirrup leathers of the Dragoon
Guards. Though on a small scale, it was a cavalry action
of the old style, the first on the Western front since October
of the first year of the war.
With thirty-two prisoners our men rode on slowly still
reconnoitring the open country on the skirt of Delville
Wood, until they came again under machine-gun fire and
THROUGH THE GERMAN SECOND LINE 141
drew back. As they did so an aeroplane came overhead,
skimming very low, at no more than 300ft. above ground.
The cavalry turned in their saddles to stare at it for a mo-
ment or two, believing that it was a hostile machine. But
no bullets came their way, and in another moment it stooped
over the German infantry concealed in the wheat and fired
at them with a machine-gun. Four times it circled and
stooped and fired, creating another panic among the enemy,
and then it flew off, leaving the cavalry full of admiration
for this daring feat. They could ride no further, owing
to the nature of the ground, and that night they dug them-
selves in. German guns searched in vain for them, and the
cavalry to-night is full of pride, believing with amazing
optimism that their day may come again. [It was after all
only a “fancy stunt” as soldiers call it, and it seems certain
now that the cavalry is an obsolete arm of war on the
Western front. The Tanks have taken their place.]
The scene all through the afternoon behind the battle-
lines and down in little villages beyond the reach of guns
will stay in my mind as historic pictures. Numbers of
wounded men—with a very high proportion of lightly
wounded among them—arrived at the casualty clearing sta-
tions and, while they waited their turn for the doctors and
nurses, lay about the grass, fingering their souvenirs—
watches, shell-fuses, helmets, pocket-books, German letters,
and all manner of trophies—and telling their adventures in
that wild battle of the night.
They seemed to have no sense of pain, and not one man
groaned, in spite of broken arms and head wounds and
bayonet thrusts. Every dialect of England and Scotland
and Ireland could be heard among them. There were men
from many battalions, and as they lay there talking or smok-
ing or sleeping in the sunlight, other processions came down
in straggling columns, limping and holding on to comrades,
hobbling with sticks, peering through blood-stained rags,
tired and worn and weak, but with a spirit in them that was
marvellous.
XIV
THE WOODS OF DEATH
I
JULY 17
WE are again in the difficult hours that inevitably follow a
successful advance, when ground gained at the extreme limit
of our progress has to be defended against counter-attacks
from close quarters, when men in exposed positions have
to suffer the savaging of the enemy’s artillery, and when
our own gunners have to work cautiously because isolated
patrols of men in khaki may be mistaken in bad light for
grey-clad men in the same neighbourhood. This period is
the test of good generalship and of good captains.
The weather was rather against us to-day. There was a
thick haze over the countryside, causing what naval men
call “low visibility,” and making artillery observation dif-
ficult. It was curious to stand on high ground and see only
the dim shadow-forms of places like Mametz Wood and
the other woodlands to its right and left, where invisible
shells were bursting.
Our shells were passing overhead, and I listened to their
high whistling, but could see nothing of their bursts, and
for nearly an hour an intense bombardment made a great
thunder in the air behind the thick veil of mist.
We were shelling High Wood, from which our men have
had to retire for a time owing to the enemy's heavy barrage
of high explosives, and we were also pounding the enemy's
lines to the north of Bazentin-le-Grand and Longueval,
where he is very close to our men. Hostile batteries were
I42
THE WOODS OF DEATH 143
retaliating upon the woodlands which we have gained and
held during the past three days.
2
This woodland fighting has been as bad as anything in this
war—most frightful and bloody. Dead bodies lie strewn
beneath the trees, and in the shell-holes are wounded men
who have crawled there to die. There is hardly any cover
in which men may get shelter from shell-fire.
The Germans had dug shallow trenches, but they were
churned up by our heavies, and it is difficult to dig in again
because of the roots of great trees, and the fallen timber,
and the masses of twigs and foliage which have been
brought down by British and German guns. When our
troops went into Trones Wood under most damnable fire of
5.9's they grubbed about for some kind of cover without
much success.
But some of them had the luck to strike upon three Ger-
man dug-outs which were exceptionally deep and good.
Obviously they had been built some time ago for officers
who, before we threatened their second line, may have
thought Trones Wood a fine dwelling-place, and not too dan-
gerous if they went underground. They went down forty
feet, and panelled their rooms, and brought a piano down
for musical evenings.
A young company commander found the piano and
struck some chords upon it at a time when there was louder
music overhead—the scream of great shells and the inces-
sant crash of high explosives in the wood. Further on,
at the edge of the wood, our men found a machine-gun em-
placement built solidly of cement and proof against all shell
splinters, and it was from this place that so many of our
men were shot down before the enemy's gunners could be
bombed out.
144 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
3
One of the most extraordinary experiences of this wood-
land fighting was that of an English boy who now lies in a
field-hospital smiling with very bright and sparkling eyes
because the world seems to him like Paradise after an in-
fernal dwelling-place. He went with the first rush of men
into Mametz Wood, but was left behind in a dug-out when
they retired before a violent counter-attack.
Some German soldiers passed this hole where the boy lay
crouched, and flung a bomb down on the off-chance that an
English soldier might be there. It burst on the lower steps
and wounded the lonely boy in the dark corner.
He lay there a day listening to the crash of shells through
the trees overhead—English shell-fire—not daring to come
out. Then in the night he heard the voices of his own coun-
trymen, and he shouted loudly.
But as the English soldiers passed they threw a bomb into
the dug-out, and the boy was wounded again. He lay there
another day, and the gun-fire began all over again, and
lasted until the Germans came back. Another German sol-
dier saw the old hole and threw a bomb down, as a safe
thing to do, and the boy received his third wound.
He lay in the darkness one more day, not expecting to
live, but still alive, still eager to live and to see the light
again. If only the English would come again and rescue
Phim'
He prayed for them to come. And when they came, cap-
turing the wood completely and finally, one of them, seeing
the entrance to the dug-out and thinking Germans might be
hiding there, threw a bomb down—and the boy was
wounded for the fourth time. This time his cries were
heard, and the monotonous repetition of this ill-luck ended,
and the victim of it lies in a white bed with wonderful shin-
ing eyes.
THE WOODS OF DEATH 145
4
The German prisoners have stories like this to tell, for
they suffered worst of all under the fury of our bombard-
ment and the coming and going of our troops in the wood-
land fighting. I spoke with one of them to-day—one of a
new batch of men, whose number I reckoned as 300, just
brought down from Bazentin-le-Grand.
He was a linguist, having been an accountant in the North
German Lloyd, and gave me a choice of conversation in
French, Italian, Greek or English. I chose my own tongue,
but let him do the talking, and standing there in a barbed
wire entanglement, surrounded by hundreds of young Ger-
mans, unshaven, dusty, haggard and war-worn, but still
strong and sturdy men, he described vividly the horrors of
the woods up by the two Bazentins where he and these com-
rades of his had lain under our last bombardment.
They had but little cover except what they could scrape
out beneath the roots of trees. And the trees crashed upon
them, smashing the limbs of men, and shells burst and
buried men in deep pits, and the wounded lay groaning under
great branches which pinned them to the ground or in the
open where other shells were bursting. From what I can
make out some of the men here retreated across the coun-
try between Bazentin and Delville Woods, for they were
the men who were captured by our cavalry.
“My comrades were afraid,” said this German sergeant.
“They cried out to me that the Indians would kill their pris–
oners, and that we should die if we surrendered. But I
said, ‘That is not true, comrades. It is only a tale. Let us
go forward very quietly with our hands up.’ So in that way
we went, and the Indian horsemen closed about us, and I
spoke to one of them, asking for mercy for our men, and
he was very kind, and a gentleman, and we surrendered to
him safely.”
He was glad to be alive, this man who came from Wies-
146 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
baden. He showed me the portrait of his wife and boy, and
cried a little, saying that the German people did not make
the war, but had to fight for their country when told to fight,
like other men. All his people had believed, he said, that the
war would be over in August or September.
“Are they hungry P’’ I asked.
“They have enough to eat,” he said. “They are not starv-
ing.”
He waved his hand back to the woodlands, and remem-
bered the terror of the place from which he had just come.
“Over there it was worse than death.”
5
Over there on the one small village of Bazentin-le-Grand
our heavy howitzers flung an amazing quantity of shells on
Friday morning. The place was swept almost flat, and
little was left of its church and houses but reddish heaps
of bricks and dust, and twisted iron, and the litter of
destruction. Yet there were many Germans living here
when the men of some famous regiments came through in
the dawn with bayonets and bombs, Yorkshiremen and some
of the Scottish all mixed together, as happens at such times.
There was one great cellar underneath Bazentin-le-Grand
large enough to hold I 500 men, and here, crouching in its
archways and dark passages, were numbers of German
soldiers.
They came to meet our men and surrendered to them.
And here also lay many wounded, in their blood, and un-
bandaged—just as they had crawled down from the ground
above where our shells were smashing everything.
If any man were to draw the picture of those things or
to tell them more nakedly than I have told them, because
now is not the time, nor this the place, no man or woman
would dare to speak again of war’s “glory,” or of “the
splendour of war,” or any of those old lying phrases which
hide the dreadful truth.
XV
PRISONERS OF WAR
I
JULY 17
IN spite of bad weather, which has hampered operations so
that no great advance has been possible, we have made some
progress to-day in the direction of Pozières.
Some of our troops stormed a double line of trenches
from Bazentin-le-Petit to the south-east of Pozières, a dis-
tance of 1500 yards, strewn from one end to the other with
German dead and wounded.
High Wood, or the Bois de Foureaux, as it is properly
called, is to a great extent No Man's Land, as lying over
the crest of the hill our men could be shelled by the direct
observation of the enemy's artillery, over the heads of their
own men in the lower edge of the wood.
Our line therefore has been drawn back from this salient
and straightened out from Longueval to the long trench by
Pozières, which is now approached on both sides.
Ovillers is ours, after a German post which had been
bravely defended surrendered with two officers and about
I40 men early this morning. There is no other news of im-
portance to-day on the line of attack, but it is good enough,
and the general position of our force is improved.
2
What is the German point of view about our attack and
the prospects of the war?
I47
148 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
That is the question I have always had in my head during
the last fortnight, when I have seen batches of prisoners
being led down from the battlefields, and the question I
have put to some of them in bad German or fair English.
It is difficult to get any clear answer, or an answer of any
real value. The men have just come out of dreadful places,
many of them are still dazed under the shock of shell-fire,
some of them are proud and sullen, others are ready to talk
but ignorant of the battle-front in which they have been and
of the situation outside the dug-outs in which they crouched.
Yet there is something to be learnt out of their very
ignorance, and by putting together answers from Separate
groups of men and individual soldiers one does get a kind of
hint of the general idea prevailing among these German
troops against us.
Quite a number of them have told me that they and their
people were sure that the war would be over in August or
September. They have been promised that but could not
give any reason for belief except the promise.
“Do you think you are winning?” I asked one man—of
real intelligence.
“We thought so,” he answered.
“And now P”
He raised his hands and shrugged his shoulders.
“The English are stronger than we believed.”
There seems to me no doubt that they were perfectly con-
fident in the strength of their lines. They did not believe
that such defences as those at Fricourt and Montauban
could ever be broken.
The new power of our artillery has amazed them—they
speak of it always with terror—and the officers especially
admit that they did not imagine that “amateur gunners,” as
they call our men, could achieve such results.
For the courage of our infantry they have always had a
great respect, remembering the two battles of Ypres, but
they count the strength of armies by the strength of guns,
and until recent days knew they had the greater power.
PRISONERS OF WAR 149
The foundations of their belief are shaken, but only to
the extent that they admit the possibility of their army
having to retire to a new line of defence.
I have not found one man speak of defeat. They are
still convinced that the German army will never be beaten
to the point of surrender. As the German doctor whom I
have previously quoted said to me a few days ago, “You
are strong and we are strong. Neither side can crush the
other. If the war goes on it will be the suicide of Europe.”
These German soldiers do not want it to go on. That idea
in their heads is clear enough. They are weary of war,
and have a great craving for peace. They want to see their
wives and children again. One strain of thought creeps out
in their talk. It is the suggestion that they fight not as free
men desiring to fight, but as men compelled to fight by higher
powers, against whom they cannot rebel.
“It is our discipline,” said one of them to-day. “We can-
not help ourselves.”
I am told by one of the officers in charge of them that
they talk of another inevitable war between Germany and
England in ten years from now.
They have been taught to believe, he says, that we thrust
this war upon them, that all through we have been the ag-
gressors, and that Germany will seek her revenge.
3
Personally, I have not heard such words spoken, but
rather from several of these prisoners, a frank hatred of
war as the cause of horrors and suffering beyond the
strength of man to bear. They talk as men under an evil
spell put upon them by unknown powers beyond their
reach.
As I have said, all this does not amount to anything of
real value in trying to see into the spirit of the German peo-
ple. They are the opinions of prisoners, who have escaped
150 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
from the worst terrors of war, but are immediately cautious
of any interrogation, and perhaps a little tempted to say
pleasing things to their captors. They cannot conceal their
ignorance, which is enormous, because all but victories have
been hidden from them until their own defeat, but they
conceal their knowledge.
I was interested, for instance, to hear them deny any
great suffering from hunger in their own country.
“Our people have enough to eat,” said several of them
when I questioned them. When I told them of the letters
captured in their dug-outs, all full of pitiful tales about lack
of food, they stared at me with grave eyes, and said again,
stoutly: -
“They have enough to eat. Bread enough, and meat
enough.”
Their first desire upon coming from the battlefields is
water, which they get at once, and their next is permission
to write home to their people. All of them are anxious
to be sent at once to England, where they expect greater
comforts than in the fields with barbed-wire hedges, where
they are kept on the way down until they can be en-
trained.
As I watched them to-day again I thought of our men
who are prisoners, and of all the great sum of human
misery which has been heaped up in this war. Fortunately,
in our treatment of prisoners we teach our enemies a lesson
in chivalry, for it is not, I think, in Our race or history,
with rare exceptions, to kick men when they are down.
XVI
THE LAST STAND IN OVILLERS
I
JULY 18
IN all the fighting during the past fortnight the struggle
for Ovillers stands out separately as a siege in which both
attack and defence were of a most dogged and desperate
kind.
The surrender of the remnants of its garrison last night
ends an episode which will not be forgotten in history.
These men were of the 3rd Prussian Guard, and our Com-
mander-in-Chief, in his day's despatch, has paid a tribute
to their bravery which is echoed by officers and men who
fought against them. It is a tribute to our own troops
also, who by no less courage broke down a stubborn resist-
ance and captured the garrison.
I have already described the earlier phases of the siege;
the first attack on July I, when our men broke through the
outer network of trenches and advanced through sheets of
machine-gun fire, suffering heavy casualties, the seizure of
separated bits of broken trench-work by little bodies of
gallant men fighting, independently, gaining ground by a
yard or two at a time and attacking machine-gun posts and
bombing posts by hand-to-hand fights; the underground
struggle in great vaulted cellars beneath the ruined town;
the surprise attack at night when a number of fresh troops
sprang upon the defences to the western side of the town,
and then, linking up with the men in the captured trenches
and ruins, cut the place in half, took many prisoners, and
I5I
152 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
isolated the enemy still holding out in the northern half of
the position.
Many different battalions had taken a share in the fight-
ing, all had suffered, and then given way to new men who
knew the nature of this business, but set grimly to work to
carry on the slow process of digging out the enemy from
his last strongholds. It was almost literally a work of
digging out.
2
The town of Ovillers does not exist. It was annihilated
by the bombardments and made a rubbish heap of bricks
and dust. When our men were separated from the enemy
by only a yard or two or by only a barricade or two the ar-
tillery on both sides ceased fire upon Ovillers, lest the gun-
ners should kill their own men.
They barraged intensely round about. Our shells fell
incessantly upon the enemy's communication trenches to
the north and east so that the beleaguered garrison should
not get supplies or reinforcements. -
We made a wall of death about them. But though no
shells now burst over the ground where many dead lay
strewn, there was artillery of a lighter kind, not less deadly.
It was the artillery of machine-guns and bombs. The
Prussian Guard made full use of the vaulted cellars and
of the ruined houses.
They had made a series of small keeps, which they
defended almost entirely by machine-gun fire. As soon
as we advanced the machine-guns were set to work, and
played their hose of bullets across the ground which our
men had to cover. One by one, by getting round about
them, by working zig-zag ways through cellars and ruins,
by sudden rushes of bombing parties, led by young officers
of daring spirit, we knocked out these machine-gun em-
placements and the gunners who served them, until, yester-
THE LAST STAND IN OVILLERS 153
day, there was only the last remnant of the garrison left in
Ovillers.
These men of the 3rd Prussian Guard had long been in
a hopeless position. They were starving because all sup-
plies had been cut off by our never-ceasing barrage, and
they had no water supply, so that they suffered all the tor-
ture of great thirst.
Human nature could make no longer resistance, and, at
last, the officers raised a signal of surrender, and came over
with nearly 140 men, who held their hands up.
The fighting had been savage. At close grips in the
broken earthworks and deep cellars there had been no
sentiment, but British soldiers and Germans had flung
themselves upon each other with bombs and any kind of
weapon.
But now, when all was ended, the last of the German
garrison were received with the honours of war, and none
of our soldiers denies them the respect due to great courage.
“They stuck it splendidly,” was the verdict of one of
them to-day, and though there is no love lost between our
army and the enemy's, it is good at least that we should
have none of that silly contempt for the foe which is some-
times expressed by people—never by British soldiers—who
unconsciously discredit the valour of our men by under-
estimating the courage and tenacity of those who fight us.
XVII
THE SCOTS AT LONGUEVAL
I
JULY 20
THE present stage of our advance is causing us very hard
fighting for important positions on high ground which
must be gained and held before new progress over open
country is possible. The enemy is gathering up his re-
serves and flinging them against us to check the onward
movement at all costs, and it seems to me that he has
brought up new batteries of heavy guns, because his ar-
tillery fire is increasing.
His prisoners reveal the grave anxiety that reigns behind
the German lines, where there is no attempt to minimise the
greatness of our menace. The enemy is undoubtedly strain-
ing every nerve to organise a new and formidable resist-
3.11Ce.
To-day, however, he has lost many men and valuable
ground, not only in fighting with British troops, but with the
French, who at Maurepas and other positions on our right
have made a successful advance.
In the early hours of this morning, after a long bombard-
ment which made the night very dreadful with noise, and
the sky vivid with the light of bursting shells—such a night
as I described at length a day or two ago—an attack was
made by our troops on the high ground between Delville
Wood and High Wood and to the west of these positions.
The enemy was in great strength, and maintained a
strong defence, but he suffered severely, and was forced to.
retreat in disorder upon some parts of his line.
I54
THE SCOTS AT LONGUEWAL 155
2
A good deal of the fighting fell to south-country boys
who once followed the plough and still have the English
sky in their eyes. But not far from them were some of the
“Harry Lauder lads,” who used to man the battlements
of Edinburgh Castle when Rouge Dragon knocked at the
gate and asked admittance for the King.
They had a bad night—“the worst a man could dream
of,” said one of them, who had known other bad nights of
war. They lay under the cross-fire of great shells, British
and German. Field batteries were pumping out shells in a
great hurry before breakfast time, but these were as noth-
ing compared with the work of the heavies.
We were firing “Grandmothers” and “Aunties,” those
I5-inch and I2-inch shells which go roaring through the
air and explode with vast earth-shaking crashes. And the
enemy was replying with his coal-scuttles.
“They were the real Jack Johnsons,” said a Devonshire
lad who had a piece of one of them in his right shoulder.
“These brutes have not been seen, I’m told, since Ypres,
except in ones or twos. But they came over as thick and
fast as hand-grenades. You know the kind of hole they
make? 'Tis forty feet across and deep enough to bury a
whole platoon.”
“The din fairly made me quake,” said a tall lad with
the straw-coloured hair one sees on market days in Ipswich,
and he shivered a little at the remembrance of the night,
though the sun was warm upon him then.
But they did not suffer much from all this gun-fire as
they manned their trenches in the darkness. The shells
passed over them, and few were hurt. The attack was
made before the dawn up the rising slope of ground towards
high roads which used to go across from the Bois de Fou-
reaux, or High Wood, as we call it, to Delville Wood.
Now there are no roads, for our bombardment had torn
156 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
up the earth into a series of deep craters. The Germans
had a line of dug-outs here, built in great haste since the
first of July, but well built.
As soon as Our men were upon them, the German soldiers,
who had been hiding below ground, came up like rabbits
when the ferrets are at work. Most of them ran away, as
hard as they could, stumbling and falling over the broken
ground.
“They ran so hard,” said one of our men, “that I couldn't
catch up with 'em. It was a queer kind of race, us chasing
'em, and they running. The only Germans I came up with
were dead 'uns.”
But some of the Germans did not run. They came for-
ward through the half-darkness of this dawn with their
hands raised. One Cornish boy I knew took five prisoners,
who crowded round him crying “Kamerad l’’ so that he
felt like the old woman in the shoe.
Up to that point our casualties were very slight, but later
on, up the higher ground, the enemy's machine-gun fire
swept across the grass and the brown, bare earth of the
old trenches, and above the high rims of the shell craters.
But our men swept on.
Other troops were working round High Wood on the
left, and in the centre men were advancing into the wood
itself, and forcing forward over the fallen trees and
branches and the bodies of German dead. The enemy's
shells crashed above them, but these regiments of ours were
determined to get on and to hold on, and during the day
they have organised strong points, and captured the western
side and all the southern part of this position.
3
The situation at Longueval and Delville Wood, on the
north-east of that village, has been very full of trouble
for our men ever since these places were taken by Some of
THE SCOTS AT LONGUEWAL 157
our Highland regiments on July 14. The enemy made re-
peated counter-attacks from the upper end of the village,
where he still held some machine-gun emplacements, and
kept a way open through his trenches here on the north so
that he could send up supports and supplies.
From the north also he concentrated heavy artillery fire
on the southern part of Delville Wood, which was held by
some of our South African troops, and maintained a violent
barrage.
Nevertheless the Highlanders have held on for nearly a
week with a dogged endurance that has frustrated all the
efforts of the enemy to get back on to their old ground.
The gallantry of these men who wear the tartans of the
old Scottish clans would seem wonderful if it were not
habitual with them.
Their first dash for Longueval was one of the finest
exploits of the war. They were led forward by their pipers,
who went with them not only towards the German lines
but across them and into the thick of the battle.
It was to the tune of “The Campbells are Coming” that
one regiment went forward and that music, which I heard
last up the slopes of Stirling Castle, was heard with terror,
beyond a doubt, by the German soldiers. Then the pipes
screamed out the Charge, the most awful music to be heard
by men who have the Highlanders against them, and with
fixed bayonets and hand-grenades they stormed the Ger-
man trenches.
Here there are many concealed machine-gun emplace-
ments, and dug-outs so strong that no shell could smash
them. Some of them were great vaults and concreted
chambers of great depth, where many Germans could find
cover. But the Highlanders went down into them with
great recklessness, two or three men flinging themselves
into the vaults where enemies were packed. They were
scornful of all such dangers.
I am told by one of their colonels that in bombing down
the communication trenches they threw all caution to the
158 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
wind, and while some of the men went along the trenches
others ran along on top under heavy fire, cheering their
comrades on, and then leaping down upon the enemy.
The Germans defended themselves with most stubborn
courage, and even now, or at least as late as last night, they
still serve some machine-guns at one point, from which it
has been found difficult to dislodge them. They are down in
a concrete emplacement, from which they can send out a
continual spatter of bullets down the ruined way of what
Once Was a Street.
The Highlanders dug trenches across the village, and
had what they call in soldiers' language, “a hell of a time,”
which is a true way of putting it. The enemy barraged the
village with progressive lines of heavy shells, yard by yard,
but by the best of luck his lines stopped short of where
some ranks of Highlanders were lying down in fours,
using frightful words to keep their spirits up. There were
hours of bad luck, too, and one was when some of the
transport men and horses were knocked out by getting into
a barrage. Casualties were heavy among other officers and
men, but the Highlanders held on with a wonderful spirit.
4.
It is a spirit which I saluted to-day with reverence when I
met these men marching out of the fire-zone. They came
marching across broken fields, where old wire still lies
tangled and old trenches cut up the ground, and the noise
of the guns was about them.
Some of our heavy batteries were firing with terrific
shocks of sound, which made mule-teams plunge and trem-
ble, and struck sharply across the thunder of masses of
guns firing along the whole line of battle. There was a
thick summer haze about, and on the ridges the black va-
pours of shell-bursts, and all the air was heavy with smoke.
It was out of this that fºe Highlanders came marching.
THE SCOTS AT LONGUEWAL 159
They brought their music with them, and the pipes of war
were playing a Scottish love-song:
I lo'e nae laddie but ane,
An' he lo’es nae lassie but me.
Their kilts were caked with mud and stained with blood
and filth, but the men were beautiful, marching briskly,
with a fine pride in their eyes. Officers and men of other
regiments watched them pass and Saluted them, as men
who had fought with heroic courage, so that the dirtiest
of them there and the humblest of these Jocks was a fine
gentleman and worthy of knighthood.
Many of them wore German helmets and grinned beneath
them. One brawny young Scot had the cap of a German
staff officer cocked over his ear. One machine-gun section
brought down two German machines besides their own.
They were very tired, but they held their heads up, and
the pipers who had been with them blew out their bags
bravely, though hard up for wind.
And the Scottish love-song rang out across the fields.
Whatever its words, it was, I think, a love-song for the
dear dead they had left behind them.
XVIII
THE DEVIL'S WOOD
I
JULY 2I
DELVILLE WooD, to the right of Longueval, is a name
marked on the war-maps, but some of our soldiers, who
take liberties with all French place-names, giving a familiar
and homely sound to words beyond the trick of their
tongues, call this “The Devil's Wood.”
It is a reasonable name for it. It is a devilish place,
which has been a death-trap to both the German and
British troops who have held it in turns, or parts of it. It
is here, and in High Wood to the north-west of it, that the
fighting continues hotly. Last night and to-day the north-
ern end was under the fire of our guns, the southern end
under German fire, and somewhere about the centre the
opposing infantry is entrenched as far as it is possible to
dig in such a place.
The German soldiers have the advantage in defence.
They have placed their machine-guns behind barricades of
great tree-trunks, hidden their sharpshooters up in the
foliage of trees still standing above all the litter of branches
smashed down by shrapnel and high explosives, and send a
patter of bullets across to our men, who have dug holes
for themselves below the tough roots.
There is no need for either side to do any wood-chop-
ping for the building of their barricades. Great numbers
of trees have fallen, cut clean in half by heavy shells, and
lie across each other in the tangle of brushwood. Branches
have been lopped off or torn off, and are piled up as
I60
THE DEVIL’S WOOD 161
though for a bonfire. The broken trunks stick up in a
ghastly way, Stripped of their bark, and enormous roots to
which the earth still clings have been torn out of the ground
as though by a hurricane, and stretch their tentacles out
above deep pits.
The wood is strewn with dead, and wounded men are so
caught in the jungle of fallen branches that they can hardly
crawl through it. Even the unwounded have to crawl on
their way forward to fight, over, or underneath, the great
trunks which lie across the tracks.
The gallant South Africans who were here could not dig
quickly enough to get cover from the shells which the
enemy's guns pumped into the wood as soon as our men
had gained it, and found it very hard to dig at all, but now,
I hope, our troops are more secure from shell-fire and the
enemy is suffering severely from our bombardment. His
machine-guns chatter through the day and night from one
or two strong emplacements, and our men, lying behind
their own stockades, effectively reply. In the twilight of
“The Devil's Wood” the struggle goes on, but gradually we
are enclosing the place and the Germans in it are not there
for long.
2
JULY 27
At about ten o'clock this morning our troops again took
Delville Wood—all but a narrow strip on the north—and
perhaps it is the last time that it will be necessary to send
men to the assault of this evil position which has earned
the nickname of “Devil's Wood” from soldiers who have
been through it and out of it.
As one of our officers said to me this morning, “I wish to
goodness we could wipe the place off the map, or burn it off.
A good forest fire there would cleanse the ground of this
filthy wreckage of trees which has been a death-trap to so
many good fellows.”
It is a queer thing that so many trees are still standing,
162 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
and that it still looks like a wood as I saw it the other day
when the enemy was barraging this side of it. In spite of
all the trees that have been cut down by shells the foliage
still looks dense at a distance and hides all the horror under-
neath.
To-day many more trees have been slashed off and hurled
upon other fallen trunks. If the wood had been drier the
forest fire would have blazed. I am told that our concen-
tration of guns for this morning's bombardment secured
the most intense series of barrages upon one position since
the battle of Picardy began twenty-seven days ago; twice
as heavy as any similar artillery attack.
The bombardment began this early morning, and took
line after line from south to north above the ground held
by our men, in progressive blocks of fire. Our batteries
over an area of several miles, from the long-range heavies
to the 18-pounders far forward, flung every size of shell
into this “Devil's Wood,” and filled it with high explosives
and shrapnel so that one great volume of smoke rose from
it and covered it in a dense black pall.
It seems impossible that any Germans there could still be
left alive, but it is too soon yet to know whether our men
found any of them crouching in holes or lying under the
shelter of great trunks and roots. Perhaps a few German
soldiers may come out from this place of death having es-
caped by what seems like a miracle, except that every day
men do escape in the strangest way from shells which burst
above them and under them and around them.
But there will not be many who may tell the tale of this
morning's bombardment of the wood, for the enemy has
not had time to make an elaborate system of dug-outs here,
deep enough to protect them from 6-inch or 8-inch shells,
but had no more cover than our own men who held the
wood when it was the turn of the enemy's artillery.
THE DEVIL’S WOOD 163
3
I was talking to some of these men this morning, and
they all had the same tale to tell. “Devil's Wood,” said one
of them—a shock-headed Peter in shorts, who had not lost
his sense of humour, though a good deal of blood, up there
—“this Delville Wood, as it is called politely by fellows
who don't know the look of it or the smell of it, is easily
the worst place on earth, as far as I can guess.
“It’s just crowded with corpses, and to stay there is to
join that company. The only cover one can get is to crawl
under a log and hope for the best, or crawl into a shell-
hole and expect the worst—which generally arrives. I had
the devil's own luck—a puncture of the left leg—so I can't
walk back there.”
He was amazed to have come out so easily, and because
he still had life, and could see the sun shining through the
flap of a tent, he was in high spirits, like all our men who
have had the luck to get a “cushie wound,” which in this
war is the best of luck to men in such places as “Devil's
Wood.”
The other men were eloquent about the German snipers
who were hidden in the foliage of trees with rifles and
machine-guns and waited very patiently until any of our
men began to crawl through the tree trunks. That game
is finished. Our bombardment this morning must have
swept away all such men with whatever weapon they had.
Devil's Wood has become more crowded with dead, and
it is over these bodies that our men stumbled this morning
when they went forward slowly and cautiously behind the
great barrage of our guns which cleared the way for them.
They advanced in waves, halting while another barrage was
maintained for half an hour or more ahead. They had
to cross Princes-street, which was a sunken road made into
something like a trench by the South Africans, and after-
164: THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
wards by Scots from home, striking across the glades from
west to east, and then they pushed northwards.
I have no details of the fighting, which is still in progress,
but it is probable that the attack has succeeded without
many casualties. It is in holding the ground that the worst
time comes to the men who capture it.
4
Meanwhile another attack has been made this morning,
advancing eastwards to Delville Wood from Longueval,
which is partly in and partly out of the wood, with the
object of clearing out the enemy from the northern part
of the village and joining up with the men advancing into
the wood from the south, as I have just described.
Here, again, not much more of the fighting is known, but
we know the difficulties of the position, and it is not sur-
prising that the hardest fighting has been happening here.
The history of the fight that has gone on in this corner of
ground since July 14 is one of the most wonderful things,
for sheer stubborn courage, that has been done in all this
great battle.
The Scottish troops who first took Longueval, as I have
described in a previous despatch, held part of the village in
spite of heavy counter-attacks and incessant bombardments
while the South Africans were in the adjoining wood of
devilish fame.
The home-grown Scots had a trench—a poor thing, but
still called a trench—running from east to west at the south
end of the village, and two parallel roads going out of this
trench northwards through the ruins of the village.
There were barricades up these two roads held by the
Scots with machine-guns, and on the other side of the
barricade, the roads were No Man's Land leading to the
enemy, who were, and still remain, in bits of copse and
THE DEVIL’S WOOD 165
ruined gardens and old orchards, with their own machine-
guns protected by strong emplacements.
The Scots had a severe time, under almost continuous
fire, and lost heavily. At night they were attacked from the
orchard land by parties of German bombers, who advanced
with desperate courage although swept back again and
again by rifles and machine-guns and hand-grenades.
Meanwhile the South Africans were being shelled to death
in Delville Wood close by, and, as I have already told, the
poor remnants of them were withdrawn.
The troops in Longueval were replaced by others, who
succeeded in clearing the enemy out of part of the orchard
and capturing some of his machine-guns, but not enough to
“clean up” this position, which was still very dangerous.
It was another battalion of Scottish troops, together with
English boys of the New Army, who captured Waterlot
Farm, running down south-eastwards from Delville Wood,
and made two or three very gallant attempts to get as far
as Guillemont, and on July 22 another part of Longueval
was taken a third time by these fine men, whose general has
trained them to attack and to go on attacking.
5
Delville Wood proved the stumbling block again. One
young officer who was wounded here yesterday told me that
he could get no kind of cover where he lay with his men
at the edge of Delville Wood and on the outskirts of Lon-
gueval. All night long there was the swish of machine-
gun bullets above him, varied with shrapnel and bits of
high explosive.
He has only been out in France a fortnight, and two
days ago came straight to the “Devil's Wood,” into the
heart of Inferno.
On his first day he was surprised to come face to face
with a German soldier. The young officer had been given
166 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
orders to push out a patrol down a sap or shallow trench
to reconnoitre the position of the enemy. He had not gone
many yards before he met the enemy—a tall fellow in a
steel helmet, followed by forty others.
There was surprise on both sides and considerable alarm,
but the English boy was first in with a revolver shot. He
thinks now that he made a mistake because the Germans
made no attack upon him and ran back into the wood, SO
that it is likely enough they had come forward to surrender,
as a means of escape from our shell-fire.
Our lieutenant came back to report, dodging snipers who
“potted” at him from several directions, and then lying in
a ditch until a fragment of shell caught him.
“Longueval is the very devil,” says this subaltern with
two days’ experience of war—and enough too. “With
Delville Wood on its right it's not a healthy neighbourhood.
But of course Brother Boche is getting it in the neck all the
time, so he can’t be pleased with his position.”
To-day there are other men attacking the same position,
up against the same difficulties, subject to the same fire.
Those who went before them have gained the immor-
tality of history—a poor reward, perhaps, for great strug-
gles and great suffering, but theirs, whatever the value of it,
for all time, when the secrets of the war are told.
The men who are now in are of the same breed, and
will not fail for lack of courage, but as I write the guns are
firing with a great tumult of noise over there, and new his-
tory is in the making so that it cannot yet be known.
6
JULY 29
I have already described in a previous despatch the great
difficulties that have confronted our men in Longueval and
Delville Wood, and I left off my last narrative at a time
when our troops were making a strong attack upon both of
those positions—the battalions on the left endeavouring
THE DEVIL’S WOOD 167
to clear the enemy from the north of Longueval, where they
had machine-gun redoubts, and those on the right working
up from the south through Delville Wood.
The infantry advanced stage by stage behind our shell-
fire—a very simple thing to write or read, but not at all a
simple matter to troops walking under the hurricane of
shells and depending for their lives upon the scientific ac-
curacy of gunners calculating their range and their time-
fuses a long way behind the lines, and unable to see the
infantry advancing to attack. *
“It was queer to see the shells bursting in front of one,”
said a bright-eyed fellow, who had just come out of “Devil
Wood” with a lucky wound. “The line of them was just
about seventy-five yards ahead of us, flinging up the ground
and Smashing everything. It was wonderful how the gun-
ners kept it just ahead of us.”
Our men did not go through Delville Wood in one of
those fine cheering rushes which are drawn sometimes by
imaginative artists, and sometimes, but not often, happen.
They went in scattered groups, keeping touch, but in ex-
tended order and scrambling, stumbling, or crawling for-
ward as best they could, in a place which had no clear
track.
There were not two yards of ground without a shell hole.
Fallen trees and brushwood made a tangled maze. Old
barricades smashed by shell fire and shallow trenches
scraped up by men who had been digging their own graves
at the same time made obstacles and pitfalls everywhere.
Our men, heavily loaded with their fighting kits, with
bombs slung about them, and with their bayonets fixed,
could not go forward at a bound through this infernal
wood.
This wood had been taken four times by four waves of
British troops. It had been retaken four times by four
waves of German troops. It had been the dumping place
of the artillery's most furious bombardments on both sides,
168 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
so that these English boys of ours were advancing through
a great graveyard of unburied dead.
The ghastliness of the place has left its mark upon the
minds of many men who are not troubled much by the
sights of battle. I notice that some of them wince at the
name of Delville Wood, and others—the officers mostly—
laugh in a way that is not good to hear, because it is the
laughter of men who realise the great gulf of irony that
lies between the decent things of life and all this devildom.
7
When our men advanced they were surprised to see men
running away through the broken trees, and astonished,
also, to see bits of white rag fluttering above some of the
shell-holes. These white rags, tied to twigs, bobbed up and
down or waved to and fro as signals. It was the white
flag of surrender, held by German soldiers crouched at the
bottom of the shell craters. From one of them a Red
Cross flag waved in a frantic way.
Our men went forward with their bayonets, and shouted
“Come out of it, there!” and from each shell-hole came a
German soldier, holding his hands up, and crying “Pity'
Pity" which is a word they seem to have learnt in case of
need.
“Some of them were so small and young,” said a man
who was fighting in this part of the wood, “that their uni-
forms were much too big for them and their tunics came
down to their knees.”
They were exceptional in youth and size, for all the
prisoners I have seen since the beginning of our attack are
tall, strapping fellows of the best fighting age; but it is
possible that our men have come up against some of the
1916 class. When the English poked their bayonets at
them, but not into them, they fell on their knees and cried
for mercy.
THE DEVIL’S WOOD 169
It was mercy asked and given at a time when our Sol-
diers were angry, for the enemy was firing a large num-
ber of gas-shells.
Early in the afternoon a good deal of the ground to the
north of Longueval had been captured by very fierce fight-
ing at close quarters in and about the orchard, where the
enemy had machine-gun emplacements and a strong redoubt
called Machine-gun House. Here they defended them-
selves stubbornly behind barricades of broken bricks and
fallen tree trunks and barbed wire, serving their guns in a
deadly way.
Several of our officers behaved with the utmost gal-
lantry and led forward many bombing parties to the at-
tack of the machine-gun emplacements, from which there
came a continual swish of bullets. Our men were quite
reckless in taking all risks, and made repeated attacks on
this position left of Delville Wood until they captured or
knocked out several of the machine-guns which had given
most trouble.
8
In the meantime the troops on the right were gradually
pushing their way up to the top of the wood, past Princes-
street (an old trench dug by the Scots, and now battered
out of shape by the morning's bombardment), and across
a line of dug-outs made by the enemy—and very well made
in the time. They are master diggers, the Germans, and
they have the industry of ants. It is sometimes an industry
inspired by fear; but, after all, fear is often the wisdom
of defence, and in this case they fought longer because
by night and day they had toiled to get shell-proof cover
into which death could not enter easily.
Some men of ours who were first to go into those dug-
outs tell me that they were as deep as those they had seen
in parts of the line where Germans have had months for
their work. They had plenty of head cover, of timber
170 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
balks and sandbags and earth, and inside them was room for
twenty men or more.
When our men came through the trees to them there
were two officers sitting outside as though at a cottage
doorway, and they seemed quite calm, except for their
extreme pallor.
They were both wounded, but not badly, and it is our
men's idea that they had come to sit in the open in case
they should be buried alive in the dug-outs by direct hits
from our heavy shells. They rose, and showed their
wounds, and surrendered.
Some of our men went into the mouths of the dug-outs,
and cautiously, with their bombs handy, down the dark
steps. There were forms huddled up in that narrow stair-
way, and they groaned at the touch of boots. They were
badly wounded men, who had staggered down to get shelter
and medical aid. Down below, in rooms about ten feet
square and almost dark, were other wounded men lying
about in their own blood.
A lantern hanging on a nail in one of these places gave
a dim flicker of light to the scene, and showed the white,
unshaven faces of the men who, as our young soldiers came
tramping and stumbling down, raised their heads, but had
no strength to stand up. Two or three men, unwounded,
or only slightly wounded, came forward with their hands
held up a little, and bowed their heads as they muttered
something which meant surrender.
Early in the afternoon the enemy made a counter-attack
upon the left of the wood and to the north of Longueval
village. At the same time their artillery had received word
somehow, by fugitives, that the wood was full of English,
and that they could shell it without killing many of their
own men. German “crumps” now began to crash through
the trees, and a counter-bombardment of high explosives fell
into the cratered earth.
The attack by German infantry was made by strong par-
ties of grenadiers, who came down saps above Longueval
THE DEVIL?S WOOD 171
and from a communication trench between Delville Wood
and High Wood. They came on with great resolution,
followed by machine-gunners, but they were received with
rifle fire, bombs, and machine-gun fire from our own men.
Some parties managed to work their way back into the
orchard, and through the scattered trees about it, and there
was some close and desperate fighting. For a time our men
in one of the battalions were short of bombs, and sent back
urgent messages for new supplies.
“We had been hanging on to them,” said one of the
boys, “because it's always well to save them for a tight
place, but of course we sent them up to the chaps in front.”
It was timely help, and all the German efforts to dislodge
our men broke down with heavy loss, so that the ground
was strewn with their dead and wounded.
Many Germans were seen retreating over the high
ground above Delville Wood, to the left. Parties of them
ran along the sky-line, and then seemed to drop into a
sunken road.
So Delville Wood is ours again—and it is again under
the fire of German guns instead of British guns, and the
trouble is to know whether it is possible for either side to
hold such a place without too great a sacrifice of life. It is
easier to hold now that the ground to the north of Longue-
val and in the western corner of the wood has been cleared
of its hornets' nests—those hiding-places of machine-gun-
ners who were able to send waves of bullets upon our ad-
vancing men.
That trouble, anyhow, is gone, and the enemy feels the
loss, because several new counter-attacks last night failed
as completely as those made earlier. They were our ma-
chine-guns which met them in their old haunts, and made
them pay back a heavy price for the toll they had taken
before.
XIX
THE WORK OF THE GUNS
I
JULY 24
MoRE ground has been gained to-day at Pozières and the
Australians after their first great assault before dawn yes-
terday have been pushing across the Bapaume Road, which
goes through the town, and bombing out the German ma-
chine-gunners and holding parties on the western side, so
that not many enemies are left among the ruins or under-
ground in Pozières itself. There is higher ground beyond,
towards the Windmill, and further north, for which a fight
will have to be made before the key of the position is really
captured, but the advance of English regiments on the left is
a menace to the enemy which must cause him grave anxiety.
The line has also been thrust forward a little by a series of
posts and joined up with positions in the neighbourhood
of High Wood, where the enemy is again bombarding heav-
ily, so that no further progress has been made in this direc-
tion during the day.
One curious incident was observed here by the troops
holding the ground on the south of High Wood. They sud-
denly noticed a body of men coming out of the glades, and
were surprised to see that they were in kilts.
For a moment it may have occurred to them that they
were some of the wounded Scots who had fought through
High Wood a few days previously. That could hardly
be possible, however, because the enemy is in strong num-
bers in the upper part of the wood. An officer staring
through his glasses uttered a word of astonishment and two
172
THE WORK OF THE GUNS 173
of anger. The men on the sky-line were Germans dressed
up in kilts taken from the dead. Our guns put some shells
over them, and they disappeared below the ridge.
For the past few days the increasing strength of the
enemy's artillery, especially of heavy guns, has been notice-
able, and he has been firing at longer range, and rather
wildly “into the blue” in order to make things uncom-
fortable behind our lines.
Owing to the great Superiority of our observation and
the complete failure of his own aircraft—our anti-aircraft
guns have hardly been called upon to fire a round during
the last few weeks—he is wasting a great deal of heavy
ammunition. This is different from earlier days of the
battle when the German gunners had to concentrate their
fire upon very definite points of attack, and were completely
mastered in many of their positions by the immensity of
our bombardment.
2
The work of our artillery is a wonderful achievement,
and all the success we have gained during this great battle
has been largely due to the science and daring of our gun-
ners and to the labour of all those thousands of men at
home who have sweated in soul and body to make the guns
and the ammunition.
It is only just and fair to the munition workers to say
this thing and to let them know that their toil has helped
enormously to break the German lines, and that without
their untiring effort all the courage of our soldiers, all their
sacrifice of blood would have been in vain. If they slacken
off now in the factories and workshops these men of ours
in places like High Wood and Longueval and Pozières will
no longer have the support that is most desperately needed
now that the enemy is bringing up many new batteries
against us.
Flesh and blood cannot fight against high explosives. It
174 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
can only die, and the whole history of the battle is not to be
written in reference to bayonets or rifles but to guns. It has
been, and is still, a battle of guns, and our heroic infantry
has only been able to get forward or to hold its ground
when the artillery preparation has been complete, and the
artillery support overwhelmingly strong. Should this fail
it would not be fighting, but massacre.
From the early days of the battle onwards our artillery
has been great, in weight of metal, in Science, in the vast-
ness of its supplies of shells, in the superb courage and skill
of its men, who have endured a continuous strain upon them
night and day, for four weeks. They broke the German
spirit and the German strength to the point when our in-
fantry could attack with something like a chance, almost
for the first time in this war along the British front.
By the work of aviators and artillery observation officers
we knew the positions of most of the enemy's batteries and
the geography of all his communication trenches, transport
roads, and supply depots. Our guns which had been
brought up secretly were unmasked one morning when the
great bombardment began before the battle, and poured un-
ceasing shells upon all those positions, smothering them
with high explosives and shrapnel, while the field guns
closer up were cutting the enemy's wire.
Trenches were swept out of existence, batteries were
blown to bits—I have seen many of those broken German
guns now standing as trophies on French lawns—and the
roads were swept by storms of death. The barrage was a
great wall through which nothing could pass. The Ger-
man soldiers in their lines could get neither food nor water.
No reinforcements could be sent to them.
3
Three of our own soldiers who were taken prisoners on
the morning of the first attack could not be sent back into
THE WORK OF THE GUNS 175
the German lines because no escort dared to go with them
through the barrage. They were thrust down into a dug-
out with some of the German soldiers and saw and suffered
the effect of our fire. The enemy had no food to give them,
having none for themselves, and they were tortured by
thirst. -
For five days they endured this until nearly dead, but
when the Germans were to dazed to act as guards,
these three English soldiers managed to crawl out of the
dug-out and by a miracle of luck escaped back to their
own lines over No Man's Land.
4.
A German officer, now one of our prisoners, bears wit-
ness to the work of our gunners. He was sent with his
battalion from Verdun to Contalmaison and was detrained
at Bapaume. There he began a painful experience of shell-
fire through an accident to one of the German I2-inch
guns, which burst and blew up several carriages of the
train killing some of his men. But the rest of his journey
was made terrible by British gun-fire. With his battalion
he came down a road which was being flung up by our I5-
inch and I2-inch guns. Some more of his men were killed,
and he came on towards Bazentin, where he was under
the fire of our 8-inch howitzers and nine-point-twos. More
of his men were killed, but he went on until near Contal-
maison he came within the range of our 18-pounders and
lost the remainder of his men. At Contalmaison he was
immediately taken prisoner by our attack and was rejoiced
to come to his journey’s end alive.
“Your artillery,” he said, “is better than anything I had
seen before, even at Verdun, and worse than anything I had
suffered.”
All the German officers with whom I have spoken are
surprised that an “Army of Amateurs,” as they call us,
176 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
should produce such scientific artillery work in so short
a time, and they also pay tribute to the daring of the field
gunners, who go so far forward to support the infantry
attacks.
“They came up,” said one of them, speaking of the
Mametz Wood attack, “like charioteers in a Roman circus,
at full gallop. Many of their horses were killed, but the
men were reckless of danger, and placed their batteries in
the open as though at manoeuvres.”
5
The field observing officers are audacious almost to the
point of foolhardiness. Before the ground of attack has
been cleared of Germans they walk calmly up with a
telephonist, sit down on a crest or a knoll commanding a
field of observation, and send back messages to a battery a
mile or so behind. 4
When the territory round Contalmaison was still swarm-
ing with Germans, one of our officers went forward in this
way and made himself at home on the top of a German dug-
out, recording flashes and getting excellent information.
He went back to his battery for an hour or two, and
when he returned to his chosen spot found it occupied by
Germans. They wanted to round him up, but he fired a few
revolver shots and retired with dignity—to choose another
place not quite so crowded with the enemy. Such tales
seem fantastic and impossible. But they are true.
There is no doubt that many German batteries have
been destroyed, apart from those which have been cap-
tured. I saw to-day a map, which told, by little coloured
dots, a great drama of war. Each dot represented a Ger-
man battery discovered by our gunners since the beginning
of the battle, and each colour the day it was discovered,
and they were arranged on the map so that one could see
THE WORK OF THE GUNS 177
the exact distribution of the enemy's guns, as it has changed
during the course of the battle.
Soon after our bombardment began they began to drift
down new batteries and there were clusters of little coloured
dots at certain spots. But a day or two later they were
wiped out, or withdrawn further back. There was one thick
cluster of green dots to the north of Bazentin-le-Grand. It
represented many batteries. A day later they had gone.
“What happened?” I asked.
The gunner officer laughed.
“We just smothered 'em.”
They were “smothered” by storms of shells which burst
all over these battery positions, over every yard of ground
there, so that no gun emplacement could escape.
But other dots are appearing on the map—other little
clusters of colour, further away to the right. The enemy is
massing new batteries, and it is from these positions that
Delville Wood, High Wood, and other parts of our line
are being shelled night and day with fierce and increasing
violence.
Those batteries are not so easy to reach. To keep their
fire down, and still more to knock them out we must have a
continual increasing flow of guns and ammunition—ammu-
nition in vast and unimaginable quantities, for the figures
I have heard to-day of the ammunition we have used during
the past three weeks are beyond one's range of imagination.
The munition workers at home must not relax their efforts
if we are to continue our successes. It is by their labour that
the lives of our men can be saved. All the time it is a
battle of guns.
XX
THE FIGHTING ROUND WATERLOT FARM
T
JULY 30
THERE was some infantry fighting to-day in co-operation
with the French on our right wing, and as far as our own
troops were concerned some progress was made to the east
of Waterlot Farm, which is on the road going down from
Longueval to Guillemont. It was a very hot day, with a
scorching sun, but artillery observation was not easy dur-
ing certain hours owing to a rather thick haze. In spite of
this our guns maintained a heavy bombardment upon the
enemy's line in support of our troops, who advanced over
difficult ground.
Many prisoners surrendered at an early stage of this
progress, one batch of 170 men being captured first and
other groups being rounded up later, bringing the total
number to something more than 200.
It was rather more than a week ago that some of our
men pushed our line down from Longueval to Waterlot
Farm, on the road to Guillemont, which they held against
repeated attacks.
The Germans are very busy digging new trenches to the
east of the road, and through these they are able to send
up bombing parties and machine-gunners to protect the
northern and western approaches to the ruins of Guillemont
itself.
2
The first forward movement from Waterlot Farm was
made by some Scots who had already been fighting hard
178
FIGHTING ROUND WATERLOT FARM 179
since July 14, when they helped to break the second German
line. These Scots, whom I have met in many fields of war
during the past year or more, had done well elsewhere, and
chased the enemy out of his lines. They were grim men,
and ready for a new “crack at the ould Boche” when they
took over from another regiment at Waterlot Farm, south
Of Delville Wood. It was not a farm such as Caldecott
would have drawn for his coloured picture-book. There
were no cows or sheep in the neighbourhood. It was a col-
lection of ruined buildings and yards which the enemy
seems to have used as a dumping ground for old iron and
machinery. There were several derelict engines here, and
a steel cupola for a heavy gun-emplacement, like those at
Liège in the early days of the war, and a litter of wheels
and rods and wire, mostly smashed by our shell fire. As a
farm it left much to be desired, but the Scots settled down
here and made themselves as comfortable as possible in
the circumstances.
In the darkness of that night and the next patrols went
out to discover the strength of the enemy. Our young
officers and their men, crawling forward over the broken
ground, satisfied themselves that “the Boche” was there in
strength. They only had to listen to the patter of bullets
which whipped the grass to know that he had plenty of
machine-guns unpleasantly near.
Those who had not met any of those bullets came back
with their reports, and the artillery bombarded the enemy's
trenches to make the work of the infantry easier. An ad-
vance was made from the farm before dawn, led by bomb-
ing parties of the Scots.
It was a quiet and silent walk. The enemy's machine-
guns were chattering a little, but there was no great fire,
and the Scots reached a trench north of the railway line
with only three men and one officer wounded. “That’s
nothing,” said the officer, and he carried on.
It was impossible to go further at that time. The enemy
were holding, very strongly, a trench immediately across
I80 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
the railway line, and they had dug a nest of new trenches
on the east of the road, from which they could enfilade
our men with rifle and machine-gun fire.
The Scots got well down into a trench which was mostly
a series of shell-craters, and looked to their rifles and
bombs. There was not much doubt as to what was coming.
It came down the main road from Guillemont—a large
force of German soldiers with machine-guns.
At the same time, from the trench parallel with ours, the
Germans sprang on to their parapets and came over. The
Scots were hardly strong enough to resist these attacks
supported by enfilade fire. They were ordered to fall back,
and the retirement was carried out without disorder—to
say “without panic” would be ridiculous to these men who
have fought a score of battles since they came to France—
and it was covered by the machine-gunners, who remained
as a rear-guard, sweeping down the advanced parties of the
enemy, so as to gain time for our men to get back.
3
A second move from Waterlot Farm was made by the
same Scots, supported by other troops. The enemy suf-
fered badly. A very strong force of German bombers made
a brave counter-attack on the Scots, but were caught by rifle
and machine-gun fire, and fell almost to a man.
“Practically wiped out” was the way in which an officer
of the Scots described it. During the afternoon a patrol
of our snipers went out on a hunting expedition and sighted
a party of Germans carrying down ammunition boxes. Not
all of them reached their journey's end, for the Scottish
snipers are good shots.
Some of the German soldiers were sick of the business,
and had had too much shell-fire. When dusk was creeping
over the countryside a group of them came out of a ruined
FIGHTING ROUND WATERLOT FARM 181
farm—it had really been a farm in the old days of peace—
standing on the left of the main road to Guillemont.
They came holding up their hands as a sign of surrender,
and some of the Scots went out to bring them in. But the
enemy in the trenches beyond opened fire on their own
countrymen, and some of our own were killed and wounded.
When, later on, another party came out, they were not
received in a friendly spirit. . . . That night the Scottish
stretcher-bearers went out to bring in their wounded, and
they found among them one man of theirs who had been
discovered by a German patrol, but left behind because he
gave them his water to drink. They thanked him, and said
“Good luck, and a safe return to your own linesſ” but
when they went away he thought he had been left to die.
XXI
THE PETER PANS OF WAR
I
JULY 31
FoR two days now the sun has been blazing hot, and our
fighting men have been baked brown. It is not good fight-
ing weather either for guns or men. A queer haze is about
the fields, as thick at times as a November mist and yet
thrilling with heat, so that artillery observation is not good
for anything like long-range shooting.
Mametz Wood, which is now well behind the lines, looms
up vaguely, and, beyond, Delville Wood is hardly visible
except as a low-lying smudge on the sky-line. Yet the
sun is not shaded by the haze, and strikes down glaringly
upon the white roads and the trampled fields, upon transport
crawling forward in clouds of dust that rise like the smoke
of fires about them, and upon soldiers trudging along with
their rifles slung and their packs slipping, their iron helmets
thrust forward over the eyes and their faces powdered
white as millers’.
It is hot and thirsty work and painful to the spirit and
flesh of men, even along roads that are not pebbled with
shrapnel bullets. Men on the march to-day were glad of
frequent halts, and flung themselves down on the waysides
panting and sweating, moistening their dusty lips with
parched tongues and fumbling for their water-bottles.
They were lucky to have water, and knew their luck. It
was worse for the men who were fighting yesterday in the
same heat wave up by Waterlot Farm and further south by
Maltzhorn Farm, not far from Guillemont. -
I82
THE PETER PANS OF WAR I83
Some of them drank their water too soon, and there was
not a dog's chance of getting any more until nightfall.
Thirst, as sharp as redhot needles through the tongue, tor-
tured some of these men of ours. And yet they were lucky,
too, and knew their luck. There were other men suffering
worse than they, the wounded lying in places beyond the
quick reach of stretcher-bearers. “It was fair awfu' to hear
them crying,” said one of their comrades. “It was “Water!
water | For Christ's sake—water!’ till their voices died
away.”
As usual the stretcher-bearers were magnificent and came
out under heavy fire to get these men in until some of them
fell wounded themselves. And other men crawled down
to where their comrades lay and, in spite of their own thirst,
gave the last dregs of their water to these stricken men.
There were many Sir Philip Sidneys there, not knighted
by any accolade except that of charity, and very rough fel-
lows in their way of speech, but pitiful.
There was one of them who lay wounded with some water
still in the bottle by his side. Next to him was a wounded
German, groaning feebly and saying “Wasserl Wasser!”
The Yorkshire lad knew enough to understand that word
of German. He stretched out his flask and said, “Hi,
matey, tak’ a swig o' that.” They were two men who had
tried to kill each other.
2
On one part of the battlefields recently were some of the
Bantam battalions, those little game-cocks for whom most
of us out here have a warm corner in our hearts, because
they are the smallest fighting men in the British army, and
the sturdiest, pluckiest little men one can meet on a long
day's march. They have been under fire in several parts of
the line, where it is not good for any men to be except
for duty's sake.
It has generally been their fate to act in support of
184 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
other troops—troops whom it is an honour to support
when they go into action, because their regiments have won
fame on all the battlefields of Europe since the Napoleonic
W3.1°S.
But it is always a dangerous honour to be in support.
The attacking troops have often an easier time than those
who lie behind them with scanty cover. It is here that
the enemy's barrage is likely to fall, and there is not much
fun in lying under shell-fire hour after hour, perhaps for
two days, without seeing the enemy or getting at him. The
ground becomes strewn with dead and wounded. It is
then that to “hold on” means the highest heroism.
The Bantams held on in hours like this, held on gamely
and with wonderful grit. They became great diggers, and
because they are not very high, a shallow trench was good
enough for cover, and they burrowed like ants. “They
would as soon forget their rifles as their shovels,” said
one of their officers to-day. “There is no need to tell
them to dig. They get to work mighty quick, being old
soldiers now who have learnt by experience.”
They are old soldiers in cunning and knowledge, but
there are young lads among them. Old Or young (and
there are many middle-aged Bantams who stand no higher
than five feet in their socks), they are all the Peter Pans
of the British Army—the Boys-who-wouldn't-grow-up, and,
like the heroic Peter Pan himself, who was surely the first
of the Bantams, they are eager for single combat with the
greatest enemy of England, Home and Beauty who may
come along. They had their chance yesterday, and brought
back a number of enormous Bavarians as prisoners fairly
captured.
A certain Bantam, ex-boilermaker of Leeds (“the grand-
est city in the world,” he says), and the King's Jester of
his battalion was enormously amused by the incident. He
said that each Bantam looked no higher than the matchstick
to the candle with each Bavarian. To all these little men
the German soldiers looked like giants, but like so many
THE PETER PANS OF WAR 185
Hop-o'-my-Thumbs they took charge of these Bavarian
Blunderbores and brought them back in triumph. They
went searching for them in the ruins of Longueval some
days ago, and found Some of them sniping from the trees.
They brought them down with a crash, and collected sou-
venirs.
This village was a dreadful place when some of the
Bantams went into it. Only a few ruins remained, and
about these many soldiers of many different regiments went
prowling in search of Germans who were still concealed in
dug-outs and shell-craters, and who still defended the out-
skirts of the village with machine-guns, which swept the
StreetS.
There were Highlanders there, so “fey” after their
fierce fighting that they went about with their bayonets,
prodding imaginary Germans, and searching empty dug-
outs as though the enemy were crowded there. The ground
was strewn with dead, and from ruined trenches and piles
of broken bricks there came the awful cries of wounded
111611.
3
There were many wounded—Germans as well as British
—and one man tended them with a heroic self-sacrifice
which is described with reverence and enthusiasm by many
officers and men. It was a chaplain attached to the South
Africans who fought so desperately and so splendidly in
“Devil's Wood.” This “padre” came up to a dressing sta-
tion established in the one bit of ruin which could be used
for shelter and applied himself to the wounded with a
spiritual devotion that was utterly fearless.
In order to get water for them, and the means of mak-
ing tea, he went many times to a well which was a danger
spot marked down by German snipers, who shot our men,
agonising with thirst, as though they were tigers going down
to drink. They are justified according to the laws of war,
186 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
but it was a cruel business. There was one German officer
there, in a shell-hole, not far from the well, who sat with his
revolver handy to pick off any men who ventured to the
well, and he was a dead shot.
But he did not shoot the padre. Something in the fine
figure of that chaplain, his disregard of all the bullets
snapping about him, the tireless, fearless way in which he
crossed a street of death in order to help the wounded, held
back the trigger-finger of the German officer, and he let
him pass. He passed many times, untouched by bullets or
machine-gun fire, and he went into its worst places, which
were pits of horror, carrying hot tea, which he had made
from the well-water for men in agony because of their
wounds and thirst.
They were officers of the Bantams who told me the
story, though the padre was not theirs, and their generous
praise was fine to hear. It was good also to hear the talk
of these men who had just come out of battle with the
grime and dirt of war upon them, about the men they love
to command.
These young officers are keen, bright-eyed fellows, and
in spite of all they had been through—things not yet to be
described—they bore but little trace of their endurance. I
sat with them under a tent propped up by stretcher-poles,
with one flap tied to an old cart, while the men who had
just marched down were lying in groups on the field, mostly
without shirts and socks, because of the heat and the long
time since they had changed their clothes.
Afterwards I went among the men—all these Peter Pans
—who came from all parts of Scotland and the North of
England, so that their speech is not easy to a man from the
South. They were talking of German snipers and German
shells, of all that they had suffered and done, and the boiler-
maker, their comic turn, was egged on to say Outrageous
things which caused roars of laughter from the Bantam
crowd. The language of the boilermaker on the subject
of Germans and the pleasures of war would be quite un-
THE PETER PANS OF WAR 187
printable, but the gist of it was full of virtue and suited
the philosophy of these five-foot Coeurs-de-Lion, who were
grinning round him.
It is the philosophy of our modern knights, who take
more risks in one day than their forebears in a lifetime,
and find a grim and sinister humour in the worst things of
Wall".
XXII
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES
'I
AUGUST 5
LAST evening, just as dusk was creeping over the battle-
fields, the Australians, with English troops on their left,
sprang over the parapets of their lines at Pozières, advanced
up five hundred yards of rising ground, stormed through
the trenches of the second German line, and captured the
crest of the ridge which looks down to Courcelette and
Martinpuich.
It was a great and tragic surprise to the enemy. They
may have believed, I think they did believe, that after the
series of battles in the July fighting, the spirit of the British
offensive was broken, and that our troops were too tired to
make fresh assaults. The German generals tried to put
comfort into the hearts of their men by telling them that
the British guns and the British soldiers had done their
worst, and that the attack was at an end. The lull deceived
them. - -
Because two or three days had passed without any in-
fantry action after thirty days of unceasing battle there may
well have seemed to the enemy a reasonable hope that we
should content ourselves with digging in and holding the
ground gained. One thing, however, must have disheart-
ened the German troops and prevented any kind of nervous
recuperation after the appalling strain of the month's shell-
fire. The British guns, which should have been worn out,
and the British gunners supposed to be exhausted, went on
firing.
I88
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 189
They went on all yesterday, as on the day before and
more than a month of yesterdays, with their long, steady
bombardment, that bombardment which is now rumbling
with its sullen shocks of Sound as I write, and as it goes on
night and day. Long-range guns were reaching out to
places far ahead the German lines. Courcelette was a ruin.
Martinpuich was falling to pieces. There is no safety for
Germans anywhere and up in the lines no safety except in
the deepest dug-outs for officers and lucky men.
2
As many men as could get into dug-outs to the north of
Pozières were down there yesterday, listening to the crashes
of our heavy shells which were smashing the trenches
about them and screaming overhead on more distant jour-
neys.
The Australians and English troops, including men of
Kent, Sussex, and Surrey regiments, were waiting in their
own trenches.
A crescent moon came up. The woods darkened. Shad-
ows crept down from Thiépval. Distant cornfields in the
world beyond the war, so near as miles are counted, so far
away in peace, became bronzed and red, and then all dark
and vague in the evening mist. Above, the sky was still
blue, with stars very bright and glistening.
It was, I think, about 9 o'clock—as the clock goes now in
France and England—when the British troops left their
trenches. They went quietly without any great clamour
across that 500 yards of ground, dusky figures, the brown
of their khaki no different from the colour of the earth
around them, through the gloom of coming night. The
Australians worked up to the right, the English to the left.
Before them was the German second line on a front of
about 3,000 yards, and part of that long line which was
pierced and taken on July 14, between Bazentin-le-Petit and
190 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
Longueval, when the British troops went up in waves and
astounded the world by their achievement. It was no longer
a line of trenches.
It was a wavy line of hummocky and tumbled earth
along innumerable shell-craters such as I described at
Montauban. Only the dug-outs, or some of them, still
remained in all this chaos, filled with living and wounded
and dead.
Out of the wreck of earth, as our men advanced, living
men came out in groups. They came forward through the
dusky night with their hands held up—pitiable shadows.
Most of them were utterly nerve-broken—beaten and
broken men with no fight left in them, but only an animal
fear, and desire of life.
Their surrender was received, and the English and Aus-
tralians put guards about them and sent them back to our
lines while they went on to clear out the dug-outs of men
who refused to come out, or could not come out, and to
deal with those who further back had still the courage to
defend themselves.
There was some bayonet fighting and bombing. From
behind the German lines in isolated redoubts machine-guns
were at work spraying out bullets. But our casualties were
very few ; all told, less, I imagine, than in any action of
importance during the Battle of the Somme. The enemy's
losses were heavy. More than 400 prisoners have passed
the toll-bar, and others are being brought down. In dead
he lost more than that, and his wounded must number high
figures. It was a blow which must be grievous to him after
all the hammer-strokes of the month, and what is most
significant is the troubled state of his soldiers, these dazed
and nerve-shattered men who surrendered. They had no
pride left in them. -
These men were mostly of the 17th and 18th Reserve
Division of the 9th Reserve Corps with miscellaneous drafts
from various Ersatz or reserve battalions, the scourings of
the last class whom Germany can, I suppose, put into the
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 191
field. By that I do not mean they are physically weak or
undersized—there are very few German soldiers who could
be described like that—but they are not soldiers of the
proud and highly-trained kind who fought in earlier days
of the war. They are men with families and with a great
yearning for peace, and no love of this massacre which is
ordained by their warlords.
During the night the troops behind them were rallied
to make three separate counter-attacks. They came on very
bravely—there is nothing the matter with German courage
as a rule—but in a spirit of self-sacrifice and stupidly. They
walked into our barrage, and our shells caught them and
shattered them.
To-day up to the time I write there has been no further
attack by infantry, but the enemy's guns have opened and
maintained a very fierce fire upon the positions gained by
Our troops.
The new part of the German second line now in our hands
makes up with the other part of his line captured on July 14
a distance of nearly IO,OOO yards.
3 f
AUGUST 7
All last night, which was still and calm, as the weather
goes, there was a great hammering of guns, and this morn-
ing, when I went out in the direction of Thiépval, the ar-
tillery on both sides was hard at work. The enemy was drop-
ping “heavy stuff” in the neighbourhood of Pozières, with
occasional shots at long range into fields about quiet vil-
lages behind the lines which look utterly peaceful in the
warm light of this August sun gleaming upon their church
spires and upon the thick foliage of the trees around them.
It was in the midst of a tumult of guns and below the
long resonant journeying of great shells on their way to the
enemy's territory that I sat to-day with some of the officers
192 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
who have just chased the Germans out of their trenches to
the north of Pozières.
They were all men of Kent around me. The captain is a
merry soul, who laughs most heartily over his hairbreadth
escapes and still more loudly when he describes little ex-
ploits which would make most men shudder at the mere
remembrance.
The colonel of his battalion, who sat opposite, is of a dif-
ferent type, quiet and thoughtful, but with a sense of hu-
mour also that lights his eyes. And two places off was the
M.O.-a doctor who loves his men and would not leave this
battalion of the Kents for any other in the Army (he has
patched up all their bodies after every scrap and did heroic
work for them the other night).
Before the fighting began the colonel took the jovial cap-
tain up to the line “to view the Promised Land,” as he
called it. And the Promised Land looked very uninviting
on this high ridge—above the blackened ruins of Pozières—
where the German second lines were guarded by a tangle
of barbed wire. It was also difficult to look at it very
long or very closely, because the enemy was “lathering”
the field of observation with every kind of “crump” and
shell.
“When we popped over the parapet,” says the captain,
“we advanced into the middle of the Brock’s Benefit, and
it was obvious that the blinking Boche had got the wind up.”
That is to say the enemy was sending up distress signals
to his guns, and in the anticipation of an attack, was flinging
coloured lights over to our lines so as to illuminate any
British infantry who might be advancing. These lights
were fired out of a special kind of pistol, and when they fell
flared up with vivid red and green fires. At the same time
the enemy's machine-guns played upon any figures so re-
vealed, so that it was almost certain death to be in those
flare lights. At great risk several men sprang forward into
the illumination and kicked out the burning canisters. Then
in the momentary darkness, the leading companies advanced
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIEREs 193
in waves towards the German trenches south of Mouquet
(or, as the soldiers call it, Moo-Cow) Farm.
4
The colonel of the battalion went very gallantly with his
men, and as he drew near to the enemy's line saw two fig-
ures silhouetted like his own men had been against the
enemy's lights. He called out to them, thinking they might
be his own men working forward on his right. But he saw
they were Germans when one man threw up his hands as a
sign of surrender, and the other dropped on to one knee to
fire a rifle shot. The colonel sprang forward, covering them
with his revolvers, and took both of them prisoner.
Without many casualties in spite of machine-gun fire,
our men reached the German trenches. Great heroism was
shown by a young lieutenant and a party of bombers who
went first over No Man's Land so quickly behind our bar-
rage that they risked death by our own shells and came
against the first defence. The officer and several of this
first wave were found lying wounded 400 yards further
than the “jump-out” position, and it was their quick ad-
vance which scared the enemy and helped to demoralise
him.
5
One of the prisoners taken later was a forward observing
officer, a Prussian giant well over six feet high and enor-
mously stout, and he was put in charge of a little Kentish
man standing five foot one in his socks. The German
giant was very frightened at the machine-gun fire of his
own people, which was whipping over the ground, and he
went back crouching in a bear-like way, prodded from be-
hind by the wee man in khaki. This sight, illuminated by
the flares, was seen by the men left behind in our own
194 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
trenches, and they stood up on their parapets laughing and
cheering wildly.
But there were other trenches ahead, and the men “hared”
off to these, and found them held by scared men. The
Kentish men started bombing down the trench “like mad,”
and blocked it at each end in case of accidents, while a young
officer posted a machine-gun on the left of it.
The position, however, became quite obviously an unten-
able one, when the Germans rallied and attacked in bomb-
ing parties from the farm. Many of them were cut down
by the young officer with his Lewis gun and by the Kentish
grenadiers, but they brought up machine-guns and made the
position “very hot.” A lance-corporal behaved very gal-
lantly in going back 700 yards under heavy fire to report
the situation, and volunteered to return with the message
that the patrol could not be supported and must fall back in
small groups. This he did, and returned again in safety
with the other party, who brought with them three more
prisoners “as samples” (to use their own phrase), including
the huge officer whom I have described previously.
They have funny fellows among them—this British bat-
talion—and the amount of comedy they extract from all
this grim business is astounding. There is one of their
number who was once a member of Fred Karno's troupe,
and has not lost his old instincts for a knockabout turn.
When he took a prisoner he caught him by the hand and
danced a “pas de quatre” with him.
“Offizier?” asked the astounded man.
“Oui, oui,” said the comic turn, “and you—prisonnier—
savez?”
So much for the men of Kent, though I should like to
tell more if I had the time to-night about their medical
officer who tended all the wounded men of two companies
and thirty wounded Germans in a subterranean dressing sta-
tion (there was no comedy there), and more about their
very fine and fearless colonel, and about the cheerful cap-
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 195
tain, whose adventures since the war began would fill a
book as strange as the Memoirs of Marbot.
To-day other men were fighting in the same place, and
I must tell at some later time the fine work of the Surrey and
Sussex men.
6
AUGUST II
The enemy has made several attempts to regain the high
ground taken from him to the north of Pozières, and yes-
terday evening, between the hours of five and seven o’clock,
he sent out a strong body of infantry to attack our trenches.
It was a curious, vain, and tragic endeavour, like several
other counterattacks launched at the command of the Ger-
man staff by men recently brought up as support troops,
knowing quite obviously nothing of the country in which
they are called upon to fight, and just blundering out with
a kind of desperate courage towards our lines. It was
exactly thus last evening.
From the prisoners we took it is certain knowledge that
these troops had no familiarity with this ground between
Mouquet Farm and the Windmill, and when they were
ordered to attack regarded themselves as sheep sent to
the slaughter. They knew only that the Australians were
in front of them, and from what they have heard of the
Australians they did not have much hope.
What hope they had was in the guns behind them, and
certainly, in spite of all the German guns we have knocked
out by counter-battery work, and all those having had to
shift their ground from day to day Owing to our ceaseless
searchings for their emplacements with the aid of our aerial
scouts, the bombardment that preceded the German assault
was intense and formidable.
The Australians “stuck it,” guessing what was to follow.
In the trenches they have dug, and the shell craters, and the
old German trenches which are now almost shapeless under
our own and the enemy's fire, they held on, and kept their
196 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
bombs ready, and their machine-guns handy, and watchful
eyes, wherever a man could see, upon a row of broken tree
stumps appearing Over the crest of the Pozières ridge beyond
the Windmill.
Then, below the crest on the other side of the ridge—the
German side—is Mouquet Farm, called “Moo-cow Farm”
by men who will still jest, whatever the conditions of life.
A small valley or gully runs behind the farm towards the
quarries, and it was from this that the German soldiers came
streaming out in open order when their guns lengthened
range so that they could get forward without walking into
their own barrage.
As it happened, they walked into our barrage. Our guns
were waiting for them. At the end of a telephone wire was
a gunner-general who does not keep people waiting very
long when they are in need of his “heavies,” and many gun-
ner officers were standing by their batteries ready to give the
word “Fire!” with their guns and howitzers registered on
the line across which the enemy's troops would come as
soon as they were ordered to attack.
In our lines the trench mortar batteries were making
ready to hurl their high explosives, and the Lewis gunners
were eager to get to work instead of standing under German
shell-fire.
The enemy's infantry came straggling forward in ex-
tended order, and in irregular waves. There were two bat-
talions of them in the open—out in that 750 yards of No
Man's Land upon which the evening sun was shining with a
golden haze—when our shells burst over them and the
trench mortars made a target of them, and our machine-
guns whipped into their ranks with a scourge of bullets.
The men fell face forward in large numbers. Others
came on and fell further from their own lines. Men ran
quickly, as though to escape from all the bursting shells
into the Australian lines, flung up their arms, and lay still.
They were very brave. Quite a number of these German
soldiers travelled a quarter of a mile over this open ground
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 197
in spite of the terrific fire concentrated upon it before some
bit of shell caught them and killed them, or left them lying
there in agony.
No German soldier came through alive. Only a few
men out of the two battalions escaped. Men were standing
on the parapets of the German line, calling to them, calling
them back, trying to save something out of this senseless
slaughter that had been ordered.
The counter-attack was an utter failure, and one is left
wondering why the enemy attempted such attacks, pre-
destined to end in disaster. It is an expensive form of
reconnaissance to test our strength.
The German soldiers would have a right to call it murder.
It seems to show that the enemy's Staff is disorganised, per-
haps a little demoralised, by the continual bombardment
which cuts their signal lines and prevents the sending up of
supports and supplies.
The Australians are still fighting in a way which wins the
admiration of their generals and Staff and of all the Army.
These clean-cut men, so fine in physique and appearance
that one always turns to look at them in any street of war,
are not stolid fellows who can stand the test of shell-fire
without suffering in spirit.
They are highly strung and sensitive, with a more nervous
temperament than many of our English soldiers, but they
have a pride and an heroic quality that keeps them steady,
and an intelligence in the individual as well as in mass which
makes them great soldiers.
7
AUGUST 13
There have been no sensational advances since the great
day of July 14, when our men broke through the second
German line, but hardly a day passed since then without
some progress being made to get a stronger grip on the high
ridge which rolls down on the enemy's side from Pozières
198 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
and the two Bazentins and High Wood. This fighting has
been very hard and grim, and the enemy has done his utmost
to check every yard of our men's advance by continual cur-
tain-fire, so that to take a trench or two, or to rush over a
few dozen yards of No Man's Land, has been a perilous
adventure. -
It is most excellent, therefore, that last night our men
were able to make a further “shove,” as they call it, of
nearly 400 yards in depth on a front of about a mile. This
was to the north-west of Pozières, and at the same time
ground was gained on the north-west of Bazentin-le-Petit
closer to the German switch-line between us and Martin-
puich.
The men who have been fighting this uphill battle, for
that is what it is literally and morally, have been showing
remarkable qualities. It is an alliance between the Aus-
tralians and old English regiments with new men in them,
including some of the “Derby recruits.” Although the Aus-
tralians have had the greater share of the fighting round
Pozières, being in greater numbers, they are the first to pay
a tribute to the spirit of the English lads, and their admira-
tion is returned. An episode which happened a week ago
shows the way in which they are sharing the struggle.
I have already written how the men of Kent went for-
ward on August 4, and took the German line, under the com-
mand of that fine colonel and jovial captain, whose exploits
will be remembered. On the right of them were the Sussex
men—fair-haired fellows from Arundel and Burpham, and
little old villages lying snug in the South Downs, and quiet
old market towns like Chichester—Lord!—a world away
from places like Pozières. The line of their trenches was
in touch with the Australians, and as they scrambled over
the parapets at the time of the attacks these comrades on
the right shouted out to them,
“Hullo, boys, what's up? Where are you going?”
“Oh, just up along,” said the Sussex lads, pointing to a
“hotshop,” as they call it where a lot of shells were bursting.
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIEREs 199
“Is that so? You don't say? Gosh! We'll come with
you.”
It wasn’t discipline. The men had no orders to go, as
far as I can make out, but some of them certainly did go,
in a friendly way, and joined in the “scrum” up there, where
it was no joke.
8
The story of the Sussex men is very much like that of
their comrades from Kent which I have told in detail—the
bombing down the trenches, the searching of the German
dug-outs, the encounters with Germans who were hiding in
shell-craters. But some of the episodes have a special char-
acter, worth telling.
They show the human nature of the business up there
beyond Pozières. After the first rush through the German
line it became a question of catching Germans in shell-holes,
which are good places—or good enough—for Snipers who
prefer to go on killing before they die. A Sussex man who
spoke some German took the risk of going out alone to one
of these craters and shouted out to the men below:—
“If you don't surrender at once we shall shoot you.”
Instantly several heads and several pairs of hands ap-
peared.
One man came out with his hands full of gifts and, fall-
ing upon his knees, begged for mercy. He had cleared his
pockets and his dug-out of little fancy articles like his watch,
knife, compass, cigarette-case, Scissors, silver soap-box and
pipe-lighter, which he offered humbly as a ransom for his
life.
It appeared later that he was in mortal terror of having
his throat cut, and he was profoundly grateful when he
was taken back to a dug-out and given some whisky and
cigarettes. He then asked leave to tell his friends the glad
tidings, and when this was allowed he went out with his
guards and called to the other men. Immediately a number
900. THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
of them came out of their hiding-places and formed a pro-
cession with their hands up.
It was against the Sussex men that the Germans used their
“flammenwerfer,” or flame-jets. It is a clumsy form of
frightfulness, as I guessed when I first saw one of these
machines. It takes two men to work it, one with the reser-
voir strapped to his back, the other pumping out the long
spray of flame, which has a range of twenty-five yards.
There were eight of these flame-throwers brought against
the Sussex lads, but before they had done any damage the
sixteen men who advanced with them were all shot down.
It is not by “flammenwerfer” that the German counter-
attacks have any chance of success.
9
The advance last night when the Australian troops took
an important line of rising ground is a further proof that
the enemy has not by any means consolidated his defensive
positions so strongly that they make the same kind of bar-
rier against us as those which had to be forced in the first
attacks.
In spite of all his industry in digging he has not been able
to make any system of trenches and dug-outs to withstand
our shell-fire. As soon as he gets on with a trench our guns
register upon it and lay it flat. His one protection is in
artillery retaliation, and however great its destructive power
it cannot give cover to the German infantry crouching in
shallow ditches, and having to come up through communi-
cation trenches ploughed by high explosives.
They belong to battalions hurriedly gathered from other
parts of the line and flung in to stop the gap. They are the
victims of the general disorganisation of the divisions and
the staffs which have suffered most heavily from our re-
peated attacks. Behind them, no doubt, the German Head-
quarters Staff is as cool and deliberate as ever, not allowing
itself to be scared by these reverses, organising new lines of
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 201
defence in case of need, shifting its guns, playing the old
blood-and-iron game with cold, scientific brains that are not
affected by the losses or the agonies of men, except as they
have an influence upon the operations.
For they are highly-trained scientists of war, these Ger-
man staff officers, and in defeat, as once in victory, they
will, I fancy, be as cold and as hard as steel, and as inhuman
as the devil. Therefore it is idle in my opinion to hope for
a sudden and sensational collapse of the German war-ma-
chine, or to argue from local weaknesses and symptoms of
bad staff work a general disorder.
Nevertheless, there are many signs that the enemy is be-
ginning to feel a severe strain upon his defensive strength
and that his men are being put to an ordeal which not even
all their discipline and their courage can make endurable.
For men of a certain kind of science are apt to forget that
there are other things in human nature besides the chem-
istry of flesh and blood, and that not even the finest soldiers
can be made to fight well if their spirit is broken by repeated
losses.
IO
AUGUST 17
It is at the two ends of our recent line of attack—on the
left above Pozières and on the right around Guillemont—
that the interest of the present fighting for the moment
gathers, and in both these districts some progress has been
made by our infantry during the past day or two. The
successful advance of the French, northwards from Harde-
court towards Angle Wood, and their capture of the ravine
to the south-west of it helps to strengthen our lines about
Guillemont, especially as Some of our troops advancing from
the trenches south of Malz Horn Farm, and west of Trones
Wood, linked hands with our Allies yesterday.
I have already described in a previous despatch the great
difficulty of working over the ground about Guillemont and
the hard time some of our men have had in pushing for-
202 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
ward to the outskirts of that town. The enemy has con-
centrated a large number of batteries in the country beyond,
and near at hand is defending himself from many machine-
gun emplacements and a maze of newly-dug trenches.
The operations yesterday in conjunction with the French
are still in progress and the result at present is indecisive,
but with both French and British troops closing upon them
the situation of the garrison in Guillemont is not what sol-
diers would call “healthy.”
Yesterday morning I was more interested personally in
the left side of the battle line above Pozières, as from an
artillery observation post I was able to get a very clear view
of our own and the enemy's ground in this district—ground
which has been won and held by English and Australian
regiments with a determination and courage which I have
described several times with some detail.
There before me on the sky-line was the windmill which
should be as famous in the history of this war as the Ferry-
man’s House on the Yser Canal or the chateau at Vermelles,
or the “Tower Bridge” at Loos. Waves of men have
surged up the slope to it under storms of shell-fire. To
Australians fighting for the high ridge on which it stands
above Martinpuich it has been the goal of great endeavour,
for which many of them have given their lives. The enemy
defended it as if it were a great treasure house, though
only an old building of timber and stone against which the
wind of centuries has blown, turning the great black sails
which ground the corn of the folk in Pozières before ever
a howitzer had been fired in the world or a flying machine
had come humming over the hill. The windmill is ours now.
Our line sweeps round it and our shell-fire drops on the
other side of the slope, barraging the enemy's ways to and
from Martinpuich.
But it is only the relic of a millhouse. The timbers have
been blown to atoms weeks ago. The sails fell in the first
bombardment, and all that stands now is the stone base in the
form of a small pyramid as a memorial of great bloodshed,
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 203
II
The enemy yesterday was dropping a heavy barrage all
along our line, which runs South of Mouquet Farm and
sweeps below the village of Thiépval and its wood.
On the other side of Thiépval Wood the opposing lines
run very close together, and here there was not much shell-
fire, but on the Pozières side the shell-bursts and smoke-
clouds were drifting up and down in a steady, regular way.
Our Own guns were busy with Mouquet Farm (called by
our soldiers “Moo-cow” Farm, or “Muckie” Farm, accord-
ing to their whim), and, further off, with Courcelette, whose
tall factory chimney sticks up above the ridge, and now and
again one of Our heavies sent a great shell crashing into
Thiépval.
There were no German soldiers to be seen in that village,
and no sign of human life at all. It is a ghastly-looking
place, with its stripped trees, like withered limbs, and a
ruined church above a row of apple trees, which stand a
little separate from the village.
Above is a cemetery with broken tomb-stones and shell-
craters among its graves. Beyond, on a road running north-
wards, is a tall crucifix with the figure of Christ looking
down upon all this death.
In the trenches no man puts his head above the parapet.
Several times one of our machine-guns spluttered out a burst
of fire as a warning to the enemy to keep well down. The
only movement over this village and battlefield was made
by shells which tore up the earth and sent drifting smoke
clouds across the ruins.
The doom of Thiépval is creeping closer, for our men are
advancing slowly but surely around Mouquet Farm, so that
it will be hemmed in. The garrison hiding in the dug-outs
below those broken buildings at which I gazed yesterday
must be in a state of dreadful apprehension. I should not
like to live in Thiépval.
204 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
I2
AUGUST 20
It is quite impossible to understand the progress of our
advance since July I without being familiar with the ground
over which this has been made and the local conditions of
the fighting on our present front.
In my despatches I have done my best to picture these
things and to reveal the heroism of our men by describing,
as realistically as one may without being too brutal to
newspaper readers, the appalling difficulties they have to
encounter. Even now many people wonder, I daresay, at the
various pauses in the victorious progress of our troops, and
look forward, day by day, to more smashing blows and
greater strides over the enemy's ground.
To me the wonder of this battle is that we should have
got on so far and so fast. When one has seen the network
of German trenches, their great systems of underground
galleries—proof against the heaviest of high explosives—
their machine-gun redoubts, against which, if even only one
one gun is left, it is sometimes difficult to advance, and the
power of their artillery able to barrage a strip of ground
which our men have to cross, it is astounding that our sol-
diers could have forced the enemy back from stronghold
after stronghold and gained their way to the high positions
of the Pozières ridge.
Take those men of ours who have won their way through
a maze of trenches in this last bit of fighting between
Pozières and Thiépval.
They had to force their way between machine-gun posts
and scramble over ground which is like a billowy sea of
earth with deep pits at the bottom of each billow, into which
many of them stumbled and fell. Not good going for an
attack!
Then they had to storm their way down to the enemy's
underground system of galleries, where large numbers of
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 205
strong and unwounded Germans were waiting with stores
of bombs and every kind of weapon.
It is true that many of these men surrender readily at the
first rush of our troops, but if those dug-outs are not cleaned
out at once, and if our men in their eagerness go on, it is
quite likely, as it has often happened during the past six
weeks, that the enemy will come up and attack them from
the rear.
From one of these holes in the ground which seemed a
simple little dug-out there came up, on Friday, as I have
already said, six officers and over I 50 men. I saw them all
to-day, tall fellows with unstained uniforms and a well-fed,
fresh, and healthy look.
One of the officers was quite a giant. He was wearing
a steel casque of the German pattern which is very much
like a mediaeval helm, and he was laughing and joking with
his brother officers as he marched at the head of his com-
pany. If these men had come up behind English assaulting
parties who had not made sure of the dug-outs first they
could have put up a very strong fight, and with one machine-
gun might have done great damage.
In their underground galleries they had lived snugly and
safe, sleeping on spring beds, reclining on upholstered chairs,
in well-furnished rooms so much like those in the upper
world that they had even false windows draped with lace
curtains.
Our men have to fight below ground as well as above
ground before they are in possession of an enemy position.
Above ground it is not good for a quick advance. Our
guns have been bombarding so continuously that although
the infantry depends utterly upon an effective artillery
preparation, and not in vain, the effect of all this shell-fire
impedes their progress when the time comes to cross No
Man's Land.
It is just a series of shell-craters like a wide stretch of
those “trous-de-loup” which used to be dug in the old days
of warfare behind the “glacis,” and have been revived again
206 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
in this war, which has adopted every device known to fight-
ing men from the time of Cain onwards.
I3
When some of the Australians “went over” the other
night this was their great cause of trouble. They rushed
forward eagerly, and before they had gone fifty yards most
of them had fallen into shell-holes deeper than their own
height. It was pitch dark, except for the white light of the
German flares rising and falling, and when they scrambled
up the shelving sides of the craters they were black as ink
in this illumination and horribly visible to the German
bombers and machine-gunners, who made the most of their
opportunity in the time at their disposal.
I stood by a man to-day who, since July I, has been
buried alive by shell-bursts upheaving the earth about him
no fewer than six times.
He is a young Australian officer, now wounded in the
back and leg, and he assured me that he did not mind this
premature burial very much.
“There is mostly a little air to breathe–enough to keep
one going for a few minutes—” he said, “but, of course,
it's unpleasant waiting to be dug-out, if one has the luck.
Most fellows mind it very much. But it don't affect me in
that way.”
This is not an uncommon experience. There are a lot of
men buried in an advance when, as the Official despatch says,
“We made good progress.” So that progress is not a soft
job for soldiers. Then the German is beginning to leave a
lot of little things behind him, even if he abandons a trench
in a hurry. This is a new dodge. One invention which
has come into his fertile imagination is a man trap, which
he sets outside his parapet or inside a shell-hole on the way
to it. As soon as one of our soldiers sets foot on to it it
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 207
closes about his leg with a terrific bite and brings him down
like a log.
Another little device in devilry is the “tortoise bomb.”
It looks very much like a tortoise if you happen to see it—
which you don’t, in the dark—and it stands on four little
legs. They waggle a little, but should it be unwarily touched
it may detonate the bomb and blow a man to bits.
There was some heroic fighting on Friday afternoon
along a road which runs from High Wood to Delville Wood.
The heroes of this fight were ordered to take this road with
troops on their left and right, and in spite of the shell-holes
on the way and heavy machine-gun fire sweeping down on
them they took the trench all right, going even a little too
far, in their eagerness.
Owing to casualties in officers, the sergeants had, in some
cases, to carry on the command, and they did so with the
calm courage of old soldiers. The German trench, bat-
tered by our gun-fire, was full of dead, and littered with
rifles and equipment. A few of the enemy stayed and
fought to the death, and others ran away. Three were
dragged up out of a dug-out and made prisoners. All
looked good, from a fighting point of view, in this section
of the trench, and would have been good if the men on the
left and right had been able to come up. But they were not
able to do this, and presently from the right and left came
parties of German bombers, hurling their grenades at Our
men, who hurled back until every one of their bombs was
gone.
Then they grubbed about for German bombs, and used
those until they could find no more. It was time to escape,
and the way out was through a narrow Sap which was also
a death-trap if the enemy closed about it.
But the enemy did a strange thing. They came Swarming
up on both sides, and each side took the other for English
soldiers, and, in the dusk, bombed each other furiously over
the heads of our men, who slipped away, marvelling at their
luck in ill-luck. They had five prisoners when they reached
208 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
their own lines, for they were joined by two other men (in
addition to the three from the dug-out), one of whom was
a German hero—tired of heroism—wearing the Iron Cross
and another decoration.
So the fighting goes on, and it is the grit of our troops,
their splendid obstinacy, their refusal to be beaten by shell-
fire or shell-holes, by machine-guns or tortoise bombs, by
poison gas or tear shells, by Germans above ground or
under ground, or dropping high explosives from the sky—
“the whole blinking bag of tricks,” as they would call it,
which keeps them going always a little bit further.
Unless one knows the cost of victory one cannot tell the
greatness of the victors.
I4.
AUGUST 23
We are getting a stronger grip upon the ridge from
Pozières to High Wood. Last night the Australians gained
a little more ground, so that they have pushed out a line
to the north-east of Mouquet Farm, and the Scottish troops
to their right have gained another hundred yards of that
famous switch-line into which I took a walk the day before
yesterday to see how we held the enemy's last line of de-
fence on the way to Martinpuich.
The switch-line exists only as a name, and in reality is
nothing but a series of shell-craters in which our men have
to get what cover they can, after chasing out the Germans,
before digging and strengthening an effective trench.
But it is the position that counts, and if we can hold it,
as I am now certain we shall, it puts the enemy at a great
disadvantage, of which our guns are already making a full
and terrible use. The enemy's endeavours to counter-
attack—he made two last night—have broken down under
our fire with great bloodshed, and now it is not in the least
likely that he will succeed in wresting back from us any
of the high ground.
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 209
The importance of the position is, of course, entirely one
of observation, apart from the tactical importance of hav-
ing driven the enemy on to ground beyond his first and
second systems of trenches and dug-outs, so that he can get
no strong cover until he retires to a considerable distance.
It gives us vantage points from which we can observe his
movements down the slope, rake him with rifle and machine-
gun fire if he sends out working parties, and turn the guns
on to him with direct observation of results.
One of the immediate effects of being on the Pozières
ridge was seen yesterday, when our artillery registered
something like twenty-five direct hits upon some of the
enemy's batteries. He had a great concentration of guns.
Acting in connection with our aviators, who are always
observing from high places, our gunners are punishing the
enemy in a very frightful way, and the ground above Thiép-
val and Courcelette, into which I looked for the first time
at close range from the switch trench, and Martinpuich,
and the barren ground to the right of it, is swept by our
shell-fire.
A very realistic and tragic picture of what is happening
down there beyond the high ridge is given in a letter written
on August IO by a German officer of the I33rd Infantry
Regiment:
“The relief yesterday,” he wrote, “is incredible. The
route taken—Ligny—Warlencourt—Pys—Courcelette, on
the way to the trenches was very dangerous. During the
first part the thunder of the guns was very disagreeable,
and the second part was very unsafe. Heavy shells fell
right and left of the road. Mounted troops, cars, field kitch-
ens, infantry in column of route, were all enveloped in an
impenetrable cloud of dust.
“The last stage consisted of troops in single file crouching
on the slope beside the road, with shells bursting overhead.
Close to Courcelette a message arrived: “Enemy firing gas-
shells, on with your gas helmets.” It appeared to be an
error. From Courcelette to our position in the line we
210 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
relieved across the open. If the enemy had only noticed
that, what a target he would have had
“Our position was of course quite different to what we
had been told. Our company alone relieved a whole bat-
talion. We had been told we were to relieve a company of
fifty men weakened by casualties. The men we relieved had
no idea where the enemy was, how far off he was, or if any
of our troops were in front of us. We got no idea of our
supposed position until 6 o'clock this evening.
“To-night I am taking my platoon out to form a covering
party. My men and I are to lie in shell holes in part of
an old demolished trench of ours. The English are 400
metres away. The Windmill is over the hill. The hun-
dreds of dead bodies make the air terrible, and there are flies
in thousands. About 300 metres from us is a deserted artil-
lery position. We shall have to look to it to-night not to
get taken prisoners by the English. We have no dug-outs.
We dig a hole in the side of a shell hole and lie and get
rheumatism. We get nothing to eat or drink. . . . The
ceaseless roar of the guns is driving us mad. Many of the
men are knocked up. The company commander thinks we
were breathing gas yesterday, which slowly decomposes the
blood, and this is an end of one. What a variety of ways
one can lose one’s life in this place! . . . It is getting light.
I must start on my way back to the front-line trenches.”
From another man in the 3rd battalion of the 124th Regi-
ment there is a letter which pays a doleful tribute to our
flying men.
“I am on sentry duty, and it is a very hard job, for I dare
not move. Overhead are the English airmen and in front
of us the English observers with telescopes, and as soon as
they perceive anything, then twenty-four ‘cigars' arrive at
once, and larger than one cares to see—you understand what
I mean. The country round me looks frightful. Many
dead bodies belonging to both sides lie around.”
These letters give the other side of the pictures which I
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 211
have been describing. They show what German life is like
below the Pozières ridge.
We are drawing very close to Thiépval, and standing
yesterday on the high ground to the right of the Windmill
by Pozières, within 500 yards of Martinpuich, I could see
how near our lines have been pushed to both these places.
Thiépval I have seen several times from the western side, but
yesterday I stood to the south-east of it looking straight
across the cemetery of Pozières to the long line of branch-
less trees and broken roofs where the German garrison
awaits its certain doom.
That doom crept a little nearer last evening when some of
our English troops left their trenches south of the Leipzig
Redoubt, which was already in our hands, and following in
the wake of a terrific bombardment on a short line of the
enemy's position took that section quickly by assault. I saw
the steady bombardment of the ground hereabouts which
was continuous throughout the afternoon, but, by bad luck,
having gone to another part of the line, did not see the
attack which followed.
It was a highly organised and grim bit of work, very
quickly done and with few casualties on our side. As soon
as the guns had lifted, after concentrated fire which tore
up the ground and made an utter chaos of the German line
of trench, our men followed. They went over in two
waves, at as rapid a pace as possible over the tumbled
ground. Then they went through the broken strands of
barbed wire, and by men watching them from a little dis-
tance were seen to drop down into the enemy's trench.
After a little while—less than a minute—the result of
the attack was seen by a number of German soldiers com-
ing out of the shell-craters with their hands up. A little
later a large group of soldiers ran out and tried to escape.
They ran as though the devil were behind them, but there
was a devilish fate in front of them, for they plunged
straight into a heavy fire from our guns, and disappeared.
In less than a quarter of an hour the fight was over and
212 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
men came plodding back along the way for “walking
wounded,” and the Red Cross flag could be seen over there
in the light of the setting sun.
The enemy must have suffered heavily. Our guns caught
them during a relief, which means that there was a double
garrison, resulting in a double number of killed, wounded,
and prisoners. Worse still for them, it seems likely that on
their way up to the lines many of them were caught in the
heavy barrage we had for some time been flinging across
their route.
Among the 200 prisoners taken there is an ex-waiter of
the Savoy Hotel, who says that he is thoroughly sick of
the war, like most of his comrades, and that Verdun, from
which he has just come, is a heaven compared to the battle-
fields of Picardy.
Some time after our assault German troops were observed
to be massing for a counter-attack behind the captured
position, but these were immediately dispersed by our artil-
lery, and no attack took place throughout last night.
The result of the operation is that we now hold a line
straight above the Leipzig salient and striking across to our
trenches south of Mouquet Farm, where the Australians
made an attack yesterday to push further forward towards
Thiépval.
I5
The successful advance south of the Leipzig Redoubt was
due mainly to the gallant work of some Territorial troops
who attacked a maze of German trenches on Friday evening
last, carried them by assault, and linked up with the redoubt
itself, already in our hands immediately below Thiépval,
getting a closer grip at the throat of the garrison there.
I have already told how the men captured the great dug-
out and took nearly 600 prisoners. They were men of the
Royal Warwicks, who did that great achievement with ex-
traordinarily slight loss to themselves. One of the most
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 213
thrilling episodes of the attack was when they were held
up on the right by a German strong point, from which came
a stream of machine-gun fire. The men lay down in front
of it, and held on until our own Lewis guns could get to
work. Four times a message came over the telephone ask-
ing whether the “heavies” should shell the place, but the
colonel was afraid that his men would be hit, and refused
the offer each time. Then suddenly, when it seemed im-
possible to stop that deadly squirt of bullets, the German
machine-gun ceased fire and a white flag fluttered up.
The colonel of the Warwicks expected to see twenty men
come out of that bomb-proof hiding-place. To his amaze-
ment there emerged six officers, and—not I 50 men (as I
think I said in my last despatch) but 242 unwounded Ger-
mans and six “stretcher cases.” There were many acts of
great individual gallantry among the Warwicks, and all
were splendid under the fine leadership of their officers.
One sergeant jumped on to the parados of a German trench
and kept a machine-gun team away from their weapon until
our bombing party could arrive, thereby saving the lives of
many Warwickshire lads and helping to secure victory.
Further along the trench a company officer, held up at a
“bomb-stop” or barricade, called for a rifle and fired repeat-
edly with a cool aim at the German machine-gunners on the
other side, with two men by him, who kept refilling his
magazine, and bombers behind him hurling grenades over
his shoulders.
I6
Many of the Germans defended themselves stubbornly
to the death. A sentry standing outside one of the dug-
outs saw our men approaching, and, turning quickly,
shouted down the word “England l’ to his comrades below.
One of the Warwicks who was closest to him hurled his
last bomb at him, and then, seizing the man’s rifle, sprang
on to the parapet ready to shoot the enemy as they came
214 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
up. They came up in a swarm, with bombs, and there was a
great conflict which ended only when the last German was
dead.
In one dug-out there was in the midst of all this horror a
comic episode, like that of a clown in tragedy. A curtain
divided the dug-out, and a Warwickshire man thrust his
bayonet through it. Suddenly the curtain was drawn on
one side and a German soldier, yawning loudly and rubbing
his eyes with the knuckles of one hand, stood there, as
though to say “What's up?” He had slept heavily through
the bombardment and attack, and now when he saw the
English soldiers facing him, believed he was dreaming.
So the Warwicks took 400 yards of trenches along a
front of 600 yards and thrust the wedge closer to Thiépval.
Meanwhile, in the centre of our line of attack, English and
Scots and Australian troops had been fighting for the Ger-
man switch-line beyond Bazentin-le-Petit, the newly dug
trench which the enemy had made feverishly to defend the
high ridge above Pozières, but could not hold. They were
Scottish troops who took the trench opposite Martinpuich,
so gaining at least part of the ground for which we have
striven since July I.
17
It is not long ago, as the calendar counts time, though a
lifetime ago for many thousands of men who have fought
along the road to Martinpuich, since that village with a
queer name seemed as unattainable as any dream-city. No
man of ours, except our flying men, had ever seen it, for
it lies just below the Pozières ridge, and before the battle
opened on July I the ridge itself was a high and distant
barrier defended all the way by great strongholds like Fri-
court and Mametz and Contalmaison, and by all those woods
which could be captured, as every soldier knew, only by des-
perate fighting.
Now, after the greatest battle in British history—a series
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 215
of battles, rather, in one great and continuous attack—we
have gained that ridge above Pozières and the Windmill,
and, pushing up to this German switch-line, look down the
slopes beyond.
There, only 500 yards away across No Man's Land, lies
Martinpuich, as I saw it myself to-day from our front-line
trench, surprised that one could see so close into its ruins.
To my left as I stood out in the open, above the trenches,
was the windmill for which the Australians have fought—
the conical base of it being all that is left as a memorial of
the heroism that gained this ground, and behind was
Pozières, the desolate, shell-swept ruin which is linked also,
for ever, with the memory of those boys from the Overseas
Dominion who gave a treasure of life to take it.
The way to Martinpuich is truly “The Street of Adven-
ture” for hundreds of thousands of our men who have
fought their way over the ground about it since that first
day of July which was the beginning of the great adventure.
When I went up it to-day, further than I have ever been
before, and to our last post upon it, I passed all the places
which will make chapter-headings in any history of the war
—the scenes of all the big battles and of all the little des-
perate conflicts which have been fought along this wing
from ditch to ditch, in every tiny copse, in every bit of
broken woodland. It is a road of immortality. Alas! also
of great death—as one sees all along the way—past Fricourt
and Contalmaison, over ground dotted with new-made
graves, where white wooden crosses stick up above the
mounds of earth, everywhere. Amidst the torn tree-stumps,
now very neat in all the upheaval of these fields flung into
chaos by gun-fire, now clustering thickly about piles of
broken brickwork which are still called by their old village-
names are crosses—crosses and graves.
Many of those graves are the size of one man’s bed, but
others are broad mounds into which many bodies have been
laid, with taller crosses, to the remembrance of all of them,
such as that “To the memory of the N.C.O.'s and men of
216 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
the – Border Regiment who fell in action at this spot on
the Ist of July, IQI6.” Many of them are to unknown
British Soldiers who could not be identified, but whose names
are on the long roll-call of honour.
I8
On the road to Martinpuich we passed up by Lonely
Copse—just a few “strafed” trees—and by Lozenge Wood
and the Dingle and Birch Tree Wood, and Peake Wood,
and Acid Drop Copse. Do you remember the names? Men
fought ferociously to get these places, our artillery regis-
tered on them, and I saw them in the first days of July under
tempests of shell-fire. Now they can be found only by a
few charred sticks, a few black gibbets, standing above
heaps of ashes and the bones and dust of men.
Contalmaison, the capital of the woodlands, is on higher
ground, and is still the target of German bombardments,
as it was our target when I saw it first. Most of its red-
brick château was standing when I looked into its windows
one day from an artillery O. Pip and saw one of its towers
shot away by one of our I5-inch shells, as cleanly as one
could cut a slice out of a cake. Now all that is left of the
château is a broken wall or two, rose coloured except where
the bricks are blackened by fire, standing in the midst of
great shell-craters and solid waves of earth and ash-coloured
tree-trunks all hurled about.
A devilish place is Contalmaison now, and when I walked
through it yesterday the foul horror of it reeked about me.
In the night the Germans had flung thousands of gas-shells
into it, and the stench was still prowling about, stealing out
of crannies and shell-holes with faint, sickly whiffs as
though from rotten eggs. And the smell of corruption came
up from all the litter of battle lying there. . . .
We went beyond Contalmaison, and were glad to leave it,
for the enemy's shells were bursting over it, and round by
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 217
Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, thinned out by successive storms
of shell-fire to the mere ghost of a wood, with the light
Striking through its leprous-looking trunks, where many un-
buried dead lie among the broken trenches. The ground
rose gradually past Contalmaison Villa, which stood far
beyond the village itself, as the country house of some
French gentleman who will never see it again except in dust
and ashes, and here we were out in the centre of the battle-
ground, where our men are now fighting between the wind-
mill of Pozières and High Wood, on the farthest line of
our advance.
The battle was going on, as it goes on all through the
days and nights, with never-ceasing gun-fire. The infernal
tumult of it was all around us, and death was everywhere
for any man whose luck had run out. Lord God in heaven!
If a man had any kind of prayer in his soul, or any special
form of curse for those who made this war, his lips should
mutter it in a place like this.
I9
It was into the famous switch trench which has been
the goal of great endeavour since July 14, when our troops
broke the German second line, that we went through other
trenches after the long walk in the open, and looked at last
into Martinpuich, first below the high ridge. Merely to see
it was the supreme proof of the greatest achievement in
arms ever done by British soldiers. To get as far as this,
to capture the high ground where we now stood, behind
earth and sandbags, looking down into the valley beyond,
our men have stormed many strongholds, fought through
all the ghastly woodlands from Fricourt and Bazentin and
High Wood, and many have fallen all along the road to
Martinpuich.
The village itself is just like any of all those ruins which
have been smashed to bits in this poor France. There was
no sign of human life there among the broken buildings.
218 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
But there was human life, though I could not see it, in the
500 yards of No Man's Land between our first line and the
village.
In the deep shell-craters here, as thick as holes in a sieve,
there are still some German soldiers living. They have no
kind of trench, for there is nothing but open ground before
us for 1,000 yards, now that we have taken the German
switch-line, but in these holes they hide themselves at night
and snipe our men by day. They are fellows who have been
sent out to hold the ground as much as possible before they
are dead or captured, and their officers never expect to see
them again. When our guns barrage this stretch of barren
land they can be seen hopping from one shell-hole to an-
other, and it is then the turn of our snipers. They brought
down thirty-five the first day, after taking the switch-line,
and about as many two days ago.
More valuable than a German prisoner—for what's the
value in this war of one man’s life?—was the German ma-
chine-gun brought in a day or two ago from the ground
outside Martinpuich, where it lay half-buried, but so un-
damaged that it is now used against the enemy with his own
cartridge belts. Other queer things have been brought back.
Two days after the capture of the switch-line our soldiers
saw two men waving out there in No Man's Land, and get-
ting their glasses on to them saw that they were wounded
Englishmen. A party of Scots crawled out and brought
them in, as during the same day they had carried back a
number of German wounded lying about in the shell-holes
close to our own line. -
The real wonder of our men is only to be seen in such
places as this. On these battlefields, under shell-fire, they
were working as calmly as though they were building sand
castles on the English seaside. Behind them lay many of
their dead.
I could track my way by the blood that splashed the walls
of the trenches, to the place where an amateur medico
patches up the bodies of broken men in a hole in the ground.
THE HIGH GROUND AT POZIERES 219
2O
The ground over which I walked with a young Scottish
officer—who has no emotion at all about such things be-
cause since he went first into Loos he has lived cheek by
jowl with death so that any fear he may have had is killed
by habit—was nothing but one great stretch of shell-craters.
There was not one yard of ground into which a shell had
not fallen, over thousands of yards. Some of them were
small shells making small craters, others were heavy shells
which had made enormous pits, and the rim of one crater
met the rim of another, or mingled. And, as we walked,
the sky above our heads was filled with shells continuing
this work, flinging up the earth again into new hills and
hollows.
From our own batteries far away behind us there came a
steady bombardment of the German ground just beyond
us, and the shells passed overhead with that indescribable
Sound which is half a scream and half a sigh, enormous in
the volume of its noise. But those sounds were comforting
compared with others, which were coming overhead. They
were coming from the enemy's side with a savage over-
whelming roar, which ended in a rending explosion.
“Eight inch,” said the young Scot by my side. “Heavy
Stuff.”
It is surprising what effect an eight-inch shell can have
in the way of upheaval. But one's sensation is not that of
surprise when fifty yards away, or less, a mass of field is
suddenly lifted skyward and a smoke-cloud as large as a
cathedral stands there strangely solid in the wind. The
whole field of battle about us was vomiting up these things,
and it was damnable.
XXIII
THE GERMANS’ SIDE OF THE SOMME
I
AUGUST 9
I HAVE not been across to the enemy's side of the line (ex-
cept when it has been broken by our guns and men), and I
have no intention of following the example of a friend of
mine who deliberately tried to get across to them in search
of information. But now and again it is possible to get a
mental glimpse of how the enemy lives and works and
thinks behind the barbed wire and the ditches and the ma-
chine-gun redoubts which make up his defensive system.
I mean the enemy's fighting men, and not all those people
in Germany who starve on false promises and grow sick
with hope deferred, and count up the number of their
dead, and still say, with a resolute pride, “At least—we
cannot be beaten.”
From talks with prisoners, and explorations of German
dug-outs, and the reading of captured documents, and many
days spent (before the battles of the Somme) in our own
trenches from which through a loophole or a tuft of grass
I have looked over to the German lines and seen, not often,
but several times, German soldiers moving about in work-
ing parties, and German infantry marching down a hillside
over 2,000 yards away, I have been able to conjure up a
fair answer to questions which have often come into my
head: “What are the fellows doing over the way? What
are they thinking about and talking about? What does it
look like behind their lines? And how do their methods
and their moral differ from our own?”
22O
THE GERMAN SIDE OF THE SOMME 221
Since the beginning of our attack on July 1 I have gained
Some later information about those things, and it seems to
me interesting to put down a few of the facts, so that people
at home may know more about the enemy than they seem
to know.
2
There is no doubt at all that as a fighting man the German
knows his business thoroughly, and performs it with great
skill, courage, and discipline. He has had the advantage of
us in an enormous reserve of highly-trained officers and non-
commissioned officers, and although the advantage is rapidly
disappearing, because after two years of war we are getting
large numbers of the same class of men and he is losing
and has lost a great mass of them by death and wounds, he
still has, I imagine, more than enough for his needs.
Now, and to the end of the war (for he is careful to keep
his best brains out of danger), he can call upon a great
store of professional and scientific knowledge to direct the
machinery of this business of destruction and defence, and
to organise the lives of his machine-made men.
In minute detail of organisation, and in a driving industry
behind it, the German High Command is masterly, and
there is not a soldier in the Kaiser’s armies who is not well-
equipped (down to the “housewife” full of pins and needles,
cotton, buttons, and thread, which he carries in his pouch)
and well-fed, unless our guns do not permit his supplies
to come up.
Enormous attention is paid to the moral of the men, by
organising concerts, religious services, and beer-parties be-
hind the lines, so that they shall be kept cheerful until they
die, and the news of the world, as we all know, is specially
edited for them with that point of view in mind.
But the German High Command is careful of the lives of
its men until the day comes when they have to be flung
222 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
ruthlessly forward, in wave after wave, against the guns of
the Allies.
Again and again I have described the spaciousness and
the depth and comfort of the German dug-outs. That is
part of the system of life-saving, and the divisional com-
manders set their men to work and keep them at work in a
way which our men would call slave-driving.
I have described those at Montauban and Fricourt as I
saw them immediately after their capture, and after the
bombardment which crumpled up all the trenches about
them, but left them, for the most part, solid and untouched.
3
At Ovillers they are even more elaborate, some of them
having six or eight rooms communicating with each other,
and two separate storeys—rooms as large as fifteen feet by
thirty feet, furnished with spring beds, carpets, washing
arrangements with water laid on, electric light, tapestries to
keep out the draughts, and other luxuries. One of the
dug-outs at Ovillers has nine entrances, with beds for IIO
men, thirty feet below the surface, and with a cook-house
containing three big boilers.
But it is not only in the trenches and in places like Ovillers
that the Germans dig so industriously. Far behind their
lines, wherever our long-range guns can reach them, they
have these elaborate subterranean shelters, deeper and
stronger than most of ours, and with much greater accom-
modation. It means incessant work in addition to all the
work which keeps our own soldiers busy night and day.
But it is work that saves life, and the Germans do not
begrudge it, and have no special pride in taking risks. That
is good generalship and good soldiering. But it does not
save them. Some of our officers are apt to imagine—I con-
fess it was in my own imagination for a time—that the
German was so snug in these burrows of his that our bom-
THE GERMAN SIDE OF THE SOMME 223
bardments in normal times without infantry attacks to
follow, did not cause him many casualties.
The truth is that continuous artillery fire, such as ours has
been, is frightfully destructive of human life, and that no
amount of digging will Safeguard it. Transports must move
along the roads. Men must go up communication trenches.
Working parties must come out into the open.
During all the month that our artillery has been increas-
ing its weight of metal and the number of rounds fired, the
Germans, therefore, have been suffering great losses, and
the strain upon the nerves and moral of the men has been
SeVere.
This is certain not only from the statements of German
soldiers brought into our lines, but from new instructions
issued as late as July 16, which refer to the treatment of
the great numbers of wounded, and the terrible conditions
of the present fighting. Significant sentences reveal the
truth of things behind the German lines, and again the
organising minds which try to better them, as far as pos-
sible:
“As the circumstances of the present fighting do not as a
rule permit of a dressing station being established near the
fighting troops, the wounded must at any rate be taken to
places which are easy to find, easy to describe, and easy to
recognise.
“Companies must inform battalions, and battalions regi-
ments, where the wounded are to be found, and how many
there are to remove.
“They can as a rule only be moved at night. The
stretcher-bearers who come to fetch them generally waste a
good deal of time in searching for the wounded, and some-
times do not find them if they are not assisted by the unit
which has been engaged.
“The nights are short for carrying out these large evacu-
ations.
“I have already reminded units that troops which are
relieved should carry their wounded with them.” That
224 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
reveals a tragic picture of the enemy's losses. It is empha-
sised again that many of the wounded are not found, and
suggestions are made that pieces of canvas dipped in lumi-
nous paint might be used to indicate the whereabouts of the
wounded, or white canvas cut into the form of a cross.
The German mind is busy with the problem of its dead
also. The enemy goes to great risk and trouble to remove
the dead from the fields because the living men who follow
are disheartened and terrified by the sight of so many
corpses on their way.
Search parties are sent out under shell-fire to collect them,
even though many of the searchers may join the dead, and
the bodies are put into mortuary chambers like one found
by us the other day at Pozières.
It was filled with dead bodies waiting to be taken away on
a light railway which runs up to the place, but the enemy's
artillery fired upon this mortuary and set it on fire, as
though they were more jealous of their dead than of the liv-
ing who were our prisoners.
4.
I have said that they keep their best brains out of danger.
This is true, even when the brains are second-best. It is
very seldom that any officer over the rank of a captain is
found in the front-line trenches, and officers of higher rank
remain well in the background. Lately, during our attack,
orders have been given that officers and N.C.O.'s command-
ing companies and platoons should visit their trenches at
night “so that the men may see or hear their commanders.”
It is all very naïve, and reveals that curious lack of humour
which characterises the German war-lord.
“The men,” say these instructions, “should be instructed
as to the whereabouts of their commanding officer, and
know where to go if they feel that they require inspiring
with courage. To stimulate courage and to foster the
feeling of confidence and the spirit of resistance these should
THE GERMAN SIDE OF THE SOMME 225
be the first duties of an officer in the front line, at all events
in the present circumstances. Courage rather than tactful
theory is the essence of a true leader.”
To give their men courage, in hours when these German
soldiers, who are brave men, might well give way to terror,
the German chemists have manufactured tabloids which
drug them with a kind of frenzy. There is no doubt of
this, which sometimes I have doubted, because many of
these drugs were found by a friend of mine—the medical
officer of the Kentish men who helped to take the trenches
north of Pozières a few days ago.
They contained ether and opium in sufficient quantity to
intoxicate the strongest man. In the German opinion it is
good stuff before a counter-attack.
German organisation is remarkably good. It does not
neglect the spiritual or the physical side of their soldiers. It
provides them with song-books and prayer-books as well as
with food and drink.
It has never revealed a shortage of shells. Its gunners
are full of science and wonderfully quick to get on to their
targets when the infantry calls for help by sending up
signals of distress.
In all the mechanics of war and in the fine art of keeping
up the pride of men the German war lords and high officers
show real genius. But they cannot bring dead men to life
nor hide the agonies of all their wounded, nor blink the fact
that British troops have broken their second line, and ham-
mered them with terrific blows and reached out far with
long-range guns to destroy them behind their lines.
They live in many ruins as bad as Ypres—French ruins,
alas!—and I know that, on the eve of our great attack, all
instructions were prepared for a general retreat, with every
detail ready in case our troops should break through on a
wide front.
That is a confusion of deep apprehension. It shows that
they are envisaging defeat and preparing for it—wisely
enough—in case of need. It is a state of mind not expressed
226 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
in an Order of the Day issued by the German Emperor a
few days ago and found on a German officer captured to the
north of Pozières:
“To the leaders of the troops of the First Army,” says
the Kaiser, “I express from the bottom of my heart my
deep appreciation and my Imperial gratitude for the splen-
did achievement in warding off the Anglo-French mass
attacks of the 30th of July. They have accomplished with
German faithfulness what I and their country expected
from them.
“God help them further.
(Signed) “Wilhelm I.R.”
Since then the ground to the north of Pozières has been
captured, and to-day there has been fierce fighting and fur-
ther progress made by British troops towards Guillemont.
God has not helped them it seems.
Behind the German lines, in spite of the Kaiser's grati-
tude for the courage of his troops—a courage which we
must not belittle, for it is great—men are thinking gloomily
and wondering when all the agony of this great war, which
holds no victory for Germany, will have an ending, after all
their blood and all their tears.
XXIV
THE ATTACK ON THIEPVAL
I
AUGUST 25
THE doom of Thiépval is near at hand. By a series of
small, sharp attacks, in short rushes, after enormous shell-
fire, our troops have forged their way across a tangled web
of trenches and redoubts until now they are just below the
row of apple trees which still show a broken stump or two
below the southern end of the village. They have bitten off
the nose of the Leipzig salient, and yesterday I saw them
take the Hindenburg trench and its strong point, which is
almost the last of the defensive works barring our way to
the south entrance of the village fortress.
On the west our trenches have been dug for some time
through Thiépval Wood, within four hundred yards of this
place, and on the east they have been pushed forward to
the left of Mouquet Farm; so that we have thrown a lasso,
as it were, around the stronghold on the hill, from which its
garrison has only one way of escape—by way of the Cruci-
fix, northwards, where our guns will get them. That gar-
rison is in a death-trap. The German soldiers in Thiépval
must be praying for the end to come.
As I stood watching the place yesterday, from a trench
only a few hundred yards away, it seemed to me astounding
and terrible that men should still be living there. I could
see nothing of the village for there is next to nothing left
of it—nothing at all but heaps of rubbish which were once
the roofs and walls of houses. But on the sky-line at the top
of a ridge which slopes up from the Leipzig salient there
227
228 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
still stand a hundred trees or so, which are all that is left
of Thiépval. They stood black and gaunt against the blue
sky, without a leaf on their broken branches, and all charred.
The brown hummocks of the German trench-lines encircled
them, with narrow strips of grass, vividly green, between
these earthworks and below, falling away to our own lines,
a turmoil of upheaved soil where a maze of trenches had
been made shapeless by incessant shell-fire.
All through the afternoon, as all through the morning,
and the mornings and afternoons of many yesterdays, our
guns were firing in a steady, leisurely way, one shell every
minute or two, at the ground marked out by the black tree-
stumps. They were mostly the shells of our “heavies” firing
from long range, so that for several seconds one could hear
the long voyage of each shell, listen to the last fierce rush
of it over our heads, and then see, before the roar of the
explosion, a vast volume of smoke and earth vomit up from
the place between the trees, or just below, the line of trees
where the enemy's trenches lay.
A friend of mine, sitting on some sand-bags with his steel
helmet just below the tops of some tall thistles which gave
friendly cover in our fore-ground above the parapet, said
“Beautiful!” every time there was a specially big cloud-
burst. He is such a hater of war that his soul follows each
shell of ours with a kind of exultation so that it shall help
to end it quickly. But I kept thinking of the fellows below
there, under that shell-fire.
It was only previous knowledge, explorations in German
dug-outs, talks with men who have come living out of such
bombardments, that made me still believe that there were
men alive in Thiépval, and that before we take the place
they may fight desperately and keep machine-guns going to
the last. There was not a human soul to be seen, and the
earth was being flung up in masses; but underground a
garrison of German soldiers was sitting in deep cellars, try-
ing to turn deaf ears to the crashes above them, try-
ing to hide the terror in their souls, a terror invading all
THE ATTACKS ON THIEPVAL 229
their courage icily, and looking into the little mirrors of
long periscopes which showed them the vision of things
above ground, and the stillness of the British trenches, from
which at any minute there might come waves of men on a
new attack.
2
With a few others in the trench where I stood I knew
that our men were to make another bound yesterday after-
noon, though not the exact time of it. For nearly two hours
I watched the bombardment, steady and continuous, but not
an intense fire from all available batteries, and every few
minutes I looked at my wrist-watch and wondered “Will it
begin now?” Down below me was the hummocky track
of our front-line trenches, in which the attacking parties had
assembled. Only now and again could I see any movement
there.
In our own trench some signallers were carrying down a
new wire, whistling as they worked. A forward observing
officer was watching the shell-bursts through a telescope
resting on the parapet and giving messages to a telephone
operator who sat hunched at the bottom of the trench with
his instrument. A couple of young officers came along
jauntily, swearing because “these silly asses”—whoever they
might be—“never tell you where they are.” An artillery
officer came along for a chat, and remarked that it was a
fine day for a football match.
3
It was a day when the beauty of France is like a song in
one's heart, a day of fleecy clouds in the blue sky, of golden
sunlight flooding broad fields behind the battle lines, where
the wheat-sheaves are stacked in neat lines by old men and
women, who do their Sons' work, and of deep, cool shadows
under the wavy foliage of the woodlands.
230 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
Behind us was a ruined village, and German shells were
falling into the corner of a wood not far away to our left,
but the panorama of the French countryside beyond the edge
of the battlefield was full of peace. Above our heads some
British aeroplanes came flying, and the hum of their engines
was like big bees buzzing. They flew straight over the Ger-
man lines, and presently the sky about them was dotted with
white puffs of shrapnel, and above the noise of the guns
there was the high “ping!” of the German “Archies,” as
each shell reached up to those soaring wings, but failed to
bring them down.
Another officer came along the trench and said “Good
afternoon! The show begins in ten minutes.”
The “show” is the name soldiers give to a battle.
By my watch it was longer than ten minutes before the
“show” began. The leisurely bombardment continued in the
same way. Now and again a German “crump” replied, like
an elaborate German guttural. Then suddenly, as though
at the tap of a baton, a great orchestra of death crashed
out. It is absurd to describe it. No words have been
made for a modern bombardment of this intensity. One
can only give a feeble, inaccurate notion of what one big
shell sounds like.
When hundreds of heavy guns are firing upon one small
line of ground and shells of the greatest size are rushing
through the sky in flocks, and bursting in masses, all descrip-
tion is futile. I can only say that the whole sky was reso-
nant with waves of noise that were long-drawn, like the deep
notes of violins, gigantic and terrible in their power of
sound, and that each vibration ended at last in a thunderous
crash. Or again it seemed as though the stars had fallen
out of the sky and were rushing down to Thiépval.
The violence of this bombardment was as frightful as
anything I have seen in this war in the way of destructive
gun-power. The shells tore up the German trenches and
built up a great wall of smoke along the crest of the ridge,
and smashed through the trees of Thiépval, until for min-
THE ATTACKS ON THIEPVAL 231
utes together that place was only to be known by tall pillars
of black, and white, and brown smoke, which swayed about
as though in a great wind, and toppled down upon each
other, and rose again.
4
A voice at my elbow, speaking breathlessly, said: “Look!
They're away. . . . Oh, splendid fellows!”
Out of our front line trenches scrambled long lines of
men. They stood for a moment on the top of the parapet,
waited for a second or two until all the men had got up into
their alignment, and then started forward, steadily and in
wonderful order. Some of the officers turned round, as
though to see that all their men were there. I saw one of
them raise his stick, and point towards the ridge. Then he
ran ahead of his men. They were on low ground—lowest
on the right, in front of the parapet where I stood, but
sloping up a little on the left by the Leipzig redoubt.
Beyond them the ground rose steadily to the ridge on which
Thiépval stands. Our men had a big climb to make, and a
long way to go over open country, for four or five hundred
yards is the very devil of a way to go when it is swept with
shell fire.
The enemy was not long in flinging a barrage in the way
of our men. A rocket went up from his lines as a signal to
his guns, and perhaps half a minute after our men had
sprang over the parapet his shells began to fall. But they
were too late to do any damage there. Our men were out
and away. Some message seemed to reach the enemy and
tell him this. He raised his barrage on to ground nearer to
his own lines, and his heavy crumps fell rapidly, bursting all
over No Man's Land. Now and again they seemed to fall
right into the middle of a bunch of our men, in a way
frightful to see, but when the smoke cleared the group was
still going forward. On the right of the line one great shell
burst with an enormous crash, and this time there was no
232 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
doubt that it had caught some of our men. I saw them
fall in a heap. . . . Perhaps they had flung themselves
down to avoid the shell splinters. Perhaps not one of them
had been touched. It is extraordinary how men can avoid
death like that.
Nothing checked the advance of the long lines of figures
going through the Smoke; not all the German barrage, which
was now very fierce. The men had to cross one of those
narrow strips of grass land between the earthworks before
they came to the first line of German trenches, and they
showed up black and distinct against this green belt when-
ever the smoke of the shells bursting above them drifted
away.
They were not in close formation. They went forward
after the first few moments of advance, in small parties,
widely scattered, but keeping the same direction. Some-
times the parties themselves broke up and separated into
individual figures, jumping over shell-craters, running first
to left or right as the shriek of an enemy shell warned them
of approaching death. I saw then how easy it is to lose all
sense of direction in an attack like this, and the reason why
men sometimes go so hopelessly astray. But yesterday it
was quite marvellous how quickly the men recovered their
line when they had drifted away in the blinding smoke, and
how the groups kept in touch with each other, and how
separate figures, running to catch up, succeeded in joining
the groups.
5
We watched the single figures, following the fortunes of
each man across the fire-swept slope, hoping with all our
souls that he would get through and on. Then he would
pick himself up when he fell face forward.
For a little while the men were swallowed up in smoke.
I could see nothing of them, and I had a horrible feeling
this time none of us would ever see them again. For they
THE ATTACKS ON THIEPVAL 233
had walked straight into the infernal fires, and all behind
them and all in front the shells were bursting and flinging
up the earth and raising enormous, fantastic clouds.
It seemed an hour before I saw them again. I suppose it
was only five or six minutes. The wind drifted the smoke
away from the Thiépval ridge, and there, clear and distinct
to the naked eye, were the lines of our men swarming up.
Some of them were already on the highest ground, stand-
ing, single figures, black against the sky. They stood there
a second or two, then jumped down and disappeared. They
were in the German trenches, close to Thiépval.
“Magnificent!” said a French officer who was standing
close to me. “By God! your men are fine!”
They were wonderful. The German barrages did not
stop them. They went through and on as though proof
against shells. Some men did not go on, and fell on the side
of the slope, but it seemed to me there were not many of
them.
In the centre of the German trenches was a strong point
or redoubt, with machine-guns. It was one of those deadly
places that have often checked one of our attacks, and
cost many brave lives. But I could see that our men were
all round it. One single figure was an heroic silhouette
against the blue of the sky. He was bombing the redoubt,
and as he flung his bombs the attitude of the man was full
of grace like a Greek disc-thrower. A German shell burst
close to him and he was engulfed in its upheaval, but
whether he was killed or not I could not tell. I did not see
him again.
6
Up the slope went the other men, following the first wave,
and single fellows hurrying after them. In a little while
they had all disappeared. They were in the enemy's
trenches, beyond all doubt.
New Sounds of an explosive kind came through all the
234 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
fury of gun-fire, which had slackened in intensity, but was
still slashing the air. It was a kind of hard knocking in
separate strokes, and I knew it was bomb-fire. Our men
were at work in and about the German dug-outs, and
there were Germans there who were not surrendering with-
out a fight.
One fight took place on the top of the parapet. A man
came up and stood on the sky-line—whether an English
soldier or a German it was impossible to see. I think a
German, for a second after another man came up as though
chasing him, and the first man turned upon him. They
both had revolvers and fired, and disappeared. Other men
were running along the parapets of the German trenches.
They were ours, and they were flinging bombs as they ran.
Then a curtain of smoke was wafted in front of them again,
and they were hidden.
From our own trenches another wave of men appeared.
I think it wanted more courage of them even than of the
first line of assaulting troops to go out over that open
ground. They had to face the German barrage and to pass
over a way where many of their comrades were lying. But
they went on steadily and rapidly, just as the others had
gone, splitting up into groups, running in short rushes, dis-
appearing in the smoke of shell-bursts, falling into shell-
craters, scrambling up, and on again. . . .
Another wave came still later, making their way to that
ridge where their comrades were fighting in the enemy's
trenches. They, too, disappeared into those ditches.
Only in the ground near to me could I see any sign of life
now. Here some of our wounded were walking back, and
the stretcher-bearers were at work. I watched a little proces-
sion coming very slowly to our trenches with their stretchers
lifted high. It was a perilous way of escape for wounded
when the enemy was flinging shells all over the ground and
there was no safety zone. Somewhere on our right a shell
had struck a bomb-store or an ammunition dump and a
volume of smoke, reddish-brown, rose and spread into the
THE ATTACKS ON THIEPVAL 235
shape of a gigantic query mark. Other fires were burning in
what had been No Man's Land, and out of an explosion in
the enemy's trenches there was flung up a black vomit in
which were human beings, or fragments of them. Over
the ridge by Thiépval the enemy's barrage was continuous
on the far side of the slope between our trenches on the
west and the ground just gained, and the top of the smoke-
clouds drifted above the sky-line as though from a row of
factory chimneys.
7
Suddenly out of all this curtain of smoke came a crowd
of figures, leaping and running. They were Germans trying
to get to our trenches, not in a counter-attack, but to give
themselves up as prisoners, and to get some cover from
their own shell-fire. Terror was in their attitudes, in their
wild stampede and desperate leaps over the broken ground
where the shells of their own guns were bursting. . One
great German crump crashed close to them, and I think it
must have killed some of them.
Then for more than an hour as I watched other figures
came back from the high ground towards our old front
line, sometimes in groups of two or three, sometimes alone.
They were our lightly wounded men, with here and there a
German.
It was with a sense of horrible fascination that I watched
the adventures of these men, separately. One of them
would jump down from the sky-line, and come at a quick
run down the slope. Then suddenly he would stop and
stand in an indecisive way as though wondering what route
to take to avoid the clusters of shell-bursts spurting up
below him. He would decide sometimes on a circuitous
route, and start running again in a zig-zag way, altering his
direction sharply when a shell crashed close to him.
I could see that he was out of breath. He would halt and
stand as though listening to the tumult about him, then come
236 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
on very slowly. I wanted to call out to him, to shout, “This
way, old man! . . . Quick!” But no voice would have
carried through that world in uproar. Then perhaps he
would stumble, and fall, and lie as though dead. But pres-
ently I would see him crawl on his hands and knees, stand
up and run again. He would reach our line of trenches
and jump down, or fling himself down. Some cover at
last, thank God! So it happened with man after man, and
each journey was the adventure of a man trying to dodge
death. It was horrible to see.
High above the Thiépval ridge there were perpendicular
streaks of white smoke and light, strangely spectral, like
tall thin ghosts wrapped in white shrouds and illumined in a
ghastly way. I think they were the long tails of rockets
fired as signals to the guns. The German black shrapnel
and their green “universal” shell was hanging in big puffs
above the denser pall below, and there was the glint and
flash of bursting shells stabbing through the wall of Smoke.
Our aeroplanes were right over Thiépval all through the
battle, circling round in wide steady flights, careless of the
German anti-aircraft guns, which were firing continuously.
Two hostile planes came out and our men closed about them,
and flew to attack, but after a little while the Germans fled
back in retreat. The only observation the enemy had was
from two kite balloons, poised well forward, but often lost
and blinded in all the clouds.
So I watched, and knew, because our men did not come
back from those trenches on the Thiépval ridge, that they
had been successful. It was only the prisoners and the
lightly wounded who came back. The assaulting parties
were holding the ground they had captured in spite of all
the shell-fire that crashed over them. They had tightened
the iron net round Thiépval, and drawn it closer.
So at last I went away from the battlefield, back to the
quiet harvest fields flooded with the golden glow of the
sinking sun, luckier than the men who had to stay, and
ashamed of my luck. The enemy was flinging shells at
THE ATTACKS ON THIEPVAL 237
long range. The harvest fields were not quite so safe as
they looked.
There were ugly corners to pass, shell-trap corners, where
it is not wise to linger to light a cigarette. But hell was
behind me, up there at Thiépval, where the storm of shell-
fire still raged, and where, below ground, the German gar-
rison awaits its inevitable fate.
AUGUST 26
Following the official communiqué, I can now say that the
troops whom I saw advancing SO Splendidly and steadily
across a great stretch of No Man's Land to the higher
ground round Thiépval were men of Wiltshire and Worces-
tershire. They deserve the honour that has been given them
by Sir Douglas Haig in his report, because after their great
assault they had to sustain last night a strong attack by
Prussian Guardsmen, following a long and fierce bombard-
ment. The courage of these English lads—among them
being boys who once followed the plough and worked in the
orchards of those quiet old counties—did not fail against
the finest troops of the Kaiser's armies, and that phrase in
the official communiqué which records their achievement is
a fine memorial:
“The success of our defences is largely due to the steadi-
ness and determined gallantry of Wiltshire and Worcester-
shire men, who, in spite of being subjected to a very heavy
bombardment, steadily maintained their positions, and re-
pulsed the determined assault of the enemy.”
It seems to me probable that the enemy will make a big
effort to check our continued advance along the ridge from
Thiépval to High Wood, and especially to rescue Thiépval
itself from its impending fate. The position our troops
have gained by two months’ fighting of the most heroic
kind has put the enemy at a great disadvantage from the
238 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
point of view of artillery observation, which is all important
in modern warfare.
On the ground in front of us now, beyond the Windmill,
and the switch-line, the German battalions are in an unten-
able position if our attack is pressed on, until they fall back
upon what is known as the Flers line, more than 2,000 yards
behind Martinpuich and High Wood, and meanwhile their
present line of defence is open to our bombardments, so that
the enemy's casualties must be very heavy and, as we know,
the moral of their men in these shell-craters and ruins is
badly shaken.
It is obvious that the German Headquarters Staff realises
the gravity of the position, and is endeavouring to organise
a method of defence by attack, which will stop or check the
British advance. They are probably too shrewd to believe
that this can be done by bringing up fresh troops to replace
those who have been worn out, and stand with shattered
nerves beyond the British lines.
Fresh troops or old troops are food for our guns, greedy
for them. It is only by guns that the enemy can fight
against guns, and he is drifting down batteries into a great
concentration for the defence of Thiépval.
It will be the greatest duel of artillery ever seen on the
British front, for as I have seen myself the sweep and fury
of our own shell-fire in the neighbourhood reaches the most
astounding intensity. Meanwhile we have in this sector,
beyond any shadow of doubt or exaggeration, the mastery
of the air, and that is of Supreme advantage to our gunners,
and to the infantry who are supported by them.
So far our progress has not been brought to a dead halt,
and we have made further ground yesterday, by wonderfully
fine fighting on the part of English and Scots battalions, to
the north and east of Delville Wood. Our hurricane bom-
bardment preceding the attack of these troops was coun-
tered by a heavy barrage from the enemy, but our men
went forward with an unflinching spirit to a line striking
across the Flers-Longueval road, and joining on the left—
THE ATTACKS ON THIEPVAL 239
by a curved salient—our old position south-west of High
Wood.
The hardest part of the fighting was on the left of the
attack, where there was a great deal of machine-gun fire, but
the enemy's trenches were carried and prisoners were taken
to the number of ten officers and 214 other ranks. Several
machine-guns also were brought back after being captured
by hand-to-hand fighting at the strong points.
9 -
AUGUST 28
I have already described my own visual impressions of
the great assault made south of Thiépval by men of Wilt-
shire and Worcestershire, which I watched from a neigh-
bouring trench. But there are still things to be told about
this memorable achievement—as fine in its way as anything
our men have done. The name of Wiltshire will always
be specially remembered on the ground of the Leipzig
salient, which barred the southern way to Thiépval, for they
were troops of this county who, as far back as July 8,
captured the butt-end of that stronghold, and, working with
other county troops on their right, made the next advance,
on August 22, which preceded the greater attack two days
later.
That affair of August 22 was extraordinary fine and
brief and successful. Twelve minutes after the attacking
time, the Wilts men had gone across the one hundred yards
of No Man's Land, captured the enemy's nearest line of
trenches, and sent down their first batch of twenty prison-
€1’S.
The Wiltshires had only three casualties in getting across
the open ground, though they afterwards suffered more un-
der the enemy's shell-fire. Most of the German dug-outs
were blown in, but there was one big subterranean chamber
which was not badly damaged, and wanted only a little
work to make it a place of comfort for the new-comers. As
240 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
their colonel said to me to-day: “It always gives us great
pleasure to take lodgings in these German apartments.”
The attack on the Hindenburg trench which I saw on
August 24 was complicated because the Wiltshires had to
advance partly across the open—300 yards of No Man's
Land, which is no joke—and partly, on their left, through
a network of trenches climbing the high ground from the
Leipzig salient to Thiépval.
It was necessary therefore to organise the attack so that
those advancing over the open should not arrive at the Hin-
denburg trench sooner than those worrying their way up
through the broken earthworks, not at all an easy proposi-
tion.
Also before the Hindenburg line could be seized securely
it would be essential to “kill” a German strong point at a
junction made in the Hindenburg trench by a communica-
tion way running up from the Leipzig salient.
The penalty of not doing so would be certain death to
many of our men by an enfilade fire of machine-guns. These
are little details that worry the souls of commanding officers
and company commanders before they get the men over the
parapet with thousands of bombs and the supplies of picks,
shovels, sandbags, Lewis gun “drums,” Very lights, and
other material of war.
IO
On the day before the last attack on the southern way
into Thiépval the enemy, who suspected bad things coming,
tried to thwart our plan by hurling a terrific storm of shell-
fire all over the Leipzig salient.
He seems to have brought up new guns for the purpose,
and his heavy five-point-nines “crumped” the ground in all
directions. But all this did not stop the Wiltshires and the
Worcesters, who went on with their own little scheme.
On Thursday afternoon last, everything went like clock-
work from the moment that our artillery opened with the
THE ATTACKS ON THIEPVAL 241
intense bombardment described by me in a former despatch.
The Worcesters attacked on the right, the Wiltshires on
the left. Over the parapet they halted a moment, and then
went forward in a steady and ordered way. I could not
see the men working up through the trenches on the left
until they sprang up to the crest of the ridge, but only those
who went across the open. The last eighty yards was cov-
ered in the quickest time, and soon after our shell-fire lifted
off the German trench the Wiltshires and Worcesters were
in among the enemy.
But not close together. There was a gap of fifty yards
between the two parties, and in order to get in touch with
each other they bombed left and right. It was at this mo-
ment that a company officer distinguished himself by great
gallantry.
There were Prussian Guards in the trench, and they
fought fiercely, using the gap as a bombing centre. Unless
routed out this group of men might have spoiled the attack.
The officer saw the situation in a flash, and was quick to
get a rifle to his shoulder. He was a dead shot, and shot,
one after the other, five men who were trying to blow him
to bits with their hand grenades.
At the same time a sergeant scrambled up into the open,
and running along outside the trench flung his bombs at the
enemy below, “to rattle them,” according to the description
of his commanding officer. Another young soldier fixed his
Lewis gun over the parapet and fired down into the trenches,
so that the enemy had to keep quiet until our men were all
round them.
The strong point by the Koenigstrasse had been rushed,
and the Hindenburg trench was ours.
II
Sharp and fierce fighting had carried the trenches on the
left and captured a strong dug-out belonging to the German
242 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
company commanders. Here also the Prussian Guards
fought with great courage, firing up from their dug-outs
and only surrendering under the menace of immediate death.
One sergeant here on the left walked about in the open with
a cool courage and shot twelve Germans who were sniping
from shell-holes. The ground was already strewn with
their dead, killed by our bombardment, and over this grave-
yard of unburied men there was bayonet fighting and bomb-
ing until all the Prussians who remained alive became the
prisoners of the Wiltshires.
There were several officers among them wearing the Iron
Cross, and all the officers and men were tall fellows with
brand-new equipment which showed that they had just come
into the trenches.
Two captured machine-guns were turned against the en-
emy's line, with their own ammunition ready for use, and
both the Wiltshires and the Worcesters settled down in the
new line, badly smashed as usual by our shell-fire, but with
a lot of useful dug-outs still intact, to hold on under the
inevitable retaliation of the enemy's guns.
All through the night there was a steady bombardment,
but nothing of extraordinary ferocity. It was the usual
night's “straf" in the neighbourhood of Thiépval, which is
not really a nice place.
On the following day—last Friday—the hostile shell-fire
increased. Five-point-nines were joined by eight-inches,
and, as one of the officers described it, “every durned thing.”
It quickened and strengthened in intensity until towards
evening it was a hurricane bombardment meaning one obvi-
ous thing—a counter-attack. Our men were well down in
the old German dug-outs, grateful to their enemy for dig-
ging so deep and well, but it became most necessary to warn
our “heavies” that the Prussians were gathering for a
smashing assault.
Runners were sent out to get back through the barrage
if they had the luck, and several of these brave men tried
and several failed, dying on the way. But one had more
THE ATTACKS ON THIEPVAL 243
than human luck. Owing to the appalling character of the
ground, “pitted and ploughed as though by a gigantic har-
row”—it is his officer's phrase—the man lost his sense of
direction, staggered and stumbled on through the smoke
and over the shell-craters, and then—amazed—found him-
self looking over a parapet into a trench full of Germans
with fixed bayonets. They were crowded there, those tall
Prussians, awaiting the moment to launch their counter-
attack.
The runner turned back. Before him the ground was a
series of volcanoes, tossed up by German shells and British
shells. He knew that he had to pass through our barrage
and the enemy's barrage. The chances against him were
tremendous. In his own opinion he had no more chance
than a “snowflake in hell.” But he ran back, dodging this
death, and—came through untouched !
The “heavies” did at last get the message, and were quick
to answer it. “In three shakes,” said an officer of the Wilt-
shires, “they were smashing the German lines to glory.”
Those tall Prussians crowding there were caught by this
storm. Their trench became a ditch-full of mangled bodies.
Only a thin wave of men came out into open country, and
of these not many went back.
The Prussian counter-attack was killed. The Worcesters
and the Wiltshires held their ground round Thiépval, and
their losses were paid for heavily by German blood.
XXV
THE LAST FIGHTS IN DEVIL’S WOOD
I
AUGUST 29
THE barren ground of the battlefields was turned into
swamps this afternoon, when the clouds which had been
piling up in great black masses suddenly broke after a few
warning flashes of lightning and a roll of thunder.
I have been watching the usual artillery bombardment
over the Pozières ridge and Thiépval, spreading eastward to
the thin fringe of High Wood, faintly pencilled against the
darkening sky. The guns quickened their pace at about
three o'clock, and on our right the French artillery was also
hammering away. Then the storm burst and nature, after
all, had the best of it, though all the atmospheric effects
seemed like a magnificent plagiarism of our human chemis-
try which has filled the sky with darkness and forked light-
nings, and the earth with high explosives, and the air
with noise. These thunder-claps ripping the clouds before
the long ruffle of their drums, and the winking of the light-
ning behind the black curtains on the hills, and the queer,
ghastly colours edging fantastically shaped wreaths of
clouds, were enormously like our miniature tempests of
hate. Nature was at war with itself, and our pop-guns
seemed silly toys.
Coming down to earth, and its funny ants, called men,
there has not been very much activity during the past
twenty-four hours, beyond the work of the gunners. Be-
tween Delville Wood and High Wood our troops captured
a German barricade, and there was some bombing about the
244
THE LAST FIGHTS IN DEVIL?S WOOD 245
shell-craters on the way to Ginchy, all of which gives us
at last a strong grip all round and beyond that Devil's Wood,
where our men have fought so often and so hard.
There seems no doubt about it now, judging from all I
heard at an officers' mess in a big-sized tent between the
bombardment and the thunderstorm, where a number of
young officers told me incidents of the recent fighting there.
2
It was on August 24, as I have described already, in a
brief way, that the big “shove” was made all round this
beastly wood and out of it on the east side, where the Ger-
mans still had some strong posts and shell-craters and
machine-guns.
The troops engaged were mostly of English regiments,
with one body of Scots, and they all did splendidly in spite
of the tragic character of the ground and the intensity of
the enemy's barrage. Accidents happened now and then.
At one point of the advance the German wire was uncut,
and only eight men could get through. They killed eleven
Germans in the craters beyond them, and stayed there till
dusk, and came back.
On the north side of the wood the troops were hammered
by shell-fire, but “stuck” it out, and went forward marvel-
lously under the protection of their own shell-fire, while our
machine-guns kept the enemy's heads down by a stream
of machine-gun bullets—a million of them—which “wa-
tered” his trenches.
There was but little hand-fighting here. Many Germans
were found dead in their muck-heaps which were once
trenches. Four of them ran forward to surrender so furi-
ously that they scared one of our men who ran, too, until
he realised their intention and took them prisoner. An-
other came running forward and was seized by the throat
246 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
by his officer, who was suspicious of his intention in the
heat of the moment.
There was also a bull-pup who came over and is now
enjoying bully-beef. -
Further on the right there was great fighting to thrust the
enemy out of his last ditch in Delville Wood and to get
across the ground to the east of it.
The enemy fought with high courage, and there were
many bombing duels, in which one of our sergeants caught
German bombs before they burst and flung them back again
—which is not an easy trick to learn. A Lewis gun was
thrust up very quickly to a German post where a machine-
gun was concealed in a shell-crater and played its hose on
the team who refused to surrender. Out of one such strong
point—a nest of craters—fifty-four Prussians came up
with the usual shout of surrender when our bombing parties
had surrounded them.
Every man fought with reckless courage. The wounded
officers carried back on stretchers brought the latest news
to their brigadier, and said, “We’re doing jolly well, sir,”
or explained the difficult bits of work in hand.
The stretcher-bearers went out through the heaviest fire
and searched for the wounded with great self-sacrifice.
One man of the R.A.M.C. was out there, over this frightful
ground, for twenty hours at a stretch, saving many men,
untired till the last.
One queer horror was seen. Some German sentries were
found tied to posts, and one man stood there without a
head, which had been blown off by a shell. It seemed some
awful form of field punishment, perhaps for men who had
tried to desert. Nearly 400 prisoners were taken altogether
that day.
They had fought bravely—once they had the pride of
Prussians. But now many of them were utterly broken,
and one officer, when he was questioned, could only wring
his hands and moan about the awful losses of his com-
pany.
THE LAST FIGHTS IN DEVIL'S WOOD 247
It was fighting which continued the tradition of Devil's
Wood—where horror and heroism have gone hand in hand.
3 SEPTEMBER 2
The enemy's attempt to recover some of his lost ground
around Delville Wood has been very costly to him, and has
only succeeded in two places in forcing our men back a little
way, in spite of the self-sacrifice of those German soldiers
who obeyed orders and came across a foul ground through
the curtain fire of our guns, and fell, as they knew they
must fall.
So we go back to Devil's Wood again, and the name of
its beastliness must be written down once more as a place
where more dead lie among those who have lain there long,
and where once more shell-fire is smashing through the
charred tree-stumps and biting great chunks of wood out of
sturdy old trunks still standing in this shambles.
It will be remembered, perhaps, how in the last big fight-
ing here more than a week ago our men thrust our lines
out beyond the wood, above the orchard trench of Longueval
and the sunken road to High Wood, and captured the en-
emy's last strong point in the north-east corner of the wood,
and chased the enemy out of a network of trenches zig-
zagging away from the wood towards Ginchy. Something
like 400 prisoners were taken then, and in knocking out ma-
chine-gun posts, in bombing the enemy out of Small re-
doubts, and sweeping across ground pitted with shell-craters
in which lay stubborn Germans sniping our men as they
passed, every quality of courage and the fighting spirit was
shown by our troops engaged.
It was good to get about beyond the Devil's Wood, and
our men redug their trenches outside it with a willing in-
dustry. Then by bad luck the rain came, and heavy clouds
gathered and broke, slashed by lightning, and flooded the
battlefields.
It was hard luck on newly-made trenches and on the
248 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
men who had dug them. I think it is difficult for people
at home to understand the meaning of big rain in this war
of ours; the very sandbags come slipping off the parapets,
and parapets come falling on to the firesteps, and rivers
come rushing down the boggy ditches.
Rifles drop and get caked with wet mud. Hand-grenades
disappear into the quagmire. To get supplies up narrow
ditches is tiring to the point of sheer exhaustion. So our
men were tired—“fed-up” with the weather, as they would
put it—when the enemy began to bombard them, not in the
usual way of a war-day's work, but furiously, with a storm
of hate.
For three hours the bombardment went on and increased
in violence. The front trenches had been lightly held, and
the men there held on until there were no trenches, but only
shell-craters and a wild upheaval of wet earth. The enemy
believed, perhaps, that they had finished all our life in those
muck-heaps.
German soldiers ordered to advance may, for a few
minutes, have bolstered up their courage by the thought
that their guns had done most of the work. Not longer than
that. When the first wave of the II8th German regiment
came out of their shell-craters and ditches they came full
into the face of a deadly machine-gun fire, and under a great
barrage of high explosives.
It was the fire of our machine-gunners which killed most
of them. They fell as if swept down by invisible scythes.
The Second wave came—not in a standing line, as people
may imagine, but in little bunches or groups, and singly,
stumbling in and out of shell-holes, in short rushes, leaping
to avoid shell-bursts, but not retreating one bit from the
death that waited for them. The second German wave was
wiped out.
A third, fourth and fifth wave advanced, and though
many of these men fell, and the waves became mingled and
confused in their tide, there were enough to reach the
place where our lines had been, and too many at the time for
THE LAST FIGHTS IN DEVIL’S WOOD 249
our men, who had been sorely tried, to dispute the foremost
shell-craters with them.
Our troops had to fall back in one or two places along
the fringe of Delville Wood and behind the line of the
sunken road westward. But the enemy did not gain the
ground round the wood. Even where he had damaged our
trenches most we held strong posts, machine-guns in con-
venient shell-holes, and small groups of brave fellows in
isolated bits of trench keeping their bombs and rifles dry.
During the night also our men bombed out parties of
Germans in a portion of the sunken road, and regained the
bit of ground for which the enemy had paid so high a price
in blood.
To-day there was a blue sky again over the battle-fields,
and the sunlight lay over the ghastly ruin of all those villages
and woodlands.
A great day for the gunners, O God! . . . They made the
most of it, and I watched the bombardment piling up the
columns of smoke and earth between Thiépval and High
Wood, and a fierce German barrage between Mametz Wood
and the Bazentins.
Heavy crumps were bursting also away back by Contal-
maison, and once the Virgin of Albert was hidden in a
smoke-cloud which rose from the ruins about it.
The sun gleamed on all our kite balloons hastening for-
ward in the blue to watch the enemy’s lines. They were
dazzling white, these “Ruperts” of the sky, and above and
about them flashed our battle-planes going over the enemy's
country.
Ceaselessly the infernal clangour of great guns banged
over the hills, and the shells went whining overhead. The
enemy was getting the worst of it, if I could judge from the
greater weight of our bombardment, but his guns were also
hard at work, at long range beyond Grandcourt and Flers.
He flung out a quantity of gas-shells—and the Sun shone
down upon all these little busy ways of men, and the fields
were flooded with a golden light.
XXVI
THE AUSTRALIANS AT MOUQUET FARM
I
SEPTEMBER 3
To-DAY, Sunday, September 3, many of our troops have
been engaged in hard fightng.
The main facts of these battles will be told officially be-
fore what I have to write is published—the capture of
Guillemont, the advance at least as far as half-way through
the village of Ginchy, the taking of ground eastwards be-
yond Mouquet Farm—and put even as briefly as that it will
be known by people at home that our men have again gone
forward in a great attack and fought tremendously.
Again all this countryside above the Somme has been
filled with those scenes of war which I have described so
often since that morning of July I, when we began the great
attack, pictures of a day of battle, when many troops are
engaged, and when the power of our artillery is concentrated
in a tremendous endeavour—stabs of fire from the muzzles
of many guns, Smoke-clouds rising above the ridges of the
hills and lying dense in the valleys, the bloody trail of the
walking wounded, groups of prisoners tramping down, am-
bulance convoys swirling through quiet lanes, bandaged
men in casualty-clearing stations or sitting in harvest-fields
behind the lines waiting for the Red Cross trains, guns
going up, ammunition columns crawling forward, transport,
mules, motor-cars, field-guns, troops—everywhere the move-
ment of a great day of war.
250
THE AUSTRALIANS AT MOUQUET FARM 251
2
Looking back on to-day's battle pictures two of them rise
before me now as I write, most vividly. One of them was
just a smoke picture as I stared down into the boiling
heart of its cauldron this morning. I was in an artillery
observation post, from which on ordinary days one may
see each shell burst above the ruins of Thiépval and the
ragged trees of its woods and the broken row of apple-trees,
and a charred stick or two of Mouquet Farm, and beyond,
very clearly on the ridge, the conical base of the windmill
above Pozières.
To-day one could see nothing of this. Nothing at all
but a hurly-burly of smoke, black rising in columns through
white, white floating through and above black, and all
moving and writhing. That was where our men were
fighting.
That was all the picture of this struggle, just smoke and
mist. Thousands of shells were bursting there, but one
could see no separate shell burst; no single human figure
dodging death or meeting it. So I stood and stared and
listened. It was like a world in conflict.
The noise of the guns was tense. The hammer-strokes of
each explosion met each other stroke, and gave out an enor-
mous clangour. Dante looking down into Inferno may
have seen something like this, and would not have heard
such a noise. It was most like the spirit of war of anything
I have seen, and I have seen men go forward and fall, and
watched their single adventures.
The other picture was more human and less frightful,
though sad and tragic and wonderful. It was a field behind
the battle lines, into which the “walking wounded” first came
down after their escape from those fires further up. It was
a harvest-field with rows of neat corn stooks near a wood in
heavy foliage, in spite of shells which came from time to
time to break the branches. Some wounded men lay about
952 'THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
on the stubble. Others came limping between the corn
stooks, with their arms about the necks of stronger com-
rades.
Horse ambulances halted by the side of the road, and
groups of Red Cross men ran forward and brought back
very slowly stretchers heavily laden with human bundles,
who were laid by the side of those who could sit up with
their backs to the wheatsheaves. Many of the men's faces
were caked with blood. There was every kind of wound
except the worst. But men with bandaged heads called out
to others who came with their arms in slings, and men gone
lame gossiped with men whose jackets had been cut away
at the shoulder—and I saw again the wonder that one
always sees after battle, which is the cheerfulness of men
who are not too far gone to hide their pain, the courage of
the British soldier, which is sublime.
There were a few men there from whom one's eyes played
the coward, but it was good to see the happiness of those
who had come out of the zone of death into this harvest-
field, where there was safety except for chance shells. Guns
were firing all round them. But they were our guns. These
men were the heroes of a great day of battle, and they had
been touched by fire, but had not been burnt in the furnaces
to which they had gone before the dawn. They had had
all the luck.
3
It is too soon to tell the story of this day. Our men are
still fighting as the sun goes down this evening with a red
glow in the sky after a sharp burst of rain. In those wet
and broken ditches, which we call trenches, north-east be-
yond Mouquet Farm, and on the right by Guillemont, the
enemy is still being routed out of shell-craters and trying to
rally to counter-attacks, and the German guns are flinging
out barrages to drive our men back if they can. At this
hour, when all is confused and uncertain except the main
THE AUSTRALIANS AT MOUQUET FARM 253
facts that we have taken Guillemont and part of Ginchy,
and far beyond Mouquet, with great news from the French
on Our right—the capture of Clery and 1500 prisoners—I
can give only a few glimpses of the incidents of all this
fighting.
On the left our attack was made on the German lines
north and south of the Ancre. Our troops went over their
parapets this morning almost before the first glimmer of
dawn had lightened the sky. They could only see the
ground immediately before them, and it was, of course,
pitted with shell-craters, old and new. The new craters had
just been made by our hurricane bombardment, which had
laid the enemy's parapets in shapeless ruin, killing a great
number of Germans in what had been their trenches. Their
light signals called to their gunners, and at the very instant
our men came into the open an accurate barrage swept our
lines. But the men were away, and as far as I heard from
them this morning, the line on the left did not suffer uncom-
monly in the scramble across No Man's Land.
A number of them forced their way into and through the
enemy's first and second lines, bayoneting the Germans who
tried to resist them, and clearing the ground of strong snip-
ers and machine-gunners. They fought—these English
country fellows—in heroic style to the south of the river.
The enemy's machine-gunners played an enfilade fire upon
the successful troops across the Ancre, and the enemy's ar-
tillery was able to concentrate on this ground. Ours held
on to the German second line against this overwhelming
fire with a most stubborn endurance, but afterwards when a
body of Prussians advanced to a counter-attack drew back
to get into line again with the men on their right, south of
the river.
“It was the shell-fire which made our position untenable,”
said one of the officers who had been fighting here. “But
in any case we put a large number of Boches out of action,
and that is always worth doing, and brings the end of the
war a little closer.”
254 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
4.
Much more lucky and valuable was the advance made by
Australian troops upon Mouquet Farm. These men knew
the ground intimately, and had already penetrated the ruins
of the farm by a strong patrol, which went in and out some
days ago, bringing back some prisoners, as I described at
the time. They were confident that they could do the same
thing again, though the site of the farm might be difficult
to hold against hostile fire. Our guns did not fail them this
morning. g
One of these clean-cut Australian boys with those fine,
steady, truth-telling eyes which look so straight at one even
after a nerve-breaking ordeal of fire, told me to-day that the
bombardment preceding their attack was the greatest thing
he has ever heard, though he has fought under many of
them hereabouts.
“Our shells rushed over us,” he said, “with a strange,
loud ringing noise which pierced one's ear-drums with a
violent vibration. It was just marvellous.” But the en-
emy's guns were powerful, too, and he replied tremendously
as soon as our own “lifted” and lengthened their fuses.
The way across No Man's Land, which was about 200
yards, I think, was a passage perilous. There was no level
ground anywhere, not a foot of it. It was all shell-holes.
Our men fell in and scrambled out and fell in again. Some
of the holes were full of water and mud, and men plunged
up to their armpits and were bogged.
There was nothing in the way of trenches to take. The
Germans were holding lines of shell-craters. In these deep
pits they had fixed their machine-guns, and were scattered
all about in isolated groups, with little stores of bombs,
and rifles kept dry, somehow. It was extraordinarily diffi-
cult to attack such a position because there was no definite
line.
The Australians found themselves sniped by machine-
THE AUSTRALIANS AT MOUQUET FARM 255
guns—horrible little spasms of bullets—from unknown
quarters, to the right and left, even behind them. By the
time the line of Mouquet Farm was reached the battle was
broken up into a number of separate encounters between
small parties of Australians and Small parties of Prussians.
There were bombing duels between one man and another
over a shell-hole. Prussians Sniped Australians and Aus-
tralians Prussians at short range from the cover of craters.
But in spite of all this hugger-mugger fighting the Aus-
tralians pushed forward, and advanced parties went into
Mouquet Farm and 200 yards beyond it on the other side.
Mouquet Farm—or “Moo-cow” and “Muckie” Farm, as it
is variously called—only exists as a name. Of the farm
buildings there is nothing left but some blackened beams
no higher than one of the Australian boys.
The enemy, however, had his usual dug-outs here, tun-
nelled deep and strongly protected with timbers and cement.
Into one of these went a group of Australians, ready for a
fight, and surprised to find the place empty of human life.
It was quiet there out of the shell-fire, and it was pleasant
to be in the cool dark room, away from the battle. The men
searched about and found cigars, which they lit and smoked.
“Good work!” said a boy.
As he spoke the words there was a scuttle of feet and
dark figures appeared in the entrance way. They were
Germans, and an officer among them said: “Surrender!”
“Surrender be damned l’ shouted the Australians. “Sur-
render yourselves.”
Bombs were flung on both sides, but other Australians
came up, and it was the Germans who surrendered. I saw
one of them to-day, sitting on the grass and smoking a pipe
among some of his comrades, who lay wounded among the
men who had helped to capture them.
Other dug-outs were being searched, and other prisoners
were taken—how many is still uncertain. But what is
quite certain is that the Australians have taken ground be-
yond Mouquet Farm to the east and defeated Germany's
256 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
best troops—the Ist regiment of the Prussian Guards re-
Serve.
They were sturdy and fine-looking men, as I saw some of
them to-day, and they did not hide their joy at being alive
and well treated as wounded prisoners. One of them spoke
quite freely, and answered all questions put to him, though
with what truth it is difficult to judge.
I think he told the truth, according to the knowledge that
had been given to him and the lessons taught him by his
war-lords. One of his most startling statements, which he
made quite definitely, is that the German Emperor has issued
a proclamation to his troops, declaring that there will be no
winter campaign.
With regard to the coming in of Rumania, he said that
it did not surprise them, as they had expected it for a long
time. “It will make no difference to the real war,” he said.
He disclaimed that there was any shortage of food in Ger-
many, and, as for the soldiers, said: “At least the Prussian
Guards feed well. I had two eggs for breakfast.”
“It is the same with all our men.” In the captured dis-
tricts of France the French people, he says, live on good
terms with the Prussian soldiers, but do not like the Bavari-
ans, who are rude fellows. “They were glad to see us back
from Russia,” he added.
They seem to have been brought back hurriedly from
Russia to resist our offensive, and one man to whom I
spoke a few words—a house painter in Berlin in days of
peace—told me that he had only been here in France since
the early days of July. He said that the war was far worse
in France than in Russia, because of the intensity of artil-
lery fire. “We are weary of it all,” he said. “Our people
are weary of it. The world is weary of it.”
“And you are glad to be out of it?” I asked.
He smiled, and said, “It is good to be here.”
The Australians were giving their tobacco to these men,
and there was no sign of hatred between them. It seems
that the Prussian Guard behaved well to-day with regard
THE AUSTRALIANS AT MOUQUET FARM 257
to the wounded and the stretcher-bearers. After the battle
the bearers went out all across No Man's Land to rescue the
wounded and we allowed the same privilege to the enemy,
So that parties of Germans and British came close to each
other in this work of rescue, and there was no sniping.
With regard to the Guillemont fighting, I can write very
little as the battle there began only at midday, and I could
not get in that direction. But I learn that in co-operation
with the French, who were advancing magnificently from the
South, and who had linked up with us near Angle Wood, our
troops fought their way forward from Arrow Head Copse
by way of a maze of little saps which had been dug all
about here. They went straight through Guillemont, knock-
ing out machine-gun posts and clearing out dug-outs, and
established themselves on the Sunken Road from Ginchy.
The Prussian Guard put up a big fight near Falfemont
Farm, but suffered great losses. The other German regi-
ments against us were the 73rd, 76th, and I64th.
Fighting still goes on, and the exact issue is uncertain, but
at the end of this Sunday the advantage of the day lies with
us, and the enemy has submitted to heavy blows.
XXVII
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT
I
SEPTEMBER 4
IN my despatch yesterday describing the very heavy fight-
ing at several parts of the line, I was unable to give suffi-
cient prominence to the greatest success of the day, and one
of the best achievements since the beginning of the Battle
Of the Somme.
That we hold Guillemont safely and surely I had the luck
to see for myself to-day when from neighbouring trenches
I looked into the ruin of the place—strangely quiet this
afternoon apart from a few German “crumps”—and saw
that our men were holding the Sunken Road 500 yards
further on before they made an attack which has given us
Wedge Wood and ground to the north of Falfemont Farm.
Yesterday's attack at midday was wonderfully good. Our
men went forward steadily in waves after a hurricane fire
from a great mass of British guns. By some curious chance
the enemy does not seem to have expected an attack at the
exact hour it happened. They may have thought that they
had baulked it by their own bombardment on our lines and
behind them when they flung Over IO,OOO gas shells, whose
poisonous vapour floated over the ground for hours. They
know now to their cost that they did not thwart the advance
of our troops.
The enemy's machine-guns swept the ground with a rush
of bullets, but our men took cover as much as possible in
the dips and hollows of the earth—chaotic after long weeks
of shelling—and came along quite quickly to the outskirts
258
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT 259
of the ruined village. A quarry there, in the centre of the
western edge, had been entered and held for a day to two by
British troops, but it was no longer in our hands, and had
to be retaken. On the edge of the village also, on the
western and southern sides, the Germans had built their
best dug-outs, months ago, before our guns concentrated
their fire here, so that they had plenty of time to build them
deep and build them strong, to panel them, and roof them
with concrete, and to furnish them comfortably, and to
decorate them with pictures from German newspapers and
postcards from home.
Our assaulting troops were in and about those dug-outs
in the first wave, and halted here to see that no enemies
should remain in hiding to attack them from the rear. Un-
derground there was not much fighting. A few proud men
refused to surrender, or did not surrender quickly enough.
Most of them gave themselves up easily and gave no trouble
in being marshalled back, so that something like 600 men
belonging to the finest German troops are now behind our
lines—out of it for good, and rejoicing in their luck of
life.
Half an hour afterwards, joined by supporting troops, the
British line advanced to the Sunken Road, where other Ger-
man soldiers were captured, and found here a fine defensive
position all ready for them, after a little work in reorganis-
ing the shelter.
From that point a number of men went forward again
to an attack on Falfemont Farm, but this was too far for
one day's work, and they were held on the outskirts of the
wood—poor wood of strafed trees'—by an immediate coun-
ter-attack from the Prussian Guard. For one of the rare
times in this war the Germans faced British bayonets, and
stood to their ground so stoutly that they were able to main-
tain their position.
So the battle ended yesterday with the capture of Guille-
mont, which was good enough, and our line strongly en-
trenched along the Sunken Road.
260 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
2
To-day I saw another attack upon Falfemont Farm and
our capture of the Wedge Wood. Everywhere along the
way which leads to the country between Hardecourt and
Maurepas there is a great desolation.
The Sunken Road led down from Guillemont to Wedge
Wood in the hollow. British soldiers held the Sunken
Road, Germans were in Wedge Wood.
Striking up from that small solitary copse of naked sticks
were two white chalky trenches in an obtuse angle with the
apex nearest to Wedge Wood and the broad base up the
sloping ground towards Leuze Wood on the ridge above.
And half way down the slope to the right of the triangle-
trenches, was Falfemont Farm, without a sign of a farm,
but marked by a number of tree stems stuck up like tele-
phone poles.
A little after three o'clock in the afternoon I saw our
men in the open. They came up suddenly, as though by a
spellword, along the line of the Sunken Road and south-
wards below Falfemont Farm, advancing northwards to
that place.
The men advanced in waves. I saw the left waves surg-
ing down into Wedge Wood. Some of them wavered a
little, then fell. Groups fell, not dead or wounded, but get-
ting below the stream of bullets yard-high over the ground.
The small copse was soon crowded with British soldiers.
They seemed to be in a kind of scrimmage, and out of the
middle of it came presently a compact little body of men.
“German prisoners, right enough—and well done!” said
an officer by my side.
I followed the advance of the southern waves towards
Falfemont Farm. They went on slowly and steadily, and
had a long way to go. It seemed to me a frightful long way.
But they crept up nearer and nearer to the edge of the bare
poles which were once a wood. Then some of them fell,
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT 261
and disappeared, into shell-craters and broken trenches.
New waves came up and disappeared also, as though lying,
or dead, in the tall thistles. After a little while I saw that
many of them had reappeared to the left. They were work-
ing up towards the German triangle-trenches on the slope
of the spur, striking down from Leuze Wood.
In a few minutes two figures appeared black against the
white chalk of the first trench, and presently they were lost
in it. But not for long. Groups of them were up again,
marshalling another group which seemed separated from
them and then moved back towards Wedge Wood. I
guessed they were more German prisoners, but could not see
the difference between grey and khaki.
“Hullo, they’ve got the second trench !” said another man
by my side.
It was some time after two, while I was watching the
confused groups of men, that strange things began to hap-
pen in the German lines. From Leuze Wood parties of men
came running down to Falfemont Farm.
“By the Lord!” said an officer. “A German counter-
attack. . . . Get it over the telephone, quick. A good tar-
get for the guns.”
It was a wonderful target. The Prussian Guardsmen
came forward, not in open order, but shoulder to shoulder.
They made a serpentine line across the ground, advancing
steadily and not slowly towards our troops. They looked
very tall men, and their figures were quite black against the
chalky earth. Then suddenly the right end of the line
crumbled away. Gaps opened in the thick bar of men. Our
machine-guns were raking them. I listened to the Swish-
swish of the fire, like a flame blown in the wind. Then, like
a row of ninepins on uneven ground, the Prussian Guards
all fell face forwards. The unwounded men had fallen with
the wounded to escape our bullets.
“Counter-attack repulsed l’’ said a voice near the tele-
phonist.
Twenty minutes later, if I remember accurately, another
262 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
German counter-attack was organised in exactly the same
way, by parties of men coming down from Leuze Wood.
But this was also broken up by our machine-gun fire.
3
SEPTEMBER 5
My last despatch describing the capture of Wedge Wood
and the attack on Falfemont Farm left off like a serial story
at a moment of exciting uncertainty. It was impossible for
me to tell whether our men had actually taken possession
of the farm—that plantation of “strafed” trees to the south
of Leuze Wood—and the meaning of all that coming and
going of groups and individuals to the west and north of
it, after the second German counter-attack had failed.
Now the tangled web of the plot—not spun by imagina-
tion but as real as death—is straightened out, and the end
of another grim little chapter of the war is the capture of
I,000 yards of the enemy's front, to the depth of I,500
yards, in and around Falfemont Farm, which is now held by
British troops.
It was great fighting which gained this ground, and the
men were their own generals. These West Country lads
were not moved like marionettes pulled by the strings from
headquarters. It was after the first orders had been given
a soldiers' battle, and its success was due to young Officers
and N.C.O.'s, and men using their own initiative, finding
another way round when one had failed, and arranging
their own tactics in face of the enemy to suit the situation
of the moment.
Such a thing has been done very rarely since the first days
of trench warfare, except in raids over No Man's Land and
bombing fights in such places as Ovillers and Longueval.
Here the individual craft of our men gained an important
position. When the attack on Falfemont Farm was checked
on the south by wicked machine-gun fire our troops worked
their way westwards, and joining other bodies of men ad-
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT 263
vancing from the Sunken Road beyond Guillemont, crept
round the slope of the ground that goes up to Leuze Wood.
Half way up, on the outer edge of the spur, were the two
V-shaped trenches which I saw taken by the first two waves,
immediately after the capture of Wedge Wood, in the hol-
low at the bottom of the Sunken Road, and these trenches
were used also as good cover for men inspired by a great
idea.
It was the idea of making a surprise rush into Leuze
Wood, from its western side, while the enemy's attention
was directed to the defence of Falfemont Farm, half-way
down the slopes to the south.
It was this surprise movement which caused all the con-
fusion which I saw yesterday among the enemy.
Splendid work was done by our men after dusk and
during the night, in spite of a deluge of rain, when the en-
emy's artillery fired most furiously. By dawn more troops
had joined those who held the spur and pushed on to the
north of Falfemont Farm, and others had got close to the
farm on the south and west by way of Wedge Wood.
Between the black posts which were once high living trees
about sixty Germans stayed on in their shell-craters and
broken dug-outs. When the final British rush came from
three sides they could do nothing but surrender or die.
Some of them died, and others lay wounded and uncon-
scious, but most of them put their hands up, and this after-
noon I saw some of the wounded Germans from Falfemont
lying side by side on stretchers with boys from the West
Country who had been hit in attacking them.
From first to last it was the work of infantry rather than
guns, and it was a great and terrible moment when the
Germans came out in their first counter-attack, in close
ranks, moving very steadily against our men, in a long,
black undulating wave over the rise and fall of the ground,
through the waist-high weeds; and then, again, after this
first advance had been broken by our machine-gun fire and
had fallen prone into the tall thistles so that no more of
264 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
them was to be seen, when another body of big Germans
came out, crouching for the last rush upon our lines, and
our men fell back a little, and opened out, so that the ma-
chine-guns had a clear field upon which to play their hose
of bullets.
For a little while at least it was fighting without the
usual massacre of shell-fire from long-range guns which an-
nihilate the human element as well as the bodies of men.
Here at least, in spite of the machine-guns, men looked into
each other's eyes and were killed advancing in the sight of
their enemies, which seems to me better and less frightful
than when men go forward and see nothing and are swal-
lowed up in a great explosion directed from machines six
miles away.
The gun-fire was intense afterwards, and men, and masses
of men, were swallowed up as usual by its high-explosives,
but for a couple of hours it was more like old-fashioned
fighting, damnable enough, God knows, but not so utterly
inhuman.
4.
It is not sufficiently realised, I believe, how very im-
portant has been the gain to us of the last two days of bat-
tle. The capture of Guillemont and of the ground beyond
it has given us now the whole of the German second line,
which we broke in parts on the great day of July 14.
Since then our men have had an uphill fight all the time, a
long struggle upwards to seize the high ridge from Pozières
eastwards, and to hold it. It has been difficult to take and
difficult to hold. The cost has not been light. The heroism
shown on those slopes, in those woods, in the assault on the
high trenches, has been the most wonderful ever shown by
British soldiers in continuous endeavour.
Now we have gained the crest of the ridge, and even if
our offensive were brought to a dead halt to-day, which it
will not be, the position of our men for the winter would be
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT 265
enormously superior over that of the enemy on the other
side of the water-shed. Again, the taking of Guillemont
and the ground by Ginchy has defended our right flank and
straightened out an awkward salient.
With Ginchy in our hands on one side and Thiépval on
the other, we should be well placed, and there would be a
great gain for all the sacrifice our men have made in fighting
forward so hard, and So far, and with such exalted courage.
5
SEPTEMBER 5
The taking of Guillemont, the quick progress to the Sunk-
en Road beyond, the capture of Falfemont Farm, the
thrust forward, by great daring, into Leuze Wood, the close
assault on Ginchy, and the splendid advance of the French
on our right, have given to this part of the battleline an
atmosphere of exultation, which our troops have not felt
so strongly since that day of July 14 when we broke the
second German line at Longueval. Men are fighting here-
abouts with a sense of victory which is half the battle. They
feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have the German on the
run at last, and that by getting hard on to him, taking all
risks, they will keep him running.
The rapid and far progress of the French is helping our
own men, not only in a military way by “keeping the Boche
busy,” as they put it, but as a moral tonic, showing that the
German strength of resistance has begun to crack. The
noise of the French guns is wonderful music to British sol-
diers going forward to their own part of the battlefields,
and, by Jove! it is astounding in its uproar, as I heard it
to-day again on our right, away down to the gates of Pe-
ronne in a great roll of drum-fire for miles. It is one cease-
less tattoo of “soizante-quinzes” and of heavier guns, like
a titanic hammering of anvils in the Smithies of the gods or
devils.
“Hark at them | They seem to be getting on with it all
266 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
right,” said an English officer to-day, and listening for a
moment to the great sweep of the artillery battle—for our
own guns were firing steadily and tremendously—he added
that “the enemy is having a really thin time. We are
getting on top at last.”
It is this sense of “getting on top” that is inspiring our
men to fight to the last ounce of strength on this right wing
of our attack, up to Ginchy and beyond Guillemont. It is
literally as well as morally a desire to get on top, up the
hill to the crest of the ridge, to the last vantage point of the
enemy, and it is to push him off and over that high point
that our men have been fighting uphill with a really pas-
sionate endeavour.
They got all round the place a few days ago after hard,
bloody fighting. They held on under great shell-fire and
machine-gun fire, and many men took the last hazard in
trying to force their way into the stronghold where the
enemy is entrenched and covered with well-placed machine-
guns. Some of them went in, and stayed in. No message
has come back from them, but it is quite likely that they are
still there as a living wedge in the enemy's gates.
One party, thirty strong, fought their way along a sap
to the north of the village and established a bombing post
which they held against all odds. Their rations gave out,
but they would not go. They had no water, and suffered
horribly from thirst, but not a man would go. Their am-
munition was nearly spent, but they waited for new sup-
plies, if they should have the luck to get them. A sergeant
came back to the front trench with this tale of stubborn
courage, and a request for food and water and bombs so
that the thirty might still “carry on.” That is the spirit
with which our men are fighting, and One marvels at them.
The enemy has suffered heavily against these assaults, and
our shell-fire has massacred many of his troops. A German
officer brought back from the outskirts of Ginchy yesterday
was asked what casualties he had in his company. He said,
“Oh, a few, not many.” He turned away and tried to de-
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT 267
stroy a scrap of paper in his hand, but was not quick enough.
It was a message calling urgently for rescue and saying
that his men were unable to hold out any longer, as there
were only twenty of them left out of the full strength of
his company.
To-day other British troops have forced their way into
the stronghold, but as yet it is too soon to know whether
they can maintain their position. The enemy is fighting
bravely, but however long his resistance may be, I have no
doubt that Ginchy will be added to the list of all those
strongholds which have fallen one after another under our
repeated assaults. For Ginchy must be ours to give us the
end of the ridge and to link up the line with Leuze Wood,
where at present our men are exposed to flanking attacks.
6
The difficulty of all this close and open fighting, where
bodies of British troops press on to the very edge of the
enemy’s ditches, and where bodies of Germans hold bits of
roadway or bits of trench in isolated positions, is that the
guns on both sides cannot concentrate a heavy barrage with-
out killing their own men. In this kind of situation the
German gunners are ruthless, but sometimes that method
does not pay.
In spite of all their skill—for they are good gunners, these
Germans—they were scared enough to withdraw their field
batteries to a safer distance before our final attack on Guille-
mont last Sunday. Some of our officers fighting here told
me that there were very few “whizz-bangs” about that day,
and it was all shell fire from heavy long-range guns.
Before our attack they opened an intense bombardment
upon Trones Wood. It smashed in steady lines of shells—
the great “five-point-nines”—right through the wood, and
was maintained mercilessly for many hours. Some of our
men behind the front lines had escapes from death which
268 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
seem like miracles. One young officer I know received an
invitation to tea at a dug-out a few hundred yards, I reckon,
from his own hole in the earth where he lay with two com-
rades. It was a pleasant and friendly idea, that cup of tea,
but he decided against it when he heard the awful crash
of shells outside.
Later a message came that he must go on a matter of
business. It was his duty to go, and so he went as fast as
possible. A moment or two after reaching the other dug-out
there was the tinkle of a telephone bell, and he heard that
both his comrades had been killed by the direct hit of a
five-point-nine. He went back with a soldier to see if there
was any hope for his friends—one of them might be
wounded only—and as he went a shell exploded a yard or
two away, the man by his side was killed, and his shoulder
was splashed with the man's blood, but he was left un-
scathed.
Our bombardment before the attack on Guillemont was
more effective. There were not many Germans here or in
the Sunken Road, or higher up in the trenches by Ginchy,
who had miraculous escapes. They were killed in masses.
A great number of dead were found by our men outside
Guillemont in the Sunken Road, which was the German
third line of defence there. They were a frightful sight,
as many of them were quite naked, all their clothes having
been stripped off by the blasting force of high explosives.
Some men, untouched by fragments of shell, were killed by
the enormous concussion of air or by heart shock, and there
was one dead man kneeling, and still grasping his rifle with
fixed bayonet.
The successful attack on Guillemont was due to the effect
of our shell-fire on the garrison. When the infantry ad-
vanced they met with but little hostile machine-gun fire.
Most of the Germans were dazed and done. They had no
alertness left in them to bring up their weapons and resist
the attack. Even many of the dug-outs were blown in. A
sergeant of one of the companies who came up in support—
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT 269
one of those splendid N.C.O.'s to whom the steadiness of
our troops is largely due—told me to-day that he went into
one deep dug-out where forty men were lying. Only three
were alive, and of those two were badly wounded. In other
dug-outs there were many dead.
This was in the Sunken Road, where afterwards our men
“organised” the bank, digging themselves in so as to get
cover from the heavy barrage flung upon them by the
German artillery after the capture of the position. A lance-
corporal was killed here by the side of my sergeant friend,
who buried him where he fell. And another shell killed six
men in a heap just as these troops were relieved and went
back for a little while into the support lines. They, too,
were buried by another lance-corporal who volunteered to go
back for the purpose, and went under heavy shell-fire to do
this last service to good comrades.
Lord! how many stories of this kind I have told ! The
spirit of our men in these hideous places and in these fright-
ful hours is always the same, indomitable and unbroken by
the worst ordeals.
7
SEPTEMBER 9
The first mention that the Irish troops were fighting at
Guillemont has been made officially, and it is now possible
for me to write about them in more detail. Their charge
through Guillemont last Sunday, with English battalions of
riflemen on their right, was one of the most astonishing
feats in the war, almost too fast in its impetuosity. They
went forward with their pipes playing them on, in a wild
and irresistible assault.
If there had been three times the number of enemy
against them they would not have been checked until they
had carried the northern part of the ruined waste that was
once a village. The English troops who fought with them
tell me that they have never seen anything like the way in
270 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
which these Irishmen dashed ahead. “It was like a human
avalanche,” said one of them.
The officers cheered their men on as they came alongside.
One of their commanding officers, following the last across,
picked up pieces of chalk and threw them after his men,
shouting good luck to them. They stormed the first, sec-
ond and third German lines through the upper part of the
village, Sweeping all resistance away, and not stopping to
take breath. They were men uplifted, out of themselves,
“fey,” as the Scots would call it.
Death had no terror for them, nor all the dead men who
lay in their way. After months of dull and dogged fight-
ing in the trenches, where they were restless in their ditches,
they were excited at getting out into the open and meeting
the enemy face to face. It was not good to be a German
in their way.
The only fault with this fighting at Guillemont was the
rapidity of pace, which gave them no time to safeguard
the ground behind them. But that was a fault due to the
splendour of their gallantry, and no harm came from it.
The English riflemen who fought on their right had more
solidity in their way of going about the business, but they
were so inspired by the sight of the Irish dash and by the
sound of the Irish pipes that those who were in support,
under orders to stand and hold the first German line, could
hardly be restrained from following on.
“I nearly blew my teeth out of my head, in whistling 'em
back,” said an English sergeant. But discipline prevailed.
The whole attack from first to last was a model of effi-
ciency, organisation and courage. All the qualities that go
to the making of victory were here, fitting in with each
other, balancing each other, making a terrific weapon driven
by a high spirit. The artillery was in perfect union with
the infantry—the most difficult thing in war—the brigadiers
and the officers carried out the general plan to the letter, and
the men—it is impossible to overpraise the men, who were
wonderful in courage and wonderful in discipline.
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT 271
8
As far as the English battalions were concerned they were
recruited since the first phase of the war, but as one of
their officers—once of the Guards—told me yesterday, there
are no regular soldiers, no soldiers of any army in the
world, who could have attacked in a finer and more dis-
ciplined way than these young riflemen, as cold as ice in
self-control, but on fire with the resolve to win. The first
rush of Irish on the left went over, as I have said, playing
their pipes—old songs of victory which could be heard
through the Swish of machine-gun bullets and the crash
of the German crumps.
The assaulting troops on the right went more quietly,
and at the first short halt to wait for the barrage of our
guns, which was smashing ahead of them, lit their cigarettes,
and then went on again with their rifles slung, as though
marching on a field day.
“Where's that village we’ve got to take?” they shouted,
staring at a choppy sea of shell-craters, where there was
hardly a stick or a stone.
I have already described the assault on the first lines,
where our men found many German dead. But strange
things happened between the first and second lines. The
Irish on the left, who had gone so quickly forward in their
great “hooroosh,” had failed to clear up all the dug-outs as
they went.
Some of the Germans there climbed out and began snip-
ing in the rear. It was a dangerous menace, but with quick
judgment the colonel of an English battalion on the right
diverted five of his platoons to that direction, and they
searched all the dug-outs and broke up the enemy's attempt
to rally.
One dug-out near the quarry at the central entrance of
Guillemont was discovered by a young gunner officer, who
had come down behind the advancing infantry “just to look
272 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
round,” as he puts it, after he had done his work with some
sixty pounder plum-pudding bombs from a neighbouring
position. With him were his corporal and one or two other
men of the trench-mortar battery.
In looking round he discovered a slit in the rock, which
seemed to lead down into an underground chamber, and
having explored it came down into a deep place where
twenty German soldiers and one officer were hiding. It was
a surprise, but he held his revolver ready and said “Hands
up!” They surrendered quietly, clicking their heels together
and saluting, after they had been searched for arms, and the
officer, who was a polite fellow, offered the corporal a valu-
able gold watch as a souvenir of the occasion.
That was one little adventure on the edge of things.
Further forward each man was in the middle of a great
adventure, gruesome and full of peril. An enveloping
movement was being made by English troops to the south-
west of the village, on the choppy ground on which Guille-
mont once stood, and it was here that most opposition was
encountered, between two sunken roads. In the second
sunken road, where the enemy had a row of strong dug-outs,
the ground was thick with huddled dead.
But from the dug-outs a large number of living men
who climbed on to the parapet in front of them maintained
a fusillade of rifle fire and bombs. In the ground between
the two sunken roads men climbed halfway out of shell-
craters and sniped our men as they came forward. At the
same time machine-gun fire was coming down from Ginchy
and up from Falfemont Farm. It was difficult ground to
cover, but our riflemen ignored the bullets and the bombs
and went straight forward, halting only to fire, and then
going on again, and firing again, as though on manoeuvres.
Some Lewis gunners ran forward and played a hose of
bullets upon the enemy's parapet, so that the men dropped.
Some of our own men had fallen, too, but the wounded
crawled into shell-holes to get out of the way, and shouted
| THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT 273
“Go on, boys!” or just crawled in silently and uncomplain-
ingly, not asking for help however bad their wounds.
Then the Germans started running and our men went
after them. One fellow flung off his pack and chased one
of them until he had him by the neck. A German officer
who surrendered threw up his hands and said, “If you run
like that you’ll be in Berlin before we're in England.”
There were I 50 dead in one part of the sunken road and
the dug-outs were crowded. Into one of them a smoke
bomb was thrown to tease the men out, but they would not
come. Then a Mills bomb was flung in as a stronger
argument, but before it exploded it was flung back again.
After that the Germans retreated through a tunnel and
ran out at another entrance, where they were taken prisoner.
Twenty-five of them were put into a shell-crater under
guard of one little rifleman, who strutted up and down in
a German helmet with his bayonet high above his head and
a pride twice as high as his bayonet.
In one dug-out, as I wrote in my first narrative, there
were forty-one bodies, of whom only three were alive, and
those were weeping. All the prisoners, of whom there were
about 600, were in a pitiful condition, as our artillery fire
had prevented them from getting any rations for three days.
Their spirit was broken and they were trembling with fear.
9
In our dug-outs further back were three officers, one of
whom, a young captain, was clearly in command of the
whole garrison of Guillemont, and afterwards, when we
passed the prisoners' cage behind the lines, all the men
sprang up and saluted him with profound respect. He was
the only man who maintained a proud indifference at the
moment of capture. He stood very straight and still, as
though not caring whether he lived or died. The two
officers with him clung about the necks of our own officers
274 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
crying for mercy. In another place an officer fell down on
his knees with his hands in an attitude of prayer and his
head bowed, and one man pulled out a photograph of his
wife and children, holding that out as his strongest plea
for life. Our men had no thought to take their lives. As
one of the sergeants said to me, “As soon as a man sur-
renders it's an end of the fight, and I’m sorry for him.”
It was hard for some of our men to be sorry for the
enemy in those wild moments about the dug-outs, for some
of them flung bombs until the last yard had been covered by
our troops, then disappeared into their holes and came up
further away with an air of innocence and meekness. In
one or two bad cases of fighting after a sign of surrender
it was the authority of the British officers which saved the
lives of German soldiers standing by. +.
But on the whole the prisoners were well behaved and
very glad to get away from the horror of Guillemont, grate-
ful for being given the chance of life. One sergeant of ours,
hit in the hip by a piece of shell, captured four men without
help, and then ordered them to carry him back on a stretcher
to the dressing station, where he arrived, smoking a cigar-
ette, with his prisoner stretcher-bearers.
Words can convey very little of all those scenes in Guille-
mont—the isolated fights, the storming of dug-outs, the
searching of prisoners, the crowds of British soldiers mov-
ing forward to new lines behind our terrific curtain fire, the
Lewis gunners rushing through with their machine-guns to
take up positions at advanced points, the supporting and
consolidating troops coming up behind the assaulting troops,
starting to dig as soon as the ground had been gained, the
stretcher-bearers rummaging about among the shell craters
for stricken men, the walking wounded making their way
back across the rough ground, dazed, and sometimes falling
not to rise again, the cheers of men taking the last sunken
road to the east of Guillemont, where they consolidated a
defensive position for the night, the wild music of the Irish
pipers, the crash of German shells, the high whine of Ger-
THE CAPTURE OF GUILLEMONT 275
man shrapnel, the long rush of our heavies passing over-
head to “Lousy” Wood, and, in the midst of all this tumult,
the quiet dead.
IO
In quiet heroism, of the suffering and not of the fighting
kind, it seems to me that the finest thing was done by a
wounded man. That at least is the opinion of a command-
ing officer who met him on his way. His face had been
terribly smashed by a piece of shell, but he waved back the
stretcher-bearers with a sign that others needed carrying
more than he did. Then, a solitary and ghastly figure, he
walked back to the dressing-station, and laid himself down.
Of the German garrison of 2,000 men hardly one, if any
one, escaped. The figure has been accounted for in dead,
wounded and prisoners. Two German battalions have thus
been wiped out. Among them were men who wear the
word “Gibraltar” on their shoulder straps, belonging to the
famous Hanoverian regiment which fought side by side with
us on the Rock in the eighteenth century.
It was after the battle that our men suffered most, for
during the next forty-eight hours there were violent storms,
which filled the shell-craters with water so that men were
up to their shoulders in it. But they had dug magnificently
before the rain came, under the inspiration of a splendid
colonel, who cried “Dig, dig, for God’s sake! Dig, my
lads!” knowing that he would save their lives by every foot
of earth turned up by the German shovels they used for the
work. In three hours they had dug an eight-foot trench
in the village.
So Guillemont was taken and held, not only by great gun-
fire but by men inspired with some spirit beyond their ordi-
nary courage, and one day these troops will carry the name
upon their colours, so that the world may remember.
XXVIII
THE IRISH AT GINCHY
I
SEPTEMBER Io
THE capture of Ginchy by the Irish Brigades should be told
not in journalist's prose but in heroic verse. Poor Ireland
will weep tears over it, for many of her sons have fallen, but
there will be pride also in the heart of the Irish people, be-
cause these men of Munster, Dublin, and Connaught, and of
all parts of the west and the south, have done such splendid
things in courage and endurance, adding a very noble epi-
sode to the history of the Celtic race.
When they came out of the battle this morning they were
weary and spent, and they had left many good comrades
behind them, but the spirit of the war sustained them, and
they came marching steadily with their heads held high. It
was one of the most moving things I have ever seen in this
War.
A great painter would have found here a subject to thrill
his soul, that long trail of Irish regiments, horribly reduced
by their losses, and with but few officers to lead them, com-
ing across a stretch of barren country strewn with the
wreckage of two years' bombardment, and crowded with the
turmoil of the present fighting.
Behind them arose the black curtain of smoke across the
battlefields through which there came the enormous noise of
the unending gun-fire, and around them were some of our
own batteries hard at work with great hammer-strokes as
their shells went on their way to the enemy's lines, but ahead
of them walked one Irish piper playing them home to the
276
THE IRISH AT GINCHY 277
harvest-fields of peace with a lament for those who will
never come back.
2
A brigadier came riding over the fields to meet them. It
was the first time he had seen them together since the early
dawn of to-day, when they were still fighting beyond the
ruins of Ginchy, which they had won by a great assault.
He stood, a solitary figure by the side of the track down
which his men came, and there was a great tenderness in the
eyes of this brigadier as he watched them pass, and called
out to them words of thanks, and words of good cheer,
and turned to me now and then to say how splendid they
had been.
“Eyes right!” shouted the officers or sergeants who were
leading their companies, and the general said, “Carry on,
there,” and “Well done—you did gloriously.” “Bravo,
Dublins! . . . You did well, damned well, Munsters, my
lads !”
The men's eyes brightened at the sight of him; and they
Squared up, and grinned under German caps and German
helmets.
“Hullo, Greene !” called out the brigadier to a very tall
fellow tramping in the outside file. “Glad to see you're all
right. And a big target, too!”
The music of the Irish pipes went calling down to the
valley, and I watched the men out of sight with something
stirring at my heart. Earlier in the morning, before they
had formed up, I had been among them and had heard many
stories of great adventure and of great courage, told some-
times with an Irish humour that finds a whimsicality even
in the most awful moments, and sometimes with the sad-
ness of men who mourn for their friends, but wonderfully
untouched by the fearful strain of it all and with a grim joy
in their victory.
Some of them had been in Gallipoli, and one sergeant of
278 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
the Munsters told me that the taking of Ginchy was the
“hottest” thing he had seen since the landing on August 21
at Suvla Bay. There were two men in his regiment who
had fought all through from Mons, and had escaped from
the hell of the Dardanelles, but had fallen now, at last, on
the way up from Guillemont. He and other men of the old
Regulars spoke of the regiments of the New Army who
had fought with them to-day.
“They were just great. The Irish Rifles went through
like a whirlwind. There was no stopping them. When
the Germans ran you couldn’t see them for dust.”
2
The story of the Irish Brigades does not begin at Ginchy.
It begins last Sunday, a week ago, at Guillemont, when
one brigade, as I have already described in an earlier
despatch, went through the northern part of that village in
one fierce assault which would not be checked. After that
(as well as before) they lay under heavy shell-fire, without
sleep and without hot food or much water, until the new
attack, when they were on the right of the assault.
The brigade on the left, which had the greatest triumph
yesterday, was lying out in connected shell-craters (the old
kind of trench, neatly revetted, with strong traverses and
cosy dug-outs, does not exist in this part of the battle-line).
For five days they held on stubbornly under ceaseless shell-
fire. When the hour of “Zero” came for the attack they
were not broken in spirit, as weaker men would have been
after all this trial, but eager to get out and get on—“to get
some of their own back.”
The Germans in Ginchy would have had more terror in
their hearts if they had known the character of the men
who were about to storm their stronghold. They would
have prayed to God to save them from the Irish. As it
was, these German soldiers were not feeling safe. They
THE IRISH AT GINCHY 279
were new men just sent up to the line, and conscious of a
frightful menace about them. They belonged to the 185th
Division, the 19th Bavarian Division, and the machine-gun
company of the 88th Division. They crouched down in a
network of dug-outs and tunnels under the ruins of the
village expecting attack, and determined, as we know now,
to sell their lives dearly. They were brave men.
3
The attack began yesterday afternoon shortly before five
o'clock after a heavy bombardment. The Irish sprang up
and went forward cheering. They shouted “Go on, Mun-
sters!” “Go on, Dublins !” and old Celtic cries. “Now then,
Irish Rifles!” Our shell-fire crept up in front of them.
They went from the south in four waves in open order,
with about 50 yards between each wave, and on the left
the troops reached their first halting place in the village,
right across the first German trenches and dug-outs, in eight
minutes after starting time—a distance of 600 yards, which
is a wonderful record.
On the right the Irish were checked by three machine-
guns well placed for very deadly work and sweeping the
ground with waves of bullets. Many poor fellows dropped.
Others fell deliberately with their faces to the earth so that
the bullets might skim above their prone bodies. At the
same time the Irish officers and men were being sniped by
German marksmen who had crept out into shell-craters. It
was a serious situation here unless the machine-guns could
be “killed.”
A brilliant little piece of tactics was done by the troops
on the left of the right wing, who swung round and attacked
the machine-gun position from the west and north, in an
encircling movement so that the German teams had to run
out of the loop with their weapons to some broken trenches
300 yards away, where they again fired until knocked out
280 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
by some trench mortars attached to one of the Irish bat-
talions. This enabled the right wing to advance and join
the left, and they then advanced together through the vil-
lage, with the Irish Rifles remaining to hold the captured
ground, and the Dublins charging ahead.
In the centre of the village among all the dug-outs and
tunnels was the ruin of an old farm in which the enemy had
another machine-gun which they served with bursts of fire.
Again our trench mortar men saved the situation. They
came on with the infantry, and ranged their little engines
on to the farm, aiming with such skill that the hostile ma-
chine-gun was put out of action by a short storm of high
explosives.
The men were still suffering from snipers and ordinary
riflemen hidden in all kinds of places in the northern half of
the village, where there were concreted and tunnelled cham-
bers with loop-holes level with the ground, through which
they shot. The Irish were reckless of all this and swept
over the place fiercely, searching out their enemies. In shell-
craters and bits of upheaved earth and down in the dug-
outs there was hand-to-hand fighting of the grimmest kind.
The Bavarians struggled savagely, using bombs and rifles,
and fighting even with the bayonet until they were killed
with the same weapon.
It was all very quick. Within ten minutes of reaching
the line half-way through the village the leading Dublins
had got to the northern end of it and sent out advanced
parties 200 yards beyond. But there was one menace,
which might have led to disaster but for quick wit and
fighting genius.
The Irish had expected that their left flank would be sup-
ported by other troops attacking between Ginchy and Del-
ville Wood, but owing to the difficulty of the ground in
that neighbourhood and the rapidity of the Irish advance
this had not been possible, and the victors of Ginchy found
themselves with an exposed flank to the north-west of the
village. A young sapper officer from Dublin realised the
THE IRISH AT GINCHY 281
situation, and taking command of a body of men dug a
defensive flank and established strong posts as a protection
against a counter-attack. The situation on the extreme
right was for some time equally perilous, as the troops
engaged in an enterprise on that side had not yet made good
their ground, and the splendid achievement of the Irish
Brigade, from a military point of view, is their success—
quite astoundingly good—of taking a hostile front of 900
yards to the depth of nearly a mile with no supporting
troops on either flank.
4
From a non-military, untechnical, human point of view
the greatness of the capture of Ginchy is just in the valour
of those Irish boys who were not cowed by that sight of
death very close to them and all about them, and who went
straight on to the winning-posts like Irish racehorses. The
men who were ordered to stay in the village almost wept
with rage because they could not join in the next assault.
“We would have gone on into the blue,” said one of them,
“except for all this confounded diplomacy.” Diplomacy is
a fine word for the simple law of safeguarding the captured
ground; but you see the spirit which used it. It was the
same spirit which caused the temporary desertion of three
Irish servants on the Brigade Staff. One of them left a
note yesterday morning on his master's table: “As I could
not be at Guillemont I am going to Ginchy. I hope to be
back again, so please excuse.”
Fine and wonderful men'ſ There was a Sinn Feiner
among them, with all the passion of his political creed and
“a splendid soldier,” said one of his officers, who is an
Englishman. Nationalists and Catholics, Irish to the bone,
with every tradition of their race in their blood and spirit,
they fought yesterday and in the dawn of to-day with-
out any thought of grievance or any memory of hatred,
282 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
except against the enemy whom they call “jerry,” instead of
Fritz.
In fair fight they were relentless, but they were kind to
their prisoners. It is queer how hatred and kindness alter-
nate in these men. One man told me the strangest tale with
absolute truth, I am sure, because of his fine, steady eyes.
He captured a big Saxon in a shell-hole the night before the
attack. The man was wounded in the leg and back, but
held a revolver, and was not too ill to fight. But he had
no fight left in him when the Irishman jumped down to him.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asked, in good English.
“Sure, no,” said the Irishman. “But just put away that
pistol, won't you?” Then the Irish sergeant undid his own
field dressing and bound up the man's leg and back (it was
all under the loud whistling of shells), and said, “Now get
along with you back to your own lines, for faith I don't
mean any harm to you.”
So away went the German into Ginchy, and afterwards,
no doubt, wished he hadn’t.
A tall Irishman, describing the great charge to me, said:
“The small, little men went over with the greatest pluck, sir,
so that it was a real pleasure to see. And the Jerry boys
ran that fast the dust was in their throats, it was.”
‘How did you get that Boche cap?” one man asked an-
other. “Did you kill your man?”
“Did I kill him? . . . I brought down fourteen prisoners
all by myself, I did, and if you don't believe it, here's my
receipt for the same.”
He held out a slip of paper, and there sure enough was
the officer's receipt for the fourteen men.
One German climbed up a tree during the attack. He had
a white cap-band and a white ribbon on his shoulder, and
seemed to be signalling.
“Now, come down, Jerry,” shouted five Irishmen in a
chorus. “If you don't come down we'll shoot you, we will.”
The man would not come down.
“And sure we shot him,” was the end of the story.
THE IRISH AT GINCHY 283
The honours of the day are with the Irish, and these
gallant men hope—they spoke about it, pleadingly—that
their losses will be filled up by Irishmen, so that the spirit
of their regiments may be kept.
XXIX
THE COMING OF THE TANKS
I
SEPTEMBER 16
ANOTHER day of great remembrance has been given to our
history by British troops, September the Fifteenth, that
will not quickly pass out of the memory of our people, for
on that day, which was yesterday, our soldiers broke
through the enemy's third line of defence and went out into
open country, and gave staggering blows to that German
war-machine which for two years, all but two months,
seemed unbreakably strong against us.
It was a day of good success, yesterday. It was no longer
a promise of future victory, dependent upon all the flukes
and chances of war, with their awful hazards, but, for one
day at least, not looking further, the real thing.
Our men had the taste of victory, and it was like a strong
drug to their hearts, so that they laughed even while blood
was streaming down their faces, and said: “It’s wonder-
ful!” when they came limping off the battlefields with
wounds on fire, and said: “We made 'em run like rabbits!”
when they lay on stretchers and could not move without a
groan.
And it was wonderful indeed. For this day of victory
came after two and a half months of continued and most
bloody fighting. This new British Army of ours had not
had an easy walk through after its time of preparation and
training in the dirty ditches of the old trench warfare.
The task that was set to our soldiers yesterday would
have been formidable on the first day of a great offensive.
284
THE COMING OF THE TANKS 285
Coming after two and a half months, it was startling in its
boldness, and showed that our generals had supreme con-
fidence in the men, in their own powers of organisation, and
in the luck of battle that comes to those who have worked
for it. The enemy believed that our offensive had petered
out. There is much evidence for that.
They did not believe it possible that an army of our size
and strength could carry on the attack at the same fierce
pace. They cherished the hope that our divisions were
broken and spent, that our stores of ammunition were giv-
ing out, and that our men were overtired.
They still had faith in their own gun-power, the defensive
strength of a thousand guns against the British front, and
it was a reasonable faith. They had been digging furiously
on dark nights to strengthen the third line of defence—the
famous Flers line, which was, they thought, to be the
boundary of our advancing tide, and though they were
anxious, and were counting up frightful losses on the
Somme, they did not expect this last disaster to them.
Yesterday I saw their prisoners coming off the battlefields
in droves, and to-day hundreds of them in the barbed-wire
cages behind the lines. They were dazed men, filled with
gloom, and tortured by a great bewilderment.
“It is your victory,” said one of their officers, speaking
to me in French. “It is our defeat. I cannot under-
stand.”
“Germany is kaput,” said one of their non-commissioned
officers. He meant that Germany is down—“in the soup,”
as our soldiers would say. It was an exaggeration, for
Germany has still a lot of fight left in her, but it was the
belief of her beaten soldiers yesterday.
Our men were exalted—excited by the smell of victory,
exaggerating also our own gains gloriously in the belief that
the “last great smash had been made, and that the end of
this foul and filthy war is at hand.” They “went over” at
dawn yesterday filled with the spirit of victory, and it was
half the battle won.
286 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
2
Many of them went over, too, in the greatest good-
humour, laughing as they ran. Like children whose fancy
has been inflamed by some new toy, they were enormously
cheered by a new weapon which was to be tried with them
for the first time—“the heavily armoured car” mentioned
already in the official bulletin.
That description is a dull one compared with all the rich
and rare qualities which belong to these extraordinary ve-
hicles. The secret of them was kept for months jealously
and nobly. It was only a few days ago that it was whis-
pered to me.
“Like prehistoric monsters. You know, the old Ichthyo-
saurus,” said the officer.
I told him he was pulling my leg.
“But it’s a fact, man!”
He breathed hard, and laughed in a queer way at some
enormous comicality.
“They eat up houses and put the refuse under their
bellies. Walk right over 'em!”
I knew this man was a truthful and simple soul, and yet
could not believe.
“They knock down trees like matchsticks,” he said, star-
ing at me with shining eyes. “They go clean through a
wood ſ”
“And anything else?” I asked, enjoying what I thought
was a new sense of humour.
“Everything else,” he said earnestly. “They take ditches
like kangaroos. They simply love shell-craters! Laugh at
'em p.
It appeared, also, that they were proof against rifle bul-
lets, machine-gun bullets, bombs, shell-splinters. Just
shrugged their shoulders and passed on. Nothing but a
direct hit from a fair-sized shell could do them any harm.
“But what’s the name of these mythical monsters?” I
asked, not believing a word of it.
THE COMING OF THE TANKS 287
He said “Hush ’’
Other people said “Hush! . . . Hush!” when the subject
was alluded to in a remote way. And since then I have
heard that one name for them is the “Hush-hush.” But
their real name is Tanks.
For they are real, and I have seen them, and walked
round them, and got inside their bodies, and looked at their
mysterious organs, and watched their monstrous move-
mentS.
3
I came across a herd of them in a field, and, like the
countryman who first saw a giraffe, said “Hell! . . . I don't
believe it.” Then I sat down on the grass and laughed
until the tears came into my eyes. (In war one has a funny
sense of humour.) For they were monstrously comical,
like toads of vast size emerging from the primeval slime
in the twilight of the world’s dawn.
The skipper of one of them introduced me to them.
“I felt awfully bucked,” said the young officer (who is
about five feet high), “when my beauty ate up her first
house. But I was sorry for the house, which was quite a
good one.”
“And how about trees?” I asked.
“They simply love trees,” he answered.
When our soldiers first saw these strange creatures lollop-
ing along the roads and over old battlefields, taking trenches
on the way, they shouted and cheered wildly, and laughed
for a day afterwards. And yesterday the troops got out of
their trenches laughing and shouting and cheering again
because the Tanks had gone on ahead, and were scaring the
Germans dreadfully, while they moved over the enemy's
trenches and poured out fire on every side. As I shall
write later, these motor monsters had strange adventures
and did very good work, justifying their amazing existence.
288 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
4.
For several days before the great blow was to be made,
and while there was heavy fighting in progress at most
parts of the line—the capture of Guillemont by English and
Irish troops, the splendid rush of the Irish through Ginchy
—there was a steady forward movement and concentration
of all the men and machinery to strike at the Flers line.
Villages beyond the zone of fire where battalions had been
resting and where there was the busy life of soldiers in
their billeting areas suddenly became emptied of all this
human interest.
The men had passed on—higher up the roads, and higher
up where there was a struggling tide of all the traffic of war,
with supply columns, mule-trains, guns, limber, ambulances,
and troops from all parts of the Empire, surging, Swirling,
struggling slowly forward through narrow village streets,
up long winding roads, across trampled and barren fields,
through the ruins of villages destroyed a year or more ago,
and out into the country of evil menace which is criss-
crossed by old trenches and pitted with old shell-craters and
strewn with the refuse of battles two months back in
history.
Here a great army with all its material of war—incredibly
vast and crowded—lay waiting for the hour when it should
be hurled to the great hammer-stroke.
They were masses of men who were there the night before
the battle hidden in the darkness of the earth, not revealed
even by the white moonlight except in huddled crowds and
camps, but as I passed them again a few hours before the
dawn I thought of the individual and not of the mass, all
the separate hopes and pulse-beats of these men who were
going to do a big thing if luck should favour us.
And out of the darkness I thought I heard the sound of
laughter rising at the thought of the monstrous “hush-hush.”
Before the dawn the moon was high and clear in a sky
THE COMING OF THE TANKS 289
that had hardly any clouds. It shone down upon the fields
and roads so that the plaster walls of French cottages were
very white under the black roofs, and rows of tents were
like little hillocks of snow in the harvest-fields.
As I looked up a shooting star flashed across the sky, and
I thought of the old legend of a passing life, and wondered
why to-night all the stars were not falling.
Presently dawn came, and some low-lying clouds were
touched with a warm glow which deepened and spread until
they were all crimson. It was a red dawn.
“The promise of victory like the sun of Austerlitz,” said
an officer.
Before six o'clock, summer-time, all our guns were firing
steadily, and all the sky, very pale and shimmering in the
first twilight of the day, was filled with the flashes of guns
and shell-bursts. Heavy howitzers were eating up shells.
5
I went to the right of the line, hoping to see the infantry
attack to the left of Leuze Wood, as I had watched the
battle here a week or two ago, and here one of the motor
monsters was coming across the ground. But as the sun
rose higher it drew the moisture out of all these shell-craters
and trenches, and a dense white mist blotted out the ridge
for an hour or more. French troops who join our line here
came across country. British soldiers were moving forward
on the left, silently, with the mist about them.
Overhead shells went rushing—heavy shells that travelled
with the noise of trains. Forward batteries were firing rap-
idly and increasingly, and then sharp staccato knocking was
clear above the heavy crashes of giant crumps, compared
by a whimsical mind in this war with “an immortal plumber
laying down his tools.”
Machine-gun fire rapped out in fierce spasms, and the
German “Archies” were throwing up shells which burst
290 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
all about the planes of our airmen, who came like a flock of
birds over the battlefields, flying low above the mists.
They did wonderful things yesterday, those British air-
pilots, risking their lives audaciously in single combats with
hostile airmen, in encounters against great odds, in bombing
enemy headquarters and railway stations and kite balloons,
and troops, and registering or observing all day long for our
artillery. They were out to destroy the enemy's last means
of observation, and they began the success of the battle by
gaining the absolute mastery of the air.
Thirteen German aeroplanes (since reported by Sir
Douglas Haig to be fifteen) were brought down, and their
flying men dared not come across our lines to risk more
losses.
On our side it was fighting “all in.” There was nothing
of a killing character within our reach and knowledge which
we did not use, and we turned the enemy's own worst
weapons against himself.
Every material of war made by the home workers in our
factories by months of toil was called in.
The men went in with the resolve to break through the
enemy's third line without counting the cost, to smash down
any opposition they might meet, and to go forward and
far until they could get the enemy on the run.
A body of Scots went up to the battle-lines to the tune of
“Stop your tickling, Jock,” but there was a grim meaning
in the music, and it was no love-song.
English soldiers had been practising bayonet exercise
harder than usual, and with a personal interest beyond the
discipline. “It’s time to finish old Fritz,” was the shout of
one soldier to another. “We want to go home for Christ-
mas!”
The men fought yesterday fiercely and ruthlessly. They
want to get on to the heels of the enemy, and there were
moments yesterday when they saw many pairs of heels.
THE COMING OF THE TANKS 291
6
The area of our attack extended on the left from the
ground north of Pozières to the line recently won to the
north of Ginchy on the right, and its purpose was, as I
have said, to break through the third German line below
Courcelette, Martinpuich, and Lesboeuf, a distance of about
six miles. Time of attack was shortly after six o'clock
yesterday morning, and along all the line the troops were
awaiting the moment to rise, after our artillery had com-
pleted its first barrage.
On the left in front of Courcelette there was hard and
unexpected fighting. As we now know the enemy had pre-
pared an attack against us, and had massed troops in con-
siderable force in his front and reserve lines. He sent out
advanced patrols and bombing parties, while our men were
waiting to go over, and immediately there was a fierce
enCO111mter.
One young brown-eyed fellow told me his own experi-
ence, and it was like many others.
“The sergeant in my bay,” he said, “suddenly called out
that he had seen a signal light go up from another point of
the trenches giving a warning of attack. ‘We shall have
the whole lot on us,’ he shouted. ‘Look out for yourselves,
lads.’”
The enemy came over in a rush. Many fell before the
rifle fire of our men, but others managed to jump into por-
tions of trench, and bombed their way up several of the
bays.
Machine-guns were turned on to them, and there were not
many left alive. But before the fight had ended a new one
began, for our jumping-off time had come, and the assault-
ing troops rose as one man, and taking no notice of what
had happened swept across their own trenches and the Ger-
mans who were in them, and went straight across country
towards Courcelette.
292 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
They came up immediately against difficult ground and
fierce machine-gun fire. South-east of Courcelette, beyond
the shell-craters and bits of broken trench which the men
had carried easily enough, sweeping the Germans down
before them, stood the ruins of a sugar factory, which the
enemy had made into a redoubt, with machine-gun em-
placements.
It was one of those deadly places which have cost so many
lives among our men in other parts of the battle ground
now in our hands.
7
But we had a new engine of war to destroy the place.
Over our own trenches in the twilight of the dawn one of
those motor-monsters had lurched up, and now it came
crawling forward to the rescue, cheered by the assaulting
troops, who called out words of encouragement to it and
laughed, so that some men were laughing even when bullets
caught them in the throat.
“Crème de Menthe" was the name of this particular crea-
ture, and it waddled forward right over the old German
trenches, and went forward very steadily towards the sugar
factory.
There was a second of silence from the enemy there.
Then, suddenly, their machine-gun fire burst out in nervous
spasms and splashed the sides of “Crème de Menthe.”
But the Tank did not mind. The bullets fell from its
sides, harmlessly. It advanced upon a broken wall, leaned
up against it heavily until it fell with a crash of bricks, and
then rose on to the bricks and passed over them, and walked
straight into the midst of the factory ruins.
From its sides came flashes of fire and a hose of bullets,
and then it trampled around over machine emplacements,
“having a grand time,” as one of the men said with en-
thusiasm.
It crushed the machine-guns under its heavy ribs, and
THE COMING OF THE TANKS 293
killed machine-gun teams with a deadly fire. The infantry
followed in and took the place after this good help, and
then advanced again round the flanks of the monster.
In spite of the Tank, which did such grand work, the
assault on Courcelette was hard and costly. Again and
again the men came under machine-gun fire and rifle fire, for
the Germans had dug new trenches, called the Fabeckgraben
and Zollerngraben, which had not been wiped out by our
artillery, and they fought with great courage and des-
peration.
Seventy men who advanced first on a part of these lines
were swept down. Seventy others who went forward to fill
their places fell also to a man. But their comrades were not
disheartened, and at last carried the position in a great wave
of assault.
Then they went on to the village. It was like all these
villages in German hands, tunnelled with a nest of dug-outs,
and a stronghold hard to take. The British troops entered
it from the eastern side, fought yard by yard, stubbornly
resolved to have it.
The Tank came along and ploughed about, searching for
German machine-guns, thrusting over bits of wall, nosing
here and there, and sitting on heaps of ruin while it fired
down the streets. By 6.30 last evening the village was
taken.
The British took 400 prisoners, and when they were
brought down to Pozières last night they passed old Crème
de Menthe, who was going home, and held up their hands
crying “Gott in Himmel !” and asked how they could fight
against such monstrous things.
The taking of Courcelette was a great achievement skil-
fully planned and carried out with stern and high courage
by splendid men, and one monster.
294 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
8
On the right of these troops there was a great assault
upon Martinpuich and High Wood. Here, also, in High
Wood, the Germans had been ready for an attack, and,
being forestalled in that, they made a strong counter-attack
which for a time had some success, driving our men back
to the southern edge of the wood.
Our troops had been heavily shelled beforehand, and
they found the enemy in much stronger force than they
had expected in that wood of bitter memory. But these
men of ours—I have met many of them before a year ago—
fought very gamely.
Some among them were utterly without experience of
the Somme kind of fighting and wilted a little before its
ferocity of fire, but the older men, the “veterans” of a
year's service or more, cheered them up, kept them steady,
and led them on.
They counter-attacked the counter-attack and regained
their old line, and then to their great joy saw the Tanks
advancing through High Wood and on each side of it.
“It was like a fairy tale!” said a Cockney boy. “I can’t
help laughing every time I think of it.”
He laughed then, though he had a broken arm and was
covered in blood. .”
“They broke down trees as if they were matchsticks, and
went over barricades like elephants. The Boches were thor-
oughly scared. They came running out of shell-holes and
trenches, shouting like mad things.
“Some of them attacked the Tanks and tried to bomb
them, but it wasn't a bit of good. O Crikey, it was a rare
treat to see! The biggest joke that ever was They just
stamped down the German dug-out as one might a whops
nest.”
On the left of High Wood was a very fine body of troops
who had no trenches to lie in but just lay out in shell-
THE COMING OF THE TANKS 295
craters under a constant fire of “whizz-bangs,” that is to
say, field-guns firing at short range, which was extremely
hard to endure.
“It was cruel,” said one of these men, “but we went for-
ward all right when the time came over the bodies of com-
rades who were lying in pools of blood, and afterwards the
enemy had to pay.”
9
They were co-operating with some troops on their left,
who went straight for Martinpuich, that village into which
I stared a week or two ago after a long walk to our front
line on the crest of the ridge beyond Bazentin, looking at the
Promised Land. -
These men were superb and went across No Man's Land
for nearly IOOO yards in six minutes, racing. They made
short work with the Germans who tried to snipe them
from the shell-craters, and only came to a check on the
outskirts of Martinpuich, where they were received with a
blast of machine-gun fire.
It was then the turn of the Tanks.
Before the dawn two of them had come up out of the
darkness and lumbered over our front line trenches looking
towards the enemy as though hungry for breakfast. After-
wards they came across No Man's Land like enormous toads
with pains in their stomachs, and nosed at Martinpuich be-
fore testing the strength of its broken barns and bricks.
The men cheered them wildly, waving their helmets and
dancing round them. One company needed cheering up, for
they had lost two of their officers the night before in a
patrol adventure, and it was the sergeants who led them
OVer.
Twenty minutes afterwards the first waves were inside
the first trench of Martinpuich and in advance of them
waddled a monster.
The men were held up for some time by the same ma-
296 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
chine-gun fire which has killed so many of our men, but the
monsters went on alone, and had astounding adventures.
They went straight through the shells of broken barns and
houses, straddled on top of German dug-outs, and fired
enfilading shots down German trenches.
From one dug-out came a German colonel with a white,
frightened face, who held his hands very high in front of
the Tank, shouting, “Kamerad! Kamerad!”
“Well, come inside then,” said a voice in the body of the
beast, and a human hand came forth from a hole opening
suddenly and grabbed the German officer.
For the rest of the day the Tank led that unfortunate man
about on the strangest journey the world has ever seen.
Another Tank was confronted with one hundred Ger-
mans, who shouted “Mercy! Mercy!” and at the head of
this procession led them back as prisoners to our lines. Yet
another Tank went off to the right of Martinpuich, and was
so fresh and high-spirited that it went far into the enemy's
lines, as though on the way to Berlin.
The men were not so fortunate as the monsters, not being
proof against machine-gun bullets. The enemy concen-
trated a very heavy fire upon them, and many fell. One
boy—a fine, stout-hearted lad who had a keen and spirited
look in spite of dreadful experience—told me a tale that
Edgar Allan Poe might have written if he had lived to see
things worse than anything in his morbid imaginings—one
of our common tales.
A German crump killed a lance-corporal by his side and
buried them both completely.
“It was just my steel hat that kept the earth from my
face,” said the boy, “and gave me a little handful of air to
breathe. It was in a wee trench we had dug to get some
cover. But now I was covered too much.
“It seemed like an hour I was there, but perhaps no more
than half that time. I tried to shout, but could not. A
man walked over my head, but did not know I was there.
“Presently they saw the lance-corporal’s leg sticking out,
THE COMING OF THE TANKS 297
and started to pull him. I got my hand out, and waggled
it, and they started digging for me. It was just time. The
veins were starting out of my head, and I was nearly gone.”
It was late in the evening before the whole of Martinpuich
was taken after fierce fighting, and it was the crowning
triumph of a successful day.
IO
The troops on the left side of the line did amazingly well,
and were handled well. They took forty German officers
and 1430 other ranks. Against them was the 2nd Bavarian
Corps, whom many of our men had met before at Kemmel
and the Hohenzollern and Ypres, glad now to pay off old
Scores against them.
On the right of the troops at Martinpuich the attack was
swinging up to Flers across a wide stretch of difficult and
perilous ground strongly defended.
The enemy was flinging over storms of shrapnel and
high explosives, and many of our men fell, but the wounded
shouted on the others, if they were not too badly hit, and
the others went forward grimly and steadily.
These soldiers of ours were superb in courage and stoic
endurance, and pressed forward steadily in broken waves.
The first news of success came through from an airman's
wireless, which said:
“A Tank is walking up the High Street of Flers with the
British Army cheering behind.”
It was an actual fact. One of the motor-monsters was
there, enjoying itself thoroughly, and keeping down the
heads of the enemy.
It hung out a big piece of paper, on which were the
words:
“GREAT HUN DEFEAT. SPECIAL I’”
The aeroplane flew low over its carcase, machine-gunning
the scared Germans, who fled before the monstrous appari-
298 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
tion. Later in the day it seemed to have been in need of a
rest before coming home, and two humans got out of its
inside and walked back to our lines.
But, by that time, Flers and many prisoners were in our
hands, and our troops had gone beyond to further fields.
II.
On the extreme right of our line of attack the fighting
was hardest and fiercest of all, and is still very confused and
uncertain to the north of Ginchy and in the direction of
Guedecourt. In this direction the enemy fought with fine
courage. Machine-gun fire swept our men from the direc-
tion of Morval and Combles, and the shell-fire was frightful
in its violence.
Nevertheless, the first rush forward was magnificent on
the part of the troops. They were the Guards.
“Lots of our men dropped,” said one of them, “but we
didn't look round or bother about anything or see anything
of what was going on around us. We had orders to push
on, and we pushed.”
The enemy resisted stoutly along his first line. They
kept up a severe rifle fire and machine-gun fire until our
men were right on them, and then fought bayonet to
bayonet.
Large numbers of them were killed, and the troops swept
through to the second line of trenches and took that.
A third wave passed through them to the third German
trench, but before they reached this goal the German sol-
diers came out with their hands up and surrendered. Our
men went on and On.
“The Boches ran like rabbits before us,” said several of
them. They went too far, these soldiers, in their eagerness.
One of the colonels stood up on a hillock blowing a hunting
horn to fetch them back, but they did not hear, and went on
still further, unsupported by troops on their right.
THE COMING OF THE TANKS 299
The Officers waved on the men with their revolvers, and
many fell leading their companies. It was one of the great-
est charges in history, but drove out too far into the “blue”
without sufficient co-operation, with troops held up lower
down by strong points and machine-guns. What the situa-
tion is there to-night I do not yet know, except that our men
were fighting on the outskirts of Guedecourt.
I2
I have no time to tell of all the great drama I have seen—
the long trails of the walking wounded, marvellously brave,
wonderfully full of spirits, the long columns of German
prisoners tramping back from the battlefields, dejected and
miserable, and other great pictures of war not yet to be
written.
The German prisoners were utterly dismayed—bewil-
dered beyond words. Some of the officers tried to shrug it
off as “a stroke of luck,” but others admitted that we had
surprised them by a great and brilliant stroke.
One of them with whom I spoke was a young artillery
officer who had fought against us at Ypres in 1914, and
afterwards against the Russians.
“The Somme is the worst of all for us,” he said. “It is
fearful.”
Several German officers were appalling figures, in masks
of horror, their faces as black as negroes. They had been
in a dug-out blown up by one of our bombs, and it was full
of Very lights, which flamed about them, and burnt them
black.
It was a black day for Germany, and the hardest blow
that has been struck at her heart and pride by British troops.
For us the glory of the day is in the splendour of our men.
XXX
FIGHTING BEYOND FLERS
I
SEPTEMBER 17
THE enemy has made desperate attempts to organise coun-
ter-attacks to thrust back our lines from the ground gained
by us since Friday morning. They have failed. We hold
all the ground captured in the general assault, and yesterday
and to-day our troops have gone further forward winning
new and important positions.
Mouquet Farm, for which the Australians fought with a
most stubborn courage, entering the place several times with
their patrols, was taken last night by a swift and successful
assault. Left of that, below Thiépval, and to the east of
that stronghold, attacks beginning last Thursday on a forti-
fied position known as the “Wunderwerk” (a curious and
villainous system of trenches and dug-outs) have been a
brilliant success, and have extended our gain by a mile of
frontage along the Danube trench.
We have a strong flank line securing Courcelette and have
pushed out beyond Martinpuich towards Eaucourt l'Abbaye,
and beyond Flers towards Guedecourt. The day has not
been so sensational as Friday, but solid progress has been
made, and the enemy is kept nervous.
He has been hurrying up reserves from Le Sars and
Miraumont and places far back behind his lines. They were
reported to be moving up yesterday by motor transport,
and our long-range guns “dealt with them,” to use the grim
phrase of one of our artillery officers.
The enemy's losses are certainly very frightful. His dead
300
FIGHTING BEYOND FLERS 301
lie solid in certain parts of the battle front. There are fields
of horror here round High Wood and above Delville Wood,
and not all the shells which I saw slashing those rows of
tree stumps to-day will give the enemy back those men who
are being buried by his high explosives.
The whole of the great stretch of battlefield along the
high ridge to Delville Wood and Ginchy is one great grave-
yard, and looking across it to-day, as I stood among shell-
craters and old German trenches and the litter of a wide
destruction, this great desolate horror was an evil panorama
which chilled one's spirit.
The enemy was flinging over heavy crumps and black
shrapnel, but his shooting seemed to me wild and without
definite targets. The reason of it was clear. In taking the
high ridge we have the observation which was once his,
and it is our artillery which now has the Supreme advantage.
2
The bombardment of September 15 was the most remark-
able achievement ever done by British artillery, and not
surpassed I should say in any army. Every detail of it was
planned beforehand.
Every “heavy” had its special objective and its own time-
table working exactly with the infantry, concentrating upon
the enemy's trenches and strong points, barraging his lines
of communication, following the tracks of those motor
monsters whose amazing adventures I described in my last
despatch, and co-operating with the air service to reach out
to distant targets.
The field batteries were marvellously audacious in taking
up new positions, and the F.O.O.'s (the forward observing
officers) were gallant in getting up to the high ground as
Soon as our infantry had taken it and registering their
batteries from these new view-points.
I heard to-day the whole artillery scheme of one corps
302 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
and the scientific precision with which the enemy's defences
were destroyed made me shiver as in the presence of a high
intelligence distributing death on a great scale, by means
of minute calculations of time and space, which, indeed, is
exactly the truth.
The enemy's artillery is still very strong, and it would
be nonsense to depreciate his prodigious gun-power. But
some at least of his batteries are in a perilous position now
that we are able to observe them, and from my own obser-
vation of his shell-fire to-day it seems to me that he is
shifting them further back.
He had not shifted them when our attack began on Friday
morning last (although our counter-battery work was mak-
ing it extremely hot for him), and it is remarkable that
within two minutes of our attack he concentrated a par-
ticularly fierce fire on High Wood, where our men were
advancing.
It is possible that his “sausage” balloons had observed
the approach of the Tanks, and had seen them behind our
trenches, like ichthyosauri waiting for their morning meal.
But as I have previously hinted, there is sound evidence for
the belief that he had prepared a great counter-attack along
a wide front at the very time when our own was launched.
This accounts for the great mass of men killed in his lines
and for the large number of prisoners who fell into our
hands.
3
The capture of Mouquet Farm last night was made by a
dash across a short strip of No Man's Land. The garrison
there retreated into a tunnelled dug-out, which had at least
two entrances, and showed no willingness to surrender,
maintaining rifle fire from loop-holes after they were sur-
rounded.
The southern entrance to this underground stronghold
was blown in by high explosives, while men kept guard of
FIGHTING BEYOND FLERS 303
the other entry, waiting for any Germans who might come
up to surrender.
This capture of Mouquet Farm (a stick or two above a
heap of broken brickwork, as I saw it some weeks ago) has
made the position of Thiépval still more closely gripped—
the garrison there holds out stubbornly in its tunnelled cor-
ridors—and helped forward the assault upon the Danube
Trench launched with absolute success.
This carried further the operation begun last Thursday,
when our troops made one of those brilliant assaults upon
the intricate system of earthworks to the south of Thiépval,
which I watched a few weeks ago, when the Wiltshires and
the Gloucesters did so well.
On the left, running southwards down the ridge, is an
extraordinary V-shaped wedge with an open end. This
position was not attacked, but our men drove straight up to
the left of it, upon the “Wonder-work,” which was one of
those nests of dug-outs upon which the Germans lavished
all their skill in digging and pummelling and strengthening
and furnishing in what soldiers call “the days of peace”—
the old days of ordinary trench-warfare.
It was no longer a “Wonder-work” when our men rushed
upon it. A whirlwind bombardment which had preceded
them, and heavy shell-fire for weeks past had broken the
concrete emplacements and flung up the earth with deep
shell-pits, so that it was merely a part of the general chaos
existing on these battlefields.
Five German officers and II6 men were still alive there,
and surrendered instantly. “You were on tis like the wind,”
said one of these officers afterwards. “We had no time
to defend ourselves.” Other men fled from neighbouring
shell-craters, but ran straight into our curtain fire and fell.
Our lads chased some of them as they ran, but halted this
side of our bursting shells, and came back “Fearfully
bucked,” to use their own phrase, because they had put the
enemy to flight and mastered him so utterly.
304 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
4
Yesterday counter-attacks were attempted by the 5th Re-
serve Regiment of Guards, but they were not carried
through with resolution. The first wave of men came a
hundred yards or so towards our men, then hesitated, flung
their bombs, which fell ludicrously short, and ran back.
On the left they were bolder and brave, and a very long
and stubborn fight took place with bombs, ending in the
complete victory of our men after they had flung 1,500
hand-grenades.
North-east of Flers other counter-attacks were attempted
yesterday, but our troops who were advancing towards
Guedecourt went right through them and over them with
irresistible spirit, checked only by concealed machine-guns in
a harvest field on their wing.
In Bouleaux Wood, to the north of Leuze Wood, there
has been fierce hand-to-hand fighting, and in the centre of it
is an unfortunate Tank—one of the few casualties among
the armoured monsters—which lies with its nose in the
earth, forming a barricade between the opposing bombers.
The general situation along our attacking front leaves
the initiative in our hands and reveals the temporary de-
moralisation of the enemy's troops and command.
One cannot say more than that. The enemy has had a
hard blow, but he has reserves of strength which are con-
trolled by cool brains behind his lines.
There is still much fighting to be done before Germany's
weakness reaches the breaking point, but the losses we have
inflicted upon her during the last three days are so terrible
that she cannot hide her wounds.
XXXI
MONSTERS AND MEN
I
SEPTEMBER 18
IN all the accounts of the fighting since Friday the story of
the Tanks—those weird and wonderful armoured monsters
—runs like a humorous thread. Full of humour and fan-
tasy, because of their shape and qualities, they are also
filled with very gallant men, to whom great honour is due.
The skippers and crews of these land-ships, as they are
called, had to go out alone in many cases in advance of the
infantry and upon hazardous chances, which each one of
them knew were weighted with the risk, almost the certainty
—for it was a new, untried experiment—of death. They
had astounding adventures and a large measure of success,
and it was due not to any kind of luck, but to great skill
and great courage.
I have already told the first stories of their actions. To-
day I obtained a full narrative of their achievements, and
it is one of the most dramatic and gallant records in the
history of this war. *
Two of them who set out to attack the line from Combles
to Morval made a rendezvous at Wedge Wood, and took
up their position at night. One of them set off and ambled
slowly until it came within 400 yards north-west of Com-
bles, far in advance of the infantry. Here it sat for five
hours, fighting the enemy alone, and shooting down German
bombing parties, until it was severely damaged.
The other Tank in the neighbourhood of Bouleaux Wood
reached the enemy's trenches near Morval, and, finding that
305
306 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
it had left the infantry behind, went back to inquire for
them. They were held up by German bombers in a trench,
so the Tank came to the rescue, bucked over the trench, and
crushed the bombers into the earth before backing into a
deep shell-crater and toppling over. Here for an hour and
a half it formed a barricade between British and German
bombers, and the crew got out and tried to hoist it out of
the shell-hole under heavy fire. One of the men picked up
a live bomb flung by the enemy, and tried to hurl it to a safe
distance, away from his comrades, but was blown to bits.
Finally the “skipper,” with his surviving men, came back
to our lines, leaving the derelict monster still used as a
barricade.
North of Ginchy telegraph one of the Tanks attacked a
machine-gun emplacement and killed many of the men.
East of Delville Wood another advanced upon a German
trench called Laager Lane, and so frightened the enemy
that about a hundred of them came out under white flags
and surrendered to it, following the monster back to our
lines.
The attack on Hop Alley, by Delville Wood, was led by
a Tank which attacked a number of bombers and put them
to flight, so that the trench was cleared for the infantry.
Afterwards, under a heavy German barrage, it could ad-
vance no further, and the skipper and his crew, after doing
this fine work, came out of their monster and, with splendid
heroism, helped our wounded for three hours.
The officer who did what the soldiers call the great
“stunt” in Flers told me his story to-day, and I found him
to be as modest a fellow as any naval officer on a light
cruiser, and of the same fine type. He went into Flers be-
fore the infantry and followed by them, cheering in high
spirits, and knocked out a machine-gun which began to
play on him. The town was not much damaged by shell-
fire, so that the Tank could walk about real streets, and
the garrison, which was hiding about in dug-outs, surren-
dered in small, scared groups. Then the other Tanks came
MONSTERS AND MEN 307
into Flers, and together they loſloped around the town in a
free and easy manner before going further afield.
The Tank which went through High Wood did great exe-
cution over the German trenches, and another wandered
around shell-craters “killing” German machine-guns. The
casualties were slight considering the great success of the
experiment, and on all sides among our soldiers there is
nothing but praise of the gallant men who led them. They
are still going strong.
To-day one of the monsters—it was old “Cordon Rouge”
—came waddling over shell-craters, climbing over broken
trenches, and fetched up outside the door of a brigadier's
dug-out. From the inside of the beast came a very cool
and grave young man, who saluted in a naval way, and
said, “I await your orders, sir, for going into action.”
“And I’m very glad you didn't bring your monster down
into my dug-out,” said the brigadier. “But it's very kind of
you to call, and no doubt we shall want you shortly.”
2
I have been to-day, and for four days, among the men
who have broken the Flers line and given the enemy the
hardest blows he has ever suffered on this front. Sir
Douglas Haig has named them this afternoon in his great
bulletin, paying a tribute to their valour in a broad, general
way, without letting the enemy know too much about the
battalions facing him. They were all splendid. For the big
battle on Friday was a hard one, and not a “walk over,”
so that our men were put to the supreme test of courage by
most damnable shell-fire and fierce concentrated barrages by
which the enemy's gunners at long range endeavoured to
support their lost and suffering infantry.
What touched me most, perhaps, though Heaven knows
the experiences of all our soldiers made one awe-struck, was
the way in which our newest and youngest men went
through with their business. There were some of them
308 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
Derby recruits, who had never yet seen what shell-fire
means in the Somme battle. Older men among them, who
knew, were sorry for them, wondered how they would
“stick it,” and said, with a view to encouragement, “Cheer
up, you'll soon be dead.” They did not hang back, these
new fellows. The rawest recruits among them strained
forward with the rest, floundered over the shell-holes like
the others, leapt into the German trenches, like men of old
fighting spirit.
3
The London men did gloriously and had one of the hard-
est points of the attack, and came under some of the heaviest
storms of fire. These young Civil servants and men of the
London suburbs, who used to go to City offices by early
morning trains—do you remember how they spoke once of
“London pride” –fought sternly and endured with stoi-
cism, and had a laugh left in them after the battle when
they forgot the frightfulness of it all and remembered the
fantastic adventures of the Tanks which waddled into the
German lines, knocking down tree-stumps, climbing over
heaps of ruin, and “putting the wind up” in the enemy's
ranks. “It was a fair treat!” said one of them. “Every
time I think of it I can't help laughing!” And yet it was
no joke, after all, but very grim and deadly work.
There was hardly a county of England which did not
have its sons in this battle, and all those English regiments
of the north and the south were so good, so fine, so full of
Spirit, that it made one wonder at the stock that has bred
these men, giving to them out of the strain of England some
quality of blood that has withstood all the weakening in-
fluences of factory life and city life. And yet, having
written that, I see it is foolishness. For men of all the
Empire were here, and it was the spirit of the whole race
that rose at dawn out of the trenches and shell-craters and
went forward into the furnace fires.
MONSTERS AND MEN 309
4.
About the Scottish troops I can say no more than I have
said a hundred times, loving all those Lowlanders and
Highlanders “this side idolatry.”
I was with some of their officers to-day again, and heard
stories of their men who took one of the German strong-
holds after a serpentine plan of attack difficult to perform
because in attacking men will go straight, and coming
under shell-fire which would have broken the spirit of
weaker men. But they went on in waves over the German
trenches and into the village where some hundreds of men
surrendered to them, coming up out of the dug-outs as soon
as the Scots were about their hiding-places.
The German soldiers had been thoroughly frightened by
the Tank, which had come nosing in before the infantry, and
many of them huddled piteously under its flanks in order
to escape from its rapid fire. Sixty men came out of one
dug-out and surrendered in this way. Afterwards the Scots
pushed on beyond the stronghold and established posts and
dug cover for themselves against the enemy's gun-fire,
which threw an enormous number of high explosives into
their old place of defence, which was stacked with timber
for dug-outs and other stores of war material.
5
The Canadians gained great glory on Friday and Satur-
day. After their long and hard experiences in the salient
they came down to the Somme battlefield determined to “get
their own back,” and do great adventures. Their attack
was finely organised, and when all the difficulties are known
will be put down to their credit as a really great military
achievement. Among them is a body of French Canadians,
dark-eyed fellows whom it is strange to meet about the
310 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
villages of France speaking volubly with the peasants in
their own tongue, a little old-fashioned, as it was once
spoken in the days of Louis XIV, when Canada was one of
the brightest rays in the glory of the Sun-King. These
fellows, close in likeness to the provincial Frenchman,
though perhaps more dour and reserved, went away like
wolves a-hunting, and raced forward to a German strong-
hold which they had asked leave to take.
They were swept by machine-gun fire and checked by a
stubborn defence on the part of the enemy, but with the
help of the two Tanks, called “Crème de Menthe” and
“Cordon Rouge,” who sat on the enemy's machine-gun em-
placements and knocked out his machine-gun crews, the
French Canadians carried the stronghold and captured
hundreds of prisoners.
Later I hope to write the full story of the Canadian vic-
tory which will thrill through all the towns and fields of
the great Dominion like an heroic song, for these men from
overseas were very careless of death so that they might win.
6
Then there were the New Zealanders, those clean-cut,
handsome fellows in the felt hats with a bit of red ribbon
round the brim, which I looked for down village streets
and in French harvest fields before they went into battle.
Australia has set a great example to them, being first in
the fighting round Pozières, where they fought as wonder-
fully as in the Dardanelles. They were not less gallant in
the great charge they made at dawn on Friday, going for-
ward very far to a distant place across No Man's Land, and
across German trenches, under heavy fire, and out “into
the blue” in pursuit of retreating men. -
MONSTERS AND MEN 3.11
7
Sir Douglas Haig mentions last of all the Guards, but not
because they were least in valour. They fought as the
Guards always fight, with superb discipline, and with a
tradition, that is sacred to them. I saw them before they
went into battle, and had a meal in the mess of the Irish
Guards, and saw them marching up to take their line in the
battlefields.
They are not the old Guards who fought at Ypres and in
many bloody battles when we were hard pressed, and after-
wards at Loos, when they had some fearful hours. Many
of those brave men lie under the soil of France, and new
men have taken their place. But the tradition stays, and the
physical standard of the men has not been lowered by a
hair's breadth, and their discipline is still upon the same high
and hard level. Every one knew they would put up a great
fight, and they did.
They had a very difficult part of the line, and had to pass
machine-guns which swept upon their ranks in enfilade fire,
and had to advance over ground covered by whirlwind fire
of high explosives. But they gained their way forward in
a series of charges which went straight through three lines
of German trenches, and captured large numbers of pris-
oners after heavy fighting, and held on to their ground
against strong counter-attacks. The tradition of the Guards
has been upheld, and a new tradition has been given to them.
I must put into a line some late important news of the
day, which is the great casualties inflicted upon the enemy
in the neighbourhood of Guedecourt. A body of the ene-
my's infantry was observed to be retreating through the
mist, and they were caught by some of our advanced patrols,
who cut them to pieces with machine-gun fire. Elsewhere
the enemy is surrendering in small batches, unable to stand
the fearful slaughter inflicted upon them by our guns.
312 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
8
SEPTEMBER 19
Some of the most noble fighting qualities in the great bat-
tle of Friday last were shown by the troops who were re-
sponsible for the centre of the attack directed against Flers
and the country immediately to the right of that village.
Those who were given the task of assaulting Flers itself
were mostly recruited from the London area.
They had not seen much fighting before going into the
great fire of the Somme battle. Their General, who had
raised and trained them, was sure of them, and had taught
each man the task expected of him on this great day, so
that whatever might befall their officers, the men should not
be mere sheep without a sense of guidance or direction.
When they formed up in line to the north of Delville
Wood (with awkward bits of German trench thrust down
upon their right flank), they had three lines in front of
them over a distance of about 2,500 yards barring their
way to Flers. It was a long way and a hard way to go, but
they leapt forward in solid waves of keen and eager men
following a short and violent barrage from Our heavy guns.
In a few minutes from the start the first two waves
dropped into the German switch line running diagonally
from the real Flers line. They found it choked with Ger-
man dead, killed by Our gun-fire, and among them only a
poor remnant of living men. The first two waves stayed in
the trench to hold it. The others swept on, smashed through
the Flers line, and forged their way over shell-craters under
machine-gun and shrapnel fire, to the outskirts of Flers,
which they reached between nine and ten in the morning.
Some London men were held up by barbed wire pro-
tecting a hidden trench which had not been previously ob-
served, and a call was made for one of the Tanks which
had come rolling up behind. It crawled forward, walking
over the shell-craters, and smashed the whole length of
barbed wire in front, firing rapidly upon the enemy's bomb-
MONSTERS AND MEN 3.13
ers in the trench and putting them out of action. This
enabled the whole line to advance into Flers village at the
tail of another Tank now famous for its adventures in
Flers, which I have already narrated.
The victorious troops found but little opposition in the
village. Curiously enough, it was not strongly defended or
fortified. There were few of the tunnels and dug-outs
which make many of these places hard to capture, and the
enemy was utterly demoralised by the motor monster which
appeared as a bad dream before them. The enemy flung a
heavy barrage, but our men had few casualties.
9
An attempt was made to reach Guedecourt, and, as I
have already told, one of our Tanks reached the outskirts of
that new objective. The infantry attack failed owing to
massed machine-gun fire, and the men fell back to a new
line of trenches hastily dug by the enemy before their
defeat, which now gave us useful cover. This was 2,700
yards from the starting point at dawn, and was almost a
record as a continuous advance.
The enemy rallied and made two counter-attacks, one at
three o’clock in the afternoon, the other between four and
five. They were tragic attempts. Some of our machine-
gunners lay in waiting for them and mowed down these
rows of men as they came bravely forward. It was such a
sight as I watched at Falfemont Farm when solid bars of
tall men crumbled and fell before a scythe of bullets.
At 6.30 on the following evening our troops made an-
other attempt to reach Guedecourt in co-operation with the
men on their right, but they were unable to get the whole
distance in spite of a most heroic assault after two days of
heavy fighting.
The force attacking on the right of Flers on Friday
morning had similar experiences and more difficulties. They
314 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
are men who know all there is to know about the Ypres
salient, where I met them first nearly a year ago. They are
men who have old scores to wipe off against the enemy in
the way of poison gas and flame jets, and they went very
fiercely into the battle.
To start with, they had to clear out a place known as
Mystery Corner, to the right of Delville Wood, where they
captured fifty-one prisoners, and afterwards a trench a little
to the north of that, thrust down as a wedge beween their
left flank and the right of the troops who had started out
for Flers.
This second strong point was wiped out by the Tanks
who came and sat down on it, and by a small body of north
countrymen working with the Tanks. Their particular job
was done, and they might have stayed there, but, seeing the
long waves of their comrades streaming forward to the
main attack, they could not hold back, but followed on, all
through the fight keeping touch in a most orderly way with
the men ahead of them, and doing, as they put it, “odd
jobs,” such as knocking out machine-guns and killing
Snipers.
It was so with other men. Having done their allotted task
they would not stand and hold, but streamed after the tide
which went through and past them, determined to be in at
the death.
In the attacks upon Guedecourt that day and on the eve-
ning of the next they had a hard bad time like the men on
their left. They were under enfilade fire from machine-
guns, which chattered hour after hour, never silent. “The
air was stiff with bullets,” says one of the officers. Men
finding their only cover in shell craters could not put their
heads up, so close did the bullets slash the earth. And in
other shell-craters not far away were many German riflemen
picking off any man who appeared for a moment out of the
tumbled earth.
It was a hellish neighbourhood, yet when the moment for
the second attack came mixed companies of men from
MONSTERS AND MEN 315
various regiments who had mingled in the inevitable con-
fusion of such a place and time (it was now thirty-six hours
since the dawn of Friday) rose out of their holes in the
earth and formed up as on parade, and went forward in a
fine gallant style.
It was impossible in the face of all those bullets about
them, and they fell back to the original line of advance well
to the north of Flers, which was good enough for that
day after such heroic work. There was no Division in our
armies who could have done better, nor who did better, on a
great day when all did well.
IO
And now I must tell a little more in detail the story of
the Guards in this battle. It is hard to tell it, and not all
can be told yet because of the enemy. The Guards had
their full share of the fighting, and of the difficult ground,
with strong forces against them. They knew that would be
so before they went into battle, and yet they did not ask
for better things, but awaited the hour of attack with strong,
gallant hearts, quite sure of their courage, proud of their
name, full of trust in their officers, eager to give a smashing
blow at the enemy.
These splendid men, so tall and proper, so hard and fine,
went away as one might imagine the old knights and yeomen
of England at Agincourt. For the first time in the history
of the Coldstreamers, three battalions of them charged in
line, great solid waves of men, as fine a sight as the world
could show. Behind them were the Grenadiers, and again
behind these men, the Irish.
They had not gone more than 200 yards before they came
under the enfilade fire of massed machine-guns in trenches
not previously observed. The noise of this fire was so
loud and savage that although hundreds of guns were firing,
not a shot could be heard. It was just the stabbing, staccato
hammering of the German maxims. Men fell, but the lines
316 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
were not broken. Gaps were made in the ranks, but they
closed up. The wounded did not call for help, but cheered
on those who swept past and on, shouting, “Go on, Lily
Whites ſ”—which is the old name for the Coldstreamers—
“Get at 'em, Lily Whites!”
They went on at a hot pace with their bayonets lowered.
Out of the crumpled earth—all pits and holes and hillocks,
torn up by great gun-fire—grey figures rose and fled. They
were German soldiers terror-stricken by this rushing tide of
111611.
The Guards went on. Then they were checked by two
lines of trenches, wired and defended by machine-guns and
bombers. They came upon them quicker than they ex-
pected. Some of the officers were puzzled. Could these be
the trenches marked out for attack—or other unknown
trenches? Anyhow, they must be taken—and the Guards
took them by frontal assault full in the face of continual
blasts of machine-gun bullets.
There was hard and desperate fighting. The Germans
defended themselves to the death. They bombed our men
who attacked them with the bayonet, served their machine-
guns until they were killed, and would only surrender when
our men were on top of them. It was a very bloody hour
or more. By that time the Irish Guards had joined the
others. All the Guards were together, and together they
passed the trenches, swinging left inevitably under the
machine-gun fire which poured upon them from their right,
but going steadily deeper into the enemy country until they
were 2,000 yards from their starting place.
Then it was necessary to call a halt. Many officers and
men had fallen. To go further would be absolute death.
The troops on the right had been utterly held up. The
Guards were “up in the air,” with an exposed flank, open to
all the fire that was flung upon them from the enemy's lines.
The temptation to go farther was great. The German in-
fantry was on the run. They were dragging their guns
away. There was a great panic among the men who had
MONSTERS AND MEN 317
been hiding in trenches. But the German machine gunners
kept to their posts to safeguard a rout, and the Guards had
gone far enough through their scourging bullets.
They decided very wisely to hold the line they had gained,
and to dig in where they stood, and to make forward posts
with strong points. They had killed a great number of
Germans and taken 200 prisoners and fought grandly. So,
now they halted and dug and took cover as best they could
in shell-craters and broken ground, under fierce fire from
the enemy's guns.
The night was a dreadful one for the wounded, and for
men who did their best for the wounded, trying to be deaf
to agonising sounds. Many of them had hairbreadth
escapes from death. One young officer in the Irish Guards
lay in a shell-hole with two comrades, and then left it for a
while to cheer up other men lying in surrounding craters.
When he came back he found his two friends lying dead,
blown to bits by a shell.
But in spite of all these bad hours, the Guards kept cool,
kept their discipline, their courage and their spirit. The
Germans launched counter-attacks against them, but were
annihilated. The Guards held their ground, and gained the
greatest honour for self-sacrificing courage which has ever
given a special meaning to their name. They took the
share which all of us knew they would take in the greatest
of all our battles since the first day of July, and, with other
regiments, struck a vital blow at the enemy's line of defence.
XXXII
LONDON PRIDE
I
SEPTEMBER 20
ANOTHER dark, wet day, filled with grey mist, and rain-
storms and mud. Up in the lines British soldiers and Ger-
mans lie near each other in shell-craters, waist high in water.
The rain is slashing upon them, and it is cold. But though
gunners cannot see, nor airmen fly, the bombardment goes
on, and all day long there has been the dull crashing of
heavy shells, on both sides deep and sullen boomings through
the white fog of this foul day.
Last night and early in the morning the enemy attempted
a counter-attack at different parts of the line. They at-
tacked heavily here and there with strong bombing parties,
who for a time forced a way into our new lines, at the corner
of Courcelette and the north of Martinpuich and the ground
further east. -
Many of them were killed—the bad weather does not stop
this slaughter—and they were driven out and back again by
men who, though cold in their shell-craters, kept their cour-
age and flung themselves fiercely upon the German assault-
ing troops, in sharp bombing fights, which left us with more
ground—at least in one part of the line—than we had be-
fore. All of which shows that the enemy is hard pressed
and tightly held, and that our men—infantry to infantry—
not counting gunfire, have the mastery of these German
reserves, and a spirit that refuses to be beaten even by
artillery.
I have written many thousands of words about this
318
LONDON PRIDE 3.19
abominable war since the first shot was fired, and for fifteen
months and more have been trying to picture as closely as
possible the life of our soldiers in action, but I am conscious
that all I have written has given but a vague, dim, far-off
glimpse of the character, sufferings, and valour of our men.
How is it possible to show these things truly, to make my
readers understand something of the truth when I cannot
understand myself, but can only guess and grope at the
qualities which make them do the things they do? Take
our last great day of battle—September 15—there were
troops of many different types engaged in its fighting—
Canadians, New Zealanders, Scots, Irish, and English of
many counties. One would expect to find differences among
these men, to find some harder than others, or softer than
others, battalions here and there who flinched before the
storm of steel and those frightful shells which open great
chasms in the earth. But on Friday the courage of all
those men was of one quality, and a man would be a liar
who said that one set of men were less brave than another.
2
To-day I went among the London men, and afterwards
among some Highlanders, who have a special place in my
heart. In blood, in upbringing, in physique, in temperament
one could not find two bodies of men more unlike, yet they
have been alike in splendid endurance under merciless fire
last Friday and onwards. “I cannot understand how my
boys stuck it out during the worst hours they had,” said a
colonel of one of the City of London battalions. “They
just had to sit in shell-craters under heavy crumps. Many
men would not have gone through with it. But the London
boys just stayed there, gamely. They are wonderful.”
The colonel himself was wonderful—this old Territorial
soldier, nearly sixty years of age, with a white moustache
and grizzled eye-brows that did not hide the bright and
320 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
almost boyish light in his eyes. He used to be a dyspeptic
and a “bundle of nerves,” so he told me, and did not think
he could last three months of war. But now, at the begin-
ning of the third year of war he led his battalion into action,
went under some of the fiercest fire along the whole battle-
line with them, and lay side by side with his “boys,” as he
calls them, in a shell-hole which became filled with water by
violent rainstorms. For three days and nights he lay there
while the enemy was trying to shell our men to death by his
monstrous five-point-nines.
There were London men with him and all around him in
the same kind of holes—for there were no trenches here—
and though even the sergeants were shaking with a kind of
ague, not with cold, but after the nervous strain of enduring
the incessant shock of high explosives, they “carried on,”—
O splendid phrase!—and not a fellow played the coward,
though all were very much afraid, as all men are in these
frightful hours.
They had been born and bred in London. They had worn
black coats and “toppers” in the City—all the officers among
them—and the men had been in warehouses and offices and
shops down Thames-side and away to Whitehall. They
had played the gentle game of dominoes in luncheon hours
over a glass of milk and a Bath bun. They had grown
masturtiums in suburban gardens, and their biggest adven-
ture in life had been the summer manoeuvres of the dear old
“Terriers.” And now—they fought through German
trenches and lay in shell-holes, and every nerve in their
brains and bodies was ravaged by the tumult of shell-fire
about them and by the wounded who lay with them. But
these Londoners who fight on their nerves were no less
staunch than men like the Scots and the North Country
lads, who, as far as I can see, have no nerves at all.
LONDON PRIDE 321
3
There were some strange individual adventures in the
midst of the general experience of rushing two lines of
German trenches through a violent barrage and getting for-
ward to open country, where they dug themselves in.
Among ten machine-guns which they captured on their way
up there was one handled by a German gunner who awaited
his chance to sweep the ranks of the London lads. But he
did not get it. An officer of the London regiment who was
carrying a rifle “spotted” the man quickly and killed him
with a straight shot before he had fired more than a few
bullets. That rifle-shot saved the lives of many of our men.
In the second German trench there was a sharp fight, and
one single combat between one of our officers—who hap-
pens to be a South African—and a great lusty German who
was a much bigger man than ours. It was a bayonet duel
as two mediaeval knights might have fought in the old days
with heavy swords.
Our officer was already wounded twice. He had a bullet
through the shoulder, and a damaged jaw. But five times
he pierced his enemy with the bayonet. It should have been
enough, but the great German still fought. Both bayonets
were dropped and the two men closed and wrestled with
each other, trying to get a grip of the throat. The German
wrestler, bloody as he was, seemed to keep all his brute
strength, but he was laid out by a bullet in the neck from a
sergeant of the Londoners who came to the rescue of the
officer. Afterwards this easy-going gentleman—from
South Africa—chatted with his colonel over the body of
his man as quietly and calmly as though he were in his
smoking-room at home, and paid no attention whatever to
his wounds, refusing to go down to the doctor, but going
forward again with his men.
Some of the men went too far in their eagerness, away
into the “blue.” No word came back from them. No
322 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
signal. Later one man trudged back, bringing two pris-
oners. “Where are the others?” he was asked. He pointed
far away, and said “Over there.” He is the only man who
has come back from that place of mystery.
4.
Some of the London battalions did not suffer so heavily
as might have been expected, from the hard task they had,
and the wonderful way in which they fought. What loss
they suffered was the price of extreme valour. The charge
of the Light Brigade at Balaclava has been put into song as
one of the great heroic tales of history. Will any one make
a song of the London men who fought forward through a
hurricane of fire?
The stretcher-bearers of the London Territorials did their
work nobly, and among them as a volunteer was one German
who deserves a word of praise, by men with a sporting
spirit, fair to their enemy. He had first been taken prisoner
by an officer of ours, who was then hit by a piece of shell or
a rifle bullet. He fell, and could not rise again, but his
prisoner, who was an officer, too, picked him up and carried
him across the battlefield to our dressing station, and then
stood by for an escort to take him away.
The General commanding these London men spoke of
them to-day with a thrill in his voice. He had been with
them, and had reconnoitred their ground, and had seen their
way of fighting. When I spoke to him he had been without
sleep and rest for two days and nights. “No men could
have done better,” he said. “No general could wish to com-
mand braver men or better men. Their discipline is splen-
did. There is never any crime among them. They behave
always as gentlemen should behave, and they fight with fine
hearts. These London boys of mine had one of the hardest
tasks on Friday, and they carried it through with a most
gallant spirit.”
LONDON PRIDE 323
5
Another day I must write of the Highlanders whom I
met to-day—those Gay Gordons of whom I have written
several times when I have found them in other parts of the
battle-line. Some of them waved hands to me to-day and
shouted cheerfully across a track of mud, and, seeing the
faces under their bonnets, I was enormously glad to find
these old friends of mine alive and well after many days of
fighting. Squarer, tougher, harder men than the Lon-
doners, they fought in their own style, gloriously, with all
their comrades in kilts or trews who swept across the Ger-
man lines, and then held their captured ground under in-
fernal fire. One story they told me of the things they have
seen is a grim little picture which is etched in my brain.
Two of them went down into a German dug-out and
started back when they saw a man seated there at table.
The table was laid for a meal, but the food was uneaten.
It was a dead German officer who sat before them, as though
asleep. The top of the dug-out had been knocked in by one
of our shells, and something had fallen and killed him as he
was beginning breakfast. The Gordons went into other
dug-outs and found other dead bodies, but it was this sit-
ting man that they remember most.
XXXIII
THE SPLENDID NEW ZEALANDERS
I
SEPTEMBER 23
It was inevitable that after the great battle of September 15
our line should have ragged edges and run up or down into
small salients. This was due to the greater progress made
by different bodies of troops; and to the way in which
isolated groups of Germans held on very stubbornly to these
stretches of ground not in the general line of our advance.
During the past forty-eight hours a good deal has been
done to clear out these pockets, or wedges, and to straighten
out the line from Courcelette eastwards.
This morning our troops did a useful bit of work in such
a place between Courcelette and Martinpuich, knocking out
a strong post and taking some prisoners, with whom were
two officers. Elsewhere strong posts thrust out by us be-
yond the main trenches have been linked up, so that the line
now runs in a reasonably even way from the north of
Courcelette across the Bapaume Road, above Martinpuich,
and so on to the north of Flers.
This linking-up and clearing-up work now done to a great
extent, puts us in a stronger position of defence, to hold
what we have gained, against any attempts made by the
enemy in counter-attack.
He has made many attempts since September 15 to drive
our troops out of the high ground, which is vital to his
means of observation, and the failure of them has cost
him a great price in life.
324
THE SPLENDID NEW ZEALANDERS 325
2
Among the most desperate thrusts, pressed with stubborn
bravery by bodies of German Soldiers, collected hastily and
flung with but little plan or preliminary organisation against
our lines, were those directed upon the New Zealanders,
who repelled them after hard and long conflicts fought out
for the most part with naked steel.
In all the fighting since July I there has not been anything
more fierce or more bloody than these hand-to-hand strug-
gles on the left of Flers, and the New Zealanders have
gained a greater name for themselves (it was already a great
name since Gallipoli) as soldiers who hate to give up what
they have gained, who will hold on to ground with a grim
obstinacy against heavy odds, and if they are ordered to
retreat because of the military situation round them come
back again with a stern resolve to “get the goods.”
That is not only my reading of the men, and I do not pre-
tend to know them well, but is the summing-up of an of-
ficer, not from their own country, who has seen them fight
during these last few days, and who spoke of them with a
thrill of admiration in his voice, after watching the stoicism
with which they endured great shell-fire, the spirit with
which they attacked after great fatigues and hardships, and
the rally of men, discouraged for a while by their loss of
officers, which swept the Germans back into panic-stricken
flight.
This struggle covers a week's fighting since September 15,
when at dawn the New Zealanders advanced in waves to a
series of positions which would bring them up to the left of
Flers if they had the luck to get as far. On their right were
the troops whose capture of Flers village I have already
described, and on their left other troops attacking High
Wood and the ground north of it.
The men of New Zealand went forward with hardly a
check, to the German switch trench 500 yards from the
326 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
starting line. They were men of Auckland, Canterbury,
Otago, and Wellington, and they put their trust in the
bayonet and desired to get close to their enemy.
They had their desire. In the switch trench the Germans
defended themselves to the last gasp, and, as far as I can
make out, only four of them were left alive after that
frightful encounter. It was a fight to the death on both
sides, and the New Zealanders did not cross that ditch at
full strength.
On the way up they lost under shrapnel and machine-
gun fire. On the other side of the ditch their lines were
thinner. But they were on the other side, and the ditch
behind them was a grave upon which they turned their
backs to get across the next stretch of ground to trenches
800 yards ahead.
The New Zealand Rifles covered this ground quickly,
moving in open order, but keeping in touch with each other
by fine discipline and an esprit de corps which is better than
discipline.
3
That next system of trench work, two lines heavily wired
and deeply dug, part of the famous Flers line, was a great
obstacle. Our gun-fire, grand as it had been, had not laid
all the wire low nor destroyed the trenches. A swish of
machine-gun bullets showed that the enemy was alive and
Savage.
An infantry assault on such a line had to be paid for,
sometimes by a great number of dead and wounded. But
it was the day of the Tanks. Two of them had tried to
keep pace with the New Zealand attack, but had lagged
behind like short-winded creatures suffering from stitch—
and no wonder, looking at the shell-craters and pits across
which they had to bring their long bodies, crawling in and
crawling out, with their tails above their heads and their
heads above their tails.
THE SPLENDID NEW ZEALANDERS 327
But they arrived in time to attack the Flers line, and in
a very deliberate and stolid way they sidled along the barbed
wire, Smashing it into the earth, before poking their big
Snouts over the German parapets, hauling themselves up,
and firing from both flanks upon German machine-gun
teamS.
With this noteworthy help, which saved time and trouble
and life, the New Zealanders took the double trenches of the
Flers line, and again pushed on, another 700 yards, across
a sunken road with steep banks and very deep dug-outs,
where the enemy did not stay to meet them until they had
established themselves on a line running westwards from
the top of Flers village, now in the hands of our English
lads.
One of the Tanks followed them, getting down the steep
bank with its nose to earth, and lumbering up the other
side like a huge elephant (without a trunk).
A German battery I,500 yards away searched for it with
shell-fire, but did not get within hitting distance of its ar-
moured skin. Eventually it was the German battery that
was knocked out by our guns.
However, this was a side-show, and the Tanks must not
take all the glory away from the infantry, who had not ar-
moured skins, alas, and who were facing murderous fire else-
where.
4.
They had been ordered to swing left to make a flanking
front up the edge of a valley running north-west of Flers,
right away beyond the village, and this they did most gal-
lantly, although at the time they stuck out like a thin wedge
into German territory, because at that time they had no
support on their left (our English fellows, as I have de-
scribed in an earlier despatch, had been having a fearful
time in and beyond High Wood), and on the right the other
English troops were busy with the capture of Flers.
328 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
It was clearly and undeniably a hazardous position for
the New Zealanders all alone out there, and they were or-
dered to fall back to the line going straight westwards from
the top of Flers village, which they helped to hold, on the
night of the 15th to 16th.
From that day onwards the enemy made repeated counter-
attacks. Sometimes they were in feeble strength, shattered
quickly, but they grew in intensity and numbers as the days
passed, while the New Zealanders were still in a rather pre-
carious position, “a rocky position,” says one of their of-
ficers, owing to the weakness of their left flank.
Right down on that flank Germans were still holding out
in shell-craters with a way open behind them, so that sup-
ports might come down to drive a wedge between the New
Zealanders and the English troops north of High Wood.
This was attempted by something like a brigade of Ger-
mans, who advanced in six or seven waves upon the English
soldiers—who were outnumbered by more than two to one—
in a steady, determined way. They were met out in the
open with the bayonet. It was the old way of fighting men
meeting men, staring into each other's eyes, trusting to their
own strength and skill with sharp steel, and not to engines
of war with high explosives or quick-firing guns.
If men fight it is the best way though not pleasant and
agreeable for ladies to watch from silken canopies, as in the
old days of the tourney, when gentlemen hacked at each
other with axes, just for fun. A New Zealand officer
watched it from a little distance, and his breath came quick
when he described it to me. The German ranks were broken
and a remnant fled.
But it was not so long or so bloody a fight as what the
New Zealanders themselves had to encounter three days
ago.
The enemy struck a blow against the New Zealand troops,
at the joining point between those men and their comrades
on the left, who had come up to the west of Flers.
The New Zealanders—who were Canterbury men—were
THE SPLENDID NEW ZEALANDERS 329
beaten back twice, and twice regained the ground. All
through the night of September 20 until the dawn of the
21st, there was violent bomb-fighting and bayonet fighting.
There was no straight line of men British on one side,
German on the other. It was a confused mass, isolated
bodies of men struggling around shell-craters and bits of
trench, single figures fighting twos and threes, groups join-
ing to form lines which surged backwards and forwards
and a night horrible with the crash of bombs and the cries
of the dying.
5
One New Zealand officer, a very splendid heroic man, was
the life and soul of this defence and counter-attack.
There were moments when some of his men were dis-
heartened because their line had fallen back, and the number
of their wounded lay too thick about them. He put new
fire into them by the flame of his own spirit. He led them
forward again, rallying the gloomy ones, so careless of his
own life, so eager for the honour of New Zealand that they
followed him under a kind of spell, because of the magic
in him.
They thrust back the enemy, put him to flight down the
valley, remained masters of the ground when the dawn
brightened into the full light of day, revealing the carnage
that had been hidden in the night.
It was not the end of the fighting here. In the afternoon
the enemy came again, in strong numbers—sent forward
by their high command, men at the end of far telephones,
desperate to retake the ground, and ordering new assaults
which were sentences of death to German soldiers not at
the end of far telephones but very near to British bayonets.
They came on thickly, these doomed men, shoulder to
shoulder, and it was again the captain of the Canterburys
who led his men against them in a great bayonet charge,
right across the open.
330 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
It was bayonet against bayonet, for the Germans stood
to receive the charge, though with blanched faces. For the
New Zealanders came upon them at the trot and then sprang
forward with bayonets as quick as knitting needles. . . .
The Germans cried out in terror. Down the hillside, be-
yond, those who could escape ran, and fell as they ran.
It was a rout and the end of the counter-attack.
The New Zealanders were now sure of themselves. They
knew that with the bayonet they can meet the Germans as
their masters. So scornful are they of their bayonet fight-
ing that they have it in their hearts to pity them and say
“Poor devils ſ”
To my mind, and to others, the finest heroism was shown
by the New Zealand stretcher-bearers. They did not charge
with the bayonet. All their duty was to go out across open
country in cool blood to pick up men lying there in blood
that was not cool unless they had lain there too long.
They had to go through salvoes of five-point-nines, which
tore up the ground about them, and buried them, and
mangled many of them. And they went quite steadily and
quietly, not once or twice, but hour after hour, until more
than sixty of them had fallen, and hour after hour they car-
ried out their work of rescue quite careless of themselves.
“I am not a sentimentalist,” said a New Zealand officer
to-day, as he looked at me with grave eyes, remembering
those scenes, “but the work of those men seemed to me very
noble and good.”
In New Zealand and in the quiet farmsteads there, those
words will be read gladly, I think.
And if any words of mine could give a little extra share
of honour to these Colonial boys, who have come so far
overseas to fight by the side of English soldiers, I should
be glad and proud too, having a heart very full of admira-
tion for the valour of these men, who have fought in these
great battles as well as any troops who shared the day
with them.
XXXIV
THE CANADIANS AT COURCELETTE
I
SEPTEMBER 21
IN a scrappy way I have told something about the way the
Canadians fought for Courcelette. It is worth more than
that as an historic narrative. From first to last, beginning
with the dawn of Friday, September 15, and going on now,
beyond the village, against German counter-attacks, these
men from the West have shown themselves very gallant,
and hard and quick in fighting qualities.
There was a body of French Canadians among them,
dark-eyed fellows, of the same type as the French people
among whom they found themselves by the odd chance of
fate, like some of the French Chasseurs Alpins who have
been fighting on our right, lithe-bodied men, with muscles
like whipcord, full of individual character, and an old
tradition of warfare behind them, war against nature and
wild animals, away from town life.
The enemy was not sure what men he had against him
down below Courcelette. I think it was to get this knowl-
edge that he sent out a number of his bombers just before
the Canadian attack was to be launched. I have already
told about the sergeant who saw them coming, and about
the boy by his side who was buried alive by a shell, and lived
to tell me the tale with a strange smile in his brown eyes,
as he leaned on a crooked stick, some old tree stump he had
picked up to support him when he was weak from loss of
blood. He was one of the French Canadian boys. The
German bombers came out of the darkness suddenly, and
33L
332 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
pounced upon a bit of trench, flinging their hand-grenades,
and trying to grab some of our men as prisoners. It was
just like one of the old raids, better done by the Canadians
themselves. They had a short innings, and not a man went
back. A Canadian machine-gunner rushed up to his
“Lewis,” and killed those who came over our parapets.
One officer with twelve bombers accounted for the others.
But it was awkward happening just at the hour when
the grand attack was waiting for the word “Go.” It might
have disorganised the plan at the outset. The Canadians
did not let it make any kind of difference to them. At the
exact moment all the waves of men rose, swept over the
dead bodies of the raiders, and in a great tide rolled over
No Man's Land. Three Tanks went with them, slower than
the infantry, but climbing steadily over the trenches and the
shell craters, and prowling around for the places from
which there came a spitting fire of machine-guns. They
found some of them in the Sugar Factory, and I have told
how they sat down there, crumpling the emplacements under
their heavy ribs, and pouring out a deadly fire.
2
The Canadian infantry had a difficult operation. The
ground from the high ridge of Pozières sloped down before
them to the edge of the village of Courcelette, where they
had been ordered to halt and consolidate while reserve bat-
talions—the French Canadians on the right—came up be-
hind to “mop-up” the captured ground. A German trench
ran at an angle from their objective, and as they advanced
the Canadians had to take this en passant, as chess-players
would say, the flank capturing the trench at the same rate
of progress as the centre and right went forward.
It was done. Through machine-gun fire and an inferno
of shrapnel and high explosives the Canadians stormed their
way down the slope, shouting and cheering as they went,
THE CANADLANS AT COURCELETTE 333
led by officers who urged them on, before falling, some of
them, mortally wounded. In the trenches the German sol-
diers fought stubbornly, flinging their bombs and maintain-
ing a rapid rifle fire until the Canadians were right upon
them with the bayonet. At the sight of sharp steel they
fought no more, but flung up their hands.
The Canadians had a long way to go to the outskirts of
Courcelette, right across open country, and as they went
the German crumps fell among them, tossing up great
masses—as large as village churches—of smoke and earth
filled with flying shell-splinters.
It was on the line outside Courcelette that they stopped
at last to dig and gather their strength and take breath. It
was late in the afternoon, I think, that the ground behind
them was thoroughly cleared, and that the German defence
of the Sugar Factory was finally broken with the help of the
Tanks. There was a conference between the officers, those
who were still unwounded. Men in the ranks asked the
same question, and answered it. “Why not take Courcelette
itself?”
3
The order and the honour of the new attack were given to
the “mop-up” battalions behind, with the French Canadians
among them, who had been advancing behind the assaulting
troops as a clearing and consolidating force. The colonel
of the French Canadians tells the story. He is a wiry man,
typical of his race, modest, bright-eyed, keeping a sense of
humour in spite of all the tragedy of war, such a man as
Chaucer knew when Norman-French was spoken in English
fields—“a very parfit gentil knight.”
He is proud of his French Canadians. They had a long
way to go to get to Courcelette. Nearly three and a half
miles to the final line given to them on the other side of the
village. “We’re late, we're late,” said the little colonel.
334 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
“We must get there in time at whatever cost. French
Canadians, forwardſ”
They were not too late. They came up to the first
assaulting battalions—those who had dug in south of the
village—just in time to pass through them and lead the
new attack. Many men had dropped on the way. The
ground was still being torn up by steel ploughs. All the air
was full of the scream and whine and crash of shells.
Round Courcelette there was a clatter of machine-gun fire
from German hiding places. The garrison there was ready
for defence.
“Allons donc, mes enfants!”
It is the way in which French officers lead their men to
victory or to death.
The French Canadians, with their comrades on the left,
swung round in a loop round the southern half of the
village, and closed in and invaded its streets. . . . The
capture of Courcelette was one of the astounding things in
this battle of the Somme. There were 1,500 Germans in and
about it, and the place was stormed by much less than that
number. Dug-outs full of Germans were routed out by a
few men who could have been crushed and killed by the
odds against them. One Canadian boy went down into a
dug-out, and after a time—what queer conversation could he
have down there?—came out again with prisoners. There
were twenty of them, tall, big men, who could have made
a meal off this brown-eyed lad who marshalled them up.
Some of the Germans made themselves useful. A
wounded Canadian officer captured five of them before too
weak to get back to the dressing-station unaided. Speaking
French to them, which one at least understood, he ordered
his prisoners to make a stretcher for him, enforcing his
command by keeping his revolver on them. From some
old sticks and sandbags they made the stretcher, and then
carried him down.
Two German doctors helped to dress our wounded, and
worked bravely and steadily under shell-fire for many
THE CANADLANS AT COURCELETTE 335
hours. One of them objected to having a sentry put near
his dug-out. “I am not a fighting man,” he said. “I did
not help to make this war. My work is for humanity, and
your wounded are the same to me as ours, poor, suffering
men, needing my help, which I am glad to give.”
4
Beyond the village that night the enemy made seven coun-
ter-attacks upon the Canadians. There were moments when
even the Colonel thought that things did not look “too
bright.” But all these assaults were beaten off, as the Cana-
dians have beaten off other attacks yesterday and to-day,
inflicting heavy losses and gaining more ground.
One counter-attack was repulsed by a handful of men
in a way that gives a grotesque comedy to all this night
scene of war filled with so much death and terror, and
human courage strong in endurance. A tot of rum had
been served out to each Canadian to give a glow of warmth
to limbs chilled in the wet soil of shell craters and to hearts
chilled by the reaction which follows fierce excitement. This
handful of men were sitting in a German dug-out.
They laughed, and sang, forgetful of the scenes about
them. It was as jolly as in a log-cabin of the West, by this
dug-out, where a corpse lay very quiet. Again they shouted,
and laughed more loudly, giving Red Indian war-cries, and
other wild whoops. And that was when the counter-attack
began.
It did not get very far. A body of Germans advancing
over No Man's Land to the British lines suddenly heard
frightful, blood-curdling sounds. It was as though the
tribes of the Blackfeet had come out upon the war-path,
yelling as they swung their tomahawks and dancing round
the scalps of their victims. The Germans hated to hear
such a noise. It was as though all the devils of hell were
upon them, laughing diabolically. . . . They turned and
fled.
XXXV.
THE ABANDONMENT OF COMBLES
I
SEPTEMBER 26
THE enemy cannot stand against us on his present line.
That has been proved to-day and yesterday by sweeping
British successes, which include the capture of Gueudecourt,
Lesboeufs, Morval and Combles, with nearly 2,000 prisoners
(according to my own reckoning) and a great mass of
material. The German infantry was ordered to hold on to
these places at all costs, to the very death.
The enemy may pretend later that they have made a
voluntary withdrawal to “take up a new and stronger line
of defence”—that is the usual convention—but I have talked
with their officers and men and know what their orders
were. They were to fight for every inch of soil against
us, and they did not lack courage.
But our men and our guns have been too strong for them.
As soon as we held the high ridge from the Pozières wind-
mill through the old German switch line below Martinpuich,
and above High Wood and Ginchy, their position down the
slopes became untenable because of the new observation
we had for our artillery.
One by one their strongholds have fallen, Courcelette and
Martinpuich and Flers; now those other places, Gueude-
court, Lesboeufs and Morval. In spite of all their massed
machine-guns in strong emplacements, and all their tunnelled
dug-outs, and all their stubborn resistance, they could not
hold on to a line here under the hurricane of fire our guns
336
THE ABANDONMENT OF COMBLES 337
have flung upon them, and the tide of men who swept for-
ward and overwhelmed them.
Their defence began to show signs of cracking when
they were unable to force home their repeated counter-
attacks by any big general scheme of offence.
It was clear that our constant hammer strokes, with those
delivered by the French on our right, had demoralised and
disorganised them, and that they were unable to gather
reserves from other parts of the line quick enough or big
enough to strike back heavily so as to thwart our progress.
They had to rely mainly on their gun-power, and formidable
as that is it has been mastered by ours for the time being,
and could not do more than make our advance costly to our
wonderful infantry, who went through its curtain fire.
Even that has weakened a little during the past forty-eight
hours—our men who come back broken by it will not think
So, poor fellows—and the last attacks have succeeded with
far fewer casualties on our side than ever before on such
a day of success in this Battle of the Somme. The casual-
ties, indeed, were very light considering the striking suc-
cesses gained. The enemy is in retreat—not for a great
distance, perhaps, but certainly retreating.
2
For the first time in the history of this war on the western
front since the Battle of the Marne and the beginning of
trench warfare the enemy has been compelled to abandon a
town without a fight in it. He has withdrawn from Com-
bles, which is a place of some importance, and more than a
mere village, and our troops have entered it from the north,
while the French hold the southern half.
As soon as Morval was taken yesterday, after that won-
derful assault upon the double line of trenches defending
it, his gunners near Sailly Saillisel, to the east, packed up
and bolted away. In the night troops holding the ground
338 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
between Morval and that place have melted away, and our
patrols are out there trying to find out his rearguard.
Between Gueudecourt and Lesboeufs a body of German
infantry tried to rally up to a counter-attack and came for-
ward a little way with a show of strength and resolution.
Our gunners were quick to get their target. Clouds of
shrapnel burst over those massed men, and their attack
turned into a panic-stricken rout. They flung down rifles
and packs and fled back towards Le Transloy, leaving many
dead and wounded in their wake.
The worst thing that has happened to the enemy is the
breaking-up of the moral of his troops. These men have
been ordered to hold out in death-traps, and although there
can be no slur on their courage, for they have fought well
and are brave men, they have seen with dismal eyes that if
they hold on longer they must die or be taken.
As soon as our men had swept across the trenches and
the sunken roads where the Germans defended themselves
stubbornly and entered the villages—Morval being taken
from the north—the garrisons came up out of their under-
ground places and surrendered in heaps. They could have
fought longer and harder here, perhaps, but only with their
backs to the walls asking for death. They had not the
spirit to do that and no man would expect it of them.
They were done and dazed by the appalling intensity of
the shell-fire which we had smashed over their tunnels.
They were disheartened by the unfailing regularity with
which the British had captured one stronghold after another
since July I, and at last after two years of utter confidence
in the supreme strength of the German war-machine, their
faith had been destroyed.
They have seen it crack and break, leaving them as the
victims of its failure. Men who have lost faith in the one
idol to which they had pledged their souls are not so strong
as before. It is this loss of faith among her soldiers which
is the worst thing that has happened to Germany.
THE ABANDONMENT OF COMBLES 339
3
In opposition to the faith which we have now broken is
the fear they have of British troops whom, once upon a
time, they were taught to despise; they are stupefied by the
grim way in which our men attack, reckless of loss, so that
no barrage stops them, and they are amazed that men who
were not soldiers a year ago should now be equal to their
own best troops in fighting skill as gunners and as infantry.
A German officer who surrendered to-day with a whole
company when the British stormed their way into Morval
paid a tribute to them when he was taken prisoner.
“Your soldiers,” he said, “surprise me by their sang froid.
They were very cool and calm in moments when most
soldiers would lose their heads.”
He was touched, too, by their kindness to him, puzzled
by it, not finding any kind of hatred in their hearts now that
the fighting was over.
“They asked me whether I would like to go down at once
or wait until the barrage eased off. That was very good-
natured of them. Then they gave me ‘küchen’—little cakes
—and called me ‘old boy’ as though they had known me
before.”
They are grateful for our treatment of them, and truly
some of our men are chivalrous in the way they behave to
them after the bloodshed is over and the fierce and frightful
things of battle.
There were two fellows on the roadside to-day, an Eng-
lish soldier and a German, trudging side by side to a field
dressing station. Both heads were bandaged, and one man
could see out of one eye and one out of the other.
Said the Englishman:
“This chap tried to gouge out my eye with his fist, and
I did the same to his with my elbow, and now we get on
famously together.”
Two other men came in—enemies an hour before.
340 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
“This is old Bill,” said the English soldier, pointing to a
wounded German. “Where I go Bill goes. I wounded him
and I took him. . . . Come on, Bill, old son.”
I saw I2O0 German prisoners to-day just out of the battle.
They lay in rows, grey body close to grey body, so that
when any stood and walked about they had to step care-
fully over all those lying men. They were men from Morval
and Lesboeufs, and some from Combles, who in the retreat
in the night had mistaken their way out and come into our
lines.
They were mostly strong, well-built young men—better
than some of those I saw yesterday—and were nearly all
Prussians from the Rhinelands. In the mass there was
nothing repulsive about them, though here and there was
an evil-looking face. These fresh-coloured fellows, very
smart and soldierly, and with very little of the dirt of war
upon them, as they had been living in the dug-outs, stared
about them with curious eyes—at the British troops passing
and British transports, and all the traffic that goes up to
the battle lines. They were startled at finding themselves in
so great a company of fellow-prisoners. They confessed
to one of our officers that it was “a great British victory.”
These men were all unwounded. But in a tent not far
away, and in other tents, were rows of Germans on stretch-
ers, lying very still, and looking very grey, in blood-soaked
clothes. Some of them were moaning their lives away, but
English doctors were with them, attending to them just in
the same way as they dealt with our wounded men carried
into other tents.
“We make no difference,” said the medical officer.
There was a young officer there whom I had met yes-
terday on the roadside. He sat up when he saw me again,
and said he wanted nothing that could be given to him, and
was grateful for the treatment. He had just been writing
down the address of one of his wounded comrades, who was
going to die, so that he might send a letter to the man's wife.
THE ABANDONMENT OF COMBLES 341
He had been asked to do this by one of the English doc-
tors, and he was glad to do it.
I sat down by the side of a young soldier from the Rhine-
land.
“Are you badly wounded?” I asked.
He pointed to his shoulder, and said “Here.”
When I said he looked very young, he shrugged that
wounded shoulder of his, and said, “All my comrades were
young. We fought as well as older men. The English came
behind us, or we would not have been taken.”
The pride of the boy remained with him even now, and it
seemed to me fine and plucky.
But these men, as a whole, have none of the braggart
confidence of the prisoners we used to take a year ago. The
truth, I think, is beginning to dawn upon them. The guns
that protected them have been matched by British guns, and
the new army that has grown up against them has broken
their strongest lines.
It is only the beginning. People at home must not think
that the German army has lost its power of defence and
that the great rout is at hand. They are drawing back their
guns, but saving most of them. They are retreating, but
will stand again, and dig new trenches and defend other
villages.
There will be greater and fiercer and more desperate fight-
ing before the end comes, and God alone knows when that
will be. But so far as the fighting goes it is a real stroke of
victory for us. Within the last forty-eight hours we have
put out of action eight German battalions between Lesboeufs
and Morval, and the enemy can ill afford such loss after all
that has happened since the first day of July.
4.
The story of the meeting of the French and British in the
stronghold of Combles is an historic incident, which may
form one day the subject of a great painting, though per-
342 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
haps no artist's eye was there to see it. Some brigades of
English troops were holding on Monday morning, the
ground of the Quadrilateral (where our men had been
badly held up on September 15), to the west of Bouleaux
Wood.
The French were hammering forward with their soixante-
quinze and masses of splendid infantry to the east of Com-
bles in the direction of Frégicourt. The plan of attack was
to box in Combles by the French advance on one side, and
on ours by forming a strong line to the north-west of Com-
bles.
The operation was of great importance to the whole of
our attack on Morval and Lesboeufs on Monday morning,
because, apart from cutting off Combles, the new position
was needed as a solid plank to our right wing.
The men who were given the task—it is sad that I am not
yet able to say who they were—had been fighting heavily in
previous battles, and had suffered many losses. But for
this new assault they rallied up again with a brave spirit,
and did all that was asked of them and a little more.
Instead of attacking Bouleaux Wood itself, where the
Germans were in great force, they were ordered to take
two lines of trenches on the west side of it, and to establish
the flank line there—a clever bit of strategy which a German
officer has since complained of bitterly as “not playing the
game.” Because at Bouleaux Wood the Germans were
waiting for an attack and ready for it with massed machine-
guns, which they could not put to their full use, poor lads!
The trenches were taken easily and rapidly—in five min-
utes from the moment of attack—but nearly at right angles
to it was an embankment with a rabbit warren of dug-outs,
which gave more trouble.
It was the German flank line, and enormously important
to the enemy, so that he held it with a large force of men
and many machine-guns and minenwerfer.
Fierce, savage fighting took place here, and it was only
four hours later that the dug-outs were finally cleared.
THE ABANDONMENT OF COMBLES 343
Hereabouts eighty prisoners were taken, but a great many
dead bodies lay below the embankment when the fight was
done.
Near by five minenwerfer were captured, and our men
found some empty gun emplacements, which had been aban-
doned in such a hurry by the German gunners that they
had left behind them a great store of four-point-two shells
and all their ammunition carriers.
Our strong flank was formed and a new trench dug in
great style by a pioneer battalion, and then in the darkness
patrols of infantry pushed forward in the direction of
Combles. It was dark, yet not an absolute and lasting dark-
ness. The sky was very calm and strewn with bright stars,
and up above the Combles road at Morval white flares went
up and down, throwing every few moments a white, vivid
glare over the battlefield, lighting up its desolation, with the
rim of every shell-crater white as snow and with black pits
in the depths of them.
The sky was not quiet except high above the strife of
men. Away down the French lines it was all on fire, and
shells were bursting in a great semi-circle where the British
were fighting at Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt.
But Combles was dark and quiet. No star-shells came up
from its ruined houses. There was no sign of life there,
only a few black shadows came up from the town towards
our patrols and exchanged shots with them and then tried to
escape. Twenty of these stragglers were taken prisoner.
Ten were killed in fights with our patrol parties.
Hour after hour there was the tremendous tattoo of the
French Soixante-quinze coming nearer and nearer, and a
final outburst of gun and rifle fire when Frégicourt was
taken.
The night was passing, but it was long before dawn—at
3. I5—when a strong patrol of English soldiers with ma-
chine-guns advanced down a tramline into the town of
Combles. They were tired men, worn with fighting, craving
sleep, hating all this hell around them, not in that night
344 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
hour inspired by any thrill of joy because they were enter-
ing Combles “in triumph.” They were not quite sure how
far the beastly place had been abandoned. News had come
to them that the enemy had found a way out.
But you never can tell. There might be desperate fellows
in the cellars, machine-guns behind any of these broken
walls. They went on slowly and cautiously until they
reached the ruined streets.
Dead men lay about, with white faces turned upwards to
the stars. The ground was littered with broken bricks and
twisted iron and destroyed wagons. But no shot came
through the gaping holes in houses which still stood as roof-
less shells. It was all as quiet and still as death. A halt
was made at the railway line, and then our tired men saw
through the gloom other tired figures trudging towards
them.
Officers went forward. Words were spoken in French
and English:
“Ce sont les Anglais.”
“Them's the French all right.”
“The blooming town's abandoned.”
“Les sacrés Boches n'existent plus!”
Combles was taken thus in the early hours of the morn-
ing of the day before yesterday without any demonstration
or dramatic ceremony, without cheers or theatrical nonsense,
by grim, quiet, tired men who were glad to be at the end
of another day’s fighting, with a dog's chance of rest.
It was a great place for booty. The cellars were stacked
with thousands of rifles and a great store of ammunition.
The enemy had left behind four thousand rounds of five-
point-nine shells—the less to fire at us, thank God!—and a
mass of material and kit of every kind.
This flight from Combles is the most ignominious thing
that has happened to the enemy on the Western front since
he was hammered back on the Marne, and it must have hurt
his pride—the pride of his “High Command”—as a smart-
ing wound.
XXXVI
THE DOOM OF THIEPVAL
I
SEPTEMBER 27
THE doom of Thiépval is fulfilled. That place upon the
high ridge, with its thirty-four black tree-stumps—I counted
them this morning—which has been harrowed and ploughed
and cratered under incessant storms of high explosive, fell
into our hands last evening—all but one corner to the north-
west, which is ours to-day.
Weeks ago I said—as it may be remembered—that the
German garrison there must have known that their doom
was creeping nearer, and that sooner or later they must
surrender or die.
It was longer reaching them than I expected when I
watched the attack on the Zollern trench, and the defences
running up to the Wunderwerk, and saw our men crossing
a wide stretch of No Man's Land through great shell-fire
which tossed up the earth about them, and go on until those
who had not fallen leapt upon the German trenches and
bundled back batches of prisoners, and then went on again
until they were very near to the row of apple trees which
used to blossom in April on the outskirts of Thiépval town
perched upon the hill.
It seemed to me then, watching the rapid progress of our
men and their wonderful courage, that in a few days more
from the Wunderwerk and Mouquet Farm on the east side
our lines would close in and put the strangle-grip upon the
place.
It has taken longer than that, more storms of shells, more
345
346 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
splendid lives, to win the stronghold, and the wonder to me
is, now that I know the full strength of the place, the
resistance of its underground fortifications, and the fighting
spirit of the troops holding it, that we captured it yesterday
and to-day with such little loss.
For our loss was amazingly light considering the long and
stubborn fighting there and the machine-gun fire which
swept upon our men from many hidden places, and the
desperation of the garrison who defended themselves with
great gallantry. Let us give them the honour of saying that,
for they were fine fighting men.
In defence the advantage was all with them. But for the
power of our guns and the way in which British troops
fight—meaning to win whatever the cost—they were in an
impregnable position. The taking of Mouquet Farm by the
Australians and afterwards by the Canadians was the worst
menace to them, enclosing them on the right, but an as-
tounding episode which happened yesterday will show most
clearly the difficulties of our troops and the cunning of the
enemy's earthworks.
2
It is many days since I reported the final capture of Mou-
quet Farm, after in and out fighting, and since I saw its
ruins from the high ridge.
These bits of broken brickwork, all that was left after
the Australians had made it their own, were the remnants
of a place more important once than an ordinary French
farmstead.
It was a series of buildings such as one finds in France
attached to a big château, with barns and out-houses and
stables, or to an old monastic institution, covering a large
space of ground.
Our last line of trenches struck through the middle of
the place, leaving two bits of ruin to the north of the trench
and one to the south, behind the line. The enemy seemed
THE DOOM OF THIEPVAL 347
to be well away northwards in the shell-craters beyond our
parapet, and nobody suspected “Brother Boche” near at
hand.
It was with great surprise a few days ago that one of our
English officers saw two Germans rise suddenly from a hole
behind our line, near the southern ruin of bricks.
One of them beckoned to him. “Be careful, sir,” said the
sentry. But the officer imagined that the two Germans had
strayed into our lines and wanted to be taken prisoner, as
some do from time to time.
He went forward slowly until he was quite close to them.
Then he fell dead, shot by the man who had beckoned to
him, who with his comrade disappeared immediately into
some hole which could not be found.
A day or two later a working party digging in the neigh-
bourhood broke through to a deep tunnel. Instead of
searching it there and then they filled it up again. Our men
found themselves being sniped from other holes in the
ground. It came into the heads of our officers that beneath
the ground, even behind our lines, were nests of Germans
who might turn upon them at any moment, or blow them up
by a charge of guncotton.
Orders were given to draw back a little from Mouquet
Farm, and the guns were turned on it again, flinging high
explosives and shrapnel over the place, as in the old days.
Then some of our men were sent forward to clear the
trenches, if they could find them. They came back without
success. So the place remained one of our “mystery cor-
ners” until yesterday, when the attack was to begin on
Thiépval, from the trenches south, and swinging left from
Mouquet. It was dangerous, but it was decided to carry out
the attack without worrying about the underground inhabi-
tants.
The attack on Thiépval began, and instantly our men on
the right had advanced beyond the farm to the Zollern
trench parties of grey-coats came out of the tunnels of Mou-
348 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
quet and began firing machine-guns into the backs of the
British soldiers.
By good luck there was a young British officer not far
away who kept his head on his shoulders, and had a quick
way of dealing with a situation of this kind. He was in
charge of a working party, but he saw his chance of a
“scrap.” “Come on, boys!” he shouted. “Never mind
your shovels.” His men threw down their tools and fol-
lowed him.
I don't know how many there were of them, but only
thirteen came back. They did not come back ingloriously.
They brought with them one German officer and fifty-five
men as prisoners, and there were no living men left at six
o'clock last night in the tunnels of Mouquet.
It was only a small episode in the rear of the assault on
Thiépval, but extraordinary, and not without importance,
on the right wing of our advance, for men do not like to
go forward with machine-gun fire from behind. It shows
the way in which the ground all about here has been used
for subterranean fighting.
3
So it was in Thiépval. Above ground there was nothing
to see to-day, and for a long time, but the black and broken
tree-trunks with their lopped branches high above Thiépval
Wood, which is just as utterly destroyed—those bare poles,
and to the left a mass of reddish brickwork which was
once Thiépval château, and, standing solitary, a queer-
shaped monster, looking like a sleeping megatherium, which
I recognised as an old Tank on the warpath.
No men could have remained alive above ground yester-
day when our guns hurled upon it a stream of heavy shells
which burst all over the site of the village with violent
upheavals of earth and vast clouds of curly black smoke
filled with death.
The German garrison kept below, in a long series of
THE DOOM OF THIEPVAL 349
vaults and tunnels which they had strengthened and linked
up, and dug deeper, in a way that would have surprised the
old French farmers who used to keep their wine and stores
down there centuries ago. They had made many exits, so
that they could pop up with rifles and machine-guns at many
spots between the four corners of the village, and they were
ready for another British attack.
I know these things because I have been talking with the
German survivors of the garrison. They were nearly all
men of the 180th Regiment, and they have held Thiépval
for two years.
“In the old days,” said one of them this morning—he
talked very frankly to me in excellent French—“the place
was quiet and happy. We had no great comfort below
ground, no fancy furniture or fine decorations (our beds
were just wooden planks raised above the ground); but we
worked hard to fortify the vaults. We pierced many new
tunnels. We made this underground world perfectly safe,
and we were proud of it.”
It belonged so much to the 180th Regiment that instead
of being relieved in the ordinary way like other troops, and
sent off to different parts of the front, they were given the
honour of defending Thiépval since the beginning of the
Battle of the Somme. The regiment arranged its own re-
liefs company by company, Bapaume being their rest
camp. The men I met to-day had been actually in Thiépval
only seven days, without relief, and had guessed that it
would be their turn to defend the place against a great Eng-
lish assault. They had pledged themselves to defend it to
the death.
Before telling the narrative of our attack and the adven-
tures of our own men I think it is interesting to give this
glimpse of the defenders, of their life underground. When
I talked with them this morning they had just been cap-
tured. I was struck by the superior bearing and intelligence
of them all.
They were certainly the best type of Germans I have seen
350 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
on this front—Württembergers all, and handsome fellows,
who had kept their spirit—one of the last groups of men
who fought against us in the early days, and survivors of
the first-line troops of the German army who have fallen like
autumn leaves upon the battlefields of Europe, in the endless
massacre of this war.
They are weary of the war, like all their troops. They
laughed when I asked “Will England win?” and would not
pretend that Germany is still victorious. They had heard
of the downfall of the two Zeppelins in England, “Kaput,”
as they called it, and had all the news that is given to Ger-
man people by the newspapers which they had every day—
even yesterday!—in their underground dwelling-place at
Thiépval. But they were not dupes of false news.
“Do you believe the British Fleet is destroyed?” I asked,
testing them. “The English Fleet is too great to be de-
stroyed,” they said. “We did not believe all those stories.
But we gave you a good fight at sea.”
They gave us a good fight on land, and underground, this
garrison of Thiépval, and with a few exceptions they fought
honourably, so that our men have no grudge against them
now that they are prisoners of war.
4.
Our attack began yesterday at half-past twelve after a
great bombardment that had been continuous for twenty-
four hours, rising to infernal heights of shell-fire. Our men
leapt out of their trenches to the south of the trees, just
north of the “Wunderwerk,” and advanced in waves up to
the trench by the row of apple trees, the right wing swinging
round, as I have said, from Mouquet.
It was on the left that the men had the hardest time.
One battalion leading the assault had to advance directly
upon the château, that heap of red rubbish, and from cellars
beneath it came waves of Savage machine-gun fire. They
THE DOOM OF THIEPVAL 351
were also raked by an enfilade fire of machine-guns from the
left top corner of the ground where the village once stood.
Our men were astounded.
“I didn't believe it possible,” said one of them, “that any
living soul could be there after all that shell-fire. But
blessed as soon as it switched off if the Germans didn't come
up like rabbits out of bunnyholes and fire most hellishly.”
For a long time it was impossible to get near the château
or take a trench dug in front of it. It was a château once
belonging to a German. French gossip said that he had
tunnelled it for such a defence as that of yesterday, which
is a fantastic tale, but its cellars stood now, and were a
strong place from which one party of the garrison poured
out a stream of lead.
“Where are the old Tanks?” shouted our men, and stared
back to catch a glimpse of them.
It is splendid to see the smiles spreading over our men's
faces every time they talk of the Tank. Whatever their
sufferings have been they cheer up and laugh in a comical
way at this thought, for the Tank is a wonderfully fine tonic
to the spirits of our men and an outrageous comedy thrust-
ing a blunt nose into the grim business of this fighting.
A Tank had been coming along slowly in a lumbering
way, crawling over the interminable succession of shell-
craters, lurching over and down into and out of old Ger-
man trenches, nosing heavily into soft earth, and grunting
up again, and sitting poised on broken parapets as though
quite winded by this exercise, and then waddling forward
in the wake of the infantry. Then it faced the ruins of the
château, and stared at them very steadily for quite a long
time, as though wondering whether it should eat them or
crush them. Our men were hiding behind ridges of shell-
craters, keeping low from the Swish of machine-gun bullets,
and imploring the Tank to “get on with it.”
Then it moved forward, in a monstrous way, not Swerv-
ing much to the left or right, but heaving itself on jerkily,
like a dragon with indigestion, but very fierce. Fire leapt
352 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
from its nostrils. The German machine-guns splashed its
sides with bullets, which ricocheted off. Not all those bul-
lets kept it back. It got on top of the enemy's trench,
trudged down the length of it, laying its sandbags flat and
sweeping it with fire.
The German machine-guns were silent, and when our men
followed the Tank, shouting and cheering, they found a
few German gunners standing with their hands up as a sign
of surrender to the monster who had come upon them.
“We couldn’t have faced the château without the help of
the old Tank,” said several men. “It didn't care a damn for
machine-guns. It did them in properly.”
Unfortunately the great grasshopper got into trouble with
some part of its mysterious anatomy, and had to rest before
crawling home to its lair, so that the rest of the fighting in
Thiépval was without this powerful support, and our in-
fantry faced many other machine-guns alone.
5
I suppose only Ovillers can rank with Thiépval for long
and close fighting. Our men had to tackle an underground
foe, who fired at them out of holes and crevices while they
remained hidden.
They had to burrow for them, dive down into dark-
entries, fight in tunnels, get their hands about the throats of
men who suddenly sprang up to them out of the earth.
“I went down into some of those deep dug-outs,” said one
boy, “but ran back again every time I saw Germans there.
Some of them wanted to surrender, but how did I know if
they wouldn't have killed me? And other chaps were com-
ing along with bombs. As likely as not I should have been
done in by our own lads. It was very difficult to know how
to handle 'em, and up above we were being raked by rifles
and machine-guns something frightful.”
Many of the deep dug-outs were blown in at the entrances,
THE DOOM OF THIEPVAL 353
so that the men were forced to come up the other side.
Our men smoked them out, and dug holes for them to tease
them out. It was like rat-hunting, but dangerous rats, life-
size, and often desperate. They surrendered in hundreds
when our men were all round them and right down in their
tunnels.
I cannot tell the number of the German garrison. Nine
hundred and ninety-eight unwounded men and forty
wounded were brought down safely as prisoners, but others
were killed on the way by their own barrage, and many
fought until they died, so that some of the dug-outs are filled
with dead and many lie above in the shell-craters. In one
case a party of sixteen prisoners behaved treacherously.
They turned on the escort of two English soldiers taking
them down, wounded them, and tried to go back to fight.
They had no mercy from other English soldiers who came
up at this moment. All through the night and early this
morning the last remnant of the garrison held out in the
north-west corner of Thiépval, until they were swept into
the net by a separate and gallant assault of South Country
troops.
Later in the morning the enemy attempted a counter-
attack after a tremendous barrage which I watched falling
along the ridge and below in Thiépval Wood. Very-lights
rose through all this smoke, and I saw our men signalling
for the help of our guns.
The help came quickly, and a new storm of white and
black smoke-clouds rent by little flashes of flame burst be-
yond the village on to the German positions in and beyond
the cemetery.
It was queer that this seemed to silence the enemy's guns,
for after this Thiépval was quiet for a time, and our men
came poking about in the open as though looking for sou-
venirs, and dug new holes down into the tunnels.
They seemed to be teasing out more prisoners, because I
saw trails of smoke rising from those holes in the earth,
354 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
and one black volume gushed out of a cavern mouth made
through the heap of red rubbish which was once the château.
6
I have no space or time to deal with many events on other
parts of the line, but everywhere the enemy is harassed, and
his troops do not seem able yet to rally up to strong counter-
attacks. In many parts of the line patrols find it difficult to
locate the enemy, and No Man's Land is widening out. His
guns were active to-day along all the line, shelling Combles
now and then, and Morval heavily, but even his gun-power
seems to be weakening here and there, and it is likely that
he is shifting some of his batteries.
One of the most remarkable Tank adventures was in the
direction of Gueudecourt where our troops were held up
yesterday in the usual way, that is to say by the raking fire
of machine-guns. They made two attacks, but could not
get beyond that screen of bullets.
Then a Tank strolled along, rolled over the trench, with
fire flashing from its flanks, and delivered it into the hands
of the infantry with nearly 400 prisoners, who waved white
flags above the parapet. That was not all. The Tank, ex-
hilarated by this success, went lolloping along the way in
search of new adventures. It went quite alone, and only
stopped for minor repairs when it was surrounded by a
horde of German soldiers. These men closed upon it, with
great pluck, for it was firing in a most deadly way, and tried
to kill it.
They flung bombs at it, clambered on to its back, and tried
to smash it with the butt-ends of rifles, jabbed it with bayo-
nets, fired revolvers and rifles at it, and made a wild pande-
monium about it.
Then our infantry arrived, attracted by the tumult of this
scene, and drove the enemy back. But the Tank had done
deadly work, and between 200 and 300 killed and wounded
THE DOOM OF THIEPVAL 355
Germans lay about its ungainly carcass. For a little while
it seemed that the Tank also was out of action, but after a
little attention and a good deal of grinding and grunting, it
heaved itself up and waddled away.
These things sound incredible. . . . They are true. And
though I write them in fantastic style because that is really
the nature of the thing, it must not be forgotten that these
Tanks are terrible engines of war, doing most grim work,
and that the men inside are taking high risks with astonish-
ing courage.
They are of the same breed as those flying men of ours
who to-day and yesterday flew in flocks over and beyond
Thiépval “ridiculously low down,” as one of our officers
observed, swooping down like hawks over German batteries
so that they did not dare to fire. All our soldiers are fighting
with a spirit beyond the normal laws of human nature.
They are fighting for a quick finish—if that may be had
by courage—to this most infamous and vile war.
XXXVII
NORTHWARD FROM THIEPVAL
I
SEPTEMBER 28
THE weather is still in our favour—and soldiers watch the
weather like seamen in frail craft, knowing that two days
of heavy rain, or less than that, may make a month's differ-
ence in the progress of attack, and that when mist gathers
over the hills airmen cannot see to report to the guns, and
guns cannot shoot on certain targets, and enemy troops may
come creeping up to a counter-attack.
One of his battalions was spotted by our airmen to-day,
and our artillery found the range quickly and scattered
them. It puts them into the same villainous plight as our
men have had to endure under the brow of the Messines
and Wyghtschaete ridges and other high ground from which
the enemy could see the slightest movement of our troops
and would snipe even a solitary wagon with shell-fire.
The tables are turned down here by the Somme and the
Ancre. The German soldiers will know now the devilish
torture of living always under hostile observation, and
under great guns. They are already beginning to find it
intolerable, not “sticking” it as our men “stuck” it in the
salient, when we had hardly any guns to answer back.
A further gain of ground was made yesterday on the
high ridge where Thiépval stood when our men captured a
strong line of trenches known as the Stuff Redoubt, and
again to-day when they advanced northwards from the
black trees of Thiépval to the Schwaben Redoubt, which is
on the edge of the plateau.
356
NORTHWARD FROM THIEPVAL 357
This attack at midday to-day was similar to other opera-
tions which I have described on this part of the front before.
A large number of batteries concentrated intense, violent fire
upon the position beyond the last blighted trees on the ridge
and on the upheaved lines of soil, of white chalk and brown
earth, which marked the enemy's next defensive system.
Our heavy shells tore up the ground, opening great
chasms and raising hell fires, until all the blue of the sky
was hidden behind heavy spreading smoke, gushing up in
round, dense masses which mingled and thickened the over-
hanging pall.
Then our guns lengthened their range, and our infantry
trudged across through this fog and under the wild scream
of shells flung beyond them, and fought their way down
into the enemy's ditches. Later, after signals of distress,
the German gunners barraged the line of the Schwaben Re-
doubt, which seemed to prove the successful advance of our
men, and ranged their heavies on to Thiépval itself as we
did until the day before yesterday, when it changed hands.
The industry of the men who lived there first—that 180th
regiment which has held Thiépval for two years—is now of
use to our own soldiers, who can find ample and shell-proof
cover in those underground rooms, one of them, at least,
large enough to hold three companies of men.
I am not certain at this hour whether we hold the whole
of the Schwaben Redoubt, but if not all, the rest will be
taken quickly, and the whole of the high pleateau will be
ours from Thiépval to Ginchy old telegraph.
Meanwhile on the right we hold a firm straight line, down
from Gueudecourt to Combles, and it forms a solid flank.
2
SEPTEMBER 30
It is here beyond Thiépval that the slaughter of men is
greatest just now—the scene of the shambles changes
quickly these days—and here that the enemy is sacrificing
358 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
many more lives in the vain hope of driving our men back
from the underground fortress and its surrounding re-
doubts.
Desperate German counter-attacks were made last night
and this morning on the Schwaben Redoubt, just north of
Thiépval, and on the Hessian Redoubt, further east, where
the German troops hold out in a wedge made by a sunken
road from Grandcourt.
I have not often heard such a menace in the sound of
gun-fire as when I went to an artillery O.P. in this direction
this morning. There was something in the atmosphere as
well as in the intensity of the bombardment which made
the shell-bursts—they were German crumps—thunder out
in a queer, hollow, reverberating way.
The enemy had concentrated a heavy weight of metal on
to our lines here (so recently his own), and I watched these
high explosives vomiting up from the Thiépval ridge, just
below the Schwaben Redoubt, with a great hope that our
men holding out there might have found good cover in old
German dug-outs.
That is one advantage gained in capturing these strong-
holds. The enemy's industry through two years of trench
warfare may be turned to our own good and safety. In
Thiépval itself many of the elaborate underground chambers
have now been found, though when our men first won the
place, after all their hard hand-to-hand fighting with the
garrison they could not get to cover at once.
A major belonging to one of the battalions who came up
first behind the assaulting troops—New Army men who
fought like the old Regulars, though many of them were
quite new to this fortress fighting—tells me that the entry
into Thiépval was the most devilish experience he has had,
though he has been through other frightful “shows.”
A dug-out next to a hole in which he had made his tem-
porary headquarters was blown up with sixteen men, and
when he moved on beyond the château—a fine name for
the only rubbish heap which marked the site of a town—he
NORTHWARD FROM THIEPVAL 359
found the headquarters of the leading battalion “sitting on
red bricks” in the midst of dead men.
By that time his colonel and adjutant had been badly
wounded, and the major arrived with only three runners,
surprised to see the C.O. of the other battalion standing
up on the brick heap waving his stick and rallying his men.
It is not really surprising. I met that officer to-day, and
I saw the ice-cold fervour of the man, the quiet determina-
tion of his character, utterly scornful of any kind of danger.
Men would follow such a man into furnace fires—and did.
The enemy was six hours before he began to get his bar-
rage fixed (before then he was not quite sure of his own
soldiers’ whereabouts) and it was colossal when it came.
Many of our men lay about wounded. It was difficult to
get them into safety.
The medical officer of one of the battalions lost his
stretcher-bearers and went up alone to do what he could,
dodging great shells, binding up the wounds of men.
For a time a Tank gave valuable cover. It had heaved
itself across a trench, enfilading it each side with deadly fire.
Underneath its body there was good shelter, and the M.O.
worked here for a while with a heap of wounded.
The fighting on the north-east of Thiépval is in a land
of shell-craters. Most of the trenches are just linked shell-
craters, into which men burrow as soon as they have rushed
the ground, getting a little cover in their depths from the
barrage which searches them out.
The Hessian trench has changed hands several times with-
in the last forty-eight hours, after savage bomb-fights and
bayonet work. Forty Germans have been brought in from
one bit of ground, but it is not country in which prisoners
are gathered in great numbers. It is difficult to know one's
own whereabouts.
There are single combats over the rim of a shell-hole.
Men knock up against each other in the dark, and peer into
each other's faces to know if it is friend or foe. If friend
360 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
they drop into a shell-hole together; if foe, fight till one is
dead.
3
Queer things happen in shell-crater land, as when a Cana-
dian officer brought up the rum ration for his men, and
found himself in a ditch with a number of German wounded.
They were lying in a row, in a tragic state.
What was the officer to do? He was puzzled, but de-
cided to give the rum to these poor suffering devils, who
were grateful for it.
In the Hessian trench or in a twist of the crater-land
about it, two German officers and twenty-two men came
down across the holes. They were met by a private soldier,
who was surprised to see them. He emptied his revolver
at them, shooting one of them.
Then he picked up a German rifle and fired that and killed
another. A second time he stopped and grasped a German
rifle at his feet, and killed a third man. The others ran.
Our man ran after them.
It was a chase along a dirty ditch which had once been
a trench, and the hunter was a dead shot, with abandoned
rifles, all along the way. At the end of the hunt there was
only one German unwounded, and he was brought back as
a prisoner.
It sounds like a lie—preposterous in the numbers given.
But the German prisoner tells the same tale, and other men
watched the hunt at different stages—this fearful man-hunt
down a bloody ditch.
4
Things happen like that in this present fighting. Worse
than that in human anguish, and better than that in courage.
Out in crater-land were found three Australians in a hole.
One of them was unwounded, the other two rotting with
NORTHWARD FROM THIEPVAL 361
wounds. They had been there for nine days. The un-
wounded man had stayed with his “pals” all that time, day
after day, night after night, hoping for rescue. This part
of crater-land was swept with machine-gun fire—ours or
the enemy’s, how could these men tell who had lost all sense
of direction?—but at night the unwounded Australian
crawled out of his hole and rummaged among dead bodies
for rations and water-bottles, which he took back to his
friends and shared with them.
It is only one incident of the kind. In crater-land there
are many like it, though not so long-drawn. But it is the
enemy who suffers most out there.
Many times men left to hold a line against us do not get
their reliefs, for the reliefs cannot get up through our cur-
tain-fire or will not come.
So the others, starving and wounded, crawl back, leaving
a trail of dead on the way, and for a time, here and there,
the enemy has disappeared before us, so that when our
patrols push out they can find no living man.
Then, after a while, the reliefs come up, dodging our
shell-fire, leaving another trail of dead and wounded, and
then dropping into shell-holes inhabited by corpses.
It is the way of the war, about which the orators have
much to say, not knowing quite the meaning of it. Herr
Bethmann-Hollweg has not seen his men in crater-land.
5
OCTOBER 4
A little romance clings to old buildings, even the remnant
of a wall or two, so that a place like Eaucourt l’Abbaye—the
ruin of a French monastery—seems of greater importance
than a heap of earth and a network of ditches like the
Schwaben or Hessian redoubts. It is of no more importance
(I suppose less, except as another stepping-stone on the way
to Bapaume), but it is the scene of fighting which has a
special interest because of those old bricks built up centu-
362 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
ries ago by French monks to enclose a place of prayer and
peaceful work.
On Monday last, when the fighting began, two monsters
came crawling up to the ditches which had been dug by the
fighting men outside the monastery walls. They breathed
out smoke and fire. Their sides opened with stabs of flame,
and they killed the men in the ditches by rolling on them
and crushing them, and hurling invisible bolts at them.
The ghosts of the monks, if any were there, would have
seen that modern warfare has brought back the mediaeval
dragon-myth, and made it real, and more terrible than super-
stition. They were the Tanks who came.
One could write all this fantastically and make a queer
tale of it. The truth is fantastic, but one must write it
soberly, because they were British boys who have given
their lives or a little of their blood to get these bits of wall
called Eaucourt l'Abbaye, with its vaults and cellars. To
them it was not like an old fairy-tale, but was just one of
those grim bits of fighting, damnably dangerous and ugly
and cheerless, which belong to the Battle of the Somme.
The first part I have already told, two days ago, how our
men, in their attack on the double line of trenches outside
the monastery, were checked by barbed wire and machine-
guns, and two Tanks came to the rescue. One of them,
after doing useful work, came to a stop, and the skipper
came out and, after doing most gallant Service, was
wounded.
Three of the crew put him into a shell-crater and would
not leave him. A day later he was wounded again by a
bomb, which—amazing as it seems—did not burst, but in-
jured him badly in the ribs, so that he had to endure great
suffering out there in the crater.
Our infantry passed over the trenches and through the
monastery ruins and dug a new ditch on the north side for
defence and cover. Heavy rain came and drenched them
and swamped the ditch. They were cold and wet and
hungry.
NORTHWARD FROM THIEPVAL 363
For a time it was impossible to get food up to them.
The ground behind was a quagmire for miles. The carriers
became bogged. That little body of men to the north of
the abbey were dangerously isolated, and might have starved
but for the help of troops on their right who discovered their
needs and sent food.
That was on Monday night. To the best of their belief
the enemy was in force all round them. They could see
flares going up, at Warlencourt, and from a primeval burial
ground, about forty feet high, called the Butte de Warlen-
court, just north of them, and they could hear the snap
of rifle bullets from close shell-craters and the rat-tat-tat of
a machine-gun from a millhouse 300 yards away, north-
West.
From what our men learnt yesterday, there was an hour
or two at least when they had only a few Germans in the
close neighbourhood of the Abbey.
The enemy's troops were expecting their relief. When
they found that the reliefs did not come up they cursed the
war and the weather—they were as wet and hungry as our
men—and decided to go back without further waiting. Only
a few snipers and machine-gunners stayed.
Such things have happened before in the enemy's lines as
I have already described. It was given away this time by a
body of twenty men with an officer and non-commissioned
officer, who came down past the mill-house and took cover
under a bank close to the abbey buildings.
They were seen by our imén, who crept out towards them
with a machine-gun, and then shouted “Hands up!” Twenty
men held up their hands. The officer and the “unter-offizier”
did not surrender, but ran hard back and made their es-
cape, unless two of our bullets reached them.
The twenty men told their tale. They belonged to the
battalion who had been sent up to relieve the troops holding
the outskirts of the Abbey. They had found no one to re-
ceive them or to explain the lie of the land. They had not
364 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
the slightest notion of the amount of ground held by the
English here.
Other bodies of the relieving troops were just as ignorant.
Some of them blundered against trenches held by our men
on the right of the Abbey, and were dealt with by them.
Meanwhile a telephone message had been sent to our ar-
tillery, which flung out a barrage and caught more of the
relief coming down from Warlencourt.
In spite of their horrible mess, the men who got through
the barrage were bold fellows and attacked the abbey and
the trenches south of it. They had a new supply of bombs
and used them freely. Our men were sadly at a disad-
vantage. Bombs were very scarce.
A dump had exploded by accident, sending their store to
blazes. They had to fight with what they carried on their
bodies, and it was not enough. For a time they had to
submit to the fortune of war, and while still holding the
north side of the abbey and ground to the east and south-
east, could not keep the enemy from bombing his way into
a part of the ruins and into the southern ditch which had
been captured with the help of the Tanks.
So the situation remained last evening and night. New
and heavy rainstorms increased the ugly discomforts of our
111611.
They were clinging on to water-logged holes. They were
wet to the skin, covered in slimy mud, and cold and weary.
The wounded among them were in a tragic plight.
The dead seemed to have all the luck. . . . But the fight-
ing spirit did not desert them. New bombs arrived, and
that heartened them. Some of their comrades came fighting
up from the South.
Early in the morning there were roars of explosion as
the bombs crashed into the south ditch and then burst
among the abbey ruins. It was then that there was hot
fighting underground as well as above ground. Our men
“cleaned up” Eaucourt l'Abbaye.
It is a technical phrase which has a very grim meaning,
NORTHWARD FROM THIEPWAL 365
There are no Germans there now in the abbey vaults, except
the bodies of their dead.
In those great arched cellars, where old spiders have spun
their webs, and where old monks once came blinking down
with horn lanterns to fetch the abbot's wine, or to count
their stores, English soldiers, covered with mud, but drier
now, sit rubbing up their rifles and binding up their wounded
and talking of the fight that is over.
XXXVIII
THE WAY TO BAPAUME
T
OctoBER 7
OUR troops have taken advantage of fine weather after
heavy rains to make a new attack this afternoon upon a
German front of 12,000 yards, and have captured a number
of important positions, including the fortified village of Le
Sars, to the north-west of Eaucourt l'Abbaye. For several
days past the pressure of our attack had to be slackened
on account of the bad state of the ground and the rain-
storms, which prevented artillery and aerial observation.
It was bad luck upon our men, as it increased the difficul-
ties for getting up the supplies essential to the success of a
new move forward, and made the battlefields one vast bog,
in which guns and men and wagons and mules were clogged
with slime and mud.
Yesterday the sky cleared, and the men who had taken
Eaucourt l’Abbaye by such a gallant struggle pushed out
and seized the mill-house to the west of those ruins from
which the enemy had been maintaining heavy machine-gun
fire.
It is to those who know what mud and rain mean to an
army in the field an astonishing and audacious thing to
attack in such numbers to-day, abruptly and without waiting
for more favourable conditions of ground.
At this hour, when heavy fighting continues along the
whole line from Le Sars eastwards towards Le Transloy,
it is impossible to write more than a few details of the
progress that has been made already.
366
THE WAY TO BAPAUME 367
The taking of Le Sars itself is the gain of another fortress
defending the way to Bapaume, the main road to that town
running through the village, which was in a natural position
of defence protected by a deep cutting on the right, by a
double line of trenches to the south and by machine-gun
emplacements with a wide field of fire.
It was from that position that our troops were heavily
enfiladed in their first assaults upon the Abbey ruins, and
the enemy had determined to defend it desperately, as it
holds a position of great strategic importance to our future
drive against them.
Well, they have lost it. Before the red dusk this evening
our airmen, who were hovering over the place high above
the shell-fire, signalled back that our infantry were well into
the town and sending back batches of prisoners.
It was a rapid assault. Within an hour our men had
fought their way across the tangle of trenches and shell-
craters just below the village, and had gained their chief
objectives, which included the deep cutting striking into the
village from the right.
The only way of escape for the Germans was westwards
through a belt of scarred and blackened tree-stumps. I do
not know yet whether they had been dislodged from that
primeval burial-place called the Butte de Warlencourt, which
rises about fifty feet to the north of Le Sars on the right of
the Bapaume Road.
The ground beyond has the village of Le Barque on the
right of the road and four sunken cross-roads called the Cut-
Throat on the west of a deep ravine, just above the village
of Warlencourt-Eaucourt. It is here that the enemy will
be under our barrage and the enemy's troops must rally
there if they can for any counter-attack.
East of Le Sars and north of Flers and Lesboeufs British
battalions have made solid progress, driving back the enemy
out of trenches hurriedly scraped up during recent weeks,
but not so richly provided with dug-outs as his earlier lines,
so that when our guns concentrated their fire on them the
368 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
only escape from great slaughter was to hold them thinly
with the main reliance on machine-guns for defence.
Our right wing has advanced about a kilometre from
Lesboeufs towards Le Transloy, where it has linked up with
the French battalions pressing forward to Sailly-Saillisel,
with their usual dashing spirit of attack.
It seems that the day has been in our favour all along the
line of this sweeping movement. We shall know more and
may tell more in a few hours.
2
OCTOBER 8
The men who took Le Sars are still holding it, and only
the short facts of their case come back from them through
the mist and across the waterpools. Last night and this
morning it has been raining again, in a drizzling way, and
all the shell-craters are ponds.
It would be possible to swim in some of them, those
scooped out by the biggest shells and linked up with others.
It is not easy to get runners back across country like that,
and the Germans find it harder and are drowned in many
of those pits, because of our artillery fire pouring “stuff.”
over them.
Yet, curiously, it is from the Germans that one learns
most of the frightful drama which went on yesterday after-
noon in Le Sars village. They are prisoners, 3OO of them,
with five officers who were sent back to safety, while our
men stayed on and fought on. *
Those from the village—it’s just the name that stands—
belong to the 321st and 322nd “Ersatz,” or Reserve Regi-
ment. They had been reinforced, strengthening the garri-
son and expecting an attack, by Some uncanny means, at the
exact minute.
They were stout fellows—our officers pay them this trib-
ute—and they had been ordered to fight to the last man
THE WAY TO BAPAUME 369
rather than surrender this fortress, which is one of the gates
barring the long road to Bapaume.
They trained their machine-guns and trench mortars on
our front trenches, kept their rifles dry by wrapping them
in rags, and sent out volunteers and victims to lie in the
shell-pits waist-high in water to snipe our men as they came
OVer.
They knew that they had a poor chance really to keep
Le Sars, and their best hope of life or death was to put up a
hard fight. Our guns had already Smashed the houses and
barns to rubbish heaps like those of Martinpuich and Cour-
celette—even a little more, judging from what our airmen
saw—and our nine-point-twos, eight inches, and other mon-
ster guns were making a worse hell of the place.
The men of the German 361st and 362nd regiment of
reserves lay low in their dug-outs and tucked their heads
down in new trenches, finely built in a hurry.
What happened first was that our barrage lifted and long
waves of brown soldiers sprang over their parapets facing
up from ground close south of Le Sars and on the German
left from the edge of Eaucourt l'Abbaye and the mill-house
beyond.
Their first goal on our right was one of those beastly
quadrilateral redoubts called the Tangle (there is another
behind our new line at Eaucourt), and after that the road
from Martinpuich, north-eastwards, and then forward to
the Butte de Warlencourt—that old high tumulus in which
the bones of some prehistoric man lay until we flung them
up to the surface of our modern civilisation.
3
The Tangle was the first check and a bad one. Machine-
guns swept the field with bullets so that men lay on their
faces in the mud, not bothering, you may guess, about
appearances. They were just Scarecrows and mud-larks,
370 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
wallowing in slime but finding an inch or two of luck in it.
Another muddy thing came on the way to the Tangle, more
like a primeval river hog than in the early days of its debut,
because of the mountains of slush churned up by its flanks.
The Tank turned its snout towards the Tangle and strug-
gled over the choppy ground—wave upon wave of craters
with high rims, until it reached a bit of the deep cutting
which makes a hole in the side of Le Sars.
This sunken road, or old quarry track, was filled with
German soldiers alive and dead. The living ones flung
bombs at the Tank, fired rifle volleys and tried to stab it
from beneath as it straggled across the ditch and stayed
across it firing venomously from each flank. After that,
something having happened to its internal organs, it com-
mitted hari-kari. But it seems to have been useful before
going up in a blaze of glory.
The German prisoners who faced our men in the outskirts
of Le Sars, and then further back in the sunken road, and
in the hiding places below ground, say there was grim and
bitter fighting there, and pay a soldier's tribute to the men
who captured them. “They fought us fiercely, and beat
us. We could not stand up against them.” Our men saw
red, even in the mist, and in the hand-to-hand fighting they
had the Germans by the throat.
XXXIX
THE GERMAN VERDICT OF THE
SOMME BATTLES
I
OCTOBER 3
THERE has come into our hands, by the fortune of war, a
long and critical report by General Sixt von Armin, com-
manding the fourth German Corps against the British front
in the Battle of the Somme during July.
It is an important historical document. The German
general has written it as a great soldier writes on his own
subject, without passion or prejudice, in a cold scientific
spirit, analysing the qualities of his enemy as well as the
enemy's weaknesses, and exposing the errors and failures of
his own organisation, leadership, and troops with the same
impartial candour.
It is well done, minutely technical, full of military knowl-
edge and common sense. But in setting all these things
down, in this analysis of German organisation, tactics, ma-
terial, and moral, during the first month of our great of-
fensive, General von Armin has confessed to the utter fail-
ure of his war-machine.
In almost every paragraph, dealing with every depart-
ment of his corps in fighting organisation, there is this con-
fession of breakdown and an acknowledgment of British
superiority.
No general of ours writing of our own troops, or of our
own artillery, or air service, could claim greater supremacy
than is granted to us by this German army-corps-commander
in his comparison between our power and his own. To our
37I
372 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
soldiers this document is worth a thousand times its weight
in gold as a moral tonic, for everything they hoped had been
attained in this battle of the Somme—the ever increasing
strain upon German organisation, the effect of our artillery
fire, the mastery of our flying corps, the demoralisation of
the enemy's command, is here admitted as the bitter fruit of
experience. It is the fruit of one month's experience.
Since then there have been more months, and not all the
lessons set down in this document have been of help to the
enemy, but the cup of bitterness has been filled and refilled.
2
The Report begins with a tribute to our British infantry,
which, says General von Armin, “has undoubtedly learnt
much since the autumn offensive” (of 1915).
“It shows great dash in attack, a factor to which immense
confidence in its overwhelming artillery greatly contributes.
The Englishman also has his physique and training in his
favour.
“The English infantry showed great tenacity in defence.
This was especially noticeable in the case of Small parties,
which when once established with machine-guns in the
corner of a wood or group of houses were very difficult to
drive out.”
Again and again General von Armin reveals the new and
overwhelming power of our artillery.
“Particularly noticeable was the high percentage of
medium and heavy guns with the artillery, which, apart
from this, was numerically far superior to ours. The am-
munition has apparently improved considerably.
“All our tactically-important positions were methodically
bombarded by the English artillery, as well as all known
infantry and battery positions.
“Extremely heavy fire was continuously directed on the
villages situated immediately behind the firing line as well
GERMAN WERDICT OF SOMME BATTLES 373
as on all natural cover afforded by the ground. Registration
and fire control were assisted by well organised aerial ob-
servation. At night the villages also were frequently
bombed by aeroplanes.”
The terrifying destructive power of our artillery is re-
vealed not only by these definite statements, but in advice
under separate headings. Thus, in the instructions to
officers selecting infantry positions:
“Narrow trenches with steep sides again proved very
disadvantageous, and caused considerably more casualties
(men being buried) than shallower trenches with a wide
top. . . . A cover trench roughly parallel with the front
fire trench is not sound. Such trenches are destroyed by the
enemy's fire at the same time and exactly the same way as
the actual fire trenches.”
Heavy casualties were also experienced during July by
the German artillery, as the following note shows:
“The English custom of shelling villages heavily led to
the adoption of the principle that batteries should never be
sited in the villages themselves. . . . The employment of
steep slopes for battery positions must also be discarded
for similar reasons.”
A melancholy picture is drawn of the German battle
headquarters, also brought under fire by our far-reaching
artillery, and in such a zone of fire that German staff officers
get killed on their way up or cannot find their whereabouts,
or having found the building scuttle down into overcrowded
hiding-places, panic-stricken by our bombardments. Owing
to choosing unsuitable sites for battle headquarters there
were “frequent interruptions in personal and telephone
traffic by artillery fire, and overcrowding in the few avail-
able cellars in the villages.”
That rush for cellars already thronged must hurt the
pride and dignity of the German staff. They are recom-
mended to have many sign-boards put up to direct them to
battle headquarters, and to avoid “lengthy searches which
caused many casualties.”
374 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
3
The enemy's own artillery was much hampered during
the July battles by the steady intensity of our fire.
“It was found very difficult,” says General von Armin,
“to form a continuous barrage, without gaps, in front of
our own lines, owing to the occasional uncertainty as to
the position of our front line, which was continually chang-
ing during the fighting, the frequent changing of batteries,
the re-grouping of the artillery, which was often necessary,
the bad conditions for observation, the permanent inter-
ruption of the telephone communications, and the practically
continuous heavy fire which was maintained behind our
front line.”
The General describes in detail the enormous difficulties
experienced by his officers in bringing up reserves quickly
for counter attacks, owing to the severity of our barrage,
the breakdown of telephonic communications, the killing
of the runners, and the time taken for transmission of orders
from the front line.
The troops have to “advance slowly across country, with
which they are generally unacquainted, and under heavy
fire.”
He confesses to the utter failure of the counter-attacks
made against us during July without method and without
weight. His words are:
“If counter-attacks, which, on account of the situation,
ought to be methodically prepared, are hurried, they cost
much blood, and cause the troops to lose their trust in their
leaders if they fail, which nearly always happens in such
a case.”
4.
With regard to the air service General von Armin ac-
knowledges in strong language the supremacy of the British
and the failure of their own:
GERMAN WERDICT OF SOMME BATTLES 375
“The means for providing the artillery with aerial ob-
servation has proved to be insufficient. . . . The numerical
superiority of the enemy's airmen and the fact that their
machines were better were made disagreeably apparent to
us, particularly in their direction of the enemy's artillery
fire and in bomb-dropping.
“The number of our battle-planes was also too small.
The enemy's airmen were often able to fire successfully on
our troops with machine-guns by descending to a height of
a few hundred metres.
“The German anti-aircraft gun sections could not con-
tinue firing at this height without exposing their own troops
to serious danger from fragments of shell. . . .
“A further lesson to be learnt from this surprisingly bold
procedure on the part of the English airmen is that the
infantry make too little use of their rifles as a means of
driving off aircraft.”
5
The Army Corps commander responsible for the organi-
sation and direction of the troops who fought against us in
July finds failure and shortage in almost every department
of war material at his disposal.
The supply of artillery ammunition of all kinds during
the first days of the battle did not equal the expenditure.
Reserve supplies were only available in very small quantities.
There were “repeated requests from all arms for an in-
creased supply of entrenching tools.”
“The original supply of maps was insufficient, not only
as regards quantity, but also as regards detail.”
The supply of horses and vehicles to the troops “has
reached the utmost limits owing, on the one hand, to the
permanent reduction in the establishment of horses, and on
the other hand to the permanent increase in fighting material
and articles of equipment.”
“The existing telephone system proved totally inadequate
376 THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME
in consequence of the development which the fighting took.”
“The existing organisation in the light signalling service
does not meet requirements.”
The supply of light pistols for signalling “is too small.”
The establishment of motor cycles proved insufficient for
the heavy fighting. This deficiency was “painfully evident.”
“The great weight” of the German machine-guns “has
again proved to be a serious disadvantage under these con-
ditions.”
“Complaints have been received that the ammunition-
boxes and water-jackets of the machine-guns are too heavy.”
“It is universally suggested that the supply of hand-
grenades should be increased.”
With regard to food there is no suggestion that the army
behind the lines is on short rations, but there are difficulties
in getting supplies up to the front trenches, and it is recom-
mended that men going into action should carry their “third
iron rations”—that is, a more ample supply of tinned foods.
They ask for more tinned meats, tinned sausages, bread,
and mineral waters, but the General advises that tinned her-
rings should not be eaten, as they encourage thirst.
In all but the food department the German organisation
of supplies is weighed in the balance and found wanting by
one of their own great Generals.
In spite of all their boasted genius of organisation, and
it has been wonderful (let us admit that handsomely), it
could not withstand the tremendous pressure of our July
thrust.
It failed item by item—artillery, aviation, ammunition,
and stores of every kind. The staffs were inadequate, the
communications broke down, the great German war-ma-
chine was strained and put out of gear and badly knocked
about by the ferocity and continuance of the British
assault.
Since then it has not been able to recover its efficiency.
The pressure has become more powerful, the strain harder
to bear.
GERMAN WERDICT OF SOMME BATTLES 377
If General von Armin were to write a second report on
the battle of the Somme it would be a more gloomy docu-
ment than this. But what he has written stands, and it is a
frightful confession which would put terror into the hearts
of the German people could they read it.
They will not be allowed to read it, for it tells the truth,
which the War Lords are hiding from them.
It will be seen that my despatches do not include the cap-
ture of Beaumont-Hamel—one of the most astounding
achievements in all this fighting. In October I was com-
pelled to go home on sick-leave, so that I missed that great
battle on the Ancre. It has revived the nation's hope that by
a continuous series of these blows the German resistance
will break down utterly at last and that they will acknowl-
edge defeat. From a military point of view that hope is
the best thing we have, but the fulfilment of it must be
deterred through many months of another year reeking like
this one of blood and massacre and sacrifice.
REFERENCE.
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Approximate line /* Ju
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