Slaughterhouse Somme
The battles in the summer and autumn of 1916 count as the most dreadful events of the First World War. The Germans who occupied the area at the Somme since September 1914 had used the two years to make the area as one at the best fortified front sectors. They had built in the solid chalk ground up to 10 m deep dug-outs which should defy the heaviest artillery fire. These shelters had been connected with the hinterland by underground corridors and communication facilities and were supplied with everything to come through the heaviest artillery fire. Aboveground, a net of machine-gun positions got established which was able to take under fire any angle of approach to the plain and valley cuts. To this there were solid wire entanglements which got almost impenetrable within the two quiet years. At the beginning of the year General Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn had put the main emphasis of his work on the Verdun offensive and did not plan any greater action with the 2 Army. He warned, however, General Fritz von Below who had relieved Karl von Bulow as commander of the 2. Army, that the Allies could possibly plan a relief offensive for Verdun at the Somme. However, von Falkenhayn assumed that the main emphasis would not lie on von Below but near Arras and arranged only very few reserves for him.
Fritz of Below, a cousin of Otto of Below, the victor of the Battle of Caporetto, did win his merits as a commander of the XXI Corps in the second battle at the Masurian Lakes in October 1915. Fritz von Below was holder of the Pour le Merit and received the Oak Leaves to the Pour le Merit in August 1916.
The British General Douglas Haig was the dominating man on the opposite side. He had mobbed the British Commander-in-Chief French again and again in the course of the time until he could take the position on December 16, 1915. The British armed forces historian, John Keegan described Haig in his brilliant book "The First World War" that the successful generals of the First World War were tough characters. Some nevertheless managed to connect hardness with a conspicuous human quality: It was immovability with Joffre, dignity with Hindenburg, impassivity with Foch and security with Kemal. Haig who never showed any participation in human suffering in public appearances and private diaries does not compensate for his aloof of manner by the lowest human characteristic. Despite his strange nature Haig was an efficient soldier, who was superior to French in every area of modern military practice.
In the summer 1915, the Germans noticed movement behind the French lines. A French army was relieved by British troops. In the Winter1915/1916 the Allied commanders decided to iron out the blow of 1915 with an enormous offensive. Actually, all their major offensives were rejected. This time a violent effort should wear the Germans down and ensure a breakthrough. The Germans had six divisions stationed in the future area of attack. Of these units the 26.and 28. Reserve Division were already in the frontline since September 1914, the 12.Division since October 1914 and the 52. Division since April 1915.
The territory which the Allies had chosen for their offensive was described as follows in the summarizing report from the German "Großes Hauptquartier" (Great Headquarters - Supreme Command) chosen the Allies for their attack: "The sector which our opponents had chosen for their new and violent efforts is about 40 kilometres wide in the beeline; it extends in the Picardie between the villages of Gommecourt, northwest of Bapaume, and Vermandovillers, southwest of Péronne. The two mentioned towns formed the target of attack. The ground is partially easily, partially firmly corrugated plain, fertilely and well cultivated, mixed with many prosperous villages and few small woodlots. Two watercourses form strong cuts. The river Somme runs in a canalized way through a marsh from the south to the city of Péronne then with strong meanders in a mainly westerly direction. Between the villages of Curlu and Eclusier its meanders interrupt with the enclosed marsh meadows on a breadth of four kilometres vertically the mutual trench system where only wire obstacles were in place. The Ancre brook forms a similar yet not quite so significant cut which flows from the northeast to the southwest through the city of Albert to the river Somme which is reached behind the hostile front west of Corbie. Its lowland, between the villages of Thiepval and Hamel, carves through the initial positions which are slightly turned backwards to the southwest.
The area of the Somme battle consists of three sectors: the north sector
of Gommecourt to Hamel, the middle sector of Thiepval to Curlu and the south sector of the southern edge of Frise to Vermandovillers, the old capital of the Viromanduer. The villages and bits of woodland of the battlefield became the focus point and foothold of the enormous struggle. The hostile position had completely been occupied by the French for 1 ½ years until the Englishmen took a part. The point where the English and the French front connected was a place you found if one draws a straight line from the north edge of Combles to the southern edge of Carnoy ".
of Gommecourt to Hamel, the middle sector of Thiepval to Curlu and the south sector of the southern edge of Frise to Vermandovillers, the old capital of the Viromanduer. The villages and bits of woodland of the battlefield became the focus point and foothold of the enormous struggle. The hostile position had completely been occupied by the French for 1 ½ years until the Englishmen took a part. The point where the English and the French front connected was a place you found if one draws a straight line from the north edge of Combles to the southern edge of Carnoy ".
The real allied attack plan provided a great participation of French and British forces. When the German large-scale attack started, however, at the north front of Verdun on February 21, 1916, the French were forced to transfer gradually divisions from the Somme to the Verdun front. The French had nothing else left at long last but to reduce their Somme front sector. The burden lay now mainly on the part of the British.
The 20 divisions which Haig provided for his offensive primary belonged to the British 4. Army of General Henry Rawlinson. At first Haig had the area behind the lines turned into a gigantic armed forces camp for his troops.
Tent towns and ammunition depots, new roads and gun emplacements were built. This did not remain secret to the Germans as proven by a report from the German headquarters: „Symptoms were already watched by our troops approximately by the middle of May 1916. From the end of May increased reconnaissance activity was ordered. Successful reconnaissance raids generated prisoners who reported an increasing strength of his trench garrison. Our airmen identified an increased activity, many new field trains and quarters behind the enemy lines. However, all this did not allow to draw any conclusion in regards to strength and size of the forthcoming attack yet. Because the enemy developed a lively activity simultaneously on the other front to cover up his intentions, full clarity could only be provided by the actual start of the attack".
Tent towns and ammunition depots, new roads and gun emplacements were built. This did not remain secret to the Germans as proven by a report from the German headquarters: „Symptoms were already watched by our troops approximately by the middle of May 1916. From the end of May increased reconnaissance activity was ordered. Successful reconnaissance raids generated prisoners who reported an increasing strength of his trench garrison. Our airmen identified an increased activity, many new field trains and quarters behind the enemy lines. However, all this did not allow to draw any conclusion in regards to strength and size of the forthcoming attack yet. Because the enemy developed a lively activity simultaneously on the other front to cover up his intentions, full clarity could only be provided by the actual start of the attack".
Blind faith in fire power
Haigs battle plan was strikingly similar to the one of the German Verdun Commander-in-Chief von Falkenhayn. It differed only by the fact that Haig hoped to be able to break through the German lines and to win a free territory. His hopes were based on an artillery drumfire not known until then. Within a week up to a million shells were to be used up, to mark the start of the attack.
Haig anticipated a total paralysis of the German defenders by day X, July 1, 1916, when 19 British and three French divisions were on the attack. Haig was so convinced of the success of the drumfire that the infantry was forbidden to use the traditional tactics of "fire and movement" but ordered to advance upright and in a straight line.
Supreme Commander Haig was convinced of a breakthrough at Bapaume his Front Commander Rawlinson rather expected, however, a restricted result the incursion into the German trench system. However, both were absolutely convinced of the effect of the new drumfire. For that reason enormous efforts were made. Three million shells had been stored near the front, 1 000 field guns, 180 heavy guns and 245 heavy mortars were provided, this meant a density of one field gun every 20 front metres and a heavy gun or mortar every 50 front metres. The Artillery plan provided that the field guns were to crush the wire entanglements, the heavy guns were to destroy the battery positions and machine-guns-nests.
As of June 22nd the increasing fire on the German lines indicated an early beginning of the attack. The German trench garrisons did not get a quiet minute because the British used gas shells in between the barrages. This meant double stress for the soldiers who not only had to endure the fire but also to bear the inconvenience of a gasmask. Between June 25 and June 30 the shelling increased for drumfire.
"At five o'clock in the morning of July 1, 1916 the drumfire became distended all along the front from Gommecourt to Vermandovillers. The most sever drumfire was north and south of the Somme. Gas clouds rolled threateningly over the battlefield. From nine o'clock it was obvious, that the storm was imminent: the fire drummed mainly on the front trenches. At 10.30 the enemy transferred it to the second line of trenches and at once the general assault was started on the whole line ", the chronicler of the summarizing report of the Gig Headquarters wrote.
Football in no-man`s-land
The literature is full of representations of the hour X in the morning of July 1. The British and French who are so sure that the drumfire has nipped in the bud any German resistance, climbed from their trenches and went shoulder to shoulder, loaded with 27 kg heavy equipment which was to serve for the repair of the conquered hostile lines, against the Germans. The atmosphere was bursting with confidence of victory. To such extent, that some played football on the way to the enemy. They just could not imagine that any German defender could have survived this enormous fire and 21 great mine explosions. But the awakening from this naive dream was terrible.
The fright under the attackers was great when they faced the first intact wire entanglements and machine-guns opened fire on them simultaneously. The Germans who continually had exercised to drag up heavy machine guns out of their 10 m of deep shelters shot like into trance shot at the advancing British soldiers. The fire wandered along the barriers up to the first British trenches where they caught hold of men who had still not even set foot on the no man's land. A sergeant of the 3.Battalion of the Tyneside Irishmen reported after the battle: „On the left and on the right of me I saw long rows of soldiers. I then heard the noise of machine guns in the distance. When I had gone 10 m further, only still few men seemed to be left around me. When I walked 20 metres it struck me as if I was alone. Then I was also hit ".
In the jargon of the army reporting one read such account on the German side: „They (the British) had been prepared "for a walk" and found defiant, obstinate resistance, had to see how the enemy, believed destroyed, tore serious bloody losses in their rows. Immortal will remain the glory of the men who still showed a bold front to the enemy after such a day of hell horror having shattered his plans in the beginning at once. In the gratitude of the people those loyal followers from post to death who found the honour grave in the collapsing trench, live on".
The British losses of this first day were monstrous. Of the 100 000 that entered the no man's land, 20 000 did not return. Further 40 000 were wounded. The Germans who succeeded in carrying up reinforcements in the course of the day still suffered substantially less losses. About 6 000 fell by death or injury. The probably worst losses suffered the 1. Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont Hamel.
Hell has got a name
The Beaumont-Hamel position lay at the northern end of the 45 km long front and was occupied by three infantry brigades of the British 29. Division. On July 1, the attack of the 86., 87., and 88. Brigade started at 07.30 with a mine explosion at the "Hawthorn Ridge" where more than 18 tons of explosive should wipe out a part of the German lines. These lines were held by experienced soldiers of the 119. Reserve Regiment of the 26. Würtembergischen Reserve Division. The British brigades should occupy the new crater order to dominate the trench.
The attack of the brigades ended in an inferno already at wire entanglement. At the arrival of the British, the crater edge was already taken by Würtemberger and the complete attack came to a standstill. The second wave did not fare a different one. The Division Commander, Major General Beauvoir de Lisle, requested the 1. Newfoundland Regiment as reserve at 08.45 and had them engage the enemy at 09.15.
The attack of the brigades ended in an inferno already at wire entanglement. At the arrival of the British, the crater edge was already taken by Würtemberger and the complete attack came to a standstill. The second wave did not fare a different one. The Division Commander, Major General Beauvoir de Lisle, requested the 1. Newfoundland Regiment as reserve at 08.45 and had them engage the enemy at 09.15.
The Germans were less shaken by the drumfire and the infantry attack than rather shocked by the unprecedented courage and determination of the attackers. The dreadful bloodbath, caused by their machine guns, stirred them up badly so that they adjusted often the fire and granted the surviving injured soldiers the chance to creep or to limp back to their lines. Those who were more heavily wounded did not have any chance of rescue. They often crept away into shell craters and kicked the bucket painfully within the next hours and days.
Von Falkenhayn was worried deeply about the offensive. He was upset about single area losses and immediately drew conclusions. He relieved von Below`s Chief of Staff, General Grunert, and replaced him with the head of its own operation department, Colonel Fritz von Lossberg. Von Lossberg`s first official duty was the change of the tactics. He ordered a "defence in depth" which was not based on trenches but on lines of shell craters. The lines at the very front were only thinly occupied to minimize losses and lost ground had to be won again by counterattacks.
Within the next weeks the Allies did innumerable attacks with no results. Haig`s desire for a breakthrough with a following cavalry attack dissolved into air. The cavalry mutated to infantry. Until July 31, the Germans had lost 160 000 men, the British and French more than 200 000 soldiers. The front line had been moved only in some places by five kilometres. Everything remained the way it was north of the rivulet Ancre.
The British attacks continued all through August. The 51. Reserve Division of Lieutenant General W. Balck was transferred from the Ypres front as reinforcements to the right shore of the Somme at Combles. About his first impressions from the forward dug-out the Second Lieutenant of the Reserve Sapper of the Field Artillery Regiment 116 wrote: „"There was a little table in the 1.20 m wide corridor which connected the two exits. The Battalion Commander and his Adjutant sat at it at the light of a smoking candle over their maps. I got assigned a tiny little place of work at it, now. Three infantrymen and three gunners operated their telephones, couchant on the floor and on the gallery stairs still half a dozen dispatch runners squatted. "The house" was full for the last place. There was no space to sleep or to stretch out. Only the commander had a box similar bed, a convenience he, however, could make use with the battalion of only once for some minutes during my four-day stay. On the first day of my command the heavily gassed battalion doctor lay in this bed ".
Balck's impressions of the Somme Battle were expressed in his report: „The day infinitely slowly passed. Staring in front of himself apathetically, one listened to the battle noise swelling up again. The tormenting groan of the gas poisoned rescue man penetrated from a corner, mixed with the faint whimpering of the completely broken down people out of the telephone switchboard room. Off and on dispatch messengers came by with unrecognizable faces caused by horror and strain, brought their reports without saying a word from the line at the very front and were sent out with orders again. My telephone connection to the artillery observation posts had not been able to maintain. I only could use my three telephonists as runners. Already on the first day two of them were put out of action by gas poisoning and only after two days I got a substitute. Toward the evening the hostile artillery fire of all calibres increased to the drumfire. The English undoubtedly wanted to attack again, like they did for days almost every morning and evening. Since there was no more telephone connection to backwards positions, I hurried after the gallery entrance with a flare pistol and red and green flares. Up there all hell was loose! The shells struck everywhere with deafening noise wrapped the falling house walls in their black clouds of smoke, drilled into the ruins and rooted in the rubble heaping upward stones and iron. Shrapnel shattered with sharp roar and bright flame the tiles burst rattling under their lead hail. Timbering started to burn and innumerable white flares fluttered over the fire embers in the sky, they shot to pieces and torn to pieces house ruins stood out from ghostly outlines. And now - it got started! Headlights flashed, machine-gun and infantry fire rattled along the trenches now. I fired my red signal cartridges, everywhere from the trenches now, red flares fly under white flares up to the sky, - barrage fire".
A new revolutionary weapon
In the middle of September the British try to force a breakthrough with a technological innovation, the tank. The idea of the tank was already developed by Leonardo da Vinci vaguely and outlined in a short story of HG Wells, "The country Iron-Clads", in 1903 . The first caterpillar tractors were used already 1905 in the farming. However, all suggestions of civilian specialists to introduce an armour-clad fighting machine were turned down before the war. After the beginning of the trench war the British officer, Ernest Dunlop Swinton, got down to developing a similar concept. His planning was declined by the general staff and the Minister of War, Lord Kitchener at first instance, though. After Swinton had asserted his political influence, he could succeed with a test of a prototype. This failed, though. This flop almost would have been the end of the short tank life if the later Prime Minister and Minister of Naval Affairs then Winston Churchill had not seized the initiative. He described the tank outline without hesitation as "land-ship" which came therefore under the department of the navy. Churchill formed the "committee for land-ships" from naval officers and civilians. As of September 17, 1915 Second Lieutenant Walter Gordon Wilson built the first prototype called "Little Willie". When the technical concept of the machine took shape the committee got the cover name "committee for the provision of tanks" in Decembers 1915. This is how “tank” became established in the UK as a synonym for the German word “Panzer”. In January 1916 "Mother" was built, a bigger prototype with a gun tower. At long last "Mark I" wascommissioned for use in September 1916.
The technology still being in the child's shoes demanded the utmost from the 8 men crew. Alone the control of the tank proved to be a difficult task. The wooden chassis put at the tail was unsuitable for the control and was removed completely as of November 1916. An almost superhuman task was the steering with the help of the chain brakes as the power of several soldiers was needed. The only solution was the slip of one chain with the help of a secondary transmission, to turn the tank in a given direction. But even that was difficult because of the infernal noise inside the tank. Orders of the commander could only be conveyed by knocking signs of a hammer. This physical hard work took place at temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius. Waste gases and gun smokes also penetrated into the unprotected interior and made the life of the soldiers even more unbearably. A storage capacity for ammunition and provisions fenced off was not provided so that slipping ballast represented a further injury risk.
The vehicles were assigned to the heavy department of the machine-gun corps and should be under fire for the first time at the old Roman road which leads from Albert to Bapaume. On September 15 at 06.20 they started their task. The surprise made an advance of three kilometres possible before they failed because of technical problems, mud, craters or German artillery. This was the most spectacular success on behalf of the British for years and would have been able to lead to a breakthrough if the German infantry would not have bolted the battle field in counterattacks and would have restored the status quo.
Haig renewed his attacks with the battles of Morval and Thiepval between September 25 and 27. Another attack was started near the ridges of the brook Ancre on October 1 which lasted until October 11. In October Joffre urged the British to attack further in order to weaken the Germans at Verdun. Joffre wanted to prevent at all cost that German troops would be withdrawn from the Somme front to support the Verdun fighters. On November 13, the last great attack took place in the battle at the Ancre at which the important field fortress Beaumont Hamel was conquered.
When the battle was stopped at the Somme finally on November 19th, they had won 11 km of territory since July 1. This "success" did cost the French 194 451 and the British 419 645 dead and wounded soldiers. The Germans suffered 600 000 fallen and injured men. For the British the Battle of the Somme was the greatest military catastrophe in the 20th century, if not in their entire history.
Who hikes over the former battlefields today can comprehend the course of this horror battle with the innumerable cemeteries, some in the middle of field with access by road.
Who hikes over the former battlefields today can comprehend the course of this horror battle with the innumerable cemeteries, some in the middle of field with access by road.