The 56th Division. Charles Humble Dudley Ward
railway cutting north-east of Bouleaux Wood, which promised to be a point of some difficulty.
The Right Tank, having seen the 169th Brigade safely in its objectives, was to move along the south-east of Bouleaux Wood and take up a position on the cutting in the top end of square 22.
In the XIV Corps area the Tanks were by no means a success. It is only right to say that this was not the fault of their crews. Every excuse must be allowed, for the Tank was not only a new invention, and, like most new inventions, somewhat clumsy in the first design, but the ground was absolutely vile. We have not alluded to the weather, which, however, was a most important factor just now. The field of battle was a field of mud; the resting area of the division was a field of mud; the roads and tracks were rivers of mud; anyone can paint a picture of the battle of the Somme provided he can paint miles of mud. And the Army had simply blasted its way forward so that the shell-holes cut one another in the mud.
The scene round Leuze Wood, Guillemont, and Ginchy was a nightmare. There had been little time to devote to the burial of the dead, and corpses lay literally in heaps where the fighting had been severe. One has only to imagine the results of repeated and obstinate attempts to capture a position to realise what it must look like before it is finally taken. An attack is launched and fails. Why does it fail? Perhaps twenty men of a company get back to the trench from which they attacked, and where are the others? On the ground. After five or six attacks, each going out strong and coming back weak, each heralded by a “barrage,” what will the place look like?
We may mention here that the stretcher-bearers worked with eight men to each stretcher, and each ambulance required six horses to drag it through the mud.
Just before 1 a.m. one of the Tanks allotted to the 56th Division broke down on its way to the assembly position. This accident left the division with one Tank working on either side of the Bouleaux Wood.
The assault commenced at 6.20 a.m., and was followed by some of the fiercest fighting in the history of the war. On the right of the division the 2nd London Regt. succeeded, after some hours of gallant and determined effort, in driving the enemy from the greater part of Loop Trench, the enemy clinging to the junction with the sunken road. The Tank, which was some time before reaching the sunken road, gave valuable assistance, but was set on fire by a direct hit from a field gun. The fight then turned to the sunken road and the trench on the far side of it; but the enemy was strong and no less determined than the men of the 169th Brigade. No further advance was gained in this direction.
On the left of the division the 167th Brigade attacked, with the 1st London Regt. in line and the 7th Middlesex in support in Leuze Wood. The 1st London Regt. captured that portion of Beef Trench outside Bouleaux Wood and, together with the 7th Middlesex—who were to advance through them, but both units became mixed—occupied Middle Copse.
So far as the 56th Division was concerned, the result of the day’s fighting remained with the advance on the south-east of Leuze Wood as far as the Combles road, and on the north-west of Bouleaux Wood to Beef Trench and Middle Copse. The enemy retained the whole of Bouleaux Wood and the trenches to the north of the Combles road, and the road itself. But the action, certainly of the 167th Brigade, was influenced by the fortunes of the divisions on the left.
The centre of the horseshoe which had been formed from the east of Ginchy to the cross-roads east of Guillemont, and then to the north of Leuze Wood and along Bully Trench, and which was prevented by the Quadrilateral from being a complete circle, can scarcely have been an enviable place for the Germans who were there. As fighters, these Germans deserve the highest praise. They were of the 21st and 7th Bavarian Regts., of the 5th Bavarian Division. They were well wired in, and had in the Quadrilateral deep dugouts in their front lines and others in the ravine behind the position. But though we grant them a perfect position and well-constructed defences, we must also admit they performed a fine feat of arms. Those in the Quadrilateral had resisted all efforts of the 56th and Guards Divisions to bomb them out, and those in the horseshoe had repulsed the 16th Division and the 6th Division, which attacked them on the 13th. They had actually been under severe artillery fire and subject to repeated assaults since the 9th September, and on the 15th, in spite of Tanks, of creeping barrages, and of the heavy artillery, they remained immovable.
The worst kind of luck had attended the Tanks of the 6th Division—only one managed to reach the jumping-off line. This Tank went on with the infantry for a short way, had all its periscopes shot away, was pierced by most of the bullets which hit it (and a perfect stream of fire was directed on it), and, the driver being badly wounded, it retired through the ranks of the 6th Division. Had the three Tanks attacked, something might have been done, anyhow with the enemy to the south-west of the Quadrilateral; but with only one, the barrage, arranged with gaps for three, became ineffective, and a concentrated fire on the one Tank soon put it out of action—it also drew attention to the infantry attack. Briefly, the 6th Division failed.
There was still a chance that the Guards would advance and render the position of the Bavarians impossible. But this chance was not realised. The Quadrilateral was a mass of machine guns, and, taking the Guards Division in flank, inflicted fearful casualties. The first objective was taken and held—on the left the second objective was reached—but already the assaulting troops were being shot in the back by the Bavarians, and no further progress was made. Tanks do not seem to have helped in that direction either.
With this state of affairs on the left of the 56th Division, the attacking brigades were not likely to progress very far in the building up of a flank facing Combles. Until the Quadrilateral was taken the 167th Brigade could not possibly move. The 7th Middlesex had lost a lot of men from machine guns firing into their left rear as they advanced behind the assault of the 1st London Regt. And finally their Tank had broken down and was being attacked by the enemy.
By 11 a.m. the two reserve battalions of the 169th Brigade were moved forward to be used as reinforcements before the 168th Brigade was sent into action. Gen. Hull was determined to clear Bouleaux Wood, which had resisted so long. But at 1.30 p.m. the Corps Commander, Lord Cavan, telephoned him that the Guards had not made as much progress as he had thought, and that the operation against Bouleaux Wood would not be practicable. But before this order could reach them the 8th Middlesex made a further attempt to get into the wood and failed. All attention was then centred on the Quadrilateral, which was holding up the advance of no less than three divisions.
The division was ordered to consolidate where it stood, but during the night bombing attacks were carried out by the 169th Brigade on the sunken road and end of Loop Trench, and by the 167th Brigade on the trench in Bouleaux Wood—neither met with success.
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