World War I - 9 Book Collection: Nelson's History of the War, The Battle of Jutland & The Battle of the Somme. Buchan John
engaged the 3rd Guards Division—that division which in April had been brought from the Russian front, and had been hailed by the Kaiser as the hope of his throne and empire. It contained three regiments—the Guards Fusiliers, the Lehr Regiment, and the 9th Grenadiers—and every one had been heavily depleted. Some of them showed fine fighting quality, such as the garrison at Ovillers, but they met something more than their match in our New Army. In the attack on the second position the 5th Brandenburg Division appeared, that division which had attacked at Douaumont on February 25th and at Vaux on March 9th. Now it was virtually a new formation, for at Verdun it had lost well over 100 per cent, of its original strength. It was scarcely more fortunate at Longueval. “The enemy,” said the Kaiser, in his address on April 20th, “has prepared his own soup, and now he must sup it, and I look to you to see to it. May the appearance of the 3rd Guards Division inform him what soldiers are facing him.” The information had been conveyed to us, and our men were by no means depressed. They desired to meet with the best that Germany could produce, for they were confident that they could put that best out of action.
On Sunday, the 16th, we withdrew our advanced posts from High Wood. They had done their work, and formed a screen behind which we had consolidated our line. On Monday Ovillers was at last completely taken after a stout defence, and the way was prepared for a general assault on Pozières. That day, too, on our right we widened the gap in the German front by the capture of Waterlot Farm, half-way between Longueval and Guillemont. The weather had again broken, and drenching rain and low mists made progress difficult. The enemy had got up many new batteries, whose position could not be detected in such weather by our aircraft. He himself was better off, since we were fighting on ground he had once held, and he had the register of our trench lines and most of our possible gun positions.
The total of unwounded prisoners in British hands was now 189 officers and 10,779 men. The armament taken included five 8 in. and three 6 in. howitzers, four 6 in. guns, five other heavies, 37 field guns, 30 trench mortars and 66 machine-guns. Of the German losses in dead and wounded no exact estimate is possible, but they were beyond doubt very great, and their abortive counter-attacks had probably brought up the total of the defence to a figure as high as that of the attack. Captured letters all told the same tale. Instant relief was begged for; one battalion consisted of three officers, two N.C.O.’s, and nineteen men; another was so exhausted that it could no longer be employed in fighting; another had completely lost its fighting spirit.
No British soldier decried the quality of his opponents. At the most he declared that it was “patehy,” which was the truth. “The way some of ’em talk,” said a young offieer, “you might think the Boches were all baby-killers, frightened of their own shadows, and anxious only to be taken prisoners. Well, of course, I know there are some like that, a good many in fact, and in all the British Army I don’t believe there’s one. Anyhow, I’ve never seen or heard of a British soldier running out with hands up, calling for mercy and giving himself up. Never heard of it, and I saw Boches doing it, saw a Boehe officer doing it. But mind you, the fellows we ran up against fought like tigers. I say they were good soldiers, and brave men. We were between Fricourt and Mametz, and when we had the Boehe with his back to the wall he fought like a tiger-cat: No Kamarade business about that. They were shying bombs in our faces at point-blank range when our bayonets were absolutely touching ’em.”
There were extraordinarily gallant elements in the German ranks, but they were watered down with much indifferent stuff. Many had lost heart for the fight; they had been told so often of victory assured that they ended by disbelieving everything. On one occasion a hundred men put up their hands while actually charging. Distressful letters from their homes, a lack of confidence in their officers and enthusiasm for their cause, and the suspicion which comes from a foolish censoring of all truth, had impaired the fibre of men who in normal circumstances would have fought stoutly. The German machine was still formidable, but its motive power was weakening.
As for the Allies every day that passed nerved and steeled them. The French had made the final resolution and the ultimate sacrifice. There was no alternative but victory, and the whole race was ready to perish on the battlefield sooner than accept a German domination. Of the same quality was the British temper. “Most of these men,” said a chaplain, “never handled a gun till they joined up. Yet they have faced bigger things than any veteran ever faced before, and faced them steadily, seeing it all very clearly and fearing it not one scrap; though they have again and again forced mad fear into the highly trained troops facing them. That is because they have something that you cannot make in foundries, that you cannot even give by training. I could give it a name the Church would recognise. Let’s say they know their cause is good, as they very surely do. The Germans may write on their badges that God is with them, but our lads—they know.”
POZIÈRES AND GUILLEMONT.
The next step was to round off our capture of the enemy second position, and consolidate our ground, for it was very certain that the Germans would not be content to leave us in quiet possession. The second line being lost from east of Pozières to Delville Wood, the enemy was compelled to make a switch line to connect his third position with an uncaptured point in his second, such as Pozières. Fighting continued in the skirts of Delville Wood, and among the orchards of Longueval, which had to be taken one by one. Apart from this general activity, our two main objectives were Pozières and Guillemont. The first, with the Windmill beyond it, represented the highest ground of the Thiepval plateau; the second was necessary to us before we could align our next advance with that of the French. Our aim was the crest of the ridge, the watershed, which would give us direct observation over all the rolling country to the east. The vital points on this watershed were Mouquet Farm, between Thiepval and Pozières; the Windmill, now only a stone pedestal, on the high road east of Pozières; High Wood, and the high ground direct east of Longueval.
The weather did not favour us. The third week of July was rain and fog. The last week and the first fortnight of August saw blazing summer weather, which in that arid and dusty land told severely on men wearing heavy steel helmets and carrying a load of equipment. There was little wind, and a heat-haze lay low on the uplands. This meant poor visibility at a time when air reconnaissance was most vital. Hence the task of counter-bombardment grew very difficult, and the steps in our progress became for the moment slow and irregular. A battle which advances without a hitch exists only in a Staff college kriegspiel, and the wise general, in preparing his plans, makes ample allowance for delays.
On July 19th there was an attempt on Guillemont from Trones Wood which failed to progress. On the 20th the French made fine progress, pushing their front east of Hardecourt beyond the Combles-Clery light railway, and south of the Somme widening the gap by carrying the whole German defence system from Barleux to Vermandovillers. For the next two days our guns bombarded the whole enemy front, and on the Sunday, July 23rd, came the next great infantry attack.
That attack had a wide front, but its main fury was on the left, where Pozieres and its Windmill crowned the slope up which ran the Albert-Bapaume road. The village had long ere this been pounded flat, the Windmill was a stump, and the trees in the gardens matchwood, but every yard of those devastated acres was fortified in the German fashion with covered trenches, deep dug-outs and machine-gun emplacements.
The assault was delivered from two sides—the Midland Territorials moving from the southwest in the ground between Pozieres and Ovillers, and an Australian division from the southeast, advancing from the direction of Contalmaison Villa. The movement began about midnight, and the Midlanders speedily cleared out the defences which the Germans had flung out south of the village to the left of the highroad, and held a line along the outskirts of the place in the direction of Thiepval. The Australians had a difficult task—for they had first to take a sunken road parallel with the highway, then a formidable line of trenches, and finally the high road itself which runs straight through the middle of the village.
The Australian Corps was second to none in the new British Army. In the famous landing at Gallipoli and in a dozen desperate fights, culminating in the great battle which began on August 6th, 1915, they had shown themselves incomparable in the fire of assault and in reckless personal valour. In the grim struggle now beginning they had to face a far heavier fire and far more