The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division. Cyril Falls
small body of the right centre company in particular carried all before it, and was last seen advancing upon Beaucourt Station. On the left the 12th Rifles had worse fortune. The wire round the German salient over the hill-brow, less easy to observe, was less completely destroyed than on the rest of the front. Many gaps were cut, but machine-guns were trained upon them. Beaten back at the first rush, and having lost the barrage, the remnants of the battalion were twice re-formed by devoted officers under that withering hail, and twice again led forward. It was of no avail. On their left the leading troops of the next Division crossed the front line trenches, but were assailed from the rear by machine-gunners emerging from dug-outs. At eight o'clock the 36th Division was informed that the enemy had retaken his front line. The attack north of the Ancre was a failure, though gallantry every whit as great as that of the battalions on the left bank was behind it.
Elsewhere, for all its losses, the attack was a complete success. Every objective was reached. Had it been possible to attain the same results all along the front, the day would have ended with the greatest British victory of the war.
The leading waves, still moving as on parade, reached the German front line trench and moved straight across it. They did not suffer heavily. Hardly were they across, however, when the German barrage fell upon "No Man's Land," upon the rear companies of the first line battalions, and upon those of the second line. And immediately the barrage left it, flanking machine-gun fire burst out from the dominating position of Thiepval cemetery. The 11th Inniskillings and 14th Rifles, as they emerged from the wood, were literally mown down, and "No Man's Land" became a ghastly spectacle of dead and wounded. On the left of the line the 13th Rifles, under long-range fire from the Beaucourt Redoubt across the river, suffered at this stage most heavily of all. They had lost the bulk of their officers ere ever they reached the German trenches. The Division on the right was never able to clear Thiepval village, and it was that fact which was responsible for the gravest losses of the 36th.
Under this deadly punishment the men never hesitated. They went straight forward across the first two lines, sending back the few prisoners they took. The "B" line was to be reached at 7–48. Despite the gaps in their ranks the first wave swept upon it at precisely that moment. There was not much fighting here, but a large number of prisoners was taken, the German infantry surrendering as our men came upon them. The 15th Rifles, the supporting battalion of the 108th Brigade's attack, had, however, to deal with some Germans who came up out of unnoticed dug-outs after the leading battalions had crossed the "A" lines, the bombing squads told off to clear the trenches having been destroyed by machine-gun fire. On pressed the leading waves. Never losing the barrage, they took the "C" line, including the north-east corner of the Schwaben Redoubt, at 8–48. Even in the trenches they suffered loss from the flanking machine-guns, while movement from front to rear was now all but impossible. The supporting battalions, or their survivors, were also upon their objectives. Every man had done what he was set to do, or dropped in his path. And, to the eternal credit of our artillery, no man appears to have needed his wire-cutters.
Let us turn to the 107th Brigade, which had meanwhile advanced to the "A" line. It had moved from Aveluy Wood and across the Ancre to the western skirts of Thiepval Wood, almost at the bottom of the valley, assembling at 6–30 about the track known as Speyside. It had an hour to wait, shell after shell passing just over the heads of the troops and bursting in the marshes beyond them. At Zero, led by the 10th Rifles, it moved back east for a short distance, to reach the rides which were its paths to the front line. Here the men could see the troops of the Division on the right issuing from their trenches, and each platoon, as it extended in "No Man's Land," disappearing before the blast of machine-gun fire that met it. The ride used by the 10th Rifles on the right had been denuded of its foliage by the bombardments of several days, and was in view. The battalion came under machine-gun fire from front, right, and right rear simultaneously. The commanding officer, Colonel Bernard, was killed, and casualties were high. The final passage had to be carried out by rushes to the front line. The leading men could even see the German machine-guns firing at them, so that it is easy to imagine what sort of target they offered to those guns. Lewis guns were brought forward to engage them, but their teams were destroyed. The other battalions suffered considerably less, being screened in their rides, and further from the Thiepval guns. Before ten o'clock, runners, with the skill and devotion of their kind, had come back to report that the "C" line had been reached. Eight minutes past, it may be remembered, was the hour for the assault upon the "D" line.
To General Nugent it had appeared long before probable that his troops, if they went forward further as a wedge into the enemy's defensive system, with not a yard gained on either flank, would go only to their own destruction. At 8–32 his G.S.O.1., Colonel Place, had asked the X. Corps whether the 107th Brigade might be stopped from advancing upon the last line. The reply was that a new attack was being made on Thiepval, and also by the VIII. Corps north of the Ancre, and that the 107th Brigade must do its part by continuing its advance. But three-quarters of an hour later, at 9–16 a.m., instructions from the Corps to withhold the 107th Brigade till the situation upon the flanks had been cleared up were received. General Withycombe was ordered to stop his troops, and employed every means in his power to do so. But all the telephone lines taken forward had been cut by German fire, while for a runner to reach the line now held by the troops was a very long affair. Fortunate was he if he crossed that zone of death without scathe. The message arrived too late; the troops were committed to the attack. With them went forward some men of the other Brigades.
Of that last wild and desperate venture across a thousand yards of open country, few returned to tell the tale. Those that did tell of an entry into that last entrenchment, of desperate hand-to-hand fighting, and then, when the odds were too great, for the trench was full of German reserves, of a stubborn retirement to the next line. And now the German bombers surged up the trenches from St. Pierre Divion, to be beaten off again and again by the 8th and 15th Rifles, and the handful of the 13th remaining on that flank. Pressure on the other side did not come so soon: in fact, Lieutenant Sanderson, of the 9th Rifles, reconnoitred the trench "Mouquet Switch," on the front of the 32nd Division, and found it unoccupied. But Thiepval's machine-guns were still firing, and "No Man's Land" was a land of death. Two companies of the Pioneers were sent up to dig a communication trench across, which would have permitted the sending up of bombs and water. But at two o'clock Colonel Leader, their commanding officer, reported that the machine-gun fire rendered the task impossible. Supplies had run out, and the little parties that strove to bear them across were annihilated by fire. After noon attacks came upon the right flank also, the 11th Inniskillings at the Crucifix, and the 9th in the Schwaben Redoubt, being hard beset. The French artillery was ordered to put down a flank barrage on the right, and carried out its task admirably.
The 146th Brigade of the 49th Division had crossed the Ancre during the morning. At three p.m. it received orders to attack Thiepval village under a barrage, after an intense bombardment. The attack failed completely under terrific machine-gun fire. It was, in fact, stopped after the leading battalion, the ⅙th West Yorks, had seen the platoons which strove to deploy wither away. It was about this time that the Germans launched a counter-attack in the open on the left flank. Two companies emerged from the trees of the river valley and advanced on C 11. Caught on the hill by our artillery and the Lewis guns of the 8th Rifles, they were destroyed. There was a grave misunderstanding about the employment of the 146th Brigade. At four o'clock the 36th Division was informed that it was at its disposal. General Withycombe, the senior Brigadier in Thiepval Wood, was ordered to send two of its battalions to the Schwaben Redoubt, to rally the troops beginning to be forced back. But two battalions of the Brigade were already committed to the attack on Thiepval, while the two others had moved up behind them into the trenches of the 32nd Division. Not till 7–18 did six companies move up towards the "C" line, and now it was too late. On this flank it was already lost, and the Yorkshiremen were beaten off by German machine-gun fire.
Meanwhile the situation had grown desperate. Major Peacocke, second-in-command of the 9th Inniskillings, had managed to cross "No Man's Land" at noon into the front line about A 12, and after beating off attacks by Germans bombing their way up from Thiepval, collected a little bodyguard and worked forward to the Crucifix. He speedily discovered that the holding of the ground here, now slipping from our hands, was an impossibility unless Thiepval were taken. The men were still determined, but at their last gasp from fatigue.