Authors: Richard Holmes
Tommy (10 page)
On 1 August Haig noted in his diary âa terrible day of rain. The ground is like a bog.' And in October John Charteris, well forward to watch an attack, acknowledged: âthe saddest day of the year. It was not the enemy but the mud that prevented us from doing better â¦Â Yesterday afternoon was utterly damnable. I got back very late and could not work, could not rest.'
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Finally, this chilling description comes not from one of Haig's critics, but from his own despatches.
The low-lying, clayey soil, torn by shells and sodden with rain, turned to a succession of vast muddy pools. The valleys of the choked and overflowing streams were speedily transformed into long stretches of bog, impassable except by a few well-defined tracks â¦Â To leave these tracks was to risk death by drowning, and in the course of the subsequent fighting on several occasions both men and pack animals were lost in this way â¦
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Gough's infantry went forward early on the morning of 31 July. By the day's end they had advanced an average of 3,000 yards at a cost of 30,000 casualties. With an ugly foretaste of what was to come, the weather was appalling, and by nightfall a gunner officer reported that some of the infantry were up to their waists in water. There were successive attacks through July and on into August, characterised by determined German resistance and the growing dominance of British artillery. A snapshot from a single action, officially part of the Battle of Langemarck, though we may doubt if this would have been clear to the men who fought in it, describes what the fighting was like for one particular unit, 12/King's Royal Rifle Corps, a New Army battalion of 20th (Light) Division.
Aug 15th 12 noon â 8.00 pm
Battalion paraded in full Battle order, and marched independently to the assembly place, A/Capt A.D. Thornton-Smith DSO, had marked out with tape the alignment for each platoon and no difficulty was experienced in forming up. Battalion HQ were established in a small house 400 yards short of the STEENBEEK. The enemy was shelling fairly hard and B Coy sustained casualties at this point.
Aug 16th 4.45 am
ZERO HOUR â The barrage which was terrific at this moment, lifted at Zero â 5 and the Oxfords were busy mopping up AU BON GITE, with the 6th KSLI on our Right and the 12th King's Liverpools on our Left we advanced to the BLUE LINE, about 3/400 yards short of LANGEMARCK. During this advance and a 20 minute halt in the BLUE LINE, we were subject to very heavy Machine gun fire and suffered many casualties to both Officers and men, including the CO Lt Col R. U. H. Prioleau MC (Wounded). Capt T. Lycett, our Adjutant, was then in command, and noticing a Concrete Blockhouse on our left which was holding up the advance of the 61st Brigade, and was also causing heavy casualties with MG fire to our own men, he ordered Sergt Cooper, who was in command of a platoon of A Coy (Lieut E. D. Brown having been killed) to go for it. Sergt Cooper with four men, got to within 100 yards of the Blockhouse, through a perfect hail of bullets and tried to silence the guns with Rifle fire. Finding this of no avail, he dashed at the Blockhouse, and captured it with 45 prisoners and seven machine guns, a most gallant deed for which he has been recommended for the VC â¦
The barrage âstarted to creep forward' once more at 5.45, and the battalion advanced in âartillery formation' company by company, with men well spaced, to the Green Line just east of Langemarck. There it shook out into line and assaulted the Red Line, and took its final objective at 7.50. Just after midday a counterattack rolled in.
Fire was brought to bear on them with good effect and the Brigade were informed of the situation. Orders were issued that our positions were to be kept at all costs â¦Â the SOS was sent at 4.15 pm Our guns responded immediately but the enemy were in very superior numbers. The weight of the counterattack seemed to be directed against the 12th King's Liverpools on our left and, after a gallant fight, they were forced to give ground. This let the enemy in on our left and our advanced posts had been driven in. The enemy bombed up our trench and our left Company B was practically wiped out â Capt T. Dove MC was killed, 2/Lt W. F. Munsey severely wounded and a few men were taken prisoners. A defensive flank was thrown back and touch again established with 12th King's Liverpools â¦Â Consolidation was continued during the night â¦
The battalion was relieved by 10/Welsh on the morning of 19 August, and returned to Malakoff Farm whence it had departed on the 15th. âVery tired but cheery,' reported its diarist, âand after a good meal everyone turned in for a good sleep.' It had lost five officers killed, one died of wounds, two wounded and missing and three wounded. Forty soldiers were killed and another seventeen died of wounds: forty-seven were missing, and 134 wounded. Sergeant Cooper duly received his Victoria Cross and died in his bed as a retired major. Arthur Thornton-Smith did not live to see his acting captaincy confirmed, but was killed in the first advance. He has no known grave, but is commemorated, with so many of his regiment's dead, on the Tyne Cot memorial.
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The weather continued to be filthy. On 27 August Corporal Robert Chambers of the Bedfordshire Regiment wrote in his diary: âRaining like fury. Everywhere a quagmire. Fancy fighting the Germans for land like this. If it were mine I'd give them the whole damn rotten country.'
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In the middle of the month Gough visited Haig to announce that âtactical success was not possible and would be too costly under these conditions', and recommended that the attack should be abandoned. Haig disagreed. Buoyed up by Charteris's assertion that German manpower was wilting under the strain, he was determined to continue the battle, but decided to entrust the main thrust to the methodical Plumer.
The next phase of the battle began well. The weather improved, and 2nd Army's careful preparation helped the first attack, launched on 20 September, to take most of its objectives and break up German counterattacks with artillery fire. On 26 September the Australians took Polygon Wood, squarely in the middle of the battlefield, and on 4 October Plumer's men pressed even deeper, with 5th Army keeping pace on their left. By now both the army commanders felt that the weather made any continuation of the advance impossible, and told Haig so. Haig disagreed again. This decision is even more controversial than that of mid-August. Although the balance of historical opinion is now set against Haig on the issue, the Australian Official History suggests. âLet the student, looking at the prospect as it appeared at noon on 4th October, ask himself: “In view of three step-by-step blows all successful, what will be the result of three more in the next fortnight?”'
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The last phase of the fighting, formally christened the battles of Poelcappelle and Passchendaele, eventually took the British onto Passchendaele Ridge: the village was taken by the Canadians on 6 November. By now it was clear that no further advance could be expected. The project for the amphibious landing, already badly disrupted by German artillery attack on British positions at Nieuport, was shelved in October when Haig realised that its essential precondition, British capture of Roulers, would not now take place. By the end of the battle both sides had lost around 275,000 casualties, although there is the customary dispute over precise figures.
Passchendaele, like the Somme, represented a British victory on points and, also like the Somme, provides the historian with another stark confrontation between head and heart. It played
its
part in the wearing out of the German army, was not an unreasonable response to the situation confronting Haig in early 1917, and, given good weather and limited objectives, might have produced a respectable tactical victory: it is hard not to speculate what might have been the case had Plumer been in command from the start.
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Yet it did not produce a breakthrough, impose such a strain that the Germans collapsed, or prevent the Germans from launching, in March the following year, an offensive which so nearly won them the war.
And while its cost in human terms was actually lower than that of the Somme, it did more serious damage to British morale. Philip Gibbs wrote that: âFor the first time the British army lost its spirit of optimism, and there was a sense of deadly depression among the many officers and men with whom I came in touch.'
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Charles Bean, then a war correspondent and later the Australian official historian, assessed that his countrymen were reaching the end of their tether. After attending a conference given by Plumer's chief of staff in October he wrote: âThey don't realise how very strong our morale had to be to get through the last three fights.'
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However, two official surveys of censored mail concluded that morale remained sound, though one observed that in 2nd Army âthe favourable and unfavourable letters were almost evenly balanced'.
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There was no sudden rise in infractions of discipline, and in the case of 5th Army, whose records are complete enough to enable us to form an opinion, convictions for self-inflicted wounds, desertion and absence without leave remained low. An unnamed young officer summed up the harsh paradox of 1917: the army was better trained but less confident.
I am certainly not the same as I was a year ago. I can no longer write home to you, as I once did, of victory. We just live for the day and think of little else but our job, the next show, and our billets and rations. I may be a better soldier and know my job better than I did, but I dare not think of anything beyond that. After all, just imagine my life out here: the chance of surviving the next battle for us platoon commanders is about 4 to 1 against!
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First-hand accounts leave us in no doubt of the horror of Third Ypres, but also hint at the mixture of natural discipline, loyalty and sheer endurance that kept men going. On 27 August Lieutenant Edwin Campion Vaughan of 8/Royal Warwicks advanced on a German pillbox, nicknamed Springfield, with the remnants of his company.
Up the road we staggered, shells bursting around us. A man stopped dead in front of me, and exasperated I cursed him and butted him with my knee. Very gently he said âI'm blind, sir,' and turned to show me his eyes and nose torn away by a piece of shell. âOh, God! I'm sorry, sonny,' I said. âKeep going on the hard part,' and left him staggering back in his darkness â¦Â Around us were numerous dead, and in the shell-holes where they had crawled for safety were wounded men. Many others, too weak to move, were lying where they had fallen and cheered us faintly as we passed: âGo on boys! Give âem hell!' Several wounded men of the 8th Worcesters and 9th Warwicks jumped out of their shell-holes and joined us.
A tank had churned its way slowly round behind Springfield and opened fire; a moment later I looked and nothing remained of it but a heap of crumpled iron: it had been hit by a large shell. It was now almost dark and there was no firing from the enemy; ploughing across the final stretch of mud, I saw grenades bursting around the pillbox and a party of British rushed in from the other side. As we all closed in, the Boche garrison ran out with their hands up; in the confused party I recognised Reynolds of the 7th Battalion, who had been working forward all afternoon. We sent the 16 prisoners back but they had only gone a hundred yards when a German machine gun mowed them down.
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The inside of the pillbox was filled with âindescribable filth', two dead Germans and a badly wounded one. He soon noticed that his servant, Private Dunham, was carrying, in addition to rifle, bayonet, and a âChristmas tree' of webbing, a mud-soaked sandbag. âWhat the hell are you carrying in there, Dunham?' he asked. âYour rabbit, Sir!' he replied stoutly. âYou said you would eat it on Langemarck Ridge.'
Private Albert Bullock was in the Hampshires when he arrived in France that September. He was posted to the Royal Warwicks at Rouen, and joined the 8th Battalion at Ypres on the 29th, two days after the exploit described above. âColonel Carson gave us a talk on the attack,' he wrote. âDidn't understand it much.' He was in action the next day.
Lay on ground for some time and could feel cold breeze from shells that were going overhead â¦Â 7 o'clock move up over Steinbeek Stream supposed to be but more of a stinking cess-pool. Got in a hole with three others. 6-inch shell pitched 6ft away gave me clout in the back with lump of dirt and half buried us but didn't explode. Counter barrage falling heavily 20 yards behind us â¦Â 12 o'clock move up to original front line in reserve, can see Germans moving about easily on Passchendaele. Am shaking from head to foot through concussion of so many shells, feel very anxious to see all that's going on so keep from feeling windy.
He lost his platoon commander five days later:
He was only 19 same as myself and was walking about on the top with only a stick, dressed in an ordinary private's clothes as were all officers so as not to be picked off by the snipers â heard later that he was shot through the heart just after I saw him.
Sent back through the mud, Bullock
reached Winchester Farm after a struggle. It was an Advanced Aid Post, and was like a slaughterhouse. The RAMC corporal asked us to take a blind Gloster down to Habnor Farm, he was an old chap and seemed to know what was up with him, it was very pathetic.
Creature comforts and curiosity helped keep Bullock going. He became more cheerful when a âB Coy chap â¦Â daft with fear' bolted and abandoned his pack after a shell half-buried them. âWe dug ourselves out and went through his pack,' he wrote. âFound 200 Woodbines.' Things were even better when he was out of the line a few days later, guarding some prisoners. âHelped prisoners raid truck of rations,' he wrote. âApplied for transfer to R[oyal] F[lying] C[orps]. Some hopes.'
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Gunner Aubrey Wade, a Royal Field Artillery signaller, crossed the Steenbeek on