Roberts Geoffrey - The Somme 1916: the First of July

This book is dedicated to my wife Margaret, to my daughters Louise, Jillian and Sarah, to my grandsons Paul, Mark, Arron, Shaun, Lewis, Alex, Ethan and Finlay with my lasting love and affection; and remembering Catriona Gaffney, taken from us too soon, goodnight sweetie.

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
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Copyright Ed Skelding, 2016

ISBN: 978 1 78159 202 1
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The right of Ed Skelding to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD

The British Somme battlefield of 1916 is not set amongst the most beautiful of Frances super abundance of magnificent landscapes, but it is nevertheless blessed with fine countryside extensive folds and ridges of chalk lands, interspersed with woods, some very grand; small villages, generally each with its dominating church; and the sluggish (in summer) waters of the River Ancre. Not far behind the lines lay the rather undistinguished and industrial town of Albert, named after the favourite of Louis XIII, Charles dAlbert, Duc de Luynes, to whom he gifted it. However, it did have one eye-catching feature in 1916, the monumental statue of the Virgin, with child held high in her outstretched arms, covered in gleaming gold: a memorable sight to all who passed near it, knocked over to a gravity defying angle soon after the war began.

Today the fields have changed in appearance, as many of the hedges that split the modern great, endless expanses of cultivation have largely disappeared. Old churches, utterly destroyed with the notable and magnificent exception of that of Mailly Maillet have been replaced by those of the frantic rebuilding of the twenties and now themselves are often regarded as architecturally significant. Most notable of all, perhaps, has been the creation of the many tens of Commonwealth War Graves Cemeteries that stand as deeply evocative silent witnesses and as signposts to the events, above all, of the summer and autumn of 1916.

In this book Ed Skelding combines the tale of what happened here with fine photography. The camera interprets the story for us on the ground and adds a deeper emotional element. Through the lens of the camera it illustrates what happened then and how the hundred years or so since have affected and manipulated this blood soaked part of France, which has seen cavalcades of armies fighting over it for millennia, and yet ensure the memory of that fateful conflict.

This first volume looks, in particular, at the events of and surrounding 1st July 1916. This is a date that has a rich resonance in British folk memory, with different parts of the British Isles having a focus on individual parts of that long line, many thousands of yards long; which resulted in such truly appalling casualties; and which, finally, moved a nation to come to grips with the true nature of the conflict on the Western Front. A war that had been chiefly the concern of the French who had fought and died in their thousands was now well and truly a war of monumental, unprecedented sacrifice for the British as well.

The military historian is often impatient with the focus on 1st July 1916, when the reality was that the battle ground on until 18th November; in fact it was the bloodiest battle of the war. It was not even the longest battle of that year for Verdun, imprinted just as firmly on the French psyche as the Somme on the British lasted from late February until it finally rumbled to an end in mid December 1916. The casualties there, on a significantly smaller front than the Somme, were truly awful. Both the Somme and Verdun were, in any case, a series of offensives followed by much smaller supporting actions, even if some of these were on a large scale. The military historian is quite right.

However, for the social historian (and the political one as well), 1st July 1916 is a date on which we rightly concentrate. Of course, it is important to acknowledge the very significant contribution of the French army on this date a generally successful attack, largely to the immediate south of the River Somme. This book, however, concentrates on the British and its sole Dominion representative on 1st July Newfoundlands proud battalion, serving with the 29th Division, The Immortal, at Beaumont Hamel.

The British divisions involved were regular divisions and territorial divisions but some of them were also Kitchener New Army Divisions or were divisions that were largely or entirely formed from Pals battalions volunteers all, bound by geographical or occupational or sporting connections. Even the regular and territorial divisions had rather lost their pre war distinctiveness (though not their traditions!) and were principally manned by volunteers from after the outbreak of the war, the original members casualties to battles at Ypres and Loos. Those who went into battle on 1st July infantrymen, engineers, cavalry, gunners, supporting arms represented the biggest volunteer army that Britain ever produced. It faced a tragic day; yet immediately afterwards, from 2nd July, that army set about to continue the grim struggle that was set to continue for months. But that army did change a chastened and more experienced army; but also an army that would never again be one composed entirely of volunteers.

Words provide one source of understanding of the past and its impact on the present; eloquent photographs, captured by an understanding eye, richly expand that comprehension, and this is what this book sets out to do.

Nigel Cave
March 2016

INTRODUCTION

Keeping in line and extended order, men began to fall, one by one. Our officers said we were alright, all the machine guns were firing over our heads. This was so, until we passed over our own front line and started to cross No Mans Land, then the machine guns began the slaughter, men fell on every side screaming, those who werent wounded darent attend to them, one must press on regardless. Hundreds lay on the German barbed wire, which was not all destroyed, their bodies formed a bridge for others to pass over and into the German front line.

Private Thomas Easton
21st Northumberland Fusiliers, 2nd Tyneside Scottish

At 7.30 a.m. on the morning of the first of July 1916, under a clear blue sky, the whistles blew; the signal for the first waves of more than100,000 British soldiers to leave their trenches to begin what was the Battle of the Somme. What happened next will forever be remembered as the bloodiest day in British military history. On that first fateful day of the battle, along a thirteen mile front, from the villages of Gommecourt in the north to Maricourt in the south, men, many of whom were part of Lord Kitcheners volunteer army, including the Pals battalions, advanced into a maelstrom of rifle, machine gun and artillery fire. It would leave 19,470 of them dead, with another 35,493 wounded or missing.