Peter Hart - The Somme: The Darkest Hour on the Western Front

PEGASUS BOOKS

NEW YORK

To my favourites:

Polly, Lily and Ruby

The Western Front 1915

The Somme 1916

Objectives on 1 July

Gommecourt

VIII Corps attack on Serre and Beaumont Hamel

X Corps attack on Thiepval

III Corps attack on La Boisselle and Ovillers

XV Corps attack on the Fricourt Salient

XIII Corps attack on Montauban

The French sector

Situation at night, l July

Situation 3 July

Situation 8 July

Situation 14 July

Longueval and Delville Wood

Pozires

Guillemont and Ginchy

Plan for the Battle of Flers-Courcelette

Battle of Flers-Courcelette

Battle of Morval

Battle for Thiepval

Battle of the Transloy Ridges, 720 October

Butte de Warlencourt, 5 November

Battle of the Ancre, 1319 November

The End of the Battle

THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME will always be controversial. By the early 1960s a stark image was firmly established in the public consciousness of long lines of men marching bravely to their futile deaths, cut down in their thousands by massed German machine guns. The casualties were beyond comprehension with 57,470 British casualties on the first day alone. Of these a staggering 19,240 were killed.

The unimaginative generalship of bewhiskered idiots safe in their chateau headquarters far behind the lines was roundly pilloried on all sides. This slaughter of the innocents was deftly portrayed by the theatrical production and film Oh! What a Lovely War. Slowly, however, another view began to emerge that took account of the problems faced by General Sir Douglas Haig and his subordinate commanders. This more sympathetic perspective recognised the sheer complexity of modern warfare. It saw that there was a grim necessity to wear down the might of the German Empire on the battlefields of the Western Front before there could be any hope of victory. It discussed the learning curve that had to be surmounted before the new legions of the British Empire could gain the skills required of the new all arms tactics that would finally defeat the German Army in 1918. The controversy rages on to this day: raw emotive sentiments and folk myths vying with the academic assessments of military historians such as the great John Terraine.

There is no doubt that the Somme was a tragedy and the massed slaughter and endless suffering it epitomises cannot simply be brushed aside by the justification of cold-blooded military necessity. Although the British Army used the Battle of the Somme de facto as a primer to emerge as a stronger fighting machine, the learning curve theory is not a mantra that can deflect all criticism. Yet, it is equally inane to adopt the morbid sentimentality of portraying the men who took part as helpless victims, mere stooges in a titanic battle that somehow engulfed them all unawares. On the contrary, many were actively looking forward to the moment when they could finally prove themselves as fully-fledged warriors. When engulfed in the fighting many confirmed themselves as brave men in the most dreadful and terrifying of circumstances. Others, unsurprisingly, faltered. But they were not sheep-like victims: such descriptions do a considerable disservice to the memory of a large number of heavily armed soldiers, confident in their abilities, who would have killed their enemiesif only they had had the chance.

Neither was the First World War the result of the machinations of a few politicians and their henchmen generals. We should never allow ordinary people to abrogate their role in the genesis of Armageddon, either then or now. War in 1914 was the near-inevitable result of the frequently expressed wishes and prevailing attitudes of the British populationit was hence a national responsibility. Popular jingoism was certainly stirred then as now, by cynical politicians and morally opaque newspaper proprietors; however, it had its wellspring deep within the dark corners of the popular consciousness. The political imperatives of defending the bloated empire, the endemic racism and all-embracing casual assumption of moral superiority of the age, the overwhelming reliance on blunt threats to achieve what might have been better achieved by subtle diplomacythese were all part of the British heritage in 1914. All social classes in the Home Country benefited to some extent from the operation of the global British Empire. Amidst the ceaseless jockeying of the old European Continental and Imperial powers, additionally complicated by the remorseless rise of the militaristic new German Empire, conflict was inevitable and in truth no one did much to avoid a war that was easily portrayed as a crusade. War was a risk, casually accepted. When it arrived it was not as they had imagined, but by then it was too late. The remorseless rhythms of global war had already wrapped themselves around the British Empire.

In battle, for the most part their leaders had plans that, although built at times on shaky foundations, were pretty sound in themselves. The generals were not stupid; they were no donkeys. Their military education had been accelerated beyond all pre-war comprehension, but they had for the most part struggled through, just as one would expect of men who stood near the peak of their chosen profession. Mistakes were frequent and there were undoubtedly some outright blunders. Yet several generals proved themselves to be rapid learners. New and old weapons were eventually slotted into their correct place in the great complex puzzle of war. Above all the primacy of the artillery was recognised. Throughout, although the exigencies of military necessity were their primary concern, the British Army commanders did stand accountable for the consequences of their decisions. The British generals held most responsible for the Battle of the SommeDouglas Haig, Henry Rawlinson and Hubert Goughknew full well that the men they sent into battle would pay the price for their actions and misjudgements. It was a grave responsibility that they did not shirk.

Even blessed with hindsight, there are still real difficulties in making a final judgement on the overall conduct of the Somme campaign. All this book can do is to try to show what the generals were attempting and chart the effects of their decisions on the men who served them. In the end it is inevitable that the interpretation of such a complicated mlange of issues is a deeply personal matter; in essence the reader must make up their own mind as to what degree the Battle of the Somme was militarily justified.

The general approach adopted in this book is to provide an outline of events within which I have layered personal accounts to help bring dry facts and complex concepts to life. The contemporary quality and vivid writing of the veterans, the raw emotions of participants in a calamity, these cannot be matched by the musings of inevitably distanced modern commentators. There is a vitality, a pathos, even a beauty in the unsullied words of those who were actually present while history was being made around them, qualities that cannot be faked. I have been led by the power of these sources to concentrate where they most eloquently reveal a general truth. Anything else would lead to an uncomfortable amount of repetition without making the salient points any clearer.

My main interest is in the insights into the human condition granted by studying the conduct of men of all ranks under conditions of incredible stress, fear and suffering. All of life is here amidst the reeking dead. The gallant young officer leading his men to death or glory: his reward in the main dull oblivion, but just occasionally, a Victoria Cross and a life marked out as a wondrous oddity. The stolid sergeant, solicitous of his men, critical of their manifold faults during the long months of training, yet willing, when needs must, to die to save them from the consequences of their foolish mistakes in action. The feckless private, drunk and brawling out of the line, good for nothing, the scum of the earth, yet transformed by the grace of battle into a hero, battling forward when all but hope had gone, risking his life for reasons he surely could not comprehend. These clichs will be made flesh in this book. For such near-caricatures certainly did exist.