Germans remained in the dug-outs, and when the British soldiers went
past them they came out of their hiding-places and became a fighting
force again. Farther north our infantry attacked both sides of the
Gommecourt salient with the greatest possible valour.
That is my latest knowledge, writing at midnight on the first day
of July, which leaves our men beyond the German front lines in many
places, and penetrating to the country behind like arrow-heads between
the enemy’s strongholds.
9
In the afternoon I saw the first batches of prisoners brought in.
In parties of 50 to 100 they came down, guarded by men of the
Border Regiment, through the little French hamlets close behind the
fighting-lines, where peasants stood in their doorways watching these
first-fruits of victory.
They were damaged fruit, some of these poor wretches, wounded and
nerve-shaken in the great bombardment. Most of them belonged to the
109th and 110th Regiments of the 14th Reserve Corps, and they seemed
to be a mixed lot of Prussians and Bavarians. On the whole, they were
tall, strong fellows, and there were striking faces among them, of
men higher than the peasant type, and thoughtful. But they were very
haggard and worn and dirty.
Over the barbed wire which had been stretched across a farmyard, in
the shadow of an old French church, I spoke to some of them. To one
man especially, who answered all my questions with a kind of patient
sadness. He told me that most of his comrades and himself had been
without food and water for several days, as our intense fire made it
impossible to get supplies up the communication-trenches.
About the bombardment he raised his hands and eyes a moment—eyes
full of a remembered horror—and said, “Es war schrecklich” (It was
horrible). Most of the officers had remained in the second line, but
the others had been killed, he thought. His own brother had been
killed, and in Baden his mother and sisters would weep when they heard.
But he was glad to be a prisoner, out of the war at last, which would
last much longer.
A new column of prisoners was being brought down, and suddenly the man
turned and uttered an exclamation with a look of surprise and awe.
“Ach, da ist ein Hauptmann!” He recognised an officer among these new
prisoners, and it seemed clearly a surprising thing to him that one
of the great caste should be in this plight, should suffer as he had
suffered.
Some of his fellow-prisoners lay on the ground all bloody and bandaged.
One of them seemed about to die. But the English soldiers gave them
water, and one of our officers emptied his cigarette-case and gave them
all he had to smoke.
Other men were coming back from the fields of fire, glad also to be
back behind the line. They were our wounded, who came in very quickly
after the first attack to the casualty clearing stations close to the
lines, but beyond the reach of shell-fire. Many of them were lightly
wounded in the hands and feet, and sometimes 50 or more were on one
lorry, which had taken up ammunition and was now bringing back the
casualties.
They were wonderful men. So wonderful in their gaiety and courage that
one’s heart melted at the sight of them. They were all grinning as
though they had come from a “jolly” in which they had been bumped a
little. There was a look of pride in their eyes as they came driving
down like wounded knights from a tourney.
They had gone through the job with honour, and have come out with their
lives, and the world was good and beautiful again, in this warm sun, in
these snug French villages, where peasant men and women waved hands to
them, and in these fields of scarlet and gold and green.
The men who were going up to the battle grinned back at those who were
coming out. One could not see the faces of the lying-down cases, only
the soles of their boots as they passed; but the laughing men on the
lorries—some of them stripped to the waist and bandaged roughly—seemed
to rob war of some of its horror, and the spirit of our British
soldiers shows bright along the roads of France, so that the very sun
seems to get some of its gold from these men’s hearts.
To-night the guns are at work again, and the sky flushes as the shells
burst over there where our men are fighting.
II
THE FIRST CHARGE
1
JULY 2
It is possible now to get something like a clear idea of the fighting
which began yesterday morning at 7.30, when the furious tempest of our
guns passed farther over the German lines and our infantry left their
trenches for the great adventure.
The battle goes on, with success to our arms. Fricourt, partly
surrounded yesterday (by the 21st Division), was taken by assault
to-day, and a German counter-attack upon Montauban was repulsed with
losses that tore gaps into the enemy’s ranks. Prisoners come tramping
down in batches, weary, worn men, who have the gallantry to praise our
own infantry and remember with a shudder the violence of our gun-fire.
Wounded men who are coming out of the fighting-lines ask one question,
“How are we doing?” Men suffering great pain have a smile in their eyes
when the answer comes, “We are doing well.” The spirit of our men is so
high that it is certain we shall gain further ground, however great the
cost.
The ground we have already gained was won by men who fought to win,
and who went “all out,” as they say, with a fierce enthusiasm to carry
their objective, quickly and utterly and cleanly. This wonderful
spirit of the men is praised by all their officers as a kind of new
revelation, though they saw them in trench life and in hard times.
“They went across toppingly,” said a wounded boy of the West
Yorkshires, who was in the first attack on Fricourt. “The fellows were
glorious,” said another young officer who could hardly speak for the
pain in his left shoulder, where a piece of shell struck him down in
Mametz Wood. “Wonderful chaps!” said a lieutenant of the Manchesters.
“They went cheering through machine-gun fire as though it were just the
splashing of rain.... They beat everything for real pluck.”
They beat everything for pluck except their own officers, who, as
usual, led their men forward without a thought of their own risks.
2
The attack on Montauban was one of our best successes yesterday.
The men were mainly Lancashire troops (of the Manchester Regiment)
supported by men of the Home Counties, including those of Surrey, Kent,
Essex, Bedford, and Norfolk. They advanced in splendid order straight
for their objective, swept over the German trenches, and captured large
numbers of prisoners, without great loss to themselves.
Their commanding officers were anxious about a German strong point
called the Briqueterie, or brickfield, which had been full of
machine-guns and minenwerfers, and the original intention was to pass
this without a direct attempt to take it.
But the position was found to be utterly destroyed by our bombardment,
and a party of men (the Liverpools) were detached to seize it, which
they did with comparative ease. The remainder of the men in those
battalions went on to the ruined village of Montauban and, in spite of
spasmodic machine-gun fire from some of the broken houses, carried it
in one great flood of invasion.
Large numbers of Germans were taking cover in dug-outs and cellars, but
as soon as our men entered they came up into the open and surrendered.
Many of them were so cowed by the great bombardment they had suffered
and by the waves of men that swept into their stronghold that they fell
upon their knees and begged most piteously for mercy, which was granted
to them.
The loss of Montauban was serious to the enemy, and they prepared a
counter-attack, which was launched this morning, at 3 o’clock, at
a strength of two regiments. Our men were expecting this and had
organised their defence. The Germans came on in close order, very
bravely, rank after rank advancing over the dead and wounded bodies of
their comrades, who were caught by our machine-gun fire and rifle-fire
and mown down. Only a few men were able to enter our trenches, and
these died. Montauban remains in our hands, and so far the enemy has
not attempted another attack.
3
Our line winds round the village in a sharp salient which drops
south-eastwards to Mametz, which is full of German dead and wounded,
who are being found in the cellars and taken back to our hospitals. It
was in the taking of Mametz that some of the Gordons suffered heavily.
With English troops they advanced across the open with sloped arms.
There was very little shell-fire and not a rifle-shot came from the
enemy’s broken trenches.
“Suddenly,” says one of their officers, “a machine-gun opened fire
upon us point-blank, and caught us in the face. I shouted to my men to
advance at the double, and we ran forward through a perfect stream of
shattering bullets. Many of my poor boys dropped, and then I fell and
knew nothing more for a while. But afterwards I heard that we had taken
Mametz, and hold it still.... My Gordons were fine, but we had bad
luck.”
It was the fire of German machine-guns which was most trying to our
men. Again and again soldiers have told me to-day that the hard
time came when these bullets began to play upon them. In spite of
our enormous bombardment there remained here and there, even in
a front-line trench, a machine-gun emplacement so strongly built
with steel girders and concrete cover that it had defied our high
explosives. And inside were men who were defiant also.
A young officer of the Northumberland Fusiliers paid a high tribute to
them. “They are wonderful men,” he said, “and work their machines until
they are bombed to death. In the trenches by Fricourt they stayed on
when all the other men had either been killed or wounded, and would
neither surrender nor escape. It was the same at Loos, and it would not
be sporting of us if we did not say so, though they have knocked out so
many of our best.”
The same opinion in almost the same words was given to me to-day by
many men whose bodies bore witness to these German Maxims, and though
their words were a tribute to the enemy, they also proved the fine
generosity in the heart of our own men.
While the attacks were being made on Montauban and Mametz very hard
fighting was in progress on the left, or western, side of our line from
Gommecourt downwards. So far I have heard very little of the action
at Gommecourt, where the German salient was most difficult to assault
owing to formidable defences. In that direction our progress has not
been great.
Farther south at Ovillers and La Boisselle our attacks were rather more
fortunate, and some ground was gained with great loss in life to the
enemy, though not without many casualties to ourselves. Fortunately,
as in all this fighting, the proportion of lightly wounded men is
wonderfully high.
The advance upon the ridge of La Boisselle was a splendid and memorable
thing. The men who took part in it were hard, tough fellows who fear
neither man nor devil, nor engines of war. They went forward cheering,
and the Tyneside pipers played on their men. The German guns were
flinging Jack Johnsons over, but they did not inflict much damage, and
the men jeered at them.
“Silly old five-point-nine crumps!” said a young officer to-day who had
been among them. “They only made a beastly stink and the devil of a
noise. It was the machine-guns which did all the work.”
The machine-guns were enfilading our men from La Boisselle, and from
the high ground above their bullets came pattering down in showers, so
that when they hit men in the shoulder they came out at the wrist. They
swept No Man’s Land like a scythe.
But our troops passed on steadily with fixed bayonets at parade step,
not turning their heads when comrades dropped to right and left of
them. They took the first line of German trenches, which were blown to
dust-heaps with the bodies of the men who had held them. In the second
line there were men still living, and still resolute enough to defend
themselves. They were bombed out of this position, and our men went on
to the third line still under machine-gun fire.
“It seemed to me,” said a Lincolnshire lad, “as if there was a
machine-gun to every five men.” Without exaggeration there were many
of these machines and they were served skilfully and terribly by their
gunners. Beyond La Boisselle, which was pressed on one side, the fire
became very intense. High explosives, shrapnel, and trench-mortars
ploughed up the ground.
“They threw everything at us except half-croons,” said a man of the
Royal Scots.
It was the Royal Scots who charged with the bayonet into a body of
German troops, and the other battalions advanced at the double and
captured batches of men who had no more stomach for the fight.
Some of the hardest fighting at La Boisselle was done by men of Dorset
and Manchester with Highland Light Infantry and Borderers. They had
an easy time over the front line, but when the second was reached had
to engage in a battle of bombs with a large body of Germans. This
resistance was broken down and when there was a show of bayonets the
enemy surrendered. They were haggard men, who had suffered, like most
of our prisoners, from long hunger and thirst as our bombardment had
cut off their supplies and broken the water-pipes.
Farther north there was a severe struggle for the possession of
Thiépval, which was once in our hands but is now again in the enemy’s
grip. It is clear from all the evidence I can get that our men passed
beyond to a further objective without staying to clear out the dug-outs
where Germans were in hiding or to search for all the machine-gun
emplacements. The enemy came out of their hiding-places and served
their machine-guns upon the British troops who had gone forward.
A sergeant-major of the Manchesters, who took part in one of the
attacks which followed each other in waves upon the Thiépval positions,
says that he and his comrades forced their way across the front
trenches and had to walk over the bodies of large numbers of German
dead, who had fallen in the bombardment. With his regiment he went
forward into a wood known to the men as “Blighty,” and then fell
wounded.
Machine-gun bullets and shrapnel were slashing through it with a storm
of lead, lopping off branches and ricochetting from the tree-trunks.
The men stood this ordeal superbly, and those who were not wounded
fought their way through towards the village. Some battalions working
on the left of Thiépval had a very severe ordeal. One of them, wounded,
told me that they seized the first system of trenches in the face
of machine-gun fire and captured the men who remained alive in the
dug-outs.
They were deep dug-outs, going 30 feet below ground, and in some cases,
even at that depth, had trap-doors leading to still lower chambers,
so that our bombardment had not touched them. Many of them were
elaborately fitted and furnished, and were well stocked with wine and
beer. A great deal of correspondence was found and sent back to our
lines in sandbags.
4
It was when our men advanced upon the Thiépval woods that they had
their hardest hours, for the enemy’s fire was heavy, and they had to
pass through an intense barrage. Meanwhile big fighting was in progress
at Fricourt, and some of the North-countrymen had a great ordeal of
fire. They have done magnificently, and Fricourt is ours.
Other troops were engaged, for masses of men of many British regiments
advanced on both sides of the village endeavouring to get possession
of Shelter Wood, Lozenge Wood, and the high ground to the north of
the village from the position known as the Crucifix. Large numbers
of Germans were killed and wounded, but the garrison of Fricourt
maintained a very stout resistance, and until this morning our attacks
did not succeed in taking this stronghold, although it was nearly
surrounded.
Heroic acts were done by our men, as I know from the comrades who were
with them. One boy of eighteen, to give only one instance, was so good
a captain, although a private soldier, that when the officers of his
platoon had fallen he rallied the men and led them forward. “Come on,
my lads,” he cried. “We’ll get them out!” A pipe-major of the Royal
Scots led this battalion forward to an old Scottish tune, and during
the attack stood out alone in No Man’s Land playing still until he fell
wounded.
Early this morning a very fine flanking attack was made on Fricourt by
the men who had held on to the ground during the night, and Crucifix
Trench was taken after the explosion of two big mines. The attack then
closed in, one body of troops working round to the north and another
fighting their way round the south side in order to get the village
within a pair of tongs.
The operation succeeded and the village was taken, but fighting still
went on to gain possession of the high ridge above. A whole company of
German soldiers were seen to come suddenly across the open with their
hands up. Other men straggled singly over the shell-beaten ground to
surrender to our men.
But the enemy’s guns put up a heavy barrage of shrapnel and high
explosives when our men tried to advance along the ridge, and from the
upper end of the Fricourt Wood there came the incessant clatter of
machine-gun fire. Our attack did not falter, and as far as I can learn
the position to-night is good.
Here, then, are some scraps of fact about a great battle still in
progress and covering a wide stretch of ground, in which many separate
actions are taking place. It is impossible for an eye-witness to see
more than a corner of these battlefields, and at this hour for one man
to write a clear, straight chronicle of so great an adventure. I have
been travelling to-day about the lines, trying to gather the threads
together, talking to many of our fighting men, going among the wounded
and the prisoners, and in the intense and immediate interest of this
great drama of war which is all about me, trying to get at the latest
facts of our progress from hour to hour.
But what I have written is only the odds and ends of a long heroic
story which must be written later with fuller knowledge of men and
deeds. Only one thing is really very clear and shining in all this
turmoil of two days of battle—it is the unconquerable spirit of our men.
III
THE FIELD OF HONOUR
I
JULY 3
As the hours pass we are gaining new ground and extending our line
slowly but steadily to straighten it out between the German strongholds
which have been captured by the great gallantry of our men after heavy
fighting.
To-day when I went into the heart of these battlefields in and around
Fricourt, where we have made our most successful advance, I could
see the progress we have made since the first day’s attacks by the
elevation of the shell-fire, which traced out the German and British
lines. To the right of me was Mametz, held by our troops, and our
encircling loop no longer dipped so steeply southwards as before, but
curved gradually westwards below the Bois de Mametz until it reached
Fricourt itself.
Here we are not only in possession of the village but have the wood on
the high ground beyond, the Crucifix Trench on the edge to the left,
and Lozenge Wood still farther to the left. Our line then runs to La
Boisselle, most of which was in our hands early this morning after a
fierce bombardment by our guns, followed by the infantry advance. It
seemed to me, from my own observation to-day, that the German guns are
retiring farther back to escape capture or direct hits, for many of
their shrapnel shells appeared to come from an extreme range by high
angle fire. All this shows that we are pressing the enemy hard, and
that so far he is unable to bring up supports to secure his defence.
The scene here was wonderful, and though I have been in many
battlefields since this war began I have never watched before such a
complete and close picture of war in its infernal grandeur. The wood of
La Boisselle was to my left on the rising slopes, up which there wound
a white road to that ragged fringe of broken tree-trunks, standing like
gallows-trees against the sky-line.
Immediately facing me was Lozenge Wood and the Crucifix, with two
separate trees known as the Poodles, and just across the way to my
right in the hollow that dips below the wood was Fricourt. Montauban,
which our troops took by assault in the first day’s fighting, was
marked only by one tall chimney, the rest of its ruins being hidden
behind a crest of ground, but to the right, near enough for me to see
and count its ruined houses, was Mametz lying in a cup below the ridge.
A great bombardment was raging from both sides, the enemy shelling the
places we had taken from him, and our guns putting a heavy barrage
on to his positions. La Boisselle was being shelled by shrapnel with
great severity, and there was one spot at the northern end of the tree
stumps where British and German shells seemed to meet and mingle their
explosions.
In what was once a village there were dense clouds of smoke which rose
up in columns and then spread out into a thick pall. In the very centre
of this place, which looked like one of Dante’s visions of hell-fire,
one of our soldiers was signalling with a flaming torch.
The red flame moved backwards and forwards through the wrack of smoke,
and was then tossed high, as a new burst of shrapnel broke over the
place where the signaller stood.
Our batteries were firing single rounds and salvos in the direction of
Contalmaison from many places behind our lines, so that I was in the
centre of a circle of guns all concentrating upon the enemy’s lines
behind Fricourt and Mametz Wood and La Boisselle. Shells from our
heavies came screaming overhead with a high rising note which ends
with a sudden roar as the shell bursts, and our field-batteries were
firing rapidly and continuously so that the sharp crack of each shot
seemed to rip the air as though it were made of calico.
It was a tornado of shell-fire, and though one’s head ached at it and
each big shell as it travelled over seemed in a queer way to take
something from one’s vitality by its rush of air, there was a strange
exultation in one’s senses at the consciousness of this mass of
artillery supporting our men. Those were our guns. Ours!
They had the mastery. They were all registered on the enemy. Our guns
at last had given us a great chance. The infantry had something behind
them, and it was not all flesh and blood against great engines, as in
the early days it used to be.
2
The enemy was replying chiefly on the ground about La Boisselle, so
that I hated to think of our men up there, for though it was nothing
like our bombardment it was heavy enough to increase the cost we
have had to pay for progress. I could see nothing of the men in that
smoke and flame, but I could see men going up towards it, in a quiet,
leisurely way as though strolling on a summer morning in peaceful
fields.
It was curious to watch our soldiers walking about this battlefield.
They seemed very aimless, in little groups, wandering about as though
picking wild flowers—some of those poppies which made great splashes of
scarlet up to the trenches, or some of the blue cornflowers and purple
scabious and white stitchwort which weaved the colours of France over
these poor stricken fields of hers, now hers again, and the charlock
which ran with a riot of gold in all this great luxuriance between the
tumbled earthworks where dead bodies lay.
The shells were whining and rending the air above their heads, but
they did not glance upwards or forwards to where the shells burst and
vomited black smoke. They seemed as careless of war as holiday-makers
on Hampstead Heath. Yet when I went among them I found that each man
had his special mission, and was part of a general purpose guided by
higher powers. Some of them were laying new wires for new telephones
over ground just captured from the enemy.
Others were runners coming down with messages through the barrage
higher up the roads. Artillerymen and engineers were getting on with
their job, quietly, without fuss.
From over the ridge where Crucifix Trench runs from the Poodles into
Fricourt Wood came a body of men. I could see their heads above the
trench. Then they seemed to rest a while. After that they came into
full view below the ridge.
Had they been seen by the German gunners? Why were they running like
that down the slope? Some shrapnel-clouds came white and curly above
the sky-line; others fluffed lower, nearer to the men. They were in
such a bunch that one shell would do great damage there....