themselves being sniped, and after a search found that the shots
were coming from a certain section of trench in which there were
communicating dug-outs.
After cunning trappers’ work they isolated one dug-out in which the
snipers were concealed.
“Come out of that,” shouted our men. “Surrender like good boys.”
But the only answer they had was a shot.
The dug-out was bombed, but the men went through an underground passage
into another one. Then a charge of ammonal was put down and the dug-out
blown to bits.
5
This afternoon, while I was still on the battlefield of Montauban, a
great thunderstorm broke. It was sudden and violent, and rain fell in
sheets. The sky became black with a greenish streak in it when the
lightning forked over the high wooded ridges towards La Boiselle and
above Fricourt Wood.
“Heaven’s artillery!” said an officer, and his words were not flippant.
There was something awe-inspiring in the darkness that closed in upon
these battlefields and the great rolls of thunder that mingled with
the noise of the guns. Artillery observation was impossible, but the
guns still fired, and their flashes were as vivid as the lightning,
revealing through the murk the dark figures of marching men, and
the black woods slashed with shell-fire just above Montauban. In a
little while the low-lying ground was flooded, so that the guns in the
valleys were in water, and the horse transport splashed through ponds,
scattering fountains above their axles, and rivers ran down the broken
trenches of the old German line.
I stood in the storm watching this scene of war, and the gloom and
terror of it closed about me.
V
THE ATTACK ON THE LEFT
1
JULY 5
Last night and this morning the enemy made attempts to drive our men
out of their positions at Thiépval, but were repulsed with heavy
losses. Their bombers advanced in strong numbers upon the Leipzig
trench, south of the village of Thiépval, and at the same time north of
the cemetery to St. Pierre Divion, but in neither case did they have
any success.
At other parts of the line, between La Boiselle and Montauban, there
were bombardments by the enemy’s batteries and by our own; and by hard
fighting we have captured Peak trench and the important system of
trenches known as the Quadrangle, north-east of La Boiselle and on the
way to Contalmaison.
Standing to-day on the battlefield north of Ovillers-la-Boiselle, I
was able to look over a wide area of the zone of fire, and to see our
new positions. Straight in front of me was Thiépval Wood, marked by a
ragged fringe of broken trees, through which appeared the ruins of the
village.
Heavy shells were falling there and our shrapnel was bursting thickly
upon the high ground held by the enemy. To the left of me was
Beaumont-Hamel, opposite Auchonvillers, and the village of Authuille.
It is historic ground. A hundred years hence men of our blood will
come here with reverence as to sacred soil. For over this stretch of
country, a few miles wide, has been fought one of the great battles of
history, and here many thousands of our men advanced upon the enemy
with a spirit of marvellous self-sacrifice, beyond the ordinary courage
of men.
They faced hellish fires, but without faltering. There was not one
man who turned and fled at a time when the bravest of them might have
quailed. They were all heroes worthy of the highest honour which may be
given for valour in the field. Something supernatural seemed to animate
these battalions of English boys and these battalions of Irish and
Scots, so that they went forward into furnace fires at Beaumont Hamel
and Gommecourt as though to fair fields, and when many of them stood in
the very presence of death it was to the cry of “No surrender!” Then
they went forward again to meet their fate.
2
Their losses were heavy. It is tragic as well as wonderful, this story
of our advance upon the German lines, when we captured their trenches
by an assault that could not be resisted at first even by overwhelming
gun-fire. I have spoken to Brigadiers who mourn many of their dear men.
The agony in their eyes made it difficult to face them. The number of
casualties was high, throughout the whole length of front on the left
of our attack, and inevitable because the valour of the men counted no
cost in their assault against positions terribly strong, as they knew,
but not stronger than their resolve to carry them.
The enemy’s losses were frightful, too, and his courage great. It was
because very brave men were on both sides that the battlefield in this
region was strewn with stricken men.
They were men of the North Country who were on the left of our attack
between Ovillers-la-Boiselle and a point south of Hebuterne. As soon
as our bombardment lifted at 7.30 on the morning of July 1 the brigade
left its trenches and advanced line by line in perfect order as though
on parade.
The ground in front of them was wrecked by our shell-fire. Several
times during the bombardment the trenches had heaved and changed their
form, so that all the contours of the earth were altered. But there
were many men still left alive below ground in the German dug-outs,
those deep dug-outs of theirs that go below the reach of even the
heaviest shells, and with them were many machine-guns and deadly
weapons.
Behind them also was a great concentration of artillery, for it is
evident that the enemy had expected attack here, perhaps our main
attack, and had massed his heaviest guns at this point. His barrage was
immense in its effect of fire upon our trenches and the ground between
ours and his. To reach his line our men had to pass through a wall of
bursting shells. Our own barrage continued intensely, but at the moment
of the infantry attack the German soldiers stood up on their parapets
in the very face of this bombardment and fired upon our advancing men
with automatic rifles.
Their machine-gunners also showed an extreme courage, and with amazing
audacity forced their way over the broken parapets into No Man’s Land
and swept our ranks with a scythe of bullets. Numbers of our men
dropped, but others went on, charging the machine-guns with fixed
bayonets, hurling bombs at the men on the parapets, and forcing their
way into and across the German trenches. Wave after wave followed, and
those who did not fall went on, into the enemy’s first line, into the
enemy’s second line, then on again to his third line, and by a kind
of miracle even to his fourth line. There were men who went as far as
Serre. They never came back.
The enemy’s guns kept up a continuous bombardment from 7.30 till
mid-day, like an incessant roll of drums, and the ground over which our
men continued to advance was cratered like a system of trous-de-loups.
An orderly who tried to come back with a message from the men in front
was buried three times on his way, but struggled out and delivered his
report. Human courage could not reach greater heights than these men
showed.
3
On the right of these North Countrymen were other bodies of troops
from the West of England, the Midlands, and Eastern Counties, with
battalions of Irish and Scottish troops. They, too, had to face a great
ordeal. When they went towards the German trenches, not at a rush, but
at parade step, under a storm of shells, the enemy came up out of their
dug-outs, and with machine-guns and rifles, and fought very stubbornly,
even when the Midland men and other English troops reached them with
bombs and bayonets. There was a fierce corps-à-corps in the first-line
trench until most of the enemy were killed.
Then our men went on to the second German line under still fiercer
fire. By this time they were in an inferno of shell fire and smoke as
nothing was seen of them by artillery observers until at 8.45 some
rockets went up very far into the German lines showing that some of
the Territorials had got as far as their last objective. Some of the
infantry (they were two of the Essex Regiments and the King’s Own of
the 4th Division) went as far as Pendant Copse south-east of Serre.
Messages came through from them. Urgent messages calling for help. “For
God’s sake send us bombs.”
But the enemy’s gun-fire was so violent and so deep in its barrage that
nothing could pass through it, and it was impossible to send up relief
to men who had gone too far in their keen desire to break the German
lines.
A little further south were some Irish, Welsh, and Scottish troops.
When they left their trenches our bombardment was still at its full
weight, but suddenly the noise of it was obliterated entirely, so that
not a gun was heard, by a new and more terrible sound.
It was the sound as though great furnace fires were weeping flames
across No Man’s Land with a steady blast, and it came from German
machine-guns in the stronghold of Beaumont Hamel and from more German
machine-guns in concrete emplacements which had escaped our gun-fire
upon the enemy’s trenches.
Many of our men fell. Some of the Irish troops (the Ulster men) lost
severely. But other ranks marched on, not quickly, but at a quiet
leisurely pace, never faltering as gaps were made in their ranks.
Some of them did not even trouble to wear their steel casques, but
carried them, as though for future use if need be. And they went across
the German trenches and right ahead into the very heart of a storm of
fire, too quickly, in spite of their calm way of going, because they
did not clear the German dug-outs as they passed, and men came out and
bombed them from the rear. South of Beaumont Hamel were some other
battalions, whose advance was upon Thiépval Wood, and they fought with
extraordinary resolution and hardihood.
It was they who shouted “No surrender!” as their battlecry, and these
tough, hard gallant men forced their way forward over ground raked by
every kind of shot and shell. The enemy’s trenches could not resist
their attack, and they stormed their way through, killing many of the
enemy who resisted them. In Thiépval Wood, where the trees were slashed
by shrapnel, they collected their strength, formed into line, and stood
the shock of several German counter-attacks. Then they charged and
flung down the enemy’s ranks, taking more than 200 prisoners.
Another counter-attack was made upon the soldiers who had forced their
way to the outskirts of Thiépval village, from which there came an
incessant chatter of machine-gun fire. Some of them were cut off from
all support, but they fought forward, and the shout of “No surrender!”
came from them again, though they were sure of death.
This attack by our troops on the left of the theatre of attack is one
of the greatest revelations of human courage ever seen in history.
The tragedy of it—for the loss of many brave men makes it tragic—is
brightened by the shining valour of all these splendid soldiers, to
whom death, in those great hours, had no kind of terror.
The lightly wounded men who came back, and there were large numbers
of lightly wounded men, were proud of their adventure and hopeful of
victory. They had no panic in their eyes or hearts. It was a weary
walk for many of them down to the Red House, where their wounds were
staunched. They had two miles to go, and it was a long two miles to men
weak from the loss of blood, dizzy, tired to the point of death. Some
of them staggered and fell at the very gate of the dressing station,
but even then they spoke brave words and said, “We’ve got ’em on the
run!”
The enemy behaved well, I am told, to our wounded men at some parts of
the line, and helped them over the parapets. This makes us loth to tell
other stories, not so good. Let us not think, just now, of the ugliness
of battle, but rather of the beauty of these men of ours, who were
forgetful of self and faced the cruellest fire with a high and noble
courage.
VI
THE LONDON MEN AT GOMMECOURT
1
JULY 19
As long ago as Loos, which seems an enormous time ago, it was proved
that London produces men of great fighting qualities, not weakened by
City life, and, in spite of more sensitive nerves than country-bred
men, able to stand the strain of battle just as well, with a quick
intelligence in a tight corner, and with pride and imagination that do
not let them surrender self-respect.
“London men fight on their nerves,” said one of our Generals the other
day, “but they make great soldiers. More stolid men often give way to
shell shock and strain more easily than the Londoner, with all his
sensibility.”
In our great attack of July 1 some of the London battalions again
showed a very fine courage and a most self-sacrificing devotion to duty
in hours of supreme ordeal.
They broke the German line at Gommecourt and when ill-luck beset them
on either side, so that they found themselves in utterly untenable
positions, with heavy losses, they held on stubbornly against the
enemy’s counter-attacks, and suffered all that war can make men
suffer—there is hardly a limit to that, God knows—with Stoic endurance.
These men belonged to old Volunteer regiments, famous in times of
peace, when once a year young City clerks and professional men took a
fortnight’s leave at Easter for manœuvres on Salisbury Plain, and came
back rather stiff and rather bronzed, with stories of sham fights and
jolly bivouacs at night, and smoking concerts with good fellows who
lead a chorus. It was a great adventure—in times of peace!
But even when the Volunteers changed their form into the Territorials
and war tightened up in discipline, and attended more drills and had
a harder time in camp, no man guessed that before a year or two had
passed the Queen’s Westminsters would be fighting through hell-fire
in France, or that “the old Vics”—the Queen Victoria Rifles—would be
smashing through German barbed wire under machine-gun fire, or that
the Rangers and the London Rifle Brigade and the London Scottish would
be crossing ground, strewn with dead and wounded, in a storm of high
explosives.
“Punch” made funny pictures about this amateur soldiering. The
“Terriers” were not thought to count for much by military critics who
had seen service in South Africa....
Well, in this war the Territorial infantry and the Territorial gunners
have counted for a great deal, and during these last few days they have
proved themselves, once again, great soldiers—great in attack and great
in resistance.
2
When the four leading battalions left their trenches near Gommecourt at
7.30 after the great bombardment of the German position they had a long
way to go before they reached the enemy’s front lines.
No Man’s Land was a broad stretch of ground, 400 yards across in some
parts, and not less than 200 yards at the narrowest point.
It was a long, long journey in the open, for 50 yards, or 20, are long
enough to become a great graveyard if the enemy’s machine-guns get to
work.
But they advanced behind dense smoke-clouds, which rolled steadily
towards the German trenches and kept down the machine-gunners in their
dug-outs. Unlike the experience of most of our men in other parts of
the line, they escaped lightly from machine-gun fire, and their chief
risk was from the barrage of shell-fire which the enemy flung across No
Man’s Land with some intensity.
But the Londoners started forward to this line of high explosives and
went on and through at a quick pace, in open order. On the left was the
London Rifle Brigade, in the centre came the Rangers and “Vics.,” on
the right the London Scottish, and, behind, the Queen’s Westminsters
and Kensingtons, who were to advance through the others.
Men fell across the open ground, caught by flying bits of shell or
buried by the great bursts of high explosives which opened up the
earth. But the others did not look back, afraid to weaken themselves by
the sight of their stricken comrades, and at a great pace, half walking
and half running, reached the German line. It was no longer a system of
trenches.
It was a sea of earth with solid waves. Our heavy guns had annihilated
parapet and parados, smashed the timbers into matchwood, strewn
sandbags into rubbish heaps, and made a great wreckage. But German
industry below ground was proof against all this shell-fire, and many
of the dug-outs still stood.
They were full of Germans, for the line was strongly held, and many
of these men came up with their machine-guns and bombs to resist the
attack. But the Londoners sprang upon them, swept over them, and
captured the front network of trenches with amazing speed.
It was not a steady-going business, slow and deliberate. The quick mind
of the London man spurred him to quick action.
He did not linger to collect souvenirs, or to chat with
English-speaking Germans. “London leads!” was the shout of Victorias
and Westminsters.
The London Scottish were racing forward on the right with their brown
kilts swinging across the broken ground. But the officers kept their
heads and as much order as possible at such a time.
They held back enough men to clear the dug-outs and collect
prisoners—the best kind of souvenirs.
Two hundred of them were captured in the dug-outs and brought up and
sent back over the place that had been No Man’s Land and now, for a
time, was ours.
At least 200 came back, but there were many more who never got back,
though they started on the journey under armed guard.
3
The enemy’s artillery was increasing the density of the barrage upon
our old front-line trenches and the ground in front of it.
He made a wall of high explosives through which no living thing could
pass. The escorts and their prisoners tried to pass—and failed.
At the time the London men fighting forward did not think of that
barrage behind them. They were eager to get on, to be quick over the
first part of their business before taking breath for the next.
And they got on with astounding speed. In less than the time it has
taken me to write this narrative No Man’s Land had been crossed, the
trenches had been taken, the prisoners collected and sent back on their
way, and German strongholds and redoubts behind the first system of
trench work had been seized by London regiments.
It would have taken them longer to walk from Charing-cross to St.
Paul’s-churchyard with no Germans in the way. It was the quickest bit
of work that has been done by any freemen of the city.
The Riflemen had swarmed into a strong point on the left, knocking out
the machine-guns, and on the right the London Scots were holding a
strong redoubt in a very ugly corner of ground. Everything had been won
that London had been asked to win.
Before some hours had passed these London soldiers knew that they were
in a death-trap and cut off from escape.
Owing to the great strength of the enemy to the right and left of the
position where they had concentrated masses of guns, and where the
ground was more difficult to carry, the troops on either side of the
Londoners, in spite of heroic courage and complete self-sacrifice, had
advanced so far.
The London men had therefore thrust forward a salient into the German
lines, and were enclosed by the enemy.
Behind them, on the way to their own lines, the enemy’s barrage was
steadily becoming more violent. Having stopped the other attacks to the
north and south, he was now able to concentrate the fire of his guns
upon the ground in the London area, and by the early afternoon he had
smashed our trenches and communication trenches, while still flinging
out a line of high explosives to prevent supports coming up to the men
who were in the captured salient.
They were cut off, and had no other means of rescue but their own
courage.
Desperate efforts were made by their comrades behind to send up
supplies of ammunition and other means of defence. The carrying parties
attempted again and again to cross No Man’s Land, but suffered heavy
casualties.
One party of 60 men, with supplies of hand grenades, set out on this
journey, but only three came back. Single men went on with a few
grenades, determined to carry some kind of support to the men in front,
but fell dead or wounded before they reached their goal.
On the right the London Scottish were holding on to their redoubt,
building barricades and beating off the German bombers. But as the
hours passed ammunition became scarce. Our supplies of bombs were
almost exhausted, here and there quite exhausted. The London men went
about collecting German bombs, and for some time these served, but not
enough could be found to maintain effective fire. The position became
more ugly.
But the men did not lose heart. In those bad hours there were many men
who showed great qualities of courage, and were great captains whatever
their rank. One officer—to mention only one—was splendid when things
were worst.
He had taken command of a company when his senior officer was killed in
the first assault, and kept his men in good heart so that they could
organise a defence against the enemy’s counter-attacks.
They were surrounded by German grenadiers and suffered heavily from
artillery, machine-gun and sniping fire. The number of the wounded
increased steadily. The bombing party keeping the enemy back flung
all their bombs, and then had empty hands and were helpless. Not many
rounds of ammunition were left for the riflemen. After that there would
be no defence. But the officer would not give way to hopelessness. He
rallied six or seven good men about him, and ordered the others to
retreat with the wounded and take their chance across No Man’s Land
while he put up a last fight.
With his small band he held the barricade until the others had gone
away, and held on still until all but two of his men were killed.
He was the last to leave, and by a miracle of luck came back to his own
lines unwounded, except for a few scars and scratches. The courage of
the man and his fine spirit saved the situation at the most critical
time, and saved also many good lives.
There were many men of fine valour there. Men of London, not bred for
war, and liking life as one sees it when there are pretty faces in
Kensington Gardens, and when there’s sunlight on the windows in the
Strand, and when the dome of St. Paul’s rises like a white cloud above
the busses in Ludgate-hill.
4
One of them was a lance-corporal who was wounded in two places, so
badly that his right arm hung useless by his side. But he would not
give in.
“If I can’t use a weapon,” he said, “I can give a lead to my chums.”
And he gave them a lead, taking charge of a group of men holding the
left flank of a position, organising them into bombing parties, and
directing them to build barricades. He held on to his post until the
German attack became too strong and was the last to leave.
A boy in the London Scottish—I played at ball with him once in an old
garden when there was laughter in the world—escaped death by a kind of
miracle.
The trench he was in, with forty men, was being shelled to bits, and
rather than fall into the hands of the Germans he decided to attempt
escape. With one of his sergeants he made his way towards our lines,
but had only gone a short distance when the sergeant was shot dead.
A bullet came a moment later and struck my friend. It was deflected
from his brandy flask and went through his thigh, knocking him head
over heels into a shell-hole. Here he lay for some hours until it was
dark, when he succeeded in crawling back to his lines.
He was the only one saved of his forty comrades.
Gradually the men withdrew, straggling back across No Man’s Land, which
was still under great shell-fire, so that the way of escape was full of
peril.
It was the turn of the stretcher-bearers, and they worked with great
courage. And here one must pay a tribute to the enemy.
“We had white men against us,” said one of the officers, “and they let
us get in our wounded without hindrance as soon as the fight was over.”
It is only fair to say that they acted with humanity, and one wishes to
God that they would not use such foul means of destruction as those
newly invented by chemists with devilish cruelty.
The soldiers are better than their scientists, and in this case at
least they remembered the spirit of chivalry which they have not often
remembered in all the foulness of this war.
It was difficult enough to get in the wounded. Many of them could not
be found or brought back and stayed on the field of battle suffering
great anguish for days and nights. One man who was wounded early in the
battle of July 1 crawled over to three other wounded men and stayed
with them until the night of July 6.