The Somme Read online

  It might be thought that these figures reveal that Rawlinson, by some strange mischance was unaware of the complexity of the German trench system at the Somme. This was certainly not the case. When Haig extended the objectives to be captured in the south, he added a further 1,780 yards to Rawlinson's front of attack. Rawlinson immediately pointed out to the commander-in-chief that he was now faced with an additional 16,000 yards of trench to bombard.54 In this instance he appeared to recognise that it was the whole complexity of the trench system that needed bombardment, not just the length of front. Yet he seems to have drawn no overall lesson from this flash of insight. The Loos calculation, based simply on length of front, remained the basis of the Fourth Army's allocation of heavy howitzers until the day of battle.

  But even this is not the extent of Rawlinson's miscalculation. In strength, the defences at the Somme bore no comparison to those at Loos. The trenches were deeper, there were more dug-outs to shelter the defending garrisons, there were more concreted machine-gun posts, and there were a number of all-round fortified positions such as the Schwaben Redoubt. In addition the Germans at the Somme had incorporated a succession of fortified villages into their front defences.

  Even the Loos figure of guns per yard of front could only be reached for the Somme by redefining what constituted a heavy howitzer. Budworth, in his paper, had insisted that only 8 inches and above be defined as ‘heavy’. At the Somme Rawlinson arrived at his figure only by including 6-inch howitzers in the heavy category. By Budworth's definition he had only 133 – far fewer than was required even by an attack on a single trench line.55

  It is possible that Rawlinson derived some comfort from the fact that, unlike at Loos, he would have what he referred to as ‘an unlimited supply of ammunition’ to fire from his inadequate number of guns. On 20 June it was made apparent that this was not remotely the case. On that day he received a communication from General Kiggell, expressed in the double-speak that was becoming a GHQ trademark.

  Rawlinson was instructed that, in relation to the preliminary bombardment, while no one desired to ‘fetter’ his discretion and bearing in mind that ‘it is essential that his artillery preparation should be thorough’, he should pay due regard to the limitations of the ammunition supply and the effect that prolonged shooting would have on the guns. If these factors were neglected, ‘the continuance of offensive operations during the summer may be seriously prejudiced’. Therefore he must ensure that the desired results were attained ‘without expending more ammunition than is required to effect that purpose’.56 Now Rawlinson had earlier informed GHQ that he intended in the course of the preliminary bombardment to include six periods of intense firing, amounting in total to 8.25 hours. GHQ suggested that this period be reduced, arguing that their ‘value against lightly manned trenches ... when not followed by assault is open to doubt’.57

  Rawlinson entered a quite vigorous protest to this missive. He made it clear that he thought his discretion was being ‘fettered’, and that if the bombardment had to be reduced, it quite obviously would cease to be ‘thorough’. He also informed Haig that the periods of intense firing were not directed against ‘lightly manned trenches’ but against the strongest fortified locations in the enemy defensive system.58 But once more, having made a show of resistance, Rawlinson capitulated. Without further argument, he agreed to cancel no fewer than three of his six periods of intense bombardment.59

  It hardly needs to be stressed that this was a matter of the gravest import. No less than four hours of firing (three periods each of 1 hour 20 minutes) by the heaviest guns against the strongest enemy positions were to be forgone. Yet Rawlinson still seemed to think the bombardment adequate – no ‘further’ reductions, he said, could be made with safety.60 As a consequence he failed to entertain the idea that in response to the limitations which had now appeared in the availability of ammunition, the objectives to be attempted should be rethought along the lines of his original plan.

  One other artillery matter, that of counter-battery, was given little prominence in any of Rawlinson's or Haig's plans for the Somme. Yet it was Rawlinson who had stated after the Battle of Loos that the ‘success of an operation depends largely upon keeping down the fire of the hostile artillery’. Perhaps the commanders once more thought that the Fourth Army was so lavishly supplied with counter-batteries that the question need not be discussed. However, on any objective assessment of Rawlinson's artillery resources, it is difficult to see how such a conclusion could have been reached. For the bombardment Rawlinson had 1,010 guns devoted to wire-cutting and light trench bombardment and 233 heavy howitzers for major trench destruction.61 This left just 180 guns for counter-battery purposes, of which 32 were the obsolescent and notoriously inaccurate 4.7-inch guns. The remainder consisted of 128 × 60-pounder and 20 × 6-inch guns. So, overall just 12.5 per cent of Rawlinson's artillery was devoted to counter-battery, with 18 per cent of the guns used for this purpose practically useless. Given that the Germans had 476 artillery pieces ranged against the British, and that as preparations for battle became more obvious they reinforced this number by 17 field howitzer batteries and 36 smaller guns, the number of guns devoted to subduing them was quite evidently inadequate.62

  In the event, not even this pitiful number could devote all their attention to the German batteries. When Haig extended the objectives in the north, Rawlinson discovered that the 18-pounder wire-cutters could not reach the distant wire. His solution was to switch some of the counter-batteries to this task. What effect this decision had overall is difficult to assess. But its effect may be guessed from the fact that, in the case of VIII Corps, 24 of their 32 × 60-pounders and all of their 8 × 4.7-inch guns were required to divide their activities between wire-cutting and counter-battery.63 So the counter-battery programme was reduced to little more than half its original dimension.

  There were other instances which show the neglect of counter-battery. In the case of XV Corps, Rawlinson considered that it had a smaller bombardment task than other corps so he had reduced its howitzer component accordingly.64 However, during the bombardment the corps found this allocation so unsatisfactory that it switched its counter-battery guns to general bombardment purposes.65 This action evinced no response from Fourth Army headquarters.

  Nor was there a more evident reaction to the extraordinary comment offered by X Corps. In a report on the preliminary bombardment it was stated:

  Our superiority in artillery was not used to destroy the enemy's heavy artillery with heavy howitzers and there was not much counter battery work.66

  That is, counter-battery activity, which Rawlinson in the light of the battle of Loos had characterised as a prerequisite for victory, was allowed to degenerate under Fourth Army neglect into a matter wholly at the whim of the individual corps commanders. Not one of them had hitherto commanded heavy artillery in battle.

  6 ‘Favourable Results Are Not Anticipated': Preparations for Battle, June

  I

  While the plans for the battle were being finalised, the officers and men of Fourth Army were set to work to train for the impending battle. Training is a problematical question in the First World War. In the static nature of the warfare between 1915 and 1917 when advances were small and failures many, it is tempting to overlook it altogether. Moreover, the body of a trained soldier is no more able to withstand massed machine-gun and artillery fire than that of an untrained one. However, training could still be important in some situations and, as we shall see, it provides insights into the minds of the command.

  It would be a truism to say that many of the New Army formations which were to fight the Battle of the Somme arrived in France with inadequate training. This was not because of lack of intent. Early in the war a six-month programme for training had been laid down by the War Office which included drill, musketry, marching, and fighting in units ranging from platoon, through company and battalion to brigade and division.1 In practice only some elements of the programme were carried out. Instru
ctors were in short supply, equipment (even including rifles) was scarce, and large unit exercises were difficult to co-ordinate. The result was that the level of training was very variable, and owed much to chance or the enthusiasm or otherwise of individual officers.2 The unreality of the exercises often made them impossible to take seriously. As one recruit noted:

  Those were the happy days when you could capture a village by merely marching into it; when you could hold up a Battalion by pointing a dummy machine-gun at it, and refusing to budge; when you usually had lunch with the enemy, each side claiming the victory, over cheese sandwiches, chocolate, apples and water.3

  More seriously, and for reasons which are not at all to the credit of the army command, the artillery received considerably less training in Britain than the infantry. This shows that the command was still thinking in terms of an infantry war. The artillery programmes gave the impression of haste and it seems impossible that the technical detail for even rudimentary gunnery could have been absorbed in the short time available. Lack of sufficient guns and ammunition for training was even more chronic in this branch than in the infantry. In 34 Division (which was to meet with disaster on 1 July) there was time for only three days' practice before embarkation.4

  In France, GHQ and the army commands tried to rectify some of the most glaring deficiencies. GHQ began to distribute pamphlets on aspects of training to commanding officers but distribution had only just commenced by the time of the Somme. One of the more widely distributed pamphlets was Training of Divisions for Offensive Action issued by General Kiggell, Haig's Chief of Staff, in May 1916.5 It was at least an attempt to impose some uniformity of method on the BEF, but the principles laid down were often so general as to amount to little more than platitudes (for example each unit must have a clearly defined objective, an attack must be driven home until the endurance of the enemy is broken down, and – more ominously – ‘all must be prepared for heavy casualties’).6

  Rawlinson, from Fourth Army, issued his ‘Tactical Notes’, which reproduced much of Kiggell's pamphlet but attempted to go further in giving guidance on how some of the new weapons such as Lewis guns and Stokes mortars, were to be used. These notes also dealt with matters such as air–infantry and artillery– infantry co-operation and drew attention to some of the more specialised GHQ pamphlets on the use of these new methods.7 A series of ‘schools’ was also established at the army level where officers and men could be instructed in topics such as co-operation with other arms, the tactical use of ground, map-reading, the latest French infantry doctrine, and the general interchange of ideas.8 Other schools addressed the burgeoning need for specialists in the handling of Lewis guns, trench mortars, rifle grenades, gas, smoke, and machine-guns.9

  Nevertheless, despite their best efforts the BEF was beset by difficulties in organising a coherent training programme. The main difficulty was the shortage of labour. Preparations for a battle on the scale of the Somme required an immense amount of physical toil. Yet Haig had only 5,000 men to offer Rawlinson for these tasks.10 This was so inadequate that the Fourth Army commander had no option but to supplement the force with his infantry. What this meant for the troops is detailed in a report by 32 Division. In the course of two months this division (among other things) constructed new assembly trenches for the attack, dug communication trenches, dug over 50 emplacements for trench mortar batteries, completed a water supply system through to the front trenches, dug 19.6 miles of trench in which to bury the communications cables, laid 160 miles of this cable, erected 28 bridges for the artillery, constructed 72 emplacements for gas cylinders, and carried up 671 of these cylinders to the front.11 All divisions had similar tasks and the consequences were sourly summed up by General Maxse of 18 Division: ‘No rest and training for the infantry, except during the one week.’12

  Nevertheless, some training was carried out by the corps or divisional commanders. This usually took two forms. The first was to rehearse the attack to be made over models of the enemy trench system they would face:

  In each of these [training] areas a complete system of trenches reproduced exactly from air photographs was constructed representing the whole of the objectives to be attacked by each brigade. Each brigade in the Corps was thus enabled to be practised over trenches exactly representing those it was finally to attack.13

  The second form concerned the training of men to fight within trench systems, but this seems only to have been undertaken by a few divisions.

  Maxse of 18 Division rehearsed his men in the use of Lewis guns and trench mortars to overcome pockets of resistance by working to a flank, attacking the enemy from several directions, and generally manoeuvring in trench systems so that a portion at least of the attacking troops would fight their way forward.14

  In his summary of the battle Maxse made much of his methods, characterising the battle fighting as a ‘picture of hard slogging by determined Company Commanders who used their heads and sent detachments with bombers round the flanks of the enemy’.15

  But in commenting thus, Maxse (and some observers since) confused primary and secondary sources of success. Maxse's ‘determined Company Commanders’ could only operate as they did in the south if the artillery had already eliminated a high proportion of the defenders and their weaponry. As many in the VIII, X, and III Corps could have testified, determination in the face of an intact defence would have availed nothing. Training, in short, was valuable only in an environment which gave trained troops a decent chance of exercising their skills.

  II

  The next matter that Rawlinson was required to consider was how his troops, well trained or ill, were to traverse the killing zone of no man's land. Two methods of protecting the infantry in this perilous journey had been canvassed earlier – gas and smoke. Both were eventually discarded by the Fourth Army commander because of the inability to predict the wind direction and speed at zero. At Loos the erratic wind had played havoc with gas operations, and in the absence of shells which could deliver gas with some exactitude Rawlinson was not prepared to risk using it again. He argued that the same risk applied to smoke, which would now be confined to forming a screen for troops attacking villages such as La Boisselle and Fricourt. Rawlinson was making a legitimate point here. But his earlier insistence that his troops required the concealment provided by smoke remained valid.

  Rawlinson suggested a different type of infantry protection at a meeting with his corps commanders on 16 April, stating that

  The lifts of the artillery time table must conform to the advance of the infantry. The infantry must be given plenty of time. The guns must ‘arrose’ [spray as if from a hose] each objective just before the infantry assault it.16

  Rawlinson later made this idea more explicit in his ‘Tactical Notes’:

  The ideal is for the artillery to keep their fire immediately in front of the infantry as the latter advances, battering down all opposition with a hurricane of projectiles.17

  These remarks by Rawlinson are some of the first expositions of what would later be called the ‘creeping barrage’, one of the most important methods of infantry protection devised during the First World War. A creeping barrage consisted of a screen of shells which advanced (or crept) over the ground at a regular, predetermined pace, behind which proceeded the infantry. It had two great advantages. It swept over all enemy defences and was therefore likely to catch machine-gunners or riflemen whether they lurked in front trenches, communication trenches, or shell holes. Moreover, it would force dug-out dwellers to remain concealed while the attackers were traversing no man's land, or risk manning their weapons under a hail of shells. Thus if the infantry followed close behind the barrage they might overpower these defenders before they could emerge and bring their weapons into action.

  What is not clear is whether Rawlinson grasped all these advantages in April and May 1916. Certainly after his conference he made no attempt to impose the creeping barrage on his corps or divisional commanders. The decision about whether to adopt
it therefore remained in their hands. Unfortunately for the troops, few would use that option on 1 July.

  The other matters about the deployment of troops in no man's land to be decided by Rawlinson were the speed and formation they should adopt. The matter of speed was dealt with in the ‘Tactical Notes’, which stated, inter alia:

  Celerity of movement and the necessity of taking immediate and full advantage of the stunning effects [of the bombardment] on the enemy's moral[e] and physical powers are essentially the governing factors. The leading lines, therefore, should carry right through to the furthest limits of the objective. The assaulting troops must push forward at a steady pace in successive lines, each adding fresh impetus to the preceding line. Although a steady pace for the assaulting troops is recommended, occasions may arise where the rapid advance of some lightly-equipped men on some particular part of the enemy's defences may turn the scale.18

  What seems noteworthy about this document is that, so far from laying down a specific method of proceeding, it canvasses almost every possible speed. Thus ‘celerity of movement’ may be contrasted with pushing foward at a ‘steady pace’ or a ‘rapid advance’ only in particular (but unspecified) circumstances. It seems extremely unlikely that busy corps or divisional commanders could divine from this document any distinct message regarding the speed with which their troops should cross no man's land. They should act as they thought fit.

  If Rawlinson did not specify the speed with which his troops should cross no man's land, nor did he dictate the formations they should adopt for their journey. Certainly the Fourth Army ‘Tactical Notes’ give four illustrations of ‘the best formations’ in which to advance, and each takes the form of a ‘wave’. Yet these formations were not insisted upon. Indeed, Rawlinson stated that ‘there can be no definite rules as regards the best formations for attack’. The most suitable, he suggests, would depend on the nature of the ground over which the attack was to be made. As an example he suggested that if full use of folds in the ground were to be made then ‘small columns’ might be appropriate.19 Given these generalities, it was entirely appropriate that lower order commanders should develop those formations which they deemed suitable for their circumstances. As we shall see, the solutions they adopted varied enormously.