|
A Russian offensive
began on 4 June 1916, and four armies attacked on a three
hundred mile front ranging from the Romanian border to the Pripet
Marshes, resulting in their greatest contribution to the Allied
cause for the entire war. Five Austrian armies were driven back
between 20 and 30 miles and 450,000 prisoners were taken along with
over 400 guns.
| Front |
Nationality |
Divisions |
Total |
| Western
Front |
France |
95 |
150 |
|
British |
49 |
|
Belgian |
6 |
|
Germany |
125 |
125 |
| Eastern
Front |
Russia |
141 |
141 |
|
Austrian |
42 |
90 |
|
Germany |
48 |
| Italian
Front |
Italian |
53 |
53 |
|
Austrian |
35 |
35 |
| Salonika
Front |
Allied |
18 |
18 |
|
Bulgarian |
12 |
16 |
| Other
Central Powers |
4 |
Intelligence reports
at the end of May 1916 showed an Allied numerical superiority on all
fronts of over 100 divisions, broken down as above. In terms of
battalions, the superiority may have appeared greater as Russian
divisions had sixteen compared to the German nine, though again the
interior lines enjoyed by German and Austrian forces permitted them
to redeploy and concentrate much faster, and German and Austrian
forces were able to inter-operate much better due to their
homogeneity.
The Germans
were well fitted for defensive tactics, on which they intended
to rely - except at Verdun - in 1916. Their field defences were
much stronger than those of the Allies, whose senior officers,
thinking always in terms of advance, tended to treat the
defensive as only a temporary measure and did little to improve
their own positions. The enemy's wire formed a more formidable
obstacle than the Allies'; his deep dug-outs, capable of
accommodating most of his front line garrison, had no British or
French counterpart; and his superiority (both in quantity and
quality) in hand grenades, rifle grenades and trench mortars,
far better equipped him for trench-warfare. Thus while the
French and British forces sought to retain the initiative and
wear down the enemy, the latter in the main continued with great
industry to better his defences. Between the middle of December
1915 and the end of May 1916, British (including Canadian)
forces carried out 63 raids in strengths of 10 to 200 men, of
which 47 succeeded; of 33 German raids on the British front, 20
were successful.4
Prelude to the
Somme - Summer in the Ypres Salient
As the British Army prepared for the
great summer offensive on the Somme, Canadian divisions remained in
the Ypres Salient, and in fact would continue to do so until the
beginning of September 1916. They maintained a programme of
"stationary but aggressive" actions including harassment of the
enemy by bombardment, mining and trench raids.5 A number
of changes took place including the appointment of Major-General
Louis Lipsett to command the 3rd Canadian Division, replacing the
fallen General Mercer.6
The 1st Canadian
Tunnelling Company warned the 7th Battalion of a German mine about
to be blown under The Bluff on 25 July and the battalion seized the
crater before the enemy could take capture it. A trench raid on 29
July by the 19th Battalion killed or wounded approximately 50
Württembergers. Surprise was the key to success in raids. On 12
August a German company-strength attack on Hill 60 was pushed back
by the 60th Battalion, holding trenches on Hill 60.
Not insignificant was
the replacement at last of the Ross Rifle with the Lee Enfield. The
arrival of the 3rd Division at the front had rekindled the debate
about the weapon. PPCLI, raised from British veterans and originally
serving with the British Army, was re-equipped with the Short
Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE) and other unit commanders were
encouraging men to acquire the British-made weapon rather than the
issue Ross. After further correspondence between General Alderson
(commander of the Canadian Corps) and the Minister of Militia, Sam
Hughes, brigade, battalion and company commanders in the 2nd and 3rd
Divisions were canvassed for opinions. There was limit support of
the Ross in the 2nd while the 3rd Division was unanimous in
adversely reporting on the Ross. Their responses reached General Haig, commander-in-chief of the B.E.F., who on 28 May 1916 directed
that the 2nd and 3rd Division be re-equipped with Lee Enfields, as
the 1st Division (and Canadian Cavalry Brigade) had done the year
before.7
The 4th Division re-equipped in
September 1916 leaving all Canadian troops in France, save some
snipers who preferred the Ross for its accuracy, armed with the Lee
Enfield. While the Ross had been prone to jamming, the artillery
also disliked it because it didn't fit into limber brackets designed
for the SMLE, which caused the rifles to slip and foul wheel spokes
during road moves. In addition to jamming, the rifles were long and
awkward, striking overhead revetting frames when troops marched
through trenches. Back sights were fragile and bayonets reportedly
fell off during firing. When shooting over the parapet this meant
they could only be retrieved by searching outside the trench after
dark.8
Other changes in weaponry in the
Canadian Corps included the adoption of the 3-inch Stokes mortar,
replacing 3.4-inch and 4-inch weapons in the light trench mortar
batteries which were reorganized. The U.S. manufactured Colt machine
gun that had been on inventory since the first Canadians landed in
France was replaced by the Vickers Gun which was becoming available
in quantity from British sources.
Sir Sam Hughes and Staff visit
captured German Trenches on Somme. August, 1916 (LAC photo)
Visits to the Canadian Corps included
King George V and the Prince of Wales on 14 August, who observed
operations from Scherpenberg Hill near Kemmel and watched guns of
the 2nd and 3rd Division bombard the St. Eloi craters, while on 18
August the Minister of Militia and Defence, Sir Sam Hughes visited
Corps Headquarters and the 3rd Division.9
As units
withdrew into reserve the emphasis was on more advanced
training, with new techniques being practised. Demonstrations in
artillery-infantry cooperation showed how closely the barrage
could be followed without incurring unnecessary casualties. This
was the period when cooperation between the air and infantry at
last reached a practical stage. There were exercises with the
Royal Flying Corps* based on the newly adopted system of
"contact patrol". The attacking infantry carried flares, mirrors
and special signalling panels, and as they advanced they
signalled their positions to aircraft assigned solely to
tactical observation. The information thus received was then
dropped at formation headquarters or sent back by wireless.
A worthwhile administrative
development about this time provided for a supply of
reinforcements to be held in close proximity to the fighting
units, besides giving reinforcements a less abrupt introduction
into active operations. Hitherto replacements for Canadian field
units had arrived direct from the Base Depot at Le Havre. Early
in August, however, each division was allotted an "Entrenching
Battalion"-an advanced reinforcement unit to which infantry and
engineer reinforcements were posted pending their assignment to
a battalion or field company. During their stay in the
Entrenching Battalion personnel were employed in the
construction and repair of trenches and roads and in similar
maintenance duties. When the 4th Division reached the Corps area
in mid-August it followed the pattern set by the 1st Division in
attaching its brigades to a division in the line for seven days'
training in trench warfare. There was special emphasis on
instruction in anti-gas measures, and each battalion of the 4th
Division was put through a gas cloud.10
In August 1916, after
the Corps moved from Flanders to the Somme front, formations and
units adopted identifying patches on their uniforms.11
A rectangular
patch, sewn on the upper sleeve, denoted the division by its
colour-red for the 1st Division, dark blue for the 2nd, black
(later changed to French grey) for the 3rd and green for the
4th. It was surmounted by a smaller patch the colour of which
indicated the wearer's brigade (in order in each division,
green, red, blue), and the shape (circle, semi-circle, triangle
or square) his battalion (first, second, third or fourth) within
the brigade. Divisional troops wore the divisional patch only or
markings peculiar to their particular service.12
 The
Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme marked a turning
point in the First World War for armies on both sides of the line in many
respects. Not only was it the mid-point of the war in purely
chronological terms, beginning 23 months from the start of the war,
and ending 24 months from the end of the war, but it also saw a
shift in initiative as the British and other Empire troops gained
experience and expertise in offensive actions, learning from each
operation and incorporating new methods, tactics and equipment. The
first day of the Somme marked the low point of the British Army for
the war but from the battle came a steady stream of technological
and tactical advances that created a competent and effective army
schooled in new ways of doing battle, with the Canadian Corps
numbering among its finest practitioners. The Germans, too, learned
new defensive methods and doctrines which made their armies more
efficient but ensured the war would last even longer.
The British offensive on the Somme had
no specific geographic purpose, but rather three general objectives:
-
to relieve
pressure on French armies at Verdun
-
to inflict heavy
loss on the Germans
-
to aid allies on
other fronts by preventing the transfer of German forces from
the Western Front
There was also the
hope that critics of Allied strategy in the west, who advocated for
offensives in more distant theatres, might be silenced by a
successful offensive on the Western Front. Haig found himself still
subordinate to Joffre as to deciding the time and place of the
offensive and though he preferred the Messines area, Joffre was
determined to have action in the Somme despite more limited
strategic possibilities. The region offered the only junction of
French and British forces.
Haig also preferred
to wait until August 15th to bring men, ammunition and the newly
created tanks into battle, but Joffre insisted in a meeting in late
May that the French Army would "cease to exist" if the British
remained passive that long and a date of 1 July was set. Joffre
hoped to include two French Armies in the initial frontal assault,
with one British Army alongside, attacking on a sixty-mile front.
However:
...the costly defence of Verdun, coming on
top of the staggering
French losses in the first two years of war, was to reduce France's
initial participation to a
single army of only eight divisions. The weight of the offensive
would thus be borne by the
British, whose contribution was increased to an army and a corps,
involving 21 divisions
(with eight more, five of them cavalry divisions, in G.H.Q.
reserve). The area of attack was shortened to 24 miles. It extended
from the Gommecourt sector, midway between Arras
and the Somme, to a point four miles south of the river.13
Terrain
The Somme River flows west, between
Peronne and Amiens through a broad valley. To the south lay flat
country and to the north rolling chalk downs with numerous streams
and occasional smaller streams. The most prominent terrain feature
on the battlefield was the Pozières ridge, a low feature running
over eight miles from Thiepval-Ginchy-Morval, in places 500 feet
above sea level. It dominated the uplands to the north and east and
formed the watershed between the Somme River and the Ancre River,
tributary of the Somme. The village of Pozières, from which the
ridge received its name, lay on the highest part of the crest along
the Amiens-Cambrai road. Throughout the battle area there were few
obstacles to the movement of troops other than a few wooded areas
and the marshlands associated with the Somme and Ancre Rivers.
Situation
At the end of June 1916 the front line
in the Somme sector ran south from Gommecourt, across the Amiens-Cambrai
road, then three miles south it turned east for three miles to skirt
the southern slopes of the Thiepval-Morval ridge before turning
south again to loop through the flood-bed of the Somme near
Maricourt.
The Germans were still using a rigid
defensive strategy in accordance with General Falkenhayn's
instructions. Front positions wee strongly garrisoned with the bulk
of front-line regiments (the equivalent of British and Canadian
brigades) within 1,000 yards of No Man's Land. In July 1916 it was
customary for a front-line German regiment to have two battalions in
the first trench system, with a third battalion divided between
intermediate strongpoints, and a Second Position. In the Somme
sector, the German front line was protected by two belts of wire
thirty yards wide. Three trenches comprised the German front-line,
each about 150 yards apart, with the first trench housing sentry
groups, the second holding the front-line garrison, and the third
local supports. About 1,000 yards behind the front battle positions
was an intermediate line of strongpoints. Between 2,000 and 5,000
yards away, the Second Position was built up along the Pozières
ridge, wired in to the same degree as the forward trench system.
Both systems also had dug-outs 20-30 feet deep capable of housing 25
men and proof against artillery fire.
The French 6th Army was scheduled to
attack to the right of the new British 4th Army, driving six
divisions over a six-mile front, two north of the Somme and four
south. The main assault on the Somme front would come from the
British on a sixteen-mile front, with the 4th Army's thirteen
assault divisions attacking and five divisions remaining in reserve.
A corps of three divisions from the British 3rd Army to the left
would make a subsidiary attack on Gommecourt to pin German forces
down and draw away enemy reserves. As a deception, the British 1st,
2nd and 3rd Armies to the north of the 4th all begen simulating
offensive preparations on their fronts during the month of June
1916.
The Germans were not fooled, however,
and the German 2nd Army, holding the sector north of the river,
observed preparations for the actual attack beginning in February.
By 19 June Crown Prince Rupprecht was convinced of an imminent
assault on the Somme front. Troops previously withdrawn to Verdun
were partially replaced and the 2nd Guard Reserve Division was
inserted into the Gommecourt sector as early as 23 May. On 1 July
1916 the line north of the Somme had five and two-thirds divisions
supported by 598 light artillery pieces, 246 heavy guns, and 104
aircraft.
The Royal Flying Corps "dominated the
sky" over the Somme with an available 185 craft, but the British
lacked heavy artillery with only 471 heavy guns and howitzers.
The objectives given by Sir Douglas Haig reflected the
optimism caught from
General Joffre, who was convinced that a strong initial assault on a
wide front could break
through both the German front line and Second Position. The Fourth
Army was to seize
and consolidate a position on the Pozières ridge extending from
Montauban, near the
boundary with the French, to Serre, two miles north of the Ancre.
This meant in effect an
advance of about a mile and a half on a front of 22,000 yards, and
from Pozières north
would involve the capture of nearly five miles of the German second
line of defence.14
July 1st
see also main article: Albert
(Beaumont Hamel), 1916
Following a seven-day bombardment by
1,537 guns, the attack was launched at 07:30hrs on 1 July 1916.15
The French were lightly opposed and their six divisions reached
objectives "with relative ease" and comparatively light losses.16
The Germans had concentrated their forces north of the river,
permitting the French such easy passage. That concentration of
forces made the day that much more difficult for the British. The
right wing of the 4th Army's attack managed to take the forward
German positions, but elsewhere only temporary footholds could be
gained, and at tremendous cost, to be lost before night fell on 1
July.
The barrage, interspersed with gas
discharges, had managed to wreck German surface positions but did
nothing to destroy the deep German dug-outs where troops were able
to shelter and emerge unhurt as the British assault waves formed up
in No Man's Land. Defective ammunition and shortage of heavy guns
were blamed for the failure. British tactics, laid down by Army
directive, called for linear formations and walking pace in order
that the fresh recruits of the Territorial and "New Army" could be
controlled by officers and NCOs. This had the unfortunate effect of
making them perfect targets for German machine guns.17
All told, almost 60,000 British soldiers became casualties - the
worst day in the history of the British Army.
The casualty
bill alone, 19,240 men killed and another 37,646 wounded and
missing, is testimony to the senselessness of the endeavour. (By
way of contrast...the French had suffered 1590 casualties on 1
July.) For that reason, the elements of success of that day, in
particular the triumph of the French army, more advanced in its
tactical methods after its own harsh schooling in 1915, go
unsung.18
The Germans suffered approximately 6,000
killed or wounded and about 2,200 taken prisoner on 1 July.19
Among the hardest hit on 1 July was the the 1st Newfoundland
Regiment, practically
annihilated while attacking German trenches. The regiment was
serving as a component of the 29th Division at the time:
When the first
two waves of the division had to reach the German line just
south of Beaumont Hamel, the Newfoundlanders were ordered
forward on their own. They, however, encountered serious
difficulty in getting through the gaps in their own wire: the
Germans had every one covered by machine-gun fire, and many of
the men were killed or wounded. Those who did make it continued
toward the German line, some 600 metres away. Many more were cut
down in No-Man's Land, and only a resolute few got to the German
wire. But by 1000 hours it was over: 310 men had been killed and
374 wounded. The Newfoundlanders had given everything they had.
At the end of the day only 68 men were left.20
The positions at Beaumont Hamel have been preserved as part of
Memorial Park. Visible here are the location of the support
trenches on 1 July 1916 from which the Newfoundland Regiment
formed up for its fateful attack. The British front line is in
the middle ground of the photograph. The photo was taken from
the Caribou monument in June 2014. (webmaster's photo)
Opening of Newfoundland
Memorial Park at Beaumont Hamel on 7 June 1925. The caribou,
native to Newfoundland, was a symbol selected for the
regimental cap badge. The statue looks out from the former
starting positions on 1 July, toward the former German front
line. The Rooms Provincial Archives photo NA3106
The caribou monument at Memorial Park photographed on 7 June
2010, 85 years to the day after the photo above. (webmaster's photo)
Battle of Albert
The battle of Albert lasted twelve more days. British leaders had
been stunned by their losses on 1 July but information available to
them led them to underestimate just how badly the attack had gone
north of the Bapaume road. Similarly, they failed to appreciate
great opportunity to the south, where attacks had gone well. General Haig favoured the exploitation of gains made south of La
Boiselle, hoping to outflank defences to the north which stubbornly
held out, but the commander of the 4th Army, General Rawlinson,
determined to press the attack on Thiepval "as if the setback (on 1
July) was negligible" and by so doing failing to "come to grips with
failure."21 Rawlinson's rationale, as he stated it, was
to "keep these operations going for at least a fortnight for the
Bosch has not many reserves he can bring up and if he does not
relieve his frontline they will get exhausted and may crumble."22
Only one set-piece attack could be
orchestrated on 2 July, against La Boisselle, and by evening the
reserve division of the British III Corps secured it - "not much to
show for the second day of a major offensive" in the words of one
historian.23
The decision to
continue the offensive is often analyzed by modern observers without
considering the information available to commanders at the time:
The generals
mustered at Haig's headquarters talked of exploiting early
gains. There was no conception that 1 July had been a disaster:
this was only to form in the public mind years later, when
casualty figures were revealed, ground won was delineated, and
one was factored into the other. Intelligence on the morning of
3 July indicated that, except north of Thiepval, the attack had
been effective and the defence was in disarray. Therefore, 1
July had been a clear, if incomplete, success. This dictated
continuing the battle.24
There was disagreement between Haig and
Joffre on how to continue, but after discussions - sometimes heated
- Haig abandoned ideas of closing down joint operations on the Somme
front in favour of continuing alone at Ypres.25 In the
meantime, greater strategic purposes were already being served, as
early in July the Germans at last abandoned their offensive on
Verdun, in order to free up reserves for use on the Somme. This also
freed up French forces. In other theatres, on land and on sea, the
war was going relatively well for the powers of the Entente. The
Battle of Jutland fought on 31 May-1 June had been claimed as a
German victory but in matter of fact did nothing to shatter British
naval superiority, and after another sortie by their high sea fleet
in August 1916, Germany restricted their main naval activities to
submarine warfare.26
French troops engaged in the Somme
sector had in fact achieved one of the greatest Allied victories of
the war to date, advancing between 4,000 and 5,000 yards, taking
9,000 prisoners and 60 guns for losses of under 8,000 men. Some
French commanders had even thought the return to open warfare had
returned.27 The British for their part delayed while they
reorganized until 4 July, as the disagreement between senior
commanders was sorted out, and shattered formations were relieved.
Haig remained optimistic of a breakthrough, underestimating German
reserves which were observed to be fed straight into the line on
arrival at the front. The German defence was chaotic, but the enemy
was present in greater numbers than British intelligence understood.28
For their own part, the Germans had been
unhappy with their own performance on the Somme and General von
Falkenhayn relieved the 2nd Army's chief of staff of his duties.
Orders were laid down for lost ground to be counter-attacked as soon
as reinforcements could be mustered. Every bit of front line was to
be defended vigorously. "This was, of course, exactly what Rawlinson
would have been delighted to hear - it was the reaction he aimed to
provoke."29 The British pushed the line forward in a
series of smaller attacks. La Boisselle was finally secured on 5
July, while Orvillers, the neighbouring village, took ten days of
fighting to firmly control. However, "(t)he German determination to
hold on consumed many of their finest troops: 9th Grenadier
Regiment, the Fusilier Guards and Lehr Infantry Regiment fought and
held, counter-attacked and were driven back and were eroded by
constant artillery fire. The policy of counter-attack had a heavy
price."30
Then in a great dawn
assault on 14 July (the Battle
of Bazentin Ridge) the 13th and 15th Corps, attacking midway between
the Somme and
the Ancre, broke into the German Second Position on a front of six
thousand yards. In this
operation the Canadian Cavalry Brigade was attached to the 2nd
Indian Cavalry Division.
(Although the division was not called on for exploitation, a
squadron of the Fort Garry
Horse carried out a minor task.) Nine days later the 13th Corps
captured most of
Delville Wood, a mile west of Ginchy, while the 1st Anzac Corps took
Pozières, on the
Amiens- Bapaume-Cambrai road. These operations secured a substantial
footing on the
Thiepval-Morval ridge. During August and the first half of September
the British
maintained heavy pressure on the Germans. Haig's intention was by
"giving the enemy no
rest and no respite from anxiety" to wear down his weakening
resistance to a point
where another powerful attack would break through his remaining
defences. By the time
Ginchy fell on 9 September most of the Second Position was in
British hands, and along
the Somme the French had almost reached Peronne. At the point of
deepest penetration
the line had been advanced about 7000 yards. But the Thiepval end of
the plateau was still
untaken, and the line to the north stood as at the beginning of the
offensive. The two
months of ceaseless fighting to the end of August had cost nearly
200,000 British and
more than 70,000 French casualties. The Germans, committed to a
costly defence by von
Falkenhayn's order of 2 July not to abandon one foot of ground, or
to retake it at all costs if
lost, had suffered an estimated 200,000 casualties. It was being
found necessary to
replace German divisions after only fourteen days in the line.31
|
German Reorganization
Elsewhere, Italy and Russia carried out
their part in Allied grand strategy and the programme of coordinated
operations in multiple theatres. Italy continued offensive action
against Austria in August, taking Gorizia in the 6th Battle of the
Isonzo while the Russians defended against a German counter-attack
south of the Pripet marshes, then attacked themselves into Galicia
in August. They too had success against the Austrians, driving them
back in front of Lemberg, while in the south Russian forces made
headway toward the Carpathian mountains. The enemy was forced to
bring in reinforcements not only from the northern end of the
Eastern Front, but from the west as well, even despite the demands
of Verdun and the Somme. By 31 August ten German divisions had been
shipped to the east, including one engaged against Romania who
finally declared war on Austria on 27 August.
The declaration of war by Romania,
combined with German failures at Verdun and the Somme, led to
General von Falkenhayn's dismissal. Despite his abilities (he had
restored shaken confidence after German failure at the Marne, then
led successful actions in the East in Poland and Galicia as well as
bringing about Serbia's defeat) he was blamed for underestimating
the western Allies and failing to exploit success in the east.
Field-Marshal Paul von Hindenburg replaced him as Chief of the
General Staff and soon became Supreme Commander of all armies of the
Central Powers. With him came Lieutenant-General Erich Ludendorff as
First Quartermaster General to share responsibility for conduct of
operations. |
Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief
of the General Staff of the German Army in the first
two years of the First World War. Bundesarchiv photo. |
Von Falkenhayn's last action before
leaving to lead an offensive against Rumania
was to reorganize the command of the German forces at the Somme. In
mid-July von
Below's troops north of the Somme had been formed into a new First
Army, under his
command; across the river the front remained Second Army, now under
General von
Gallwitz, who was given temporary charge of the two-army group. On
28 August von
Falkenhayn added the Sixth Army (opposite Arras), placing the
enlarged group under
Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. It was the first time on the
Western Front that the
Headquarters of a Group of Armies had been formed as a separate
command, with its
own special staff. Von Falkenhayn's final instructions were to
maintain a strict defensive, in order to
conserve forces for an emergency. Better than anyone he now realized
Germany's
perilous shortage of trained troops. "Beneath the enormous pressure
which rests on us",
he wrote on 21 August, "we have no superfluity of strength. Every
removal in one direction
leads eventually to dangerous weakness in another place which may
lead to our
destruction if even the slightest miscalculation is made in
estimating the measures the
enemy may be expected to take." The Allied decisions taken at
Chantilly seemed to be
bearing fruit.32
Canadians on the Somme
Canadian troops began moving out of the
Ypres Salient in mid-August 1916. They moved towards the English
Channel to training grounds at St. Omer. The Canadians were
optimistic about the change, the Salient bearing too many reminders
of "death and destruction."33 Advanced training was
provided in the conduct of attacks. The 3rd Battalion's history
described the training, and how it contrasted with the preparation
of Britain's "New Army" for 1 July:
The training
on the chalk downs about Tournehem was rigorous. A brigade
exercise was held on the 25th, with General Byng and General
Currie both present...At the conclusion of the exercise the
Corps Commander squatted down by the roadside with the officers
and told them what had gone wrong. There was too much stiffness
in sub-unit movements. There was too much "going by the book."
What he wanted, he said, was the "discipline of a well-trained
pack of hounds. Find the holes in the hedges for yourselves, but
keep your eye and mind on the quarry."34
On 30 August the
Canadian Corps had moved to Picardy and began its relief of the 1st
ANZAC Corps about
Pozières, taking over the sector on 3 September. This was the first
strategic move of the Canadian Corps, exchanging responsibility with
the Australians for front line positions fifty miles apart. The
Corps was now under the command of the newly constituted Reserve
Army which had taken over the northern part of the Somme front from
the 4th Army. The 1st Division manned the entire corps front of
3,000 yards of front line trench running west from the Pozières
ridge and the boundary with 4th Army to the east of the village to a
point 700 yards west of Mouquet Farm, a German stronghold that had
withstood six separate Australian attacks. The 2nd and 3rd Divisions
prepared for battle. General Haig desired the Canadians have a
chance to settle in before major offensive action was required, and
a directive on 19 August noted his intention to attack sometime in
mid-September with "fresh forces."35 Some Canadian units
found themselves billeted in Albert, where the statue of the Virgin
Mary had been blown off its perch atop the church by a German shell
in 1915. The superstition held that should the Virgin, left to
dangle precariously at a ninety-degree angle to the ground, fall
from the tower, the Allies would lose the war. She was left to
dangle but bets were hedged by engineers who secured her with steel
hawsers.36
The famous leaning virgin
at Albert, as it appeared during the war, and the replica,
restored and photographed in 2010. The basilica was finally
destroyed in 1918, and the original statue with it, as fighting
swept through Albert again during the German offensive.
(webmaster's photograph)
The history of the
28th Battalion described their arrival with the Canadian Corps:
When the 28th
arrived in the open spaces northwest of Albert known as the
brick fields, they found the place packed with troops from the
different Canadian Divisions. For miles around, the countryside
was dotted with horse lines, bivouacs, and ammunition storage
dumps, and the whole area was a pandemonium of clogged traffic.
The Battalion was allotted a piece of ground just large enough
for each man to lie down. For shelter, the troops were given
tarpaulins which, when held up with light poles, were supposed
to provide cover for eight to ten men. The Battalion spent its
time in the area near Albert rehearsing its part in the upcoming
attack on Courcelette.37
The 1st and 3rd
Brigades were roughly treated during their first week in the
trenches, undergoing heavy shelling and having to fight off frequent
infantry attacks. A final attempt by the Australians to capture
Mouquet Farm on 3 September included the 13th Battalion, temporarily
attached. They failed to take the farm but did secure 300 yards of
Fabeck Graben, a German trench that ran to the north-east toward
Courcelette. Two companies of the 13th Battalion attempted to push
out and expand their gain and in the process lost 322 men. In all
the Brigade lost 970 casualties, and early on 8 September, while the
Brigade was relieved by the 2nd Brigade, the Germans managed to
recapture almost the entirety of Fabeck Graben.38
 The
first Victoria Cross of 1916 was earned by Leo Clarke, a 25-year old
acting NCO with the 2nd Battalion. Lionel "Leo" Clarke was an acting
Corporal on 9 September when the battalion attacked the German
trench line in a 500 yard-wide salient in front of Pozières, south
of the Cambrai road. He led a bombing party to clear the left flank,
entered the enemy trench, and moved with his men to the centre of
the enemy position. Heavy casualties saw Clarke facing a German
counter-attack of twenty men without support, and despite a bayonet
wound, he fought on alone. He twice emptied his own revolver, and
then two German rifles. He shot and killed a German officer who
bayonneted him in the legs, and killed or wounded at least 16 of the
enemy before putting the others to flight, when he shot four more
and captured a fifth, their sole survivor.39 He was
killed on 5 October when a shell buried him in a trench, before the
award of the VC was announced.40 The citation read:
For most conspicuous bravery. He was detailed with his
section of bombers to clear the continuation of a newly-captured
trench and cover the construction of a “block.” After most of
his party had become casualties, he was building a “block” when
about twenty of the enemy with two officers counter-attacked. He
boldly advanced against them, emptied his revolver into them and
afterwards two enemy rifles which he picked up in the trench.
One of the officers then attacked him with the bayonet, wounding
him in the leg, but he shot him dead. The enemy then ran away,
pursued by Acting Corporal Clarke, who shot four more and
captured a fifth.
Later he was ordered to the dressing-station, but returned next
day to duty.41
Corporal Leo Clarke
had aided to the success of the 2nd Battalion, who by gaining and
retaining its objective received the personal congratulations of
General Haig.42
Mark I Tank prepares to advance on 15
September 1916. (Imperial War Museum photo)
The Battle of Flers-Courcelette
See also main article:
Flers-Courcelette
The Canadian Corps' first major attack
in the Battle of the Somme came on 15 September 1916. Two major
tactical innovations were tested in this battle for the first time:
the use of the tank to support infantry in penetrating into enemy
trenches, and the "rolling barrage" which was a moving curtain of
shells behind which infantry could traverse No Man's in relative
safety.43 As well, the attack was to be not a single
continuous advance but a series of bounds to limited objectives.
There was a realization that during the disaster of 1 July and the
battles immediately after, hopes had been too highly placed on the
ability of artillery to clear the way for the infantry.44
It was the beginning of a move back to principles of both fire and
movement, and a rethinking of basic tactical concepts that had been
lost in the mire of trench warfare from the earliest months of the
war.45
click to enlarge
Rawlinson's 4th Army
was to attack with three corps aimed at Flers, Morval,
Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt hoping to break through towards Bapaume. The Reserve Army
was to protect their left flank, and the Canadian Corps and 2nd
Corps were to secure Courcelette and exert pressure south of Thiepval.
Seven tanks were employed by the Canadians - the Reserve Army's
total allotment. The first of two attacks began at 6:20 a.m. on 15
September 1916. The 4th and 6th Brigades of the 2nd Division
attacked toward the village of Courcelette proper, aimed at Sugar
Trench and Candy Trench with six tanks in support. The rolling
barrage, advancing 100 yards every four minutes, was effective but
the tanks did little of value due to mechanical difficulties and
difficult terrain. The 2nd Division was able to quickly seize their
objectives nonetheless despite resistance in a sugar refinery. The
second attack of the day was ordered at 6:00 p.m. as General Byng
kept up the momentum of the advance, securing the village itself.
Two battalions of the 5th Brigade held on to the far end of
Courcelette through repeated counter-attacks that night and into the
next day.
On the Canadian Corps' left, the 3rd
Division captured the Fabeck Graben despite heavy shell and machine
gun fire, linking up with the 2nd Division and extending westward
until all but 250 yards of the feature were in Canadian hands. The
Zollern Graben lay 1,000 yards to the north, and ran together just
west of Courcelette, and was the Corps' next tactical bound. A hasty
attack on the evening of 16 September was forced to ground by
machine gun fire, though the 7th Battalion managed to secure the
remainder of the Fabeck Graben. Private John Chipman Kerr was
awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery during this action.
Attempts to advance further towards Zollen Graben failed during the
next few days as German reinforcements were brought up and rain
dampened activity on both sides.46
In its first major operation at the Somme the Canadian Corps had
acquitted itself
with credit, though the week's fighting had cost 7230 casualties.
"The result of the fighting
of the 15th September and following days", wrote Sir Douglas Haig in
his despatch, "was
a gain more considerable than any which had attended our arms in the
course of a single
operation since the commencement of the offensive." Breaking through
two of the enemy's
main defensive systems, Allied troops had advanced on a front of six
miles to an average
depth of a mile and captured three large villages which the enemy
had organized for a
prolonged resistance. Yet the main objectives were still untaken.
The way to Bapaume
was blocked by the strongly defended villages of Monal, Lesboeufs
and Gueudecourt, and
the enemy still held Combles and Thiepval at either end of the
ridge. Bad weather and a
shortage of ammunition for the French artillery postponed a renewal
of the offensive until
the 25th. The next phase was to be known as the Battle of Morval on
the Fourth Army front,
and by the Reserve Army as the Battle of Thiepval Ridge.47
Morval and Lesboeufs fell on the 25th
while Gueudecourt held out an additional day, prompting the Germans
to withdraw from Combles. The Morval battle gained a belt of ground
2,000 yards wide on average, necessitating the capture of Thiepval
to bring the left flank into line and move the Germans off the
ridge. The task fell to the Reserve Army.
In all, Flers-Courcelette had been far
more successful than any British operation during the previous two
months. If the employment of the newest weapon of war - the tank -
had been premature, work was continuing on other weapons and methods
also:
It is clear
from the detailed orders and careful training of the assault
divisions that tactical lessons from earlier operations were
being incorporated into planning and preparation. Artillery
technique was developing, even if Fourth Army's bombardment was
not yet being prepared with the meticulous calculations of
shells-per-metre of Sixth Army's gunners. By mid-September,
Fourth Army had received many more heavy guns...The barrage
would be twice as concentrated as that of 1 July, although only
half as heavy as that of 14 July. Moreover, artillery technique
was becoming much more sophisticated, with high-explosive shells
used to cut wire, gas shells (fired by British guns for the
first time) for neutralisation of enemy artillery, long-range
interdiction fire, and a creeping shrapnel barrage - at a lower
speed and with a greater concentration of shell - all employed
to disrupt the enemy's response and fire the infantry on to
their objectives.48
Thiepval Ridge, 26-28 September
See also main article:
Thiepval
The heights at Thiepval gave the Germans
the ability to observe Allied rear areas on the southern slopes
leading to Albert, and conversely would permit observation over the
valley of the upper Ancre River. For that reason the operation
orders emphasized the need to move the enemy off the entire crest
line. The 6,000 yard front between Thiepval and Courcelette was
split in two. On the left, Lieutenant-General C.W. Jacob's 2nd Corps
was assigned notoriously objectives that had held out since the
start of the offensive in July. On the right, the Canadian Corps was
depending on Jacob's men to take Mouquet Farm, Zollern Redoubt, and
Stuff Redoubt on the crest 500 yards further back, yet one more
strongpoint anchoring the German Second Position. The overall
objective of the 2nd Corps was to assault Thiepval and the Schwaben
Redoubt, overlooking the Ancre River from the western edge of the
Thiepval Ridge. The Canadians were to attack a spur projecting east
from the main ridge.50 While officially this phase of
fighting is known as the Battle of Thiepval, in actuality it
represented an extension of the general assault on the series of
German trench lines around Courcelette that had begun on 15
September.51
The objective of the Corps was Hessian
Trench, and its spur, Kenora Trench, both about 1,000 yards distant
from the Canadian front line. Three days of bombardment preceded the
Canadian attack at 12:25 p.m. on 26 September 1916. The Germans
positioned machine gun strong-points in No Man's Land to avoid the
barrage and the second wave was hit by heavy fire just as they
mounted the parapet. Nonetheless the 1st Division managed to
struggle forward and onto their objectives despite their casualties,
taking the Zollern Graben trench and fighting up to Hessian Trench,
one battalion of the 2nd Brigade even managing to advance beyond
almost to the Regina Trench line. Strong counter-attacks forced them
back. The 3rd Brigade got a battalion into Kenora Trench which was
also heavily counter-attacked throughout the day and into the next
until, down to just 75 men, they were forced to withdraw. By
nightfall on 26 September only small portions of the Hessian and
Kenora Trenches were in Canadian hands and far from secure. Three
days of sporadic fighting followed, and on 28 September, renewed
efforts to advance on the Regina Trench were halted by uncut wire
entanglements and massed machine guns. Hessian Trench finally fell
the next day, and British units took over responsibility for the
sector. "In places, the Corps had advanced the Canadian line by
about 1000 metres, and part of the objective had been taken. But it
was no victory."52
Soldiers leaving trenches on the Somme
front. (LAC photo)
The Battle of the Ancre Heights
See also main article:
Ancre
Heights
By the beginning of October 1916, the
three-month struggle of the Battle of the Somme had claimed several
hundred thousand killed and wounded. General Haig,
Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, decided to
renew the offensive on a greater scale.53
One historian
has examined the overall strategy of the Somme in the context of an
integrated campaign with the French:
The September
battle on the Somme was not, as it has usually been depicted, a
renewed British attack to pull along a weakening and dispirited
French army. Nor was it an overambitious flight of hubristic
fancy on the part of the British commander-in-chief (although
reading his own account in isolation does give grounds for such
a conclusion). Examined individually (and normally only the
British attacks on 15 and 26 September are examined in any
detail), the operations in September 1916 appear to be merely
more of the same, more extensive but still relatively localised
attritional fights with modest results - some villages won here,
a few trenches taken there. Seen collectively, however, Foch's
renewed offensive represented something new; and Haig's plans
make sense in this context. For these reasons, a true picture of
the French army's repeated efforts during September, more and
larger than those of the British, is a vital missing piece of
the Somme jigsaw puzzle. As far as was possible with such a
diverse and crude instrument as the allied armies of 1916, Foch
had them working as a fairly well-oiled war machine: if not a
truly combined offensive, by September it was at least a
concerted one.54
When Thiepval fell to the Reserve Army
on 27 September, it marked the last of a series of "piston thrusts"
that exemplified "how an attritional offensive was supposed to
proceed, and it brought the defence to crisis point."55
The Canadian Corps was faced with yet
another series of attacks on German trench lines, this time a set of
entrenchments dubbed Regina Trench by the Canadians. These attacks
were to be the most futile and costly of all the Canadian efforts in
the Somme fighting. Just two days after the exhausting fighting for
the Hessian Trench, the 5th Brigade (2nd Division) and 8th Brigade
(3rd Division) once again went into the attack on 1 October. The
operation was a disaster, beginning with short-falling artillery
plastering the jumping-off positions. The preparatory barrage also
failed to hit the German lines, and German wire was not cut by the
artillery in most places. Casualties were heavy during the assault
as machine gun fire laced into entire assault companies caught up in
No Man's Land. The few survivors that managed to reach Regina Trench
were driven out or overwhelmed by German counter-attacks, and half
the assault force was dead or wounded by day's end with no gain to
show for their efforts.
click to enlarge
A week later, another assault was
launched on 8 October 1916, with two brigades of the 1st Division
and two more from the 3rd Division, on a reduced front. Only a
single battalion of the 3rd Division managed to enter Regina Trench
in strength, but were forced out by three counter-attacks. A number
of weakened sub-units of the 1st Division reached their objectives
but were likewise forced out when they ran out of ammunition. It was
during this attack that Piper James Richardson of the 16th Battalion
(Canadian Scottish) performed acts of bravery for which he was later
posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. For a cost of 1,364
casualties this day, the Canadian Corps was able to claim no
additional territory gained.56
Le Transloy: 1-18 October 1916
The 4th Army turned its attention on
October to attritional fighting once more. Officially designated the
Battle of the Transloy Ridges, the objective was the fourth German
position, stretching along a ridge from Le Transloy north-westerly
towards Ligny. Attacks by the 14th and 15th Corps made little
progress during October, and a succession of both large set-piece
attacks, and smaller assaults, failed to gain ground. A notable
exception was that by the Newfoundland Regiment on 12 October,
returning to the line after their destruction on 1 July.
The
Newfoundlanders' return to the Somme three months after their
heroic yet disastrous assault on 1 July was likely to be
traumatic. their ranks were filled with the recovered casualties
of the earlier attack and keen new recruits anxious to emulate
their comrades' heroism. Newfoundland's tiny army had something
to prove to the watching empire. Although insignificant in the
context of the battle or the war as a whole, for Newfoundland
the capture of Hilt Trench went some way towards redeeming the
earlier failure. While attacks to either side failed, the
Newfoundlanders took and held their own objective and part of
that of the neighbouring battalion.59
One other historical side-note is often
made about deployments to the Somme. On 2 October 1916, the 16th
Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment (also known as the Regiment
List) deployed to the Somme sector. The unit has been much
studied due to the fact that one of its despatch runners was a
private soldier named Adolf Hitler. The regiment remained on the
Somme for only 10 days, but suffered 1,177 casualties in that time,
Hitler being one of them, wounded in the groin. One history records
that the regiment was ground down to just 350 front-line riflemen by
the end of their combats with the British 61st and 5th Australian
Divisions.60
Ancre, 1916
See also main article:
Ancre, 1916
The Ancre Heights had been the last battle
the Canadian Corps fought on the Somme, and on 17 October, the 1st,
2nd and 3rd Divisions moved north to a new sector of the front near
Arras. North of the Ancre River, the 3rd Army had still not been
engaged though the Reserve Army's 2nd Corps had completed the
capture of Stuff Redoubt on 9 October and taken Schwaben Redoubt
on 14 October. The 4th Army managed to take Le Sars on 7
October, opening the Battle of the Transloy Ridges, but
afterwards only managed an advance of 1,000 yards north-east of
Gueudecourt, the line otherwise remaining the same as it had
been at the end of September. There seemed to be no chance of
successfully fulfilling the operational plan, but General Haig,
the British Commander-in-Chief, opposed relaxing their offensive
stance, feeling the Germans close to the breaking point and a
victory finally at hand that would make the sacrifice of the
previous months pay off. He estimated that he had drawn 70 enemy
divisions to the Somme, and 40 against the British (the German
official history after the war shows he was nearly correct,
admitting 38 divisions) while inflicting 370,000 casualties on them.
He urged that their front-line defences lacked depth, and did not
have the elaborate construction of the positions that had already
been taken. Given sufficient reinforcements, supplies and
ammunition, and average winter weather, Haig proposed there would be
profit in continuing.
The B.E.F. had been reorganized on 7
October, making the 4th and Reserve Armies self-contained forces
capable of continuing offensive operations into the winter of
1916-17. The 3rd Army remained in reserve, with 3 divisions in
training at any one time. Newly arriving divisions were tasked to go
to the 1st and 2nd Armies. General Headquarters (G.H.Q.) was to keep
an extra corps headquarters in reserve as well, to command the
reserve divisions of 1st and 2nd Armies in an emergency.
 Meanwhile,
General Joffre remained impatient with the pace of operations and
the general situation on the Western Front. The Central Powers had
stabilized positions in the east running from the Carpathians to the
Pripet marshes while in Italy little headway had been made at the
head of the Adriatic by the Italians, preparing for a ninth battle
on the Isonzo. Romanian troops had been thrown back in Transylvania,
and Bulgarian troops, with German and Turkish support, had advanced
through the Dobrudja and taken Constanza on the Black Sea.
Counter-attacks hoping to draw off Bulgarians to the Salonika front
did little. In all, a major Allied victory somewhere was needed and
on 18 October, Joffre asked Haig to renew his Somme offensive on a
broad front, as originally envisioned.
Therefore, as Canadian divisions left
the Somme, the 4th Canadian Division found the Battle of the
Somme was only beginning. The division landed in France in
mid-August, and began its front-line service on 25 August 1916. It
remained in the north while the other three divisions moved to the
Somme, and joined a temporary formation called "Frank's Force" on 3
September 1916 along with British, Belgian, and Australian artillery
and miscellaneous units. This formation, named after the 2nd Army's
artillery commander, held a 4.5 mile front that extended from a
point west of Messines to the Ypres-Comines Canal. They were opposed
by the German 26th Division along with elements of the 4th
Replacement Division.
Allied patrols found considerable portions of the
enemy's front line
unmanned - an indication of his willingness to treat the Ypres
Salient as secondary to the
Somme area and to contain the Allied forces there with a minimum of
effort. On many
days fire from his artillery and mortars was extremely light, and
drew in reply three rounds
to one. Activity increased in mid- September, when the Second Army
carried out some
thirty raids as a diversion to the Fourth Army's assault in the
Battle of Flers-Courcelette. Of
ten raids on the night of the 16th-17th, seven were conducted by
Canadians. In all, 274
officers and men took part, representing the 46th, 47th, 54th, 72nd,
75th and 87th
Battalions. In the six raids rated successful the Canadians
captured 22 prisoners and
killed a known 30 Germans, at comparatively light cost to
themselves.
On 18 September the 4th Canadian Division came temporarily under
command of
the 9th Corps as Franks' Force ceased to exist. Three days later it
went into Second
Army reserve in the St. Omer training area. Here the troops learned
to handle the newly
issued Lee-Enfield rifle, and practised cooperation with aircraft
and artillery. There was
emphasis on methods of recognition-by ground flares, and chalk marks
on helmets - and
on advancing behind a creeping barrage at the rate of 100 yards in
three minutes. Each
man received a new box-type respirator, and tested it with tear gas.
On the night of 2-3
October the Division entrained for the Somme.61
The 4th Canadian Division came under
command of the 2nd British Corps, and participated in three further
attacks on Regina Trench. The first came on 21 October 1916, the
division's baptism of fire. Overcoming the other division's problems
with artillery support (the guns of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Divisions
were, in fact, remaining on the Somme) the 87th and 102nd Battalions
followed a creeping barrage in a successful attack on 600 yards of
Regina Trench. Another, smaller attack on 25 October failed, this
time again due to poor artillery support to the 44th Battalion,
though the mud had become increasingly difficult to maneuver in as
well. A third attack was made against the last German-held stretch
of Regina Trench on 11 November 1916 and the operation was carried
out as planned in just two hours. By now, having been fought over
for weeks, the trench had been blasted flat in places, in others
ripped asunder twenty feet wide and filled with bodies.62
Weather in the next ten days delayed any
further operations and in fact it rained for 16 of the first 21 days
the 4th Division spent in the front line. The condition of front
line trenches was poor, and it was not until 8 November, and the
arrival of cold weather, that it was dry long enough for further
offensive action. The Reserve Army was at last renamed the 5th Army,
having acquired services and staff to put it on equal footing with
other formations of the B.E.F. British commanders were by now urging
the Army Commander to either attack or pull forces out of the line
to rest, feeling continuing postponements were unfair to the troops.
The Commander-in-Chief felt a successful attack would have
favourable effect on the Allied situation in Romania and Russia, and
hoped for a victory to present at the Chantilly Conference. He
approved another attack on the afternoon of the 12th.
The 5th Army's front line encircled the
valley of the Ancre on the west and south on 13 November when the
Battle of the Ancre opened. In positions that had not changed since
the beginning of July, the 13th and 5th Corps faced east toward
Serre and Beaumont Hamel. The line ran east where it was held by the
2nd Corps along the northern edge of the Thiepval Ridge as far as
the boundary with the 4th Army at the Quadrilateral northwest of Le
Sars. The 5th Army now turned its attention to the salient at
Beaumont Hamel, attacking with four divisions of the 5th Corps while
the 13th Corps sent a division to Serre and the 2nd Corps assaulted
north in the valley toward Schwaben Redoubt and Stuff Trench with
two divisions. The artillery support was to include the divisional
artillery of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions. The 48-hour
bombardment was the heaviest artillery support of the war to date,
with shells falling on all German-held villages, trenches and
approaches to the battle area.
A 30,000 pound mine started the attack
at Zero Hour, exploding at the head of the German salient as an
enormous barrage crashed down across the front of the 5th Army. The
2nd and 5th Corps managed gains of 1,200 to 1,500 yards, capturing
St. Pierre Divon and Beaumont Hamel and trapping large numbers of
Germans in converging attacks in the valley of the Ancre.
(T)he total captured
for the day was not far
short of Sir Douglas Haig's earlier aspirations. General Ludendorff
styled the British
penetration "a particularly heavy blow, for we considered such an
event no longer possible,
particularly in sectors where our troops still held good
positions." But on the northern
flank the attack failed, as battalions advancing through mud in many
places waist-deep
were hurled back by the enemy's desperate defence of the Redan Ridge
and the trenches
in front of Serre. Next day, in a thin mist, the forces immediately
north of the Ancre
advanced another 1000 yards to the outskirts of Beaucourt, a village
one mile east of
Beaumont Hamel.
The two days which followed saw little action, as the mist
thickened, and Haig, who
was attending the Chantilly Conference, had ordered any further
major operations
postponed until his return. But the commander of the 5th Corps
was optimistic that
more could be accomplished, and General Gough obtained the C.-in-C.'s
approval to
resume the offensive on the 18th. Intentions changed more than once
with varying
estimates of the enemy's powers of resistance, and the final plan
assigned the main attack
to the 2nd Corps. Its left division (the 19th) was to take Grandcourt and cross the Ancre to
occupy Baillescourt Farm on the opposite bank. In subsidiary
operations on the right, the
18th Division and the 4th Canadian Division were to capture the new
Desire (German
"Dessauer") and Desire Support Trenches, which lay from 500 to 800
yards north of
Regina Trench. On the left there would be no further attempt to
reduce the strong Serre
defences, but two fresh divisions of the Fifth Corps were given as
objectives German
reserve trenches farther east running northward from Grandcourt to
Puisieux. In spite of
uncertain weather and conflicting intelligence reports preparations
went ahead with a haste
that augured no good for their outcome.63
The 4th Division attacked on 18 November
with two brigades into driving rain and sleet making use of heavy
artillery and machine gun support as well as a smoke-screen supplied
by the Royal Engineers. Mud and snow caused infantry to lose
direction while artillery observers failed to spot targets.
Nonetheless, the pre-arranged artillery support was finely
coordinated and both brigades gained their objectives - the Desire (Dessauer)
Trench in two hours. Over 600 prisoners were taken by the Division.
Units on the flanks, however, suffered from small arms fire and were
forced back. The 2nd Corps and 5th Corps both suffered heavy
casualties during the day and were unable to continue the offensive.
A threatened German counter-attack cancelled plans for a further
advance by the 4th Canadian Division, who ended their presence on
the Somme with a half-mile advance on a 2,000 yard front for the
loss of 1,250 casualties, while inflicting about half that many
prisoners in addition to large numbers of German killed and wounded.
Even if the 2nd and 5th Corps had been
capable of continuing, heavy rain fell the next day and would have
called off further operations. At long last, the Battle of the Somme
came to an end.
"The ground,
sodden with rain and broken up everywhere by innumerable
shell-holes, can only be described as a morass", Sir Douglas
Haig informed the Chief of the Imperial General Staff on the
21st. In such conditions, even when there was a lull in
fighting, merely to maintain themselves made severe physical
demands upon the men in the trenches. For the soldier in the
front line existence was a continual struggle against cold and
wet, as he crouched all day in the rain
and the mud, gaining
what protection he could from a rubber groundsheet wrapped
around him. Hip boots were issued to help guard against "trench
feet", but often these had to be abandoned when their wearer
became mired in the clay. For health's sake frequent reliefs
were necessary, even though effecting these was an exhausting
process. Towards the end of the Canadians' tour on the Somme
infantry battalions had as much as eight miles to march to the
trenches from their billets in Albert, and at least four miles
from the nearest bivouacs at Tara Hill. "With the bad weather",
reported General Watson to Canadian Corps Headquarters, "the
men's clothing became so coated with mud, great coat, trousers,
puttees and boots sometimes weighing 120 pounds, that many could
not carry out relief."
Nor did these exchanges bring escape
from the continual round of working parties. The demand for
nightly carrying parties had to be met alike by units in the
line and units at rest. From the point on the Bapaume Road at
which German shelling halted the forward movement of wheeled
transport, all rations, ammunition and supplies for the front
line trenches had to be borne on human backs, or by pack
transport.... The main tasks which now faced the Fourth and Fifth Armies were to
replace tired
and depleted divisions with fresh troops, improve their forward
communications and
strengthen the new front line for a winter defence. The Fourth Army
took over from the
French four miles of front line, moving the inter-allied boundary
from Le Transloy to within
four miles of Peronne. The adjustment freed three French corps as
part of the preparation
for the spring offensive which General Joffre was planning. The
4th Canadian Division
was not relieved immediately; that it was to complete nearly seven
weeks continuously in
the front line was recognition that it had satisfactorily won its
spurs. Between 26 and 28
November it handed over to the 51st British Division and rejoined
the Canadian Corps on
the Lens-Arras front.
Canadian battle casualties at the Somme had totalled 24,029.64
The Importance of the Somme
One historian has summed up the
experience of the Somme succinctly:
The five-month
Somme battle taught the BEF many lessons and transformed it from
a largely inexperienced mass army into a largely experienced
one. Perhaps the most painful lesson, and the one most difficult
to put into practice, was that very close cooperation was
necessary between infantry and artillery. In particular, this
meant that creeping barrages should normally be used, and the
attacking troops should hug their barrage as closely as humanly
possible...65
These lessons were also learned by the
CEF:
The Canadians
arrived (on the Somme) in August...In the next two and a half
months one or more Canadian divisions would fight several major
and minor battles, eventually pushing two and a half miles,
through Flers-Courcelette from 15 to 22 September, Thiepval
Ridge from 26 to 29 September, Le Transloy Ridges from 1 to 18
October, Regina Trench several times between 1 October and 11
November, and Beaumont Hamel and Desire Trench from 13 to 18
November. As each Canadian division took its turn in the
assault, the corps continued to search for ways to carry out its
mission on the Western Front without disintegrating into lengthy
casualty lists. Platoon tactics had evolved in trench raids and
cooperation between infantry and artillery had made some
progress, but these developments, even taken together, were not
sufficient to ensure success at low cost in a major battle.
German artillery was still, essentially, unassailable and thus
able to shell Canadian troops before and during battle, often
inflicting casualties before the soldiers could leave their
trenches. Wire proved a serious obstacle difficult to remove;
the British and Canadians tried to cut it with artillery, but
shell fuses were not sensitive enough to detonate within the
wire or just as they hit the ground. Thus shells exploded deep
in the earth, where they did no more than move the wire
obstacles around somewhat. Enemy machine-gunners, if they were
quick enough, could take their positions after the barrage had
lifted but before the assaulting infantry could reach them.
Between them, artillery, wire, and machine-guns ensured that
failure would be common and even limited successes would be
costly.66
The first major action on the Somme,
Courcelette, cost the Corps just under 6,000 casualties, mainly in
the 2nd Division. Training afterwards focused on offensive actions:
Emphasis, not
surprisingly, was on the assault, and the tactics the men
learned were still primitive. The infantry was trained to attack
in waves, the experience of trench raids notwithstanding, in
long straight lines at intervals of fifty or 100 yards.67
Strategically, Sir Douglas Haig
controversially concluded in his memoirs that he had achieved the
three main objectives of the July offensive; Verdun had been
relieved, the main German forces had been held on the Western Front
and German forces had been worn down "considerably." He concluded
that "Any one of these
three results is in itself sufficient to justify the Somme battle."68
The Canadian Army's official historian noted:
The conclusion thus reached by the British Commander-in-Chief was by
no means
unanimously accepted either during the war or afterwards. It has
continued to be a matter
of controversy. The failure to gain much ground and the heavy losses
suffered by the Allied
forces aroused considerable criticism both in France and the United
Kingdom. Especially
in question was the extent to which the Allied policy of attrition
had succeeded in reducing
the enemy's powers of resistance. Writing as late as 1952, the
editor of Sir Douglas Haig's
private papers declared that it "has probably by now come to be the
generally accepted
view of the Somme campaign" that it was "a costly failure which did
far more damage to the Allied than to the German cause".
Such criticism was based largely on a comparison of the casualties
suffered by the
German and the Allied armies. How valid is it?
Unfortunately there exist no thoroughly reliable statistics,
particularly with respect to
German losses. Unofficial figures published shortly after the war
gave British and French
losses as more than double those of the enemy. In a memorandum
submitted to the
Cabinet on 1 August 1916, Mr. Winston Churchill charged that during
the first month of the Somme offensive British casualties
outnumbered German losses by 2.3 to 1. Later (in The
World Crisis, 1911-1918) he set almost as wide a ratio for the whole
of the Somme
campaign. In similar vein Mr. Lloyd George asserted in his
memoirs that on the Somme
"our losses were twice as great as those we inflicted". These
comparisons, unfavourable to the Allies, became widely accepted; and it was
argued that Haig's
intelligence officers in their attempt to balance the cost to each
side had grossly
overestimated the German losses.
On the other hand, the German casualty figures cited by those who
sought to
discredit the Allied conduct of the war on the Western Front have
been seriously disputed,
especially by defenders of Haig. It was charged that the German
Government had
contrived to conceal from the German public the truth concerning the
immense losses
suffered by their armies. It is a fact that whereas British casualty
figures included as
wounded all who passed through a casualty clearing station. German
published totals
disregarded the less serious cases which were treated in hospitals
in the corps areas - a
proportion that, by German statistics, averaged 30 per cent of all
losses. (Thus in giving
figures for "the great losses of the summer of 1916" the German
Official History points out
that these do not include "the wounded whose recovery was to be
expected within a reasonable time".)
The British Official Historian took fully into account the
difference in these systems
of reporting casualties. In 1931 (in his first volume dealing with
the operations on the
Western Front in 1916) he estimated that Allied casualties at the
Somme were somewhat
less than 600,000, and that German losses totalled 582,919.136 In
1938, however, after
Germany had published official figures of 465,525 German casualties
(against 700,000
British and French losses)137 he revised his estimates. He
calculated that a fair basis of
comparison would show the following gross figures (including
prisoners and missing) for
the contending armies for the whole of the Somme campaign: German
(including the
seven-day bombardment at the end of June), between 660,000 and
680,000; British,
419,654; French, 204,253; or an Allied total of 623,907.
While the objectivity of these figures of enemy losses must be held
in question, from
the Germans themselves has come ample testimony to the heavy
punishment which the
Allies inflicted upon them. "The Army had been fought to a
standstill and was now utterly
worn out", admitted Ludendorff in his memoirs. The Allied
offensive had sapped the
strength of no fewer than 95 German divisions; 43 of these had been
committed twice, and
four had been thrown in three times.141 Unit and formation histories
reiterate the story of
the liquidation at the Somme of the old German field army. One
infantry regiment after
another, each nominally 3000 strong, records losses of from 1500 to
more than 2800.
Among these were the best trained and
stoutest-hearted officers, non- commissioned
officers and men. Their steadfastness and spirit of sacrifice
replacements would never
match. No wonder that in January 1917, Ludendorff was to declare at
the conference
which approved unrestricted submarine warfare, "We must save the men
from a second
Somme battle". It was largely this realization that caused the
Germans, before the Allies
could strike again, to renounce their policy of holding and
recovering ground at all costs,
and to retire to semi-permanent defences fifteen to thirty miles in
the rear.
"In the air the victory had been more complete", the historian of
the British flying
forces records. "From beginning to last of the battle the air war
was fought out over enemy territory." The Royal Flying Corps made the most of its local air
superiority - a happy
situation which it was to enjoy all too infrequently during the rest
of the war - to follow the
British naval tradition of "seeking out and destroying the enemy
wherever he may be
found". The German tendency at this time was to over-emphasize
fighters, using them
mainly in a defensive role. The enemy's air policy remained a
defensive one, while the
R.F.C. continued to wage offensive warfare.
Not the least significant result of the Somme offensive was that, as
Sir Douglas
Haig had hoped, it shattered the illusion of German
invincibility on the
Western Front. Not all the attempts by German writers to disparage
the Allied armies' use
of their superior weight of war apparatus-"die Material-Schlacht"-could
hide the fact that
German military prestige had been struck a severe psychological blow
from which it was
not to recover.
Yet after all this has been said in vindication of Haig's
achievements at the Somme,
we cannot close our eyes to the horror of the mass butchery to which
the C.-in-C.'s tactics
had condemned the troops under his command. The proof of successful
attrition is to be
found in convincing casualty figures - and, as we have seen, the
casualty figures for the
Somme are not convincing. At best the five-month campaign that had
opened on 1 July
with such high expectations had resulted in a costly stalemate.68
Notes
-
Nicholson, Gerald
W.L. Official History of the
Canadian Army in the First World War: Canadian Expeditionary
Force 1914-1919 (Queen's Printer Ottawa, ON, 1964)
pp.113-114
-
Ibid
-
Ibid
-
Ibid, p.115
-
Ibid
-
Marteinson, John (editor) We
Stand on Guard: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Army
(Ovale Publications, Montreal, PQ, 1992) ISBN 2894290438 p.139
-
Duguid, A.F. (Clive M. Law editor) A
Question of Confidence: The Ross Rifle in the Trenches
(Service Publications, Ottawa, ON, 1999) ISBN 1-894581-00-8
pp.36-43
-
Nicholson, Ibid, p.141
-
Ibid, p.137
-
Ibid, p.138
-
Law, Clive M. Distinguishing
Patches: Formation Patches of the Canadian Army (2nd
Ed.) Service Publications, Ottawa, ON, 2008 ISBN
978-1-894581-50-9, p.5
-
Nicholson, Ibid, p.143
-
Ibid, p.144
-
Ibid, p.145
-
Marteinson, Ibid, p.141
-
Nicholson, Ibid
-
Ibid
-
Philpott, William Bloody Victory: The
Sacrifice on the Somme (Little, Brown, London, UK, 2009)
ISBN 978-0-349-12004-1 p.270
-
Evans, Martin Marix Somme 1914-1918:
Lessons in War (The History Press, Stroud,
Gloucestershire, UK, 2010) ISBN 978-0-7524-5525-9 p.110
-
Marteinson, Ibid, p.142
-
Evans, p.111
-
Philpott, Ibid, p.211
-
Ibid, p.214
-
Ibid, p.215
-
Ibid, pp.216-217
-
Nicholson, Ibid, pp.146-147
-
Philpott, Ibid, pp.220-221
-
Ibid, pp.224-225
-
Evans, Ibid, p.112
-
Ibid, p.113
-
Nicholson, Ibid, p.146
-
Ibid
-
Marteinson, Ibid, p.142
-
Goodspeed, D.J. Battle Royal: A History of
The Royal Regiment of Canada 1862-1962 (The Royal
Regiment of Canada Association, Toronto, ON, 1962) p.155
-
Nicholson, Ibid
-
Dancocks, Daniel G. Gallant
Canadians: The Story of the Tenth Canadian Infantry Battalion
1914-1919 (The Calgary Highlanders Regimental Funds
Foundation, Calgary, AB, 1990) ISBN 0-9694616-0-7 p.89
-
Mein, Stewart A.G. Up the Johns! The Story
of the Royal Regina Rifles (Turner-Warwick Publications,
North Battleford, Saskatchewan, 1992) ISBN 0-919899-27-7 p.34
-
Nicholson, Ibid
-
Directorate of History and Heritage biography
online, accessed at
http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/gal/vcg-gcv/bio/clarke-lb-eng.asp
with additional info from Nicholson, Ibid
-
Marteinson, Ibid, p. 143 with additional info
from DHH website, Ibid
-
London Gazette, no.29802, 26 October 1916, via
DHH website, Ibid
-
Nicholson, Ibid
-
Marteinson, Ibid, p.144
-
Nicholson, Ibid
-
Marteinson, Ibid
-
Ibid, pp.145-146
-
Nicholson, Ibid, p.152
-
Philpott, Ibid, p.363
-
Nicholson, Ibid
-
Marteinson, Ibid, p.147
-
Ibid
-
Ibid, pp.147-148
-
Nicholson, Ibid
-
Philpott, Ibid, pp.382-383
-
Ibid, p.383
-
Marteinson, Ibid, p.150
-
Nicholson, Ibid
-
Marteinson, Ibid, pp.151-152
-
Philpott, Ibid, p.395
-
Ibid, pp.392-395
-
Nicholson, Ibid, p.167
-
Marteinson, Ibid
-
Nicholson, Ibid, p.194
-
Ibid, pp.196-197
-
Griffiths, Paddy Battle Tactics
of the Western Front: The British Army's Art of Attack 1916-18
(Yale University Press, 1996) ISBN 978-0-300-0663-0 p.65
-
Rawling, Bill Surviving Trench
Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918
(University of Toronto Press, Toronto, ON, 1992) ISBN 0-8020-6002-1
pp.70-71
-
Ibid, p.74
-
Nicholson, Ibid, p.174
-
Ibid, pp.174-176
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