Looking back it is a little curious to remember that even in that first week a very considerable percentage of our total casualties were caused by high explosive shell, and the shooting of them was astonishingly accurate.
Yes, the German guns did their work well, but they did not fully succeed in their object. Their local successes were great, especially against British guns and batteries.
Here is a British battery which has made two mistakes—it is not sufficiently concealed, the battery commander is perched up on an observation limber, and the guns are not far enough back behind the crest. (The Germans always "search" for some 300 yards behind crests of hills.) The B.C. is quickly spotted by an aeroplane observer and a perfect hell of fire is switched on by the enemy. In a moment telephone wires are cut, communications are broken, and within five minutes the gun detachments are wiped out.
The effect of a shell from the enemy heavier guns is overwhelming. The flank gun of the battery is hit, practically "direct." Some R.A.M.C. men double up a few minutes later to help out the wounded. There is nothing, save a great hole, fragments of twisted steel, and—a few limbs of brave men. Nothing can be done except, later, dig in the sides of the pit to cover the remains.
The rest of the guns remain, but there is no one to work them. The horses, a little way to the rear, have also suffered badly. A subaltern officer staggers painfully through the tornado of fire from one gun to the next, slowly, deliberately putting them out of action, rendering them useless should the enemy come up to capture them.
Early in the afternoon Brigade Commanders have got orders round to the British lines to hold up the infantry fire as far as possible. It is now all well under control, for everyone realises that the artillery bombardment was a preliminary only, that the real attack is yet to come. The men have had their baptism of fire and magnificently have they stood it. This is discipline, and now they are ready for anything which may come along.
FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH.
But already the casualties have been very heavy. Early in the day you have seen that company of the West Kents double up to the support of their battalion entrenched about half-way along the Second Corps line. I find a note in my diary: "W. Kents, Middlesex and Northumberlands" (they were all in the Second Corps) "decimated by shell fire." One or two companies of the W. Kents were, I believe, on outpost duty, which would mean that they were literally wiped out.