The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division

by Cyril Falls

The weather now took a turn for the worse, there being a sort of cloud-burst on the 12th. Cross-country tracks were impassable for infantry, and the carriage of ammunition to the new gun positions was a very heavy task. The rain came at an unfortunate moment. Battalions of the 109th Brigade were moving up to Aveluy Wood, south of Mesnil, to complete the work of preparation. The 16th Rifles (Pioneers) were there already. These troops had to endure the gravest discomfort from the weather. Little canvas shelters were all their protection, and for days together their clothes were not dry. Yet their work was magnificent. When, almost at the last moment, a Regiment of French Field Artillery joined the Division to assist in the attack, the 11th Inniskillings were ordered to help them in the construction of gun-pits and shelters, with little enough time to do it. The men threw themselves into the task with splendid enthusiasm. It seemed that they worked the harder because their work was for strangers, who would be left half-protected if they failed them. There was a fine flavour of international courtesy in the manner of their toil, for they gave of their free will energy that not the most skilful of taskmasters could have wrung from them. General Nugent sent to Colonel Brush, then in command of the Battalion, a letter of warm congratulation upon their efforts.

In the battle that was about to begin, General Sir H. Rawlinson's Fourth Army was taking the offensive along its whole front, with the Sixth French Army of General Fayolle on its right. The Battle of the Somme, the first in which our New Armies of volunteers were engaged in great numbers, concerned the 36th Division but at its opening. Its general aspects were, however, of the highest importance to all the Allied troops. It differed broadly from such an action as that of Loos. There an immediate strategic result was sought from a small offensive. Here, while a break through was sought on the first day, and would doubtless have been possible had the whole German trench system been captured all along the front, thereafter the aims became quite other. On the vast plateau of Picardy, an advance of ten miles or thereabouts had small strategic importance. The nearest first-class railway junction, Cambrai, was thirty miles away. The new phase was the "limited offensive." The plan was to push forward infantry behind artillery fire of overwhelming weight upon a broad front, step by step, smashing down resistance. The plan was made possible for us by the huge development of our munition factories. It was the war of attrition. It was a mighty assault battle, wherein England and France hurled man and gun and material upon German man and gun and material. It had manifold and obvious blemishes. Its cost was prodigious, particularly in its early stages, before certain needful lessons had been learnt. It stereotyped attack and robbed commanders of initiative, and was in this respect the text-book of all the lessons Ludendorff impressed upon his troops in the first three months of 1918. But—and of this there can be no shadow of doubt to-day—it laid the foundations of final victory.[20] The German troops were never quite the same after it, while our young levies, dreadful as were their sacrifices, were to arrive at a far higher standard of military value.

The 36th Division was the left Division of the X. Corps, having on its right the 32nd Division and on its left the 29th Division, not long arrived from the East, which was in the VIII. Corps. The 49th Division was in X. Corps Reserve. The 36th Division was to attack astride the Ancre. On the left, or southern bank, its objective was the fifth line of German trenches, known as the "D" line.[21] The right flank boundary ran from the north-east corner of Thiepval Wood to D 8. On the right bank the objective was a triangle of trenches enclosed between the left boundary line and the Ancre, beyond Beaucourt Station. The left boundary ran from the point of the salient in our lines, known as the Mary Redan, to two houses half-way between Beaucourt and its railway station, thence along the river to the railway bridge. The ground rose sharply on either side from the deep-cut bed of the Ancre, but while on the northern bank it was cut by a gorge running down from the village of Beaumont-Hamel, at right angles to the river, and parallel with the German trenches, on the south it swelled up in a great convex curve, rising two hundred and fifty feet in a thousand yards. The crest was crowned by a parallelogram of trenches, extending from the German "B" line to the "C" line, that will live long in history as the Schwaben Redoubt. The trenches were defended by masses of wire. An artillery officer, who made a careful reconnaissance with a good glass from "Brock's Benefit," on the Mesnil Ridge, counted sixteen rows guarding the front line just south of the river, and an average of five rows along the second line. The dug-outs, most of them at least thirty feet deep in the chalk, were to all intents and purposes shell-proof, and were numerous enough to house the whole trench garrison. The enormous activity behind our lines had taught the Germans long before that an attack was brewing. They trusted to their fortifications and awaited it with confidence.

For the purposes of attack, the front was divided into four sections. The right and right centre sections were allotted to the 109th and 108th Brigades respectively. The left centre section, bounded by a line drawn from the north corner of Thiepval Wood just north of B 19, C 11, and D 11, and the Ancre, was, owing to the great frontage of the 36th Division, not to be attacked directly. The left section, on the right bank of the Ancre, was allotted to the 108th Brigade. This Brigade had attached to it one battalion of the 107th. It was to employ three battalions in the right centre section, and two in the left section. The 107th Brigade (less one battalion) was in Divisional Reserve.

The task of the 109th Brigade in the right section was to attack the "A" and "B" lines within its section,[22] and to advance to a line drawn from C 8 through B 16 to the Grandcourt-Thiepval Road at C 9; there to halt and consolidate. For this purpose General Shuter was attacking with two battalions, the 9th Inniskillings on the right, the 10th on the left, in first line; and the two remaining, 11th Inniskillings on right and 14th Rifles on left, in second. The two first were to take and consolidate the final objective, the rear battalions to hold the "A" and "B" lines and to send up liaison patrols to get touch with the leading battalions. The most important task of the 11th Inniskillings was the fortification of the Crucifix on the Thiepval-Grandcourt Road.

The task of the 108th Brigade in the right centre section was to clear the "A" and "B" lines within the section, and advance to the "C" line, halting and consolidating on the salient C 9, C 10, C 11, the north-east corner of the Schwaben Redoubt. A special detachment, with one Stokes mortar, one Lewis and one Vickers gun, was to act as left flank guard, to clear the communication trench from B 19 to C 12, holding the latter as a defensive post, and sending a detachment down to C 13, to ensure observation and fire on the Grandcourt-St. Pierre Divion Road. In addition, two officers' patrols, each a platoon in strength, with a Lewis gun, were to reconnoitre and clear the left of the "A" and "B" lines up to St. Pierre Divion. General Griffith was attacking here with the 11th Rifles on the right, the 13th on the left, and the 15th Rifles of the 107th Brigade, attached, in support.

North of the Ancre, in the left section, the task allotted to the two remaining battalions of the 108th Brigade was to assault the German salient on the left of its objective and clear the trenches down to the railway, to establish strong points at B 26, B 24, and B 21, and to occupy Beaucourt Station and the trenches immediately behind it. It was afterwards to occupy the mill on the river bank and the two houses beyond the station. Here the 9th Irish Fusiliers were attacking on the right, and the 12th Rifles on the left. Of the latter battalion one platoon was detailed to attack the railway sap, of which mention has already been made, and one to patrol the marsh.

The assault on the "D" line, the final objective, was to be carried out by the 107th Brigade with its three remaining battalions. The Brigade was to advance through Thiepval Wood, following the 109th Brigade, pass through the leading Brigades on the "C" line and attack the "D" line from D 8 to D 9; then to extend its left to D 11. General Withycombe disposed the 10th and 9th Rifles in first line, the former with its right on D 8, the latter with its left on D 9. After the capture of this objective, the 9th Rifles were to extend to D 10 and the 10th to D 9. The 8th Rifles, moving up in rear, were to occupy and hold from D 10 to D 11.

The assaulting battalions were to advance, each in eight successive waves, at fifty yards' interval, but the 107th Brigade, passing through to the attack on the final objective, was to advance in artillery formation till compelled to extend.

The artillery consisted of the 36th Divisional Artillery, one Brigade of the 49th Division, a Regiment of French Artillery, and, under the orders of the X. Corps, a greater concentration of heavy artillery than had been made in the course of the war till now, except perhaps in the latter stages of Verdun. The preliminary bombardment was to last five days, from the 24th to the 28th of June. Owing to wet weather the attack was postponed two days, and there were two extra days of bombardment. The results, as witnessed from our observation posts, were magnificent. All wire that could be seen was effectively cut. As one watched the big shells bursting, sending up huge columns of earth, day after day, it appeared as though no life could continue in that tortured and blasted area. The barrage for the attack was not the true "creeping barrage" which was to become universal later on, and was, indeed, employed that day by the French. After a final intensive bombardment of sixty-five minutes, it fired upon each German line in succession, lifting from the "A" to the "A.I." at Zero, from the "A.I." at Zero plus three minutes, from the "B" at Zero plus eighteen minutes, to a line 400 yards east of this objective. Then at Zero plus twenty-eight minutes it moved on to the "C" line, and at Zero plus one hour eighteen minutes off the "C" line to the "D." There was then a long halt to permit of the passing through of the 107th Brigade. At Zero plus two hours thirty-eight minutes the barrage moved up to a line three hundred yards east of the "D" line. At each lift, sections of 18-pounders and 4.5 howitzers "walked up" the communication trenches to the next barrage line. Stokes mortars were to take part in a final hurricane bombardment prior to Zero, while medium[23] and heavy mortars were also employed, the former on special points, the latter moving with the artillery barrage to the extremity of their range. The French artillery joined in the preliminary wire-cutting, using high explosive instead of shrapnel according to its custom, but its main task was the drenching of the Ancre valley with gas shell.