in the Battalion. Captain Layton was hit in the foot during the repulse of the enemy’s raid, and Sergeant Aiers, senior sergeant of the Battalion, was wounded for the third time.
The Guards Division now left the Ypres area and moved down farther south by easy stages. Having been relieved by the 1st Battalion Hampshire Regiment, the 4th Battalion Grenadiers marched to Poperinghe, where they entrained for Bollezeele and then marched to Millain. Aug. During the first fortnight in August they moved via Bollezeele, Millain, Arqueves, Mailly-Mallet to the line of trenches at Beaumont-Hamel. On the 7th Lieutenant J. F. J. Joicey-Cecil and Second Lieutenant R. Y. T. Kendall arrived, and on the 18th Captain C. Mitchell, Lieutenant R. Farquhar, and Second Lieutenant J. W. F. Selby-Lowndes joined the Battalion. The four days spent in the trenches at Beaumont-Hamel proved uneventful, although there was a good deal of shelling in addition to the Minenwerfers. On the 19th the Battalion started off for the Somme area, but this necessitated going a long way round by Vauchelles, Gezaincourt, Vignacourt to Ville. Here it rested for ten days, and on September 8 moved to Carnoy. On August 31 Captain E. G. Spencer-Churchill joined the Battalion.
CHAPTER XIX
THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME
A new stage, and a very distinct and important stage, in the Allied operations in the West was marked by the battle of the Somme.
It was at last understood, in the summer of 1916, that spasmodic attacks on the German trenches did little to gain any real and comprehensive success, and that, in order to prevent the enemy moving his reserves from one front to another, a simultaneous assault by all the Allies was necessary.
In accord with this view the Allies at the beginning of the year accepted the principle of an offensive campaign, and as the objective for the British and French advance Sir Douglas Haig and General Joffre selected the Somme area. All idea of “breaking through” had by now been abandoned. Such a thing was no longer regarded as possible in the West, and the plan adopted was one more suited to modern conditions of war and more economical of human life. The objects of the offensive were to relieve Verdun, to prevent the transfer of German troops elsewhere, and to wear down the resistance of the enemy on the Western front.
Conditions had changed, too, in other ways. The British Army had been slowly gaining strength, and the old Army had given place to the new. There were now fifty divisions in the field. At the same time, the supply of ammunition had been steadily increasing, and, thanks to the patriotism of the trade unions and the splendid performances of the workers, immense quantities of guns and shells were pouring into France. Consequently there was no reason why a general attack should not be made on the Western front, although, as Sir Douglas Haig pointed out in his despatch, he considered it advisable to postpone it as long as possible.
During the gigantic battle, which began on July 1 and lasted till November 18, the fighting was continuous. The German positions were amazingly strong. First came a network of trenches, well provided with bomb-proof shelters and protected in front by wire entanglements, many of which were in two belts forty yards broad and built of iron stakes, interlaced with barbed wire, often as thick as a man’s finger. Behind these lines the enemy’s strongholds had been reinforced with every device of military ingenuity—woods and villages turned into fortresses, cellars filled with machine-guns and trench mortars, dug-outs connected by elaborate passages. The enormous power of modern weapons of defence had been used to the utmost. In fact, the whole line was as nearly impregnable as Nature, art, and the unstinted labour of close on two years could make it. And undoubtedly the Germans believed it impregnable.