And of their death her life is.’
The place and the time, as we see—The Somme valley and the end of June—had been agreed between General Joffre and Sir Douglas Haig; and, in accordance with their decisions, the three-fold object of which was:
‘(i.) To relieve the pressure on Verdun,
(ii.) To assist our Allies in the other theatres of war by stopping any further transfer of German troops from the Western front,
(iii.) To wear down the strength of the forces opposed to us’[49],
steps were taken betimes to make the necessary, elaborate preparations. It will be appropriate to follow those preparations in connection with one or more units of the 49th (West Riding) Division, which we left, it will be remembered, enjoying a welcome term of rest after their tour of duty on the east bank of the Yser Canal.
Take, for instance, the 7th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. We select it partly for the chance that Lt.-Col. Tetley, D.S.O., then Major, 2nd in Command,[50] kept a separate diary of the Battalion, which we have had the advantage of perusing, partly because, as will appear, the second Victoria Cross in the Division was awarded to a non-commissioned officer of this unit for conspicuous gallantry on the first day of the Somme campaign.
The first fortnight of 1916 was spent by the Brigade[51] at Wormhoudt, where, after Company training every forenoon, ‘the men had plenty of time to themselves.... The Tykes gave their entertainment every night.’ On January 15th, this easeful life ended, and a march of eight miles to Merckeghem was followed on the 16th by a sixteen-mile march to Zutkerque, which the men ‘stood very well.’ On the 17th, another sixteen miles brought the Brigade as far as Calais, where they went into camp on a ‘sandy common, which was very like Strensall Common’ in Yorkshire: there is a family likeness in gorse-bushes. The New Year Honours of that date brought Major H. D. Bousfield’s D.S.O. and Captain J. D. Redmayne’s Military Cross. From 8-30 p.m. on February 1st till 3 a.m. on the 2nd the Brigade travelled by rail from Calais to Longeau, just east of Amiens, with all transport and baggage on board: the relief of Verdun had begun. About a week was spent near Amiens, where the Yorkshiremen found the landscape a pleasant ‘contrast to that round Poperinghe,’ and ‘not unlike the Yorkshire wolds.’ From February 10th to 12th the march was resumed to Authuille, where the 5th and 7th Battalions were in support and the 6th and 8th in the trenches. The 7th remained in support for eight days. On February 20th they went into the trenches on the north-east edge of Thiepval Wood. On the whole, the trenches were good and dry, but they ran down on the left to a marsh made by the River Ancre, and on the right they had been damaged by trench-mortar fire; still, it was a change for the better from the Yser. Snow was falling heavily at this time, and the trench-tours were kept down to four or five days. After three weeks of this experience, the Battalion was relieved on March 5th by the 9th Inniskilling Fusiliers, of the 36th (Ulster) Division, and went into billets at Harponville. It is observed that ‘during the three weeks the Brigade had been in the trenches, a great deal of work was done by the newly appointed Intelligence Officers, and practically everything possible was known about No Man’s Land.’ The Intelligence Officer in the 7th West Yorkshires was 2/Lieut. Beale, but for old acquaintance’ sake, we select an example of such service, which provided valuable knowledge for future use, from the record of Lieut. E. F. Wilkinson, M.C., of the 8th Battalion of the same Regiment. At mid-day on February 28th he went out to certain cross-roads. Again, on the afternoon of March 2nd, he waded up the stream which flowed under a stone bridge just west of these cross-roads, and found a plank bridge twenty-five yards up-stream, which, judging by the marks on it, was regularly used by the Germans. The information which this officer obtained in his daylight prowlings helped to compose the map of No Man’s Land; and it is worth observing that a German War Diary (2nd Guard Reserve Division), to which we refer later on, acknowledges that British Officers ‘were provided with excellent maps, which showed every German trench systematically named, and gave every detail of our positions.’
We are writing of the preparations for the Somme battles. ‘These preparations’, said Sir Douglas Haig,[52] ‘were necessarily very elaborate and took considerable time. Vast stocks of ammunition and stores of all kinds had to be accumulated beforehand within a convenient distance of our front. To deal with these, many miles of new railways, both standard and narrow gauge, and trench tramways were laid.’ In the Harponville period, we now read, all the Companies of the 7th West Yorkshires ‘were employed in working on a new railway, which was in course of construction from Daours to Contay.’ This work, assisted by good weather, ‘nearly every day being warm and sunny,’ was finished on March 26th. On the 30th, there was an inspection by Lord Kitchener, who expressed his approval of the appearance and turn-out of the men. The 5th Battalion of the West Yorkshires, which was billeted in Harponville at the same time, shared in the work and the inspection. Day by day they were called upon for working-parties to construct new roads, new railways, or both; and ‘all this labour,’ Sir Douglas Haig reminds us, writing of the Army as a whole, ‘had to be carried out in addition to fighting, and to the everyday work of maintaining existing defences. It threw a very heavy strain on the troops, which was borne by them with a cheerfulness beyond all praise[53].’ Certainly no sign of lack of cheerfulness is revealed in the diary of any unit. ‘The men liked the change of work,’ we are told.
Throughout April and May Battalions were busily engaged in various forms of training and fatigues. On May 29th, while in the billets at Vignacourt, orders were received by the 7th West Yorkshires to march to Aveluy Wood, just east of Martincourt, in order to provide working-parties to dig a buried-cable trench for the 36th (Ulster) Division. The move was accomplished in two days’ marches, and the 8th Battalion of the same Regiment joined them in Aveluy Wood on June 1st. The weather here was bad, the accommodation poor, and German shells were rained on the camp from an early hour in the morning on June 2nd. But the work of preparation went on apace, and the Battalion remained in Aveluy Wood till June 19th. Meanwhile, the King’s Birthday on June 3rd had brought further honours to the 49th Division. The Distinguished Conduct Medal awarded to a Company Sgt.-Major ‘for general good work and devotion to duty since the Battalion came to France in April, 1915,’ and the Military Medals awarded to a Sergeant, a Lance-Corporal and a Rifleman for devotion to duty on December 8th, 1915, when their Battalion, in front-line trenches on the Yser, was exposed to heavy shell fire, are typical of the record of the whole Division.