‘From the reports of the two Officers who returned to Battalion Headquarters from the battle, it was ascertained that for the most part a really good fight was put up. If Battalion Headquarters had been able to get any information back, it is practically certain that the position would not have been lost. The men fought splendidly, and in many cases without N.C.O.’s or Officers, and the losing of the captured position was a piece of bad luck.’
‘What remained of our assaulting troops,’ says General Perceval, ‘were back in our trenches,’ about 10 a.m., having ‘sustained heavy casualties and lost most of their Officers.’ A re-attack was planned for 6 p.m., but was countermanded during the afternoon, and the 146th Infantry Brigade was withdrawn to Forceville and the 147th to Hedauville. So, the 49th Division had attacked, and the whole attack had failed; but between these two bald statements lie detailed records of a courageous attempt, which we shall not pursue further, but which contributed in this hard-held sector to the ‘long step forward’ which was being taken on the Allied front at large. German records, so far as we have seen them, confirm the seriousness of the attack. We read there how ‘matters had meanwhile become still worse,’ and how Company was added to Company in order to meet the impending danger. ‘Lieut. Engel’s Company signalled “Please send support,”’ and his experience was repeated in other sectors; ‘our Minenwerfer intervened at the most opportune moment’. On the whole, the enemy’s accounts increase admiration for the 49th Division.
It is particularly interesting to record that, in the course of this summer and autumn, a Regiment of Yorkshire Yeomanry met their friends of the 49th Division in and about the defences of Thiepval. We shall come, in Chapter XIV below, to the experiences of the Mounted Troops who left the West Riding for France during 1915. There we shall see how they served as Divisional Cavalry for several months, and how, in May, 1916, they were re-organized as Corps Cavalry, and were set to do various duties, not always appropriate to their Arm, which they discharged with a thoroughness and an efficiency worthy of the best traditions of the Service. The Yorkshire Dragoons were posted to the IInd Corps, which, on July 25th, 1916, took over that sector of the Fifth Army front which lay between Ovillers-la-Boisselle and Thiepval. The hopes of a Cavalry situation, unfortunately, never materialized, but the Dragoons did excellent work during the Battle of the Somme by maintaining Observation Posts in forward areas, thus short-circuiting the means of communication between Corps Headquarters and Battalion Commanders. ‘During operations,’ we are told, ‘information received in this way and from other sources was embodied each day in maps and reports, which were sent up by despatch rider during the night, and reached front line units in time for the usual attack at dawn.... The observers were sometimes asked to undertake special work of great importance. Before several attacks they were required to reconnoitre and map the enemy’s wire. The slightest mistake might have lost hundreds of lives, but it was never made.’ Among the names which we may mention honoris causa in connection with this service are those of Captain, later Major, R. Brooke; Major, later Lieut.-Col., R. Thompson; Sergts. Storer and Tinker (Military Medals), and Corpl., later Sergt., Cranswick (Bar to M.M.).
Let us consult the map once more.
THIEPVAL DEFENCES.
In the extreme right-hand corner will be seen the village of Pozières on the straight road (Albert-Bapaume), which ran diagonally across the battlefield. In the extreme left-hand bottom corner are Martinsart and Martinsart Wood, on the safe side of the River Ancre, where spent Battalions of the 49th Division used to withdraw to lick their wounds. The course of the Ancre is clearly shown from just above Albert to Miraumont, winding its stream under Authuille and Hamel Bridges; and between Authuille and St. Pierre Divion lie Thiepval and Thiepval Wood, the possession of which was so hotly contested since the battle was first joined on July 1st. The more we look at this timbered countryside, with its chalk-pits, its farms and mills, the more unsuitable it seems to the red carnage of 1916. Yet the troops behaved magnificently, and Sir Douglas Haig sent several messages during these trying weeks to express his thanks and appreciation. To one Battalion he sent on August 30th by the hands of the Divisional Commander a sprig of white heather as an emblem of good luck. Hard though the going was, and bad though the luck seemed to be, making acclimatization tedious and difficult, it rarely happened, even among raw troops, that the conditions proved too exacting. Very typical of the spirit of the Division, in the midst of its harassing experiences, where the room designed by nature for smiles was too narrow almost to contain its special circles of man’s inferno, was the part borne in the third week of September by the 7th Battalion of the West Riding Regiment. They had been at Hedauville since September 4th, at two hours’ march from Martinsart Wood, whither, in order to go into the line, they moved on Friday, September 15th. There they had tea, and took rations for the next day, and were loaded with two bombs per man, and so proceeded from 7 p.m. to new trenches, south of Thiepval, which had been captured only the night before. The relief was delayed in execution partly by artillery barrage, partly by an attack of German bombers, partly by heavy rain, and partly by too few guides; there was only one guide to each Company, ‘and these were strange to the trenches and had difficulty in finding the way.’ It was completed by 4-20 in the morning (September 16th), and during ‘intermittent shelling’ all that Saturday arrangements were concerted for an attack on the German trenches in the evening of the 17th. This operation was most successful; on the left an objective was gained, and held, 350 feet in advance of schedule. The details are not uninteresting, and will repay closer study, not because the area of the attack was large in proportion to the whole battlefield, but because it was difficult terrain and the obstacles were well overcome.
Just north of the famous Leipsic Salient on the map, lay, first, the Hohenzollern Trench and, secondly, the Wonder Work: two strongly fortified positions. Eastward out of Thiepval, from the point where the road from the Cemetery meets the main road in a right angle, ran the Zollern Trench, terminating (for present purposes) at the Zollern Redoubt north of Mouquet Farm. Further along the road from the Cemetery, at a point about as far north of the Crucifix as the Cemetery is south of it, the Stuff Trench started to run eastwards, parallel to the Zollern Trench below. It was very elaborately fortified, and terminated in the Stuff Redoubt still further above Mouquet Farm. The Regina Trench ran further eastward, from about the point where the Stuff Trench terminated. Parallel with the road from the Cemetery and Crucifix, the Lucky Way ran up towards Grandcourt, and the Grandcourt Trench branched off eastward a little below the village, again in a parallel line with the Regina and Zollern Trenches. West of that Cemetery road and crossing the Divion Road about half-way between the Cemetery and St. Pierre Divion was the horrible Schwaben Redoubt; and, though these names do not exhaust the German defences of Thiepval, they recall sufficiently the opposition to the 7th West Ridings and their support on this third Sunday in September. The assault was made in four waves at intervals of fifteen, twenty and fifteen feet, the unit being a Platoon. A Bomb Squad, consisting of one N.C.O. and eleven other Ranks, accompanied each half-Company, and every man of the last two waves carried either a pick or a shovel. Report Centres, main and subsidiary, Battalion Scouts, and other special parties were detailed for duty, and all Troops were reported in position at 6 p.m. Nearly everything went right, except that a portion of D Company, including both Lewis Guns and their detachments, were believed to have advanced towards the Row of Apple Trees, and were either taken prisoners or wiped out by machine-gun fire. About 7 o’clock reports were received that the objective had been captured, though it was doubtful how the left flank had fared. The total casualties in this little action were five Officers and 215 other Ranks. Certain valuable lessons were learned: the action proved that the jumping-off trench should be parallel to the objective (this precaution enabled direction to be kept accurately); that every man, and not merely the last comers, should carry a pick or shovel, fastened to his body by rope or tape; and that the consolidating parties should either be kept back till the barrage stops or require dug-outs: trivial details, perhaps, but they saved life and added to efficiency. We may add that the Army Commander, Sir Hubert Gough, visited the Battalion on September 19th, and expressed his satisfaction with the operation, which gained an important part of the enemy defences after five previous attempts had failed, and served to straighten the line held by the 147th Infantry Brigade north of the Leipsic Salient.
A still more important lesson had been learned, and the means were now at hand to apply it. If these formidable blockhouses were to be crushed, a new military weapon was essential, and early on September 15th the first Tank waddled into warfare. From this date to the end of September, by a brilliant series of advances from the south, across and along the Albert-Bapaume Road, a victorious crown was put to the tenacious vigil and hard fighting of the Fifth Army, and the attack swung round at last on the pivot held by Sir Hubert Gough. This attack (September 26th) was described by Sir Douglas Haig as not less than
‘a brilliant success. On the right,’ he narrated, ‘our troops (2nd and 1st Canadians Divisions of the Canadian Corps, Lieut.-General Sir J. H. G. Byng) reached the system of enemy trenches which formed their objectives without great difficulty. In Thiepval and the strong works to the north of it the enemy’s resistance was more desperate. Three waves of our attacking troops (11th and 18th Divisions, II. Corps, Lieut.-General C. W. Jacob) carried the outer defences of Mouquet Farm, and, pushing on, entered Zollern Redoubt, which they stormed and consolidated.... On the left of the attack fierce fighting, in which Tanks again gave valuable assistance to our troops (18th Division), continued in Thiepval during that day and the following night, but by 8-30 a.m. on the 27th September the whole of the village of Thiepval was in our hands.... On the same date the south and west sides of Stuff Redoubt were carried by our troops (11th Division), together with the length of trench connecting that strong point with Schwaben Redoubt to the west, and also the greater part of the enemy’s defensive line eastwards along the northern slopes of the ridge. Schwaben Redoubt was assaulted during the afternoon of the 28th September (18th Division), and ... we captured the whole of the southern face of the Redoubt and pushed out patrols to the northern face and towards St. Pierre Divion’[64]: