100 Years Ago
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2016-11-15/register/sir-douglas-haigs-success-dj8wp5fxv
ON THIS DAY: NOVEMBER 15, 1916
Sir Douglas Haig’s success
Success again is ours. On how large a scale it is yet impossible to say, for all is still confusion; fighting goes on along almost the whole length of the front on which we struck, and the battlefield has been wrapped in fog, so that nothing has been visible, except from the shortest distance. This we know, that Beaumont Hamel is ours and Beaumont Hamel has been held by the Germans to be even more impregnable than Thiepval. We have also taken the lesser village of St Pierre Divion on the opposite side of the Ancre, and, with the ground won, a very large number of prisoners have fallen into our hands. Something over 1,000 were already in the “cages” early this afternoon. The number has since been increased to 2,000, and doubtless there are more to come.
We have read in English papers in the last few days that the Battle of the Somme was over. Germany seems to have been quite convinced that her great ally, the mud, had brought our offensive to a standstill for the winter. But two fine drying days have sufficed to enable us to strike again, and in a quarter where there is every reason to believe that the blow was entirely unexpected. It might well have been so, for on all the German front in France and Belgium there is, perhaps, no more notoriously strong position than the short stretch of the enemy’s first line immediately above the Ancre. He may well have felt sure that we would shrink, with the condition of the ground and the air all against us, from attempting to penetrate where we had failed on July 1. Our losses there have been avenged today.
For the first 3,000 yards above the Ancre - to well beyond Beaumont-Hamel - the ground taken is nowhere less than 1,500 yards in depth, and in one part approaches 2,500 yards. Numbers of yards - or miles (for the gain amounts to square miles) - are, however, unimportant. The great fact is that we have struck frontally at the main German first line, with tier behind tier of trenches, all strongly wired and fortified for two years past, and with all the prestige of former fruitless attacks against it to give its defenders confidence. We not only broke it, but broke it with almost ridiculous ease, and for a clear stretch of 3,000 yards north of the Ancre, to an average depth of about a mile, the front line system is ours.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2016-11-16/register/vivid-story-of-a-great-day-s0k2ccll7
november 16, 1916
Vivid story of a great day
Our victory on the Ancre grows more decisive with every hour. That it is one of the most brilliant successes of the Battle of the Somme, if not of the war, there can be no doubt. The reputation of Beaumont Hamel would alone make its capture a great achievement, even if we had not the evidence, in the huge number of prisoners taken, of the strength in which it was held.
I saw Beaumont Hamel from behind our front lines, early in the summer, when it was a peaceful village embowered in trees. I saw it again after our guns, in preparation for the offensive of July 1, had played on it for 48 hours, and swept it out of existence, houses and trees together. Before its nearest edge, across the low ground before our lines, ran successive lines of trenches, with the rusted wire entanglements so thick that they looked like a belt of brown ploughed land. The entanglements in some places were as many as five tiers deep and behind these the slope was pierced everywhere with the entrances to the cellars and dugouts which made the place a fortress. Not even the fall of Thiepval is so splendid a proof that the Germans cannot make a place so strong that British soldiers will not take it.
Today I have talked with many of our wounded and with officers connected with the units engaged, but it is difficult to arrive at any connected idea of the actual fighting. The attack was delivered in the darkness of 6 o’clock of a mid-November morning and the day continued foggy, and I have heard extraordinary stories of the difficulty which men and units had in keeping in touch. After the first trenches were overrun there were Germans everywhere, hiding in pockets and shell-holes and coming out of dugouts. Individual dugouts yielded up as many as 300 and 400 men. One man who was wounded lay in a shell-hole for some time, and then tried to make his way to our line, and only a lucky flare sent up by the Germans told him that he was walking straight into an enemy trench. Others had a bewildered memory of going forward in the dark among shells - ours or theirs, they did not know - into empty trenches, over dim ridges from which Germans fired through the murk, past shell-holes and dugouts till they met bodies of the enemy with their hands held high in the air.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2016-11-17/register/too-many-chocolates-6502j7dsh
on this day november 17, 1916
Too many chocolates
The first step that the authorities will take to economize in sugar will be to restrict the supply to manufacturers. Brewers will soon have to do with less, and mineral water manufacturers are certain to have their supply further restricted. The confectionery trade must expect a very serious reduction in the amount of sugar for making sweets and cakes. Mr Runciman’s statement that luxury sugar must be cut down is generally welcomed, but at a time when many people find it difficult to get sugar for puddings, housewives feel that there should be no further curtailment of the quantity available for domestic consumption. ln many homes white sugar has not been seen for months and of the brown varieties the supply is uncertain.
The excuse that the children must have sweets cannot apply to the trays and boxes of luxurious chocolates in the windows of Bond Street, Regent Street, and Oxford Street. Boxes of bonbons costing two and three guineas may be bought for presents, but the presents are not intended for the nursery. Women are the chief consumers, though not always the purchasers, of expensive chocolates, and as many are being sold as ever, in spite of a substantial increase in prices.
Some chocolate manufacturers have not been making fancy sweetmeats for the last 18 months, and have concentrated on the output of powder and chocolate for the troops, but, to judge by what may be seen in London, others seem to have increased their manufactures. At one of the great stores yesterday at least 60 assistants were engaged in the department where chocolates and other sweets are retailed, and customers could choose from about 70 varieties, ranging in price from 2s 6d to 6s a lb. There were boxes tied with silk ribbons at 25s, and all kinds of toys filled with sweets in readiness for the Christmas trade. In one window a circular box of chocolates, nearly 2ft across, was displayed.
A great economy could be achieved by the prohibition of the sale of sugar-coated pastries. These have become very popular with afternoon tea, and the sale in cafes alone must amount to tens of thousands everyday in London. Few people ask for plain cakes. The demand is for pastries filled with cream, cakes covered with white or pink sugar, or the richest fruit cakes.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2016-11-18/register/economy-in-restaurant-dinners-p5hc0pw27
november 18, 1916
Economy in restaurant dinners
With reference to the suggestion made in the House of Commons that meals at hotels, restaurant and clubs should be limited to three courses, it is claimed by hotel-keepers that a three-course meal is, from the point of view of economy of imported food, a greater extravagance than one of six courses. In the six-course meal, usually consisting of hors d’oeuvres, soup, fish, entrée, joint and vegetables, sweets or cheese, the visitor takes small portions of each, and by the time the joint is reached his appetite has been to a great extent satisfied. A manager of a well-known hotel pointed out yesterday that this country produces a good many articles which have to be consumed here - oysters, which serve as hors d’oeuvres, fish caught on our coasts, wild birds which have been shot here, or poultry raised at home, and which forms the usual entrée. If the meal is reduced to three courses, a portion of the food which is easily obtained will have to be suppressed, as the visitor will want his joint, brought to a large extent from Australia and North or South America, to remain, and will expect a larger portion than in a long table d’hôte dinner. This would increase the consumption of food brought from a distance.
Evidence that the table d’hôte meal is the cheapest one for the hotel or restaurant is supplied by comparing the charges of 6s 6d in a good-class hotel for table d’hôte, against a similar amount for two dishes chosen à la carte, increased by a charge for “couvert”. Hors d’oeuvres are not costly, soup is a “by-product”, and, with the help of these, much smaller portions of other dishes are required. Some managements create the impression of providing a rich menu by including a sorbet, which costs them about a penny a head.
Two suggestions were made yesterday by an hotel manager. The first was that of one or two meatless days, in which dishes such as risotto, polenta, ravioli, minestrone, and varieties of spaghetti might be used. The other was that the hotels should be circularized on avoiding waste, and that in larger establishments a return might be asked of the goods consumed, as compared with the number of meals served. Thus hotels and clubs which made wasteful use of expensive and rare foods could be traced on their own returns, and measures taken accordingly.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2016-11-19/register/the-times-at-1d-qsbfjrz9k
november 19, 1916
The Times at 1½d
The Times is published today, for the first time since its foundation 130 years ago, at 1½d a copy. In the past the price has frequently been changed, the highest being 7d a hundred years ago, and the lowest 1d between March 16, 1914, and the end of last week. These changes are due to the fact that those responsible for the conduct of this journal have set a definite course, and refused to be deflected from it by taxation or rises in the cost of materials. When so-called “taxes on knowledge”, ie, on newspapers and advertisements, were imposed, the price was proportionately increased in preference to decreasing the size or quality of the contents. When the price of paper fell as new processes of manufacture were invented, the price of The Times was reduced. So today, when the price of paper is two or three times what it was before the war, and our circulation is increasing steadily, and therefore adding to the “loss on circulation”, the question that has arisen so often in our history has arisen once more, and will be answered in the same way.
Many readers have expressed willingness to pay even a higher price for The Times. It is quite likely that they will be asked to do so before the war is over; but we are not now asking, and shall not ask, the public to do more than meet the extra cost of the raw material, the paper on which The Times is printed. When it is true of almost every commodity either that the price has gone up or that the quality has decreased, it is, we think, unreasonable to expect The Times to resist the economic law indefinitely.
Normally a newspaper which increases its price must expect a substantial reduction in circulation, but the position of The Times is, if we may say so, unique. So far as we can judge at present, the newsagents do not expect any serious change in the supplies they require; but the position will not be quite clear for some time yet. Something, no doubt, will depend on the other papers, faced with the same alternative as ourselves. No complete paper can be sold for a penny without a ruinous loss. A meeting of newspaper proprietors will take place today to consider the position “in view of the action taken by The Times”. Many of them welcome the step taken by The Times and the publicity thus given to their difficulties.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2016-11-21/register/british-attack-in-a-snowstorm-fbv2p72kr
november 21, 1916
British attack in a snowstorm
On a front of about two and a half miles we have again gone forward for an average distance of 500 yards or so on the south side of the Ancre. On the north of the river we also pushed on till our line is now three-quarters of a mile to the north-east of Beaucourt. The stroke this morning was dramatic, because it was delivered in a snowstorm before break of day. For some three days it had been freezing, so that by yesterday evening puddles of water two and three inches deep were frozen solid, and the surface of the roads was ringing hard. This morning we woke to find the whole earth blanketed in white and flakes still falling. The snow has gone now, but for the first half of the day the battle area was transfigured and all the unseemlinesses of war are hidden under a gracious veil.
Just as the snow was ceasing our attack was made, soon after 6 o’clock. It was preceded by a short but fierce bombardment, from which, by the accounts of prisoners, the enemy took shelter in his dug-outs. Before the enemy could issue from his dugouts, our men were on him. At places savage hand-to-hand fighting seems to have gone on, down in the slits of trenches, with the storm and the chaos of shells above. The whole south side of the Ancre is now ours up to the very edge of Grandcourt, in the outlying ruins of which the struggle is now going on.
Across the Ancre, on the north side, nothing now remains but a few ragged tree stumps and a tumbled mass of splintered wood and shell holes. It was altogether a successful coup, gallantly carried through. The saddest thing about it is that the weather broke before the day was half over. Since about 10 o’clock this morning it has been thawing, with light rain falling at intervals. The gracious veil of snow has gone and the battlefield shows all its ugliness again. Nor is the ground any longer hard and ringing, but two inches of melted snow and rain have done their worst with it, and the day closed on an earth all slime and slush and pools of standing water, with the air thick with a raw, wet November fog. What interests us now here is the weather outlook. Most excellent use has been made of the short dry spell, but the prospects tonight, with the condition of the barometer, are not enlivening.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/bad-weather-on-the-ancre-b2m6g8twl
ON THIS DAY: NOVEMBER 22, 1916
Bad weather on the Ancre
The sudden thaw of Saturday morning, which melted two inches of snow in a few hours, with the warm rain which followed at intervals throughout the day, made the ground almost impossible for a while and we have had a day and a half of a nearer approach to peace than anything for some time. Nowhere has there been anything on either side resembling an infantry advance. Here and there on the Ancre there have been small bombing encounters as we have straightened out our line and found small nests of Germans still hiding in some scattered shell crater or dugout. And the guns have been fairly active. But on the whole Sunday and this morning have been times of almost Sabbatical quiet.
I have spoken of the extraordinary character of the German defences along this part of the main first line, and described the broad belts of rusted wire there as looking from a little distance like strips of ploughed land. There is no better description. In places the entanglements were as much as 8ft high and 30 to 40 yards deep, enmeshed in every possible way. There are places where the wire still stands unbroken. In other places, for long stretches, our guns uprooted it and swept it out of existence, or our men could never have gone over as they did. Before and among the wreckage of the wire burial parties have been at work gathering up our own dead; and beyond, among the wilderness of battered trench and shell-hole, there has been even heavier work for them, for there lay the German dead, killed by our artillery or with bomb, rifle, or bayonet. There are spots where bodies in grey and khaki until yesterday lay together, sometimes even locked in the last grip in which they had died fighting.
I have seen today some of the men who were in the thickest of the first day’s fighting, and what is most impressive is the amazing character of the battle. In the darkness we swept over the German lines of trenches behind our barrage, leaving pockets of enemies everywhere, so that all through the foggy day small parties of our men kept finding Germans on all sides of them, and again and again took prisoners exceeding their own strength in numbers. Today the weather has again turned cold and hard, and the ground is once more drying fast.