100 Years Ago - End of Battle of the Somme
SCOTTISH TROOPS ADVANCING TO THE ATTACK
A WASH IN A SOMME SWAMP
BRINGING IN RIFLES AND EQUIPMENT FROM NO-MAN'S LAND
SHELLS FOR THE 15-IN. HOWITZERS
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sir-douglas-haig-on-the-somme-battle-pg5g0wh2p
Sir Douglas Haig on the Somme Battle
The battle of the Somme was begun to save Verdun, to prevent the transfer of further enemy reinforcements from the West to the Russian or Italian fronts, and “to wear down the strength of the forces opposed to us”. All three purposes were fulfilled.
December 30, 1916
Sir Douglas Haig’s dispatch upon the battle of the Somme, the full text of which we publish to-day, will be read with extraordinary interest in this country. It is the first official narrative, not only of the greatest battle in which the British Army has ever been engaged, but of the greatest battle the world has ever seen. In duration, in the numbers employed, and in the magnitude and continuous intensity of the Allied artillery fire, no conflict ever recorded can compare with the battle of the Somme. It began six months ago, and it is not over yet.
The public are by this time familiar enough with the dimensions and character of the mighty struggle in which the British and French Armies have been so long engaged. They need authoritative enlightenment chiefly about its objects and results, as to which there has been some difference of opinion in uninformed quarters. Sir Douglas Haig furnishes a full and, in our view, a completely satisfactory answer to this line of inquiry. His dispatch is neither a defence nor a vindication, for he has no need of either. It is a calm and unemotional narrative of great achievements, written with the restraint which has invariably marked his daily bulletins. He sets down what he tried to do, and what his gallant troops, in conjunction with the French, have done. He shows, in a manner which we believe the public will find convincing, that the battle of the Somme, up to its present stage, has fully achieved its principal objects.
It has done far more, for, as Sir Douglas Haig justly claims, it has shown the Allies and the world how ultimate victory can and will be won. More than half the German Army, which is the bulwark of the enemy’s forces, suffered defeat upon the Somme this year. The Allies proved their ability to overcome the flower of the German troops, “despite all the advantages of the defensive, supported by the strongest fortifications”. The comparative feebleness of the resistance of many German units in the later stages of the battle “justified the belief that in the long run victory would lie with our troops”.
So far as concerned the immediate purposes of the Allies, victory was amply attained when the offensive slackened in the middle of November. Sir Douglas Haig hints that, as is no secret, he began his offensive rather earlier than he liked. Every commander in such a position naturally wishes to wait until his munitionment is complete and until his raw drafts have acquired experience. Nevertheless, in view of the results, we do not think the date chosen for the joint advance need be regretted. The Germans were very near the outskirts of Verdun, they were striking hard, and the moral and political consequences of the fall of Verdun would have been so serious that further inaction was impossible. That is the complete and crushing answer to the advocates of delay.
The battle of the Somme was begun to save Verdun, to prevent the transfer of further enemy reinforcements from the West to the Russian or Italian fronts, and “to wear down the strength of the forces opposed to us”. All three purposes were fulfilled, and Sir Douglas Haig maintains that “any one of these results is in itself sufficient to justify the Somme battle”. We fully agree; but to us the vital and overwhelmimg importance of the battle of the Somme lies in the fact that it is proof of our power, if we use it wisely, to win complete and final victory.
This from the point of view of strategy and military prospects. There are other aspects in which the dispatch has an almost breathless interest for our own people. It touches nearly every home in the land and beyond the seas, wherever British people live. Behind the formal official phrases of Sir Douglas Haig they will pierce to a vision of what these operations have meant to the men engaged. In a large proportion they were men untried. Before them, as the day of the offensive approached, and for months afterwards, lay the tangle of German positions - “several lines of deep trenches well provided with bomb-proof shelters and with numerous communication trenches connecting them. The front of the trenches in each system was protected by wire entanglements, many of them in two belts forty yards broad, built of iron stakes interlaced with barbed wire, often almost as thick as a man’s finger.” Behind these lines, the enemy’s strongholds had been enforced with every device of military ingenuity - woods and villages turned to fortresses, cellars stuffed with machine-guns and trench-mortars, dug-outs constructed and connected by elaborate underground passages.
Against all this the British troops went up and conquered. They wait now, proved men and with the knowledge that they have reserves to fill their ranks, for their next opportunity. The British peoples share their confidence, and will not omit to give that full measure of credit to Sir Douglas Haig himself which his dispatch necessarily passes over without a word.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sir-douglas-haigs-dispatch-an-analysis-x36l8jjz0
Sir Douglas Haig’s dispatch, an analysis
The vast majority of our troops had been raised and trained during the war, and many very summarily trained. In spite of this they attacked with the greatest ardour, held their own against violent counter-attacks, and behaved with the steadiness of veteran troops.
December 30, 1916
(By Our Military Correspondent.) General Sir Douglas Haig’s Dispatch of December 23 covers the operations of our Armies in France since May 19, and is a sober, weighty, and thoroughly professional account of these tremendous events viewed from the standpoint of the Commander-in-Chief. He himself describes his Dispatch as a bare record of the more important occurrences, and regrets that it is not possible to particularize the units engaged without giving useful information to the enemy. Those who search this great Dispatch for mention of their friends and relatives, and for acknowledgment of the deeds accomplished by individual officers and men in the course of these prolonged operations, will search in vain, for except the names of the two Army Commanders, Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir Hubert Gough, and a passing reference to Sir Edmund Allenby, no names are mentioned, and for these we must wait until Sir Douglas Haig has made the many recommendations for distinctions which are sure soon to be forthcoming.
No other course was open to Sir Douglas Haig than that which he has taken. Thc Battle of the Somme lasted from July 1 till November 18. Fighting was continuous throughout, and any attempt to mention commanders engaged and units which distinguished themselves would have extended the Dispatch to intolerable lengths, and by leading us into a maze of detail would have deprived us of that clear, terse, and admirable account of the operations as a whole which the Dispatch provides.
THE PRELIMINARIES
In his first six paragraphs Sir Douglas Haig tells us the considerations which weighed with him in deciding upon the attack. He tells us the objects which he had in view, describes the immense preparations which preceded the attack, and gives a good account of the country and of the enemy’s defences, together with an outline sketch of the three phases into which the battle grouped itself. It will be seen by his description that the objects of this great offensive were not those which the German Press has gratuitously ascribed to him. His objects were to relieve Verdun, to prevent the transfer of German troops elsewhere, and to wear down the strength of the enemy in his front. He claims in paragraph 38 that these objects were achieved, and, further, that the achievement of any one of them would have been sufficient to justify the Somme battle. He also states that there is evidence to show that the losses of the enemy in men and material were higher than those of the Allies - a point which the enemy’s Press at present contests - and he shows us that the enemy’s strength was higher in November than in July, and consequently that the object of tying down the enemy on the Western front was fully attained.
THE FIRST PHASE
The paragraphs from 7 to 36 inclusive deal with the operations. The first phase of thc battle covers the first fortnight in July, during which period there took place the unsuccessful attacks in the north, and the success in the south which gave our troops a hold on the southern crest of the plateau between the Tortille anti tihe Ancre. This operation on the south carried our troops first into Mametz and Montauban, and then into Fricourt, Contalmaison, and Trones Wood. It was completed by the finely planned and beautifully executed attack of July 14, which led to the capture of the enemy’s second line on a front of three miles. The extraordinary difficulties which beset our young and largely untried troops in these first attacks are well known to all who were present in these attacks or have followed their course from far or near. The gallantry displayed vas remarkable even in a war in which all records of gallant deeds have been surpassed, and this gallantry was as much a feature of the reverses suffered at Gommecourt, Beaumont Hamel, and Thiepval as it was of the victorious attack farther south. The breaking of the hard crust of the defence was stiff work, but if there is one operation of this phase which calls for special commendation it is certainly the attack of July 14, which, carried out largely by young troops in face of the German veterans. was one of the most remarkable episodes of the war, and an achievement for which no praise could be too high.
THE SECOND PHASE
The second phase, in which the enemy attempted to keep his hold on the main ridge, was the most difficult of all and led to a prolonged struggle, which began on July 18 and only ended on September 9, when Ginchy fell, after Pozieres, Delville Wood, Guillemont, Falfemont Farm, and Leuze Wood had been taken in succession. These severe struggles are described in paragraphs 16 to 23 inclusive, which pay a tribute to the admirable cooperation of our French comrades, and explain very clearly the immense difficulties which Sir Henry Rawlinson’s Army had to surmount in this most arduous part of its great task. With the capture of Ginchy on September 9 nearly the whole of the forward crest of the main ridge on a front of 9,000 yards from Delville Wood to the road above Mouquet Farm was in British hands, giving the valuable advantage of observation over the slopes beyond; but Morval on the right and Thiepval on the left remained to be mastered, and Thiepval, as Sir Douglas Haig declares, was “as nearly impregnable as nature, art, and the unstinted labour of nearly two years could make it.”
But before Thiepval was attacked much else had to be done. Flers, High Wood, Martinpuich, Courcelette, and the Quadrilateral were taken in succession during September, and on the 25th a general attack of the Allies gave the British Morval, Lesbeufs, and Gueudecourt, while Combles fell to the enveloping tactics of the Allies. It is not surprising, considering the arduous character of all these attacks, the immense difficulties encountered, and the losses suffered, that the German Press should so often and so loudly have proclaimed, with the sense of relief very plainly evident, that the battle was ended. The delays necessary for hardening a position won, for improvising communications, for bringing up guns, and for relieving tired troops by others ought to have been understood; but the enemy misjudged from the first, and misjudges still, the endurance and tenacity of our soldiers. Under the firm leading of Sir Douglas Haig in this battle, and despite of all, the men went on with fresh vigour in each attack, and the fortitude with which they continued to press the enemy during this second phase is honourable to all, from highest to lowest, and fills every one who reads the story with deep satisfaction.
THE THIRD PHASE
The time had then come for Thiepval and its redoubts to be assailed, and this operation, described in paragraph 30 of the Dispatch, was one of the most brilliant successes of the great battle. Gueudecourt, Eaucourt l’Abbaye, and La Sars followed suit, and except a slight hold on the high ground above Thiepval the enemy had now been driven clean off the ridge. The bad weather of October prevented Sir Douglas Haig from carrying out certain attacks which he meditated on his eastern flank, but he made up for the disappointment in November, when Sir Hubert Clough carried out so successfully his advance on both sides of the Ancre, took St Pierre Divion, Beaucourt, and Beaumont Hamel, and dealt the enemy one of the hardest blows of the war. Nothing but an unusually wet autumn and the practical impossibility of bringing up the necessary guns and ammunition to support a further attack appears to have interfered to prevent Sir Douglas Haig from continuing his movement to the east. The same difficulties, in a minor degree, beset the troops of Sir Hubert Gough in their brilliant attacks astride the Ancre, and even deprived them of their hope to take Serre; but the cutting out of the Ancre sector of the German front line at such an unfavourable season of the year as mid-November was a great feat of arms. The cooperation of the infantry and the guns had now approached perfection, and it is to this cause, as well as to the vigour of the leading and the boldness of the execution, that we must ascribe a success which fittingly rounded off the 1916 phases of the Somme battle.
RESULTS OF THE BATTLE
These victories gave the British Armies 38,000 prisoners, and for trophies brought them 29 heavy guns, 96 field guns and howitzers, 136 trench mortars, and 514 machine-guns, while the moral gains on our side were even more considerable. These successes are all the more astonishing when we recall, as Sir Douglas Haig asks us to do, that the vast majority of our troops engaged had been raised and trained during the war, and many very summarily trained. In spite of this disadvantage they attacked with the greatest ardour on occasions too numerous to mention, held their own against continuous and violent counter-attacks, and behaved with the steadiness of veteran troops.
It was truly a wonderful performance, and the handsome acknowledgments which the Commander pays to his Army Commanders, to all arms and services under them, and to the noble performance of their duty by his men, will be endorsed by every man and woman of the British race.
The measured and professional construction of the Dispatch, and the modesty with which Sir Douglas Haig disclaims all merit for these great achievements, do not in the least allow us to forget the debt which we owe to the Commander-in-Chief. Sir Douglas Haig says that the control which he exercised was restricted to general guidance, and he remarks upon the great responsibilities which devolved on his two Army Commanders, the high qualities which they displayed, and the wholehearted devotion to duty of all under them. These praises are well merited, but it was the Commander-in-Chief who planned the battle, selected the subordinate commanders, gave the impulsion when doubts arose, and, above all, had to bear alone the immense responsibility for everything that was done or left undone. It requires great qualities in a Commander-in-Chief to support, without failing and faltering, such heavy responsibilities as those involved in all the decisions made during such a prolonged and sanguinary battle as that of the Somme, and it was because Sir Douglas placed the cause first, and his feelings only in second place, that he was able to give to this battle the character of relentlessness which made the enemy feel that he had met his match and that his career of victory was at an end.
No one should fail to read, mark, and digest the allusions of Sir Douglas Haig to our future prospects in the West. He thinks that the Somme has placed beyond all doubt the ability of the Allies to gain the objects for which they are fighting. He says truly that the German Army is the mainstay of the Central Powers, and he shows that fully a half of the German Army suffered defeat on the Somme.
Neither victors nor vanquished will forget this great battle, and it is more than probable that the Germans by their endeavours to open peace negotiations are fully mindful of it and regard with apprehension the renewal of the struggle when the winter season ends their temporary respite. Nothing but some aberration of the strategic sense on the part of our new War Cabinet can then save the Germans from a repetition, with interest, of the castigation which they received at the hands of our soldiers during this most extraordinary battle in the history of the British Army.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/honours-for-the-somme-2cjlsxs2m
Honours for the Somme
Sir Douglas Haig at last becomes a Field-Marshal, and no British soldier ever earned the title better.
January 1, 1917
It is a welcome change to publish a list of New Year’s Honours which have been earned altogether in the honourable service of the State.
What are sometimes called “political honours” - the results too often of personal and party manoeuvres - seem indescribably repellent in these days of national strain. We cannot, unfortunately, congratulate ourselves that their omission today is anything more than a postponement; but for the moment at all events we have a list confined entirely to sailors and soldiers and to civilians whose claim to distinction rests wholly on public service.
We rejoice especially in the well-timed promptness with which the official report of the greatest battle in English history is followed by a large recognition of the men responsible for its success. Sir Douglas Haig at last becomes a Field-Marshal, and no British soldier ever earned the title better. Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir Hubert Gough, whom all the world now knows as his principal subordinate commanders in the battle, are both promoted. So are Generals Kiggell (whose share, if less conspicuous, is not less vital than any) and Horne and Lord Cavan, and a host of others who have contributed, each in his own sphere, to the smooth and successful handling of the great military machine.
Among those less directly concerned with the conduct of operations is Sir Frederick Clayton, whose work in France greatly assisted the task of the Quartermaster-General’s Department - perhaps the most uniformly successful branch of the whole Army. Nor are the soldiers in outlying fields of war forgotten, and every one will note with special satisfaction the name of General Smuts, whose arduous task in East Africa must be nearing completion.