| Somme | 1 July 1916 |
The blackest day in the history of the
British Army and possibly any army - 1 July 1916, the first day
of the battle of the Somme. By nightfall the British had suffered
57,470 casualties out of the 120,000 men who had left the
trenches that morning, with some 21,000 men killed, most in the
first 30 minutes of the attack. No fewer than twelve divisions
suffered over 3,000 casualties each and the 1st Hampshires were
virtually wiped out, with no one left at the end of the day to
describe what had happened. The 10th West Yorks were annihilated
in less than a minute. Many of Hunter-Weston's 29th Division were
caught on the open, where the barbed wire was not cut, and
machine-gunned at will.
The men chosen to carry out the assault had been promised that
the barbed wire had been cut by the enormous artillery
bombardment and that the only Germans they would see would be
dead ones. While some officers armed only with swagger sticks or
umbrellas led their men forward, others, like Captain Wilfred
Neville of the East Surrey Regiment, kicked footballs towards the
German lines and charged after them. The Germans, hidden in deep
concrete bunkers throughout the bombardment, had ample time to
reach their trenches before the British troops could cross no
man's land. Despite the heavy bombardment, the wire had remained
largely intact and in the few places where it had been cut the
Germans made certain to cover the gaps with machine guns. When
Hunter-Weston, commanding VII Corps, told his men the wire had
been blown away, many of them could see that it was still
standing and that their commander was lying through his teeth.
The decision by Hunter-Weston to order the heavy artillery to end
their barrage ten minutes before the troops went over the top,
and the field artillery two minutes before, was a direct cause of
many of the British casualties that day. The artillery should
have continued firing until after the British soldiers had left
their trenches. The result was that the Germans had ample notice
that the assault was about to take place. And plenty of time to
emerge from their concrete bunkers to set up their machine guns.
This single blunder by Hunter-Weston cost VIII Corps, 14,000
casualties. Even so, Haig was so ill
informed that he claimed that "few of the VIII Corps left
their trenches". Conscious of his own mistake, Hunter-Weston
hastened to inform the Chief of the Imperial General Staff,
General Robertson, that the artillery had let him down badly,
failing to cut the wire and suspending their barrage too early.
Haig's "big push" - as he had entitled the Somme
offensive - eventually got bogged down into the kind of
attritional battle that was typical of the period 1915-17 on the
Western Front. But the single day - 1st July 1916 - will remain
for the British Army the 'black day' - rather at odds with Haig's
callous summing up: "The general situation was
favourable".
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They advanced in line after line, dressed as if on parade, and
not a man shirked going through the extremely heavy barrage, all
facing the machine-gun fire that finally wiped them out..... I
have never seen...........such a magnificent display of
gallantry, discipline and determination.
The reports I have had from the very few survivors of this
marvellous advance bear out what I saw.......that hardly a man of
ours got to the German front line.
Brigadier-General Rees, GOC 94th Infantry Brigade of 31 Division,
1 July 1916
The "marvellous advance" was a complete disaster; the
"magnificent gallantry" wasted. The men had no chance
whatsoever. Casualties were nearly total.
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