Why Trench Warfare Was The Most Traumatising Form Of Fighting | History Of Warfare | War Stories

this channel is part of the history hit Network on that first hot summer's day of the offensive on the song one hundred thousand British troops went into action they were mostly the proud members of kitchener's army a new Army of eager and patriotic men who had volunteered in their hundreds of thousands to fight for king and country by Nightfall nearly 60 000 of their number had been killed or wounded in 12 hours of fighting and Slaughter unparalleled in British military history it was the wholesale destruction of these courageous innocent soldiers which has given the battle of the Somme its special poignancy how could so many lives have been lost in an offensive which gained practically nothing [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] by 1916 fond memories of Plucky little Belgium the underdog whom Britain had pledged to defend in 1914 were wearing thin combined British and French armies fighting against the Germans had managed to Halt the initial German Advance which had characterized that first year of the Great War those early days of the old contemptables now seemed an age away 1915 had seen the Allies take the offensive again with an almost total lack of success ground to a halt by the machine guns and trenches of a new and terrifying age of warfare the turn of the Year saw the Germans once more attempt to seize the initiative a German High command decided to launch a massive assault on the French Fortress of Verdun and on February the 21st 1916 the first shells rained down on the Fortress and City this barrage heralded the start of a massive German offensive designed to overrun the French Defenders who with Gaelic tenacity pledged to defend Verdun to the last drop of blood they're followed over four months of Savage and bloody fighting during which the French losses totaled over 315 000 men the battle also claimed 280 000 German lives and one were done its chilling nickname the mincer French Spirits so unquenchable at the beginning of the battle were all but crushed the French army was brought to Breaking Point even the public who had so enthusiastically embraced the war became horrified as the casualty figures mounted but as the battle rolled off the casualties steadily increased the Germans deployed yet more men and the French renewed their pledge to defend Verdun to the last man a French ultimately committed 78 divisions to the battle but their ranks were inexorably reduced soon the situation became desperate and the French insisted on British help that Chief of Staff General Joff demanded that the planned British summer offensive be brought forward to relieve the pressure otherwise the French army would be obliterated and the war would be lost high-level discussion brought forward the British attack it would start on the 1st of July the place the psalm it is often argued that the battle of the Somme saved Verdun but this is not strictly the case for the inescapable fact is that by mid-june the attack on the city was faltering German alarm at their horrendous casualty figures coupled with an understandable concern for their lack of success were the Two Chief reasons for this another was the spectacular Russian Victory scored by commander brusilov on the Eastern Front which broke the austro-hungarian lines and caused German troops to be diverted from the West to the east again easing the situation at Verdun so it fell to the British to provide the bulk of the troops for the major summer offensive that everyone hoped would mean a turning point in the fortunes of the allies history hit is a streaming platform that is just for history fans with fantastic documentaries covering fascinating figures and moments in history from all over the world from the Battle of Trafalgar and the revolutionary era right through to the second world war if you are looking for your next military history fix then this is the service for you we're committed to Bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a free trial and War Stories fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code War Stories at checkout the old British regular army the famous old contemptables of the bef have been destroyed by two years of inconclusive fighting in the earlier battles The Men Who marched to the Western Front were almost exclusively new volunteers kitchener's Army named after the minister for war Lord Kitchener whose vigorous recruitment campaign had attracted almost half a million ordinary men to the colors these men of a new Army were eager bursting full of patriotism ready to do their Duty for king and country but they were also raw and inexperienced for many the war offered undreamed of possibilities of travel and excitement and Prospect of Glory the men folk of entire towns and villagers had joined up making up the famous Pals or Chums battalions where the whole population of an area would serve together in the same unit these were the men who would suffer so terribly during their first taste of battle before the battle the war was still viewed as a magnificent interlude from the toil and hardship of everyday life a war to be heroically fought and of course gloriously won but whatever their background or rank none could have prepared themselves for the nightmare of violence and Slaughter that awaited them it's not always realized that the British sent four different types of armies to fight in Flanders between 1914 and 1918. the first of course was the old bef British expeditionary Force probably the most professional Army we've ever sent abroad they of course were mostly dead by the early months of 1915 something like 70 casualties by that time so the next arguments came out to France was a territorial Force as they then called The territor Royal Army which are all again peacetime soldiers who had done weekend soldiering and so forth just as a TA does now and they were very good in their term but by the end of 1915 I'm afraid They too had gone in large number and so when we turn at last a kitchener's army we've come to the third and probably the most dramatic of all the armies we sent to France and Flanders that particular War now of course they were volunteers these were mostly people who had volunteered in 1914 wishing to get into the war before it was over all over by Christmas was the famous phrase at the time they'd been having two and a half years being trained and went a peak of physical fitness but of course had no experience of the reality of battle whatsoever except that which you can get on exercises or battle schools or the notorious Bullring up by Calais where they were given their battle inoculation training in their turn the volunteer armies would have something like 600 000 casualties before the end of the year so yet again we had to produce the fourth type of Army and this was the conscript Army for the very first time in British history we began to compulsorly conscript Manpower for the armed forces and that began in the Autumn of 1916 and they will be the people who fought through 1917 and Above All In 1918. opening day of the battle of the Somme was fought on the middle day of the middle year of World War One by this time a position of stalemate had been reached by the opposing sides for along the whole front line from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier little or no progress was being made as the men of all armies dug themselves deep into trenches to defend their positions to understand the nature of trench warfare is to appreciate the full range of Horrors endured by the soldiers of the Great War the typical British trench seen here in side view was usually seven or eight feet deep and six to seven feet wide thick walls of sandbags provided protection from Shell fragments or bullets and in the walls of the trench were dugouts where a man would sleep or Shelter From the elements British High command actually discouraged the construction of comfortable living quarters and these dugouts were often cramped and wet and hardly conducive to affording the rest the soldiers so desperately needed the British front-line trench was never built in a straight line this diagram illustrates the system of Firebase and traverses which were designed to protect the men against bursting shells and insulating or machine gun fire running out towards the opposing lines was a sap a precarious vantage point for nervous centuries to oversee or overhear activities in the enemy positions or the approach of an enemy raiding party to the rear of the main firing line with the support and Reserve trenches which completed the Frontline system the area between the two armies called No Man's Land varied in size from half a mile to only a few yards depending on the LIE of the ground the positions of both were defended by thick belts of barbed wire a major problem for the front line troops was the sheer tedium of trench life the dullness and difficulty of which was enough to wear down the hardiest of Souls days were spent in an attempt to rest while Knights involved patrols or digging the trains or repairing trenches or carrying up rations and other supplies for most this uncomfortable wearing routine was broken only sporadically by action overstated is the appalling natural hardships which blighted the troops whose living conditions were quite often intolerable there was for example an almost constant battle particularly in low-lying areas against water and mud it was only the arrival of Summer which brought the troops some relief otherwise each rainfall meant the same misery trenches ankle deep often higher in mud a soldier on the Somme remembers makes the trenches all but impassable now sunken it up to my knees and the moments we are I've never been able to pull myself out sociara gives me frenzied energy and I have to turn my legs frame though both signs are glued where they stand some men actually drowned in the mud and tales of men slipping into shell holes gradually sinking watched by horrified and helpless comrades are well documented these terrible conditions also heralded the appearance of trench foot a condition similar to frostbite which was caused by constant immersion in water during the war over 74 000 British troops were treated in France for trenchfoot sustaining the huge Army on the Western Front presented even more problems whilst actively at the front the men rarely have ever received a hot meal their staple diet being bred bully beef and biscuits drinking water too was in short supply in the worst recorded cases men were desperate enough to boil water drawn from the bottom of a shell hole the filth of the trenches inevitably produced a host of diseases and the men's unwashed condition brought the problem of lice which tormented most soldiers but if these Horrors were not enough without doubt the most unpleasant problem encountered by the British soldier was the rat which grew to incredible size bloated by gorging on the many half-buried corpses which littered the area around the trenches men would be woken by rats scurrying over their faces as they searched for food in their dugouts a French soldier told one horrifying story one evening whilst on patrol Jack saw some rats running from under the dead men's great coats enormous rats fat with human flesh his heart pounding he edged towards one of the bodies its helmet had rolled off the man displayed a grimacing face stripped of Flesh the skull bear the eyes devoured the rats coexisted with the men in the trenches all efforts to rid themselves of their unwanted neighbors ended in failure and the Rats swarmed around in their Millions throughout the war all of these things contributed to the miserable life of the British Tommy on the Western Front during the war Not only was he in danger from rifle or machine gun fire or shelling from the enemy artillery or the bullets from snipers but he had to live with the daily risk of disease infection and illness British statistics tell the awful Tale during the Great War there were more than two and a half million casualties in battle whilst three and a half million were victims of sickness or disease as his chief weapon the British infantry man carried the .303 Lee Enfield rifle fairly accurate up to a thousand yards with its long bayonet for hand-to-hand combat the Infantry were also supported by heavy machine guns which took six men to operate and carry its ammunition Supply but it was a murderous weapon when in full flow firing some 600 rounds per minute in this most static of Wars however the competence were for the majority of time hidden from each other's view so hand-to-hand combat was rare and it was the artillery which was dominant the Frontline Soldier never knew when or where the next Shell would fall he lived in dread of instant death or terrible injury the noise and Terror of an artillery bombardment Can Only Be Imagined the threatening Prospect of sudden bombardments at any time day or night and the effect of the shells when they did burst led to many cases of shell shock a physical and mental trauma caused by exposure to constant shelling unfortunately many commanders particularly generals believed shell shock to be little more than an excuse for cowardice some Frontline doctors agreed however Philip Gibbs a soldier who fought on the Somme described the condition after the war he was shaking in every limb in a palsied way his steel hat was at the back of his head his mouth slobbered and two comrades could not hold him these badly shell-shocked boys clawed at their mouths ceaselessly it was a common Dreadful action [Music] others sat in the field hospitals in a state of coma dazed as though deaf and actually dumb over half the British soldiers who served on the Western Front received some form of battle wound which placed immense pressure on the hard-pressed medical services wounded men often receive no medical help at all and some lay in no man's land for two or three days before they were picked up by stretcher bearers needless to say many died agonizing deaths with only four stretcher bearers per company the task often overwhelmed the men for the physical effort of carrying a badly wounded man through the clinging mud left orderlies completely exhausted despite the terrible nature of many wounds ordinary soldiers actually believe the hospital to be their best hope of Escape From The Trenches so desperate were they to be free of their Horrors they would pray for a wound which would see them invalided out of the army and back to England a much sought after blighty one sadly many wounds were severe ones one Observer on the psalm wrote it's a good thing not to be too squeamish the smell of septic Limbs and heads is enough to Bow you over and as usual a good many deaths but it's the multiple wounds that appear worse men almost in pieces and the number just makes the horror worse it was against this background that the plans for an offensive were being made in 1916. the year had begun optimistically for the British with two new men in key roles in London the new chief of Imperial staff was General Sir William Robertson and in France General Sir Douglas Hague had taken over as commander-in-chief of the British expeditionary Force without doubt Hague was to become the Central and most controversial character in high command during the war he was a Dar Scotsman with a wealth of experience behind him a man of strong opinion and great determination who had earned the respect of colleagues and subordinates his appointment as commander-in-chief was generally welcomed in the ranks however the circumstances which led to hague's appointment caused unease and controversy after the battle of lose for example he had been openly critical of Sir John French then the British commander-in-chief Hague had married one of the Queen's ladies in waiting and thus had the ear of the king who invited him to give his opinion on the battle Hague repeated his criticisms the king seemed delighted that Sir John French had been appointed to the chief command of the British expeditionary Force he asked me my opinion I told him at once as I felt it my duty to do that from my experience with Sir John in the South African War he was certain to do his utmost loyally to carry out any orders which the government might give him I had grave doubts however whether either his temper was sufficiently even or his military knowledge sufficiently thorough to enable him to discharge properly the very difficult duties which devolved upon him during the coming operation with the Allies on the continent in my own heart I know that French is quite unfit for this great command at a time of crisis in our nation's history the Outburst brought charges of disloyalty and careerism against Hague although these were steadfastly denied by him in his own mind he was simply convinced that he was the man for the job that French's recall to England was the right thing for both the Army and the country God was firmly on his side Hague was a complex character we have to say that at one level he was a born in trigger after all he'd used his wife's connections with the royal family she was a lady in waiting to the queen I think it was in order to actually ditch his predecessor General French he was prepared to do that he was also a very inarticulate man famous phrase goes he was the only person ever been known to be totally inarticulate in two languages because he prided himself about his French but he was a very shy man and they found it very difficult to express himself particularly when talking to troops or even to officers Hague of course believed that the battle of the psalm was going to be the war-winning battle he was always the eternal optimist of course it might be called his greatest strength someone regarded as one of his weaknesses rollington on the other hand had much more limited ideas about what was going to be achieved he hoped to break in and perhaps even unlimited breakthrough but he had no idea of finishing the wall with great devastating blow now Hagan Rawlinson were old friends in fact Rawlinson was in many way a protege of Hague he'd been keeping an eye on him for several years from before the first World War but of course Rawlinson was an infantryman Hague was a Cavalry man and that was quite important in this case we often hear about hey overbearing critics and so forth but in this one case he listened to Rawlinson as a cameraman with great little respect and in many ways it was raw incense concept of the battle which was put into operation from the 1st of July 1916. Hague felt strongly that the big Allied push should have been made on the Western Front in early 1916. but his plans were thrown into some disarray by the news of the massive German attack at Verdun in February of that year hague's original plan had been to attack with the French to breakthrough Beyond The Trenches into the Open Country and bring the war to an end that very year but with so many Frenchmen involved at Verdun the plan had to be revised and its objectives redefined they were now threefold firstly to relieve the Friendship Verdun secondly to inflict losses upon the Germans and finally to place the British Army in positions favorable for the final victory in 1917. the place chosen for the assault was a 16-mile section of the front in the Uplands of piccade near the river Somme a site considered more suitable than the swampy marshylands to the north the area had been fought over many times before Henry V in the Hundred Years War by Louis XI and Charles the Bold and perhaps most famously by Napoleon in 1814 the sector had been relatively quiet with French and Germans operating a Live and Let Live policy until the British took over but the increase in British activity persuaded them to strengthen their defenses this was the worst possible outcome of the increased British intelligence gathering raids and shelling by June 1916 the Germans were very well dug in later years none other than Sir Winston Churchill noted the French and British Commanders had selected for that offensive what was undoubtedly the strongest and most perfectly defended position in the world the German positions Always On The Higher Ground offered uninterrupted views of the surrounding Countryside crucially they were often cited in positions overlooking the British trenches it was later observed after the battle that the most experienced Army would have had difficulty taking the trenches most of kitchener's army had yet to fire a shot in anger Hagan trusted the main thrust of the attack to the new fourth Army under General Sir Henry Rawlinson Rawlinson had seen action in Burma and had fought the Boer War and was an experienced infantryman he was to be a central figure in the coming battle the fourth Army was ordered to take the German positions from Ser to montuba its most southerly point and the river Ankara the ever optimistic Hague even ordered the bringing up of three new Cavalry divisions commanded by Lieutenant generals are Hubert Gough who were to exploit any gaps in the German lines achieved by rawlinson's fourth Army and push on into open ground behind the Enemy Lines Hague sensed that this may be the cavalry's last opportunity to play a major role in battle and he did not intend to see the chance wasted to ensure the fourth Army had the best chance of success Hague ordered a simultaneous diversionary attack from the third Army to the north to these men fell the task of assaulting gomcor a well-defended german-held salient the attack thus had the Dual role of taking the Salient and creating a diversion for the major attack to the South the commander of the third Army was General Sir Edmund Allenby he and Sir Douglas Haye cared little for each other and Allenby was unimpressed by the battle plan crucially there was to be a one-mile gap between the fourth Army to the South and the third Army's diversionary attack which Alan B knew would leave his men exposed to German fire on three sides he therefore felt it could not succeed as a diversion and furthermore would have little chance of gaining its objectives allenby's doubts were considered but not accepted Rawlinson had been much impressed with the opening of the German attack at Verdun where he had seen their artillery smash the French front lines preparing the way for the Infantry and he therefore determined on a similar strategy on the Somme he decided on a massive bombardment of the enemy position using every available piece of artillery lasting five days and nights Rawlinson would wait until the trenches were totally destroyed then send in his infantry to mop up the prolonged artillery bombardment was also intended to completely destroy the long thick belts of barbed wire which defended the enemy trenches the Infantry would then be followed by the Cavalry who would move through to begin the pursuit of the shaken enemy there were certain tactical disagreements between Hague and Rawlinson and in particular rawlinson's plans for the fourth Army Hague favored a shorter barrage and felt strongly that the German line should be rushed in the traditional manner immediately the artillery ceased firing Rawlinson disagreed arguing that a charge by an over-excited inexperienced Army would be chaotic under the lengthy artillery barrage would kill most of the front-line German troops anyway eventually hey the Cavalry man deferred to rawlinson's Greater infantry experience and it was his plan that was finally adopted a five-day artillery barrage followed by a measured advance to occupy the devastated German positions the plan agreed the British prepared for July the 1st and behind the front lines whole divisions rehearsed for their part in the attack dug tunnels under key points in the German trenches to lay several massive mines which were to be detonated shortly before the main attack began in addition food and ammunition will move to the front line in enormous quantities General headquarters had the unpleasant task of preparing for the expected number of casualties but upon seeing their detailed plans Rawlinson thought their provision inadequate with reference to the evacuation of the Wounded from the fourth Army area I consider it essential that means of evacuation by trains should be provided for at least 10 000 wounded per day in order to avoid undue overcrowding and discomfort for the wounded in the casualty clearing stations and other medical units in order to evacuate this number 12 ambulance trains and six improvised ambulance trains will be required daily by the army it appears to be necessary that the number of trains available for the fourth Army should be considerably increased if the delays which I understand occurred during the lose fighting in September last are to be avoided the plans and preparations were believed to have been the most meticulous ever made for an action by a British Force surely as Rawlinson envisaged all the men had to do was wait for the massive guns to do their work then move across no man's land and into the smashed enemy trenches which will be full of dead Germans or days survivors waiting to be taken prisoner their officers were confident you will be able to go over the top with a walking stick you'll not need rifles when you get to teep Val you'll find all the Germans dead not even a rat will have survived a brigadier general the king's own Yorkshire light infantry was even more confident when you go over the top you can slope arms light up your pipes and cigarettes and March all the way to pozier before meeting any live Germans Hague of course was hoping for a breakthrough a major breakthrough which would lead to the end of the war so it was a 17 Mile front from north to south and that is not even including the French sector south of the river Somme which we must remember there were two or three French cores involved in this battle we infected rather well on their sector the disaster was going to be around preliments on the British sector a great deal of importance was laid upon the preliminary artillery bombardment General Rawlinson clearly believed in the old adage that artillery conquers Infantry occupiers and so they had this five-day bombardment which of course sacrificed any concept of surprise uh preparation on the promise that that would destroy many of the enemy's positions Above All Above The Wire which in fact it didn't that it would cause a tremendous amount of shell shock and battle shock amongst the enemy which of course it didn't because they were mostly in 40 foot deep dugouts and of course the British were also going to fire these famous mines along the German front to really destroy parts of the sectors which they didn't because the Germans were rushed out with their machine guns into the huge craters and found themselves with new made positions courtesy of the British army but then the orders were given to these battalions of fresh very keen extremely kind of devoted troops motivated troops but they were not under any circumstances to rush forward they were to advance at the walk and that was going to be a disastrous detail in the events of the first hour of the battle of the soms we may see later on on June the 24th the unimaginable Thunder of the British bombardment began reigning shells upon the Germans without this fight day after day night after night their trenches were pounded in an attempt to flatten the positions and kill those that cowered in them not surprisingly a strain on the Germans soon became intolerable a German infantry man remembered the barrage ous first time I did someone clap down Museum sporting the language is knocked down initially the ferocity of the bombardment gave real encouragement to the British troops about to go over the top it was only towards the end of June when the destruction should have been all but complete the patrols sent out at night reported the ominous sighting of belts of barbed wire still fully intact their reports were arrogantly dismissed by high command who believed them to be the natural misgivings of nervous men about to go into battle for the first time for their parts Hagan Rawlinson remained confident Hague entered into his diary on the eve of the battle with God's help I feel hopeful the men are in Splendid spirits several have said that they have never before been so instructed and informed of the nature of the operation before them the wire has never been so well cut not the artillery preparation so thorough rawlinson's message to his troops if not particularly rousing was typically down to earth in Wishing all ranks good luck the Army Commander wishes to impress on all infantry units the Supreme importance of helping one another and holding on tight to every yard of ground gained the accurate and sustained fire of the artillery during the bombardment should greatly assist the task of the Infantry during the early morning of Saturday July the 1st the men waited in the front line from gomco to montoban the soldiers of the new Army were about to see the battle they had sought when they joined up who can imagine their emotions as they waited the guns still crashing over their heads there they were the pals the Chums the volunteers men of all ages and backgrounds at last about to do their sworn Duty early on that fateful morning the ground shook as the seven huge mines were detonated under the German trenches spewing Earth into the air at 7 30 exactly the guns fell silent the British troops stood in full pack Bennett's fixed awaiting the signal to attack then along the entire front whistles blew and men climbed over their parapets formed into waves as ordered and walked slowly towards the Enemy Lines it was now a Race Against Time the German machine Gunners scrambled from their dugouts dug out so deeply had been Untouched by the British barrage and set up their weapons in the deadly Race Against Time it was they who were the victors their reward was the unmissable target of thousands of British troops walking slowly towards them the guns opened fire and the Carnage started the British attackers were cut down by a frenzied murderous hail of bullets leaving no man's land strewn with dead and wounded within minutes entire battalions had been all but destroyed some having Advanced only a few yards this grainy shot with the dim figures struggling across the skyline is the actual footage of that Infamous attack primitive camera equipment and the huge distance at which it was filmed make it difficult to discern but against the hillside if you look closely can be seen the tiny ant-like figures of an army advancing to its duel the machine gun has poured bullets unceasingly into the oncoming British troops traversing back and forth across the lines of oncoming men a private in the Cambridge Battalion of the suffolks in the fourth Army's 34th division described the scene as the Battalion attacked la boiselle the long line of men came forward rifles at the pool as ordered Now Jerry started his machine guns let fly and down they all went I could see them drop him one after the other as a gun swept along them the officer went down at exactly the same time as a man behind him another minute or so and the next wave came forward well Jerry was ready this time and this slot didn't get as far as the others they were caught in a storm of bullets and I saw him in twirl round and forwarded all kinds of curious ways as they were here quite I like the way they do it in films the Cambridge Battalion were to lose 527 officers and Men during that first day of the battle the men of the third and fourth armies were mercilessly slain as they attempted to cross no man's land to add to their miseries the German artillery switched its fire from the British Reserve trenches and gun positions to the main attack sending accurate shelfire directly into their massed ranks those fortunate enough to escape the bullets and shells and actually arrive at the German wire face the next unforeseen problem The Wire supposed to have been cut to shreds was in most places completely untouched and even where it had been displaced the wire had sprang back into huge coils presenting an impregnable barrier to progress the men fought hard to cross but they inevitably became caught on the barbs presenting the Germans with more unmissable targets the wire soon became littered with the bodies of those enmeshed and machine gunned as they tried to struggle free during the first hours of the battle of the Somme there were many acts of individual and Collective heroism with the men of so many units displaying a selfless courage and dogged determination which ended in tragic loss of life the story of the four battalions of the tyneside Irish perhaps sums up this incredible but futile bravery the attack on La buazel was made by the 34th division under Major General ingleville Williams a popular Commander known to the men as Inky bill bozell was at the heart of the main attack and its capture was vital to British success as it lay on the main road to papomb and the German's second and third lines ingerville Williams had planned the two brigades of the 34th division would storm the front-line trenches behind the main British front line were placed the four battalions of the tyneside Irish in what was called the Tara ushna line this line was approximately one mile behind the main British Frontline Trench the two positions were separated by The Wide Open Spaces of avaka valley the tynesides were ordered to make a simultaneous assault and to sweep through the Gap created by the tyneside Scottish and other battalions to their front a collapse in German resistance would be exploited by the Cavalry under Lieutenant General Sir Hubert goth which lay in reserve but as we have seen the deeply entrenched German machine Gunners had not been destroyed by the artillery bombardment as they race to their positions they were confronted with a tyneside Irish Brigade with its 3 000 men walking down the completely open exposed slopes of the Tara and ushna Hills the German Gunners could hardly miss their targets and were soon unleashing a constant stream of murderous fire into the ranks wave followed wave and the townsiders were cruelly slaughtered as they continued their Advance still nearly one mile away from their own front line the two battalions on the Left Flank of the attack the second and third tyneside Irish were almost completely destroyed with very few from its ranks ever reaching the British main line however the first and fourth battalions moving over less exposed terrain continued their move forward until their battered survivors reached the British Frontline trenches they had seen their number pitifully reduced and their comrades killed in their hundreds but they did not stop or take refuge from the fire they pressed on towards their objective as ordered losing more men would each step of the way of the three thousand who began the attack fewer than 50 men made it across no man's land to the German lines where they met up with what remained of the leading assault brigades although they were isolated deep inside enemy territory they could clearly see the village of kontal Maison in the distance displaying astonishing bravery they decided to attack the heavily defended position and hopelessly outnumbered they were cut down to a man all that had been gained from their futile attack was the dubious distinction of having Advanced further than any other unit on the Battlefront the bitter and bloody fighting continued throughout the morning of July the 1st and by midday the extreme right wing of rawlinson's fourth Army the 30th 18th Eastern and seventh divisions had achieved nearly all their objectives with the 30th in particular gaining great success at montoban it was the only division on the Battlefront to complete its tasks for the morning the remainder of the fourth Army front line presented a picture of almost unremitting failure say for the 36th Ulster division which had Advanced albeit with many casualties beyond the German front line into the schwaben Ridout but even here their hold on the position was tenuous [Music] in all other sectors of the fourth Army front line attacks had been repulsed at gomcor the site of the diversionary attack the third Army met with the same terrible fate as a fourth Army to the South with allenby's misgivings about the attack proving tragically correct the 46th North Midlands division in particular to the extreme North were given a horrible morning I was shell-shocked I suppose at any rate I wasn't much use inclined to cry if anything in fact I couldn't stop it but it had been a total shambles the first two companies got across I was told to take Bee Company across to support them we had no idea that the whole attack was a diversion we thought we were going forward we had maps and plans of gomco we knew from information we'd got from local people exactly where every house was but the trouble was that gomcor stuck out in the middle of the line and we didn't attack it directly we attacked one side of the Chateau Park and the 56 division attacked on the other we were supposed to encircle it and link up the height but what we didn't know was that the Germans had so maneuvered and organized their line that this part which we weren't to attack was really their strong point they simply had a clear Field of Fire on either side and nothing to bother about in front [Music] and the Shelf art was absolutely appalling they were simply pouring shells down we just couldn't get across we didn't even get as far as the trench went dark well there was no trench left it was all hammered to blazes we got just about as far as our old front line and then it became quite impossible the company in front of me said it's no use we can't get over but we got orders to turn and try to make our way back to the Village one of my sub-alterns was newly out such a nice chat he must have had money and we used to tease him a bit because he's Batman was the family Butler anyway this young officer jumped out of the trench to try and organize the men pass the word and get them moving to the communication Trench and he was promptly killed just disappeared in an explosion the whole of the valley was being swept with machine gun fire and hammered with shells we got the men organized the best we could those of us who were left so many got and we'd never even got past our own Frontline trench and then we found we couldn't get back The Trenches were Indescribable we were simply treading on the Dead eventually my sergeant and I got out on top we were at the back of the company I heard a shell coming I remember thinking imagine just imagine hearing a single shell in the middle of all this din it burst above my head the sergeant was blown one way and I was blown the other he was killed I don't know how I got back I simply don't know how I got back it was murdered to the south of gomcor the 56th London division had in the face of fierce resistance captured the German Frontline Trench and it was the few successes such as these which gave the cameras their opportunity to record the first sightings of German prisoners however despite the londoner's success the 46th North midlanders to the north have been virtually wiped out so the planned link up between the two became impossible rendering the costly efforts of the 56th division all but useless it is difficult to accurately assess what the morning had cost in British lives but it is estimated that over 50 000 soldiers had been killed or wounded this in just a four and a half hours of fighting little had been gained for these enormous losses despite the almost superhuman courage and determination displayed by British soldiers along the entire front all they had to show were a few yards of shell ravaged ground and a pathetic trail of shaken prisoners in no man's land lay over half an army thousands dead many more wounded some unhurt but Sheltering in shallows and shell holes to these poor souls the day that had dawned so full of Hope for a decisive big push had turned into a blood-soaked terrifying nightmare and so as noon came and went the German Defenders could survey the battlefield in satisfaction for the big British attack had been broken and repulsed in all except three sectors huge casualties have been inflicted on the enemy and counter-attacks were being planned or made in all areas where ground had been lost great majority of the 60 000 casualties of first of July 1916 happened in the first 30 minutes of the day it was hellish the only word for it not only was all the German artillery zeroed down exactly to No Man's Land as one might have expected all machine guns were also firing on fixed lines from the German positions and in many cases troops did not even get out of their trenches it's a famous example of one battalion which lost two-thirds of its strength before it got to the front line in the support trenches coming up as the second wave so men were falling in literally hundreds in all directions and yet of course they went on at the walk remember not taking any form of cover the military dictate of the day said that any soldier who took cover would not come out of cover again he'd go to ground and stay there and everywhere the Germans are having really a most marvelous Target the afternoon offensive opened with a British desperate to salvage something from the morning's disasters but still renewed attacks were ordered against a well-prepared and confident enemy at free core on the right flank of the fourth Army the seventh East York's had relieved the 10th West Yorks who had lost 710 men in the morning's action at 2 30 they Rose from their trench just as their comrades had done only seven hours earlier and moved towards the enemy a single German machine gun raked their lines and before they had traveled 20 yards the order came to return to the trenches the three-minute assault had left 123 men dead or wounded on the extreme Left Flank of the third Army the shattered remnants of the 46th North Midland division were ordered to attack again and link up with the London Division behind gomcor commanders and soldiers alike could clearly see the hopelessness of their position but the realities were not so apparent to core HQ behind the lines Major General Stuart Wortley the divisional Commander was horrified by the order and forcibly expressed his extreme misgivings as a result of his protests the attack was twice postponed but eventually and reluctantly Stuart Wortley agreed to commit two companies to the assault however further disaster and Misfortune awaited them as a company Commander recalls I was promised an artillery barrage and a smoke screen I pointed out that most of the mortars that fired the smoke bombs were out of action but I was told the attack must go on The Trenches were so muddy and overcrowded with Wounded men that I had great difficulty in deploying my four platoons but eventually they were ready my own CEO came up 10 minutes before the attack was due to start he watched the spoke screen and the bombardment which were quite inadequate the one area of cheer for British High command during the afternoon came at mahmets between free Corps and montema where spirited Fighting by the seventh division supported by accurate artillery fire had resulted in the capture of the village this footage shows my Mets on July the 5th four days after its capture but momets was an isolated success and little could be done to exploit it as the day ended it was obvious that the British big push had been a confused bloody costly disaster that night a captain begged me to shoot him is it went by the next morning and he died during the night some time later when I got back to the trenches an officer's certain stopped me coming in his Lieutenant was dying the soldier was training to catch his last words I heard the officer in his instructions that watch to be sent back to his family and he died and was allowed to come back in the afternoon story was in many ways of repetition on perhaps a slightly slower scale of the disasters of the morning apart from the capture of the famous mametera doubt which is probably the most important position which we did achieve on their first day of the song the casualties were now mounting horrendously so the battle raged on by the end of course we have that terrible total which is normally simplified down at 60 000 casualties twenty thousand of them dead contemporary news reels naturally over emphasize the small batches of German prisoners and did their best to exaggerate their size and significance compared to the anticipated Deluge of prisoners these tiny clutches of beaten men were a further disappointment to the high command fifty percent of the men who had attacked the German trenches on July the 1 1916 had been killed or wounded officers suffered an even higher casualty rate over 75 percent killed or wounded the small batches of prisoners were used to conceal the numbing truth that there had been two British casualties for every yard of the 18 Mile front from gomcor in the north to montoban in the south losses on that first day alone had exceeded those recorded in the Crimean War boa war and Korean War combined as the high command took stock of the situation on the evening of July the first they must have been bitterly disappointed by their meager achievements there was some small success on the right flank but abject and total failure in the center and on the left they must also have reflected for the first time on the catalog of errors and misjudgments that have cost so many lives but the battle was fought in a sector where the Germans had such a great tactical advantage indeed the few soldiers who had fought their way into enemy positions had been mortified to look back and see clearly into their own trenches overlooked by the German positions and of course no one had realized or suspected How Deep The Enemy dugouts were 30 or 40 feet deep some of them so well organized they enjoyed electric light some were even wallpapered the battle of the Somme was to rage on for another four months sucking in more men and precious resources by the second day even Sir Douglas Haye had seen and heard enough to observe that the news was not altogether good the psalm had one big strategic advantage of that there is no doubt the French found themselves with the Germans pulling back from Verdun so that great offensive came to a full stop the effect on the British public at large was the relative behind the war again to fight it with even more determination than ever both sides however suffered very Gravely we lost perhaps the flower of the British youth many of them but not all officers of course the Germans lost equally importantly almost a whole of their trained and experienced non-commissioned officers and we could still learn General Rawlinson although he took much of the Flack if we can use that later phrase for the effects of the battle and the 420 000 casualties we had sustained by the time the battle was closed down yet he was able to learn from his errors and it was the same general Rawlinson who in 1918 would take the lead in a great attack in the Battle of Amion when things went far better because the lessons of the song and above all of his early stages had been absorbed one other very important thing of course has came out of the song was the first use of the tank had it been used it would be a camera in next year 300 tanks in action there well who can tell whether in fact Hague would have achieved his breakthrough Victory after all in later years he said he didn't want a breakthrough Victory he'd only intended an attritional battle in order to help Verdun well that certainly wasn't the way that he briefed his generals and officers fight before it began he was going for victory oh that does no doubt at all as a human experience of unimaginable horror the memory of the psalm is Everlasting and The Haunting Echoes of the battle linga forever in the plaintiff voices of those who were there foreign [Music] at the ghastly horrors of war was submerged in the belief that this war was the war to end all wars and Utopia would arise what an illusion I made up my mind that if I ever got out of it alive there wasn't enough gold in the Bank of England to get me back again my strongest recollection was of all of those grand looking cavalrymen ready-mounted to follow the Breakthrough water five minutes after the attack had started the British public could have seen wounded struggling to get out of line would have been stopped by public opinion it was pure bloody murder Douglas Hyde should have been hung drawn and quartered for what he did on the Sun oh foreign

Channel: War Stories

Views: 844,397

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, battles, Full Documentary, trench warfare, world war 1, shell shock, battle of the somme, trench foot, verdun, ww1

Id: N-Ym4I2zxbc

Length: 60min 56sec (3656 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023