The Battle of The Somme with (Mark Wheatcroft) Episode 1 The Somme Begins

The Battle of The Somme with (Mark Wheatcroft) Episode 1 The Somme Begins  

This is the first episode in a series dedicated to the Battle of the Somme, fought between 1 July and 18 November 1916. 

In this episode, Daz is joined by The Battlefields of Britain host and historian Mark Wheatcroft to explore the events leading up to the battle and the devastating opening day, 1 July 1916, which became the bloodiest day in British military history.

The Battle of the Somme was launched on 1 July 1916 as a joint British and French offensive designed to break the deadlock on the Western Front and relieve pressure on the French Army at Verdun. After a week-long artillery bombardment, British troops advanced across No Man's Land, expecting the German defences to have been destroyed. Instead, many German positions survived, and the attacking infantry suffered devastating losses. The first day of the Somme became the bloodiest in British military history, with nearly 60,000 casualties, including over 19,000 killed.

ACW & UK History's Website.
https://www.acwandukhistory.com/

ACW & UK History's Pages.
https://linktr.ee/ACWandUKHISTORY

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

To keep up to date with everything American Civil War and UK history, head over to our website ACW and UKhistory.com. And remember, this podcast has a PowerPoint presentation that goes along with the show. So if you would like to see the PowerPoint presentation, then head over to our YouTube channel at American Civil War and UK History. Cheers. Hello everyone, I'm Daz and welcome to American Civil War and UK History Podcast. This presentation is available as a video on our YouTube channel or as a podcast from wherever you get your podcast from. And if you're watching on YouTube, remember to hit the subscribe button and give us a big thumbs up. And to keep up to date with everything, American Civil War and UK history, visit our website at www.acwandukhistory.com where you'll find podcasts, blog posts, and links to all of our social media pages. The link is also available in the podcast description. And joining me today is Mark Weecroft of the Battlefields of Britain's podcast. Welcome, Mark. Hi Dan. Hi everyone. This is episode one of a series of podcasts dedicated to the Battle of the Somme. Just quickly, the Battle of the Somme was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the First World War, fought between July the 1st and 18th of November 1916 along the River Somme in France. Okay, then Mark, so before we get into the actual Somme and 1916, the war actually starts in 1914. So Britain and the outbreak of war.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah, so obviously, with the first world war, um, we could spend hours upon hours going into the causation. But in reality, we'll shorten it very quickly. That in the summer of 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archie Franz Ferdinand, is on a state visit to or visit to Savievo in what is today is now Bosnia. Uh it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and he's assassinated by a Bosnian Serbia Princip. And this leads to a domino effect that will eventually lead Britain into war. So the Austrians want revenge and want to take out on this uh on Serbia. So one of the key elements to this is that prior to obviously all this happening in the summer of 1914, is that Europe has split itself into two power blocks of alliances, um, one being the Triple Entente, which is Russia, France, and Great Britain, the other being the Triple Alliance, which was Germany, Austro-Hungary, Hungary, and Italy. So the Russians have had given their support to Serbia because they're a Slavic uh fellow Slavic nation. Germany had given their support to Austria-Hungary, and so those two were always going to be on a collision course. Now, what brings Britain into the war is an old treaty that was signed when Belgium gained their independence from the Kingdom of Holland. And this bit this policy or um treaty declared Belgium a neutral country. And why this is going to bring us the sharp focus and directly up against Germany is the it is that the Germans in 1905 had realized the predicament they were going to be facing should Europe go to war. And as I say, it had been a slow burn. So this from 1905, this was already being predicted. And what what they came up with was when the German field marshal von Schlieffen devised what is known as the Schlieffen Plan, which is a way to fight a war-on-two front very, very quickly. Now, to do this, there was a number of elements involved. First of all, they were anticipating a slow Russian mobilization because they've got their troops from all over the Russian Empire back to what would be their way the Russian Western Front, the German Eastern Front to fight that wars. They predicted that they would have some time. So that meant that they were going to law the plan was to launch a lightning strike against the French. And the way they were going to do that was to ignore the fortified border that existed between France and Germany, swing through neutral Belgium, and the actual plan was for the right-hand man's sleeve to brush the channel. That was how Belgium was going to do. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Nice one. Okay, so uh before the outbreak of war, and I've got some numbers here, um, and obviously you can explain a little bit about this, but how how big was the British Army at this point in time? And this is still sort of empire time, isn't it? So um yeah, tell us about the numbers and um and what we're looking at before the war actually starts.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yes, the numbers was it in terms of the large British power or the large European powers, Britain has the smallest army. However, what where it's different is that it is a voluntary a voluntary force. So these are all career soldiers. Whereas if you compare compare that to say the German army, for example, it's a conscription army. So although it is significantly larger than the British Army, it was able, they they use a conscription-based field. So it wasn't also as well trained, but it wasn't a professional army in the same sense that the British Army was. However, it did mean that they had a larger port of manpower to fall onto. Now, as you as you've got on that PowerPoint there, the regular army, that's the paid for they're the professionals, that's the day job. Reservists, these are people who have done their time in the in the regular army, they then go on to the reserve list so that in times of war you could be called recalled to the colours, a system that we've still got in place today. And then you've got the territorial forces, and that this is um what what today we call the army reserve. And these are the people who go about their daily business, nine till five jobs, and then one day or one one one evening a week they will parade at the local drill hall for some drill and then go away on a two-week manoeuvre camp during the summer. So that is a relatively relatively small compared to European powers, but very, very good, very, very professional. And you will see that at places in the early war when this army is deployed, at places like Mons, for example, where due to the rate of fire that the British were able to put onto the German army, they actually underestimated the amount of machine guns that we had just because they were able to fight that many rounds a minute.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Okay, so let's talk about the uh expeditionary force. Okay, Mark, tell us about the British Expeditionary Force, the BEF. Um, of course, it's sent to Belgium, and just so tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, so obviously when we when initially we go to war, we go to war to fight for Belgian neutrality. So our initial place of um area of operations is Belgium, and the BEF is the name of the force that is sent to France. So you tend to, if you read a lot of books about the First World War, the British Expeditionary Force actually just becomes the name of the army that's served on the Western Front throughout the most of it. Although over the course of the period it there's various incarnations of it, which we'll go through probably later on in the podcast. But this initial force goes out in the summer of 1914, much to the Secretary of War at the time, General Kitchener, wanted to keep that force in the UK because he knew that he did need to build up what will later become known as Kitchener's Army, the volunteer army. But he was hoping that this unit, the the expeditionary force, regular army, could be used to train and build that unit up. But unfortunately, circumstances dictated that we needed to get troops to France quickly to stop a quick German victory. And so the initial force went over, this was the regular army. It was then supplemented by a territorial force going over, and then eventually you get the new army, Kitchener's army, which is made up of his the volunteers who signed up in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of war. And so you get it it goes through a number of different um permutations, and then towards the back end of the war, you then get almost what you'd like to call the conscript army. Just once the volunteers sort of dried up and conscription was brought in, they were that was uh the next phase of it.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

And of course, you mentioned Kitchener there, and uh I've got the uh recruitment post there, that's the the famous one. Um but yeah, tell us about the drive to to get volunteers. What so what what was the so again? Okay, yes, Britain's army is fairly small, but it's when you look at it on paper, there looked fairly decent size. So, why why did they feel like they needed to get more men on you know into the armies?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

So you're gonna be looking at a number of things. First of all, the sheer size of the enemy force, what they can deploy, because like I say, the German army was was a conscript army, an army of national service possibly is a better better way to put it. So anyone uh as as boys came became came of age, they had to do a mandatory two years military service followed by a number of years on their on their version of the reserve list. So when war broke out, they've got a large pool of trained soldiers to bring back to their colours to fight. Obviously, we've got a empire police force, is what our army's for. The British modus of operando when it came to defence at the time was the Royal Navy, and we can't forget then when we're discussing the the British Army in the First World War, but that all the money on defence went to the Navy. That was we we ruled the waves, it we were an I Nation Island, we rely heavily on imports, so keeping those sea lanes open was where defence spending went. So we needed to we needed to bring up the army to master. Plus, as well, you've got generals that are all that are seeing potentially what was to become in terms of the the battles, the casualties. Because when you look at the the the 50 years leading up to the to the first world war, you've got things like the American Civil War, you've got the you've got the Boy War. Western European power since the victory at Waterloo. So into we've we've also fought in Europe against um Russia in the Crimea, etc. But this is the first time that we're coming up against someone that's going to be at a similar level to us. You know, the Germans that they've had a large increase in their navy as well, so that they're they're they're challenging on that front, they've got a large army that's deployable on continental Europe. The forces needed the large recruitment drive began. And there was there was an appetite for the war at the time as well. So when war broke out, millions of men flocked to the colours, even before things like that, the those those sort of those famous recruiting posters actually came out, like immediately after war was declared. So one of the battalions were when we get on to talking about the somp that we um we looked at, um I'll speak about, which is the uh 16th Royal Scotts McCray's famous battalion, where at the start he he was a prominent person in Edinburgh. He said he would raise an army in a battalion in seven days, and he did it. And one of the reasons why he did that was that he rode his horse onto Tyne Castle Stadium, the home of Hartz and Middelovian, and basically recruited the entire crowd at the football match on the Saturday afternoon.

unknown 13:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

So people that there there was there was an appetite of patriotism, and there was an appetite because the obviously because the war was building, it was more of a matter of if not when not if war would declare when it finally did that it finally did break out, there was a a large um a large calling to support the country.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yeah. Okay, so um this of course included a famous POWs uh battalion. So what was special about these uh battalions?

SPEAKER_01 14:31

So the British Army had undergone in recent times from 1944, it's undergone a number of reforms and those reforms started to try to make the regiments more area-based so that people so that people who were signed up to join the army hadn't had an affinity to your county, for example, had it had their own regiments. Uh so where you'd be down in Kent, you'd be the uh the East Kent, East Kent's the Buffs, uh, but the Royal West Kent's as well, you've got the SX Regiment, for example, from where I'm from. Um but there was a special thing with the Powers Battalions. So Powers Battalions were going to be part of what they call so is part of what they call service battalions. So they you had the initial regular army battalions, then you had your territorial battalions, you had extended territorial battalions. So, for example, one of the pictures that I've got of my great uncle who was killed on the Somme in September 1916, and they are the 2nd 6th Battalion, 2 6. And when I dug into it, the 6th Battalion of the Essex Regiment were based at Stratford, which is where he signed up. So, what it meant was that the battalion had reached its its unit strength, the 6th Battalion, they were the first 6th 6th Battalion, they went off to do their training and deployment, and then they retract, they they started again, it became the 2nd to 6th battalion. Um, but with the Powers Battalions, um then you got service battalions coming in, and these were battalions that were being raised purely for the duration of the war. As soon as PCs declared that these battalions are going to fold and disband. So they're service battalions, but the key element that they brought up to this was that there was a promise that anyone who joined one of these service battalions, whether this uh and the the these these these battalions, these powers battalions, tend to not always, but they tend to be more recognizable in the north place that Sheffield, uh Aquinton, Leeds. They've all got these Powers Battalions. I'd say there's nearly every town has a Powers Battalion, but the the promise that was given to the men who were signing up to join the Powers Battalions was that they would not be broken apart, they wouldn't be sent, they wouldn't get to a depot and then be mustered into other units to replace fallen soldiers, they were sticking together. So if you signed up together with your mates, you will stay together with your mates. So you had factories for forming companies where uh and what you'd get is that they'd use an actual hierarchy of that to build the battalion. So, for example, if you're if if you're a mill worker, if you're a mill worker uh in um Accrington or somewhere like that, then you'll find that most likely your company commander would be maybe the son, the son of the owner, then your farmer will be your sergeant. So you've got this natural structural natural hierarchy already built into the places that are forming these battalions. But the promise is that you'll sort you you will go to France together, you'll live together, you'll serve together, ultimately means you're going to fight together. And as we'll see on the first data sum, this is something that wasn't quite fully thought through as to the impact that this would that this would have. But at the time in like in the early days of the war, 1914, early 1915, it seemed like a good idea to get people to join up because it was a camarade who you're already joining up with the people who you've been to school with, you work with, you play football with, you go to church with, or all the aspects of a Dwardian life could come together in a powers battalion.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Okay, Mark, can you explain how the Western Front developed and what it was like prior to the battle?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Yep, so again, we we need to go back to early 1914. You've got so first of all, let's go back even further. 1870-71, you have the Franco-Prussian War, which is a decisive victory for Prussia against France. It ultimately leads to German unification, but also means that a large part of France, the Alsace and Lorraine, are annexed by Germany. So when the outbreak of war starts and this the idea of the Schreffen Plan, Germany knows France is going to launch a major assault in this area because it wants to regain this territory that they lost in the humiliating fashion in 1871. So what the plan is Schreifen's plan is would be was to weaken that area to allow a French incursion and then override had the heavyweight swinging round through Belgium. Now, unfortunately, before war breaks out on Schreifen parties away and Mokta, the German army commander in the west in 1914, is scared of this plan, so he pulls numbers of troops and divisions from the right hook as the best way to describe it, to reinforce this area. So you get what's known as the Battle of the Frontiers begins. Um the French Northern attacking that area, the German onslaught comes through Belgium, it's it's place out Antwerp. Belgium army puts up fierce resistance. Britain is deployed in a small area around Mons. We hold hold it out there, but eventually the German army just keeps pushing around, it it's too strong. Eventually, you get to what's known as the Battle of the Marne, and this is where this is the famous battle where the French troops are being ferried out to the battlefield from Paris in taxis, um, which, if you go to the French Museum in military museum in Paris at the Zimfilies, there's still one there. Um and at that point the German army is halted, and then what you get is a number of various different flanking movements in what's known as the race to the sea, and this is where each army's whether that's um French, British, Belgium, or Germans are each trying to count, uh trying to find each other's flank, turn them to get round. Um, but eventually by the end of 1914, beginning 1915, and it's in that it's during this period that you get, for example, the first battle of Ape take place, and that's sort of like the last vestige of Belgian territory that's non-occupied, and why it becomes such a crucial place for Britain to Britain to fight due to the reasoning behind going to war. Um, but eventually you'll get to the point, say late at 1914, early 1915, where this where the Western Front is running from the Channel Coast down to the Swiss border, um, all the way through what's saying Belgium, France. Um and there's no flank to it. So no one can turn, you're looking straight out. And the best way to describe it at this point is that it's the fortified border of Germany and France slash. Belgium, um being manned by being manned by Britain. And in terms of but because you've got such a large area of like this front's going for so long, there's a remarkable different landscape as well that we need to consider. So it's not all as most times it's it's portrayed in any anything, first world war where it's just a flat features plant, just if it's that nature, but not all, not everywhere. So as you come down start off of the um Belgian coast, up there nearport, down through to Dixmurda, especially if you flat coastal plains, what the Belgians do is they they open the um they open the sluices on the on the Riverisa, so a large chunk of Belgium is actually flooded to prevent um German troop movements coming through. You've then got the um the famous Eap salient again, fairly it's fairly flat country, it is rising, but when we talk about higher ground in the land eap, we're looking at tens of metres, nothing nothing more than that. But then in train like that, when you go to a certain go to a certain a region and look across, and you just see just how dominating it it can be. It then swings down along the Messenge Ridge to MTS, and then it cuts across what's known as the Douai Plain. Again, this is that fat feature landscape where you get places at the Battle of Luz in 1915, and it starts going up the escarpment up onto um the area around Vimy Ridge and not de la Ret, where the French will fight in 1915, the Canadians will eventually take the Vimy Ridge in 1917, around the city of Arras, and the fighting in that sector in 1917, then down on into the into the large into the Somme sector, where just north of the River Somme is generally the considered point where the British Nine ends and it becomes a French uh a French line from there. Ronwoods, I think it's Maria Corps, um the place where the um the two armies meet. And then from there you you'll you'll swing down, you've you've got the Vosges Mountains, you've got places about Verdun, and then down towards the end, you're you're almost in into the Alps. So vast, vast differences of terrain there as well. So that's going to dictate how the fighting's going to take place across the front and where, because as up in that place up the Vosges, generally there's a lot of let and let live actions going on where sort of it it's hard to fight in those conditions, so it's just literally a fortified position where you kind of watch the enemy make sure they're not there, if they're not attacking you, you're not attacking them, everything's good. Um, but then there's other sectors of the uh of the um of the um front where things are gonna be a lot, lot heavier.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Um okay, in in 1915 there is uh an allied conference. Uh what is decided there?

SPEAKER_02 25:14

So the Allied Conference 1915.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

So what what this isn't like the Allies in nine in the Second World War 42 onwards. We don't have a supreme commander at this stage. There will be, um, but that's that's later on. So each army is fighting independently. Um, you haven't got one C one person in senior command. Ultimately, that there's a number of aims that the different commanders want. So, first of all, the French are desperate for Britain to take over more and more of the Western Front. Um, up to this point, we're holding again, this is all give or take, the area around Ape down to Messines, they want us to start take start start taking over areas into France. And as troops are coming in, people like the Kitchener's New Army's divisions are arriving, we're we're finally getting up to strength to start taking command or taking control of places in France, and this is where at the beginning of 1916 we take over the sector what will be known as the Battle of the Somme. One of the other things that was discussed was that there will be a triple assault made, simultaneous assault made on German forces by the British on the Somme, the French on the Somme as well, so that it's gonna that join in point near Mariaco, you know, the British assaulting from the north, the French assaulting in the south, and the Russians will launch an attack in the east all simultaneously. So hopefully it means that Germany can't use divisions and reserves to move them around to counter the various threats. It's all gonna happen at once.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Okay, so let's talk about the Battle of Verdun. And uh so on the the 21st of February 1916, the German army launched a mass massive assault against the French at Verdun. Uh what were their aims?

SPEAKER_01 27:24

So the aims of the against Verdun is Verdun, go again going back a little bit, sits just to the to the west of the then border. So it it didn't get captured during the Franco-Prussian War, but it's close to the border, so it's a very heavily fortified town. And what the German aims was was if we could capture that, that will be such a humili humiliating blow to the French. They will do everything they can to recapture it. So it was either one of the two generals, I think it was Falkenheim, said the plan was to bleed France wet. In that you capture it, they will launch assault after assault after assault to recapture it, and the amount of casualties that they would that you would inflict on them will eventually leave it to the point where the French just have have to surrender because they've just lost too many men. I think it it definitely is the bloodiest battle of the First World War as well. It was known as the mincing machine. It is somewhere on the on my list of places to visit at some point.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah, I was actually thinking that while you were explaining it. I was thinking, yeah, so that's in fr that's in modern day France, is it now?

SPEAKER_01 28:43

That that's modern day France, yeah. It's quite a long, a long way in. It's on the way to uh Strasbourg. Remember we drove we drove through it when we went to Switzerland once back in the uh late 90s. Um but yeah, I've not actually sort of been to the um been there and seen it. So it's somewhere that that's quite a long old slog down there.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

So yeah, yeah. Okay, as you mentioned, this would be the longest battle on the Western Front. How did impact planning for the Somme offensive itself?

SPEAKER_02 29:21

It impacted a number of things.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

So, first of all, there's a there's some some sometimes there's a misconception in that Britain was forced to fight the battle because to take pressure off of Verdun. It we were already committed to fight that battle, so it wasn't like we then jumped at it and we were underprepared, etc. We were already committed to to fight that battle. Um when the planning stages was underway, beginning when the when the initial assaults of Verdun began, there was a number of dates put forward. So datewise was slightly affected by it because the French said, look, we need you to get on with it sort of in rather than sort of push it further back. Hague himself didn't really want to fight in on the Somme, he would prefer to fight in Flanders. Again, it didn't really matter where Hague wanted to fight. We were going to be fighting in France because that's what the French wanted us to do. It also meant that we could join up with the French units. What Verdun did impact was the amount of French divisions that were able to fight at the same time. So they're not going to be able to supply as many men in their sector as originally planned, but otherwise, pretty much we're going ahead with it as per the plans that Hague Hague has set out. So Hague is the commander of the the general of the British Expedition before Field Marshal Hague. He's subordinate in the set area that we're gonna look at, which is gonna be um the fourth army, is General Rawlinson, and it's Rawlinson, not Hague, who's gonna do all the planning for the battle. So, okay, why the SOB? Well, if you look at it and look at it today, it's a very rural area. You know, there's not a lot of strategic value there. Um but there's a number of reasons. So, first of all, as I said, you do have this area whereby you've got the joining of the two armies. That that that's that that that's a major thing. We can't forget that. That's where the the British and the French army are joined. So that if you're gonna do a joint offensive, where that's the best place for it to be. Also, you've got it sitting just above Amiens, which is a major railway hub as well. So for logistics for bringing in all the suppliers, everything you're gonna need to fight this battle. Bearing in mind that over a million shells are fired in the bombardment, which I think we'll come on to prior to the battle. That's a that's a lot of stuff you've got to bring in. You're bringing in all these men, you've got to bring in all the food, all the equipment, horses, everything that you need has to be so being being close to a major railhead like Amien, and then the shuttle up to Albert, that is um it is a good location. Also, another thing is it is at the furthest point of the German advance, so that it's at the point where their supply chain is most stretched as well. So if you're looking at it in that sense, it's probably one of the better places to fight.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

What was their objectives uh to this location?

SPEAKER_01 32:54

So this is where, and we'll probably come on to this in further in the series, but when we get to analyzing the sum, and we look at whether or not it's a victory, a defeat, etc., it becomes quite hard because the overall objectives are quite vague. Ultimately it's to make a breakthrough into break the German trench lines, penetrate inland, maybe launch cavalry in and basically get the get the war moving again. You know static warfare. You need you need to break static warfare to win to to win a war. You you can only really win a war. Short in the short term in a short space of time if it's a mobile war, when it's static like this, you're looking at basically think of it as a as a siege. And ultimately that's what wins it. That we don't you have that there's a siege warfare mentality. You've got the blockade working in the channel and then it it up in the North Sea. You've got the land fronts that are block that are holding Germany in, and eventually the war will be won by by a siege process more than anything, anything else. So the idea is to break in. So when you think get things up Black Hadder, and they're all talking about oh, we're gonna be attacking in two days' time, we're gonna be in ships in Berlin. That was never the plan anyway. It you know the the the actual objectives are quite vague, but it was just to sort of launch this major assault, break the German lines, penetrate in, and then once we get a war movement, then then we can look to see what unveils and how how then the plans would work. But in terms of yeah, this idea that ultimately there's things like capturing the town of Bapheim, which um which is 10 miles from Albert, straight down that that old Roman road, they are sort of the short-term objectives, so so to speak. But the long the long-term one, it was very, very, very vague. That's one of the reasons why Haig himself would prefer to fight as he did in 1917 in Flanders, because there's a bit more that you can go for. So up there it was to neutralize uh to capture the Belgian coast, neutralize German U-boats operating out of places like um Ostend and places like that. Um but on the on the s on the song, because it is such a um because it is such a small uh not small, such a rural landscape environment that you haven't got those sort of standards objectives that you'd look to that you'd look be looking to capture, like um like poles or railheads or things like that that you can make significant use of. It it it was almost just to roll into the open countryside and then and then sort of push on from there.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

So um most people or obviously have an image of the First World War battlefields flat, muddy, but the Somme at the start, and I know you've touched on this a few times um at the beginning of the podcast, um at the start of the battle wasn't like that. So talk us through the terrain of the battlefield itself.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Yeah, so the terrain of the Somme um will be one that you would recognise quite easy from being then Folkestone, because it's that same chalk downland that runs on the English Channel is running across on the southern side on the French Channel. So it's that same seam of chalk, so it's rolling hills, it was meadowland in 1914. Obviously, you've had two armies camped there dug in since then, and that grass has grown, so it's long. Um there was when you read the um the testimonies from the first day, they were saying that they were going into the grass and it is up to their waist in height because it's just not it's obviously not been cut. The only time it gets cut is when a machine gun goes off and straight some down. So it it's very flat, it's dry, um, it's it's not muddy as as we move on into the autumn part of the battle. Obviously, you start getting the infamous white sun mud from the chalk, but at this stage it's not so it's nice and dry, um, it's pleasant. Um grassland, it's not that archetypical. That that that image that people have of the First World War is a 1917 image um around during the Battle of Passionale, where the heavens opened the day the battle started and it didn't stop, and yeah, they were fighting through sort of knee-deep mud at times, but in on the summer completely on the first of July it was a completely different story.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Um, okay, so uh Sir Douglas Haig and his two army commanders, Rawlingson and Goff set about drawing up their plans for the battle. And uh so what were they?

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Yeah, so the the the plans for the the plans for the battle begins with a seven-day bombardment of the German position. So this is going to be the one of those bombardments in the history of warfare. Well over a million and a half shells fired um onto German positions. The initial plan was also air spotting um to see what's going on. Um, unfortunately, in the week before the battle of the Solomon, it was quite overcast, so the air the um the air crews couldn't get out, they couldn't see what was actually going on. Um so the the artillery bombardment is two the number of reasons for it. One, you're going to be using it to break up the wire. Um wire entanglements that's in front of the German trenches and need to get through. Um, best equipment to do that is shut the shelves. Um shelves are bursting in the air, blasting down a load of um metal balls. Hopefully they'll they'll um take bring they'll they'll bring the wire down, cut the wire. Also, you're using high explosives to um to to blow apart the German fortifications. What we need to remember is if we backpedal a little bit, is that when the German army was stopped and you had the race to the sea, they uh all places in the line, they're not on they're not in their own territory. So they're able to pick and choose the land that they wish to defend. So in a lot of places, the Somme being one of them, um, you find in France and in Belgium this marker post, and it it shows the point at which the the furthest advance of the German army, the point that the the French army stopped the German army. Now, the one on the Somme is just outside the town of Albert, which is the main the biggest town off in the Somme, British Somme sector. And it's quite close to the roundabout now that the um Ibis Hotel is. If you've um know the Somme, a lot of people that go there probably stay there. Um I normally stay at. And but then they sort of pull back a good few a good couple of kilometres, and they do that because what they're doing is they're taking the higher ground everywhere. The Germans across the Western Front have nearly always got the higher ground because they've got the they had that ability at the time to withdraw. You know, they're already deep within enemy territory, their aim is to hold on to it until peace is sued for, and what what's an odd kilometer of the farmland if it means that we are they're able to hold an advantageous position. So they're in that position. Obviously, we said some area of it is uh chalked downland, so it does enable good tunneling. So you've got deep concrete that they've got deep concrete dug outs for shelter, deep trenches. Again, they're on the defensive, they're the they're the ones that are trying to be moved. So where the British trenches, the archetypal trenches that we think of in the First World War, which are sort of mud filled, held up with corrugated iron and sandbag, is because the Brit in the British doctrine for trench warfare is that we will attack the jumping off points for attack. The the doctrine that the Germans are pursuing is that entrenchments are defensive structures, so they're they're able to go to town a lot more in terms of their construction. Happy at a sea ground if it means um using a rotation position. So we've got this bombardment going on um for the week before the battle. You've also got a number of um mines being laid. So most famously Hawthorne Ridge, um, which is up near Bourmont Hamel, um, and then you've got two big ones, the two biggest ones on there Stradin, either side of the Albert Bapheum Road, so Wyasack, which is on the north side of the Albert Bath Road, which was fielded in it in the 1960s, 1970s, um, and then the the most famous of them all Labasell crater, just to the south of the Albert Bapheum Road. Um, and all of these will be blown up prior to the men going over the top. Um, Hawthorne Ridge was a bit contentious because there were arguments about when it was going to be blown blown and eventually it does blow. Although on time, um with obviously with the um with the benefit of hindsight, it was blown too early because it did signal the the attack was going to take place.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

So that brings us to uh July the first, uh, and uh at 7 30am, the whistle whistle blew inventory was sent over the top from north to south. Can you talk us through um what happened?

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Yeah, so obviously you get the assaults going in, so there's numerous points along the line. Um different things are going to happen. Um starting off, the bet the best way to do it would be to go from north to south. So start off, you've got the area along the road that leads to the the village just there. And as I've already discussed, the Powers Battalion is quite a good place to start because. Because that's where they're going to go into the attack. So just on the aspects of Sarah today, you've got a number of cemeteries and memorial parks. Servo number two cemetery, which is the largest concentration cemetery on the Somme. But also just beyond that is what's known as Sheffield Memorial Park, and this is Memorial Park to the Powers Battalions. And when you go there, you can there's actually the small undulation of the trench still there, and you look up and see the rise of the land and see where the German positions are. And you can see why it's going to be such a devastating blow. Troops go out over the top, German machine gun and rifle fire open up, machine gun fire, German machine gun fire, they use a tactical what they call it indirect fire. So what they do is they'll crank the um crank the bell up on a on a good elevation. The opening seems to save in private behind when you've got the guy in the pillbox with the MG42 and he's mowing straight at them as they're coming off of the boat. The idea behind the type of fire that the Germans will have will put down on the front on the British on the 1st of July is actually to fire high into the air, and then what's going to happen is that's going to start coming down almost like raindroplets. So what you're doing is you can then converge fire on and just put bullets into an area. And then once you start putting bullets into an area, they're going to start hitting targets. So it's less about accuracy and more about just covering ground. You'll see if you were up there as well, the um battlefield symmetries and see just how far they got. They didn't get very far. And just to put it into uh context, um Accurate and PALs, um, which are the 11th Battalion Eastern Anks part of the 31st Division that attack into Sare. Um, in less than 30 minutes, they lose 720 men, 558. Um of 720 men, 550, 585 are casualties, 235 which are killed, the other three 50 are wounded. And the Sheffield City Battalion, 12 Yorkshire Lanks, again part of the 31st Division, is eight officers killed, nine wounded, 426 other ranks killed, and 400, and 246 other ranks killed and 249 wounded. So when you've got a battalion of 800, then you start removing um the desired designated 10%. So 10% of the battalions were always left behind in an attack. Um, it's to create a cadre of the battalion, should something like this happen, that it can be reformed around, then you think then you take away ones who were sick, um, detached duties, things like that. You can see just how devastating it was. And when you then look um in terms of as we were discussing about the Power Battalions earlier, where they all come from these one communities. Imagine when this news that these news of the losses starts coming in in the next few days and the impact that that's gonna have on those towns. Um then from there to there you come across the up and over onto the Verdam Ridge, down onto the dam ridge into the into the Sunken Road. So this is where the um fusiliers um Lancaster Fusiliers, but it's a fusilier regiment, I can't remember exactly which one. They've dug tunnels in from the trench lines into the Sunken Road, and this is the um famous mailings film. Um one similar to similar photographers goes in there and films the guys before they go in again. Um they go at top straight into the um into the fire and are pretty much stopped quickly. Um from there you go up onto Hawthorne Ridge, so just behind where the Sun Calane was, is where Malin shot the um the film of the Hawthorne Ridge mine crater going up and up onto Hawthorne Ridge, and then it swings round, and then you get to what today is the Newfoundland Park Memorial Park. So this is another desperate scene of fighting, it's where the um 29th division go in. And today it's known as Newfoundland Park because the people in Newfoundland in the aftermath of the war had a subscription so they could buy the piece of land where the Newfoundland regiment was decimated. They weren't the only decimation decimated regiment there, they were the third wave to go in. So when you go there, if you look on the if you go there, if you look on the ground in the car park, you can see painted coronations of trenches. And that's actually where they start their assault from because they can't get up to the frontline trenches because that those frontline trenches are support trenches that are full of Windy soldiers. So they don't actually go into the attack until 9:15 that morning. So you've already had nearly two hours of fighting, two hours of bloodshed where we're not British for British troops in this area just aren't getting anywhere. And when they go over the top, they killed or missing is 324, wounded 386. When they answered when they formed up for roll call, there were 68 men on parade for their role call. So again, this northern sector, like when people think about how Bladdy and Deadly the first Addison was, it's this northern sector that's the real devastating area. It's not good uh for most of it, but this area is just utter carnage up here. You then from um from the founding part, the area around Bowman Hamel, you come down, the line swings down, it goes through the the hamlet of Hamel itself, down to where you can see on the map the railway line um across the Ankara River, and then it starts going up, and this is climbing now up onto the the the Tirtvale Heights. So, again, today if you if you're coming up that road, off directly ahead of you will be the um the Tirtvale Memorial to the Missing. To the left, you're gonna get the Ulster Tower and Milro Cemetery, and then on the right is the Connaught Cemetery, and then behind that's Tietvale Wood. And it's from Tiervale Wood that the um the next um unit I'm gonna talk about is the um 36th Ulster Division. Um they attack on what is known as the Schwab, what's known as the Schwaben Medal, one of the main pinnacle points on the um German defences. Uh, you can just see it on the bottom right of your map there. Um and this is one of the success stories. So we do it the I the Ulster Brigade, um, they've got an interesting story. Um, most these are all um Ulster Unionist Um people. And in 1912, you get the Ulster Unionist Bill, um the um Irish Home Rule Bill comes into um comes before Parliament and prominent people in the in the Loyalist community start raising paramilitary units, uh units like the UVF, Ulster Volunteer Force. And when war breaks out, they said that we're loyalists, we're unionists, we're part of Britain. So those those forces deploy and are mustered into service in in the British Army, and they attack from the T Fellwoods onto Schwab and Madame, I say they do manage to get in. What happens when they get in though is that the Germans they've already got counter-attack planning. So the artillery is already German artillery is already ranged in. So when the um Ulstras get into Schwab, that artillery fire starts falling into no man's land. And what that does is that cuts the troops that do manage to make that break that break in off from any any support and any retreat. And it means that the counter-attacks can come in and it that they they get over, they get overwhelmed and they get they get forced out. So we don't we they don't manage to hold on to that, but they do get in there. But before they do attack, you get the first VC one on the 1st of July, and it's won by an ultimately the 14th Royal Irish Rifles called Billy McFadsian. And McFadzian uh was trained as a bomber in his unit. Um, so he will be um in charge of the Mills bombs, hand grenades, and bombers would be that that they're well trained in their jobs, and they will be going in alongside to bomb out German positions, dugouts, things like that. And what they're doing is they're they're prepping their their arming themselves, and a box of the Mills bombs falls off onto the floor, and one of them, the pin falls out, and they're in the trenches, it's cramped, it's combined. But Fadzian knows if this goes off what it's gonna do to him and his mates, and he doesn't think twice about it, he drops himself onto this grenade, this live grenade without the pin and takes the blast. It kills him outright. However, he's awarded the VC for his actions, it saves numerous the lives of his mates, the rest of the ones that are close by only suffer minor wounds. And actually, on the day that uh King George V presented the VC to McFansian's parents, he said, out of all the VCs that I've given out, this one's the bravest.

SPEAKER_02 55:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

Yeah. Um so yeah, from there so you then swing round, you come past the ruins of the Teethale Chateau, past the grounds where now the um magnificent memorial to the missing stands, and then it swings across past the Leipzig Redal, across what's known as Mat then across what's known as Mash Valley, um which um you'll understand why it's called Mash Valley in a moment, and then up to the Albert Bapan Road, which dissects the battlefield. From there it's a short hop across through the um village of Labacelle and to the outskirts where in the morning one of the two my or both of the mine are blown in this area um shortly before the battle, one at White Sap, as I say, north of the road, and then Lava Sell to the right, and this is where um McCrae's battalion. Um, this is the 16th Four Scots, part of the 34th Division. Um this is a this is the regiment I spoke about earlier when um discussing um units being being brought into service, and it's raided by um Sir George McCrae, a prominent person in the Edinburgh community and politician. He said he'd raise the regiment in seven days, and he did. Um he raised it, he did a lot of his recruiting on a Saturday afternoon at Tyne Castle Stadium, at home of hearts, Middle Over Football Club, and of their number, 16 players are amongst their um amongst their number. And they attack at La Bacelle after the um explosion of the crater. And again, this is another area where they do make um significant gain, they do make gains, they punch through, they get through La Bacelle, out the other side, and they actually enter the village of Contamaison alongside I think it's the Tyne Side Irish, um get up there as well. Um again, they're only there in small number, they get pushed back quite quickly and quite easily. And of the 814 men that are assaulted that day, 585 are going to be casualties. Um, and then it swings out of Contamaison around to the south of Mame, and then um heading down towards Montaban, and then the last regiment I'm going to talk about because there are so many to talk about, um, is the 8th Devonshire Regiment part of the 7th Division. That's that attack Mame from the south towards from Manselkops. And a lot of these names that we're saying now as we go on and go deeper into the battle as we go through July, August, September are going to come out. So Mame, Mame Wood is uh it is a horrific battle that the uh the Welsh division are going to be in. Um but when the um when the Devonshire's attack from their position, their commanding officer had a premonition of he looked at the ground, he looked at their models and he knew it it was almost going to be suicide to attack there. Um and they out of the men of the eighth Devonshire's 50 are killed, 158 are wounded. When eventually the battlefield gets cleared and the bodies are brought in, they're placed in um in a former frontline trench, one of the frontline trenches that are assaulted from. And in the early days after the war and during the war, when before the Imperial World War's Commission, what's now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission uniformed the cemeteries to some degree. Um, there was a wooden sign up there, um, and it said the Devonshire's held held this trench, the Devonshire's held it still. And it's actually now on a um there's a a Portland stone marker that that has that epitaph on there. Um so the um when you look at the early battle brand, battle the early cemeteries, there's a there's different headstones and different markers and things like that. But obviously the um the World Grace Commission in the interwar years sort of formalized formalised them. They did great barricovers.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

Um okay, so obviously we know a lot of these losses can be uh attributed to the awful uh weapon of the machine gun, but also artillery as well. So just give us an idea of how oh well you've told us pretty much, but how deadly these weapons are, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Yeah, so so obviously that one there, that's a British machine gun team, that's a um Vickers um highlight of fire water cold um machine guns. Um, you can see um to the rear of it, you've got the um the screw there that allows elevation to be adjusted. So I can say you can put pitch on it, it it turns it into the non-direct fire. And what you find towards the end of the war as well is that um machine guns are almost acting like auxiliary artillery, um, that you're able to do fire suppression, all the things that you would do is artillery for machine guns doing it as well. Um, and then in terms of artillery, artillery you're gonna be looking at a number of different shell types that they're gonna be using. Um, so the ones there, they're they're your um that'd be all garrison artillery, the big heavy hanzers um firing, the high exposure shells. So these are your bunker bastards, so to speak, if you want to use sort of a modern-day terminology, big high explosive shells um to blow things apart, and then you're gonna have your your shield artillery and your horse artillery there on the 18 pounders. So, anyone that's um familiar with the um the King's Troop Royal Artillery, um the 18 Pandas that they pull are all um what all first world war guns, um, and they will be firing um a lot of the time um shrapnel shells. And when it when when you're looking at a fire, artillery fire in def artillery defensive fire against um infantry, shrapnel shrapnel is gonna be the killer. You know, if you if you look even at previous wars, you've got um canister sharp, things like that, just turning the turning um artillery pieces into large shotguns, and that's what they're gonna do, and it let that's what um cut off the ultra division uh uh TFL was the um the shrapnel bullets in case um I've actually got on the um stand there um a jar of relics that I've picked up over the years, and quite a few of the shrapnel shells have come from the Alpha Tower because they always have a few, there's always a train there. That it's always sort of like help yourself. Um but yeah, that that's um i if you do go over, definitely go to the Alta Tower and do their um do the tour of the T Vale trenches because what happens there is the Royal Irish Rifles, which is uh a current British Army Regiment, uh go over each year and recut them. So that's quite cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:59

Okay, so what actually happened to the wounded? Because there were so many of them, wasn't there? So what happens to these guys?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

Yeah, so we're we wounded, you've obviously the the there was um provision for the wounded, unfortunately, they're just gonna get overrun because the amount, the the sheer amount of wounded that is gonna be flooding back in over the next few uh over the next over those next few hours, days. Um so within the within within each um regiment, you'd have um you'd have stretcher bearers, so they'll be there, grab them, bring them back. You'd have your regiment at one way post, that that that's your that's your first point, you you you triage point as you will. Um they would have been sort of set up in the frontline trenches, maybe the small trench, sort of very close to the front line, and like I said, they're they're there to triage. Are you a quick wound that we can patch up? Are you a um are you a um back-to-base job? Are you too far gone? In which case all we're gonna do is pump you as with as much morphine as possible and and let you slip away. Um then from there you'd have your field ambulances taking them back to the casualty clearing stations. This is where you're gonna get better treatments, you're gonna get things that um surgeons, things like that, there that are able to do um do those sort of life-saving treatments. And then again, depending upon level of injury, you'd either be light wounds, you'd be patched up, sent back to back to your battalion fairly quickly, possibly put on night duties for a little while just to um get covered. Um, there'd be some provision there as well, sort of like on the medium term that you do, you'd have your recouping in France. And then the ultimate would be your your famous blighty wound, the one that gets the one that gets you home. Um, and that could be get get you home for a few months just to just to recoup. So, for example, uh a broken leg or something like that, um, that would be back home a few months and then you'll probably be deemed at some point fit for duty and back out there again. Or it would be um over and out, sort of thing that you you you're back, but you you're deemed unfit for future military service, in which case you'd be giving you papers. Um, later in the war, you'd also be giving you a silver war badge. Um that was to donate someone that had done their service and had been discharged, honorably discharged, um, so that they weren't given given white feather than a good care. Even though they've already been out there and done their time. But in for the most part, you that they all they majority of them would find their way back somehow.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:12

Okay, mate, thank you. Okay, so um obviously it's a bit of a disaster, isn't it? The uh the f the first battle of the Somme and uh the news uh that that that filters back and uh to to to Britain and and uh the high command, how did they all react to this uh this the you know this um disaster?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

Well it it took a while for it all to sort of say thinking, but come together just to how bad it was. So just to give you some numbers, um British forces on the first day of the Somme suffered 57,470 casualties killed or wounded, just shy of 20,000 men killed. So to give you to make that a visible analogy, the London Stadium holds 60,000. So you're 2,000 short of that. So that gives you an idea of the the the sheer number of people, and I think that sometimes it it can be hard to visualize that sort of number, but yeah, a foot a one of the biggest football stadiums in the UK is killed, wounded, or missing. That gives you an idea. In terms of how it how people react back home, um or the high command. The high command I think it takes a long time for it to come in. Um there were talks at some point that that there are rumors, and these uh there are all rumors about certain generals putting a pistol in their mouths and killing themselves. Um not one of them actually did that. Um I think in terms of but we we often look at the first world generals as these being these heartless generals, but they're there to win a war at the end of at the end of the day. You know, we see it we in the American Civil War with Grant, for example, um uh places out of Cold Harbor, he just throws men against it and against it and against it. Um when the move starts breaking back home, that at the end of the day there's still a war ongoing, so people are still sort of there's no sort of riots or anything like that due to the nature of the losses. Um, obviously, as we discussed things like the the Powers Battalions, this is where the idea of the Powers Battalion completely falls down, it's why from this point onwards they don't exist, they're not even thought of being brought into existence during the Second World War, is because the decimation it does to the population of that town. You know, all of the young men that go off to war and they just don't come back. You know, you're getting numerous there'll be there'll be streets in in these towns where not a single not a single family's or in these towns not a single family's gone untouched. You know, either they're a family member or their close friend, you know, it it's where it it's where it falls down with the the the power of battalions and it's the aftermath that really affects it. Um but as I say, it it has to it has to keep on going. So it wasn't a kind of shut it down uh completely. Um there's gonna be a a uh in terms of the battle going forward, there's gonna be a re a change of emphasis. Um the battle itself is gonna sort of predominate now in the southern sector of the battlefield. That northern sector where I think not a not a single foothold was gained is gonna be kind of shut down, but the um the southern sector's gonna keep on going um because there's a war, there's a there's a war to win, and there's a um you know the the French are still locked in that death threat or they're done.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:33

And the British Army needs to needs to do it its thing uh and and keep the and keep the fight going in in the Somme sector.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:42

Thank you, Mark, for telling us about the uh the first of July uh and the Battle of the Somme. Obviously, as we know, the Somme goes on as I mentioned at the beginning all the way till November of the same year. Um so there will be more to come and we will continue um delving a little bit deeper into some of the um battles that take place over that period. So, anyway, thank you, Mark. And all that is left to say, ladies and gentlemen, is cheers. Yes, thank you. Consumer war and UK history. Cheers.