Arthur Conan Doyle

“ Whilst giving the German army every credit for its tenacious resistance and for the hard digging by which it constructed so many lines of defence that five months of hard fighting and a dozen separate victories had been unable to carry the attackers through them, we must still insist upon the stupendous achievement of the British. Nearly every division had passed through the fiery ordeal of the Somme, many of them twice and thrice, and each had retired with fresh honour and new records of victory. ”

“ None the less it is the opinion of skilled observers that the shell-fire alone, however heavy, could not have taken the edge from the inexorable insistence of the British attack. It is to the skill and to the personal gallantry of the German machine-gunners that the result is to be traced. The bombardment of the German line had been so severe that it was hoped that most of the machine-guns had been rooted out. ”

“ If High Wood had cost and was to cost us dearly to attack, it assuredly was not cheap to defend; and if their artillery had made it too deadly for our occupation our own guns must also have taken high toll of the German garrison. Such broader views are easy for the detached reasoner in dug-out or in study, but to the troops who faced the ill-omened litter of broken tree-trunks and decaying bodies it might well seem disheartening that this sinister grove should still bar the way. ”

“ It was a Homeric conflict, which lasted for the whole night, where men stood up to each other at close quarters, clearing away the dead and dying in order to make room for fresh combatants in the front line. Down Flers Trench and Drop Alley raged the long struggle, with crash and flare of bombs, snarl of machine-guns, shrill whistles from rallying officers, and shouts from the furious men. ”

“ The rest of the Thirtieth Division only lasted for a very few days, and upon July 7 they were facing the enemy position from Malzhorn Farm upon the right to Trones Wood upon the left, and were about to be initiated in that terrible wood fighting which cost us so dear. There is no fighting in the world which is more awesome to the mind and more exhausting to the body than such combats as these amid the ghostly atmosphere of ruined woods, with Death lurking in the shadows on every hand, and the thresh of the shells beating without cessation by night and by day. ”

“ Here for hours along the whole breadth of the wood the Welsh infantry strove desperately to crawl or burst through the tangle of tree-trunks in the face of the deadly and invisible machine-guns. Some of the 15th got forward through a gap, but found themselves isolated, and had great difficulty in joining up with their own battle line once more. Eventually, in the centre and right, the three battalions formed a line just south of the most southern cross ride from its junction with the main ride. ”

“ Once among the trees, all cohesion was lost among the chaos of tangled branches and splintered trunks, every man getting on as best he might, with officers rallying and leading forward small groups, who tripped and scrambled onwards against any knot of Germans whom they could see. On this edge of the wood some of the Fusiliers bombed their way along Strip Trench, which outlines the south-western edge, in an endeavour to join hands with the 50th Brigade on their left. ”

“ The fact remains that after two years of national effort the British artillery was undoubtedly superior to that of the Germans, the British Stokes trench-mortars and light Lewis machine-guns were the best in Europe, the British aeroplanes were unsurpassed, the British Mills bomb was superior to any other, and the British tanks were an entirely new departure in the art of War. It was the British brain as well as the British heart and arm which was fashioning the future history of mankind. ”

“ Time is a great toner down of superlatives, and the episodes which seem world-shaking in our day may, when looked upon by the placid eyes of historical philosophers in days to come, fit more easily into the general scheme of human experience. None the less it can be said without fear of ultimate contradiction that nothing approaching to the Battle of the Somme, with which this volume is mainly concerned, has ever been known in military history, and that it is exceedingly improbable that it will ever be equalled in its length and in its severity. ”

“ As evening fell, after that long day of fighting, the weary Eighteenth Division, splendid soldiers, splendidly led, held the whole line from Montauban to the junction with the Seventh Division near Mametz. One does not know which to admire most—the able dispositions, the inflexible resolution of the troops, or the elastic adaptability which enabled the initiative of the officers upon the spot to use ever-varying means for getting over the successive difficulties. The losses were very heavy, amounting to about 3000 officers and men, something under 1000 being fatal. ”

“ Strong men are shaken to the soul with the hysteria of weaklings, and balanced brains are dulled into vacancy or worse by the dreadful sustained shock of it. The more honour then to those who, broken and wearied, still hold fast in the face of all that human flesh abhors, bracing their spirits by a sense of soldierly duty and personal honour which is strong enough to prevail over death itself. ”

“ One hardly knows which emotion is stronger—one's pride in those who went, or one's contempt for those who bided at home. No one admired the splendid dash of the Irish stormers more heartily than the British Riflemen, who kept pace with them in their desperate venture. Equally brave, they were more deliberate in their methods, with the result that more than once pockets of fighting Germans who had been overrun by the Irish, but were still venomous, were cleared up by the Riflemen on the flank. ”

“ The defence was not everywhere equally desperate. As the Highlanders dashed past the trenches and into the scattered group of houses which marked the village, grey figures darted round corners, or rushed out with hands to heaven. Many prisoners were taken. Here and there groups of brave men sold their lives dearly, especially in some ruins at the east end of the village. The blast of fire from this place was so hot that for a moment the advance was staggered ”

“ This old, old nation's blood has flowed into so many younger ones that her own vitality might well be exhausted; but she has, on the contrary, above all the combatants, given evidence of the supple elasticity of youth, moulding herself in an instant to every movement of the grim giant with whom she fought.
Great as had been the success of the 53rd Brigade, it was not possible for them to get on to the Schwaben Redoubt, their ultimate objective, because, as will be shown, matters were more difficult upon the left, and one corner of the village was still in German possession. ”

“ This sector of attack, together with the one farther south which faced the Third Corps, presented peculiar difficulties to the assailants, as the ground sloped upward to the strong village of Thiepval with the ridge behind it, from which German guns could sweep the whole long glacis of approach. Nowhere were there more gallant efforts for a decision and nowhere were they more hopeless. ”

“ Long ago in unhappy civil strife they had shown their martial qualities, and now upon a nobler and wider stage they were destined to confirm them. It might well seem invidious to give the palm to any one of the bands of heroes who shed their blood like water on the slopes of Picardy, but at least, all soldiers would agree that among them all there was not one which could at its highest claim more than equality of achievement that day with the men of Ulster.
The objective of this division was the German position from Beaucourt-sur-Ancre on the north to the northern edge of Thiepval. ”

“ Machine-guns supported the whole advance. The right flank of the advance, being exposed to the German machine-guns, was shrouded by the smoke of 200 bombs. The night was a very dark one and the Canadian Scots had taken advantage of it to get beyond the front line, and, as it proved, inside the German barrage zone, so that heavy as it was it did them no scathe. The new German line was carried with a magnificent rush, and a second heave lifted the wave of stormers into the old British trenches—or the place where they had been. ”

“ The united losses of all the combatants, British, French, and Germans, must have been well over 100,000 between the rising and the setting of one summer sun. It is a rout which usually swells the casualties of a stricken army, but here there was no question of such a thing, and these huge losses were incurred in actual battle. As the attackers our own casualties were undoubtedly heavier than those of the enemy, and it is natural that as we turn from that list we ask ourselves the question whether our gains were worth it. ”

“ There was stark fighting everywhere with bomb and bayonet, neither side flinching, and both so mixed up that neither German nor British commanders could tell how the units lay. In such a case a General can only trust to his men, and a British General seldom trusts in vain.
As night fell in this confused scene where along the whole line the Eighteenth Division had reached its objective but had not cleared it, attempts were made to bring up new men, the Berkshires, a battalion of young drafts, relieving the Suffolks on the right. ”

“ So ready were the Germans that an observer has remarked that had a string been tied from the British batteries to the German the opening could not have been more simultaneous, and they had brought together a great weight of metal. Every kind of high explosive, shrapnel, and trench mortar bombs rained on the front and support line, the communication trenches and No Man's Land, in addition to a most hellish fire of machine-guns. The infantry none the less advanced with magnificent ardour, though with heavy losses. ”

“ As to the actual value of the troops, it can only be said with the most absolute truth that the infantry, artillery, and sappers all lived up to the highest traditions of the Old Army, and that the Flying Corps set up a fresh record of tradition, which their successors may emulate but can never surpass. The materiel was, perhaps, the greatest surprise both to friend and foe. We are accustomed in British history to find the soldier retrieving by his stubborn valour the difficulties caused by the sluggish methods of those who should supply his needs. ”

“ Yet from general to private, both in the French and in the British armies, there was universal joy that the long stagnant trench life should be at an end, and that the days of action, even if they should prove to be days of death, should at last have come. Our concern is with the British forces, and so they are here set forth as they stretched upon the left or north of their good allies. ”

“ The Fourth Division had also had a hard fight upon the right and had made no great progress. The French upon their right had been held up after an initial advance. The 12th Brigade attacked Dewdrop, but were unable to hold it. The 11th had seized Hazy, but their grip of it was still precarious. Every position was raked with machine-guns and clogged with the all-pervading and often impassable morass. In mud and blood and driving rain, amid dirt and death, through day and night, the long death-grapple never ceased until exhaustion and winter brought a short surcease. ”

“ At the break of day the 1st Gordons, supported by the 8th King's Liverpools, both from the 76th Brigade, made a sudden and furious attack upon those German strong points to the north of the village which were an ever-present source of loss and of danger. "Now and again," says a remarkable anonymous account of the incident, "during a lull in the roar of battle, you could hear a strong Northern voice call out: 'On, Gor-r-r-dons, on!' thrilling out the r's as only Scotsmen can. The men seldom answered save by increasing their speed towards the goal. ”

“ The net result, however, was summed up by the words of commendation from General Haig in his despatch, and there were some cases, as at Flers itself, where the work done was simply invaluable, and the machine-guns were nosed out and rooted up before they could do any damage. The adventures of individual tanks could, and no doubt will, fill a volume to themselves, some of them, either in ignorance or recklessness, wandering deep into the enemy's lines, and amazing rearward batteries by their sudden uncouth appearance. Several were destroyed, but none actually fell into the German hands. ”

“ On the evening of the 13th the troops mustered for the battle. They were all divisions which had already been heavily engaged, and some of them had endured losses in the last fortnight which might have seemed to be sufficient to put them out of action. None the less they were not only eager for the fight, but they were, as it proved, capable of performing the most arduous and delicate of all operations, a night march in the face of the enemy. More than a thousand yards of clear ground lay at many points between the British outposts and the German trenches. ”