V THE ATTACK ON THE LEFT

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July 5

Last night and this morning the enemy made attempts to drive our men out of their positions at Thiépval, but were repulsed with heavy losses. Their bombers advanced in strong numbers upon the Leipzig trench, south of the village of Thiépval, and at the same time north of the cemetery to St. Pierre Divion, but in neither case did they have any success.

At other parts of the line, between La Boiselle and Montauban, there were bombardments by the enemy’s batteries and by our own; and by hard fighting we have captured Peak trench and the important system of trenches known as the Quadrangle, north-east of La Boiselle and on the way to Contalmaison.

Standing to-day on the battlefield north of Ovillers-la-Boiselle, I was able to look over a wide area of the zone of fire, and to see our new positions. Straight in front of me was Thiépval Wood, marked by a ragged fringe of broken trees, through which appeared the ruins of the village.

Heavy shells were falling there and our shrapnel was bursting thickly upon the high ground held by the enemy. To the left of me was Beaumont-Hamel, opposite Auchonvillers, and the village of Authuille.

It is historic ground. A hundred years hence men of our blood will come here with reverence as to sacred soil. For over this stretch of country, a few miles wide, has been fought one of the great battles of history, and here many thousands of our men advanced upon the enemy with a spirit of marvellous self-sacrifice, beyond the ordinary courage of men.

They faced hellish fires, but without faltering. There was not one man who turned and fled at a time when the bravest of them might have quailed. They were all heroes worthy of the highest honour which may be given for valour in the field. Something supernatural seemed to animate these battalions of English boys and these battalions of Irish and Scots, so that they went forward into furnace fires at Beaumont Hamel and Gommecourt as though to fair fields, and when many of them stood in the very presence of death it was to the cry of “No surrender!” Then they went forward again to meet their fate.

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Their losses were heavy. It is tragic as well as wonderful, this story of our advance upon the German lines, when we captured their trenches by an assault that could not be resisted at first even by overwhelming gun-fire. I have spoken to Brigadiers who mourn many of their dear men. The agony in their eyes made it difficult to face them. The number of casualties was high, throughout the whole length of front on the left of our attack, and inevitable because the valour of the men counted no cost in their assault against positions terribly strong, as they knew, but not stronger than their resolve to carry them.

The enemy’s losses were frightful, too, and his courage great. It was because very brave men were on both sides that the battlefield in this region was strewn with stricken men.

They were men of the North Country who were on the left of our attack between Ovillers-la-Boiselle and a point south of Hebuterne. As soon as our bombardment lifted at 7.30 on the morning of July 1 the brigade left its trenches and advanced line by line in perfect order as though on parade.

The ground in front of them was wrecked by our shell-fire. Several times during the bombardment the trenches had heaved and changed their form, so that all the contours of the earth were altered. But there were many men still left alive below ground in the German dug-outs, those deep dug-outs of theirs that go below the reach of even the heaviest shells, and with them were many machine-guns and deadly weapons.

Behind them also was a great concentration of artillery, for it is evident that the enemy had expected attack here, perhaps our main attack, and had massed his heaviest guns at this point. His barrage was immense in its effect of fire upon our trenches and the ground between ours and his. To reach his line our men had to pass through a wall of bursting shells. Our own barrage continued intensely, but at the moment of the infantry attack the German soldiers stood up on their parapets in the very face of this bombardment and fired upon our advancing men with automatic rifles.

Their machine-gunners also showed an extreme courage, and with amazing audacity forced their way over the broken parapets into No Man’s Land and swept our ranks with a scythe of bullets. Numbers of our men dropped, but others went on, charging the machine-guns with fixed bayonets, hurling bombs at the men on the parapets, and forcing their way into and across the German trenches. Wave after wave followed, and those who did not fall went on, into the enemy’s first line, into the enemy’s second line, then on again to his third line, and by a kind of miracle even to his fourth line. There were men who went as far as Serre. They never came back.

The enemy’s guns kept up a continuous bombardment from 7.30 till mid-day, like an incessant roll of drums, and the ground over which our men continued to advance was cratered like a system of trous-de-loups. An orderly who tried to come back with a message from the men in front was buried three times on his way, but struggled out and delivered his report. Human courage could not reach greater heights than these men showed.

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On the right of these North Countrymen were other bodies of troops from the West of England, the Midlands, and Eastern Counties, with battalions of Irish and Scottish troops. They, too, had to face a great ordeal. When they went towards the German trenches, not at a rush, but at parade step, under a storm of shells, the enemy came up out of their dug-outs, and with machine-guns and rifles, and fought very stubbornly, even when the Midland men and other English troops reached them with bombs and bayonets. There was a fierce corps-à-corps in the first-line trench until most of the enemy were killed.

Then our men went on to the second German line under still fiercer fire. By this time they were in an inferno of shell fire and smoke as nothing was seen of them by artillery observers until at 8.45 some rockets went up very far into the German lines showing that some of the Territorials had got as far as their last objective. Some of the infantry (they were two of the Essex Regiments and the King’s Own of the 4th Division) went as far as Pendant Copse south-east of Serre. Messages came through from them. Urgent messages calling for help. “For God’s sake send us bombs.”

But the enemy’s gun-fire was so violent and so deep in its barrage that nothing could pass through it, and it was impossible to send up relief to men who had gone too far in their keen desire to break the German lines.

A little further south were some Irish, Welsh, and Scottish troops. When they left their trenches our bombardment was still at its full weight, but suddenly the noise of it was obliterated entirely, so that not a gun was heard, by a new and more terrible sound.

It was the sound as though great furnace fires were weeping flames across No Man’s Land with a steady blast, and it came from German machine-guns in the stronghold of Beaumont Hamel and from more German machine-guns in concrete emplacements which had escaped our gun-fire upon the enemy’s trenches.

Many of our men fell. Some of the Irish troops (the Ulster men) lost severely. But other ranks marched on, not quickly, but at a quiet leisurely pace, never faltering as gaps were made in their ranks.

Some of them did not even trouble to wear their steel casques, but carried them, as though for future use if need be. And they went across the German trenches and right ahead into the very heart of a storm of fire, too quickly, in spite of their calm way of going, because they did not clear the German dug-outs as they passed, and men came out and bombed them from the rear. South of Beaumont Hamel were some other battalions, whose advance was upon Thiépval Wood, and they fought with extraordinary resolution and hardihood.

It was they who shouted “No surrender!” as their battlecry, and these tough, hard gallant men forced their way forward over ground raked by every kind of shot and shell. The enemy’s trenches could not resist their attack, and they stormed their way through, killing many of the enemy who resisted them. In Thiépval Wood, where the trees were slashed by shrapnel, they collected their strength, formed into line, and stood the shock of several German counter-attacks. Then they charged and flung down the enemy’s ranks, taking more than 200 prisoners.

Another counter-attack was made upon the soldiers who had forced their way to the outskirts of Thiépval village, from which there came an incessant chatter of machine-gun fire. Some of them were cut off from all support, but they fought forward, and the shout of “No surrender!” came from them again, though they were sure of death.

This attack by our troops on the left of the theatre of attack is one of the greatest revelations of human courage ever seen in history. The tragedy of it—for the loss of many brave men makes it tragic—is brightened by the shining valour of all these splendid soldiers, to whom death, in those great hours, had no kind of terror.

The lightly wounded men who came back, and there were large numbers of lightly wounded men, were proud of their adventure and hopeful of victory. They had no panic in their eyes or hearts. It was a weary walk for many of them down to the Red House, where their wounds were staunched. They had two miles to go, and it was a long two miles to men weak from the loss of blood, dizzy, tired to the point of death. Some of them staggered and fell at the very gate of the dressing station, but even then they spoke brave words and said, “We’ve got ’em on the run!”

The enemy behaved well, I am told, to our wounded men at some parts of the line, and helped them over the parapets. This makes us loth to tell other stories, not so good. Let us not think, just now, of the ugliness of battle, but rather of the beauty of these men of ours, who were forgetful of self and faced the cruellest fire with a high and noble courage.