All three battalions that my grandfather served with saw service in France. My grandfather arrived there from Egypt with the 6th Battalion, in July 1916. The Battle of the Somme had started on the 1st July and in various phases, lasted until November of that year.

Authuille “Wunderwerk” Action in October Route march discipline

The small extract that we still have of my grandfather’s diary stops after a few days into France. Comparing his diary with the detail in the daily entries of the battalion war diary it seems that he “gained” a day after they arrived at St Pol.  The details he records are one day out, i.e. the 10th is the 9th, etc.

On the 9th July the battalion marched out of Herincourt at 09:30, and arrived at Marizaures at 18:30. On the 10th they leave at 10:00, marching to Duneville (my grandfather spells it Dainville) where they arrive late at night, 23:30. In his diary he says this is “17 miles further on & immediately behind Arras which has been taken over from the French.”

From the battalion war diary the entry for the 13th July is “Capt. Eills accompanied by 2 other Officers and 216 Other Ranks proceeded to trenches for seventy two hours.” This corresponds to the last entry in my grandfather’s diary “14th [should be the 13th] we are for the trenches to-night for a short spell.”

The entry in the battalion diary for the 19th July is a little poignant; “Usual trench routine.  No outstanding features.  Pte. Beswick killed, by rifle grenade - first battle casualty.  Great number of rats.” 

The 6th Battalion was now a part of the 11th Division, II Corps, commanded by Lieut-General Jacob, part of the Reserve or Fifth Army under the command of General Sir H. Gough.  The battalion remained in the area around Agny, which they had reached on the 16th July, until they moved forwards on the 3rd September to Authuille which they reached on the 10th.

I have taken the map above from a small part of one of the many trench maps on the excellent “Imperial War Museum Trench Map Archive” CD, available from IWM.

Authuille is a little southwest of Thiepval, and almost directly opposite the German strong point of the Liepzig Redoubt, and then a little north of that, closer to the ruins of Thiepval is another strong point, the “Wunderwerk”.  The Wunderwerk was a complex of trenches that dominated the summit of the ridge south of Thiepval, and it was stormed on the evening of the 14th September by the 11th Division. The 6th Battalion did not take part in this attack, although “D” Company did support one of the attacking battalions.  The rest of the battalion held Lemberg Trench which was violently bombarded, killing four men and wounding 20 others.  The trench was held for the next day, then the battalion was relieved in the evening and withdrew to Bouzincourt for a few days rest.

In his book Edmund Blunden describes this area around Thiepval as it looked to him in November, 1916; “It was now approaching the beginning of November, and the days were melancholy and the colour of clay. We took over that deathtrap known as the Schwaben Redoubt, the way to which lay through the fallen fortress of Thiepval. One had heard the worst accounts of the place, and they were true. Crossing the Ancre again at Black Horse Bridge, one went up through the scanty skeleton houses of Authuille, and climbing the dirty little road over the steep bank, one immediately entered the land of despair. Bodies, bodies and their useless gear heaped the gross waste ground; the slimy road was soon only a mud track which passed a whitish tumulus of ruin with lurking entrances, some spikes that had been pine-trees, a bricked cellar or two, and died out. The village pond, so blue on the map, had completely disappeared.  The Ligne de Pommiers had been grubbed up. The shell holes were mostly small lakes of what was no doubt merely rusty water, but had a red and foul semblance of blood.  Paths glistened weakly from tenable point to point.  Of the dead, one was conspicuous. He was a Scottish soldier, and was kneeling, facing east, so that one could scarcely credit death in him; he was seen at some little distance from the usual tracks, and no one had much time in Thiepval just then for sight-seeing, or burying. Death could not kneel so, I thought, and approaching I ascertained with a sudden shrivelling of spirit that Death could and did.”

Battalions were constantly moving from the front to the reserve areas, and back to the front again. On the 22nd September 6th Battalion moved up to Martinsart Wood, behind Authuille, to relieve the 11th Manchesters “the relief having to be carried out over the open under heavy shell fire”.  Elements of the battalion made attacks on the enemy in Mouquet Farm, and the battalion was then withdrawn again on the 25th to divisional reserve near Bouzincourt.  The battalion was back in the trenches on the 29th, again relieving portions of the 11th Manchesters and the 8th West Riding.  The following is taken from the battalion history;

“These orders (for the relief) can barely have been carried out, when at 9 a.m. instructions were received that at mid-day three companies of the Battalion were to attack Hessian Trench under an intense barrage from our guns.  The attack duly commenced at the appointed time, and within fifteen minutes a verbal message came back that all the officers and company sergeant-majors were casualties, followed five minutes later by another message that “D”, which was on the left, was not in position and could not be located, having apparently lost direction; 2nd Lieutenant Everett was sent up to clear up the situation, but almost at once became a casualty.  Prisoners now began to come in from Hessian Trench, followed by reports from companies of the Battalion, and of other regiments engaged, that the objective had been captured; bombs were now sent forward and every effort made to locate “D” Company, but the first news of it came from a party of thirty of the company under a sergeant, who reported at Battalion Headquarters at 7.50 p.m., but could not say where the rest of the company was.

Satisfactory reports at Hessian Trench came in at 9.15 p.m. on the 29th, and soon after the O.C. “A” Company reported that two blocks had been established in the trench with the assistance of the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles who were advancing; that bombs were short and that all available German bombs were being utilized, and that at 5 p.m. a heavy enemy bombing attack had been repulsed and ninety prisoners were taken and two machine-guns captured. More than one bombing attack was now made, the enemy were everywhere driven back, all gaps in the line were closed and the position consolidated; and then on the night of the 30th the 32nd Brigade was relieved by the 75th, and the Battalion went back first to huts at Acheux, on the 2nd October to billets at Candas, and on the 5th to billets at Agenville, where the Battalion was to remain for several weeks.”

I have copied out a couple of the Brigade Orders from the 6th Battalion diary in the PRO, Kew to show the orders that were issued prior to a raid and also before marching out to take over billets in a different area. No doubt this type of administrative order was typical of thousands that would be raised in all the other Brigades of the British Army at that time.

Without any other information from the records I am making the assumption that it was around this time, October 1916, while the battalion was in an extended rest period, that my grandfather moved to the 2nd Battalion. This could have been following a period of leave. By now it was October 1916, and he had yet to spend time in the 2nd Battalion and the 10th Battalion, before rejoining the 2nd when the 10th was disbanded in February, 1918.

March Discipline.  This is a description of route march discipline taken from Max Plowman’s “A Subaltern on the Somme”.

We are marching as a brigade, and strict march discipline is observed. Each regiment of the four takes its turn at the head of the column; and no small difference does it make on dusty roads whether you happen to be at the head or the tail of the column: not merely (as the uninitiated might imagine) because of the dust, but chiefly because of the concertina movement between the files that almost invariably occurs when a large body of men marches over an undulating surface. Bad marching increases the amount of this ‘play,’ till the men in the rear seem to be running and halting by turns; but even with the best going, since men are not automata, those at the tail of a column always feel they have farther to go.

For this reason one’s chief duty, as a platoon commander on the march, is to see that the men keep properly closed up, taking no more than their correct amount of road-space either way.  We halt regularly for ten minutes every hour, and “fall out” on the side of the road to rest and adjust our burdens.  No drinking is allowed except by order. If a man falls out on the march without orders, or is guilty of any breach of discipline, he is called to account on the following morning, and usually gets some extra duty by way of punishment, such as extra guard, or digging latrines with the pioneers.

At present we have no band: not only the bandsmen but the instruments were lost on July 1st. However, I hear the colonel is keen to raise something in the drum-and-fife line, and the men will welcome it, first with jeers and then with cheers, like every innovation. They whistle and sing anything but Tipperary, which, I suppose, died out here at Mons. Every now and then a strange song crops up with a local dialect, sometimes bawdy in its details; but that is by way of variety, when the platoon humorist happens to feel fresh.  Our regular repertory is made up of last year’s musical comedy with I want to go Home, The Long Trail, Tennessee, and hymn-tune parodies.  They love the “sob stuff,” and roar out those inexplicable lines,

And roses round the door Make me love mother more

(they sing “makes”) with fervent gusto.  When singing dies down and there’s no more whistling, one knows they are tired or coming under fire.