Action this day

‘July 1st 1916 was the most interesting day of my life,’ Philip Howe recalled, with characteristic English dryness, half a century after taking part in the most catastrophic 24 hours in the history of the British army. Howe had been a lieutenant in the 10th West Yorkshires, which had the grim distinction of losing more men during the first day on the Somme than any other battalion: of the 1,050 that went into battle, 710 became casualties, 60 per cent of whom were killed. At the end of the day Howe was the only officer left standing, and many other battalions had suffered almost as badly. The 1st Newfoundlanders lost 684 men, including all 26 of their officers, and the 11th East Lancashires, known as the Accrington Pals, suffered over 80 per cent casualties within minutes of the attack being launched: it was said that it had taken a mere ten days to raise the battalion and a mere ten minutes to annihilate it. In all some 120,000 men went over the top on that fine summer’s day in France, of whom 19,240 were killed, and another 38,231 were wounded, reported missing or taken prisoner. ‘On a 16-mile front of attack varying fortune must be expected!’ wrote Sir Douglas Haig, whose battle-plan had resulted in this calamity.

The reasons for everything going so terribly wrong have become familiar. The Allies had failed to keep the date and details of their ‘surprise’ attack secret, with the result that the Germans were well prepared for ‘the heaviest bombardment in the history of warfare’ that would immediately precede it. Although ferocious, this assault by the artillery failed to destroy the German front line, not least because a high proportion of the shells turned out to be duds. The German troops, whose numbers had been hopelessly underestimated, sat it out in their very deep and well-fortified dugouts, then emerged as soon as the bombardment was over to set up their machine guns.