Chapter XIV: Part 14

The Tangle was the first check and a bad one. Machine-guns swept the field with bullets so that men lay on their faces in the mud, not bothering, you may guess, about appearances. They were just scarecrows and mud-larks, wallowing in slime but finding an inch or two of luck in it. Another muddy thing came on the way to the Tangle, more like a primeval river hog than in the early days of its debut, because of the mountains of slush churned up by its flanks.

The Tank turned its snout towards the Tangle and struggled over the choppy ground—wave upon wave of craters with high rims, until it reached a bit of the deep cutting which makes a hole in the side of Le Sars.

This sunken road, or old quarry track, was filled with German soldiers alive and dead. The living ones flung bombs at the Tank, fired rifle volleys and tried to stab it from beneath as it straggled across the ditch and stayed across it firing venomously from each flank. After that, something having happened to its internal organs, it committed hari-kari. But it seems to have been useful before going up in a blaze of glory.

The German prisoners who faced our men in the outskirts of Le Sars, and then further back in the sunken road, and in the hiding places below ground, say there was grim and bitter fighting there, and pay a soldier’s tribute to the men who captured them. “They fought us fiercely, and beat us. We could not stand up against them.” Our men saw red, even in the mist, and in the hand-to-hand fighting they had the Germans by the throat.

XXXIX

THE GERMAN VERDICT OF THE SOMME BATTLES

1

OCTOBER 3

There has come into our hands, by the fortune of war, a long and critical report by General Sixt von Armin, commanding the fourth German Corps against the British front in the Battle of the Somme during July.

It is an important historical document. The German general has written it as a great soldier writes on his own subject, without passion or prejudice, in a cold scientific spirit, analysing the qualities of his enemy as well as the enemy’s weaknesses, and exposing the errors and failures of his own organisation, leadership, and troops with the same impartial candour.

It is well done, minutely technical, full of military knowledge and common sense. But in setting all these things down, in this analysis of German organisation, tactics, material, and moral, during the first month of our great offensive, General von Armin has confessed to the utter failure of his war-machine.

In almost every paragraph, dealing with every department of his corps in fighting organisation, there is this confession of breakdown and an acknowledgment of British superiority.

No general of ours writing of our own troops or of our own artillery, or air service, could claim greater supremacy than is granted to us by this German army-corps-commander in his comparison between our power and his own. To our soldiers this document is worth a thousand times its weight in gold as a moral tonic, for everything they hoped had been attained in this battle of the Somme—the ever increasing strain upon German organisation, the effect of our artillery fire, the mastery of our flying corps, the demoralisation of the enemy’s command, is here admitted as the bitter fruit of experience. It is the fruit of one month’s experience.

Since then there have been more months, and not all the lessons set down in this document have been of help to the enemy, but the cup of bitterness has been filled and refilled.

2

The Report begins with a tribute to our British infantry, which, says General von Armin, “has undoubtedly learnt much since the autumn offensive” (of 1915).

“It shows great dash in attack, a factor to which immense confidence in its overwhelming artillery greatly contributes. The Englishman also has his physique and training in his favour.”

“The English infantry showed great tenacity in defence. This was especially noticeable in the case of small parties, which when once established with machine-guns in the corner of a wood or group of houses were very difficult to drive out.”

Again and again General von Armin reveals the new and overwhelming power of our artillery.

“Particularly noticeable was the high percentage of medium and heavy guns with the artillery, which, apart from this, was numerically far superior to ours. The ammunition has apparently improved considerably.”

“All our tactically-important positions were methodically bombarded by the English artillery, as well as all known infantry and battery positions.”

“Extremely heavy fire was continuously directed on the villages situated immediately behind the firing line as well as on all natural cover afforded by the ground. Registration and fire control were assisted by well organised aerial observation. At night the villages also were frequently bombed by aeroplanes.”

The terrifying destructive power of our artillery is revealed not only by these definite statements, but in advice under separate headings. Thus, in the instructions to officers selecting infantry positions:

“Narrow trenches with steep sides again proved very disadvantageous, and caused considerably more casualties (men being buried) than shallower trenches with a wide top.... A cover trench roughly parallel with the front fire trench is not sound. Such trenches are destroyed by the enemy’s fire at the same time and exactly the same way as the actual fire trenches.”

Heavy casualties were also experienced during July by the German artillery, as the following note shows:

“The English custom of shelling villages heavily led to the adoption of the principle that batteries should never be sited in the villages themselves.... The employment of steep slopes for battery positions must also be discarded for similar reasons.”

A melancholy picture is drawn of the German battle headquarters, also brought under fire by our far-reaching artillery, and in such a zone of fire that German staff officers get killed on their way up or cannot find their whereabouts, or having found the building scuttle down into overcrowded hiding-places, panic-stricken by our bombardments. Owing to choosing unsuitable sites for battle headquarters there were “frequent interruptions in personal and telephone traffic by artillery fire, and overcrowding in the few available cellars in the villages.”

That rush for cellars already thronged must hurt the pride and dignity of the German staff. They are recommended to have many sign-boards put up to direct them to battle headquarters, and to avoid “lengthy searches which caused many casualties.”

3

The enemy’s own artillery was much hampered during the July battles by the steady intensity of our fire.

“It was found very difficult,” says General von Armin, “to form a continuous barrage, without gaps, in front of our own lines, owing to the occasional uncertainty as to the position of our front line, which was continually changing during the fighting, the frequent changing of batteries, the re-grouping of the artillery, which was often necessary, the bad conditions for observation, the permanent interruption of the telephone communications, and the practically continuous heavy fire which was maintained behind our front line.”

The General describes in detail the enormous difficulties experienced by his officers in bringing up reserves quickly for counter-attacks, owing to the severity of our barrage, the breakdown of telephonic communications, the killing of the runners, and the time taken for transmission of orders from the front line.

The troops have to “advance slowly across country, with which they are generally unacquainted, and under heavy fire.”

He confesses to the utter failure of the counter-attacks made against us during July without method and without weight. His words are:

“If counter-attacks, which, on account of the situation, ought to be methodically prepared, are hurried, they cost much blood, and cause the troops to lose their trust in their leaders if they fail, which nearly always happens in such a case.”

4

With regard to the air service General von Armin acknowledges in strong language the supremacy of the British and the failure of their own:

“The means for providing the artillery with aerial observation has proved to be insufficient.... The numerical superiority of the enemy’s airmen and the fact that their machines were better were made disagreeably apparent to us, particularly in their direction of the enemy’s artillery fire and in bomb-dropping.”

“The number of our battle-planes was also too small. The enemy’s airmen were often able to fire successfully on our troops with machine-guns by descending to a height of a few hundred metres.”

“The German anti-aircraft gun sections could not continue firing at this height without exposing their own troops to serious danger from fragments of shell...”

“A further lesson to be learnt from this surprisingly bold procedure on the part of the English airmen is that the infantry make too little use of their rifles as a means of driving off aircraft.”

5

The Army Corps commander responsible for the organisation and direction of the troops who fought against us in July finds failure and shortage in almost every department of war material at his disposal.

The supply of artillery ammunition of all kinds during the first days of the battle did not equal the expenditure. Reserve supplies were only available in very small quantities.

There were “repeated requests from all arms for an increased supply of entrenching tools.”

“The original supply of maps was insufficient, not only as regards quantity, but also as regards detail.”

The supply of horses and vehicles to the troops “has reached the utmost limits owing, on the one hand, to the permanent reduction in the establishment of horses, and on the other hand to the permanent increase in fighting material and articles of equipment.”

“The existing telephone system proved totally inadequate in consequence of the development which the fighting took.”

“The existing organisation in the light signalling service does not meet requirements.”

The supply of light pistols for signalling “is too small.”

The establishment of motor cycles proved insufficient for the heavy fighting. This deficiency was “painfully evident.”

“The great weight” of the German machine-guns “has again proved to be a serious disadvantage under these conditions.”

“Complaints have been received that the ammunition-boxes and water-jackets of the machine-guns are too heavy.”

“It is universally suggested that the supply of hand-grenades should be increased.”

With regard to food there is no suggestion that the army behind the lines is on short rations, but there are difficulties in getting supplies up to the front trenches, and it is recommended that men going into action should carry their “third iron rations”—that is, a more ample supply of tinned foods.

They ask for more tinned meats, tinned sausages, bread, and mineral waters, but the General advises that tinned herrings should not be eaten, as they encourage thirst.

In all but the food department the German organisation of supplies is weighed in the balance and found wanting by one of their own great Generals.

In spite of all their boasted genius of organisation, and it has been wonderful (let us admit that handsomely), it could not withstand the tremendous pressure of our July thrust.

It failed item by item—artillery, aviation, ammunition, and stores of every kind. The staffs were inadequate, the communications broke down, the great German war-machine was strained and put out of gear and badly knocked about by the ferocity and continuance of the British assault.

Since then it has not been able to recover its efficiency. The pressure has become more powerful, the strain harder to bear.

If General von Armin were to write a second report on the battle of the Somme it would be a more gloomy document than this. But what he has written stands, and it is a frightful confession which would put terror into the hearts of the German people could they read it.

They will not be allowed to read it, for it tells the truth, which the War Lords are hiding from them.

* * * * *

It will be seen that my despatches do not include the capture of Beaumont-Hamel—one of the most astounding achievements in all this fighting. In October I was compelled to go home on sick-leave, so that I missed that great battle on the Ancre. It has revived the nation’s hope that by a continuous series of these blows the German resistance will break down utterly at last and that they will acknowledge defeat. From a military point of view that hope is the best thing we have, but the fulfilment of it must be deterred through many months of another year reeking like this one of blood and massacre and sacrifice.