On this hot summer morning, 87 years ago, the British Expeditionary Force launched "the Big Push" in the Somme Valley,hurling the freshly-trained and deployed "New Army" at German defenses.

The British battalions included such outfits as the "Glasgow Tramways" Battalion, the "Grimsby Chums," the "Hull Commercials," and other "Pals Battalions," made up of schools, businesses, tradesmen, and factory workers who enlisted, trained, and served together. Captain Wilfred Neville led the East Surreys over the top, kicking four footballs ahed. Neville's message to his troops read, "Great European Cup Final -- East Surreys vs. Bavarians. Kick-off at dawn." Neville and most of his men died in No-Man's Land.

60,000 British troops died on the First Day of the Somme, gaining virtually no ground. Entire battalions were erased from existence. Whole grades of schools were all dead or maimed. The casualty lists were frightful, wiping out neighborhoods in Newcastle and Liverpool.

When the day was over, the difference was seen in the logs of two battalions, one a regular outfit: "A very trying day on the Somme." The other from a "Pals Battalion," which read: "So ends the Golden Age."

So it did.

July 1st, 1916. At the Somme. 87 years ago. Today.

War is always terrible but this was complete madness!
16.000 killed for just a few yards of no-mans land.

What a tragedy!

I don't know how it is in other parts of the world, but WWI is "hot" in the Netherlands. Out of the blue, it seems. Don't know what the reason is. The Netherlans weren''t even involved in this War. But bookstores are selling a lot of WWI (related) booktitles.

I've read quite a bit about the Great War and it still shocks me to the bone. Of course as you can see from my signature, my Great-Great Uncle was killed at Loos. He only survived about a day and a half I reckon and that was his first time over the top.

The Somme was a nightmare. The men were ordered to walk across in good order because they believed that the Germans had been bombed to hell and back in the week long barrage before H-Hour. Some 75.000 casualties in the first day, as Kiwi stated there the vast majority of them killed. It boggles the mind. My Grandad was born in 1916 but he would still get in a state ranting about the Somme and the Generals.

When I visit Normandy I'm going to stop at the Somme and at Loos to have a look. I've wanted to go there for some time.

John

I can’t let today pass without mentioning the Newfoundland sacrifice on July 1, 1916. The 1st Newfoundland Regiment (later to be renamed the Royal Newfoundland Regiment) was part of the 29th Division of the British Expeditionary Force. Newfoundland was a British colony before it joined Canada in 1949. As I mentioned when I joined this website, this regiment suffered some of the worst casualties of July 1st. In the course of just thirty minutes, they were wiped out at Beaumont-Hamel. Of 801 men who went over the trenches, only 68 were present at roll call the next morning, the remainder having been killed, wounded or were missing in action. Astonishingly enough, when their commander, Colonel Hadow reported to Brigade Battle Headquarters that the attack had failed, Brigadier-General Cayley directed the C.O. to gather together any unwounded Newfoundlanders that he could find and make a renewed attempt to reach the German trenches. “The C.O. worked his way forward to the firing line in the hope of collecting even a handful of men fit to continue the attack. The trenches were packed with the dead and wounded of all regiments, but not a single sound Newfoundlander could he find. Fortunately however, before the order for the forlorn, suicidal effort could be put into effect it was countermanded by a senior officer from Corps.” (From “The Fighting Newfoundlander” by G.W.L. Nicholson.)

Many of the soldiers were under-aged. I was looking for a picture of my great-uncle, and was shocked at how boyish so many of the soldiers were. I know that many of them lied about their ages, but I can’t believe any recruiter with eyes in his head could believe that some of them were eighteen years old. If you take a look at the picture in the link below, you will see what I mean. If you scroll over to the extreme left, there is a boy who looks all of fourteen. The boys in the front row sitting down are awfully young looking too.

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/greatwar/gallery.../big_f2110.html

These kids had no idea what they were getting themselves into. They just wanted excitement and adventure. Many of the Newfoundland soldiers would have been Irish Catholics. My grandfather berated his brother-in-law who survived the carnage at Beamont-Hamel, and had later been discharged for deafness, “How can you fight for the British when they are killing your countrymen in Ireland?” The Easter Rising in Ireland had been put down only a few months before this. It’s reminiscent of the line spoken by the Irish father of the character played by Mel Gibson in the movie Gallipoli, “Why do you want to fight for the British when they murdered your own grandfather at the crossroads, five miles from Dublin.” But then many Irish in Ireland had been encouraged by their political leaders, to join the fight on behalf of the British, in the expectation that it would lead to Home Rule. I imagine there were a lot of conflicted Irish in all of the British Empire who had similar conversations.

We attended a memorial service this morning in our community. Wreaths were laid by, among many others, the local Loyal Orange Lodge (which bears no resemblance to ones in Northern Ireland by the way!), and by the Catholic service club, The Knights of Columbus. So the slaughter at Beamont-Hamel united both Protestants and Catholics, at least in Newfoundland.

The epitaph at the Newfoundland Park at Beamont-Hamel reads:

“Tread softly here -
Go reverently and slow,
Yea, let your soul go down upon its knees,
And with bowed head and heart abased
Strive hard to grasp the future gain in this sore loss.
For not one foot of this dank sod
But drank its surfeit of the blood of gallant men
Who for their Faith, their Hope, for Life and Liberty
Here made the sacrifice.
Here gave their lives, and gave right willingly for you and me...”

Vee

Hello all,
Darn you Vee, you stole my post. I was going to post about the Newfoundland Regiment as well but I think Vee did a better job than I could have done. My namesake for this list, Captain Raymond Fisher, was not involved with the Battle of the Somme as he was attached to the HQ of the British Army in Macedonia in northern Greece, but his brother, Lieutenant Percy Fisher, was certainly involved, not on the first day actions but later on. His battalion, the 22nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers were part of the 2nd Division which didn't begin fightin in the Somme until around July 15, 1916 when they were fighting in the Battle of Delville Wood which lasted until Sep. 3, 1916. He (Percy) died on Sep. 12, 1916 from what we don't know, but possibly disease or wounds. The Battle of the Somme was a terrible mistake and was led by generals who didn't know how to stop once they were started.
Andrew

Douglas Haig didnt get the nickname ''butcher'' for nothing.

German machine gunner at the Somme
''The officers were in the front. I noticed one of them walking calmly carrying a walking stick. When we started firing we just had to load and reload. They went down in their hundreds. You didn't have to aim, we just fired into them''.


John Raws killed at the somme, this is a letter he wrote just before he died

The glories of the Great Push are great, but the horrors are greater. With all I'd heard by word of mouth, with all I had imagined in my mind, I yet never conceived that war could be so dreadful. The carnage in our little sector was as bad, or worse, than that of Verdun, and yet I never saw a body buried in ten days. And when I came on the scene the whole place, trenches and all, was spread with dead. We had neither time nor space for burials, and the wounded could not be got away. They stayed with us and died, pitifully, with us, and then they rotted. The stench of the battlefield spread for miles around. And the sight of the limbs, the mangled bodies, and stray heads.

We lived with all this for eleven days, ate and drank and fought amid it; but no, we did not sleep. Sometimes, we just fell down and became unconscious. You could not call it sleep.

The men who say they believe in war should be hung. And the men who won't come out and help us, now we're in it, are not fit for words. Had we more reinforcements up there many brave men now dead, men who stuck it and stuck it and stuck it till they died, would be alive today. Do you know that I saw with my own eyes a score of men go raving mad! I met three in 'No Man's Land' one night. Of course, we had a bad patch. But it is sad to think that one has to go back to it, and back to it, and back to it, until one is hit.

from a book I have by Martin Gilbert, called first world war

Ah Andrew, I must have had a premonition that you were going to do that and so I frantically typed away, determined to beat you to it.

Do you have a connection to the Newfoundland Regiment?

Vee

Hi Ham and Jam:

That letter you quoted by John Raws certainly said it all. The pictures of the devastated landscape are amazing. It surely must have been hell.

Vee

Amazing pictures Andy, Of course all war is awful, but for me, my opinion of WW1 is that it was a nasty fight, the Mustard Gas that was used on the front lines, and the months and years of the front lines only moving back and forth, making no headway. Just a really terrible War. Vanessa

Hi Vee,
My only connection to the Newfoundland Regiment is that I'm Canadian, although I've been fascinated/horrified by the tremendous loss of life that occured as exemplified by that regiment. When I was in Europe I had hoped to go to the Memorial at Beaumont-Hamel but events transpired against me.
Cheers,
Andrew

This topic seems a good place to start a discussion on a subject that has bothered me for some time. It has also been a bone of contention nationally with questions being raised in Parliament. Should there be a general pardon for those British soldiers shot for cowardice during the 1st. World war? Especially now that more is understood about battlefield stress. My heart bleeds for those young men who had done their duty, and more, only to be executed when they could take no more. I appreciate that a general pardon would mean that some men who where guilty of cowardice would also be pardoned. But surely the time has come when even they should be forgiven, especially now that we know the real horrors of the 1st. W.W. trenches. Speaking for myself I support those families fighting for such a pardon. Only then can those men wrongly convicted rest in peace.

Hi Taffy, I couldnt agree more, I have said something before in another post on this subject. Gord knows where it was.

But here is a link to a site I found very interesting on this subject

http://www.clarkehome58.freeserve.co.uk/

Andy

What is it with these bloody politicians, what on gods earth can there be wrong in granting such a pardon, after all this time, to men who suffered in ways we can't even begin to imagine. I'm sure those unjustly
treated would not begrudge the pardon being extended to those who perhaps did not perform their duties to the full. Why does the expression "lions led by donkeys" keep going through my head?

Ive just had a look at the web site andy. I'll go back later and take a good look at it.
cheers taffy

I think the deserter cases should be reviewed. All of them. And they should be reviewed with an eye towards the modern standards, not the Victorian idiocies.

A man who ran from the front and set up a gambling spot or ran a bordello deserves what he gets.

A poorly-trained kid who gets overwhelmed at the Somme and wanders off in a state of shell-chock is a different case. A kid like that needed better training and medical help. That kid should not be held accountable for Haig's blind spots or the bull ring at Etaples.

I'll bet that when the cases are reviewed, 97 percent of the guys who were shot will get a pardon.

I'll go along with that Kiwi. Lets assume that your estimates are right,
and I would agree with them, then it's long overdue that those wrongly
accused should be pardoned. Then at last the families, who are fighting this cause, can rest in the knowledge that their loved ones have had their honour restored.

Unfortunately this has been going on for some years now, and I dont think it will happen any time soon if ever. As far as the government aare concerned you need solid evidence to give a pardon and basically there is none, all the medical notes have gone. New Zealand have pardoned soldiers of their country that were executed, if they can apply a legal pardon posthumously, why cant the british parliment. Im affraid the British goverment say they have great sympathy for the relatives, but its not for todays government to make legal judgements by today's standards about what happened 100 years ago. yea right

I'm pleased to hear that N.Z. have done the right and proper thing.
What about Australia? Am I right in saying they would not allow their men to be tried by British officers?
Were there any Americans shot for cowardice?
We are now much wiser about the effects of battle on soldiers.
Granting a pardon to these men should not have to be regarded as a critisism of the officer class who imposed the sentences, if thats what their afraid of. Surely a pardon could be granted purely on the undisputed medical evidence that is now available regarding the affects of combat on the fighting man. Surely, if this evidence had been available then, many would have been spared.

After the Breaker Morant fiasco, the Australian Army did not have a death penalty. They did not want to run the risk of their soldiers getting shot by someone else's court.

The Americans did not shoot any cowards. The first American shot after 1865 for desertion in the face of the enemy was Private Eddie Slovik in St. Marie-aux-Mines, in January 1945. His case later became a book and TV-movie, with a young Martin Sheen.

To me the real issue is what caused the desertion. If it was simply plain fear of the horrific war, or shell shock, or just getting lost from the unit, that's one thing. But if it was a deliberate attempt to shirk duty, or for personal gain, that's different. Oneof my relatives told me about a guy in his unit in WW2 Syria who "liberated" a bordello in Damascus. He was a medic, and he treated the girls for social diseases. He told his pals he was going over the hill to stay in the bordello, working as the staff medic. The other guys told the medic he was a jerk for pulling that stunt, and he'd get in trouble.

They never saw him again. I don't know if he wound up his days treating hookers for the clap and unwanted pregnancies, or if the Red Caps got him. He was just "gone."

He would not deserve a pardon.

Hi Andrew:

Please don’t tell me you ended up at Henin-Beaumont instead! That’s what happened with me. My brother was living in Paris for a year, and I thought I could visit Paris and have free accommodation. Of course, I didn’t stay nearly long enough to see everything, and at the time I wasn’t particularly interested in WWI or II, so it was only at the last moment that I decided to rent a car and drive to Beaumont-Hamel to try to track down my great-uncle’s tombstone. Even though his body had never been recovered (or was probably in pieces more like), I had seen a tombstone with his name on it while watching a National Film Board of Canada series "War" with Gwynne Dyer. He was standing right in front of it. I had done no research on this before I set off. Duh! I ended up at Henin-Beaumont. No one in town had heard of the memorial, and they suggested I go to the Vimy memorial for information. By the time I got there, the visitor centre was closed. So I never did get to Beamont-Hamel. I’ll have to see it on another trip. The Vimy monument was quite something though. Have you seen it? It’s positively un-Canadian! Normally you would expect us to have a quiet, unassuming, modest little monument, but this was almost Soviet in its grandiosity. It was quite impressive. And so it should be. Defeating the Germans at Vimy Ridge was no small achievement. Check the link below.

http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/general/sub.cfm?s...twar/vimy/vimy4

Vee

Hi Vee,
What actually happened was that I missed my train. I forgot that there was an hour time difference between the UK and the continent, so my 1 1/2 hour cushion between when my ferry arrive and the train left disappeared when my ferry was 25 minutes late on top of the time difference. My great grandmother's brother is buried in the Hebuterne Communal Cemetery near to Beaumont Hamel so I was going to try to do both on my trip. I did see Vimy Ridge (I think) from the train as I headed for Belgium and my grandfather's grave. I say I think because it was very misty in northern France. Some day I will go back and have unlimited time and money to see everything I want to see.
Cheers,
Andrew

There was a great programme on Channel 5 lastnight about the great war, and it was done in colour. Showing scenes from the Somme, Verdun, Passchendaele and so on, its on again next week with the final days of the war. Anybody here in the UK, its worth a watch as with the colour added its makes it so more real.

Found this webpage on Butcher Haig, quite interesting.

http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/...aig-debate.html

Andy

Andy,

Channel 5????
Is that a part of the BBC? (Please forgive me my ignorance )

If so... I can watch it too next week!

Mud of Passchendaele

Sorry Bart, no its an independent channel that hardly anybody can pick up in the UK, or come to that anybody watches. But it was very good lastnight, with an interesting insight into Agincourt after.

Andy

attached is a link to my Great Uncle's dedication at the Commonwealth War Grave Commission's website.

http://www.cwgc.org.uk/detailed.asp?casualty=235113

It doesn't say much about the man, but gives a brief outline of the events surrounding his death and directions to the cemetary.

It also serves as a good litmus of the dedication shown to those that have fallen, that such information is available.

Aye

Andy M

Ham and Jam


Saw it last night and started to watch the programme on Agincourt.

you're quite right, the reception is appaling, but the programmes do tend to be of the discovery/history channel quality.

Aye

andy M

Its a great thing, I know when I found my Great uncle on the CWGC site, it got me trying to find out more about him. Makes me proud.
Cheers for posting the link to your great uncle. Ill post mine as well.


http://www.cwgc.org/search/detailed.asp?ca...asualty=2475840

Andy

I thought the Agincourt prog was very interesting, I always thought it was the Longbow that won the day, but they proved differently.

andy

Apparently J R TOLKIEN (lord of the rings fame) was at the Somme. He married just before leaving for France on 22 March 1916. He was at the Somme, Western front for 4 months, luckily for him he caught trench fever and was sent back to Blighty. All the friends that he had made at University before the war were now dead and it was this that caused the motivation to write a Mythology of England.


Depending on which books you read, these are the casualty numbers and some facts.

24.2% of the English male population had volunteered by the end of the war.
Wales 21.52%
Scotland 23.71%
Ireland 6.14%
making a total of 5,971,115

Canada 13.48% 458,218 men
Australia 331,814 13.43%
New Zealand 112,223 19.35%
South Africa 76,184
Newfoundland 6,173
West Indies 15,601 total 1,000,213

On the Western Front there were five casualties to every nine men sent out
End British casualties 1920, Western Front - 128,205 officers, and 2,632,592 other ranks.

Andy

I'll post the link to my Great-Great Uncle.

http://www.cwgc.org/search/detailed.asp?ca...casualty=735108

Just found this from the Guardian news paper ( not that I read it ewww)

A cry of: waiter! And the fighting stopped

A new German book reveals fresh details about the day peace broke out

Luke Harding in Berlin
Tuesday November 11, 2003
The Guardian

A new book by a German historian last night cast fresh light on one of the most extraordinary episodes of the first world war and revealed that the celebrated 1914 Christmas truce took place only because many of the Germans stationed on the front had worked in England.
The book, Der Kleine Frieden im Grossen Krieg, or The Small Peace in the Big War, shows that the German and British soldiers who famously played football with each other in no man's land on Christmas Day 1914 didn't always have a ball. Instead, they improvised. On certain sections of the front, soldiers kicked around a lump of straw tied together with string, or even an empty jam box.

According to previously unseen letters and diaries sent home by Germans from the trenches, many of the passes went wildly astray and shot off the icy pitch. The soldiers used sticks of wood, their caps and steel helmets as goalposts. The games lasted about an hour. The sleep-deprived players then collapsed, exhausted.

The book, by the German author Michael Jürgs, is the first to be written from a German perspective about the impromptu Christmas ceasefire that spread across the western front - in defiance of official orders and to the horror of the British high command - some five months after the outbreak of war.

It includes extracts from an extraordinary diary by a German lieutenant, Kurt Zehmisch, discovered four years ago in an attic near Leipzig. Zehmisch was a schoolteacher who spoke English and French. He describes how, on Christmas Eve, the shooting suddenly stopped. His Saxon regiment then blew a whistle on two fingers. The English immediately whistled back.

"Soldier Möckel from my company, who had lived in England for many years, called to the British in English, and soon a lively conversation developed between us."

A couple of soldiers from each side then climbed out of their trenches, shook hands in no man's land, and wished each other a merry Christmas. They agreed not to shoot the following day.

"Afterwards, we placed even more candles than before on our kilometre-long trench, as well as Christmas trees," Zehmisch wrote. "It was the purest illumination - the British expressed their joy through whistles and clapping. Like most people, I spent the whole night awake. It was a wonderful, if somewhat cold, night."

According to Jürgs, the fraternisation involving mostly Catholic Saxon and Bavarian regiments was only possible because many of the German soldiers spoke good English as they had previously been employed in Britain. "They had worked as cab drivers and barbers in places like Brighton, Blackpool and London," he said. "When war broke out in August 1914 they were forced to go home. Some even left families behind in England."

One German soldier had worked in the Savoy; when the war started British soldiers would apparently shout "Waiter!" across their newly dug positions. Another German infantryman described how on Christmas Day, when both sides climbed out of their trenches and over the barbed wire, a British Tommy had set up a makeshift barber's shop in no man's land. The barber was "completely indifferent" to whether his customers were German or British, and charged a couple of cigarettes per haircut, Bavarian Josef Sebald observed. "This was war... but there was no trace of enmity between us," he added.

The informal ceasefire stretched all across the 500-mile western front where more than a million men were encamped, from the Belgian coast as far as the Swiss border. The truce was especially warm along a 30-mile line around the Belgian town of Ypres, Jürgs notes. Not everybody, though, approved. One Austrian soldier billeted near Ypres complained that in wartime such an understanding "should not be allowed". His name was Adolf Hitler.

Last night Zehmisch's son Rudolf, who discovered the diaries in 1999 while clearing out the family loft, told the Guardian he was proud that his father had helped initiate the unprecedented ceasefire. "My father had studied in France. He also visited England. He went on a day trip to Folkestone in 1913," Mr Zehmisch, 76, said.

At first he was unable to read his father's 15 diaries sent back from the front in envelopes because they were written in an archaic form of German shorthand. He managed to track down an elderly professor who could decipher the text - who then died. Mr Zehmisch then taught himself Gabelsberger shorthand and began the translation. "My father was in charge of three or four companies. At one point he wrote: 'We will not shoot against the British today'."

Miraculously, Kurt Zehmisch survived the first world war and returned to his old teaching job. He did not survive the second, however. After Hitler's rise to power he rejoined the army, became a major, and was sent to fight on the eastern front. The Russians captured him and took him to a prison camp. In November 1946 he disappeared.

Last night Jürgs, a biographer of the German novelist Günter Grass and a former magazine editor, said he had found numerous unseen letters in German newspapers and regimental archives. He said his book was the first about the 1914 truce "to be written from the German point of view", adding: "It's important for British people too because it tells what happened from the other side."

In some parts of the front, meanwhile, the ceasefire lasted for several weeks after Christmas Day 1914. Inevitably, though, the slaughter resumed. "The English are extraordinarily grateful for the ceasefire, so they can play football again," Gustav Riebensahm, of the 2nd Westphalian regiment, wrote in his diary. "But the whole thing has become slowly ridiculous and must be stopped. I will tell the men that from this evening it's all over."

· Der Kleine Frieden im Grossen Krieg by Michael Jürgs, published by Bertelsmann

Two excellent books on the Christmas Truce, which I am reading in my copious free time:


Christmas Truce by Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton, Pan 1998

Silent Night by Stanley Weintraub, 2002 (Norton, I think)

Both highly recommended. The cover art on Silent Night is eerie -- a foggy shot of German and British troops standing in No Man's Land together, with a decorated Christmas Tree near them, amid barbed wire.

Fascinating story. Two-thirds of the front shut down that day. It could have ended the war.

how on earth do you get time to read books?

andy

Well, I commute to and from work every day...and I have to read books in order to do my series on WW2. I usually can't read the whole thing, just the parts I need.

That's a great article. When we get the WWI Forum/Community working here (hint, hint Gino), we should start a thread on the Christmas truce.

Vee

I've just returned from our memorial service for the soldiers of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment who were killed at Beamont Hamel on July 1, 1916. I was glad to see the French Ambassador was present at the ceremonies today.

I explained more about their particular tragedy, further up this thread. In the space of 30 minutes, 233 were killed, 386 were wounded, and 91 were missing and presumed dead. Only 68 soldiers of the regiment answered the roll call the next day. Brigadier-General Cayley, wrote to Governor Davidson of Newfoundland: "I was in a position to observe the advance of the Newfoundland Regiment. Nothing could have been finer. In the face of devastating shell and machine-gun fire, they advanced over our parapets, not a man faltering or hanging back. They literally went on until scarcely an officer or man was left unhit ... I cannot sufficiently express my admiration for their heroism nor my sorrow for their overwhelming losses.”

My great uncle joined the 1st Newfoundland Regiment on July 10th, just after the disaster. At that point, no one in Newfoundland knew how bad things had been. The news hadn't filtered back to them yet. He was part of a newly arrived draft. I can’t help wondering how he must have felt, hearing about what had happened. On July 11th, Major Forbes-Robertson initiated “rigorous training and strict disciplining routine to prevent soldiers from dwelling on what happened at Beaumont-Hamel.” My great uncle was killed in action in March of 1917.

A local writer of young adult novels, Kevin Major wrote a book called “No Man’s Land”, about the 1st Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont Hamel. He turned it into a play, which I saw last year. You need to suspend your disbelief quite a bit to have a stage production that deals with a battle. Most of the action took place in the trenches, as you got to know the soldiers. Interspersed were scenes from home, with mothers and sweethearts reading letters from the soldiers. When the soldiers went over the top, you could hear machine gun fire, but you had to use your imagination to envision what was really going on. And yet even with these limitations, the story was still emotional. An actress playing the mother of one of the soldiers ends the play, speaking to the audience, wondering if the generals in charge had any notion of the value of her son’s life. The actress was crying so hard as she delivered these lines, that she almost couldn’t get through the scene. The whole audience was in tears as well.

Vee

Watched the British film "The Trench". Shows a platoon of British soldiers leading up to the inititial attack on the Somme and their preparations for the battle in the trenches. In the background, all you hear is artillery.
The film ends with this unit going over the top and then the slaughter starts. Most of the unit is killed (platoon leader, platoon sergeant and enlisted) as they start the attack. Most don't even see the enemy just the machine gun fire.
Of interest is the rugby football that the unit was to "kick" across no-man's land until the German trenches were reached. Suffice to say, the ball didn't get very far and neither did the kicker. Excellent movie.

As has been said the 1st day of the somme was a disaster for the British, a truly black day in our history. However at the southern end of the offensive the French actually did quite well. Achieving all their objectives. This may have been a 'quiet' sector of the somme battlefield, but the french had learnt the hard way how to perfect infantry-artillery communication.
The British that actually managed to reach their objectives (with horrendous losses) constantly had to retire when counter-attacked due to the complete lack of communications. Finding themselves stranded without leadership some units simply dissappeared.
I look forward to the forum when we can discuss this further

The football-kicking actually happened. Captain Neville of the Royal Surreys posted a sign for his company before the battle:

Great European Final

East Surreys vs. Saxons

July 1, 1916

Kick-off: 0600

When the men went over the top, they kicked four soccer balls ahead of them. Most of the Surreys, including Neville, were killed. Stories about the battle in English newspapers lead off: "The Surreys Play the Game."

Neville is buried at the Somme under his old regiment's crest. Two of the footballs survived the battle to be put on display in a museum.

"What, in God's name," wrote William Manchester, "game were the Surreys playing?"

I'm just re-reading 'First Day On The Somme', which quotes those two war-diaries, and as always these two differing quotes from the Regular and the New Army Battalions always gets to me whenever I read them. As does the story of Capt Nivelle and his footballs.

Another great book is 'Somme' by Lyn Macdonald, very good for putting the slaughter of the Somme into a social context.

"It was pure bloody murder! Douglas Haig should have been hung, drawn and quartered for what he did on the Somme. The cream of British manhood was shattered in less than six hours"
Pvt P Smith, 1st Border (quoted from 'First Day On The Somme, by Martin Middlebrook')

Like you I am reading the Middlebrook book. It is interesting that he, like John Keegan shows a certain amount of sympathy towards Haig.
The plan was Rawlinsons. Haig agreed to it only after raising certain objections (according to Middlebrook), such as the length of the artillery barrage. But I guess that the buck stopped with him. Still, it might be interesting to hear Haigs own recollections of the Somme battle.
I read the other day that Monty himself, later in life, was very saddened by the casualty rate at Alamein.
I wonder with hindsight what Haig and Rawlinson thoughts were after the war when the brutal truth was public knowledge!

Interestingly, Haig threw himself into the Poppy Appeal didn't he? I remember the Poppies we buy around Remembrance Day having 'Haig Fund' written in the black middle bit (can't recall if they still do). Think he raised a bit of money for ex-servicemen.

I think Rawlinson died in disgrace.....Gough, another WW1 General was sacked after his Army retreated in the German March Offensive but after the war he was awarded some cash/honours/whatever in compensation for his treatment! All this is from memory some it's rather hazy.

I dunno.....the slaughter was appalling, but I wonder what else they could have done. War had moved on, but the General's tactics had not. Their attitude seems infantile now, the methods they believed could bring about the wars end.

Sure I read somewhere that Alamein was more costly in lives then what Monty anticipated, so he probably did feel a lot of guilt over it, especially as Monty went to so much trouble to husband the lives of his men.

Who'd want to be a General eh? Not me I can bloody tell you.

Incidently, just to throw in a wee...uhh..."plug";

Gough commanded I Corps in 1915, part of which was the 9th (Scottish) Division where we find...The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and more importantly for me, 10th Service Battalion.

I think Gough also had a very bad press after the war. I think he was one of the generals at Passchendaele, have to check that
What I do know is that his father, brother (killed in 1915) and Uncle all won VC's. So he came from a very military background. He rose thru the ranks during the war on the basis of his background, rather then his tactical ability.
Like most English generals he clung on to the old days of the Cavalry. Refusing to admit the stark realities that warfare had changed.
Just a shame that the Pals paid the price!

Just noticed this thread by accident and made a quick scan, so just a few points:

1. 'Down in the South', the British Pals divisions also did well, accomplishing all
their objectives thanks to adequate use of heavy artillery, as at Verdun.
One particular RFA officer, learning from the French here, also began his
career. The name? Alan Brooke.

2. So successful were the 30th & 18th Divisions in the Montauban/Carnoy
sectors, that one battalion went right through the first day without
suffering any casualties. Yet this success was overshadowed by what was
happening further up the line, and it's only fairly recently that monuments
have started to be established in this sector. There's been much bitterness
among Manchester & Liverpool veterans (or so I've been told) about their
contribution being ignored.

3. With reference to Neville & the East Surreys, this wasn't some stupid bit
of play-acting but a carefully thought out effort to take a dangerous
section of German line. Neville had been brooding on the problem of
how to get across an open part of no mans land, fortified by only a
rum ration. He therefore went & bought 4 footballs for each company,
explaining that by giving the men something unusual to focus on,
they wouldn't be put off by the maching gun barrage ahead.

4. The result? 2 of the balls were later found in the German trenches.
200 of the battalion were casualities, but the 400 or so others weren't
and had acheived their objectives. Neville himself had been killed,
as he probably knew he would be, given his distinctive uniform &
leading the kick-off. It's not the sort of thing that could have happened
after 1 July, but given the context of the psychology of the troops
in the run up, is understandable for that day.

I think that Neville & the East Surrey pals deserve better credit than the
distortions subsequently used by propagandists on both sides.

5. I don't know if anything came of it, but an idea was being mooted a couple
of years back, for a film about the East Surreys ('Play the Game'),
starring no less than Eric Cantona as the French interpreter attached to
the East Surreys.

More anon, when I've time to read about, about the likes of 'Goughie',
a victim of politics from what I've heard.

Mike

Read something last night and have to correct something I wrote yesterday, I was wrong where I said that Rawlinson "died in disgrace" as he was awarded various honours/cash etc alongside most of the other Generals, with the exception of Gough.....however Gough was given honours around 1936 or so, as a belated apology for his sacking.

Also read that Gough's reputation finally went up the spout during Passchendaele, as he was not heavily involved in the First Day Of The Somme.....on July 1st 1916 he was commander of the Reserve Army - the Cavalry, but didn't hold an Army Commander's rank.

Well, that revises my view of Neville's stunt with the soccer balls, but it still seems pretty bizarre to me.

I have to remember that the psychology of that time was very different from today. Neville was obviously one of those officers the British Army desperately needed two and 20 years later...who showed contempt for danger and could inspire his men.

Well, for starters, I don't think the British Army was short of such officers in WW2. But secondly, why would any Officer in WW2 wish to inspire his men by taking inspiration from a man who'd been killed?

The Generation born in the shadow of The Great War became the Privates and junior Officers of WW2, and the memory of The Lost Generation (especially those who's Dad's fought and died in) is quite a thing to have hanging over you when you march off to another War with Germany.

I don't think the British Army lacked good junior Officers in 1918, or in WW2. Remember all the Allied victories in 1918, after the German Offensive? The BEF had come a long way by August 1918, with combined armed attacks carried out with skill.

The March Offensive (March 21st 1918) is another matter.....some have mentioned the BEF 'broke down' psychologically, but there are a lot of factors that helped the German attack.....the Fog (read any veteran account of that day, they all mention thick fog and how they had no idea what was going on)......the attack methods, relying on infiltration rather than direct assault.....the Allied unpreparedness - remember Haig's doctrine was to attack, not defend, which is why not much attention was paid to constructing fortifications equal to the Hindenberg line. Also it was the first large German offensive against the BEF since the 2nd Battle of Ypres, in 1915, which may also help explain how it succeeded so well.

But ultimately, the German March Offensive can be compared to the Ardennes Offensive of WW2 - it pushed the Allies back, but helped cripple the German Army and paved the way for a final victory.