The World War I Reader by Neiberg Michael S.;

Author:Neiberg, Michael S.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 2007-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

NOTE

From Leon van der Essen in Charles Horne, ed., Source Records of the Great War, volume II (No place of publication: National Alumni, 1923), pp. 151–64.

3.2

The Historic First of July

Philip Gibbs

1

With the British Armies in the Field, July 1, 1916 The attack which was launched today against the German lines on a 20-mile front began well. It is not yet a victory, for victory comes at the end of a battle, and this is only a beginning. But our troops, fighting with very splendid valour, have swept across the enemy’s front trenches along a great part of the line of attack, and have captured villages and strongholds which the Germans have long held against us. They are fighting their way forward not easily but doggedly. Many hundreds of the enemy are prisoners in our hands. His dead lie thick in the track of our regiments.

And so, after the first day of battle, we may say: It is, on balance, a good day for England and France. It is a day of promise in this war, in which the blood of brave men is poured out upon the sodden fields of Europe.

For nearly a week now we have been bombarding the enemy’s lines from the Yser to the Somme. Those of us who have watched this bombardment knew the meaning of it. We knew that it was the preparation for this attack. All those raids of the week which I have recorded from day to day were but leading to a greater raid when not hundreds of men but hundreds of thousands would leave their trenches and go forward in a great assault.

We had to keep the secret, to close our lips tight, to write vague words lest the enemy should get a hint too soon, and the strain was great upon us and the suspense an ordeal to the nerves, because as the hours went by they drew nearer to the time when great masses of our men, those splendid young men who have gone marching along the roads of France, would be sent into the open, out of the ditches where they got cover from the German fire.

This secret was foreshadowed by many signs. Travelling along the roads we saw new guns arriving—heavy guns and field-guns, week after week. We were building up a great weight of metal.

Passing them, men raised their eyebrows and smiled grimly. … A tide of men flowed in from the ports of France—new men of new divisions. They passed to some part of the front, disappeared for a while, were met again in fields and billets, looking harder, having stories to tell of trench life and raids.

The army was growing. There was a mass of men here in France, and some day they would be ready, trained enough, hard enough, to strike a big blow.

A week or two ago the whisper passed, “We’re going to attack.” But no more than that, except behind closed doors of the mess-room. Somehow by the look on men’s faces, by their silences and thoughtfulness, one could guess that something was to happen.

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