The First Day on the Somme by Martin Middlebrook

Author:Martin Middlebrook [Middlebrook, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141926940
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2008-12-10T16:00:00+00:00

As the morning drew to a close, the battlefield lost some of the noise and violence of the early, intense fighting. Where an attack had been successful, the troops rested on their final objectives, not yet much disturbed by the Germans. The small parties which had only precarious footholds in the German trenches had to fight to maintain their positions, but for these, too, there were quiet periods. The British artillery was still in action, but the firing of their guns and the explosions of their shells far away in the German lines had become a background noise, hardly noticed by the men on the battlefield. German shell fire too had slackened on some sectors, but it was quick to return if called for.

Over most of the front, No Man’s Land itself appeared to be completely deserted except for the pitiful bundles of khaki which showed where men had been hit. To the onlooker there was no sign of the thousands of men who had gone to ground there. The sun, high in the sky now, was blazing from a cloudless sky. It was a very hot day and there was hardly a breath of wind. Overhead, an occasional R.F.C. aeroplane swooped close to the ground, looking for signs of life.

For the wounded out in the open the hours seemed endless and they were also in great danger. The Germans were furious at the persistent sniping from wounded British in No Man’s Land. To them the British were defeated, the attack completely broken. Released from the tension of the week of shelling in their dug-outs, they had thrown caution to the winds and jumped up onto their parapets, convinced the British would accept the defeat. To be sniped at from No Man’s Land, especially by wounded men, was, to them, treachery.

Angrily, the Germans retaliated. They shot to kill at anything that moved. No longer was a wounded man shown any mercy. They watched bodies for any sign of movement. If a wounded man moved involuntarily, a shot rang out and he never moved again. Either he was dead or he had learned his lesson. ‘I had been wounded in both legs early in the attack and had fainted from loss of blood. Later in the morning I came round and found my steel helmet was off. I felt terribly exposed without it and reached forward very slowly to try and put it back over my head but as soon as I moved a bullet hit me in the shoulder.’ (Pte H. Kemp, Grimsby Chums)

Those who were safe in shell holes could do little but watch in anguish. ‘It was a real shame to see poor fellows with lovely Blighty wounds being picked off as they tried to crawl away.’ (Pte A. Fretwell, Sheffield City Battalion)

At Gommecourt, Capt. John Green, the medical officer of a Derby Territorial battalion, was hit as he searched for wounded in No Man’s Land. Despite this, he went to help a machine-gun officer, badly hurt and caught fast in the German barbed wire.

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