Somme must slacken; repeatedly she declared that it had ceased; but the beginning of September saw the assault as sternly maintained as in the first days of July. Like some harsh and remorseless chemical the waxing Allied energy is eating into the waning German mass. There is thought and care in the plan, and that resolution which is so strong that it can dare to be patient. The guarantee of the continuity of the Allied effort is its orderly and accurate progress. The heroic dash may fail and be shattered by the counter-attack, but this sure and methodical pressure is as resistless as the forces of Nature. It is attrition, but attrition in the acute form—not like the slow erosion of cliffs by the sea, but like the steady crumbling of a mountain to which hydraulic engineers have applied a mighty head of water. The time must come when the far-flung German lines will be exhausted by the strain and will seek to retire. In that falling back, with the Allies all round the salient at their throats, may be fought the decisive action of the war.
A sketch of the main features of a great action is like the rough outline of a picture before the artist has added the colours and the proportions of life. It cannot even hint at the rich human quality of it all, the staunch brotherhood in arms, the faithfulness, the cheerful sacrifice, the fortitude, any more than it can portray the terror and suffering. But it is well to realise that this battle, unparalleled in its magnitude and gravity, was also unique in another circumstance. It was the effort of the whole British nation, and an effort made of each man’s free will. Her armies were not a separate caste, whose doings the ordinary citizen watched with interest and excitement, but with a certain detachment, as those of friendly gladiators hired for a purpose foreign to the decent routine of his life. They were composed of the ordinary citizen himself. The Army was the people. Not a class or profession or trade but had sent its tens of thousands to the ranks, and scarcely a British home but had losses to mourn. Those fighting men had come willingly to the task, because their own interest and happiness were become one with their country’s victory. Having willed the end, they willed also the means, and showed themselves gluttons for the full rigour of service. One old doubt has been resolved. Could free men show the highest discipline? Was that acme of organisation which a conquering army demands compatible with a true democracy? “It has long been a grave question,” said Abraham Lincoln, nearly sixty years ago, “whether any Government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies.” That riddle is now nobly answered.
No great thing is achieved without a price, and on the Somme fell the very flower of Britain, the straightest of limb, the keenest of brain, the most eager of spirit. In such a mourning each man thinks first of his friends. Each of us has seen his crowded circle become like the stalls of a theatre at an unpopular play. Each has suddenly found the world of time strangely empty and eternity strangely thronged. To look back upon the gallant procession of those who offered their all and had their gift accepted, is to know exultation as well as sorrow. The young men who died almost before they had looked on the world, the makers and the doers who left their tasks unfinished, were greater in their deaths than in their lives. They builded better than they knew, for the sum of their imperfections was made perfect, and out of loss they won for their country and mankind an enduring gain. Their memory will abide so long as men are found to set honour before ease, and a nation lives not for its ledgers alone but for some purpose of virtue. They have become, in the fancy of Henry Vaughan, the shining spires of that City to which we travel.
1. See page 42.
THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME
SECOND PHASE
CHAPTER I. THE SEPTEMBER CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER II. THE OCTOBER FIGHTING
CHAPTER III. THE BATTLE OF THE ANCRE.
CHAPTER I.
THE SEPTEMBER CAMPAIGN.
The capture of Guillemont on September 3rd meant the end of the German second position on the whole front between Thiepval and Estrèes. The Allies were faced with a new problem, to understand which it is necessary to consider the nature of the defences still before them and the peculiar configuration of the country.
The advance of July 1st had carried the first enemy lines on a broad front, but the failure of the attack between Gommecourt and Thiepval had made the breach eight miles less than the original plan. The advance of July 14th gave us the second line on a still narrower front—from Bazentin le Petit to Longueval. The danger now was that the Allied thrust, if continued, might show a rapidly narrowing wedge which would result in the formation of a sharp and precarious salient. Accordingly Sir Douglas Haig broadened the breach by striking out to left and right, capturing first Pozières and the high ground at Mouquet Farm, and then—on his other flank—Guillemont and Ginchy. These successes made the gap in the second position some seven miles wide, and brought the British front in most places to the highest ground, from which direct observation was obtainable over the lower slopes and valley pockets to the east. We did not yet hold the complete crown of the ridge, though at Mouquet Farm and at High Wood we had positions which no superior height commanded.
The German third position had at the beginning of the battle been only in embryo. Before the attack of July 14th it had been more or less completed, and by the beginning of September it had been greatly elaborated and a fourth position prepared behind it. It was based on a string of fortified villages which lie on the reverse slopes of the main ridge— Courcelette, Martinpuich, Flers, Lesboeufs, and Morval. Behind it was an intermediate line, with Le Sars, Eaucourt l’Abbaye, and Gueudecourt as strong positions in it; and further back a fourth position, which lay just west of the Bapaume-Peronne road, covering the villages of Sailly-Saillisel and Le Transloy. This was the line protecting Bapaume; the next position at this moment only roughly sketched out, lay well to the east of that town.
Since the battle began the Germans had, up to the second week in September, brought 61 Divisions into action in the Somme area; 7 had been refitted and sent in again; on September 14th they were holding the line with 15 Divisions—which gives us 53 as the number which had been used up. The German losses throughout had been high. The French casualties had been singularly light—for they had fought economically under close cover of their guns, and had had, on the whole, the easier tactical problem to face. The British losses had been, beyond doubt, lower than those of the enemy, and our most conspicuous successes, such as the advance of July 1st south of Thiepval and the action of July 14th, had been achieved at a comparatively small cost. Our main casualties arose from the failure north of Thiepval on the first day, and the taking of desperately defended and almost impregnable positions like Delville Wood and Guillemont. In the ten weeks' battle the enemy had shown many ups and downs of strength. At one moment his whole front would appear to be crumbling; at another the arrival of fresh batteries from Verdun and new troops would solidify his line. The effort had strained his capacity to its full. He had revived the old First Army—which had been in
