The Ghosts

I first published this exactly a year ago. It still is a heart-rending episode in our history


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It is a glorious day here - it promises to be one of the hottest days of the year, Wimbledon is in full swing ("Well Done Andy") and the kids schools are winding down for the summer - trips away - now that the exam season is now over. But July 1st for my Grandfather meant reminders of a day of unimaginable horror - the First Day on the Somme. There are no survivors left now - Harry Patch ("The Last Fighting Tommy") served at 3rd Ypres in 1917 - from either side and so the Somme has passed from living memory and all that are left are grainy black and white photographs, sound recordings from later years and literary records.

It was the first time in action for Kitchener's army, that product of the extraordinary rush to enlist that occured in the late summer and autumn of 1914, something that is alien to us now in a vastly more cynical - or realistic - age. The Pals Battalions, that poignant reminder of civic pride where whole communities joined en-masse ("The Liverpool Pals, "The Tyneside Commercials" and, famously, "The Accrington Pals") and served together and who were to die together and bring heart-ache to the close communities from which they came.

The plans was simple:a week long bombardment to attempt to break the dense thickets of wire between the two sides and to bury the Germans in their dugouts, followed by a simple occupation of the German defences by the infantry. The tactics were simple too: the British staff considered that it would be too difficult to teach the New Army "fire and movement" and so they dictated that the troops would attack in lines - each soldier being about 3 yards apart.

The bombardment failed - the shrapnel shells failed to cut the wire and the bigger, high-explosive shells were too few in number and too inadequate to destroy the Germans deep in their bunkers.

Its the innocence that hits one now: the playing of a football accross the lines by Captain Nevill of the East Surreys (he died) as did a North Country player from the Newcastle Commercials, the officers dressing up, making them conspicuous - few officers wore the Tommy serge as they would later - carrying sticks with which to direct their troops, the cheering of the troops as they looked at the apparent destruction opposite.

And what then? It was literally a race for life. The Germans had to get up from the dugouts and set up their machine guns or they would die before British troops occupied their trenches. For the British, they had to get past the obstacles in no-man's-land or they too would die.

The wire was uncut in many places: the Germans set up their machine guns and poured flanking fire (much more effective that firing directly into a body of troops) and the massacre began. Some of the attacking battalions were destroyed - the 9th Royal Irish Fusiliers - part of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) which represented Protestant ascendancy in Northern Ireland in 1914 and which had joined up together to form the 36th Ulster Divison - lost over 500 officers and men, the Tyneside Scottish Brigade lost all 4 of its battalion commanders.

Nearly 60,000 casualties were suffered on that day, including almost 20,000 killed. It was the worst single day in the history of the British Army.

It was the day that the innocent Edwardian time died and the modern cynical era began.