The Somme - July to November 1916 .

The Somme The started on July 1st 1916 and lasted until November 1916. For many people, the Battle of the Somme was the battle that symbolised the horrors of warfare in World War One; this one battle had a marked effect on overall casualty figures and seemed to epitomise the futility of trench warfare. Ironically, going over the top at the Somme was the first taste of battle many of these men had, as many were part of “Kitchener’s Volunteer Army” persuaded to volunteer by posters showing Lord Kitchener himself summoning these men to arms to show their patriotism. Some soldiers were still boys as young as 16 [or younger- if they lied], and most of the men going to battle had no idea what warfare entailed. Why was the battle fought? For several months, the French had been taking severe losses at Verdun, east of Paris, so to relieve the French, the Allied High Command decided to attack the Germans to the north of Verdun therefore requiring the Germans to move some of their men away from the Verdun battlefield, thus relieving the French. The head of the French Army, General Foch, believed that the attack in the Somme would achieve little – this view was shared by some leading British commanders too. However, orders from London and Paris ensured that the battle would take place. Just how backward military thinking was then, was shown by the fact that the British put a regiment of cavalry on standby when the attack started, to exploit the hole that would be created by a devastating infantry attack; the nature of warfare in the previous two years would have indicated that cavalry was no longer viable. Soldiers sent to fight were newly recruited volunteers and not trained military personnel. Conscription only began in Britain in 1916 but had been in place many years previously in France, meaning the French conscripts had usually some degree of military knowledge or training. British soldiers on the other hand were at a huge disadvantage and simply were not trained nor prepared for life on the battlefield. The Battle around the Somme [river valley] started with a weeklong artillery bombardment of the German lines. 1,738,000 shells were fired at the Germans. The logic behind this was so that the artillery guns would destroy the German trenches and barbed wire placed in front of the trenches. The use of artillery was supported by Field Marshall Haig: “The enemy’s position to be attacked was of a very considerable character, situated on high, undulating tract of ground. (They had) deep trenches….bomb proof shelters……wire entanglements forty yards broad often as thick as a man’s finger. Defences of this nature could only be attacked with the prospect of success after careful artillery preparation.”

“Signing on” The Bombardment

The Germans had deep dugouts for their men and all they had to do when the bombardment started was to move these men into the relative safety of the deep dugouts. When the bombardment stopped, the Germans would have known that this would have been the signal for an infantry advance. They moved from the safety of their dugouts and manned their machine guns to face the British and French. The British soldiers advanced across a 25-mile front.

By the end of the battle, in November 1916, the British loses were 420,000, the French lost nearly 200,000 men and the Germans 500,000. The Allied forces had advanced along a thirty-mile strip that was seven miles deep at its maximum. Lord Kitchener was a supporter of the theory of attrition – that eventually you would grind down your enemy and they would have to yield. He saw the military success of the battle as all-important. However, it had dire political and social consequences in Britain. Many spoke of the “lost generation”, finding it difficult to justify the 88,000 Allied men lost for every mile gained in the advance. Day Two on the Somme.…. July 2nd “The next morning we gunners surveyed the dreadful scene in front of us……it became clear that the Germans always had a commanding view of “No Man’s Land”. (The British) attack had been brutally repulsed. Hundreds of dead were strung out like wreckage washed up to a high water-mark. Quite as many died on the enemy wire as The “Wounded” of the Somme on the ground, like fish caught in the net. They hung there in grotesque postures. Some looked as if they were praying; they had died on their knees and the wire had prevented their fall. Machine gun fire had done its terrible work.” [George Coppard, machine gunner] During the battle, 51 Victoria Crosses were won by British soldiers. 31 were won by NCO’s and 20 by officers. Of these 51 medals, 17 were awarded posthumously – ten to NCO’s and seven to officers.

COXA visit to the Somme In 2014 a party of nearly 40 Clapham Old Xaverians visited the Somme to pay their respects to those Xaverians who fought and lost their lives on the Somme. In early 2014 we had discovered seven old boys of the College who are remembered on our Chapel’s Roll of Honour. These young men were quickly “christened” [with some affection] “The Magnificent Seven. In 2016 we unearthed another Old Boy of the College who died at the Somme. So now we honour eight Old Xaverians who died on the Somme and are all buried at the magnicient Theipval Memorial. The Memorial is the memorial to “The Missing of the Somme” bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. The memorial, designed by Sir , and completed in 1932 and unveiled by the Prince of Wales, in the presence of the President of France, on 1 August 1932.

The COXA war dead at the Somme – all “missing” – “died in action” – no headstones

Harry Bulbeck , Bernard Davey, John Rice, Leonard Brett, Gerald Davey, Frederick Broad and Ambrose Wilkinson and our “eighth” Walter Stephens [who lived next door to the College at 7 Clapham Mansions] was added in 2016. These young men never had the chance to become “Old

Boys” and enjoy the friendship, the social events, sporting activities, alcohol, good food and great fun, which all of us have enjoyed. Their family life was often as a “son” rather than “husband, or father”, as the age range, which tends to cluster in the “19 to 23 groups”, testifies.

Eleven MILLION people in Britain have an ancestor who fought at the Somme.

The Battle of the Somme -'Over by Christmas' was the early battle- cry!

General Sir Douglas Haig and General Sir Henry Rawlinson at the 4th Army HQ

The men went over-the-top at 7:30 am on 1st July, wave after wave were simply mown down by enemy fire. Approximately 60,000 men were killed or wounded by the end of the first day. The French, attacking where the defences were weaker, had been more successful yet without back up

from the British they were unable to hold on to their advance. Convinced of even tual success Haig

allowed the bloodshed to continue despite the growing losses. By the time he called off his 'Great

Push' on 28th November 1916 over a million solders on both sides. After four months of fighting the So, who were the Clapham lads who died on the Somme and are remembered with the other 78,000 “ Allies had “m issing” advanced at the no Thiepval more than Memorial? five miles. Well, they were all at Clapham College between 1898 and 1909. The oldest [34] to be killed in action was [Lieutenant] Frederic Broad, who started at Clapham in 1899 and was awarded the Military Medal – the only medal [as far as we known] too be awarded to a Clapham College boy in WWI – Frederic started at the College at only six years old and travelled in from Crystal Palace. The youngest to die was Bernard Davey, who was only 19 when he died. Henry Bulbeck had already been wounded in Gallipoli , before dying at the Somme at the end of the Battle; [his mother insisted his BSc was added to his name on the monument at Theipval]. nd Walter Stevens and Ambrose Wilkinson were both 2 Lieutenants. Four of the eight had already seen action in Flanders before transferring to the Somme. Leonard Brett only spent a year at Clapham from 1905 to 1906 [you must remember the College was a fee-paying school]. John Rice was a Lance Corporal in the East Surrey Regiment. Gerald Brady from Franciscan Road Tooting was the eighth to die on the Somme. Apart from Gerald Brady [Tooting] and Frederic Broad [Anerley] all the other 6 lived in Clapham [Deauville Rd, Orlando Rd, Manchuria Rd, Nightingale

Lane and Broxash Rd]. Local Lads who died in the Great War, Remembered by us today May They ++ R.I.P. ++

Gerald F. Brady 1900-1904 27 26/09/1916 Private Dorset Regiment Franciscan Road Tooting Leonard G. Brett 1905-1906 27 01/07/1916 Rifleman Westminster Rifles Deauville Road Clapham Frederic Broad - Military Medal 1899-1901 34 03/09/1918 Rifleman London Regiment Anerley Road Crystal Palace Henry E. Bulbeck BSc 1905-1908 22 16/11/1916 Lieutenant London Regiment Orlando Road Clapham

Bernard Davey 1907-1909 19 18/10/1916 Private Manchuria Road Clapham

Walter S. Stevens 1898-1901 31 07/07/1916 2nd Lieutenant Lancashire Reg. Clapham Mansions Clapham

John Rice 1902.1903 23 18/07/1917 Lance-Corporal East Surrey Reg. Broxash Rd Clapham

Ambrose J. Wilkinson 1899-1908 25 26/09/1916 2nd Lieutenant Middx Regiment Honeywell Road Clapham

Why did so many Clapham Xaverians die at the same place and time on the Somme?

In 1914 the young men being trained for the battlefield included 'Pals' Battalions made up of men who were friends, relatives and workmates recruited from the same communities. The idea was that the band of friends would work together and fight together as stronger units, bonded by their friendships. That is possibly how the eight Clapham boys ended up together on the Somme Front Line. By mid-1916 these men had been trained and had arrived in France. The Battle of the Somme would be the first-time Britain's new volunteer army took the leading role in a battle on the Western Front. Our own Leonard Brett [aged 27] was killed on the first day of the Somme on 1st – he was 27 years old. He didn’t live to see the full horrors of the Somme, he would have gone “over the top” imaging he was fighting and possibly sacrificing his life for an Allied Victory over the Germans, the reality was far from the truth. The British plan of attack was primarily down to two commanders. Haig gave the overall direction of the battle as Commander-in-Chief, with Sir Henry Rawlinson commanding Fourth Army, which was to attack on the first day. Rawlinson advocated a more limited approach to the attack, but the more optimistic Haig wanted to achieve more distant objectives. Neither commander had been involved in an offensive on this scale before. . The first photograph of a tank going into action, at Flers-Courcelette, 1916

By mid-September the British were ready to assault the German third line of defences with a new weapon, “the tank”. Objectives for 15 September included the Fourth Army’s capture of the German defences at Flers and the seizure of Gueudecourt, Lesboeufs and Morval. The Canadian Corps of Gough's Reserve Army was to take Courcelette. Of 49 tanks, available to support the infantry, only 36 reached their starting points, though these caused alarm among the German defenders. Flers and Courcelette fell but the advance on 15 September was limited to about 2,500 yards on a three-mile front.

Personal stories of the Somme – “soldiers or schoolboys”? Cyril Jose and Len Thompson

Cyril Jose lied about his age and joined the Army with his school pals. He tells his story below

On the very first day of the Somme; the bloodiest ever in the history of the British Army, Cyril and his pals were sent over the top, part of the very first wave of men, at 7.30am. By 7.35am he had been shot through the left arm and chest. For more than 19,000 British men, July 1, 1916, was their last day on earth. For Cyril, it was 24 hours of lonely, painful, fearful silence as he lay wounded, knowing any movement could alert the Germans and end his life. He must have willed his trembling to stop, even the hairs on his arm to stop quivering in the breeze, as he curled his fingers slowly around his prize. Cyril was trying to reach the full water bottles on the belts of dead comrades who lay around him in no man’s land, on the battlefield of the Somme . Only hours before, the field had rung with a frenzied cacophony of killing.

“It seemed I was alone in a field of dead men,” he later wrote. “They were all the result of the few minutes going across. That’s where we lost most of our men. “Out of our battalion, 27 answered roll call after the battle. Twenty-seven out of about 900 or 1,000 men. Teenage soldier Cyril, left, with two pals Men went down like corn

before a scythe.” Cyril Jose was 15 when he joined up, still in his school uniform. He was just 15 when he signed up in 1915 as a private in 2nd Battalion, The Devonshire Regiment. His granddaughter Pauline Wallace, 62, describes how the plucky lad from St Day, Redruth, Cornwall, was initially turned away. “He was way too young,” she says. “He used to tell us how he had turned up at the recruiting station in his short trousers, his school uniform, and was told to go away. “But he just went around the corner, came back and said he was 18 and they let him in. He was a mischievous boy. There was a story of how, at 13, he’d play the organ in church and then stop suddenly so it made a rude noise.” In some of his earliest letters home, Cyril poignantly asked his mum to send him comics and lemonade powder. “He’s writing about comics and then talking about a guy who got shot next to him on the lookout,” Pauline adds. “This was a kid.” Cyril writes how the men were moved to the front the night before and scoffs at Commanding Officer Lt Col Archibald Sutherland’s “Captain Mainwaring- type talk full of pompous platitudes”, such as there would be “little resistance”.

Troops go over the top at the Somme He describes how as he went over the top, he knew “at that distance we had no possible chance of surprising them”. In a letter from hospital later, Cyril writes: “You know what a hailstorm is? Well, that’s about the chance one stood of dodging the bullets, shrapnel.” Five minutes later, he was shot. “They simply cut us down with their rifle and machine gun fire,” he writes. Lying close to the German wire, Cyril’s only hope was to hide behind two dead comrades. His survival was aided by friends Charlie Gaylard and Norton Hedge, both coalminers from Rhondda Valley. “They tore open my tunic, got out my field dressing and drenched my wound with iodine,” he wrote. Those brave men survived that day – but, sadly, not the war. Cyril writes how he tried to stem his blood flow with the dressing, but gave up. “I held it to the wound until it was soaked through, then I put the other on. When that got soaked I chucked them both away and let it go.” As night fell, German patrols hunted wounded men to take prisoner. Cyril writes: “I lay doggo clutching a Mills bomb ready to pull out the pin with my teeth. Rather that, than be taken prisoner.”

It was 7am, a full 24 hours since he had launched over the top, when he felt able to risk inching back to British lines. “Stiff and in pain, my uniform purple with blood” he began “the long crawl back”. Halfway along his perilous route, he met a badly wounded Brit, Pte Lamacraft, and they “struggled along together”. Cyril writes: “In an hour we had made little progress. We were too weak from loss of blood and had made ourselves conspicuous. Jerry started sniping at us.” They decided Cyril would have to go on alone. He bravely gathered more water bottles for Pte Lamacraft then set off, reaching the lines “an eternity later”. Pauline says: “He believed in what we were fighting for. But he stopped believing in the generals. Grandad always said they were miles behind, in safety, sending the kids over the top.” Cyril later went back to the West Country, married Dorothy and became a postman. He never forgave those who sent him into battle. Cyril writes: “Such a pity [General] Haig and his brass hats did not lead us into battle instead of urging us on from safe positions in the rear. “They might not have survived to sacrifice hundreds of thousands more lads.” Lee Thompson’s Story

A hundred years ago, in the summer of 1914, teenager Len Thompson was thrilled by the prospect of War. It was a month since the assassination of the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo, and now Russia and Germany were mobilising their armies. Britain was being drawn into the conflict. ‘We were all delighted when war broke out on August 4,’ he would recall, ‘bursting with happiness.’ It was not that the hardy, blue-eyed teenager from East Anglia was particularly blood-thirsty. Or politically minded. Or jingoistic. But soldiering for King and Country held prospects for him that were otherwise far beyond his poverty-stricken reach. “There were ten of us in the family and my father was a farm labourer earning 13 shillings [65p] a week. I left school when I was 13 and helping my mother. In those days, village people like me were worked mercilessly, literally to death in some cases. So, when the farmer stopped my pay because it was raining, I said to my mate, “Bugger him. We’ll go off and join the army.” ‘In my four months’ training with the regiment I put on nearly a stone in weight. They said it was the food but it was because for the first time in my life there was no strenuous work. ‘We were damned glad to have got off the farms. I had 7 shillings a week and sent my mother half of it. If you did this, the government added another 3s 6d - so my mother got 7 shillings.’ No wonder that hundreds of thousands of young men like him flocked to the colours. “It was fine to fire at each other from a distance, to drop bombs, is something impersonal, but to see the whites of a man’s eyes and then to run a bayonet through him - that was against my comprehension… but it was something I would have to face within days of arriving at the Front”. Lee Thompson’s first taste of action was to bayonet a young German soldier – it could have been the other way around – the glamour of War quickly dissipated.