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NOW IT CAN BE TOLD
PSYCHOLOGY ON THE SOMME
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I remember, as though it were yesterday in vividness and a hundred years again in time, the bombardment which preceded the battles of the Somme. With a group of officers I stood on the high ground above Albert, looking over to Gommecourt and Thièpval and La Boisselle, on the left side of the German salient, and then, by crossing the road, to Fricourt, Mametz, and Montauban on the southern side. From Albert westward past Thièpval Wood ran the little river of the Ancre, and on the German side the ground rose steeply to Usna Hill by La Boisselle, and to Thièpval Château above the wood. It was a formidable defensive position--one fortress girdled by line after line of trenches, and earthwork redoubts, and deep tunnels, and dugouts in which the German troops could live below ground until the moment of attack. The length of our front of assault was about twenty miles round the side of the salient to the village of Bray, on the Somme, where the French joined us and continued the battle.
Albert Church. See larger image. From where we stood we could see a wide panorama of the German positions, and beyond, now and then, when the smoke of shell-fire drifted, I caught glimpses of green fields and flower patches beyond the trench lines, and church spires beyond the range of guns rising above clumps of trees in summer foliage. Immediately below, in the foreground, was the village of Albert, not much ruined then, with its red-brick church and tower from which there hung, head downward, the Golden Virgin with her Babe outstretched as though as a peace-offering over all this strife. That leaning statue, which I had often passed on the way to the trenches, was now revealed brightly with a golden glamour, as sheets of flame burst through a heavy veil of smoke over the valley. In a field close by some troops were being ticketed with yellow labels fastened to their backs. It was to distinguish them so that artillery observers might know them from the enemy when their turn came to go into the battleground. Something in the sight of those yellow tickets made me feel sick. . . . Away behind, a French farmer was cutting his grass with a long scythe, in steady, sweeping strokes. Only now and then did he stand to look over at the most frightful picture of battle even seen until then by human eyes. I wondered, and wonder still what thoughts were passing through that old brain to keep him at his work, quietly, steadily, on the edge of hell. For there, quite close and clear, was hell, of man's making, produced by chemists and scientists, after centuries in search of knowledge. There were the fires of hate, produced out of the passion of humanity after a thousand years of Christendom and of progress in the arts of beauty. There was the devil-worship of our poor, damned human race, where the most civilized nations of the world were on each side of the bonfires. It was worth watching by a human ant.
A monster gun in action. See larger image. I remember the noise of our guns as all our batteries took their parts in a vast orchestra of drum-fire. The tumult of the field-guns merged into thunderous waves. Behind me a fifteen-inch -- "Grandmother" -- fired single strokes, and each one was an enormous shock. Shells were rushing through the air like droves of giant birds with beating wings and with strange wailings. The German lines were in eruption. Their earthworks were being tossed up, and fountains of earth sprang up between columns of smoke, black columns and white, which stood rigid for a few seconds and then sank into the banks of fog. Flames gushed up red and angry, rending those banks of mist with strokes of lightning. In their light I saw trees falling, branches tossed like twigs, black things hurtling through space. In the night before the battle, when that bombardment had lasted several days and nights, the fury was intensified. Red flames darted hither and thither like little red devils as our trench-mortars got to work. Above the slogging of the guns there were louder, earth-shaking noises, and volcanoes of earth and fire spouted as high as the clouds. One convulsion of this kind happened above Usna Hill, with a long, terrifying roar and a monstrous gush of flame.
The German trenches being blown up by a great mine before the assault. See larger image. "What is that?" asked someone.
"It must be the mine we charged at La Boisselle. The biggest that has ever been."
It was a good guess. When, later in the battle, I stood by the crater of that mine and looked into its gulfs I wondered how many Germans had been hurled into eternity when the earth had opened. The grave was big enough for a battalion of men with horses and wagons, below the chalk of the crater's lips. Often on the way to Bapaume I stepped off the road to look into that white gulf, remembering the moment when I saw the gust of flame that rent the earth above it.
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