RSM Arthur Baker 30th Division, 4th Army, Somme 1916 with Sgt Billy Morris and three others.
When my grandchildren ask how I lost my leg, I always say the same thing: “I didn’t lose it. I know exactly where it is.” Of course that’s not completely true. But more or less. More or less, I know where the explosion came that took me out of the war. It was at Montauban. Or, as we called it, Monty-Bong. July 1st 1916. First Day of the Somme. The bloodiest day in the whole bloody war.
Three dear friends lie there still.
Fifty thousand casualties on the first day. And it went on for months. Think of that.
I was forty-three. Easily the oldest in the whole Division – or at least in the fighting end of it. There were plenty of older ones at HQ or who turned up at Chapel or visited the trenches to give us pep talks.
This was planned as the breakthrough, you see. After eighteen months of stalemate we were going to smash through and mop them up in a tidal wave of khaki. It must have been obvious to everyone what was coming. When we went over the top that July morning, it was into a weird silence that followed a full week of day and night intensive bombing. The attack was supposed to be coordinated with the French, but Verdun had put paid to that. The feeling was: “Now it’s our turn.” It wasn’t an optimistic feeling. “Come on, lads! The enemy trenches are less than three hundred yards away!”Lieutenant Swanson used to say. “ Just two football pitches, lads. Think of that!” He made it sound easy.
As RSM, I studied the maps with great attention. If I was to lead, I had to know where our boys were heading. Guillemont to the east and Mametz to the west. To the north: Bazentin-le-Petit and Bazentin-le-Grand. Bernafay and Trônes woods to the north-east and Maricourt to the south.
I tried to get all the unfamiliar names in my mind and tie them into visible landmarks. A stunted tree. A ruined barn. A chalk escarpment.
In the event, it was not difficult to see where to go. The German first defensive position ran south of the village, along the lower slopes of Montauban Spur. That’s where our two-football-pitch sprint ended. The finishing line.
Obviously, the Hun knew we were coming. They’d known for weeks, but -as we later realised- the Enemy intelligence anticipated an offensive against the Fricourt and Gommecourt spurs, with a possible supporting attack in between, rather than an attack further south around Montauban and the Somme river. We got lucky. If you want to put it like that.
A million lads would have thought differently. This is when we started calling Haig “the Butcher.’
The official story is plain enough We- the 30th Division- “attacked behind a creeping barrage and captured its objectives of Montauban and the Montauban Ridge, inflicting many casualties on Bavarian Infantry Regiment 6, of the 10th Bavarian Division and Infantry Regiment 62 of the 12th Division. A German counter-attack in the early hours of 2 July was a costly failure. The 30th Division began operations against Bernafay and Trônes woods on 3 July.”
We mounted up at the whistle at 7.30am with a line almost two miles long, running hell for leather across a blighted desertscape. No one had had any stomach for breakfast, but that was the thought that filled me: how hungry I was! This was the occasion when Captain Nevill did the famous trick with the footballs, kicking them across No Man’s Land to spur the attackers on. He only lived a few minutes. It was applauded in a rueful way, on our side, but just seen as evidence of “Tommy stupidity” on the other. Not for the first time, I agreed with their point of view.
The relentless bombardment had succeeded in disabling most of the German artillery when we attacked, and many of the German guns had been knocked out. The German artillery command post had also been wiped out by a single heavy shell. That shell probably saved all our lives, but I shuddered at the mess.
The wire had been well cut, and the French heavy artillery had destroyed many of the German’s deep dugouts – which were not as good in this sector – by using HE, not shrapnel, shells. Other divisions were not so lucky (again that word), and found the defenders emerging unscathed from bases cut deep into the earth.
Because of the shellfire, the Germans had been unable to relieve the Regiment defending this section of line, and the German soldiers had been reduced to exhaustion and shell-shock. The Germans were mostly caught in their dugouts, and we met only pockets of stiff resistance. Instead, we found many places full only of dead bodies – particularly in the Glatz Redoubt (labelled ‘g’ on the map) and in the cellars of Montauban – which shows how successful the artillery bombardment had been. (The only living thing found in Montauban was a fox.)
By 8.30am, we (the 30th Division) had joined up with the French Army at the Glatz Redoubt and consolidated our position, ready to move on.
This photograph was taken on the first day of the Somme. The original caption read: ‘In Montauban Alley, the final objective- taken about 6pm’. The objective on the first day was the French village of Montauban.
It was one of the few objectives successfully taken on 1 July 1916. At this stage my leg still had a couple of weeks to limp along.
Well, the attack continued to proceed more or less according to plan. We used ‘appropriate strategies’ to remove different obstacles, bringing up Lewis guns to enfilade and clear the Jerry machine-gun posts. In places, we attacked under a smoke-screen cover, with teams of bombers used to clear the Enemy trenches and machine-gun emplacements. And – most terrifying- flame-throwers were used to clear the badly-cratered ground along the main road.
We advanced so quickly that at points we had to wait until the artillery lifted (compared to further north, where the artillery ran on ahead of the attack). In all, 1882 German prisoners were taken and the HQ of the Germans’ 62nd Regiment was captured.
Montauban was captured by 12.30pm, and we moved out to establish a front line along their objective – a trench known as Montauban Alley. We looked out over a broad plain deserted except for fleeing Germans.
When we totted up in the Alley, we counted three thousand killed or wounded in our division.
The most glaring thing about the Montauban attack, however, if you’ll allow a bit of hindsight, was the LACK of a result. Having taken Montauban, the XIIIth Corps could have outflanked the German armies further north and achieved the ‘breakthrough’ Haig had wanted. However, while Haig had planned for a breakthrough, the commander of our 4th Army, Rawlinson, had preferred a ‘bite and hold’ strategy. Congreve, being a careful commander, preferred to follow Rawlinson, and so he ordered his men to consolidate, and the opportunity of 1 July was lost.
But it didn’t seem so at the time. There was a huge surge of adrenalin that had carried us forward, and it was hardly dissipated even by the enormous casualty lists. And, of course, we simply didn’t know of the almost total failure of advance on other sectors.
We feasted on the notion of ‘hard-fought victory.’
After a preliminary bombardment on 8 July, XIII Corps was to occupy the south end of Trônes Wood, Maltz Horn Trench and capture Maltz Horn Farm, as the French 39th Division on the right took the rest of Maltz Horn Trench, up to Hardecourt knoll and from there to Hardecourt. No man’s land opposite the British was 1,100–1,500 yd (1,000–1,400 m) wide and under German observation but the western approach from Bernafay Wood, held by the 9th (Scottish) Division was not visible from Longueval.
An attack could then be made from the south-west on Maltz Horn Farm, out of view of the German second position. On 9 July the 30th Division plan was to attack at 3:00 a.m. after a short bombardment. Next day another attack was mounted after a German counter-attack recovered the wood and recaptured the western edge. On 11 July British troops were withdrawn and a bombardment, said by German witnesses to be “the fiercest yet experienced”, opened at 2:40 a.m. before the attack.
On 12 July the 30th Division reported that it held the wood but that all three brigades were exhausted, so the 55th Brigade of the 18th (Eastern) Division was attached that morning.
We were played out. And I was legless, lying unconscious, and in pieces in the muddy entrance to the light railway line that ran through the centre of the wood. My own recollection is confused- muddled in the extreme. I remember issuing orders, as we prepared to assume defensive positions before the expected counter-attack. The blast that took us out -myself and several companions- could easily have come from our own guns. It was dark – so dark that you couldn’t distinguish blood from mud. One moment we were completely focused, the next everything was over forever.
And that’s where my leg lies. To this day, for all I know.
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