Last night, during the night and dawn I was fixed on the reality of being a young officer in the World War 1. Of young men, boys really, of good middle class families with Victorian values, educated in public schools, brought up with the belief in the greatness of the Empire, of personal achievement and competitive success and then asked to lead a group of other young men into battle, some married, some with children, most with living mothers, sisters, fathers and brothers, and to do so knowing that you had inadequate resources of guns and ammunition, that the enemy were in effect first cousins, from similar backgrounds and beliefs, who you may have known because of relatives, family business associations or from travels or educational exchanges, and worshipping the same God.
Back home, you knew of deaths and injuries, but you also knew the rightness of the cause and where your duty lay, to obey orders whatever they were, to do your duty whatever the implications, and then you came to face with the moment of truth, on one cold morning without any sun, and you heard the noise of the enemy's guns, and you heard the screams as men were blown apart around you, and you felt the fear of those standing with you, as you said go and took those steps up the ladder out of the trench, moving forward as quickly as you could, waiting, expecting to hear your own scream, feel your own pain, see bits of you splattering the men and bits of them splattering you, and you knew there would be no going back, and you hoped the end would be quick and soon.
But there was to be no end of this, for the Serbian people, for example, whose ambitions and intrigues it could be said had precipitated the damnation of a generation. The German army with Austrian assistance controlled a line from the Channel coast across France to Gallipoli and across through Turkey back through Russia so that the central powers as they were called controlled all of central Europe . The efforts of the Russian armies with what had appeared unlimited resources of men, was close to chaos and extinction with as the second year of the war ended and the winter of 1915 approached 2 million men dead, wounded or missing in action and 3000 heavy guns destroyed. French efforts led to more deaths than the whole of the British Expeditionary forces. It was with the allies held or beaten that the might of the German forces turned on Serbia and seizing the opportunity Bulgaria attacked with realistic ferocity so that as the year ended one in sixth of the Serbian population were dead and only one quarter of its army remaining in being, of a kind. It was at this moment the allies met and decided that if there was to be any new attempt to regain the lost territory and defeat the enemy there would have to be a combined and coordinated offensive on every front involving every man and resource and thus the war, the killing and the suffering was to indeed become total in the following spring.
For the name of this war became Verdun, and the cry went up. Hell cannot be so terrible. The original German objective was to attack the area leading to Verdun, the French barrier to Paris, fortified by 20 large and 40 smaller forts, but which unknown to the Germans had been denuded of guns and men to fight elsewhere. The Germans created a score of railway lines, moved in over a thousand guns and over 100000 men. Over a thousand trains moved in two and half million shells,
Then in February 1916 for three hours the town was attacked and then the lines and the roads leading to them so that those who survive believed that no one else was living. Two and half times the French defenders followed on behind, first fighting patrols with the latest weapons, the flame throwers and then the assault troops. Realising that Verdun itself was under threat every attempt was made to bring up reinforcements and materials so that when spring appeared a quarter of million lay dead or wounded, 120000 Germans and 133000 French. But this was only the beginning. By the time what proved to be one of the longest battles in history ended the total dead was a quarter of a million and the total wounded half a million. Despite the losses it was the French who felt a sense of Victory following the immortal words of their general, they shall not pass, and German acceptance that they were unable to capture the town, because before the battle had ended, another had commenced, this time involving the British expeditionary force and another name, the Somme.
The first day of the battle was the bloodiest in British Military History. In 1914 the expeditionary force totalled some 100000 men and later it was increased to 300000 and then the big recruiting drive increased to over a million and by the time of the big push at the Somme there were over two and a quarter million men, all volunteers. The middle and upper classes had joined the war forming whole battalions such as that formed from Sheffield made up of businessmen, teachers, accounts, craftsmen and bank clerks, or the sportsmen battalion. However they needed to be trained and equipped and the Germans had attacked first and the capture of Verdun could have signalled the collapse of French morale and its army. The French Commander pleased with General Haig for his force to commence battle, so as to relieve pressure away from Verdun, and so reluctantly the date was set at July 1st over a month before the General he was ready.
On that day of summer in 1916 there were nearly 60000 British Empire and French casualties and of which close on 20000 had died. Before it commenced there was seven days of shelling of German positions using 1.7 million shells. But the Germans were ready with two lines of trenches and bomb shelters, with strong communication links to the forts and command positions which had been prepared in the villages and forests behind the front. At the end of the day the German looses were only a seventh of their attackers and at Ovillers the losses of the British 8th Division was 5121 while the German was 280, 18 to 1. It was during the last allied effort to achieve a breakthrough the German defensive lines that the tank was introduced and the battle at which one of the great uncles of Sir Matthew Pinsett is officially recorded as having committed suicide after failing to reach the stated objective.
Before the winter set in again the allied forces had gained 12 kilometres of ground and the price an estimated one million killed and wounded of which the Germans were half a million, the British 420000 and the French 200000. The price of honour and duty.
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