1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [77]
Shortly after eleven General Rawlinson telephoned Sir Douglas Haig to pass on this disquieting news and discuss its implications. It was decided to take the risk and send troops forward as planned. But the plan was not altered in the slightest particular from the orders of the previous evening.
At long last the 2nd Rifle Brigade were to have their chance and they were to be in the vanguard of the attack moving forward with the Royal Irish Rifles to knock out the guns and the redoubt at the Layes Bridge. Forty-eight hours previously, when Colonel Stevens had begged to be allowed to assault that very objective, it had been manned by a skeleton force and was theirs for the taking. Now it was a bastion, and behind deep barricades of barbed wire fifteen machine-guns were poised to rake the battlefield. They could have held an army at bay and against them two Battalions had no chance at all. It was a sorry climax to the long impatient wait.
The first men to leave the trench were pulverised by a tornado of fire – from machine-guns at the Layes redoubt and the field guns behind it, from machine-guns and rifles in the new German trench. Even the guns behind the Bois du Biez, and the machine-guns in front of the wood itself were able to swing right and concentrate fire on the unfortunate riflemen, for the Indian Corps on their front was ordered to stand fast until the Layes Bridge redoubt was captured. Hardly a man survived to advance so much as fifty yards. Bullets whipped across the trench where the men of the next wave crouched low beneath the parapet, teeth clenched as the ground rocked, white knuckles clamped round rifles, waiting with fixed bayonets for the command that would send them over the top. They knew full well that it would be slaughter. The Colonel knew it too and, on his own responsibility, cancelled the attack.
As the artillery officers had feared, the noon bombardment that preceded the general attack was a disaster and on most of the front the troops failed to make any headway. But where it had succeeded, on the northern edge of the battle, the 7th Division did manage to advance the line and the Germans surrendered in droves. Some ground had been gained but beyond it the enemy fought back hard. The shelling reached a crescendo, movement was impossible and information dried up altogether. Desperate for news, the anxious British staff had to depend on reports from artillery observation officers trying to pierce the mist from positions of small advantage, and endeavouring as best they could to piece together what was happening out in front. The messages that got through to headquarters were long out of date and gave a completely false impression.
At one o’clock the welcome news that the Worcesters had captured part of the German defences near Mauquissart was received at First Army Headquarters to the satisfaction of Sir Douglas Haig. In the absence of other information he could have hardly have known that they had been forced out again and had been back on their old line for a full three hours. As staff officers pored eagerly over the battle-map, pinpointing the Worcesters’ supposed position, more news came through. Fourth Corps headquarters confirmed that the 7th Division had advanced and added, ‘Observation officer reports having seen British troops crossing the Mauquissart Road.’* That clinched it.
Sir Douglas Haig was an imperturbable soldier, but even his air of unruffled calm hinted