THE ATTACK ON HIGH WOOD BEGINS
This recent photograph was taken from the Bazentin to Longueval road looking north, Longueval (and Delville Wood) being just beyond the right hand edge of the picture. To the left of the photograph a clump of trees marks the road from Bazentin to High Wood. This was where Robert Graves found the dead German Sergeant-Major and the Gordon Highlanders.
After the eventual success in capturing Mametz Wood the battle moved forward, in particular towards High Wood. However, the unexpected length of time it had taken the 38th (Welsh) Division to capture the Mametz Wood area, gave the Germans defending High Wood ample time to prepare for the British assault. This delay was to cost the British dearly, as Division after Division attempted to take the strongly defended wood during the months following. The initial defence was undertaken by the German 26th Regiment under the command of a very able officer- Major Witte.
The first attacks were undertaken, along with other units, by the 9th battalion Highland Light Infantry known as the Glasgow Highlanders. Thus, on the evening of the 14th July 1916 the battalion went on the attack. Unfortunately, it was at this moment that the German counter-attack mounted from High Wood got underway and the Glasgow Highlanders came under withering fire taking very heavy casualties. The supporting battalions (1st South Staffords and 1st Queen’s) were forced on the defensive by the precision attacks of the German storming parties but nevertheless managed to enter the dark interior of the wood.
Meanwhile, a historic occasion took place. Magnificently mounted cavalry then entered the battle, the 7th Dragoon Guards and the turbaned Indian Regiment-20th Deccan Horse galloping across the fields to the north-eastern corner of the wood and beyond, to the cheers of the infantry moving forward towards High Wood.
At first they were successful and took prisoners, but soon the cavalrymen came under fire from German soldiers hiding in the cornfield and from snipers in nearby Delville Wood. The crew of a British two-seater aircraft saw the cavalry’s predicament and whilst the pilot took the aeroplane over a German machine gun post, his observer fired his Lewis gun into the German defenders. Having located the machine gun posts, the aircraft then flew over a battery of British artillery and dropped a message bag to the battery commander giving a sketch of the German positions, thus enabling his guns to give accurate supporting fire. Soon however, the cavalrymen had to retreat to the shelter of a nearby sunken road and eventually were withdrawn from the battle.
It was not easy to carry their wounded. Some were carried away on blankets slung between lances. Other cavalrymen walked, as their horses had been lamed. Fortuitously, a mist descended and the survivors disappeared unseen to the safety of the back areas. It would be another two years before cavalry were again used in battle.
The two cavalry regiments suffered 10 dead, 91 wounded and 3 missing. 43 horses were killed outright, 103 were wounded and 15 went missing.
By the 20th July another attack on the wood was commenced. This time the assault was undertaken by the 1st Bn Cameronians, the 5/6th Scottish Rifles and the 20th Royal Fusiliers with tanks. Their attempts to clear the wood were met with fierce German resistance and it was necessary to call for assistance. Accordingly, Robert Graves’ battalion, the 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers moved forward. (By that time Graves had been seriously wounded and was lying in the Aid Post in Mametz Wood presumed dead.). Some progress in capturing the wood was made but parts of it were still in German hands.
The final capture of High Wood was not achieved until the 15th September 1916 when the 47th London Division (men of the Post Office Rifles and Civil Service Rifles among them), finally captured the wood. Amazingly, it was felt to be a failure. "Lack of Push" was the verdict on the Division by High Command and the Divisional Commander was replaced.
High Wood was never thoroughly cleared of bodies and debris after the war. A conservative estimate suggests that it holds the remains of some 8000 German and British soldiers who were killed in action there. Even today there are parts of the wood which contain live ammunition and it is there that it would be quite unsafe to walk.
The battle of the Somme carried on until the 18th November when both sides came to a halt. The necessity for this offensive lay in the need to bring relief to the French at Verdun and this was very quickly accomplished. Losses on both sides were considerable. In the case of the German Army it had now lost its pre-war highly trained officers and men. The Battles of Mons, the Aisne and First Ypres had swallowed up the British Regular Army. Now the carnage of the Somme had taken the pre-war highly trained officers and men of the German Army. The German Army was now a militia. Thus, during the next two years a British militia (a conscript army) was to meet a German militia.
Sassoon and Graves were back in England. "Waiting in the wings" was 2nd Lt W.E.S.Owen, soon to depart for France and in January 1917 to take his place in action with the 2nd Manchesters, who on the 24th November 1916 had marched away from the Somme with a battalion strength of just 6 officers and 150 men. By mid-August all three men were to meet at Craiglockhart War Hospital, Edinburgh. Like the 2nd Manchesters, Edmund Blunden and the 11th Royal Sussex departed the Somme on their way to Ypres and eventually to take part in the Battle of Passchendaele. Blunden was destined not to meet Wilfred Owen but would eventually become friends with Sassoon and Graves. But that was in the future.
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