<<Zero
Hour | <<South
of the Ancre 7.30-9.00am | <<South
of the Ancre 9.00am-midday
<<North of the Ancre
7.30-midday | Midday to nightfall: gradual
retreat
Midday
to NIghtfall
At about one o’clock in the afternoon it became apparent that the
enemy was gathering south of the Ancre for a large counter-attack. Before
long it could be seen that German reinforcements were arriving by train
into Grandcourt - fresh, fit men of the 8th Baverian Reserve. Meanwhile,
the southern flank of the Schwaben Redoubt was under strain. By 2.45 Montgomery
and his men - holding the third line - were aware of Germans advancing
steadily up the communication trenches from the fourth line. Some men
in the Belfast Battalions began to turn and run for it, and many were
stopped by their own officers at the point of a revolver.
At 3.45 a fierce fight developed around a trench on the southern slope
of the redoubt : Ulstermen were sandbagged in at one end of it and Germans
at the Other. What Montgomery was later to call ‘a very pretty fight’
continued until the Germans forced through about an hour later.
German reinforcements moving back into the trench systems.
[photograph
copyright © courtesy of John Wilson]
Spirits were revived when Montgomery was informed that strong reinforcements
were due to reach him at 6.00 - there was reason to hold on hard and fight
to the death. His troops were particularly handicapped by lack of water
and ammunition for their machine-guns. The guns could now be fired only
in short bursts, and soon rifle cartridges were being used for the machine
guns, but the reinforcing soldiers would bring plenty of ammunition.
However, the promised reinforcements did not arrive until too late, because
of a serious misunderstanding about the deployment of the 146th Brigade.
At 4.00 the 36ths Divisional command had now been informed that the 146th
was at their disposal, and this resulted in the message to Montgomery.
But two Battalions of the 146th had already been committed to the attack
on Thiepval village, and by the time sufficient numbers of the Yorkshiremen
had been requisitioned and sent forward towards the Schwaben Redoubt.
It was well after 7.00 and too late to make an impact. The Germans by
this time had made even more inroads on their third line and now taken
back the greatest part of the fourth line. Those reinforcements who survived
the journey across no-mans-land - the bulk of eight companies of Yorkshiremen
- joined the Ulstermen in the front German trenches. Many of them looked
grim faced and terrified by the ordeal they had become part of. The machine-guns
in Thiepval continued to kill, and were unmolested by British artillery
because it was wrongly supposed that a British company had managed to
penetrate the village.
The battle was now taking place on ground strewn with corpses from earlier
in the day, and a fierce German counter attack was gaining real headway.
A German troop seen outside his dugout after falling victim
to the 'Bangalore Tube'
In the final battle over the third line, came a chance to employ the ‘Bangalore
Tube’ (a kind of flame thrower used to burn wire) for unorthodox
purposes :
“A squad of German soldiers went from the trench to the
dugout...these soldiers of ours...managed to get the tubes burning and
pushed them into the dugout where the Germans were. We were a right distance
away but we could smell the burning flesh as the Germans inside their
dugout were burnt to death”.
As the stretcher-bearers crossed no-mans-land, they would have seen the
Sunken Road, now full of blood and bodies - earning its new nickname,
the ‘Bloody Road’.
Gradually the unevenness of the contest became apparent - fresh German
reinforcements pushing exhausted Ulstermen back into the first two lines.
Many men had been fighting for well over twelve hours and they had reached
a point when morale could sustain them no longer. As nightfall approached
some did try to settle into the German front line and hold it overnight
: ‘No Surrender’ would be the watchword once
again. But other men had had enough and started to turn their backs on
the enemy and make for the home trenches. On seeing over 150 men making
across the open for Thiepval Wood, Montgomery ran after them shouting.
He managed to persuade some forty men to stay in the front line for a
while, firing their rifles, but twenty minutes later they too broke and
headed for home in the gathering gloom. Despondently Montgomery followed
them, re-crossing his front line at 10.30 and reporting to the 9th Rifles
HQ. Meanwhile out in the darkness, the German soldiers filled up the trenches
he and his men had fought for.
Wounded soldier being carried on a stretcher.
[Footage
© the Imperial War Museum]
<<Zero
Hour | <<South
of the Ancre 7.30-9.00am | <<South
of the Ancre 9.00am-midday
<<North of the Ancre
7.30-midday | Midday to nightfall: gradual
retreat
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