I’ve been distracted enough not to put fingers to keyboard for the last week or so. Mainly because I had an upcoming trip to France, my first on my own due to some fairly uncontrolled sets of human circumstance and how time plays its stupid games. Travelling isn’t an issue, but I’ve had an anxiety issue relating to a fairly nasty car accident a few years ago in Northern France which a rather strange affect on my mind and gave me what is apparently termed the rather fey sounding “separation anxiety”, so I spent a week with my brain in full gibber mode, catastrophising about what would of course not happen. My hands shook on the boat a bit, and I did have to do the whole drive accompanied by blisteringly loud music to drown out the sound of my car not catching fire, gripping the wheel like I was pushing the bloody thing the whole way using every ounce of my being, with the satnav interjecting expletives over the din. I made it to Albert in the Somme in my knackered Volvo, yet again, not on fire with nobody dead.
One of the techniques I’ve used to try and control this stupid PTSD was installed using Hypnotherapy by a rather amazing woman. It was something I’d thought wouldn’t work, because it all seemed a bit hippy, and in the words of someone or other Never trust a hippy but mostly it has done the job, giving me a brake and an accelerator, an extra ability to say whoa, hang on a minute. When it didn’t I did something else which is I imagined what it must have been like to get on a ship, oddly probably a P&O one, and then have to get to the front in either Ypres, or Arras or on The Somme in 1916, straight out of your job as a clerk or a butcher into a soldier in khaki with a rifle and a pack, sleeping in a hedge in France and being fed jam. And what I’ve found repeatedly is there is a very fine line between fear and excitement, thin as a Rizla+ in fact, a blue one. I was excited, because although I was doing this thing on my own, I was going to do exactly what I wanted. I could stand where I wanted and stare at stuff that isn’t there and listen to what I liked on my MP3 player until I had shellshock and nobody except a landowner with a fusil de chasse shouting “sortir de mon champ” in a brisk tone or a Gendarme asking me what I’m playing at could stop me. I expect a nineteen year old lad from maybe Tower Hamlets or Sheffield, Ipswich or Hertford, Derry or Aberdeen leaving his quite possibly badly paid boring day job or even total lack-of-a-job probably felt the same. It was a war that started with a flow of excitement, ‘protecting’ a nation, the crumbling empires and their way of life. A way of life, much as now, which was often inaccessible to the vast majority of the population. A population had the guns thrust in their hands and fought in it. It’s when I mention fighting the comparison collapses; I didn’t have to go over the top, I fell over a low wall at one point, but nobody was shooting at me or if they were it was they were doing it very quietly and they missed.
There are points in time and space that we occupy, and on several occasions I found myself in areas I knew were likely to have been occupied by that young chap from wherever, the Tommy and indeed the Fritz. Times where you suddenly get a just a hint of the implication of what these young lads on both sides of the wire were up against. I went to visit and photograph one such chap, Leslie Fisher, the Great Uncle of a friend who has an interest in lots of the same bits of time I do. Once I’d got to Albert dumped the bag of chargers in my room and had a nice cup of tea, I set off to go and find Les for Les and for me; having someone to go and see and say hello to is perhaps a strange idea, but I quite like doing it, it ticks off one of the several million names cut into the Portland Stone out there, it’s doing my bit.
Les had mentioned Leslie was in Mill Road, a small CWGC cemetery very near Thiepval, an easy trundle from Albert, you can see Thiepval from the main old Roman road from Bapaume to Albert, sticking its shoulders above the trees. It can’t be more than 3 miles of windy but remorselessly pretty country roads to get there, past the signs that you are on the front; the tidy white cemeteries glimpsed through trees, the familiar brown signs pointing at this and that familiar name from our Great War history. Mill Road is just to the left past Thiepval village, just before Ulster Tower a slightly strange Tolkeinesque column in the skyline that commemorates the Ulster Division that dashed itself here against the German lines. The Road is No Man’s Land, Connaught Cemetery sits on the front of Thiepval Wood in front of the lines. If you go to the very back of this incredibly well manicured cemetery you are standing more or less on the British jumping off trenches or as close as you can usefully get without climbing a fence into a wood which still has enough unissued death in it to warrant “don’t wander off the path – danger” signs around it. If you look straight ahead you are looking up at the German lines on a reasonably steep rise, It’s not enough to make you breath hard when walking up the path through the Oilseed, but then I’m now, not wearing a huge pack or carrying a Lewis gun or a mortar or some rolls of barbed wire and someone isn’t up there on the brow of that hill in a deep fortification called Feste Schwaben trying to kill me with a crossfire of MG08 and handguns, bombs and shellfire.
I walked up there from the back of Connaught; my jumping off point, towards Schwaben redoubt the corner of which is still under where Les and his mates are buried. From there you look down at Thiepval Woods and you see the advantage; the elevation against the wooded landscape opposite that having been shelled heavily would have offered little real cover on a front that had not just this redoubt; an OP post and MG site towards the River Ancre, the fortified village of Thiepval a stone’s throw away and the line then looping round the high ground to the Leipzig Redoubt another fierce and angry hornet’s nest of weapon bearing enemy trying not to lose the high ground before it slopes off towards Authuille in the valley. The Germans, being clever sorts initially with time on their hands had dug in deep, these things were impenetrable, you could shell a redoubt for days, it would quite possibly make the occpants go mad, but it didn’t kill generally kill them. In July as these young chaps strolled out onto the remains of the farmland below the village they weren’t entirely expecting what happened, within minutes, maybe seconds of the bombardment finishing the Schwabians were up and out and ready. Nobody stood much of a chance. Les didn’t in fact die in that first attack on the first of July 1916 and that’s part of the absurd nature of these things as part of Edmund Blunden’s Regiment the 11th Royal West Sussex, he died in the attacks of October on the very same circle of hell still sitting there, more flow than ebb. Oddly this is also one of the places where Tolkein probably came up with his thought forms for the gloom laden lands of Lord of the Rings as he sat in various trenches around Thiepval in the mud whilst people tried to kill him.
It’s these moments when you occupy that space that you suddenly understand the incredible effort involved in industrialised war, all because of a short walk to the brow of that hill, 5 minutes and nearly 100 years, standing amongst yellow with the ghost of Les; looking down at where he came from and being where he ended up.
Nick, a very interesting read mate. I visited this part of the Western Front in Sept. 2011. Being an Aussie we, my late brother and I, didn’t stop at this particular spot though as the Ulster Tower was not open when we drove past and we wanted to get back to Pozieres.
I hope to get back to this beautiful part of the world with it’s tragic history. A group I am a member of is hoping to do some non-invasive archaeological surveys this year, but as you could imagine, the cost of getting a team there from Australia is rather inhibitive.
I hope you write some more and I would be interested in reading about your travels.
If you are interested I have a community Facebook page ‘WW1 Western Front’ which I invite you to have a look at.
Cheers, Ash.
Thanks Ash, you should try and do it if funds allow, I’d like to map the front using aerial photography, I just need an aeroplane and a better grasp of French, plus quite a lot of money, we can only do what we can do, I’ll be writing some more in the meantime. I’ll have a look for your page too. Thanks again.
Nick – luminous article on a walk I have done. Captured it brilliantly. Thank you.
Nick, a very moving account of your visit. Hey, you chased those ‘demons’, well done. You mentioned that traveling was not a problem, well, both for Margaret and myself it is.A kind of ‘demon’ for us, but it’s a minor issue. That’s why we are so grateful for your visit and contact with Leslie, it’s given the family something of a closure. What little we know of him and his brother Fredrick it would appear that they were a couple of fun loving practical jokers, and likeable Norfolk boys. I reckon he appreciated your hello. You certainly ‘did your bit’
Thanks Nick.
Regards Les.
Just had your web site info. passed to my various Fisher cousins.
Great interest.
Thanks.
Les.
Cracking good reads all of them, you have done a wonderful job thank you, your piece about going from Lochnagar to Fricourt was helpful as its part of our girls annual sponsored walk. I have sent the link to them all to peruse.
Thanks again keep on visiting and writing
Sue
Fantastic.
I have a long held interest in the First Wold War, and recently discovered a Great Great Uncle who was killed in the early stages in 1915 at Neuve Chapelle. I managed to visit his grave last year (2015).
I have an unexplained fascination however with The Somme, and have visited twice now. The first occasion in June/July 2013 I too followed the steps of those who had gone before by walking from Connaught Cemetery up to Mill Road on 1st July, at the same time reading Martin Middlebrooks “First Day of The Somme” and in particular the detail on the advance of the 36th Ulsters. Having waited some 20 odd years to actually get to the front I wasn’t disappointed, it brought the reality of it all home and gave life, if you’ll forgive that word, to those events so many years ago.
It’s a pilgrimage I feel I will repeat whenever I can now, although I’ve opted to give the 100th Commemorations a miss. I prefer the calmer more peaceful occasions where I have the place to myself, with maybe a handful of others with a serious bout of Somme Fever to share a beer with in the evening.
Thank you for sharing. The pictures and words are very meaningful.
I have visited the area on several occasions and I still remember the first time when I too was struck by how attractive the countryside is around the Ancre and Somme valleys. For a ‘look from the other side’ I recommend an essay by Jack Sheldon ‘German Command and Control on the Somme, 1916’. As an example he chooses their counter attack at the Swaben Redoubt.This can be found with many others, written by eminent historians, in the book ‘Britain and the Widening War 1915 – 1916’ edited by Peyer Liddle and, although published by Pen and Sword, can be had at a very low cost from Naval and Military Press.
Unfortunately your description of the attack of the Ulster Division is not accurate.
They did not ‘dash’ themselves on the German wire.
The Germans weren’t even out of their dugouts when the first Inniskillings were on top of them & for a very simple reason. The trenches at the rear of Connaught cemetery you described as their jumping off point…. wasn’t!!! The 10th Inniskillings had made a decision to deploy into no-mans land before the whistle at 7:30, they were out around 10 minutes before. The 9th Inniskillings seeing this followed, obviously thinking the attack had started. So by the time of the ‘whistle’ they didn’t have to climb out of the trench and get into position, they were off and into the 1st German line in a minute. They took very few casualties going across, relative to the rest of the attacking Battalions & hit the germans hard, initially taking no prisoners.
The Germans ran off back down their dugouts from where they were bombed out. The 109th Brigade took the whole of the Schwaben redoubt by 10am. The supporting brigade, the 107th Belfast took heavy casualties from MG fire as they left the wood for the simple reason the two Divisions either side of the Ulstermen, the 29th & 32nd failed to break through and ceased their attacks. This allowed the Germans to concentrate fire into the flanks from Thiepval and Beaumont either side. But the 107th still pushed on across no-mans land through the Schwaben and over the brow to the 5th line taking with them men of the 109th who should have stayed put. Many veterans of the Division recalled seeing down to Grandcourt station, you can only do this from the far side.
The failure of the 49th Division [who’s officers actually refused to attack] to provided support later in the day left the Ulstermen exposed and they were gradually wore down by counterattacks and they were forced to retire late in the evening. The Inniskillings lost more men coming back than attacking. It is not known who gave the instruction for the men to deploy early, most likely a group of the 10th Battalion Company Commanders, but it is known it was not a Divisional order as the C.O. of the 9th Inniskillings mentions his men ‘following’ the 10th, therefore they did not have the same order to leave the trenches early themselves.
I think this occurred in two other places on the 1st July, again local initiative. One with a Btn of Manchesters and the Ulster Division 12th RIR who attacked to the left of the Ulster Tower. Both of these initial attacks went well too. Had the higher command adopted this tactic on 1st July there would have been a greater success rather than the waste it was.
Some historians refer to it as ‘the race to the wire’….. the Ulster Division won!!!
Thanks for your input Rob. “Dashed against the wire” Is in this instance as much a figure of speech as anything, that said, with 5,000 men killed, wounded or missing in the opening two days of the Somme campaigns that’s sort of open to question I suppose.
Really this isn’t about the Ulster Division though, it’s a story about a piece of landscape and various people’s relationships with it. But thank you for adding this dimension, especially the corrective detail about Connaught and taking the time to do it. Really interesting contexts, and well put, Thank you.
(Have deleted your other comment as it was rather superfluous).