Last updated 14:58, Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Ninety years ago the great guns at last ceased firing; silence fell over the battlefields of The Somme. It was November 11, 1918, and the Great War had ended. The cost in lives was horrific. Almost half a million had been slaughtered.

German prisoners help carry wounded British soldiers back to their trenches

July 1916 had seen the first battle of the Somme, in that, at the end of the first day, the British army had suffered 60,000 casualties, 19,240 of them dead.

And Cumbrian soldiers had been in the thick of the action.

The News & Star’s sister paper The Cumberland News carried a frontline despatch from author and journalist Philip Gibbs.

It read: “It is a month today since the beginning of the great battle of Picardy on the first of July which will be a famous date for ever in British chronicles.

It has been a stupendous month. Since that hour on Friday morning when men looked at their wristwatches and said ‘it is half past seven’ there’s not been one day’s pause in the fighting until yesterday when, for the first time, there was no infantry attack.

“After the first breakthrough of the German line between Fricourt and Montauban and the partial breakthrough higher on our left, when great masses of men, the fine flower of our race, flung themselves in attack on the fortress position of the enemy with an exaltation of courage that had something divine and sacrificial in it, the fighting became a harder struggle as each day passed.

“The enemy fought stubbornly, not yielding any ground until forced to do so by greater stubbornness. His machine gunners especially fired until they were killed or captured from strong emplacements in such fortresses as Ovillers and La Boiselle, but also from broken parapets, shell holes, and any kind of cover in which they could hide and keep on firing.

“But for the supreme courage of all our troops it would have been impossible to carry the positions which are now ours.

“So in a month by the greatest battle in the history of our race, greatest in numbers and in duration and in sacrifice we have taken eleven of the enemy’s stronghold, we have won back for France a patch of soil eight miles wide by three miles deep. We have brought back about 13,000 German prisoners. We have killed and wounded an immense number of her finest troops, at least 100,000 surely, and we have inflicted upon her pride, which, I suppose, we are fighting beyond all to kill, a mortal blow.

“Those are the plain historical facts of this one month’s fighting – the first part of the battle of Picardy which is not yet ended.

“Beyond and above all are those plain facts are others not so easy to tell – great God, impossible to tell.

“There is not one soldier among all those fighting men who has not escaped death by a hair’s breadth, not once or twice, which was enough for old-fashioned heroes, but too often for reckoning…”

At the beginning of his communiqué Gibb said it would become a famous date forever in British chronicles.

More correctly he should have called it a day of infamy. As the sun went down on a day of horror 19,240 dead were laying on the battlefield. Others, stretched out to die on washing lines of barbed wire, sobbed and screamed their way into the next world.

And among them were khaki-clad Cumbrians by the hundreds. The Border Regiment book recording the dead of the Great War has on each page 75 names. There are 100 pages.

Among them can be found that of Private Stanley Armstrong, aged 18. His parents, who lived in Carlisle in Norfolk Street, received a letter from the Reverend A J W Cross, the Battalion Chaplain, in which he told them: “One of the boys who was with your son Stanley tells me that he was with him in a dug-out when a shell struck it, and both your son and Lance Corporal Martin were buried and could not get out.

“I have ascertained the correct spot where the dug-out was, and when things grow a little quieter in the trenches I will go and say the service over the bodies of the dear fellows. “He died very bravely, so you may well be proud of him though I know your heart will be sad. One little comfort is that he will not have suffered, for death must have been instantaneous.”

God bless the Padre! He was doing his best. Private Armstrong would most probably have been blown to pieces. And with no time to either go bravely or otherwise.

And God provided no divine protection for his disciples of the battlefield. In 1916 the Reverend H F Tillberry, Vicar of Ainstable, had been wounded. He had been in a London hospital for officers and had, in July, arrived home on a month’s leave.

So far the Border Regiment’s good padre Cross had survived, and was kept busy putting pen to paper, writing this time to widow Mrs Bell living in Shaddongate to tell her that her son Corporal Billy Bell, just 21 years old, had died in hospital from wounds received in the big advance. “We buried him”, wrote the Reverend, “in the pretty cemetery in the village where the hospital is, and his comrades have put up a cross in his memory.

“I can sympathise with you, for I am broken-hearted myself at the loss of so many of our brave lads. I know you will be sad, but you may well be proud of your boy, he was an influence for good among his pals.”

One of those pals, Lance Corporal McIntosh, also wrote to Mrs Bell, telling how he had been with her son, along with Joe Scott, of Warwick Bridge, the night before they went into action. He said her son was buried only a few yards from his Colonel and other officers of the Battalion along with some of his comrades.

One who survived the Somme’s July bloodbath was Border Regiment man Sydney Scott, whose parents lived in Main Street, Brampton. The 25-year-old sergeant had been a member of the Brampton Rifle Volunteers and the Territorials.

Early in the action he received a shrapnel wound to his leg as well as a severe scalp wound.

He later won a Military Medal for bravery at Messines, the fifth Brampton man to do so. Two others were awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, one a Military Cross.

The front line trenches of World War I became a lottery of life in which some were winners, some were not – and there were those who thought they had won but then lost out. Private Harold Little, whose father John lived at Kirkhouse, Brampton junction, was such a one.

He had enlisted on May, 1915, trained in England until April 1916, went over the top on July 1, the first day of the battle of the Somme, was wounded and brought back to England. After recovering from his wounds he returned to France in December, took part in the Messines battle of June 7 and came through without a scratch. A charmed life? One would think so.

Imagine then the shock when John Little opened a letter from his son’s commanding officer that read: “I am very sorry to have to confirm to have to confirm the War Office telegram announcing the death of your son.

“It occurred about 2am on July 15 and about twelve Lewis gunners were in one dug-out during a short but heavy bombardment. The shell dropped right in front of the entrance to the dugout and many of the men were hit. Your son was hit by several shell splinters and died quite painlessly and instantaneously.

“We buried him and those others who were killed in a little military cemetery which happened to be only a few hundred yards away, and there is a cross with his full name, rank, regiment and date to mark the spot. The men of his platoon and particularly of his section, wish to associate themselves with me in expressing our deepest regret at your sad loss. Lewis gunners are given their jobs as an honour, for they are always looked on as the best men in the battalion.”

The mad game of Russian roulette went on and on. Private Cecil Cooper, whose parents lived at Carlton Villa, Workington, was badly wounded in the knee while his regiment was making a charge. For four days and four nights, and without food or drink, he lay in a shell hole just a few yards away from the German trenches. Finally he crawled out and dragged himself back to the British lines. He remained in a casualty clearing station for seven weeks before being moved to a hospital. His parents were later notified that his leg had been amputated but he was doing well.

Wigton men were not to be left out of the medals. Corporal W S Fell, also serving in The Border Regiment, the fourth son of John Bell, of Tickell’s Lane, was awarded a bar to his Military Medal in recognition of good work before being wounded. He had served in France for two years and as a stretcher-bearer had many escapes. His older brother John, a private, had been killed earlier, two other brothers were also in the army.

Wigton also had its heartbreak. Private James Brady’s death left a widow and seven children to mourn in Reed’s Lane. Captain Murray wrote to her, saying: “He was killed by an enemy sniper while going to aid one of our officers who had been severely wounded on the night of the 5th of June. It was a very gallant act. Your husband has been noted for his bravery ever since he came to France, and his deeds of Easter week will never be forgotten by his comrades. He died instantly. He was buried just where he fell, in our front line trenches – a grave a brave fellow such as he would have desired.”

Down the road at Newhouses, Whitehaven, the wife of Private J Walsh ended 12 months of anguish. Originally posted as missing he was now to be presumed dead. His widow was left with five children to care for.

Week after week, month after month, the pages of The Cumberland News relentlessly listed the wounded and the dead.

Forty-two-year-old Carlisle Private Walter James, of Metcalfe Street, a married man, was wounded in the leg. He had been a porter at the County Hotel.

Lance Corporal James Brannon, of Cumberland Street, has been wounded a second time.

Drummer James Mooney, St Stephen’s Street, was suffering from shell shock.

Penrith dispatch rider Corporal Richard Maynard, a one-time member of the Penrith Fire Brigade, wrote home to say that he was hit on the right side by a piece of shrapnel. He was carrying papers at the time he was wounded, fortunately they were saved.

The up and down fortunes of war were no better exemplified than by a Curthwaite family; first Mr and Mrs John Messenger, of Todd Close, received official news that their youngest son, Private William Messenger, had been killed in action. By the very next post another letter arrived, this time from their second son, Driver John Messenger, serving with the Machine Gun Corps, telling them he had won a Military Medal for gallantry and devotion to duty in the field. He had been recommended for good work in the July 1916 advance as well as in April 1917.

As men were mown down so the need for reinforcements became imperative. Early in 1917 The Cumberland News reported a speech by Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial Staff in which he declared: “The full help of every man and woman in this country was needed. It was impossible to put a limit to the needs of the army but our immediate needs were 500,000 men between now and July. Failure to get them would prolong the war.”

Surely they were scraping the barrel. By now Cumbrian firms had been bled of most of their workers and were applying to special tribunals for exemption from call up of the few left. City printing firm Thurnams had lost 41 out of 50 to the services. Sixty per cent of their machinery was standing idle. Thurnams, appealing to the tribunal, was allowed to keep the man the army had its eyes on.

Carrs biscuit firm was advertising for more and more girls. An advertisement proclaimed: “Carr and Co Ltd have been advised by the authorities that more and more biscuits are required for the soldiers’ canteens. The output of biscuits can only be maintained provided the necessary workers are available.”

But the authorities refused to give exemption to a music hall contortionist, The Cumberland News reporting: “The case of AC Gibbon, music hall artiste and contortionist, again came up at the instance of the military. Mr Lightfoot again appeared for Gibbon, who is 27 and now at Bournemouth, but who has not been medically examined. Major Hope Brown said Gibbon’s wife assisted the man in his turn, and he thought that what weighed with the Tribunal on a previous occasion was the fact that the wife was formerly an Austrian subject.

“Mr Lightfoot said his client was six feet eight inches tall but weighed only 9stone 6lbs. The wife had no friends in this country. What was to happen to her if her husband was taken?

“Mercyless in his gathering of field of battle fodder Major Hope Brown made a cutting remark, saying it would be a gain to the nation if Gibbon took up some useful work and asked why consideration should be given to the Austrian wife.

“The Tribunal allowed the military appeal but decided that Gibbon should not be called up until September 1st.”

There were those who could understand why not everyone wanted to become a soldier. In a letter to friends a wounded officer told a graphic story of a Border Regiment advance into what he described as a sea of death:

“Never again in my life do I want to go through such an unadulterated hell. We entered our assembly trenches wood, nick-named here Blighty on account of its unhealthiness, on Friday at 11pm. The din of our own batteries forbade sleep, as did also a few gas shells, which Mr Fritz distributed around us at early dawn.

“He then commenced searching the wood to try to knock out our batteries, which were evidently making him very uncomfortable and angry. Fifty-nine ‘brumps’ and lightning ‘whiz-bangs’ burst over us, but strange to say, wounding one man only.

“At 6am our artillery commenced their hurricane bombardment which lasted an hour and a half. I can’t describe the infernal din but the nearest I can get is the roar of 1,000 trains going through a tunnel and multiplied by 100!

“About 7am our gunners hit a Boche land mine about two miles off and the ground shook like an earthquake. We all thought our assembly trenches would collapse on top of us. At 7.15 am our guns found another land-mine which went up with a terrific roar, accompanied by the before-mentioned earthquake effect.

At 7.30am our A Company left the trenches and marched through the wood to the corner where they were to debouch and went out into the open. D and B companies followed suit, and the C Company, which concerns myself. Our half hour march through the wood was enough to break one’s nerve right away, machine guns were pouring lead all through the wood from every direction and how we got through that bit without a single casualty was a mystery.

“We arrived at our debouching point, which by this time was being shelled with high explosive shrapnel as well as being the target for Boche machine guns which made the open ground a sea of death. It was distasteful leading my men out, but it had to be done, another Regiment was waiting behind to follow up The Border.

“We had gone about thirty yards when three of my brave lads were killed outright. I then halted the men and made them crawl on their stomachs for another thirty yards where we found cover in some craters. Men were falling everywhere when shrapnel burst overhead, knocking out some of my brave fellows, killing three of them. One of them next to me had his skull telescoped by a huge shell splinter.”

In contrast listen to the jingoistic Major, his right arm in a sling, his service jacket hanging in blood-stained strips, talking about the German machine guns: “I was greatly impressed by that slow, searching, machine gun fire of his. He knows we’re coming then, I thought, and sure enough, when our smoke clouds had gone forward and we rushed over our parapet he simply filled the air with rapid machine gun fire. His machine guns did the Boche a priceless service.

“And never in my life have I seen anything finer than the way our successive waves of men marched singing and cheering into that bath of lead. I’ve talked to dozens of officers, they all say the same; our job was never to urge men on, but always to hold them back and check premature advance and exposure. Bless’em, you can’t beat them. You can kill them with machine guns and crushing weight; you can’t possibly beat them!”

And some, shell shocked, could take no more. Accused and found guilty of cowardice more than 300 men were shot at dawn.

The first battle of the Somme lasted five months. When it ended, in November, the British army had suffered 420,000 casualties.