Words
The weekly essay – June 5th–12th, 1917 David Hargreaves writes a weekly retrospective a hundred years after the event 1916 had been a terrible truth-teller. The starkest lesson had been that prolonged artillery barrages did not reliably kill off those left in the front line: the British had to advance if they were ever to defeat the Germans. Haig and his colleagues were better learners than their critics have often allowed. In the Battle of Messines, which was launched on 7th June, artillery would have a subordinate role. The necessary element of surprise would come from the detonation of a series of mines laid underneath the German trenches, buying British troops precious minutes to race across open ground from which they could attack an enemy, still dazed and still in their trenches. It was a good plan. Mindful of the vast destruction the detonations would wreak, General Plumer, in command of the Second Army, is reputed to have said, ‘Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography.’ Very, very early on the following morning, 19 mines were fired in the space of 27 seconds. The noise, both of the explosions and the accompanying barrage, was heard in London and even in Dublin. The surprise was absolute – an astonishing achievement – and at least 10,000 men were killed in the initial explosions. The man in charge of the detonation was Captain Oliver Woodward of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company. He recalled: ‘At 2 a.m. all troops were withdrawn from the dugout and mine systems, and posed in their position for attack. At 2.25 a.m., I made the last resistance test, and then made the final connection for firing the mines. This was rather a nerve-wracking task as one began to feel the strain, and wonder whether the leads were properly connected up.’ Nervewracking? The pressures placed on him at this moment must have been mind-boggling. The explosion of mines and the speed of the Allied attack had stunned the Germans. In total, 7,200 Germans, 67 artillery pieces, 94 trench mortars and 294 machine-guns were seized. Lieutenant Colonel Feilding of the Connaught Rangers took part in the mopping-up operations which followed and to read his letters can be an overwhelming experience. He may have been one of the victors of the Messines Ridge, but hubris played no part in his feelings. Rather the reverse. He noted the following extract from German correspondence which had been captured. ‘Today the alarm was given… A terrible firing has driven us under cover. To the right and left of me my friends are all drenched with blood… I pray the Lord will get me out of this sap. I swear to it I will be the next. While I am writing He still gives us power and loves us. My trousers and tunic are drenched in blood, all from my poor mates. I have prayed to God He might save me, not for my sake but for my poor parents. I feel I could cry out, my thoughts are all the time with them… I have already twelve months on the Western Front; have been through hard fighting, but never such slaughter.’
The British Government could not dwell in sorrow. Their job was to win and for this they needed not just American troops and arms, but masses of fresh credit. Despite the fact that Arthur Balfour had just returned from what was billed a highly successful visit both to the States and Canada, Lloyd George was looking for a new Head of the British Mission and now hit upon Lord Northcliffe. Buccaneer par excellence, Northcliffe could hardly have represented a greater contrast to his frock-coated predecessor. News of his appointment provoked a frank letter to the Prime Minister from his Parliamentary Private Secretary. ‘You will be making a damn bad appointment and you will raise the devil of a storm in the Liberal Party… Northcliffe is one of the biggest intriguers and most unscrupulous people in this country… He will do more harm in a week than Balfour has done good in a month.’ President Wilson was also unenthusiastic, suggesting that creating such a position was ‘most unwise and still more unwise the choice of the person named.’ But Northcliffe was on his way, braving submarine-infested waters and arriving in New York on 11th June. In a magnificent display of Anglo-Saxon snobbery, no one from the British Embassy turned up to greet him. The experience of General John Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, could hardly have been more different. His arrival in Liverpool on 8th June was filmed by the British Intelligence Department and, having been greeted by an array of military and civic dignitaries, he left for London by special train. The next day he was off to Buckingham Palace for a chat with the King who, Pershing recorded, said: ‘I am very glad to welcome you. It has always been my dream that the two English-speaking nations should some day fight side by side, and today my dream is realised. We are fighting for the greatest cause that any nation could fight for, namely, civilization.’ At least they were fighting. The Russians appeared to have given up on war for meetings. Dmitri Oskin, an elected deputy for the army at the All Union Congress of Peasant Deputies in Petrograd, records screeds of them. On 8th June, they had a distinguished visitor. ‘Leader of the party of Social Democrat Bolsheviks Mr Lenin… came up to the rostrum with swift steps… He began, speaking in plain language that we, simple peasants, could relate to. He said: “The main point is that land should be taken immediately from the landowners and given to the peasants without compensation. All ownership of land is to be eliminated.” I couldn’t concentrate on the words of Lenin’s speech but sat staring at him, trying to figure out whether the rumours going round about him being a German spy could be true.’ Lenin’s links to the Germans were a matter of speculation. By contrast, those of King Constantine of Greece were an established fact. For at least two years, the perfidy of this monarch had rankled with the Allies, but it had been a difficult boil to lance. Now, however, the Southern Front was Autumn 2017
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