Blood and Thunder (33 page)

Harry, the youngest, left Eton as late as 1912 and followed Guy to Oxford. He had decided to take Holy Orders when his studies were complete so the idea of seeking a commission might have seemed odd. Nonetheless he had spent time in the OTC and decided not to return to his college in the autumn of 1914; instead joining one of the university and public school battalions of the Royal Fusiliers.

Hugh ‘wistfully' watched his brothers join the war effort. He shared their sentiment, but had failed a medical with the Guards. He joined the Inns of Court OTC, however, and eventually, by way of a special medical board, managed to convince the Grenadiers that he was fit for overseas service. He proved as good as his word, for apparently not a trace of his asthma was seen once he got to the front.

By the time Hugh got to the front his two brothers had already seen plenty of action. Guy had witnessed the Christmas truce of 1914 before getting himself a ‘Blighty'. He had been wounded and shipped home in 1915 from Le Gheer where a German sniper had hit the trench periscope he was holding. He returned to France in the summer, but Harry had by then been sent home in far worse shape.

After joining the Royal Fusiliers with the intention of getting some extra training under his belt as an officer cadet and undergoing what turned out to be a rather dubious ‘Course of Instruction' at Shoeburyness, Harry had been commissioned into the Border Regiment on 31 October 1914. He disembarked in France on 11 January 1915 with a draft of poorly equipped men. He was sent off to join the 2nd Battalion, which was languishing in reserve with only a handful of its original numbers after having had a torrid time on the salient in the battle for Ypres the previous autumn. When he reached his company Harry found that aside from himself there was only one other officer. The colonel had sent a batch of them back to England, claiming that they were ‘diseased' and complained ‘very bitterly' about the standard of men coming out from home. Having been completely unimpressed by the organisational structure of their despatch, the lack of preparation of the men arriving to fight and the quality of the course he had completed, Harry was not at all surprised.

At the end of January 1915 he arrived in a sector that was in a truly awful state. Less than 100 yards away from the Germans, they were sniped at in miserable weather. The men were far better than their officers, he thought. ‘They all do nothing but grumble.' He remained completely unimpressed at the standard of officers. Even if they were inexperienced in tactics ‘they should know,' he wrote, ‘what the men are supposed to do in the trenches and be really good disciplinarians before they come out here.'

Harry had arrived just in time for the assault on Neuve Chapelle. Sat in the pouring rain, he continued to articulate his concerns about the inexperience of the officers, including himself. ‘I should like to have been one of those who had some decent training and valuable experience … I consider that a great deal could be taught to people before they come out … There are new forms of attack now and new ways of digging oneself in … Also the power of shell fire and its danger should be taught.' Leading a platoon on 10 March, the opening day of the assault, Harry advanced towards Neuve Chapelle itself. He and his men dropped into a trench that had just been vacated by the enemy and had now come under heavy enfilading fire. Initially ordered to cross a portion of open ground with his men to try to extend the British line, they had no supporting fire and so instead were ordered to lie down.

Baffled by the change, Harry decided to dash back and ascertain what his orders really were. He was running when he felt one arm go stiff and something hit his chin. He got into a trench and lay there for several hours until friends stumbled across him and helped him limp, with his jaw shot away, to a dressing station. Within a few weeks Harry was spied at Magdalen ‘with his face and head bandaged up and a plate in his mouth' but it was to be a long path to recovery. Not until February 1916 did he arrive back in France, patched up and ready to fight once more.

Just as the third Cholmeley returned to the Front, tragedy befell the family. Hugh had undergone a period of training and become machine-gun officer for his brigade. On 7 April he was standing by a dugout when a shrapnel shell screamed overhead and exploded. One officer was wounded in the shoulder, another fatally in the leg; a guardsman was killed and sixty men wounded. Hugh was killed instantly when a shard of shrapnel penetrated his chest. He was 27 years old. At the threshold of the infamous Battle of the Somme two of the Cholmeley brothers now remained in the firing line.

Henry Rawlinson's ‘army' was divided into corps and four of them would attack on 1 July. In the very south, where the British sector met the French, one would be attacking Montauban and the surrounding area. To the north of them, another corps would be attacking La Boiselle and Ovilliers to the right of a third who had been allocated the daunting Thiepval Ridge. On the far left of Rawlinson's army, VIII Corps was to attack the area around a fortified village named Beaumont Hamel. Amongst its number was Harry Cholmeley. The man in charge of this assault, Aylmer Hunter-Weston had had a disastrous campaign in the Dardanelles and this was his return to action.

By now Harry was in the 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment, which had been moved to France after the doomed Gallipoli campaign. Harry would be advancing straight across the valley that contained the village of Beaumont Hamel, then attempting to climb uphill to attack the Germans' second set of defences. To aid them on their way the Royal Engineers had put a mine underneath a particularly strong German position known as the Hawthorn Redoubt in front of the village. Some 40,000 pounds of explosives were ready to go up in front of the battalion as it went over the top.

To the north of Harry his brother Guy found himself part of the attack that fell outside Rawlinson's jurisdiction and was intended as a diversion. The London Rifle Brigade would not be trying to obliterate the Germans and send them running for the hills. Their task would be to court the enemy artillery fire and the attention of troops at Gommecourt which might otherwise concentrate on the northern part of Rawlinson's attack.

The London Rifle Brigade was part of a well-respected division of Territorials from the capital; it was to attack around the southern edge of the village. Gommecourt had been chosen as an objective because it formed a salient and stuck conspicuously westwards from the rest of the German line. A division from the Midlands was going to attempt a similar move to the north of the village. The London Rifle Brigade would first reach Gommecourt Park, which was in fact a wooded area swarming with enemy troops and all manner of weaponry. Also in the way was a strongpoint known as ‘The Quadrilateral' which contained ‘veritable nests of machine guns'. Behind that lay the village itself and here they were to join up with the Midlands division.

Attacking with the London Rifle Brigade was another battalion of the London Regiment nicknamed the Kensingtons. Amongst their number was another OE, Major Cedric Charles Dickens. ‘Ceddy' as he was known had followed his brother to Eton in 1903, yet another of Mr Brinton's boys and a grandson of the famous writer. There he was remembered as a diminutive boy who played the cello in music recitals with exquisite skill and emotiveness. Having gone up to Cambridge he had then become a solicitor in London and, like Guy Cholmeley, was a keen pre-war terrier.

Like Guy's outfit, the Kensingtons had been at the front since November 1914. Cedric had been wounded during the winter and the battalion had gone on to see action at Neuve Chapelle and Aubers Ridge. They were eventually re-routed to the Gommecourt area in May 1916; making themselves at home in previously French lines. Their trenches ran through orchards and gardens on the outskirts of the town and they found that much improvement was needed.

The Kensingtons were fully aware that a large scale offensive was coming. Dumps of ammunition kept springing up in the area and discreetly camouflaged guns could now be picked out in the overgrown fields to the rear. The battalion was employed ceaselessly to prepare for the forthcoming offensive. In addition to improving their positions ready for the big push, the Kensingtons also underwent further training to get ready for the attack. They were marched to the tune of a fife and drum to Halloy for intensive practice in trenches that had been modelled on the German front line in their sector. Nothing was left to chance; everything was rehearsed in detail including the use of smoke clouds to veil their advance.

The Cholmeleys were not the only Etonian family who had been devastated by the war already. Towards the southern end of Rawlinson's army one of the New Army battalions of the West Yorkshire Regiment had as its second in command Major James Knott of a prominent Northumbrian shipping family. At the outbreak of war James had been the managing director of the Prince Line. His brother, Henry, several years younger, was also following in their father's footsteps as a shipowner, colliery owner and merchant. Having left Eton in 1910, Henry had immediately applied for a commission on the outbreak of war and having joined the Northumberland Fusiliers had died of wounds in September 1915 at the age of 24.

James and the 10th West Yorkshires had left the Armentières area at the end of May for a period of training and joined Rawlinson's force in mid June. Their objective on 1 July was to be Fricourt, another fortified village where a supposed weak spot had been identified. They would be making a frontal attack and then forming a defensive flank to protect the troops coming up on their right.

A massive amount of firepower had been collected to participate in the preliminary bombardment. More than 1,500 guns would be firing shrapnel and high explosive shells to cut German wire, put enemy batteries out of action and to smash the German front, thus making an easier path for the assaulting British troops. The bombardment was to last for days until zero hour when the barrage would, broadly speaking, bunny-hop across the battlefield on a timetable, pounding German objectives whilst the infantry followed in its wake. This, of course, depended on the barrage wiping out anything that might hold up the assault and that the advance itself would go exactly according to plan. If not, the timetable would be irrelevant.

On 24 June the bombardment opened and it was earth shattering. There were so many guns packed along the front that the noise could be heard in London and some guns were firing over the heads of other terrified crews in front of them. The Germans, so it appeared, were doomed. In front of the West Yorkshires, the enemy trenches were pounded day after day and then again at night when it was thought that they might be trying to relieve the troops in the front lines. In front of Cedric Dickens and the Kensingtons the barrage ‘burst into a roar of sound'. In the days running up to the attack, as the Germans clearly knew they were about to be attacked, smoke was discharged in an attempt to ‘cry wolf'.

One OE who was destined to become Governor-General of New Zealand, reported that it was ‘very hot-stuff here', but unfortunately for the British, the Germans had remained largely safe in their deep dugouts whilst their surroundings were smashed to pieces. Despite the heaviest artillery barrage the world had ever seen – a million-and-a-half shells fired in seven days – the length of the front had diluted the impact and the result was patchy and short of expectations.This and heavy rain led to a delay in the grand offensive, so as the day, now fixed as 1 July approached, the bombardment began to slacken.

Meanwhile the troops awaited the carnage. In front of Harry Cholmeley controversy raged over the detonation of the Hawthorn Redoubt mine. Hunter-Weston, for some odd reason, wanted it detonated a full four hours before his men went over the top into battle which, to say the least, detracted from the element of surprise. Haig wasn't having any of it, but eventually a ridiculous compromise was worked out whereby the mine would be sent up at 7.20 a.m. This would give the Germans ten minutes; ostensibly just enough time to regroup, man their machine guns and brace themselves for impact when the attack began. Hunter-Weston had also arranged for the artillery bombardment to be lifted off the enemy as the mine went up. To add to Harry's problems, the random achievements of the week-long artillery bombardment had not been kind to his sector. The momentous nature of the upcoming attack was not lost on Harry Cholmeley. Three days before he went up to the trenches in preparation for the attack he wrote to his brother Guy further up the line: ‘Well, here goes – we either go to Hugh or Blighty'.

At 6.30 a.m. a final flurry of shells was thrown towards Beaumont Hamel and now the Germans, who had quietened their artillery to keep its remaining strength under wraps, unleashed a torrid fire back in the other direction. In front of Harry barbed wire had been removed and ladders put up to help the men out into the fray. At 7.20 a.m. the earth heaved and the Hawthorn Redoubt mine was detonated. It obliterated those close by, but for the enemy troops sitting in their deep dugouts it was far from devastating and now they knew full well that the British were coming. The chalky ground was blown sky high and when it came back to earth it looked like it had been snowing. When the attack came the Germans, now on alert, would be far closer to the crater that had been blown and far better positioned to occupy it.

All along Harry's part of the front it was devastating. From the second that they mounted the parapet and went over the top they were sprayed with machine-gun fire, shells and rifle bullets. To compound their misery, large amounts of enemy barbed wire remained uncut and needed to be traversed in the midst of the German onslaught. Dead men lay on it whilst others tried to cut their way through and begin climbing the ridge, exposed to everything that the enemy could throw at them. The timed British artillery barrage left them behind and wandered forward of its own accord. The attack did not even reach the German front lines before it utterly failed.