Battle of the Somme: Centenary

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme in 2016.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I should like to draw the attention of the House to the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, which falls in a few months’ time. The battle took place at almost exactly the halfway point of the First World War. More lives were lost on the Western Front in 1916 than in any other year of that terrible conflict. The allies in 1916 sought victory in all theatres of war. Intense fighting also took place in eastern Europe, where the Russians launched massive attacks against the forces of Austro-Hungary and its allies. Strategy in the West was devised in the hope of assisting progress in the East.

There is certain to be widespread public interest in the official programme of commemorative events to mark the centenary of the Somme. That programme needs to be substantial and impressive, for it has to give heartfelt expression to the deep feeling that this bloodiest of battles never ceases to evoke.

A hundred years on, the Somme continues to haunt the collective memory of our nation. It is unforgotten in the Republic of Ireland and in the countries of our former empire, which sent gallant troops to fight and die alongside ours. It is unforgotten too in Germany, whose soldiers, like ours, displayed great courage. They also showed immense skill in the construction of defensive positions, many of which proved impregnable during the four and a half months of fighting. It all began on 1 July—that terrible, vividly remembered day of bloodshed—and finally ended on 18 November, when the two sides at last withdrew from their sea of mud, filth and gore.

The Somme brought together the largest armies that western Europe had ever seen for the longest and costliest battle ever fought there, apart from Verdun, which was fought alongside it, beginning in February 1916 and continuing until December. The total death toll at the Somme was over 300,000, and twice that number were wounded. On the British side, 51 VCs were awarded.

The Somme is synonymous with suffering and grief, just as Waterloo, fought a little over a century earlier, is synonymous with glory and hope. So many died at the Somme, their bodies torn, broken and often defiled. So many limped home, their bodies permanently maimed, without adequate welfare services to help sustain them during the remainder of their lives.

Whole communities were deeply scarred because Kitchener’s New Army of over 1 million volunteers amassed since 1914 contained many regiments composed of friends, relatives, neighbours and workmates, beginning with the Grimsby Chums, who were followed by the Hull Pals, the first of over 50 pals battalions to be raised and invested with intense local pride. The whole of Wales followed the fortunes of the Swansea Pals intently. In Scotland, the sportmen’s or football battalion, composed of players and fans, became the focus of great enthusiasm.

There were other elements of the Army which represented close-knit communities. The 36th (Ulster) Division was conspicuous among them. Five thousand five hundred Ulstermen died on the ferocious first day—more than a quarter of total British deaths. Sir Frank Fox, who had been a staff officer at allied headquarters, wrote:

“The losses of that day made mourning in many Ulster homes, but with the mourning there was pride that the Province had once again proved the steadfastness of its loyal courage”.

A service will be held in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, on 1 July, attended by the Lord Lieutenant, to remember Ulster’s sacrifice. There and in many other places church services will remind us of the fine young musicians and composers who died.

A century later, the search for answers still goes on. Were the allies’ strategy and tactics misconceived? Were the allied commanders incompetent? Was Sir Douglas Haig a callous butcher of men? Many fine works of scholarship have been written—and more will follow—discussing and analysing the great, recurrent issues of the Somme. Unlike the meretricious Alan Clark, serious historians today do not deride Haig and his senior officers as donkeys, although it is clear that they had their limitations. The Somme lacked what it needed most: a man of the stature and genius of Wellington.

At the Somme, Haig sought a decisive victory by breaking through the formidable German trenches. Under his carefully laid plans, the greatest artillery bombardment ever seen would be followed by massive infantry attacks, clearing a route for the cavalry regiments, which would sweep the Germans from the villages and towns of northern France. Historians debate the extent to which grave tactical errors on the British side on the one hand, and the sheer strength of the German defences on the other, thwarted Haig’s ambitions.

Historians are united in recognising the importance of the Somme in enabling the French to survive an even greater struggle at Verdun by diverting German troops from it. Defeat there would have spelled disaster for the allies by opening the road to Paris to the forces of the Kaiser.

Above all, detailed scholarly studies of the Somme today tend to be sympathetic to the strategy on which both it and ultimate victory in 1918 were based. As Andrew Roberts puts it in his recent book Elegy: The First Day on the Somme:

“If there was a way of fighting the First World War that did not involve trying to smash frontally through formidable enemy defences, neither side discovered one”.

The words of historians, however eloquent, reach comparatively few people. The Somme lives on in the hearts of our nation mainly through the words left to us by those who took part in it—men of all ranks whose letters, diaries and poetry speak to us across the century so movingly. Some tell us of the strengthening of their belief in God and the hope of salvation; others of the collapse of faith amid the horrors of the battle. Many were sustained by high ideals. Tom Kettle, an Irish Nationalist MP, wrote a few weeks before he was killed on 5 September:

“I want to live to use all my powers of thinking and working, to drive out this foul thing called war and to put in its place understanding and comradeship”.

Others looked confidently to a better future for mankind. At the end of a poem entitled “Optimism”, the 29 year-old Lieutenant Alfred Ratcliffe wrote:

“Fell year unpitiful, slow days of scorn

Your kind shall die, and sweeter days be born”.

He was killed on the first day of the battle. What, I wonder, would he and his gallant comrades have thought of our conduct in the “sweeter days” that we are so fortunate to enjoy?

When the war was over, there were many more words. They were inscribed on the tombstones visible today from every road and every vista on the approaches to the Somme. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains more than 60 cemeteries of haunting beauty on the Somme battlefield. Above them tower the great memorials dominated by the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, the largest war memorial ever built, recording the names of 73,335 soldiers who have no known grave.

Those who have planned the forthcoming Somme centenary commemoration will have been conscious of how much was expected of them. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how they have fulfilled their task. I look forward, too, to listening to the speeches of noble Lords on all sides of the House who are joining me this evening in recalling this never to be forgotten battle a hundred years ago.