Meeting the Enemy (25 page)

In among this diplomatic traffic was one document of great interest to the family of Henry Hadley, the middle-aged language teacher mortally wounded by a Prussian officer. Henry was attempting to leave Germany on the eve of war with his housekeeper, Mrs Pratley, who was arrested after the shooting and detained for interrogation.

For nearly two years there had been silence as to what had happened to Henry’s property and indeed, as far as his family was concerned, what had happened to his body. Miss Henrietta Hadley, his sister, knew only that he had been buried in Gelsenkirchen and that his property, including two trunks and other smaller bags, was missing. Suddenly, at the beginning of 1917, the Germans sparked into life. But the news was not good, as a German note dated 22 January 1917 explained.

‘The administrator appointed by the court has sold the property by auction and out of the proceeds of the sale, paid part of the sum owing to the doctor who treated Hadley up to the time of his death.’ Among his personal belongings listed were a violin case and violin, one silk hat, one opera hat, fourteen collars and five small pipes. The total raised was just over twenty-seven marks. The British protested that as Henry Hadley had been mortally wounded for no justifiable reason, the idea that he should pay for his own medical treatment was outrageous. In a letter to the Foreign Office, Henrietta Hadley gave details of items of value her brother carried but which had never been returned, including a new greatcoat. In addition, ‘the housekeeper [Mrs Pratley] states that before she left Gelsenkirchen a packet of papers was given her of my brother’s and that they were taken from her by the police at Münster and not returned when she left’.

Months later, some ‘effects’ were found in the hands of the Berlin Railway and returned through The Hague, including two trunks of clothes and possibly the missing papers. Property of value reported to have been with Hadley when he was shot was untraceable.

As to what had happened to Henry Hadley himself, Henrietta was ‘unofficially told’ that his body was buried in a pauper’s grave in Gelsenkirchen; a location of ‘Zone 11, Division 9’ was given, though this meant nothing to her, and she asked the Foreign Office to pursue the matter so that she could find out exactly where he lay. ‘What we all feel as a family,’ she wrote to the Foreign Office, ‘is that Captain Nicolay who shot my brother should be brought to justice.’ While Henry Hadley was the first British man killed in the Great War, this dubious distinction would not put him first in the justice queue when the Allies half-heartedly pursued war crimes trials after victory in 1918. Even if Captain Nicolay were still alive, there would be far bigger fish than him who would ultimately remain free and distinctly unfried.

6

Up Close and Personal

For the Allies to win the war, the German army would have to be defeated in the field. In short, and at its most simplistic, this could not be achieved other than by leaving the safety of one’s own trenches, crossing no-man’s-land, and ejecting the enemy from his.

The trenches were sanctuaries, places of relative safety, temporary homes in which men lived if not cheek by jowl with the enemy, then in close proximity. Was it any wonder that on both sides of the line men could become seduced into maintaining the peace? Most did not champ at the bit to ‘get at the Hun’. Trench raids and sniping were useful in breaking up cosy arrangements and gingering up opponents, but nevertheless a sense of stalemate was bound to develop while the men held fast, a situation that would remain until decisive action was taken. If Allied soldiers were going to get to grips with the enemy, it had to be up close and personal.

The net result of fighting thus far had been to establish a war of attrition. The Germans, who had held the initiative in 1914 and 1915, would slowly see the pendulum of ascendancy swing in the Allies’ favour as the Battle of the Somme, and later Arras and Third Ypres, eroded the enemy’s fighting capabilities and in the end broke his will to resist coherently. The Germans became aware that the tide of war was flowing against them as British, Empire and eventually American forces were committed in ever greater numbers, deploying escalating resources as the Germans’ own decayed and diminished. It would take time for the Allies to combine the knowledge learnt, utilise new technology, enjoy the predominance of arms and win the war. In 1916, that knowledge was still over a year away and its decisive deployment closer to two.

Prior to an offensive, the strategic aims were set out by the Commander in Chief. Strategy centred at this time on the idea of the breakout, punching through enemy lines to the green fields beyond, and it was up to his army commanders to plan in detail how this would take place. In turn, it was the junior officers’ role to implement tactics on the ground and then to lead their men forward. The other ranks had no idea of strategy or a sense of the bigger picture. They simply had to do as they were ordered.

The significance of the proposed attack would be impressed upon the men. A major breakthrough was expected; by the troops’ own actions and example, the war itself might be shortened. There was hyperbole: the imperilled freedom of the world was in their hands; the eyes of the world were on them at this critical moment. This was not a time for failing in one’s duty, or for threatening the honour of the regiment. Everyone would be expected to perform to their utmost.

The pep talk went on. The enemy deserved little sympathy; prisoners required feeding and every mouthful of food a prisoner ate would mean one less for the soldiers’ families back home. If prisoners were taken, they could not be allowed to hinder the attack in any way. On all sides, troops ready to go into action took their senior officers’ nudges and winks as a licence to kill the enemy with little hesitation.

Seasoned soldiers had heard it all before and such talk washed over them; they knew what they had to do. Yet regardless of any misgivings the men might have, the anticipation was such that most simply wanted to get on with the job. As the hours ground down to zero, anxiety grew exponentially. Adrenalin and personal fears of failure or letting mates down allowed few to get any rest, let alone sleep. Each man would be wrapped up in his own thoughts. There was no chance of turning back, no option but to go on and leave fate to decide who lived and who died.

The moment of going over the top, as one soldier wrote, was like plunging into a pool of freezing water. Only as soldiers were on their way, did wretched anxiety dissipate as they were forced to focus on the job ahead. But how to describe the ensuing chaos, as men began to approach the enemy’s trench where, for the first time, they might see the grey hue of a German uniform?

Private Bernard Stevenson’s terse, staccato description of the fighting on 1 July 1916 gives a good impression. He was serving with the 1/7th Sherwood Foresters, also known as the Robin Hood Rifles.

We go over the top. Lieutenant Wilkins leads five platoon. ‘Come on the Robins’. Out of the smoke come bullets. Someone falls dead. On we go. Thro’ the German wire and into their front line trench. Our artillery has not stopped and is dropping shells near us. A red light is burned to try and stop them. Wilkins wounded in the arm. Sergeant Buckley slightly wounded, also Berry. Captain Leman sees Germans emerging from the smoke between their first and second lines. Shoots at them with his revolver. Is shot in arm and face. Germans advance with bombs from right and left. Everyone attends to himself. I tumble out of trench and see small trench just behind their wire, about six yards away. Get in this. Germans throw a bomb into it and the dirt half buries me. Lie doggo.

Driven on by fear and aggression, the violence perpetrated by both sides was unspeakable, and the vast majority of soldiers who would talk about the war, write diaries or memoirs, even those willing to impart gruesome details, still glossed over the worst features of hand-to-hand combat. One anonymous account of the aftermath of the fighting around the German stronghold known as the Quadrilateral gave, in a single sentence, some indication of the frenzied fighting that had gone on there. ‘I entered their trenches later in the day,’ the man wrote, ‘and I saw, among the men dead, a German with a Durham pick-axe in his chest from side to side, embedded under his left arm-pit
right up to the helve
– surely a blow that only a Durham pitman could deal.’

Not many wrote like this but Private Frank Harris, serving with 6th King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, was more descriptive than most.

Here the bastards come. There are, however, many Yorkshire Light Infantry, also Durham Light Infantry, who have managed to survive, and, whilst we are famished, parched, unbelievably fatigued, plastered with muck and filth in our eyes and teeth. Whilst we are more or less resigned, light a woodbine if you have one, we accept this bloody challenge, pull our belts in, deploy, spit on our hands, and wait, for Fritz to come a little nearer . . . This lot though, pal, sure hate our guts as we hate theirs. Maybe the equivalent of our Guards, certainly tall and burly enough. They have also, like us, been taught to kill, the creed of war of course.

I was a bloody fool I suppose when I fell on top of a Boche who had just sunk his bayonet into one of my best pals a foot or so away. I lunged myself, missed, parried, then got the ‘Squarehead’ in the breast, but then, not content with that, followed him to ground, thumbs gouging at his throat until a bloke dragged me away. ‘You can only kill the bastards once,’ he observed. I shot a glance at my pal, with a penetrated artery, undoubtedly no chance, gave the Boche some boot, and resumed the melee, and what a ghastly bloody business it was.

Clearing trenches was mayhem but it was organised mayhem, and techniques for doing so were developed and perfected: bombs round the next corner of the trench and, following the explosions, a dart round the traverse by the bayonet men to finish off anyone resisting or not. Soldiers would systematically work their way down the line as the enemy fought to the last, attempted to surrender or took flight over the top back to the next line of trenches. The murderous trade of taking and consolidating the trench was assumed by men who, by their training, were automatons in action, temporarily devoid of humanity. They had to be; circumstances demanded it.

Guy Chapman, an officer with the Royal Fusiliers, recalled an incident in which an enemy officer was killed after offering a pair of field glasses to a sergeant as a token of surrender. The sergeant took the glasses, thanked the officer, then shot him through the head, killing him instantly. A fellow officer of Chapman’s witnessed the shooting and was at a loss what to do.

‘I don’t see that you can do anything,’ Chapman cautioned the officer. ‘He must have been half mad with excitement by the time he got into that trench. I don’t suppose he ever thought what he was doing. If you start a man killing, you can’t turn him off again like an engine. After all, he is a good man.’

But now and again something would happen that would bring a man to his senses, something completely out of the ordinary. Private Percy Clare of the 7th East Surrey Regiment had waited for the barrage to lift from the German trenches before he and his comrades rose to their feet and advanced with levelled bayonets.

The resistance was greater than one would have expected after such a pounding from our artillery. In the portion of trench that I entered I found two stricken Huns very badly wounded from our shellfire. One was about 48-50 years of age I guessed; the other a mere boy possibly 20 years, bearing a remarkable resemblance to the other. I next noticed that their hands were interlocked as though they had determined to die together. It was easy to see that they were father and son, and deep compassion for them took possession of me. It distressed me to see them in such a case. In spite of the entreaty of our C.O., voicing higher commands, to show no mercy, I felt as sorry for them as I should had they been my own friends instead of my enemies. I would have stayed by them had it been possible to see that they were spared and handed over to our stretcher-bearers.

The faces of those two fellows, so ghastly white, their features livid and quivering, their eyes so full of pain, horror and terror, perhaps each on account of the other. Their breasts were bare showing horrible gaping wounds which without doubt were mortal. One or two of our fellows passing by raised their bayonets as if to thrust them through when their cries for mercy were truly piteous. Plenty of men could be found who never bayoneted any but wounded Germans, and I stood for a few moments restraining any who in the lust of killing, and having in mind our C.O.’s lecture, might thrust them through. Poor fellows, they were doomed. I had to go forward.

The third German trench was some way ahead, and our wave of attackers had dwindled so that reinforcement was necessary. This was effected by combing in half the moppers-up wave behind us. One of these was a man named Bean, a butcher by trade. I discovered from him that he had come across those two poor wounded Huns in mopping up and had thrust them both through the abdomen with his bayonet, not even troubling to see that he had really put an immediate end to their miseries. My indignation consumed me, and friends though we had been I told him what I thought of it and from this moment we had no use for each other. I told him he would never survive this action; that I didn’t believe God would suffer so cowardly and cruel a deed to go unpunished. Bean himself was killed on 3 May, and it was I who first discovered his body.