Assaulting
Regina Trench, October 1916
“It
was now getting on to 3 p.m. and things were getting rather desperate.”
-3rd
(Toronto) Battalion War Diary, 8 October 1916
It had been
about half an hour since Lance Corporal Durbin, at great risk to himself had
volunteered to dispatch through the gauntlet of shellfire enveloping no-man’s
land with an urgent plea for 3rd Battalion Headquarters. The attack, which had begun so well was now
in danger of being turned out completely.
German troops had overwhelmed the Toronto men, pushing them in succession
from the second, and just now, the first objective lines. What remained of the 3rd
Battalion’s right echelon, a mere handful with a spattering of 4th
Battalion men mixed in were loosely grouped in the shell holes along the
frontage of the line from which they’d just been ejected. Once the enemy could make sense of how
delicate the situation was, they would surge right over the Canadians and be
able to sweep clear almost all the way back to Courcelette.
There was no way
to know if Durbin had made it back, if he’d been able to deliver the message to
Major Yates, or for that matter, if the Major would be able to do anything to
help. Those at the tip of the spear
could only rely on what they had if they were to prevent a failed assault
becoming a rout.
“Who’s here with me?” a voice called
out. It was Lieutenant Chatterton, the
only officer from ‘D’ Company- one of only two officers of the 14 who went
forward that morning[1]-
left standing. Strained voices from the
pockets and folds of the ragged ground answered back.
“Fix bayonets!”
Nearly ten hours
before, the assault had begun with decidedly mixed results. On the 3rd Battalion’s right, the
4th (Central Ontario) Battalion had fought through to their
objective, a confluence of perpendicular trench-lines known as the
“Quadrilateral” with very little difficulty.
The 3rd had much the same experience. Within the first hour of the operation, the
assaulting companies were consolidating the first and second objective lines
and “the first two hours after taking our objective was fairly quiet.”[2] They were in touch with the 4th on
their right, and elements of the 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion
on their left.
Gaining the
German trench had been much more harrowing for the Can Scots. Wire entanglements, left unmolested by
preparatory artillery, or having been repaired where damaged stalled the
advance, forcing the men to bunch and crowd up seeking passable defiles; making
generous targets of themselves for pre-sited machine guns and precisely
concentrated rifle fire. This “caused
heavy casualties and demoralised the formation.”[3] One of the men there, who’d had to beg
permission from the battalion commander to go forward as he was technically a
non-combatant, grasped his shining moment.
James Cleland Richardson, not yet twenty-one years of age, a piper from
Bell’s Hill, Lanarkshire “strode up and down outside the wire, playing his
pipes with the greatest coolness. The
effect was instantaneous….the company rushed the wire with such fury and determination
that the obstacle was overcome and the position captured.”[4] Richardson’s courage would be recognised with
a Victoria Cross, which would be awarded posthumously. Richardson, escorting wounded and prisoners
rearward, “remembered that he had left his pipes behind. Although strongly encouraged not to do so, he
insisted on returning to recover his pipes.
He has never been seen since and death has been presumed.” His pipes would be found by a British
Chaplain in 1917, and remained at a prep school in Scotland until they were
identified and repatriated to Canada in 2006.
They are on display at the British Columbia Legislature Building.[5]
The 13th
(Royal Highlanders of Canada) Battalion, on the left flank of the 16th,
had an even worse time, being forced back to their starting positions without
gaining any portion of the German trench.
A message received at 1st Canadian Division HQ “definitely
ascertained that the 13th Battalion did not gain their
objective….Casualties were exceedingly heavy and so far no Officer who went
forward had been accounted for.”[6] Failure here was critical as the 13th
represented the left edge of the 1st Division. Their retirement created an indefensible gap,
a length of trenches filled with German Marines, between 1st and 2nd
Canadian Divisions. It did not take long
for the enemy to begin counterattacking laterally along the trenches to oust
the Canadians whose hold on the line was fragile to begin with.
General Sir
Douglas Haig, the British Commander-in-Chief believed that the campaign at the
Somme, now in its fifth month had so reduced and worn down German fighting
strength that beyond their present line, they had very little in the way of
prepared defenses. Delay on Haig’s part
in pursuing the offensive would only work to his enemy’s advantage. A dedicated, wide-scale attack could pierce
these last fortifications and deal a winning blow. It had to be done quickly and
comprehensively. This meant starting
positions must be firmly held and in line with flanking units across the
frontage of attack as early as could be managed. For the Canadians, this meant gaining and
control of Regina Trench.[7] “The powerful Regina Trench system ran the
entire length of the Canadian front- more than 3 000 metres- and it had
withstood all previous assaults.”[8]
An attempt was
made in the afternoon of 1 October. Two
brigades of the 2nd Canadian Division and one brigade of the 3rd
surged forward only to encounter an impossible situation. Artillery had not destroyed the German wire;
avenues of approach were overwatched by machine gun emplacements with
intersecting fields of fire and the trenches themselves were held in force with
fresh, determined troops. The attack was
a costly failure, but due to the grand nature of Haig’s offensive planning, the
Corps would have to make another attempt at the soonest opportunity. Weather of consecutive heavy, wet days would
frustrate expedience and afford the enemy a respite. Roads quickly became swamped and sufficient
ammunition could not be delivered to the artillery. “Rain fell again on October 5, 6 and 7,
preventing the Royal Flying Corps observers from acting as spotters for the
British Artillery. The ground became
impassible for any sustained infantry assault.”[9] A slight break in the weather over the
afternoon of the 7th had to be made use of as the planned start of
the general offensive was less than a week off.
Regina Trench must fall.
Ten minutes
before five o’clock in the morning of 8 October, four brigades of the 3rd
and 1st Canadian Divisions advanced in serried company-sized waves,
only to find that, again, “in many sectors…the preliminary British artillery
had failed to cut the German wire.”[10] Only in isolated spots, mainly on the right
flank, was any progress made. A hard
fight to get to the objective, however, left too few men to hold against a
counterattack, the bombs and ammunition expended in taking the lines now meant
these vital resources were in too short a supply to make any stand of
defense. Reinforcements and resupply
could not be brought up across the deadly ground of no-man’s land in broad
daylight. The only means of retaining
these meager gains was to keep fighting in the vain hope that help could be
brought forward after sundown.
They had to of
known that expectation was a strain of even the broadest optimism, but the men
left with Lt. Chatterton, less than one hundred remaining of the 481[11]
who had begun the day rallied in their shell holes and rushed the trench again
with little more than cold steel. “Our
bombs and (ammunition) were completely exhausted, all the Lewis guns but one
had been destroyed and this one was out of ammunition. A retirement was inevitable. The men were fighting with their fists.”[12] Lt. Chatterton, already seriously wounded
during the bayonet charge was still inspiring his men in the fight when he was
felled by a sniper. It was a hopeless
situation. Once again, the enemy trench
was forfeited and what remained of the battalion put up a fighting retreat all
the way back to the jumping-off trenches.
Dirty, tired and
without the basest materials to defend themselves, they nevertheless resolved
“to make a further stand”[13]
on this sparse line. Giving the enemy
such a hard fight, which had been the case along most of the frontage may not
have won the objective, but had so wearied the enemy that the Marinier lacked the desire to follow
through with what might have been a decisive blow against the Canadians, which
in turn would have put the Allied position in serious jeopardy. Regina Trench may still have belonged to Germany,
but at least Canada maintained hold of the ground they had prised from their
enemy since arriving at the Somme in September.[i]
My premier work of
fiction, “Killing is a Sin: A Novel of the First World War” is now available
for download through Kindle Direct Publishing:
Much like the essays
and articles I have written which are being appreciated by a growing audience;
I put a great deal of effort into telling a story of moral questioning in the
setting of the Western Front in 1917 as realistic as possible. In crafting the environment and situation my
characters experience throughout the book, a lot of time was spent consulting
the very same war diaries which I have been using to accurately portray the
situation of the war in my non-fiction work.
“Killing is a Sin” takes my strengths as an accurate and expositive
essayist to give a genuine feel to a work of the imagination.
I sincerely hope that
those of you who have been enjoying my articles here with “If Ye Break Faith”
would also be captivated by the story told within “Killing is a Sin,” where
Corporal Felix Strachan is faced with having to find an answer to his own
question- “What does it mean to die well?”
[5]
“A fine Memorial for a VC Winner JC Richardson”
by Robby McRobb 21 May 2012 via theguardian.pe.ca
[7]
Nicholson, GW, Col. “Official History of the
Canadian Army in the First World War” Queen’s Printer, Ottawa 1962 pg. 180
[8]
Cook, Tim, “At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting
the Great War 1914-1916” Penguin Canada 2007 pg. 485
[9]
Gilbert, Martin, “The Battle of the Somme: The
Heroism and Horror of War” McClelland & Stewart 2006, pg. 207
[i]
All Primary Sources Cited, and Information Used
to Construct this Article is due to the courtesy of Library and Archives
Canada.
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