Serre: Somme

Battleground Europe

Somme

SERRE

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Cover painting: ‘Zero Hour’ by James Prinsep Beadle, by courtesy of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum.

Overleaf: The village of Serre, finally in British hands after the German withdrawal to the Hindenberg Line in 1917.

Battleground Europe

SOMME

SERRE

Jack Horsfall & Nigel Cave

Series editor

Nigel Cave

LEO COOPER

This guide is dedicated to the memory of all those men from every corner of the British Isles, her Empire and from France who took part in the preparations for, or who were there on, the days of the four battles to wrest the hamlet of Serre from the German Army. In particular it is dedicated to my uncle, George Halton, of the Burnley Company, 11th (S) Battalion (Accrington Pals) The East Lancashire Regiment, who, though badly wounded and after lying out in No Man’s Land for four days, survived to tell the story in later years to me, his nephew. Also it is dedicated to his brother-in-law, my father, who fought over the same ground two years later with the Royal Field Artillery, attached to the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division.

Jack Horsfall

To this I would add a dedication to the present inhabitants of the towns and villages on the old battlefields of the Somme who show so much tolerance to the many thousands of pilgrims who come back every year and walk their fields.

Nigel Cave

First published in 1996

Reprinted 1997, 2003

LEO COOPER

an imprint of

Pen Sword Books Limited

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright © Jack Horsfall, 1996, 1997, 2003

ISBN 0 85052 508 X

A CIP catalogue of this book is available

from the British Library

Printed by CPI UK

For up-to-date information on other titles produced under the Leo Cooper imprint, please telephone or write to:

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Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Advice and Introduction

1.

Setting the Scene

2.

The First Battle, 7th – 13th June 1915

3.

The German Defenders of Serre, 1914 –1916

4.

The Death of Roland Leighton

5.

The Death of Innocence

The Second Battle for Serre, 1st July 1916

6.

The Winter Battle, 13th November 1916

7.

The German Withdrawal, February 1917

8.

The Final Battle, Summer 1918

Walks and Car Tours:

Walk 1: Serre, the Battle Arena

Walk 2: Serre No 2 Cemetery, Sackville Street, Great Northern, the Copses and back

Walk 3: Serre, Behind the German Lines

Car Tour 1: The Sucrerie and Euston Road cemeteries, the French Battle and Roland Leighton

Car Tour 2: Behind the British Lines

Appendix: extract from the War Diary of the 12 York & Lancs

Further Reading

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The help of Regimental Secretaries and curators of military museums has been invaluable; the list of these would be too great to place here. All regimental museums of the battalions that fought at Serre, were most willing to assist. Regimental histories, War Diary extracts and other valuable material was often forthcoming. Assistance from Souvenir Français, especially from its very active Arras branch, was very much appreciated, as were a number of German contacts.

Mr David Leighton has kindly allowed us to publish material relating to Roland Leighton. Colonel Pat Love of the Worcesters’ Regimental Museum has helped tremendously with this aspect of the book.

I am grateful to the Taylor Library and to Mr Terry Carter for allowing us to use a number of their photographs. The cover painting is from the Imperial War Museum and we acknowledge their permission to reproduce it.

I am most grateful to Richard Brucciani who flew me over France in his light aircraft and then performed artistic pirouettes in the sky at my behest as I searched for some feature or other on the ground. It is a tremendous experience to see the Somme battlefield from the air. I am indebted to Paul Fisher for driving Jack Horsfall and myself to the Somme and then accompanying us on our somewhat chilly walks around the battlefield at Serre. I am also grateful to him for taking the time to look over some of the text. Mark Fisher accompanied me on a weekend trip to France to finalise photographs and routes; he also read through the proofs. Once more my father, Colonel Terry Cave, has read through parts of the book and I am appreciative for his advice and assistance.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has been most helpful. It lent me numerous cemetery registers at a very modest charge, and I would recommend this to those who remove registers from cemeteries in France and Belgium. The irritation and disappointment that this causes is great, and one can only hope that this dreadful interference with the cemeteries will cease.

The growing numbers of Britons living on the Somme provided a cheery welcome at various parts of the day, especially when the weather was ghastly. Thanks for hospitality are due to Janet and Tom Fairgrieve at Delville Wood, to Avril Williams at Auchonvillers and to Mike and Julie Renshaw at Beaumont Hamel.

We are both very appreciative of the friendly and understanding manner of the French inhabitants of Hebuterne and Serre. I am sure that they think that we are all slightly mad, but they tolerate us walking over fields, avoid our cars on tiny roads and tracks by driving over fields and generally adopt a cheery attitude. I am not sure that their British equivalents would be quite so benevolent.

My fellow author is Jack Horsfall. To me has fallen the task of working with him on the script and producing the finished article. Jack has been going to Serre for many years now and has a real feel for a particularly special place for him. I hope that I have done justice to him in my work on the book.

A view looking north over the left hand flank of the Somme battlefield.

INTRODUCTION AND ADVICE TO TRAVELLERS

Serre is a tiny place, a one street hamlet on a wind-swept ridge on the Somme. It is a village whose name meant a lot to towns and cities in Britain’s industrial north such as Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, Durham, Barnsley and Hull. In recent years it has once more appeared in the limelight, mainly due to a series of books about the Pals battalions, many of which were in the 31st Division that fought at that terrible place on 1st July 1916.

This book is about Serre, but the fact should never be forgotten that it was but one piece in the large jigsaw that formed the battle line on that fateful day. In addition it was famous for only two days (13th November being the other) in the whole of that four and a half month battle. Sight should not be lost of the whole picture, which in the case of the Somme was of a great grinding down battle, which also provided the armies of Britain and her Empire with a training ground in blood and death.

Serre is at the northern end of the Somme battlefield. Accommodation in Arras might be considered a possibility and there are numerous hotels, including chains such as Ibis and the cheap but reliable Hotel Formule 1. In Albert there are several hotels; I have traditionally stayed at the de la Paix which is near the centre