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Enlisted-Birmingham

The opening day of the Battle of the Somme 1st July 1916

This was a disastrous day for the British Army in France. Eleven divisions of Fourth Army attacked along a 15 mile front from Maricourt to Serre. Two further divisions of Third Army launched a diversionary attack just to the north of Serre at Gommecourt. For a week beforehand the British artillery pounded the German trenches but the Germans had been there for a long time and they had constructed deep, concrete reinforced shelters beneath their trenches and many survived the bombardment. The troops went over the top at 7.30 am but even before they had left their overcrowded trenches, many had been killed or maimed by German artillery. The Germans knew that they were coming. Once in No-Man’s-Land the artillery continued to take its toll and then the machine guns opened up on the advancing British infantry. They fell in their thousands and the attack came to a standstill almost everywhere. Survivors sought cover wherever they could find it and at night they crawled back to their own lines, often dragging a wounded soldier with them. Only in the south were any advances made with the attack on Fricourt and Mametz. Over 19,000 British soldiers were killed on this day, including 2,500 from London.

4th Division attacked as part of VIII Corps against the fortress villages of Serre and Beaumont Hamel. The German positions here were a kind of amphitheatre with the British confronted by tiers of fire. Their defences also included two strong redoubts, Ridge Redoubt and the Quadrilateral. Their objective was that 11 Brigade would capture Munich trench, 100 yards behind the front line and then the supporting 10th and 12th Brigades would go through. However, no-man’s- land was bare of cover with well sited German defences which the bombardment had not destroyed.

At 7.20 a.m. Hawthorne Ridge mine was blown and the artillery lifted off the German line giving them lots of warning of the impending attack. 11 Brigade led the attack at 7.30am with 1st East Lancashire and 1st Rifle Brigade along with 8th Warwickshire, attached from 48th Division. The left of 1st Rifle Brigade and 8th Warwickshire were, by being on the swell of ground formed by Redan Ridge, free from direct fire and only exposed to enfilade fire.  They were able to penetrate the German line and reach the ‘Heidenkopf’ or Quadrilateral Redoubt on the Serre-Mailly road, which formed a pronounced salient.  The enemy planned to blow this Redoubt when the British occupied it and it was only defended by one machine gun.  But this machine gun jammed and the engineers blew the mine too early.  Moving on, 1st Rifle Brigade and 8th Warwickshire gained the support trench behind it on a 600 yard frontage. However, 8th Warwickshire received severe enfilade fire from Serre on their left and only small parties made it across. But by now they were much reduced in numbers and running short of grenades.  By 11am the enemy had worked round their flanks and behind them and were sending down strong  bombing parties from Serre. The attacking troops of 11 Brigade were either killed, captured or forced back, almost to their starting line.