Current Information:

Age-24

189, Albany Street, Regent's Park

The Battle of the Somme (July-November, 1916)

On 1st July 1916 The British Army launched a massive offensive along a section of the front line running north of the River Somme. The French attacked south of it. The first day was a disaster for the British army which suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, 19,000 of whom were killed, and made hardly any inroads into the enemy lines. But the battle had to go on, if for no other reason than to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun where they had been facing the full onslaught of the powerful German Army. So it continued all the way through to November with nearly every battalion and division then in France being drawn into it at some stage. In the end the German trenches had been pushed back a few miles along most of the line but the cost in lives had been staggering. By the end of the fighting in November, 1916, British Army casualties numbered over 400,000, killed, wounded and missing.

On 14th July, 1916, a second major offensive was launched, this time against the German second line of defences stretching from Longueval to Bazentin-le-Petit, but unfortunately, after a promising start which saw some important gains on the first day, the British Army once again reverted to a series of uncoordinated attacks, using out dated tactics. Not surprisingly they soon found themselves engaged in a war of attrition as they attempted to push the enemy further back across the Somme battlefield. This was no more so the case than in the fight to capture the village of Longueval and Delville Wood that lay next to it; a struggle that went on for many weeks through the summer of 1916.

1st Division moved into this sector on 14th July, 1916 and began preparing for their part in a general attack on the night of 22nd- 23rd July, 1916, which would involve seven other divisions with objectives that stretched from Guillemont on the right of the line to Pozieres Ridge on the left. 1st Division attacked from their position just to the east of Bazentin-le-Petit towards Martinpuich, with 1st Cameron Highlanders, 10th Gloucestershire from 1 Brigade and 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps and 2nd Sussex from 2 Brigade They formed up before zero in front of the British line but the enemy sent up flares and opened up with machine-guns. Nevertheless the attack was pressed. 1st Cameron Highlanders and 10th Gloucestershire were hit hard by machine-guns concealed in the long grass and neither reached the Switch Line. 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps and 2nd Sussex had the re-entrant formed by the Switch Line and Munster Alley as their objective but coming under machine-gun fire straight away they had no hope of reaching it despite their attempts to rush it under the cover of the barrage. There were many casualties for 1st Division in this operation and included Alfred Roberts of 1st Cameron Highlanders.