*VIRTUAL TOUR - The Somme Offensive 1 Continued*

The British Attack On The 1st July 1916


Hawthorn Ridge Mine Explosion
At 07:20hrs, ten minutes before Zero Hour (07:30hrs), a huge mine was detonated under the Hawthorn Redoubt in the VIII Corps sector at Beaumont-Hamel. The position was a German strong-point on the crest of Hawthorn Ridge. It was the only mine to be blown under the German positions North of the Ancre river during the Somme Offensive. The agreement to go ahead with its detonation ten minutes before the Infantry attack at Zero Hour, and the fact that the heavy Artillery was timed to lift off the German Front-Line at the same time, gave the German Troops sheltering in their dugouts and bunkers forewarning that the British attack was imminent. It is undeniable that setting off the mine at Zero Hour -0:10, started a catastrophic chain of events that led to so many thousands of unnecessary deaths, with hundreds of Soldiers who still lay unburied where they fell in No-Man’s-Land. In all, there were 19 mines tunnelled under German strategic defences along the Anglo-Franco Somme Offensive line, 18 of them were set off at the correct, pre-set time of 07:28hrs. It could be argued that the pre-detonation had three adverse consequences:

    1. Although the mine blew up the two German machine-gun positions, which targeted all the way along the British lines towards the river Ancre, it also pre-warned the German Reserve Battalions that an attack was imminent. Within minutes of the mine going off, the Germans re-emerged and took up their positions; including the rim of the crater left by the explosion at the Hawthorne Redoubt.
    2. The local first wave Battalions, the 2nd South Wales Borderers and the Royal Innaskillin Fusiliers, heard the blast, seeing all the debris rising into the air at 07:20hrs, and assumed it was the 07:30hr signal for the attack to begin, as rehearsed. They immediately started getting out of the trenches, and through gaps in the wire, without the support of the creeping barrage, or the rest of the Brigade. They faced intense machine-gun fire and shrapnel shells as they reached the outer edge of their own barbed wire defences. By 07:30hrs, these two leading Battalions had lost nearly all of their Officers, and around 80% of their Men.
    3. Shortly after this, white signal flares were seen in the sky above No-Man's-Land, and being the pre-arranged British signal to indicate the capture of the German; Front-Line; local Commanders sent out the second wave of attack. However, it was the Germans who had fired the white flares; which was, coincidentally, the signal for their Artillery to increase its bombardment on British positions and No-Man's-Land in the area.

    Following the explosion of the remaining 18 Allied mines under German positions at 07:28hrs on the 1st July 1916, the Offensive against the German Frontline begun with a diversionary attack at Gommecourt, on the Northern flank of the Front, by two Divisions of the British Third Army. The centre thrust between Serre and Éclusier-Vaux villages was carried out by 12 Divisions in five Corps of the British Fourth Army, totalling over 100,000 Men. The attack was continued below the river Somme on the British right-flank by two Corps of the French Sixth Army. In some parts of the British line, Troops had crawled out in front of the Front-Line trench before Zero Hour. At Zero Hour, the sound and blast of the mines were the triggers for the attack to begin; whistles blew all along the British Front-Line North of the Somme river; and so, the slaughter began.

    Going Over The Top

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