by philip gibbs.
f from “the battles of the somme.” (heinemann.)
and now i must tell a little more in detail the story of the guards in this battle. it is hard to tell it, and not all can be told yet because of the enemy. the guards had their full share of the fighting, and of the difficult ground, with strong forces against them. they knew that would be so before they went into battle, and yet they did not ask for better things but awaited the hour of attack with strong, gallant hearts, quite sure of their courage, proud of their name, full of trust in their officers, eager to give a smashing blow at the enemy.
these splendid men, so tall and proper, so hard and fine, went away as one might imagine the old knights and yeomen of england at agincourt. for the first time in the history of the coldstreamers, three battalions of them charged in line, great solid waves of men, as fine a sight as the world could show. behind them were the grenadiers, and again behind these men50 the irish.
they had not gone more than 200 yards before they came under the enfilade fire of massed machine guns in trenches not previously observed. the noise of this fire was so loud and savage that, although hundreds of guns were firing, not a shot could be heard. it was just the stabbing staccato hammering of the german maxims. men fell, but the lines were not broken. gaps were made in the ranks, but they closed up. the wounded did not call for help, but cheered on those who swept past and on, shouting “go on, lily-whites!”—which is the old name for the coldstreamers—“get at ’em, lily-whites!”
they went on at a hot pace with their bayonets lowered. out of the crumpled earth—all pits and holes and hillocks, torn up by great gun-fire—grey figures rose and fled. they were german soldiers terror-stricken by this rushing tide of men.
the guards went on. then they were checked by two lines of trenches, wired and defended by machine guns and bombers. they came upon them quicker than they expected. some of the officers were puzzled. could these be the trenches marked out for attack—or other unknown trenches? anyhow, they must be taken—and the guards took them by frontal assault full in the face of continual blasts of machine-gun bullets.
51 there was hard and desperate fighting. the germans defended themselves to the death. they bombed our men, who attacked them with the bayonet, served their machine guns until they were killed, and would only surrender when our men were on top of them. it was a very bloody hour or more. by that time the irish guards had joined the others. all the guards were together, and together they passed the trenches, swinging left inevitably under the machine-gun fire which poured upon them from their right, but going steadily deeper into the enemy country until they were 2,000 yards from their starting place.
then it was necessary to call a halt. many officers and men had fallen. to go farther would be absolute death. the troops on the right had been utterly held up. the guards were “up in the air” with an exposed flank, open to all the fire that was flung upon them from the enemy’s lines. the temptation to go farther was great. the german infantry was on the run. they were dragging their guns away. there was a great panic among the men who had been hiding in trenches. but the german machine gunners kept to their posts to safeguard a rout, and the guards had gone far enough through their scourging bullets.
they decided very wisely to hold the line they had gained, and to dig in where they stood, and to make forward posts with strong points.52 they had killed a great number of germans and taken 200 prisoners and fought grandly. so now they halted and dug and took cover as best they could in shell-craters and broken ground, under fierce fire from the enemy’s guns.
the night was a dreadful one for the wounded, and for men who did their best for the wounded, trying to be deaf to agonizing sounds. many of them had hairbreadth escapes from death. one young officer in the irish guards lay in a shell-hole with two comrades, and then left it for a while to cheer up other men lying in surrounding craters. when he came back he found his two friends lying dead, blown to bits by a shell.
but in spite of all these bad hours the guards kept cool, kept their discipline, their courage, and their spirit. the germans launched counter-attacks against them, but were annihilated. the guards held their ground, and gained the greatest honour for self-sacrificing courage which has ever given a special meaning to their name. they took the share which all of us knew they would take in the greatest of all our battles since the first day of july, and, with other regiments, struck a vital blow at the enemy’s line of defence.
