Montauban

Somme

Graham Maddocks

• Publisher: Leo Cooper
• Year: 1998
• Print ISBN: 9780850525793
• eBook ISBN: 9781473816435
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

Montauban was the southernmost of the Somme villages attacked by the British Army on 1 July, 1916, and it was where there was the greatest success. This new book in the series takes the reader over ground where Captain Nevill kicked a football on going over the top, where the Somme cameramen took some of their most evocative footage and where Pals battalions engaged in a triumphant first major engagement.

CONTENTS

	Introduction by Series Editor
	Authors Introduction
	Acknowledgements
	How To Use This Book
Chapter 1	Preparations and Combatants
Chapter 2	The Battle
Chapter 3	Tours of The Old Battlefields
Chapter 4	Men, Memorials and Memories
	Bibliography
	Index

The Madonna of Mountauban still intact in 1916 just after the capture of the village. British soldiers excavate an unexploded British howitzer shell at the base.

INTRODUCTION BY SERIES EDITOR

With this addition to the series, the old Front Line of 1 July 1916 has been completely covered south of the Albert-Bapaume Road. Graham Maddocks has been deeply involved in this sector; he is the author of the Liverpool Pals, who fought their first great battle here, and presided over the committee that raised the memorial to the Liverpool and Manchester Pals in the village.

Montauban was one of the rare places on the Somme where British endeavours were rewarded with success – in some cases, more than had been anticipated. One of the reasons for this lay in the German intelligence analysis, which reckoned that the British onslaught would fall from Gommecourt to just south of Fricourt, so that their resources, in particular engineering resources, were dedicated there. This goes some way to explaining the almost complete lack of success to the north; but it should not in any way detract from what was achieved by these soldiers from a nation which had so little continental military tradition behind it.

This book is considerably enhanced by the amount of work that Mr Maddocks has put into the early days of the war around Montauban, so that the fierce fighting which involved the French army as the line was being stabilised in autumn 1914 gets coverage. Too often we British tend to take the Somme battlefield as ours, and neglect the role of France. French soldiers bore the brunt of the war for its first two years, and the relevant chapter in this book is a timely reminder of that. One hopes that the notable efforts of the French Sixth Army, to the right of the British positions here at Montauban, will also be covered in depth at some stage. Graham Maddocks also gives an interesting account of the opponents of the British at Montauban, that extraordinarily effective fighting machine, the Imperial German Army. Whilst we neglect the French in our studies, we also neglect the Germans as well, and one has to face the fact that one of the reasons we had so many casualties was because of the tenacity and the ability to withstand punishment that was such a characteristic of the German soldier.

Visitors will find a wealth of detail and excellent walks in an area not overfull of remnants of this great conflict, which will help them to appreciate the achievement of the British soldier in this, the most successful part of the attack of 1 July, 1916.

Nigel Cave, Ely Place, London

INTRODUCTION

The story of the Battle of the Somme and more particularly its first day, are well known by the majority of the British public; in fact, it is ingrained into the folk memory of the British nation – yet the vast majority of its people have either gained the wrong impression of it, or are content to believe the oft-wheeled-out myths concerning it.

Popular belief holds that not only was it the most disastrous day in the history of the British Army – (in terms of disaster, the fall of Singapore in 1942 was actually much worse) – but that it was a total failure, wiping out the flower of British manhood for the gain of absolutely nothing.

It is fairly easy to see how this myth gained root – especially when one views the slaughter of some units on that sunny July morning in the third year of the war – slaughter without a shred of success. Curiously, often coupled with this myth is the equally false notion that all the men were brave heroes and all their officers, (especially the generals), incompetent buffoons!

Whilst it is not the purpose of this book to explore this hypothesis – it has been quite adequately deliberated over elsewhere – Montauban will nevertheless destroy a few well held beliefs as well as shattering a few myths. Even the mystique and magic of the date of the opening of the battle is confused in the minds of many. How often do we hear that 1 July was ‘the middle day of the middle year of the war’, for instance? In point of fact, 1916 was a leap year and thus had 366 days, so there was no middle day that year and in true calendar terms, the Great War might have spanned five years, but only lasted for just over four – so there was no middle year of the war either!

In many ways, the battle for Montauban is unique in the long struggle of the Battle of the Somme – the most obvious reason being that the village was the only one captured on schedule on 1 July, and the hopes and planning of 1 July were totally justified in military terms at Montauban. However, despite the delight it gave to British propaganda, the scale of the success there was soon lost to the grieving public as any euphoria which had accompanied the victory gave way to a chilling numbness. Once the terrible consequences of the attack further north became known, even the remarkable recovery and successes of the British Army on 2 July could not prevent the creeping realisation that it was not going to be an easy victory.

Nevertheless, what can never be disputed is the success of the 18th and 30th Divisions on that day – although even after the passage of more than eighty years, this is still not a well known or accepted fact. Despite obvious and catastrophic set-backs, the men of these two divisions accomplished near miracles over difficult and varying terrain and even though it is odious to compare their success with the total failure elsewhere, it is that very failure that has fuelled the public’s perception of the Somme battle ever since.

Who would readily believe, for instance, that a largely citizen army – composed mainly of men who had been civilians just two years earlier, albeit ‘stiffened’ by Regular Army battalions – could trounce the best of Germany’s might, who were professional, experienced and hitherto victorious?

Who would readily believe, also, that a battalion of 89 Brigade could capture all its objectives without actually losing a single soldier in action? It does seem impossible to a public conditioned to accept that all the attackers on the first day of the Somme gained no ground at all, yet were still wiped out, almost to a man – but it did happen.

It was the men of General Congreve’s XIII Corps attacking up the slopes of the Montauban Ridge that unseated a resolute German Army – a brilliant Army which had had twenty-one months to prepare for that inevitable day.

Their battle was virtually won on that July morning and certainly by the following day, they had ensured that the once red-roofed village of Montauban was safely back in allied hands and would never again have to suffer the agony and despoilation that became the routine fate of many other villages on the Somme.

When the author made his first pilgrimage to the Somme area in 1972 there were very few British visitors to the area, as most of the survivors were by then too old, and their sons and daughters had not yet retired and felt the need to research their family histories. Only devotees and serious students seemed to make visits. In fact, returning there for his next visit in 1973, (and every year since), the author was shocked to find that in some cemetery visitors’ books, his name from the previous year was the last one to be written!

For a variety of reasons, this is not now the case and there is a flourishing trade in commemorative visits as many thousands each year make regular pilgrimages. Whilst it is most important that the men buried there should never be forgotten, some could be forgiven for seeing these visits as a double-edged sword. For others, the Somme battle has engendered almost a cult of remembrance and the 1 July anniversary can not be allowed to pass without hordes of them, some curiously dressed in Great War period uniform, eating corned beef and sipping tots of rum, before prancing over the battlef...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents