Battle of the Yser
The Road to Pozières
I seemed to be on my own
Bean was not wrong – there were still Germans in those trenches. From Bapaume Post the road goes on between two small hills, christened by the Tyneside Irish ‘Tara’ and ‘Usna’, until it crests a rise where the view stretches down to La Boisselle and then Pozières, three and a half kilometres away on rising ground. On 1 July 1916 the German lines stretched from north to south across this countryside, the front line lying in front of the fortified villages of La Boisselle and Ovillers La Boisselle. La Boisselle was the objective of the Northumberland Fusilier battalions that morning, along with four other battalions of the 34th British Division. This was the centre of the whole British assault where a gap needed to be opened and held to allow British cavalry units to break through and roam all the way to Bapaume.
Looking towards La Boisselle on the D929 in the area just beyond ‘Tara’ and ‘Usna’ hills. [DVA]
Sign showing where the front line was at the opening of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916. The sign is just to the left of the Tyneside Scottish and Irish Memorial. [DVA]
The attack on La Boisselle was a disaster. The British artillery had not been effective in destroying the front–line enemy positions and half an hour before the attack the heavy guns were taken off these positions and directed on strong points further back to assist the later cavalry breakthrough, should it ever occur. A large mine placed under a German forward trench called ‘Y Sap’ had exploded at 7.28 am but the Germans had earlier learnt about the mine’s existence and pulled their soldiers back. Moreover, the distance between the British and enemy lines was in places more than 750 metres. The first wave to attack La Boisselle consisted of the four battalions of the Tyneside Scottish (20th to 23rd Battalions, Northumberland Fusiliers) to the north and centre, and four other British battalions to the south of the village. Historians Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson have described their fate:
Consequently the 20th and 23rd Northumberland Fusiliers, as they commenced their slow walk over 880 yards [750 metres] of cratered ground were confronting an alert enemy, spared the shock of the mine explosion and lining their parapets with riflemen and machine gunners. Both battalions were wiped out within a few minutes. The 20th suffered 661 casualties out of the 800 men deployed. As for the 23rd, only 120 men from their original 820 were assembled the following day.
Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, The Somme, Sydney, 2006, p.98
Worse was to befall the Tyneside Irish. They began their attack at 7.40 am because, in an effort to ensure the German line was broken, all the infantry units of the 34th Division were allocated to go forward together. The Tyneside Irish, however, began their approach from much further back and had hundreds of metres of open country to cross even before they reached the British front line. German artillery and machine gun fire destroyed nearly 70 percent of them well before they got anywhere near that line:
I could see, away to my left and right, long lines of men. Then I heard the ‘patter, patter’ of machine–guns in the distance. By the time I’d gone another ten yards there seemed to be only a few men left around me; by the time I had gone twenty yards, I seemed to be on my own. Then I was hit myself.
Sergeant J Galloway, 3rd Tyneside Irish, quoted in Martin Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme, London, 1977, p.141
A few survivors reached the British line but as their orders had been to keep going they did, across another 450 metres of no–man’s–land to the German trenches where they found a few survivors of the British attack south of la Boisselle. Even then they did not stop but went forward towards the village of Contalmaison three kilometres away. This remnant was never seen again.
Tyneside Scottish and Irish Memorial seat, La Boisselle. [DVA]
Just before the village of La Boisselle there is a sign for the D20 to Aveluy and Contalmaison. Just after a right turn onto the D20 is a grassed area at the head of which sits the ‘Tyneside Memorial Seat’, virtually astride where the German trenches ran in 1916. The inscription on the memorial presents a rather more optimistic view of the achievements of the Tynesiders at the opening of the Battle of the Somme:
In front of this monument on the 1st of July 1916 the Tyneside Scottish and the Tyneside Irish Brigades attacked the enemy. For many hours the fortunes of arms fluctuated but ere night had fallen the two Tyneside Brigades with the aid of other units of the 34th Division attained their objective.
Tyneside Scottish and Irish Memorial, La Boisselle. [DVA]
One who the memorial commemorates is Sergeant Major William Nelson, 23rd Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers, who was killed on 1 July 1916 in the battalion’s attack on La Boisselle. Nelson was one of the missing and his name is recorded on the Thiepval Memorial. Five weeks later his brother, Lance Corporal John Nelson, 16th Battalion AIF, of Wilmington, South Australia, followed William’s footsteps onto the Somme battlefield to fight at Mouquet Farm. He was killed on 10 August. His body was also never identified for burial and he is commemorated on the Australian National Memorial at Villers–Bretonneux.
A third Nelson brother, Frederick Vincent, joined the AIF in May 1916 and served in France with the 3rd Machine Gun Battalion. Not surprisingly after the death of his brothers, his mother, Elizabeth Nelson, in Keswick, South Australia, made representation to the AIF that he be sent back to Australia for home service. Despite being gassed in August 1918, Frederick Nelson survived the war and returned home in 1919.
Road sign in La Boisselle for the ‘Grande Mine’ – the Lochnagar Crater. [DVA]
Two German soldiers in a communication trench near La Boiselle, c.1916 [AWM J00213]
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© 2008 Department of Veterans' Affairs and Board of Studies NSW :: Last update - November 2008