Their blackest day

Meter for meter, man for man, the battle for the Aubers Ridge on 9^th and 10^th May 1915, saw one of the highest rates of loss during the entire war.

There is no memorial to the 11,000 casualties, but at the Le Touret Cemetery just south of Aubers, approximately 4,300 of the dead are commemorated. A number of these are on the memorial to the east of the graves.

Serjeant Thomas Civil, of the Northamptonshire Regiment 1^st Battalion is one of them. He died on 9 May 1915.

I met Thomas’s great niece, herself an author of WW1 books, and I undertook to go to his grave on my next tour and get some photos for her.

Thomas’ war story beings when the battalion left their barracks in Northampton (now largely occupied by the Northampton International Academy and Castle Academy) in August 1914 for Aldershot where they would be under command of the 2^nd Brigade in the 1^st Division.

The 1st Division was established in 1809 for service in the Peninsular War, disestablished in 1814 and re-formed in 1815 for service in the War of the Seventh Coalition and fought at the Battle of Waterloo. It was disbanded in 1818 but then raised again for service in the Crimean War, the Anglo-Zulu War and the Second Boer War. 1902 saw it raised as a permanent formation.

In 1914, the Division was one of the first to arrive in France and remained on the Western Front for the duration of the war. Attached to the 2^nd Brigade, the Northants Battalion saw action on the Western Front for the duration, but for Thomas, and another 559 members of the Northamptonshire 1^st Battalion, his war ended on the first day of the battle of Aubers Ridge.

The two-day Battle of Aubers Ridge on 9 and 10 May 1915 was part of the larger Second Battle of Artois, and the British would support the French in going towards Aubers a day after the main attack on 7 May.

During 1914/15 Germany (and the central powers) were maintaining a defensive position in the West, focusing instead on the East, with the intention of knocking Russia out of the war and turning all their attention back to the Western Front.

The Battle of Artois was one of three strikes to prevent the Germans defending the salient held in France while their focus was on the East.

Bad weather on 7^th May postponed the main battle to the 9^th May, with subsidiary attacks, including that at Aubers, now occurring at the same time as the main battle.

On 2^nd May, the British were given five days to prepare, but bad weather on 6^th and 7^th of May caused a postponement of the main attack until 9^th May, with the subsidiary attacks, including that at Aubers, happening at the same time rather than the following day.

Sunday 9 May was sunny.

A walk around the cemetery, and gazing towards Aubers, it’s clear how easily the attack cost so many lives.

The ground is flat and would have provided very little opportunity for cover for infantry, and the enemy positions would have been difficult to see and identify. In fact, the German front line was between 90 and 450 meters away and further behind them, a gentle incline leading to Aubers Ridge. Not significantly high, but good enough for an observation point over the British line, nevertheless. British equipment was poor and intelligence was insufficient. Some units were put on standby to move to Ypres following the German gas attack on 22 April, and the attack at Gallipoli on 25 April stretched resources even further. Meanwhile, German trenches had been fortified over the winter.  

At 5.00am British bombardment opened and shortly afterwards the 2^nd Brigade, which includes the 1^st Northants, went over the top to take up a position just 70 meters from the German Front. Heavy machine-gun fire cut the attackers down even on their own ladders and parapet steps, but men continue to press forward as ordered.

Serjeant Thomas Civil

The covering bombardment was lifted, but still the brigades attempted to cross No Man’s Land and were met by intense crossfire, which they could not have been seen from their ground-level emplacements. Whole lines of men were hit and even in the few gaps that had been cut in the German wire, men were forced to bunch, becoming perfect targets for enemy gunners. The leading battalions, including 1^st Northants, suffered grim losses and the 100 or so men who got to the German front were all killed or captured.

The battle continued throughout the day, with the same, ghastly fate awaiting the subsequent charges, until at 4.40pm, it was realised that any further advances would be useless.

The 11,000 British casualties from the battle at Aubers Ridge took three days to be fully cleared. The battle was a disaster. It was the blackest day for the Northamptonshire Regiment.

A sombre walk around the cemetery and the memorial and I count 278 from the Northamptonshire Regiment, including Private Herbert Henry Horwood. He was just 16 years old.