Centenary of the Battle of the Somme — House of Commons, 2016-06-29
Topic: Defense
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): All the belligerents—the Germans, the French and we the British, too—thought the year 1916 would be one for decisive results. The Germans felt that they could severely knock out the French. I think that is right, but I would ask my right hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) whether it is. He taught me at Sandhurst, although I was asleep most of the time. The Germans believed the French were slightly weaker than the British and that knocking out the French would bring the British to heel and sort out the problem As my hon. Friend has already hinted, and I will continue on the same theme, that caused the Battle of Verdun, which started on 21 February 1916. The Germans and the French went at it in that fortified town, and it went very badly for our allies the French. My wife’s French family have a biscuit tin filled with various medals—the Légion d’Honneur, the Croix de Guerre and the Medal Militaire—which were gained by her family at Verdun. All 11 of them were killed. Now the family does not even know to whom the medals were awarded. As my hon. Friend stressed, Verdun was hell on earth. Unsurprisingly, the French General Joffre, as allied commander-in-chief, pressed his British allies to take the pressure off Verdun by a massive attack in our sector. Our commander-in-chief, General Haig, wanted to delay until August, but Joffre was insistent, and thus the Battle of the Somme started on 1 July In his book, "Britain and Her Army", the military historian Correlli Barnett wrote that "the British army in France by 1916 was the largest, most complicated, and most comprehensive single organisation ever evolved by the British nation." and that no peacetime operation in either Government or private enterprise could begin to compare with it. But all that organisation was to count for nought and would be largely annihilated by what was to happen On the Somme, German positions were mainly on the high ground, and they had incredible shelters, some of which were as deep as 30 to 40 feet underground. British preliminary bombardments had started a week earlier but with not as many shells as we had hoped, and they had little effect because the Germans were relatively safe deep underground. As the bombardment ended, the whistles blew and our men started moving across that dreadful area. The Germans came out of their deep shelters and mowed down our men as they crossed no-man’s land, which could be up to a mile wide and was in full view of the enemy The attack started at 7.30 in the morning with whistles blowing up and down the line—I think we will replicate that at 7.30 am in many of the commemorations on 1 July. Four battalions of my regiment, the Cheshires, went over the top in that first assault. Day one was a total failure—well almost; a little bit of the German line was captured. Estimates vary, but about 20,000 men were killed and 60,000 wounded. The carnage was enormous. A company of the 5th Cheshires lost every officer and all its men—they stood no chance Today I do not suppose that we can even get near to understanding how difficult it must have been to keep going through the oozing mud, wire and shell holes when one’s closest friends were dropping all around, often in agony. The effect on our soldiers must have been utterly horrific. Let me read what I say at all military funerals that I have attended, and quote the words of Padre Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, who was known as "Woodbine Willie" by all the men: "There are many kinds of sorrow in this world of love and hate but there is no keener sorrow than a soldier’s for his mate" I will end with a little story that links today with 100 years ago. In 1982, when I was a terribly good-looking young major—[Interruption.] Thank you—I wanted to lighten the tone. In 1982 as a company commander in Northern Ireland, I lost my company when six of my men were killed and 35 wounded. Those were not quite the casualties that the Ulster Division had, but it was not far off and—as in the first world war—it took place in one incident: the Ballykelly bomb. I had not only to be the incident commander through the night, but it took me six hours to identify my men. I then had to bring them home, and they were all buried within the boundaries of Cheshire As I came out of St George’s, Stockport, after the second funeral I had been to in that church that week—this must have been just before Christmas 1982—I saw an old lady who was crying. I crossed the road and put my arms around her. I am afraid, ladies, I am a bit of a dinosaur and I said to her, "Don’t worry, darling, he’s out of his pain." She said, "You don’t understand, young man." In my mind I was thinking, "I bloody well do understand. I held him as he died." I did not say that, but she read my mind. She said, "No, you clearly don’t understand. When I was a little girl, I stood on this spot and watched 800 men of the 6th Cheshires go into that church. When they came back from the Battle of the Somme, they filled three pews."