Fall of Giants

“We don’t attack until we have confirmation that the enemy defenses have been destroyed,” Evans said. “That’s an axiom of siege warfare.”

Fitz knew that this principle had been agreed upon early in the planning, but later dropped. “Be realistic,” he said to Evans. “We’ve been preparing this offensive for six months. This is our major action for 1916. All our effort has been put into it. How could it be canceled? Haig would have to resign. It might even bring down Asquith’s government.”

Evans seemed angered by that remark. His cheeks flushed and his voice went up in pitch. “Better for the government to fall than for us to send our men up against entrenched machine guns.”

Fitz shook his head. “Look at the millions of tons of supplies that have been shipped, the roads and railways we’ve built to bring them here, the hundreds of thousands of men trained and armed and brought here from all over Britain. What will we do-send them all home?”

There was a long silence, then Evans said: “You’re right, of course, Major.” His words were conciliatory but his tone was of barely suppressed rage. “We won’t send them home,” he said through clenched teeth. “We will bury them here.”

At midday the rain stopped and the sun came out. A little later, confirmation came down the line: we attack tomorrow.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – July 1, 1916

Walter Ulrich was in hell.

The British bombardment had been going on for seven days and nights. Every man in the German trenches looked ten years older than he had a week ago. They huddled in their dugouts-man-made caves deep in the ground behind the trenches-but the noise was still deafening, and the earth beneath their feet shook continually. Worst of all, they knew that a direct hit from the largest-caliber shell might destroy even the strongest of dugouts.

Whenever it stopped they climbed out into the trenches, ready to repel the big attack that everyone expected. As soon as they were satisfied that the British were not yet advancing, they would look at the damage. They would find a trench caved in, a dugout entrance buried under a pile of earth, and-on one sorry afternoon-a smashed canteen full of broken crockery, dripping jam tins, and liquid soap. Wearily they would shovel away the soil, patch the revetment with new planks, and order more stores.

The ordered stores did not come. Very little came to the front line. The bombardment made all approaches dangerous. The men were hungry and thirsty. Walter had gratefully drunk rainwater from a shell hole more than once.

The men could not stay in the dugouts between bombardments. They had to be in the trenches, ready for the British. Sentries kept constant watch. The rest sat in or near the dugout entrances, ready either to run down the steps and shelter underground when the big guns opened up, or to rush to the parapet to defend their position if the attack came. Machine guns had to be carried underground every time, then brought back up and returned to their emplacements.

In between barrages the British attacked with trench mortars. Although these small bombs made little noise when fired, they were powerful enough to splinter the timber of the revetment. However, they came across no-man’s-land in a slow arc, and it was possible to see them coming and take cover. Walter had dodged one, getting far enough away to escape injury, although it had sprayed earth all over his dinner, forcing him to throw away a good bowlful of hearty pork stew. That had been the last hot meal he got, and if he had it now he would eat it, he thought, dirt too.

Shells were not all. This sector had suffered a gas attack. The men had gas masks, but the bottom of the trench was littered with the bodies of rats, mice, and other small creatures killed by the chlorine. Rifle barrels had turned greenish-black.

Soon after midnight on the seventh night of the bombardment, the shelling eased up, and Walter decided to go out on a patrol.

He put on a wool cap and rubbed earth on his face to darken it. He drew his pistol, the standard nine-millimeter Luger issued to German officers. He ejected the magazine from the butt and checked the ammunition. It was fully loaded.

He climbed a ladder and went over the parapet, a death-defying act by daylight but relatively safe in the dark. He ran, bent double, down the gentle slope as far as the German barbed-wire entanglement. There was a gap in the wire, placed-by design-directly in front of a German machine-gun emplacement. He crawled through the gap on his knees.

It reminded him of the adventure stories he used to read as a schoolboy. Usually they featured square-jawed young Germans menaced by Red Indians, pygmies with blowpipes, or sly English spies. He recalled a lot of crawling through undergrowth, jungle, and prairie grass.

There was not much undergrowth here. Eighteen months of war had left only a few patches of grass and bushes and the occasional small tree dotted around a wasteland of mud and shell holes.