Francis Humphrey Robillard

Francis Humphrey John Robillard (second lieutenant) born 1896 to Francis Arthur and Lizzie Robilliard, of Chelmsford road, South Woodford. He joined the Lincolnshire Regiment and in 1916 fought at the battle of Flers-Courcelette. He died on 4th October 1917.

The battle of Flers-Courcelette (15th – 22nd September 1916) was a subsidiary attack of the battle of the Somme. However, what happened at that battle was to have a big impact on world war one and was to change warfare forever. This was the first occasion that tanks were used in battle. An attack on Flers-Courcelette by the 41st division was supported by 49 tanks. The tank had been in France since the summer of 1916 but not used, and if they were not used soon its presence would soon be discovered. The battle of the Somme had been going on for two and a half months. Gains had been negligible, losses horrendous and the infantry could make little progress over muddy ground, laced with barbed wire and covered by artillery and machine guns. The tank it was claimed could defy mud and shell-torn ground, silence machine guns and field artillery and crush down wire….49 tanks were committed and 32 made it to the start line. Of that number, nine broke down, five sank in the mud, ran into tree stumps or were otherwise ditched. Nine fell behind the infantry they were tasked to support, and nine went ahead of the infantry and caused alarm and despondency amongst the enemy.

The purpose of the battle of the Somme had been designed to take the pressure off General Joffre and the French army who had been taking heavy losses at Verdun East of Paris. The high command decided to attack the Germans north of Verdun thus requiring the Germans to remove men from the Verdun battlefield thereby relieving the pressure on the French. The point chosen was a 25 mile stretch of the River Somme.

The Somme battle was fought between July 1st and November 18th. The attacks were planned by Douglas Haig and were preceded by the British firing over 1,700,000 shells for a continuous period of 7 days and nights before the men ‘went over the top’. (this equates to an average of 10,119 shells an hour or 168 a minute). It was reported that this barrage could be heard along Southern England.

The initial barrage was planned to cut the wire using a wire cutting shell and then changed to high explosive and shrapnel shells and increased the intensity intending to destroy the trenches and dugouts where the soldiers were hiding. However, the military had underestimated the sophistication of the German lines and just how strong were the dugouts. Additionally, many of the shells did not explode, the wire was not cut, and the shells were not heavy enough to penetrate the dugouts.

At 7:30 a.m. 17 mines went off heralding the start of the battle. (these were tunnels dug under the German lines and filled with tons of explosives). Actually, the first mine went off ten minutes early and the crater it left, the ‘hawthorn crater, is still visible today.

On the first day alone the British lost 60,000 killed, wounded or taken prisoner. Advances were made, but these were limited and often ultimately repulsed. Our forces secured the first line of the German trenches on the 11th July. On that day German troops were transferred from Verdun to the Somme to contribute to the German defence, doubling the number defending. It was the bloodiest battle of the war, or of any war since. Between 1st July and 18th November a total of over 1,000,000 will have been killed, over half of them German. At the end we only gained 5 miles of territory.

It was after this battle that people started talking about “the lost generation”. Many found it hard to justify the loss of 88,000 men for each mile gained.

Unlike the German attack at Verdun, the British attack was made without the useful, some might say vital, element of surprise. The Germans knew that when the barrage stopped the British would attack.

What any analysis of the first day on the Somme comes down to is the familiar lesson – that Western Front defensive positions could not be stormed and taken by any means currently open to the attacker. The British assault on the first day was a classic example of a nineteenth-century attack, only with aircraft in the scouting and artillery spotting roles in place of cavalry, but expanded and compounded by the devastating power of modern weapons.

The battle of the Somme like most other battles in the first world war were deliberate battles of attrition, as it was recognised that with Germany fighting on two fronts, the French and English as well as the Russians, Germany could not afford the high levels of manpower losses. Provided you killed more of them than you lost you would eventually win. Granted Germany had more men than France, but not more than France and the British empire combined, especially with the eventual entry of America into the fight in 1917.

However, after this battle lessons were learned and modern technology developed new weapons and new tactics were employed to use them with great advantage. For example the rolling barrage, where the troops advanced just 100 yards behind the artillery shells which moved forward at an agreed rate of 50 yards per 10 minutes, trusting on the accuracy of the artillery battalion not letting any shells fall short, and changing shell type for the obstacle being attacked, (barbed wire, trenches or dugouts), with the British troops overrunning the objective before the enemy had a chance to recover from bombardment.

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