as the morning of the 1st july
Their positions were assailed by by all arms fire, their supply of ammunition almost gone, their route to the rear cut off. By 12.40pm Captain Davidson's Vickers Machine Guns had been lost and he had been forced to fall back. He reported " I am holding the end of a communication trench in A line with a few bombers and a Lewis Gun. We cannot hold much longer. We are being pressed on all sides and ammunition is almost finished. " By 12.50 Colonel Savage, commanding the 13th Royal Irish Rifles, was desperate in his desire to reinforce his men holding the left of the Ulsters advance. " I then sent up the few remaining batt'n staff, the orderly room Sergeant, 2 officer's servants, 2 Coy QM Sergeants with ammunition, these men were unable to cross No Man's Land. Two were killed, three wounded. " Everywhere behind the Ulsters advance the position was the same, no reinforcements or ammunition could be got across the fire swept zone of No Man's Land. Nevertheless later in the afternoon a patrol was sent towards Thiepval from the Crucifix on the south of the Schwaben Redoubt but were driven away. Another patrol managed to travel to within five hundred yards of Mouquet Farm, along the Switch Line. The penetration of the Thiepval position by this gallant band revealed the one remaining weakness in the German position. If only reserves could have poured down the Switch Line, Thiepval could have been taken from the rear, but alas it was not to be.
wore on the exposure of the Ulsters beacme complete.
As the Germans closed in on the Ulsters positions desperate hand to hand
fighting took place where men from the 36th Division heroically fought to the end.
Since mid-day the Ulstermen attempting to consolidate within the Schwaben Redoubt had been shelled heavily by German artillery units. This was the cover for a two pronged attack on the advanced positions of the Ulstermen. The first of these was the attack of the 108th Regiment's recruit battalion who moved up from Grandcourt forcing the withdrawl of the forward Ulstermen in Battery Valley. Some of these young German drafts then bombed further up the Hansa lines, to within six hundred yards of the Schwaben Redoubt where their advance was repulsed. Unfortunately that repulse revealed the exact positions occupied by the Royal Irish Rifles and thereafter these men were subjected to prolonged and even more accurate shelling. The other arm of this counter attack developed at 2.00pm, from Goat Redoubt ( Feste Zollern ) and the trench which connected it with Thiepval, Lancashire Lane or Zollern Graben, as well as through Stuff Redoubt. Simultaneously a heavy bombardment with shrapnel and high explosives was opened on the Ulstermen in the 'A' and 'B' lines as well as No Man's Land and the British Trenches. The German counter attack then came forward in waves, made up of various, companies detached from the 8th bavarian Reserve Regiment, who gradually pressed towards the Schwaben Redoubt under the cover of the bombardment which was now raining unremittingly onto the position. On each ocassion they were repulsed by the desperately dwindling parties of soldiers who survived the inferno of shells, particularly brave work being done by Lance Corporal Fisher of 109 Brigades Machine Gun Company. The nearby infantry later reported him ' to have accounted for several hundreds' ! Captain Davidson survived until wounded in the knee in mid afternoon. returning across the sunken part of Thiepval Road he was shot dead whilst being carried by two comrades. ( At this point i think it would be relevant to return back to the situation with the Salford Pals and an overall picture of the situation. The scene that is set must have been a familiar one all along the whole of the British Line where the assault had failed. And for those who did survive nothing could describe how they must have felt to have seen how few they were and that so many of their friends were either killed or missing )
By late afternoon however it was clear that the Schwaben Redoubt was surrounded on its north, east and south sides. Some Ulstermen still remained within the ' C ' lines. Major Peacocke, who was second in Commmand of the 9th Inniskillings Fusiliers, reported from the crucifix near the junction of Mouquet Switch with Schwaben,
' That it might be possible to hold on if bombs, ammuntion belts and water for the Vickers Guns could be brought up. ' That hope was impossible. The few remaining parties were becoming dangerously isolated and so exhausted that the men were barely able to move or muster sufficient enthusiasm to save themselves. Indeed 107 Brigade's diary records that ' Copy of order issued to Officer Commanding 9th Royal Irish Rifles, that no troops are to retire from from ' C ' line. ( No doubt issued by some staff officer sat many miles away from the fighting )
The C.O 9th R.I.R. reports that 70 men of 108 Brigade who were retiring had been sent back and that Lt Finlay had to fire on them. ' Throughout the afteroon pressure mounted on the 49th Division to at least do something to help the beleagured Ulstermen. At 4.20 pm 146 Brigade was placed at the disposal of 107 Brigade but this still brought little eveidence of enthusiasm among Major General Perceval's West Yorkshire territorials for the task in hand. Repeated orders finally brought the necessary action although the hour was past 7.00pm, and no Yorkshiremen were able to influence the fight to hold on to the Schwaben Redoubt and the surrounding positions. It was therefore only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. At 10.00pm the German Infantry attacked from all sides. The order to withdraw was given by the two remaining senior officers in The Schwaben Redoubt. Major Peacocke and Captain Montgomery, and the remaining Ulstermen retired to the German Front Line, the ' A ' Line where some men belonging to the 49th Division were found to be in position. This therefore left the Leipzig Redoubt as the only tangible gain in the Thiepval sector attacked by X Corps. The German machine gun teams in the Thiepval defences had done their work well. Twenty one of the guns survived the day's fighting. Twenty of the guns fired an average of between 8 and 10,000 rounds whilst team 9, firing from the Brauner Weg, just south of Thiepval opposite the Tyneside Commercial's attack, fired 18,000 rounds during the defence of Thiepval on the 1st July 1916. Each officer and man of the German 99 RIR was later estimated to have fired 350 rounds this day. The casualty list amongst the Ulster Division's troops was enormous, 216 officers and 5, 266 men, almost 4,000 amongst the 32nd Division's men; under 600 amongst the 49th Division. As twighlight deepened, the battlefield must have been a terrible site, with thousands of men lying out in No Man's Land and the German trenches, either dead or dying calling for water, their mothers and help. Its hard to imagine what the survivors felt like as they returned to their front line trenches exhausted and listened to the groans of the wounded who cold not get back. The Germans came out and bayoneted any wounded who were laying in front of their wire. Men even though exhausted from the days fighting went out into No Man's Land to search for friends, and Communities back home would be devastated with the loss of so many of their men.
' That it might be possible to hold on if bombs, ammuntion belts and water for the Vickers Guns could be brought up. ' That hope was impossible. The few remaining parties were becoming dangerously isolated and so exhausted that the men were barely able to move or muster sufficient enthusiasm to save themselves. Indeed 107 Brigade's diary records that ' Copy of order issued to Officer Commanding 9th Royal Irish Rifles, that no troops are to retire from from ' C ' line. ( No doubt issued by some staff officer sat many miles away from the fighting )
The C.O 9th R.I.R. reports that 70 men of 108 Brigade who were retiring had been sent back and that Lt Finlay had to fire on them. ' Throughout the afteroon pressure mounted on the 49th Division to at least do something to help the beleagured Ulstermen. At 4.20 pm 146 Brigade was placed at the disposal of 107 Brigade but this still brought little eveidence of enthusiasm among Major General Perceval's West Yorkshire territorials for the task in hand. Repeated orders finally brought the necessary action although the hour was past 7.00pm, and no Yorkshiremen were able to influence the fight to hold on to the Schwaben Redoubt and the surrounding positions. It was therefore only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. At 10.00pm the German Infantry attacked from all sides. The order to withdraw was given by the two remaining senior officers in The Schwaben Redoubt. Major Peacocke and Captain Montgomery, and the remaining Ulstermen retired to the German Front Line, the ' A ' Line where some men belonging to the 49th Division were found to be in position. This therefore left the Leipzig Redoubt as the only tangible gain in the Thiepval sector attacked by X Corps. The German machine gun teams in the Thiepval defences had done their work well. Twenty one of the guns survived the day's fighting. Twenty of the guns fired an average of between 8 and 10,000 rounds whilst team 9, firing from the Brauner Weg, just south of Thiepval opposite the Tyneside Commercial's attack, fired 18,000 rounds during the defence of Thiepval on the 1st July 1916. Each officer and man of the German 99 RIR was later estimated to have fired 350 rounds this day. The casualty list amongst the Ulster Division's troops was enormous, 216 officers and 5, 266 men, almost 4,000 amongst the 32nd Division's men; under 600 amongst the 49th Division. As twighlight deepened, the battlefield must have been a terrible site, with thousands of men lying out in No Man's Land and the German trenches, either dead or dying calling for water, their mothers and help. Its hard to imagine what the survivors felt like as they returned to their front line trenches exhausted and listened to the groans of the wounded who cold not get back. The Germans came out and bayoneted any wounded who were laying in front of their wire. Men even though exhausted from the days fighting went out into No Man's Land to search for friends, and Communities back home would be devastated with the loss of so many of their men.
