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The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 3 - Siege warfare and Newfoundland's day of the dead

Stories from those who lived to tell them, drawing on the testimony of 200 Canadians who fought in WW1, recorded by CBC Radio in 1964. In this episode: Remembering the dead Beaumont-Hamel, where on July 1st 1916, a Newfoundland regiment was virtually wiped out on the first day of the most destructive battle of the war.
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Canadian soldiers returning from trenches during the Battle of the Somme, November 1916 (Library and Archives Canada under the reproduction reference number PA-000832/Wikipedia)
Ideas54:00The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 3 - Siege warfare/Newfoundland's day of the dead

July 1st is a day of celebration in Canada but in Newfoundland it's a day to remember the dead of Beaumont-Hamel, where on July 1st 1916, a Newfoundland regiment was virtually wiped out on the first day of the most destructive battle of the war.  When it was all over neither side had made significant gains.


Seige Warfare

The fields around Beaumont-Hamel after the Battle of the Somme. November 1916. From the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 1900-09) (Wikipedia)
By the spring of 1915 the western front had congealed into two more or less static lines.  It was now basically siege warfare on a huge scale. No more quick advances and dashing cavalry charges - the machine gun and barbed wire had slowed everything down and turned battles into hideous, murderous slugging matches.    

Both armies pounded away with heavy guns and cannons and made raids into each others trenches.  But they also found other ways to attack and undermine their opponents - literally undermine them - by digging deep tunnels and filling them with explosives. Soldiers on both sides often heard eerie and unsettling rumbling sounds below them as the digging went on, usually at night. 

When the underground explosives were detonated, trenches collapsed in rubble, small hills and other landmarks simply disappeared and a new landscape of giant craters appeared  -- huge gaping holes of mud, water, and bodies.

The effect was often devastating and demoralising.  


Newfoundland's day of the dead

Newfoundland soldiers in St. John's Road support trench, July 1, 1916. This picture was taken before the start of the attack, July 1, 1916. (Wikipedia)
The Battle of the Somme was the most destructive single battle of the first world war. The fighting would grind on for over four months - from July 1916 to mid-November. Soldiers pushed forward against withering fire and each small advance was bought at a terrible price.  In the end, when it all bogged down into a stalemate, neither side had much to show for it, but their losses were enormous. Over a million casualties: 400,000 from Britain and Commonweath countries, 200,000 French and 500,000 Germans. About a quarter of those wounded died -- over 250,000 deaths.

On July 1st 1916, at the village of Beaumont-Hamel, an entire Newfoundland regiment was virtually wiped out in the first day of the Battle of the Somme.  

 

About the series:

In 1964 – to mark the 50th anniversary of the beginning of world war one, a CBC radio team interviewed over 200 men who fought in the war and lived to tell the tale. From this huge body of eye witness testimony came a 17-hour series called Flanders Fields. The programmes were broadcast once and then stored in the CBC archives. In the summer of 2014 – to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the war - CBC producer Steve Wadhams opened up this remarkable archive to make ten half-hour documentaries called The Bugle and The Passing Bell.  

The bugle is a call to action.   The passing bell calls us to a funeral.

The interviews with the World War 1 Canadian veterans were recorded by a team led by legendary CBC broadcaster J. Frank Willis. Find the list of soldiers names interviewed in the series here.
 


The documents and letters in this episode were read by Graham Wright, Mitch Pollock and Lynda Shorten.   And the poems were read by Pedro Mendes.

Excerpts are from the works by British poets A.E. Housman, Isaac Rosenberg, killed in battle at the Somme, and Rupert Brooke who went to the war with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force and died of an infection in a French hospital ship.

German poetry from the war: excerpts from poems by Ernst Toller, Leo Sternberg, Emmanuel Saul, who died in 1915, and a man who the translator of these poems --  Peter Appelbaum -- only known by his surname - Goldfeld.   Mr. Goldfeld was killed during the war.

 

Listen to other episodes in the series:

The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 1 - Canada answers the call

The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 2 - Baptism of fire and Deadly Stealth

The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 3 - Siege warfare and Newfoundland's day of the dead

The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 4 - The war in the air/Vimy Ridge & Passchendaele

The Bugle and the Passing Bell, Part 5 - Pushing on the Victory

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