2017 Battlefield Tour Page 12

Mametz Wood was the scene of fierce fighting during the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War. Soldiers of the Welsh division were ordered to take Mametz Wood, the largest area of trees on the battlefield. The generals thought this would take a few hours. It ended up lasting five days with soldiers fighting face-to-face with the enemy. There were 4,000 casualties, with 600 dead. The Welsh succeeded but their bravery and sacrifice was never really acknowledged.

The poet Robert Graves fought in the battle and described the wood immediately after the battle:

It was full of dead Prussian Guards, big men, and dead Royal Welch Fusiliers and South Wales Borderers, little men. Not a single tree in the wood remained unbroken.

Mametz Wood was the objective of the 38th (Welsh) Division during the First Battle of the Somme. The attack was made in a northerly direction over a ridge, focusing on the German positions in the wood, between 7th July and 12th July 1916. On 7 July the men formed the first wave intending to take the wood in a matter of hours. However, strong fortification, machineguns and shelling killed and injured over 400 soldiers before they reached the wood. Further attacks by the 17th Division on 8th July failed to improve the position.

Infuriated by what he saw as a distinct lack of "push" Sir Douglas Haig with Lt-General Henry Rawlinson visited the HQ of the Welsh Division to make their displeasure known. Major General Ivor Philipps, officer commanding the Welsh Division, was relieved of his command.

Haig passed control of the Division to Major General Herbert Watts, commander of the 7th Division and told him to use it "as he saw fit". Watts planned a full-scale attack for 9th July but organizing the attacking formations took some time and the attack was postponed until 10th July 1916. The operational order was blunt, stating that the Division would attack the wood with the aim of "capturing the whole of it".

The 10th July attack was on a larger scale than had been attempted earlier. Despite heavy casualties, the fringe of the wood was soon reached and some bayonet fighting took place before the wood was entered and a number of German machine guns silenced. Fighting in the wood was fierce with the Germans giving ground stubbornly.

The 14th (Swansea) (Service) Battalion, the Welsh Regiment, went into the attack with 676 men and after a day of hard fighting had lost almost 400 men killed or wounded before being relieved. Other battalions suffered similar losses. However, by 12th July the wood was effectively cleared of the enemy. The Welsh Division had lost about 4,000 men killed or wounded in the engagement. It would not be used in a massed attack again until 31st July 1917.

The wood still stands today, surrounded by farmland. Overgrown shell craters and trenches can still be made out.

R.I.P.