The endless historical battlefield that began with World War I

Chapter 99 The Miracle of the Somme

The German counterattack occurred at night, at two o'clock.

The moon was hidden behind the clouds, offering almost no light. By the time the sentries on duty in the trenches noticed the commotion, the German commandos had already reached within thirty meters of the barbed wire, preparing to sneak in under cover of darkness.

The sentry whispered, "On alert, there's movement to the north."

The men in the trench woke up. Tom was the first to grab his rifle and walk toward the top edge. "Joseph, shall we fire?"

Do you want to go to the top edge?

—

"Lie down," Joseph said. "Everyone lie down, don't move, don't go up to the top edge."

Tom stopped, looking puzzled. "They've reached the barbed wire. If we wait any longer, they'll be inside."

"I know," Joseph said. "Just wait."

"When?" O'Connor asked from the side, rifle clasped to his chest. "They'll be able to throw grenades in two more steps."

"I said wait," Joseph said, "wait until they crawl in."

O'Connor shut his mouth, squatted back down, and held his rifle, looking north.

The men in the trenches waited quietly. In the distance, German commandos spent two minutes cutting through the barbed wire. The first man crawled in, then the second, the third—

Joseph raised his hand. "Now."

Three flares were fired simultaneously, illuminating the open area brightly. At the same time, machine guns on both sides opened fire, firing from an angle. The two bullet lines intersected at the gap in the barbed wire, trapping the group of people who had crawled in between.

O'Connor, from his right-hand firing position, used the flare's light to fire at the men trying to retreat, one shot at a time, his rhythm steady. "Seven," he muttered to himself, "a few more—eight."

The night raid was over in less than two minutes, with zero casualties in the trenches.

The flare slowly dimmed, and the open area was filled with darkness again. There was no movement from the other side of the barbed wire.

The smell of gunpowder drifted in on the wind and spread through the trenches. Someone in the trench let out a sigh of relief, but no one spoke.

Alfred walked over, stood next to Joseph, glanced at the two angled firing positions, and asked, "When did you set up these two positions?"

"Yesterday, when you went to collect supplies," Joseph said, "I went out to measure the angles."

"That section of barbed wire," Alfred glanced in that direction, "that section was patched up, but not neatly. Did you deliberately leave a flaw so they would cut it from there?"

"right."

Alfred paused for two seconds. "How were the angles chosen for those two firing positions?"

"It was designed according to the width of the gap in the barbed wire," Joseph said. "The gap is about enough for two people to crawl side by side, which is 1.2 meters. The angle of the firing position must be this wide to cover the intersecting bullet lines." He gestured on the mud wall. "If it's beyond this angle, the intersection of the bullet lines will be off, and there will be a gap where the wire passes through."

Alfred glanced at the diagram on the mud wall, took out his notebook, and scribbled it down. "Sandhurst has a course on crossfire," he said, "but they only talk about frontal crossfire, not about using openings to lure people to the crossfire point. Did you come up with this yourself?"

"Yes."

********************

The next morning, news came from the right that the British flank had finally advanced.

The message was brought by a messenger, saying that the positions on both sides had been captured last night, the battle line had been leveled, and Joseph's section was no longer the protruding part.

Tom relayed the news to the men in the trenches, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

But the German counterattack continued.

The counterattack on the third day was even larger in scale. The German army deployed two companies to attack during the day, with machine guns suppressing the top edge first, followed by infantry advancing.

Joseph ordered everyone to lie down, remain motionless in the trenches, and not retaliate.

The German machine guns held the line for three minutes, but there was no response, so the infantry began to advance, reaching 150 meters and then 120 meters.

Tom lay down next to Joseph, glanced at the Germans, and whispered, "They're a hundred meters away. If we don't shoot soon, they'll throw grenades. Aren't we going to shoot?"

"Wait a little longer," Joseph said.

"How many meters?" Tom asked. "Eighty meters?"

"Wait a little longer," Joseph said.

The German troops advanced to 90 meters, then 80 meters, and the front-line soldiers stepped on tripwires that Joseph had laid two days in advance.

The ground exploded with a loud bang, billowing black smoke and flames. The shockwave spread horizontally outwards, knocking the three vanguard members down and disrupting the advancing formation. The rear ranks stopped, and the entire advance was interrupted.

"All the way up, hit them!"

Gun barrels emerged simultaneously from both ends of the trench, firing at an angle. The German troops were attacked from both flanks in the chaos, and their formation was breached from the side. The front ranks lay prone, while the middle was exposed, and the advance came to a complete halt.

The German machine gun began searching for a target, but after only half a second of rotating the gun mount, O'Connor shot the gunner off the right-hand top edge with a single shot.

The machine gun fell silent.

After losing their machine guns, the German infantry lay prone for two more minutes before beginning to retreat.

Alfred stood next to Joseph, watching the entire sequence of events from beginning to end. Only after the German troops had retreated did he speak, "So the explosives you planted a couple of days ago were for today? Did you already anticipate they would attack via this route?"

"This is the most logical route. If I were their commander, I would take this route, so we made preparations here."

"What if they didn't take this path?"

"That would be a waste of two explosives," Joseph said. "The cost is acceptable."

Alfred took out his notebook, turned to a new page, wrote a few lines, then looked up and asked, "How will they come next?"

"A change of direction, a change of timing, and possibly a change of troop strength," Joseph said, "but the core remains the same. They want to take back this position as quickly as possible, and in this situation, the commander will tend to use familiar tactics; the logic remains unchanged."

Alfred wrote the sentence in his notebook, then put it back in his pocket. "Next time," he said, "I'll be back with you."

******************

A few days later, the German counterattack stopped.

The pressure on the front lines shifted elsewhere, and this position was no longer something they could quickly recapture. Continuing to fight would only be a waste of time and energy, so they stopped.

When reporting to his superiors, Lieutenant Colonel Chatrick added a postscript at the end: "The preservation of this front is mainly due to Warrant Officer Lyndon's tactical deployment and the timely provision of intelligence from the underground. I suggest that higher command pay attention to the subsequent performance of the personnel involved."

On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British suffered 57,000 casualties across the entire front.

On Joseph's front, eleven men were killed and twenty-three were seriously wounded, but the trenches were not breached.

That was a miracle on the entire front that day.

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