160 AWARDED FOR VALOUR
Somme campaign, and in the absence of conclusive documentary evidence it
is impossible to assign primary responsibility to either event. In either case,
the shift is directly linked to Haig assuming command and intensified as his
autonomy in that capacity increased. And Haig was far more interested in
winning the war than stroking the sentimentality of the Victorian Era. The
primary virtue of the soldier on the Western Front was now aggressiveness.
This meant that the primary duty of the soldier was to kill Germans. On
the battalion level strict orders were issued to press forward at all costs.
‘The Colonel finished with a stony look. “There will be no retiring,” he
said. “On no conditions whatsoever is any man to turn back. Let them all
understand that.”’^32 Duty on the individual level also dictated that soldiers
had to abandon men to a lingering death:
A party of ‘A’ Company men passing up to the front line found a man
bogged down above the knees. The united efforts of four of them with
rifles beneath his armpits, made not the slightest impression, and to dig,
even if shovels had been available, would be impossible, for there was
no foothold. Duty compelled them to move on up to the line, and when
two days later they passed down that way the wretched fellow was still
there; but only his head was now visible and he was raving mad.^33
A corollary of this shift was a dramatic drop in the number of VCs given
for saving officers.^34 This trend that in previous chapters was attributed to a
statistical anomaly or coincidence is made painfully clear in the 1917 statistical
breakdown: saving officers did not merit a Cross any more. Of the 174 Victoria
Crosses won in 1917, exactly two went for saving the lives of officers. It is
tempting to surmise that the rank and file were no longer willing to expose
themselves to save the men ordering them over the top, but the line officers
shared the same privations as the other ranks. The ire of the average Tommy
was directed not at the officer that accompanied him into battle, but rather
the staff officers that sent them both out into no-man’s-land.^35 The reality was
that high command wanted soldiers to kill Germans, not rescue the wounded –
whatever their rank – and recommended soldiers for the VC accordingly.
The statistics are closer to previous trends in terms of the cost of courage.
As offensive operations continued and men saw their mates fall about them,
they became more cautious in their valour. The average total casualty rate for
the year (Table 8.2) is actually 5 percent lower than that of 1916, indicating
that despite the high command’s emphasis on aggressive action in 1917 the
rank and file were quietly becoming more cautious. The quarterly totals are
in line with previous years.
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