On July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme in World War I, 801 soldiers of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment rose from the British trenches and went into battle at Beaumont-Hamel, nine kilometres north of Albert in France. The next day, only 68 men answered the regimental role call. 255 were dead, 386 were wounded, and 91 were listed as missing. Every officer who had gone over the top was either wounded or dead.
On the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army (57,470 casualties, 19,240 dead) at the opening of the largest battle (over one million casualties) of the war, Newfoundland had also suffered its gravest military loss. To this day, Beaumont-Hamel remains the most signifigant single military action fought by Newfoundlanders and a turning point in the history and culture of the island.
Recruitment and Training
A loyal colony of the British Empire, Newfoundland had automatically gone to war with the Empire when Germany invaded Belgium on August 4, 1914. Enthusiasm for the war effort and support for the Empire was high, and a volunteer regiment of over 1000 men was quickly raised. This was no small achievement for a poor and scattered colony of less than 250,000 people.
The "First Five Hundred" contingent departed for Britain in October, 1914 and the "Second Five Hundred" joined them soon after. The regiment trained near Aldershot, England and acquired the nickname of "the blue puttees" when a local shortage of khaki cloth caused them to be outfitted with puttees of a blue material. On August 19, 1915 they departed for Egypt, arriving on September 1. It was decided the Newfoundlanders would replace The Royal Scots Regiment in the 88th Brigade of the British 29th Division, holding part of the northern British front line after the August Battle of Sari Bair in the Gallipoli campaign.
Gallipoli
On September 20, 1915 the regiment landed at Suvla Bay on the Gallipoli peninsula, where the British VIII Corps, IX Corps and the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps had been attempting to seize control of the Dardenelles Strait from Turkey since the first landings on April 25. At Gallipoli the 1st Newfoundland Regiment faced snipers, artillery fire and severe cold, as well as the trench warfare hazards of cholera, dysentery, typhus, gangrene and trench foot. Over the next three months thirty soldiers of the regiment were killed or mortally wounded in action and ten died of disease; 150 were treated for frostbite and exposure.
Despite the terrible conditions, the Newfoundlanders stood up well. When the decision was made to evacuate all British Empire forces from the area, the regiment was chosen to be a part of the rear guard, finally withdrawing from Gallipoli with the last of the British Dardanelles Army troops on January 9, 1916.
January 9 through to July 1, 1916
Needs research and completion: training, further action in France?
Beaumont-Hamel
Honours
In November of 1916 His Majesty King George V granted the title "Royal" to the Newfoundland Regiment. No other regiment in the British Empire was awarded this signal honour, in the two years of brutal fighting which continued before the end of World War I on Armistice Day (November 11, 1918 on the Western Front.)
Critics of the Royal honours have noted it was an easy gesture, compared to the loss of so many young lives, and largely meant for wartime propaganda purposes. Still, it was a unique award during the war and may have provided some comfort to the surviving veterans and the bereaved families of the fallen.
Quotations
"It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further." -- Major-General Sir Beauvoir de Lisle , Commander of the 29th British Division on the 1st Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel
