Aylmer Hunter-Weston
Encyclopedia
Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer Gould Hunter-Weston KCB
DSO
GStJ
(23 September 1864 – 18 March 1940) was a British Army
general who served in World War I
at Gallipoli
and the Somme Offensive
. He was also a Member of Parliament
.
Nicknamed "Hunter-Bunter", Hunter-Weston has been seen as a classic example of the stereotyped British "donkey" general
— he was described by his contemporary superior Sir Douglas Haig as a "rank amateur", and has been referred to by one modern writer as "one of the Great War's spectacular incompetents". However, another historian writes that although his poor performance at the battles of Krithia
earned his reputation "as one of the most brutal and incompetent commanders of the First World War" "in his later battles he seemed to hit upon a formula for success ...(but) these small achievements were largely forgotten". Another writer claims that Hunter-Weston's performance at Gallipoli was "competent" but that he is unfairly vilified for his premature blowing of the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt
on 1 July 1916.
in 1884 he served on the Indian North West Frontier
and took part in the Miranzai Expedition of 1891 and was wounded during the Waziristan Expedition of 1894-95. During this time he was promoted to brevet
major
. He was on General Herbert Kitchener's staff in 1896. He later took part in the Second Boer War
in South Africa
between 1899 and 1902 as a staff officer then as commander of the Mounted Engineers; he was described as having "reckless courage combined with technical skill and great coolness in emergency".
He was General Sir John French
's chief staff officer in the Eastern Command from 1904 to 1908, after which he performed the same role in the Scottish Command until 1911. He married Grace Strang-Steel in 1905. In 1911, he became the Assistant Director of military training; in the same year, he succeeded his mother as the 27th Laird of Hunterston
and was made a member of the Order of the Bath
.
At the outbreak of the war in 1914, he was a brigadier general in command of the 11th Infantry Brigade
based at Colchester
, and he commanded this unit as part of 4th Division on the Western Front
, including at the battles of Le Cateau and the Aisne, where he supervised his command from a motorbike (at a time when senior generals used cars and most other officers used horses). He "often appeared in the most surprising places" and his handling of the brigade was "skilful".
commenced in March 1915, Hunter-Weston was promoted to the command of the British 29th Division
, which was to make the landing at Cape Helles
near the entrance to the Dardanelles
.
When asked for his advice before the landings, Hunter-Weston cautioned General Hamilton that the Turks had had ample time to turn the peninsula into "an entrenched camp", that Helles was less vulnerable to Turkish attack than Suvla Bay but conversely offered little room for maneouvre and given Britain's lack of High Explosive shells
needed to cover attacks risked an Allied bridgehead becoming "a second Crimea
" which would damage Britain's standing with then-neutral Greece and Romania.
On the day of the Helles landings Hunter-Weston "remained anchored off W beach.. He was out of contact with S and Y, neglected X and seemed determined to avoid any knowledge of V... (he) took no steps to gather information for himself. His one positive move (to shift troops from V to W beach) had nothing to do with the situation at V and only succeeded because the Turkish defence was stretched too thinly."
Hunter-Weston was referred to as "The Butcher of Helles". Progress up from the bridgehead at Helles was severely hampered by lack of artillery: at the First Battle of Krithia
(28 April 1915) only 18 guns were available - a comparable division-sized assault on the Western Front at the time might have had 200 - and there was a shortage of mules to pull them forward, and nobody was sure where the Turkish front line actually was. On 2 May, seeking to exploit the repulse of a Turkish attack the previous night, he launched an attack across the line, despite his troops being tired and short of ammunition - the 86th Brigade, too tired even to attack, stayed completely stationary - "no ground was gained by this lamentable episode". By this time 29th Division
had suffered 4,500 casualties, leaving 6,000 effectives, although the French attacking on the right flank had suffered in similar proportion.
At the Second Battle of Krithia
, 105 guns were now available, of which probably 75 were used, but this was still far fewer than would have been used on the Western Front, and there was still a lack of HE shells (many guns were 18-pounders firing only shrapnel), mules and knowledge of the Turkish positions, whilst Hunter-Weston's plans were excessively detailed and complex, full of map references and complex wheeling maneouvres. When his plan of attack failed on the first day, he proceeded to repeat the plan on the second and third days.
As the campaign proceeded and more reinforcements were dispatched to Helles, Hunter-Weston's responsibilities grew until on 24 May he was promoted to lieutenant general and given command of the VIII Corps.
At the Third Battle of Krithia
, Hunter-Weston planned with more caution and realism, gaining better intelligence of Turkish positions (including aerial photography), ordering night digging to get the start-off point within 250 yards of the Turkish positions (it had been 1,800 yards the previous time) and ordering a lull in the bombardment in the hope that the Turkish guns might give away their positions by retaliating, thus enabling counter-battery fire. However, although a breakthrough towards Krithia was almost attained by the British infantry in the centre - where the artillery fire had been concentrated - he was worried about an advance in the centre being trapped a salient and so committed his reserves to the unsuccessful attacks by the Indians on the left flank and the Royal Naval Division on the right. This error of reinforcing failure rather than success made the battle "not one of (his) finer moments".
However "there is strong evidence that (Hunter-Weston) took to heart the lessons" that concentrated High Explosive bombardment by heavy howitzers was needed for success, and held a series of meetings with the French General Gouraud at which they agreed to cooperate with their artillery and adopt this strategy in future. Progress was made in some attacks in late June and early July, with one French attack using a density of shelling up to 20 times that of the early attacks. In some cases these inflicted greater casualties on the Turkish defenders than were taken by the attackers, as lack of space, reserves and guns did not allow the Turks to adopt the defensive tactics used by the Germans later in the war: holding the front line thinly, counterattack and artillery duels with Allied batteries. Even in this period, attacks did not always turn out as hoped: during the Battle of Gully Ravine
in late June 1915 he attacked with the inexperienced Scottish 52nd (Lowland) Division
- the attack succeeded on the left, where artillery fire was concentrated (as the Indians had been thrown back there earlier in June), but the attack was over too wide a distance, and half the 156th Brigade, attacking on the right with insufficient artillery support, became casualties, of which over a third were killed (this was the attack of which Hunter-Weston claimed he was "blooding the pups").
However, having been discovered by the Allies, these "bite and hold" tactics were then abandoned and their discovery in Gallipoli largely forgotten by historians. This may be because Hunter-Weston and Gouraud were both soon invalided out of the peninsula, or because the Allies had never intended Gallipoli to be about trench warfare and so were not interested in learning tactical land warfare lessons from it, or simply because the development of artillery tactics throughout the war was not a clear-cut process, as is shown by the fact that similar tactics almost worked at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915, but were then not used for over a year afterwards. When political leaders in London agreed to commit a further five divisions to Gallipoli in July, they decided that further attacks from the Helles bridgehead were too slow and costly, and that a fresh landing at Suvla Bay offered a better chance of swift victory.
Gordon Corrigan claims - without giving further detail - that his command of the division was "one of the more competent aspects" handling of the Helles landings and that "his handling of the division, once ashore, was thoroughly competent" but this appears to be a minority view.
Hunter-Weston was invalided from Gallipoli in July and returned to England. In his Gallipoli (2001) Les Carlyon wrote: " What was wrong with (Hunter-Weston) has never become clear. The explanations run from sunstroke and exhaustion to enteric fever and dysentery
to a collapse and a breakdown. Hamilton ... saw him 'staggering' off to a hospital ship.”
in 1916. At the launch of the Somme Offensive
on 1 July 1916 it was Hunter-Weston's divisions, attacking in the northern sector between the Ancre and the Serre, that suffered the worst casualties and failed to capture any of their objectives. Artillery fire was weaker here, and the Germans had the advantage of height, whereas in the southern sector the opposite was true, but the decision had been made by senior generals (Haig and Rawlinson) to launch the attack over a wide front.
At the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, the plan was to explode 19 mines dug by Royal Engineer tunnelling companies
to weaken enemy defences. The northernmost mine of 40000 pounds (18,143.7 kg) of explosives was under the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt
, a front-line fortification west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Hunter-Weston's sector. He wished to detonate the mine four hours early, but this was vetoed by the Inspector of Mines at BEF GHQ, who pointed out that the British had a poor record of seizing craters before the Germans got there. As a compromise Hunter-Weston was allowed to detonate at 07:20. This led to the successful filming of the explosion by British cinematographer
Geoffrey Malins, who was filming the 29th Division's attack. The other mines were detonated at 7:28 am, two minutes before Zero hour when the infantry advance would begin. In many cases, including Hawthorne Ridge, the Germans were able to seize the craters before the British troops crossed No Man's Land
.
In an October 1916 by-election
, he was elected to the House of Commons
as the Unionist member for North Ayrshire
. Hunter-Weston, who was the first Member of Parliament to simultaneously command an Army Corps on the field, continued to command VIII Corps but was not involved in any further major offensive.
in 1918. He resigned from the Army in 1919.
He retired from Parliament in 1935, and died in 1940 following a fall from a turret at his ancestral home in Hunterston
.
|-
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
DSO
Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
GStJ
Venerable Order of Saint John
The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem , is a royal order of chivalry established in 1831 and found today throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, Hong Kong, Ireland and the United States of America, with the world-wide mission "to prevent and relieve sickness and...
(23 September 1864 – 18 March 1940) was a British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
general who served in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
at Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
and the Somme Offensive
Battle of the Somme (1916)
The Battle of the Somme , also known as the Somme Offensive, took place during the First World War between 1 July and 14 November 1916 in the Somme department of France, on both banks of the river of the same name...
. He was also a Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
.
Nicknamed "Hunter-Bunter", Hunter-Weston has been seen as a classic example of the stereotyped British "donkey" general
Lions led by donkeys
"Lions led by donkeys" is a phrase popularly used to describe the British infantry of the First World War and to condemn the generals who commanded them. The contention is that the brave soldiers were sent to their deaths by incompetent and indifferent leaders...
— he was described by his contemporary superior Sir Douglas Haig as a "rank amateur", and has been referred to by one modern writer as "one of the Great War's spectacular incompetents". However, another historian writes that although his poor performance at the battles of Krithia
Krithia
Krithia is a small Turkish village in the Eceabat District ofÇanakkale Province, Turkey, about 4 miles from the tip of the Gelibolu Peninsula....
earned his reputation "as one of the most brutal and incompetent commanders of the First World War" "in his later battles he seemed to hit upon a formula for success ...(but) these small achievements were largely forgotten". Another writer claims that Hunter-Weston's performance at Gallipoli was "competent" but that he is unfairly vilified for his premature blowing of the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt
Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt
Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt was a German front-line fortification west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Somme. It was the scene of a number of costly attacks by British infantry during the Battle of the Somme in 1916...
on 1 July 1916.
Early career
Commissioned into the Royal EngineersRoyal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
in 1884 he served on the Indian North West Frontier
North-West Frontier (military history)
The North-West Frontier was the most difficult area, from a military point of view, of the former British India in the Indian sub-continent. It remains the frontier of present-day Pakistan, extending from the Pamir Knot in the north to the Koh-i-Malik Siah in the west, and separating the...
and took part in the Miranzai Expedition of 1891 and was wounded during the Waziristan Expedition of 1894-95. During this time he was promoted to brevet
Brevet (military)
In many of the world's military establishments, brevet referred to a warrant authorizing a commissioned officer to hold a higher rank temporarily, but usually without receiving the pay of that higher rank except when actually serving in that role. An officer so promoted may be referred to as being...
major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
. He was on General Herbert Kitchener's staff in 1896. He later took part in the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
between 1899 and 1902 as a staff officer then as commander of the Mounted Engineers; he was described as having "reckless courage combined with technical skill and great coolness in emergency".
He was General Sir John French
John French, 1st Earl of Ypres
Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC , known as The Viscount French between 1916 and 1922, was a British and Anglo-Irish officer...
's chief staff officer in the Eastern Command from 1904 to 1908, after which he performed the same role in the Scottish Command until 1911. He married Grace Strang-Steel in 1905. In 1911, he became the Assistant Director of military training; in the same year, he succeeded his mother as the 27th Laird of Hunterston
Hunterston
Hunterston, by the Firth of Clyde, is a coastal area in Ayrshire, Scotland, which is the seat and estate of the Hunter family. As an area of flat land adjacent to deep natural water, it has been the site of considerable actual and proposed industrial development in the 20th century. The nearest...
and was made a member of the Order of the Bath
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
.
At the outbreak of the war in 1914, he was a brigadier general in command of the 11th Infantry Brigade
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...
based at Colchester
Colchester
Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...
, and he commanded this unit as part of 4th Division on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
, including at the battles of Le Cateau and the Aisne, where he supervised his command from a motorbike (at a time when senior generals used cars and most other officers used horses). He "often appeared in the most surprising places" and his handling of the brigade was "skilful".
Dardanelles campaign
When the Battle of GallipoliBattle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
commenced in March 1915, Hunter-Weston was promoted to the command of the British 29th Division
British 29th Division
The British 29th Division, known as the Incomparable Division, was a First World War regular army infantry division formed in early 1915 by combining various units that had been acting as garrisons about the British Empire. Under the command of Major General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, the division...
, which was to make the landing at Cape Helles
Landing at Cape Helles
The landing at Cape Helles was part of the amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula by British and French forces on April 25, 1915 during the First World War. Helles, at the foot of the peninsula, was the main landing area. With the support of the guns of the Royal Navy, a British division...
near the entrance to the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...
.
When asked for his advice before the landings, Hunter-Weston cautioned General Hamilton that the Turks had had ample time to turn the peninsula into "an entrenched camp", that Helles was less vulnerable to Turkish attack than Suvla Bay but conversely offered little room for maneouvre and given Britain's lack of High Explosive shells
Shell Crisis of 1915
The Shell Crisis of 1915 was a shortage of artillery shells on the front lines of World War I, which largely contributed to weakening public appreciation of government of the United Kingdom because it was widely perceived that the production of artillery shells for use by the British Army was...
needed to cover attacks risked an Allied bridgehead becoming "a second Crimea
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
" which would damage Britain's standing with then-neutral Greece and Romania.
On the day of the Helles landings Hunter-Weston "remained anchored off W beach.. He was out of contact with S and Y, neglected X and seemed determined to avoid any knowledge of V... (he) took no steps to gather information for himself. His one positive move (to shift troops from V to W beach) had nothing to do with the situation at V and only succeeded because the Turkish defence was stretched too thinly."
Hunter-Weston was referred to as "The Butcher of Helles". Progress up from the bridgehead at Helles was severely hampered by lack of artillery: at the First Battle of Krithia
First Battle of Krithia
The First Battle of Krithia was the first Allied advance of the Battle of Gallipoli during the First World War. Starting at Helles on 28 April, three days after the initial landings, the attack broke down due to poor leadership and planning, lack of communications and exhaustion and demoralisation...
(28 April 1915) only 18 guns were available - a comparable division-sized assault on the Western Front at the time might have had 200 - and there was a shortage of mules to pull them forward, and nobody was sure where the Turkish front line actually was. On 2 May, seeking to exploit the repulse of a Turkish attack the previous night, he launched an attack across the line, despite his troops being tired and short of ammunition - the 86th Brigade, too tired even to attack, stayed completely stationary - "no ground was gained by this lamentable episode". By this time 29th Division
British 29th Division
The British 29th Division, known as the Incomparable Division, was a First World War regular army infantry division formed in early 1915 by combining various units that had been acting as garrisons about the British Empire. Under the command of Major General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, the division...
had suffered 4,500 casualties, leaving 6,000 effectives, although the French attacking on the right flank had suffered in similar proportion.
At the Second Battle of Krithia
Second Battle of Krithia
The Second Battle of Krithia continued the Allies' attempts to advance on the Helles battlefield during the Battle of Gallipoli of the First World War. The village of Krithia and neighbouring hill of Achi Baba had to be captured in order for the British to advance up the Gallipoli peninsula to the...
, 105 guns were now available, of which probably 75 were used, but this was still far fewer than would have been used on the Western Front, and there was still a lack of HE shells (many guns were 18-pounders firing only shrapnel), mules and knowledge of the Turkish positions, whilst Hunter-Weston's plans were excessively detailed and complex, full of map references and complex wheeling maneouvres. When his plan of attack failed on the first day, he proceeded to repeat the plan on the second and third days.
As the campaign proceeded and more reinforcements were dispatched to Helles, Hunter-Weston's responsibilities grew until on 24 May he was promoted to lieutenant general and given command of the VIII Corps.
At the Third Battle of Krithia
Third Battle of Krithia
The Third Battle of Krithia , fought on the Gallipoli peninsula during World War I, was the final in a series of Allied attacks against the Ottoman defences aimed at capturing the original objectives of 25 April 1915...
, Hunter-Weston planned with more caution and realism, gaining better intelligence of Turkish positions (including aerial photography), ordering night digging to get the start-off point within 250 yards of the Turkish positions (it had been 1,800 yards the previous time) and ordering a lull in the bombardment in the hope that the Turkish guns might give away their positions by retaliating, thus enabling counter-battery fire. However, although a breakthrough towards Krithia was almost attained by the British infantry in the centre - where the artillery fire had been concentrated - he was worried about an advance in the centre being trapped a salient and so committed his reserves to the unsuccessful attacks by the Indians on the left flank and the Royal Naval Division on the right. This error of reinforcing failure rather than success made the battle "not one of (his) finer moments".
However "there is strong evidence that (Hunter-Weston) took to heart the lessons" that concentrated High Explosive bombardment by heavy howitzers was needed for success, and held a series of meetings with the French General Gouraud at which they agreed to cooperate with their artillery and adopt this strategy in future. Progress was made in some attacks in late June and early July, with one French attack using a density of shelling up to 20 times that of the early attacks. In some cases these inflicted greater casualties on the Turkish defenders than were taken by the attackers, as lack of space, reserves and guns did not allow the Turks to adopt the defensive tactics used by the Germans later in the war: holding the front line thinly, counterattack and artillery duels with Allied batteries. Even in this period, attacks did not always turn out as hoped: during the Battle of Gully Ravine
Battle of Gully Ravine
The Battle of Gully Ravine was a World War I battle fought at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli peninsula. By June 1915 all thoughts the Allies had of a swift decisive victory over the Ottoman Empire had vanished...
in late June 1915 he attacked with the inexperienced Scottish 52nd (Lowland) Division
British 52nd (Lowland) Division
The British 52nd Division was a Territorial Army division that was originally formed as part of the Territorial Force in 1908.- World War I :...
- the attack succeeded on the left, where artillery fire was concentrated (as the Indians had been thrown back there earlier in June), but the attack was over too wide a distance, and half the 156th Brigade, attacking on the right with insufficient artillery support, became casualties, of which over a third were killed (this was the attack of which Hunter-Weston claimed he was "blooding the pups").
However, having been discovered by the Allies, these "bite and hold" tactics were then abandoned and their discovery in Gallipoli largely forgotten by historians. This may be because Hunter-Weston and Gouraud were both soon invalided out of the peninsula, or because the Allies had never intended Gallipoli to be about trench warfare and so were not interested in learning tactical land warfare lessons from it, or simply because the development of artillery tactics throughout the war was not a clear-cut process, as is shown by the fact that similar tactics almost worked at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915, but were then not used for over a year afterwards. When political leaders in London agreed to commit a further five divisions to Gallipoli in July, they decided that further attacks from the Helles bridgehead were too slow and costly, and that a fresh landing at Suvla Bay offered a better chance of swift victory.
Gordon Corrigan claims - without giving further detail - that his command of the division was "one of the more competent aspects" handling of the Helles landings and that "his handling of the division, once ashore, was thoroughly competent" but this appears to be a minority view.
Hunter-Weston was invalided from Gallipoli in July and returned to England. In his Gallipoli (2001) Les Carlyon wrote: " What was wrong with (Hunter-Weston) has never become clear. The explanations run from sunstroke and exhaustion to enteric fever and dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
to a collapse and a breakdown. Hamilton ... saw him 'staggering' off to a hospital ship.”
Return to Western Front
Hunter-Weston returned to command the VIII Corps when it was re-established in FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1916. At the launch of the Somme Offensive
Battle of the Somme (1916)
The Battle of the Somme , also known as the Somme Offensive, took place during the First World War between 1 July and 14 November 1916 in the Somme department of France, on both banks of the river of the same name...
on 1 July 1916 it was Hunter-Weston's divisions, attacking in the northern sector between the Ancre and the Serre, that suffered the worst casualties and failed to capture any of their objectives. Artillery fire was weaker here, and the Germans had the advantage of height, whereas in the southern sector the opposite was true, but the decision had been made by senior generals (Haig and Rawlinson) to launch the attack over a wide front.
At the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, the plan was to explode 19 mines dug by Royal Engineer tunnelling companies
Royal Engineer tunnelling companies
Royal Engineer tunnelling companies were specialist units of the Corps of Royal Engineers within the British Army, formed to dig attacking tunnels under enemy lines during the First World War....
to weaken enemy defences. The northernmost mine of 40000 pounds (18,143.7 kg) of explosives was under the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt
Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt
Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt was a German front-line fortification west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Somme. It was the scene of a number of costly attacks by British infantry during the Battle of the Somme in 1916...
, a front-line fortification west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Hunter-Weston's sector. He wished to detonate the mine four hours early, but this was vetoed by the Inspector of Mines at BEF GHQ, who pointed out that the British had a poor record of seizing craters before the Germans got there. As a compromise Hunter-Weston was allowed to detonate at 07:20. This led to the successful filming of the explosion by British cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Geoffrey Malins, who was filming the 29th Division's attack. The other mines were detonated at 7:28 am, two minutes before Zero hour when the infantry advance would begin. In many cases, including Hawthorne Ridge, the Germans were able to seize the craters before the British troops crossed No Man's Land
No Man's Land
No man's land is an unoccupied area between two opposing positions.No Man's Land may also refer to:-Places:In the United Kingdom* No Man's Land, Cornwall, England* No Man's Land Fort, off the coast of England* Nomansland, Devon, England...
.
In an October 1916 by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
, he was elected to the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
as the Unionist member for North Ayrshire
North Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency)
North Ayrshire was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1868 until 1918. It returned one Member of Parliament , using the first-past-the-post voting system.-Boundaries:...
. Hunter-Weston, who was the first Member of Parliament to simultaneously command an Army Corps on the field, continued to command VIII Corps but was not involved in any further major offensive.
Post military
Hunter-Weston continued in politics after the war, being elected again for Bute and Northern AyrshireBute and Northern Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency)
Bute and Northern Ayrshire was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1983. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post voting system.-History:...
in 1918. He resigned from the Army in 1919.
He retired from Parliament in 1935, and died in 1940 following a fall from a turret at his ancestral home in Hunterston
Hunterston
Hunterston, by the Firth of Clyde, is a coastal area in Ayrshire, Scotland, which is the seat and estate of the Hunter family. As an area of flat land adjacent to deep natural water, it has been the site of considerable actual and proposed industrial development in the 20th century. The nearest...
.
See also
- Landing at Cape HellesLanding at Cape HellesThe landing at Cape Helles was part of the amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula by British and French forces on April 25, 1915 during the First World War. Helles, at the foot of the peninsula, was the main landing area. With the support of the guns of the Royal Navy, a British division...
- Battle of GallipoliBattle of GallipoliThe Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
- First Battle of KrithiaFirst Battle of KrithiaThe First Battle of Krithia was the first Allied advance of the Battle of Gallipoli during the First World War. Starting at Helles on 28 April, three days after the initial landings, the attack broke down due to poor leadership and planning, lack of communications and exhaustion and demoralisation...
- Second Battle of KrithiaSecond Battle of KrithiaThe Second Battle of Krithia continued the Allies' attempts to advance on the Helles battlefield during the Battle of Gallipoli of the First World War. The village of Krithia and neighbouring hill of Achi Baba had to be captured in order for the British to advance up the Gallipoli peninsula to the...
- Third Battle of KrithiaThird Battle of KrithiaThe Third Battle of Krithia , fought on the Gallipoli peninsula during World War I, was the final in a series of Allied attacks against the Ottoman defences aimed at capturing the original objectives of 25 April 1915...
- Hawthorn Ridge RedoubtHawthorn Ridge RedoubtHawthorn Ridge Redoubt was a German front-line fortification west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Somme. It was the scene of a number of costly attacks by British infantry during the Battle of the Somme in 1916...
- First day on the SommeFirst day on the SommeThe first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916, was the opening day of the Battle of Albert, which was the first phase of the British and French offensive that became known as the Battle of the Somme...
External links
- First World War who's who
- Centre for First World War Studies, Birmingham University
- Royal Engineers Museum Royal Engineers and the Gallipoli Expedition (1915–16)
- King's College London Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives WESTON, Sir Aylmer Hunter- (1864-1940), Lieutenant General
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