The Supreme Sacrifice

It's the new football season.

Heart of Midlothian have just won their first eight matches.

They are the best team in the country and they are top of the Scottish League.

They were a very promising side, well on the way to winning the championship.

They were playing for each other, they backed each other up extremely well,

a bit like the Liverpool team Bill Shankley built.

But this isn't 2005,

it's 1914,

and for some of these young Hearts players,

this season will be their last.

Soon they will volunteer to join a battalion of Lord Kitchener's New Army

and head to France to fight for their country.

It's like Paul Hartley, Craig Gordon, Steven Pressley, household names,

Scottish international players, being recruited to a war today

in somewhere like Iraq and going and facing almost certain death.

This is the story how the men of one Scottish football club

abandoned glory on the football field

to pursue a different kind of glory, on a different kind of field.

"Clouds of callous, thoughtless fools,

"gather in their thousands to watch the awful farce of football.

"Has the country gone stark mad?

"Is the flag under whose folds we enjoy glorious British freedom

"of less importance now than a league flag or some other footballing trophy?"

The Scotsman.

By the time the 1914-15 Scottish football season kicked off,

Britain had been at war with Germany for seven days.

The government had sanctioned the recruitment of half a million new troops

to strengthen the army as the crisis deepened.

The new soldiers were volunteers.

Conscription was viewed as something that foreigners did, not the British.

For many people, conscription is Prussianism.

It is to become just like your enemy,

it is to suppress the rights of the individual

in the name of the state.

Sport, including football, continued much as before.

In Edinburgh, Hearts manager John McCartney had assembled a fine young team.

McCartney believed it was important that players got on well together,

off the field as well as on.

He also believed implicitly that players should have a brain, not just a football brain,

but they must also have intellectual abilities beyond football.

He liked players who could show that their brain was engaged

with their feet, and not just players whose brains were in their feet.

When he signed players, he had an understanding not only that they could play football,

but that they could mix with the men he already had at the club.

McCartney's men had won their first eight games, the best start to a season in the club's history.

In a period when the rules and the strategies

of football were still evolving,

here was a team that actually had

some degree of sophistication.

I mean, they were clearly a team that were capable of winning games

through stealth as much as through strength.

They were a team who could play, if you like, almost a pre-modern form of football.

This was breakthrough season, I think,

and the expectation was that Hearts

might very well win the league.

Hearts advanced up the league table.

The German armies advanced across the continent.

By October, the position of the British Expeditionary Force in France was perilous.

The image of young men dying abroad, whilst at home their compatriots

enjoyed watching or playing football, struck many observers as deeply offensive.

A concerted political campaign was mounted to bring a halt to the football season.

It was supported by furious letters to the press.

"How long has this crazy football to remain with us?

"How long are we to permit this miserable exhibition

"of spectacular blackguardism to sap the intellect of our young men?

"Let us legislate for conscription without delay

"and so put an end to this veritable curse."

There were fears amongst a small but vocal group of people in Britain

that in some way the youth of the country

was having its moral health undermined by professional sport.

Football was the sport that everything focused upon.

The critics tended to focus on idle fools watching football matches.

"This is no time for football.

"The nation must occupy itself with more serious business.

"The young men who play football

"and those who look on have better work to do.

"They are summoned to leave their sport

"and play their part in a greater game.

"That game is war, for life and death."

London Evening News.

Once the casualty returns start to build up and people understand

that the war is not going to be over by Christmas,

they are thinking, who is going to be left to fight for us, come next year?

And the answer to that question is - people who are watching football matches.

The folks who were against it would have closed the sport down,

even schoolboys kicking a ball would have been doing something for the war effort.

Football's response was that its clubs were bound contractually to their players.

Forcing them to enlist would be illegal

and any player who voluntarily enlisted would be in breach of contract.

But this cut no ice with football's opponents.

Preparations were made to ask a question in parliament, demanding a halt to the football season.

It was like the game of football was under bombardment.

It was a constant heavy bombardment

and it included in the quiet times some very, very accurate sniping.

Letters were sent to Hearts players like Tom Gracie and Robert Mercer, accusing them of cowardice.

As this campaign against football became more intensive

it was the leading club in Scotland that attracted most attention.

At that time, it was Hearts' bad luck to have the leading club.

In another season it possibly would have been Glasgow Celtic that got all this negative attention,

but it was the lot of Hearts Football Club to receive these letters, to receive this goading.

As the arguments raged at home, 500 miles away,

near the Belgian village of Gheluvelt,

the beleaguered British expeditionary force was holding off the German armies.

Daily, the situation deteriorated.

Meanwhile, in Glasgow, a crowd of over 30,000 attended the first Old Firm game of the season.

And in Edinburgh, a letter writer to the Evening News,

calling herself Soldier's Daughter, captured the darkening mood of the anti-football campaigners.

"While Hearts continue to play football, enabled thus to pursue their peaceful play by the sacrifice

"of the lives of thousands of their countrymen, they might adopt temporarily a nom de plume.

"Say, the White Feathers of Midlothian."

The white feather is the traditional symbol of cowardice.

This was a calculated insult.

It had a profound effect upon the players because the white feathers of Midlothian,

the Heart of Midlothian, it's a very public and pointed dig at them.

They weren't just interested in buying fast cars and smoking cigars,

they were young men of substance, the kind of young men who would think about these things

and whom a letter like that would affect.

On Wednesday 25 November 1914, with the team top of the First Division,

11 Hearts players volunteered for a new battalion.

This battalion would be called the 16th Royal Scots.

Unofficially it was McCrae's Own, after its founder Lieutenant Colonel Sir George McCrae.

"To the young men of Edinburgh, the present crisis is one of supreme gravity.

"Worldwide issues are trembling in the balance.

"I appeal with confidence to the patriotism and generous enthusiasm of my fellow citizens...

"You are strong, be willing!

"If you will only come forward in sufficient numbers you can stop the war...

"In the presence of the God of battles, ask of your conscience this question - dare I stand aside?

"George McCrae."

Sir George McCrae was Scotland's senior civil servant,

a former Liberal MP, a retired soldier and successful businessman.

In early November, McCrae had approached the War Office

and requested permission to form a battalion to serve in Lord Kitchener's new army.

He insisted that he be permitted to lead the battalion personally.

McCrae promised to fill his battalion of 1,400 men in just seven days.

McCrae's faith in his ability to raise such a large group of men

stemmed from informal contact he had already made with a number of Hearts players.

He knew that persuading men from the best team in the country to sign up

would be an excellent recruiting tool for Lord Kitchener.

McCrae was aware of the effects that the press campaign was having on Hearts players.

He knew too that some were keen to volunteer,

yet they were bound by the contracts.

McCrae believed he could break the deadlock.

He knows that if the Hearts players, or even if some of them, are thinking about joining up,

these men are the star footballers of their time.

So he approaches the players through an intermediary, and he is assured that they are prepared to enlist.

He offers them the opportunity to join his battalion.

At the same time he gets assurances from the War Office that if any of these men volunteer for his battalion

they will be allowed to serve together for the duration of the war.

They won't be taken to other units, they'll stay with their pals.

The news caused a national sensation, and broke on the very day that parliament was being asked

to consider stopping football for the duration of the war.

The Hearts players had saved the game.

In Edinburgh, 4,000 packed the Usher Hall to hear McCrae officially launch his battalion.

"I stand before you humbly as a fellow Scot,

"nothing more and nothing less.

"You know I don't speak easy of crisis, but that is what confronts us.

"I have received permission from the War Office to raise a new battalion for active service.

"It is my intention that this unit will reflect accurately all the many classes of this famous capital

"and that it will be characterised by such a simple spirit of excellence

"that the rest of Lord Kitchener's army will be judged by our standing.

"Furthermore, with the agreement of the authorities, I have undertaken to lead the battalion in the field.

"I would not, could not, ask you to serve unless I share the danger at your side. George McCrae."

He was joined on the platform by the Heart of Midlothian players,

and the roar of the crowd when the Hearts players walked on to the platform

was such that the Hearts manager later wrote that it nearly knocked him backwards off his seat.

McCrae then said to the crowd, "I'm going down to Castle Street" -

where the recruiting station was - "to sign on as the first volunteer. Who will come with me?"

He walked out the door, down Lothian Road,

and he was followed by almost every single man in the room.

Among them were some of the players who made up the best team in the country.

Half-back Alfie Briggs,

left-back Duncan Currie...

..centre-forward Tom Gracie.

And forwards Jamie Low...

..Harry Wattie

and Willie Wilson.

From the reserves, Ernie Ellis,

Annan Ness,

Norman Findlay,

Jimmy Frew

and Bobby Preston.

Left-back Pat Crossan and fellow defender Jimmy Boyd signed up the following day.

The Hearts players were joined by professionals from Raith Rovers,

Falkirk, Dunfermline, East Fife, and Hibs.

Hundreds of supporters of Hearts and of these other clubs also volunteered.

Every profession was represented.

Artist DM Sutherland, maths teacher Peter Ross, science teacher Fraser McLean,

printer Jimmy MacAvoy, local councillor Gerald Crawford,

advocate Napier Armit, solicitor Herbert Warden

and plumber John Buchan.

As McCrae had hoped, the example of the Hearts players had encouraged

hundreds of their supporters across the city the join them,

and the popular enthusiasm for the new battalion

meant that the contract issue was effectively swept aside.

The next day, Hearts defeated Hamilton Academicals 3-1

to maintain their lead at the top of the First Division.

"Up at 6am. Ran 100 yards in the cold, dark, frosty mornings with towel around neck

"to a tap, around which about 30 men are struggling to wash.

"Dash back, make up blankets and mattress.

"Parade. Breakfast 9am -

kippers and 2oz of white bread, plus coffee."

DM Sutherland.

McCrae wanted his battalion to be characterised by, in his words, "a simple spirit of excellence".

In order to achieve this, the training was demanding.

McCrae put Regimental Sergeant Major Fred Muir in charge of

turning the volunteers into a fighting battalion.

Muir, a Musselburgh coal miner, favoured long moonlit marches

on cold winter nights. The pace was relentless but effective.

"I don't know how the RSM did it,

"he drilled us and marched us and put us to bed,

"then one morning we woke up as the finest battalion in Lord Kitchener's Army." Donald Gunn.

But Muir's regime had an unintended affect on Hearts' league form.

The players started playing in boots one size too big in order to make room for their blisters,

and inoculations necessary for military service made many of the Hearts men ill.

There were no such problems in Glasgow,

where the players of the Old Firm had not shown the same enthusiasm

as the players of Hearts for military service.

The job of the Rangers secretary and the Celtic secretary was to do the best they could for their club.

And therefore they attracted some unfavourable publicity for it,

but you could argue that this was what they were paid for

and it was up to them to do as well as they could.

As Celtic, who had only one player enlisted in the army, won game after game,

Hearts players often turned up at their games with little or no sleep.

In February, Hearts faced Rangers and found themselves four goals behind at half time.

The Hearts players' exhaustion, and the round of vomiting in the dressing room during the interval,

the result of a recent typhoid vaccination, combined to hand Rangers a surprise victory.

Hearts nearly snatched a point, scoring three times in the second half

and hitting the post in the last minute.

"No-one wants to belittle the performance of the Rangers at Tynecastle,

"but it is an undoubted fact that military training is having

"a certain affect on the Heart of Midlothian players.

"While the men have lost none of their football ability,

"and have probably gained in stamina, they have certainly lost in speed."

Evening Times.

By early Spring, Celtic had overtaken Hearts at the top of the First Division.

They didn't lose their lead.

On 24 April 1915,

the men from Glasgow were crowned champions for the 12th time.

"Hearts have laboured these past weeks under a dreadful handicap,

"the like of which our friends in the West cannot imagine.

"Between them, the two leading Glasgow clubs have sent not a single prominent player to the army.

"There is only one football champion in Scotland, and its colours are maroon and khaki."

Evening News.

"Only the team's great fighting spirit saw them through the programme after Christmas.

"They played at times so tired and sore, they could hardly stand.

"Yet they took Celtic to the last day of the season and left Rangers floundering 11 points behind.

"They gave their best throughout and that is all that anyone could ask.

"Edinburgh is proud of them."

John McCartney.

Hearts had lost only one game and drawn one game before mobilisation.

After mobilisation they lost three and drew six.

The decision of so many of their players to join up had proved fatal to their title aspirations.

They were very, very plausible as candidates to win the championship in 1914.

They may not have done, we'll never actually know that,

but they got a lot of good publicity for it -

that they had been willing to sacrifice.

They were willing to sacrifice quicker than two Glasgow clubs, no doubt of that.

I know Hearts fans who've learned the story of McCrae's battalion

and because of this deep, proud story,

they feel to some extent a moral superiority to the Glasgow clubs.

To some extent, that might be them

casting back from the luxury of the present to the past,

but nonetheless, Hearts lost the league and Celtic won the league.

Hearts contributed to the war effort, Celtic less so.

As the Hearts players left Edinburgh with the rest of McCrae's battalion,

their manager John McCartney was there to see them off.

"There was a moment, a long moment of unexpected silence,

"of disbelief, I think, that it had come to this.

"I could not move. I stood quite still,

"and then I heard the cheering start again.

"The finest men I ever knew had gone."

John McCartney.

While Celtic's players prepared for the defence of their championship,

the heart of the greatest Hearts team in history now prepared for the defence of their country.

"The trench is not wide, but the boards are frequently loose,

"so that if your pack makes you feel top-heavy,

"or your boots are slippery with mud, you run a fair chance of a dip in the muddy depths below.

"Sometimes the enemy may know of your movements,

"but if they do not, they just keep up an intermittent fire on the off-chance of catching someone.

"When you hear the crack of the rifle and the ping of the bullet, you cannot help ducking your head,

"instinctively at first, but in a few minutes you get over it.

"When you finally emerge in the first line trenches you are in another world."

Gerald Crawford.

After training for 12 months,

McCrae's battalion crossed to France on the 7 January 1916.

They were to form part of the British 34th Division.

Three weeks later they arrived at the front-line town of Armentieres.

By ten o'clock on the morning of January 27,

McCrae's men were strung out along a 1?-mile-long section of the Western Front.

And January 27, it turned out,

was not a good day to arrive at the front line.

This was the Kaiser's birthday.

The Germans had prepared a celebration.

"I got up and toddled out into the darkness to see the flashes of bursting shells over the trenches.

"One here and there, becoming uncomfortably close to our quarters

"and landing about our support trenches, and then a few behind us.

"They were sending them over so thick at times that we got to the stage

"of thinking that a shell could hardly help dropping in our midst."

Napier Armit.

"A dugout got the first two quite close and all our butter was spoilt with flying earth.

"This shelling went on at intervals until 3pm when it became intense.

"It was an awful biz.

"You sit in the mud and hope that the next won't be near you."

Fraser McLean.

More than 2,000 German shells landed on the British trenches that night.

The British responded with 4,000 of their own.

When the exchange stopped, the machine-gun fire took over

as each army tried to capitalise on the damage to their opponents on the other side of the field.

The noise was deafening.

It was a very, very violent introduction to trench life

and they were very lucky that large numbers of men weren't killed.

It was a brutal and jarring experience for them.

After the shock of their welcome, life for McCrae's men in the bitterly cold early months of 1916

settled down, but the situation remained tense and dangerous.

The Germans kept the pressure on with steady artillery and machine-gun fire.

"We stand to an hour before dawn and an hour after dusk. In between we keep out heads down

"and go about our duties, which mainly consist of drying socks and rubbing anti-frostbite on our feet."

Gerald Crawford.

"Most of our time is spent digging holes in bits of France to fill in other bits of France.

"Much of the country is now contained in sandbags.

"The rest is in our boots, our pockets and all over our uniforms.

"Yesterday we built a road up to a trench in our front line,

"nothing very rugged, just a wooden-planked affair.

"Today the Germans shelled it, so this evening we must start again."

Annan Ness.

Although fighting was intermittent, casualties mounted.

Jimmy Todd, a winger from Raith Rovers,

was hit in the chest by shrapnel and died of his injuries.

It's funny in a sad kind of way the extent to which

they react to the early casualties.

The local press in Edinburgh talked about McCrae's first casualty.

Officers from the battalion wrote to the local press in Edinburgh

complaining that suggested there would be more.

The muddy fields of France seem to be a lifetime away

from the muddy fields of Tynecastle, Easter Road and Stark's Park.

"Instead of fighting, we should take the Fritzes on at football.

"I am certain we would do it on them." Pat Crossan.

When they got out of the line to work off some of the strain,

the boredom, the pressure, they'd get a football out and have a kick-about.

Not just the footballers, but the whole battalion would get footballs out

and have competitions between the platoons and the companies.

John McCartney and the Hearts directors wanted to send a comfort parcel to the footballers.

Annan Ness called a meeting to discuss the offer.

"After talking the matter over carefully, we came to the conclusion

"that the articles mentioned here are the most desired.

"A melodeon for Crossan,

"a few mouth organs to keep Fritz happy,

"socks, no underwear,

"chocolate, sweets, dried fruit,

"toilet soap, candles, matches,

"cigarettes, tobacco."

Annan Ness.

McCartney and the directors did not disappoint.

Two weeks later, a parcel arrived for Ness and his comrades.

It contained 240 pairs of socks,

5,000 cigarettes, 20 cases of soap

and 100 boxes of Edinburgh rock.

There were also 14 pairs of football boots, three balls,

and one pump, just in case.

Ness sent his old boss a note of thanks.

"We can smile through the grime.

"One of the boys has just sent a parcel of dried mud home to his folks

"with instructions on how much water to add in order to achieve the correct trench consistency.

"Oh, we have all the wags out here, all right."

Annan Ness.

On the 5 May 1916,

McCrae's men were moved 50 miles south, to the town of Albert, near the Somme.

7,000 people had lived here before the war. Now only a few remained.

"A very interesting place, once a thriving small town,

"now absolutely deserted save for a few haunted-looking natives

"who resort to their caves during bombardments.

"The principal part is a mass of crumbled ruins

"in which bits of bedstead and other metal goods project here and there.

"You can here the distant rumble of artillery and the chatter of machine guns at night."

DM Sutherland.

By the time McCrae's arrived at Albert,

the situation on the Western Front had been deadlocked for 18 months.

From Belgium in the north to Switzerland in the south,

two and a half million British and French troops

faced one and a half million German soldiers.

The man in charge of British troops on the Western Front was another Edinburgh gentleman, Douglas Haig.

Haig was planning an offensive at the River Somme with his French counterpart, General Joffre.

The site of the battle

is chosen very simply and pragmatically

because it is where the British and French armies meet,

so they can operate together.

From Haig's point of view, the place to attack would have been much further north around Ypres.

Nonetheless, Haig and his deputy, Henry Rawlinson, set about

planning a strategy with the French that would break the deadlock.

But their task was further complicated when the Germans launched a ferocious attack

on the French at Verdun in February 1916.

Progressively, the French Army is drawn in to the Verdun battle

and as it does so, its own commitment to the Battle of the Somme is reduced proportionately.

And that means that the major part of this battle, or at least the major part of the Front,

is to be attacked by the British rather than by the French.

Whilst Haig and Rawlinson re-wrote their plans, McCrae's battalion

found itself uncomfortably close to its German enemies.

"It is 6.30am. We've had two quiet hours while the boys prepared their breakfast.

"I can hear the picks and shovels all around.

"Both sides are getting on with some urgent repairs.

"The larks are singing sweetly, the cook fires smoke away and there is much loud shouting."

Gerald Crawford.

Occasionally, the Germans would burrow under No Man's Land

and fire rifle grenades into the British trenches.

Alternatively, they would send shells down the hill into the British lines.

Fraser McLean was severely injured in one of these attacks.

As he was being carried off, another explosion ruptured his eardrums.

The German trenches, which had been constructed over a period

of 18 months, were much more sophisticated than the British ones.

This posed great difficulties for an attacking force.

The Germans had constructed...

a fiendishly complicated, efficient

network of entrenched defences

protected by barbed wire entanglements so complicated

that you just couldn't imagine them ever being moved,

and, of course, machine guns everywhere.

"They hold both the high ground and considerable artillery advantage

"so that any exchange of fire inevitably leaves us worse off.

"Our trenches are a shambles, quite untenable in places.

"Our little slope is so exposed, the Hun machine gunners and snipers so hot,

"that our working parties cannot set themselves to the task of repairing the damage."

George McCrae.

The Germans used their superior position to press home their artillery advantage.

Whilst their gramophones played Schubert symphonies at the top of the hill,

their shells landed on the British trenches at the bottom.

"We got the lot.

"Some of the shells burst, ploughing up tremendous holes.

"Those are usually high explosive. Others burst overhead.

"You hear them all, some seconds before they land, and the bigger ones make a noise like an express train.

"Couple that with the noise of the firing and then multiply the result

"by two or 50 for the number of guns and you will get an idea of the din.

"And think of the great clouds of smoke that arise from every explosion

"and you will get an idea of the thickness of the atmosphere."

Herbert Warden.

Despite the obvious disadvantages of their position,

34th Division and McCrae's battalion were central to the offensive at the Somme.

The British intended to mount a five-day-long artillery bombardment

which would destroy the German trenches before the infantry attacked.

The barrage would also destroy the barbed wire protecting the deadly machine-gun positions, leaving them

open for the infantry to move in and capture the German trenches.

The artillery bombardment would continue, carefully timed to provide cover for the advancing troops.

To fit in with the artillery's timetable,

troops were ordered to move slowly toward the German trenches.

Haig insisted that the British could break through. His deputy, Henry Rawlinson, was less convinced.

Henry Rawlinson realised that what was probably quite easy was to launch

a limited attack, to be able to get into the enemy's front line trenches,

but what was difficult was to get right through a deep position in one bound.

Put into the context the Battle of the Somme, what that said to him was, "We proceed methodically,

"we go no further than the artillery can support us,

"we don't attempt to do everything at once and we consolidate each gain as we make it

"and then bring up the guns and start afresh with the new attack."

The strategy was confused from the outset.

The real problem with the planning of the Somme is this contradiction between the vision of the battle

entertained by Haig and the vision of the battle entertained by Rawlinson is never fully reconciled.

But what had been decided was that the target for the 34th Division would be the fortified village

of Contalmaison, deep inside the German position.

McCrae's battalion would attack immediately to the south of the main road.

It was a terrifying position to attack, it was all uphill through two valleys.

The German entanglements were something like ten feet high, 15, 20 yards broad.

Machine-gun positions so numerous that you couldn't imagine

being able to move in the open more than 20 seconds without being killed.

German snipers knew the ground so well that they backed the machine guns up brilliantly.

And mutually supportive lines of entrenchments that took advantage

of every single available fold in the ground to create a series of killing fields.

"We can't sleep, the ground won't keep still."

Jimmy MacAvoy.

On 24 June, the British began their great bombardment of the German trenches.

One and a half million shells landed on the German positions.

Fire was directed at the deadly barbed wire entanglements

in order to clear a path for the infantry assault.

If this barbed wire was not destroyed,

the infantry would never make it across No Man's Land.

Tommy Miller, a medical student from Edinburgh University, led a reconnaissance party

across No Man's Land on the night of 29 June

to assess how much damage the bombardment was doing.

It was an immensely dangerous mission

which cost Miller five of his men.

And the results of his reconnaissance were terrifying.

"The wire showed very little signs of shelling and was not destroyed to any considerable degree whatever.

"After a space without wire of about 10 to 13 yards, a second, heavier roll of wire was found.

"It formed a very effective obstacle."

Tommy Miller.

Miller handed his report to his superiors.

If the barbed wire was still intact,

then the German trenches were also likely to be intact.

McCrae's battalion was about to march into a killing field

but it was too late to stop the massive assault.

Miller's company commander was Peter Ross, principal mathematics teacher at Broughton Higher Grade School.

Ross was profoundly depressed by this news

and wrote letters to the families of the young lads who had died in the wiring patrol.

The letters are bleak, the letters are loaded with, I think,

a pre-sentiment of his own coming death.

"I assure you that you have my sincere and heartfelt sympathy.

"I only wish that I could have brought them back with me,

"but I know not what awaits myself tomorrow.

"I put my trust in God and go to do my duty with one of the finest companies in the British Army."

Peter Ross.

Because of Miller's worrying report on the condition of the barbed wire,

the senior officers of the 34th Division had been held back from the initial attack.

A frustrated George McCrae would have to watch events unfold from his assembly trench.

As the countdown to the attack continued, the rest of the men in the battalion

were deafened by the ongoing bombardment. Nonetheless,

as they contemplated going over the top,

there was sympathy for their German enemies.

"There is terrible artillery work going on, and Fritz must be in a terrible plight.

"I do not think it will be long before we get home for good."

John Buchan.

The following morning was breathless and shimmering blue.

A cool mist hung in the valley.

The Hearts players, Crossan, Briggs, Wattie, Ellis and Ness

stood together waiting to go over the top.

A little over a year ago, they had been part of the Hearts team on top of the Scottish First Division,

looking forward to a championship triumph.

Now, they were part of C-Company, 16th Royal Scots, McCrae's Own.

700 yards, or a few football pitches away, lay the German trenches,

still guarded by barbed wire.

At 7.25am,

the British detonated mines they had constructed under the German trenches.

"Stones and rocks and all sorts rained down on us.

"The sky turned black."

Murdy Mackay.

At 7.34am,

McCrae's battalion left their trenches

and began their assault on the German lines.

Immediately, machine gun fire tore into them.

"It was pure hell crossing that ground, owing to their machine guns and shell fire.

"It was awful seeing all your chums going under and not being able to do anything for them."

Frank Scott.

"They flung everything at us but half crowns.

"I saw one lad put his hand in front of his face as if to shield him from the hail."

Jimmy MacAvoy.

Peter Ross was still alive at 8.15am,

41 minutes after the battalion had gone over the top.

As he organised a charge of the machine-gun position,

he was hit in the stomach and almost cut in two.

In terrible pain, he begged his comrades to finish him off.

Two of his men reluctantly obliged.

One would kill himself 20 years later.

The casualties mounted.

As the British ranks thinned,

German machine gunners were able to concentrate on individual targets.

One of these was Alfie Briggs, Hearts' half-back.

One bullet broke his right leg, another hit his left foot before ricocheting through his right arm.

Another shattered his knee.

Finally, one glanced his forehead, knocking him unconscious.

His team-mates, Duncan Currie,

Ernie Ellis

and Harry Wattie

all fell in the final desperate assault on Contalmaison.

All across the front, the British advance was being destroyed.

"It was just cruel, we had no chance.

"You remember Jimmy Dodds that we used to pal about with?

"I saw him fall beside me. We were going over together when he was hit in the chest.

"I do not think he knew anything.

"I crawled into a shell hole with poor Jimmy just behind me,

"where I could see the bullets still tearing into him.

"The bullets were like hailstones."

Jim Miller.

"And we started firing.

"We just had to load and reload.

"They went down in their hundreds.

"We didn't have to aim,

"we just fired into them."

German machine gunner.

By 10am, it was clear that Douglas Haig's wish

for a decisive breakthrough was not going to be realised.

The 1st of July 1916

remains the blackest day in the history of the British Army.

Nearly 20,000 soldiers lay dead, almost 40,000 were wounded.

Some British battalions had been completely wiped out.

Haig had fatally under-estimated the strength of the German entrenched positions.

He had also over-estimated the effectiveness of the artillery barrage.

The barbed wire had not been cut, nor had the German trenches been destroyed.

In theory, a seven-day bombardment of the German position should have reduced all this to rubble.

But the guns were not capable of doing that.

The number of shells and guns isn't sufficient.

Many of those shells happened to be duds. It is reckoned that 30%

of the shells fired on the first day on the Somme failed to explode.

The wire did not get cut. The troops who were obliged to advance into those killing fields had to negotiate

the barbed wire which slowed them up and allowed German machine guns

to fire upon little groups of men passing through the wire.

Soldiers from McCrae's advanced further than almost any other battalion that morning,

reaching the outskirts of Contalmaison, but their advance was beaten back.

Whilst the 16th Royal Scots were advancing upon Contalmaison,

trying to get as far as they possibly could, other elements of 34th Division Infantry

had found that their advance was stopped.

McCrae's men joined the beleaguered soldiers of other battalions

at a tiny strongpoint less than one mile outside Contalmaison.

It was called, appropriately enough, Scots Redoubt.

Annan Ness, once on the fringes of the Hearts first team,

now found himself and the remnants of the 16th Royal Scots stranded

in the heart of the battle.

Ness was a reserve team half-back with Heart of Midlothian in 1914.

The curious thing about him is he was probably the least talented of all the footballers,

but he was the man in the battalion who...

the one footballer in the battalion

who actually appeared to have genuine talents as a soldier.

Ammunition, food and water were in short supply.

Ness and the rest of the men were completely isolated.

You have to try to imagine

a scenario something a bit like the famous film Zulu,

except the enemy were equipped, not with assegais, but automatic rifles.

"It is my intention that this unit will reflect accurately

"all the many classes of this famous capital

"and that it will be characterised by such a simple spirit of excellence

"that the rest of Lord Kitchener's army will be judged by our standard.

"I have undertaken to lead the battalion in the field.

"I would not, could not, ask you to serve unless I shared the danger at your side."

George McCrae.

When McCrae decided to recruit a battalion from the football players and supporters of Edinburgh,

he promised that he would fight alongside his men.

When at last the order arrived allowing senior officers to enter the fray,

Sir George didn't waste any time.

This is, I suppose, the moment that McCrae had been waiting for all his military and civilian career.

At ten o'clock on the evening of July 1st, McCrae and a small party

set off to find the remnants of his battalion.

The Germans had already reoccupied most of the front line.

When the Colonel and his small party arrived at Scots Redoubt,

the Germans were in the process of trying to flush them out.

They were so close that the fighting was hand to hand.

"We had to stop the German bombers getting within throwing range.

"The colonel was a marksman, he took his rifle, and with his servants spotting for him,

"dropped a Fritz with every shot." Jimmy MacAvoy.

McCrae's presence galvanised the beleaguered British soldiers and the following morning

he was put in charge of all the forward troops in the division.

In the chaos, the colonel made a vivid impression on a young officer from the Northumberland Fusiliers.

"A tall, grey-haired soldier appeared out of the dug-out, minus helmet,

"quite unperturbed by the war and the general mix-up of the troops and apparent chaos.

"He wandered about in the lasting bombardment as if taking a stroll around his garden." Robin Neves.

McCrae needed to be calm because the Germans were swarming around the Redoubt,

pouring along the trenches and inflicting heavy casualties.

By early evening on the 2nd of July,

McCrae and his men were down to just 30 rounds of ammunition each.

"It was hand to hand stuff at the death.

"We had nothing but our rifle butts and bayonets."

Jimmy MacAvoy.

Under tremendous pressure, McCrae and his men beat off one German attack after another,

but just as the Redoubt was about to fall, the Germans pulled back.

McCrae had a chance to regroup and rebuild his shattered defences.

The delay was crucial.

Reinforcements arrived, bringing more ammunition and allowing McCrae to keep the Germans at arm's length.

"The Fritzes were very brave.

"They kept coming at us until we bombed them all to hell.

"When it was over,

"we made the prisoners bury their pals."

John Veitch.

McCrae's success at Scots Redoubt had allowed the British to strengthen their positions nearby.

At 2am on the 4th July the Redoubt was relieved by fresh units.

People were wondering exactly how come the 16th Royal Scots,

at the time, had managed to stick together when other units had

ceased to operate as a battalion and were just operating as small remnants here and there,

but it's something to do with the esprit de corps,

perhaps the sporting background the battalion had.

I think there are similarities between sporting organisations and military organisations,

in that they are all out there pursuing a form of glory - trophies, medals, whatever.

But McCrae's battalion had paid a terrible price.

DM Sutherland waited for his comrades to return from the Redoubt.

"The first ragged ghosts were beginning to show themselves.

"They moved quietly without speaking.

"I saw a young sniper from the Lincolns whom I knew quite well.

"His face was a brown chalk mask caked with blood, mud and sweat.

"His eyes were rubbed sore, I doubt if he could blink.

"He was dragging his rifle along behind him.

"And just as I was thinking that at least one company was safely back, the trickle stopped.

"I realised that it wasn't one company,

"but all that was left of the entire battalion."

DM Sutherland.

Of the 814 men from McCrae's battalion who had joined the advance,

only 178 returned.

"I don't think our losses registered with me until the roll was called.

"We were still in our platoons when we came out of the line and, though there were gaps,

"we assumed that the rest of the boys were just elsewhere in the confusion.

"I couldn't bring myself to believe they had gone."

John Veitch.

The 16th Royal Scots lost more than three-quarters of their strength,

and most of those men were killed in the first hour and a half of the attack.

Among the dead were Hearts' right-back Duncan Currie

and defender Ernie Ellis.

So too was forward Harry Wattie.

Their bodies have never been found.

Among the wounded was defender Pat Crossan,

who was knocked unconscious when a shell exploded just yards from him.

Two men on either side of him were killed.

Also among the wounded was Alfie Briggs.

With multiple wounds in his arms and legs, he had lain half-dead for two days.

German troops had crawled over him during their assault on the Redoubt.

When he was eventually rescued, he was put amongst the hopeless cases in the hospital

and once more left for dead.

His refusal to die vindicated John McCartney's description of him as "the bravest man in my team."

He never played for Hearts again.

Two weeks after the first day of the Battle of the Somme,

Annan Ness organised some exercise for the battalion survivors.

He wrote to McCartney -

"We had a match the other evening but oh, Mr McCartney, we did miss the boys.

"Talk about football,

"it made the tears come to our eyes.

"But have a good heart, guvnor, we shall soon be in Berlin.

"My best regards to the directors and yourself."

Annan Ness.

Of the 11 players from the 1914 Hearts team who volunteered for McCrae's battalion,

five did not return to Tynecastle.

What we can't say is how great they were,

because I suspect their greatness actually wasn't on the pitch,

their greatness was actually to do with the context in which they played

and the sacrifices they made around the war.

Their greatness is actually history rather than football.

By 18th November 1916, when bad weather brought the offensive on the Somme to a halt,

the British had gained 12km of ground.

Over one million British, French and German troops

had been killed or wounded.

These men went over the top, never flinched.

They didn't turn round, or try and retreat,

and the credit for any of these small gains must go the ordinary soldier, not to the high command.

You can argue that this battle is a victory,

and Haig himself, when he wrote his final despatch when he left the army in 1919, said,

"You have to view the sequence of battles beginning at the Somme

"and carrying right through to November 1918

"as one long, continuous engagement."

And, and that is a perfectly sensible way of looking at this battle in retrospect,

but it was not his planning intention.

The original McCrae's battalion,

the battalion of sportsmen and supporters that had inspired so much admiration in November 1914,

was effectively destroyed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

Those who survived were still led by Sir George McCrae,

but the terrible events of 1st July had taken their toll on the Colonel.

In August 1916 Sir George was admitted to hospital.

He was suffering from diarrhoea and a feeble pulse.

While he was at Scots Redoubt he drank some bad water

and over the next few weeks was quite ill,

and it was eventually diagnosed as typhus, and he was very, very weak, and he was invalided home.

His successor was Arthur Stevenson.

"Sir George created a fine battalion, one of the very best, I believe.

"He took them to France, fought at their side

"and would have done almost anything to have stayed with them until the end,

"but it wasn't within his power."

"I fear it is a tale that will never be told."

Arthur Stevenson.

When the survivors of McCrae's battalion returned to Edinburgh,

many found themselves strangers in their own city.

Unlike today, where images of war are broadcast back home immediately,

in 1916 the public were still largely ignorant

of the horrors of trench warfare.

In the press, the list of casualties on the first day of the Somme

was deliberately published in instalments

so as to minimise the impact of such incredible loss of life.

The losses could not be openly discussed. It was utterly demoralising for the country.

The men who had endured the trenches suffered alone.

Few could communicate, even to family, the grim reality of the Western Front.

The levels of violence that they had seen, the things that they had experienced

were, by our standards, pornographic in their detail

and it simply wasn't the kind of thing you could discuss in a post-Edwardian living room.

The idea that there would be post-traumatic stress,

the idea that their minds might need help to get them back into the mainstream of society,

that footballers who had witnessed something,

way beyond anything football could ever teach them,

the idea they had witnessed something that had damaged their minds,

was something people weren't prepared for.

150,000 people attended Sir George McCrae's funeral in Edinburgh in December 1928

and it remains the biggest event of its kind in Scotland's history.

Then, his battalion was still remembered and respected.

But over the years, the story of Sir George and the 16th Royal Scots faded from view.

Finally, 90 years after the battalion went over the top,

a memorial has been dedicated to them in Contalmaison,

thanks largely to author Jack Alexander.

We've created a fitting, living remembrance for the battalion.

Edinburgh is a city that lost more of its young men in the Great War

than most British cities and it's one that remembered them the least.

We have created a magnificent memorial to a magnificent battalion

that should never have been forgotten in the first place.

And at the unveiling ceremony,

I certainly felt that there was a few ghosts in the fields behind us.

On 16th August 1919, Heart of Midlothian defeated Queen's Park

by three goals to one on the opening day of the new league season.

Six weeks earlier the Treaty of Versailles had been signed,

bringing closure to the most destructive war the world had ever seen.

In the Hearts team that day was left-back Pat Crossan.

Since he had signed up for McCrae's battalion,

the Austro-Hungarian empire had collapsed, the League of Nations had been established

and there had been a communist revolution in Russia.

Although only half fit, Crossan had a good game, keeping the dangerous Alan Morton quiet.

He was watched by 100 surviving volunteers from McCrae's battalion.

Each had received complimentary season tickets.

In the inside notes of the programme,

John McCartney, his old manager, had written a simple tribute -

"Voluntarily these men went forth to fight for King and Country.

"The gloomiest hour in the nation's history found them ready

"as pioneers in the formation of a brilliant regiment.

"Sportsmen the world over will remember them.

"Duty well and truly done, they are welcomed back to Tynecastle."

John McCartney.

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