THE BRITISH ATTACK (CONTINUED)

The British captured the fortified villages of Mametz and Montauban on July 1, 1916. This success, as will have been noted, put the British right wing well in advance of their center; and to make the gap in the German position uniform over a broad enough front it was necessary to move forward the left part of the British line from Thiepval to Fricourt. At this time the extreme British left was inactive, in the circumstances it seemed doubtful that a new attack would be profitable, so what was left of the advanced guard of the Ulster Division retired from the Schwaben Redoubt to its original line. The front had now become too large for a single commander to manage successfully, so to General Hubert Gough of the Reserve, or Fifth Army, was given the ground north of the Albert-Bapaume road, including the area of the Fourth and Eighth Corps.

Sunday, July 2, 1916, was a day of steady heat and blinding dust, and the troops suffered severely. At Ovillers and La Boiselle the Third Corps sustained all day long a desperate struggle. Two new divisions which had been brought forward to support now joined the fighting. One of these divisions successfully carried the trenches before Ovillers and the other in the night penetrated the ruins of the village of La Boiselle.

The Germans had evidently not recovered from their surprise in the south, for no counterattacks were attempted, nor had any reserve divisions been brought to their support. Throughout the long, stifling July day squadrons of Allied aeroplanes were industriously bombing depots and lines of communication back of the German front. The much-lauded Fokkers were flitting here and there, doing little damage. Two were sent to earth by Allied airmen before the day was over. The Allies had a great number of kite balloons ("sausages") in the air, but only one belonging to the Germans was in evidence.

With the capture of Mametz and positions in Fricourt Wood to the east, Fricourt could not hold out, and about noon on July 2, 1916, the place was in British hands. Evidently the Germans had anticipated the fall of the village, for a majority of the garrison had escaped during the night. But when the British entered the village, bombing their way from building to building, they captured Germans in sufficiently large numbers to make the victory profitable.

On Monday, July 3, 1916, General von Below issued an order to his troops which showed that the German officers appreciated the seriousness of the Allied offensive:

"The decisive issue of the war depends on the victory of the Second Army on the Somme. We must win this battle in spite of the enemy's temporary superiority in artillery and infantry. The important ground lost in certain places will be recaptured by our attack after the arrival of reenforcements. The vital thing is to hold on to our present positions at all costs and to improve them. I forbid the voluntary evacuation of trenches. The will to stand firm must be impressed on every man in the army. The enemy should have to carve his way over heaps of corpses...."

To understand the exact position of the British forces on July 3, 1916, the alignment of the new front must be described in detail.

The first section extended from Thiepval to Fricourt, between which the Albert-Bapaume road ran in a straight line over the watershed. Thiepval, Ovillers, and La Boiselle were positions in the German front line. East of the last place the fortified village of Contalmaison occupied high ground, forming as it were a pivot in the German intermediate line covering their field guns.

The British second position ran through PoziÈres to the two Bazentins and as far as Guillemont. Thiepval and Ovillers had not yet been taken, and only a portion of La Boiselle, but the British had broken through the first position south of that place and had pushed well along on the road to Contalmaison. This northern section had been transformed by warfare into a scene of desolation, bare, and forbidding, seamed with trenches and pitted with shell holes. The few trees along the roads had been razed—the only vegetation to be seen being coarse grass and weeds and thistles.

The southern section between Fricourt and Montauban presented a more inviting prospect. A line of woods extended from the first village in a northeasterly direction, a second line running from Montauban around Longueval. In this sector all the German first positions had been captured. The second position ran through a heavily wooded country and the villages of the Bazentins, Longueval, and Guillemont. During the night of July 2, 1916, the British had penetrated La Boiselle, and throughout the following day the battle raged around that place and Ovillers. The fighting was of the most desperate character, every foot of ground being contested by the opposing forces. The struggle seesawed back and forth, here and there the Germans gaining a little ground, only to lose it a little later when a vigorous British attack forced them to fall back, and so the tide of battle ebbed and flowed.

On July 4, 1916, the heat wave was broken by violent thunderstorms and a heavy rain that transformed the dusty terrain into quagmires, through which Briton and German fought on with undiminished spirit and equal valor. On the morning of July 5, 1916, the British, after one of the bloodiest struggles in this sector, captured La Boiselle and carried forward their attack toward Bailiff Wood and Contalmaison.

In the five days' fighting since they assumed the offensive the British had been hard hit at some points, but at others had registered substantial gains. They had captured a good part of the German first line and carried by assault strongly fortified villages defended stubbornly by valiant troops. The total number of prisoners taken by the British was by this time more than 5,000. These first engagements had for the British one exceedingly important result: it gave to the troops an absolute confidence in their fighting powers. They had shown successfully that they could measure themselves with the best soldiers of the kaiser and beat them.

During the day of July 5, 1916, the British repulsed several counterattacks and fortified the ground that they had already won. On this date Horseshoe Trench, the main defense of Contalmaison from the west, was attacked, and here a battalion of West Yorks fought with distinction and succeeded in making a substantial advance.

There was a pause in the fighting during the day of July 6, 1916, as welcome to the Germans as to the British, for some rest was imperative.

On Friday, July 7, 1916, the British began an attack on Contalmaison from Sausage Valley on the southwest, and from the labyrinth of copses north of Fricourt through which ran the Contalmaison-Fricourt highroad.

South of Thiepval there was a salient which the Germans had organized and strongly fortified during twenty months' preparation. After a violent bombardment the British attacked and captured this formidable stronghold. More to the south they took German trenches on the outskirts of Ovillers.

The attack ranged from the Leipzig Redoubt and the environs of Ovillers to the skirts of Contalmaison. After an intense bombardment the British infantry advanced on Contalmaison and on the right from two points of the wood. Behind them the German barrage fire, beating time methodically, entirely hid from view the attacking columns.

By noon the British infantry, having carried Bailiff Wood by storm, captured the greater part of Contalmaison. There they found a small body of British soldiers belonging to the Northumberland Fusiliers who had been made prisoners by the Germans a few days before and were penned up in a shelter in the village. The British were opposed by the Third Prussian Guard Division—the famous "Cockchafers"—who lost 700 men as prisoners during the attack. In the afternoon of the same day, July 7, 1916, the Germans delivered a strong counterattack, and the British, unable to secure reenforcements, and not strong enough to maintain the position, were forced out of the village, though able to keep hold of the southern corner.

On the following day, July 8, 1916, the British struggled for the possession of Ovillers, now a conglomeration of shattered trenches, shell holes and ruined walls. Every yard of ground was fought over with varying fortunes by the combatants. While this stubborn fight was under way the British were driving out the Germans from their fortified positions among the groves and copses around Contalmaison, and consolidating their gains.

In the night of July 10, 1916, the British, advancing from Bailiff Wood on the west side of Contalmaison, pressed forward in four successive waves, their guns pouring a flood of shells before them, and breaking into the northwest corner, and after a desperate hand-to-hand conflict, during which prodigies of valor were performed on both sides, drove out the Germans and occupied the entire village. The victory had not been won without considerable cost in casualties. The British captured 189 prisoners, including a commander of a battalion.

Ovillers, where the most violent fighting had raged for some days, continued to hold out, though surrounded and cut off from all relief from the outside. Knowing this the German garrison still fought on, and it was not until July 16, 1916, that the brave remnant consisting of two officers and 124 guardsmen surrendered.

We now turn to the British operations in the southern sector where they were trying to clear out the fortified woods that intervened between them and the German second line.

On July 3, 1916, the ground east of Fricourt Wood was clear of Germans and the way opened to Mametz Wood. During the day the Germans attempted a counterattack, and incidentally the British enjoyed "a good time." A fresh German division had just arrived at Montauban, which received such a cruel welcome from the British guns that it must have depressed their fighting spirit. East of Mametz a battalion from the Champagne front appeared and was destroyed, or made prisoner, a short time after detraining at the railhead. The British took a thousand prisoners within a small area of this sector. An eyewitness describes seeing 600 German prisoners being led to the rear by three ragged soldiers of a Scotch regiment "like pipers at the head of a battalion."

The British entered the wood of Mametz to the north of Mametz village on July 4, 1916, and captured the wood of Barnafay. These positions were not carried without stiff fighting, for the Germans had fortified the woods in every conceivable manner. Machine-gun redoubts connected by hidden trenches were everywhere, even in the trees there were machine guns, while the thick bushes and dense undergrowth impeded every movement. In such a jungle the fighting was largely a matter of hand-to-hand conflicts. The German guns were well served, and every position won by the British was at once subjected to a heavy counterbombardment. Indeed from July 4, 1916, onward, there was scarcely any cessation to the German fire on the entire British front, and around Fricourt, Mametz, and Montauban in the background.

On July 7, 1916, the British General Staff informed the French high command that they would make an attack on TrÔnes Wood on the following morning, asking for their cooperation. Assisted by the flanking fire of the French guns, the British penetrated TrÔnes Wood, and obtained a foothold there, seizing a line of trenches and capturing 130 prisoners and several mitrailleuses. On the same day the French on the British right were pushing forward toward Maltzhorn Farm.

TrÔnes Wood which for some days was to be the scene of the hottest fighting in the southern British sector, is triangular in form and about 1,400 meters in length, running north and south. Its southern side is about forty meters. The Germans directed against it a violent bombardment with shells of every caliber.

Owing to its peculiar position every advantage was in favor of the defense. Maltzhorn Ridge commanded the southern part, and the German position at Longueval commanded the northern portion. The German second line in a semicircle extended around the wood north and east, and as the covert was heavy, organized movement was impossible while the German artillery had free play.

The British, however, continued to advance slowly and stubbornly from the southern point where they had obtained a foothold, but it was not until the fire of the German guns had been diverted by pressure elsewhere that they were able to make any appreciable gains on their way northward.

On July 9, 1916, at 8 o'clock the Germans launched desperate counterattacks directed from the east to the southeast. The first failed; the second succeeded in landing them in the southern part of the wood, but they were ultimately repulsed with heavy losses. During the night there was a fresh German attack strongly delivered that was broken by British fire. Of the six counterattacks delivered by the Germans between Sunday night and Monday afternoon, July 9-10, 1916, the last enabled them to gain some ground in the wood, but it was at a heavy cost. They did not long enjoy even this small success, for on Tuesday, July 11, 1916, the British had recaptured the entire wood excepting a small portion in the extreme northern corner.

On the same date the British advanced to the north end of Mametz Wood, and by evening of July 12, 1916, had captured virtually the whole of it, gathering in some hundreds of German prisoners in the operation. The place had not been easily won, for while the whole wood did not comprise more than two hundred acres or so, there was a perfect network of trenches and apparently miles of barbed-wire entanglements, while machine guns were everywhere. It was only after the British succeeded in clearing out machine-gun positions on the north side, and enfiladed every advance, that they were able to get through the wood and to face at last the main German second position. This ran, as will have been noted, from PoziÈres through the Bazentins and Longueval to Guillemont. The capture of Contalmaison was a necessary preliminary to the next stage of the British advance. After the fall of this place Sir Douglas Haig issued a summary of the first of the gains made by the Allies since the beginning of the offensive:

"After ten days and nights of continuous fighting our troops have completed the methodical capture of the whole of the enemy's first system of defense on a front of 14,000 yards. This system of defense consisted of numerous and continuous lines of fire trenches, extending to various depths of from 2,000 to 4,000 yards and included five strongly fortified villages, numerous heavily wired and intrenched woods, and a large number of immensely strong redoubts. The capture of each of these trenches represented an operation of some importance, and the whole of them are now in our hands."

General Haig's summary of what had been accomplished in the first stage of the battle of the Somme was modest in its claims. The British had failed in the north from Thiepval to Gommecourt, but in the south they had cut their way through almost impregnable defenses and now occupied a strong position that promised well for the next offensive. At the close of the first phase of the battle the number of prisoners in the hands of the British had risen to 7,500. The French had captured 11,000. The vigor with which the offensive had been pushed by the Allies caused the Germans to bring forward the bulk of their reserves, but they were unable to check the advance and lost heavily.[Back to Contents]