World War I - 9 Book Collection: Nelson's History of the War, The Battle of Jutland & The Battle of the Somme. Buchan John
and brilliant and brave, he is now part of that immortal England which knows not age or weariness or defeat.
THE BATTLE OF SEPTEMBER 25th AND 26th.
Meanwhile the French had not been idle. On Wednesday, September 13th, two days before the British advance, Fayolle carried Bouchavesnes east of the Bapaume-Peronne road, taking over two thousand prisoners. He was now not three miles from the vital position of Mont St. Quentin—the key of Peronne—facing it across the little valley of the Tortille. Next day the French had the farm of Le Priez, south-east of Combles, and on the afternoon on Sunday, the 17th, south of the Somme their right wing carried the remainder of Vermandovillers and Berny, and the intervening ground around Deniecourt. The following day Deniecourt, with its strongly-fortified park, was captured. This gave them the whole of the Berny-Deniecourt plateau, commanding the lower plateau where stood the villages of Ablaincourt and Pressoire, and menaced Barleux—the pivot of enemy resistance south of the river.
For the next week there was a lull in the main operations while the hammer was swung back for another blow. On the 16th the 45th German Reserve Division counter-attacked the Canadians at Courcelette, and the 6th Bavarian Division, newly arrived, struck at the New Zealanders at Flers. Both failed, and south of Combles the fresh troops of the German 18th Corps succeeded no better against the French. The most vigorous counter-strokes were those which the Canadians received, and which were repeated daily for nearly a week. Meantime, on Monday, the 18th, the Quadrilateral was carried—carried by the Regular Division which had been blocked by it three days before. It was not won without a heavy fight at close quarters, for the garrison resisted stoutly, but we closed in on it from all sides, and by the evening had pushed our front five hundred yards beyond it to the hollow before Morval.
The week was dull and cloudy, and from the Monday to the Wednesday it rained without ceasing. But by the Friday it had cleared, though the mornings were now thick with autumn haze, and we were able once more to get that direct observation and aerial reconnaissance which is an indispensable preliminary to a great attack. On Sunday, the 24th, our batteries opened again, this time against the uncaptured points in the German third line like Morval and Lesboeufs, against intermediate positions like Gueudecourt, and especially against Thiepval—which we now commanded from the east. On that day, too, our aircraft destroyed six enemy machines and drove three more to earth. The plan was for an attack by the Fourth Army on Monday, the 25th, with—on its left wing—small local objectives; but, on the right and centre, aiming at completing the captures which had been the ultimate objectives of the advance of the 15th. The following day the right wing of the Fifth Army would come into action, and it was hoped that from Thiepval to Combles the enemy would be driven back to his fourth line of defence, and our own front pushed up well within assaulting distance.
The hour of attack on the 25th was fixed at thirty-five minutes after noon. It was bright, cloudless weather, but the heat of the sun had lost its summer strength. That day saw an advance the most perfect yet made in any stage of the battle, for in almost every part of the field we won what we sought. The extreme left of the Third Corps was held up north of Courcelette, but its remaining two Divisions carried out the tasks assigned to them. So did the centre and left Divisions of the Fifteenth Corps, while part of the right Division managed to penetrate into Gueudecourt, but was compelled to retire owing to the supporting Brigade on its flank being checked by uncut wire. The Fourteenth Corps succeeded everywhere. The Guards, eager to avenge their sufferings of the week before, despite the heavy losses on their left, swept irresistibly upon Lesboeufs. South of them a Regular Division took Morval—the village on the height north of Combles which, with its subterranean quarries and elaborate trench system, was a most formidable stronghold. The London Territorials on their right formed a defensive flank facing south at Bouleaux Wood. Combles was now fairly between the pincers. It might have fallen that day, but the French attack on Fregicourt failed, though they carried the village of Rancourt on the Bapaume-Peronne road.
By the evening of the 25th the British had stormed an enemy front of six miles between Combles and Martinpuich to a depth of more than a mile. The fall of Morval gave them the last piece of uncaptured high ground on that backbone of ridge which runs from Thiepval through High Wood and Ginchy. The next day we reaped in full the fruit of these successes. The Division of the New Army which had entered Gueudecourt the day before, but had failed to maintain their ground, now captured the famous Gird Trench, assisted by a tank and an aeroplane—which attacked the enemy with machine-gun fire—and by the afternoon had the village in their hands. This Division was one which had suffered disaster at Loos a year before on that very day, and had, since the beginning of the Somme battle, shown that there is no more formidable antagonist than a British unit which has a score to pay off. It had already played a large part in the capture of Fricourt; it had cleared Mametz Wood, and it had taken Bazentin le Petit Wood on July 14th. It now crowned a brilliant record by the capture of Gueudecourt and an advance to within a mile of the German fourth position.
That day, too, the French took Frégieourt, and Combles1 fell. The enemy had evacuated it, and though great stores of material were taken in its catacombs, the number of prisoners was small.
Meantime, on the British left the success was not less conspicuous. Two Divisions of the New Army, advancing under the cover of our artillery barrage, had carried Thiepval, the north-west corner of Mouquet Farm and the Zollern Redoubt on the eastern crest. The German pivot had gone, the pivot which they had believed impregnable. So skilful was our barrage that our men were over the German parapets and into the dug-outs before machine-guns could be got up to repel them. Here the prisoners were numerous, for the attack was in the nature of a surprise.
On the evening of September 26th the Allied fortunes in the West had never looked brighter. The enemy was now on his fourth line, without the benefit of the high ground, and there was no chance of retrieving his disadvantages by observation from the air. Since July 1st the British alone had taken over twenty-six thousand prisoners, and had engaged thirty-eight German Divisions, the flower of the Army, of which twenty-nine had been withdrawn exhausted and broken. The enemy had been compelled to use up his reserves in repeated costly and futile counter-attacks without compelling the Allies to relax for one moment their steady and methodical pressure. Every part of the Armies of France and Britain had done gloriously, and the new Divisions had shown the courage and discipline of veterans. A hundred captured documents showed that the German moral had been shaken and that the German machine was falling badly out of gear. In normal seasons at least another month of fine weather might be reasonably counted on, and in that month further blows might be struck with cumulative force. In France they spoke of a “Picardy summer”— of fair bright days at the end of autumn when the ground was dry and the air of a crystal clearness. A fortnight of such days would suffice for a crowning achievement.
The hope was destined to fail. The guns were scarcely silent after the great attack of the 26th when the weather broke, and October was one long succession of tempestuous gales and drenching rains.
1. The French 1st Corps entered the line north of the Somme on August 23rd. At the end of six weeks, when they were relieved, they had taken the remainder of Maurepas, and the villages of Le Forest, Bouchavesnes, Rancourt, Frégieourt, and Combles, together with 4,000 prisoners, 23 guns, and 70 machine-guns. They believed that they had inflicted at least 40,000 casualties on the enemy. They had the satisfaction of breaking up two Divisions of the Prussian Guard, and of advancing two miles on a front of six. The 1st Corps was drawn from north-west France, largely from districts like Lille, Arras, and Roubaix, which had suffered most from the enemy.
CHAPTER II.
THE OCTOBER FIGHTING
To understand the difficulties which untoward weather imposed on the Allied advance, it is necessary to grasp the nature of the fifty square miles of tortured ground which three months’ fighting had given them, and over which lay the communications between