A Short History of the Great WarPollard, A. F. (Albert Frederick)
History
A Short History of the Great War
Pollard, A. F. (Albert Frederick)
World War, 1914-1918
The rest of the Somme campaign was an affair of local details until
Gough's Fifth Army intervened on a larger scale. Eaucourt l'Abbaye was
taken on 1 October, lost on the 2nd, and retaken on the 3rd. Le Sars
was captured on the 7th, the Stuff and Regina redoubts, between it and
Thiepval, on the 21st; and progress was made north towards the Butte
de Warlencourt and north-east towards Le Transloy. The French captured
Sailly and Saillisel to the east of Morval and pushed far into the St.
Pierre Vaast wood and towards Moislains, while south of the Somme they
took Ablaincourt, Le Pressoir, Fresnes, Villers-Carbonnel, and
Barleux, and seized the west bank of the river opposite Eterpigny
above Péronne. On 9 November the weather improved, and though the
October rains had made transport almost impossible across the mangled
soil of the battlefield on the Somme, the conditions were not so bad
north of Thiepval, where our advance had been stayed on 1 July. The
situation at Beaumont-Hamel was also changed for the better by the
fact that the German stronghold was now a pronounced salient enfiladed
by our fire from the captured Hohenzollern, Schwaben, Stuff, and
Regina redoubts. But that advantage was less felt farther north at
Serre, and there the left wing of our attack on 13 November was no
more successful than it had been on 1 July. Better fortune attended
our effort between Serre and Beaumont-Hamel, but the farthest advance
of the day was that of a New Army division on the extreme right of the
attacking line. St. Pierre Divion fell almost at once, and our troops
advanced on the southern heights of the Ancre to the Hansa trench
half-way to Grandcourt.
The task of the centre was to take the fortress of Beaumont-Hamel,
including the forked ravine to the south which required a prolonged
and desperate struggle. The work was done by Highland Territorials
before the early November sunset; and meanwhile the Naval Division on
their right drove the Germans out of their first two lines on the
northern bank of the Ancre towards Beaucourt. One battalion penetrated
almost to the village, but was held up in a perilous position owing to
the resistance of a strong German redoubt on its flank and almost in
its rear. It stood its ground throughout the day, and at night the
surrender of the German redoubt to a couple of tanks opened the way
for a general attack on Beaucourt on the 14th. It was stormed by the
battalion which had been waiting outside it since the previous
morning. German counter-attacks on the 15th were repulsed, and on the
17th a further advance was made to the Bois d'Hollande north of
Grandcourt, while Canadians from the Regina trench established
themselves near its western outskirts. Another avenue towards Bapaume
had been opened up, but winter postponed any further advance, and the
Somme campaign had come to an end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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