Produced by Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) * * * * * +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * ATTACK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO . DALLAS ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO ATTACK AN INFANTRY SUBALTERN'S IMPRESSIONS OF JULY 1ST, 1916 BY EDWARD G.D. LIVEING WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN MASEFIELD New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1918 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1918 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published, April, 1918 TO THE N.C.O.s AND MEN OF No. 5 PLATOON Of a Battalion of the County of London Regiment, whom I had the good fortune to command in France during 1915-1916, and in particular to the memory of RFN. C.N. DENNISON My Platoon Observer, who fell in action July 1st, 1916, in an attempt to save my life INTRODUCTION The attack on the fortified village of Gommecourt, which Mr. Liveing describes in these pages with such power and colour, was a part of the first great allied attack on July 1, 1916, which began the battle of the Somme. That battle, so far as it concerns our own troops, may be divided into two sectors: one, to the south of the Ancre River, a sector of advance, the other, to the north of the Ancre River, a containing sector, in which no advance was possible. Gommecourt itself, which made a slight but important salient in the enemy line in the containing sector, was the most northern point attacked in that first day's fighting. Though the Gommecourt position is not impressive to look at, most of our soldiers are agreed that it was one of the very strongest points in the enemy's fortified line on the Western Front. French and Russian officers, who have seen it since the enemy left it, have described it as "terrible" and as "the very devil." There can be no doubt that it was all that they say.