in a more prolonged and fearful grapple. It should not be forgotten in our military annals that though the 99th Brigade actually captured the wood, their work would have been impossible had it not been for the fine advance of the 95th Brigade of the Fifth Division already recorded upon their Longueval flank. We shall now turn our attention to what had been going on in the extreme right-hand part of the line, where in conjunction with the French three of our divisions, the 55th Lancashire Territorials, the 35th Bantams, and the hard-worked 30th, had been attacking with no great success the strong German line which lay in front of us after the capture of Trones Wood. The centre of this defence was the village of Guillemont, which, as already mentioned, had been unsuccessfully attacked by the 21st Brigade upon July 23. About this date the Thirty-sixth Bantam Division had a repulse at the Malzhorn Farm {184} to the south of Guillemont, both the 104th and 105th Brigades being hard hit, and many of the brave little men being left in front of the German machine-guns. A week later a much more elaborate attack was made upon it by the rest of the Thirtieth Division, strengthened by one brigade (the 106th) of the Thirty-fifth Division. This attack was carried out in co-operation with an advance of the Second Division upon Guillemont Station to the left of the village, and an advance of the French upon the right at Falfemont and Malzhorn. The frontal advance upon Guillemont from the Trones Wood direction appears to have been about as difficult an operation as could be conceived in modern warfare. Everything helped the defence and nothing the attack. The approach was a glacis 700 yards in width, which was absolutely commanded by the guns in the village, and also by those placed obliquely to north and south. There was no cover of any kind. Prudence would no doubt have suggested that we should make good in the north at Longueval and thus outflank the whole German line of defence. It was essential, however, to fit our plans in with those of the French, and it was understood that those were such as to demand a very special, and if needs be, a self-immolating effort upon the right of the line. The attack had been arranged for the morning of July 30, and it was carried out in spite of the fact that during the first few hours the fog was so dense that it was hard to see more than a few yards. This made the keeping of direction across so broad a space as 700 yards very difficult; while on the right, where the advance was for more than a mile and had to be co-ordinated with the troops of our Allies, it was so {185} complex a matter that there was considerable danger at one time that the fight in this quarter would resolve itself into a duel between the right of the British Thirtieth and the left of the French Thirty-ninth Division.