The British Campaign in France and Flanders—July to November, 1918 — John Shaqi
The British Campaign in France and Flanders—July to November, 1918Doyle, Arthur Conan
History
The British Campaign in France and Flanders—July to November, 1918
Doyle, Arthur Conan
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front
The task of the two relieving divisions, the Fourth on the left and
the Fifth on the right, was rather more difficult, as the Germans had
begun to rally and the fog to lift. The Fourth Australians on the
south bank of the Somme were especially troubled, as it soon became
evident that the British attack on the north bank had been held up,
with the result that the German guns on Chipilly Spur were all free
to fire across from their high position upon the Australians in the
plain to the south. Tank after tank and gun after gun were knocked
out by direct hits, but the infantry was not to be stopped and
continued to skirmish forward as best they might under so deadly a
fire, finishing by the capture of Cerisy and of Morcourt. The Fifth
Division on the right, with the 8th and 15th Brigades in front, made
an equally fine advance, covering a good stretch of ground.
Having considered the Canadians and the Australians, we turn now to
the Third Corps on the north of the line. They were extended from
Morlancourt to the north bank of the Somme, which is a broad
canalised river over all this portion of its course. On the right
was the Fifty-eighth London Division (Ramsay), with Lee's Eighteenth
Division to the north of it, extending close to the Ancre, where
Higginson's {32} Twelfth Division lay astride of that marshy stream.
North of this again was the Forty-seventh Division (Gorringe),
together with a brigade of the Thirty-third American Division. Two
days before the great advance, on August 6, the Twenty-seventh
Wurtemburg Division had made a sudden strong local attack astride of
the Bray-Corbie Road, and had driven in the Eighteenth Divisional
front, taking some hundreds of prisoners, though the British
counter-attack regained most of the lost ground on the same and the
following days. This unexpected episode somewhat deranged the
details of the great attack, but the Eighteenth played its part
manfully none the less, substituting the 36th Brigade of the Twelfth
Division for the 54th Brigade, which had been considerably knocked
about. None of the British prisoners taken seem to have given away
the news of the coming advance, but it is probable that the sudden
attack of the Wurtemburgers showed that it was suspected, and was
intended to anticipate and to derange it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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