World's War Events, Vol. II

(iii.) To wear down the strength of the forces opposed to us.

[Sidenote: Enemy attempts at interference.]

While my final preparations were in progress the enemy made two unsuccessful attempts to interfere with my arrangements. The first, directed on May 21, 1916, against our positions on the Vimy Ridge, south and southeast of Souchez, resulted in a small enemy gain of no strategic or tactical importance; and rather than weaken my offensive by involving additional troops in the task of recovering the lost ground, I decided to consolidate a position in rear of our original line.

[Sidenote: A position lost and retaken.]

The second enemy attack was delivered on June 2, 1916, on a front of over one and a half miles from Mount Sorrell to Hooge, and succeeded in penetrating to a maximum depth of 700 yards. As the southern part of the lost position commanded our trenches, I judged it necessary to recover it, and by an attack launched on June 13, 1916, carefully prepared and well executed, this was successfully accomplished by the troops on the spot.

Neither of these enemy attacks succeeded in delaying the preparations for the major operations which I had in view.

These preparations were necessarily very elaborate and took considerable time.

[Sidenote: Vast stores accumulated.]

[Sidenote: Shelter and communication facilities prepared.]

Vast stocks of ammunition and stores of all kinds had to be accumulated beforehand within a convenient distance of our front. To deal with these many miles of new railways--both standard and narrow gauge--and trench tramways were laid. All available roads were improved, many others were made, and long causeways were built over marshy valleys. Many additional dugouts had to be provided as shelter for the troops, for use as dressing stations for the wounded, and as magazines for storing ammunition, food, water, and engineering material. Scores of miles of deep communication trenches had to be dug, as well as trenches for telephone wires, assembly and assault trenches, and numerous gun emplacements and observation posts.

[Sidenote: Mining operations.]

Important mining operations were undertaken, and charges were laid at various points beneath the enemy's lines.

[Sidenote: Water supply insured.]

Except in the river valleys, the existing supplies of water were hopelessly insufficient to meet the requirements of the numbers of men and horses to be concentrated in this area as the preparations for our offensive proceeded. To meet this difficulty many wells and borings were sunk, and over one hundred pumping plants were installed. More than one hundred and twenty miles of water mains were laid, and everything was got ready to insure an adequate water supply as our troops advanced.

[Sidenote: Spirit of the troops.]

Much of this preparatory work had to be done under very trying conditions, and was liable to constant interruption from the enemy's fire. The weather, on the whole, was bad, and the local accommodations totally insufficient for housing the troops employed, who consequently had to content themselves with such rough shelter as could be provided in the circumstances. All this labor, too, had to be carried out in addition to fighting and to the everyday work of maintaining existing defenses. It threw a very heavy strain on the troops, which was borne by them with a cheerfulness beyond all praise.

[Sidenote: Formidable enemy position on the Somme and the Ancre.]

The enemy's position to be attacked was of a very formidable character, situated on a high, undulating tract of ground, which rises to more than 500 feet above sea level, and forms the watershed between the Somme on the one side and the rivers of Southwestern Belgium on the other. On the southern face of this watershed, the general trend of which is from east-southeast to west-northwest, the ground falls in a series of long irregular spurs and deep depressions to the valley of the Somme. Well down the forward slopes of this face the enemy's first system of defense, starting from the Somme near Curlu, ran at first northward for 3,000 yards, then westward for 7,000 yards to near Fricourt, where it turned nearly due north, forming a great salient angle in the enemy's lines.

Some 10,000 yards north of Fricourt the trenches crossed the River Ancre, a tributary of the Somme, and, still running northward, passed over the summit of the watershed, about Hebuterne and Gommecourt, and then down its northern spurs to Arras.

On the 20,000-yard front between the Somme and the Ancre the enemy had a strong second system of defense, sited generally on or near the southern crest of the highest part of the watershed, at an average distance of from 3,000 to 5,000 yards behind his first system of trenches.

[Sidenote: German methods of making position impregnable.]

During nearly two years' preparation he had spared no pains to render these defenses impregnable. The first and second systems each consisted of several lines of deep trenches, well provided with bomb-proof shelters and with numerous communication trenches connecting them. The front of the trenches in each system was protected by wire entanglements, many of them in two belts forty yards broad, built of iron stakes interlaced with barbed wire, often almost as thick as a man's finger.

[Sidenote: Veritable fortresses.]

[Sidenote: Machine-gun emplacements.]

The numerous woods and villages in and between these systems of defense had been turned into veritable fortresses. The deep cellars, usually to be found in the villages, and the numerous pits and quarries common to a chalk country were used to provide cover for machine guns and trench mortars. The existing cellars were supplemented by elaborate dugouts, sometimes in two stories, and these were connected up by passages as much as thirty feet below the surface of the ground. The salients in the enemy's lines, from which he could bring enfilade fire across his front, were made into self-contained forts, and often protected by mine fields, while strong redoubts and concrete machine-gun emplacements had been constructed in positions from which he could sweep his own trenches should these be taken. The ground lent itself to good artillery observation on the enemy's part, and he had skillfully arranged for cross-fire by his guns.

[Sidenote: A composite system of great strength.]

These various systems of defense, with the fortified localities and other supporting points between them, were cunningly sited to afford each other mutual assistance and to admit of the utmost possible development of enfilade and flanking fire by machine guns and artillery. They formed, in short, not merely a series of successive lines, but one composite system of enormous depth and strength.

[Sidenote: Many lines prepared in the rear.]

Behind this second system of trenches, in addition to woods, villages, and other strong points prepared for defense, the enemy had several other lines already completed; and we had learned from aeroplane reconnoisance that he was hard at work improving and strengthening these and digging fresh ones between them and still further back.

In the area above described, between the Somme and the Ancre, our front-line trenches ran parallel and close to those of the enemy, but below them. We had good direct observation on his front system of trenches and on the various defenses sited on the slopes above us between his first and second systems; but the second system itself, in many places, could not be observed from the ground in our possession, while, except from the air, nothing could be seen of his more distant defenses.

[Sidenote: The lines of the Allies.]

North of the Ancre, where the opposing trenches ran transversely across the main ridge, the enemy's defenses were equally elaborate and formidable. So far as command of ground was concerned we were here practically on level terms, but, partly as a result of this, our direct observation over the ground held by the enemy was not so good as it was further south. On portions of this front the opposing first-line trenches were more widely separated from each other, while in the valleys to the north were many hidden gun positions from which the enemy could develop flanking fire on our troops as they advanced across the open.

[Sidenote: Period of active operations.]

The period of active operations dealt with in this dispatch divides itself roughly into three phases. The first phase opened with the attack of July 1, 1916, the success of which evidently came as a surprise to the enemy and caused considerable confusion and disorganization in his ranks.

The advantages gained on that date and developed during the first half of July may be regarded as having been rounded off by the operations of July 14, 1916, and three following days, which gave us possession of the southern crest of the main plateau between Delville Wood and Bazentin-le-Petit.

[Sidenote: The enemy's efforts to hold the ridge.]

We then entered upon a contest lasting for many weeks, during which the enemy, having found his strongest defenses unavailing, and now fully alive to his danger, put forth his utmost efforts to keep his hold of the main ridge. This stage of the battle constituted a prolonged and severe struggle for mastery between the contending armies, in which, although progress was slow and difficult, the confidence of our troops in their ability to win was never shaken. Their tenacity and determination proved more than equal to their task, and by the first week in September they had established a fighting superiority that has left its mark on the enemy, of which possession of the ridge was merely the visible proof.

[Sidenote: The plateau gained.]

[Sidenote: Successes of the French south of the Somme]

The way was then opened for the third phase, in which our advance was pushed down the forward slopes of the ridge and further extended on both flanks until, from Morval to Thiepval, the whole plateau and a good deal of ground beyond were in our possession. Meanwhile our gallant allies, in addition to great successes south of the Somme, had pushed their advance, against equally determined opposition and under most difficult tactical conditions, up the long slopes on our immediate right, and were now preparing to drive the enemy from the summit of the narrow and difficult portion of the main ridge which lies between the Combles Valley and the River Tortille, a stream flowing from the north into the Somme just below Peronne.