More severe and continuous fighting took place between the Oise and the Scarpe during the development of the opposed northern wings in the " Race to the Sea."
Of this the battles of Lassigny, Roye, and Albert, which led up to and even into, the battle of Arras (see ARTOIS, BATTLES IN) formed the first phase.
In each locality or area the effort of each side to hold the other frontally, while outflanking him to the N., produced an ever-extending frontal battle that, after see-sawing to and fro, produced the line of stabilization characteristic of the trench war- fare period.
In 1915 the line of stabilization between the Oise and the Scarpe was relatively quiet. And apart from a combat in Jan. 1916, in which the French lost possession of Frise, the line, as it was left at the close of the " Race to the Sea " in 1914, was the starting line of the great offensive of July i 1916.
I. BATTLES OF JULY-NOVEMBER 1916
The four months and a half of almost continuous fighting which began with the great attack of July i 1916 mark a turning- point in the World War in more than one respect. With July i 1916 began that period of sustained and systematic Allied pressure upon the enemy which, though interrupted in the spring and early summer of 1918 by the desperate German counter- offensive, in the end wore his resistance down. Before July 1916 the Allied offensives had been relatively brief interludes in a long period of stalemate; from that date onwards it was the periods when active operations were in abeyance which formed the interludes. Further it is clear even from the grudging ad- missions of the German commanders that this great struggle materially affected the strategical situation as no earlier Allied offensive had, that the strain which the maintenance of their defence imposed on the resources and the moral of the German armies exercised an important influence on the course of the struggle. The actual gains of ground made by the Allies between July i-Nov. 19 1916 were not large, but in making them they established a moral ascendancy over their enemy and brought home to the Germans the probability of defeat. And in this struggle the British army had for the first time to bear the major part: the French who fought on Sir Douglas Haig's right with so much gallantry and efficiency played a part of the greatest importance in the battle, but one as distinctly subordinate to the efforts of the British as the British attacks in May and Sept. 1915 had been to those of the French.
To speak, as is the common habit, of "the battle of the Somme" in 1916 is to fall into a natural but serious error. The operations were a series of great battles, each surpassing all those of pre- vious wars in magnitude and intensity, parts of a common whole but still definite and separate operations for distinct purposes. It is possible to distinguish four main phases in the operations: first the winning of a position on the southern edge of the main plateau between the Somme and the Ancre, a matter of three weeks' hard fighting, embracing two attacks on a large scale and many lesser intermediate operations; in the second phase, which lasted till the middle of Sept., nearly two months, the operation took the shape of a contest for this main ridge and for the extension of the footing which the Allies had gained upon it so as to enable them to develop their offensive on both flanks as well as straight to their front; in the third phase the Allies pushed forward across the ridge and down its farther side, only to have their progress arrested by the persistent bad weather which set in about the beginning of Oct. and prevented any- thing like a general attack upon the rearward system of defences which covered Bapaume and Peronne; the fourth phase of the operations, extending from the beginning of Oct. till Nov. 18, saw a series of smaller efforts against particular points and strong- holds, culminating in a bigger attack on Nov. 13 astride the Ancre which completed the reduction of the main ridge and captured ground of vital importance on the right bank of the Ancre. But the main rearward system was not penetrated, thanks largely to the mud which hampered every movement of the attackers and made the performance of the normal adminis-
trative services for the troops in the advanced position a task of the greatest difficulty. The devastating effects of the repeated bombardments made themselves felt over the whole area: houses and whole villages were reduced to ruins; woods were represented by a few shattered stumps and a tangle of broken trunks and branches; roads were rendered impassable till the battlefield became a dreary wilderness of mud and water-logged shell craters. To maintain trenches in defensible condition was all but impossible, to consolidate a captured position, difficult even in dry weather, became practically out of the question. The middle of Nov., therefore, saw active operations broken off and two months elapsed before anything more than quite minor operations became possible. The operations during the two months which preceded the German withdrawal to the Hinden- burg line, including as they did a systematic advance up both ' banks of the Ancre on Bapaume, were essentially the contin- uation and completion of those of the last phase of the opera- tions of the autumn, and it would be not unreasonable to treat them as yet another stage of " the Somme." They had brought the British practically within striking^ distance of the last line which covered Bapaume and Peronne when in the middle of March the German retreat anticipated its enforced evacuation.
First Phase. The German positions astride the Somme and Ancre attacked on July i 1916 were strong by nature and had been made doubly formidable by every device known to the military engineer. Their line represented the positions taken up in Oct. 1914 by the German VI. Army in the course of that " Race to the Sea " which culminated in the desperate fighting of Oct. and Nov. 1914 for Ypres and the Yser. The line then established had remained substantially unchanged, for neither side had since then attempted any operations of importance in this quarter where the British III. Army had relieved the French in front of Albert in July 1915- Hence the Germans had had ample time to develop their defences to the highest degree: villages and woods had become fortresses; two elaborate trench systems, each comprising several lines, had been dug, the second from two to three miles in rear of the first, " switches " com- munication trenches connected them up and greatly complicated the task of the attacker who should happen to penetrate any part of the front. Deep dug-outs, to the construction of which the chalk country lent itself admirably, gave shelter to the trench garrisons during bombardments; deep belts of barbed wire protected the different trenches, and most careful and skill- ful arrangements had been made for enfilade and supporting fire from numerous machine-guns; positions of special tactical value had been secured by formidable redoubts, while a well-placed and ample artillery was ready to support the defenders. More- over, the advantage of the ground lay with the Germans, whose facilities for observation were excellent.
The frontage selected for the attack extended from just N. of Lihons on the extreme right to the Somme at Curlu, a distance of about nine miles, crossed the Somme and ran as before from N. and S. to Maricourt, another 3,000 yards. Here the French front ended, and the line turned sharply and ran W. for 7,000 yards. Here it turned N. again, making a sharp salient at the village of Fricourt. Thence to the Ancre, approximately 10,000 yards, the line ran over several spurs which jut S.W. from the ridge which formed the backbone of the German position. This ridge runs roughly N.W. from Peronne, dividing the valley of the Somme from the basins of the Scarpe and Scheldt. After crossing the Ancre the German line continued in a generally N. direction in front of Beaumont-Hamel and Serre, this last village forming the N. end of the front to be attacked, though a couple of miles farther N. a subsidiary attack was to be made against the pronounced salient at Gommecourt. The total frontage was over 25 miles, exclusive of the Gommecourt operations.
Against this frontage the British had available the five army corps of Sir Henry Rawlinson's IV. Army, which put into the front line eleven divisions keeping another nine in reserve, while two divisions of the III. Army (Sir E. Allenby) were to be em- ployed against Gommecourt. On the German side some six divisions were holding the line to be attacked by the British.
