the troops had to advance under cover of darkness for about 1,000 to 1,400 yards in order to line up below the crest. This operation was a severe test for the troops; most of them had no experience of anything but trench warfare, but they acquitted themselves most creditably and the attack, launched just before dawn on July 14, met with great success. The i8th Div. finally cleared Trones Wood. Longueval and the two Bazentins were carried, the former by the gth Div., the others by the 3rd and 7th Divs., while farther W. the 2ist Div. cleared Bazentin le Petit Wood, and more ground was gained on that flank by the ist and 34th Divs., though here the success was less complete.
For a time indeed even more substantial, almost decisive, results seemed within reach, for, after some counter-attacks on the British centre had been repulsed, it proved possible to push the yth Div. forward to the top of the ridge to occupy High Wood. But the divisions on the flanks could not get up level with this, and though all the next day the detachment in High Wood held its ground, the position was untenable and had to be evacuated on the evening of July 15. The Germans, indeed, realizing the critical nature of the situation, spared no efforts to stop the further progress of the British and developed a series of counter- attacks against which the captured positions were only main- tained with the greatest difficulty. Thus, though the attack had given the British the Bazentin Ridge on a front of 6,000 yards, and had incidentally led to the complete isolation and surrender (July 17) of Ovillers, which allowed a substantial advance to be made toward Pozieres, it was followed by a phase of the battle in which the Allied progress was disappointingly small and seemingly out of all proportion to the efforts made and to the casualties incurred.
Second Phase. The battles of July 1-12 and July 14-17 had left the Allies in a tactical situation not altogether ad- vantageous. The check to the British left centre had left the Germans in possession of Thiepval which with Pozieres about two miles S.E. of it presented serious obstacles to any progress towards the Ancre and threatened to enfilade any further ad- vance straight to the front. Pozieres must be mastered before the British centre could get forward. Even more important was it to improve the position round Longueval, where the advance of July 14 had created a sharp salient with its apex at Delville Wood, N.E. of the village. From this point the British line ran almost due S. to join the French at Maltzhorn Farm S.E. of Trones Wood, being continued thence S.W. of Maurepas to the Somme at Ham. It was imperative that the British right and the French troops N. of the Somme should make a substantial advance in order to reduce the sharpness of the salient at Delville Wood, a point which was extremely difficult to maintain, being subjected to a concentric artillery fire from the N. and E. as well as repeatedly counter-attacked. The wood had been cap- tured on July 15 by the S. African Brigade of the 9th Div., but had been promptly counter-attacked by the loth Bavarian Div. and then by the 7th and Sth Divs., picked troops all of them, and its possession continued in dispute for weeks. Longueval in like manner changed hands several times, the 2nd, 3rd, sth and i8th Divs. in addition to the gth being at one time and another en- gaged in the struggle for these key positions, the scenes of fight- ing as desperate as any in the long struggle of " the Somme."
And when at last Delville Wood had been cleared the task of debouching from its ruins presented great difficulties. In Ginchy and Guillemont, E. and S.E. of it, the enemy had positions of great strength, the fortifications of which formed a formidable support to their second system of trenches which ran S.E. by Maurepas towards the Somme. Maurepas proved a similar stumbling-block to the French; they reached it on July 30, but not till Aug. 24 was it completely in their hands, and they had to pay heavily for it. And behind Maurepas lay Le Forest with Rancourt and Fregicourt yet farther back.
The last week of July and all Aug. passed without any ad- vance like that of July 14. The Germans fought stubbornly and counter-attacked persistently and resolutely, while, as over- addiction to the use of the bomb had sadly reduced the standard of musketry of the British infantry, their counter-attacks escaped
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the punishment they would have received in 1914. It was a time of constant and desperate fighting, of small advances, of many repulses and disappointments. Guillemont in particular was attacked on July 23 and July 30, on August 8 and August 16, but without more success than the capture and retention of the railway station on the outskirts of the village. But despite all these checks the line crept forward: to a considerable extent on the French front where, during Aug., it got within assaulting distance of Combles, Le Forest and Clery, and nearly 3,000 prisoners were taken; to a smaller extent on the British right; to a rather larger extent in the British centre, where the 33rd Div. won a foothold in High Wood and the sth and 7th gained ground between that point and Longueval, while W. of High Wood a series of minor operations gradually advanced the British line up the crest. Farther to the left again, there was hard fighting by the troops of the Reserve or V. Army. This had been formed after July i by putting Sir Hubert Gough in command of the left wing of the IV. Army, in order to allow Sir Henry Rawlin- son to concentrate his attention on the attack to the E. of the Albert-Bapaume road. The capture of Pozieres was urgent as an indispensable preliminary to any advance over the watershed, and when this was accomplished (July 25) by the ist Australian Div., flanked by the 48th, an important gain had been secured. But the German resistance in this quarter was very determined, and though some progress was made towards Thi6pval from the Leipzig salient on the S. and from Pozieres, Mouquet Farm E. of Thiepval proved a stumbling-block. Bad weather, too, with much rain and frequent cloud which impeded aerial observa- tion of artillery fire, hampered the attackers, and the Germans, now thoroughly alive to the importance of holding up this advance, brought up fresh divisions with great rapidity. By the end of August five times as many German divisions as had been in the line on July i had been located on the British front. However, by Ludendorff's own admission, the strain on the Germans was tremendous; the need for constantly relieving exhausted divisions taxed their resources in men, artillery was so short that batteries were constantly kept in the line when their relief was due, the ammunition supply was beginning to cause anxiety, and worst of all, the resistance of the German infantry was weakening under the pressure of the Allied infantry attacks and of the Allied superiority in artillery and aircraft. The supersession of General von Falkenhayn as chief of the general staff by Field- Marshall von Hindenburg, with Ludendorff as his chief assistant (" First Quartermaster-General "), which took place on Aug. 27, may be in part attributed to the effects of the Somme, and was promptly followed by " the momentous order for the cessation of the offensive at Verdun." Pressed as they were on the Somme the Germans could no longer continue attacking elsewhere. If the immediate Allied gains on the Somme seemed small their offensive there had already relieved Verdun.
With September the second phase of the struggle was reaching its final stage. This took the shape of a general attack, extending almost as far as that on July i, even N. of the Ancre, where the V. Army once again assaulted Beaumont-Hamel. Most success fell to the French, who not only attacked and took Le Forest and Clery but attempted more S. of the Somme than on any occasion since the middle of July. Besides pressing on against the Berny- Vermandovillers line which they had then reached they extended their attack as far S. as Chaulnes, storming the old German front line on a front of three miles. Their success here, which brought over 7,000 prisoners with many guns, did not as immediately affect the fortunes of the main struggle as did the capture of Le Forest and Clery, which was a considerable help to the British right as well as threatening Combles and the Peronne-Bapaume line, where the Germans were already busy on a rearward system of defences; still, it increased the area on which the Germans had to keep on the alert, and it was a great encouragement to the French, so lately strained to the utmost to retain Verdun, to be recovering more territory from the German grip.
To the British, Sept. 3 was a day of more qualified success. Once again the Beaumont-Hamel position proved impregnable, the efforts of the 49th Div. against Thiepval met with no success,
