Battle of Thiepval Ridge - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Battle of Thiepval Ridge was the first large offensive mounted by the British Reserve Army

British Reserve Army

The Reserve Army was a field army of the British Army during World War I and part of the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War...

of Lieutenant General

Lieutenant General

Lieutenant General is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages where the title of Lieutenant General was held by the second in command on the battlefield, who was normally subordinate to a Captain General....

Hubert Gough

General Sir Hubert de la Poer Gough GCB, GCMG, KCVO was a senior officer in the British Army, who commanded the British Fifth Army from 1916 to 1918 during the First World War.-Family background:...

during the Battle of the Somme

Battle of the Somme (1916)

The Battle of the Somme , also known as the Somme Offensive, took place during the First World War between 1 July and 14 November 1916 in the Somme department of France, on both banks of the river of the same name...

and was designed to benefit from British Fourth Army

British Fourth Army

The Fourth Army was a field army that formed part of the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War. The Fourth Army was formed on 5 February 1916 under the command of General Sir Henry Rawlinson to carry out the main British contribution to the Battle of the Somme.-History:The Fourth...

's Battle of Morval

Battle of Morval

The Battle of Morval, which began on 25 September 1916, was an attack by the British Fourth Army on the German-held villages of Morval, Gueudecourt and Lesboeufs during the Battle of the Somme. These villages were originally objectives of the major British offensive of 15 September, the Battle of...

by starting 24 hours afterwards. Thiepval

Thiepval

The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is a major war memorial to 72,191 missing British and South African men who died in the Battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918 who have no known grave...

itself was a village on a spur dominating the Ancre

Ancre

The Ancre is a river of Picardy, France. Rising at Miraumont, a hamlet near the town of Albert, it flows into the Somme at Corbie. It crosses no départements other than the Somme.-See also:* Battle of the Ancre Heights...

valley, although the actual front for the Battle extended from the Schwaben Redoubt

Schwaben Redoubt

The Schwaben Redoubt lies between the Thiepval Memorial and the Ulster tower. It was a German strongpoint on the western front in the First World War. Consisting of a mass of gun emplacements, trenches and tunnels, this warren of defensive works helped anchor the German line on the Somme until late...

to Courcelette

Courcelette

Courcelette is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Geography:Courcelette is situated on the D929 and D107 crossroads, some northeast of Amiens.-History:...

.

The objective laid out by British Commander Douglas Haig was to push the Germans off of the high ground of the Thiepval Ridge including the heavily fortified Stuff, Zollern and Schwaben

Schwaben Redoubt

redoubt

Redoubt

A redoubt is a fort or fort system usually consisting of an enclosed defensive emplacement outside a larger fort, usually relying on earthworks, though others are constructed of stone or brick. It is meant to protect soldiers outside the main defensive line and can be a permanent structure or a...

s. The Thiepval attack was then to be followed up with an attack up both banks of the Ancre River to ultimately create an unfavourable salient position for the Germans to the north of the attack zone.http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_thiepval_ridge.html The battle was to be waged by four divisions made up from the British II Corps under the command of Lieutenant General C.W. Jacob and the Canadian Corps commanded by Lieutenant-General J.H.G. Byng. It was anticipated that II corps would have to handle the toughest of the fighting as the Germans they faced were still defended by their well-established and by then repaired original trench defenses that the Germans had built before the July 1st beginning of the battle of the Somme and held throughout the battle to that point. As a result, II Corps was supported by six of the eight available tanks and the lion's share of the 230 heavy guns and howitzers and 570 field guns and howitzers delegated for the attack.

Following three days of intense bombardment by the 800 assembled artillery pieces the infantry attack began at 12:35pm on 26 September 1916 with the four assault divisions attacking along a 6,000 yard front. On the extreme right, following up on their success in taking the fortified village of Courcelette in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette

Battle of Flers-Courcelette

The Battle of Flers-Courcelette, was a battle within the Franco-British Somme Offensive which took place in the summer and autumn of 1916. Launched on the 15th of September 1916 the battle went on for one week. Flers-Courcelette began with the overall objective of cutting a hole in the German...

, the Canadian 1st and 2nd divisions (and later the 3rd), shielded by a creeping barrage, attacked to the north and northwest of their positions at Courcelette and were successful in achieving limited objectives in wresting the base of the ridge from German control. However, they fell short of taking their ultimate objective, Regina Trench

Regina Trench

The Regina Trench was a German trench dug into the top of the slope of a valley running from northwest of the village of Le Sars in a southwest direction almost to the German fortifications at Thiepval on the Somme Battlefield...

, which would withstand a series of attacks by the Canadian Corps until mid-November, costing the Canadians thousands of casualties.

To their left, the adjoining 11th (Northern) Division

British 11th (Northern) Division

The British 11th Division, was one of the Kitchener's Army divisions raised from volunteers by Lord Kitchener, it fought at Gallipoli and the Western Front during the First World War...

, attacking northwards, quickly overran the unrecognisable rubble that was Mouquet Farm, but experienced the utmost difficulty subduing its surviving defenders. The eventual surrender of the depleted garrison allowed 11th Division to move against Zollern Redoubt but severe casualties slowed progress and by evening the attackers had stalled at its edge. This redoubt had been attacked without success in August and September by Australian

First Australian Imperial Force

The First Australian Imperial Force was the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army during World War I. It was formed from 15 August 1914, following Britain's declaration of war on Germany. Generally known at the time as the AIF, it is today referred to as the 1st AIF to distinguish from...

, and later Canadian

Canadian Expeditionary Force

The Canadian Expeditionary Force was the designation of the field force created by Canada for service overseas in the First World War. Units of the C.E.F. were divided into field formation in France, where they were organized first into separate divisions and later joined together into a single...

, divisions.

18th Division’s systematic uphill advance on Thiepval met with early success, but enemy resistance stiffened and the push through to the village was halted by machine-gun fire near the ruined chateau. A tank crucially intervened and by 2.30pm, after much hard close-quarter fighting, the greater part of Thiepval was secured; it was fully cleared early next morning. During the afternoon, following the evacuation of Zollern Redoubt, 11th Division stormed Stuff Redoubt and gained precarious hold of its southern edge.

Day two of the battle saw the capture of the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

fortress of Thiepval

Thiepval

by Major-General Maxse’s 18th Division. Thiepval village had been an objective on 1 July 1916, the first day on the Somme

First day on the Somme

The first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916, was the opening day of the Battle of Albert, which was the first phase of the British and French offensive that became known as the Battle of the Somme...

, and had repeatedly defied British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

attempts to capture it. The 18th Division had performed well at Montauban on 1 July and had since been honed by its talented commander, Major General Ivor Maxse

Ivor Maxse

General Sir Ivor Maxse, KCB, CVO, DSO, was a World War I general, best known for his innovative and effective training methods.-Early life:Maxse was educated at Mr...

. His division was able to attack directly along the ridge from the south, because the German position to the east of Thiepval had been weakened by the assault on Mouquet Farm.

Successful British operations concluded on 28 September with the capture of the Schwaben Redoubt

Schwaben Redoubt

, north of Thiepval, another first day objective that had been the site of fierce fighting by the 36th (Ulster) Division

British 36th (Ulster) Division

The 36th Division was a division of Lord Kitchener's New Army formed in September 1914. Originally called the Ulster Division, it was made up of members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, who formed thirteen additional battalions for three existing regiments: the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Royal Irish...

. General Gough was keen to continue the pressure on the German defences and so the fighting entered a new attritional phase, known as the Battle of the Ancre Heights

Battle of the Ancre Heights

The Battle of the Ancre Heights was a prolonged battle of attrition in October 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Lieutenant General Hubert Gough's Reserve Army had finally managed to break out of the positions it had occupied since the start of the Somme fighting and Gough intended to maintain...

.

It was not until the subsequent Battle of Ancre Heights that the final 'mopping up' of the Battle of Thiepval took place. During that battle on the 14th of October the last of the German defenders were ejected from the Schwaben Redoubt and the Canadian Corps

Canadian Corps

The Canadian Corps was a World War I corps formed from the Canadian Expeditionary Force in September 1915 after the arrival of the 2nd Canadian Division in France. The corps was expanded by the addition of the 3rd Canadian Division in December 1915 and the 4th Canadian Division in August 1916...

finally dispossessed the Germans of the heavily battered Regina Trench

Regina Trench

on the 11th of November.

Commemoration

Because of the significance that the positions at Thiepval took on in being a first-day objective that was not captured until almost three months later in the Battle of the Somme, the high ground on the point of the Thiepval Spur was selected to be the location of the Anglo-French memorial to the "missing of the Somme". The impressive and massive Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme is dedicated to the men who were killed and whose bodies were never recovered in during the fighting in the vicinity of the Somme from 1916 to 1918. The piers of the memorial bear the names of over 72,000 British soldiers who were killed on the Somme battlefields "but to whom the fortunes of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death"

External links

First World War Thiepval Memorial
Great War Thiepval Memorial
Web Matters Thiepval Memorial
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_thiepval_ridge.html

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