Battle of Thiepval Ridge
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The Battle of Thiepval Ridge was the first large offensive mounted by the British Reserve Army of Lieutenant General Hubert Gough during the Battle of the Somme and was designed to coincide with British Fourth Army's Battle of Morval by starting exactly 24 hours after it. Thiepval itself was a village on a spur dominating the Ancre valley, although the actual front for the Battle extended from the Schwaben Redoubt to Courcelette.
Beginning at 12.35pm on 26 September and after three days of intense bombardment, four assault divisions attacked along the 6,000 yard front. On the extreme right the Canadian 2nd and 1st Divisions, shielded by a creeping barrage, made their first objectives north of Courcelette. The adjoining 11th (Northern) Division, 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, and later Canadian, 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 saw the capture of the German fortress of Thiepval by Major-General Maxse’s 18th Division. Thiepval village had been an objective on 1 July 1916, the first day on the Somme, and had repeatedly defied British 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. 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, north of Thiepval, another first day objective that had been the site of fierce fighting by the 36th (Ulster) Division. 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.
On October 4th Canadian Division made significant progress north-east of Thiepval, with another example of slick tactics. It was not until 14 October that the last German defenders were ejected from the Schwaben Redoubt and the Canadian Corps was still fighting for parts of Regina Trench as late as the second week of November.
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