Battle of Guillemont
The Battle of Guillemont (3–6 September 1916) was an attack, during the Battle of the Somme in the First World War, by the British Fourth Army against the German 2nd Army near the village of Guillemont in northern France. The village is on the D 20 running east to Combles and the D 64 south-west to Montauban. Longueval and Delville Wood lie to the north-west and Ginchy to the north-east. The village was on the right flank of the British sector, near the boundary with the French Sixth Army. The Fourth Army had advanced close to Guillemont during the Battle of Bazentin Ridge (14–17 July) and the capture of the village was the culmination of British attacks which began on the night of 22/23 July. The attacks were intended to advance the right flank of the Fourth Army and eliminate a salient further north at Delville Wood. German defences ringed the wood and had observation over the French Sixth Army area to the south, towards the Somme river.
Preparatory to a general attack intended for mid-September, from the Somme north to Courcelette (beyond the Albert–Bapaume road), the French Sixth Army, the Fourth Army and the Reserve Army conducted numerous attacks to capture the rest of the German second line and to gain observation over the German third line. The German defences around Guillemont were based on the remaining parts of the second line and fortified villages and farms northwards from Hem, Maurepas and Combles, to Falfemont Farm, Guillemont, Ginchy, Delville Wood and High Wood, which commanded the ground in between. The Battles Nomenclature Committee report of May 1921, called British military operations on the Somme during the fighting for Guillemont, the Battle of Delville Wood (14 July – 3 September) by the Fourth Army and the Battle of Pozières (23 July – 3 September) by the Reserve Army and III Corps of the Fourth Army.[1]
Attempts were made by Joseph Joffre, the French supreme commander, Sir Douglas Haig, Ferdinand Foch and the army commanders Henry Rawlinson and Émile Fayolle to co-ordinate attacks, which failed due to the recovery of the German 2nd Army from the disorganisation caused by the defeats in early July, disagreements over tactics by Haig and Joffre in July and August and organisational constraints caused by congestion behind the front, roads and tracks obliterated by Anglo-French artillery-fire becoming swamps when it rained. Increasing German artillery-fire on targets behind the front line, inexperience, unreliable machinery, guns, ammunition and an unpredictable flow of supplies from Britain, reduced the effectiveness of the British armies. Difficulty in co-ordinating attacks by the Entente armies and the large number of piecemeal attacks resorted to by the British, have been criticised as costly failures and evidence of muddle and incompetence by the generals. The French Sixth and Tenth armies had similar difficulties and severe strain had been put on the German 2nd Army and the 1st Army (formed on 19 July), forcing them into a similar piecemeal defence.
The official historian, Wilfrid Miles, wrote in the History of the Great War volume (1938), that the defence of Guillemont was judged by some observers to be the best performance of the war by the German Army on the Western Front. A pause at the end of August in Anglo-French attacks to organise bigger combined attacks and postponements for bad weather, coincided with the largest German counter-attack yet. Joffre, Foch and Haig abandoned attempts to organise large combined attacks, in favour of sequenced army attacks. The capture of the German defences from Cléry north of the Somme to Guillemont from 3 to 6 September brought the Sixth and Fourth armies onto ground which overlooked the German third position. Rain, congestion and relief of tired divisions forced a pause in French attacks until 12 September. At the Battle of Ginchy (9 September) the Fourth Army captured the village, ready to begin the Battle of Flers–Courcelette, (15–22 September).
Background[edit]
Strategic developments[edit]
On 1 July, the Anglo-French offensive had captured the first German defensive line from Foucaucourt south of the Somme to the vicinity of the Albert–Bapaume road, north of the river.[2][a] The German 2nd Army abandoned the second line on the south bank in the XVII Corps area, to occupy the shorter third position behind it close to Péronne, despite the policy of an unyielding defence. The Chief of Staff, Generalmajor Paul Grünert, was sacked by Falkenhayn that night and replaced by Colonel Fritz von Loßberg.[3][b] Next day Below issued a secret order that ground must be held at all costs, defensive positions were to be recovered by counter-attacks and that all commanders must make it clear that "The enemy must be made to pick his way forward over corpses". Over the next ten days, fifteen fresh divisions were sent to the Somme front, being split up as they arrived and used piecemeal to fill gaps at the most vulnerable points, which led to many casualties in the reinforcing units. The 2nd Army suffered 40,187 casualties in the first ten days, compared to 25,989 men in the first ten days at Verdun.[4]
On 17 July, Falkenhayn reorganised the twenty German divisions engaged on the Somme, by re-establishing the 1st Army under the command of Below, north of the Somme and appointing Lieutenant-General Max von Gallwitz to the command of the 2nd Army south of the river, combining both armies in armeegruppe Gallwitz-Somme. On 17 July, Below issued another secret order, noting that unauthorised withdrawals were still being made and threatened to Court-martial commanders who did not fight to the last man.[5] By the end of July, despite the discipline and sacrifice of the German troops, more ground had been lost and Gallwitz issued an order on 30 July, stating that the decisive battle of the war was being fought on the Somme and that no more ground should be given up, regardless of losses. In August, the Germans retained far more ground than in July, at a cost of c. 80,000 casualties.[6][c]
On 6 July, Joffre had visited Fayolle and discussed bringing the cavalry close to the front to exploit success and on 8 July, Foch, commander of Groupe d'armées du Nord (GAN, Northern Army Group), ordered Fayolle to reinforce the success of the corps south of the Somme for an attack on 20 July, while defending north of the river. After the British victory of the Battle of Bazentin Ridge (14 to 22 July), Joffre directed Foch to co-ordinate broad-front attacks with the British, who were making the main effort, to force the Germans to spread their artillery-fire and infantry over a wider front. Foch ordered the attack to be extended north of the river, although the transfer of artillery had put the main weight of the attack on the south side.[8] In mid-July, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) General Headquarters (GHQ) received intelligence reports of "demoralisation and confusion" among the German defenders but recovery was noted within three days, particularly due to improvements in the flow of supplies to the German front line.[9]
By the end of July, there was no expectation of a rapid German collapse, as the defenders north of the Somme had been relieved by three times as many fresh divisions and the Fourth Army was ordered to prepare for a German counter-attack. Intelligence reports showed very high German casualties and that one of the fresh German divisions had previously lost 104 per cent of its infantry strength at Verdun. A copy of the order issued by Below for unyielding defence was captured in late July, which indicated that German tactics were making attrition a feasible Entente objective. The destruction of British intelligence networks in occupied northern France and Belgium restricted GHQ Intelligence to gleaning documents from the battlefield and prisoner interrogation, causing the number of German divisions available for the Somme front to be underestimated. On 2 August, Haig issued a directive stating that Falkenhayn could continue to replace troops on the Somme and a German collapse was not expected, forecasting a "wearing-out" battle until September. Anglo-French intelligence estimates of German casualties ranged from 130,000–175,000 men in July.[9]
After another general relief of German divisions in mid-August, reports of "despondency" among prisoners, an estimate that the British had engaged 23 of the 41 German divisions which had fought on the Somme, which were exhausted after 4+1⁄2 days, yet kept in the line for twenty; news of German peace feelers and mounting domestic unrest raised Allied optimism again. At the end of August, the Rumanian declaration of war and the sacking of Falkenhayn led to hopes that his replacement by Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Paul von Hindenburg as Chief of the General Staff and General Erich Ludendorff as erster Generalquartiermeister (First Quartermaster General) would lead to more emphasis on the eastern front, easing the task of the Entente armies in France and Belgium. The advances in early September and the publication of German casualty lists for July (which showed that seven of the twelve German divisions on the Somme opposite the British had lost more than 50 per cent of their infantry) encouraged Haig and Joffre to persist with the offensive. Bavarian units in the area around Guillemont were believed to have maintained high morale but suffered many casualties and had few reserves available.[10]