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The difficulties of the British position were summarized by Sir Douglas Haig: "The line of demarkation agreed upon by the French commander and myself ran from Maltzhorn Farm due eastward to the Combles Valley, and then northeastward up the valley to a point midway between Sailly-Saillisel and Morval.
On October 18 the town of Sailly-Saillisel fell to the French after hard fighting and commanding ridges on either side of it were also captured.
On the morning of February 8, 1917, they drove the Germans out of a position of importance on the highest point of Sailly-Saillisel hill, gaining all their objectives and capturing seventy-eight prisoners, of whom two were officers. In the operations along the Ancre a German officer and eighty-two men were made prisoner.
On this date the French infantry north of the Somme made progress to the west of Sailly-Saillisel. South of the Somme French forces took the offensive on October 14, 1916, delivering an attack west of Belloy-en-Santerre, by which they gained possession of the first German line on a front of about a mile and a quarter.
Heavy bombardments on both sides, trench raids, and counterattacks, which resulted in some successes for the Allied troops, marked the following days. On October 21, 1916, the Germans lost heavily in an attempt to recover Sailly-Saillisel from the French.
But the Germans, who were concentrated in the Péronne region, with strong positions like Maurepas, Combles, and Cléry, and, further in the rear, Bouchavesnes and Sailly-Saillisel on the right bank, and Estrées, Belloy-en-Santerre, Barleux, Albaincourt and Pressoire on the left bank, made such desperate resistance that the struggle was prolonged into mid-winter.
The British troops, which had won 1,000 yards of a position on the high ground in the neighborhood of the Butte de Warlencourt on November 5, 1916, were forced to relinquish a great part of their gains when the Germans made a violent attack on the following day. North of the Somme the French made important advances between Les Boeufs and Sailly-Saillisel.
They will only answer something about "Cheering up," or and this is the strangest thing to hear "to forget it." I don't want to forget it. So if in a book I see names like Château Thierry, Crépy-en-Valois, Dickebusch, Hooge, Vermelles, Hulluch, Festubert, Notre Dame de Lorette, Ligny-Tilloy, Sailly-Saillisel, Croiselles, Thiepval, Contalmaison, Dompierre, then I am caught. I do not try to escape.
The major's promised to give this little beauty to the doctor." And still the day's tale of triumph was not concluded. At seven o'clock the infantry battalion that had been held in reserve made a combined dash with troops of the Division on the left, and drove the tired dispirited Huns out of Sailly-Saillisel, another 2000 yards on.
These two villages had been fixed upon as the objective respectively of the French left and my right. In order to advance in cooperation with my right and eventually to reach Sailly-Saillisel, our Allies had still to fight their way up that portion of the main ridge which lies between Combles Valley on the west and the river Tortille on the east.
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