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Updated: June 1, 2025
They learned that later, when the bank-clerks of Manchester broke the Prussian Guard into fragments at Contalmaison. This must have been a sad surprise, for the Germans had always taught, in their delightful authoritative fashion, that the chief industries of the young Englishman are lawn-tennis and afternoon tea.
Directly the article reached Germany the Government flashed a wireless to America that no members of the Potsdam Guard returned to Potsdam from Contalmaison. This is a typical German denial trick. I never mentioned the Potsdam Guard. I had referred to the Prussian Guard.
By watching the switching of the curtains of fire I had learned that this time Contalmaison was definitely held; and though they say that I don't know anything about news, I beat the communiqué on the fact as the result of my observation, which ought at least to classify me as a "cub" reporter.
They were somewhere on the high ground south of Bazentin-le-Grand when the German Guard had massed for an attack on Contalmaison. These guns had the extraordinary chance of firing with open sights on the dense German masses behind Bazentin-le-Petit and they had inflicted terrible losses on the Brandenburghers.
To complete the operation of cutting off Fricourt it was necessary to carry Mametz on the south; this accomplished, the forces would unite in the north at La Boiselle and Ovillers and, following the long depression popularly known as Sausage Valley toward Contalmaison, would be able to squeeze Fricourt so hard that it must be abandoned by the enemy. The British plans worked out successfully.
But here on the way to La Boisselle and Contalmaison there is just the raw tumbled earth, from which all the natural covering of grass and trees and all the handiwork of man have been stripped and torn and hammered away, so that it has become a great dark wound on the countryside.
At half past three in the morning of July 14, 1916, the British started an attack with full knowledge of the risk involved, but hoping to find the Germans poorly prepared. At Contalmaison Villa and Mametz Wood they held positions within a few hundred yards of the German line.
The capture of Contalmaison was a necessary preliminary to the next stage of the British advance.
They fought with a desperate courage, holding on to positions in rearguard actions when our guns were slashing them and when our men were getting near to them, making us pay a heavy price for every little copse or gully or section of trench, and above all serving their machine-guns at La Boisselle, Ovillers, above Fricourt, round Contalmaison, and at all points of their gradual retreat, with a wonderful obstinacy, until they were killed or captured.
Answering German shells revealed which of the chalky scars on the slope was the British first-line trench, and from this, as steam from a locomotive runs in a flying plume along the crest of a railway cutting, rose a billowing wall of smoke which was harmless, not even asphyxiating, its only purpose being to screen the infantry attack, with a gentle breeze sweeping it on into the mantle over Contalmaison as the wind carries the smoke of a prairie fire.
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