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Updated: May 1, 2025
I talked with several editors of Paris papers on the subject, notably with M. Arthur Meyer of the Gaulois, Marquis Robert de Flers of the Figaro, and M. Georges Clemenceau of the Homme Libre.
The following day the march was resumed to a hut camp near the quarry at Bazentin-le-Petit, well known to the few remaining survivors of the 15th September. After a few days in this camp, troubled only by an occasional shell, a move was made into High Wood West camp, a cheerless place consisting of black tarpaulin huts. The support line, where a few days were spent, was just in front of Flers.
Leaving the main road which goes on to Flers, we may take the road to Domfront, which passes through three pretty villages and much pleasant country. Bellau, the first village, is full of quaint houses and charming old-world scenes. The church is right in the middle on an open space without an enclosure of any description.
We were talking at the Ministry of War, where I also met the Marquis Robert de Flers, the well-known dramatist and editor of the Figaro, and M. Lazare Weiler, deputy. M. Hedeman told me that two days after the declaration of war a skirmish took place near the village of Genaville in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, between French custom-house officials and a squadron of German cavalry.
This wood, which was described as a horrible place, with its heaps of dead and shattered defenses, was effectually cleaned out by the British and occupied by them, and a line was established due north of the farthest extremity for about 1,000 yards. Flers was captured by the British by successive pushes in which the "tanks" again demonstrated their value.
During the day, September 15, 1916, thirteen German aeroplanes and kite balloons were destroyed, and nine others were driven down in a damaged condition. The British reported that four of their machines were lost. On the following day, September 16, 1916, the Germans attacked the British positions around Flers and along the Les Boeufs road, and were beaten off.
On Thursday, September 21, 1916, the British line in the west was again advanced. A section of the German front about a mile long was attacked between Martinpuich and Flers. Two lines of German trenches were captured in this push.
These are places that will ever be names of honor and glory in the thought of the Australian people as will be Flers to New Zealand and Delville Wood to South Africa.
On the morning of the great battle of September 15th the presence of the tanks going into action excited all the troops along the front with a sense of comical relief in the midst of the grim and deadly business of attack. Men followed them, laughing and cheering. There was a wonderful thrill in the airman's message, "Tank walking up the High Street of Flers with the British army cheering behind."
The journey to the Somme front, on the German side, was a way of terror, ugliness, and death. Not all the imagination of morbid minds searching obscenely for foulness and blood in the great, deep pits of human agony could surpass these scenes along the way to the German lines round Courcelette and Flers, Gueudecourt, Morval, and Lesboeufs.
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