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Updated: May 3, 2025
During the night of December 19, 1916, British troops made a successful raid on German lines in the neighborhood of Gommecourt, where after doing considerable damage to the defensive works they retired without any casualties. Early in the morning of the following day the British made another successful raid on German trenches north of Arras, where they captured a number of prisoners.
Perhaps because failure is harder to write, though in this case it is equally glorious, we shall have this first. To make the picture of that day clearer, imagine a movement of the whole arm, with the shoulder at Gommecourt and the fist swinging in at Montauban, crushing its way against those fortifications.
In the official communique our trench raid was described as follows: "All quiet on the Western front, excepting in the neighborhood of Gommecourt Wood, where one of our raiding parties penetrated into the German lines."
As at Gommecourt, it had a good natural glacis up to the front line, which was deep, strong, and well wired. Behind the front line was a wired second line, and behind that, the rising spur on which the village stood, commanding both with machine-gun emplacements. Fricourt was not captured by storm, but swiftly isolated and forced to surrender. It held out not quite two days.
But if 'Jerry' was there in any force he had decided to keep quiet, and we got safely back to Gommecourt. After this experience we took a way that we knew, although it was not the one laid down for us. And after a long march in the dark we struck the Essarts-Bucquoy Road, and found our guides awaiting us on the road near Bucquoy.
Under Gommecourt and Serre their reserve troops had lurked deep in caves. In the Champagne more striking instances occurred of whole battalions issuing from hidden passages and exits to the fight. The cave below Fosses Farm was about 40 feet below the ground. Of most irregular shape, it branched and twisted into numerous alleys and chambers through the chalk.
A successful raid carried out in the night by the British in the neighborhood of Cléry resulted in the capture of twenty-two prisoners. There was sharp fighting among the ruins of Puisieux, where the Germans had to be hunted from their hiding places. After this clearing-out process the British line now ran well beyond Gommecourt on the left and down to Irles on the right.
Shells from the 9.2 howitzers crashed into strong points and gun emplacements and hurled them skywards. Petrol shells licked up the few remaining green-leaved trees in Gommecourt Wood, where observers watched and snipers nested: 15-inch naval guns, under the vigilant guidance of observation balloons, wrought deadly havoc in Bapaume and other villages and billets behind their lines.
On the evening of the 4th June we moved up through Foncquevillers, and relieved the 5th Sherwood Foresters in the right sector, opposite Gommecourt Park. A road and bank, running parallel with the front line, and about 100 yards behind it, provided Battalion Headquarters. Behind this again, the "Bluff," a steep bank, gave the support Company a good home.
Southeast of the village the British line was being pushed out above Miraumont and Beauregard Dovecote. The Germans in the Gommecourt salient shelled Miraumont and bombarded the neighborhood with high explosives in reckless fashion as if eager to consume their supplies. During the night of February 27, 1917, the German troops abandoned Gommecourt and the British took possession.
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