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Updated: June 12, 2025
The German realized this and after he had lost Mametz and Bernafay he held all the more desperately to Trônes, which, for the time being, was the superlative horror in woods fighting, though we were yet to know that it could be surpassed by Delville and High Woods. In Trônes the Germans met attack with counter-attack again and again.
We rode on to where the front line had been at Fricourt then to Fricourt 'Circus, Mametz, and then to the south of Mametz Wood, where we left our horses. First we went through the wood to B.H.Q., which were in some deep dugouts there. Having obtained guides and a rough sort of map, we went on to Battalion H.Q. at the Chalk Quarry east of Bazentin-le-Petit.
"The bloodbath of the Somme," as the Germans called it, was ours as well as theirs, and scores of times when I saw the dead bodies of our men lying strewn over those dreadful fields, after desperate and, in the end, successful attacks through the woods of death Mametz Wood, Delville Wood, Trones Wood, Bernafay Wood, High Wood, and over the Pozieres ridge to Courcellette and Martinpuich I thought of Rawlinson in his chateau in Querrieux, scheming out the battles and ordering up new masses of troops to the great assault over the bodies of their dead... Well, it is not for generals to sit down with their heads in their hands, bemoaning slaughter, or to shed tears over their maps when directing battle.
Our old line crosses the valley just to the east of the Fricourt Station on the little railway which once ran in the valley past Fricourt and Mametz to Montauban. It then crossed the fourth of the roads from Albert, at Fricourt cemetery, which is a small, raised forlorn garden of broken tombs at cross-roads, under the hill facing Fricourt.
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.
Troops moving forward from reserve areas came under heavy fire and lost many men before arriving in the support trenches. At 7.30 A.M. on July 1st the British infantry, as I have told, left their trenches and attacked on the right angle down from Gommecourt, Beaumont Hamel, Thiepval, Ovillers, and La Boisselle, and eastward from Fricourt, below Mametz and Montauban.
The much-lauded Fokkers were flitting here and there, doing little damage. Two were sent to earth by Allied airmen before the day was over. With the capture of Mametz and positions in Fricourt Wood to the east, Fricourt could not hold out, and about noon on July 2, 1916, the place was in British hands.
But although some bodies of our men entered Contalmaison, in an attack which I was able to see, they were smashed out of it again by storms of fire followed by masses of men who poured out from Mametz Wood. The Welsh were attacking Mametz Wood. They were handled, as Marbot said of his men in a Napoleonic battle, "like turnips."
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.
The mighty animal of war makes ready for another effort New charts at headquarters The battle of the Somme the battle of woods and villages A terrible school of war in session Mametz A wood not "thinned" The Quadrangle Marooned Scots "Softening" a village Light German cigars Going after Contalmaison Aeroplanes in the blue sky Midsummer fruitfulness and war's destruction Making chaos of a village Attack under cover of a wall of smoke A melodrama under the passing shells.
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