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Updated: May 5, 2025
I suppose it is wonderful, but, as a sample Englishman, I do not feel that it is at all wonderful. I did not feel it wonderful even when I saw the British aeroplanes lording it in the air over Martinpuich, and not a German to be seen. Since Michael would have it so, there, at last, they were.
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.
And ahead were Courcelette and Martinpuich, both only partially demolished by shell fire and in nowise properly softened according to the usual requirements for capitulation, with their cellars doubtless heavily reinforced as dugouts. Officers studying the villages through their glasses believed that they could be taken. Why not try?
Courcelette fell to the Canadians, Martinpuich to the Scots, Flers to the New Zealanders. High wood was at last enveloped in this advance, and Delville wood passed by the division of the New Army which pushed from Ginchy towards Lesboeufs.
On the right, Martinpuich was taken by the British and also held.
In the mess the fights were reconstructed. Sudden silences were frequent an unspoken tribute to C. and the other casualties. But at lunch-time we were cheered by the news that the first and second objectives had been reached, that Martinpuich, Courcelette, and Flers had fallen, and that the Tanks had behaved well. After lunch I rested awhile before the long reconnaissance, due to start at three.
Gough's Fifth Army had since early in July been formed as an independent command to the left of Rawlinson's Fourth, and its right comprised the 1st Canadian Corps which was to attack Courcelette. The other points of the German third line of defence were Martinpuich, Flers, Lesboeufs, and Morval.
Up to the outskirts of Martinpuich there was stiff fighting and the village itself bristled with machine guns. The Germans stubbornly and bravely contested the British advance through the ruins.
On September 15 the British took Flers, Martinpuich, the important position known as the High Wood, Courcelette, and almost all of the Bouleaux Wood, and also stormed the German positions from Combles north to the Pozieres-Bapaume road, arriving within four miles of Bapaume and capturing 2,300 prisoners.
In the afternoon we were free to roam over the recent battle-field, where many souvenirs of the enemy could be picked up. We now lay just to the north of the old Somme battle-ground. And on September 15 I went to Martinpuich by bus down the Albert-Bapaume Road and revisited the scene of our attack on the High Wood Ridge, which had taken place just two years before.
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