United States or Vanuatu ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
After the battle we were no longer troubled with any shells. Second-Lieut. Edmunds who had been on leave since we left Miraumont came back to assist me, for about another month. Great droves of German prisoners now began to pass us several times a day, a cheering sight in one way, but not a pleasant one in another. They were truly a desperate-looking collection of men, mostly of a very low class.
A week later the German retreat extended, and Warlencourt, Pys, Miraumont, and Serre were evacuated. Again the Germans stopped for a time to breathe, and it was not till 10 March that Irles, a bare mile from Miraumont, was abandoned.
Below, one was immune under 40 feet of chalk, and except when an entrance was hit the 5.9s rained down harmlessly and without comment. During the day I occasionally ploughed my way along Regina Trench to some unshelled vantage point to watch the British shells falling on the yet grassy slopes above Miraumont and south of Puisieux. Baillescourt Farm was a very common target.
A more ambitious attack on Miraumont from the south of the Ancre was somewhat disconcerted on the 17th by a German bombardment of our troops as they assembled, although the night was dark and misty; for even in France the Germans found spies to work for them, and a number of executions for treachery failed to prevent knowledge of our plans from occasionally reaching the enemy.
The capture of the village was regarded as important, marking a notable advance for the British on the forts of Miraumont and Grandcourt, which covered Bapaume from the west. In Lorraine on this date the Germans succeeded in piercing a salient in the French lines, but were driven out by a spirited counterattack.
At this time Miraumont village was comparatively intact and its church, until thrown down by our guns, a conspicuous object. Grandcourt lay hidden in the hollow. Such landscape belonged to the days; real business, when one's orbit was confined to a few hundred yards of cratered surface, claimed the nights.
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.
Beyond this lonely spur, the hills ranked and ran, like the masses of a moor, first the high ground above Miraumont, and beyond that the high ground of the Loupart Wood, and away to the east the bulk that makes the left bank of the Ancre River. What trees there are in this moorland were not then all blasted. Even in Beaumont Hamel some of the trees were green.
On my return to France, I reached Authieule railway station on August 31, and went on next morning, partly by car and motor-bus and partly on foot, to Miraumont. It had been strange passing over the smitten ground on the Serre Ridge, and it was possible then to realise the terrible effects of our heavy shell fire.
Gangs of men were now mending the road all the way to Miraumont; but it must have been in a shocking state. In one place part of a transport cart hung suspended from the shattered branches of a tree; and everywhere the ground was absolutely churned to pieces.
Word Of The Day