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Updated: July 26, 2025
The most important points on the watershed were Mouquet Farm, between Thiepval and Pozières, the Windmill east of the last place, High Wood, and the high ground that lay directly east of Longueval. It was important that the British should capture Guillemont in order to align the next advance with the French forces.
To think of Pozières will be to think of the Australians as long as the history of the Somme battle endures. I read an interview in a New York paper with the Chief of Staff of the German Army opposite the British in which he must have been correctly quoted, as his remarks passed the censorship. He said that the loss of Pozières was a blunder.
There must have been fierce fire upon Pozières, too, for the Germans were replying to it, hailing the roads with shrapnel and trying to fill the hollows with gas shell. They must have suspected an attack upon this part of their line as well, and were trying to hamper the reserves from moving into position.
But out of the twelve sufficient parts were found intact to make one good one, so that Fritz would get "some of his own" back in a way that he least expected; for there were thousands of rounds of ammunition found in the dug-outs beneath the gun pits. How to get into Pozières was the next problem.
The Division was returning to exactly the same sector west of Pozières, where the 12th Division had been operating during our absence. The difficulties of the uphill advance may be estimated by the fact that the line had been advanced barely half a mile during that period.
Foch fought off many determined German counter-attacks in the Somme sector, and continued their advance, the French gaining Maurepas and the British moving closer to Guillemont and Ginchy, driving the Germans back along eleven miles of front and capturing Thiepval Ridge and other important positions near Pozieres.
But at the time when the British attack upon the second German line in Longueval and Bazentin ended, the farther village of Pozières was left as the hub of the battle for the time being. This point is the summit of the hill on which the German second line ran.
He has other lines, and he turns his energy on to them. The result of all this is that areas of ground in the hot corners of battles like that of the Somme and Verdun, and especially disputed hill summits such as the Mort Homme or this Pozières Ridge, become simply a desert of shell craters.
During the two following days the British guns incessantly bombarded the entire German front. Two new corps had been joined with the Fifth Army, the Second and First Anzac, which occupied ground between the Ancre and south of the Albert-Bapaume road. On July 23, 1916, the British launched a strong attack over a wide front. The heaviest blows were centered on Pozières and the Windmill on the left.
With the capture of Pozières it might be said that the second phase of the Battle of the Somme was concluded. The Allied forces were well established on the line to which the second main "push" which began July 14, 1916, was directed. During the first three days of August, 1916, comparative quiet prevailed along the Somme front, and no important offensive was attempted by either side.
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