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On July 15th the British troops broke the German second line at Longueval and the Bazentins, and inflicted great losses upon the enemy, who fought with their usual courage until the British bayonets were among them.
In this sector all the German first positions had been captured. The second position ran through a heavily wooded country and the villages of the Bazentins, Longueval, and Guillemont. During the night of July 2, 1916, the British had penetrated La Boiselle, and throughout the following day the battle raged around that place and Ovillers.
It was only after the British succeeded in clearing out machine-gun positions on the north side, and enfiladed every advance, that they were able to get through the wood and to face at last the main German second position. This ran, as will have been noted, from Pozières through the Bazentins and Longueval to Guillemont.
Longueval was on fire, and the two Bazentins, and another belt of land in France, so beautiful to see, even as I had seen it first between the sand-bags of our parapets, was being delivered to the charcoal-burners. I have described that night scene elsewhere, in all its deviltry, but one picture which I passed on the way to the battlefield could not then be told.
Thiepval, Ovillers, and La Boiselle were positions in the German front line. East of the last place the fortified village of Contalmaison occupied high ground, forming as it were a pivot in the German intermediate line covering their field guns. The British second position ran through Pozières to the two Bazentins and as far as Guillemont.
The work cut out for the British right flank to perform was the clearing out of Trônes Wood still partly occupied by the Germans. The two Bazentins, Longueval, and the wood of Delville were either sheltered by a wood, or there was one close by that was always a nest of cunningly hidden guns.
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