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In the evening of the same day the British forces attacked the third German position which extended from the east of Hardecourt to the Somme east of Buscourt. On this front of about four miles the British infantry carried the trench and works of the Germans to a depth of from 660 to 1,100 yards.
On the day following the French made a general attack that achieved brilliant results. They reached as far as the slope east of the height of Hardecourt. Their line passed the boundary of Maurepas, and followed the highway from Maurepas to Feuillières. South of the Somme they carried the whole of the German defense system from Barleux to Vermandovillers.
In the morning of August 11, 1916, after the usual preparatory bombardment, French troops carried the whole of the third German position north of the Somme from the river northeast of Hardecourt that is to say, on a front of about four miles and to an average depth of about a mile.
The magnitude of the achievement was not yet estimated, but already names hitherto unknown were flung up flaming into the world's sky in letters of eternal fire, Ovillers, Mametz Wood, Trones Wood, Langueval, Mouquet Farm, Deville Wood for the British, with twenty-one thousand prisoners, and Hardecourt, Dompierre, Becquin-Court, Bussu and Fay for the French allies, with thirty-one thousand prisoners.
On that day the French pushed east of Hardecourt and seized a section of the Combles-Clery railway, while farther south they secured the German defences from Barleux to Vermandovillers. On the 27th the last German outpost in Longueval was taken, and on 4 August the Australians began their advance from Pozières to Mouquet farm and the windmill which commanded the summit of the Bapaume ridge.
On our right the French, whose attack had been planned by Foch, had the advantage of a surprise. North of the Somme they reached the edge of Hardecourt and Curlu; south of it they captured Dompierre, Becquincourt, Bussu, and Fay, and with these villages 6000 prisoners.
Maurepas was of great military importance, for, with Guillemont on the British front, it formed advanced works of the stronghold of Combles. The attack was launched at five in the evening on a front of a mile and a quarter from north of Hardecourt to southeast of Maurepas.
Now they were nothing but useless piles of brick and glorious names Thiepval, Pozières, La Boiselle, Guillemont, Flers, Hardecourt, Guinchy, Combles, Bouchavesnes, and a dozen others. Of all the crumbled roads the most striking was the long, straight one joining Albert and Bapaume. It looked fairly regular for the most part, except where the trenches cut it.
In the evening of the same day the Germans made four attacks on the British lines to the northwest of Pozières, and in one were successful in occupying a portion of a British trench. During this day the French north of the Somme, while the British were fighting at Guillemont, advanced east of Hill 139, north of Hardecourt, and took forty prisoners.
Midway between Maricourt and Hardecourt it turned south, covering Curlu, crossing the Somme at a marshy place near Vaux, and finally passed east of Frise, Dompierre, and Soyecourt, to leave east of Lihons the sector in which the Allied offensive was in progress which we are describing.
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