Capture of Mametz
The Capture of Mametz took place on 1 July 1916, when the Fourth Army attacked the German 2nd Army on the Western Front, during the First day on the Somme. Mametz is a village on the D 64 road, about north-east of Amiens and east of Albert. Fricourt lies to the west, Contalmaison is to the north, Montauban to the north-east and Carnoy and Maricourt are to the south-east. Mametz Wood is to the north-west and before 1914, the village was the fifth largest in the area, with about and a station on the line from Albert to Péronne.
During the Battle of Albert the II Bavarian Corps attacked westwards north of the Somme but was fought to a standstill east of Mametz. Reinforced by the XIV Reserve Corps the Germans captured Mametz on 29 September. After a mutually-costly battle for Fricourt, the French were eventually forced out, the front line stabilised and both sides began to improvise defences. In mid-December a French in the Mametz area was a costly failure.
Mine warfare began soon after a front line was established but the most extensive mining took place further north at La Boisselle. During 1915, the area around Mametz became a comparative backwater. The Germans began systematic fortification of the area, according to a directive from General Erich von Falkenhayn, head of Oberste Heeresleitung to build defences on the Western Front that the fewest infantry could defend indefinitely. Later in the year work began on second and third defensive positions. On the Somme the defences north of the Bapaume–Albert were improved first and by July 1916 the defences of the first position around Mametz were extensive but the second position was a shallow trench and the third position had only been marked out.
In June 1916 the British preliminary bombardment cut much of the barbed wire around Mametz and destroyed many trenches in the first position in the area of Reserve Infantry Regiment 109, 28th Reserve Division. When the 7th Division advanced behind a creeping barrage, much of the German front line was quickly overrun and many prisoners taken; delays further forward caused the infantry to lag behind the barrage and suffer far more casualties. Mametz was occupied during the morning by the 20th Brigade but a German counter-attack forced most of the British troops out, until a second attack during the afternoon, when the advance of the 18th Division on the right flank had cut off the Germans in the village from Montauban to the east. The German defence collapsed and the 7th Division reached all of its objectives on the right and in the centre and began to consolidate, to receive a German counter-attack.
British and French attacks south of the Albert–Bapaume road continued on 2 July and by 13 July had pushed up close to the German second position through Mametz Wood to the north of Mametz, ready for the Battle of Bazentin Ridge on 14 July, the 7th Division having been relieved by the 38th Division on 5 July. In 1918, the village was recaptured by German troops on 25 March, during Operation Michael, the German spring offensive, when the 17th Division, the 12th Division and the 1st Dismounted Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division were forced to retire to the north-west. Mametz and the vicinity were retaken for the last time on 26 August by the 18th Division and 12th Division.
Background
1914
In 1914, Mametz was a village on the D 64 road, about north-east of Amiens and east of Albert. The village of Fricourt was to the west, Contalmaison to the north, Montauban to the north-east and Carnoy and Maricourt to the south-east. Mametz Wood was to the north-west and the village had about and a station on the light railway from Albert to Péronne. During the Race to the Sea, after the Great Retreat, the French 11th Division attacked eastwards north of the Somme but after the French territorials were forced back from Bapaume, the division was ordered to defend bridgeheads from Maricourt to Mametz.The II Bavarian Corps attacked on 27 September between the Somme and the Roman road from Bapaume to Albert and Amiens, intending to reach the Ancre and then continue westwards along the Somme valley. The 3rd Bavarian Division advanced close to Montauban and Maricourt against scattered resistance from French infantry and cavalry. On 28 September, the French were able to stop the German advance on a line from Maricourt to Fricourt and Thiépval. The German II Cavalry Corps moved northwards and was held up in the vicinity of Arras by the French II Cavalry Corps.
On 29 September, French artillery bombarded the area between Mametz, Carnoy and Maricourt, apparently directed by a hidden observer in Montauban. During the evening a German flank guard was put out facing Mametz, in case the French counter-attacked. The XIV Reserve Corps had arrived north of the Bavarians on 28 September and advanced down the road from Bapaume to Albert and Amiens, with the 28th Reserve Division advancing south of the road. Reserve Infantry Regiment 40 led the advance on 28 September, with orders to reach Fricourt from the area of Mametz the next day. The attack succeeded but French counter-attacks by the 26th Infantry Regiment got into Fricourt and stopped the German advance before being driven out. A lull in the fighting occurred and both sides began to dig in haphazardly where the opposing lines had stopped moving, which was not always on easily defended ground. The lull ended towards the end of the year, with French attacks at Mametz, Fricourt and Ovillers from which were costly for both sides, French losses being killed and being taken. A local truce, between Montauban and Mametz, allowed the French to recover their wounded.
1915
In January 1915, General Erich von Falkenhayn the German Chief of the General Staff, ordered a reconstruction of the defences which had been improvised when mobile warfare ended on the Western Front, late in 1914. Barbed wire obstacles were enlarged from one belt wide to two belts wide, about apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid high. The front line had been increased from one trench line to a front position with three trenches apart, the first trench occupied by sentry groups, the second for the bulk of the front-position garrison and the third trench for local reserves. The trenches were traversed and had sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet. Dugouts had been deepened from to, apart and large enough for An intermediate line of strong points about behind the front line was also built. Communication trenches ran back to the reserve position, renamed the second position, which was as well built and wired as the front position. The second position was sited beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop and move guns forward before another advance. The French Second Army had fought the Battle of Hébuterne on a front at Toutvent Farm, to the west of Serre, against a salient held by the German 52nd Division and gained on a front, at a cost of killed against a German loss of Later in 1915, the area around Mametz became a relative backwater.1916
In February, following the Herbstschlacht in 1915, a third defence line another back from the Stützpunktlinie was begun in February and was almost complete on the Somme front when the battle began. German artillery was organised in a series of Sperrfeuerstreifen ; each officer was expected to know the batteries covering his section of the front line and the batteries ready to engage fleeting targets. A telephone system was built, with lines buried deep for behind the front line, to connect the front line to the artillery. The Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses which the rebuilding had not remedied. The front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by ground observers. The defences were crowded towards the front trench, with a regiment having two battalions near the front-trench system and the reserve battalion divided between the Stützpunktlinie and the second line, all within and most troops within of the front line, accommodated in the new deep dugouts.The concentration of troops at the front line on a forward slope, guaranteed that it would face the bulk of an artillery bombardment, directed by ground observers on clearly marked lines. Much of the new defence-building on the Somme was done first in the area north of Fricourt and work further south through Montauban to the river, had not been completed by 1 July. For nearly a year after the French offensive north of the Ancre, the area became a backwater and the divisions became known as the Sleeping Army. In May 1916, increased activity behind the British front line indicated that an offensive was being prepared. The Second Army had attacked a German salient on a front at Touvent Farm north of Serre, from 1915, against the 52nd Division and gained on a front, at a cost of killed; German casualties were On 10 and 19 July, the 28th Reserve Division repulsed attacks near Fricourt. When Reserve Infantry Regiment 109 moved into the area of Mametz and Montauban in mid-June, the defences were found to be poor; there had been far less fighting in the sector than around La Boisselle and Ovillers. Telephone connexions were inadequate and there had been little dumping of supplies and ammunition around the front line. By July, Reserve Infantry Regiment 23 had been brought up to Montauban, east of Reserve Infantry Regiment 109.