Attacks on High Wood
The Attacks on High Wood, near Bazentin le Petit in the Somme département of northern France, took place between the British Fourth Army and the German 1st Army during the Battle of the Somme. After the Battle of Bazentin Ridge on 14 July 1916, High Wood lay undefended for most of the day but delays in communication and confusion caused by orders and counter-orders from British corps headquarters, which had overlapping responsibilities, led to the occupation of High Wood being forestalled by German reserves, which had moved forward to counter-attack British troops in the villages of Bazentin-le-Grand and Bazentin-le-Petit.
Men from the 7th Division managed to occupy the southern half of the wood and two cavalry squadrons advanced on the east side to Wood Lane, which connected the wood to Longueval. On 15 July, the wood was evacuated by the survivors and the cavalry retired. The British and the Germans fought for control of the wood from 14 July to 15 September. Both sides had many casualties and chronic communication problems; inclement weather grounded aircraft, obscured the view and slowed movement on the roads, which had been severely bombarded and turned to mud as soon as it rained. Trenches and shell holes filled with water, which made infantry movement exceedingly difficult and exhausted trench garrisons. The British and French found it impossible to arrange co-ordinated attacks and fought many small piecemeal actions, rather than general attacks until 15 September.
British–French co-operation broke down again and the French did not attack on 15 September, when the British captured the wood during the Battle of Flers–Courcelette. The German defenders had great difficulty finding fresh troops for the Somme front, despite ending the Battle of Verdun and had to send divisions to the Eastern Front and to Romania after it declared war on 27 August. Turnover of German divisions was high and many had to be withdrawn and replaced after fourteen days in the front line. The Germans lacked the resources to make many big organised counter-attacks and those at High Wood and the vicinity were often as costly and ineffective as corresponding British attacks.
Background
High Wood
The French name for the wood was Bois des Foureaux but to the British infantry it was known as High Wood. The wood is on the D 107 road, which runs from Martinpuich to Longueval, about half-way between Bazentin-le-Petit and Bazentin-le-Grand to the south-west, Martinpuich to the north-west and Longueval to the south-east. Delville Wood lay to the east. Before the Battle of the Somme the wood was behind the German second line, which lay in front of Bazentin-le-Grand and Bazentin-le-Petit. The wood crowned a ridge which was about high and overlooked the ground around for a considerable distance. An attack on the wood could be seen easily from the ridge which ran through the north end of the wood. Before the battle the trees were undamaged and the ground had not been churned by shell-fire.Prelude
German preparations
Despite considerable debate among German staff officers, Falkenhayn laid down a continuation of the policy of unyielding defence. On the Somme front, the fortification construction plan ordered by Falkenhayn in January 1915 had been completed. The reserve line, renamed the second line, was as well built and wired as the first line and had been built beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force attackers to stop and move their artillery forward before an attack. The second line had become the front line in the area of High Wood, after the Battle of Bazentin Ridge on 14 July. German artillery was organised in a series of sperrfeuerstreifen for the simpler task of placing barrages on no man's land. Telephone lines between the German front lines and their artillery support were often cut but the front line troops used signal flares to communicate. High Wood had grassy rides and many saplings in the undergrowth, which impeded movement off the rides and the wood had been fortified.British preparations
General Henry Rawlinson, the Fourth Army commander, planned an attack at dawn on 14 July, when there would be insufficient light for German machine-gunners to see far ahead. XIII Corps was to attack with two divisions from Longueval to Bazentin-le-Grand and XV Corps was to attack from Bazentin-le-Petit to the north-west edge of Mametz Wood; one division of III Corps was to attack further west. The British infantry was to cross up to of no man's land in the dark and assemble close to the German second line. In this area the second line had become the front line, after the British and French advances during the Battle of Albert A preparatory bombardment began on 11 July and a shortage of heavy artillery ammunition along with transport difficulties over wet and cut up ground, were eased by the air supremacy of the Royal Flying Corps, which made it impossible for the German air units to reconnoitre behind the British lines. On 14 July, the 9th Cavalry Brigade of the 2nd Indian Cavalry Division were to capture the wood and the Switch Line either side with two cavalry regiments, after which the 7th Division was to relieve the cavalry and the 21st Division was to advance and occupy the area between Bazentin-le-Petit and Martinpuich. The advance was expected to assist III Corps to the west, when it attacked the German second position and then combined with the 1st Division attack at as the 34th Division probed towards Pozières in the west.Battle
Battle of Bazentin Ridge, 14–15 July
The Fourth Army attacked High Wood with divisions from XV Corps on 14 July, during the Battle of Bazentin Ridge. The wood was abandoned by the Germans but delays meant that the British did not attempt to occupy it until Rawlinson had ordered the 7th Division forward at but the order was over-ruled by Lieutenant-General Henry Horne, the XV Corps commander, because the capture of Longueval, on the flank of the proposed advance, was incomplete. The 7th Division advanced and two battalions managed to occupy the southern half of the wood, after German reserves had arrived and counter-attacked several times. On the right flank, a squadron from each of the 7th Dragoon Guards and the 20th Deccan Horse of the 2nd Indian Cavalry Division, had been ordered forward at but took until early evening to make their way across trenches and devastated ground.The 20th Deccan Horse made the only cavalry charge of the Battle of the Somme, against III Battalion, Infantry Regiment 26 concealed in crops east of the wood. The crew of an aircraft of 3 Squadron RFC saw the infantry and cavalry advance and the pilot dived at the German troops, strafing them from a height of. The observer dropped a sketch of the German dispositions onto the cavalry before the aircraft departed, having been riddled by ground fire. Reserves of the 2nd Guard Division were incapable of assisting the defenders, as they had been caught by British machine-gun fire as they moved up towards Bazentin-le-Petit and machine-gunners in Longueval were silenced by the cavalry machine-guns. German heavy artillery had been withdrawn and field artillery was unable to take aim at such a fast-moving target. About were killed or taken prisoner in the cornfields, eight cavalrymen were killed, about wounded and were killed or wounded.
The cavalry took up a line from Longueval to the southern corner of High Wood until the early morning of 15 July and began to withdraw from Alarmist reports that the British cavalry had broken through between Longueval and Pozières and were advancing beyond High Wood, reached the German IV Corps and 2nd Army headquarters. General Fritz von Below, the 2nd Army commander, put the 8th Division, 5th Division, 24th Reserve Division and the 8th Royal Bavarian Reserve Division at the disposal of General Friedrich Sixt von Armin, the IV Corps commander, to counter-attack the British breakthrough. When the truth emerged, the counter-attack was called off and the 5th and 8th Bavarian Reserve divisions went back into reserve. At on 15 July, the 7th Division attacked the wood with the 91st Brigade. The British infantry were stopped by machine-gun fire from the Switch Line where it ran through the wood. After a preliminary bombardment by German artillery, II Battalion, Infantry Regiment 165 of the 7th Division and III Battalion, Infantry Regiment 72 of the 8th Division, which had relieved the 183rd Division, counter-attacked at and recaptured part of the wood, until driven out by the brigade reserve.
At the British attacked after a bombardment which inflicted many casualties on the German infantry but failed to overwhelm the defenders. High Wood was not visible to British ground observers and at a 3 Squadron reconnaissance sortie, reported that British troops were in the west of the wood and south of the Bazentin-le-Petit road. Flags were seen in the west side of the wood but the east side was full of Germans and the Switch Trench was packed with German infantry. High Wood was judged to be untenable and at the 91st Brigade was withdrawn and the wood was bombarded by the divisional artillery. The 1/9th Highland Light Infantry of the 33rd Division had also attacked the wood at on 15 July, during an attack on the Switch Line, when three platoons advanced on the west side of the wood. Machine-gun fire from the II and III battalions of Infantry Regiment 93 in High Wood, hit the attackers from the flank and the attack was repulsed. The 16th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps and the 2nd Worcester were sent forward as reinforcements but were back on the start line by Two German infantry companies worked southwards from the Switch Line for later in the evening but a renewal of the counter-attack was found to be impossible, due to the tremendous volume of British barrage fire and the presence of British reconnaissance and artillery-observation aircraft.