during the night, but did not increase to hurricane fire, so that the enemy had no warning of the hour of our attack. In the darkness of the early morning of Monday, November 13th, the fog gathered thick—a cold, raw vapour which wrapped the ground like a garment. It was still black darkness, darker even than the usual moonless winter night, when, at 5.45 a.m., our troops crossed the parapets. The attack had been most carefully planned, but in that dense shroud it was hard for the best trained soldiers to keep direction. On the other hand, the enemy had no warning of our coming till our men were surging over his trenches.
The attack of the British left wing on Serre failed, as it had failed on July 1st. That stronghold, being further removed from the effect of our flanking fire from the Thiepval ridge, presented all the difficulties which had baffled us at the first attempt. South of it and north of Beaumont Hamel we carried the German first position and swept beyond the fortress called the Quadrilateral—which had proved too hard a knot to unravel four months earlier. This gave us the northern part of the under feature which we have already described as running south-east to Beaucourt. Our right wing had a triumphant progress. Almost at once it gained its objectives. St. Pierre Divion fell early in the morning and the Division of the New Army engaged there advanced a mile and took over 1,000 prisoners at a total cost of 450 casualties. By the evening they were holding the Hansa line which runs from the neighbourhood of Stuff Trench on the heights to the banks of the river opposite Beaucourt.
But it was on the doings of the two central Divisions that the fortune of the day depended, and their achievement was so remarkable and presented so many curious features that it is worth telling in some detail. The Highland Territorials—a kilted Division except for their lowland Pioneer battalion—had one of the hardest tasks that had faced troops in the whole battle, a task comparable to the taking of Contalmaison and Guillemont and Delville Wood. They had before them the fortress-village of Beaumont Hamel itself. South of it lay the strong Ridge Redoubt and south again the Y Ravine, whose prongs projected down to the German front line and whose tail ran back towards Station Road south of the Cemetery. This Y Ravine was some eight hundred yards long, and in places thirty feet deep, with overhanging sides. In its precipitous banks were the entrances to the German dug-outs, completely screened from shell-fire and connecting further back by means of tunnels with the great catacombs. Such a position allowed reinforcements to be sent up under ground, even though we might be holding all the sides. The four successive German lines were so skilfully linked up subterraneously that they formed virtually a single line, no part of which could be considered to be captured till the whole was taken.
The first assault took the Scots through the German defences on all their front, except just before the ends of the Y Ravine. They advanced on both sides of that gully and carried the third enemy line shortly after daybreak. There was much stern fighting in the honeycombed land, but early in the forenoon they had pushed right through the German main position and were pressing beyond Station Road and the hollow where the village lies towards Munich Trench and their ultimate objective—the Beaucourt-Serre road. The chief fighting of the day centred round Y Ravine. So soon as we had gained the third line on both sides of it our men leaped down the steep sides into the gully. Then followed a desperate struggle—for the entrances to the dug-outs had been obscured by our bombardment, and no man knew from what direction the enemy might appear. About mid-day the eastern part of the ravine was full of our men, but the Germans were in the prongs. Early in the afternoon we delivered a fresh attack from the west and gradually forced the defence to surrender. After that it became a battle of nettoyeurs, small parties digging out Germans from underground lairs—for the very strength of his fortifications proved a trap to the enemy once they had been breached. If he failed to prevent our entrance he himself was wholly unable to get out.
THE BATTLE OF THE ACRE
The foggy autumn day was full of wild adventures. One Scots officer and two men took prisoner a German Battalion Commander and his Staff, found themselves cut off and the position reversed, and then, as supports came up, once more claimed their captives. A wounded signaller held up a German company in a burrow while he telephoned back for help. Ration stores were captured and muddy Highlanders went about the business of war eating tinned meat with one hand and smoking large cigars. By the evening the whole of Beaumont Hamel was occupied and posts were out as far as Munich Trench, while over 1,400 prisoners and between 50 and 60 machine-guns were the prize of the conquerors. To their eternal honour the Highland Territorials had stormed—by sheer hand-to-hand fighting—one of the strongest German forts on the Western front.
On their right the Naval Division advanced against Beaucourt. On the 1st of July the British trenches had been between five hundred and seven hundred yards from the German front line, leaving too great an extent of No Man’s Land to be crossed by the attacking infantry. But before the present action the Naval Division had dug advanced trenches, and now possessed a line of departure not more than two hundred and fifty yards from the enemy. Their first objective was the German support line, the second Station Road—which ran from Beaumont Hamel to the main Albert-Lille Railway—and their third the trench line outside Beaucourt village. The wave of assault carried our men over the first two German lines, and for a moment it looked as if the advance was about to go smoothly forward to its goal. But in the centre of our front of attack, in a communication trench between the second and third German lines and about eight hundred yards from the river bank, was a very strong redoubt manned by machine-guns. This had not been touched by our artillery, and it effectively blocked the centre of our advance, while at the same time flanking fire from the slopes behind Beaumont Hamel checked our left. Various parties got through and reached the German support line and even as far as Station Road. But at about 8.30 the situation, as reviewed by the Divisional Commander, bore an ominous likeness to what had happened to the Ulstermen on July 1st. Isolated detachments had gone forward, but the enemy had manned his reserve trenches behind them, and the formidable redoubt was blocking any general progress.
At this moment there came news of the right battalion. It was commanded by a young New Zealander, Lieut.-Colonel Freyberg, who had done brilliant service in Gallipoli, and had before the war been engaged in many adventurous pursuits. The message announced that his battalion had gone clean through to the third objective, and was now waiting outside Beaucourt village for our barrage to lift in order to take the place. He had led his men along the edge of the river to the Station Road, where he had collected odd parties of other battalions, and at 8.21 had reached Beaucourt Trench—a mile distant from our front of assault. On receipt of this startling news a Territorial battalion was sent up to his support, and all that day a precarious avenue of communication for food and ammunition was kept open along the edge of the stream, under such shelter as the banks afforded. A second attack on the whole front was delivered in the afternoon by the supporting Brigade of the Naval Division, but this, too, was held up by the redoubt, though again a certain number got through and reached Station Road and even the slopes beyond it. It was at this time that seventeen men of the Dublin Fusiliers, accompanied by a priest, performed a singular feat. Far up on the high ground east of Beaumont Hamel they came upon a large party of Germans in dug-outs and compelled their surrender. They marched their four hundred prisoners stolidly back to our line through the enemy barrage and our own.
That night it was resolved to make a great effort to put the redoubt out of action. Two tanks were brought up, one of which succeeded in getting within range, and the garrison of the stronghold hoisted the white flag. The way was now clear for a general advance next morning—to assist in which a Brigade of another Division was brought up in support. Part of the advance lost direction, but the result was to clear the German first position and the ground between Station Road and Beaucourt Trench. At the same time the right battalion—which had been waiting outside Beaucourt for twenty-four hours—carried the place by storm. Its commanding officer, Lieut.-Colonel Freyberg, had been already three times wounded, but that morning he led the charge in person. Though wounded a fourth time most severely, he refused to lay down his command till he had placed posts with perfect military judgment to the east and north-east to prevent a surprise and had given full instructions to his successor. To his brilliant leadership the main achievement of
